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.au fic: The Hours of Instruction - D/M (eventual NC17) 11.?
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; 09; 10
Notes: What got this chapter back on track was Jane Austen. *hugs![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
le_mot_mo*
smilla02, I don't know if you're gone yet. I hope not! But if you are, at least this will be waiting for you :)
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Danny was waiting for him outside the main door to Raine, something that failed to surprise Martin, but yet managed to confuse him all the same. He didn’t say a word, only stood there as Martin walked out the door, didn’t look at him – unless maybe a soft, covert glance that Martin could have imagined – only pushed away from the wall and fell into step beside Martin, and his footsteps on the gravel were loud between the two of them.
Martin let the silence lie – had to, because he had no idea how to end it, no idea what to say or do. Swear off his family, the money? He’d do it in a second, if he thought Danny would believe him, and he was mad,so mad, that something he hadn’t wanted or cared about had managed to wreck something good, something that hadn’t even really started yet.
Two make-out sessions and at least three misunderstandings. There were probably more besides their odd first meeting, Martin’s near-drowning, and their current argument, but Martin couldn’t remember. There had to be, though.
In honesty, Danny was doing some of the wrecking himself with his silence and his hostility, uncertainty running underneath, like Danny was mad too but had no idea what he was mad about and so he kept quiet. Martin wanted to ask are you mad at me, at the money, at yourself, what the hell is your problem that you’re angry in the first place? but he couldn’t do that, either, so he shuffled along and watched the gravel scatter where he kicked it.
The quadrangle had the silence peculiar to Sundays, even the wind soft and meditative in the trees, most of the students in their rooms or the library and the faculty all off-campus. Though it wasn’t even noon, the light was already weak and not doing much to cut the chill, the sun a meaningless presence in a clear sky.
He thought about going back to the room, but spending the two hours until lunch in Danny’s silent, frustrating company did not appeal.
“Hey, I have to go to the library; I need a book for Rose.”
“Okay.” Danny did look at him now, and hidden under the acknowledgment was the hint that Danny knew Martin needed to get away, and was saying it was okay if he did. “I’ll see you at lunch.”
Half-certain, because they saw each other at lunch every day, and half-hopeful, like they might see each other again, like they’d seen each other the night they’d first kissed, or last evening.
“Yeah,” Martin said quietly. “See you later.”
He turned off onto the path heading for the farther quadrangle, the one dominated by the dome of McMaster Library. Neoclassical and with its bronze cap rusted green, it towered over the orderly rows of neo-Gothic buildings, and St. Francis, the patron saint of the school, stood precariously at its top. Martin remembered flipping through the orientation material, which had given the background of the school and the history of the Franciscan order, which along with the Dominicans had become one of the two great “teaching” orders of the Middle Ages. The brochure had passed briefly over Francis of Assisi’s life and the vision where he’d received the stigmata, the famous scholars like Bonaventure, and dwelt at length on the virtues of a Catholic education.
“Trinity College, founded as a seminary in 1846 and changed in 1893 to a private institution for young men, is proud to continue the Franciscan tradition of uniting faith with learning, knowledge with service, and charity with understanding,” the brochure said.
And money and religion, Martin had added, reading that for the first time.
He had to admit Trinity was beautiful, prettier than Westmore, with its red brick and Federal-style whitewashed columns. Idyllic, almost, with the trees lined up neatly along the paths and the foothills of the Adirondacks flowing off into the distance like waves, the World out there somewhere, far, far away.
Under St. Francis’s benign gaze, Martin walked up the steps to the library – the marble steps, worn smooth by generations of reluctant feet – through the double doors, and inside.
Once in the huge, echoing rotunda, surrounded by a cycle of murals depicting scenes from the life of Francis, he stopped, with no idea of where to go. He really didn’t need anything; he’d checked out most of what he needed for a couple of reports, maybe he could get a novel from the selection of popular fiction the staff deemed appropriate for the students to read.
Indecisive, he turned in a circle – stairs to one section of the stacks, the computer cluster and periodicals room, stairs leading to another section, door marked STAFF ONLY, the start of St. Francis’s life in pictures.
