Nathan Barley fic: Memoria (1/3)
Title: Memoria (1/3)
Pairing: Dan/Jonatton, Dan/Jones
Summary: Sometimes, it's possible to have too much history with someone. A series of vignettes over the course of Dan and Jonatton's relationship, from being mates in uni to right before Nathan Barley started.
Word Count: 10,312. ...yeah, it's a big 'un
Rating: R
Warnings: Swearing, allusions to drug use, allusions to sex. Probably more tame than the series, really.
Disclaimer: They're not mine, blah blah. I wish they were, yadda yadda.
Author’s Notes: This is totally an AU, though I did pull a lot of things from the show into it. Also, I pulled a Memento and the end of the fic is at the beginning, so if you're confused, don't be. I didn't always specify how much time had passed between each part, but I don't think it was needed. If you really want to know, though, I can tell you...because I'm a werido and made a detailed timeline. And yes, the title is from the Nirvana song. I'm working on the sequel now, and the title to that will also be from the same song.
One.
“I met someone.” The mobile had a bad signal and Dan heard his own words crackle down the line, floating a continent away for their intended recipient. He was sitting poolside at some horrible cheap little Brazilian hotel, the humidity making him feel sticky with sweat, though he’d just got out of the shower not an hour ago.
There was a pause on the line and Dan let his eyes slip shut, trying to imagine what sort of face Jonatton was making at that news. A knowing smirk, because really, they’d both known this day was coming for one of them? An over-exaggerated scowl, because Jonatton wasn’t happy to hear it? Or that little quirk of his lips, the slight narrowing of his eyes that meant he was truly upset and trying not to show it? Dan didn’t see genuine facial expressions off him often and never in public, but Jonatton still did show them every once in a while.
“Oh Dan, are you breaking up with me?” Jonatton’s voice shot back at him, falsetto and overly exaggerated. After a beat his voice returned to normal again, though Dan could hear the smirk in it; “Does this mean you’ve gone local?”
Dan found himself shaking his head, before remembering Jonatton couldn’t see him. “No. He’s from London. He’s just on holiday down here.” Dan felt his mouth go dry with shame he wouldn’t own up to aloud and forced his next words out, knowing the derision they’d face, “He’s a DJ.”
That gained a snort of amusement from Jonatton, “Aww, has Danbo gone and fallen for one of the little idiots he always writes about?” he mocked. “How poetic.”
Dan took a swallow of scotch to wet his mouth, grimacing at how watery it tasted, the ice cubes in it had melted to almost nothing in this heat.
When Jonatton only got silence for an answer, he muttered softly, “Jesus.” Another silence, and then that sarcastic tone of voice he only ever used at work and only because he knew how much Dan hated it, “Are you ever coming back, or am I going to have to give your column to someone else?”
Shit. Dan hadn’t considered that part. They’d always done a good job of keeping their work relationship fairly separate from whatever the hell it was they had between them off hours, but Dan couldn’t expect to break up with him and have everything still be normal. He’d always thought they worked because they were too self involved to be with other people. They each put the absolute minimum about of emotional effort into their relationship. Some emotion had to have got involved when they weren’t looking though, or this would be easier. If he were honest with himself, there had always been emotion there; it was just that neither of them would own up to it.
“Of course I’m coming back, unless The Weekend On Sunday is looking for a new columnist,” Dan joked tightly. He was suddenly reminded of that horrible Dutch wine incident, which of course Jonatton found out about, and of course brought up at random, because what was a humiliating experience if you didn’t have someone throwing it back in your face now and then?
He didn’t bring it up this time, though. Instead he just said, “Well hurry up and come back. It’s no fun running this place without you,” and he didn’t even sound the least bit sincere. Or shocked, or even upset at all, really.
It prompted Dan to confirm, “So, this…thing between us is done, then. When I come back, we’re over.”
“Yes, Daniel,” Jonatton sounded exasperated now; genuinely so. “You can come by and get your things whenever you’d like. I’m not going to hold your toothbrush and Smiths albums hostage.”
“Okay,” Dan croaked out the word, on the tail of another gulp of scotch. This was all too easy. It was so simple and non-confrontational that it was making him feel like he’d swallowed glass. “Good. Bye, then.” And he ended the call before Jonatton could say another word.
He stared at the mobile in his hand, taking a few slow deep breaths, and told himself it was entirely too teenage to feel hurt by Jonatton’s lack of response. It was entirely too predictable to feel upset by his own.
When Jones found him a half hour later in the same position, he asked “…Alright?” cautiously, like he expected Dan to snap at him. Jones was wearing black swim trunks and a white sunscreen stripe across his nose and cheekbones like Adam Ant, and it made Dan smile, though he couldn’t really articulate why.
He turned and threw his mobile into the pool, before lying, “I’m fine.” He didn’t mention Jonatton for the rest of the trip.
Two.
“We should start a magazine,” Jonathon decided. He and Dan were lying side by side on his small dorm room bed, passing a joint between them. They were still young enough that Dan didn’t wake up most mornings with a hangover, and Jonatton Yeah? was still Jonathon Yadin.
Dan laughed out a stream of smoke, and leaned up on his elbows, passing the joint back to Jonathon. “You’re mental,” he replied. “We’ve already got one.” It was a rubbish little handwritten satire about their university that they’d photocopied and slipped in between books at the library. It had got more popular than they’d expected and the university had even threatened to expel them on one occasion for it, deciding it was pushing the boundaries of good taste and proper decorum. Jonathon’s lawyer father had got involved, citing freedom of press and shut the university officials up about it. Jonathon had told him once that it was the most attention he’d got from his father probably since the day he’d been born.
“No, you twat, I meant after graduation,” Jonathon leaned up on his elbows as well, taking a final hit off the joint and then stubbing it out in an overflowing ashtray on Dan’s bedside table. “A proper magazine.”
Dan sat up completely at that and a bubble of laughter rose in him which he made no attempt to hide. “Who would give us a magazine?” What a stupid idea; he was going to be novelist anyway, and Jonathon was going to be an editorial photographer. They had no journalism training at all.
Jonathon crossed his arms, mouth twisting down into a small pout; genuine. He was young enough that all his expressions were. It’d be years before he would decide real emotions were for saps and play a characterture of himself. “No one, obviously. We could start our own. It’d be just like any other business. I can afford it.”
That prickled at Dan. He didn’t usually mind his working-class background. He’d had to get a job to afford uni and Jonathon just got everything he wanted handed to him; it was just the way things were. It irritated him now, though, with Jonathon acting like he could just throw all his money at something and force it to be successful.
He wanted to point out that Jonathon was acting like his father, but it’d be years before he became too depressed and desperate and self involved to throw thoughtless comments like that out. “We’d need staff. We can’t run a business with just two employees,” he pointed out instead.
“We can in the beginning,” Jonathon replied, “We do now, Danbo.” They had a good set up now; Dan wrote all the words, and Jonathon took all the pictures. Jonathon compiled and edited the whole thing too, because they both knew how bad Dan was at following through on anything, and Jonathon’s strengths didn’t lie with writing his own words, but telling other people how they could improve upon theirs.
Dan really felt like he should be arguing this more, but the marijuana had made him feel warm and sleepy; Jonathon could probably suggest they get a pet dragon right now and he wouldn’t put up too much of a fight. He let his arms slip out from under him and flopped back on his bed again, closing his eyes. “Okay. Just until this idea tanks horribly. Then we’ll get real jobs.”
Jonathon looked satisfied at that and flopped back onto the bed as well, his shoulder brushing Dan’s in the tight space. “Deal,” he agreed, reaching over a hand to shake Dan’s, just to make it more official. Dan cracked an eye open and then brought up his hand as well, intertwining his fingers with Jonathon’s and giving them a single squeeze.
Three.
“This party is terrible,” Jonathon sighed, leaning against the bar and frowning down into his drink. It was a whisky on the rocks, because they’d graduated from university six months ago and he felt it was a proper sort of adult drink. He’d mentioned as much to Dan when he caught the other man ordering some horrifying purple-tinted martini concoction rimmed in sugar with a little glow stick at the bottom of it, making the whole thing periodically light up neon yellow and then electric blue. It was New Years Eve and those purple drinks were on special at this club. Everyone was drinking them.
Dan had pointed out that his drink might be stupid, but at least it came with a glow stick, and then Jonathon had just felt jealous and stupidly morose about this whole evening. He couldn’t possibly create new fads if no one was paying attention to what he did and Dan was betraying him by following the crowd. Dan was also drunk enough that he was actually dancing and Dan hated dancing. He was always the one sulking in the corner while Jonathon was the centre of attention at these kinds of clubs, but Jonathon was in a mood and this sudden role reversal of theirs wasn’t helping him feel any better.
“This party is terrible,” he repeated again, louder, to get Dan’s attention. He sipped his whisky and tried not to grimace, eying Dan’s stupid drink longingly. “We should review it in our magazine. I can take pictures of all the idiots here and we can detail how pathetic they all are; their clothes and dancing and fad cocktails.”
Dan just shrugged vaguely and licked at the sugared rim of his drink, purple stained tongue darting out to drag along the glass. “These people are our friends,” he pointed out, when he’d finished. That still wasn’t a ‘no’ to slagging them off, though. Not really.
“Maybe we need better friends,” Jonathon replied, as if determined to drag this conversation out by being as petty as possible. He stole the drink from Dan’s hand and downed it in one go, before spitting the glow stick back into the empty martini glass and setting it on the bar.
Dan just gave him that stupid grin he got on his face when he was too drunk to care about anything at all. “Then lets burn all our bridges with everyone and tell them what twats they are. C’mon, dance with me.” He took Jonathon’s hand, half dragging the smaller man a few steps forward.
Jonathon bit his lip hard, not wanting to smile. He always told Dan he hated him when he got like this, all tactile and uncomplicatedly happy. He didn’t, though. Drunken Dan was his favourite Dan of all, if he were honest with himself. He just rarely was anymore-honest with himself, that was.
“You’re like a big monkey,” Jonathon complained as Dan pulled him into a hug, resting his chin on the top of Jonathon’s head. “We still need a name for our magazine,” he added, so determined to not let Dan drag him into having a good time when he had his heart set on being depressed and derisive this evening.
“Mm,” Dan murmured in reply, turning his head so his words were half lost in Jonathon’s hair. Somewhere behind them the thrumming bass faded and gave way to the New Year’s countdown. “Let’s call it…Jonathon is a huge prinkle who would rather criticize everyone else for having fun than have any of his own.”
Jonathon pulled away from Dan enough to look up at him, ignoring the throngs of people around them counting down five…then four…then three… “Don’t be ridiculous, Daniel, that’d never fit on a magazine cover,” he teased, feeling a smile turn his lips up despite himself.
Then suddenly, before he could say anything else, cries of Happy New Year rang out all around them and Dan’s lips were on his, tasting of cigarettes, artificial sugar and something just inherently Dan.
“Oh,” Jonathon said softly after the kiss broke, like it’d answered a question he’d never even asked. Not aloud, anyway. “That’s…” He fixed Dan with a fake sneer and snapped, “You taste disgusting. All sugary.” He had to be fake, because if he were anywhere near genuine right now, he might say something like, why’d you stop kissing me? Don’t ever stop. And he couldn’t. He just couldn’t. Falling for your best mate, for your flat-mate, was just too cliché and he wasn’t half so naïve to believe in anything like love anyway. Not even at twenty-two.
“Why did you even kiss me? You’re like a big, disgusting, grabby, sugary tasting ape,” he complained. It was a rather poor effort as far as his insults usually went, but his brain wasn’t working at its normal speed. He just wanted to wipe that look off Dan’s face, because who was he to stand there looking so pleased and yet utterly unconcerned with what had just transpired between them, when he’d just had his tongue in Jonathon’s mouth?
“It’s New Years; that’s just what you do,” Dan replied, though the arms he’d casually slung over Jonathon’s shoulders slipped off and he almost looked sober for a moment as the reality of the situation seemed to crest and break over him like a wave. He took a step toward the bar, reaching for Jonathon’s abandoned whisky and adding, “I know what we can call our magazine,” before downing the drink in one, as if to steel himself for a conversation about the kiss which would never come.
