Darla, Darling, Dearest

Paul looked defeated as he followed Lavender through the door. “I’m sorry! I tried to keep her out!”

“Up yours, quack.” she said jokingly as she flicked her hand away from her body and shoved it in Paul’s face.

“HEY!” He backed up into the door frame, trying to avoid getting touched.

“What’s he got ya in for?” she asked as she turned toward Danny’s futon for the first time.

“I just told you! It's confidential! Purely between Doctor and patient!” the Herbalist blustered into her hand.

“I’m talkin’ to hot guy, not you.” Lavender playfully shoved the still protesting Paul back out into what Danny assumed was the hallway. Shutting the door on him despite his protests, she sat on the floor next to Joan who gave her a sideways glance.

Danny laughed. Bitter and joyful swirled together, an intangible mess of emotion. “Sorry to disappoint you. I’m not going to be a ‘hot guy’ for long.”

Lavender gaped at him. “Ya gave yourself ‘setts? Holy shit! That’s super brave of you!”

Joan cut in with a soothing, “You don’t have to tell her anything you don’t want to... D.” She punctuated her sentence with a look at Lavender.

Danny looked from Lavender to Joan and back. “Wha… what?” He turned away from them to hide his blush, curling his hands into fists. “What on God’s Green Earth made both of you think I gave it to myself INTENTIONALLY!!”

That sucked all of the air from the room.

Joan crossed her arms. Lavender cocked her head to the side. “You.. didn’t?” The taller woman asked.

Before Danny could say yes, Joan got in his face. “Yeah, that’s a load. Becoming a girl was practically all you would talk about when we started puberty.” He winced at that, memories coming back to him clear as day.

That had been one of their more common discussions, but come on! He just was just being pressured away from Joan, and he wanted to keep her in the only way he knew how. Still, all he could manage as a response was a sarcastically laconic “Really?”

He maintained herd eye-contact as she rocked back leaving his personal space. “I mean, Jesus! You would run through the riverbed trying to get ticks in a desperate attempt to get it!”

Danny’s eyes bugged out. He didn’t remember telling her that, but why wouldn’t he have? It had been his morning ritual for the spring when he was 12. He flushed at having his dirty laundry aired like this. “It was stupid. I was a kid.” A weak rebuttal, he knew, but he was too ruffled think of any good arguments he had against that being evidence.

Lavender closed and opened her mouth, seemingly aware that she probably shouldn’t be here for this conversation, while simultaneously not wanting to go. Danny just looked down at his lap and gripped the sheet.

“Listen...” Joan continued in a much softer tone, “you’re safe here. You’re allowed to be who you want as long as you’re at Triangle, OK?” She reached out and squeezed his shoulder. “I know I made you lie to your dad, but you don’t have to lie to me and… Lavender too... I guess…” She made a face, before turning a smile back to Danny “Alright?”

“Yeah! That’s what pals are for!!!” Lavender said enthusiastically, then in a lowered tone she muttered. “Unless... dot, dot, dot.” She winked into a grin and double finger-gunned Danny. He tried to speak, but instead he blushed even deeper than he already was.

“Stop flirting with her!” Joan rolled her eyes. Danny’s heart fluttered. Was this his reaction to being called her? He wondered what that meant. Joan looked over at the smug lady sitting next to her. “She’s been through a lot, and is still very much in the shit. Now is not the time to get in her pants!”

Danny put up a finger. “Uh… I kinda like it.” Joan looked from him to Lavender and began glaring at the darker woman.

“Hey! You have like three girlfriends!” Lavender pouted, reacting to Joan’s brazen display of mistrust. “You have to save some for me!” She said sticking her tongue out.

“Whah?” Danny mumbled, shocked that his friend was getting around like that. He knew most churches taught that being a lesbian was a sin, but having three same sex partners at once? That was like the moral equivalent of worshiping Satan while defecating on the Bible, for all Pastor Boiland would have to say about it.

“I have a stable polycule because I’m not a violent sociopath!” Joan shot back in what Danny assumed was a joke...? He had no idea what a polycule even was, but he figured it had something to do with the three girlfriends. Lavender seemed to bristle at the allegation, going from laid back to upright in seconds.

“Really? You’re gonna play that card?” Lavender raised a finger at Joan; an expression hovering between betrayal and blind fury crossed her face before she recomposed herself in to a serious but neutral mask. “We shouldn’t talk about this now. We should be helping, uh...”

“What do you mean?” Danny asked, confusedly cutting Lavender off before she could stick her foot in her mouth. “Joan, you’ve been sniping at Lavender for the whole time she’s been here. Do you two not like each other for some reason?”

Joan burst into the bitter laugh of a person who is desperately trying to paint over how fucking angry they are. “D, I love you, but Lavender is a very dangerous woman to be around.” She turned to Lavender. “Clair told me everything: the lies, the violence, the disregard for your own life! I could never have another person I care about go through that shit for you.”

Well, that was interesting. Danny had forgotten how much Joan would act like a protective mother around him. It was nice in a kinda funny way how much they had fallen into their old dynamic after only being around each other for less then a day after so long.

