Chapter Text
“Hey, Danny, did you see this?”
He blinks gritty eyes at the coffee machine on the counter—he must have been staring. The pot is full now, steaming.
He opens the cabinet for the mugs. None there. “What?” he calls back. Maybe in the dishwasher.
“The house across the street,” Ben says from the other side of the open-plan living room. He’s dressed now, his shoulders broad in his black suit, the only one he professed to owning. “It says ‘sold’.”
“Really.” Yes, the mugs are in the dishwasher. Are they clean? He lifts one up—impossible to tell. He should know if the mugs in his home are clean. What the fuck is he good for if he doesn’t even know if the mugs in his home are clean?
Ben, next to him now, gently takes it from him. His palms are soft on the back of Danny’s hands. “It’s okay,” Ben says. “Go sit down. I’ll make the coffee.”
Danny’s eyes sting. He sucks in his top lip and bites down on it. “Okay. Thank you.” He was supposed to pick up the oatmilk on his last grocery run. Useless, that’s what he is. “Pretty sure we’re out of milk. I forgot—”
“Don’t worry about it,” Ben says easily, nudging Danny’s shoulder with his. “Please don’t worry about it.”
Thank god Ben’s here. Danny had his reservations—prior to this past week, the longest uninterrupted time they’d spent together was a weekend, and even that only two months ago, when they went upstate to the Catskills for their one-year anniversary. It’s been four days now, and they haven’t imploded yet, not even close. It’s actually been nice, having him around, if it weren’t for the occasion.
Case in point: the spick-span living room. That’s all Ben, because whenever Danny’s thrown for a loop, the habits he picked up most recently are the first to go. Keeping a neat house is definitely one of those, something he learned in his last few years in Hawaii, and for a very specific reason.
He leans against the back of the couch instead of sitting down—his dress uniform is too tight across the shoulders, too loose around his hips, the downside of having consistent time for the gym. He should’ve had it altered, but he forgot that too. Another item on his endless to-do list.
As Ben pointed out, underneath the ‘For Sale’ sign and the picture of the latest real estate agent—this one from Yonkers or blue collar Long Island, judging by the too-toothy, too-bleached smile and the orange tint of her fake tan—now dangles a small red tag announcing the house across the street with its barren, frostbitten yard has been ‘Sold’.
Danny had toured it too when he was looking for a place to live, four years ago. In total size and overall layout, the red-brick Cape Cod with its mismatched two-car garage, six bedrooms and three bathrooms was a much better fit for him than the two-bedroom, one-and-a-half bathroom cottage he ended up owning—if the former weren’t outdated and rundown, much too neglected for a simple renovation. Its bones were good, Danny could tell, but just too much needed to be addressed for him to accomplish by himself in a decent amount of time. It would’ve been different if he’d had—but he didn’t, and that was that.
On their third date, he and Ben crashed one of the endless open houses staged by the revolving door of real estate agents failing to sell it. Ben, usually partial to jeans, button-downs and job-appropriate college-professor sweater vests, wore a dress shirt and a sport jacket, and with his five-foot-ten, athletic frame turned heads, including Danny’s. He smiled when Danny teased him about dressing up for the date that wasn’t even supposed to be a date. Because Danny was such a sharp dresser, Ben said, he’d wanted to keep up. That was the day Danny told Ben he liked Longboards, which were so hard to find in New Jersey, and Ben decided, adorably, that it would be his new mission to unearth for Danny an East Coast beer Danny would enjoy even more.
Danny gropes for the wave of fondness that comes with that memory, but today it’s not there. Today, all there is is that numb, crawling unease.
Ben hands him his chipped blue HPD mug, with just enough room for a non-scalding sip. It’s not quite black, and not as bitter as Danny expected. He frowns at it.
“You had butter,” Ben says. “In a pinch.”
Butter. Danny draws a breath, presses it against that raw place inside of him. It still hurts.
“You okay, babe?” Ben asks.
Danny exhales. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.”
Ben rests his hand on the back of Danny’s neck, his thumb tracing the skin at the edge of Danny’s collar. “Almost there.”
They are. It’s just the funeral left.
--
Kono’s staying at the Gilshire off Pleasant Valley Road as usual. Danny drives them there in silence, Ben next to him absently cradling the oh-shit handle and watching the scenery.
She’s ready at the curb when Danny pulls up. This late on a Thursday morning, it’s not hard to double-park, and Danny easily slides in between an ominously dirty grey snow mound left from last week’s blizzard and a red Toyota that has seen better days.
Ben gets out and hugs Kono like they’ve known each other for years instead of three months, like they’re best friends instead of two people who only have Danny in common. Ben of course tilts the front seat forward and climbs into the backseat, letting Kono ride shotgun. The fondness he’d been looking for bubbles up in Danny’s chest at last, but it stings like he’s got a million tiny paper cuts inside. He has to blink away the blur again.
“Hey,” Kono says. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Danny manages. It comes out a gasp. Neither she nor Ben react. Danny signals and checks his mirror and pulls back into traffic.
They’ve saved him a parking space behind his ma’s new—and first—Lexus. Stella, Eric, Grace and Bridget are huddled together by the church door, fumes rising from Stella’s cigarette. He hasn’t thought about smoking in years, but today, right now, he’d kill for one.
Kono gets out. Ben follows. Danny places his hand on the door handle and pauses, not looking forward to the twinge his knee gives every time he unfolds himself from the low car. Forty-six knocking on his door, giving notice for the repossession of his Mustang. That must be how Subaru Foresters happen to guys who used to have style.
