A Loving Lust
chapters 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Chapter 4
Darren prowled around his room in the darkness with a bag of Daniel’s prized chocolate filled toffees. It was 3 am. He’d been home for 3 hours and had worked his way through about ¾ of the bag. Leonie had stayed with him for a while, trying to find out what was the matter, but he’d been tight lipped about it. He’d apologized for ending their outing early, kissed her and sent her on her way. Then proceeded to slowly drive himself mad.Daniel. With a man. No. Daniel with a man that wasn’t him. Daniel with a man at all!
He squeezed his eyes tightly closed in an effort to block the imagery. Oh God…Daniel with that beautiful magnetic stranger…
Darren froze as the images flooded his brain.
Fuck.
He popped another toffee in his mouth. Why was he torturing himself?? He’d gone over it and over it…frankly, he couldn’t explain what he saw any other way. Daniel had to be…why else would he…with that man…shit.
Ok. There had to be another explanation. Darren started over (for what was probably the millionth time) and thought about it from scratch.
Daniel. With a ma—
Just then, he heard a door bang open and loud whispering ensue. Darren stared at the glittering reflection of the vanity mirror in his room, the spare bedroom of Daniel’s house. The moonlight shone off it, giving his appearance a foreboding look. Daniel was home.
He turned towards his door and opened it then hesitated. What would he say even if he went out there?? ‘Oh hey Daniel, so I hear you’re in the closet ranks!’…or ‘Danny! Gay much?’
Darren rolled his eyes and made to close the door, when he heard the sounds of cursing and muffled thuds coming from just down the hall. Not wanting to draw attention to himself, he closed the door as much as possible, leaving it slightly ajar.
~*~*~*~*~ Daniel shushed at all the noise Lee was making, inadvertently being louder than the offensive thuds caused by Lee walking into the couch and falling. Lee started laughing in his stage whisper voice, before trying to stifle it ineffectually.
“Fuck, Dan, you sh’ore you don’ min’ me havin’ a couch?” Lee mumbled as he lay on it as if he were staying there anyway.
“No, now shut the hell up…” Daniel was almost as tipsy as Lee, but still mostly coherent. “Where the hell is the hallway….fuck!” The latter said as he tripped on nothing into the hallway wall.
He turned and shushed Lee some more. Lee just rolled his eyes and flipped him the bird, “Oh goo’ cuz I was worrin’ ya know…thought maybe you’ Niko-mate convinced ya t’ try ‘n have yer way with me—”
“He’s not my Niko, piss off! And shut the fuck up, Darren might hear ya! He doesn’t know anything, so don’t say a fucking word to him about this either!” Daniel glared at Lee in the darkness, rubbing his throbbing head and feeling his way down the hall.
“Oi…pissy li’l bugger ain’t cha…fine, I won’ say anything…‘bout your new mate…” Lee replied dizzily, as sleep quickly claimed his beleaguered senses.
Daniel swore under his breath in a continuous stream as he stumbled down the hall, glancing with wild liquid eyes at Darren’s door before making it through his own. He came back out with a pillow and blanket and flung them in Lee’s general direction. The bassist grunted, grumbled a little before putting the pillow to use and dumping the blanket on the ground.
Daniel ignored him and returned to his room slowly, still cursing. He started emptying his pockets but his head was starting to swim, and so he didn’t notice a small white card flutter soundlessly to the ground and land just by the entrance to the carpeted hallway. His normally lithe and purposeful form continued weaving slightly past Darren’s door, when suddenly he stopped mid-stride (and mid-epithet).
He stared with blurry eyes at Darren’s door, then reached for the knob and held it. He sighed heavily.
“Shit, Darren. Maybe I should talk to you…”
~*~*~*~*~ Darren froze, his senses fully alert when he felt Daniel’s hand close over the knob of the door. For an ironic moment, they stood, both holding the knob of the same door but on opposite sides. He sucked in his breath silently when he heard Daniel’s words.
Then he expelled it just as silently in relief when Daniel simply muttered, “Tomorrow…I’ll talk to you tomorrow…” then pulled the door shut. He waited in utter silence until he heard Daniel shut his own door before moving.
Darren quickly strode over to his closet, and packed a small bag of his things. The first thing packed being the bag of toffees. Daniel wanted to talk tomorrow? Well there was no way in hell he was ready to talk about this. Not that soon.
In mid-flurry of packing, Darren was suddenly hit with the enormity of everything that he’d discovered that night. He nearly laughed at himself with bitterness. Daniel was just as gay as he was…but never even trusted him enough to let him know!
He sat suddenly on the bed, as if his legs would no longer support him, and buried his head futilely into his hands. No, that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was that all this time, the one dream he thought he could never have may have been within grasp, and he’d been too blind to see it.
