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The car was a hire, something not too old but not too new. It blended in well with the London traffic; they had decided to leave close to lunch time, when traffic was crawling and no sane person would want to be on the roads. It was better for cover, Alex explained. It was much easier to see if anybody was following, and it was a lot harder to orchestrate an accident.
“Like what?” Danny asked, instinctively looking out of the window and checking in the rear view mirror. There was a bus behind them, it driver looking incredibly bored, and because of the size of it Danny couldn’t see what was further behind that.
“Run us off the road,” Alex said, inching the car forward. “Or if they’ve tampered with the car, we’ll be going at low enough speeds that it won’t be serious. I checked before we left, though.”
“Good,” Danny said weakly. Sometimes it hit him just what he was involved with now – the sheer scope of everything, the way that danger was truly around every corner. It was taking a lot of getting used to, even though Danny couldn’t say that it was new to him now. He had had plenty of experience when he had believed Alex was dead, but how much had he missed? He had only learned a day ago that he had been hours away from being killed, and he hadn’t noticed a thing. If it hadn’t been for the fact he had gotten into the car with that sleaze Rich, he would be dead right now. He would have walked right into the house without a second thought.
“Do you think they’re still waiting there?” he asked. “At the house?”
“Doubtful,” Alex replied. “Though they will likely have the roads around it under surveillance, so we’ll have to be quick.”
“We don’t have to go back,” Danny said quickly, trying not to think about the issue of his medication. “It doesn’t matter, does it? You have a copy of your work with you now, so what do you need any others for?”
“Backup,” Alex said simply. “If one of us is caught, the other needs a copy. We can’t gamble with just the one, and we need to have it in several different formats. There’s no way I can print all this out without drawing attention. I also need to check to make sure the flash drive hasn’t been tampered with.”
“You think it has?”
“It might be. I can check at the house. It won’t take me long; I know what I’m looking for. If anything does come up, it’s in a location we’ll never be returning to.”
“You don’t think they’ll do anything to the house, do you?” Danny asked suddenly, even though he knew that it was a stupid question. He knew it was – in the grand scheme of things he really shouldn’t be bothered this much, but at the same time everything had changed so much over the last few months that he seemed to be clinging to everything he could get.
“They might, but it’s unlikely,” Alex replied. “If you vanish, I’m sure they won’t be advertising it.”
“But I’ll never be able to return.”
“Don’t think like that,” Alex told him, his voice taking on a note of sympathy. “I won’t lie and say it’s likely, but it isn’t impossible either. Once I get this out there, once all this is exposed… maybe then. Maybe something will change.”
“How likely do you think that is?”
“I don’t know,” Alex admitted. He frowned slightly. “I wish I had an answer, Danny.”
“I suppose even you don’t have the answers to everything,” Danny said, managing a smile.
The drive took close to an hour and a half, and then they were leaving the traffic of the inner city and heading out towards where Scottie had lived. Danny still had trouble thinking of the house as his, and he supposed it was no use starting now – he would likely never see it again. He wanted to be hopeful and think that maybe it would be possible one day in the future, like Alex had said, but he had had enough of being optimistic. He had used it all up hoping against all odds that Alex would come back to him – he was not going to ask the universe for any more.
Alex varied the route a lot, taking streets a couple of times, turning off when he didn’t need to and doubling back, taking long, meandering routes through housing estates and long residential streets. When a roundabout was large enough he would circle it a couple of times, all the while glancing into his rear view mirror. Danny spent his time swapping his attention between the street outside and Alex himself, still marvelling over how different the man looked when dressed casually. Privately Danny thought it suited him more; despite the stressful situation they had found themselves in Alex looked a lot more relaxed dressed in a hoodie and a pair of comfortable jeans, his hair covering the tops of his ears now and swept to the side on his forehead. He still managed to look tidier than Danny could ever hope to look in his life, but he looked less enclosed, less claustrophobic.
“You’re staring at me,” Alex said, smiling slightly, and Danny laughed.
“Guilty.”
“I hope it’s not because you’re horrified.”
“The exact opposite, actually. I was thinking about how different you look when you’re so dressed down.”
“Different in a good way, or in a weird way?”
“A bit of both. Not you being weird, but I’m just so used to seeing you in suits. If you weren’t in a suit you were in your running gear, maybe an old man sweater. I think this is the first time I’ve seen you dress in something that I might find in my own wardrobe.”
“It was a nice change to buy an entire outfit for less than someone’s monthly rent,” Alex admitted. “I feel better in it. I could never stand suits. I wore enough of them as a child.”
“You wore a suit as a child?” Danny asked, grinning. “Like, outside of school uniform?”
“Yes,” Alex said, glancing at him. He seemed to be enjoying Danny’s amusement. “I had to dress properly for the family, you see. Exciting dinner parties. Exactly how a seven year old wanted to spend his time.”
