If It's Not Rough It Isn't Fun

[intheheart]

Title: If It's Not Rough it Isn't Fun
Rating: R, for swearing.
Summary: Danny and Lars in fifteen AUs.
Warnings: emotional abuse, character death, violence and threats of violence, mention of being set on fire, death by disease.
AU: Phase Crossover, EPIC PIRATE AU, Marriage, Wild West, Fairy Tales, IN SPAAAACE, Secrets, Sisters, Apocalyptic, Sociopathic Besties, Poly AU, Urban Fantasy, Reality, Superhero. Whew.
Notes: Please let me know if I've missed a warning. I can't help but feel as if I have.


1. olives

"That's such a fucking girly drink," Angie observed of Danny's apple martini.

"Fuck you," Danny replied, amiably. "If I want to drink a liquid Jolly Rancher, I'll fucking drink a liquid Jolly Rancher. How's your sex life?"

Angie kicked her under the table, though not very hard—from him it was the equivalent of an affectionate ruffle of the hair. "Same as always, what do you think. What about you, banging that bartender yet?"

Danny rolled her eyes. "I keep telling you, he's not into me. Or if he is, he damn well shouldn't be."

Angie shrugged. "Rayne shouldn't be interested in me," he pointed out, with annoyingly good logic. "And yet she is."

"Rayne's crazy," Danny said, because she was. "Lars isn't. Not that being crazy's bad," she added.

"Fuck that, being crazy sucks," Angie said, and they both drank to that. "But seriously, fishhead. Hit that. Hit it hard. Hit like the fist of a fucking angry god."

Danny snorted into her martini. "Not sure he'd survive."

"At least he'd go out happy."



2. capers

It was kind of hilarious, watching the new hires catch on.

No one would hire on to the Bedrock Drift and not be more or less fine with sodomy, not with Ivy as the captain and Gina as her very obvious lover. Most of them, when faced with someone named Lars sleeping with someone named Danny, came to the obvious conclusion: they were both men, just as the captain and her lover were both women, and no one had better comment on either relationship if they valued their private bits.

Nor did Danny go to any great effort to disabuse them of the impression. She rather liked being thought a boy, apparently—didn't want to be one, but didn't mind being thought one. Which Lars was rather grateful for. He was sure there were men who enjoyed the company of other men, and he wished them well, but he wasn't one himself.

Not that any of it mattered, when he was with Danny. Everything was a shock to her, a thrill, a leaping bared-teeth plunge into icy water, yelling all the way down. She scrubbed the deck with the same manic, angry enthusiasm that she fought, or swore, or fucked with.

There was pain in her past, and anger, and a deep, endless well of grief that he only glimpsed on very rare occasions, those rare times when she slowed down enough to allow herself to feel. And what of it? There was pain in his past too, and anger, and grief.

They dealt well enough together. That was all that mattered.




3. cucumbers

It was the goddamn cucumbers that did it.

That was just the weirdest goddamn thing to end a marriage, but it was the cucumbers nonetheless. The cucumbers, and their bedroom was too hot, and Lars tended to sleep with one arm over her so she woke up stifled and trapped, breathing heavily into her arm to try and calm herself down.

So she was chopping cucumbers because fuck, she needed something to eat, and Lars came in and took one without asking and the next thing she knew she was screaming at him, her face hot, her grip so tight on the handle of the knife that her knuckles stood out pale and bloodless. He was screaming back and she almost threw something at him, almost picked up a plate and winged it at his head, but then she blinked and saw herself and Michael huddled in a bed, their parents screaming downstairs, and she knew bone deep that it would never, ever get better.

She put down the knife, carefully, and told Lars she'd see him in the morning, and packed her things, and was gone by midnight.

It was the only thing she could do for either of them.



4. green tomatoes

Danny didn't believe in staying in one place, but that was okay, because neither did Lars. It was sort of nice to love someone like that, to never have to fear that she'd be tied down because he hated it every bit as much as she did.

"It's not that I don't love my family," he'd told her one day, on a mountaintop far away from everything else, "it's just that I get along with them better at a very large distance." And Danny could understand that, really she could. She'd been along with him a time or two when he went to visit him, and the noise and tumble of them, the excessive overflowing love, yes, she could see very much why he chose to stay out in the wilderness where the only things that overflowed were rivers.

She'd told him in return about Michael, happily settled in his own skin, and about her family; her father who'd left, her mother who'd stayed, and the terrible grinding friction between them, the aching unhappiness that pushed them all down. Families, they concluded, were better when you didn't need them, but wanted them anyway.

Or better, maybe, she thought when looking at him, when they didn't need you, but wanted you anyway.

She'd never really know which was which.



