Say it (Michael/Dare)

[Dare Blackwood-Hardt]

The room was exactly what he needed right now. Deep red brick interrupted along one wall with tall windows that sent light streaming down onto the rug Dare sat on, cross-legged, leaning back against a squashy, somewhat abused-looking couch. He had his sketchbook open, propped against his thighs, and his left hand was moving in sharp strokes across the page, leaving trails of charcoal in its wake.

Music blasted, a Muggle band he loved singing about living for a fantasy. Dare's head bobbed now and then with the music, and his brows knitted as he sang along with some of the words, his voice just audible above the music. Say it, say it, say that you believe. Say it, say it to me.

Maybe part of him knew Michael would be looking for him, that he'd wonder why Dare hadn't met him this morning, but after his talk with Silver, Dare had needed whatever time he could manage to get things out.

[Michael Blackwood-Hardt]

That morning, Michael had woken up excited, both by remembering his and Dare's plans for the day and by the owl on his bed to deliver a small, long package. He had gotten dressed, paid the owl, and left in a hurry to see if he could find Dare. At first he had waited in the dungeons, knowing that Dare had said something about that but, after a while, he hadn't been able to wait any more and went to the lake, thinking that, possibly, Dare had decided to go on down and wait on him.

No, he hadn't been at the lake, or at the edge of the forest, nowhere Michael looked. The excitement had been fading the whole morning and his spirits were down when he finally came across the Room of Requirement, the last resort. He didn't know why Dare would be in there, but it was the only place they would meet that he hadn't checked. So when Michael opened the door to hear music, he knew he had found Dare, and his spirits rose instantly.

He walked around the couch to see Dare sitting there, and his spirits checked out again, instantly feeling that something was off. His fingers ran along the box in his hand absently as he sat down beside Dare. "What's up?" he asked, watching Dare's face.

[Dare Blackwood-Hardt]

Dare hadn't heard the door open, but part of him had felt Michael the moment he'd entered the room, and so the sound of his voice was no real surprise. Dare's face was tense with concentration as he added a few strokes to the close-up portrait of Michael he'd been working on, then flipped over the page, unable to keep working on something as intensely personal as that was with Michael so close.

"I'm fine," he said automatically. He dropped his charcoal aside into the tray and ran his hand through his hair, not even bothering to dust it off on his jeans. How was he supposed to talk about what he'd heard, what Silver had heard. Automatic, I imagine, I believe. Did he even believe it?

[Michael Blackwood-Hardt]

The automatic answer, combined with the glimpse of the picture Michael had seen, sent alarms off in his head. Why hadn't Dare come looking for him that morning? Why was he in the Room of Requirement? "Tell me," he urged, needing to know. There was the chance he shouldn't know, or that it would have been better to just ignore it, but Michael couldn't do that, he couldn't leave it alone when that feeling of tension was in the air.

[Dare Blackwood-Hardt]

He had to tell Michael, he knew it. This wasn't something he could just keep to himself. It wasn't something that was his burden to carry alone. He couldn't get through it by himself, he needed to hear something from Michael, though he wasn't even sure what it was. What answers could possibly make this better?

Dare licked suddenly dry lips as he tried to think how to say it, but there was no way to say it, no way to soften it, was there? "I heard some stuff," he said, deciding that he wouldn't mention Silver, at least just yet. Say it. "Did you tell Anna you loved her?" Not did you love her or do you love her, but did you tell her...

[Michael Blackwood-Hardt]

Something inside Michael froze for a second and he looked away, down at the box he put in his lap. After another second, he found himself nodding, "Yes." He didn't know who Dare had been talking to, surely Anna wouldn't have told him that. He didn't offer any other information. If Dare wanted to know, he could ask, Michael wasn't going to chance making things worse by adding to his words.

[Dare Blackwood-Hardt]

Yes, that was all. Michael hadn't tried to justify anything, hadn't tried to defend himself, hadn't tried to explain. His answer, the confirmation, was just enough of a shock that it took Dare a moment to remember that Michael never justified anything, that he never gave any verbal defense, really. "Did you?" Dare asked, his gaze remaining on the blank page of his sketchbook. Did you love her?

[Michael Blackwood-Hardt]

There was that freezing feeling again, and Michael hung his head slightly lower as he licked his lips before answering. "Yes," he whispered again. He held the small box in his hands numbly, though his eyes were focused on it, something easy to look at. His mind went back to that day by the forest, where he had lost Anna and gained Dare, where he had asked himself that same question, only to come up with a positive answer.

[Dare Blackwood-Hardt]

These one-word answers were killing Dare, driving him crazy rather than making him feel any better. Michael was only confirming what he'd already been told, so he couldn't claim surprise, even if his heart ached, even if his mind spun just a little from trying to wrap around it all. Couldn't Michael see where he was going with this? God, it was so hard to say!

