Hot Fuzz (Nicholas/Danny)
Title: Switch-off Therapy
Author: skitz_phenom
Rating: R-ish - barely
Word Count: 2,466
Warnings: Uh, schmootzy fluff.
Summary: Nicholas can't quite figure out why he isn't able to 'switch off'. Maybe Danny can help?
Prompt: July 3, # 34: Hot Fuzz, Nick/Danny: Turning off, Turning on - "Show me how"
A/N: Beta'd by the ever so kind aflaminghalo, although I made a few changes after it came back so all errors are my own! Also, apologies for the over-used plot device and that it isn't more smutty.
One late autumn evening, three and a half weeks after Danny got out of hospital, found Nick Angel reclining on said partner’s couch, watching yet another action-packed, thrill-ride, cinematic-extravaganza of the shoot-‘em-up-buddy-cop persuasion. Another dose of what Danny often referred to as his ‘Switch-off’ therapy. Not that Nick needed it nearly as much as he used to; he was a different person than the man who’d come to Sandford all those months ago. With the gentle (and occasionally inebriated) encouragement of Danny and the irresistible draw of the quirky little community Nick had finally gotten better at leaving work at work, and easing down and loosening up in general.
The past few weeks however, between taking charge of the department, and overseeing the reconstruction of the station house, and managing the day-to-day minutiae of being a Policeman Officer in Sandford (not to mention the perpetual, underlying worry over the health and well-being of his partner and best friend) were beginning to wear on Nick; and once again he found that turning off that part of his brain that was alwaysonthejob wasn’t easy.
And he knew Danny knew it too.
His friend had pulled out all the stops this particular evening: two six packs of their favorite lager, a take-away from the really good Indian place that had moved in next door to the old florists (the old tenants really hadn’t wanted to run their fish and chip shop next to a place where there’d been a ‘Mur-der’) and they were two movies deep into a ‘Lethal-a-thon’; attempting to watch all five of the Lethal Weapon series in a row. Or as many as they could manage before falling asleep or passing out.
Nick almost felt guilty that Danny had gone to so much trouble for him. After all it was Danny who’d so recently survived a brush with death and Danny who’d spent over a month and a half in the hospital after having been shot and nearly crushed by the rubble of the exploding station house and Danny who’d been dealing with the fact that his Dad was a total nutter who’d been locked up in prison for condoning the murder of dozens of people all in the name of the ‘greater good’, and Danny who was only just, finally proclaimed as ‘fit for duty’. In fact it was Danny’s upcoming return to work that they were celebrating this particular night.
And it was helping. Truly it was. He was grateful to his friend for making such a huge effort to help him ‘switch off that great melon of his’. Still, even as he stared at the screen and made a real effort to get past the thought that with all of that indiscriminant shooting and killing those fictional cops were doing that they’d much more realistically end up behind mountains of paperwork at their desks than back on the street (because really, there were forms to fill out in triplicate for even discharging a firearm, to say nothing of actually shooting anyone), he just wasn’t switching ‘off’ tonight. He didn’t quite know why his brain couldn’t find its usual cessation in the mindless violence, adrenaline-fueled action and tongue-in-cheek humor, although he suspected that the majority of the cause might have something to do with his partner returning to work tomorrow.
He worried about Danny; he couldn’t help it. Danny was more than just a partner to him and more than just his best mate as well. Not that Nick could define just what the other man was to him. And though he knew that he’d likely be just a bit more cautious and just a bit more careful these next few weeks after his partner rejoined him, there was a niggling suspicion in the back of his brain that it wasn’t just worrying over his partner’s safety that was causing him so much concern. No, there was something else, something that he couldn’t quite put his finger on - or wrap his brain around, in this case - something else that resulted in him staying very firmly ‘switched on’.
“You know.” Danny said rather peculiarly from where he reclined deep in the cushions of his particularly comfortable sofa, interrupting Nicks ambling thoughts. The younger man had been strangely quiet all evening and Nick thought he occasionally saw, from the corner of his eye, Danny looking at him rather peculiarly as well.
When he didn’t continue, Nick drew his eyes away from a scene in which Mel Gibson and Danny Glover were trading quips with an especially annoying Joe Pesci.
