And You Never Knew

It was half past seven on a dull, slightly wet Friday morning, and students were congregating in the school sports field. Dom yawned and asked himself how on earth other people seemed so awake, the people chatting loudly, messing and laughing. He wondered what the point of making them come to the school this early had been. It wasn’t even really that early, but he hadn’t gotten much sleep. He sighed and rubbed his eyes.

“Tired?” the voice next to him said. The owner of the voice sounded like they were smiling, and definitely one of the impossibly awake people. Dom turned to look at the boy, whose messy dark hair standing up in little spikes made him look like the tired one, as if he had just woken up.

“Matt, this morning I woke up an hour early to make sure I had packed everything. Of course I’m tired,” he said, smiling at the end to try to make it clearer that he wasn’t really annoyed. One of the qualities that made Matt Bellamy a good friend was how he knew to stay away if Dom was in a bad mood, but right now he wasn’t in a bad enough mood to want to be alone. Matt laughed, an almost giggly laugh that didn’t seem to suit a teenage boy.

“I’ll make sure to wake you up early tomorrow morning,” Matt said, and Dom couldn’t think of anything to say as an answer. He hadn’t forgotten that they were sharing tents on the trip, but he hadn’t really considered the fact that he would probably be sleeping next to his friend. He wasn’t even sure why the idea gave him a weird feeling and made him unable to talk; even though he was dreading how awkward it would be, his problem wasn’t that he felt that anything bad would happen. After all, Dom hadn’t told Matt yet about his being gay, and even if Matt had found out he didn’t seem to be in any way uncomfortable around him. Why should it be much different when they were on a school trip together?

But it was pointless thinking that, because Dom already knew why thinking about it made him speechless. When he imagined waking up in the tent with Matt, one of the first things he thought of was that Matt’s smile was the first thing he’d see that morning. He didn’t feel worried, just… excited. He wanted to think of the word “excited” because it still sounded mostly innocent, not the same as “horny”.

It wasn’t a lie to say that his thoughts were mostly innocent- he thought about holding hands, and kissing, and Matt holding him while the two of them would fall asleep- but it was definitely lying to say that his thoughts were always innocent. The night before he had been awake worrying, but in the weeks before that there had been nights where he was awake for a very different reason. He couldn’t do that tonight, not with Matt next to him… he realised quickly that Matt had taken Dom’s silence as a sign that the conversation had ended, and had gone to talk to someone else. Before Dom could go over to talk to him again, the teacher announced that everyone was present and that they were to start getting on the bus.

Everyone piled onto the bus, and having lost sight of Matt, Dom sat down next to a girl holding a harmonica. He looked at her for a second, hoping she'd be able to read the words "don't even think about playing that" in his eyes that were barely staying open. His conscience told him that if he hadn't stayed up late thinking about Matt he would have actually gotten enough sleep, but he ignored it. He would have stayed awake worrying anyway, or would have gotten up to make sure he hadn't forgotten anything in his bag. Regardless of the Matt situation, Dom wasn't really cut out for camping; he was going to miss his proper bed, his room being tidy. "What teenage boy thinks that?" he thought, equally amused and annoyed at himself.

The teacher at the front of the bus took the microphone and started talking. "OK everyone, could I have your attention please? This is our fifth annual Music Madness weekend," he paused slightly, obviously hoping for some sort of applause. "It's our school's newest tradition, and we hope to keep it going for as long as possible, so we don't want anyone to cause trouble and ruin it for everyone else." There were a few murmurs and laughs from the people who knew he was talking about them, but he looked at them and kept talking.

Everyone knew better than to ruin one of the only fun trips that the school had. It was a miracle that it even happened; that the school was able to book a section of the beach for a weekend. Dom had heard that it was because of some connections that the school had with the local council, but it was more likely that it had just been payment, grovelling and the headmaster swearing on his soul that there wouldn't be any teenage anti-social behaviour to disturb the old people that made up a lot of the local population.