Dare's hands rose, spearing into his hair again, an unconscious gesture of frustration and nerves, an unconscious move to hide his face, to give himself what emotional privacy he might while he asked his question. "How could you leave her for me?" There was no simple yes or no to that question, but would Michael even answer it? Did he even know the answer? Could he possibly see how much Dare needed to hear it?

[Michael Blackwood-Hardt]

Michael cringed slightly at the question and he was silent for a few long seconds as he tried to think of an answer, of a way to explain why it had felt right to do it. "When I was with her, before, I loved her. Then during those months apart," he paused, having decided it would be best just to tell the story. "It changed, it went from being...romantic, or whatever it fell under, to being something I felt to someone I had been close to that I didn't want to see hurt."

He was silent for another few long seconds, "And, as much as I didn't want to see her hurt, I knew that if I stayed with her, it wouldn't have been the same. I would have been thinking of you, and would have ended up staying with her purely out of habit." He glanced over at Dare, wondering if he was making any sense, but quickly brought his eyes back to the box in his lap.

"What I felt for you was much stronger, so different I couldn't stand the thought of staying away." It hit him how odd it would sound to say that he felt something stronger for Dare, when he had just said he loved Anna, but he couldn't think of a way to explain it. He knew that he had chosen correctly, though, that if he had stayed with Anna he wouldn't have experienced the same feelings he had with Dare.

[Dare Blackwood-Hardt]

Michael's answer brought Dare right back into the thoughts that had been swarming through his head all morning. He'd loved Anna--as a friend, his mind tried to tell him--and he'd felt more for Dare. More than love. More than the love of a friend, he clarified. Did Michael love him? Just a little? Somehow? But how could you love someone a little? He was dragging out the thoughts he saved for those quiet hours of the night, and they were even less clear in daylight. Much stronger, Michael had said.

Dare fought with himself over what to say next. He didn't want to ask Michael if he loved him, as much as he wanted to know. Making a demand like that was too much. But he wondered, if Michael had fallen out of romantic love with Anna, would the same happen to him? Would Michael realize one day that he was staying with Dare because he didn't want to hurt him? Out of habit? Did it matter to him, if it meant he got to keep Michael?

Dare gave a heavy sigh, trying to sort things, but one confession kept dancing at the tip of his tongue, and it was getting harder to deny. He shouldn't say it now, he knew it, and he pressed his lips tight to keep the words in. He forced his mind to shift, forced himself to find another question instead, and his mind lit on Dru, who Michael had dated, but saw as a sister now. "Did the same thing happen with Dru?" he asked. "Did you love her, too?"

[Michael Blackwood-Hardt]

Michael cringed again, huddling his shoulders as though to protect himself from the questions. "I loved her, in a way, and now I know I do, just like a sister. But no, the same thing didn't happen, far from it." He knew the story would get out, but for some reason he really didn't want to tell Dare, though he felt like he was holding back important information. "Do you want to know what happened between me and Dru?" he asked, willing to tell if Dare wanted to know, though he would rather let it go, save it for another time.

[Dare Blackwood-Hardt]

Dare could feel Michael's discomfort, and his hands lowered, settling on the page in front of him, still balanced against his lap. Did he want to know? Michael had answered his question, but there was obviously more, much more, and though Michael had offered to tell him, it felt like he didn't really want to say it. Did he want to know? It was personal, and private. Did it have anything to do with Dare's questions, or was it an unrelated confession? "You don't have to tell me," Dare said, though part of him wondered.

[Michael Blackwood-Hardt]

Michael let out a breath and nodded slightly. "Another time," he said, though he wondered for a half second if it wouldn't be better to just get everything over with at the same time. Dare should know, just not along with the rest of what Michael had been confessing, it was too much even for Michael to think about, much less Dare. His eyes turned, though his head stayed down, and looked down at Dare's hands through the curtain of his hair.

[Dare Blackwood-Hardt]

Dare's hands remained curled lightly against the paper, and Dare stared at them too, feeling drained and unsure. Michael had loved both the girlfriends that Dare knew about, and both times, something had happened, something had changed that love. Dare was afraid to say the words now, but they lingered, taunting him. Say it, part of him urged, even as the rest of him argued, no, it'll ruin everything. You heard what Michael said. He'd loved them both, and it had faded.

Dare reached for his charcoal again, and brought it slowly against the page, pausing before making a long, curving mark, the first hesitant outline of a face. But his hand stopped after that, and he couldn't seem to make another. Dare sighed heavily and rested the back of his hand against a clean area of the page, holding the charcoal away from it. Say it. No, it's not right. You want to tell him. I can't do it. You can. But how?