dann_0 | PSL: Sentinel AU

Having moved into a forward position, his elbows are on his knees and his head is in his hands. He's messed things up badly, will be lucky if they can salvage any kind of friendship out of this, but still he sees no other way forward.

When the door opens he raises his head and opens his eyes. The pupils are pin-sized and all he really sees is two humanoid shadows in the light. He doesn't need to see them though, he knows exactly who they are. For a moment he just glares at them.

He's tired, he's hurting in every which way and he doesn't have the energy to fight this. It allows him to be more forthcoming than he normally would. Maybe once he tells them they'll understand and leave him the hell alone to start figuring this shit out for himself.

"I can't do it. I can't go back." Lower his eyes to the floor he shakes his head. When he speaks it's directed at Eliot. He's already tried to explain this to Danny and the other man just couldn't seem to understand, maybe Eliot being a sentinel he'll have better luck. "I thought if we were equals... That it'd be doable. That we could manage it. But we're not. You're the boyfriend. I need to be the friend but... I can't..." He can't go back to just being just friends. He had too much of Danny, more than he had a right too, and he hadn't thought about the future, now, when he allowed them to get closer. And now he needs that closeness, craves it with all of his being. Maybe if he had time, a chance to distance himself a little bit. A chance to get over Danny. But this, trying to do it like this, he just couldn't do it. "If I need to figure this out on my own he can't be at arm's reach."

Danny jumps and tries to protest when Eliot leads him back inside the office. He opens his mouth to protest at Steve but when the other speaks he falls silent. He's losing Steve, he can tell and it hurts so damn much he doesn't really know what to say.

"I love you both, you idiot. You're equal to me." He says quietly. He glances at Eliot. He knows Eliot doesn't want to hear this and that this might cost him both his boyfriend and his best friend. "That moment just now, where I had you both and ... I've never felt like that, never felt that whole and complete. Or rather only one time before and that was when I held Grace for the first time. I.. " He wants to say needs but he knows asking that is too much. "I want you both, as equals in every way."

Eliot's prepared to tell Steve to get his damn head out of his ass and take the help that's offered, he's even prepared to point out exactly why he knows things can't change between Steve and Danny. He's not prepared for Danny's little speech, though, and he freezes, blood running cold. Danny might mean it, or think he does--Eliot can hear it in his heart rate, smell the earnest sincerity on him--but that doesn't mean there's any way in hell it can work. There's only one way it can end, and for all that his heart rate and his hands stay steady Eliot's scent washes through with misery and pain and loss.

"Okay, you-" He points at Steve, expression flat and hard. "Are gonna pull your head outa your god damn ass an' take the help he's offering," he snarls, and he gives Danny a little shove--gentle, even now, but forceful enough to get the job done--towards Steve. "An' once you got your head screwed on straight he needs t'know what we've been doin' an' why." That's the most important part right now, and he stares balefully at Steve, silently demanding that he get his shit together enough to deal with that properly... and then he backs out the door and pulls it shut behind him, and this time when he turns and starts walking he doesn't slow down or stop.

He's got his wallet in his pocket, he can pay for a cab to get him to the airport and catch a flight home. Maybe he'll stop and buy a new phone along the way, he'll need a new number anyway, and there's nothing else in the duffel he's left behind in Danny's office that can't be replaced or that he isn't better off without. A clean break will be best.

Steve shakes his head at Danny's words. It's clear what the other man wants, Danny has been saying it repeatedly, but the problem is in order for him to have that, both he and Eliot have to function in a way that neither are built to do. He's been trying to tell him that for the last couple of days but Danny just doesn't seem to understand. Maybe Eliot can communicate it better than Steve can cause he's in no shape right now to keep trying.

His hearing is still messed up but tone and cadence are coming through loud and clear. What he heard in Eliot's voice carried a sense of finality to it. Closing his eyes, his chin drops to his chest. This isn't what he wants. He was much happier with the idea that he'd have to back out completely then have Eliot leave. Steve would go after him himself, but there's no way he's able to do that either.

"If you don't go after him now, you're not going to be able to later."

Danny doesn't need Steve confirming what he already knows. He also knows Steve will be there later. He trusts the man to do that for him. Eliot, he is not so sure about. So he nods and then hurries after Eliot. "Eliot. Wait. Please." He hurries to catch up with him. He doesn't know what to do, and he is terrified at the thought of losing either one of the two sentinels. Terrified of what they might do to themselves or others.

