Chapter Text
A door slams against a wall and everybody jumps. They pretend not to have been startled. They look back at their screens and their files and their surreptitiously held mobile phones, waiting. The workings of Lancaster King Ltd cannot be halted for a little fear. They tap at their keyboards and hiss into their phones to the people on the other side of the city, the other side of the world. Checking up on connections and promises that they’ll probably never follow through with. A man from the Legal department leans against the wall, looking stressed as he gestures wildly at another employee. Today is one of those mornings.
Henry Lancaster walks round the corner and into the large workspace. Almost everybody holds their breath. He is tall, imposing, greying. The suit he wears is not the latest fashion, but it is classic at least. It’s charcoal coloured and mocks his hair. His tie is deep burgundy, for muted danger or subtle threat, but not for wine because he no longer drinks. The doctor said he should have looked after himself when he was younger, so he got a new doctor. There are lines around his eyes, too many lines, and he sighs as he looks around. His morning clearly isn’t going well either.
He strides over to a newspaper lying open across a desk. The nervous looking woman whose desk it is peers through her thick rimmed glasses and begs that the worst won’t happen. The paper is meant to be there, but Mr Lancaster might not see it that way; it is the cause of his bad morning. Amidst the reports of success and profit that his personal assistant listed to him when he entered the office at precisely eight oh five, there was another less savoury item for him to devour. This kind of morning happens more often that anybody in the room would like. Henry’s fingers brush the offending article, complete with picture. It would be symbolic if the newsprint came off on his fingers, dirtying them, but it doesn’t. His hands are smooth, the hands of a man who has never done a day of manual labour in his life, and his nails are cut short by the careful attention of his second wife, Joan.
‘What’s the verdict?’ he asks, his voice rough from the years of smoking that he has also apparently given up. Henry Lancaster doesn’t ask for your opinion. He asks what you’re doing about it, what’s already been done about it, how you’ve handled the situation.
‘It’s not that bad,’ the woman answers, but she’s lying. This time, the company has been brought directly into the spotlight.
‘The press can’t start digging,’ he says to the room as a whole, ignoring her lie. ‘Make sure they don’t.’
The man from the Legal department looks close to having a heart attack. Sweat is running down the foreheads of a great number of those present, Henry included. Nobody wants to start talking, so they all wait for him to continue.
‘What about the girl?’
Glances flood the office. Someone must answer.
‘Fired, sir. Fired as soon as we got word,’ pipes up a voice from somewhere. They probably wrote the email and want the credit.
‘Good. The same will happen to anybody who allows something like this to happen again.’ Henry throws a final look at the newspaper, then turns and walks back along the corridor. The threat was unnecessary, because they all know it, but it’s good to keep them on their toes. That’s what he pays them for.
His PA, Karen, is in a frenzy, but she pauses when she sees him return.
‘Sir?’
‘Cut out the article and give it to me,’ he orders. ‘And tell Human Resources to pick people more carefully next time. The Publicity department especially. They can’t fuck up like this again.’
He storms into his office, hands itching for a cigarette. The room is, like him, decorated in shades of grey. On the windowsill is the pot plant Joan told him would make him seem like a nurturing person. He hates it. That reminds Henry: he should talk to his other sons. He presses a finger to the intercom on his desk.
‘Yes sir?’
‘Email the boys. Make sure they’re aware, tell them not to say anything stupid. God knows what the press’ll try.’
Karen’s fingers dart across her keyboard as she types out an email to Thomas, John and Humphrey Lancaster (she’s always wondered how they got so creative with naming by the fourth son), deciding instinctively to sign it from herself rather than Henry. They’ll know their father didn’t bother writing the message. He uses the personal touch with important clients, but not with his children. The boys suitably warned, she unfolds the newspaper she has hidden under her desk and starts clipping out the cause of this morning’s grief. The photo is dark and bad quality, but it still clearly shows the once employee of Lancaster King Ltd’s publicity department, head thrown back as she takes a shot of some unidentified blue alcohol. From the once neat shirt and tumbling up-do, almost anyone could tell that she’d come from work. In fact, she was meant to be working right then.