"Everyone on this bus was involved in music in our school over the past year, be it the choir and their musicians-" there was some cheering from people scattered around the bus, including the thankfully silent harmonica girl- "the cast of the school musical-" more cheering, from the people who made up the majority of the students on the trip "or just chosen by the Music teachers as being especially talented." Dom shouted "woo!", half-sarcastically, and looked around to see who else apart from him and Matt had been chosen; they hadn't been officially announced, the students had just been contacted individually, so he was curious to find out.

There were a few people that he recognised as pianists, the ones he thought were posh and who only knew classical music; he laughed when he remembered that that was kind of what Matt was, or at least why he had been asked to come on the trip. Dom wondered why he himself had been chosen by teachers, apart from his performance at the school's talent show, which didn't seem like a good enough reason. Even though a lot of students had congratulated him on playing Queen at the talent show rather than the usual boring singing and dancing, the teachers seemed to have no interest in his drumming once they remembered that he was the one who had been banned from singing in Music classes because of his absolute inability to hold a tune.

Anyway, it's not like bringing a drummer to Music Madness was a very good idea in the first place. Everybody was instructed to bring their instruments so that they could play at the campfire on Saturday night. Dom, and the one other drummer on the bus, had been told that drums would be provided, but the fact that it was a campfire sing-along thing suggested that it was much more likely to be small bongo-drums-type things than actual drum kits, which was a bit disappointing. It seemed that for the school, bringing drummers was more trouble than it would be worth.

Unless Matt had asked a teacher to let Dom come for the weekend? When it came to the Music staff, Matt was held in slightly better opinion by the teachers than other students in the school. But Dom knew that that was probably just as much wishful thinking as anything else that he imagined Matt doing. Matt had other friends to hang around with, so the only reason that he would especially want Dom to come would be if one of Dom's dreams had come true. And he knew that it hadn't; Matt wasn't Dom's boyfriend, or even one of those stupid "friend with benefits" things. Apart from a friend, the only thing Matt would ever be was a dream to stop Dom feeling scared and lonely at night, like some sort of living nightlight. A starlight in the gloom.

***********

It was still Friday morning when they arrived, and by the time they had managed to put up tents for sleeping in and the useless marquee thing that they would be eating under, eaten their packed lunches and been given another talk on how to behave while representing the school, it was Friday afternoon. When the teachers left them to their own devices for an hour, somebody suggested swimming, which a few people attempted before remembering the obvious fact that, especially on wet overcast days, the sea is always freezing cold.

Dom found Matt again, having been separated from him on the bus, and they both stood on the beach laughing at the people walking into the water and running back out. Dom was no longer tired, but now he was just cold, as he shivered at the thought of the icy-cold water.

"God, you look frozen!" Matt said, laughing and grabbing Dom's hand to see how cold it was. Matt's hand was warm and Dom involuntarily held onto it for a few seconds; in fact, it was all he could do to stop himself linking fingers with him. It was exactly the kind of awkwardness that he had been expected, but the wishful thinking came into his head again and reminded him that there was still the smallest of chances that Matt was thinking the same thing. He was the one who took Dom's hand, after all... but the thoughts disappeared in the same split second as Matt put his hand back into his pocket.

They talked about the weather for another few minutes until everyone was called to have dinner and see a performance by the school choir, and before Dom could even start worrying about the sleeping arrangements it was time to claim spots for sleeping bags in the loads of small tents that were now dotted around the beach. When he went to the tent nearest to the eating place, he saw that Matt had gone ahead and saved a space for Dom's sleeping bag next to his and was sitting there smiling. It was a two-person tent, from the looks of it, unless someone else was very desperate to sleep there. They would be alone. The "excitement" that had been driving Dom insane came over him again, and he quickly kneeled down to sort out his sleeping bag, avoiding eye contact with Matt for fear of another much more awkward moment.

