AU: The Sun Comes Up and Crowns the Mountain King

[Joshua Bernstein]

Colorado was a beautiful state, full of wildlife and national parks, majestic rivers and towering mountains.

Josh wanted to tour the state so famously sung about by Merle Haggard, but touring meant leaving the hotel room, and he was loathe to do so. The hotel room in and of itself wasn't particularly special; it was clean and pleasant and furnished in typical hotel neutral. There was a Bible in the bed stand, which of course neither of them would read, and a phone directory, and a binder with information on local food and places of interest to tourists.

But the hotel room was safety.


They'd had to spend so much time hiding their relationship, first at Hammel unsuccessfully, and then later the letters between themselves. They would continue to hide at college, until they had graduated and no longer relied upon their parents for financial security.

They would have to hide once they stepped foot beyond these walls.

But for now, here, there was no hiding. Josh had been ecstatic to see Sean again in the flesh, to hear his voice and to touch him and he wasn't ready to let go just yet.

He was, however, ready to discuss letting go.

In theory.

"What should we do now that we're here? We could go to The Garden of the Gods."

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean Neville felt utterly at peace.

Over the past few months, the telepath had only experienced brief moments of happiness, and even those were few and far between. The day that he received the first letter from Josh after his boyfriend had been forcibly moved to California. The day that he and Josh had solidified which college they would go to without telling their parents about their reasons for the choice, and the day that he received confirmation that his enrollment deposit had cleared.

Graduation from Hammel, because it meant that he would be closer to Josh, and because he was proud of himself for the accomplishment. When the telepath had first been taken to Hammel, he had not conceived of graduation, and then he had received a diploma and was allowed to leave.

All of those moments paled in comparison to how he felt right now. Reunited with Josh after all of those painful months of separation. Holding his boyfriend in his arms, lying in bed beside the other boy, he felt better than he had ever felt before. Except for the first time that they had made love.

Colorado was not where he expected to find such happiness, but here they were free. Free to love each other and to be themselves.

As long as they did not leave this hotel room.

Sean’s arms were wrapped around the shorter boy’s shoulders, and he idly stroke Josh’s arm with one hand. “We can go if you want. We can do anything you want to do.”

He was so happy right now.

[Joshua Bernstein]

Josh laughed at Sean's reply. It wasn't unexpected; the telepath was always so accommodating. Josh didn't think that his boyfriend could be anything but. Still, he had wanted to ask, just in case the other boy had any concrete preference.

"We don't have to go anywhere yet." He offered, nuzzling against Sean contentedly. He would, all things considered, prefer staying here with Sean. He would eventually have to do something that involved sight seeing, because his parents would ask what he had done while there, but they didn't have to bother with that yet.

"Danny and Cobalt aren't expecting us."

Although he liked Danny's company, he was aware that Cobalt disliked his boyfriend (not that he could understand why) and anyway, the two other young men probably wanted to relax in one another's company as well.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

“No,” Sean confirmed with a chuckle and a shake of his head. Danny and Cobalt most certainly were not expecting them. The telepath had only managed to exchange brief nods and words of greeting with Danny, before he had disappeared into his hotel room with Josh. Cobalt, on the other hand, never wanted to see him again, and he knew that the younger boy already dreaded the trip back to the East Coast.

All of that was forgotten when the four boys had met up at the agreed upon meeting place.

Sean was sure that, right now, Cobalt had more important thoughts than the road trip back to the Eastern Time zone.

The telepath tightened his arms around his boyfriend, drawing the smaller boy closer into his solider build. “At least for today, I think we should get some takeout and snacks. But later.”

At the moment, he was content to stay with Josh in this bed, in this hotel room, with the blinds drawn shut so that nobody else could intrude upon their sanctuary.

“My parents are actually excited about NYU now that I am actually enrolled. My father bought a sweatshirt to wear when he is lounging.” That was a big step for the somewhat formal Doctor Neville.

[Joshua Bernstein]

Josh smiled into Sean's shoulder.

"That would be nice."

He and Danny had only stocked so much food for their trip, and of course it had all been long gone by the time they met up with Cobalt and Sean. He had no snacks, no sandwich meats, and only a half-empty bottle of water casually tossed onto the table by the door. They would need sustenance, and it shouldn't take very long at all to purchase some snacks or order some takeout so that they could remain in secluded freedom.

The thought of Dr. Neville wearing a sweatshirt, of all things, elicited a small laugh. "I can't imagine that. Did you take any pictures as evidence? Or maybe for blackmail."

