A/N: Thanks to all of you who reviewed last time! It is very muchly appreciated. :) Before we get this party started, I've got a couple things to say. The first is about the time factor. I can't update as fast as I would like AND keep the quality I insist on, so I'm going to do my best and take my time. Screw deadlines. The second thing is about Danny's ROTC program. I have never been in the ROTC, nor have I conversed with anyone who has. I did, however, do a butt load of research for this, so if I get a few details wrong, it's not out of disrespect or careless ignorance. LASTLY (it's in bold caps because you MUST read this part), the rating will be changed to M on 8/22, to give those who have been tracking this on the K-T page a chance to know what's going on. This chapter covers Danny's college experience, and he runs into some very college-y things. So be ready for that.
Mars
By JadeRabbyt
"I saw a lot of guys like him come through. They're timid, but then they find their space and settle in like they were made for the job. Fenton worked harder than many others, but he never struck me as dangerous."
--Corporal Ross Ulrich
"Welcome, everyone, to the Air Force Reserve Officers' Training Corps. My name is Jorgen Newman, head of the ROTC program here at Grant University, and I'd like to congratulate you all on your acceptance to this program. Here you can look forward to a full four years in college, during which you'll not only earn a degree, but also gain all the knowledge and training you need to go on to become an officer in the Air Force. We'll give you an excellent education, and the ROTC will teach you invaluable skills in leadership and responsibility. Together, these two things are priceless in the private sector, but you'll already have a job waiting for you by the time you graduate, and that job will be with the most technologically advanced military complex in the world.
"But you'll get more than a good job during your time here. Each of you is an individual, and we respect that here. Individuals have unique talents and weaknesses, but here there is room for everybody. You may choose to serve in one of a hundred of different way, ranging from chaplain to pilot to civil engineer, all depending on your unique talents and skills. Whatever your specialty, rest assured that we will find it out and hone it, teaching you exactly how to use your talent in the most productive ways possible. As an officer you will be taught to take and give orders effectively and efficiently, and such a thing requires confidence and courage. You'll earn that here, and it will stick with you for the rest of your life.
"I can truthfully say that nobody here has joined for purely selfish reasons. I don't care if you think you're 'only here because of the scholarship' or not. You are all here because you have made a choice to serve your country, and that requires courage and it requires altruism. No matter why you made that choice, the fact is there that you've made it, and your country thanks you."
XXX
The final words met the thundering, applauding, cheering approval of the whole audience in that darkened auditorium. Parents and students smiled at each other and nodded proudly and knowingly. Some of those present were in the military, others had long since retired, but the entering freshmen had done neither. They were there for more reasons than could be counted, each having followed a different road. Some kids didn't have the money to pay their own way, so they had decided to let the ROTC pay it for them. Others followed their parents, several generations having served in the military before them, and these kids were the most confident, feeling the weight of tradition on their backs and under their feet, both a solid foothold and a responsibility to be fulfilled.
A third class of students had arrived through desperation. Some hadn't had the grades to make it into a normal college, so they had shambled into the ROTC. Others simply hadn't known what else to do. They were normal and friendly, most of the time, but in one sense or another, they wandered. From the vantage point of the podium, where Jorgen Newman still stood smiling out at the audience, it would have been impossible to say which group was which. Everybody clapped, and nobody dared to express any doubts amid so much approval, but speckled throughout the crowd were those who felt something hardening in their stomach.
Danny didn't know what he was doing. That was all there was to it. He'd gotten a brochure in the mail; that's how he'd first learned about the 'AF ROTC', and it had looked pretty good. He already had some experience in defense, and with people telling him what to do, it would be impossible for him to mess things up too badly. Besides, he figured that if he flew a plane, he'd never even have to face his enemy. In the brochure, this had all sounded easy, but this man had said things that the brochure hadn't bothered to include. Newman spoke like this was real, something that could and would get personal. Danny didn't doubt himself, because the only way to go was forward. He had chosen this, and he was going to do it to the best of his ability. Either something unfortunate would happen, or it wouldn't.
XXX
Set a few miles from the only highway in the area, Grant University was nobody's idea of trial or tribulation, and unlike many other colleges, it never had been. Its grand brick buildings had risen in the late nineteen fifties, and a small town had sprouted like weeds all around it, thriving off its student body. Helmut City was a college town. A small business district became a downtown shopping area of restaurants, used book shops, and drugstores, most staffed by enrolled students. A five-screen theater did some business next to a bowling alley, but the landscape was the main appeal.
The whole town crouched in the middle of an expansive forest, forming no more than a tiny dot on any map. If not for the university, nobody but the truckers would have paid any mind. It snowed in the winter and soared to the nineties in the summer, and the trees turned gold in autumn. The university sat on a hill, allowing the students and excellent view of the landscape as it changed color and texture over the seasons. Below the hill, the trees and distant plains of farmland spread out before them like an immense skirt. It made it easy to feel isolated.
Resources of moderate quality met teachers who weren't always the best. The grounds were well cared-for, and clubs abounded for hiking and trail-blazing the dense forest around the town. The school prided itself on the sports programs and the ROTC, catering to the lower middle class and its offspring. Danny hadn't visited before enrolling, but he'd thought it seemed like his kind of place. It shouldn't be too difficult to handle, if nothing else.
XXX
Danny dropped his bags on the floor and discovered that all the fussing he'd done with his parents had been absolutely pointless: his roommate hadn't arrived yet, so there was officially nobody to hide them from. As one of the earliest people to check in, his house had received only a quarter of its scheduled arrivals. The emptiness worried him and relieved him. Being alone in such a place made him edgy, but at least he could get himself oriented without distraction.