It was getting dark fairly quickly, being autumn, and everyone had to be in their tents by the time the sun had set, so both boys got ready for bed- hurriedly, in Dom’s case, as he just wanted to get into the sleeping bag as soon as possible so that he could pretend to be asleep. As he lay down to sleep, Matt moved up behind and poked him slightly.

“What?” he said, turning around to see what Matt could possibly want.

“Just wanted to give you a goodnight kiss,” Matt said, and kissed his forehead like you might do to a child for barely a second. Dom went speechless again, staring at Matt. Once again Dom’s hope left as quickly as it had come, when he saw how much Matt was laughing and realised how obvious it was that he had been messing. “Why would he do that?” Dom thought, angry with Matt for the first time in ages, angry at the thought of a kiss that would never happen again.

But after Matt turned off the torch that had been on in the tent, Dom knew that he would stop being angry and end up thinking about him again. There was nothing else he could think about at night and nothing else that would make him wish he wouldn’t wake up. After nearly an hour of being awake, he turned so that he would face the sleeping Matt. I only dream of you.

***********

Dom was still a bit angry when he woke up, and he hoped that even if Matt noticed that he wouldn’t know why. They had breakfast without much talking, and in fact Matt seemed a bit worried; he asked once or twice if Dom was alright. By coincidence, they were put into separate groups for the day’s activities, and for Dom that day passed in a quick but uneventful way.

He enjoyed trying to surf, and enjoyed the sandcastle competition (although he did wonder why the teachers had come up with that idea in the first place) but he felt like a homesick toddler, one step away from screaming “I want to go home, I want my mummy!” at everyone, at all his classmates who were talking to him, at whoever it was that had decided that he should come on the trip, and maybe a bit at Matt Bellamy, although he knew that screaming at him would be useless and would make him feel worse.

He was grateful when it came time for the campfire, just as it was getting dark, and the sight of the bright flames made him feel a little bit better. He sat down on the sand, across from Matt who was sitting with his guitar looking… the two words that occurred to Dom were “perfect”- which he wanted to throw into the fire along with all the other useless words in his head- and “lonely”. He felt as if he was making that up, just trying to imagine that Matt felt the same as him, but it might have been true; Matt had other friends, but that didn’t have to mean he wouldn’t miss Dom.

They played and sang until it was pitch dark except for the fire. The songs were everything from normal campfire songs, to the kind that teachers had to interrupt, to pop songs and songs that everyone in the group was just making up as they went along. When Dom wasn’t drumming, he was thinking. The words in his head were mostly useless, but not all of them. He had never tried writing songs much, but he supposed that maybe it would help him; the way people said that it helps to express things. After the campfire was over, Matt went to talk to some of his other friends and Dom took the chance to go back to the tent and write down everything he could think of. When Matt came in, Dom smiled at him and he smiled back. He put the page in front of him so Matt could look at it.

“You know you write songs sometimes? Well I thought of some ideas of lines you could use in a song or something… they’re a bit odd, it kind of sounded better in my head.” Dom sighed, realising that that had sounded much better in his head as well. But Matt nodded, and looked at the sheet of paper as if he was actually interested. Dom wondered what kind of a song Matt might write around the few lines that Dom had thought of, or how much he’d change them. He hoped Matt wouldn’t pay so much attention to them as to notice what they meant; “a kiss that can’t renew”, “there’s nowhere left to hide”, that line about “the truth”. He nearly flinched when Matt looked up and asked what it was about. “It’s about… wanting to be forgiven for something, I guess.” He hadn’t mentioned that in the lines he wrote, but Matt didn’t seem to notice.

“I suppose words can mean anything you want them to,” Matt said, and folded up the paper to put in his bag. He smiled at Dom again. There was no goodnight kiss that night, but again Dom spent most of the night watching Matt sleep. He knew that Matt didn’t know what the song was about, or what Dom’s dreams were, or even who Dom was. He was never really going to know that.

And you never knew.