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.au fic: The Hours of Instruction - D/M (eventual NC17) 9.?
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 notbe happening have happened.
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; 05; 06; 07; 08
Notes: Yay! I got some quality time in at the coffee shop today. Not sure how many more chapters there are to go in this thing, so the story will stay open-ended for the time being... I've long since learned not to commit to a chapter limit *wry look*
CHAPTER NINE
Heading off on a wild-goose chase – or, Martin supposed a wild-Danny chase – at the tail end of the afternoon was probably not one of his better ideas, recent hospitalization or no.
Away from the open fields of the school, in the shadowy forest that made the barrier between Trinity and the rest of the world, the same forest Martin and his mother had driven through not so many weeks ago, the air was much, much cooler. Cool enough that Martin, who had on a thin sweater, wished for something heavier. Sweat refused to evaporate and grew clammy on his neck.
The path wound around before him, lazy loops through the woods heading nowhere and sometimes seeming to vanish altogether, and Martin had a brief, paranoid vision of stumbling around in hypothermia-induced delirium, lost forever – or maybe until his frozen corpse was discovered a year later somewhere just off the path, tragically just a few steps from the road back to civilization.
Then Danny would be sorry.
He was so preoccupied in trying to keep to the track and prevent any chance of being lost and frozen to death that he almost missed the sound of running footsteps. Footsteps not his own coming from somewhere up ahead, footsteps coming closer.
Danny! Martin couldn’t see the path through the trees and the lattice of shadows, but that had to be him. Who else would be out here this time of day, besides Danny and the boy stupid enough to go looking for him?
Martin slowed down, absent-minded jog dropping into a walk, and tried to compose himself. Wouldn’t do to have Danny see him slightly wild-eyed and freaked out. The footsteps drew closer, not slackening, definitely louder now, and Martin could hear branches snapping underneath running feet.
Movement in the shadows now and any second now he would come around the bend, and Martin would say, perfectly calm and casual, like it was perfectly normal to be stalking someone through the woods –
”Preston?”
Joseph Preston stopped in surprise. He looked very much unlike himself, with rumpled shorts and a t-shirt decorated with a necklace of sweat and a look of surprise on his face that Martin suspected matched his own.
“Fitzgerald,” Preston said at last. “What are you doing out here? I thought you were supposed to be in the hospital.”
“Yeah, well, I escaped.” Martin rolled his eyes. “I was discharged, Preston. It’s what happens when the doctors think you’re, you know, cured.”
Preston stared narrowly at him, as though trying to determine if Martin was being sarcastic or not. He was, Martin knew, his own age, but a roundness to his face made him seem younger, far too like the choirboy he had to be at his home church. He licked his lips and shifted uneasily from foot to foot, sidling a bit past Martin.
“Where’re you going?” Preston asked. “It’s almost dinner.”
“Just another half-mile,” Martin lied, thankful that his time at Trinity hadn’t managed to deprive him of the ability to lie well. “You should head back.”
“You should, too. Father West and Father Connolly will be mad.” Not pissed, mad; Preston wouldn’t unbend enough even to employ something marginally vulgar. The kid was perhaps too good. Abnormally good. Martin wondered what kind of repressing Preston had to be doing. “Well, I’ll see you,” Preston added.
“Yeah.” Martin watched as Preston shifted uncertainly for a moment more, his eyes darting to Martin’s before flickering away again, and was Preston actually going to go? Martin stood, watching as Preston vacillated, opened his mouth to say something, then changed his mind and loped off down the path back to the Grotto and the school. Martin stayed where he was until Preston and his footsteps vanished into the forest, and hoped that Preston would resist the temptation to play Good Samaritan and follow Martin in order to drag him back to Trinity. Preston was gone though, and stayed gone for a minute more, with no sign of returning.
Sighing, Martin continued on the track. 0-for-1, he thought unhappily, and he’d found one of the last people, outside of the faculty, that he wanted to find out here. He considered, not for the first time, the very real possibility that Danny wasn’t out here at all. Danny was, if he had any sense (which Martin occasionally doubted), back at Grey or in the library or study hall, or in some place other than this godforsaken forest.
