![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
.au: The Hours of Instruction - D/M (R/NC17) 14.20ish
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; 11; 12; 13
Notes: Written somewhere between the leap and the crash. So tired.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“… and in light of this weekend’s activities,” Father Bryant droned on, “afternoon classes and sports practice sessions will be cancelled.”
“That’s, like, the best news I’ve heard all fucking semester.” Fortunately, the relieved murmurs and sighs from the rest of the boys in the dining hall drowned out the last part of Ashley’s tirade. Martin had to agree; ninety-nine point-nine percent sure as he was that his father wouldn’t be coming for Parents’ Weekend, he took a moment to indulge in the fantasy of a free afternoon – and, possibly, evening.
A free afternoon – and, possibly, evening – with Danny. Even better.
“Yeah, well, it’s the only good news you’re going to get until break. Remember that.” Danny leaned back in his chair, precariously close to tipping over. “Besides, it’s going to get worse in a few seconds.”
“What?” Martin’s attention, riveted on Danny as it was, had strayed momentarily from Father Bryant. “What do you mean, ‘worse’?”
“Wait for it.”
“Now that your classroom and sports obligations have been removed, you will be expected to participate in the various activities Trinity has scheduled for its visiting parents and alumni. Father Perry will have assignments and voluntary duties posted on the bulletin board outside the common room in Grey for both juniors and seniors. Those honors students in the freshman and sophomore years will find theirs posted in Wilson.”
The last part of Father Bryant’s speech went unheard.
“We’re working?” Martin hissed in disbelief.
“They do that every year,” Matt said, “something about ‘fostering ties between the generations.’ Personally, I think it’s probably just some way to save money, so they don’t have to pay the staff overtime to show people around campus.”
“It’s crap, is what it is,” Ashley said. He slouched back in his chair despondently, putting his feet up on the back of another student’s chair. “And my mom’s coming this year. She called the other night and said so.” He paused. “At least my dad isn’t. I’d have to kill myself, or something.”
“No ditching for you this year.” False sympathy oozed from Kieran’s pores. “It had to end sometime.”
“If it makes you feel better, both my parents are coming,” David said.
“Well, it doesn’t.”
As the other boys argued on, Martin glanced at Danny, Danny who was watching the four of them and not saying anything, leaning back in his chair like he knew he had no place in the conversation, half-smile there but absent, Danny somewhere else entirely. Martin, remembering what Danny had told him about his foster parents – they’d come, maybe, but still be Danny’s not-parents, who made him stay in a monastery for part of the summer because they wanted to vacation without him.
“Hey, you okay?” Hesitant, because he knew that, for all his nonchalance, having not-parents bothered Danny, being poor and dependent on the government’s questionable generosity really bothered him, and he couldn’t read Danny right now – one of those times when maybe Danny’s quiet masked something that would explode at a breath, or maybe Danny would refuse to answer him and avoid him for a week.
“Fine.” Danny’s expression warmed a bit as he turned to look at Martin, and Martin couldn’t keep back a smile of his own. “Just tired, y’know?”
“Hard day,” Martin agreed, felt Danny’s unhappiness elided by just tired. Tired of a lot of things, Martin thought suddenly, and he wondered how Danny had managed two years here, mostly surrounded by kids who were, to a ridiculous degree, almost completely unlike him.
“I’m going to stage a mutiny.” Ashley was bitching on.
Danny rolled his eyes and said something about how Ashley couldn’t mutiny his way out of a paper bag – weak for Danny, and Ashley said so, but it had the advantage of Danny leaning back into the conversation, and having Matt, who had been watching them, nod to himself and turn his attention back to Ashley.
Martin tried not to let that bug him. Too much.
* * *
The next day was Wednesday, and Martin found himself obsessed anew.
Not by Danny – still obsessed there, in a way he didn’t really like thinking about – or even by the Preston Issue, as he’d started calling it, trying to figure out if the other boy liked him liked him or was just crazy, or if Martin was the crazy one after all. No, this was something different, and it had him trekking out to the football field after swim practice.
