Getting Hard to Be Someone, The History Boys, Posner + Scripps, PG-13
Title: Getting Hard to Be Someone
Fandom: The History Boys
Pairing: Posner + Scripps
Rating: PG-13
Notes: This is quite crap, but no one will read it anyway. And it's meant to be as I just wanted to make myself write 1700 words as quickly as possible as practice for NaNo. I need to make myself let go, and then still be proud of my crap in terms of quantity, not quality. So look! Here's my festering diaper for you to see. Poor Posner. I didn't mean to do this to him. He doesn't deserve it. Oh, and this is some bastardized mix of playverse and movieverse.
He feels like he’s drowning. He feels the weight crushing in on his chest, squeezing the air out of his lungs, and he doesn’t know if he’s going to make it. He’s taken to drinking these days, even when he knows he shouldn’t: who would suspect that poor little Posner who would get the giggles after a glass of wine had turned to drink to keep himself breathing. That’s all it is. Just the struggle to get air into his lungs, to tell his body to do what should be habit, in and out, bringing him from one day to the next.
It’s cliché, he knows. The poor sod who never figured his life out, who followed along doing as he was told until it all crashed around him, until his demons grew too big and scary to ignore with routine alone.
And it’s sad, he knows, that it all goes back to Cutler’s where he spent all his time focused on useless poetry and Cambridge and Dakin. He knows enough of the world now to know that that wasn’t love, that that was just some pointless adoration meant to make him miserable throughout his school days because everyone is supposed to be miserable as a teenager. He knows now what love is like, and he knows that he’s not likely to even taste it again because he’s too busy looking down at the baby steps that get him through the day to notice or be noticed by anyone. Nothing has changed really. His attention has only turned from Dakin to his own pathetic existence, from Dakin’s navel to his own, and it’s still breaking his heart.
Posner follows the lives of the other boys because he can’t let himself escape it. He reads up on them in the papers, gets his shirts cleaned at one of stores Timms just opened up around the corner, strolls past Akthar’s school, reads ever article Scripps writes. He tries to let go of Dakin, forces himself to not seek out news on him, but every time he thinks he’s succeeded there’s an old acquaintance who bumped into him recently or a mention of him in the business papers that Posner can’t remember a reason for reading.
He does what he has to in order to get by. He works odd jobs after he is fired from his teaching post for teaching outside the curriculum, and he wonders how Hector got away with it for all those years. Probably to do with him being an institution after years of servitude to the grand and glorious education system. Posner just prefers George Formby to Whitman some days.
He’s found a pub he likes, which he reckons is better than the four months he spent afraid to leave his flat, riddled with an agoraphobia so crippling that he could barely open the shades, and so did his drinking within. Now he’s something of a regular, with the same stool always waiting for him, and a bartender who knows how he likes to start with gin and end with whiskey. It’s a sad life to be sure, but there’s precious little else to do so he takes what he can get.
“Posner?”
He jumps at the sound of his name, mostly because he can’t remember the last time he’s heard it. And when he turns around, there’s Scripps, of course, whom he hasn’t seen in almost three years. He looks the same really, but his eyes are a little more crinkled at the corners, his posture a little straighter.
“Don?”
“God, it’s been ages! I almost didn’t recognize you.”
It’s an understatement, and he can tell from the way Scripps smiles at the end that he’s trying not to point out that he looks like complete shit. He hasn’t shaved in a few days, which might be all right, but facial hair was the one thing that he never really grew into, his chin covered in patchy spots of scruff that don’t form anything remotely resembling a beard. His eyes are heavy and sad to the point that he’s stopped looking in the mirror because it only makes him more depressed. He’s as thin as he ever was when Scripps knew him, having lost the little bulk he’d gained over the years at Cambridge, during the months when he didn’t leave the flat. At least his shirts are neatly pressed. Thanks, Timms.
He’d given up being self-conscious about it, but with Scripps looking him up and down, his grin fading fast, he feels the mess that he is, and he has to swallow a couple times before he can manage to speak.
“It’s good to see you.” He stands and reaches out a hand, which Scripps takes, his grip firm and practiced.
“Do you mind if I…?” Scripps gestures to the stool next to him, and Posner shakes his head.
Scripps orders them a round and when the barkeep brings it over, he gives Posner a curious glance, surprised to see he has company.
“What are you up to these days?”