Not that he endorsed blackmail.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean had done a somewhat better job with packing food, in that he still had some leftovers, although not very much. He and Cobalt had eaten a lot of food on the road, from small restaurants and fast food places, and then bottles of drinks to keep them hydrated. Those were still in the van, as the telepath hadn’t cared much about bringing all of their supplies into the hotel room.

Getting himself and Josh into the hotel room and locking the door had been a larger priority.

“We can get pizza or burgers.” The telepath didn’t know how many other restaurants were around, nor could he vouch for the quality of the food there. Pizza and burgers were rather neutral, and so he assumed that they could find one or the other when they finally emerged into the outside world.

At the question, he shook his head, a smile on his lips. “No, I didn’t. He wears sweatshirts sometimes.” Not often, but those were his loungewear in the winter, and his previous sweatshirt had been from his own alma mater. Anything more casual than that deserved blackmail photos.

Someday, perhaps. Blackmail was a touchy subject in the Neville household.

As was Josh.

This was why the telepath revealed in the fact that his parents had paid for this hotel room and this trip.

[Joshua Bernstein]

Pizza or burgers would satisfy Josh. He wasn't a big soda drinker, but some places served lemonade, or unsweetened iced tea. If coffee were typically included as a beverage choice with meal combinations he would prefer that, but sadly it wasn't.

"My parents are excited about NYU, too. I know they're happy that I'm going to be close, so they can see me a lot."

The smile faded from his lips at that. He'd spent months arguing with his mother, which had been uncomfortable for both of them. He'd always been her favorite, and he'd never had this level of conflict with her before. Now he was concerned that she might see Sean on campus.

Or just continue nagging him about girlfriends.

"I hope they don't visit as often as they're threatening."

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean heard his boyfriend’s thoughts, and he was sure that they would find somewhere that served coffee. Even if they had to stop at a different place in order to procure the coffee, he was sure that they would find somewhere that would serve them the caffeinated brew.

The telepath drank coffee occasionally, although he preferred tea, at this stage in life. He had enough difficulty with sleep as it was that he didn’t need the frequent caffeine to worsen that. Even if the caffeine also ameliorated his headaches a bit.

Visits from parents were a hazard of going to school closer to where they lived. Still, he thought that visits from parents were a worthwhile price to pay for the ability to attend college with Josh, and for them to have the freedom of New York City surrounding them.

“I hope they don’t as well,” the telepath agreed. For his boyfriend’s sake, he didn’t want the other boy to deal with the stress of frequent visits. For his own sake, he didn’t want their time together disrupted more than it already would be, between classes and other obligations. He and Josh would not have many classes that overlapped, given that they had vastly different career goals.

[Joshua Bernstein]

"To you think your parents will visit much?" Josh asked, tilting his head to look up at Sean since he was lying on his back. "Or your sister. Oh! Tell me about her boyfriend. You said your parents likes him, I want to know what he's like."

Even if Sean's family disapproved of him, he still wished to know everything about them, because they were Sean's[/] family. They were important to his boyfriend despite the difficulties they'd forced the young men into. Josh thought that his parents had, ultimately, been worse about it, since they'd forced him to change schools and then talked the school administration into preventing contact. His frustration was increased by the fact that Sean's family was far more conservative in every other way, and his parents had still managed to react more poorly.

But he didn't know what the nevilles would have done had Josh's parents not sent him away, and had Hammel attendance not been a government requirement for Sean.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean grew silent, thoughtful, for a moment but then shook his head. “No, I don’t think they will. They’ll help me move in freshman year, and they’ll visit a bit to check up on me, but they won’t want to spend any prolonged time on campus.” Liberal college students in the midst of ongoing cultural revolutions were not his parents’ preferred social group.

“Since I live close, they’ll just expect me to visit on holidays and some weekends and special occasions.” Even without his telepathy, Sean knew how his parents thought. The telepathy allowed him to rarely be wrong when it came to those he knew the best.

He rolled his eyes in response to his boyfriend’s question. Not that he judged Josh for his curiosity, but the telepath didn’t like Kathleen’s new boyfriend very much, for most of the reasons that his parents approved of him. “He’s too conventional for her. He goes to the brother school for her high school, and so he’s Catholic. He’s popular with the student body, and I’m sure he’ll go far in business.” That was not a compliment.

