Beware Danny Lubbe. (ohthataintright) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2013-12-20 20:49:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, danny lubbe, stephanie brown (batgirl) |
Who: Stephanie Brown & Danny Lubbe
What: Danny comes to visit Steph for cookies. Talks about what he does for work happen, and are super serious. Even though both of them know it’s really soon and possibly a bad idea, hormones and connection take their course.
When: 12/18
Where: Stephanie’s Condo
Rating: High for sexy times and adult conversations
Status: Complete
Taking Franklin Lubbe’s car was really a piece of cake. Even in the midst of the ‘Oh, Danny, do you really think you should be driving. There’s quite a bit of ah- snow and oh okay.’ Whatever. His dad could deal with it and Danny would totally not even crash the Camry. He was only a shit driver when someone he wasn’t too fond of was in the car anyway. Well, shit driver. Menace to society. Whatever.
Didn’t really matter because he was totally gonna go have spicy cookies with Steph and it was gonna be amazing...right up until the part where they actually talked about the whole red carpet premiere stuff and the fact that someone might recognize him. Better sooner than later and...and if they were ever gonna do more than kiss, she needed to know. He got the car parked, pulled on the mask he’d made out of one of his dad’s ties and walked up to the door to ring the bell in his black sweater and pants and gloves and yeah, he was totally the coolest guy ever. It probably would have helped if he weren’t wearing his argyle Vans though.
Stephanie had found her pants. She had lost them at some point after she returned home from her UPS shift, she had stripped down as soon as she came through the door and made a mad dash for her bathtub. The shift had been an hour longer than she was used to thanks to the snow and the truck wasn’t built to keep her warm, in fact it had an extra fan to help keep her cool on the hot days. Riding around in the falling snow in a metal box wearing little shorts and and a short sleeved shirt was not at all conducive to staying warm, and even riding home in her regular clothes and bike was still as cold as hell and twice as dangerous. So when she did make it back alive she, aside from wanting to get warm again, felt she deserved a nice soak with her cherry-blossom scented bath bomb.
When she got out her mother had already gone to work and so pants were unnecessary, and she wouldn’t have thought about them again until she suggested Danny come over. That was when the great pants hunt began. It took her about twenty minutes but she discovered them in the dirty clothes pile, a casualty of her mother’s overactive desire for cleanliness. She was just doing up the last button when she heard the bell and raced down the stairs to answer it, only to almost fall over laughing at Danny’s costume. “Dude, it’s snowing, you’re gonna stick out like a sore thumb! Get in here before someone calls the cops.”
“Uh, that’s why I rang the bell,” he said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. He laughed as he came in anyway and pushed the mask up into his beanie and his beanie halfway off his head. “You guys are really awful at driving in snow. You know you don’t need to be going like three miles an hour.” He kicked the snow off his shoes before actually taking them off and padding into the condo. “Nice place.” He beamed at her. The snow was starting to come down heavier now and he was pretty sure that driving home was going to be one of the most unsafe choices of his life, but meh, he’d done worse. A lot worse. The mountie story came to mind rather quickly.
“It better be for what we pay, though the landlord totally lied to us about the wiring, had get have two guys out to look at it in the last two months.” She was talking to cover the fact that she wasn’t sure how she should greet him. Was a kiss too forward? Was a ‘hey, nice to see you’ too cold. She never knew what was right in the early days of this sort of thing. She simply smiled and flirted and hoped he realized she was happy to see him. “I am impressed with the burglar look though, were those… ties? Ingenious.”
She led him through the living room and into the kitchen where there was already a plate of steaming cookies on the counter, but there were also signs that she wasn’t done with her cookie-making endeavor. “The ones on the top are jalapeno, under those are Tobasco and I’m working on some Wasabi now. Chocolate and Wasabi together is like my new favorite thing. Want some milk or something to go with, for the burn and all.”
“Milk would be awesome, thanks,” Danny said leaning against the counter to grab one of the jalapeno ones. They were delicious and he forced himself to keep eating just to avoid a weird tradition of starting off every time they got together with threatening to put a ring on it. That was probably not a good thing, but they really were good. Everything was good. And...and he hadn’t been ashamed of his work until it occurred to him that she might be not okay with it at all.
He should probably say something. Like uh...now. Or soon. Before she somehow found out on her own. “So uh...this premiere,” he said around a mouthful of a tobasco cookie. “There’s ah...there’s something you should know before we go picking out a dress for me.” Yeah, there was going to be no easy way to do this, and he could feel himself getting more nervous by the second. Fuuuuuuuck.
Her mother had gotten out the holiday cups at the beginning of the month so when she got out a cup it had a plastic, googly-eyed Santa on the side. Of course she didn’t think much about the cup even as she got out the milk and poured the glass, she was more interested in what he was trying to say. He seemed uneasy about something and she wasn’t at all sure what to expect next. He wasn’t the typical guy she went for after all so she was still learning about him and his mannerisms.
