darker_london | Quiet (Danny, Open to anyone at London College)

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Quiet (Danny, Open to anyone at London College)

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.

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"Thanks," said Zoe, both to the compliment and the invitation, lifting a corner of her mouth in a little smile. She sat down awkwardly, a little unsure about entering a conversation about nightmares.

But Rachel carried right on with the conversation. "My brain gets distracted by other stuff and doesn't hold onto memories. There's something in the long term memory loop... I can't even remember the psychological thingumy for it? But I don't remember heaps before I was twelvish."

Danny shifted so he could see both of them and he was a little shocked when Rachel continued right on talking. If she was going to, he might as well though. "Wow. I sort of wish I couldn't remember anything about the year when I was seven. But then if I couldn't, I might hate that. Do you hate it?"

"I guess?" Rachel shrugged, her forehead all wrinkled in thought. "No," she said, actually deciding she felt one way or another rather than just guessing. "I don't hate it... Because the memories aren't going to be good, are they?" She looked at him and then looked at Zoe. "Why would your brain stop good memories?"

"I dunno," Zoe shook her head. Sometimes Rachel asked her these questions like she really believed Zoe would know. "Sometimes brains are weird though." It was a bit of a cop out answer.

"Do you remember the worst thing that happened to you?" Rachel asked, and Zoe nodded.

"Yes," she said. "Vividly." Zoe wasn't sure what she was counting as 'the worst thing', but the handful of contenders were all still clear in her mind.

"And you do too, don't you?" Rachel turned back to Danny. She looked worried now. Sometimes the subtleties of conversation passed her by but, she did know that one of the basics was you don't ask people about the worst thing that ever happened to them but somehow that's where they'd ended up.

Danny blinked a few times, but he nodded too. Unconsciously he traced the lines on his wrist with one hand. "It wasn't just one time. Er- I mean it wasn't one thing? I mean- Augh, I mean the worst thing happened a lot." Danny didn't feel uncomfortable admitting that, but thinking about it did make him feel a little queasy.

Zoe watched his face as he spoke, and she took in how he touched his wrist and thought carefully about the meaning of his words. Here was a guy who was clearly more than just a teachers son who had list his sister. She knew he was reclusive, and she'd seen him talking to Dylan, but Zoe did not know all that much more about him. Here was another person with more than one worst thing in their life.

"See," said Rachel. "I don't remember." Her voice had leveled out, like she was reciting lines in a play. "I don't remember the worst day of my life when my mother put us all in the car and drove us out of Plymouth. I don't really remember living in Plymouth. I don't remember where she said we were going that day. I don't remember what the weather was like. I don't remember if my brothers were being annoying that day or if one of them was reading out a story, although I do remember he used to read to me. I don't remember the last things I said to them."

"I don't remember," she said, holding out her hand, which was trembling slightly, and angling it downwards, like a car rolling downhill, "-my mother locking the doors and driving the car into the River Tamar. So," she looked at Danny, really sadly. "I don't hate it, because I don't want to remember that."

When she explained what her mother had done to them, Danny reached out for her hand again. He didn't quite take it, instead letting his own hover there, waiting for her to take his if she wanted it. God it all sounded so fucking horrible. And he knew what horrible felt like. "No," he agreed, "I wouldn't want to either. I'm sorry. I mean that sounds like total bullshit, but I am."

Rachel let her hand continue downwards to the bottom of the river, because that's where Danny's hand was, and it was warm and strange and alive. "Well," she said. "I probably wouldn't want your nightmares either," she smiled at him thinly.

Zoe was watching her hands pressed over her mouth. Oh jesus, she thought. Oh fuck. She could probably head home and amend her Rachel file, the bit that said thought her mother deserved to die could probably use a rightly so scribbled after it.

Zoe couldn't believe she was thinking about files when her friend had just told her that her mother tried to kill her and had succeeded in killing her brothers. What a coldhearted fucking bitch she was being. Say something nice she snapped at herself. "How did you survive?" was what came out of her mouth, instead. Oh well done, Zoe. Super compassionate.