Next to her, holding up an empty shot glass in salute and grinning widely, is Harry Lancaster. Known to most as Hal, he is Henry’s oldest son and, according to the papers this morning, he is corrupting his father’s employees in a grand gesture to undermine the company that he will one day be director of.
-
The previous night:
‘Hal, my boy, good to see you!’ proclaims Jack Falstaff exuberantly. Sometimes it’s difficult to tell if he’s mocking or he actually has started to talk like that. Eccentric is certainly one way of describing him. Hal smiles boyishly.
‘Jack, what did you expect? Of course I’m here: I was promised an unforgettable evening.’
The bar is currently only half full so this statement seems somewhat incongruous. It’s their usual haunt, a bar and nightclub owned by Minnie Quickly, former pop star and their friend. The place is tasteless and tacky and fashionable, although Hal’s patronage of the place may have something to do with the latter. Later, it will be loud and busy, but they are here early, to drink and joke and drink some more. Jack is joined at a table by Pete and Bard, two guys who seem to be, for better or for worse, friends with the gambler. They are both suitably suspicious themselves. Nobody is even sure if Bard, a surly fortysomething who occasionally works as a security guard, has a real name. He’s certainly not a bard.
Hal stands looming over them, his tall thin frame a sharp contrast to the shorter round one of Jack Falstaff. Likewise, Jack’s scruffy pale blue shirt is nothing compared to the vision of Hal: smartly tailored white shirt, skinny black tie with tiny grey flecks, and tight-fitting black jeans, all carefully chosen for the rebellious rich boy look. It is difficult to imagine two people who seem more like they wouldn’t be friends. They met not long after Hal left Oxford, when Jack was recently out of a job, in his fifties and taking up gambling as a full time profession. He’s become more and more of a parasite in the two years since then, but his reputation for knowing how to have a good time is not exceeded by many.
Standing slightly behind Hal, wearing a black shirt and a grin, is Edward Poins. He is shorter, with longer dark hair to Hal’s light gelled curls, and usually known by his surname alone.
‘Been here since opening, Jack?’ he asks, as Hal disappears off to the bar.
‘Before,’ boasts the older man. ‘Minnie didn’t mind.’
Right on cue, Minnie Quickly appears.
‘Edward!’ She is the only person not in his family to call him that, and he barely speaks to his family any more. ‘Does that mean-?’ She looks over at the bar. ‘It does! I knew you boys would be in tonight.’ It’s no impressive prophecy: they’re in most nights for at least one drink or a chat, but Minnie likes to make a big deal out of it.
‘Minnie,’ smiles Hal as he returns, handing a beer bottle to Poins. He throws an arm around the woman. ‘I drink to your establishment.’
They all drink, gesturing their bottles and glasses at her before doing so. This is a ritual of theirs, the kindness to their hostess of sorts. She is the sort of woman to keep on the good side of: cheerful and friendly, but fierce if you anger her. Her hair is dyed blonde but the smile on her face is real.
‘What’ve you been up to, Hal?’ asks Jack once the two newcomers are seated with their drinks.
‘Oh, this and that. You know how it is, so much to do.’ They all laugh appreciatively. ‘Couldn’t get a new suit, though, as Poins insisted on going to work, and I can't tell which is best when the shop assistant is the only other opinion. For some reason, they always think the most expensive one looks best...’
‘Some of us need to earn money,’ retorts Poins. ‘Just buy the expensive one and send the bill to your dad. Your clothes-buying keeps the economy afloat.’
A few drinks later, the place is full and the night promising. Their usual waitress, Doll, brings over a tray of drinks. Nobody in the club notices they’re the only people who get this service without paying extra. She’s young, around Hal’s age, and strikes most people as someone they don’t want to mess with. Her hands slip as she leans towards the table and Hal reaches out to stop the tray from tipping.
‘Not doing anything shocking tonight, lads?’ she inquires.
‘There’s still time,’ says Jack. ‘Gotta get Hal in the morning papers, after all.’
Laughter. The lights flash, illuminating their faces: youth set against decadent middle age, but all joyous, revelling in this night like so many others.