Which it really wasn’t. The forest technically belonged to the Brothers of the Holy Trinity, a Franciscan monastery that had been established not long before Trinity itself, and still allowed students to use some of the grounds and to stay in the dormitories during breaks if they wanted. This particular path ran close to the monastery, close enough to see the outside of the cloister walls and the lights in the windows of the refectory. So not a godforsaken forest at all.
It was, however, apparently a Danny-forsaken forest, and as Danny was what Martin was chiefly interested in at the moment, he sighed and decided to head back before Preston had Father West out looking for him. He was tired now, genuinely tired, frustrated, starting to be angry again, as much with Danny for up and disappearing as he was with himself for being stupid enough to go out looking for him.
He’d lost track of time and distance between anticipation and dealing with Preston, and forest trails had no sense of scale – all trees, no landmarks until you got back to the Grotto, where things opened up a bit. For all he knew, Martin could have been walking one mile or five, or kept walking until he reached Massachusetts. Branches clustered thickly overhead and made any guess at time impossible – and of course he’d left his watch on his bedside table – but darkness came quickly under the canopy, and already the light had dwindled to a depressing half-light, its own twilight.
Nothing for it but to go back. If anything, Danny had to go back to their room sometime. And then Martin could barricade their door – too bad he couldn’t soundproof the room, as he had a feeling there would probably be a lot of shouting – and refuse to let Danny out until he told him what the hell was going on.
Snap snap snap in the woods off to his right, and Martin froze, heart skipping cruelly in his chest. Short of breath again – snap snap snap something coming steadily through the forest, crunching on branches and dead leaves. He peered into the undergrowth, could see only movement in the shadows.
Two-legged movement, coming faster now, and a voice – a familiar voice, swift with Spanish and frustration.
Danny, pushing blindly through branches and vines, too caught up in himself and whatever he was saying to notice Martin. And Martin couldn’t move, too surprised at actually seeing Danny to do anything other than stare helplessly as Danny stumbled out onto the trail proper.
He should, at this point, say something.
“Jesus Christ,” was the only thing that came to mind.
Danny whirled and stumbled, needed an uncertain moment to recover, ungraceful for once, for which Martin was grateful. He also didn’t help Martin up, and Martin was grateful for this too. He hated being caught at a disadvantage as a rule, but with Danny it was so much worse, and to be the one not caught off-step in this odd dance of theirs was something Martin desperately needed.
“What the fuck are you doing out here?” The words were soft, furious, would have been swallowed by the forest if Danny weren’t standing so close
“You scared the hell out of me.” Martin brushed at some clinging bark, not daring to look at Danny and not wanting to answer his question.
“Yeah, well,” Danny said, and trailed off, a speaking silence behind the words. “So, what the fuck are you doing out here?” he asked again.
“I was looking for you; Matt said you’d be out here.”
“You talked to Matt?”
“You’re the one who talked to him first.” Great, they were already back at the place they were in the hospital, fighting and misunderstanding each other all over again. Martin supposed he should have found the routine comforting – already it seemed like they were better at fighting and misunderstanding than most married couples – but he didn’t.
Danny crossed his arms over his chest, whether out of defensiveness or cold Martin couldn’t say.
“We need to talk,” Martin said at last, when it became clear Danny wasn’t going to say anything.
“Okay.” Grudging, but it was agreement – not a small victory, where Danny was concerned. “Come on; I know a place.” Danny turned back off the path into the forest again, obviously expecting Martin to follow without hesitation.
Martin did not examine the fact that he didn’t hesitate too closely.
They were, Martin realized, following the remnants of some older, now-overgrown path. The forest sloped steeply downward, and the path ran at a gentle angle down the hill, avoiding the worst of the roots and trailing vines. Danny climbed over a fallen trunk, more familiar with the forest than Martin had thought a city boy would be. Something unexpected; Martin had spent almost every summer he could remember at Bonnie and Uncle Roger’s place in the Adirondacks, had always preferred months of hiking and camping to the stuffy, tedious week at his grandmother’s townhouse in Boston.
“I come out here sometimes,” was the only thing Danny said. Which technically counted as talking, Martin supposed; it was something about Danny that he hadn’t known, some kind of communication.
The path leveled off at the bottom of the hill, running next to a stream Martin had never noticed before. This low – they’d descended about fifty feet, Martin guessed – the wind in the treetops was a distant sound, and even the air seemed warmer.
