Nathan Barley fic: Memoria (2/3)

[_emomuffin]

Title: Memoria (2/3)
Pairing: Dan/Jonatton, Dan/Jones
Summary: They’d had more than a decade to skate around their issues and they were on thinner ice now than they’d ever been. A direct continuation from where the last part ended: the aftermath of the break up.
Word Count: 9,511
Rating: NC-17...ish. Maybe a hard R?
Warnings: Swearing, sex, allusions to drug use. Nothing worse than in the series, really.
Disclaimer: They're not mine, blah blah. I wish they were, yadda yadda.
Author’s Notes: This was supposed to be the sequel, but it really made more sense to me as one giant, three part fic. So, consider the last one you read to be part one, and this is part two.


One.
“Nice name change.” Dan hadn’t even noticed it at first. He’d been too busy expecting something so much worse when he got back from holiday. The fact that Sugar Ape was now called SugaRAPE was clearly to get back at him, but it was such a small thing really, that Dan couldn’t help but feel he’d got off easy.

“I thought it was time for a change,” Jonatton replied, lounging back in his office chair and looking up at Dan. He pulled a shocked face, “Gosh, I hope it doesn’t offend anyone.”

Dan took a seat on the couch like he had so many times before and tried not to think how much everything was still the same. Always, always the same. This office was a time capsule. “I’d like an assignment, if you’ve got one for me. How is the Vice issue going?” It was Jonatton’s absolute favourite issue every year; that had to be a good, neutral topic of conversation.

For once, Jonatton didn’t seem in the mood to talk about it, though. He gave a small shrug, “Oh, you know. It’s all coming together rather nicely. Rufus and Ned might not have a single brain cell between them, but they’re an absolute well of ideas.” He paused, pretending to consider it, before adding, “I can’t think of a single thing that needs doing, now. There’s nothing for you to write about.”

Jonatton toyed with a mini slinky on his desk, stretching it between his fingers, before adding, “Glad to hear you made it back, though. I would’ve been sad if you’d died in a fiery plane crash.”

In any other situation, Dan would’ve probably laughed at that simply because it was such a Jonatton sort of thing to say and those sorts of comments used to roll off his back. He was still on edge though, waiting for a confrontation and he didn’t smile. “I’m not the one afraid of flying,” he reminded Jonatton.

It was a fairly innocuous comment, but Jonatton looked at him as if the gauntlet had been thrown. “Hmm, you know, actually there is an article you could write,” he replied, setting the slinky back on his desk and crossing his arms. “The music section could use a bit more padding. Your little…concubine is a DJ, is he not?”

Dan just scrubbed a hand over his face and told himself not to rise to the bait. “He is,” he replied, knowing where this was going. It was like a car crash happening in slow motion; he could see exactly what was happening and was completely powerless to stop it.

“Interview him for an article,” Jonatton replied.

“And?” Dan prompted, not about to let Jonatton drag this out any longer than he absolutely had to. “Do you want me to say he’s rubbish?” That was how it’d play out, he was sure of it. Jonatton would insist he wrote an article slagging him off, or Jonatton wouldn’t pay him. He always loved stupid little power games with people he viewed as being below him. …Dan had just never been one of those people before, to his knowledge.

Jonatton smiled his wide shark’s grin, “Not at all. Just interview him. I want fifteen hundred words by next week. Oh Danbo, if that’s how you really feel about his music though, by all means, include it.”

Dan rolled his eyes. That was it, then? That was how Jonatton was going to deal with the break-up? Stupid passive aggressive renaming of the magazine and word games?

The air was thick with all the things they weren’t saying to each other. Dan stood and walked to the door, deciding to just let it go. They’d had more than a decade to skate around their issues and they were on thinner ice now than they’d ever been. Why upset the balance?

“Oh, and Dan?” Jonatton asked, when his hand was on the doorknob. “Don’t be afraid to bring your boy around sometime. We’re all friends here, aren’t we?”

So close. So close to getting out Jonatton’s office unscathed. Ten minutes was all he’d planned to spend there, just long enough to make sure he still had a job and get another assignment. He wrenched the door open and stormed through it, letting it slam so loudly in his wake that the glass in the windows rattled.

Once outside the office, he leaned against the building and chain smoked three cigarettes before even starting to feel better. He’d never bring Jones here. Knowing Jonatton, he’d try to hire him for something, and then Dan would become endlessly entrenched in this magazine prison again and never escape.

And Jonatton would win, again. Always.

Two.
“Hey Dan, remember when we were happy? Remember vodka water balloons and too many pills and not enough sense? Remember Dan? Remember?” Jonatton spoke at the mobile in his hand; the one he’d taken the battery out of hours ago, so he couldn’t accidently call Dan to actually speak to him, no matter how pissed he got. His tone was mocking, and he thought it a first that he was actually mocking himself.

He threw the mobile at his wall hard, satisfied when it cracked and bits of it flew everywhere. Poking fun of himself, taking a trip down memory lane, tonight was full of firsts for him.

He’d had far too much wine and he was in his flat alone, listening to Dan’s Smiths albums, because it was one of the few things he had here. He never really liked the Smiths as much as Dan, as much as he was supposed to, he supposed. He’d honestly preferred harder rock, but he fancied himself as the sort of bloke who should like the Smiths, and so he did.

The Boy with the Thorn in His Side came on, and Jonatton contemplated trashing his entire flat. Just smashing everything up and tearing it all to bits until he was trapped by a pile of rubble in the form of broken records and ripped books and torn paintings. None of it was real anyway; none of it was his. His flat could very easily double as a showroom. It was a museum piece dedicated to the type of person he’d fashioned himself into. He’d forgotten so often that he wasn’t always this person. That he hadn’t just been Jonatton his entire life.

