Fallen

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This is part of a much longer back-story and is written totally from Dan’s POV. It’s written around certain themes that include fate, jumping and falling as well as how we repeat certain behaviours, whether consciously or unconsciously.

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Fallen by The Lizard

[nextpage title=”Chapter One”]

Chapter One

Author’s Notes: The editorial scene was inspired by a bag of Norwegian sweets that were given to me. Jelly babies with breasts do exist.

Something brushed against Dan’s left cheek and drew him towards consciousness. As Dan wearily opened his eyelids, a sharp pain pierced through his temple, causing him to wince. Feeling as though his head was underwater, Dan’s brain undulated as he fought to make sense of his surroundings.

Work with the familiarities, Ashcroft.

The throb in Dan’s forehead, left leg and right arm suggested that he was still alive. He vaguely registered that he was lying in a hospital bed. His sister’s voice echoed around his mind. Dan blinked again and tried to distinguish two dark shapes that flanked his bed. Was that… Claire and… Nathan Barley?

Drowsiness gripped him and his senses reeled. A muffled voice spoke from his left, indistinguishable: “Sign here. Anything you can manage…” A pen was thrust towards him and Dan’s hand shook as he clumsily moved it across a clipboard, scrawling an approximation of his signature. He thought he should sign it—it could be important.

Suddenly, several more human forms surrounded the bed, their blurred faces slowly becoming recognisable—Rufus, Toby, Jonatton, Ned, Sasha and Pingu, along with Barley and Claire, who he could see clearly now. She gently held his right hand and gazed pitifully at him.

Everyone except…

Dan panicked and his mind screamed back at him: “Where is he? Why isn’t he here? SOMEBODY TELL ME!” He tried to speak but his mouth felt dry and he couldn’t move his jaw. His stomach lurched and he tried to get up but his body felt leaden.

As another surge of medication numbed his overwrought brain into submission, Dan’s rapid breathing gradually slowed and he slumped back against the bed. As he slipped back towards unconsciousness and the world became distant, Dan told himself that it hadn’t seemed that far to fall.

It didn’t seem that far to fall. It didn’t seem… that… far…

Dan slouched wearily along Curtain Road, puffing thoughtfully on a burning Marlboro Light and turning a rhetorical question over and over in his mind:

How the hell did I reach this point in my life?

He decided to walk to his destination in order to clear his head, shrugging his coat tightly against the bitter winter wind and silently cursing the gods for landing him with the shitty end of the stick yet again. He tried not to think too much about the night ahead of him: another over-hyped opening of an achingly-hip-for-ten-minutes cyber-techno-asylum full of head-splitting, ear-shredding, nerve-snapping, repetitive, palpitation-inducing beats in a suffocating room of brain-mashing strobe lights, weak beer and throat-ripping dry ice. Bloody marvellous.

As Dan turned the corner of Pitfield Street and walked the last hundred yards towards the nightclub, he pondered the events that had taken place that very afternoon at a gathering of office gibbons that was laughably termed a sugaRAPE editorial meeting.

Half-listening without interest to the blithering twazzocks surrounding the table, Dan had sat, resting his head in his hands, silently praying for a shot-gun or at least a particularly virulent strain of plague that would attack his colleagues and leave him uninfected. A sharp pain pounded repeatedly at his left temple, like a particularly mischievous and vicious spider monkey with a toffee hammer. He leant forward on to his elbows and massaged his forehead with his fingertips, attempting to rid himself of the throbbing headache.

Suddenly Dan realised that the bleating and honking noises that passed for discussion had stopped. Frowning, he glanced upwards in the hope that his prayers for a moronocide had been answered. All eyes were turned on him, expectantly.

“What?” he snapped, irritable at becoming the focus of their attentions.

Rufus held a packet of sweets out towards him at arm’s length and shook the bag, his face like an excitable puppy: “Pick a jelly bitch, Ashcroft!”

On a recent trip to Norway, their recently appointed and ridiculously-punctuated editor, Jonatton Yeah? had developed a taste for a particular brand of jelly babies that were female in shape, something that highly amused Ned, who was busily bending the sweets into sexual positions, making bad puns and suggesting they photograph it for the magazine’s cover image. Yeah? was at this moment sharing the jelly-ladies with the rest of the staff and, on Rufus’ childish suggestion, had impulsively agreed a rule that any decision on magazine content and who would cover the article would be made depending on the colour of the jelly extracted from the packet.

Apparently it was now Dan’s turn to make an editorial decision via his choice of confectionery. He ground his back teeth together, staring at the bag held out before him.

Just… oh, what’s the bloody point anymore?

Dan sighed heavily and straightened up in his seat, reluctantly reaching two grubby fingers into the packet. He tugged out a green sweet, placing it in the palm of his hand and glared at it, as if expecting it to tell him just what the fuck had gone wrong with his life. Ned and Rufus whooped and gave one another a high five, congratulating Dan on his choice. Dan threw them a quizzical look.

“I think we’ll make it the cover feature?” Yeah? exclaimed, triumphantly biting off the head of a red jelly-lady and smiling smugly at Dan before returning to his office.

Dan remained at the table as the sugaRAPE donkeys dispersed, his brow furrowed. As the sugar-covered sweet grinned back at him, he realised that his short-term future—or whatever assignment it was he’d just been lumbered with—had just been decided by a green piece of jelly with tits.

How the hell did I reach this point in my life?

Adrenalatte was like hell on earth… only somehow much worse.

There was a fleeting revival of cyber-techno around Hoxditch that sugaRAPE felt the need to capture and present to its readership, even though the trend would probably be over and done with in the next two and half days, the Idiots quickly moving on to pillage another clubbing movement. Flashing his press pass at the security staff, Dan exhaled loudly and grabbed the door handle of the club, bracing himself for a vicious aural and visual onslaught.

A thick wall of dry ice cemented by flashes of strobe lights blinded Dan to distance and direction. Jostled by disembodied elbows and tripping over huge, random platform-booted feet, he stumbled into a pitch-black corner of the club and shrank back against the wall, attempting to orientate himself with his surroundings. The industrial thudding of the deafening beats attacked all rational thought, giving Dan a mild panic attack. He began to wonder if he had the ability to piece together something coherent from this mash-up of brain-hemorrhaging proportions.

If he didn’t badly need the money on this article, he’d walk out of the club right now. Yet, for reasons Dan hadn’t yet been able to fathom, he always needed money. Money and Dan Ashcroft were passing acquaintances that never seemed to share more than a nod of acknowledgement. Poverty, which usually brought along its’ close friend, Instability, would frequently impose themselves on Dan’s life, remaining for indefinite periods. One thing was certain: since effectively becoming homeless, sleeping at his desk or on the office floor lent Dan’s state of mind no favours and it certainly didn’t enable him to deal adequately with the perpetual berk-circus at sugaRAPE.

[nextpage title=”Chapter Two”]

Chapter Two

Dan perched on the second floor window ledge, shivering. Seized by panic, he shifted further along the cold concrete and peered down at the ground below, seeking escape from… what exactly? The seat of his jeans felt slightly damp. The ground appeared to rise up and then retreat. His throat felt parched and his heartbeat pounded in his ears.

Glancing back into the dark room, his vision blurred, Dan sensed the presence of two unidentifiable figures. He felt them watching him, seemingly willing him to leap. He had to get away from them. There was nothing else for it; he’d have to jump.

