Hi it's so kind of you to do this <3 I would like to request Ted/Trent and anyone else of the team/in the show you feel like writing in there as well playing 'spin the bottle' or 'never have I ever' or a similar party game of your choice.
Dear anon,
Thank you for your request — since you said Ted/Trent, I was mindful of the /.
This isn’t canon compliant (that we know of, lol), but would take place sometime during season 3.
As everyone is only getting 2 people in their stories (as were the initial guidelines), this is just Ted and Trent. But you still get your party game, I promise.
TWs for alcohol and mention of a handjob.
Thank you for letting me write this for you 💙
xoxo r_n_g_are_dead
Some housekeeping for the other folks who submitted fic requests:
They are being written in the order they came in. It might take a couple of weeks or more for me to finish them. I will tag all of them “#bespoke Ted Lasso fic from rngaredead”
Prior fic about Jamie & Roy in the physio room after 3x11 is HERE.
Prior fic about Ted & Trent talking about self-image after 3x8 is HERE.
Prior fic about Jamie & Roy talking about Nate being an asshole after 3x4 is HERE.
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The door was shut to Ted’s office, separating the coach from his team. He could still hear and see them celebrating on the other side of the window, everyone gathered around Dani to celebrate his birthday. A piñata full of condoms and sweets had been set up in the corner, though that had yet to be destroyed.
Trent walked into his office from the hallway so as not to walk through the team. He was a bit shocked to see Coach Lasso at his desk.
“Are you all right, Ted?” Trent asked as he peaked his head through the open sliding glass door that separated their rooms.
“You know I’m a leftie,” Ted joked as he waved his hand in the air at the journalist. When Trent didn’t react, Ted chuckled to himself, “Yeah, I’m fine.” He nodded toward the ruckus going on out in the locker room. “Just too old to keep up with those clowns, ya know? They’re drinkin’ to get drunk,” he said. “They got tomorrow off.”
“Ah, youth,” Trent said knowingly.
“Yep,” Ted agreed. “I don’t even think I ever went that hard in college. These guys are next level, just poundin’ beers without any pageantry or skill. Group drinkin’ when I was young was more of a game, or part of a game, anyway.”
“A game?” Trent asked, genuinely curious.
“Yeah, you know… Spin the Bottle. Beer Pong. Flip Cup. Never Have I Ever. Stuff where you end up kissin’ someone… or, at the very least, gettin’ some scandalous information outta them. Gettin’ black-out drunk was a sometimes thing. We were more about braggin’ rights and smoochin’.”
Trent had heard of some of those games and had partaken in a few others in his day, but he heard himself ask, “Never Have I Ever?”
Ted smiled. “You never played that?”
“I’ve never even heard of it,” Trent replied.
“And I would have to drink to that,” Ted noted. “And that’s the game.”
“I beg your pardon?” Trent asked.
“Grab your chair,” Ted said as he started to share the rules while pulling a bottle of whiskey and two tumblers from the shelf behind his desk. “So, like, I would say, ‘Never have I ever gone to school for journalism’—because I never have—but you did, so you would have to take a drink,” Ted explained. “And like, you could say, “Never have I ever coached two different kind of football teams.’ And then I would have to take a drink because I have.”
“I’ve never even coached one football team,” Trent said as he set his chair next to Ted’s desk and sat down. “So, hang on… is there a goal with this game?”
“Kinda?” Ted said. “I mean, you’re tryin’ to get someone else to drink. But you’re doin’ it by gettin’ them to admit to somethin’.”
“How so?”
“Well, like, in high school me and some buddies went streakin’ once. So ‘Never have I ever streaked through Old Man Zankel’s corn field’ usually popped up when we were playin’ so me and my buddies would all have to drink.”
“But they already knew you did that,” Trent pointed out. “So that’s not exactly breaking news or scandalous.”
“Correct. This is kinda like investigative journalism… minus the ethics.” Ted grinned and nodded toward Trent. “So sometimes folks would say something a little more risqué to see if people would own up to doin’ something saucy,” he explained. “Like, one time, there was a rumor goin’ on that two kids from the marching band had hooked up under the bleachers after halftime at a football game, so someone said ’Never have I ever gotten a handjob on school grounds’ at the next party to see if they’d admit it.”
Trent’s face warmed and he hadn’t even touched his drink yet. “And did they?”
“Yes, sir,” Ted said. “Them’s the rules. If you have, you drink.”
