Two fencing teams, both with bus trouble. One rest stop. And only one cafeteria.
This might just be the longest hour of Van's life.
A/N: Happy Fence Secret Santa, @nothingtoknow222! I'm your Secret Santa! I hope you enjoy this silly little piece with Halverton and Exton shenanigans. I had a lot of fun throwing the boys together in a space with no escape and making them awkwardly get along. Halverton and Exton are like two bitchy exes who are secretly desperate to impress each other.
There's a bit of implied shipping (Van/Marcel and Gian/Aster, plus mentions of Marcel/Harvard and Harvard/Aiden) but mostly it's just boys being idiots and some very competitive Tetris-playing XD (No-one @ me about how Tetris scores work, I used a Reddit thread to ballpark a "high-ish" score and then winged it from there)
Read this fic on AO3 or scroll on for the fic!
It was just a friendly, non-competitive local meet. But Exton would be taking part and this meant that to the Halverton team, the stakes were as high as any state final.
“I can’t wait for Marcel to behold the increased speed of my parry technique!” Van said, reclined in his favoured position across the three seats at the back of the bus.
“And Aster won’t know what’s hit him on the piste,” Gian declared.
Ever the team leader, Scott tried to keep the group focused on the big picture. “Because we don’t have a lot riding on the meet this weekend, I think we could use this as an opportunity to try out new strategy. Sungchul, remember the discussion you and I-”
He was cut off by a loud BANG sound and the bus jolting. Scott, Sungchul, and Gian’s eyes widened, and Van sat up straight. “What was that?”
“I think... we might have blown a tyre?” Sungchul said uncertaintly.
At the front of the bus, Coach was also looking concerned, going to quickly speak to the driver. When she came back, she looked stressed.
“One of our tyres has gone,” she confirmed to the team. “Unfortunately it’s too far for us to keep driving the rest of the way on a bad tyre, so, we’re going to pull in at a rest stop to get it serviced. Hopefully it shouldn’t add more than an hour or two to our travel time.”
The team nodded stoically, but inside, Van knew they were all groaning like he was. As much as two hours extra to get to the meet! Bouts didn’t start until tomorrow, but to Exton, it would look like they were bottling out. No doubt they’d gloat insufferably until the Halverton team arrived (and then make fun of them for the late arrival).
“Okay, Coach,” said Scott. “You heard her,” he said to the team. “Just a couple of hours, and we’ll be on our way to dominate the meet. We can use the time to discuss strategy.”
Van caught Gian’s eye and they both winced. Sure, they wanted to win, but Scott was so serious about it a lot of the time. A couple of hours in a rest stop discussing strategy sounded incredibly dull.
The driver signalled to turn off into the rest stop, and as they drove into the parking lot, Van noticed that there was another bus there - one that looked really familiar from numerous local meets and tournaments.
Scott blinked. “That can’t be,” he said.
“Wait,” Gian said, gleeful. “Could Exton be having bus trouble too?!”
“Maybe they needed a break?” Scott said, frowning, but he sounded uncertain. There was no real reason why Exton wouldn’t drive straight through to the meet, just like they would have done if not for the tyre issue.
They pulled into the parking space opposite the bus that looked extremely like Exton’s, and sure enough, when they got out, they saw Coach Alessandra Donati was standing next to the vehicle, smoking a cigarette.
“Goodness,” she said languidly. “Don’t tell me you’re having transport trouble, too.”
Coach Brooks gave her a tight smile. “Blew a tyre out about a mile back. You?”
Coach Donati exhaled a stream of smoke. “Engine problems. But I’m sure we’ll be on our way in no time.”
“I’m sure,” said Coach Brooks, and then turned to the team. “Okay, boys, there’s not much that we can do here except wait. With any luck, we can get the issue sorted quickly and get back on the road. Don’t go far; I want you back here in an hour, sharp, for a check-in.”
“Yes, coach,” they all chorused.
Before they went into the rest stop, Van saw Coach Brooks wordlessly accept a cigarette from Coach Donati and light it up.
“There’s probably a lot of space in here,” Van said hopefully as they went to enter the rest stop building. “Maybe we won’t even run into Exton.”
Sungchul gave a snort to express his doubt about that, and as they went inside, Van’s heart sank. The rest stop consisted only of a couple of shuttered shop fronts and a bare cafeteria with a few tables, a self-serve coffee machine, and a vending machine. Inside sat four familiar figures.
“Oh, no,” Gian muttered, stopping short and causing Van to bump into him. “There’s only...”
“...one cafeteria,” Van finished hollowly.
The Exton team were slumped or hunched over in various positions of resignation and boredom when the Halverton team entered. Aster Leventis (or was it Thomas?) was the first to notice their arrival, and he straightened up, nudging Marcel. Jesse Coste’s head whipped around and a gleam entered his eyes.
