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.au fic: The Hours of Instruction - D/M (eventual NC17) 5.?
Title: The Hours of Instruction
By: HF
Email: aesc36 @gmail.com
Pairing: D/M
Rating/Warning: PG/PG13 for now; R/NC17 eventually.
Disclaimers: If the boys were mine, this season would not be happening.
Advertisements: Catholic school AU. For![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
wordclaim50 challenge #01 (AU) and philosophy_20 challenge #08 (Faith).
Chapters: 01; 02; 03; 04
Notes: Huge apologies for the delay on this chapter... Oddly, now that I'm on vacation, I've been horrifically busy (and not in a good, productive way).
CHAPTER FIVE
“I bet you say that to all your roommates.”
He was very proud of himself for coming up with this under duress.
“Only the ones on the swim team.” Danny grinned, like he knew exactly what that had cost Martin to say, bright and teasing in the half-light of evening. “So far, you’re the only one.”
Martin turned around and started walking, heading for the doubtful safety of Grey and his bedroom. He knew he was blushing, face probably red enough to be seen from space, could feel blood burning hot and uncomfortable in his cheeks and up the back of his neck.
Damn Danny Taylor.
Silence behind him for a moment, silence lasting long enough for relief to set in, before Martin heard the soft crunch of footsteps on concrete, two walking beats before they broke into a shuffling jog. Five more and Danny fell in beside him again. Still close, and Danny was wiry, all elbows, knocking carelessly into Martin.
“You okay?” And the bastard actually sounded concerned.
The concern was worse than teasing, bad enough that Martin needed a moment to collect himself and mutter some kind of completely transparent reassurance. He felt more than saw Danny’s expression of disbelief, but Danny didn’t say anything, and stayed quiet as they jogged up the steps into Grey, the flight of stairs to the second floor. Curiosity was there, though, and the desire to say something, and Martin would have demanded to know what Danny wanted to ask if he weren’t so terrified of the question and the answer he’d have to give.
Martin kept his attention fixed to his side of the room once he got there, turning on his computer and setting out the books he needed for Professor Rose’s essay – why not add to his misery, after all, and spend the rest of the evening on the Nicene Creed and Arianism? Despite his determination not to acknowledge Danny’s presence in any way, Martin’s attention kept straying to the small sounds of Danny moving around, his bookbag thumping to the floor, soft muttered running commentary as Danny collected some textbooks, creak of springs as he collapsed on his bed.
He typed away aimlessly for a few minutes, long enough to sense that Danny was only going to let Martin’s odd behavior go for so long without demanding an answer. Martin had no intention of offering one before he worked things out for himself.
Between the looks and the comments, Martin could almost swear the other boy was interested, if it weren’t for the fact that, as a general rule, Danny loved provoking people – and that they happened to be at a Catholic school. And while Martin had seen enough in the past couple of weeks to give him the impression the student body wasn’t quite as devout as the administration would have liked, he doubted that both students and faculty would look kindly on having someone, you know, openly gay living and studying with them.
But, damn it, Danny was the one who’d kept looking and making comments about Martin’s swimsuit. And yeah, the looks and the remarks made Martin damned uncomfortable – in more ways than one, because feeling Danny’s gaze traveling down his body that afternoon had felt really good, dangerously good, good enough to make him want Danny touching, not only looking – but that was no reason to let Danny know he was making Martin uncomfortable.
“Did you mean it?” Martin asked, not turning away from his monitor.
“Mean what?” Distracted, like Danny was actually paying more attention to his book.
“About me looking good in my Speedos.”
Silence that said he might actually have startled Danny, but Martin made himself not turn around and enjoyed Danny being the one confused for once, wondered if the other boy, like he was doing, was keeping score.
* * *
Three weeks later, Martin couldn’t tell where the point tally stood, but he had the sinking feeling he was falling behind. He tried not to pay too much attention to that, though.
Fortunately, Ashley was distracting.
“Why do they insist on feeding us crap?’ Ashley’s face had gone alarmingly red, the result of dangling upside-down off the side of his bed. “I thought our parents paid a fortune for us to come here.’
“I think that was for the benefit of, like, your education, not your gluttony.”
“Thanks so fucking much, Father Bryant.”
“You’re welcome so fucking much.” Kieran turned back to his laptop and began to type again.