Ironically, the muralist had started out with the scene that led to Francis’s life as a mystic and religious figure: his spiritual awakening, the conviction he needed to renounce worldly possessions, and his subsequent rejection of his father’s money. Francis had been born rich, the heir to his father’s substantial fortune, and when given the choice between money and God, Francis had rejected the former.
He’d also, during a bitter fight with his father over his desire to take orders, stripped off his clothes and walked away, stark naked. Martin liked that part, though the muralist had not depicted it.
Did the other boys think about that, as they walked through these halls, with their marble and brass, the dark and ancient wood shelves, the new computers? Did Danny ever catch the irony, or ever stand here like Martin was doing, and laugh at the strangeness of it: rich boys, destined to become even richer, attending a school founded by an order whose first tenet – established by Francis before Franciscans started venturing into the universities – was poverty and service?
Matt, like Danny, attended Trinity on scholarship; Martin didn’t know much, but he had the feeling Matt’s mother didn’t have much money, and he certainly wasn’t getting anything from his father. David, Kieran, and Ashley all had money – Martin hadn’t missed Kieran’s expensive laptop, or the designer labels on Ashley’s ratty, torn-up jeans, the precision in David’s movements that spoke of an expensive upbringing. Of the three, David was maybe the most conventional, different only in his love of science; his father was an investment banker, and probably didn’t quite understand his son’s obsession with chemistry and physics, and David had often been irritated after conversations with him, when the talk inevitably turned toward how math in the hard sciences was good practice for investment statistics and futures and things David didn’t care about.
But Kieran and Ashley...Martin wondered what would happen to their rebelliousness when they graduated from college, if trust funds and the business world would drain it away, or flatten it into the conformity of portfolios and family.
He wondered if the same thing would happen to him.
Maybe Danny had wondered the same thing, if their... whatever it was, their “relationship,” was something passing, a rich kid’s twisted idea of a game, fucking around with the poor gay one.
But Danny knew him, had known all about him since that first moment, practically, and it wasn’t fair of him to assume Martin would act like that.
Knowing and knowing were different things, though, Martin thought as he headed for the fiction stacks. Knowing intellectually that a person was a certain way wasn’t necessarily the same as really believing it. Danny had been around these kids for two years, had probably observed the rich even longer from across the divide of family services and the foster care system, and Martin, for all his dislike, was one of Them.
A few boys milled quietly around an open study area, bent over their laptops and books, some alone and a few clustered together, neat and tidy even in the regular clothes allowed to them on weekends. The mid-morning sun was bright through the picture window looking out over the quadrangle, and the whole thing was a picture tailor-made for the next informational brochure.
He made his way deeper into the stacks, and the subdued noise faded altogether. Uncertainly, he browsed through the selection of British authors beginning with Jane Austen – Bonnie, he remembered, loved Austen and had inflicted her on him for years – looking at the titles but not really seeing them, and he was so engrossed in staring blindly at the spines of the books that he didn’t hear the soft cough at first.
He did hear “Hey, Fitzgerald,” though, in a nasal voice that was unpleasantly familiar.
“Preston?” Martin was proud of himself for keeping his voice down.
“What’re you doing?” Preston asked.
“What’s it look like?”
Preston shifted, gaze darting up to meet Martin’s for a moment before skittering away again.
“Um, look...” Preston pulled a copy of Mansfield Park off the shelf, flipped cursorily through the pages, and put it back. “I didn’t – I didn’t mean to get you in trouble last night. You know, with Father West.”
Preston apologizing for being the Good Samaritan? Martin stared.
“I was just... I mean, I wasn’t there or anything, but everyone said you were pretty bad on Friday afternoon, and I didn’t want – I mean, it probably wasn’t safe to go out running by yourself.” Despite the stumbling, Preston managed to deliver the sentence at a record pace. “And so I told Father West just so he could keep an eye out, in case. I didn’t want to get you in trouble, I swear.”
This last delivered so earnestly Martin had to mutter that’s okay, don’t worry about it, and Preston offered him a shaky, relieved smile, like he honestly hadn’t expected Martin to accept his apology.