“The monks used to come out here; there’s this old shrine to St. Francis they’d visit, but they don’t anymore. Brother John said the path down flooded out too many times for them to use it, so they moved the shrine somewhere else.”
And sure enough there was a small semi-circle carved out of the rock, sheltered by the overhanging hill, an empty pedestal set near the back of it. Moss and dead leaves congregated in the stone seats.
“How’d you know this was here?” Martin asked. Watched as Danny swept the leaves on the seats to join the leaves on the floor. “Who’s Brother John?”
“One of the monks at Holy Trinity,” Danny said. A pause, like he was weighing something, then: “I spend a month there during the summer, when my foster family goes on vacation.”
Martin blinked.
“Your foster family?”
Danny folded himself into one of the seats. “You know how I told you my parents died?” He didn’t seem to notice Martin’s nod – like Martin could forget – before continuing. “They died in a car crash when I was eleven. When my parents came here, they didn’t know anyone, you know? So we – my brother and I, I got an older brother, Rafi – didn’t have any relatives, so we got dumped in family services.” Danny took a breath and glanced anxiously at Martin, who didn’t say anything.
Who couldn’t say anything, too much falling into place too quickly. Numb, he sank into the space on the bench next to Danny. Maybe a bit too close, but Danny didn’t seem to mind, and he was warm against the coolness under the trees.
“Anyway, I was fifteen and in kind of bad shape when I met Father Orlando. He graduated from here; he was supposed to go into law or something, like everyone here does, but he ended up going to seminary school instead. Moved down to Hialeah, where I used to live; he’d been born there, too, went back to the old neighborhood to see what he could do.” Danny shrugged. “Believe it or not, I was kind of a wild kid.”
“I’m shocked.”
Danny smiled – quick, weak, but it was there. “Yeah, well, Father Orlando helped me a lot, you know? He got me off the streets and back in school, had me fill out the application for here. He’s my sponsor – I mean, he doesn’t pay my tuition –”Almost fierce, a refusal of that much charity “– but he wrote my rec letters and basically convinced the school to take me on scholarship. They worked it with the system that I got to move up here, but I have to spend summer in foster care until I’m eighteen. Don’t have to go back to Florida, though.” Obvious relief, as though Danny had escaped from prison.
He had, in a way, Martin realized.
“So anyway, here I am. The monastery isn’t so bad – I mean, it’s boring, but they let me do my own thing.” Danny shot him a grin, trying so hard to tell Martin this isn’t a big deal and it hurt, because it was, because it explained so much. “And Martin?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m... I’m sorry about Friday. It was pretty crappy.”
“It’s cool, man. I get it.”
“Just... I thought I was too late, you know? The last time I was at a hospital, I found out my parents died. It freaked me out, seeing you there. Couldn’t get past it.”
“I’d freak out too,” Martin confessed. He tried to imagine Danny in the hospital and failed utterly. “Anyone would.” Resolutely, he pushed aside the residual anger, the voice that said But still it was a shitty thing to do, the worry that had sat with him since last night – that Danny had been behaving oddly, because avoidance wasn’t his style.
Danny didn’t look happy that Martin had reminded him he was human, like everyone else, but didn’t say anything. He uncurled one leg, swinging it back and forth meditatively, staring at it as though it were moving independently of his control. In the shadows he should have been blurred and uncertain, like a ghost, but they were close enough that Martin could see unexpected flickers of light in Danny’s eyes, the sharpening contours of his face, how his chest shook with hesitant breath – like he’d been back in the hospital, maybe not seeing Martin then so much as seeing his dying parents.
“Seriously, I’m glad you’re okay.” Danny was looking at him now, turned slightly to face him. One arm stretched along the back of the bench, wiry muscles and tendons, and Danny’s fingers were on Martin’s sleeve, warm and firm through the fabric of his sweater.
“Me, too. Death takes all the fun out of drowning.” He instantly regretted the words, because Danny still seemed fragile, like he couldn’t quite believe this, that Martin was still alive, that Martin was here with him. But Danny’s smile grew into something Martin was used to seeing, laced with teasing and something like affection, and Martin liked that.
“You’re something else, Fitzie.” And Danny’s hand was traveling up Martin’s shoulder to his neck, pulling the two of them closer together, forcing their eyes to meet.
