All the characters and events in this story are fictitious. Any resemblance to real people, either living or dead, is entirely unintentional.
The story is copyrighted and may not be reproduced in any way without the express permission of the author who can be contacted at:
pjalexander1753@gmail.com
This is the first chapter of the final part of the story of Dan and Milo. I'd like to thank those of you who have followed their adventures from the beginning. I am particularly grateful to Clint and Joe who supported me from the beginning and to whom I'd like to dedicate these final eleven chapters.
PJ
D'n'M Part 7
From D'n'M Part 6 Chapter 13:
Dan's hands dropped to his sides. He stepped backwards. "You mean ... you mean Nico is the reason you won't let me touch you. It's because of him that you can barely look at me or speak to me?" He took another step back. "You've got the hots for a fourteen-year-old kid who just happens to be your own nephew?" Dan drew a breath. He needed time to think. To work out what he felt. Then, like a light coming on in his head, he knew. It was as if he'd been doused with a bucket of iced water.
"Un-fucking-believable!" He turned, walked over to where he'd dropped his clothes earlier, picked them up and opened the bedroom door.
Even before he heard the sound of the front door slamming shut, Milo had become a heap of despair on the floor. He curled himself into a ball, almost incapable of coherent thought. The one thing he knew and the single thing that made sense was that the only man he had ever loved had just walked out of his life. D had walked out on D'n'M forever.
Chapter 1:
Dan had no idea how long he spent wandering the darkened streets as his feet took him further and further away from the apartment block and away from life as he'd known it. The thoughts in his head were random, coming at him, like the intersections, in no recognisable pattern. And as for his feelings, well, they came close to overwhelming him completely. They certainly stopped him in his tracks more than once as he stumbled away from just about everything he held most dear in the world.
Any unknown passer-by who might have encountered him would have wondered at the sight of a grown man, obviously distressed, eyes unfocussed, hair dishevelled, shirt untucked and unbuttoned, bare-footed and with legs seeming to struggle to hold the body upright. Had that stranger approached the shambolic man to offer assistance they would have received no sensible response to their kind offer, rather they would have been, at best, ignored or, more likely, pushed aside as the puzzling and troubled young man continued on his directionless way.
In a single, sharp moment of awareness as he paused outside a shuttered mini-market, Dan remembered leaving the apartment, then leaning against the door after he had slammed it shut behind him, tears streaming down his face. He remembered pulling on his shirt and zipping and fastening his jeans. He remembered realising that he'd left his shoes behind and knowing there was no way he could go back inside to get them. He remembered hearing Milo telling him about what had gone on between him and Nico in the hotel room in Buenos Aires. After that he remembered nothing more.
Electric street lighting was giving way to the first hints of the breaking dawn when, finally, Dan began to be aware of his surroundings. The buildings around him were familiar - he recognised the deli on the corner and Saint Peter's church across the street -- but had absolutely no understanding of how he'd managed to get so far across town. Looking down he saw the open shirt and bare feet and straight away understood why he was suddenly so cold. And then it hit him. It was like being punched in the gut by a professional boxer. Never before had he experienced such an overwhelming feeling of raw, unfiltered anger. The effect was so powerful that he staggered sideways as his legs began to buckle. He reached out to the nearest wall in order to stop himself from collapsing to the ground. He leaned with his back against it, his hands grasping his knees, his breath coming in gasps, his mind reeling from the impact of the feelings which continued to flood through him. He had never felt so lost, so abandoned, not even in the worst of the days and weeks after being the victim of Coach Baker's abuse all those years before. Then, holed up in his bedroom, rudderless and sad, he'd imagined that he could never feel so bad again. How wrong he'd been.
"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" Did he say that out loud or just inside his head, he wondered?
Milo. What the fuck had he been thinking? How could he? It was sick. Having the hots for his own nephew. The boy was just a kid, a kid who'd lost his mother only weeks ago. It made him want to puke, but it felt like he'd got a lump of solid concrete in his stomach and he knew there was no way he'd be able to hurl that up.
As his breathing slowed Dan reached into the pocket of his jeans. He pulled out his phone. He called up his go-to number. He heard the ring tone -- one, two, three rings. Then,
"Hey bro, what the fuck! You know it's only five in the morning? What's so urgent you're calling me at this hour? Shit! Is it mum? Or dad? What's wrong?" There was suddenly panic in Tom's voice.
