Fic: Another Sky (1/11)
Another Sky (1/11)
by me, doctorpancakes
Fandom: Nathan Barley
Pairing: Dan/Jones
Rating: PG-13 I guess
Word Count: 1198, this chapter
Warnings: References to hospitals and early 90s indie rock
Disclaimer: I own an out-of-tune guitar, but not the Nathan Barley Show.
Author's Notes: This this is like months in the making. Months. Grueling, grueling months. The story so far: remember the stuff that happened to these two in Flying Lessons, and the stuff that happened to them before that? This happens after that stuff happened. Uhh, that’s all you need to know I guess.
And should you like to listen to the soundtrack of stuff that I mostly listened to while writing this, here's a download of about a mix CD's worth of relevant music.
Waking up that morning was a disconcerting experience for Dan Ashcroft. Jones was not in bed: this was not unusual in and of itself; he often kept unconventional hours, going without sleep for a few days, or staying up for twenty hours, then sleeping for ten, making music at impossible volumes at all waking hours. Music accompanied Jones like a constant, cacophonous aura. That was what was disconcerting about that morning: Jones was awake, and the house was silent. This had only ever signaled that something was very wrong.
Jones could not say how long Dan had been in the room before he spoke. He had come in so quietly, as though apprehensive, afraid to intrude upon Jones’ soundless ruminations.
“Jones,” he had said quietly, cutting through the vague, mumbling aura of the buzzing of lightbulbs, the hum of the refrigerator, the tick-tick-ticking of a forgotten wristwatch buried at the bottom of a bedroom dresser drawer, all of which seemed to Jones an impossible, unknowable distance away. The sudden proximity and volume of Dan’s presence dragged Jones back into the room.
The word - his name - was at once a question, an affirmation; a request, perhaps, or an offering. He could see that Dan was worried. The fact that Dan was worried, worried him. He needed Dan to know that everything was all right, even if he could not know this himself.
Dan sat beside him, rubbing a hand over his sleep-heavy face, trying not to yawn. Jones folded him into a gentle embrace.
“She could still change her mind, Dan,” he said. “What if she changes her mind?”
Jones didn’t half expect that Dan would make some attempt at reassuring platitudes, some attempt at saying that everything would work out all right and that there was nothing to worry about, even though they both knew this wasn’t true. Life was a big festival of uncertainties in the House of Jones.
“I don’t know,” said Dan, shaking his head, and fumbling about the coffee table in search of his cigarette pack.
---
Five years previous, Dan Ashcroft had jumped out of a window. Jones went to see him in hospital that night, after everyone had left. Dan lay unconscious and broken, encased in plaster and wired to IVs and other things, still so troubled in his sleep. He was stable and would be out of his casts in a few weeks. Jones knew this. But the sight of him there, so damaged, brought about in Jones such a profound sadness that it scared him. It scared him to think that Dan might not have been so lucky. When Claire had telephoned from the hospital - and it was very nice of her to do so - to let him know that Dan had had an accident, in case Jones wondered where they were - the sound of the universe switched off, the metronome of time ground to a halt, and the rest of the world tiptoed away. In what may have been an instant, or an hour, Jones’ mind retreated into a place where his thoughts betrayed him again and again and all he was shown was the worst-case scenario, though he could never quite conceive what that would look like, not really. Life without Dan was inconceivable. He felt submerged, like the shock of falling off the couch and into an ocean, that moment of confusion that seems to last forever, that moment between the fall and the struggle to break to the surface, where everything stops and you forget to breathe. Where was this coming from? Dan was going to be fine. And it wasn’t like they were involved, after all; as far as Jones knew, Dan had no interest in dating boys, let alone him. Dan was his flatmate, he reminded himself, nothing more. La dee da. And it wasn’t like he fancied Dan. He didn’t. He just loved him, that was all. Fuck.
No sense worrying about things we had no control over, he always said, but now he worried. It was too quiet in the hospital. The only sounds in the room now were the hammering speedcore thump of his heartbeat in his ears, and the ponderously arrhythmic tunk-tunk-tunk of Dan’s IV drip. Jones took Dan’s hand, wrapping his fingers round and pressing their palms together. He leaned down until he could hear Dan’s tiny breathing, and brushed his lips against Dan’s ear.
