Re: Marvel FDNY: Clem & Declan
She didn't know about his knee any, and she just grinned real wide when his arms cinched around her fast, like letting her fall was the last damn thing he'd do. Summers she'd been real young, same as him, and not fitting into the world around them. He'd been quiet and real serious, and she'd been frills and pirouettes, and it was all hiding in different ways. She'd been sure in herself real good then, and hounding him was for his own damn good, and he always gave in eventually and let her catch him. These days, insecure had eaten its way into her core like a worm in an apple gone bad, and she didn't shove at folks until they realized she was precious, not near as much. But him there, he reminded her of what she'd been before life had gone and gotten all wrong.
He spun her, and she pressed her nose real deep against the crook of shoulder and neck, and he smelled like youth, like before Lore died, when her daddy was still content to watch her and sit her on his lap. She'd thought she would rule the damn world then, and all of it at her pretty little feet, and that's what spinning felt like.
She didn't give a damn about that hooting and hollering from the men. Clem liked them all real well, and she'd learned not to mind how they all talked when she was working in a firehouse early days. She hadn't bedded down with none of these men yet, but generally worked out that way in these places, all locked up for three-day shifts at a time. Clem took no offense, and she wasn't surprised none that Declan didn't rise to the bait. Rising to the bait was something that boy never did any.
A decade had done a whole lot for him, too. He was broader some, older some. Grey peeked at his temples, and she looked him over as he set her down. Real plain and real blunt, and she rubbed her hands at his upper arms, like touching was something for the taking. He wasn't like the rest the Murphys, and they'd survived that childhood together some, children among scorpions, and it gave her all the right in the damn world. But she'd come a real long way since the mousy brown of her youth, taking after her dead sister and thinking she was going to grow up to be Marilyn. He'd seen her blonde already during that long hot summer when Lore died, but she was plenty older too now, even if it didn't show hard on her face.
Her fingers slid over that 26 patch, and she had a ton of questions. She hadn't thought fire was something he'd do with his life, and she slung her arm through his when he asked for a tour, like this was Sunday come courting. "You come on." She waggled her starlet-perfect eyebrows at the others. "Don't y'all come interrupt," she warned them, as she led him back into the belly of the house.
"Where you staying?" She knew he didn't like a lot of folk, so her place was out, but Penny had that half a duplex emptying out down the road.