au goodness :D
Title: Different But The Same
Authors: marshwiggledyke , waffleguppies
Characters: Danny, Nicholas, various.
Word Count: 3122
Rating: PG-13 for language, mainly. Fluff 'n stuff.
Notes: We wrote this one between us, and had a crazy amount of fun with it too, I might add. Just some good, healthy AU-ing.
One year ago.
“What's the matter, Danny? You never taken a short cut before?”
So saying, Nicholas Angel turned, sprinted across the patch of wasteground, seized the fence with both hands, swung his body up, caught both shins on the top of the fence under him, and fell headfirst over it into the garden on the other side. There was heavy thud, then silence.
Danny closed his eyes and made himself take a deep breath in, looking skywards into the molten orange world behind his closed lids. Then he let it out and jogged across the grass, pulled himself up into a classic supported hurdle- the fence swayed under his weight, but he anticipated and allowed for the movement without thinking- and landed on the other side.
“You alright, Constable?”
“Hurg,” replied Nicholas. He was lying in someone's petunias, clutching his shins. Danny gave up on him for the moment and crossed the garden, swinging himself quickly over the next fence, and the next. There was a clear alley through to the lane down the side of this final garden, and he was quite happy to take it, saving any more unnecessary stunts. Unlike Angel, Danny felt no need to prove himself to other police officers by acting like Daniel Craig's shortarse stunt double.
It was painfully obvious that the Constable was trying to impress him. When under stress Angel, usually only just on the civil side of bloody antisocial, was what his dad would have called a right show-off. Never mind that he had precious little to be show-offy about as far as Danny could tell, a lifetime of watching bloody films instead of getting out in the fresh air, and police 'training' that appeared to have been picked up out of a very short, very old book. This was an unfriendly thought, and Danny had been trying not to dwell too much on it over the last couple of days. Still, he found that the... the laziness of it, the feeble wannabe apathy, ticked him off royally. This was a brilliant example, he thought, as he rounded the corner onto the lane, whatever the fuck it was called, and motored on after that purple blur, in the middle distance but getting nearer all the time.
You didn't scale a fence by running at it enthusiastically and hoping your limbs would just sort of magically know what to do. You exercised, and you learned how to approach tall obstacles, and you used what you'd been given, and Angel had genetic gift of a body, compared to his, a tough slim build that would probably tone up a hell of a lot easier than he had at first, all that time ago. It was just a question of working for it. Angel certainly seemed to eat healthily, too healthily for Danny's tastes, but all the obsessive cutting out caffeine and eating those manky power bars instead of breakfast in the world wasn't going to get rid of that slack, flabby middle Danny had seen on the one occasion that, despite Angel's best efforts, he'd glimpsed his partially bare chest in the locker room. Men like Angel didn't get fat if they didn't exercise, the lucky sods, they just stayed pale and sort of squishy in the gut and upper arms until middle age, when all of it slowly but surely converged upon the belly area. Danny, who had been ruthlessly fighting the flab ever since he'd got sick of the lardarse comments at around age fourteen, knew better than anybody that the only way to convert that flab to solid, powerful muscle that let you jump fences without doing faceplants into other people's petunias was to do the fucking legwork. During the first term at Hendon it had been easy to tell which were the ones who had been relying on healthy eating and protein shakes and shit. They were the ones who'd dropped out in the first few weeks.
And as he finally grabbed the nameless twat in the purple jumpsuit firmly by the biscuits and slammed him against the alley wall, groping for his cuffs while the caution spooled effortlessly from his mouth, he couldn't help wondering if there was a kind way of saying to Constable Nicholas Angel that a couple of pints of an evening and the occasional bacon sarnie weren't going to kill you, if you just stopped moping around sitting on your arse in a patrol car in a marketplace all day and sitting on your arse on a couch watching TV all night. Probably there wasn't, but Danny still felt a bit like giving it a go. Angel wanted to be good at what he did, at least. Who knew, there might be hope for him yet.