He always remembered in the end, though. He remembered and then he’d do something stupid and Dan would pick him up and set him on the right track again. He never knew who he was at all, but he was so good at pretending. He’d even tricked Dan into believing his lies; that Dan needed him and not the other way around. Dan didn’t believe it so much anymore, but Dan was a natural follower, despite what uneducated twats like Ned and Rufus thought, and he’d always need someone to believe in, even if he didn’t want to admit it. There had been a time when he believed in Jonatton. Now he was following that little DJ boy around like he was the fucking Second Coming.

Jonatton stood up clumsily to open another bottle of wine and for a moment wished he weren’t so old. Had this happened a good ten, even five years ago he would’ve done something absolutely dramatic and completely lacking in sense like ODing on pills or slitting his wrists, just to get Dan’s attention back on him. Wouldn’t Daniel feel guilty then? How would he feel, knowing his cock was buried in some barely legal Camden DJ while Jonatton was bleeding out on the floor of his flat?

The thought made him laugh aloud, because it was so over the top and stupid that he couldn’t even take himself seriously right now. Like he’d ever off himself over Dan fucking Ashcroft. He wouldn’t do anything at all, but bide his time, because Dan would lose interest in his little DJ-of course he would-and come crawling back to Jonatton.

Jonatton drank his wine straight from the bottle and trudged over to his sofa, sinking down into it and flicking on his tv. Nothing was on, of course. Nothing was ever on. Jonatton hated most television, because it was unoriginal drivel and he simply didn’t have the patience for it. Sugar Ape hadn’t even done anything to be in the news lately, so he couldn’t even watch himself on the telly. The SugaRAPE logo was clearly too new to be noticed yet. The signs were only around the office; it wouldn’t officially debut until the next issue.

The new logo hadn’t even been worth it in the end, for how little Dan had reacted to it. Jonatton had expected a whole scene about it; perhaps even ending in a punch up. Not that Jonatton had been looking forward to getting hit by Dan, but it would’ve beat his utter non-emotion to it. Did he not even remember what Sugar Ape originally meant?

Jonatton did, and seeing its original meaning subverted so much made him feel a bit ill every time he looked at one of the fucking logos, even if he himself had been the one to do it.

There was nothing else he could do, really. He’d just keep thinking of progressively more irritating and degrading article assignments for Dan to take and wait him out until something happened.

Three.
Come over. I’ve got some Dutch wine.

Dan just deleted the text without reply and scowled so hard that Jones actually pulled off his headphones and turned off his portable decks to ask what was wrong.

He’d just replied with one word, “Jonatton,” and Jones had nodded sympathetically, as if Jonatton’s very existence explained all the bad things in the world. Dan hadn’t told him what had happened between them, just that they’d known each other since uni. Jones was perceptive enough to fill in some of the blanks, though. People didn’t just throw away eleven year relationships for no reason.

Really, coffee. Come meet me.

Dan stared at the text for a few minutes, before sighing and typing out Okay. I’ll be there in ten, at our normal place. He wrote it without thinking and it didn’t strike him until he was telling Jones that he had to go meet Jonatton for coffee that he’d said their normal place, as if they still met for coffee anywhere at all. It had been two months since Dan had come back from his holiday, and two months since he and Jonatton had exchanged any words at all that didn’t have to do with the magazine.

“I wanna meet him,” Jones had said, when Dan had told him of his plans. Dan must have made such a horrified face at the very thought that Jones had hastily added, “I’m not gonna start anything! I just wanna to see what he’s like. He’s known you so much longer than I have.”

In the end Dan agreed, because he was weak and couldn’t say no to those innocent blue eyes, and because unlike everyone else in the world, Jones probably didn’t have an ulterior motive. Even if he did, it was only to punch Jonatton’s face in. It might be entertaining for a few seconds, before Dan would have to pull them off each other.

He hadn’t been bitter about much in he and Jonatton’s relationship until it had ended. The space and time had afforded him clarity he hadn’t got before and it kept a slow, simmering anger toward the other man constant. He’d think he was over everything, and then some little snippet would come back to him and he’d have to spend a few minutes talking himself down off the brink of blind fury and back into comfortable apathy, before something else would flare it up again. Like when Jonatton told him he’d never get his novel published. Like the fucking Dutch wine.

He smoked during the entire car ride to the coffee shop, until Jones took a hand from the steering wheel and gave Dan’s fingers a reassuring squeeze.

By the time they got there, Jonatton was already there waiting, at he and Dan’s usual table outside the cafe, drinking a latte. He looked up, eyes falling on Dan before sliding to the boy whose fingers were still clasped in Dan’s hand as they walked toward the table.

Jonatton’s carefully blank facial expressed didn’t change so much as freeze into place for a moment and Dan realised for the first time what a terrible idea this actually was. He’d assumed Jonatton would behave himself in public, but judging by the slow smile that was stretching across the other man’s lips, he may’ve been hoping for too much.

“Hi,” he said awkwardly. “This is, uh, Jones. My...he wanted to come along.”

When he chickened out on saying boyfriend, Jones pinched the palm of his hand, before pulling their fingers apart and offering Jonatton his hand to shake, “Alright?”

Jonatton shook his hand, replying sarcastically “Just peachy.” He gestured to the single chair across from himself and added to Dan, “Have a seat, then. Had I known Jones was coming along, I would’ve grabbed another chair.” He gave an exaggerated pout, “Guess he’ll just have to sit on your lap, then.”

Dan rolled his eyes and pulled another chair over from an empty adjoining table, just as Jones shrugged and agreed, “I could do.”

“No,” Dan replied immediately, sitting. He wasn’t overly fond of public displays of affection of any kind when he was sober, and he was painfully sober at the moment.

Jonatton just sipped his latte, continuing to look pleased at that little exchange between them. “Suit yourself, Humbert Humbert,” he replied.

