A/N: I know it's been super painful and taxing thus far. I wish I could say that was changing, but it's not. I will however say a continual thanks to those who read and review or give extensive feedback, you're kind words are so helpful and insightful to read.
6 Months Ago
Lacey was having an out of body experience. Her brain was telling her to move, to take action, to somehow stop what was taking place before her. But all she could do was see herself stilled, frozen in place as she watched the scene unfold in front of her, while her heart pounded in her ears. It was one of those times where the mind has to catch up with the moment. She didn't even know where he had come from. Her and Alex had been arguing in a relatively abandoned hallway hours after the last bell had rung for the day. Before she knew what was up from down, Danny had swooped in and put himself between the two of them. He had appeared in such a quick manner that shocked her, as if he had descended from the ceiling or out of a supply closet. But all she knew now was her own dismay and the sound of fists connecting with faces.
She was trying desperately to get her throat to open, and for her voice to function, if her body was unable. But even that seemed like a task that was impossible as she flinched watching the two boys physically fight. Although it was less of a fight, and more of a proper one-sided ass kicking. With each passing second it seemed that Danny was becoming more enraged and out of control. She briefly looked around to see if there was anyone near that could help, her assertions were dashed as she knew that the probability of anyone being around was rather slim. Lacey felt her entire body tremble as she readied herself to intervene. She paused for a couple more seconds, trying to gather the fortitude to break up what was unfolding so quickly and horribly in front of her.
"Danny, stop!" Lacey shouted loudly. Finally finding proper use of her limbs, she closed the space between them and grasped tightly on the back of his sweater. "Stop it!"
That was really no use, as Alex squirmed underneath Danny's weight and strikes, his face bloody and his eyes full of shock and bewilderment. Alex had been fortunate to connect a couple of blows in the beginning to defend himself, but once Danny leveled on top of him, he didn't have much hope of a chance at this being anything resembling an even match up. Lacey felt the muscles in Danny's lower back ripple with his movements, his constant jarring motions almost made her stumble as she firmly griped his shoulder with one hand and put the other arm around his waist, she pulled and tugged with all her might. Desperate to stop what had already gotten so far out of hand that she couldn't even really grasp the totality of it.
"Danny, please!" Lacey yelled, her voice sounded shrill and frantic. "You have to stop! Get off of him!"
Danny's movements slowed considerably as he felt like he heard the sound of Lacey's voice off in the distance. But it seemed so far away in his mind. It was right alongside the weight that was tugging him in a backward motion, but still nowhere as prominent and pervasive as the sheer rage that was pulsating through his core. His head was fuzzy, and his breath was coming out in gasps, as a very acute and familiar pain was shooting out of his hands. He felt the weight behind him pull once more, and like an anchor it caused him to stumble back. He looked at the young man who scrambled from the ground, to his knees, as Danny's anger lessened to a dull roar within him, though the roar was still quite deafening.
The young man with the bloody face made his way from his knees to his feet as he tried to gather himself and steady his equilibrium as the immense pain was radiating through his body. He could taste the blood in his mouth and could barely see out of his right eye. He stumbled forward a bit as Danny rose to his feet, instantly enraged and incensed as the memory of what had even provoked such a heightened and specifically retaliatory type of display. He felt like he could feel his thumping heartbeat in his steely fists, as he took a step towards the guy who was already sufficiently battered and incredibly worse for the wear. Something stopped him from moving forward though. All of a sudden he was meet with Lacey's face and her hands on his chest pushing him in the opposite direction of which he was intending to go. Her eyes looked frantic and disorientated and scared. His entire body became immediately infused with perplexity, as her reaction brought out other more complicated and confounding emotions.
"You're fucking crazy!" Alex spat at Danny, trying to eradicate the vile, copper taste of his own blood that was lining his mouth.
"Shut up!" Lacey turned to the young man who she'd only been dating for 6 weeks, before focusing all of her attention back onto Danny, who's eyes had left hers and had zeroed back in on Alex with automatic and recharged negative energy. "Danny, we have to go."
"Are you kidding me right now?" Alex almost laughed, the tremendous amount of pain that shot over his face made him reevaluate that decision. "You're gonna defend him?"
"Danny, look at me." Lacey demanded trying desperately to disengage him, her voice steady like a low wind, but inside she was cringing and in disbelief. She nudged gently against his chest once more, and his body relented to her physical instruction as his eyes fell on hers. "We have to go. You can't be here anymore."
Danny seemed to understand as he staggered backwards, feeling the adrenaline shouting through his being as if he'd consumed copious amounts of caffeine and hadn't expended any energy in the last five hours.
