Warnings: Mild Slash (Kane/Daniel Bryan), AU, Fluff.
The Prom is something that Kane's never enjoyed. Every year that he's been employed by this school he's been asked to be a chaperone, and every year he's been bored to tears by it. It's a never-ending parade of ugly dresses, and drunken teens. It got old very quickly to him, but there's something different about this year, something that's been different for the last few months if Kane's honest. When he'd asked Daniel to move in with him, he'd not really expected much in their relationship to change, but the difference is night and day. It's a difference Kane isn't sure he's happy about in all honesty. When they'd been dating, Daniel had been lighter, more fun, but now that they spend so much time together, it's like getting a peek behind the curtain, and Kane isn't entirely sure he likes what he sees. Daniel is anal, obsessive about certain things, and to a strange degree overly fussy. It's not a make or break level of fussy, it's just a little more than Kane had been expecting. There's one other terrible flaw in Daniel that had been revealed by them living together, and that is he bottles things up. Little things that most people would just tell you, Daniel will sit on things for days, weeks, and then they'll explode in a fury that's at once righteous and more than a little ridiculous.
This week had seen one of those explosions. It had started just after it was announced that the faculty was required to chaperone the Prom, and had stewed for days, until now, just before they have to leave, and Daniel is standing glaring at Kane.
"I'm not going." He snarls, and Kane bites back a sigh.
"We have to." It's hard maintaining his cool with Daniel, he exercises the majority of his control refraining from shouting at idiot children all day, and he doesn't need to be dealing with more stupidity when he gets home.
"You can go, I'm staying here." Daniel flops down on to the couch, and Kane closes his eyes, mentally counting back from ten. "You go have fun in your monkey suit." Kane ups the number to twenty. "I'm not waddling around dressed like a penguin for no reason. I don't care if it's paid. I'm not going to this stupid piece of shit and that's that." Kane decides that maybe fifty is a better starting point, and counts slowly in his mind. "You'll be late if you don't go now."
"Daniel!" It's a stupid thing to be so annoyed by, but Kane knows there's something behind this bout of stupid selfishness. This is something that's been bottled up so long that Daniel's not so much angry, as just plain hurt by it.
"What!" He bellows back, bouncing to his feet, glaring at Kane."I'm not going!" He sneers, and Kane sighs, rubbing his face.
"Just go get in the car, Daniel."
"No!"
"Yes."
"No!"
"Yes."
"No!"
"Yes!" At this Kane lifts Daniel up, and throws him over his shoulder, depositing him in the front seat, before quickly heading back to lock the house up. There's a part of Kane that expects Daniel to have gotten out of the car and left, but he's still there, sitting there looking miserable.
The whole ride to the school, Daniel is utterly silent, an air of brooding hanging over him, and Kane knows that there's another argument brewing. If he's honest, he'd rather avoid the argument, and find out what's bothering his partner, but that seems unlikely to happen if the only person he talks to is Daniel. When they get to the school he'll corner someone who knows him, ask if they know any reason for why Daniel is in a mood, but until then, he's stuck with sulking and huffing. It's not a great situation to be in, but luckily Daniel's pretty cute when he's in a strop.
"I'm not talking to you." Daniel snaps once they're inside, his posture tense as they're given a section of the hall to monitor. Kane glances away from him, turning to watch the dancing students. The children look happy, all of them writhing and spinning around each other. They're content, and he and Daniel are not. It's s strange situation. It's not comfortable, it's not familiar, and it sets Kane's teeth on edge. He'd much rather be happy to here with the man he loves, but Daniel isn't happy, so Kane isn't happy. He has to do something to remedy this situation.
"Daniel." Kane mutters, and there's a vague snort from his companion. There's a tension, an odd uncomfortable tension, and it makes Kane more than a little discontent. He's only really been with Daniel for about a year. He'd arrived at the school just after the Prom last year, and they'd moved into dating so quickly, maybe too quickly, but they'd clicked in a way Kane hasn't felt in years. He doesn't want something this small to jeopardise a relationship that's usually so good for both of them. "I'm going to get a drink."
