Work Text:
17:37 Danny A: Can you come over?
17:42 Danny A: Please.
17:58 Danny A: SOS.
Read 18:09
The phone screen continued to glow from where it had been dropped onto the coffee table in a flash, its owner fleeing from the room as if it were a lit firework. Except Windsor’s didn’t run from fireworks. Something was wrong. Outside the large bay windows a figure could be seen running – no, sprinting– across the Dalton grounds in the direction of Hanover house.
Otherwise, everything was normal. The birds chirped. The sun shone. The wind blew.
Calm.
Inside Hanover house, Justin curled up tighter in his armchair and flipped the page in his book, eyes frantically scanning the pages to match the pace the story was moving at. He was engorged. Opposite him on the sofa, Merril and Spencer snuggled close together, whispering sweet nothings to each other and giggling softly in response. Other Hanover’s lounged around the common room, quietly reading or talking amongst themselves as sunlight streamed through the windows.
Peaceful.
Therefore, when the main doors burst open and Wes Hughes came stampeding through, almost everyone in the common room leapt in fright and turned toward the sudden commotion.
“Danny?! Danny!” Wes yelled into the never-ending marble rafters of Hanover’s foyer. He spotted the other students in the common room and ran toward them, panting heavily. “Where’s Danny?”
Rudely interrupted from his gripping plot, Justin sighed and turned to Wes, intending on giving a sarcastic reply and phenomenal glare. That was, until he saw the look of utter panic on Wes’ face – a spark of fear in his eyes that Justin recognised all too well. With no warning, he was thrown back to Hell Night, to being trapped in the blazing art all and staring at each of the scared boys as they looked to him for answers. A wave of nausea blew over Justin as he processed the matching expressions.
“He’s upstairs. Said he wasn’t feeling well.” Spencer replied, sitting up a little straighter as he too registered Wes’ panic. “Is everything alright?”
Wes could only open and close his mouth around words that wouldn’t form before he turned sharply and darted up the stairs at a frightening speed. Justin stared at the space where Wes had stood, frozen to his chair and unsure what to do next. Merril noticed his pale face and reached a hand over to squeeze one of his.
“Justin sweetie? Are you feeling poorly too?”
“Yeah. I mean, uh…” Justin shook his head to rid the fog and cleared his throat, “No, I’m fine. I’m just gonna…” he gestured loosely in the direction of the stairs and followed after Wes at a hesitant pace.
Wes on the other hand, was already hammering frantically on Danny’s door, panic spreading in his chest when there was no answer and no sounds from inside. He tried the handle again, twisting and pulling at it, hoping and praying that it would somehow spring free.
It didn’t.
Taking a step back, Wes eyed the door and briefly wondered how much force it would take for him to kick it down – admittedly, probably more than he could muster in his current state. He pounded on the door again, pleading with the other side.
“Danny, please. Open the door.”
And then, from just down the corridor: there was sniffling. Crying. Familiar sounds that drew Wes toward them before he even knew his feet were moving. He stopped just short of the door – cracked open enough that Wes could hear the crying coming from inside but closed over so that he could still make out the name plate.
A. Clavell.
“Danny…?” Wes called out quietly, cautiously raising a hand to the door and pushing it open a little more. The sight that greeted him caused a lump to form in his throat and simultaneously filled him with relief.
In the middle of the room, hunched in on himself on the floor, was Danny. He sat with his back to the door, knees pulled tightly to his chest and head in his hands. Even from his position a few feet away, Wes could see his shoulders shaking with every sob he tried to repress. Crossing the room quickly, eager to comfort his friend, Wes placed a hand on Danny’s shoulder.
“Danny?” The way Danny reacted, by flinching away and yelping in fright, surprised Wes more than anything. “Hey it’s okay. It’s me. It’s Wes.”
Danny turned his head upwards and looked at Wes with wide, frightened eyes and tear streaked cheeks, and struggled to hold in another sob as he grabbed onto Wes’ wrist. Wes dropped to his knees immediately and wrapped his arms around Danny, shushing him and squeezing tightly as he buried his face in Danny’s hair – partly in an attempt to make Danny feel better, partly to distract himself from crying also.
They remained like that for a while, Wes gently rocking them back and forth while Danny clung onto his shirt and cried and cried into his chest. It was almost too much for Wes to handle – listening to Danny in so much pain and not knowing how to help or what to do – but he didn’t leave. He didn’t move. Instead, he kept Danny wrapped up in the safety of his arms and ran his fingers through his hair and murmured comforting words.
Finally, when shoulders stopped shaking and sobs turned into sniffles, Wes gently peeled himself away from Danny just enough to look into his friends’ eyes with concern. He didn’t speak, but waited patiently for Danny to match his gaze and take a few steadying breaths.
“It’s my fault. The fire. Julian. Mr Har-… it’s my fault. I should have stopped him.” Danny spoke quietly. “If I had just…fought harder. He wouldn’t have gotten away and then everything that happened wouldn’t have happened.
Wes’ face softened as he immediately understood the source of Danny’s grief. He gripped Danny’s shoulders and made sure Danny was looking at him as he spoke.
“It’s not your fault, Danny. It’s not. None of it. This is no one’s fault but…but him.” Wes held an even gaze with Danny, hoping he would feel the sincerity in his words, “You…you did more than anyone could have asked of you.”
Wes avoided repeating any of the details. While Danny’s physical scars may have started to fade, the mental and emotional equivalents were still raw.
“This is noton you, Danny. Any of it.”
Danny let out a shaky breath as he took a minute to look away from Wes andglance around the room. It was mostly empty now, save for a few cardboard boxes and some bland furniture.
