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[b][u][center]Darren’s Days Off

Part 6

For Taiko

By Draconicon[/center][/u][/b]

Darren woke the next morning remembering that he’d had sex. For the first time in a while, he was both conscious of the decision of having it and the actual event, and having the memory to go with the residual sensation was…strange, to put it mildly. If it had been anyone but Kasey, he wasn’t sure if he would have preferred to keep the memory or not.

He sat at the edge of his bed, watching Kasey leave the house. The T-Rex walked down the sidewalk, throwing a wave over his shoulder at the window, and Darren resisted the urge to wave back at them. The early departure was for a work-shift, he seemed to remember, though he wondered if that was a real memory.

No, it had to be. Everything else was real at the moment; that probably was, too, considering…

Darren groaned, leaning into his hand as he thought back to the last couple of days and the number of blank spaces that were left behind. He could just about remember going to the doctor’s office, though he knew that there was a blank space while at the office that he hadn’t quite filled in yet. More to the point, he knew that he couldn’t; being aware that he didn’t remember what had happened there meant that he’d not fill it in later. The same thing was present for the night before, when he had heard the band playing and seen…something…

And then there was that time with Hart, where he lost multiple hours…

And times with his boss…

[i]Well…that’s probably easier to fill in…[/i]

Smiling ruefully at the thought of the snow leopard, Darren reached up to his chest, stroking the mark that was still there. They had done enough things that he could guess some of the forgotten events. Perhaps there had been times where the boss had been more than a little embarrassed of what they did, and didn’t want Darren to remember that. Or maybe it had been something where he, himself, had gotten uncomfortable with it, and the boss had gotten rid of the memory so that he didn’t have to think about it.

Whatever the reasons, he knew that they would have been practical, not selfish. The boss was very much of that mindset.

As he pulled himself out of bed, grabbing a pair of underwear and shorts, someone knocked on the door. Darren hurriedly grabbed a shirt instead, pulling it over his head. He’d just about managed to cover the footprint when –

“Darren, you – oh, come on. Boy, you’re only here for a few days; at least wear some briefs to bed or something.”

“Sorry, dad.”

“Eh, it’s fine. Just…Put something on.”

His father turned his head to the side, keeping his eyes anywhere else but on Darren’s package. Embarrassing as it was to be seen that way, it was better than the alternative. He still doubted that his father would be all that keen to see something that was so close to a brand on his chest. It would be…very hard to explain.

“Something the matter?” he asked as he slid into his shorts, commando style. They were barely long enough to hold his dick inside, but it was better than nothing. And better than taking his time to get dressed. “I thought you had a project this morning.”

“I did, but, well, you aren’t here for long. And I thought we’d all get a day out.”

“…Where?”

“The lake, of course.”

[i]…Of course.[/i]

It was one thing that they’d always done in the past. Mom wasn’t around for it to be the full family, and probably wouldn’t be until he was gone, but that didn’t mean that the three of them wouldn’t be able to keep the tradition going. A visit down to Opal Lake, a little row around the whole of it, getting in some exercise and some sun…and some swimming…

Which would lead to the very thing that he was trying to avoid. He opened his mouth –

“Anyway. Gotta get Riche out of the gym.”

“Out of the gym? How long has he been up?”

“Eh, two hours.”

“…How long have [i]you[/i] been up?”

“Heh, you think your old man sleeps?”

“…You’re going to give yourself a heart attack one of these days, dad.”

“Maybe, maybe not. But until then, I’m not wasting any more time than I have to with sleep.” His father chuckled. “Anyway, get dressed. I’ll see you in the garage in, what, two minutes?”

“I need a little more time than that.”

“Five, then. Oh, and open all the windows on the way out.”

“I’ll need ten, then.”

“Fine, fine, ten.”

His father left, leaving Darren shaking his head. It would be his father’s way to pick the one thing that would make things awkward. He didn’t know how his dad always managed to find that one thing that made things uncomfortable, like last night with Kasey and all the verbal pummeling that had ensued, but the older man just had a knack for stumbling onto the worst possible thing. This was going to be…difficult, at best.

