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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.

When he looks back on the moment, Posner realizes he should have known.

He'd been too happy for too long--even if "too long" was only a few days--for something not to come along and ruin it all. He doesn't believe in karma, but he does believe in balance, and he supposes there'd been too much happiness for them all not to have this to balance it out.

He's only been home from school a few hours, sat through his awkwardly formal family dinner--his mother broke out the fine china, served a bottle of wine she's been saving for something like this--and the phone rang again.

It was Scripps. "Dakin told me. He had it from Fiona. Pos it's..." His voice breaks, and Posner can't remember the last time he heard Scripps cry. "There's been an accident. Hector. That bloody motorbike."

It must be bad, Posner thinks, if Scripps can't make it sound poetic.

And he knows. Scripps hasn't said anything real yet, but he knows anyway. What else could it be.

"Blackbird," Posner says quietly.

"What?"

"We'll have to do Blackbird. At the memorial."

There's a long pause on the other end. "Yes, I suppose we will. I'll let the others know."

Posner's hand is steady as he sets the handset back into the cradle. He feels nothing. He has no words, no emotions, nothing to make this real.

He forgot to ask if Irwin was all right.

Posner is still up in his room, combing his hair, getting ready for the day, when he hears his father's voice come up the stairs.

"David!"

He's been trying so very hard not to rush to check the post every morning, not to camp out by the front door until the letters are pushed through the mail slot. But it's that time of the morning, and he can think of no other reason his dad would be calling him so urgently, so he thunders down the stairs and snatches the letter his father is holding.

He can't bear to open it with his parents hovering over him, so he makes a quick escape into his father's study, closing the door behind him.

It's his best suit, and Posner is very aware that it is better than a lot of his classmates'. His father was a furrier rather than a tailor, but the career still had certain perks.

Still, when he sees some of the other boys there for interviews, the public school boys, the boys whose fathers and brothers and uncles and grandfathers went to Oxford, probably even to Magdalen, he feels more than he ever has before the distance between them. He and Akthar have never exactly been close, but he sticks to Akthar's side today as much as he can.

Once the door closes behind him, though, and he finds himself facing a room full of dons, he's all alone. He tries to remember all the advice he's gotten--from Irwin, from Hector, from Totty, from Moist--but he's sure he forgets some key points he meant to talk about or topics he should have avoided.

When he leaves the room, he feels...numb. Part of him thinks he did well. Part of him has no idea how he did. Part of him still thinks this must be a dream.

"They liked my Hitler answer," he tells Akthar as they stroll through the grounds afterward. "Praised what they called my 'sense of detachment.'" Thank you, Irwin.

After that, it's easier to let it slip from his mind, at least for a little while, to take in the grounds instead, noticing things he hadn't when he was here with Moist.

"It's like a stately home," he observes. "My parents would love it."

So does he, to be fair.

***

It is about four miles to the bogs. He wouldn't mind if it weren't for the fact that all the boys that he passes on his way there are so...posh. So not Sheffield. So not Cutlers.

Their manners are atrocious. They treat the college servants like secondhand citizens. They behave as though they deserve to be here, and it only serves to make Posner feel that much more keenly that he doesn't belong here. As much as he wants to be here, as much as he sometimes believes he will be happy here, it isn't where he belongs.

He resolves right then to become the sort of person who does belong here.

He also resolves never to become like the public school boys. He isn't proud of coming from Sheffield, but he promises himself never to forget that he does.



[ooc: All dialogue is from the Fox Searchlights film The History Boys.]

The day has been so long in coming that Posner can't quite believe it's actually here. He wakes up much earlier than he needs, and he can't help sitting down with his books, going over a few things just one last time. When he can't put it off any longer, he heads downstairs, deciding to forgo breakfast all together. Just the thought of eating makes him nauseated. His mother fusses, and his father sits nervously, fiddling with his spoon. In the end he gets a long hug from one and an awkward one from the other, and even his uncle calls out, "Good luck!" as he heads out the door.

Both he and Scripps are uncharacteristically quiet on the ride into school. Posner doesn't even bring his Walkman.

When they arrive, the auditorium has been cleared out except for eight desks in two rows, a table set up on the stage in front. They sit, exchanging nervous smiles, shedding their jackets, several of them already rolling up their sleeves. Before Posner even has time to settle in, the exams are handed out and Mrs. Lintott is telling them to begin. Seconds later, Posner hears a soft, "...shit," from Rudge just behind him.

He silently echoes the sentiment.

For the first few minutes, all Posner can think about is the ticking of the clock. For a brief moment, he stares at the first essay, and the words swim on the page, fuzzy and indistinct, and he wonders if it mightn't be in a completely different language, alien and unfamiliar.

