Fic! "And This Gray Spirit"
Title: And This Gray Spirit
Author: Nemo the Everbeing
Rating: G
Summary: Steel doesn’t envy Silver for any of the obvious reasons.
Pairings: Hints of Steel/Sapphire UST.
Author’s Notes: This was an idea that sprung from that odd little scene in Assignment 3 in which Silver creates his little spider-web star and Steel doesn’t react as I expected him to. It grew from there. Oh, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY FIC, ZIRCON!
Disclaimer: Steel, Silver, Sapphire, and their world all belong to P. J. Hammond. I just extrapolate. The title is borrowed from “Ulysses” by Alfred Lord Tennyson. Which is such a Steel poem.
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There were moments-only moments-when Steel envied Silver bitterly. It wasn’t even for the expected reasons. For all Silver’s flirtations, Steel knew that Sapphire had more sense than to take up with such a rake. And looking at the situation objectively, Sapphire wasn’t the only recipient of Silver’s charms. If it was female and attractive, Silver was bound to make a move. It was his nature. Steel even had the suspicion that Silver had attempted to chat him up once or twice. Probably out of boredom or a desire to keep in practice, but still. Silver’s flirtations meant nothing, neither as a signifier of his regard nor of his intent.
No, Steel never envied Silver’s glib tongue or its results, no matter how the behavior irritated him. He never envied Silver his unstructured specialist’s lifestyle. Steel was a being who preferred his life regimented down to the minute.
And yet he envied. The first time it had happened, he and Silver had stood in the apartment below their targeted time-capsule. Silver had been fashioning something to get them through barriers constructed to keep them out, and he’d taken a moment to show off with something useless: a spider’s web of gossamer metal between his hands. In its center, a light had burned like a tiny star where the molecules of the metal had become super-excited.
Instead of barking at him to stop dallying-that they had Sapphire to save and a temporal anomaly to reverse-Steel had stood rooted to the spot, thankful Silver hadn’t turned away from his handiwork to gauge his audience’s reaction. It wouldn’t have done to let him see that rare look of awe on Steel’s face, the way it had softened his expression to something approaching joy. Silver’s ego was inflated enough.
“I suppose you’d prefer something a bit more coldly efficient,” Silver had said. And for all intents and purposes he had been right. The rational, sensible, driven part of Steel (a part that had the tendency to eclipse all others) had wanted Silver to move on, help him find Sapphire and complete this mission.
But another part of him stopped those words from reaching his lips. It had stopped his feet from moving, despite Sapphire’s mental missives to follow the sound of her voice into the hall. It could think of nothing but that beautiful, useless bauble Silver had strung between his fingers. It was that part of him that envied Silver, the part that quietly longed to shine.
From then on, he had avoided Silver as much as possible. He had no room in his life for such fantastical notions, no time for awe. It wasn’t in his job description, and distractions were a sure way to get Sapphire and him killed. Purely in the interest of their team, he didn’t go anywhere near Silver and his beautiful, pointless ornaments.
He couldn’t avoid Silver forever. Steel was always three steps behind and set up to go against enemies so far out of his league it would be laughable if he weren’t about to be taken apart at the molecular level, and in such circumstances it was sometimes necessary to have the aid of a good technician. He would just have to avoid Silver for as long as it took for the envy to fade and the normal order of things to reassert itself.
Steel was matte gray, practical and completely lacking in the niceties and it was for the best. It was what made him effective. It was what allowed him to be the perfect counterpoint to Sapphire’s brilliance, allowed him to be her colleague and her partner. He had no need to shine.
No matter how much he wished, if only for a moment, to know what it was like.