At Some Point

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Chapter 2

Darren cursed. After calling Daniel’s family home, his nerves forming a lump in his throat, he’d nearly hung up on Chris, his band mate’s mum, out of sheer panic. She had recognized his voice, despite 7 years of regression (and despite the fact he’d deliberately lowered it an octave) and had chattered away with him about how long it had been since he’d called. Darren hadn’t wanted to commit himself to any statement, lest it be rendered false under current conditions, but his curiosity had been highly piqued at the sense of forgiveness he’d felt from her. It had made him feel apologetic, though he couldn’t guess why.

In the end, he’d been thankful that his future self hadn’t been visiting their residence, because without a doubt that would have been a disaster in the making. Even so, he’d managed to get Daniel’s home phone number and address out of her. Thankfully Daniel was at his house in Sydney, which made Darren curious as to how many houses Daniel had in total! He would have contemplated further, if he hadn’t been more puzzled by the phone call. He’d gotten the information under the pretence of being forgetful…which had incited another curious response from Chris. A dry but amused lack of surprise.

But alas that wasn’t the reason for his current foul mood. Daniel had hung up on him without a proper hello in either direction, which usually meant he was otherwise…occupied.

Grumbling, he thought, as he stared at the sun as it dipped lower in the sky, that perhaps he would pay dear Daniel a surprise visit then. After all, using public transit, it would take him about an hour to get to the guitarist’s new residence, and that was plenty of time for…whatever leisure activities the blond was currently embroiled in.

~*~*~*~*~

Daniel swallowed a frustrated sound as after a few blissful moments, Kathleen pushed him gently away and reminded him she had to leave in a few minutes. As if he could forget. He reluctantly allowed her up and trailed her to the door in his usual unhurried stride. The taxi pulled up just as they opened the door and he carried her belongs out to it. Their usual ritual of a swift kiss and a soft-spoken exchange of goodbyes got easier every time they did it. He knew he should wonder at that, but didn’t want to think too deeply upon it.

He watched the taxi disappear down the street and around the corner, its destination of the airport a good 45 minutes away. The sun was just starting to set properly now, so he considered that it was the strange lighting and the rays reflecting that made him think the man waiting by his door when he turned around had just appeared out of nowhere. And that he looked like a genuine ghost from Daniel’s past.

He blinked a few times, attempted to clear his head of cobwebs. But nothing could stop the name from escaping his mouth, “Darren?”

The apparition smiled softly and raised his hand in hesitant welcome, but said nothing. Daniel shook his head, a lock of his shaggy blond mane falling onto his forehead, and then started forward uncertainly. As he neared the thin young man, who was swaying slightly with obvious nerves, Daniel’s shock grew ten-fold.

“My God,” he breathed, stopping just a foot away, deep into a stranger’s personal space…but then this seemed to be no stranger. Tentatively, he lifted a hand almost as if against his will and with sparkling awe in his eyes, trailed his fingers gently along the other man’s jaw. The touch only lasted a split second and ended when a starburst of stunned yearning ignited in the younger man’s eyes. Daniel’s breath caught. But before the former guitarist could react in any way, the apparition launched himself at him and proved completely that this was no apparition at all.

~*~*~*~*~

Darren didn’t know why he was filled with such overwhelming emotion. He wanted to hide away in Daniel’s arms in the hope that maybe it would return his world to reason and sanity.

From the moment he approached the house, double-checking the address dubiously as he saw the impressive structure, he had felt for the first time…that maybe this wasn’t a dream after all. Every second that passed made him wonder if he was forever caught in this strange temporal spiral, this mistake in the fabric of time.

Darren had been hesitant, waiting by the curb a few houses away, until the choice had been made for him. The door had opened and at first he had been relieved in his thought that he had somehow gotten the wrong address down. He had been sure that the dark-haired, exotic girl that had approached the taxi couldn’t possibly be connected to Daniel in any way. Until he’d seen the truth.

But now he was more concerned with absorbing Daniel into his own body, or attempting to. Dream or no, he only ever just wanted to be near Daniel, to be just like this, and he’d take it any way he could. Too soon, however, Daniel’s shock wore off and he put distance between them. Then it seemed he changed his mind and took Darren by the hand, firmly leading him into the house. Darren was caught staring at their clasped hands, and so simply followed meekly.

Once inside the fairly spacious house, Daniel tugged him into the living room, even as Darren was enthralled by the décor. The first words out of his mouth were of course, an excited, “Did we make it then?” They were the wrong words, because Daniel immediately stopped and whirled around, pulling his hand away as if he’d been burned.

“That’s fucking funny! But the joke’s over. Now who sent you?”

Darren remembered Daniel’s rarely seen angry face, and this was far worse. He stuttered, his eyes lowering vulnerably, “I-I…no one…I don’t know how I—”

Daniel abruptly snatched him over with clenched fistfuls of Darren’s shirt. “Don’t fuck with me, was it Darren? Is it because of today? Who was it!” The snarling was new, the fury and the pain in Daniel’s eyes, all new. Darren’s own eyes filled again, and he felt like he’d been kicked in the stomach. He wanted to wake up already, but somehow he knew this was the real deal.

Unfortunately, it seemed Daniel did not.

