fallen

nathan etton. 21. schizoid personality disorder, depression, alcohol dependecy.

[ifoundmyvice]

decetton:

[She’s tempted to take him up on it. Her pitas really are lonely, and it sounds like a plan that she can approve of. But she doesn’t want to go out right now. The world is already spinning just a little too fast for her taste, and truth be told, she’s not as bothered as she might force across.

Which she’s sure Nathan knows, but that isn’t the point.

Dec shakes her head and pops a pita in her mouth. It crunches a little too loud between her teeth, but she’s alright with that. She doesn’t have the words to reply quite yet. The girl still needs a few moments to process as a whole, and she has to think that she’ll never exactly be quick to speak. It’s just not her forte.

As soon as her hand is free of the chip, she pulls her hair out of her face. It’s long, and steadily getting darker. Vaguely she notes that it might be time for a trim.]

That does sound like a great plan, but I’m going to take a rain check. Besides, I want the opportunity drink all of his coffee before he can when he makes it.

Okay.

[And it occurs to Nathan only just then that he no longer knows how to talk to his sister. He doesn't know what to say to her now that the guilt is all he can think of. All he knows is her taking care of him, trudging him to her room when she was fourteen for the first time and then probably something close to twice a week since. She never lost her patience, just huffed a bit because he only ever got so drunk he needed her help that many times. It was too many.

And she has been growing up way too quickly for him to comprehend. There's no real awkwardness in it. He doesn't feel as if the air needs to be filled by something, but it's just that there's always words lingering behind his lips for her, apologies and promises that she's all already heard a million times. It makes a difference that he's sober now. Maybe.

He doesn't know what to do anymore, so he pines.] So, you wanna watch cartoons or something?

[ifoundmyvice]

decetton:

The moment it graced my poor unsuspecting tongue. Guacamole has always been good, Nat.

[She smiles in spite of her faux annoyance. It’s been a while since her brother has made her feel on edge. Not to say that it never happens anymore, but she thinks they’re much better at talking to each other now. Or maybe just as well as they’ll ever be. Either way she gestures to the bag of chips on the counter behind her absently.] Now my pitas are lonely.

[It's always going to be hard to talk to Dec now, Nathan knows. Because Dec will always be a reminder of who he was. She will always be the one who took care of him before Danny. And it was always hollow because she never knew what to say, only what to do. And Danny never really knew either, but he still somehow made it better.

But Nathan knows he can't live without her. He knew it the moment she'd left. Because she was hauled off first. Their mother being dead was the only reason he went to hospital instead of prison. It meant a history of mental illness in the family and if he made one mistake in prison and they didn't give him the proper care he needed, then the state would have to pay.

He glances back at the door he knows Danny's behind, sleeping on the bed, before he shrugs.] We'll go pick some up. And eat it all in the car.

[decetton]

Look, I’m not a violent person, but whoever keeps eating all the guacamole needs to start sleeping with one eye open. [And it’s mostly a joke. Syllables strung together with a confidence she’s still only just learning to possess. It’s still easier to use her board to speak, but she’s at a point where she knows it doesn’t really benefit her to. But the sarcasm is still somewhat shaky at best.

All the same, she glances over her shoulder at whoever is coming in. And she’s only slightly surprised to find it easy to smirk slightly with the action.]

[ifoundmyvice]

That would be Danny. [Nathan says it with nonchalance and confidence, despite that he's not actually sure whether or not it's him. He knows he remembers the man saying something about missing it, though.

He's not doing so well today, though he's trying to pretend he is. Today isn't a day that he misses the bitter taste of alcohol so much as it was that he woke up beside a sleeping Danny and didn't feel right about it. Not that he didn't love him and not that it wasn't right, but things were bottled today. And maybe spending time with his sister was a good thing, was what he needed.] Or Tabitha. I know it's not me. When did you start liking guacamole so much, anyway?

[fyandrewemma-blog]

[ifoundmyvice]

nathan etton ⇒ moodboard 1/∞

[iamnotmercy]

[It’s not that he feels close to death. Danny has sort of been there, done that with the whole near dead thing. And yes, it’s a place he regularly finds hi way back to. But it’s a distinctly different feeling than this — the sense of hollowness infecting his lungs.

Each breath feels like an arctic breeze; too clear down his throat. Too easy to keep, and it’s an abstract sort of comfort to feel it at all, without his breathing distorting to match perception.

He’d paid close attention to how he would breathe when he was much younger. He’d focused on the in, and out, until it slowed, or sped, the way he thought it would. And for minutes an minutes after, he’d be stuck on noticing it, unable to let it fall normal again.

