There's a neat little clock,-
In the schoolroom it stands,-
And it points to the time
With its two little hands.

"I was wondering when you'd do something."

Dash backpedaled, face snapping away from the lips that had whispered the words so huskily. "What?" He asked.

"Well," Danny drawled, "you've been fawning over me for years, honestly I didn't know you had that kind of self control." The laugh was mean and mocking. Hands in his back pickets pinched through the fabric.

"What are you talking about?" his smile was slow and sly and Dash felt his skin go clammy. "You mean you...you knew? "

"From the very beginning," he almost sang it, so proud of that, " I mean, it's kind of obvious when my school bully suddenly stops picking on me." Those hands tugged, pulling their hips close together, button against button.

"You," Dash swallowed audibly, "you never said anything." Biting his lip he tried to get his mind to focus, to think, with the lean warm inviting body pressed against him, his hands exploring the length of the brunettes back .

"Why would I?" Danny huffed, "I wasn't interested, and you never approached me." He looked up into Dash's face with an emotion Dash couldn't quite place, lips trembling at the edges as he struggled to keep his smile. "What was I supposed to do, call you out just to reject you?" And the sad pitying way it was said made Dash's mouth curve up.

"But what about now?" his hands slip up around shoulders just a few inches shorter than his own, cupped him there. "What about this?"

A warm welcoming smile, hands left his back pockets to wrap around his thick neck and tug at the short hairs. Pulling down their noses brushed, his own hands slid back down that long curve of his spine to rest open palm and warm at the waist, visual contact broke when eyelids slid down. Mouths so close, tasting each other's breath, lips skimmed like a mosquito over water. Then Danny released him, stepping away faster than Dash had managed to a moment before.

"Yeah, I'd still say I have to reject you."

Surprise, no shock, bone deep shock struck through him, melted into pain so deep and intense, Sharp, like needles in his chest, like swallowing something a little too big, a little too rough, a little difficult to breath around. "Wha-" He swallowed past the emotion clogging his throat, fought past the rising heat in his face, the burning behind his eyes. Danny just kept that teasing smirk. "What's this all about."

"Amusement," he said simply, "how often does a looser get to hurt his bully back? I couldn't resist, I mean, you're just so completely gone over me it's hilarious."

"Hilarious? You think," he managed through clenched teeth and fisted hands, "that spending these years agonizing over you is hilarious?"

"No," he admitted with a shrug but that smile came back in an instant, "I think the fact that it's you agonizing over me is hilarious." He tucked his hands into his front pockets and studied Dash through laughing eyes. "Did you really think, after everything you did, I'd even try and return your feelings? Come on, what a joke." He laughed then, deep and cruel and taunting. "Find some other fag to get yourself off Dash, I'm not interested."

"I'll kill you." He hissed too low for the other to hear. Thick, ferocious fury like he had never known clawed at him from somewhere deep inside, Dash growled low in his throat, making Danny's smile slide just a little. "Why," he began hoarsely, "Why the fuck would you lead me on like that? I'll fucking kill you!" He launched forward, hands reaching out to strangle, but Danny did the unexpected and stepped right back up to him, gripping dash/s hands in his own and slipping between his arms to plant a soft kiss against his lips.

"Aw, cheer up moron," he said at Dash's dumfounded expression, "that's two kisses you got out of this. That's gotta be more than you expected." Then he released those big, dangerous hands and walked away before the blond recovered from the surprise.

"FENTON!"

Ducking around the corner he turned invisible and pressed himself against the wall just as Dash stormed by, wanting to give chase no doubt. His trembling hand went up to tug at the fabric against his chest, felt the heavy hurried beat of his heart, finally able to let the situation wash through him. His heavy breathing hitched, interrupted by a dry painful sob. He shook from the agony, the sorrow, the uncontrollable want. And the knowing that he had held onto Dash for one moment, kissed him for a moment, and it would be the only time in all his life he ever would. Covering his face he slid bonelessly down the wall to mourn the loss of his future.

Then Clockwork was beside him with his grim wrinkled look, a hand, heavy and warm and familiar, on his shoulder.

"He'll live now." His youth reassured. "He'll find someone else and he'll live."

"But he won't love them like me," Danny's voice was thick with unreleased tears. "They won't be as happy as we were."

"But he'll live." Said the infant.

And that had to be good enough for him. It had to be.

He heard a swear and looked up from his hands to see his past self, late from fighting a ghost, transform mid flight and continue the journey at a run, skidding into the apartment's graffiti colored wannabe park and looking around frantically.

"Dash?" He called. He was wearing an outfit Danny remembered well, he'd bought it one day while shopping with his sister, he imagined this day when he picked it out the outfit, when he would confirm his suspicions, his hopes, about Dash's feelings. It looked good on him.

He, himself, wasn't wearing that outfit , just a plain one, and seeing it on his past self delivered a hard praising punch to his heart..

"Dash?" He called again and walked around the beat up play set, as if the Jock was hiding behind it somewhere. With a noisy huff he plopped down on the base of the slide. "Great, I'm late cuz freaking ghosts and now Dash thinks I stood him up." He let his head fall into his hands. While his future self let go of his invisibility and walked out onto the cushioned pavement.

There were things they needed to talk about, and knowing himself, he wasn't and wouldn't be prepared to listen.

And may we, like the clock,
Keep a face clean and bright,
With hands ever ready
To do what is right.


Catching up on some posting, seeing as how it's been a year since Rin fell off the internet and has yet to climb back in. I know I've slaked in the posting of her stuff, seeing as how she keeps writing, like forever. I have oodles of saved texts and emails that need to be pieced together. So if this feels a little disjointed, it's because pretty much every three paragraphs (or one, for the really long ones) was text separately and saving them messes with the chronological order. And it doesn't exactly help when Rin goes: "Wait! these new three words would go great here", or "put that description there", or "no, I think it should be in this setting instead of that." It's not exactly easy…

But I understand that the long wait has made some of you feel a little…murderous, especially when you think about how Photo Opportunities has three new chapters that I just need to fix and post up there, heh…um, did I mention how much I love you guys and, oh hey look over there! Is that a sneak preview to Rin's new work Absence?

Loving you all please don't tell Rin I slacked thankyou!

-niKola