“So,” Preston said after a moment, “are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks.” The silence among the books had long since vanished into a screaming awkwardness, and Preston was looking at him like he knew it was awkward but couldn’t help looking, and if Preston weren’t as pious as the day was long, Martin would have said –
No, not possible. He wasn’t even going to think it.
“How’s your paper for Rose going?” Preston had moved on to Pride and Prejudice, and reading upside down, Martin could see the page was turned to Elizabeth’s disastrous dance with Mr. Collins.
“It’s going okay, though I don’t see the point in writing about Ambrose’s theory on the Incarnation.” This daringly, a deliberate provocation.
“I don’t, either,” Preston said absently, but he looked surprised, as though he’d never realized this.
“I thought you’d be all over it.” Which was true; Preston practically glowed every time Rose required them to write a paper on some obscure point of doctrine. Fleming, in a carefully quiet aside to Bryson one day, had remarked that the only time Preston ever had an orgasm was when Rose assigned work.
“Yeah, well.” Preston shrugged and pushed Pride and Prejudice back into place. He stuffed his hands in his khaki pockets as though to keep from assaulting more books, and his uncertainty would almost be touching if Martin weren’t so freaked out himself. Preston held himself stiffly, as though anything less than complete control – arms tight over his chest, shoulders hunched in – would result in him flying off in a hundred directions at once.
Was it even remotely possible...? No. Not thinking about it.
It was, in fact, time to escape.
“Um, listen... I need to go,” Martin said, unable to stand any more. “History quiz tomorrow, and I’m behind on the reading.” The first was true, but he’d finished the required reading on Friday morning, before Everett had announced the quiz.
“The Constitutional Convention,” Preston said, nodding. “I um... If you want, I can help you with it. I have notes.”
The aching hesitation in the question turned the offer of notes into something different, an offer not of a few pieces of paper but something more.. A whole lot more, and it was impossible not to think about it anymore.
Preston liked him, maybe. Liked him in a way that wasn’t wholly platonic, or Catholic.
He knew he was blushing, and wondered if Preston had caught onto the fact that Martin knew, and if the blushing was shyness or homophobia or something. Not wanting to give Preston the chance to parse out his reaction while he was still around, Martin said,
“Thanks, but Danny was going to give me his.”
Preston’s face fell slightly, but all he said was, “Oh. Cool.”
“So, I guess I’ll see you in class tomorrow.”
“Yeah.” Preston, however, made no move to go anywhere, and Martin grabbed the first book his saw and made his escape while Preston stood immobile.
Only when he got downstairs, safely through the checkout line, and halfway to Grey did he see he’d picked up Mansfield Park, and sighed at the unfortunate choice.
* * *
Danny was there when he walked in, looking at his notes for Everett’s class. Briefly, Martin entertained the paranoid fantasy that Danny had eavesdropped on his conversation with Preston – for a moment, he was convinced that Danny, in fact, had – but the careful, reserved smile Danny offered him said otherwise.
“Mansfield Park?” he asked, nodding at the book clutched in Martin’s hand.
Martin shrugged and set the book on his desk. “What about it?”
“Nothing.” Girly, Danny’s tone said. Girly book.
“Hey, W.H. Auden loved Austen.” Meaningful pause. “And he was gay too, I think.”
He was gay too. Martin watched to see how Danny would take that, wasn’t surprised when Danny nodded and hummed thoughtfully. That was like Danny, to react to startling news – or news that was startling to other people – with utter nonchalance.
It’s not a game for me, okay? Martin wanted to say, but couldn’t, and wondered if a reference to Auden’s homosexuality was as close as he could ever come to telling Danny he didn’t do those kinds of things, that this wasn’t experimentation or messing around, because Martin didn’t do those sorts of things, at least not anymore.
He remembered struggling through the few months of his relationship with Sam, a desperate experiment in heterosexuality, hating that he was lying to her more than that he was lying to himself. In the end she’d been graceful, more generous than he’d probably deserved, remarking that he was too young – she’d always liked older men, would grow up to be the typical coed, scandalizing people one day by having an affair with a married professor.
