Work Text:
Some people are very jolly about boxing, in a way that always gets Bill’s back up more than it should. Which isn’t to say he doesn’t enjoy it himself; he does. But some people—some men, usually the large ones, usually the moneyed ones—talk about it with the sort of loud joviality they use for the horse races, and you only need to meet one man who sees you and the other fellow in the ring as a sort of long-winded but more profitable alternative to a pair of dice to put you off that whole cheerful class of human being.
And sometimes it’s worse; it’s not a disinterest in the theory and mechanics of the sport so much as it’s an attempt to hide a disturbing fascination. A type of man who takes refuge in abstraction to cover the fact that what he really wants to see is a young man’s teeth on the floor.
Farleigh is hard to place, but he’s certainly one or the other. Talking to him always leaves Bill’s skin feeling too tight, and fighting him is even worse, but unfortunately the previous year’s club members voted him president and haven’t been able to get rid of him yet, so Bill hasn’t much opportunity to avoid him.
Yoxall, who had won Bill’s last match handily, slips into the changing rooms behind Bill and catches his eyes in the mirror. He blinks, in the blank way one often does after a match, too physically tired for the mental engine to fire at its usual speed, but before Bill can politely look away Jimmy scrunches his face up with an expressive tip of his head back the way he’d came: God, isn’t he dreadful?
Bill snorts.
The room is still full—after a match the club tends to treat it like a good friend’s lively private parlour for a half-hour or so, until the adrenaline fades—and Yoxall disappears for a while into his own private conversations, mostly congratulatory, while Bill chats distractedly with Marcus from his Latin lectures and rubs himself down. The wood of the benches is dark, with a beautiful rich grain, which ordinarily he wouldn’t notice, but he supposes he’s away with the fairies today. He forgets that brief moment of camaraderie until Yoxall drops his hold-all on the other side of the bench.
“I say,” Yoxall says, just above a whisper, entirely too conspiratorial for a practically public conversation, “I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks he’s awful.”
“How could you tell?” Bill asks, in the same tone but, he hopes, more subtle. To make it look less like a plot, he frowns at his belt as he tightens it. But Yoxall doesn’t quite get the message; he leans closer across the bench, Bill’s towel hanging against his bare shoulder. There’s a suggestion of a new bruise at his collarbone that might’ve been from Bill; might’ve been from anyone. Not a bad one.
“He patted you on the back in that way he does and your shoulder blades went in about twelve directions,” Yoxall murmurs. “But I only saw because you were facing away, I’m sure he didn’t notice.”
“Ah,” Bill says, rueful. “I’ll try to keep a lid on that tell.”
“And, um,” Yoxall says, with a lopsided smile, “You were off your game for our bout. That was a rough one you had just before me. I’ve watched you fight before, you know. You didn’t have your footwork.”
He doesn’t ask why it was a rough one; he’d seen Farleigh angle between him and the referee for long enough to catch him a nasty headbutt. And he knows that that was awfully confident for someone who didn’t already know the referee was going to let it slide.
Bill blows out air in a huff. “I know,” he says, which doesn’t mean ‘I know you’ve watched me,’ because he didn’t and hadn’t. “That was a bit of a shambles, I’ll be honest. Or at least shamble-shaped in parts. I’d like to give you a proper bout some other time, though. Redeem myself. I’d been looking forward to it and I hate to disappoint.”
“Oh, wonderful,” Yoxall says, “I’d like that awfully,” and then he takes his trousers off, which is at once terrible and entirely appropriate to where they are and what they’re doing, i.e. theoretically returning themselves to a presentable state.
Yoxall is not a big man, but he’s tall enough that he’s in the same weight class as Bill. He’s both strong and soft-bodied in the healthy-looking way some people are when they’re kept well-fed and well-entertained growing up, and he’s so entirely unselfconscious about being undressed around other men that Bill would bet money he thinks that certainly some men are queer, but not the sort he knows. An imaginary theoretical fellow, far away.
Not that Bill is particularly thinking about it. It’s only that, well, he’s right there without any clothes on, and he hasn’t said anything abominable yet. Most of the chaps at the club have, at some point or another, said something silly enough to dampen one’s ardour entirely, so Bill is generally not preoccupied with thinking about whether someone’s got a nicely-shaped spine or whether the hair on a fellow’s chest is paler than the hair on his head. Maybe he just hasn’t known Yoxall long enough for him to have put his foot in it yet.
