A New Day
The hallway was dark up to Darren’s room. He fumbled with the lock, the key foreign in his palm. The ruined speech and the convention seemed years ago, but it had been only hours. His life had been flipped over and over again – not in ways he read about in trade cloth covers, or in the occasional movie he’d seen, but in ways that he imagined might be just this short of traumatic enough to help him.
Maybe.
Until he decided, though, there were more pressing matters. Like the fact that, despite the desire boiling in his body, his mind was screaming for sleep. He also wanted a shower – he hadn’t felt this filthy in ages. The city grime had settled on him thicker than ever.
Something made him feel like leaving Daniel alone in his room now would be in bad taste, though, and he passed up the idea of drawing a bath. Not that he didn’t trust the driver – on the contrary, he would choose Daniel above anyone to defend his life at this point, after seeing what the man and his infinitely loyal friends were capable of. There just wasn’t a good ‘let me go slip into something more comfortable’ line for a man. But something just didn’t settle right with him.
Unless it was exhaustion. Which, he noticed looking at Daniel as he plopped himself down on a complimentary hotel chair, was not something he didn’t share.
“It’s been a helluva day,” Daniel said, tipping his head against the wall and letting his eyes slide shut. He’d slipped the case underneath the chair, and had kicked his shoes off in an untidy pile nearby.
“That’s putting it mildly,” Darren said dryly. “And I won’t rest easy until that money is put away. Have you decided what bank you’re going to put it in?”
“Bank?” Daniel let a small smile play across his lips, and let his eyes drift slowly open. The ceiling had water damage from a tub directly above Daniel’s head, and he wondered how long the plaster had been cracking. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and stared at Darren. “Look, why did you ask me up here?”
Darren floundered, his eyes shifting to the floor. Daniel nodded to himself, running one hand through his sandy blonde hair in a valiant effort of order.
“I don’t know,” he admitted finally. “It does seem fairly rudimentary, after all. On the one hand, I’ve known you for barely half a day, and I don’t even know if I’m going to find you here when I wake up. Which I’d very much like, by the way. And emotionally, I’m not the kind of gentleman who just...well...”
“I get it, Doc,” Daniel said, not unkindly.
Darren spared him a brief, gauging glance. “On the other hand...if I let this go...”
He felt very awkward standing all of a sudden, and couldn’t find anything to do with his hands after he’d spread them searchingly. He looked up for Daniel’s reaction.
The driver was staring at him. He tried not to blush, or to be startled when Daniel stood up quite suddenly.
“Darren. What is it you want?”
The professor swallowed and fought the urge to step closer, into his arms. “I want you to stay.”
“Okay,” Daniel agreed immediately. “So I’ll stay.” He pulled Darren closer, his hand resting on the other man’s upper arm, and the contact making Darren meet his eyes. “Because everything you’re saying is right. And it’s wrong, too, but we’ll figure that out later. There’s plenty of time for that.” He paused, as if going over his words again and deeming them inadequate. “It’s a big city,” he said, with a hint of a smile. “Someone’s got to watch your back.”
And because they were having a serious moment, Darren didn’t think twice before he finally did step closer, and pitched his voice lower while he said, “I just want someone to hold for a night.”
There was silence as he stared at Daniel’s neck, watched its inner-workings tighten as a jaw set somewhere above his line of sight.
“For a night?” came the reply, Daniel’s voice deeper than before.
“We’ll...get to that later,” Darren said, stepping away but pulling Daniel with him. “Please, I’ve got to sleep. I can’t function anymore.”
Daniel nodded and let himself be led.
* * *
The room enveloped them in the darkness of a morning brewing with storm clouds. It would allow them a few more hours of twilight, and even then, the curtains on Darren’s window were thick. Daniel didn’t think a steam engine could wake him once he fell asleep in that bed.
Darren had magically produced two sets of pajamas – always be prepared, he had said as he handed Daniel the over-large (on Darren) pinstripe bottoms. The shirt had been foregone by both of them in submission to the summer heat, and Daniel sat on the bed, studying his own weariness as Darren emerged from shadows unknown to join him.
