(no subject)

[haole_cop]

"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."

Comments

[thebesteverseen]

There's a hand in his shirt. Scrabbling against the muscles of his chest, before there's fisted fabric and that attempt to jerk him closer. Which bows Steve's shoulders, dragging him a good half foot, into the space where Danny has his other hand moving this way and that in the dark, as the tense, but never quite peaceful, silence of the night here is broken suddenly by a windstorm of words.

When he knows. Of course he knows. Maybe he hasn't had to watch someone stare at Danny like they had a momentary job for him to fulfill. But he got to watch him find, fall for, and start taking all these steps towards having a serious future with Gabby. Serious enough to involve Grace. Serious enough that needed to involve the whole team, Steve included. Who got a front row seat to why this was not possible.

Was never going to be. Was not in the cards for what Danny liked or wanted. Didn't conform to his cookie cutter.

So. No. Maybe he didn't know what it was like to have someone eye Danny like he was a great distraction to be won.
He'd only managed, mannerly, to walk through, push, shove, stand at Danny's side for something that might get forever.


"Easy?" Steve cough the word out almost like a too sharply surprised, amused sputter. Breaking glass at the edges of itself. As he reaching out, to counterbalance being drug forward, shirt being shaken, for the first time since the car, since too long before that.

Too long, with the bar, only barely glancing, and a work day, of the same. Too many back to back days. When his fingers find the Danny's bicep and his shoulder, tighter, thumb brushing a little too hard for one stroke out and back, like somehow this isn't real enough, when his eyebrows raise. Sharp, rhetorical, exasperated, even when it makes him warm.

"What about you insulting or yelling at anyone who came within five feet of us did you think was easy?"

[haole_cop]

"Insulted? I insulted no one."

Out loud, anyway, and he pushes closer, every inch of skin thrilling in a sudden slamming crescendo when Steve's fingers clutch his arm, digging in hard, thumb stroking along the fabric of his shirt in a way that is anything but gentle, and it's like throwing a can of propane on a fire. Everything that's been building up all night twists in his stomach, snakes up into his ribcage. "And I did not raise my voice even once."

Like Steve would possibly have missed any of that. Like Steve doesn't know every one of Danny's tones and moods, well enough that he can call him out on them over the phone, even if he's not there to see it in person. He knows when Danny wants to hit somebody, when he is running the ragged edge of restraint, has seen him hit rock bottom and give sanity and restraint a day off.

So he knows. Danny's banking on it. That the girls' might not have noticed, but Steve definitely did.

"You didn't seem to be having any issues with it."

Either Danny's reaction, or the attention. The whole stupid fiasco of an evening. It just left Steve grinning, delighted, teasing Danny for it even after they left the bar behind, and that deserves a flash of temper all it's own. His hand leaves Steve's shirt, bounces the edge off his chest, reaches for his arm again, fingers wrapping around bicep, pushing up under that sleeve to cover what he can see of the tattoo.

It's possessive. Pissed off. And he doesn't give a single shit, okay, he has spent more than enough time tonight not getting to lay his hands on Steve in any way other than the prescribed, appropriate for public ways. Hand sliding rough up over his shoulder, to palm his neck. "Let me ask you this, do you like driving me crazy? Don't answer that, I already know you do."

[thebesteverseen]

It's angry and claiming. It's the only thought that charges through him when Danny's hand wraps around his arm, and his gaze slides there, murderous and a little impossibly desperate. Like he still needed to cover this space from anyone pop up in the room or can't stop still needing to remove the hand that had been resting on Steve's arm, asking for more, even though Steve got her to stop.

That part he doesn't fight against. That part just inflates this white hot electricity through him. Jump starting straight through his heart, and down through every single vein. Because even here there's something for him to defend against, rail from-for. Because Danny's voice is shattering sharp, with so many different things inside of it. When his hand moves up, and Steve's stomach drags with it, suddenly.

Almost against the notion. Against wanting Danny to move or let go of that spot, even when there're suddenly fingers sliding needles up the tight shirt over his shoulders and then the more sensitive skin of his neck. When Danny's still pressing in, like even this is too much space. Words so pissed off, scalding the air, filling his chest with helium, and something so big it pressing out against his ribs again.

Threatening to crack his ribs, to make space for itself, with every new explosive word Danny was shooting out.

Words that should be a threat, should be insulting, should be like steel spikes pinning him into place for knowing what would happen and giving in and going where Danny wanted anyway. For lapping up every single second from the moment he noticed, and even on the ones he hadn't. When he wouldn't forget the look on Danny's face, or the way he held himself, for weeks. Weeks, if ever.

When Steve matches him for the stretch of voice, but it's not insult he throws back. Christ. When his hand snakes up from that shoulder. To find Danny's hair, fingers up the back of his neck and into his scalp, and drag him closer. Close enough Steve can see the faint reflective qualities of his eyes in the dark and feeling the rush of his breaths, the brush of his chest, the tighten of his hands, dragging him with back into the center of a field of fire.

But not kissing him. He's so close he should be. So close the fact he isn't make his heart feel like it's going to spasm until he gives in. Like he's denying a necessity. Like breathing of his heart beat.

But he doesn't. He leans in. Tall and looking down, that thing in his chest so fucking hot and wide, like the fire is only learning how to take flight in this job, with no inch of remorse in it when it washing through him, overwhelming like a tide, like every second spent watching Danny take on people who more like wind and ghosts than real to him. When all he wanted was more. All he wanted was to touch it, to drag Danny against him, and taste it.

"Did I like it that you couldn't stand still?" Fingers digging into that hair. Chest tightening like a vice with each breath out and swelling like a balloon of guilty arrogant possessiveness refusing to apologize with each new word. "Couldn't handle polite conversation. Or any other person. Without firing off your mouth, shoving in, answering things that weren't directed at you."

Christ. How is ever supposed to not have liked it. Seriously? Danny, could just stomp in and own all of it. Shove each of those people aside. Because he can't. God. He can't. At all. He wants all of this. If he could cut Danny open and put this part of it in himself, to remember it was real. To feel it, so it still didn't feel impossible, like he'd just somehow dreamed another insane, upside down spin to his life that was less a life and more a tilt-o-whirl that fallen off its track.