“Alright Nick,” wheezed the purple twat, as Angel limped up to them. The Constable mumbled something, picking a bit of leaf from his short blond hair.
“D'you know him?” demanded Danny, incredulously.
“I- he's sort of a cousin.”
“He's your cousin? You could've told me!”
Angel, still breathing too hard from the short run, his face flushed with unhealthy red blotches, mumbled something else. It sounded a bit like 'N'may eyes.”
“What?”
“I said I didn't see his face!” snapped Angel, angry and defensive. “I'm not bloody made of eyes, alright?”
Danny sighed. Then again, maybe there wasn't.
*
One week later.
It had probably been a bad idea to dare the constable into drinking, but for the life of him Danny couldn’t think how. The reason would probably come round again later.
It was just that the man was so nervous, nearly tripping over his own feet to buy Danny their next round, and he was trying to show off again, drinking the beer -which wasn’t too bad, actually- far too fast for someone who never went for a regular pint.
It was almost endearing, in a dorky, pathetic sort of way.
And now they were fair-to-middling pissed in front of Angel’s flat, and Nick was pulling out all the stops trying to get him inside.
“Coffee?”
“Fot you din’t drink coffee.”
“Tea?”
“What happen’ t’the no-caffiene diet?”
Nicholas was looking fairly desperate now. “’Nother beer, then?”
“Umm…”
*
Five minutes later.
Janine would have liked Nicholas, decided Danny, fumbling through his flat to the loo. Between the two of them, they’d probably end up measuring how many centimetres the bedsheets needed folding over. The bathroom was so white it glared. You would never have known from the state of the kitchen that Nicholas used it regularly. There was not a spot of friendly grease on tiles for miles, and the sink was empty. Danny hadn’t seen an empty sink since that last row about his system of wardrobe on the floor, and her being his fucking maid, sod off, you first, let it fucking go already. He hadn’t seen the bedroom, but if those perfectly-angled head-things on the couch were any sign, he didn’t need to.
The place was full of fucking house plants. With any luck, he wouldn’t knock any over and grind potting soil into the carpet. How many orchids did any one man need?
Nicholas waited til he heard the flush and the sink go before pressing the can into his towelled-off hands.
“Why the plants?” Danny said, because it was the first thing he could think of, instead of something sane or logical or not-rude like ‘thanks’. Probably because there had been a lily on the tank lid, staring back at him.
Nicholas blushed. “S’just, you know, something ’m actually good at. You prob’ly think i’sstupid. You’re good at ever’thing.”
Danny couldn’t make a bean grow in science class to save his life, but crazy plant-person Nicholas didn’t need to know that.
“Sometimes you gotta work for what you’re good at,” he pushed, gently. “Can’t just come by it.”
“You sound like my mum,” said Nick, picking glumly at the tab on his own beer.
“Maybe your mum’s got a point, then.” Many. That woman is prickly.
*
Three days later.
Nicholas was full of holes. Danny was still trying to process this. Nicholas was full of holes and might never wake up, just stay there on the bed until his body finally shut itself off. It was an outrageously stupid idea, jumping out like that, because there had been a lot more of sergeant for Tony to shoot behind a tiny furious flailing screaming constable, which would have made the gesture just as fucking pointless as a casino specializing in Russian Roulette.
Not that it hadn’t proven that Angel had balls that clanked together when he walked. Nicholas hadn’t anything, not a vest, not any training, not even an impressive body. His mum was an evil NWA-running cunt who’d been having it off with the now-vaporized Inspector Fisher behind everyone’s back, who’d tried to kill him. Danny had sworn he’d seen tears spring into Nicholas’s eyes as he’d shouted, for all to hear; ‘Dad's not dead, Mum! He's in fucking Milton Keynes! And, y'know, if he could see what you've become, he'd probably fuck off and leave us all over again!’
And yet, despite all that, he’d jumped anyway.
“You right showoff,” murmured Danny, squeezing the slack hand hard in his calloused one.
