#[ d ] ── * 𝐇𝐂 / 𝐋𝐎𝐑𝐄. { danny. }

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but also, how opposites attract bringing danny and maria close.

how theyve both had some rough upbringings - his father being a.busive and driving his mom away, hers abandoning them and mama flores and having to grow up faster in that respect to help raise ana and make sure they got by - how that in turn soured danny and made him rough around the edges, pointed jagged ends, walled and beat his emotions into the dirt in order to protect himself vs maria choosing to turn that hurt into motivation to be there for ana, to be something positive and help her understand that while yes what papa flores did was fucking cruel and heartless, theres still so much to the world to not get hung up over it too much, so much love and peace and beauty and kindness and awe to everything that allowing one person, one bad deed, etc ruin all of it for you doesnt need to happen.

its dannys unending pessimism at life and people and distrust in intention or behavior that isolates him and renders it difficult to make alot of meaningful bonds with people. and its marias unrelenting optimism that says yes people can be bad and yes people can do bad but that doesnt always mean they are ALWAYS bad. its the yes we go through horrible experiences and meet horrible people and alot of times that sticks with us and alters how we react to events or other people, but letting it take such a looming presence in your life can be so detrimental and its allowing them to have such a chokehold and control over you that they dont deserve to have. not all people are always bad, and not all of them are always good, and she believes its more harmful to always have that guard up so firmly rather than allow people the chance to show they arent - like she did with him.

its the difference of how they both viewed the world vs marias impact on him that alters it and vice versa.

how maria looks at the world around her and finds importance, significance, love, peace in so much and how most seems so insignificant in the grand scheme of things but how it is appreciating those little things that in her eyes matter. its sitting in a field watching the petals on the wildflowers dance in the breeze. its lying in the grass and watching clouds lazily float on by. its getting caught in a downpour and running out barefoot to stand in the rain. its stepping out during snowfall and catching the flakes on your tongue. its bonding with your pet and welcoming them up to huddle with you to sleep. the sound of laughter, the smiles of your friends, the love thats shared with slices of oranges and clementines. so much that seems so small unassuming unimportant in the general of life but that she personally believes to be so important to notice, at least every once in a while.

how for him life was always stones being thrown at you, how the smiles on friends faces were normally that of mocking, hate, vitriol. how theres suspicion in someone walking nearby with head ducked and glancing sideways at you. how so called comradery, so called friendship was love with balled fists cracking against jaws or kicking you on the ground and leaving you there without a care, with only laughter and jokes made at your expense. how the only thing danny saw when he would sit beside her looking out at fields was, how nice it'd be to just fucking run off and disappear and never be seen or heard from again. how the red petals of some of the wildflowers look like bloodstains strewn about the meadow rather than something gentle, something soft.

how sitting there listening to her, time and time and time again, slowly altered those views and made him start to see things a little differently. how yeah to him the flowers are still flowers and rain or snow are still just that - but its the moment being lived in, experienced, that changes how you view it. how flowers in the breeze reminds him of her perfumes or lotion. how snow reminds him of those snowball fights rather than standing alone at parks watching families have fun together during the holidays.

its small things, that she helped him seeing, that makes him slowly change over the years. that makes it easier to connect with others, bond with new faces that he otherwise never would have bothered even saying a simple hello to. like maria is, truly, such a vital person in his life and losing her really is just fucking devastating to him.

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i mistakenly laid down and am eepy again but on the same vein as raes / kels post re: leland teaching the friends some self-defense,

the way i know that for sure, danny pre-house probably - moreso lightheartedly - taught ana how to throw a punch properly. and i feel while the friends were doing their own searches around for maria, can definitely see ana asking lee to teach her a couple things here and there. esp with how off-putting alot of locals seemed to be with them snooping around town.

but then with maria, i know in nosy lee definitely does actually teach her considering what they do, considering alot of the time her targets are both men or just people in general who have size and strength over her capabilities to begin with. so needed to learn some things to better keep herself safe, y'know? esp in the moments where either shes alone with the target or him & johnny are at a distance. ( and also learned from johnny, get a feel of a different type of fight style in a sense ).

but then also thinking about pre-house maria. and how much the guys in general likely did want to teach her at least some things to defend herself when she'd go out alone for her trips. and she was always gently insistent that she'd never need to do so - because truly why would anyone attack her?

and i know danny for sure feels a hell of a lot of guilt and regret for not pushing for her to let them.