"That you were acting--" When his mouth can't even stop, not here, not in the dark, no when it's just them. "--jealous--." The word just slides out, oozes. Warm and smug and so his. Accusation point as much as shielded possession, that is his and can't be fought free from being his now. "--like you wearing a damn neon sign, that I'd be surprised if anyone missed, over nothing?"

[haole_cop]

His other hand finds Steve's hip, seeks out a beltloop, grabs it, tugs on it, and it's not like Steve couldn't take him down if he tried, but Danny's not exactly a wilting flower, either, stocky and strong and he can give as good as he gets, when Steve's fingers grip into his hair and pull. He wants to shoot someone, hit something, is in the kind of mood where tying a person to the hood of his car seems like the perfect solution to a night gone so far south he can't see anything but the bottom he's scraped along. He wishes for a car chase, a violent suspect, someone he can slam into a car with their wrists behind their back and cuff them.

But there's no criminal, no chase. No one to book, or cuff, or fight; just Steve, and the glass ceiling his blood pressure is shattering against. And he knows he can't hide it, okay? He never has been, these things have always played across his face like a movie getting skipped over. It's how they ended up here to begin with, because he couldn't strangle it that first morning Steve came back, in the diner, the most innocuous spot in the world, as Kaila dropped a napkin with a lipstick kiss practically in Steve's lap and Danny's head exploded into a jealous rampage.

"I can handle polite conversation just fine." Grinding, vicious, the way every one around them had hamstrung him into sullen submission, because he wasn't allowed to do this, couldn't say anything, do anything, step in and force them to clear off. "That's not the point, Jesus, I'm not gonna just stand around and be fine with some random woman touching you, they don't --"

They don't get to. It's the only clear thought, clear like a campfire licking flames into the dark, like a bolt of lightning blotting out the details of the world. No one does. He doesn't care if he's got no right, if they never decided, defined, it doesn't matter when it feels like his heart is being ripped from his ribcage and all he can do is fight it with whatever he's allowed, and push for more until someone finally shuts him down. The idea of losing Steve to some pretty smile and flirtatious glance is too absurd, shoving a violent mess of murderous thoughts into his head, unstoppable and spiraling into insanity.

This insanity, that's got him shoving forward and pulling at the same time, dragging Steve into his space, pushing into Steve's, like he could possibly wipe away the memory of anyone else even considering being there, other people, who were, what. "Nothing?"

Nothing, like Danny said, nothing? Or nothing, like actually, who cares about the girls in the bar, nothing? "Did that seem like nothing to you?"

Some tiny spark of what is left of his rational mind is trying to pull his finger off this trigger, point out that nothing is exactly what he wanted, for them, those girls, any other person who looks at him, to be exactly that, nothing, ignorable and unimportant. But Steve is looking so damn arrogant and that dark brilliance is back in his face, and Danny just wants to shove up under his skin and stick there like a bruise that won't go away.

Bare inches from Steve's mouth, with his heart hammering out staccato gunfire, feeling like he's losing his mind all over again. Jesus, fucking -- they don't get to, no one gets to take Steve away from him, no one gets to even try, not if he's there to do his best to stop it.

[thebesteverseen]

He has to jerk forward, when his pants get dragged. Hips jerked by pants, knees and thighs colliding, a shuffled step he wasn't planning for and they're quickly losing any space there was. Quickly losing the being any air left. Like this space, with it's wide layout and vaulted ceilings has shrunk sudden and drastic in a fire flash to the space barely right here. Not even enough of it for a bubble around them.

When his stomach seizes and coils on contact, driving his fingers in Danny's hair a little harder, and his other hand to find the side of Danny's body. Rumpled fabric and ribs. The fast rise and fall of them, like air can't seem to get out or in, among all the words that are taking up Danny's throat and his mouth. When Steve literally can't take his eyes off this, can't even wish for light, to see this more, because he can't envision it.

Anything that involves being one step away, one inch away, not flush with Danny. Able to feel him nearly vibrating to break open.

When Danny's mouth might as well be throwing shattering glass shards, vicious, defensive and offensive, all at the same time. While he's grafting himself in against every inch of viably able skin, and Steve is lost between the want to remind him this whole night was his and just to bite his tongue, finally. Because Danny even sounds like he just wants track down that unnamed girl and slash off her finger tips still.

Like it was Danny she was accosting by touching Steve, and not Steve, himself.

How. In any sane and rational mind is he supposed to hate this. He should feel terrible. He might. A small bit. It's not what he wanted, wants. But he does, too. He wants all of this. The anger. The possession. For everything to matter. Everything. Even that word. Confused and angry and thrown back at him two more times. Making him shake his head, heart headed for jumping jacks.

When he enjoys it too much still. Sharp, painful, hot, beautiful. That question barely taking a second to have, "Yes," fly out of his mouth as dark as it is bright. It's nothing. They were nothing. Absolutely nothing. He didn't feel anything like this. Need anything like this from any of them. Names and faces, sliding in and out. When the only thing that stayed the same was Danny. At his side. Danny. Loud and annoyed.

Like an electric current he wanted to shove his hand into even if it might burn off all his skin, wreck all the walls left standing.

Because. Just. There isn't even an explicative strong enough. When he's staring down at Danny. Because he doesn't want anything from his days, anything from this night. Not as much as he wants Danny. He wouldn't have even been there if it wasn't for following Danny's lead, and him wanting to have a night out, where he could bitch about the day out.

When both of them are ruined and riddled with fuck all from the world messing up anything they try.
Delighted with Danny, but beyond done with the rest of everything and everyone that don't matter.

"Because it was, Danny." Nothing. When he's leaning closer. His forehead is going to be brushing Danny's skin in second. The whole world is just going to turn into an inferno that's based on the rhythm of two hearts beating in, through, against his chest. "You're angry -- for what now? A drink, at a place you wanted to go? An accident, you would have stopped just the same if you'd been in my chair? One game, you didn't say no to either?"

