Fic repost: Budgeting

[neveralarch]

I found a fic I had lost! Very excited. It is more than a year old, man. Witness: the first time I snuck a Gladstone joke into a fic.

Budgeting
The Thick of It
Rating: teen
(swearing)
Characters: Julius/Hugh, Malcolm
Wordcount: 700ish
Summary: The DoSaC budget is being slashed, and Hugh's willing to use any means necessary to prevent that.
A/N: originally posted here for a prompt on the TToI comm.

"Well, I'm afraid that the Department of Social Affairs is hardly this government's top priority," said Nicholson. He pushed up his glasses as he sifted through the papers on his desk. "I understand that your work is absolutely important, however, so I wouldn't dare ask you to curb any of your ongoing projects. Perhaps you could, oh, make a few less trips? A few less photo-ops? Cut it down to, shall we say, one every two months."

"One outing every two months," said Hugh, with horror. He'd be trapped in that office until the world had forgotten he'd ever existed. Trapped in that office with Glenn and Ollie and Terri.

"Perhaps one every three months," said Nicholson, smiling. "Just to be safe."

"It's vital for me to be able to go on fact-finding missions," tried Hugh. You had to speak to these people in their own language. "You know, synergy and glad-handing and-"

"I've already worked out your departmental budget with the treasury," said Nicholson. "It's going to take a little more than, dare I say it, buzzwords to convince me to go back and make changes."

Right. Something more. Right. Hugh opened his mouth, and then paused. There were those rumors about Nicholson, weren't there?

"Well, right. Yes." Hugh stood up from his comfortable chair and tried to sit on the edge of Nicholson's desk. Nicholson raised his eyebrows as Hugh slipped on paper and nearly fell off.

"Right," said Hugh, again. "What about you, you know, give me a chance to, uh, change your mind?" He could do this, he could do this. "Big boy?" he added, desperately.

"I'm not certain what you're implying," said Nicholson. "But I must warn you that it sounds as if you're offering me sexual favors in return for a larger budget."

"No, no," said Hugh, pushing away from the desk and back into his chair. "I mean, unless it's working, haha? Ha?"

"Minister," said Nicholson, and Hugh wasn't sure if he was about to get shot down or if Nicholson was actually going to take him up on it, and he also wasn't sure which outcome would be worse.

Mercifully, he never had to find out, because that was when Malcolm Tucker burst through the door.

"Hello, Julius. Hugh, get the fuck out." Malcolm thrust a thumb at the door. "The competent people need to have a chat."

"Ah, Nicholson and I were just talking about-"

"What, your dress sizes and matching shoes? You're done talking, get out. If you think it was important, wait out in the hallway, take a few deep fucking breaths, and think about how small a speck you are in the context of the fucking universe. Okay? Out."

Hugh decided to just go. He walked, rather than scurried, though admittedly it might look like the latter to an outsider.

Malcolm grinned as the door closed behind Hugh.

"Did you get his fucking budget cut down to size?"

"Yes, Malcolm, I did." Julius displayed his hands as if he had just done a trick. "No more public relations disasters from the Department of Social Affairs for a good while, not unless the Minister actually takes to the streets in an attempt to scrounge up public interest."

"I wouldn't put it past him," said Malcolm, frowning. "God, what if he pulls a Gladstone, and tries to rescue prostitutes from the sex trade? He probably already knows half of them professionally, and the bastard's got as little sense as he has hair, no offense."

"None taken," hummed Julius. "He did seem rather, well, sex-obsessed. He actually tried to seduce me, as far as I could tell."

"Really," said Malcolm. His eyes gleamed. "Listen, it was good talking to you, have a fucking biscuit on me." He wandered out deceptively quickly.

Julius smiled to himself as the sound of Malcolm bawling Abbot out filtered through the door. It wasn't that Abbot's attentions were necessarily unwelcome, but Julius would be a bit of a liar if he said that he didn't enjoy having the infamous Malcolm Tucker on his side for once. And distracted as well.

Julius took advantage of this concurrence of events to transfer the slashed funds from the Department of Social Affairs to one of the new think tanks. By the time Malcolm thought to check and see what he was doing with the money, the forms would already be through to the treasury.