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𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐊𝐄 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐄𝐃. / just some small thoughts on danny's dire trajectories.

ive been trying the last some days to really piece together the idea of danny adopting aliases like maria or lee or connie in the dires and honestly? truly just don't think the guy has the mental really to get creative about it like them

esp w. the scenario of him knocking down luda & getting absolutely beat down over weeks for it?

Choke Chained & danny's lil like. crossover routes ( ie. him showing up in a nosy trajectory w. maria & lee ) really is more of a look into how someone functions when they've quite literally been broken. not damaged, not scared into submission, but pushed and beaten and ground into the dirt so badly, so prolonged, that its literally a death in its own right so to speak.

like, following that entire experience danny is still very much loyal and still warm to a point with the others if theyre there too ( ie. nosy ) but really do think how absolutely traumatic - not just mentally or emotionally but also just frankly physically too - how it must have been to literally be repeatedly thrown on the cusp of death over and over and over, how internally there was a sense of dread at the idea of recovering and coming out alive on the other end of the tunnel. how internally there was the fight of just letting yourself go vs i dont want to give any satisfaction in doing so - despite that theres still the satisfaction gained by completely destroying you instead from the outside in.

dragging my point back in re: aliases with danny,

guy really has no need for them ( 'aww but dont you wanna be creative and silly wi-' "no." fdsbhjk just deadpan like no need sorry not tryna be an ass but- ). there was never really a mark he'd left on society pre-house so who cares really if anyone could connect any dots? he may toss out a random name in passing but theres no personas to slip a mask on for, theres no intricate backstory really he pieces together for any or for himself. thats really not what his 'purpose', so to speak, is.

mentioned before but, dont pull danny out for hunts when you want to really toy around. you pull him out by choke chain to kill. he's not sitting in bars to really engage with targets like maria does. he's lurking silently around, watching carefully, keeping low profile and listening, observing. he waits for cues to move - be it maria or lee making eye contact with him, or them either doing the same to johnny and seeing him get up first.

he follows suit - he rarely exactly makes first move, in part to not cause any unnecessary attention, but also because his stupid, rage-blinded choices prior already drilled lesson deep into ribcage.

for how he works, its just an unneeded detail really. he just needs to know who to lock jaws on. anything else that may happen, people approaching him, flirting happens, whatever, then he'll roll with it but all the rest is glitter really. if you want someone dead, without complaint, without time wasted, then you pull him out.

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y'know i never did type up that post i intended to about the holidays at everyones' places / with their families and ive been sitting here ( yay me waking up after sleeping only four hrs ) thinking about the holidays at the flores' for a bit but then thought about danny and im...

i dont think dannys had a like... family-oriented holiday season since his mom left. i think for the years between when she did and when he met and got close to maria, his house with his father was literally just. empty. dull. normal. no lights, no tree. absolutely no gifts or family coming over, or going to a relatives'.

i know once he met maria and she found out one year she insisted, as did mama flores, that he joined them with their family. but. like man. i think for a while danny just straight up did not have any sort of christmas. just kinda watched everyone else enjoy it and just looked on.

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its a lil silly to me that danny's just such a gruff, aggressively-loving kinda guy surrounded by (mostly) sappy sweet besties who all just adore and love one another so much in their own ways and hes just standing in the middle of them all like, "yeah sure i love all you fuckin' fools too i guess-"

but when one of them is in any sort of trouble, the urgency this guy goes to get to them as quick as possible - the way if they call in the dead of night he'll grab his keys and drive to their place immediately - the way even without outside influence from anyone, he would beat the shit out of anyone who hurts or disrespects any of them, the way he'd turn lethal for any of them too.