‘I think my fame can handle a few quieter nights. Not that I want quiet nights but sometimes it isn’t meant to be.’ Hal gestures dramatically, then slowly shakes his head in lament for all these hypothetical boring evenings.
‘Calm down Olivier,’ Poins mocks with a smirk, putting a hand on Hal’s shoulder in warning. Sometimes he assumes the persona of the put-upon uni friend particularly well; it’s an act he’s worked on since they met at Oxford. In reality, Ed Poins does not mind. Hal's dramatics are a major part of his life.
Jack isn’t ready to let the matter drop. ‘If they don’t discuss your antics enough though, Hal, they might give the space to that Hotspur instead.’
‘What the fuck would they write?’ asks Hal with a glint of amusement in his eye. ‘An exposé on how pointless he is? Goes to events with that boring girlfriend of his and pretends to work for his father. At least they have stories about me, even with all the lies and exaggeration.’
‘You did dance naked in that hotel fountain,’ points out Pete quietly.
‘Shame the guy who reported it only had his crappy phone camera. Not that they’d have published the photos anyway, but you could barely see it was me in the one circulating the internet.’
‘And you definitely took home that actress,’ Jack offers with a wink. Hal rolls his eyes, but says nothing. He’s not illuminating the others on that one: they’d be less impressed if they realised he spent that night sleeping in Poins’ room. She was completely wasted and looking for a certain reputation, so he had left her on his bed to sleep it off and still gain the latter. He wouldn't tell if she didn't.
‘You didn’t do coke off the back of that minister’s son, though,’ says Poins, grinning at Hal because he knows the truth about that story too.
Hal doesn’t mind sharing that one. ‘That’d be better if it wasn’t a night when I hadn’t even left the flat. No wonder they had no photographic proof.’
‘Hadn’t left the flat? Better than that. You were watching Bond in the day before’s shirt with a bottle of scotch. Bloody expensive scotch, too.’
‘Just because I take a day off, doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy it,’ counters Hal. ‘James Bond requires good scotch.’
‘But drinking the stuff until five am and then leaving for work at half seven’s not so good for me.’
The realities of the pair's flat sharing stand exposed. Private routines, domestic habits. There’s a strange moment as they smile at one another in memory of the evening (they ended up tipsily pointing out every flaw in the spy’s behaviour until they ran out of Bond DVDs they owned) and nobody else knows what to do. Jack breaks the quiet.
‘Too sober. We need more drinks!’ He says this despite it not being long since Doll brought them the last round; the evening only really gets going once they've consumed enough alcohol, or at least feel like they have. Nobody questions whether Jack can even afford this.
Their chat about who's buying the round is interrupted by the presence of a smartly dressed woman standing next to their table with her arms folded. Hal puts on his most charismatic grin as he turns to look at her.
‘Yes?’ he asks, wondering if she’s after something. Fame, maybe. She does look pretty boring, in her smart white shirt and black pencil skirt. Executive, or trying to be.
‘Hal Lancaster?’ He nods. Her voice is nervous, but her face determined. ‘I have a message from your father.’
To her surprise, he bursts out laughing. Poins, Jack and Pete all have grins on their faces, because this has happened before. They’ve sent many a messenger away with a surprised look and the fear of dismissal.
‘Sorry,’ Hal manages to utter after a moment, ‘but my father never says anything to me, just sends all these people. I bet your message has been written and changed by at least two people who aren’t him.’
‘Well, I...don’t know about that. I’m from the publicity department.’ Hal cuts her off.
‘Of course. Are you lot now preemptively trying to stop my bad press? That’s impressive.’
‘Even we can’t do that,’ interrupts Poins, ‘and we’re the people he’s with when this shit happens.’ The girl wrings her hands, then flattens down her skirt and tries again.
‘They want to ensure there aren’t any more mishaps,’ she begins. Optimistic, Hal thinks. ‘And that you remember who you are.’
‘I know who I am,’ he says, as the vague threat goes unheeded. ‘Tonight I’m someone who wants to have a great night out. Care to join us?’