As Dan took a deep breath and pushed himself from the ledge, he heard his sister’s voice, but by then he couldn’t stop. He was already falling steadily, inevitably, not knowing where he would land…

Falling against the mattress, turning and tumbling in their passionate, needy embrace, Dan’s hands clawed around Jones’ lower back. Jones ground his crotch against him, nudging his own already very erect cock, which rubbed pleasingly against Jones’ bare thigh. Releasing his grip on Dan, Jones fell forwards against the pillows, bunching them up beneath him. He parted his pale, lean legs and glanced back at Dan, his eyes wide in anticipation. Dan momentarily took in the sight before him and slid his hands around Jones’ muscular buttocks, parting the cheeks with his thumbs, revealing Jones’ dark pink anus. Leaning in and parting his lips, Dan pushed his whiskered chin between Jones’ buttocks and thrust his tongue forward; probing, flicking it in a rapid side-to-side motion. He felt Jones writhing beneath him, making short, sharp panting sounds and twisting the bed-sheets in his hands. With his face pushed into the pillows, Jones gave a muffled, almost desperate plea: “F… fuck me, Dan. Fuck me… p-please.”

As Dan ceased his explorations and searched the bedside cabinet for lubricant, Jones flipped over, his cock springing up, fully engorged. Sprawling on his back, he raised and parted his legs, resting the back of his calves on Dan’s shoulders. Dan knelt between Jones’ legs and squeezed a generous helping of lube along two of his fingers. Slowly, Dan reached between Jones buttocks and teased the cold lube around Jones’ anus, pushing the tip of his forefinger just inside. He relished the sight of Jones as he took a sharp intake of breath and then whimpered and arched before him, bringing a fist down onto the bed. Dan removed his lubricated digits and clasped Jones’ legs, shifting his weight, pulling him closer, his thighs shuddering. Guiding the tip of his cock, Dan gently eased himself into Jones, slowly at first, feeling Jones’ clench and buck. With a firmer thrust, Dan pushed forward, seating himself inside with a deep groan of satisfaction. Jones exhaled loudly in response then relaxed and rode the pleasurable waves as Dan began to move his length, slickly in and out of him. In between grunts and gasps, Dan caught Jones’ gaze, peering up at him, heavy-lidded, his dark eyelashes brushing against his cheeks. With his chin jutted upwards, Jones moved his hands to clasp the edge of the mattress and widened his legs further, willing Dan to thrust even deeper into him, increasing the speed of his penetrations.

Moving a hand to Jones’ hips and grasping him even tighter, Dan threw back his head and looked up to the ceiling, strands of shaggy hair falling across his eyes. He thought he could stretch up and bust right through the ceiling, reaching up into the stars and flying across the night sky.

Maybe if he leapt high enough…

With a huff of irritability, Dan snatched up his mobile phone as it vibrated on the coffee table. An unrecognised number flashed at him from the display. Frowning in response, he glanced at his wristwatch. Who the cock was this, phoning at eleven o’clock on a Tuesday night? He took one last drag of his cigarette and, with a loud sniff, pummelled the stub into the ashtray, vowing to keep his greeting brusque and business-like. There was a remote chance it might be something to do with work.

“Dan Ashcroft.”

Shrill voices, laughter and a tinny blast of jukebox music met his ear, followed by a male voice with a strong Leeds accent.

“Dan-bo! ‘ow yer doing, mate?”

The voice on the phone brought Dan up short. Its familiarity gnawed at him as he struggled to place it. It was so long since he’d heard his native tongue that he had almost forgotten what it sounded like. Even the East London accent no longer had the ring of Bow bells; nowadays it was a mixture of immigrant dialects, Mockney and Essex nasal twang.

“Er… who’s this?”

The voice broke into jovial laughter.

“It’s me, y’daft get! It’s Steve! Fookin ‘ell, Dan! ‘as your mind turned soft as well as yer accent?”

Dan exhaled and smiled, reaching towards the pocket of his jeans for another cigarette. He was suddenly conscious of the change in his own vowel sounds.

“Bloody ‘ell. Sorry, mate. It’s just a bit of a….Steve friggin’ Hill. How y’been, y’great twat?”

As Steve laughed and talked enthusiastically but somewhat drunkenly about being in town for some conference or other, Dan slouched on to the sofa, trying to recall the last time they had seen one another and wondering what on earth could have triggered this phone call.

Years ago, Dan and Steve used to frequent the rave scene up North. Inevitably, memories came flooding back between them of a particularly hot summer’s night in Gildersome that had ended somewhat abruptly.

Outside a disused factory, Dan and Steve had taken a break from the all-night party taking place inside.

“Christ, Dan. You’re the only bloke I kno’ ‘oo can neck two disco biscuits and still ‘ave a downer.”

As Dan stood round-shouldered, his eyes hidden under his Bill & Ben hat, he jabbed the toe of his scuffed Timberland boot against the crumbling brickwork, exhaling heavily. Steve, making a vain attempt to raise his best mate’s spirits, leant against the wall and took large gulps from a bottle of water. The moisture from their baggy, sweat-saturated t-shirts evaporated fast in clouds of steam around them. Dan recalled how Steve had gestured encouragingly towards him: “Come on, mate. Come back inside. They’re just a daft bunch o’ twazzocks who won’t last the night. You’ll see I’m right.”

Dan had wrinkled his nose and taken another drag on his cigarette. The deep bass-line of an LFO track reverberated from inside the building. He knew there would be hundreds of people dancing, uplifted in ecstatic rhythm, bathed in pulsing strobe-lights and dry ice. The bass-line tugged at Dan’s chest, pulling at him to go back inside and embrace the music.

But he couldn’t. Not while they were in there.

That night’s problem had started back at the pub. Since the tabloid newspapers ran horror headlines about illegal raves and the supposed endless supply of drugs to be found there, the scene had been infiltrated with people who were just out to get beered-up and then trip off their tits on as much cheap speed and E’s they could get hold of. As far as Dan was concerned, these people were utter twunts. They weren’t interested in the music, they weren’t interested in creating a good vibe and they certainly didn’t give a fuck about the personal-political act of exerting individual freedom and the right to party.

Dan had sensed that the group of drunken twats would be trouble as soon as he had seen their uniform, highstreet-styled Smiley t-shirts, over-sized neon-rimmed plastic sunglasses and designer-ripped stone-washed jeans. From their moronic attitude and general braying, he’d concluded that they were probably looking for the same illegal rave that Dan and his mates were going to, and that they were out to cause disruption. Then they had started hassling Dan and his drinking companions for details about the location of the warehouse party just outside Leeds. They’d kept tight-lipped about the location but somehow these prannocks had found someone who filled them in and now they were bloody well here—being total candles, ruining his night and determined to increase the negative exposure of the acid-house scene in the tabloid press. The underground had become over-hyped because of piddle-brained prannets like that.

Dan remembered how he had silently fumed outside the factory.

Was this how the rave scene was going to be from now on? Am I going to be hassled by intoxicated twunts in smiley t-shirts every weekend?

Steve had placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder, concerned. “This ‘as really got to you, ‘asn’t it, Dan?”

Dan shrugged and pouted. “I can’t help it. They get on me wick.” Dan hung his head and stared at the ground, sniffing. He mumbled: “They’re… idiots.”

“Everyone’s an idiot in your opinion, Dan,” Steve laughed gently and smiled into the bottle as he took another swig of water. “Are you coming back inside or what? I’m coming up on another E. I need to get moving.”

Steve had offered him the water bottle and Dan had accepted, taking two gulps then passing it back. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his baggy jeans and leant back against the wall, taking a deep breath and staring up at the night sky from under his hat. Even now, years later, sitting in the living room of the House of Jones, he remembered how the vibrations of the music from inside the club had shaken the brick wall, travelling up his spine. The pills he’d taken earlier slowly began to take effect; he suddenly felt as though he could stretch up into the stars and fly across the night sky. Somewhere up there was his destination, his future. All he had to do was get up there. Maybe if he leapt high enough…

At that moment, Steve had nudged Dan: “Maybe you should write about it, if it annoys you that much. Send it to one of those magazines you’ve always got your ‘ead in.”