He knows what it is. What it is more than that. When he's joining to jerk Danny even closer, even when there shouldn't be closer. When his spine is threatening to turn itself into lightning, grinding through his muscles, setting fire through his back, along his ribs, making his shirt too tight, hot, constricting, dividing. "I wouldn't have even been there, if it wasn't for you. I haven't wanted, even for a moment, one thing that wasn't--"

Except the word catches, angry and hot and bright, like silver melt fired so high it's nearly bleeding white-yellow. You. You. You. When he's done. He's just done. And his head tilts and he's demanding Danny's mouth again. Crashing his own against him with force that should involve far more space or lead up than the little space it gets. When he wants this still. He wants all of it. Insanity. Desperation. Anger. Possession.

Without a bar or people or the world or the stupid center console. Because this is close, and it's not close enough, and it's already so much everything he should step back and box it off, and he can't. He can't anymore than Danny can't. Because close is never close enough, and every time he can't have any of this he's so on edge, threatening his own seams like they are fragile as the first day and not decades old anymore.

[haole_cop]

Steve's talking, and Danny's brain is misfiring, short-circuiting into cataclysmic shutdown, saying anything that comes to mind, just to layer his voice over Steve's, while the space between them crushes out to an infinite nothing that is still not close enough. Could never be.

"Will you shut up, why are there words coming out of your mouth?"

When it feels like his veins are full of gasoline and the touch of Steve's forehead is the touch of a lit match, chasing fire through his blood and choking him with it. Asking about Danny's anger, like Danny could possibly explain it in any way that does not paint him as a possessive lunatic.

Anger that he can't explain, that is way too much for what happened, and he knows it, should shut it down, because he can't. Just can't react this way every time someone so much as glances in Steve's direction with even the most marginal of interests, but he can't push it away, either, stomp it out or pretend like he doesn't care, because he does. This. This. Steve's hand, forceful against his ribs and stabbing electricity into his head, Steve, looking at him like Danny is some storm that's blowing in off the water and Steve's determined to race him out. All brilliance and bare, ragged lines that every one else looks at and sees as pretty, attractive, something to appreciate and admire, but that Danny knows like he knows his own face.

Knowing how he wants that sentence to end. What word should be there. The one he'd use. When the only thing he wants is Steve. And for the world to just lay the fuck off, just for a little while; for Grace to stay with him and for Rachel to drop this custody case, and for Doris to -- he doesn't know, morph into some person who can't hurt Steve anymore, and for Malia to heal faster.

But Steve. More than anything, in this second. Wanting him with every cell in his body, every scattered, melting thought left in his head, every striking beat of this stupid bruised goofy heart that just doesn't get the message, ignores everything except the look in Steve's eyes and the matching dive off a cliff in Danny's chest.

And finally, finally, Steve's mouth. There. Shutting off light and air and making Danny push into him like this is a fight and not a kiss, fingers carding into Steve's hair, arm wrapping around his waist, hard. Recognizing this feeling as desperation, as fear, as really actually thinking he might lose this for no good reason at all. With "Christ, Steve," jerking out of his chest, against that mouth, before Danny's kissing him again, hard and wanting and to hell with the rest of the world, this is what he needs.

[thebesteverseen]

In a way, part of it is almost like taking a bullet. Forceful and sudden, like whatever was there, left holding Danny back, still, even though his voice had been taking up this whole room and Steve's whole head, was pulverized when Steve kissed him this time (again). When every ounce of holding back on Danny's part through all of that seems to thrust forward at him, physically.

Sending Steve back a handful of steps. But he doesn't let go. He's not going to. Not yet. Not when Danny's arm is looped around his waist refusing to let go, holding him so tight he has to wonder if the grip of that hand might bruise his skin straight through his shirt or pants. The points of his fingers almost entirely distinct even through layers. When even these thoughts are barely there. Matching the one's singing against the back of his head.

Seconds that stack and stagger together, when Danny gasps against his mouth, swearing, saying his name like it's been drug up from somewhere impossible to get to. When that word is almost as desperate as the force being shoved at him, like Danny can make him pay. For the entire situation, for all the walls and impossibilities, for all the reasons Steve tried to point out were all reasons he might go. New. Different. Harder.

That Danny deserves more, wants more than whatever it is he had in his hands, however it was that he saw everything.

When that kiss back is punishment as much as it is proprietary, and Steve would let him. Let him take out whatever he needs to. On him. It's not fair. It's not something he can wave his hands and make fair. Any more than he could ever wave his hands and stop giving a damn. Than he could wave his hands, and step back, and stop kissing Danny now. Matching fever and want, and, sure, maybe even a icy vein of fear.

Now that Danny really has had a taste of part of why Steve said he might wake up and decide he was done with it all.

When he's shoving that down, shoving it out, curling his fingers into Danny's hair, pulling him close enough teeth snap for a moment, when he wants to shove him against a wall, and make him understand. Everything else is nothing next to him. They didn't matter. Most of his world didn't matter compared to Danny, or made itself resemble an odd wasteland that was still somewhere above surviving, with highlights of laughter and smiling moments drug out from him, only because of Danny.

Yeah, and Five-0. But mostly Danny. Who it seemed this was all he could pay back with, whether of his own idea's or Danny's.

[haole_cop]

It is seriously like being washed away. The panicking power of a riptide, looped around an ankle and dragging him out to sea, and he doesn't care, because it's Steve and he trusts Steve with his life even if he doesn't trust the girls around him as far as he can throw them. Because Steve is still here, came back with him, didn't stay, didn't even want to stay, or think twice about it. Let Danny get angry and jealous and isn't fighting with him about it, saying he's got no right, that they never defined this, that he can't, shouldn't.

And maybe they should. Lancing into his stomach and sliding up under his heart, cold panic scaling the rungs of his ribs, but maybe they should, because panic is better than the over-whelming horror of losing any of this. Losing Steve. His back, muscles flexing under Danny's hand, skin still surprisingly soft when he runs the tip of his thumb along the waistline of those cargo pants, where the shirt is rucked up into folds. The clash of this, the force of it, nothing like before and still the only thing he wants now that he's had it, now that he knows it exists.