Jonathon took a step closer to him to be heard over the loud music, and not at all just because he missed the warmth of Dan’s body. “What? ‘Dan Ashcroft is a sloppy drunk with personal space issues?’” Ironic, that, considering how close Jonathon was to him now. Jonathon decided he liked irony, though. Maybe irony would be in this year. Maybe the magazine would take off and he’d get disgustingly famous and decide what the new ‘in’ thing would be from now on. Imagining himself lording over everyone else and his word becoming law helped calm his inner turmoil quite a bit.
“No,” Dan laughed again. He was always laughing when he was drunk and Jonathon hated that he liked that. “Let’s call it Sugar Ape. It’s random enough to be memorable and everyone else will just think it’s just a couple of nonsense words, but we’ll know.”
Jonathon blinked. Then he blinked again, mulling it over. It was stupid and wanky. It didn’t at all explain the aim of their magazine, nor anything else beside the fact that they could string two words together which only made sense to them in this very moment in time. It was also something Jonathon really liked. It meant Dan, without any of the nauseating sentiment. It meant Dan without anyone ever finding out, and maybe that was its own kind of sentimentality, but at least it was under the guise if an in-joke, and that was good enough.
“Okay,” he agreed. “Sugar Ape it is, then.” And he leaned forward and kissed Dan again. No New Years confetti, no countdown, just a quick brush of lips, something to solidify the magazine name on, and much better than that half hearted handshake they’d done half a year and a what suddenly felt like a lifetime ago.
Jonathon was glad he’d long ago decided he’d never waste his time with something as pedestrian as falling in love. Otherwise he might have to think about this glowing ball of light that seemed to have lodged itself in his chest when he looked at Dan now.
It still hadn’t dimmed much later that evening, even as he leaned against the brick side of the club, watching Dan throw up in an alley, that disgusting over-sweetened purple liquid that looked the exact same colour coming out as going in.
Dan stopped drinking trendy mixed cocktails after that night, deciding straight alcohol was much less unpleasant to throw back up again; and Jonathon would always remember New Years 1992 as the year Sugar Ape was properly born, and the year this spark between them started traveling down its long slow fuse.
Four.
“Remember when you used to be fun?” Dan asked wryly.
Jonathon didn’t look up from the sea of page layouts he was surrounded by, setting them out all in order, only to change his mind a moment later and re-do them. In lieu of an answer, he replied, “I’ve decided orange is the new red. Do you think we can actually get people to wear orange? That’d be horrible.” By his smirk, it was clear he thought it was anything but. Two years into their publication and he’d already decided making new trends was passé. It was far better to make up terrible ones and convince people to wear them, for the sole purpose of mocking those same people in later issues.
“I think there’s something wrong with us if these are the questions we’re asking ourselves,” Dan muttered, stepping around the papers on the floor to sink down onto the sofa. “You do remember we have other editors, right? All you have to do is okay everything before it goes to print.”
Again, Jonathon rearranged the pages, remarking snippily, “The other editors do it wrong.” He’d preferred it when their whole team had consisted of he and Dan. At least Dan had pretended to care about it, then. It was nearly impossible to get him involved now, and as their success grew-against all odds, they were actually starting to get a name for themselves-it was all Jonathon cared about now. Fame wasn’t just some undefined future goal anymore, it was something directly in front of them, forever looming and taking shape. He could drag Dan along, unenthusiastic as he was, but he planned to be ready for it himself.
“I’m still fun,” he added, easily picking up the earlier thread of conversation. He’d done a bit of blow earlier, and it always made him feel sharper, more motivated. “Now I’m just successful to boot.” He glanced over at Dan on the couch and gave him a grin, before remembering he wasn’t going to do that anymore. Smiling hugely like that made him look about twelve years old. He was nearly twenty five and more than ready to be taken seriously, which meant being aware of what his face was doing, and trying to actually look the part of a cool, trendy magazine editor.
Dan just made an inarticulate ‘hmm’ noise and reached out to poke Jonathon with the toe of his trainer. “I finished my novel. I’m going out tonight to celebrate.”
Jonathon smacked his foot away, and stopped his endless rearrangement of the magazine pages. The words hit him like a blow to the stomach and he replied quickly, “It took you long enough. I can only hope it’s better than the last article you wrote.” He found that among the papers around him and shoved it back at Dan, “I’m not publishing it. It’s exactly like your last music review with only the name of the band changed.” And it honestly infuriated him how Dan could care so little about something which had taken up Jonathon’s whole life, and then sit around and call him boring after.
Dan actually looked surprised for a moment, though not overly concerned. “Fine. I know it’s shit, but who’s going to notice? Most of our readers are idiots, aren’t they? Just publish it anyway and if someone calls you on it, say it was a joke.”
“I hate you sometimes.” The words seemed to bypass Jonathon’s brain completely, coming straight out of his mouth before he could even think them over. They were a little too honest for his taste and he made a face after, as if he was disgusted by them.
“No, you don’t,” Dan replied. “Come out with me to celebrate.” He was always doing that lately. It was as if he hadn’t noticed Jonathon was slowly sculpting himself into something fake and of his own design. Either he’d take something Jonathan said seriously when he was only trying to be a smug nuisance and they’d have a row over it, or he’d brush off something Jonathon was honestly telling him, because he assumed the other man was being fake.
Dan should’ve appreciated Jonathon’s increasing dedication to fabricating all his emotions, because it was the only thing stopping him from having a huge overemotional strop right now, and they just didn’t do that sort of thing with each other. They hadn’t needed to before; in uni they’d almost always got on well.
“I’ll make you a deal, Daniel: you stop plagiarizing yourself in articles and I’ll serialize your novel in Sugar Ape. We both know you’re not going to really shop it around to publishers. You’re not nearly that organized.” It was a good job that Jonathon had decided empathy was passé weeks ago. He didn’t exactly like insinuating Dan would never make something of himself on his own, but that was the truth, wasn’t it? They needed each other for any of this to work at all. They were a team, and if Jonathon had to manipulate him to make it stay that way, then so be it.
Dan gave him a dark look in return and replied coolly, “I’d rather burn it.” Some of the fight did seem to go out of him, though, as if even he knew nothing he did would ever properly get off the ground without Jonathon behind him, pushing him and nitpicking every detail to perfection.
“That’s the right attitude to have!” Jonathon crowed, not even sure himself anymore how much of his words and tone were put on and how much were the truth. “Complete exclusivity. Got to be worthy to read your novel, yeah? It’s not good enough for our magazine…because it is ours, Danbo, no matter how much you try to distance yourself from it.”
Dan crossed his arms, looking particularly obstinate, though his voice came out soft, truthful, “It’s not ours at all. You’ve turned it into something else entirely.” At that, he seemed to get angry again, “When did you get so manipulative? Did you think I was stupid enough not to notice?”
It was all Jonathon could do to swallow the scream rising up inside him. You have been, he wanted to yell.
“Aww, Dan,” he mocked instead, “It’s not manipulation. It’s just the truth. I’ve always been the successful one. You peaked when you’d drunkenly strung a couple words together to form our magazine’s name.”
There wasn’t any talking after that, because they were scraping on the floor like children; wrestling and trying to throw punches. Dan had the obvious size advantage, but Jonathon was quick. He’d had to learn to be, he was small and knew how to twist words into cruel barbs; it was far from the first time someone had tried to hit him for it.
In the end, Dan had a split lip and Jonathon’s right eye was bruising purple and swelling. They were both out of breath and the magazine pages had scattered around them, flying up in the air as they scuffled before settling to the ground again like oversized snowflakes. Dan winced slightly as he licked at his split lip and before Jonathon could think anymore, he’d got Dan’s arms pinned to the carpet and he was kissing him fiercely.
Dan made a sort of surprised muffled sound into the kiss, before he pulled his hands free from Jonathon’s and tangled them in Jonathon’s hair.
Jonathon could feel his heart thundering in his chest as he kissed his way down Dan’s neck, lips brushing over stubble. His fingers worked methodically down the buttons of Dan’s shirt and they both moved like automations, as if the fight had been the real act of passion between them and this was just the obvious conclusion.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Jonathon had been waiting for this moment since that kiss on New Years two and a half years ago. What he hadn’t been counting on, however, was the nearly overwhelming urge to mouth don’t leave me against Dan’s skin every time his lips pressed against it. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he wished he’d done more blow; at least then he’d have something to blame these emotions on. If this was just him being himself, it was a damn good thing he was trying so hard to become someone else.
Five.
“Vodka water balloons,” Dan said the words with a sort of awed confusion. It wasn’t exactly what he’d expected to find in his freezer that afternoon, and he had a feeling it would make a lot more sense of he could remember more than brief glimpses of the night before.
“Why are they in the freezer?” Jonathon asked, walking up behind him to peer over his shoulder. “Alcohol doesn’t freeze.” He allowed himself a moment of being an absolute sap and going on tiptoe to rest his chin on Dan’s shoulder. “Is this what you get up to now that you’re living alone?”
They seemed to be doing things a bit backward, Dan realised. Normal people probably didn’t start sleeping together and then move into separate flats. When had either of them ever been normal, though? This thing between them had being going well; they got along better now that they had their own space.
They had fallen into a pattern, which could probably be defined as a rut, but it was working for them. Dan still hated the magazine, but he didn’t really blame Jonathon for it any longer. He’d not actually sent his finished novel to any publishers, but he was content with telling himself he was just biding his time. In truth, it all seemed like a lot of effort-all those endless cover letters, and all the research into which publishers took which genres and when they were accepting submissions.
At least Jonathon had stopped being such an obsessive fucking creep over the magazine. He’d learned to loosen the reigns a bit and stop trying to control every aspect of it. Sugar Ape kept getting ever more popular; though neither of them were really sober long enough to properly appreciate it. Dan had fallen back into the comfortable familiarity of hating his life that he’d always felt. It no longer felt so desperate, and was nothing which couldn’t be cured by looking into the bottom of an empty pint glass.
Jonathon, on the other hand, was soaking up the attention running a successful magazine brought. He was in a constant state of celebrating; party to party, interview to interview. He’d been on the telly numerous times and felt the pinnacle of success came when he’d started getting pills and blow for free in clubs. All of which he rarely ever turned down.
At the moment, his pupils were as big as saucers and he leaned over to press a kiss to Dan’s cheek, before reaching into the freezer to take out a vodka water balloon. “If I spill this, are you going to lick it up from your kitchen floor? I know how you hate to waste alcohol,” he teased, biting a hole in the balloon near the knot and then tipping it back to suck the vodka from it.
Dan took a balloon too and shut the freezer, untangling himself from Jonathon’s arms, before taking a seat on the floor. “If you pass out and start choking on your own vomit, I’m just going to laugh as you aspirate it,” he replied with no real malice, reaching out to clasp his fingers around Jonathon’s wrist and drag him down into a sitting position next to him.
Jonathon just laughed and stumbled when Dan pulled on his arm, sitting down hard and then leaning his back against the refrigerator door, sliding close enough to Dan that he was practically in his lap. “On the floor of your kitchen, drinking vodka out of a balloon, I feel like this is the penultimate scene in some documentary about addiction. Like a Behind the Music for successful magazine editors.”
Jonathon smiled again and Dan had to light a cigarette to distract himself, so he wouldn’t wind up saying something stupid like I love you. It was just the alcohol talking anyway, and the fact that they were getting along as well as they had in uni. Better now, probably. Who knew the key to happiness was just constant intoxication?
“I’m just impressed you can barely walk, yet you’re using words like ‘penultimate’,” Dan pointed out, slinging an arm over Jonathon’s shoulders.
“Let’s just forget the magazine and quit it all and never go back,” he added suddenly. “We’ve got enough money. I guess. I don’t know how much I have. I forgot the password to check my bank balance again.”
Jonathon laughed aloud at that. “You’re useless. I told you to give it to me. I’ll keep your account sorted.”
Dan shook his head slightly, finishing the vodka in his balloon and then tossing it away. “I should let Claire sort it. She’ll make sure I keep enough in there for rent, without adding to it on a whim.” He hated it when Jonathon did that; not because he didn’t like being looked after, but because Jonathon did it purposefully to take the piss. One morning after they’d had frankly mind-blowing sex in the shower, Dan checked his account and found a thousand pounds added to it. It made Jonathon feel like his sugar daddy, which Dan didn’t find half as amusing as the other man did.
