Temporarily Gay Pt 17
Damn, was this part hard to get done, but I'm pretty proud of how it turned out. A bit shorrter than usual, but I felt like it was a good ending point for this part. Hope you enjoy!
Part 16 Masterlist Part 18
Extra Scene
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The next two days passed in a hazy, muted limbo. The initial, frantic energy of crisis gave way to the slow, grinding work of recovery.
Danny slept for eighteen hours straight, his body a battlefield of healing flesh and exhausted ectoplasm. When he was awake, he was lucid but quiet, the deep, throbbing agony from the "Annihilator" burn a constant reminder of how close he had come to being unmade. Sam changed his bandages with a clinical precision, her lips pressed into a thin line every time she saw the angry, blistered flesh, but she had confirmed it was retreating, becoming a "normal, terrible burn."
Wes, on the other hand, moved through the apartment like a ghost, cleaning up the remnants of the chaos—discarding bloodied towels, righting overturned furniture, bagging the empty chip bags and water bottles. He cooked simple meals, and the domestic act of making soup and eggs became a silent language of care. He’d leave a bowl on the nightstand for Sam, a plate for Danny.
They didn’t talk much, the weight of everything that had happened was too heavy to lift. But the silence was no longer hostile; it was a shared shelter, a fragile peace negotiated in the language of shared glances and small, practical kindnesses.
On the second morning, Danny’s phone, charging on the bedside table, began to buzz. Once. Then twice. Again, and again. The screen flashed with ‘MOM’ and ‘DAD’.
Danny’s breath hitched. The color draining from his face, his hand twitching on the blanket as if to reach for it, held back by an invisible force. A fine tremor started in his shoulders, a precursor to the full-blown panic that started to tighten his chest. "I… I have to…"
"You don't." Sam's voice was calm but firm, cutting through the rising static in his head. She was at his side in an instant, her hand covering his twitching one. Her touch was cool and steadying. "You don't have to do anything right now. You deserve time. Time to breathe, to get your bearings. You don't owe anyone your peace, especially not right now. And not them" Her dark eyes held his, an anchor in his sudden, silent storm. "Just breathe, Danny. In and out. They can wait."
He focused on her face, on the unwavering certainty there, and managed a shaky nod, dragging a ragged breath into his lungs. The call went to voicemail, but the silence only lasted for three precious, peaceful heartbeats before starting buzzing again, feeling more aggressive this time, making Danny tense once again.
With a swift, decisive movement, Sam snatched the phone from the nightstand, her thumb swiping across the screen to silence it completely. "There," she said, placing it face down on the dresser across the room. "No one’s calling, you don't have to worry."
Danny smiled crookedly at that but took a deep breath, feeling how it slowly helped him calm down. The tremor was gone and the tight feeling in his chest lessened. The bedroom door creaked open, and Wes peered in, his face etched with concern. He had a laptop tucked under his arm. "Everything okay in here? I heard…" He trailed off, taking in the scene, Danny, pale and breathing carefully, and Sam standing guard by the bed shooting blades to the phone on the nightstand.
"Just a nuisance call," Sam said, her tone leaving no room for argument. "Danny's handling it."
Wes's eyes darted from the face-down phone to Danny's strained expression, and understanding dawned. He didn't press. Instead, he lifted the laptop slightly. "I, uh… I've got some work to catch up on. Mind if I camp out here? The study chair is killing my back." It was a flimsy excuse, and they all knew it. He just didn't want to leave Danny alone.
Danny gave another weak nod, a flicker of gratitude in his exhausted eyes. "Yeah. Sure. Knock yourself out."
Wes settled into the armchair beside the bed on Danny's side that he dragged in the other night, not wanting to sleep in the other room without being able to check on Danny, but also wanting to let Sam have the bed.
The soft click-clack of his keyboard soon joined the rhythm of Danny's breathing, a new, mundane symphony of companionship.
A few hours later, Sam’s own phone chimed. She frowned at the screen. "I have a shift at the botanical gardens in an hour. I can call out." She said as she started typing.
"No," Danny said, his voice stronger than it had been all day. He pushed himself up slightly, wincing only a little. "Go. You already called out yesterday. We're okay here."
"Are you sure?" Sam asked, her gaze searching his.
"Positive. Look." He carefully lifted the edge of the bandage on his side, just enough to show the wound. It was still an angry, blistered mess, a horrifying map of blisters and irritated skin. But the edges were pink and inflamed with fresh healing, not the sickening, corrosive green from before nor the black necrotic. "See? I'm on the mend. Go save the orchids or whatever."