Dan recalled how he had considered this as he followed Steve back into the building. As the music tugged and tickled at his rib-cage, Dan had felt an unstoppable wide grin break out across his face. They had pushed into the centre of the bouncing, smiling, hugging crowd, whooping in appreciation of the music and raising their arms to the roof, submitting to the rapturous house and acid beats. The dry ice rose up and carried them aloft, a thousand people moving together in ecstatic rhythm. Dan gazed around in wide-eyed glee as the drugs rushed through him, removing all thought of the drunken twats with their over-sized neon glasses. Everything was right and everyone came together in one pulsating, never-ending techno-beat.

Happy times.

Suddenly, their stroll down memory lane was interrupted as unexpectedly as when the police had arrived that summer’s night, closing down the party and arresting everyone in sight.

“So, Danbo. Got yourself hitched yet or what?”

As Dan stood in the shadows of the bar, he felt hypnotised, aroused, elated.

Jones was at his most beautiful and dazzling when he was in movement; whether he was whirling on a dance-floor or whether they were in the privacy of their bedroom. The music thrummed through Jones’ body, rising upwards as he moved his hips in close-eyed rhythm to the bass-line, raising his arms above his head then bringing them down, running his hands around his neck and stroking down his body, as if caressed by the beats, bathing in the sea of sound.

Dan liked to imagine his own hands following the path of Jones’ own. He noticed how other men and women gave Jones admiring looks and, as he sipped at his lager, he would feel quietly possessive and proud. Jones was utterly out of their reach but very much within his own. He felt like one lucky bastard.

Stubbing out his cigarette into an ashtray, Dan realised that he’d almost forgotten how great it was to feel like this: the shared intimacies of a relationship, the mutual trust, feeling able to deal with the world… feeling safe. He’d had less headaches, just lately. He felt parts of him inside that had lain dormant for years opening up again. He’d taken a leap that had finally paid off.

The music changed gear and mixed in tunes he recalled from his own clubbing days. Dan considered his current circumstance and his mind drifted back to when he had first moved in to the House of Jones. They’d spent almost a month of stolen, curtain-closed afternoons together, cocooned in the seclusion of their bedroom. The outside world became a distant memory, almost an irrelevance. Dan had phoned Sasha at ‘sugaRAPE’, telling her that he was working from home. He couldn’t tell her that his days were spent laughing into the pillows at Jones’ silly jokes, exploring the DJ’s lithe, pale frame and succumbing to his warm, naked embrace. They didn’t leave the house unless it was to pick up some cigarettes or fresh coffee, to collect something from work or if Jones had a gig at a club.

As Dan quickly discovered, Jones had a lot of excess energy after each gig. Jones’ existence was fuelled by copious amounts of caffeine, recreational drugs and his passion for techno music. All of that energy needed to go somewhere. Initially, Jones’ physical demands took Dan by surprise, but he soon learnt to keep up. He had to.

Every so often, Jones weaved through the crowds, beaming. He headed straight towards Dan and stretched up towards him, pressing his mouth to his lips in a kiss. In the shadows of the club, they would share intimacy over a drink; Jones stood closely to Dan, leaning against his broad chest, as Dan rested his large hands around Jones’ skinny-jeaned hips and mumbled words of affection to him. Dan was always aware that other clubbers would glance at them, casting disparaging looks, as if to say “what is that young guy doing with that old tramp?” but Jones never seemed to pay any attention to those people. He was always totally absorbed in the music, bobbing on the spot and grinning back at Dan. When Jones had finished his drink, he would nuzzle Dan’s bristly chin, give him another kiss and then spin back on to the dance-floor.

As Jones embraced the dance beats once more, bathed in blue strobe lights, Dan looked on and felt a rush, more powerful than any drug.

This is right. This is more right than anything before now. Nothing else matters… nothing…

When she’d asked him out for a friendly drink, he had tried to kid himself into believing that it was nothing more than a cordial meeting between colleagues in arms against the office donkeys.

The vodka kept flowing and she was being so nice to him. She was always so nice. How did a girl like that end up working in a shit-hole like ‘sugaRAPE’?

There had been a spark between them from the start; he couldn’t deny it. He knew it was inevitable that she’d ask if he was seeing anyone. As she reached across the table and slid her delicate fingers across the back of his outstretched hand, he’d made an excuse and bolted for the toilets.

Stumbling into the empty cubicle, he retched repeatedly into the toilet basin. As his stomach lurched and expelled its contents, all he could think about was how much of a lying shit he was. He slumped against the cubicle wall, gasping for breath, holding his head in his hands, feeling utterly wretched and full of self-loathing.

When he returned to the restaurant, he was relieved that she’d gone. A scribbled note on a serviette read: “Thanks for the drinks. See you on Monday.”

He picked up the serviette and stuffed it into his trouser pocket, then tossed some money on to the table and staggered from the restaurant, heading for the nearest off-licence.

Dan swept a hand across Jones’ taut stomach, along his hairline down to his cock, which swayed between them with each vigorous thrust. Jones’ hands fell around Dan’s and they pumped Jones’ cock together, both men moving back and forth with a steady, pounding rhythm. Sweat broke out around Dan’s neck and trickled down his back and his straining thighs, gathering at the back of his knees. He leant forward and pressed his mouth to Jones’ panting gape, plunging his tongue inside and feeling the air expel forcefully from his nose and he pushed himself into him. His knees ached and grew tired but as he broke the kiss and glanced one last time down at the beautiful man beneath him, Dan screwed up his eyes, threw back his head, moving closer to orgasm. A warm wave of a thousand tiny fingertips rushed up and down Dan’s torso and then flew between his legs, where it slammed into his balls, feeling so tight and intense that he thought his mind would explode.

“So, Danbo. Got yourself hitched yet or what?”

The phone call from Steve continued to echo around Dan’s brain; springing from the depths of his memory in the middle of the night, causing him to lie awake, wracked with anxiety. As Dan readied himself for work, threading his belt through the waistband of his jeans, he gazed across the room at Jones’ sleeping form: his adorable Jones, who apparently meant the world to him and yet… his throat filled with nausea and he hurriedly fetched up his keys and wallet, leaving the house quickly.

As he sucked hard on a Marlboro and made his way along Curtain Road, he continued to beat himself up, feeling thoroughly sick with guilt.

Fucking sell-out. Fucking hypocrite. Fucking coward.

He buzzed on the office intercom, gave his usual sarcastic, world-weary greeting and hauled open the metallic outer door with a heavy sigh. Tossing his cigarette stub to the ground, he headed slowly up the stairs, his shoulders hunched and his gaze cast down, avoiding eye contact with Sasha.

“Morning, Dan.”

As Sasha handed him his messages, she was completely polite and professional. He envied her for that. She was such a nice girl. How could he have dragged her into his private hell? She’d been there barely a month and he’d already abused their friendship. What a dick.

Grabbing a black coffee from the office kitchenette and settling down at his desk, Dan tried to stem his waves of self-loathing by focusing on the work he needed to complete that day. He groaned as his computerised diary bleeped to remind him of an editorial meeting scheduled for later that morning. Slumping forward on to the desk, he buried his face in his arms and closed his eyes, wishing the world would go away and that the voices in his head would stop torturing him.

His answer to Steve’s question bounced around on never-ending reverb…

“So, Danbo. Got yourself hitched yet or what?”

He had picked frantically at the arm of the sofa, teetering on the edge of deception.

“Yeah. I’m, er, seeing Sasha. The receptionist at sugaRAPE. She’s a really nice girl.”

Fucking sell-out. Fucking hypocrite. Fucking coward.

