"Will you give yourself a break?" There was a hapless, aggrieved chuckle on the tail of the words, the weight of a head nestling into his shoulder before coming to rest. The fingers in his hair untangled themselves, finally, following the trail of that short, tense movement. They pressed down through the layers of cloth, at last finding a band of tight, corded muscle and kneading idly.

"You know how I do things. As long as it works, the finesse isn't really that important." Sure, things being polished was nicer than them not being polished. Phoenix wouldn't even think of arguing that. But sometimes, if you wanted a job done, you just had to accept that you were going to have to cross-examine a parrot first.

. . . out of all of the possible relationship metaphors in the world, I come up with that. He didn't know whether to laugh or roll his eyes at himself. This is why poetry is out of my league.