aesc | .au fic: The Hours of Instruction

Title: The Hours of Instruction
By: HF
Email: aesc36 @gmail.com
Pairing: D/M
Rating/Warning: PG/PG13 for now; R/NC17 eventually. Possibly blasphemous.
Disclaimers: If the boys were mine, this season would not be happening.
Advertisements: Catholic school AU. Let me say that again: Catholic school. For

wordclaim50 challenge #01 (AU) and

philosophy_20 challenge #08 (Faith).
Chapters: 01

Notes: In celebration of the completion of projects... a new chapter.

CHAPTER TWO

He hadn’t even been here an hour and already Martin had thought at least a hundred times about writing his mother and begging her to reconsider their deal. His father had gone to England for several weeks, something top-secret and important, and wouldn’t have to know. Hell, Martin told himself, it wasn’t like his father had known much even when he was around.

Martin’s bad mood wasn’t going unnoticed by his roommate, and that only made things worse. Much worse. Because being caught out like that, frozen and embarrassed, too overwhelmed by having a roommate with sloppy dark hair and knowing eyes, everything Martin had told himself with all a sixteen-year-old’s resolve he should not want, he’d shut down.

Completely, totally. Had dropped Danny’s hand as soon as he could, terrified of that warm, strong grip – testing, and he’d already figured out that Danny was one of those people who pushed, prodded, wouldn’t take no for an answer, or any answer at face value. Curt answers to Danny’s few questions – So you’re from the city? Yeah. Me, too. Huh. We should get to dinner, or Bryant’s going to be pissed. Yeah. – and Danny had finally rolled his eyes and given up, led Martin out the door and down the hall in silence.

“So, um, why’re we going to Coren?” Martin asked, when the ringing silence became oppressive. Horrible question, awkward as the silence was, and he wished he could take it back.

Danny remained quiet for a heartbeat longer, glancing at him, is this guy for real? written plainly on his face.

But he did answer.

Danny probably thought he was either an idiot or an asshole – probably, Martin concluded bleakly, an idiotic asshole – if the way he looked at Martin, faintly curious and challenging, was any indication.

On the short walk to Coren, mercifully only two buildings down, Martin learned that there were four houses for students, Sobel, Coren, Wilson, and Grey. Grey was the honors house for seniors and juniors – “Either that or your parents gave the school a hell of a lot of money to get you in,” Danny added, looking at Martin again, eyes dark, superior, like he’d discovered some sort of dirty secret – and freshmen and sophomores lived in Sobel, while juniors lived in Wilson and seniors in Coren.

Honors students, Danny explained as he pulled open the main door to Coren, ate in the senior dining hall. The door was heavy, solid oak on iron hinges and slammed behind them with ominous finality. More space in Coren, and what had been the dining hall for Grey had been converted to a small library and study room.

“Oh,” Martin said.

He followed Danny, if only because he had no idea where to go or what to do, and he could sense the other students looking at him, the whisper of hey, Taylor’s new roommate sweeping along under other conversations, interrupting them before the conversations flowed on again. Desperately he ignored this and tried not to feel out of place as he looked around the hall, arched ceilings like some medieval castle, the students seated six to a table, the rectors and some faculty at one long table on a raised platform.

No sign of food, and Martin’s stomach rumbled unhappily, though hunger was a distant thing, buried under layers of stress and humiliation. Automatically, he sat down next to Danny at a circular table, already occupied by four other boys who greeted Danny noisily and turned to look at Martin.

“Martin, Kieran, Matt, Ashley, and David.” Danny gestured to each boy in turn – Kieran, thin with black hair that made him look paler than he was, Matt practically a giant next to him, Ashley peering at him through a mop of ill-disciplined blond curls, David – never Dave, he said almost on the heels of Danny’s introduction – with brown hair and eyes, unremarkable.

“Junior class voted David Most Likely to Die Under Bizarre Circumstances,” Ashley told Martin, nodding. “He got struck by lightning last year.”

“I did not; it hit the tree near me.” David glared at Ashley. “Shut up about it, already.”

“His uncle’s in the Mob,” Matt added, voice deep, like coming from somewhere underground. “His last name’s DiMatteo. He’s got connections.”

“I do not. Geez, Black.”

Martin understood this was supposed to make him welcome, a gesture that threw him almost as much as Danny had been doing so brilliantly thus far. He hadn’t expected it, wondered what the catch was, if maybe the catch wasn’t Danny next to him, watching him closely despite the distraction of Kieran harassing him for details about his summer.

“Just went back to the city,” Danny said, shrugging off the question. “You guys hear about Tressler?” Beautiful redirection, Martin thought distantly, and wondered why as the other boys piled onto the new topic.