Dan cried out, loudly and gutturally in release, feeling his cum leaving him, hot and forceful, filling Jones with an almighty hip-bucking movement that gradually slowed as his shudders of pleasure become less acute. He held Jones fast as he craned backwards against the mattress and emitted a low throaty moan; his warm, thick spunk erupting fast and running down his fist as his bucking and arching slowed and finally ceased.

They collapsed against the bed and lay together in the semi-light, perspiration and semen cooling on their skin, staring up at the drape-covered ceiling, listening to the silence and blinking back the white lights that blinded their vision. The world did not exist beyond the four walls of their bedroom.

“Fucking hell,” laughed Jones and wriggled closer to Dan, pushing his face against his beard, “I love you so much, you great lummox.”

The French called it “la petite mort” but in the semi-darkness, entwined together, pushing his face into the hair at the nape of Jones’ neck as they dozed, Dan felt utterly elated and very much alive.

If he turned his head slowly to the left, wincing against the pain, he could just about see a glimpse of blue sky through the window at the far end of the ward.

Dan knew that Jones hated hospitals. He closed his eyes and imagined him walking past the building every day.

He knew Jones would be trying not to step on any of the cracks in the pavement.

Just in case.

[nextpage title=”Chapter Three”]

Chapter Three

Author’s Notes: Steve Hill catches up with Dan, placing him at risk of being found out. The Idiots are on the Rise but Dan believes his impassioned rant will make everything right again.

It didn’t seem that far…

Dan woke up with a start, almost falling out of bed. The sheet, damp with his sweat, clung momentarily to his hot, bare back as he shot bolt upright, his heart thumping in his chest. He kicked off the duvet and sat on the edge of the mattress, his breathing rapid and a thudding in his forehead.

Work with the familiarities, Ashcroft.

Feeling for the bedside lamp, he blinked against the light, momentarily disorientated then surveyed the semi-lit bedroom. The crumpled bedding formed a Jones-shaped space. Repetitive techno music pounded from the next room; a Led Zeppelin sample on a bass-loop with accompanying tree frogs and shattering glass. From the cacophony of noise, Dan could tell that Jones was on one of his late-night—into-early-morning caffeine energy kicks, bouncing around the lounge, punching the air and spinning records at his decks.

It wasn’t the music that had suddenly woken Dan; not at all. He wasn’t bothered by Jones’ harsh beats as he slept. In fact, since he had moved in with Jones, Dan had been quite surprised at how easy it was to sleep through his incessant dance remixes, no matter how excruciating the sounds Jones made. He found it was a strangely reassuring noise as he drifted into deep slumber; like a warped electro-lullaby.

No, it was that dream again. For the past few nights, he’d had a recurring nightmare. In it, Dan was perched precariously on a high window sill, freezing cold and peering down into a vast, bottomless chasm. He felt persecuted, pursued by figures who laughed at him, shadowy, unclear. The only way to escape them was to crawl out on to the window sill and jump into the chasm. It was always the same. He always woke up just at the moment as he pushed himself off the ledge and began to tumble forward. He recalled hearing that when people see themselves land, in a dream, it means that they had actually died in real life. Dan had always considered this idea to be nonsense but at this precise moment, with his heart thudding in his ear-drums, he began to reconsider his opinion.

As his breathing evened out, Dan snatched up his ever-present packet of cigarettes from the bedside cabinet. Fingering a fresh Marlboro from the pack, he placed it between his lips then struck a match. Dan inhaled the smoke deeply and settled back on the bed, turning the spent match in his fingers. Calmed by his familiar surroundings, he watched the trails of cigarette smoke rise towards the yellowing ceiling.

“Alright?”

The techno music had stopped but Dan hadn’t noticed. Jones bounced barefoot and grinning into the bedroom. He was naked from the waist up with an assortment of novelty necklaces nestling in his dark chest hair. Stripping off his white cotton trousers and underpants, he slid naked on to the bed, easing himself on top of Dan. As he straddled Dan’s outstretched legs, Dan felt a throb deep in his groin. He slid a large hand around Jones’ lean waist, watching intently to see what he would do next.

Dan shivered as Jones ran his hands across his broad chest, teasing his nipples. Half-whispering, Jones cocked his head to one side and fixed him with his blue eyes.

“You up for some, big man?”

Jones bit his bottom lip and teasingly ground his crotch down into Dan’s lap, flashing an eyebrow lift and following it with a smile. Dan’s face softened as his mouth broke into a broad grin; his teeth showing through beard bristle, his brown eyes twinkling. Without hesitation, Dan reached across to the bedside cabinet and stubbed out his cigarette, then pulled Jones close, catching his mouth in his own, pushing into him…

A pair over-sized, plastic sunglasses clattered to the ground. A short distance from the dark alleyway where Dan now stood with his jeans pushed down to his knees, a male voice called his name.

“Dan? Where are you, y’ twazzock?”

Dan’s breath hitched. He froze, listening as Steve continued to search for him. Police sirens sounded in the distance, their repetitive wail becoming louder as they approached the area around the warehouse.

He hissed through gritted teeth at the sweating head bobbing back and forth at his crotch.

“Ease up! Stay still!”

The Smiley t-shirt wearing twunt stopped sucking and licking, letting Dan’s semi-erect cock slide from his hot, wet mouth.

Dan pressed himself back against the wall, hiding in the shadows as Steve shouted again, clearly growing agitated.

“The rozzers are coming! Everyone’s pissing off! Dan?”

Suddenly Dan could see Steve standing at the end of the alleyway, his back turned towards him. He called to Dan a few more times and then gave up, muttering to himself. He zipped up his jacket, pulled his hood over his head, shoved his hands into his pockets and hurried off into the night.

Once he was sure Steve had gone, Dan grabbed the twunt’s head, sliding his cock back into his mouth. The twunt swallowed him whole, digging his thumbs into the flesh of Dan’s bare thighs. Dan closed his eyes and leant back against the wall, allowing the rhythm of the blow-job and the increasingly loud wail of the approaching police sirens to muffle the sound of the voice in his head:

Sell-out. Hypocrite. Coward… Sell-out. Hypocrite. Coward…

Jones playfully jostled Dan along Commercial Street. He bumped against Dan’s side, then hopped and skipped from one silver-booted toe to the other, carefully avoiding the joins between the concrete slabs of the pavement. This was an impressive feat, considering the constant round of road maintenance going on around Hoxditch at any one time. Broken and missing paving slabs were in abundance. Dan strolled a short distance behind Jones, smoking a Marlboro and surveying Jones’ antics with amusement. He laughed and gave a broad, bristly smile, the corners of his brown eyes crinkling.

“Have you been at that cheap coffee again?”

Dan knew that Jones became over-excited whenever heading towards a record store to hustle a clutch of new, white-labelled promos. Jones paused and span round to look at Dan, pointing at his tatty Converse shoes.

“Don’t step on the cracks, you great twat! It’s bad luck!”

Dan stuck out his tongue in response. Jones giggled and continued to step nimbly from his right boot to his left, successfully landing in the centre of each paving slab. As Jones bounced along, Dan’s fingers itched to caress the expanse of Jones’ lower back that peeked out from beneath Jones’ leopard-print jacket with every leap, taunting Dan almost to the point where he considered shoving Jones into the doorway of a disused shop and shafting him senseless, right there and then.

When they eventually reached the record shop, Jones immediately disappeared inside. Dan knew Jones would be in the shop for some considerable time; that he’d be running around like a small child in an amusement arcade, stuffed full of candy floss and hot dogs, wanting to try every game at once. So, he’d come prepared for a long wait, bringing a newspaper with him and grabbing a takeaway black coffee from the nearest greasy spoon café; none of that over-priced, organic high-street shit. He found a place to sit in the sunlight, a low wall opposite the shop, and he settled down, placing his coffee by his side and unfurling his newspaper. Reaching into his shirt pocket, he extracted his cigarette packet but then lost his grip on them, watching the packet tumble to the floor. With a groan, Dan stretched down to the ground to retrieve them, swearing under his breath. As Dan straightened up again, experiencing a sudden rush of blood to the head he heard a strange echo, as if somebody was repeatedly calling out his name.

