Chapter Text
Danny didn’t see it coming.
He usually does. That’s the most frustrating part of it all – he’s usually so careful about it, so wary, he’s learned from his dad’s mistake because he’s not a fucking idiot. Danny should have seen it coming.
But he didn’t.
One moment everything was going fine. They’d scored a rare deal with the Vic-Tory Twins and their circle, which meant that Danny was looking at a new car and Alexis was shitting relentlessly on every model he had his eye on. It had been a polite meetup in a neutral location, just to go over some finer details and make the trade, and apart from having to snap Lex out of eying up the intimidating Victoria as she offered her bejewelled hand to kiss, it was going smoothly. Smoothly enough that Danny was idly thinking about what a waste that fancy, mosaiced table between them was – far too fancy for a drop location, really, the twins had such garish taste – without Silver bent over it; how much prettier it would look with him flushed and panting and spread out over the scenic pattern, completing the picture so perfectly.
His eyes had flicked over to his Silver, so composed and focused as he did most of the actual work, made sure the handover went smoothly. He was wearing a necktie Danny had given him today, and the black was pretty against his warm skin, matched the tattoo in the shape of Danny’s teeth that teased out from under the collar of his white shirt, too high to hide. The hickey Danny had left there was already fading, and his fingers twitched with the urge to stroke over it, to tug his Silver close and lean down to taste his bared throat, leave more bruises pressed around the ink like he was filling in a colouring book. But – patience. This wasn’t the time or place.
Later.
Only, there wasn’t a later.
One moment everything was going fine, better than fine, it was almost over and they could leave this stuffy place – and the next, the deafening crack of a gunshot was thundering through Danny’s eardrums – and another, and – a third – so close together, they mingled into one singular sound. He’d already half-turned away, prepared to leave, and the sight of Victor pulling the gleaming gun from his pocket only registered a split second after the sound already had, after he’d already –
Pain radiated through Danny’s arm, but it wasn’t the sharp, ripping agony of a bullet. Wrong, his brain screamed at him, wrong, wrong what the fuck –
The air punched out of his chest all at once as he hit the tiled floor hard, and the ache of it reverberated through every single one of his bones. There was a fire spreading steadily through the muscles in his shoulder, into his ribcage, and he tried to cough it out, to let fresh air replace it – he couldn’t focus, felt like he was underwater, what the fuck, he couldn’t function like this, what just happened, why was Danny on the floor and why was everyone shouting and firing shots and why was there the distant squeal of tires, and why was there something wet and warm dripping down his cheek –
“ – the fuck –” Danny hissed, heaving himself up, clutching his head – a pang of pain went through it, oh, he must have hit it, that explained a lot like why his thoughts were so sluggish and stunned and stupid, “– goddamn malnacidos, of all the – fuck! Silver, cover me!”
His head was swimming with wave after indecipherable wave of sounds, but Danny strained to hear the short, rough baritone of “Yes, sir.” that always answered him like clockwork. That – that didn’t, this time. It must be there, obviously, Danny just missed it somehow, but there’s no movement of a larger figure by his side or settling next to him either, no gunshots over his head, no solid, familiar hands offering their assistance.
“Shit – Silver, I said fucking cover me!”
No answer.
A fresh burst of pain lanced through Danny’s body, making his head spin and his eyes throb, and he dragged his hand over his face. Fuck, where was his Silver, he better not have done something idiotic, he’d better have gotten the motherfucker who did this, he better have a good fucking excuse for why he’s not obeying, he should be by Danny’s side, protecting him, the fuck else was his job, why was he not by his side –
Something brushed against Danny’s shin, something warm and alive, and it was instinct, the vicious kick Danny aimed in its direction, as hard as he fucking could with a snarl. He swallowed down his panic with a shot of satisfied spite as he hit a solid mass, something with the warm give of a human body, the crack of small bones that followed.
And then that something whined, tiny and pained like a kicked puppy, and Danny froze, because –
Because he knew that whine.