“Um, I didn’t make you gay, did I?” she’d asked, but jokingly. He’d told her no, of course not, and then she’d laughed in fake relief, kissed him on the cheek and walked off.
“Listen,” Martin said, and didn’t say anything else for a minute. He sat down in his desk chair and looked at Danny, who was looking at him over his notepad.
“Listening.” Half-playful and half-fearful, a smile elusive at the corners of Danny’s mouth.
Now that he had Danny’s attention, Martin had no idea what to do with it. Go off on a long, rambling, indignant tangent? Demand to know what the hell Danny thought he was doing, screwing around with Martin like he was?
“Do you really think I’m like them?” he asked instead, gesturing to the people behind the walls, the campus on the other side of the window.
Danny blinked, set aside his notes and sat up against his pillows, head tilted slightly in an appraising, dissecting expression. Martin looked back, frozen, like he was drowning again.
“Do you?” Martin persisted, unwilling to explain what he knew Danny already understood. “Because if you do...” He shrugged, hoped the silence spoke for him.
If you do, that’s it.
“No,” Danny said at last, bare, honest, and Martin could breathe again.
-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; 09; 10
Notes: What got this chapter back on track was Jane Austen. *hugs
le_mot_mo*smilla02, I don't know if you're gone yet. I hope not! But if you are, at least this will be waiting for you :)CHAPTER ELEVEN
Danny was waiting for him outside the main door to Raine, something that failed to surprise Martin, but yet managed to confuse him all the same. He didn’t say a word, only stood there as Martin walked out the door, didn’t look at him – unless maybe a soft, covert glance that Martin could have imagined – only pushed away from the wall and fell into step beside Martin, and his footsteps on the gravel were loud between the two of them.
Martin let the silence lie – had to, because he had no idea how to end it, no idea what to say or do. Swear off his family, the money? He’d do it in a second, if he thought Danny would believe him, and he was mad,so mad, that something he hadn’t wanted or cared about had managed to wreck something good, something that hadn’t even really started yet.
Two make-out sessions and at least three misunderstandings. There were probably more besides their odd first meeting, Martin’s near-drowning, and their current argument, but Martin couldn’t remember. There had to be, though.
In honesty, Danny was doing some of the wrecking himself with his silence and his hostility, uncertainty running underneath, like Danny was mad too but had no idea what he was mad about and so he kept quiet. Martin wanted to ask are you mad at me, at the money, at yourself, what the hell is your problem that you’re angry in the first place? but he couldn’t do that, either, so he shuffled along and watched the gravel scatter where he kicked it.
The quadrangle had the silence peculiar to Sundays, even the wind soft and meditative in the trees, most of the students in their rooms or the library and the faculty all off-campus. Though it wasn’t even noon, the light was already weak and not doing much to cut the chill, the sun a meaningless presence in a clear sky.
He thought about going back to the room, but spending the two hours until lunch in Danny’s silent, frustrating company did not appeal.
“Hey, I have to go to the library; I need a book for Rose.”
“Okay.” Danny did look at him now, and hidden under the acknowledgment was the hint that Danny knew Martin needed to get away, and was saying it was okay if he did. “I’ll see you at lunch.”
Half-certain, because they saw each other at lunch every day, and half-hopeful, like they might see each other again, like they’d seen each other the night they’d first kissed, or last evening.
“Yeah,” Martin said quietly. “See you later.”
He turned off onto the path heading for the farther quadrangle, the one dominated by the dome of McMaster Library. Neoclassical and with its bronze cap rusted green, it towered over the orderly rows of neo-Gothic buildings, and St. Francis, the patron saint of the school, stood precariously at its top. Martin remembered flipping through the orientation material, which had given the background of the school and the history of the Franciscan order, which along with the Dominicans had become one of the two great “teaching” orders of the Middle Ages. The brochure had passed briefly over Francis of Assisi’s life and the vision where he’d received the stigmata, the famous scholars like Bonaventure, and dwelt at length on the virtues of a Catholic education.
“Trinity College, founded as a seminary in 1846 and changed in 1893 to a private institution for young men, is proud to continue the Franciscan tradition of uniting faith with learning, knowledge with service, and charity with understanding,” the brochure said.
