Lessons - Fletcher/Jones - Standalone
Title: Lessons
Author: russsel
Part: 1/1
Rating: PG
Pairing: Fletcher/Jones
Genre: AU
Summary: Tom falls in love with the most unlikely person, and he doesn't complain one bit.
A/N: Ahaha, I had fun writing this. It's pretty long, but I like it long, and I hope you will too. This is actually based on a comment I heard somewhere, which went something like, "you can't even spell 'mom' backwards" and the story just clicked in my mind. Different writing style, I think, but none too drastic. :)
“I trust you’ll get your assignments done?”
Scattered murmurs and clamoring erupts in the classroom, and Tom smiles at their enthusiasm. He sweeps over behind his desk and sits himself down on the soft, swivel-y chair, hands already groping all around the surface of the bureau and rearranging papers. The bell rings and the children gather up their things, some already halfway to the doorway with bright, smiling faces.
Summer break has finally come.
He knows it wasn’t too pleasant for him to assign work over the break, but he knows for a fact that children lose most of what they’ve learned if they’re not continually exposed to the materials, and he doesn’t really have any intention of re-teaching everything he’s already taught. But he knows his students, and he’s well confident that all of them will get them done before the deadline.
Filing the papers neatly in one of the drawers, he locks every single one before standing up and picking up his brown leather bag slung around the backrest. Making last minute checks on the desk, any important papers and whatnot, he decides he’s all set, and he makes his way to the wide open door.
“Mr. Fletcher?”
The sound surprises Tom more than the man from which it came from.
“Yes, that’s me.”
The man, standing firmly in the hallway inches from the doorway, lifts his head up more properly and looks at Tom, his blue eyes flashing for a moment before disappearing behind a column of untidy, curly, brown fringes. He brushes them away before saying anything else, and Tom watches him inquisitively, gripping the handle of his bag tighter.
“My name’s Danny Jones.”
The stranger smiles, and Tom feels compelled to return the action. He likes to make good first impressions, and he wasn’t going to stop anytime soon.
“Yes?”
The tone isn’t harsh, just questioning. He doesn’t know the man, nor ever met him, and it’s quite unnerving, now that he thinks about it, that this Danny Jones knows who he is.
“I’ve heard a lot about you. From parents and stuff.”
Tom raises a brow. He’s never recognized his own popularity, but then again, it really doesn’t matter to him. He likes to teach, that’s the only reason why he took the job in the first place. But it’s still a nice thing to know, and he feels a small smile break out.
“Well, I’m glad you’re familiar with my work. But I must ask-do you need any form of my assistance?”
Danny furrows his brows, brushing more hair away from his face, and Tom sees the unmistakable look of confusion in his eyes. His students have the habit of adopting the same expression whenever they move to a new subject. He decides to reiterate.
“Do you need my help?”
Danny releases the tension on his face and lets out a laugh. Tom smiles with him. Not too bright, but he reckons it’s not his fault. Probably didn’t have a proper education when he was younger.
“Oh, yes. It’s sort of embarrassing to ask, but…”
Tom tilts his head in curiosity.
“…I was wondering if I can have private lessons with you. I heard that you work wonders with challenged children, and that’s sort of like me.”
All the while he was saying this, Danny was looking at his shoes, hands playing with something in his pockets, and Tom takes this time of silence to inspect him more carefully.
His shoes are dirty, as though he’d been playing in mud for a while and decided against washing them, and there are noticeable rips and holes on the surface. The more Tom looks closer, the more he can see the color of his white socks. His eyes travel to his trousers, coarsely ripped at the knees, and something in Tom’s mind tells him that they’re not intentional. The scars and scabs on his kneecaps probably had something to do with it. Then up to his shirt, wrinkled and torn in places, enclosed in a brown sweater that seems a few sizes too small for his build.
If Tom was presumptuous, he would have thought that Danny was a homeless person. Or a fugitive.
“Lessons? Like school lessons?”
Danny smiles with a nod.
“Yeah, exactly.”
Tom considers for a moment. He really doesn’t have anything to do over the break, minus his other teaching job, and he’s never taught a grown man before. He reckons it’d be quite different from a child’s case, and of course, his curiosity always gets the better of him. And he’d be helping someone who needs his aid, so it wouldn’t be all that bad.
“You do know I only teach fourth years.”
He’s compelled to ask. He doesn’t want to get his hopes up knowing he can only go so far before he reaches his limit.
“Anything that you can teach me’s fine.”
Tom smiles with a shrug of his shoulders. He might as well.
“Alright, then. Why don’t you step inside and we’ll discuss it further.”
He moves to the side and stretches out an arm to present the classroom, and Danny grins broadly, a grin that could light up an entire city with one flash. Tom perks his eyebrows as Danny walks timidly inside, and he closes the door after catching the inquiring, hawk-like eyes of Mrs. Baldwin standing, conspicuously enough, behind a row of lockers, apparently having witnessed the entire conversation from the distance.
+++++
Tom discussed his free days and the places where they could hold the lessons. He’s free during Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. During the other days, he teaches music to an orphanage just outside of town.
It never occurred to him once what the nature of Danny’s request was, and he was much too enthralled by the idea to give it a second’s time to appear in his head. So he doesn’t ask him. What he does ask instead is the sensitive issue of, judging by Danny’s appearance alone, money.
“I hope you know that I won’t be doing this for free.”
He didn’t want to ask it, but he knows he had to. It dampens Danny’s mood a bit, but he recovers with one of his smiles and from deep in his pocket, he digs out bills haphazardly crumpled into a ball, with some of the edges sticking out so it looks like a deformed artichoke.
“I have money, don’t worry. And it’s sort of why I want to ask you for these lessons. I don’t really have a lot of money, and apparently, you have to know things to get a job around here.”
Tom smiles and narrows his brows at the same time.
“You’re not from here?”
Danny shakes his head and rocks himself on the desk he occupies, keeping a palm on the surface to avoid falling over and stuffing the money back in his pocket with the other.
“Nah, I’m from Bolton. Just got here last week.”
