History Boys fic: Paradigm Shift
Title: Paradigm Shift
Fandom: Alan Bennett - The History Boys
Pairings: Irwin/Dakin
Rating: NC-17
Word count: 4,196 words
Notes: My yuletide story for pun. A huge thank you to meadowlion for the helpful beta.
Paradigm Shift
i.
He's a sad sod, he thinks. Secretly.
He's fairly sure no one else looks at him and thinks, Dakin's a sad fucking sod these days, what the hell's happened to him? Posner, good old Posner, he still hero worships him and waits patiently for a hug, one simple moment. And Scripps might call him a fucking idiot, but it's more a term of endearment than an insult. Felix thinks he's a bastard, but a smart one, and Fiona thinks he's still interested and worth stringing along.
Even Irwin doesn't know. Which is hilarious really, seeing as he's the cause. The Decline and Fall of Stuart Dakin, by Tom Irwin, BA. An over-priced hardback that never makes the display table in Smiths.
*
He doesn't care for Irwin at first. All that talk of foreskins, just showing off, that's all it is. Clumsy at that, unsubtle enough that they all call him on his bull-shitting two minutes into the class. Unimpressive.
But the challenge, that's there from the start. Right from the moment Irwin throws his essay at him.
"A triumph… the dullest of the lot."
He's never been called dull before. All manner of insults, but never dull. He's offended and furious, and at first he's convinced it's nonsense, and then-Then he decides to do something about it, prove the smarmy git wrong.
Dakin can't pinpoint when things change, when wanting to prove Irwin wrong mutates into wanting Irwin's praise. On the surface, there's not even that much difference between the states. He just wants Irwin to admit he's wrong, that Dakin's not dull, not at all.
That's the surface. Underneath, it's completely different. He's not angry any more; he's not even sure what it is he feels. Some kind of strange craving that doesn't match anything he's felt before. It's nothing like the desire he feels when he touches up Fiona's breasts, or when she lets him wander into the no man's land of her inner thighs, soft and plump and warm. And it's nothing like the urge he has to come top of the class - a futile one that, anyway, as Posner always has it made (except in P.E. of course, but then no one gives a shit about that except Rudge and Stanley).
It's deeply disconcerting, this craving.
ii.
"Totty-" Dakin starts.
"Mrs Lintott," Irwin corrects automatically.
"Mrs Lintott-" Dakin says, imbuing the name with as much faux reverence as he can manage, "told us about crossroad moments once. Do you believe in crossroad moments? Sir?"
"I believe that almost every event in history could have gone differently, if that's what you're asking. And this is exactly the sort of question you should be considering in your exam."
"You mean, everyone else will be writing about what did happen, and we could write about what might have happened?" Posner asks.
"Exactly. Consider the what-ifs."
"You mean, like Everett's many-worlds theory?" Timms says.
"Uh, yes."
Dakin watches Irwin, sees the dip of his head. The uncertainty.
"You don't know the many-worlds theory, do you, Sir?" He feels glee. At knowing something Irwin doesn't, having one up on him.
Irwin scratches behind his ear. "I'm not overly familiar with it, no."
"It's Physics, Sir," Timms says. "Mr Caldwell says that Physics is the most important science, and that it impacts on everything. That we can't understand any other subject if we don't understand the basics of Physics."
"I'm sure Mr. Caldwell makes a very good point there. However, knowing that a consequence of the many-worlds theory suggests that a series of different alternatives, all compatible with the original conditions, will branch off from a distinct event in time, is quite sufficient for us to discuss what-ifs."
He looks straight at Dakin. Not overly familiar, but he still knows as much as they do. Victory.
Dakin shrugs and concedes. This time.
"So Star Trek got it right with its parallel universe episodes," Rudge says, sounding faintly bemused, and Irwin blinks a moment and turns to him. Probably surprised to hear him speak up.
"I don't know. I never watched it."
"You never watched Star Trek, Sir? That's terrible," Timms says, horrified. "Didn't you have a telly when you were growing up?"
Scripps jumps up and runs to the piano. He starts to play the theme tune, and everyone else, apart from Irwin, starts humming it.
"Not when I was little, no." Irwin talks over the humming. "But later, yes, we had a television. I just never had any interest in science fiction."
They stop humming and all jump into the conversation, one after another, peppering him with their shock like phaser blasts.
"It's not just science fiction though. It's popular culture."
"It's part of our lives."
"And that's going to be history one day."
"It's important. Hector says you can learn a lot about an era from its entertainment."
"Just think, Sir, so many references you wouldn't understand because you haven't seen Star Trek."
"To boldly go where no man has gone before."
Irwin looks puzzled, and Akthar jumps in. "That's how it starts."
"With a split infinitive?"
"Yes, Sir," they all chime.
"Of course, even the great poets used split infinitives too," Posner says. He stands up, hands behind his back, and recites.
"'To slowly trace the forest's shady scene,
Where things that own not man's dominion dwell,
And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been.'"
He sits down again, point made.
"That's Byron, Sir," Lockwood says.
"I think we've got rather off track here. Focus. We were talking about historical what-ifs. So give me some."
"What if the bullet had missed Archduke Ferdinand," Crowther offers.
"A little obvious, but, yes, that's one option. So if you get a question on the first world war and its causes, show how it might have gone differently, averted even, just by something small."