Hearing his dad calling Riche out of the home gym, he shook his head and finished getting dressed. A pair of sandals, a better shirt that wasn’t so tight to his chest, a pair of shorts that [i]were[/i] long enough to actually cover his shaft – morning wood was a pain today – and he felt more or less good.

At least the house would have a chance to air out. Kasey and his father liked the cigars, but he could not stand the things.

#

The lake was empty when they got there, a rare thing at this time of year, and usually one that he would have welcomed. None of the new speed boats that made swimming dangerous, none of the rich teens coming around and using jet skis that tore the surface of the lake up while others were trying to have a relaxing time, none of the neighbors that could come down and ask for some last-minute bit of help that his father would always agree to: it would have been perfect on a normal day.

This wasn’t a normal day. Darren was too busy thinking about what had happened to him in the last few days, as well as the strange, disjointed feeling that it had left him with. It was one thing to make himself okay with the mental manipulation that happened on a daily basis. That was easy enough, considering that he at least somewhat enjoyed the sort of things that his boss made him do, and the things that others got him into.

It was harder when he was left with this somewhat helpless feeling of knowing that there were blank spaces but being unable to do anything about them. The only way that he’d figure out what they were would be to find the people that had put him into those trances and ask them to explain them to him.

He had no doubt that his employer would be willing to go into most of those events. For that matter, he was sure that Kai Lee would be more than willing to show him video recordings of those that he was responsible for. The snow leopard might even have a list of who else had done it. The man was…insanely well-organized even before Darren had shown up, and the pair of them had only made things more so.

And considering the kidnapping event a while back, Darren would not be surprised if his boss had him under surveillance out here, as well. It was just the sort of thing that the snow leopard would have done.

All of that was going through his head as he followed his father and brother from the car to the dock. He moved idly, absently, more in sync with his family than anything intentional. Riche must have noticed, because his brother reached out and gave him a little shoulder squeeze.

“Hey. You okay?”

“Yes. Just…didn’t sleep well,” he said. Not a lie, really, considering everything that had happened…and how sore he was. Everywhere. “I’ll be alright.”

“Yeah, not sure I buy that.”

“What do you mean?”

“What are you carrying?”

“An oar?”

“Try again.”

Darren looked over his shoulder, and saw that he had grabbed a fishing rod on the way down to the boat rather than a proper oar. He blinked, rubbing his forehead and pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Okay…maybe I slept worse than I thought.”

“Heh, little brother. Head in the clouds.”

“Better than my butt in the gym all day long.”

“Hey, at least that gets results.” Riche took the fishing rod off him. “Why don’t you help dad get the boat out, and I’ll grab the oars. Be right back.”

And with that, his brother was off, heading back up to the shop while his father wandered down to the row boat that they had rented for the day. It wasn’t quite the size of the smaller canoes that were more often used for this, as it was closer to a small-ish barge, wide enough to maintain its position and not drift with random pushes from the wind, and there were anchors on either side of the wooden rectangle. The edges were raised just enough to keep things from rolling off while still allowing someone to climb on and off the boat, which was important considering that they normally went swimming on these trips.

[i]Swimming. Hmmph. Gonna need an excuse for that…[/i]

And what that excuse would be…he had no idea. He’d always been one of the most eager members of the family to jump in the lake during these trips, and if it wasn’t for the mark on his chest, that would still be true. But if his father saw that…

“Darren, come on!”

He blinked his way out of the stupor that he was slipping into, jogging down to the edge of the dock before hopping into the water. The dark shirt, thankfully, didn’t reveal anything as it got wet. His dad grabbed the rope that tied the boat to the dock and pulled it forward while Darren pushed it from behind, guiding it forward and out from its position at the side of the pier.

“You okay, kid?” his dad asked.

“I’m alright. Just…lost in my head, I guess.”

“Heh, well, when someone starts smoking in the house, guess that’s gonna happen. Fresh air, though. That’ll cure it.”

