Work Text:
Higgins
Leslie knocks. He waits a reasonable time for Rebecca's invitation to enter. He doesn't barge in—unlike some of his office visitors have occasionally done.
And yet.
"Rebecca, I was just wondering how the Akufo meeting had go—"
He chokes on his words. The very barge-in-offenders are seated on the sofa, knees knocking together, Rebecca's hand against the side of Ted's neck, the other dabbing at his face with a soft pink flannel, her expression a bit smug and very fond. He can’t see Ted’s face, but even so the scene feels incredibly intimate—as if they'd done this a million times—almost ritualistic.
They don't jump apart at the interruption, though Ted does pull back a little—only for Rebecca to tsk in dismay and coax him back with that hand moving up to cradle his cheek.
"Leslie," she acknowledges, unperturbed. "It went rather splendidly. Thank you for the advice."
"Hey there, Higgy Smalls," Ted says cheerfully. "Yeah, the Boss here clearly rocked that meeting—no surprise there—and made some mighty big realisations along the way."
"R-really?" Leslie stammers.
He looks back and forth between the pair. Are they—well, why not? It makes all the sense in the world.
"Really," she confirms, and the two exchange a look of—pride, or understanding, or…something. Leslie can’t quite get a read on it, but maybe that’s the point. It’s not meant for him—it’s a silent communication between the two. They’ve always had a language only they can understand, a bit like he and Julie do, too. "You're all set, Ted.”
"Dodged a bullet there with the piss in mouth,” Ted winks with a grimace of disgust, entirely unbothered by the stained jumper he makes no move to take off. Leslie gags, and decides he must have misheard because, well. Rebecca responds with that indulgent eyeroll Ted so often brings out in her. “Appreciate ya, Boss. And the commitment. Been in it for the long haul, huh?"
"Worth the wait,” she shrugs, batting her eyelashes in mock-innocence, and Ted chuckles with a blush to his cheeks.
“Hey, I respect that.”
He highfives the coat tree on his way out, tossing Rebecca a conspiratorial grin and an enjoy your biscuits, Boss .
It’s like Leslie isn’t even there.
“Leslie, you’re here.” Rebecca turns to her little bar slash tea nook, the flowy pink material of her dress swishing softly. The Hockney is back on the wall behind her desk, the butterflies gone. Not gone—out of the cocoon, transformation complete, fluttering about cups and teabags. “Fancy a cuppa? Mine just ended up in Ted’s face,” she chuckles gleefully, plucking a biscuit from the box and releasing a content little moan as she devours it.
Leslie chokes on his tongue.
Trent
By the time Trent has made it to the office, Ted had already gone on his biscuit pilgrimage—and he’s making his way down right now, with a dazed expression and a spring in his step that becomes him.
“Good morning, Ted. You look chuffed—did Rebecca give you a good mark in girl talk?”
“Nah, today was all about good old Biscuits With the Boss. Special edition.” Ted smiles wistfully.
Trent has often wondered, when nobody else is in attendance, how much these daily sessions veer into deep conversation territory. He knows the history of the tradition, has heard from the two how and why it started, and that it’s borne ample fruit—though that last part doesn’t need telling, it’s so self-evident. He makes it a point not to infringe too often, much as he’s come to enjoy both participating and simply observing the pair.
“Yeah,” Ted chuckles to himself, fingers skimming the front of his jumper, tracing the smattering of wet stains. “Rebecca and I kinda shared her tea. Ceremonial.”
Interesting. For one who despises tea, Ted certainly seems pleased at the prospect of tea time with Rebecca, but never has he been seen actually drinking it. And the phrasing of sharing hers —
Unless it’s innuendo, which—but no, Ted isn’t the kind of man to kiss and tell.
Fiddling with his glasses as he fills a cup from the water cooler, Trent watches Ted perform a peculiar little float-skip towards the locker room.
Interesting.