They discuss other what-ifs that lesson. Dakin doesn't remember them. Just his own what-ifs.
*
He has a multitude of them.
*
If he'd hopped on behind Hector faster, driven off before Felix had come down the stairs ranting and raving. If he'd been on the bike instead of Irwin, going around that corner, it could have all been different.
They'd have had that Sunday afternoon. A pub, down by the canal - Dakin had it all planned out. Short bike ride from his house, it was, but he'd have hidden the bike round the back of the pub, claimed the need for a ride home afterwards.
Irwin would have had half a shandy, bitter shandy, easy on the bitter. Incredibly safe and innocuous, because Dakin's certain he wouldn't have had anything stronger than that when he was driving. Dakin would have had lager, not for any other reason than he liked it - sometimes decisions were as simple as that.
Horsforth was miles off. They'd still have gone back to Irwin's place though. Dakin would have made sure of it. It would have been easy enough - a few taunts, if Irwin demurred, and he'd have caved.
Irwin would have had whisky then, neat, gulped it down like it was tasteless. Always with that dichotomy, in everything. And he wouldn't have stopped Dakin from pouring himself one. He'd have watched every sip like he couldn't help himself.
And he would have sucked Dakin's cock, down on his knees on his own carpet (something bland, an end of roll from Allied Carpet's Boxing Day sale, probably beige) and he'd have been red faced and eager. Pathetically eager, and Dakin wouldn't have bothered returning the favour, because Irwin would have creamed his pants just from sucking Dakin off.
And that would have been the end of it. Not like it would have been so bloody wonderful Dakin would have gone back for seconds.
So he tells himself.
*
Or if he'd pushed, a little harder a little sooner, and Irwin had said yes. Right then, right there. In the classroom. You want it, why wait? and there'd have been the clunk of the key in the lock and the sharp rattle of the blind over the door, and then he'd have been leaning against the front desk, Irwin's desk, trousers tumbling down his legs and his dick hanging out, peeking out underneath his shirt.
Irwin's grunt as he'd fall to his knees, and then hands, uncertain hands, his on the desk, no, in Irwin's hair, guiding maybe, or saying yes. Irwin's hands, would he have been certain in this or not? Dakin can't decide, either way. Irwin would have done his one daring thing for the day, saying yes, so probably he'd be nervous now, tongue poking out between his lips, licking them anxiously as if waiting for instructions. And Dakin would have been ready, because one mouth's the same as any other, and so the hair would be shorter than a girl's, but it'd still feel the same. He'd have pushed Irwin down, and a blow job's a blow job, it'd have been good.
And what if someone had walked in. Felix, apoplectic and trying to shout and avert his eyes at the same time. Or Hector. Dakin thinks he would have been disappointed in both of them. Or Posner - he'd have been jealous and wanted to know why, and maybe Dakin would have told him. Scripps would have pulled the door shut quickly behind him and told him he was an idiot. And Irwin would have been on his knees all that time, the feel of cold parquet soaking through his trousers.
*
It might have made a difference. To Irwin at least, but oddly enough, Dakin doesn't think his own life would have changed that much if any of those had happened. But that's the way it is with such moments; it's impossible to know which ones will make the difference.
It's all just subjunctive history.
iii.
What he never considers at any stage, from all his list of possibilities and ifs and maybes, is meeting Irwin here.
He sees the familiar lines lounging in the entrance way to the college, but he thinks it's just a likeness, someone similar. Surely not Irwin himself, revisiting the site of his shame. He'd been so pathetically humiliated when Dakin had called him on his lie, when he'd admitted he'd not been good enough for Oxford. Dakin can't imagine him being able to walk in here. It's just some other guy with wire-rimmed glasses and floppy sandy hair.
"Fancy a drink?" the guy says, as Dakin passes without a second glance, and Dakin stutters to a halt, barely managing to collect himself in time to look composed.
"I thought that was my line," he replies, as calmly as though he has ex-teachers hanging around his college every day.
"It's hardly a new one. In fact, historically speaking, it's a line that's been around in one form or another for centuries." Irwin's mocking him, Dakin can tell, and feels a sense of pride in him, for being this bold.
Irwin falls into step beside him, and they walk along the gravel path, narrow enough between the smooth lawns that they're shoulder to shoulder, almost touching. Dakin senses the change. Irwin's head is held up, not ducking and nervous and sliding sideways.
"What are you doing here?" Dakin asks.
"Coming to see you."
"No, in Oxford, I mean."
"I'm working, actually. On a documentary for BBC2. We're filming a segment at the Pitt Rivers Museum. So I'm here for a couple of days."
"I'd heard you'd left the school. I'd have thought you would have taken Hector's job."
Irwin shakes his head. "It didn't seem right, somehow. And I needed to move on. I didn't want to end up like-" He leaves the thought unspoken.
The gravel crunches underfoot and helps cover the silence.
"You're different," Dakin says eventually, and pauses a moment to look properly. It's been a year, after all.
"Are you sure? You don't think maybe you're the one who's changed?"
"Oh, I've changed. Can't you hear it, in my voice? I'm losing Sheffield. I pick it back up when I go home for the holidays, but when I'm here I'm almost convincingly Oxonian now. A few stray dull vowels slip in here and there, but nothing too noticeable. I've always been good at fitting in."
