Not because he didn’t celebrate Christmas, although he didn’t and, in fact, thought it a very stupid and frivolous holiday. Not because he loathed the message they projected that if one did not subscribe to the cheery Christmas spirit, one was a horrible miser that would suffer an untimely and often gruesome death to the accompaniment of tinkly sleigh bells. Not even because the very sight of a cheery redheaded elf clad in green sent him into paroxysms of disgust that had, on one occasion, necessitated the judicious defenestration of a television set.
He hated Christmas movies because they always got the sound of snow wrong.
It was an easy enough thing to fuck up, he supposed, but that didn’t mean he had to forgive it. In fact, he quite liked seething at them for ruining the sound of snow because it was petty, and if there was one thing Danny enjoyed being it was petty. There was far less martyrdom in disliking Christmas movies for stupid reasons as long as he remained fully aware that they were, in fact, stupid reasons.
The snow thing was his newest excuse for despising the Great Christian Holiday Machine, and was mostly triggered by the fact that he’d been roped into writing music for one of the many things he professed to hate beyond all reason. It was probably unfair of him to think of it that way; Tim hadn’t really roped him into anything. He’d simply asked, very sweetly, and Danny had caved. He always did. It was that damned big-eyed stare that Tim did so well. You’d have to be heartless indeed to say no to that and try though he might to cultivate an air of disaffected eccentricity, Danny was not immune to the persuasive power of puppy dog eyes.
He’d escaped those eyes by coming out to the roof and standing in the snow, sans jacket and shoes, though he had made one small concession to the fact that it was freezing outside. There was a slightly ludicrous hat perched on his head, equipped with earflaps and a frivolous bobble, and colored a particularly lurid shade of red which was entirely unsuitable for his complexion. His arms were numb already, and he was quite sure his toes were developing a serious case of frostbite, but the lure of falling snow was too great to resist.
He hummed under his breath as he stood there, rocking back on his heels, stopping occasionally to listen to the soft hush of the snow. He’d only just discovered the sound and was quite taken with it. It was an almost silken rustling, just barely discernable if you listened really hard. The temptation to lie down on the roof and let the shushing snowflakes cover him up was powerful, not because he had any particular wish to die of exposure, but because it seemed like such a lovely, peaceful thing to do. Tim would get a kick out of it, of course. That was exactly the sort of morbid thing that Tim liked.
The door to the roof squeaked open and a little pointed grin flashed across Danny’s lips. Speak of the devil, after a fashion, and he would appear. He didn’t turn, but the shuffling footsteps behind him were all the evidence he needed. No one else walked with that particular falsely hesitant gait.
“Hello, Tim,” he said companionably, wishing that Tim would turn around and go away. Instead, he stopped next to Danny, skinny and wild haired and cupping a covered mug in his long white hands. Danny would have bet money that it was coffee, and he would have won.
“I brought you a drink,” Tim offered, fixing his gaze on the meandering tumble of snowflakes. Danny’s mouth tightened but he didn’t lash out. Tim knew that he didn’t like to be mothered but he persisted anyhow. There was no point in chastising him again; he would only nod and smile that sweet little smile and keep on doing whatever the fuck it was he wanted to do.
“Coffee?” he asked, holding out a hand. Tim pressed the warm cup against his palm and he curled his fingers around it.
“Yep.”
“Irish?”
“Of course.” There was one thing to be said for Tim’s infernal coddling. He always knew exactly what Danny wanted and provided it without being asked. It seemed almost like one of those creepy wavelength things that psychiatrists in couples counseling talked about, and maybe it was. He and Tim were practically an old married couple anyway. “What are you doing?”
“Watching the snow.” As if Tim didn’t know that. He was doing the exact same thing, and not just because he was mimicking Danny like some other person might have done. Tim had the uncanny ability to latch onto Danny’s moods and do precisely what he needed to do in order to avoid incurring Danny’s full wrath. It was utterly infuriating.