“I bet you were never allowed to get messy, either. No playing in the mud.”
“I wouldn’t have dared. If I wasn’t in a suit they would put me in the most expensive outfits. I have no idea why children’s clothes are priced so expensively. If a child doesn’t mess it up irreparably, he’s grown out of it in a few weeks.”
“We couldn’t afford to do the washing more than once a week,” Danny said. “So I had going out clothes and staying in clothes. If I went out playing and fell in the mud on Monday, that would be it until Sunday. Muddy clothes.”
“I can’t imagine.”
“I think I would prefer that to never being allowed to get dirty,” Danny told him. “Honestly, the more I hear about your upbringing the more horrified I am. It kind of disgusts me, when people don’t let kids be kids. It’s like when you’re in a McDonalds and someone’s yelling at their child for having a bit of fun. Why bring them? You know they’re going to raise hell, that’s what McDonalds is for.”
They were getting a bit off topic, Danny knew, but it was nice to hear about Alex’s childhood, bleak though it seemed, and it was nice to have something to talk about that wasn’t constantly acknowledging the danger they were in. They could talk as though it wasn’t happening, their only reminder being Alex’s constant glances in his mirrors. The road behind them was still empty, but Danny supposed that could change at any moment.
“My parents had a strict idea about how a child should grow up,” Alex said suddenly, sounding almost hesitant, the way he always did when he was about to confess something about himself. “They were very old-fashioned. Very proper. It must have been stifling. From an early age I never understood how they did it, and I never wanted that for myself. I suppose that’s why I was so frustrated by so many things as an adult. I never wanted to go into intelligence.”
That surprised Danny. He looked at Alex, confused.
“You didn’t?”
“No,” Alex said, giving a thin smile. “It never interested me, and I thought there was far too much going on in terms of cover-ups, corruption, that kind of thing. I can’t say I was ever overly political, but I have never trusted the government, and I didn’t particularly want my skills being used to further their agenda.”
“I suppose you were right on that one,” Danny said, scowling out of the window for a brief moment. “I guess you have the comfort of knowing that you’re really throwing a spanner in the works now.”
“It’s the only thing I have sometimes,” Alex said seriously, and Danny felt a pang of sadness for him.
“You’re wasted on this,” he said quietly. “Not to mean your work is wasted. But it’s sad that you have to put up with all this. You could change the world in any way you wanted with a mind like yours, and you’re on the run for your life because of it. It isn’t fair.”
“It isn’t,” Alex agreed. “But don’t think of it that way. I am going to change the world. This is how I want to change it. Danny, I would have died for this work. I nearly did.”
“I know,” Danny said. “It meant everything to you. Even more than I did.”
“I –”
“No, no, don’t. It’s not a criticism,” Danny said quickly. “It isn’t. I promise. I knew it meant everything to you. It doesn’t matter. You still love me, regardless, and anything that means that much to you is worth the world to me. I would have died for it, too.”
“You nearly did,” Alex said, thoughtfully, as though he had only just come to see it that way.
“Yeah,” Danny said, weakly, and he almost told him about the other thing that was weighing on his mind and then chickened out. He didn’t know how he was going to bring it up. What if Alex didn’t want to be with him anymore? Could Danny really blame him? He would be a liability on the run, having to rely on medication, having ongoing health issues to worry about. Danny swallowed. It was selfish, and it was a secret. Hadn’t they promised not to keep secrets from one another? Granted, that had been before all this. But still, in light of everything, in light of this newfound honesty, it seemed like a deliberate evasion.
“Danny?” Alex asked, quietly, and Danny realised he had tensed up, his eyes burning.
“What?” he asked, trying to keep his voice steady. He failed miserably; it cracked on just that one word.
“What’s wrong?”
“How much do you know about what went on with me?” Danny said, all in a rush, before he could lose his nerve again. “About what happened, about the stories, about what they did to me?”
“Mostly just things I read in the newspapers,” Alex answered. “All of the lies they came out with about you, how you were on drugs and killed me during a sex game gone wrong. You were arrested in connection with it but nothing came of it; they were still investigating.”
“When they arrested me, they took a whole load of blood samples, DNA samples, stuff like that,” Danny said, his words practically bleeding into each other. He wanted to stop but he knew that it was far too late to change the subject; he wished he had never mentioned anything but he wanted to come clean now, before he could get too comfortable with Alex again, before he lost his chance to let himself be killed if he decided that was what he wanted, as awful as it all sounded. He didn’t care. He couldn’t think of anything worse than losing Alex. He had barely survived once; there was no way he could do it a second time.
