Danny's ranting to a ramble he can't make out entirely over another set of words, just the low grumble.
It's wrong that even when he wants to hear it -- knows he's going to hear it whenever it is they get out of this place -- that it contorts across him so fast, burning through everything else. When he's grinning in-spite, and because of the malingering, warm water sloshing around the inside of his chest, and only slightly wanting to step closer. To be able to hear his words, smack them back with his own.
Not without looking like he's ignoring one for the other one thrown at him, when he idly considers choosing the opposite side of the table for more than one strategic reason, even if it cost him a shot. But he doesn't want it to. He doesn't really want to play below his game, or to drag this game out any longer than it has to go being a fair game. Especially when it easier. Slipping through like air, like old hat. When the game matters about as much as it doesn't matter.
But the words that she's saying, as clear cut and pointed as they can be, tug up at a wall of unmoved impatience. Not with her so much as this situation. He's in a good mood, all things considered. Which feels so rare, and easily shatter-able. He simply knows it could be better. Just not here. Not with this conversation. When he's angling for his shot, all sleek, smooth lines, unruffled half smile, and what he says, after he's calls it, is both.
"I'm okay," goldenly, easy dismissive. Like he isn't wiping the floor with her, or it wasn't a true enough compliment to be received as one, while another ball slides in without a hitch. "There were guys I trained with who were so good that giving them the table for more than a single turn meant you might as well hang up your boots."
People worth crashing and burning on dozens of times for that one time. Or second. For the spark of determined respect earned and kept there bleeding into other place. People long gone and dispersed into wind after numerous tours, and terms. People he hardly had a reason to draw back up to memory.
But he's looking up, seeing that question coming before it gets there, and stamps it off, barely breaking from his earlier words, and rolling it straight into a question, when he's barely looking up, at least as directly inquiring as a suspect might get, leaning into the table calling the last shot of of his eight. "What about you? What do you do with your days?"
Claiming that one, while talking, with relative ease, and turning his eyes toward the end shot. Calling it for a long shot.
"I'm a legal secretary," Lani said, shifting gears, determined beyond the shot of almost confused frustration, but seeming quite ready to talk about herself, given the opportunity. Still smiling, as she leaned on the table with hand and shifted her cue stick back and forth with the other. "About two years now. Definitely easier in the second year. Which is what most people say about jobs, right?"
Or not. When the cue ball hits it half an inch from where he needed it to, sending the eight ball sailing straight into the guard and hard back out into the rest of the table and most of the solid balls still scattered there.
no subject
It's wrong that even when he wants to hear it -- knows he's going to hear it whenever it is they get out of this place -- that it contorts across him so fast, burning through everything else. When he's grinning in-spite, and because of the malingering, warm water sloshing around the inside of his chest, and only slightly wanting to step closer. To be able to hear his words, smack them back with his own.
Not without looking like he's ignoring one for the other one thrown at him, when he idly considers choosing the opposite side of the table for more than one strategic reason, even if it cost him a shot. But he doesn't want it to. He doesn't really want to play below his game, or to drag this game out any longer than it has to go being a fair game. Especially when it easier. Slipping through like air, like old hat. When the game matters about as much as it doesn't matter.
But the words that she's saying, as clear cut and pointed as they can be, tug up at a wall of unmoved impatience. Not with her so much as this situation. He's in a good mood, all things considered. Which feels so rare, and easily shatter-able. He simply knows it could be better. Just not here. Not with this conversation. When he's angling for his shot, all sleek, smooth lines, unruffled half smile, and what he says, after he's calls it, is both.
"I'm okay," goldenly, easy dismissive. Like he isn't wiping the floor with her, or it wasn't a true enough compliment to be received as one, while another ball slides in without a hitch. "There were guys I trained with who were so good that giving them the table for more than a single turn meant you might as well hang up your boots."
People worth crashing and burning on dozens of times for that one time. Or second. For the spark of determined respect earned and kept there bleeding into other place. People long gone and dispersed into wind after numerous tours, and terms. People he hardly had a reason to draw back up to memory.
But he's looking up, seeing that question coming before it gets there, and stamps it off, barely breaking from his earlier words, and rolling it straight into a question, when he's barely looking up, at least as directly inquiring as a suspect might get, leaning into the table calling the last shot of of his eight. "What about you? What do you do with your days?"
Claiming that one, while talking, with relative ease, and turning his eyes toward the end shot. Calling it for a long shot.
"I'm a legal secretary," Lani said, shifting gears, determined beyond the shot of almost confused frustration, but seeming quite ready to talk about herself, given the opportunity. Still smiling, as she leaned on the table with hand and shifted her cue stick back and forth with the other. "About two years now. Definitely easier in the second year. Which is what most people say about jobs, right?"
Or not. When the cue ball hits it half an inch from where he needed it to, sending the eight ball sailing straight into the guard and hard back out into the rest of the table and most of the solid balls still scattered there.