Work Text:
Don pushed the door of his flat open, glad to finally be away from the busyness of the City in the run up to Christmas. Inside the flat it was warm and there was the faint smell of mince pies.
“David?”
“In here.”
He found David in the living room, books and papers scattered across their dining table.
“Still marking?”
“It’s completely endless,” David sighed. “Nobody ever tells you quite how much of your life is going to get taken up by reading over an illiterate attempt at discussing Romeo & Juliet. I’m pretty sure this section crossed out here is Leanne suggesting they’d have been fine if they just kept their mobile phones topped up.”
David rested his head on the table in despair as Don laughed.
“I’m sure we were just as bad,” he paused. “Well maybe not that bad. Do you want a cup of tea?”
“Please!”
Don wandered into the kitchen and rescued the teapot from behind a stack of books. A journalist and an English teacher living in the same flat, it turned out, meant a lot of books and papers and magazines. There were lots of doubles too; they’d never managed to finish the argument over whose should stay and whose should go. David insisted the notes in his books were useful for teaching but Don knew his books were in better condition and would last longer.
Still, even though he’d never admit as much to David, Don did rather like seeing one torn and one pristine copy of Thomas Hardy poems nestling side by side on their shelves.
There was a crash from the living room and Don paused in pouring the boiling water into the kettle before the sound of David swearing his class all ought to be put down made him grin.
“Resorting to physical violence never solved anything!” Don called across the flat.
“I don’t care! I’m pretty sure they’re just doing it to upset me now.”
Don poured out two mugs of tea and carried them through to the living room.
“I’m sure they’re not, and you’re nearly done!”
Don motioned to the smaller pile of books David still had to mark as he bent down to pick up the larger, completed, pile that had collapsed to the floor.
“Don’t be so bloody reasonable!”
Don smiled and pressed a kiss into David’s hair.
“Remind me to let you see some of what my work experience kid tried writing for me when you’re done.”
“Oh I’m sure you suffer hugely with your one student!” David sighed. “But you’re right I am nearly there and then it’s only Year Seven’s wretched Christmas
Poems they’re handing in tomorrow and no more marking till the New Year!”
“That’s the spirit!”
Don squeezed David’s shoulder before moving to the more comfy end of the room and relaxing into the sofa.
It still felt a little strange to be so cosily domestic here with David. They’d known each other nearly 15 years, 12 of those as no more than friends and increasingly distant ones at that but now here they were living together and, even Don’s thoughts sounded a little surprise, living together happily.
On the sofa was a copy of the day’s paper, David always made sure he got a copy but Don was pretty sure he only read it to see if he could spot “by Donald Scripps” in the by-line of any article because he got all his news from Radio 4, and a messy pile of Christmas cards.
David’s enthusiasm for Christmas surprised Don a lot. It turned out he’d always been rather jealous of the other boys at school for their large, noisy, Christmases with family and whilst Don couldn’t give him that on his own they’d enjoyed picking and choosing traditions the year before. They’d both especially enjoyed listening to the Carols from Kings though David had been certain to mention that he was sure it was slightly inferior to anything he’d heard at his college in Oxford.
Don poked through the pile of Christmas cards noting that there was one for his own parent’s, left open presumably so he could sign it himself, and one to David’s parents already sealed. For a moment he held the cards side by side and wondered if it was ever likely that they’d be able to send cards out from both of them. It seemed unlikely though, at least not to their parents.
It had seemed a bit of a joke back in school, none of them had ever minded Posner being gay anymore than they’d minded Dakin being a twat but at Oxford, as he’d started to realise that perhaps the reason he’d been able to stay away from women all that time was that he wasn’t actually attracted to them at all, Don had slowly realised just how miserable he must have been.
Still they lived in London now and whilst their colleagues didn’t know they were anything more than old school friends and flatmates at least they were content.
Don pulled his thoughts back from school and into the present, noting that David was still muttering to himself under his breath, but was brought up short again by the name on the next card.
“You’re still in touch with Irwin?!”
“What?”
Don waved the card at David.
“You send a Christmas card to Irwin?”
“Yes.” David turned back to his work. “I send cards to everyone from school.”
Don looked back at the cards and realised it was true. There were all the names, Akthar, Timms, Rudge even Dakin.
“Why are you sending Stu a card? I’ll be seeing him for drinks in a couple of days.”
David sighed and put down his pen, turning his attention back to Don properly.
“He doesn’t know though does he and I’ve sent him a card every year he’d wonder what on earth had happened if I didn’t. Every time I see him it’s like he thinks I’m still a kid with a crush on him so I send him a card at Christmas and it flatters him. Anyway I like Jenny and I want an invitation to the wedding next year.”
“Always practical I suppose.” Don paused. “We could... I suppose we could tell him if you wanted to.”
“Maybe after the wedding,” David smiled. “When he’s got someone else who has to adore him. But if you’re happy telling anyone maybe you’d like to sign Dorothy’s card.”
“Dorothy? Mrs Lintott you mean?”
“Her card should be near your parents’ one. I thought... well something she said in her last letter made me think she already knew. She keeps up with everyone’s news very closely.”
Don picked up the card and stared at it for a moment before reaching for a pen and signing it.
“You really do write to everyone don’t you?”
“I like to keep in touch.” David said from much closer to Don than he’d been a moment before.
He took the card out of Don’s hand and looked at their signatures alongside each other for a moment.
“It looks...” Don trailed off and reached up to pull David down into a brief kiss.
“It’s only that for a long time that last term of school was the best thing that happened to me.” David said softly as he pushed the cards aside and sat next to Don. “I wasn’t happy exactly but it was all so vivid and afterwards, even at Oxford, I liked having the connection back to school and even when we’d all gone our separate ways everyone kept writing to me too.”
Don took the card back from David and slipped it into the envelope.
“Mrs Lintott I can understand, and the guys, but Irwin? You and he didn’t exactly get on very well.”
“Well...” David turned and looked at Don. “He was such a big part of that year. Of everything. And I wrote to him from Oxford once I was there I think to tell him how well we were all getting on without him and though he’s never written me a letter or anything he does send a Christmas card each year and I send him news. In fact I suspect sometimes that the only reason I get a card from him is because I send him news of Dakin.”
“Still?”
“For him perhaps, you know it’s not like that for me anymore.”
Don smiled.
“Not even with your Spaniel heart?”
“No!” David looked at him seriously. “You do know that don’t you?”
“Sorry, yes, I do.”
Don wrapped an arm round David’s shoulders and let him rest his head on his shoulder and they sat in quiet for a moment.”
“I don’t exactly write to everyone though you know.”
“Not Felix I’d imagine!”
“Oh no, I do write to him,” David smiled at Don’s disgusted face. “But Lockwood... well he’s on active duty somewhere and I’m not sure he’d appreciate a letter from me in front of his mates so I write to his mother and ask her to pass on my best wishes.”
“I...”
Don started but then stopped, the words catching in his throat.
“It doesn’t feel real does it? Lockwood a soldier? All of us grown up and with jobs and families and Irwin a celebrity nearly.”
“Mists we on mornings see, Have more substance when they're here.” David whispered. “It feels stranger looking back now than it used to.”
“Wait, I recognise that, John Clare isn’t it? Apparently some of Hector’s training has stuck with me.”
He looked at the picture on the wall of them all; Posner looking adoringly at Dakin as David never did at Stu and smiled.
“A guest to every heart's desire, And now he's nought at all.”
He looked back at David and saw a matching smile in his eyes.
“Come on, you’ll get the marking done eventually and those mince pies smell irresistible.”
Don stood up and held his hand out to David.