*

18 September 2004
Sheffield United v. Charlton
1-2

It's the smell, really, more than anything else. He just manages to keep down the swell of bile that rushes up his throat at the waft of three-day's rotten fish.

He's sure he hears the echoes of Dominic's very distinct evil snickering, and he looks up, looks around, but the carpark is ostensibly empty, no one there to witness his extreme irritation.

"I know you did this, you sneaky cunt, and I know you're about." He hears it now, definitely, little choking giggles. "Oh, yes, you'd better hide. This is the absolute last time you desecrate my car and get away with it."

His phone whines in his pocket, Ooh, Ah, Cantona. Violation of his phone on top of everything else. He answers. "Bastarding bastard."

Dom coos between his snickers. "Oh, Sean, Sean. I thought for sure you'd have a tactical chunder."

"Dominic." Sean takes a deep breath, gets a lungful of fish, and gags a bit. "Dominic," he says again. "I swear. There'd better be libations on my front fucking porch when I get home."

He can almost hear Dom pouting through the phone. "You don't seem like you're enjoying this."

"Libations," Sean stresses. "You've got a ten minute head start while I clean this out of my boot. Or the rest of my time here will be spent overseeing your personal hell." He presses the button on Dom's protests and it kind of makes him smile. Until he actually looks at the fish again. "Ten minutes was way too good for him," he grumbles to himself and pulls off his parka, sighing.

*

"Before you say anything." Dominic stands leaning against the railing on his front porch, somehow managing to not look awkward holding up two six-packs of Newcastle in one hand, a backpack slung over his shoulder.

Sean slams his car door and hunches his shoulders in his jumper against the wind that's kicked up. "I hope those are both for me," he says drily.

"One is yours," Dom says, grinning. "As is half of the 12-year-old Macallan in my bag."

"Half," Sean snorts. "You put a fucking tuna in my boot." He stops on the first step, so they're eye-to-eye.

Dom's eyes look golden in the soft porch light, deep crinkles in the corners as he fights back his cheeky, infuriating grin. "I did not. It was a salmon, Sean, completely different."

"Hilarious." Sean shoulders past him and fumbles with his keys. "Also, you broke my phone and I want you to fix it."

Dom snickers, very close behind him. "I did not break your phone, Sean."

The door clicks open and Dom crowds him inside.

"Whatever you did to make it play that bloody song instead of ringing. Fix it." Sean tosses his keys on the side table and rubs his cold hands briskly together.

Dom stops while he takes off his parka. "Do I need to pay penance for this, too?" He purses his mouth at Sean and Sean, ridiculously, feels his cheeks heat.

"Tart," Sean mutters. "Keep your hormones to yourself, thanks."

Dominic's laugh trails behind him as he feels his way along the dark hallway to the kitchen. "Pressie for you in my bag, Sean, so I'd save the insults if I were you."

Sean eyes Dom's bright orange bag with some trepidation. There's "pressie" the way, say, Orlando means it, in which Sean is presented with a poorly wrapped book or a length of leather cord, and then there's Viggo's definition of the word, which has more to do with getting the everloving shite scared out of him than an actual gift. Sean suspects Dom takes more after Viggo than he does after Orlando, and he nudges the bag with his foot first, to test the shape of its contents.

"Fuck's sake, Sean, there's nothing going to jump out at you."

Sean drops to one knee and sees that the bag is unzipped. Inside is the promised scotch, a length of condoms, a bag of pistachios, two tubes of lip gloss, a plastic baggie with two joints in it, a videotape and an assortment of coins, safety pins, buttons and thread. "Ehm," he says and squints at the condoms to make out the brand. "And what in this mess is for me, exactly."

Dom has the humility (or the Irish coloring) to redden a bit, just across his cheekbones and the tips of his ears. "The tape. Unless you want--"

"Ta, yeah, don't think I need to hear more." Sean shoves the condoms to the bottom of the bag, amongst the debris. "So can we at least agree that tart is an accurate assessment rather than an insult."

"Can't blame a man for preparedness, Sean." Dom's grin is cheeky and sharp and Sean can't help but smile back.

Sean rises slowly, his kneecaps popping. Dom offers him a beer and a tumbler and Sean tucks the tape under his arm. "C'mon, then, my fate awaits me."

