haole_cop | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

"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."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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.

Too much clothing. Too much everything. When Danny's hand is stroking him through the cloth of his boxers, and his pants are still there, and Danny's are, and his shirt, that he can only shove so much of because one of Danny's hand is busy trying to masacre though occurring at all. Even when those words were totally worth it for the moment of dead silent shock, that sends Steve grinning like a fool in the dark.

It's wrong, but it's so right. Christ, how is not supposed to have these thoughts, when Danny is getting all pissy and scrappy. When it's as hilarious as it is hot. When he just wants everything. He wants everything all the time now. These thoughts, slamming him from out of right field during a normal day. When Danny's hand toys with his badge across the rise of his hip. Or the way he can play with a pen, or really anything he picks up.

In his hands, against his mouth, shorting out Steve's want to focus on life or death situations for some seconds.

Like now. When it isn't life or death, but Danny's mouth finds his the skin under his jaw, and his fingers are digging in against Danny's ribs on one side. Lifting a leg on the other, bent at the knee haphazardly feeling in the dark, without looking for his shoes. Stupid shoes. Stupid shoelaces. That he's jerking at to pull out of a knot and bow, without moving from Danny.

When it's narrowly sliding by not making him groan, fire seeping in both direction, up and down, while he's still trying to keep any part of his ability to think with him. "We haven't accosted anyone else's furniture yet." Only his parents, and that had been odd enough for a little while after returning from Japan. When everything felt off and wrong. Everywhere. "Might be fun."

The knot came free, and his was circling his ankle, not caring at all where it fell, only that it made that solid thud and had gone sailing down to the floor beyond him. Shifting, beginning to try for the second one, when he totally says, "They weren't that bad." Completely aware it's like smack a beehive. Even if it was true, too. He'd dealt with a lot worse in his time.

That grin, self-satisfied and manic, splits him open like a nut getting cracked, even as he's rolling his eyes at the way Steve wriggles. Tightening one hand on his hip, trying to keep him still enough that he can keep moving the other. Sliding fingertips just along the waist band, when the motion gets to be too much, and this, Steve, is one area where loafers beat out hiking boots by a mile. Easy to get off, without having to worry about hooks and double-tied knots that reach Navy specs of structural integrity.

"While I am generally in favor of this plan, I have to point out that we should probably try to avoid getting hauled in on counts of public indecency. To say nothing of the likely hygienic issues inherent in fucking on a bar pool table, the thing is probably crawling with germs the size of spaniels."

All things he is uncomfortably aware might not actually take root in his willpower the way he hopes they would, because Steve has this way of cracking straight through everything Danny thinks is a bad idea, and making him want it. Or, just, him.

Him. Yeah. Anywhere he can get him. After spending the day with him, working, tripping over this newfound thing when he least expects it, catching Steve's eye and knowing he knows, knowing this is there, always, under everything. Forced to take a back burner, but occasionally blasting through, just to prove it can.

Even while his good humor solidifies into an aggravated sound, like a snort. Fingers tightening against Steve's hip, possessive, like he might, even now, make a break for it. "Cute."

Teeth against the skin of his neck, adding a nip not quite entirely blunted, or affectionate. "Fine. They weren't so bad. But I still would be more than okay with all three of them suddenly moving off the island. For good." Hands moving, gripping Steve's hips. Him pushing in, swiveling, turning them around, aiming for the bed, because fuck that, Steve came back with him, Steve wants him, and he is not going think about them again, or he really can't be held responsible for what he might do.

"Do I look like I want to talk about those girls right now? I am much more interested in getting you out of your stupid cargo pants, seriously, I am this close to looking for scissors."

One sock down, seconds later Steve was on to the other shoe. Having to switch which hand where was on Danny, the way Danny was at his hip. His other hand having to slow until there are just fingers, against his waist, against his stomach, drifting, skin throbbing from touch only seconds ago, from the friction of cotton and cargo. Making him yank the laces a little harder and faster on this side.

