Anything
by Jules
He dumps the tray and wanders away from the mess and kicks himself in the ass enough times that it ought to be right up between his shoulder blades by now and fucking hell if he can tell whether or not he just made as big a jackass of himself as he thinks he might have. People don't scare him. Even the ones that should. But it's not that. Scared is not the problem it's…what the hell is it? It's not directness. He can do direct.
Nice shoes, wanna fuck?
But that's different. Why? Because it is. He can say what's on his mind so long as it isn't attached to so much other stuff that it gets all heavy and awkward and hard to spit out. He can tell people to fuck off in no uncertain terms. And has. He's slept, showered and taken a piss in front of people and it still feels more like being naked when he's trying to say
I love you guys
the sort of things that normal folks say all the time. He's
almost certain that he's
not emotionally stunted or incapable of expressing
feeeeelings
himself, it's just that opening up isn't one of those things he's
wanted to
had to do very often and now that he's actually got the urge there's too much rust on the machinery and it kind of creaks and groans and doesn't make the sounds he means it to. And Christ isn't he just handy with the metaphors when he's wandering circles in his own head?
Shit. At least he didn't say too much instead of too little while she was looking at him with something between patience and confusion and he was tripping over his own tongue and liable to land on his face at any moment. But he did it. Mostly. Came close enough. With help. And he meant it.
Anything.