CW: PTSD flashback and panic attack, includes some references to Danny’s captivities (both of them). Lev and Graham belong to @evermetnotforgotten and are used with permission.
Timeline: Post-Bad Arc, pre-Dad Fluff
I had a prompt for “panic attack” for Danny and owe Dotty something for the Fucked Up Support Group (it’s not owe, really, this is a fucking joy and I love writing them together)
Everything is dark and quiet and Danny can’t breathe.
He got lost somewhere between the bathroom and his bedroom and he can’t find his way back, because he doesn’t know exactly where he is. The hallway was long, it felt so long, like it would never end. Somehow he’s staring towards a living room but he’s not in the cabin and he doesn’t know where he is.
Wake up, puppy, wake up
But he’s already awake. Isn’t he?
Is he?
All of this is the dream. I’m not really here. I’m going to wake up on the mat and it never ended and it was never better and I’m still there, still there, still there-
Danny’s gasping now, breathing in wheezes through the pinhole his throat has become. Somewhere Nate is sleeping but he can’t remember where or how to find him, because this is a dream and when he wakes up he’ll be in the bed with Abraham and tears are on his face but he can’t remember crying at all.
Maybe he’s crying for real, wherever he really is.
Maybe he’s not in Abraham’s bed, but in the cellar, closed up in the kennel, all alone inside his head in the dark and they’re reaching out for him, the things that move in the shadows, they want him and all the things inside him and-
“Help.”
Danny can’t speak above a whisper.
No one can hear him.
“He... help...”
His whisper is shaking, it’s not even human - and he tries to get up but his back twinges, a sudden flash of agony. The knife is still there, the knife, they never took the blade out of his back and he whimpers, dragging himself along the floor by his hands until he finds a couch, curling up on the floor next to it even though the mat is gone, there isn’t a mat. This isn’t a place where there’s a mat, but there will be, when he wakes up.
He misses his mat, misses the way it stuck to him when he slept and crinkled whenever he moved. He misses the simple certainty of it, because when he wakes up there’ll be a knife in his back and maybe he’s dying or dead and this is what hell feels like and he deserves to be in hell after everything Abraham Denner has done to him-
Danny sees a flat rectangle lying on a coffee table and his eyes catch.
A cell phone.
His cell phone.
He’d agreed to get one just to make Nate and Ryan feel better, and that feels like a real thing, a thing that actually happened. He owns a cell phone now. He texts people. He found some of his old gaming buddies, right?
Did that happen or is he imagining-
His breath catches again. Don’t think about it don’t think just get the phone. He has to get the phone and he doesn’t know why. His heart is pounding inside his chest, trying to break out, and there’s a pain that keeps coming and going alongside the pain in his back. Knives, blades everywhere, sharp flashing bits that will slice him apart for his sins, for what he’s done.
He has to drag himself along the floor, just like in the second house, with his fingernails digging into grooves in a hardwood floor to pull himself forward, blood pouring from his back. Nate will find the trail of blood, Nate will know to follow the blood and it’s okay, it’s okay, he’s already ruined but this way Ryan won’t be- it’s okay to be the one to take the knife- this way Ryan can get back up, even if he can’t... it’s okay...
It’s okay. The words rattle around inside his head. It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.
He doesn’t have to be the one who walks away. He knew that from the second Abraham Denner was inside him again. He won’t be the one who lives, Ryan will, and that’s okay.
His fingers scrabble along the edge of the phone case, and he manages to drag it just far enough for it to fall with a soft clatter onto the ground. Danny’s back is an agony of pain, he can feel the blood running out of him, staining the floors so deeply they’ll demolish the house because the blood won’t come out, it won’t come out, he’s been scrubbing for days and the blood won’t out.
The phone lights up, briefly, when it hits the ground.
3:42 AM.
There’s a Skype notification, and Danny lets out a hoarse, half-broken sob when he sees the message preview from Lev.
Okay fine you win, Fabulous Killjoys is actually amazing
His heart burns, beats harder. He won’t get to meet Lev because this isn’t real, Lev isn’t real or if he is, he’s still trapped with his monster a whole world away. They’re both trapped with monsters who will get bored and kill them one day and he’ll never get to meet him, and he-
And he-
Danny whimpers, unlocking his phone, opening Skype up, all of it with shaking hands, fingers that miss his target again and again. He has to talk to Lev, has to tell him he’s so sorry they won’t get to meet each other in real life, that this is just a dream he’s having and it was such a good one, too, to come home and get married and meet Lev in person and the drunk kissing and all the other stuff was so good-
He makes the call, letting his sweaty forehead rest on the cool floor.