Tom’s eyes flicker. That would explain the accent. But Bolton’s quite a ways from here. Handful of cities to be exact.
“Why the move?”
Danny shakes his head and plays with his fringe with a finger.
“Bolton’s not where it’s happening, I suppose. Jobs there aren’t worth the minimum wage. I want so much more than…”
Here, he stops, and Tom shoots him a curious look.
“More than?”
But Danny shakes his head and decides to drop the subject.
“Took a few more days in my old job to get here. It’s worth it, I guess. I can start over and stuff. Forget my debts and move on, you know?”
Tom nods and rummages in his bag for a notebook.
“Yeah, I suppose.”
Retrieving one, he walks and presents it to Danny.
“Your lesson’s starting tomorrow. In the meantime, I’m giving you an assignment.”
Danny smiles and flips his fringe before accepting it. He looks at it, front and back, and begins flipping though the pages, eyes inspecting the numerous scribbles on the plaster-white leaves. He looks up and closes the notebook.
“Homework even before lesson starts?”
Tom chuckles and moves back to his desk. He gathers up his bag and pulls out his keys out of his pocket. He turns back around and, moving closer to Danny, he opens the first page delicately.
“I want you to read up tonight. From this page to page fifteen. Make sure to remember all the underlined words. They’re your basic parts of speech and whatnot. Write them down somewhere; make flashcards, whatever you want. Just make sure to remember them.”
Danny lifts his eyes from Tom’s hand and flashes a grin before turning back to the neat handwriting marking the entire page.
“Don’t worry. I’m a quick learner.”
Tom makes a face and chuckles.
“We’ll just see tomorrow, then. You remember where we’re supposed to meet?”
Danny scratches his curly head and bites the inside of his cheek.
“Something like ‘Ridgeway Park’?”
Tom chuckles at the way he said it.
“Exactly. See you then?”
Danny jumps off the desk and clutches the notebook tightly, blue eyes fixed on Tom’s own brown pair.
“Yeah.”
Tom watches him walk across the room and out the door, something in his chest rising like a hot air balloon, only he doesn’t know why. As soon as Danny’s footsteps uttered their last echoes down the hallway, Tom strides over to the door and locks it with a smile.
+++++
Danny scratches his head and looks ahead, past the fountain bubbling jets of water and the children running after each other around it.
He still has the same pair of trousers and shoes, Tom noticed when they met up, but he changed his shirt and is now donning a white tank top under the same brown sweater, albeit slightly larger than it had been previously. His hair is neater, the fringe completely gone so Tom can see his eyes more clearly. Did he spend the time to fix it for his lesson? Well, either way, he looks more presentable now, and he’s actually quite handsome with all things considered.
“Do I really have to know these things? I don’t think they’re going to care if something’s in the past tense or not.”
Tom laughs and takes a bite of his burger, turning his attention to a smirking Danny.
“They ask pretty weird questions in job interviews, so it’s safe to know these things.”
Danny smiles and sips a bit of his orange soda, Tom watching as the liquid travels up the transparent straw accompanied by countless bubbles. He smiles back.
“Yeah, I can tell.”
Then they’re silent for a while, both enjoying the summer peace in the bench and watching the children go on about their games. Makes Tom wonder the last time he’s had fun; all his life, he’d been burying his face in his books, and looking back on it, he realizes that he’d lost a huge part of his childhood to academics. But he doesn’t really mind; he likes knowledge. Just as much as a girl loves playing with her dolls or a boy with his action figures.
“What do you do right now?”
Tom decides to break the silence, and Danny looks at him in confused surprise, brows slightly drawn together.
“Oh…”
He comes a bit short of an answer, and he drinks more of his soda in the meantime.
“I deliver things. Doesn’t pay much, but it’s enough to keep these lessons. Used to be a labor worker. On the fields, you know? But they didn't really pay much. Barely any pay, actually. I was lucky to buy enough clothes to last me a month before they're torn up and stuff.”
Tom watches him with minute wonderment. He doesn’t want to seem too enamored with the man, but he can’t help but admire him.
“You really want a good job, don’t you?”
Danny nods and eats a piece of his pretzel, crumbs falling all over his lap. He swallows heavily before answering, washing it down with some of the soda to help it come along quicker.
“Yeah. I want a good house, good clothes, all that. Settle down with someone, maybe. All I’ve wanted since I was a kid. We weren’t rich when I was growing up, so I just fantasized about this… great life when I grow up, filled with beautiful things and stuff, you know? Looking at me right now, it looks impossible, doesn’t it? But I really do want to change my life. I don’t want to keep living like this. I think I deserve better.”
Tom had been neglecting his burger as Danny spoke, and he closed his mouth the moment he finished. For a second, he thinks of Danny and how strong he is; how he’s doing all he can to make his dreams come true, and Tom finds that inspiring. Even more, he feels glad he’s the one helping him to realize it.
“Then we’re going to need to keep up with these lessons for quite a while, then, won’t we?”
Danny smiles at him, and all of a sudden, Tom feels it. Something like a spark in the middle of his chest, deep in his heart, as though the energy from Danny’s smile is short-circuiting his heartstrings and filling him with an incessant tingling sensation.
Tom’s starting to like Danny.
+++++
“You seem chipper today.”
That’s Jennifer, Tom’s partner at the orphanage and long-time best friend. Blonde, bubbly, and unbearably loquacious. But she makes sense most of the time, and it’s the only reason keeping him from walking away from her when she starts talking.
“I’m always chipper.”
She laughs and tunes her guitar strings.
“No, today you seem extra chipper.”
Tom looks up from the keys and eyes her with curiosity.
“How so?”
She jumps off the stool and settles next to him, resting her guitar on the nearest piano leg. She twists her body to him and he knows she’s going to start asking questions. Lovely Jennifer.
“The whole time you were playing, you were smiling.”
Tom shakes his head and chuckles, playing a few notes and writing them down on a piece of paper afterward.
“I always smile.”
“Stop it, Tom, you know what I mean. Something’s making you feel good and I want to know what.”
