smallgayjew | [Milliways]: Milked in Oxford

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[Milliways]: Milked in Oxford

It's always odd to be at school and out of uniform, even more so to be out of uniform and yet still wearing a jacket and tie. Posner carries an overnight bag with him as they file out the front doors. He supposes he'll get a real idea of what student life is meant to be like this time, dorms and meals and all.

"Hope they don't mind the trainers," says Lockwood in front of him. "They're all I've got."

"It's not an examination in footwear," Timms opines.

"Somebody told me when you go to the bogs, it's about four miles," Posner offers, opening the door to one of Cutlers' ridiculously un-posh vans. (He doesn't actually speak from experience. He and Moist didn't make it quite that far.)

"Listen," Timms says from his place by the other van. "Do you want to go to Oxford, or do you want to go somewhere with a shit degree that has toilets en suite?"

"What I say," says Rudge, "is if they don't like me, then fuck 'em."

"Oh, Peter, I wish I had your philosophy," Timms says as Crowther shuffles him into the van.

"What'll you do?" Scripps asks Dakin. "Flutter the eyelashes as usual?"

[ooc: Opening dialogue comes from the Fox Searchlight film The History Boys.]

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"I think," says Dakin, "in the circumstances, it'll be the half-smile with a hint of sadness." He demonstrates. It never fails to pull, anyway.

"Fuck off," says Scripps, laughing as he pushes Dakin into the van.

They settle in their respective vans, five to Oxford, three to Cambridge. Posner is seated with Rudge, just behind Dakin. Irwin closes the door with a smile and a, "Good luck," and then takes his place with the other teachers on the steps to wave them off.

Hector beams at them, two thumbs up, and Posner, slides open the window, leaning out and singing, "Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye..."

The teachers (and Fiona) wave as if they're going off on a picnic.

Eventually the singing stops and the nerves settle in. Normally Dakin would fill the silence with stories about Fiona or musing about Irwin, but even that seems unimportant as the green countryside rolls past their windows.

"I'll want to find a chapel," says Scripps finally.

"One more prayer before slaughter," Dakin replies.

David passes the time as he usually does, with watching Dakin. He settles in where he can watch the other boy and still possibly participate in any conversation. Rudge is leaned against the opposite side of the van, sleeping or pretending to, Akthar is stretched out across the back bench-seat.

"Will you give it up, d'you think?" Posner asks. "After you've got in?"

Dakin wishes he could smoke.

"What, to Irwin?" He shrugs as if it had never crossed his mind.

(It has. It does. Every time Irwin smiles at him, it does yet again.)

Posner blushes and frowns and slumps into himself a little more. He really doesn't want to know the answer to the other. He'd always sort of hoped if Dakin were curious about that sort of thing it'd be Posner he went to

"I meant Scripps actually. And the prayer."

He hasn't actually prayed for this. It feels dishonest. Even more than his Hitler answer.

Dakin looks out the window.

"That's not the way faith works," says Scripps. "Only praying when it gets results."

"Maybe not," Posner says. Scripps' faith confuses him, separate as it is from Scripps' family. And they've talked before about the prayer experiment. He just wonders how it will play out.

"Would you, though?" Scripps says, turning to Dakin again. "Give it up?"

Dakin shrugs again. "Faith's a promise, yeah? Maybe I should make a promise. If I get in, Irwin gets me." He crosses his heart.

Posner looks away, frowning. "I'm not sure that's how faith works either."

"Don't mock my belief system!" Dakin cries. Scipps elbows him and Dakin grins back.

Rudge cracks an eye open, grumbling under his breath.

Posner can't help smiling. He rarely can around Dakin.

Dakin smiles too, pleased.

"And what will you do to celebrate, Pos?"

"Nothing so exciting, I'm sure."

He'll probably head to Milliways, and if he's lucky, he'll run into Moist or Urquhart, though he suspects he'll end up having a rather formal dinner with his parents.

...maybe, if he's very lucky, he'll run into Dakin.

"Maybe I will go to church," Dakin muses. "Spend some time on my knees either way."

This is always the hope, though it gets fainter all the time.

Scripps laughs and shoves Dakin. "You randy, little fuck."

Posner shakes his head fondly. "One suits you better than the other," he says, blushing immediately.

Dakin gives Posner a look through his lashes.

"And which one would that be?"

Posner likes that look a little too much.

"You'd be very picturesque in a cathedral..."

"Me and all the saints, I can just imagine."

"One of these things is not like the others," Scripps quips.

Posner rolls his eyes, smirking.

"'Oh, Lord,'" Dakin quotes, "'give me chastity and continence, but not yet!'"

Posner chuckles. "'Beauty is indeed a good gift of God; but that the good may not think it a great good, God dispenses it even to the wicked.'"

Dakin smirks. "'To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.'"

Posner thinks, 'He that is jealous is not in love,' and, 'I want my friend to miss me as long as I miss him.'

He says, "'Love, and do what thou wilt.'"

Dakin tilts his head at him a moment.

"'Self-reliance is the only road to true freedom, and being one's own person is its ultimate reward.'"

Posner frowns and looks out the window. "'What I needed most was to love and to be loved, eager to be caught. Happily I wrapped those painful bonds around me...'" He doesn't finish the quote, but the rest is equally apt.

'...and sure enough, I would be lashed with the red-hot pokers or jealousy, by suspicions and fear, by burst of anger and quarrels.'

Dakin knows the rest of the quotation, too, and doesn't know how to respond, quite.

So he retreats to his default, and leans his head on Posner's shoulder. "'I'll sing to him,'" he croons, "each spring to him, and worship the trousers that cling to him...'"

Posner sighs out a soft laugh. He can't bring himself to pull away from Dakin.

He never can, anymore than he can ever stop that irrational hope that rises whenever Dakin does something like this.

Scripps eyes them both in amazement. "Have I missed something?"

"Yes, Scrippsy," says Dakin and snuggles his head a moment longer on Posner's shoulder.

Posner closes his eyes briefly, just enjoying the physical closeness.

"No, Scrippsy," he says. "You've not missed anything at all."

Dakin lifts his head and smiles at Posner--genuinely, amused and pleased and pondering all at once.

Posner blushes, smiles, and looks away again.

"Right," say Scripps. "You two've just got chummy for no reason, then."

"I think we've suddenly discovered we speak a common language."

"I don't know that I'd go that far," Posner says, because he always has to be as precise as possible. "In the same language family, let's say."

"Lingua franca," says Dakin.

"Yes, something like that."

Scripps still looks skeptical, but he nods, accepting it. "Just let me know if I need to look into a Berlitz course."

Dakin smiles and shares a look with Posner.

Posner isn't quite sure what that look means, but he isn't in the mood to question it just now. Especially since it takes his mind off the upcoming interview.

That works, too.

The time has actually passed nicely.

Posner has no complaints so far.

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[Milliways]: Milked in Oxford

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bedtime

goodnight!