Inbetweeners fic!
Nothing special at all, just short little ficlets, but I figured I may as well post in case anyone's as desperate for fic as I am.
Also, used a 500 theme prompt list that was overdramatic as fucking hell, which I found hilarious given that I was writing for Inbetweeners.
*11 ficlets
*No pairings
*Some instances of severe Jay-angst
*So much swearing
1.
They sit, bored, in Simon’s tiny bedroom. Will enjoys a glass of orange squash that Simon’s mum brought up for them before she was shooed out. Neil watches the Hollyoaks omnibus, and nobody complains because there’s nothing else on TV on a Sunday afternoon.
Jay points to the blonde onscreen.
“I’d have her.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t already.”
Neil looks at him, affronted. “You can’t do that! She’s a nun now!”
“Not with those tits she’s not.”
They are, in all fairness, brilliant tits. All four agree.
“You know who had knockout melons?” says Jay, wistfully. “That Cristie James, who left six form last year.”
“Yeah, I’d have a go on that.”
Simon narrows his eyes. “Neil, isn’t she your cousin?”
“Why, does that matter?”
2.
They wait for Neil to finish up in his room, which Will feels is both disgusting and remarkably poor manners, but perhaps it serves them right for dropping in unannounced. He gives these thoughts a voice, because Will is Will and he just can’t help himself.
Jay scoffs.
“What’s the problem? You joyless shitpail, everybody wanks. I wank.”
“I think everybody in southern England knows how much you like to masturbate,” says Will. His friends look to him incredulously as he sits between them on the sofa, hands folded in his lap.
“Don’t be so pompous, Will, you can’t say you don’t.”
“Well, no, I’m not saying that, exactly,” he begins, but is interrupted.
“I don’t even want to know what boring jazz rags you beat your meat to. I bet you don’t even watch porn because it objectifies women, I bet you close your eyes and imagine Charlotte on a bed of rose petals in a magical glen.”
“With an orchestra backing you up.”
It’s not the way that Jay switches to speaking in falsetto, or that Simon is laughing, but the fact that Charlotte Hinchcliffe actually is his most frequently visited fantasy that cuts him to the quick. And it actually is fairly vanilla, if he’s honest.
“Next time you set yourself up for an imagination wank, you know what you’re going to see?”
Jay throws an arm across his shoulders, seemingly determined to invade his personal space physically as well as mentally.
“Instead of seeing big tits Charlotte flick herself off, you’re going to see me pulling on my massive cock. You’re going to see me rubbing my huge rod, having a bit of a go on my balls with the other hand, and then I’m going to squeeze out some fat ropes of jizz all over Charlotte-big-tits-”
“Cheeky finger up the bum?”
“No! What?”
“I said, do you put a cheeky little finger up your bum?”
Simon is laughing so hard that he’s on the verge of tears. Jay is horrified, ashen. He removes the friendly arm with breakneck speed.
“No! Fuck off!”
“Do you like a bit of anal stimulation, Jay?” chokes Simon.
“Fuck off!”
“Go and finish Neil off for us, would you?”
3.
Will had known exactly what would happen from the outset when Simon had told them that Carli had gotten a Saturday job as a lifeguard at the leisure centre. He’d fucking well known, had predicted exactly what would happen down to almost every detail, and had been right.
Jay had backed the idea straight away, claiming to have almost been headhunted by the Olympic swimming team (only to be rejected because his massive cock kept coming out of the little speedos). He had been asked to leave pretty swiftly after trying to sneak into the ladies’ changing rooms.
Simon had spent half an hour lounging around by Carli’s post, and had then somehow managed to time his “drowning” during her lunch break. He’d been pulled out, wrapped in a foil blanket and given CPR by a large man with bronzed, rippling muscles and had then been taken away to fill in the accident book in the canteen.
That left Neil and himself. He would’ve left- he really wanted to- but seeing as two small boys had managed to hold him underwater and steal his swimming trunks, that was impossible for the time being.
Neil stands beside Will in the pool, looking uncharacteristically thoughtful. Will realises why when the water around him begins to warm slightly.
“You’re not. You’re not actually doing this. I know we’re friends but you can’t just piss on me!”
“I’m not pissing on you! I’m just having a little wee in the pool! Everyone does that.”
4.
Flustered, Will pulls open the door with oven gloves still on. Jay stands in the orange porchlight, dishevelled, with his hands in his pocket.
“Are you free?” he asks, sounding frustrated.
Will gestures to himself- the oven gloves, the apron, the wooden spoon. “In what sense of the word?”
“Brilliant,” Jay says, pushing past him. Will stretches an arm across the door, barring the way.
