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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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?

It's a toss up really. Between whether he's holding out to see if Danny will mock him about those three words, another well, yeah, it's supposed to, again, as Danny can take anything and make it delightfully something to poke with, or if really, Steve's head will keep melting down his shoulders, making it so he really doesn't care one way or the other.

Just so long as he doesn't stop yet. When what happens first, really, is that Danny gives renewed focus to his fingers, more pressure and attention to it. Making Steve have to catch what might have turned into a soft groan in his teeth and the hold of his jaw. That don't stay long either. None of the tension is staying right now. Coming in and out, flicking in and gone, like fish coming up for air, and then falling right back under.

When Danny lets out a sound that tugs at him, almost matching the one Steve didn't let himself make. Sinking up through Danny's skin and into his. Warm and pleased. When that breath goes out and Danny settles, and maybe they won't move and Steve still won't give a damn. Well. About the pillows and blankets and mess. He should. But Danny seems to be good at diverting his want and will to do anything sensible.

With clean-up or sleep or anything, that isn't laying here, letting himself sink slowly into heated water, muscles relaxing. The world made up of the pressure washing in and out against his head, down all his other muscles. The way it mixes. With the sound of the waves. With the pull of Danny's breath, above his forehead and below his own chest. Mixing together, seeping into and pushing out everything else.

Until this is all there is, in the easy in and out of his own breath. Danny. Just Danny. Under him, still laying him out.

Making the world collapse smaller and smaller, darker and darker, warmer and warmer, taking over everything that is anything.

There's no further comment from Steve, who seems to be sinking deeper, slow and steady, relaxing a little more with every breath, muscles like butter. Making Danny rub his thumb against and around his temple, where headaches always spike for him and it can be like pressing a button to switch them off. Even when Danny's not sure how well he'll be able to feel it, because Steve's breathing is evening out, deepening, and if he's not falling asleep right now, he will be soon, without moving and going back to some sort of action.

And maybe they should. Right? Clean up, get under sheets and blanket, find pillows, be comfortable, and sleep while they can, but he just doesn't think he has it in him to interrupt this, now. Steve sleeps like shit anyway, wakes up multiple times in the night, sometimes strung so tensely that Danny thinks he's going to snap something, and he gets up before the sun nine days out of ten, even after a late night bleeding into morning, even after sex and release and relaxation.

So, come on. It's not a crime to let Steve sleep while he can, right? This is comfortable enough, and they can move if they have to, like if his arm falls asleep or it gets too chilly in the air-conditioned room without sheets or blankets, but he's in no rush. What's the point? He'd just want to get back to this, anyway, and Steve's guard is down, right now, which means Danny can do things like run fingers through his hair, rub circles into his scalp, keep arms wrapped around him and pretend like this is normal and not because he couldn't stand the thought of Steve taken away. Like this isn't holding on, like he's not being disappointingly selfish.

But just a little while. It can't hurt. And Steve needs time to let go, to not worry, to feel something other than the weight of everything, every person unsaved, every lie that keeps getting told, every truth that keeps getting shattered.

This is simple, and it's not enough, but it's good. So he just settles his head a little more comfortably, fingers drawing idle circles, and doesn't say anything about moving.

He does register some things, quietly, a sense of them drifting to him on the casual ebb and flow, of water and air. In himself, in everything all around him, slowly losing cohesion. When his arguments why this shouldn't happen are getting thinner and thinner, from brick walls to tissue paper to a fine mist, fading further and further away.

Against Danny's fingers, still moving, still moving and somehow the only solid, foundational thing somewhere under the weight of his head, of everything, as it's thinning away. Danny's fingers and the roll of night, thick and warm, both of them seeming to say the same thing. It's okay. Just breathe. Just let go. Stop fighting. Stop trying. Stop holding on to whatever it was he'd been holding on to. Whatever those things were. They were important, so important. But they're somewhere right outside of his grasp.

To get them he'd have to let go, and his fingers don't want to let go. He doesn't want to let go.

He has to keep letting go of so much. So he isn't stuck, frozen, walled in, slowed down, stopped, no matter what slams him.

But he doesn't want to let go of this. Danny's skin under his fingers. Somewhere not far from his nose. Not his pillows. Danny, himself. Real. Warm. Sex and sweat, and something deeply calming that he won't bury his head into with the same abandon of restraint and control shown his pillow case. But he still shifts in, settling down, and down, and down.

Forehead against a cheek and nose brushing against the top of his shoulder, juncture of his neck, with a breath.

Feeling the whole world, the solidness of everything, even Danny's shoulder beneath him, fingers, slipping from him.

He keeps his fingers in Steve's hair, but they're lighter, now, less a rub and more just a presence, smoothing over coarse, clipped strands, over gray speckles he can't actually see in the dark. And he's considering it. Just telling Steve to sleep. Breathe. Relax, let it all soak into him like bathwater: the dark, the peace, the calm that suffuses the island even when they can't touch it themselves. It's always there. Something beautiful and rich, something to do with the inevitability of the ocean, of beautiful weather, of sunshine and rainbows.

It's too much for him; he likes the bustle of cities and the noise of civilization, misses the hard gray reality of Newark and Manhattan, but right now, just now, here like this, he can appreciate the way Hawaii seems to tell everyone loving there to just chill. Lie back. Let it all just roll over, like a wave, like the perpetually rising sun. Even the persistent wash of the waves isn't as aggravating when it's blending with Steve's breath.

Look. He can't promise they won't get punched in the face with some new crisis or horror, maybe in the morning, maybe in a few minutes. It's possible. Maybe even probable. SO he can't say that this is all okay, that everything is fine and will continue to be fine, because it's not and it won't. Steve still has the reality of his mother to wrap his head around. Danny's still got Rachel and Grace to worry about. Malia is still recovering. And Kono -- she seems okay, but how okay can she really be when her Yakuza boyfriend is trying to revamp his public and not-so-public persona?

So is it any surprise that he wants to hold onto this, that he wants to let Steve have it, too? Steve, more than half curled into him, face tucked into the crook of Danny's shoulder and neck so he can feel every breath, feel the way it inflates an expansive, fragile glass balloon in his chest. Something huge and awkward, stumbling about on coltish legs, prone to tripping, but not shattering, not yet. Glowing too brilliantly to look at head on.

Yeah. He's the last person to tell Steve to wake up and face the world again. Someone's got to take that stand, and it might as well be him.

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