Danny gave her hand a faint little squeeze once she had taken hold of his. He sort of wanted to hug her and that was strange because he never wanted to hug anyone except his mother. "Valid point," he had to admit though. "I don't think anyone would want my nightmares." It didn't make him less sorry she'd been through terrible shit.

When Zoe asked how she had survived, Danny wondered if Rachel even remembered that. "Whatever happened, I'm glad you did," he added before offering Zoe a sad smile.

Zoe and Rachel had talked about her brothers a few times before, a comment here or there, but Zoe had never wanted to ask how they died. Actually that was a lie; she'd wanted to ask, but the moment had never come up. Her tongue felt all heavy and gummed up and stupid. She couldn't think of a way to phrase it so it didn't sound like an inquisition. She couldn't think of a way to ask that didn't make her sound like a bitch. Mostly when they talked about family stuff, Rachel talked about her dad, or her step sister, or would ask more questions about Liz and Emma.

"Some guy broke the window and got me out," Rachel said. "The one thing is... I do remember drowning. I do remember seeing this face through water above me. I do remember not being able to move. But that's about it. And then I woke up in hospital and my dad was there."

"I am so angry and sorry," said Zoe, like a stupid robot.

Danny made a horrified face and he held Rachel's hand just a little bit more tightly. "Oh, shit," he practically whispered. "Shit. That's so scary. Do-" Danny chewed on his lip for a second before h asked, "do you want a hug?"

Rachel laughed a little quiet laugh, not a burst of laughter or anything this time, and not because anything was funny, but just because someone asking her if she wanted a hug was such a weird reaction. Therapists and doctors weren't allowed and though her father did sometimes it wasn't the same as a cute broken teenage boy. "I am okay," she said, because she didn't know what to do when hugging cute broken teenage boys. "It just makes me do weird things sometimes."

From the other side of her, Zoe lunged suddenly forward and wrapped her arms around Rachel's ribs, pressing her face into Rachel's shoulder. Rachel squawked in surprise, but she didn't let go of Danny's hand.

It was a bony hug and too tight and Zoe pulled back knowing she'd got it all wrong. Liz would have done the warm and supportive and empathetic thing but Zoe was a tongue-tied freak. "Sorry," she said. "Sometimes I do weird things too?" She grinned awkwardly at Rachel in apology. Rachel snorted with laughter.

Danny grinned at Zoe then (half relieved because he hadn't had to hug anyone), chuckling along with Rachel. "Well I, for one, am a fan of weird things to a point," he said easily. "You're in good company anyway. I know when thinking about my very worst things, I tend to get weird." Sometimes there was vomit, even now after a decade between it and him. "And I'm fairly sure most of the people at LC think I'm a freak. Most of them aren't outwardly horrible though, because of my mum. Except Rhys Spencer. He's still a dick."

"Ugh, I hate that guy," Zoe said, with a passion. "He's such an... unrelenting dickhead."

"Zoe's been bringing me up to speed on the people to avoid at London College," Rachel explained. "This one time he stole a puppy."

Zoe sighed. That poor lovely doberman puppy she'd rescued, and had for only a couple of days before its owner found her. Stupid angelic fucker.

"I don't think you're a freak," Rachel said softly to Danny.

"Neither do I," Zoe added. "By the way."

Danny's mouth fell open when Rachel said Rhys had stolen a puppy. "Oh my god, what an arse!" he exclaimed, without even realising he was going to do so. "Yeah, he's pretty terrible."

Then the girls both assured him he wasn't a freak, and Danny smiled at the both of them. "Thanks," he said, and he meant it. "He realised he was still holding Rachel's hand, so he gave it one last squeeze and let go, but he did so slowly so he could stop him if she really wanted to. "You're both pretty cool."

Rachel let him take his hand away, though she would have liked it to stay.