Danny tries to avoid those moments now. Today, they avoid him. If he listens very closely, he imagines he can hear each huff sway the stale air of the empty rec room around him. What he actual hears is the couch cushions crinkle beneath his feet, and the sounds of other patients moving in far off halls.

He pretends it is his breathing. He pretends that he feels steady.]

[ifoundmyvice]

[Nathan hadn't been looking for him, per say, but he had been looking. In each step, even if there was little bounce, it had been the bounce of a step of a man in love. Though, were his steps to truly bounce, he'd have to admit it. He'd have to let himself believe he said it. He said it. Not Danny. Still, it haunts him. But it's been several days -- a week, maybe, and he's managed to let it go with the vigorous usage of avoidance some days and alcohol the other ones.

Nathan's fingers are fidgety today. They move when he doesn't, before he does, and they're half. Where it's not true that he is whole, his fingers are less. They had been lifting glass bottles, fiddling and scraping and slicing when he accidentally dropped one. He'd cut a hole in his jeans on accident and then used the cloth he cut out instead of cut in to stop the bleeding on the palm of his head and the headache looming where alcohol and broken skin meant blood loss. It was no suicide attempt: he was just getting the shit to stop.

And he finds Danny in the rec room. He smiles, slightly, his lips lifting up nearly as if someone's fingers raised them for him. He slips into the comfort of the man, slightly taller than him, though all the same when they sit.

Today is a day in which they had guessed Asperger's before SPD. He was uninterested all the same, but focused and taught, eager. His fingers graze the arm of the couch as he rounds it, then sits on the floor in front of the man who he's sure would like him to leave, the man who wasn't lying about his love for any rude way, but he had no heart to tell Nathan he wasn't interested-- invested.]

[ifoundmyvice]

iamnotmercy:

[Danny scrunches his face, bringing his hand up to rake through his hair.] It’s not that I think you’re lying. I know it’s not a lie, I just know that you can’t… You can’t mean those sorts of things about people like me.

[But he lets it drop. Because that is the point of their whole issue, but it isn’t what needs attention at the moment. What needs attention is what follows it all. That small ‘I need help’ in the wake of ‘I murdered my brother.’

Danny is no stranger to familial blood. He lives on patricide, and bloody revenge. But he hadn’t been strong enough to seek help in the aftermath. He’d taken a knife, dug it deep into his chest, and waited for the end to take the pain away from him. And it hadn’t worked. It hadn’t fucking worked, so he’d trudged on. Through life, through attempts 2 through 5. He’d sucked in air like it meant the same, trying to make people feel better about themselves — to give them every ounce of preservation he had left, so that at least he could say he had tried to atone.

Like he ever can. Like he ever could. And Danny is dragging Nathan to the depths to drown by staying here. He recognizes that even as he reaches out to the other; his face too blatantly bare of composure. It’s not as if Nathan will accept his gesture, but he’s stepping forward and holding out to draw the other in all the same.]

I want to help you, but I’m so scared that I’ll break you. [He doesn’t know how to do anything else.]

[Nathan's eyes stare at the linoleum, still. And he counts the tiles to drown out what Danny says. He counts how many little squares are in each square because he doesn't necessarily need to hear his voice when he does. He can drown it out with counting ounces and shots and just, at the end of the night, add it to a tab that'd equate to whatever he couldn't find.

Nathan had to be in his place and as of the words, as of the kisses he so desperately loved and needed, he was far outside of the circle that was safe. Danny was not safe. But it would never be his fault if Nathan broke under his touch.

He pulls away from Danny's arms, shimmying out as if to remind him that he never hugged him back, never nuzzled himself into the other's neck like he wanted. But Nathan, as Nathan is, can't stray too far, so he's too close when he's in front of him, close enough that his eyes have to hover over his lips. He makes some kind of promise there and it's not one he can keep. He wants to tell him he loves him. He wants Danny to hear it. He wants to be okay.

But he's not so he just hovers close, just pretends.] I meant it. I can't say it, but you should know I meant it.

[iamnotmercy]

Don’t be.

[See, if there’s one thing that Danny understands intrinsically, it is that he doesn’t deserve anyone’s love. He’s got a bad habit of only doing things that hurt everyone involved when he’s loved. He’s got a bad habit of breaking everything he wants kept whole the most. So it isn’t an unfamiliar feeling for him to want to drink Nathan’s words in like the truth. And hell, just because Danny rejects them, they aren’t necessarily a lie.

But he can’t do that this time. And despite that he wants Nathan to keep all of his love for someone who is worth it, — like is, like he must be, because he can’t have really meant it - Danny fights the thought that he should have to apologize.

