(no subject)
Title: This sad heart of mine
Pairing: David Posner/Don Scripps
Rating: PG-13 - Kissing, a bit of swearing. V. mild sexual imagery.
Summary: In which Posner pines, Scripps is oblivious, and Dakin is Actually Quite Nice.
Word count: About 3,000
Notes: I have studiously avoided my revision to write this. Oh yeah. Priorities. I has them.
Disclaimer: The History Boys belongs to its creators, and I am but a penniless student.
Posner falls out of love with Dakin fairly quickly after getting in to Cambridge. Well. He thinks quickly. It actually took two more months of pining and unceremoniously losing his virginity in March by the river Cam, which, by all rights, should have been romantic - the beautiful grounds, and being kissed until he was breathless by someone who was, frankly, far out of his league. However, getting thorns in places where one should never get thorns rather ruined that, along with the fact the other man reeked of cheap beer and left him alone on the lawn straight afterwards, blades of grass stuck to the damp arch of his back.
It’s around about that point that he decides that, if he is going to fall for anyone again (unlikely - he’d probably be better off becoming a hermit), he could at least fall for the right person.
He still finds bits of grass in his hair, days later.
_
It seems to happen without him noticing.
“I’m over Dakin.” He says, by way of greeting, as Scripps blinks up at him from beneath the blankets, grumbling.
David isn’t particularly happy today. He went to all his lectures, but in something of a grey daze. He can barely recall a chunk of the morning, but thought a visit to his old friend might help. If nothing else, he can rant without too much judgement.
‘Good for you.” Scripps replies, not unkindly, and then sticks his head back over the bowl of steaming water. “I, however, am still dying.” David pats him awkwardly on the back, and leafs through the sheets scattered across the bed. Some of the notes are barely legible. A pile of well-used notebooks teeter uncertainly on the bedside table.
“You gave up on Henry VIII, then?”
‘Ah, I tried. Then failed, miserably. I can’t even read some of these.” He flops back down again, fingers drumming on the rumpled sheets, and David suddenly remembers when he last accompanied Scripps at the piano and feels a little wistful. It seems like so long ago, already.
‘Probably for the best, though. I’ve barely seen you this month at all. You missed tea, by the way.’ He sounds clingy, even to his own ears. It wasn’t even like their meetings for tea were a proper arrangement.
“What made you get over him, then?”
‘I saw him, last week. Completely by chance and…nothing. It was nice to see him again, I suppose, but I didn’t fall at his feet or anything-‘
“No chasing after him?”
‘-Nothing.’
“-singing like a wounded songbird?”
‘Wounded songbird?! I was never a wounded-I didn’t-‘ He can feel himself going pink just at the memory of it, of all his pointless hero worship. Rather than humiliation though, he laughs along too, and feels a little of the tension within him ebb away.
They do end up having tea anyway, though Scripps adds Lemsip to his and on deciding it is, by all rights, just as disgusting as Posner told him it would be, steals half of David’s mug too.
_
They start to see each other much more regularly after that, almost always meeting to have Sunday lunch together. David realises with a sinking feeling that each time he sees Don, the pleasantries of friendship have started to change into something suspiciously like what he used to feel towards Dakin. The same need to be liked, but, rather than feel hopeless about it, after seeing Don he always feels rather cheerful, buoyed up, somehow.
He knows that if he actually stopped to examine his wayward feelings, he’d probably be downright miserable again, because it is hopeless, really. Possibly even more hopeless than the last time. At least Dakin wasn’t religious and celibate.
Still, when they catch the train up to Sheffield together, a few days before Christmas, he’s in fairly good spirits.
David grumbles about the annual family gathering he has to attend (his aunt always asks him if he’s courting and always looks a little sad when he reaffirms that no, no he is not) and Don, though sympathetic, really cannot wait to get back after three months. (“Real food!” he crows. “Something that isn’t beans on toast! Roast Chicken!”).
For the first time in what seems to be a long time, David feels a strong sense of longing. Here we go again, he thinks, Infatuated. This time, he can’t even talk to about it.
He must have been silent for a while, because Don is peering at him.
“Hey, you know, we could play again while we’re back here. I convinced Mum not to get rid of the piano.”
A small voice in the back of David’s head pipes up that it would be a monumentally stupid idea. He’d probably accidently sing something pathetically romantic, or let his gaze linger too long or lean too close and then-
-then Scripps would realise, would look pitying and kind at the same time, the same as he did back at Cutlers.
“Oh Pos, you and your spaniel heart” he remembers, and shudders. He doesn’t think he could take the rejection first hand.
Despite the nagging voice, he still agrees, gladly. He hasn’t sung in so long, and as long as he’s careful, it’ll be fine. Or so he tells himself.
About an hour into the journey, Don nods off, lent sideways in his chair. David, ever the opportunist, rests his head against his shoulder and watches the countryside pass them by in a white blue, melancholia creeping in.