On into the front room and when Sean pops the tape in he hears the leather couch creak and groan under what he knows is Dom's sprawling weight. He steadfastly refuses to look. "This'd better not be porn."

"The tape, or..."

"Shut it."

It's not, in fact, porn. It's the September 18 match between the Blades and Charlton.

"Better than porn?"

"Dominic." Sean shakes his head. It's a little grainy, but it's the fucking Blades and it's a fucking home game. Sean suddenly realizes how homesick he's been feeling again.

It starts halfway through the first half, just as Kachouro scores a goal.

Dominic is already listing against Sean's arm, drowsy from a beer and a entire day up in that mechanical tree. He starts when the crowd roars as Kachouro nears the goal again and Sean pauses the tape, the little players stuck in a 1-0 match, Sheffield.

Good enough, really, Sean thinks, sifting his fingers through Dom's new Hollywood blonde hair.

*

2 October 1999
Huddersfield v. Sheffield United
1-4

Dom has somehow managed to procure a stream of bootleg Sheffield United tapes, with the occassional ManU thrown in for good measure. It's weeks after the games have taken place, but knowing they're coming makes the anticipation even greater, since he generally has to rally himself for his Blades, being the only Blades fan in the immediate area.

He had said he would come by thie evening to participate, or at least return his car after he cleaned out the fish stink, but it's half nine and he's still not here. Sean hadn't waited, and the match is well under way when he hears a grinding crunch outside.

He ignores it because Murphy, fucking Murphy is running full tilt at the goal, and no one's close enough to--

Another crunching noise, this time along with the squeal of grinding brakes.

No, Sean thinks, even though he knows what he'll find when he runs outside and sees Dom and Billy arguing with each other over the roof of his car. Which has been crushed against a telephone pole just next to the drive.

"What the fuck!"

"He did it!" they both say and point like first-formers.

Dom is the one actually standing on the driver's side, one arm still in the car. Sean folds his arms.

"I was just trying to protect him," Dom says. "From your." He pauses and Billy snorts.

"From your insane Northern rage!"

Billy laughs so hard he has to bend over and brace himself on his knees. "Oh, good lord, he's gone mad."

Dom nods very seriously and points a crooked, surreptitious finger at Billy again.

"Oh, god's sake, get in the house."

"But Sean, what about the--"

"Murphy was about to score and right now, I don't care which one of you crashed my car as much as I care about that match."

They get inside to see that the score is, indeed, 1-0, Sheffield and Sean settles in again, motioning for them both to sit.

"You know, Celtic are having a good year." Billy says out of nowhere.

"Oh, yeah, and ManU is really going too far, I can feel it. Right, Bean, right?" Dom elbows him and winks. "Right?"

Sean turns the telly off with a sigh. "Isn't it enough that you have my attention 22 hours out of every day?"

Dom thinks for a tic and reclines with his head in Sean's lap.

There really is no good answer for that, is there.

*

23 November 1999
Sheffield United v. Port Vale
1-3

"Dominic, fuck's sake, man, where the bloody hell are you!"

The Blades fans in the crowd are going insane, and a small riot seems to have erupted in the lower half of the stands, where the hooligans have assembled themselves. Dom would love to watch Sandford taking a victory lap while the hooligans kick the crap out of the fucking Port Vale wankers; Dominic loves a good punch-up.

"Dom!" Sean pauses the tape and looks around the cantina that's been set up near the Cunt-i-bago (or whatever Viggo's calling it these days) and Sean's makeshift New Zealand chapter of the Blades official fanclub, which consisted of a crappy telly donated by one of the blokes in catering and a series of bootlegs that Dom manages to produce on a bi-monthly basis. Bastard said he was going for a beer, didn't know it took fifteen bloody minutes to fetch a beer from the fridge.

There's a thud and muffled voices from inside the trailer, and Sean pushes back Boromir's wig, climbing the rickety metal stairs.

"Viggo, I know Yanks in general don't understand footie," he says, throwing open the door, "but I would think, being a man of the world, that--"

He stops. The heavy door slamming behind him is the only noise in the trailer as Dom, kneeling between Viggo's spread legs where he sits in his make-up chair, looks up. A wet sound in the heavy silence as Dom pulls away, wiping his mouth.