He replaces the paper on the piano and turns his head to face her.
“Teaching makes me happy, alright? That’s it. Nothing spectacular or worth mentioning.”
Jennifer laughs and presses three keys in quick succession.
“I think different. I think you’ve found someone special.”
Tom stares at her, unsure of what expression to give her without giving his feelings away.
“There’s no one, Jen. You’re hallucinating. Did you take your pills today?”
“Yes, I did. But that’s beside the point. And the point is: you like someone. I can tell.”
Tom plays a whole bar before plucking up the courage to smile. He knows he’d just confirmed her suspicions, and she laughs heartily, her voice echoing in the sound room, but he doesn’t mind. Jennifer’s not one to flaunt secrets to every ear she could scope out. She’s more civilized than that.
“I knew it.”
“So what, you’re an expert on these things now?”
“’Course I am. Now tell me: who’s the lucky girl?”
In contrast to her giddiness, he frowns a bit, and Jennifer copies his face the next second, as though she’d just said something blasphemous.
“What’s wrong?”
Tom sighs and taps the surface of the keys, not pressing hard enough for the strings to produce a sound, like a child would if he’s slightly agitated.
“He’s not exactly a girl.”
Jennifer gasps and looks around, eyes searching immediately for the doors. Tom shrinks back and folds his hands on his lap.
“Tom. You’ve never told me you were gay.”
Tom cranes his neck to her and smiles pitifully at her bewildered stare.
“I didn’t even really know. It just sort of happened.”
Jennifer makes a sound and turns back to the keys.
“Well, good for you. Exploring and all that. I think it’s cool.”
“You don’t hate me?”
Jennifer raises an eyebrow and turns to him a quarter of the way.
“I’m not a homophobe, Tom. I think it’s sweet, actually. So, who is he? What’s his name? Is he cute? Tall? Does he have pretty eyes? Tell me everything.”
So Tom tells her. Tells her that his name’s Danny, and that she hit the nail perfectly in the head. Danny’s all those three things she’d just mentioned, and she swoons at his descriptions. How he has curly hair, and this accent that he can’t really replicate for her, and all of the things that made his heart flutter and bound. But in the middle of the good things, he knows he has to tell her about the other part of Danny.
“Tom, I’m quite surprised, to be honest.”
Tom watches her with a raised brow.
“Of what?”
“I didn’t know you liked someone out of your intellectual range. I thought you liked smart girls?”
Tom chuckles and tosses his hair before filing the papers in one neat stack.
“Yeah, but see: Danny’s not a girl. And he’s a pretty fast learner. We’ve almost covered everything I teach my students in an entire year, and it’s only been a little over a week since we started.”
Jennifer laughs at her mistake and stands up, a hand already reaching for the neglected guitar.
“Well, then, my apologies. Why don’t we go out to celebrate? You can tell me more about him, and maybe you can introduce me some time. I’m a bit curious at what he looks like.”
Tom laughs and stands up with the pack of papers held tightly in one hand.
“Yeah, but you’re buying.”
Jennifer mocks a titter and slings the coarse strap around her shoulder. She begins to walk but stops immediately, and she turns to Tom with an inquisitive look.
“Wait. Do you even know where he lives?”
Tom perks his brows. Danny’s never disclosed his address before, and somehow, it made Tom feel a bit empty inside.
“No, not really.”
+++++
“Exactly. Now you’re getting it.”
Danny smiles and runs his hooked fingers through his slightly matted hair in pride. They’re back in the park, sitting in the exact same bench as they had throughout their weeks of lessons, and Tom feels accomplished at the feat. He even had to brush up on his own college lessons just so he could teach Danny more than he previously promised.
Not because of his desire to help him (it’s part of it, but not a whole lot), but because he doesn’t want the lessons to end. He wants to be close to Danny as often as he could, and it seems to him that Danny himself is enjoying the company.
But then, Tom’s sad in the middle of it all. He wants more than his teacher-student relationship with Danny, where the most they could get close to each other is through teaching and learning. He wants to be closer, and he knows he has to do something if they’re ever going to get anywhere. Either that or perish. Whichever sounds better.
So Tom inhales sharply and crumples up the burger cover, heart garnering speed at what he’s about to do.
“Hey, Danny, listen.”
Danny looks at him and smiles.
“Yeah?”
Tom falters a bit, but he recovers by clearing his throat.
“Would you mind going out with me some time?”
At once, Tom feels his throat constrict, his heart pick up speed. He meant to say hang out, a more appropriate proposition instead of the more straightforward go out, which basically meant that Tom had just asked him out on a date.
Great, Tom reckoned. He might have already jeopardized his friendship.
But when Danny smiles, Tom feels a weight lift off his chest, something like the size of an anvil or a baby whale, and Danny moves closer and wraps his hand around Tom’s, whose heart is rampaging in his ribcage.
“I’d love to.”
+++++
“Hum me something, Tom.”
Danny’s lying on Tom’s stomach on Tom’s bed, and he shifts a bit to look at him more properly.
“Anything at all.”
Tom smiles and continues playing with his curly hair, wrapping it around his fingers and twisting it every which way. He loves Danny’s hair, and Danny loves it when Tom plays with his hair.
“Alright.”
And Tom begins humming. He doesn’t really know what song he’s humming-it’s the name that’s unknown, not the tune. It’s the same one he was composing when he told Jennifer about Danny, and he’s finally confident to let Danny hear it after weeks of perfecting each note.
“You finished it?”
Tom stops and a chuckle bubbles out of his chest.
“Yeah, just yesterday.”
Danny moves his eyes back to the ceiling and grabs Tom’s free hand. He links their fingers together on his stomach and smiles.
“I like it. What’d you name it?”
Tom thinks for a second, in his mind running over possible things to call his piece. Few things come to his mind, but when he looks down, he finds the perfect one.
“Danny.”
Danny looks up.
“Yeah?”
Tom laughs and kisses Danny on the forehead.
“That’s the name. Danny.”
“Oh.”
Danny laughs and kisses the back of Tom’s hand.
“You named a song after me?”
