Jamie woke with a full-on headache, knowing it was because of a lack of sleep. What had happened the night before, the whole kissing thing, the whole overhearing what Daniel was telling Megan thing. They hadn't known he was sitting on the stairs. Neither of them heard Jamie move back away from the door and climb the stairs back to his room, a frown on his face and a hand on his chest because he couldn’t breathe.
He’d never really known the real reason for Daniel refusing adoption. He’d just accepted it with the understanding of youth. What he had heard just made him feel so sad, and it left him uncomfortable in his own skin. Unsettled and angsty.
To Jamie, Daniel had seemed such a vulnerable person; he always had been. Jamie had spent the last eight years looking out for him, being his brother, but had he actually ever made him feel safe? Jamie was always pulling Daniel into pranks where trouble often ensued. Was that a good thing for Daniel? Had it just made him nervous he’d get in trouble and be thrown out? Did he expect it? Did Daniel really think one day his new mom and dad would turn round to him and tell him to go? Or worse leave him?
He stood and stretched, determined he would talk to Daniel this morning and make him see he was a real part of the family.
No trial kissing, no giving into these feelings surfacing from god knows where, no more. Just working on making Daniel feel valued.
Starting now.
A knock on his door and Jamie opened it to reveal a blushing Daniel.
"We kind of need to talk," he started softly, and slipped into the room past Jamie, pushing the door shut behind him.
"We do?" Jamie replied, still blown away that Daniel was actually able to talk to him at all.
"Jamie, what happened last night…" He stopped, stricken eyes focusing on Jamie, hands nervously wringing in front of him.
Jamie didn’t know what to say, half of him so desperate to touch and kiss the man in front of him, half of him fearful Daniel would say no more touching. He stared into a determined gray gaze, knowing his own eyes must be showing his nerves, his indecision.
"I want to say sorry," Daniel started nervously before Jamie could get his words out. Wait? Daniel was sorry?
"Sorry? What for? It was my idea."
"Jamie, it may have been your idea…" He paused, dropping his gaze. "I wanted to, Jamie, desperately. I wanted to kiss you. I’ve been fighting these really intense feelings for months now. I’ve focused on you so much, and I know it is wrong, and I just wanted to say how sorry I am, and please, can we forget last night? I’ll try my hardest…" His breath hitched on a sob.
Jamie extended a hand in support. Daniel raised his gaze again to Jamie’s. Jamie hoped he wouldn’t see hate there, but what he did see moved him swiftly back against the wall.
Fire. He saw banked fire, passion, not disgust, but raw naked fire, then Jamie moved. "You don’t get it, do you, Daniel? You don’t see for one minute that what you feel could be two-sided? I may be confused about a lot at the moment, but when we kissed last night… that was real, that was raw." And then, leaning his whole frame against a trembling, shocked Daniel, he took control, searched for warm soft lips, and took all he could from Daniel, swallowing groans and murmurs, holding his face in two hands, heads tilting, bodies moving closer, both so damn hard.
Daniel pulled back. "Jamie, you don’t want…"
"Shut up, Daniel, stop fucking thinking," Jamie growled into Daniel’s open and kiss-swollen mouth, pushing his tongue in, using every ounce of his girl practice on making this the best kiss Daniel would ever have.
They pushed, they pulled, they rutted like the two horny teenagers they were, the pressure of swollen dicks on hard thighs enough to send Daniel toppling over the edge, his body tensing. Jamie followed soon after, hands gripping Daniel’s hips, wringing the last drop of feeling from them both.
Then moving his lips, gentling his breathing, focusing on kissing Daniel, showing him there was hope, there could be a future for this.
And that, after it all, this was deadly fucking serious.
Jamie finally stepped back after a last gentle kiss to bruised lips, a last fleeting touch to heated skin. He expected a smack, even going so far as to flinch as he opened his eyes and stared into gray. He wanted a smile, he needed something, some gut reaction, hoping for…
Daniel’s eyes filled almost immediately, and his legs just folded under him as soon as Jamie let him go. He slumped down against the wall, his legs drawn up, his arms wrapped round them, his eyes locked on Jamie’s as Jamie fell to his knees in front of him.
