Work Text:
Darnell wasn't a stranger to the fact that he viewed the world in a strange way compared to the average person. There were a few factors leading into that - autism, pyromania, genius-level intellect. He had been sporadically described throughout his youth as both low and high sympathy, but always relatively low-empathy, which only compounded things.
The main thing, obviously, was fire. He didn't see it in a way that most people did. Or, more accurately, he did, but it didn't make him feel the same way. Because he didn't disagree that fire, conceptually, was terrifying. An unthinking beast that endlessly hungered, feeding off the very oxygen all other life needed to breathe, and could never be satisfied. Something that was impossible to kill without the right tools and the right time, and would destroy so much before humanity ever got the opportunity to strike it down.
Yeah, all of that was perfectly easy for him to understand. He also easily understood all the evolutionary advantages to how people felt about fire. Even a controlled flame sparked a certain amount of excitement in one's chest, a stunted fight-or-flight that settled in the back of their skull, ready to launch them into action should the flame become uncontrollable.
And yet, terror, even a reasonable amount, was never what Darnell felt around it.
Fire had always struck him as beautiful in its destruction. Nothing but fire and explosions destroyed the way they did, so ruthless and consequential. Burns didn't look the same as any other wound, and fire didn't kill the way anything else could. Starting outside and finding its way into the lungs, choking out its victims methodically.
It was a strange thing to describe as pretty. Especially when it extended to such disasters as houses burning down, or airplanes exploding with people inside. But he couldn't really help it. He gave up trying a long time ago.
In a weird way, he sort of felt the same way about Pico.
Obviously, nobody - okay, maybe some people, but nobody he knew personally - would fault him for admiring Pico the same way he admired fire, because it wasn't like Pico was nearly as destructive as an unfeeling flame. He had his guns, his kill list, sure, but he only killed people who had it coming. The blood on his hands wasn't of innocents, at least not in a way that mattered more than a paycheck.
But Darnell often found that people liked Pico in spite of things. In spite of his profession. In spite of his attitude and sharp tongue. In spite of his less than ignorable flaws.
Oh, Boyfriend and Girlfriend would never admit it, but he saw it in their eyes. They didn't know Pico like Darnell did, and they didn't love him like Darnell did.
Maybe that was why he'd been so jealous at first, before he managed to spill that he was pretty sure he had feelings for his long-time best friend. But even now, he still sort of felt that way. Not in any sort of possessive way, like the two didn't deserve him, but more like he wished that if Pico was going to have multiple partners, that all of them could feel the exact same way he did.
That would probably never happen, though. Oh well.
Darnell wasn't really the type to express these sorts of things through words. He used to write music, but he'd given that up back when he dropped out of high school. Hadn't really had the time at that point, and he never recovered the drive. From then on, emotions, and the ability to express them in a way that people didn't see as somewhat odd, wasn't one of his strong suits.
It was becoming a slight point of frustration, though. Pico had finally started feeling a bit better about letting BF have some time to himself after some recent personal chaos, and so they were finally getting the opportunity to hang out more again.
The holiday season was rapidly approaching, though Darnell had always cared more about the New Year than Christmas. Pico was sort of the same way, for weirdly similar reasons despite the fact that they didn't have the same family situation going on. Pico was a bit more into this year thanks to having more friends - in the past, Nene had been the only one to really give a shit - so that was nice to see, at least.
Anyway, the Christmas shopping had all been done, so now all there was to do was wait. Which was the worst part, obviously. Nobody liked the waiting part of Christmas.
So the two, with their slightly rare free time together, decided to go back to one of their old reliable winter hobbies. Target practice.
It was pretty early in the evening, but still dark as hell thanks to the only-recently passed solstice, and absolutely freezing. Darnell could barely feel his fucking face.
The area was relatively secluded. An old park, rundown and barely utilized, that the two used to frequent as children. They were lucky, for multiple reasons, that the lights still worked.
