This is my fake JF.

Title: Danny Butterman's Magical Box o' Love [temporary title, suggestions gratefully welcomed]
Fandom: Hot Fuzz
Pairing: You know, the canon one
Summary: Independence Day is a shit film. It's absolute bollocks. They could've been watching gay porn!
Author's Notes: For Ann's birthday. Unbetaed and with very little editing, on account of having written most of it just today. Sorry!
Disclaimer: Not mine, not mine, I don't even have my own cuddly monkey. So sad.



Danny Butterman's Magical Box o' Love

Danny Butterman did not hide DVDs. He reveled in them, announced them to the world, kept Nicholas continually apprised of all his latest acquisitions. He kept them in pristine condition, dust-free, well-lit, sorted by genre and, within each genre, by original release date, with alphabetized lists on a clipboard by the door that sorted them by name, director, star, character, country of origin, subject, types of chase scene, number of explosions, and whether anyone shot their gun into the air and yelled "AAAAAH!" All of which was done by hand, as Danny couldn't work a computer for shit. Truly, it was a labor of love.

Danny Butterman did not hide DVDs, which was why Nicholas was so surprised one evening to spot, near Danny's foot, what appeared to be the corner of a small cardboard box full of them shoved haphazardly underneath Danny's sofa.

"Danny," he said, "Are those DVDs in that box?"

"What box?" said Danny, and he kicked it, hard, out of sight. Nicholas heard something crunch.

Danny Butterman had once nearly cried when Nicholas had accidentally rested an empty lager bottle on top of his Independence Day DVD case for approximately 24 seconds. To be honest, Danny had said, Independence Day wasn't exactly his favorite, but it was the principle of the thing.

And so it was with that one tiny crunching noise underneath Danny's sofa that Nicholas Angel realized, without question, that something was very, very wrong here.

"Did you just... Did you just kick those DVDs?" he said, and was disturbed to find his voice squeaking slightly. Be fair, though, he told himself. It was very worrying.

"No," said Danny. "I don't know what you're talking about." He was quite clearly trying to look innocent, but he managed only to look exactly like a shoplifting teenager with an illicit bag of crisps in his jacket.

"...Right." Nicholas studied him closely, eyes narrowed. Studying. "Danny, what's in that box?"

"What box?"

"That box," Nicholas insisted, pointing in its general direction. "The one under the sofa!"

"There's no box under the sofa."

"There -" If he'd had hair enough to yank in frustration, Nicholas would've done so. "There is too a box under the sofa! I just saw it! You kicked it!"

"No, I didn't."

"Yes, you did!"

"No, I didn't!"

"Yes, you did!"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Danny insisted. "There's no box under my sofa." And then he moved his foot slightly, as if trying to push it further under.

Nicholas studied him some more, very closely. Eyes narrowed. Studying.

Danny sweated. Suspiciously.

Nicholas made a dive for it.

There was a brief but heated struggle, during which several cardboard boxes toppled over into several other cardboard boxes, the sofa was displaced by a rather considerable distance, half a dozen beer bottles were knocked to the floor (most, thankfully, empty) and Nicholas had to mentally reprimand himself multiple times regarding the position of his hands, the inherent unlikelihood that Danny's hands were where they were on purpose, and police service guidelines on inappropriate touching. He had a sudden, horrific memory of the last sexual harassment seminar he'd had to sit through, with the frightening woman who'd demonstrated the appropriate response to inappropriate touching by screaming "Red light! RED LIGHT!" at the top of her lungs while holding up her hand in warning. She had Danny's face now. And he couldn't unsee it.

Also, less importantly, he hit his head on the coffee table.

"Ow! Son of a... fuck! FUCK! OW!"

"Oh, shit, Nicholas! Are you all right?"

"No, I'm not fucking... OW!" Jesus Christ, that was painful. Danny's face swam in his vision, creased with concern. Nicholas might've thought it endearing, if Danny hadn't been lying on top of him to do it. As it was, the words "RED LIGHT!" continued to echo through his skull, pounding in time to his brand new throbbing fucking headache.

"Oh, ow," he whined. "Ow ow ow." It occurred to him briefly that he hadn't put up this much of a fuss the last time he'd been shot, but, then, Danny hadn't actually been lying on top of him then. Such things made it very hard - DIFFICULT! DIFFICULT! - to be stoic. Plus, throbbing fucking headache.

"Don't look like it's bleeding," said Danny, prodding gently at the injury in question. He'd had to wiggle upwards a little to look at it; Nicholas convinced himself that it would be unseemly to cry.

"Do you think you've got a concussion?" Danny asked. He seemed rather more excited by the idea than he should've been. He wiggled a little more. No crying, Nicholas told himself sternly. "Only people get them all the time in films," Danny continued. "You haven't got amnesia, have you?" He bounced a little in his excitement at this prospect. "Don't go to sleep, you're not supposed to sleep when you have a concussion!"

"No," Nicholas said, and then cleared his throat so he could repeat it without whimpering. "No. I don't think I'll be going to sleep at the moment, no."

Danny was pulling at his eyelids, looking very deeply and worriedly into his eyes.

"What are you doing?" Nicholas asked.

"Looking at your eyeballs," Danny answered.

