pella castle doesn't get the joke. (nosocialskills) wrote in superbabies, @ 2013-01-20 00:57:00 |
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It wasn't even that Pella had liked Tomás Keller. She thought he was a stupid little shit who spent too much time with the other stupid little shits. She'd also expected casualties. With only an hour to prepare, of course some of them were going to die. That Tomás had been the only one was a downright miracle. Except that he wasn't. Not today. Not anymore. The mission had been successful, but everything outside of the actual work had been a flop. Finding the warehouse had been slow. Maybe if she and Steven hadn't been at each other's throats, it would have gone better and they would have had more time. Pella had kept it all down in the name of work, forced herself not to feel what had happened between her and Steven in favor of painful realism. People were hurt. Someone was dead. That was how it worked. Except ... well, Christ. Some kind of dam had burst and Pella didn't completely understand it. Sometime between the announcement that Tomás was alive and right this second, Pella had burst into confused, painful tears. Steven was heading back to his room after visiting his brother, and along the way chose to make a detour. They’d gone through this attack with no deaths. People were hurt, people were scared, but Tomás Keller was alive. They had a full roster. They hadn’t had a lot of time to prepare, but those extra hours that Pella had bought them had saved all of their lives. She deserved credit for it. He knocked at her door before opening up----and whatever he was going to say just died when he saw her crying. He’d never seen her cry. Pella had told him she was incapable of it, that it had been brutally trained out of her. “Pella...?” Pella just seemed perplexed. When he let himself in, she twitched and looked up. Her eyes were red, there were tears streaming down her face, and she really seemed to need a tissue. Pella was not a pretty crier, but no one had any way to know that before right now. “How do I make it stop?” “What..?” Steven moved to her, sitting down beside her. He didn’t have a tissue, but he tugged his sleeve over his hand to wipe her eyes. “It’ll go away on its own, Pella, once you’re finished. What’s wrong? What happened----?” She hadn’t cried in over twenty years, and she couldn’t breathe. It was an involuntary burst of emotion that she’d been trained to control by just not doing it in the first place. “I don’t know, it just happened and I can’t get it to stop---” “It’s okay----It’s okay.” Steven wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in close. “Everything’s okay.” He kissed the top of her head and cradled her. “Everybody lived, Pella. Everybody lived.” Pella just sobbed; she seemed too scattered to even hug him back, and his shirt was the worse for the whole thing. It was a good ten minutes before it seemed to dry up. She was more than happy to pull back when she felt controlled. Making a disgusted noise, she untangled herself from him to grab a tissue or six. “Is that supposed to give me a headache?” Steven laughed quietly, marveling at her. “Yeah, probably. Stuffy nose, headache. It’s normal, I promise.” He smoothed her hair back. “You going to be all right..?” “Probably. I don’t know where that came from.” Pella blew her nose. “Hurts. The fuck. Why does anyone do that?” “Because they can’t help it. Because it’s a release.” Steven shrugged. “It’s normal for other people, I just … you always told me you couldn’t cry. What’s wrong? You saved everyone----” “No idea,” she admitted. “Maybe because everything actually went right? I don’t know, I’ll have to sit down with Ian and figure it out.” Steven’s eyes were glassy and he felt like he’d also let a few sobs out, but he held it together for her sake. “You saved a lot of lives, Pella.” He rubbed her back in firm, hard circles. “Because of you, everybody lived.” “Because of you, actually. I’d be dead and useless if you hadn’t followed me.” Pella sniffed and wiped at her eyes. Now that she was calm, having a crusty, tear stained face was just gross and uncomfortable. Steven smiled faintly. “Yeah. Sorry about that, I’m an asshole. I should’ve stayed away when you told me, but … I don’t leave a job unfinished,” he said. He cradled her face in his hands and guided her to meet his gaze. “I don’t leave my partner in the middle of something.” “You should’ve. I said a lot of horrible shit to you.” But she still looked him in the eye, let him touch her. Pella even wrapped her hand around his wrist and held on, running her thumb over his skin. “You did,” Steven murmured. “And I said a lot of horrible shit to you. Right now I don’t really care.” “So we’re all right?” Steven responded by leaning in, pressing his lips to hers. He pulled back to speak something, maybe be reassuring, but the words were lost on him. Kissing was easier. Kissing made more sense. And … God, he needed it. That was a surprise, after everything they’d fought over in the past few weeks. Instead of saying something reassuring or endearing, she said, “Are you really taking advantage of my fragile emotional state to make out with me right now?” Steven’s hands lifted from her face, a fraction of an inch. Pella was so deadpan and dry, he really didn’t know how to take that. Was she serious? Was she kidding? “I... No, you’re right, I’m sorry. It’s inappropriate----” Pella’s mouth twitched. Oops. “Shit. No, I was telling a telling a joke, I was trying to be funny. Which was a terrible idea in hindsight.” “Yeah,” Steven said hoarsely. “Yeah, that’s a terrible idea in hindsight.” Relaxing a little, he chuckled and glanced away. His cheeks were hot. He felt like she’d called attention to his bad behavior. “No, don’t stop.” Shit. Now that Steven actually seemed available, she hadn’t known what to do with it right away. Pella scooted in a little closer and kissed his ear, tugging insistently on his shirt. “I’m just awkward. Don’t stop.” Steven turned his head, catching her mouth with his before she could kiss his ear again. She was awkward. She was strange. Other people didn’t understand her, but Steven did. He took pride in knowing her better than other people did, and while he wasn’t always perfect and they had misunderstandings, Steven knew her. Steven loved her. And no, right now, he wasn’t going to stop. |