And money and religion, Martin had added, reading that for the first time.
He had to admit Trinity was beautiful, prettier than Westmore, with its red brick and Federal-style whitewashed columns. Idyllic, almost, with the trees lined up neatly along the paths and the foothills of the Adirondacks flowing off into the distance like waves, the World out there somewhere, far, far away.
Under St. Francis’s benign gaze, Martin walked up the steps to the library – the marble steps, worn smooth by generations of reluctant feet – through the double doors, and inside.
Once in the huge, echoing rotunda, surrounded by a cycle of murals depicting scenes from the life of Francis, he stopped, with no idea of where to go. He really didn’t need anything; he’d checked out most of what he needed for a couple of reports, maybe he could get a novel from the selection of popular fiction the staff deemed appropriate for the students to read.
Indecisive, he turned in a circle – stairs to one section of the stacks, the computer cluster and periodicals room, stairs leading to another section, door marked STAFF ONLY, the start of St. Francis’s life in pictures.
Ironically, the muralist had started out with the scene that led to Francis’s life as a mystic and religious figure: his spiritual awakening, the conviction he needed to renounce worldly possessions, and his subsequent rejection of his father’s money. Francis had been born rich, the heir to his father’s substantial fortune, and when given the choice between money and God, Francis had rejected the former.
He’d also, during a bitter fight with his father over his desire to take orders, stripped off his clothes and walked away, stark naked. Martin liked that part, though the muralist had not depicted it.
Did the other boys think about that, as they walked through these halls, with their marble and brass, the dark and ancient wood shelves, the new computers? Did Danny ever catch the irony, or ever stand here like Martin was doing, and laugh at the strangeness of it: rich boys, destined to become even richer, attending a school founded by an order whose first tenet – established by Francis before Franciscans started venturing into the universities – was poverty and service?
Matt, like Danny, attended Trinity on scholarship; Martin didn’t know much, but he had the feeling Matt’s mother didn’t have much money, and he certainly wasn’t getting anything from his father. David, Kieran, and Ashley all had money – Martin hadn’t missed Kieran’s expensive laptop, or the designer labels on Ashley’s ratty, torn-up jeans, the precision in David’s movements that spoke of an expensive upbringing. Of the three, David was maybe the most conventional, different only in his love of science; his father was an investment banker, and probably didn’t quite understand his son’s obsession with chemistry and physics, and David had often been irritated after conversations with him, when the talk inevitably turned toward how math in the hard sciences was good practice for investment statistics and futures and things David didn’t care about.
But Kieran and Ashley...Martin wondered what would happen to their rebelliousness when they graduated from college, if trust funds and the business world would drain it away, or flatten it into the conformity of portfolios and family.
He wondered if the same thing would happen to him.
Maybe Danny had wondered the same thing, if their... whatever it was, their “relationship,” was something passing, a rich kid’s twisted idea of a game, fucking around with the poor gay one.
But Danny knew him, had known all about him since that first moment, practically, and it wasn’t fair of him to assume Martin would act like that.
Knowing and knowing were different things, though, Martin thought as he headed for the fiction stacks. Knowing intellectually that a person was a certain way wasn’t necessarily the same as really believing it. Danny had been around these kids for two years, had probably observed the rich even longer from across the divide of family services and the foster care system, and Martin, for all his dislike, was one of Them.
A few boys milled quietly around an open study area, bent over their laptops and books, some alone and a few clustered together, neat and tidy even in the regular clothes allowed to them on weekends. The mid-morning sun was bright through the picture window looking out over the quadrangle, and the whole thing was a picture tailor-made for the next informational brochure.
He made his way deeper into the stacks, and the subdued noise faded altogether. Uncertainly, he browsed through the selection of British authors beginning with Jane Austen – Bonnie, he remembered, loved Austen and had inflicted her on him for years – looking at the titles but not really seeing them, and he was so engrossed in staring blindly at the spines of the books that he didn’t hear the soft cough at first.
He did hear “Hey, Fitzgerald,” though, in a nasal voice that was unpleasantly familiar.