*
Now.
It's a hundred and thirteen steps up the church tower. A hundred and thirteen uneven stone steps, in a narrow, claustrophobic square spiral, with their heavy breathing echoing all around them. Most of it is Nicholas's. He's better, since the injuries and his PT and Danny's careful advice he's better and getting better every day, but they're almost there now and he's tiring. This climb has knackered him every time he's had to do it in his life, and this is no exception. But Danny is behind him, climbing along steadily with deep, measured breaths, and Nicholas will not slow down, or stop for a breather.
Onwards and upwards, until they reach the roof, a tiny courtyard fenced in by dozens of mouldering stone spires. Sure enough, on the back of the door, a smeary red shape. Danny closes the door to get a better look, leaving them shut out, up here with the brisk autumn breeze and the circling rooks. The day is dry, unseasonably warm, and the air smells of hay, warm country lanes, and sunshine.
“It's just a smiley face,” Danny says, disappointed. “Five minutes with a scrubbing brush'd get that off.”
Nicholas studies it, trying to get his breath back. “It's still vandalism.”
A sigh. “Yeah, I s'pose. Should've brought the camera.” Taking out his mobile phone, Danny frames the damage and takes a picture, after several minutes of fumbling with menus and submenus on the little screen, his thumb twitching awkwardly on the control. He isn't very good with his phone. As he works, his face is intensely concentrated, drawn into a little serious frown which rumples his forehead under the stray wisps of dark hair escaping from his hatband. It's totally unintentionally gorgeous, and Nicholas takes advantage of his focus on the screen to watch him.
“Right,” says Danny, at length, looking up so suddenly that Nicholas is caught out, and has to pretend to be studying a cornice over Danny's shoulder. As his expression has veered somewhat away from the neutral during the long interval, this makes him look as if he a) entertains stronger than average feelings for decorative stonework or b) has just suffered a mild stroke and gotten stuck that way. “That should do it, you reckon?”
“Umm?” says Nicholas, pretending to tear his gaze away from the cornice with some difficulty. “What?”
Danny crosses the space between them so he can see the little screen, shows him the photo. “S'at clear enough?”
Nicholas tries to concentrate, uncomfortably aware of Danny's eyes on him. His cheeks are already flushed from the climb, but really, the red patches should be getting smaller, not bigger. Far overhead a rook screams, a sharp, dark kraaw sound, and he starts. The back of his neck is on fire. “Yeah, I think so.”
“You alright, Nick?” asks Danny, a little dubious. He tucks his phone back into the pocket of his jersey. These days, Danny is happier wearing his comfy blue knitted regulation jersey than his stab vest. Not that he looks any less formidable in it. In the stab vest he looks like a high-risk-venue bouncer, a member of a tactical strike unit, a hunting bear. In the jersey he just looks like a high-risk-venue bouncer in disguise, a hunting bear on the down-low.
Nicholas isn't alright. His skin tingles, and there is a nameless quivery ache in his chest and a lower and fainter echo in his groin. They're all alone up here and Danny is so close, closer than reaching distance, and he's dreamed and daydreamed about this sort of thing happening but it's always Danny that makes the first move in his head. Every day, on every call, even the most trivial ones like this, he has to try very hard to be the police officer and the partner Danny deserves to have by his side. To be professional. For months now, he has been trying his hardest to deal, all by himself, with how very unprofessional his feelings for Danny really are.
Nicholas wants Danny. He'd rather take a running jump off the tower than ever admit the even more pathetic truth, which is that, in his fantasies, Danny wants him, too.
He can't breathe. In a couple of seconds he will manage a sort of nod, and a couple of seconds after that he will be able to mumble something about the climb and his middle, and Danny will be reassured if not entirely satisfied, and suggest they go down.
With such a clear vision of the immediate future in his mind's eye, it is with complete astonishment that he finds himself lurching forwards, upwards, almost on his toes. His eyes squeeze closed with a mixture of sinking horror and lovely anticipation, and he kisses Danny full on the mouth.
