beautifulandnew | (no subject)

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Part of me thought there might have been a possibility that 'takeout and crafts' had taken on a new meaning. Perhaps it was code now, a less hip version of 'Netflix and chill'. Much, much less hip, considering the source.

Once inside Danny's apartment, however, it quickly became pretty clear that there was no hidden meaning. There was takeout and there was crafting paraphernalia.

It's been a week and I'm no less confused now than I was then. Maybe even a bit more so right now, sitting here, neither of us having actually acknowledged what had happened. Is he expecting me to play along? Eat and drink and cut construction paper and never speak of it? Is that what he plans to do? Or has he blocked it out? Did he have more to drink that night than I realized? Because there's a whole movement and hashtag now that I would potentially have to answer to.

Maybe agreeing to come was a bad idea. I'm not sure I'm prepared to pretend to deal with takeout and crafts if all it really is is takeout and crafts. I'm not sure I'm prepared to deal with the alternative either.

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I stay put.

"What is it with straight men and watching wrestling?" It's not as dumb as NASCAR, but it's close. I'd rather watch something blatantly homoerotic even if there's zero payoff in the end, instead of seven hours of cars making a left turn.

"You know wrestling is just gay porn without the orgasms, right?" I add before eating another fry. It might actually explain a thing or two, but not nearly enough.

Danny and Stevie used to wrestle in the basement all the time, reenacting moves they'd watched on TV. That's one of the reasons Danny grew up so scrappy. He knows how to handle himself in a fight.

There's a wave of relief when he hears Hedwig from the bedroom. Clearly he still thinks of Danny as a straight man. Good. It's short lived though and Danny's eyes only just return to their normal size before he reappears with a blanket in hand.

"Gay p--uh, wow. That is news. I wouldn't know. I've never... Actually, I think maybe there's some NASCAR we could watch instead?" He turns away from Hedwig quickly and drops down onto the sofa, blanket balled up in his lap.

Nothing. There's no way his poker face is that good. Unless he really doesn't remember anything... I can't decide if that's a good or bad thing.

"Mm-mm. I've lived in a trailer park and I'm still not quite at the level of white trash it takes to enjoy that." And I'm completely sober, so I can't even find it within me to pretend.

"I'm foreign, so maybe that scale is graded on a curve for me."

"Hey, you're talkin' to a guy who used to get called white trash on the daily growing up," Danny rebutts, grabbing the remote and starting to channel hop.

"NASCAR ain't white trash. Wanna know what is white trash? That show Mindy's always watching in the break room, Keeping Up With The Cardigans. This is for you," he transitions smoothly, twisting to lay the blanket across the back of the sofa. "In case you get cold."

"Kardashians," I correct, finally pushing up from my seat at the table. "If it existed, Keeping up with the Cardigans is definitely a show you would though." Thankfully, it does not. He would be queuing up his DVR to the latest episode right now if it did.

Rounding the sofa, I take a seat. I can't tell if it's too close or maybe too far away. A week ago something that stupid wouldn't have even crossed my mind.

With wrestling off the menu, Danny settles on an episode of Deadliest Catch, throwing a flash of a smile Hedwig's way when he sits down.

"Look what's on," he sing-songs enticingly, slouching back against the sofa, legs falling open. "Oh no." He presses a fist to his mouth, trying to hold back the sudden wave of emotion, even as his eyes begin to water. He knows this episode well. "Captain Phil, you were taken too soon. Oh, why God, why? Crabbing was never the same after this."

I can't do this. I can't sit and pretend to enjoy the crafts and the terrible television like usual with also pretending things a normal.

"Nope." I snatch the remote away in an instant, dropping it down on the cushion between us once the screen goes black.

"Who's cryin'? I'm not cryin'," Danny insists defensively, his words undermined by a thick gasp of air that jolts his shoulders.

He peeps at Hedwig out the corner of his eye, not brave enough to look him head on yet, and suddenly feels the urge to cry for an altogether different reason. Not one to usually show much emotion beyond anger, frustration and pride, Danny wipes his eyes quickly with the hem of his t-shirt.

"Are you... actually crying over a crab boat guy you've never met right now?!" I ask with an incredulous stare. This is insane.

Leaning forward in my seat, I rest my knees against my elbows, fingers pushing deep into my hair. Why does he have to be so fucking weird?

"How much did you have to drink the last time I was here, Danny?" I realize asking a question like that for a second time makes it sound like I'm staging an intervention for an alcoholic, but it seems like the gentlest way to approach it. Not that I'm convinced gentle is the way to go. Quick, like a band-aid, that might have been easier. Direct, with less chance for crossed wires. Maybe this approach will result in less shouting.

"He's in a breed of his own!" Danny yelps, gesturing passionately at the now blank television screen. He sniffs then, glancing over at his friend, hunched and clearly agitated. Normally Danny would reach over and give the back of his neck a comforting squeeze but he keeps his hands to himself. This time.

Shifting up to the arm of the couch, giving them a little more space between them, Danny swallows and twists to face Hedwig's direction. He leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees in an almost mirror image.

"A bit," he eventually answers in a low tone. But not so much that he can't remember everything from that night. "You?"

"Barely enough for a buzz...," I admit. Waking up early that next morning and finding my way home hadn't been an issue at all. Not physically, anyway. Working out whether or not I should stay or go in the first place had been the only real problem. After weighing the potential pros and cons of each, I left.