Sean then sighed and shook his head to himself. “She’s smarter than he is. I don’t think he realizes that, but he stuck me as the type of guy who isn’t secure enough to handle it.”

He then overheard the other boy’s thought, and he said, “They would have sent me to religious school, if they had the choice.” Fortunately, his parents had not had the choice, although he regretted that Josh’s parents had moved him to the other side of the country.

[Joshua Bernstein]

"That's not too bad." Josh decided. He wouldn't mind visiting on the holidays and special occasions, or even some weekends. However, he really wanted as much time as possible to himself and Sean. He knew that would already be difficult to acquire, unless they somehow found particularly tolerant friends to spend time with. Maybe they would, though.

He frowned at Sean's description of his sister's boyfriend. He felt bad for her, that her boyfriend would mind that she was smarter than he was. He didn't mind that Sean was smarter than him; in fact, he was proud of the telepath for his intelligence, even though it wasn't as if Sean chose it. "I hope she finds someone smart enough for her, then," he told Sean, immediately followed by an Oh because he wouldn't have been happy had his boyfriend been sent to a religious school.

"But then I would never have met you!"

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean agreed that it was not too bad. He preferred having to go home to visit his parents, as opposed to having them come to NYU. He would rather hide in his childhood home than force himself to hide in what was his own space, what was supposed to be the space that he and Josh were building for themselves. The telepath had spent the past few months focused on college as an oasis, and the thought of having to compromise himself there threw a wrench into his fantasy.

Sean nodded, his expression more serious than it had been a moment ago. He hoped that Kathleen found a boyfriend better befitting her, someone secure enough to cope with an intelligent girl (since she was still a teenager). She did not need the added baggage of a boyfriend too insecure to date a girl with her own thoughts and opinions, particularly not when she was taught by their faith that her place in the world was different entirely because of her gender.

The telepath had opinions there, many of which would get him in trouble in the more conservative environments of his childhood.

“I know. So I’m glad that I’m meta-human and had to go to Hammel.” In fact, Sean was thrilled about that, not only because he had finally grown to accept his powers, but because he had met Josh. Nothing could take that away from him now. “I went to Catholic school before I went to Hammel, so they would have wanted to keep me there, if they could.”

[Joshua Bernstein]

"And I'm glad that Hammel allows baseline humans to attend." He declared, wrapping his arms around his boyfriend with a grin. Although his parents had later forced a transfer on him, he at least had the opportunity to attend Hammel long enough to meet Sean. He remembered when the telepath had first come to his attention, a bit of a loner and outcast but so obviously kind and intelligent and wonderful.

He'd known immediately that he was interested in befriending the other boy, if not more.

He supposed it was possible that, at another school, he could have met another boy, but he couldn't imagine himself with anyone other than Sean and didn't want to.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

“So am I,” Sean agreed, returning the embrace by wrapping both of his arms around the shorter boy’s body. Despite the pain of this past semester, the telepath was grateful to Hammel for providing him and Josh with the occasion to meet.

While his boyfriend was not his only friend at Hammel, Sean had been far more introverted, and far less well-liked, than Josh was. As such, the other boy had comprised a key segment of his social circle, prior to when they had begun dating. When they had begun dating...it had been one of the happiest days of Sean’s (admittedly young) life.

Despite the pain of this past semester, he and Josh were together again. The body beside his was solid and real, and nothing could take Josh from him. In mere months, they would find themselves at NYU together, and nothing could stop them then.

The telepath turned to nuzzle his boyfriend’s neck. “Do you want to hear about how my final exam with Robert went? I didn’t get to go into too much detail in my letter.”

Sean was proud to have graduated from Hammel, having earned his high school diploma. He had graduated with honors, which came as little surprise to those around him. However, passing his final training exam was the achievement of which he was most proud.

[Joshua Bernstein]

A smile spread across Josh's face at the snuggling. This was so nice, so domestic.

It was what he envisioned the rest of his life to be like, relaxing with Sean during his free time. Granted, they still had college courses to take, and then they would both have career paths to separate them. But in the time between he hoped they would spend it like this.

The mention of his final exam piqued Josh's interest. He knew that Sean had once worried about his ability to control his telepathy and memory control, but he'd always had the same steady faith in the other boy that Robert had. Perhaps somewhat less than Robert, since he didn't really know how Sean's ability worked. Still, he knew this was an important accomplishment for his boyfriend and so he brought his fingers up to caress Sean's hair in encouragement.

"Tell me all about it."