~*~*~*~*~

“I am Darren…I know you don’t believe me but I am…” The Darren-doppelganger was extremely convincing as his big blue eyes shed perfect tear droplets. Daniel felt a desperation claw at his stomach as he slowly let the man’s shirt go. A boy really…he’d forgotten how incredibly childlike Darren looked back then.

And with that he had to sit down, because unbelievably he was accepting something that was physically impossible. He buried his head in his hands and ignored the youthful Darren’s anxious hovering. Through a tunnel, he heard Darren babble on as he did when he was nervous or upset. His gestures back then were still much as they were now.

“I can prove it! Um…the…um…the worst song we ever wrote together was Magical Kisses, we agreed on that just the other night…I mean, well just the other night for me but I uh I guess 7 years…oh! Unless we wrote a worse one later…ok, you’re not impressed. Well, the um last thing I remember doing was trying to change the light bulb, only it was odd and sparked even when the light was off… You were in the other room! We were writing songs in the apartment and—”

“Shut up! Just shut up!” Daniel unexpectedly shouted at him, his green eyes wide with reminiscent alarm and the overwhelmed sensation he was currently experiencing. Suddenly his mind filtered Darren’s words, and he sucked in a breath of dawning horror, “What? What did you say?”

But Darren had a hurt, petrified expression on his face and was fiddling with his shirt. Daniel sighed, and ran a frustrated hand through his wild hair. Speaking as soothingly as he could, he asked Darren to please sit down and he apologized for freaking out at him. Darren perched on the far end of the couch and it made Daniel smile in spite of himself; oh how his ex-band mate had changed from days gone by.

“What did you mean, about the light bulb?” Daniel queried softly, fearing the answer yet knowing it held the key to understanding how the hell Darren of 1995 had suddenly appearing in 2002.

“I…I went to fix it…and then I blacked out, and suddenly I was here.” Darren mumbled, still fidgeting and slightly timid. Then he raised his head and pinned Daniel with a partially excited, partially frightened look, “Well not here…but in the old apartment. Obviously we don’t live there anymore.”

Daniel took a moment to process that, but before he properly could, Darren’s naturally persistent curiosity seemed to get the better of him. “Can I just—I mean, we did make it right? Because this house is really great. But I was, well, I was talking to your mum on the phone, because I didn’t know how to find you, and she made it seem like I hadn’t spoken to her in a long time, and—”

Once again Daniel cut in sharply, distressed, “You spoke to Mum? When? What did you say? You can’t just do that, Darren! Who else have you spoken to?”

Darren’s eyes widened in confusion, and he stumbled over his words as he tried to alleviate Daniel’s worries. “I didn’t say anything, I swear, and I didn’t speak to anyone else, I just wanted to know why we haven’t—”

Daniel jumped up and began pacing, gesturing wildly as the panic struck him full force, “Darren, you have to realize this is huge! People can’t know about this, I don’t even know how long this is for, or where the current day Darren is. And I don’t know if I should say anything to you about now, because God knows what could happen—”

Suddenly it appeared that Darren had an epiphany as he latched onto Daniel’s arm and breathed in a hushed tone, his expression genuinely in awe, “What if it really is like in Back To The Future? Where I can’t meet myself?”

Daniel paused in his tirade and stared at Darren in disbelief. Then upon realizing the younger man was at least half serious, he couldn’t help it. Despite the potential seriousness of the situation, he burst out laughing leaving Darren to blink in bewilderment despite offering his own half-smile.

~*~*~*~*~

“Is it very different now? I mean, it’s only been 7 years but…” Darren asked softly, afraid that he would set Daniel off after they’d finally settled into a somewhat amicable silence. Daniel had made them both a cup of coffee, and they’d resolved to attempt to solve this bizarre riddle, but then had simply subsided into silence.

Daniel predictably sighed and replied somewhat impatiently, “Not really, and completely. There’s too much to tell you, and I still don’t think I should, even if you do think that it’s all somehow already been incorporated into the past.”

Darren curled his legs up on the couch and laid his head along its arm glumly. He thought he’d been somewhat convincing when he’d suggested that at some point he had to go back otherwise he wouldn’t have existed to this point in the future. He heard a longsuffering sigh and a muttered curse.

“Fine, stop pouting for Christ’s sake. You know I can—couldn’t resist that.” Darren raised his head again and grinned widely at Daniel, though a small voice in his head wondered why that was in the past tense.

“What do you want to know?” Daniel queried curiously, and Darren noted with a sudden frown that his eyes were guarded a slate green. At some point, Daniel had been hurt, that was plain to see. So he decided to deal with this head on.

Darren firmed his lips, “What happened to us? Don’t try and deny it. Something did.”

In retrospect, he hadn’t been completely prepared for what Daniel had to say, nor had he expected Daniel to simply open up and tell him. But he had done, speaking until he’d practically gone hoarse and Darren had had to fetch him a glass of water. Daniel had spent two and a half hours explaining as objectively as he could everything that had happened, right down to the day they’d broken up the band. October 5, exactly one year prior.

Well, everything except what had happened on another October 5, seven years ago; the poisonous source of the festering wound that had eventually separated them.

There was silence and then Darren couldn’t bear it any longer, his eyes reflecting his own heavy and broken heart. He murmured in despairing confusion, “But why? I can’t believe it was just the fame and attention. We were meant to be. I know it, and deep down you still know it, too. Was it me…did I forget? Did I change?”

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