"Oh."

Dom colors, as usual, just the tips of his ears, but he smiles, his mouth a dark, full red.

"How's the game?" Viggo asks mildly, as if Sean hadn't just walked into another in a series of the most mortifying moments in his life on this set.

"It's, uh." He scrambles to remember. "The match. 1-0, Sheffield."

"Who scored?" Dom's voice sounds rough, strained.

"Sandford."

"Brilliant."

"Yes. Well. Ta." He about faces and squints against the sunlight when he gets back outside, nodding at one of the make-up girls who quirks her eyebrow at him,

He sinks back into his rainbow beach chair, borrowed from Ian while he's back in London, and stares at the blank television screen.

He'd completely forgotten to tell Dom about the punch-up.

*

30 November 2000
QPR v. Sheffield United
3-1

"There were almost a thousand more punters at this match than the one against Port Vale, and that was a home match."

"That a fact. Go on, kick it, kick it, you bastard..."

"D'you know where ManU was when this lot was flailing around in London?"

"No, but I'm sure you're about to tell me. Fucking bastard, you were right there."

"Tokyo. Just another Intercontinental Cup."

Sean pauses the match, just as Devlin gets possession. He can feel this is going to be a good one and he doesn't want to miss it. "Dominic. We flipped a coin and the Blades won, alright, we'll watch fucking Beckham when this is done."

Dom huffs. "Oh, go on, let's watch Devlin miss this, then."

Sean smiles at him and unpauses. Dom's fingers pick at a cracked piece of the leather couch.

"Yes, yes, yes!" Sean's on his feet when the ball sails in just past the post and Devlin whoops, grinning. "Take that QPR wankers."

Dom is sulking on the couch, and as Sean sits, he puts his feet up on the coffee table, unbalancing the leather, sending Sean off his center to knock his bottle of beer onto the carpet.

"Shit!"

Dom kneels down, barechested, next to Sean, offering his tattered shirt out. "You'd best get that out before it sets. Smells up the place. It'll probably take quite a bit, too, maybe I should..."

Sean rolls his eyes. "You don't have to give me your shirt, you narcissist. And just put the bloody tape in already, I'll finish this match later."

Dom grins and kisses Sean full on the mouth. "It's for the best, mate."

He stands and Sean catches him by the wrist, his mouth still burning from the press of Dom's jagged teeth. Dom smiles softly, folding to his knees, his hand clutching Sean's through the folds of his shirt. "I didn't say I didn't want the shirt, just that you didn't have to." He slides the material from Dom's unresisting grip. "Thanks. Mate."

Dom blushes but grins, rolling his eyes. A second later, Sean's Blades tape ends up in a pile with all the other, unwatched matches.

*

19 December 1999
Sheffield United v. Blackburn
2-1

Well into the second half and the Blades still haven't scored.

"Don't know why I keep watching these," Sean says, finishing his third beer.

"You're homesick."

Sean looks sharply at Dom.

"S'okay," Dom says, shrugging. His eyes are odd and unfocused tonight. It's been a hard day of shooting. "I think we all are, yeah?"

Sean lets him rest against his side and they watch the match in silence. After a moment, just as Bent gets hold of the ball and brings it back into Blackburn's territory, Sean pauses, stretches out his arm behind Dominic and turns a bit, letting Dom's head fit into the crook of his shoulder. He's not sure what he's supposed to say. Only that he's leaving soon, and another kind of homesickness is starting to take hold. Only that watching these tapes with Dominic have been some of the best hours he's had that didn't have to do with filming in years.

Instead, he palms the nape of Dom's neck. "Thank you," he says, quietly.

Dom looks up at him and smiles and this time, it's Sean that throws everything off balance, leaning in to kiss Dom's cheek but somehow, at the last second, catching the corner of his mouth, then the lower lip, then full on.

Dom looks at him when he pulls back. "The match," he says, his voice gruff, but not strained.

There's a cheer from the crowd and Sean fumbles for the remote, thumbing the power button. "They can wait."

Dom grins, leans in to kiss Sean, letting his warm tongue wet a path along Sean's lower lip. "They certainly can. Besides," he winks, "they'll probably just lose again anyway."

*

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