Page 25 of Lovesick Titan

Mal had to confront this head on. Insist to Danny that they were going to talk. That’s all he’d ask for—that theytalk. If the conclusionof their conversation was that Danny didn’t return Mal’s feelings, so be it. Mal could be the bigger man. He didn’t think he could be ‘friends’ with Danny after what they’d been through. Couldn’t go back to just screwing. Couldn’t continue as they were, always knowing that Danny didn’t want him as deeply as Mal did. But he wouldn’t leave Danny high and dry with Ludgate. That bastard deserved what he got.

Getting through the door and past the main array of desks was easy. Mal knew where Danny’s office was, tucked into the corner of the building, down several hallways, near the CSI lab. The station was buzzing, but those hallways were all but deserted as Mal made his way to Danny’s door.

As he neared the office, he could faintly hear Danny and Vaughn’s voices and decided to push onward faster so he wouldn’t get distracted. He’d interrupt whatever they were doing and—

An odd flicker of movement drew Mal’s attention, and he faltered in his steps. Glancing aside, his reflection was dimly displayed in a window along the wall. For a moment, he’d sworn it hadn’t been in step with him.

Mal waved his hand, just to be sure he hadn’t imagined things. His reflection moved with him.

Ludgate had him all kinds of paranoid.

Continuing at a slower pace, he listened to be sure Danny and Vaughn were alone. For the first time, he wanted to do right by someone. Sure, some of his motivations were still selfish, because he wanted Danny and everything they’d shared these past few weeks. But he also wanted it for Danny’s sake, to see the kid smile without darkness hiding in the depths of his eyes.

“Danny, why does being told he loves you make you look like he killed your cat?”

Mal came to a stop just outside the entrance. They were talking about him.

“Because,” Danny said, “I’ve been lying to him from day one.”

R

Hades had to commend Andre. His little trick was very unfortunate. He couldn’t get into any of the reflections in Zeus’s office while that projection was on. But he could still overhear things well enough from the hallway, enough that he had been able to stall Prometheus for just the right amount of time.

He had a clear view of Prometheus’s face as the man’s expression dropped at Zeus’s words. All Hades had to do now was sit back and enjoy the show.

R

“I set him up,” Danny said, causing Mal to train his ear closer. “When I overheard him and Lucy talking about me in Pronto, about him wanting me, I was soangry. All the feelings that had been rushing through me when I fought Camouflage surged up again, and I just wanted to…hurt someone. I figured, why did it have to be physical? Why not hurt someone like I’d been hurt? Thanatos used me for entertainment. Cho used me to get what he wanted but wasn’t there when I needed him. I just wanted someone I could use back.”

Falling against the wall of the hallway, Mal felt the blood drain from his face even as he told himself he wasn’t hearing this.

“Suddenly there was my opportunity. I needed release, something to distract me, to make me feel good, and Cho, well, heiseasy on the eyes,” Danny gave a short, cruel laugh. “Now I knew he was interested. So I approached him, caught his attention, and all the while I had a plan. It was a game. To make him want me. Make him fall for me. Make himloveme. So I could throw him away when I was done and make him feel used and betrayed like he’d done to me.”

The voice of Mal’s father echoed in his head.No one will ever love a waste of space like you.

“I wanted to hurt him. To break him. To teach him alesson”—Mal shuddered—“And it was so easy. To act the right way. The way I thought he’d want. To say the right things. To give and take just enough to leave him wanting more. Make him hungry for it. Evenbegme for it.”

“Danny…” Vaughn finally spoke, a disbelieving gasp of Danny’s name that startled Mal back to reality.

He was going to be sick all over the floor. He had to get out of there. He was such a fool, such a god damnfuckingidiot.

“Ihatedhim for abandoning me with Thanatos,” Danny said, just to further twist the knife, when Danny had said only last night that he understood, that he forgave him. “For what he was. What he represented. And it justified everything.”

Mal pushed from the wall with such force that he fell forward into the other side and slammed his already wounded and bandaged fist against it before he took off down the hallway.

R

A bang caused Danny to whip his head toward his door.

“Danny, dude, you—”

“Hang on.” Danny walked swiftly to the entrance of his office with a strange buzzing feeling in his gut that something was very, very wrong. He placed his hand on the doorframe, but when he peered around to look down the hallway, no one was there, just the blur of a uniformed officer hurrying around the corner.

“Danny?” Andre called after him.

He really was losing his mind. As he walked back to Andre, he looked down at his hands and realized how tightly he’d been clenching his fists, having left half-moon indents in his palms almost deep enough to draw blood.

“You did all that just to make Cho suffer?”

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