[ It was a miscalculation, a momentary forgetting of what he presumed to know: that if he moved away, Treavor might follow. It's like attempting to build a little house of cards; with a little dismissive swat, Treavor knocks it all aside. What distance he attempted to place between them, professional and platonic and cold, Treavor sunders.
It's a different touch. It's an alien touch, because hands often touch his hands, and there are a multitude of ways to excuse the genial connection of one palm and another palm. But this is Treavor's hand on his wrist, and his fingertips could trace the lines of Alice's palm and tell his fortune, tell his past, could know the essence of his work ethic from the small knot of muscle at the base of his thumb and the callouses at the heels of his fingers.
(He wants. (He wants, oh god, he wants so much, and yesterday he wanted so little.) He wants Treavor's elegant fingertips with their dirty nails to explore his hand. He wants to be known by the lines and creases on his palm.)
(That thought makes him feel like his lungs are breathing something other than air, dizzying and intoxicating and deadly.)
He thinks if Treavor's fingers do move, he'll tremble, and betray something other than panic. Something other than shame, or something along with shame.
(A strange thought occurs: Alice doesn't hear a resounding 'no' in this refusal to let him remove himself into himself. But he does hear something, is aware of an undercurrent of unvoiced language speaking to him, only to him -
Is he imagining that awareness.)
(Is he imagining that comprehension. In the silence beneath words, a plea. To stay.) (It must be his imagination, because moving away is a deconstruction of himself in ways he never knew were possible. Moving away is fighting gravity.) (...But that hand is there and Alice doesn't delude himself often. Not that way.)
(If Treavor -)
If Treavor. Asked him to stay.
There's no question he can put to that. No doubts, or worries. He's staring at the hand on his wrist and feeling the fingers against his palm and telling his own fortune: Treavor will say stay, and Alice will stay.
It's the movement of Treavor's thumb that catches him off-guard, his attention so fixed on the other side of the situation. However slowly or quickly the reality of that brush, it takes an eternity and a heartbeat, and to his credit.
To his credit, he makes no sound.
To his credit, he doesn't flinch, or close his eyes, or melt back into the sofa.
Even if the brush of that thumb felt like a lit fuse. Even if a moan built in his throat and a quiver began in his stomach, his thighs. Even if the second brush deserved a sigh, and Alice on his knees at this man's feet, and of course he'll stay. Where the fuck could he go? Where would be far enough to forget how that felt?
It could be that he does none of this because Treavor is holding him fixed in this moment, and he's talking, but his eyes are the absolute sum of Alice's comprehension. His eyes, and their certainty of hold. (He stepped into a trap, and he isn't certain how, or when, but there's no extricating himself, oh, and remember, he remembers, (does Treavor recall last night?) looking in his eyes and stroking his cheek his hair his neck, singing to him, one loneliness meeting another.) (Stay, he felt or heard or understood stay.)
How much can he hide under this gaze? How much would he try to hide? Would he bother hiding anything, if Treavor came looking? (The inability to fight the oncoming car-meteor-Treavor.) (The inevitability of their orbit.) (His own direly hard arousal, his dizziness, his climbing confusion, the way his vision seems to hold nothing but the eyes that have managed to pin him through like an insect.)
Treavor's talking and Alice is nodding in agreement, not because there's anything in particular to agree with, but because Treavor is pressing his hand and staring into his eyes, and there's nowhere he needs to go, nothing he needs to do. And maybe. Maybe if he stays absolutely fucking still, he can stay in those eyes for a while.
And then he furrows his brow, like one slowly struggling out of the grip of a daze, and shakes his head. ]
Okay - but -
No.
No, that's -
[ He has to. Not. Look at those beautiful fucking eyes.
He's gripping something.
His hand has turned over and what he's gripping, what he's doing is too much to contemplate, and the grip is soft and utterly right, the way one fits in the other and his fingertips rest against a wrist, but he can't think about that.
(Or stop doing it.) ]
Listen. It's important to me. You don't...come here looking for a place that isn't a dumpster, self-inflicted sick or not, and think it's okay: that I can - 'bat my eyes' at you. Because I'm a good guy?
[ He's shaking his head, more certain of himself now, able to look askance at Treavor. ]
That wasn't the intention. I don't want any repayment. I wouldn't do that to you, and frankly, that's a low fucking bar to set and call me a 'good guy'.
[ He frowns, and then returns the press that was given to him. His voice is soft now, and fretful, and his eyes flick to and away from Treavor's. ]
You shouldn't walk in somewhere, already prepared to foot the bill. Yeah, you're a dick. You're also a lot of other things, and your validity, your absolute value - to me, or to anyone - shouldn't depend on whether you hate being in a basement office, or if you're willing to put up with some suggestive jokes when you've got a hangover.
You're worth -
[ He doesn't have a right to. Speak to Treavor about his worth.