"Well, we do okay," Zoe said, downplaying the compliment because compliments were awkward.

"Maybe we're freaks, but there's three of us now," Rachel said, sounding ridiculously cheesy to Zoe.

Rachel felt the warmth of Danny's hand long after he'd withdrawn it.

Danny bit his lip, ducking his head as he smiled. "I don't usually- I mean I pretty much have one friend. And I think I got him because he pitied me at first," Danny shrugged.

Zoe gave Danny a sympathetic twist of a smile. "Well we all kinda start out weirdly," she said. "I don't think I've had a single friendship start out normal." Or end normally, she added grimly, in her head. Although she supposed that her friendship with people like Rueban had ended normally enough, drifting apart after he left school and started playing professional football. But her friendship with the sisterhood kind of skewed her results.

Danny's smile was appreciative then. "Yeah, and Dylan's the only reason I didn't spiral hard after coming back to school." He didn't want to talk too much about the shooting, because he didn't want to upset Zoe. "He's a good guy. Spends a lot of time telling me about his rockstar sister."

Zoe snorted. "Well, Deirdre does plenty of shit to talk about."

"What kind of shit?" Rachel asked, curious. Who was this Dylan and was his sister a real rockstar and how did Zoe know a rockstar anyway?

"Oh, uh," God, where did you even start with Deirdre. "I'll show you her journal sometime, it's probably easier for you to experience Deirdre for yourself. She was real nice to me when I first got to England, though. I've known her since I was, like, twelve."

"I've met her a few times," Danny said, brightening up because here was something else he had in common with Zoe. "She's- She's a lot. Really nice! She has a lot of energy and she's pretty loud but she kept giving me ice lollies so that was okay." He turned to Rachel and said, "she's the singer for some band I don't know. Though Dylan told me the guitarist lives on my street too. Small world."

"Not really that small; Deirdre kind of knows everybody," Zoe said, because it was true. Deirdre had her fingers in all the social pies. "Their band's called Spectre, after their guy, whose name is also Spectre," she explained to Rachel, who was looking a little lost. "It's kind of prog-metal. Don't worry," she added, since Rachel looked even more lost. "No one really knows what that means."

Danny laughed and he nodded over in Rachel's direction. "I sure as hell don't know what it means. Is it lunch time?" Even though he had felt horrible before, he felt a lot better now. He even thought he could handle eating.

Rachel looked up, taking in the outside world for the first time in a while. "Either that or everyone else is skiving off too," she said, as the quad had started to fill up with people.

"You were skiving off?" Zoe looked at Rachel sharply.

"Uhm," Rachel said. She knew how Zoe felt about skipping classes; almost the same way she felt about climbing on the roofs of classrooms. She ran through half a dozen lies in her head before she realised they were lies she'd tell her Dad, not lies she should be telling her friend. "A bit," she said. "I couldn't handle it today."

Danny felt the distinct urge to take Rachel's hand again, even though he had no idea where it was even coming from. He didn't. Instead he said, "sometimes I can't do it either. Makes it a bit more difficult to skive off when your mum's a teacher, but she gets it as long as it doesn't happen too often. Are you feeling better?"

Rachel smiled at him, pleased that she could answer a genuine "Yeah," to his question. She probably would have said yes anyway, but it was a relief to mean it.

"Alright," said Zoe. She couldn't really talk; she'd skipped class before. She'd spent certain days hiding in different places around the school so she wouldn't have to talk to anyone or even be seen by them. She'd walked in one gate and right out the other before school even started, disappearing off to a park or a library or when Rueban was still around, his place. But it worried Zoe when Rachel broke the rules. Ever since the roof incident. She really wanted Rachel to keep out of trouble. "You wanna meet up after school and go over homework?"

"Pffff," said Rachel, but she also nodded, yes. Homework was not so bad with Zoe. "What about you?" she asked Danny. "Join us?"

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Quiet (Danny, Open to anyone at London College)

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