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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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It's confusing. Seriously. When Steve looks like he's almost about to smile, and Danny knows it's the kind of smile that's going to try and crack his heart in half, because Steve, for all the shit he's been through, that the world has thrown at him, he still has this one smile, that's just as perfect and pure as a kid's, that gets Danny every single time. And he's edging towards it now, and Danny's bracing himself for the undertow that smile brings with it, before it abruptly changes, shifts, pulls the other way, as Steve's fingers tighten: on his side, on his jaw. Almost accusing, like he wants to shake the answer out of Danny like change shakes out of a pair of pants.

Which is...what? Really, what is going on? Danny can't keep track. First Steve made fun of him for being jealous, then implied that he liked it, but froze up when Danny admitted to wanting him, which should not be news, okay, that should come as a surprise to no one in this room right now -- and now this. Looking almost aggressive. Like he'd like to drag some other truth out of Danny, get to the bottom of these feelings and quantify them, when they can't be quantified.

And even if he tries to qualify them, saying it doesn't matter what you think or feel, I can't stop it, it doesn't matter. They resist that, too. They always have.

Hie eyebrows are pushing even higher. "Mostly that I don't want to freak you out, okay, you have gotten a little tense and me saying these things probably doesn't help, so, just..."

He's studying him, trying to find the bottom of it, because Steve, why would Steve want to hear any of this? It's what Danny warned him about to begin with, that he doesn't do casual and this is why, because he gets overrun by himself and can't hold it back, gets washed away with no hope of return, and that's fine, but it's his problem, okay, he doesn't want Steve worrying about it. "I don't know, Steve, what do you want me to do? Say I'm not gonna get jealous again? I could do that, but I can tell you right now it'd be a lie. To not want this, you? That's not gonna happen, either, okay, but I am not interested in making it hard on you. That is pretty much the opposite of what I would like this to do."

He really didn't think he could be any more floored than he was in the bar.

Except his eyes go a little wider in a shock that makes those words stand out so much louder and harder than any of the other things rolling by. When he's hearing them, but he's stuck on certain ones. Shoving away the hedging, the way they all wrap, loop, and lay together. Loosening his fingers against Danny's jaw, but not the ones curved over rid, even when he's leaning in more without meaning to.

Everything plummeting into a freefall, like the cliff it was standing on sheered off, somewhere behind him, off to the side. When he doesn't care at all suddenly about that. He does, might later, in a minute, not now. Not at all. About anything but the words forcing themselves, incredulous with surprise, out of this mouth. "You think you're making this hard on me?"

Edited 2012-12-04 02:43 (UTC)

"Well, I know I'm not easy."

It snags, on something. A splinter, somewhere, old and still sharp, but he knows it. He never has been, isn't easy on anyone. He's a lot to deal with, all spiky irritation and a thousand words a minute; stubborn in everything and argumentative to the end, even after he's forgotten what he's arguing about.

And it might sidestep an agreement, but it is one, because, yeah, he does. Knowing none of this is what Steve usually wants, and being selfish enough to take it anyway, while saying things that get that face and that maybe someone who isn't rusty and out of practice and divorced and still bitter about the way everything can end would be able to say better, because all those things are there, make him up, like a lamp that shattered on the floor and got glued inexpertly back together but can still light when the switch is turned.

He just wants to get it right, is that so bad? And maybe minimize the likely damages while he's at it.

"Danny." There's a sigh. Almost like it can't stop fighting to get out of him. It's so big, so massive in his head. The want to hurt someone, something. The hurt, almost embarrassment, full-ownership of those words that feels like lands more solidly like a slam to Steve chest than any bullet, any weapon that's torn up his skin.

"Sure, you can-" No. No, no, no. That's not what he wants to even have in "--and this month has--" but that. No, not that either. He doesn't. It's been hell. Danny knows that. Danny. Danny who's been there with him for all of the fall out. All the rolling, exploding fall out.

When this, them, Danny, is the only reason he feels like he can breathe on any of these day. At his side, joking, walking their cases. Danny is the only reason he has any moments, stolen in the middle of the night, flooding him with reasons other than that he should curl up, numb and solid and run hard through all of this. When he doesn't know how to put that into words, how to make any of it come up out of his throat.

The hand at Danny's ribs coming up, find the other side of his face. Not like a frame, like he has to demand it. He needs all of Danny's attention. Every bit of it. For no other world, ghosts, idiot people he can't hurt to be there between them. "Maybe you aren't--" No. No. No. He just leans forward, trying to, god, ripping up the center of him, all that he is certain of.

"You are--" Okay, yes. Maybe. Who cares. There's no one here, but Danny. Danny, whose face, is everything, that he's dragging less than two inches from him. Who actually believes. That he isn't "--the best thing to happen to me this month." When his voice might crack, even this thick. "The only good one." When everything else. Their whole team. Their enemies. Their families. Everything. Everything else was falling apart.