It was a mistake, but it was Nathan’s to make. Danny is a big boy. He can handle the disappointment. He can take the way it stings, and try valiantly not to drown in that. The man doesn’t need Nathan’s concern.

He just wants is, more than anything he can imagine ever having wanted before.]

I should have handled it better.

[And the thing is, that Danny wants to spill the truth. There’s nothing he wants more than to say ‘I love you too, and don’t you ever forget it.’ But what comes out is so much worse. So much more stiff, and plainly hurt. If he could choke the words back down again, he would in an instant. They give away far too much about how he aches.]

I didn’t mean to make you feel unwanted. I just didn’t want to.. take advantage, of whatever was off.

[But he can’t, so he lets them ring. Danny flinches, and prepares for the worst.]

[ifoundmyvice]

Me? I'm always off. [The quiet, bitter words have no honesty behind them, though. They aren't genuine, even if they're true. Nathan is always purposeful at what he does. He is always closed and cruel because it was the world and not himself in charge of moulding him. And he was made so that he may never break the mould, only the family.

The reasoning is that their father pays attention to he and Dec now. But Dec, despite her outward apathy, is still forgiven. She did it on accident. And the courts used Dec as his person scapegoat. With Dec in hospital, there was a history of mental illness in the family. He imagined a different trial where he begged the court not of mental illness, but neglect, where Dec, who didn't care to place the blame despite her anger, was an example to be made. Their parents, the real criminals.

The difference, however, between dad's love for December and disdain for Nathan is that she killed their mother by accident. She was a little obsessive, a little unwell. He was a cold-blooded murderer. He just couldn't look at him. He looks at his son more now when he visits than he did before.

And Nathan couldn't explain that to Danny. He couldn't explain that he didn't know what to do with love simply because he had never been taught it. He'd learned how to take care of a little sister, but never how to be taken care of, even when she did help him. He only accepted it drunkenly. And here is a man willing, knowing what he's getting into.] I stabbed my brother. Killed him. And I don't feel bad. But then I feel the worst knowing you think I'm a liar. All it did was make it easier to say. You think I lied to you? It just made it easier to say. I can't let someone love me, but I think you already do. And I f-- I need help.

[ifoundmyvice]

iamnotmercy:

[Danny is far from being a reserved person. To say otherwise is the kind of thing that is, and always would be, more of a lie than the truth. He’s absolutely stellar at saying things he doesn’t mean, and then at saying the things he does — at the wrong time — as well. Reserve isn’t really in his nature. Danny lives in the zones between ‘bottle it until you bleed’ and ‘lay it all out like roadkill.’

It’s not as if talking about himself doesn’t often feel like getting run over by a truck anyways.

But this was different. This was Nathan, drunk, or fucked, or something admitting a love he couldn’t possibly feel sober. And though Danny can see exactly where he’d fucked himself over with his chosen response, he can’t help but defend it. It would have been wrong for him to press any real emotion on Nathan. It would have been taking advantage, and it would have been gross.

So why does he still feel like he’s lost something genuine out of it? Why is his brain going blank trying to find the words to say to make it better? Why did he have to fuck this up? This, his one good thing?

Danny feels like a worm left to fry in the summer sun, and cold all at once, because there’s no familiar form to warm the sheets beside him. He wants to laugh, and cry, and vomit, because he’s not sure what else there is to do.

In the end of it, he does none of that. He tells himself that he never wanted to be a ghost, just a dead boy, and not even a dead boy walking. And he seeks out the man he’d hurt.

It’s perhaps too easy to find him, though. And even as Danny steps forwards, he finds himself wishing he could run. Wishing he knew some sure way not to fuck things up further.]

Hey. [He offers quietly, like breathing too loud might shatter the world around them.]

[Nathan moves his head away from the wall like it might save him some dignity. That is, some he doesn't have. Some he doesn't deserve. The kind of thing that left when the headache came and the alcohol beat drum lines against his skull and stomach. And his body did this to himself just to prove that he's destroying himself. This is his body reacting to poison. And it's exactly why he continues.

His eyes feel so sunken into his skull that he doesn't remember he has them. He doesn't look at Danny, just the floor. He stares at the linoleum like it's his default, as if he walks around looking at his shoes all day. And when he's not around Danny, he does. He doesn't look at anyone but Danny and Dec, and the occasional times that he sees his brother's face in someone else's and he has to pretend, has to imagine a world where he didn't do what he had.

The problem, and so every doctor said, was not that he felt guilty. He regretted it, but only because of the consequences. He regretted it, but not because he felt guilty. Nathan did not feel like a murderer, despite murdering someone. His own brother. It was not born of revenge or hatred or attention. He stabbed him with anger and alcohol fueling his veins.