“Dan?”

Dan’s gaze snapped into focus. A familiar-looking man strode towards him. Recognising him, Dan immediately felt a compulsion to flee but he was trapped there, like a large animal caught in the beam of a car’s headlights. There was no way Dan could pretend he hadn’t seen him and, before he knew it, the guy was standing right there in front of him, smiling broadly with one hand outstretched.

“Jesus H. Christ on a bike! Danny Boy! It IS you!”

Steve Hill was jovial in manner, clearly very pleased to see Dan. Slightly shorter than Dan recalled, Steve had become heavy-set with age, clean-shaven, his hair cropped short and receding at the temples, a slight paunch beneath his pin-striped business suit. As Steve thrust out his right hand, Dan noticed the large, expensive-looking watch around his wrist. Steve grabbed Dan’s left hand and pulled him in for a back-slapping man-hug that took Dan slightly by surprise, quickly tossing his part-smoked cigarette to the ground. They parted and Steve stood back from Dan, briefly looking him up and down.

“Dan Ashcroft! How the bloody hell are you, mate?”

Dan fidgeted on the spot, fingering his beard stubble and half-listening as Steve explained that he was back in the area for another business trip, staying at some big, new, swanky hotel on Hoxditch High Street. Truth was Dan wasn’t comfortable with pieces of his past suddenly looming large at him, unannounced. Truth was he’d been ignoring Steve’s calls for a week. Truth was Dan was preoccupied with his own paranoia about being found out.

Throwing furtive glances towards the doorway of the record shop, Dan mumbled an excuse that he’d recently changed his phone number. As Steve went on to talk about the differences between the quality of the curry in Brick Lane and the curry back home in Leeds, Dan noticed the small plastic bag that Steve clutched in his left hand. Dan’s stomach flipped as he realised Steve had just been in the same record shop where Jones was right at that moment, browsing and listening to new beeps and whatever else.

Glancing towards the record shop for the twenty-second time, Dan felt as if his perfectly constructed wall of lies and half-truths could tumble down around him at any moment. He panicked about being seen with Jones, about having to explain who Jones was because, in appearance, Jones was exactly like one of the Smiley twunts Dan had repeatedly made a point of saying he hated.

Then it happened—Jones emerged from the record store, grinning broadly, a clutch of vinyl records tucked under his left arm. He bounced straight towards Dan and Steve, giving Steve a friendly nod of acknowledgment.

“Alright?”

Dan broke into a sweat. He sensed a huge wrecking ball of truth swinging threateningly back and forth, ready to strike and shatter everything into a thousand pieces. Thinking fast, Dan gathered himself and took a deep breath, opening his mouth to speak:

“Erm, Steve, this is—”

Steve cut Dan off in mid-sentence, taking great interest in the large pair of headphones Jones had strung had his neck. Dan stood by and looked on, experiencing a mixture of mild confusion and tremendous relief as Steve and Jones engaged in an enthusiastic conversation about dance music and gadgets; Jones gleefully displayed for Steve the records he’d just hustled in the shop and Steve showed Jones the CDs he’d just purchased. Then they moved on to the range of functions and list of tracks on Steve’s i-Pod.

Despite this friendly scene of shared interests, Dan nervously fingered the collar of his shirt. He realised that he had been temporarily saved from having to explain anything to Steve but he was acutely aware that at any moment Jones might say or do something that would shed light on the true nature of their relationship and reveal his sexuality.

As they said their farewells and headed in opposite directions, Steve reminded Dan to call him. Dan nodded in gesture of a vague promise and turned away, hurrying along the street. He smoked furiously and kept his eyes fixed ahead, stumbling on a broken kerb stone as they headed towards home. He didn’t hear Jones say how he thought Steve seemed like a nice bloke and that Dan should get in touch and invite him round.

At that moment, the only audible sound in Dan’s mind was the loud clatter of plastic falling against concrete.

Sometimes, as Dan sat on the sofa, working intensely at his lap-top, he would suddenly sense Jones watching him; over-sized headphones clamped to his ears, silently gazing at him across the room from behind his record decks. Other times, Jones would slide along the back of the sofa as Dan pretended not to notice then Jones would slowly work his hand up the back of Dan’s shirt and brush his fingertips around the small of his back, locating the spot where he knew it would be impossible for Dan to ignore him any longer.

Today was one of those times where they shared a physical space but were both absorbed in the separate worlds of their work. Jones sat quietly on a sofa in the far corner of the living room. He bobbed gently in the seat, the over-sized headphones atop his head, transfixed by his music, twiddling knobs and punching buttons on the home-made decks that were balanced on his lap. Dan could hear a faint ‘clack-clack-clack’ sound emitting from Jones’ headphones.

Dan was seated on the other sofa, biting a fingernail and staring at the blank screen of his lap-top, the cursor flashing at him. He felt the cursor was taunting him, each flash signifying a second of his life pulsing away, right there in front of him.

How the hell did I reach this point in my life?

The repetitive ‘clack-clack-clack’ sound carried Dan back to the train journey he had taken, aged 25, from Leeds to London. Leaving home to start a new life as a writer in the capital city; how full of anticipation and excitement he’d been then. He had little more than a hurriedly packed rucksack, a reference from his boss at the Leeds Gazette and dreams of working his way up through the journalistic ranks to become a well-respected writer, but somehow that felt like enough to see him through any troubled times. He had envisioned his name above the title of all the articles he would write. Would he call himself Dan or Daniel? Each station passed the train window, drawing him closer towards Kings Cross and his bright, new future. He sensed his old life slipping away from him, piece by piece, and he willingly let it go with no mourning for its passing.

Now, nine years later and sitting in the grotty squat he shared with a man ten years his junior, Dan slipped into one of his regular bouts of self-doubt, questioning what he had actually achieved. The respect he had craved as a younger man had continued to elude him. By now, he’d expected to be chief editor of a heavy-weight magazine with a high circulation but the reality bit hard. Dan knew was that he was just another journo-for-hire, with a lot of knowledge about nothing in particular and little prospect of making an industry-wide name for himself amongst the newspaper columnists who had already written two successful novels and regularly appeared on late-night cultural review shows alongside Tom Paulin and so forth. The world of culture and style was a continuous changing beast and, if he was honest, sometimes Dan wasn’t sure if he understood it anymore. Some aspects of it just seemed… stupid. For a moment, he considered the very real fact that he might have lost his touch. He might have to phone around his old contacts for work on piecemeal articles about conservatories and polenta, features that would be published without his name in the bi-line. No, somehow that felt too much like defeat. Unlike his colleagues, he hadn’t sold out.

Dan placed his head in his hands, massaged his forehead and ran his palms around his face, puffing out his whiskered cheeks with a heavy sigh. He rubbed his eyes, suddenly feeling very tired. It was then that he noticed Jones watching him.

Jones remained in his seat and smiled; a smile that made Dan feel that everything was going to be alright. Dan returned a grin, watching Jones’ smile grow wider, enveloping him. He took a swan-dive into reassurance. Filled with the warmth and love of Jones’ smile, Dan returned his attention to the lap-top, beginning to tap at the keyboard and languishing in the embrace of Jones’ wide-mouthed, blue-eyed gaze.

Moments later, he shivered with pleasure as Jones’ fingers crept around the small of his back.

11.38 a.m. on Sunday June 23rd—Dan could recall the exact moment his headaches came back.