There’s blood soaking into the floor, and he can’t scrub it out. He can’t move to scrub it out because it’s his own blood and he’s the body, now, he’s the think that has to die.
“I’m a body,” Danny whispers. “A-A body, my body is, belongs to Abraham-”
“Hullo? Danny?” Lev’s voice comes tinny through the phone’s speaker. “It’s got to be the middle of the night there, what’s up?”
“He... help me,” Danny whispers, and tears run to pool with the blood he can’t see, but he knows is there, on the floor beneath his body. “Help, please, help, I’m s-sorry, I’m so sorry-”
There’s a pause.
“Danny? Are you safe?” Lev’s voice is slightly tight, questions he’s not asking, and Danny whines in his throat at the pain as he reaches his arm up, the agony races along the nerves from his wounded back-
How is it still like this, I went home, I was in the hospital forever it felt like, there were surgeries, they took the knife out - was none of that real, was none of it- am I will in the cabin- was there ever a second house at all Ryan please don’t stop looking we’re in the woods you have to look in the woods-
He manages to push the speaker button, just as Lev speaks again.
“Danny, please answer me now, please.” Lev’s voice is shaking, too, and Danny closes his eyes tightly. He’s having a dream and he’s worrying his friend in his dream, and he can tell Lev to talk to Ryan, to tell him to look in the woods. He takes a deep breath, shaking, trying to breathe around the pain in his chest that won’t quit, a vice grip around his heart.
“Help me,” He manages. “I don’t think I’m, I don’t know where I am-... I don’t think I’m real, I think-”
“Okay.” There’s a rush of something like relief in his friend’s voice, his accent a little thicker, less strained. There’s a shuffle of sound and Lev saying, muffled, I think he’s having a moment.
Can he wake up Nate?
I think he’s a bit too deep in it for that. Graham, you call Nate, I’ m going to talk Danny through this until he’s up, okay?
Yeah, love. I’m on it. The one night I leave my fuckin’ phone in the other room...
Then silence, and it stretches too long, and Danny sobs again. He made it up. He made it all up. He made everything up and nothing is real and he belongs to Abraham Denner-
“Danny, I’m right here.” Lev’s voice is low, but firm. “I’m right here with you, all right? I’m going to talk to you, yeah? Can you answer me?”
“Y-Yes.” His voice is whimper. “M-my... my back hurts, Lev, none of it’s real, I don't know where I am...”
“You’re in your apartment. All right? Take a deep breath and look, what’s closest to you right now?”
“The, um, the-the coffee table is right there...”
“Okay. Reach out and touch it. I want you to feel that it’s real. Touch it and count to five.”
Danny nods, even though Lev can’t see him through the phone, and stretches out his arm. “H-hurts, there’s, there’s a knife in my back-”
“I know,” Lev soothes. His voice is soft, gentle, his accent singsong-sweet, and Danny takes the first deep breath he’s taken since he got lost in the hallway. His fingers touch cool wood and he runs them down the coffee table’s leg, feeling its hardness under his fingertips. “D’you have it?”
“Y-Yeah.”
“Okay. Let’s count to five together.”
“Okay, okay... c’n, I can do that, I can do it...”
They count in unison, Danny’s voice a trembling, terrified whisper and Lev’s a calm, collected monotone. The coffee table doesn’t fade away or dissolve under his fingers. It stays solid.
He takes another deep breath.
“There we go, I heard that,” Lev says, encouraging. His voice is like a hand on Danny’s forehead through the phone. “I heard you breathe, that’s good, that was a good breath. Okay. Let’s pick something else. What else is nearby?”
“Th-there’s a, a book, on the coffee table... Nate’s book, he bought it... oh god, Lev, I’m so sorry, I’m-... I made you up and I m-made you suffer just so I’d have someone like me-”
“No you didn’t. Honestly it’d be a relief if the world had some kind of order like that.” Lev’s voice is slightly dry, cutting through the white noise of panic that Danny can’t escape on his own. Behind him, he hears a phone ringing, distantly. Nate’s ringtone for everyone is an old rock song, and there are tinny, barely-audible guitar-sounds from down the hall. “Grab the book, Danny. Get it in your hands.”
He has to grab onto the coffee table and pull himself up onto his knees, groaning at the pain in his back, muscles seized up tight around the knife, the invasion. He grabs at it, pulling it close, then collapses back onto the floor. “H-hurts,” He whispers. “My back, it hurts, the knife-”
“I know, Danny. I know. I know it does. Tell me about the book.”
