on the cusp.

The History Boys.
Scripps. Posner. Noisy ceiling fans and terrible advice.

"Ultimately, we meet Posner when he is on the cusp of really growing up and coming to know himself. He feels lonely and scared and it is a very delicate time for him, and events happen which disturb him at a time when he needs stability and support."
-Samuel Barnett

I'm so creative, I can't even come up with my own summaries! UNORIGINALITY-FTW-THX.





It’s common knowledge among the boys that weeks after Irwin’s first series of Heroes or Villains? aired, he’d been propositioned by Dakin. It’s also fairly common knowledge as to what happened exactly after. A bit of Voltaire that Lockwood used to throw at Scripps in jest back at school resurfaces one evening at the pub, gleaming and sharp, and he finds himself simultaneously agreeing and becoming more and more frustrated by it.

"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh."

The end of examinations brings a certain celebratory manner out in everyone, and if Akthar is one to judge by, involves not much more than getting thoroughly sloshed; an idea only too fully embraced by his friends and former classmates. Which is fine, until Dakin - full of his own ego and four pints of Bulmers - decides to latch onto the next best thing after his surefire pick-up line (“Yeah, I know it’s been a while, but you were still looking more than a little frustrated during that argument about the founding of Cîteaux Abbey, weren't you?”) apparently sailed over Irwin’s head and slammed his door shut.

“You’ve grown,” he says, sidling over to Posner, charm turned on full blast. Scripps notes, with faint surprise, that he has.

“I--” Posner shifts, clearly uncomfortable with the attention, and refuses to look at him directly. “It’s just... I’m only a bit taller. And now I’ve these stupid glasses...” In an instant, Scripps knows who he’s mentally comparing himself to.

This isn’t going to end well.

Dakin is leaning his elbow onto Posner’s shoulder, reeking of cider and beer, face pushed frightfully close to his. It doesn’t seem to be any coincidence that he keeps throwing meaningful glares at the bar telly, switched onto BBC2, practically broadcasting his thoughts of, ‘Bastard, I’ll show him!’, unaware that four years at university have now dulled Posner’s formerly open feelings for him into a nervous tic of scratching at his neck and avoiding his gaze.

“This is my friend, David! David Posner, or as he likes to be known, Posner, Pozzy, Poz,” Dakin announces to the pub, Posner’s face now scarlet. Akthar raises his glass and toasts them, although looking as though he’s not entirely sure why.

Scripps is beginning to think the initial reason for his celibacy was not entirely to do with God, but more a subconscious attempt at avoiding these kinds of messes.

The night, of course, hadn’t ended well. Timms and Lockwood, visiting from Cambridge, were kicked out for ‘indecent behaviour’ (“What kind of a country is it where a bloke can’t have a nice little dance on a table?” Timms had bellowed, half-heartedly swinging his fists, as Lockwood pulled him away), Akthar’s forehead and the bar counter made their acquaintance after realising too late that he really couldn’t outdrink the patchy-bearded wino sitting beside him, and Scripps’ attempts at wrenching Dakin off of Posner had only resulted in a ridiculous amount of arm-waving and a slurred shout of, "You luvvim so much, why don't you have a go?"

Scripps would later tell himself that it was only Dakin’s embarrassing volume that made him attempt to shut him up.

--

“Hullo,” says Dakin, sliding into the booth opposite him, and if he thinks that his usual roguish grin is enough of an apology, it isn't. “Hell of a night, eh?”

"Bet you had a massive hangover."

"I did," Dakin groans, and Scripps feels the tiniest bit of satisfaction wedge itself into his answering grin.

"Serves you right."

"Oi! Whose side are you on, anyway?"

"Certainly not yours."

"Oh, well, nice to see that you've switched over to Team Ir--"

"Not Irwin's."

"Then wh-- oh."

He at least has the decency to look mildly sheepish.

--

The summer after Posner receives his teaching degree, they go on a weekend holiday to France.