"What did we do?" Daniel whispered brokenly, tears tracking down his pale skin and running off his chin, "Jamie what did we do?"
Jamie placed both hands on Daniel’s knees, moving in closer, tears in his own eyes, filled with confusion. "I don’t know what to say," Jamie said softly. "Dan, you are starting to worry me. What is wrong?"
"That was… this isn’t…" Daniel couldn’t get anything past his obvious distress, his breath hitching. "I don’t want…" He dropped his forehead to his bent knees; tears, so many tears.
"You don’t want? You don’t want this? You don’t want me? What, Daniel? Talk to me." Jamie was starting to feel panic curling in his stomach. What had just happened between them was magic, had been magic, and now… Now it was just turning to ashes in his mouth.
"I can’t," Daniel said brokenly, lifting his head and staring straight at Jamie. "We can’t… we can’t do this, Jamie."
"Daniel—"
"This is really, really…" Abruptly Daniel clambered up, using the wall for support, knocking Jamie back on his butt in the process. Blindly he pulled at the door.
Shit.
The door hadn’t even been locked.
"No more, Jamie, no more," he threw over his shoulder, stumbling across the hall to his own room.
He left Jamie sitting dazed on the floor, wondering how it had all gone to hell so quickly, listening as Daniel’s door locked, and he was left sitting on his own.
* * * * *
Before
The piano was the elephant in the room until Christmas Eve that first year Daniel had found a home with the Walkers.
They apparently always opened one present to each other on Christmas Eve. Jamie received a new action figure for his burgeoning Star Wars collection, Mark a book, Megan chocolates, Don a joke reindeer tie, Sue a chef’s hat. When it came to Daniel’s present, Jamie immediately jumped up and dug around for a flat parcel, muttering to himself and then pushing it toward Daniel to open. Sue looked at her middle child fondly. He was visibly vibrating with the excitement of the gift he had ordered for Daniel, with Mark’s help, from Amazon.
Daniel nervously pulled at the paper. He had had Christmases before. He hadn’t been deprived, but his Christmases had consisted of gifts at a restaurant, mostly on his own as his parents weren’t really the type for big family get-togethers.
He looked at Jamie’s wide grin and answered with one of his own, ripping off the last of the paper, looking closely at the present Jamie had gifted him.
A book of Christmas Carols.
Sheet music for his piano.
"Daniel can play that chopsticks thing on his piano," Jamie announced, his ten-year-old self not seeing a problem with the sudden silence that filled the room.
Daniel looked stunned at the gift and just ducked his head, Don and Sue exchanged stricken glances, and Megan was too busy eating her chocolate to speak anyway.
"What a lovely thoughtful present, Jamie," Sue said. Jamie beamed and then turned expectantly to Daniel, waiting for his new brother’s reaction.
"Thank you, Jamie," Daniel said softly, and placed the music book down next to him as if it burned him.
"Don’t ya like it?" Jamie said, frowning.
"I love it, Jamie, but I haven’t played the piano for a very long time," Daniel said so softly that Sue strained to hear.
"Well, come on then. Let's go do it now." And grabbing Daniel by the hand, he pulled and pulled until Daniel had no alternative but to at least stand, and grabbing the sheet music, Jamie started guiding him to the sunroom.
"Jamie, Daniel may not want—" Sue said to her whirlwind of a son.
"S’ok," Daniel said over his shoulder. He kind of felt he owed this family at least one nice thing from him at Christmas, for all of their tolerance and understanding in the past few months, and if he was made to play the piano well that was at least something he could do right.
Daniel slid onto the seat, running itchy fingers over the polished wood. Every week he came out and religiously polished it with the wood polish he had found under the sink, and the wood gleamed and felt smooth to touch. He slipped up the cover, his hands resting, hovering gently over the keys. Jamie thumbed through the book.
"Look," he said suddenly, placing the open face up on Daniel’s lap. "‘Away in a Manger’," he prompted eagerly. "S’for beginners. Can you do that? Can you? ’Cause I know all the words an’ I could sing."
