haole_cop | (no subject)

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"All I'm saying is, if we'd stayed on land last week, the chances of us getting boat-jacked and left to die out in the middle of the ocean in a sinking boat -- I'm sorry, dinghy," his hand drops from where it had lifted, preemptively, to stop Steve from arguing, "dinghy, I know, I know -- would have been much more slim. I'd say that there would easily have been a zero percent chance of that happening. Mainly because one does not use boats -- or dinghies -- on land. Don't get me wrong, I fully accept the possibility of something else horrible happening. It always seems to, every time we leave civilization."

Which is why they are here. At a bar. Having a few drinks, while Danny eyes the pool table and the TV with equal amounts of casual interest, catching a few glimpses of the previous week's games and keeping an eye out for the Jets.

More to the point, as great as it is that Steve wants to show him his favorite hiking trails or mountainous drives or fishing spots from when he was a kid, the guy is already surrounded by memories of a life that, all of a sudden, turned out not have been necessary at all. The thought of Doris McGarrett, hiding out somewhere on the island, unapologetic for doing what she'd called necessary and what Danny counters was cruelty, makes rage spark low in his stomach and burn up through his chest, so they're out of the house that she'd left so miserable and broken twenty years ago and planted solidly in the present.

There are worse ways to wrap up a week. Actually being around other people, instead of opting for Steve's lanai or living room or kitchen. When, somehow, miraculously, Danny is still wanted there. Around. And they've fallen into something almost like normality.

He hasn't thought about it too hard. That's how you jinx a good thing, and this is good, a bright light shining somewhere in the cave of bullshit that collapsed around them the day Fryer was murdered and Shelburne turned out to be Steve's not-nearly-as-dead-as-she-had-previously-appeared-to-be mother. Add it all to the firestorm of a custody battle from hell, and, look, all he wants is a decent night out at a bar before, hopefully, going back tipsy to Steve's house and enjoying the comfort of his couch or bed.

Is that really so much to ask?

"Best to just resist the impulse to tempt fate, my friend."

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Car, fine. Door, slammed shut. Securely, thanks, not because he's pitching a fit, remembering the way the girl at the bar had traced the pad of her finger along Steve's tattoo.

The one he can see, blurry in the darkness, just edging its way out of the edge of his shirt sleeve, and Danny's got to run his hand over his mouth just to push back the bite that wants to come, words choking themselves to silence in his throat.

And Steve is still smiling.

More than that, he looks actually gleeful, which is not a word Danny would generally use as a descriptor for Steve, okay, Steve is rarely filled with glee, unless he's gotten a brand new gun or managed to bring down a building. Occasionally it comes from ruining Danny's day, but, hey, that's a little vain, right?

He just leans away enough to get a good look at Steve's profile, disbelieving, and, you know what? Enough.

"What the hell is so funny, exactly?"

Bitten off words, and they're quiet, but that doesn't make them any less dangerous, like landmines set down one by one along a path.

Danny's over there throwing looks at him. He doesn't need to turn his head, to catch the way he keeps twisting. Tiny, murderous glances stolen here and there. Then leaning away and that time he doesn't look away. Making Steve's hand's tighten on the wheel, reflexively, taking a light shifting through yellow faster than he should have. When he's about to open his mouth and make a crass comparison.

But then Danny is spitting out that question. Quiet and hard. Darts aimed with precision, laced with poison.

When Steve honestly does a faint double take, on purpose, like he's looking for it in the dash or the wheel, for a flash second, before he's turning his head to look at Danny. Eyebrows raising, even when that twitch at the edge of his mouth is present even without the full smile, when he's surveying Danny with a rather close approximation of seriousness, even if it lacked any distance or severity. "What are you talking about?"

He's pretty damn sure he knows, but what the hell, why not make Danny spell it out. Again. A second, or is this third time? When Steve is probably just going to argue his term next. Because it's not funny. Well, it is but it's not. Funny is not one of the words he would give it. Crazy. Impossible. Amazing.

Like everything else about this crazy, impossible, amazing situation Danny kept staying here in.

"Oh, well..."

His hands spread, and he shrugs, slicing the right one up in a diagonal line and back down again, parsing out his words. "I am just saying, you seem very pleased with yourself over there, like something is amusing you, and me, I have found very little to be amused by, tonight, but then, I am not the one with beautiful women attempting to drape themselves all over me."

He's not totally sure if he'd meant to say that last part, but there it is, anyhow, falling out of his mouth with the rest of his words, like he can never manage to stop, and it's a goddam mercy he's able to haul himself back and stop there, honestly, because the last hour is playing itself out in his head and the subsequent mix of jealous anger and aggravation is making his head spin into a miserable, sickening fog.