"Whatever." Daniel mutters, his eyes not moving from what he's staring at. Kane sighs, and leaves his partner to his sulking, spotting one of Daniel's friend's by the punch bowl, guarding it from potential spiking. It makes sense to put Mr Brooks to this task; he's got a nose finely attuned to sniffing out would-be spikers.
"Brooks?" Kane ladles some of the brightly coloured juice into a solo cup, and tries for a smile at Brooks.
"Kane?" Brooks looks at him, a mixture of boredom and intrigue on his face. Kane doesn't know Brooks too well, despite him being a teacher in the school for a number of years. He's not exactly the most friendly member of the faculty, but he's known Daniel for a long time, and is if nothing else brutally honest.
"Why does Daniel hate this?" Kane doesn't waste time dancing around the subject, and Brooks looks genuinely surprised. A thoughtful expression flitting over his face.
"This? The Prom? You tried asking him - No, nevermind, he wouldn't answer if you did." Brooks gets himself a drink, and sips on it slowly. "We were in high school together." He sounds like he's settling in for a long soliloquy, and part of Kane curses the fact that one of Daniel's closest friends in this damn school is the Head of the Drama department. "He was invited to go by a guy... A guy we all told him was a jerk, and lo and behold, he was a jerk." Brooks shakes his head, and Kane turns to stare at him. "What? You looked like you'd like the cliff notes version." Brooks shrugs, and Kane pats him on the shoulder.
"How can I fix it?" It's probably cheating, but asking for advice is never really a bad thing, and it seems like Brooks is in a helpful, and succinct mood tonight.
"I dunno..." He shrugs, and jumps when his wife appears beside him, a wicked little grin on her face.
"You make him a better Prom." She grins, and Brooks nods, a devious little smirk on his lips.
"You're a wise woman, wifey." He presses a kiss to her temple, and Kane resists the urge to gag a little. They're too sweet for having been married for so long, far too sweet for being married in general. "Leave it to us. We'll get something sorted out for you." Brooks grins, and his wife nods enthusiastically.
"This finishes up at eleven, so get him to the Teacher's Lounge for eleven-thirty." She skips off, and Brooks follows along behind her, abandoning his post by the refreshment's table.
"Here you are." Daniel sounds annoyed as he comes over to Kane. "You're dragged me here to go off and do nothing but drink punch." Daniel folds his arms over his chest, his eyes narrowed, and Kane hands him a cup of punch.
"What was your prom like?" Now that he knows something about why Daniel isn't happy, Kane feels more comfortable asking this question. For a brief second there's something bitterly wounded in Daniel's eyes, and Kane regrets the question instantly.
"I got stood up. I didn't go." He downs the cup of punch, and slinks off; his shoulders drooped, making him look like an alley cat that's just lost a fight.
"Go make up. I got this." There's a voice behind him, and Kane turns to see another member of the faculty standing by the table. He can't remember his name, he's one of the guys who started with Daniel, but he's just become someone who's there now.
"Thanks." It never hurts to be polite to fellow teachers; you never know when you might need to call on them for a favour.
Kane tries to spot Daniel in the crowd, but he's either left or blended in too well to be spotted easily. Eventually the Prom winds down, and the students begin leaving. Despite looking all night, Kane hadn't spotted Daniel again, and he's almost worried that the plan the Brooks had concocted will all go to waste, because Daniel's gone home.
"I'm sorry." There's a quiet voice behind him, and Kane turns to face a sullen, and depressed looking Daniel. "I'm being a jerk."
"You are." Kane nods, and wraps his arms around Daniel when he comes closer. It's always a nice surprise when Kane realises just how well Daniel fits his arms. The smaller man feels like he was created specifically for the purpose of being held by Kane, and it always fills his heart with unexpected emotion.
"C'mon... Let's get outta here." Daniel steps back, and Kane snags his hand, raising it to his lips.
"I've got other plans for you." A smirk spread over Kane's lips, and blush creeps over Daniel's cheeks. "Unfortunately not those plans." Kane laughs, and Daniel shakes his head, a strangely putout expression on his face. Kane leads him to the Teacher's lounge, and pauses just outside the door.
"What's this?" Daniel mutters softly, and Kane smiles awkwardly, shuffling closer, coming to stand behind Daniel, as he opens the door to the Teacher's Lounge. In the short time they had, the Brooks did an incredible job of making the dingy gray room look incredible. There's sparkling streamers, music, even a table of food with a punch bowl on it.