The room had two beds on either side of a single desk, with another desk situated against the wall. Two windows peered over both beds, and two closets stood in corners beside the door. Danny took the bed on the right and let his suitcase thump on top of it, unzipping the thing and starting to unpack his stuff. Every once in a while, bare feet pattered past his open door. He'd wanted to close it, but all the other doors were open and it would have drawn attention. It might have given his roommate the wrong impression, too. Then there came the trouble of whether he should stay and unpack or go out and meet the pattering feet. Danny frowned to himself and glanced at his boxes and cases of things, piled on the floor. He could deal with it later. He walked to the door and looked out.
Almost immediately, a bright, hazel-eyed face filled his vision. "Hello!"
Danny took a step back. "Hi."
"You must be a freshman. You smell like freshman." The face—a girl with eyes too big and a nose too small—breathed deeply. "Yup. Freshman."
Danny felt himself blushing. "What?"
She broke into a smile and touched his arm. "Come on. I'm kidding. You actually smell pretty good. Most people have to drive here, and some of them, for the distance they've come, really should have flown, and it just gets…" She rolled her eyes and waved a hand before her nose. "Well, I'm sure you know how people smell when they stay in a car for too long."
It was difficult for Danny to find an answer for that. "So this is a… coed dorm?"
She clucked her tongue. "My my. You really are a freshman." She paused a moment, her eyes wandering over his features, scanning his face and stature with academic concentration. Danny opened his mouth to speak but decided against it. Clearly she was otherwise occupied. Instead, he stuck his hands in his pockets and leaned back awkwardly against the doorpost. After a time that seemed longer than it was, the girl cocked her head. "You look odd."
"What?" Maybe he should have kept unpacking.
"I don't mean, like, weird odd. I mean kind of cool odd. Some people have that look about them. A lot of the Jews have it. You're not Jewish, but you have it." When he didn't say anything, she continued. "I'm not, like, racist or anything against the Jews. They're just… I don't know. Maybe it's the black hair and blue eyes that are confusing me. What nationality is that, Alaskan?"
"I don't think so."
"Christine!" Down the hall, another girl stuck her head out a doorway. "Don't tease the freshies! They'll know how weird you are soon enough." To Danny, she shook her head. "Don't worry about her. She's an art major."
Danny nodded, as if this explained everything. "Ah."
Christine giggled. "I know. I'm sorry. I'm so bad." She waved goodbye and trotted back to her own room, where her friend waited inside. Danny stood there wondering whether he'd missed something or gained something from that. He shrugged, and after a last glance at the giggling dorm room down the hall, he started for the lounge, one of four stationed at each corner of the building. Two people were already there, both males—thankfully. One of them was reading a paper, the other was messing with some school documents. Both were reclining on the gray couch, their feet kicked up on the hardwood lounge table.
"…Can't believe this. They got rid of Kelly."
"Kelly? The geology guy?"
"Yup. He didn't cut the mustard, or something."
"I heard he was falling asleep in class."
Danny raised a friendly hand. "Hi."
The two looked up at him. The one with the paper sat on the couch, his hair trimmed in a buzz-cut. The other looked like he'd been born with a bowl cut. "Hey. Freshman?"
Danny laughed. "Is it really that obvious?"
"Yes. Don't worry about it. Butterflies are worms first."
"Larva," corrected Buzz-cut.
Bowl-cut shrugged. "Whatever."
"My name's Danny. Danny Fenton."
"Ross Ulrich," said Buzz-cut, standing from the couch to shake hands.
The other boy merely nodded. "Ben Faldman."
Both were juniors, and Danny took advantage of that, asking about the teachers and the campus and if either of them knew anything about the ROTC program. They raised their eyes at that. "You're in the ROTC? Me too." Ross grinned. "I'll be seeing you around."
"Right." Danny started to feel better. Ross seemed like an okay guy, not a psychopath or a nutcase or anything. "How is it? Is it difficult, or…?"
He hadn't meant to put the question so timidly, but Ross shook his head and answered it anyway. "It ain't easy, but it's not impossible at all. Can you work?"
Danny nodded.
"Then you'll do fine."
He also learned that Kelly had been a kind but irresponsible geology teacher, who had just been dismissed, and that Halberd and Martinez were the best teachers to get for English. "Half the class knows more than they do," added Ben. "If you want an easy time, go for them." For history, you wanted Gerry because he could teach you a lot without assigning tons of work, which was important for two reasons. The first was, naturally, that unnecessary work is stupid, and the second was that the ROTC took its history seriously. "If you can show off your regular history knowledge in the Air Force history class, you're on easy street." Ross rustled his paper shut. "There's a guy in my division who makes the rest of us look like idiots. It's a good thing if you can be that guy."
XXX
People flowed by him in a strange river of anonymity, and Danny stood in the center of the hallway squinting between his map and his schedule, wondering where on earth his classroom was. He didn't even know if he was in the right building, and class started in… He checked his watch. Four minutes. Four minutes. It might take him that long just to get out of this building.
"Need some help?"
He glanced up from his map. A teacher stood at an open door, waiting as his own students hurried in. Small glasses rimmed his eyes, and his blue coat rustled as kids whisked past it. Danny thought he could see some kind of lab equipment on the tables inside his classroom.
"Can you tell me where Tailman Building is?" He thought this one was Tailman Hall, but there was also Tailman Auditorium, Tailman Laboratory, and Tailman Cafeteria. Danny's schedule said only 'Tailman Building.'
"That's just across from here, other side of the lawn. What room are you?"
"209."
"That's economics." The teacher rubbed his chin, looking past Danny. "Should be toward the back, second floor."
Danny stuffed the papers in his pocket. "Thanks." Running as fast as he could manage, bumping into everybody and probably making enemies of half the campus, he made it to the room just as the second-hand needle hit twelve. The lecture hall seated around two hundred, and only half of them were filled. The students already present looked with sardonic amusement at the panting kid in the doorway. After a moment, Danny saw why.
