haole_cop | (no subject)

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

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

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

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

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

Is that really so much to ask?

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

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He could probably fall asleep, just like this, and live with the mocking Steve would milk for years, falling asleep while Steve plays with his hair, but it feels good, okay? It's one of the side effects of wearing it this way, all slicked back -- getting messed up, having fingers run through it, feels amazing. It always has.

He doesn't, though, because Steve's fingers aren't just. They pause, toy with a piece, rolling it gently between fingerpads, which is a strange sort of idleness, for Steve. He isn't usually given to just touching for touch's sake, even like this, even when his hands never leave Danny's skin. It's like distraction. Like he's hoping Danny not meeting his eyes will mean Danny has hit his head somewhere and forgotten how to read the rest of his face.

And it just doesn't fit. The words, and that expression. Like he's steeling himself. Finding some guardrail, against...what, exactly? "Yeah, maybe."

He's not. Okay. He is sure that's probably better. Right? He's got no idea how any of this would go down with the team. Aside from wreaking havoc with protocol, they've been professional, working together. This hasn't screwed up their partnership the way he thought it might. Nothing's different, it's just...more.

He's not sure Chin and Kono would find that comforting.

But outside work. Outside work brings people like those girls, sharks in sparkly tank-tops with toothpaste-commercial smiles, and he's just not sure he's entirely sold on the prospect of that continuing to happen, while he continues to not be able to stop it one it starts. Or before.

None of which explains why Steve is looking the way he is, toying thoughtlessly with Danny's hair the way he is, except then his fingers tighten and rub hard against Danny's head, making him close his eyes briefly, while his arm tightens in response. Like he's checking in. Making sure Steve is good. That everything is still on the shelves in that head of his, and not mixed up in pieces on the floor.

As much as can be expected, anyway.

And, okay. Maybe, just a little bit, standing his ground the way he wished he could have at the bar. "Everything good over there?"

The two words are soft. A little lulled and fuzzy, just a little suspicious.

He knows Danny is still looking at him. Head on. Very specifically. Isn't sure what he's seeing, or why he's still looking. Which is an insane thought, right? After the whole evening, and sex, and they're still in a pile, on the blankets, not specifically even lined with with pillows and sleeping, so much as a muddle of limbs they haven't taken back.

When it's a little harder to focus on, when his fingers tighten just enough against Danny's scalp, and almost instantly the hold Danny has across his shoulders tightens, too. Holding him firmer, closer, instant and complete. Encompassing. Fingers at one shoulder, the bar across him back. The warm, sort of absent way the touch is so completely like a check in.

Either with his skin, or with him. Which the words that come next roll right over. Making his chest tighten.

"Yeah." It's a little too settled. Not said with any rush, but fast out his mouth as compared to his thoughts. When the only one to escape the sudden dust up, shove away of all the terrible thoughts he's been thinking, was that he wanted it to be. As much as wanting anything good to survive got him anywhere in the last month.

But, maybe, it was worth something. That the want hadn't been pummeled from his hands by all of this.

It's not totally unbelievable, but it's definitely not the truth. When he's still watching Steve, a little more keenly now, even if Steve isn't looking back at him.

He's not sure anything's wrong, exactly. It seems like an imprecise term for the strange shuttered thoughtfulness on Steve's face, the careful consolidation there, like he's reteaching his face to not mirror his thoughts. As if that could happen. Steve can play a part with the best of them, but not like this, not right now, not without Danny knowing the difference.

But he's not stiff, just still. His hand is still in Danny's hair, and he hasn't pulled away; has only drawn slightly closer, fingers gripping gently, like he's drawing himself back, into this. Right now. From wherever he went in his head. As if any option for that could be a good one, this month.

Leaving Danny with two choices: to push at it, or let it slide. Either way, mouth pressing slightly, considering, making a little mm-hmm noise of neutral agreement, just skeptical enough to illustrate the fact that he's not, a hundred percent, buying it. "Okay."

Not arguing, but not agreeing, either, while shifting a little towards Steve. If all he's got to go on is a not-quite-truth and the flex of Steve's fingers in his hair, he'll go with the latter, lift his hand from Steve's hip to his face, and tip it, palm steady against the angle of his jaw, fingers spread wide, before leaning in to kiss him.

Feeling like it's a deep breath after being underwater for hours, even now, after all that, after Steve demanding his mouth and spinning Danny's head with kisses. It's not like those. Slow. A little lazy and indulgent. But that hand at his jaw, like he's telling Steve to focus.

Who needs it. Anything that would make him look like that. It's not necessary, here and now.

