Wisdom of the Fool // Jake & Danny

Chapter II

Word Count: ~3900

Warnings: this gets pretty smutty but there are no specific warnings I can give. Still 18+ only and y'all of age better get ready!!

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They hadn't talked about it, not a single word. Jake didn't know how he should feel, but how he actually felt was complicated. He wanted more from Danny, but more what? When he thought about hooking up again–which felt like a weird phrase to use regarding his friend, brother, bandmate–he was met with the same lust he'd felt coiling and expanding for so long, but then an emptiness when he thought about the silence he assumed would follow. Why would another time be any different than that one?

He wished he could stop thinking. He wished he could have someone else tell him how to feel. Not Josh–he couldn't tell Josh, as much as he sometimes wanted to. It was difficult to keep such a "dirty little secret" from his twin, even more difficult when Jake knew his heavy glances at Danny at any given time did not go unnoticed. Sam seemed somewhat oblivious to all of it, Jake assumed that was easier because Danny apparently didn't utter a word even to his best friend about what went on.

The worst part was the not knowing. While Jake felt unable to control the longing looks and occasional sighs, Danny showed no signs of wanting anything at all.

Except this night, after all four of them went out after the show, which seemed to happen so rarely these days. Jake wanted to be excited–he should have been excited–but he was dreading it. His interactions with Danny had been confined to travel and performance, not much in between, and he wasn't sure what would happen once he got some alcohol into his system. Well, more alcohol than the shot he took backstage. He felt like a tide pool, with all these things just hanging out inside him and the salt water crawling up the shore at high tide to fill him and fill him until he poured right over.

Hopefully not. But his chest was full and heavy as they all piled into the uber, Josh immediately getting up front despite the mild disturbance on the driver's face. They needed the room, with Danny's build and stature and Sam's limbs alone, so Jake got between the two of them in the back. He was hyper-aware of Danny's thigh pressed against his own, of their shoulders shoved together and the heat permeating from the drummer's body. Yes, he wanted more. Of everything. As much as Danny would give him.

He felt the dense forearm move behind his head and nearly jolted forward before catching himself, Sam's presence on his right and Josh's eyes glancing in the side mirror to the backseat reminding him that he wasn't alone. Jake expected Danny's arm to stretch further, maybe literally just to stretch or maybe to get Sam's attention, but his fingers brushed a whisper through Jake's hair instead.

A tingle ran down his spine, sharp and cold. He shifted on the middle seat, the heels of his boots clacking together as his legs moved, and did his best to ignore it, but it came again, more significant this time. Danny looped a strand of Jake's hair around his finger and toyed with it.

Jake lost his breath, wondering for a moment if his entire heart had disappeared. He turned his head just enough, barely a millimeter, to see Danny's expression. It was dark and a little blurred but Jake could see it–total complacence. Nothing to indicate if Danny was just as breathless and hot as him, which reinstated that tingle down Jake's spine and made him squirm.

At least he could chalk his silence up to being silent quite regularly as Sam and Josh yapped away and Danny chimed in with some low-spoken anecdotes. Jake wished they could just get to the damn bar already. He needed a drink then, needed to toss his hair behind his shoulder and leave Danny's touch behind him. But then he started thinking about backing Danny up against a wall again, in some dark corner, maybe the bathroom, maybe outside, and touching him with far more intention. He knew what that body really looked like then, what Danny looked like when he was giving himself up and also making Jake give himself up, shoving them together, making them one thing.