-
Hal’s first thought as his mind starts to lift out of the oblivion of sleep is ‘what the hell happened?’. The pain in his head is nothing new, but his memory is blank and he can barely feel his limbs. Summoning his senses whilst keeping his eyes safe from the glaring light that is inevitably streaming into the room, he deduces that he is indeed in his own room. He has woken up in far too many random places to not be able to work out if he knows his location without a single move. There’s an extra sound though: breathing. It isn’t his.
Tentatively he opens one eye, ready to shut it again if the light is unbearable. It’s not. In fact, someone has shut the curtains, a strange occurrence in Hal’s room. He opens his other eye, taking in the view of one side of his room. Nothing amiss that he can see. A pair of trousers strewn across the floor, but that matches the fact he can tell he’s just wearing boxers and an undone shirt. All of his shirts have been well slept in, regardless of their value.
Trying to brace himself, he summons a modicum of strength and shifts onto his other side. Immediately, he sees where the breathing was coming from. On the other side of the king size bed, fast asleep and clinging onto the duvet for dear life, is Poins. Relief rushes over him. No major scandal, no conniving journalist hoping to get a scoop by being part of the story themselves, just his best friend. It’s not like he minds the reports and gossip, in fact his image thrives on them, but it’s just that he prefers it when he actually remembers what happened. Last night so far is arriving at the club and then nothing. Poins will know.
He raises his arm and shakes the other guy lightly. This has no effect, so he pushes him harder, hand lingering a moment longer than necessary.
‘Poins,’ he tries to say, but his voice rasps with the effort. He settles for ‘Ed’, drawing out the vowel as he warms up his voice.
‘Wha-?’ groans his friend, blinking and trying to bat his hand away. Hal doesn’t relent, waiting for him to wake up fully. He reasons that if he can fight through the pounding head, Poins can at least open his eyes properly.
‘Hal,’ Poins tries to berate, but he’s never been good at doing that properly, even when he’s not half asleep and hungover.
‘Wake up then,’ mutters Hal, his voice still not wanting to go any louder. Poins does, raising his eyelids properly and staring back at his bedfellow. He inclines his head questioningly, somehow achieving this despite it not leaving the pillow.
‘What happened last night?’ Hal forms. Poins smirks, his eyes glittering despite the forced awakening.
‘Don’t you remember? The company sent some poor girl with a message from your father, you invited her to join us and next thing you know, we’ve made her lose her job and she’s dancing up on a podium with her shirt tied up above her stomach.’
‘Why don’t I remember?’ The question is reasonable, because Hal drinks a lot and his tolerance is pretty high normally.
‘Jack started a drinking contest. You won, of course, but you paid the price. So did she, and Pete collapsed on the floor at one point.’ Hal smiles, sending another wave of pain across his temples.
‘Why are you-’ he begins, cutting off to raise a hand to his head.
‘Not dying as much as you? Didn’t keep drinking after the game, unlike you. Or here? Because there’s one either-currently-or-soon-to-be unemployed newbie from the publicity department sleeping in my bed. There was no way she was gonna make it home.’
Hal wasn’t even going to bother asking the second question. It happens pretty often; when you let people into your flat a lot, there’s a good chance some of them will steal your flatmate’s bed. A lot of people hang around because they want something: that can be a place to sleep, or free drinks, or excitement. They’re a necessary part of his image. Poins justifies it every time, though. Always excuses, unnecessary excuses.
‘So,’ starts Hal, having fought past the initial headache. ‘My father'll be angrier than ever, or the publicity people will, and we now take in anybody we corrupt into the high life. That about right?’
‘A good summary.’ Poins’ grin is even bigger now, verging on laughter. ‘Better hope the paparazzi got a shot of her and you, she can be your new love interest. Seduced by the rebel and all that.’
Hal bats at the other guy’s arm in protest, but he knows it’s true. When you’re the wayward son and heir of a business giant, there’s always some sleazy journalist or photographer working for a gossip website lurking, watching, and repackaging everything you do. It's all about how you use that, when you can.
‘Coffee? Water? Half the medicine cupboard?’ Poins asks. Hal grunts in affirmation, without specifying further. ‘You’d better get up then. I’m not your slave.’