“Okay,” she set the cup down next to him and moved to put the milk away. “What, you’re not going to back out on the dress thing are you? Is it because you’re not stacked? I’ve got some boob tape, I can make you look like a young Dolly Parton if you give me enough tape and enough time.” she grabbed one of the jalapeno cookies, taking a big bite before shrugging. “We can wax your legs too if you want the smooth feeling.”
Danny took a swig of his cold milk like it might just save his life somehow. It allegedly did a body good, right? Maybe this wouldn’t somehow end with him getting punched? He seemed to be really good at that. “No, no. Still totally down for the dress thing and we can wax whatever you want me to wax...or shave.” He had to add that. The last thing he wanted was hot wax on the insides of his thighs. “I should probably get a decent wig though.” His mind wandered for a moment. It was way, way easier to think about doing drag than it was to be having this conversation.
“Um...right. So…” He cleared his throat again and looked down at the cookies. That was way safer than looking at her. Googly eyed Santa was just judging him no matter which way the mug was turned. “So before this um...becomes more of a thing than it already is...because I keep doing this thing where I can’t stop thinking about you and and you should know, because because you should and I’m not gonna be the asshole who doesn’t actually tell you and that’s kinda what I’m doing right now. Um...both not telling you and telling you so um…” He looked up at her briefly and then back down at the cookies again. “You know how um...porn...is a thing? And it’s generally a totally okay thing because everyone looks at porn and it should be fine because it’s porn and sex is cool and fun and whatever and and sometimes watching it is fine except… Except I’m um...kind of in it.” He dropped his hands into his lap, not sure if he should be touching anything but the chair he was sitting on or if she was gonna be mad at him or hurt or what but he really didn’t want anything bad to happen here. Something really bad was probably going to happen here.
She stopped being absolutely sure she was following him when he said he was telling and not telling her but she still listened and tried to follow along as best as she was able. Whatever he was trying to say really seemed to be bothering him so she let him take his time. Both eyebrows went up when suddenly porn made its way into the conversation, and she moved to sit down, feeling genuinely confused even after he came out with it. Her mouth was open for a few moments, her brow furrowed as she tried to process that Danny was telling her, eventually she closed her mouth but then managed to speak, “Are you trying to tell me that you’re some sort of porn star? Is that what this is? Cause it also kinda feels like I’m losing my mind.”
At first she figured it was a joke, after all that was what they did together, but he wasn’t acting like it. He was nervous and had already said he wasn’t the best at lying. Still, she really hadn’t seen this coming. “Uh, so if I go on Redtube,” after his little thing about everyone looking at porn she wasn’t going to hide it, after all she might have been single for a while but it didn’t mean she was dead. “And I type your name, stuff will come up?”
“That’s um, what I’m telling you. Except not my actual name. ‘Cause um...sometimes I’m not a complete idiot.” He looked up at her briefly. She at least didn’t seem like she was worried about it too much, or like she was judging him too hard for it. “And I don’t know if it’s on Redtube. The company gets kinda stingy about DRM stuff but if you search Brandon Manitoba, you might find something.” He shrugged. A google image search with safe search turned off would probably find other things too. Finally, he screwed up the courage to look at her and keep looking at her. “It’s all totally safe. Condoms for absolutely everything. Well, except jerking off, but that’s...not ingested at all. And there’s testing once a week and it’s...it’s okay. I just...I haven’t told anyone yet and it seemed really important to me that you should know that a few times a week I get paid to let people do pretty much whatever to me.” His stocking foot scuffed the ground a little, but he shifted his weight anyway to pull out the piece of paper he’d gotten the day before with his all clear on everything from crabs to syphilis to HIV. It was the only proof he had that he wasn’t as dirty as society wanted people to think the Industry was.
She glanced over at her laptop on the counter when he gave her the name but really seemed not to want to touch it. The way he went on, the clear STD screening, she knew he wasn’t kidding around even if it seemed insane, but she didn’t want to see it for herself, like she could pretend it was something else entirely if she didn’t have to see it. It was a bit silly to think like that, she knew, he was doing what he was doing no matter if she saw it or not and her reluctance to even think about wanting to see it wasn’t for the best.
Of course he was doing something like this, he was too sweet and fun to be normal, she told herself. She wasn’t exactly disappointed or angry or anything else at the moment, too stunned to feel anything but shock. It would come later, the next time she kissed him, she’d wonder about how many kissed him better, and how she could ever possibly please him when he had been with porn stars who had probably done everything possible with him and were experts at what they did. How the hell could she compete with that? “Oh. Okay.” she said looking down at nothing in particular. “Thanks for telling me I guess.”
“You matter to me,” he said, looking at her. “I mean...before...before you I don’t think anybody actually kissed me just because they wanted to.” He scratched the back of his head and looked down again. “And I don’t...I don’t want this to be an issue between us. I’d like there to maybe still be a shot at an us, but that wasn’t gonna happen if I kept this from you.” Danny was a lot of things, but when it came down to the important stuff, he wasn’t really an asshole.