“He got some kind of disease, out on this missionary trip in Brazil,” Kieran told Martin. “They were out in the jungle and this leech thing sort of attached itself to him when he was crossing this river. His left leg swelled up and everything, and they had to fly him all the way back to Rio de Janeiro or else he would have died. Really sick stuff; like, I think it might be elephantiasis or something. Ashley emailed him to ask for pictures.”

“Tressler told me to fuck off,” Ashley said.

“Wow,” Martin said, at a loss for more. He glanced around, half-expecting some sort of authority figure to materialize at the mere breathing of the word fuck, to smite Ashley dead for blasphemy and maybe the entire table too, but the clamor of two hundred boys drowned everything out.

Kieran gave Martin a look vaguely reminiscent of Danny’s, laced with disappointment, and seemed like he wanted to say something else, but the faint squeal of a microphone, followed by a few seconds of grating static broke him off. A hush swept across the room, almost miraculous, two hundred teenagers falling silent almost simultaneously.

From almost the farthest corner of the dining hall, Martin thought he recognized the man standing up behind the faculty table as Father Bryant.

“Oh God, it’s Bryant,” Ashley whispered, dismayed, a confirmation. “We’re never going to eat. We’re going to, like, shrivel and die.”

“Patience is a virtue,” Matt said.

“Shut up.”

“On behalf of all the faculty and staff at Trinity Academy, I would like to welcome all students, new and old alike, to the new academic year. For new students, I remind you that you have orientation tomorrow morning beginning at nine o’clock; you will meet for a short service in chapel with Father Connolly…”

Yes, yes, Martin knew this already. He had the orientation packet stuffed in his duffel bag. He knew that curfew was at ten on class nights and Saturdays, midnight on Fridays, he knew the dress code, having packed two blazers, countless pairs of slacks, ties, and shirts himself. Signs were posted for athletic tryouts, he’d seen them and made a note on swimming and track, he knew when his laundry drop-off was, thousands of other things Danny had told him and things he was sure he could figure out for himself, like the fact that no women – except for mothers, grandmothers, and any woman over forty – were allowed on campus.

Bryant dwelt on this last detail at length.

“Does he think we’re morons?” Martin muttered.

“Nah, he just likes to hear himself talk,” Danny said.

Martin looked up in surprise, not expecting to have been overheard, and found Danny grinning at him. Not like before, but something new, shared, and Martin found he could smile a bit. His smile faded as Bryant paused, the silence in the hall deepening into resignation.

“And now,” Father Bryant said, “let us pray.”

It was, Martin thought, eerie, how every head in the entire hall – except his – bowed at exactly the same time, and he was a heartbeat behind, too startled to keep in step, shooting a desperate look at Danny, saw Danny gazing back at him from under the secrecy of that dark hair of his.

Look at your hands, Martin told himself, staring at his hands, laced together in his lap. Father Bryant had launched into a marathon version of grace, complete with lengthy interpolations of Biblical passages and the importance of qualities such as diligence, mercy, and understanding, asking grace for the new academic year and that the minds of the students would be illuminated and somehow came off less like he was beseeching God for these things than lecturing Him.

Finally, finally Father Bryant paused, and, just when Martin thought it was done and he could eat at last, added “Now, let us pray as the Lord taught us – ”

Martin vaguely remembered the Lord’s Prayer, the memory of pastors long ago whispering it in his ear. But the words were in the wrong order, half-recalled, and after “who art in heaven” he gave up, mouthing the words and grateful for the fact that the murmur of two hundred other voices hid his own stuttering one. He could hear the other boys at his table, Matt’s deep voice, Kieran’s lighter, Danny’s right next to him, low and hypnotic, suggesting things inappropriate to think about while praying.

Barely two hours in and already he was being tempted. Martin wondered if maybe that was somehow against the spirit of things.

At last, Father Bryant said “Amen,” echoed as a relieved sigh by the students. Martin sat up, forgetting to cross himself, knowing he would have gotten it wrong anyway. He saw that the other boys at the table had observed this.

“I’m, um, not Catholic,” Martin said as they looked at him, helpless to do anything but state the obvious.

“Burn him!” Kieran said dramatically. “Stone him!”

“Kieran.” Matt frowned at the other boy, who subsided – wisely, Martin thought, as Matt seemed twice his size. “I think,” Matt said, turning back to Martin, “once the administration realized they could make more money if they weren’t so selective about enrollment, it doesn’t really matter what you are anymore.”

“So long as you don’t sacrifice kittens to Satan,” Danny said, leaning closer to Martin, a tantalizing flash of presence before he withdrew.

“Most of the guys are Catholic, though,” David added, craning his head over his shoulder to check the progress of the line for food.

“Eh, I’ve been coming here since freshman year,” Ashley said, shoving a hand through hair that Martin was pretty sure violated dress code, “and they haven’t got me yet. But if you want to talk about persistence, they’ve been after Danny since, like, forever.”

