The History Boys Fic
My first 'The History Boys' fic, and hopefully not my last. Also GIP for digthatcat's wonderful icon that goes perfectly with this fic!
Title: The Accompanist
Author: earis
Characters: Scripps, Posner, Dakin
Rating: PG-13 for language
Pairing: Gen, really. Posner/Scripps if you want.
Word Count: 1,968
Disclaimer: 'The History Boys' in no way belong to me. I make no money and intend no copyright infringement.
Notes: Much thanks are sent out to thekatiefactor and lostpursuits for being my betas. Any problems left are mine. I love criticism and feedback!
Summary: Playing the piano was, in origin, a way to keep out of the muck of things. Unfortunately for Scripps, the muck of things is impossible to escape.
The Accompanist
Playing the piano was, in origin, a way to keep out of the muck of things. Scripps had volunteered to take Hector’s usual place at the piano one afternoon to accompany Posner on ‘Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien’. It was a rather clever move on his part, thought Scripps. He was vital to classroom antics, but he didn’t have to say much. Which was okay by him, he didn’t have much to say.
Eventually Scripps started practicing with Posner during free period. Together they mastered operettas, torch songs, and musicals. One particularly dreary Saturday afternoon, Dakin let them into the school auditorium. They spent the time working through the works of Cole Porter, someone that Hector praised for being exquisitely ludicrous. Even Dakin got into the spirit of things as he danced along to 'Puttin’ On the Ritz'.” He ended up singing Billy Crocker’s part in ‘You’re the Top’. Dakin couldn’t really carry a tune, but he hammed his way through the verses. Scripps smiled down into the jingle of the keys at the sight of Dakin twirling Posner across the stage.
After the number Dakin bowed to the blushing Posner, the imaginary audience, and “his talented accompanist.” Scripps told him to stick it up his arse.
Dakin pretended to ponder this for a moment, his expressive brow furrowed and his hand stroking his chin in a parody of thought. “No,” he eventually decided. “I don’t think the fair Fiona would condescend to share her exquisite, but elusive pleasures with a suitor given to anal insertion.”
Posner stared, mouth open. “Fiona? The headmaster’s secretary? Are you serious?”
Dakin smirked. “Jealous? I would be.”
“Of yourself or of Fiona?” Scripps remarked, crossing his arms over his chest.
“You can decide for yourself tomorrow when I give you the full report,” Dakin teased. “Unless you’re morally opposed to accounts of wanton promiscuity, Father Donald?”
Scripps grinned, “No, I’m morally opposed to an abridged text.”
“Perv.” Dakin shook his head. “Speaking of the lovely lady, I’m off to convince her to gather her rosebuds while she may.” He zipped up his coat and tossed the music room key to Posner. Posner caught it with both hands against his chest. “Lock up afterwards.”
And with that he took his leave.
Posner collapsed into a chair next to Scripps. “Do you really believe he’s going with Fiona?”
Scripps sighed. “It explains how he filched the music room key. Probably got it from Felix’s office himself.”
Posner looked glumly at his hands.
The next week, Scripps convinced Dakin to perform ‘You’re the Top’ with Posner for the class. Hector praised them highly and then proceeded to quiz them about every reference in the song from the Louvre Museum to Jimmy Durante.
Soon it was taken for granted that Scripps would play for all their endings. The boys scoured the local video stores and libraries, looking for movies they could bring to Hector. Posner chose his based on the quality of the movies. Dakin usually went for the darker, dramatic movies like The Seventh Veil or Lolita. Timms took his mother’s suggestions, and Crowther had a fondness for playing Bogart. Akthar’s one contribution to an exercise he found a bit dodgy was Some Like It Hot. Lockwood simply picked movies that required him to smoke in class.
One day Rudge brought up Star Wars. He was universally shot down.
It was rare that Scripps ever did anything in the scenes but play the piano, and yet no one, not even Hector, noticed this.
Brief Encounter, unsurprisingly, had been Posner’s idea. “I know it’s famous,” he said, “but my Celia Johnson’s tops.”
“That’ll change when your balls drop,” joked Scripps.
“Oh, so not before 30, then.” Posner retorted. “Anyway, see what you think. We may even be able to get Dakin to do Cyril Raymond.”
Scripps stuffed the tape into his bag and promised that he would take a look at it. He watched it with his mother, who kept up a running commentary that blended nicely with the music.
