You'd have to be blind and deaf and something -- senseless? -- to miss it. The way Danny suddenly loses almost all of his elasticity. It's as drastic and obvious as someone snapping on a light in this room would be. Shifting the mattress right around him with his start. Body tightening up like the wind up clock just hit twelve. Everything pulling inward in a solid movement and stabbing something in Steve's chest, even when Danny is making himself keep up the conversation.
Which loses all its insult, too. He's corrected, but it's an effort. It's an effort Steve can actually hear. In Danny's voice. In the way he shapes the letters, the way the air comes out like somewhere Danny's in there using his back and shoulders, in a way that would ruin his knees, to shove it and the sounds along with it, out of his throat. Aiming for something like holding on. When he isn't holding on. Still isn't actually touching Steve
Whose entire first reaction, while getting his feet back under himself, is to smooth a large hand down Danny's too tight thigh muscles. That is the body having the response to close up and pull in, that his entire body is in the way of Danny's legs listening to. The bottle dropped for the second somewhere between his own legs, so that he can have his hands. To run one loose and heavy down Danny's thigh, while the other returns to the place it left.
A cuff of fingers, dragging up slow, when he leaned back down, laying his mouth against the rise of Danny's hipbone, for words that had nothing to do with Danny's either. "I've got you."
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Which loses all its insult, too. He's corrected, but it's an effort. It's an effort Steve can actually hear. In Danny's voice. In the way he shapes the letters, the way the air comes out like somewhere Danny's in there using his back and shoulders, in a way that would ruin his knees, to shove it and the sounds along with it, out of his throat. Aiming for something like holding on. When he isn't holding on. Still isn't actually touching Steve
Whose entire first reaction, while getting his feet back under himself, is to smooth a large hand down Danny's too tight thigh muscles. That is the body having the response to close up and pull in, that his entire body is in the way of Danny's legs listening to. The bottle dropped for the second somewhere between his own legs, so that he can have his hands. To run one loose and heavy down Danny's thigh, while the other returns to the place it left.
A cuff of fingers, dragging up slow, when he leaned back down, laying his mouth against the rise of Danny's hipbone, for words that had nothing to do with Danny's either. "I've got you."