The teacher wasn't there yet.
At least he couldn't possibly look any dumber than he felt. Trying not to draw any more attention to himself, he climbed up the steps, into the upper tiers, sitting down in a less crowded area. He reached in his backpack for some paper and a binder and slapped both on the desk. Another boy, several seats away from him, watched Danny from the corner of his eye.
Danny noticed and glared at him.
The other shrugged and looked down. He sat slouched at the desk, doodling nonsense on a scrap of legal paper. "Couldn't find the room?"
"Couldn't find the building."
The kid slouched to his side, speaking with a grin from the corner of his mouth. "There's a movement I'm starting. Our goal will be to assassinate Tailman, in order to prevent him from donating any more stuff." He smirked at Danny. "Are you with me?"
"More or less." Danny smiled at last, looking towards the doorway. "Are the teachers usually this late?"
The kid nodded slowly. His brown eyes glinted. "Only if there's cookies in the break room. Which there usually are."
"Great."
True to prophesy, a decidedly paunchy teacher scurried into class some minutes later. He glanced in disgust at his garrulous charges who chuckled under their hands at him. No matter. He'd learn them some good soon enough. He threw some books on the desk and whipped out a piece of chalk. "Y'all shut up now!"
Thus began Danny's first college class.
XXX
The end of the day left him with books, notes, and homework. All things considered, Danny didn't think it had been that bad at all. This was more like high school than he'd expected, and he'd started to think that the orientation speech had just been another gimmick, more advertising that didn't mean much after all. If the ROTC classes followed this pattern, he was on easy street.
Back at the dorm, late in the afternoon, Danny set down his backpack and unloaded what he needed. There was a problem set for Algebra, due in a week. He had to pick up a book for English class, due in three days. History meant studying notes, which could probably be put off indefinitely. Danny hadn't been too impressed with his history teacher.
He wandered out into the hallways, looking for somebody, preferably another freshman. People were still getting in from their classes, and many of them had to stay late for labs, sports, clubs, or any number of other things. He felt strange walking around in the quiet dorm, but it wasn't uncomfortable. He was used to it, after all, and actually preferred it most of the time. Danny arrived at the lounge and plunked down on the couch, spreading his arms across the back. Things were different here, in a good way. A small cloud of Air Force dread hung over his head, but other than that, he had more space, less assumptions, and greater freedom. People didn't know him, and he didn't know them. He wondered if it was really that easy.
Of course it wasn't. He still had to be careful. Danny sighed and curled forward, rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands.
He heard talking in the hallway and composed himself quickly. When Ross came in, Danny was just reaching for the funny pages amid the stack of papers on the footrest-table. "Hey," he said.
Ross took one of the easy chairs at a corner to the couch, his own paper tucked under one arm. "Hi. What do you think?" He kicked his feet up on the table.
"About the classes?"
"Sure."
I think they're a joke. "I think they're… alright. I haven't been to all of them yet, but this looks place looks okay."
Ross chuckled. "You mean easy."
"More or less." They were joking, but he didn't like Ross' smile. Too many of his teeth were showing. "What is it? Is there something horrible I haven't discovered yet?" Danny was thinking of the AF class.
"No. You're just new." Ross spread open his paper. "Don't worry about it."
XXX
The next day, Danny had to run back to the dorm and change, since the AF ROTC classes required uniforms for attendance. He pulled on the stiff camouflage pants and buttoned up the jacket, yanked on the slick black boots and donned the cap. The stuff hadn't been washed yet; it was still new from the wrapping. Danny felt like he was wearing a tarp. He made the mistake of glancing at himself in the mirror and winced.
It was like he'd donned another personality. The jacket hung loose around his arm, bunching at the cuffs near his wrists, and the pants clustered near the tops of his boots. He looked just like every other military guy he'd ever seen, in movies or in life. Height and weight were the only distinguishing features: some were bigger than others, but all looked equally solemn and deadly. The suit hid his body and the cap hid his face, its bill throwing a small shadow across his eyes. Danny turned it backwards, and that was better, but it still gave him the creeps.
He flexed his arms, holding them out straight from his body. The green and mottled white of the uniform wrinkled at the shoulders, the fabric at his sides drawing out from him. Danny dropped his arms, and the wrinkles smoothed. It was strange, but not intolerable. It would have been naïve for him to think this would be easy, anyway. Danny grabbed his backpack and stepped out, fixing his cap as he left the room.
XXX
He made it easily to the building and found his room. He ignored the kids staring at his uniform along the way; they could stare at others. There were over five hundred ROTC students at Grant, so he was by no means an oddity. Danny sat down in the middle of roughly forty others and waited, quietly like the rest of them, for class to start.
The instructor arrived on time. He stood straighter, spoke louder, and commanded more attention than any of his other teachers. He also knew much more about what he was teaching and, presumably, more about how to teach it. He started with ten minutes of introductory business, including his qualifications—Vietnam vet—and the goal of the course—to give students a good idea of the Air Force's background—then he drove right into the material, drawing a line down the chalkboard and beginning to illustrate differences in strategy, revolutions in technology, and the improvements of military tactics over time.
This, he said, was just a general introduction. Analysis and detail would come later in the semester. Danny and the rest of the students were too busy taking notes to worry about anything except the squeaking of the chalk and the instruction of the teacher as both revealed strings of potential testing material.
"Everybody likes to scare the freshman," Ross would tell him later. "Teachers slow down after the first week." Danny almost hoped they didn't, because he could more than keep up, and the class fascinated him more than he could explain.