Danny makes that noise. The one in the back of his throat and noise. Skeptical, dragging sound. Followed up with the word. The kind he's been making most of the night humoring Danny. Which is the last thing he wants right now. It makes the skin on his back feel too tight, like little claws are dragging up in from the inside. He doesn't want to be humored.

Perhaps, anymore than he expected, suddenly, getting kissed.

Like somehow, even only inches from him, even though it'd required him having to a little annoyedly shifted his head at the instruction of fingers finding it, he hadn't followed entirely. Except that there were fingers spread across his jaw. Lines of warmth dragging his focus forward, when Danny's kiss isn't chaste but it's slow.

Not like time that won't pass. Slow, the way the sun sink down below the waves. Starting first with a ribbon of gold, and the slow growing cape of endless night filled with diamonds everywhere. It's like that. Fingers on his jaw, making him pay attention to the slow shift of lips, of fingertips. Stealing his breath, and making whatever's in his chest, suddenly there, suddenly tight and fragile and huge against his ribs, threaten to shatter.

Shifting his own fingers, The palm of his hand coming to rest against the back Danny's cheekbone, with his thumb outward, against the hair beyond his temple. While every thought went to this suddenly. The slow, slide of lips, like they were continents demanding and dictating the moves of the entire universe. His. And when had he ever been able to not listen when Danny moved him?

Edited 2012-12-12 03:37 (UTC)

Better.

He feels Steve's attention shift, like a physical thing, like moving Steve's face or taking his arm or pushing at his chest has the same effect. Focus. Over here.

Where Danny is concentrating solely on him. This. The way it feels, bare skin pressed to bare skin, blood-warm, against cooling air. The give of the mattress. The lump of blankets under them. Steve's mouth, the way it parts, lets Danny deepen this kiss until his head is spinning and loose, until everything in his chest is glowing and gorgeous, feeling like his ribs are cinched too tight to contain it.

Palm against rough stubble, a peaceable, content noise at the back of his throat, nothing like the skepticism of earlier. Just. Being here. Getting to be here. It's enough to cut his legs out from under him. The insanity of having this under his hands. Of Steve, letting him lean in to kiss him.

Making him wonder when the hell his luck is planning on running out, and how he can avoid that happening for as long as possible.

Determined to break Steve's thoughts from whatever miserable cycle they were looped in, because he knows that look, okay, he's seen it a thousand times, when Steve thinks he's being sneaky but is really just being dense. Trying to -- what. Prove that whatever it is, whatever of the last month that's tried its best to cut them both down, he's still here? That he cares, that he gives a damn, that Steve is important. To him.

And he is. Danny's hand gentling against his jaw, because this isn't about pushing, it's about coaxing, about just sliding back into the bubble they manage to create here, where the world can knock outside and doesn't have to be let in.

Even when he doesn't want to listen, in the worst frames of mind, when sanity is giving way to such incontrovertible rage, he'll find he does. It works like cutting the brakes. The rest of the car might try to keep going, might be able to keep going, but, suddenly, one certain part isn't working. That's what Danny does to him with a touch. Sometimes. In the field. In here.

The thoughts don't vanish. Any more than his disgust and hate ever dies instantly. They float somewhere around him, but instead of being sucked under by it. He's held back from by a few fingers. Usually at his chest. Right now, curved against his jaw. His shoulder, when Danny is kissing him slow and specific. Taking his time, with the way his hand stays against Steve's skin, cupping.

The way his mouth opens, the taste of Danny, the feel of his tongue. The jagged place somewhere inside of him that drops like a floor disconnecting from any supports. When this kiss isn't anything like the ones exchanged after dragging Danny away from civilization, in living room, in the hallway upstairs, in here, only so long ago.

The soft, quiet sound rumbling through Danny. Mixing him with the wave, the wind, relaxed and pleased. Taking up residence in his chest, just as much as this kiss. Pushing things out of direct focus at least. Making his shoulders hold stubbornly, until the hold droops a little, curves. Less apart, divide, more curling, just the smallest bit. Around Danny. Around that shoulder underneath his chest.

Shifting into him, closer. Into the slow crackle of warmth, like the seduction of fire from too long cold.

Doesn't matter if he's been here the whole time. A little closer. A little more focus on Danny.

On this thing that keeps surviving everything Steve's sure that it can't or won't.

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

He's pretty okay with this taking up as much time as Steve will allow, finding the space between his lips, the space between his breath, slipping between his ribs and pushing gently outwards. Tightening when Steve shifts, curls more closely into him, stubborn resistance in the shoulder under his loose arm melting away, like Steve is resigned to giving him, without any truth behind his reluctance.

Look, it's crazy. Their life. The world. Everything thrown at them, aiming to bury them both, and Steve more than Danny, beneath the rubble.