He took another drink of the milk and tried not to think about things. “Please don’t hate me.” It was all he could think to say, all that really tugged at the back of his mind. He had no delusions that he was going to leave at some point and she’d go looking because her curiosity got the better of him and then she’d hate him or she’d think he was actually totally gay when really he didn’t care at all about what someone had between their legs. Cliche as it sounded, he cared way more about who they were.
“Hate you?” that seemed to snap her back to herself and she looked over at him, “Why would I hate you? I mean it’s just a job, right? It’s not like you’re some sort of sex offender that should be on a registry and go around telling everyone. I mean you shouldn’t have to run around with a shirt that says ‘Hi, I’m Danny, I’m also a porn star’. That’s silly, I mean, I don’t walk around with waitress or delivery girl or college student on my chest, why should you?” she had no idea where she was going with this, it just seemed like everything in her brain at the moment was rushing out of her mouth. “And it’s just like any other job, right. So you have beautiful and experienced co-workers you’re just a little more physically intimate with than most people. Big deal. I mean, so you’re running around having sex with all these perfect people and you get paid, and I’m sure it’s not always fun right? I mean, it can’t be. Everbody always looks angry or uncomfortable, so it’s not always sunshine and lollipops.”
She had to stop and take a breath otherwise she was going to pass out. One breath turned into two which turned into three and she licked her suddenly dry lips. “Is plain, awkward, unrefined and awkward Stephanie Brown gonna be enough for you? I mean, what fun is it to get out of work to have to deal with somebody like that? Cause I’m just… Normal, you know? Not that you’re not normal, you’re great and wonderful and cute. But I’m just white bread, you know? I’m white bread and you’re chocolate chip jalapeno cookies. And I really like chocolate chip jalapeno cookies, you know?”
There was something in her rambling that made Danny finally relax, that and the way she said awkward twice. That was the best. “But you’re not just white bread. You’re a christmas sundae with a crapload of sprinkles on a strawberry bacon waffle.” That was just how he felt about her. She was that amazing to him. “You...you look at me and you see chocolate chip jalapeno cookies and that’s so cool because sometimes I get into work and they look at me and they see the kid whose knees are going to be in his armpits for the next hour or the guy who maybe smiled a little too big or has a weird laugh so now they’re gonna pull his hair harder or make him actually work at not choking.” He shrugged again. “Sometimes it’s fun and there’s lots of laughs and sometimes it’s shit. It’s like any other job, except you don’t always go in knowing who you’re working with that day.”
“They’re not the people I usually want to spend much time with outside of work. There’s a few I hang out with sometimes, but it’s not like we have a post-porn softball league.” Though, come to think of it, maybe they should. That’d be fun. There’d be some great puns in there. He shook his head and found his train of thought again. “I like white bread. You eat the best sandwiches on white bread. And you keep it there no matter what because it’s not boring. It’s...it’s home.”
Not that Stephanie was an expert on guy-on-guy sex but she knew enough about guy-on-girl to realize that what he was talking about wasn’t usually on the menu, then again she wasn’t exactly familiar with pegging either. Still, it meant there was a whole other dimension to this, that there was more that they would probably need to talk about. She got up from where she was sitting and moved to stand behind him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and kissing his cheek, “Thank you.” she squeezed him tight then let him go, nodding at his cup. “Come on, grab Santa.”
She moved to get the plate of cookies then came back to him, taking his free hand in hers, their fingers intertwining. If they were going to talk about the whole thing she wanted somewhere more comfortable to be, especially if the storm got bad enough for the nursing home to send her mother home early. She didn’t need to walk in on that. Stephanie led him from the kitchen, through the living room to the stairs, up them and into the door directly across from them, her bedroom. Unsurprisingly it was done up in various shades of eggplant, framed posters on her walls of bands and movies, maybe one or two pints of impressionist paintings. Her desk was piled high with her books from the last semester all ready to be sent out to the less privileged students book program the CJ department faculty were running. Her bed had a simple eggplant coverlet on it, soft and satiny and that was what she sat down on after closing the door behind them. Thankfully there would be enough room for both of them and she took advantage of that by laying down and bringing the plate of cookies to rest on her stomach as she patted the space beside her. “Okay, so tell me all about work.”
Totally relaxed by the physical contact (which did way more wonders for communicating with Danny than words ever good.) once they were upstairs, he flopped on her bed and squirmed until he was on his side next to her, managing somehow not to spill a drop of the santa milk. “Well, what do you wanna know?” he asked and then decided to just keep talking ‘cause if this was going to get unweird, the easiest way to do that was to make it normal. “Um, I haven’t in the past couple days. I did have a shoot the night you made me awesome ice cream. And then when I got home I had to text people and make sure that they came and got some because fuck, that was the best and-” He cut himself off, smiling sheepishly. “Sorry.”
