(Untitled)

[__jack]

May 1994

Jack loves to take the kids out so close to the end of the year, when they're so excitable. The girls have formed primped little perfumed groups, paying little attention to the colourful please touch! displays depicting the insides of active volcanoes and layers of the planet. The boys, looking disturbingly like young men at fourteen,

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[depper]

Johnny spots him right away - anyone's eye would naturally be drawn to him, he's rather beautiful in an unformed way - but it's not until the boy looks at him, eyeballs him, really, that Johnny himself really looks. What's the age of consent in Britain? he wonders. Sixteen, isn't it? Is this boy even sixteen? Johnny thinks he might find out, and is prepared to be lied to when he asks the question; thinks, if the boy wants to be molded that badly, he might even accept the lie

[__jack]

It's not supposed to happen like this, you see. He's not supposed to be there among the kids, on a school trip, on a bright April afternoon, looking like he does. This is all wrong.

Jack's supposed to meet him down at the pub, bump into him on his way back from the bar and spill his drink on his shirt. He's supposed to meet him at the grocery store, reaching for the same orange. He's supposed to see him at a friend's garden party, maybe he's someone's cousin, someone's ex. This is all wrong. But it's so right.

Jack smiles, a little too widely maybe (the kids stare and look at each other, puzzled), and raises a distracted index finger at the man who raised his hand. Not his type. Not at all. Jack's voice shakes a bit but his smile does not falter.

"Yes. Sir. You know about crystals?"

[depper]

Johnny lets his hand fall to his side now that the teacher has called upon him; now that the teacher is looking at him - and in the blurred periphery outside his focus, Johnny can see the schoolkids have all turned to look too (probably gawking, but his focus doesn't widen to include them; he blurs them more) - Johnny lets his hand fall, slides it into his pocket

[__jack]

Heat.

Yeah.

Jack clears his throat, listens to the room's noises rush back into his ears in the absence of the man's voice. His class looks back at him, still puzzled; Jack smiles at them reassuringly. Or maybe he's smiling for an entirely different reason.

"Very good. I'm all out of gold star, but... yeah. Very good." The smile morphs into a grin and he covers it by turning to his kids, spouting the first thing that comes to his mind. "Now here's a bloke who pays attention."

Natasha bristles. "He read the plaques," she intones in her best shot at a bored sigh.

But Jack isn't paying attention, lets his gaze wander back to the man at the back of the room. The students are scattering again, friends grouping together at different displays, probably not talking about crystals at all.

Jack hushes Natasha to her friends and casually walks over. Smiles.

The man is all sleek grace, dark skin, sharp jaw, smooth eyes. His smile is.

Heat.

"Hi." Thrusts his hands out of his coat pockets. "Jack Davenport."