But it's not all rubble. Not all crazy. Not that he'd ever say so out loud. But there's still this. There's still Grace. There's still Kono, and Chin; still Malia, hanging on with the kind of grim determination that knocks Danny flat to see, her strength shoring up her husband's. This. Again. Something to keep stealing, and, yeah. Maybe to protect, because it's too fragile for the way the world could so casually shatter it, a bored cat knocking glass of a table.

And there's no words for it. The way Steve listens, holds himself, then moves closer. Like he wants Danny under his skin as much as Danny wants to be there. Pulling away only to lean in again, meet lips, study mouth, breathing. His hand sliding from Steve's face to the side of his neck, to the rounding of his shoulder, back again. Take a minute. Breathe. There's no time during the day, no allowance. Something Steve would never take for himself, but he's only human, when everything's said and done, lines drawn beneath definitions.

Even he needs a break. They all do. This month has been hell, and it's not likely to get much better. He refuses to even think it might, considering the risk that thought would take, offering up any last stand of optimism to get blown out the window.

He pulls away without actually pulling away, still shifted close and comfortable, arm still slung around Steve, hand still at his neck. "Okay, better."

At least Steve feels a little less like he's about to leap up and start hunting someone down, though Danny wouldn't put it past him. Relaxed might be too strong a word, but most of the tense stillness seems to have seeped away.

He doesn't always have a clue, what Danny is seeing when he takes a long second to look at him. Because Danny knows everything that's ever been anything (that Steve could share). Has looked at his face for over two years, so he can never write it off like that. Making Steve hold still while his insides twist like a child that won't hold still, like one of those tourist straining to cover any too available, too pale skin under a wrap.

He knows what the girls in the bar see. He knows he's attractive and as fit as he possibly can be at almost all times. He even knows what it looks like, catching it once or twice, when that looks burns, random and miraculous, on Danny's face when he looks up from doing something at work. And Danny snaps away, like he's been caught with a button out of place in public, flushing just noticeable enough he can see it because he is paying attention.

He knows what to do with that one. Maybe terribly. Getting in Danny's way. Leaning on the door to his office. Finding a reason to bug him. While smirking a little too much while Danny strives to either do his work, or Steve's work, or just stops and banters with him. Like there is no other thing to do. But this. This look he never knows what to do with.

Fingers sliding across his skin. All over. His shoulder. His neck. Across part of his chest. Up into his hair. Stopping kissing him to study his mouth, his face, like. He doesn't know. Like Danny's looking at them, as much as through them, at something else. Things Steve has no comprehension of whether or if he should apologize for. There's so much everywhere. He knows he's lucky that Danny. Well. Everything. All of this.

These things that weren't him. And Steve tries to keep it past tense. Sometimes it's present. But when Danny's busy stroking his skin, maddeningly like he's going to create a new language between it and his fingers, Steve has to shove it. The concept it wasn't, might not be. Hold on to this as much as stand confused by it.

Especially when Danny stops with those two words and Steve's brow furrows. Lines creasing up his forehead, between his raising eyebrows, when he rests his chin on the hand curved over Danny's shoulder under his own neck and chin from the moving. Letting that movement, this close, be as much the question as comes. When it could be about either of them or anything.

Or Danny just throwing words at the air like silence is as profane as anyone touching him.

In a shocking turn of events...

Steve doesn't reply.

Not vocally, anyway. Just settles his chin on the back of his hand, weight pressing gentle against Danny's shoulder and feeling like the reassuring pressure of piece, badge, seatbelt, eyebrows lifting. Inviting Danny to explain himself, even though Danny knows any attempt at explanation will be followed with the faintly amused, knowing look Steve gets when he thinks Danny is talking too much, using unnecessary words.

As if Danny might have missed whatever was going on, over there, just a minute ago. As if he could possibly have overlooked that expression on Steve's face, the lie that everything is fine, the soft singing of tense muscles in his back and shoulders. Drawing himself together. Ready at all times to prove that the best defense is a good offense, even when there's nothing coming after him.

Not in the room, anyway. Not from Danny. Which leaves only one option.

His fingers curl into a loose fist, and he knocks them, gently, against the side of Steve's head. "It's like rats in a maze in there." Always working. Always moving. Finding dead ends and trying to scratch their way through. Steve's head is a miserable place, but that doesn't give it the right to ruin Steve's night.

Rats that can suddenly turn into stampeding buffalo, if Danny steps wrong, but they're in Steve's bed, it's late in the night, the world is as peaceful as it can be in their immediate vicinity, and when has he ever let Steve's unwillingness to be dragged back into sanity keep him from trying?