Ben and Kono converse outside the car. Danny should get out too, but the dread is like a tangible thing, pressing him down. He wishes Ben had stayed. Sat there, like they were in a drive-through instead of the fringes of Danny’s breakdown, quietly present, so Danny wouldn’t feel awkward about needing a minute. Steve would’ve—
He pops the door, savagely, and shoves himself out.
He shakes off the anticipated five-step limp and follows Kono and Ben to his gaggle of relatives. Bridget greets him with a hug; Stella hooks her hand into the crook of his elbow and pulls him into her side. Grace and Eric peer at him mournfully.
It’s cold as fuck. He buries his hands in the pockets of his overcoat, both to warm them and to prevent himself from asking Stella for a cigarette.
“That’s a brisk breeze,” Bridget says, then something else equally inane.
That blue smoke curling up Stella’s hand, would it taste as good as he remembers? Unravel that tightly-wound ball in the pit of his stomach like it used to?
He shouldn’t do it. It’s been what, twenty years? The last time he had one was right before he asked Rachel to marry him. It’s the stress, the sleep deprivation. He doesn’t really want one, his brain is just overwhelmed. Besides, Grace is right there. What kind of example would he be setting, if he smoked right now, in front of her? No. Absolutely not.
Stella huffs. “If you want one, just ask, babe. It’s okay. Special occasion and all.”
Grace’s gaze jumps to him, curious. Danny makes himself shake his head. “No, thanks.”
“Suit yourself,” Stella says, and blows her smoke in his face.
“How long did you stay after we left?” Bridget asks him.
Danny stares at her. He looked at the clock before they left, on his parents’ mantle—what were the numbers? Everything blends together; nothing stays in his memory these days. It’s a testament to his detectives’ superior skill and excellent training that his division hasn’t crumbled with him only halfway present. And Kate, who is covering for him, right now, as they stand around and freeze.
“Not long,” Ben answers for him. “Maybe a half hour? We had to drop Danny’s friend Kate off at home and Kono at her hotel.”
“Yeah, something like that,” Kono says. “Thanks for the ride, again.”
Ben waves her off. “Oh, don’t mention it.”
“You should’ve just stayed with me, babe,” Stella says to Kono, and smacks Eric upside the head. “This fool could’ve slept on the couch for once.”
“I take offense to that, Ma,” Eric says. “I need my beauty sleep, okay? I’m too tall for your ratty couch.”
“Too tall,” Bridget says, laughing, and with her three inches on him, easily hugs him to her side. “Is this like ‘too focused’, like you were telling Grace’s cute friend yesterday? ‘Too driven, just can’t stop working, succeeding’?”
Stella cackles. Grace rolls her eyes so hard her body sways a little with it. Eric has gone red, sputtering in indignation. Danny catches Ben’s eye and returns his gentle smile.
“That’s not—I didn’t—how even do you know—” Eric chokes out, flailing with both hands, twisting out of Bridget’s hold.
Stella and Bridget exchange a look and break down laughing, way harder than Eric’s unsuccessful attempts at flirting deserve. Danny gets it though—every feeling he has also, good or bad, is amplified to skull-rattling proportions, zinging through him like chords in a horror movie. The same thing had happened after Matty, after Grace Tillwell. Something about loss blasts open those floodgates, bleeds one dry.
The church door opens and his ma peeks her head out, her coiffed curls tight, her eyes bloodshot. “Keep it down and get in here,” she hisses, eyes blazing, and he’s eight years old and it’s Sunday and he and Matty are fooling around on the banister. He shakes it off.
His sisters quiet down immediately. Grace and Eric scramble to move. “Sorry, Ma,” Bridget murmurs while Stella rushes to suck in a final breath through her cigarette. When she makes to toss it, Danny catches her hand and slips it away from her, keeping it inside his palm, out of Grace’s sight. As soon as only he and Ben are left outside, he inhales greedily, a big lungful, enough to make himself dizzy. He closes his eyes against it.
“How did they know what Eric was saying to Grace’s friend?” Ben asks.
Danny opens his eyes. “At my folks’ place, there’s a vent near the kitchen that’s directly connected to the basement. You can hear every word that’s said. I bet they were sneaking wine down there while Eric was failing at flirting.”
“Ah.” Ben smiles. He tips his head at the cigarette Danny’s now clutching like a lifeline. “What kind did you used to smoke?”
Danny takes another pull through the stump and extinguishes it on the church wall. He drops it into the garbage pail. “Camel.” Ben huffs a quiet of course.
Steve would’ve scowled at him. Steve would’ve told him not to do it, that Grace could smell it even if she didn’t see it, Charlie with his medical history would inhale the dregs of chemicals that clung to him. He’d give Danny unending shit with his brows twisted up and his eyes tight, until Danny would eventually snap and say give me a fucking break, my dad is dead.
Steve’s heart would break for him again, then, openly on his face, where he liked to carry it, before he got so beat down he left it somewhere, either Montana or Mexico, Danny’s never been quite sure.
Ben will not give him shit. Ben will give him endless understanding and zero judgment and slip away at some point and buy a pack of Camels and keep them in his pocket and if Danny looks for one later, or has that breakdown that’s been circling him like a vulture, have one ready. He is so unlike Steve that if Danny had personally made him that way, he couldn’t have done a better job. Most days, he revels in that fact.
Today it makes him want to cry. It makes him want to wail.