He stole a cookie and nibbled on it, trying to angle his body so he wouldn’t get crumbs all over her bed. “Anyway, it was with this guy Jared and he’s like almost seven feet tall and I swear dude’s like half made up of just solid abs. And I hate it, because there’s this friggen’ male model adonis and I’m just like five nine, pale as shit hey how’s it goin’ here’s some bad jokes haha do you know what we’re doing today? I never know until like five minutes beforehand most of the time. It’s kinda rude, but I think half the problem is that the PAs have a bitch of a time actually keeping track of me. So he’s got this like...fuckin’ perfect hair and he gives me this like Abercrombie bag look through his damn bangs like I apparently have ruined the world just by existing and being Danny and doesn’t say a damn thing. So we end up on set, and because I still don’t know what the fuck it is I’m supposed to be doing and was only just given a premise and not a script or anything, I’m stuck improvising while this guy’s all serious and intimidating and all I can think is ‘damn, I would not wanna be friends with you.’
“Turns out it’s this fuckin’ juvi scene, which I thought was gonna be a good thing because I was already kinda pissed off at him just for existing with this like holier than thou attitude or whatever. And I mean I don’t really mind hatesex all that much, sometimes it can be fun, but I end up handcuffed and bent over his desk and it’s like ten minutes into the scene and I’m realizing that this guy has the raunchiest gas. Like seriously, letting loose SBD’s all over the place. There’s fuck all I can do about this. Like if there was an actual bed I could maybe get a breather every once in a while just by like jamming my face in the sheets or something but all I’ve got is like fuckin’ particle board.” Danny gestured vaguely with his cookie, half speaking with his mouth full.
“So the whole side of my face is just sweating and he keeps smacking my leg because I keep trying to squirm away from the damn just...fucking rancid cabbage, eggs and beans smell that’s just making my eyes water. And dude’s still talking the whole time. I don’t know half of what he’s saying because I’m pretty sure I can’t even hear over the smell and it’s not gonna really matter because he’s giant and if he wanted me somewhere else, he’d just pick me up and move me.” It was one of the benefits of not weighing much at all even soaking wet, and also one of the drawbacks. “This whole time though, like no one else seems to notice it. There’s like three camera dudes, the sound guys, an electrician, and the director and they’re all totally fine and I’m just like ‘what the fuck.’ Like how the hell are they not noticing this? Can we turn a fuckin’ fan on or something?”
Danny finished his cookie and washed it down with a swig of santa milk. “Anyway it’s like an hour and a half later, and by the end of it there’s another dude involved and even he doesn’t seem to notice this like fart haze that’s sprung up. So I’m just starting to get my feet back under me and I’m walking off set to go brush my teeth and take the longest possible shower and the director comes up and claps me on the shoulder and says ‘stellar acting kid. you’re totally pulling an AVN for that.’ Because I guess they do last minute nominations or something, I dunno, but all I could think was ‘that wasn’t acting.’ Instead I just nodded and said thanks, so I could get to the showers quicker and um...you know the rest.”
Well that was… Something. Steph wasn’t exactly sure what it was, but it was something. She couldn’t help but find it strange, even if she intellectually knew it was just work for him, that he could be so blunt and open about it all. She wanted to laugh at the story, wanted to tell him not to be so down on his height when she was only five five, but it all just came right around back to the fact that he was working with guys. She really hadn’t been kidding when she had called herself white bread, on the Kinsey scale she was a pretty solid zero and that was pretty much the extent of her knowledge when it came to sex. She’d never been into guy-on-guy and honestly didn’t know a thing about the mechanics of it other than it sounded really uncomfortable, with all the stretching and what not. But Danny was clearly more than familiar with it all so of course she had to wonder about his sexuality and where she was supposed to fit into it.
“So you just meet this guy and the director says action and you’re supposed to just jump right in?” looking at the ceiling was much easier than looking at him and seeing him see the awkward expressions that went along with the awkward questions, so those bright blue eyes remained glued to the ceiling. “That sounds so… I mean I know it’s easier for guys, but it just seems so abrupt, you know? Here’s this guy you’ve never met, I need you hard right away because we’re losing daylight. I mean, do you have like, fluffers or whatever? Or is it easy for you to get excited about other guys?” If she had been any more subtle about asking him if he was gay she would have written it in sparkly pink, fifty foot high letters. “You just work with guys?”
Danny twisted a bit so that he could lay on his back too and look up at the ceiling with her. That might make her more comfortable, maybe. He was kinda hoping they could have this conversation looking at each other or maybe with a little more contact, but it was weird. He got that. He didn’t like that it was weird. He was quiet as he thought about her questions, considered what she was probably asking and killed time with another cookie. “I’m eighteen and full of hormones,” he said simply. “I mean there are fluffers and there’s a fuckload of viagra going around constantly but I just...don’t really like using either of those things. My own hand works well enough and um...it just kinda is really weird to have someone else grabbing you’re junk if you’re not in a scene with that person. But...I guess if I keep going in this line of work, eventually, I’m gonna need the fluffers or the little blue pills, but right now my body’s still at that get hard if the wind blows the right direction stage.” It was the most honest answer he could give about that whole getting it up question.