He bit his lip. if he was being honest with himself that list just kinda made Lavender all the more attractive in his mind. If he thought about it, he probably had a thing for bad girls. The type who pull up on motorcycles, have bicep tattoos, and (consensually) punch you in the face.

“I shot a guy for sexual assault! How does that make me the violent sociopath??” Lavender said in mock outrage, disguising real defensiveness. Danny’s thought process abruptly ended. WHAT?

Honestly that was way cooler then anything he could imagine. All he could manage in response was a single starry-eyed “Whoa.”

“He didn’t assault you! He assaulted Clair! Both of you had to drop out of college!” Joan suddenly dropped into the horse whisper of family arguments outside the closed door of a child’s room. “You never think of the consequences!” Her voice was tense, raw with emotion. Past the initial shock of Lavender’s willingness to use what she was packing Danny was baffled. He hadn't heard of a shooting in Emporia on local news; had this happened elsewhere? He rankled at the injustice of having to leave for protecting a friend. Why was Joan mad at Lavender about this?

Lavender reached out to Joan’s shoulder “You weren’t there.” Joan flinched, and Lavender quickly withdrew her hand to her chest. “I don’t know what Clair told you but it wasn’t the whole story.” She looked away from Joan. “I’ll tell ya later.” The taller woman frowned. “Anyway, we gotta deal with the whole you situation.” She pointed at Danny, her expression softening. “Oh shit. What’s your name again? I can’t keep callin’ ya hot person or whatever.”

Danny realized he had seconds before Joan could restart the argument, or answer for him. He needed to assert himself. He need to show that he was his own person. Not some child to be spoken for and overridden as comforting as that was to him.

“I’m Darla, nice to meet you!” He put on a friendly small town smile and extended a hand to Lavender. Wait. No. Shit. Not only had he said the wrong name, but he said it in an apple pie cookin’ mom voice that was unmistakably feminine, even above and beyond the altered timbre of early Narragansett's. He had just given into everything Joan thought him to be, while trying to defy her. How the hell had he even managed that? Sure, he said the wrong word from time to time but this felt deeper? He forced the thought behind the fridge.

Looking around though, the tension in the room deflated like a knife in an inflatable orca. Joan beamed at him, distracted from her cross-examination of Lavender. Who in turn was giggling at him lightly thought her own smile. Danny suddenly felt like recanting his moment of weakness would ruin a perfectly good chance to broker a truce. If that meant being the person Joan wanted him to be, so it went. It was far more comfortable than being the person his father did, anyway. Another one for the fridge.

Lavender ability to hold back her giggles finally broke into a full belly laugh. “It seems only yesterday you were a completely different person!” she joked.

“Well,” Danny said in a sultry voice that he was enjoying way too much for a symptom of a terrible disease that ruined millions of lives, “take me out to dinner first. We’ll see how much I’ve really changed.” It was Danny’s turn to wink. Joan winced. Okay, he was going to have to handle this without flirting too hard with his friends perceived enemy, but he was horny dammit.

A blush appeared on Lavender’s face before she quickly reasserted control. “Oooo, I like her!” She looked to Danny, “it’s she/her right?” Having no Idea what that meant, Danny nodded along. “Can I keep her, Joan?” She took on an exaggeratedly pleading look directed at her... Friend? Acquaintance? Ex? Danny really could not get a bead on their relationship.

Joan rolled her eyes. She started to count on her fingers. “You disappear out of my girlfriend’s life after saving her, come back with a suspiciously large amount of money, refuse to talk to her, your other friends, me, or basically anyone about where you were, and now you want to date my childhood best friend? Even though I’ve repeatedly voiced that I don’t think that would be good for her?” She recrossed her arms.

Danny looked back at Lavender. Really looked at her. She was strong and beautiful, and if what Joan said was true a huge loose cannon. He realized the jokey vibes he got from her might only be on the surface hiding something deeper. Unfortunately, this only made him more into her. Okay, so she cared about her friends enough to hurt people for them? Honestly, she was a lot less scary then the dudes who do the same, and frankly now that he had ‘Sett’s he might actually need it.

“Yes,” Lavender said flatly, like a Queen delivering judgment on a trivial matter .

Danny reached out to his friend. “Joan, I appreciate you caring about my safety, but let me make my own choices, okay?” she laced her fingers in his like they used to do when they were young. “It’s been a bit, I’m my own person now.” He laughed a little remembering something. “I’m not the little bucktoothed kid who would follow you around and do whatever you said because girls were better then boys.” Joan smiled at that, and Danny smiled back while Lavender grinned at both in the most dumbshit 3erd wheel way possible.

Joan dropped her hand, unlacing her fingers. “Yeah?” she looked at Lavender who was doing her best impression of a guilty man pretending to be innocent. “Yeah.” Joan let out a breath up at her hair. “Okay, whatever, you’re both adults.” She stared holes in the floor, pursing her lips like a convict who won’t talk. Danny looked back at her worriedly; that was her ‘I’m about to make a decision I’m fairly certain I’ll regret’ face. “Clair and I want your side of the story, though. And if we don’t think that negates what you did to Clair then… well, I’ll thinka something.” She looked back at Danny. “Please be safe Darla.”