“Why not?”
Danny smiles and looks up, once again, at Tom, wide grin nearly splitting his face in two.
“I love you.”
Tom dips his head low and plants a soft kiss on Danny’s lips.
“I love you, too.”
+++++
“You disgust me.”
Tom’s waiting in line at the local grocery store when Mrs. Baldwin decides to move next to him with a glare of contempt. Tom shrugs and picks up the paper bags with the things he’d bought for their one-year anniversary.
“No offense, Mrs. Baldwin, but does it look like I care?”
“Your filthy ways won’t go unpunished, I can tell you that.”
Tom shakes his head and, after nodding his goodbye to the cashier, he strides across the polished floor and makes his way to the automatic doors. He hears Mrs. Baldwin coming after him.
“You shouldn’t be surrounded by children, manipulating their minds to think that what you’re doing is normal.”
Tom stops and turns around, eyes narrowed in annoyance.
“Yeah, I’ve seen you and your boy toy. Making out in public, for everyone to see. Especially little children. You’re warping their minds to think your abnormality is alright.”
“I don’t like your tone, Mrs. Baldwin. Not one bit. So, I’m gay and I kiss other men. I’m sorry, but I don’t see anything wrong with that.”
She narrows her eyes and glares at him.
“Of course, you don’t, with you and your disgusting sort. I’m taking this up to the principal, just you wait and see.”
Tom stands up to his full height. Not to intimidate her, but to show her that he’s not one to be messed with.
“Mrs. Baldwin. Your personal dilemmas are clouding your reason, and I think you need a serious reality check if you think Mr. Chamberlain would fire me just because of my orientation. He looks for technical faults, things I did that’s bad in his eyes, and not who I kiss. I think you need to get yourself checked in an institution, if I may say so. Or back in the middle ages, because there are gay people everywhere, and there’s nothing you can do about that. You can’t send us all to jail or fire us or whatever just because we like fellow men, and it’s not our fault you don’t like us. It’s yours. So, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get home and cook for my boyfriend.”
Tom smirks and wheels back around to face the door.
“At least some of us can spell ‘mum’ backwards.”
Mrs. Baldwin said this in an undertone, but Tom hears it enough to make him stop and spin around to face her once more, deep anger in his eyes.
“You have no right to criticize him!”
His sudden abrasiveness silences her immediately, and half the store turns their heads to the sound. But Tom doesn’t care. Mrs. Baldwin crossed the line between downgrading a general population and personal idiosyncrasies, and Tom just can’t let that slide.
“You can talk down about his orientation, but how dare you put him down just because he didn’t have a proper education growing up! How dare you! You don’t know him like that! And you know what? I know why you’re bitter towards us. Just because your husband left you for another man and left you and old bat with no children or anyone to love, you’ve grown inhuman, and in your twisted mindset, you despise the entire gay population because you loathe your husband. And you’ve forgotten what it feels to love.”
Mrs. Baldwin is dumbstruck, eyes wide open in bewilderment at the revelation of her personal life. She needlessly criticized Danny, so he reckoned it was only fitting he took a snap at her right back.
“Who told you?”
Her voice is soft, and Tom sneers at her, ignoring her question completely.
“Danny might not be the smartest man around, but he loves me and that’s all I need. All things considered, he’s actually better than you in more ways than you can imagine. At least he doesn’t deter people with a superiority complex, something that you seem to have quite a problem in doing.”
Tom nods in her direction with a saccharine smile.
“Goodbye, Mrs. Baldwin. Hope you have a rousing day filled with self-loathing and tear-stained boxes of ice cream.”
+++++
“I heard about what happened in the store.”
Tom looks up from his fettuccini and drops his fork.
“You did?”
Danny smiles and slices a bit of his chicken, popping the meat in his mouth before continuing.
“Yeah. They were talking about it in the streets today.”
Tom laughs and takes a sip of his champagne, eye twitching for a second at the tangy liquid.
“Thanks for standing up for me.”
Tom smiles and reaches a hand across the table to grab Danny’s.
“She was being way off the line. Someone needed to put her into place.”
Danny turns his hand over to clasp Tom’s hand tightly.
“You’re my hero, you know that?”
“I know now.”
They both laugh and continue eating. Tom bought a big box of chocolates and a new watch for Danny, inside a bag sitting on the sofa next to a neatly wrapped box that is Danny’s gift: from the money he managed to save up for months, he managed to get Tom a silver necklace.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you.”
Tom looks up from his finished plate and eyes Danny with curiosity.
“What?”
Danny smiles broadly and drops his fork, making a soft clank on the plate.
“While you were out, I had a job interview today.”
Tom widens his eyes and leans in closer.
“I didn’t know you were starting anytime soon. You already made a résumé?”
Danny nods.
“Yeah. Since I didn’t have much accomplished, they had me do a placement test or something.”
Tom smiles and rests his chin on the back of his interlaced hands.
“And?”
Danny sighs and crosses his arms over his chest, a smug smile plastered on his face.
“And now, you’re looking at a new junior accountant over at BSC.”
Tom laughs and looks at Danny with wide eyes, dropping his hands on the table.
“No.”
Danny uncoils his arms and stretches them to either side of him, bent slightly at the elbows, and he gives a shrug.
“Yes.”
“Oh, my God, Danny! That’s great!”
Danny tosses his head to the side with a smile.
“Thank you.”
Tom slumps back in his chair and raises up his glass of champagne.
“Well, then, you deserve a toast. Your dreams are finally becoming reality, and I’m proud of you, Danny, I really am.”
Danny raises his own glass and taps the edge with Tom’s.
“I couldn’t have done it without your lessons. So toast to you, too.”
Tom taps Danny’s glass this time and both smile.
And they spent the entire night with laughter and hugs and kisses and songs, and Tom doesn’t remember the last time he was this happy. All he know is he likes the feeling, and that he’s glad he took up Danny’s request for private lessons in the first place.
The End
------
A/N: Yeah, so I’m not really sure how jobs work, but for the sake of this fic, let’s just say things worked that way in real life. Well, in their life, anyway.