Everything except them. Coming together. Even when it makes everything complicated, sure, and harder. But better.

He's not sure he's ever seen Steve actually at a loss for words. No, not just words. Sentences. Stopping and starting like the faulty engine of the Marquis, stopping and starting with his heart. Dragging it forward, letting it go, falling a sickening drop before catching again, lifting. He can -- what? Be difficult? He knows that, just agreed to that, has never tried to pretend that he's an easy person to be around, to be with. And this month --

Yeah. This month. Wringer doesn't even cover it, can't define the level of hell they have all been through, but Steve, Steve especially, and he tries, he does. To make it easier on him, as much as he can, but that's just one more reason to keep the pressure low, which is something he is completely failing to do, because of this. What he can't deny to himself. The way it feels like his whole ribcage gets jacked higher, body so tuned to Steve's touch that the whole rest of everything -- the room, the faint sound of the waves, the lack of light -- gets tuned off like Steve's turning a radio dial

Because he can't give this up. Can't help but give into it, this thing that feels so fragile but threatens to hit him like a ton of bricks, that is filling the days and nights with so much more, so much of what he thought he'd never get again, never.

But the hands on his face are demanding his focus, so he focuses, on Steve, the look on his face, blown bare and almost desperate, like Steve is suddenly speaking in tongues and needs Danny to understand, to translate, which would make sense, because what he actually says, when he strings words together into a sentence, doesn't make sense at all, at first.

He is --

No, he knows those words. Says them to Gracie all the time. You're the best thing to ever happen to me, Monkey, promise. Familiar endearments rolling off his tongue, meaning it every single time. He hears them in his own voice, brings them out from his own heart, countless times in a year.

But when, seriously, when, when was the last time someone said them to him, about him? While he's staring at Steve, feeling like a mountain's caved in on his head, and his fingers are gripping his shirt, his side, needing to feel Steve under them, because, Christ, he must be dreaming. He is dreaming Steve watching him, intent, like he's afraid Danny's not going to get it, and he gets it, Jesus, he does, yes, but that's not, it isn't, hasn't ever been, and he can't take it if this is anything less than one hundred percent meant. Feels himself like a sheet of melted sugar, spread thin, close to cracking.

Like Steve's voice. Which strikes an answering fault in Danny's heart, to hear it. Making his own barely a whisper, rusted out and unsure and, God, he can hear it in his own voice, he is so screwed, this is running him over like a truck and want is too small of a word for the thing that's swelling, painful and brilliant inside his chest, like someone set off one of those huge chrysanthemum fireworks in there.

"It has been a crappy month." Barely there. Not even a joke. He doesn't have it in him, in this second. Scraping along the part of himself he'd thought got frozen out back in Jersey, in the courts and the motel room where he stayed and the cases he buried himself in. "But I can say the same." Easily. A hundred percent.

This. The only good thing to come out of this plane crash of a month. The best thing. Something so amazing, so impossible. So good. "I, uh." Reaching up. One hand on Steve's side, one, fingertips resting against Steve's wrist. "This is, I mean. You are, you -- " Make all of this bearable. Better.

But that's about when all his words fail him, because there's none left to say that says it any better than the ones that are still ringing in his ears.

There's a long space of silence when Steve isn't sure what's louder when he thinks he might have just said too much, said absolutely the wrong thing. When he can't tell if the beating of his own heart, trying to escape his chest like he'd just run a mile, or Danny's, thundering against his fingers tips curled under his jaw, half against his throat, is louder, or faster.

When he's too close not to see the shock, surprise, scrabble for denial or understanding or something.

Something he can't name before Danny's fingers are digging into him. Gripping his shirt, with the same fierceness suddenly as when he first grabbed Steve. But with something different. Desperation and fear, God, they're still in this room, but that isn't it, is it? When thy can't let go. When Danny's voice finally comes wind, thin, like it's beaten to a pulp, might crack under any more weight than it has.

And then Danny, with his million words, seems to lose them. A handful of them scattering out, stacked against each other, all pointing to him, to something about him, and Steve has to smile. Even if it's a little twisted. Pleased, but shatter-able. Right here at the cusp of admitting anything is good is still left in his life, like saying it is begging for life to round house kick his head, to leave him with dirt, blood, bits of teeth and spotted vision.

But he can't not appreciate this. Danny, with all the words to throw at those girls, to bomb Steve with, is sputtering them now. A boat motor trying. but unable to start. A hand finding his wrist, so there are fingertips against the more delicate, vulnerable inside of his wrist, where is pulse is running away with itself the way Danny's face, inability to make words, fingers just brushing him, are running away with Steve.

