[ He's not sure, exactly, when this started pivoting in the opposite direction he'd intended to steer them. Tell me about that girl you're in love with, because bringing attention back to her might guide it away from him. From acknowledging that twang of something in his chest at sleeping together. Meant to drum up a sort of distance in Mace, and wound up touching on something that hurt.
And then his fingers wound around wrist without even thinking about it. A mixed goddamn signal, he knows, if his last signal'd even managed to broadcast. He's pretty sure it didn't. It's just - he knows of himself that he's mixing signals.
But it's comfort, right? Comforting someone that you're with through something like this whether you want to be or not. If it stopped there, that'd be fine. It could be nothing, and it could fall away and just be another one of those moments that crops up between them but doesn't mean anything.
Except that a palm slides against his, shifting this from comfort to intimacy.
The direct eye contact that follows it strips off anything disingenuous before it has the ability to manifest. Leaves him instead a little wide-eyed and open, surprised, the obvious look of somebody searching for the answer to that old question: does that mean what I think it means?
(If you want it.)
As in--
Want it how, as in wanting it- him- as a partner in all of this?
Or want it in the way that... people ask that of each other when they're literally holding hands?
He ping-pongs back and forth in his own mind, convincing himself one way and then another, context clues and common sense versus denial and fear of getting too close, what he's reading versus what he thinks he's reading, and--
You know what, man, this is the part where he just asks. ]
Is this like a first kiss moment, or am I really bad at reading signs after prolonged stress?
no subject
And then his fingers wound around wrist without even thinking about it. A mixed goddamn signal, he knows, if his last signal'd even managed to broadcast. He's pretty sure it didn't. It's just - he knows of himself that he's mixing signals.
But it's comfort, right? Comforting someone that you're with through something like this whether you want to be or not. If it stopped there, that'd be fine. It could be nothing, and it could fall away and just be another one of those moments that crops up between them but doesn't mean anything.
Except that a palm slides against his, shifting this from comfort to intimacy.
The direct eye contact that follows it strips off anything disingenuous before it has the ability to manifest. Leaves him instead a little wide-eyed and open, surprised, the obvious look of somebody searching for the answer to that old question: does that mean what I think it means?
(If you want it.)
As in--
Want it how, as in wanting it- him- as a partner in all of this?
Or want it in the way that... people ask that of each other when they're literally holding hands?
He ping-pongs back and forth in his own mind, convincing himself one way and then another, context clues and common sense versus denial and fear of getting too close, what he's reading versus what he thinks he's reading, and--
You know what, man, this is the part where he just asks. ]
Is this like a first kiss moment, or am I really bad at reading signs after prolonged stress?