As he watched the movie, he found himself wondering about unrealized love. Undeveloped, unrequited, unexamined love that was forced to grow up in corners and in silence. Unsurprisingly, he ended up in church with his head in one hand and the other playing Rachmaninoff on the top of the pew.
“Did you watch it?” Posner asked.
“I want to play Fred,” Scripps said by way of answer.
“But then who will play the music?”
Scripps thought about it. “I’ll play the music over Laura’s monologue, and when she stops, I’ll stop.”
Then the A-Levels results came. And Mr. Irwin. Before Scripps knew who Irwin was, he saw him coming in for an interview with the headmaster. He thought he was another student, a new boy perhaps. They exchanged a smile. As the term rattled on, Scripps found himself less and less at the piano and more and more at church. He found it hard to study as he tried to figure out the difference between Hector’s lying and Irwin’s lying.
One morning before school, Posner asked an odd question. “Is envy one of the seven deadly sins?”
“It is,” Scripps said.
Posner sighed, “I envy Dakin. I envy everything he has. His voice, his stubble, the hair on his legs, I envy it - him.”
“I hate to break it to you Posner, but I don’t think that’s envy. I think it’s love.”
Posner thought about this for a moment. “You think I . . .”
Scripps didn’t let him finish. “It’s uncommon, Poz, but it’s not unheard of that one boy occasionally falls for some older, more experienced boy. It’s a phase.”
Later that day, Posner pursued the matter further. “If you’re right, if I do . . . love Dakin, and I’m not saying I do, but if I do, do you think me might love me? He is nice to me, in his fashion.”
Scripps closed his copy of Candide. “You know Dakin’s my mate,” he said. “But he’s a twat.”
Posner shook his head. “Not always.”
“Not always,” Scripps agreed. “But often enough.”
“He’s just self-involved.”
“A self-involved twat then. You fool. He lets you follow him about not because he likes you, but because he expects it.” Scripps's words were harsh, but his tone was not unkind.
“But that’s just it,” Posner explained in his high, clear voice. “I love that he lets me. I’m bewitched by him.”
“Bewitched, bothered, and bewildered?” Scripps asked.
“In the words of the poet,” Posner said archly.
“Hector would love it.”
“What?”
“Rogers and Hart. Plenty of past participles there. You should sing it for him.”
“For Hector?” Posner asked, “Or for Dakin?”
“Either,” Scripps said. For yourself, he thought. “Cheer up, Posner. You realize that you’ve gotten further with Dakin than Dakin has with Fiona?”
Posner looked up, “What do you mean?”
Scripps grinned, eyes twinkling. “You’ve gotten him down to his pants.”
A smile broke out over Posner’s face. “I have, haven’t I?” he said, laughing.
But the lessons and the love began to take their toll on Posner. He and Scripps rarely had free time to practice together anymore, even though Posner still had the key. More often than not, Posner went home to study in silence and Scripps stayed in the library until it was time for evening services.
“Envy still one of the seven?” Scripps heard one evening as he left church.
Scripps started. He hadn’t even noticed Posner was standing next to him until he had spoken. “Posner, I didn’t see you there.” Scripps said. He looked at his classmate in the evening light and saw shadows in his eyes.
“I thought I’d drop by, sort of a study break.” Posner fiddled with his sleeve. “I talked to Irwin a few weeks back.”
“About?” Scripps asked.
“My problem.” Posner paused for a moment, his eyes focused on a point just below Scripps left shoulder. “There’s something wrong with me, isn’t there?”
“What?”
“I’m just so different than the rest of you.”
Scripps gave a dry little laugh, “Akhtar’s Moslem, Rudge’s thick, Timms’s fat, Crowther’s black, Lockwood’s poor, Dakin’s a tart, I’m in love with Jesus, and you’re . . . different? How? Because you’re Jewish? Because you’re young?”
Posner looked him right in the face and said, “Because I’m a bloody faggot.”
“You’re too young to be it or say it. It’s a phase, Poz,” Scripps assured. “Some boys go through it.”
“Did you?” Posner asked in that pointed way of his.
Scripps looked away.
Posner grimaced. “Right.”
The day that Hector broke down stuck horribly in Scripps’s mind like communion in a dry throat. He thought he should have gone to the man, comforted him in some way, maybe even given him his hand. Any small gesture that proved the humanity of both parties. But the gap between student and teacher had never seemed so frighteningly non-existent. Everyone had felt it. They sat there, unable to get over their paralysis, unsure that they wanted to. Except Posner. Ironic, it was. The Jew being more Christian than the Christians in the room.
“It’s hopeless, Scripps.” Dakin complained. “Completely hopeless.”