Roy
Roy is so transfixed by the intense and colourful text chain Keeley’s kept up since their still very fresh reunion that instead of frowning at Ted’s merry whistling, he actually joins in. For once he’s got to give it to him—life is fucking great right no—
His knee pops as an elbow wedges itself between his ribs, a surprised ouchie and a string of profuse apologies in Midwestern twang immediately following.
Honestly, Roy barely finds a growl in him from the cloud nine he’s still on—but one look at Ted makes him do a double take even amid the cheerful pinging of his phone.
“What the fuck happened to you?” he motions at Ted’s wrecked jumper. “You need a bib, gaffer?”
Maybe he could get a bulk discount or something. Yesterday it was Rebecca with half a menu splattered across her overpriced blouse. Now here’s Ted leaking whatever the fuck that liquid is—Roy sure as shit doesn’t want to know.
Ted looks down his front as if his state was news to him, then back up with a small chuckle and the widest shit-eating grin.
“Nah, Roy, thanks though. Just a bit of the good old spit and piss. No biggie.”
Before Roy can think of a response to that, Ted buggers off towards the boot room.
Who the fuck has he been swapping spit with? As to that other thing, Roy won’t be going anywhere near that. If he could turn into a goldfish right now, he would.
“Oi!” He addresses the closed door, wincing at the intrusive thoughts. “Fucking keep your kinks to yourself, yeah?”
Beard
Beard leans back in his chair, eyes tracking Ted’s breezy passage through the locker room and office. He’s in an excellent mood—glowing after what seems a particularly successful biscuit delivery. Good for him.
“Hey, Coach,” he waves down Roy, whose newly returned intense heart eyes are temporarily suspended in favour of a distraught grimace. “In this house we don’t kink-shame.”
“Did you fucking see him?”
Beard shrugs. It was a rhetorical question after all. He sees Ted more clearly than most people do, and today he’s especially impossible to miss. Besides, Roy’s overreacting—in Beard’s book it’s fun to experiment when all concerned parties are into it.
(He still won’t let Jane peg him though, that’s just…not for them.)
“Scientifically speaking, saliva-sharing is a sign of a close relationship in the human species even toddlers and infants recognise,” he supplies.
“It’s unsanitary is what it is.”
“Keeley agree with that?”
“That’s different, right? We’re fucking together.”
“Congratulations, baby!” Beard cheers at the glaringly obvious news, watching a grin split Roy’s face, then the returning frown as the cogs turn in his head.
“But he’s just come from Rebecca’s office.”
Beard nods.
“Those aren’t fucking biscuit crumbs on his jumper.”
Beard shakes his head.
Whatever goes down during their biscuits-tea-girltalk sessions when no one is present has seemed intimate and sacred for a good while now. Perhaps not explicit, but there’s a first time for everything. If something has finally shifted, well, good for them.
Roy’s eyes go wide, and Beard’s beard twitches.
“Well, shit,” Roy huffs.
“Yeah.”
Will
It’s just another day being walked in on and entirely unnoticed in the boot room.
Will’s come to embrace it as his thing now. Being an accidental witness of people’s private conversations used to make him uncomfortable, awkward, mortified even. Now it’s just one of those fun facts of life—he’s discreet, and everyone seems to think of it as a sort of a running gag, an inside joke they all share that he’s happy to be the protagonist-bystander of.
So when Ted Lasso walks in and plops down on the bench, eyes closed and face turned towards the ceiling with a smile and a frown, the only surprise to Will is that he’s followed by no one. He seems to be silently conferring with himself though, so Will goes about his business as quietly as possible.
Ted slumps lower in his seat. He touches the side of his cheek. He kicks his feet a little.
He looks happy, but holding it in, like maybe it’s too much or it might go away.
When he fiddles with his jumper with those splatter stains on it, that’s when Will speaks up, from his position as kitman and resident interruptor.
“Coach, do you want me to wash that with the rest?”
“Oh, this old thing?” he winces in surprise, clutching at the jumper possessively. “I appreciate ya, Will, but it’s all fine and dandy. It’s what I get for ruining one of them Boss’s fancy blouses that one time. Although personally I’d say her choice of liquid was way more high stakes—but hey, can’t argue with taste.”