Making it easier to stop him, for a second, not forever. Even half torn between the impulse to pull back, pull away, anything good, nice, real obvious bound for shattering, he still feels the other side, wanting to drag him even closer. Feel every inch of him, again. Until he could blot out that he has any fears. Like the nightmares and snapping awake, that faded until the only times he might wake up for a second was the odd passing noise or when Danny snuffled and curled up into him in the dark, in his sleep.

It's so easy, too easy, which part of what makes it seems so easy to break, when he just tips his head to stop these words of Danny's he can't seem to. Stop, or make into sentences. About Steve, who know's he can be hell on people, especially Danny. That he's impossible to understand at times. Just look at tonight. He loved tonight. Every second of Danny's irate jealousy better than the beer or any passing flirtation. When he can't even admit it won't be like that every time.

But he can kiss him now. And stop the storm of words that are refusing to make even for Danny.

Slow and specific, without moving his hands, or trying to burn him down. Just with all of...this. Everywhere.

Edited 2012-12-04 12:56 (UTC)

This quiet is not totally new.

There have been parts of it, late at night, deep in dark and drowsiness, after everything's been burned away, leaving them just clinging to this side of consciousness. Or out on the lanai, watching stars, watching waves, watching the sun diving down into peaceful water.

There's not a lot of it, but there's enough to pinpoint parts, enough to know this is different, in some way that Danny doesn't want to try and define. It's comforting, like a warm blanket. Companionable. Sifting away the necessity of trying to say the unsay-able, before he tries and fails and brings that look back to Steve's face.

Fingers tightening, barely, at Steve's wrist, the pad of his thumb marking the rush of Steve's pulse, fast without being thready, yet, and this could spiral into that, too, but he wants to hold it here, just for a minute. Regain his footing after the floor fell away beneath him. Try to wrap his mind around a world where he is the best thing to happen to someone.

Whatever freight truck just drove through his chest left him feeling hollow and aching, brittle at the edges, an old feeling that isn't unwelcome, right now. Steve knows he's not bulletproof, so what's the point in pretending he is?

Hand sliding along Steve's side, soft cotton, firm muscle, warmth radiating like he'd spent the last day in the sun, on a board, on the sand, soaking it in the way Hawaii begs people to do. Letting this touch wipe out any thoughts of any others, manicured nails and dainty fingers, possessive anger and fear starting to fold back into their box. Cool water poured on an over-heated temper, threatening to snap at any second with the weight of fears that are just drifting out of touch, now; sun hitting mist, a slow kiss that he could drown in, if Steve weren't holding onto him.

Careful. Like explanation, not punctuation, and it hurts, this unfolding, but the way over-worked muscles hurt, the way healing bones hurt.

And Steve is a goof and a crazy person, and he brings all kinds of violence and wreckage along with him, but there is no single other person Danny wants the way he wants him, not least because the thing Steve never seems to see clearly is that, for all the destruction that surrounds him, Danny has never met anyone so dedicated to fixing every single break he finds. That he builds as much as he takes down, gives more than anyone should, or could, without a single thought for himself.

It knocks him flat, every time.

There are hands moving, over his sides, parts of his back. Heavy, but slow. Almost like Danny was only in these seconds remembering he was here. Really here. His body. Him. When Steve lets his mouth lift with a breath out. Less like he was burning things out of it or writing things on it, but just remembering it was there. Steve. Under his hands. Still.

It's a strange second. Because he knows this feeling. Almost hopeful, certain but uncertain, wholly aware, with too much training to his life's name not to see it this way, too. As a gaping vulnerability. Something that screamed to be shored up, but couldn't. Even when he trusts Danny. Is safe with Danny.

But he'd been pretty certain about the safety of dead people staying dead, too.

He doesn't want that here. He didn't want it anywhere. And it got everywhere. Even when that thought made him want to beat his head on a wall. Because he couldn't wish her gone. Well. She was already gone. He couldn't wish her dead. Again. Couldn't wish himself any blindness. That was even more stupid.

It gets in everything. Fingers everywhere. All he is. Was. Might be. Touch.

When he just wants this to be good. He knows it might not stay, Danny might not stay, any more than any other teammate before him. Especially now. But he still wants it. Him. Every day, set of minutes, he can wrest from the world. When he's looking down at Danny, through the darkness, studying his eyes, his face. The feel of the fingers on his side, on his wrist.

The steady, unsteady, beat of his own heart in the dark with him.

It's good that he can let Steve move without grabbing him back, without feeling the sudden searing need to drag him back close, like he might spontaneously disappear. Relaxing, almost, even as he feels like he's coming down from some dangerously high, fortunately broken fever, leaving his head feeling charred and light and a little shocked, still.