"Alex," Lacey said as she turned around tiredly. She winced as she was met with his bruised and battered face. "I'm so sorry. I'm so incredibly sorry that this happened. But I have to go with him."
"So your ex beats the shit out of me, but you're sitting here apologizing on his behalf and leaving with him?" Alex mumbled with resentment and a bunch of wounded pride.
"I'm sorry," Lacey mumbled again, she felt Danny come close up behind her, and she turned around to push him in the opposite direction again. She picked up his backpack and began to follow his reluctantly retreating form. "Let's go."
Lacey started walking at a quickened pace, clutching her car keys in her hands as she put a good bit of distance between her and Danny's bodies as they both walked to the parking lot. She just kept thinking about what if a teacher or a coach saw them, and saw Danny's hands and the cut on his face. They'd surely ask questions and that was the last thing that she wanted or could properly handle at the moment. She just wanted to get Danny and herself off of school property as quickly and quietly as possible. She didn't even look at him during their descent towards the parking lot, the silence between them magnified by the quickness with which their bodies were moving.
Once they reached her car, she threw his and her backpacks in the back seat and realized that he had stopped abruptly a few paces away from her car. She looked at him for the first time since breaking up the fight and felt all her nerves splayed on end, as if she was on the precipice of screaming her head off or crying her heart out. Danny wasn't even looking at her, his eyes locked somewhere out in the distance. When her gaze followed his quickly, she realized he was looking in the direction of the empty soccer field.
"Danny, get in the car." Lacey demanded, her voice so full of anxiety and emotion that it was a wonder her body was adequately carrying those two entities in such ample amounts.
She was met with no physical response from him, no even verbal proclamation that he had heard her. She knew that he had however because in the very next moment his eyes, laden with a pensive and actionable quality, looked at her for less than a second before diverting away. His silence and lack of action infuriated her, so her dismay transferred into her own sizable and lethal anger.
"Get in the fucking car!" Lacey shouted at him, her eyes ablaze as her chest heaved and quaked with everything that it was trying to contain.
Danny's eyes met hers momentarily before he opened her passenger door and slid into the car. Lacey took a deep and taxing breath, one that was needless and futile as she could feel the beginnings of her anger completely start to unravel on top of her. She eased into the car and locked the door as she looked straight ahead and fumbled with her keys. Words and thoughts were going a mile a minute in her head and she suddenly felt like her hands weren't even working correctly.
"What the fuck, Danny?" Lacey's voice bellowed throughout the car, as she cursed at him and to high heavens in the same breath. "What were you thinking?!"
Lacey still struggled with locating the proper key to start her car, but couldn't because her mind was fuzzy, her hands were trembling and she felt a kind of distinct and diabolical rage that she hadn't experienced in a long, long time.
"I'm so angry, I'm fucking shaking!" Lacey shrieked as she chucked her keys against the steering wheel with immeasurable frustration and agitation.
Danny held his silence like an armor. Not even attempting to offer a reason or and explanation or an excuse. He was still trying to wordlessly instruct his body to expunge his limbs from the weight of the fury that was boiling in his blood. He heard her anguish and excruciating disappointment, but it was outweighed by the tumultuous tension that still lined his hands, face and mannerisms. He kept hearing the words that Alex had said to Lacey before feeling himself lose all semblance of time and space, and knocking the guy on his ass. It hadn't been enough to get one blow in, he had to make sure that this guy knew how badly he had messed up and how irrevocable his actions were.
Lacey kept trying to regulate her breathing as she muttered to herself, finally getting the correct key in the ignition as she started her car and quickly maneuvered out of the parking spot and out of the school's parking lot.
"I can't believe this," Lacey gasped under her breath, almost stiflingly a bitterly sarcastic laugh. "I can't fucking believe this shit."
She tried with all her might to just focus on the road and try not to pull him into her own mounding hysteria, but she quickly dispelled that idea when she kept going over what had just taken place, in her head. She took a deep breath and ran her still shaking hand over her face as she drove in the direction of his house.
"What were you thinking, huh?" Lacey questioned out loud. Her voice quivering with destain and incredulity. Her hands gripping the steering wheel until her knuckles turned almost white, just to impede their constant trembling. "What the hell was that?"
No verbal response emitted from his mouth, he sat in his seat angled away from her, he hadn't even bothered to put his seatbelt on. His hands, specifically the right one, throbbed and the side of his face hurt. All he was trying to do was successfully quiet the way that his chest was being used as a bow and arrow for his anger and his actions. His breath was shallow and his head felt like it wasn't properly deciphering his thoughts.
