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Starting at the Beginning	By : Katma Category: Singers/Bands/Musicians > Savage Garden Views: 2042 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. I do not know the members of Savage Garden. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Darren stood hesitantly at Daniel’s door, feeling a huge sense of déjà vu. He was just as afraid this time as he had been three days ago that Daniel would slam the door the moment he recognized who it was. The fact that the two hadn’t talked since they woke up together didn’t help ease that fear. Darren sighed. All that time and worry about making things right with Daniel, and it went straight out the window because of one night. Darren was so lost in thought he didn’t notice the door opening until Daniel called his name.

“Darren. I wondered whether you were going to come,” Daniel said, standing back slightly to let Darren enter.

“Did you really think, after I flew all the way down here, that I was just going to leave without saying anything to you?” Daniel shrugged in response. Darren gave a low groan and raked his fingers through his hair. “Come on, Dan, work with me here. We need to talk about what happened.”

“Can’t we just forget that night happened? I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I don’t know, Dan. Can we forget about it? I don’t want to go back to the tour with us in the same situation we were before I came down here. So if we can go back to normal, then yes, let’s forget this. But if this is going to be an issue that keeps cropping up, I’m not leaving here until we talk about it. And I get the feeling that it’s going to be an issue.”

“Fine,” Daniel relented ungraciously. “Whatever. We’ll talk it out, if you need to so badly.”

Darren clenched his fists to keep himself from letting the anger he was beginning to feel enter his voice. Why was Daniel acting like this? Did he honestly not want to go back to the way they were? Did he see that night as the perfect escape from Darren forever? Those thoughts did little to calm the singer, but his tone was admirably neutral when he spoke.

“I think we both need to talk about this, Dan.”

Daniel closed his eyes and gave a barely perceptible shake of his head, but led the way into the living room. He sprawled out on the couch, looking up at Darren sullenly. Darren stood uncomfortably in the middle of the room. He didn’t want to sit down. He needed the space to pace if things got bad.

“You wanted to talk. So talk,” Daniel ordered irritably.

“Danny… I need to understand why you’re so upset. A drunken one-off shouldn’t be causing this much trouble.”

“Even if it’s a drunken one-off with your best friend, who also happens to be a guy?”

“Yeah, even then. People do crazy things when they’re drunk.”

“Not that crazy. I don’t even have the slightest idea where that came from!” Daniel exclaimed.
Darren flinched almost imperceptibly at that comment, but Daniel caught it. His eyes narrowed.

“Do you have an idea, Darren?” he asked, tone sharp. “Do you?”

“And if I do?” the singer answered calmly, raising troubled eyes to his once-partner.

Daniel jerked backward against the couch, stunned. He had imagined this was all as
surprising to Darren as it was to him. A sudden suspicion hit him and he spat it out before he could think.

“Is this why you came back here? To end up in bed with me?”

Darren’s eyes widened, and his head snapped back as if he’d been slapped. He gave Daniel the most betrayed look Daniel had ever seen.

“No! How could you even suggest that? I came back because I missed my friend and musical partner. Not because I wanted to get laid by you. I can’t believe you’d even think that for a second!”

Daniel flushed guiltily, knowing he’d made a mistake. That, however, only made him angrier.

“Well, what was I supposed to think, knowing that you could understand us being together?”

“I’m not the only one, you know. You’ve been away too long if you’ve forgotten that.”

“I’ve been away from what too long?” Daniel looked genuinely confused. “Been away from Savage Garden,” Darren said, a slightly mocking tone to his voice and an amused tilt to his mouth. “Don’t you remember anymore?”

Darren lowered his eyelashes. The smile disappeared. His whole stance changed in an instant. Daniel watched these changes warily. Darren was unpredictable at the best of times. When Darren was upset, he got even worse. Daniel wasn’t sure what was going to happen now. The singer looked
up then, and all of Dan’s breath left his body in a whoosh. Darren positively radiated sex.

