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You won’t admit you love me,
And so
How am I ever
To know?
You only tell me
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps .
Arthur was freshly 18 when he met Danny, inching closer and closer to his high school graduation and enjoying his spring break with long walks on the beach. He kept his hair long and windswept, pulled back in a ponytail and taking joy in the simple pleasures of his life and keeping his strange abilities under wraps. He knew himself to be young and handsome, and never mentioned to anyone the beckoning whispers he heard from the water, the almost unintelligible voices that bombarded his senses any time he entered an aquarium. He kept himself fit and passed his inherent physical capability as the result of training and hobbies. Not once outside of his private life with his father would the thought of him being anything but human cross his mind.
And then, on the third evening of his spring break, he met him. Danny.
Danny was the same age, a bit shorter than his firm 6 foot 1 build, and oh so very pretty. His black hair was soft and permanently tousled, his blue eyes sparkled when he laughed, and his smile was always a bit too sharp for comfort, but Arthur loved it, and thought maybe he loved the mysterious guy the moment he met him.
Danny didn’t say much about himself, “Oh, I’m from a little town in Illinois,” he said. “ I’m just visiting,” he said, and Arthur memorized every detail. Danny was the middle child, with an older sister studying psychology and a younger sister traveling the world. He loved space, and would ramble on and on about constellations and the journey that got man to the moon. Past that, Danny was a mystery. No last name, nothing on his parents, nothing about his past, not even the name of his hometown.
When he got older, he’d look back on that month with a mix of horror and fondness, and when he got a little older than that he’d look on at the boy from his memories in betrayal.
A million times I ask you,
And then
I ask you over
Again
You only answer
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
It was a whirlwind affair, from beginning to end. Arthur met Danny on a cool March evening, small specks of sea salt clinging to the hairs on his legs and sparkling like stars in the sky while the sun set and his eyes met those of a sad, beautiful stranger. They met every evening for a couple days, then spent the third day after their initial introduction together, ending it with a kiss under the stars that felt so right and so risky it made his head spin. That first kiss seemed to last an eternity and when they pulled away, breathless, Danny only grinned and asked for another. Without a word, Arthur indulged the other boy and reveled in the excitement of it all.
Danny would take his hand with a small smile, as if he knew a secret about Arthur that he didn’t know himself, and he’d drag him to hiking trails and they’d spend hours chatting and sharing snacks on some boulder with a fantastic view of the ocean.
Arthur would try to ask Danny more about himself, but get rebuffed so softly and the conversation would be turned back around on him so quickly he found it difficult to be upset in the moment. But late at night, when the bright light of the lighthouse would flash through his window, he couldn’t help but feel hurt. Wasn’t he good enough to know Danny’s full name?
And then he’d see Danny the next day and get pulled into another rollercoaster of a date and such thoughts would get pushed to the back of his mind and he’d ignore the tightness in his boyfriend’s shoulders, the suspicion he gave every crowd for the warmth of their fingers interlaced.
If you can't make your mind up
We'll never get started
And I don't wanna wind up
Being parted , broken-hearted
Arthur would always look back on their break-up with some bitterness. He knew it would end, they weren’t built to last. Much time had passed since those exciting spring days. He had a family, a life, he’d had adventures. He’d loved and he’d lost, and he never said a word about his first heartbreak in a string of many.
In the grand scheme of things, it’s a fairly common ending to a short, highschool fling with a guy from out of town, but Arthur took it harder than he’d expected, having been so wrapped up in a haze of romance only for it to disappear in the blink of an eye.
Danny disappeared without a word to Arthur. No goodbye, no final farewell kiss, no last night under the stars, nothing.
“ I’ll see you tomorrow Arthur,” Danny had whispered, pulling away from his embrace with great reluctance. “I’ll show you the best date ever, so be dressed for an adventure,” he’d grinned, pecking him on the lips one last time before running off into the night with a laugh, leaving young Arthur Curry smiling fondly as he watched the boy turn the corner and disappear from view.