“Know what?” he asked when, after several long moments the other man still didn’t say anything, and instead appeared to be staring a point on Nicks’ face just below his nose but above his chin. Was there a bit of biscuit crumb caught in his stubble? Curry sauce at the corner of his mouth? Had he dribbled lager on his last, hearty pull from the bottle? A bit self-consciously Nick raised a hand to swipe across his chin.
“Know what?” he repeated when the focus of Danny’s gaze didn’t lift from his mouth even after he’d made the perfunctory wipe-clean.
“You know,” Danny finally repeated, his voice tentative and unsteady - and perhaps just a tad hazy from the drink - but his gaze firm and unwavering. “I been thinkin’.” He shifted closer, not that they were seated particularly far apart. On most of the nights they spent like this the pair would inevitably fall asleep in front of the TV and empty bottles and discarded take-away containers, their bodies canting inward and shifting against each other, getting comfortable and cozy as they slept. Many was the morning that Nick woke up with a shoulder damp from Danny’s drooling and the impression of the other man’s hair denting his cheek.
So when his partner moved closer Nick didn’t think much of it, curious as to what could be so intently on Danny’s mind that he would miss out on Joe Pesci being shoved out of a hotel room window. “What’ve you been thinking?” He asked gently, feeling strangely certain that whatever it was required treading with a bit of care.
Danny’s cheeks reddened suddenly, his boyish face pinking about the ears and neck, and though he wasn’t sure why, Nick felt his own face flush in response. “Danny?” he asked, quite immediately concerned.
“Been thinkin’…” Danny continued, and to his credit, Nick didn’t start when he felt a hot, heavy hand land gingerly on his knee and slide a tentative few inches up his thigh. “That per’aps the best way to turn you off, might be to turn you on?”
Face paling, as all his blood made a beeline somewhere distinctly southerly and distinctly somewhere he didn’t want to deal with thank you very much, Nick swallowed hard once, and then again, while his brain scrambled for some kind of response. The way Danny had whispered the end, so fervent but so unsure, left no doubt that he was asking a very particular question. Nick wanted to look away, to pull back, to get up from the sofa even, if only to give himself some breathing-thinking-oh-my-god-panic room; but the way that Danny was looking at him so imploring, so open and so honest he just couldn’t.
But he couldn’t just sit there, staring into his best mate’s eyes (had they always looked at him with such utter devotion?) saying nothing. So with a third noisy, dry, swallow Nick finally said: “You think so?”
Quite bravely, Nick thought, Danny gave a very small, tremulous smile and nodded his head. “Aye.” And then Nick almost melted, though out of adoration or heat or just sheer joy at the memory of another time the words were spoken was up in the air at the moment as Danny bit at his lower lip and his gaze dropped and he very softly mumbled: “I could show you how.”
This time there was no denying where all the blood in his body was currently being directed, as a throb in his groin nearly sent him jerking backwards. He lost count of how many times he swallowed and blinked and blinked and swallowed. For a moment he was tempted to reach for his forgotten lager if only to replenish the moisture that had been sapped from his gaping mouth. The hand that rested so casually on his thigh didn’t so much as twitch, but Nick felt the warmth and the heat of it as if it had flared up like windblown coals. And, quite suddenly, he found himself wondering how that heat would feel if it shifted just a bit up and to the left.
“Danny.” Nick finally managed to squeak out. He blamed the desert-like condition of his mouth for how desperate and breathy the other man’s name sounded coming from his lips. “I…just… I don’t know.” He finished clumsily, giving an uncertain shrug.
The heat was gone from his thigh in a flash and just as quickly his partner was sitting by his side, back to the cushions, hands on his own lap, eyes firmly looked on the television. “This is a good bit.” Danny muttered clumsily with a jerky nod towards the screen.
Nick didn’t even glance at the movie. “Danny.” He said quite firmly using, he’d have to admit, a bit of his ‘I’m a police officer, therefore you should be a law abiding citizen and obey me’ voice; but his friend didn’t even look his way. “Danny," he repeated, reaching out to place two fingers and a thumb on the side of Danny’s face. “Look at me.”
