The world would shatter around them that autumn, but neither of them knew
it yet.
It starts off one warm day, as Elijah answers his doorbell to see Daniel
there, flushed and breathing hard.
“Hey,” Elijah says. “I thought you were still in Britain.”
“We are.”
“You’re still in London?”
“Yeah.”
“Where are your parents?”
“With me.”
“In London?”
“Yeah.”
Still standing in the doorway, Daniel jumps onto Elijah, wrapping long
arms around him and pulling him in for a kiss.
~~~
During his stay in New York, Daniel often wears a different t-shirt
than the one he wore that morning.
~~~
“You collect giraffes?” Elijah asks.
“Yeah,” Daniel answers.
“You’ve never said so in any interviews.”
“I know.”
Elijah waits.
“There was this… one celebrity who collected beanie babies, I read it
in a magazine, and his fans just sent him tons and tons of beanie babies.
I don’t want people sending in giraffes.”
Elijah notes here that Daniel doesn’t call people “his fans”.
“It’s just my own thing,” Daniel continues. “Not anyone else’s.”
“So, I should never get you a giraffe?” Elijah asks, wrapping an arm
around Daniel’s waist.
“Yeah.”
~~~
Daniel wraps his arms around Elijah’s neck, who kneels in front of him,
peeling off pants and shoes and socks in that order as Daniel bends down
and nibbles an earlobe, kissing and nibbling again, licking the inner shell.
Elijah’s sensitive there, and Daniel makes full use of it.
They are in New York, all bright lights and big city, Daniel’s parents
somewhere in the midst of it (catching a Broadway play), as their son slips
softly into Elijah’s bed and loses his virginity sweetly and slowly.
~~~
“Pass the salt,” Daniel says, as they both sit in the diner, eating
lunch.
Elijah passes both salt and pepper with ketchup covered hands, but Daniel
ignores the pepper.
~~~
Daniel’s parents make full use of Elijah’s generosity to do travel the
world alone with each other, something they’ve wanted to do recently. Daniel
stays at home in London, with assurances from Elijah that “it’s no bother.”
It really isn’t.
~~~
“Don’t miss your plane,” Daniel says over the phone.
“I won’t,” Elijah answers.
“Don’t get lost.”
“I won’t.”
“Don’t—”
“I won’t. Don’t worry.”
~~~
After the night in New York, sex between them is frantic. Daniel’s known
Elijah for barely a year, and feels he has to make up for lost time.
~~~
It is gray and dreary and it’s starting to rain. London is getting ready
for another 10 months of this kind of weather, and Elijah, walking from
the taxi to the front door, would skip if his luggage weren’t so heavy.
He hums happily instead.
He barely makes it to the door when it swings open. “Hey,” Daniel says,
“first off, I’m glad you’re here. Really. Second, I don’t need a babysitter.”
“I’m not a babysitter,” Elijah says, “I’m a full time Man-ny.”
“Sod off,” and then Daniel pulls him in for a hug.
~~~
Sometimes they turn on the radio or the TV just to have noise in the
background, but mostly, they just bask in the silence, together.
~~~
Daniel’s collection of giraffes has all sizes and materials, from flimsy
wood and cheap plastic, and that plush one he bought in New York, to marble
and crystal, and one giraffe, Elijah is sure of this, is carved out of
antique ivory.
~~~
“Death… death is just a part of life,” Elijah answers, looking at Daniel,
who sits at the dining room table, too many books and thick packets of
paper scattered around him.
“But if death is all there is, then what’s the point? How- bugger- what’s
the point of living if you’re just going to die?”
“Maybe you find the meaning of life. Maybe that’s the only way to find
the meaning of life, to live it, not think about it.”
“How do you know, though?” Daniel asks.
“Maybe it comes to you in a flash,” Elijah answers.
“And then you die, though. And then you die!”
~~~
During his stay in London, Elijah often wears loose khakis that don’t
belong to him.
