Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2000 22:51:19 GMT
From: Lucky Redwood <wanna_get_lucky@hotmail.com>
Subject: Time Will Tell - Chapter 9

OK, this one took me quite a while to do. I hope that you enjoy reading it.
Urmm.  Can't really think of much else to say so I'll just let you get on
with it.  Don't forget to write! wanna_get_lucky@hotmail.com

Time Will Tell
Chapter 9 - Realisation

"Danny! Hi, are you OK?"

"Yeah, a little bit sore but otherwise I'm fine, thanks for asking Hannah."

"If you feel up to it, I'm having a party this weekend, my place on Friday
night.  You're all invited but you'll need to bring your own drink, sorry."
Hannah was a nice girl from the school up the road, she was in my English
group at school and so we often spoke. She seemed to be sort of an outcast
in her school though. She was one of those people who are really friendly,
but sometimes tries too hard to make friends (probably why she invited all
of my friends to her party as well) and comes across as a bit weird. Once
you know her though, she is a really great and interesting person.  We
often spoke in class but should I go to this party, it would be the first
time that we would have spent time together outside of school.

"Yeah, well we'll see what happens. More than likely pop in for a while
though at least if you really don't mind."

"No, not at all. Well my address is in the phone book, it's a pretty easy
place to find."

"OK. Oh, by the way, did Chambers want us to do anything for tomorrow, I
can't remember?"

"No, we have an essay from Mr. Bennett though for, urmm, next Wednesday."

"Well, I wasn't back when it was set so I don't think I'll bother!"

"That's a big risk to take, you know what Bennett's like!"

"Yeah, I'll lay on a guilt trip if he says anything. Something like, I
haven't felt myself since I woke up from my coma Sir! Or something like
that."

"It'll probably be the most original excuse he'll have heard so I guess
it's worth a try.  Anyway I'll see you tomorrow. Bye Dan!"

"Sure see you tomorrow."

I turned my attention back to my group of friends (minus Scott again) to
find them all looking at me weirdly.

"What?"

"What was that about?"

"What was what about?"

"We'll probably pop in for a while. She's so weird it is unbelievable."

"Fucking hell Trix! It's a party, if it's shit we'll head up to a pub or
something.  Besides she's a really nice girl, I talk to her in English all
the time, the only reason she comes across as weird is because she tries
too hard to make friends. When you know her she relaxes and acts fine."

"OK. If you say so, I'll trust your judgement of her personality, you're
normally right but as soon as she starts chanting or summoning the spirits
or any other weird voodoo shit, I'm out of there."

"That's all I ask, she's not in to that stuff really anyway."

"How do you know?"

"I can tell, she enjoys people thinking she's different, but likes to be
like everyone else. I don't know why, it's just the way she deals with
others."

"OK. Whatever you say."

"Trix, chill, it'll be a good evening."

"I hope so."

*****

	Luke and I sat next to each other in Psychology. The teacher hadn't
turned up and we were already ten minutes in to lesson time. Everybody was
talking amongst each other. I was becoming restless again, getting myself
comfortable was proving difficult on the hard school chairs, after a while
I would start to ache. I decided to stand up and sit on the table instead
so that I could stretch my legs a little. Our psychology group was only a
small one and we all mostly got on quite well.  People had been asking me
all the week so far what it was like being in a coma. I was fed up of
telling people the same things over and over again. After a minute or so
Scott walked in to the lesson looking worried that he was going to be
late. He saw that there was no teacher and began to smile straight away.

"Porter not showed?"

"No."

"Anyone seen him today?" There was no answer from anyone. Scott turned his
face towards Luke and I again. "Why you waiting here, come on. Let's sack
it, we'll sit in the common room."

	Luke and I followed Scott to the sixth form common room and most of
what was left of the psychology group followed. As we entered, I saw Kate,
Trix and Trace sitting in our usual corner in the room. We all made our way
over and explained that our teacher wasn't there so we were just going to
join them for their free period. We began to talk about things. Luke
finally got bored and pulled out a deck of cards.