Jonathon finished his balloon too and threw it across the kitchen. “Are you really so unhappy with the magazine?” he asked.
“Yes,” Dan replied honestly. “I hate it. I hate our reader base and what we’re pandering to. I hate those twats you hired to work there. All of it is just…killing me slowly a day at a time.” He felt comfortable sharing this, not only because of the large amount of vodka sloshing about inside him, but also because he knew Jonathon well enough to know he wouldn’t take it seriously at all. He could pour his heart out to the other man about how much he hated their lives, but he also said he hated coffee with too much milk in and when someone would start to whistle a song on the tube that he’d get stuck in his head the rest of the day. There was something freeing about complaining about absolutely everything; the knowledge that none of it would be taken seriously.
“I hate them too,” Jonathon replied, though he was smiling as he said it. “We’re so much better than all of them and they know it. That’s why they’re clamouring for any scrap of intelligence we might drop. They’re like rats.”
Dan knew him well enough to know Jonathon only hated them so he could feel better about himself. He looked down upon everyone who wasn’t him. He wasn’t the one losing sleep over wondering how exactly they were any different. If everyone around them was a parade of idiots, he and Jonathon were the fucking ringleaders.
“You’re the only one I like, Dan,” Jonathon added, turning his head to look at him, nose bumping against Dan’s cheek in his drunken clumsiness. His voice had an earnest tone that made Dan strangely hopeful and more than a little bit uncomfortable. “Everything else-everyone else-it’s all just bullshit. You’re the only one who matters.” Jonathon spoke the words against Dan’s skin forcefully enough that it was like he was trying to brand them there.
Dan pushed him away, then, reaching behind himself for the countertop to pull himself to his feet. “You need to sober up,” he replied, completely unprepared for Jonathon’s words. “You’re full of shit, you know that? You’re the fakest person I know, and you’re worse than all of them, because you’re clever enough to know better.” And he didn’t mind Jonathon being a little bit fake and a little bit cruel, because that was who he was anymore. How long did someone have to fake a personality before it really became their own?
He’d rather quietly loathe Jonathon for who he tried so hard to be than feel this sick…terror that the boy he’d known from university was still inside him, just waiting for the right cocktail of alcohol and pills to emerge. He wasn’t the same person he’d been back then. He might’ve welcomed the sincerity years ago, but he was too jaded and miserable now. It just made him remember things he’d rather not think about. There was such a thing as having too much history with someone.
He walked away quickly, before Jonathon could answer, and went to the bathroom to splash some cold water on his face. He couldn’t remember ever wishing this desperately for sobriety before. It was just too much, the realization that Jonathon might hate all this as much as he did. He’d always told himself he was doing this for Jonathon, because he was too lazy and impatient and short-sighted to make any of his own dreams come true, but Jonathon seemed to think they needed to be a team. If Jonathon was just suffering right along with him, then what the fuck was it all for?
Once he had decided the cold water was going to do all it could to help him sober up, he walked back into the kitchen, steeling himself against those stupid honest brown eyes and that tone of voice that wasn’t exaggerated or put on for effect. Instead, he found Jonathon curled up right on his kitchen tiles, asleep.
Either Jonathon was only ever honest when he was in the middle of a come down, or he was a more convincing liar than Dan had ever given him credit for. The next morning he convinced Jonathon to go to rehab, and neither of them ever brought up what Jonathon had told him again.
Six.
“Are you really hiding from your own party?”
Jonathon looked over at the voice, tightening his hand slightly on the sweating glass of scotch, his legs dangling over the side of the building. His 30th birthday party was going on in the ballroom downstairs of this stupid too-tall sky scraper, but that was a good twenty floors below and he couldn’t even hear the thrumming bass line of the music up here on the roof. It was just night sky and concrete; stars and silence.
“Not hiding,” he replied, taking a swallow of his drink, before looking back out over the city. “Just thinking.”
Dan sat down beside him, cross legged and further from the edge than Jonathon was. Jonathon knew he didn’t really like heights.
“I’m hiding,” Dan told him, lighting a cigarette and taking a grateful inhale, as if being at the party had just been so taxing on him. He glanced sideways at Jonathon, “Your being deep in thought has never led to good things for either of us.”
Jonathon acknowledged the words with a small hum of agreement and then said nothing.
The lack of clever retort prompted Dan to turn his head and look at Jonathon fully, brow creasing in something neither of them would ever acknowledge as real concern. “Jesus. You’re not going to jump, are you?” he asked, nodding his head to indicate the edge of the building.
“Oh, Daniel,” Jonathon sighed, and then fell silent for another moment, before adding, “What a lot of parties.” Dan looked at him in confusion, before he continued, “All the succession and repetition of massed humanity…” and Dan got the quote, laughing.
“…All those vile bodies,” Dan completed, shaking his head ruefully. “Don’t quote Evelyn Waugh at me. What’s wrong with you, are you on something?” His eyes flicked to the crooks of Jonathon’s arms, covered by his flimsy black shirt and the other man frowned, downing the rest of his drink in one go and setting it aside.
“I just turned thirty. I have a reason to be morose and thoughtful that doesn’t involve a needle,” he replied quietly, not allowing himself to sound disgusted by it. He only ever focused his disgust outward at the world. He’d done rehab twice now; it had been a bit of fun the first time. He’d never really cared overmuch for all the blow and pills anyway; they’d just been a distraction, and people had kept giving them to him for free. He’d got a nice bit of publicity from it all and it’d been rather like going away on holiday.
They didn’t discuss the second time. Dan had probably saved his life, and there had been many times Jonathon had wished he hadn’t, locked in that small room, old needle tracks on his arms as his body rid itself of the drugs. He hadn’t touched it since, and Dan had never even asked him how he was after. Dan had just told him never to do it again, because he didn’t like running the magazine for six months on his own while Jonathon was in the countryside, learning how to cope with the world in a way that didn’t involve injecting something into his veins.
Dan had taken a great step back from the magazine after that. Jonathon took his rightful position as editor in chief again and Dan pared down to writing a single column and being paid by the article. It was as if he only had a finite amount of responsibility within him and he’d already used a great deal of it making sure things didn’t go to shit while Jonathon was away. Now that he was back, Dan could no longer be bothered.
At Jonathon’s words, Dan checked his watch, recognition lighting his features, “10:03,” he replied.
Jonathon nodded; he’d wanted to be by himself on the actual moment he hit the big 3-0. “Look at me, Danbo, I’m really a grown up now.” He picked up his empty glass again, rolling it between his hands and entertaining the idea of just chucking it straight off the roof, wondering how much damage it could do if it hit someone in the head twenty floors below. He decided he didn’t want to be arrested for murder on his thirtieth birthday and set it down again.
“You’re making a big deal out of nothing. I turned thirty last year,” Dan pointed out, ashing his cigarette against the concrete. “It’s just a number, and you know it.”
Jonathon rolled his eyes. “You hated your birthday last year,” he pointed out. Though, to be fair, Dan had hated every single one of his birthdays ever since Jonathon had known him, so it was probably far less the age and far more the fact that on his birthday he was the centre of attention and expected to be gracious about it.
Dan gave him a slight smile, “And I hate your birthday this year. No, wait, that’s every year. Go downstairs and let those new twats you hired shower you with adoration. Go have another drink and see if you can take one of them home.”
The comment did its job and got something approximating a real smile from Jonathon. “Oh Daniel, you know you’re my one and only. True love, etcetera” he teased. It wasn’t remotely true for either of them. There had been a lot of men and women over the years; more so for Jonathon than Dan, who Jonathon had always assumed was just too lazy to try for sex at all and would wait until it just fell into his lap. Jonathon, however, had always liked the chase.
He never slept with anyone from the office, though; not anyone but Dan. But it was never really about the sex with them. His flings never meant anything to him beyond sex, and Daniel meant everything to him, though the sex barely factored into it. It was just another thing they did sometimes, like go for coffee or argue over pointless things like the font the magazine was in.
Jonathon got to his feet, not feeling much better about things, but somehow alright with that. He offered Dan a hand up, stealing the cigarette from him and taking the final drag from it, before stubbing it out against the concrete with the toe of his boot. “Back to the lion’s den, then. Put on your happy face, it’s my birthday.”
He assumed it was a good thing he was rarely honest with anyone, including himself, because if he were, he’d have to admit that there was no one else on earth he’d rather spend this day with.
Seven.
“I changed my name.”
It was hardly the first thing Dan wanted to hear hung-over at nine o’clock on a Monday morning. The fact that he was even wearing different clothes than the night before and in the office this early was no small victory. He didn’t want to deal with Jonathon’s particular brand of…whatever it even was which he was turning himself into. Pretentious, egotistic, so far up his own arse it was a shock he could even see daylight. Wasn’t he always like that, though? It just seemed more so now. The more popular Sugar Ape became, the further away Jonathon seemed to get from himself.
“What’d you change it to?” Dan asked, not bothering to open his eyes. He’d been kipping on the sofa in Jonathon’s office when the other man had walked in to make his announcement. “No, let me guess. Hugh G. Rection? Richard Holder?”
The suggestions just gained a derisive little laugh from Jonathon and Dan felt a piece of paper land on his chest as Jonathon walked by to take a seat at his desk. “It’s better than those, Danbo. C’mon, open your eyes like a good little boy and have a look.”
Dan did open his eyes then, mainly to roll them at Jonathon, before sitting up and taking a look at the piece of paper. It was an official legal deed, certifying that Jonathon Yadin had changed his name to…Jonatton Yeah? complete with the question mark at the end.
“Oh, Christ,” Dan muttered, scrubbing a hand over his face, before he chanced a look at Jonathon-Jonatton.
Jonatton positively beamed at him, radiating smugness. “Anything to say, Dan? Any comments at all?” He rather looked like he was expecting to be congratulated for it, and knowing him, that probably wasn’t too far off the mark.
“What’s wrong with you?” Dan asked, shaking his head and starting to fold the document into a paper aeroplane, before sending it shooting in the direction of Jonatton’s head. “Are you just trying to be a fucking parody of yourself?”
Jonatton shrugged, nonplussed. “Parodies are in this year,” he replied, and Dan thought of how he spent so much time anymore saying nothing at all.
“Oh, don’t get all quiet and self loathing on me, Dan. It’s too early in the morning.” He pulled an exaggerated pout, before that smug little smile of his slipped back in place and he caught the aeroplane mid-flight, smoothing out the paper again, “No one else has a question mark in their name. I’m special.”
“Special Ed,” Dan muttered, hating himself for how easy that joke was. Neither of them were really making the effort this morning. “I can’t believe you actually took the time to legally change it, and put a question mark in as well, you colon.”
That put an actual smile on Jonatton’s lips and he leaned back in his chair, “Don’t be jealous, Daniel. I’m sure we can think of a fun new name for you. Ashcroft with three t’s at the end?”
“I don’t know why I’m friends with you,” Dan muttered. He still didn’t like the name change; he didn’t like what it represented and how far Jonatton had sunk. He could no longer muster up the energy for proper disgust, though.
Jonatton pulled another face when Dan referred to them as friends. They’d had that argument so many times that each of them could repeat it by memory, though. It wasn’t worth going over again.
“Don’t worry,” Jonatton assured him sarcastically, “Once I finally make an honest woman out of you, I’ll let you take my last name.”
Despite all common sense, Dan laughed at that, and then spent a moment hating Jonatton for knowing him well enough to make him laugh even when he was disgusted by what he’d become. “I’ll only say yes if you promise me a huge diamond ring,” he teased back, shutting his eyes again. “Now shut up, I’m trying to sleep.”
“Do you really think that’s a good idea, Dan?” Jonatton asked condescendingly. “I don’t see your article on my desk. When was it due again? Oh, right, yesterday. I’d hate to stop paying you. Then you’d get evicted from your flat and have to live on the street. Dressing like a tramp stops being hip once you actually are one, you know.”
Dan flipped him the vee lazily, about to reply that he’d just move in with Jonatton then. Luckily the words registered in his hang-over fogged brain before they could make the journey to his mouth and he sat up abruptly, disturbed by how much he really wouldn’t be joking about that. “No. Right, I know. It’ll be done…soon.” Had he even started on it? “Tonight probably.”