“You can’t come in.”
“What? Why?”
“My mum’s just phoned to tell me she won’t be home from work until ten ‘o’clock. I’ve said nobody’s coming over.”
Jay laughs and shakes his head. Then he ducks under Will’s arm and kicks his shoes off into the hall. Will finds himself flapping around his wooden spoon in futility, at a loss as to what to do.
“What are you doing?”
“Keeping you company, aren’t I? Don’t worry mate,” he says, shrugging off his parka and slinging it across a chair. “Mine works late every Tuesday. Used to really upset me. When I was like, six, obviously. No need to be ashamed of it,” he says nonchalantly, and then, with a grin, claps his hand on Will’s shoulder. “So now I’m here you’re not all lonely and that. Because I’m a good friend.”
Will’s got no idea what this is about. Jay’s got to be up to something, because he always is, but he’s not said anything about tits or alcohol, so Will’s genuinely in the dark about the situation. They’re both just stood there, waiting for the other to do something, and it’s a bit weird, actually.
Jay clears his throat awkwardly.
“What’s, um, what’s for tea then?” he asks, in a small voice.
5.
“Simon, look. I need to tell you something.”
It’s May, but she’s really feeling the cold, probably because she hasn’t been eating well, recently. Crossing her arms over her coat, Carli looks down at her shoes. Her mum paid about a hundred quid for them, and they’re only making her feel worse.
“Are you alright, Carls?”
Simon peers at her with concern, and at that moment looks just the way he did when they were ten.
She’s got to tell him. It would be cruel not to. There is that, it is a valid reason and it is important, but more to the point really is that she hasn’t told anyone yet, and if she carries on saying nothing she’s going to go mad.
“I’m only telling you this because I trust you... sometimes I don’t know why, exactly... but if you tell anyone else, that’s it with us, yeah? Okay?”
“Uh, yeah, okay. God, what is it?”
The school doesn’t know, Rachel doesn’t know, her parents don’t know, and Tom doesn’t know either. Carli winces unattractively. It’s such a fucker that when you’re desperate to say something the words never just come out, do they?
She looks over her shoulder and sees that Simon’s shitty friends are waiting for him in his shitty yellow car. God, why’s it so bloody cold? Carli’s hands go to her stomach before she can stop herself. She exhales heavily through the nose, definitely can’t say what she wants to right now.
“You know what Si? I’ll tell you later. I don’t want to be late home tonight. Better get off.”
“Do you need a lift?” he asks her. For the first time in years there doesn’t seem to be any ulterior motive behind what he says, only sympathy, which, despite feeling bad about, she feels is not only unexpected but fucking astonishing.
“No,” Carli says, but finds herself genuinely grateful. “Thanks though.”
6.
“Yeah, there’s a ghost in there.”
“Really?”
“No, Neil” comes the weary reply, “There isn’t.”
“There is, because-”
Is the whole summer going to be like this? Because Will’s had enough of it already.
“You’ve seen it, have you?”
“Yes I have,” Jay says, swaggering toward the Crematorium gates. It’s dusk, not dark, it’s a nice night, and a couple of children are still playing out. Birds are still singing. It’s not a frightening environment at all for Jay’s spooky bollocks, but he’s going to spout it anyway.
Will rolls his eyes so enthusiastically that it gives him a slight headache. He hates urban legends and ghost stories, because both are utter fucking nonsense. He looks to Simon, who’s been trailing behind them for the last fifteen minutes, and sees that he’s still text-pestering Carli. That means he’s on his own then, he thinks, bracing himself.
“Yeah, there was this guy, right? And he was the owner of the place, except his brother killed him,” Jay says, knocking back White Lighting. “And the dead guy’s son found out and killed him, and then he died too.”
“Oh yes, tell them my story, Horatio,” quips Will, wondering whether or not Jay knows his story has shades of Hamlet to it. He probably doesn’t. Suspicions are confirmed when Jay’s face contorts itself into a sceptically mocking grin. Neil watches passively.
“Horatio? What you talking about CSI for? You sadact.”
“God, I’m not talking about-”
“Only sad wankers and girls watch CSI, you loser.”
“I don’t-”
Jay leans with one hand against the iron gates, and when they shift he jumps, and begins walking again. Will sees it happen. Jay sees that Will see it happen, and scowls.
“I bet all the time you don’t spend hilt-deep in pussy, you spend watching CSI.”
Neil laughs. Simon laughs. Will looks at him pleadingly, but he quickly ducks his head and busies himself with his phone, which is fucking typical.
“I don’t fucking watch CSI!”
“CSI!” Neil whoops.
“Ooh, what time’s CSI on?”
“CSI!”
