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“I don’t want to have any secrets from you,” Danny had said.
Alex is trying (failing) to steady his breathing.
It is close to two a.m. now and when he left a couple minutes ago, Danny was asleep, duvet almost covering his face, arm thrust toward Alex’s side of the bed.
His hands are shaking. Irrationally.
He grips the kitchen counter, stares absently at the digital clock on the microwave. His mind will not stop: this, at least, he is used to.
He turns on the faucet, quickly splashes some water onto his face. Breathes in, out, in, out. Leans back against the counter.
He knows how to lie. He knows how to carefully construct a false life, to evade questions and bury himself in numbers.
And he knows his life is actually built like a house of cards: remove one and all else topples over.
Careful, Alistair.
Careful, Alex.
Danny looks at him differently, without this agonizing scrutiny that places him too many steps behind or too many steps forward, asking whether he measures up or realizing he’s lightyears ahead.
Danny looks at him with curiosity and wonder and with changing emotions all blazed in honesty.
Alex thinks he sees someone else: a lonely and overly serious investment banker.
He will grow tired; he will move on, he had thought.
Weeks passed. Months. Eight months.
But, Alex thinks, Danny also sees someone human – real – not defined by the incredible extent of his intellect. There is freedom in the way Danny views the world, freedom in how he turns to Alex and asks what he wants.
Danny causes him to want to try.
It is two a.m. and his hands are still trembling. He clasps them tightly together, stares up at the ceiling.
He lies awake night after night drawing up potential scenarios and thinks all of the time of the danger he has thrown Danny into without any genuine warning. He thinks of the life they share in Danny’s eyes: the life they could continue to have if Alex truly was a lonely investment banker.
Resentment changes nothing.
His life has been lived in measured steps, with calculation and order. Screens and surveillance and it is cold, the water against his hands and the tile underneath his feet.
When he is with Danny, he feels like he can breathe.
When he is not, he feels like he is suffocating under the pressure of keeping the truth wrapped up. Blocked off.
The events that are unfolding terrify him.
He did not choose this. Danny is in enough danger even withheld from the truth; if Alex were to tell him – he turns on the faucet, again splashes his face. It is cold. He is exhausted.
He would rather – has to, will, with everything – guard Danny. Only – “I never want to have any secrets ever again” – sometimes he can hardly look at himself in the mirror.
Alex imagines telling him.
He imagines all of these responses: imagines concern, imagines anger. Imagines a hand on his shoulder, Danny stepping forward, pulling him close. Imagines Danny stepping back, walking out the door never to return. And, well, people come and go, that is a given. This, though – this isn’t the same.
He cares too much and he knows that they know, that this is all they need to pull him under. There are plans mapped out, always shifting and he knows he cannot underestimate the measures he must take to resolve this.
He turns back toward the bedroom, pausing before he enters. Danny is in the same position, sound asleep.
Whatever Danny thinks of him afterward (there isn’t any time; there is never enough time), Alex will prioritize his safety. Danny didn’t ask for this. Deserves none of this.
Deserves stability. Constant honesty.
He swallows, a familiar wave of guilt and dread coursing through him. He shuts his eyes and counts to ten before he returns to the bed, careful not to jostle the other as he slips back in. He gently traces his fingers over the dark strands of hair falling across Danny’s forehead, listening to his breathing as he closes his eyes.
Alex tries (fails) to fall asleep.
Danny likely (accidentally) pulled the card out. Destroyed his house.
But, he thinks, Danny does not understand how perceptive he actually is. He peels back the layers and uncovers the fundamental truth. He knows Alex.
That has to be enough.