XXX
The ROTC consisted of three hours of instruction time per week: two in a classroom, and one in what was called leadership lab. The classes taught history, regulations, and strategy, while the lab involved drills. For the freshmen, drills meant marching, but all the older students claimed they enjoyed leadership laboratory the most. For them, it meant crawling on ropes across pools, performing mock field operations, and generally having far more fun than the freshmen. Danny looked forward to that stuff, but in the meantime, he did what they told him, and he tried to do it well.
They kept him on his toes in the first semester. Danny balanced school and play, and he erred on the side of caution, doing his best to avoid unpleasant social relations altogether. The self-titled Raymond the Roommate, a square-jawed boy with an affinity for leather jackets, was an irritation who found Danny a little weird, and the two of them, by tacit agreement, stayed out of each other's way. His only other people problem wasn't so easy to resolve. Danny's parents would call him every two weeks or so, and Danny would have to talk to them. Yes, he was doing well. No, he didn't need anything. He was glad to hear that Jazz had gotten another award. It was nice for him to hear that they were both doing well.
It shouldn't have been a chore, but it was. Talking to his parents always made Danny feel like he'd been hit in the head with a brick. After the second time they called, Raymond bobbed in and asked if he wanted to play basketball.
"No." Danny was lying atop his bed, listening to music through headphones.
"You look pathetic. Get your butt out here and play basketball."
"Get lost." Ray stuck out his lip and ducked out of the room. A few petulant, grumbling moments later, Danny hauled himself up and followed him.
The game was going on right next to the dorm's main entrance, having spurned the comfortable facilities of the gym. They'd tacked laundry baskets to long, sturdy wooden boards and anchored them in the flower planters at opposite ends of small courtyard. The boys and a couple girls rushed back and forth across the cement as they chased after the ball, the only conventional piece of equipment on the 'court.'
"Can I play?" Danny called.
Ray paused the game. The others stood up straight, taking a moment to breathe. "I don't know. We already have even teams."
"Then I'll go back inside. This game is already so conventional that I'd hate to have to disturb its perfect symmetry."
"Touché." Ray grinned. "You're on team Airport Security Fascists."
Danny took his place on the opposite end of the court, where others introduced themselves and welcomed him. "Whose team is Ray on?"
"The other team?" A girl smiled. "They're the Filthy Liberals."
The game started, and Danny dove after the ball with the rest of them, helping to pass and score and dig the ball out of the laundry basket after a successful shot. His headache faded as he worked with the others, feeling the adrenaline in his veins and the release in his muscles. Chasing a ball handler up the court, rushing forward to get open for a pass, he couldn't deny that it felt a little like flying. From then on, Danny made a point to play basketball regularly.
XXX
"He's so sessy." Laura took a bite of her sandwich and chewed thoughtfully, leaning out the window of her dorm room. "Don't you think he's sessy?"
Christine was bent over a sketch pad at her desk, and she didn't answer immediately. She had been watching Danny too, ever since the day he'd arrived when she'd ambushed him in the hallway, but she hadn't said anything more than 'hello' to him since then. "Yup. He sure is."
Laura was watching the basketball game below. Danny, along with several other decently cute guys, had been playing for quite a while. She liked to watch them compete. The scene had a healthy, joyous look to it: nine or ten college kids out for a fresh air and a good time with one another. "I'm thinking of asking him out."
Christine bit her lip, not looking up from her work. "I don't know why you'd bother. He doesn't go to any of your parties."
"He might if I asked him." Laura followed the object of her affection down the court. His limbs moved with sincere urgency, and his crazy black hair whipped along with the wind. He really was cute, and such a nice guy, too.
"I don't think he's much of a party person," Christine murmured.
Laura frowned. "Are you sure?"
"Yup."
"You're positive."
"Absolutely."
Laura sighed and crossed her arms on the windowsill. She knew as well as anybody that Christine knew her business in these things. As strange as Christine acted, she could scent emotions like a beagle scented rabbits. She was virtually useless in any kind of collaborative assignment or business project, but she could read people like books. "Too bad."
"It is." A brisk, scratching noise signaled the onset of her eraser. "I'd stay away from him if I were you."
Laura came away from the window and sat on her bed, watching now her roommate. "Why?"
Christine bit her lip. Her fingers pinched a black pencil, carefully following a curve. "He has issues. He isn't… He isn't built right. He's beautiful, but he isn't built right."
"What does that mean?"
Christine shook her head. "I don't know."
XXX
With the course load being what it was, and Raymond being the party-animal jock that he was, Danny would generally run out of things to do around seven o'clock at night. The first time it happened he sat on his bed and wondered what he was expected to be doing without his planes to work on or a TV to watch any more. Danny was ambivalent about television, but he missed building his planes, the rich social life of college notwithstanding. There was no room for them in the dorm, and if there had been, he wouldn't have trusted his peers around the delicate balsa constructions.
In his next ROTC class, Danny asked if he should be doing anything extra if he wanted to be a pilot.
The instructor shuffled a stack of papers as the other students filed out. "Doing well in the classes you've got now would be a start."
"I am. But are there any other classes or manuals that would be good?"
"Engineering. Any class in aeronautics, mathematics, or engineering would be excellent." The instructor also gave him the titles of several good books and manuals that might be helpful. Danny could tell that the teacher didn't seriously expect him to look them up, but he knew he'd made some kind of impression.
Danny checked the schedule of classes. Many different engineering classes were available, and he scribbled down the names of several promising ones. He did the same for the math and aeronautics classes, then went to the library and searched for the books. Only two of the five recommended were available for checkout, so he got those two and flipped through the others. Diagrams, schematics, and blurbs of text filled the pages. He ran his finger along the struts and wingspans, building the bare frame in his mind and trying to see it flying. The sleek ships were built to glide invisibly through the air, performing thousands of missions and complex maneuvers that his constructions could only mock.
Leaving the library with the two books under his arm, Danny felt stronger. The air smelled fresher and his vision seemed sharper, the colors of the world had brightened. He finally knew something for certain, now. He was going to be a pilot.