“It’s, um, it’s...” He lays his head on the floor, holding the book to his chest. The rough-edged cover feels more like fabric than cardboard, and he lets his fingers run back and forth, back and forth. “It’s a, uh, a book on... on something t’do with... literature, I don’t know, someone he went to college with published... it...”
“Good, good. Right, yeah, we’re gettin’ somewhere now. Okay. Keep talking to me, Danny, keep talking. Graham’s got your man on the phone, you’re going to be okay, yeah? You’re going to be okay. Keep talking.”
“I-I don’t know where I am,” Danny whispers. “I can’t remember what really happened and what didn’t. Did I make you up, Lev? Did I make you up to make it hurt less to be me?”
“No, Danny. No, I’m real as anything. Remember? Coming to visit me?”
“What if I didn’t?” Danny whispers.
“Then who the hell left his pants jammed in a ball under my bed? and left wearing my pants and with his t-shirt on backwards the next day?”
Danny lets out a breathy laugh.
“There it is. There you are, there’s Danny. Okay, there you go… there it is-”
A door opens and closes somewhere behind him. Hurried footsteps in the hall, the familiar scent of Nate’s cologne - and the man himself. A warm hand on his back.
“N-Nate, the blood-”
There isn’t any blood.
“Nate? You’re with him?” Lev’s voice sounds like he’s breathing out all at once, pure relief.
“I’m h-here,” Nate says, gently, whether it’s to Danny or Lev or to them both he can’t tell. “I’m here. Graham c-c-called me.”
“Right. He’s having a flashback, I think.”
“I don’t know where I am,” Danny says, trying to help, to be helpful. Nate’s hand on his face is warm, and Nate bundles him up in his arms, pulling him tightly. The pain in his back is immense but it fades, a little, at the warmth of Nate’s hand slipping around to settle there, a gentle pressure against sparking nerves. “My body belongs to-”
“Your body belongs to you,” Nate murmurs. “We f-f-fought for that. Your b-body is yours. I can handle him from here, Lev. Th-thank you for t-t-talking him through this.”
“Anytime, Nate. You know that.” Lev’s voice goes soft, and sincere. “You’ve talked me through more’n one of these yourselves. You call me later, yeah? I want to talk to Danny later.”
“He’ll c-call,” Nate says. “Bye, L-Lev.” There’s a warm, deep affection in his voice, and Danny smiles at a vague memory of a drunken conversation and tangled limbs and Lev’s voice soft in his ear and Graham’s hands on his, Nate’s low laughter. “He’s s-s-smiling. We’re, I’ll c-call you. He’ll c-call you. Bye.”
Lev’s voice murmurs a farewell and Nate hangs up the call, getting his feet under himself and picking Danny up like he weighs nothing at all.
Danny’s head lolls onto Nate’s shoulder - suddenly he’s exhausted, so weighed down he can barely think. His eyes slip shut, and his heart is still pounding but slower, slower.
Finally, slower.
“I’m bleeding-”
“You’re n-not.”
“I don’t know wh-where I am-”
“You’re home.”
“What’s... what’s home?”
“California. We bought the house but it’s not ready yet, we can’t m-m-move for three months.”
He’s quiet, and then asks, in a small voice, “What’s my name?”
“Y-your name is Daniel Michaelson.”
“Who... who do I belong to?”
“Yourself.”
Nate carries him back to the bedroom, answering every question he asks along the way.
I just had this thought and had to go with it. Consider this the final (maybe? Probably not, I am having too much fun) installment of this, this, and this involving Danny becoming friends with @untilthepainstarts‘s Lev as part of an online support group for trauma survivors, realizing the similarities in their experiences, and eventually meeting in person! Thanks, Dotty, for help with this one!
CW: Vaguely referenced past trauma/torture and noncon.
“Are you absolutely certain this is food?” Danny cocks his head, staring down at the plate that sat between them on the kitchen table.
Lev laughs in response, shaking his head, a bit of dark hair falling over his face as he pushes the plate just a little closer, a soft scrape along the surface. “I promise it is! I promise. If you’re here, you have to try vegemite, right? It’s basically our national food.”
“What is it?” Danny leans in closer, his eyes slightly crossed, as he focused on the single piece of toast sitting in front of him, with a light spread of something incredibly dark brown, vaguely shiny, and a touch nerve-wracking. He looks up at Lev like a child looking up at their mother over a plateful of steamed broccoli sprouts, and Lev laughs again, hardly able to stop himself.
