Title: Lost Boys
Author: Ness
Category: other, a/u
Disclaimer: Fanfic. Illegal, yes, but not immoral.
Note: Almost everyone's in this, but becomes very Jake/Hamilton in 2nd half. Oh, and I got obsessed with Hamilton's dad.
Spoilers: I'm messing with canon here. Forget the kiss on the roof. The cotillion showdown never happened. Everyone still thinks Jake's a bloke. Scout and Bella are trying to be friends. And Will's scholarship covers the cost of a school trip to London.
The low slanting rays of the sun threw long shadows across the lawn and made the western aspects of the school buildings glow golden. Over in London it was probably wet and dank weather right now. Will could hardly wait. Between him and the front of the Rawley dorms fifty yards away, some of the guys were kicking a ball around casually. He wanted to join them if only to work off some of his excess energy. However, in front of him was Jake, who was steadfastly failing to get the point of Tithonus.
I know he's smart enough to understand it.. hell, he's smart enough to explain maths to me. But Finn always insists that we tie literature into the emotions in our own lives. "This is a lit class. Not therapy" Jake said, looking hunted, at our last session. Jake's too compulsively reserved to admit he ever made a choice, or wished a wish, that he regretted
Will's attention wandered and his eyes followed the ball. He planned what to pack that evening. His mom had promised to drop off her old suitcase at the diner. Jake, frowning, was reading through the poem again when they heard shouting.
"Jake, Jake, my computer needs you." Laughter in his voice, Marcus came up to them with his laptop under an arm. He winked at Will.
Will's mood lightened. Marcus loved vinyl; Jake used the bands' web sites. Marcus played board games; Jake was obsessed by his game-boy. If the bickering wasn't always as funny as Jake and Marcus found it, at least it was always good natured.
"What have you done to it" Jake asked Marcus with foreboding, indicating the computer.
"Dunno" with the calm of a boy who could afford a replacement. "The buttons don't work."
"The keyboard's ..sticky." Jake prodded it fastidiously.
"A little soda" Marcus dismissed.
"What's this, attached to the bottom of the mouse?"
Marcus peered at it closely. "It's a throat lozenge," he said, astonished. "But, Ger had that strep throat a week ago. Nah," he reassured Jake, "that isn't what broke the box. There's only a sliver left, see. Ger gave it a good old suck."
Will and Jake took pains to look revolted.
"It worked fine till I downloaded that weird thing."
Jake was giving him a dirty look.
"Ger's a bit of a slob" he admitted, throwing his roomie to the wolves.
"Marcus." Jake shook her head. "Letting you own a computer is like giving Ryder a puppy."
"I hate to break it to you" Will told Jake "but it's an inanimate object. Not a pet."
"My laptop's not inanimate" she declared.
"Will and Marcus exchanged looks.
"It Rocks" she said, and grinned. "Okay. Leave it with me. It'll take time to fix."
"Can't you do it now? Cause if it's a major job of work, then, I could.."
Jake and Will looked at Marcus questioningly.
"I could phone the help desk" he said uncertainly.
"I know how you feel about that" said Jake.
"They're not helpful, and they probably don't have a desk" quoted Will.
"Or, I could send it in to a shop" he concluded. "I thought you'd just bait me for a minute or so, and hand it back, done." His face was atypically concerned. He knew they were due to go on Finn's trip, and both of them would be busy getting themselves sorted out.
"It's cool, it's fine" said Jake. "Only, Will has to get to the diner for a shift in an hour so we need to do this study date now."
Marcus looked from Jake to Will. "Date?"
Will sighed, Jake rolled her eyes.
"I'm giving Jake pointers on Tennyson" said Will. "In exchange for maths tutoring from him."
Tennyson and applied math. Marcus backed away a step. "Don't let me, you know, get involved in that" he said.
:
When Will made it to Friendly's, Scout was already there, leaning across the counter to do some veiled flirting with his half sister. Will didn't think he was conscious of flirting, but it was nasty anyway.
"Aren't you going to wish me luck? I'm off to Europe on Monday."
"It's not the Normandy landings Scout" she told him mildly.
"Maybe not, but I'm all wired up about it" Will intervened. "Oh, Scout, Rory wants to see you in the office about the shifts you'll be missing."
