Reunion

[romeo_remy]

The platform was packed with chattering, rushing, hugging kids and chattering, rushing, hugging parents saying goodbye to their offspring with both sadness and relief. Remy had said his own goodbyes at least twenty minutes beforehand and was now stood anxiously beside the carriage he had texted Danny to say he would be besides. After six weeks of

Comments

[christianish]

Danny actually arrived about ten minutes later than usual, and his formal and quiet goodbyes with his parents took place in private before he headed to the platform. Remy would be waiting...
And he wasn't sure how he felt about that.

The youngest Parker boy had spent his summer in the company of a new (and very expensive) shrink, one whose job was to make him more social and less homosexual, an overall more "well functioning" member of society. The result, of course, was that Danny was now even more reticent and withdrawn than usual, except for his times of overt "trying" to be social, as he'd been told to do. His smiles were too bright and his voice too friendly, but at least he was trying.

His hair was once again red, though a darker shade than his natural colour. He'd taken to wearing thick black reading glasses, and they made him look a little paler than normal -- though his weight was doing well. Still on the "skinny" side, Danny was at least a normal version of skinny.

He stood awkwardly in the throngs of people, looking about for the carriage. In his checkered pearl snap and jeans, he should've been obvious enough for Remy to pick out.

[perrie]

Pick him out he did - though Remy's gaze passed over the quiet boy twice in his haste to find him, the third time his sight locked on to the Ravenclaw, and he made a beeline for him. In a hasty, garish Gryffindor display of affection, Remy siezed his boyfriend in his arms, kissed him full on the mouth and beamed at him, all in two seconds of breathless rush.

"Dan! You made it, you're here! How are you? Come on, let's grab a carriage before they're all taken, I'll take your bag, come on let's - how are you? Fuck, I've missed you!"

Did the boy not ever breathe?

[katherynne]

"I'm, um, I'm okay," Danny stammered, red in the face from Remy's enthusiastic greeting. People were staring, he knew it. Boys? Kissing? In public?? The redhead flushed and rubbed the back of his neck nervously, willing the disapproving voice in his head to shut the hell up.

"Yeah, sorry I'm late," he said, following Remy, but carefully not touching him. "I couldn't find things at the last minute, and then mother made me wait to say goodbye to Richard." With the bags on board, the two of them looked for an open compartment, and found one near the back of the train. Danny slipped in and curled up next to the window, hands clutching a book by Kant as if it were a talisman.

[perrie]

"Well, you're here now and that's what matters." Remy didn't seem to have noticed that Danny had not been touching him - he was too excited by the fact that Danny was back at all to really care.

They ducked into the compartment and Remy lounged out on the seats beside Danny, head back against the head rest, feet stretching out onto the seats opposite. He smiled sidelong at the boy and gently rubbed his knee, warm and affectionate and more than happy to be back with this boy once more. "Hey. I missed you." He beamed, all of a sudden. "You're looking real good, you know. I love the hair - suits you!"

[katherynne]

Gently pushing Remy's hand off his knee, Danny smiled. It was a genuine, warm smile. "I missed you too," he said. "I'm sorry mother and father were so strict on me this summer. I would've liked to see you." He glanced out the window, as if they would be right there, watching him still. "They kept me rather busy."

Danny cleared his throat and looked back to Remy. "So. You know. How was your trip here? Everything go all right?"

[perrie]

"Oh fine, completely fine, Matt was driving me nuts the whole way up here." The older boy was complaining, but it wasn't a real complaint, just a niggle of brotherly annoyance. Danny's gentle refusal of his fingers did not seem to put Remy off - instead, he affectionately laced his fingers with the redheads and rubbed his knuckles with his thumb.

"I would've liked to see you too. What dragons you live with! Hungarian Horntails of course." He made a face. "All breathing fire down your neck. I'll be glad when you get free of them. Then I can see you whenever I want."

[katherynne]

"Yeah," Danny said quietly, but didn't take it any farther than that. He fidgeted with Remy's hand, wiggling his fingers about until finally putting it aside altogether. "Um, how is Matthieu?" he asked, feeling completely lame.

His shrink had ruined everything.

[perrie]

"As annoying as ever - why are we talking about Matt? You know he never changes. I want to know about you! I've not seen you in six weeks - you must have stories to tell, surely? I plan on spending every night this week with you at least. I've been planning schemes to get you up to my dorm all summer."

The Gryffindor grinned, sweeping hair out of his eyes and lounging back against the seats, stretching out decadantly. "Oh man, I can't wait to get back. I want to get flying again so bad."

[katherynne]

The redhead didn't like flying, so he had nothing to say on that subject. Except -- "You know who's teaching Flying now, don't you?" A small smile curved the corners of Danny's mouth. "Surely you do."

As for what he'd done all summer -- the Ravenclaw shrugged expressively. "I didn't do much this summer. I worked out. I went to my shrink a couple of times per week. My parents started me seeing a new one, for --" here Danny broke off, not sure what to say. For what? For being gay? For liking men? For being the worst excuse for a son EVER? He waved a hand to excuse it entirely. "Anyway. I mostly spent time with my shrink. Or reading."

[perrie]

"No, who?" Remy was intrigued now and shifted in his seat, twisting to face his boyfriend and looking extremely interested. "Who is it?"

The talk about a shrink didn't go down too favourably - he made a face of extreme displeasure. "Spending your summer on the couch? That's disgustingly cruel. What was he telling you? Psycho-analytical crap. You don't need someone in your head, Dan. You just need me." He smirked, leaning forward and touching a kiss to the redheads mouth. "Gorgeous, fabulous, wonderful me."

[katherynne]

"Geoffrey Chandler." Danny smirked, his eyes lighting bronze with humour. "You remember Geoffrey. Don't you?"

Remy's facial expression made Danny feel even worse. How could he tell the other boy that a lot of what the man had said made sense? How could he ever admit that sometimes he'd actually felt better when he left? The redhead shrugged again, and turned his mouth away from Remy's kiss at the last minute. "You're the reason they got me a new one in the first place," Danny said, voice flat. "They want me to be more 'masculine and proper'."

[perrie]

Remy laughed as Danny told him who the tutor was - of course he remembered who Geoffrey Chandler was! That session in the hidden library stacks was certainly not to be sneezed at, in Remy's humble opinion...

"...more 'masculine and proper'."
"What, I need to let you top more or something?" The blond looked confused by this, thrown off by Dannys sudden turn in conversation. As he did so, the train lurched away from the platform, juddering into life with whistles and clangs and boatloads of steam. "What sort of a shrink is this, a homophobic one? I mean," He laughed at that, "Your parents are nuts, but they aren't that nuts."

Remy paused, looking to Danny seriously now. "Are they?"

[katherynne]

"We could get into an awful lot of trouble if he's hanging around," Danny added, laughing at the look on Remy's face. "But not in the library. The Quidditch Pitch, perhaps?" This was followed by more laughter.

"What sort of a shrink is this, a homophobic one? I mean," He laughed at that, "Your parents are nuts, but they aren't that nuts."

"... Are they?"

Danny looked down at the floor, at the wood between his battered sauconeys. His parents WERE that nuts, as a matter of fact. He didn't say anything for a minute, but finally he swallowed and prepared to face the music. "Um, actually... yeah. He's, you know. He's supposed to be really good at -- at 'curing' people." The Ravenclaw made sure that the emphasis he put on the words made it sound like what it was: the man was good at turning gay people straight, supposedly. And his parents? They paid good money for that.