Far Away – Chapter Fourteen
"Danny, what are you doing here?"Chris struggled to his feet while holding his cheek.
"Beating some sense into my friend," Danny grumbled. "Why did you quit?"
Chris paused for a moment, looking at the reason standing in front of him. "…I just had to."
Danny's mouth opened and closed a few times as he struggled to find the words he wanted. He shut his eyes tightly for a moment and turned his face away. Chris frowned and let go of his cheek.
"Are you okay?" he asked cautiously, unable to push down the spike of worry. "You just got out of the hospital-"
"I'm fine, it doesn't matter," Danny replied quickly. Like Chris believed that for a second – he could see Danny trembling and he wondered if it was from stress or cold. "Chris, c'mon, the club's gonna need you."
Chris sighed and ran his hand through his hair while turning back to his desk. "You guys can use John to replace me."
"Chris they can't replace you!"
Chris sat down in his desk chair and picked up the first textbook off the stack. "John knows just about as much as me on computers. He's run the equipment in the clubhouse a lot-"
"But he's not you."
Someone may as well have wrapped their hand around Chris' heart and squeezed. His chest seized for a moment.
"Well, he'll have to do." Chris tried to focus on the textbook but wouldn't notice if it was upside down.
Danny was silent behind him for a minute, then sighed. Chris heard him moving behind him, and saw Danny place an envelope on top of the stack of homework. "What's that?" Chris asked, the awkwardness hard to move around.
"Something from the teacher," Danny mumbled back, turning away from Chris' desk. Chris made an agreeing noise. He heard the door opening behind him, and Danny calling, "Bye, Chris…"
"Later," Chris answered vaguely.
The door shut, and Chris buried his face into his textbook. He tried not to think, tried not to hurt. People said that the pain faded with time. Chris was just a little anxious to know the 'when' and gauge his time frame of feeling constantly like crap.
He knew eventually he would have to go back to school and face Danny every single day, as well as the other members of the Monster Buster Club. He didn't have a choice.
So he raised his head and looked at the assignment sheet for the book he held. Just focus on what he had to, and ignore everything else. He just wanted to forget it all. He didn't regret loving Danny. He couldn't make himself even wish he never had. He just wanted it to end now.
Two extremely boring packets of paper and an hour later, Chris picked up the envelope and opened it, expecting to see some printed copy of a standard letter about missing so many classes and make-up work. He wasn't expecting to see the blocky handwriting of his secret crush, extreme eraser burn and several lines so heavily crossed out he couldn't read them at all.
He read the first few lines a bit carelessly, until he ran across one that made his heart stop: You have to go back to the MBC, because it needs more than two members.
Chris gripped the page so tightly it almost ripped as he reread the letter, his eyes speeding over words that caused his gut to wrench until he came to the two cruelest words that stopped his heart:
Goodbye, Chris.
Before he knew it, the letter was crammed into his pocket and his feet flew down the staircase. He plowed straight into John coming up the stairs.
"Chris! You're out of your room!" John looked amazed as Chris struggled to shove his little brother off his chest.
"John! Did you know?" he yelled angrily.
"Know what?" John asked blankly before he hit the railing.
"That Danny was leaving! On that ship!"
John's eyes got huge as Chris stumbled to his feet. "Mr. Smith said he was using his plants to make some sort of memory-erasing stuff for Danny's mom, but Chris, honest I-"
Chris didn't hear anything after that, already down the stairs and out the door. He reached for his MBC comm to call but forgot it was buried under his mattress. So he just ran, feet racing and heart pounding and praying it wasn't too late.
He hit Cathy's street and wouldn't even slow down to avoid Mr. Smith's plants, and almost ran into Sam who cried out, "Chris!"
She grabbed his arms and his momentum caused them both to twist. "Where is he?" Chris demanded, barely any air in his lungs.
"The Zerellian ship's south of the park and they're leaving soon! I was going to use the shuttles to go get you-you have to stop them!"
By then they were both running for the clubhouse, and Chris yelled, "I know!" as they plunged into the loading dock and onto the seat of their shuttles. His engine flared and Chris blasted off. The letter seemed to burn through his pocket as Danny's written words rang in his head, along with the memory of being turned away.
"What the hell was that you sick-"
"Chris!" Sam's voice cut in through the on-board comm. "You have to tell him, Chris!"
Chris wanted to grimace as his thrusters blasted at full tilt. "I can't-"
"You have to!"
"But when I kissed him, he called me-he-" When Chris faltered Sam looked like she would smack him if she could.
"He didn't call you anything!"
"But-"
"He didn't! He doesn't even remember waking up! Chris, that's your HEAD getting in the way! Just tell him how you feel!"
Chris gritted his teeth and clenched his controls as Sam swore and yelled something about the take-off countdown.
His shuttle slowed abruptly and Chris emergency-ejected, blasting through the secret opening to the tunnel in the park. He could feel the thrum of the hidden ship's engines and took off running, his legs screaming at him in pain but not as loudly as his heart when he saw Danny standing beside Mr. Smith, Cathy, the hologram of the galactic leader, and a Zerellian.
"DANNY!"
Danny turned, his face frozen in complete surprise for the two seconds before Chris hit him full throttle and both boys tackled the ground.
"You idiot!" Chris reared up over Danny and drew his fist back, unable to hold the sheer frustration and pain that had been building since forever at bay as it turned into anger. Danny only looked shocked at the first blow, before flipping him over and punching back himself.
"Who are you calling idiot, idiot?!"