Equally as sure, Alice knows he has every right. That, as much as anything else in these moments of eyes and fingertips and absence and trajectory and not-loss, frightens him. ]
...You're worth more than any of that. And all of it. Okay?
no subject
It's a different touch. It's an alien touch, because hands often touch his hands, and there are a multitude of ways to excuse the genial connection of one palm and another palm. But this is Treavor's hand on his wrist, and his fingertips could trace the lines of Alice's palm and tell his fortune, tell his past, could know the essence of his work ethic from the small knot of muscle at the base of his thumb and the callouses at the heels of his fingers.
(He wants. (He wants, oh god, he wants so much, and yesterday he wanted so little.) He wants Treavor's elegant fingertips with their dirty nails to explore his hand. He wants to be known by the lines and creases on his palm.)
(That thought makes him feel like his lungs are breathing something other than air, dizzying and intoxicating and deadly.)
He thinks if Treavor's fingers do move, he'll tremble, and betray something other than panic. Something other than shame, or something along with shame.
(A strange thought occurs: Alice doesn't hear a resounding 'no' in this refusal to let him remove himself into himself. But he does hear something, is aware of an undercurrent of unvoiced language speaking to him, only to him -
Is he imagining that awareness.)
(Is he imagining that comprehension. In the silence beneath words, a plea. To stay.) (It must be his imagination, because moving away is a deconstruction of himself in ways he never knew were possible. Moving away is fighting gravity.) (...But that hand is there and Alice doesn't delude himself often. Not that way.)
(If Treavor -)
If Treavor. Asked him to stay.
There's no question he can put to that. No doubts, or worries. He's staring at the hand on his wrist and feeling the fingers against his palm and telling his own fortune: Treavor will say stay, and Alice will stay.
It's the movement of Treavor's thumb that catches him off-guard, his attention so fixed on the other side of the situation. However slowly or quickly the reality of that brush, it takes an eternity and a heartbeat, and to his credit.
To his credit, he makes no sound.
To his credit, he doesn't flinch, or close his eyes, or melt back into the sofa.
Even if the brush of that thumb felt like a lit fuse. Even if a moan built in his throat and a quiver began in his stomach, his thighs. Even if the second brush deserved a sigh, and Alice on his knees at this man's feet, and of course he'll stay. Where the fuck could he go? Where would be far enough to forget how that felt?
It could be that he does none of this because Treavor is holding him fixed in this moment, and he's talking, but his eyes are the absolute sum of Alice's comprehension. His eyes, and their certainty of hold. (He stepped into a trap, and he isn't certain how, or when, but there's no extricating himself, oh, and remember, he remembers, (does Treavor recall last night?) looking in his eyes and stroking his cheek his hair his neck, singing to him, one loneliness meeting another.) (Stay, he felt or heard or understood stay.)
How much can he hide under this gaze? How much would he try to hide? Would he bother hiding anything, if Treavor came looking? (The inability to fight the oncoming car-meteor-Treavor.) (The inevitability of their orbit.) (His own direly hard arousal, his dizziness, his climbing confusion, the way his vision seems to hold nothing but the eyes that have managed to pin him through like an insect.)
Treavor's talking and Alice is nodding in agreement, not because there's anything in particular to agree with, but because Treavor is pressing his hand and staring into his eyes, and there's nowhere he needs to go, nothing he needs to do. And maybe. Maybe if he stays absolutely fucking still, he can stay in those eyes for a while.
And then he furrows his brow, like one slowly struggling out of the grip of a daze, and shakes his head. ]
Okay - but -
No.
No, that's -
[ He has to. Not. Look at those beautiful fucking eyes.
He's gripping something.
His hand has turned over and what he's gripping, what he's doing is too much to contemplate, and the grip is soft and utterly right, the way one fits in the other and his fingertips rest against a wrist, but he can't think about that.
(Or stop doing it.) ]
Listen. It's important to me. You don't...come here looking for a place that isn't a dumpster, self-inflicted sick or not, and think it's okay: that I can - 'bat my eyes' at you. Because I'm a good guy?
[ He's shaking his head, more certain of himself now, able to look askance at Treavor. ]
That wasn't the intention. I don't want any repayment. I wouldn't do that to you, and frankly, that's a low fucking bar to set and call me a 'good guy'.
[ He frowns, and then returns the press that was given to him. His voice is soft now, and fretful, and his eyes flick to and away from Treavor's. ]
You shouldn't walk in somewhere, already prepared to foot the bill. Yeah, you're a dick. You're also a lot of other things, and your validity, your absolute value - to me, or to anyone - shouldn't depend on whether you hate being in a basement office, or if you're willing to put up with some suggestive jokes when you've got a hangover.
You're worth -
[ He doesn't have a right to. Speak to Treavor about his worth.
Equally as sure, Alice knows he has every right. That, as much as anything else in these moments of eyes and fingertips and absence and trajectory and not-loss, frightens him. ]
...You're worth more than any of that. And all of it. Okay?