Even though Steve is watching him, like he's trying to translate whatever it is he sees in Danny's face, which could be -- Christ, he doesn't know. Everything. Because thank God for Steve, still here in the shitstorm life keeps throwing them into, still reaching for him and grounding him, again, solid against the shadows that keep slipping through. Against old hurts getting ripped open and laid bare before lawyers, court officials. Against the bad days, fortifying the good ones. The only good thing from this month? Danny's not even sure he'd have survived it at all without Steve. Even his days with Grace get interrupted, are a strain in their own way, which is something he could hate Rachel for, bringing any kind of cloud to that time.

"Okay," he admits, voice scratchy, low, but he sounds more like himself, which is good, because as insane as it is to consider, it's Steve that makes him less crazy as much as more. And how does that make sense? "So I'm a goof."

Not that he thinks he should have, in any way, expected any of this. Not his own reaction, not Steve's words, any of it. Nothing but this bubble inflating inside his chest, aching and precious, which is starting to feel familiar in a way that makes him wonder when it was the first pull started.

A goof. Goofy for his partner, stupid with it, overrun by the kickback of jealousy, like being trampled by a horse, unable to do anything but try to keep it, even when Steve says there was no danger of it going anywhere. It's not like he can talk sense into this feeling, but at least he knows it's there.

That voice is softer. Still winded, but it's starting to sound more right. More like it did during the first ten or twenty minutes in the bar. During the whole conversation from the office to the car, to even the conversation convincing Steve, no too complicatedly, that it'd be a great idea. Lay back, relax, drink some beers, catch whatever game was playing on the screens, even if it was a replay, and let the day drain away.

The words themselves drag out a smile, though. And a chuckle. Steve shaking his head, letting his hands move finally. Slide down the sides of Danny's neck, until his forearms are resting lightly on Danny's shoulders, fingertips barely crossed against the back of his neck. When there is that chuckle, and he ducks his head, shaking it just enough, and the words he says are, "Your words. Not mine."

Before his fingers unlink, and he tugs Danny a little back toward him, with the palms of his hands against shoulder, eyes lighter even for the quiet pleased, wariness there. The touch maybe enough to rock him the smallest bit, but not enough to even send him a step, though Steve takes one backwards. "Come'on, upstairs."

Upstairs, where Steve can be done with these shoes, and this shirt, and the rest of putting the day away.

Even if nothing else does happen. Which is rare, but it has happened. This month has been insane. It's seen a lot of things he hadn't been expected to see, do, have. Even if there is every likelihood with Danny this conversation may not even be done. Maybe get more comments in a minute, or five, or fifteen, or the morning. At least if it's going to be continued Steve gets to propel them toward somewhere more relaxed and less encumbered.

He is such an unbelievable idiot, but, Christ, there is no defending against that smile, that chuckle, the way Steve dips his head, like he could possibly hide the way he shines up against the dark. Leaning on Danny just as comfortably as he sprawls across his couch or the deck chair or his bed, easy. Like touching him is the norm, now, and it's everything else that's out of whack.

It makes him want to shove words into the air, find something funny to say, some ridiculous thing to complain about, just to see it happen again, feel the awkward flop and subsequent freefall of his heart, like tripping at the top of a flight of stairs. God, he is -- beautiful, the word doesn't do it justice, but Danny doesn't have a better one, and anyway the more pertinent point is that he's beautiful, and smiling like that because he's laughing at him, all warm and affectionate, and here, and still his, for tonight. Somehow. In some way. Any way he'll offer.

"Look at you, with all the bright ideas," he says, like Steve asked for his opinion, doing his best to fight back, even though it's a losing cause, because he got washed out with this some time back when it first started and he doesn't have a damn leg to stand on, now. Letting go of Steve's side, after sliding his hand to his hip, letting Steve pull him gently forward, weight shifting onto the balls of his feet. "Let's go, look at you, hanging around down here."

The bed sounds great. Comfortable. Relaxing. Minus the spike of unease every time he thinks about how many nights he's spent here, which only presses harder when he thinks about how many of those didn't involve sex at all.

Which means there have been times that he's just been here to sleep next to Steve, and that -- is a line of thought he just can't handle going down, right now, a warm trail melting down into his stomach but freezing on impact.

Pulling back, he shifts, turning towards the stairs, and upstairs.

Steve can't help that it holds over, either piece, when Danny is being a goof now. On purpose. Making Steve roll his eyes, when he drops one arm, and slides the other more toward somewhere at the center of Danny's back, giving a better shove this time, even as he's walking with him.

"I wouldn't be if someone weren't holding up the train."

When it's easy -- okay, semi-easy only -- to let his fingers fall, hand still warm from Danny's skin and tingling from, oh right, the friction of stubble only maybe a minute ago now. When somehow a second from touching Danny it feels too long, making him snort and glance upward. At the ceiling and the second floor, like he isn't watching himself act like an idiot at all.