The six of them were crammed into Ashley and Kieran’s room for a chemistry review session – a theoretical review session, Martin amended. There hadn’t been much reviewing going on, unless one counted Ashley’s listing of the many austerities Trinity inflicted on them, from questionable availability of hot water to the food. He did have a point, though; dinner tonight hadn’t been recognizable as anything resembling food, much less the lasagna they’d been told to expect.
“Seriously, though, I’m starving.” Ashley rolled over, cradling his chin on folded arms, face the picture of unbroken suffering. His notebook, long forgotten, crackled underneath him as he shifted. ”You guys can’t possibly think that dinner tonight was actually edible. Well, Fitzgerald maybe, he eats anything, but I mean, when did the FDA allow people to start serving cat? Because I swear to God that’s what was in the meat sauce.”
“Do you want me to barf in your pillowcase, Ash? Because I swear to God I will.” Danny reached for Ashley’s pillow and had his hand smacked away.
“Matt, you think you could shut him up?” David grumbled. “We’ll never get any work done with him bitching.”
“Ashley, shut up,” Matt said from Kieran’s desk chair. The chair creaked alarmingly as Matt rotated it.
‘Maybe we should stage an uprising and fling, like, animal carcasses into the administration building or something.”
“And drive them out with the plague?” Danny rolled his eyes. “Hey, I’ve got an idea – if you flunk Reynolds’s test tomorrow, you can get yourself sent home. Aren’t you already on academic probation? One more strike and you’re out?”
“Got taken off at the beginning of the semester – I ended up getting a B in Trigonometry last spring. Otherwise, excellent plan, Taylor.”
“Just order a pizza and quit bitching,” Martin grunted. “Can we please get back to studying?”
“Slightly against the rules there, Fitzgerald,” Kieran pointed out distractedly. “The pizza, I mean, not the bitching.”
“It’s only against the rules if you get caught,” Martin said.
And if that didn’t raise some heads. Matt swiveled to look at him, David and Kieran actually looked up from their books, and Danny was staring at him without his customary smirk.
“You’re serious,” Kieran said in a tone of voice that implied Martin couldn’t possibly be.
“Martin’s always serious,” Danny said, but Martin saw something in his face that spoke both of surprise and admiration.
“And you’d know.” Ashley raised a suggestive eyebrow and, having apparently recovered from his shock, asked, “So how are you going to get a pizza delivery guy all the way out here? They never deliver to the houses, you know, unless one of the rectors or someone in Admin calls in the order. Which is never, because pizza’s the eighth deadly sin.”
“Ninth, if you follow Cassian.”
“Oh my God, they’ve turned Fitzgerald!” Kieran said, shrinking dramatically away from Martin. “The world is down one good atheist.”
“Nah, they’ve just moved on to hamartology in Rose,” Danny told him. “Relax, Quinn.”
“The class is like being possessed,” David observed. “But anyway, Martin, how the hell do we get said pizza out here?’
Martin shrugged. “When you place the order, have the guy drop it off somewhere that’s not the houses.” The expressions on their faces told Martin he’d be the one doing the calling.
“The Grotto,” Danny suggested. “That’s technically part of the monastery, not the school.”
“I can’t believe you’re actually going to do this,” Matt said, not sounding particularly surprised – but then Matt never sounded particularly anything, steady and unflappable. “Now to the next point: how’re you going to get the pizza past Father West? He lives by the main doors.”
“Last I checked we were on the first floor. The window, man.” Martin rolled his eyes, firmly told the small, warning sensible voice inside him to shut up. It was his idea, and he was committed to it. “What do you guys want on it?”
A few minutes of negotiations followed, with Martin pointing out that, if he was going to have to jog a mile each way for pizza he was not going to cart around a bottle of Coke with him and Matt single-handedly vetoing Ashley’s request for sardines. After they got everything settled, their money pooled and tucked safely into one of Martin’s sneakers, Martin stood, swallowing back his sudden nervousness, and looked at Danny.
“Hey, I need a lookout.”
“I’m your man.” Danny bounced to his feet and smirked at the other four boys. “Later.”
“Godspeed,” Kieran said solemnly, hand over his heart.
“We’ll pray to the patron saint of pizza for you,” Ashley added.
“Never thought you’d be the one actually breaking rules,” Danny said to Martin once the door shut behind them.