Sam leaned in, inspecting it with a critical eye before sighing in reluctant acceptance. "Okay. Fine. But you," she pointed a finger at Wes, "you call me if anything, and I mean anything, changes. His temperature spikes, he starts glowing, he tries to get up and make a sandwich—you call me."
Wes gave a solemn, two-fingered salute from his laptop. "Yes, ma'am."
With Sam's departure, the last thread of the week's frantic energy snapped, leaving a silence that was strangely comforting. It was the first time they had felt this calm and truly in peace since the whole disastrous "fake dating" scheme began. They were left alone without a plan to follow, yet it felt nothing like those first, strained days were not knowing what to do felt like they were left to scramble to find some kind of directrice. Now, the quiet was a balm, and the lack of orders a relief.
So Wes’s typing resumed, a soft, rhythmic counterpoint to the steady sound of Danny’s breathing, and Danny let his head fall back against the pillows, his gaze tracing the dust motes dancing in a sunbeam that cut across the room.
They spent the rest of the day like that, wrapped in a companionable silence that asked for nothing and offered everything. It wasn't a celebration, and the road ahead was still long, but in that peaceful space, a foundation was being laid—one built not on lies or necessity, but on the quiet understanding that they didn't have to face the aftermath alone.
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The apartment fell into a deeper, more profound quiet after Sam left, inhabited only by the two of them. The silence was no longer empty, but filled with a comfortable, focused energy. Wes, finally free from the oppressive weight of an audience, dove back into the projects he'd abandoned during the chaos of his brother's visit. The soft, rapid-fire clicking of his keyboard became the room's steady heartbeat.
Danny drifted in and out of sleep, but during his waking hours, he was more present. His eyes, clear of pain-induced haze, would follow Wes's form. He watched the subtle signs of frustration—a tensed shoulder, a sharp tap of the backspace key.
"Read that last bit to me?" Danny's voice was rough from sleep, but his tone was clear.
Wes blinked, pulled from his concentration. He glanced over, finding Danny watching him, head tilted in question.
"The sentence you just deleted. Read it."
Hesitantly, Wes did. The words sounded flat and awkward aloud.
Danny was quiet for a moment, his brow furrowed as he processed what he'd heard. "It feels like you're skipping a step," he said, his voice low but clear. "You're telling me the town's main factory closed, and then you immediately say the future looks bright. It comes out of nowhere, like, Why is it a good thing? You need to connect the dots."
He shifted slightly, gesturing with one hand as he pieced it together. "What if you said that the closure, as bad as it is, is what finally forced the town council to approve that new green energy park they'd been arguing about for years? The disaster is the reason for the hope. You have to show the cause and effect, or it just sounds like you're contradicting yourself."
A slow grin spread across Wes's face as the missing piece snapped into place. "Yeah. Yeah, that's it. It needs a bridge." He murmured, turning back to the screen, fingers flying as he reworked the paragraph to weave the two ideas together. "Thanks."
Danny smiled lazily “No prob” and went back to quietly observe Wes.
It was a small thing, but it was real. They spent the rest of the day like that, wrapped in a quiet symbiosis. Wes related news, and Danny, from his nest of blankets, helped him spot the cracks.
This fragile peace held for the rest of that day, a quiet rhythm established between just the two of them. As evening drew in, Sam called, pulled away by the immutable demands of parents and her own life beyond the apartment's crisis-ward walls, she couldn't stay another day without it being problematic.
"But you'll update me?" she'd asked Wes through the phnoe, her voice low. "Everything. If he so much as twitches funny."
"Constantly," Wes had promised.
And he did. With Sam gone, throughout the evening and into the next day, Wes would pick up his phone, his thumbs tapping out quiet reports.
‘He’s asleep again. Color’s better’ ‘He's asleep. Breathing is even’. Or, ‘Ate half a piece of beagle. Says it's not sawdust’.
And always, a moment later, a reply would buzz back.
‘Good. Keep me posted’
It was a silent partnership, with Wes as the ground-level observer and Sam as the remote command, helping them both feel more in control of the situation and letting them breath knowing there was someone else who cared enough to look out for Danny.
The silenced phone remained face-down on the dresser. But on the second afternoon, after Wes reheated soup in the kitchen and brought it to the room for Danny, he heard it: the persistent, muffled buzzing of Danny’s phone, vibrating against the wooden dresser.
When he walked back into the bedroom he saw Danny with his jaw tight and his eyes pointedly fixed on the ceiling. He made no move to answer and Wes quietly left the soup on the side table and went back to the kitchen to retrieve his own phone.