Dan snorted at that, eyes sliding to Jones who had sat in his own chair and looked between the other two men, brow furrowed slightly in confusion from the reference which had clearly sailed right over his head.

“I’m gonna go get a coffee,” Jones decided, standing again. “I’ll grab you one too, Dan.” He dropped his hand to Dan’s shoulder and gave it a single squeeze, before heading into the coffee shop and joining the queue.

The second he was out of earshot, Dan shot Jonatton a look. “Come on, he’s not that young. He’s twenty-three.”

“Twenty-three,” Jonatton echoed, “Jesus, Daniel, he was born in the 80’s. What do the two of you even do? Watch cartoons?”

This was the sort of conversation Dan had been expecting for months now. It was almost anticlimactic now that it had finally arrived. “You and I have watched cartoons,” he pointed out, before adding sarcastically, “You know how much I love Scooby-Doo.”

Jonatton gave him half smile at that, just a slight curving up of his lips. “It always bothered you that the villain was just some twat in a mask at the end.” The smile slipped from his face after he spoke, before a fake one snapped into place. Dan watched him, wondering if anyone else ever noticed these little slips and cracks in his persona.

“Why’d you text me?” Dan asked bluntly. It was either that or ask Jonatton how he’d been. This question had fewer landmines and ghosts of the past to navigate. Talking to Jonatton never used to be this difficult. They’d never talked about anything real, but at least they used to talk.

“Aww, Daniel, weren’t you happy to hear from me?” Jonatton teased, giving him another exaggerated little pouty face. He looked down, studying his nails as he added calmly, “I just wanted to check up on you, see how you are, etcetera.”

So, apparently Jonatton was set on dragging them into this conversation after all. “I’m fine,” Dan told him, glancing at the coffee shop door, though Jones hadn’t come back through it yet. “Lost my flat.” Once he’d ended things with Jonatton, all those deposits of thousands of pounds had stopped appearing in his bank account at random. He’d had to move in with Jones, which had actually not been as much of a disaster as he’d first assumed. Jones was incredibly easy to live with once you learned to tune out the constant stream of music at eardrum shattering decibels.

Jonatton didn’t look surprised in the least to hear Dan was homeless. “Obviously. You don’t make very much money, Danbo.” He finished his latte and added, “Good job you’ve got Jones to take care of you, hmm?”

Dan pulled out another cigarette. It was barely mid-afternoon and he’d already gone through more than half his pack. “Yeah, good job,” he echoed, lighting it. What’d Jonatton want him to say? That Jones picked up where Jonatton left off? The thought irritated him, though he wasn’t going to rise to the bait.

Instead, he just exhaled a steady stream of smoke and added, “I don’t know why his age bothers you. You’ve pulled younger.” That was just it, though; pulled and dated were two very different things.

“It doesn’t,” Jonatton answered. “It bothers you to think it bothers me.” He glanced over as Jones came out of the cafe with two coffees in hand. “Oh look, here comes the boy wonder now.”

Dan gratefully took the black coffee from Jones, before watching the other man perch on his chair, sipping at his own quadruple espresso over-sugared disaster. One thing they’d never agree on was how to take their coffee.

“What’d I miss?” Jones asked, trying to read Dan’s face to see how the conversation had been going.

“Nothing,” Jonatton replied, “Just a dull little trip down memory lane.”

Jones was silent a moment, taking a rather large gulp of his coffee and then making a strangled little sound when he burned his tongue. “Tell me something about Dan when he was younger,” he asked. “Please? He won’t let me meet none of his family, because he doesn’t think I can keep my gob shut about us bein’ together.”

Dan choked on the smoke he was inhaling and shook his head, clearing his throat. “I’ve told you all the good stories.” Christ, didn’t Jones realise what he was doing here? Did he really expect some innocent little story about them being in uni, or was he actually trying to get the real dirt on him? Dan hadn’t hidden who he was from him, but the past was best when it stayed there.

“Oh, I doubt he’s told you the good stories,” Jonatton remarked. His glance slid over to Dan and he was silent for a moment, as if he were deciding which juicy tale to impart on Jones. After a moment, he leaned back in his chair, hands clasped contemplatively, “Has Dan told you he’s afraid of spiders? Well, when I say afraid, that’s an understatement, really.” And so he told Jones the story of Dan sleeping on the front step of his flat because he’d seen a spider on his pillow and then didn’t see where it went when he’d tried to squish it. In the end, Jonatton had to come over and hunt it down, crushing it under his shoe before Dan would come back inside his flat again. It had been years and years ago, right after they’d stopped living together and at the time, Dan had missed him and wanted to see him-so much so that he was willing to over exaggerate a stupid little fear rather than just admit to being a bit lonely.

The story had Jones laughing, and Dan made all the appropriately embarrassed faces and when Jones wasn’t looking, shot Jonatton a relieved look. Of all the things he could’ve told Jones, that was really a very minor one. He could’ve completely torn Dan apart. Why hadn’t he?

Dan had been uncomfortable before, when he’d thought Jonatton’s aim was to break he and Jones up, but he was even more so now that he didn’t know what Jonatton was playing at. Someone who didn’t know him well enough might’ve assumed Jonatton really was just alright with all of this, but Dan didn’t believe that for a second.

Something about Jones and Jonatton getting along twisted his stomach with unease. He’d honestly have preferred the punch-up. He stood up and hastily made excuses for he and Jones to leave when he could no longer stand their shared laughter; Jones’ genuine and Jonatton’s fake. Always fake. Everything about him was so fake that it was like nails on a chalkboard.

Four.
“What?” Dan shouted into his mobile to be heard over Jones’s cacophony of music. He hadn’t checked his caller ID and wouldn’t have even noticed at all that his mobile was ringing had it also not vibrated right off the table and fell onto his foot.

