"give me your eyes / i need sunshine / your blood, your bones, your voice, your ghost"
title: The Fire out from the Wire
with: Flack/Danny
set: post-“Raising Shane”
rating: NC-17
warning: knifeplay
for: svmadelyn’s kink & cliché challenge 2007 ( masterlist post)
c.f. "I'll Believe in Anything" (Wolf Parade)
|
Flack can see that Danny is trembling slightly.
The fluorescent light of Flack’s kitchen makes every detail etch itself on the eye. Danny’s knuckles are stark white. Danny steps closer. The stove is on, and the kitchen is hot. Danny is still trembling slightly, but when the knife presses against Flack’s collarbone, Danny’s hands are steady.
Danny had kept his head so damn well while they were working to clear Hawkes-taken a few moments to be a smartass, sure-but he hadn’t crossed the line. Danny had talked Shane Casey down, and he had seemed fine afterward-been a little shaky, but pulled his shit together real quick.
Flack’s shirt blunts the sensation just enough. If his eyes were closed, he wouldn’t necessarily know that he had a six inch paring knife tight against his chest. The knife is new and sharp as fuck.
Later, Flack will wonder if some prescient corner of his mind knew this was coming. Now, Flack thinks about how he needs to turn the stove off because he’s going to be pissed if Danny makes him burn the goddamn pork chops.
Danny licks his lips. His hands are steady. They’ve already been frozen here for too long.
“Something you were looking to prove, Messer?” Flack almost flinches on his own choice of words; he doesn’t press back into the fridge behind him.
“You sure you don’t want to go out?” Danny’s voice cracks, crackles like high voltage, but his hands are firm. The dull edge of the blade is firm, pressing through Flack’s shirt.
“Yeah, Danny.” Flack keeps his voice cool and his body loose, ignoring the knife between them. “I got pork chop medallions cooking and an apricot sauce on the stovetop. I’m done for the day.” Flack’s not really worried. They both have a flair for the dramatic, at times.
“See, I was thinking about this bad habit I’ve got,” Danny says, staring into space over Flack’s left shoulder.
“Which one would that be?”
“The one where I occasionally end up in barfights.” Earlier, Danny had been calm on the ride back to the station. That should’ve been the warning sign. Flack should’ve seen it all written out in capital letters. Maybe he did.
“Oh,” Flack says. “That one.” He’s seen that one before, a couple times. He knows the look Danny gets on his face when he’s all but begging for trouble, but here, now, this is different.
“I think I figured out why,” Danny says quietly. He draws the dull edge of the knife across Flack’s shirt, down his pec and over his nipple. Flack shudders.
“Don. You trust me?”
Flack looks straight into Danny’s face. It’s like an optical illusion; Danny seems to tremble like a live wire, but his eyes are steady, his hands are steady.
“Yeah, Danny. You know I do.”
Danny nods and presses the handle of the knife into Flack’s hand.
||
Flack is holding the knife now, so tightly his hand will soon threaten to cramp.
He reaches for the lamp next to his bed, and in the half second between darkness and light, he might see something desperate on Danny’s face.
No, Danny stands smirking in the middle of the room. He might’ve had a drink or two, but he’s not drunk. Flack can see drunk on Danny at fifty paces. For his own part, Flack had half a beer while starting the pork chops and is depressingly sober. He thinks this is for the best.
Danny puts his hands on his hips. “You waiting for something?”
“Can’t do this with all those clothes on.” Flack shoves Danny bodily back toward the bed. Danny’s eyes flash, but he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t do anything more than pull his t-shirt off. Flack can think of a hundred things to say-do you trust me, shouldn’t there be a safeword, are you sure this will work. You haven’t done this before.
“Undershirt. Shoes and pants, too,” Flack says. Maybe he doesn’t want to be certain. “And socks.” The handle of the knife has grown slick and hot in Flack’s hand. He wants to wipe his palm on the leg of his pants, but he’s afraid if he lets go of the knife he won’t be able to wrap his hand around it again.
Danny strips, only putting a hint of a show into it. His hand grazes across his stomach, and he flexes a little more than necessary. Flack notes the suspicious absence of chest hair and points to the bed with the knife.
“Lie down, on your back.”
Danny shrugs, shoves the covers aside, and sprawls out on the bed, legs open and one knee bent. He’s half-hard, cock arcing out toward the crease of his hip. Part of Flack just wants to crawl between Danny’s legs and suck him off deathly slow, but he waits and takes a good look at the lines of Danny’s body, giving himself time to stay calm. Danny stretches his arms comfortably above his head and tilts his head at Flack.