One day, maybe, Steve will snap and just gag him (least violent of the possibilities, but he's willing to bet he wouldn't be outright murdered -- there would be too many questions and Kono, at least, would miss him), but he doesn't think it's going to be tonight.

He could stop that, that rap to the side of his head, as quick as it starts. Snap the hand under his chin up. The muscle doesn't even twitch. But the possible reaction, action, roll from bring touched to incapacitating, flickered into and out existence, at the back of his mind, while he looked drolly unimpressed.

Steve rolls his eyes, which may be what Danny's expecting given his own expression. Gaze going up, when his chin tilts against that back of his head, before turning a shake of his head. Like he can't really expect much better from Danny.

Yet. Without any insult to it. Or any refuting of those words.

When its easier to look blandly insulted by highly amused, just saying, with a raise of his fingertips without lifting his hand or head,"Your game was better with the kissing and groping."

Like this was some objective commentary on Danny's moves. Not that state of the mess Steve kept from his team. Though Danny was blurring so many of those lines. As much shoving his way in, as Steve was, every once in a while, grabbing Danny and dragging him across that line, like he was the last life raft on the planet. In the disjointed sprawl of his world.

Where only Five-0, his team, and Danny made sense. Kept him together.

Where, he was aware, were the only people who knew how bad it might be, were, too.

"Yeah?"

He takes that roll of the eyes with a grain of salt, lets it slide off his back without digging in, because it's deflection and he knows it, knows Steve knows he knows. So is that comment, but Danny can rise above that kind of shit.

Most of the time, anyway. "You think so? I was thinking it might not work so well for conversation, but I have to admit it's got its place."

It does. When Steve melts against his, loose and lazy and feeling okay enough to snipe back at him, he definitely can't say there's anything wrong with either kissing or groping. Jesus Christ, he's not even used to it yet, still feels his head spin dizzy with bewilderment when he thinks about it too hard. Being here. Everything that led up to being here. Steve wanting him. His own spun-around perspective. The impossibility of it still happening, except it's still happening.

One gorgeous, brilliant, bright point to his days and weeks.

He shifts to find the most comfortable spot, Steve still half curled over him, while his hand slides to Steve's shoulder, half lifts, gesturing slightly. "What, I can't be curious? I have this reaction when you get all wound up in your own head, okay, it is so rarely about anything good."

Not that there's anything wrong with that, right now. Right? If Steve can't relax enough to actually think about all the things happening here, now, with him, then where can he? It's not a problem. Danny doesn't want to keep it from happening, okay, but anything he can do to mitigate the worst of it is what he'll try.

The kissing and groping, though, they do have some pleasant side benefits.

Danny wiggles and, not for the first time, Steve almost moves. It happens a lot of the time. It's an adjustment on the last few years. On the women have been in his bed so much more than nor. Laying there, half on Danny, while the man is curled around his shoulders, in a way Steve wouldn't leave half his weight on a woman. A way that triggers on habit at the movement.

Except that Danny only shifts closer, shifts staying where he is. Like he's looking for the perfect place to leave his shoulders, ribs, hip bones. Places that tuck into each other so much easier than Steve could have believed. Remembers at all, until the moment after he goes still, waiting until Danny settles, waiting to see if he'll need to go. Except Danny's arm never moves, he never pushes him away.

There is no face or five thousand words to it.

Just twisting, getting closer, like a key fiddling in a lock.

Which lets Steve relax, again, in rather unanimous release down his back.

Even when those are the words Danny chooses to be going on about, and Steve could not tell, exactly, all the things he's walked through, touching on even in the last five minutes. When he doesn't think there's a thing in the planet, that isn't Danny Williams mouth already preoccupied, that could keep Him from asking questions and shooting out opinions.

Steve tilted his head, unimpressed by humor ing, without any insult. When he leaned down his head, brushing his mouth down across the spot where Danny's collar bone met the furthest point of his should. "My head's the one that's all wound up now?"

Edited 2012-12-13 18:52 (UTC)

There's a flashing grin at that, crinkling at his eyes and lightening his expression with amusement. "Pretty sure your head's always wound up, babe. Natural state of things."

And better in this moment than it has been for the last few weeks, the majority of the time, which is something else to be glad about. Steve going quiet and still here is still about a thousand times better and more preferable to Steve wiping some poor joker into a smear on the floor for giving him an eyelash-flicker of a reason.

He stretches, a little, shoulders shifting comfortably into the mattress, glancing down towards the top of Steve's head, where he's brushing lips over skin that's no longer on fire, but still sensitive, sweat just past dried. Muscles loose, limbs heavy, the room dark and warm and there is no reason to be anything but relaxed, right now. His bad mood is all burned out, soothed by the persistent proof of Steve here, him still allowed.