Author: russsel
Part: 1/1
Rating: PG
Pairing: Fletcher/Jones
Genre: AU
Summary: Tom falls in love with the most unlikely person, and he doesn't complain one bit.
A/N: Ahaha, I had fun writing this. It's pretty long, but I like it long, and I hope you will too. This is actually based on a comment I heard somewhere, which went something like, "you can't even spell 'mom' backwards" and the story just clicked in my mind. Different writing style, I think, but none too drastic. :)
“I trust you’ll get your assignments done?”
Scattered murmurs and clamoring erupts in the classroom, and Tom smiles at their enthusiasm. He sweeps over behind his desk and sits himself down on the soft, swivel-y chair, hands already groping all around the surface of the bureau and rearranging papers. The bell rings and the children gather up their things, some already halfway to the doorway with bright, smiling faces.
Summer break has finally come.
He knows it wasn’t too pleasant for him to assign work over the break, but he knows for a fact that children lose most of what they’ve learned if they’re not continually exposed to the materials, and he doesn’t really have any intention of re-teaching everything he’s already taught. But he knows his students, and he’s well confident that all of them will get them done before the deadline.
Filing the papers neatly in one of the drawers, he locks every single one before standing up and picking up his brown leather bag slung around the backrest. Making last minute checks on the desk, any important papers and whatnot, he decides he’s all set, and he makes his way to the wide open door.
“Mr. Fletcher?”
The sound surprises Tom more than the man from which it came from.
“Yes, that’s me.”
The man, standing firmly in the hallway inches from the doorway, lifts his head up more properly and looks at Tom, his blue eyes flashing for a moment before disappearing behind a column of untidy, curly, brown fringes. He brushes them away before saying anything else, and Tom watches him inquisitively, gripping the handle of his bag tighter.
“My name’s Danny Jones.”
The stranger smiles, and Tom feels compelled to return the action. He likes to make good first impressions, and he wasn’t going to stop anytime soon.
“Yes?”
The tone isn’t harsh, just questioning. He doesn’t know the man, nor ever met him, and it’s quite unnerving, now that he thinks about it, that this Danny Jones knows who he is.
“I’ve heard a lot about you. From parents and stuff.”
Tom raises a brow. He’s never recognized his own popularity, but then again, it really doesn’t matter to him. He likes to teach, that’s the only reason why he took the job in the first place. But it’s still a nice thing to know, and he feels a small smile break out.
“Well, I’m glad you’re familiar with my work. But I must ask-do you need any form of my assistance?”
Danny furrows his brows, brushing more hair away from his face, and Tom sees the unmistakable look of confusion in his eyes. His students have the habit of adopting the same expression whenever they move to a new subject. He decides to reiterate.
“Do you need my help?”
Danny releases the tension on his face and lets out a laugh. Tom smiles with him. Not too bright, but he reckons it’s not his fault. Probably didn’t have a proper education when he was younger.
“Oh, yes. It’s sort of embarrassing to ask, but…”
Tom tilts his head in curiosity.
“…I was wondering if I can have private lessons with you. I heard that you work wonders with challenged children, and that’s sort of like me.”
All the while he was saying this, Danny was looking at his shoes, hands playing with something in his pockets, and Tom takes this time of silence to inspect him more carefully.
His shoes are dirty, as though he’d been playing in mud for a while and decided against washing them, and there are noticeable rips and holes on the surface. The more Tom looks closer, the more he can see the color of his white socks. His eyes travel to his trousers, coarsely ripped at the knees, and something in Tom’s mind tells him that they’re not intentional. The scars and scabs on his kneecaps probably had something to do with it. Then up to his shirt, wrinkled and torn in places, enclosed in a brown sweater that seems a few sizes too small for his build.
If Tom was presumptuous, he would have thought that Danny was a homeless person. Or a fugitive.
“Lessons? Like school lessons?”
Danny smiles with a nod.
“Yeah, exactly.”
Tom considers for a moment. He really doesn’t have anything to do over the break, minus his other teaching job, and he’s never taught a grown man before. He reckons it’d be quite different from a child’s case, and of course, his curiosity always gets the better of him. And he’d be helping someone who needs his aid, so it wouldn’t be all that bad.
“You do know I only teach fourth years.”
He’s compelled to ask. He doesn’t want to get his hopes up knowing he can only go so far before he reaches his limit.
“Anything that you can teach me’s fine.”
Tom smiles with a shrug of his shoulders. He might as well.
“Alright, then. Why don’t you step inside and we’ll discuss it further.”
He moves to the side and stretches out an arm to present the classroom, and Danny grins broadly, a grin that could light up an entire city with one flash. Tom perks his eyebrows as Danny walks timidly inside, and he closes the door after catching the inquiring, hawk-like eyes of Mrs. Baldwin standing, conspicuously enough, behind a row of lockers, apparently having witnessed the entire conversation from the distance.
+++++
Tom discussed his free days and the places where they could hold the lessons. He’s free during Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. During the other days, he teaches music to an orphanage just outside of town.
It never occurred to him once what the nature of Danny’s request was, and he was much too enthralled by the idea to give it a second’s time to appear in his head. So he doesn’t ask him. What he does ask instead is the sensitive issue of, judging by Danny’s appearance alone, money.
“I hope you know that I won’t be doing this for free.”
He didn’t want to ask it, but he knows he had to. It dampens Danny’s mood a bit, but he recovers with one of his smiles and from deep in his pocket, he digs out bills haphazardly crumpled into a ball, with some of the edges sticking out so it looks like a deformed artichoke.
“I have money, don’t worry. And it’s sort of why I want to ask you for these lessons. I don’t really have a lot of money, and apparently, you have to know things to get a job around here.”
Tom smiles and narrows his brows at the same time.
“You’re not from here?”
Danny shakes his head and rocks himself on the desk he occupies, keeping a palm on the surface to avoid falling over and stuffing the money back in his pocket with the other.
“Nah, I’m from Bolton. Just got here last week.”