It probably wasn’t wise to have this discussion in an echoing, empty hallway on their way to said breaking of rules, but Martin – already amped up by his decision and on edge since his exchange with Danny after the swim tryouts three weeks ago – had to answer:
“Yeah, well, there’s probably a lot you don’t know about me.”
Danny grinned at him. “We could fix that, you know.”
“You want my life’s story, Taylor?”
“Not necessarily,” Danny said ambiguously, shrugging, his grin widening so that Martin had to laugh.
“Maybe if I make it back without being kicked out.”
“Sounds good.” Unexpectedly decisive, like Danny was going to hold him to whatever it was he’d just promised. And Martin would be a lot more worried about that if he wasn’t about to, you know, flagrantly break a thousand of Trinity’s regulations.
No one was in the common room, thank God, most of the students either at evening activities or, Martin thought, studying frantically for Professor Reynolds’s chemistry exam. Father West, their rector, was nowhere to be seen, but Danny took up a position in a seat facing the door, in case, and pretended to be absorbed in the book he’d brought with him.
Martin dialed the number and waited impatiently through three rings.
“Mad Marco’s Pizza,” a bored, stuffy teenaged-voice said.
Martin hissed out his order, trying to speak as softly and quickly as possible. The kid on the other end of the line was either hard of hearing or extremely slow; it took five repetitions, and Danny glancing at Martin in some concern, before the kid got the order right.
“Where you want this?”
Martin told him.
“You know where it is?”
“Yeah, but dude... We ain’t supposed to deliver there unless the staff says so.”
“I’m not asking you to deliver to the houses, just the Grotto. St. Euphrosyne's hungry.”
There was a puzzled silence at the other end of the line, but the kid – probably, Martin thought, desperate to do something other than stand over the phone all night – agreed.
“It’ll be extra,” the kid said decisively, “since I technically ain’t supposed to drive out there.”
“Whatever, man. Thanks.”
“Yeah. It’ll be forty minutes.”
Martin hung up, had to lean back against the wall for a minute to regain himself. Father West hadn’t materialized, and Danny was still sitting there, one leg draped over the arm of his chair, smirking at him.
“We’re good to go,” Martin said, and when Danny laughed, realized what else Danny had heard in those words.
* * *
The jog to the Grotto took longer than he’d anticipated, as he’d had to keep to the shadows off the lighted paths. Though they still had an hour until curfew, Martin didn’t want to run into anyone who’d might want to stop and talk, or would wonder why he was out running in so little light, and toward a little-used part of campus.
He made it to the Grotto with a few minutes to spare, stopped near the entrance to it to catch his breath.
He’d never seen the Grotto during the day, located as it was in a little-used part of campus, part that technically belonged to the monastery adjoining the school. Whoever had made the grotto had had to cut deep into the earth, an artificial cave shored up by slabs of rough dark grey rock. A semi-circular clearing had been smoothed out in front of it and also paved, and furnished with uncomfortable-looking benches. The mouth of the cave gaped blackly in the darkness under the trees, lit only by the few candles the autumn wind hadn’t extinguished. In their faint glow, Martin could barely make out the wrought-iron screen behind them and, behind it, the lonely sculpted figure of St. Euphrosyne.
Definitely creepy for what was supposed to be a holy place. Martin retreated back to the path heading for the main drive, willing the delivery guy to appear. He was staring down the drive, so lost in trying to pick out the headlights of any oncoming car, that he almost didn’t hear the soft, anxious murmuring voice behind him.
Martin froze, shrinking into the shadows a bit more, and trying to pick out the voice. Hopefully a student coming back from a late run, someone who wouldn’t blink at seeing him out here. Around the anxious pounding of his heart, Martin strained to make out words – and they were words, slow and unsteady, but still ritual-sounding, a prayer – and wait.
No... No. God, it was Preston, Joseph Preston, tucked into one of the benches at the perimeter of the clearing. In the scant light, Martin could barely see the gangly, awkward profile, but that was Preston’s nasal, grating voice all right.
And what the hell was he doing out here? Probably flagellating himself or wearing a hairshirt or something, Martin thought. Preston had already earned a reputation for piety that delighted the faculty and annoyed his classmates. That it was apparently genuine didn’t help matters. Fortunately, Preston was too caught up in his communion with the divine to notice Martin retreating back toward the road. And, as though sent from God, there were headlights bouncing up the drive, attached to an ancient Chrysler with terrible suspension.