"It's not just the accent."
"No. That's just the most obvious change. It's symptomatic though. I'm becoming someone who belongs here."
"And is that making you happy?"
"It's going to make me successful."
"That's hardly the same thing."
"And I thought you were the pragmatist and Hector the idealist. Don't be so bloody naïve. Of course it's the same thing. For someone like me, anyway."
"And what defines someone like you?"
"What he has. What he can get. Who he appears to be."
"You're a sad fucker. You know that?"
So Irwin does know. Maybe he didn't get it back at Cutler's, but he certainly sees it now, and there's a curl in his lip and a look in his eye that Dakin doesn't like.
He still wants Irwin's approval, even now.
"So, are we having this drink, or what?" he asks.
"I'd say, or what. 'What' clearly being a euphemism for activities pretty much unrelated to drinking."
Dakin laughs, and leads the way up to his room.
He closes the door behind them, locking it and leaning against it. Irwin looks around, picking up books and putting them back down again. Fingering the notes Dakin's left on his desk, the Indian Constitution. "'Man was vile,'" he reads. "You're studying Ambedkar?"
"Let me guess, you're going to suggest that I should champion the benefits of the caste system."
Irwin laughs and wanders over to the window.
"Nice view," he says.
"If you like rooftops, yes."
"I've always wanted mullioned windows. There's something about them. So much history taken place behind them."
"So, what, you really wanted to come to Oxford for the architecture?"
"You're a philistine. It's wasted on you," Irwin says, but there's affection in the tone, teasing.
Irwin doesn't seem in any rush. He seems at ease, and this is all wrong, because this is Dakin's room, his offer, and yet he's the one who feels out of place. He turns the radio on, something to break the silence. It's Spandau Ballet, True, and he winces and turns it back off again. He could put an LP on, but it'd seem a bit obvious, somehow.
Irwin sits down, not on either of the chairs, the safe options, but right in the middle of Dakin's bed. He seems amused at Dakin's discomfort. Dakin wonders how the tables have been turned so thoroughly, how he's managed to lose his edge.
He tries. Plays it straight, hoping for a blush, anything. "Are you going to suck me off then?"
It doesn't work. Irwin just looks at him, questioningly. "Why did you offer that before? You didn't really want me to, did you? You could have just left an apple on my desk - it's more traditional."
"Tradition is dull, and you don't like dull." Dakin thinks he probably sounds whiny, like a little boy after approval, which might be funny if it weren't true.
"And you didn't answer my question." Irwin leans back and kicks off his shoes. His leg looks a little stiff, though Dakin hadn't noticed anything amiss when they were walking. "Did you want me to suck you off, back then, in the classroom?"
Dakin wants to be flippant. Flippant used to be easy with Irwin, but that was when it would make him shy away. It seems more difficult now Irwin's bouncing everything back to him, twice as hard. So he tells the truth, and hopes it sounds like a lie.
"No. I just wanted to see if you'd do it."
"And now?"
"Now I'd rather you fucked me." Out with the truth again.
Irwin gasps, a little breathy sound that gives hope to Dakin, that he's still got a hold here, that he's not completely and utterly out of his depth.
Expect he is, because he's never done this before. Sex, yes, of course, plenty of that. There's been no shortage of girls willing to let him lead them behind the cricket pavilion in Christchurch Meadow, hand under their skirt to the muted background sound of polite applause and the thud of leather against a bat. A few guys too, shitfaced, a bottle of Betty Stoggs in one hand, a hard dick in the other. A swill of ale to wash the taste of come down after, nothing said the next day.
But this he wants, and not just because it's forbidden. It isn't really, anyway, not any more. At least, there's room for him to rationalise it. He bets Irwin's good at that, good at rationalising, and for a moment there's a sting of hate inside him, and he doesn't know what he feels. It's all a mess inside him, wanting and despising, and it's not meant to be this difficult. It's meant to be just sex. A kick, a momentary high. Not something that churns his stomach up worse than a May Ball hangover.
He feels like Irwin can see it all. He's watching him, sprawled out on Dakin's bed, elbow on the fat feather pillows, and Dakin feels like a rat on a dissecting board, pinned open for everyone to point at, and he's never been that guy before.
"We going to do this any time soon?" he says into the silence.
"You're the one standing over there looking like a deer in the headlights." Then, gentler. "We don't have to do this, you know. Not now, not yet."
Yeah, we do, Dakin doesn't say. I want to - he doesn't say that either. Instead he finds movement, and walks over to the bed. Only seven steps after all.
He fumbles with his fly. He blames it on cold fingers, but it's only the start of Michaelmas Term, and the thick stone walls are still soaked with the warmth from summer, so he knows he's lying to himself. He drops his jeans eventually, tugging them down his legs, and then has to unlace his trainers before he can get his jeans and pants off.
Irwin pushes himself up and wraps his legs around Dakin's. Dakin can smell his aftershave up this close, Old Spice, very traditional.
Dakin's not nervous, not shaking. Not so anyone might notice.
Irwin takes his glasses off and folds them up, leaning away to place them carefully on Dakin's bedside table.
"I thought that was always the last thing you did? You said so."
"Sometimes the last thing is the first," Irwin says. And then he kisses Dakin.