“Last month,” Yoxall says, back to the hushed, private tone, “I had a scuff with Witton and I caught him a nasty blow to the head, and he was loopy, and Farleigh wanted us to finish the thing before he’d let me take him to the doctor—I had to storm out. He made noises about revoking my membership. I mean he really is, is—“ his face scrunches up as he thinks of a word. He waves a hand evocatively and nearly tips himself over, balanced on one leg as he changes. “—awful,” he finishes anticlimatically. “Makes my skin crawl.”
“Oh, Christ,” Bill says, genuinely shocked. “I’d had no idea it was as bad as that. I mean, I thought it was—just me.”
Yoxall grimaces and shakes his head.
“And since he’s a graduate student, there’s no chance of him just graduating at the end of the year and moving on,” Bill continues, thinking now. Most of the student society presidents can be relied upon to disappear after a year’s term; Farleigh feels disturbingly permanent.
Yoxall hasn’t towelled off well, and his shirt catches the damp when he shoulders it on. It’s worse than when it was entirely off, somehow.
“I don’t actually have any idea what one could do about it,” Yoxall says. “I don’t think the games master has much sympathy for boxers.”
“No,” Bill says slowly. “But—you know—Listen, Yoxall, would you meet me outside in a little bit? Under the eaves outside St. John’s? I’ve some sort of idea.”
Yoxall’s eyes curve up. “All right. I’ll catch you.”
“Mm.” Bill catches Marcus’s suspicious expression and realises they’ve been cozied up whispering for rather too long. “Say, what would you usually whisper about? Not scheming I mean.”
“Oh. I don’t know. A girl, probably. Or if a chap’s in, you know, a pickle he wants kept discreet. But I’m not much of a plotter.”
“Right.” He raises his voice a little, affects an amused expression and slaps Yoxall on the shoulder. “All right, fine, I’ll introduce you to Pat when she comes up next, but I warn you, if there’s any funny business she’ll give you a better bout than I just did. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.”
Yoxall takes a moment to catch on, but after a moment he laughs. “You’re a jolly good sport, Merton, thanks.”
Marcus snorts, and to sell the lie Bill reaches over and tugs on the elastic of his sock-garter so it snaps at his calf. Marcus yelps, but he deserves it for eavesdropping.
One of the third years says something vaguely affable to Yoxall that diverts his attention. Bill does up his tie and tentatively accepts an invitation from Witton to drinks tomorrow night. Tentatively, because he’s going to have to defend his translation choices to his tutor the following morning, and suspects he’ll have to spend the evening reminding himself of what they were in the first place.
The pleasantries complete, he slips out before Farleigh can catch him and turns down the street and into St. John’s.
It’s raining—drizzling, really—and he drops his bag on a bench while he waits under the eaves. A narrow stream of water runs down the channel cut by years and traffic into the cobbles, and the sky is a shade of grey so close and claustrophobic it’s a surprise to look up and see the tops of buildings, visible, instead of being swallowed by clouds.
He lights a cigarette. Finds a battered book somewhere in the bottom of his bag that he’s been carrying around for about a year in the hopes of eventually giving it back to Jonty; discovers, after a year of not reading the thing, that it’s really rather good. The electric arc lights on the street outside are bright enough to read by, a warm yellow glow that isn’t nearly so eerie when you’re off the street itself and in range of the firelight from the windows. He flicks his eyes up to the street entrance every so often, every time there’s movement.
Yoxall doesn’t take long, but he does still look furtive in a way that’s probably half having fun and probably being fundamentally uncomfortable with the theatrics. His hair’s darker when it’s wet.
“Pretty good place to malinger,” Yoxall says, and then does an awkward little sideways step when the wind changes. Trying not to be downwind of Bill, he realises.
Bill winces, mostly internally, and stubs the light out. “Sorry—didn’t think,” he says.
“Oh, you don’t have to,” Yoxall starts in polite, faint, protest, and Bill waves him off. “Thanks.”
Bill grunts an awkward acknowledgement that makes him feel like Neanderthal man. This had felt so easy, earlier. But he bullies past it and cuts to the chase. “I had an idea,” he explains. It sounds much more sinister a plot when he puts it into words. “You said the games master doesn’t have much sympathy for boxers, and I think that’s probably true, but, well, Farleigh’s in my college, and the porters don’t have much sympathy for boxers either.”
“Oh? Jolly good, or I’m sorry,” Yoxall says. “I mean to say I don’t know what you mean.”
He can’t help but smile. “I mean there might be no chance of having him knocked off as president of the club by going up the ladder, but I think if I play my cards right, I can have the college make him step down. Our warden’s in with the canon and is pretty strict about making us all toe the line, and he doesn’t like gambling or boozing. Not like most of them don’t, I mean he doesn’t like it even if it’s off college grounds. And the porters as a whole just seem to dislike Farleigh.”