Darren flopped back on the bed, and shook his head in disbelief. Something still didn’t add up. It just didn’t make sense! Daniel could have talked to him about it! He tentatively thought maybe he should stay around until they could talk properly, but after much angst, decided perhaps the best thing would just be to spend their mini-breaks separately.
With that in mind, Darren spent the next few sleepless hours packing, and rehearsing all the scenarios of what he would tell everyone, even Daniel if need be, if they asked too many questions.
By 6:30 a.m., he was ready to go. Grasping his duffel bag of belongings, he creaked his door open and started creeping out. He succeeded where Daniel and Lee had failed in keeping a relative silence, his only near catastrophe occurring when he was startled by a white flash of paper that he inadvertently kicked up off the ground. Glancing fearfully at a snoring Lee, he leaned down and with his free hand picked up the fallen card.
On the front were the name and the logo of the alternative style club, Gryffon, where all the excitement had occurred…as well as the name of its owner, N. Kollibri. His face drained of colour as he read the scribbled writing on the back in the glimmer of light from the first few rays of dawn.
“Once is never enough. – N”
Resisting the urge to crumple the card entirely, Darren’s face was set with grim determination as he carefully placed it on the coffee table then reached into his pocket and pulled out an envelope. He continued his silent trek out of Daniel’s home, stopping only to put the envelope in the mailbox before leaving.
~*~*~*~*~ Daniel woke abruptly and stared blearily at the time. 6:45 a.m. He rubbed his eyes slowly and yawned. He wondered what had woken him up. He still felt half drunk as he pulled himself out of bed, and maneuvered his way to his door, grabbing the nearest pair of jeans and a ragged shirt on the way.
Wandering groggily towards the bathroom, he glanced at Darren’s door and noticed with a frown that it was open again. Nudging it open, he took a few seconds to absorb the meaning of the chaos within. Darren’s clothes were strewn about, his bed unmade, and Darren was suspiciously absent.
His frown deepening, he wandered towards the kitchen in his half awake state, passing by a still snoring Lee. Opening the back door, he let his three dogs in. They were thankfully silent for the most part, very trained to be sensitive to Daniel’s crankiness the day after spending the night out. (Normally, he would let them sleep in his bedroom.)
In auto-pilot, he poured some kibble in their dishes and gave them affectionate pats which earned him a thorough face wash from his youngest pup, Jackson the 2nd. Yawning more and running fingers through his already wild hair, he cut back through the living room. He stopped for a moment and stared with amusement at Lee.
The bassist had somehow managed to reverse his position on the couch in his sleep, and his head was hanging precariously off the end of it. Contemplating rude (but fun) methods to wake him, Daniel suddenly grinned with mischief. Lee had an interesting habit of talking to people whilst asleep if you caught him at the right moment.
Leaning in close to Lee’s ear, he murmured sexily, “Lee…baby…”
The dark haired man muttered some unintelligible things and turn over, pulling his head back onto the couch in the process. Not giving up, Daniel nudged Lee over and half sat next to his sleeping form.
“Leee…wanna fuck?” Daniel spoke in a low seductive voice, this time in Lee’s other ear.
~*~*~*~*~ “…Dan…g‘ way….I’m drunk…not gay…” Lee mumbled, his voice cracking with exhaustion. He pushed at his fellow guitarist’s chest blindly.
“Come on, Lee…don’t you want me? Don’t you think I’m attractive…” Daniel barely said it with a straight face, his voice deepening with withheld mirth. He kept poking Lee in the side, shaking him slightly and repeating the question. Eventually he got a slightly more firm response.
“…bugger off…fine, you’re fucking sexy…piss ant…now lemme sleep…” Lee was slowly starting to get grouchier, a sign he was waking up. Daniel decided to go in for the kill.
“Wanna suck me, Lee?” Daniel whispered it directly into Lee’s ear this time, his lips almost brushing the younger man’s earlobe.
Lee was silent until Daniel nudged him in the ribs again. Finally with exasperation, his eyelids starting to twitch, he just replied forcefully, “Later!…Fuck off!…”
Daniel couldn’t contain the laughter any longer. He nearly fell off the couch entirely, as he laughed long and hard, the noise waking Lee completely. The dark-haired man squinted at him with a disgruntled look.
“What the fuck, Daniel?! Can’t a guy sleep in peace!” Lee glared at him, looking around a bit bewildered as to why his friend was laughing so hard. “What’s so funny, you feral bastard!”
Daniel choked on his laughter, grinning down at Lee, “Feral?! Aw, mate, you wound me! And this 2 seconds after you promised you’d suck me later!”
