Donovan opened the door to the guest room that Niall would be staying in, helping Niall lug the suitcases inside. Niall looked around the room curiously, slightly transfixed by the sight; it was decorated expertly, to the point that Niall was almost sure that Donovan’s parents had hired someone to do it for them, and it looked as if the details had been selected with the aim of at least partially matching the time period that the house had been constructed in.

The bed was high and canopied, though curtains had been neglected in the favor of a simpler cloth covering. The frame of the bed was wooden, the bed a large four-poster with burgundy-colored sheets to match the canopy and white wine colored decorative pillows. The same shade of wood had been carried out through the rest of the room, extending to the bureaus and the bedside tables, which were matching and sat on either side of the bed.

The walls were a creamy off-white color that seemed to compliment the wine-colored pillows, and tasteful landscapes decorated the walls, sitting in large, ornamental frames that seemed almost to draw more focus than the paintings themselves. Niall looked around the room with an appreciative grin.

“Wow,” he said after a moment, echoing his earlier sentiment upon seeing the house from the outside. The room looked like something out of a magazine or a model home—and Niall supposed that it was probably because this was a guest room, rarely used and meant to impress. “Does your whole house look like this?” Niall inquired after a moment, as he had only seen this, the foyer and the stairwell thus far.

Donovan shrugged. “My mum likes anything that looks as if it’s an antique,” he said with a somewhat annoyed expression, taking in the room with a bit of distaste. “Everyone likes it when they first see it, but when you’ve grown up around dozens of things that your mother tells you you aren’t allowed to touch, it’s a slightly different situation.”

Niall laughed softly at the words, but the expression on Don’s face was deadly serious. Niall cut his laugh short with an embarrassed cough, thinking about how annoyed he had been when he was a young child and his parents had forbade him from going into certain rooms and sitting on certain pieces of furniture. Niall, himself, had never understood why anyone would want to buy furniture that one couldn’t use. Musing softly to himself, he looked up at Donovan again as the other boy began speaking once more.

“Would you prefer to unpack now, or would you like a tour of the house and grounds?” Don inquired after a moment, his tone almost formal. Niall raised an eyebrow at him in surprise, blinking a couple of times at the fact that the words and the formal way that they had been spoken made him feel almost as if he had walked into and old film.
“You have grounds?” he queried disbelievingly, and Don shook his head.

“Not really. Mum likes to call them that. We have a bit of land and a guest house, but it’s not like you’re thinking,” Don said nonchalantly, giving Niall a look that just dared the other boy to make a comment about their wealth.

Niall laughed again softly, because when Don put it that way, it really seemed as if the other boy’s home wasn’t anything more extravagant than his own was, or even than his vacation home was—it simply was made to look as if it was. Because it was clear that Don’s family had to have quite a bit of money to be able to afford to send him to a different country to go to school, but it likely wasn’t much more than Niall’s own family’s wealth.

“Mmm…well, I guess I can unpack later,” Niall said finally, taking one last glance around the room he’d be staying in. “I’ve been in a plane for way too long, and it would be nice to walk around a little.”

Donovan nodded slowly before leading Niall out of the room, directing him down the hall, back the way that they came, before he pushed open another door. “I suppose I should let you know where my bedroom is first,” he commented offhandedly as he opened the door. “I’m just next door to you, so if you need anything in the night, I’m right here.”

Niall nodded slowly as Don opened the door for him and ushered him inside the room. Niall raised his eyebrows at the sight of Don’s bedroom; it wasn’t as immaculately clean as the guestroom was, looked quite thoroughly lived-in, but it was definitely cleaner than Niall’s room had ever been when he’d still been spending any significant amount of time at home.

The room still had that kind of old-fashioned feeling to it because of the furniture; the bed was another large four-poster, though this one lacked the canopy that the bed in the guestroom had. Instead of the burgundies that the guestroom was decorated in, this room had a deep blue motif that stretched from the bedclothes to the curtains to a delicate stripe on the walls. There was a desk in the corner with an old desktop computer on it and a few stacks of papers, and an easel sat in the corner, a blank canvas sitting on it.

Looking around the room, though, Niall could see definite signs of Donovan living there; the walls were decorated with sketches and paintings, and the sketches, at least, Niall recognized as having come from Don’s hand. They were edged in simpler frames, all of them black and unornamented—and as Niall looked around, he was surprised to see that one of them was a sketch of Eldermoor Academy. Niall smiled at the memory of the place, though it was bittersweet; one of his last recollections from Eldermoor was of being with Luke that last time, and it hurt somewhat to realize that he wouldn’t be going back there again.