The moment he grabbed it, it vibrated. Another text from Sam.
‘Everything quiet?’
‘Not exactly. His parents are calling’. He hit send.
“You can’t ignore them forever,” Wes said walking back into the bedroom, his voice soft.
“Watch me,” Danny replied, his voice rough with sleep and pain. The calls were a siren song of guilt and obligation, pulling at the edges of the fragile peace they’d built.
The phone fell silent. Wes’s phone buzzed again.
‘Do you want me to come over?’
Before he could answer or ask Danny, the bedroom was filled with the sound of ringing, taking Wes by surprise, since it was supposed to be silenced, he went and grabbed it. This time, the screen showed JAZZ’.
Danny’s eyes widened, ever since Jazz told him she knew about him being phantom, he made sure to always be able to answer her calls, he didn't want to make her worry more that she already did, and, he also wanted to make sure to be able to answer in case that she was in danger. A storm of conflicting emotions went through his face when he heard the ringtone.—dread, guilt, and a faint, desperate hope—crossing his face. He gave Wes a sharp, pleading look.
“I got it,” Wes said and answered, keeping his voice low. “Hey, Jazz.”
“What? Who’s this? Is everything— where’s Danny?”
“It's Wes. He’s right here. He’s okay,” Wes said, his tone calm but leaving no room for doubt about the seriousness of the situation, and mentally scrambling for the right explanation. He ignored the whole thing about why Danny was with him and the fake dating mess, it wasn't important at the moment. “There was an incident. At the lab. He got caught in the backlash. He’s been staying with me while he recovers.”
He heard a soft gasp “Mom and Dad called,” she said, her voice tight. “They were going on about the explosion, about the failed prototype, furious they couldn’t figure out what triggered it. They just kept saying they needed to ‘ask Danny if he saw anything’ assuming he was in his room. They didn’t even check, Wes. They have no idea he’s not even living there. I played along, but as soon as I hung up I called him. Is he really okay? Let me talk to him.”
Wes listened, his expression growing grim as Jazz related.The casual cruelty of it—that his parents' primary concern was a malfunctioning weapon, not their son's whereabouts or safety—settled like a cold stone in Wes's stomach.
“I think you should talk to her,” Wes said, his voice softer now. He held the phone out to Danny. "Your parents called Jazz. She's worried.”
Danny took the phone, his hand trembling slightly. He met Wes’s gaze for a brief second, a silent thanks for the buffer. “Jazz?”
He pushed himself up gingerly, a sharp hiss escaping his lips. He took the phone and walked slowly out of the bedroom and onto the small balcony in the living room, closing the glass door behind him.
Wes followed him to the living room, staying at the arch of the hall, and watched through the glass as Danny leaned heavily on the railing. He saw the tension in his shoulders slowly dissolve, replaced by the weary slump of someone finally setting down a burden they’d carried for too long.
When Danny finally ended the call and stepped back inside, he looked emotionally scoured, but the ever-present undercurrent of anxiety that had thrummed beneath his skin since he’d woken was gone.
Wes came close, worried Danny would sink or fall with how unsteady he looked, but Danny just handed the phone back to Wes without a word and seated carefully onto the couch, letting out a long, shuddering sigh.
“Well?” Wes asked, his voice gentle.
“She’s… she’s going to handle them,” Danny said, wiping at his eyes with the heel of his hand. “She’s going to call them back. Tell them she talked to me, that I’ve been crashing with a friend after a… a rough patch. That I wasn't aware of the explosion and that I need a few days of space. She’ll make it sound convincing, make them back off.” He looked up, with a shaky but genuine smile. “She… she said, to let her be the big sister for once”
The relief in the room was palpable. It was as if the very air pressure had dropped. For the first time, Danny had passed the burden of his parents, and the world hadn’t ended. He had trusted someone, and they had caught the weight.
Wes felt a surge of fierce protectiveness, not just for Danny, but for this fragile peace they had carved out. “Good,” he said, the word carrying more weight than any elaborate speech. “That’s… really good.”
He watched as Danny carefully lay back down, the movement less pained than before. The silence that settled over them was different now—lighter, full of potential instead of dread. There was hope, despite everything, things were finally righting by its own and they could stand back and let it happen.
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And the storm passed, now we get a real break and some hope for the future. Isn't it nice? Danny is finally learning to let others help and its turning out good. Don't be scared, there's no plot twist coming to ruin this, Danny deserves nice things too. (I say as I plan another story where he is gonna be 90% of the time miserable)
Anyway, lemme know what you think. And @richcrazydad. Got you, ha!
