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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"We already know that's true," Steve said, nipping the edge of Danny's stomach, right below the rung of his bottom rib. Smarting and sarcastic, as much as pressed in and down, like obviously that's the truth. Fighting Danny and his barrage of words, who was an idiot if he didn't realize it was all over him. Except he did. Even that was in his tone. Denial, but something heady and thick threaded in it.

This whole position, on his side, half laying against Danny wasn't actually great for getting any lower without moving. But that was fine. For now, this second. When he didn't want to be all that far from Danny's face or his voice. Didn't want to shake the hand gripping him. If anything he wanted to be able to see and hear all it, push him further. Make that hold hard, frantic, desperate, wanting.

"You're impossible," Steve said, mockingly stern, and not even care that he sound half distracted. Eyes tracking down as he let his hand slide down, following his thumb in the cut of muscle all the way down. The juncture of his thigh and his groin. Steve let his hand lift, to hard to be a drift, palming Danny. "Full of crap." When every word might as well have been a completely different one.

Pitch dropping as Steve drug his fingers up, catching on the ring of skin at the head, before running them right back. Because it was as true as it wasn't ever true. Danny could be impossible and full of crap. But. He wasn't that right now. No, right now, all he was thinking, aside from the hammer of his heart in his chest thundering away at any sanity, was else wise.

The he was only thing that kept Steve on his toes. Coming back. Sane. That drove him crazy at the same time.

The only thing that held his attention, and was still there at the end of every day, whatever that meant.

Okay, fine. He is. A lost cause. Washed out to sea, gone, he knew it, has known it, for weeks. It's how he always is, like when Rachel hit him with her car and he couldn't stop thinking about her.

Which makes it fall out of his mouth, a kneejerk response that he doesn't think about too hard, brushing past waving hands saying no, stop, don't admit that. "Only when it comes to you."

That cause got dumped aside the morning Steve came back, before Danny had any idea that those voicemails were still on his phone, before he had any clue that the itch under his skin was a mutual one. When Steve asked him what was wrong, and it was impossible to lie, to not tell him, even with the sure knowledge that everything was going to be ruined, lost forever.

Except it wasn't. Except it's a month, now, and Steve is still here, running hands that are familiar, now, across Danny's body, wrapping around him and shorting the world out into a vicious spike of brilliantly sharp pleasure, like he'd stuck a fork in a wall socket. Grabbing Danny's breath in a fist and yanking it loose from its tenuous roots. His hand loosening from Steve's arm to skate up his shoulder, to hair, to jaw, back down his neck, chest. Unable to touch enough of him. Muscle and smooth skin, used now to flat hard muscle instead of soft curves, to weight, to rusty low chuckles instead of soft laughter. There is nothing soft about any of this, nothing sweet.

Even when he knows, now, there can be. That Steve collapses into a pile of loose limbs and curls into him like a dog that thinks it's still a puppy. That he takes advantage of late-night peace and quiet to press sleepy warm kisses against whatever skin is available. And Danny's pretty sure that there are times when Steve is watching him for no good reason other than that he's there.

But not right now. Right now, there's nothing but fire, want, everything narrowing down to Steve under his hands, above him, touching him, dragging out his ability to think or string enough brain cells together to talk. "By the way, you suck at pillowtalk, jackass."

The first words land somewhere in the center of his chest, like a cocktail bomb was thrown straight through the cage of his ribs. He can't tell if it's setting him on fire or shattering glass. So sharp and heady, and his. The implication that it is, at least. When sure he's got his hand on Danny, and he knows, okay, what he's doing, that it could just be more words.

Words they throw back and forth, all the time. All day. But he wants them. Both the words, and for the words to be true. Like if was even part of him, that he could stop, shake Danny a little and ask. But he couldn't. He's not. And he doesn't. That's not him in any sense of the word either. Especially not right now, right here.

Here and now, when Danny's hand goes crazy. Flying up and down, everywhere brushing his skin. It's almost the onslaught of an attack. Touching everywhere, fast, sudden, needing everything and only having ten fingers, two hands, too few when everything goes haywire, demanding more, demanding everything. When Steve continued to glide his fingers along Danny's skin. So smooth and hot, from the rush of blood.