my guy doesnt realize he's the biggest sap of them all - every one of them are so fucking important to him, so vital to him, so precious and so worth protecting, so worth getting his fists bloody for, so worth frankly dying or killing for.

he's hard-headed and he's stonefaced and sarcastic and sometimes rather Dumb in spite of being Smart but. hes aggressively loyal to his friends. he loves them all something fierce. ( applies to extended friends of the group, fwiw, too not just canon ♡ )

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thinking about danny's career post-house and how in the scenarios where thomas has done a fuckin' number on him and it causes his more Dire injuries, all that work in his trade school nearly falls completely to shit.

repeated blunt force trauma to the head? likely causes long-term, chronic issues, may even prevent him from welding in deep water like he'd been training to do due to the water pressure on his skull? he'd probably have to be restricted to working at shipyards for any welding?

but then tack on the added layer of okay, where thomas struck on his head, is it a scenario where it cracked his brow bone open, hit his eye? caused him to likely have to get it removed post-house depending on how severe the damage to it / the socket / etc ended up? how it could affect him even getting hired in the first place if he's partly blind due to it?

like. all that work potentially for nothing? trying to return to normalcy post-house and he struggles to get into the line of work he'd spent all that time learning and honing? making work connections who then grow silent on him?

and then tack on all the post-house trauma.

how if they all made it out, alive, yes he's relieved and yes he's happy they all made it, that they found maria and got her home, but its all their collective and different ways of coping? his to shut down, grow quiet, reclusive. theres still so much rage and hate he's scared of lashing out on them. ana who throws on a brave face even then, shoves it all down, and moves on, but develops the habit of checking in constantly on where maria is, anxious when she doesnt hear from her immediately. and then maria, who depending on if things run thru wilted or shine post-house routes, if she stays in texas, after getting caught packing her place up, danny constantly checks in on her, scared of her trying to take off again like that, scared to return to the coast in fear of getting another call like the one he did about her being missing.

how if she does still take off to the pnw without a word to any of them, danny literally tries to hunt her down. takes off driving to all kinds of places he thinks she'd go - how he looks for places warm and sunny, beautiful and bright - thinking its obvious she'd go there instead of some consistently overcast, gloomy state.

how in the case that the rest of them get out but they know shes dead, hes always on the cusp of either breaking shit around him or crumbling into a heap of sobs on the ground. the guilt he feels not being there sooner, the guilt at what she must have gone through alone there, terrified the entire time she was kept alive. how following the little (likely empty-casket) funeral the flores' held for her, he couldnt stand going back there. because that isnt maria - that isnt his friend, there in some box surrounded by dirt, the one likely still decaying in that fucking basement like some kind of hunt trophy.

my guy is just. so lost post-house. feels like he failed maria, failed ana. failed mrs. flores. failed leland and connie, failed julie and sonny, failed donnie. failed all of them.

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danny is screaming so goddamn loud in my ear rn so uh have some brief bullet points at some of what's is just blaring in my mind.

( gentle cw for mentions a.buse & abandonment. )

danilo "danny" alejo-osório

danilo - god is my judge alejo - protector / defender osório - hunter of wolves

father: marcos ignacio alejo mother: salome osório half-sister: carina osório

UPBRINGING.

danny's parents - marcos & salome - were never a married couple. due to her refusal of his several proposals and having danny out of wedlock, their relationship and danny's early years were spent observing a wildfire of hate claimed to be "love".

( young danny had sworn to himself if that is what "love" was supposed to look like, then he never wanted to feel it. )

he witnessed the countless arguments, furniture getting smashed and thrown and knocked over across their home, his father towering over his mother, screaming into her face. of his mother hissing back to lower his voice, that danilo is in the room - which only prompted deadly glare in the childs' direction before his mother was dragged off into another room, where voices and crashing turned muffled to danny's ears.

by the time danny turned seven, his mother decided to leave. to return back to her family in colombia - partly why she had never accepted his fathers' proposals, he would later learn. she wanted marcos to meet her family first, and he refused every time, claiming he didn't need to until they were married; until she was trapped with him.

she packed little and left, after spending a weekend with him. doting on him, taking him wherever he wanted to go. turning away at times, to hide the fact that she was crying.

a goodbye - not a see you later. for he has not seen her in person since.

