Steve has to wonder if Danny Williams listens to anyone's answers anymore than he actually needs people there for more than a poster board to rant at. Given that he's heard a lot about, and seen several hours, both. Like his not taking no, even with a follow up for why, for an answer right now. Which is just flinging itself like an unwanted ping pong ball around Steve, questing for whether it's actively bothersome or just a minor impediment or if he honestly gives a damn at all, when Danny hits that word in his newest litanty of goading insults that shoves ice and fire as one into Steve's blood.

Home.

He's not going home. It doesn't matter if it's the last place that ever had that name attached to it. It's not his home. It's a house. It's never even been a place for him to come back to. Until this morning. When it suddenly became both the second to last Hesse-related crime scene and the one that had his father's blood splattered across it.

The sharp knife of it, the one Danny seems to have an alarmingly easy ability to shove back into his gut, makes his words harder and more corrosive. "Will you shut up, and start taking that--" There's a hard jerk of his head toward the box in Danny's hands. "--to the car, if I say yes?"

Like somehow if he moves the words, or Danny, or himself, out of this room, toward the car, he can outrun or out twart the ghost already running those lines in his ears, shoving in with all the force of bamboo under his nails, or a burning knife melting flesh. The ice and fire meeting in a ball in the center of his chest, that gets gummy and spreads like quick cement.

Whispering, breath hard and hoarse, I'm sorry I lied and




I love you, Son. I didn't say it enough.





Like he shouldn't just let it. Like he isn't headed back there now. By choice. Design. Imperative.