While Steve continues to look at him like there has been absolutely nothing weird about this night at all, which Danny guesses there hasn't been, aside from the fact that his blood pressure is hitting the roof and he'd had the distinct and unpleasant desire to break some girl's hand off her arm just for touching Steve, and, Christ, Danny really needs to get a grip.

It's not going to be now, though. Not with Steve watching him, blandly curious. Like Danny doesn't already know this is insane. Like he doesn't already know he's messed up, and bad at all this, and out of line.

Like it matters.

"No one attempted to drape themselves on me," it's the first retort that falls out of his mouth, brow furrowing like Danny needed to check his facts or his head. Someone had attempted to fall into the ground next to him.

Which, yeah, he'd even had to catch that one, but even she hadn't actually draped herself on him. Or even attempted to, fingers on his skin for a minute or two too long not withstanding. He'd dealt with far worse things touching him, covering him for days and weeks. Making it annoying, but insignificant.

He'd probably had these words picked out when he said the said the last ones, dragging it out, giving it directions, different paths. "You got something against me actually enjoying my night? Wasn't that your point going there?"

Tossing Danny a look of challenge even in the dark, as he flying down blissfully empty streets. Especially after how peopled the bar had been. Which wasn't terrible, given what he'd gotten from it, but it was less and less the kind of thing he looked for lately. But then he hadn't expected what he found tonight, and he was going to keep that. Savor it like steak after being in the field for so many months every clutched memory was obliterated before the reality of real flavor again.

Steve took a corner, heading them through the city area. Watching Danny between glances where he was actually nearly facing the man, at the edge of his vision as he was paying attention to the road. Not that there was anything between him and a long slice of forever in front. The head lights illuminating the city at not far from midnight, when he only passed a handful of people here and there.

"Are you arguing semantics with me, now? Are you seriously doing that? I'm sorry, would that have made it better, or worse?"

And there is so much more he could say to that, but he's derailed, words catching, struggling against each other, as Steve goes on, and his jaw goes tight, enough that he feels like something might actually crack, if he doesn't let it go soon.

Leading to a pause, while his jaw works, mouth tightens, and he looks away, out the windshield, gripping the few threads of restraint left with iron fingers.

"I hadn't realized it was such a drag beforehand."

It's possible Steve doesn't actually mean to make that smart like it does, but it does. Lands right where he's sore and aching, like a punch against a healing scar.

Of course. Of course that's the point, however, he feels like he's sort of earned the right to be -- well, yeah. Enjoy the night. But enjoying it with him. Not because some random barflies decided to pinpoint him as the best and most attractive target in the room. And things hadn't been so bad, just the two of them. Right? Sure, it was just normal, just beers and bitching, but comfortable. Good, even, so he'd thought.

And then all this happened.

"Okay, how about this, how about, next time, I leave you there," hands lifting, parallel, like he's placing a box down in the air, shifting it over a space, "and you can go on enjoying your night as long as you want, problem solved."

He's totally going to argue semantics, and roll his eyes at the volley of words that come from doing that. Because if he had --- let someone, anyone there, drape themselves around him -- he's rather certain the pool cue or beer bottle might have met with a harder than meant end. No one draped themselves over him. No one was going to get the chance to.

Current company excluded. Even Cath wasn't about to do that anywhere in the vicinity of Danny.

When that roll of his eyes, lands over toward Danny, again. His dashboard, glass plate, and his hands. Those hands that keept moving at the edge of this vision, in the shadows and casting their own shadows. But mostly catching his attention, more than the street. Maybe as much as Danny's voice.

When Danny's talking about anything being a drag and Steve would be loath to admit it. You don't. Not really. The last easy day was yesterday. You keep pushing forward. You don't admit the weight or the duration or any thought that is not overcoming, pushing through, succeeding where others would fail. But this was better. Better than all the things he didn't list or name or let himself consider like that.

Except when Danny's rattling into some form of insanity, hand still flying, about the fact -- what? Was he implying that he thought Steve's enjoyment about this whole night had ended? Somewhere back there? Seriously?

"Are you-" There's the smallest pause, like Steve isn't quite sure. Either that the words are going to make sense, or that Danny just made him have to clarify this. This insane thing. But the words are pointed, almost exacting, like they always are. "-yelling at me because I didn't stay? You were the one that wanted to leave."

Not that Steve didn't, also, in some amount. But the honest truth was. End of too long day, he didn't much care where here was so long as somewhere inside of it was still Danny Williams, with his too many words and too much movement. Even in the middle of a smokey bar, drinking beers, unable to reach out and touch him expect for all the ways that had gotten so ingrained over these years.