Obviously fighting against the hand was a bit more petulant that Danny was willing to be, because he finally let the fingers that curved across his jaw turn his head to the side, although his stubborn eyes refused to follow suit. Swallowing down the urge to sigh, since he feared it would just upset Danny even more, Nick took a steadying breath instead. “Danny, please.” And whether it was the genuine fear, betrayed by his wavering voice, or the plea that did it, the other man finally looked at him.
Brushing his thumb tenderly over a full, bottom lip, Nick tilted his head to the side and smiled. “I just don’t know how.” He admitted.
Understanding dawned on Danny’s face, brightening his eyes and turning up the corners of his mouth A hand reached up to mimic the position of those touching his own face, fingers skimming gently along the line of Nick’s jaw and thumb coming to rest in the curve below his lower lip. “I can show you how.” Danny offered softly, yet sounding just as eager as he had the first time he’d asked Nick if he’d ever fired a gun in the air and gone ‘Ahhhh’.
Nick wasn’t sure if he’d leaned forward then, or if it was the hand curved around his cheek that drew him closer; but it didn’t matter because Danny met him halfway and they were kissing. And Danny, Nick decided, for all his seeming innocence and naiveté, was a damn good kisser. He had a mouth that was just as eager as the rest of him, and Nick whimpered as Danny’s tongue decided it too wanted to show just how eager it could be. It wasn’t until several long, wet, breathless minutes later, when they both came up for air, that Nick realized he’d stopped thinking. Completely. He’d completely switched off.
Awestruck he stared into the face of the man next to him. Danny just gave a half shrug and a bit of a cheeky grin. “Had a feeling that might work.” Danny’s hand, that had been tenderly cradling Nick’s cheek, took a decidedly more aggressive approach towards Nick’s groin, cupping the hardness there rather firmly and making Nick gasp. “Too much goin’ on down here for there to be anythin’ goin’ on up there.” He leaned forward to bump his forehead against Nick’s.
Danny might have been a big man, but when Nick growled and pushed him back against the arm of the couch, he wriggled surprisingly spryly into a half-recline and Nick made the discovery that with just a bit of shifting and maneuvering, the two fit fantastically well together on the old couch.
Of course it took a bit more shifting and maneuvering to do something about the clothing that grew much too confining after a very short time. Although perhaps the shifting and maneuvering probably didn’t need to be quite that intense or last quite that long, but neither seemed to mind. And later some wriggling was required, and even a bit of guttural swearing as arms had to be tangled and untangled yet again to ensure that both had enough room for some rather active tugging and thrusting.
Nick also discovered that even when ‘switched off’ one could be quite verbose; although phrases like “Christ!” and “Oh, yes!” and “HolyfuckDannydothatagain!” weren’t exactly part of his day-to-day vocabulary. Wouldn’t find any of those in the official vocab guidelines, that was for certain. Danny, meanwhile, quite certainly and most succinctly made his point about showing Nick exactly how to turn off as well as on.
Much later, the credits having long since rolled, the DVD screen saver bounced erratically across the television and its ever-changing, Technicolor light played over the recumbent pair. After a make out session that would have put the randiest teenagers to shame, accompanied as it was by some surprisingly kinky frottage and concluded with quite satisfying mutual hand-jobs, they ended up sprawled out on the couch, in various states of undress, with Danny on his back and Nick laying half atop him.
Nick stared pensively down at Danny’s bare chest and belly and his finger tip found and traced around the edges of a puckered, circular scar, still colored the vivid purple of recent healing. “None of that now.” Danny admonished gently, pulling both the hand and Nick’s mind away from the memory of the gunshot and Nick nodded in drowsily complacent agreement. Danny tapped a finger against Nick’s temple and snickered gently. “Got ye off in more ways than one, didn’t I?”
“Yes, you certainly did.” Nick chuckled and then smiled a bit sadly down at his partner. “It’s only temporary, you know,” he offered, matter-of-fact. “It’ll switch back on eventually. It’s just the way I am.”
Heavy-lidded, but still grinning, Danny nodded. “I know.”
He tugged Nick’s arm around him, and Nick let himself be snuggled tight against Danny’s side, his head tucked up against Danny’s shoulder for a change. “And tomorrow or the day after or whenever it’s back on, we’ll just have to switch it off again.”
Against Danny’s chest, Nick’s mouth curved into a smile. He could definitely live with that.