Especially after making it through most of the evening, and a whole day at work, pretty generally not touching him.

Though he does think about it. There in those. Touching Danny at least half the time as much from thinking about Not Touching Danny Too Often. When he can skip a few stairs, jump one or two, without it really even being a stretch, leaving the whole concept of light -- or even getting to locking his front door -- behind him. Downstairs, in any part of the rest of the world.

Edited 2012-12-05 01:35 (UTC)

There's a grin he can't hide when Steve shoves at him a little harder, and he's nuts, sure, but it's just how they are. His hand lifts, like it can't stay off of Steve's skin, finds his shoulder, lands there, slides to the plane of his shoulderblade.

He can't help it. Touching Steve. He finds himself doing it at the most inopportune times -- throughout the day at the office, at crime scenes, when they're ready and about to head in, guns at the ready. And Steve never comments, at the time, but Danny knows he notices, checks the faint list of Steve's weight towards him, like he'd reach right back out, himself, if he could.

He hadn't even noticed it, honestly, until one day he'd looked up from where he was, braced with an elbow cocked jauntily on Steve's shoulder, and seen Chin looking at him with bewilderment and the sort of sharp curiosity that makes him such a force to be reckoned with, but even now that he has, he can't seem to hold it back, at all. Finds himself giving pats on the shoulder, gripping a wrist or an arm, leaning into Steve's space more than ever.

But no one calls him on it, and they get the job done, no problem, so how much should he actually worry?

"Just out of curiosity," he says, letting his hand finally drop as they head up the stairs, "do you ever actually lock your door, anymore? Or are you planning on using the inevitable break-in as some kind of bizarre drill for yourself, see how many burglars you can take out before having to put pants on?"

He stops, thinking about the loss of touch, and almost like the shift in a balance, Danny hand steadies on him. Fingers against his skin. But not his skin. Another reason he just doesn't want this shirt anymore. He wants it to actually be Danny's fingers and the palm of his hand pressing on him, half necessity and half oblivious movement, hoving against him, so close it's always only almost.

Just before it falls away, and Steve muscles actually tighten a little. Like they need to twitch. Like something is suddenly missing, fallen out of place, puzzle pieces missing. Even when Danny's is filling the room again, and Steve looks back and down from hitting the landing first. Fingers at the bottom of his shirt, before he's yanking the thing up and over his head.

Even in the easy black of night it's so much closer the sharp, dark leer that he settles on Danny, sardonic and shameless, when he basically tosses the bundle of cloth at Danny's head, even calculating for the stairs he still needs to be taking. "It's cute that you think I'd stop for pants before they were all down."

Like a fourth of a inch of jean or polyester or propriety actually mattered when it came to surviving. Or taking down the enemy.

Edited 2012-12-05 02:32 (UTC)

"So what you're saying is you really are just waiting for the day when you get to beat the shit out of some poor petty criminal, totally naked?"

He catches the shirt that gets flung his way, and tosses it through the open door of the bedroom in response, taking actual pleasure in the way it lands, rumpled into a pile, on the floor. After Steve reamed him out for having clothes all over the place when he was off doing drill last year (and he just makes that little jump, smooth for the most part, rocking slightly on the landing), he hasn't seemed to give a damn where his clothes end up, these days, which is good. Considering they've been left downstairs. On the floor. Forgotten for hours.

Which is fine with Danny, even while he rolls his eyes, steps up on the landing behind Steve, hands fitting on skin suddenly bared, warm to the touch, under his palms, while he leans close to Steve's shoulder, breath gusting over smooth tan, skin a bare inch from being kissed. A laugh lying under his words. "Like you can keep your clothes on at all, babe."

That, thankfully, hasn't had to come up at work, yet. Since the last month. Aside from being out at sea, which doesn't count, and didn't need to be shared or policed by, from, anyone else.

Which isn't to say he doesn't still think he'll have to excuse himself to stick his head under the nearest faucet. And possibly stay about twenty feet away, at all times.

Steve wonders how close to totally naked that would count. Hitting up a few moments of glory he really cannot speak of, considers for a second how he could sideways glance off the endless world of things he couldn't say. Imply easily about crazy situations.

But that's very quickly short circuited by Danny's hands.

The way the sensation is so sharp after so long, that it makes him curl, stretching upward, pulling in all the muscles in his stomach and sides, faintly pushing up on the balls of his feet. With this quick breath of air in through his nose. Danny's mouth gusting hot air on his shoulder, collar bone, and that sound of his voice, that isn't but is laughter, will be, give it a few seconds.

How all of it makes Steve's chest, his heart as well as his lungs, stutter like a candle guttering in the wind. Especially after all that.

