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“So what’s more environmentally friendly, then? Lettin’ the dishes drip dry or dryin’ ‘em like this?”
Drying the dishes, Nick paused. He supposed he had it coming, with the monologue he’d just delivered on why dishwashers were bad for the environment, what with the harsh detergents killing the sub-oceanic ‘conveyor belt’ of algae, thus bringing the planet to a hasty extinction, and the hot water using up more energy which in turn exacerbated the hole in the ozone, unless you used clean energy to start with, and he had his doubts about Sandford, Model Village or no, being a pioneer in that respect. He should really look into what kind of energy the village was using. What kind of a police inspector – chief of police, really – was he, not knowing what his station, and for that matter, his house, ran on? He…
“’Ere.” Danny nudged him softly. “Switch off, now.” His voice was a murmur.
“Oh.” Nicholas blinked, and took a deep breath. “Sorry.” He shook off the urge to turn and hug Danny, sink into that soft embrace and switch off for longer than a few minutes at a time. “Sorry,” he said again, a little bleakly.
“’S all right. You just switched on again. ‘Appens.” Danny moved aside a fraction of an inch, so he wasn’t touching Nicholas at all. “So which is it, then?”
Nicholas dried the mug efficiently, placed it in the rack, laid the dishcloth aside, then fumbled for the hand towel. “Dry your hands.” Too late he realized what a bossy prick he sounded, but Danny smiled good-naturedly, not offended in the least, and took the proffered towel. And well he might, thought Nick, Danny’s skin was sensitive and had a tendency to get chapped. “Um. Well...”
They meandered towards the living-room, Nick thinking aloud. “I suppose they’d be much of a muchness, taking everything into consideration… The water evaporating into the air from the dishes is about the same in total as the water evaporating from the fabric, although if you factored in the necessity of washing the tea-towel, and the soap…” He frowned as he sat down on the couch. “I think we ought to let the dishes drip dry from now on.”
“But isn’t the towel part of a load of washin’ already?” Danny asked sensibly, fanning out DVD’s like a card shark at a poker table. “Not like we’d be usin’ any extra soap for a snip o’ tea-towel, would we now.”
“No, that’s true enough.” Nick knew better than to interfere in Danny’s province, the evening filmography, so he leaned back, idly considering negligible differences in environmental impact, and somewhere inside, registering how solid and warm and comforting his partner’s bulk looked against the bouncing “DVD” logo on the inexplicably colour-changing television screen.
As his partner fussed with the machine, Nicholas sank deeper into the cushions. He didn’t like being dependent on anyone, but damned if he hadn’t become dependent on Danny. On his warm, comforting presence next to him at the pub, equal parts grounding and distracting. On their little moments of domesticity, such as this one, washing the dishes on movie night. On things that shouldn’t matter, but did: like that little nudge, which felt like a tidal wave of warmth, gone too soon. On Danny just being there, holding the cold that used to be Nicholas’ life at bay.
On that very bulk, his partner’s plump, comforting body, taking a hail of bullets meant for Nick. Leaping literally between him and death. Lying bleeding in his arms. Fighting for his life in Intensive Care, struggling with physiotherapy, and smiling all the while, as though going through a battle to so much as breathe normally again was a fucking privilege. To this day, Nicholas couldn’t fathom what would drive Danny to make such a sacrifice.
“Ready?” Danny plopped down on the sofa next to Nicholas, brandishing the remote.
“Yeah,” Nicholas tried to gather his thoughts. He wasn’t sure what’s wrong with him today. It was bloody cold in here, too. He wrapped his arms around himself.
“Lemme get something to keep warm,” Danny bounced up and returned a moment later, half-hidden by a brick-red blanket with pile a centimetre thick, and commenced tucking it round the two of them. “Reckon it’s more environmentally friendly to use a blanket than turn up the central heating, eh?”
“Definitely.” Nicholas brought his hands up to his chest and hunkered down into the warmth, only slightly embarrassed when Danny reached round him and tucked the blanket in between him and the couch.
“We’re responsible citizens, aren’t we?” Danny squirmed around, getting comfortable. Nicholas suppressed a pang at the memory of how, not so long ago, Danny couldn’t get comfortable without the aid of morphine. He pushed the memory away. “…carpooling an’ that, don’t we? We always share a car.”
