Can it wait?

“Yeah I know, I’m just rambling at this point. And yeah you’re right, you’re right. I’ve just put in a lot of hours into this one, it has to be 1000% perfect. I know I’ve done others before, but they were like inspired by other combos. This one’s like made by me, like original idea and everything.” He continued talking, wrapping his arms around Zeke, bringing him closer.

“I like when you ramble. People ramble when they care about things. I understand, and you’ll get it right, you’re smart, you can do this.” Zeke pressed a quick kiss to his lips, hoping that he was encouraging enough.

Getting his lighter out of his pocket, he held it up to light the end of the j. “Honestly? Sometime I feel like I know what I’m doing, other times I’m completely lost. How does one know they’ve achieved something that’s never been done? How do I know this experiment works and I’m not just mixing shit together blindly. Sometimes it hits me, like just now I was thinking about this girl, I asked her to take two hits and she told me she had a bad trip. Like how do I know it wasn’t an outside influence that effected her high or if it was the drugs?” He ran a hand through his hair, sighing.

Ezekiel listened as he took the hit, nodding slightly and moving to sit on Danny’s lap. “I couldn’t answer that. I deal with completely different issues. But I guess you just have to have your end result in mind and feel your way around. That’s how experiments work. That’s why you gotta get multiple test subjects. If it makes you feel better, you’ve never given me a bad trip.”

He rolled his eyes playfully, smiling. “Ya, always.” He held up the joint for Zeke to take while he looked for his lighter. “Have I? I haven’t really noticed…I’ve been thinking about my latest experiment, I think I’m getting something wrong or I’m fucking up somewhere.”

He took the joint happily, shrugging. “I think so, at least. Seems like it, anyway. I know you do that when you’re trying to figure that shit out.” He hummed, fingers brushing over Danny’s arm softly. “Oh, yeah? How do you usually figure out what it is?”

“Hm?” His hears perked up, hearing his name but he didn’t look away from the task at hand. He was thinking about his experiment, the ingredients he used. He was in his own world for a second, making sure the joint was rolled to perfection. 

Ezekiel laughed softly and leaned over the man’s shoulder. “I asked if you were having fun.” He repeated, quickly pressed a kiss to his cheek. “You’ve been zoning out more, lately. Got a lot of science up there?”

“But I’m not okay with that. I’m not okay with putting you in danger.” He shook his head, going over to stand in front of Zeke. “I jumped into things with Ayla, I know that now. I fucked up a friendship that I’ll probably never get back. Do I regret loving her? No. Never. I always will. Just like I’ll always love Noah. I’m speaking to you as my best friend right now, I need you to know this because I don’t want you to ever feel like I settled for you, or it was the drugs that clouded my judgement. I need you to know, that I’ve never been more sober than I am right now. And my feelings for you haven’t changed or whatever. I need you to know that I’m sorry for not listening to you about Chase, I’m sorry for lying to you. I felt like shit the entire time and I saw myself repeating the same things that happened with Ayla and I had to stop. I had to tell you. Because if I lost you, I would lose my fucking mind. Everything is different now, I just, I can’t keep doing what I’m doing and expect everything to be okay. I can’t keep getting high and acting like I don’t have a problem. I do, I do have a problem. I’m a fucking drug addict who’s only thinking about where his next fix is gonna come from. I’m literally in pain right now because I haven’t slept, my body feels like it’s on fire and I also feeling like I’m drowning. I don’t know if that’s even possible, I don’t know what I’m doing. But there’s one constant thought in my mind and it’s you. You make me feel better than any drugs I’ve ever taken. I will drop all of it, I’ll push through this, for you. So I’m telling you here, in your favorite spot, right here, standing in front of you, that I’m going to quit, I’m going to get clean. And I know you’re wary because of what happened last time, I shouldn’t have lied to you, I know I’m sorry. But I was scared. This is hard for me, I never had to try this hard to be with someone, I never had to stop using for anyone. But I want to, for you, for me, for us.”

“There’s always gonna be danger in things, baby. If being with you means there’s gonna be danger, then we’ll figure that out. Because I want to be with you, I want to kiss you all the time and hold your hand and lay with you forever. No amount of danger is ever going change that.” Zeke shrugged, taking the other’s hand. “There’s-There’s always gonna be someone like that forever everyone..at least I think so..and if Ayla is that person to you and you and her can’t pull back that friendship and be good friends then that’s really shitty and I’m sorry.” Zeke sighed, listening to Danny. He wished he could believe that Danny didn’t settle, that Danny wanted him more than anything. But his own self doubt wouldn’t allow him to. “I’m sorry for lying too..” He interjected when he could, not wanting to say much else on that matter. “I’m really glad that you’re seeing your patterns, Daniel. I’m so glad that you’re seeing what’s bad and what you need to work on. And I don’t want to lose you, so you have no idea what it means to me that you’re trying. I want you to know that I’m gonna be here for you every step of the way. You’re so important to me and I really want to be with you and it’s so important to me that you’re happy no matter what. Even if it isn’t with me.”

     Courtney bit her lip. “This is gonna sound real cold and like I don’t care about our baseball team and your struggle right now, but I was talkin’ more about the actual major league season,” Courtney replied hesitantly.