When he's not even quite paying enough attention to the subject in mind, when he's got a hand finding the back of Danny's head. Curving into, around his hair. Half tempted to rest there, half tempted to drag him up and kiss him senseless. Just for this. Just for touching him once, in three places, and making his skin feel like it's being licked by fire in a way it never has been by real flames cast nearly against it.

Even now. Even weeks after he should be getting used to it. It should become old hat. Something should get to being normal. Or boring. Or old hat. And all of it lights him. Like he's a match that's just been waiting, holding so still the whole trembles at this.

When he shoves some of it back, leans down, saying sarcastic, but still warmer and lower, "Well, it works on you."

Untrue. It's not Steve losing his clothes, getting naked like clothes are some sort of inconvenience he's obliged to put up with throughout the day, just to be a part of society. It's Steve. The stretch, flex of his back. Heavy muscle on shoulder and chest. Lean and dangerous. Built like a freaking brick wall. Nothing Danny ever thought twice about before, but when added to Steve, the person, the thoughts and humor and loyalty and willpower and sudden brilliant smiles, it become irresistible.

Making Danny grin, as Steve's hand comes up to cup the back of his head. "Oh, yeah?"

Fingers tracing up sides, slipping around, finding the smooth curve of muscle, dipping in towards his spine. Leaning closer, voice low, chuckle following his sentence. "So you're doing it on purpose, huh?"

God. That tone. It's one of his favorites: sharp and edged and heating like there's a slow boil somewhere far beneath. Danny can feel the flush of blood lifting, over shoulders and chest, can see an answering flush starting along the curve of Steve's shoulder, the rise and shadow of collar bone. Hands sliding back towards his stomach, thumbs sliding under the waistband of cargo pants.

"Careful, Steven. That almost sounds like flirtation."

He can hear the smile in Danny's voice. When it starts, the way it stretches, even when there's as much admitting as there is denial in that first question. Like Danny has no idea what he's talking about. Like Danny doesn't find way to touch him throughout days that Steve barely dares to even consider in his head near his team, near the rest of the world.

Fingers tracing inward from his sides making his other hands find Danny's side, the rise of his bone through slacks, drag him closer by the span of his hand there around Danny. The small shivers finding his center bumping into Danny's body, as he keeps talking. All those words Steve knew would find their way back. Sentences so completely full of themselves, of beginnings and endings, dragging up the memory of Danny barely able to reference for a second downstairs.

Barely beyond them now. Like he could somehow look back and down on them, on that moment.

That moment when Danny's words are hazarding a warning, that Christ might as well be an glaring invitation in the terms of a rebuff, reminder, warning, while there fingers are dragging lightning under his skin, across his side, down into sensitive skin, under his pants, his belt, causing his hips to start, and the fingers curved at Danny's hair to clench inward suddenly. A moment. Bare. A flicker. Before they drive in, matching it. Demanding.

Tiling his head up by his hair, only long enough to say, voice thick and rough sandpaper with the sensation, "Good," before he was claiming it. Danny's mouth; and not giving a damn that the bedroom door is steps from them still. The hand at Danny's side, tugging his shirt up, wanting Danny as well. Laid out, against his finger tips. His mouth. His skin, as well as every inch of what happened minutes ago, what happened in the bar.

To be able to lay his hands on all of it, like maybe it is his. Danny. As dangerous as that is even get near.

Steve's fingers tighten, and Danny's stomach clenches in response, good, hard, anticipation singing through veins, lightening his head. Like it always does. Like it has for a month, pushing him through the days and nights half in a haze, with this at the back of his head, even on the worst days. Even on the days when he comes here, silent and angry after hours arguing with lawyers, with Rachel, like nothing could ever drag him out of the burrow he digs for himself. Except Grace.

Or Steve.

Not always with this, though this keeps happening, amazingly. Turning back the clock and making him feel sixteen, eighteen, twenty-five again, nerves sparking on edge, delirious with want. Letting Steve pull his head up, to kiss him, Danny's fingers hard on Steve's skin, Steve's hand busy tugging Danny's shirt away, baring a strip of belly and side. The shirt too well-fitted to shift much, but it's not like it normally lasts long once Steve gets going. Apparently as morally opposed to Danny being dressed as for hims having to wear clothes.

"Come on, Cro-Magnon," he says, when he can catch a breath, hooking fingers into Steve's waistband and pulling. "Even you are not distracting enough to think getting naked at the top of a staircase is a good idea. I'd rather not break my neck tonight, thanks."

Pulling at him, licking at his lip, leaning up to find his mouth again, no matter whatever it is he's saying; they're just words, unimportant. Bubbles, easily burst, and so much less than necessary in comparison to Steve.