Tom’s eyes flicker. That would explain the accent. But Bolton’s quite a ways from here. Handful of cities to be exact.
“Why the move?”
Danny shakes his head and plays with his fringe with a finger.
“Bolton’s not where it’s happening, I suppose. Jobs there aren’t worth the minimum wage. I want so much more than…”
Here, he stops, and Tom shoots him a curious look.
“More than?”
But Danny shakes his head and decides to drop the subject.
“Took a few more days in my old job to get here. It’s worth it, I guess. I can start over and stuff. Forget my debts and move on, you know?”
Tom nods and rummages in his bag for a notebook.
“Yeah, I suppose.”
Retrieving one, he walks and presents it to Danny.
“Your lesson’s starting tomorrow. In the meantime, I’m giving you an assignment.”
Danny smiles and flips his fringe before accepting it. He looks at it, front and back, and begins flipping though the pages, eyes inspecting the numerous scribbles on the plaster-white leaves. He looks up and closes the notebook.
“Homework even before lesson starts?”
Tom chuckles and moves back to his desk. He gathers up his bag and pulls out his keys out of his pocket. He turns back around and, moving closer to Danny, he opens the first page delicately.
“I want you to read up tonight. From this page to page fifteen. Make sure to remember all the underlined words. They’re your basic parts of speech and whatnot. Write them down somewhere; make flashcards, whatever you want. Just make sure to remember them.”
Danny lifts his eyes from Tom’s hand and flashes a grin before turning back to the neat handwriting marking the entire page.
“Don’t worry. I’m a quick learner.”
Tom makes a face and chuckles.
“We’ll just see tomorrow, then. You remember where we’re supposed to meet?”
Danny scratches his curly head and bites the inside of his cheek.
“Something like ‘Ridgeway Park’?”
Tom chuckles at the way he said it.
“Exactly. See you then?”
Danny jumps off the desk and clutches the notebook tightly, blue eyes fixed on Tom’s own brown pair.
“Yeah.”
Tom watches him walk across the room and out the door, something in his chest rising like a hot air balloon, only he doesn’t know why. As soon as Danny’s footsteps uttered their last echoes down the hallway, Tom strides over to the door and locks it with a smile.
+++++
Danny scratches his head and looks ahead, past the fountain bubbling jets of water and the children running after each other around it.
He still has the same pair of trousers and shoes, Tom noticed when they met up, but he changed his shirt and is now donning a white tank top under the same brown sweater, albeit slightly larger than it had been previously. His hair is neater, the fringe completely gone so Tom can see his eyes more clearly. Did he spend the time to fix it for his lesson? Well, either way, he looks more presentable now, and he’s actually quite handsome with all things considered.
“Do I really have to know these things? I don’t think they’re going to care if something’s in the past tense or not.”
Tom laughs and takes a bite of his burger, turning his attention to a smirking Danny.
“They ask pretty weird questions in job interviews, so it’s safe to know these things.”
Danny smiles and sips a bit of his orange soda, Tom watching as the liquid travels up the transparent straw accompanied by countless bubbles. He smiles back.
“Yeah, I can tell.”
Then they’re silent for a while, both enjoying the summer peace in the bench and watching the children go on about their games. Makes Tom wonder the last time he’s had fun; all his life, he’d been burying his face in his books, and looking back on it, he realizes that he’d lost a huge part of his childhood to academics. But he doesn’t really mind; he likes knowledge. Just as much as a girl loves playing with her dolls or a boy with his action figures.
“What do you do right now?”
Tom decides to break the silence, and Danny looks at him in confused surprise, brows slightly drawn together.
“Oh…”
He comes a bit short of an answer, and he drinks more of his soda in the meantime.
“I deliver things. Doesn’t pay much, but it’s enough to keep these lessons. Used to be a labor worker. On the fields, you know? But they didn't really pay much. Barely any pay, actually. I was lucky to buy enough clothes to last me a month before they're torn up and stuff.”
Tom watches him with minute wonderment. He doesn’t want to seem too enamored with the man, but he can’t help but admire him.
“You really want a good job, don’t you?”
Danny nods and eats a piece of his pretzel, crumbs falling all over his lap. He swallows heavily before answering, washing it down with some of the soda to help it come along quicker.
“Yeah. I want a good house, good clothes, all that. Settle down with someone, maybe. All I’ve wanted since I was a kid. We weren’t rich when I was growing up, so I just fantasized about this… great life when I grow up, filled with beautiful things and stuff, you know? Looking at me right now, it looks impossible, doesn’t it? But I really do want to change my life. I don’t want to keep living like this. I think I deserve better.”
Tom had been neglecting his burger as Danny spoke, and he closed his mouth the moment he finished. For a second, he thinks of Danny and how strong he is; how he’s doing all he can to make his dreams come true, and Tom finds that inspiring. Even more, he feels glad he’s the one helping him to realize it.
“Then we’re going to need to keep up with these lessons for quite a while, then, won’t we?”
Danny smiles at him, and all of a sudden, Tom feels it. Something like a spark in the middle of his chest, deep in his heart, as though the energy from Danny’s smile is short-circuiting his heartstrings and filling him with an incessant tingling sensation.
Tom’s starting to like Danny.
+++++
“You seem chipper today.”
That’s Jennifer, Tom’s partner at the orphanage and long-time best friend. Blonde, bubbly, and unbearably loquacious. But she makes sense most of the time, and it’s the only reason keeping him from walking away from her when she starts talking.
“I’m always chipper.”
She laughs and tunes her guitar strings.
“No, today you seem extra chipper.”
Tom looks up from the keys and eyes her with curiosity.
“How so?”
She jumps off the stool and settles next to him, resting her guitar on the nearest piano leg. She twists her body to him and he knows she’s going to start asking questions. Lovely Jennifer.
“The whole time you were playing, you were smiling.”
Tom shakes his head and chuckles, playing a few notes and writing them down on a piece of paper afterward.
“I always smile.”
“Stop it, Tom, you know what I mean. Something’s making you feel good and I want to know what.”
He replaces the paper on the piano and turns his head to face her.