Casually. Flippantly. Congratulatory. Sympathetic. Nothing like the kind that lingered, burning under his skin most of the day now. Where the world might catch its breath and let the touch linger, against a shoulder or wirst, glide along skin he was sure he could not memorize the feel of under his fingertips enough given months or years. Might never know how to put back into the box of those first simple touches that Danny got him so used to over so long.

He's staring, hands paused in the air, while the only thing moving are his eyebrows as they arch up against his forehead, and he's asking, impatient.

"What does any of that have to do with me?"

Like he'd forced Steve out of there? Like him leaving had any effect on whether Steve did or not?

Sure. He would like to think so. They spend all day on the end of each others' tether, action and reaction. Drive to cases together. Investigate together. And, lately, find each other again after work, in the quieter hours, when the larger world of problems threatens to come crashing down on them both. They're a matched set, and, okay, sure, twist his arm, he'd admit that he would hope Steve would leave with him, rather than stay.

But that doesn't mean he has to. Danny saying he's done for the night doesn't need to mean Steve is, too. He could have gotten a ride from any one of those girls, or anyone else deciding to try their luck with him later on. There are such things as cabs that, astoundingly, will drive you places, in exchange for money.

It's like Steve just doesn't get it. The way he'd shined up, under the attention, and how crazy it made Danny just to see the way those girls looked at him, like he's a new pair of party shoes or a day at the beach. Like he's nothing more than a good time, when he is so much more than that, for himself. To Danny.

A thought he chokes down, cuffs to the ground, and tries to ignore, because the fact is that what Steve is to Danny is too much for him to look at, straight on, without panic striking deep and treacherous. A little like seeing a solar eclipse out of the corner of his eye.

Danny goes still, or stays still. One or the other, but they both might as well be the same thing, too. Because it's far too noticeable after all the movement over there. When that looks on his face for a moment is stupefied by way of suddenly quite defensive. Like Steve suddenly attacked him, instead of pointing out what was the clear point of fact. Right?

When Steve has to raise a hand off the steering wheel, fingers almost too sharp, pointing downward. Conveniently at a stop, where he pop the words back at Danny, tight and like they are the most obvious, rhetorical thing in the world. So obvious, deaf-blind people couldn't miss them. "Who else do you think it involves?"

It's not like he seriously thinks Steve was going to listen to anyone else that happened to cross their path in the less than an hour and half they could have spent in that place. He didn't listen to the man who paid his paychecks even when it came to where to go and when. Danny had be kidding, right? He got that he'd gotten all sensitive about everything else, snappy and sharp and jealous over everything, but he couldn't be serious.

Who else?

Anyone. Everyone. Because the world doesn't stay out of their lives, and there is always someone else willing to step in. He knows. Has seen it. Lived through it. And a month of...this, whatever it is, miraculously still happening, giving him a little something extra to look forward to, to hold onto during the worst days, when he and Rachel are at each others' throats and the whole island seems like it's about to go up in flames, is not enough to convince him that it could all end just as suddenly as it started.

"Well," he says, and now his hands are back in motion again, palms and fingers flat, forming a loose V in front of his chest, that expands, contracts. "I know you may have lost count, but I definitely spotted at least three people back there who would have been more than happy to get involved, but of course what it comes down to is you, right, I mean, I appreciate that you find my opinion so informative, especially considering it's not like you usually listen to me, but it is not like you can't make your own choices about staying or going."

After all, supposedly, Steve is a grown-up, though Danny has yet to see comprehensive evidence of that theory.

There are words happening. Steve is sure of that. About as sure of that as he is that the flicker of color and movement to the left of his vision is the light actually turning green. That same shade that's been painted all over Danny, he thought. Except this is. And he isn't looking at it. The light. Because it doesn't seem to exist anymore.

He's narrowing his eyes, just enough during Danny's barrage of words, when his hands suddenly start moving again, pulling a cord of barbwire tight around his chest. Tightening with emphasis at words like definitely and appreciate and usually and your own. When there is nothing behind him, and nothing in front of the camaro, that isn't right here.

Where he's looking right now, when Danny's voice is goading him to try and consider anything else. Like he should have.

But he rejects it, with the closest thing to a frown he's probably found in over an hour. Reject every edge of Danny's words that cannot be missed. That he was supposed to be considering other people. Other ways for this evening and tonight to be ending. Somewhere else. Somewhere that was not here. With someone else. Who was not Danny. When the whole feeling is so desperately sharp it's dangerous painful.