He wasn't expecting that. Not the tenderness or even any sort of kiss. He leans into it, and Irwin leans back, and they keep on kissing until they're lying down, Dakin still gripped by Irwin's legs.
"Bloody hell," Dakin says. And then he starts the next kiss, clumsy at first, faces mashed together until Irwin's hands come up and frame his face, hold him in place, and then it all gets right. Irwin's not gentle any more, he's nipping and biting at Dakin's lip, and it's going to show later, but that's okay. Dakin's pressing kisses against him too, like a poem that's finally making sense.
Dakin's hands are warmer now, pressed up under Irwin's shirt, against his back, feeling the ridge of bone. He follows it down, slipping his fingers under Irwin's waistband, feeling for the fleshy heat there.
Then it's a struggle and a tumble, and everything else seems far away and foolish, and Dakin's not sure if the sounds he hears are the breaths he's gasping to take or the rustle and susurration of denim and corduroy and polyester. He pushes Irwin's shirt up, undoes his belt, and a zip catches in the hair on Dakin's leg, fuck, sharp tug and it's off, and then there's skin.
Warm hands on his stomach, reassurance, and Irwin's not as slight as he looks clothed. There are calluses on his fingers, and Dakin feels the trace of them across his belly, lower, teasing into the edge of his pubes. He's lying there, letting it happen, and he's not used to this, not used to taking like this.
He thinks he could get used to it. He spreads his legs, open, bare. Lets everything show, and his stomach's still churning but it doesn't matter now. It's new and it's different but it's good.
There's hand lotion beside his bed and a box of condoms in the drawer. He watches Irwin help himself to them, and then Dakin closes his eyes and just feels it. His legs pushed up, and a finger pressing against his asshole, pressing in, and he lets himself relax, lets his body take it, all of it, everything Irwin is offering, until he's full, so incredibly full.
And through it all, Irwin's kissing him, light tiny kisses at first as though he can barely reach Dakin's skin, and then when they're pressed together so tight Dakin can't imagine ever being separate, that tight, they're kissing mouth to mouth. Irwin gasps when he comes, exhalation into Dakin's mouth, stuttery and lost.
Dakin holds him. Kisses him in turn, the salty crook of his neck and the soft skin on his temple, and back to his mouth.
"I think it's time I suck you off," Irwin says, voice a little husky, deeper.
Dakin nods.
He watches. As Irwin licks a trail down his chest and stomach, he watches quietly. At first.
And then he begs. With his hands, pushing a little. And his voice, moaning that he tries to hold in but can't.
Irwin's teasing, licking in the sweaty crease of his thigh and back, behind his balls, where he's still sore.
"Please," Dakin says eventually. "Please," and he can't get any more out than that because the first word was all it took for Irwin to take the head of his cock in. The rasp of tongue is almost too much, and then pressure and heat and it's perfect. He watches Irwin's lips slide up and down, watches his cock disappear inside him, and he feels his balls tighten, feels the familiar ache, and he grunts a warning, some sort of sound, but Irwin doesn't lift off, just swallows around him as he comes.
He sucks softly until Dakin presses his hips down, away, too sensitive for any more, and then Irwin slides up and kisses him. Salty kiss that lingers until there's no taste left.
They doze off, after, curled in together and that's a first too. When Dakin wakes, his head is couched on Irwin's arm, and his hand is resting on Irwin's dick. He's soft, and there's nothing sexual about it even, it just feels like trust. He glances up at Irwin, pillowed against the headboard, and the look in Irwin's eyes makes Dakin blink. It's there only a moment, and then gone, but Dakin knows what he saw. He can't quite restrain a smile.
And then it's just mouths and hands, and the light from the window is softer now, orangey glow as the sun sinks. It makes freckles blend in and scars stand out, and Dakin traces them, the right leg marred by them.
"Do you ever wonder what if?" he asks, hand on Irwin's thigh.
"Got a cigarette?" Irwin asks, and Dakin fishes a pack out of his drawer, and a light. Pulls out one, lights it up, takes a drag and passes it over. Irwin takes it, light inhalation and faint cloud of smoke out, then passes it back. "The thing about history," he says, "is that it's impossible to be objective when you're living it. When it's your own history."
Dakin guesses that's an answer.
"Yeah, me neither," he says, and leans back against Irwin's shoulder and hopes he's got it right.
iv.
And now the unacceptable has happened.
It wasn't supposed to happen this way. He didn't stand at a single crossroads and see this coming. No one could have seen this coming.
The thing is, Dakin's out for all he can get. That's why he's here, not because he wants to be at Oxford, not because it's been his dream since he passed his eleven plus (it hasn't), or because Magdalen has the best history programme (debatable), or because Cotswold stone is easier on the eyes than grey old Sheffield city centre (true). He's here because he got straight As in his A levels and Oxford wants him, and Oxford can give him what he wants. Money, a good life, an easy life. Prestige. A name. What's the point of being smart if you can't get those? And sex, of course, but have the others and that'll come automatically.
He's not supposed to want anything else. He's not supposed to want someone.
He's not supposed to care.
He's a sad sod, he thinks, tracing the lines of the almost illegible phone number scribbled on a scrap of blotting paper in Irwin's crabby writing.