“Oh,” he said. “What have we here?”
“Jesse,” said Scott, nodding formally. “It seems like we’ve both been having some transport difficulties.”
“What are the odds?” said Marcel, looking delighted. “Van.” He gave a grin that looked more predatory than friendly. Van tossed his hair over his shoulder.
“Marcel.”
“Aster,” said Gian, nodding to one of the Leventis twins. Aster - or Thomas - didn’t correct him, only smiled.
“Hello, Gian.”
They all looked at Sungchul, who simply raised an eyebrow and went to sit at a table a little way away from the Exton team.
Van, Gian and Scott followed suit, stiffly folding themselves into various uncomfortable chairs. A clock ticked loudly on the wall. Gian drummed his fingers.
It was going to be a long hour.
Outside in the parking lot, Coach Brooks accepted another light from Coach Donati and said conversationally,
“How long do you think it’ll be before we have a bloodbath on our hands?”
Alessandra blew out a stream of smoke and considered. “I give it twenty minutes.”
Five minutes dragged by agonisingly slowly. Van felt like every tick from that godforsaken clock reverberated in his soul.
It wasn’t as though he didn’t have ways to pass the time - normally on long bus rides to meets, he and Gian would be gossiping and speculating about the other fencers, recalling infamous events, and passing fencing videos to each other, Scott and Sungchul. One bus ride Sungchul had managed to get him to try an audio drama that he liked, although unfortunately it had lulled Van to sleep before the second episode.
But there was too much tension in the air for Van to act like they were just passing the time before a meet. After five more torturous minutes, however, he was ready to contemplate anything. Even a strategy discussion. That, though, was completely off the table with Exton within earshot.
Finally, the stalemate was broken by a rustling sound as Marcel reached into his bag and brought out... some knitting. Van blinked in surprise as Marcel arranged a ball of wool on the table next to him, unwound it a little, and then started adding rows, needles clicking in counterpoint to the ticking of the clock. Huh.
This seemed to signal a kind of collective release of tension as Sungchul sighed and sat back, and Thomas – or Aster – rummaged around in a pocket to bring out a bag of mixed nuts, which he placed on the table between himself and his twin.
Oh right, food. On cue, Van’s stomach growled. He’d forgotten to bring the protein bar that he normally carried with him on the way to fencing meets.
He poked Gian in the shoulder. “Do you have any snacks?”
“You watched me finish mine on the bus,” Gian pointed out.
Van turned pleading eyes on Sungchul, who already had a pair of earphones in, and Scott, whose brow crinkled.
“There’s a vending machine,” he said, jerking his thumb at it. “Just get something from there.”
The contents of the vending machine were definitely not in Coach Brooks’ diet plan, but this was an emergency. Van wandered over, chose a chocolate bar, and managed to scrounge up enough coins to pay for it.
The vending machine dispenser whirred promisingly, but then gave a horrible grinding noise. The chocolate bar sagged halfway out of its slot and didn’t fall.
“No!” Van gave the obstinate machine a thump on its side, which had no effect. “Cazzo di macchinetta di merda eddai!” The machine was impervious to threats, and also to Van’s increasingly forceful rattling. “Mapporc-” He gave it a shove. “Puttana maledetta-”
Someone gave a cough behind him, and Van turned to see Jesse Coste standing there.
“Ah – it’s stuck,” he said, unnecessarily.
“Can I try?” Jesse asked, and so Van stood back to let him access the machine. Jesse calmly appraised the vending machine and gave an almighty slam on one side with his fist. The chocolate bar meekly dropped to the bottom, letting Jesse pick it up and hand it to Van.
“There you go.”
Van took the chocolate bar and stared at Exton’s captain. Watching Jesse Coste annihilate an opponent on the fencing strip was one thing; watching him annihilate a vending machine was another.
“How did you...”
“Hotel vending machines are all the same make and design.” Jesse shrugged. He inserted some coins into the slot, and a bottle of water dropped out of the machine, like the machine didn’t dare push its luck twice.
Van went back to join his teammates. Scott was chuckling, while Gian raised his eyebrows.
“Do you think I can get a can of fruit juice?” he asked.
“If you can’t, Jesse Coste can probably get it for you,” Van said.
Someone gave a soft laugh, and Van looked over to see Marcel still knitting away; the thing interwoven with his needles was looking recognisably hat-shaped. It was a little mesmerising watching Marcel’s hand flick and his needles move.
Van had never found crafts that interesting, but he was intrigued enough to say, “That looks cool.”
Marcel’s gaze cut over to him and he gave a smirk like he’d won by getting Van to say something complimentary. “My way with long, pointed objects extends beyond the épée.”
Scott made a noise somewhere between a snort and a choke.