"You were going to leave? Without telling me, moron?!"
"I tried, you pimple-farming prick!"
Sam ran up beside Cathy, and the group just stared at the two boys wrestling on the grass. "Well… in all the outcomes I imagined, this wasn't one of them."
"Is this was human boys normally do?" Cathy asked. The Zerellian made noises, and Mr. Smith's handheld translator beeped out his question.
"But the child is one of us now."
Sam rolled her eyes. "Oh, hush. He's still mostly human. The parts that count."
"Exactly!" Chris snapped before pinning Danny down to the ground. "Just because you've got some alien jelly crap in you doesn't mean you have to leave with them!"
"I wasn't leaving because of that, you stupid-…stupid!"
Chris stopped as he looked at Danny's face, and saw the tears starting in his eyes. "Then…why were you leaving?!"
"Because of you!" Danny blurted out. "I'm leaving because of you!"
"What…" Chris relaxed his hold, and Danny bucked him off and planted himself on top.
"After… after this happened-" Danny just flung a hand out to the Zerellian as an explanation, "You wouldn't come near me! I have to leave!"
"What are you talking about?" Chris demanded, staring up at Danny's wide and watery eyes, both their faces red and their chests heaving from the fist-fight. "I'm not staying away from you because of that!"
"The what's wrong with me Chris, that you don't want to be around me anymore? That you quit the MBC?"
"Nothing's wrong with you! Nothing! I love you!"
The night suddenly went dead quiet. Chris' breath caught in his chest, Danny didn't breathe, and the rest of the world might as well have disappeared.
"You…what?" Danny's eyes were wide and unreadable.
"I. Love. You." Chris covered his face with his arm, unable to look at Danny while he said it. "I have for so long. Since before the MBC. I couldn't…I couldn't stand being around you anymore because I love you so much." Danny wasn't speaking, wasn't moving - so Chris just let his mouth babble on. "I thought you hated me because of it. I thought it would be better if I just left-"
Danny's weight shifted, and he heard Danny yelp. Chris removed his arm to see the Zerellian had lifted Danny off his chest. "Put me down!" Danny yelled, hammering his hands against the worm's grasp. "Put me down now!"
Chris lurched to his feet as the worm headed to his ship with Danny in tow. "No-"
Cathy leapt in the way and yelled something in the Zerellian gibberish, translated by Mr. Smith's gadget a second later for Chris to understand, "Wait! This one claimed that one as his! By your laws, they have to stay together!"
The worm stopped as Chris did too, and saw Danny's face turn bright red. "What?"
Cathy stamped her foot angrily and looked at Danny. "If you don't tell him, then I will!"
Danny's face just got redder, but he hit the Zerellian's limb again. "Put me down, now." The worm hesitantly obeyed, and set Danny on his feet right in front of Chris.
"What?" Chris asked in disbelief.
"Well, Chris, I…" Danny couldn't meet his eyes, "I…Iloveyoutoo."
"What?"
Danny drew in a deep breath then looked fiercely up at Chris, before firmly declaring, "I love you, too."
The moment held still, before the rush of relief flooded Chris and threatened to spill out his eyes. "Really?" he breathed, his hand unsteadily reaching for Danny.
Danny softly laughed in a relieved, gentle breath. "Y-yeah." And his hand raised and met Chris'.
Then words failed Chris to express his utter happiness, as he gathered Danny's trembling body up in his arms and cried into his neck. Danny whispered soft reassurances, promises Chris had always dreamed of but never believed to actually hear, until Danny began to cry himself. The two had slid to the ground at some point, and just held each other. Somewhere behind them, Mr. Smith was talking, but neither could hear what he was saying.
Cathy finally squealed and wrapped her arms around them both and Chris and Danny laughed as Sam joined in as well.
"You knew!" Chris accused Cathy, who just grinned.
"Hey, I knew about you!" Sam pointed out, and Danny laughed at that.
They were cut off as the Zerellian ship decided to finally take off, and the four watched as it sailed off for the stars. "They just… left?" Chris asked, confused.
"They were pretty set on taking Danny with them," Sam added, and Chris tightened his hold around Danny.
"By their law, any 'mother worm' has to be taken care of," Mr. Smith looked self-important as he explained. "Danny has the mother worm jelly in him, so they wanted to take him back so he was cared for. I simply told them that Chris will care for Danny."
Chris smiled at Mr. Smith, then looked at Danny. "Well, somebody's gotta look after 'the Danny' here."
"Hey!" Danny protested.
"My Danny?" Chris cautiously offered instead.
Danny smiled at him. "Your Danny."
Chris clutched Danny to him again, burying his face in Danny's hair and feeling his heartbeat. This was so much better than any dream Chris ever had. Every broken moment vanished, and all he felt was Danny's sunlight inside him.
"Don't ever leave me," he whispered.
"Never. I'll never be far away," Danny smiled back, and raised himself up to catch Chris' lips with his own in a kiss that spoke of something far better than dreams.
To Be Concluded...
Author's Note:
So 'Far Away' comes to a close. I do have almost a whole story planned out for the 'epilogue', but as mentioned before it would have more adult situations and ideas and take place in "Far Away"'s future... so at the moment, I'm not writing it. Instead, we get just the short and sweet chapter epilogue.
'Far Away' is titled after the song by NickelBack. I suppose I should have said that at some point.
Thank you all to my loyal readers and to everyone who commented! You were the reason I kept writing. *bows*
Now, on to the epilogue!