TIME WARP:Sweet Dreams and Flying Machines [Danny]

[Danny Silverman]

“I knew you wouldn’t!” Danny said happily, because he had known very well that Cobalt was thinking that. But it wasn’t like models were hard. You stuck pieces together with glue and waited for them to dry, and then you repeated the process until you finally got a plane that you could play and have fun with. He was glad to see that Cobalt was so excited about this as well. Maybe they could build models together more! He’d like that. “I dunno yet,” he added to his other question, brows furrowing as he leaned in to inspect the plane parts. “Lessee.” He picked up the instructions and examined them, leaning over so Cobalt could see them too. “Looks like we gotta finish the body first. That’s the part that looks like a banana.” He felt he had to add that so Cobalt understood. Besides, it did look like one. It just wasn’t yellow. He peered over the instructions doubtfully. “But I don’t know where it went.”

If Danny thought that what Cobalt said was a lie, there was no indication. He just nodded, eyes wide behind his glasses, in complete agreement. “Right!” he said. “And why’d they want to write books for grownups anyways? Grownups were kids once too.” But that was about as outgoing with his opinions as Danny got, and so he withdrew a little and added, a bit sheepishly, “But I guess there are more of them, and they do got all the money, Maybe you gotta have books for grownups or they don’t sell.” That kind of made sense, right? “But at least there’s some,” he added. “Like the Hardy Boys! It’s cool that you read harder stuff, though. Wish I could do that.”

Danny brightened. “Yeah! An…an…when we got kids and stuff, they could grow up together! And you can tell ‘em all the stories about being a police officer, an’ I could tell them about space ‘n stuff.” He smiled admiringly at him. “Cobalt, you’ve always got the best ideas.”

[Cobalt Weaver]

“Thanks.” Cobalt said quietly, grinning proudly. Danny always believed the best in him, which was a little confusing at times. Most of the time. But it was encouraging, and it made Danny that much better of a person in his eyes. But then, Cobalt was pretty sure that Danny was the best person in the world. He leaned over, his chin almost touching Danny’s shoulder to see the instructions, “The part that looks like the banana… okay.” He turned around, looking for the piece in question. “Uuuhhh…” He searched around for the piece, carefully sidestepping the pile of half-finished plane to poke his head under the bed, “Where is it—Oh! Here it is.” He reached over by the desk and grabbed the piece in question, “So now what? Put the wing on the body?”


“I know.” Cobalt said grumpily, “People just think kids are dumb.” He made a cranky face at that, which softened when Danny mentioned the Hardy Boys again, and Cobalt’s book choices, “I dunno. It’s not that much harder.” At least, Cobalt didn’t think so. “I just don’t see the big deal in all the important books. You know, the books that people think are better than all the other ones? They’re not that great.” Thus spoke the ten-year-old on classic literature.

Cobalt blushed a little, “It was your idea. Anyways, I think that sounds like the best idea ever. Our kids could be best friends just like we are.”

[Danny Silverman]

Of course Danny believed the best of Cobalt. He liked the other boy and thought he was so smart and so cool and so…tough. And to a boy who definitely wasn’t tough by any means, that was very appealing. Having him so close was nice too, and he almost tried to lean over to just get them that extra few inches closer so they were actually touching, but he resisted, ‘cause he was pretty sure that wouldn’t make Cobalt happy and he didn’t want to make the other boy uncomfortable.

“That’s it!” he said cheerfully climbing to his feet and leaning over—purely accidentally, he swore—to make sure it was the right part, and this time brushing his arm against Cobalt’s. It almost made him blush, but he forced himself to resist and instead leaned away again, staring down at it curiously. “Yeah! All you have to do is just put it together like you did the parts of the wing. And you’ve already done the hardest part! ‘Cause this is bigger, so it’s not that hard now! See, you can do this.”

“But kids aren’t dumb!” Danny protested, settling back down on the ground and staring up at Cobalt. He wrapped his arms around his knees. “You’re not dumb. They shouldn’t think that at all. But yeah! The important books are weird. But maybe…maybe we’ll get ‘em when we’re older?” He looked hopeful at this. “Maybe they’re only important to adults? It’s stupid, but adults can be…” He hesitated. He didn’t want to say that adults were stupid, too. Some of them had to be smart, right? Otherwise, they wouldn’t be in space. “Weird,” he decided. “Yeah. Weird.”

