trans_9 | You saw, as always, clearer than me [closed]

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You saw, as always, clearer than me [closed]

Even after his conversation with Luke, it took Steve a day or two to finally work up the courage to seek out Claire. He got close on the second day and then chickened out, then retreated to his room to try and figure out exactly how he was going to phrase this. It was all in the approach, after all.

So he decided today he'd stop by the precinct for... something, he'd probably find something he could do around there-- and if he ran into Claire, then he'd talk to her.

And he ran into her in one of the conference rooms. Shit. Why was it always a conference room?

"Hey- uh... Claire?" he said, clearing his throat. "Are you busy?"

Oh god. What was he doing? This was the worst idea ever.

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His shoulders tensed up a little when she touched him, but after a second they finally relaxed.

"That's why you're so important to me," he said quietly. "You're the only one I really know I can count on. I just... I just want you to be able to count on me like that."

Then he sighed, folding his arms again. "But it seems like all I ever do is fuck things up and get in the way. Like I just fucked up everything here."

"You didn't fuck anything up," things had been weird for a while. She just hadn't wanted to say anything about it, and neither had he, from the looks of it. Sighing, Claire slid her hand up to his shoulder.

"To be honest, I'm glad we've talked about it now."

Steve actually laughed half-heartedly at that. "Was it really that obvious? Jesus, I suck at this."

Then he looked up towards the ceiling and brushed his hair out of his eyes. "But seriously. It's not gonna be really weird between us now, is it? Because I really don't want that."

"Steve, I've known how you felt for a long time," Claire laughed a little, shaking her head. "If anything, this will make things less weird." She imagined things would still be a little bit off balance until he managed to resolve his feelings for her.

"I'm actually really bad at this kind of stuff."

"I guess so. You should have said something," Steve said, just a bit irritably. "I've been going crazy trying to figure this shit out. If you told me sooner I would have just stayed quiet and then we wouldn't be having this conversation." And then he wouldn't have the urge to crawl under the table for a few hours. "You can just tell me things, you know? I'm not a kid. I can handle it. Just give stuff to me straight. I'm not that sensitive." Arguable. Very arguable.

He let out a little breath and then smirked. "But... it's okay. I'm no good at this kind of stuff either. And I've never even had a girlfriend."

Claire tilted her head, a little surprised at that. Granted, he was only seventeen, but...

"Really? I'd think you'd be all kinds of popular." He was a pretty good-looking kid. Not to mention she knew when he wasn't being sulky he was interesting enough to be around. If she'd been a little younger she might've been more interested in him.

It finally looked like he was starting to relax a little bit. Though he still felt too ashamed to look at her. "Well, I had plenty of friends. And some of them were girls. I went to prom with one of them last year. But they were all just friends," he said, shrugging his shoulders.

"There was a girl I liked in my science class. I was gonna ask her to homecoming but... well, I don't think it's gonna work," he said dryly. "She's probably in grad school now."

She sighed a little at that, leaning away from him and propping her elbows back against the table.

"Well, there are girls your own age around here, too."

Steve went silent for a moment at that. Yeah, obviously there were other girls around who were his age. But his feelings were way too raw to even think about that right now. Claire saying it really seemed to drive this all home.

Finally he looked over his shoulder at her with the smallest traces of a smile. "Expecting me to go kind of fast, aren't you?" he teased.

Claire winced at that, covering her eyes with her hand briefly.

"I was just making an observation, I didn't mean it like that." Although it would be nice if another pretty girl came along and helped him get over his feelings for her. She sighed, dropping her hand and looking over at him, glad he was at least kind of looking at her again.

"Take your time, all right? And I'll try not to... make things tough on you." IE she would look around before kissing Leon in public.

"That doesn't mean not talking to me at all, does it?" he asked, staring down at the floor again. Now that his feelings for Claire were effectively blown to pieces all over the place, the chiefest worry in his mind was that she'd think it easier on both of them if she just cut off all contact with him. That was actually a fairly common worry for Steve, even though she had already expressed multiple times that he was important to her, she considered him family, and she didn't want to lose him.

Ah, adolescence. Such a wonderful time in a young person's life.

"I don't want you to treat me like a hypersensitive little kid. I'll be fine. I always am." Arguable, Steve. Pretty damn arguable.

"You can't get rid of me that easily," she replied, smiling a little and reaching over to ruffle his hair.

"I just don't want you feeling like I'm trying to step on your feelings." Any more than she already had.

"It's not like that," he assured her, shaking his head. "You're not just being mean. You wouldn't do that. It's just..."

He sighed and then reached up to fix his hair. "Well, I don't want to talk about it with you. But it's fine, okay?"

Claire frowned a little at that, but figured it was probably not something she wanted to ask him about. Maybe eventually he'd be okay with talking about it with her, but things were pretty raw, right now, and she could sense that.