To say that Danny is startled is a bit of an understatement. To go from zero to snog in barely a second is startling for anybody under any circumstances, let alone when your mind is, up until the very moment of snoggage, still mostly occupied by the problem of which particular clean-up crew will be responsible for removing graffiti on Church property, the council or the volunteers or the groundstaff. He makes a noise like “Mf!” and it is fortunate that he has already put his phone back in his pocket, or he would most likely have dropped it on the stones at his feet.
Nicholas kisses Danny desperately, hungrily, his hand snaking up around the back of his head, ruffling through his hair. He's going to go to hell for this and Danny's never going to speak to him again, and he'll probably get kicked out of the Service for improper conduct- Danny's always easygoing when it comes to punitive measures in the workplace, but even patient easygoing sweethearts have their limits. Nicholas knows it's a bad deal, an insanely bad deal, to swap this day-to-day mixture of happiness and frustration at Danny's oblivious side for one absolutely fucking golden moment followed by indefinite misery, but it's too late now. His signature is on the scroll, inscribed in blood.
And still Nicholas can't care, if only because he'll still have this kiss to remember while he's scanning groceries in Somerfields, to relive (and get off on) when he's sleepless in his neat, empty bed in his tidy, sterile flat and Danny isn't there. Very soon now Danny is going to recover from the shock, and when he does he's probably going to punch Nicholas's nose out through the back of his skull, but- for once in his picky, overthinking, pedantic life- Nicholas simply doesn't care about the consequences of his actions. All that matters is this second, this near-perfect moment when he can pretend that Danny is kissing him back.
The hard logician at the back of his mind is counting down in T-minus seconds to the arrival of Danny's Right Hand of Doom, and wondering if he will actually lose any teeth. The rest of him is not taking calls. If anything, the terror and the adrenalin make it better, more real, carving it deep down into his memory, everything from the soft fluff of Danny's hair under his fingers to his own fizzing nerves and scorching, tingling, too-tight skin.
Please don't hit me please don't hit me please don't hit me please don't hate me pleasedon'thateme...
T minus three seconds.
With that weirdly gentle touch that is so out of kilter with his strength, Danny's hands steal up around his back.
Nicholas stops breathing.
*
The top of the church tower is wonderfully isolated. Sadly, in terms of available space and soft surfaces, it leaves a lot to be desired. During the next few urgent, clumsy, frequently quite loud minutes, Danny barks his shin on a cornerstone and Nicholas gets gravel down his collar, and both of them will be picking bits of sandstone out of their hair and socks and shirts and shoes for the next week. By the time they finally get it together enough to stumble down the one hundred and thirteen steps and out into the sunny churchyard they are two bruised, tired-out messes, tugging each others' uniforms back into place, barely able to catch each others' eyes without grinning so hard it hurts. There isn't a soul about, and Nicholas- with a burst of propriety which is completely ridiculous, considering- holds the gate open for his partner, who grins and tucks the trailing wire of his Nicholas's radio back under his epaulette as they slip past the sign for today's sermon, and sneak out of the church grounds.
THE END.
***
It is a little-known fact that the curious architectural composition of St. Vincent's has a use beyond the merely aesthetic. An interesting peculiarity in the structure of the tower creates a natural funnel for sound, the line of soundwaves emanating from the focus area at the top of the tower reflecting directly to the destination focus, the nave of the main church. This results in some truly remarkable acoustic phenomena, an effect similar to those of the famous 'whispering gallery' of Grand Central Station, New York City.
-Excerpt taken from Sandford, a Visitors Guide, p.28.
*
Above the tower, the rooks circle and caw. Their raucous cries are a little fainter but still quite clear and audible inside the church- one hundred and thirteen steps and a lot of solid stone below- where a congregation composed of just over eighty people, Reverend, organist, and ten-piece choir, sit in uncomfortable silence.