“I thought you didn’t like the cold,” Tim remarked mildly, and Danny shrugged as he lifted the cup to his lips. He tugged aside the cover long enough to take a sip, and a little shiver of appreciation wormed its way down his spine. Just the right amount of liquor. Tim knew best.
“I don’t. I hate it,” he said, and his toes gave a little throb as though in total agreement. “But I do like snow.”
“That makes very little sense,” Tim declared, and Danny had to grin. Not ‘no sense’. Tim did understand, even if he felt obligated to comment on the strangeness. It wasn’t exactly as though he had room to talk, after all. Neither of them were the most stable, ordinary guys on the planet.
“Did you need something?” That was probably as close as he’d come to telling Tim to fuck off and, as expected, it didn’t work.
“No.” Danny turned to look at Tim, a bad idea under the best of circumstances, and a truly horrible one at this particular moment. It always scared him how attractive he found Tim because, be honest, Tim was hardly the most handsome man in the world. There was something about him, though, that never failed to capture Danny’s attention. Dark eyes, pale skin, wild black hair, the air of a man who is certain that he’s about to be hideously maimed any second and has not only come to terms with his fate, but embraced it happily. If he just put on a little red lipstick, he could have been a very ugly Snow White. Or a Cure fan who took Robert Smith’s look a little too seriously, but Danny preferred not to think of Robert Smith and sex in the same context.
“So get thee behind me, Satan,” Danny grumbled, and Tim shot him an amused look.
“Did you just call me Satan?” he asked, obviously delighted. “Does anyone else call me Satan?” Danny snorted and took another sip of his coffee. The warmth curled down through his body, took one look at his toesicles, and ran screaming in the opposite direction.
“I’m sure the Catholic Church is two seconds away from naming you the Antichrist as we speak,” Danny said dryly, and Tim sniggered a little.
“Do I get a prize for that?” Danny chanced another glance over and regretted it again. The snow was beginning to catch in Tim’s hair and it glittered under the dim glow of the roof lights like a net of silver beads. Uch, fuck Tim, and hard on the heels of that thought came another. Ack! Nononono, don’t fuck Tim! Under any circumstances.
“Sure, why not? What kind of prizes do they give out to Antichrists anyway?” Danny was a little bit shaky on the specifics of the whole Antichrist thing. Frankly, it all seemed extremely silly to him. Beasts and hellfire and the whole Armageddon shtick just came across as very melodramatic and stereotypically Hollywood.
“I dunno,” Tim answered. Danny caught a movement out of the corner of his eye and turned automatically towards it. Yet another bad judgment call on his part; Tim’s fingers were fluttering around, attempting vainly to catch snowflakes. He was like a child sometimes, a trait that Danny found alternately endearing and repulsive. “Dragons and flaming swords and harems of pretty boys, I suppose.”
Danny noted with detached interest that coffee expelled forcibly from the mouth had a much longer range than he would have guessed. Beside him, Tim cackled like the Wicked Witch of the West and clapped his hands together once, punctuating his amusement, and Danny scowled. It wasn’t that he was particularly surprised by Tim’s inclusion of sex slaves in his Antichrist requirements, nor that he was scandalized by the specification that they be male. It was… well, he didn’t quite know, and that was what bothered him the most.
“Harems of pretty boys,” he stated, and Tim nodded happily. His hair was starting to plaster itself to his head, weighted down by the melting snow, and Danny resisted the urge to reach over and pick the tangles out with his fingers. “What on earth would you do with harems of pretty boys?”
“Have them bring me fruity mixed drinks,” Tim responded promptly. There was a wicked glitter in his eyes, and even though Danny knew he was being had he couldn’t really stop.
“So you want cabana boys, basically.”
“No, I want harem boys.” There was a long pause filled up by the soft rustle of the snow, and just when Danny was about to go mad or grab Tim by the hair and kiss the life out of him – or maybe both – Tim spoke again. “Cabana boys won’t suck your toes.”