Lighting like a bonfire under his skin, too fierce to be happiness, that he doesn't have to give up yet, that this is still his, still happening, still a miracle he can question and question but which hasn't disappeared yet. He wants to chase kisses all over Steve's skin, find every detail of his tattoos, shove him into a wall, the couch, the bed, and burn out any idea that anyone else might be taking his spot any time soon.

This stupid, fluttering, fragile as glass thing, threatening to shatter and ruin him, that beats harder when Steve is nearby, leaping into life from where it had been tipping at the edge, earlier, that Danny can't protect any more than he can stop a bullet. Not from this.

Hauling himself back from the brink long enough to keep from splitting a lip, chipping a tooth, turning this into an actual fight, because he doesn't want to argue it, okay. He just wants to know. That this is what Steve wants. Unable to ignore the madcap sparkler cartwheeling across the inside of his skull that it is.

[thebesteverseen]

He can tell, by parts, when Danny starts to relent. The way he can tell, maybe, when his tone shifts in the middle of a sentence, for any reason. When the finger that finds his skin is soft, nothing like the grasp from minutes earlier. When Danny seems able to finally remember how to pull in air for breathing again. The location of it shifting his shoulders.

When it doesn't change that they are locked together in the foyer area of his living room, still holding on, the sound of their breathing seeming to fill the whole area. Everything in his ears. When his vision almost feels edged and fuzzy, like being thrust into, giving into, a long, hard, take everything, windsprint without thinking about it first, only focusing on the destination, the singular point in front.

That would be Danny, here. Tearing through every wall he built like it was tissue paper. Still. Again. Always.

Close enough he doesn't have to have his eyes open to know he's right here. When he's taking a breath, licking faintly throbbing lips, swallowing and looking down at Danny. Danny, who could trample him in a way not else could, in a way he'd welcome. Go with, not fight back against, when he can fight and win nearly anything, everything thrown in his way to defeat.

When Danny's right there, beneath his gaze, looking as dazed, but still broken wide open, like everything is shattered all around them, but it's not all red anymore maybe. When Danny's name is jackhammering through his chest, at his throat, but his tongue feels like solid cement. Because he can't actually fix where it all came from. How. Say it won't happen again.

Stoppering the word, leaving him there, in the room that's too quiet and still suddenly.

Like the pause after an explosion, ears ringing, ground settling, before you can even know what did or didn't survive.

[haole_cop]

There's a pause, like they've hit the eye of the storm, but it can't last, because they're both strung tight, now, wound to a shivering tension, and that's always a sign of explosions to come, but he can take a second, now. Breathe, like he hasn't been able to since that girl just about fell into Steve's lap, and then looked disappointed that she hadn't.

Breathe, and let his hands move a little from their death-grip on Steve's body, the back of his head. Fingers sliding from short, coarse brown hair to the nape of his neck, to the cradle of the curve at his shoulder. Relax his other arm, let his hand stray to the vulnerable small of Steve's back.

Feeling a little less insane, a little less like the whole world is going to pay for the actions of a few aggravating girls in a bar, but Steve's still close and still looking at him, licking his lip, and that's a whole other kind of insanity, one he's still not sure he's used to. After weeks. Getting to find his way along all the lines and curves and planes of Steve's body, ending up here more nights than not. It's all still a rush, unbelievable. And Steve thinks there was no reason for Danny to worry?

He licks at his own lip, feeling a little wild around the edges, but the pieces are starting to pull back together, shrinking the world down to the room, the darkness, Steve against him, the pounding of his heart, frantically chasing down the air he can finally breathe.

"Just so you know, you shouldn't take this as an invitation to flirt with people in bars."

Just because Steve enjoyed himself doesn't mean Danny wants to go through this every time they go out in public.

[thebesteverseen]

He tenses his jaw a little, muscles down down into his neck, as Danny's hand release. Trying to shove down the part of him that really doesn't want him to let go. That makes his arm twitch just a little at fighting back the impulse to let his hand fall from Danny's head, catch over Danny's own, keep it from moving, from letting go. When even if it hurts in some small amount, he knows it's real.

Could feel it so much nothing had distracted him from it, this, Danny. For a few minutes there.

When he barely lets his thumbs, shift a little in Danny's hair, watching the little movement of his eyes in the newly adjusted dark. Watches them cover his face. Hinge on his mouth, causing the same reaction, from Danny's own. Stil moving around. Wide, and not blue in the blackness. But they are. He knows. Light, electric. The too deep lines in Danny's forehead that mean he's still thinking too hard.

Which is as far as Steve gets before those words come tumbling out of that mouth. He can't even tell what the hell it is. That sudden bubble of shocking warmth popping into existence in the center of his chest. With a nearly painful pop. Shoving everything aside. When Danny sounds like those words are at once warning, demanding, sullen. All bleeding together.

When he can't help how it falls out, blithe and light, too warm, fingers spreading across his shirt, rather to keep him where he is. "So, you won't be in one, ever again, is what I'm hearing?"

As he didn't flirt with anyone earlier today. Hadn't even considered it except in certain seconds, before the continual disruptions and distractions. That if tonight were anything for Steve to judge this by, tonight -- hell, the last few weeks, months, years, aside from momentary appearances of Cath, even lesser blips of people that could remain forgotten -- there was only one person those words could mean Steve couldn't flirt with in a bar.

[haole_cop]

It's some kind of problem he's got, the way his heart lifts on Steve's tone, the lightness in his eyes, the way they've gone heavy-lidded and fond, and he's got that face, where his eyebrows pull up in the middle like he's curious, but it's all just a sham, because he knows what's coming out of his mouth, the things he's saying. Mixed in with the hand that spreads wide fingers over his ribs, nudges a thumb into his hair, Danny is at very serious risk of actually losing his bad mood altogether, in favor of burning this face, moment, feeling into his memory so he can pull it out and look at it any time he wants.

