A Thousand Words

Rating: R for way, way angst. This is NOT a happy fic.
Disclaimer: Don't own them. Imitation is the highest form of compliment.
Author's Note: This is two fics I've wanted to write wrapped up into one. The first is the idea of Darren going through a whole bunch of photos…and the second is something that I'm wondering about. Why is it this hasn't come up on ADM before? Anyway, it was going to be way angstier than it is, which I guess is saying something, since I despise angst, but it wound down in a different way. Be kind. Rewind.
Summary: A picture's worth a thousand words, but only if you know what to say.


A Thousand Words

I was having a bad night.

It had started out normally enough: a light dinner, whatever bad TV I had convinced myself I was watching that week, and a brief contemplation and refusal of a bath before climbing into bed.

I never got that far.

Despite all my grace and sometime-eloquence, I am not above tripping on things. Especially when they're sticking out from underneath my bed. I scowled at the cardboard box, wondered for a moment in the style of any B-movie villain `how the bloody thing escaped' and then remembered that I'd tripped on it that morning on my way OUT of bed.

So really, it's all the box's fault.

Even at that point, though, it wasn't too bad. I had the verge moment – where I knew I could still just stick the damn thing back under the wooden skeleton and go to sleep. I needed to sleep. I didn't even need to convince myself. It was true.

Instead, though, I thought it might be a good idea to at least, you know, look. Just look. That's all. Harmless enough.

My bedroom is fairly large: it fits a matching cherry hardwood armoire and dresser set, with a married mirror, not attached. If the pieces are attached, they're worth less money. If they're sold separately, they're called divorced.

No one ever said symbolism was subtle.

I've also got a nice king-sized bed, with sheets that…I wrinkle my nose. I don't remember when I washed them last. The walls are a creamy off-white, which is different in some way from a regular cream, but only in a way that my painters can tell me. Not a lot of art. But the point is, it's a BIG room. Radiant heating through the mute carpet, and I settle myself next to my bed and pull the box between my legs.

Symbolism. See above.

The cardboard whooshes oddly against the my pants in a way where the sound reminds me of something, but I'll never be able to think of what. And then there's that fwap noise of the opening lids. And.

Oh. I shouldn't have done this.

I suddenly wished I was drunk. It would probably be easier if I was drunk. I wouldn't have to worry about waking up in the morning and kicking myself for being such a wimpy, nostalgic bastard.

There are layers. The top isn't the most recent, but it IS all framed. Things that I took down when I moved from New York to Elsewhere, and told myself that I didn't have enough space, or enough time or enough balls to put back up. Cute little drug store frames, because the expensive ones always just look silly, and they still even manage to match the décor in the room.

We look good. Click.

"Dar, we're going to be late."

"I've got to use the last shot somehow!"

"Here…give it, Daz! Give…good. Now get in the shot. Stop wriggling!"

"Don't laugh!"

He looks…tolerant.

The nice thing about having a secret relationship with your best friend is that you never have to explain to anyone why you've got pictures of him. Because he's the only one who ever comes over. Because people take it for granted that you'd have pictures of your best friend. Either one.

I'm not telling.

If anyone ever asked, I told them that the box was full of pictures of me. It was mostly true. As true as anything else I ever told. I was in most of the pictures…especially toward the bottom.

Past the frames now, and down into the little paper envelopes that photo developers give out when I pick up my rolls of film. This one was from London…a New Year's party four years ago that Ben threw for all his friends, only, for the first time in a while, I hardly knew anyone there.

It was weird to think that Ben knew people.

Not people like I know people – famous people. But real people. Ones that he hadn't told us about. Not just his old bandmates, or his family, or his crazy hometown buddies. But…enough to fill up a room. I go through the pictures and try and remember who any of them are. I wonder which one of them it was – was it one of them? Or was it earlier? Or later? - who changed my life.

One man, in the corner of picture twelve, is wearing a nubby bathrobe and nothing else. There's a border collie in picture fifteen, and Ben is allergic to dogs. Number twenty has got a whole plate full of cheese balancing percariously on the edge of a balcony railing.

I don't remember seeing these things at the party. They don't fit, but they're there anyway.

I scan the backgrounds because I already know what the pictures are of. Me and Lee, smiling and waving. Giving whoever's holding the camera a hearty dose of middle finger as I greed a bottle of champagne all to myself. Karl in a lampshade. Ben stoking a fire in his underused fireplace – and proceeding to fill his living room with smoke. Click.

"I told you to open the flu!"

"Nip outside for a bit of air, Dan?"

"A bit of air, Darren? Is that all?"

"Daniel, love…oh…not here…"

Did I just get lucky?

Daniel and me.

Daniel and me.

Daniel and me.

Daniel and -

Oh, another one I'd buried.

I drop the packet in my hand onto the floor, scattering the snapshots as I gaze down.

Staring up at me from layer three (heaped piles of photos that were meant to be albumed, but I don't have THAT much spare time) is this… still life.

He looks so happy. Like he's just figured out the right combination of letters that make up a word he's always wanted to be able to pronounce. It's a beautifully innocent picture if you have no idea that I'm not actually the one who's taking it, and that I'm supposed to be in it.

That sounds selfish now.

It's in the hospital. Me getting my clean bill of health…looking closer now, I can see just a bit of me, leaning down next to Daniel, hurrying to get at least my face out of the shot and doing a better job than I anticipated. Click.

"You're in top condition for a man of your excesses, Mr. Hayes."

And then that smile.

"But Mr. Jones…"

I'm vomiting. Somewhere in between Daniel's glee having a chance to fade and my spilling my guts on linoleum, we have this glossy Kodak moment.

Maybe it was my mother. She was the one family member at the parties – the one who always had the camera on her. It could get pretty annoying sometimes…there's only so many times you can stand being photographed while you eat. Even if you're being assured by a whisper and a squeeze on the knee by someone like Daniel that you're CUTE when you eat.

I sift through the box deeper down, letting more pictures spill out onto the carpet. There's a long layer of photo shoots, which are mostly me wearing hot clothes and melting makeup…and then way, way underneath there's the old stuff.

I don't know why I keep these pictures. Maybe they're for nights like tonight.

When I moved here, I didn't put pictures up. When people see them, they ask me how he's doing. And it's because they're thinking, "See, they deserved it. They're gay. It's only a matter of time."

Some of them, anyway.

A picture of my sister's tenth birthday party. She doesn't speak to me anymore.

I set it next to the picture of Happy-Daniel, the one I ducked out of.

Tonight was a bad night.

Tonight the doctors sent me home for some rest, to get me out, to get me away, to give his family a chance to visit. I know it's not time yet, he's still got oodles of time. Plenty of time to explain things to his father. But it's lonely in my house, and I know I'm not going to be able to sleep, knowing that I could bring something in there with me that could set off that final chain of events.

I'm not going to let him go like that.

It's not AIDS. Yet.

I let my head rest on the side of the mattress and leave my hands inside the empty box.

Tomorrow, I'll bring him these, and we'll go through them together. And he'll want to know what happened to the Happy-Daniel picture if it's not there, because his memory is the reason I don't need to put these in albums. But he won't say anything, because he's Daniel.

And then he'll smile.

Click.