Even though his brother sounded way less than pleased to be answering the phone at that hour of the morning, Dan felt a warm rush of reassurance pass through his body. Tom had always been there for him, always had his back, always been able to help him see a way forward, even when every possible route seemed blocked and impassable. For several seconds he said nothing, allowing the feeling of relief to fill the emptiness inside him.
"D? Are you still there? For fuck sake, man, speak to me. What's going on?"
Dan quickly came back to himself and the reality of the moment, relief giving way, once more, to hopelessness and tears. He gulped, drawing air into his lungs and a chink of clarity into his mind.
"No. Mum's fine. And dad. Last time I saw them they were both okay."
"So why are you calling so early?" The reassurance about his mum and dad allowed the tension to drop out of Tom's voice. At least, it did, until he became aware of something else. "Hey D, are you crying? Tell me what's going on. Whatever it is, you know you can tell me."
Dan did know that, knew that there was nothing he couldn't share with his big, strong, dependable brother. At least, that had always been true before, before last night, before M had told him about Buenos Aires. Could he really tell Tom about the awful things that had come spewing out of M's mouth? Explain what M had wanted to do to Nico? Could he even find the words? He could barely allow himself to think them, much less say them. He took another breath and tried to give some sort of coherent shape to his thoughts.
"It's M. He ...." Dan could say no more. He couldn't turn thoughts into words. It was as if there was some sort of block on the pathway from his brain to his tongue. He shook his head as if, literally, trying to dislodge the blockage. He tried again.
"M wanted ...." It was no good. The obstruction had grown bigger and nothing was going to move it.
"D. You're not making sense. What did M want?"
Silence.
"D, you're starting to worry me." The concern was clear in Tom's voice. "If you don't tell me what's going on there's no way I can help." Concern was quickly turning to frustration. "Has he hurt you?" Tom didn't believe, not for one second, that M would ever do anything to harm Dan, but what else was he supposed to think when his kid brother wasn't making any sense and sounded so distressed? Dan's incoherence was pushing Tom's level of concern to new heights. He had always been there to be the protector, it was his job as the big brother after all, and, at that moment, in the early hours of the morning, it sounded as if a protector was exactly what D needed. Never before had Tom been so aware of the geographical distance between them.
"Talk to me, D."
More silence.
"Dan!" Tom was shouting now. "Daniel Reed. Talk to me."
Hearing his name like that, from his brother, momentarily brought Dan back to the present. He knew he had to respond before Tom became properly angry and he knew, instinctively, that he wouldn't be able to bear that. It would push him beyond the line of no return. "I .... I can't. It hurts too much."
Tom realised that he was pushing at a bolted door and that he needed to change tack.
"Okay. Okay. I don't want you to get upset. I've got an idea, but I need your help. Just listen. Okay?"
"Okay."
"Great. So, it sounds as if you're outside somewhere, so I'm guessing you're not at home. Can you tell me where you are?"
Dan looked around him. There were several familiar landmarks. "There's a church across the street."
"Right. That'll be Saint Jude's." That was a good start. Now, at least, he had an idea of just where D was.
"No. I think it's Saint Peter's."
Saint Peter's? What the fuck was D doing there? It was miles away from the apartment. And at this time in the morning?
"Are you sure? That's a hell of a way from your apartment."
"Yeah, I'm sure. I remember it from that time when cousin Janie got married back when we were still at Greenside High."
"Okay. Yeah I remember, that was quite a party." At his end of the line, Tom shook his head, trying to wipe away the smile that had suddenly erupted onto his face. This was not the time to be remembering what he and the maid of honour had got up to after the wedding in the bathroom back at cousin Janie's parents' place.
"So, if you're near Saint Peter's that means you're not far from mum and dad's. Get back in your car and I'll give them a call to say you're on your way. Whatever the issue is with M, mum and dad will help you sort it out."
"I can't do that."
"Yeah, of course you can. No matter how bad things seem, you know there's nothing you can't tell them and they've always got your back."
"No, I mean I can't get in the car."
"Oh D, don't tell me you've locked yourself out."
"No."
"Lost your keys? Dropped them somewhere?"
"No."
"What then?" Tom was finding it hard to keep a handle on his temper.
"The car's not here. It's back at the apartment."
"At the ...? Shit D, how did you get to where you are now without the car in the middle of the night?"
"I dunno. I suppose I must have walked. I don't really remember much."
Tom's mind started running like a rat in a wheel. D was miles from home; he didn't know how he'd got there; it was fuck o'clock in the morning, and something bad had happened with M. Shit! Why did they have to live so far apart?
