Word Count: ~3200
Warnings: whole lotta angst (with a happy ending)
Definitely inspired by the song "crashmyparty" by dreamfone, which you should absolutely listen to.
I don't write a lot of angst, but Danny is definitely my favorite to do it with since he breaks my heart so easily. Hope you enjoy <3
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You hadn't been to this lake in a long time, or so it felt. It had been a long time, but it felt like a whole lifetime since you'd driven over the bridge, over the huge pool, to the surely not forgotten but wavy memory. Along the road, you coasted in the car along the length of the lake at first, just looking over the calm shimmer of dull blue-green–a seagull coasted above right with you, wings flapping as it steadied itself in the air before landing on shore next to another, beaks open in silent calls. You had your music turned up loud, each note and word vibrating through the confined space and through your head, as if the sheer volume of it would knock your thoughts loose and they'd get lost out through the open windows.
The wheels of your car crunched over the gravel littering the little parking lot, a strip of pavement carved out at the far end of the lake, one of many secret spots that you didn't think you'd ever forget. You'd struggled to find it the first time–you'd called Danny, confused, and he'd guided you there, the sound of his voice like velvet even through the receiver. You didn't think you'd ever get sick of hearing it. Even when things went from calm, soft waves to tumultuous, broken blue peaks and stormy skies, you could admit only to yourself you wished you'd hear his voice. Months later, your heart still flipped every time your phone rang, some little awful part of your brain expecting it to be him.
It never was. Probably never would be. You knew that. But nostalgia was aching deep in your bones this morning. You stepped out onto the pavement and inhaled the cool air–everything felt so, so calm and quiet. It was so calm and quiet–nothing but birds, near-silent water and a blue sky, all of which you'd hope would warm your cold heart. Maybe it would, even though the idea of exploring the secret places you both loved so much seemed like a terrible idea, like the opposite of success. Surely it would drag you down to the depths of heartache and you'd drown. Again.
You headed down to the shoreline, walking steadily on the paved path. With no one else around, your mind was free to wander into all the memories again. When you reached the point where tangled green vines met a whole new path of sturdy trees, you remembered when you and Danny first walked there. You could remember every detail of him, how his hair caught the light and you noticed strands of deep gold and amber, the same shades that glimmered in his eyes when he smiled. The mosquitoes had been at bay that afternoon, the breeze coming off the water steady and strong, but at one point a fly had flown right into Danny's mouth. He'd coughed; you'd laughed and clapped his back in an effort to help, which made him laugh, too. It'd been so ridiculous.
The memory made you smile; the smile made you sad again, and you looked down at your shoes as you kept walking. Everything felt too familiar. The walk from your car to the cove you and Danny had found felt way too short and you stood between the trees, surprised, staring out at the perfect water nested between grass and sand, and the steam cutting the land in two. The log going across it was new–back when you and Danny first explored this, you'd both had to leap across it.
The big stone beneath the even bigger oak tree was the same, right where it had always been and might always be. You sat on top of it and leaned forward, fixing your eyes on the lake. Water striders danced across the surface with envious fluidity, their spindly legs so graceful as they spun and slid over the water as if they really were tiny dancers; blue-bodied dragonflies zipped around fast as light, hopefully preying on those flies that liked to come out and harass the world each morning; your attention diverted as one small fish jumped, then another, leaving ripples and rings in the water as they went back under.
Danny wasn't a fisherman. Neither were you. But you'd both gotten a lot of joy out of watching them jump and seeing them on all your adventures. Last summer, you'd stayed at a cabin on a different lake together–a little road trip with a cute little lake house at the end of it. You'd wake up early, right as dawn was licking through the sky with soft whispers of pink and yellow, and walk down to the dock. He would lean right against you; you'd curve your arm around his waist, his body always so warm and grounding. The fish were lively each morning you were there, bouncing and leaping through the water, the only sounds to intercept the wild quiet of the new world. Once the sun was throwing gold light over the trees, you'd go back inside to make coffee and pancakes or eggs or whatever–the slow, languid mornings when you felt like nothing bad could ever touch you again.
It was stupid, you thought as you adjusted on the rock, its hardness digging into your thighs in an increasingly unpleasant way. People had breakups every day. And it's been months. It'd been months and you knew those memories would sit there, maybe forever, but some would fade and fade until there was hardly anything left. That's what you were waiting for though–until that happened, maybe you'd be caught in a net of pain but, each day, it would get a little looser. Someday, you concluded, kicking a pebble into the water, you'd be free of it entirely.
Moving might help, too. Fish kept swimming to go forward, to go wherever. You could do the same, even if you'd placed yourself in your own net of memory and nostalgia. You gave a final look to the lake and then headed forward once more, balancing yourself over the log to cross and get back on the path. You wondered if Danny still had Mondays off. That'd been nice–it was always an opportunity to enjoy solitude together. Today, while truly on your own, solitude proved to be weighty. You then wondered how many other poor sad saps were wandering around with broken hearts, tangled in their own bullshit, drowning themselves in images and feelings long lost.