5. cabbage

The man looked big but not too big, strong but not too strong, and Danny thought she could take him. More importantly, he had food, and she was hungry, so very hungry. She hated cabbage but there was a point at which you no longer cared what food went into your mouth, exactly, so long as something did.

Michael was safe, at least, she had that comfort.

She crouched low in the bushes, her hand on her knife, staring at the cabbage soup boiling over the fire. In and out, crack the man over the head with the hilt of her knife and snatch the pot and run and with any luck, in half an hour there might be dinner, if she didn't spill too much of it...

"You might as well come out," the man said, and she jumped, losing her balance. "I'm not the best person to be robbing."

...well, what the hell, not like she had anything to lose but her life, and that wasn't too valuable.

Danny came out of the bushes and eyed him warily. "You heard me."

"Smelled you," he said, looking her up and down briefly before returning to the fire. "Don't ask. You're older than I expected. Most of the people who try to rob me are stupid kids."

Danny stared at him, and surriptitiously tried to sniff her shoulder. Well, she needed a wash, but... "I'm hungry," she said, and shrugged. "That doesn't change when you get older."

"Guess not," he said, and gestured at a log. "Well, sit down and have something to eat then."

She stayed on her feet. "Why?" she demanded. "You know I was going to rob you, why're you going to feed me?"

He hesitated, then turned and looked her in the eye for the first time. "I suppose I'm lonely," he said. "I'm used to... to having a lot of people around. But I haven't seen my family in a long, long time."

She thought of Michael, and a quick pang squeezed her heart. "All right," she said. "I get that. I’m Danny."

He smiled at her. "I'm Lars."



6. radishes

"Here's what I don't get," Danny said, flourishing a spoon at him. Lars made a humming noise to show he was listening and went on stirring the soup for that night's dinner. "This is the future. We live on a goddamn space station. So why is it that half the time there's nothing but goddamn radishes to eat?"

"They're particularly responsive to the hydroponics system," Lars said, pleased with the soup's thickness. "They grow well, so we have a lot of them. You want more variety, live on a planet."

She shuddered, eloquently. "No, thank you. Planetside is so boring. How can people live in the same place all the time?"

"I believe they like routine." He leaned over, tasted the soup. Could use more salt.

"Not my thing," Danny said, decisively.

He smiled down into the soup, where she wouldn't see him. "Wouldn't like you half so much if it was."

"Awww." She blew him a kiss, and put the spoon down. "You're a dear."



7. eggs

"He has a whole new family," Danny said, and the dead sound of her own voice made her want to flinch. "Wife, two kids, house in the suburbs, everything's fucking perfect for him, Lars. He just dropped us, left us, went and found somebody else so he could have his perfect fucking life. God, this almost makes me feel bad for my fucking mother."

"Ouch," Lars said, his voice made slightly tinny by the cell phone's reception. "I'm sorry, Danny."

"And meanwhile Michael—" She couldn't say it, could barely even think it. "God, I want to kill him."

"There's good news about Michael," Lars said, and she stiffened. "Aaron's a match. I asked if he'd donate and he asked me why that was phrased as a question. So Michael's going to be okay."

Danny closed her eyes, slumped against the side of her rental car. "Thank God. Thank God."

Lars let her sit for a while, his breathing a comfortable, reassuring note on the other end, before he asked, "Do you want me to come down there?"

"No," she said, and stood up. "No. Never mind. Michael's going to be okay, we don't need our asshole father around. Let him have his perfect fucking life." His wife's stricken face flashed across her mind. "Somehow I don't think it'll be so perfect for long."

"What goes around comes around," Lars said. "Let me know when you're coming home and I'll pick you up at the airport."

And that was Lars all over; quiet, unassuming, there when she needed him. Her father had been none of that; forward and flashy and never there, not once, not as long as she could remember. She felt bad for his wife, that she'd married a man so completely unlike the way he presented himself, but now, at least, that woman could maybe start to move forward, make a new life for herself.

Maybe she could find a Lars of her own.



8. beets

"I'm breaking up with you," Lauren said, and Lars barely had time to flinch before she added, "because you should really be dating Danny."

He stared at her for a moment, then said, "But I'm dating you."

"Not anymore," she replied, with what he felt was an excessive amount of cheer given the situation. "Look, you and I both know that we're not in love. We had a lot of fun, but that's it. But you and Danny, you two could really get something going."

"She's not interested in me," Lars said, and realized half a second later that it was probably the wrong response.

Anyway, Lauren's smile only got bigger. "See, you say that now. Seriously. Ask Danny out, you will get a pleasant surprise."

"What about you?" he asked, completely at sea. "I... I mean, you're not mad?"