“Silver?” Danny’s voice sounded dazed, so out of it, and he forced himself to focus, put himself back in the moment. “Is that – what the fuck are you – ugh, my head –”
He pulled his hand away from his cheek, and the first thing he noticed was the blood smeared on his palm. Just a light spatter, not enough to be from a head wound, his concussion wasn’t that bad, but then what – ?
And then he saw the rest of it. The crimson pooling dark and viscous under – under –
“Silver?” he said again, but there was something ragged in his voice now, something he couldn’t identify, “Silver, you dumb fuck, stand up, what the hell d’you think you’re playing at?”
Grey eyes flickered to him hazily, but they weren’t… they weren’t looking at him. They weren’t seeing him. Danny knew exactly how Silver looked at him, the way his eyes went focused and intense and all-too-trusting, and this wasn’t it, this was like he was searching through a mist, unfocused and glazing over, and it wasn’t a look he’d ever seen him wear before, like he was fucking dying or something.
“Stand up.” Danny snapped, voice suddenly sharp now, and everything else was muffled, was nothing compared to this. To the way his Silver was splayed out on the floor, his chest heaving with wheezing, barely-there breaths, and blood staining the front of his grey suit a vivid scarlet. “Sil, you – stand the fuck up, or I’ll – I’ll –”
And he twitched. He twitched, like he was aching to obey, even now, like his body couldn’t help but listen to what Danny said. He didn’t actually manage it, of course he didn’t, fuck, look at all that blood, fuck fuck fuck – just gasped a horrible strangled sound before convulsing on the floor, his head lolling back and eyes going flat. Was it Danny’s imagination, or was the pool of blood so much bigger than it had been a moment ago? It shouldn’t be doing that, should it?
“Stand up.” Were the only words that would come out of Danny’s mouth, even though they hadn’t started out that way, like a broken record, “Stand up.”
Silver didn’t obey. That wasn’t – Silver always obeyed, this wasn’t –
God, there was so much blood.
It’s not like Danny hadn’t seen blood before. Hadn’t caused enough of it to spill. Why couldn’t his brain just wrap around it now? He had to do something. Something.
Silver’s eyes were desperate now, his brow pinched in pain, searching in the direction of Danny’s voice like he couldn’t see, like he was drowning. Like he needed –
“Danny!” Alexis’s voice rang out from somewhere far away, “Get your shit together, we need to get moving!”
Danny could see the moment those grey eyes registered the words, the relief in the breath that shuddered out of the limp body. Couldn’t do anything but see as they rolled back, and finally fluttered shut.
And the world stopped.
It’s all a blur, the things that happen after.
Danny doesn’t know how they get out of there, how long he sat there on the cold floor just staring at the spreading scarlet and the chest that was barely moving, until his eyes blurred and Alexis’s familiar vice-grip hauled him up by the arm, how they get to the hospital. Doesn’t know how time’s still working, how the people around him are still talking far too fast and running around like they aren’t trapped in suffocating amber, like Silver’s not bleeding out on the leather seat of Danny’s favourite car, like the only sign he’s still alive isn’t the way he winces and tries, fails, to curl up when they drive over a pothole, doesn’t know who stops him from strangling the driver for it. Doesn’t know how long it takes for the masked, white-coated figures to extricate his hand from Silver’s jacket-sleeve, only that he snarled and snapped and fought them the whole time, until he’s left with the stiff, cooling fabric dangling emptily in his grip, blood drying tacky on it. Until Silver’s disappeared behind a set of doors to some other world where Danny can’t follow.
The first thing that really registers, that’s solid and real and sharp, is the can of orange soda Alexis presses to his temple, that makes Danny yelp and flinch away because it feels like a block of fucking ice.
“What the fuck, Lex, fucking –” he sputters indignantly, feeling finally starting to trickle back into his chest, and it’s anger, so much of it is anger in this moment, and some part of him whispers distantly that Alexis isn’t really the person he’s angry at. “God, I hope you donate your body to science when you die so they can figure out whatever the hell is wrong with you.”
“I should be so lucky.” Alexis rolls her eyes, apparently unaffected, but her mouth is set in a tense line and her lipstick is rubbed away where she has a habit of biting her lip when she’s stressed, “Instead I’m stuck here with your bitchy ass.”