He thinks for a minute, trying to find a way to spin his answer, and he thinks of Irwin, prepping them for the exam, teaching them how to spin the things they know into something that sounds more impressive than it is, how to make the dull and repetitive interesting.
But all Posner has done for the past month is sleep and drink and watch old French movies.
“I’m taking some time off,” he says. “Just for a bit. Everything moved so fast for a while with school and work. I never got a chance to catch my breath, you know?”
The second he says, he knows Scripps can see it’s a lie. But Scripps has always been good to him, and so he doesn’t mention it.
“Good for you. I wish I could do the same.”
“You’re at the paper still?”
“Unfortunately. I want to take the time to do some real writing, yeah? But the bills pile up so fast….”
“Married?”
He’s not sure where the question comes from. Not sure why he’s not finding some excuse to leave as he should before his own complete disarray becomes so obvious that even Scripps can’t pretend it isn’t there, cluttering up the conversation.
But Scripps laughs. “No, no. Still looking, I suppose. When I have the time. You?”
Posner shakes his head. “God, no.”
Scripps gives him an understanding smile before bringing his glass to his lips.
“Living round here, then?”
“Yeah, not far. Moved here about a year ago. I didn’t know you were in the area. I would’ve looked you up.”
Scripps has his shirt sleeves rolled up to elbows, and Posner remembers that, that he does that, just as Timms never had his shirttails tucked in properly. And it’s funny the things one can remember, like how Dakin smelled of leather and cigarettes even in his white shirt and school tie. But, no. He’s given up thinking about Dakin, hasn’t he?
“Are you all right?” Scripps asks.
“Yeah. Fine,” he answers, and he forces himself to focus, to remember how social interaction works: give and take.
They end up going back to Scripps’ flat because Posner’s too ashamed to let anyone into his. Scripps grabs them a couple of beers, and Posner settles himself into a large chair far from the windows.
“It’s not much,” Scripps offers, “but it’ll do for now. Trying to save up for a bit so I can quit the paper for a while, maybe write that book.”
“What will your book be about?”
Scripps lets out a slow breath and rubs the condensation on his bottle with his thumb. Posner watches as it chases the drips down the side.
“Hector,” he says, but it’s more like a question, as if he’s asking permission to broach the subject. Posner doesn’t say anything to stop him so he goes on. “And Dakin, and Irwin, and you. All of it. Names changed to protect the guilty, of course. And the innocent,” he concedes after a second of contemplation.
“But why?” He’s tried so hard to forget those years, the ones that he maintains set him on this path. At night he lies awake and contemplates the subjunctive history Dakin was so fond of: if Irwin had never come, they’d never have gotten into Oxford and Cambridge. If Dakin hadn’t been so interested in Irwin, he would’ve been able to dismiss his adoration eventually instead of hoping that Dakin would turn that interest to him. If he’d found himself some girl willing to shag him, maybe he could’ve tricked himself into thinking that was what he wanted.
“It’s…it’s interesting to me, I guess. And I want to get it down whilst I still remember it, I suppose. A permanent record of Hector before I forget him. I think maybe I already have.”
Posner can remember every poem he ever memorized for Hector, all the songs, but he can’t remember the last time he laughed. He can’t remember the last time he spoke with someone for more than a few minutes. He can’t remember what it is like to be happy.
He squeezes the bridge of his nose between his fingers--Irwin used to do that--and tries to will away the tension building there.
“Are you sure everything’s all right?” Scripps asks, leaning closer, resting his elbows on his knees.
The tightness in his throat has returned, and he knows that he has to get out.
“I should be going,” he says, and he sets his bottle down on the table as he stands. The bottle lands on the edge, slips, and crashes to the floor, the beer foaming and spreading across the wood.
“Shit. Shit, I’m sorry. Shit.”
“Leave it,” Scripps says, catching his arm as he turns to-to do something, but he’s not sure what because there’s no way to clean that up with just his two hands.
“I’m sorry,” he repeats.
Scripps is looking at him, and Posner can’t bring himself to look back. They’re standing in the middle of his apartment, all clean and normal with books on the shelf and a working telly and family photos, and this is the life he could have if he just knew how.
“Poz….”
“No one has called me that in years,” he manages to get out before the air is gone and the tears are there, but so is Scripps, his arms wrapping around him, holding him together before he shatters like the glass beneath their feet.
“What happened to you?” Scripps asks against his ear.