~~~
Elijah says it’s autumn when it hits the solstice, just like every calendar
in the world. Daniel refuses the logic, and says September, October, and
November are the months of autumn.
~~~
Although Elijah’s room is nicer than the room Daniel’s parents sleep
in, he understands why they don’t sleep here.
“We did complain at first,” Daniel explains, eating cereal and trying
not to laugh at a bedraggled-looking Elijah. “Then we got a letter saying
that we were in violation of something or other.”
“So… your next door neighbor gets to tap dance all night?”
~~~
Daniel’s parents send postcards from around the world, which get put
up on the bulletin board in the hallway, but as the weeks pass, they come
in the mail less and less frequently, and Daniel doesn’t mind at all.
~~~
Elijah drives Daniel to and from school, using the time in-between to
take care of chores and surreptitiously hiring a maid to take care of them
instead. He walks around London, searching used-book stores for the rest
of the series of mystery books he’s reading.
He doesn’t buy Daniel a giraffe, but buys a new toy instead, and wraps
it in paper with giraffes printed on it.
Daniel saves a swatch of it, putting it on his bookshelf with the rest
of his collection.
~~~
“Want any salt?” Daniel asks.
“No, I don’t use a lot of salt,” Elijah answers.
“Really?”
“I use lots of pepper.”
“I use a lot of salt,” Daniel says, beaming. “See, we’re meant to live
together.”
“Because we consume the same amount of different seasonings?”
“Yes,” and Daniel is completely sure of himself.
~~~
Daniel’s schooling is more intense and academic than Elijah’s lifetime
on-set tutoring. Elijah did go to regular school now and then, but never
long enough to make any impact. Never long enough for him to get into it.
Daniel knows how to get into it. He has routines set up, study habits
down.
He won’t be getting on-set tutoring in the near future.
~~~
Elijah reads mystery books, propped up on pillows, while Daniel wraps
an arm around his middle and falls asleep, cheek pressed against Elijah’s
heartbeat.
~~~
“I can help,” Elijah answers, looking at Daniel, who sits at the dining
room table, working from a textbook using scratch paper and a calculator.
“In 1976,” Daniel starts, “Elvis consumed three times his body weight
in peanut butter and banana sandwiches. If Elvis’s body weight was-“
“He what?!!”
~~~
The bed in the guest room, where Elijah is sleeping, is a lot bigger
than the bed in the second bedroom (underneath it is a polka dot suitcase),
where Daniel was sleeping. But now, Daniel sleeps in the guest room, wrapped
around Elijah, fighting off the impending chill of winter with combined
body heat emanating from soft, warm skin.
~~~
Elijah buys oranges and puts them in a bowl in the kitchen. Daniel grabs
one, pressing his thumbs into the skin and spraying zest over his fingers,
licking them off after Elijah takes the orange away to peel it neatly.
Later, in the summer, when market vendors are selling oranges the size
of softballs, Daniel will look at them and feel his heart break one more
time.
~~~
“We burned the house down!” Elijah yells.
“But other than that, you’re alright?” Daniel’s mother asks, a million
and two hundred miles away.
“Yeah, yeah, we’re fine. How’s Paris?” Daniel answers into the phone.
“Fabulous. You don’t mind us not coming home for awhile?”
“You’re having fun without me, I’m having fun without you, everyone’s
winning.”
“You don’t want us to come home, do you?”
~~~
Elijah looks up from his book, to stare into space, listening carefully
as the next door neighbor rearranges furniture, screeches and squeals echoing
as they drag across the floor.
~~~
Elijah draws giraffes now, idly, while talking on the phone or reading
the paper. Daniel saves each one, and tapes it to his shelves.
~~~
“There’s love,” Elijah mumbles drowsily at 5 in the morning. “The meaning
of life. There’s love. Isn’t that worth death?”
~~~
The day is hot and moist, rare in London, and Elijah begins his languid
day following a ray of sunshine that spotlights Daniel’s neck, then licking
off the perspiration that shines on it like so much glitter.