The ice cream stand around the other side, closer to the actual village, definitely wouldn't be open. But thinking of it sent you into another memory–when you and Danny got big soft serve cones and struggled not to coat yourselves in melted ice cream as you meandered to an empty picnic table. That was something you'd never understood about each other–your tastes in ice cream. But it wasn't just that. There was a well of misunderstanding that was far more significant, that seemed to get deeper and deeper, but you still couldn't understand why it had to lead to an end. And to not even be friends? That had killed you. You'd been too distraught to even fight that, when Danny had tried to say it was "for the best." It'd made no sense. You would never say you needed him in your life because that wasn't true–but what if it was and what if there was nothing wrong with that? Danny was too significant to not need. From the moment you met, you knew you and him were meant to be.
The village was almost totally empty, the morning still too early for human life to begin. You circled back, walking fast over the pavement, through another empty parking lot, thinking you actually did want to sit some more. Sometimes staying still was good. Back in the cove, the rock was still warm from you pondering there and you situated yourself back down on top of it, watching the water striders and dragonflies some more.
You finally felt you'd hit the perfect point of mindless meditation when you heard Danny's voice behind you, saying your name in the form of a question. That couldn't be right. Great, now you were hearing things–you were completely mental. You laughed a little to yourself and bent down to pick up a pebble to toss into the water; as it collided through the water, you heard your name again, closer and much too clear, and you turned. Danny was there, really there, not just a name in your phone or a dream in your head but flesh and blood, standing there with wide, confused eyes and a flushed face, like you were a ghost caught in real time.
"No way," you said, craning your neck to really look up at him. He looked exactly as you'd remembered, as timeless as the morning sun warming your cheeks. Your body was having a hard time catching up with your brain, still left in its slack state while your mind was reeling fast and hard, trying to make sense of what was happening. So he still had Mondays off. So he still came here. So he was alone.
"Yeah," Danny said slowly, stepping forward without taking his eyes off you. "No way, Y/N. What are you doing here?" It was a gentle question, not accusatory or harsh at all. That made you miss him more.
You weren't sure how to reply without revealing too much. You settled for, "I just wanted to come here. It's been a while."
Danny was right next to you then and you watched him turn to the water, profile strong, shoulders held high. "Yeah. I haven't been here since whenever we were here together."
So nostalgia was running through his veins, too. "Yeah," you affirmed. It was awkward and sad. Every word you'd thought about saying to him for so long seemed moot. Despite all your wanting, you'd never really expected to see him again. Not like this, anyway.
"Can I sit?"
You felt frozen but managed to wave to the grassy space beside you. Danny sat down, almost close enough for your leg to touch his shoulder but not quite. You wanted to touch his hair, play with it like you used to–there was still a dampness to his loose curls, like he'd showered right before he got in the car. You could smell him too, all fresh and woodsy and deep, all so familiar, pulling you right in in a way you couldn't explain.
"How've you been?" Danny asked, a natural question for anyone, but you could hear the slight tension in his words, the awkwardness hanging between you like an invisible string.
"Okay," you answered. A seagull swooped down far ahead, just a triangle of white against the blue backdrop. "You?"
"About the same." Danny crossed his legs and leaned forward, mirroring you except over grass and not over rock. His long fingers started to twirl through the grass between his legs and you had a blip of remembering the feelings of those fingers over your skin, tracing invisible lines, knowing all the most delicate places, knowing the most ticklish spots when he was desperate to make you laugh.
"You know," he said, slowly again, not looking at you but still out at the water. The sun was higher, shimmering beautifully over the surface of it, and once again catching itself in his hair when the leaves of trees sacrificed some shade with the breeze. "I've thought about this before. Not exactly this, not here, but–but running into you somewhere. I was always surprised it never happened."
You felt yourself bristle a little at that, going on the offense. "Well, you said we shouldn't even be friends. So all our friends became your friends again. We stopped running in the same circles."
"Yeah. I thought it'd be for the best," Danny said, plucking a single blade of grass.
"I don't even know what people mean when they say that," you countered. Your whole body was hot with too many emotions hurtling through your mind. "The best for who?"
Danny sighed and took a long, thick moment before replying: "I don't know. Guess I was kind of an ass."
"Yeah," you agreed, straightening up on the rock, placing your hands on your knees. "You were."
Danny turned to look at you then, shifting his whole body to face you. "I really meant to text you. Or call. I didn't like where we left things–"
"Where you left things," you corrected. You moved too, spinning until your shins were touching his knees. Just that contact softened your heated feelings a bit, and you realized being angry would never help anyone or anything. In all your dreams of encountering Danny, anger was not an emotion that bubbled up. You'd expected shock, sadness, relief–never anger. It was fair to feel it, you realized, but you'd table it to salvage something. Anything. Danny wasn't a bad person, just really, really bad at breakups, apparently.