Lavender bit her tongue. In a voice of resolve, she said, “Don’t worry, I will. You’ll see.”

Joan sighed, seemingly giving in. “Okay, well, if Darla wants to trust you, I might as well stop avoiding you.” She extended her hand. “Truce?”

Lavender smirked and took it. “Truce.” They sat there staring into each others eye’s for a good minute like a psychic conversation was taking place, goading one another to me the first to blink.

Joan pulled away first to run a hand trough her hair. “I’m probably going to regret this, but Darla needs to call her dad in her old voice. You’ve got the experience when it comes to this sorta thing, right?” She raised her eyebrows, as if trying to imply it would go a long way toward getting Lavender in her good book.

Lavender sucked in and shrugged. “Only in the other direction. She, uhhh...” Her deep mahogany eyes met Danny’s. “She might not be able to. It’s not exactly comfortable. It took me a good three weeks, and I was getting shit outta it.”

“I feel like being recognized by my Pop is getting something!” Danny objected. He was getting real tired of people assuming things about him.

Lavender grinned. “Oh! Okay, never mind, let see what we can do then.” She stopped and looked at Joan. “Wait, fuck. Does she always call her dad ‘Pop’?”

Jane giggled, mistrust forgotten momentarily. “Yeah! It’s fucking adorable, right?”

Lavender joined in with a powerful laugh herself. “Seriously, with a name like ‘Darla’ and a vocabulary like that, you’re shaping up to be a real greaser gal!” As Danny continued the slow seemingly irreversible process of turning into a beet, she gave him an appraising look. “I think she would look perfect in a rockabilly dress and leather jacket, don’t you?”

Joan went from giggles to full on laughter. “Oh, fuck yes!”

“Hey!” Danny squeaked. “Don’t we have to be masculinizing me right now? I’m not even a girl yet! Feminization can wait.”

The two women both sighed, made eye contact, and smirked at each other as if they were sharing an inside joke, tension fully dissipated. “Well,” Joan said flatly as she rose to stand, “I’ll leave you to it. We need that call made or else I get in trouble.” She gave Lavender a nod. “That’s what this whole thing is about, right? We help each other, with the expectation that everyone would do the same.”

“Hell yeah!” Lavender high-fived Joan awkwardly from a sitting position.

“I’ll see you later, Darla!” Joan called as she opened the door and stepped out. Danny could hear a whispered conversation as Paul intercepted her.

“Alright! let’s see if we can’t get your voice back!” Lavender said, confidently jarring Danny out of his nosiness.

“Heck yeah!”

-

“No, no, you have to vibrate your voice in your chest and throat!” Lavender ran her hand through her hair in a disheveled manner that made Danny’s heart flutter even though he was annoyed.

“You keep telling me that! We’ve been going for a half hour and my voice hurts!” Danny said in a still very obviously feminine tone. It was very hard trying to learn voice control with a fever and a pounding headache from a person who you’re obviously crushing on. (Who maybe asked you out? You definitely need to clarify that since you’re thicker than a brick.) It was at least clear that, at this point, he would have to rest his voice before trying again.

That was really bad, of course, but as a chance to hang out with Lavender more? “I need to take a break, d’ya think you could show me around?” That was surprisingly suave of him.

He couldn’t think of the last time he’d been smooth. With Evelyn, part of his appeal was that he looked like every other jock while being quiet and easily flustered; easily controlled, too. He didn’t think she’d ever given him room for being on the ball. An entire relationship off balance. How could he have ever seen a future with her?

“Uhh... If you can stand, sure?” Lavender looked relieved. She was clearly also exhausted from constant vocal drills going nowhere.

Danny was feeling better. It had been a good amount of time since he had tried to get up. He was sure the worst of it had come and passed. He could tell he was significantly lighter thanks to the veritable lake of liquid he was currently sitting in. Sweating out cells from your body produces a gross viscous liquid that Danny did not want to remember he was practically swimming in. He tried rocking forward, and while he felt the dull ache in his bones as he moved, he could move. He shook like a baby possum taking its first step as he slowly raised himself under his own power.

“Yes!” he cried when he raised himself to a full stance. The rush of just being able to stand was enough to make him want to dance. Only, when he stood erect, he immediately began to see black spots in his vision and get dizzy. Losing his balance, he teetered into Lavender, who was now a head taller than him. He hit her chest with a squeak, feeling the hardness of her abs and the warmth of her breasts.

“Oops! Are ya good?” Lavender braced Danny, her strong arms holding him steady as he blushed upward.

“Y-Yes!” Danny garbled. He felt how dry his lips were with his tongue, and noted the rawness of his throat. “W-water, maybe?”

Lavender snapped her fingers. “Oh, that makes sense!” She sat him down on the chair, rushing out and back in with a topped-up glass that Danny drained. “Okay!” she said as she leaned over him while he finished. “Are you ready to be bad?”