(no subject)
Title: In the cold light of morning
Pairing: Scripps/Posner
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Sequel to this
Word count: 2600 in total. Blimey.
Disclaimer: THB belongs to its creators, and I am but a penniless student.
After the Saturday night incident as Don has taken to calling it in his head, he doesn’t see David for a fortnight, goes to church every day, and immerses himself in work to the point that it seems all he does is pray, eat and write essays.
Dakin laughs when he sees him, and asks obliviously what’re you atoning for this time, before continuing his story about the latest girl he’s infatuated with. He doesn’t notice the way that Don chokes on his sip of beer and looks shiftier than he has any right to at such a casual comment.
Still, other than the terrible sense of foreboding that haunts his every waking moment, life is much the same as before. He still can’t cook to save his life, still hasn’t gotten a first in any of his Tudor essays, and still hits his head on the shelf above his bed every morning upon waking.
The only thing that has changed, really, is the fact that he’s down one of his closer friends and that his coping strategy of avoidance is failing miserably. What a surprise, he thinks one night as he heads home from the library at - Christ- 1am. He daren’t think about how the other boy is coping, because Pos isn’t very adept at that sort of thing. He’d had to resit an assessment last term, and the night before, had showed up outside Don’s door on the brink of tears.
(He doesn’t think about what will happen if Pos feels that…fragile again, and has nobody to turn to. He’d be alright wouldn’t he? Wouldn’t he?)
Not that he has to rely on speculation for much longer, because God, being such a merciful fellow, makes him quite literally bump into said Pos on his way across the quad, nearly sending his teetering pile of books flying.
“Um, hello.” He says, and fuck, the immediate sense of awkwardness is excruciating.
The silence stretches between them.
Pos stares resolutely at the floor, but mumbles back something of a greeting.
“Did you want some help? I mean, I’m done for the night, but by the looks of it you were writing a book, not an essay, so. Um.”
The joke falls flat, not that it even was a joke, and Pos still isn’t making eye contact. His gaze is now fixed on a point over Don’s shoulder. He clears his throat.
‘I’ll be fine.’ David nods, smiling thinly. He doesn’t look fine though. The bones in his face look marginally more pronounced, as though he hasn’t been looking after himself - no change there then - and Don has to quash the urge to pull him into a hug.
Where the fuck did that come from, he thinks. It wasn’t the kind of thing they did before the incident and it’d be terribly uncomfortable now.
“Suit yourself.” He replies, aiming for casual, but it comes out petulant. He’s shite at this. “Anyway, I’d best be off. Up early in the morning.”
It’s probably entirely in his sleep-deprived head, but for a split second, David’s expression turns panicked, one hand fluttering away from the precarious stack of books as though to grab onto him as he turns away.
Don keeps walking.
It’s only when he gets five or so paces away that he hears David call after him.
‘Don’t be a stranger, Don. Please.’ The ‘please’ is quiet, and Don’s guilt ratchets up a few more notches.
He nods, though, before continuing, and vows to stay true to his word.
-
He ends up seeing David again just days later, though not by accident this time. Taking the box of proper tea his Mum sent him as a peace offering, he turns up on David’s doorstep unexpectedly.
It is, perhaps, the most difficult cup of tea Don has ever had, but they manage to smooth things out. Sort of.
When David has his back to him, making the tea, he just kind of…blusters it all out in one go. About how he’s sorry about what happened, and how it shouldn’t have, really. They were drunk, and it won’t happen again, of course it won’t.
Don had just sat there, a little caught off guard and bewildered, until David has passed him his drink. His shoulders were slumped in a defeated sort of way.
“I was surprised, anyway.” He’d said, and Don had made a very intelligent reply of buh?
David snorted, bumping his shoulder against his.
“You, breaking your vow of celibacy. I thought you’d have had better taste than me.”
Don had flushed, feeling the colour in his cheeks.