This is all part of why he didn't move, even if hands are flying everywhere. He gets to see this. What it does to Danny. What he gets to do to him. Over and over. Not someone else doing things. Not someone else under his hands. Danny. Which is a feeling inflating painful against the already stretched space in his chest, when Danny decides to lob a more expected insult at him.

"Oh, is that what you wanted?" Steve raised his eyebrows in dark, as his hand twisted and he drug his hand up again, using a thumb to circle the top. Voice soaked in dry, heavy amusement. "I must have gotten confused." His hand went down and up, starting a rhythm, as he leaned down, again, finally. Mouth hovering above Danny's for, "Maybe you should tell me again."

Except he followed it up with taking Danny's mouth from him the second after the words came out, too.

How is he. How is anyone. Supposed to be able to think straight? When Steve slides back up, fingers dragging madness over Danny's skin, and Danny's hand goes to his jaw, the side of his face, fingertips brushing hair. Fire scraping at his lungs, because breathing is not, could never be, as important as this. His other hand rounding over Steve's hip.

Only able to say, "Who says that's what I wanted?" after clawing his way back up to the surface, past the swimming sparks in his vision, the feeling of being shoved to the edge of everything. Who gives a damn. When he loves the back and forth, the words thrown at each other like darts or bricks or toothpicks.

And the only thing he wanted, wants, is right here already. Kissing him hard and certain, lips opening, teeth and tongue and the low noise that starts somewhere in the center of Danny's chest and tugs out by inches. Hand sliding from Steve's hip, reaching, fingertips brushing the lowest part of his stomach, to find him, wrap his fingers around him.

It's impossible to do too much, though he pushes up against an elbow, leans up, forward, to drag the circle of his hand up, back down, trying to focus through Steve's kisses and the maddening friction of his hand. Even when it's like trying to hold back waves from washing away a sandcastle.

This. And Steve's voice, low and scraping. He wants that, too. Wants Steve's breath against his ear, his neck. Wants Steve's mouth and his hands, his skin and weight and tattoos and scars over, under, so tangled up in Danny he can't pull free. Wants to wake up in the morning and not wonder how many more times he'll get to be here.

But, Steve. Just that. Him. All of this. Too much to ask for, but Danny's a selfish bastard, wanting the skin hot under his hand and the sounds he knows he can drag out of Steve. Everything he can get.

This, all of this, rivals into the best parts of his day. The parts that for years have belonged only two things.

Solidly, specifically. Two things. The sea, rolling in and out, as much a part of him and his days, as breathing, and his job. More specifically the end to the long ones, when they got the bastard, whether he was taken down or brought in, or a family was put together or given justice. And, now, this.

Okay. Not just this. This, where that sound come up from deep inside Danny, feeling like it's designed in genesis with the key to melting his skin, burning his organs, tearing out his control, and it's matched by Danny fingers, direct and purposeful, sliding down his side, stomach, his hip, until it's barely a sound. Maybe it isn't at all.

When his shoulders shudder and finally. The world dissolves for a second too hot, too hard, burning thoughts.

Not just that. It's up there, okay. It's fucking up there on the charts of the best ways to go lately even. Kissing Danny, knowing that way, this way, the heat of his kiss and the friction of their hands, lies madness. One they trip into so often. A couple of times a week. More than a couple. But the rest too. Everything under Danny's insane scene earlier. About him still being here. Through Rachel and Grace, Doris and Cath.

Getting pissed and possessive someone dared to look at him. Reaching for him right now without waiting, like it's all one thing. Everything they do now. The both of them together, in all of this. When Steve losses the traction on his kiss, feeling the burn in the arm keeping him half up, but mostly he's torn between the drive of Danny's hand to tear his ability to focus and his focus trying to do the exact same thing to Danny.

This is all in there. The whole wash, up there. The third thing. Danny. Danny, to unwind his night with. Whether that's out or in. Danny, still in his bed when dawn comes too fast and he needs to move and watching him sleep slows down the whole of Steve's world like nothing else, not even the other two. Like somehow there's air in it. When he's doing nothing. Being there.