“Yeah!” Danny did like this idea, and he smiled at his friend. “’Course they would be! And they could play together and stuff.” He pushed up his glasses, then thought for a moment. “What do you think it’ll be like?” he asked. “When we’re older?”

[Cobalt Weaver]

Cobalt did blush when Danny’s arm brushed against his. He just didn’t understand why. Instead, he focused on what Danny was telling him. “Ohh… okay.” He gingerly took up another part of the plane and set about planning where to put it. He had to plan things out carefully before putting glue on, after all. Because once it was glued, it was stuck forever.

“I know!” Cobalt said with all the moral indignation and outrage a ten year old could muster, “But people think we are.” He sighed, “Maybe. But I wanna know what they mean now. And I don’ wanna ask for help. Because people’ll laugh at me.” He scowled, “Or tell me to wait til I’m older.” That was the worst.

Cobalt smiled back happily, “That would be great.” Danny’s question gave him pause. “Hmmm… I dunno! Maybe we’ll have flying cars. And jetpacks! I wanna jetpack.” He put his head in his hands and his elbows on his knees, “That would be awesome. What do you think?” Danny always had the best ideas. He was the creative one.

[Danny Silverman]

Danny shook his head and couldn’t help smiling a little as Cobalt looked so seriously down at the plane (he didn’t notice the blush, as he hadn’t really been looking for it. Why would he be?) Cobalt always took things so seriously, and he was being so careful. Well, he guessed he’d been the same way when he’d first started working with models. “You don’t have to plan it,” he offered after a moment. “It’s got a slot there, see?” He pointed it out. “You just slide it in there. It’s not that hard. Models are supposed to go together! Especially this one. It’s for kids, see, so they make it pretty easy. I haven’t gotten to the ones yet where they don’t fit together.” It made him nervous, but he was determined to do it anyways. He liked models, so he should get to that point, right? It made sense.

“Nobody would laugh at you, Cobalt,” he said earnestly, pushing up his round glasses as they slid down again. “And the nuns say we’re supposed to ask questions. Or…some of them do.” Others really preferred you didn’t. It was kind of sad. “But yeah.” Now he looked disappointed. “Why do they tell us to wait ‘til we’re older? I want to know now.[i/] Why can’t we? It’s not fair.” Danny always wanted to know things that no one would explain. It wasn’t fair.

That wasn’t really what Danny had meant, but he liked envisioning the new future anyways. “Yeah! I wanna jetpack too. Although…that’d be kind of scary at first.” His eyes were wide behind the thick lenses. “You’d need big helmets. I wouldn’t wanna fall. An’ I think…” He pressed his lips together. “I think we’ll find aliens on Mars! Like on television! And we’ll have ‘em for neighbors. But I wanted…I meant…” he trailed off, and now he was blushing. “What do you think we’ll be like, Cobalt? When we're...grown-up?"

[Cobalt Weaver]

“Oh!” Cobalt gave Danny a little, sheepish grin as the other boy explained that there were slots to put in so he didn’t have to worry about it so much, “I didn’t see that.” With much more confidence, Cobalt lined one end with glue and pressed it together. He sat back to look at the half-finished model that was starting to look more and more like a plane with every passing moment. He beamed at Danny. “This is fun!”

Cobalt laughed a little, “People laugh at me alla time, Danny. But it’s okay ‘cause I don’t care about them.” Cobalt would only really care if Danny ever laughed at him, and Danny would never do that. Not to be mean, anyways. They laughed at each other for fun all the time. “Maybe there’s nothing to know,” Cobalt said, with the vague sense of revelation, “But they don’t want us to know that, ‘cause then—then they aren’t as smart.” That… made no sense, but he was only ten years old. There was only so much he could handle articulately.

“Oh. Umm…” He let the word draw out, “Well. I bet we’ll both get adopted. And then we’ll visit each other all the time. Maybe I’ll get tall.” He looked enthused by that idea, “And you’ll be a famous astronaut. And we’ll have lots of brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and stuff. And—and then we'll get married and keep all our kids. And they’ll be friends too.”

[Danny Silverman]

“That’s all right! It takes practice to get used to building models.” Danny was very earnest about this, offering the other boy a bright smile as he pushed up his glasses so he could get a better look down at the model. He wasn’t worried about how it would look. He knew Cobalt was really careful and was trying really hard to keep it neat, so he knew that there was no way it would possibly be really messy. Besides, he didn’t mind. All models were good in his eyes. They didn’t have to be perfect, ‘cause he was the only one who really had to be worried about it. “See?” He beamed right back at Cobalt’s words. “Now maybe you can build models with me! I’d like that.”