Danny smiled thinly, and Martin, who’d known Danny all of an hour or so, somehow recognized the warning, like moving the conversation from his summer to Tressler’s probable elephantaisis. Ashley did too, it seemed, and went back to speculating on whether or not he would die of hunger before their table got to eat.

“We could always draw straws and eat the loser,” Danny suggested, and like that he was the Danny Martin had known briefly – sarcastic, needling, not angry or regretful at all, and Martin wondered at the change.

* * *

Dinner dragged on interminably through dessert, which Martin could barely swallow, and a round of speeches by the rectors of Grey and Wilson, a new instructor in philosophy and theology, and Martin vowed never to take the man’s class if he could possibly help it. Father Bryant, taking the stage one more time, had also reminded them that a special Mass for the beginning of the school year would be held that Sunday.

“Is Mass always held on Sundays?” Ashley had asked no one in particular. “I keep forgetting.”

Afterward, Martin walked back to Grey with Danny – the others, though all in Grey as well, had left for parts unknown – with each passing second feeling more and more like some odd, trailing appendage. But he had no idea what else to do other than unpack; he could have, he supposed, gone for a walk, but that possibility had occurred to him halfway up the stairs and it seemed ridiculous to turn back around.

Danny collapsed on his bed, sprawling across it, all long-limbed and casual grace, and Martin very quickly busied himself with his unpacking.

He could feel the weight of Danny’s gaze on him, burning into the space between his shoulder blades, feel it traveling up and down his body, and oh God no no no he wasn’t thinking this, what it would be like to have Danny’s hands wandering over him instead, what it would be like if Danny were wearing nothing instead of jeans and a blue-striped shirt.

A few books went into a shelf, pushed there by an unsteady hand. Sports bag at the foot of his bed, underwear and socks into their drawer by the fistful. The entire time, Martin struggled for something to say, to ask, anything, but all he could come up with was “How was your summer?” and “What do your parents do?” and judging from Danny’s reactions at dinner, both topics were off-limits. The latter was uncomfortable enough for Martin that he didn’t want to bring it up, either.

“What do your parents do?”

Martin blinked, startled at hearing his own thought voiced aloud.

“What do they do?” He looked around, saw Danny nodding, smiling at him in sarcastic encouragement. “They… um, my dad works for the government. My mom’s an economist.”

He didn’t miss the quick flash of curiosity in Danny’s eyes, and supposed Danny was wondering why Martin was at a filthily expensive place like Trinity. Civil servants didn’t make all that much. He hoped he wouldn’t have to explain his family’s financial situation – it was related to so much else that was wrong and fucked-up in his life – and mercifully, Danny let it go.

“Um, what do yours do?” Martin asked, hoping that, since Danny had mentioned it, the topic was safe after all.

“They’re dead.”

And what the hell, Martin wondered, do you say to that? But the evening fell into a new perspective: the avoidance, redirection, the silent warning of Ashley off the conversation. All of it, click into place and Martin looked up from the hopeless tangle of his headphone cords, saw Danny staring at him, more challenge in his eyes than regret, and said with more sincerity than was probably wise, “I’m sorry.”

Saw, for one moment, complete surprise in those dark eyes – no gratification that he’d managed to knock Danny off his stride – before Danny stood up, not quite as graceful as before.

“I need to go ask Ashley something,” he said, out the door in nearly two steps. “See ya.”

“Yeah,” Martin said, not like he was giving permission or anything, bit back the observation that curfew started in a half hour, and watched as Danny shut the door behind him. Could, in the sudden silence and between the painful thumps of his heart, hear Danny’s footsteps vanishing down the hallway.

“That went well,” Martin told himself and returned to unpacking, told himself – silently this time – not to obsess over what lay under their conversation, whether Danny had been honest because he’d wanted to be, or for some other reason. Testing Martin, maybe, and not expecting him to answer the way he had.

So, naturally, he obsessed over it until he’d finished putting his stuff away, picked up a science-fiction book he’d brought and didn’t even make it through two pages, gave up and went to bed. He’d just found something like sleep when he heard the door open, abrupt in the silence, sudden hush, a pause when Danny realized that Martin was asleep.

Theoretically asleep. Martin watched, eyes barely open, conscience shouting at him that he was spying on his roommate undressing and his hormones shouting for his conscience to shut the fuck up, because Danny was stripping with little ceremony, late summer moonlight almost warm on his skin, shadows at the ridges of shoulders and spine. Legs even nicer-looking without the jeans, lithe, a runner’s build and Martin was pretty sure he was going to die. Yes, die, and be happy about it.

Danny stopped with his boxers, not bothering to pick his shirt up, and then he was pulling his covers back, soft rustling in the darkness.

A silence. And then:

“G’night, Martin,” Danny said.

-tbc.-

Post-fic notes: Those of you who have read ALTC and associated stories may recognize Matt :) I had to bring him in, as I liked him, despite his OCness.

.au fic: The Hours of Instruction - D/M (eventual NC17) 2.?

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