When it's insane, that these things, spark into his brain, shattering on the rise and fall of Danny's hand on his skin, when he's leaning in. Doesn't know when he started leaning against Danny. Breath coming faster. Trying to focus on his own hand, when the ground under all of his thoughts is evaporating right out from under him. Like it's a race between what will win out. When he wants both of them, all of this, all of it, all at once, every bit of Danny the same as the rest.

That. The way Steve lists into him, like Danny is some force of gravity. The way he does with every brief touch at work or out in the day. Like there's some sort of magnetism, here, that comes into play when they touch. And Steve is leaning closer. Close enough for Danny to feel the faint shake of his shoulder, the muscles in the arm holding him up starting to tremble, slightly. The shake of hard-packed sand under the feet of a hundred marathon runners.

But it's impossible to focus. Everything is starting to slip; hips shifting into Steve's hand, his thumb running up, flat, over hot, smooth skin. Fingers squeezing, relaxing, gripping again. Wondering how crazy he would go if anyone dared touch Steve like this, if just watching someone else's fingers along Steve's skin wreaked havoc with his sanity. Murderous would barely begin to describe it. He'd rip their hands off.

But it's not. Necessary. Should never be. It's just the two of them, back here, alone, falling into this again, like they have so many times over the last thirty days. Still not even as long as Steve had been gone beforehand. Long enough to start knowing the things he likes, the things that push him towards that edge, that shove him over.

Leveraging himself up, hand leaving Steve's face to land on the mattress, to push against his weight. Core tightening, while his breath is starting to come ragged and burning into his lungs. Kissing Steve like he's drunk with it, and maybe he is, because he feels light-headed, heart pounding, heat and desire striking into his head like lightning. All of this, the two of them, and it's like everything else, working with each other, striking off each other like flint and steel. Everything he knows, trusts, is part of his day, his life, between their partnership, and now this. Picking up smoothly, like it was always going to just fit right into their lives.

Which is the only thing he can say that about, this month.

When he breathes in, it's the scent of Danny's skin. A little smokey still from the bar, but it's Danny's skin. Warm and rich, something he's found himself more than aware of, especially when he's waking up to the smell of it, only to realize it's his pillow case and not Danny himself. Here, even when he isn't now. Here, in this room, in this bed, in Steve's head.

Filling it up right now, with lightning, so that everything comes in jagged quicksilver seconds. Like the smell of Danny's skin, sweat-slick, from mounting exertion, and smokey, for earlier, when he was snapping at everything. There is nothing like it. Even if the thought comes up, clear as the day, and then is obliterated not even half a second later.

Danny's pushing up, sudden and little wild, shifting up into his hand, while kissing him like he's trying to prove he can light Steve's skin straight from slickening with the beads of his own sweat passed logic straight into being a bonfire. Making Steve try to hold his arm, where his weight is, steadier. When that's like trying to shore up a house in a hurricane.

His hand is pumping at a fast beat, utterly ignoring the burn in the muscles of his forearm, trying to match into Danny's hips at this point. Not moving away at all for Danny pushing up to move him. Not going down or back. Simply wanting him closer, unwilling to be any further away. Trying to hold on to the dwindling lines of logic, of any sanity, plan going on.

Which isn't working as well when Danny's kissing him like he wants Steve to forget he knows how to breathe, no less than he remembers how to hold him hand, his weight, his head anywhere. When his fingers are driving Steve to thrust into his hand, his own body betraying him, chasing the intense pleasure slamming through him each time, chasing the explosion, implosion, disastrous ability to do anything.

There's nothing for it but to toss himself in, head first, just like everything else, every other day, with Steve. Chasing down crooks or fixing an unfixable problem, or this, even this, he shoves into it full speed ahead, and there's nothing for Danny to do but chase along after him and do some of the pushing, himself.

The only other alternative is to get burned to a crisp under it all, but he can't, won't, because there's nothing destructive here, hasn't been, not even that one night, the one that left him all patterned in bruises that were never explained. Even then, it was never a fight. Was always just the two of them, stuck on the same orbit, filling the world with light and heat and contact and this, everything else that fills him up like juice pouring into a glass.