Steve may have snorted with a shake of his head at Danny's talk of the pool table. It wasn't like they'd done anything near people. The closest they came to anything was those moments when Danny seemed to forget -- maybe that they were in public or that there had to be some space -- and would lean on him suddenly. But making him go hard still and list. When Steve wouldn't react, or at least wouldn't reach out. And Danny went on like it was all normal.

Something Steve have down in facts and details. But then there is a better example.

Fingers digging into his hip and teeth bared in against his skin all at once, sending his heart bouncing around wildly, while making him chuckle. Even if that chuckle flipped fast. Fingers tightening on laces and Danny's skin, Steve's half contorted body pressing up into the Danny. Trying to get down with his shoes, but stalled a second pressing in against Danny.

Wanting more, even if it was electricity threatening to fry his sanity, in the pursuit of a subject that had already proven it could totally take Danny's.

Cute was not the word he would have used for it. Fingers and teeth. Like Steve might somehow swap Danny with a girl somehow. Here. In his bedroom, half dressed, wanting Danny hand back where it had been, wanting so much more than that against the way all of Danny's grip shifted.

The second shoe barely dropping before Danny was jerking him from where he was, thrusting them both toward the bed, like it was suddenly a mission, backed by the sudden reemergence of his annoyance. It shouldn't drive him crazy, it shouldn't make his blood rush. But it does. Fuck but it does.

He wants to grab Danny and kiss the jealous, smarting word right off his tongue, suck up every sparking annoyance.

When Steve really probably shouldn't, but he can't help it, knowing it's for far more than smart mouthing right back about who is to blame for bringing them into the bed, same as who brought them into their night at all "You were the one that brought them up, Danny."

It's totally true. Beyond. Danny did. And Steve's totally pointing it out. Mouth trying to press flat, but it's not working. There's a sharp, dangerous and dangerously pleased, smile trying to break out, as he's shoving back Danny's shirt. Across his shoulders, down across his biceps, because that needs to get the hell out already. Then, his hands dropping to Danny's pants. Pulling at his belt as Danny was shoving him back until his calves hit his bed.

Edited 2012-12-06 17:01 (UTC)

"Did that seem like an invitation to have a discussion to you?"

Okay, fine. He brought them up, but that's different, he wasn't the one they were after all night, and frankly every time Steve implied he hadn't noticed anyone else at bar at all, he'd felt a little smoother, a little less on the edge of a threatened implosion of his skull.

The last thing he wants is for Steve to be thinking about those three girls -- or anyone else, at all, anyone -- right now, when there is zero reason to even consider the existence of other human beings. Flirtatious girls, angry ex-wives, mothers who aren't as dead as previously thought -- they can all just vanish, as far as Danny's concerned; can go up in a flash of flame and go away.

It's not like they won't all come back, but later, later. A few minutes without them, this without them, is all he's really asking for.

Which leads into shoving at Steve, and it goes straight to his head, like always, like the belt of good whiskey, that Steve lets him. Lets Danny push him around, here, like he lets Danny get between him and whatever unfortunate soul is about to get squashed like a bug, allows a touch to hold him back. As Danny's dragging his arms out of clinging fabric, shoving it away, impatient, wanting to get his hands back there, on Steve, because Steve should not be thinking about that, should not be thinking anything at all.

Reaching back to find a hip, the back of Steve's head, push into a kiss that will at least shut him up, if nothing else.

The words are edged like darts. Daggers. Annoyed and sharp, insult and demand. And Steve can almost hear every insult and annoyance to how dare he even touch this subject. At all. But now. Here. Even if Danny did. Could. It's makes him want to laugh. The anger. The irrationality. The jealous possessiveness.

Even here, seconds from being drug into Steve's bed.

But there's no time to laugh, because Danny's fingers find his head and drag him down in a kiss that sets any air gathered in his lungs on fire. Searing through him. Making him drag Danny close, everything close and not close enough. The friction of it, after Danny's fingers, dragging small explosions if white at the edge of his vision.