Yoxall nods knowingly. “The porters at Oriole all want to have the best right hook in the room at all times, and resent a fellow for disrupting that.”
“Well, it’s that and also that he’s unbearable.”
Yoxall laughs, and startles himself with an unexpected honking sort of noise.
Somebody opens a window onto the quad; suddenly there’s piano everywhere, muffled by the rain so it’s surrounding and directionless. An organ scholar practicing, probably. Late for it, but Bill doesn’t mind.
Farleigh is well known to have something riding on almost every fight, and once Bill had thought about what Yoxall said about Witton’s knock on the head, it made more sense why he’d have pushed to keep him in the ring. In fact, rather a lot of odd decisions by Farleigh made more sense when considered against a possible profit.
“So,” Yoxall says, “you’re, what, going to rat him out? Well, honestly I wouldn’t call it gentlemanlike, but then neither is Farleigh. But I’m not sure if he deserves to be, you know, sent down entirely.”
“Not stitch him up, not necessarily,” Bill hedges, “just… arrange things so the porters notice the way he generally behaves. And he wouldn’t be sent down, not for a first offence—but I think it’s likely the college will say he can’t box anymore. They did that for—“
“Jack Thomas on the rugby team! Oh, yes, I remember, his college warden just about thrashed him. And jolly well he did, he was a swine.“ Yoxall blinks, and then narrows his eyes. “Hold on, you aren’t at…?”
Bill sighs. Yoxall beams. “Oh, you are at Merton! Of course you are. I suppose you’d have to be, they wouldn’t let you in anywhere else.”
“No,” Bill says. “They wouldn’t. I applied to Trinity, actually. And all my brothers went to Merton too. It’s terrible. I should sue.”
Yoxall laughs, and then with an effort returns to the original topic. “It’s clever, you know, I’d never have thought of it, but how am I involved? Because I think you’d not have told me if you didn’t have to, because I’m a bit of a bumbler and I’m liable to give the game away.”
“That’s exactly why I’d like your help,” Bill explains. “Because you have a reputation, you know, you’re decent and solid and you don’t sharp or skive or snitch. And also you’ve got more in the way of ancestry to throw around, but you’re known not to throw it around.”
“Oh,” Yoxall says. He looks actually touched. Almost pink. “Well. That’s—that’s very nice, actually. I hadn’t thought that one could have a reputation and not know about it. I do try, you know. I’m not going to take blues in rowing or come out top of the year but I try to be decent, and reliable. I think that’s achievable.”
“I think it’s preferable, in fact,” says Bill, who also tries to be decent and reliable, but much less successfully, because of the part of his brain that comes up with schemes like this one whether he wants it to or not. If he could find an outlet, he thinks, for the scheming, he’d be much happier. Chess, perhaps, or writing gory novels about murder. Or an economics course. Something of that sort.
“Listen, Merton,” Yoxall starts, “if we’re talking about decency, is this, I mean, is it… quite cricket?”
He looks very serious, so Bill doesn’t respond immediately. The rain redoubles, greying out the lawn, and the piano fades to the edge of hearing. “Yes,” he says eventually. “I’ve got no actual dishonesty planned, even if that’s mostly because I’m a fairly wooden liar, and it’s not as though we’re going to be reading his post or bribing an officer. It’s only showing him at a disadvantage, and one he’s showing himself as anyway. And he’s liable to properly injure someone soon. Nobody stepped in to stop Hart, he still took half blues, and we all heard how that went, and Tim Chambers still can’t hear properly.”
“Right,” Yoxall says. “Right. Yes. I do think he’ll get worse. You already…”
He reaches out and just touches the top of Bill’s cheekbone, the edge of his jaw. Bill breathes in sharply and Yoxall pulls his hand away. “Sorry,” he says. “Does it hurt awfully?”
Bill finds the edges of the bruise from Farleigh’s headbutt. “Not terribly,” he says, which is true; he hadn’t realised it was there, in fact. “Just surprised me, that’s all.”
“Ah,” Yoxall says. And then, “I suppose I’d better be heading back.”
“Yes, of course,” Bill says, and pats down the pockets of his coat to find somewhere to hide his book from the rain.
“Do you have an umbrella on you?” Yoxall asks, already rooting through his own bag and emerging with one. When Bill indicates that he doesn’t, Yoxall gives him an odd, unreadable look—not displeased, not sympathetic, something else—and says, “Shall I walk you back, then? We’ll share mine.”