haolehothead | (no subject)

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- game: tabula rasa

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He doesn't have that long.

By all rights, Danny shouldn't have left the hut at all, but standing there with all that silence and staring at Esther's arm only brought him back to thoughts of Steve, who's packed a bag of his things and has gone -- well, fuck knows where the hell he's gone, but he's not at home anymore and it's just so painfully much like the final days with Rachel that Danny's on autopilot.

Instead of a seedy motel, though, he heads for a friend. At least he's improved as far as good choices go. Without even knowing how much time has passed, Danny finds himself at Neil's doorstep. His hand hovers in front of the door, but he can't knock. Instead, he sags down and sits in front of Neil's house in shock and the kind of horror that accompanies a fight like this.

What the fuck is happening to his life, that's what he wants to know.

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I nearly trip the fuck over him.

I opened the door to let the dogs out, all three of them darting out into the yard with me behind, and I don't even notice that he's sitting there 'til I'm practically on top of him.

"Shit, man. What the hell?"

Jesus, since when did Neil have that many dogs? Have they been multiplying under his nose without him realizing it? Which is not the point of right now. Right now is about being with a friend for a little while before he has to head home and face his life. "Neil, hey," Danny greets tiredly. "I realize this is going to sound blunt, but do you wanna go get tipsy-drunk?"

"Tipsy-drunk?" I say, giving him a look as I move down a step, my hand resting on his shoulder.

"I got booze in the house. You wanna come in?"

"Honestly, that's the best idea I've heard all day," Danny says wearily, making his way to his feet and wandering inside now that he's been invited, making a home for himself on one of the couch cushions before he remembers the dogs. "Shit," he says. "Sorry, I blanked. Lemme help you out with the animals, first." At least it'd take his mind off of this shit.

"They're fine, man. They won't go far," I say, heading back inside and grabbing a bottle of booze and two glasses from the kitchen. Sitting down beside him, I pour a couple inches in each glass and hand one over.

"You gotta tell me what's goin' on, man. You're startin' to freak me out."

"I kicked Steve out of the house," Danny says. The words don't even sound real to his own head. They're fake words and he's not even sure that he wants to say them out loud. Danny takes the alcohol into his hand, mouthing a murmured 'thanks' to Neil. "He and Esther got into a fight and it got -- it got physical," he says, lines around his eyes tense. "He hurt her."

"What?" I say, forgetting about the drink in my hand for a moment. "I... Shit, man. Are you sure? I mean..."

I don't know Steve all that well, but I can't imagine him getting in a fight with a nine year old.

"What do you mean physical?"

Danny's so fucking tired of thinking about this. He doesn't want to believe that Steve's capable of it, but he's seen what happens when Steve's patience is shot. He's seen it when it comes to himself, even. "Her arm," he says, voice sounding thin. "Bruised, fractured, I don't even know, Neil, it's all a buzz right now in my head, it's all noise," he says. "I don't want to believe it happened, but I got a twinge in my own shoulder from the time Steve twisted my arm around." And that's enough, just enough, to plant a seed of doubt in his mind.

"You're a grown fucking man. She's a fuckin' nine-year-old. How is that-- Look, nevermind, I... Jesus," I say, the wheels in my head sticking, rusting up, fucking refusing to make sense of this, 'cause what the fuck.

I think about something like this happening to one of my girls and a cold, hard knot settles in the pit of my stomach.

"Where is she? Is she okay?"

He doesn't want to think any of this, doesn't want to even trust the little voice in his mind that wants to remind him of all the times Steve's been a little too free with violence with men and women back home, wants to believe Steve would never do that to a kid, not to his kid, but Danny doesn't know what kind of tempers were flaring. "She's at the Children's Office. I needed some time to think, I needed...I needed to figure this out and I still can't, so I informed Steve to leave the house."

"Neil, I don't fucking know. If he didn't do it, then why would she lie about that? Her arm's pretty messed up and she gets this fearful look on her face, sometimes, when I mention Steve. Do I ... am I ... am I missing something? Have I been blind to this?"

"I dunno, man. I don't really know her. I mean, she's weird, but everybody's fuckin' weird around here," I shrug, even though I know the kinds of lengths a kid might go to get attention. None of us really know where she came from, what kind of shit she's been through.

"I did... some really fucked up shit when I was her age. Like, really fucked up shit. I mean, I'm not sayin' not to trust her, I'm just sayin', it's gotta be tough, settling into a new family, when she's got whatever the fuck kind of baggage she's carrying. Tough on everybody."

Tough on Steve. Maybe tough enough that he might've just... snapped.

Danny rubs at his face and downs the alcohol in a swift swallow, staring at the empty dregs of it and thinking about how he'd kicked Steve out of the house, convinced it had been the right thing to do because it had been, right? It's safer this way until he can figure out what's going on. "Neil, I'm feeling kind of lost, here. I don't know what I'm supposed to do."

"I can't... I can't tell you what to do, man. I think, maybe, you did the only thing you could do, right now. Keep some distance between 'em, and talk to both of 'em. I just... I mean, this is really fucked up," I say with a cough of a sound that isn't even close to laughter.

"If it was Mack and Flo, you'd be damned sure I'd kick him the fuck out. But I'd still wanna know why the hell it'd happened. I mean, what did he say?"

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