“Well, I hardly think it counts-“ he’d begun, and apparently that was exactly the wrong thing to say, because Pos had sort of froze, and looked a bit like he’d just been slapped, before recovering.
He’d smiled, but it was brittle.
“No, you’re right. Of course it doesn’t count.”
They’d finished their drinks in what was supposed to be companionable silence, but it fell short somehow.
It is only when Don leaves, later, that he realises their version of resolving problems hadn’t resolved much at all.
-
Still, they fall back into their old routine with relative ease after that, studying together, and reverting to their odd way of co-dependency, meeting for meals to break up the mediocrity of work.
Dakin joins them a couple of times, usually bringing alcohol, and Don is pleasantly surprised to see that Pos no longer fawns over him like he used to, despite Dakin’s good-natured goading.
Two months pass since that fateful Sunday, and at last, things feel like they are getting back to normal.
If once in a while he is seized by the want to thread his hand into the back of David’s hair and press their mouths together, well. That’s neither here nor there.
He almost feels closer to Pos than before, now that they’ve weathered a storm of sorts together.
It feels good.
-
Looking back, it had been too good to last.
Don had been sat on his bed reading when the knock at the door had come, and that was odd, as it was a way past midnight.
Trying to quell the immediate sense of unease, he opens the door, and -thank God- it’s Pos. His momentary worry seems stupid, and he fumbles with the lock for a second before realising that all is not well.
Pos hasn’t said a word to him since his appearance, and he’s soaking wet, shivering in his overcoat and looking for all the world like a drowned rat.
“Pos? You alright?” Stupid question really, especially when David made a noise a bit like a whimper and flung himself into Don’s arms, bony little fingers grabbing at his jumper.
Don is reminded starkly of the Brief Encounter sketch they’d preformed all those months ago for Irwin and something in his gut twists unpleasantly.
He awkwardly pats David on the back before ushering him into the room and shutting the door.
“I failed my exam.” David says, without prompting, and he’s trembling, little drops of water soaking into the carpet.
Don pauses in his search for a towel and winces.
“Oh, Pos. I’m sorry.”
David snorts, and stares blankly at the carpet.
“S’fine, I don’t want your pity. Not a second time ‘round anyway.” He’s trying for humorous, but it cuts too close to the bone, and he shrinks in on himself. “Sorry.”
Don just shrugs, bites his tongue to stop himself saying I didn’t do it out of pity, I- because he doesn’t know how to end that sentence. He doesn’t want to make things worse.
He eventually finds a towel and passes it silently to his friend, watching as he shrugs off the sodden coat and rubs at his hair.
“Can I stay here tonight?” he asks suddenly. Don’s first instinct is to say no, particularly graphic imagery of exactly what had happened the last time Pos stayed over springing up in his mind.
Looking at his friend, though, there really isn’t a danger of that. Promises aside, David just looks exhausted to the point where, judging by the state he’s in, he has relinquished any self-preservation instincts.
Don doesn’t really have the heart to say no. He digs out a pair of pyjamas for each of them, and after turning the rather ancient radiator on (Pos is still shivering), turns the light off and climbs into bed.
The fit is terrible, even both laid on their backs, squished together ankle to shoulder.
“It will be okay, you know. You can try again.” Don says, hoping he’s being reassuring.
“I can’t. I can’t try again for everything, I-“
It must be a case of the straw the broke the camel’s back, because David goes to draw a breath, but ends up choking on a sob. His hand clutches at Don’s wrist like his life depends on it, so Don pulls his arm away and wraps it around him without thinking.
David curls toward him and cries quietly into his shoulder, dampening the fabric. He doesn’t really know what to say after that, ending up turning on his side and running a hand soothingly up and down David’s back like his mum used to do for him if he was upset as a kid.
He doesn’t know what time they drift off, but in the morning, David has vanished without a trace.