"Good," Danny bellows unintentionally. "I mean, great." He has no idea what he's saying. He's too startled by Hedwig's response and his own panicked assumption that Hedwig is describing his experience of their...joint experience.

If that's the case, then Danny's pride just took a huge blow.

Not a blow!

"You can explain to me what happened then," he says, volume slowly taming. It feels like his tongue is stuck to the roof of his mouth. "Why...you left."

"What kind of details are you looking for, Danny? Fifty Shades novel or CliffsNotes?" I say. If he needed something with pictures I'm pretty sure there are still bite marks to be found.

It isn't until he asks why I left that I actually look at him. What was my other option? Stay? Wake up to Danny shouting and turning colors and pacing a hole in his floorboards. Blaming it on the alcohol or Mercury nearly being in retrograde again. Telling me to leave.

Waking up and liking it a bit too much before a wave of all that other stuff hit.

"It seemed like the safest of my two options."

Danny lowers his eyes after a moment of silence.

"Yeah, you're probably right," he says, gravelly voiced, running the pad of a thumb along his bottom lip. Who knows what he would have done had Hedwig still been there when he woke. All Danny knows is that he'd felt an overwhelming urge to punch things and it had taken four trips to different boxing gyms to work it out of him.

Ordinarily, I love being told that I'm right. This may be one of the very few occasions where that isn't the case. His response is understandable, but that doesn't mean it isn't disappointing to hear. Even the screaming and changing colors would have been understandable.

"Great... You're welcome."

Danny steeples his fingers, touching his fingertips together in an irregular rhythm. Maybe they ought to leave it there and focus on trying to salvage their friendship. FBFs, right. They got through Darrow together and unlike Mindy, Hedwig actually remembers it and him. That's got to mean something, surely.

Danny blows air between his teeth, flexing his cheeks and mouth as he thinks, like he's weighing up a decision.

"Tchhhh tchhhh tchhhh..." More steepling. His socked toes curl into the sofa cushion.

They should definitely leave it here, he eventually decides. He's very Catholic and very straight and Hedwig is, well, Hedwig.

"Did you want to leave?" He hears himself asking instead.

"Things don't tend to go well when I do what I want." Usually with men. Actually... almost exclusively with men. My father, Luther, Tommy. On the bright side, Danny hasn't run away. Granted, we are in his apartment, so I don't know where he would go, but he did invite me back.

"No."

"Huh. In-interesting."

Danny gets that a lot. Women never seem to want to leave in the mornings. They're always clinging on to his chest like a limpet while pretending to still be asleep, hair and make up miraculously retouched. Danny's alarm clock is military grade. They're not fooling anybody.

In that respect, it was sort of nice not to have to peel another body off him in the morning. On the other hand, it didn't feel that great waking up alone, especially not after that.

"You should have stayed. Or at least left a note. Leaving without a word wasn't FBFs."

Hedwig could have at least had the decency to stay and freak out with him.

A note? Clearly he's watched one too many rom-coms with Mindy. "Fuck Buddies Forever?" Well that's fortuitous...

"You say that now because we're a week out." I've known Danny long enough to knew a level head does not prevail in the heat of the moment. And I wouldn't have even been able to blame him if I had been there while his head was going through the roof. "You already agreed that was the safest way. You can't have them both."

"That's not what that means and you know it," Danny protests with a chastising point of his finger. At least he doesn't think that's what it means. Holy cannelloni.

He sits upright, stretching his spine and tipping his head back imploringly. For help. For forgiveness, maybe. There's so much guilt.

"Is it hot in here?" He asks, pinching his shirt and wafting. "It's hot as hell." He wipes his forearm across his dampening forehead, revealing a sweat patch under his arm. "Oh boy." He stands, intent on opening a window or ten to get some air into the apartment. "Talk about the lair of Lucifer."

Since he made it up, I don't actually know what the letters mean. Or what he thinks they mean.

"It's just you." He's free to interpret that how he likes. He didn't go out of his way to get a blanket because it was hot in here. "Maybe you're flashing. You are of a certain age."

Or maybe he can actually feel the fires of Hell coming for him.

Until a short while ago, Danny wouldn't have thought twice before taking his shirt off in front of Hedwig to cool down. They're pals, close friends even. But now it just feels kind of cruel. He opens a window instead, bracing himself against the frame, hanging his head and breathing deeply. Exhaust fumes, air conditioning and Nuts 4 Nuts fill his lungs. Ah, that's the stuff.

"I'm not flashin'," he drawls. "Castellano men don't flash, we got too much testosterone for that."

"Do all Castellano men sweat like a whore in church?" I ask, grabbing for the blanket on the back of the couch and wrapping it around my shoulders.

"It's October. In New York."

"I'm cursed with an outstanding metabolism," Danny explains, turning around so his back can cool down as well. "That's my cross to bear. Richie too but he doesn't sweat, not since he started wearing pleated pants at 8."

"Such a hardship. I honestly don't know how you survive day to day."

Sighing, I push back up to my feet, keeping the blanket with me as I head into the kitchen. I help myself to a beer, popping the cap off on the edge of the counter. Danny's personal brew tastes like a craft store smells, which is strangely fitting, I guess.