Soft, familiar, dark, and Martin thought idiotically that he didn’t know if Danny’s eyes were brown or black, they were so dark. Danny’s hand was warm and coaxing on his neck, not that Martin needed the encouragement, and had it been a week? More than, it seemed, ages and ages but the memory of kissing Danny was swift and sharp, confusing despite all the hours Martin had devoted to its analysis, and he wanted this again, wanted Danny against him like he was now, both hands outlining his jaw and fingers brushing his cheekbones, flicker of smile in his eyes a heartbeat before they slipped shut, his lips before they settled against Martin’s.
Okay, better than memory, so much better, the same in so many ways and different too. He remembered how they fit together, more awkward now that they were sitting, legs tangled and they couldn’t touch everywhere. Strange quiet now, silence underneath the thrum thrum of Martin’s blood and the sigh of Danny’s breath against his mouth, in his mouth now because somehow he’d let Danny in, and he was going to suffocate for the second time in two days –
But it was good, being dizzy and idiotic and liking it, Danny’s skin smooth as water under his fingers and his hair – yeah, he’d thought and imagined this, Danny’s hair was thick and soft and Danny didn’t mind him messing it up, and when Martin’s fingers slid over the fine skin at the nape of Danny’s neck, Danny shivered nicely against him.
He could have sat there forever, tangled up in Danny and drowning in Danny and liking it, until it grew dark and maybe even after, stayed there until it grew light again and they sent out search parties. Danny’s kiss became apologetic, slow, shallowing out until it was only Danny’s lips ghosting across his, then Danny was leaning back, eyes black and content and hazy, and his fingers weren’t on Martin’s face anymore.
“We should get going.” Soft, reluctant, none of Danny’s usual teasing there, a solemnity that Martin was beginning to realize Danny had, under the surface wildness. “Father West’ll be pissed.”
“Yeah,” Martin agreed, just as reluctantly, but with a smile, remembering Preston and his politeness shivering on the trail.
He stood and brushed himself off, held out a hand to Danny to help him up even though he didn’t need it, but it was an excuse to touch, and when Danny took his hand he was happy.
-tbc.-
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
Advertisements: Catholic school AU. For
wordclaim50 challenge #01 (AU) and philosophy_20 challenge #08 (Faith).Chapters: 01; 02; 03; 04; 05; 06; 07; 08
Notes: Yay! I got some quality time in at the coffee shop today. Not sure how many more chapters there are to go in this thing, so the story will stay open-ended for the time being... I've long since learned not to commit to a chapter limit *wry look*
CHAPTER NINE
Heading off on a wild-goose chase – or, Martin supposed a wild-Danny chase – at the tail end of the afternoon was probably not one of his better ideas, recent hospitalization or no.
Away from the open fields of the school, in the shadowy forest that made the barrier between Trinity and the rest of the world, the same forest Martin and his mother had driven through not so many weeks ago, the air was much, much cooler. Cool enough that Martin, who had on a thin sweater, wished for something heavier. Sweat refused to evaporate and grew clammy on his neck.
The path wound around before him, lazy loops through the woods heading nowhere and sometimes seeming to vanish altogether, and Martin had a brief, paranoid vision of stumbling around in hypothermia-induced delirium, lost forever – or maybe until his frozen corpse was discovered a year later somewhere just off the path, tragically just a few steps from the road back to civilization.
Then Danny would be sorry.
He was so preoccupied in trying to keep to the track and prevent any chance of being lost and frozen to death that he almost missed the sound of running footsteps. Footsteps not his own coming from somewhere up ahead, footsteps coming closer.
Danny! Martin couldn’t see the path through the trees and the lattice of shadows, but that had to be him. Who else would be out here this time of day, besides Danny and the boy stupid enough to go looking for him?
Martin slowed down, absent-minded jog dropping into a walk, and tried to compose himself. Wouldn’t do to have Danny see him slightly wild-eyed and freaked out. The footsteps drew closer, not slackening, definitely louder now, and Martin could hear branches snapping underneath running feet.
Movement in the shadows now and any second now he would come around the bend, and Martin would say, perfectly calm and casual, like it was perfectly normal to be stalking someone through the woods –
”Preston?”
Joseph Preston stopped in surprise. He looked very much unlike himself, with rumpled shorts and a t-shirt decorated with a necklace of sweat and a look of surprise on his face that Martin suspected matched his own.