That face. He wants to frame it, hang it on a hook inside his head, because it's one he sees all the time and he can never get enough, can never see it for long enough to define all the subtle little tics and shades that cross Steve's features, while Danny's heart does calisthenics like he's never seen the guy before in his life.

Even while his own mouth twists, wry, as he raises his eyebrows. "Why, are you planning on flirting with me in bars?"

It's a weird thought, but it shouldn't be, because over the last month, he's noticed that not a lot has actually changed in their day to day interactions, and that's...weird, surely. It all feels different, seems like it means something different, when he's lobbing insults at Steve's head and then Steve goes off and does something spectacularly dangerous, but it isn't.

Which leads him to believe that, if this is flirting, they've been doing it for a whole lot longer than he can think about without wanting to turn in his badge on the grounds of being a terrible detective.

[thebesteverseen]

Steve's mouth just curves more, because that question is wry, a little suspicious, but it is the smallest step sideways and down from sullen and demanding. Like Danny's been sidetracked from wherever his original point came from in there by Steve's own question. Which just makes him feel like he's won something. Even if it is infinitesimal and might come right back in another minute.

When it's easier to simple let it roll, in the same voice and cadence as the first, "Well, I'm, obviously, not now."

He just got told as much, is loudly implied. And he knows, he's being a goof. But there's something to see Danny lighten for a second. He knows that so much of this can't get lighter. That as soon as they turn and look at it in direction, in this house, in their worlds, even with each other, it'll just be too sharp, heavy and exacting. But for this moment, this one, he's dragging it one a few seconds longer.

It'll all still be there. Like it is every morning when they wake up again. When it's all still there, and, miraculously, so is this. So often shifted to one side for the bigger, heavier things, until it just can't stay in the corner or in its few hours. When moments like tonight make this stand out even more. What it is. What it isn't. What are they doing. Where is it going. When is it ending.

[haole_cop]

That wryness is settling down to camp on his forehead, in the twisting line of his mouth, as his hand grips the side of Steve's neck like he wants to scold him but can't. "You think you're funny, but you're not."

Not that it matters. Whether it's actually funny, or it isn't, when Steve is looking at him the way he is, relaxed and amused and self-satisfied, full of smug arrogance, which is all there, yeah, but this. This, too. A way he's focused, like he's not even trying, that makes Danny feel suddenly like the only person in the world. Like maybe this isn't just some stupid joke, and Steve really can't think of anyone else he'd flirt with. Like all those girls, bikini babes, surfer boys, just aren't options.

Which would be a stupid thing to say, right now, right, just as Danny's winding down from the worst bout of jealousy he's had in -- years, probably, easily, and he's not sure even Steve is dedicated enough to screwing with him to want to suggest that any of those people might get a chance to take this place, Danny's place, right here. "Who wants your terrible lines, anyway?"

It's not like Steve's ever had to try all that hard. Obviously. When this whole night has been evidence that Steve can just wander into a place and people will just glom onto him, taking on the role of aggressor.

Not that Danny wants to see him actually try, because that opens a whole other barrel of swirling horrors that he's not ready to deal with, so he tugs at Steve's neck, instead, impatient, wanting to feel it again, again. Steve's mouth, his hands, the thrill that shoots through his long body when they press together.

[thebesteverseen]

Oh, he his. He really is. When Danny's hand tightens on his skin, along with the edged of his eyes and that turn to his mouth. When it's everything in one, eyeing him uncertainty and exasperation again, or still, but definitely not shouting at him to shut up. Not continuing to pretend he knows better than Steve what Steve wants or did or didn't do, or where he wants to to be, with whom, where.

When he's gone from from that first statement straight into the other and moves to that question. Like he can dismiss the subject, dismiss Steve's implication, the whole of everything. Even when his hand is pulling downward, trying to get Steve to lean over again. And he does, but he shifts to the side, dragging Danny closer than a kiss would.

Brushing past by inches. By passing Danny's rather clear request for a kiss like it hadn't happened, because he's going to answer that question if it burns itself straight out through his ribs and skin. When he's right next to Danny's ear, and there's no restraint. Something shamelessly dark in the soft whisper of two very solid words in that big, empty, black-shadowed room that can't keep the brilliant, pleased, scalding fire from his voice. "You do."

Before Steve let his mouth brush against the space across the shell of Danny's ear, drop down to the soft skin beneath it. Because Danny can't deny that. Try as he might. Five hundred, thousand, million words and excuses and insults to how bent his brain were would fall on deaf ears tonight. Because he got to see that in striking clarity for at least an hour.

What Danny definitely didn't want anyone else to get anywhere near having.

[haole_cop]

Christ. He hates his body sometimes, the way it betrays him when he least wants it to, because here it is, sending a shiver down his shoulder, muscles tensing, at the brush or warm breath and lips against the sensitive shell of his ear, and those words. Those words, in that voice, that could undo him completely, he's sure of it, knows it like he knows the kick of his gun and the acceleration of the Camaro.

"You are incorrect," he says, anyway, but it's too late, that shiver gives him away as clearly as any agreement, and he hates it, but it's true.

Not wanting lines. That's not it. But wanting to be the one they're aimed at. Wanting Steve's attention, selfish of it, jealous of it, craving it. Wanting, what. Something normal? The ability to go to a bar with the person he's seeing, and not have to pretend like they aren't, in some way, together?

But are they?

Seeing someone is as close as he's ever edged towards anything like that, and he's not sure Steve even heard at the time, and it hasn't come up again, so he's had the better part of a month to get the panic out of his system every time he thinks about using those words. Having no idea how long they might be true. He could be in Vegas this time next year, if he loses this case, and even if he's not, how long can he realistically expect this to last? Even if neither of them has been showing any signs of wanting to pull away, cut it all off, end things where they are.

But he's getting confused between what's normal and what's them, whether there's a line at all, whether it is just blurred past recognition or is still there, drawn between what they were before and what they are now.

"Quit lying to yourself, it's pathetic."