He ducked out of the flat, closing the door behind him so he could hear whoever was on the other end. “What was that?” he repeated, taking a seat on the front step, thankful that Jones’s flat was at least partially soundproofed.

“Where are you?” Jonatton asked on the other end of the phone. “Don’t tell me you’ve gone to a club without me.”

At the sound of Jonatton’s voice, Dan automatically reached for his cigarettes, before realising he’d left them in the flat. Shit. Smoking like a chimney was just turning into a pavlovian response to speaking to him now. “Don’t be stupid. I’m at home,” he replied briskly, trying for casual and very aware he’d just referred to Jones’s house as home. “Jones is just practicing.”

“To compete for the title of World’s Worst DJ?” Jonatton asked, “Because I’ve got to tell you, I think he’ll take home the grand prize!” Dan could practically feel Jonatton’s eye roll through the phone, to go along with his sarcastic tone.

“What do you want?” Dan asked, feeling a sense of déjà vu at the question.

Jonatton was silent a moment, like he was considering the question honestly, before he mocked, “Aren’t you even going to thank me for playing nice with your boy this afternoon? Do you want to know which story I was considering telling him?”

Dan ran a hand through his too long hair and curled his fingers in it, giving it a tug as he answered, “Not really. Thank you, though.” It could’ve been a disaster. All of it was a disaster, really, where Jonatton was concerned, but maybe Dan needed to stop being so paranoid about all of this falling apart. He was just happy with Jones, and it’d been so long since he was happy, that he couldn’t help but be afraid it’d all shatter to pieces at the slightest pressure.

“Cheers, Danbo.” Dan heard the slur in Jonatton’s voice then, and realized the reason for the phone call. He didn’t think he’d ever heard Jonatton say ‘cheers’ in his life, unless he was making fun of someone. He prided himself on not speaking like a commoner. Until he was pissed. Until he no longer cared.

“Forgot to take your battery out of your mobile before you started drinking, didn’t you?” Dan asked, chuckling softly. “You prinkle.” There had been a time in the early days when the magazine hadn’t taken off yet and Jonatton had thought he’d need to ask for more money from his father to keep it afloat. He’d taken his phone apart so he couldn’t make the call that night, too.

“No,” Jonatton replied, sounding pouty and put-out and absolutely genuine enough that Dan knew he was right about it. “I just thought I’d call and say hello. We didn’t get the chance to talk this afternoon.”

Jonatton kept saying that; we need to talk, let’s meet and talk, we didn’t get the chance to talk. What did they really have to say to each other? “Then talk to me. I’m here on the phone with you. A captive audience.”

“I got a cat,” Jonatton told him immediately.

That had been the last thing Dan had expected him to say. “If you’ve named it after me, I’m forcing you into rehab again.” He wasn’t really joking.

Jonatton laughed at that. “Its name is a series of punctuation marks, but for now I just call it cat.”

That pulled a smile from Dan as well, and he started to relax, leaning his back against the closed door and stretching his legs out in front of him. “You have not. Even you aren’t that much of twat.”

“No, I haven’t,” Jonatton agreed. “He’s called Morrissey. Don’t tell anyone, though.”

Dan made a face at that. He knew Jonatton didn’t even really like the Smiths that much, but he knew Dan did. Was that just his way of giving the cat his name without actually doing it? No, god he was turning into Jonatton now, thinking everything was about him when it was probably anything but.

“You can keep those albums, then,” Dan told him. He’d never bothered to drop by and get his things anyway. He wasn’t even sure everything he’d left at Jonatton’s flat, but if he hadn’t needed any of it in the last two months, he probably wouldn’t ever. Jones had given him his old ipod, anyway, and Dan had decided convenience was preferable to dragging out actual records anymore. Especially now that records had become the new ‘in’ thing again. He didn’t want anything to do with that garbage now.

Instead of answering, Jonatton asked him, “Do you remember that first Christmas together? It was my first Christmas ever, and we spent the whole time sneaking around like children, slipping into each other’s beds once your parents and Claire had gone to sleep?”

Dan always imagined himself to be a veritable walking dictionary of all Jonatton’s moods and what to do about each of them. This one he couldn’t place, though. Jonatton was pissed, sure, but there was something uncomfortably nostalgic in his voice that Dan couldn’t see the aim of. What was Jonatton trying to get at here?

“Yeah,” Dan said reluctantly. “I do.”

“And you got into an argument with Claire and later I found you just sitting there in the dark, staring at the lit tree?” He paused and Dan heard the clink of ice and Jonatton taking a drink of something, before he continued, “And I took your hand and we slipped under the tree to look up through the branches at the lights?”

Dan nodded, and then said again in that same reluctant tone of voice, “Yeah. What about it?” Of course he remembered it; Jonatton was off his face on MDMA and kept pulling his hand from Dan’s to pet the sleeve of Dan’s pyjama top as Dan looked up through those tree branches and thought how shit and cheap their plastic tree looked. He’d thought about what Claire at told him, too; how he was a coward for not coming out to their parents. That it wasn’t fair to Jonatton, and if Dan really loved him he shouldn’t care what anyone else thought. She hadn’t understood that it wasn’t love, then. Dan hadn’t known what it was, but it was all too big and consuming to pare down to a little insignificant word like ‘boyfriend’. It was too important to share with his parents.

He frowned slightly. Then he’d still been young enough that everything felt impossible and emotional and massive. None of it had really been so dramatic now as he’d remembered it.

“What’re you on about?” he asked Jonatton. “I fucking remember. I was there.” Why did Jonatton have to speak in riddles and memories? Was it so hard to just tell Dan what he was thinking?

“Don’t get so testy, Daniel. It’s just been on my mind lately,” Jonatton snapped, “We used to be like a holiday greeting card.”