And all these years later, Posner is still wishing he knew how to give the right answers.
Fandom: The History Boys
Pairing: Posner + Scripps
Rating: PG-13
Notes: This is quite crap, but no one will read it anyway. And it's meant to be as I just wanted to make myself write 1700 words as quickly as possible as practice for NaNo. I need to make myself let go, and then still be proud of my crap in terms of quantity, not quality. So look! Here's my festering diaper for you to see. Poor Posner. I didn't mean to do this to him. He doesn't deserve it. Oh, and this is some bastardized mix of playverse and movieverse.
He feels like he’s drowning. He feels the weight crushing in on his chest, squeezing the air out of his lungs, and he doesn’t know if he’s going to make it. He’s taken to drinking these days, even when he knows he shouldn’t: who would suspect that poor little Posner who would get the giggles after a glass of wine had turned to drink to keep himself breathing. That’s all it is. Just the struggle to get air into his lungs, to tell his body to do what should be habit, in and out, bringing him from one day to the next.
It’s cliché, he knows. The poor sod who never figured his life out, who followed along doing as he was told until it all crashed around him, until his demons grew too big and scary to ignore with routine alone.
And it’s sad, he knows, that it all goes back to Cutler’s where he spent all his time focused on useless poetry and Cambridge and Dakin. He knows enough of the world now to know that that wasn’t love, that that was just some pointless adoration meant to make him miserable throughout his school days because everyone is supposed to be miserable as a teenager. He knows now what love is like, and he knows that he’s not likely to even taste it again because he’s too busy looking down at the baby steps that get him through the day to notice or be noticed by anyone. Nothing has changed really. His attention has only turned from Dakin to his own pathetic existence, from Dakin’s navel to his own, and it’s still breaking his heart.
Posner follows the lives of the other boys because he can’t let himself escape it. He reads up on them in the papers, gets his shirts cleaned at one of stores Timms just opened up around the corner, strolls past Akthar’s school, reads ever article Scripps writes. He tries to let go of Dakin, forces himself to not seek out news on him, but every time he thinks he’s succeeded there’s an old acquaintance who bumped into him recently or a mention of him in the business papers that Posner can’t remember a reason for reading.
He does what he has to in order to get by. He works odd jobs after he is fired from his teaching post for teaching outside the curriculum, and he wonders how Hector got away with it for all those years. Probably to do with him being an institution after years of servitude to the grand and glorious education system. Posner just prefers George Formby to Whitman some days.
He’s found a pub he likes, which he reckons is better than the four months he spent afraid to leave his flat, riddled with an agoraphobia so crippling that he could barely open the shades, and so did his drinking within. Now he’s something of a regular, with the same stool always waiting for him, and a bartender who knows how he likes to start with gin and end with whiskey. It’s a sad life to be sure, but there’s precious little else to do so he takes what he can get.
“Posner?”
He jumps at the sound of his name, mostly because he can’t remember the last time he’s heard it. And when he turns around, there’s Scripps, of course, whom he hasn’t seen in almost three years. He looks the same really, but his eyes are a little more crinkled at the corners, his posture a little straighter.
“Don?”
“God, it’s been ages! I almost didn’t recognize you.”
It’s an understatement, and he can tell from the way Scripps smiles at the end that he’s trying not to point out that he looks like complete shit. He hasn’t shaved in a few days, which might be all right, but facial hair was the one thing that he never really grew into, his chin covered in patchy spots of scruff that don’t form anything remotely resembling a beard. His eyes are heavy and sad to the point that he’s stopped looking in the mirror because it only makes him more depressed. He’s as thin as he ever was when Scripps knew him, having lost the little bulk he’d gained over the years at Cambridge, during the months when he didn’t leave the flat. At least his shirts are neatly pressed. Thanks, Timms.
He’d given up being self-conscious about it, but with Scripps looking him up and down, his grin fading fast, he feels the mess that he is, and he has to swallow a couple times before he can manage to speak.
“It’s good to see you.” He stands and reaches out a hand, which Scripps takes, his grip firm and practiced.
“Do you mind if I…?” Scripps gestures to the stool next to him, and Posner shakes his head.
Scripps orders them a round and when the barkeep brings it over, he gives Posner a curious glance, surprised to see he has company.
“What are you up to these days?”