“Well, I guess then…” Trent reached for his tumbler, but his eyes left Ted’s as he brought the glass up to his mouth and took a small sip, the amber liquid burning a bit as it slid down his throat.
Ted’s eyebrows darted straight up toward his forehead. “At school? Trent!”
“In my car in the car park,” Trent replied evenly, in a bit of disbelief how quickly he was to share that private information with Ted’s full attention on him. “You said school grounds.”
“I did,” Ted agreed with a chuckle.
“This is embarrassing,” Trent said quietly, knowing he was potentially one slip-up away from admitting his mounting feelings for the person he was feeling them for. He didn’t think Ted knew, but this was likely not the best way for him to potentially find out.
“No, hey, it’s okay,” Ted said, quick to reassure Trent. “This here is all off the record. We’re just bein’ silly. I done a bunch of stuff way more incriminatin’ than that.”
“Like what?” Trent asked.
“It’s your turn,” Ted prompted him. “Never have you ever…”
“Fine.” Trent rolled his eyes a bit and sighed. “Never have I ever… vomited from drinking too much.”
Ted picked up his glass and gestured toward Trent with it before taking a sip. “Now we’re tied.”
“Oh yes, you admitting to over-imbibing is surely on the same level as my first boyfriend getting me off after school before we had even left the campus,” Trent muttered.
“Awwwww, your first boyfriend?” Ted asked, wholly delighted to learn something new about Trent. “What was his name?”
“Irrelevant,” Trent said, embarrassed he shared something else so private without even being forced to by the rules of the game. “Your turn.”
And so they traded off sharing things they had never done, mostly innocuous, but with some needling prompts throughout. Whether someone drank or not opened up a window into the other person that neither had considered before and each man found himself feeling looser, with fond smiles coming easier and staying for longer as the minutes passed.
They learned that they both had never cheated on a test or a romantic partner, but had had multiple one-night stands. Trent found out that Ted had, in fact, danced on top of a bar and gotten a Chinese symbol tattoo he regretted (on a dare, while drunk in college). Ted discovered Trent had once shaved his head (also on a dare, while drunk at university) and slept with someone famous.
After nearly an hour, and with the birthday party for Dani still in full-swing, they ended up on the floor, leaning against Ted’s desk, after Ted had dropped the lid to the bottle of whiskey and they both got out of their chairs to look for it. Shoulder-to-shoulder, each man sat with his knees bent in front of him.
“His name was Phillip,” Trent said softly.
Ted felt warm all over from the alcohol and this newfound connection to Trent. He hadn’t felt that way since he first started going out with Michelle. It was nice. Trent was nice.
“Hold up… whose name was Phillip?” Ted asked.
“My first boyfriend,” Trent replied.
“Never have I ever kissed a guy named Phillip,” Ted said. He watched as Trent smiled and shook his head while he took a small sip of his liquor. “No, the guy I kissed… his name was Steve… Steve Edmundson.” Ted hadn’t mentioned Steve to anyone in ages. “Huh.”
Face flushed, Trent turned toward Ted. “Why did you kiss Steve Edmundson?”
“Because he was my first boyfriend,” Ted said as he nudged his shoulder against Trent’s.
“Oh,” Trent said as he tried to process this new information about Ted. “Well… I have kissed a guy called Steve.” Ted scoffed out a laugh and wiped at his eyes as Trent’s thoughts jumbled together. “Not anyone named Ted, though.”
That last bit he hadn’t meant to say out loud. Trent’s panicked eyes met Ted’s crinkled ones and he could no longer hear the noise from the guys in the locker room as his own loud thoughts got louder.
The corner of Ted’s mouth slid up as he leaned forward and pressed his lips to Trent’s. The action was soft at first, and a surprise to Trent, coaxing a small moan up the back of his throat. But then Trent’s lips parted on instinct and Ted deepened the kiss, their noses buried in each other’s skin as their mouths moved together.
When they pulled apart, Ted said softly, “Now you have.”
It wasn’t cruel what Ted had done, but Trent’s defenses got the better of him and he had to know if what happened was only for the game.
“And what if I wanted to do that again?” Trent asked, unable to hide his nerves. “Kiss you, I mean.”
“I’m right here, Trent,” Ted murmured as he set his glass down and brought a hand up to cup Trent’s cheek.
“And tomorrow?” Trent asked. “What happens when we’re not playing around?”
“Are you askin’ me out on a date?”
“No,” Trent said quickly, before correcting himself. “I don’t know.”
“Well, let me know when you know,” Ted said as he leaned in again. “Because my answer’s gonna be ‘Yes’.”