Predictably, the football players were exempted from Parents’ Day-imposed slavery; they had a home game that Friday night – conveniently scheduled, Martin thought darkly – and the game was the Big Event, partly for the seniors who were being scouted by colleges, and partly for the alumni, who had graduated from Trinity ages ago but still had a bizarre attachment to the team. As such, the team was finishing up its own practice, whole swathes of overgrown teenagers milling around the field, which made Martin feel sticklike and insignificant next to them.
“You lookin’ for someone?” one of the guys asked. Sweat, and the smell of sweat congealed with dirt, poured off him.
“Matt?” Big guy, looks kind of like you. You know, big.
“Over there.” Barber pointed, and yeah, there was Matt over on the sidelines, grabbing a bottle of water. His hair, usually matte and black as his name, shone with sweat.
“Thanks.” Martin headed over, waving as Matt looked up.
“Hey.” Up close and in his gear, Matt looked about ten times larger than he usually did. “What’s up?”
“Not much. Just came from practice.” Martin gestured to the duffel bag slung over his shoulder. “Can I talk to you?”
“Yeah… Just give me a minute, okay? Gotta grab my stuff.” Matt’s eyes flickered in the direction of the crowd of other players, silent request for a bit more time, at least until the others cleared off. Martin waited impatiently as Matt collected his gear and the other players wandered off to the far side of the field. “What’s up?” Matt asked again.
“I just…” Now that the moment was upon him, Martin found himself tongue-tied. “You’re cool?” he managed at last. “With Danny and me?”
“Yeah.” Matt seemed to prepared to leave it at that, but then he looked at Martin more closely, and even with the other guys safely on the other side of the field, Martin felt terribly exposed, like they were shouting. The sun, despite its being mid-fall, was obscenely bright. “Why?”
“Noticed you looking last night,” he admitted. Yes, his paranoia was on full alert. It’s not paranoia if you know they’re watching, he told himself. But he had been hypersensitive lately thanks to Preston, thanks to plotting ways to sneak off with Danny. “And I… I wondered.”
“I’m cool,” Matt said again. His helmet thunked against his thigh pads. “Y’know… when Dave told us he was gay, I was freaked at first. Not pissed, but like… like I didn’t know what to do about it. Know what I mean?”
Martin, who hadn’t known what to do about it when he’d realized he was gay, nodded understanding.
“I wasn’t cool with it for a while,” Matt continued, “but then I got used to it, and Dave and I were fine again. And then Dave died. And it wasn’t his fault that he died, it was those assholes who killed him because of what he was. Sort of promised myself after that that I wouldn’t judge anyone again.” The words were a lot older than seventeen years; Matt’s eyes were dark with honesty. “So when I say I’m cool with you and Danny, I mean it. Got it?”
“Yeah,” Martin muttered, and felt ridiculous suddenly for questioning him. Felt ridiculous coming all the way out here to learn what he already knew, and be dwarfed by a herd of buffalo thinly disguised as high-school football players.
“Out of morbid curiosity, why do you want to know?”
“Paranoia.”
Matt snorted. “You going to explain that?”
“I probably shouldn’t.” Discussing Danny with Matt was one thing, but Preston was a completely different animal. Preston. His first name was Joseph. Did he go by Joe? J.P? Martin couldn’t conceive of Preston as being anything other than Preston.
Matt was looking at him, smirking a smirk that would challenge Danny’s for the record, and right, rambling to himself.
“I’m not going to tell,” Matt repeated. “And, unless Danny’s said anything, DiMatteo, Ash, and Kieran don’t know.”
“I know,” Martin said honestly, responding more to the first than the second, and was recovered enough to offer Matt a rueful smile of his own.
“If you ever want to talk,” Matt said, “don’t come to me, okay?”
“Okay,” Martin said, and the two of them walked back to Grey in silence.
* * *
Having Matt off his mind meant that Martin could devote himself full-time to the two current obsessions in his life. Between Danny and trying to work out the Preston Issue, Martin wondered how he managed to get any classwork done.