Although Scripps hasn’t been keeping up with his French and can now only manage a dreadfully incorrect way of asking how to find the toilets, Posner doesn’t mind acting as translator for them both. They’re Oxford graduates with just a bit of extra pocket money (a rarity at this juncture in their lives), really meaning it when they said they were going for the culture and museums, unlike other boys who would instead opt for a sunsoaked beach in Villefranche sur Mer (or, in Dakin’s case that same weekend, Barcelona). Their crumbling little hostel is in the heart of Paris, squeezed conveniently between Sacré-Coeur and the Metro, rattling ceiling fan and scratchy standard duvets and all. Staring out of the cramped window at night, Scripps has no difficulty realising why so many expatriate novelists fell in love with the city.

All thoughts of sparse (and dead) writers vanish when Posner walks in after brushing his teeth, always followed by the jangle of the deadbolt and the click of the light switch - actions familiar enough to bring with them a sense of domesticity after just two days - before climbing onto the top bunk, weight warring against the mattress as old springs squeak their protest. The sticky July air is too warm to ever fully adjust to, and Scripps kicks his sheets away, lulled to sleep not by the Parisian traffic outside but the gentle breathing of the boy above him.

--

"So," says Dakin. "Posner was on top."

They’re at Micky’s Fish & Chips in Westminster, a shared basket of the title menu items already going stale and dry between them. If Scripps were anyone but Scripps, he might be tempted to remove that smirk from Dakin’s face in an altogether painful manner. But he's someone with restraint. Restraint wearing just a little too thin, mind, but at least it's there.

Instead, he shrugs. Plays it casual. "In a manner of speaking." Nothing happened, and that’s all there is to it.

No need to scent the water with any blood.

And it’s odd, isn’t it, this role reversal, Scripps relating stories of his own for a change. But unlike Dakin’s tales of sexual “prowess”, smooth and gliding narratives zinging between various conquests like a well-oiled machine, his are a floundering mess of missed opportunities loosely threaded together, all centred around the same oblivious person. He finds himself almost wanting to spice it all up with fabricated (clandestine) touches and (surreptitious) looks shared between them, anything to get Dakin to stop looking at him like he’s a father tolerating his inexperienced son’s problems, but can never bring himself to do so. Doesn’t mean he’s not tempted, though.

The truth is important, he used to say.

Well, he’s a journalist now.

Although not exactly a spin doctor (that honour remains solely with Irwin, who still can’t be brought up in polite conversation with Dakin if one wants to keep all of their limbs), he’s done his share of fibbing to the public in order to please his editors and keep the cheques steadily rolling in. All’s fair in love and paying rent.

It’d be nice if other things went a little more fairly, though.

“Just get him pissed, rent out your cutesy little French flat for the night, and fucking get to it,” Dakin finally says one day, long-suffering boredom creasing his brow. He wants to get back to talking about himself. “He’s a lightweight. One pint ought to do it.”

Scripps makes a point not to talk to him about this again.

--

“Love can be very irritating.”

“How do you know?”

--

Posner drinks bitter coffee that makes him grimace, shake his head, then chase it down with another long sip. Faint rings from the bottom of his mug stain the table, but he makes no move to wipe them away, too engrossed in his work. He peers over wire-rimmed spectacles down at his students’ essays with the weary patience of someone who just knows they could do better.

Carrying on Hector’s legacy is apparently more difficult than he’d envisioned.

“Fuc-king hell,” he breathes, scribbling away on the exam books, and Scripps inhales sharply at the staccato way he says ‘fuck.’ Posner glances up at the noise, smiling uncertainly at him before turning his attention back to his work.

Dakin and his stupidly implausible ideas.

--

“'Reticent,'” Posner reads aloud, hands trembling from the weight of the dusty Oxford English clutched between them. “'Inclined to keep one’s thoughts, feelings, and personal affairs to oneself.'”

Hector, nodding in Posner’s direction, claps his hands to get his students’ attention (“And now, back to Divine Meditation!”), and Scripps digs out a pen, thinking that he must write that one down.

--

It’s fitting, almost.