Attachments (Tronnor AU)

Talk

transitive or intransitive verb

       • to speak; to converse; to discuss; to gossip; to divulge information.

noun

       • a discussion; a lecture; gossip; (plural) negotiations.

"I overreacted," Troye admits, words from his conversation with one of the few people he's known longer than a month sinking heavily into him. He doesn't look at Connor as he says it, staring out the window's dripping rows of melted snow to the eclectic mix of people passing by outside. "I'm sorry."

Connor draws his bottom lip between his bright white teeth, picking at his empty styrofoam cup with blunt nails and hot fingertips. "It's fine," he sighs, shoving the mutilated object away from him to fix Troye with an uncertain look. "I don't mean to pry or anything, I know that's how we got here in the first place, but..."

He trails off. Troye raises an eyebrow, an amused smirk dancing across his features to block out the panic racing through his heart. "But what?"

"But why did you? Overreact, I mean. I didn't think I'd said anything particularly react-worthy."

Troye sighs, thunderstorms rising and falling in the hollows of his throat as he watches a father hoist his daughter over a puddle of melting snow. He presses his fingers to the rim of his own coffee, the warm liquid he's been slowly savoring casting shades of heat across his icy skin. His knuckles are scarred, cracked from the cold and a couple particularly frustrating nights.

Connor doesn't understand. It's not his fault.

"Sore subject," he says, shrugging like that's even the half of it.

Connor quirks a smile in return, reaching a hand out across the table to still Troye's tapping fingers on the hard table between them. His eyes are more alive than Troye's ever felt, satisfied green of something akin to comprehension speckled through entirely unsubtle affection.

"I get it," he tells him, warm hands three shades darker than Troye's rubbing gently along his numb skin. "I'm sorry I brought it up."

Troye swallows. He tries to make the lump of fear in his throat go away, but it's stuck there as surely as the care in Connor's touch.

"It's fine," he replies, even though it's really not.