Like now: sitting at his desk, trying to work out a differential equation in between covertly admiring Danny, who was sexy and distracting when he was concentrating (like now), and also trying to work out ways to get rid of Preston once and for all, ways that didn’t involve murder or actually having to confront him.
Speaking of email, the differential equation was going nowhere. Martin set aside his textbook and reached for the keyboard. Not like anyone had emailed him in the past five minutes, but it never hurt to check.
“Checking your email again?” Danny asked. Sounded so distracted that Martin knew Danny’d been paying attention to him, was probably aware that Martin had been checking him out, and had let him do it without, you know, inviting him across the room or something. Bastard.
“Might as well,” Martin said loftily. He logged in and scrolled down the screen, past the series of emails from Sam that he hadn’t answered yet (she’d actually asked him any hot guys there? and he had no idea if he was ready to tell her about Danny), the reminders of yet another stupid essay due for Rose – apparently pointless essays were the Eleventh Commandment – something from his dad.
Wait.
Martin scrolled back up and clicked on the message.
Yes, that was his father’s name in the header. Yes, his father was alive, back in D.C. apparently and how was Martin doing, was he keeping up with his studies, and he wanted to let Martin know he and Martin’s mother would be at Trinity some time Friday afternoon, they had tickets to the game, see you Friday, Dad.
“Oh, my God.”
“What? Love note from Preston?” The teasing didn’t completely mask the jealousy in Danny’s tone, and if Martin weren’t about to die from shock and horror, he’d have to say something to Danny about that.
But, seeing as Martin was dying from shock and horror, he didn’t say anything.
“Not a love note from Preston,” Danny concluded. Dimly, Martin registered the creak of springs as Danny got up, the soft shuff-shuff of Danny walking the few steps to Martin’s desk.
Warmth, sudden and welcome over his shoulder, and he could smell the soap Danny used when he showered after practice.
“Hey, your parents are coming.” Absolutely uninflected, so somewhere behind Danny’s eyes he could be jumping for joy or annoyed or hurt or any one of a thousand things Martin wouldn’t ever be able to figure out.
“Unfortunately.” Martin hastily closed the browser window and pulled his calculus back in front of him, hoping Danny would take the hint and go back to his chemistry homework.
But we’re talking about Danny here, and Danny was selectively deaf to social cues. He remained fixed next to Martin’s left shoulder, warm and silent and infuriating. Martin toyed with the idea of going back to work and letting Danny stand there all night if he wanted to, but again: talking about Danny, and Danny would stand there all night, being distracting.
It was a conspiracy, Martin decided. Danny, Preston, his father… They were all in on it, conspiring to drive him crazy.
“It won’t be that bad.” Danny was actually trying to be conciliatory, not teasing him at all, which was weirder and was another piece of evidence for Martin’s conspiracy theory.
“No, it’ll be worse.” God, Martin could practically see his father glaring around the campus as Martin tried to explain the St. Francis murals to him, or why the school had a shrine dedicated to a cross-dressing saint, tried to explain his roommate, and Victor would have that look, the one Martin really hated, disinterest and dismissal barely hidden under a skim of diplomacy.
One of the events was a special Sunday Mass, preached not by one of the fathers at the school, but the Archbishop of the diocese, and Martin knew, with a sinking feeling, his parents would be conspicuously absent – some secret FBI call, off on a moment’s notice – and it didn’t bug him because his parents would be missing Mass (Martin would kill to sleep in on Sundays for once), but because… Well, dammit. He didn’t know why. But it did, at some indefinable teenager level he couldn’t examine too closely.
Danny’s hands were hesitant on his shoulders, and Martin knew that he was giving off all sorts of negative energy and get the hell away from me waves and Danny was trying to do something. To do something to help him, and that staggered him a moment, something as big, real, realer maybe, than stealing time down at the river or the morning hours when they were the only two people in the world.
Part of him wanted to warn Danny off – he was too tense, there were too many people passing by outside – but he resolutely shut it up as Danny’s fingers slipped under the collar of his shirt, firm and confident on Martin’s skin, meditative like maybe Danny was touching him because Martin was the only thing anchoring him to the teal world.