It's all going backwards. Up in flames, the bare brace of the bed against his skin, while Danny argued with getting the shirt off and Steve was finally getting his belt open, zipper and button going with a flick of his wrist he doesn't even need to pay attention to. Only a step still in it.

Getting to the ability to slide his hands to the side, fingers gripping pants and the elastic top of boxers and shoving them both down. Away. Off. Like they were offensive. Anything keeping itself between him and Danny now. When he's barely waiting for the sound of them getting toward the floor, on the floor before he is.

Dragging Danny back on his bed, down on him.

That's better.

Back to the rush and push and press of this second, wrestling with clothes, shoving everything aside that is not skin, that his hands run up and down, along the bumps of Steve's ribs, cut and rise of muscle. Momentum dragging them closer, gravity kicking in like a freight train hitting, when Steve drops back, pulling Danny with him, while he's still trying to figure out how to get rid of these slacks and boxers that can really, just, go away, he doesn't care how.

Fingers finding Steve's hair, hands at both sides of his head, like he still needs to demand Steve's attention, the way he couldn't in the bar. And, really, he's not going to trace disapproval across skin in purple-blue blotches that take the better part of a week to fade, but that doesn't mean he's not doing his damndest to burn himself right into Steve's skin. Mark himself there, to match the tattoos the girl had found so compelling. Like he could ink a sign, here, across Steve's chest, warning anyone else who even tries to back off, that they aren't allowed, wanted, needed.

Selfish. He is. Undeserving, taking too much, like always, and here he is, burning up with jealousy, unable to consider the possibility of someone else coming between them, here. Or anywhere.

Unable to let himself be jealous of Cath, the way he wants to be, because she's different, special, been there for years, long before him, and, fine. Fine. He and Cath can...make it work. He likes Cath, wouldn't want ever to hate her the way he hated the girls, the world and everyone in it tonight.

But he is free to hate them. So he does. Stokes the fire going in his chest, kisses Steve hard, because he can, before finding the cord of muscle at the side of his neck and starting his way down, again, where he was before. Before getting distracted by Steve and his words. Smartass.

It's a clash of sensation and roughness. Not like a fight, but like the message is there that one would be put up. But why would he ever fight this? Why would anyone? How could anyone have walked away from it? Danny's body colliding with his, and the very little give of the bed, with a hiss.

Like the act was something trying to melt his spine straight up.

Quick silver and heated brands taking the place of any bones that had been there running the ramrod of his back and neck. Dissolving into the grip into Danny's arm and the leg catching over behind one of Danny's knees even as Steve was still dragging them both back across another foot or two of the bed.

A feat of epic proportion when Danny's fingers are fisting his hair and Danny is kissing him like it is life or death, and Steve's mouth need never doubt it. Nothing else would be good enough. Would be allowed to touch him. Again. Ever again. How that thought against the fierceness of kiss makes so he can't shiver or go too still. He's too busy kissing back. Too busy, hands firming down Danny's shoulders. His ribs.

It doesn't stop. Of course, it doesn't. He doesn't want it to. Wants to be burned alive by this. Every bit of Danny's messy, unnecessary reaction. When there are lips and teeth brushing, sucking against his throat causing him to shudder and jerk up against Danny with a groan if his name not buried enough in all that hair brushing his chin and cheek now.

Finding the small of his back and pulling him close. Like all of his wasn't. Nothing was. The blisters of light. The promise of it. Everything he wanted was right here, and there was nothing to hold him back. From touching him. Kissing him. Thrusting up against Danny. His skin, his stomach.

Edited 2012-12-06 18:57 (UTC)

He doesn't think he'll ever get sick of it. The way Steve's voice sounds, grates, rough and at the edge of wrecking itself, against his ear, saying his name. In a whole new way that hasn't gotten old, anywhere near it, in a month, that Danny thinks he could hear forever and never get used to it, never stop feeling that answering torque in his stomach, the squeeze along his spine. Nothing like teasing, sympathy, amusement, conversation. Nothing like his name has ever sounded before.