"Eliot, please. Please don't go. Please, can we talk about it, all three of us?" He reaches out, trying to pull Eliot close. "I love you. And I am not ready to lose you." If Eliot will let him he'll try to kiss him, trying to pour every bit of emotion he has into that.

Eliot hears Danny coming after him, but he neither stops nor hurries his steps. He doesn't react at all until Danny's voice breaks the aching silence and then he stops, head up and shoulders tense, but doesn't turn around. Doesn't move at all until he has to sidestep to evade Danny's effort to grab hold of him, because he can't do that, not when he knows he has to walk away.

"You need t'not do this, sweetheart," Eliot rasps, and he does at least turn to face him. His expression is just as flat and blank as it had been in Danny's office, concealing just as much loss and pain. "You don't know me well enough t'love me." He shakes his head and takes a half-step back, because he can't be that close and not reach for him. Not want him. "I'm not a lovable man... hell, I'm not even a good man. Maybe I'm just the kick in the shorts you needed t'sort your shit out with the man you actually know an' love."

Edited 2017-06-13 05:14 (UTC)

"I don't care if you're not a good man by whatever definition you go by. You're the man I am in love with. You're good for me. You're not 'just' anything. You're so much more. I love you." But the way Eliot is avoiding him hits him like punches. "But I can't be the only one fighting for this. I ... You're both pushing me away and I don't know what the fuck to do. I am sorry I am fucked up. I am sorry I can't just pick one. But I can't. If I do, I... " It would break his heart and he'd never feel whole again. "I need you. I need him."

Eliot visibly flinches, like Danny's words are body blows, and when he folds his arms over his chest it's unmistakably defensive. "The only one fightin' for this? Darlin', you need t'be thanking whatever god you believe in that you are the only one fightin' for this. 'Cause you've seen what it looks like when I fight for you, an' you don't want your boy back there added to the body count."

His hands flex into white knuckled fists and he looks away, his stern mask crumbling, but only far enough to melt into a scowl. "He can't do this on his own," he points out quietly. "You live with him, you work with him, you love him, he's your damn family. An' he can't do this without you." That much is clear. Steve has no idea how to cope without a Guide, where Eliot's survived almost half a lifetime on his own. He knows he won't make it much longer, but that's beside the point and it's not something he'll lay on Danny. Not now.

He presses a hand to the ache in his chest, the coiling heat of a bond so close to forming like a physical pressure behind his breastbone. But he makes himself take another half-step back, because the alternative is to step closer, and he's only got so much self-control. "You need t'let me walk away while I still can, sweetheart. 'Cause I ain't seeing any way to make this work when you've got everything you need an' want right here an' I'll never be closer than a ten hour flight away."

Danny licks his lips and nods. He knows Steve needs him. And he knows Eliot does too. But Eliot is right. Steve has no idea how to handle being on his own and unlike Eliot he is still on the military's radar. But that doesn't mean that Danny wants to let go of Eliot. "I am trying to make it work. I want it to work. I..." Eliot's words tears at his last defenses. "He says the same thing. That he doesn't think it can work because you can give me everything he can't." He sighs.

"I love you. I want you. Life here without you will never have everything I want and need. You're both asking me to pick the other and I don't want to pick. I need you both. Please. Please, Eliot can we talk about it? Go home all three of us and talk about what's going on." He takes a step back too. "Unless you don't want this to work?"

Eliot lifts one hand to scrub across his face and huffs a tired, bitter laugh. "Not want it t'work?" He shakes his head and doesn't look back up at Danny. "I wasn't pullin' your leg when I said there's never been anything I wanted more." He looks up then, his expression strained and pinched, tense enough that it doesn't take someone with a Guide's or Sentinel's sensitivities to see how tightly wound and barely controlled he is. "Except for you t'be safe, an' happy, an' for this t'not blow up in your damn face." It's as close as he can let himself get to telling Danny that he loves him too. Loves him enough that it's more important to him that Danny be safe, and happy, than it is that he be with him.

"We're possessive, sweetheart. Possessive an' over-protective as hell, an' if I get any further into this I'm not gonna be able t'back off. I'm not gonna be able t'walk away an' wish you the best."

Danny swallows. He doesn't really have an answer to the possessiveness after what he just saw. He licks his lips. "I... There was a moment in there where you both seemed happy." But maybe that had just been him projecting. Had it? Damn, he wasn't sure.

