Seeing him actually lash out is even worse than the bottled-down rage from before, but then Seth draws himself into the corner and his expression opens and he looks up at the camera and -
Oh.
Oh.
Daniel tracks the line of Seth's gaze partway but doesn't dare look back at it. He's trusting Seth's reasoning and knowledge of the place here, so he moves toward him with all the righteous authority and purpose of someone about to engage in forcefully corrective behavior. He drops into a slow crouch in front of him, lifting his eyes to stare back at Seth in bare and skittish relief but he's not sure he can vocalize just now. His breaths are shallow, heart thudding in the shock of realization.
His lungs don't feel muzzled in cotton any longer and the room temperature isn't as oppressively glacial and he can actually breathe without the tearing in his throat because he knows now, he's done it, he's gotten through, Seth knows and none of what he said before matters, none of it.
"I'm sorry." Daniel mouths it silently, as diminished and surreptitious as he can. That doesn't even begin to cover what he needs to communicate to Seth right now and it's not even a suitable starting point, but - fuck, it's something. And it's not the arctic distance and detachment he's been forced to display so far. At least.
no subject
Oh.
Oh.
Daniel tracks the line of Seth's gaze partway but doesn't dare look back at it. He's trusting Seth's reasoning and knowledge of the place here, so he moves toward him with all the righteous authority and purpose of someone about to engage in forcefully corrective behavior. He drops into a slow crouch in front of him, lifting his eyes to stare back at Seth in bare and skittish relief but he's not sure he can vocalize just now. His breaths are shallow, heart thudding in the shock of realization.
His lungs don't feel muzzled in cotton any longer and the room temperature isn't as oppressively glacial and he can actually breathe without the tearing in his throat because he knows now, he's done it, he's gotten through, Seth knows and none of what he said before matters, none of it.
"I'm sorry." Daniel mouths it silently, as diminished and surreptitious as he can. That doesn't even begin to cover what he needs to communicate to Seth right now and it's not even a suitable starting point, but - fuck, it's something. And it's not the arctic distance and detachment he's been forced to display so far. At least.