It’s easy to sit next to Danny on the bed; it’s hard to get used to the weight of the knife in his hand. Flack lays his free palm on Danny stomach and feels his sharp breath, his tightened muscles.
“We doing this or what?” Danny smiles his best not-smile and arches up against Flack’s hand. His heart is racing; Flack can feel it in his own fingertips.
“Are you going to hold still?” Flack licks his lips, mouth dry. He’s hard now, from touching Danny like this, and from the dare on Danny’s face.
“I’m not totally lacking in self-control.” Danny smirks and arches again, muscles flexing.
Flack reaches over and places the flat of the blade against Danny’s sternum. He’s about to ask where, but something falters across Danny’s face. That goddamn smirk is back in place awful fast, but Flack hesitates, breathes. Something pivots in his brain, and Flack realizes that he’s synced his breathing to Danny’s.
Carefully Flack draws the dull edge of the blade across Danny’s bare collarbone, down Danny’s chest, mirroring the move Danny had made back in the kitchen. Danny shudders, and his eyes close.
Flack turns the knife over and rests the sharp edge of the blade on the long stretch of skin below one of Danny’s pecs. Danny’s eyes snap open. His pupils are dilated. Above his head, his knuckles are white. He raises his chin in half a nod, and Flack drops his eyes.
He makes a cut, smooth, two inches long. Red beads of blood spill over the edges. Danny doesn’t flinch.
Flack rests his palm on Danny’s stomach again, so he can feel warm skin, short breath, quick pulse-all there beneath his hand.
He makes the second cut just like the first and a centimeter to the right. Danny holds his breath as it happens.
Danny’s watching him; Flack can feel the weight of it, sure as Danny’s heart beat. Danny’s watching him, but Flack can’t take his eyes off the pair of fine lines, beaded with blood.
He makes the third cut just like the first two, another centimeter further to the right.
Danny breaks, and it’s almost silent. He pulls into himself, closes his eyes, and presses the heel of his hand to his forehead. Flack feels more than he hears something caught between a sob and a gasp. Danny rolls to his side, away from Flack, and shakes in earnest.
Flack puts the knife on the bedside table.
|||
Flack curls around Danny’s back, pressing his forehead to the nape of Danny’s neck, then his mouth to a knot in Danny’s spine. He waits, and they lie like that until Danny stops shaking, until his body goes lax and heavy.
Flack sits up then, and the surrealness of it all knocks him sideways. He’s clothed, Danny’s naked, they’re in bed. Danny’s eyes are open, but he doesn’t look up at Flack. A few drops of blood have rolled down to darken the bedsheet. The cuts have already started to clot, but they’ve left a dark and sticky smudge of blood on Danny’s chest. Flack closes his eyes; the worst of his own scars are in the same place.
Flack climbs out of bed, quickly enough that his head spins for a moment. In the bathroom he grabs gauze, tape, ointment. He dampens a washcloth without looking at himself in the mirror.
When he comes back, Danny is stretched out on his back again, relaxed, but staring at the ceiling. He is frighteningly passive as Flack cleans the blood away and bandages him up.
Danny grabs his wrist when Flack starts to get up again. He tosses everything on the nightstand instead and goes with it.
Danny’s hands are hot on Flack’s face. When they kiss, it’s languid and foreign.
Danny’s tongue sweeps slowly across Flack’s bottom lip, then strokes inside. Flack closes his eyes, letting go, and he startles when Danny breaks away to kiss his chin, the bridge of his nose, the corner of each eye.
Danny pulls him down to the bed, rolls them so Flack is half pinned. His hands slide beneath Flack’s shirt, around his waist, up his chest, skin hungry. Flack tries to touch him back, but he feels like he’s only getting in Danny’s way. Danny presses closer, his mouth soft, almost resting on Flack’s pulsepoint, and Flack gasps because the slowness is going to undo him as much as the marks he put on Danny. He lets Danny touch him though, lets Danny strip him and map his skin, because the flicker of maybe desperation has crept back onto Danny’s face.
Danny kisses his way down Flack’s chest. He avoids the scars, just breathing over them, and Flack forces himself to stay still. Danny swipes his tongue across Flack’s navel, nuzzles the crease of his hip, then licks a hot stripe up his dick. Flack half sits up, petting Danny’s head, neck, shoulders, because ohfuckyes Danny’s talented with his mouth, but Flack wants-he wants-
He tugs at Danny’s arms. Danny shoves him away, but they end up on their sides facing each other. Danny takes Flack’s hand and grazes his teeth over the pulsepoint, licks the palm. They jack each other slowly, hands moving together, like their breath had been earlier. It’s a gentle blur of building heat.