Never one to back down from an implied challenge (especially from Exton), Van said, “I’m sure I could master those just as well, if I tried.”
Marcel raised an eyebrow. “Well, if you were prepared to take instruction from a superior knitter, then we could see.”
One of the Leventis twins muttered, “Jesus Christ, get a room.” Van was drawing breath for an indignant retort when the other twin came back from the vending machine, putting a can of drink down in front of his brother. The grumpier twin (Van was pretty sure this one was Aster) looked at it and made a face.
“Did it have to be lemon?”
“There wasn’t any peach,” his twin replied, a little tiredly, dropping back down into his chair.
Aster sighed – and then looked up in surprise as Gian placed a can in front of him, picking up the lemon one.
“Here; it was the last one,” he said, ears pink. “I know you like peach flavour best.”
Aster’s mouth hung open for a couple of seconds, before he said, “That’s Aster – I’m Thomas.”
“No, you’re Aster,” Gian said, mildly. “I can tell you two apart.”
Aster’s mouth closed again, and he gave a kind of shrug before opening the can of peach juice. Thomas grinned.
As Gian walked over to the Halverton table, Van raised his eyebrows. “Is this a part of ‘crushing Exton’?” he hissed.
“You’re one to talk,” Gian returned. Van had no idea what that was supposed to mean.
He dug through his pockets and took out a battered deck of cards, shuffling through it for something to do with his hands. Maybe he could talk Scott into a game of Scopa.
Over on the Exton table, Jesse checked his phone and made a noise of discontent. Marcel gave him a sly look.
“Still no reply?”
“He’s probably busy training,” Jesse said. He was speaking quietly, but his voice carried in the near-silent cafeteria – and Van was straining his ears for potential gossip material. “I’m sure he’ll message back any day now. We used to spend all our time together – he won’t go silent on me forever.”
Marcel smirked. “Well, he might be busy with that Cox guy.” Jesse glared at him, unamused. “I can’t relate, though-” Marcel pulled out his own phone. “Harvard is always very responsive.”
“Harvard?” Van repeated, forgetting that he was pretending not to listen in. “As in, the Kings Row captain?”
Gian and Scott both looked over, also thirsty for new gossip. Even Sungchul took out an earphone.
Marcel looked as smug as the cat who’d got the cream. “We’re just having some fun,” he said. “Seeing where it goes.” For some reason, it made Van feel irrationally annoyed.
“Didn’t Harvard also go out with Dafna, a while ago?” Gian mused. “From Coach Ponomorenko’s team?”
Scott gave a snort. “I hope you’re prepared to face the wrath of Aiden Kane,” he said, in a voice that carried.
Marcel glanced at him and raised his eyebrows. “And why?”
Scott only smiled knowingly. Aster supplied, “They’re rarely seen without each other.”
“And did Aiden ask Harvard out on a date? No?” said Marcel. “He’s free to challenge me if he wants to prove himself.”
Van was sure that he’d bested Harvard on the piste multiple times.
“Fencers are all so competitive,” Sungchul murmured. His fingers were flying over his phone screen, and Van recognised that he was playing Tetris – another entry on the list of things that Sungchul had casually mastered.
“What’s your score now?” he asked, idly.
“500,671,” said Sungchul. “I’m going for a new high score.”
Thomas Leventis raised his head quickly like he’d sensed blood in the water. Looking back, Van would identify that as the moment everything went to hell.
“Mine is 502,573,” he said. “Can you beat that?”
Sungchul lowered his phone very slowly.
“In my sleep,” he said.
“Oh, boy,” said Scott, at the same time as Jesse sighed, “Here we go.”
Ten minutes later, Van was part of a tight circle of onlookers watching as Sungchul and Thomas spun blocks and erased rows at lightning speed. He had no idea what was happening, but it was apparently very important.
“502,580,” Sungchul said.
“502,620,” Thomas returned, immediately.
“502,776.”
“502,881.”
Van looked at the clock on the wall. “Uh... I think we need to go check in with Coach?”
“Here’s the thing,” Coach Brooks told the assembled members of Halverton and Exton who had managed to tear themselves away from the Tetris showdown. “There’s good news, and bad news.
“The good news is that the Halverton bus is ready to go. The bad news is that Exton’s engine problems are going to take a while longer to fix.” Coach Brooks looked meaningfully at her team. “However, we do have room on our bus for some extra passengers.”
Van’s eyes widened. The prospect of sharing a bus with Exton for the rest of the drive to the meet... Of helping Exton...
An hour ago, they all would have jumped at the chance to get one over on Exton by leaving them in the dust.
On the other hand, although Van would never admit it aloud, their rivals could sometimes be tolerable. And well, ‘crushing Exton’ was more fun when Exton was actually there to be crushed.
