Chapter 11
Matt barely knocks, so Danny’s still sitting up when Sasha sees him. He looks as if he hasn’t gotten out of bed since yesterday, his hair disheveled, his t-shirt and sweatpants wrinkled in every direction, his eyes dull and glassy.
“Sash,” he croaks, and then he goes quiet, as if he’s forgotten how to make conversation beyond that.
Matt glances at Sasha, eyebrows raised in a silent See what I mean? “All right, I’m gonna head out, bro. I’ll leave your phone, like… somewhere. For an emergency.”
Sasha’s still not quite sure why Matt has Danny’s phone, but he stops caring as soon as the door closes.
Because Danny’s hunched over on the bed, looking like someone crumpled him up in their fist, and it’s up to Sasha to try and comfort him somehow—only he has no idea what the fuck he’s doing, no idea if there’s even anything he can do.
He has to start somewhere, though, so he crosses the room and sits next to Danny on the bed, leaving a few inches between them just in case.
Not that Danny’s ever seemed to need, or want, any personal space before, but right now he’s barely looking at Sasha.
In fact, he’s barely looking at anything.
“How are you?” Sasha asks, and then he wants to kick himself, because what kind of stupid question is that?
But Danny’s too nice to tell him off, though he grimaces a little.
“I’m okay,” he says, as if the cameras are in the room with them, as if he has to pretend to be something he isn’t.
And he’s not—Sasha might be so far out of his depth that he can’t see the shore, but he can still see this. Danny’s nowhere fucking close to okay.
He wants to help, wants to find the right words to make Danny feel better, but he doesn’t think there are any; nothing he says will change what happened yesterday.
He settles for putting a hand on Danny’s shoulder, which feels so useless he almost takes it back—but Danny reaches up and squeezes his fingers, so he stays. And tries.
“I am sorry—”
“It’s fine,” Danny says quickly, still not meeting Sasha’s eyes. “I actually… I don’t really want to talk about it.”
Okay, Sasha can work with that. That’s what Danny did for him, when he didn’t make the Olympic team—Danny talked about his dogs’ Halloween costumes and then their Christmas costumes, and Sasha just listened and put his phone on mute and cried.
But now that it’s his turn to help Danny, he’s drawing a blank, doesn’t know what he could possibly say that would be a good enough distraction.
There’s silence, and then there’s more silence, Sasha’s hand resting uselessly on Danny’s shoulder, his brain stuttering as he tries to come up with something, anything, a single fucking word…
“Sash?” Danny’s voice is lost, adrift; he swallows when Sasha looks at him. “Can I have a hug?”
And Sasha feels like the world’s biggest idiot, because of course that’s what Danny’s wanted all along.
It’s probably the worst hug Danny’s ever received, the angle far too awkward to be comfortable, both of them having to twist sideways to make it work, but Danny doesn’t complain—he just buries his face in Sasha’s shoulder and holds tight.
Sasha has no idea how long they stay like that, Danny’s breath fanning through his t-shirt, and he doesn’t care.
His two-second tolerance for hugs never really mattered with Danny, and it definitely doesn’t now.
He won’t let go until he has to leave, if that’s what Danny wants.
Eventually, though, Danny pulls away, wincing.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, no, it’s just my back.” Danny shrugs it off, but Sasha can see him rubbing at the small of his spine, massaging it through his shirt.
“Do you want to lie down?”
“Uh…” Danny hesitates, his eyes darting to the nest of blankets. “Yeah. But, um, sorry, I’m just… I’m not really in the mood for, like, hooking up or anything? Is that okay?”
“Okay,” Sasha says, confused at first, then understanding, only not quite sure how to correct Danny in English. “I was not—I asked because your back.”
He missed a word there, but before he can figure out what it was, Danny clears his throat. “Can we, um… can we cuddle, though?”
Something in the way he says it makes Sasha think he’s bracing for a refusal, which—well, it’s not as if Sasha hates cuddling.
Or even dislikes it, really, although it always feels a little weird until he gets used to it again.
But that’s not the point, not when Danny looks this fragile, like a rejection might actually break him.
So Sasha nods, nudging him towards the pillow, and Danny makes a sound that’s either a “thanks” or something stuck in his throat.
They fall into their usual arrangement—Sasha on his back, Danny sprawled over his chest—and Sasha doesn’t say a word when Danny tugs over the blanket that’s ninety percent dog hair, just helps arrange it and then gets an arm around Danny’s shoulders.