He stood up then and left the office, realizing he couldn’t quite look at Jonatton any longer. How complacent had he got about his life that he’d just let himself completely drown like that? Things were already so twisted now. Jonatton had always been editor in chief, but never his boss. Not really. This magazine was always as much Dan’s as Jonatton’s, until it had stopped being that way. Until Dan had started hating what they’d created and what it had become, while Jonatton only reveled in it.
Why did his hatred always turn to apathy in the end? Jonatton controlled too much of his life as it was. He’d never let them move in together properly, because he’d never wanted to be that kind of couple. He didn’t even like the word ‘couple’. It was too juvenile and didn’t really describe what they had.
What did they have? Jonatton had stopped being his friend a long time ago. Jonatton pulled all the strings until everyone always did exactly what he wanted. He’d probably love it if Dan had no where else to go beside his stupid trendy spacious flat.
“Stop thinking so hard. I can see the smoke coming from your ears.” Jonatton’s voice at his side made him jump inwardly, though he thankfully didn’t show it. He just looked up at the other man and then begrudgingly jabbed at his computer until he hit the ‘on’ button.
“Fuck off. I’ve got an article to write,” he muttered.
Jonatton sighed and knelt down next to Dan’s chair, looking at him with faux concern, and maybe an hint of the genuine thing hiding under it, but Dan didn’t look him in the eye long enough to try and decipher it.
“Are you in the middle of a big moral crisis?” Jonatton asked, “Try not to have a breakdown in the office. Explosions of earnestness are such a bitch to clean from the carpet.”
Those were the words that tipped the scale, really. It wasn’t as if he’d ever really shared his emotions with Jonatton. Not of his own volition, not sober, but this was different. This was Jonatton being too wrapped up in finding himself clever to even give Dan the luxury of some space to work things through in his own mind. Jonatton was far too self involved to ever ask if anything was wrong, but usually he wouldn’t at least follow Dan and needle him about it for his own amusement when he knew there was.
“I’m going on holiday,” Dan decided, standing. “Write your own fucking article.” He couldn’t afford to go on holiday. He could barely afford to even continue to live in London. Not to mention he had no set destination in mind. As he stood up to collect his things, he found himself thinking he might try somewhere in America. That was far enough away from all of…this.
Jonatton didn’t say a word to him as he walked out, and when he got to the airport to buy his tickets, he found enough money had been deposited into his account to afford him at least a week anywhere in the world.
Eight.
“Are you quite done?” Jonatton asked, exasperation clear in his voice when he picked up Dan from the airport. Dan looked cagey and hung-over. Jonatton wondered how anyone could look worse after coming back from holiday. “Because I’m not going to indulge these little strops of yours. If you feel the need to run off to America every time I change my name, then one time I’ll just leave you there.” It was better like this, when he could phrase the words as if he’d made Dan come home. He hadn’t, Dan had chosen it, but he wasn’t entirely certain that’d always be the case.
Dan actually made eye contact at that, as they both slid into the back of the cab Jonatton had waiting. “Are you planning on changing your name again?” he asked, his voice a combination of surprise and wry amusement, as though he still wanted to be angry with Jonatton, but couldn’t dredge up enough actual anger to do it with.
“Maybe,” Jonatton replied, before pausing to tell the driver the address of the Sugar Ape office. If Dan wanted to go straight home instead, he could walk from there. Jonatton should be punishing him for this, after all.
The words had barely left his mouth before Dan was telling the driver his home address instead, and they exchanged wordless look, before Jonatton caught the huffy little sigh from the driver and his eyes in the rearview mirror, watching them, as though they were lovers having a tiff. The thought made him smile, more so at Dan’s sulky little look.
“Maybe next time I’ll just change my name to a series of punctuation marks. Question marks are so nineties; exclamation points are in now. Or ooh! One of those weird foreign letters that just look like squiggles. Wouldn’t you love seeing people try to pronounce that when I’m being interviewed on the telly?”
“’Weird foreign letters’” Dan repeated, shaking his head, “Xenophobe.” He was smiling slightly, though, and the weird tightness in Jonatton’s chest that he’d been feeling ever since Dan had got on that stupid plane two weeks ago seemed to loosen its hold.
“Claire called me,” Jonatton added, as if he’d only just remembered. “Apparently she’d tried ringing your flat a dozen times. I had to tell her you were in New York having a sulk because I’d changed my without consulting you, etcetera.” He pulled an exaggerated pout at that.
Dan scrubbed a hand over his face; Jonatton knew Dan hated it whenever he and Claire talked. It was as if he thought if they spoke for more than five minutes they’d start plotting against him. Which wasn’t entirely untrue, he supposed. He had convinced Claire to invite him along for Christmas dinner the year they’d become a couple, and he hadn’t even consulted Dan about it at all. He’d been invited back every year since and it was a smug little victory for him how much it irritated Dan that his parents seemed to prefer Jonatton to their own son.
“She has my mobile number,” Dan pointed out, still sounding exasperated.
Now it was Jonatton’s turn to roll his eyes, “Yes, but that only works if it’s turned on, Daniel.”
Dan reached into his pocket, pulling out the phone and flipping it open, swearing when he hit the ‘on’ button and ten new voice mail messages popped up.
Jonatton just gave him a satisfied little smirk in return. Welcome home, Dan.
Nine.
“Do you know what this week is, Danbo?”
Jonatton’s voice through the mobile phone was muffled, until Dan raised his head enough to pull the pillow off it and press the phone to his ear properly. “The week you finally fire me for not coming in when I’m supposed to?” he asked, only half joking. He was shaky on which month it even was, never mind which week.
He pulled the phone away from his ear for a moment to scroll through the calendar on it, before groaning and pressing it to his ear again, “Oh, christ.” If the next words out of Jonatton’s mouth were our eleven year anniversary, Dan would come into the office, with the sole reason of punching him.
“That’s riiiiight!” Jonatton dragged out the word gleefully, “Time to start planning the Vice issue. I want your ideas, etcetera. Ned had a delightful little one about drug smuggling.”
Dan wished he’d never answered the phone to begin with. This conversation was quickly turning far worse than he’d ever imagined when he’d thought Jonatton was just going to do something stupid like talk about their relationship.
“I’m going on holiday,” he decided. Jonatton couldn’t even tell him he was running away this time, because he actually hadn’t taken a proper holiday this year. Usually his holidays just consisted of staying in his flat and sleeping, anyway. It’d been three years since he’d been out of the country. “South America.” He always picked places as far as he could possibly get from where he currently was, even when he wasn’t running from anything specific. He still always traveled like he was fleeing.
“That’s actually perfect,” Jonatton replied, amused smugness just radiating through the phone. “Care to smuggle back an arse full of cocaine and write about the experience after?”
That was when Dan hung up on him. He was reasonably sure Jonatton had been joking, but it was so much more difficult to decipher over the phone, when he couldn’t use those stupid over-exaggerated faces Jonatton pulled as a guide.
His phone rang a second later and when he answered, Jonatton just continued on with the conversation as if there’d been no interruption to it. “I take it that’s a no, then?”
“I highly doubt ‘no’ is a strong enough word for it,” Dan replied. “Do it yourself. It probably wouldn’t be the first time.”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Jonatton replied coyly, which only made Dan want to reply back with something crude and not nearly clever enough about Jonatton liking things up his arse. Since he’d started getting paid per article he’d spent less time with Jonatton than he ever had since they’d met and it still seemed like too much.
“Brazil,” he replied instead. “I’m packing my bags today.”
That just got a sigh in response, which Dan was fairly certain was more for effect than Jonatton actually being irritated at Dan swanning off again. He ought to be used to it by now.
“If you must,” Jonatton replied, in a tone that made it sound like he was giving Dan permission. They didn’t discuss the cost of it. Dan knew there would be money enough in his account for it once he got to the airport. He almost asked Jonatton not to do that, but how else could he afford it, really? This was just what they did; Jonatton swallowed the expense of Dan’s periodic need to get away from the real world and Dan pulled Jonatton up by the scruff of his neck and forced him into rehab when he crumbled under the weight of his own success and ego. Except…it’d been years since he’d had to do that. If the thought didn’t so completely make his skin crawl, he might’ve entertained the notion that Jonatton was actually growing up, and he…wasn’t.
“See you in a week, Danbo. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t,” Jonatton added airily, before Dan heard the dial tone.
Ten.
“This song is well rubbish!”
Dan looked up at the voice presumably speaking to him and gave a noncommittal shrug, downing the rest of his pint in a swallow. The kid who was speaking to him couldn’t be any older than mid-twenties. He had a stupid haircut-all long in the back with a choppy spiked bit at the top and random splashes of blonde and red that he’d almost certainly done himself-and eyeliner smudged in a way that was supposed to be casual, which Dan knew was very deliberate. Typical Camden twat. Were they following him halfway around the world now?
“I’m a DJ,” the kid added, ordering a pint from the bar and then flashing him a grin. “I’m here on holiday, but it’s all been a bit shit ‘cos I don’t speak Portuguese, so I don’t know what anyone’s saying to me.”
Dan decided to be polite and not point out the tenuous grasp the kid seemed to have on the English language as well. “Then why did you come here?” He ordered another pint, not really looking at him. Dan was miserable here, of course, but he was miserable everywhere and at least here he was alone. No responsibilities to anyone, no job, no fucking Jonatton filling up every crack in his life with himself, and his magazine, and all the things they should’ve probably said to each other years ago which they never would.
The kid took a long gulp of his pint and then replied, “Dunno really. I like going places I never been before. Sometimes I’ll just spread out a map, close my eyes and point to a place, then buy some plane tickets.”
That wasn’t wildly unlike what Dan himself did and he found a reluctant smile tugging at his lips. “I’m Dan,” he told the kid.
“Jones,” the kid replied, reaching over to shake his hand in a gesture that seemed far too formal for that baby face of his and the general unselfconscious happiness that seemed to radiate off him.
The song blaring through the speakers changed and Jones’ face absolutely lit up. “I love this one. Dance with me!” He grabbed Dan’s wrist and pulled him out into the crowd without even waiting for an answer.
And so they danced, for hours. Dan wasn’t half so drunk that he should actually enjoy the press of bodies and thrum of music, but he had. Jones just looked so happy, so…free in a way that Dan couldn’t remember feeling in years, if ever.
Later, they would collapse in a sweaty, exhausted, content heap on Dan’s hotel bed. Later still, they’d talk for hours, for days, because when Jones spoke, he really said something. He wasn’t just concerned with his image and what others thought. He was always purely and unconditionally himself, and it made Dan want to be near him, as though he were some sort of mythical creature Dan had just discovered was real and didn’t want to take his eyes off of, lest he disappear into imagination once more.
Jones hadn’t slept in four days and when he asked Dan about his novel, Dan kissed him, because Jones was vibrant and he cared, and Jonatton never had. At the time it felt like revenge for a grudge he hadn’t realised he’d still been carrying.
It felt like less of one later, when they were lying in Dan’s hotel bed, catching their breaths as sweat cooled on their skin. Jones was curled up against Dan’s side, and it was really much too hot to lay like that with the humidity of the room bearing down on them. He was finally falling asleep, and Dan’s fingers trailed aimlessly through his hair. Dan couldn’t bring himself to wake the kid and make him move.
It was then he realised he’d have to call Jonatton about this. This thing between he and Jones wouldn’t end when they got back to London, and it was less out of a sense of loyalty to Jonatton than just the overwhelming sense that he was so done with what they had and he needed Jonatton to know it.
They’d had too much between them; too many fights, too many memories. Jonatton could reinvent himself as many times as he wanted, but Dan would always know him better than anyone and he was just…tired now. So tired of it. They could continue this relationship of theirs for the rest of their lives and nothing would ever change. He was sinking in quicksand and he had been for years now. Jones was a rope to pull himself to safety and he might hate himself for taking it, but it couldn’t be any more than he’d hate himself for not doing so.
When the room had cooled down, he sat up enough to pull the duvet over them both, before settling back against Jones again and closing his eyes.
Tomorrow, he’d call Jonatton, but for now…he’d sleep.