Dan felt a headache start up and realised how hard he’d been gritting his teeth as Jonatton recounted that Christmas. “We weren’t,” he replied. “You’re remembering it wrong. Remember when we came back to the flat and the heat had been shut off?”

It had been so cold they could see their breath in front of their face and it was too late to pay the heating bill until the next day, so they’d just got pissed instead in an effort to warm up. Of course it had only made them colder and they huddled together under every blanket and piece of clothing they owned, waiting for the sun to come up. They bickered about whose fault it was the bill hadn’t been paid; bickered for hours just for something to do, because it was better than watching telly. Jonatton had always been much smaller than Dan and he shook so hard in Dan’s arms that he felt like he was going to vibrate apart under Dan’s fingertips. At one point, Dan had actually worried they were both going to die there, until the first rays of morning light flooded in through the curtains.

“You’re right; it was shit,” Jonatton agreed impatiently. “It was no fun at all, and I hated being away from London. Then you almost killed us because you’re too useless to remember when it was your turn to pay a couple bills. I still miss you, though.”

And there it was. The little gem of honesty and truth hidden beneath all of Jonatton’s words and sugar-coasted memories. Dan was silent for a long time, just listening to Jonatton breathe. Listening to Jonatton listening to him breathe.

He almost answered, but he couldn’t be sure what the words would be if he opened his mouth, and then he looked back at the door of the house he was leaning against and thought of the man inside it with his ocean blue eyes and his too loud music that made him happier anything on this earth had probably ever made anyone.

“Don’t call me anymore,” Dan replied and hung up the phone, feeling that single sentence to be far more cruel than eleven years worth of barbs and snide remarks from Jonatton.

There was nothing for it. He just stood up and headed back into the house.

Five.
“Dan Ashcroft goes stray for pay. That has a nice little ring, doesn’t it?” Even as he spoke the words, he couldn’t believe they were coming out of his mouth. He’d been giving Dan the absolute worst assignments for months now, but this was…something else. A dare to cheat on Jones, for the magazine; for Jonatton, because he’d asked it of him. Jonatton honestly didn’t care if Dan wanted to live with Jones and play Happy Families for the rest of his life. If Dan wanted to put himself in a monogamous little cage, that was his own business. Jonatton just adored making him do things he found morally repugnant.

It’d been months since that evening Jonatton had been too drunk and nostalgic to stop himself from admitting he missed him, and he hadn’t called him a single time since. It was a momentary weakness on his part and he wouldn’t make the mistake again. He did so hate looking weak and Dan had always been the strong one, really. Jonatton could still win at these little games, though.

He found he wasn’t even playing them anymore because this was Dan. He just played them because he could. Making other people do things they didn’t want to always put an extra little spring in his step. Dan hadn’t completely folded, though. Sometimes he’d write what Jonatton requested and sometimes he’d just not write anything at all, preferring not to get paid. Jonatton would assign whatever it had been to someone else, then.

The only time Jonatton took up the slack for him was for that rubbish 15Peter20 article. He’d been amused that Dan had still such compunctions about attaching his name to complete lies. Jonatton himself had lost all journalistic integrity somewhere in his mid-twenties. It’d been the first thing to go, really. He wouldn’t have blinked attaching his name to an article praising that fucking twat, but he knew how much it’d get under Dan’s skin if he wrote Dan’s name instead, and besides, he never really liked his own writing much. If it turned out to be as shit as he’d thought, then he could blame Dan for it.

Dan sighed and asked, “1,500 quid?” and Jonatton couldn’t believe he was actually agreeing to this. How badly did he need the money?

Jonatton gave him a fake little pout and replied, “Oh, I was going to give you 2,000.” Dan gave him a look of hatred, before turning and walking out. It didn’t bother Jonatton, really, if Dan hated him. He was still winning. If they weren’t going to be partners or even friends, enemies was the next best. He’d rather have Dan hate him than not feel anything for him at all.

Six.
“It’s done.” Dan dropped the finished article on Jonatton’s desk a few days later, before turning to go. He couldn’t believe he’d actually done it, but ever since it happened, he’d just been trying to think about it as little as possible. Jones didn’t read Sugar Ape, and if he ever happened to pick it up, Dan would just claim it as fiction. It was easier that way.

“Wait,” Jonatton told him before he could get to the door. “Come back here.” Jonatton picked up the article and skimmed it, a smirk growing on his face. When he set down the paper again, he looked up at Dan with something almost approximating respect, if hidden under a thick layer of self satisfaction.

“Well done, Danbo. What’ll your little DJ think?” He feigned a surprised little look, before reaching for his cheque book. “I assume you want the money right away?”

Dan just nodded, leaning against the edge of Jonatton’s desk and crossing his arms. He wasn’t going to discuss Jones with him. This was for Jones. He hadn’t booked as many gigs this month as usual, and they had to do something to pay the rent.

“I would’ve let you have him, you know,” Jonatton told him, writing out the cheque for 2,000 pounds and then signing his name with a flourish, drawing a little star under the question mark, instead of the normal full stop. He started to hand the cheque to Dan before pausing and pulling it back out of his grasp again, “If you’d just told me, I wouldn’t have minded.”

Dan reached for the cheque again with a frown. “I wasn’t looking for your permission. I just didn’t want to be with you any longer.”

Jonatton let the cheque go and then immediately grabbed Dan’s wrist, pulling his hand closer again and intertwining their fingers loosely. “And are you really so much happier now, Daniel? You say you are, but from where I’m sitting, everything just seems a bit…the same.” He gave a shrug at that and then tightened his fingers around Dan’s when Dan tried to pull his hand back.

“I am happy,” Dan replied and his words came out sounding like a challenge. He didn’t expect Jonatton to understand. Jonatton had never wanted anything better than all of this. Jones did make him happy, but he was still miserable with every other aspect of his life, and Jonatton was right; everything was still the same, except there was now a Jonatton-shaped hole in his life that he was trying so hard to ignore.