"What's it look like?" His hands rest on Daniel's shoulders lightly, feeling them tense briefly. "You didn't have a Prom as a kid, so..." Kane trails off, and Daniel turns to him, a smile half-hidden by his beard.
"You made me a prom?" He sounds torn between tears and laughter, his smile getting bigger, and his eyes getting watery.
"Well, this is a prom made for you, and I was marginally involved." Kane mutters, and Daniel all but skips over to the punch table. The rest of the faculty are there, some of them clearly re-enacting their own prom, dancing, making out, or in the case of Mr Ambrose spiking the punch. "How much did you pour in there?" Kane mutters when he's close enough to Ambrose to smell the whisky on his breath, and the vodka in the flask he's tucking back into his jacket pocket.
"Ha... Enough to make the lovely Ms Young relax, and more than enough to keep The Brooks away from it." Ambrose laughs, and Kane looks around, spotting Mr and Mrs Brooks sipping at takeaway coffee they've mysteriously acquired, standing in a corner, looking slightly out of place, and thoroughly engrossed with each other. Ms Young is trying to talk to them, but they're one of those couples that seem to forget the rest of humanity exists when they're together, and she looks frustrated more than anything. Her eyes casting about for someone else to engage in conversation.
"Renee! C'mon! Have a drink!" Daniel shouts Renee over, and takes a cup of the spiked punch from Ambrose. "You be nice to her." Ambrose nods, in place of his normal smirk, there's a soft almost boyish smile. Ms Young takes the cup from Daniel, and Ambrose starts nervously talking to her, quickly getting lost in a conversation.
"We're leaving her with him?" Kane asks, and Daniel nods, catching Kane's hand to lead him out on to the space of the room that's been cleared to act as a dance floor.
"C'mon, show me your moves." He smirks up at Kane, and there's a tiny part of Kane that regrets letting Brooks arrange all of this, but it's cancelled out by the happiness on Daniel's face. They spend a good long time on the dance floor. The music that's playing is from Daniel's youth, and whilst its music Kane's a little too old to appreciate with the same nostalgia as Daniel, but he enjoys it all the same, if only because it makes Daniel looks so damned happy. Over in one of the corners, someone's set up a camera, and a simple backdrop, with various teachers in various stages of drunk going over to have their photos taken.
"C'mon... I wanna get our picture taken." Kane leads Daniel over, and smiles when Daniel arranges them into a classic prom pose with Kane's arms around his waist. The photographer quickly prints it off, and promises to email the photo to Kane in the morning.
The party lasts for far longer than anyone was expecting, the atmosphere far happier and jollier than Kane, and clearly everyone else, had expected. He's never seen his colleagues look like they've had so much fun, and he's kind of proud that out of Daniel's terrible first prom something he can see becoming a tradition has been born. From a horrible experience, something genuinely fun and enjoyable has come about, and that's something Kane's pleased about, for the whole staff, but mostly for Daniel. The whole time he'd looked so happy, so proud to be there are Kane's date, and in all honesty, Kane had felt the exact same way.
"Kane?" Daniel asks softly once they're in back in the car, heading home once more, his attention on the photo of them together. It's a nice photo, more than likely the nicest photo of them Kane's ever seen. He intends to frame it, and put it somewhere on display, their house needs some nice pictures of them together.
"Uh-huh?" Kane turns to Daniel as he pulls up at a red light. Daniel leans over the centre console, and presses a kiss to Kane's lips, breaking away with a soft smile on his face.
"Thank you..." He turns back to the photo of them together his thumb moving over the image gently. His soft smile suddenly falls from his face, and he turns to Kane with something sharp in his eyes, but a wryly-sweet smile on his lips. "Next year, I want a corsage."
Tristen Jacobs - my dear from Tumblr! I hope this was okay, and was least enjoyable. I had fun writing it which I've not had for a while, so thank you very much for answering my plea for help! :-*
Reviews are always appreciated - and in this instance requests are very much appreciated too. I'm kind of in a mental slump... Prompt me outta it, please.
If you've time and the inclination please have a vote on the poll on my profile! I'd super appreciate it! - There's a week left - polling will close on 2015/02/15