Danny hisses as she presses the can against his cheek this time, just to annoy him, and folds herself into the seat next to him. He’s shaking, Danny realizes dimly, and wills himself to stop. It almost works.
“Drink up,” Alexis tells him, “You hit your head pretty hard, probably a bit concussed. The sugar should help.”
Danny scoffs, staring at the white, sterile wall of the hospital corridor. There’s no blood on it. He’s not sure why he’d thought there would be.
“’Course I hit my head, did you see how hard that idiot pushed me? Violent fucking mutt. God forbid he have some self-control.”
He feels Alexis go rigid next to him, and suddenly the edge of the can is digging hard into his skin, sending a dull throb of pain that means she’s pressing it directly into a bruise. He hisses and twists out of the way.
“He got shot for you.” Alexis snaps.
“I didn’t fucking ask him to!”
“Oh, for fuck’s – you really think he’d let anything happen to you? You’re the fucking centre of his universe, Rosarios, although it’s a goddamn mystery to me why he put you there.”
“Yeah, well, that makes two of us!” raw, he feels raw, and he’s baring his teeth and he must look feral like this, but Danny can’t help it, can’t get a bloody grip because she said the centre of his universe and it’s making his brain dredge up every single I love you Silver has ever choked out under his hands.
Fuck. Fuck.
His eyes are burning, he’s about to cry, and Danny doesn’t cry ever, not since he was thirteen, so he laughs instead.
“Honestly, serves him right. Maybe he’ll be smarter next time.”
If there ever is a next time. The thought makes a pit open up in his stomach.
Alexis levels a look of disbelieving scorn at him, and that helps, ironically, stings enough on the surface to drag Danny up from the depths of the maelstrom of anger and shock and something like fear churning in his chest.
“You’re lucky you look so pathetic right now, or I’d deck you, Danny.” She says, her voice flat. There’s blood in her hair, too, staining the ends of her purple box braids a dull, browning crimson – and then Danny blinks, and it’s gone. He starts to open his mouth, but no words come out. Alexis gives him one last glare, before she stands, and chucks the orange soda in his general direction. “Seriously. Get your shit together. I’m – I’m done here.”
Danny’s gaze drops to the can rolling across the floor, mainly so he doesn’t have to watch her leave. He watches it in a detached sort of amusement until it finally stops, pressed against his boot, the cold condensation seeping through the leather.
“Lex, you know I don’t like orange!” he calls after her.
“Tough shit, asshole!” he thinks he hears her shout back. He might’ve imagined it. She might be too far away already.
Doesn’t matter.
It’s not until he considers picking the stupid soda up that Danny realizes he’s still clutching on to his Silver’s jacket, his hands stiff and spring-wound. The grey fabric is bunched tightly in his fingers, wrinkled to hell, and well – all the blood dying it a deep shade of crimson probably means it’s beyond saving, anyway.
Useless.
It takes effort, more than he’d expected, to pry his fingers away.
Silver’s in surgery for what feels like forever. Time has no meaning, anyway, not in a blank, too-clean, too-empty, too-quiet-too-loud, too-desolate-too-crowded place like this.
Danny has always hated hospitals. Hates the smell, so sterile and medicinal like they’re trying to choke your lungs with sanitizer. Hates the chairs, always too hard and cramped and completely unsuited to rest your ass for even twenty minutes, let alone the overnight vigils people are apparently expected to stay for. Hates the way every corridor, every room is crowded with the sick and dying, who still groan and grasp desperately at life, like they think it’s doing anything other than slowing down the inevitable conclusion to a dull, pathetic crawl. It’s pitiful, really, almost more than it is outright annoying. Danny would rather go out quick and clean and with some fucking dignity – his job guarantees that, at least.
Except, he hadn’t. Because his Silver just had to get in the way.
And now Danny’s stuck here, in this moment that feels like forever and also no time at all, in this horrible choking place where there’s nothing interesting to do while they wait and where Alexis only gives him short, curt answers, biting her lip and her nails as she sits two seats away from him.