“She made a valid point though, she said. I’m in love with someone else. And that just got me thinking, well, shit. Am I just, putting Zeke in danger now? What am I suppose to do, leave him too because I don’t want him getting hurt. And then it hit me. Sudden realization hit me and something Sirius said to me a couple months ago came back and I felt even worse about it all.” He took a deep breath, stopping to look at the ground. “He asked me, he said, are you sure, you’re not just replacing your high for your love for her. And I was so sure, at the time I was so fucking sure that I wasn’t. That I could be sober and still be in love with her. And then the first time I kissed you, it was like, I was looking at you, for the first time. And, everything with you was also so easy, talking to you, hanging out with you, being your friend. I wanted that. I wanted something that wasn’t effected by me using, because sober or high you were always there, a constant person in my life.  And then I went away. And I didn’t use, and my mind was clearer, even if for just a day or two, but it was clear. And all I could think about was you. I loved Ayla, I still do, but, not how I thought I did. And I told her that I did, am I a bad person? Put your feelings for me aside and tell me. I beat the shit out of Noah because he kissed you. Our friend, my brother. And when he told me about how he grew up, do you know what I did? I told him I didn’t care. Who the fuck says that?” His voice cracked, taking another deep breath. “He hates me and I don’t blame me. I would hate me too. Why does everyone keep treating me like I’m a nice guy. I’m fucking selfish, I don’t care about anyone’s feelings. I asked Ayla to keep being my friend even after I basically tore her heart out and slid it across the concrete. I lied to you. My best friend, my brother. I’m a fucking mess and people keep telling me they’re okay about it. But I’m not okay with you thinking it’s okay. Because it’s not. Why hasn’t anyone punched me in the face? Why don’t more people fucking hate me. I’m a fucking terrible person, Zeke. You are so out of my league, emotionally, mentally, physically. You and Ayla both. And I just–I don’t know how to stop myself from doing the mistakes that I do.”

“I don’t mind being in danger.” He gestured to his broken leg “I put myself in danger all the time, a little more danger isn’t anything.” Zeke murmured, resuming the nervous scratching almost immediately. He couldn’t help the blood rushing to his face as Danny explained some of his feelings for him, it made him happy. Though it quickly went away when the subject changed, when he talked about loving Ayla. In fact, he began to fidget more, subtly, but more. “I don’t know. I think maybe you didn’t have to, a punch or two would have sufficed. But he was a giant dick about everything and I’m biased to that because of how shitty he made me feel and then tried finally making me feel worth something when I’m getting past everything. It’s really shitty. So maybe he got what was coming to him. Just because he grew up shitty doesn’t make it okay for him to fuck with people’s feelings and be an asshole, Dan.” He explained, still keeping his voice relatively low as he spoke. “You’re not a terrible person, babe. I promise.” Ezekiel scoffed slightly when he said he was out of his league “Even if I was out of your league, which I’m not, it doesn’t matter. I still want to be with you and I still love ya.”

“Okay so, a couple nights ago, I might have propelled Ayla into hating me. And I can’t stop thinking about what I said to her. And I just, God, I-” He ran a hand through his hair, now pacing in front of Zeke. “I told her I said, I’m glad things ended how they did and fuck–I’m saying it out loud again and I feel like a fucking dickhead. But am I wrong for agreeing? Am I a fucking bad person for what I said? Everything happens for a reason. Being with her, I loved her, but not enough quick doing what I was doing and she thinks that somehow this is because she wasn’t enough for me. And I just,” He sighed, still pacing. “It wasn’t because she wasn’t enough, it was because I wasn’t enough. What kind of guy would I be, if I went on, letting her think that what I was doing was fine, you know? Because I wouldn’t have stopped selling, I would have gotten hurt like I always do. And she would constantly have to worry about me. She could have gotten hurt. So yes, I’m glad she got out when she could. And she hates me for saying it but I know it’s true and she kept telling me she was okay with it and it just fucking tore me apart. I don’t deserve that, I didn’t want her to be okay with it. Because then she would have gotten hurt, trying to be there for me. It wasn’t something I was willing to risk. And I told her this but she just, she fucking hates me. Am I a shit head for being with her hating me? Because it keeps her safe?”

Zeke was prepared to listen and as he talked he remembered Danny trying to talk earlier, trying to say something about Ayla. It honestly just made his anxiety worse, hearing him talk about Ayla so much. Instead of voiced his anxiety, Ezekiel did was his usually did, scratching at his arm as subtly as he could, his skin getting red the more he scratched. “Um..I don’t know. It’s kind of  complicated thing. You’re going to think what you want anyway. I don’t think you’re a shit head..But that doesn’t really matter, even with my opinion, you can’t stop yourself from thinking what you want.”

“You’re flattering me too much oh my god,” she pressed her hands to her cheeks as she smiled brightly. “I promise I won’t break your leg, if it makes you feel better, I don’t even like to kill bugs. Can I ask what happened? Or do I have to unlock friend level 80 to find out?”

“Shit, my bad. It’s a habit, I enjoy making people smile..” He shrugged, glad to see someone smiling for once lately. “Cool, we can be friends then. Honestly I can’t either, I don’t like bugs, but they’ve got lives too. Yeah, I guess. Some psycho punk was, and probably still is, stalking my boyfriend and threatening me and when I confronted him about it, he attacked me with my own bat. Got my ribs, too.”

“Yeah? You think so? Thank you. My mom gave it to me– it means dew drops. I mean–I’d like to be, I dunno you seem nice and like you could use a friend, I’ve been there before, unless I’m wrong, which is okay, too, I won’t be hurt. Did someone break your leg because you said no to them?”

“Yes, it has a nice sound to it. That’s cute as hell. I could always use friends. ‘You can never have too many friends’ as they like to say. You’re not, I’m in a pretty shit spot. Not exactly, but something like that, yeah. I just don’t want two broken legs. One at a time is much better.”