Midnight. He picks up the phone, and calls.
end.
//
Fandom: Alan Bennett - The History Boys
Pairings: Irwin/Dakin
Rating: NC-17
Word count: 4,196 words
Notes: My yuletide story for pun. A huge thank you to meadowlion for the helpful beta.
Paradigm Shift
i.
He's a sad sod, he thinks. Secretly.
He's fairly sure no one else looks at him and thinks, Dakin's a sad fucking sod these days, what the hell's happened to him? Posner, good old Posner, he still hero worships him and waits patiently for a hug, one simple moment. And Scripps might call him a fucking idiot, but it's more a term of endearment than an insult. Felix thinks he's a bastard, but a smart one, and Fiona thinks he's still interested and worth stringing along.
Even Irwin doesn't know. Which is hilarious really, seeing as he's the cause. The Decline and Fall of Stuart Dakin, by Tom Irwin, BA. An over-priced hardback that never makes the display table in Smiths.
*
He doesn't care for Irwin at first. All that talk of foreskins, just showing off, that's all it is. Clumsy at that, unsubtle enough that they all call him on his bull-shitting two minutes into the class. Unimpressive.
But the challenge, that's there from the start. Right from the moment Irwin throws his essay at him.
"A triumph… the dullest of the lot."
He's never been called dull before. All manner of insults, but never dull. He's offended and furious, and at first he's convinced it's nonsense, and then-Then he decides to do something about it, prove the smarmy git wrong.
Dakin can't pinpoint when things change, when wanting to prove Irwin wrong mutates into wanting Irwin's praise. On the surface, there's not even that much difference between the states. He just wants Irwin to admit he's wrong, that Dakin's not dull, not at all.
That's the surface. Underneath, it's completely different. He's not angry any more; he's not even sure what it is he feels. Some kind of strange craving that doesn't match anything he's felt before. It's nothing like the desire he feels when he touches up Fiona's breasts, or when she lets him wander into the no man's land of her inner thighs, soft and plump and warm. And it's nothing like the urge he has to come top of the class - a futile one that, anyway, as Posner always has it made (except in P.E. of course, but then no one gives a shit about that except Rudge and Stanley).
It's deeply disconcerting, this craving.
ii.
"Totty-" Dakin starts.
"Mrs Lintott," Irwin corrects automatically.
"Mrs Lintott-" Dakin says, imbuing the name with as much faux reverence as he can manage, "told us about crossroad moments once. Do you believe in crossroad moments? Sir?"
"I believe that almost every event in history could have gone differently, if that's what you're asking. And this is exactly the sort of question you should be considering in your exam."
"You mean, everyone else will be writing about what did happen, and we could write about what might have happened?" Posner asks.
"Exactly. Consider the what-ifs."
"You mean, like Everett's many-worlds theory?" Timms says.
"Uh, yes."
Dakin watches Irwin, sees the dip of his head. The uncertainty.
"You don't know the many-worlds theory, do you, Sir?" He feels glee. At knowing something Irwin doesn't, having one up on him.
Irwin scratches behind his ear. "I'm not overly familiar with it, no."
"It's Physics, Sir," Timms says. "Mr Caldwell says that Physics is the most important science, and that it impacts on everything. That we can't understand any other subject if we don't understand the basics of Physics."
"I'm sure Mr. Caldwell makes a very good point there. However, knowing that a consequence of the many-worlds theory suggests that a series of different alternatives, all compatible with the original conditions, will branch off from a distinct event in time, is quite sufficient for us to discuss what-ifs."
He looks straight at Dakin. Not overly familiar, but he still knows as much as they do. Victory.
Dakin shrugs and concedes. This time.
"So Star Trek got it right with its parallel universe episodes," Rudge says, sounding faintly bemused, and Irwin blinks a moment and turns to him. Probably surprised to hear him speak up.
"I don't know. I never watched it."
"You never watched Star Trek, Sir? That's terrible," Timms says, horrified. "Didn't you have a telly when you were growing up?"
Scripps jumps up and runs to the piano. He starts to play the theme tune, and everyone else, apart from Irwin, starts humming it.
"Not when I was little, no." Irwin talks over the humming. "But later, yes, we had a television. I just never had any interest in science fiction."
They stop humming and all jump into the conversation, one after another, peppering him with their shock like phaser blasts.
"It's not just science fiction though. It's popular culture."
"It's part of our lives."
"And that's going to be history one day."
"It's important. Hector says you can learn a lot about an era from its entertainment."
"Just think, Sir, so many references you wouldn't understand because you haven't seen Star Trek."
"To boldly go where no man has gone before."
Irwin looks puzzled, and Akthar jumps in. "That's how it starts."
"With a split infinitive?"
"Yes, Sir," they all chime.
"Of course, even the great poets used split infinitives too," Posner says. He stands up, hands behind his back, and recites.
"'To slowly trace the forest's shady scene,
Where things that own not man's dominion dwell,
And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been.'"
He sits down again, point made.
"That's Byron, Sir," Lockwood says.
"I think we've got rather off track here. Focus. We were talking about historical what-ifs. So give me some."
"What if the bullet had missed Archduke Ferdinand," Crowther offers.
"A little obvious, but, yes, that's one option. So if you get a question on the first world war and its causes, show how it might have gone differently, averted even, just by something small."
