Fic: The Adamant Blade (Chapter Seven)
The city was all around him, in him, holding him, and Danny felt free. He'd fallen at first, terrified, and then it had slowed, or he had slowed, and he felt the city grow, saw the changes come and go. He reached out and he could feel Nana at the center of it, her immense power seeping into the city, feeding it, helping it grow. And the city gave back, joyful and vibrant, keeping Nana alive. They encircled each other, woven together, closer than lovers, one and the same.
He reached out further and found Steve. He was there, right at his side, and Danny felt a sense of belonging so strong he wanted to do nothing but wrap himself in it and never move. Steve reached out for him too, their energy twining around each other, flaring and sparking as they came together. Danny felt breathless, heated, lost in the sense of belonging that surrounded him.
Nana tugged at them, and he fought her, wanting nothing but Steve. Nothing mattered but losing himself in the fire that engulfed them. Steve swirled around him, soothing and then stoking the flames, binding tighter and tighter. Danny welcomed him, reaching out to push into the empty spaces in Steve, to fill them with love and belonging.
A bolt of power pushed them apart, and Danny thought he might die. Steve screamed, or Danny thought he did, but then there was peace. Nana's power washed over them, settled and soothed them. She held them to her, close enough to touch each other, but kept them from burning up. They calmed, and Danny distantly felt his heart slow and his breathing even out.
Nana turned them towards the city, guided them to look as it opened to them. Danny saw fields and marsh become roads and tenements. He smelled horse manure and unwashed bodies, coal fires and wood smoke, heard the clatter of hooves and iron rimmed wheels. The city grew and changed, the people burning bright and beautiful as they came and went. Danny wanted to cry for them, each person living and dying in the city, giving it power.
He could see the power settling into the city, permeating everything and coalescing into a web. Some of the strands of light grew brighter and where they crossed, more power flowed in. He could see the ghosts of buildings forming around the nodes, streets being laid out along the lines, and he realized Manhattan was creating its own ley lines.
The lines spread and interwove but, in the end, they all came back to where they stood, the place where Nana had made her home. Danny wondered which came first, her or the node, but it didn't really matter. What mattered was the disturbance he could feel pulling at the lines, stretching them all to breaking point. He tried to find the source, reached out with his own power, dragging Steve's along with him, and the city cried for him.
Steve's quick mind thought about searching for hidden things, about heavier objects distorting planet's orbits, and Danny heard him. They moved along the lines together, feeling for the pull of whatever it was distorting the power of the city. They sped down ghostly streets packed with the shades of three hundred years. People and horses, cars and buildings, fire and smoke, the blare of sirens and the dim thrum of humanity.
Danny's heart broke, as they shot through the scared node where the World Trade center had been. The pain was still so raw in the pulse of the city, even as the new buildings rose around it. Tears pricked in his eyes as they flashed through the shadow of riots in Harlem and Christopher Street. Blood in the streets and pain burning in the residents, as the police beat young men. He shouted with joy as they crashed through decades of Time Square ball drops, excitement and hope making him drunk with happiness.
They zipped and swerved all over the city. Nana's presence was no more than an indulgent smile as they sped this way and that, hunting for their demon, but also chasing each other just for the sheer joy of it. Danny could feel Steve laughing as they tumbled and fell through the where and when of Manhattan, spinning and diving like a fish in the ocean. He felt alight with possibilities, as alive and vibrant as the city that welcomed them.
Unsure how long they played, Danny began to feel a niggling pain that pulled him towards midtown. There was something fetid and cold settling around Grand Central Station. Steve darted towards it but Danny held him back, wrapping around him and slowing them to a crawl. He sent out searching, gentle questing tendrils along the lines that ran towards the infected node. He felt his fingers twitch and burn, as, whatever it was, turned and looked at them.
Fire burned over him and he howled in agony. Steve was screaming too, both of them pinned in place by the thing looking at them, into them. He felt a pull and a snap and he was on the floor of Nana's apartment wrapped around Steve, as they sobbed like children.
“Well, that was unexpected,” Nana said, her voice unsteady.
“What was that?” Danny managed to gasp, shaking as he clung to Steve.
“John Dee called it Choronzon,” Nana said, standing and stepping over them. “The Dweller of the Abyss, the personification of the formless, malignant power of the outer reaches. Aleister Crowley said that facing it was the last step in achieving enlightenment. He was talking crap, of course.”
“How do we fight it?” Steve asked, trying to sit up. Danny was quietly pleased when all the other man managed was to flop ineffectively on his back, limbs obviously as wobbly as Danny's own.
“We don't,” Nana said, pouring herself a glass of scotch and downing it in one coughing gulp. “You find the idiot who summoned it, kill him, and hope it isn't strong enough to come through without him. ”
Steve was beginning to hate the ceiling of the bedroom in Danny's parents house. So tired he could barely move, yet for the second night running, he was still lying awake staring at the small crack that ran through the molding. Every time he closed his eyes he saw the city, felt an echo of the power thrumming through him, and he wanted to just dive back in.
He thought he might be able to if he tried, if he let go enough and pushed out into it. Nana had said they were tied to her, and to it, now, for a while at least. And he knew it was just there, within his reach. It wasn’t that he wanted to go back into the city itself, although he suspected there'd never be anything else like the rush of diving into the web of power. No, what he wanted was the closeness to Danny.
Being out in the real world, after feeling what they'd shared before Nana had pulled them apart, was like losing a limb, a limb he hadn't known about before. Sure, he knew he had a thing for Danny, he was willing to admit that much, and there had been moments where he'd wondered if Danny shared his feelings, but he'd dismissed them as wishful thinking. But now? Now he knew.
They hadn't spoken about it. Not when they'd run through what they knew with Nana, not during the silent drive back to the Williams house, not even when they were alone in the house heading to bed. They had a job to do, demons to defeat, and a city to save. And they couldn't afford to be distracted.
But now, lying in quiet darkness, Steve wanted to talk about it. He wanted to tell Danny that he loved him, that he would never, ever love anyone else. He wanted to try and put into words just what he'd felt in those few moments that they'd swirled around each other, the overwhelming sense of belonging that made his eyes prick with tears at its loss.
“Oh babe,” Danny whispered from the other bed. “Come here.”
He looked over at Danny, who had lifted the covers and scooted back against the wall, making space for him. Steve didn't even think, he just got out of his own bed and climbed into Danny's, pressing in close and burying his face in his neck. Danny's arms wrapped around him and pulled him in tight.
“Reach out, Steve, just a little,” Danny said quietly, one hand moving up to cradle the back of his head. “Don't go all the way to the city, just a little bit, and you'll feel me there. I know it's all new, everything that happened today, but I've seen you do tougher things than this.”
Steve wasn’t sure he knew how, not without Nana's help to get him there, but he wanted so much to have the feeling back he tried. Letting his mind find the same shape it had before, the subtle change in the world, the loss of control it needed, he felt a ghost of something brush past his mind.
“That's it babe,” Danny said, his breath warm on Steve's neck. “Nearly there.”
Steve tried again, letting himself reach out in to the unknown, towards Danny. He felt it, so subtle he almost missed it, the slightest of touches against his mind, and leapt at it. It wasn't the all-consuming joining he'd felt at Nana's, but it was unmistakably Danny, warm and bright, surrounding him mentally as well as physically.
He could feel Danny's happiness that he had done it. His love, his pride at everything Steve had achieved that day. Steve answered it with his own joy at finding this, at having Danny here with him. They sank into it, wrapping around each other, and Steve felt himself relax. Danny was warmth, home and family, safety and friendship. His breathing evened out and Steve allowed himself to follow.
Chapter Eight