“I just said, it’s vegemite-”
“No, I know you said that, but, um, what… what is vegemite? It looks like chocolate-”
“Tell him that’s what it is,” Graham calls from the couch, where he and Nate had been sharing stories in low voices the other two couldn’t quite hear. There’s a grin on his face that tells Danny without having to try a bite that it definitely isn’t “Tell him it’s chocolate.”
“No!” Lev puts on an expression of mock anger. “I’d never be mean like that! And look, you’ve made him all red.” He gestures with the vegemite-covered butter knife he’s holding in one hand at Danny, who has indeed gone a bit red, his scars paler than his skin in the moment, freckles darker than ever.
He’d come into the air conditioned apartment and pulled on a zip-up over his already-long-sleeved shirt, and to his relief neither Lev nor Graham said a thing. So he’s huddled up in it now, the closest he gets to warm, about to eat something utterly unrecognizable.
“No, I should have… I should probably know what it, um, is,” Danny mumbles, feeling kind of stupid for thinking it looked like chocolate at first.
There’s a low murmur, Nate speaking to Graham, Graham speaking back. Then Graham calls out, “I was just teasing you a bit, yeah, Danny? Sorry. We get it basically in our bottles, here, it’s kind of a novelty when someone doesn’t know right off.”
Danny doesn’t become any less red, but he likes the way Graham is always ready to apologize and doesn’t think Danny is weird for being tripped up, or embarrassed, or too shy to ask things on his own.
“It’s made of yeast,” Lev says, smoothly, as though the moment hadn’t happened, and Danny likes that, too. Move right past things, and let Danny pretend he’s better at this than he is. “Yeast mixed with… a bunch. Look, give it a try, it’s… salty.”
“Bit bitter,” Graham added.
Danny frowns. He reaches up and pokes at the side of the toast with one finger. “And you put it on toast? Like jam?”
“I can sense that you feel some trepidation here,” Lev says, not quite teasing. “Look, give it one bite, yeah? Then you can say you tried vegemite, you’re a proper Australian tourist then.”
“Can I ask you something?” Danny asks, picking the toast up with both hands If Lev’s eyes drop to the scarring that is dug so deeply into the backs of his hands, it’s not obvious, and Danny isn’t watching for it any longer.
He likes their apartment - it feels like his, a little, all cozy and all the signs of two people making a home together. It feels like people who know how much it means to get the chance. Knowing each other’s stories means that all the questions that normally ring so loud in Danny he can’t think are much quieter, because he already has the answers.
Did you ever get scared to sleep in the bed? - Yes, at first, less with time
Are you ever afraid that everyone knows? - Yes. That never fully leaves
Do you ever wonder, during, if you like something because he made you like it? - Yes, oh God, you don’t know what it means to have someone else ask that question, Chem
L, I’m kind of scared to ask this one - go on, ask, Chem, we’re friends here and you know I won’t lie to you, this place means something, being here - okay. do you still dream about him all the time and it’s not always a nightmare?
It had taken Lev two days to answer that one.
Then, finally, just when Danny had thought he’d fucked up and lost his first friend who really understood him before they’d ever even learned each other’s name, L had sent his reply. Can I tell you about the dreams? I can’t tell Bond.
Bond - L’s name for his partner, on the message board, and Graham Pierce might be the opposite of James Bond but Danny kind of liked the joke, anyway. He’d just called Nate the Badass, as in the Badass is ready for dinner, got to go.
Nate had hated that nickname. Danny used it anyway.
Sitting in Lev’s apartment, about to bite into what he’s fairly certain smells weirdly like soy sauce, he feels better than he feels anywhere else but his own home. In a place where everyone knows, everyone has lived it. There’s a shorthand they can all rely on with each other. There’s comfort in that.
Danny takes the bite, and it’s… there, in his mouth, and yes, salty and bitter definitely describe it. His very American brain is screaming at him that jam goes on toast, or peanut butter, something sweet and not this, not at all, get it out. Lev watches him with a smile, humor sparkling in his dark eyes, head slightly tilted to the side.
If Danny weren’t wearing a wedding ring on his left finger, and Lev weren’t head over heels for Graham Pierce, he could have flirted with Lev, he thinks. Well, if he weren’t also so traumatized he’d be terrified of the very idea.
Danny manages to swallow the bite, which feels like it gets lodged halfway down his throat just to spite him.
“Well?” Lev asks, flash of white teeth in his smile this time.