Lee gave him another partially confused, but mostly hostile look. “What kind of acid are you on! I never said that!”
Daniel snickered more and shrugged, his eyes glinting with merriment, “Sure, whateva. If you say so. Get up, you idiot. Darren’s gone missing.” To this comment, Lee just snorted and rolled over again to go back to sleep. Daniel rolled his eyes and decided on giving up for the moment.
He padded over to the front door, and pulled it open to get the morning paper. Picking it up, he automatically checked his mailbox. He was mildly surprised to find an envelope there (the mail didn’t normally show up until about noon). Looking at it curiously, he shut the door and meandered back over to Lee, who was now sitting up and stretching.
Daniel flopped down on the couch next to his friend and started opening the envelope. Absorbed with reading it, he didn’t notice Lee frowning at him with a partially worried look. The troubled look disappeared when Daniel swore.
“What is it, Danny?”
“That bastard! He went off with Leonie! That fucking prick! After I thought we finally…fuck it all anyway!” Daniel flung the letter onto the coffee table and strode agitatedly to the kitchen. He needed coffee.
Lee hesitantly reached over and picked up the letter. He clenched his teeth when he saw what Darren had written.
“Daniel,That stupid arse was taking Daniel for granted again! Lee barely managed to keep his angry thoughts to himself. He knew Daniel really wanted things to work out proper this time. He’d never made this much of an effort the first time around, he’d always been the sort to believe that friendships should occur naturally and end naturally if it was in the cards. But Darren had always been blind to Daniel’s limits, expecting too much from him then neglecting him when it suited him.
I’ve been enjoying myself a lot just getting to know you again this last little while. But I don’t want to force things so much. I don’t want to get on your nerves already.
Last night, I realized I really missed Leonie…she was like a lifeline when I was on solo. I hope you don’t mind, I’ve decided to spend the rest of our promo break traveling with her. Just incognito, so please don’t tell the record label or mum or anything.
Do your band rehearsal thing, I know you really love it and I wouldn’t take you away from it for the world. Don’t worry too much about me!
Cheers, mate!
Darren.”Suddenly he noticed the white card that lay on the coffee table. Curiously, he picked it up and his eyes widened slightly.
“Hey Daniel…come back here for a second…” Lee called in a strange voice to the irate guitarist who was banging cupboards in the kitchen in search for the coffee pot. He was ignored.
“Daniel, stop throwing a frickin’ tantrum and c’mere!” Daniel glowered at him and reluctantly came back into the living room.
“What d’ya want?”
“What exactly happened last night?” Lee asked very carefully, his expression masked.
“What? You weren’t that drunk!” Daniel’s confusion and anger at Darren was making it easy for him to boil over at Lee.
“I know…just tell me again…what happened…what was the purpose of it…” Lee was definitely starting to act suspicious.
“I just wanted to find out what Darren was into. I’ve said this.” Daniel’s words were carefully enunciated.
“And…did you?”
Daniel was starting to get irritated with Lee’s strange questioning, and hedgy behavior.
“A little! Why the hell are you asking about this??”
“How little??”
“Lee, so help me, if you don’t spit out what the fuck you want to know….”
“Did you and our friend Nikolai…” Lee couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence, his eyes skittering away from Daniel’s.
“What?? Did we what??” Daniel was too busy being angry to understand. What the hell was Lee questioning all this for! Glaring at the younger man’s evasive stance, it suddenly occurred to him.
“What are you saying! Of course, we didn’t…! Fuck….what the hell gave you that idea?!”
Lee sighed in relief and gave his mate an apologetic look, then wordlessly handed him the card. Daniel looked at it, his expression still highly irritated. His eyes widened upon reading it as well, and a slow flush crept up his neck.
Of course…he hadn’t mentioned to Lee that Nikolai had attempted to kiss him.
~*~*~*~*~ Daniel managed to avoid explaining anything about Nikolai to Lee, instead making some weak joke about being so potent that he drew both sexes to him. Lee seemed to accept his explanation and didn’t question it further.
However, that was the least of the blonde guitarist’s worries. His main thought was whether or not Darren had seen the card. The thought left an unsettled almost panicked feeling in the pit of his stomach, although he couldn’t quite explain why.
Fed up with having to deal with it, Daniel bid Lee g’day and packed up for work. He spent most of the day focused on the live instrumentals of their new songs. By the end of the day, he’d narrowed his search for the back up band to a handful of people. Although he saw some of the record label sods as well as Rebecca wandering about, he managed to avoid them.
That night, he played back his voice messages with the hope that Darren had left one. He forwarded past a few messages from the record label, and listened through a couple from Karl and Lee. Both of them sounded slightly worried, and asked how Darren was doing. His mouth twisted as he realized that most of his closest friends were probably aware by now that Darren had run off without a by-your-leave. Again.