"Answer me!" Lacey voice sliced through the short distance between their two bodies as they sat side by side in her car, her arm came up and connected across his upper chest in a quick blow. She pulled her hand back quickly only to repeat the strike again. "Fucking answer me!"
The impact of her hand and arm to his chest wasn't powerful or strong by any stretch of the imagination, but the act itself shocked him so deeply that his head snapped over to look at her. He could see the angular side of her face shaped with anguish and uncertainty, her jaw was clenched as their eyes met for a fleeting second before hers returned to the road.
"I don't know," Danny finally mumbled. His voice sounded unfamiliar in his ears, as if its owner was someone he'd never met, or at least not seen or spoken to for some time.
"You don't know?" Lacey replied with contempt. "That's the best you can come up with? You beat the shit out of the guy I'm dating and you just don't know?"
"Fuck him," Danny murmured, glancing down at his hands, realizing that the pain seemed to be localized near his middle finger on his right hand. The rest of the discomfort from his bruised and cut knuckles was dissipating slowly.
"Are you serious right now?" Lacey gasped, aghast that he was taking the complete opposite stance than the one he should have been readying himself to adopt. "You're unbelievable."
"He shouldn't have spoken to you that way," Danny said simply and defiantly, reaching up for the first time to gingerly touch the cut on his face. He didn't even wince at the sharp bit of pain that action sent down his cheek and along his jaw.
"What are you even talking about?" Lacey shouted, her voice elevating against the syllables of her words. "We were having an argument. People who are dating have arguments. That's no excuse for what you did!"
Danny sat in silence as he looked out the window feeling some of the displaced rage that he had been dealing with evaporate from himself and seep over to her. He sighed and haphazardly moved a piece of fallen hair from the front of his face.
They approached his house and instead of slowing the car to allow him to get out, she stopped it, put it in park and turned off the engine, pocketing her keys. Before he could even say anything, she hoped out of the car and opened the backseat, grabbing his backpack and slamming the door, no doubt much louder than was absolutely necessary. Danny retreated from the car tentatively himself as he watched her.
"What are you doing?" Danny posed, assessing her rigid, yet fuming body language.
She didn't answer him as she walked up the walk way to his front door. He followed behind her, as she plucked his house keys out of the front of his backpack and unlocked the door. Lacey silently thanked whomever was above that at least his mother wasn't there, and maybe wouldn't be back for awhile. She opened the door and made a beeline for the kitchen. Danny took his time following her, feeling her intentional and rather artistically placed outrage in the entryway she had just walked through.
By the time he reached the kitchen she was going through the cabinets, closing each one with more force and exasperation than required. Danny seated himself on a barstool and watched her movements cautiously and meticulously, wondering if he should interrupt the silence and her movements with his inquiries.
"What are you looking for?" Danny finally asked, rolling his shoulders that suddenly felt sore and as tense as bricks.
"A first aid kit for your hands," Lacey seethed, moving across the spacious kitchen, opening and closing drawers in her wake.
"Two drawers to your left," Danny instructed, as he breathed evenly. Finally starting to feel like the incensed maniacal part of him had subsided considerably. Now he was more overcome with wariness and concern with how she was continuing to react to what happened, and how that was going to unfold.
Lacey filled a bowl with ice and water, grabbed a roll of paper towels and the first aid kit before setting them all on the counter beside him. She looked at him and the space between them and realized that she was going to have to get much closer to him in order to tend to his hands and the wound on his face, which had been her intention coming into his house to begin with. Her eyes flickered around the kitchen as she realized she hadn't been in it for quite some time. In fact, she would be remiss to not acknowledge that she hadn't been anywhere in his house for quite some time. The realization coupled with the events of the afternoon sent her deeper into her own agitation and bitterness.
"You can't go around assaulting people, Danny." Lacey said directly. "I know you know that. You're going to get expelled."
"I'm not going to get expelled," Danny countered in a tone that resembled something close to reassurance.
"You can't be sure of that!" Lacey exclaimed, running her hands tiredly over her face. "You beat up a fellow student on school grounds!"
"No one saw," Danny reasoned, instantly feeling overwhelmed and put in a finite box titled with her reaction and the potential truths within it.
"That doesn't matter," Lacey almost choked out, she felt all the energy leap and cascade along the inside and outside of her being. She was suddenly incredibly emotionally exhausted. "It'll be his word against yours, and one look at his face... do you think anyone is going to believe you weren't capable of that?"
"I'll figure something out," Danny sighed, trying to interject a bit of calming into his tone.
"It's not that simple, Danny!" Lacey exclaimed, her hands, followed by her arms came up in a physical show of frustration. "This isn't something that you can charm your way out of. I can't believe this happened. I can't believe you."