Danny never came.
Three weeks of nearly daily visits, the dark haired boy seemingly extending his stay in town just to have more time with him. 2 weeks of Danny waiting patiently every day when school was back in session to steal him away for a study date or a bite to eat, and their weekends and evenings spent with limbs tangled together like a gordian knot of passion. Almost a month of kisses and gentle touches, heartfelt whispers and adoring gazes, and Danny had disappeared without a word.
Arthur was heartbroken, to say the least. He’d sat on the steps of the lighthouse, where they’d agreed to meet for so many of their dates, where it had been said their next date would start, and he’d sat there for hours. Alone, wearing his nicest tight jeans and a ripped shirt and his hiking boots while mid afternoon turned to sunset turned to evening turned to night. He walked home with tears in his eyes and his head hung low, shuffling past his father without a word and flopping onto his bed with a huff. He thought Danny was his first love, and he’d learned the hard way that even decades later, you never forget that first spark.
So if you really love me, say yes
But if you don't dear, confess
And please don't tell me
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps
Danny’s sudden disappearance was only the first in a year of unfortunate events. A couple of months passed in monotony, and he graduated highschool, only to be blindsided by his father’s long-time friend almost releasing the research he’d done on Arthur for years to try and understand his abilities, to the attack on their home to get the only surviving piece of that research, to the sudden and devastating loss of his father in the hospital not even a day after the burglary. Not long after he hunted down the assailant for revenge, only to discover he’d killed the wrong man.
He’d spend his sad, lonely nights on the run shivering when a phantom touch brushed tears from his eyes, desperately wishing the familiar feeling to be real. It petered off in time, and he was glad for it, cutting his hair shorter after he was taken to Atlantis.
Things changed again, and he decided to leave his memories of Danny in his past to focus on his future.
If you can't make your mind up
We'll never get started
And I don't wanna wind up
Being parted, broken-hearted
Years passed and Arthur grew older. Years passed and Arthur was crowned a king. Years passed, and Arthur found love with the princess that was sent to kill him. Years passed, and Arthur made friends. He loved, he lost, he learned.
Years passed, and one day he froze the moment he saw Danny again.
It was supposed to be a somewhat normal meeting for the JL. They’d managed to get a hold of and arrange a meeting with the Ghost King.
A few members of JLD worked together to complete the summoning, and the moment the monarch came into view, Arthur couldn’t breathe.
It was Danny . It’d been years, and his hair was all white and his eyes were bright green, but he knew that boy. It was Danny , and the force of that realization almost made him choke.
Danny didn’t ditch me. He died. He died and I never knew.
He meant to come back.
He was going to come back.
He would’ve come back.
So if you really love me, say yes,
But if you don't dear, confess
And please don't tell me
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps
Arthur avoids Danny, No , he corrects himself, The Ghost King . He avoids the Ghost King . It’s just too much to look at him and remember those cool March days and warm April nights from what feels like a lifetime ago, back before his life turned upside down, before he had these responsibilities, before he went through the hellish gauntlet that is the life of a superhero. He misses those simpler days and buries his face in Mera’s neck in the privacy of their bedroom, shaking while she strokes his hair and holds him close. He loves her, he loves her so much, but you never forget your first love, and his scarred bitterness over abandonment in his youth has lead him to grieve a love he never realized was well and truly gone.
He mourns those days, and he tries to reframe his perception of them through the lens of the inevitability of fate rather than the fickle nature of young romance.
He can’t look at the Danny of now, so bright and weightless and oh so dead , but he can close his eyes and remember the Danny he knew. The Danny that held his hands and kissed his knuckles in reverence, commenting on the slight taste of sea salt that was constantly present. He still remembers the Danny of his youth, with stars in his eyes and the junction of neck and shoulder always smelled like shampoo and copper and it never felt wrong or off. He remembers how cold Danny’s hands always were, and he remembers the cheeky smile that was always aimed at him and how he looked at Arthur like he was Atlas lifting the weight of the universe from his shoulders.