Shards of awkwardness were returning now that they were both half naked and in a strange bed. Darren had foregone some of the before-bed rituals from plain weariness and fear of being deemed obsessive compulsive by Daniel. Though, at this point, he was wondering if the other man would have even noticed. Darren wondered if he looked that tired, too.
He sat lightly on the bed, bringing his feet up and reaching forward for the covers. If this was to be done silently, so be it.
He had the sheets in his hands when Daniel’s touch jolted him. “Darren, what the hell...?” His fingers grazed a spot on his lower left back. Darren looked back over his shoulder, resting his torso on his knees. “What is this?”
Darren looked down to where Daniel’s fingers met his skin. “A tattoo.”
Daniel grinned. “What are you, a sailor? What’s it of?”
“Music notes,” Darren said, shifting around. Daniel made a noise of protest until he realized Darren was lying on his stomach. “Take a look.”
“Music notes,” Daniel confirmed after he’d moved closer, their feet tangling. “Any others I should know about?”
Darren smiled down at him from the headboard and the pillow clasped to his chest. “Just the one. I got it back when I used to play trumpet.”
Daniel looked up, surprised. “You used to play trumpet?”
Darren nodded, and Daniel scootched up the bed, drawing up the sheet.
“You want to know what I’m really going to do with that money?” Daniel asked him, their positions mirrored. They lay on their sides, legs crooked. One of Daniel’s arms was folded under his head, and with his other hand he brushed Darren’s hair adoringly.
“I thought you said...”
“You shouldn’t believe everything I say,” Daniel said. “I talk a lot. Or hadn’t you noticed?” The look Darren gave him told him just the opposite, but he smiled brightly and went on, letting his hair-brushing hand rest between them. “I’m starting a jazz club. It’s foolproof. There’s always room for one more speakeasy in Chicago.”
It was Darren’s turn to be surprised. “Seriously? You think you could do that?”
“I’m going to try, anyway,” Daniel said severely. “And that’s the best I can do. We can’t all go to school and get – ”
“Oh, Daniel, shut up,” Darren said. “That’s not what I meant.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I just don’t really…you’re not like anyone I’ve ever met.” He winced, and Darren could just make it out in the dark. “That sounds like a line.”
Darren chuckled. “I think it’s a little late for lines.”
Daniel propped himself up on one arm, the lax hand dancing up in the air all of a sudden, plucking in its uncertainty, before resting on Darren’s back. Darren shifted, letting it run over his chest, pressing on his sternum with a friendly weight. “Darren...”
“There’s plenty of time for the ‘serious’ talk later,” Darren decided. “Sleep now.”
Daniel was leaning forward. “I just...” And their lips brushed, slowly, moist and comfortable and terribly brief, just a ghost of contact. The shadows had turned Darren’s eyes into amorphous orbs of black, and Daniel spent all of one second searching for something in them before they met again, more certain this time, and with more intensity.
The hand on Darren’s chest slid upward, reaching to cup Darren’s head and bring him closer, and Daniel felt hands wrap around his back, urging him on.
And then three dimensions were cubed, because suddenly there was tongue. And it was good. Good, and wet, and very, very hot. The brush of chest against chest was something Daniel hadn’t felt for a long time, and he was suddenly infinitely grateful that they had sacrificed shirts.
But, God, he was tired.
The kiss ended reluctantly, and with promise, and Daniel dropped his head to Darren’s shoulder, letting his hand slide free and wrap around the man’s side.
“Well,” Darren said quietly, stifling a yawn.
It set off a chain-reaction of Daniel’s own. “When we wake up, I am so going to beat you for yawning after our first kiss.”
There was some kind of grunt of acceptance and a slow shifting of limbs into more comfortable positions. “When we wake up,” Darren warned, “there are going to be bigger things to worry about.”
“Is that a threat?” Daniel asked, smiling against the smooth skin of Darren’s shoulder.
“Mm,” Darren said, “that’s a promise.”
.end.