“Is this about Irwin again?”
“Who else?”
Scripps decided to go for it. “Do you ever wonder if there is any difference between you and Posner and Irwin and you?”
“What?” Dakin looked insulted. “It’s worlds apart!”
“Is it?”
“Posner’s young,” Dakin said, by way of explanation. “He’s just going through a phase.”
“And you and Irwin, that’s not a phase?”
“I don’t know. He won’t let me find out.”
Scripps just looked at him.
“Point taken,” Dakin conceded. "But you’ve got to admit; Posner's infatuation with me is boring because I want nothing to do with him. Irwin and me, well, we’re different. It’s mutual. Reciprocated.”
“Really,” Scripps countered. “How do you know?”
“I don’t know,” Dakin said. “It’s just a feeling I get when we argue.”
Scripps thought about this for a moment. “But you don’t argue with Irwin.”
“I argue with him everyday!” Dakin exclaimed indignantly.
“No, you quarrel with him everyday,” Scripps said, a note of derision creeping into his voice. “And you lap up whatever he dishes out without questioning its contents. At least Posner can draw a line and defend it.” Scripps felt his argument pick up steam, as if this was something that had been niggling at him for ages and now, being allowed to see the light of day, was finally growing to its proper size. “He can even challenge you from it. With Posner there is no turning the situation on its head. He forces you to face the truth of the matter, even is he doesn’t really understand it.”
When he finished, Dakin looked at him. “Since when are you Posner’s champion?”
“Since he fell in love with you,” Scripps said, not unkindly. Dakin was, after all, his mate.
“Awww,” Dakin teased. “You just like the poor sod because he lets you pick the music.”
After the discussion about the Holocaust, Scripps found Posner sitting alone on the piano bench in the auditorium, staring intently down at the ivory keys. He sat next to him on the bench. “Whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent.” Silence as the only proper response. Scripps knew proper silences, reverential silences, silences pregnant with meaning. This silence was just silence, and Scripps finally realized the horror of Wittgenstein’s words.
He lifted his hands and started playing the opening measures of ‘Strange Fruit.' Posner joined in, letting his light tenor drop and break around the edges of the song like water falling over cut glass. When the song was over, Posner simply rested his head on Scripps shoulder and they sat there for a while, the singer and his accompanist.
The End.
Title: The Accompanist
Author: earis
Characters: Scripps, Posner, Dakin
Rating: PG-13 for language
Pairing: Gen, really. Posner/Scripps if you want.
Word Count: 1,968
Disclaimer: 'The History Boys' in no way belong to me. I make no money and intend no copyright infringement.
Notes: Much thanks are sent out to thekatiefactor and lostpursuits for being my betas. Any problems left are mine. I love criticism and feedback!
Summary: Playing the piano was, in origin, a way to keep out of the muck of things. Unfortunately for Scripps, the muck of things is impossible to escape.
The Accompanist
Playing the piano was, in origin, a way to keep out of the muck of things. Scripps had volunteered to take Hector’s usual place at the piano one afternoon to accompany Posner on ‘Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien’. It was a rather clever move on his part, thought Scripps. He was vital to classroom antics, but he didn’t have to say much. Which was okay by him, he didn’t have much to say.
Eventually Scripps started practicing with Posner during free period. Together they mastered operettas, torch songs, and musicals. One particularly dreary Saturday afternoon, Dakin let them into the school auditorium. They spent the time working through the works of Cole Porter, someone that Hector praised for being exquisitely ludicrous. Even Dakin got into the spirit of things as he danced along to 'Puttin’ On the Ritz'.” He ended up singing Billy Crocker’s part in ‘You’re the Top’. Dakin couldn’t really carry a tune, but he hammed his way through the verses. Scripps smiled down into the jingle of the keys at the sight of Dakin twirling Posner across the stage.
After the number Dakin bowed to the blushing Posner, the imaginary audience, and “his talented accompanist.” Scripps told him to stick it up his arse.
Dakin pretended to ponder this for a moment, his expressive brow furrowed and his hand stroking his chin in a parody of thought. “No,” he eventually decided. “I don’t think the fair Fiona would condescend to share her exquisite, but elusive pleasures with a suitor given to anal insertion.”
Posner stared, mouth open. “Fiona? The headmaster’s secretary? Are you serious?”
Dakin smirked. “Jealous? I would be.”
“Of yourself or of Fiona?” Scripps remarked, crossing his arms over his chest.