The question she was asking but wasn’t really asking was the way harder one to answer. It was one of those things that was gonna involve a whole other story, and now he was really, really glad that they weren’t looking at each other since it really just painted him as a loser. “I told you before,” he said softly, “you’re the first person to kiss me because they wanted to. Not because they were getting paid to do it or to fuck with me or get a laugh from someone else. I mean...I lost my virginity to porn, and I um...there’s not really a market in straight porn for guys like me. I’m not all buff and tall and square jawed and stubbly. I’m just...scrawny and average. And, y’know, I took the job because it seemed fun. Like I could make a shitload of money and get out of my dad’s house and maybe not worry about the fact that I’m never gonna get into college.” He cleared his throat. “And most days it is fun, and some days it’s guys I’ve worked with before and we can joke and laugh or like have stupid dance parties to awful soundtracks to get warmed up or whatever. Some days it’s not. It’s a job. I just…”
He looked down at his hands, one one his stomach holding a partially eaten cookie and the other at his side near enough to reach out and touch hers, but not yet able to reach out to bridge the gap between them. “I don’t really think about what’s between someone’s legs or on their chest or whatever. I don’t think anyone should have to put themselves in some kind of gender or sexuality box if they don’t want to and I don’t want to. I care about people.” Even if people mostly didn’t seem to care about him. “So um...just because I’ve never actually done anything with a girl before doesn’t mean I don’t want to or that I haven’t always wanted to. I guess I just um...never took the time to sit back and go okay gay or straight because love is love and um...yeah.”
The bedspread was totally interesting. The most captivating thing in the world. “I meant what I said,” he whispered, “you’re absolutely beautiful to me and you sparkle and and the fact that you’re just letting me be here with you and giving me a shot here no matter what I do for work or that it’s with guys and all that just makes me want to be better for you. I just...hope that whenever we get to that point or if we ever get to that point, you’ll maybe be okay with the idea that I’m learning you just as much as you’re learning me and I haven’t been here before at all and maybe you haven’t either I don’t know. But nothing’s making me want any of this any less.”
There he was, telling the truth in the way that did funny things to her insides. She felt almost silly, getting more than a little hung-up on his job when from the way he talked he wasn’t interested in making it an issue for them, that it wasn’t going to be something that came between them. That if things became serious between them that it wouldn’t be him cheating on her, it would be just work. It would be so easy to just say he was right and she would be okay with it all for the sake of being with him, but for now it would be a lie. She wasn’t comfortable with the idea for the moment and the more rational side of her was telling her to cut ties now before what he did for a living led to her getting hurt. She hadn’t listened back when that part of her spoke up during the first time she had trouble with Dean. He had been doing half the town behind her back, and probably giving blow jobs to the other half so he could afford his drugs. She had regretted not listening to herself then, but surely it would be different with Danny, right? He was being honest with her from the beginning.
As with the first time he called her beautiful she was the one to make the move, her hand moved over, finding and taking his in an affectionate squeeze. She did finally lose the staring contest with the ceiling and turned her head to look at him and give him a light kiss to his forehead. “Am I being unreasonable about all this?” she asked softly, keeping her eyes on him now. “I mean when you talk it feels like I’m being unreasonable, you make it seem so mundane and normal. But it’s hard to be comfortable with this, at least right now it does. I mean, it almost feels like you’re in a relationship with porn and you’re gonna cheat on it with me, like I’m the other woman. No, that doesn’t make sense, I’m sorry.”
She cleared her throat and turned her head to rest on his shoulder, “It’s not like I expect you to be like some pure virgin or something. I’m definitely not, I mean, I had a kid before I started college and it wasn’t any virgin Mary, Christmas miracle either, I definitely slept with the father even though that whole relationship was a terrible mistake. But…” Steph sighed heavily. “I don’t even know what I’m trying to say any more. I just… I like you and I want to try to find a way to get past this.”
Danny laced his fingers with hers, finally looking back at her after the kiss. “You’re not being unreasonable,” he said softly, rolling to his side again so he could keep holding her hand and touch her cheek. “And that all makes sense, but…” He brushed her hair back with the tips of his fingers. “The guy on screen? The guy getting fucked? That’s not me. It’s...there’s no way that’s ever gonna be me because that’s just, not even my name. It can’t possibly be meaningful or at all fulfilling when I literally get called by someone else’s name constantly. It’s not a relationship with porn. It’s just this thing that happens and will eventually stop happening.”
He looked down for a minute and then back up at her. “Like, maybe if I have enough saved up by the time I graduate I can, I don’t know, open my own bike shop and fix things and maybe watch little kids with parents who actually care about them leave with their first two-wheeler or something awesome like that. That’s what...that’s what I actually want to do. Porn’s just a fat check means to an end, not a career, not forever.” He held her gaze. “I’d...I’d really like to be able for us to have a shot too.”