“Teaching makes me happy, alright? That’s it. Nothing spectacular or worth mentioning.”
Jennifer laughs and presses three keys in quick succession.
“I think different. I think you’ve found someone special.”
Tom stares at her, unsure of what expression to give her without giving his feelings away.
“There’s no one, Jen. You’re hallucinating. Did you take your pills today?”
“Yes, I did. But that’s beside the point. And the point is: you like someone. I can tell.”
Tom plays a whole bar before plucking up the courage to smile. He knows he’d just confirmed her suspicions, and she laughs heartily, her voice echoing in the sound room, but he doesn’t mind. Jennifer’s not one to flaunt secrets to every ear she could scope out. She’s more civilized than that.
“I knew it.”
“So what, you’re an expert on these things now?”
“’Course I am. Now tell me: who’s the lucky girl?”
In contrast to her giddiness, he frowns a bit, and Jennifer copies his face the next second, as though she’d just said something blasphemous.
“What’s wrong?”
Tom sighs and taps the surface of the keys, not pressing hard enough for the strings to produce a sound, like a child would if he’s slightly agitated.
“He’s not exactly a girl.”
Jennifer gasps and looks around, eyes searching immediately for the doors. Tom shrinks back and folds his hands on his lap.
“Tom. You’ve never told me you were gay.”
Tom cranes his neck to her and smiles pitifully at her bewildered stare.
“I didn’t even really know. It just sort of happened.”
Jennifer makes a sound and turns back to the keys.
“Well, good for you. Exploring and all that. I think it’s cool.”
“You don’t hate me?”
Jennifer raises an eyebrow and turns to him a quarter of the way.
“I’m not a homophobe, Tom. I think it’s sweet, actually. So, who is he? What’s his name? Is he cute? Tall? Does he have pretty eyes? Tell me everything.”
So Tom tells her. Tells her that his name’s Danny, and that she hit the nail perfectly in the head. Danny’s all those three things she’d just mentioned, and she swoons at his descriptions. How he has curly hair, and this accent that he can’t really replicate for her, and all of the things that made his heart flutter and bound. But in the middle of the good things, he knows he has to tell her about the other part of Danny.
“Tom, I’m quite surprised, to be honest.”
Tom watches her with a raised brow.
“Of what?”
“I didn’t know you liked someone out of your intellectual range. I thought you liked smart girls?”
Tom chuckles and tosses his hair before filing the papers in one neat stack.
“Yeah, but see: Danny’s not a girl. And he’s a pretty fast learner. We’ve almost covered everything I teach my students in an entire year, and it’s only been a little over a week since we started.”
Jennifer laughs at her mistake and stands up, a hand already reaching for the neglected guitar.
“Well, then, my apologies. Why don’t we go out to celebrate? You can tell me more about him, and maybe you can introduce me some time. I’m a bit curious at what he looks like.”
Tom laughs and stands up with the pack of papers held tightly in one hand.
“Yeah, but you’re buying.”
Jennifer mocks a titter and slings the coarse strap around her shoulder. She begins to walk but stops immediately, and she turns to Tom with an inquisitive look.
“Wait. Do you even know where he lives?”
Tom perks his brows. Danny’s never disclosed his address before, and somehow, it made Tom feel a bit empty inside.
“No, not really.”
+++++
“Exactly. Now you’re getting it.”
Danny smiles and runs his hooked fingers through his slightly matted hair in pride. They’re back in the park, sitting in the exact same bench as they had throughout their weeks of lessons, and Tom feels accomplished at the feat. He even had to brush up on his own college lessons just so he could teach Danny more than he previously promised.
Not because of his desire to help him (it’s part of it, but not a whole lot), but because he doesn’t want the lessons to end. He wants to be close to Danny as often as he could, and it seems to him that Danny himself is enjoying the company.
But then, Tom’s sad in the middle of it all. He wants more than his teacher-student relationship with Danny, where the most they could get close to each other is through teaching and learning. He wants to be closer, and he knows he has to do something if they’re ever going to get anywhere. Either that or perish. Whichever sounds better.
So Tom inhales sharply and crumples up the burger cover, heart garnering speed at what he’s about to do.
“Hey, Danny, listen.”
Danny looks at him and smiles.
“Yeah?”
Tom falters a bit, but he recovers by clearing his throat.
“Would you mind going out with me some time?”
At once, Tom feels his throat constrict, his heart pick up speed. He meant to say hang out, a more appropriate proposition instead of the more straightforward go out, which basically meant that Tom had just asked him out on a date.
Great, Tom reckoned. He might have already jeopardized his friendship.
But when Danny smiles, Tom feels a weight lift off his chest, something like the size of an anvil or a baby whale, and Danny moves closer and wraps his hand around Tom’s, whose heart is rampaging in his ribcage.
“I’d love to.”
+++++
“Hum me something, Tom.”
Danny’s lying on Tom’s stomach on Tom’s bed, and he shifts a bit to look at him more properly.
“Anything at all.”
Tom smiles and continues playing with his curly hair, wrapping it around his fingers and twisting it every which way. He loves Danny’s hair, and Danny loves it when Tom plays with his hair.
“Alright.”
And Tom begins humming. He doesn’t really know what song he’s humming-it’s the name that’s unknown, not the tune. It’s the same one he was composing when he told Jennifer about Danny, and he’s finally confident to let Danny hear it after weeks of perfecting each note.
“You finished it?”
Tom stops and a chuckle bubbles out of his chest.
“Yeah, just yesterday.”
Danny moves his eyes back to the ceiling and grabs Tom’s free hand. He links their fingers together on his stomach and smiles.
“I like it. What’d you name it?”
Tom thinks for a second, in his mind running over possible things to call his piece. Few things come to his mind, but when he looks down, he finds the perfect one.
“Danny.”
Danny looks up.
“Yeah?”
Tom laughs and kisses Danny on the forehead.
“That’s the name. Danny.”
“Oh.”
Danny laughs and kisses the back of Tom’s hand.
“You named a song after me?”
“Why not?”