“Preston?” Martin was proud of himself for keeping his voice down.
“What’re you doing?” Preston asked.
“What’s it look like?”
Preston shifted, gaze darting up to meet Martin’s for a moment before skittering away again.
“Um, look...” Preston pulled a copy of Mansfield Park off the shelf, flipped cursorily through the pages, and put it back. “I didn’t – I didn’t mean to get you in trouble last night. You know, with Father West.”
Preston apologizing for being the Good Samaritan? Martin stared.
“I was just... I mean, I wasn’t there or anything, but everyone said you were pretty bad on Friday afternoon, and I didn’t want – I mean, it probably wasn’t safe to go out running by yourself.” Despite the stumbling, Preston managed to deliver the sentence at a record pace. “And so I told Father West just so he could keep an eye out, in case. I didn’t want to get you in trouble, I swear.”
This last delivered so earnestly Martin had to mutter that’s okay, don’t worry about it, and Preston offered him a shaky, relieved smile, like he honestly hadn’t expected Martin to accept his apology.
“So,” Preston said after a moment, “are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks.” The silence among the books had long since vanished into a screaming awkwardness, and Preston was looking at him like he knew it was awkward but couldn’t help looking, and if Preston weren’t as pious as the day was long, Martin would have said –
No, not possible. He wasn’t even going to think it.
“How’s your paper for Rose going?” Preston had moved on to Pride and Prejudice, and reading upside down, Martin could see the page was turned to Elizabeth’s disastrous dance with Mr. Collins.
“It’s going okay, though I don’t see the point in writing about Ambrose’s theory on the Incarnation.” This daringly, a deliberate provocation.
“I don’t, either,” Preston said absently, but he looked surprised, as though he’d never realized this.
“I thought you’d be all over it.” Which was true; Preston practically glowed every time Rose required them to write a paper on some obscure point of doctrine. Fleming, in a carefully quiet aside to Bryson one day, had remarked that the only time Preston ever had an orgasm was when Rose assigned work.
“Yeah, well.” Preston shrugged and pushed Pride and Prejudice back into place. He stuffed his hands in his khaki pockets as though to keep from assaulting more books, and his uncertainty would almost be touching if Martin weren’t so freaked out himself. Preston held himself stiffly, as though anything less than complete control – arms tight over his chest, shoulders hunched in – would result in him flying off in a hundred directions at once.
Was it even remotely possible...? No. Not thinking about it.
It was, in fact, time to escape.
“Um, listen... I need to go,” Martin said, unable to stand any more. “History quiz tomorrow, and I’m behind on the reading.” The first was true, but he’d finished the required reading on Friday morning, before Everett had announced the quiz.
“The Constitutional Convention,” Preston said, nodding. “I um... If you want, I can help you with it. I have notes.”
The aching hesitation in the question turned the offer of notes into something different, an offer not of a few pieces of paper but something more.. A whole lot more, and it was impossible not to think about it anymore.
Preston liked him, maybe. Liked him in a way that wasn’t wholly platonic, or Catholic.
He knew he was blushing, and wondered if Preston had caught onto the fact that Martin knew, and if the blushing was shyness or homophobia or something. Not wanting to give Preston the chance to parse out his reaction while he was still around, Martin said,
“Thanks, but Danny was going to give me his.”
Preston’s face fell slightly, but all he said was, “Oh. Cool.”
“So, I guess I’ll see you in class tomorrow.”
“Yeah.” Preston, however, made no move to go anywhere, and Martin grabbed the first book his saw and made his escape while Preston stood immobile.
Only when he got downstairs, safely through the checkout line, and halfway to Grey did he see he’d picked up Mansfield Park, and sighed at the unfortunate choice.
Danny was there when he walked in, looking at his notes for Everett’s class. Briefly, Martin entertained the paranoid fantasy that Danny had eavesdropped on his conversation with Preston – for a moment, he was convinced that Danny, in fact, had – but the careful, reserved smile Danny offered him said otherwise.
“Mansfield Park?” he asked, nodding at the book clutched in Martin’s hand.