A part of him wishes he could stab Danny now. He wishes he could save him from what he's already gotten himself into, from the bloodied knuckles he keeps and wears like a tired crown, world renowned for being a boxing champion.

His lips move like words will come out, but he doesn't manage them. "Hey" is no longer appropriate. He doesn't know what to say. He wants to curl into Danny and pretend he's never been wrong before.

He remembers breathing first.] I'm sorry.

[ifoundmyvice]

[Nathan made the mistake of telling him that he'd live. He made the mistake of, ultimately, trying. And very hard. He did not consider slitting his wrists but only because he was afraid of what might lie where he couldn't see, where it may be darkness or it may be a TV show, where he repeated the worst, which wasn't stabbing his brother repeatedly.

Repeatedly. Down. Repressive. Depressive. Every word just sort of hung off of the ceiling in little China tea cups that their mother cherished, all now dangling above him and instead of reaching his arms out to catch the most valuable ones or the ones with sentiment, to salvage some of it, he doesn't bother. He walks past the spot in the hall just in front of Dec's room and he lets them drop, shattering as if he, the bull, shook the foundation.

Dec, despite all her protesting and all of her shared books, her favourite binds that she let him and only him touch and read, would never really want him. Love, maybe. A brother was a brother. But she, had she had the choice, would have picked someone else. She was simply good at tolerating him, better than anyone else. And she knew that if he passed out in the library, he'd bring no books with him. Just as long as he didn't, she was fine with it. She would bring a blanket.

He rests his head against the wall, eyes closing because he was no longer drunk, just spinning circles in his head, just wobbly as he walked.

Why did he say it to Danny? Why was it haunting him?]

[ifoundmyvice]

iamnotmercy:

[It rips his heart out to watch him go further away. Tears at him in a way he cannot describe, but he has to let it happen. Because it’s for the best. Because he doesn’t want to spook him, doesn’t want him to leave in whole. But he’s started telling the truth already, and he doesn’t see much of a point in stopping now. Like if he’s going to dig himself a hole, he might as well dig one so deep that he cannot find his way out again. Because he doesn’t deserve the out.

Doesn’t deserve Nathan.

Starting to speak in the wake of it feels like swallowing glass all by itself. But he pushes through it, like pain is what this sort of thing is supposed to feel like. For all he knows, that’s true too. He hasn’t loved someone yet who hasn’t hurt him. Hasn’t loved someone yet that he hasn’t hurt in turn. But he doesn’t want to hurt Nathan. He violently wants to do anything but that, and somehow still, it’s all he manages.

Every time things get good, they fall away. Danny wonders if this is what hell is. If one try down the line, he succeeded, but he wasn’t allowed to know it, and now he has to watch everything he wanted come and go in punishment. It wouldn’t surprise him, what with his tendencies, and his luck.]

You’re not drunk, so what are you?

[The words come out so much rougher than he means them to. Hollow, and defeated as he scrunches his face in concentration. If he doesn’t get the sentiment out now, then he doesn’t think he ever will. And in the moment, the man deserves more than bottled up fear. Danny doesn’t want another thing to regret. He just wants to know that he did all he could, and Nathan walked away anyways.

He doesn’t really see a future where Nathan doesn’t. It’s what makes spilling his bloodied guts into the tense air between them worth it. At least if he’s bleeding out, it’s with all hope of healing gone.]

Because I know you’re not sober, and I feel— [He chokes, his face unfurling into an expression he hasn’t displayed since he was very small, and still unsure of his father’s fists. It’s a vulnerable, painful display. Danny loathes it, but he cannot fight it, and fight his loss all at once.

He chokes, he shakes, and he pretends that neither is he doing it, nor can Nathan see it happening. He’s not used to being open. Not used to it at all.] I love you, but I feel wrong telling it to someone who might— someone who will, wake up an decide that it was— that they didn’t mean it. That it was just the whatever speaking.

So just don’t— don’t hate me when you’re— when you’re thinking straight.

[And his lips pull into a tight, flat line as soon as the last words are out. Danny hangs his head, and watches Nathan’s feet; ready to follow them out with his gaze should the other flee.

He feels like a child again. Feels like though the wounds he’ll inflict on himself if, when Nathan goes will be more severe than bruises, they will be so much more satisfying.]

[Nathan doesn't go anywhere, but he doesn't answer. He feels sober again. There's a looming cloudiness, like the pill is sucking up his air and he's feeling that euphoric feeling of dying just before death, like how freezing was said to feel good, how bleeding out was supposed to be painless. And it's that and all of its gore.