End.
Pairing: Dan/Jonatton, Dan/Jones
Summary: Sometimes, it's possible to have too much history with someone. A series of vignettes over the course of Dan and Jonatton's relationship, from being mates in uni to right before Nathan Barley started.
Word Count: 10,312. ...yeah, it's a big 'un
Rating: R
Warnings: Swearing, allusions to drug use, allusions to sex. Probably more tame than the series, really.
Disclaimer: They're not mine, blah blah. I wish they were, yadda yadda.
Author’s Notes: This is totally an AU, though I did pull a lot of things from the show into it. Also, I pulled a Memento and the end of the fic is at the beginning, so if you're confused, don't be. I didn't always specify how much time had passed between each part, but I don't think it was needed. If you really want to know, though, I can tell you...because I'm a werido and made a detailed timeline. And yes, the title is from the Nirvana song. I'm working on the sequel now, and the title to that will also be from the same song.
One.
“I met someone.” The mobile had a bad signal and Dan heard his own words crackle down the line, floating a continent away for their intended recipient. He was sitting poolside at some horrible cheap little Brazilian hotel, the humidity making him feel sticky with sweat, though he’d just got out of the shower not an hour ago.
There was a pause on the line and Dan let his eyes slip shut, trying to imagine what sort of face Jonatton was making at that news. A knowing smirk, because really, they’d both known this day was coming for one of them? An over-exaggerated scowl, because Jonatton wasn’t happy to hear it? Or that little quirk of his lips, the slight narrowing of his eyes that meant he was truly upset and trying not to show it? Dan didn’t see genuine facial expressions off him often and never in public, but Jonatton still did show them every once in a while.
“Oh Dan, are you breaking up with me?” Jonatton’s voice shot back at him, falsetto and overly exaggerated. After a beat his voice returned to normal again, though Dan could hear the smirk in it; “Does this mean you’ve gone local?”
Dan found himself shaking his head, before remembering Jonatton couldn’t see him. “No. He’s from London. He’s just on holiday down here.” Dan felt his mouth go dry with shame he wouldn’t own up to aloud and forced his next words out, knowing the derision they’d face, “He’s a DJ.”
That gained a snort of amusement from Jonatton, “Aww, has Danbo gone and fallen for one of the little idiots he always writes about?” he mocked. “How poetic.”
Dan took a swallow of scotch to wet his mouth, grimacing at how watery it tasted, the ice cubes in it had melted to almost nothing in this heat.
When Jonatton only got silence for an answer, he muttered softly, “Jesus.” Another silence, and then that sarcastic tone of voice he only ever used at work and only because he knew how much Dan hated it, “Are you ever coming back, or am I going to have to give your column to someone else?”
Shit. Dan hadn’t considered that part. They’d always done a good job of keeping their work relationship fairly separate from whatever the hell it was they had between them off hours, but Dan couldn’t expect to break up with him and have everything still be normal. He’d always thought they worked because they were too self involved to be with other people. They each put the absolute minimum about of emotional effort into their relationship. Some emotion had to have got involved when they weren’t looking though, or this would be easier. If he were honest with himself, there had always been emotion there; it was just that neither of them would own up to it.
“Of course I’m coming back, unless The Weekend On Sunday is looking for a new columnist,” Dan joked tightly. He was suddenly reminded of that horrible Dutch wine incident, which of course Jonatton found out about, and of course brought up at random, because what was a humiliating experience if you didn’t have someone throwing it back in your face now and then?
He didn’t bring it up this time, though. Instead he just said, “Well hurry up and come back. It’s no fun running this place without you,” and he didn’t even sound the least bit sincere. Or shocked, or even upset at all, really.
It prompted Dan to confirm, “So, this…thing between us is done, then. When I come back, we’re over.”
“Yes, Daniel,” Jonatton sounded exasperated now; genuinely so. “You can come by and get your things whenever you’d like. I’m not going to hold your toothbrush and Smiths albums hostage.”
“Okay,” Dan croaked out the word, on the tail of another gulp of scotch. This was all too easy. It was so simple and non-confrontational that it was making him feel like he’d swallowed glass. “Good. Bye, then.” And he ended the call before Jonatton could say another word.
He stared at the mobile in his hand, taking a few slow deep breaths, and told himself it was entirely too teenage to feel hurt by Jonatton’s lack of response. It was entirely too predictable to feel upset by his own.
When Jones found him a half hour later in the same position, he asked “…Alright?” cautiously, like he expected Dan to snap at him. Jones was wearing black swim trunks and a white sunscreen stripe across his nose and cheekbones like Adam Ant, and it made Dan smile, though he couldn’t really articulate why.
He turned and threw his mobile into the pool, before lying, “I’m fine.” He didn’t mention Jonatton for the rest of the trip.
Two.
“We should start a magazine,” Jonathon decided. He and Dan were lying side by side on his small dorm room bed, passing a joint between them. They were still young enough that Dan didn’t wake up most mornings with a hangover, and Jonatton Yeah? was still Jonathon Yadin.
Dan laughed out a stream of smoke, and leaned up on his elbows, passing the joint back to Jonathon. “You’re mental,” he replied. “We’ve already got one.” It was a rubbish little handwritten satire about their university that they’d photocopied and slipped in between books at the library. It had got more popular than they’d expected and the university had even threatened to expel them on one occasion for it, deciding it was pushing the boundaries of good taste and proper decorum. Jonathon’s lawyer father had got involved, citing freedom of press and shut the university officials up about it. Jonathon had told him once that it was the most attention he’d got from his father probably since the day he’d been born.
“No, you twat, I meant after graduation,” Jonathon leaned up on his elbows as well, taking a final hit off the joint and then stubbing it out in an overflowing ashtray on Dan’s bedside table. “A proper magazine.”
Dan sat up completely at that and a bubble of laughter rose in him which he made no attempt to hide. “Who would give us a magazine?” What a stupid idea; he was going to be novelist anyway, and Jonathon was going to be an editorial photographer. They had no journalism training at all.
Jonathon crossed his arms, mouth twisting down into a small pout; genuine. He was young enough that all his expressions were. It’d be years before he would decide real emotions were for saps and play a characterture of himself. “No one, obviously. We could start our own. It’d be just like any other business. I can afford it.”
That prickled at Dan. He didn’t usually mind his working-class background. He’d had to get a job to afford uni and Jonathon just got everything he wanted handed to him; it was just the way things were. It irritated him now, though, with Jonathon acting like he could just throw all his money at something and force it to be successful.
He wanted to point out that Jonathon was acting like his father, but it’d be years before he became too depressed and desperate and self involved to throw thoughtless comments like that out. “We’d need staff. We can’t run a business with just two employees,” he pointed out instead.
“We can in the beginning,” Jonathon replied, “We do now, Danbo.” They had a good set up now; Dan wrote all the words, and Jonathon took all the pictures. Jonathon compiled and edited the whole thing too, because they both knew how bad Dan was at following through on anything, and Jonathon’s strengths didn’t lie with writing his own words, but telling other people how they could improve upon theirs.
Dan really felt like he should be arguing this more, but the marijuana had made him feel warm and sleepy; Jonathon could probably suggest they get a pet dragon right now and he wouldn’t put up too much of a fight. He let his arms slip out from under him and flopped back on his bed again, closing his eyes. “Okay. Just until this idea tanks horribly. Then we’ll get real jobs.”
Jonathon looked satisfied at that and flopped back onto the bed as well, his shoulder brushing Dan’s in the tight space. “Deal,” he agreed, reaching over a hand to shake Dan’s, just to make it more official. Dan cracked an eye open and then brought up his hand as well, intertwining his fingers with Jonathon’s and giving them a single squeeze.
Three.
“This party is terrible,” Jonathon sighed, leaning against the bar and frowning down into his drink. It was a whisky on the rocks, because they’d graduated from university six months ago and he felt it was a proper sort of adult drink. He’d mentioned as much to Dan when he caught the other man ordering some horrifying purple-tinted martini concoction rimmed in sugar with a little glow stick at the bottom of it, making the whole thing periodically light up neon yellow and then electric blue. It was New Years Eve and those purple drinks were on special at this club. Everyone was drinking them.
Dan had pointed out that his drink might be stupid, but at least it came with a glow stick, and then Jonathon had just felt jealous and stupidly morose about this whole evening. He couldn’t possibly create new fads if no one was paying attention to what he did and Dan was betraying him by following the crowd. Dan was also drunk enough that he was actually dancing and Dan hated dancing. He was always the one sulking in the corner while Jonathon was the centre of attention at these kinds of clubs, but Jonathon was in a mood and this sudden role reversal of theirs wasn’t helping him feel any better.
“This party is terrible,” he repeated again, louder, to get Dan’s attention. He sipped his whisky and tried not to grimace, eying Dan’s stupid drink longingly. “We should review it in our magazine. I can take pictures of all the idiots here and we can detail how pathetic they all are; their clothes and dancing and fad cocktails.”
Dan just shrugged vaguely and licked at the sugared rim of his drink, purple stained tongue darting out to drag along the glass. “These people are our friends,” he pointed out, when he’d finished. That still wasn’t a ‘no’ to slagging them off, though. Not really.
“Maybe we need better friends,” Jonathon replied, as if determined to drag this conversation out by being as petty as possible. He stole the drink from Dan’s hand and downed it in one go, before spitting the glow stick back into the empty martini glass and setting it on the bar.
Dan just gave him that stupid grin he got on his face when he was too drunk to care about anything at all. “Then lets burn all our bridges with everyone and tell them what twats they are. C’mon, dance with me.” He took Jonathon’s hand, half dragging the smaller man a few steps forward.
Jonathon bit his lip hard, not wanting to smile. He always told Dan he hated him when he got like this, all tactile and uncomplicatedly happy. He didn’t, though. Drunken Dan was his favourite Dan of all, if he were honest with himself. He just rarely was anymore-honest with himself, that was.
“You’re like a big monkey,” Jonathon complained as Dan pulled him into a hug, resting his chin on the top of Jonathon’s head. “We still need a name for our magazine,” he added, so determined to not let Dan drag him into having a good time when he had his heart set on being depressed and derisive this evening.
“Mm,” Dan murmured in reply, turning his head so his words were half lost in Jonathon’s hair. Somewhere behind them the thrumming bass faded and gave way to the New Year’s countdown. “Let’s call it…Jonathon is a huge prinkle who would rather criticize everyone else for having fun than have any of his own.”
Jonathon pulled away from Dan enough to look up at him, ignoring the throngs of people around them counting down five…then four…then three… “Don’t be ridiculous, Daniel, that’d never fit on a magazine cover,” he teased, feeling a smile turn his lips up despite himself.
Then suddenly, before he could say anything else, cries of Happy New Year rang out all around them and Dan’s lips were on his, tasting of cigarettes, artificial sugar and something just inherently Dan.
“Oh,” Jonathon said softly after the kiss broke, like it’d answered a question he’d never even asked. Not aloud, anyway. “That’s…” He fixed Dan with a fake sneer and snapped, “You taste disgusting. All sugary.” He had to be fake, because if he were anywhere near genuine right now, he might say something like, why’d you stop kissing me? Don’t ever stop. And he couldn’t. He just couldn’t. Falling for your best mate, for your flat-mate, was just too cliché and he wasn’t half so naïve to believe in anything like love anyway. Not even at twenty-two.
“Why did you even kiss me? You’re like a big, disgusting, grabby, sugary tasting ape,” he complained. It was a rather poor effort as far as his insults usually went, but his brain wasn’t working at its normal speed. He just wanted to wipe that look off Dan’s face, because who was he to stand there looking so pleased and yet utterly unconcerned with what had just transpired between them, when he’d just had his tongue in Jonathon’s mouth?
“It’s New Years; that’s just what you do,” Dan replied, though the arms he’d casually slung over Jonathon’s shoulders slipped off and he almost looked sober for a moment as the reality of the situation seemed to crest and break over him like a wave. He took a step toward the bar, reaching for Jonathon’s abandoned whisky and adding, “I know what we can call our magazine,” before downing the drink in one, as if to steel himself for a conversation about the kiss which would never come.