Author: skitz_phenom
Rating: R-ish - barely
Word Count: 2,466
Warnings: Uh, schmootzy fluff.
Summary: Nicholas can't quite figure out why he isn't able to 'switch off'. Maybe Danny can help?
Prompt: July 3, # 34: Hot Fuzz, Nick/Danny: Turning off, Turning on - "Show me how"
A/N: Beta'd by the ever so kind aflaminghalo, although I made a few changes after it came back so all errors are my own! Also, apologies for the over-used plot device and that it isn't more smutty.
One late autumn evening, three and a half weeks after Danny got out of hospital, found Nick Angel reclining on said partner’s couch, watching yet another action-packed, thrill-ride, cinematic-extravaganza of the shoot-‘em-up-buddy-cop persuasion. Another dose of what Danny often referred to as his ‘Switch-off’ therapy. Not that Nick needed it nearly as much as he used to; he was a different person than the man who’d come to Sandford all those months ago. With the gentle (and occasionally inebriated) encouragement of Danny and the irresistible draw of the quirky little community Nick had finally gotten better at leaving work at work, and easing down and loosening up in general.
The past few weeks however, between taking charge of the department, and overseeing the reconstruction of the station house, and managing the day-to-day minutiae of being a Policeman Officer in Sandford (not to mention the perpetual, underlying worry over the health and well-being of his partner and best friend) were beginning to wear on Nick; and once again he found that turning off that part of his brain that was alwaysonthejob wasn’t easy.
And he knew Danny knew it too.
His friend had pulled out all the stops this particular evening: two six packs of their favorite lager, a take-away from the really good Indian place that had moved in next door to the old florists (the old tenants really hadn’t wanted to run their fish and chip shop next to a place where there’d been a ‘Mur-der’) and they were two movies deep into a ‘Lethal-a-thon’; attempting to watch all five of the Lethal Weapon series in a row. Or as many as they could manage before falling asleep or passing out.
Nick almost felt guilty that Danny had gone to so much trouble for him. After all it was Danny who’d so recently survived a brush with death and Danny who’d spent over a month and a half in the hospital after having been shot and nearly crushed by the rubble of the exploding station house and Danny who’d been dealing with the fact that his Dad was a total nutter who’d been locked up in prison for condoning the murder of dozens of people all in the name of the ‘greater good’, and Danny who was only just, finally proclaimed as ‘fit for duty’. In fact it was Danny’s upcoming return to work that they were celebrating this particular night.
And it was helping. Truly it was. He was grateful to his friend for making such a huge effort to help him ‘switch off that great melon of his’. Still, even as he stared at the screen and made a real effort to get past the thought that with all of that indiscriminant shooting and killing those fictional cops were doing that they’d much more realistically end up behind mountains of paperwork at their desks than back on the street (because really, there were forms to fill out in triplicate for even discharging a firearm, to say nothing of actually shooting anyone), he just wasn’t switching ‘off’ tonight. He didn’t quite know why his brain couldn’t find its usual cessation in the mindless violence, adrenaline-fueled action and tongue-in-cheek humor, although he suspected that the majority of the cause might have something to do with his partner returning to work tomorrow.
He worried about Danny; he couldn’t help it. Danny was more than just a partner to him and more than just his best mate as well. Not that Nick could define just what the other man was to him. And though he knew that he’d likely be just a bit more cautious and just a bit more careful these next few weeks after his partner rejoined him, there was a niggling suspicion in the back of his brain that it wasn’t just worrying over his partner’s safety that was causing him so much concern. No, there was something else, something that he couldn’t quite put his finger on - or wrap his brain around, in this case - something else that resulted in him staying very firmly ‘switched on’.
“You know.” Danny said rather peculiarly from where he reclined deep in the cushions of his particularly comfortable sofa, interrupting Nicks ambling thoughts. The younger man had been strangely quiet all evening and Nick thought he occasionally saw, from the corner of his eye, Danny looking at him rather peculiarly as well.
When he didn’t continue, Nick drew his eyes away from a scene in which Mel Gibson and Danny Glover were trading quips with an especially annoying Joe Pesci.