It's not that Danny says it. it's not that he explains himself and that it hurts, though it does. It's not that he feels the glass Danny is swallowing go down his stomach, into his intestines. The word, the three words, was too much and he should have known that.

He feels sober again. Unsafe from the guise of what feelings he could hide with a thick layer of cinnamon whiskey coating his tongue and his throat, with a candy coating on a white pill that would save him the taste of what was bitter as if a preview of what was to come.

Nathan was no longer safe here. He wasn't allowed in this room. He wasn't poised, wasn't whole. He was giving himself away little by little every time he let Danny's fingers slide down his neck, down his shirt, down until they found his hips and his stomach and pressed indents like they belonged. Danny's bruises would be the only bruises he would take with pleasure. He was the only one allowed to push blood vessels until they popped and burst and-- Nathan needed him.

He needs marks like those to go along with the word so they weren't for naught, so he could exchange the pain for other pain and just learn it. Deal with it. Be it. And then maybe love would be the grand ride everyone claimed it was. Maybe it wouldn't be this. Maybe it wouldn't be fear bundled up into some part of his intestine inaccessible without ripping him open.

He turns, but there are tears welling in his eyes as he does. It's not a sight for Danny to see, not intended for him, but he doesn't move away from the door, he doesn't move his eyes from Danny's. He doesn't soak in the truth without showing Danny what the cost is.

He meant it, he wants to say. He meant it. But he's still going to hate him. He still hates him. He'll still hack up his arms and go see Dec through the shelves of books, so displeased with the life she leads that she surrounds herself in books and erase board markers. He hates everyone when he's thinking straight. He hates himself the most. And he always will.] Don't let me leave.

[ifoundmyvice]

iamnotmercy:

[He knows what’s wrong the moment that Nathan first tries to voice it. It feels like his lungs caving in. And every stutter after that that he lays frozen, watching the other move, is slowed in time and agonizing. Danny wants to comfort the other. He doesn’t ever want to cause him this kind of pain. So when he catches himself, when he learns how to move again, he’s shooting up on his knees. He’s tangling his arms around Nathan’s waist from where he’s knelt on the bed, pressing his face into the plane of the other’s back.]

Nathan. [His voice is a matching whimper, speaking much less of apology, and so much more of wanting. Danny doesn’t know how to put the world back together again, but it doesn’t mean that he won’t try. And when he kisses Nathan’s spine, it doesn’t entirely matter whether or not he can feel it through the fabric. Danny just hopes that he does.]

Nathan, babe— [Danny moves to grip the man’s hips, turning him toward him as he speaks. They aren’t the kind of words that one can say to another’s back, and certainly with Nathan upset, they shouldn’t be.

It feels like simultaneously lifting a weight and dropping twice it on top of him to voice the feeling. It feels wrong, because he’s not sure that Nathan will still mean his words in the morning. And Danny is not drunk. Danny is nothing but entirely sober, and he will have no excuse for what he says if Nathan takes his statement back.

It doesn’t make it any less the truth to say; just truth that comes with a heavier amount of uncertainty than he wishes it would.

But if it’s what Nathan needs, he is so much more than willing to give it.]

[He catches the other’s gaze the best he can with a look that is reassuring, soft, and pleading.] Babe, breathe. [If his fingers rub circles where they still rest on the other’s hips, than he will not bother to deny it.] I love you too.

I love you more than you could know, Nathan.

[Nathan wants to push him off. He doesn't need the explanation. He doesn't deserve it. And Danny can't understand that. Danny doesn't love him. But his hands have a way of keeping him there even when he doesn't want to be. Even when he wants to curl into a ball and hide in the closet or some dark corner of the room, Danny's hands turn him around and breathes "babe," as if they're dating and he can. As if he loves him and he can.

And he can. He can. He can do whatever he wants because despite the shame and the guilt and the sorrow overlapping and ruining his high, it doesn't change the fact that he does love Danny and that every piece of him aches with sickness when he's away, when his fingers aren't purposeful on his skin. He needs it now, so accustomed. Danny, always the one to find him.

"Breathe," says Danny. And it makes it even harder to. He had no problems breathing. He could breathe fine. If only he'd just never met the man. Wasn't the point of all this to not be as sad as he was? Wasn't the pill supposed to fight it? It had only been two hours. It couldn't be leaving him after two hours. It can't leave him now, when he's said those words. They're true, but Nathan would tear himself apart before he let Danny hear them, before he placed that burden.

And he knows, absolutely knows, that the man is not being honest. Danny doesn't love him. He wouldn't have waited. Danny is not in love with him.

He's touching him and it makes Nathan feel like trash, garbage, disgusting.] No, no. No. [He loves the way Danny's fingers trace into his hips, how he does that. But not now. Now, it's all rising up his lungs.] No. No, you don't. I c-- I can't. I can't.

