haolehothead | (no subject)

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- game: tabula rasa

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After the morning he's had, Danny's not exactly looking to go out into the world very soon. He's put on a pair of Steve's Navy sweats (with the word so helpfully plastered across his ass) and has been ambling around the house with just a tank top. He's waiting to head out to the diamond and give some baseball lessons, but that's still hours away.

For now, he's just trying to keep Zulu in his sights, Steve in the other room, and his mouth closed. It's not that he's said anything too incriminating (except, god, the thing about liking to be picked up), but he doesn't want to push his luck. He's cleaning up the main room and crouching down to pat Zulu every once in a while, checking the books they've managed to accumulate. Anything he doesn't want goes on the porch for the next haul back.

He's in the midst of bringing another five or six out when he sees Rachel. "Hey," he greets, lifting a hand to wave at her. "Where're you going?"

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"Are you kidding?" she flails, not able to look him in the eye. "Okay, so first, we just got to the I love you's. Okay, we're like still in the toddler stage in the relationship world. I am a stripper and a like it and everything would be fucked up for me. I'd have to quit my job and get fat and I couldn't drink which I seriously don't think I could do and then I'm stuck with the thing when he inevitably disappears. I'm selfish, Danny. I am seriously selfish. I can't be someone's mom."

"Okay, you're about to hear me get ridiculously pro-life and very baby-happy," he warns, just so she knows. "Rachel, we're talking about a human life that you and Raylan would create. And it's not the human soul thing, I'm talking about a kid with your hair and his eyes that you love more than you love anything in the world because it's a part of you and it's got parts of you. That baby might love to dance and Rachel," he goes on, "I know you don't want this, but if your reasons are those? It's nine goddamn months. And then you go back to what you want. If you want to still dance, you still dance, no one's gonna stop you. But don't use that as an excuse, not with me, not with me when my kid is god knows how many miles away. Did he tell you he wants a kid with you now? Cuz there goes your first argument if he didn't."

Fucking Danny. And his fucking logic.

"But what if I never want them?" she whispers, angrily swiping away a few stupid tears. "He should have what he wants and I just...he deserves so much better."

She knows he's going to get mad about that, but it's the truth. "Danny I ruin everything. I'm not a good person."

"You are not a bad person," Danny sighs out as he wraps his arm a little tighter around her shoulder and hauls her in for a tight hug, close as he can get her. "Hey," he whispers. "Hey, come on, like I just said. If he really wanted something else, he'd have left. He wants you. You're his something better. You're what he thinks he deserves. Think about that."

"Ugh, Christ," she groans, sniffling as she smashes her face against his neck for a moment. This is all easier if she can't see him. "I'm afraid you're all going to find out what I'm really like. What I did back home. There's no way any of you would have been my friends."

"Let's see. You said you did drugs, you're a stripper, and I'm guessing you were into some bad shit," Danny gives his best estimation of the situation. "Rachel, I'm a detective, I used to be a cop on the streets. You don't think I've worked vice? You don't think I've seen the clubs? Heroin, blow, coke, I'm sure that you've probably seen and touched most of it. But I haven't seen you do it here, so I have a lot of respect and trust," he says. "And I think if you can kick those things, then you can kick a couple more for nine months if, if you do decide that you want to see what your life looks like with someone in it that loves you unconditionally because you're their Mommy."

"There's more," she whispers against his neck, picturing Jimmy Edwards' face. The limo. Cooper in the hospital. "There's some stuff I can't blame on the drugs. People got hurt because of me. Kids shouldn't be around people like that."

Danny takes a deep breath and scrubs his fingers through his hair. "Steve killed people. I don't ask where or when or who anymore, because he won't tell me, but I know he did. He's killed them and he's so fucked up, Rachel. I mean, Steve is supremely screwed up under that puppy-dog exterior." And yes, Danny is aware that Steve can hear them right then. "But I let him around Grace. It's not about what you did, it's about who you are, now. So tell me. Who are you, now?"

"I don't know," she says, letting out a shuddering breath, a few tears sliding down her face, settling against his shoulder. "I hate this. I don't want people to think I'm something I'm not. I feel like I'm going to let everyone down if I can't keep it up."

"I think that's bullshit. I think you'd have already let it all fall down," Danny says with a shrug of his shoulders. "It's hard being someone you're not and it's hard pretending. Rachel, for god's sake, what is so wrong with admitting that you're not a horrible person anymore?"

"Because it's still in me," she insists, pulling away a little. "And it can all be taken away and I'm back on that fucking beach overdosing by myself. And what if I have a kid and it goes back with me, huh? I can't want too much because either I'm going to ruin it or it's going to get taken away."

"I can't talk to you if you're just gonna keep giving me this," Danny admits, looking (and sounding) lost. He settles back on the bed with his back against the wall and his arms draped around his bent knees. "You're making excuses because you're scared, I get it. I just don't see where you're getting your proof from, because your behavior here is decent."

"I don't need proof," she argues weakly as she slowly deflates. He's right. What he says makes sense. But it doesn't make her feel any better about this.

"I just don't want to disappoint you guys. I don't want you to go away."

"I'm not going anywhere until this place sends me." Sure, he doesn't exactly sound giddy about it, but there it is. "You seriously don't want his kids that much? I mean, here I am, hating that I can't have more and you just won't even consider it?"

"I'm pretty sure you aren't allowed to use my uterus just so you can get babysit," she says, huffing out a laugh. "Plus if I had one, you might just take off with it."

"Nah, it'd be your kid," he admits and it hurts, but it's the truth (god, is it the truth). "I'd just want to help and babysit and then mope a helluva lot when I had to come home to ...well, Steve and a dog."

"You'd probably end up growing a pair of ovaries, anyway," she points out, heading still pillowed on his bare shoulder. She's a little sad she's not fully able to appreciate shirtless Danny, actually.

"I mean I'm pretty sure you're almost there already."

Danny scowls heavily and wraps his arm around her again to coax her in, fidgeting with his sweats. "Do not even fucking remind me," he says, clearly more than a little pissed off. "Steve thinks I'm the girl in this thing."

"He does not," she snorts, even though it's possible he kind of does. Because Danny kind of is.

"Did he tell you that or did you use your brilliant deductive skills?"

"People keep telling the truth, remember?" he says and it's just a little snide and dark because god help him, he didn't like to hear that one come out of Steve's lips. "We're all forgiven, but yeah, yeah, he says of the two of us, I'm the girl."

Rachel bites down on a grin, not for the last time glad that she's still able to lie.

"You're both very manly men," she assures him, reaching out to pluck at a chest hair. "And neither one of you is the girl. I mean, do you think he's the girl?"

"Are you kidding me? Steve? He's the most manly guy I know," Danny mutters, swatting at her hand when it goes to his chest. "Don't," he warns, considering that there's a lot of hair there and the last thing he needs is for her to start pulling at all of it.

But hey, Steve likes it, and that's under threat of truth. "It's just all the picking me up crap," he mutters. "And I guess because I cook better than him, but he still cooks, too."

And yeah...she just can't keep holding it in. She starts to shake a little, trying to hold in the laughter, trying and failing to cover it up with a cough.

"He pick you up a lot?"

Danny glowers at her, so thoroughly pissed off with the world as a whole at this particular moment. "He picks me up more than is actually necessary. Anytime he gets in the mood, he says he's too impatient to wait for me to catch up. Besides, it's mostly the caveman over the shoulder thing. You know, most of the time."

"Sounds kind of hot to me," she says, poking at his tiny waist.

"Come on, admit it. You think it's hot. You think it's a little hot."