Dan had spotted the BMX bike in the split second it had taken to tear around the corner of Hoxton Street and veer dangerously straight towards Jones. He had lurched for Jones, grabbing at his shoulders and pushing him to safety in the doorway of a shop, Jones’ back slamming against the metal shutters. As the camouflage-covered berk sped away, Dan shouted after him, cursing loudly and throwing him an angry, narrow-eyed stare.

Jones joined Dan on the pavement, clearly shaken, brushing himself down. He gazed up at Dan and gave a half-laugh of disbelief.

“What the fuck was that?”

Dan didn’t have an answer straight away but the thud in his temple told him he should do something about it. As he stood on the cracked pavement, flexing his fists, anger continuing to course through him, he noticed the increasing number of brightly-coloured, badly spelt, ironic flyers and stickers that had recently spread across the shutters of the shop and others across Hoxditch, like some kind of virulent disease. Dan decided that he would compose an attack against the loud-mouthed, over-sized toddlers who stood on every street corner, braying into their chick-pea sized mobile phones about their latest media shit-storms whilst slapping their inane, self-promotional stickers across anything stationary. He was convinced that his clear-sighted insights and well-honed phrases would alter the perceptions of his readership, opening up their minds to what was actually going on around them. Surely nobody in Hoxditch actually welcomed this proliferation of arse-gravy?

Wanting to start writing immediately, Dan skipped their regular Sunday café fry-up and headed straight back to the House of Jones. He was fired up with ideas, the article already forming in his mind as he jammed his key into the lock and pushed open the front door. Dan hurriedly made a cup of coffee and then settled down at his laptop. His fingers flew across the keyboard and his words filled up the document on screen.

“Once the idiots were the fools gawping in through the windows, now they’ve entered the building…”

Three hours later, Dan was still hammering out the article when Jones returned to the house, clutching a few more white-labelled promo discs and talking animatedly into his mobile phone. He was so absorbed in his work that he didn’t hear Jones asking if he wanted another cup of coffee. He remained totally focused on his work, his barbed words coming together perfectly.

“The idiots are self-regarding consumer slaves, oblivious to the paradox of their uniform individuality…”

This was going to be a fucking great article, Dan told himself with a snort of triumph. This was Dan Ashcroft making a stand against the rising tide of over-privileged morons who were rapidly taking up residence all over Hoxditch. This would be one that he’d be remembered for. Things were going to change.

“Welcome to the Age of Stupidity. Hail the Rise of the Idiots.”

Painfully craning his neck and twisting his body around so that he could ease his phone out from the pocket of his jeans, Dan checked the caller display. His stomach gave a lurch. Claire had tried calling him for the past three days and he knew from experience that he would be in for permanent grief if he continued to ignore her calls. He had no choice but to answer it right then. He pressed the answer button with his thumb and mumble-whispered into the phone.

“What?”

“Jesus, Dan. Get the bug out your arse.”

“Hey, sis. It’s sort of a bad time right now—”

Dan was crouched double under his desk at ‘Sugar Ape’. He had heard Steve buzz at the downstairs intercom. He had heard Steve’s heavy footsteps approaching the top of the stairs and then Steve cheerfully greeting Sasha, telling her that he was there to see his old mate, Dan Ashcroft. He had heard Sasha speak to Steve in her polite and professional manner, and he’d noticed the change in the tone in her voice as she peered across to Dan’s desk and saw that he was no longer sitting there. He could imagine the expression Sasha had on her face at that precise moment.

Claire continued to speak and Dan half-listened as Steve told Sasha that he’d call back to the office another time and that he would speak to “your fella”. He imagined Sasha’s increasingly confused expression as Steve walked back down the stairs and left the building.

“So, that’s settled then? I can come and stay for a while?”

Dan wasn’t sure what he had agreed to but he replied “Yeah, fine” and hung up. He crawled out awkwardly from under his desk and attempted to slide casually back into his chair as if he’d been there all the time.

With an inquisitive frown, Sasha informed him that he’d just missed a caller, somebody called Steve. Dan thanked her and pretended to study something on his computer screen. They said no more about it.

Dan knew what Jones was thinking as he placed a single pillow and a blanket on the sofa. He knew what Jones wanted to say when Dan told him Claire would be coming to stay.

He knew from Jones’ heavy sigh that he was becoming tired of the charade Dan insisted they perform every time Claire stayed at their house, every time Dan’s mother phoned, every time somebody from Dan’s past re-appeared.

In a half-hearted attempt to placate the elephant in the room, Dan moved towards Jones, reaching out a hand and placing it on Jones’ shoulder. Without looking up, Jones shrugged him off, turned and mumbled as he walks away into the kitchen.

“Piss off, Dan. You’re such a fucking coward.”

Dan’s temple throbbed He sat alone on the sofa, smoking, the blanket and pillow piled up next to him. The sofa would be his bed for the foreseeable future. He knew that he wouldn’t sleep very well and that he would develop an ache in his lower back.

He also knew Jones was right.

Dan took a deep breath and pushed himself from the window ledge, tumbling forward.

Sharply and painfully realising his miscalculation, Dan bounced upon impact with the edge of the van’s roof, his body spinning down into the narrow gap between the wall of the ‘trashbat’ office building and the stationary vehicle. As the grimy pavement rose up and smacked hard against his forehead, his body crumpled and went limp. Dan slipped into unconsciousness, a single rhetorical thought echoing through his mind:

How the hell did I reach this point in my life?

*to be continued*

[nextpage title=”Chapter Four”]

Chapter Four

Author’s Notes: Things fall apart.

(The final part)

A high-pitched giggle from the nurse’s station roused Dan from his sleep. He turned over, lying flat on his back and stared upwards at the white ceiling tiles. A faint repetitive sound from the nurses’ transistor radio reminded Dan of Jones’ police-siren-electro-lullaby, “Time to Go to Sleep”. He only wished he could; a deep, rejuvenating sleep that would cause the maelstrom in his head to subside.

The hospital ward was shrouded in a womb-like silence, punctuated only by the occasional cough, snore or fart from the other patients. Shafts of light from passing traffic headlights shone through from the far window, traversed the ceiling crossed one another and faded.

He wasn’t sure how long he’d been in hospital but he guessed it was almost five days since he was admitted. The visit from his sister and the office donkeys now seemed unreal, as if he were just grasping at pieces of reality that didn’t quite fit together. There were few familiarities around him. The throbbing pains in his leg and arm were less severe now, and the doctors had lowered the strength of his medication. His bed was functional but comfortable; just another bed in a history of bed-hopping and sofa-surfing.

Dan’s eyes followed another shaft of light as it crossed the ceiling and disappeared out of sight. His brain was in a fast spin-cycle of over-analysing recent events. Night after night, hour after hour, he had stared into dark space, mentally sifting through his recent past, wondering how he’d got to this point in his life, but the answer had always eluded him.

As he tried to piece the fragments together, an icy sensation slowly rose from the back of his neck and spread across the top of his skull. The creeping sensation in his head was accompanied by a sudden twisting in his gut; a lurching that sank deep inside and exposed a raw nerve of home truths. He groaned and curled into a ball, turned on to his side, lifted the pillows and buried his head beneath them.

With the sudden clarity of an alcoholic, Dan knew exactly how he’d got to this point in his life. As he gripped the pillow more tightly against his head, he broke out into a cold sweat and felt sick.

The painful truth was that he’d got here because he’d become one of them.

He’d become an Idiot.

“You can take a running jump if you think I’m cleaning up your mess again.”

Claire moved a pile of cups, magazines and newspapers from the sofa then slumped on to the seat, taking a cigarette from the packet lying on the make-shift coffee table.

“How many coffee cups have you actually got? There must be at least forty in the sink.”