“The fans saw it,” Darren purred as he stalked towards Daniel. His blue eyes were dark and intense. Daniel was hypnotized by that gaze. His body stirred in reaction. “The reporters
did, too. Don’t you remember all the questions they used to ask? And the flirtatious, elusive answers we used to give them? People believed that stuff, Danny. When we were onstage, there was this chemistry. All the flirting, all the touching… it made people wonder.”

Darren stepped even closer to the guitarist, whose face was pale with shock and a growing arousal. He slipped one hand up Daniel’s chest to rest at the back of his neck. Darren leaned in eveoseroser, so that their eyes were level and Daniel could feel the warm moistness of Darren’s breath on his lips.

“And didn’t you ever wonder? What made all those people think those things about us? What was it we had? Was there never a time, when we hugged longer than was necessary, or a touch lingered, that you thought about the possibility of us being together?”

Daniel could hardly breathe. His heart was pounding and his body shaking in reaction to Darren’s words, Darren’s tone, and Darren’s closeness. Even without the help of alcohol, Daniel could barely suppress the urge to close the distance between them and capture Darren’s lips with his own.

“But…” he finally managed, surprised at his own voice. It sounded rough and deep, a growl of arousal. Even his voice was betraying him! “But… I’m not gay.”

That single phrase had the power to shut Darren down completely. The sexual aura that had surrounded him fell off, and he was just Darren again. The predatory grace that had fueled the
singer’s movements also dropped. He stumbled backwards a few steps, putting distance between himself and Daniel. Daniel could still feel the impact of Darren’s presence, though, and it scared him. He had never felt this way before. No one, not Michelle, and not Kathleen, had evoked the feelings and emotions Darren did with just his mere presence. Daniel wasn’t prepared to acknowledge or accept what that could mean, so he pushed out at Darren harder.

“Are you?” he asked desperately, trying to turn the tide of the conversation.

Darren looked away. “I don’t know, Danny. But… I realized something that night.”

Slowly, Darren approached Daniel again and perched on the coffee table. He reached a gentle hand and lifted Daniel’s chin, forcing the guitarist to meet his eyes. Daniel could feel that
hand trembling. The singer took a deep breath, then began to speak again.

“I realized… Daniel, I love you. I think I always have. It was always there, in our closer-than-close friendship, in the flirting onstage… I just didn’t know what it was until we slept together.
Everything crystallized then. That’s why it hurt so much to let you go when Savage Garden broke
up. I wasn’t just letting go of a friend, I was letting go of you. You’re special, Jonesy, in more ways than I can count.”

Darren’s hand moved from Daniel’s chin to his cheek, which he stroked gently. “I don’t know how to explain this, or categorize it. But then, categories have never worked for us, have they? All I know is that with you, nothing else matters. You, Daniel Jones, are the one I want to be with.”

Daniel looked into Darren’s sincere blue eyes and saw the truth written plainly there. Suddenly, it was too much. He couldn’t handle everything that was going on. One night had completely shaken the foundations of his existe He He was still reeling from the doubts that night had planted in him, and now this. Daniel fought back the sense of panic the only way he knew how. He jerked his
face away from Darren’s caressing hand and got up. It was his turn to pace. He could feel Darren’s eyes on him, watching him worriedly.

“Jonesy?” Darren asked, vulnerability plain in his tone.

“What do you want from me, Darren?” he snapped in return. “I’m straight, and I’m with Kathleen. We could never be together.”

“You don’t have to love me back,” Darren said softly. “I didn’t really expect you to. But I had to tell you anyway. You had to know how I feel. But I can move past this if you can, Danny. I don’t want our friendship to end.”

“Well, I don’t think I can move past this,” Daniel stated callously. He watched with a cold satisfaction as panic crossed the singer’s face.

“Danny, please. I’m sorry. Please don’t shut me out again.”

Darren reached a hand out to Daniel, who pulled away from his touch. Darren retracted his hand and looked down at his lap.

“Please,” he whispered. Daniel snapped.

“God, Darren, don’t you ever quit? I said no. And I meant it. No, this won’t work. No, I don’t want to be friends anymore; I couldn’t take it. God, I wish… I wish you had never come back here.”