“Are your… your foster parents coming?” he asked.
“Don’t know,” Danny said. “They just showed up, last year.” A meaningful pause, then: “Forget it, okay?”
Martin didn’t know what he was supposed to forget, but Danny was touching him and his hands were traveling down Martin’s collar bone, and Danny’s breath was in his ear, and yeah, it was all okay.
-tbc.-
Post-fic notes: I'm going to put a cap on this, and let's see if I actually stick to it. *wry look* In scattered moments I've been plotting something of a trajectory, but I make no guarantees. Still, it would be nice to get this finished before it trails off into complete incoherence.
Kind of like I'm doing now. *goes off to collapse*
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; 11; 12; 13
Notes: Written somewhere between the leap and the crash. So tired.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“… and in light of this weekend’s activities,” Father Bryant droned on, “afternoon classes and sports practice sessions will be cancelled.”
“That’s, like, the best news I’ve heard all fucking semester.” Fortunately, the relieved murmurs and sighs from the rest of the boys in the dining hall drowned out the last part of Ashley’s tirade. Martin had to agree; ninety-nine point-nine percent sure as he was that his father wouldn’t be coming for Parents’ Weekend, he took a moment to indulge in the fantasy of a free afternoon – and, possibly, evening.
A free afternoon – and, possibly, evening – with Danny. Even better.
“Yeah, well, it’s the only good news you’re going to get until break. Remember that.” Danny leaned back in his chair, precariously close to tipping over. “Besides, it’s going to get worse in a few seconds.”
“What?” Martin’s attention, riveted on Danny as it was, had strayed momentarily from Father Bryant. “What do you mean, ‘worse’?”
“Wait for it.”
“Now that your classroom and sports obligations have been removed, you will be expected to participate in the various activities Trinity has scheduled for its visiting parents and alumni. Father Perry will have assignments and voluntary duties posted on the bulletin board outside the common room in Grey for both juniors and seniors. Those honors students in the freshman and sophomore years will find theirs posted in Wilson.”
The last part of Father Bryant’s speech went unheard.
“We’re working?” Martin hissed in disbelief.
“They do that every year,” Matt said, “something about ‘fostering ties between the generations.’ Personally, I think it’s probably just some way to save money, so they don’t have to pay the staff overtime to show people around campus.”
“It’s crap, is what it is,” Ashley said. He slouched back in his chair despondently, putting his feet up on the back of another student’s chair. “And my mom’s coming this year. She called the other night and said so.” He paused. “At least my dad isn’t. I’d have to kill myself, or something.”
“No ditching for you this year.” False sympathy oozed from Kieran’s pores. “It had to end sometime.”
“If it makes you feel better, both my parents are coming,” David said.
“Well, it doesn’t.”
As the other boys argued on, Martin glanced at Danny, Danny who was watching the four of them and not saying anything, leaning back in his chair like he knew he had no place in the conversation, half-smile there but absent, Danny somewhere else entirely. Martin, remembering what Danny had told him about his foster parents – they’d come, maybe, but still be Danny’s not-parents, who made him stay in a monastery for part of the summer because they wanted to vacation without him.
“Hey, you okay?” Hesitant, because he knew that, for all his nonchalance, having not-parents bothered Danny, being poor and dependent on the government’s questionable generosity really bothered him, and he couldn’t read Danny right now – one of those times when maybe Danny’s quiet masked something that would explode at a breath, or maybe Danny would refuse to answer him and avoid him for a week.
“Fine.” Danny’s expression warmed a bit as he turned to look at Martin, and Martin couldn’t keep back a smile of his own. “Just tired, y’know?”
“Hard day,” Martin agreed, felt Danny’s unhappiness elided by just tired. Tired of a lot of things, Martin thought suddenly, and he wondered how Danny had managed two years here, mostly surrounded by kids who were, to a ridiculous degree, almost completely unlike him.
“I’m going to stage a mutiny.” Ashley was bitching on.