Flack moans, startled when his orgasm washes over him. Danny’s mouth on his is sweet. Flack tightens his hand, trembling through it all, and Danny’s hips buck forward. Danny comes with his eyes open and his mouth open, as if surprised as well.
Flack can feel his pulse beat throughout his body. Their foreheads are touching, and his hand finds Danny’s hip. After a moment, Danny reaches across for the washcloth on the nightstand and does a cursory job of cleaning them both up with the unbloodied corner. Flack wants to laugh but swallows the urge. He shakes a little with it anyway. Danny lets it pass without comment and wraps himself around Flack, tangling their legs up. They fit together strangely, but they fit together. Flack thinks this is the most frightening thing that has happened all evening, but he closes his eyes and lets himself drift. The appetite he had before Danny came over has long faded. The kitchen needs to be cleaned, but Flack just wants to go to sleep.
Danny clears his throat, and Flack looks up at the shadows on his ceiling.
“Louie’s dead, you know.”
Flack hadn’t known, but he’d wondered. “When?”
“Depends on how you figure it.” Danny shifts a little, drawing his arm down to Flack’s waist. “Doctors knew he was brain dead back in April, but my parents wouldn’t take him off life support. We buried him in August. A pulmonary embolism finally did him in.”
“You tell anyone?” Flack has to put effort into making it a question.
“No.”
“Course not.” Flack sighs before he can stop himself.
Now Danny laughs a little, a strung out noise that sends hot breath skating against Flack’s collarbone. Flack’s hand comes up automatically, thumb rubbing the tendon at the base of Danny’s skull, and Danny presses his face into Flack’s neck. Flack’s arm starts to fall asleep.
Flack never wants to get out of bed, never wants either of them to leave this strange bubble that Danny’s made for them because he seriously doubts they’ll find their way back here ever again.
……
note: While I do believe the combination of Danny, Flack, and knifeplay could’ve gone to a much darker place, I’d also like to point out that this isn’t really an example of healthy BDSM play because Flack (somewhat), Danny (more so), but especially Flack and Danny together don’t strike me as the type to be sane about it, especially if it were a new element in their relationship. If the story were supposed to be a good example, they would definitely have talked more about it first.
with: Flack/Danny
set: post-“Raising Shane”
rating: NC-17
warning: knifeplay
for: svmadelyn’s kink & cliché challenge 2007 ( masterlist post)
c.f. "I'll Believe in Anything" (Wolf Parade)
|
Flack can see that Danny is trembling slightly.
The fluorescent light of Flack’s kitchen makes every detail etch itself on the eye. Danny’s knuckles are stark white. Danny steps closer. The stove is on, and the kitchen is hot. Danny is still trembling slightly, but when the knife presses against Flack’s collarbone, Danny’s hands are steady.
Danny had kept his head so damn well while they were working to clear Hawkes-taken a few moments to be a smartass, sure-but he hadn’t crossed the line. Danny had talked Shane Casey down, and he had seemed fine afterward-been a little shaky, but pulled his shit together real quick.
Flack’s shirt blunts the sensation just enough. If his eyes were closed, he wouldn’t necessarily know that he had a six inch paring knife tight against his chest. The knife is new and sharp as fuck.
Later, Flack will wonder if some prescient corner of his mind knew this was coming. Now, Flack thinks about how he needs to turn the stove off because he’s going to be pissed if Danny makes him burn the goddamn pork chops.
Danny licks his lips. His hands are steady. They’ve already been frozen here for too long.
“Something you were looking to prove, Messer?” Flack almost flinches on his own choice of words; he doesn’t press back into the fridge behind him.
“You sure you don’t want to go out?” Danny’s voice cracks, crackles like high voltage, but his hands are firm. The dull edge of the blade is firm, pressing through Flack’s shirt.
“Yeah, Danny.” Flack keeps his voice cool and his body loose, ignoring the knife between them. “I got pork chop medallions cooking and an apricot sauce on the stovetop. I’m done for the day.” Flack’s not really worried. They both have a flair for the dramatic, at times.
“See, I was thinking about this bad habit I’ve got,” Danny says, staring into space over Flack’s left shoulder.
“Which one would that be?”
“The one where I occasionally end up in barfights.” Earlier, Danny had been calm on the ride back to the station. That should’ve been the warning sign. Flack should’ve seen it all written out in capital letters. Maybe he did.