Danny didn’t seem to like the idea of people laughing at Cobalt, but he nodded anyways even though his mood seemed to be slightly dampened by the fact that someone wouldn’t like Cobalt. HE laughed at his friend, but only in the way that friends do when they’re messing with each other. “If you’re sure…” he said doubtfully, but looked mildly cheered at Cobalt’s words. He didn’t…really get it, but he was trying, and that counted, right? “Oh! So…they don’t tell us ‘cause they don’t…want kids to get it, right? Do you think, if we knew, kids could rule the world? That’d be cool! An’ we could do things an’ stuff that we can’t do now. And make all books easy to read for kids.” He nodded firmly. “I like that.”

He grinned and nodded fervently at Cobalt’s ideas. “I’m sure you’ll get tall,” he said loyally, mostly because he was worried about the same thing. “You come up with the best stuff,” he said. “It sounds…happy. Really happy. I like that.” He settled down on the carpet and wrapped his arms around his knees. “You think we’ll get adopted? Really?” It worried him sometimes.

[Cobalt Weaver]

Cobalt grinned back, pushing up his glasses again. They were still crooked from his regular tussle with Mike and were slipping down his face. “That would be awesome,” Cobalt offered shyly, “You wouldn’t mind? I’d have to ask a lot of questions. An-and I wouldn’t be as good as you. But…” The ten year old fiddled with the model part he had clutched in his little hand, “…I’d still like to do that.” He eyed Danny cautiously, wondering when the other boy was simply going to get tired of him and leave. Cobalt certainly wouldn’t like that, but he figured it was only fair to let Danny know of his shortcomings, so the other boy would know how much trouble Cobalt was probably going to be.

“Ummm…yes. I think so.” Cobalt rubbed the top of his head, a little confused by his own words. But, like any young child, he brightened at the idea of his peers ruling the world, “That would be great. Then everything would make much more sense.” That was the problem with the adult world, Cobalt decided: everything was so complicated.

“I hope I’ll get tall.” Cobalt muttered, glancing at his friend, “You’ll prob’ly get tall too. I guess when you’re a teenager you get a big growth spurt.” It seemed like such a long time away. “An’ then we’ll both be tall.”

The little boy watched his friend curl up where he was sitting and frowned. Slowly, Cobalt scooted next to him and gingerly put an arm around Danny’s shoulders. This was what friends did, right? He saw it in a movie once, so it must be okay. He just wanted Danny to feel better. “Sure we’ll get adopted. We’ll both get adopted to some really nice families. Maybe—maybe they’ll even be neighbors and we’ll get to live next door to each other.” That was Cobalt’s worst fear in the whole world: that he would go somewhere and never see Danny again. The young boy bit his lip nervously, the very thought making him anxious; Danny was his best friend in the whole world. Danny kept him whole. He didn’t know what he would do without him.

“P-promise that if we don’t get to live next to each other, that we’ll still talk?” Cobalt asked, his voice small as he leaned against his friend, “I-I don’t wanna not talk if we get adopted and live far a-away.”

[Danny Silverman]

“I wouldn’t mind at all!” Danny said, eyes still wide behind his glasses. “Why would I? It’d be fun, and then we could do more models!” The idea was heartening. “Besides,” he added. “Don’t the nuns say that all questions are good ones? And I don’ mind answering. I’m sure you’d be able to build models better than me soon!” Cobalt was so smart. Why wouldn’t that be the case? And it didn’t really bother him that Cobalt would probably be better at it than him. Because Cobalt was still his friend and they’d be doing stuff they enjoyed together. It would be great!

“Wouldn’t it?” he brightened a little more when Cobalt agreed with his idea. Good! So he wasn’t completely crazy! That was nice. “Things make sense, though!” he felt moved to protest. “Well…kind of now. And we might kind of need adults, maybe?” He now looked worried by this idea. “Like, getting stuff out of the big cabinets. Or making big buildings! How would kids do that?”

Danny wasn’t altogether sure that he was going to be tall. He wasn’t as small as Cobalt was, but he was still a little smaller than the other boys, and all of them seemed to have had their growth spurts already. He had reached the glum conclusion that it probably wasn’t going to come, but that was okay. There were good things to being small!