They discuss other what-ifs that lesson. Dakin doesn't remember them. Just his own what-ifs.
*
He has a multitude of them.
*
If he'd hopped on behind Hector faster, driven off before Felix had come down the stairs ranting and raving. If he'd been on the bike instead of Irwin, going around that corner, it could have all been different.
They'd have had that Sunday afternoon. A pub, down by the canal - Dakin had it all planned out. Short bike ride from his house, it was, but he'd have hidden the bike round the back of the pub, claimed the need for a ride home afterwards.
Irwin would have had half a shandy, bitter shandy, easy on the bitter. Incredibly safe and innocuous, because Dakin's certain he wouldn't have had anything stronger than that when he was driving. Dakin would have had lager, not for any other reason than he liked it - sometimes decisions were as simple as that.
Horsforth was miles off. They'd still have gone back to Irwin's place though. Dakin would have made sure of it. It would have been easy enough - a few taunts, if Irwin demurred, and he'd have caved.
Irwin would have had whisky then, neat, gulped it down like it was tasteless. Always with that dichotomy, in everything. And he wouldn't have stopped Dakin from pouring himself one. He'd have watched every sip like he couldn't help himself.
And he would have sucked Dakin's cock, down on his knees on his own carpet (something bland, an end of roll from Allied Carpet's Boxing Day sale, probably beige) and he'd have been red faced and eager. Pathetically eager, and Dakin wouldn't have bothered returning the favour, because Irwin would have creamed his pants just from sucking Dakin off.
And that would have been the end of it. Not like it would have been so bloody wonderful Dakin would have gone back for seconds.
So he tells himself.
*
Or if he'd pushed, a little harder a little sooner, and Irwin had said yes. Right then, right there. In the classroom. You want it, why wait? and there'd have been the clunk of the key in the lock and the sharp rattle of the blind over the door, and then he'd have been leaning against the front desk, Irwin's desk, trousers tumbling down his legs and his dick hanging out, peeking out underneath his shirt.
Irwin's grunt as he'd fall to his knees, and then hands, uncertain hands, his on the desk, no, in Irwin's hair, guiding maybe, or saying yes. Irwin's hands, would he have been certain in this or not? Dakin can't decide, either way. Irwin would have done his one daring thing for the day, saying yes, so probably he'd be nervous now, tongue poking out between his lips, licking them anxiously as if waiting for instructions. And Dakin would have been ready, because one mouth's the same as any other, and so the hair would be shorter than a girl's, but it'd still feel the same. He'd have pushed Irwin down, and a blow job's a blow job, it'd have been good.
And what if someone had walked in. Felix, apoplectic and trying to shout and avert his eyes at the same time. Or Hector. Dakin thinks he would have been disappointed in both of them. Or Posner - he'd have been jealous and wanted to know why, and maybe Dakin would have told him. Scripps would have pulled the door shut quickly behind him and told him he was an idiot. And Irwin would have been on his knees all that time, the feel of cold parquet soaking through his trousers.
*
It might have made a difference. To Irwin at least, but oddly enough, Dakin doesn't think his own life would have changed that much if any of those had happened. But that's the way it is with such moments; it's impossible to know which ones will make the difference.
It's all just subjunctive history.
iii.
What he never considers at any stage, from all his list of possibilities and ifs and maybes, is meeting Irwin here.
He sees the familiar lines lounging in the entrance way to the college, but he thinks it's just a likeness, someone similar. Surely not Irwin himself, revisiting the site of his shame. He'd been so pathetically humiliated when Dakin had called him on his lie, when he'd admitted he'd not been good enough for Oxford. Dakin can't imagine him being able to walk in here. It's just some other guy with wire-rimmed glasses and floppy sandy hair.
"Fancy a drink?" the guy says, as Dakin passes without a second glance, and Dakin stutters to a halt, barely managing to collect himself in time to look composed.
"I thought that was my line," he replies, as calmly as though he has ex-teachers hanging around his college every day.
"It's hardly a new one. In fact, historically speaking, it's a line that's been around in one form or another for centuries." Irwin's mocking him, Dakin can tell, and feels a sense of pride in him, for being this bold.
Irwin falls into step beside him, and they walk along the gravel path, narrow enough between the smooth lawns that they're shoulder to shoulder, almost touching. Dakin senses the change. Irwin's head is held up, not ducking and nervous and sliding sideways.
"What are you doing here?" Dakin asks.
"Coming to see you."
"No, in Oxford, I mean."
"I'm working, actually. On a documentary for BBC2. We're filming a segment at the Pitt Rivers Museum. So I'm here for a couple of days."
"I'd heard you'd left the school. I'd have thought you would have taken Hector's job."
Irwin shakes his head. "It didn't seem right, somehow. And I needed to move on. I didn't want to end up like-" He leaves the thought unspoken.
The gravel crunches underfoot and helps cover the silence.
"You're different," Dakin says eventually, and pauses a moment to look properly. It's been a year, after all.
"Are you sure? You don't think maybe you're the one who's changed?"
"Oh, I've changed. Can't you hear it, in my voice? I'm losing Sheffield. I pick it back up when I go home for the holidays, but when I'm here I'm almost convincingly Oxonian now. A few stray dull vowels slip in here and there, but nothing too noticeable. I've always been good at fitting in."
