It's hard to picture, even when he can put the words into images and the images together, lined up, one by one, next to each other, as Danny talks. So close to him that every breath is pulled in and out beneath him, with a shift of his own body. That every breath expelled brushes him. A shoulder, the side of his head. So close that there is no way that the air they are breathing in and out isn't at least half the air from each other doing the same.
The nearness of Danny's voice, and the vibration of his speech across his chest, while he says these things. Danny somehow thinking there was anything he could think, or want to do, that Steve wouldn't have said yes to. That he would be disgusted. Maybe even hate him. The Steve in his head that Danny had already come to term with being a Steve would got punch him or fire him for just coming inside and saying those words.
When Steve can't even be certain what could be the reason to come in and face that, even imagined hell, tonight.
After that case, and the numerous outs Steve gave him, to just leave. Which thinking about makes his hands tighten some.
All of it is crazy, impossible, somehow still surreal, when it's hitting every sense, and Steve's skin is still tacky and drying with both of them on him. On them. It still feels crazy to hear these words spoken. Pushed into existence, asking him to believe that they've existed somewhere, not in his own head, not driving him mad, before this day. Which is when Danny slides those two words in, like it's nothing. A detail that could get lost in everything else. The beginning reasons and the ending point.
Except that Steve can hear Danny's voice. The words are there, but they have no traction and don't make sentences after those two words. Those two words are liking putting his face into flames. Or realizing that no matter that he hasn't been somewhere he didn't have food in over half a decade, it's like realizing he is. Starving. Maybe always has been.
It plays over and over, trampling Danny's other words that keep coming.
I couldn't always help it and I thought about it almost every day.
Almost every day. Every day. How had he missed that. Danny wanting. Every day. Almost every day. He was slipping, if he'd never. But. He couldn't even hold on to the words now. They kept throwing themselves like a bouncing ball, picking up speed, off every wall inside his head and his chest. Louder and softer, impossible and just put out there as real. When it could be Danny exaggerating.
He doesn't sound like that right now, though. The way he sounds when he is. Exaggerating. Insulting, or laughing, or high on being happy. This voice is so careful and it's aimed toward more logically put together than anything since the moment that Steve kissed Danny and the whole floor dropped out from under them. So serious. Maybe too serious? Maybe he shouldn't have asked serious?
Except Steve doesn't want to take it back. Even not certain what to do with how serious it is, how impossible, he wants it. There are still so many words. Danny's fingers lifting and falling, but Steve says those words when Danny stops. Aware that it might be entirely the wrong thing to even picked up in there.
"Every day." He repeats Danny's words.
(Even if his head is the only thing that repeats Almost. Cutting it apart already.)
Not sure if he wants Danny to just blow it off, as having been just a convenient turn of phrase to smooth it all together. Danny's and his millions of words that never ever ran out. Or if that was somehow. Impossibly...possible. Somehow now, too. In with all the rest of it. Every day for years. Every day since -- when had he said, the second year, his second trip to Asia, the big one. The one with his phone off and endless messages. Out chasing Shelburne, before he knew Shelburne was Doris.
Before he wasn't allowed to ever leave Danny, suddenly, with only a letter, again, too.
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branchandroot
(no subject)
Date: 2015-11-15 11:47 pm (UTC)It's hard to picture, even when he can put the words into images and the images together, lined up, one by one, next to each other, as Danny talks. So close to him that every breath is pulled in and out beneath him, with a shift of his own body. That every breath expelled brushes him. A shoulder, the side of his head. So close that there is no way that the air they are breathing in and out isn't at least half the air from each other doing the same.
The nearness of Danny's voice, and the vibration of his speech across his chest, while he says these things. Danny somehow thinking there was anything he could think, or want to do, that Steve wouldn't have said yes to. That he would be disgusted. Maybe even hate him. The Steve in his head that Danny had already come to term with being a Steve would got punch him or fire him for just coming inside and saying those words.
When Steve can't even be certain what could be the reason to come in and face that, even imagined hell, tonight.
After that case, and the numerous outs Steve gave him, to just leave. Which thinking about makes his hands tighten some.
All of it is crazy, impossible, somehow still surreal, when it's hitting every sense, and Steve's skin is still tacky and drying with both of them on him. On them. It still feels crazy to hear these words spoken. Pushed into existence, asking him to believe that they've existed somewhere, not in his own head, not driving him mad, before this day. Which is when Danny slides those two words in, like it's nothing. A detail that could get lost in everything else. The beginning reasons and the ending point.
Except that Steve can hear Danny's voice. The words are there, but they have no traction and don't make sentences after those two words. Those two words are liking putting his face into flames. Or realizing that no matter that he hasn't been somewhere he didn't have food in over half a decade, it's like realizing he is. Starving. Maybe always has been.
It plays over and over, trampling Danny's other words that keep coming.
I couldn't always help it and I thought about it almost every day.
Almost every day. Every day. How had he missed that. Danny wanting. Every day. Almost every day. He was slipping, if he'd never. But. He couldn't even hold on to the words now. They kept throwing themselves like a bouncing ball, picking up speed, off every wall inside his head and his chest. Louder and softer, impossible and just put out there as real. When it could be Danny exaggerating.
He doesn't sound like that right now, though. The way he sounds when he is. Exaggerating. Insulting, or laughing, or high on being happy. This voice is so careful and it's aimed toward more logically put together than anything since the moment that Steve kissed Danny and the whole floor dropped out from under them. So serious. Maybe too serious? Maybe he shouldn't have asked serious?
Except Steve doesn't want to take it back. Even not certain what to do with how serious it is, how impossible, he wants it. There are still so many words. Danny's fingers lifting and falling, but Steve says those words when Danny stops. Aware that it might be entirely the wrong thing to even picked up in there.
"Every day." He repeats Danny's words.
(Even if his head is the only thing that repeats Almost. Cutting it apart already.)
Not sure if he wants Danny to just blow it off, as having been just a convenient turn of phrase to smooth it all together. Danny's and his millions of words that never ever ran out. Or if that was somehow. Impossibly...possible. Somehow now, too. In with all the rest of it. Every day for years. Every day since -- when had he said, the second year, his second trip to Asia, the big one. The one with his phone off and endless messages. Out chasing Shelburne, before he knew Shelburne was Doris.
Before he wasn't allowed to ever leave Danny, suddenly, with only a letter, again, too.