Re: Capital: Jamie & Seven Friday night
The downswing of his mood, of his shoulders, was just as aggravating, dragged at the cords in his neck just as much as the weight of Tommy being right without it even being possible for him to be right. It nettled like barbs under Seven’s skin, deep and irritating and past the reach of the finger that had soothed down his spine when he’d cleaved the burden of caring about someone who seemed fundamentally incapable of caring about herself. More than that, the glimpse of Jamie’s face not falling exactly - not nearly - but noticing, which drove in the stake that there was anything to notice. That Seven was failing, at the cool and aloof. Or not cool, maybe, but whatever blend of unperturbed and blithe he’d been managing very fucking well, thank you.
It chafed at him, and the inward anger that had turned momentarily outward scraped at the underside of his sternum like the ugly, cruel thing that it was, that he’d become there. He made room for regret, somehow, on top of the tightly-packed cinders of a fuse that hadn’t even had the chance to burn all the way through before it blew, all over the room that felt fucking ridiculous now, ostentatious and barren. And in Jamie’s face, obviously. The regret came because the flash of fear on the kid’s face had flicked at a raw nerve that Seven hadn’t known was still exposed like the pulp of a broken tooth: wide eyes, blue like his own but deep water where Seven’s had always been ice. Eyes full of terror because he’d pointed the muzzle of a gun between them and nothing that he could ever do would undo that. For the remainder of whatever they’d had, fragmented and shaky as it’d been, eyes that had stayed afraid of him. And now they were eyes that had gone dark, sunk to a depth he couldn’t reach.
The taste of juniper was bitter sap on his tongue and it dripped down the back of his throat, pooling harsh and astringent. It was joined by the dull spread of Jamie’s voice at his back. “No,” he mumbled thickly with a minute shake of his head, although it was mostly lost as warm breath into the contents of his glass as he tipped the rest back. His free hand spread against the bartop and he felt the cold of it bleed into his skin, imagined it coiling around his wrist and up the length of his forearm towards his elbow. He didn’t know what he was saying no to, exactly. Was he agreeing, or denying? Was he talking to the guy at his back, or a ghost in his head? He set the glass down harder than he meant to and shook his head again, spanned more broadly an arc with his chin, which then dipped down towards his chest as he leaned more of his weight forward. He felt a blunted pressure at the base of his skull, like someone was digging their thumbs into the space there without sympathy. Jamie was talking about rules but Seven didn’t have room for that yet, had to swallow down something hard and sour lodged in his throat.
“No,” he repeated, shoulders flagging as he let out a short, sharp sigh. “I’m sorry, that wasn’t about you.”