“You can decide for yourself tomorrow when I give you the full report,” Dakin teased. “Unless you’re morally opposed to accounts of wanton promiscuity, Father Donald?”
Scripps grinned, “No, I’m morally opposed to an abridged text.”
“Perv.” Dakin shook his head. “Speaking of the lovely lady, I’m off to convince her to gather her rosebuds while she may.” He zipped up his coat and tossed the music room key to Posner. Posner caught it with both hands against his chest. “Lock up afterwards.”
And with that he took his leave.
Posner collapsed into a chair next to Scripps. “Do you really believe he’s going with Fiona?”
Scripps sighed. “It explains how he filched the music room key. Probably got it from Felix’s office himself.”
Posner looked glumly at his hands.
The next week, Scripps convinced Dakin to perform ‘You’re the Top’ with Posner for the class. Hector praised them highly and then proceeded to quiz them about every reference in the song from the Louvre Museum to Jimmy Durante.
Soon it was taken for granted that Scripps would play for all their endings. The boys scoured the local video stores and libraries, looking for movies they could bring to Hector. Posner chose his based on the quality of the movies. Dakin usually went for the darker, dramatic movies like The Seventh Veil or Lolita. Timms took his mother’s suggestions, and Crowther had a fondness for playing Bogart. Akthar’s one contribution to an exercise he found a bit dodgy was Some Like It Hot. Lockwood simply picked movies that required him to smoke in class.
One day Rudge brought up Star Wars. He was universally shot down.
It was rare that Scripps ever did anything in the scenes but play the piano, and yet no one, not even Hector, noticed this.
Brief Encounter, unsurprisingly, had been Posner’s idea. “I know it’s famous,” he said, “but my Celia Johnson’s tops.”
“That’ll change when your balls drop,” joked Scripps.
“Oh, so not before 30, then.” Posner retorted. “Anyway, see what you think. We may even be able to get Dakin to do Cyril Raymond.”
Scripps stuffed the tape into his bag and promised that he would take a look at it. He watched it with his mother, who kept up a running commentary that blended nicely with the music.
As he watched the movie, he found himself wondering about unrealized love. Undeveloped, unrequited, unexamined love that was forced to grow up in corners and in silence. Unsurprisingly, he ended up in church with his head in one hand and the other playing Rachmaninoff on the top of the pew.
“Did you watch it?” Posner asked.
“I want to play Fred,” Scripps said by way of answer.
“But then who will play the music?”
Scripps thought about it. “I’ll play the music over Laura’s monologue, and when she stops, I’ll stop.”
Then the A-Levels results came. And Mr. Irwin. Before Scripps knew who Irwin was, he saw him coming in for an interview with the headmaster. He thought he was another student, a new boy perhaps. They exchanged a smile. As the term rattled on, Scripps found himself less and less at the piano and more and more at church. He found it hard to study as he tried to figure out the difference between Hector’s lying and Irwin’s lying.
One morning before school, Posner asked an odd question. “Is envy one of the seven deadly sins?”
“It is,” Scripps said.
Posner sighed, “I envy Dakin. I envy everything he has. His voice, his stubble, the hair on his legs, I envy it - him.”
“I hate to break it to you Posner, but I don’t think that’s envy. I think it’s love.”
Posner thought about this for a moment. “You think I . . .”
Scripps didn’t let him finish. “It’s uncommon, Poz, but it’s not unheard of that one boy occasionally falls for some older, more experienced boy. It’s a phase.”
Later that day, Posner pursued the matter further. “If you’re right, if I do . . . love Dakin, and I’m not saying I do, but if I do, do you think me might love me? He is nice to me, in his fashion.”
Scripps closed his copy of Candide. “You know Dakin’s my mate,” he said. “But he’s a twat.”
Posner shook his head. “Not always.”
“Not always,” Scripps agreed. “But often enough.”
“He’s just self-involved.”
“A self-involved twat then. You fool. He lets you follow him about not because he likes you, but because he expects it.” Scripps's words were harsh, but his tone was not unkind.
“But that’s just it,” Posner explained in his high, clear voice. “I love that he lets me. I’m bewitched by him.”
“Bewitched, bothered, and bewildered?” Scripps asked.
“In the words of the poet,” Posner said archly.
“Hector would love it.”
“What?”
“Rogers and Hart. Plenty of past participles there. You should sing it for him.”
“For Hector?” Posner asked, “Or for Dakin?”
“Either,” Scripps said. For yourself, he thought. “Cheer up, Posner. You realize that you’ve gotten further with Dakin than Dakin has with Fiona?”