Lacking needles or claws. Made a lie by the way his head tips to expose more skin, pushing his forehead close to Steve's shoulder, close enough to breathe in, smell him, bizarrely calming after the assault on the senses of being in a bar, even with dim lighting.

[thebesteverseen]

Danny shivers against him, and Steve closes his eyes, against a wave of something, so clear and delighted, it's like even the darkness can't share it with him. It's better, even without anything else, than anything he can think of in this moment. In the world. Even when Danny's breath is catching near his ear, and he's pushing out words a second later. Different words, denying words.

Scrabbled together from whatever seems to be on the inside of his head right at that second. When he's laughing straight into Danny's skin, leaning down, letting his shoulder curve, following the line of muscle there. Light, while Danny is shifting, strain apart, giving him way, giving him room, even when his words are dragging out, still decrying his declaration of fact. Everything but Danny's mouth is in agreement with his words.

When it's too hilarious that he still has the wherewithal to be fighting back, when every other part of him is pulling closer, is pushing int Steve, thrumming under the touch of his lips, his tongue, the beat of a heart he can still feel against his own chest, the forehead turning into his shoulder, hands on both side. When it's like a stupid, amusing fight for a last inch when everything else is caving.

Going to a burst of warmth, and the taste of Danny's skin. The rush of his pulse when Steve finds that spot, not giving a damn about the slow building tension in his shoulders and upper back. When he's barely finished chuckling, when he says against Danny's skin, the amusement so thick that trying to sound completely level is shifting under his feet, against Danny's skin, like sand.

"Wait a minute, here. I can't flirt with anyone else. And, now, you don't want me to flirt with you." Which hasn't the faintest credence of any realism to it. Not even an iota of him is holding out a belief Danny's words mean anything, but he's still pressing him regardless. So amused, so, so full of this thing in his chest, begging to shatter with too much pressure and light, even in the darkness.

Making his mouth keep running, lips tracing his pulse point, interposing words with touch, "What exactly is it you want?"

[haole_cop]

That laugh should be locked up and meted out only under supervision, because it is deadly, seeping into Danny's veins and sparking there like a rogue electrical current. Melting his spine into a pool of uselessness, a puddle of hot metal somewhere at the bottom of his gut. And Steve, still laughing, Steve, still talking, Steve, tracing his teasing mouth down the cord of muscle standing out against Danny's skin, setting off dull explosions in his wake.

Making Danny want to point out that he is perilously close to flirting, right now, and didn't he just say, Steve, even though he didn't, couldn't, wouldn't, wants this too much, beyond reason or restraint. Which is still not the answer to that question, that comes rolling, lazy and loose and fond against the pulse that quickens under the touch of tongue and lips.

A question with only one answer. No. Too many answers. He could list off the things he wants, and take all night. The things the world won't ever give him, that he knows, okay, even if he won't accept it. He could. Start with those, scrape up some ridiculous additions, just to get Steve to laugh again, tease more, yeah, flirt, bizarre as it sounds, seems.

But all those things take a backseat, to this, this one. The clearest thing in his head, the only possible answer to that question. "You."

You. You. Steve. Just him.

It's a lot to ask for, he's aware. He's selfish. Jealous. Probably undeserving, definitely a lot to handle. But it's as honest as he can be, even while Steve is joking. And he's said it before: pushed to the edge, near-delirium from pleasure, when Steve takes a hammer to the few walls left in his head and brings them down in a shattering shower of glass. It could be, just flirting. Upping the ante.

But it's not. It's all certain, after the ache of the night, the fear of seeing him slip away. And it's not the heat of the moment. All he wants is Steve. However he can have him, but like this, most of all. Always at his side, dragging each other up after the world takes another swing at them. Feeling the way his skin gets too small for his body when Steve's mouth is on it. Arguing over who is taking up too much space sprawled in bed.

His hand tracks up to the back of Steve's head, eyes sliding half-lidded at the heat of breath and lips against his neck. "Obviously, what kind of detective are you? Oh, right, you're not."

[thebesteverseen]

It's only one word.



It's only three letters long.



And it only seems to go crashing through every wall and window, dragging all of his humor and joking with it. Lodging at his center. Detonating on impact. Shoving everything that is anything, is everything, else, out. Like a bomb leveling a house. When he can push for it, and he can joke about it, and he can pull it from tantrums that would stand out like sore thumbs to anyone who knew. But nobody knows.

Making Steve hold steady for half a second, maybe a second, before lifting. Pulling back, without dislodging the fingers rethreaded in his hair. Not thinking about them. Not thinking at all about the other words. Or even the slow, heavy-lidded way Danny has to come to moe attention. When Steve doesn't pull away, far. Not away really at all, so much as only back up.

When he's staring at Danny's face, the span of his hand sliding down to Danny's jaw, thumb and the flat of his palm finding skin, chasing what feels like an endless chain of explosions detonating one after another, slamming thought those walls and windows, like it's everything less than smoke and mirrors. When Danny sounds so certain. Raw and real, even against breathing a little hard.

Not kidding. Not just another thing tossed between them, making it go higher and higher. Not words dragged out of the breaking shards of every edge of enjoyment or someone's newest attempted destruction. Not just yelling and shoving in. Not something he cobbled together, or was forced to come up with on the spot. When he knows, somehow, somewhere, he knows.

Even if it's a little. Especially tonight. When proofs are laid out like debris around the places they've been. But it's not.
When everything goes so silent, and so lacking in any silence, and the only thing he can do is question it against the ache.

[haole_cop]

So.


Well, that didn't exactly go great. What with Steve freezing against him, suddenly shifting into careful neutrality, which is bad, before pulling away, which is worse, and Danny's heart gives a painful, resigned little pull, a thump that sounds like hitting the ground after a long fall.

Steve's hand still against his face, but he's not leaning in, not picking up a joke or tossing anything light-hearted back, and Danny watches, suddenly uneasy, wary, because, hell, he doesn't know, it might be too much. This all might be too much, him needing to get the hell out of that bar, making a big deal out of nothing, basically attacking Steve just as they got through the door, and then this. This, the honest answer to that question, when maybe he should have choked back honesty a little while longer.