He knows better than to think it'll last the next time some handsy or tipsy or overly-confident girl gets the idea that touching Steve or flirting with him is a good idea, but that growling, raging creature has subsided for the moment, curled warily into his chest and sliding back into hibernation. For the moment.

The hand at Steve's shoulder slides a little further, to bicep, while the other moves from where it's been hanging, loose, at the end of the arm slung over his shoulders, toys idly with a few short brown strands of hair. Tiny, truncated versions of his usual grandiose gestures, wound down by lazy contentment and Steve's proximity to little lifts of his fingers, finding parts of Steve -- tattoo or hair -- to focus on.

Danny was always moving. Something Steve never took for granted before now, but something he takes even less for granted now. He, actually, has to wonder if the fortitude of his training actually made that easier to bear, especially among the times when it seemed odd. When it is everywhere. Attracting the attention of every minute.

Overly familiar was the wrong word. He didn't think Danny had any idea how not to be like this, and if anything he was rather familiar with Steve, with touching him occasionally. Which was a far cry from occasional here. It was all the time here. Even asleep. But especially nearby, after, when waking, even more so on weekend mornings.

It's different. Not often to 'irritable,' but different from the rest of his life. Both outside these doors and outside theses years. When Steve can turn his head, stretching a little, on instant reaction, toward the hand on his arm, the arm shifting around his back to set fingers everywhere else. List a little toward the fingers in his hair.

Let the words fall as they will. Danny's never been shy about his opinion of Steve's head. What he's doing with. What he must keep in it. That its a terrible place, and one Danny has to keep in line. Steve doesn't exactly disagree. But it doesn't mean enthusiastic agreement goes there. Sometimes it easier to feign touch-drunk in his head, rather than even to consider it.

He settle for raising his head, flipping his hand on Danny's shoulder off, so his elbow rests into the mattress beside it. Lifting the hand to curve, framing on side of his own jaw. Weight resting down his palm and wrist to that elbow. Speculatively both switching without answering, like whatever it was hadn't required one, and still asking for asking, "Sleep?"

Even if it would require moving, getting to less of a mess, handling blankets. Moving. At all.

Edited 2012-12-13 19:29 (UTC)

"Hmm."

It's a low rumble of a noise, while fingers spread wider, a little more firmly, against Steve's scalp. "It's not a terrible idea."

He might even go so far as to say it's a pretty good one, considering the way his eyelids feel weighted with bricks and his thoughts keep stuttering to a start only to fall off into a fuzzy lack of focus after just a few lackadaisical revolutions of his head.

Not that they're exactly in the best spot for sleeping, nice as it is. He still prefers sheets and blanket to be over him, instead of under, and finding the pillow would probably be a plus, too. Not to mention the dried mess on his skin, and the fact that Steve's limbs, all long and taking up too damn much space, take some maneuvering to get around and work with.

And all that's even before getting to the point that it's a cheap shot at deflecting Danny's attention away from whatever was running through Steve's head a minute ago.

Well, fine. Whatever it was didn't seem to leave lasting damage worse than before, and Steve's not sending off any of the signals that mean there really is something that needs to get brought up that he'll toss up walls and barbed wire to keep a secret, so Danny shifts, snakes his arm from around Steve's neck, now that they're lying more side by side than overlapping.

"Sleep. I do prefer getting it, when I can."

Danny's drags out that sound of thinking about it, while pushing against his scalp. Which makes him want to roll his shoulders and arch just a little, tendrils of sensation running everywhere, when all he does to is push a little more into them and let his eyelids half close for the pass of most of a second there. It does feel nice.

Nice enough there's a flicker of reluctance to open his eyes back all the way when Danny starts talking.

Except he's playing with his words, throwing them at the air, making a dog and pony show of dragging out his opinion for Steve's rhetorical question there. Like Danny's going to make it a real spectacle of consideration if Steve is going to divert him from getting anything he'd originally wanted. With what is easily a simple yes or no, and even less than that, when it's late, they've both gotten off, it's pitch dark.

When the answer only goes one direction, even if he tries to spin it towards something else. It's dark and late.

Except, almost like he's contradicting Steve's very thoughts, leaving them more in parallel as no one had actually made the move to get to anywhere. Steve tipped his head, smirking, even if that face was probably lost mostly in the darkness. "To some things."

Which just went to imply that there were a handful of things he'd put sleep off even further for.

Steve had a pretty good short list started on those now, as it was.

Steve pushes like a cat, reluctant to admit it wants to be petted, but purring none the less, and Danny's fingers rub a little against his scalp. He knows that tone, even if he can't really see that face, and it makes him grin, too, a pale flash of teeth in the darkness. "It's good to have priorities."

