"Not too short," he abruptly replies, shying momentarily away from the
stroke of her comb as if she had scissors at the ready and might not wait
for his answer. His entire body is tense despite the soothing tug at his
hair, acts of gentleness and kindness so far beyond his personal experience
that he struggles to process them as anything but an assault.
Despite this, there is a familiarity to the brief skim of her fingers where
they touch his neck, his scalp. Something that has lingered, first
acknowledged in that tense moment in the hall, but much older than that, a
niggling memory that refuses to take a solid shape. To him she is vapor,
oblique and intoxicating.
"Have you done this before?" he quietly asks, held tilted obediently
forward from an instinct he wasn't aware of having, another of Barnes'
gifts.
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Date: 2014-08-18 07:53 pm (UTC)"Not too short," he abruptly replies, shying momentarily away from the stroke of her comb as if she had scissors at the ready and might not wait for his answer. His entire body is tense despite the soothing tug at his hair, acts of gentleness and kindness so far beyond his personal experience that he struggles to process them as anything but an assault.
Despite this, there is a familiarity to the brief skim of her fingers where they touch his neck, his scalp. Something that has lingered, first acknowledged in that tense moment in the hall, but much older than that, a niggling memory that refuses to take a solid shape. To him she is vapor, oblique and intoxicating.
"Have you done this before?" he quietly asks, held tilted obediently forward from an instinct he wasn't aware of having, another of Barnes' gifts.