"Okay, D, listen to me. I've got a plan. You don't need to do anything except stay exactly where you are. I'm gonna ring off and then I'm gonna make another call. It won't take long, I promise."
"I don't wanna be on my own, Tom."
All those miles away, D sounded so small, so vulnerable. Tom could feel himself beginning to tear up. "You're gonna be fine. You've just gotta wait another five minutes, ten tops, and everything will be fine. Trust me. Just five minutes."
"Okay. Five minutes. I think I can do that." It was as if Dan was trying to persuade himself to believe what Tom was telling him.
"Okay. I'm gonna ring off now, but I'll speak to you again later. I promise. Just remember -- stay exactly where you are. You'll be safe really soon."
Dan heard the line go quiet. As he put the phone back in his pocket he felt the sense of calm and reassurance that had gradually built up as he was talking to Tom instantly drain away. Once again he was on his own, cold and empty. The prospect of spending another five minutes alone and freezing began to seem like an age. And ten, an eternity. After several minutes he realised he was shivering but found he didn't have enough control of his fingers to button his shirt. He looked around to see if there was anywhere warm he could go. The church. Saint Peter's. It probably wouldn't be exactly toasty but it was bound to be better than where he was now. He stepped off the kerb and started to cross the street towards the welcoming building that waited for him just a few metres away. He couldn't think of anything else, his focus was entirely on reaching the relative warmth and safety of the church. Two steps, three ...
Suddenly there was the deafening screech of brakes being slammed on as the sound of a desperate car horn sliced its way into Dan's consciousness.
"Hey! You! What the fuck are you ...?" Suddenly the angry voice tailed off. "D? Is that you? What are you doing?" The voice sounded almost hysterical. "Tom told you to stay exactly where you were." Roger Reed didn't know whether to be mad or relieved. His heart beat was certainly racing and he was sure he'd never got out of his car this fast before, leaving the engine running and the door wide open. Luckily the street was deserted, no great surprise at that time of the morning. Without thinking he was suddenly running to cover the short distance between himself and his number 2 son. Roger was 99% sure that the figure in the middle of the road in front of him was Dan, but he barely recognised him. He looked more like a ghost. His hair was a mess, his shirt unbuttoned, his eyes were glazed over and, yes, his feet were bare. No wonder Helen had said that Tom had sounded so worried on the phone. Something about a problem with M he'd said to her. But Roger hadn't waited to find out any details. As soon as Helen had told him that D was in trouble and needed collecting from near Saint Peter's, he had left her to learn all the details from Tom while he threw on some clothes and got straight into his car.
And it looked like he'd arrived not a minute too soon.
"It's okay, D. I'm here now. I'm gonna get you home. It's only a few minutes away. We'll get everything sorted. Don't you worry." As he wrapped Dan in his arms he could feel his boy's body vibrating with cold. "And get you warm."
The quiet and reassuring familiarity of his dad's voice seemed to give Dan permission to relax and allow himself to be steered towards the car and gently eased onto the back seat and covered in the blanket that was always there, right back in time to when he and Tom had been little kids, ready and waiting for any impromptu family picnic or unexpected emergency.
Dan didn't remember much about the journey back to his parents' house. He could hear his dad's quiet, reassuring voice drifting back to him from the driver's seat, though he had no idea what was being said, and he was aware of a feeling of warmth beginning to creep through his body as he pulled the familiar blanket tighter around himself. After a few minutes, as he felt himself relax, a picture began to form on the inside of his closed eyelids, a picture of M as he'd last seen him, curled up and sobbing on the bedroom floor. But Dan's mind instantly leapt back from the image as if it had been electrocuted. No, he couldn't, he definitely wouldn't go there. He wasn't ready to relive that unbearable conversation, to hear again M's confession about his feelings for Nico. He knew, of course, that he wouldn't be able avoid it forever, after all, he was being taken `home' where his mum would be waiting for him with an army of difficult and unavoidable questions. But he also knew that, after the night he'd had since leaving the apartment, and sitting there in the back of his dad's car, he'd nowhere near got the strength to face, again, the moment when his entire world had split open and he'd fallen into the crack. Down. Down. Down.
Suddenly the car was no longer moving and his dad's voice had tailed off. And there was his mum, wrapping him in a fierce and consoling hug, whispering words of love and reassurance, guiding him gently to his childhood bedroom and its comforting familiarity.
Then, sleep -- black, empty, enveloping sleep.
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