“Yeah, how is it?” Graham calls from the couch.
“… can I, um, have a beer, please?” Danny asks, and both of them laugh, Lev actually clapping his hands together and nearly resting his head on the table, he’s laughing so hard. Danny’s whole face flushes red, and he feels a little humiliated - look at the fucky American, can’t eat vegemite - but there’s too much genuine light and kindness in Lev’s face for the feeling to do more than come and go.
“I’m sorry, Danny, we’re sort of nationally terrible about doing that to Americans. Pretty sure it’s a rite of passage.” Lev gets up to look into the fridge, grabbing a couple of bottles of beer out. “Apparently we’ll find some brown sludge that sticks around after making yeast and our first thought isn’t ‘oh, that looks like engine oil’ but ‘that looks like it’d be nice on toast’. But we’re a country that eats kangaroo steak, so…”
Danny grins at that, taking the opened beer when Lev holds it out to him. “Thank you for giving me beer,” He says, automatically, some part of him briefly gone and then back again. “I am grateful for every gift I am given, and every breath-”
He goes still, for a fraction of a second the apartment had… shifted, and been somewhere else. Dark eyes had been colorless and shifting. His heart speeds up and he takes a deep breath, holds for five, lets it slowly out again.
My name is Daniel Michaelson, and Abraham Denner is dead.
Again.
My name is Daniel Michaelson and Abraham Denner is dead.
Lev has gone still, too, watching him closely, reading the change in posture and expression with the perfect knowledge of someone who has seen Danny’s expression on himself in the mirror. “You all right, Danny?”
Something in the tone of Lev’s voice catches Graham and Nate’s focus immediately and they turn nearly as one. It’d be funny if Danny wasn’t feeling unmoored, like he wasn’t supposed to be here, like this had never happened.
“Danny? Do y-you need a minute?” Nate asks, in a low voice.
“I’m fine,” Danny says, and his voice is a little weaker than he wants it to be. He hesitates, then takes a drink from the beer, swallowing again and again, half the bottle gone in one long go. He sets the bottle down with a thump on the table. The salty bitter taste is good, washed away by the darker taste of the stout. “I’m fine, guys. Really fine.”
“If you’re not really fine,” Lev says, softly, and his hand is on the table, a few inches away. No closer than this, but close enough for compassion to show. “This is the best place to be. You can be not-fine for a bit here, we do it all the time. I’m pretty much a professional at being not fine.”
Danny lets out a soft huff of laughter, and the world settles back into place, into time. “I promise I am. That, um, happens sometimes, still.”
There’s a shorthand they share. Questions already answered, knowledge that never needs to be spoken to be understood.
Sometimes I forget where I am, when I am. Do you do that, too? - Yes, on good days for a second or two, on bad days it feels like hours
Do you feel safe? - On the best days, I think I almost do.
Could you still say all the things he made you say? Do you remember them all? - Every fucking word. I could type it all out to you right now, without thinking.
“Happens to me, too,” Lev says lightly, as if they’re talking about having trouble remembering they left a book and not flashbacks and monsters that keep trying to climb out of the dark and back into their heads. “Tell me what you think of my idea, Danny - Fucked Up Support Group Movie Night? Only in person, this time?”
The world is solid and real around Danny as he smiles brightly, crinkling the scar at his nose, the lines dug into his jaw stretching a little. Nate, watching him from the couch, relaxes.
Graham, watching Nate, relaxes, too.
“That sounds fucking great, L. You pick.”
Lev grins, brightly. “I know exactly what I want to watch, Chem.”
Graham groans from the couch. “Damn it, I think I know what he’s going to pick. Is it-”
“The Mist!” Lev says, to Graham’s resulting good-natured groan.
“I haven’t seen that,” Danny says. “Is it good?”
“Is it-… yes. Yes, that’s what we’re watching tonight. Go on, get to the TV. I’ll bring you another beer. You two want them, too?”
Calls of assent and gratitude from the couch, and Danny settles into an armchair, folding his legs up and wrapping his arms around them, turning himself far smaller than it ever seems like he should be able to, drinking his beer and watching Lev bring the rest in to clink onto the coffee table, bottle opener beside them.
It’s nice to know someone else who knows without having to be told.
It’s nice for there to be another place in the world that feels safe.
Would Danny and Nate ever ~have lev and graham over~ while Mina is around
If you're asking if a Recovery Foursome has occurred while Mina was in the house, nope!