It was like losing a part of himself-an arm or a leg; he could get by without it and be okay, but it was different and he’d taken it a bit for granted when he’d had it. He and Jonatton had never been in love, not really in the traditional sense. They’d never needed to be, though. What they had was more than just love. It had been every part of them, all the good and the bad, seeing all your worst qualities mirrored and twisted in someone else and knowing that no matter what, no matter what, that other person could still make you smile, because they knew you that well.

“You wouldn’t have had to lie to me about tossing off a builder,” Jonatton added, fingertips brushing Dan’s knuckles gently.

“I didn’t lie,” Dan argued, watching Jonatton’s fingers pull back to trace his own. He scowled, “He’d probably be fine with it, once I explained.” He wasn’t planning on explaining, though. He had to try with Jones; he could still lose Jones. That was a normal relationship though, wasn’t it? It was a healthy one. Not the co-dependant mess he and Jonatton had been. They hadn’t needed secrets, because they’d both known the other wouldn’t leave no matter how horrible they were to each other. And Dan hadn’t really. Even when he left, it wasn’t because of anything Jonatton did. At least, not any specific something.

“But would he find it funny?” Jonatton asked, as his eyes met Dan’s. “Because I did. I do.”

Dan wordlessly pulled their hands apart and leaned down to pull open the bottom drawer in Jonatton’s desk, taking out the bottle of scotch he knew would be nestled in there between files and trinkets and god knows what else.

“Oh Dan, don’t,” Jonatton sighed, as Dan opened the bottle and took a swig straight from it. “I spent far more on that than you just made for that article.” Still, he reached for the bottle when Dan had finished, and took a gulp himself, before setting it aside.

“Showoff,” Dan replied, reaching for it and taking another drink. “Are you going to have a strop if I smoke in here?” Far be it for Jonatton to put anyone off consuming something harmful, but years ago Dan had fallen asleep on Jonatton’s sofa with a cigarette in his hand and burnt a hole in the upholstery. Since then, Jonatton had barred him from smoking in his office. They weren’t really supposed to smoke in this building as per the lease agreement anyway.

Jonatton paused for a moment, considering, before joking, “I’d rather you do something else with your mouth.”

Dan gave a snort at that, screwing the top back on the scotch bottle and putting it amidst all the other clutter on Jonatton’s desk. “Cheeky. I saw that one coming from a mile away. You used to be cleverer than that.”

“Probably,” Jonatton agreed, a slow smile coming to his lips. “You’re still considering it, though. Can’t be any worse than tossing off that builder. Did you have a proper Lady Macbeth style fit over it later, scrubbing and scrubbing at your hand?”

“There aren’t words enough to describe exactly how much I hate you,” Dan replied, though there was a matching smile on his lips. “You twat. You should’ve done the article yourself, that’s just a normal Friday night for you, isn’t it?”

Jonatton snickered at that, “Not in a family pub,” he answered, picking up Dan’s hand again, straightening his fingers out and then pressing a soft kiss to his palm. “And not to someone in that pay bracket.”

Dan’s eyes slipped shut when Jonatton sucked his index finger into his mouth. He knew he should put a stop to this. What the fuck did he think he was doing right now? After what he’d already done with that bloke in the pub, though, maybe he could just write this whole week off as a fluke. This event could just be another for the pile of things he’d never tell Jones. He’d be better after this. He’d try harder.

He was forever promising himself he’d try harder at one thing or another.

This thing between he and Jonatton had never been about the sex, but…that didn’t mean the sex still wasn’t great when they’d had it. In the end, he wound up wanking off Jonatton at his desk, not looking at him. Jonatton didn’t even try to kiss him, he just leaned forward slightly, mouthing wetly against the sleeve of Dan’s button-down shirt, breath ragged and occasionally punctuated with the little mewlish sighs he always made when he was trying to keep quiet.

Dan didn’t know who he was trying to keep quiet for; they were the only two left in the office. He didn’t mention it, though. He liked the little sounds Jonatton made. They were far better than the loud theatrical porn star sounds he sometimes made in bed, just because he wanted to be annoying and knew they completely put Dan off.

Jonatton bit Dan’s shoulder when he came, and Dan wiped his hand on Jonatton’s jacket, before walking out of the office wordlessly. He finished himself off in the loo, and then walked aimlessly downtown until the spit dried on his shirt sleeve and he could go home again, cheque in hand.

Seven.
“It was closure.” Dan knew the words weren’t going to fly the moment they were out of his mouth. Jones should’ve never even found out. He happened to read the magazine article and thought it was funny, even when Dan had admitted it was true. So then Dan had pushed his luck, because he’d thought for a moment that maybe Jones was more like Jonatton than he’d thought. Maybe they could both screw around and it wouldn’t mean anything at all. It turned out it meant quite a bit when it was with an ex instead of a random builder for an article.

“Closure?” Jones repeated, looking a combination of furious and completely gobsmacked. “You ain’t been together for six months, how much more closure did you need?” he exclaimed, pacing the living room. He was practically vibrating with anger and caffeine, and he reminded Dan of another time, of another boy, shaking with cold and burrowing closer to Dan.

At the time, Dan had just thought if he held on tighter, he could make the shaking stop. He felt the same now, inexplicably wanting to put his arms around Jones and just hold him until the anger ebbed away and everything between them was okay again. He didn’t dare, though. Jones looked like he didn’t even need that much provocation to kick off and give him a good punch and Dan didn’t want to push his luck.

“I don’t know,” Dan replied softly. “It wasn’t…it didn’t mean anything. It was just stupid.” It had meant something, though. It had meant he and Jonatton were finally able to put this thing behind them. Jonatton had stopped giving him the worst article assignments after that, and the next time their eyes met at one of those soul crushing magazine wrap parties they were both expected to attend, Jonatton’s arm had been around some model and he’d been nibbling on her neck as she giggled and braced a hand against his chest.