Scattered and shoving. Breath all ragged and painful in his chest, pushing for harder, for faster, like chasing down a suspect and needing to push his legs faster, faster, chasing something down that can't be tackled and brought to ground, that's only going to end up running him off a cliff, and he's shaking for it. Pressing up, to find Steve there, burn of muscles and burn of lungs, falling into sheer instinct, want and need, vaguely aware of blankets and sheets under him, intensely focused on the weight of Steve over him. Wanting to drag him down, to get so tangled they can't find the start of one and the end of the other.

Steve's name coming choked against his breath, fires lighting one by one in succession, all ready to come tumbling down together, slippery ropes tightening and coiling. Tremors running rampant under his skin, like he's trying to shake it right off. Matching Steve as best he can, and starting to lose rhythm to frantic speed.

While the room around them starts incinerating, cool island air flashing into a wealth of fire and light.

There really is no way to keep standing. Even half-laying here. Muscles straining at the edges of his eyes with the effort of pushing through at all. Against Danny, kissing him, against the stroke of his fingers. The way his name comes out, broken and snapped, like Danny's voice got lost, but even that couldn't keep him from escaping him.

Shuddering through Steve, flooding his chest even further. When it feels like everything has turned into lava and is losing all it's hard edges. The world. The walls. The room. The bed. Anything that is not Danny under his fingers, the shape of his face, the faces he's making. The utter, spiking madness that is watching him, shoving him and being at his mercy all at once.

There center of his body winding down and in, coiling tighter and tighter. Tearing him between the urge to to push down with his hip against the bed, like somehow that will help him or save him, from the shattering explosions tearing up his vision, his thoughts. Or if it's when his hips snap and he can't control them at all for seconds. Jerking hard, erratic, forceful into the cuff of warmth designed to take everything down.

But he's not going down alone. When he's got his eyes closed, and that softness is probably Danny's head, his hair, somehow against his forehead, and he's getting close to considering biting his lips when it feels like everything up and down stroke of his hand on Danny's body is directly circuited, connected to the windows shattering in his own head, through his own body.

Jesus. He doesn't see how he's managed to survive a month of this. He's got no idea how he's lived through the last hour, how he ever thought he might have any control over any of this, because Steve burns through it like a flaming brand through tissue paper. His muscles are shaking, hand squeezing tight, and that, Christ, that look, it's gorgeous, the best thing he's seen all night. Rivals the smile Steve's been wearing since the bar, since the girls, since Danny started snapping at them and Steve didn't bother telling him to back off. Like he didn't mind. Like he was amused.

Or better.

Grabbing him in the living room, like something was about to break. Like something is, here. Now. Pressing his forehead against him, eyes tight, face crumpling.

Until it all goes up, sudden, like a cliff sliding sheer into the ocean. Roller after roller crashing into his gut, punching out a desperate sound, somewhere between pleading and Steve's name and a curse. Spasms splintering behind his eyes, as everything goes too sharp, too sensitive, too much, impossible to hold back, hips stuttering, and he's got to keep pushing, pumping his hand, shoving Steve, wanting him closer, lips on skin, hands denting accidental bruises into hip or arm or back.

Fuck. How's he supposed to react to anyone trying to come between him and this? Of course he was jealous. Of course he'd hate them. And this, that second of hanging by a slowly spinning, fraying thread before crashing down in a shower of glass shards and pleasure so intense he feels it like a dull explosion at the back of his skull. Forcing him to hold onto sensation and reality with a drowning man's grip, unwilling to slide down into oblivion alone.

Steve couldn't honestly say one way or another what it really is. The strangled, wanting noise that claws its way out so close to his ears, stabbing into his stomach and his heart at once. The sudden grip of his hands, almost like an undeniable command as much as the sudden desperate attempt to hold on, as Danny goes. Shaking under him. His fingers suddenly warm and wet.

Who knows which it really is, where or when. Maybe it's all of them. Danny's voice, and Danny's hands, and Danny going. Dragging him down under with him. The way Danny does everything else. Dragging him along, on an invisible cord he could no more cut than want to. God. He'd follow him straight through the jaws of hell if needed.

Which isn't where he's headed. When he's losing in against the not quite death grip, desperate on his skin, demanding his everything. Not coaxing him off, but shoving him straight through plate glass and the seven walls of bricks that feel like he successively slams through and feels fall, all of them, on his head, at once. When his body slips from him entirely, slamming over and over.