“Oh,” Flack says. “That one.” He’s seen that one before, a couple times. He knows the look Danny gets on his face when he’s all but begging for trouble, but here, now, this is different.
“I think I figured out why,” Danny says quietly. He draws the dull edge of the knife across Flack’s shirt, down his pec and over his nipple. Flack shudders.
“Don. You trust me?”
Flack looks straight into Danny’s face. It’s like an optical illusion; Danny seems to tremble like a live wire, but his eyes are steady, his hands are steady.
“Yeah, Danny. You know I do.”
Danny nods and presses the handle of the knife into Flack’s hand.
||
Flack is holding the knife now, so tightly his hand will soon threaten to cramp.
He reaches for the lamp next to his bed, and in the half second between darkness and light, he might see something desperate on Danny’s face.
No, Danny stands smirking in the middle of the room. He might’ve had a drink or two, but he’s not drunk. Flack can see drunk on Danny at fifty paces. For his own part, Flack had half a beer while starting the pork chops and is depressingly sober. He thinks this is for the best.
Danny puts his hands on his hips. “You waiting for something?”
“Can’t do this with all those clothes on.” Flack shoves Danny bodily back toward the bed. Danny’s eyes flash, but he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t do anything more than pull his t-shirt off. Flack can think of a hundred things to say-do you trust me, shouldn’t there be a safeword, are you sure this will work. You haven’t done this before.
“Undershirt. Shoes and pants, too,” Flack says. Maybe he doesn’t want to be certain. “And socks.” The handle of the knife has grown slick and hot in Flack’s hand. He wants to wipe his palm on the leg of his pants, but he’s afraid if he lets go of the knife he won’t be able to wrap his hand around it again.
Danny strips, only putting a hint of a show into it. His hand grazes across his stomach, and he flexes a little more than necessary. Flack notes the suspicious absence of chest hair and points to the bed with the knife.
“Lie down, on your back.”
Danny shrugs, shoves the covers aside, and sprawls out on the bed, legs open and one knee bent. He’s half-hard, cock arcing out toward the crease of his hip. Part of Flack just wants to crawl between Danny’s legs and suck him off deathly slow, but he waits and takes a good look at the lines of Danny’s body, giving himself time to stay calm. Danny stretches his arms comfortably above his head and tilts his head at Flack.
It’s easy to sit next to Danny on the bed; it’s hard to get used to the weight of the knife in his hand. Flack lays his free palm on Danny stomach and feels his sharp breath, his tightened muscles.
“We doing this or what?” Danny smiles his best not-smile and arches up against Flack’s hand. His heart is racing; Flack can feel it in his own fingertips.
“Are you going to hold still?” Flack licks his lips, mouth dry. He’s hard now, from touching Danny like this, and from the dare on Danny’s face.
“I’m not totally lacking in self-control.” Danny smirks and arches again, muscles flexing.
Flack reaches over and places the flat of the blade against Danny’s sternum. He’s about to ask where, but something falters across Danny’s face. That goddamn smirk is back in place awful fast, but Flack hesitates, breathes. Something pivots in his brain, and Flack realizes that he’s synced his breathing to Danny’s.
Carefully Flack draws the dull edge of the blade across Danny’s bare collarbone, down Danny’s chest, mirroring the move Danny had made back in the kitchen. Danny shudders, and his eyes close.
Flack turns the knife over and rests the sharp edge of the blade on the long stretch of skin below one of Danny’s pecs. Danny’s eyes snap open. His pupils are dilated. Above his head, his knuckles are white. He raises his chin in half a nod, and Flack drops his eyes.
He makes a cut, smooth, two inches long. Red beads of blood spill over the edges. Danny doesn’t flinch.
Flack rests his palm on Danny’s stomach again, so he can feel warm skin, short breath, quick pulse-all there beneath his hand.
He makes the second cut just like the first and a centimeter to the right. Danny holds his breath as it happens.
Danny’s watching him; Flack can feel the weight of it, sure as Danny’s heart beat. Danny’s watching him, but Flack can’t take his eyes off the pair of fine lines, beaded with blood.
He makes the third cut just like the first two, another centimeter further to the right.
Danny breaks, and it’s almost silent. He pulls into himself, closes his eyes, and presses the heel of his hand to his forehead. Flack feels more than he hears something caught between a sob and a gasp. Danny rolls to his side, away from Flack, and shakes in earnest.
Flack puts the knife on the bedside table.
|||
Flack curls around Danny’s back, pressing his forehead to the nape of Danny’s neck, then his mouth to a knot in Danny’s spine. He waits, and they lie like that until Danny stops shaking, until his body goes lax and heavy.