"No, why should I be? Relationships change and it isn't like you were cheating on me." Lauren shrugged. "Sometimes things don't work out. So we've been officially downgraded to friends, you can go hit on Danny like you want to, and I am going to sleep with Russell."

Russell? "Bad idea," Lars said, before he could stop himself.

"Terrible idea," Lauren said, looking positively gleeful. "Don't worry, I'm just going to fuck him until I find someone else to date. He won't mind, he never has before."

Lars was not even going to begin to unpack that sentence. He would rather begin forgetting it as soon as possible. "Okay, but... you're sure you're okay with this."

She rolled her eyes. "Positive. And if you're going to have a fit of self-effacement and decide she doesn't want you? Trust me, no one who stares at your ass as intently as Danny does isn't into you."

His cheeks flamed beet-red, and Lauren laughed again.

God, why did he even have these friends?



9. onions

"I'm not sick," Danny told him, holding on to his waist. "I'm not getting sick. I don't know why, but I'm not."

Lars coughed and turned his head into her shoulder. His breath smelled foul, but she could put up with that. She'd smelled worse. "That's good."

"Yeah." She readjusted her hold. "I guess. Um."

"Talk to me," he said, lips moving against the skin of her neck.

"Okay," she said, biting her own lip. "Lars, I don't... what do you want me to talk about?"

"Anything," he said, and coughed. Something warm and wet hit her neck, and she closed her eyes, refusing to look at it. "Just talk to me."

Oh, God. Oh, God, he was dying and she couldn't stop it. He smelled like death, like a wounded animal. Danny hugged him close against her, as if she could stop it in its tracks, fight it back.

She knew she couldn't.

"Okay," she said, her voice shaking only a little. "Talk. Well, did I ever tell you about this time in the Navy? I was on KP and they brought in this huge bushel of onions—"

Lars hummed into her neck and settled closer. Danny squeezed her eyes further shut, against the tears.

There was nothing she could do.



10. carrots

"So, uh," the girl said, and ruffled a hand through her hair. "Sorry about the whole. You know. Trying to kill you. Thing."

Lars shrugged. "No hard feelings," he said, politely. "I don't think you could kill me, actually. Not with a stake."

She raised an eyebrow. "Is that a challenge?"

"No!" He put his hands up, and managed to chase a smile across her face. "No, no, no challenge at all. Just that I'm troll-blood, and we tend to have very tough skin." He paused a moment, then, hoping for that smile again, added, "My sister's been known to break knives on her fingers."

He got it, and even a little laugh. "Well. Okay. Sorry again, really. I'm just new to this whole slayer thing."

"Ivy's second-gen," Lars said. "You're in good hands with her."

"Cool," the girl said, and shifted awkwardly on her feet.

They both spoke together.

"Do you want to get coffee sometime?"

"So uh, maybe I could give you my number?"

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Ivy muttered, from her corner. "Do I have to bang your heads together to get you to kiss?"

The girl flipped Ivy off.

Lars was beginning to like her very much.



11. ginger

"You're a hero, you know," Lars said sleepily, and it was all Danny could do not to kick him.

"Like hell I am," she said, instead, as sharply as she could. "I do this because I can, there's no other reason."

"Hmm." He rolled over, propped his chin on her hip. "And that makes you not a hero because..."

She opened her hands, lifted them. "I don't know. Heroes do this shit because... I dunno. Ivy does it because she thinks it's the right thing to do. She's not scared of anything."

"That," Lars said dryly, "is because Ivy is a reckless idiot, and you can tell her I said that."

"She'll set you on fire," Danny poined out.

"And you'll put me out again."

She would, too. Not that Ivy would actually set him on fire so as to hurt him—she could control the temperature, apparently—but Danny would put him out anyway, because there was water everywhere and she could use any of it. But she couldn't let Lars know that, it would sound too affectionate. "Yeah, if I feel like it."

"You will," he said, and patted her leg. "That's what makes you a hero."

"Sure," she said, and rolled her eyes. "Whatever."

It was really kind of warming to know he thought that. Even if he was wrong.



12. mango

Elisa had made friends with some guy on the show who'd gotten kicked off right before she did, and as soon as she was off, she made Lars drive her down to his apartment in the city. "I just want to hang out with him a bit," she told him. "He's nice, you know? Really chill. That's probably why he hung on as long as he did; people just couldn't get mad at him."

Lars guessed that made sense, but he fully expected to be hanging back the entire visit, trying to stay invisible while his sister and her friend caught up.

That went out the door as soon as Michael threw a casual nod at a blonde woman and said, "Oh, by the way, this is my sister, Danny."

She was sitting on the counter, legs swinging, juggling an orange, an apple, and what looked like a mango. As Elisa and Michael settled down on the couch and began gossiping about their fellow contestants, Lars sidled over towards her. "So, your brother, huh?"