Posner looked up, “What do you mean?”
Scripps grinned, eyes twinkling. “You’ve gotten him down to his pants.”
A smile broke out over Posner’s face. “I have, haven’t I?” he said, laughing.
But the lessons and the love began to take their toll on Posner. He and Scripps rarely had free time to practice together anymore, even though Posner still had the key. More often than not, Posner went home to study in silence and Scripps stayed in the library until it was time for evening services.
“Envy still one of the seven?” Scripps heard one evening as he left church.
Scripps started. He hadn’t even noticed Posner was standing next to him until he had spoken. “Posner, I didn’t see you there.” Scripps said. He looked at his classmate in the evening light and saw shadows in his eyes.
“I thought I’d drop by, sort of a study break.” Posner fiddled with his sleeve. “I talked to Irwin a few weeks back.”
“About?” Scripps asked.
“My problem.” Posner paused for a moment, his eyes focused on a point just below Scripps left shoulder. “There’s something wrong with me, isn’t there?”
“What?”
“I’m just so different than the rest of you.”
Scripps gave a dry little laugh, “Akhtar’s Moslem, Rudge’s thick, Timms’s fat, Crowther’s black, Lockwood’s poor, Dakin’s a tart, I’m in love with Jesus, and you’re . . . different? How? Because you’re Jewish? Because you’re young?”
Posner looked him right in the face and said, “Because I’m a bloody faggot.”
“You’re too young to be it or say it. It’s a phase, Poz,” Scripps assured. “Some boys go through it.”
“Did you?” Posner asked in that pointed way of his.
Scripps looked away.
Posner grimaced. “Right.”
The day that Hector broke down stuck horribly in Scripps’s mind like communion in a dry throat. He thought he should have gone to the man, comforted him in some way, maybe even given him his hand. Any small gesture that proved the humanity of both parties. But the gap between student and teacher had never seemed so frighteningly non-existent. Everyone had felt it. They sat there, unable to get over their paralysis, unsure that they wanted to. Except Posner. Ironic, it was. The Jew being more Christian than the Christians in the room.
“It’s hopeless, Scripps.” Dakin complained. “Completely hopeless.”
“Is this about Irwin again?”
“Who else?”
Scripps decided to go for it. “Do you ever wonder if there is any difference between you and Posner and Irwin and you?”
“What?” Dakin looked insulted. “It’s worlds apart!”
“Is it?”
“Posner’s young,” Dakin said, by way of explanation. “He’s just going through a phase.”
“And you and Irwin, that’s not a phase?”
“I don’t know. He won’t let me find out.”
Scripps just looked at him.
“Point taken,” Dakin conceded. "But you’ve got to admit; Posner's infatuation with me is boring because I want nothing to do with him. Irwin and me, well, we’re different. It’s mutual. Reciprocated.”
“Really,” Scripps countered. “How do you know?”
“I don’t know,” Dakin said. “It’s just a feeling I get when we argue.”
Scripps thought about this for a moment. “But you don’t argue with Irwin.”
“I argue with him everyday!” Dakin exclaimed indignantly.
“No, you quarrel with him everyday,” Scripps said, a note of derision creeping into his voice. “And you lap up whatever he dishes out without questioning its contents. At least Posner can draw a line and defend it.” Scripps felt his argument pick up steam, as if this was something that had been niggling at him for ages and now, being allowed to see the light of day, was finally growing to its proper size. “He can even challenge you from it. With Posner there is no turning the situation on its head. He forces you to face the truth of the matter, even is he doesn’t really understand it.”
When he finished, Dakin looked at him. “Since when are you Posner’s champion?”
“Since he fell in love with you,” Scripps said, not unkindly. Dakin was, after all, his mate.
“Awww,” Dakin teased. “You just like the poor sod because he lets you pick the music.”
After the discussion about the Holocaust, Scripps found Posner sitting alone on the piano bench in the auditorium, staring intently down at the ivory keys. He sat next to him on the bench. “Whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent.” Silence as the only proper response. Scripps knew proper silences, reverential silences, silences pregnant with meaning. This silence was just silence, and Scripps finally realized the horror of Wittgenstein’s words.
He lifted his hands and started playing the opening measures of ‘Strange Fruit.' Posner joined in, letting his light tenor drop and break around the edges of the song like water falling over cut glass. When the song was over, Posner simply rested his head on Scripps shoulder and they sat there for a while, the singer and his accompanist.
The End.