Daniel didn’t care as long as he hadn’t left the country again. He was content to wait, realizing after getting over his initial anger with Darren that he needed to work his way back into Darren’s trust circle. Suddenly he heard a voice on the messages that made him hesitate.
He replayed the message with a touch of a button.
“Um, hey Darren…your mobile seems to be dead or not on…so I thought I’d call you here. As it turns out we’re staying in the city for promotion a couple extra nights, so if you want to do something, you know give it another shot, give me a call. Hope you’re feeling much better after last night, poor baby. Talk to you soon.” Leonie’s voice message ended with a resounding high-pitched beep.
Daniel sat down abruptly on a kitchen chair. He hung up the phone carefully and stared at it. He couldn’t help but feel a deep sense of hurt and disappointment.
Darren wasn’t with Leonie. And furthermore, he was ill, or had been last night. And hadn’t trusted him to tell him in either case.
“Oh for heaven’s sake, Daniel, get over yourself!” Daniel stood up and snapped himself out of his dejected stupor. Shaking his head in disbelief at himself, he laughed with a hint of self-disgust and started on cooking tea. He had no reason to think Darren’s reasons had anything to do with him, after all! They’d never really had a friendship where the singer could come to him for personal issues he was having.
Daniel resolved to fix that, and also resolved to be as accepting and laid back about Darren’s disappearance as he would have been not too long ago. These sorts of things took time, really.
~*~*~*~*~ A few days later, Daniel was having a much harder time being so accepting. Having immersed himself in the job of getting the back up band ready (which was now complete), he was running out of excuses for the record label and for Darren’s friends and family. Leonie hadn’t called back either.
Karl and Lee were constantly suggesting that he just let the cat out of the bag and make Darren deal with the repercussions, but Daniel insisted he would be as good a friend to the singer as possible by keeping his word. Still the extra stress was making him increasingly annoyed with Darren.
Where the hell is he anyway? What is he doing? A third unbidden thought entered his mind. …who is he with? Daniel frowned and stopped hitting random keys on his Roland. What if he’s been in an accident or something?
Shaking himself from the worried thought, Daniel reminded himself that he couldn’t do anything about it just yet. Darren was a big boy, he could take care of himself. And their break was supposed to last another week. He just hoped Sony didn’t cut it short.
Putting his padded headphones back on, he went back to fooling around on remixes for a couple of Savage’s planned singles. After a while, he looked at the clock and realized with a start it was 8:00 p.m. Packing up his recording junk, he yawned and stood up.
Stretching a bit, he decided to grab a beer or two and watch the end of the footy match. A couple hours of random television watching and about 5 beers later, Daniel dozed off on the couch in the den. He didn’t hear the lock on the front door rattle, then the front door open. Nor did he see a figure come into the house, lock the door behind him, and wander into the den as the he followed the sound of the telly.
Daniel was, however, awakened from his partial sleep by the scent of a musky cologne that was all too familiar. He opened his eyes, and they shone a crystalline green with hope and a bit of shock.
“Hi Danny…” Darren smiled nervously down at him, running fingers through his hair. The duffel bag he had taken on his escape was sitting on the ground. “Uh…sorry, did I wake you?”
Daniel’s expression slowly muted from initial hope to a friendly apathy. He sat up and rubbed his neck before yawning. He shrugged and waved for Darren to sit down, which the older man did.
“Nah, Darren. Was just napping.” Daniel surprisingly leaned over and spontaneously hugged Darren. He then withdrew and offered in a lame explanation, “I’m glad that you’re back, mate.”
Darren looked at him sharply, hope flickering in his own eyes as he stuttered timidly, “Then you’re not mad that I …”
The response he got was a noncommittal grunt. And then after a pause, “No, not really. I mean…shit happens, and you have to deal with it. I can understand that. But uh…Leonie called.”
Darren looked away as he realized what that meant, propelling the guitarist to continue. He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked back up.
“You know, Darren…you can trust me. You don’t have to lie next time about where you’re going. Whenever you have any issues or whatever, just tell me you need to sort out stuff alone.”
He stood up, half-smiled down at his band mate then turned off the telly on his way to the living room. Darren just sat there, looking down at the floor feeling a bit humiliated. The guilt was starting to weigh a lot more on his mind, especially because of the friendly and supportive way Daniel was responding. In the midst of his mental self-flagellating, it took a few seconds for Darren to comprehend Daniel’s next words as he called out from the kitchen.
“Oh, and I hope you’re feeling better. Leonie mentioned something about your not feeling quite the thing the night you two went out.”
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