The restlessness is hitting now, in full, and his brain’s finally firing on all cylinders after so long of going numb and useless. The anger is still there, simmering in Danny’s chest, and he fiddles absently with a soda can tab as he imagines all the painful ways he’s going to hunt down and kill Victor, and Victoria, and everyone else involved in that fucking disaster of a night. His hands are itching for a gun, for a fight, and the only thing holding him in place is Lex’s unimpressed stare and the burning question of whether he’s going to have to add some doctors not worth their degree to his shit list by the end of this.
“Hey, dickface.” Alexis’s voice snaps him out of it abruptly, and Danny blinks up at her, trying not to focus on how tired she looks, how the fluorescent lights wash out her dark skin and turn it ashen, “Get up. He’s out.”
It takes a minute, to understand what she’s on about. When it clicks, though, Danny’s on his feet in an instant, his joints cracking loud enough to make him wince, tossing his Silver’s jacket to the ground carelessly.
“Took him long enough.” He huffs. Alexis shoots him a Look, but doesn’t bother saying anything. And then she’s nodding at the far side of the room, and Danny frowns, irritation prickling in his throat, as an overly tall, gangly almost-kid with ratty hair and fucking Hatsune Miku socks stumbles up to them, wringing his hands, brown eyes impossibly wide.
“Is Mr. Silver out of surgery? How’s he doing, is he okay? What took them so long, did they get the bullets –”
“Calm down, Dev.” Alexis’s voice is nice now, placating, the exact opposite of how it was with Danny, “Silver’s alright, he’s alive, that’s all I know about it. Come on, we’ll go meet him.”
“Oh, thank f – I mean! That’s good to know, Miss Quartz.” the kid – Dev – sighs in relief, “Miss Connor wanted to be here too, but the mess things are right now – well, you already know. She sends her regards, hopes Mr. Silver’s okay – we all do, you know – I’ll text the guys, too, they’ll be glad to know we’re not losing – I mean –” his eyes flick to Danny nervously, and he swallows, “I’m glad he’s – Mr. Danny, sir, you don’t gotta worry, we’ve got everything under –”
“Lex, who the fuck’s the bumbling dumbass?” Danny directs at his friend, and takes satisfaction in the way Dev’s mouth snaps shut and his cheeks flare dark. Alexis sighs at him.
“Dan, I know you don’t know everyone by name, but you’ve gotta know Silver’s got associates among the people he fucking works with every damn day, right?”
That – that makes sense. Danny doesn’t know why it had never occurred to him, of course it makes sense. For some reason, though, it’s making something jagged and ugly rear up in his chest – not even the fact that Silver has other people in his life, but that Danny hadn’t known. For some reason, the version of Silver he had in his head only had Danny, and maybe Alexis, in his world. But the real Silver… a whole web of relationships he’s not privy to. And here Danny thought Silver was his, through and through; certainly, he acted like his entire world was Danny, never even mentioned anyone else.
Sizing the kid up again, Danny realizes he recognizes him in a vague flash – the jackass behind the wheel, white-knuckling it on the drive here.
“How old are you, Dev?”
“Twenty-one, sir.” Apprehensive, eyes flicking up to meet Danny’s.
“Hm. And yet you drive like a sixteen-year-old giving his first test.” Danny says dismissively, “Give me one good reason why you should get to see Silver when you’d just as easily have let him keel over and bleed out on the drive here.”
“I –” Dev stutters, head jerking up, and Danny drinks his obvious panic gleefully, “I just – sir –”
“Danny.” Alexis frowns, and then turns back, “He’s just kidding, Dev, he’s in a mood. We all are, you know.”
“O – of course, Miss Quartz.” He’s polite, at least, Danny notes. Knows his place. It doesn’t soothe his annoyance even a little, and the smile he gives the kid is dripping in derision.
“Yep. Just kidding.”
Dev tenses like a rabbit that knows it’s near a trap, but isn’t smart enough to avoid it. He stands his ground quietly, only nods and follows a few steps behind as Alexis leads them to the room where they’re caging – keeping – Danny’s Silver.
It’s a small room, Danny notices. Just as bland and white and sterile as everything else here.
And then his eyes fall on Silver, and ice takes root suddenly in Danny’s lungs, spreading rapidly through his veins. Chokes him dead in his tracks.