Against fingers, against Danny's thigh so close to him like this. Skin so feverishly warm, it's almost all he can feel, aside from the fact somehow his fingers have moved, found the side of Danny's body, trying, trying beyond the ability to remember when or how, he'd gotten a hand off, sensitive skin. Before he needed it. His fingers, gripping into something, like ship capsizing under.

The blankets being inches too far, when he finds a shoulder. Danny's hair. When it's silent, but so completely. Shaking his body with such violent precision, shattering all of everything, shifting the bed a little against the floor. Taking from him the wind and the waves, Danny's shaking breath and the feel of the blanket as much as Danny, with an obliterating tumble toward whiteness.

There. Pushing Steve through the last few jerks, as he shakes, fractures, comes apart at the seams. Scraping the feet of the bed against the floor with the violence of it, before Danny's palm and thigh are sticky and wet, and Steve's muscles cut out like someone turned a key.

Which means Danny can let go, move his hand, find Steve's hip, wrap the other arm loosely around Steve's neck and let the bed catch him, let gravity swallow him as his eyes close and the world comes to a slow, drunken sway.

Up. Down. Back, and forth. Like they're on a hammock. A low, swishing sound sliding against the edge of his consciousness, that he knows must be the waves outside, the wind in palm fronds. And Steve's breathing, somewhere near his ear.

And the only thing he can think is how good this is. Good. Just. Everything boiled down to one word. Good. Being here. Steve's weight. Smell of sex, Steve, salt. Things he never would have associated together, before a month ago, that he can't get out of his head, now. His clothes smell like Steve, half the time. Are on this floor, or folded up on the dresser nearby, plenty of nights.

When was the last time he used his own coffeemaker?

Eyes closed. Steve within reach, and he's not going anywhere, either; Danny doesn't give a damn for any jokes that might be made, sly remarks slanted his way. It hurt. Not being able to touch him. To take some kind of stand. Was a sharp ache, and the sickening pain of a cracked bone.

So, yeah. He'll be possessive while he can, dammit, this, right now, Steve, here, under his hands, in his arms, laid out and wrecked because of him, home with him, it's his in this moment. Damn straight he's holding on.

It's the last thing he checks before letting everything else slide into welcome tidepool of relaxation.

The world is swaying. Soft. Lumbering. Slow. Warm. Heavy.

It's takes a little while, or at least it feels like a little while, to even begin to separate them out from a cocoon made all together of them, into disparate pieces. The rise and fall of Danny's chest, half under him. The in and out of his breath, hitting Steve's cheek. The gentle mingle of the waves and the breeze, the bushes and the trees.

The faint rumble of the air conditioner. That had nothing on the in and out of Danny's breath, and that solid thumping that it took Steve an extra second to figure out what was knocking up against his shoulder so specifically, patterned. Not an actual knocking. Not a code. Before oh, slid across his brain, tugging his mouth, slow and fuggy rueful.

Twitching his shoulder even when he doesn't give into the urge to slide his hands free from -- huh, Danny's hair, apparently -- to lay it over Danny's heart and listen to it even closer. Like maybe it actually is a code. Thundering against him. The exertion petering out slowly as the world grow dividing lines. Self and other. Him, and Danny.

Skin and smoke and sex and sweat. Warmth like sitting too close to a fire. But better.

Steve took a long breath in, without twisting to kiss Danny's temple, even though that thought rolled through like a boulder, stopping up his thick breath. Fingers moving just the smallest bit in his hair, finding his finger tips slowly, chin brushing Danny's shoulder as he argued a little too much with his head trying to come back. This was perfect. Who really wanted to.

Edited 2012-12-11 03:39 (UTC)

Steve shifts, but only slightly, a long heavy weight, like gravity's hitting him twice as hard now, fingers soft in Danny's hair, which has got to be everywhere, just -- everywhere, but he doesn't give a good goddamn, because it feels amazing. Close, and intimate, and he's relaxed enough that that doesn't set off unwelcome alarms shrieking through his head.

Just keeps his arm slung around Steve's neck, head turning, mouth and nose brushing against Steve's -- what is that, forehead? cheek? -- without making those fingers move. He can keep them there as long as he wants, that's fine. He can stay right here, half on Danny and half next to him, a puddle of melted, brainless SEAL that no one would believe could hurt a blade of grass in his current condition.