She lifted the cookies from where they rested on her stomach and placed them down on the bed beside her so she could fully turn on her side and face him. Her hand slipped from his and wrapped an arm around him, pushing away any thoughts of his porn career and just how many times he had been in bed with someone like this, even if he was right in that such things were meaningless. Right now it was something outside them, she told herself, that it had no bearing on how Danny and Stephanie were together. She would push through it all if she had to, she was Stephanie Brown and Stephanie Brown never gave up, no matter what. And she really didn’t want to give up on what she could have with Danny.
“I’m glad,” she finally said. “Glad that it’s not all you want to do with your life. And I don’t mean to make you feel bad about this if I do, there’s nothing wrong with it. I’m just, well I’d like to think I’m not old fashioned like that but maybe I am. Maybe I’m a little repressed or something. I don’t know. But it doesn’t make me regret this, whatever this is that we have.” She knew it was also a little silly to get so churned up about the career of a man she in all reality barely knew, then again it was silly to having him lying next to her in bed when this was only the second time they had been together.
It probably made the tender, slow kiss she gave him in the next moment even more silly, but she didn’t care. Right now it was making her forget that the boy with the beautiful smile had sex with other men on camera for a living.
Danny kissed her back, slow and gentle as he offered up as much of himself as he could. He wasn’t thinking about anything but her, not about his dad (who was probably fretting) or work or the blizzard outside. All that mattered was Stephie Sparkles and he really hoped she could feel that. His hand came to rest at the small of her back, gently keeping her close. He wanted more, of course. She was gorgeous and kissed him like she cared and laughed at his dumb jokes. How could he not want more? How could this be anything but a moment that was more than just the wind blowing in the right direction? Though really, he supposed in a way it was some sort of weird poetic wind blowing them at each other.
That kiss ending was the last thing Danny wanted. His lips parted against hers in hopes that maybe they could keep it going longer, that maybe she didn’t really want it to end either.
She didn’t want it to end, which was exactly why she had to tap the brakes. She could feel herself melting into his arms and against his lips, that tingling feeling returning and heading down her spine that threatened to spread more than just heat through her. It would have been so simple just to roll over onto her back and let things happen with him. Hell, it would have made the night amazing, but that same part of her that knew she was probably too old fashioned to think about him doing porn also knew the trouble of letting herself get carried away by the moment.
She really was going to kick herself later, especially when there wasn’t a more perfect set-up to be had. He was right there after all, in her bed and likely more than willing. She really needed to break her sense of whatever-it-was, it was doing her no favors.
Pulling her lips from the kiss she rested her forehead against him, not making any moves to really pull away from him. She liked his closeness, she needed that comfort after getting churned up and feeling so insecure. She ran her tongue over her lips, tasting him there and regretting instantly pulling out of that kiss, then spoke softly. “Danny, I don’t know if we…”
Danny shifted his arm up higher over her shoulders, keeping her gently close. “Nothing happens that you aren’t absolutely completely sure you want to happen,” he whispered. “I’ll wait as long as you need me to.” He kissed her hair. It seemed like the right thing to do. “If what you need is for me to just stay right here with you, that’s cool, or if you want me to hop in my car and go home or or whatever. I just...I don’t want to be some douchebag who’s pressuring you into something and I don’t want to be a regret.” Even if they didn’t work out, he wanted them to still be able to be friends. He thought they could manage that.
“Aside from like the porn thing, do you ever stop being amazing?” she asked with a quiet sigh. Of course he would be sweet and understanding, even if they didn’t know each other very well she knew that much about him already. And that really was the problem, time and how well they knew each other. She wasn’t the sort of girl who had sex on the first or second date, or at least she liked to think she was. She needed a little more than just an attractive body against her and the wind blowing in the right direction. It probably explained why she was single for what felt to her like ages. She usually wanted more than just a physical connection and that usually required knowing someone for more than a few hours.
“I just… I don’t think I’ve ever been more tempted to say ‘fuck it, clothes off!’ So it’s not like I’m not interested, I really, really am. But, well, we’ve really just met. I’d like to get to know you better first, you know? At least have a little time when it isn’t all about sex. Not that it’s all I want, but sometimes it feels like I have so much time to make up for and that I could explode.” The rambling was probably making her less attractive by the moment, she thought and she was okay with that. Of course she had to go and ruin that by being impulsive and giving him a quick, surprisingly innocent kiss before nodding toward her windows. “I think you’re stuck here for the night though, so I guess we have some time.”
“We have time,” Danny agreed, smiling and blushing a bit at the kiss. It was nice, feeling special. “Besides, getting to know me better first means you might actually cut me some slack if I kind of suck at this for a little while,” he teased. Almost reluctantly, he stretched out on his back so he could tuck her against his side. Talking was way easier when making out required stretching and maybe awkward angles to manage. “So, Jersey huh?” Easiest place to start, something he knew about her that didn’t seem as painful as asking about her dad or her pregnancy. Those didn’t seem like technical first date questions to talk about. Unless this was the second. It might’ve been. Or it might still be like weird pre-date capacity. Fuck, where was he supposed to start counting from?