“Yeah…”

He shook his head. The new distance that had come up with all this…emptiness…was bothersome. The knowledge that his father would freak out if he saw the mark on his chest, particularly after all the bragging that he’d done about how successful Darren had been with his life, was worrying. The fact that he was so much not himself when he really wanted to be fully present with his family was just…painful.

In some ways, he was grateful to Kasey for pulling this little shroud of willful ignorance off his life. In other ways, he really wished that they had gone on without actually touching it.

Riche joined them just as Darren pushed the boat past the edge of the pier, and father and older brother alike leaped onto the vessel. Riche reached back, grabbing Darren’s arm, and with a pull and a jump, he joined them. Grabbing an oar, he pushed back against the pier, and the three of them started paddling it towards the center of the lake, and the island waiting there.

Not that there was any intent to get on the island, of course. That was forbidden to everyone, and despite the various bundles of money that had been thrown at the Opal City council, there were no plans for opening it to the rich anytime soon. It was all but sacred to the people of the small town, something that they had kept that way for generations. Hell, he didn’t think that his grandfather had ever set foot on it. For that matter, he hadn’t even heard the usual ghost stories of those that had defied the edicts of the town and tried it. It was just something that nobody did. Why would you want to, when it was something that was yours, something that nobody else should touch?

But it did make for a great centerpiece for rowing around. With landmarks like a single tall, bleached-white tree on one side of the island and a jutting piece of stone that seemed like a raised challenge towards the town itself on the other, it meant that you could easily tell how far around the island you were at any given point. And at least while they were rowing, Darren didn’t have to think.

“How many laps today, dad?” Riche asked as they paddled towards the island.

“Just two, I think.”

“Just two? Come on, with me and Darren both here, we can do at least five.”

“Yeah, if this was the normal boat.”

“What do you mean?”

“We got cargo.”

Darren blinked, looking towards the rear of the boat. He’d missed it when he’d been pulled in, but there was a large tarp over the back of the boat, something that seemed to be covering a loose pile of who knew what. No wonder it had felt a bit heavier when they had been rowing; they were tugging around the equivalent of several people with that bundle of crap.

Still…

“I think we can do at least three,” Darren said.

“Nah. Let’s not push ourselves.”

“Come on, dad. Four,” Riche said. “Or you afraid that you’re gonna lose to your sons?”

“Oh, you did not just say that, boy,” their father said with a chuckle.

“Come on. Four laps. Ain’t that hard.”

“Fine, boy, fine. Four. But if you drop before I do, then you’re the one cooking dinner tonight.”

“Fine by me, dad, fine by me!”

And with that, they were off. Darren was more than thankful for the competitiveness of his family at that point; the longer that they kept rowing, the less time that they would have for swimming at the end of it. More than that, if he could just tire the two of them out, they might not even want to hop off the boat for a swim at the end. They might just want to go home.

[i]…[/i]

He realized what he was doing, and he hated it. Now that he had to hide the mark, now that he had to start making excuses, he was becoming more and more distant from his family. The closeness that he and Riche had shared so far, limited as it had been, was becoming harder to maintain now that he had something to hide. What relationship he had with his father, faded as it had become during his time away from Opal City, was going to be pushed to the limits every time that he had to hide this little facet of his professional life.

[i]Damn. It. All.[/i]

Darren rowed with all the energy that his anger at himself offered, and that meant that they made better time than he had expected. One lap turned to two, and they were soon starting their third before any of them really were ready for it. Both Riche and his dad turned to look at him, the latter cocking an eyebrow.

“Hey, boy, don’t push yourself. You just went to the doc’s, didn’t you?”

“I’m fine,” Darren muttered.

“You sure about that?”

“It was for my ears, not my arms.”

“Just pace yourself, okay? Don’t want you collapsing on me.”

“Yeah, Darren. You’re an office worker now. Don’t feel like you have to prove anything to us, okay?” Riche said.

An office worker. Oh, if only they knew. If only they knew.