But hey, what a fun coincidence that Ryan happened to be in town the same week Danny bought @untilthepainstarts's Lev and Graham tickets for a two-week visit to America? And that Ryan is the coolest uncle ever and Mina thinks hotel rooms are the best? And he promised her all kinds of fun stuff while she stayed with him?
It's the fourth time his phone flashes that he realises—shit, it's a call, not a text. Graham doesn't need to hear a voice to know that his late-night caller has taken a trip down the neck of a bottle tonight, but as soon as he does, it’s crystal clear.
"Heeey."
Stifling a sigh Graham rubs his cheek, his jaw. He suppresses the ‘bit early to have reached the bottom, isn't it?’ "Hey, Lev."
"M'lonely." The sound of something soft hitting the floor—a pillow, a pile of clothes. "Y'should come over."
"I don't think that's a great idea."
"Why not?"
The last time had felt like a damn trap—couple hours of everything they'd both wanted and needed at the time, sure, but the unfiltered regret that had seeped from every corner of Lev the morning after had been just… unbearable. Even if Graham couldn't exactly blame him. Felt the same way.
"Please?" It's part whine, part slur. "I haven't had that much. I'm so… so, so, sober."
Graham highly, highly doubts that. "What're you drinking?"
"Cap'n Morgan. I think?"
"You think."
"Definitely. Maybe."
Yeahhh. "With?"
The tink of a glass. "Was coke… but…" But now straight. Maybe straight from the bottle.
"Could you have a glass of water or something maybe? You know… take care of yourself?"
A chuckle, low and husky. "Why don't you?"
Frowning, Graham adjusts his grip on the phone, bitter at the thrill that still hits him at a line like that. A line from him. He knows he should roll his eyes and just end the damn call, but the little voice in his head mad at being fucked with is easy to drown out.
"Lev… c'mon."
"You c'mon. Come here." More insistent this time. Less of a question, more of a statement of inevitability. "Come over."
Graham should say no. Needs to say no, for both their sakes. "I've got an early start," he tries—not all of them get wired money to support themselves with every week. Some of them have to work.
"Please?"
He should say no. Instead, he lets the sigh out before it swells enough to suffocate him. It doesn't help that tonight his ex is being especially persistent.
"Or… I could do it." A beat. "Would you like that?"
Over the line he hears the sound of bare feet on tiles. The scraping open of a door, or drawer. A clattering and clunking, and then a little whoa, fuck as someone tries to steady himself while the room's rotation shifts from clockwise to counter.
When Graham starts to piece things together, he attempts an intercept. "Okay, hey… you are really, really hammered right now—definitely too much to drive. And I don't want you to not talk to me for weeks after because of something you regret. Uh… it's fine that you called, but I really think that you should go to bed. I can call you in the morning, if you want."
"Mmm."
"Are you even listening to me?"
"Mhmm. Keep talking."
"Yeah cool, so you're not."
"I am."
"Do not drive here."
"M'not."
"Put the keys back."
The response he gets at that is a deep sigh, which curls into a little moan. Immediately, Graham feels all the warm spots on his body start to prickle, alert all at once. He's put the wrong pieces together—or put the pieces together wrong.
Oh, fuck. Oh he’s definitely done it up wrong.
"You're…"
“Told you—” and a thrilling little hitch of the breath. “I could bring it to you. Don't have to go anywhere."
The little bloop of his text tone sounds, and there's not a single thought in Graham's brain as he pulls the phone away from his ear to look at the screen, makes a bewildered little noise at the image there. Lev, framed by the bathroom mirror. Hair wet, shaping his face. Eyes heavy lidded, mouth slightly open, shirt unbuttoned. One hand up holding his phone, the other hand down, holding his—
"Did I lose you?"
He brings the voice back to his ear.
"Fuuuuck, Lev," he murmurs, eyes staring blankly at the dusty ceiling fan. “You’re gonna kill me.”
Those scars… he's kissed and licked along those neat little rows so many times before, and now he can't get every time that he's ever done such to stop playing in his mind. Every time he's massaged those shoulders, tight from stress. Every time he's taken one of those nipples into his mouth to tease it. And every time he's felt that cock press his tongue down, gently nudge the back of his throat.
“I need you.”
And there’s the little voice again. Just a little voice. This isn’t fair. But in spite of it, Graham is already fisting himself through his lounge pants, leaning his phone on his shoulder and the back of the couch in favour of biting the knuckles of his other hand. As he closes his eyes he can see the curve where hip transitions to thigh, feel the trace of fingers across his pecs, watch the other hand reaching back and down. Feel the other man's body, flush and warm, from chest to pelvis.