When he's shrugging, shoving if off, like it's not burning down the ground. "Nope. No idea who you could be talking about."

When he thinks he knows where that could go, what that might make Danny recite for him. When he's shoving out exasperated words, like an brittle edged order, when his hand is out, shoving into Danny's space, up to the place where his hair and his neck meet, dragging him forward to meet them, "Shut up, before I forget this is the only thing I've wanted to do all night."

When the camaro wasn't exactly where he'd planned for. In the middle of a city street. With traffic cams and possible other cars. But everything else is minute whine of noise beside the need to kiss Danny. To take each of those words back, like he could rip them out of wherever they came from.

Because it's not true, and there was never a chance, and his stomach edges over ice, with whether Danny didn't want this now, somehow, after making it clear for over an hour that every other person who looked at him should be burned alive for the assumption of right.

He's got one hand extended towards the windshield, words to tell Steve to hurry up and drive, already, did he miss the light, hello, Steven, is he now just waiting for the red to appear so he can blow through it? Except it all get s shipwrecked with the sudden electric weight of Steve's hand at the back of his neck and the way he gets dragged into the center of the car only to come up short against Steve's mouth. Against those words. Rough and almost annoyed and something he should respond to, only he's busy, his mouth is busy, opening against Steve's.

And it's just like all the shit that's been floating around his head just up and leaves. His hand comes up like it's instinct, curls at Steve's neck, thumb brushing along the line of his hair as it angles down, where sunlight picks out bits of silver in the mornings, on the few occasions Steve has stayed in bed long enough for the sun to come up at all.

Just this. Just him, and Steve, who is -- and the car, that they should definitely not be doing this in, at a green light, not late enough at night that no one could come by, but he can't pull away, finds himself pushing closer. As jealous of the space between them that he hates, that can burn away any time now, as he was of the eyes on Steve before, the smiles, the tossing hair and flirtation. Fingers tightening, and this is dangerous, he needs to let go, now, before everything catches back up with him and he can't. Before he remembers that he'd thought maybe, somehow, all this would slip through his fingers without him even getting a say in it.

It's like tearing out seams, though, to pull away, and he can't let go, is too selfish, fine, beyond selfish, because he wants this, Steve, for himself, and that's wrong but that doesn't make it any less true. Still gripping the back of his neck, licking at his bottom lip, and feeling like the night's just run over him like a train.

"There is something wrong with you," he points out, for the thousandth time, but with that edgy, sharp hollow in his chest smoothing itself over, "and this is driving me up the wall, so can you please, just, seriously, Steve, the light is green, so go already, Christ."

He doesn't know if he shouldn't. Maybe even better he probably doesn't care enough in that second not to. That he laughs under the rush of Danny's words breathing against his lips hard and a little fast. Complaining about there being something wrong with him, in that spastic half pleading half ordering line of words about how he should move the car. But he hasn't missing it. Not at all.

The pressure where Danny's fingers are still in the muscles of his neck and up in his hairline while he says this.

Somehow instructing Steve to keep driving the camaro even when Danny hasn't let go in the slightest.

And, this. This is not the place to do this. Not the place to watch Danny's eyes widen and too many things cross Danny's face in the shadows, too fast and dark. The wrong place to want to draw out and line each one. Tiny seats, and that damnedable center console. When he's still watching for lights out of any part of his vision, not closing his eyes once, like it just became tactically required.

Because it is. Because there's an alarm, with flashing light and flaming signs screaming to stop this now. But Danny's fingers are tangled up in his skin, his hair, and he can still see him lick his lips, and just watching that barely a second movement. Against those lips, swallowing, in the dark, not letting go, is setting fire to the center of Steve in a completely different, completely more dangerous way.

So, maybe, laughing is the only way to go. Because this is insane. Danny telling him to go but not moving, his own skin screaming at him to pull away, at least for five more minutes, which just makes him laugh. When all he does, is tip his head, looking up toward the roof like he's thinking, mouth tugging darkly irreverent as all the warmth flooded fighting against every warning. "Alright. Fine. The blond was pretty distracting."

When Steve only gives Danny the beat of a second or so. Long enough to let the line connect with the bartender he hadn't thought about until now, and wasn't referencing now. Even if the words would fit. Long enough to let Danny think it for a second, but not long enough to let Danny's face fall. Long enough maybe for a freeze, when he's smirking.

Still smirking, sharp and caustic and so pleased with himself when he rolls right on. "Sensitive and mouthy as all hell."

Which were not traits he would have told you he wanted in someone, but he wished tonight had been recorded.