He mourns the Danny he knew, and resolves to make an effort to be friends with the Danny of now eventually, when it hurts less.
Until then, he spends his evenings holding his loved ones close and silently thanking the universe for giving him the chance to make his happiness after so many mistakes. It was hard to feel like he deserved it, but then he remembers Danny and knows that if he was worthy of such love as someone so young can muster, he can be worthy of the love he’s found now.
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps
A couple years pass, and Danny seems to…. age .
Weird, but hey what do we actually know about the dead? Much less the king of all things dead ever? Maybe he was consciously aging himself to make the leaguers more comfortable? He always looked sad when he interacted with Arthur, but neither said a word about them, more than 20 years past. He got more comfortable with the Danny of now , the Danny with a crown of fire and the bat-tility belt of powers and the same mischievous smile of his first love and he grew comfortable. He could be in the same room, sit across a table from him, he could hold a long conversation on a variety of subjects and it didn’t hurt like it did when he’d first arrived, ripping open decades old wounds.
Danny grew more comfortable, and then one day, he said something that while it surprised everyone, for Arthur is felt like the floor fell out from beneath him.
“Don’t freak out, but I’m going to show you guys my real face.”
What .
Perhaps
There’s a flash, a ring of white light, and then there’s Danny. Alive and well.
Danny’s alive and it makes his head spin .
“I thought you were dead,” he blurts out, quietly, going very still. “ I thought you were dead Danny.”
All eyes are on them as Danny’s jaw goes slack, and he’s gaping in shock like a fish pulled from water. “Arthur, I-”
“ I thought you were dead ,” he repeats with some vitriol, standing up and shoving his chair back in the process. “What the actual fuck .”
“Arthur, I can explain,” Danny says weakly, looking nervous and oh so very resigned. “I’m sorry.”
“I have to go. Now. I’m not having this conversation right now, I can’t.”
“Arthur–”
“ Silence, Danny,” Arthur hisses as he strides out of the room. “Just…Stay silent. ”
Danny snaps his mouth shut, eyes wide and watery.
Arthur leaves the room, and all eyes turn to Danny once more.
The young man sighs. “Hi, my name’s Danny Fenton. I’m 22.”
Perhaps
Arthur goes to his room on the watchtower, breathing heavily and not quite trusting himself to not fall apart on the way to the zeta tubes, trying to make sense of what had transpired in less than 5 minutes. He felt pathetic, falling apart over someone he’d fallen for and moved on from 20 years ago, but just like the day he first saw ghostly Danny not recognize him the first time he was summoned, he feels like his world and everything he thought he understood about one of his most formative years was turned on its head again.
Danny was dead, had to be dead to be a ghost. But Danny was alive and well. The Danny of now recognized him. The Danny of now, just a little bit older than the Danny of then, saw him. Saw his hurt. He looked stricken as his eyes narrowed at the younger,smaller, darker haired man.
There was an obvious answer to this, he just had to calm down and think .
Inhale.
The Danny he met a few years ago as Aquaman did not recognize him, and he was in his own head and avoiding Danny like the plague while he dealt with those complicated feelings.
Exhale.
The Danny of his youth was always so interested in him, and never really seemed to do much, outside of spending time with him. He was always eager, and maybe he fell first.
Inhale.
He had dealt with some fucking bullshit as a member of the Justice League. Nothing was ever impossible.
Exhale .
There is one solution that works, that makes sense, and it doesn’t take the world’s greatest detective to see it.
Inhale.
The Danny he knew and loved was the Danny of now that time traveled somehow and by some stroke of luck, got to know him. The Danny of now has much more recent memories of Then, and this makes things Complicated.
Exhale.
There was a knock at the door, and he swallowed, standing up to go check who it was. It slid open, and there was Danny, human Danny, with his too-bright eyes and too-sharp teeth, looking nervous and looking up at him as if he expected rejection. “Can I come in? I uh. I probably have some…things to say. Clear up,” he cleared his throat. “You deserve answers.”