"Why?" Nicholas asked.

"Well, that's just what they do to people with head injuries, isn't it?" Danny answered, as if it were obvious. "Can you focus on me? Have you gone blind? Do you remember my name?"

Nicholas sighed.

"Yes, Danny, I remember your name. I haven't gone blind. I don't have amnesia." Danny looked slightly disappointed. Nicholas soldiered on. "And I don't have a concussion, because I didn't lose consciousness. I just have a throbbing fucking headache. And you can get off me now."

"Hm? Oh, sorry." Danny wiggled some more, and Nicholas was suddenly aware of how very, very close their faces were.

He turned his head.

And there, in plain view, was a small cardboard box. Just under the edge of the sofa. Slightly dented.

Even injured, Nicholas Angel was a quick little man.

"Shit!" Danny yelped, and he lunged, but it was too late. Nicholas was already sitting up, box in hand.

He looked inside.

For a moment, it was as if the entire universe sort of paused. And then everything sort of shifted, like in The Matrix when they went into Bullet Time.

Good God, Nicholas thought, he was even starting to think like Danny. He took a brief moment to consider the possible significance of that.

And then his brain started to catch up with him, and the contents of the box actually registered. He stared.

And then slowly, very slowly, Nicholas calmly slid the small cardboard box back to where it had come from.

There was an awkward moment of silence.

"Danny," Nicholas asked, very quietly, "Is there gay porn under your sofa?"

There was another, slightly longer, awkward moment of silence. Neither of them moved.

"No," Danny replied, finally. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Nicholas looked at him, eyebrows raised. And then he reached back under the sofa, slid the box out again, and looked back inside.

There was still another, even more awkward moment of silence, during which Danny pointedly ignored the box in question.

"Are you sure?" Nicholas asked.

Danny looked extremely uncomfortable.

"I... That... It's not what it looks like," he said.

Nicholas was momentarily distracted by the wide range of mind-expanding DVD covers suddenly beckoning for his perusal. "I don't think it can be what it looks like," he said. "I don't think some of this is even physically possible."

"Well, actually..."

Nicholas turned to Danny with wide eyes.

"I... wouldn't know," Danny finished lamely.

There was yet another awkward moment of silence, during which Nicholas continued to look at Danny and Danny managed to look everywhere but Nicholas. The box, for its part, didn't seem to be looking anywhere, but its presence was felt very keenly, all the same.

"Danny," asked Nicholas eventually, "Have you been watching gay porn?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

Nicholas shook the box. DVD cases rattled dully against each other.

"I told you," Danny insisted, "That's not what it looks like."

"Then what is it?"

"It's..." Danny seemed momentarily at a loss. "...Evidence?"

"Evidence?"

"Yeah," said Danny, nodding. "Evidence."

"In a cardboard box."

"Yeah."

"Under your sofa."

"Yeah, sorry about that," said Danny, with a self-effacing sort of grin. "Shouldn't have done that, sorry. I'll make sure to put it in the evidence room on Monday, all right?"

"Danny, this is not evidence!" Nicholas brandished a particularly impressive DVD case at him. "What would it be evidence of, Sandford's clandestine town-wide gay porn ring? Do they have a room at the back of the shop where they make videos of -" he took another look at the DVD cover "- muscular shaven blond men doing indecent things with... wait." He stopped to take another look at the DVD cover, but Danny snatched it from his hand before he could look too closely.

"They could do!" he said. "It's Sandford, you never know!"

"It's not even illegal!" Nicholas yelled.

"Are you sure?" asked Danny. "I don't know about some of those ones at the bottom there."

Nicholas turned towards the box in wide-eyed wonder. He started digging for the bottom, but Danny grabbed the box away from him.

"No!" said Danny. "No! There will be no digging through my gay porn! No!"

"Aha! So you admit it!"

"No!" Danny shoved the box behind his back, looking horrified. Nicholas had that urge to yank at his own non-existent hair again.

"Danny, why are you being so stubborn about this?" he asked. "There is nothing wrong with gay porn!"

"Then why are you getting so excited?"

"Because it's gay porn!"

"Yeah!" Danny yelled. "I know! And if there's nothing wrong with it, then why are you yelling at me?"

"Because Independence Day is a shit film!" Nicholas yelled. "It's absolute bollocks! We could've been watching gay porn!"

Danny blinked at him.

"Wait. What?"

And then Nicholas kissed him.

There was yet another moment of silence, considerably longer, but infinitely less awkward. Actually, it wasn't entirely silent, as it did have some moaning in it, but still.

"Ohhh!" said Danny eventually, realization having dawned. "We could've been watching gay porn!"

"Yes!" said Nicholas, "Exactly!" And in a show of great restraint, he did not actually flail his arms excitedly like Kermit the Frog. It was a near miss, though.

"So do you want to watch gay porn now, then?" Danny asked.

Whole new vistas were opening up in Nicholas Angel's head. He gaped slightly.

"Or...," Danny added, a bit shyly, but with a hopeful sort of gleam in his eyes. "Or we could... you know... make gay porn."

They didn't actually make gay porn, as they didn't have a camera, although they did eventually make frozen pizza and have Danny pretend to deliver it.

It was the thought that counted.