Flack sits up then, and the surrealness of it all knocks him sideways. He’s clothed, Danny’s naked, they’re in bed. Danny’s eyes are open, but he doesn’t look up at Flack. A few drops of blood have rolled down to darken the bedsheet. The cuts have already started to clot, but they’ve left a dark and sticky smudge of blood on Danny’s chest. Flack closes his eyes; the worst of his own scars are in the same place.
Flack climbs out of bed, quickly enough that his head spins for a moment. In the bathroom he grabs gauze, tape, ointment. He dampens a washcloth without looking at himself in the mirror.
When he comes back, Danny is stretched out on his back again, relaxed, but staring at the ceiling. He is frighteningly passive as Flack cleans the blood away and bandages him up.
Danny grabs his wrist when Flack starts to get up again. He tosses everything on the nightstand instead and goes with it.
Danny’s hands are hot on Flack’s face. When they kiss, it’s languid and foreign.
Danny’s tongue sweeps slowly across Flack’s bottom lip, then strokes inside. Flack closes his eyes, letting go, and he startles when Danny breaks away to kiss his chin, the bridge of his nose, the corner of each eye.
Danny pulls him down to the bed, rolls them so Flack is half pinned. His hands slide beneath Flack’s shirt, around his waist, up his chest, skin hungry. Flack tries to touch him back, but he feels like he’s only getting in Danny’s way. Danny presses closer, his mouth soft, almost resting on Flack’s pulsepoint, and Flack gasps because the slowness is going to undo him as much as the marks he put on Danny. He lets Danny touch him though, lets Danny strip him and map his skin, because the flicker of maybe desperation has crept back onto Danny’s face.
Danny kisses his way down Flack’s chest. He avoids the scars, just breathing over them, and Flack forces himself to stay still. Danny swipes his tongue across Flack’s navel, nuzzles the crease of his hip, then licks a hot stripe up his dick. Flack half sits up, petting Danny’s head, neck, shoulders, because ohfuckyes Danny’s talented with his mouth, but Flack wants-he wants-
He tugs at Danny’s arms. Danny shoves him away, but they end up on their sides facing each other. Danny takes Flack’s hand and grazes his teeth over the pulsepoint, licks the palm. They jack each other slowly, hands moving together, like their breath had been earlier. It’s a gentle blur of building heat.
Flack moans, startled when his orgasm washes over him. Danny’s mouth on his is sweet. Flack tightens his hand, trembling through it all, and Danny’s hips buck forward. Danny comes with his eyes open and his mouth open, as if surprised as well.
Flack can feel his pulse beat throughout his body. Their foreheads are touching, and his hand finds Danny’s hip. After a moment, Danny reaches across for the washcloth on the nightstand and does a cursory job of cleaning them both up with the unbloodied corner. Flack wants to laugh but swallows the urge. He shakes a little with it anyway. Danny lets it pass without comment and wraps himself around Flack, tangling their legs up. They fit together strangely, but they fit together. Flack thinks this is the most frightening thing that has happened all evening, but he closes his eyes and lets himself drift. The appetite he had before Danny came over has long faded. The kitchen needs to be cleaned, but Flack just wants to go to sleep.
Danny clears his throat, and Flack looks up at the shadows on his ceiling.
“Louie’s dead, you know.”
Flack hadn’t known, but he’d wondered. “When?”
“Depends on how you figure it.” Danny shifts a little, drawing his arm down to Flack’s waist. “Doctors knew he was brain dead back in April, but my parents wouldn’t take him off life support. We buried him in August. A pulmonary embolism finally did him in.”
“You tell anyone?” Flack has to put effort into making it a question.
“No.”
“Course not.” Flack sighs before he can stop himself.
Now Danny laughs a little, a strung out noise that sends hot breath skating against Flack’s collarbone. Flack’s hand comes up automatically, thumb rubbing the tendon at the base of Danny’s skull, and Danny presses his face into Flack’s neck. Flack’s arm starts to fall asleep.
Flack never wants to get out of bed, never wants either of them to leave this strange bubble that Danny’s made for them because he seriously doubts they’ll find their way back here ever again.
……
note: While I do believe the combination of Danny, Flack, and knifeplay could’ve gone to a much darker place, I’d also like to point out that this isn’t really an example of healthy BDSM play because Flack (somewhat), Danny (more so), but especially Flack and Danny together don’t strike me as the type to be sane about it, especially if it were a new element in their relationship. If the story were supposed to be a good example, they would definitely have talked more about it first.