[He peels Danny's hands away and he steps back. Back, back, back, back until he's near the door again. How short-lived, this love. How sad that he would remember it all and that he would rip himself to shreds. How he had already ripped Danny to shreds.]

[ifoundmyvice]

iamnotmercy:

[Danny doesn’t think he can pinpoint the exact moment that he shatters, he just knows after, that it has happened. And though he stands before the man in splinters, still breathing in the wake of the bomb, he doesn’t let it show that he’s broken. Danny presses his forehead to Nathan’s, shuts his eyes, and pretends that the other means it. Pretends that the man isn’t drunk, or sleep deprived, or off of his head one way or another. Danny pretends that their wounds don’t exist, and that this is a world where those words can be meant.]

Oh yeah? Prove it.

[Then he opens his eyes, seals away the dream, and pulls Nathan by the waist back to the bed. They don’t land gracefully. It’s a toppling sort of gesture, that leaves the both of them messily sprawled atop the sheets. But it doesn’t take much maneuvering to have them positioned comfortably,

And Danny breathes into the junction of Nathan’s neck; hand laid firmly across the man’s torso; fingers catching aimlessly in the fabric of his shirt. They should strip. They should get in bed clothes. They should be close, and yet Danny feels gross for wanting it at the moment.

Nathan says he loves him, but he doesn’t mean it. And for now Danny is content simply just to lie with him.]

[Nathan's not sure where he's going when he goes, but he does. He feels the sheets on his bare arms and his hair press down against his head because of the pillow and though he smiles while Danny's breath warms his neck. He smiles up until he realises "prove it" is not the same as "I love you, too." And it's not enough for him. It's too much, maybe. Because saying it, saying it was enough. Saying it was... It was the truth. He was high and it was easier. It wasn't intentional or his own, but it was the truth.

And Nathan freezes underneath him until he pushes back.] You c-- You didn't--

[He didn't have to. He didn't have to if he didn't believe it, if he didn't feel it. Danny wanted him and he knew because of the way that his fingers were constantly on him. But Danny wanted him. Maybe he needed him. But he didn't love him. Danny did not love Nathan and Nathan was a fool to say it.

He pushes until he's up and he's shaking his head. He thinks only of how he wants to be beneath the man again, wants to forget that he didn't say it back and feel the cloudiness smother him, feel Danny's breathing on every inch of his skin because he was oh, so good at it. He could work Nathan up into anything he wanted him to be. And he frequently did.]

You said-- [He licks his lips. Nothing. He said nothing. He wants to be more coherent. Danny said, Danny didn't say, and he can't keep up except that his head spins with it.]

Danny. [He whimpers out the name through clouded syllables and apologises for fucking up. For being a fuck-up. He apologises for stabbing his brother and he says sorry that he says, "I love you" now and he apologises for never being enough for Dec. He hasn't been anything his whole life and here he thought he could love.]

[ifoundmyvice]

iamnotmercy:

[Danny is ready to shudder. To full body wrack, and let every bone in his body turn to butter, to sink into a pile of mush on the floor at the words. It’s an odd reaction perhaps, but it’s something he half feels whenever Nathan is around anyways. Like he could stop breathing any moment, and it would be alright. And hey, it would, for many reasons on any given day.

Danny has enough scars from attempts, beatings, and breaking to lead from his wrists to his throat, and down again. Vaguely he hopes that Nathan never has to trace those pathways, and never has to see him go under.

But when Nathan’s around, it isn’t the sort of fledgling suicidal feeling that it is when he’s alone. When Nathan’s around, it’s almost like he could be whole, breathing or not. Like the other might breathe for him.

And how could he ever say no to that? Sort of head over heels or not? Danny heaves a sigh that shakes like tectonic plates along fault lines; it grinds at his nerves, a sign he’s about to break. But he doesn’t. He holds strong, and there’s no subduction in his will. No liquefaction post strike. His epicenter holds strong, even as his breath cracks. Splits like Nathan’s lip.

Danny doesn’t have words to express his worry, and for the moment, he doesn’t even attempt to. Doesn’t want to ruin what this is — holding Nathan like this, the knowledge that he is somewhere someone chose to go settling in his thoughts like a layer of dust.

He will forget it by morning, and probably by the time the clock strikes the next hour. But for now, he is where Nathan wants to be. And he thinks his chest could split open with what that makes him feel. So he snakes an arm around the man’s waist, cupping his chin more firmly as he levels the other a soft grin.]

Of course you can.

