"She does now." There's a heayy sort of exasperation there, that might imply that certain things had been left out of her original informing, of any of the one-sentence answers she's gotten drug out of him today, that have all fallen by the wayside between Danny opening and her shooing Steve out of his own house with the same force that she'd give her first startled reaction.
He thinks he's about to hear the same words he's thrown at himself in the mirror, except this time from someone else who's opinion of him, both on the clock and off of it, actually matters. The kind of actually matter that leaves him having no idea what she'll say.
The thought tatters a little when Danny's fingers loop his wrist and pull him, almost teetering in surprise, toward his front door.
Warm little cuff that literally makes his heart gives a spike of sensation so dramatic and winded and warm, it's almost nearly painful, too. So that when he's looking over at Danny because of it. The thoughts and the touch and Danny's skittish expression, like Steve's about to dodge into oncoming fire, or a head on collision with a gate and the camaro, and drag Danny right along.
Everyone fell into someone else's bunk sometime. That was a given.
You tried to keep it to people outside of two up, two down in ranks. You tried even harder to keep it either back home with your spouse, or with people in ports, if you didn't have anything that amount to a 'back there.' But ninety percent of time, everyone fell into someone's bunk that screwed the lines somewhere, at least once. Boats, and even mission teams, were only so big.
But you didn't let it have a face life, and you didn't let it get in the way of duty, and you didn't let it become real.
Your bunk was one thing. This was....
This was Danny, with his fingers looped, every molecule in Steve's body leaning toward that space, listening like it was speaking. Danny, who was still going to be his partner in the morning, whose paper he signed, whose court dates he'd have to know about, who he might have to testify on. Danny. Who he still wanted, more than anything, to pull into him, warm, and solid, and blunt it out. Not the anger. Not even the Danny's delirious, insulting assumptions.
That cold that slipped into him. For one shining second as the door slammed. That made it feel like every second he'd thought he couldn't breathe before that point was a cleverly dramatic parallel to what it suddenly felt like not to be able to pull air into his lungs at all. Like the whole world could black out on a finite point, losing Danny and Cath in one, too long, too fragile, second.
Except then the fingers let go, and Steve straightened his spine, his shoulders, looking over with an unimpressed, unconcerned, press of his lips -- but at least it has stopped being pointedly sharp. "I'm still the ranking officer here, and I'm not about to give either of you the permission to discharge a firearm in my house."
no subject
He thinks he's about to hear the same words he's thrown at himself in the mirror, except this time from someone else who's opinion of him, both on the clock and off of it, actually matters. The kind of actually matter that leaves him having no idea what she'll say.
The thought tatters a little when Danny's fingers loop his wrist and pull him, almost teetering in surprise, toward his front door.
Warm little cuff that literally makes his heart gives a spike of sensation so dramatic and winded and warm, it's almost nearly painful, too. So that when he's looking over at Danny because of it. The thoughts and the touch and Danny's skittish expression, like Steve's about to dodge into oncoming fire, or a head on collision with a gate and the camaro, and drag Danny right along.
Everyone fell into someone else's bunk sometime. That was a given.
You tried to keep it to people outside of two up, two down in ranks. You tried even harder to keep it either back home with your spouse, or with people in ports, if you didn't have anything that amount to a 'back there.' But ninety percent of time, everyone fell into someone's bunk that screwed the lines somewhere, at least once. Boats, and even mission teams, were only so big.
But you didn't let it have a face life, and you didn't let it get in the way of duty, and you didn't let it become real.
Your bunk was one thing. This was....
This was Danny, with his fingers looped, every molecule in Steve's body leaning toward that space, listening like it was speaking. Danny, who was still going to be his partner in the morning, whose paper he signed, whose court dates he'd have to know about, who he might have to testify on. Danny. Who he still wanted, more than anything, to pull into him, warm, and solid, and blunt it out. Not the anger. Not even the Danny's delirious, insulting assumptions.
That cold that slipped into him. For one shining second as the door slammed. That made it feel like every second he'd thought he couldn't breathe before that point was a cleverly dramatic parallel to what it suddenly felt like not to be able to pull air into his lungs at all. Like the whole world could black out on a finite point, losing Danny and Cath in one, too long, too fragile, second.
Except then the fingers let go, and Steve straightened his spine, his shoulders, looking over with an unimpressed, unconcerned, press of his lips -- but at least it has stopped being pointedly sharp. "I'm still the ranking officer here, and I'm not about to give either of you the permission to discharge a firearm in my house."