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It’s over. For now, it’s over. Over – a word that usually connotes a conclusion, a finish, a resolution. In this moment it means none of that, nothing that requires any great skill of deduction or reading between the lines – it simply means that it is over.
Adrenaline has a funny way of leaving the body because, like death, it lingers. It curls around the spine and claws at the throat, before slowly sinking out – from the core to the tips of the fingers – but unlike death, which finds its own satisfaction, adrenaline leaves one with a hunger and, if continually fed, an addiction. As addicts are wont to do in the wake of a high, Daniel sits in the middle of an immaculately embroidered rug, boxes of information spilled out along the floor, his fellow horsemen scrambling through it like kids who’d just landed the final blow on an unsuspecting piñata, and shakes. Not noticeably, he knows better – his push was, of course, his ego – but enough to keep him from sorting through anything very efficiently which is, ultimately, what leads him to drop the two pictures he’d been pretending to focus on for the last five minutes and stand abruptly to his feet. He anticipates a reaction and diffuses it before it can be given with a simple cough and shrug and nod towards the office door.
“Hasn’t come out in a while – just going to make sure he’s not dead, or something, given our… track record.” He supposes everyone is tired or distracted, possibly both, as he is met with no real protest – a few stray nods and grunts, but nothing of significance. Walking towards the study door proves easier than opening it, which takes a mental pep talk, a couple of deep breaths and a prayer to whoever might be listening. “Knocking,” he warns once he’s finally mustered the courage to push the heavy oak door in. “Entering.”
Sat behind a desk that wasn’t his, holding onto a picture that he wasn’t in, Dylan wishes he’d had the resolve to get up and do literally anything else – but he didn’t. Honestly, he’d stopped contemplating the picture in his hands, stopped trying to do anything really. He’d simply stopped. Exhaustion and over-exertion had left him barely sitting up at all. Daniel’s entrance is the only thing that keeps him from passing out right there.
“Find anything interesting?” Dylan tries to sound interested, but he’s not fooling anyone – himself included. If Daniel notices (which he does), he says nothing to it, striding his way towards the desk with hands shoved in his pockets to still them, glancing around the place as he walks. He’d like to say his side-cast glance was a result of fascination with the full room around him, but that would be a lie in the highest degree – the guilt was eating him alive. It’d been his pride that’d gotten Dylan locked in that damn safe. Sure, he’d saved him, but he wouldn’t have required saving if it hadn’t been for his ego. He was the reason Dylan had almost died. Guilty didn’t begin to describe the feeling.
“No, not – not particularly.” He does well to keep his voice even, but then again, he’d had his share of practice. It would surprise you how many different bullies a scrawny, awkward kid magician would have to face down in his adolescence to gain confidence and how difficult it then would be to get said magician to show anything less than that for fear of appearing weak for the rest of his life. Unhealthy, probably, but Daniel chose not to speculate. However, it is the nature of their line of work to observe and speculate – Dylan notices. Notices the façade, the aversion of the glance, the tension in the shoulders. Nothing interesting, huh? Then it wasn’t The Eye bothering the younger man – something else. And Dylan had one hell of a guess.
“Not your fault, Daniel.” His voice takes on a softer tone – he sounds as tired as he looks. Daniel laughs – pathetic.
“My fault. Actually exclusively my fault. Were you paying attention or did they hit you that hard in the head? You wouldn’t have even been in the market were it not for me. Kind of links the fault to me. Hi.” For added flourish, or maybe to ramp the sarcasm in early defense for whatever else may come, he waves a bit there on the end, risking a glance towards the other – he regrets in immediately. Dylan looks tired, beaten – god, there’re bruises all over him – and Daniel can see the picture in his hand, would know those two faces anywhere. The guilt settles into anger, directed pointedly at himself. His fault.
Sitting behind the desk feels distant, cold even, prompting Dylan to set the picture down on his desk and rise, stepping around so that he can lean back against the front of it, properly facing Daniel in a way that they can see each other eye to eye.
“Daniel, I don’t blame you for-“ Christ, was he trying to satiate him? Redeem him? He didn’t deserve that – fuck, he didn’t deserve anything, much less this level of passive forgiveness. Being one who prefers to respond to intense emotion with nothing at all, it is only natural that in the face of an instant that doesn’t afford a quick getaway or relying on others to speak over him, his internal anger snaps out of him on instinct.