"Poker boys?"

"Charming! Sexist pig!" Tracey said jokingly.

"You're no good Trace, we'll tan your ass. And I don't know what you're
laughing at my dear, you don't even know how to play Kate." Luke said to
his girlfriend in a joking way. Kate wasn't treating it as a joke though,
there was more at stake, there was feminism to play for!

"I'd whip you at poker any day darling!"

"Really? We'll see about that!"

"Get your purses girl, I've had my eye on the new Supergrass album for a
while now and I shall go and buy it with your money after school!"

"Can we play with something else I'm a bit short." Trace announced.

"Chicken?"

"No fucking way. I just only have like thirty pence and that won't make our
betting Las Vegas style now will it my dear boy?"

"Then you don't play unless you can borrow off someone."

"No, I've got a better idea. How about strip poker?"

"You have to be out of your mind Trix!" Luke said, suddenly sounding less
sure of himself.

"No man, not me! If you're so sure of yourself, what do you have to lose?"

"OK, girls you up for that?"

"Yeah OK!" Kate replied.

"Sure." Answered Trace.

Luke looked more and more disappointed by the second.

"Danny, Scott, you in?"

"Sure, why not? What you waiting for Luke? Deal then."

"OK. OK we're going to play strip poker in the middle of the sixth form
common room are we?"

"Yeah! Come on baby, put your clothes where you mouth is!"

The cards were dealt, swaps with the dealer were made, 2's were wild cards
and we were set. The first few rounds were played and we had most of the
sixth form who had a free or were in our psychology group surrounding us
watching our game.

"This isn't fucking fair! The girls have more stuff to take off, look at
how much of their jewellery is on the fucking table."

"Oh don't be bitter Trix, this was your idea." Kate joked.

"Yeah but look at me I'm down to a shirt, trousers, one sock and my belt.
Trace isn't doing much better for clothing than me and your sitting there
wondering which fucking ring to take off next."

"Don't worry, you're still beating Luke, Trix!" Scott joked, I didn't get
him sometimes. This morning he wasn't anywhere to be found, now he was
sitting here playing strip poker and having a hell of a laugh about it. He
was the most dressed person at the table though. I was second to him thank
god.

"OK, we all still in?" The answer was a unanimous yes. We were having a
laugh, Trix wasn't though, but he was too proud to pack in now.

The cards were dealt. We went around the table, it came down to Trace, Trix
and Luke battling out on their cards. I was keeping a record of what was
being betted on the notice board with a board marker. It came down to the
point when Luke, had betted everything but his boxers (he already had his
shirt off and so it was only his trousers left!) Trace was down to her
skirt and bra being left on and Trix would have to lose the shirt. The room
was silent.

"OK kids. Let's see those cards I said."

	There was a sudden commotion. The people surrounding us players
moved briskly away to various seats around the common room and picked up
books and work to be getting on with. I knew what had most likely happened
and turned my head slowly expecting something bad. There it was! The head
of our Sixth Form. Not looking too happy either.

*****

"Can you imagine what would have happened if I would have been showing
prospective parents around the school? I just can't believe that upstanding
students of your calibre would be doing something so stupid. I mean, what
were you thinking?"

	We stood in silence, worrying about what our punishment was going
to be. I knew that the man liked us, but we had evidently gone down in his
estimation. All the teachers liked us really, our little group. We
excelled, collectively, in all of the schools extra-curricular
activities. Trix had his football and rugby, Scott was the hockey player
and swimmer, Luke was a football player too and also was good at cricket
and I held the more academic side of the coin, I was good at my studies and
was a good musician too. Now we were all in serious trouble though.

"I don't know what else to say, you have all seriously let me down. What do
you have to say for yourselves?"

"Sorry sir." We all said at pretty much the same time.

"No, you're not sorry because of what you did, you're sorry because you
were caught.  I will not therefore accept your apologies. Instead I will
accept a five thousand word essay from each of you tomorrow morning
detailing the disadvantages of stripping in a sixth form common room. Any
objections? No? Good! Get out of my sight, all of you and tell the girls
that they will not be getting away with this, I'm going to phone their
school now."