Pushing one hand between the covers and the back of Steve's shoulder, while the other leaves his hair, too, to slide down his chest, palm running down his stomach, fingers curving around his side. Danny shifting to give his own hand room, needing Steve under his hands, like he somehow hasn't managed to touch him enough, like somehow last night and the other nights this past month got wiped from his memory and all he's had to cling to, ever, were a few brushes at work and an evening of incendiary jealousy out at the bar.

Where Steve wanted him. Even then.

Steve, who's pushing up into him like this already needs to be shoved off a cliff, and, Christ, he should slow down, but he can't, it's too damn hot, brain cells sizzling like they're in a frying pan. Steve's skin salty against his tongue, pulling up on it with his mouth, feeling the pulse beneath go spattering and wild. Running his free hand over everything he can touch: back up over his chest, over his shoulder, along his bicep, where that tattoo is dark and looking blurred without light to pull it from Steve's tan. Down to his wrist, where Danny's fingers curl, possessive, and he pushes down. Like he could possibly pin Steve.

But Steve might. Let him. Just for a second, just while he gets his head back on straight and recognizes the fact that they came back together and fell into bed together and Steve said, he said that thing, that proves he wanted Danny even back in the bar, and he knows that, okay, he knows all of that.

But he still holds Steve's wrist. Anyway. Like it's a grip on the night, the world, this thing that hasn't tossed him off yet, even though he keeps expecting it, every second, but only just now, just tonight, had to come face to face with it.

It's not enough for Danny to be trying to make fire of his bloodstream, his hands have to be everywhere. Like when he's talking, when they are absolutely not necessary. But they are so much a part of Danny. Everywhere in the air, moving, gesturing, gesticulating shapes that somehow go along with the sounds, make pictures. Except that's only vaguely related. Because they aren't making shapes right now.

They are tracing down his skin. One way and then another, while Danny remained a not-all-that-heavy weight on top of him, that he might never grow to find cumbersome. Sliding up one side of him, down another. Fingers curling, palm dragging. Tighter and looser, pressing fingers in against him, making him feel entirely bare in a way that walkin around with nothing on, or nearly nothing, hardly ever even registered again. Like Danny was going to find every single patch of skin, hollow between bones, the shape of each muscle.

Like somehow he hadn't figure it all out before. Every time he could get away with it.

The first impulse is always to resist.

When anything is restricted. It's trained deeper than thought. Leverage his elbow, stretch the muscles along his ulna, twist his wrist so that his palm turns up and his fingertips are grazing the point of pressure being held down. That is the back of a hand, Danny's. Which is the second his movement twinges. Danny. Who would never, had never done, anything to hurt him, hold him.

Who was doing a great job at keeping Steve head and his impulses at completely opposite ends of the spectrum. Fingertips grazing the back of Danny's wrist, wrist twisting only slightly for another second. Like maybe he was checking Danny's hold. When maybe this does get the small bit of a twist to look toward him in the dark, the location of his face. To figure out, somewhere inside the maddening race of his heartbeat and his blood thundering, if that's a sign Danny needs him to stop.

Stop....he doesn't even know what. But he knows, beyond any words they never ascribe to it, that he listens. He listens when Danny gets in between him and someone. The smallest touch. Completely inconsequential to the damage Steve could do. And he stands there. The fury of a racehorse and the violence of trained battering-ram held in check by the flick of fingers at his chest or fisted in his shirt.

A pressure, a stop gap. He gets lost in things, caught up in the direct line, the white and black, and Danny drags him back.

The fingers of his other hand tighten a very little, barely his fingertips pushing in, against the side-small of Danny's back on one side. But more like he needs that pressure, that movement to hold himself still, than like he's dragging Danny. And his other hand doesn't move at all, anymore, more and more aware of the weight and pressure Danny has against it.

The way he could snap his wrist back with barely any consideration or fight to it. The same as he could flip this entire set up.

But he won't.

Edited 2012-12-07 01:40 (UTC)