“I think I’m a fan of the art decoration choices in this room,” Niall commented with a grin, walking over to the desk to see that one of the piles of papers sitting atop it was a pile of Donovan’s sketches. The dark-haired boy watched him slowly as he glanced at them, and Niall looked back at Don with a questioning look. “Can I look through these?”

Don nodded slowly with a nonchalant shrug as he made his way over to the bed, sitting down at its edge to apparently wait for Niall to finish. “Go ahead,” he said unconcernedly, and Niall began rifling through the pile of sketches. They were of all sorts of things—of birds and of flowers, of random objects that Don had somehow found a way to make look artistic, and several that Niall found of the little girl he’d seen downstairs, and a few more of a boy he didn’t recognize but that he realized had very similar features to the little girl. He held up one of the sketches for Don’s inspection.

“Is this Kevin?” he inquired curiously, and Donovan nodded slowly in response. Still curious about this boy he’d never met, Niall looked back at the picture, taking in Kevin’s appearance. The sketch was skillfully done and lifelike, and Niall felt almost as if he was looking at an actual person but in black and white. Kevin was lounging on the couch casually, a small grin on his face; he had short hair, a round face, and an easy smile. Something about the sketch made Niall want to grin right back at the boy in the picture.

“You can probably meet him later today, if you’d like,” Donovan commented in an offhand tone, and Niall smiled, finding that he was somewhat excited by the prospect. He felt as if he was learning all these new things about Don that he never would have otherwise seen, and it was nice to see how Don’s life was away from Eldermoor Academy—and especially, away from all the pain he’d clearly been feeling there.

“I’d like that,” Niall admitted slowly, and Don smiled in return as Niall glanced back at the sketches he held in his hand before setting them back down on the desk.

“It’s nice to see you drawing again,” Niall commented without thinking, rustling his fingers through the sketches at the top of the pile. “I mean, after you—” Niall stopped sharply, realizing what he had been about to say—because he remembered the way that Don had ripped up all his sketches before slashing his wrists, remembered seeing fragments of drawings splattered with blood. Don smiled softly, but his smile was strained.

“After I destroyed all my old ones?” Don asked in a knowing tone, and feeling slightly embarrassed that he had brought the topic up, Niall nodded slowly. Niall felt the tension in the room, but oddly, Don seemed oblivious to it, didn’t seem bothered by it in the slightest. He simply continued to sit on his bed casually, eyes on Niall.

“You paint too?” Niall inquired after a moment to settle the tension, motioning over to the easel and the paintbrush that sat on its ledge. Don nodded slowly as he took in the blank canvas before him, seeming thoughtful for a moment.

“Mum doesn’t like me to paint in the house, though, so I always have to lug the easel outside,” Don explained contemplatively. “I guess I don’t paint as much as I draw because it’s just too much of a hassle to do most of the time.”

Donovan fell silent after a moment, and Niall regarded him thoughtfully again—and it seemed to Niall that Donovan’s parents were full of all sorts of obscure rules that he had to follow, most of which seemed to involve not messing up any of the expensive antique-looking furniture. It was so different from Niall’s own home, in which most of the time, he found his parents basically ignoring his every doing. But with Donovan, it seemed that his parents’ chief concern was regulating his every move.

And then Niall’s memory flashed back—back to seeing Donovan crying and bleeding on the bathroom floor, remembering the choked sobs through which the dark-haired boy had confessed his parents’ reaction to the realization that he was gay. And that initial concern was back, that initial fear that he’d had that being at home with his parents would do more harm than good—even though Donovan seemed happy.

Sighing, Niall crossed the room and sat down on the bed next to Don, giving the other boy a searching look. Don eyed him questioningly while Niall tried to formulate the words that he wanted to speak. After a long pause, Niall finally did.

“About your parents…” Niall trailed off after a moment, not really wanting to bring up a difficult topic but feeling too curious and worried not to—because he realized that Donovan had never really told him how things had been with his parents since they had found out he was gay. “How have things been with them since they, you know…found out?”

And part of Niall was hoping that the answer would be that things were all right with them, but a huge part of him doubted it. Because he’d never seen any parent who had some serious moral objection to homosexuality change their ways when they found out that they had a child who was gay. If anything, that only cemented their belief, and the personalization of the topic made them merely more vehement, more acidic in their beliefs and actions. Don sighed deeply at the question, looking away tiredly.

“I’ve been informed that I’m not to speak of my ‘aberrant and disgusting lifestyle’ in this house,” Don said caustically, rolling his eyes in a way that made Niall sure that he was parroting back his parents’ statement word for word. “At least, that’s what they told me when I came home. Since then, they’ve basically just been pretending that they never found out, that nothing’s changed. It’s probably better that way, anyway.”