~~~
THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP
Elijah’s eyes snap open as the next door neighbor’s heavy shoes reverberate
against the stairs and down the hall, sound vibrations going clear through
the walls to Elijah’s ear.
The thumps continue as until Elijah’s sure the man is right on the other
side of the wall, and then the thumps turn into a series of stomps that
sound like a jig.
~~~
“No, Easter is the worst holiday for chocolate,” Daniel says to Elijah,
as they walk past window displays, already selling Christmas in October.
“With Christmas and Valentines, you get, like, a couple of boxes full of
bite-sized chocolate. With Halloween, you get a lot of chocolate, but it’s
still all small. With Easter, you have to finish the whole bunny.”
“And those big eggs.”
“Those eggs are so good.”
~~~
They stay in the guest bedroom, despite the noise, because Daniel refuses
to sleep naked in his parents’ bed.
~~~
Daniel, like Elijah and the rest of the world, keeps up with “insider”
set reports about how the new Harry Potter’s doing.
The rest of the world will forgive Daniel for skipping out on this movie,
and love him forever. It’s the only possible thing anyone could do, really.
~~~
“Hey,” Elijah says, walking towards Daniel, who sits at the dining room
table, which is covered in textbooks and broken pencils and balled up paper.
Elijah puts a glass of water down and grabs a tuning fork from the mess.
Having Daniel’s complete attention, he says, “If you do this,” here
Elijah taps the fork against his shoe, causing it to vibrate and ring,
“and put it into the water, the surface of the water will make a checkerboard
design.”
“Squares?” Daniel asks incredulously.
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Wanna see?”
“…Sure.”
“You have to get real close to the water to be able to see it,” Elijah
says, tapping the fork one more time. “Concentrate now.”
Daniel leans in close to the glass, and Elijah, distancing himself away,
slowly puts the vibrating fork into the cup.
The water splashes right onto Daniel’s face.
~~~
In the mornings, before the alarm clock clicks on, the house is quiet,
Daniel’s and his parents’ rooms empty and clean. If anyone were to creep
in, quietly because it’s early, they would think it strange that those
beds were empty, until they got to the end of the hall to open the door.
~~~
The pile of postcards that Elijah sends Daniel has grown considerably
since the winter, and are kept bundled up and hidden in the back of his
bedside table.
Elijah keeps his in the same place, back in New York, well-worn and
memorized. The last postcard Daniel sent him had a little giraffe drawn
in the corner, trying to eat the stamp.
~~~
THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP BOOM
They both stare at the ceiling, listening to the silence for a long
while.
“Do you think he’s dead?” Daniel asks quietly.
~~~
Daniel’s friends are jealous that he has Elijah to take care of him,
and Daniel smiles secretly at this. In this case, contrary to his warm
and giving demeanor, he refuses to share.
~~~
In the mornings, Daniel reaches out a gangly arm to wrap around bony
hips when the alarm clock goes off. Eventually Elijah gets away, and Daniel’s
left cuddling up to warm sheets instead.
~~~
“That’s for waking me up at four in the morning!” Elijah yells, running
through the house.
“That was six months ago!” Daniel yells back, finally catching up to
Elijah and pushing him down to the kitchen floor, and refuses to let go.
Elijah doesn’t mind, of course.
~~~
Daniel wakes up first, raising his head to look out the window, only
to look at the closed curtain, filtering in light so that the room glowed
in the sunrise. It is Saturday, so the alarm clock won’t ring, but it’s
still too early for a fifteen year old boy to be up.
He goes down to the kitchen, grabs an orange, goes back into their room
and pulls back sheets still warm with a sleepy heat.
Elijah is awake, barely.
Daniel kneels on the bed, naked, facing Elijah, and presses his thumbs
into the orange, putting a little more force into it this time, causing
juice and zest to spill down his hands and onto Elijah’s bare stomach.
Elijah doesn’t reach out to take the orange to peel it neatly this time,
and Daniel rests it on his hip, bowing down to lick the juice off and nip
at skin in the early morning sun.
Daniel’s father opens the door.