When Cobalt put his arm around his shoulder, he leaned into the hold and looked up at the other boy, smiling shyly. He knew Cobalt didn’t touch people often, and so was grateful that he was making the effort. “I’d like that,” he said. “Maybe they’ll…maybe whoever gets adopted first can tell the neighbors about the one of us who’s left. I like that.” He smiled at him. “And then we could play and go to school together an’ stuff. It’d be fun.”

But now Cobalt was looking uncertain, and it was Danny’s turn to hesitantly slide his arm around Cobalt’s waist. “I p-promise,” he offered quietly. “I’ll never, ever, ever stop writing to you, I swear. But you’d better not either! Maybe we could even have long calls and stuff! I’d like that. I’d miss you.”

[Cobalt Weaver]

Cobalt gave him a smile. “Thanks. I think it’d be fun too.” Anything was fun with Danny, and doing something Danny liked was extra fun. “I guess,” Cobalt shrugged, “Sometimes my questions annoy them.” They tried to hide it (except for a few), but Cobalt could tell, “Maybe I ask too many questions.” The prospect didn’t bother him too much, since there were always worse things that could happen. He grinned, ducking his head embarrassedly at Danny’s confidence in his abilities. “Nuh uh,” Cobalt disagreed sheepishly, “You like it better. So you’ll do it better.” That was something Cobalt had always noticed: the more people liked something, the better they were at it.

“That’s true…” Cobalt agreed reluctantly, unable to fault Danny’s wisdom, “I don’t know who knows how to make big buildings.” And Cobalt liked big buildings. He thought they were cool.

The ten year old didn’t quite feel comfortable here, worried that he was doing something wrong or overstepping some boundary here, but Danny was leaning against him and Cobalt didn’t really know what he was feeling, but he was…reasonably sure he liked it. “That would be best.” Cobalt nodded, trying to keep his anxiety down by thinking about all the nice things that would happen if he and Danny could stay together forever. It could happen. It had to happen; Cobalt didn’t know what he would be without Danny. “An’ our families would have Thanksgiving and Christmases together, since we were family first.” These hypothetical parents would undoubtedly understand that Cobalt and Danny were inseparable. Maybe they would even encourage it. Cobalt swallowed hard.

When Danny put an arm around him, Cobalt jumped, but did not move away. He looked at Danny, eyes wide and terrifyingly vulnerable, “Then I promise I’ll never forget you neither. We can’t ever stop being friends. I’d—I’d miss you too.” Which was an almost hilarious understatement. Cobalt didn’t really understand why, but he knew that Danny was a part of his heart, somehow. He didn’t see how he’d survive without it.

[Danny Silverman]

“Good!” Danny wouldn’t have known what to do if Cobalt didn’t like the idea of making models with him. He’d understand, yeah, but…it’d be really really sad. He didn’t get why Cobalt wasn’t bothered by the idea of annoying the nuns, though. Had it been Danny, he would have been terrified. But perhaps that was the reason he didn’t usually ask a lot of questions in class. “I don’t think that’s true,” he said loyally. “But I dunno. You’re really good at everything. I think you’d be really, really good at model making!”

Who did know how to make big buildings? That was something he hadn’t ever thought of before. He sank down onto his heels thoughtfully. “Do adults know how to make buildings?” he asked. “I mean…all adults? Do they carry it around in their heads all the time, like it’s stuck in there like in the sci-fi movies? That’d be weird/ I don’t want to go through that.” How else did adults learn all that they did? Danny didn’t think it would fit in his head.

It wouldn’t have surprised Danny to know that Cobalt was uncomfortable. Made him a little sad, but not surprised. He knew that Cobalt wasn’t much for holding hands and touching and stuff, or even just simple things like hugging. The fact that he wasn’t moving away made him pretty happy. ‘Cause it was Cobalt, and that meant he was trying for Danny’s sake, and that was kind of awesome. “Yeah!” he agreed happily. “Or maybe even…” His brow furrowed. “Cha-nu-kah? One of the nuns said that I looked Jewish, and that’s what they celebrated instead of Christmas. I dunno what it is, though. I just know they do stuff with eight candles.”

When Cobalt looked up at him that way, Danny’s arm reflexively tightened around the other boy, trying to offer comfort in the only way he knew. Then he eased up, ‘cause he didn’t want to scare Cobalt away. “Nuh uh,” he agreed, fiercely as Danny could. “We’ll never stop being friends. Ever. I’d miss you too much. Even if we move away, we’ll find each other again, and we’ll live close by, and we’ll be friends forever. Cross my heart.” He added that to lighten the mood. He was way too old to do that kind of stuff anymore.