You know that role play we keep spamming you with?
Title: (dis)Affection (RP fic)
Rating: PG, but oh damn is it dripping with angst.
Characters: Danny-centric, with a bit of Nicholas thrown in.
Summary: This isn’t the best day of Danny’s life, or the worst, but it’s certainly representative.
Notes: Sometimes (quite often, really) Zed brings up the question of ‘why the fuck is Danny still putting up with Nicholas?’, and it occurred to me that some rp readers may be struggling with the same thing. So I wrote this, and completely failed to answer that question.
Danny woke up. That seemed to be how days started in Canterbury. He could remember - once - there had been a time when he was slow to wake up, spending long hours as a teenager on weekends dosing quietly before getting up around lunchtime. The only real difference that being an adult had brought with it was that sometimes he had a uniform that was barely real to get into and work to pretend to do. But even in old-Sandford he could usually spend an hour dozing, relishing in that golden buffer between being asleep and awake.
Not anymore. Rather than a shallow gradient-like transition it was as solid and instant as a switch being flicked. He was asleep, and then something went off in the middle of his brain making his eyes open, and he was awake. Whether he liked it or not.
Nicholas was still asleep, and in possession of Danny’s left arm: his head resting somewhere around the elbow region, and his hands locked tightly around Danny’s wrist. Like most mornings. Whenever Danny extracted himself Nicholas would make small, unconscious noises. Sad and angry sounds of still-being-asleep, and Danny was never sure if they were aimed at him, or at some dream he was unwittingly influencing. When he stayed in bed, waiting for Nicholas to wake up - taking advantage, more than a little, of the bittersweet periods of unprotesting contact he could extract in the morning-times - he would find himself staring at the back of Nicholas’ head: the hair a little longer, the neck looking a little older somehow, the resulting scene a little unfamiliar. Which didn’t make sense at all, except that it did, and it twisted Danny up inside. Danny chose the lesser of the two evils, and carefully extracted himself from Nicholas’ grip.
The carpet was cold under his feet, and his back was stiff from the positions Nicholas’ presence somehow wound him into. He had laughed at it all once, pretending that this was just practice for when he finally grew old. But then he took note of the time that had passed, the years that had trickled away unnoticed amidst all the bodies and the courtrooms and the confused nights with Nicholas that were slowly fading from memory. He was in his thirties all of a sudden, and being an old man (like his dad) was not so far away.
Working through the second half of the day - and even starting at midday it was still eight hours at the station, and then three disrupted nights on call - meant that everyday started late, started half-over with eleven am slinking into the distance as Danny brushed his teeth and tried to avoid his own basset-hound gaze in the cheap mirror of the medicine cabinet. He’d given up on eating breakfast - he was always running late, and there was never anything good to eat, and so he did his best with the hot coffee that he didn’t actually like and to be honest, breakfast just brought back memories of waking up with Nicholas and gentle conversation over toast and somehow it seemed like it was always golden and springtime inside Danny’s memories. Somehow it always hurt a little too much to go back there.
Picking the requirements for a clean uniform out of the bag of clean laundry sitting in the almost-hallway between the kitchen-and-everything area and the bedroom where Nicholas was still asleep, Danny considered pulling out a towel, and the iron, and tidying his shirt up on the countertop. But then his eyes caught the clock on his DVD player, and he bit back a groan and made a solid effort to finish his coffee and take his pyjamas off at the same time. He was going to be late.
The other officers watched Danny, and oh, how familiar he was with that sensation. Out of the corners of their eyes, and occasional blatant stares with heads bent together and Danny’s own gaze focused on the forms in front of him; watching the movement of bodies without them noticing. Something he’d picked up from Nicholas. Everything he knew of use, it seemed, came from Nicholas in one way or another. And then Nicholas had suddenly caved in on himself, mined hollow and left unstable. (Just like everyone else Danny had needed too hard.)
Danny knew he stuck out. He knew it was his fault. Nothing personal on his desk (all his own personal desk items had either been little bits of paper with notes and doodles on them that he’d thrown away when cleaning it out, or little trinkets that had been left behind altogether), and even the most efficient of his new co-workers had something of interest stuck up in their lockers. Danny had turned up in Canterbury as a blank piece of paper, and blank he had remained.
At five o’clock, he walked home for lunch. Not home, not really. But he was sick of the stares, and sick of shaking heads as he declined - like always - the invitations of going down to the pub once he was off. Invitations that were slowly, finally (though he didn’t know why he used that word, not when he felt so torn) dwindling to insignificance. Canterbury looked a bit like Sandford. Except the centre part of it was a lot bigger, and the houses in the urban sprawl a little different, a little less rustic. There were no landmarks that Danny remembered Andy crashing into when he was learning to drive, no people on the street that gave him that gentle, knowing smile that said ‘I’ve known you since you was a boy, and I know what you’re up to now’. It was hard to believe that leaving all those little things behind had been so seductive. That it had been his idea.