She curled up against his side quite nicely, enjoying his warmth and his closeness as she rested a hand on his chest. She couldn’t even remember the last time she cuddled up to someone she wasn’t related to, the fact that this was with Dany made it all the sweeter. “North Jersey. And you can tell I’m telling the truth because when I do the funny accent I leave the ‘R’ in Jersey.” she smirked and slipped into it. “Not dat dare wron-g ‘bout da rest-a it.” She slipped out of it though, not willing to keep up the accent. “Not that the land of orange spray-tans, guidos and Snooki is anywhere as exotic as our neighbors up north who live in the great frozen wasteland that is Canada. Canadia. Canadida. Whatever.”
She giggled at her own little joke, “I always call it Canadia, it makes it seem like one of those fantasy lands that has like elves and dwarves and wizards and all that.” it wasn’t like she was consciously trying to steer the conversation away from her early life, there just simply wasn’t much she could bring up that was happy or didn’t sound terrible. “I’ve actually been though. To Toronto, that’s like seven hours away from Elizabeth, where I grew up. Part of some awards thing for the North American gymnastics blah blah thing I was in as a kid.”
“Yeah? Gymnastics? That’s cool. I did hockey for a while, course in Soviet Canuckistan, all youths must dedicate years of their lives to hockey.” He played a little with her hair. She had really nice hair. All soft and smell good and stuff. “We don’t have elves and dwarves and wizards. We have snow, more snow, humidity, some moose, hockey, syrup and occasional battles between the French and the English.”
“Of course!” she chimed in, laughing lightly. She could really get used to this, talking and laughing with him, letting her play with her hair. It was nice, and not where she really expected the conversation to go after the whole ‘I do gay porn’ thing. “Though that’s what you get when you don’t have a proper war to kick the Brits and the French out, they stick around and fight it out and go on and on about which language is better and which should be spoken where. Though I gotta admit talking about Canada and war makes me want to watch Canadian Bacon again.”
“Nah nah. You need to watch Men With Brooms. Now that’ll give you a real taste of Canada. Oh shit and due South and fuckin’ fuck what is that.” Danny drummed his fingers against her shoulder while he thought. “Slings and Arrows. And a Kids in the Hall marathon too, but only the first three seasons. The last two got really weird.” Danny made a face. “And the Men WIth Brooms movie, not the series.” He tilted his head to the side so he could sort of look at her properly. “If you wanna grab your laptop I can totally trick Netflix into thinking we’re in Canada and you can watch the entertainment of my people unfold on your screen.” He smirked. What? He got nostalgic and shit. Not that it was any better than American TV or that they didn’t get a shitload of American TV where he was, but...even though Winnipeg was shit, he was allowed to be homesick sometimes. Call it culture shock.
“Sure.” she really didn’t follow most of what he was saying but his enthusiasm was sweet. She was a little reluctant to move, being so warm and comfortable where she was but he did make it sound fun. She sat up and took the opportunity to give him another kiss, more a peck really but she found the more she did it the more she wanted to do it and kissing him really was quite nice. “It’s back downstairs, do you want anything while I’m down there? And yes, I have noticed that this thing we have revolves around me giving you food. But that’s okay. Food good.”
“Nah, just you and a cheesy Paul Gross movie about curling,” he said, smiling up at her like she was the most beautiful thing in the world to him. Which, okay, she was. It was really nice for him to stumble into something good and not...well, what he usually walked into. He frowned and added softly. “Unless you maybe have something that’s not jeans I can sleep in since you’re not letting me back out in this?”
“They make movies about curling? Well, I guess they make movies about golf right, and the whole sweeping thing is more exciting than anything that happens during a golf game. Still, Canada is so weird.” she teased, then looked thoughtful for a moment as she tried to think of something he could wear. “You know, between my mother and I we don’t find ourselves with a lot of men’s clothing lying about, and she’s rather short while my ass is bigger than yours so I doubt anything we’ve got will fit you. You can always wear whatever you’ve got under there, unless you’re going commando, in that case, well, I’ll promise not to stare.”
She did finally move to the other side of the bed and get to her feet, “If you want to check though,” she nodded to the dresser next to her desk, “All my yoga pants, pajamas whatever are in there. You can have a look through, I don’t mind and I don’t have anything that might make you blush so don’t worry.”
Danny looked over at her dresser, considered things, then just shrugged and went about taking off his skinny jeans. She’d seen him in his underwear before and it was a pretty safe bet that she was going to see him in less than that at some point. That and his purple leopard print briefs were totally nothing to be ashamed of. “I’ll check it out,” he said, smiling at her while she left. By the time she got back with things, he’d given up on borrowing her yoga pants or pyjama anything.
Flopped under the covers to maybe keep things less awkward, he gave her a bright smile when she walked through the door again. “Hey.”
“Hey.” she smiled back, carrying her laptop to the bed and handing it over to him. “There you go, do your Canadian magic to it. We just got the wifi fixed so it should run okay.” Alex had been so nice about fixing it too, had made her feel better and assured her that she hadn’t bought a lemon condo. The fact that something had been chewing on the wires inside the wall was a bit worrying though, something else she’d probably have to get looked at. “You have no idea how terrifying bad wifi is when you’re trying to e-submit your final paper and it keeps throwing you error messages.”