Danny rolled his eyes and said something about how Ashley couldn’t mutiny his way out of a paper bag – weak for Danny, and Ashley said so, but it had the advantage of Danny leaning back into the conversation, and having Matt, who had been watching them, nod to himself and turn his attention back to Ashley.
Martin tried not to let that bug him. Too much.
The next day was Wednesday, and Martin found himself obsessed anew.
Not by Danny – still obsessed there, in a way he didn’t really like thinking about – or even by the Preston Issue, as he’d started calling it, trying to figure out if the other boy liked him liked him or was just crazy, or if Martin was the crazy one after all. No, this was something different, and it had him trekking out to the football field after swim practice.
Predictably, the football players were exempted from Parents’ Day-imposed slavery; they had a home game that Friday night – conveniently scheduled, Martin thought darkly – and the game was the Big Event, partly for the seniors who were being scouted by colleges, and partly for the alumni, who had graduated from Trinity ages ago but still had a bizarre attachment to the team. As such, the team was finishing up its own practice, whole swathes of overgrown teenagers milling around the field, which made Martin feel sticklike and insignificant next to them.
“You lookin’ for someone?” one of the guys asked. Sweat, and the smell of sweat congealed with dirt, poured off him.
“Matt?” Big guy, looks kind of like you. You know, big.
“Over there.” Barber pointed, and yeah, there was Matt over on the sidelines, grabbing a bottle of water. His hair, usually matte and black as his name, shone with sweat.
“Thanks.” Martin headed over, waving as Matt looked up.
“Hey.” Up close and in his gear, Matt looked about ten times larger than he usually did. “What’s up?”
“Not much. Just came from practice.” Martin gestured to the duffel bag slung over his shoulder. “Can I talk to you?”
“Yeah… Just give me a minute, okay? Gotta grab my stuff.” Matt’s eyes flickered in the direction of the crowd of other players, silent request for a bit more time, at least until the others cleared off. Martin waited impatiently as Matt collected his gear and the other players wandered off to the far side of the field. “What’s up?” Matt asked again.
“I just…” Now that the moment was upon him, Martin found himself tongue-tied. “You’re cool?” he managed at last. “With Danny and me?”
“Yeah.” Matt seemed to prepared to leave it at that, but then he looked at Martin more closely, and even with the other guys safely on the other side of the field, Martin felt terribly exposed, like they were shouting. The sun, despite its being mid-fall, was obscenely bright. “Why?”
“Noticed you looking last night,” he admitted. Yes, his paranoia was on full alert. It’s not paranoia if you know they’re watching, he told himself. But he had been hypersensitive lately thanks to Preston, thanks to plotting ways to sneak off with Danny. “And I… I wondered.”
“I’m cool,” Matt said again. His helmet thunked against his thigh pads. “Y’know… when Dave told us he was gay, I was freaked at first. Not pissed, but like… like I didn’t know what to do about it. Know what I mean?”
Martin, who hadn’t known what to do about it when he’d realized he was gay, nodded understanding.
“I wasn’t cool with it for a while,” Matt continued, “but then I got used to it, and Dave and I were fine again. And then Dave died. And it wasn’t his fault that he died, it was those assholes who killed him because of what he was. Sort of promised myself after that that I wouldn’t judge anyone again.” The words were a lot older than seventeen years; Matt’s eyes were dark with honesty. “So when I say I’m cool with you and Danny, I mean it. Got it?”
“Yeah,” Martin muttered, and felt ridiculous suddenly for questioning him. Felt ridiculous coming all the way out here to learn what he already knew, and be dwarfed by a herd of buffalo thinly disguised as high-school football players.
“Out of morbid curiosity, why do you want to know?”
“Paranoia.”
Matt snorted. “You going to explain that?”
“I probably shouldn’t.” Discussing Danny with Matt was one thing, but Preston was a completely different animal. Preston. His first name was Joseph. Did he go by Joe? J.P? Martin couldn’t conceive of Preston as being anything other than Preston.
Matt was looking at him, smirking a smirk that would challenge Danny’s for the record, and right, rambling to himself.