"Yeah," she said, without taking her eyes off the flying fruit. "Your sister?"

"Yeah." He fiddled with the edge of his shirt for a minute. "I've got three. Sisters, I mean. And three brothers."

Her eyebrows went up, though she still did not look at him. "Big family."

"Yeah, I guess." He waited another moment. "So, do you..."

"Damn!" She missed the orange, and dropped the others in attempt to catch it. The orange rolled down to Michael, who bent down without missing a beat, picked it up, and threw it back at her. The apple rolled behind her, into the kitchen. And the mango flew up and hit Lars squarely on the head.

"Damn," she said again, catching the orange. "Um. Sorry. I'm Danny, I don't usually hit people in the head on first acquaintance."

"Lars," he said, and handed back the mango. "It didn't hurt. And sadly, I do usually get hit in the head on first acquaintance."

She grinned. "Do you really? Then we might have a profitable friendship."

He smiled back at her. "I do hope so."



13. chilies

Danny went to his funeral. She didn't know what else she could have done.

She thought maybe there might have been something between them, if she could ever get over her issues and he could ever get over that thing with Madison, but apparently that thing with Madison had been worse than any of them had ever expected and now he'd never get over anything, ever again.

She clutched her coat around her body and shivered, not just from the cold.

But the air was like ice out here, so cold she was a little surprised that Summer's tears weren't freezing on her face, so cold breathing felt like knives in her throat. Snow crunched underfoot, the occasional snapping twig like a gunshot, or a breaking bone. Her breath made puffs of condensation on the wind, like smoke, or a soul.

Madison had done it, they'd caught her, she was going to pay. Summer would probably never recover fully, but maybe she'd get at least halfway to better, in time. And as for Danny herself, well... she'd go on. It wasn't as if she'd lost anything but a tentative friend.

She still couldn't help but feel that she'd missed something, that she'd reached, and grasped, and pulled back with only ice-cold air in her hands.



14. peppers

It wasn't that Danny had anything against marriage per se. It was just that she didn't want anything to do with it.

Lars didn't get it, at all. He tried, like the amiable sweetheart he was, but it just did not make sense to him. He'd never seen her parents together, fighting every night, ignoring each other when they weren't fighting, exchanging thinly-veiled barbs when they weren't ignoring each other. And then her dad just... moved on, married someone else while ignoring her mother's feelings, and when she didn't work out he did the same damn thing. He was on wife number four now, Danny thought, without showing any signs of interest in his other wives and children except when he needed them to look good.

Lars's family wasn't like that. Lars's parents all loved each other. His brothers and sisters were all really close. Danny wasn't close to any of her siblings except Michael, despite her mother's best efforts, and those of the other Sierbenski ex-spouses. She just couldn't help feeling that they'd stolen her father, pulled him away to keep him selfishly to themselves, even though they hadn't even been born yet.

And that was marriage for her. That was life, for her.

So Lars was married, to a couple of people, and it seemed to make him happy. But she'd made it damn clear that it would never be her. He could take her or leave her as she was. She didn't mind second-class status, she didn't mind people looking at her funny, she didn't give a shit what anyone else thought.

She wasn't ever going to get married, and that was all there was to it.



15. watermelon

Lars bought them both watermelon ices at the faire, and wandered with her to the tables at the pub, where she bought them both a mug of mead and kicked her feet up into his lap. "You know, this actually is kind of fun."

He grinned at her, and smoothed down his doublet. "I'm glad you think so. It's one of my favorite places to be."

Danny snorted into her mead. "Because of all the boobies?" She nodded pointedly at a woman strolling by, her breasts hiked up far enough by her bodice that she practically had an extra shelf.

Lars shrugged. "It's a perk. Not the point though."

"Mmhmm."

"No, seriously," he said. "I kind of like just being in the past for a while. The cleaned-up past, anyway, the bits without the plague."

"That would suck," Danny opined, and ate some of her ice. "But yeah, I can get the appeal. It's like time travel but better."

"Yeah, exactly."

Danny was quiet for a long moment, sipping at her mead, before she asked, "Do you think... no, never mind."

He cocked his head at her. "What?"

"Do you feel like..." She hesitated, then finally went for it. "Do you think maybe we've done this before? Not the faire, I mean, just, everything. You and me, all of this."

It was a question. He had some ice, so he could think about it.

"I don't know," he said, finally. "Couldn't say for sure. I've never felt like that, but..."

She had wilted a little, but now she raised an eyebrow. "But?"

"If I met you, any time, anywhere," he said, slowly, "I don't think I'd have gone for anyone else."

Danny set her ice down, leaned over, and grabbed his hand.