[And it takes every ounce of his will not to close the space between them. He wants to kiss Nathan until they both forget the wounds, and the weight of the world. But now isn’t really the right time, Danny knows. He’s not so caught up in his feelings that he doesn’t pick up on what’s off.

The other doesn’t smell like booze, but there’s something not right about him. Something too airy, too pliant. Nathan, for all Danny loves him, is rigid. Shelled.

He tells himself that he is not only someplace Nathan goes when he is off, or when he’s had intoxicating help. He tells himself that Nathan might love him too, and then he chokes back the parts of him that want to laugh at that.]

The bed’s awful cold without you.

[The words make Nathan feel like he's done something to deserve the love and tinge of kindness packed into every word that is spoken by Danny. The way he stands here is simple. And the way Danny touches him is exemplary. This way, he feels.

There's a limp to Nathan's word, one in his step despite that he goes nowhere. He steps nowhere away from Danny. He smiles, instead and he brings his own hand up to clasp it over Danny's, to feel the roughness of his hands and where bruises and scrapes are always healing over his knuckles. Despite that he wants Danny to never harm himself in that way, it's become something he loves, something he recognises him with. It's become a part of Danny that Nathan would never change, even if he had the chance. Maybe he could heal him, somehow, if he touched the bruises and all long enough.

He is clasped between this man and the door, between an arm and a hand and he is happy here. It's the high, he knows it's the high, but he is content and as content as he has ever been. And he feels as if everyone around him should be, too. Danny is. Dec should be.]

Hey. [He's muttering, eyes somewhere between open and closed, alive and not, but happy enough to be there.] Hey, I-- I love you.

[It's enough. It's just enough. It's a breath like any other breath. it feels like it should. It's natural, like it is. And it doesn't register to Nathan that they haven't said it to each other yet.] A lot. Yeah. I'm gonna sleep in your bed with you. And it's gonna be warm again, so don't worry.

[ifoundmyvice]

iamnotmercy:

[Danny looks up at him through half-lidded eyes. His bed is cold, despite that he’s been laying on it for hours. And vaguely, at Nathan makes his way into the room, he thinks that the man would be the perfect solution to that. What better way to keep warm than to do it pressed against your lover? (And that, in his mind, sounds wrong. They’re not ‘lovers’ pressed against one another in the secrecy of the night. But they don’t have a word yet for what they are, and Danny tells himself that he’s okay with that.)

But the thoughts of pressing Nathan beneath him on the sheets take the back burner as he notices the damage to his skin; his lip, his cheek, his everything. And, well, maybe it isn’t so much that they take a back burner, but the romantic intent of it fades in the face of preservation. The deep, growing need to make sure that in spite of his appearance, Nathan is alright.

He’s off his bed and across the room in seconds; fingers fluttering across Nathan’s shirt, his shoulders, his neck to settle at the man’s jaw; certain of the touch, but uncertain of the intent. He doesn’t know how to heal things. Or how to make them better.

Danny knows which touches are reserved for comfort, and which gestures are born of good will. But he doesn’t know how to give them to another — already so sure he fucked up when he tried with Tabby. It’s why he has a tendency to kiss the things he breaks, and vice versa.

Like if he kisses it away, things will be better, and he won’t have to think about how fragile people sometimes are. He’s always been one to advocate, that one can be surprised how much they can live through.

It doesn’t mean that he doesn’t look at Nathan now, and wonder if he’d crack like porcelain if he pushed too hard. He wouldn’t, he knows. Nathan is stronger than that. Most people are, but Nathan especially.

Danny is just too prone to worrying.

His fingers ghost along the man’s jaw, and though his expression speaks volumes towards his thoughts, they aren’t what he says. Not yet, at least.]

Look at what the cat dragged in. Hey. [Full of adoration, and unnamed concern.]

[Danny's immediate. It's a rush that overcomes Nathan in ways that make it hard to speak, like something has snuck into his body and risen up his throat. And Danny's affection will always hit him like how the full moon is an easy target at night. He thinks he just might never get rid of the butterflies in his stomach when Danny touches him.

Nathan's high. He didn't do narcotics, generally, so this high is unfamiliar to him. It's more grounded, less unaware. His feet can follow his commands and his fingers, too, but his smiles and the way he feels as if he's sinking into linoleum of Danny's room are not his own. He thinks he likes this better. It's not so heavy, not so guilt-inducing. Sure, he's not his own person now, but it's easier. And he knows there to be no basis.

But Danny's fingers on his skin feel like home again. No, better than home. They feel like he's spoken to Dec and she's smiling and talking and she says she's happy now, happy and she still likes books, but she's getting better. People touching them isn't so bad. She still likes them in the right order. She still likes libraries more because they're quiet. But she can talk all right, even to other people. She can let them read the books, too, or put them out of order (though she'll put it back afterward).