“Ooh, don’t want to miss CSI!”
“Solving crimes with magic!”
“Forensic science isn’t magic! CSI isn’t an accurate representation of forensic science anyway!”
“Is Harry Potter an accurate representation of magic?” asks Neil, and he might be being serious, but fucking fuck him.
“Philistines.”
7.
Simon pulls the door open, scowling. Briefly, Jay wonders if he’s done anything to piss him off recently.
“Alright, mate?”
“God, you’d think she could get the sodding door,” comes the reply. Jay rolls his eyes along with him.
“Women, eh?”
“Yeah, well,” Simon mutters. “What’s up? Coming in?”
“Yeah, my mum found some stuff of mine,” Jay says coolly, and though not a hair is out of place, he’s pretty fucking fucked up over it. Don’t ask, he thinks, because I’m too tired to lie but there’s no way I’m telling you. He shrugs, and plasters a cheeky grin across his face.
“Oh! Oh, right.” Simon crosses his arms and leans against the door frame, clearly enjoying himself. “What was it then? Wank mags? Internet history? A butt plug?”
It was actually a box cutter and a pair of pants with blood on them, he thinks, but at least she didn’t assume he was a rapist or something, and one of your fringe spikes is pointing a different way to the rest, you stupid arse.
“Something like that, yeah.”
“Are you ever in your actual house?” Simon scoffs, with a smile. He stands aside, letting him in.
“Only to wank, mate. Only to wank.”
8.
“No, I can’t. I’m busy. I’m free after midday, though, so-”
“Busy? You’re not busy. We are literally the only thing going on in your life.”
“No, you’re not, actually. I have other responsibilities-”
“Other responsibilities? Like what?”
Will doesn’t blame Simon for being sceptical. Similarly, he can forgive all three of them for taking the piss- tables turned, he would do the same, though perhaps with a little more finesse.
“Getting his mum’s minge ready for photoshoots.”
“Further offending the disabled?”
“Er... shining his briefcase,” Neil offers, which is an old standby that Will is almost fond of hearing again.
“It’s none of those, but thank you for the career advice. I have a Saturday job.”
“Is it flushing all the old spunk out of Neil’s dad’s arsehole?”
It’s actually a paper round, and obviously, nobody can know about it. It might even be more embarrassing than all the other make-fun fodder because it’s something that he’s actually chosen for himself. Will knows that it was the only job the Rudge Guardian would give to him and that if he did it there was the opportunity of a summer temp job, but there would be absolutely no justifying it to these three pricks.
“No, Jay, it isn’t,” he says. “That would be a full time position.”
9.
Neil’s eyes open one at a time, he blinks slowly, and it feels like his eyeballs have been sandpapered. There’s no light coming in through the curtains, so it’s still night time, which is brilliant because he’s knackered and hungover. At first he wonders why he’s woken up, and then notices that his feet are tangled up with Jay’s and that both pairs are poking out of the blanket onto the dirty carpet. Awkwardly, he tries to shuffle the covers down.
He smiles then, because this little seaside holiday was his idea and everyone had thought it was brilliant. True, the cabin they’d rented had turned out to be really shit, but it was the cheapest, so he didn’t know why the others were surprised. Neil didn’t mind that there was only one bed, or that it was so fucked up nobody could actually sleep on it. He was fine with sleeping on the sandy carpet with the old brown blankets, even if they did smell of cats.
He holds his breath so that he can hear the sea. After a few seconds he stops because he can’t actually hear anything, but he knows it’s there, so fuck it, and he closes his eyes again.
Jay lies next to him, snoring softly every so often, and it’s nice because it reminds Neil of what it was like when they were kids. They’d have sleepovers with Simon, but sometimes it would just be the two of them. Jay’d walk round, by himself, angry and sad, with big, red eyes, and Neil knows why but he’s never going to tell anybody because he promised he never would.
Carefully, he untucks the edge of the blanket from under himself to give Jay an extra couple of inches.
10.
It was quite funny at first, in a vindictive sort of way. Jay, who was always so careful to keep a thick layer of macho bullshit spread over himself and everything he did or said, was afraid of lifts.
The gym at the community college Neil was interested in was situated on the top floor, and despite wanting to train to teach P.E. (or something- it’s all the same to Will), he’d refused to take the stairs. They’d all agreed that Neil was a lazy fucker, and had then proceeded to make for the lift anyway.
When Jay had been reluctant to get in they’d taken the piss so much that he’d gone mental and started jumping about in it. Then it had gotten stuck.
Will actually feels quite guilty, watching him stand there rigidly in the corner.
“Look, I didn’t know you were claustrophobic. If I did, I wouldn’t have goaded you.”
