Chapter Text
Chris sighed, delivering three knocks to the door of his best friend. He had been summoned for some typical petty revenge plot of Dan, something about lemons and their ‘heinous actions towards cats around the world’. He should really stop watching so many cat videos.
Usually, Dan would’ve opened the door by now and criticized the tardiness of Chris, before ranting about his plan and involving the two of them in various felonies. But no answer came. He knocked again, louder this time. Nothing. That was…odd.
Chris patted himself down before stopping after hitting a familiar lump, digging beneath the candy bars and lunch meats in his pocket to fish out the spare key to Dan’s apartment. Humming to himself, he placed the key in the knob and twisted, opening the door to be met with the sight of an empty living room. Well, “empty” was a stretch - there were surely several species of mold and fungus in this area, not to mention the countless insects - but there was no Dan to be seen. So, he called out.
“Dan? Dan, are you here?” Chris cupped his hands around his mouth to further stretch the reach of his voice.
Muffled angry grunts and shuffles could faintly be heard from the bathroom. So he was here. Satisfied with this response, he closed the door behind him and took a seat on the couch, waiting for his friend.
Or, well, he would’ve waited for his friend. He had planned on it.
But then he heard a crash.
And a horrible wheezing sound.
Chris, panicked, ran to the bathroom door and pounded on it.
“Dan! Dan, are you okay? Are you hurt?!” It had sounded like Dan wanted to respond, but could only cough out a little “I’m fine” , which made it clear that he was absolutely not fine. “I’m coming in!” The brunette man yelled as a warning. He rotated the knob with such force that it simply unlocked the door - Dan’s door knobs, beyond the one leading outside, were all incredibly cheap and easy to break open with a simple twist.
Whatever apologies and words of worry Chris’ mouth sputtered had slowed to a halt in an instant upon processing his view.
Amongst the clutter, Dan was sprawled out on the floor, bands of duct tape wrapped around his chest. The exposed parts of his body had been sporting new marks all over, likely from the fall. The culprit of his coated upper body laid in his left hand, unbound by his limp fingers. The smaller man grimaced. “Chris!…” He said with mock enthusiasm, dragging out the “I” in his name.
Dan tried scrambling to his feet, but was met with a wave of pain that made him yelp, to his dismay.
“Here, let me help you.” Chris outstretched his arm. Despite the man’s small frame, the amount of malice in Dan’s glare could probably kill a man. Alas, he sighed and reluctantly accepted the assistance.The taller man scanned his friend’s body for any additional injuries. Nothing looked broken, thankfully, and he sighed in partial relief. The feeling was quickly painted over with a sense of worry as he stared down at the duct tape constricting his buddy’s chest.
“Dan, take that off, you’re gonna hurt yourself even more!” He made a reach for the tape, but was quickly slapped away from its wearer. Another attempt was made to remove the makeshift binder, and yet again he was met with resistance. This time, Dan stepped back and began scowling, readying himself for the next try. Chris lifted his hands above his head in surrender, but continued to speak.
“I’ll order you a proper binder if you promise to stop using tape.” That got his attention. He dropped his stance slightly, squinting in suspicion. “Okay.” His friend grinned in relief. “But I’m not stopping until it gets here.” The grin was immediately doused in a frown laced with frustration. This was definitely something he could work with, however, and so Chris agreed.
He stepped out of the bathroom, turning the knob back into its original position and locking the door behind him. Immediately, he pulled his phone out and dialed up his wife.
.
.
.
Dan ended up spending longer in the bathroom than he’d planned. Avoiding the awkward atmosphere awaiting him in the living room seemed like the best option in this scenario. Besides, he needed to hide the rest of his duct tape before Elise got into that. Yeah, he had overheard the phone call in the other room. Ratted out by his own best friend, the traitor.
He averted his eyes from his reflection as he opened the bathroom cabinet; even the blurred view of his own face in this moment disturbed him. Dan shoved whatever he could behind several boxes of generic brand toothpaste, slamming it shut before anything could pop out of place.
Dan re-clothed himself and plopped down on the cold, tiled floor. Running his fingers along the grout while softly muttering to himself about bargain-bin science fiction movie series from his childhood entertained him til the familiar sound of his front door opening hit the airwaves.
Elise had arrived.