We filed out into the common room from the office. Fully dressed now. It
was break time and everyone was looking over to us with huge grins on their
faces.

"When are you doing the Full Monty?" Someone from the upper sixth shouted
over to us, most of the common room burst out laughing, it was quite funny
I suppose but with an extra homework to do tonight, I wasn't too pleased. I
wouldn't have time to see my man now!

*****

"Come on Danny!" Sean shouted impatiently, "You've got everybody waiting
down here."

"Give me a minute will you, I'm nearly ready."

"Are you more nearly ready than you were five minutes ago though?"

"He's a funny guy!" I shouted sarcastically down the stairs starting to get
annoyed with my brothers pestering. I took one last look in the mirror as I
left the bathroom.

"Finally!" Kate said seeing me coming down the stairs.

"Don't you start as well!" I told her.

"You're worse than me for getting up to go out Danny! Now that's bad!"

"At least I have something to show at the end of it though Claire my dear!"
She didn't take my joke kindly and gave me a look that spoke volumes. I
apologised sincerely and she seemed a little less angry.

	Everybody had come to mine before Hannah's party since none of them
knew their way to her house. I didn't really myself but I knew her the best
so my friends thought it would be rude to arrive without me. We set off and
made it there in fifteen minutes. The easiest way to travel in Parkway was
by foot, none of our group was driving yet and the buses were far too
expensive to use on a regular basis.  And then you have the problem of
looking like a complete prick arriving to a house party on a peddle bike!

	We found the house with no problems, the phone book address was
easy to find and the house was numbered so there weren't any problems. She
lived on a really nice estate, quite new, large and each of the houses had
pretty big gardens.  We made our way up to the front door and I rang the
bell, we could hear music playing pretty loudly from inside as well as some
shouts. There was no answer after ringing the bell and so I knocked on it
instead. Soon after somebody opened the door, he was some kid from our
school but that's all I knew about him. He smiled when he saw us and showed
us in to the living room where the party was going on, the room was thick
with smoke and there was a surprising amount of people there. I looked
around and saw very few people that I recognised, even less that I actually
knew.  Hannah came bounding up to us all and greeted everyone, she
introduced me to a few friends that were close by and told me that nearly
everyone at the party was from Westmount Secondary. That explained why I
didn't know anyone that well. Westmount was a school on the other side of
town and so it's students were never really encountered that often at our
end.

"She hangs around with the Westmount kids?" Trix asked me sounding quite
surprised once she'd disappeared.

"She used to go there until last year, she transferred to our end of town
when she moved and started her A-levels here. I guess she still likes to
keep in contact with her old friends though."

"That explains why she wouldn't be bothered by the people our schools then!
She probably thinks that everyone's really snotty assholes up our end."

"I can see that you're probably right, just about everyone is looking our
way as subtly as they can all the time."

	We made ourselves at home and had Hannah coming over to us every
now and again to check that we were OK and to apologise because she
realised how out of place we must have been feeling. After about half an
hour some guy about my age came over to us and started talking to us. He
was pretty good looking, a bit scrawny, a little taller than me, dark hair
in a centre parting cut just above his ear lobes. He had a well defined
face and blue eyes which made a beautiful contrast with his dark hair. He
introduced himself as Robbie and started to chat with us. He seemed to like
our company because a group of who I assume were his friends came over and
told him that they had to go. He wanted to stay and talk to us for a while
longer, he checked with us that that was OK and we had no objections.

	The conversation shifted to different subjects and our group sort
of divided it's interests and began to chat in different groups, Conner,
Tracey Kate and I were talking amongst each other. Luke, Claire, Sean and
Trix with each other and one interesting thing that I noticed was that
Scott and Robbie had disappeared.  Robbie had given me the impression for
the short time that he had spent talking to me that he was gay but I
obviously didn't say anything (I'm taken, it doesn't affect me).  Plus I
don't believe that this Gaydar thing works because it certainly hadn't
worked for me as far as Conner was concerned! Time wore on and the two
didn't come back. I saw Hannah passing and quickly stopped her to ask;

"Hannah, do you have any idea where Scott went with Robbie?"