Nicholas must have showered before he left. The flat smelt like him, like his deodorant, his skin. Danny fought back the urge to close his eyes and breathe it in, to pretend. He’d spent most of his life pretending that things were fine, that they’d get better. So much of his life wasted on a desperate-tasting hope. Wasted on Ni
‘I moved here for you,’ he said, inside his own head. ‘I tore up my life, I tore up my village… my family - all of it following you, all of it thinking you were something that you can’t seem to be.’ Inside his head, Nicholas was looking ashamed, was looking at Danny with apologetic blue eyes. Looking at him at all. ‘Everything I’ve sacrificed, and given up and… and missed out on. Am I ever going to stop missing it? Am I ever going to get what I need from you?’ And he had to tear his mind away, wipe out the image of Nicholas and the rant that got a little more polished every time it played out inside his head, try and forget that he knew - deep down, where it hurt, he knew - what the answer was. Danny Butterman; safe and sound, and back in denial.
Danny bit down on a yell, and kicked out with the kind of mindlessness a tantrum always attracts. Then he got to stand and stare at the dark mark the sole of his shoe had left behind on the wall that was painted towards the yellow end of the cream spectrum. Another scuff mark on something that was never meant to be pristine. He wondered if Nicholas would go off about it. He wondered if Nicholas would even notice it. And then, with a tired calmness once more wrapped around him, he got a cloth and some soapy water and did his best to remove it.
‘Use circular motions,’ his no-longer familiar mother said, ‘Don’t rub the stain into the paint.’
‘Shut up,’ Danny replied. ‘You left me too.’
He came home after Nicholas did, as always. Hanging up his coat and dropping his keys, and how could a simple routine eat away so very much? Nicholas on the couch, wearing a groove through cushions made of disappointment, flesh rotting away and limbs atrophying and when Nicholas turned to look at him it took Danny far too long to recognise the face staring back at him, far too much time wondering where his Nicholas had gone. His Nick who had made so many things happen, made Danny finally start creaking and moving towards something better only to sneak out and be replaced by this apathetic almost-copy. Only to leave Danny going nowhere. Again.
“Do you want a cup of tea?” he asked, and Nicholas shrugged. ‘This is what the rest of your life is going to be like,’ an inconvenient thought in the back of Danny’s mind whispered. ‘Until he leaves you too.’
Nicholas turned back to the television. “We’re out of milk,” he replied at last. And Danny tried as hard as he could to pretend he’d said something else entirely.
Rating: PG, but oh damn is it dripping with angst.
Characters: Danny-centric, with a bit of Nicholas thrown in.
Summary: This isn’t the best day of Danny’s life, or the worst, but it’s certainly representative.
Notes: Sometimes (quite often, really) Zed brings up the question of ‘why the fuck is Danny still putting up with Nicholas?’, and it occurred to me that some rp readers may be struggling with the same thing. So I wrote this, and completely failed to answer that question.
Danny woke up. That seemed to be how days started in Canterbury. He could remember - once - there had been a time when he was slow to wake up, spending long hours as a teenager on weekends dosing quietly before getting up around lunchtime. The only real difference that being an adult had brought with it was that sometimes he had a uniform that was barely real to get into and work to pretend to do. But even in old-Sandford he could usually spend an hour dozing, relishing in that golden buffer between being asleep and awake.
Not anymore. Rather than a shallow gradient-like transition it was as solid and instant as a switch being flicked. He was asleep, and then something went off in the middle of his brain making his eyes open, and he was awake. Whether he liked it or not.
Nicholas was still asleep, and in possession of Danny’s left arm: his head resting somewhere around the elbow region, and his hands locked tightly around Danny’s wrist. Like most mornings. Whenever Danny extracted himself Nicholas would make small, unconscious noises. Sad and angry sounds of still-being-asleep, and Danny was never sure if they were aimed at him, or at some dream he was unwittingly influencing. When he stayed in bed, waiting for Nicholas to wake up - taking advantage, more than a little, of the bittersweet periods of unprotesting contact he could extract in the morning-times - he would find himself staring at the back of Nicholas’ head: the hair a little longer, the neck looking a little older somehow, the resulting scene a little unfamiliar. Which didn’t make sense at all, except that it did, and it twisted Danny up inside. Danny chose the lesser of the two evils, and carefully extracted himself from Nicholas’ grip.
The carpet was cold under his feet, and his back was stiff from the positions Nicholas’ presence somehow wound him into. He had laughed at it all once, pretending that this was just practice for when he finally grew old. But then he took note of the time that had passed, the years that had trickled away unnoticed amidst all the bodies and the courtrooms and the confused nights with Nicholas that were slowly fading from memory. He was in his thirties all of a sudden, and being an old man (like his dad) was not so far away.