Steve's laughing, and it's beautiful, the way he shines up, even in the dark, sick pale lighting seeping in through the windows, and Danny's pretty sure the light's changed at least once, but he does not give a single damn. Not when Steve doesn't move, doesn't pull away, not when he's smiling like that, laughing like that, and it's for him and not some overly friendly stranger with a nice ass and a pretty smile.

It's the kind of thought that knocks him backwards, like a sudden heavy wind, or a tackle to the shoulder, because it's impossible, but there it is: Steve, eyes gone dark and bright all at the same time, glowing like sun shining through water, and it's astounding how quickly that punches the air from Danny's lungs. Replaces it with something huge and fragile, an elephant made of glass, taking up the space where his lungs and heart need to work, straining at the pressure on his chest.

Which suddenly shrinks into a lump of cold ice at the thing that comes out of Steve's mouth, feeling like a punch to the gut, and making his hand freeze where it's still curled at Steve's neck. The blonde, the bartender? Images from the night overlapping in his head, flipping magazine pages, until he can just get back to those few minutes where she'd decided to stick around and give Steve a free drink, just as Steve continues and Danny blinks, trying to remember when she mouthed off. What the hell is Steve talking about? She hadn't said anyth --

The look he levels now is flat and unamused, nothing like the previous ten seconds worth of scrabble for his heart to start beating again and his stomach to lift from the cliffside it plummeted off of. "I hate you," he says, annoyed, and relieved, and annoyed that he's relieved, and he really does, he hates Steve like fire, a thousand angry suns burning themselves out in vengeance for that stupid trick.

"You enjoy this too much, look at you, you look like it's your birthday, it's sick." His hand finally lifts, and he waves at the road ahead, exasperated, all too aware of the pit he'd just tripped into, that Steve both pushed him into and pulled him out of.

"Will you get going, please?"

It should not be so sweet and victorious. Those three words, smoldering coals drug from Danny's mouth. But, oh, it is.

When Danny's pulling away, and Steve follows suit with no more than the fingers and hand lifting from his skin. Not that the words don't shove int the same direction. But if one of them can pull away, then both of them can, and they can stop doing this right in front of God and all. Even if at least a third of of that equation, maybe a half if he was lucky, were sleeping. But still. Unnecessary risks.

When Steve's snorting, as he looks up at the red light and lets his hands settle back on the wheel. Regards Danny from one side, without the faintest remorse in mind. Voice drift thick and mocking. "I'm just calling it how I saw it. You can tell me I'm wrong--" But there's nothing in his voice to even hint he'd listen or that Steve would believe it in the slightest, when he's rolling on.

"--But I'd hate for you to go on thinking my observation skills were as incapacitated as my free will."

Green light. Which sends the camaro, with a squeal of tires, back into motion, blowing down the street, outracing the wind with Steve at the helm only barely not breaking into a smile as he stared between the long dark road they all ran toward and Danny over there in alternating light and dark, depending on street lamps and shadows.

His mouth screws up, irate, and he turns his glare on the windshield, the spashing pools of red light, which, what the hell, can they not turn, already? Is this the longest red light of all time, or what, it decides to stick just as they're actually trying to go?

Someone should really talk to the DPW about this intersection.

"You," he says, pointing at Steve, before his hand opens wide, makes a wax-off half-circle in Steve's general direction, "are seeing things, okay? Don't you go getting any ideas rattling around in that empty head of yours, alright, how you saw it. There was nothing to see."

All bravado, sounding convinced, even irritated at the suggestion, at the easy confidence in Steve's voice and the smile he's keeping under tabs but that's shining out dark and amused in his eyes, through his tone, and it grates. Grinds down on that raw patch that's been rubbing against sandpaper all night, and Danny definitely has no intention of admitting to anything, least of all how crazy the whole scenario made him.

Jerking back in his seat against the momentum of their acceleration just feeds his aggravation, gives him another rock to lob at Steve's head from the passenger seat.

"I should arrest you right now for reckless endangerment, will you please stop driving my car like you just stole it off the lot?"

"I'd like to see you try," Steve said, smugly, flicking a look at him. Even if all he catches is the dark profile of Danny's face and his upper body as the light from the passing lamp fades. It doesn't matter. It's enough. The car. The evening. Danny sitting over there, acting less and less innocent of his actions the more sharp and irate he gets about it.

Steve doesn't slow down in the slightest really. The car is outfitted with the best for his class and size, and seen to every single time it has any issue that can be claimed as work related. And maybe a handful that might or might not be. You never know with cars, and this one has certain been through enough in the service of their job.

