Okay, so he's a jerk. He knows this about himself; Steve knows it, too. Manners get tossed out the window with alarming frequency between the two of them, and that's fine.
Right now, though, Steve is looking a little like he's seriously considering kicking Danny in the shins, and Danny can't help it, he seriously can't, if he opened his mouth now he'd probably say something about how she should stop touching him because Steve knows five hundred ways to kill a person using only the objects in his immediate vicinity, the bar included, and he can get pretty twitchy, and it would just go downhill from there, which just makes him set his jaw tighter, wondering when, exactly, his mind decided to take a rain check for the remainder of the evening.
He's always been a jealous person. Sure. Has gotten so used to forcing his way into the attention of people who don't take him seriously as a cop, a dad, a husband, that it's a kneejerk reaction to get louder, to shove his way in, but he wasn't always this bad. Rachel had always gotten her fair share of attention from other men, who looked at her and looked at Danny and asked the same goddam question Steve did the first time he met her, because it was, apparently, so entirely unbelievable that a woman like her, all elegant class and beauty and whip-sharp intelligence, would possibly want to be with him.
And then it turned out they were right.
Right? So now the tables are a little turned, and he's jealous of Rachel and jealous of Stan, because they have what he thought he and Rachel had, and also, they have Grace. And he tries so hard, but how can he possibly compare to Step-Stan's millions, and the things he can get for her, do for her?
So now there's this. Another unbelievable thing that he's been allowed to have for way longer than he would ever have guessed, and, you know what? He just seriously cannot handle the idea of watching it slip away, right in front of him, without doing a damn thing about it.
Which is all too much, way too much, clogging up his head and heart and spiraling him into a cycle of angry thoughts that all pause, interrupted, by the light rap of Steve's knuckles against his shoulder, making him look down at them in sudden bemusement before following the glance behind himself, and God bless the empty pool table. He'd like to buy all the players who just left it a drink.
"Yeah," he says, hating the way the alarms in his head stand down, the way his back relaxes, minutely, at the idea of escape. How that nickname (and he's never going to be able to hear it without thinking of Steve murmuring it low and rusty and content against the back of his neck, is he?) drags him out of murderous thoughts and back into reality. "Let's grab it before it gets snagged."
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branchandroot
(no subject)
Date: 2012-11-26 04:01 pm (UTC)Right now, though, Steve is looking a little like he's seriously considering kicking Danny in the shins, and Danny can't help it, he seriously can't, if he opened his mouth now he'd probably say something about how she should stop touching him because Steve knows five hundred ways to kill a person using only the objects in his immediate vicinity, the bar included, and he can get pretty twitchy, and it would just go downhill from there, which just makes him set his jaw tighter, wondering when, exactly, his mind decided to take a rain check for the remainder of the evening.
He's always been a jealous person. Sure. Has gotten so used to forcing his way into the attention of people who don't take him seriously as a cop, a dad, a husband, that it's a kneejerk reaction to get louder, to shove his way in, but he wasn't always this bad. Rachel had always gotten her fair share of attention from other men, who looked at her and looked at Danny and asked the same goddam question Steve did the first time he met her, because it was, apparently, so entirely unbelievable that a woman like her, all elegant class and beauty and whip-sharp intelligence, would possibly want to be with him.
And then it turned out they were right.
Right? So now the tables are a little turned, and he's jealous of Rachel and jealous of Stan, because they have what he thought he and Rachel had, and also, they have Grace. And he tries so hard, but how can he possibly compare to Step-Stan's millions, and the things he can get for her, do for her?
So now there's this. Another unbelievable thing that he's been allowed to have for way longer than he would ever have guessed, and, you know what? He just seriously cannot handle the idea of watching it slip away, right in front of him, without doing a damn thing about it.
Which is all too much, way too much, clogging up his head and heart and spiraling him into a cycle of angry thoughts that all pause, interrupted, by the light rap of Steve's knuckles against his shoulder, making him look down at them in sudden bemusement before following the glance behind himself, and God bless the empty pool table. He'd like to buy all the players who just left it a drink.
"Yeah," he says, hating the way the alarms in his head stand down, the way his back relaxes, minutely, at the idea of escape. How that nickname (and he's never going to be able to hear it without thinking of Steve murmuring it low and rusty and content against the back of his neck, is he?) drags him out of murderous thoughts and back into reality. "Let's grab it before it gets snagged."