He's not sure he's ever seen Steve actually at a loss for words. No, not just words. Sentences. Stopping and starting like the faulty engine of the Marquis, stopping and starting with his heart. Dragging it forward, letting it go, falling a sickening drop before catching again, lifting. He can -- what? Be difficult? He knows that, just agreed to that, has never tried to pretend that he's an easy person to be around, to be with. And this month --
Yeah. This month. Wringer doesn't even cover it, can't define the level of hell they have all been through, but Steve, Steve especially, and he tries, he does. To make it easier on him, as much as he can, but that's just one more reason to keep the pressure low, which is something he is completely failing to do, because of this. What he can't deny to himself. The way it feels like his whole ribcage gets jacked higher, body so tuned to Steve's touch that the whole rest of everything -- the room, the faint sound of the waves, the lack of light -- gets tuned off like Steve's turning a radio dial
Because he can't give this up. Can't help but give into it, this thing that feels so fragile but threatens to hit him like a ton of bricks, that is filling the days and nights with so much more, so much of what he thought he'd never get again, never.
But the hands on his face are demanding his focus, so he focuses, on Steve, the look on his face, blown bare and almost desperate, like Steve is suddenly speaking in tongues and needs Danny to understand, to translate, which would make sense, because what he actually says, when he strings words together into a sentence, doesn't make sense at all, at first.
He is --
No, he knows those words. Says them to Gracie all the time. You're the best thing to ever happen to me, Monkey, promise. Familiar endearments rolling off his tongue, meaning it every single time. He hears them in his own voice, brings them out from his own heart, countless times in a year.
But when, seriously, when, when was the last time someone said them to him, about him? While he's staring at Steve, feeling like a mountain's caved in on his head, and his fingers are gripping his shirt, his side, needing to feel Steve under them, because, Christ, he must be dreaming. He is dreaming Steve watching him, intent, like he's afraid Danny's not going to get it, and he gets it, Jesus, he does, yes, but that's not, it isn't, hasn't ever been, and he can't take it if this is anything less than one hundred percent meant. Feels himself like a sheet of melted sugar, spread thin, close to cracking.
Like Steve's voice. Which strikes an answering fault in Danny's heart, to hear it. Making his own barely a whisper, rusted out and unsure and, God, he can hear it in his own voice, he is so screwed, this is running him over like a truck and want is too small of a word for the thing that's swelling, painful and brilliant inside his chest, like someone set off one of those huge chrysanthemum fireworks in there.
"It has been a crappy month." Barely there. Not even a joke. He doesn't have it in him, in this second. Scraping along the part of himself he'd thought got frozen out back in Jersey, in the courts and the motel room where he stayed and the cases he buried himself in. "But I can say the same." Easily. A hundred percent.
This. The only good thing to come out of this plane crash of a month. The best thing. Something so amazing, so impossible. So good. "I, uh." Reaching up. One hand on Steve's side, one, fingertips resting against Steve's wrist. "This is, I mean. You are, you -- " Make all of this bearable. Better.
But that's about when all his words fail him, because there's none left to say that says it any better than the ones that are still ringing in his ears.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-12-04 04:55 am (UTC)Yeah. This month. Wringer doesn't even cover it, can't define the level of hell they have all been through, but Steve, Steve especially, and he tries, he does. To make it easier on him, as much as he can, but that's just one more reason to keep the pressure low, which is something he is completely failing to do, because of this. What he can't deny to himself. The way it feels like his whole ribcage gets jacked higher, body so tuned to Steve's touch that the whole rest of everything -- the room, the faint sound of the waves, the lack of light -- gets tuned off like Steve's turning a radio dial
Because he can't give this up. Can't help but give into it, this thing that feels so fragile but threatens to hit him like a ton of bricks, that is filling the days and nights with so much more, so much of what he thought he'd never get again, never.
But the hands on his face are demanding his focus, so he focuses, on Steve, the look on his face, blown bare and almost desperate, like Steve is suddenly speaking in tongues and needs Danny to understand, to translate, which would make sense, because what he actually says, when he strings words together into a sentence, doesn't make sense at all, at first.
He is --
No, he knows those words. Says them to Gracie all the time. You're the best thing to ever happen to me, Monkey, promise. Familiar endearments rolling off his tongue, meaning it every single time. He hears them in his own voice, brings them out from his own heart, countless times in a year.
But when, seriously, when, when was the last time someone said them to him, about him? While he's staring at Steve, feeling like a mountain's caved in on his head, and his fingers are gripping his shirt, his side, needing to feel Steve under them, because, Christ, he must be dreaming. He is dreaming Steve watching him, intent, like he's afraid Danny's not going to get it, and he gets it, Jesus, he does, yes, but that's not, it isn't, hasn't ever been, and he can't take it if this is anything less than one hundred percent meant. Feels himself like a sheet of melted sugar, spread thin, close to cracking.
Like Steve's voice. Which strikes an answering fault in Danny's heart, to hear it. Making his own barely a whisper, rusted out and unsure and, God, he can hear it in his own voice, he is so screwed, this is running him over like a truck and want is too small of a word for the thing that's swelling, painful and brilliant inside his chest, like someone set off one of those huge chrysanthemum fireworks in there.
"It has been a crappy month." Barely there. Not even a joke. He doesn't have it in him, in this second. Scraping along the part of himself he'd thought got frozen out back in Jersey, in the courts and the motel room where he stayed and the cases he buried himself in. "But I can say the same." Easily. A hundred percent.
This. The only good thing to come out of this plane crash of a month. The best thing. Something so amazing, so impossible. So good. "I, uh." Reaching up. One hand on Steve's side, one, fingertips resting against Steve's wrist. "This is, I mean. You are, you -- " Make all of this bearable. Better.
But that's about when all his words fail him, because there's none left to say that says it any better than the ones that are still ringing in his ears.