She went over to the dresser herself, pulling out a soft tank top and tiny silk shorts. Maybe not the warmest thing when there was snow piling up outside, but she would insist he share her bed and between the two of them she knew she was likely going to stay warm. “So I had a voicemail from my mom,” she started as she pulled off her shirt, tossing it off to the side, her jeans following and replaced by the shorts. After the beach she wasn’t so touchy about being in her underwear around him. “She’s apparently gonna stay over at work tonight, the roads are too bad.”
She didn’t have to say ‘so we’ve got the place to ourselves’, she was pretty clearly thinking it. Once again kicking herself that she needed an emotional connection before she would have a physical one because this would have been the perfect night for it. Her hands dipped behind her back up under her tank where it was clear she was unhooking her bra as the straps slid down her arms and she pulled them all the way down and off before reaching under again and taking the thing off, tossing it with the rest of her clothes. Ready for bed she moved the cookies from the bed onto the side table then slid under the covers next to him. “Anyway, bring on the Canadians!”
“Oh, okay,” he said, accepting her mother’s absence easily enough. It would probably make the next morning a lot less weird, or awkwardly rushing to figure out a way to maybe define their relationship. Probably for the best. While she was getting changed, he was busy making Netflix do the Canada thing not really all that hard, honestly. It was just a matter of adding a browser extension. He got the movie queued up and shifted so that the laptop was between them and she could cuddle against his side again.
It really was the most Canadian of comedies, but that was a thing that could have been accomplished just with Leslie Nielsen’s presence alone. It actually really made him miss the old man. But Canadian curling jokes were Canadian curling jokes and maybe she wouldn’t really get all of them but he couldn’t help but laugh. When it was over, the laptop ended up shut and set aside, the lights off and Danny found himself adjusting to looking at her in the dark. “Thanks,” he said softly, “for watching that with me.” He didn’t know when he’d ended up on his side again, but he wasn’t about to complain. With the storm howling outside, there was just something about this (and her) that really did feel like home in a way he’d never expected to find in the land of one season.
She was still smirking, sure she hadn’t gotten a lot of the jokes but over all it was surprisingly funny, of course anything with Leslie Nielsen was hilarious. She had told him he wasn’t playing fair when he picked something with such a ‘big gun’ in it, that she expected something with a lesser known cast next time ‘to level the playing field’. “Yeah, it was, something. I’m gonna say funny even if I wasn’t sure what they were saying with those crazy-heavy accents. Who knew curling could be interesting? And of course Canadians would come up with a sport that involves a broom, though it was weird seeing that chick from Deadwood in non-period clothes.”
This really was wonderful though, curled up against him in the dark, warm and comfortable and in good spirits. She couldn’t have asked for a better evening. “So,” she put a hand on his arm, fingers tracing imaginary patterns as they moved up his skin to his shoulder and eventually his cheek which she lightly caressed. Maybe it wasn’t fair, maybe she was just inviting trouble, but his skin seemed so perfect she found she couldn’t resist. “Does this count as broadening my intellectual horizons since it was a foreign film?”
“And educational,” Danny murmured, trying super hard to not remind her (again) that Leslie Nielsen was a Canadian treasure and it wasn’t at all their fault that the Americans stole him. Or to return to the joke that that was really why they were waging a secret Canadian revenge war. It was difficult to really get into joke cracking when she was touching him like that. It was nice and toasty under the blankets, his hand finding the perfect dip on her side to rest. Her shorts just barely brushed against the side of his hand, distractingly soft and short and...and fuck this was a really bad idea wasn’t it?
He’d managed to behave himself through the whole movie, to be distracted by sweeping and beer and Leslie growing psychedelic mushrooms in cow shit. Now things were so much...well, harder was an appropriate term in more ways than one. Maybe if he stayed right where he was with their legs barely touching, she wouldn’t notice and things wouldn’t get weird. And maybe, for someone else, just thinking about not moving might’ve worked. Unfortunately, Danny was Danny and being still was something meant for when you were actually passed the fuck out. He leaned forward, nose brushing lightly against her own so he could taste the air between them. “Can I kiss you?” he whispered.
Her fingers threaded through his hair when he leaned in, taking their time enjoying the softness between them. She really wasn’t doing herself any favors here, and neither was he, she was beginning to feel more than a little warm being so close to him but at his question, which she did smile at, it grew more noticeable. “You don’t have to ask that anymore, Danny. I want you to kiss me as much as you want to kiss me.”
Her voice had gone softer, even she had noticed that and knew that it was a bad sign, like her answer to his question was. Asking herself what she was thinking turned up only one answer, something she swore she wasn’t going to give in to yet with him, but something the rest of her was more than a little hungry for. And that little voice in the back of her head that told her no and to think about her ‘self respect’ seemed to grow quieter and quieter until she had a hard time hearing it over what she swore was the pounding of her pulse in her femoral artery.