Jonathon took a step closer to him to be heard over the loud music, and not at all just because he missed the warmth of Dan’s body. “What? ‘Dan Ashcroft is a sloppy drunk with personal space issues?’” Ironic, that, considering how close Jonathon was to him now. Jonathon decided he liked irony, though. Maybe irony would be in this year. Maybe the magazine would take off and he’d get disgustingly famous and decide what the new ‘in’ thing would be from now on. Imagining himself lording over everyone else and his word becoming law helped calm his inner turmoil quite a bit.
“No,” Dan laughed again. He was always laughing when he was drunk and Jonathon hated that he liked that. “Let’s call it Sugar Ape. It’s random enough to be memorable and everyone else will just think it’s just a couple of nonsense words, but we’ll know.”
Jonathon blinked. Then he blinked again, mulling it over. It was stupid and wanky. It didn’t at all explain the aim of their magazine, nor anything else beside the fact that they could string two words together which only made sense to them in this very moment in time. It was also something Jonathon really liked. It meant Dan, without any of the nauseating sentiment. It meant Dan without anyone ever finding out, and maybe that was its own kind of sentimentality, but at least it was under the guise if an in-joke, and that was good enough.
“Okay,” he agreed. “Sugar Ape it is, then.” And he leaned forward and kissed Dan again. No New Years confetti, no countdown, just a quick brush of lips, something to solidify the magazine name on, and much better than that half hearted handshake they’d done half a year and a what suddenly felt like a lifetime ago.
Jonathon was glad he’d long ago decided he’d never waste his time with something as pedestrian as falling in love. Otherwise he might have to think about this glowing ball of light that seemed to have lodged itself in his chest when he looked at Dan now.
It still hadn’t dimmed much later that evening, even as he leaned against the brick side of the club, watching Dan throw up in an alley, that disgusting over-sweetened purple liquid that looked the exact same colour coming out as going in.
Dan stopped drinking trendy mixed cocktails after that night, deciding straight alcohol was much less unpleasant to throw back up again; and Jonathon would always remember New Years 1992 as the year Sugar Ape was properly born, and the year this spark between them started traveling down its long slow fuse.
Four.
“Remember when you used to be fun?” Dan asked wryly.
Jonathon didn’t look up from the sea of page layouts he was surrounded by, setting them out all in order, only to change his mind a moment later and re-do them. In lieu of an answer, he replied, “I’ve decided orange is the new red. Do you think we can actually get people to wear orange? That’d be horrible.” By his smirk, it was clear he thought it was anything but. Two years into their publication and he’d already decided making new trends was passé. It was far better to make up terrible ones and convince people to wear them, for the sole purpose of mocking those same people in later issues.
“I think there’s something wrong with us if these are the questions we’re asking ourselves,” Dan muttered, stepping around the papers on the floor to sink down onto the sofa. “You do remember we have other editors, right? All you have to do is okay everything before it goes to print.”
Again, Jonathon rearranged the pages, remarking snippily, “The other editors do it wrong.” He’d preferred it when their whole team had consisted of he and Dan. At least Dan had pretended to care about it, then. It was nearly impossible to get him involved now, and as their success grew-against all odds, they were actually starting to get a name for themselves-it was all Jonathon cared about now. Fame wasn’t just some undefined future goal anymore, it was something directly in front of them, forever looming and taking shape. He could drag Dan along, unenthusiastic as he was, but he planned to be ready for it himself.
“I’m still fun,” he added, easily picking up the earlier thread of conversation. He’d done a bit of blow earlier, and it always made him feel sharper, more motivated. “Now I’m just successful to boot.” He glanced over at Dan on the couch and gave him a grin, before remembering he wasn’t going to do that anymore. Smiling hugely like that made him look about twelve years old. He was nearly twenty five and more than ready to be taken seriously, which meant being aware of what his face was doing, and trying to actually look the part of a cool, trendy magazine editor.
Dan just made an inarticulate ‘hmm’ noise and reached out to poke Jonathon with the toe of his trainer. “I finished my novel. I’m going out tonight to celebrate.”
Jonathon smacked his foot away, and stopped his endless rearrangement of the magazine pages. The words hit him like a blow to the stomach and he replied quickly, “It took you long enough. I can only hope it’s better than the last article you wrote.” He found that among the papers around him and shoved it back at Dan, “I’m not publishing it. It’s exactly like your last music review with only the name of the band changed.” And it honestly infuriated him how Dan could care so little about something which had taken up Jonathon’s whole life, and then sit around and call him boring after.
Dan actually looked surprised for a moment, though not overly concerned. “Fine. I know it’s shit, but who’s going to notice? Most of our readers are idiots, aren’t they? Just publish it anyway and if someone calls you on it, say it was a joke.”
“I hate you sometimes.” The words seemed to bypass Jonathon’s brain completely, coming straight out of his mouth before he could even think them over. They were a little too honest for his taste and he made a face after, as if he was disgusted by them.
“No, you don’t,” Dan replied. “Come out with me to celebrate.” He was always doing that lately. It was as if he hadn’t noticed Jonathon was slowly sculpting himself into something fake and of his own design. Either he’d take something Jonathan said seriously when he was only trying to be a smug nuisance and they’d have a row over it, or he’d brush off something Jonathon was honestly telling him, because he assumed the other man was being fake.
Dan should’ve appreciated Jonathon’s increasing dedication to fabricating all his emotions, because it was the only thing stopping him from having a huge overemotional strop right now, and they just didn’t do that sort of thing with each other. They hadn’t needed to before; in uni they’d almost always got on well.
“I’ll make you a deal, Daniel: you stop plagiarizing yourself in articles and I’ll serialize your novel in Sugar Ape. We both know you’re not going to really shop it around to publishers. You’re not nearly that organized.” It was a good job that Jonathon had decided empathy was passé weeks ago. He didn’t exactly like insinuating Dan would never make something of himself on his own, but that was the truth, wasn’t it? They needed each other for any of this to work at all. They were a team, and if Jonathon had to manipulate him to make it stay that way, then so be it.
Dan gave him a dark look in return and replied coolly, “I’d rather burn it.” Some of the fight did seem to go out of him, though, as if even he knew nothing he did would ever properly get off the ground without Jonathon behind him, pushing him and nitpicking every detail to perfection.
“That’s the right attitude to have!” Jonathon crowed, not even sure himself anymore how much of his words and tone were put on and how much were the truth. “Complete exclusivity. Got to be worthy to read your novel, yeah? It’s not good enough for our magazine…because it is ours, Danbo, no matter how much you try to distance yourself from it.”
Dan crossed his arms, looking particularly obstinate, though his voice came out soft, truthful, “It’s not ours at all. You’ve turned it into something else entirely.” At that, he seemed to get angry again, “When did you get so manipulative? Did you think I was stupid enough not to notice?”
It was all Jonathon could do to swallow the scream rising up inside him. You have been, he wanted to yell.
“Aww, Dan,” he mocked instead, “It’s not manipulation. It’s just the truth. I’ve always been the successful one. You peaked when you’d drunkenly strung a couple words together to form our magazine’s name.”
There wasn’t any talking after that, because they were scraping on the floor like children; wrestling and trying to throw punches. Dan had the obvious size advantage, but Jonathon was quick. He’d had to learn to be, he was small and knew how to twist words into cruel barbs; it was far from the first time someone had tried to hit him for it.
In the end, Dan had a split lip and Jonathon’s right eye was bruising purple and swelling. They were both out of breath and the magazine pages had scattered around them, flying up in the air as they scuffled before settling to the ground again like oversized snowflakes. Dan winced slightly as he licked at his split lip and before Jonathon could think anymore, he’d got Dan’s arms pinned to the carpet and he was kissing him fiercely.
Dan made a sort of surprised muffled sound into the kiss, before he pulled his hands free from Jonathon’s and tangled them in Jonathon’s hair.
Jonathon could feel his heart thundering in his chest as he kissed his way down Dan’s neck, lips brushing over stubble. His fingers worked methodically down the buttons of Dan’s shirt and they both moved like automations, as if the fight had been the real act of passion between them and this was just the obvious conclusion.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Jonathon had been waiting for this moment since that kiss on New Years two and a half years ago. What he hadn’t been counting on, however, was the nearly overwhelming urge to mouth don’t leave me against Dan’s skin every time his lips pressed against it. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he wished he’d done more blow; at least then he’d have something to blame these emotions on. If this was just him being himself, it was a damn good thing he was trying so hard to become someone else.
Five.
“Vodka water balloons,” Dan said the words with a sort of awed confusion. It wasn’t exactly what he’d expected to find in his freezer that afternoon, and he had a feeling it would make a lot more sense of he could remember more than brief glimpses of the night before.
“Why are they in the freezer?” Jonathon asked, walking up behind him to peer over his shoulder. “Alcohol doesn’t freeze.” He allowed himself a moment of being an absolute sap and going on tiptoe to rest his chin on Dan’s shoulder. “Is this what you get up to now that you’re living alone?”
They seemed to be doing things a bit backward, Dan realised. Normal people probably didn’t start sleeping together and then move into separate flats. When had either of them ever been normal, though? This thing between them had being going well; they got along better now that they had their own space.
They had fallen into a pattern, which could probably be defined as a rut, but it was working for them. Dan still hated the magazine, but he didn’t really blame Jonathon for it any longer. He’d not actually sent his finished novel to any publishers, but he was content with telling himself he was just biding his time. In truth, it all seemed like a lot of effort-all those endless cover letters, and all the research into which publishers took which genres and when they were accepting submissions.
At least Jonathon had stopped being such an obsessive fucking creep over the magazine. He’d learned to loosen the reigns a bit and stop trying to control every aspect of it. Sugar Ape kept getting ever more popular; though neither of them were really sober long enough to properly appreciate it. Dan had fallen back into the comfortable familiarity of hating his life that he’d always felt. It no longer felt so desperate, and was nothing which couldn’t be cured by looking into the bottom of an empty pint glass.
Jonathon, on the other hand, was soaking up the attention running a successful magazine brought. He was in a constant state of celebrating; party to party, interview to interview. He’d been on the telly numerous times and felt the pinnacle of success came when he’d started getting pills and blow for free in clubs. All of which he rarely ever turned down.
At the moment, his pupils were as big as saucers and he leaned over to press a kiss to Dan’s cheek, before reaching into the freezer to take out a vodka water balloon. “If I spill this, are you going to lick it up from your kitchen floor? I know how you hate to waste alcohol,” he teased, biting a hole in the balloon near the knot and then tipping it back to suck the vodka from it.
Dan took a balloon too and shut the freezer, untangling himself from Jonathon’s arms, before taking a seat on the floor. “If you pass out and start choking on your own vomit, I’m just going to laugh as you aspirate it,” he replied with no real malice, reaching out to clasp his fingers around Jonathon’s wrist and drag him down into a sitting position next to him.
Jonathon just laughed and stumbled when Dan pulled on his arm, sitting down hard and then leaning his back against the refrigerator door, sliding close enough to Dan that he was practically in his lap. “On the floor of your kitchen, drinking vodka out of a balloon, I feel like this is the penultimate scene in some documentary about addiction. Like a Behind the Music for successful magazine editors.”
Jonathon smiled again and Dan had to light a cigarette to distract himself, so he wouldn’t wind up saying something stupid like I love you. It was just the alcohol talking anyway, and the fact that they were getting along as well as they had in uni. Better now, probably. Who knew the key to happiness was just constant intoxication?
“I’m just impressed you can barely walk, yet you’re using words like ‘penultimate’,” Dan pointed out, slinging an arm over Jonathon’s shoulders.
“Let’s just forget the magazine and quit it all and never go back,” he added suddenly. “We’ve got enough money. I guess. I don’t know how much I have. I forgot the password to check my bank balance again.”
Jonathon laughed aloud at that. “You’re useless. I told you to give it to me. I’ll keep your account sorted.”
Dan shook his head slightly, finishing the vodka in his balloon and then tossing it away. “I should let Claire sort it. She’ll make sure I keep enough in there for rent, without adding to it on a whim.” He hated it when Jonathon did that; not because he didn’t like being looked after, but because Jonathon did it purposefully to take the piss. One morning after they’d had frankly mind-blowing sex in the shower, Dan checked his account and found a thousand pounds added to it. It made Jonathon feel like his sugar daddy, which Dan didn’t find half as amusing as the other man did.
