Better Sorry than Safe

15.

"Are you gonna say something or what?"

Daniel didn't respond to the question, nor look up from his laptop screen.

Sem rolled his eyes, despite knowing his brother wouldn't see it. "You're just never going to talk to me again then? Finally."

Daniel's eyes kept gliding across the lines of text on his screen, as if he wasn't even there.

Damn it, if there was anything that made Sem's skin crawl, it was the silent treatment. He couldn't stand being ignored, and Daniel knew it. It was probably exactly the reason why he was ignoring him.

If looks could kill... Sem had been the recipient of many of his brother's glares, of glares from people in general, but the way Daniel had looked at him at the steakhouse, God, he wasn't going to forget that look any time soon.

Sem had expected many things to happen when Daniel got home yesterday night, after the incident at the steakhouse. When he'd heard his brother's footsteps on the stairs, he'd been preparing himself for a fight. He'd pictured how mom and dad would wake up as well, and everything would just go to hell. There'd be an explosion, implosion, something.

But nothing had come.

Daniel had simply passed his room, and went to sleep. Sem, on the other hand, had barely caught a wink. What did Daniel know? What was he thinking? Was he only pissed because Sem had showed up at his date with Lisa, or because he was on what suspiciously looked like a date with Connor? Both? Did he suspect? Was he going to tell mom and dad? And why did Sem even care? He'd always told himself he didn't give a crap about what his family members thought of him being gay.

Sem had honestly thought he didn't care, and would never care. But here he was, sitting at the breakfast table with nerves clawing his insides, when he found Daniel ignoring him. Okay, silence between them in the morning was pretty normal --if they weren't fighting, or making fun of the other of course-- but this tense silence definitely wasn't. Daniel never full-on ignored his existence.

"C'mon, give me something here," Sem tried again, "Talk, or yell at me. You're obviously pissed."

The only sound breaking the silence was the clacking of Daniel's fingers on his keyboard.

"So, you and Lisa huh?" Sem then tried, feeling himself getting more and more pathetically desperate for a reaction.

He was met with more silence. Daniel wasn't even blushing, like he usually did whenever Sem mentioned Lisa.

Sem took the seat opposite Daniel, trying to force his brother to look at him. "So, I was there having dinner, and I saw you with your porkers date. Big deal. Get over it. I didn't do anything. I walked right out of that steakhouse, and left you all nice and alone didn't I? What's your problem?"

Daniel's jaw clenched. The rattling of his fingers grew louder, but he wasn't caving.

Goddamnit. Sem was so, so done with this. The kitchen chair scraped across the floor as he stood up, and stomped to Daniel's side of the table. He reached out and pushed the laptop closed, nearly slamming it on top of Daniel's fingers in the process.

"Now are we going to talk?"

Daniel sat frozen in his chair for a few seconds, staring straight ahead to where his laptop screen was. When his brother finally looked up, his eyes were so cold Sem felt the little hairs in his neck standing up. Why did he get the feeling he'd just made a terrible mistake?

"You want to talk?" Daniel's voice was dangerously calm and low, "Funny. You should really wish for some less talking. Because everyone talks, including Dev."