Post by sidonie on Jul 6, 2011 13:59:55 GMT 10
Title: Propriety
Rating: PG
Character/Couple: Roald/Zahir
Event: 400 word dash
Wordcount: 400
Summary: Roald is hopeless at all this.
A/N: Set in the modern!London!AU from my AUPV, Northern Line, for Muse.
~~~~~~
“So, Roald Conté, what's it like being the PM's son?”
Roald started in his seat, heart thudding. Right. He was on the tube, on his way to Camden, sitting next to the beautiful bloke who had bought him a ticket for no good reason.
“I'm sorry, you must get that all the bloody time,” laughed Zahir. “Feel free to ignore me if I'm being a cad.”
“No, not at all!” Roald felt the tips of his ears turning red. “I mean—it's all right. It's not like being part of the royal family. People don't recognize me. Da wants me to follow in his footsteps, so maybe they will, someday, because I do enjoy it, the politics and issues and representing the people and God, I sound like a campaign slogan—I'm babbling, please interrupt, shut me up if you're bored out of your skull.”
Zahir cast an lingering glance over him, smiled, and stayed silent. Roald swallowed, feeling goosebumps race up his arms. He didn't know how to deal with this. He was terrible at flirting, more so because he wasn't supposed to do it in public, and he'd only ever kissed a man once, in a club when the darkness and alcohol made it easy.
A small voice whispered in the back of his mind that Zahir's dark, long-lashed eyes and wry smile would make it even easier, but he pushed it away. “So, uh, what do you do?” he ventured.
“I'm a grad student at Oxford,” Zahir replied. “International relations. I've studied your father, actually.”
“Is that so?” He sounded like a blithering idiot.
“He is one of the most prominent politicians in the world,” came the retort, half-mocking.
And just like that, Roald felt like he'd been hit between the eyes with a sledgehammer. This tall, dark stranger (oh God, he would never say that aloud lest he sound like one of those paperbacks with half-naked men on the front, even if it was technically true) knew his Da was PM, knew he was taking the tube to meet his impossibly posh friends, and he sat there laughing at him, like it was nothing, like snark was his default setting and kowtowing some dusty, unused, Victorian-era dial buried at the back of his brain.
That might have been the moment Roald decided to chuck propriety out the window.
Rating: PG
Character/Couple: Roald/Zahir
Event: 400 word dash
Wordcount: 400
Summary: Roald is hopeless at all this.
A/N: Set in the modern!London!AU from my AUPV, Northern Line, for Muse.
~~~~~~
“So, Roald Conté, what's it like being the PM's son?”
Roald started in his seat, heart thudding. Right. He was on the tube, on his way to Camden, sitting next to the beautiful bloke who had bought him a ticket for no good reason.
“I'm sorry, you must get that all the bloody time,” laughed Zahir. “Feel free to ignore me if I'm being a cad.”
“No, not at all!” Roald felt the tips of his ears turning red. “I mean—it's all right. It's not like being part of the royal family. People don't recognize me. Da wants me to follow in his footsteps, so maybe they will, someday, because I do enjoy it, the politics and issues and representing the people and God, I sound like a campaign slogan—I'm babbling, please interrupt, shut me up if you're bored out of your skull.”
Zahir cast an lingering glance over him, smiled, and stayed silent. Roald swallowed, feeling goosebumps race up his arms. He didn't know how to deal with this. He was terrible at flirting, more so because he wasn't supposed to do it in public, and he'd only ever kissed a man once, in a club when the darkness and alcohol made it easy.
A small voice whispered in the back of his mind that Zahir's dark, long-lashed eyes and wry smile would make it even easier, but he pushed it away. “So, uh, what do you do?” he ventured.
“I'm a grad student at Oxford,” Zahir replied. “International relations. I've studied your father, actually.”
“Is that so?” He sounded like a blithering idiot.
“He is one of the most prominent politicians in the world,” came the retort, half-mocking.
And just like that, Roald felt like he'd been hit between the eyes with a sledgehammer. This tall, dark stranger (oh God, he would never say that aloud lest he sound like one of those paperbacks with half-naked men on the front, even if it was technically true) knew his Da was PM, knew he was taking the tube to meet his impossibly posh friends, and he sat there laughing at him, like it was nothing, like snark was his default setting and kowtowing some dusty, unused, Victorian-era dial buried at the back of his brain.
That might have been the moment Roald decided to chuck propriety out the window.