Niall raised an eyebrow, wondering why Don had never bothered to tell him this, and wondering at the same time why he’d never really thought to ask. He’d simply assumed that things had been okay, which was why Don hadn’t mentioned it—and he supposed that to Don, they were, because after his parents’ initial reaction, he would have expected worse from them. The cold avoidance of the issue was probably kinder to Don than open animosity.

“I’m sorry,” Niall said softly, rubbing his eyes and wondering for the thousandth time why all their lives had to be so hard. He could count on one hand the number of friends he had whose parents truly accepted them for being gay, and he wondered when the idea of loving one’s children unconditionally had been altered to include the clause, ‘unless they’re gay.’ Sighing again, Niall continued speaking.

“That’s why my parents don’t know. They’re not religious, really, but they have no problem using religion to justify things when it suits them,” Niall spat out, with clear distaste in his tone. “They even tried to send me to a Christian school before I went to Eldermoor, in hopes that religion would somehow solve my ‘disciplinary problems.’ I’m sure I’d never hear the end of it if my parents found out I’m gay. They wouldn’t be like your parents, though—they’d make an issue of it constantly.”

Don shook his head dismissively. “It’s not that bad,” he insisted gently, giving the other boy a reassuring smile. “I’d honestly never planned on discussing my sex life with my parents anyway. Well, I mean, that is if I actually had one.”

Niall laughed softly at the statement, giving Don a reassuring smile of his own. “You’ll find someone,” he told his friend confidently, and Don just sighed and gave Niall a look.

“I appreciate the sentiment, but I’m really starting to doubt if that will ever be true,” Don said quietly, a tiny note of sadness in his voice. Niall eyed the other boy sympathetically, thinking of how lucky he had been himself, when he had found William. For all of how things had turned out between them, at the time, finding someone to care about and love had been everything he needed.

“You will,” Niall told him with conviction. “Don’t give up hope just yet.”

Don smiled brightly at him. “Since when are you an optimist?” he joked with a small grin, and Niall rolled his eyes and shook his fist jokingly at the other boy. After a moment, though, he sobered and looked at Donovan meaningfully.

“I guess that means that they don’t know about me,” he said unnecessarily, gazing at Don searchingly as if to confirm it. Don shook his head slowly, but the response wasn’t really a surprise to Niall; after all, if they were so opposed to Donovan’s sexuality, the last thing he would do would be to volunteer information about Niall’s.

“And I’m sure that you realize that it would be prudent that they don’t find out,” Donovan said after a moment, his tone serious. Niall sat quietly for a moment before nodding, seeing the necessity—but it had been so long since he’d been at home for any significant length of time, so long since he’d had to really hide it from anyone, that it seemed weird to start doing it again now. But he knew that if Donovan’s parents found out, it likely wouldn’t be him who had to be punished for it, but rather Donovan. And Don didn’t deserve that.

“They’d jump to conclusions immediately,” Don said, surprising Niall by adding more than the other boy had expected him to say. “They seem to have this belief that all gay people are insufferable perverts, so no doubt if they knew, they’d think that you’re sleeping with me. And I can’t even imagine what their reaction would be to think that I’m carrying on my ‘aberrant and disgusting lifestyle’ under their roof. Simply talking about it is prohibited, so that would likely be an unforgivable offense.”

There was a slight smile on Don’s face as he spoke, though, and Niall finally got the impression that he was making fun of his parents’ ignorance. Niall laughed softly at that, because it really did sound ridiculous, that simply speaking about something or being with another person could be an inexcusable transgression—and it was hilarious in a dark way.

Niall didn’t say anything in response, and they fell silent for a few long moments before Donovan stood up. “Ah—but why are we discussing depressing things?” he inquired after a moment, giving Niall a somewhat bright look instead. “I recall that I was supposed to be showing you the house, and it seems that all you’ve seen is my bedroom.”

Niall smiled gently as he remembered their original aim, wondering how they’d managed to get quite so sidetracked. Slowly, he stood so that he was beside his friend, realizing for the first time that he was tired from his flight and yet at the same time feeling too restless to go to sleep just then.

“That’s right,” he agreed with a playful grin. “I believe you have quite a few more things to show me that look like antiques.” His tone was joking as he recalled the words that Donovan had spoken about his mother not long before, and Donovan grinned widely in response as he seemed to remember them as well.

“There’s no time to waste then, hm?” Donovan joked in return, leading the way toward his bedroom door, opening it for the other boy as they walked out, back into the empty hallway. “And after we’re done with that, we can go over to Kevin’s so I can introduce you—that is, if you don’t want to wait until tomorrow.”

Niall shook his head, couldn’t help but continue to feel curious about this boy he’d heard so much about but never met. “We can go today,” he said briefly, and Don nodded slowly before leading Niall down the hall to show him the other rooms.