"C'mon man, you're going soft on me," Pico teased openly. His breath whirred out of his mouth as steam into the air like a dragon breathing fire, face flush from the cold. He was grinning like a maniac, like he was trying to convince him he wasn't just as freezing as he was. "Think I've lost my shot just because I didn't get Bee?"
"Ain't my fault you dragged me out here when it's fuckin' negative three out," Darnell complained. He'd always been slightly more sensitive to the cold than his friends, which amused them greatly. Despite his grouching, he leaned back down, packing some snow between his gloved hands to form a thick ball of frozen-over slush. Should've done this yesterday when it was fresh.
"S'not that cold, you big baby," Pico said. He was going to say more, likely more teasing, but his eyes were instantly locked onto the snowball as it was lobbed into the air like a cat that just caught sight of a laser pointer. With about two seconds of mental calculation, he aimed and fired - a quick pop, and the pack of ice exploded into a flurry of fast-falling flakes back over them.
Even if it was always freezing and maybe not all that fun for himself, Darnell couldn't help but enjoy these times he came out to do this with Pico every year. That was for one reason and one reason only; how happy Pico got.
Maybe it wasn't the most thrilling target practice of all time, or the most demanding, but something about those snow flurries made Pico's face absolutely light up in a way that it rarely did. Such raw, childlike glee was something the man did not often express, and here it was, bathed in the warm streetlights, so bright that Darnell felt blinded.
It was so perfect to him that Darnell could almost be tempted to stay out here even after he lost all feeling in his hands. Almost.
The miniature snowflakes that had been dancing down from the clouds had since begun to compound into thick fluff, giving the city a snow globe effect. It was pretty, but with the wind picking up, it was getting hard to see. It was also getting much colder very fast.
Darnell pawed absently at his running nose as Pico laughed in delight at another clean hit. He was so damn proud of himself. “It's gonna be a blizzard by the time we get home,” he continued to complain despite enjoying the sight in front of him.
For what it was worth, Pico was less bothered and more focused on teasing him. “Ugh, you're such a wimp,” the ginger chided, smug grin on his face. He holstered his uzi, walking over and throwing an arm around his boyfriend's shoulder. “Alright, alright. We can go home. You look like you're about to turn into a fuckin’ grape popsicle.”
Darnell snorted, shoving his hands into the pockets of his rich purple winter coat. “Whose fault is that?” He insisted again as they began to walk in the general direction of their apartment complex. It wasn't too long a walk, but the weather didn't help with how long it felt.
Luckily, this time of year had a sort of beauty anyone could agree on, that being the lights every store put up on their windows and roofs. He preferred the neon greens and reds to the dull atmosphere of the average Halloween decoration, though he'd always appreciated both.
It didn't take him long, though, when he finally turned to face his boyfriend after looking around and being mesmerized by the lights, to catch Pico staring. “What?”
As always, Pico was a little flustered to be caught being a bit soft. “Nothin’,” he insisted, looking away. “Just wondering why you look so damn happy.” An easy deflection to cover I like looking at you when you're smiling like that.
Darnell hummed. He was pretty sure he always looked kinda happy - he'd been told a few times that he had the opposite of resting bitch face, something that somehow made it both easier and harder to tell how he was feeling. He must've been really entranced for Pico to notice.
Still, a response came easier to him than it ought to. “Oh, you know. Thinking about how the Christmas season accounts for almost seventy-percent of house fire-related deaths in America every y–”
“Shut the fuck up,” Pico cut in, usual grumpiness returning to him easily. Darnell snickered as Pico continued to react like a slighted child. “That is not what you were thinking about.”
“How do you know? You readin’ my mind?” Darnell teased, face split into a shit-eating grin as his boyfriend pouted at him. He didn't have it in him to be completely honest in what he was thinking about, but that was kind of annoying to him. He'd have to figure out a way to make it up to Pico somehow.