He and Jonatton had started being able to talk to each other like people again after that. They still didn’t spend any time together outside of work, but having a conversation no longer felt like navigating warzone. Eleven years ago, their relationship had started with a fistfight. It was only appropriate in their own backward way that it ended with getting each other off. They never did things in the right order.

He couldn’t put that into words for Jones, though. He and Jonatton had always created their own little world with their own rules, but when the real world invaded again, Dan just felt…lost. Inarticulate and stupid. Unprepared.

“Get out,” Jones snapped, pointing toward the door. “Just fucking go. Get out. I don’t care where. I just don’t wanna look at you no more right now.”

And so Dan did. He grabbed his jacket and pocketed his cigarettes and left. He walked for hours, before coming back home- to Jones’s home-and couldn’t make himself check to see if the door was unlocked. Instead, he just settled against the doorstep and shrugged off his jacket to use as a pillow.

It was somewhere around three in the morning when the door opened, causing Dan to wake with a start, and Jones ushered him back inside.

“Are we okay?” Dan asked into the darkness. They’d both got ready for bed in mutual silence and were lying now curled around each other as usual, though there had might as well be miles between them.

“Dunno,” Jones replied honestly, with a little sigh that came out as a puff of breath against Dan’s neck. “I guess we will be.”

That was all Dan could ask, he supposed. If Jones needed time, he could give it to him. At least they were talking about this…sort of. More than he and Jonatton ever really discussed anything. Maybe this was part of a real relationship too; the other person seeing your faults and choosing to stay, because they wanted to, not because they’d convinced themselves that they couldn’t make it without you. Funny how the latter had actually made him feel better; more needed.

Eight.
“Why didn’t you call me?”

Jonatton looked up slowly. If he didn’t feel so numb right now, he’d probably be surprised to see Dan standing there. He looked so out of place in his jeans and rumpled t-shirt. He didn’t belong in the doorway of Jonatton’s childhood bedroom, even if it had been made over into a guest room years ago. Dan just didn’t belong in Jonatton’s father’s house, full stop. …Though Jonatton supposed it really wasn’t his house any longer, he’d died a week ago. The wake was today.

“If I called you, I knew you’d come,” Jonatton replied, because it was the most honest answer he could come up with and he just couldn’t bring himself to be fake right now. “I didn’t want that. How’d you find out?”

“I asked Rufus why you weren’t in the office today.” Dan frowned, as if the words were distasteful, as if the idea that Rufus might know more about Jonatton’s life than he did upset him. He was the one who’d pulled away, though, not Jonatton.

“The funeral was Saturday,” Jonatton replied. “I didn’t even have to miss work.” He gave a soft smile that came nowhere close to reaching his eyes. “You should’ve seen me in my little black suit, saying all the prayers in Hebrew. I felt like I was thirteen again.”

Dan took a seat on the bed, and looked down at Jonatton who’d managed to wedge himself between his bed and the wall. He always used to sit like that as a child, listening to his mum and dad scream at each other. He’d try to fit himself into the smallest space he could and just press against the wall, as if he stayed still enough and small enough, he’d just disappear.

Dan opened his mouth as if he were about offer some sort of condolence, before thinking better of it and asking instead, “Why the wake, then?”

“Have you met dad’s new wife?” Jonatton asked in lieu of an answer. “She’s so…blonde.” She’d wanted to bury his father with a Christian ceremony, but Jonatton had insisted on a Jewish one. It had seemed so important at the time, though now that it was all over with, he couldn’t imagine why. “I didn’t even know he’d remarried. He had a daughter, too. Did you see her? She’s nineteen.”

Jonatton could see Dan doing the math in his head and then frowning at that. “Jesus. You weren’t even in uni yet.”

Jonatton shook his head. He hadn’t seen his father for more than a handful of hours since his early twenties, but even then he’d been living a double life. Like father, like son, he supposed. They’d both been completely fake in the end. “Have you seen her, though?” Jonatton persisted. “I’ve already called Ned; the next Vice issue will be on incest. He’s booking young blonde models as we speak.”

The look on Dan’s face was such a perfect picture of surprise and disgust that Jonatton had to bite back a laugh.

“You want to sleep with her,” Dan stated, shaking his head slightly.

Jonatton sighed impatiently, mood whipping from numbness to irritation. Didn’t Dan understand anything about him? “Of course not, Danbo. We’re related. That’d be horrific, illegal, etcetera. I want her to see the issue and hate me.” He was just doing it because he could; because he felt helpless and this was his way of lashing out. He’d always used the magazine as a weapon.

Dan was silent for a bit, moving from the bed down to the floor next to Jonatton and pulling out a cigarette, lighting up. “So…” he took a drag off it, clearly searching for something to say. “Rehab again?”

He looked pointedly down at the small baggie of off-white powder in Jonatton’s hand and frowned slightly.

Jonatton followed his gaze down at it, as if he’d nearly forgotten it was there. In truth, he almost had. He’d bought it right after he learned his father had died. Once he’d got it, though, he just…couldn’t quite bring himself to actually do it. If he were honest, it was less about a newfound sense of maturity or actually caring about the things he put into his body than the memory of how awful he’d felt when he was coming off it the last time-how sick and alone, and at least then he’d known Dan was handling the magazine for him, even if they’d never talked about how Jonatton was. This time, he didn’t think he’d even have those assurances.

Dan wasn’t his anymore, and he couldn’t just assume he’d be there for him. He’d rather tell himself that things hadn’t changed between them so much, and never test it, than actually depend on Dan for something now and realise he couldn’t.