It's true that sleep isn't always, or even often, the top of those, here, even on those days when he feels like he's been standing there being pummeled by the world, unable to throw a single punch back, even on the ones that leave him dragging and exhausted. Not that there haven't been a few times, when they've been too tired, when the day's been too long, when the case hits them in the worst and weakest spots and multiplies every thought about Rachel and Grace, Vegas, Doris, Malia. Reminds them, as if they needed it, that Wo Fat is at large again.

And sometimes, it's nice just to relax and let sleep carry them away. Even if Steve sleeps like shit, even if Danny's only gotten him to stay in bed past dawn a couple of times after that first Sunday.

But not often. They're not really at the stage where just sleeping together is the point; it's all still new and he can't get enough of Steve's skin, touch, body, mouth.

And who knows if they'll ever get to that point past it, once this burns out and settles into either a heap of ashes or the sort of smoldering coals that can keep going, indefinitely. The whole idea of this turning over into the kind of complacency that he suspects would bore Steve is one he doesn't especially want to consider right now, so he doesn't, just admits that, yeah, there are, definitely, things he prefers to sleep.

This is pushing the top of that list, honestly. Lying relaxed in the dark, fingers in Steve's hair, on his skin, feeling him breathe, listening to him joke around.

There are worse things.

The increased pressure makes him lean a little more.

Maybe adjust the hold of his head. Maybe lean his neck toward those fingers, sturdy and solid, that he's watched fly through the air as he talked so many times he can't remember them all, unlike the way he still guards nearly every single memory of watching them ride over his skin, any part of it. Every part beyond wrist, chest, shoulder. Normal things.

Even when this is a pattern, it's nowhere near normal. It's still more like an impossible miracle. That Danny is still touching him. Still here. Was ever here. Right here in his bed. Even just doing this. Fingers in his hair, laughter that isn't more than his tone, so leading and promising finding his ears, against it. The friction sending warmth like a flood starting with tiny rivulet of water down the back of his neck.

It feels good, against skin and nerves that are always, always, always tight, and he can feel it trying to loosen up things in his neck, when they're discussing moving, sleeping, or not, still. But really Steve is beginning to wonder how long he drag out Danny not moving. Not stopping touching him. Again. In the newest thousandth way.

Which goes somewhere hand in hand with that low sound that catches in his back of his throat and top of his chest. That really wasn't a response to Danny's words first. Like somehow his fingers have a line on something else in Steve body that's totally going to react and respond first.

That non-committal noise from Steve makes something go all goofy in his chest, like his heart just decided to give up and flop over for a while. Just like the way Steve leans, just slightly, into his head, making Danny's fingers press in a little harder, blunt nails running over scalp in narrow ovals. "I'm sorry," he says, "was that a request to move?"

He seriously doubts it, with the way Steve is still lying all curled up into him, not far enough away to not be touching, to not be sharing the same space, air, inches of bed.

Which is funny, how it doesn't seem all that, exactly, weird. They fell into this with a bang, pushed in by an explosion, but this part, the quiet part, after the fire and desperation, this is the part that should be awkward. Right? Suddenly finding himself naked in Steve's bed, shouldn't that have taken more getting used to? Shouldn't it have been odd, uncomfortable?

Instead, it feels like anything else with Steve; easy. Easy to reach out and touch him the way Danny wants to, the way he's not allowed to, can't, during the day. Fingers running through clipped brown hair, over smooth tan skin and ink. Along the slope of shoulders and back. All the parts of Steve that are off limits, in daylight.

That Steve lets him is a never-ending source of amazement to Danny. That he lies here, allows it, even encourages it, enjoys it, is something Danny never thought he'd see, and it is amazing. Simple, compared to everything else, but full of a blissful contentment. When he'd be happy doing this for hours. Fingers in Steve's hair, Steve drifting towards sleep and relaxation almost on top of him. Quiet moments stolen from a life full of explosions and panic. But still his.

It continues, a little harder, and then with nails. Thin, sharper, more pressure, but so precise, blade-like without slicing. Rubbing in circles, and taking out a good chunk of Steve's need to focus on anything. Need to be able to look at anything at all. Catches like a burning ache somewhere in his chest. Gentle and generous, sort of like putting your hands over a barrel fire on a frigid night. Feeling it push up your skin like a hungry, living thing, pushing the cold out.

Even when it does make his shoulders shift and curl this time. Stretching through his back, causing even to shift around a little. A little closer, in what is already close enough there's barely much of anything. Catching a hand low on Danny's side, half on is hip, by the time the small stretch fades. Leaving him with Danny's fingers still and faintly charged nerves, and slightly looser muscles.