The wind was whipping by the time they finally managed to duck into Darnell's apartment, which they chose entirely out of the convenience of him living on the ground floor. He lowered his hood, watching as Pico shook the snow off himself like a dog stepping out of a bath. Cute. “Nasty fucking weather, man. Lucky we still have power.”
“Don't jinx it,” Pico said. He'd probably said it as a joke, but after a moment, he furrowed his brow a bit and wandered in the direction of the kitchen to find some wood to knock on. Darnell wasn't about to question the things that made his weird little brain feel better.
While his friends were a bit more frugal with their bills, Darnell kept the heater running pretty much all winter long, another reason he was grateful they went to his apartment rather than Pico's. Despite that, though, a considerable chill was still clinging to his skin.
It was hard for him to want to say what he wanted. So instead, he, as always, hoped Pico would just get the message. He wandered to his kitchen, put some coffee on, and dug around for a bag of chips after being disappointed by a lack of leftover microwave popcorn packets.
Pico, unintentionally aiding his purposes, retreated to the couch and turned on his boyfriend’s TV to find something to watch without his input. While it was nice to think he might've just wanted something to spend some time over, it was more than likely because he knew Darnell had a habit of binging shitty Netflix movies and he wanted to save himself before it was too late.
Not like there was a lot they hadn't already seen, since the whole group shared one account for convenience. Darnell completely ignored whatever he ended up putting on - looked like some spy movie, if he was willing to glance at it - and instead returned to his partner’s side with two cups of coffee, a bag of potato chips, and a purple fuzzy blanket.
“You're still cold?” Pico asked incredulously, inching to the side to give Darnell more room to sit regardless. At both Darnell's hum and coming to contact with his bare skin next to him as he settled, he continued, “you have the heat retention of a fucking mosquito.”
Darnell almost spilled boiling hot coffee all over both of them as he laughed at that.
Pico took the cup offered to him away from his dangerous position with his still-snickering boyfriend, ignoring his demands to know that the fuck that even meant, and set it on the floor beside himself before helping with the blanket. Because he was so freezing, apparently, he made sure Darnell got most of it.
“You know what you would like?” He commented idly. “One of those electric fireplaces. Keep you warm and give you something to look at.”
Darnell squinted, trying to imagine one in his living room, maybe as a stand for his TV. “They never animate the fire right. I think it'd just make me want to start a real one.”
Pico shrugged, not too bothered that his suggestion didn't land. He also didn't complain as Darnell leaned into him, sapping up all his warmth like a sponge. “It can't be that hard to find one you'd like. You'd probably like the noise, anyway.”
“Probably.” Fireplace noises did help him sleep. He didn't really want to look at fire all the time, though. Well, okay, maybe his brain did, that part of him he didn't really have any control over, but if you asked him, an endless supply would just cut into the beauty. Part of his fascination came from how a fire died like anything else. “Not like I’d be able to afford one anyway–”
“Dude, you are not supposed to be downer in this relationship,” Pico said, almost like he was scolding a child. Darnell snickered, having not even noticed that he was shooting him down so rigidly.
“Yeah, sorry,” he apologized without any actual remorse, all but nuzzling into the top of Pico’s head. The hitman huffed. “Don’t need some fancy screen to look at anyway. Got you.”
A beat. Two.
He was pretty sure he felt Pico get warmer beside him. “Man–”
Darnell burst out laughing into raspy, almost coughed-out cackles. The force of it made him lean away from his partner, allowing him a glance at his face and only giving him a second wind. “You get so red from the smallest compliments.”
Pico slumped against his shoulder in an attempt to hide his aforementioned tomato-red face, though he far from succeeded, since he could just lean over. “Fuuuuuck offfff,” he drew out, much more flustered than annoyed. Darnell twisted around to grab his coffee as Pico continued to simmer in his own heat. “You don’t even realize how fucked that was. Pyromaniac saying I’m nicer to look at than fire. The hell is wrong with you.”