"It's not just the accent."
"No. That's just the most obvious change. It's symptomatic though. I'm becoming someone who belongs here."
"And is that making you happy?"
"It's going to make me successful."
"That's hardly the same thing."
"And I thought you were the pragmatist and Hector the idealist. Don't be so bloody naïve. Of course it's the same thing. For someone like me, anyway."
"And what defines someone like you?"
"What he has. What he can get. Who he appears to be."
"You're a sad fucker. You know that?"
So Irwin does know. Maybe he didn't get it back at Cutler's, but he certainly sees it now, and there's a curl in his lip and a look in his eye that Dakin doesn't like.
He still wants Irwin's approval, even now.
"So, are we having this drink, or what?" he asks.
"I'd say, or what. 'What' clearly being a euphemism for activities pretty much unrelated to drinking."
Dakin laughs, and leads the way up to his room.
He closes the door behind them, locking it and leaning against it. Irwin looks around, picking up books and putting them back down again. Fingering the notes Dakin's left on his desk, the Indian Constitution. "'Man was vile,'" he reads. "You're studying Ambedkar?"
"Let me guess, you're going to suggest that I should champion the benefits of the caste system."
Irwin laughs and wanders over to the window.
"Nice view," he says.
"If you like rooftops, yes."
"I've always wanted mullioned windows. There's something about them. So much history taken place behind them."
"So, what, you really wanted to come to Oxford for the architecture?"
"You're a philistine. It's wasted on you," Irwin says, but there's affection in the tone, teasing.
Irwin doesn't seem in any rush. He seems at ease, and this is all wrong, because this is Dakin's room, his offer, and yet he's the one who feels out of place. He turns the radio on, something to break the silence. It's Spandau Ballet, True, and he winces and turns it back off again. He could put an LP on, but it'd seem a bit obvious, somehow.
Irwin sits down, not on either of the chairs, the safe options, but right in the middle of Dakin's bed. He seems amused at Dakin's discomfort. Dakin wonders how the tables have been turned so thoroughly, how he's managed to lose his edge.
He tries. Plays it straight, hoping for a blush, anything. "Are you going to suck me off then?"
It doesn't work. Irwin just looks at him, questioningly. "Why did you offer that before? You didn't really want me to, did you? You could have just left an apple on my desk - it's more traditional."
"Tradition is dull, and you don't like dull." Dakin thinks he probably sounds whiny, like a little boy after approval, which might be funny if it weren't true.
"And you didn't answer my question." Irwin leans back and kicks off his shoes. His leg looks a little stiff, though Dakin hadn't noticed anything amiss when they were walking. "Did you want me to suck you off, back then, in the classroom?"
Dakin wants to be flippant. Flippant used to be easy with Irwin, but that was when it would make him shy away. It seems more difficult now Irwin's bouncing everything back to him, twice as hard. So he tells the truth, and hopes it sounds like a lie.
"No. I just wanted to see if you'd do it."
"And now?"
"Now I'd rather you fucked me." Out with the truth again.
Irwin gasps, a little breathy sound that gives hope to Dakin, that he's still got a hold here, that he's not completely and utterly out of his depth.
Expect he is, because he's never done this before. Sex, yes, of course, plenty of that. There's been no shortage of girls willing to let him lead them behind the cricket pavilion in Christchurch Meadow, hand under their skirt to the muted background sound of polite applause and the thud of leather against a bat. A few guys too, shitfaced, a bottle of Betty Stoggs in one hand, a hard dick in the other. A swill of ale to wash the taste of come down after, nothing said the next day.
But this he wants, and not just because it's forbidden. It isn't really, anyway, not any more. At least, there's room for him to rationalise it. He bets Irwin's good at that, good at rationalising, and for a moment there's a sting of hate inside him, and he doesn't know what he feels. It's all a mess inside him, wanting and despising, and it's not meant to be this difficult. It's meant to be just sex. A kick, a momentary high. Not something that churns his stomach up worse than a May Ball hangover.
He feels like Irwin can see it all. He's watching him, sprawled out on Dakin's bed, elbow on the fat feather pillows, and Dakin feels like a rat on a dissecting board, pinned open for everyone to point at, and he's never been that guy before.
"We going to do this any time soon?" he says into the silence.
"You're the one standing over there looking like a deer in the headlights." Then, gentler. "We don't have to do this, you know. Not now, not yet."
Yeah, we do, Dakin doesn't say. I want to - he doesn't say that either. Instead he finds movement, and walks over to the bed. Only seven steps after all.
He fumbles with his fly. He blames it on cold fingers, but it's only the start of Michaelmas Term, and the thick stone walls are still soaked with the warmth from summer, so he knows he's lying to himself. He drops his jeans eventually, tugging them down his legs, and then has to unlace his trainers before he can get his jeans and pants off.
Irwin pushes himself up and wraps his legs around Dakin's. Dakin can smell his aftershave up this close, Old Spice, very traditional.
Dakin's not nervous, not shaking. Not so anyone might notice.
Irwin takes his glasses off and folds them up, leaning away to place them carefully on Dakin's bedside table.
"I thought that was always the last thing you did? You said so."
"Sometimes the last thing is the first," Irwin says. And then he kisses Dakin.