The quieter, almost slurred, like he's losing the motivation to move his mouth entirely for this second, response of, "Pretty sure you're already moving."

His hands was. Moving. Right? And Steve was all for being belligerent, hair splitting, unhelpful.

Maybe even toward his own point, his own deflection. He didn't even care. His eyelids were heavy and nearly all the way closed, everything smelled like Danny. His voice had the waves behind it. His hands had a direct line on all the nerves going down Steve's spine.

It felt like having warm water pooling on the spaces of his head where Danny moved to. Everything unknotting itself.

Nerves. Muscles. It should be insane. He was laid out here not too many minutes ago, too. But that didn't always mean relaxed once awareness hit. That was actually a good word for it. Even now. Hit. Like getting hit with something. Taking in a deep breath in through his nose, and it goes out with a drop of his whole chest, rippling out, loosening, fingers of his hand tightening just enough to be purely reflexive against Danny's side.

Edited 2012-12-16 02:33 (UTC)

"That is just a stellar observation."

He really can't help it. Nobody could help it. Right? It's what he tells himself, when Steve's half-sleepy, half-slurred comment comes out, and Steve's hand seeks out Danny's side like an afterthought, fitting over his hip, hand loose and heavy, tightening just slightly with the wave of relaxation that washes over him as Steve lets that breath out. Slumping into into it like a puppet with cut strings. Muscles lax and limbs heavy.

Where, in any of that, is an incentive for Danny to stop?

So he doesn't. Runs fingertips through Steve's hair, traces circles with his nails. It's short and coarse, nothing like Rachel or Gabby's long, silky brunette, but it's no less relaxing to run his fingers through, and Steve --

Well, Steve is moving, but not to get ready for sleep. If anything, he's shifting closer, like a dog trying to get into Danny's lap, despite being too big to fit. Angling closer, turning in towards Danny, like he's an iron filing and Danny's some sort of magnet. "Hey. I thought you wanted to sleep."

Which is not to say Steve couldn't drop off right here and now, because he probably could. He's almost never this relaxed when conscious, except for immediately after, when it's like he's been hit in the temple with a brick, and Danny wants to file it away, lock this information up somewhere safe and sound where no one else can ever get to it. Steve, laid out and lazy, making that noise, with Danny's fingers running over his head. It's absurd, shouldn't be possible, and he wants to frame it, keep it forever, hid away from the rest of the world.

Danny is talking. He's aware. Beyond his closed eyelids. Beyond the warmth pouring slowly out from five different spots on his head. The semi-circles of nails and the blunt, deeper focused, pressure of finger tips. The warmth and they way it shouldn't really, only being pressure against nerves and skull, seriously make him feel like Danny's found a second way, in less than half an hour, to pour his brain out the back of his head.

It's drags up a quiet, low content noise, in the back of his throat, that he can't stop. Or doesn't. Maybe doesn't even care to consider doing so. It's not like that statement needed a response, right? And he didn't always throw words back at Danny. Though usually that was during the day, feet apart. Not when he's got this warm, fluid urge, to just shift even closer.

When his chin is somewhere braced against a shoulder again, and he can feel which muscles it requires him to tighten and use, up his neck, just to top his head and look toward Danny's new words, the ones down his temple. But the tension and tightness involved with just looking toward the place where Danny's voice is, not even getting to opening his eyes, had him reluctant to do so.

Causing him tug Danny's hip, like it would get him closer. Like somehow that would help, when they're already like this and the stupid pillows are not at all near him, them. When he's following the nice earlier sound up now with one of consternation and a face, even in the dark, "I didn't say that."

No, he didn't say he wanted to. He asked if Danny wanted to. He didn't want to move at all.

Well, maybe to pull Danny somehow closer. Flush with him. Somewhere, something, solid against the fading day.

Steve is plastered against him, and Danny wouldn't risk moving and shattering this peace for anything less than a full scale crisis requiring them both to get up and get to work. Still, he asks anyway, because that's what they do, what he does, what Steve expects, and Steve ought to bat it back again, but it seems like his thoughts are stuck somewhere in touch-generated molasses, because it takes him a minute, and he's tugging at Danny, possessive, like he thinks Danny might actually try to do what Steve suggested and sleep. Edge away, grab a pillow, get under the covers.

Which might not be a bad idea, if they could be like this, but Danny's not willing to risk it, just yet. Not when Steve's hand is there, tugging, or when Steve's voice is scraping the bottom, rusted-out and hovering somewhere between petulant and complacent. "Oh, okay."