“I’m not going to tell,” Matt repeated. “And, unless Danny’s said anything, DiMatteo, Ash, and Kieran don’t know.”
“I know,” Martin said honestly, responding more to the first than the second, and was recovered enough to offer Matt a rueful smile of his own.
“If you ever want to talk,” Matt said, “don’t come to me, okay?”
“Okay,” Martin said, and the two of them walked back to Grey in silence.
Having Matt off his mind meant that Martin could devote himself full-time to the two current obsessions in his life. Between Danny and trying to work out the Preston Issue, Martin wondered how he managed to get any classwork done.
Like now: sitting at his desk, trying to work out a differential equation in between covertly admiring Danny, who was sexy and distracting when he was concentrating (like now), and also trying to work out ways to get rid of Preston once and for all, ways that didn’t involve murder or actually having to confront him.
Speaking of email, the differential equation was going nowhere. Martin set aside his textbook and reached for the keyboard. Not like anyone had emailed him in the past five minutes, but it never hurt to check.
“Checking your email again?” Danny asked. Sounded so distracted that Martin knew Danny’d been paying attention to him, was probably aware that Martin had been checking him out, and had let him do it without, you know, inviting him across the room or something. Bastard.
“Might as well,” Martin said loftily. He logged in and scrolled down the screen, past the series of emails from Sam that he hadn’t answered yet (she’d actually asked him any hot guys there? and he had no idea if he was ready to tell her about Danny), the reminders of yet another stupid essay due for Rose – apparently pointless essays were the Eleventh Commandment – something from his dad.
Wait.
Martin scrolled back up and clicked on the message.
Yes, that was his father’s name in the header. Yes, his father was alive, back in D.C. apparently and how was Martin doing, was he keeping up with his studies, and he wanted to let Martin know he and Martin’s mother would be at Trinity some time Friday afternoon, they had tickets to the game, see you Friday, Dad.
“Oh, my God.”
“What? Love note from Preston?” The teasing didn’t completely mask the jealousy in Danny’s tone, and if Martin weren’t about to die from shock and horror, he’d have to say something to Danny about that.
But, seeing as Martin was dying from shock and horror, he didn’t say anything.
“Not a love note from Preston,” Danny concluded. Dimly, Martin registered the creak of springs as Danny got up, the soft shuff-shuff of Danny walking the few steps to Martin’s desk.
Warmth, sudden and welcome over his shoulder, and he could smell the soap Danny used when he showered after practice.
“Hey, your parents are coming.” Absolutely uninflected, so somewhere behind Danny’s eyes he could be jumping for joy or annoyed or hurt or any one of a thousand things Martin wouldn’t ever be able to figure out.
“Unfortunately.” Martin hastily closed the browser window and pulled his calculus back in front of him, hoping Danny would take the hint and go back to his chemistry homework.
But we’re talking about Danny here, and Danny was selectively deaf to social cues. He remained fixed next to Martin’s left shoulder, warm and silent and infuriating. Martin toyed with the idea of going back to work and letting Danny stand there all night if he wanted to, but again: talking about Danny, and Danny would stand there all night, being distracting.
It was a conspiracy, Martin decided. Danny, Preston, his father… They were all in on it, conspiring to drive him crazy.
“It won’t be that bad.” Danny was actually trying to be conciliatory, not teasing him at all, which was weirder and was another piece of evidence for Martin’s conspiracy theory.
“No, it’ll be worse.” God, Martin could practically see his father glaring around the campus as Martin tried to explain the St. Francis murals to him, or why the school had a shrine dedicated to a cross-dressing saint, tried to explain his roommate, and Victor would have that look, the one Martin really hated, disinterest and dismissal barely hidden under a skim of diplomacy.
One of the events was a special Sunday Mass, preached not by one of the fathers at the school, but the Archbishop of the diocese, and Martin knew, with a sinking feeling, his parents would be conspicuously absent – some secret FBI call, off on a moment’s notice – and it didn’t bug him because his parents would be missing Mass (Martin would kill to sleep in on Sundays for once), but because… Well, dammit. He didn’t know why. But it did, at some indefinable teenager level he couldn’t examine too closely.