He wasn't expecting that. Not the tenderness or even any sort of kiss. He leans into it, and Irwin leans back, and they keep on kissing until they're lying down, Dakin still gripped by Irwin's legs.
"Bloody hell," Dakin says. And then he starts the next kiss, clumsy at first, faces mashed together until Irwin's hands come up and frame his face, hold him in place, and then it all gets right. Irwin's not gentle any more, he's nipping and biting at Dakin's lip, and it's going to show later, but that's okay. Dakin's pressing kisses against him too, like a poem that's finally making sense.
Dakin's hands are warmer now, pressed up under Irwin's shirt, against his back, feeling the ridge of bone. He follows it down, slipping his fingers under Irwin's waistband, feeling for the fleshy heat there.
Then it's a struggle and a tumble, and everything else seems far away and foolish, and Dakin's not sure if the sounds he hears are the breaths he's gasping to take or the rustle and susurration of denim and corduroy and polyester. He pushes Irwin's shirt up, undoes his belt, and a zip catches in the hair on Dakin's leg, fuck, sharp tug and it's off, and then there's skin.
Warm hands on his stomach, reassurance, and Irwin's not as slight as he looks clothed. There are calluses on his fingers, and Dakin feels the trace of them across his belly, lower, teasing into the edge of his pubes. He's lying there, letting it happen, and he's not used to this, not used to taking like this.
He thinks he could get used to it. He spreads his legs, open, bare. Lets everything show, and his stomach's still churning but it doesn't matter now. It's new and it's different but it's good.
There's hand lotion beside his bed and a box of condoms in the drawer. He watches Irwin help himself to them, and then Dakin closes his eyes and just feels it. His legs pushed up, and a finger pressing against his asshole, pressing in, and he lets himself relax, lets his body take it, all of it, everything Irwin is offering, until he's full, so incredibly full.
And through it all, Irwin's kissing him, light tiny kisses at first as though he can barely reach Dakin's skin, and then when they're pressed together so tight Dakin can't imagine ever being separate, that tight, they're kissing mouth to mouth. Irwin gasps when he comes, exhalation into Dakin's mouth, stuttery and lost.
Dakin holds him. Kisses him in turn, the salty crook of his neck and the soft skin on his temple, and back to his mouth.
"I think it's time I suck you off," Irwin says, voice a little husky, deeper.
Dakin nods.
He watches. As Irwin licks a trail down his chest and stomach, he watches quietly. At first.
And then he begs. With his hands, pushing a little. And his voice, moaning that he tries to hold in but can't.
Irwin's teasing, licking in the sweaty crease of his thigh and back, behind his balls, where he's still sore.
"Please," Dakin says eventually. "Please," and he can't get any more out than that because the first word was all it took for Irwin to take the head of his cock in. The rasp of tongue is almost too much, and then pressure and heat and it's perfect. He watches Irwin's lips slide up and down, watches his cock disappear inside him, and he feels his balls tighten, feels the familiar ache, and he grunts a warning, some sort of sound, but Irwin doesn't lift off, just swallows around him as he comes.
He sucks softly until Dakin presses his hips down, away, too sensitive for any more, and then Irwin slides up and kisses him. Salty kiss that lingers until there's no taste left.
They doze off, after, curled in together and that's a first too. When Dakin wakes, his head is couched on Irwin's arm, and his hand is resting on Irwin's dick. He's soft, and there's nothing sexual about it even, it just feels like trust. He glances up at Irwin, pillowed against the headboard, and the look in Irwin's eyes makes Dakin blink. It's there only a moment, and then gone, but Dakin knows what he saw. He can't quite restrain a smile.
And then it's just mouths and hands, and the light from the window is softer now, orangey glow as the sun sinks. It makes freckles blend in and scars stand out, and Dakin traces them, the right leg marred by them.
"Do you ever wonder what if?" he asks, hand on Irwin's thigh.
"Got a cigarette?" Irwin asks, and Dakin fishes a pack out of his drawer, and a light. Pulls out one, lights it up, takes a drag and passes it over. Irwin takes it, light inhalation and faint cloud of smoke out, then passes it back. "The thing about history," he says, "is that it's impossible to be objective when you're living it. When it's your own history."
Dakin guesses that's an answer.
"Yeah, me neither," he says, and leans back against Irwin's shoulder and hopes he's got it right.
iv.
And now the unacceptable has happened.
It wasn't supposed to happen this way. He didn't stand at a single crossroads and see this coming. No one could have seen this coming.
The thing is, Dakin's out for all he can get. That's why he's here, not because he wants to be at Oxford, not because it's been his dream since he passed his eleven plus (it hasn't), or because Magdalen has the best history programme (debatable), or because Cotswold stone is easier on the eyes than grey old Sheffield city centre (true). He's here because he got straight As in his A levels and Oxford wants him, and Oxford can give him what he wants. Money, a good life, an easy life. Prestige. A name. What's the point of being smart if you can't get those? And sex, of course, but have the others and that'll come automatically.
He's not supposed to want anything else. He's not supposed to want someone.
He's not supposed to care.
He's a sad sod, he thinks, tracing the lines of the almost illegible phone number scribbled on a scrap of blotting paper in Irwin's crabby writing.
Midnight. He picks up the phone, and calls.
end.
//