It's only been a month. Only a month, with no lines drawn anywhere, just grateful, fucking grateful that it exists at all, when the whole world is asking for all of the rest of them and this just requires them to do what they do best, and stick by each other. But, Christ, he's not good at that, no good at dissembling, pretending. No matter what he says or does, it all comes seeping up to the surface, calling him a liar, while Steve gleefully points out the holes in his stories, the look on his face, and kisses him into quiescence or, at the least, surly acceptance.

And he doesn't want to. Lie to Steve. Make this any less than it is, which is consuming, which is so much more than he thought at the beginning, because it's still here, still, miraculously, incredibly, and he can't believe it, sometimes, feels the need to punch himself in the jaw to get his head on straight because it can't be happening and yet it is.

But now there's this. Steve, staring at him, wordless, and fear begins to beat panicked, fragile wings against the walls of his chest. Hell. What does he know? Not enough about when to keep his mouth shut, but that's old news to everyone in the room.

Shoving out a response, past the sudden thickness in his throat. "What, what are you looking at me like that for?"

[thebesteverseen]

As insane as it is to think, still, even now, he knows what it sounds like when Danny wants him. That they've been doing this, he has, Danny has, enough times in this house he be loathed to admit out right he can tell complete difference between his tone between distracted, but interested, and unable to breathe, why are you making me talk and dear god, i'll tell you anything, anything at all, if you just don't stop, don't stop and you want to blow up the world, that's nice, brain melted, mumble mumble mumble, grafted to his shoulder.

Enough times that he could tell you, this could easily go there, probably is going to get there at some point, maybe not even long from now. When Danny's heart hasn't stopped hammering the skin flickering at his neck. When Steve can tell, okay, it's not like he needs a guide book and map to explain it to him, when Danny's pressed up against him this close, hanging on to his body, finding the skin on his back, gripping his hair. Jerking his hips. Kissing him like he was going to brand himself on Steve for people to find a like a tag.

And Steve knows it. That word. The ones implied in it. Won't forget it. Can't. How it has tumbled into his ear each time, like a desperate secret, torn out from Danny's chest, being ridden by a molten wave taking them both under, in the cover of darkness, right at the edge of fraying sanity and desperation so blinding it can break down any feat of will trying to maintain the semblance of anything, trying to hold anything inside when everything rushes out.





But that wasn't the tone Danny just used. Even with heavy breathing, grinding lightly against him, giving him his skin.

That was more like. What? What was it? It was almost familiar. Almost like the tone he used when he talked about Grace. Reckless and shameless in wanting, desperation, devotion, endless reaction to the cascade of terrible things lawyers and court case poured on to him. When he needed to win, and he could almost admit, without having to say the words, he might lose.

A topic neither of them talked about much. Maybe because it was directly tied to a hard enddate for all of this.

Because Danny had to be with Grace, like plants had to have sun, and so Danny was going to win. His daughter. His life.




But. That was. It was precise and meant the way it was said. Ringing with clarity and certainty besides Steve's head. Like it was the only answer to the question anywhere, and not one of the half dozen or dozen jokes or insults he'd expected Danny to lob at his head. About flirting or other people or Steve taking his words and twisting them to mean everything Danny had never once implied in the first place anyway, Steven.

When that still doesn't. He can line up the facts. With evidential proofs. Fast. Barely seconds. Like a field op. He can haphazardly guess at how, if not why. Even tell when Danny goes a little rigid, beneath the fingers at his cheek and the hand still lingering on his ribs. When he's his eyes moving a little too fast, back and forth, flicking across Steve's face, watching him. Could literally tell this is the exact second where Danny Williams began to panic.

Because he knows him. He knows Danny. His partner. His best friend. The person he's --





But this. He doesn't know that he knows this. Or maybe he's to wary to consider letting it be any of the things shoved down, pressed under his fingertips, in his head. BEcause this is. It isn't casual. But it is still sort of just an extension of their friendship, of their partnership. Days after work, weekends when Danny doesn't have Grace, there are visits to the, research on the ghost of his Mother's background.

When it might not be casual, but it still is, too. When the two times they've pressed it into the world, somewhere else, something catastrophic or work related decided it was a better time for that. Like tonight going from easy hang out, to the middle of little warzone every other breath. When he doesn't know exactly where this is coming from or why.

It's so careful, a question without one, a challenge that isn't a joke, the need for clarity, when he repeats. "You want me."

[haole_cop]

Steve is still just staring at him, and it makes Danny feel uncomfortably naked, which is idiotic, considering the amount of times and ways in which he has been actually naked, here, with Steve. In the dark, in full daylight, in all the shades of light and shadow in between, from rumpled to disheveled to outright bare, every possible stage of undress.

But this is different. It's like, and unlike, the stare Steve pins on him when he thinks Danny's trying to hide something, some innocuous detail of his lunch or some huge shift in his world. It's been a while -- maybe because he doesn't ask about the court case and Danny doesn't volunteer information, after that conversation Steve caught the end of, only to make the idiotic comment that maybe Danny wouldn't hate leaving.

Jackass.

So it's been a little while, but this isn't quite that look, either: it's something bared, something that hooks behind Danny's heart and pulls, too cautious for Steve, who dives headlong off buildings and cliffs and runs into firefights without a second thought, unfazed by the prospect of being set adrift in a leaking dinghy too far from land to see it. Too careful, three words like he's stepping on cracking ice, and fully expects to fall straight through the floor at whatever Danny says to them, which, well. What is there to say? As his eyebrows lift, and he looks right back at Steve, exasperated despite the hand still on his jaw, cheek, feeling like he should be knocking on Steve's forehead like he would on a door.

"How is this news to you? Hello, Steven, where have you been for the last month that this comes as a surprise?"

Sure. True. Normally he does not admit it in exactly this particular way, but it's not like he's been kidding all the times before, or even that Steve fried his brain to a pulp that would just gasp words into the air and the dark without caring what they were or meaning them. That's not -- it's never been something he's done. Lying about something like that, using it, the thought alone makes his stomach turn. Twist in on itself.