Fingertips moving in circles, fingernails scratching lightly, twisting strands into twirled threads between them before letting go and running along scalp. "My mistake. I was foolwed by you cleverly disguising your alertness by looking like you're about to drop off any second."

Between this breath and the next, maybe. Chin grafted to Danny's shoulder, forehead close enough that Danny can lean his cheek against it and contemplate the insanity of wanting to press a kiss there. The absurd contradiction of wanting to be gentle with Steve, who is a battering ram of a person, for whom the word gentle would seem inapplicable.

And yet there it is; that feeling. Wanting to be gentle. Wanting to kiss him until he catches his breath, or rub fingers over his head, or watch him fall asleep. Thoughts that pinion Danny's heart, make it ache and tighten and feel oddly reckless with itself.

Wanting to follow that tug on his hip, to slide closer. Slip legs together, sling an arm over Steve's side, settle his cheek into that hair, and sleep. "I guess I was mistaken."

Danny's backing down on the idea, quibbling, while teasing, and what really actually strikes Steve so much more than the fact he's being ribbed for the topic he brought up, or for the fact he's basically sprawled on Danny with no will in his bones to move at this second, is that Danny suddenly touches him even more. Danny leaning his head.

Warm skin, and stubble, first brushing, like a confused, uncertain question of a movement, before simply staying. Resting there, Danny's cheek against his forehead. Making Steve's chest tighten, even as something strikes up from his center, slamming him with a brick wall of longing to just move closer. Closer, not for his hand, but just tuck his temple in against Danny's shoulder and his neck.

To get lost in his beat of his heart, the way that he breathes, the fingers in his hair. Maybe it's girlie, or too sensitive. Sure, he can fall asleep nearly anywhere. Places other people would never consider, call literally impossible. Things he's done dozens and dozens of times for orders in the field. And his pillows a few feet away are none of those even.

But this. It shoves up into his chest. Hot and disastrously needy. Clinging to the backs of his ribs. Needling into his muscles.

The idea of how easy it would be here. How little he'd have to think about everything else. Just lose himself in Danny, and his skin, and his voice. The arm around him, the hand on his head, still laying on him more than the bed. It's beyond selfish, which he almost never lets himself be, no less see, but he wants it with a blistering pain, flash bright jagged, moment. The only sane thing that has stayed sane, even for all these changes and uncertainties.

They haven't been turned upside down. It hasn't ruined their work, and they've both made a rather concerted effort to keep it that way, Steve thinks. Not seeming to want to jeopardize Five-0, anymore than consider stopping this. Stopping this thing that doesn't stop. That makes Danny possessive and vindictive in one hour, and soft and teasing, like he is no, barely hours later.

When he could sleep. Okay? He admits it. Here. Right here. He could sleep and pretend it won't fade away, blow away, isn't melting closer to whenever, whatever the end is, by each second. He could close his eyes, and just go with the muscles releasing because of Danny, and let himself forget all of that. Anything struggling, straining, still tense in his head, to maintain realism. Pillows. Mothers. Jobs. Endings. Just get lost here.

Which is not an admission that can makes it anywhere past the bottom of his throat, the tight constriction in his chest. When all he does, is keep his long fingers and wide palm, lazily gripped over Danny's hip and side, to mutter, "It feels good."

It's a concession. The smallest drop compared to the thing he can't let out. Couldn't say. Not even here. To Danny.

There's some tiny shift of motion, that's not quite a warning and not quite compliance, either, where Danny's not sure what, exactly, is happening in Steve's head, but it's definitely something.

Again. Something Steve's keeping to himself, with the slight concession of those half-heard words, that are disappearing partially into Danny's shoulder and neck, warm breath and mumbles. They make Danny's eyebrows pull together, amused and a little nonplussed, but Steve is still lying half across him like a wet towel, so he's going to take it as a good thing until it is proved to be otherwise.

He keeps his fingers moving, slow firm circles, drawing loops against Steve's scalp, more purposeful now that he hasn't been told to stop. And, hey, if it feels good? That's all he cares about, right now. Being the one who gets to do this is just icing on the cake, compared to the bone deep satisfaction of seeing Steve flaked out like he's on a beach, soaking up sun and salt air.

It's enough to let him close his own eyes, let out a breath that feels like it deflates not just his chest, but his whole body, rumbling a low, contented noise of agreement deep in his chest. Warm and washing, like sinking into a hot bath.

Cheek against Steve's forehead and hair, feeling heavy, feeling like the slow spin of the world is pinning him here as much as Steve's arm and weight is. And it does feel good. It feels like a perfect fit, which is crazy, and it's crazy that Steve is letting him do this at all, without teasing about him being sensitive or handsy. Who needs a pillow, like this? Why would he possibly want to let go, just to move somewhere else?