Then, after speaking to her, he's come to Danny and Danny will ignore his cuts and scrapes and ignore that he might know he's high. He'll ignore it all and just love him. He'll allow Nathan to let himself accumulate scars in payment, and he'll smile. He'll understand.

Neither of those things will happen. Danny will always be angry when he sees the two horizontal slits across Nathan's wrists. He will always try to kiss every bruise off of his skin with tenderness and slide his fingers over it as if it's the last of the magic touch. Love solves everything.

Nathan almost seems sleepy when he responds, when he allows his eyes to close for the first several second and revel in the man's touch.]

Hey. [It seems appropriate now.] I thought... I'd sleep in here tonight. Can I?

[ifoundmyvice]

[It had been easier to not drink. For Nathan, it had been easier to not drink because Danny had let him once, and he had kissed it out of him, kissed him raw until he no longer needed the vodka that night.

So tonight's hard because Danny wasn't there last night to kiss the cravings out of him. And he managed by himself, knowing Danny had to have been busy, had to have been battling things by himself. Nathan had done his best, his utter best, to not be so dependent. Danny wasn't fixing him, he didn't need to be fixing him. It wasn't his responsibility. Whoever's it was wasn't doing very well, because harder tonight meant something. It meant Nathan had to take something.

And that something was prescription, though not his. An addict was an addict was an addict and so the addict was addicted -- to whatever. Little white bars that didn't have the effect the same as a hangover. Nathan was not accustomed to pills, but his mother took enough of them to get by in her daily life. Happy pills. She ignored them, but she knew them. Him and Dec, the fuck-ups they were, the two of the family. Murderers.

Danny's door was open, cracked, and Nathan shoves past it. Cracked, like the skin on Nathan's lip and cheek, cracked to get something out of someone. Cracked in the way that if Danny did that, if he abused the ones he loved, he might do to him for allowing it.

Nathan doesn't remember as he saunters into Danny's room, though. It doesn't hurt, even as he smiles. But he says nothing. "Hello." "Hey." They don't fit. He'd sooner greet him by saying "I love you."]

[ifoundmyvice]

iamnotmercy:

[It’s been a long while since Danny has been an innocent child, and cautious or not, he takes the hint. Danny eases against Nathan. Shifts up against him, just slight enough that it drags their hips together. The contact is much softer than he needs it to be, but it is also enough to drag a low moan from his throat. One he won’t even deny making, because it is Nathan’s to claim, and Danny won’t rob him of that.

He may however muffle it; finding it much more enjoyable to suck and nip at the male’s lips as he does so. And every little hitch, every slight noise that comes with the way he rolls his hips against his love’s thereafter, is for the man to swallow. For Danny to give and never try to take back.

It’s a pattern that he works with — kiss, nip, grind, suck — whether it’s the man’s lips, or neck, or tongue being targeted. He works with it until he’s too hard to ignore, and he has to make a call.

And the call itself is not for him to make. So he shifts his hands to Nathan’s ass, all but dragging him off the chair and into his lap. It’s a slightly difficult maneuver with an erection in play, but if Nathan can feel his hard on between his own legs, then it’s not something he couldn’t have foreseen.]

You coming?

[Nathan hitches. His breath, his body, everything that can just stall for a minute does. And when he tastes Danny's tongue, he knows the other can taste the whiskey because it was strong and promising and he drank it faster than his burning throat could keep up.

He doesn't know where his breathing stops and begins, he just knows that he's taking Danny's. And he knows he's taking his noises, too, his words. Him.

Even his words get to Nathan. And Christ, he knows he doesn't mean them sexually, and he really wants to be in Danny's bed to do this, or his small bathroom, or whatever is his and not the asylum's, but it's not so easy to wait.

Still, yes. He bites his lip.] Yeah. Yeah, I'm coming. [Nathan was supposed to keep his hands steady, but they move and they shake as he reaches up one Danny's shirt and feels his skin there. He needs to be enveloped by Danny. He needs the man frantic with skin that lights fires on Nathan's wherever it travels because it already is. He swears he can still feel his lips on his neck.

He wants to say "please," but it's not enough. It doesn't cover enough. It doesn't tell him what he wants, what he needs.

And Nathan doesn't usually, but he kisses Danny with fervour and whispers the truth onto his lips so that he can swallow it and define it in whatever way he needs.] I want you. I want you. [The words are for only Danny's ears and despite how desperate he is to reach into his own pants, he goes for the other man's, fingers dancing along where the hem is pulled out with two of his other hand's fingers.]