Danny burrows into Sasha’s shirt, and the room goes completely quiet.
Sasha has no idea how to handle this, no idea what to do when Danny isn’t talking. He thinks he should fill the silence somehow, but since his brain is still refusing to cooperate on that front, he settles for running his fingers through Danny’s hair, which at least he knows Danny likes.
“That feels good,” Danny mumbles, so Sasha keeps doing it, and he pretends not to notice when his shirt gets damp.
Finally, Danny looks up, and Sasha’s breath catches in his throat.
He’s never seen Danny’s eyes like this before, so blue and bright they’re almost blinding, tears scattered like stars across his lashes.
It’s beautiful—that’s the only word he can think of—and awful at the same time, because the hurt is written all over his face, inked into the trails still drying on his cheeks, and there’s nothing Sasha can do to erase it.
But even though it wouldn’t make a difference, wouldn’t actually fix any of this, he has a stupid urge to reach out and wipe away Danny’s tears…
“Not exactly the Olympics either of us wanted,” Danny says hoarsely, right as Sasha’s thumb twitches.
Which is just like Danny, of course, thinking of someone else’s feelings in the midst of his own misery. Sasha wonders if he would have been capable of doing the same if their positions were reversed, and he’s pretty sure he knows the answer.
“No,” he agrees, keeping his hand still. It probably would have been weird if he’d touched Danny like that, anyway.
Danny studies him for a few seconds, and then he asks, all in a rush: “Are you gonna go for Tokyo?”
Tokyo. 2020. Four whole years from now—it might as well be a century, that’s how far away it looks from here.
“Yes. I think so,” Sasha says after a beat, though he hasn’t thought about it, not really. But that’s less about having to make a decision than having to face the decision, standing at the bottom of the mountain again and looking up at the same four-year climb he just failed to finish.
Still, he already knows he’ll be training for the next Olympics, because what’s the other option? Quitting? Jesus. He has no idea what he’d even do with himself if he didn’t have gymnastics. Besides, then he’d barely see Kirill, and he’d never see Danny, and that’s just—no.
“Good.” Danny’s visibly relieved, his eyes dryer now, a deep shade of determined blue. “Me too. Like, I’m not gonna end it like this.”
Sasha nods. He might not have the same reasons as Danny, but he understands—as unmotivated as he feels right now for Tokyo, he doesn’t want “two-time alternate” to be the sum total of his career.
“Hey, Sash?” Danny asks a moment later, when Sasha’s fingers are back in his hair, tracing lazy circles on the nape of his neck.
“Yes?”
Danny tucks his chin on Sasha’s chest, looking serious. “I don’t want to wait until Worlds to see you again.”
Sasha stops in the middle of a circle. He’s half translating, half processing, but his body figures it out sooner than his brain, a swoop in his stomach like a silent yes.
Because it sounds as though Danny’s saying they should find another competition to attend together, or maybe even… go somewhere, just the two of them?
He has no idea how they would manage it with their training schedules.
No idea how many lies he would have to tell, building them carefully like a house of cards, in order to make it work.
All he knows is that he’s had three weeks of being able to see Danny only half as much as he wants, and it’s not going to last him for the next fifteen fucking months.
“Okay,” he says, and Danny smiles for the first time since Matt opened the door.
“Good. Cause I was thinking, like, what about Euros? Like, maybe I could come out and watch you, and then we could, like, do something after? Cause you get time off after that, right?”
They usually do, although Sasha’s not sure when exactly the European Championships are next year, assuming he even makes the team.
“When was the last time you didn’t make the Euros team?” Danny asks when Sasha points that out. Then, before Sasha has a chance to respond—the answer’s four years ago, but still—he adds, “Well, obviously we can, like, play it by year and stuff, but I’m gonna put it in my calendar.”
While Sasha’s wondering what on Earth “play it by year and stuff” means, Danny reaches over him towards the nightstand, then pauses. “Oh, shit—hang on, I need to go find my phone.”
Sasha waits until Danny comes back to bed and settles on top of him again; then he asks, “Why did Matt have your phone?”
Danny fiddles with his lock screen. “Uh. Cause I was, like, reading too many comments? Like, on Twitter.”
“Why?”
“Um. I don’t know?” Danny glances up at Sasha, looking curious. “Don’t you ever, like, read what people say about you?”