Will mulls that over for a bit, then decides it’s probably best not to.
“No judgement here, Coach,” he shrugs. “As long as it’s consensual, right?”
“Sure is, Will. Sure is.”
Keeley
Rebecca’s phone is blowing up, and the minx has the audacity to not answer until Keeley is standing in front of her house, banging on the door.
"How long have you been secretly shagging Ted?" she blurts out the moment the door swings open.
A stunned Rebecca is gaping at her—stunned and stunning in leggings showcasing those endless legs and a pale pink off-the-shoulder jumper with her hair in a messy bun and now is not the moment for bisexual panic but can you blame her with Rebecca looking like the Amazonian goddess she is?—phone in one hand and a glass of bubbly in the other.
"What?" she sputters, waving Keeley in, as if Keeley wasn’t already pushing past her, through the bright entry, into the kitchen, taking a swig directly from the half-empty bottle.
"Snogging!” she stomps because really? “Swapping spit! Possibly other bodily fluids? No judgement here. Well, a little judgement, but it's your business, I mean, whatever you and Ted are into."
Rebecca pries the bottle from Keeley’s hands, eyes wide and cheeks red, and moves them both towards the living room, pushing Keeley into the sofa cushions.
"Keeley," Rebecca says very slowly, like Keeley isn’t fucking buzzing with the news—or maybe because she quite literally is, physically incapable of sitting still. "I'm sorry, but I haven't got the faintest clue what you're talking about."
"Babe, I'm a bit offended now. I'm your best friend and this is how I find out? Everybody knows. Apparently the whole club's seen Ted parading around, chest out, pleased as punch, in that drenched jumper you're responsible for. Do you deny it?"
But Rebecca smiles like the cat that got the cream, joyful, triumphant.
"Oh, no. I take full credit for that. It's payback for when he spat his drink in my face two seasons ago."
"He what?" Keeley clutches her chest, and how can Rebecca say that so casually? Like, what the actual fuck? She’s gonna need a minute, because this conversation is not going anything like she expected. "Wait. So you and Ted just…take turns covering one another in spit?"
"Not like that, for fuck’s sake, I—" Rebecca’s eyes widen, her cheeks redder than that one lipstick they each both together and neither ever wears. Like she’s only now realising the optics of it all. Keeley is almost sympathetic, except she’s still not quite buying it. "Why is everyone so obsessed with this? What is this anyway, kindergarten? A game of bloody telephone?"
“There were piss allegations, Rebecca.”
“There were—Excuse me?”
“Roy said you two are kinky in bed. Which, go on the girl! But you’d think you wouldn’t keep snogging the moustache off our very own Ted from your bestest friend in the world.”
“I’m not keeping anything from you, Keeley. Ted and I, we’re not—we aren’t—”
“Sexy soulmates?”
Rebecca stares at her, looking so lost Keeley really does take pity and pulls her hand into her lap, squeezing it—waiting.
“I—I need to talk to Ted. To warn him,” Rebecca clarifies, breathing heavy, eyes a little crazy. “Because you people are absolute fucking menaces, seeing things that are just—”
But what they are or are not, Keeley never finds out. Rebecca’s jaw falls, her face softens, her eyes filling with tears as she presses a palm to her heart.
Oh.
Keeley wraps her arms around her middle, walks her to the door, and sends her off with a pat on the arm and an absolutely elated good luck, babe .
Epilogue: Isaac, Jamie, Dani
They’re not doing anything obvious—they’re just somehow being very obvious about it.
“Hey,” Jamie pulls Isaac to the side. “Boss and Coach together?”
“I know, bruv. Kinesics.”
“Body science,” Jamie nods.
“Love is life, amigos.”
“Swapping spit is sexy.”
“Oi, show some respect.”
“Exchanging saliva boosts immunity,” Jamie amends.
“De verdad—Boss and Coach are gonna be the healthiest sports power couple ever!”