“That’s right.” The trailers for other action movies came on, and Danny killed the sound. Although Danny enjoyed the information on potential new movies for his collection, Nick had finally got him to come round to the idea that putting ads in a commercial release was an absolutely shameful exploitation from the makers of a DVD that had no right to be ad-supported after a 14.95 price tag, plus VAT.
“Yeah. You know what would really save energy? Sharin’ an ‘ouse.”
A jolt pulsed through Nicholas, like a bolt of some energy he couldn’t place. The closest he could approximate it to was being caught out, like talking in class. Which was ridiculous. He wasn’t doing anything wrong. “Yes,” he said neutrally.
“Save on heatin’, right? Not to mention the water bills.”
“We’d still be taking two sets of showers,” Nicholas ventured, then felt like slapping himself.
“Wouldn’t ‘ave to.” Danny’s voice was very soft. “I mean, if you wouldn’t mind, like.”
Nicholas blinked. The jolt solidified into ice water, sheeting down him for a frozen moment, then gone.
“’Ere. Sorry.” Danny’s arm was round him, driving the cold away, making Nicholas jump, tucking the blanket tighter around him. “You all right? You had a bit of a chill, there. Came over all queer.”
Nicholas couldn’t have suppressed the bubble of helpless laughter at Danny’s innocent word choice if you’d paid him. He shuddered again, and this time Danny just held him, gentle, warm. “I don’t mean to be forward,” Danny murmured over the hum of the DVD. “I just meant… If you wanted, like. Because I do. Want to, that is. But if you don’t, that’s okay.”
Nick shook his head in helpless bemusement, wondering at the fate, in the person of a Detective Superintendent and a gang of homicidal maniacs, that had led him here. Here to Danny whom he needed. Needing. Needed. Warm. Soft. Here.
Not so warm. Danny’s arm was withdrawing, Danny’s tone soft and crushed. “I’m sorry, I must ‘ave read it wrong, I thought you might—”
“No, no, wait!” Nicholas clutched at Danny’s arm. Belatedly, he realized he’d been shaking his head the entire time. “I didn’t mean it that way. I—”
“You don’t ‘ave to be nice to me or let me down easy an’ that. We’re mates. I were just—”
Nicholas lunged for Danny and kissed him.
Or tried to. His forehead hit Danny’s cheekbone on the way down, and he ended up with his face awkwardly squashed into Danny’s neck. Feeling oddly desperate, he reached out and wrapped his arms firmly round Danny’s waist. Lifeline.
Finally, finally, Danny’s arms were around him again, lifting gently. “Don’t want to let you down easy,” Nicholas blurted. “Don’t want to let you down at all. Don’t ever want to let you down. Let you down once…”
“You never let me down.” Danny’s lips were against his cheek.
“Yeah, I did.” Nicholas choked down bitterness. “Let you get shot.”
“No, no.” Danny kissed his cheek with so much affection that Nicholas’ eyes burned. “Came back for me, didn’t you. Like the Cavalry.”
“Fat lot of good it did.”
“It did all the good in the world, what’s wrong wi’ you?” Danny took Nicholas’ face in his hands and kissed him lightly on the lips. “You saved Sandford, saved all of us.” Danny’s hands fell away, his mouth dropping open. “Um—Sorry, it just—slipped out, like…”
Nicholas lunged in and kissed him back, doggedly persevering in the face of a nose-squash and a forehead-bump. Danny’s lips were as soft and warm and home as they’d always looked, and his body was the comfort he’d always yearned for, and his embrace unmade Nicholas entirely and reduced him to component parts of happy dancing molecules. At which Nicholas giggled.
Danny grinned without knowing the joke, pulling apart, one hand still on the back of Nicholas’ head – how did that get there? – holding him together, keeping him steady. Keeping him safe. “You all right? It weren’t the best way to talk about maybe, us – I mean, the environment an’ all – but you’re the sensible chap and I thought if you didn’t like it you could just change the subject like, without embarrassin’ you, although the Andes swore up an’down that—”
Nicholas could feel his face split into what was probably the silliest grin in the universe. Danny, his own, stolid, man-of-few-words Danny, the most physically self-assured person Nicholas had ever met, was babbling.
His own Danny. Oh, fuck.
Nick pulled back. In the flickering light from the television, all he could see was big brown eyes filled with affection, lips begging to be kissed, kindness and tenderness and shit, Danny wants to be mine.
“Are you sure about this.” He wasn’t able to make it a question; hell, he wasn’t able to stop his voice from shaking.
Danny didn’t kiss him. He didn’t do a thing. He just smiled.