The car creaked to a halt on the shoulder fifty feet short of the turnoff and sputtered into silence. A skinny figure extracted itself from the driver’s side, and Martin jogged to meet it.
“Finally,” he grumbled, freaked out and nervous and feeling only slightly bad about taking it out on the kid, who stared at him with glassy, indignant eyes.
“Hey, I ain’t even supposed to be out here.” The kid thrust the pizza box at Martin, who took it automatically. “That’s twenty-one even.”
Martin dug the money out of his sneaker, and handed it over to the kid, who took it with some reluctance.
“Dude, this had so better not get me fired,” the kid informed him as he tucked the now-empty pouch under his arm and headed back to his car.
“Yeah, well, it’ll probably get me expelled,” Martin said, more to himself than the kid, who was already in his car and backing up. He spent a second trying to work out the best way to carry the box – and there was no good way except under one arm, with one side pressing into his ribs – and jogged back to Grey.
* * *
“That was something,” Danny commented as they slunk back to their room, ten minutes after curfew. His tone was careful, neutral, but Martin heard the admiration under it and had to hide a smile – no good letting Danny know Martin was on to him.
“Thank you,” Martin said, so elaborately modest that Danny snickered.
Martin had been greeted with quiet whoops of gratitude and joy by the five other boys, and if the pizza was cool and slightly mangled after a jog through the woods, no one complained about it. Ashley, despite being grateful for real food – or, as Matt had pointed out, as close to real as greasy, cooling pizza could get – had to be forced into giving Martin the extra piece that remained after they’d divided the pizza up.
And, better than the lukewarm pizza and the thrill of breaking the rules and getting away with it was how Danny had looked at him for that next half hour, half-smile playing around the edge of his mouth, teasing still but with something else behind it, something Martin couldn’t identify and didn’t know if he wanted to.
The way Danny was looking at him now, electric, swift and sudden pulse of awareness all through Martin’s body, and Martin thought he’s interested.
One way to put it. Want, maybe closer.
Danny all but pushed him through their door, touch like fire burning through the fabric of Martin’s shirt, blistering between his shoulder blades, and yeah, definitely want and why was he so surprised? Right there, not behind the teasing in Danny’s eyes anymore, and Martin could only stare, caught by dark and fire, and wonder if he could break his own rules.
tbc.
Post-fic notes:
hamartology: the study of sin and vice.
St. Euphrosyne: According to legend, St. Euphrosyne joined the church against her father's wishes and, in order to escape detection, disguised herself as a monk. She lived as a man for many years (her father even consulted with her, and her abbott was concerned about the effect the very pretty-looking monk would have on his brothers), and revealed her identity on her deathbed. Her father joined her monastery after her death.
By: HF
Email: aesc36 @gmail.com
Pairing: D/M
Rating/Warning: PG/PG13 for now; R/NC17 eventually.
Disclaimers: If the boys were mine, this season would not be happening.
Advertisements: Catholic school AU. For
wordclaim50 challenge #01 (AU) and philosophy_20 challenge #08 (Faith).Chapters: 01; 02; 03; 04
Notes: Huge apologies for the delay on this chapter... Oddly, now that I'm on vacation, I've been horrifically busy (and not in a good, productive way).
CHAPTER FIVE
“I bet you say that to all your roommates.”
He was very proud of himself for coming up with this under duress.
“Only the ones on the swim team.” Danny grinned, like he knew exactly what that had cost Martin to say, bright and teasing in the half-light of evening. “So far, you’re the only one.”
Martin turned around and started walking, heading for the doubtful safety of Grey and his bedroom. He knew he was blushing, face probably red enough to be seen from space, could feel blood burning hot and uncomfortable in his cheeks and up the back of his neck.
Damn Danny Taylor.
Silence behind him for a moment, silence lasting long enough for relief to set in, before Martin heard the soft crunch of footsteps on concrete, two walking beats before they broke into a shuffling jog. Five more and Danny fell in beside him again. Still close, and Danny was wiry, all elbows, knocking carelessly into Martin.
“You okay?” And the bastard actually sounded concerned.