"He shouldn't have been talking to you in that way," Danny claimed indignantly. "I couldn't just let him do that."
"We were fighting!" Lacey almost screamed. "Couple's fight, they argue. You, of all people, know that! This isn't brand new information. But so what if he was out of line in what he said? You don't think I could have handled it?"
"You shouldn't have to," Danny exclaimed with a deep-rooted and clear conviction.
"So what, you think that's your role now?" Lacey questioned with venom lacing her tired and wavering vocal chords. "You get to just beat the shit out of whoever you deem fit who isn't treating me right?"
"If I have to," Danny said simply, shifting on the stool.
"No!" Lacey said vehemently. "No you will not! Because it's my life and it's my choices. It's not your concern!"
"You're my concern!" Danny countered, his voice raising for the first time.
The emphasis with which those words left his body was enough to still Lacey and momentarily quell her anger. Instead of rage, she felt an almost pristine awareness of the truth buried deep in his words. Because she felt the same way about him. Even when she was furious with him or wanted to strangle him, he would always be her concern as well. She would always be intrinsically tied to who he was and who he'd be, even if they weren't together.
Lacey broke the turbulent way that both of their gazes had settled on the other, with too much emotion, too much intention, too much velocity and looked away from him. She leaned against the counter to give her body a bit of support and assistance, it was becoming too weak and engrained with the significance of her words and his behavior.
"Put your hand in this," Lacey said evenly, pushing the bowl full of ice and water closer towards him. She made no move to get closer to him, as she opened the first aid kit and started sifting through it in silence.
Danny didn't respond but did as he was told, sliding the more damaged, affected hand into the icy cold water, slightly flinching at the temperature and the gradual bit of pain that radiated from it. He watched Lacey closely as she took the contents of the first aid kit out and lined what she needed on the counter. He watched her take a paper towel and retrieve some ice cubes from the bowl and wrap them in it. He assessed her as she walked towards the sink and turned on the hot water to wash her hands.
"Maybe this isn't working," Lacey muttered, looking down into the sink. "Maybe we should..."
"Maybe we should what?" Danny questioned, knowing she wasn't suggesting what it sounded like she was suggesting.
Once she was finished, she moved back in his general direction but didn't get as close to him as required to tend to his wounds. It seemed she was putting off that infringement of personal space and proximity until the very last second. She took an alcohol pad and opened it, finally turning and actually stepping into his sitting form. She immediately zeroed in on the cut on the side of his face, as she gently cleaned it in silence. She felt the familiar and perpetually comforting warmth emitting from his body, and his gaze felt like distinct physical grazes against different parts of her face. She tried to still herself and focus on her task without becoming emphatically affected by his literal closeness.
"I'm sorry," Danny mumbled as he studied her carefully, wondering to himself, when was the last time they had been in such close proximity for an extended period of time. A time that wasn't linked to a casual greeting, or some other unintentional, though brief, merging of their physical forms. His mind drifted to what had happened on New Years Eve, just six months prior.
"No, you're not," Lacey offered as a rebuttal, her eyes flickered onto his in a fleeting manner before she looked back at the counter and grabbed the paper towel with ice. She brought it up to his face and held it against his now disinfected cut. "You're only sorry I'm reacting this way. If you had to do it over you'd do the same thing."
Danny didn't have a retort for that, mostly because he knew she was right. His eyes spanned the angles and perfect dips of her face and neck, as he felt the outside of her leg against his knee.
"Stop looking at me," Lacey instructed calmly, though inside she was harboring a whirlwind of emotions. Her focus remained on holding the paper towel to his face.
"Where else am I supposed to look?" Danny questioned almost too seriously.
Lacey didn't have a satisfactory answer for him so she allowed the silence to engulf the both of them. Danny took a deep breath and his nose was met with the familiar tinge of the scent of her skin, which was coated by another scent that was more foreign to him. He hadn't noticed it until right in that moment and his mouth opened to verbally acknowledge this detail.
"You changed your perfume," Danny said gently. Lacey's eyes met his in an almost surprised, caught off guard manner. She was stunned that he would say something like that right then, and more stunned that she wasn't surprised that he'd noticed at all. Any and every single thing regarding her, he noticed or absorbed. Sometimes it unnerved her, sometimes it comforted her. Most of the time it touched her.
"Let me see your hand," Lacey requested, choosing not to address his last statement.
Danny took his hand out of the ice water, as Lacey gingerly dried it with the paper towel. Seeing his injured and bruised hand brought back the events of the day ten fold. She was suddenly overcome with a great and distinct sadness that she tried to push down and swallow.
"This finger looks broken," Lacey murmured as she lightly ran her fingertips over his swollen index finger.