“No,” he replied, tossing the baggie over to Dan in a gesture that was supposed to be casual, but was a bit too quick, like he didn’t trust himself not to do it if he had it in his hands any longer. “Flush it, I don’t care. I haven’t done any. Look at me, all responsible now,” he replied sarcastically, before pouting, “I didn’t even have the opportunity to get pissed. Dad’s new family doesn’t drink.” And there wasn’t a drop of alcohol in the entire house. He’d searched every cabinet for it the moment he’d got there.

Dan picked up the baggie and slipped it in his pocket, clearly intending to toss it out later. “Good on you,” he replied awkwardly, before giving him a smile at the mention of booze, glad to be back in familiar territory. “Christ. What have you been doing, then? Just socialising sober?”

Jonatton laughed at how completely scandalised Dan looked at the very thought. “Something like that,” he replied.

He’d spent the bare minimum of time he could down there with those people, before escaping up to this room and hiding like a child. He just couldn’t take it; sitting down there with people he didn’t know, hearing stories about his father that might as well have been about a different man completely. He wanted to ask his half sister if she grew up to screaming rows between her parents too, or if she, too, was raised by a nanny who everyone knew was only hired because their father wanted to fuck her, and would do…had done, once Jonatton’s mum had finally left him. Instead, Jonatton had just made a scathing remark about cost of her dress that was much too petty even for him, and then come up here to hide and if he was very lucky, blend into the wallpaper.

“I’m impressed. I can barely deal with my family sober, and I know them,” Dan joked, though it wasn’t really much of a joke, really. Dan didn’t deal with people in general sober, if he could help it. “So, your mum didn’t come, then?”

Jonatton rolled his eyes at the question, though there wasn’t really any way for Dan to have known quite how bad Jonatton’s parent’s relationship had been. Jonatton never talked about his family and when he’d spent time with Dan’s, he just did his best to chameleon himself to blend in with them.

They were absolutely ordinary; working class and rather dull, but nice enough and actually loved each other. Jonatton would honestly rather spend an uneventful Christmas in Leeds pretending to be an Ashcroft, pretending to be Dan’s school mate and not boyfriend, pretending, pretending, pretending, than have a tense Hanukkah in London with his father acting like it was such a hardship to take any time from his job or wanky upper class social engagements to spare Jonatton even an ounce of attention. Attention aside from lectures about Jonatton’s future, of course, and how he was squandering it with his stupid little magazine and what would everyone think of him? He could’ve been so much more, he could’ve been so much better. As if that wasn’t what he had spent his whole life trying to be. As if the entire aim of his life wasn’t to be more, be better, be different from who he was.

“Mm, no. I’m sure she’ll fly in eventually. She wouldn’t want to miss an opportunity to dance on his grave,” Jonatton shrugged. His mum had married some American banker when he was seven years old. She lived in Manhattan and aside from a few cards on his birthdays over the years; he hadn’t spoken to her since. He’d never minded overmuch; he’d been raised by a nanny anyway.

Dan stood and offered Jonatton hand up. “Do you want to come back to mine for a drink? You haven’t seen the new place, have you?”

Jonatton stood up without the aid of Dan’s hand and then just stared at him for a moment. Was he actually inviting him back to Jones’s house to get pissed? “Oh Daniel, as tempting as that invitation is, I can think of about a dozen places I’d rather go get pissed in, that don’t guarantee I’ll see your boyfriend. They’re called pubs, have you heard of them?”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Dan looked cagey at that, and Jonatton realised it was the first time he’d referred to Jones as such, instead of some other condescending little title like your DJ or your boy.

“Does he know that?” Jonatton asked mockingly. “I could call him something else. Your beau, your lover, soulmate, etcetera.”

Dan crossed his arms and was obviously trying very hard not to scowl. “It just sounds so…juvenile. Boyfriend.” He made a face as he said the word. “When you say it, I feel like we should be passing notes in class and I should be writing his name with little hearts all over my notebooks. Just refer to him by his name.”

Something seemed to crack inside of Jonatton, then. The fact that he was so, so sober and he’d been dealing with all of this on his own for days. He’d planned an entire funeral with his father’s new family who he didn’t even know existed this time last week and he’d never once confided in anyone, or asked for help, because there was no one to ask. Dan was here now and even still, all they were doing was bickering pointlessly over Jones. Like always. An asteroid could hit the earth and everything around them could be in cinders and they’d still be discussing this, because they didn’t do emotions, they just did petty arguments. Over and over, and right now Jonatton just couldn’t.

“I don’t care,” he told him honestly. “By all means, stay here and have a little commitment phobic strop if that’s what you want. I don’t care. I’m going home.” It was either that or he make a grab for Dan’s pocket and rip that baggie open with his teeth, sucking down the heroin like powdered candy.

He started to walk away, but Dan caught his arm, stopping him.

“Yeah, okay. Sorry,” Dan replied, brow furrowed like there was something else he wanted to say, but unsure how to word it. “I just…don’t know what I’m supposed to do here.”

Jonatton just pulled his arm from Dan’s grasp and continued to walk out. When he got to the door, he paused and mustered up as much fake sarcasm and quite possibly genuine scorn as he could, “When you figure it out, do let me know.”

Then, he left. For possibly the first time ever, he left, not Dan. Because he didn’t need him, not really. Not anymore. He was Jonatton Yeah? and there wasn’t anything he couldn’t do.

More importantly, he was Jonathon Yadin, and that part of him was learning how to get by without Dan, too. It was amazing what you could get used to when you didn’t have a choice.

Except, there was always a choice in the end, wasn’t there? Just this time, Jonatton had just made the harder-more than likely, better-choice. He chose himself.

And so he walked away from his father’s house, and didn’t look back.

End.

Author's Note (pt.2): Aahh, I'm sorry to end it there, but I felt like it was important for their character arcs for each of them to be able to walk away from this once. In the final part, they really do start to discuss their issues and resolve some things, I promise!