Working through the second half of the day - and even starting at midday it was still eight hours at the station, and then three disrupted nights on call - meant that everyday started late, started half-over with eleven am slinking into the distance as Danny brushed his teeth and tried to avoid his own basset-hound gaze in the cheap mirror of the medicine cabinet. He’d given up on eating breakfast - he was always running late, and there was never anything good to eat, and so he did his best with the hot coffee that he didn’t actually like and to be honest, breakfast just brought back memories of waking up with Nicholas and gentle conversation over toast and somehow it seemed like it was always golden and springtime inside Danny’s memories. Somehow it always hurt a little too much to go back there.
Picking the requirements for a clean uniform out of the bag of clean laundry sitting in the almost-hallway between the kitchen-and-everything area and the bedroom where Nicholas was still asleep, Danny considered pulling out a towel, and the iron, and tidying his shirt up on the countertop. But then his eyes caught the clock on his DVD player, and he bit back a groan and made a solid effort to finish his coffee and take his pyjamas off at the same time. He was going to be late.
The other officers watched Danny, and oh, how familiar he was with that sensation. Out of the corners of their eyes, and occasional blatant stares with heads bent together and Danny’s own gaze focused on the forms in front of him; watching the movement of bodies without them noticing. Something he’d picked up from Nicholas. Everything he knew of use, it seemed, came from Nicholas in one way or another. And then Nicholas had suddenly caved in on himself, mined hollow and left unstable. (Just like everyone else Danny had needed too hard.)
Danny knew he stuck out. He knew it was his fault. Nothing personal on his desk (all his own personal desk items had either been little bits of paper with notes and doodles on them that he’d thrown away when cleaning it out, or little trinkets that had been left behind altogether), and even the most efficient of his new co-workers had something of interest stuck up in their lockers. Danny had turned up in Canterbury as a blank piece of paper, and blank he had remained.
At five o’clock, he walked home for lunch. Not home, not really. But he was sick of the stares, and sick of shaking heads as he declined - like always - the invitations of going down to the pub once he was off. Invitations that were slowly, finally (though he didn’t know why he used that word, not when he felt so torn) dwindling to insignificance. Canterbury looked a bit like Sandford. Except the centre part of it was a lot bigger, and the houses in the urban sprawl a little different, a little less rustic. There were no landmarks that Danny remembered Andy crashing into when he was learning to drive, no people on the street that gave him that gentle, knowing smile that said ‘I’ve known you since you was a boy, and I know what you’re up to now’. It was hard to believe that leaving all those little things behind had been so seductive. That it had been his idea.
Nicholas must have showered before he left. The flat smelt like him, like his deodorant, his skin. Danny fought back the urge to close his eyes and breathe it in, to pretend. He’d spent most of his life pretending that things were fine, that they’d get better. So much of his life wasted on a desperate-tasting hope. Wasted on Ni
‘I moved here for you,’ he said, inside his own head. ‘I tore up my life, I tore up my village… my family - all of it following you, all of it thinking you were something that you can’t seem to be.’ Inside his head, Nicholas was looking ashamed, was looking at Danny with apologetic blue eyes. Looking at him at all. ‘Everything I’ve sacrificed, and given up and… and missed out on. Am I ever going to stop missing it? Am I ever going to get what I need from you?’ And he had to tear his mind away, wipe out the image of Nicholas and the rant that got a little more polished every time it played out inside his head, try and forget that he knew - deep down, where it hurt, he knew - what the answer was. Danny Butterman; safe and sound, and back in denial.
Danny bit down on a yell, and kicked out with the kind of mindlessness a tantrum always attracts. Then he got to stand and stare at the dark mark the sole of his shoe had left behind on the wall that was painted towards the yellow end of the cream spectrum. Another scuff mark on something that was never meant to be pristine. He wondered if Nicholas would go off about it. He wondered if Nicholas would even notice it. And then, with a tired calmness once more wrapped around him, he got a cloth and some soapy water and did his best to remove it.
‘Use circular motions,’ his no-longer familiar mother said, ‘Don’t rub the stain into the paint.’
‘Shut up,’ Danny replied. ‘You left me too.’
He came home after Nicholas did, as always. Hanging up his coat and dropping his keys, and how could a simple routine eat away so very much? Nicholas on the couch, wearing a groove through cushions made of disappointment, flesh rotting away and limbs atrophying and when Nicholas turned to look at him it took Danny far too long to recognise the face staring back at him, far too much time wondering where his Nicholas had gone. His Nick who had made so many things happen, made Danny finally start creaking and moving towards something better only to sneak out and be replaced by this apathetic almost-copy. Only to leave Danny going nowhere. Again.
“Do you want a cup of tea?” he asked, and Nicholas shrugged. ‘This is what the rest of your life is going to be like,’ an inconvenient thought in the back of Danny’s mind whispered. ‘Until he leaves you too.’
Nicholas turned back to the television. “We’re out of milk,” he replied at last. And Danny tried as hard as he could to pretend he’d said something else entirely.