And then it settles into coherence, and he sets pen to paper.

And then it's over.

The exams are gathered, and David takes a deep breath. He's made it through, and he' s done his best, done what he believes he needed to in order to get through, to stand out.

He's annoyed with himself and with the system, but he doesn't regret it. He can't. Not if it gets him into Oxford.

There's a series of sighs rippling across the room as they all stand, gathering their things, slinging jackets over shoulders or pulling them back on.

In front of him, Timms is telling Totty, "Bit hit or miss...Miss."

Posner pulls a face as he passes her. "I was so nice about Hitler," he admits. "A much misunderstood man."

And behind him as he reaches the exit, he hears Akthar's voice, "Queen Elizabeth, Miss. Less remarkable for her abilities then the fact that, unlike so many of her sisters, she got a chance to exercise them."

Mrs. Lintott's, "That's the stuff," is lost in Posner's musing that 'singing the praises of the Empire' is not too far off as a description.

He suspects neither of them will tell their parents what they wrote about.


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

David had come into Milliways from just outside the library, so that's where he and Moist come out.

"The train station isn't far from here. We should be fine walking."

And he's fairly certain his bike will be okay outside the library until they get back.

If he’s honest with himself, he knew this was going to happen, but he doesn’t see a way he could have avoided it.

Every day, after dinner, his father and his uncle retire to the parlour, and his mother brings them tea. And every day he sits with them long enough for his father to ask what he did at school that day.

It’s not always an easy question to answer succinctly, but his father is always so interested. He always genuinely wants to know, and Posner knows he doesn’t have much else to occupy himself with, so he indulges him.

It’s the same today as on any other day.

“What did you do at school today, David?” he asks, and Posner pauses before answering.

It’s too much to explain the complicated politics behind Irwin and Hector sharing a class, so he says, “We talked about the Holocaust.”

Tension radiates from his uncle, and even his mother hesitates in adding sugar to his father’s tea.

“And what did you say about this, David?” his father asks, a thoughtful frown on his face.

“Well…Irwin reckons it’s a historical fact like other historical facts.”

He shouldn’t have said it. He should have lied, though lying to his parents always makes him feel a bit ill. He should have known what would come next.

The resounding crack shocks him almost more than the feel of the back of his uncle’s hand hitting his cheek, and for a long moment, there is silence.

“Never again, David.” It’s his uncle who speaks this time. “Never again repeat such filth in this house. This is what you’re going to school for? To learn such lies?”

But Posner doesn’t stay to hear the rest of his uncle’s tirade. He’s on his feet and racing up to his room before he says any more, before he really angers someone. His cheek stings and he could almost swear he feels the bruise forming, but he doesn’t stop at the bathroom to get something for the pain. He just runs to his room and shuts the door behind him, throwing himself onto the bed.

He can hear their voices below: his uncle’s loud, angry and demanding, his father’s softer, calming.

A few minutes later, his door opens, and he thinks it will be his mother, bringing him ice and perhaps some tea.

His bed dips with the weight of someone sitting, and a cool, wet cloth is placed against his cheek, but it is his father’s voice that speaks.

“He shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry.”

Posner wants to say that he has no reason to be sorry, that he’s not the one who hit Posner, but he says nothing, afraid of hearing his own voice crack.

A hand is placed lightly on his back, and they both sit, saying nothing. Posner can still hear his uncle fuming below and his mother trying to calm him.

When the noise settles down, his father speaks again.

“You must never forget who you are, David. And you must never let them make you hide it.”

Posner still says nothing, and after a moment, his father pats his shoulder lightly.

He feels the weight removed from his bed, and he hears the door shut behind him.

And he wishes, not for the first time, that he were anyone other than who he is.

It's Hector's classroom, but it isn't Hector's class. They're sat in a circle, and that is not Hector's formation. It's Irwin's.

Collaboration is likely too strong, too cohesive a word for what they're doing, and that uncertainty, that devisiveness bleeds into the demeanor of the boys.

Hector's boys.

Irwin's boys.

(Posner isn't sure where he falls anymore.)

"Would you like to start?" Irwin asks, accepting his place as the visitor but also stealing the opening, offering the start as though it were his to offer.

"I don't mind," Hector responds, nonchalant, falsely casual.

There's a moment's awkward silence.

"How do you normally start? It is your lesson. General Studies." Posner has to wonder if Irwin knows that the title of the class is itself a dig in Hector's direction.

"The boys decide. Ask them." It's true, yes, but it's also Hector being sullen, sulking and refusing to play.

In apparent exasperation, Irwin turns to the boys, then. "Anybody?"