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 Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 4:53 pm
He shivered for the flick of fingernails against the nape of his neck, but just tightened his hand a little bit around hers. "It's been a bit." He kept them moving; easy and comfortable, the occasional dip or twirl or shift but nothing too crazy. "I can't Lindy, and it's been years since I've done swing." But he was okay with confessing that there were gaps in his knowledge. Mal grinned at the idea of pre-teen ballroom dancing. "A certain sense of humor, maybe?"
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Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 5:08 pm
"And both a right foot and a left foot." Misha's smile warmed him and she followed his steps easily. When one song stopped and another began, she paused only long enough to register the new beat and then she gave Mal's hand a squeeze. She took a step into his space before pulling back and tugging him into a new dance. "What about you? What do you think is missing from old dances?"
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Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 5:16 pm
"A good partner." He smiled automatically when he said it, and let her pull him into another dance, shifting his hands to settle her body back against him. "Thank you, Misha. I owe you a lot for this." He'd relaxed over the dancing. "You want to hear about it?" Mal rubbed a thumb against her hand.
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Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 5:39 pm
She obliged him and relaxed into his hold, feet moving in absent parallel to their conversation. He was warm against her, smelled faintly of sweat, but it wasn't unpleasant. "You don't owe me anything, Mal," she murmured. "And I'll listen if you want to talk. I'm all ears."
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Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 5:52 pm
He inhaled and let it out in that slow breath, but he settled her against him. "Finn and his fiance had their first fight, and the wedding is three and a half months away." He worried about Finn; Finn was his baby brother. "He's sleeping at my apartment instead of at their home." Mal knew he didn't owe her anything, but maybe Misha could give him some kind of help to calm down and be Finn's ear, instead of just being another angry voice. "Finn and Sasha are very co-dependent. They met when they were sixteen, Sasha was tutoring Finn because he was failing classes, and I don't think they've been apart since."
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Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 5:59 pm
"Ah." Misha rested her cheek against his chest as he explained. Sometimes, she knew, it was easier to say uncomfortable things if no one was looking directly at you. While this was not something Mal was directly involved in, it only took hearing him say his brother's name to know how much the kid meant to him. "How long have they been together?"
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Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 6:04 pm
"Not quite five years." And they were alarmingly co-dependent. "It was about kids. Of all things. They're basically kids themselves, they don't need to worry about having kids yet." He sounded disgruntled about it, too.
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Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 6:11 pm
Doing the mental math, Misha realized with a start that Finn and his fiance were just about her age. Marriage? Children? She could not even fathom the first herself, let alone the second. "Oh," she murmured, sobering a bit. "Yeah, age isn't always the hard and fast rule for anything, I think, but I do think it's a pretty good idea to be married for a bit first before you have kids. It's important to have time for you as a married couple. To do stupid stuff and be irresponsible with vacations and get the little getting-used-to-you fights out of your system." She half-closed her eyes, thinking more as they danced. She could almost feel Mal's heartbeat against her cheek. "Unless one never wants kids and the other does, timing can just be something they work out together."
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Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 6:29 pm
Mal snorted softly. "This is literally their first fight. Ever. And they're both men, they can always get a surrogate. Age really doesn't matter for them so much, you know?" His pulse was slow, at least; he wasn't that kind of upset where it was raising his pulse or blood pressure. "I don't even know if Finn wants kids. I don't think Finn knows if he wants kids, and I can't be there right now and I hate it." His mouth shifted. "I think it's Gio. I don't-- Sasha is just a kid, too. Hell, he's.. he's been, like, the good boy his whole life." Mal didn't get that, either; he'd always had a rebellious streak.
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Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 6:44 pm
Misha hid her smile in Mal's chest. "I know a few of those good boys," she replied. "They're usually the ones who get all sorts of the weirdest ideas." She sighed then. "Sometimes they're the worst sort of ideas... Who's Gio?" She wasn't sure if she was allowed to ask that question but she needed more facts.
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Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 6:54 pm
She'd found the question to ask, apparently, because Mal tightened up a little. Not his hands on Misha, but his body language. "Sasha's Uncle. Technically his legal guardian. "...and one of my exes." Of course. Because that was how Mal's life went. But Gio was ex enough and it was painful enough for Mal that he had stiffened up.
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Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 7:09 pm
Oooohhh, that was the pin to pull. Misha immediately turned her face into his chest while simultaneously shifting her hand to better cup the back of his neck. Her thumb stroked a line down over his bare skin. "Exes can make things complicated." Lifting her head, Misha studided his face. Then she used her hand to angle his head down a bit to better her view. Warm grey eyes searched and her mobile mouth held only sympathy. "Finn and Sasha need to talk. It's about them. Not Gio, not you, not anything else other than their future." Her voice gentle, she continued to stroke the back of his neck soothingly with her thumb. "They just have to realize that."
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Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 7:23 pm
Mal let her tilt his head down. His face was serious. "I know. I know it is. I need to be able to step back, but it's like--" He drifted them to a stop. "It's like I can see Gio projecting desires on Sasha, and Sasha not having the will to fight it." He closed his eyes, and tried to believe that he could untangle all the desires, pull his own out of the way so that he could just be the sounding board that Finn needed. "I'm trying to make sure that Finn knows that I'm in his corner and keep my own feelings out of it, but Sasha doesn't stand up to Gio."
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Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 7:37 pm
"And you're afraid that if you deal yourself out and Gio doesn't, you won't be there to back-up Finn and Sasha if they can't fight him on their own." She nodded slightly, confirmation to herself. She noticed the pause in their dance but said nothing. Dancing had been a vehicle to talking, it seemed. She was okay with this. "I know you think of them as kids but they're not really. Not if they're getting married. You can't fight their battles for them all the time, sweetheart. They have to be each other's knights in tarnished armor."
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Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 8:04 pm
"How can I be there?" He was here. He couldn't go home for too long, what if something happened here? Mal eased his breath out again, carefully. "Gio won't take himself out. And I know -- Oh, hell, Misha, we ripped each others' hearts out." He shifted-- like he was going to let go of her and move away, pace around. He was getting upset again, because that had been -- that had kind of been what their relationship had been like, too.
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