"Nothing?" It escapes, dryly hilarious. "Nothing as in nothing? Nothing to see, because nothing happened?" which is why he was yelling from the first second he got in the car, only momentarily soothed in the second he got told to shut up so he could be kissed, before going back to nursing his nothing at a seething volume.

About the nothing of three different people who only existed when Danny wanted him to consider something else. But not now. Not with any reference to the fact of any of the rest of it. That never happened, apparently, as much as Steve never noticed any of the three of them.

"Right." So rich with sarcasm even standing still. "So." When Steve rolling right on through that. Like a tank through a glass window. "Then, we should be able to just enjoy a quiet, peaceful drive back." At break neck speed through downtown at near midnight.

When silence was not something he was banking on Danny getting far into lest each extra few seconds or minute of silence continue to multiply those words begging to escape and be thrown at his own head until he exploded each new again. It's fine. Steve thinks, as he checks his mirrors, still warm and light.

He'd waited most of a night to get to this as it was. He had not problem with it lasting as long as it could now.

"That's right, nothing. What, you need me to spell it out for you?"

He's aware that each argument is just making Steve more and more certain, but he can't help himself, fueled by aggravation and the sharp burn of embarrassment, still added to the sting of someone else thinking they get to touch Steve, like it might be allowed, like it might be wanted. More than half his own anger sparked by the uncertainty of not knowing, himself, because, what the hell, it could have been, right? It's not like Steve pushed any of those girls away, or did anything to shut them down.

But that way lies madness, so he grinds his teeth and grips the oh-shit handle above the window and wrenches his thoughts in a different direction.

"Yes," he agrees, even though it is physically painful to agree with Steve right now, while Steve is a sparkling fuse in the other seat and is far too sure of himself for his own good. "Quiet, peaceful. Two things I always associate with Steve McGarrett. However, potentially, yes. That is a thing that could happen."

He is nothing is not fair to the potentials, after all. It's just that, after two years of this crap, plus the added insanity of the last month, he is not what he might call optimistic that their ride can really be anything of the kind.

Yes, he does. He wants Danny to spell out every hilarious, little detail from the moment he slammed his beer on the counter. Or before that, even. Before when Steve wasn't paying attention, because he didn't know there was something to be paying attention to. That it wasn't just all systems go, a few beers and shooting the shit.

He knows he's already going to find himself watching Danny any time he interacts with someone now.

Has he missed it before? It's not something he can place to standing out in the last weeks. Which have been...busy, tight, heavy.

When there comes the first flicker of remembering he's headed back to that place, combined with the question of whether his prickly, snappish partner will stay. He really should stop feeling the at heavy resignation he tries to settle into his shoulders, down the muscles of his lower back, at the idea of being in that house without a distraction now. If the answer is no.

If he's just dropping himself off. Which he doubts while casting a sideways glance at Danny without saying any of those words, as he leaps on agreeing that silence will somehow last in the cab. When he he knows he's pushing, saying, broad lack of concern laced with too much rising challenge, "Oh, good. We'll just that now, then."

"Fine."

He throws up his hand, like he's tossing the whole conversation aside. "Good."

Lapsing into sullen silence has never worked out well for him before, but it's his last line of defense, here, because he really does not particularly want to get into the details of just why this is bugging him so much.

All of it. Not just the girls. The way Steve is ignoring the fact that there were girls, at all. How they just wouldn't stop coming. And, worst of, how he's going to be looking for it, all the time, now, because it will always be there. There will always be people looking at Steve and wanting him. There will always be girls hitting on him in bars, on the beach, randomly throughout the day. There may even be guys hitting on him, which...just sort of makes Danny's brain short-circuit, stalling before he has to decide how he would even cope with that.

After Steve said it's brand new for you, back at the beginning of everything, but not that it was for him, because it wasn't, Danny's not an idiot, he can tell that this isn't Steve's first rodeo. And he wonders about it, every now and again, before that same clutching hand grabs hold of a fistful of stomach and he has to stop before he unwittingly beheads the next person to ask Steve something innocuous, like the time.

Like now, when he has to pull himself out of his frozen thoughts, still antsy, worried down deep, all too aware of how fragile this all is, how easily he could still lose it, what that would do to him.

Offering it like a reluctant fold, against all his bluffing. "You know what, there are better bars to go to, anyway."

The hands go up and the topic goes out. Hard. Fast. Forceful. Those few words.

For a sleek, small sports car it suddenly has far too much space, seems too big, when everything gets quiet. The engine runs quietly enough and mostly of the lights are green. He might take the posted speed limit as a suggestion, more during work than this, because there's more reason then, but he does at least obey those laws. When he knows it's going to work. He doesn't doubt being right.