“Know what?” he asked when, after several long moments the other man still didn’t say anything, and instead appeared to be staring a point on Nicks’ face just below his nose but above his chin. Was there a bit of biscuit crumb caught in his stubble? Curry sauce at the corner of his mouth? Had he dribbled lager on his last, hearty pull from the bottle? A bit self-consciously Nick raised a hand to swipe across his chin.
“Know what?” he repeated when the focus of Danny’s gaze didn’t lift from his mouth even after he’d made the perfunctory wipe-clean.
“You know,” Danny finally repeated, his voice tentative and unsteady - and perhaps just a tad hazy from the drink - but his gaze firm and unwavering. “I been thinkin’.” He shifted closer, not that they were seated particularly far apart. On most of the nights they spent like this the pair would inevitably fall asleep in front of the TV and empty bottles and discarded take-away containers, their bodies canting inward and shifting against each other, getting comfortable and cozy as they slept. Many was the morning that Nick woke up with a shoulder damp from Danny’s drooling and the impression of the other man’s hair denting his cheek.
So when his partner moved closer Nick didn’t think much of it, curious as to what could be so intently on Danny’s mind that he would miss out on Joe Pesci being shoved out of a hotel room window. “What’ve you been thinking?” He asked gently, feeling strangely certain that whatever it was required treading with a bit of care.
Danny’s cheeks reddened suddenly, his boyish face pinking about the ears and neck, and though he wasn’t sure why, Nick felt his own face flush in response. “Danny?” he asked, quite immediately concerned.
“Been thinkin’…” Danny continued, and to his credit, Nick didn’t start when he felt a hot, heavy hand land gingerly on his knee and slide a tentative few inches up his thigh. “That per’aps the best way to turn you off, might be to turn you on?”
Face paling, as all his blood made a beeline somewhere distinctly southerly and distinctly somewhere he didn’t want to deal with thank you very much, Nick swallowed hard once, and then again, while his brain scrambled for some kind of response. The way Danny had whispered the end, so fervent but so unsure, left no doubt that he was asking a very particular question. Nick wanted to look away, to pull back, to get up from the sofa even, if only to give himself some breathing-thinking-oh-my-god-panic room; but the way that Danny was looking at him so imploring, so open and so honest he just couldn’t.
But he couldn’t just sit there, staring into his best mate’s eyes (had they always looked at him with such utter devotion?) saying nothing. So with a third noisy, dry, swallow Nick finally said: “You think so?”
Quite bravely, Nick thought, Danny gave a very small, tremulous smile and nodded his head. “Aye.” And then Nick almost melted, though out of adoration or heat or just sheer joy at the memory of another time the words were spoken was up in the air at the moment as Danny bit at his lower lip and his gaze dropped and he very softly mumbled: “I could show you how.”
This time there was no denying where all the blood in his body was currently being directed, as a throb in his groin nearly sent him jerking backwards. He lost count of how many times he swallowed and blinked and blinked and swallowed. For a moment he was tempted to reach for his forgotten lager if only to replenish the moisture that had been sapped from his gaping mouth. The hand that rested so casually on his thigh didn’t so much as twitch, but Nick felt the warmth and the heat of it as if it had flared up like windblown coals. And, quite suddenly, he found himself wondering how that heat would feel if it shifted just a bit up and to the left.
“Danny.” Nick finally managed to squeak out. He blamed the desert-like condition of his mouth for how desperate and breathy the other man’s name sounded coming from his lips. “I…just… I don’t know.” He finished clumsily, giving an uncertain shrug.
The heat was gone from his thigh in a flash and just as quickly his partner was sitting by his side, back to the cushions, hands on his own lap, eyes firmly looked on the television. “This is a good bit.” Danny muttered clumsily with a jerky nod towards the screen.
Nick didn’t even glance at the movie. “Danny.” He said quite firmly using, he’d have to admit, a bit of his ‘I’m a police officer, therefore you should be a law abiding citizen and obey me’ voice; but his friend didn’t even look his way. “Danny," he repeated, reaching out to place two fingers and a thumb on the side of Danny’s face. “Look at me.”