Danny says words that start this bubble of laughter in his chest that never quite gets out. It shatters somewhere in his throat, on the way to pointing out that Danny is obviously still thinking too much, and hadn't he managed to stop that yet given the last twenty minutes. Except Danny. Danny and all his insulting nicknames cobbled together with sass and logic. Is kissing him again.

Hands gripping his pants, curled knuckles digging in against firm, built, but still insanely sensitive skin. Before you even got to Danny's mouth. Which Steve was pretty sure needed be marked as weaponized in at least four or five brand new ways just in the last month. One of which was trying to drag his sanity out, through the bottom of his stomach, with those lips pressed up against him.

Like even Danny couldn't stand still long enough, couldn't pull away long enough, to follow his own wound advice.

And that goes straight to Steve's head, with a groan, when his fingers are spreading against Danny's skin.

As much as every backhanded apology. Every second he watched Danny's knuckles go white on a bottle or a cue. Every time he leveled his gaze at the person standing next to Steve, barely existing on Steve's own radar, like Danny needed to put that person down for the good of the universe. Or else he might just explode. All of it so fast and hard, making his head spin, making his want to fall under it.

When he's trying, god dammit, somewhere aside from the finger tips curving Danny's side, pressing against tighter shirt fabric the further they reach up, or his thumb tracing into Danny's stomach. In against warm hair, curled tight and pressed flat by these shirts and his skin. When how much he can reach is already starting to wear against what he wants which wears fast on his actual consideration for Danny's shirts. And their stupid buttons.

When it takes an entirely different kind of hatred to want his head to work at all. When he's tipping them one way, and then taking steps, fingertips firming into Danny's back, along the back of his neck and shoulders, all but dragging him. Into his bedroom. Toward his bed. Why did he have anything else on that would involve his hands, that are both very busy right now. Higher priority busy with keeping Danny as close as possible.

This plan was supposed to involve a lack of shoes originally, that were still here.

But Steve was starting to need it to involve a lack of a whole lot of other things now.

Edited 2012-12-05 05:35 (UTC)

This is so much better than alcohol, heady like a shot of whiskey, the way that sound thumps into his gut and fills his head with some stupid bubble that won't pop. Amused as hell when Steve starts moving them, all impatience all of a sudden, working them towards the open door to join the abandoned t-shirt, a sad lump of cloth on the floor. While Steve does his best to get a hand that was never meant to fit between shirt and skin there anyway, and Danny would like to point out that Steve has, really, zero respect for his clothing, like he has extra money to buy new shirts these days, Steven, try not to wreck them all, huh?

But can't, because he doesn't give a damn about the shirt. The shirt can die a fiery death, as far as he's concerned -- he can always steal one of Steve's in the morning, and no piece of fabric, no matter how nicely tailored, can compare to the sheets of fire licking over his skin, the way he wants that hand there.

Buttons could be managed, but that would require letting go of Steve, and he's not willing to do that, but he's happy to compromise, and does, sliding fingers along between waistband and skin to start tugging at the loop of leather belt, the top button there. Registering, somewhere, that they've at least made it out of the hallway, which is great, but also, shouldn't some of this have burned out, by now? A month in, shouldn't some be, he doesn't know, a little less of a thrill, shouldn't some familiarity add a degree of calm to the hurricane that tossed them into this to begin with?

Instead, it seems to be having the opposite effect. Knowing. Wanting more. Wanting it back again, during the days and the nights when he can't have any of this, when they can't, have to be careful.

Except right now he gives as much of a damn about being careful as he does about the shirt. It's not like the rest of his life isn't getting laid out and dissected, broken into chunks of data that don't look anything like what he's lived through, who he is, but which can be typed into reports and recommendations and summons and proposals and counter-offers.

Which is crazy, and it'll be crazy in the morning, but, God, right now the only thing that's straight in his head is the sure knowledge that he can't hide any of this, that it's got to be written like a tattoo right across his skin, kicking his heart into high gear and narrowing the world's focus down to just this, their breath, pulse, heated skin and dark, quiet room.

If the knuckles and backs of fingers weren't moving against the bottom of his stomach, shifting, tugging his belt, popping a button that exposes more skin to Danny, to the air, Steve is pretty sure his head would be on straighter. But isn't. And he would care about that, if he could, and he could, but why the hell would he want to. When his stomach is tightening and there are images of any of the dozen things that come from here already spooling out in his head. None of which include keeping much of his head.

At least Danny does come where he's drawn, when the room is around them, making each actual noise more crisp, louder, in a tiny space. No vaulted ceiling and open space to absorb breaths and snaps. The shuffle of shoes. Even against the blood pounding in his ears, it all stands out. Making him want to grasp all of it, even as it slides like sand through his fingers at each new touch.

Of Danny's fingers against his skin, Danny's skin under his own hand.