“You’re lucky I wasn’t drinking when you said that,” Danny snapped, “because I would have poured the fucking coffee down your shirt.” The smile faded quickly from Tim’s face, replaced by a puzzled frown.
“Danny…”
“Oh, don’t you fucking ‘Danny’ me!” It felt good to be in a temper. He’d been trying to control himself lately, just one of his many random half-hearted efforts at self improvement, and it was gratifying to know that he’d failed yet again. “I came out here to be by myself, Tim, not to listen to you talk about cabana boys!”
“Harem boys,” Tim corrected icily. His tone only served to fan the flames of Danny’s ire.
“I don’t care what you call them. I don’t want to fucking hear it, okay? Just go back to your studio and draw your creepy little pictures and keep pretending that you’re an artist and not just some fucking sad-sack refugee from the Goth scene!”
Tim stared, starting back as though he’d been slapped, and Danny was immediately ashamed. He didn’t truly think that about Tim, but when he was angry his mind tended to dredge up hurtful little barbs that he was only too happy to spit out. To say that he had a sharp tongue would be understating it a little, and though the comment hadn’t been his finest work, it was obvious that it had found its mark.
“Tim, I didn’t mean that.” He wouldn’t say he was sorry, refused to say he was sorry. It was a point of stubborn pride for him to never regret anything that he did and although that sometimes took some work, he’d succeeded so far. And as much as he liked and respected Tim, he wasn’t about to let Tim break his record.
“Didn’t you?” Tim asked softly, and there was a little twinge in Danny’s chest. Okay, so maybe he did regret lashing out. That was natural, wasn’t it? Later on, he could rationalize it to himself, tell himself that he’d been totally justified in saying what he’d said, and the regret would disappear. Right now, though, looking into Tim’s dark, tired eyes, it was hard not to feel two inches tall.
“I didn’t.” There was silence, then, and Danny knew that Tim was waiting on an apology he’d never get. “We should both probably get some sleep.”
Tim nodded slowly and turned to shuffle back inside, shoulders hunched over against the cold. He looked endearingly hang-dog, and Danny’s chest twinged again. Impulsively, he reached out and grabbed Tim by the elbow, dragging him back. Tim squeaked a little, but otherwise didn’t protest, focusing those fucking eyes on Danny’s face and arranging his features into an expression of bewildered anticipation. With a little snort of amusement and resignation, Danny leaned in and kissed him.
It wasn’t a magical movie kiss. Danny didn’t think he was capable of such a thing, and in any case this was no time for one. Those always came after the huge fight or on the heels of a death-defying escape from certain peril or something ridiculous like that. He didn’t buy into that romantic ideal, and so the kiss he pressed to Tim’s lips was chaste and almost hesitant. Just a brush of skin that lingered a fraction too long to be coincidental, and he was done, stepping back and fixing Tim with his best penetrating gaze.
He failed, of course, to see anything important, because Tim was like a ninja when it came to concealing what he thought. He only looked back at Danny, eyes wide and innocent, and then nodded as though that explained everything. It made Danny want to scream, but he refrained. He could be good, if only for the sake of his own sanity.
“Come on,” Tim said calmly, turning back towards the door. Did he lick his lips as he pivoted? Danny thought so, but he couldn’t be sure. “It’s getting too cold out here, and you have no shoes on.” Danny briefly toyed with the idea of grabbing him again and spinning him back and going in for the big Hollywood kiss. Why shouldn’t it happen now, on the rooftop with the snow coming down and him in a stupid bobble hat?
Of course, he knew why. Because if he did it now, it would be a false climax, a way to avoid addressing the actual problem at hand, and that made for a terrible story. So it was in the best interests of the fucked up little drama that was trying to play out that he turned and followed Tim into the building. Let it wait for a few more days. It wasn’t like he couldn’t use a little excitement in his life.