"You wanna hear something–I dunno, pathetic?" Danny asked, chuckling quietly, looking down at your connected appendages. "Right after, I mean literally right after all that, I regretted it. But it felt too, well, pathetic to try and go back."
"Wow," you said, noting the self-consciousness in his eyes, how he hung his head a bit, ashamed. You reached out and stroked your fingers through his hair and he looked up again. "Just think of what could've been if you'd just said that. You knew I didn't want to break up, Danny. You should have said something."
"It was just such a bad fight. I didn't know how to come back from it."
"Like an adult," you replied, smiling a little. Suddenly it all seemed so simple. "Jeez."
Danny laughed. "Yeah. Like an adult. You're right, Y/N."
You weren't entirely sure you wanted to know the answer yet, but if Danny really was saying that for months he'd still wanted to be with you, you figured it would be best to find out now: "Have you dated anyone else?"
"No," he said, confident and believable. "I didn't want to. Besides, it hasn't been that long."
"Five months," you reminded him, freeing your fingers of his hair only after you brushed the top of his ears. "Probably enough time to find a new girlfriend if you were so determined."
He gave a little snort of protest. "Except I wasn't."
You laughed. "Could've fooled me." You froze when Danny's hands slid up your ankles to your calves, the first real touch in ages.
"What about you?" he asked.
"What? Dating anyone else?" You let him rest his hands there, his palms warm and soft. "Yeah, no. As you can see, I'm still wallowing. I came here to try and get some kind of therapy. But I can't stop thinking about you. Haven't been able to stop thinking about you this whole time." It actually felt less unnatural to confess to him than you'd expected–Danny had always been so honest and open with you, it'd always felt safe to be that way right back.
"Sorry," Danny said with one of those beautiful, bashful, shy smiles you also missed a hell of a lot. "I really am sorry. I fucked up big-time. You should punch me or something."
You laughed again. "I'm not gonna punch you. I was never really that mad. Just confused. Upset." You touched the tip of one of his ears again, watching it turn pink. "Always missing you, obviously."
Danny's cheeks were pink, too. "Me too. Hope you can believe that."
You thought you could, little by little, but only if he didn't tear himself away from you again. Only if he touched you again, held your hand, kissed your forehead like he used to. "Maybe," you told him, standing up with his hands sliding down to your ankles. "I've missed you so much that my friends probably thought I was desperate. That's okay. Maybe I am."
Danny got to his feet after you, standing right in front of you, obscuring the thick trees behind him. "Maybe I am too. Desperate for redemption." He glanced to the side, to the lake, looking shy again and you wanted to kiss his face and pretend like everything was back to the way it had once been. He looked back at you again: "Can I hug you?"
You could settle for a hug. You opened your arms and Danny wrapped himself around you, resting his cheek on your shoulder as you molded together, ribs moving in sync as you both breathed heavily, two sighs of relief leaving your lungs. It felt so right that it made your heart start to ache again, a huge part of you wanting more, a more sensible part of you knowing that, if things were to work again, this was part of the process.
"Wanna get breakfast?" Danny asked, not relinquishing his hold. "I'm pretty sure that diner we went to before is open. It'll probably just be us and some old timers."
You pulled back a little reluctantly, looking into his eyes, seeing the same honesty and affection you'd loved so much. Still loved, actually. You figured your own affection reflected back, because Danny relaxed with your hands still on his shoulders and smiled small but bright.
"Let's do it," you said, sliding one hand down to squeeze his wrist gently, silently asking for more. Danny delivered–he slipped your hands together and you wordlessly moved out of the cove and back onto that path. You walked in serene silence, the bird songs even brighter and sharper in your ears with the newfound joy that burst through your chest–you'd imagined a lot of things, but never quite this.
Right before the trees gave way to the actual sidewalk, Danny stopped and pulled you into him, kissing you so quick but so softly you weren't sure then if you were actually dreaming or not. But when you looked at him again, your vision was clear and he was still there, his hand still in yours, no longer a ghost, no longer just a painful memory.
"I really have missed you," he said, as if you hadn't truly believed him the first time. "I really am sorry."
You leaned in and kissed him again, solidifying the words between your lips. He was as warm as the morning sun and always as sweet as the ice cream you shared on summer evenings, as strong and solid as that rock you'd tried to put all your misery on top of. "I missed you too," you said again into the space between you. "Even though it's confirmed that you're a complete idiot."
Danny laughed that familiar, boisterous laugh that was actually a rare occurrence, only when something absolutely hysterical happened. He squeezed your hand and started walking again, side by side, step by step. "Alright, Y/N," he said, turning his cheek to catch your eye. "I deserve that."