XXX
"Keep in mind all these measures are purely defensive…"
"…and in this battle you can see how the hesitance of the commander cost us thousands of lives…"
"…many revolutions in battle techniques…"
"Our soldiers are our most important asset."
"…can't be afraid to make decisions."
"…always obey your commanding officer…"
"You are responsible for your actions."
The teachers took him seriously. He worked hard and fought with no one, and while they knew he didn't have many friends, they recognized him as something special and treated him as such. They gave him more books and references, and once they arranged for him and several others to watch real pilots at their drills. Privately, they agreed that he had room for improvement. He was too timid, for one thing. He sat in back and didn't talk much, but when he did speak, it was worth listening. The matter came up at one of the department meetings—somebody mentioning their favorite student, who, as it happened, was the favorite of others as well. Such kids came along every once in a while, and when it happened, they tried to give them that extra push. They agreed to give this one more responsibility and to encourage him in leading the group projects.
The plan worked. The other students noticed, but they didn't complain. More responsibility meant a greater opportunity to screw up, and they still got plenty of leadership assignments. Nobody teased him, and he bore the load with grace. Rather than cracking, he actually solidified under pressure, and the more they gave him the better he became. The effect was visual. His brain seemed built for it. Over the months of his freshman year and on into his sophomore and junior years, his prowess became remarkable in its intensity. He shone brightest in his mechanics classes, where fellow students termed him a genius, but he excelled in strategic maneuvers as well, precisely identifying options and risks.
XXX
"So I hear you're supposed to be some kind of protégé or something." Ray slouched in a desk chair and tossed a rubber bouncy-ball at the ceiling, catching it and throwing it up again. "That right?"
It wasn't right—not exactly. Danny used the same technique as he'd used in high school calculus to solve strategy puzzles and engineering dilemmas. If he could find a comfortable geometric visualization to represent the concrete problem, he could simplify the matter enormously by dealing with only that shape, then translating the changes he'd made to the shape into a new form, the solution, of the puzzle. Danny was of the opinion that if others spent the time to find a similarly efficient way to manipulate problems, then they could be every bit the genius that he himself was.
"Basically." Danny looked up from his book, unwilling to explain the process in full to his former roommate. Ross had long since graduated, and Danny was assigned a new roommate every year, but Ray continued to drop in on him from time to time, though why he did it was a mystery to Danny. The guy must have a streak of sadistic, misguided altruism to keep after him like this. Ray didn't come by often, but when he did, resistance was futile.
The rubber ball pulsed against the ceiling. "When was the last time you went to the movies?"
Danny shrugged, following the toy with his eyes.
"Party?" Raymond tried.
"I don't do that stuff."
He clucked his tongue and set the ball aside. "You poor fool. You're a junior and you've never been to a party. Were you dropped as a child, or what?"
"Hey, just because you like that stuff doesn't mean I do."
"Nah. You just like to work like a stinkin' Pentium VI."
Danny glared at the space over Ray's shoulder. "So what's today's pitch?"
"Okay." Raymond leaned forward urgently, resting his elbows on his knees. "There's this party over at Green House. It's a couple blocks off campus, but it's a pretty good crowd that goes there." He bounced his ball off the floor, punctuating the point. "Even a computer like you could have some fun."
Danny had never considered himself a computer, and he didn't particularly appreciate it when other people did. "I think I'll leave the partying to you monkeys. Computers have work to do."
"Fine." Raymond returned to his bouncing, and Danny went back to his book. He was deeply engrossed in a diagram of an old fighter when the book slipped out from under his fingers.
"Hey!"
"What's this?" Raymond held the book in front of his nose, dodging away as Danny leaped up from his chair. "Blueprints? You're going to forsake a party for blueprints?"
"Give that back, Ray." Danny made a grab for it, but the thief slipped away easily. He wished Ray would just give the dumb thing back and leave him alone. "You don't even like me! Why on earth would you want me at a party with you?"
A bed came between them, which took the book out of Danny's easy reach. Ray closed it and held it to his chest, staring at Danny. "Because you're square. You're like a floppy disk—the old floppy disks that were the size of a small dinner plate. You sit in this room and study your butt off and suck up to teachers, and then you study more stuff that they don't even test you on. For fun. That's just twisted." Ray smirked. "One of these days you're going to go postal and kill us all unless I take you out for some real fun."
Danny held out his hand. "Give me the book. I promise not to go postal." It was a promise he knew he could keep. These last few years, Danny had been feeling better than he could ever remember feeling.
But Ray didn't know that, and he'd been bothering Danny about his habits for some time. "Nuh-uh. I'm not giving this geek fuel back until you 'promise' to come to this party at Green House with me."
"Fine." Ray handed him the book. "Thank you."
XXX
Danny could feel the vibration of the Green House's bass speakers through the armrest on the car door. A deaf person could have followed the melody. Raymond made one pass by the house, a cream colored two-story domicile with a wide front lawn and a brick path leading from sidewalk to front door. Propped wide open for the festive event, yellow light spilled through the door onto the lawn, illuminating five or six laughing, chatting forms. Ray hung his head out the window and hollered his greetings to the kids scattered about the place. Danny could clearly see that several of them held dark brown bottles.
"I don't know about this."
"You don't know anything about anything." Ray looked askance at him. "You'll like it."
"Don't the neighbors object to the music?"
Ray laughed. "The neighbors are all classmates. They're either at the party here or at the party down the block. This isn't exactly the study district."
They had to go several blocks to find a parking spot spot. Once he did, Ray grinned like a chimpanzee as he pulled the key from the ignition and jumped from the car. Danny followed him up the sidewalk, looking nervously into the night sky. Few lights shone in the windows of the houses around him, and Ray's chatter did nothing to relieve his anxiety.