The concern was worse than teasing, bad enough that Martin needed a moment to collect himself and mutter some kind of completely transparent reassurance. He felt more than saw Danny’s expression of disbelief, but Danny didn’t say anything, and stayed quiet as they jogged up the steps into Grey, the flight of stairs to the second floor. Curiosity was there, though, and the desire to say something, and Martin would have demanded to know what Danny wanted to ask if he weren’t so terrified of the question and the answer he’d have to give.
Martin kept his attention fixed to his side of the room once he got there, turning on his computer and setting out the books he needed for Professor Rose’s essay – why not add to his misery, after all, and spend the rest of the evening on the Nicene Creed and Arianism? Despite his determination not to acknowledge Danny’s presence in any way, Martin’s attention kept straying to the small sounds of Danny moving around, his bookbag thumping to the floor, soft muttered running commentary as Danny collected some textbooks, creak of springs as he collapsed on his bed.
He typed away aimlessly for a few minutes, long enough to sense that Danny was only going to let Martin’s odd behavior go for so long without demanding an answer. Martin had no intention of offering one before he worked things out for himself.
Between the looks and the comments, Martin could almost swear the other boy was interested, if it weren’t for the fact that, as a general rule, Danny loved provoking people – and that they happened to be at a Catholic school. And while Martin had seen enough in the past couple of weeks to give him the impression the student body wasn’t quite as devout as the administration would have liked, he doubted that both students and faculty would look kindly on having someone, you know, openly gay living and studying with them.
But, damn it, Danny was the one who’d kept looking and making comments about Martin’s swimsuit. And yeah, the looks and the remarks made Martin damned uncomfortable – in more ways than one, because feeling Danny’s gaze traveling down his body that afternoon had felt really good, dangerously good, good enough to make him want Danny touching, not only looking – but that was no reason to let Danny know he was making Martin uncomfortable.
“Did you mean it?” Martin asked, not turning away from his monitor.
“Mean what?” Distracted, like Danny was actually paying more attention to his book.
“About me looking good in my Speedos.”
Silence that said he might actually have startled Danny, but Martin made himself not turn around and enjoyed Danny being the one confused for once, wondered if the other boy, like he was doing, was keeping score.
Three weeks later, Martin couldn’t tell where the point tally stood, but he had the sinking feeling he was falling behind. He tried not to pay too much attention to that, though.
Fortunately, Ashley was distracting.
“Why do they insist on feeding us crap?’ Ashley’s face had gone alarmingly red, the result of dangling upside-down off the side of his bed. “I thought our parents paid a fortune for us to come here.’
“I think that was for the benefit of, like, your education, not your gluttony.”
“Thanks so fucking much, Father Bryant.”
“You’re welcome so fucking much.” Kieran turned back to his laptop and began to type again.
The six of them were crammed into Ashley and Kieran’s room for a chemistry review session – a theoretical review session, Martin amended. There hadn’t been much reviewing going on, unless one counted Ashley’s listing of the many austerities Trinity inflicted on them, from questionable availability of hot water to the food. He did have a point, though; dinner tonight hadn’t been recognizable as anything resembling food, much less the lasagna they’d been told to expect.
“Seriously, though, I’m starving.” Ashley rolled over, cradling his chin on folded arms, face the picture of unbroken suffering. His notebook, long forgotten, crackled underneath him as he shifted. ”You guys can’t possibly think that dinner tonight was actually edible. Well, Fitzgerald maybe, he eats anything, but I mean, when did the FDA allow people to start serving cat? Because I swear to God that’s what was in the meat sauce.”
“Do you want me to barf in your pillowcase, Ash? Because I swear to God I will.” Danny reached for Ashley’s pillow and had his hand smacked away.
“Matt, you think you could shut him up?” David grumbled. “We’ll never get any work done with him bitching.”
“Ashley, shut up,” Matt said from Kieran’s desk chair. The chair creaked alarmingly as Matt rotated it.
‘Maybe we should stage an uprising and fling, like, animal carcasses into the administration building or something.”
“And drive them out with the plague?” Danny rolled his eyes. “Hey, I’ve got an idea – if you flunk Reynolds’s test tomorrow, you can get yourself sent home. Aren’t you already on academic probation? One more strike and you’re out?”
“Got taken off at the beginning of the semester – I ended up getting a B in Trigonometry last spring. Otherwise, excellent plan, Taylor.”
“Just order a pizza and quit bitching,” Martin grunted. “Can we please get back to studying?”