So how exactly has Steve been taking it, all the times it's been said before? The fact that he's now watching Danny like he thinks he's going to pull his face off and reveal it's been a mask the whole time is hardly the reaction he would hope for. He means it, but it's nothing new, nothing different, he's felt this way all month, longer, since whenever it was he actually put all the pieces together and came up with the only picture that made sense.

"What about these signals has actually been mixed? I'm honestly curious, because there seems to have been some kind of drop in communication."

[thebesteverseen]

Where has he been the last month? Where has he. That thought alone, annoyed and a little too cold, cuts, even shoved back toward the darkness at the back of his headed, in kier than anything filling up this room. But not fast enough. Not to miss this catalog of things too big to fit in the passing second.

His m-- Doris. Japan, and the plane she left on here. Malia's slowly fading wounds, and the grimness that learned to leave Chin's face, but stayed, stubborn in his dark eyes. Kono, skittish and ready to thrust herself even harder into the job. Danny, more tense and ragged, stepping away for phone calls that frequently returned him in a worse mood. Max's physical therapy recovery reports still sliding, silent but necessary, across his desk.

The normal psychopaths and killers of a given week, whom booking and locking away did not ease the ever present knowledge Delano and Wo Fat were out there. Already at work at whatever they would both be doing next. Each as dead a trail as the other.


And this. Him and Danny. At the end of terrible and surprisingly good days. Not enough that it had a pattern to itself. But. Semi-constant. Which Danny rolls on saying hasn't changed the whole time. Then. Maybe he was wrong? Maybe he was just reaching? After that entire scene at the bar that hadn't happened before either. When he'd never expected that to happen. Maybe something. Not that. Not all of those emotions, sharp words, shoving himself in between Steve and anyone else in the room.

That had been, alright. New. Different. Maybe wrongfully, but still, amazing.

When he can't keep himself from moving. Fingertips against Danny's neck, pulling him back closer, with the hand across his jaw. It'd would be so much easier to miss him or tell him to stop talking and then do as much. Retreat as quickly as possible from this insane, wordless tension mounting in his center. But when has he ever been good at it. Holding back. Breathing. Planninog to survive a situation.

Even himself.

When there's slightly more challenge, eyebrows raising, "Seriously? You're going to call all of that earlier normal?"

The word slips out too pressed. Maybe he needs to hear it was, if it was. If -- in everything else he's got in a choke hold not to forget any second of Danny he can help fading even slightly from this month -- it is just all nothing. Normal. What Danny does. At least he'd know.

When somehow that gives him the opposite feeling of this whole night so far.

[haole_cop]

There's something splashed across Steve's face, and Danny can't tell what it is, which he hates. It's like hope mixed with caution, uncertainty along with disappointment. When he's pulling Danny closer, even as that question strikes out, close to aggressive, and Danny is anything but certain what they're actually talking about.

Earlier? Like the bar earlier? When -- how is that abnormal?

Has Steve seriously never had anyone be jealous over him, before? Does he not get that, feeling like Danny does, about Steve, there was zero recourse but to be jealous? That the thought of anyone else being here, getting to touch him or kiss him or be the person close to him makes him feel gutshot, bleeding out into a cloud of smothering cotton?

"No."

It is, and it isn't, but he's got to be careful, here, because Steve's got that bare-open look on his face that always reminds Danny that he isn't, after all, uncrackable, unbreakable, and Danny's had Rachel, but Steve's had...who? How much of any of this makes sense to him, is a path he understands and knows?

His hand shifts to Steve's side, fingers spread wide. Not normal for what they've been, but normal for, what, what he wants? Is that it?

Look. He can be as jaded and cynical as he wants about relationships and love and the prospect of anything that beautiful and fragile surviving the world they live in, but, God help him, there is nothing but truth here to dig out and present, because that is what you do, when you...when he feels like he does. When there is so much riding on it, and his own dignity is the first casualty to drop, because there's nothing for it but to put himself out there. Right? He's already in danger of getting crushed, what's the point in pretending he has any control over it? What's the point in hiding anything from the person who could do the crushing?

"I call it normal for feeling about you like I do. And, yeah, Steve. I want you. Do with that as you will, but it's not like it's not there, okay?"

[thebesteverseen]

The first word slide through everything, slick and warm. Like a sudden dollop of scalding water on ice.

But it doesn't cool like the image should suggest. It burns it's way down. Back to the center of his chest. Back to that place that has inflated sometimes. All night. Filled up until it felt like he might burst, only to keep holding, keep pushing the walls another inch out, and another, like his ribs and his skin hardly defined it. Slips in there, somehow sparking it back again.

Flickering out against all the quiet, stillness, tugging at the walls, tugging at the corners of his mouth.

Distracted for even partial awareness of that when Danny's fingers shifted at his sides, covering more space. The warmth of his skin divided so very thinly by this shirt. But he can't focus on that, even. Not really, because Danny is still focused, shifting, and he knows one word isn't go to cut it. Not for Danny, and his encyclopedias of words to answer anything asked of him.

Except it takes a longer second to even look like it's going to come, and maybe that does almost concern Steve. Like the thing running around at the edges of his spine, up his shoulders, in his neck, wasn't utterly gone. When the next words are more careful. Something he tries to pay some mind to, except that his heart tumbles, sideways, feeling like it either missed a beat or fell down a stair with each new word.

When it's something else. Fragile. Precious. Terrifyingly like have an object of the thinnest blown artisan glass dropped into his hand unexpected. That might break if so much as twinges a single muscle or takes a breath. At leas, it is until those last few words. When they sound almost like a get out of a jail free ticket. A write off of permission to just gloss over feeling like I do and I want you. Again.

Again, making that thing in center throb harder, even when he's starting to frown. At those last words.

Said like it's fine if he doesn't care so much about it. Like it's some fact he should know. Even if he doesn't care about knowing it, or it, itself. When the whole tumble of thoughts, snowballing, only makes everything sharper. The heat. The confusion. His grip against Danny's skin. The rise in his tone. "What is that supposed to mean?"