Alex was glancing at him as he drove – they were doing another lap around a residential area, this time a slightly more varied one. There had been a van following them for a few streets that had got Alex’s nerves up, but it had turned into a small construction yard a while back and Alex had neither seen it since, nor seen anything to replace it. Danny had curled in on himself, pressed up against the window, and he was chewing at his finger.
“What happened?” Alex asked. There was a note of urgency in his voice.
“They did something to me,” Danny said, clearing his throat before he went on. “I don’t know how they did it. I think they must have managed it with the blood samples, I don’t know. I truly don’t. They um – they… Christ, I don’t know how to say this.”
“Just say it,” Alex said. “Whatever it is, I want to know.”
“You’ll hate me,” Danny said, tears beginning to roll down his cheeks. He blinked rapidly, but it did no good. He wished that he could stop crying so much these days. “If you want me to leave, I will. I get it, I do. Honestly.”
“Danny, you need to tell me what’s wrong before you start asking me to make a decision,” Alex told him. “Even though I don’t know how you think I would leave.”
“You might.” Danny sniffed. “It’ll be inconvenience. It’ll put us both at risk.”
“Tell me.”
“I’m HIV positive,” Danny said dully. The words, when they had finally come, were neither hysterical nor strained. There was no emotion to them; he had raged too much over the situation to have any energy left for it. There was a beat of silence before he forced himself to speak again, using the same monotonous voice as before; he could at least distance himself a little from it all that way, because it was a far cry from his usual emotional way of speaking, especially these days. “I definitely got infected after you apparently died, so you don’t have to worry. Someone threatened me, I thought they were just implying they could, you know? But I got paranoid and went to the doctor, and she said that… well. You know what she said.” Danny swallowed, the lump in his throat refusing to budge. Alex was still silent, and Danny couldn’t stand it. “I swear to god, Alex, I didn’t do anything, with anyone. Not when I was with you, not after you vanished. I thought you were dead and I didn’t do anything, I never wanted to do anything with anyone again and I never would. You have to believe me, Alex. I would never – I couldn’t –”
“I believe you,” Alex said, so quietly that Danny didn’t know how he had managed to hear him over his own rising hysteria. The relief was overwhelming but short-lived, because it didn’t say anything about how Alex actually felt about it, and Danny still couldn’t blame him if he wanted him to leave.
“I’m sorry,” Danny said weakly, and Alex glanced at him, frowning.
“Why are you sorry?”
“Because, I –” Danny began, before he swallowed and tried again. “I should have been more careful, I shouldn’t have let them –”
“You had no idea they would do that,” Alex said simply. “How were you suppose to know? It’s a level of evil that no normal person could predict or prepare for. If anyone should be sorry, it should be me. They only did it because of me.”
“No,” Danny said weakly. “No, Alex, I don’t – I would never blame you. Look at what they did to you!”
“Then you can’t blame yourself, either.”
For some reason Danny wanted to argue, maybe because he thought it would make more sense if he could blame himself, it would be easier – if he took responsibility for it maybe he could fix it. There was nothing about what Alex had said that he could argue with. It hurt, to know that it was all so unavoidable, all so unfair, but Danny knew that Alex was right.
“I’ll still understand if you can’t bring me with you,” Danny eventually said, giving a shuddering sigh.
“Why not?”
“I’m on medication. I need it, every day, or things will go to hell. Also I’m now vulnerable to… well, the list is too long to count. If we’re supposed to be living below the radar, this is a huge flashing light.”
Alex shook his head. “We don’t have to worry about that.”
“How?”
“The medication is the biggest concern, and it’s easy to get that if you know what you’re doing. I could get it for you. I can think of a number of different ways. Nobody would know, and if they did, it would never come back to either of us.”
Danny stared at him, letting himself begin to feel hope even though he told himself he should still be wary. “You can?”
“Of course I can. There’s a lot you can do with a computer.”
“You would? You really want me to come with you?”
“Danny, why do you think I don’t? I know it will be hard. This won’t be something we can ignore. But it’s manageable, and whatever you think I might be thinking about you isn’t true. I don’t care. Just like you don’t care about all this, you just love me. Don’t you?”
“Of course I do.”
“It’s the same for me. I don’t care what they did to you. I don’t care what you’re going through. So long as you’re with me. We’ll talk about it and we’ll work through it. That’s what you told me once.”
Danny smiled, his vision blurring again. He blinked, nodding. “Yeah. I did.”
“You’re the only one I trust to do this with me,” Alex told him. “I won’t have anyone else, and for as long as you’re willing, I won’t do it alone.”
“But you would,” Danny said, taking another deep breath. “If you had to. I know you would. You’re going to see this through until the end.”
“And I know it won’t come to that, because you’re going to be with me.”
Alex sounded so confident as he said it that Danny couldn’t help but believe him, wholly, completely. He reached out and gently squeezed Alex’s knee, and Alex took his hand and pressed his lips to it.