Bella smiled at Will wryly when Scout left. She knew perfectly well he'd been separating them - again - to defuse things. She was grateful. "You're such an Old Testament prophet Will."
"I don't know what you mean" he said.
Will stumbled out on Oxford street looking shell shocked. The pudding faced store clerk had been comprehensively rude to him. All that casual verbal brutality.. this was the place where Ryder learnt it. "Have you thought" he asked Jake "that this is where Ryders come from?"
Jake raised both eyebrows and looked around. The buildings were grey, the pavements uneven, and every third shop ran banners screaming Closing Down Sale! Everything Must Go! It was a scene of intense decay, but aside from being unpleasant to be around, it did not bring Ryder to her mind.
"Did you get the street atlas?" Hamilton asked practically.
"London A to Zed." Will started to get it out. "There's something I wanted to talk to you guys about" he said, muffled, as he scrunched over to rummage in his bag.
"Yeah?" Hamilton was staring at plasterwork detailing high above street level.
"Wait till Scout gets back" Jake suggested, pointing across the road.
Scout was biting into a scotch egg when he got back. God knew how long it had been in the chiller cabinet. He stopped short to look at the inside. "Is this even food?"
Will wasn't interested. "I've been talking to Finn about Thursday."
Scout hurled the egg at a startled pigeon and gave Will his full attention. School outings of a relentlessly uplifting nature had been arranged for the class on every day except Thursday. Finn's idea of variety had been to combine, over a week's viewing, a history (Henry V, Barbican) a comedy (As You Like It, open air theatre, Regent's Park) and a tragedy (Hamlet, the rebuilt Globe). It rained during all three performances, and they were only under a roof for one of them. Finn was full of zesty joy on the bus back, but Marcus wanted to know if Jake still had his throat lozenge.
Marcus also claimed to have seen a nightclub entrance down a side street while they were being dragged from a site where Dickens wrote something, to one where Dr Johnson said something else. The Rawley consensus was that Marcus was guilty of wishful thinking on a grand scale. As far as they could tell, Londoners spent their time hurtling along pavements at breakneck speed, performing in Shakespeare, and staffing museums. It was hard to imagine them dancing.
Will had done a massive amount of background reading and was glad of it. He only regretted the hours he wasted eating and sleeping. Hamilton was equable, pointing out privately that the boys' parents would want them to be on a cultural binge and Finn could care less if the boys hated it so long as the parents were happy. Scout had years of experience of letting, say, candlelit performances of Hayden in draughty churches, wash over him, and Jake showed a detached technical interest in the theatres. "There's no point whining" the four of them had agreed. Then, they'd sneaked out of the hotel.
"Thursday" Scout said now.
"Well, Friday we head off to Stratford on Avon-" There was a marked lack of enthusiasm from Will's listeners. "- but on Thursday we make our own agenda. Thing is, we can't go off on our own."
"What? Why the hell not? I need some alone time." Jake totally lost it. It startled Will and Scout.
Jake normally spent a lot of time holed up in his dorm. Hamilton was less surprised. "Relax" he said now. "It's a school rule. Minimum groups of four on an away trip. Less likely to get lost-"
"Less likely how?" Jake demanded.
Hamilton shrugged, and continued "Less chaotic for the faculty to have fewer groups to chase."
"That would be Finn." Jake didn't look remotely sympathetic to Finn's troubles.
"I was thinking" Will said "we could be a minimum group of four."
"Sure" Scout said warmly, and Hamilton chimed in.
"I could say I was with you" suggested Jake "and then go off-"
"No!" said Will. His scholarship was his lifeline. No way was he going to risk pissing Rawley off.
Jake read his expression and sighed. Then she saw Hamilton watching her.
"It'll be fine" he said. "Did you have, like, plans?"
Will looked nervous. He had a ton of plans.
"Nah" she said, giving in. "Just, to unwind. Too much interaction."
Scout nudged Will derisively at this last.
On Thursday Will seemed hell bent on visiting every museum in the city. When the museum of London opened up at 10am, there were Will and his three conscripts, lined up on the doorstep. They left via St Paul's Cathedral and Prince Henry's room on Fleet street, then north to Sir John Soane's en route for the British Museum. Having gone past the Elgin marbles, the Rosetta stone and any number of Egyptian mummies, they emerged onto a courtyard populated by feral pigeons. The sky was overcast.