Obviously fighting against the hand was a bit more petulant that Danny was willing to be, because he finally let the fingers that curved across his jaw turn his head to the side, although his stubborn eyes refused to follow suit. Swallowing down the urge to sigh, since he feared it would just upset Danny even more, Nick took a steadying breath instead. “Danny, please.” And whether it was the genuine fear, betrayed by his wavering voice, or the plea that did it, the other man finally looked at him.
Brushing his thumb tenderly over a full, bottom lip, Nick tilted his head to the side and smiled. “I just don’t know how.” He admitted.
Understanding dawned on Danny’s face, brightening his eyes and turning up the corners of his mouth A hand reached up to mimic the position of those touching his own face, fingers skimming gently along the line of Nick’s jaw and thumb coming to rest in the curve below his lower lip. “I can show you how.” Danny offered softly, yet sounding just as eager as he had the first time he’d asked Nick if he’d ever fired a gun in the air and gone ‘Ahhhh’.
Nick wasn’t sure if he’d leaned forward then, or if it was the hand curved around his cheek that drew him closer; but it didn’t matter because Danny met him halfway and they were kissing. And Danny, Nick decided, for all his seeming innocence and naiveté, was a damn good kisser. He had a mouth that was just as eager as the rest of him, and Nick whimpered as Danny’s tongue decided it too wanted to show just how eager it could be. It wasn’t until several long, wet, breathless minutes later, when they both came up for air, that Nick realized he’d stopped thinking. Completely. He’d completely switched off.
Awestruck he stared into the face of the man next to him. Danny just gave a half shrug and a bit of a cheeky grin. “Had a feeling that might work.” Danny’s hand, that had been tenderly cradling Nick’s cheek, took a decidedly more aggressive approach towards Nick’s groin, cupping the hardness there rather firmly and making Nick gasp. “Too much goin’ on down here for there to be anythin’ goin’ on up there.” He leaned forward to bump his forehead against Nick’s.
Danny might have been a big man, but when Nick growled and pushed him back against the arm of the couch, he wriggled surprisingly spryly into a half-recline and Nick made the discovery that with just a bit of shifting and maneuvering, the two fit fantastically well together on the old couch.
Of course it took a bit more shifting and maneuvering to do something about the clothing that grew much too confining after a very short time. Although perhaps the shifting and maneuvering probably didn’t need to be quite that intense or last quite that long, but neither seemed to mind. And later some wriggling was required, and even a bit of guttural swearing as arms had to be tangled and untangled yet again to ensure that both had enough room for some rather active tugging and thrusting.
Nick also discovered that even when ‘switched off’ one could be quite verbose; although phrases like “Christ!” and “Oh, yes!” and “HolyfuckDannydothatagain!” weren’t exactly part of his day-to-day vocabulary. Wouldn’t find any of those in the official vocab guidelines, that was for certain. Danny, meanwhile, quite certainly and most succinctly made his point about showing Nick exactly how to turn off as well as on.
Much later, the credits having long since rolled, the DVD screen saver bounced erratically across the television and its ever-changing, Technicolor light played over the recumbent pair. After a make out session that would have put the randiest teenagers to shame, accompanied as it was by some surprisingly kinky frottage and concluded with quite satisfying mutual hand-jobs, they ended up sprawled out on the couch, in various states of undress, with Danny on his back and Nick laying half atop him.
Nick stared pensively down at Danny’s bare chest and belly and his finger tip found and traced around the edges of a puckered, circular scar, still colored the vivid purple of recent healing. “None of that now.” Danny admonished gently, pulling both the hand and Nick’s mind away from the memory of the gunshot and Nick nodded in drowsily complacent agreement. Danny tapped a finger against Nick’s temple and snickered gently. “Got ye off in more ways than one, didn’t I?”
“Yes, you certainly did.” Nick chuckled and then smiled a bit sadly down at his partner. “It’s only temporary, you know,” he offered, matter-of-fact. “It’ll switch back on eventually. It’s just the way I am.”
Heavy-lidded, but still grinning, Danny nodded. “I know.”
He tugged Nick’s arm around him, and Nick let himself be snuggled tight against Danny’s side, his head tucked up against Danny’s shoulder for a change. “And tomorrow or the day after or whenever it’s back on, we’ll just have to switch it off again.”
Against Danny’s chest, Nick’s mouth curved into a smile. He could definitely live with that.