Steve. Pulling the floor out from under his feet, with his you are the best thing, the only good thing. Words sewn into his heart. Needlesharp and painfully precious. Something to take out, carefully, and look at, before putting it away again, quick and careful, terrified of shattering it. Like a bubble. Filmy glass. So easily dropped, and he is so clumsy.

But not right now. They can stay, right there, warm and secret, while he breathes in against Steve's skin, everything unwound, loosened, perfect. Blank exhaustion stealing in like a low tide. Considering letting his hands glide, slow, over Steve's skin, to indulge himself in the tactile, the reality, solidity of him. Touch him the way he ought to be, like something amazing, incredible. Not all a blunt instrument, only meant for destruction. There's this, too, and the accompanying bittersweet ache filling his chest that makes him feel strangely protective, possessive. Like he needs to tell the whole world to back off and leave Steve alone, jeez, just for a little while, the guy deserves a break, doesn't he?

And if he wants this, if this gives him a little of that, then there's nothing that will keep Danny from giving it. Anything. Everything. Steve is owed, fucking owed, by the world.

Danny shifts in little waves. The arms that curves around his neck. The muscles where that wrist is resting. The flicker of eyelashes not far from skin. How close he is. Close enough Steve opens his eyes, just enough to focus, before drowsily shutting them, against this slow, soft glide of Danny's mouth brushing his skin.

The brush of warm, smoother than normal skin, causing prickled to rise straight down his neck. Causing his spine to straighten and shoulders to stretch a little, muscles tensing and relaxing like a wave, small pops and pulls, as the fingers in his hair curled gently.

Like somehow, without wiggling closer, without moving toward him at all, it might still not stop too fast.

Like maybe if he doesn't look anywhere else the world will just keep turning on with this. Danny half curled around him. The mess they've made of his blankets again, since they never do get to the bed unmade first. The sea and the sound of his breathing, his heartbeat. The way how anytime during the day he thinks of moments like this, it hurts almost like he's stabbed a pen in his leg.

But right now. Right now, it doesn't hurt. It feels like...breathing. Actually breathing. Actually quiet, heavy, almost peaceful. Even when he knows, he's not ignoring the shit storm that is waiting outside the front door for them tomorrow, and the next day and the next. Because it doesn't wait, and they charge in at it as much as it charges in at them. But right now, it's in it's place. It's tomorrow.

And he doesn't have to do anything else. Be anyone else. Just breathe out and let his head rest.

Court something a little like exhaustion. But a lot more like peace than any other part of his weeks lately.
Safe and quiet, drifting in and out, between consciousness and the temptation to give in to the place beyond it.

Edited 2012-12-11 04:54 (UTC)

He really doubts anyone would believe him, if he ever tried to tell anyone that Steve can be calm, peaceful, relaxed like this. Not that he would. He's jealous of it, knowing he's the one who gets to see this, be part of it, be the thing Steve's curled into, pillowed on. So well aware that heads would have rolled if any of those women really had tried to drape themselves the way his arm is currently draped.

Which is maybe a bad thing, possibly (definitely) an over-reaction, but at least he can think about it without the sudden mind-burning fury of earlier. If anything, this is a smug thought, still disbelieving, but fully aware of the amount of sheer luck and good fortune it implies. Being allowed. Wanted. Even if Steve suggesting he liked the way the bar drove Danny up one side of a wall and dropped him headlong off the other is insane, at best.

But this? This is great. Perfect. So comfortable that he could probably drift right off, amid cooling sweat and tacky skin and messed up blankets, knowing from a month of experience that moving, in this moment, would be ill-advised. Steve gets handsy when he's been knocked flat, and Danny's never gotten far.

Not that he'd want to.

His hand is loose against Steve's shoulder, the other curved lightly at Steve's hip, and he's not holding on, exactly, but Steve's not going anywhere fast like this. Head heavy, breath evening. Dashed to the bottom after sprinting to the top and jumping off, and now just floating, face cleared when Danny cracks a heavy lid to look at him, before letting it slide shut again.