_
They all meet for drinks a couple of times over the holidays, sharing stories about their time at university. David sits between Akthar and Scripps, glass of slowly warming beer in his hand, feeling both wistful and comforted - they’ve all irreversibly changed, but are still able to fall back together as a group.
Perhaps the most surprising thing of all is Dakin’s infatuation with a girl at his college. Apparently, despite his numerous attempts to win her over, she cuts down his more rudimentary attempts with venom. If certain parallels can be drawn between her and Irwin, nobody says anything.
Akthar cannot wait to move out next year, as one of his housemates is particularly messy, and Rudge is somewhat obsessed with a girl whom on the first night of their meeting, managed to drink him under the table.
They stay until nearly closing time, getting steadily more and more drunk, Scripps especially so, gesturing so wildly at one point during his conversation with Timms and Lockwood that he sends a glass flying off the edge of the table. David catches it, just, and replaces it, but the barmaid’s patience looks the be wearing thing when she glances over at them, and when she kicks them out at 1am, she does so with triumph.
The group end up saying their goodbyes in the city centre, and, considering Don nearly wanders into the road on several occasions, he and Dakin walk him back. He sings, occasionally, hideously out of tune, and at one point flings an arm around David’s neck and plants a sloppy kiss on his cheek. David’s chest cramps uncomfortably, but he doesn’t shove him off. He doesn’t want Don to end up face first on the tarmac, after all.
When he looks up Dakin, is watching him strangely.
“Stu! Stu, we’ve missed you!” Don says, laughing a little at the rhyme.
‘That’s nice.’ comes the good natured reply. Dakin himself is a little wobbly, but is at least able to walk in a straight line.
“Annnnnd, Pos’ got himself a fancy man.”
David is momentarily distracted from how Don is pressed up against his side (still stumbling, of course) by spluttering out a denial.
‘I do not have a fancy man! I -
“You told me about him! You said, after you weren’t in love with Dakin anymore, you slept with that blok-“
‘You shagged someone?!’
“Oh god.” David says, wanting very much for the ground to collapse beneath him and swallow him whole.
‘Wait, what do you mean with me, is there someone else?’
“Of course not, don’t be daft!” he replies, but he can feel himself flustering, feel how obvious it must be, even if they can’t see how red he is in the face.
‘Oh, Pos!’ Scripps crows, and ruffles his hair, laughing. ‘Who is it?’
David’s stomach suddenly feels terribly queasy. When he looks up and makes eye contact, Don looks…well, certainly drunk, but happy, nonetheless. The small, utterly mad idea he had of just going “You” all but disappears.
“I’m not in love with anybody, you daft sod.” He says, eventually, and although Scripps seems satisfied enough, putting his hands up in an alright, alright, sorry I asked gesture, Dakin is staring at him, entirely too pensive for someone who has consumed four pints.
_
The walk back from dropping Scripps off is excruciating. His mother had anxiously awaited him, and when he returned smelling a little like a brewery, looked sternly at him, before helping him inside.
‘So…’ Dakin says, staring at him, trying to catch his eye.
“So.” David replies, staring abjectly at the pavement. If he can somehow maintain small talk until he gets home, that would be brilliant, then he can crawl into bed and never show his face again.
‘How long have you been in love with Scripps, then?’
David chokes on air. When he does answer, his voice is rather pathetic.
“Who said anything about me being in love with Scripps?” He aims for calm and collected, but it ends up crotchety and panicked. Story of my life, he thinks glumly.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Pos. You look at him the same way you used to look at me. Do you serenade him at the piano, too?’ He laughs, but it isn’t mean.
“Of course I don’t. We don’t have a piano at Cambridge, anyway.”
‘Hey, there’s two weeks of break left. He has one up here, you know…’
“Oh yes, serenade the celibate, catholic bloke and hope he suddenly decides, you know what, stuff faith, I suddenly lov- fucking hell, are you mocking me?”
‘That’s not what I meant, and no, you know I’m not. I just think you should, you know, tell him. Get it off your chest.’
David scoffs humourlessly. “It wouldn’t work. Even if I got it off my chest, I’d only end up frightening him off. You know what he’s like. He wouldn’t be offended or angry, he’d just…”
‘What?’
“He’d just be all ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’ That’d hurt more, probably.”
Dakin stops to light up a cigarette, Sheffield utterly silent around them. David thinks that this should be romantic, somehow. Wandering around the deserted city, discussing his current unrequited love with his previous one. In reality, it’s just making him tired and even more miserable.
Dakin takes a drag, then carelessly exhales, and if David still fancied him, he’d be weak at the knees.
‘He’s lapsed a bit, you know.’
“What?”
‘Scripps. He hasn’t been going to church as much, and he had a wank in the shower last week.’
Despite it being said so casually, David colours a little. He should probably concentrate on the bigger factor here, the fact that Don might be losing a little faith, but the image if him getting himself off under the spray, groans echoing off the tiling when he came is much more powerful.
He must look a little distant, because Dakin elbows him, laughing. ‘Oi, knock it off. I didn’t tell you so you could almost swoon onto the concrete.’
