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“I just wanna be good at what I do,” Nicholas says, wistful, like he has no idea how unbelievably brilliant he is.
“You are good at what you do,” Danny replies. “You’ve just gotta learn to switch off that big ol’ melon of yours.” He’s glad the brief prod he risks to Nicholas’s temple doesn’t make him flinch as touch usually does. Seems those trained reflexes dim a little when he’s four drinks in.
“That’s the whole problem, Danny. I don’t think I know how.”
Danny swallows. Nicholas wants his help. He appears to need it. It’s amazing actually, how much Danny wants to make everything better for him, how his chest fills almost to overflowing with… is it pride? – for knowing something Nicholas doesn’t. For once, he can be the impressive one.
“I can show you how,” Danny says, leaning in.
“Woah, woah! Wh-what are you doing?”
“Giving you… a hug?” He was trying to anyway, before Nicholas shuffled away from him in a panic.
“Oh. Uh. Thank you?” He recovers himself with a few blinks, like he’s got something in his eye. “Problems can’t be solved with hugs, though. It would be a nicer world if they could but...”
“They can’t solve problems, no, but they’re really nice!” Besides, he’s been told that he gives great hugs. “I can’t come up with no fancy list of benefits like you and your peace lily, but hugs are good for you too.” He raises his arms to encourage Nicholas between them again, to where he’d fit so nicely. Nicholas stays where he is, tense and unyielding. “My mum used to say—”
“I’m sorry, Danny. I don’t think I’m…” He turns, gaze sliding over the curve of Danny’s belly with what he hopes is curious consideration. “I’m not a hugging person.”
Danny won’t push it. He wants to help Nicholas switch off, and while he knows a nice long hug will go a long way to accomplishing that, it might be better to ease him into it.
“Maybe you should invest in something you do wanna cuddle, then,” he tries. “You can’t hug a plant. Unless you… you don’t, hug your peace lily, do you?”
“No,” Nicholas says, defensive. (He absolutely does.) “Touch is detrimental to plants. The oils in our skin can interfere with chlorophyll production and,” he looks at Danny’s belly again, shuts his mouth, then stares at his lap. “You can talk to them, though.” His voice has taken on a soft, vulnerable quality. “Studies show it helps them flourish.”
“Oh, right. Maybe I should’ve talked to mine more often.” He points at the pot of soil on the mantle that once had a fern in it. Nicholas nods. “Tell you what, then. I’ve got something else that’ll help.”
Propelling himself from the sofa, Danny opts for Plan B: unleashing his secret DVD stash.
*
Tim Messenger’s head being smashed in by a hunk of old stone is worse than what Danny’s going through. Way, way worse.
Still hurts, though.
That’s why he’s slotted himself between stacks of bloodstained crates in the alley beside the butchers, hiding so no one sees him cry. Rain patters the plastic protecting his cowboy hat from the change in weather. Nicholas’s monkey, clutched to his high vis, is thoroughly sodden.
The rifle range had backfired, and not in the literal sense with Dr Hatcher’s ankle. Nicholas was supposed to win the monkey. Danny was supposed to feel content in Nicholas having something to hug now if he wanted, something that with any luck would remind him of his offer, because it’ll always be there; a hug is always on the table whenever he needs it.
Well, not anymore it isn’t.
A river rapidly forms at Danny’s feet, rainwater gushing down guttering and the gentle slope of the pavement, then off into the drains. He could drop the monkey into that water, watch it get washed away. That wouldn’t be fair, though. It’s Nicholas’s prize, and it might cause a traffic collision if it made its way into the road.
It isn’t the monkey’s fault. It’s Danny’s thick skull that stopped him seeing the truth: that Nicholas Angel would never soften. He was hard boiled and Danny… well, he was scrambled, wasn’t he?
He won’t give up on Nicholas. Not ever. But, he will on this.
Leave the man to his unhuggable plant.
*
Danny never knew how difficult it was to pace in the auxiliary evidence room.
Nicholas was the one pacing. Trying to, anyways. Danny was resigned to sit on the floor, slumped against mostly empty shelves while Nicholas walked back and forth like a restless inmate. (It was lucky they weren’t in the room chock full of Mr Webley’s weapons; Nicholas probably would’ve tried to blow the door off its hinges by now.)
Danny also never knew how loud his stomach rumbled when he missed lunch.
“If someone doesn’t come for us soon, I’ll starve,” Danny says, only half joking. When he gets no reaction, he adds, “Can’t believe I’m missing out on Victoria sponge.”
“How can you think about food now?” Nicholas mumbles. He stops to peer down at Danny, and that irritable look on his face would’ve had more bite if he hadn’t recently kind of… given up on policing around here. The fire in his belly’s a smouldering ember now, like someone’s poured cold tea over it. “Eating on duty isn’t a good use of an officer’s time.” The stickler for the rules was still in there somewhere, then—a promising sign.
“Well, getting locked in the evidence room ain’t exactly a good use of our time either, is it?” Danny gestured to the door that’d swung shut on them almost an hour ago, that they’d given up on trying to yell through to attract attention.
