short circuit in the frontal lobe.
The History Boys.
Timms. Lockwood. Piss-taking and instant rice packets.
I finished my "official" entry in the drabble challenge, and decided to have a go at one for my BFF OTP of the ages. The album used is Elvis Costello's Punch the Clock; the title of the set of drabbles themselves comes from... somewhere else.
Let Them All Talk
Lockwood had a bad haircut and wore bright yellow trainers. Timms was twice the size of the other boys and laughed whenever someone fell down.
Little wonder that they were the last ones picked for football.
Outcasts stick together, and ever since, they've had a camaraderie, comfortable and unspoken. They get older. Lockwood's style starts being called 'brilliant' instead of 'mad'; the other boys begin appreciating Timms' sense of humour; primary school turns to grammar school, where they meet Posner, more hopeless than either of them ever were, their new surrogate little brother, and they're the cool ones.
Everyday I Write The Book
They never accomplish a fucking thing during their study sessions, but they're far from about to stop having them. Because Timms can draw the best caricatures of Felix ever, exaggerated eyebrows and forehead and scowl, and Lockwood can pitch his voice just right so suddenly Wilkes is right there in the room with them, scolding and horrified at their not having enough crucifixes hanging about the place, and it's easy enough to smile and hide behind their texts until their mothers go away and leave them to themselves, rewriting history by adding the relevant moustaches to the photographs.
Charm School
Lockwood and Stephanie always make out on Tuesdays.
Mondays and Wednesdays are no good for Steph (extra revision with Janice), Thursdays are out for Lockwood (smoke-collecting rounds with Timms), and Felix is particularly (sexually frustrated?) watchful on Fridays. So, they settle for what they can get.
Timms and Janice don't do much during these times.
"Want to have a go at it, then?" Timms asks, hoping vague interest beats out the desperate boredom in his voice. Janice tilts her head, considering.
"Not particularly."
"Right, then."
He leans back on the concrete and waits for Lockwood to finish up.
Shipbuilding
The instant rice packets are five for 3.50.
Lockwood doesn’t think it’s the world's best deal, but Timms, accustomed to growing up in a household where budgeting wasn’t an issue, throws several into their trolley.
“Er-- think we’ll need napkins, or will the paper that chips come in do us?”
Lockwood shrugs.
“We can bypass curtains. Give the neighbours a free show every morning. How d’you feel about that?”
“I feel like Mrs fucking Beeton,” Lockwood says, and Timms guffaws, patting him on the back before making his way to the dairy aisle.
Pills and Soap
It wasn't that Timms liked the laundromat. It was just there.
They'd never planned it like this. They actually had ambition. Their notebooks were brimming with plans, scraps of ideas for a programme to pitch one day, inspired by school and girls and that mad year when they'd thought university was where life both began and ended, armed with one-liners and elaborate sequences (no one but them would write a ninja fight with lobster claws instead of nunchucks), and then Lockwood was sent away, and then--
The laundromat was just there. The drugs were a bonus.
Timms. Lockwood. Piss-taking and instant rice packets.
I finished my "official" entry in the drabble challenge, and decided to have a go at one for my BFF OTP of the ages. The album used is Elvis Costello's Punch the Clock; the title of the set of drabbles themselves comes from... somewhere else.
Let Them All Talk
Lockwood had a bad haircut and wore bright yellow trainers. Timms was twice the size of the other boys and laughed whenever someone fell down.
Little wonder that they were the last ones picked for football.
Outcasts stick together, and ever since, they've had a camaraderie, comfortable and unspoken. They get older. Lockwood's style starts being called 'brilliant' instead of 'mad'; the other boys begin appreciating Timms' sense of humour; primary school turns to grammar school, where they meet Posner, more hopeless than either of them ever were, their new surrogate little brother, and they're the cool ones.
Everyday I Write The Book
They never accomplish a fucking thing during their study sessions, but they're far from about to stop having them. Because Timms can draw the best caricatures of Felix ever, exaggerated eyebrows and forehead and scowl, and Lockwood can pitch his voice just right so suddenly Wilkes is right there in the room with them, scolding and horrified at their not having enough crucifixes hanging about the place, and it's easy enough to smile and hide behind their texts until their mothers go away and leave them to themselves, rewriting history by adding the relevant moustaches to the photographs.
Charm School
Lockwood and Stephanie always make out on Tuesdays.
Mondays and Wednesdays are no good for Steph (extra revision with Janice), Thursdays are out for Lockwood (smoke-collecting rounds with Timms), and Felix is particularly (sexually frustrated?) watchful on Fridays. So, they settle for what they can get.
Timms and Janice don't do much during these times.
"Want to have a go at it, then?" Timms asks, hoping vague interest beats out the desperate boredom in his voice. Janice tilts her head, considering.
"Not particularly."
"Right, then."
He leans back on the concrete and waits for Lockwood to finish up.
Shipbuilding
The instant rice packets are five for 3.50.
Lockwood doesn’t think it’s the world's best deal, but Timms, accustomed to growing up in a household where budgeting wasn’t an issue, throws several into their trolley.
“Er-- think we’ll need napkins, or will the paper that chips come in do us?”
Lockwood shrugs.
“We can bypass curtains. Give the neighbours a free show every morning. How d’you feel about that?”
“I feel like Mrs fucking Beeton,” Lockwood says, and Timms guffaws, patting him on the back before making his way to the dairy aisle.
Pills and Soap
It wasn't that Timms liked the laundromat. It was just there.
They'd never planned it like this. They actually had ambition. Their notebooks were brimming with plans, scraps of ideas for a programme to pitch one day, inspired by school and girls and that mad year when they'd thought university was where life both began and ended, armed with one-liners and elaborate sequences (no one but them would write a ninja fight with lobster claws instead of nunchucks), and then Lockwood was sent away, and then--
The laundromat was just there. The drugs were a bonus.