“I do,” Arthur begins, glancing behind Danny. Nobody was behind him, so he sighed and stepped aside, silently welcoming him in. “I have questions.”
Danny shuffled inside, and the door slid closed. Danny was pointed towards an armchair that was facing his bed, and Arthur sat on the edge and clasped his hands together as he gathered his thoughts. Neither spoke.
“So,” Danny croaked.
“So.”
“I guess um. I should…” Danny trailed off. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re…sorry?”
“I hurt you, back then. Um. I know it was a long time ago for you but it wasn’t nearly that long for me and it was very real for me and I’m so sorry I never came back.”
Arthur swallows, his throat feels tight. “I…” He clears his throat. “I appreciate that.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“So how did you,” Arthur twirls his hand. “Go back? Was it an accident?” Please don’t say it was on purpose. That you disappeared because you accidentally ran out of time. Please.
“Um. No,” Danny hung his head. “I uh. I went back. On purpose. I really liked you but you were so… Unapproachable . I mean, really. Look at yourself, how could I even hope to get your attention? And you didn’t seem to really like being around me so I figured why not go back in time and get to know you and then come back and try again? Be an old friend that happened to go back home or something.”
“Or something,” Arthur echoes.
“I’m sorry.”
“I know.” But this isn’t exactly something a simple ‘sorry’ can cover.
“I am –”
“I know , Danny. I know. You’ve said it, I can tell from the way you’re sitting, the way you’re talking, I know. ”
Danny falls silent.
“I…I’ve always wondered. I mean, I thought I knew, after you showed up, but you’re here and can answer me honestly. Why didn’t you show up?”
Danny swallows. “I wasn’t allowed to.”
Arthur blinks. “You’re the king of the dead.”
“Yes.”
“Who…Stopped you?”
“The most ancient and primordial embodiment of Time.”
“Oh.”
“He was mad.”
“I see.”
“I love you. Loved? Love? I don’t know. I wanted to tell you that night but I couldn’t come and then when I finally could you were in so much pain I couldn’t just…show up. And then when I got back here I realized you have a happy life and that for you, it had been 20 years and you’d completely moved on–”
“I didn’t,” Arthur interrupts. “I never forgot you, I never could. You were the first person I thought I might love, romantically, and your disappearance hurt me for a long time,” he says, quietly, breathing steadily as he put to words the thoughts that had been turning in his mind over the years. “It took a long time for me to feel like I deserved love, and for a long time I thought that you had gotten tired of me. Of us.”
“I’m–”
“I don’t want an apology. We’re both adults here, and it's been a few years so just… Listen. ”
Danny stays silent.
Arthur takes a deep breath and continues. “The time we spent together was precious to me. Is precious to me. That year was…Awful for me after you disappeared. Without all of it, I don’t think I would be here, as I am. I don’t think I would have met Mera, or ever joined the Justice League, if not for that year. I made a lot of mistakes, and I made enemies. But I always remembered the time with you fondly.”
Danny sniffs, nodding for him to continue despite obviously holding back apologies and tears.
“I loved you then. I loved you as I was then, and some part of me will always love you because I love the memories we share and I’m proud of who I’ve become,” he continues. “And, whether you meant to or not, you hurt me. I can move past that hurt and I can forgive you, but I can’t forget what happened. I can’t forget the past, but I can look past it towards the future.”
Danny looked up, meeting his eyes.
“We can start over, as friends.”
“...I still love you,” Danny says quietly. “The you I got to know.”
“You should get to know the me I am now.”
“I know.”
They stay silent after that.
One reaches his hand out, the other clasps it tight and a promise is made without a word being said.
Get to know me and I’ll let you in.
Arthur goes home to Mera and tells her how everything went. She smiles and holds his hands as he speaks, and with every passing second he realizes how much he loves her.
Some time down the line, they sit down and have dinner with Danny. Mera makes fast friends with the younger man, and Arthur is achingly hopeful for something he can’t quite put words to.
Perhaps