“No,” Nicholas huffs, pacing again. “It isn’t.”
The poor bugger has looked broken these last days. Danny can hardly stand it. He pulls himself to his feet by the shelves, determined to help. If they’re stuck here together, he might as well try to make things more interesting.
“Shame about this, eh?”
His birthday peace lily remains impounded, wilting steadily. Danny goes to slide a finger over the fluted petal of one blossom, then recalls what Nicholas said about touching plants—something to do with chloroform?—and resists. The notecard skewered into the soil with a wooden stick is blank. Nicholas said he’d had no time to write a message before Leslie…
“It’s probably the change in environment,” Nicholas supplies. He glances at the peace lily’s drooping stems, then up to the small, barred window above Danny’s head. A shaft of dusty daylight slides through the frosted glass. The way it illuminates his face makes him look like his sur-namesake for a moment. “A change in environment can be… harmful.”
Nicholas’s gaze turns inwards. He neglects to clarify that he’s referring to plants. Either he’s alluding to their current situation or his situation in general: being uprooted from London and replanted in Sandford’s unfamiliar soil. Hopefully, it’s not the latter.
“Hey,” Danny chirps, spotting the gardening shears in their clear plastic evidence bag. “Maybe we can use these to escape? We could climb up there—” the little window “—smash the glass, then use the shears to…” Cut the metal bars? Um. Chisel through… “Then use the shears!”
A tiny smile cracks Nicholas’s face. Danny sees it in his eyes, pinching their corners briefly, then it’s gone. “We can’t contaminate evidence.”
“S’contaminated already.” Danny shrugs. “Dad said they fell out the bag when he brought ‘em in here and he picked them up without thinking.”
Nicholas would’ve been scandalised by such a lapse in procedure a few days ago. Now he appears only tiredly understanding.
“Oh, my, God!”
Nicholas straightens. “What?”
“Look at that!” Danny points to their salvation: the distinctive butter yellow corner of a pack of custard creams, stuck out a few centimetres on the top shelf beside the door. “We’re saved,” he says with a chuckle. After shimmying past Nicholas in the tight space, he stretches to grab them, having to jump on tiptoes to reach. “Want one?”
The packet’s open at one end, but whoever hid them in here had tucked it in nicely. Nicholas tilts his head and squints at them.
“They’re out of date,” he says flatly. “A year out of date.”
“That don’t matter. They’d last through nuclear war, custard creams.”
Holding the open end out until Nicholas properly declines, Danny tucks in. Only… they’ve gone completely soft. His teeth puncture the mushy ex-biscuit straight to its hardened filling, and he’s done for. (It also tastes faintly of the damp he keeps painting over in his pantry, which is somehow even more hideous than the squidgy texture turning to a paste on his tongue.) He splutters, swallows with a wince, and to Nicholas’s knowing look says, “Eating on duty’s not a good use of time,” before lobbing the pack back up onto the top shelf.
Nicholas doesn’t take the opportunity to be smug, so things must be bad. As bad as soft biscuits. All he does is sigh and lean against the shelves, sliding his face into his hands.
“Hey,” Danny says, reaching for him instinctively in the narrow space. “We won’t be stuck in here forever. Someone’ll come looking for us soon.”
“It’s not that,” Nicholas says into his palms. The words squeeze out between his fingers, strained like he’s trying not to cry or scream (or both.) Danny touches his arm gently.
“Is it what dad said? About giving up on your conspiracy theories?”
“Yeah.” His hands fall away in resignation. Staring through Danny’s shoulder, he says, “I can’t stop thinking about it. I feel like the answer’s within reach, something I must’ve missed, but I just… I can’t…”
“Switch off?” Danny tries.
Nicholas’s face says he was thinking of something different, but he looks into Danny’s eyes and nods anyway. And… Danny promised himself not to do this. Nicholas doesn’t like hugs, doesn’t see the value in them. But God does he look desperate, at the end of his rope. He can’t help himself.
“Would a hug make things better?” He keeps his face blank, asking in the most noncommittal tone he can manage, like he doesn’t care either way. His fear has probably slipped through in his eyes though, in the set of his jaw. The last thing he wants is to make Nicholas uncomfortable. “It’s all I can offer in here,” he says with a shrug.
“I…” Nicholas looks down between them, then at Danny’s chest, then his face, mouth stuck half open. “I don’t think we—”
Danny hopes he’ll answer with his heart this time, not his head, though he’s paused long enough now to consult both. He spreads his arms in invitation, heart pounding in his ears when Nicholas leans ever so slightly closer.
The door opens with a buzz, Doris’s surprised face greeting them as it swings open on creaky hinges.
“Oh!” she exclaims, stepping inside and sliding her box of files onto a shelf. Nicholas had pulled away, but it must’ve looked strange, because she snorts and adds, “Not interrupting anything am I? We was wondering where you two had got to.”