“Slightly against the rules there, Fitzgerald,” Kieran pointed out distractedly. “The pizza, I mean, not the bitching.”
“It’s only against the rules if you get caught,” Martin said.
And if that didn’t raise some heads. Matt swiveled to look at him, David and Kieran actually looked up from their books, and Danny was staring at him without his customary smirk.
“You’re serious,” Kieran said in a tone of voice that implied Martin couldn’t possibly be.
“Martin’s always serious,” Danny said, but Martin saw something in his face that spoke both of surprise and admiration.
“And you’d know.” Ashley raised a suggestive eyebrow and, having apparently recovered from his shock, asked, “So how are you going to get a pizza delivery guy all the way out here? They never deliver to the houses, you know, unless one of the rectors or someone in Admin calls in the order. Which is never, because pizza’s the eighth deadly sin.”
“Ninth, if you follow Cassian.”
“Oh my God, they’ve turned Fitzgerald!” Kieran said, shrinking dramatically away from Martin. “The world is down one good atheist.”
“Nah, they’ve just moved on to hamartology in Rose,” Danny told him. “Relax, Quinn.”
“The class is like being possessed,” David observed. “But anyway, Martin, how the hell do we get said pizza out here?’
Martin shrugged. “When you place the order, have the guy drop it off somewhere that’s not the houses.” The expressions on their faces told Martin he’d be the one doing the calling.
“The Grotto,” Danny suggested. “That’s technically part of the monastery, not the school.”
“I can’t believe you’re actually going to do this,” Matt said, not sounding particularly surprised – but then Matt never sounded particularly anything, steady and unflappable. “Now to the next point: how’re you going to get the pizza past Father West? He lives by the main doors.”
“Last I checked we were on the first floor. The window, man.” Martin rolled his eyes, firmly told the small, warning sensible voice inside him to shut up. It was his idea, and he was committed to it. “What do you guys want on it?”
A few minutes of negotiations followed, with Martin pointing out that, if he was going to have to jog a mile each way for pizza he was not going to cart around a bottle of Coke with him and Matt single-handedly vetoing Ashley’s request for sardines. After they got everything settled, their money pooled and tucked safely into one of Martin’s sneakers, Martin stood, swallowing back his sudden nervousness, and looked at Danny.
“Hey, I need a lookout.”
“I’m your man.” Danny bounced to his feet and smirked at the other four boys. “Later.”
“Godspeed,” Kieran said solemnly, hand over his heart.
“We’ll pray to the patron saint of pizza for you,” Ashley added.
“Never thought you’d be the one actually breaking rules,” Danny said to Martin once the door shut behind them.
It probably wasn’t wise to have this discussion in an echoing, empty hallway on their way to said breaking of rules, but Martin – already amped up by his decision and on edge since his exchange with Danny after the swim tryouts three weeks ago – had to answer:
“Yeah, well, there’s probably a lot you don’t know about me.”
Danny grinned at him. “We could fix that, you know.”
“You want my life’s story, Taylor?”
“Not necessarily,” Danny said ambiguously, shrugging, his grin widening so that Martin had to laugh.
“Maybe if I make it back without being kicked out.”
“Sounds good.” Unexpectedly decisive, like Danny was going to hold him to whatever it was he’d just promised. And Martin would be a lot more worried about that if he wasn’t about to, you know, flagrantly break a thousand of Trinity’s regulations.
No one was in the common room, thank God, most of the students either at evening activities or, Martin thought, studying frantically for Professor Reynolds’s chemistry exam. Father West, their rector, was nowhere to be seen, but Danny took up a position in a seat facing the door, in case, and pretended to be absorbed in the book he’d brought with him.
Martin dialed the number and waited impatiently through three rings.
“Mad Marco’s Pizza,” a bored, stuffy teenaged-voice said.
Martin hissed out his order, trying to speak as softly and quickly as possible. The kid on the other end of the line was either hard of hearing or extremely slow; it took five repetitions, and Danny glancing at Martin in some concern, before the kid got the order right.
“Where you want this?”
Martin told him.
“You know where it is?”
“Yeah, but dude... We ain’t supposed to deliver there unless the staff says so.”
“I’m not asking you to deliver to the houses, just the Grotto. St. Euphrosyne's hungry.”
