With a breath through her nose and a shake of her head, while her shoulders slump a little.
It's such a bad idea. It's such a bad idea. They've had it drilled into them over and over, and she's willing to bet Danny has, too. It's one of those things that has to be regulated, working in high risk situations, in close quarters, with distinct levels of accountability and clear-cut ranks. It's too easy to make everything personal. To find yourself making the wrong decisions, mistakes. Getting too involved. Too easy for all those rankings to just dissolve outside work, threatening the structure once back in the office, on the field.
He knows all of that. She could list off every reason in the book, but he knows them as well as she does. Fraternization in the ranks. Why it's a bad idea. Why it's frowned upon, to the point of disciplinary action. When they could both be looking down the barrel of a career-ending decision.
And she wants to say all of it. She wants to yell at him, smack him in the head, make him see reason, but he's staring at her with naked panic in his face and she's not sure he's seeing her at all, when it's obvious his heart's gotten jerked outside and slammed behind the closed door, with Danny. The exact opposite of that bewildered, delighted smile of three seconds ago. Of the careful disbelief the other day, admitting that it was actually pretty good. The way it looks like he wouldn't be able to breathe right now even if she slapped an oxygen mask on his face.
There's nothing for it, no other choice to make. Not if she cares, and she does, she wants to see it again, that stupid goofy look, that sudden shining happiness, the way Steve filled in around the edges and suddenly became more himself than he's been all weekend.
It's a bad idea, but they can talk about it later. Right now he needs to: "Go."
Eyebrows up, head tipping towards the door as her hands lift and she starts to get up, because she is definitely not going to want to be here in the next ten minutes or so. A little sharper, faintly resigned, but no less certain that he should get up and go fix this before he winds up with exactly the scenario he was trying to avoid when he pushed her away earlier. "Will you get going? Or do you want him to leave?"
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branchandroot
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Date: 2013-02-06 03:28 pm (UTC)With a breath through her nose and a shake of her head, while her shoulders slump a little.
It's such a bad idea. It's such a bad idea. They've had it drilled into them over and over, and she's willing to bet Danny has, too. It's one of those things that has to be regulated, working in high risk situations, in close quarters, with distinct levels of accountability and clear-cut ranks. It's too easy to make everything personal. To find yourself making the wrong decisions, mistakes. Getting too involved. Too easy for all those rankings to just dissolve outside work, threatening the structure once back in the office, on the field.
He knows all of that. She could list off every reason in the book, but he knows them as well as she does. Fraternization in the ranks. Why it's a bad idea. Why it's frowned upon, to the point of disciplinary action. When they could both be looking down the barrel of a career-ending decision.
And she wants to say all of it. She wants to yell at him, smack him in the head, make him see reason, but he's staring at her with naked panic in his face and she's not sure he's seeing her at all, when it's obvious his heart's gotten jerked outside and slammed behind the closed door, with Danny. The exact opposite of that bewildered, delighted smile of three seconds ago. Of the careful disbelief the other day, admitting that it was actually pretty good. The way it looks like he wouldn't be able to breathe right now even if she slapped an oxygen mask on his face.
There's nothing for it, no other choice to make. Not if she cares, and she does, she wants to see it again, that stupid goofy look, that sudden shining happiness, the way Steve filled in around the edges and suddenly became more himself than he's been all weekend.
It's a bad idea, but they can talk about it later. Right now he needs to: "Go."
Eyebrows up, head tipping towards the door as her hands lift and she starts to get up, because she is definitely not going to want to be here in the next ten minutes or so. A little sharper, faintly resigned, but no less certain that he should get up and go fix this before he winds up with exactly the scenario he was trying to avoid when he pushed her away earlier. "Will you get going? Or do you want him to leave?"