Re: Marvel FDNY: Clem & Declan
Clementine flung herself with whiplash limbs that tied like a knot of avarice around his waist, and Declan caught her with his arms and a barely-there wince that radiated up from the surgical pin still in his knee. Flashback to summertime(and the livin' is easy) when they were young and she chirped after him like a goldfinch, big eyes and doll dresses, armed with the brio of a siren intent on wrecking ships. He'd avoided her like a peaches n' cream plague until he'd wanted to avoid everyone else and she was the safest option. Now, Declan spun her in a slow circle, the bolide of men's hooting was deafening, and he gave it nothing more than shrugged off attention, which wasn't going to win him any awards(but Murphys were most accomplished at being disliked anyway).
He held her without trepidation. In this moment, Declan was fresh warmth and none of the cold shoulder annoyance that hallmarked their youth when he was a boy fed up with being followed around by some strange talking girl. It must have been at least a decade since he'd seen her last, and she'd done a great deal of growing up since then. No longer were they a couple of kids with the wrong mother(Declan was certain she never felt that way, even if he did). Clementine had always been the summer. She was the summer now when he set her back down on her feet, warm and blond and he thought that she was unrecognizable without sundresses or dirty knees, even if she still had the diction of an antebellum angel. In those early days, she'd been the country mouse and he'd been the city mouse, both of them surviving in a house full of cats.
"The same as you, I would wager." The long blue sleeve of his shirt was embroidered with a patch proclaiming 26, and he tilted his head in acknowledgmentt of it without saying anything else. There was a lot that could be said without words, and Declan's eyes did the talking now while he took a swig out the ice cold water bottle.
He raised an eyebrow, "Want to give me some kind of tour?" That eyebrow suggested away from the watchful eyes and continued congratulatory whooping that was coming from the group of men cluttered around an X-Box.