He tipped the mug away from his lips thoughtfully, setting it back down as the words started to, for once, actually spill out from his brain into his vocal cords - because believe him, he realized exactly how fucked it was. “What, you think I’m lying? You managed to get three lovers, you think it’s out of pity or something?” His tone was absolutely incredulous, though he didn’t doubt for a second that Pico absolutely thought that. Just the sort of guy he was.
That was why Darnell kept going. Looking his long-term best friend in the eye, it was hard not to. “You’re so damn cute. You think you’re so tough, but your whole face lights up over things like little flash games and bigass snowflakes. Like, you’re so expressive, and nobody ever seems to notice but me. You got different smiles for different things. Your nose gets all scrunched up when you laugh. You got a billion freckles and I wish I could kiss all of ‘em–”
Darnell was sure he had enough to go off for an hour at minimum, if Pico allowed him. Instead, he was cut off by Pico sitting up and, very abruptly, using his hands to squish his face. Face burning, looking like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to kiss or kill him, he said, “shut the fuck up.”
The pyromaniac merely smiled back at him. “Okay.”
Pico then proceeded to take the first option.
They’d been dating for a while, but in a way, making out with his best friend still felt a little weird. Not bad at all, just in the way that he wasn’t sure how thirteen year-old him would react if he learned that this was twenty year-old him’s current position. That made it even more exhilarating, though, the way it felt almost a bit wrong. Sometimes, he wondered if it would ever stop feeling strange. Sometimes, he hoped it never would.
When his boyfriend pulled away, it was immediately back to the embarrassed rambling. “Dork,” Pico blurted out like he’d been holding it in that whole time. “You are such a fucking dork. Look at you, so damn happy with yourself about that. How are there people who are intimidated by you? You’re like if a labrador retriever was a guy.”
Thoroughly proving his point, he tilted his head as he asked, full of levity, “wait, so, am I a mosquito or a lab?”
Pico squinted at him, then flatly answered, “you’re like if a lab was a mosquito.”
“Got it.” Now that the incredibly urgent matter was sorted, Darnell decided to get back to business - not the making out part, though he was sure they could circle back around to that later. Right now, he was glaringly aware of the fact that they’d lost the plot on cuddling. To solve this little conundrum, he used his height to his advantage to literally drag Pico into lying down with him.
“You can’t still be cold,” Pico insisted, adjusting his position until his ear rested against Darnell’s chest. Darnell sighed contentedly, and did not otherwise respond. “There’s better ways to get warm than manhandling me.”
He didn’t even bother to open his eyes to respond in a way that he felt Pico had completely asked for. “Unfortunately, the only thing I could think of that would be better would also involve manhandling you.”
“... unfortunately?”
“Too tired,” he dismissed. He could feel Pico resist the urge to laugh. It wasn’t exactly a lie either. Something about the sharp contrast between how cold he’d been outside to how warm he was now curled up next to his boyfriend was putting him on the edge of passing out here and now. Could drain the coffee to take care of it, but he didn’t have anything better to be doing right now than this. “Thought we established that you’re my favorite thing, anyway.”
“Wow, I’m your favorite thing?” His tone bordered on facetious, it was so teasing. Despite the fact that, as Darnell had said, they literally just established this. “What a high honor. I’m so flattered.”
The hard pivot from the embarrassment earlier to whatever this was about to make Darnell lose it, but he was so drowsy that all he managed was an awkward snort before he pulled Pico even tighter into his half-hug.
These days, though, Pico wasn’t one to stay stubborn and dismissive forever. As soon as a few quiet moments had passed, enough to clear the air of his previous defenses, he muttered, “love you, spark.”
Neither of them were the type to say “I love you” first, compared to the rest of the polycule. Honestly, it usually just went unsaid. But sometimes it was nice, if a bit weird, to hear it. The same brand of exhilarating strangeness as kissing, as flirting, everything intimate. But it was good. This was good.
“Love you too, Peeks.”