[i]And I can’t tell them. Not without losing…[/i]

Not without losing respect from his brother. Not without making his father feel like a fool. Not without making it look like he only had his job because he was sleeping with his boss. Even though that was less than a tenth of what he actually did for his boss, even if he worked his ass off for the snow leopard and they could go without any sort of intimacy for more than a week at a time, it wouldn’t matter. What would matter was that they would see that he had been [i]branded[/i] by the boss, and that would make them lose all respect for him forever.

What the [i]hell[/i] was he supposed to do about that?

The third lap turned to the fourth, and Riche managed to convince their father to go for a fifth. Darren managed that much, but was grateful when his father called a halt to it after that. His arms felt like noodles, and he had to admit that, much as he had been willing to push himself, the other two men in the family had been better suited for this than he was. Perhaps the office work had been making him a little softer lately.

At any rate, his father reached over, pulling the anchor from the bow of the raft and throwing it over the side. The rope slid down, down, down, eventually hitting the bottom of Opal Lake.

“Anchor down, Darren,” he called back.

Nodding, Darren idly threw it back, hearing the splash and –

He paused, looking over his shoulder. When the anchor hit the water and some of the lake splashed back, he could have sworn that he heard a groan from the tarp behind him. More to the point, he was half-surprised to see the tarp. Almost like he had forgotten it was there…but how? He had just thought of it as they were rowing to the island in the first place…

[i]What the heck?[/i]

Splash.

He turned around, seeing that Riche had just hit the water. His brother was happily swimming laps around the boat, leaving him and his father to their own devices. The older Huff patriarch groaned, leaning against the side of the raft and wiping the sweat from his brow.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” he asked. “Join your brother.”

“I’ll…skip that today, dad.”

“Skip? What are you talking about?”

“I’m just not in the mood.”

“Not in the mood to swim? You?”

His father’s raised eyebrow promised a minimum of two visits to different doctors if he pushed that particular line of excuses. Darren gritted his teeth, looking away as he tried to think of something better, something more believable, but the long days had sapped his imagination from him.

“Just…I’d like to just stay on the boat today, okay?”

“…Darren, what’s gotten into you?”

“Nothing, okay? I just don’t want to swim today.”

“That isn’t like you.”

“I’m just tired. Let me rest for a bit.”

His father obviously wasn’t buying that excuse, but he didn’t know what else he could say. The whole idea of coming out here was to get some rowing done, then some swimming. His dad was already partially stripped, pulling his shirt up even as he leaned against the side of the boat, and he knew that Riche was waiting for the two of them to join him. It was family tradition. Hell, they did this just as much as they did the boat trip every time that they were all there at the house.

Admittedly, there were times when Mom was around and that made it better, because she could be the peacemaker when the little spats came up. She’d always been the one to wheedle a compromise out of the whole family, with Riche easily agreeing – his brother had always been the one to just keep them together that way – and his father going with it as long as he got a portion of what he wanted. Darren tended to be the one that went along out of a tug of duty rather than want, and as a result, needed that support.

With it being just the two of them, and his own mood already sunk through the floor, there was really only one way that this was going to go. He shook his head, trying to turn away –

“Darren, what’s going on? This isn’t you,” his dad said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Come on. Just…get in the water. We’ll do the usual thing, head home, and then –”

“I don’t want to.”

And that was the thing that his father just didn’t seem to get. And it was, for the first time, something that he wanted to stick to. There wasn’t anyone else around to hypnotize him this time. There was nobody to force him to go past the things that he didn’t want to do. He just didn’t want it, and for once, he could stand firm and make someone respect that.

Or at least, he might. His dad squeezed his shoulder a bit tighter, shaking his head.

“Kid, I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but this has to stop. I don’t know what’s going on with you at work, why you’re being so off your game, but right now, you’re back at home. That means that you do stuff by our rules, not by work rules.”

“These aren’t work rules.”

“Yeah? Then what are they?”

“Mine.”

“Well, you’re not staying at a hotel, are you? You’re staying with me. Darren, seriously, what the hell’s gotten into you?”