"They'll be playing a movie, if nothing else, and there's tons of girls there."
"'Kay."
"You'll like it. They have a keg, if you want some of that."
"Not going to happen."
Ray turned and looked at him. "Is your picture next to 'anal' in the dictionary? It's a party; not a funeral." He slapped Danny's back. "Lighten up."
It didn't feel as much like a funeral as a walk down the green mile. Danny dragged his feet until Ray got behind him, giving him a helpful little shove whenever he felt Danny was going too slowly. It was like trying to force together matching poles of a magnet. The party and the geek repelled each other.
"So you can command kids in your Air Force and impress the crap out of your teachers, but you have a problem with parties?"
"This… is a completely different area."
Ray chuckled. "You can say that again."
The music roared up on them as they got closer to the house. Danny looked about him, at the near-black lawn and the shining windows of the house before him, trying to take in everything at once. They walked up the brick path, and Danny idled as Ray greeted several of his friends on the lawn. He peered inside the house, looking at all the kids dressed in jeans and t-shirts, the girls in halter or tank tops, clothes made to exhibit their assets rather than hide them. More people inside carried beer bottles, holding them at angles fated for an accidental spill. Others held their beer in clear plastic cups, a half-inch of foam covering the liquid below. Some, he was happy to see, sipped at red punch-like stuff or some clear water-looking fluid. Danny bit his lip, angling for a better look. Ray noticed him and rolled his eyes to his friends, their group sharing a private laugh at the party-virgin's caution.
Ray shoved his shoulder. "Go on. You can do it."
"Shut up, Ray." Danny tried for the door, attempting an easy saunter which came off as the walk of a constipated giraffe. Ray pointed and his mouth gaped in a smile, having one last laugh before attending to his own buddies.
Inside it was warm and sour-smelling, and the heavy drums of the rock music beat on his ears. It wasn't as loud as he'd thought it would be, but it was more than enough to put him on his toes. Danny fidgeted with the lint in his pants pockets, heading for what looked like the kitchen when his rigid stance drew stares. He bumped past several others on his way, boys with their jet-black or golden-brown hair moussed in waves, girls with straight blonde hair and pretty noses whose v-neck tops revealed more than was necessary. Danny thought he must stick out like a sore thumb in this place. His hair was the same chaotic style it had always been, but his clothes looked okay, a plain white t-shirt under an unbuttoned blue-checked collared shirt, and jeans. As far as posture went, with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched forward, Danny knew he must look like he was bracing for impact. Which, in a way, he was. Nevertheless, he tried to relax. Nobody would talk to him if he kept the demeanor of a scared bum.
In the kitchen, the sound echoed horribly. Tiles did nothing to dull the sounds of laughing, talking, and thudding music. A metal keg sat on the counter, and the kids drank liberally from it, filling plastic cups from its spout. Several cases of bottles sat in the corner, one of them already emptied and tossed aside. Danny's fingers itched to try the stuff, but it was more fear than inhibition which kept him back. He looked for the punch instead, but it wasn't in the kitchen. Probably in the dining room, or something. Having decided that the kitchen was not the place to be, Danny started out for a living room or a wide hallway, someplace where he could either find something suitable to drink or pull somebody aside and start up a decent conversation. If he was here, he might as well make the best of it.
It was a good plan, but as soon as he turned to leave the kitchen a hand grabbed his arm from behind.
"Hey buddy." A kid with a goatee smiled toothily at him. "You want some?"
"Uh…"
But the guy was already filling a cup for Danny. "Here." He held it out, and Danny almost grabbed it, but a girl slapped the cup-offering hand away.
"You don't want that." The girl's airy blonde hair filtered by her cheeks and neck as she shook her head. "Not good for you." Her short frame stood between himself and the other boy. Danny breathed a sigh of relief. He tried not to make it too obvious.
"I don't see why he can't make up his own mind," protested the booze-pusher. "He's all grown-up."
Another girl sidled up to the first, this one taller, with brown hair and a heavier frame. "You heard her. Shove off." The kid shrugged and ambled down the hall. Both girls scowled after him. "Jerk. Sorry about that." The brown-haired one smiled at him. Together, the two girls acted like best friends, or a team. Teams were good, especially if they were acknowledging him. "Most of the people here are nice, but some of them are just a little out there."
"Geoff isn't so bad," protested the blonde. Danny liked the color of her hair, a shining white kind of blonde that might have strained light. She was short compared to the brunette, and nearly everybody else. Her blue eyes seemed too big, and her nose too small. Danny recognized her as the girl who'd accosted him in the hallway on his first day at college. "Geoff is decent. He just likes to party."
"Yeah, I know, but…" The brunette looked anxiously between Danny and her friend.
"Oh! Right. Introductions." She cleared her throat. "Danny Fenton, this is Laura Salinger. And I'm Christine."
"We saw you come in and we thought we'd say hi," explained the brunette. Laura.
"You're the girls who used to be in the dorm down the hall." Danny smiled, happy to be on some firm ground. "I remember you; you called me weird."
"I called you odd," corrected Christine. She moved strangely, like a foreign bird. "I still think…" She paused, looking into his eyes. "Yup. Still odd." She turned her attention to the kitchen faucet and got herself some water.
Danny laughed. It didn't make any more sense to him than the first time she'd said it, and he looked to Laura for an explanation. She was the larger, clumsier cat to Christine's quick bird. She shook her head. "If you figure her out, you'll be the first. Christine's an art major."
"I know several art majors and none of them are like her."
Laura shrugged, grinning. "Well, she's also a little crazy."
"I'm right here, you know."
Laura glanced down at her. "Sorry."
"That's alright. I'll leave and let you two meet each other." Laura made a small, nervous, appreciative curtsey to her, at which Christine nodded and bobbed off into the crowd.
