All the Small Things (part 28)
Monday, just after dawn
“Danny.”
The hand shaking him was warm. Sun was gone, air was cold, must have fallen asleep.
“Rachel. You came back.” He brought his arm from behind his head and put his hand over hers. She tried to pull away. He smiled.
“Danny,” she said.
Deeper voice. Huskier, too. Sexy.
“Jones, you idiot, wake up.”
Danny opened his eyes. “Tom? Where's…” He turned his head and looked around his room.
“I think you've been dreaming,” Tom said. “Good, was it?” His eyes were fixed on the wall over the headboard. “Can you…?” He took his hand away from Danny's shoulder and pointed a couple of times towards his waist. “Do you mind? I've just eaten.”
Danny looked down. The duvet was nowhere to be seen, and his boxer shorts had ridden high up.
“Oh, right.” He herded his bits together with one hand, pulled the thin cloth down with the other. “Nowt you haven't seen before.”
“That doesn't mean I want to see it again. Ever.”
“Jealous.”
“I might sprain something laughing.” Tom hazarded a glance down at Danny's face. “Fletch called. I have to go to an early meeting at the label.”
“But we're in studio.”
“I know. I'll get there as soon as I can. Can you…”
“I'll get the lads up, talk to Jay and Ben. There's plenty for us to be getting on with.” He thought for a second. “She said yes, didn't she?”
Tom looked up to the ceiling and shook his head.
Danny pumped the air. “Yeah!”
“Is it that obvious?”
“It's great. I'll buy you a drink later, celebrate.”
“I'll do the buying. If it weren't for-”
A horn sounded outside.
“That a taxi?”
“What?” Tom checked his watch. “Shit!” He bolted for the door, called back over his shoulder. “Car for the studio is at nine. See you there.”
Harry's forehead wrinkled. He cracked open an eye. Blue. A boat? That would explain the slow rise and fall, the distant sound of surf. He opened his eyes, lifted his head. Blue around him, beside him, white above. So peaceful. He lowered his head back onto the pale skin, mottled with…
Skin? He rolled onto his back. “Bloody hell.” Three hundred members of Blink-182 glared down at him.
“You said you'd still respect me in the morning.”
The voice in his ear was full of indignation. Harry turned to look.
Doug tossed his head. “I feel so used,” he said, then looked towards him with a smile.
Harry looked at the ceiling.
Doug closed his eyes, pulled his mouth to one side.
“Are you… How are you, now?”
“Better. Thanks. Did you sleep OK?”
Doug nodded, then wrinkled his forehead. “Are you going to tell me what's wrong?“
Harry bit at his nails. Doug rolled onto his side, facing him.
“I don't want to…” Harry lowered his hand to his chest. “It's like, right now, it's not real. If I talk about it, people will act like… Sorry, this doesn't make sense.”
“Like the cat in the box.”
Harry turned towards him. “Cat?”
“On TV, some science thing, you put a cat in a box with some poison, close the lid. The cat might eat it or it might not, but you don't know until you open it and look. So if you don't open it, the cat isn't dead, but it isn't alive either. It's kind of maybe. I don't know, I can't explain it, it's how atoms work or something. Anyway, you don't want to let your cat out of the box.”
“That's weird, Dougie.”
“I think it's good, it means the universe is as fucked up as me.”
What?
Harry looked into his eyes. They were open, clear, relaxed, a far cry from the day before. He had a faint smile on his lips.
“I don't know what I'd do,” Doug said. “If I was in the box. Do you think the cat knows?”
“To be or not to be, that is the question.”
Is it going to be or not to be sodding Hamlet every time, that's the question.
Doug's eyes came back from the distance, focussed on Harry, and crinkled. “Day one hundred and seventy-two in the big McFly house.” He lifted his head and listened for a moment. They could hear muffled singing. “Danny is in the shower, having a wank. Tom is in his room, having a wank. Harry and Dougie are in Dougie's room-“
“Oh, no…”
“In Dougie's bed-“
“No! They did that at school. It was…” Harry shuddered, and started to get up.