His Silver looks small, breakable in a way Danny’s never seen, never even thought he could seem. Lying so horribly still on the bed, limp, hooked up to all these steadily beeping machines, his eyes closed and brow smoothed over – so different from the way he goes still when he’s alert, when he’s watching, waiting for orders. His olive skin is pale, the warmth drained from it, his grey hair mussed in a way he never allows when he’s awake. The sheet is pulled up to his chest, but Danny can see the beginnings of bandages there, and it makes bile rise in his throat, suddenly, makes the reality of it crash into him hard.
Silver got shot. His Silver, quick and capable and virtually untouchable but so fucking blindly loyal, took a bullet for Danny. Took three.
“He’s lucky only two of the bullets actually penetrated his abdomen,” some doctor Danny only notices now is saying to Alexis, and she’s far away, that idiot Dev hovering silently at Silver’s side, and had Danny really frozen in the doorway like a child? “The third one grazed him, but it was a flesh wound. We managed to get both bullets out, in spite of the fragmentation, so there’s no further danger of lead poisoning at least. He’s suffered quite significant blood loss though, and the internal damage is pretty deep, so it’s hard to tell when…”
And Danny tunes her out, because he’s not fucking – he doesn’t need this, he’s heard enough, as long as Silver isn’t dead it’s fine, even better if he wakes up sometime soon instead of dragging it out like he lives to make Danny’s life miserable.
He almost didn’t live, though, a vicious little voice whispers in the back of his mind, and Danny shakes his head vehemently, blinks it away. And then he freezes, staring, because there’s – there’s a little red patch of something wet on the bed, over where the sheets are covering his Silver’s stomach, and it’s spreading, it’s growing, and – and he blinks again, and the sheets are white as snow, and Alexis is staring at him with a frown.
“What?” he snaps at her.
“Dan, are you good?” she asks slowly, “You look really out of it. Why are you just standing there, like you’ve seen a –”
“God, Lex, because this is a waste of time, okay?” Danny bursts, his voice coming out sharp and cold and mean, “It’s Silver’s own fault and we all know it, it’s fucking boring is what it is, who even gives a shit if – ugh, you know what? Fuck this.” And he laughs drily. “I have better things to do.”
And Danny turns on his heel and finally, finally just fucking leaves.
(And if his heart scrabbles against the inside of his ribcage like a small trapped animal desperate to escape, well. That’s just the concussion talking.)
Victor begs for his life when Danny kills him. Shoots three bullets into his pretty face point blank, watches it explode in a burst of red like an overripe watermelon with grim satisfaction.
It feels exactly as good as he thought it would. God, all those puritanical idiots who ever said revenge doesn’t pay had no idea what the fuck they were talking about. The rush of it is practically a high as Danny watches the first twin bleed out, feels so hot and vivid and electric, like he’s on something as he gives Victoria a necklace of bullets to match.
He should probably think this through more, wrestle with the implications of it on the food chain and shit. But in their line of work, honestly, these two should have seen it coming after the stunt they pulled. Danny can hardly be blamed, what kind of wimp would he look like if he let some rival gang try to take him out and get away with it?
So Danny kills the Vic-Tory twins as a thank-you, and their high-rankers, and just anyone who happened to run afoul of him while he was there. Takes their ledgers of all their sources, their clients, because why let that shit go to waste, right? Dismantles their whole fucking operation while he’s at it, as much as one person can when that person is Danny motherfucking Rosarios in a mood.
It feels better than good. It’s fucking amazing.
The aftermath is… less so. The crash from a high is never pleasant, and this particular one has Danny in worse shape than the usual.
There’s nothing to do, is the thing, once the fight is done. Once the adrenaline has worn out of his system. Nothing to do except wait, and Danny’s shit at waiting. Doesn’t even know what he’s waiting for – time has no meaning, could’ve been days, weeks, but Silver hasn’t shown up at his side, and Alexis is gone more often than not too. And maybe he’s imagining it, but Danny feels like everyone’s treating him with gloved hands at work, like a ticking time bomb, handle with caution. One time he even spots that idiotic kid, what’s-his-name (Dev, his brain supplies all-too-readily), scurrying around under someone’s orders and not meeting his eyes, and he chews him out for tripping on his fucking shoelaces like a middle schooler until he’s almost in tears.