"Okay. I'm always around if you want to talk, though."

"I know," he said, and nodded. It was just a matter of what he wanted to talk to her about. She was the best source for most things, but the idea of talking to Claire about his own romantic problems sounded like utterly humiliating torture.

And now he had no idea what else to say. He absolutely did not want to ask about Leon. The very mental image of the guy's face was kind of making him nauseous, particularly in any kind of +Claire scenarios. Some masochistic part of him wanted to ask if he'd ever had a chance at all, but that answer would do nothing but rip the hurt even wider, so he kept it to himself.

"I'm sorry, Claire," he finally settled on. "For all this."

"It's fine, Steve." She shook her head, looking down at the floor. "We can't really help stuff like this, anyway." She still had a feeling Steve was confusing his feelings for her, because of the way they'd met, it was easy to impose feelings of romance on someone you'd lived through hell with. She'd actually been very careful not to let that be the only reason she was falling for Leon.

Then again, Steve had had a while longer to let his emotions get the best of him, another reason she probably should've shot him down early. If this was anyone's fault, it was hers.

Steve was quiet for a moment, slowly gathering the courage to look up at her again. He managed a thin smile, but it was probably easy to tell that it was mostly fake and mostly an attempt to save face.

"I guess that's it, then..."

Claire nodded her head, shifting a little to curl her fingers around the table edge.

"Unless you've got anything else to say?" She, as it was, was pretty sure everything was done with. She just hoped he wasn't going to avoid her, now.

"Not really. Nothing that's not gonna make me sound even dumber," Steve admitted with a little shrug as he stood up, more than ready to make a hasty exit.

A moment later he thought better of it and turned around, still looking pretty sheepish. "You're the best friend I have, Claire. Just remember that."

Her brow furrowed briefly, and she nodded her head. "Of course."

Steve let out a heavy sigh and tried to smile at her again. He hated that look on her face and hated feeling like he'd just ruined her day. Even though Claire wasn't going to be the one retreating to her room for the next few hours.

"I guess I'll see you later, then," he said quietly. And like somebody'd fired a starting pistol, he turned on his heels and rushed towards the door. She'd been perfectly nice to him, given the circumstances, but he couldn't help feeling overwhelmed by emotions-- disappointment, shame, sadness, jealousy and anger, with little traces of optimism trying to remind him that Claire considered him family and wanted them to stay friends. He wanted the hell out of here. And since he'd been able to finally say something conclusive, there was no way he was going to take his time.

At least, that was the plan, but when he reached the end of the conference table there was an abrupt, strange humming sound. Steve slammed face-first into some invisible barrier, clutched a hand to his face and stumbled, falling over backwards on the floor.

There was a strange... thing hanging from the ceiling all of a sudden.

"This is of the utmost importance, and part of ongoing Crew Coherency and Cooperation Studies." A computerized voice spoke.

"Please express affection for your fellow crewmate to free them."

"Please do not attempt to leave the vicinity until you have participated."

Claire watched Steve leave, feeling like she'd just somehow made things worse. Of course, things probably would be weird for a while, but it hurt her to think he was practically running from her right now.

Until of course he was stopped by an invisible wall.

"Steve!" She was up and at his side in three strides, kneeling down next to him while the computerized voice spoke overhead. Even as she reached a hand out to help him up she looked around, then up at the ceiling.

"What the-?"

"Shit!" That hurt. Steve sat up, clutched a hand to his forehead and after a second or two, reached down to carefully touch the back of his hand to his nose. Wasn't bleeding. Good, that was the last thing he needed right now. His eyes were watering though and he looked up at the ceiling, wincing.

"Please express affection for your fellow crewmate to free them."

"Please do not attempt to leave the vicinity until you have participated."

"What in the hell is this about?"

"Participation is required. Why wouldn't you want to participate?"

He eyed the... thing on the ceiling. "What is that?"

She stared up at the plant growing from the ceiling, extremely unamused.

"Looks like mistletoe," she said flatly. This was not funny.

There was a long, long pause while Steve pulled himself up off the floor, his eyes still glued to the plant in the ceiling. Oh. Mistletoe.

Mistletoe. Of course it was mistletoe. Now. Here. With her. And they were stuck here. Until somebody "showed affection."

Steve took a long, deep breath. And then he lost it.

"What the fuck is wrong with this fucking ship?" he screamed at nobody in particular, and slammed his foot against the invisible barrier. "Do you think this is fucking funny? Huh? Yeah, real fucking hilarious! I can't have one fucking thing go right, can I? Not even once and not without something showing up and rubbing it in! That's great! This is just-- this is like winning the gold medal in the bullshit olympics, right here! Awesome! Just what my day needed! Fuck this fucking ship!"

He'd been holding it in for some time now, but that was the last straw. He grabbed the nearest chair at the conference table and threw it to the floor with a clatter. "God dammit!"

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