“Is there any sponge left?” Danny asks. After helping Nicholas feel better, that cake was the second most important thing on his mind.
“Course there is. We wouldn’t leave you to go hungry, would we.”
*
From the sofa in his cottage, Danny watches Nicholas rush about unpacking the few things they’d brought back from the hospital.
It feels unbelievably good to be home, to be in his own clothes again, and to know it’s just the two of them now, no nurses or doctors invading his space whatever time of day (or night) to prod, poke, and check his progress.
Danny points to the peace lily. “You sure you trust me with that?”
Nicholas had placed this new plant at Danny’s bedside before he’d even come round from his first surgery. There it had remained ever since, a constant reassuring presence, as had Nicholas, leaving the nurses to nickname him Guardian Angel. Now, just like Nicholas, it’s come home with him.
Turning the pot this way and that on the coffee table until it looks right, Nicholas says, “We’ll care for it together.”
The cottage is spotless. Not a box in sight. On the rare occasions Nicholas couldn’t talk the nurses into letting him stay at Danny’s side, he said he’d spent their time apart ‘stress cleaning’. Stress gardening too, which would explain the bed of pretty pansies in the front garden. Apparently, he’s also alphabetised Danny’s DVDs and arranged them by genre. He can’t wait to see that.
“You’ve got this place so nice,” Danny says, still taking it in.
“I want you to be as comfortable as possible.” The kettle boils as Nicholas says that, so he speeds through to the kitchen.
After everything that’s happened, there’s still a niggle in the back of Danny’s head that this, everything Nicholas is doing for him, is all just the result of guilt. Danny took a bullet for him—no other option, really—but that didn’t mean he’s had to fuss over him ever since. Or print out that painkiller schedule he’s put on the fridge. Or take a ridiculous amount of time off work to watch over him.
“Need anything?” Nicholas asks, putting two mugs of tea down beside the lily and joining Danny on the sofa. He’s careful to sit slowly so as not to jostle Danny too much, just as he’d driven him home no more than 20mph the whole way, avoiding every pothole even if it meant a five-minute detour.
“I’m fine,” Danny says. Nicholas doesn’t look fine, though. He looks exhausted. “You all right?”
So much has happened. Too much. It almost doesn’t bear thinking about. Being stuck in a hospital bed for a month has given Danny plenty of time to go over it all, however. Nicholas hasn’t had any time to process stuff. He’s spent the last month worrying himself silly. Despite being the invalid, Danny feels for him.
“Actually,” Nicholas says. He squeezes his hands together in his lap, peers down at them nervously. “There’s something I’ve wanted to ask you for a while.”
Danny’s stomach ties itself in knots. Which is kind of funny considering.
It takes Nicholas a while to get his question out, but he manages. “Can I… get that hug now?”
“Course you can, you big idiot!”
Danny’s stomach has been through a lot recently, so the butterflies need to give it a rest in there too. Though, having all that time to think, to make connections between everything about Sandford and his dad that always seemed a bit on the peculiar side… has made him realise some things. Mainly, that honesty is very, very important.
“I have to tell you something first though,” he says. He was planning on coming clean about this at some point. Nicholas’s request has made it come about sooner.
“Oh?”
“Yeah. I, uh.” He looks at their teas on the table, steam curling up from his favourite mug and a new one Nicholas must’ve bought for himself. “I’m sorry if this makes things weird and you know, feel free to change your mind about the hug and everything but—” here goes nothing “—I have a… an enormous crush on you.”
Nicholas’s reaction is…
Fuck, it’s everything.
Danny hasn’t seen him smile like this, ever.
“I know,” Nicholas says, so fondly Danny’s heart aches. “And I’d still like the hug, if it won’t hurt you.” His gaze falls to where Danny’s dressings are hidden beneath his shirt. The nurse had taught Guardian Angel how to change them earlier; she’d found it quite humorous that he’d taken notes.
“It won’t hurt.” Even if it did, Danny wouldn’t say. Nothing is going to stop him getting the cuddle he’s wanted since forever.
When Nicholas settles in Danny’s arms, he finally switches off.
Danny feels it in the way he relaxes, how his pale eyelashes flutter closed while he sighs against Danny’s throat. He fits perfectly, head tucked between Danny’s chin and his shoulder, arm coming to hold him high across his chest to avoid where he’s healing. The kiss he presses to Danny’s jaw leaves him feeling giddy.
“How long did you know?” Danny asks, turning into him, marvelling when he doesn’t turn away.
Nicholas’s breath washes over Danny’s chin as he says, “That I wanted to hug you?”
“That I had a crush on you.”
“To answer both, since the night we watched Bad Boys II.”
That gorgeous smile is back, and Danny can’t help himself. He leans into those few scant inches between them and presses a kiss to the corner of Nicholas’s mouth. It’s tentative, careful, because he knows how prone Nicholas is to spooking. He tenses in his arms for a moment, then kisses him back properly, a hand coming up to hold his cheek.
A lot has changed in Danny’s life recently, but all of it has been for the better.