Martin shrugged and set the book on his desk. “What about it?”
“Nothing.” Girly, Danny’s tone said. Girly book.
“Hey, W.H. Auden loved Austen.” Meaningful pause. “And he was gay too, I think.”
He was gay too. Martin watched to see how Danny would take that, wasn’t surprised when Danny nodded and hummed thoughtfully. That was like Danny, to react to startling news – or news that was startling to other people – with utter nonchalance.
It’s not a game for me, okay? Martin wanted to say, but couldn’t, and wondered if a reference to Auden’s homosexuality was as close as he could ever come to telling Danny he didn’t do those kinds of things, that this wasn’t experimentation or messing around, because Martin didn’t do those sorts of things, at least not anymore.
He remembered struggling through the few months of his relationship with Sam, a desperate experiment in heterosexuality, hating that he was lying to her more than that he was lying to himself. In the end she’d been graceful, more generous than he’d probably deserved, remarking that he was too young – she’d always liked older men, would grow up to be the typical coed, scandalizing people one day by having an affair with a married professor.
“Um, I didn’t make you gay, did I?” she’d asked, but jokingly. He’d told her no, of course not, and then she’d laughed in fake relief, kissed him on the cheek and walked off.
“Listen,” Martin said, and didn’t say anything else for a minute. He sat down in his desk chair and looked at Danny, who was looking at him over his notepad.
“Listening.” Half-playful and half-fearful, a smile elusive at the corners of Danny’s mouth.
Now that he had Danny’s attention, Martin had no idea what to do with it. Go off on a long, rambling, indignant tangent? Demand to know what the hell Danny thought he was doing, screwing around with Martin like he was?
“Do you really think I’m like them?” he asked instead, gesturing to the people behind the walls, the campus on the other side of the window.
Danny blinked, set aside his notes and sat up against his pillows, head tilted slightly in an appraising, dissecting expression. Martin looked back, frozen, like he was drowning again.
“Do you?” Martin persisted, unwilling to explain what he knew Danny already understood. “Because if you do...” He shrugged, hoped the silence spoke for him.
If you do, that’s it.
“No,” Danny said at last, bare, honest, and Martin could breathe again.
-tbc.-
no subject
Honestly, I feel a little bad for poor Preston, because Martin's taken. Wouldn't mind seeing a little snippet from Preston's view, however. I love reading stories about someone pining.
And nice, having Martin figure out on his own what Danny's problem is and actually articulating it--well, as well as he can. Smart boy.
no subject
hatelove it when you do that. I'm such a masochist for your fic.So Preston has a crush? Very nice. Poor Martin. I love Austen, but Mansfield Park isn't my favorite. I have a funny story about Austen though. A few years ago I gave her complete works to my gay in-laws. They'd never read her, partly because of the whole 'girly' thing. They ended up both really loving the books and Austen's style. It was something so new and different for them.
short reply..
Thanks so much for the update! <3
no subject
BUT! This chapter was awesome, I loved it. Preston? *grin* poor boy had no idea what to do, standing there all wide eyed and nervous. We all know Danny was standing in the row next to them, laughing quietly to himself.
Girly, Danny’s tone said. Girly book. Bwuah, I loved that. So much.
The last line? :3 *uses happy Danny icon*
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I love this story! So angsty yet so full of hope and I just love this Martin, all confused because he's not confused! He's too cute.
And giggles for adding in Sam. “Um, I didn’t make you gay, did I?” she'd asked, but jokingly. So something she would have said as a teenager!
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Preston hitting on Martin... hands down, boy, Martin is taken *g*.
“No,” Danny said at last, bare, honest, and Martin could breathe again.
*Melts in a puddle on the floor* Yay!
Thank you for the lovely chapter, I would have hated to leave this story with Danny and martin at odds.