( she had believed he would fare better in the states than back home, and she only had enough money to ensure her own return. she wanted to take him - she just hoped he would live better here. )

danny didnt hear from her for a number of years ( found out his father hid the letters' she would send; it was fuel he tried to poison him against her with, to claim she abandoned him, forgot about him, didn't care ). but when he had finally discovered the box in his fathers' closet one day, and the stack of pre-opened and read envelopes, danny to a point forgave his mother for her choice.

he also learned, through chicken-scratch and undecipherable drawings, that he has a little half-sister - carina.

he has yet to meet her in person, still. but, they send letters from time to time. ( there's alot to catch up on, alot to learn, alot to digest. )

THE WRONG CROWD.

he was involved in a wrong crowd kind of friendgroup in his early to mid teens; most being the sons and daughters of his fathers' friends and co-workers - not the greatest bunch themselves.

the group were asshats, to place it plainly - getting into fights, randomly targeting people to harass and attack. breaking into homes, stealing and selling property and valuables stolen from the owners. even stealing some cars here and there.

the only consistently good friend he had was maria, when they had met between the time his mother and her father left, respectively. and he learned this fact the hard way.

maria, in spite of her own home life being rocky at the time, was always there to grant him a space of peace, a place at a dining room table that he didn't need to be tense over if it would be shoved out of the way for his father to go after him.

she was the only avenue where he felt like he could relax and just be himself - the only person at the time he was comfortable with crying in front of ( he had it quite literally lunched and kicked into him that men don't cry - if he cries, his father vowed to give him something to actually cry over. )

but when one of his 'friends' little break-in plan went to the fuckin' shithole - they broke into a sheriff's fucking house, the motherfucker didn't do his research - and danny was held at gunpoint while the others tried to scatter. leaving him there, alone, to be arrested that night.

the others' were eventually caught, even in spite of danny keeping quiet on who he had been with. he ended up in juvie regardless, for several months.

lesson learned on who he should place loyalty - when not a damned one of them bothered to go see him.

no one except maria, and her mother.

danny was embarrassed for her, having to walk into the building - to have self and bags searched and contents dumped and ripped apart. every single visit ( because she insisted on it, on coming by after school, spending her allotted visitors' time with him. )

she did so without complaint. without negative word, without annoyance at being humiliated time and time again, by officers' who'd let her into the visitors area. he kept telling her she didn't need to. and she kept repeating that she wanted to, and didn't want him to be alone in there.

and its still a mystery to him, how he ever deserved to have someone like her as a friend.

and sometime later, after he had gotten out of juvie, after listening to maria pour her heart out over him - pleaded with him to think of himself and what he wanted for his life, if the people he was around where doing him any good. to please be careful, to not get himself into trouble like he had, where he easily could have been shot and killed - did he finally cut them all off, started to focus on his studies, started to focus on himself - on her and her friendship.

( she showed herself countless times to always be in his corner - and he fuckin' needed to prove that he deserved a place in hers for it. )

if was her study sessions, her gentle encouragement, everything that brought him to the point of graduating - barely, but he made it. and he credits her for being at his side, getting his shit together.

and a last little sweet thing between them.

danny once told her, the august after she graduated ( he's less than two years older ), in his truck, driving out with her on a weekend trip for her birthday, that:

" y'know something? if you and i, we aren't married- i mean, if no one has realized how amazing their lives' would be to have you in it as their wife, by the time we're like. thirty-something or other? i'm going to find you the prettiest ring and propose to you. and i'm going to buy you a nice little house, somewhere where you can grow a garden. where you get to see and experience every season. and i'll bring you home the stray cats i find at work, and the stray dogs too. if anyone is fuckin' stupid enough to let you slide off their radars? you're stuck with me. hope you know that. "

and maria had blinked at him, and then her laughter filled the car, and she replied, beaming,

" i would say yes - in a heartbeat, danny. "

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