Can’t let him hear how this is affecting him, though. Would be a transgression. He bites his cheek to keep quiet.
"You thinking about me?"
Hesitation. Then surrender. "Yes," Graham admits.
"Naked?"
Excitement. Arousal. Fear. "Yes."
A shift through the phone, a breath. “On top of you?”
It wasn’t the first thing that had come to mind. And maybe that’s better, actually, somehow. Makes him feel like less of a predator. “Inside me.”
Another moan, and this time it sounds close enough for the wisp of breath to lick along the inside of his ear. It's followed up by a breathy “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Fuck, yeah.
"God…" The delicate crack in Lev's voice makes his whole body sing. "Love that. Spread you out on the bed. Grab you. Haah…"
A minute or so of play, but then he loses momentum. What is he doing? Not while he's drunk.
Lev seems to cotton on. "What's the matter? Not enough for you?"
"This… isn't good."
"Why?"
"I think you should go to bed. Sorry."
The rhythm of breathing on the other end of the phone pauses, leaving only silence. "Fine. I'll call Eli."
"Who's Eli?"
"Yeah, you don't get to ask that." Not angry, just disappointed. "Sorry for bothering you. G'night."
"Wait." Graham grasps at a reason, anything to keep the call going. Eli could be anyone—a hookup, most likely, but equally likely an asshole. A weirdo. A stranger taking advantage of a drunk, lonely guy. A guy who is going to hang up on him at any second…
Fuck it. He's already going to hell.
"Don't, uh. Don't do that. l'll be there in twenty."
-
Busy buttoning his shirt, Lev is turned away. Still, his tone is soft. Genuine. Not steeped in shame.
"Do you wanna grab something to eat? Or… coffee? Um. Unless you've gotta run."
Graham's head is throbbing—for the life of him, doesn't know how he ever used to put away that much tequila in his early twenties and still live the next day—and his mouth is dry. He puts a hand over his eyes to shield them from the crack of morning light through Lev's bedroom curtains.
He's wanted nothing more than a coffee with him for almost a year, now. But for the first time, Graham doesn't reach towards, but away. Needs to tell him. He slowly swings his legs over the side of Lev's bed.
"I'm… seeing someone. Actually."
For a long moment, there's no response. "Oh."
"We're not quite exclusive yet, so, but… yeah." Not a great sell for a new lady, a drunken one night stand with his ex. That said, Eleanor might be one of the least judgemental people he's ever met—bar Niels, maybe. She'd get it.
"Oh. Um. Sorry."
"It's okay."
Lev turns his head, but still won't look at him. The telltale signs of a closing door are inching steadily across. "I shouldn't have called. Didn't know I was getting you in trouble."
"She knows," Graham replies. "She knows there's a person in my past who I have some shared… complicated stuff, with. Nothing sensitive."
The unfortunate phrasing triggers many half-expressions to flicker across Lev's face in rapid fire.
"Shit…"
"Hey, it's okay, really."
A snap. "No it's not." Just as quick, an ease off. "It's not okay. I can't just…"
Graham would have gone to him. Six months ago, he would have thrown himself down on his knees and offered himself, all of himself, up to Lev if he wanted him back.
But right now, he's just disappointed in Lev for not asking for him sooner. And in himself, for knowing, and for coming over anyway.
"Thanks. Sorry, uh. Forget I asked. You should… go."
He dresses in silence. Doesn't turn back around at the little sniff, even though he knows exactly the acute distress about to be felt in this room.
"I know I should probably regret it, but I don't."
The way his mouth is moving for him makes the story easier to tell, and yet harder to justify. "What's a person supposed to do when another is suffering? Help them, right? Ease their pain—eliminate it, if possible."
His smile is there and gone in a second, and doesn't reach his eyes.
"It was just after Caldwell's funeral... Martin invited me over to his place. Cooked us tea. Potato and leek soup. We drank the Manzanilla sherry he'd been keeping," he raises pitch to match the one in his head, "'for an occasion—or as good as one. Skål.'"
He's looking at his hands from then on, like he's counting the scars there. "I'd been there before. A few times. When the boss' favourite invites you over, you go, y'know? And everything seemed the same as always, a little kitsch but that's just what happens when you buy straight from a showroom... everything was normal. Until he left to get more booze. Until... I heard her."
He shakes his head, rubs his face, his neck. "I didn't know what to do. I kept thinking 'this makes no sense', like there had to be a reason there were three fucking people down there. The door wasn't locked. They were..."