It's still not the least bit satisfying, somehow, which is just – fucking annoying.
Hasn’t Danny done everything that was needed, could possibly be expected of him? He’d stuck with his Silver after he got hurt. He’d gone to the hospital. He’d killed the jackasses who did this, and then some. Why the fuck then is his Silver taking so long, why does he have to be so fucking difficult? Danny’s holding up his end of the bargain, so what the hell is the hold-up?
Alexis is by Silver’s side, he knows, but she’s treating Danny to complete radio silence, and after one singular text of “?” Danny decides he doesn’t care enough to follow up. Things will get normal when they get normal. Danny’s not some desperate lover waiting for his boyfriend to come home from war, and he sure as hell isn’t going to act like it.
In the meantime, Danny has better things to do. Better places to be than some dank, depressing hospital. Better things to drink, to shoot into his system. Better people to keep him company; prettier, sweeter, so perfectly distracting when they’re pressed up against him, under him. It’s what he deserves, after all this bullshit – he has a victory to celebrate, after all.
It’s so easy, like this, to forget Silver’s even a concept in his life, that he has the gall to take up this much real estate in Danny’s head. It’s easy to pretend there isn’t something rotting slowly in Danny’s chest, that he means it when he says he doesn’t care. So easy… if only he wasn’t so fucking tired.
Danny doesn’t sleep. Hasn’t slept, not since it happened – not for more than five minutes at a time, anyway. They always come back. The gunshots. Blood that won’t stop spreading, that cools sticky and viscous on his hands. Grey eyes rolling back blankly. The horrible, sinking feeling of dread that has his lungs squeezing and gasping for air as Danny chokes awake.
It’s there when he’s going about his day, too. Danny’s gotten to the point of going fully batshit crazy, apparently – what with the red staining his periphery, the ache of twisting things in his stomach that keep trying to crawl out as vomit. It’s ridiculous.
Still, it’s better when he’s awake. At least he can snap out of it, can shake his head clear and bite his tongue to ground himself. And he really, really doesn’t want to stay asleep long enough to be dragged deeper under.
He’s so tired, though. And the bed is so warm, the arm slung around him so comfortable…
“Get on with it, Dan.” His father’s voice is dark, heavy with expectation in his ear, making the hair at Danny’s nape stand on end, “Pull the trigger.”
“D – dad – I don’t think – I’m –” his voice is weak, shaking in a way that he knows dad hates, he knows, and yet –
“We wouldn’t have to be here if you’d just stop being difficult about this, son.” Dad clicks his tongue, impatience creeping into his tone, and it makes Danny’s blood go cold, “You’re the one dragging this out.”
Shaking, all of him is shaking, weak, pathetic, down to the gun leaving indents in his hand from how tight he’s gripping it, the metal icy as it grinds into Danny’s very bones. He’s barely holding it steady, holding it trained on the shivering figure bound kneeling before him.
It’s a display, a scene staged with every element intentionally crafted, he knows. His father never does anything unless it’s a picture to be painted, a lesson to be taught. A lesson for Danny.
The man before him is shaking almost as bad as Danny’s hand, wheezing these horrible little pained breaths that almost sound like he’s trying to say please. It makes Mama’s dinner churn sickly in Danny’s stomach – all that sugar from the birthday cake feels like cement in the pit of his gut.
“Dad, I don’t think I can, please, I can’t –” he gets the words out in a rush, but they stutter to a stop as Dad chuckles meanly behind him. His hand lands on his shoulder suddenly, and it’s heavy, it’s warm, maybe he means it as a comfort, Danny isn’t sure, but he’s never felt more trapped. Tears are prickling at the corners of his eyes, and he’s trying so so hard not to blink, not to let them fall. Dad won’t like that.
“You can. You will.” He says, and he’s so certain about it that for a second Danny almost believes him, “C’mon, Dan. We even made it easy for you. All you need to do is prove you’ve got it in you.”