“Talking the biggest pile of wank you ever heard.”
Harry stopped, turned his head and saw the smirk on Doug's face.
“Psych.”
“You little…” Harry rolled over and grabbed Doug, pinned and held him with one arm, ran his fingers up and down his side.
“No-o-o. Ha-ha, no, ha, stop Ha-har-a-ree-hee-hee. Stop. A-ha. I'm going hahaha going to ah-ha-ha piss myself!”
Harry stopped the torture with his fingers, but kept a tight hold. The two of them locked stares for a moment. Harry turned his head a little.
“You know,” he said, “your eyes are really beautiful. I never noticed before. I wish you wouldn't hide them so much.”
“Harry…”
“And your teeth… they're perfect. Did you wear braces?” He moved closer.
“I… uh… Harry…”
He moved closer still. “Oh fuck it,” he said. “Dougie…” He puckered his lips and moved in.
Doug tried to wriggle free, but Harry's grip was secure. He grimaced, tilted his head away, turned his face, rolled his eye back in its socket.
“Harry!”
Harry pounced, at the last split second brought in his free arm, covered Doug's cheek and planted a noisy kiss on the back of his own hand.
He lifted his head and took his hand off Doug's face. “Psych.”
“All right, you win. Bully. Can I have my arms back now?”
Harry released his hold, rolled over and lay back on the bed. Doug glared at him. Outside the door, something was moving like a baby elephant.
It knocked on the door.
“It's Danny,” Doug whispered. He wriggled for a moment, then called out. “Yeah?”
“Dougie, what the hell are you-?”
The door opened.
Danny put his head round the door, and suddenly found his vision blocked by something soft and… eww.
He batted the boxer shorts off his face, to see Doug's naked arse poised above Harry on the bed. Er, no. Humping.
Doug grinned over his shoulder, then rolled off. Harry lay there, his face turning into a beetroot.
“Hi Danny.”
Harry pressed his head back into the pillow.
“Mornin, lads. Couple of things. The car's coming to take us to the studio in… forty-five minutes. Tom's got a meeting with Fletch and the label, so we'll have to get started without him.”
“What meeting?”
Danny glanced at Doug.
“Better get Doc to look at that. It looks like it could turn nasty.”
“What?” Doug sat up, looked down. “What do you mean?”
Danny turned, then looked over his shoulder. “Oh, we go straight to the awards thing from studio, so dress nice for the fans and paper razzies.”
Doug turned to Harry. “What did he mean?” He turned back. “Danny! What do you mean? Why should I get it looked at?”
“I'll put kettle on.”
Danny closed the door, and sauntered towards his room.
The shout followed him down the corridor. “What's wrong with my willy?”
He chuckled.
Harry dropped the knife back in the Marmite jar, bit into his toast and forced the corners of his mouth to stay straight.
“Why won't you tell me?”
“I'm not a doctor, am I? I just, well, it doesn't look…” Danny shrugged, and took another mouthful of cereal. “Does it, Harry?”
Harry wrinkled his nose and chewed some more.
Doug squirmed in his chair, stuffed one hand deep in his pocket.
“Did Tom say what the meeting was about?” Harry asked.
Doug stopped moving and looked up.
Danny shook his head, finished chewing and swallowed. “Nope. Some legal thing, must have come up sudden. He only got told about it late last night.”
“Why the short notice? Wonder what it is.”
Doug pushed himself away from the table, dropped his dishes in the sink and hobbled out of the kitchen.
Danny looked after him. “I were only winding him up.”
“Nice one, classic.” Harry nodded. “I don't think that's it, though. I think he's nervous about this afternoon.”
He put down his toast. “You know he was just messing… we weren't…”
Danny tilted his head and smiled.
⇐ Part 27 - Part 29 ⇒