smallgayjew

Posner can't believe that it's actually here. He can't believe he's finally leaving home (with Dakin) and moving out (with Dakin) and starting at Oxford (with Dakin). He's got all his essentials packed into a trunk and a suitcase, and it feels like too little to encompass his life so far, but it also feels appropriate to be starting a new life without any of the encumbrances of the old.

On the platform, he kisses his mum and hugs his dad and shakes his uncle's hand, and he tries not to look at the tears his mum is holding back, and he tries not to let his own fall. It isn't sad, not really. It's only...a bit frightening.

So he kisses his mum once more, and he lets her fix his hair, and he hugs his dad again, and then he takes a deep breath and lugs his trunk and his suitcase and his whole life onto the train and moves to find a seat by the window so he can wave them off they can wave him off.

And he doesn't sing Gracie Fields this time, but he wants to.

Posner's hands are a bit full when they reach the room, what with still lugging around the box of dusty books. "Would you?" he asks, handing Dakin the key.

Although he did spend an extra day (or two) in Milliways, Posner eventually makes his way home, still beaming, hoping he doesn't smell like champagne. His parents are beyond proud. Even his uncle claps him on the shoulder and says how proud he is.

They have breakfast first, but almost immediately after there is a phone call from the school. Felix, having already heard from some of the other boys, is eager to have news of all the rest. There's to be a celebration of sorts at the school in the afternoon, and Posner hops on his bicycle to head over.

There's more champagne, of course, in little, plastic cups. Posner is hugged more than he thinks he's been since his bar mitzvah, perhaps more than that even.

Felix is incredibly pleased, wandering about the room, refilling glasses at random. "Splendid news! Posner a scholarship, Dakin an exhibition and places for everyone else. It's more than one could have hoped for. Irwin, you are to be congratulated, a remarkable achievement. And you too, Dorothy, of course," he adds to Mrs. Lintott as an afterthought, "who laid the foundation."

She pulls him into conversation, then, and Posner loses track of her, drawn into the others' celebration.

They all stay for a while, lingering at the school as though they're reluctant to leave. Posner isn't sure where the others end up, but he suspects Dakin's whereabouts at least. He stops briefly by Hector's room, but the man isn't there, so he goes to see Mrs. Lintott instead. She's solid. She's safe.

He should say goodbye to Irwin, he supposes, but he doesn't want to intrude on anything (Dakin) he may be busy with.

Eventually, they all filter out into the courtyard, talking of their plans, giddy with success.

"I might try the army," Lockwood says, and Timms bursts into laughter.

"You? You're a shambles."

"No, but they put you through college apparently. Your fees and everything."

"Yeah, provided you kill people afterwards," Akthar offers

"We won't go to war again," Lockwood predicts. "Who's there to fight?"

"I don't know about a career," Scripps says, deadpan. "I've got to get fucking out of the way first."

Posner is...relatively certain this is a joke.

"That goes on," Crowther says with a grin, to which Posner smirkily responds, "Or doesn't."

And then Dakin comes jogging up behind, motorbike helmet in hand.

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.]