There was a puzzled silence at the other end of the line, but the kid – probably, Martin thought, desperate to do something other than stand over the phone all night – agreed.
“It’ll be extra,” the kid said decisively, “since I technically ain’t supposed to drive out there.”
“Whatever, man. Thanks.”
“Yeah. It’ll be forty minutes.”
Martin hung up, had to lean back against the wall for a minute to regain himself. Father West hadn’t materialized, and Danny was still sitting there, one leg draped over the arm of his chair, smirking at him.
“We’re good to go,” Martin said, and when Danny laughed, realized what else Danny had heard in those words.
The jog to the Grotto took longer than he’d anticipated, as he’d had to keep to the shadows off the lighted paths. Though they still had an hour until curfew, Martin didn’t want to run into anyone who’d might want to stop and talk, or would wonder why he was out running in so little light, and toward a little-used part of campus.
He made it to the Grotto with a few minutes to spare, stopped near the entrance to it to catch his breath.
He’d never seen the Grotto during the day, located as it was in a little-used part of campus, part that technically belonged to the monastery adjoining the school. Whoever had made the grotto had had to cut deep into the earth, an artificial cave shored up by slabs of rough dark grey rock. A semi-circular clearing had been smoothed out in front of it and also paved, and furnished with uncomfortable-looking benches. The mouth of the cave gaped blackly in the darkness under the trees, lit only by the few candles the autumn wind hadn’t extinguished. In their faint glow, Martin could barely make out the wrought-iron screen behind them and, behind it, the lonely sculpted figure of St. Euphrosyne.
Definitely creepy for what was supposed to be a holy place. Martin retreated back to the path heading for the main drive, willing the delivery guy to appear. He was staring down the drive, so lost in trying to pick out the headlights of any oncoming car, that he almost didn’t hear the soft, anxious murmuring voice behind him.
Martin froze, shrinking into the shadows a bit more, and trying to pick out the voice. Hopefully a student coming back from a late run, someone who wouldn’t blink at seeing him out here. Around the anxious pounding of his heart, Martin strained to make out words – and they were words, slow and unsteady, but still ritual-sounding, a prayer – and wait.
No... No. God, it was Preston, Joseph Preston, tucked into one of the benches at the perimeter of the clearing. In the scant light, Martin could barely see the gangly, awkward profile, but that was Preston’s nasal, grating voice all right.
And what the hell was he doing out here? Probably flagellating himself or wearing a hairshirt or something, Martin thought. Preston had already earned a reputation for piety that delighted the faculty and annoyed his classmates. That it was apparently genuine didn’t help matters. Fortunately, Preston was too caught up in his communion with the divine to notice Martin retreating back toward the road. And, as though sent from God, there were headlights bouncing up the drive, attached to an ancient Chrysler with terrible suspension.
The car creaked to a halt on the shoulder fifty feet short of the turnoff and sputtered into silence. A skinny figure extracted itself from the driver’s side, and Martin jogged to meet it.
“Finally,” he grumbled, freaked out and nervous and feeling only slightly bad about taking it out on the kid, who stared at him with glassy, indignant eyes.
“Hey, I ain’t even supposed to be out here.” The kid thrust the pizza box at Martin, who took it automatically. “That’s twenty-one even.”
Martin dug the money out of his sneaker, and handed it over to the kid, who took it with some reluctance.
“Dude, this had so better not get me fired,” the kid informed him as he tucked the now-empty pouch under his arm and headed back to his car.
“Yeah, well, it’ll probably get me expelled,” Martin said, more to himself than the kid, who was already in his car and backing up. He spent a second trying to work out the best way to carry the box – and there was no good way except under one arm, with one side pressing into his ribs – and jogged back to Grey.
“That was something,” Danny commented as they slunk back to their room, ten minutes after curfew. His tone was careful, neutral, but Martin heard the admiration under it and had to hide a smile – no good letting Danny know Martin was on to him.
“Thank you,” Martin said, so elaborately modest that Danny snickered.
Martin had been greeted with quiet whoops of gratitude and joy by the five other boys, and if the pizza was cool and slightly mangled after a jog through the woods, no one complained about it. Ashley, despite being grateful for real food – or, as Matt had pointed out, as close to real as greasy, cooling pizza could get – had to be forced into giving Martin the extra piece that remained after they’d divided the pizza up.