"I would be in more pain if it was broken," Danny assured her. "It's just sprained."
Lacey used a cotton ball coated with hydrogen peroxide to run over the cuts and nicks on his knuckles, cleaning away access blood that the water hadn't dissolved. She felt him flinch just barely at the probable burning and stinging that the liquid caused him. The skin of his hand was already bruising considerably. She then applied some anti bacterial gel to his cuts and wrapped his knuckles with gauze, securing it, before carefully wrapping his sprained finger, and the one beside it with medical tape for stability. She used a different cotton ball with hydrogen peroxide on his other, less affected hand, which didn't require being wrapped.
"You're really good at this," Danny offered softy, his voice low.
Lacey's eyes flicked up to his unwavering ones when his words reached her. She had not wanted or meant to be good at taking care of him in such a way, she almost abhorred the literal overt instinct that seized her to do just that. This was too much of a muddled and difficult reality that they continuously balanced on the axis of. Their eye contact held as she contemplated if she'd ever be able to get over what existed between them, if she'd ever feel a moment in her life where normalcy and peace with someone who wasn't him, would be sufficient.
If there would ever be a time where the both of them could reside in each other's physical space without feeling the captivating pull of the other. Without desperately having to fight the almost visceral magnetic undercurrent that was always present. The way she was physically drawn to him used to confuse her, but their almost soundless, wordless emotional draw to the other was even more inexplicable, and all the more terrifying. It manifested in physical realms more readily, because there were things that they didn't say or issues that they didn't discuss. But their bodies ended up attempting to express themselves regardless, even sometimes when both of them fought tirelessly against it.
It was happening in that very moment as their eyes remained locked. Lacey's hand was no longer on his hand but on his arm, her body was almost completely filling the space between his open legs, as his other less injured hand grazed her hip. These things always happened too rapidly with them. One minute they were in a clear safe space, and the next they were astoundingly molded and forged together. Their gazes never faltered as their mouths loomed mere centimeters apart, just as Danny's mouth moved to capture hers, she pulled back at the sound of the front door shutting.
Lacey found the lost breath that had been caught in her throat as she put a stunned hand over her mouth. Danny tried to grasp her arm before she retreated further away from him, as he heard his mother's heels clicking as she walked towards the kitchen. His hand grazed Lacey's arm as she backed away further.
The first thing Karen saw when she entered the kitchen was Lacey's face, which she beamed at instantly.
"Lacey, honey hi!" Karen said joyfully. Her eyes then shifted to her son, and the items on the counter, which swiftly rung all the cheer from her, as her disposition changed dramatically. "Danny, what happened?"
Danny didn't respond as he took a deep breath, ultimately at odds with the fact that his mother was going to be incredibly concerned and worried about the nature of what had taken place that afternoon. Karen approached the two of them but her eyes stayed on her son, she noticed his wrapped hand and then the cut on his face.
"What happened?" Karen asked again, this time directing the question to Lacey.
"He got in a fight," Lacey admitted to Karen.
"Danny!" Karen sighed in alarm.
"Mom, please, just relax, it isn't that bad." Danny tried to amend.
"Were you there?" Karen asked Lacey gently, ignoring her sons words. "How bad was it?"
"It was pretty bad," Lacey said truthfully. She couldn't even look at Danny, her insides were still a combination of jello and molten lava, because of what his mother had unknowingly interrupted.
"It wasn't," Danny counteracted firmly, his focus on his mother. "Everything's going to be fine, I don't want you to worry."
"I should really get going," Lacey said, nervously running a hand through her hair. "I just wanted to put something on his hand."
"Lacey, don't..." Danny began but was cut off by his mother's words.
"Thank you, sweetheart." Karen said with such kindness and sincerity as she turned towards Lacey and gathered her in a hug. "I appreciate you taking care of him."
Lacey hugged Karen as she felt her heart attempting to break out of her chest, as a precise emotion was threatening to escape her throat. She could feel Danny's eyes and it took everything inside of her to not meet them. She knew she didn't have the capacity to hug his mother and look at him at the same time.
"I really miss you," Karen said, as she pulled away, smoothing Lacey's hair gently.
"Yeah, I miss you too," Lacey managed softly with a distinct sadness on her face. She was trying desperately to keep it together.
Lacey took a step back, as she pulled her car keys out of her pocket. She gave Karen a warm smile, albeit forced, as she began to back out of the kitchen.
"I'll see you later," Lacey offered Danny under her breath, without even casting a look in his directing. Once she had exited the house and shut the front door behind her, she exhaled a heavy breath that she hadn't even realized she'd been holding.