"Sorry Danny, I don't."

"Will it be alright if I take a look around for them?"

"Urm. Well I, err, they won't have gone far, they should be back soon." She
seemed quite unnerved suddenly.

	I let Hannah carry on after that, realising that she was both
adding to my suspicions and wouldn't be any help to me in finding them
anyway. I tried to figure out where they could be. If my suspicions were
right then they would be somewhere secluded but close by, Hannah wouldn't
have worried about me looking for them otherwise. That meant they could be
in one of the rooms of the house or in the back garden maybe. The only
empty rooms in the house were the bedrooms upstairs, but I doubt that Scott
would let THAT sort of thing happen the first time he met somebody.  So
that narrowed my search options (as far as I could see them) to the
garden. I told my group of friends that I would be back in a minute and
made my way to the kitchen where I had seen the door that opened to the
back garden and went outside.

"Jesus Christ it's fucking freezing out here!" I whispered to myself. I
heard movement from behind me and quickly turned around startled.

"Oh, it's alright, it's Danny." I heard Scott's voice say. My eyes finally
found him and Robbie sitting on a bench to the side of the fenced garden. I
heard Robbie whisper something and Scott whisper a reply. I made my way
towards them. As I got closer I could see that they were holding hands,
only with Robbie looking rather nervous of my approach.

"I wondered where you two had gone." I told them.

"We came outside so that we could talk without having to shout."

"Don't look like talking was the main reason for coming outside." They both
smiled but blushed still kept their fingers intertwined. "So! You gunna be
bringing Robbie out with us sometime?"

"I don't know, not everyone in our group knows I'm gay yet. I'm still a bit
scared that they'd be weird about it."

"What? There's no need to think that though. They're not bothered about
Conner and I are they?" Robbie looked up at me in surprise at that point.

"Conner's gay?"

"Yeah." Scott answered sounding a bit disheartened suddenly.

"Wow! I never thought he would have been."

"Neither did I but we've been going out for nearly two months now. What I
want to know is how did you figure out Scott here is?"

"I had a suspicion and so I told him that I am and so he had nothing to
worry about."

"That's a pretty big gamble to take isn't it?"

"Everyone knows at my school so that isn't a worry. I don't really even get
that much grief about it actually. There's the usual kids that are assholes
about it but I just ignore them as best I can. Most people got bored of the
idea when they realised that it didn't bother me."

"Jesus. I don't think I could face that."

"It does show you who your real friends are though!"

"I can imagine. Oh look. I'm sorry, I'll be heading in now. Leave you get
some peace and quiet, it's too cold for me out here. I'll see you boys
later then."

"See you later." They both said together.

*****

I headed back into the house to find Hannah standing in the kitchen on her
own smoking a cigarette. I knew that she smoked but since I only really saw
her in lessons I had never seen her smoking before. I let myself in
surprising her. She looked at me quite worried and said;

"Danny, hi. Did you find anyone out there then?"

"Yeah, Scott and Robbie are out there holding hands." She fell silent and
looked kind of worried at me. She was obviously worried that it would
bother me.

"It's alright I knew Scott was gay before tonight."

"I hope you're not angry with me for this."

"For what?"

"For the party thing."

"I'm not following."

"Oh, OK. Well Robbie wanted me to invite you and your friends so that he
could get to talk to Scott. He's liked him for a while and so he wanted me
to get him here for them to meet."

"No that doesn't make me angry, I think it's kind of sweet really."

"Yeah? That's OK then." Hannah appeared to start smiling normally again
now.

"Is there any chance you can spare one of those?" I asked pointing to her
pack of fags (what cigarettes are called in Britain in case some of you
Americans don't realise, there is no cheating going on!)

"I thought you gave up years ago?"