“Some common sense,” he muttered.

“What was that?”

“…Nothing.”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with you right now, but I know that you always feel better after a swim. Come on.”

And then, his father grabbed at his shirt. Darren’s eyes went wide, hardly believing that his dad was pushing it to this extent, and he tried to pull away. The resulting tug of war pulled on the already-drenched shirt, and the results were as predictable as one could have imagined.

RIIIP!

Darren’s t-shirt ripped right down the middle, the shreds falling back either to the raft’s deck or back into his father’s hands. He turned around –

And there it was. The mark was on display, and his dad stared at it. The older man’s eyes went wider and wider as he looked at the pitch-black footprint on Darren’s chest, and despite the instinct to cover it, Darren kept his hands at his side. There was no point in trying to hide it now, and for some reason, he felt like he no longer should. If it had been seen, then he might as well take some [i]fucking[/i] pride in it.

“Uh-oh,” he heard Riche mutter, his brother swimming a few lengths away from the boat in quick strokes. Probably the best idea.

The silence continued for nearly a minute, with his father staring at his chest and Darren doing his utter best to keep from saying something stupid at the same time. The mark felt like fire against his skin, and he didn’t know how much longer he would be able to keep the shame at bay. For now, though, he would do his best, because this wasn’t something to be ashamed of.

[i]I’ve got a good boss. I do good work. It’s not the sort of uniform most people have, but it’s still mine. This is still me. And I’m not ashamed of being me.[/i]

“What…the hell…is that?”

“…It’s from work.”

“It better not be.”

“It is.”

“What kind of fucking work makes you tattoo yourself?”

“I didn’t tattoo myself.” Darren shook his head, his hands bunched into fists at his sides. “My…boss did this.”

“Your boss. Your boss put a fucking footprint on you. Why?”

“…”

“Darren, I’m your father, and I demand an answer. What the hell is that?”

“It’s…his way of showing that I belong under him.”

“[i]Under[/i] him?”

“…”

“Darren, are you fucking your boss?”

“…It’s more that he’s fucking me.”

“DARREN!”

There it was. The anger, the frustration, the humiliation. Just what he knew his father would feel the minute that the news dropped. He turned his head, looking at the water, debating for a moment whether he had the stamina to jump off the boat and swim back to the dock. Knowing his father, the keys were still at the car, in the ignition – nobody in Opal City really bothered with locks these days, not when they all knew each other, even with the recent rise in newcomer crimes – and he could just go home. It would serve his dad right for pushing this when he didn’t have to.

But why? Why run off when he wasn’t the one with the problem? Why should he be the one that had to deal with all the crap? Was that fair?

“You…you’re just…did you just get the job for…”

“It’s not like people don’t do that, dad,” he muttered. “And it’s not like that’s all I do.”

“You sleep. With your boss.”

“And?”

“And?! You think that you can just…you never really earned it, did you?”

“Oh. Oh. You think I didn’t –”

“You’re branded, boy. What the hell is that supposed to mean to me? You just offered your ass up to some rich guy instead of earning it yourself?”

Earning it. Earning it? He turned from the shore, glaring at his dad.

“And what the hell did [i]you[/i] earn, hmm?”

“I earned [i]everything[/i] I have, everything that I’ve given to you boys.”

“No, that was [i]mom.[/i] You just did everything that everyone else asked. You didn’t earn anything from them. You just dropped everything in your life because someone else’s stuff was more important.”

“Like when?”

“When I was in junior high and needed help with a project, a family thing. Did you help? No. I started talking to you, but then Dave called from the docks, and you were off to help him build a new pier. Mom had to call from MADAGASCAR to help me with that. And it wasn’t the only time, either.”

Lloyd Huff, the handyman of the town.

Lloyd Huff, the man that would help anyone.

Lloyd Huff, the man that had taught him that you put everyone else ahead of your own needs, because that was the only way that you got appreciated in life.