Danny smiles and looks up, once again, at Tom, wide grin nearly splitting his face in two.
“I love you.”
Tom dips his head low and plants a soft kiss on Danny’s lips.
“I love you, too.”
+++++
“You disgust me.”
Tom’s waiting in line at the local grocery store when Mrs. Baldwin decides to move next to him with a glare of contempt. Tom shrugs and picks up the paper bags with the things he’d bought for their one-year anniversary.
“No offense, Mrs. Baldwin, but does it look like I care?”
“Your filthy ways won’t go unpunished, I can tell you that.”
Tom shakes his head and, after nodding his goodbye to the cashier, he strides across the polished floor and makes his way to the automatic doors. He hears Mrs. Baldwin coming after him.
“You shouldn’t be surrounded by children, manipulating their minds to think that what you’re doing is normal.”
Tom stops and turns around, eyes narrowed in annoyance.
“Yeah, I’ve seen you and your boy toy. Making out in public, for everyone to see. Especially little children. You’re warping their minds to think your abnormality is alright.”
“I don’t like your tone, Mrs. Baldwin. Not one bit. So, I’m gay and I kiss other men. I’m sorry, but I don’t see anything wrong with that.”
She narrows her eyes and glares at him.
“Of course, you don’t, with you and your disgusting sort. I’m taking this up to the principal, just you wait and see.”
Tom stands up to his full height. Not to intimidate her, but to show her that he’s not one to be messed with.
“Mrs. Baldwin. Your personal dilemmas are clouding your reason, and I think you need a serious reality check if you think Mr. Chamberlain would fire me just because of my orientation. He looks for technical faults, things I did that’s bad in his eyes, and not who I kiss. I think you need to get yourself checked in an institution, if I may say so. Or back in the middle ages, because there are gay people everywhere, and there’s nothing you can do about that. You can’t send us all to jail or fire us or whatever just because we like fellow men, and it’s not our fault you don’t like us. It’s yours. So, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get home and cook for my boyfriend.”
Tom smirks and wheels back around to face the door.
“At least some of us can spell ‘mum’ backwards.”
Mrs. Baldwin said this in an undertone, but Tom hears it enough to make him stop and spin around to face her once more, deep anger in his eyes.
“You have no right to criticize him!”
His sudden abrasiveness silences her immediately, and half the store turns their heads to the sound. But Tom doesn’t care. Mrs. Baldwin crossed the line between downgrading a general population and personal idiosyncrasies, and Tom just can’t let that slide.
“You can talk down about his orientation, but how dare you put him down just because he didn’t have a proper education growing up! How dare you! You don’t know him like that! And you know what? I know why you’re bitter towards us. Just because your husband left you for another man and left you and old bat with no children or anyone to love, you’ve grown inhuman, and in your twisted mindset, you despise the entire gay population because you loathe your husband. And you’ve forgotten what it feels to love.”
Mrs. Baldwin is dumbstruck, eyes wide open in bewilderment at the revelation of her personal life. She needlessly criticized Danny, so he reckoned it was only fitting he took a snap at her right back.
“Who told you?”
Her voice is soft, and Tom sneers at her, ignoring her question completely.
“Danny might not be the smartest man around, but he loves me and that’s all I need. All things considered, he’s actually better than you in more ways than you can imagine. At least he doesn’t deter people with a superiority complex, something that you seem to have quite a problem in doing.”
Tom nods in her direction with a saccharine smile.
“Goodbye, Mrs. Baldwin. Hope you have a rousing day filled with self-loathing and tear-stained boxes of ice cream.”
+++++
“I heard about what happened in the store.”
Tom looks up from his fettuccini and drops his fork.
“You did?”
Danny smiles and slices a bit of his chicken, popping the meat in his mouth before continuing.
“Yeah. They were talking about it in the streets today.”
Tom laughs and takes a sip of his champagne, eye twitching for a second at the tangy liquid.
“Thanks for standing up for me.”
Tom smiles and reaches a hand across the table to grab Danny’s.
“She was being way off the line. Someone needed to put her into place.”
Danny turns his hand over to clasp Tom’s hand tightly.
“You’re my hero, you know that?”
“I know now.”
They both laugh and continue eating. Tom bought a big box of chocolates and a new watch for Danny, inside a bag sitting on the sofa next to a neatly wrapped box that is Danny’s gift: from the money he managed to save up for months, he managed to get Tom a silver necklace.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you.”
Tom looks up from his finished plate and eyes Danny with curiosity.
“What?”
Danny smiles broadly and drops his fork, making a soft clank on the plate.
“While you were out, I had a job interview today.”
Tom widens his eyes and leans in closer.
“I didn’t know you were starting anytime soon. You already made a résumé?”
Danny nods.
“Yeah. Since I didn’t have much accomplished, they had me do a placement test or something.”
Tom smiles and rests his chin on the back of his interlaced hands.
“And?”
Danny sighs and crosses his arms over his chest, a smug smile plastered on his face.
“And now, you’re looking at a new junior accountant over at BSC.”
Tom laughs and looks at Danny with wide eyes, dropping his hands on the table.
“No.”
Danny uncoils his arms and stretches them to either side of him, bent slightly at the elbows, and he gives a shrug.
“Yes.”
“Oh, my God, Danny! That’s great!”
Danny tosses his head to the side with a smile.
“Thank you.”
Tom slumps back in his chair and raises up his glass of champagne.
“Well, then, you deserve a toast. Your dreams are finally becoming reality, and I’m proud of you, Danny, I really am.”
Danny raises his own glass and taps the edge with Tom’s.
“I couldn’t have done it without your lessons. So toast to you, too.”
Tom taps Danny’s glass this time and both smile.
And they spent the entire night with laughter and hugs and kisses and songs, and Tom doesn’t remember the last time he was this happy. All he know is he likes the feeling, and that he’s glad he took up Danny’s request for private lessons in the first place.
The End
------
A/N: Yeah, so I’m not really sure how jobs work, but for the sake of this fic, let’s just say things worked that way in real life. Well, in their life, anyway.