"My feet hurt" announced Scout, dropping onto the broad steps.
Will glanced from the guidebook to his watch. "Next stop is the Wallace Collection. They have a really cool gallery of suits of armour" he coaxed.
Sitting beside Scout, Jake took her baseball cap off to massage her temples.
"If I see one more glass case with old stuff in it today .." Hamilton said slowly.
The troops were rebelling. No question. "And, after the Wallace Collection" said Will "further west is Hyde Park. We'll pass Marble Arch where Tyburn used to be - of course, there's no gallows anymore-" His friends were giving him unloving looks. "-cut across the lawns, check out the Albert Memorial and hit the V and A before they close."
Scout groaned.
"When do we eat?" Hamilton demanded. He was shocked that he had to ask.
"Put your wallet away in the open street, Ham. You'll get hassled for change" said Jake.
"You know London, don't you" Scout asked thoughtfully.
Jake shrugged, and put the hat back on. "Mom's done a lot of work here, yeah. We're north of the theatre district right now."
Will was exasperated. Europe might be a once in a lifetime chance for him. None of them got that.
"Do you know anywhere good to eat?" Scout was asking Jake.
"There's a lot of restaurants in Soho." Jake looked sidelong at Hamilton "and we could stop by the Photographer's Gallery near Leicester Square tube."
"Lester? You pronounce that Lester? But it's got all those ..unnecessary letters" Scout disapproved. He was peering at Will's map, oblivious to the agitated boy still holding it.
"Europeans" said Jake. "They do terrible things to the English language."
"But what about the Albert Memorial?" Will almost whined.
"It'll still be here next time you visit, man" Hamilton told him without looking up from his camera. He was trying to get a profile shot of Jake watching the crowds milling around the forecourt.
"I may never be in Europe again" Will panicked.
"If you want to, you'll be back" Scout said. "But now, we eat." He sounded very firm about both statements.
"Yeah" said Hamilton, equally determined.
Jake punched Will on the shoulder. "You're outvoted, man. Welcome to democracy."
Will glanced down at his own shoulder, all, - how did this happen? -
All but four of the boys had made it back to the hotel hours ago. Tired and increasingly angry, Finn lurked near reception to intercept the defaulters. "What kind of time do you call this?" and "We run things on a light rein; we expect you gentlemen to respect the rules we set" swirled round in his head. He dozed off, and woke up disorientated. The night manager was standing over his chair.
- what? What am I doing sleeping down here? Oh, wait, the boys. Is he telling me they're back? - Finn squinted up at the man, who looked very upset.
"Mr Finn" he was saying, apparently for the second or third time.
"Yeah?" Finn pulled himself straighter in the chair, as far as he could. It was lushly upholstered in theyexpectitofuswe'reEnglish chintz. Also, he was still drowsy. He took a peek at reception. The four keys he was focussed on were still dangling there.
"We've had a phone call from the American Embassy."
"What?!" Finn woke right up.
The night manager hesitated. One thing he liked about nights was he didn't have to interact with guests. This was going to require tact. "The four youths who didn't check in last night-"
"What?" Finn said again.He scrubbed his hands over his face. - what have they done, to get the embassy involved? I'll kill them -
"Maybe we'd better have this conversation in an office" the hotel man said belatedly. One of the cleaners was buffing the floor now. He was having to raise his voice above the baby hovercraft machine.
"What have they done? Why is the Embassy involved?" Finn snapped. - I will kill them -
"This way, please. They haven't done anything wrong. They've been victims of a crime."
Finn felt sick. "Are they hurt?"
- might be - the other man thought. "The embassy were phoned by the Calhoun family-"
"Can't you answer any of my questions?" Finn shouted.
"- who were directly contacted by the kidnappers."
Finn sank into an office chair. "Kidnappers" he said, stunned.
He seemed to be taking this quietly. The manager was encouraged. "I have a contact name at the embassy-" he looked at Finn for a moment, then added "I'll write it down for you."
Finn was staring into the middle distance. - I must phone the dean. In a minute. Oh, god - he thought. "Wait" he called as the manager hurried out the door to get the phone number "Is this political? Scout's father is a Senator."
"No, no" the other man said. "It's about money."