“You’ve got to stop scaring me like this, Dan,” he whispered. Quietly as he could, he climbed into the tiny bed, blanketing himself over Dan, to shield him from the world.
---
Dan had picked up his guitar again, some time after the incident with the window. It was, perhaps, something of a symptom of being t home, and unemployed, and having nothing better to do. To be honest, he was not sure why he had hung on to it for as long as he had; perhaps, he supposed, he kept it merely in the way that we so often are inexplicably loath to get rid of things we no longer have any use for. It had been gathering dust in a corner from flat to flat since university, about the time he realized that his teenaged notion of becoming the guy who plays guitar in REM would never come to pass. It was not a good guitar by any means; at sixteen, he could hardly afford a quality instrument, and in the twenty years since, it had seen its fair share of abuse. Perhaps it was a kindred spirit: a little damaged, a little misunderstood, and as such it had now become a familiar of sorts. Perhaps he was too unmotivated to look for a better one.
One thing of which he was certain, however, was that he, of course, wasn’t very good. Nevertheless, that afternoon found him slung almost upside-down on the sofa, clad only in a nearly obliterated old pair of jeans, strumming out an Eric’s Trip song, while Jones, flopped on the floor, bare feet swinging in the air, looked on appreciatively. He had just begun to sort out the first chords of an old Guided by Voices number when the phone rang.
“Fuck,” he grumbled, tumbling onto the floor. “Where’s the fucking phone?”
beep
“Dan Ashcroft,” he said.
“For God’s sake, it’s four in the afternoon,” came Claire’s exasperated voice from the other end of the phone. “Please tell me I didn’t wake you up.”
“No, we’re up, you just surprised me,” Dan rolled his eyes.
“Whatever,” said Claire. “Can you two be presentable by, say, six?”
“Yeah,” said Dan.
“Do you want to come round for tea, then?” she asked. “I might have some news, if you’re serious about your... plans.”
Dan found her hesitancy about their... plans, disconcerting. Nevertheless, he was hopeful.
“Seriously? Thanks, Claire,” he said.
“See you,” said Claire.
beep.
“What’s up?” asked Jones, rolling himself into a seated position.
“Claire’s asked us round to tea,” said Dan. “Presentable, she said. Do I have any clean shirts?”
Chapter Two
by me, doctorpancakes
Fandom: Nathan Barley
Pairing: Dan/Jones
Rating: PG-13 I guess
Word Count: 1198, this chapter
Warnings: References to hospitals and early 90s indie rock
Disclaimer: I own an out-of-tune guitar, but not the Nathan Barley Show.
Author's Notes: This this is like months in the making. Months. Grueling, grueling months. The story so far: remember the stuff that happened to these two in Flying Lessons, and the stuff that happened to them before that? This happens after that stuff happened. Uhh, that’s all you need to know I guess.
And should you like to listen to the soundtrack of stuff that I mostly listened to while writing this, here's a download of about a mix CD's worth of relevant music.
Waking up that morning was a disconcerting experience for Dan Ashcroft. Jones was not in bed: this was not unusual in and of itself; he often kept unconventional hours, going without sleep for a few days, or staying up for twenty hours, then sleeping for ten, making music at impossible volumes at all waking hours. Music accompanied Jones like a constant, cacophonous aura. That was what was disconcerting about that morning: Jones was awake, and the house was silent. This had only ever signaled that something was very wrong.
Jones could not say how long Dan had been in the room before he spoke. He had come in so quietly, as though apprehensive, afraid to intrude upon Jones’ soundless ruminations.
“Jones,” he had said quietly, cutting through the vague, mumbling aura of the buzzing of lightbulbs, the hum of the refrigerator, the tick-tick-ticking of a forgotten wristwatch buried at the bottom of a bedroom dresser drawer, all of which seemed to Jones an impossible, unknowable distance away. The sudden proximity and volume of Dan’s presence dragged Jones back into the room.
The word - his name - was at once a question, an affirmation; a request, perhaps, or an offering. He could see that Dan was worried. The fact that Dan was worried, worried him. He needed Dan to know that everything was all right, even if he could not know this himself.
Dan sat beside him, rubbing a hand over his sleep-heavy face, trying not to yawn. Jones folded him into a gentle embrace.
“She could still change her mind, Dan,” he said. “What if she changes her mind?”