Hal tries to roll his eyes, but that sends another wave of pain and dizziness through his head. Carefully, he tries lifting his head, watching as Poins rolls off his side of the bed, stumbling as his feet hit the floor. It’s clear he’s somewhat worse for wear too. Regardless of his comments, he tends to drink a similar amount to Hal whenever they’re out: it’s like an act they’ve had since university, pretending that Poins is the responsible one when really they make most of their plans and bad decisions together. Jack’s influence only made this worse.
Poins stands in the middle of Hal’s bedroom, wearing nothing but his underwear, looking around for the shirt he had to have left nearby. He knows he took it off because, unlike Hal, he doesn’t have an almost unlimited supply of clothes and money, so he can’t sleep in all of his decent clothes.
‘Just grab a t-shirt,’ mutters Hal as he stretches to sprawl across the whole bed. Poins does so, and then moves back over to the bed, where he grabs one of Hal’s arms and pulls him up. Slowly, it works. Without waiting to check if the other guy will move any further, he goes into the huge main room of their flat, living room slash dining room slash kitchen, to survey any damage. Jack is asleep on their sofa and there’s empty bottles scattered around, but that’s it. Poins marvels that Jack can even still crash on sofas at his age. Suddenly, another door opens, the one to his room, and Lancaster King’s most impressionable employee emerges.
She blinks and stares at him, holding her head with one hand. Maybe coming out of Hal’s room in boxers and one of Hal’s t-shirts wasn’t the best idea, he wonders, not that she’d know the latter fact. The girl is young, younger than him, and looks like she wants to disappear off the face of the earth. She is, however, wearing more clothes than him.
‘Morning,’ he ventures. She continues to stare. He wonders for a moment if there’s something wrong with his appearance, before turning his head and seeing Hal in the doorway, not even having bothered to do up his shirt. They catch each other’s eyes and snigger. It’s not like they haven’t had to deal with these assumptions before, or more accurately, not deal with them. Saying nothing works for most things - elusive, intriguing, not actually denying or confirming any story. The publicity lot probably do all the dealing, minus the girl who is now staring at them. Hal and Poins are perfectly aware that she’s currently wondering if after all of the denials Lancaster King has circulated over the past few years, the rumour might actually be true.
‘I was just-’ she begins, but she’s cut off by Hal.
‘Have they kicked you out?’ he asked bluntly. They’re all hungover, there’s no point pussyfooting around the issue. She looks down at the ground.
‘Yeah. I got an email this morning on my phone.’
There’s silence for a moment, then Poins speaks, ‘Coffee?’ She nods gratefully.
‘You said you wouldn’t bring me any,’ mock-protests Hal, overdramatic even though he’s feeling awful. ‘Not fair.’
‘She’s almost in the kitchen,’ he responds, pointing to the fact that she is indeed nearly standing in the kitchen area of the huge room. ‘You were lying in bed.’
‘Not anymore,’ Hal says petulantly. They’re playing it up for her. When nobody’s there, they don’t argue about it. Poins goes over to the machine and starts spooning coffee in, whilst the girl (who neither of them know the name of) stands awkwardly nearby and Hal goes over to the sleeping figure of Jack.
‘Wonder what’s in his pockets,’ he muses, sticking his hand into the man’s large jacket and pulling out a handful of scraps of paper. He starts to read. ‘Bald Eagle pub, roast dinner and two pints, casino bill, casino bill, random drinks bill, another drinks bill, and a threatening note from someone called Black Eyed Bob.’
‘Seriously? Nobody’s called that,’ remarks Poins as he fills a glass with water and hands it to the girl.
‘Fat old fool. One day he’s going to have to stop scrounging and cheating and lying.’
‘Why do you hang around with him then?’ asks the girl. Hal gives her a look that says Isn’t it obvious?
‘He’s Jack Falstaff,’ he says simply, going back over to where the others are. Poins picks up the freshly brewed coffee pot and pours it into three mugs, then hands them out. The girl is still gazing interestedly between the two of them, with their disheveled looks and the potential for a story. She’s job hunting, after all. ‘And who are you?’