At least not at first. Not for a good few miles. Except that Danny is still silent. Still looking out his windows. Still too still. And he has to start wondering if maybe it was the wrong thing. The wrong option. When Danny's spent most of the night shoving comments in edgewise, sharp and angry and demanding to be heard, or standing at an edge quietly. When maybe it was the worst thing he could have pressed now.

When it's the last thing he wants. Okay. Alright. Really. No. He'd rather have Danny read out whatever the newest court case updates he'd gotten for the week were than sit in silence. When they're away from work, from the radio's and their teammates, and the job, as much as Five-0, without their phones on all night, is ever off the job, even when they're off hours.

But. Especially after what he just saw. That horrible travesty charading as subtly. The last thing he wants is silence now. With him. When Danny couldn't manage it for anyone else all night. When it's only adding to it, the slow claws dragging down the solid chamber of stomach, questioning whether maybe the end of the night might come very soon, and he may have to let it.

Something like this was bound to happen sooner or later right?

That house is both too close and not close enough.

Only another minute at best.

Before the tension in his lungs snaps with a side shuffle of nearly painful relief on that side of his chest, and a flood of possessive, reflexive feeling trying to re-choke him, for the tone those words come in. When Danny isn't exactly surrendering, but he's commenting. Oblique to the reference, to the evening.

Steve lets his head tilt, cant on the head rest to look over, as he's turning on to the road that will get them there. There's a faint air of success very subtle around his mostly bare expression, when he is at least regarding Danny with something as wary, not all that interested in planning another such night second free from it, as it is weightedly curious."Yeah?"

"Yeah, emptier ones."

He glances over to check in, rolls his eyes at the way Steve is looking at him now, letting out an exasperated breath. "What is that face, huh?"

He wants to warn him not to start anything, not to get into this with him, but part of him's ramping up for an argument, too, jsut like it had when Girl Number Two started running one manicured finger along the edge of Steve's sleeve. He wants to shove Steve's head into a wall, wants to grab his arm and shake him. His hands are itching to take hold of that cotton t-shirt and drag on it, and it's impossible to say whether he'd rather yell at Steve now or kiss him again.

Like it's his fault. And it is his fault, it's just not something Steve can actually control, this thing that makes people gravitate towards him. It's something he can't switch off, wouldn't, couldn't. The whole team is here because of it. Danny's here because of it, because after the first job was over, and they thought Victor Hesse was dead, Steve just never suggested that Danny go back to HPD, and Danny found that he didn't want to. Found himself already entangled in his brand new, psychotically violent partner, who already would not let a little thing like a nickname go without having to know every last stupid detail about it.

That part, he has no control over, sure. It's the rest that's gotten under Danny's skin, the fact that Steve might not have encouraged any of them, but he definitely didn't send them away, either, and, what is wrong with him that that is even any kind of a big deal? A little harmless flirting never hurt anyone.

He should really remind himself of that more often, but it got a little hard to see through the fog of fury clouding his brain earlier.

Steve doesn't know the answer to the question. Whatever it's ever supposed to be. He really never does. And it usually ends up making him make a worse face if he even tries to ask about what it is Danny is blundering at with that question. Undoubtedly leading to hand waving at his face and details Steve can hardly follow to make any kind of sense in the first place. So he doesn't ask this time.

He turns on to the drive for his house, which is racing closer and closer, and say the easy to say part, "Empty bars don't stay open long."

And, bars. Bars were crowded with all the people you didn't find anywhere else. Who were looking for other people who made their appearances in bars. All of whom actually paid rather good money for a mark up on their drinks, their food, and all entertainment offered in the establishment. It didn't make it not worth it. But it didn't mean it had very far to go before it hit its glass ceiling.

The car comes to a stop, with the engine going off and Steve opening the door. Two very close movements, with a look toward Danny as he's unclipping his belt and getting out of the silver car. The quiet night everywhere breaking in as there were no walls. The sound of the breeze in the palms and the ocean in the far distance crashing on itself and the shore.

Keys still in his hand, in the grasp of fingers and half dangling, warm and cold metal both digging in against the skin of his palm, when he's looking of the roof toward Danny, keeping his expression relatively casual in inquiry. "You coming in?"

It's almost like Are you staying? which isn't exactly a question that gets asked, and it's not like he doesn't still have to leave sometimes even after saying yes to the first, for work, for Grace, for other things, but more often than not it answers the other question to.

Though, in this moment, when the center of his chests twists, like its not casual, he'd be glad even with the first and not the second.

He shrugs at that, because it's not about the bars, or how well they do, it's about the number of people in them that would be likely to try and flirt with Steve right in front of him. Fewer people, fewer problems.

