1/1 ”Did you try asking them? Who knows, maybe you’d be responsible for the earliest human hairdresser.”
“Is that who does yours?” Tired as he was, he had to resist the urge to reach out and ruffle the hair that was shorter than he remembered seeing it. “Nah, I’m only joking, soldier boy. It looks nice.” It wasn’t exactly flirting, but it wasn’t his normal back-handed compliments, either.
”It wasn’t open for negotiation.”
“Becker-“ The protest he began ended abruptly when he caught sight of narrowed chocolate brown eyes. There was one thing alone that gaze could have meant, and while Danny wasn’t a man who backed down easily, those eyes were so bloody stubborn.
Becker’s hand, clasped around his, gave a gentle squeeze of what could have been reassurance. Of what Danny didn’t want to believe was reassurance, because things were much simpler if there were no real emotions between them and showing Becker his vulnerable side, a side of which the existence of Danny didn’t want to admit even to himself, would mean so much less.
He wanted to hide. Wanted to suffer the sleep depriving nightmares and jittery aftermath of the past year in solitude, but Becker had decided to change that plan with two simple words.
”You’re staying.”
“All right.” He consented, changing the desperation he felt looming in his chest into a playful glance. “But I’m not cooking breakfast. I’m a lousy chef.”
As soon as the words left his mouth he regretted them; he felt them crawl down his spine and sink against his skin like poison. There had always been that silent agreement between them – you don’t stay for breakfast, you don’t wake up in the morning and find the other one still there. You find an empty bed and the memory of a night they both agreed meant nothing.
And here he was, making some rubbish quip about breakfast. Danny felt his stomach sink to his feet.
But this was different, wasn’t it? This wasn’t a shared bed, it was a bed, as simple as that, somewhere to stay until he could stand again without falling over or be looked at by passerby as though he were living on the street. This was somewhere to stay until he found somewhere else.
And nothing more.
His vision was swimming more than a little bit, a combination of relief, fear, pure exhaustion that he was refusing to give into, and he suddenly had to use more than the normal amount of concentration to remain upright.
The wall looked more than inviting to lean against, and he moved to sink against it, temporarily forgetting his pact with himself not to show weakness. Though, he figured as he rested against it, sliding down until he was sitting on the ground, leaning against a wall was slightly (if only slightly) more dignified than falling.
“About that dinner,” He said from his spot on the floor, “You really going to pay for that twenty ounce steak?” A smirk quirked his mouth. Oh, it was good to be home, even if it was disorienting, frightening, slightly maddening… even if he was worried about just how far everyone seemed to have slipped into a state of disrepair, full of guilt and hopelessness and this lingering air of negativity that Danny wanted to strip away from each of them.