She clicked the ignition on her lighter and lit up, blowing a line of smoke towards Dan, who was sitting opposite her in a tatty armchair, reading a newspaper.

“So, have you got my money yet?”

Dan didn’t reply, pretending not to hear Claire, so she repeated her question again, emphasising it with a thrown empty cigarette packet. Dan dodged the missile and fidgeted in the armchair, scratching at this beard stubble with two fingers of his left hand. He knew Claire wasn’t going to drop the subject until he’d given her an answer. He lowered the newspaper and gave her a shrug, turning down the sides of his mouth.

“I will.”

Claire huffed at him, exasperated. “When, Dan? What are you going to do? Sell your used coffee cups on eBay?”

He turned a page, visibly squirming: “I’ll get some more work.”

She sighed and muttered into her mug of black coffee: “Yeah, right.”

He tried to focus on the newspaper but Claire’s annoyance was palpable as she continued to smoke and sip at her coffee. There was no question that it was entirely his fault that she’d lost her valuable camera to the bailiff. One night seven years ago, he’d got so pissed-up with his mates that they’d decided, on highly intoxicated impulse, to join a video shop. He had no idea why he’d faked Claire’s signature but it had seemed like a good idea after ten pints of lager. He’d never even heard of ‘Pete’s Dragon’ until he woke up the next morning with a belting hangover and the video case stuck to his forehead with the remains of a kebab and curry sauce.

Dan was aware that he’d pushed his sister’s patience just about as far as he could. There was a limit, even if blood was thicker than water. At some point, he’d have to cough up the money. It’s just that after he had absolutely no buggering idea how he was going to do it. He’d happily give somebody his right arm if they could find the money and get his sister off his back.

Annoyance and resentment rose sharply within him. With a sneer, he snapped back at her:

“Maybe I’ll give you your money when you stop fucking an Idiot.”

Claire sprang up from her seat, told him to ‘fuck off’, and left the house for the rest of the day. He didn’t go after her. Instead he remained in the armchair, grinding his teeth, knowing he’d just sent her straight round to Nathan Barley’s place.

The Idiots were winning…

They stood shoulder to shoulder at the urinals of the Grey Lion pub. As he tugged rhythmically at the man’s erect cock, Dan stared straight ahead, studying the cracks in the wall tiles and trying to disconnect himself from the situation.

He’d asked Jonatton for more work and, even though he knew he’d agreed to yet another of Yeah?’s twisted ideas for a magazine feature, he wasn’t going to let him win on this one. This was purely a business transaction. Once this was done, he’d be able to pay off Claire in full.

As the man gave a low throaty growl and came over his latex glove, Dan thought about hundreds of pairs of plastic neon sunglasses falling against concrete.

03.13… 04.13… 05: 13…

The LED digits of the clock radio blinked across the dark lounge, scorching deep into Dan’s red-rimmed eye-sockets. He tried closing his eyes for the six hundredth time but it was no use; he could not sleep. Each blink felt like sandpaper dragging across his pupils.

Every night since Claire’s arrival, Dan had slept poorly on the lumpy sofa, his back throbbing and his over-wrought mind turning over recent events; each humiliating incident wrapping itself around his thoughts, strangling his logic, loosening his grip on reality and threatening to swallow him completely. Images flashed and fractured before him in a continuous, warped hallucination: the ‘Weekend on Sunday’ interview, the Preacher Man ridiculousness, 15Peter20 and his piss-photos, failing to protect Claire from Barley’s advances, the Grey Lion Pub incident. It felt as if he was helplessly spiralling downwards, tumbling down a staircase of shame and frustration, burning with anger as he struck each step.

It was a staircase built and commissioned by prize Idiots, like Nathan Fucking Barley. That name alone caused Dan to grind his teeth down to stumps. Since the day he had allowed Barley to scrawl the domain-name of his solipsistic website across his knuckles, the pied piper of designer-clad retards had generated a berk circus of over-hype that had somehow duped every sane-thinking individual in Hoxditch (of which, admittedly, there weren’t many) into believing his ‘peace and fucking’ bullshit. Dan had resisted at every turn and yet… and yet here he was, lying wide-awake in the dead of night, twisting his mind into knots. The Idiots had risen up and he was desperately trying to work out a way to stop them winning.

The answer wasn’t going to come to him tonight. With a heavy sigh, he kicked off his blanket and stood up. He reached for the jeans he’d dropped in a heap on the floor earlier that night. Sliding each leg into his trousers and hitching them up around his waist, he threw a glance towards the other sofa. For a moment, Dan thought he saw Jones’ sleeping there. He held his breath, rubbed his eyes and blinked against the shadows.

As he took a step towards the sofa, Dan reached out and grabbed at something soft, pulling it gently towards him. The dark outline revealed itself to be a large cushion. Cursing, he threw it back on to the sofa, strode across the room and grabbed his coat.

“What are you writing?”

Dan quickly lowered the lid on his laptop, hiding the screen from Jones’ view. He anxiously bit his fingernails. “Just something for work.”

Jones sat down next to Dan on the settee, nudging his thigh. “Let me see.”

Jones rested his chin on Dan’s shoulder and leaned forward, reaching towards the laptop and running his other hand around Dan’s back, up and under his shirt. Dan flinched as he felt Jones’ fingertips brushing along the top of his waistband. The tickles fluttered from his lower back down to his buttocks and into his balls, his cock twitching. He shifted in his seat, trying to ignore the stirring in his groin.

“No, Jones—”

Jones persisted. He slid his hand across the keyboard and clasped Dan’s left hand, leaning in close, half-moaning, half-whispering into his ear: “Take a break. You look tired.”

He slid his hand further between Dan’s thighs and fingered the zip of his flies. Dan shrugged away. “I have to finish this.”

Jones leaned forward again but Dan resisted. Jones stood up sharply, confused by Dan’s rebuff. “Can’t it wait?”

“No,” Dan said again, this time with finality, ignoring Jones’ gaze.

“Well, what’s it about?” Jones asked, his hands resting on his hips, suggesting that it had better be about something bloody good if Dan was prepared to shrug off his advances.

“It’s… it’s about…”

Dan stammered and hesitated. He flicked his gaze towards Jones and then back to the laptop screen, feeling his face burn with shame. He knew he should have pre-warned Jones about the Straight-On-Straight article but he was terrified about Jones’ reaction. He was trying to delay the inevitable shit-storm.

Fucking sell-out. Fucking hypocrite. Fucking coward.

“What? What, Dan?” A note of concern entered Jones’ voice when Dan didn’t reply. Dan lowered his eyes to the floor and mumbled into his chest, hoping somehow that he wouldn’t be heard.

“I wanked off a guy for money.”

There was silence. Dan glanced up at Jones and saw fear then nausea fall across his face. Jones gave a short laugh of disbelief, searching for words.

“Wha… Jesus fucking Christ, Dan! What else did you do? Snowball a monkey? “

Dan sighed and opened his mouth to explain that he’d performed the act and written the article for the money he owed Claire but suddenly he felt all energy leave him and could only sit limply on the sofa as Jones shouted and cursed, crashing around the room, throwing dolls and toys to the floor. He kicked at a half-empty coffee cup, sending it flying across the room, watching it smash against the far wall and spraying its contents. In a swift movement, Jones pounced upon Dan, pinning him down by his shoulders onto the seat of the settee, jabbing a finger at his face, burning with anger. Dan turned away as Jones spat his words in his face:

“I’ve been fucking patient with you and your obsessive griping about the Idiots, and now you do this? You’re a cunt!”

It was true: Dan had become vaguely aware that his continuous moaning about the Idiots had started to grate on Jones. It was what Dan did every night when he came home from work; railing against the Idiots and how Hoxditch was being taken over by them. Each night, Jones had tried to joke about it and calm Dan down but it was becoming increasingly difficult for him. There was no humour this time.