Jonathon finished his balloon too and threw it across the kitchen. “Are you really so unhappy with the magazine?” he asked.
“Yes,” Dan replied honestly. “I hate it. I hate our reader base and what we’re pandering to. I hate those twats you hired to work there. All of it is just…killing me slowly a day at a time.” He felt comfortable sharing this, not only because of the large amount of vodka sloshing about inside him, but also because he knew Jonathon well enough to know he wouldn’t take it seriously at all. He could pour his heart out to the other man about how much he hated their lives, but he also said he hated coffee with too much milk in and when someone would start to whistle a song on the tube that he’d get stuck in his head the rest of the day. There was something freeing about complaining about absolutely everything; the knowledge that none of it would be taken seriously.
“I hate them too,” Jonathon replied, though he was smiling as he said it. “We’re so much better than all of them and they know it. That’s why they’re clamouring for any scrap of intelligence we might drop. They’re like rats.”
Dan knew him well enough to know Jonathon only hated them so he could feel better about himself. He looked down upon everyone who wasn’t him. He wasn’t the one losing sleep over wondering how exactly they were any different. If everyone around them was a parade of idiots, he and Jonathon were the fucking ringleaders.
“You’re the only one I like, Dan,” Jonathon added, turning his head to look at him, nose bumping against Dan’s cheek in his drunken clumsiness. His voice had an earnest tone that made Dan strangely hopeful and more than a little bit uncomfortable. “Everything else-everyone else-it’s all just bullshit. You’re the only one who matters.” Jonathon spoke the words against Dan’s skin forcefully enough that it was like he was trying to brand them there.
Dan pushed him away, then, reaching behind himself for the countertop to pull himself to his feet. “You need to sober up,” he replied, completely unprepared for Jonathon’s words. “You’re full of shit, you know that? You’re the fakest person I know, and you’re worse than all of them, because you’re clever enough to know better.” And he didn’t mind Jonathon being a little bit fake and a little bit cruel, because that was who he was anymore. How long did someone have to fake a personality before it really became their own?
He’d rather quietly loathe Jonathon for who he tried so hard to be than feel this sick…terror that the boy he’d known from university was still inside him, just waiting for the right cocktail of alcohol and pills to emerge. He wasn’t the same person he’d been back then. He might’ve welcomed the sincerity years ago, but he was too jaded and miserable now. It just made him remember things he’d rather not think about. There was such a thing as having too much history with someone.
He walked away quickly, before Jonathon could answer, and went to the bathroom to splash some cold water on his face. He couldn’t remember ever wishing this desperately for sobriety before. It was just too much, the realization that Jonathon might hate all this as much as he did. He’d always told himself he was doing this for Jonathon, because he was too lazy and impatient and short-sighted to make any of his own dreams come true, but Jonathon seemed to think they needed to be a team. If Jonathon was just suffering right along with him, then what the fuck was it all for?
Once he had decided the cold water was going to do all it could to help him sober up, he walked back into the kitchen, steeling himself against those stupid honest brown eyes and that tone of voice that wasn’t exaggerated or put on for effect. Instead, he found Jonathon curled up right on his kitchen tiles, asleep.
Either Jonathon was only ever honest when he was in the middle of a come down, or he was a more convincing liar than Dan had ever given him credit for. The next morning he convinced Jonathon to go to rehab, and neither of them ever brought up what Jonathon had told him again.
Six.
“Are you really hiding from your own party?”
Jonathon looked over at the voice, tightening his hand slightly on the sweating glass of scotch, his legs dangling over the side of the building. His 30th birthday party was going on in the ballroom downstairs of this stupid too-tall sky scraper, but that was a good twenty floors below and he couldn’t even hear the thrumming bass line of the music up here on the roof. It was just night sky and concrete; stars and silence.
“Not hiding,” he replied, taking a swallow of his drink, before looking back out over the city. “Just thinking.”
Dan sat down beside him, cross legged and further from the edge than Jonathon was. Jonathon knew he didn’t really like heights.
“I’m hiding,” Dan told him, lighting a cigarette and taking a grateful inhale, as if being at the party had just been so taxing on him. He glanced sideways at Jonathon, “Your being deep in thought has never led to good things for either of us.”
Jonathon acknowledged the words with a small hum of agreement and then said nothing.
The lack of clever retort prompted Dan to turn his head and look at Jonathon fully, brow creasing in something neither of them would ever acknowledge as real concern. “Jesus. You’re not going to jump, are you?” he asked, nodding his head to indicate the edge of the building.
“Oh, Daniel,” Jonathon sighed, and then fell silent for another moment, before adding, “What a lot of parties.” Dan looked at him in confusion, before he continued, “All the succession and repetition of massed humanity…” and Dan got the quote, laughing.
“…All those vile bodies,” Dan completed, shaking his head ruefully. “Don’t quote Evelyn Waugh at me. What’s wrong with you, are you on something?” His eyes flicked to the crooks of Jonathon’s arms, covered by his flimsy black shirt and the other man frowned, downing the rest of his drink in one go and setting it aside.
“I just turned thirty. I have a reason to be morose and thoughtful that doesn’t involve a needle,” he replied quietly, not allowing himself to sound disgusted by it. He only ever focused his disgust outward at the world. He’d done rehab twice now; it had been a bit of fun the first time. He’d never really cared overmuch for all the blow and pills anyway; they’d just been a distraction, and people had kept giving them to him for free. He’d got a nice bit of publicity from it all and it’d been rather like going away on holiday.
They didn’t discuss the second time. Dan had probably saved his life, and there had been many times Jonathon had wished he hadn’t, locked in that small room, old needle tracks on his arms as his body rid itself of the drugs. He hadn’t touched it since, and Dan had never even asked him how he was after. Dan had just told him never to do it again, because he didn’t like running the magazine for six months on his own while Jonathon was in the countryside, learning how to cope with the world in a way that didn’t involve injecting something into his veins.
Dan had taken a great step back from the magazine after that. Jonathon took his rightful position as editor in chief again and Dan pared down to writing a single column and being paid by the article. It was as if he only had a finite amount of responsibility within him and he’d already used a great deal of it making sure things didn’t go to shit while Jonathon was away. Now that he was back, Dan could no longer be bothered.
At Jonathon’s words, Dan checked his watch, recognition lighting his features, “10:03,” he replied.
Jonathon nodded; he’d wanted to be by himself on the actual moment he hit the big 3-0. “Look at me, Danbo, I’m really a grown up now.” He picked up his empty glass again, rolling it between his hands and entertaining the idea of just chucking it straight off the roof, wondering how much damage it could do if it hit someone in the head twenty floors below. He decided he didn’t want to be arrested for murder on his thirtieth birthday and set it down again.
“You’re making a big deal out of nothing. I turned thirty last year,” Dan pointed out, ashing his cigarette against the concrete. “It’s just a number, and you know it.”
Jonathon rolled his eyes. “You hated your birthday last year,” he pointed out. Though, to be fair, Dan had hated every single one of his birthdays ever since Jonathon had known him, so it was probably far less the age and far more the fact that on his birthday he was the centre of attention and expected to be gracious about it.
Dan gave him a slight smile, “And I hate your birthday this year. No, wait, that’s every year. Go downstairs and let those new twats you hired shower you with adoration. Go have another drink and see if you can take one of them home.”
The comment did its job and got something approximating a real smile from Jonathon. “Oh Daniel, you know you’re my one and only. True love, etcetera” he teased. It wasn’t remotely true for either of them. There had been a lot of men and women over the years; more so for Jonathon than Dan, who Jonathon had always assumed was just too lazy to try for sex at all and would wait until it just fell into his lap. Jonathon, however, had always liked the chase.
He never slept with anyone from the office, though; not anyone but Dan. But it was never really about the sex with them. His flings never meant anything to him beyond sex, and Daniel meant everything to him, though the sex barely factored into it. It was just another thing they did sometimes, like go for coffee or argue over pointless things like the font the magazine was in.
Jonathon got to his feet, not feeling much better about things, but somehow alright with that. He offered Dan a hand up, stealing the cigarette from him and taking the final drag from it, before stubbing it out against the concrete with the toe of his boot. “Back to the lion’s den, then. Put on your happy face, it’s my birthday.”
He assumed it was a good thing he was rarely honest with anyone, including himself, because if he were, he’d have to admit that there was no one else on earth he’d rather spend this day with.
Seven.
“I changed my name.”
It was hardly the first thing Dan wanted to hear hung-over at nine o’clock on a Monday morning. The fact that he was even wearing different clothes than the night before and in the office this early was no small victory. He didn’t want to deal with Jonathon’s particular brand of…whatever it even was which he was turning himself into. Pretentious, egotistic, so far up his own arse it was a shock he could even see daylight. Wasn’t he always like that, though? It just seemed more so now. The more popular Sugar Ape became, the further away Jonathon seemed to get from himself.
“What’d you change it to?” Dan asked, not bothering to open his eyes. He’d been kipping on the sofa in Jonathon’s office when the other man had walked in to make his announcement. “No, let me guess. Hugh G. Rection? Richard Holder?”
The suggestions just gained a derisive little laugh from Jonathon and Dan felt a piece of paper land on his chest as Jonathon walked by to take a seat at his desk. “It’s better than those, Danbo. C’mon, open your eyes like a good little boy and have a look.”
Dan did open his eyes then, mainly to roll them at Jonathon, before sitting up and taking a look at the piece of paper. It was an official legal deed, certifying that Jonathon Yadin had changed his name to…Jonatton Yeah? complete with the question mark at the end.
“Oh, Christ,” Dan muttered, scrubbing a hand over his face, before he chanced a look at Jonathon-Jonatton.
Jonatton positively beamed at him, radiating smugness. “Anything to say, Dan? Any comments at all?” He rather looked like he was expecting to be congratulated for it, and knowing him, that probably wasn’t too far off the mark.
“What’s wrong with you?” Dan asked, shaking his head and starting to fold the document into a paper aeroplane, before sending it shooting in the direction of Jonatton’s head. “Are you just trying to be a fucking parody of yourself?”
Jonatton shrugged, nonplussed. “Parodies are in this year,” he replied, and Dan thought of how he spent so much time anymore saying nothing at all.
“Oh, don’t get all quiet and self loathing on me, Dan. It’s too early in the morning.” He pulled an exaggerated pout, before that smug little smile of his slipped back in place and he caught the aeroplane mid-flight, smoothing out the paper again, “No one else has a question mark in their name. I’m special.”
“Special Ed,” Dan muttered, hating himself for how easy that joke was. Neither of them were really making the effort this morning. “I can’t believe you actually took the time to legally change it, and put a question mark in as well, you colon.”
That put an actual smile on Jonatton’s lips and he leaned back in his chair, “Don’t be jealous, Daniel. I’m sure we can think of a fun new name for you. Ashcroft with three t’s at the end?”
“I don’t know why I’m friends with you,” Dan muttered. He still didn’t like the name change; he didn’t like what it represented and how far Jonatton had sunk. He could no longer muster up the energy for proper disgust, though.
Jonatton pulled another face when Dan referred to them as friends. They’d had that argument so many times that each of them could repeat it by memory, though. It wasn’t worth going over again.
“Don’t worry,” Jonatton assured him sarcastically, “Once I finally make an honest woman out of you, I’ll let you take my last name.”
Despite all common sense, Dan laughed at that, and then spent a moment hating Jonatton for knowing him well enough to make him laugh even when he was disgusted by what he’d become. “I’ll only say yes if you promise me a huge diamond ring,” he teased back, shutting his eyes again. “Now shut up, I’m trying to sleep.”
“Do you really think that’s a good idea, Dan?” Jonatton asked condescendingly. “I don’t see your article on my desk. When was it due again? Oh, right, yesterday. I’d hate to stop paying you. Then you’d get evicted from your flat and have to live on the street. Dressing like a tramp stops being hip once you actually are one, you know.”
Dan flipped him the vee lazily, about to reply that he’d just move in with Jonatton then. Luckily the words registered in his hang-over fogged brain before they could make the journey to his mouth and he sat up abruptly, disturbed by how much he really wouldn’t be joking about that. “No. Right, I know. It’ll be done…soon.” Had he even started on it? “Tonight probably.”