It's true. This is good. The best. He's got his weekends with Grace, and nights with Steve, and those are the things keeping him sane, right now. A few moments, hours, against the world, before Steve is up and swimming, running against whatever clock is ticking inside his head, and Danny's inbox is full, phone ringing off the hook.

"See," he says, low and drowsy into the air, just for the hell of it, just to say something, picking out words all slow and methodical, "I told you going out wouldn't be so bad."

Even if he could have given all that up, just for this. Easily. In a heartbeat.

The whole world is, annoyingly, present outside his head. Finite shapes and noises. The way the endless wall and wash of white ebbs off, almost entirely, even when it leaves him heavy muscles, strained until a snap, still loose. He could still jump into action with little thought to it. But he's avoiding that thought, letting it continue on to whoever it needs, because he has had to. For a month.

They've only had to get up and run after a case once or twice. The rest of these night cocoon themselves into darkness, sleep, the solid warmth, touch, feel of a body sleeping at his side. The one half under him right one. Danny's. The though he could move off Danny is even less active, after all these weeks, than the one where he could for work.

Because Danny doesn't make him, and Danny is actually far more talkatively, almost disappointed, when he does. Pull away somewhere else. The few times he ever managed to disentangle any bit of himself from Danny. From wanting to burrow even further into the smaller man. The warm solidness of him, his breath, heart beat, never completely still movements.

Like now even. When the faintest movements still catch like pins being dropped in abject silence. Or is just abject, obsessive, observance of Danny, of nothing but Danny? The way the arm blanketing him tightens, so briefly, not even strong enough he thinks its on purpose. Like Danny's body still talks even when his mouth isn't yeti

It should annoy him. Be clingy. Or something. Especially by now. Weeks in. But it doesn't. It's a interesting thought really to have trampled by Danny's rough low voice. Low. Not so far from his face. His ear. Everything else.

When Steve can't help the jerk of the muscle in his cheek, how it makes his mouth curve trying for sharp, even semi-clinging to muddled. Making him open his eyes, challenge Danny's stupid mouth, even when he's remembering how fast and sharp Danny had gotten annoyed about Steve opening his mouth to respond last time.

"We'll just do it, again, tomorrow, then," is coolly smug and challenging. And just the smallest bit distracted by letting his hand in Danny's hair shift. Curve against his head, through more of his hair. Fuzzily considering the notion of tipping it and kissing him now. Already.

Because he would. For this, the way it left him feel winded and warm and the way they were still, well, like this. He didn't care if it was crazy. Not when it felt this good. Ended like this. Even this was great.

"Nope."

He shakes his head, pressing his lips into negation hovering somewhere between resigned and fond. "I think I'm set for life."

Not that Steve seems to be paying all that much attention, hand moving in Danny's hair, making him want to push back against those fingers, because there is nothing like the feeling of blunt nails and strong fingers against his scalp, no wonder dogs love it. While Steve sounds fuzzy and amused, quirking a smile that disappears into the mess of blankets, and doesn't move. Tugging an answering one from Danny, because this feeling is goofy, this feeling is Hallmark cards and stupid songs on the radio, and he doesn't even care. Just lets it trample him, unimpeded for the moment, aware that he'd be knocked flat if taken by surprise, but now just floating along the surface.

It's there. That's all he needs to know right now. The rest can be worried about later, right?

He might even be able to joke about the girls, now. Lying here with incontrovertible proof that they weren't wanted, in the end.

Maybe. It still feels like pressing on a bruise, to remember, but at least the murderous thoughts that had been painting the inside of his head with red are gone.

The words are easy.

Steve could probably guess, within a very close approximation, the exact kind of smile on Danny's face. Pleased, like he expected it, but a little flinty, like the notion that Steve thinks he gets to poke this at all is hilarious. Expected. Unwelcome. And almost amusing because it's Steve, and he will anyway. The way it gets said, with that shake of Danny's head, brushing into his fingers, but never pulling away or snapping.

But at the same time they aren't. Easy. Those words. That should be. Logging awkward somewhere between his ears and his chest. The words themselves. Danny, and his joking tone, set for life. Here on the other side of having snapped and snarled at anyone who considered having an opinion, arms loose and lazy, around his shoulder, hand on a hip. Here. With Steve. Set for life.