“I wasn’t bloody swoon- “
‘I just think you might be in with a chance. You’re close to him, right? An’ he talks about you far more than he does any of his other mates, when he writes. Just- you know. Don’t fuck it up.’
As far as advice goes, it isn’t the best. Do something, but don’t fuck anything up, which there is a risk of, but do it anyway.
Still, it’s better than nothing, he supposes.
He sees Dakin in, then begins the short walk back in the drizzle. Before he goes to sleep that night, the last thing he imagines is turning his head when Don had (drunkenly) mouthed at his cheek.
_
How it actually happens is entirely unexpected. David does go around to Don’s house to play the piano, but not until the New Year. He’d tried calling round the day after they went to the pub, and found his friend in such a poor state that the most he could do was sip weak tea and wince at the sunlight, grumbling about how it was all Dakin’s fault anyway, the bastard.
They actually end up spending new year’s eve together, having both decided against the bar crawl proposed (David’s parents would kill him) and the huge family party (Don would happily gnaw his own leg off to escape a three hour conversation with his vaguely racist uncle, but spending it with a friend was a much better excuse).
David still ends up getting rather merry, though, on left over mulled wine, and it’s rather nice, really. Being sat in front of the telly, drinking and talking, feeling far more sophisticated than they have any right to. The bubble has to be burst somehow, though, and when Don turns to him and asks so, who is the bloke, then, things feel rather awkward. Scripps has clearly reached the melancholy stage of tipsy, as any of earlier’s mirth has disappeared.
David shrugs and stares intently at the TV presenter’s tie. It is a rather bizarre shade of green, covered in red dots, and really quite offensive to anyone who might gla-
“Oi, I’m not going to be a bastard about it. I was just wondering. Everyone seems to be pairing off, now. I’m going to be left on the shelf, at this ra-“
‘Come off it!’
“Left on the shelf, forever alone. I’ll get myself a cat and be one of those creepy blokes who live alone, with pets-“
Oh god. I love you. David thinks. Thinks, of course. Daren’t say it.
“Gourmet meals for one, every night-“ They’re both laughing now, and David has to set his wine down so it doesn’t end up on the carpet.
‘You won’t though.’ He sighs. ‘Anyone’d be lucky to have you.’ Fuck, I’ve said too much, he thinks, but Don doesn’t seem to have caught on, just smiles tightly and snorts, turning back to the vile-tied interviewer.
“Dakin said he thought it might be me, you know.” Don says, out of the blue, and David freezes, swallowing hard. He daren’t move, for fear of fleeing. “Was saying anyone with eyes could see you mooning over me.”
Dakin, you great bastard he thinks, not sure if he means it or not.
David holds his breath.
“I told him it was all bollocks, of course. I mean, I would have noticed, with all the time we spend together when we’re down there. Still. You know what he’s like, wouldn’t let it go.” The cynicism in his voice is entirely imagined.
Must be anyway, David thinks, bitterly. To be so close to a confession and to have it torn down before he’s even opened his mouth is agonising. He’d never thought in a million years that it’d be reciprocated, anyway, but the final proof is still rather crushing.
He smiles, weakly, but something must show on his face, because Don looks at him, and his eyes widen.
“Ah, fuck. It’s true, isn’t it?” He sounds more shocked than anything. Not disgusted or awkward, just utterly and completely shocked.
For what it’s worth, David has no idea what to do. Stare at Don like a rabbit caught in the headlights seems like the best idea.
“Oh, Pos, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” He pulls him into an awkward, sideways hug.
David crumples against him, and suddenly has to close his eyes very tight. This is somehow even worse than he expected. Pity, yes, but an attempt at understanding, affection even so, just about breaks him. How can they possibly go back to how things were now?
Which is why he is completely shell-shocked when the hand that was against his back slides into the hair at his nape, and lips press against his own.
‘Fuck!’ he says, articulately, though against Don’s lips, it is more of a fuuuh sound. He shoves himself to the other end of the sofa and cringes a little. Don has his head pressed into his hands.
‘Fucking hell, I don’t want your pity.’ He says, and is surprised at himself. Really, he’d love some. It’d be nice while it lasted. Being dropped when something better comes along would probably wreck him, though, so really, he’s only thinking in the long run. His lips still tingle slightly.
“You think I pity you? Why the bloody hell would I-“
‘Oh, I don’t know, you know I’m a hopeless case, what are you even doing-‘
“I don’t know! You’ve looked fucking unhappy for months, and what Dakin said made sense and- and- I wanted to. I wanted to kiss you.”
‘If this is a bloody joke…’ David says, still not looking up.
“Of course it isn’t, Jesus…”
David considers for a minute. The sound of the TV seems intrusive now, rather than a welcome distraction. He reaches for the remote and switches it off, gathering his courage.
‘Kiss me again.’ He says. His voice shakes a little, even to his own ears.
“You sure, or…?”
He nods, once, skin prickling as Don rests his hand against the side of his face, sigh against his mouth. When their lips finally meet - properly this time - David just about stops thinking altogether.