Laura cleared her throat. "So, what's the army like?"
"Air Force. Some people are pretty touchy about the difference."
"Oh." She laughed awkwardly, covering her mouth with an open hand. "Sorry."
Danny smiled. "It's okay. I'm not."
He told her about the work. He explained the cool drills and exercises, whispering the various tricks and strategies he'd invented to surpass them as Laura listened, fascinated. He made fun of several teachers, cracking small, harmless jokes that never failed to bring a laugh in spite of their harmlessness. She listened eagerly to his tales of the jets and how they took off and landed, but her smile fixed when he started describing the technical stuff. Danny noticed it after a minute and stopped, partly embarrassed. He thought he'd been doing pretty well at the talking game, up to that point. "So uh, what do you… do?"
She told him in a thousand words that bowled him over. She studied geology, and she loved going on the field expeditions—did he know that last year they went to China? China! This rich guy died and left them so much money that they were able to go rock-hunting in China! Danny voiced his amazement and privately wondered if he'd created a monster by asking her about herself. She went on to tell him facts about different sediments and elements that proved interesting, how different gems were created or grew from crystals. Occasionally, Danny jumped in with a token remark of his own opinions, few though they were, on the mineralogical world.
Their legs had tired earlier in the conversation, but they'd found space on a soft couch in the living room. Since then, it had become crowded to capacity and they could barely hear themselves speaking. Those who'd had too much to drink made themselves painfully obvious.
"It's quieter upstairs," Laura suggested.
Danny stood and held out a hand to help her up. "Alright." They thumped up the stairs and its gray carpeting, squeezing past those engrossed in conversation there. Laura led the way to a door near the end of the hall, picking a key from her pocket to unlock it. Danny ambled in and looked around, several alarms going off as he noticed that this happened to be a girl's dorm room. Laura apologized for the mess, the clothes on the floor and the papers scattered across her desk, but Danny told her not to worry about it. As she straightened up a few things, Danny tried to loosen up. He was just being paranoid. That was all.
Laura motioned to her bed, a single with a plain purple comforter lying in wrinkles atop it, unmade from last night's sleep. Beside it stood a closet and a dresser, the wall decorated with a mirror. Makeup and other girl stuff littered the top of the dresser. For no reason at all, the hair rose on Danny's neck. Purple.
"You know you can sit down."
"Right." Danny chuckled and sat down stiffly on the bed. "You were saying something about your geology projects?" Talking was a tricky business. It felt like his throat was closing up on him.
"Yes." Laura hadn't turned on the main overhead light. Instead, she clicked on the small desk lamp, which was, he had to admit, still pretty bright. Maybe the overhead bulb was out, and that was why she hadn't turned it on. Maybe girls did this kind of dark-room thing for fun, some kind of girly powwow tradition that he'd never known about. Like periods. Danny didn't know a thing about how girls felt about their periods, his sister notwithstanding, so he couldn't be expected to know their social habits either. It was a proven fact among his gender that women were impossible to comprehend. Anything at all could be happening and he might never know what it was.
If Laura hadn't been there, Danny would have smacked himself. He didn't know who he thought he was kidding. Liar, liar, pants-on-fire.
Laura sat down next to him, very casually, as if there was nothing strange about it at all. "It's a really interesting science." Danny could feel her hips and legs against his own, and the bed sagged a little, pressing her side closer against his. Her voice grew softer, lower and more purposeful. Danny lost the last of his platonic hopes. "You get to see lots of neat things in geology, you know."
He gulped. "Sounds like fun."
Laura had eyes the color of rosewood, and they bore down on him as she lifted her arm around his shoulder and gently turned him towards her, for a kiss. Her lips moved against his own, opening to take his lip, nipping at it, her head ducking like a deer at the stream as she tasted him. Danny had to admit, the sensation wasn't at all unpleasant. Almost without awareness, his arms rose around her own shoulders, caressing her upper arms as Laura's own hands rested lightly on his chest, moving up to explore his neck, brushing against his ears and moving her fingers in small, massaging circles right behind the lobes. He couldn't suppress a groan of pleasure, but anxiety lingered at the edge of his mind.
Laura pulled away and, grinning, her amber eyes shining, pushed him back on the bed. Danny pulled his feet off the floor, scooting back on the bed and allowing her to crawl atop him, her hair falling around him like a curtain as her scent bore down on him, something like delicate baby powder and carnations. She held herself up on her hands and knees, tilting her head down to kiss him. Danny welcomed her lips and opened her mouth with his tongue, reaching his arms around her, pressing her to his body as she eased her waist down on him. Her hands slid under his shirt, rubbing her palms across the muscles the military had given him, exploring his body with the soft touch of her fingers. He breathed deeper at the delighting touch, and, uncertainly, Danny began to return it. His hands brushed the hem of her top, and she generously assisted him, taking him by the wrist and pushing his cupped hand under her shirt to her breast.
Through the coarse jeans, Danny could feel himself throbbing against her stomach. The soft, round curve of her breast with its hard protruding nipple was beyond words in its sensation. He wanted their clothes to be off, to hear her crying out from underneath him—but he also wanted, with all his heart, to be encased in a freezing shell with no possibility of redemption. The mixed emotion had no middle ground, no area of truce that would leave him peace. As he goaded on his lust he picked a chord of rising terror, growing faster than desire, echoing like a scream throughout his mind. As it rose in volume and insistency, Laura began to buck her hips slowly against his body.
Purple.
Danny froze.
"Get off." He was going to be sick. If his throat didn't close he was going to vomit.
"Hummm?" Laura met his eyes, confused. "What?"
"Please." His voice cracked in the middle of the word. "Just go away."
"What's wrong?" She'd stopped her caresses, but she still hadn't moved.
