FIC: Another Saturday Night
Another Saturday Night
Fandom: Hot Fuzz
Rating: PG
Pairing: You know, like in the movie.
Spoilers: Present.
Disclaimer: All characters herein belong to their respective owners, none of which are me.
Summary: It's hard on a fella, when he don't know his way around.
'Do you want a HobNob?' is the first thing he hears. 'I left you some for when you woke up.'
'No, thank you,' he manages, and tries to remember how he got here.
It has to do, he recalls, with boxes. Ah yes, he's quite clear on that.
He's less clear about how he wound up half-curled on his side on Danny's sofa, sound asleep for the first time in weeks, his head pillowed on Danny's lap. The collection of empty beer cans and biscuits on the coffee table, however, flickering in the low light of the television, appears to be the likely culprit.
On the screen, Bruce Willis dodges an oddly silent hail of sub-machine gunfire.
'You didn't have to mute it,' Angel says.
He can feel Danny shrug. '"C'mon hotshot, show me that smiling face,"' Bruce Willis snarls abruptly, in a West Country accent.
'Oh.'
It has to do with boxes in his cottage. He's been there a month, long enough for spring to give way to summer, long enough for Danny to get out of hospital, thank god. Not nearly long enough to do something so straightforward as find some means of storage and unpack. He hasn't had the need, he tells himself. He knows precisely where everything is: his shaving kit here, his clean linen there; the remainder stacked neatly into a minimum of space. It's simple, it's efficient, and he's quite certain he can't stand it any longer.
So taking Danny up on his offer of the third Die Hard film after the pub closed seemed like a good idea at the time. It occurs to him now that taking cover on a sofa in the middle of the night is a distinctly undignified way to confront the situation, but between the mellowing effects of several beers and Danny's hand rubbing patient circles on his back, easing the last of the tension from his shoulders, he can't for once entirely bring himself to care.
A helicopter ignites and explodes soundlessly in a brilliant display of pyrotechnics, fiery shrapnel raining down in a deadly shower over a square-block radius.
'Boom,' Danny supplies helpfully.
It's not the sensation of being uprooted, as he thought when he first got on the train out of London; it's the cold hard realisation that he possibly never had anything to uproot in the first place. It's enough to keep you up nights, or even an entire series of nights, out here in the countryside with nothing to keep you company but the crickets, your own thoughts, and the contents of your life wrapped in cardboard packages everywhere, waiting vainly to be let out.
Bruce Willis laughs, and Samuel L. Jackson with him. Angel guesses he's missed pretty much everything after the first twenty-odd minutes, but he's watched enough of these things by now to recognise an ending quip when he sees one. Danny's hand has gone still, resting warm against his side.
'What time is it?' Angel asks. He was right: credits begin to scroll, small letters on a black screen plunging the room into even deeper shadows.
'Half one.'
'It's late.'
'It is.'
'I should go.'
'Right, then,' Danny says agreeably, and neither of them makes a move.
Boxes, Angel thinks. It was easy to forget them in the dark, but they're everywhere here, too, in haphazard teetering piles, their contents spilling over: comic books, a toolbox, a chocolate-coloured jumper (at least, he hopes it's chocolate-coloured). An old folded quilt nestles incongruously amongst them, patterned with faded roses. It's hopelessly jumbled, it's sprawling, it probably qualifies as some sort of fire hazard.
It's nothing at all like his place, and yet somehow, he realises, it's almost exactly the same.
'So,' Danny says at last. 'Which film do you want to sleep through next?'
Fandom: Hot Fuzz
Rating: PG
Pairing: You know, like in the movie.
Spoilers: Present.
Disclaimer: All characters herein belong to their respective owners, none of which are me.
Summary: It's hard on a fella, when he don't know his way around.
'Do you want a HobNob?' is the first thing he hears. 'I left you some for when you woke up.'
'No, thank you,' he manages, and tries to remember how he got here.
It has to do, he recalls, with boxes. Ah yes, he's quite clear on that.
He's less clear about how he wound up half-curled on his side on Danny's sofa, sound asleep for the first time in weeks, his head pillowed on Danny's lap. The collection of empty beer cans and biscuits on the coffee table, however, flickering in the low light of the television, appears to be the likely culprit.
On the screen, Bruce Willis dodges an oddly silent hail of sub-machine gunfire.
'You didn't have to mute it,' Angel says.
He can feel Danny shrug. '"C'mon hotshot, show me that smiling face,"' Bruce Willis snarls abruptly, in a West Country accent.
'Oh.'
It has to do with boxes in his cottage. He's been there a month, long enough for spring to give way to summer, long enough for Danny to get out of hospital, thank god. Not nearly long enough to do something so straightforward as find some means of storage and unpack. He hasn't had the need, he tells himself. He knows precisely where everything is: his shaving kit here, his clean linen there; the remainder stacked neatly into a minimum of space. It's simple, it's efficient, and he's quite certain he can't stand it any longer.
So taking Danny up on his offer of the third Die Hard film after the pub closed seemed like a good idea at the time. It occurs to him now that taking cover on a sofa in the middle of the night is a distinctly undignified way to confront the situation, but between the mellowing effects of several beers and Danny's hand rubbing patient circles on his back, easing the last of the tension from his shoulders, he can't for once entirely bring himself to care.
A helicopter ignites and explodes soundlessly in a brilliant display of pyrotechnics, fiery shrapnel raining down in a deadly shower over a square-block radius.
'Boom,' Danny supplies helpfully.
It's not the sensation of being uprooted, as he thought when he first got on the train out of London; it's the cold hard realisation that he possibly never had anything to uproot in the first place. It's enough to keep you up nights, or even an entire series of nights, out here in the countryside with nothing to keep you company but the crickets, your own thoughts, and the contents of your life wrapped in cardboard packages everywhere, waiting vainly to be let out.
Bruce Willis laughs, and Samuel L. Jackson with him. Angel guesses he's missed pretty much everything after the first twenty-odd minutes, but he's watched enough of these things by now to recognise an ending quip when he sees one. Danny's hand has gone still, resting warm against his side.
'What time is it?' Angel asks. He was right: credits begin to scroll, small letters on a black screen plunging the room into even deeper shadows.
'Half one.'
'It's late.'
'It is.'
'I should go.'
'Right, then,' Danny says agreeably, and neither of them makes a move.
Boxes, Angel thinks. It was easy to forget them in the dark, but they're everywhere here, too, in haphazard teetering piles, their contents spilling over: comic books, a toolbox, a chocolate-coloured jumper (at least, he hopes it's chocolate-coloured). An old folded quilt nestles incongruously amongst them, patterned with faded roses. It's hopelessly jumbled, it's sprawling, it probably qualifies as some sort of fire hazard.
It's nothing at all like his place, and yet somehow, he realises, it's almost exactly the same.
'So,' Danny says at last. 'Which film do you want to sleep through next?'