Quiet (Danny, Open to anyone at London College)

[daniel_marlow]

Danny hadn't slept well the night before and there were dark circles under his eyes. By this free period, right before lunchtime, it was a struggle just to stay upright and he had to appetite to speak of. Instead of eating, he got a huge cup of coffee and went to a bench outside to sip at it.

Once parked on the bench, he pulled out his journal and started to record the details of his nightmares the night before. His therapist wanted Danny to keep track of them and if the woman thought it would help, Danny would try it. By this point he didn't think anything would ever make them go away, but he had to try. He idea of his entire life being like this was unimaginable.

He heard people walk around him from time to time, but he didn't really look up. He figured if they wanted him, they would say something.

Comments

[runrachelrun.insanejournal.com]

Rachel was having a bad head day and skiving off Media Studies. Today the class were supposed to split into their groups to work on their project on the role of media during the inter-war period and Rachel hadn't done any of the prep work. The other members in her group were both boys and both cleverer than her and though neither of them had said anything of the sort she knew they both thought of her as an idiot blonde girl. She knew they both looked at her with lust and pity when she wasn't looking. She knew they were going to ask her questions she wouldn't be able to answer and today she just couldn't deal. Some days, most days, she could laugh it off, and flick her hair, god you boys are so clever and maybe one of you can tutor me after school? and writing her number on the sensitive skin on the inside of their wrists.

Not today. Today the thought of anyone touching her made her skin crawl. Today was a day of avoiding all the things she was bad at. Avoid all groups of people. Don't let herself be outnumbered. That why hanging out with Zoe was great at school. Zoe didn't have other friends. Zoe didn't have a group. They were a twosome. No complications, no competitions. Bu Zoe was in class, because Zoe was always in class.

But today was not a day for being alone, either, because on a bad head day being alone with herself could be just as bad as being outnumbered.

She escaped out of the building and into the open air of the quad, taking a moment to scan the area. There were other people around on free periods, but pretty much all of them were in groups. One boy sat alone though, writing in a book. A proper book! She drew closer, till she was standing in his light. "What are you writing?" she asked, her head at a deliberate tilt to make her hair fall forward over her shoulder. She may have been having a bad head day, but her hair was having an excellent one.

[daniel_marlow]

Danny jumped when the girl spoke, causing him to draw a dark line through several paragraphs of text with his pen. "Shit," he whispered before looking up at the person who had spoken to him.

He recognised her and offered a friendly enough smile before flipping his journal closed. "Dreams," he answered, before realising he should probably explain that better. "Nightmares, really." He wasn't good at small talk, but he tried. "You can sit if you want to."

[runrachelrun.insanejournal.com]

His answer was so far from the one she was expecting. Poetry, she might have expected, if he was trying to show off how sensitive he was, or a grocery list for my mum if he wanted to be a sweetheart or the most likely response was of course I dunno just stuff. But this? "A dream journal? Really?" She could not work out what angle he was trying to play, here. It unnerved her a little, and she forgot to sit down.

[daniel_marlow]

"Yeah, for my therapist," he said with a shrug. "She wants me to write it all down." Danny wasn't very good at trying to hide things, because once he had been told to keep a secret and where had that gotten him?

"It's sort of...stupid really."

[runrachelrun.insanejournal.com]

Rachel leaned in a little. "You have a therapist?" she asked, sounding pleased. Sounding like a child asking the question 'do you have ice cream?' when she knew for sure that he did. "But you're a guy?"

[daniel_marlow]

That actually made Danny smile, at least a little. "It would seem so," he said, amused. "And yeah, product of a shitty childhood. She's actually pretty cool."

[runrachelrun.insanejournal.com]

Definitely interested now, Rachel sat down on the bench with one leg folded under her, the other still firmly on the ground. "It's just so weird! Usually it's all the girls that are crazy." She paused for a beat. "Are you straight?"

[daniel_marlow]

That was a pretty forward question, but Danny didn't mind answering. As long as it wasn't followed by, 'let's go make out in a corner somewhere'.

"I'm straight, yes. And I've basically been in therapy since I was seven. Once I was in hospital."

[runrachelrun.insanejournal.com]

Okay, thought Rachel for a moment. Trap? Was someone setting this up to make fun of her? It was basically the same as what she'd written to Zoe in her letters to make her be her friend, that she'd been on medication since she was six. And over the time she'd known Zoe since school started she'd found Zoe was almost normal for the amount of crap she'd been through? Was normal the right word? But she didn't take medication and she wasn't in therapy and it was just so unexpected. But why would Zoe be trying to set her up? However paranoid she might be, Zoe did not seem like the manipulative, backstabbing, arranging a set-up type. "Are you really telling the truth?" she asked.

[daniel_marlow]

"Yeah," Danny acknowledged, unsure why the girl might not have believed him. "I was only there for a week though, because it actually made everything worse. Why?"