"Yeah, I can play it," Daniel said softly, his head starting to ache, taking the book from his lap and placing it in the correct position. He briefly glanced at the sheet music, remembering back to last Christmas and his renditions of music by Handel and Chopin for his mom’s friend, in his role as their very own piano prodigy. Sue and Don arrived in the room, followed by a grinning Mark and a chocolate-covered Megan, and lowering his head, he gathered every reserve of strength he ever had in his ten years of life and began to play.
Heat built in his hands as movements, as familiar to him as breathing, pulsed and shone and sparkled as the music in his head was pushed out into the room. Beautiful, soft, hard, quiet, loud, a joy to the family around him, his fingers stretching to reach keys, hands speckled with freckles in a blur of motion as he played carol after carol.
Now Jamie wasn’t stupid. He was going to see that Daniel wasn’t even looking at the sheet music. He was playing from his head, and even if he was looking at the sheet music, then surely five verses of “Once In Royal David’s City” didn’t fit onto one page of sheet music, especially on the sheet entitled “Away In A Manger”.
The family sang along to his music, mostly out of key, with lots of laughing and giggling, and Daniel felt the ice in his spine start to melt.
It was nearly midnight when Sue called a halt to proceedings, encouraging Don to take a sleepy Megan into his arms and telling Mark and Jamie to turn in. Daniel didn’t move. He couldn’t; he was on emotional overload.
She slid onto the stool next to him, putting her arm around him and hugging him close.
"I miss them a lot," he said brokenly.
"I know you do, Daniel; I know you do."
And then she did what she needed to do, just held him as he cried.
* * * * *
Now
Daniel washed and dressed in record time. He needed to get out of the house, preferably without seeing Jamie at any point.
He somehow managed it, kissing his mom goodbye, swiping a slice of Megan’s toast so it looked like he actually wanted to eat something, mumbled something about practice, and then, grabbing his school bag, he literally ran from the house.
It had all gone so badly wrong. None of this was supposed to happen.
When he had come to the Walkers, it was just to come to terms with himself, certainly not so he could find a boyfriend. Definitely not so he could end up virtually jumping their son, leading him astray, make him think he wanted to touch Daniel in the intimate way he had.
Jamie didn’t want this. He was confused, going through that whole angsty teenage thing. He was just a horny teenager needing release, and Daniel couldn’t handle that.
If just this touch was causing his heart to break, then God help him if Jamie wanted to push it any further.
Suddenly he stopped his panicked walking as the solution hit him, and he stood as still as stone a few hundred yards from the school gates.
He would go. He had the credits. He would move, leave now, find somewhere near the college where he could stay, get a job. He could find his identity away from temptation and not lead Jamie astray. That would make everyone happy.
"Daniel… hey, Daniel!"
Daniel turned, relieved to see it was only Steve, his guitar strung over his back as usual. They had been friends so long; a love of music and not being cool had brought them together, and his friend’s smile was what pushed him over the edge.
"Steve, can I talk to you?" Steve would know what to do, Steve would help.
"’Course, you okay?"
Together they moved to sit against their tree.
"I don’t know where to start."
"How about from the beginning," Steve teased.
Steve was the only person whom Daniel had confided in, and then only very briefly. "I kind of came out to the rest of the family."
"Jeez, did it not go well?"
"No, they were cool. It just had an effect I couldn’t have foreseen by any stretch of the imagination."
"Jamie," Steve said simply, causing Daniel to look up at Steve, startled
"What do you mean ‘Jamie’?"
"I don’t know what I mean really, just that I often catch Jamie staring at you, an’ it sometimes doesn’t look brotherly. Know what I mean?"
"Oh my God." How did I miss that?
"I kind of think you need to talk to Jamie before it goes any further," Steve urged, catching Daniel’s gaze. Seeing something there that must have worried him, he said, "Dan, tell me, what have you done? What has he done?"
Daniel couldn’t answer, burying his head in his hands, Steve’s words washing over him.