-
Don doesn’t like to think of himself as the worrying type, and if he does, he keeps it to himself, but when even his friends in class notice how antsy he’s being, he resolves to track down Pos following his great disappearing act, and solve this once and for all.
The thing is, though, he has absolutely no idea how to go about it, so ends up confronting David when he passes him in the corridor and garbling out something terribly clichéd like we need to talk.
David blanches, looking at Don like he has gone quite mad.
“If this is about last night, I’m -“
“-It isn’t, it’s…well. You know what it is.”
(If anything, David’s expression grows even more grim. He nods.)
“Can we go somewhere more private?” he asks, and Don immediately feels guilty for how miserable David sounds all of a sudden.
They end up back in David’s room, which looks like a bomb site, papers, books and posters strewn everywhere.
Pos ends up rifling through a stack of papers and looking like he’d rather be anywhere but in this room.
“I just wanted to apologise.” It takes Don a minute to realise what he’s said. Did he want to apologise? David looks equally as shocked, but doesn’t move to go, so that has to be a good sign.
“I shouldn’t have left on-“ he bites his cheek and steels himself. “I shouldn’t have left on that morning, not like that anyway. It was as much my fault as yours.”
David stares. His mouth has dropped open, a little goldfish like. He goes to speak but Don cuts him off.
“No, don’t- don’t say anything yet, because I’m shite at this and I’ve no idea what I’m doing, but I just wanted to say sorry, because I don’t want a stupid fucking mistake like that to come between us and-“
He stops, because Pos’ expression falters, going from surprised to deflated all of a sudden.
“David..?” he says, but Pos won’t look at him.
“And it was all going so well…” he murmurs, trailing off.
Don just blinks at him, and David’s shoulders slump even more.
“I should be the one apologising. All these weeks you’ve been thinking it’s behind us and- it hasn’t really. I’ve. I shouldn’t have come ‘round last night. I really shouldn’t, because yes, I was upset, but I was clinging to…to something. Because I was clinging to that stupid, stupid mistake.” He looks up, expression bleak.
Don is speechless. Completely and utterly at a loss, because it makes so much sense, pieces falling into place…
“So, now you know. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have let myself get so attached, because god knows, it must be annoying, but it won’t happen again. I’ll stay out of the way.”
Don finally snaps out of it, because something about the way David squeezes his eyes shut, something about the idea of his cutting himself off is terrifying, and fucking hell, he still can’t find the words, and now David is collecting his things up and looking so fucking small, like back on that Sunday and -
He realises, with stark, sudden clarity that he doesn’t regret the fact they slept together. The thing that bothers him is what he’d done afterwards, scarpering away like a coward, paying no heed to how it must have been for his friend.
He grabs onto David’s arm as he tries to pass and holds on, feeling the warmth of his skin bleed through his shirt.
“It was a mistake.” He says, reverent tone of voice at odds with his statement.
David’s expression hardens, becoming shuttered.
“So you keep saying, now if you don’t mind-“
“No, stop it. Sit down and just - listen, because if I don’t say this now I won’t say it at all, and you’ll go’n hermit yourself away and- just. Stop. I didn’t mean that it was a mistake when we-“ He pauses. Somehow, he feels referring to it as an incident in this conversation would be a bad move. “-when we slept together.” He finishes at last. It feels like a huge weight has been lifted from his shoulders. “I meant it was a mistake when I took off in the morning. When I left. Because yeah, it would have been awkward having to. Um. Piece together the night before, but this wouldn’t have happened. I wouldn’t have fucked it all up.”
He exhales, finally daring to look at Pos.
He looks…wary and shakes his head, deciding against it. “I want to believe you so much.”
“You can. Even if you don’t now, I’ll prove it.” Somehow, Don thinks. He has no idea what he is saying.
“Where does this leave us now, then?” David says, and he still sounds wary, but he looks up at Don with something akin to hope.
“Honestly, I’ve no idea.” He replies, but he moves his hand down to clutch at David’s and squeeze.
David squeezes back.