[runrachelrun.insanejournal.com]

"I've never met anyone who goes around telling strangers they're crazy before," she said (apart from you when you told Zoe, said her own voice in her head). "I mean I was in hospital for like three months? And I haven't even told my best friend that. And then all of a sudden you're telling me? It's just like you're not real, that's all."

[daniel_marlow]

"Oh, I see." And it made sense too. When she said she'd been in the hospital for a long time, it made Danny relax just a little bit. Here was someone who might just understand.

"I guess it takes too much energy to pretend to be okay," he said with a shrug. "And I don't get enough sleep for that. Did the hospital help you?"

[runrachelrun.insanejournal.com]

Rachel shrugged, even bigger than his shrug. "I don't know?" she said. "It was..." Rachel took a long moment, counting slowly on her fingers. "Seven? Years ago. I'd just turned twelve. It's kinda blurry."

[daniel_marlow]

Daniel leaned back against the bench, trying to remember when exactly he had gone. "I went right after the shooting," he admitted. "But I'd been in therapy way before that. I think it helps some people." He wanted to ask if she was okay, but he didn't know quite how to phrase it. "I just mostly wanted out."

[runrachelrun.insanejournal.com]

Rachel nodded at him slowly, her mouth open and her mouth dry. "I wanted out," she said, totally understanding that feeling, "I wanted out so bad."

[daniel_marlow]

To that he gave her a sympathetic look. "I'm sorry you were there for so long then, that's shitty. Do you even know why? I mean- You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," he rushed to say so she didn't feel pressured.

[runrachelrun.insanejournal.com]

"Oh," she said, realising her misunderstanding with a dawning look of horror. When he'd said he wanted out she thought he'd meant he wanted to kill himself.

"No," she said, her breathing starting to speed up a little without her consent. She tried to press her tongue against the roof of her mouth to calm it down. "I mean," she said. "I do know. Why." Breathe, she told herself. Breathe. It doesn't matter that you misunderstood. He doesn't know you fucked up the conversation. He doesn't know. It's fine.

"A few months isn't that long," she said, shaking her head like three really wasn't a huge deal. She pushed her hair back over her shoulders, reminding herself how nice it was today, how nice she'd been able to make it. "I mean, some people are lifers, right?"

[daniel_marlow]

Danny didn't realise she was feeling silly at all, nor did he notice she seemed upset by it. "I can imagine it feels like forever when you're younger," he said, partly to himself. "You're right though, some people are lifers. I think my mum was worried I'd off myself and she'd just lost her daughter so she was being careful, but I hated it. My mum's the sports teacher. Ms Marlow?" Most of the students knew Ms Marlow's daughter had been killed in the shooting.

[runrachelrun.insanejournal.com]

"She's my teacher!" Rachel exclaimed, thought it shouldn't have been surprising that they both knew the same teacher when they went to the same school. She just felt wired and strange, it had been a strange day and this free period (well, this stolen period) was turning into a very strange period. "Did she lose a daughter... in the shooting?"

[daniel_marlow]

Danny nodded at that. "I think my sister, Melissa, was in the hall trying to find me and it makes me feel like shit. Sort of spiraled downwards and tried to kill myself. Hence...hospital." He didn't usually talk this much unless it was to his therapist, but it was weirdly nice. "Mum's great though."

[runrachelrun.insanejournal.com]

"That's really bad," Rachel said softly. "I lost my brothers. And my mother. I'm not trying to one up you," she added quickly. "I mean I always wanted a sister. Ak- that was a stupid thing to say I'm sorry. I think maybe my dad kept me in hospital for so long after that because he didn't know what I would do? I mean," she took a deep breath. "What I meant to say was, that I was in hospital after they died. Just like you."

[daniel_marlow]

"It's not stupid," he reassured her, because when people walked on eggshells around him, it made him a little uncomfortable. "I'm sorry you lost your mum and brothers. It sucks," he said because he knew it really did. "My dad couldn't deal with how messed up I was as a kid and he just stopped seeing me. I'm pretty sure he wanted to ship me off somewhere but Mum wouldn't let him." He looked over at her and tried for what he hoped was an understanding smile. "My name's Danny, by the way."

[runrachelrun.insanejournal.com]

"Okay Danny-by-the-way," Rachel said, returning his smile. "My name is Miss Elaine Eos, or that is what I started calling myself, when I was thirteen and pretentious. I'm Rachel, really. I want to be Rachel."

[daniel_marlow]

Danny chuckled, his smile growing wider. "Miss Elaine Eos is a great name," he nodded. "Rachel is too. Nice to meet you, Rachel. I'm glad you came out here. 'S nice to talk to someone who gets it, you know?"

[runrachelrun.insanejournal.com]

"It's weird," she said, not disagreeing that it was nice. It was not bad but it was definitely unusual. "No one is this open about it," she amended, in case he thought she was calling him weird. "Even Zoe is all my-friend-shot-everyone and I-haven't-seen-my-parents-since-I-was-tweleve but I thought she was the one special case in the whole school. I mean, people here are rich."