For several moments, Graham looks like he's going to be sick. The pale of his cheeks is the worst it's ever been.
"It won't make sense to someone who hasn't seen it, but the look in her eyes... was... she was done. They showed me the scars on the back of their heels, and it was like... the final thing a person can go through. The bit that makes them want to die."
"About two weeks later, everything went to shit. Before leaving town, I brought a huge fuck-off pair of bolt cutters and broke into Martin's place. Left three bullets behind, torched the place. Because he would have taken them with him—knowing what I know now, he would have kept them."
"The only part I regret..." he laughs, thick with the weight of guilt. "...Is that it gave him the need to go out and get more."
content warnings: body horror, death/death thoughts, intimate partner noncon, vomit
Graham holds a chain. Looks up into the sky, rose pink and vast. It’s calling, singing, and the splattered white of stars are like freckles that decorate an infinite place above.
He reaches up towards it, only to find his wrists and ankles shackled. The steel link chain he’s holding is anchored somewhere deep in the ground below. He starts to pull—pulls, and pulls, and pulls, but muscles threaten to pop free from their tendons before anything else gives.
-
Graham holds a wheel. Looks down at his own arm, mottled and veiny, near-translucent in the car's dark interior. The tattooed leaves stand out more than usual, sunbleached green, the peonies curling out and down like burning slips of paper.
He picks at them, and when he does they start to come away—inch by inch, unwinding until he has a strip of skin the length of his arm, and even then he keeps peeling. The tattoo underneath, a scrubbed crown, reveals itself, until even that sloughs with the rest.
He continues to peel—peels, and peels, and peels, and peels. Unwraps himself.
-
Graham holds a jacket. Looks into dark eyes, near and soft and so, so gentle. The denim, loose in his fingers, is shredded like corn silk. Splayed out on flannel sheets.
And there's blood.
There's so much blood, in the valleys of his partner’s body, and Graham can feel it slickening his hands as he shifts for a better position. He rocks forward, and the body rocks back. A low moan.
He starts to push—pushes, and pushes, and fucking pushes until he's all the way inside.
And the pressure and pleasure is overwhelming.
And there's blood.
And eyes stare back at him. Soft, and so empty.
And he doesn't stop until he's done.
-
Graham holds a porcelain rim, and it’s only when he jams his fingers into the metal button, hears the toilet flushing, sees the swirling water that he fully realises he’s awake. He hangs his head low. Dry-heaves one last time into the roar.
A hand comes to rub the centre of his back, soothing circles over his t-shirt. A murmured, sleepy, "'s wrong?"
The horrifying images still playing behind his eyes, Graham thinks, will only feel more real if given words. He can't.
He leans into Lev's arms, feeling shame curdle him, and starts to cry.
Oh Lev, what is going on. Graham what are we going to do
Previous
content warnings: alcohol use, whumpee in crisis
Graham checks the bedroom. The bathroom. The bedroom again, just in case. His phone is out, and already dialling.
It was just a short shift, only three hours, only three because they had absolutely no one to cover—but when he came back to the apartment, Lev is missing.
Three hours. Three hours. Time enough for anything.
His circle is a three-hour radius. He checks the bathroom cupboard, just in case.
The little smudge of blood on the floor steals the breath from him.
While the phone rings in his ear, he searches, searches, searches—no blood, no marks or stains on the carpet. Front door was locked. Nothing on the balcony. Lev's keys are missing, and so is his phone. Could mean anything.
Graham grabs his gun and holster from the safe at the bottom of the closet. Loads it, but as he does his phone finally connects. He quickly picks it up, and can’t hide the stress in his voice as he speaks.
"Where are you?"
The other end of the line is muffled by wind, but he thinks he hears “—park.”
"The one down the road? I'm coming to you. Are you safe? Stay on the phone."
He hears Lev rearrange. Graham strains, listening for any hints of location. Or other voices.
Or whispers. Threats.
He briefly moves his ear from the screen, enough to tap the GPS app. It cycles, and then shows an error message. His heart is in his throat, his ears are ringing. “Could you turn your app on please.”
“M’fine.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m fine,” more firmly. “N’fuckin’ sit around and wait for it t’happen."
“Have you been drinking?”
The silence on the line confirms his hunch.
"You can't do this to me, love,” Graham breathes. “You know that."
He hears a whine and a shuddering exhale through the line. “N’matter. Doesn’t matter.”
Graham can't help the anger that overtakes him. "Come home right now. Don't fucking do this to me, Lev."