Silence followed Daniel’s words. After a few unbearable minutes, Daniel chanced a look at the abnormally quiet singer. Darren was sitting, staring off into space, a look of deep pain etched on his features. Daniel realized he might have gone just a little too far with that last statement. Darren looked… broken. An icy knot formed in his stomach as the guitarist realized that he truly didn’t want to lose Darren forever, and he might have just done so.

“Darren?” he asked hesitantly. Darren slowly turned dark, blank eyes in his
direction, and Daniel felt sick. This was his fault. All his fault. Without even realizing what he was doing, Daniel reached out a hand to touch that beautiful face, trying to wipe the pain that he saw off of it. Darren, however, sensed his movements and reacted. In one smooth motion, the singer twisted away from Daniel. When he again locked eyes with the tall guitarist, a smooth mask was in place. Those normally open blue eyes were shuttered, and Daniel felt a deep pang of loss, the kind he’d never felt before.

“You’re right,” Darren said coolly. “I shouldn’t have come back. This isn’t going to work.”

“Darren, I’m sorry,” Daniel pleaded, all of his anger suddenly gone. “I didn’t mean what I said. We can make it work. We just need to sit down and talk this out, like last time.”

“No.” The singer shook his head vehemently. “This won’t work. There’s too much anger and fear here to ever overcome. It’s just not worth the effort of trying anymore.”

“But I thought this was what you wanted. To try and piece us back together.”

Darren looked into his once best friend’s pleading emerald eyes, and seemed to soften. The hard tone slipped out of his voice.

“Yes, it’s what I wanted.”

“Then why are you giving up?”

“Because I can’t win this one, Danny. We can’t. And I’m too tired to try.”

Daniel felt a sudden burst of fear at the indifference in Darren’s tone. Darren was never indifferent. He was passionate and vibrant and colorful. It wasn’t like Darren to just give up, and it struck him again that he might truly lose Darren this time. And this time, he’d have no one to blame but himself.

“Too tired?” Daniel asked, trying for a teasing tone but failing miserably. “That doesn’t sound like the Darren I know.”

“Doesn’t it?” Darren asked disinterestedly. “No, I guess not. I’m not that Darren anymore, Daniel. That Darren grew up and realized that sometimes, no matter how much you want to be with someone, they just don’t want to be with you. And I’m sick of fighting for someone who doesn’t really want to be with me. I don’t care anymore, Daniel. I really don’t.”

Daniel winced at the defeat in Darren’s voice. The singer had neversounded so tired before. And he was back to calling him “Daniel,” not “Danny” or “Jonesy.” Darren was forcing distance between them again. As if emotional distance weren’t enough for the singer, he then stood up and began walking in the direction of the door.

“Darren, where are you going?” Daniel questioned, a note of panic in his voice.

“Back to my hotel. I need to get things packed if I’m going to leave tonight.”

“But… what about dinner with Kat and I tonight? You promised you’d come,” Daniel wheedled, grasping at straws.

“Yeah, well, plans change. I really have some things I need to do before I go. I have to pack, my mum needs her car back… lots of stuff. I just can’t come tonight. Tell Kathleen good-bye for me
and that I’m sorry I missed her dinner. She’s an excellent cook.”

“Darren…” Daniel trailed Darren to the door, where Darren picked up his keys from the table and his jacket. “Darren, please.”

Darren ignored Daniel’s pleas, shrugging into his jacket and placing his hand on the door.

“Dazza.” Darren stopped. Daniel hadn’t called him that since… that night. “Dazza, please. Don’t leave.”

Daniel could see Darren visibly wavering. Then his eyes shut tightly and he bit his lower lip. When the singer opened them again, they were filled with a deep sadness and an equally deep resolve. Turning the doorknob, he pushed the door open and stepped outside. He stood on the porch and turned around to face Daniel one last time.

“Bye, Jonesy,” he said, then turned and walked to his car.
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Starting at the Beginning