"Losing you means it already has blown up." He sighs. "You think you're too possessive to ever being able to share with him and be happy? I want to try to make you both happy, but if all it will result in is you both being hurt... That's why I want to talk to you both at the same time. We need to be on the same page."

"He was zoned, sweetheart," Eliot points out quietly. "An' when he started t'come out of it and realized he wasn't alone with you-" Well, Eliot doesn't think he really needs to say more than that, the reaction had been pretty clear.

"As for the rest-" He shakes his head and looks away again, and he just looks tired, now. Tired and sad. "I don't like the idea of anyone else touching you like that, but... but I knew goin' into this I didn't get that choice." He's not the one who'd even asked Danny to keep his clothes on with Steve, he hadn't been willing to take the risk of pushing, of making himself more trouble than the one thing he could give Danny that he wasn't getting from Steve was worth. If he doesn't have even that edge he can't see how he has enough to offer to make the distance and separation worth it.

"I don't know what t'tell you, darlin'. I don't know if I can do that, an' I think the odds are slim t'none that he can."

"He was confused. He doesn't trust you yet. But he can if you give him time. But he is not here. We're making a lot of assumptions on what he feels or thinks or is willing to do." He pauses and looks at Eliot. "You have the right to ask for it. You have just as much rights here as anyone else. I just don't know if I can give that to you, the same way I don't know if I can give it to him."

"Can we just please not do anything rushed? Come back inside, talk to him, talk about this. At the very least come get your things and say a proper good bye?"

"What he wants t'do is push you out of his life an' go it alone," Eliot points out quietly, his voice almost painfully steady and even. "He made that pretty damn clear. An' it's just as clear that neither of you can function that way." Eliot scrubs a hand through his hair and then tucks them both into his pockets when he realizes he's having trouble controlling the shaking. "I can't get in the middle'a that, sweetheart. I can't get even deeper into this an' then have to walk away, 'cause he can't share you an' you can't give him up."

Edited 2017-06-13 18:28 (UTC)

Danny looks down. "I know. And... And I won't ask you to. If either of you can't share we'll call this off. But he is pulling back because he thinks you want him to. Because he thinks you can't share. I... " Danny's voice breaks a little and he turns. Trying to hide the pain as best he can. "Please, please Eliot I am begging you. Don't leave."

"Christ," Eliot mutters under his breath, because even if Danny didn't suck at hiding his pain it wouldn't really matter, not with how hyper-focused Eliot's senses are on him at all times. There's no way he can miss it in his voice or posture or expression or scent, no way he can fail to notice how his misery is building and compounding.

"C'mere, sweetheart," he rasps, and reaches out to hook a shaking hand into the front of Danny's shirt and pull him close enough to wrap his arms around him. "I don't see how what you're askin' for can work," he murmurs into Danny's hair, and knows he shouldn't have let himself touch because there's no way he'll be able to make himself let go and walk away again right now. "Just remember that no matter what happens you're not gonna end up alone, okay?" Because he knows Steve won't be able to walk away from him without Eliot in the picture, and once Danny's over the initial grief and hurt of this whole shit show he's sure that'll be enough.

Danny sighs into the hug, just pure and utter contentment. He leans up enough to press a kiss to Eliot's neck. Just a soft quick one. "I am asking for a lot. I know that. I know I am being greedy. I just... I can't explain it." He sighs. "I guess I suck at this being a guide thing."

Then he moves just enough that he can meet Eliot's eyes. "You'll stay? At least for a bit?" He is trying to give Eliot the biggest puppy eyes he can manage.

Eliot shudders at the soft press of lips, and his fingers curl just a little tighter in the back of Danny's shirt. He's not entirely sure he's going to survive losing this, but he figures it'll be okay so long as he knows Danny's taken care of.

"For a bit," he concedes reluctantly, but there's no way he could say no at this point. "You gotta go take care'a your Sentinel now, though." And walking back in there with him might be enough to bow this all to hell badly enough that even Danny will have to admit it can't work.

"One of my Sentinels... Though that doesn't exactly sound good, does it?" He takes Eliot's hand with a smile and leads him back to the palace. Once they get to the five o offices he smiles back at Eliot.

"Hey, Steve. Eliot came back, you alright with him being here?" He figures he should give his partner a heads up as he heads towards his office. Hopefully, he can get them both to agree to head back to Steve's place. Somewhere more relaxed and then they can talk. At this point that is all he is hoping for.