"Nothing." Her lips tightened, and Danny, out of a near-complete verbal vacuum, grasped at the first and worst line in the vast tome of love's excuses, made all the more intolerable for its feminine associations.
"It's not you." He sighed haltingly, the breath catching in his throat along the way. "It's me."
She held his eyes for an instant longer. Then she slapped him. She slapped him so hard that his face stung. Danny closed his eyes. A tear ran down her face, and she slapped him again. Laura scooted off the bed, shaking it with furious movements, and stomped out her door. The party noise rushed in as the door opened, but when it closed, the room grew solemn once more.
Danny looked at the white of the ceiling, illuminated and shadowed by the desk lamp. His throat had opened up, and he no longer felt the bile rising, but it continued to feel as though somebody was frying his brains on a skillet. Fury and despair and resentful lust popped and boiled, preventing any cogent thought, and Danny turned on his stomach, avoiding the pillows, and waited for it to pass. After a few quiet minutes, it did, at least enough for him to try and sort things out.
Something was wrong with him. He should have been able to go through with it, but he hadn't, because PURPLE. He didn't know why it should matter that the comforter was purple. Laura was a little big, but very beautiful, and he had definitely been ready for her, but for whatever psycho little reason, he hadn't been able to do it. Everybody did it, and everybody wanted to do it, but he hadn't been able to do it. Danny curled in on himself, his fists shaking, not daring to move. He was absolutely furious. If he got up from that bed, he was going to go out and kill somebody.
After a time, he couldn't have said how long, the door opened again. He didn't bother to see who it was. They could kick him out or get lost, so far as he was concerned.
"I told her it was a bad idea."
Christine.
She came up and stood at the foot of the bed. Danny listened; her feet didn't scuff the floor, and her breath was even. She didn't come closer, and Danny kept his eyes squeezed shut. He waited in agony for her to state the painfully obvious. That he was a wreck. That he shouldn't have been such a jerk to her friend, that he should get out of her room and never come back. He waited, but she didn't say anything. Danny let go of his knees and let his legs out straight, turning on his side and leaning up slightly to get a look at her. Her eyes narrowed, expressing that same concentrated curiosity as before. Danny realized the reason when he ran a check on himself. His eyes were glowing bright emerald. He let them glow. Let her see what a screwball he was.
Her mouth parted. "Who are you?"
Danny shook his head and looked away. It was a fact in math and science that what is impossible to explain cannot be understood. Christine came around the side of the bed and kneeled on the floor, facing him. She folded her arms across the comforter and set down her head, her face perfectly level with his.
Fatigue swept up on Danny like a wave. Her blue eyes were pools, and though they burned with curious vivacity, he felt that they were safe. His shoulders relaxed, his fists opening loosely onto the bed. This whole night seemed like a dream; things happened randomly and suddenly, without control. The world spun like a top, and he didn't have a clue why or how it did it. Christine started to cry. Her eyes shone, the light of the desk lamp shimmering in them like stars on a quiet pool. Army camp was a good example. Danny had picked it out of a hat. Why? He didn't know. She cried silently, her shoulders shaking just the slightest bit. He didn't know what he was doing on this planet, a creature without a name or a single face, just a computer. A Pentium VI, Ray had called him, and he hadn't known how right he was. Danny hated math. Hated it with a passion, yet he was good at it, and he was usually happy to do it. The numbers and letters without meaning, shapes and abstractions that didn't mean a single thing in the world.
Danny slid into unconsciousness as Christine's mouth contorted in a grimace of pain, sobbing in little hiccups as tears streamed from the pools of her eyes.
XXX
Danny woke up alone in the room. The sun peeked through the curtains, and he saw that the desk lamp had been turned out. It was already late in the morning, and he would have missed several classes already. The bed felt foreign under him, and he stood up quickly and brushed out his wrinkled clothes, wishing he had taken some alcohol last night. That way, he might at least pretend that it hadn't happened, or that he'd imagined it, but as things were, Danny was sure that most of what he remembered had been brutally real. His head pounded, but it wasn't from a hangover.
A peek out the door revealed no danger. Trappings from the party lay scattered about the hall, and Danny made a mental note to kick Ray's sorry butt if he ever came by his room again. He crept down the stairs and stepped over several of last night's party animals, reduced now to drooling piles on the floor. By the time Danny returned to his dorm it was late in the afternoon, since he didn't know where Ray was and he didn't dare thumb a ride. The upshot was that, by the time he got back to his own dorm, he had filled his head with enough numbers and figures that he'd almost managed to push last night from his mind entirely. He gathered the things he needed, stole a cookie from the small first-floor snack fridge, and sprinted off to try and make his next class.
On his way out of electrical mechanics, he bumped into Christine. "Hi."
She averted her eyes and kept her head down, slowing her step just long enough to mumble a hello before sweeping past him and down the hall. Danny frowned after her, sighed, and went on to his own class.
XXX
He finished junior year without incident, and senior year flew by in a gust of roaring success. Danny's parents were thrilled with him and told him so, coming up from Amity to watch him cross the stage, bragging casually to other parents of their son's achievement. They never expected him to do so well. Throughout both junior and senior years, Danny had developed nearly into a machine, retaining just enough personality to avoid unsavory attention. He studied extra material, he performed with greater efficiency than ever, and he finally managed to punch Ray, who responded by calling him a pathetic sack of feces. Those who heard the disturbance guessed what must have happened and smiled. Ray had it coming. Danny merely smiled from his seat at his desk, waving goodbye as Ray stormed from the room shouting obscenities.
Danny was the star of his class. Following graduation, he served his mandatory time in the Air Force reserves, then entered flight school with an enthusiastic letter of recommendation from every one of his military teachers. They commended him for his mathematical dexterity, his prowess in mechanics, and his exceptional interpersonal skills.
A/N: Thoughts?
