Danny is, of course, the first thought he recognizes as a thought after the world crumples in on him.
If you can call it thought. It might be trained recognition of movement, awareness badgered into a psyche beyond liminal weakness, enough to know there's a jack knife of movement under him. Rapid and necessary, making him try to find the nerve ending that involve his hand, and just try to beat his head against the wall suffocating it with cotton fluff, thicker and denser than cement, and not let go. Not uncurl his fingers in the slightest until Danny is making all that noise into his shoulder.
When the absent, giddy thought trickling up, then, is that he loves that. He loves Danny's stupid mouth, and that he'll never be quiet, not if you paid off Grace's whole future. He's incapable. Swear his name, and then all those tiniest sound, escaping the pressure on his skin, where most of it is getting trapped and lost. Soaking into him. All of that fire and brimstone and sheer sound that is Danny Williams, losing it. Softening in the curl of his fist, soaking into the fallen wall of his body, like Steve won't hear him.
Danny'd never be quiet enough for this to have happened almost any other time in his life. Which somehow drags enough muscle control back into his face that he's smiling. Stupidly. Grateful for that, too. He'd never want Danny in any other way, anything other than all of him. All of this. Him, and his endless movements that are jerking to a slow still, heavy breathe still racing down, and all those sounds kicked beyond any control except the desperate urge to smother them on Steve's skin.
Steve tips himself, a little, more toward the bed. So his side ends up there, even if it doesn't actually move him away. It's somewhere else to collapse like his bones are made of twine, bowing at even the faint attempts at something smooth and easy. Half a foot. Maybe. Enough to find the sheet, slide part of himself against it, still against Danny. Chest still heaving, heart barely giving up the mad dash gallop that is tremoring every limb, throbbing at every pulse point.
How even through that, it's not where his head falls or body settles, but the way his fingers hook on Danny's far side, loose and weighted with anvils in each finger tip, the feel of Danny's ribs, the muscles there, the heavy rise and fall of breathing, so warm and solid and real, that feels like it tethers him enough to breathe and let go, again.
no subject
If you can call it thought. It might be trained recognition of movement, awareness badgered into a psyche beyond liminal weakness, enough to know there's a jack knife of movement under him. Rapid and necessary, making him try to find the nerve ending that involve his hand, and just try to beat his head against the wall suffocating it with cotton fluff, thicker and denser than cement, and not let go. Not uncurl his fingers in the slightest until Danny is making all that noise into his shoulder.
When the absent, giddy thought trickling up, then, is that he loves that. He loves Danny's stupid mouth, and that he'll never be quiet, not if you paid off Grace's whole future. He's incapable. Swear his name, and then all those tiniest sound, escaping the pressure on his skin, where most of it is getting trapped and lost. Soaking into him. All of that fire and brimstone and sheer sound that is Danny Williams, losing it. Softening in the curl of his fist, soaking into the fallen wall of his body, like Steve won't hear him.
Danny'd never be quiet enough for this to have happened almost any other time in his life. Which somehow drags enough muscle control back into his face that he's smiling. Stupidly. Grateful for that, too. He'd never want Danny in any other way, anything other than all of him. All of this. Him, and his endless movements that are jerking to a slow still, heavy breathe still racing down, and all those sounds kicked beyond any control except the desperate urge to smother them on Steve's skin.
Steve tips himself, a little, more toward the bed. So his side ends up there, even if it doesn't actually move him away. It's somewhere else to collapse like his bones are made of twine, bowing at even the faint attempts at something smooth and easy. Half a foot. Maybe. Enough to find the sheet, slide part of himself against it, still against Danny. Chest still heaving, heart barely giving up the mad dash gallop that is tremoring every limb, throbbing at every pulse point.
How even through that, it's not where his head falls or body settles, but the way his fingers hook on Danny's far side, loose and weighted with anvils in each finger tip, the feel of Danny's ribs, the muscles there, the heavy rise and fall of breathing, so warm and solid and real, that feels like it tethers him enough to breathe and let go, again.