guns for hands

Oh, was that a little forward? Not romantically, of course, as she was so much younger and he hadn't even considered... not romantically. But platonically, he feared he might have been forcing things a bit. Hell, they had only just met, they were near strangers. How could he know that she wasn't going to smother him in her sleep? And how could she know that he wouldn't do the same? The answer was that they couldn't, and that Aesop was being terribly, terribly impolite, putting her in a position like that.

He watched with roiling dread as her brow furrowed, her expression blank and unreadable except for what he read as distaste in the line of her brows. However, just as he opened his mouth to take it back, psyche, she responded... positively? Oh, sweet relief washed over him, though all he did was nod gruffly. "Then put up your dukes, it'll take me a bit to shake the habit," Aesop said, grinning in his relief and his joy.