Of course, he's also considering the idea that staying in for the next few nights (weeks, months) might not be a bad idea.

Really, he has just never been so grateful to see Steve's driveway appear, for gravel and shells to crunch under his tires, and for Steve to finally slow the car down, after hurtling through thankfully empty streets. A low, violent throb is starting in his blood, beating against the anger that's still spiking into the center of his head and chest when he least expects it, and he takes a deep breath of cooler air as he gets out, only turning, once the door is closed, because Steve is asking that question across the roof.

Making Danny frown at him, forehead furrowing. Leaning against the car roof to wave one hand, idly. "Well, that was pretty much my plan, yeah."

It's not like they've talked much about it. Every now and again, one of them might suggest meeting up after work, a casual see you later? that ends up with Danny coming over here sometime after work, and not leaving again until morning.

Which, even after tonight, he'd pretty much figured would be what happened, once Steve left with him and not one of the multiple willing volunteers from the bar. Right? Steve came with him, kissed him at a red light, and he's got this itch under his skin that he's starting to get to know, a need like thirst.

"Come on, what's wrong with you?" Jerking a thumb over his shoulder, he gives Steve a bemused look and pushes off the car, aiming for the front door.

It's a good question. He's pretty sure it would go spectacularly bad if he said you. Most of all, because it's not true.

That doesn't keep it from sticking for a second to the inside of his head like mass adhesive got attached to one side as slid through. Danny could have changed his mind somewhere around the third or fourth beer, among the snapping, or during yelling about Steve even getting in the car. When Steve knows, okay, where this is all coming from and he's probably as relieved as he isn't at Danny's answer.

But more than he is. That it doesn't stop here. Or, well, didn't stop there. When he's holding on for a second to way Danny had grafted in against him in the car, almost fighting with the center piece, fingers light against the edge of his hair, when everything melted away for Danny. For a few seconds. Before it all came back a few seconds later.

Steve looked up at the sky, a quirk of raised eyebrows, before he shook his head and started for the door, "Nothing."

Not missing, the second after its out, that it's the same word they'd been tossing for everything that didn't happen, too. But not letting it show, or slow him down on his course for the door. Or for catching up with Danny. Either, or both. Unlocking the door, without touching the security box. Or really even looking towards it.

Rather like he doesn't stop in the doorway, even though the door opens and it lands somewhere in his center, like a heavy metal weight. Not like it just appeared. More like it just shifted, tipped on it's side, drunken and a little woozy, and needed to make itself known again. When absolutely nothing in the room has changed.

Which never stops it from being true, also, that everything that was anything already has been, irrevocably, without a touch, too.

"Yeah, 'nothing' is all over the place tonight."

Grumbled, but good-natured, mainly, if curious, because Steve's glee seems to have bled all away and that's -- that's not what he wanted, at all, and right in this second, Danny would put up with a dozen girls all vying for Steve's attention if it would get that brilliancy back in his face, the tease back in his voice.

To let him enjoy his evening, for once.

At least Steve's not arguing Danny coming in with him, which is good, right, which is a start to figuring out if things are still what they were a few hours ago, yesterday, last week, because it's one thing for girls to be throwing themselves at Steve and another one for this to have taken a turn for the unwanted.

But Steve's not arguing anything, which is sometimes a sign he's in a good mood and sometimes one that he's getting stuck in his own crazy head, and the way his shoulders are set, the way he's not grinning anymore, the way there's a minute pause in his steps once he opens the door and lets them into the house all set off warning bells in Danny's head that, really, seriously, he was hoping to avoid tonight.

That was part of the point of getting out to begin with, the way this house has been weighing on Steve ever since he came back from Japan without Joe and with Doris, and Danny hates it. It's a low-boiling hate that he's not allowed to let off the handle, that snaps extra aggression into every conversation with his lawyer, every fight with Rachel. This is always here, niggling at the back of his skull, impossible to fix, impossible to ignore, and it just shovels coal onto the banked fire still smoldering in his chest.

All of it focusing on the tattoo he can see, edging out of Steve's sleeve. The one the girl complimented, and traced. That Lani kept looking at, like she wanted to do more than track each line with her fingertip.

That might not have existed at all, if Steve hadn't gone into the service. Which he might not have done, if his father hadn't sent him away. If.

His hand reaches through the quiet dark of the front room, finds Steve's arm, just above his elbow. Jealousy and fury and the angry, confused hurt of the last few hours, month, striking up like a snake. Hauling him back, as if Steve were really on his way somewhere else. "Where are you going, huh?"