“I didn’t take you to be that fucking stupid.” Anyone in their right mind who’d faced death would be looking for revenge. Not understanding. The confusion only served to spur Daniel’s anger – shock settling into Dylan’s face. “It was me that tried to contact The Eye independently, it was me who’s phone dumped our information, it was me who’s fucking ego gave our enemies ammunition. Not just ammunition, stores of ammunition. Fucking canons.” Shaking his head, Daniel pulls his hands from his pocket, running them back over their head and when they fall again the shake has gone from residual adrenaline to a full, visible shudder. Dylan notices – Dylan always notices. “And for the fucking cherry on top, he locking you in the same fucking-“ His resolve is wavering. “Fucking safe that your-“
“You think you’re the only one that feels like shit?” That shuts Daniel up quick enough, his brows coming together. Dylan takes the moment – Daniel was quick. If he gave the kid time, he’d never get a word in edgewise. “You think you’re the only one who came out of this looking like an idiot? I let some thirty year vendetta, an unjustified vendetta, jeopardize the horsemen. I let it eat me for years and drive me crazy, I let it create a blind spot right in the middle of my god damned vision. I almost got you all killed.”
“Yeah, but did you get someone you cared about locked in the same safe that killed their own damn father and practically drown in a lake?” The response is petulant – said strictly to keep from having to admit that they were all somewhat at fault for any number of things thus invalidating the guilt, anger and self-loathing brewing in him. He wanted to feel something, anything because he was beginning to lose his drive, his energy. He was going numb. He wasn’t ready for that.
“This isn’t a contest.” Dylan responds, his own exhaustion beginning to give way to agitation. It only serves to spur Daniel on.
“They locked you in a fucking safe. The fucking safe and I-“ He shakes his head – he’s not keeping up with himself. He’s not making sense. He’s – venting. Maybe. He can’t be bothered to extrapolate. “It’s my fault. I barely got there in time and I didn’t ask questions I just jumped and as I was pulling you up I was preparing myself to see you fucking-“
“Dead.” Dylan supplies and finally Daniel stops talking, entire body thrumming – warm, uncomfortable, and his eyes are reddening at the corners. There’s a moment’s pause.
“I’m sorry.” Apologizing is a foreign concept for Daniel – apologizing was a show of weakness, an admittance of wrongs. It feels wrong, necessary, but wrong and Dylan must pick up on it, straightening up and away from the desk to step closer to the other.
“I don’t blame you.”
“You should.”
“I don’t.”
“That’s incredibly naïve and indescribably narrow-mind-“ He doesn’t register what’s happened at first, stood stiff as a board, the stillness painting a stark contrast to the way he hadn’t been able to stop himself from jittering before. He hadn’t thought before that the room was unbearably cold, but he finds himself comfortably warm now, warm to the point that if Dylan were to step away he might have to chase him. The others would never believe this. He was being kissed. He was being kissed by Dylanof all eligible applicants.
“Stop. Thinking.” The words are mumbles against his own mouth and all at once Daniel goes from a deer in the headlights to an aggressive offense – he doesn’t know where to start, but his hands find the sides of Dylan’s neck and a shrug of the shoulders brings the other man closer to him – their chests are touching, he can feel him breathing, stop thinking, stop thinking – and broad hands grip him at the waist, thumbs pressing in above the hip bone. The amount of time they stay together blurs to a point that Daniel can’t keep track of, but he categorizes, catalogues, each movement of Dylan’s mouth against his own – the direction he tilts his head, the way he nips at the bottom lip in lieu of asking for permission to enter, the way his whole body surges forward when his tongue slips past Daniel’s chapped lips. When they do pull apart (apart meaning nothing more than moving their mouths away far enough to breathe, still connected at the forehead, the chest, the hip) they spend time breathing and Daniel doesn’t dare open his eyes. The adrenaline, the guilt, the day’s disasters finally release their death grip and all of a sudden he’s very tired. Too tired.
Nothing is said. They stand a while – Daniel’s grip shifts so his arms can rest lazily around Dylan’s neck, Dylan’s lazily finding their way around Daniel’s hips – and it’s Dylan who moves first after, pulling Daniel in, waiting until the man allows himself to relax enough to bury his face in his neck before pressing his nose into Daniel’s hair, holding him there nearly as long.
Dylan is no hypnotist and Daniel is not easily fooled, but when slowly Dylan pulls back and says a gentle command of “Go on out of here. Sleep.”
Daniel makes no protest.