"I did, but I don't know. I kind of just started smoking socially
again. The others don't know so don't say anything will you."

"Sure thing" she said handing me a ciggy and lighter. I lit up and leant
against the kitchen work surface.

"So how long have you known that Scott is gay for?" I thought about my
response for a moment and decided that it wouldn't matter if she knew my
secret.

"Since I started going out with Conner." Hannah looked up at me quickly in
amazement.

"You what?" I simply smiled back at her. "I had no idea. Wow!"

"Don't talk about it with people though please. I'm not outting myself yet,
only to people who are friends or I can trust."

"I'm honoured then!" Her comment made me laugh.

"If you want to look at it that way."

	It was about that moment that Conner walked into the kitchen. I hid
the cigarette behind me and looked at him worriedly hoping that he wouldn't
realise what I had.

"I wondered where you'd gone! What? What's wrong? You look like you've seen
a ghost. Oh! Give me some credit! I know you smoke."

"How?"

"You had a packet in your jacket after your accident."

"Oh, I'd thought that they'd fallen out on the road or something."

"No, I took them out before your mum found them."

"Are you angry with me?" Conner looked at me as if to say 'Hannah will be
suspicious'.

"I hope you don't mind but I told Hannah about us. She knows. You see this
party was arranged so that Robbie from before could make a move on Scott."
Conner looked at me a bit apprehensive still with a hint of anger too. Then
he sort of half smiled.

"OK then. Give me your cigarettes."

"I haven't got any, Hannah gave me this one."

"Oh, well can I have one off you too Hannah?"

"Since when have you smoked?" I asked astonished.

"I used to at my old school but gave up when I moved here." Hannah handed
him a cigarette that he then lit up.

"I don't want you to smoke just because I am Conner." There was something
wrong with the picture that was being presented before me. I didn't like
it. I didn't like Conner smoking, it bothered me. I didn't want him to risk
his health, let alone for my sake, if that's why he was. I decided that now
was the wrong time to say something. I just stayed where I was as Conner
started chatting away to Hannah.

	We all finished our cigarettes and headed back into the living
room. I was surprised to find that everyone except for my group had
left. It was only my friends left over now. They looked at Conner, Hannah
and I come into the room.

"Where the fuck have you been Danny?" Trix asked.

"Looking for Scott. He needed some fresh air, he's outside. Robbie's
keeping him company though." Claire looked at me quickly with an
inquisitive look on her face. I smiled at her, I think that confused her
more than anything else.

"Where did everybody go?"

"I don't know. Everyone left at pretty much exactly the same time. It was
pretty weird really, they all up and left and we were sitting here
wondering if there was a fire or something."

"They probably moved on to Eric Fisher' party! Oh well, please don't feel
that you have to leave. Your welcome to stay if you like."

Nobody seemed to want to leave anyway. I sat in a space in the sofa that
was left next to Kate. Conner looked around and seeing no spaces left, I
motioned for him to sit in my lap. He smiled and planted himself down on
me. I held my arm around his waist once he had made himself comfortable and
he leaned his face against my own.  We looked forward towards the
others. Trix immediately got my attention with the look of shock on his
face. He obviously knew that Conner and I were going out, I realised that
this was the first time that he had seen us being affectionate though. I
smiled at him, a look of disgust began to spread across his face.

	Kate whispered to me warning me about Hannah being there and I told
her not to worry because Hannah knew, but I was more concerned with Trix.


"Trix you know that we're going out, weren't you expecting this sort of
thing?"

"I don't know, it looks so weird! It just sort of hit me, truly that you're
gay."

"How does it make you feel?" I asked tentatively worried about his answer
but I needed to know. He fell silent for a while then answered.

"Sick. It looks fucking disgusting."


That' it! What is Trix's response going to lead to? Will Scott have found
happiness outside the arms of Danny? When will you find out? Time Will
Tell. Shouldn't be too long till I get the next chapter out though. Write
to me, go on!
wanna_get_lucky@hotmail.com