“Fitzgerald,” Preston said at last. “What are you doing out here? I thought you were supposed to be in the hospital.”
“Yeah, well, I escaped.” Martin rolled his eyes. “I was discharged, Preston. It’s what happens when the doctors think you’re, you know, cured.”
Preston stared narrowly at him, as though trying to determine if Martin was being sarcastic or not. He was, Martin knew, his own age, but a roundness to his face made him seem younger, far too like the choirboy he had to be at his home church. He licked his lips and shifted uneasily from foot to foot, sidling a bit past Martin.
“Where’re you going?” Preston asked. “It’s almost dinner.”
“Just another half-mile,” Martin lied, thankful that his time at Trinity hadn’t managed to deprive him of the ability to lie well. “You should head back.”
“You should, too. Father West and Father Connolly will be mad.” Not pissed, mad; Preston wouldn’t unbend enough even to employ something marginally vulgar. The kid was perhaps too good. Abnormally good. Martin wondered what kind of repressing Preston had to be doing. “Well, I’ll see you,” Preston added.
“Yeah.” Martin watched as Preston shifted uncertainly for a moment more, his eyes darting to Martin’s before flickering away again, and was Preston actually going to go? Martin stood, watching as Preston vacillated, opened his mouth to say something, then changed his mind and loped off down the path back to the Grotto and the school. Martin stayed where he was until Preston and his footsteps vanished into the forest, and hoped that Preston would resist the temptation to play Good Samaritan and follow Martin in order to drag him back to Trinity. Preston was gone though, and stayed gone for a minute more, with no sign of returning.
Sighing, Martin continued on the track. 0-for-1, he thought unhappily, and he’d found one of the last people, outside of the faculty, that he wanted to find out here. He considered, not for the first time, the very real possibility that Danny wasn’t out here at all. Danny was, if he had any sense (which Martin occasionally doubted), back at Grey or in the library or study hall, or in some place other than this godforsaken forest.
Which it really wasn’t. The forest technically belonged to the Brothers of the Holy Trinity, a Franciscan monastery that had been established not long before Trinity itself, and still allowed students to use some of the grounds and to stay in the dormitories during breaks if they wanted. This particular path ran close to the monastery, close enough to see the outside of the cloister walls and the lights in the windows of the refectory. So not a godforsaken forest at all.
It was, however, apparently a Danny-forsaken forest, and as Danny was what Martin was chiefly interested in at the moment, he sighed and decided to head back before Preston had Father West out looking for him. He was tired now, genuinely tired, frustrated, starting to be angry again, as much with Danny for up and disappearing as he was with himself for being stupid enough to go out looking for him.
He’d lost track of time and distance between anticipation and dealing with Preston, and forest trails had no sense of scale – all trees, no landmarks until you got back to the Grotto, where things opened up a bit. For all he knew, Martin could have been walking one mile or five, or kept walking until he reached Massachusetts. Branches clustered thickly overhead and made any guess at time impossible – and of course he’d left his watch on his bedside table – but darkness came quickly under the canopy, and already the light had dwindled to a depressing half-light, its own twilight.
Nothing for it but to go back. If anything, Danny had to go back to their room sometime. And then Martin could barricade their door – too bad he couldn’t soundproof the room, as he had a feeling there would probably be a lot of shouting – and refuse to let Danny out until he told him what the hell was going on.
Snap snap snap in the woods off to his right, and Martin froze, heart skipping cruelly in his chest. Short of breath again – snap snap snap something coming steadily through the forest, crunching on branches and dead leaves. He peered into the undergrowth, could see only movement in the shadows.
Two-legged movement, coming faster now, and a voice – a familiar voice, swift with Spanish and frustration.
Danny, pushing blindly through branches and vines, too caught up in himself and whatever he was saying to notice Martin. And Martin couldn’t move, too surprised at actually seeing Danny to do anything other than stare helplessly as Danny stumbled out onto the trail proper.
He should, at this point, say something.
“Jesus Christ,” was the only thing that came to mind.
Danny whirled and stumbled, needed an uncertain moment to recover, ungraceful for once, for which Martin was grateful. He also didn’t help Martin up, and Martin was grateful for this too. He hated being caught at a disadvantage as a rule, but with Danny it was so much worse, and to be the one not caught off-step in this odd dance of theirs was something Martin desperately needed.