And, better than the lukewarm pizza and the thrill of breaking the rules and getting away with it was how Danny had looked at him for that next half hour, half-smile playing around the edge of his mouth, teasing still but with something else behind it, something Martin couldn’t identify and didn’t know if he wanted to.
The way Danny was looking at him now, electric, swift and sudden pulse of awareness all through Martin’s body, and Martin thought he’s interested.
One way to put it. Want, maybe closer.
Danny all but pushed him through their door, touch like fire burning through the fabric of Martin’s shirt, blistering between his shoulder blades, and yeah, definitely want and why was he so surprised? Right there, not behind the teasing in Danny’s eyes anymore, and Martin could only stare, caught by dark and fire, and wonder if he could break his own rules.
tbc.
Post-fic notes:
hamartology: the study of sin and vice.
St. Euphrosyne: According to legend, St. Euphrosyne joined the church against her father's wishes and, in order to escape detection, disguised herself as a monk. She lived as a man for many years (her father even consulted with her, and her abbott was concerned about the effect the very pretty-looking monk would have on his brothers), and revealed her identity on her deathbed. Her father joined her monastery after her death.
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Question: is this set in real time? I assumed it was in the past, so when you started mentioning computers and laptops, I got confused. Granted, they were probably in high school in the early to mid eighties, so there were computers, but home computers? Not very common. Laptops? Unheard of. So yes, now I'm curious as to whether this is AU set in 2006 or an exploration of the potential past.
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Oh, you know it! I mean, I know I would.
Question: is this set in real time?
Reasonably proximate to today, though I suppose you could argue that it takes place any time between c. 1995 and now. I didn't want to steal Alethia's 1980s premise, and ultimately, I decided to stick with what I know--which is having a laptop at school *g*
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This is still really good and I'm just dying to see the resolution of all that UST flying around. ;o)
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I love take-charge!Martin. "Manhunt" is possibly one of the hottest things I've ever seen because of that alone. Yeah. *wibble*
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My favorite part:
He knew he was blushing, face probably red enough to be seen from space, could feel blood burning hot and uncomfortable in his cheeks and up the back of his neck.
So sweet. And Martin being the bad boy and Danny being amused (and dare I say, turned on?) by it was wonderful.
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You should dare to say it, because it's true :D
You're killing me!
Oh, you like it. Admit it ;)
But there will be more soon. Soon.
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I loved the "you must say that to all your roommates" line.
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I try to be good :(
Thank you, though ;)
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(hee! dog snoring!)
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Finn snores very loudly, though intermittently. There will be a few minutes of silence, then a series of "aaahhhhZZZZzzzzznnnggggggghfffff"-type sounds, then silence again.
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And oooh, you are evil for leaving us hanging like that. But I love you anyway.
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Of course not ;D The next thing you know, Martin will be sneaking in four-course meals.
And oooh, you are evil for leaving us hanging like that.
*innocence*
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And you just know that Danny was trying to impress Danny, only it came so natural and easy that I bet Danny got confused for a moment, but the end... it just about killed me, please next chapter, soon.
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:)
“Oh my God, they’ve turned Fitzgerald!” Kieran said, shrinking dramatically away from Martin. “The world is down one good atheist.”
What also has made me giggle today? A British guy saying, "First day I've given up fags and I'm dying for one" (paraphrasing) So, yeah, so he was talking about cigarettes, but it still amused me.
More please!!
Re: :)
As for more, soon, soon...
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Martin's catching on, I see. This is a good thing, since Danny can only be obvious for so long without being blatant. :)
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Yes, brilliant boy that he is *g* And thank you!
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Well, I have to keep people reading somehow :D
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At least it's not as bad as that last cliffhanger...
Mmm, this badass!Martin is very much a hotter Martin. And then there's the confused and clueless Martin, followed by the "OH!" Martin. Gotta LOVE IT.
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Wah! I bruise easily! *cries*
Mmm, this badass!Martin is very much a hotter Martin.
Oh, yesyesyes.
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Can't wait for the next part :)
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Thank you :) I wanted to bring out Martin's more daring, "the hell with the rules" side. I think he believes rules are for other people--not because he thinks he's above them, but that if anyone's going to break the rules, he should be the one to do it :D
gr8 <3
Re: gr8 <3
Re: gr8 <3
*smacks the typo lightly*