“We had to pack up his stuff. After the cops were finished, y’know. They took all the stuff they needed, the pictures and everything…but they didn’t say what we should do with the rest of it.” He wiped at his nose with the corner of a sleeve, “We were just gonna leave it. Lock the door and throw away the key sort of thing. But someone got in touch, dunno who it was, and asked if we could sort his things out so they could come collect them.”
“You shouldn’t have had to do that, Danny. If you had asked…”
Danny waved it off and stared at the wall just behind Wes. “It was all so…normal. Clothes, books, a few collectables. Without all those pictures you would have never known.”
“What’s going to happen to it now?” Wes asked, “The room, I mean.”
“Not sure.” Danny shrugged in response, “Justin doesn’t want to move anyone into it. Thinks that would be…unfair. People can barely walk pastthe door, never mind talk about what to do with it.”
Wes nodded in agreement as a silence fell across them both. He considered Danny’s words and thought about Hanover must be dealing with the aftermath of Hell Night. While Windsor had taken most of the casualties; and Stuart were processing the thought of losing one of their own even though he had survived the ordeal; Hanover were faced with the gargantuan task of dealing with the fact that they had housed – had lived with– the person responsible for the entire thing. And clearly it was taking its toll.
“I was supposed to room with him, y’know. After parent’s night I was gonna move in here and bunk with him. Justin thought it would help him socialisea little better.” Danny laughed hollowly. Just once. “Can you imagine? Waking up in the same room as him? I wonder how that would have gone. If I’d have been able to stop any of this happening in the first place, or if…”
Not liking the direction the conversation was headed in, Wes decided to interrupt, “Alright. Enough of the what ifs. Trust me when I say you’ll drive yourself nuts wondering about that. We have to focus on the here and now, Danny, and not let him continue to have this…this hold on you. On all of us.”
Danny finally looked at Wes again and held his gaze, eyes still full of pain and guilt, and all Wes wanted to do was make them sparkle again. His hand drifted up to Wes’ forehead, fingers tracing the pattern of one of his worst burn scars.
“I could have lost you.” Danny said quietly, a fresh set of tears welling up in his eyes as his fingers barely even grazed Wes’ skin. “I could have lost all of you.”
“Hey, no.” Wes said, trying to shuffle even closer to Danny. “I’m here, aren’t I? Do you really think I’m that easy to get rid of?”
“But…"
“Give me your hand.” Wes asked, voice stern but still soft.
Danny’s brow twitched slightly as he hesitantly slid his hand into Wes’, “It’s still there from the last time you wrote it. I…I’ve been redoing it every day.”
Wes smiled softly and rubbed circles onto the back of Danny’s hand. “I know. Here.”
Gently, Wes guided Danny’s hand to his chest and pressed it flat against his shirt. Danny could feel the soft material against his palm and then, beneath his fingertips, a gentle rhythm.
“Feel that? That’s my heartbeat. That means I’m alive, Danny. And I’m staying that way.”
Wes covered Danny’s hand with his own, nodding reassuringly when Danny began to flutter his eyes closed. Their hands pressed closer, searching for that reassuring beat and warmth coming from each other’s skin.
“I’m here, Danny. I’m here and I’m fine.”
Danny sniffled quietly. His eyes opened and stared at Wes again, searching for something deep inside. “I know about the candles, Wes. Why didn’t you tell me?”
Wes stiffened slightly and Danny’s words, eyes slipping closed and brow tensing at the memory of his baby sister’s birthday party.
The candles. The lighter. The flames. The smoke. The earth-shaking panic attack that rocked his world as those around him smiled and sang loudly. He swallowed thickly and admitted the truth to his friend.
“I didn’t want to worry you. I just…hadn’t seen it since. Fire, I mean. Flames.” He shrugged pointlessly, “My therapist says it’s normal…whatever that means anymore.”
Danny tilted his head and looked at Wes with a saddened expression, “You have to let me take care of you sometimes too, you know. You can’t always be the strong one.” Their fingers threaded together and fell into Wes’ lap. “As a wise man once told me…it’s okay not to be okay.”
Wes couldn’t fight the smile that tugged at his mouth as Danny recited his own words back to him. With a sigh, he used his free hand to reach up and swipe away the tears from Danny’s cheek, letting it linger there for a moment.
“I guess so.”
From the doorframe, Justin wiped at his own face and turned away from the private moment. He silently made his way back up the corridor toward his own room, pulling out his phone and scrolling until he came across a well-used contact. He hit dial, closed the door behind him and let it all out.
“Alright,” Wes said definitively once the tears had stopped falling from both of them, “Let’s get out of here. I say we ditch homework tonight and watch some TV, sound good?”
Danny held out a hand to let Wes pull him to his feet. “Can we watch Law and Order?”
“Hang on,” Wes paused on his way to the door, puzzled by Danny’s request. “I want us to do something nice and relaxing, and you suggest SVU?”
Danny looked up at Wes with a hopeful smile, that heart-throbbing sparkle threatening to break free in his eyes once more, and pouted, “We’re just at the episode where Sonny and Barba meet for the first time…?”
Wes pretended to consider Danny’s offer, when in reality he didn’t stand a chance against that face. “Okay. Good point. But only if we can watch Mulan after.”
With a grin that made the air catch in Wes’ throat, Danny pulled them from the room and wrapped an arm around Wes as the door swung closed behind them. “Deal.”
Inside the room, stillness returned. The dust settled; echoes silenced; nothing moved. Except for the corner by the window. Caught in the draft of the closing door, a stranded strip of yellow tape twirled into the air and drifted to the floor, silently falling to rest in the streaming sunlight. Following it, a single red rose petal fluttered through the golden glow and landed gently on top; its deep red tones seemingly bleeding into the shine of the word policeas the sun began to set in the background.
Hell Night may be over, but the rest was just beginning.
**