This kiss that crushing the world out from between them, again.
As though anything could get there, stay there, between them.

When there's something horribly, perversely amused, in Steve's voice, mouth ghosting to Danny's jaw, up toward the juncture of it, his neck, and his ear, "I hadn't actually meant for this."

Which is so much more a lie even as a truth. He's been thinking about this in some part, sick with arrogant giddiness since his mind connected Danny and slamming sound of the beer bottle on the bar top behind him. Making it a necessity to let go of Danny's hair and drag it down. His hand. Find those buttons driving him crazy, start pulling at them, fast and certain after getting to do it so often this month.

Edited 2012-12-05 18:07 (UTC)

"Nope," he says. There's a laugh that gets stuck in his throat. "Wrong, that's a lie. You, one hundred percent, meant for this."

It's amazing, what a month can do for the powers of perception. For example, before a month ago, he wouldn't have noticed if Steve looked at him any differently or any more intently at certain times, definitely wouldn't have caught whether or not Steve was snagged on something as tiny as Danny tugging as his own collar. Like he had, earlier, resulting in a look from Steve that should have been able to light a fire twenty feet away.

Granted. Those looks probably didn't exist, before, because the other thing a month does, sleeping with someone, spending even more time than all day with them, is that looks like that start happening. When everyone involved knows what's going to happen; isn't imagining it, isn't going back unhappy and frustrated to an empty bed or a cold shower. That look was outright anticipation, and there wasn't any missing it.

Just like there's no missing the determination in the way Steve attacks his buttons, working efficiently, like he's found the cleanest angle of attack over the multiple efforts, and has got it down to a methodical science, one he doesn't even have to think about. Certainly he's quick; fingers nimble, sliding buttons loose, working their way down. Fingertips brushing skin, making Danny shiver, eyes sliding half-lidded as a shaky breath punches out.

A month means Steve knows that drives him crazy, the low voice near his ear, thousands of nerves lighting against the brush of lips and breath. When he can barely, but still has to, because that's how they work, as he loosens Steve's belt, slides the zipper down, turning his hand to palm him through boxers, around now loose pants. "You wanted this since the bar, you liar."

"Not true," is out fast, with a laugh stumbling somewhere under it. In his tone more than out louder. His hands pushing the sides of the shirt apart the further the buttons go. More of Danny's skin to graze. Warm, a little moist, whirls of curls. He's almost annoyed, briefly, there isn't more light. He can't see every inch of the skin coming back out. That somehow maddens him through long days.

Danny. Perfectly pressed and neat, from his hair to those loafers, except for a few buttons. And he's this, too. Fingers tensing into his skin, breaths fast and ragged. The hand that shoves in and splinters his entire thought process like it's not his hand. It's a live wire, and Steve shuddered into it. Unable to keep himself from pressing into Danny's hand, all of him.

The last words disjointed, but even further amused in the second when it's all his power to just fist the shirt through the first feeling like his head wants to melt, needs more. "No--" he says. The first word a little choked, as he's demanding it some back. At least his voice if not his feet, or the rest of his body. Betraying him away from thinking.

Hands skimming over Danny's chest, up across ribs and compact muscle, even when he's looking at Danny as head on as possible. Okay. Maybe the lack of light saves him there. Even if nothing really can from, "Then, I just wanted to shove you up on the pool table--" Hands somewhere among forgotten balls and sticks, feet hanging down, fingers digging into a table that wouldn't give. "--and blow you, right there."

Maybe not with the people, mind. But, he'd wanted him already. And now the image slammed so many other places.

There is way too much fabric going on, here: under his hand, catching against his shoulders, blocking Steve's hands as they run up and over his chest. Even as it feels like it's going to burn right off his skin at what drops out of Steve's mouth, like a bomb.

Making him remember the night of the barbeque, the picnic table that still, now and again, makes him shake his head at himself. Picturing getting shoved up onto green felt, Steve's hands running down his sides, his legs. The clatter and discomfort that's got no place in this thought, the thought that Steve was -- and all the time that girl was there, he was thinking this, wanting that.

And Danny has to toss something back at him, because that's what they do and that's a ridiculous thing to say, that shouldn't be so fucking hot, but what he wants more than anything is Steve's skin against his, and why the hell are they both still wearing so much? "On the pool table? You don't think we've traumatized enough furniture already? Admittedly..."

Shoving at Steve's pants, lifting his hand just long enough, to push at them, while toeing off his shoes, before sliding it back again, stroking up and down. Leaning in to find the pulse point, beating like panic, under Steve's jaw.

"It really would be an excellent way to get those girls to beat it."

Because Steve is. Not touchable. Not available. Not for them, anyway, random barflies just looking for a good time, looking for this, the rush Danny's got under his hands, threatening to drag him under and eroding any possible desire to try and save himself.