Danny’s hands were hesitant on his shoulders, and Martin knew that he was giving off all sorts of negative energy and get the hell away from me waves and Danny was trying to do something. To do something to help him, and that staggered him a moment, something as big, real, realer maybe, than stealing time down at the river or the morning hours when they were the only two people in the world.
Part of him wanted to warn Danny off – he was too tense, there were too many people passing by outside – but he resolutely shut it up as Danny’s fingers slipped under the collar of his shirt, firm and confident on Martin’s skin, meditative like maybe Danny was touching him because Martin was the only thing anchoring him to the teal world.
“Are your… your foster parents coming?” he asked.
“Don’t know,” Danny said. “They just showed up, last year.” A meaningful pause, then: “Forget it, okay?”
Martin didn’t know what he was supposed to forget, but Danny was touching him and his hands were traveling down Martin’s collar bone, and Danny’s breath was in his ear, and yeah, it was all okay.
-tbc.-
Post-fic notes: I'm going to put a cap on this, and let's see if I actually stick to it. *wry look* In scattered moments I've been plotting something of a trajectory, but I make no guarantees. Still, it would be nice to get this finished before it trails off into complete incoherence.
Kind of like I'm doing now. *goes off to collapse*
no subject
Then with Martin and the email and Danny just, you know, being there for him and distracting him. (thank god, heh, right?)
Cannot wait until you update this again, mate :D
no subject
You have me worrrying about PReston. Something is not right with him.
Great chapter...this could go on forever and I'd be happy, I look forward to your chapters.
M
no subject
Ahh, Preston. I hope you never disappear. You make Martin angst and Danny jealous, both of which are (IMHO) of the good. But Martin's daddy showing up? Hmm, not sure what to expect from that. It's clear in the show that Victor cares about Martin on some level, but their relationship is pretty dysfunctional. If only Bonnie could miraculously show up ... *sigh* Poor Marty.
Looking forward to more, as always! ^_^
~Djinn
no subject
I love the way we know it's slowly building up to D-day, or rather, Parents Day. Oh, man. All I can do is shake my head and say, "Poor poor Martin."
no subject
It seems that you're having not such a great day. Well, I'm having a louzy day myself, so yeah ... I can symphatize perfectly. *hugs*
no subject
Danny and Martin hot sex under the trees (I have a fascination with trees lately) and the leaves leaving a kaleidoscopic light on them, it is such a beautiful image that I can't stop thinking of it.
And all that is happening to Martin, you caught the insecurities and confusion of teens perfectly with Martin, caught Danny too and all his issues and never once this was boring.
I'm eager to know what role Preston will play in their relationship, I'm scared for the arrival of Victor and I wish Danny wouldn't suffer so much and would realize that he is the best thing to happen to Martin.
In case it wasn't clear, I loved it, i'm still loving it, actually, I think I'm going to love it forever.
*flails*
no subject
And I love that I refused to do any work once I saw this was posted & just sat here & read while all kinds of hectic stuff was going on behind me. haha :)
no subject
Victor's coming to Parents' Weekend! Oh noes! But not to Mass, which cracked me up. If Martin has to go, his parents should have to go too. The poor boy.
Oh, and the convo with Matt. I love Matt's comment at the end -- not to come to him, if Martin needs to talk. LOL. Such a boy, although a very sweet one for being able to be honest.
no subject
The confusion in Martin is typical, I guess, for a young man confused by his own sexuality, and the portrait you give of him is so spot on on the Martin that we'll get to know later, it's humbling and scary...
And oh so brilliantly wonderful.
no subject
no subject
This is just... I dont even know what to say about it.
Im so desperate to know how it all turns out, but just as much as I dont want it to end. This story had drawn me in more than any other has, ever. It has everything.
And that last para was so beautifully and painfully hot, without even giving anything away.
x xx
no subject
Especially this chapter, because we're seeing some serious character and relationship development and, yeah, it makes me giddy. Brilliant. So brilliant.