There’s no need from him to be subtle when the person in question has probably read every inch of the file Lancaster King keep on his exploits. The publicity department has to be prepared. Humphrey told him once that apparently it’s a rite of passage, reading his file cover to cover, all the clipped and printed out articles combined with the excuses and reasons that the department gave in response. Running through the girl’s mind now isn’t offense that neither of them know her name (her own memories of the night are pretty hazy, although there’s no chance she wouldn’t know the names of Hal Lancaster and Ed Poins considering her now-ex job), but instead a sense of curiosity.
‘Emily,’ she offers, but nothing else. She sips her coffee and looks at them. The pair look impressed at her coolness: after the initial awkwardness, she now seems fairly composed, not bothered that her hair is still in the bushy state that was created when she took it down from the business-like bun. ‘Is it in the papers?’ she asks.
‘If the company’s already done something, I’d say so,' Poins replies. He’s relieved, because it could have been much worse. It’s such a pain when something is both shocking and true: they get even more people on their tails for a while. Sometimes he wonders how he got here, thinking about paparazzi and scandal and libel. Once he was just a nervous first year at Oxford, running into Hal quite literally as he darted across a quad topless in the snow as part of a drinking game. Quite a start to a friendship.
‘They’ve not contacted me,’ highlights Hal. ‘Can’t care that much.’
‘Or they don’t expect you to be conscious yet.’
‘To be fair, neither did I.’
‘I think they’re going for a new tactic,’ suggests Emily. ‘Seeing how successful their previous one has been.’
Hal laughs.
‘As scary as their newest employees and exceedingly polite emails are, that’s probably for the best.’
Emily puts her mug down. ‘I’d better go.’ She disappears off to sort out her appearance, well aware that leaving Hal Lancaster’s flat in a state of obvious disarray could cause even more problems than she already has.
The other two decide upon food. Hal takes what he hopes are effective painkillers and pulls on trousers and an undone waistcoat, ever the hungover rogue. Jack is left to sleep and Poins is still wearing the same t-shirt, which he finally notices was some limited edition one that a designer had given Hal in a bet, which was luckily a bit too tight on the taller guy. The kitchen cupboards are bare and when Emily returns, looking surprisingly composed all things considering, the friends are arguing over who gets the last doughnut they found. She watches in awe, not quite sure what the performance is. Both are playing the part of the hungover, overly domestic flatmates very well, down to the ruffled hair and strange insults.
‘We should just go out for breakfast,’ declares Hal, whilst Poins rips the doughnut in half and hands him a piece.
‘What about him?’ Poins gestures at Jack with a look of distaste.
‘Leave him. If he wakes up and robs us, we’ll get him back for it.’ Emily can’t tell if Hal is joking or not, either with the robbing or the revenge.
Once they’ve taken the lift to the ground floor, the two guys say goodbye as she heads off to the nearest tube station and they go hunting for a cab. Hal is apologetic, smiling sweetly at her, and Emily can see how the publicity department have such a love/hate relationship with the guy: he’s a bastard and spreads half of those rumours himself, keeping them working overtime to deal with everything, but he’s also fun and charismatic and seems so alive. Later, she’ll be fucking furious that he made her lose her job, but right now, in the glaring light of the hungover morning, she’s not feeling too bad about it or him.
Meanwhile, Hal and Poins are plotting.
‘What if we actually play some trick on Jack?’ says Poins as they sit in some fancy faux-American diner, waiting for overpriced pancakes and bacon. The price doesn’t matter: Hal’s paying.
‘It’d have to be good-' Hal starts. Back at Oxford, where they first met, they played pranks on anybody who annoyed them. They were always a step away from going too far, getting reported to someone, if Hal didn't have his winning grin and many offers to buy people conciliatory drinks.
‘Of course. We’ll show him up, the old fool, prove he’s not as great as he thinks he is.’
‘What would we do?’
‘I don’t know yet. Make him think we’ve got a scheme, but the real plan is to laugh at him.’
‘Will that work?’
‘We’ll make it work.’ Poins looks decisive and Hal knows it’s been ages since they’ve planned a real, elaborate trick. Jack’s great, he thinks, but he always needs to be brought down a peg or two. Hal’s not going to say no to this.