“The man said he’d get us out soon,” Neil offers, ducking his head to get a look at Jay’s downturned face. “Here, I’ve got a Freddo,” he says, rummaging around in his jeans pocket.
“I’ve got some Tic Tacs, if you want?”
“I might have an extra strong mint?”
“Stop offering me fucking sweets!” Jay snaps, and the others shrug passively. His voice sounds tinny and flat.
Will makes a conscious effort to look anywhere but at the other boy, and sees Simon reach for his mobile through his jacket pocket, realise that he won’t be able to get any signal, and then pat it pathetically. His hand falls to his side, and he exhales loudly.
“If it makes you feel any better about it mate, I had no idea,” he says.
Jay shrugs.
Will had no idea that waiting around in lifts could be made any more excruciatingly awkward. Likewise he hadn’t thought it possible that his friend could manage to embarrass himself by doing virtually nothing- although, thinking retrospectively, that did seem about right for Jay.
Neil seems to have grown bored of keeping tactfully silent and begins jigging about on the spot.
“Why are people claustrophobic?” he asks, which has Simon looking up too.
“Yeah, did you get stuck somewhere as a kid, or something?”
“Yeah. Well, no, not really,” Jay manages, with his voice strained into a whine. “It just reminds me of something that happened when I was a kid, alright?”
“Is it that shed thing?”
“What shed thing?”
“Can we just fucking drop it?”
They do drop it. Will is actually rather intrigued, not that he would ever admit it.
He’s beginning to feel a bit stir-crazy himself, actually, though it might be because the lift reeks of piss. He also feels quite nervous about the fact that he can hear Jay trying to regulate his breathing because despite being a qualified first aider, he’s not entirely sure what he would do with a scrawny, hyperventilating claustrophobe.
“Maybe you should sit down?”
“I’ll fucking well sit you down in a minute, you speccy, dick-nosed, curly-haired prick,” Jay breathes, fingers flexing against the wall. His eyes are glued to the door, but for a moment, there’s something of the Jay all three of them know and can’t stand in them.
“That’s the spirit!” Will enthuses, and both Simon and Neil look at him as though he’s cracked too, but Will knows that there’s nothing Jay is better at then insulting others. “What’s Neil?” he coaxes.
There are a few seconds of silence, presumably where memory banks devoted purely to insults are plumbed.
“He’s a gangly wanker who fingers his own dad’s arsehole.”
“Yes, Jay! Yes he is!”
“Oi!”
Though he doesn’t move, Jay’s cruel, hurtful, girlish face lights up gleefully.
“Simon’s a stalker who wouldn’t know how to fuck his own hand if his dad hadn’t taught him!”
“I’m not a stalker!”
“You are a bit creepy sometimes,” says Neil, and the atmosphere in the lift takes on a familiar, if frustrating tone. Will is pleased with himself. He smiles.
“That gel looks like come and you’ve got more fringe spikes than you have pubes.”
“Alright, Jay! Jesus!”
11.
As they pile into Simon’s fanny-repelling yellow car they’re all so fucking relieved that it’s Friday it’s unreal. A Levels are drawing near, and they’re all exhausted- even Neil, who almost forgot to call shotgun. Simon sits with his arms outstretched, hands on the steering wheel, but doesn’t move to start the car. Nobody actually minds. For a brief, blissful moment, they sit there in comfortable silence.
Will’s nostrils flare. His lip curls in disgust.
“Does it smell of cigarette smoke in here? Simon?”
“...No.”
“Oh yes it does.”
Jay slides down in his seat, juggling his legs around to make them fit. “When are you two benders getting hitched?”
“Jay, put your seatbelt on.”
“Simon, don’t change the subject,” snaps Will, leaning forward to really get into his personal space. As much as was possible, anyway. “You know how badly smoking damages your health, I can’t believe this!”
“Oh, change the fucking record. I smoke all the time.” Jay tosses his head back with faux nonchalance. “Roll my own. Makes you look hard, don’it?.”
“See? Jay smokes. Roll us one, Jay.”
“No he doesn’t! You know he doesn’t!”
“Oh, um, sorry mate, not got anything on me right-”
“Neil, go in the glove compartment and pass him that tobacco, would you?”
“Neil, don’t you dare!”
“Look, I’m just really stressed out right now, yeah? It’s either this or prostitutes and crack,” says Simon emphatically, gesturing with his hands still on the wheel. Will sighs.
“I’m just hurt you didn’t say anything to me.”
“Sorry.”
The car is silent except for the sound of Neil rummaging around in the glove compartment.
“Have you two poofs set a date yet, then? Who asked who?”