This man. Danny Williams. Rambling off words that make Steve's chest ache in a vice, even when that touching is still unwinding him like a top. These words that keep rolling out of his mouth and landing like daggers slitting between Steve's throat and his chest. A line going straight down cutting him open. When it feels like saying one of these words himself would tear that forming slit wide open.
That he'd be scattered to the corners of the world, the wind, from all coherent solidness, and Danny just keeps going. Rubbing at his face. Rubbing at Steve's legs. Catching his eye, until Steve just can't look away. Just can't even determine whether this is a bravery he somehow has failed matching or an aggrandizement beyond anything Danny or he could ever meet, fill out, last through, for. But he can't, still. He can't look away.
Like every word, betraying and refusing the world for him, for this, is tucking tiny hooks into his eyes, into his chest where this infinitesimally small bubble is forming. Slow, tiny, warm. So fragile he wants to pretend he can't even feel it taking shape. Like the breath of a thought toward recognition or acknowledgement could shatter it, would shatter it, is asking the world to just do it, unrecognizably and unrecoverably. Here. Now. Today.
His throat doesn't even want to work when he swallows, because Danny is done. Danny is done with those words about how he's the best thing he's got. Steve. Steve. Not Grace, or Five-0. And it hangs there in the air, like a language he should understand and an idea that makes absolutely no sense. The one good thing, making Steve remember calling this the only good thing since he came home.
Making him try again. Making him shove out a breathe feels like it weighs tons, and caves his chest just to get out. When he does the thing that seems about as hard, but doesn't have words yet. Reaching out and placing his hand over Danny's. Palm resting over the back of his hands. Too large, too long fingers spanning across his and a good part of his forearm. Forcing himself to swallow and say, "Okay."
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branchandroot
(no subject)
Date: 2013-05-04 11:41 pm (UTC)He does not know what to do with this man.
This man. Danny Williams. Rambling off words that make Steve's chest ache in a vice, even when that touching is still unwinding him like a top. These words that keep rolling out of his mouth and landing like daggers slitting between Steve's throat and his chest. A line going straight down cutting him open. When it feels like saying one of these words himself would tear that forming slit wide open.
That he'd be scattered to the corners of the world, the wind, from all coherent solidness, and Danny just keeps going. Rubbing at his face. Rubbing at Steve's legs. Catching his eye, until Steve just can't look away. Just can't even determine whether this is a bravery he somehow has failed matching or an aggrandizement beyond anything Danny or he could ever meet, fill out, last through, for. But he can't, still. He can't look away.
Like every word, betraying and refusing the world for him, for this, is tucking tiny hooks into his eyes, into his chest where this infinitesimally small bubble is forming. Slow, tiny, warm. So fragile he wants to pretend he can't even feel it taking shape. Like the breath of a thought toward recognition or acknowledgement could shatter it, would shatter it, is asking the world to just do it, unrecognizably and unrecoverably. Here. Now. Today.
His throat doesn't even want to work when he swallows, because Danny is done. Danny is done with those words about how he's the best thing he's got. Steve. Steve. Not Grace, or Five-0. And it hangs there in the air, like a language he should understand and an idea that makes absolutely no sense. The one good thing, making Steve remember calling this the only good thing since he came home.
Making him try again. Making him shove out a breathe feels like it weighs tons, and caves his chest just to get out. When he does the thing that seems about as hard, but doesn't have words yet. Reaching out and placing his hand over Danny's. Palm resting over the back of his hands. Too large, too long fingers spanning across his and a good part of his forearm. Forcing himself to swallow and say, "Okay."