Chapter 42 #2
He lies there for a while, drifting in and out of a nap as he listens to the shower.
There’s another muffled noise underneath, something he can’t quite make out but assumes is just the pipes.
It goes on for a while, eventually stopping once the shower turns off, and then a long silence follows; Danny’s almost fallen asleep again before he hears the bathroom door open.
“Hey,” he mumbles when Sasha reappears, a blurry shadow against the light coming in from the hallway. “Come back to bed.”
Sasha just stands there for a few seconds.
The shades in the room are drawn, and Danny’s still blinking sleep from his eyes, so he can’t see Sasha’s expression; but eventually Sasha slides under the covers and curls himself into the little spoon position, his back a few inches away from Danny’s chest.
Close, but no cigar. Danny scooches in, wrapping an arm around him and tugging until that stupid gap is gone and Sasha’s hair gets in his mouth as he murmurs, “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” Sasha whispers back, and that’s when Danny realizes he’s shivering.
“You cold?”
Sasha hesitates, then nods.
“It’s okay, I’ll warm you up.” Danny starts rubbing Sasha’s arms and legs with his own, noticing for the first time that Sasha’s hair isn’t wet at all; it’s not even damp. Huh. Maybe he hadn’t felt like washing it? “What did you, take a cold shower or something?”
Sasha shrugs—Russian bravado, Danny figures, because he’s still shivering. Like, a lot. He’s practically making the bed shake. Danny knows cold showers are supposed to be good for you or whatever, but if this is what they’re like, then yeah, he’s not hopping on that train anytime soon.
He doesn’t say that to Sasha, though. Instead, he keeps rubbing him and holding him tight, pressing soft kisses along his neck and shoulders—not looking to start anything, just trying to help him relax.
It seems to work, Sasha’s tremors becoming less noticeable after a minute or two, other than a few twitches here and there.
It’s… really nice, actually. Well, not the part where Sasha was cold and uncomfortable, but the part now, where he’s tucked up against Danny and not even complaining about it, his breathing a shallow echo in Danny’s ear, his curls so soft Danny honestly wouldn’t mind getting suffocated by them.
All in all, he thinks, it’d be a pretty good time to say “I love you.”
The idea’s barely finished forming in his mind when Sasha takes Danny’s hand, laces their fingers together, and squeezes.
Danny blinks at the back of Sasha’s head, stunned. They’ve held hands before, sure—but never like this, never without Danny making the first move. And suddenly, out of nowhere, Sasha’s changed it up and reaching for him. Like he wasn’t just humoring Danny all those other times.
Holy shit. This is his moment.
“Hey… Sash?”
Now Danny’s trembling, too—but from excitement as much as nerves, because he’s so certain that this is it, that everything’s lining right up for him. It’s like getting a good night’s sleep, a home crowd, and the nice judges for a competition.
Sasha tilts his head, letting Danny see that he’s listening, and Danny takes a deep, steadying breath.
“I just wanted to tell you…” He swallows, clears his throat.
“You don’t have to say it back or anything, obviously.
No pressure. I’m just saying it now cause, you know, you’re leaving tomorrow and…
I’ve kind of been wanting to say it for, like, a really long time, but like, you weren’t here.
And then you were, but it wasn’t, like, the moment.
And then I tried yesterday, but you fell asleep on me—”
“What?” Sasha turns over, catching Danny off guard, his eyebrows scrunched up in confusion. “What are you—”
“I love you,” Danny blurts out.
There’s just enough light coming in through the door for him to see the exact second when Sasha freezes. To watch the way his expression shifts, slowly, from confusion to dismay. To realize how much Sasha did not want to hear this.
It’s like all the oxygen’s been sucked out of the room, leaving nothing between them but dead air. He’s never heard a silence this loud before, never felt so small as he does now, with Sasha looking at him as if he’s holding out worms instead of his heart.
“Danny,” Sasha says, and something inside of Danny breaks, like an ocean wave collapsing in on itself.
“It’s okay.” Ears roaring, eyes watering as he switches to damage control, feeling like the world’s biggest fucking idiot. “You don’t—you don’t have to say it back.”
“Danny,” Sasha says again.
Eject. Abort. Evacuate. He needs to get the fuck out of here before he embarrasses himself even more, before he somehow makes this worse than it already is.
“No, no, it’s fine,” he insists, sliding out from under the covers. He doesn’t know where he left his boxers, and he sure as hell isn’t going on a recovery mission now. “I just wanted to tell you, that’s all. I’m actually—I’m gonna go take a shower.”
“Danny—” Sasha sits up, like he might try to stop him, and Danny panics.
“I’m good! I’m good. Hey, are you hungry?
We should go out for breakfast. I’ll find a place.
” He’s edging backwards, glancing over his shoulder at the door; Buddy’s already on his feet, waiting for him in the hallway.
“I’ll just, uh, go shower and then walk Buddy and Luna and then…
yeah. Let’s, uh… let’s do that. Yeah. Okay. Bye.”
He barely makes it to his bathroom, Buddy’s tail still swishing through the door when he crumples over the sink.
Then the tears start to fall, the mirror dissolving into a blur in front of him as he remembers how shocked Sasha had looked, like he couldn’t even imagine loving Danny back; and how that silence had seemed like the worst sound in the world, right up until Sasha said Danny.
He hears it over and over again, like a broken song skipping in his head. Danny as in no. Danny as in he’d never had a chance. Danny as in he’d been so fucking stupid, waiting two weeks for the right moment to tell Sasha he loved him, when Sasha didn’t think about him like that at all.
Something soft and warm nudges against his side, Buddy putting his paws up on the counter and crowding in, trying to lick Danny’s face. But Buddy kisses can’t fix this. Nothing can fix this, because Danny said I love you and Sasha said Danny.
He cries and cries, and the cold, hard mirror doesn’t offer him any comfort.