Jones didn’t half expect that Dan would make some attempt at reassuring platitudes, some attempt at saying that everything would work out all right and that there was nothing to worry about, even though they both knew this wasn’t true. Life was a big festival of uncertainties in the House of Jones.
“I don’t know,” said Dan, shaking his head, and fumbling about the coffee table in search of his cigarette pack.
---
Five years previous, Dan Ashcroft had jumped out of a window. Jones went to see him in hospital that night, after everyone had left. Dan lay unconscious and broken, encased in plaster and wired to IVs and other things, still so troubled in his sleep. He was stable and would be out of his casts in a few weeks. Jones knew this. But the sight of him there, so damaged, brought about in Jones such a profound sadness that it scared him. It scared him to think that Dan might not have been so lucky. When Claire had telephoned from the hospital - and it was very nice of her to do so - to let him know that Dan had had an accident, in case Jones wondered where they were - the sound of the universe switched off, the metronome of time ground to a halt, and the rest of the world tiptoed away. In what may have been an instant, or an hour, Jones’ mind retreated into a place where his thoughts betrayed him again and again and all he was shown was the worst-case scenario, though he could never quite conceive what that would look like, not really. Life without Dan was inconceivable. He felt submerged, like the shock of falling off the couch and into an ocean, that moment of confusion that seems to last forever, that moment between the fall and the struggle to break to the surface, where everything stops and you forget to breathe. Where was this coming from? Dan was going to be fine. And it wasn’t like they were involved, after all; as far as Jones knew, Dan had no interest in dating boys, let alone him. Dan was his flatmate, he reminded himself, nothing more. La dee da. And it wasn’t like he fancied Dan. He didn’t. He just loved him, that was all. Fuck.
No sense worrying about things we had no control over, he always said, but now he worried. It was too quiet in the hospital. The only sounds in the room now were the hammering speedcore thump of his heartbeat in his ears, and the ponderously arrhythmic tunk-tunk-tunk of Dan’s IV drip. Jones took Dan’s hand, wrapping his fingers round and pressing their palms together. He leaned down until he could hear Dan’s tiny breathing, and brushed his lips against Dan’s ear.
“You’ve got to stop scaring me like this, Dan,” he whispered. Quietly as he could, he climbed into the tiny bed, blanketing himself over Dan, to shield him from the world.
---
Dan had picked up his guitar again, some time after the incident with the window. It was, perhaps, something of a symptom of being t home, and unemployed, and having nothing better to do. To be honest, he was not sure why he had hung on to it for as long as he had; perhaps, he supposed, he kept it merely in the way that we so often are inexplicably loath to get rid of things we no longer have any use for. It had been gathering dust in a corner from flat to flat since university, about the time he realized that his teenaged notion of becoming the guy who plays guitar in REM would never come to pass. It was not a good guitar by any means; at sixteen, he could hardly afford a quality instrument, and in the twenty years since, it had seen its fair share of abuse. Perhaps it was a kindred spirit: a little damaged, a little misunderstood, and as such it had now become a familiar of sorts. Perhaps he was too unmotivated to look for a better one.
One thing of which he was certain, however, was that he, of course, wasn’t very good. Nevertheless, that afternoon found him slung almost upside-down on the sofa, clad only in a nearly obliterated old pair of jeans, strumming out an Eric’s Trip song, while Jones, flopped on the floor, bare feet swinging in the air, looked on appreciatively. He had just begun to sort out the first chords of an old Guided by Voices number when the phone rang.
“Fuck,” he grumbled, tumbling onto the floor. “Where’s the fucking phone?”
beep
“Dan Ashcroft,” he said.
“For God’s sake, it’s four in the afternoon,” came Claire’s exasperated voice from the other end of the phone. “Please tell me I didn’t wake you up.”
“No, we’re up, you just surprised me,” Dan rolled his eyes.
“Whatever,” said Claire. “Can you two be presentable by, say, six?”
“Yeah,” said Dan.
“Do you want to come round for tea, then?” she asked. “I might have some news, if you’re serious about your... plans.”
Dan found her hesitancy about their... plans, disconcerting. Nevertheless, he was hopeful.
“Seriously? Thanks, Claire,” he said.
“See you,” said Claire.
beep.
“What’s up?” asked Jones, rolling himself into a seated position.
“Claire’s asked us round to tea,” said Dan. “Presentable, she said. Do I have any clean shirts?”
Chapter Two