Scott made eye contact with his teammates, and Van gave a slight nod of assent.
“Yes,” Scott said to the two coaches. “We’re more than happy to be generous with our bus space and help out a fellow team in need.”
Aster rolled his eyes, while Jesse gave a nod that could be interpreted as gracious or mocking, depending on how you wanted to read it. “We’re honoured by that generosity.”
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A/N: I was inspired to write this ficlet by @7-sided-dice's headcanon about the Halverton boys playing D&D :D It's a double drabble, or 200 words exactly - I was considering not doing a drabble derivative this time around, but the wordcount turned out really close to 200 anyway, and the editing and touching up always makes my writing better, so I like it xD
Shout out to the anon who asked for more Halverton fics! I hope you enjoy!
---
It was going well, Scott told himself. Sure, Van and Gian had bickered for ten minutes over whose character would be the tallest, and Sungchul had wanted more subclasses than was possible, but after a few turns they'd settled down and got into it.
Now, they were hanging on his every word as he described the scene.
"The door creaks open to reveal an old room, dust hanging thick in the air. But you can just make out a spectral figure hovering in the middle. This spirit may be here to offer information. Or mislead you to your doom."
"We could ask it about the weird tome we found," Sungchul conferred with the others.
"We should leave it alone," Gian countered. "I think it's a trap. Let's investigate the room."
But Van looked directly at Scott. "I stab the ghost!" he declared.
"You-" Scott began.
"With my sword," Van added, in case that wasn't clear.
The other two stared. Scott could feel his headache from earlier returning. "Before we do this, I just want to check, are you su-"
"Yes."
Scott suppressed a sigh and considered crumpling up his notes.
"Okay." It had been going well. "Everyone roll for initiative…"
---
A/N: I've played D&D twice ever - three times if you count the practice session a friend and I did to get the hang of the mechanics - but in one of those sessions, which was with a group of friends of friends, I was playing a Swashbuckler Rogue and I decided that stabbing the ghost seemed like something my character would do, so I did it xD When I was looking for ideas for Halverton chaos, it was the perfect inspiration :D
Look, proof from my notes!
One of these days I will get the chance to play more D&D.
I thought about giving the fic a more "D&D-realistic" title since I'm pretty sure rolling a nat 1 on intelligence isn't a thing, and then I rationalised that it didn't have to make sense and it was better than my other ideas xD
I only just realised that when Harvard says "I understand" here it's a direct callback to this moment in Volume 4...
Ah, the joys of team captaincy. XD (Scott and Harvard need some downtime to swap stories of wrangling their "enthusiastic" teams xD Also I want to hear about the Halverton supply cupboard incidents...)
Fandom: FENCE
Wordcount: 100
Summary: "You think it was another supply room incident?" "You have those at your school as well?"
What "supply room incidents" look like at Halverton.
Here's another Small Fandoms drabblethon drabble! I really enjoyed this one xD I thought it would be fun to write a fic about Halverton's "supply room incidents" (you KNOW there's a story there), and my friend gave me the very off-the-wall prompt "pink nightmare" which was just the right level of weird to spark inspiration xD
---
The first sign of something amiss is a crash, followed by fluent cursing in Italian.
Scott closes his eyes. Gian and Van have an ongoing prank war, and in hindsight it was stupid to send them to the supply room together.
Minutes later, the two reappear, Gian looking smug and Van looking furious. His hair is covered with pink glitter.
"What-" begins Scott. Van draws himself up indignantly.
"Gian has turned my beautiful hair into this - PINK NIGHTMARE!"
Sungchul loses the battle with peals of laughter. Scott pinches the bridge of his nose.
Fandom: FENCE
Wordcount: 100
Summary: The Halverton team reacts to the news that Seiji Katayama has joined Kings Row.
I've been making some drabbles for the Small Fandoms drabblethon, and this one is for FENCE! It was written for the prompt "Don't be ridiculous", given to me by a friend ^^ I imagined how Team Halverton would first have reacted to the news of Seiji joining Kings Row...
---
"Kings Row will be one to watch this year," was how Scott broke the news.
Gian laughed. Van snorted, "Don't be ridiculous. They haven't had a championship team since - Robert Coste."
"I know," said Scott. "But now they've got Seiji Katayama."
Even Sungchul looked stunned. "He had a full ride to Exton. Why would he-"
-join a third rate team? That was the question. At camp, seeing Seiji with such an ordinary group of fencers was surreal.
Even more surreal was watching Exton walk past them - to face down Kings Row.
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Can you please write more about fence? I loved your Halverton ones.
-P
Oh, absolutely! Thank you for the kind message 🥰 I'm still in a Fence-y state of mind and have some ideas that I'm either working on or planning. If there's something specific that you'd like with the Halverton team, though, I'm open to prompts!