*hugs*
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Adored the scene with Preston! Awesomely done!
x xx
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Although Danny was being a little uncharitable about Martin's background, but I hope that the impression I'm getting that that's being cleared up isn't off base. Back to the Martin/Danny touching soon? I can always hope. ^_^
Anyway, lovely as your work alwasy is. Can't wait to see your next bit. I like how this is an open-ended story, although I'm sure it's a bit frustrating for you, not knowing where you're going to end it (although maybe you do know and I'm totally off base =P)
~Djinn
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Me= loooooing this :D
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I had so much to say about this chapter, but then I read the last line, and it took my breath away, and suddenly I couldn't remember any of the thoughts that had passed through my head.
I like that this isn't easy. That *they* are so perfectly simple and yet, this isn't easy. It's a struggle, a battle, a fight. You've got this classic good versus evil thing going on, except I'm not entirely certain what represents what --the feeling, sensation, is there, though.
This story feels epic.
I really like that.
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heh. That made me snort.
Awww, poor Preston. Unrequited love is a bitch.
And, PHEW, they're gonna work this out. They're talking (and way to go, Martin! Addressing the issue nicely!) Happy sigh.
To echo an earlier comment, I too liked the comparison of St Francis' story with the current philosophy of the school. Unhappy sigh. Too real.
I love this story. You rock, y'know?
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That last line is so warm-fuzzy-inducing.
And this is the last fanfiction I get to read before I'm on vacation, and I'm very glad it's this one. *GOD,* I really love this fic!
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I love how you tie real history and fiction together. I truly enjoyed reading about Francis of Assisi (Franciscus van Assisi). The way you describe the buildings is wonderful too. I can just see it all in front of me. I can see Trinity in my mind's eye.
Danny has always known that Martin is different from the others, otherwise I don't think he would have started something with him.
And thank God for Jane Austen bringing you back on track? Right? *g*
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Okay- I can breathe again, but you had me scared for a minute...
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Heh. I had a feeling too, but originally wasn't going to act on it :D He kind of grew on me, though, poor closet case that he is.
Wouldn't mind seeing a little snippet from Preston's view, however.
Maybe after the fic is done :D
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It's a good thing I'm a sadist XD
I love Austen, but Mansfield Park isn't my favorite.
Not mine, either, but I liked the sort-of paralells between Fanny Price and Danny--poor kid goes off to live with rich people, and never quite makes it across the social/financial gap. I suppose it's worse for Fanny, as the people who reject her are her relatives.
Re: short reply..
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I have a soft spot for Preston now... Originally he was only supposed to be the prissy, irritating kid next to Martin in orientation, but then he kept turning up at he oddest times :D
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I think Martin is one of those people who isn't happy unless things are more complicated than they have to be :D
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Preston hitting on Martin... hands down, boy, Martin is taken *g*.
XD Poor Preston...
I like the parallel between St. Francis vote of poverty and the rich school and how it works for Martin as a sort of subliminal enlightening.
I've always liked Francis... Out of all the saints on the roster, I think he's my favorite. Either Francis or St. Martin, who also sounds like the kind of person you'd like to meet, what with sharing his cloak with a beggar and all.
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Poor Preston. I feel pretty bad for him, stumbling out of the closet like that...
although I'm sure it's a bit frustrating for you, not knowing where you're going to end it (although maybe you do know and I'm totally off base =P)
Actually, I have no idea where this is going. At all. I have very vague ideas of things I want to work into the narrative, but no idea when or how that will happen. It's kind of fun, though :D
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Hee! He so is :D
And can I just say.... EEEEEE!!! Snoopy!!!! *loves icon madly*
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I think both Martin and Danny like things complicated, for some twisted, unnatural reason. It's very annoying, but makes for fun fic writing :)
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Neither can I...
That last line is so warm-fuzzy-inducing.
Not many people accuse me of inducing warm fuzzies..
Thanks so much! Enjoy ze vacation :)
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I'm quite relieved... Every time I think they've gotten past everything and it'll be smooth sailing, some complication presents itself. How vexing.
I love this story.
Aw, thank you :) Glad you're enjoying it!
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I think so, too. What I think Danny didn't really anticipate, though, is how much money (or lack of it) still bothers him--and, like it or not, Martin does have money.
And thank God for Jane Austen bringing you back on track? Right?
I was thinking about the conversation we had about her, and the library scene suggested itself :D The rest of the chapter basically got written around that.