But that's not what he means, even when the notion creeps hard, sharp and surprising under Steve's skin.

Even when he knows they're talking about the bar. The girls. The situation. By not. Knows that notion is insane. That this isn't, they aren't, anything like that. Whatever it is. Whatever they are doing. Still doing, all these weeks later. Knows no matter what he does or doesn't know about this thing they are or aren't or keep doing, that isn't him. Hasn't ever been him. His life. Anyone in it. Not even his family.

No. Not them. Especially now. With Mary, main-landed and still unknowing. And Doris, lost, again, in parts unknown. Alive.

Steve thoughts, and the freezing hold somewhere in his stomach, distracted at the faint lean of Danny's head. Against his fingers moving. Not hard, not insistant, not like he was making a point or asking for anything. Just like he was listing toward the touch. Enough Steve glanced up a little. At his face, after a careful second of pause, carding his fingers in against Danny's head, and before straightening his fingers and following the hair out, feeling it long and smooth between his fingers.

Maybe a little too precise in the way he said, "I'd love to see how you explain that one to Kono."

His hand doesn't lift off Steve's hip, exactly -- his fingers do, arching loosely, and it shifts a little, a muted gesture, but it doesn't actually go anywhere. "You know, contrary to what she believes, that woman has no actual say in my social life."

He could point out that Steve didn't seem to care what Kono thought the day after he left Danny covered in bruises, visible enough that her scarily sharp eyes caught the one at his neck a mile away. It's true that Kono would hound him for weeks if she thought he was just being difficult, but Kono still thinks he's seeing someone on the sly, which he has not, exactly, argued with.

He just hasn't used any names, or even insinuated that it's a woman. Still, he's glad there haven't been any more, uh. Incidents, regarding his neck and any marks she might be able to see.

He doesn't add it, though, because Steve's gone still. Not relaxed, still, like he's just had some sort of second thought, and when Danny blinks his open to half-mast and looks, there he is, watching him, looking too serious and too -- what is that? Wary? For what? Where would that even come from right now, when the room is close and the dark is soft and warm and weariness is blurring the edges of all Danny's muscles and thoughts.

Making Danny's eyebrows dip, slightly, drawing loosely together before lifting. Fingers settling back on Steve's skin, uncertain what might be causing that slightly stilted tone, but it's not a warning or a complaint, so he's not letting go.

Possibly wouldn't, even if it were.

"I think she thinks I'm doing okay for myself recently, anyhow."

Steve snorted at the first one. A little slow, uncertainly testing, when he let his fingers drift back into Danny's hair.

Follow, slowly, in the same direction he'd run them once already. Dragging them slowly through Danny's utterly messed up hair, still a little stuck from product all pulled apart, except here and there. Causing Steve to stop halfway through, twisting a piece with too much between his pointer finger and thumb, loosening the grip of adhesive holding it all together.

He's doing that when Danny looks at him, and maybe it's excuse enough not to drop his eyes and catch him. Like he can actually see anything more than the wisp of a shadow of that hair between his fingers as he's releasing it. Anything more than all the rest of the darkness. "That's probably for the best."

Even rhetorical, it meant less questions if people were taking things for granted. Even if the idea people were imagining Danny with some mystery woman still made Steve's skin snap like it tightened on his muscles. Not now. But in the occasional mention in person. That still came even though it had become pretty widely settled Steve was dead set that if Danny didn't want to talk about it, then he was following his partners lead.

Which might have been just as much lie as truth. It was complicated.

But convenient, too.

It didn't hurt that no one expected Steve to have anyone stashed anywhere.

Not after the last two years. Certainly not Danny. Like he'd just harped on. He wasn't like that. He didn't have the time or drive or need or whatever it was that drove people. That wasn't simply duty. It wasn't something people expected of him. There wasn't a single reason for there to be. But something about that, the reaffirming from a completely different direction of his earlier thought, makes him slide his fingers.

A little wider against Danny's head, a little firmer drag of finger tips against his scalp. Like, he didn't even know, some incredibly stupid proof that he was here. Still here. Right now in this moment. No matter how much everything said he shouldn't be, or wouldn't be long.

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)