He thinks for a minute, trying to find a way to spin his answer, and he thinks of Irwin, prepping them for the exam, teaching them how to spin the things they know into something that sounds more impressive than it is, how to make the dull and repetitive interesting.
But all Posner has done for the past month is sleep and drink and watch old French movies.
“I’m taking some time off,” he says. “Just for a bit. Everything moved so fast for a while with school and work. I never got a chance to catch my breath, you know?”
The second he says, he knows Scripps can see it’s a lie. But Scripps has always been good to him, and so he doesn’t mention it.
“Good for you. I wish I could do the same.”
“You’re at the paper still?”
“Unfortunately. I want to take the time to do some real writing, yeah? But the bills pile up so fast….”
“Married?”
He’s not sure where the question comes from. Not sure why he’s not finding some excuse to leave as he should before his own complete disarray becomes so obvious that even Scripps can’t pretend it isn’t there, cluttering up the conversation.
But Scripps laughs. “No, no. Still looking, I suppose. When I have the time. You?”
Posner shakes his head. “God, no.”
Scripps gives him an understanding smile before bringing his glass to his lips.
“Living round here, then?”
“Yeah, not far. Moved here about a year ago. I didn’t know you were in the area. I would’ve looked you up.”
Scripps has his shirt sleeves rolled up to elbows, and Posner remembers that, that he does that, just as Timms never had his shirttails tucked in properly. And it’s funny the things one can remember, like how Dakin smelled of leather and cigarettes even in his white shirt and school tie. But, no. He’s given up thinking about Dakin, hasn’t he?
“Are you all right?” Scripps asks.
“Yeah. Fine,” he answers, and he forces himself to focus, to remember how social interaction works: give and take.
They end up going back to Scripps’ flat because Posner’s too ashamed to let anyone into his. Scripps grabs them a couple of beers, and Posner settles himself into a large chair far from the windows.
“It’s not much,” Scripps offers, “but it’ll do for now. Trying to save up for a bit so I can quit the paper for a while, maybe write that book.”
“What will your book be about?”
Scripps lets out a slow breath and rubs the condensation on his bottle with his thumb. Posner watches as it chases the drips down the side.
“Hector,” he says, but it’s more like a question, as if he’s asking permission to broach the subject. Posner doesn’t say anything to stop him so he goes on. “And Dakin, and Irwin, and you. All of it. Names changed to protect the guilty, of course. And the innocent,” he concedes after a second of contemplation.
“But why?” He’s tried so hard to forget those years, the ones that he maintains set him on this path. At night he lies awake and contemplates the subjunctive history Dakin was so fond of: if Irwin had never come, they’d never have gotten into Oxford and Cambridge. If Dakin hadn’t been so interested in Irwin, he would’ve been able to dismiss his adoration eventually instead of hoping that Dakin would turn that interest to him. If he’d found himself some girl willing to shag him, maybe he could’ve tricked himself into thinking that was what he wanted.
“It’s…it’s interesting to me, I guess. And I want to get it down whilst I still remember it, I suppose. A permanent record of Hector before I forget him. I think maybe I already have.”
Posner can remember every poem he ever memorized for Hector, all the songs, but he can’t remember the last time he laughed. He can’t remember the last time he spoke with someone for more than a few minutes. He can’t remember what it is like to be happy.
He squeezes the bridge of his nose between his fingers--Irwin used to do that--and tries to will away the tension building there.
“Are you sure everything’s all right?” Scripps asks, leaning closer, resting his elbows on his knees.
The tightness in his throat has returned, and he knows that he has to get out.
“I should be going,” he says, and he sets his bottle down on the table as he stands. The bottle lands on the edge, slips, and crashes to the floor, the beer foaming and spreading across the wood.
“Shit. Shit, I’m sorry. Shit.”
“Leave it,” Scripps says, catching his arm as he turns to-to do something, but he’s not sure what because there’s no way to clean that up with just his two hands.
“I’m sorry,” he repeats.
Scripps is looking at him, and Posner can’t bring himself to look back. They’re standing in the middle of his apartment, all clean and normal with books on the shelf and a working telly and family photos, and this is the life he could have if he just knew how.
“Poz….”
“No one has called me that in years,” he manages to get out before the air is gone and the tears are there, but so is Scripps, his arms wrapping around him, holding him together before he shatters like the glass beneath their feet.
“What happened to you?” Scripps asks against his ear.
And all these years later, Posner is still wishing he knew how to give the right answers.