Re: [Outside Vade: Atticus/Steve]
Steve knew from experience definitions could be out of date. They did have different thoughts about relationships, but, definitions could be out of date, and Steve, who happened to be older than most, had run into that a few times. He listened when Atticus talked about students and Billy and young men being sexual (or not). If it was more than Steve had asked to hear, he didn't know it. "That makes sense." Steve had been 'young' until he hadn't been, in spite of the fact that how he looked didn't change. Then, suddenly, he was talking with men who looked the same age he was, but he was fifty and they were kids, and, like the definitions, it was just something else that happened when you were like he was, living in an altered sort of reality from other people. Even if he was younger, in a sense, than his 100 years, he wasn't 25. He had too much life experience for that. "Do you think Janus needs to be with other 'kids' at the same stage of life? It might be one they never outgrow, depending on their mood. But, I don't know how that works."
Steve set his empty bottle on the table. "Even if you were, it'd be subconscious. You wouldn't know it." He sighed. "Everything—A lot of my life, was defined by war, and things are different then. Even with Peggy. You have this feeling that you're not going to make it to tomorrow, so you do things in a way you might not otherwise. We connected over feeling... other and like we had to fight our way to respect. It wasn't like—" He gestured between them. "This. Or us. And we were both kids, which is a big difference in and of itself." Steve watched Atticus take a sip of beer. His answer felt deceptively simple, but he gave it all the same. "To be with you."