Steve hasn't left Danny's office. Actually he hasn't even left Danny's couch, or moved from the position he was in when Danny last saw him. Instead he'd been sitting there trying not to think about the mess things had turned into while trying to get his senses back into something he could work with and get the pounding behind his eyes to calm down, even just a little bit. He wasn't succeeding on the pounding, or the nausea, but he could see and hear more clearly, so that was a start.

And, he could actually hear and understand the words that Danny yelled out to him. Truth be told, he hadn't expected them to return. He figured either Eliot had made it far enough out that Danny had to chase him off the property, or they'd had a blow out and Danny continued leaving as he was before Eliot had dragged him back. The possibility he had hoped for, that Danny was able to convince Eliot not to go, hadn't included them returning. He's not so certain he's happy that they have, after all, it's likely going to lead to more arguing and he really isn't up for that.

Clearing his throat, he raises his voice to call out, "Good!" He figured Danny asked the question for Eliot's benefit so he adds as much positivity he can to his voice. "You know that I am!" Turning his head he waits for them to both appear in Danny's doorway. "Welcome back. Danny, you still keep a bottle of Advil in your desk?"

Edited 2017-06-14 05:06 (UTC)

"It sounds like wishful thinking," he points out, but it's mild, no bite to it. He doesn't like the idea of bursting Danny's bubble, but it really doesn't seem like a realistic expectation. Not when he has Steve right here, clearly wanting everything Eliot has with him and a hell of a lot more capable of delivering on it. But he lets Danny twine their fingers together and tow him along, telling himself it's okay to enjoy whatever he can get for however long he can get it.

"How 'bout you go help him an' I'll dig up the Advil if you tell me where to find it," he suggests, giving Danny's hand a quick squeeze then dropping it.

Danny nods. "Middle drawer, near the back. There is water out in the main office too." He gives Eliot a warm smile, feeling thankful that the other Sentinel is willing to help. He moves over and settles next to Steve, reaching out and giving him a proper look over. "A headache? What set that off?" He looks Steve over for any injuries, more out of habit than anything else since his partner seems to get shot at all the time. "I was thinking we could all go back to the house, relax a little and just talk about this. You down for that? Or maybe after you've slept for a bit?"

Steve offers a smile to Eliot. "Thank you." He means for coming back more than for getting the medicine.

"Three year old at the restaurant this morning. Who knew kids could screech that loud?!" Steve hadn't known. That wasn't something Gracie did even when she was upset or over-tired. Granted she was also older. "She wasn't breathing so I focused in on her..." He expects Danny can figure out the rest. The child's screaming wasn't solely why he's in the state he's in now and he expects Danny knows that to. Not sleeping the last several nights and besides a couple of hours on Thursday, he'd been without physical contact from his guide for almost a week. Plus the stress of the Charlie situation which Danny didn't know about yet. It all adds up and was more than what he was used to dealing with on his own, even if he was determined to adjust. "Wasn't doing too bad until we got back here. Something set me off as soon as I walked into your office. A scent..." He looks around and then sniffs but his sense are still off and nothing is glaringly obvious.

Thinking about Danny's proposal for a moment he then nods. "Yeah we can do that." Sleeping sounds like a good idea, but then he thinks about Grace and her wanting to see him for dinner. Sleep will have to wait for now. "Think Kono will keep Grace for a couple of hours? At least until we've had a chance to talk." He's aware of Eliot's concerns around meeting the little girl.

Eliot nods acknowledgment of the thanks but doesn't answer as he pulls the drawer open and retrieves the bottle. He gets the lid open so Steve won't have to possibly struggle with it when he's not firing on all cylinders and passes it over, then disappears back out of the office in search of water. He doesn't need to stay there to hear what Steve's saying, after all. It also means he's not there for either man to see the way he grimaces when Steve mentions not knowing what scent set him off.

He pads back in and offers Steve the glass of water, then backs away a few steps as he finishes talking about one of their coworkers keeping Grace for a while so they can talk. "Pretty sure I know what set you off," he offers when Steve's done, because he might as well just get that over with. It might be proves to Danny that this isn't going to work.

"I am pretty sure I overheard some talk of a girl's day so I think she should be good. I'll make it up to her." He smiles and gently urges Steve to take the pills Eliot provides. "There you go. It'll be better soon and yes they have some pretty impressive lungs when they are throwing a tantrum. Often it is just to get what they want."

Danny looks up at Eliot when he mentions his suspicion, raising an eyebrow. But he doesn't move, instead, he just strokes Steve's back gently. "Yeah? Is there something wrong in the office?"

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