Easy. It – it is easy. The man’s forehead is pressed right to the barrel of his gun, sweat-soaked hair hanging limply around it. This shot, even Danny can’t miss.
“And make it quick, would you, son? Your mother will have our heads if we aren’t back by ten, and tomorrow’s a school day, you know.” Dad chuckles. His hand is still on Danny’s shoulder, kindly. If it wasn’t for the gun in his hand, Danny might even have tried shooting him a tentative smile, just to see if he’d still change his mind and go get that ice cream like they’d promised Mama.
Danny can’t do it. He can’t. His hand is shaking so bad, it’s like all the blood in his body is drained from it.
The man kneeling before him whines, and it’s such a pathetic sound. Danny tries his hardest not to mirror him.
“Dad –”
“Oh for fuck’s sake, Dan, stop wasting my goddamn time.” And the warmth is gone now, suddenly, Dad’s voice cold and sharp like the crack of a whip, and his grip tightens ever-so-slightly on Danny’s shoulder, “Toughen up, son.”
Toughen up. He’s right, Dad’s right, Danny just needs to – to –
His finger’s trembling as he adjusts it on the trigger, and he can’t look away, he can’t look away from the bound man before him; and maybe he senses it too, that Danny will finally do it, because the crying’s finally stopped but the shaking is worse than ever, and he’s gone quiet now, and Danny doesn’t want him to look up, doesn’t want to have to see his face, but of course he looks up. Of course he does. Of course Danny waits for him to do it.
His eyes are grey. His eyes are grey, and wide, and trusting, with little smile-creases that are smoothed out at the ends, and so familiar it makes nausea pull in a tight knot in Danny’s chest because it’s him –
“Tell me to stop.” Danny demands, all faux-sweet and patient, “That’s it. That’s all you gotta do, darling. Tell me to stop, and I will.”
His Silver doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t say no. He never fucking knows when to stop, does he?
“Tell me!” Danny all but snarls, slamming him back into the wall, and he makes this tiny pained gasp that makes Danny hunger, “Just fucking say it!”
It’s not that fucking hard to say no, it isn’t, it isn’t, and yet Silver never does, he never fucking does, why can’t he ever just stop –
“Don’t let me do this,” he’s almost pleading, but when has anyone ever listened to Danny when he pleads, he has to be cruel and cutting for this, has to make it hurt, has to mean it, doesn’t he, “Say no to me, Silver. Just say no, dammit!”
Those grey eyes are so so surrendered, so adoring, and how does he do that? How does he say so many things without saying a word at all? Danny hates him so much, hates him, hates him, hates –
“I can’t.”
And he laughs. Like it’s an inside joke. Like Danny knew this already. Like he never learned how to be any other way.
Danny pulls the trigger, and everything turns red.
Danny’s rolling over to throw up off the side of the bed before his eyes are even open.
“Whoa, hey man, what the fuck – !?”
He ignores the frantic rustling of the body behind him in favour of retching like he can claw his insides out onto the floor if he just tries hard enough. It doesn’t work. When does anything ever work. The vomit comes up tinged scarlet, except when he blinks every second time, because Danny’s brain thinks it’s a goddamn comedian like that.
“ – you good? Do you need anything, are you –?”
The voice reaches him like he’s underwater, takes time to process, but when he does, Danny groans and pillows himself back onto the bed with a dismissive wave. His heart’s beating too fucking fast somewhere in his skull to have room for patience anymore, or anything resembling politeness. Just as well – the guy had been a mediocre fuck anyway.
“I’m fan-fucking-tastic, thanks. Now, the fuck did you put my clothes?”
“Your clothes? Wait, are you leaving, ‘cause I’m not sure –”
“And I’m not sure how you ever get laid when you can’t last more than three minutes, but some mysteries just prevail, don’t they?” Danny snaps, “Clothes. Now. And my phone before you kick me out, I have places to be.”
“… Dick.”
“Slow and rude. God, you’re lucky you’re forgettable.”
Danny doesn’t even bother to listen to whatever the idiot prattles on in response to that – waste of time, is what it is. He just sits up and starts rummaging for his phone himself. Danny wasn’t lying when he said he has more important places to be.