“What the fuck are you doing out here?” The words were soft, furious, would have been swallowed by the forest if Danny weren’t standing so close
“You scared the hell out of me.” Martin brushed at some clinging bark, not daring to look at Danny and not wanting to answer his question.
“Yeah, well,” Danny said, and trailed off, a speaking silence behind the words. “So, what the fuck are you doing out here?” he asked again.
“I was looking for you; Matt said you’d be out here.”
“You talked to Matt?”
“You’re the one who talked to him first.” Great, they were already back at the place they were in the hospital, fighting and misunderstanding each other all over again. Martin supposed he should have found the routine comforting – already it seemed like they were better at fighting and misunderstanding than most married couples – but he didn’t.
Danny crossed his arms over his chest, whether out of defensiveness or cold Martin couldn’t say.
“We need to talk,” Martin said at last, when it became clear Danny wasn’t going to say anything.
“Okay.” Grudging, but it was agreement – not a small victory, where Danny was concerned. “Come on; I know a place.” Danny turned back off the path into the forest again, obviously expecting Martin to follow without hesitation.
Martin did not examine the fact that he didn’t hesitate too closely.
They were, Martin realized, following the remnants of some older, now-overgrown path. The forest sloped steeply downward, and the path ran at a gentle angle down the hill, avoiding the worst of the roots and trailing vines. Danny climbed over a fallen trunk, more familiar with the forest than Martin had thought a city boy would be. Something unexpected; Martin had spent almost every summer he could remember at Bonnie and Uncle Roger’s place in the Adirondacks, had always preferred months of hiking and camping to the stuffy, tedious week at his grandmother’s townhouse in Boston.
“I come out here sometimes,” was the only thing Danny said. Which technically counted as talking, Martin supposed; it was something about Danny that he hadn’t known, some kind of communication.
The path leveled off at the bottom of the hill, running next to a stream Martin had never noticed before. This low – they’d descended about fifty feet, Martin guessed – the wind in the treetops was a distant sound, and even the air seemed warmer.
“The monks used to come out here; there’s this old shrine to St. Francis they’d visit, but they don’t anymore. Brother John said the path down flooded out too many times for them to use it, so they moved the shrine somewhere else.”
And sure enough there was a small semi-circle carved out of the rock, sheltered by the overhanging hill, an empty pedestal set near the back of it. Moss and dead leaves congregated in the stone seats.
“How’d you know this was here?” Martin asked. Watched as Danny swept the leaves on the seats to join the leaves on the floor. “Who’s Brother John?”
“One of the monks at Holy Trinity,” Danny said. A pause, like he was weighing something, then: “I spend a month there during the summer, when my foster family goes on vacation.”
Martin blinked.
“Your foster family?”
Danny folded himself into one of the seats. “You know how I told you my parents died?” He didn’t seem to notice Martin’s nod – like Martin could forget – before continuing. “They died in a car crash when I was eleven. When my parents came here, they didn’t know anyone, you know? So we – my brother and I, I got an older brother, Rafi – didn’t have any relatives, so we got dumped in family services.” Danny took a breath and glanced anxiously at Martin, who didn’t say anything.
Who couldn’t say anything, too much falling into place too quickly. Numb, he sank into the space on the bench next to Danny. Maybe a bit too close, but Danny didn’t seem to mind, and he was warm against the coolness under the trees.
“Anyway, I was fifteen and in kind of bad shape when I met Father Orlando. He graduated from here; he was supposed to go into law or something, like everyone here does, but he ended up going to seminary school instead. Moved down to Hialeah, where I used to live; he’d been born there, too, went back to the old neighborhood to see what he could do.” Danny shrugged. “Believe it or not, I was kind of a wild kid.”
“I’m shocked.”
Danny smiled – quick, weak, but it was there. “Yeah, well, Father Orlando helped me a lot, you know? He got me off the streets and back in school, had me fill out the application for here. He’s my sponsor – I mean, he doesn’t pay my tuition –”Almost fierce, a refusal of that much charity “– but he wrote my rec letters and basically convinced the school to take me on scholarship. They worked it with the system that I got to move up here, but I have to spend summer in foster care until I’m eighteen. Don’t have to go back to Florida, though.” Obvious relief, as though Danny had escaped from prison.