He stood up then and left the office, realizing he couldn’t quite look at Jonatton any longer. How complacent had he got about his life that he’d just let himself completely drown like that? Things were already so twisted now. Jonatton had always been editor in chief, but never his boss. Not really. This magazine was always as much Dan’s as Jonatton’s, until it had stopped being that way. Until Dan had started hating what they’d created and what it had become, while Jonatton only reveled in it.
Why did his hatred always turn to apathy in the end? Jonatton controlled too much of his life as it was. He’d never let them move in together properly, because he’d never wanted to be that kind of couple. He didn’t even like the word ‘couple’. It was too juvenile and didn’t really describe what they had.
What did they have? Jonatton had stopped being his friend a long time ago. Jonatton pulled all the strings until everyone always did exactly what he wanted. He’d probably love it if Dan had no where else to go beside his stupid trendy spacious flat.
“Stop thinking so hard. I can see the smoke coming from your ears.” Jonatton’s voice at his side made him jump inwardly, though he thankfully didn’t show it. He just looked up at the other man and then begrudgingly jabbed at his computer until he hit the ‘on’ button.
“Fuck off. I’ve got an article to write,” he muttered.
Jonatton sighed and knelt down next to Dan’s chair, looking at him with faux concern, and maybe an hint of the genuine thing hiding under it, but Dan didn’t look him in the eye long enough to try and decipher it.
“Are you in the middle of a big moral crisis?” Jonatton asked, “Try not to have a breakdown in the office. Explosions of earnestness are such a bitch to clean from the carpet.”
Those were the words that tipped the scale, really. It wasn’t as if he’d ever really shared his emotions with Jonatton. Not of his own volition, not sober, but this was different. This was Jonatton being too wrapped up in finding himself clever to even give Dan the luxury of some space to work things through in his own mind. Jonatton was far too self involved to ever ask if anything was wrong, but usually he wouldn’t at least follow Dan and needle him about it for his own amusement when he knew there was.
“I’m going on holiday,” Dan decided, standing. “Write your own fucking article.” He couldn’t afford to go on holiday. He could barely afford to even continue to live in London. Not to mention he had no set destination in mind. As he stood up to collect his things, he found himself thinking he might try somewhere in America. That was far enough away from all of…this.
Jonatton didn’t say a word to him as he walked out, and when he got to the airport to buy his tickets, he found enough money had been deposited into his account to afford him at least a week anywhere in the world.
Eight.
“Are you quite done?” Jonatton asked, exasperation clear in his voice when he picked up Dan from the airport. Dan looked cagey and hung-over. Jonatton wondered how anyone could look worse after coming back from holiday. “Because I’m not going to indulge these little strops of yours. If you feel the need to run off to America every time I change my name, then one time I’ll just leave you there.” It was better like this, when he could phrase the words as if he’d made Dan come home. He hadn’t, Dan had chosen it, but he wasn’t entirely certain that’d always be the case.
Dan actually made eye contact at that, as they both slid into the back of the cab Jonatton had waiting. “Are you planning on changing your name again?” he asked, his voice a combination of surprise and wry amusement, as though he still wanted to be angry with Jonatton, but couldn’t dredge up enough actual anger to do it with.
“Maybe,” Jonatton replied, before pausing to tell the driver the address of the Sugar Ape office. If Dan wanted to go straight home instead, he could walk from there. Jonatton should be punishing him for this, after all.
The words had barely left his mouth before Dan was telling the driver his home address instead, and they exchanged wordless look, before Jonatton caught the huffy little sigh from the driver and his eyes in the rearview mirror, watching them, as though they were lovers having a tiff. The thought made him smile, more so at Dan’s sulky little look.
“Maybe next time I’ll just change my name to a series of punctuation marks. Question marks are so nineties; exclamation points are in now. Or ooh! One of those weird foreign letters that just look like squiggles. Wouldn’t you love seeing people try to pronounce that when I’m being interviewed on the telly?”
“’Weird foreign letters’” Dan repeated, shaking his head, “Xenophobe.” He was smiling slightly, though, and the weird tightness in Jonatton’s chest that he’d been feeling ever since Dan had got on that stupid plane two weeks ago seemed to loosen its hold.
“Claire called me,” Jonatton added, as if he’d only just remembered. “Apparently she’d tried ringing your flat a dozen times. I had to tell her you were in New York having a sulk because I’d changed my without consulting you, etcetera.” He pulled an exaggerated pout at that.
Dan scrubbed a hand over his face; Jonatton knew Dan hated it whenever he and Claire talked. It was as if he thought if they spoke for more than five minutes they’d start plotting against him. Which wasn’t entirely untrue, he supposed. He had convinced Claire to invite him along for Christmas dinner the year they’d become a couple, and he hadn’t even consulted Dan about it at all. He’d been invited back every year since and it was a smug little victory for him how much it irritated Dan that his parents seemed to prefer Jonatton to their own son.
“She has my mobile number,” Dan pointed out, still sounding exasperated.
Now it was Jonatton’s turn to roll his eyes, “Yes, but that only works if it’s turned on, Daniel.”
Dan reached into his pocket, pulling out the phone and flipping it open, swearing when he hit the ‘on’ button and ten new voice mail messages popped up.
Jonatton just gave him a satisfied little smirk in return. Welcome home, Dan.
Nine.
“Do you know what this week is, Danbo?”
Jonatton’s voice through the mobile phone was muffled, until Dan raised his head enough to pull the pillow off it and press the phone to his ear properly. “The week you finally fire me for not coming in when I’m supposed to?” he asked, only half joking. He was shaky on which month it even was, never mind which week.
He pulled the phone away from his ear for a moment to scroll through the calendar on it, before groaning and pressing it to his ear again, “Oh, christ.” If the next words out of Jonatton’s mouth were our eleven year anniversary, Dan would come into the office, with the sole reason of punching him.
“That’s riiiiight!” Jonatton dragged out the word gleefully, “Time to start planning the Vice issue. I want your ideas, etcetera. Ned had a delightful little one about drug smuggling.”
Dan wished he’d never answered the phone to begin with. This conversation was quickly turning far worse than he’d ever imagined when he’d thought Jonatton was just going to do something stupid like talk about their relationship.
“I’m going on holiday,” he decided. Jonatton couldn’t even tell him he was running away this time, because he actually hadn’t taken a proper holiday this year. Usually his holidays just consisted of staying in his flat and sleeping, anyway. It’d been three years since he’d been out of the country. “South America.” He always picked places as far as he could possibly get from where he currently was, even when he wasn’t running from anything specific. He still always traveled like he was fleeing.
“That’s actually perfect,” Jonatton replied, amused smugness just radiating through the phone. “Care to smuggle back an arse full of cocaine and write about the experience after?”
That was when Dan hung up on him. He was reasonably sure Jonatton had been joking, but it was so much more difficult to decipher over the phone, when he couldn’t use those stupid over-exaggerated faces Jonatton pulled as a guide.
His phone rang a second later and when he answered, Jonatton just continued on with the conversation as if there’d been no interruption to it. “I take it that’s a no, then?”
“I highly doubt ‘no’ is a strong enough word for it,” Dan replied. “Do it yourself. It probably wouldn’t be the first time.”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Jonatton replied coyly, which only made Dan want to reply back with something crude and not nearly clever enough about Jonatton liking things up his arse. Since he’d started getting paid per article he’d spent less time with Jonatton than he ever had since they’d met and it still seemed like too much.
“Brazil,” he replied instead. “I’m packing my bags today.”
That just got a sigh in response, which Dan was fairly certain was more for effect than Jonatton actually being irritated at Dan swanning off again. He ought to be used to it by now.
“If you must,” Jonatton replied, in a tone that made it sound like he was giving Dan permission. They didn’t discuss the cost of it. Dan knew there would be money enough in his account for it once he got to the airport. He almost asked Jonatton not to do that, but how else could he afford it, really? This was just what they did; Jonatton swallowed the expense of Dan’s periodic need to get away from the real world and Dan pulled Jonatton up by the scruff of his neck and forced him into rehab when he crumbled under the weight of his own success and ego. Except…it’d been years since he’d had to do that. If the thought didn’t so completely make his skin crawl, he might’ve entertained the notion that Jonatton was actually growing up, and he…wasn’t.
“See you in a week, Danbo. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t,” Jonatton added airily, before Dan heard the dial tone.
Ten.
“This song is well rubbish!”
Dan looked up at the voice presumably speaking to him and gave a noncommittal shrug, downing the rest of his pint in a swallow. The kid who was speaking to him couldn’t be any older than mid-twenties. He had a stupid haircut-all long in the back with a choppy spiked bit at the top and random splashes of blonde and red that he’d almost certainly done himself-and eyeliner smudged in a way that was supposed to be casual, which Dan knew was very deliberate. Typical Camden twat. Were they following him halfway around the world now?
“I’m a DJ,” the kid added, ordering a pint from the bar and then flashing him a grin. “I’m here on holiday, but it’s all been a bit shit ‘cos I don’t speak Portuguese, so I don’t know what anyone’s saying to me.”
Dan decided to be polite and not point out the tenuous grasp the kid seemed to have on the English language as well. “Then why did you come here?” He ordered another pint, not really looking at him. Dan was miserable here, of course, but he was miserable everywhere and at least here he was alone. No responsibilities to anyone, no job, no fucking Jonatton filling up every crack in his life with himself, and his magazine, and all the things they should’ve probably said to each other years ago which they never would.
The kid took a long gulp of his pint and then replied, “Dunno really. I like going places I never been before. Sometimes I’ll just spread out a map, close my eyes and point to a place, then buy some plane tickets.”
That wasn’t wildly unlike what Dan himself did and he found a reluctant smile tugging at his lips. “I’m Dan,” he told the kid.
“Jones,” the kid replied, reaching over to shake his hand in a gesture that seemed far too formal for that baby face of his and the general unselfconscious happiness that seemed to radiate off him.
The song blaring through the speakers changed and Jones’ face absolutely lit up. “I love this one. Dance with me!” He grabbed Dan’s wrist and pulled him out into the crowd without even waiting for an answer.
And so they danced, for hours. Dan wasn’t half so drunk that he should actually enjoy the press of bodies and thrum of music, but he had. Jones just looked so happy, so…free in a way that Dan couldn’t remember feeling in years, if ever.
Later, they would collapse in a sweaty, exhausted, content heap on Dan’s hotel bed. Later still, they’d talk for hours, for days, because when Jones spoke, he really said something. He wasn’t just concerned with his image and what others thought. He was always purely and unconditionally himself, and it made Dan want to be near him, as though he were some sort of mythical creature Dan had just discovered was real and didn’t want to take his eyes off of, lest he disappear into imagination once more.
Jones hadn’t slept in four days and when he asked Dan about his novel, Dan kissed him, because Jones was vibrant and he cared, and Jonatton never had. At the time it felt like revenge for a grudge he hadn’t realised he’d still been carrying.
It felt like less of one later, when they were lying in Dan’s hotel bed, catching their breaths as sweat cooled on their skin. Jones was curled up against Dan’s side, and it was really much too hot to lay like that with the humidity of the room bearing down on them. He was finally falling asleep, and Dan’s fingers trailed aimlessly through his hair. Dan couldn’t bring himself to wake the kid and make him move.
It was then he realised he’d have to call Jonatton about this. This thing between he and Jones wouldn’t end when they got back to London, and it was less out of a sense of loyalty to Jonatton than just the overwhelming sense that he was so done with what they had and he needed Jonatton to know it.
They’d had too much between them; too many fights, too many memories. Jonatton could reinvent himself as many times as he wanted, but Dan would always know him better than anyone and he was just…tired now. So tired of it. They could continue this relationship of theirs for the rest of their lives and nothing would ever change. He was sinking in quicksand and he had been for years now. Jones was a rope to pull himself to safety and he might hate himself for taking it, but it couldn’t be any more than he’d hate himself for not doing so.
When the room had cooled down, he sat up enough to pull the duvet over them both, before settling back against Jones again and closing his eyes.
Tomorrow, he’d call Jonatton, but for now…he’d sleep.
End.