Jones slapped Dan’s cheek hard then pushed away from him. As Jones continued to rant and spit accusations, Dan remained prone on the sofa, staring straight up at the nicotine-stained ceiling. Eventually Jones stopped screaming. He stood over Dan, exasperated, flexing his fists. His broad handsome face was flushed crimson, breathing hard. Then he turned and left the room.

Dan heard the front door slam so hard that the vibrations shook the wall. As the room fell silent, he continued to lie there, unmoving, until it got dark.

The cold, damp air felt comforting. There was a time when the night felt full of promise and possibility. Now it just filled his head with shadows and menace. Dan paused and slid a hand into his coat pocket, fishing for his cigarettes. As he lit up, he glanced up at the slowly brightening sky with its fading stars and exhaled towards it. It seemed like only a few years ago that the stars were within easy reach, when he felt like he could jump up and grab them. He made a left-handed gesture towards the night sky but suddenly felt self-conscious and thrust his hand back into his pocket. He lowered his gaze and walked on, silently cursing himself. Everything he’d touched recently had turned to shit. He had no business trying to snatch some stardust.

As he continued to trudge wearily through the dawn-silent streets of Hoxditch, taunting images continued to flash across Dan’s increasingly tired brain. He screwed up his eyes in an attempt to make the images disappear for good. His vision blurred as he blinked and found himself standing outside the window of ‘The Place’ production office, dazzled by the fluorescent window lights. Plasma television screens displayed the same seven-digit hand, opening and closing its fingers on a continuous loop. Dan became fixated by the movement. The hand seemed to be reaching down from the sky towards him, like the hand of God. Each finger seemed to represent a fall down his staircase of shame and humiliation.

He counted along the hand; six agonising tumbles. But hang on—that left one finger: digit number seven. There was a finger remaining! Dan gave a snort of relief and grinned at the window, his wild, haggard features staring back in reflection. The skewed logic of his sleep-deprived mind persuaded him that the seventh finger meant that there was still time to get one over on the twunts of Hoxditch. There was still a chance! He could stop them winning! He thumped a fist against the window glass in triumph and turned back towards home, quickening his pace, muttering to himself and smiling up at the breaking dawn.

Dan concluded that the seven-fingered hand of God had guided him to this point. It had always pointed down at him from the sky, reaching through the stars, guiding him on. On this particular morning, it had seemed like divine intervention.

If Dan hadn’t walked past the ‘trashbat’ office at that exact moment, he wouldn’t have spotted Pingu lying face down on the ground, groaning in pain. He would also not have seen Nathan Barley standing over him, looking shifty and panic-striken.

If Dan hadn’t stopped and enquired after Pingu, he wouldn’t have noticed the black balaclava and gun poking out of Nathan’s pockets. And he certainly wouldn’t have discovered that the Idiot had taped the entire incident.

It was all too beautiful. Barley had handed himself to Dan on a plate; a victim of his own ridiculous and juvenile prank. Dan had the balance of power at last and it felt good. Fucking good.

Nathan had squirmed like a worm on a hook, asking Dan to stop, but he wouldn’t. He couldn’t. Dan had complete control over Barley. There would be a public statement, written by Dan; his words, just for Nathan, to be broadcast on Barley’s wank-site. His words would be delivered by the King of the Idiots in the most humiliating way possible.

This would be Dan’s shining moment; the moment when he could finally stop the Idiot take-over and reverse the gradual and pervasive erosion of his life and his mind over past few weeks. He could stop it. HE could stop it.! The Idiots were not going to win. They couldn’t win. Dan would make sure of that.

He burst through the door of the ‘trashbat’ office wearing Barley’s balaclava, the gun held at shoulder height, pointing it at the room’s occupants. He heard a scream then saw Pingu run for the open window, throwing himself through it in a single leap.

It all quickly fell to pieces.

Dan perched uneasily on the second floor window ledge. Seized by panic, he shifted further along the cold concrete and peered down at the ground below, seeking escape from this nightmare come to life. He fidgeted against the ledge and was aware that the seat of his jeans felt slightly damp. The ground appeared to rise up and then retreat. His throat felt parched and his heartbeat pounded in his ears.

How the hell did I reach this point in my life?

He heard Claire call out to him, frightened and concerned, but he’d already made the decision to jump.

“Shut up,” Dan uttered in reply. He took a deep breath and pushed himself off the window ledge, falling towards the ground.

Dan’s eyelids felt as if they were made of lead. A pain pierced through his temple, causing him to wince. His brain undulated as he fought to make sense of his surroundings.

Work with the familiarities, Ashcroft.

The lights on the hospital ward had been dimmed and now cast a low light across the rows of beds. He heard the distant murmur from the radio and the occasional high-pitched laugh as staff shared a joke at the nurses’ station. An odour of bleach hung in the air.

There was something else, something new and unfamiliar. Dan gradually became aware of a heavy weight pressing on his stomach. Unable to lift his head very far, he felt with his hand along the bed covering, his fingertips soon coming into contact with a substance that he quickly identified as human hair. The weight suddenly moved and lifted from his stomach. Dan’s eyes widened in recognition as a handsome face loomed into view and grinned widely.

“Hello, dick-brain.”

Jones leant forward and ran a hand around Dan’s cheek, brushing across the extra stubble growth across his face. He placed a gentle, moist kiss on Dan’s forehead.

Dan gave a laugh of disbelief. Jones sat lightly on the edge of the bed, holding Dan’s left hand between his own. Dan choked back the feeling in his throat and raised the heel of his right hand to his face, rubbing at his eyes as if still not comprehending Jones’ presence.

“What time is it?” he croaked.

Jones glanced at his large blue Transformers wristwatch, squinting at the digital display.

“I’m dunno. My watch is broken and I fell asleep.” Jones wrinkled his nose, shivering and rubbing his eyes. “The silence is deafening in here.”

For a moment, neither of them spoke. Dan gazed fondly at Jones in the semi-darkness. He noticed that Jones carried a heavy-lidded look. Dan narrowed his eyes became serious in tone.

“How much have you taken, Jones?”

Jones picked at the bed covers and then looked guiltily at Dan. “It took me three pills and a spliff just to call for a cab to get here.”

Dan tutted and then beckoned Jones towards him. They embraced tightly, Dan burying his head in the crook of Jones’ neck. He knew that Jones had been shit-scared of coming to the hospital but he came. It didn’t matter that he had to get loaded just to get through the door.

Jones was here; that’s all that mattered. It was all that ever mattered.

Jones leant back and brushed away something at the corner of Dan’s mouth. Dan gently rubbed a thumb along Jones’ wrist and gazed back at him. For perhaps the first time in his life, Dan felt clear-headed and optimistic. He knew, with absolute certainty, what they had to do.

“Let’s get out of here.” Dan whispered.

Jones threw a glance towards the corridor. “OK, but I’ll have to sneak you out in a wheelchair when the duty nurse isn’t looking.”

Jones began to walk away but Dan grabbed at his wrist.

“No, Jones,” Dan’s voice sounded firm. He gripped Jones’ hand tightly, gaining his full attention. “Out of Hoxditch.”

Dan felt a huge weight lift from him as the words left his mouth. He realised that he’d wanted to say those words for a very long time.

The silence was broken by the distant melody of a cheesy pop hit coming from the nurse’s station. Jones studied Dan’s hand around his wrist, his brow furrowed. Dan held his breath. Jones looked back at Dan, a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

“Alright.”

Dan gave a wolfish smile. This time they would make the leap together and it didn’t bother him one bit that neither of them knew where they were going to land.

~the end~

The Lizard
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