Darren hadn’t realized that he had saved so much anger over the course of his life for this, but it was there, buried beneath everything. His father hadn’t earned a damn thing for the family; his mother had brought in all the money, had done all the work to keep them in the house, to keep them in a good life. Lloyd had done all the work to make them have a good reputation in the neighborhood, but at the cost of always putting the town first and the family second. He had always tried to put a good face on it, but there was a hurt that a child had suffered time and time again, and it was impossible to completely forget that.

He marched right up to his father, jabbing a finger into the other man’s chest.

“I earned this. I [i]earned[/i] everything that I have.”

“You slept your way into it.”

“And you gave it all away, dad.”

“I did nothing of the sort.”

“What did you get then, hmm? What the hell did [i]you[/i] get? I might have been fucked, but at least I got something for it. What the hell did [i]you[/i] get when you just dropped everything anytime that someone asked, huh? What did you get?”

“I…I…”

They were both on the verge of something that they could never come back from. He knew it, and he was pretty sure that his father knew it, too. Their hands were curled into tight fists, and both of them were beyond sense.

And then, the tarp moved.

Once more, the sound of it shifting reminded him that it was there, something that he had somehow forgotten while getting more and more angry. The two Huff men turned from each other to that, as there shouldn’t have been anything capable of moving and groaning on the boat the way that that was.

Groaning? Yeah, that was the right word for it, particularly as it shifted and something started to move. It sounded like someone waking up, or something like that. It seemed impossible, but…

[i]How did we not see…[/i]

Darren remembered that there had been some sort of sound when they’d first dropped anchor, a groan from water splashing over the deck. How had he forgotten that? How did that just slip his mind without a trace?

“Dad?” he muttered.

“Yeah?”

“Did you check that before we left?”

“No, I didn’t.”

Which meant that the tarp had been there before they arrived, which meant that it might be no more than some homeless person that was going to be very confused when they pulled themselves free of the tarp. But there weren’t that many homeless people in Opal City, not compared to the bigger cities of the world, and he couldn’t think that the owner of the boat shop would have let someone just sleep on his boat without some kind of fee.

Then again, considering how he had forgotten that the tarp was even there, several times, maybe it was something else. He suddenly wished that Kasey was there; he felt like they would have been better for this sort of thing.

Finally, the tarp shifted enough to see something, and…it wasn’t what he was expecting.

A horned horse-head poked free of the tarp, bleary eyes blinking to get used to the light that probably hadn’t gone through the tarp. The equine pushed forward, groaning more as he shed the tarp behind him like a blanket, gradually dragging himself from the deck to his feet. He stretched his arms over his head, and Darren and his father both looked up and away as it was revealed that the unicorn was completely naked.

[i]Is the nudity weirder, or the unicorn?[/i]

Darren honestly wasn’t sure, and it was a surprisingly mundane thought to be prancing through his head at that moment. He looked at the sky, at the water, at his brother who was slowly swimming back at the sight of someone else on the raft, but it was hard not to bring his eyes back to the newcomer. Particularly since he was naked, and was rather shameless at showing his morning – well, afternoon wood, at this point. The horse cock pointed forward, semi-hard and bouncing as the equine finally finished his stretch.

It didn’t help that he was white-furred, too, which made that long shaft stand out all the more against the reflective coloration. The horned equine almost popped his jaw by the time that he finished yawning, too.

“Nnngh…so angry. I like a spicy meal, but there’s such a thing as too much heat, you know?” the unicorn groaned.

“What are – who are you?” Lloyd asked.

“Nnngh. Come on. Let me wake up before the questions.”

“No, no, no. You’re on our boat. You tell me.”

“…Oh, it’s going to be like that, is it?”

Darren groaned. Oh, it was going to be like that, alright. And [i]that[/i] generally meant he was going to have another blank space.

[b][u][center]The End[/center][/u][/b]

Summary: Darren and his family go for some time on the lake, but Darren has some serious moments of anger and annoyance as reality catches up with him.

Tags: No Sex, After Sex, M/solo, Nudity, Embarrassment, Anger, Confrontation, Family, Human, Unicorn, Series,