He had, in a way, Martin realized.
“So anyway, here I am. The monastery isn’t so bad – I mean, it’s boring, but they let me do my own thing.” Danny shot him a grin, trying so hard to tell Martin this isn’t a big deal and it hurt, because it was, because it explained so much. “And Martin?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m... I’m sorry about Friday. It was pretty crappy.”
“It’s cool, man. I get it.”
“Just... I thought I was too late, you know? The last time I was at a hospital, I found out my parents died. It freaked me out, seeing you there. Couldn’t get past it.”
“I’d freak out too,” Martin confessed. He tried to imagine Danny in the hospital and failed utterly. “Anyone would.” Resolutely, he pushed aside the residual anger, the voice that said But still it was a shitty thing to do, the worry that had sat with him since last night – that Danny had been behaving oddly, because avoidance wasn’t his style.
Danny didn’t look happy that Martin had reminded him he was human, like everyone else, but didn’t say anything. He uncurled one leg, swinging it back and forth meditatively, staring at it as though it were moving independently of his control. In the shadows he should have been blurred and uncertain, like a ghost, but they were close enough that Martin could see unexpected flickers of light in Danny’s eyes, the sharpening contours of his face, how his chest shook with hesitant breath – like he’d been back in the hospital, maybe not seeing Martin then so much as seeing his dying parents.
“Seriously, I’m glad you’re okay.” Danny was looking at him now, turned slightly to face him. One arm stretched along the back of the bench, wiry muscles and tendons, and Danny’s fingers were on Martin’s sleeve, warm and firm through the fabric of his sweater.
“Me, too. Death takes all the fun out of drowning.” He instantly regretted the words, because Danny still seemed fragile, like he couldn’t quite believe this, that Martin was still alive, that Martin was here with him. But Danny’s smile grew into something Martin was used to seeing, laced with teasing and something like affection, and Martin liked that.
“You’re something else, Fitzie.” And Danny’s hand was traveling up Martin’s shoulder to his neck, pulling the two of them closer together, forcing their eyes to meet.
Soft, familiar, dark, and Martin thought idiotically that he didn’t know if Danny’s eyes were brown or black, they were so dark. Danny’s hand was warm and coaxing on his neck, not that Martin needed the encouragement, and had it been a week? More than, it seemed, ages and ages but the memory of kissing Danny was swift and sharp, confusing despite all the hours Martin had devoted to its analysis, and he wanted this again, wanted Danny against him like he was now, both hands outlining his jaw and fingers brushing his cheekbones, flicker of smile in his eyes a heartbeat before they slipped shut, his lips before they settled against Martin’s.
Okay, better than memory, so much better, the same in so many ways and different too. He remembered how they fit together, more awkward now that they were sitting, legs tangled and they couldn’t touch everywhere. Strange quiet now, silence underneath the thrum thrum of Martin’s blood and the sigh of Danny’s breath against his mouth, in his mouth now because somehow he’d let Danny in, and he was going to suffocate for the second time in two days –
But it was good, being dizzy and idiotic and liking it, Danny’s skin smooth as water under his fingers and his hair – yeah, he’d thought and imagined this, Danny’s hair was thick and soft and Danny didn’t mind him messing it up, and when Martin’s fingers slid over the fine skin at the nape of Danny’s neck, Danny shivered nicely against him.
He could have sat there forever, tangled up in Danny and drowning in Danny and liking it, until it grew dark and maybe even after, stayed there until it grew light again and they sent out search parties. Danny’s kiss became apologetic, slow, shallowing out until it was only Danny’s lips ghosting across his, then Danny was leaning back, eyes black and content and hazy, and his fingers weren’t on Martin’s face anymore.
“We should get going.” Soft, reluctant, none of Danny’s usual teasing there, a solemnity that Martin was beginning to realize Danny had, under the surface wildness. “Father West’ll be pissed.”
“Yeah,” Martin agreed, just as reluctantly, but with a smile, remembering Preston and his politeness shivering on the trail.
He stood and brushed himself off, held out a hand to Danny to help him up even though he didn’t need it, but it was an excuse to touch, and when Danny took his hand he was happy.
-tbc.-