(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]

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?"

[haole_cop]

It's confusing. Seriously. When Steve looks like he's almost about to smile, and Danny knows it's the kind of smile that's going to try and crack his heart in half, because Steve, for all the shit he's been through, that the world has thrown at him, he still has this one smile, that's just as perfect and pure as a kid's, that gets Danny every single time. And he's edging towards it now, and Danny's bracing himself for the undertow that smile brings with it, before it abruptly changes, shifts, pulls the other way, as Steve's fingers tighten: on his side, on his jaw. Almost accusing, like he wants to shake the answer out of Danny like change shakes out of a pair of pants.

Which is...what? Really, what is going on? Danny can't keep track. First Steve made fun of him for being jealous, then implied that he liked it, but froze up when Danny admitted to wanting him, which should not be news, okay, that should come as a surprise to no one in this room right now -- and now this. Looking almost aggressive. Like he'd like to drag some other truth out of Danny, get to the bottom of these feelings and quantify them, when they can't be quantified.

And even if he tries to qualify them, saying it doesn't matter what you think or feel, I can't stop it, it doesn't matter. They resist that, too. They always have.

Hie eyebrows are pushing even higher. "Mostly that I don't want to freak you out, okay, you have gotten a little tense and me saying these things probably doesn't help, so, just..."

He's studying him, trying to find the bottom of it, because Steve, why would Steve want to hear any of this? It's what Danny warned him about to begin with, that he doesn't do casual and this is why, because he gets overrun by himself and can't hold it back, gets washed away with no hope of return, and that's fine, but it's his problem, okay, he doesn't want Steve worrying about it. "I don't know, Steve, what do you want me to do? Say I'm not gonna get jealous again? I could do that, but I can tell you right now it'd be a lie. To not want this, you? That's not gonna happen, either, okay, but I am not interested in making it hard on you. That is pretty much the opposite of what I would like this to do."

[thebesteverseen]

He really didn't think he could be any more floored than he was in the bar.

Except his eyes go a little wider in a shock that makes those words stand out so much louder and harder than any of the other things rolling by. When he's hearing them, but he's stuck on certain ones. Shoving away the hedging, the way they all wrap, loop, and lay together. Loosening his fingers against Danny's jaw, but not the ones curved over rid, even when he's leaning in more without meaning to.

Everything plummeting into a freefall, like the cliff it was standing on sheered off, somewhere behind him, off to the side. When he doesn't care at all suddenly about that. He does, might later, in a minute, not now. Not at all. About anything but the words forcing themselves, incredulous with surprise, out of this mouth. "You think you're making this hard on me?"

[haole_cop]

"Well, I know I'm not easy."

It snags, on something. A splinter, somewhere, old and still sharp, but he knows it. He never has been, isn't easy on anyone. He's a lot to deal with, all spiky irritation and a thousand words a minute; stubborn in everything and argumentative to the end, even after he's forgotten what he's arguing about.

And it might sidestep an agreement, but it is one, because, yeah, he does. Knowing none of this is what Steve usually wants, and being selfish enough to take it anyway, while saying things that get that face and that maybe someone who isn't rusty and out of practice and divorced and still bitter about the way everything can end would be able to say better, because all those things are there, make him up, like a lamp that shattered on the floor and got glued inexpertly back together but can still light when the switch is turned.

He just wants to get it right, is that so bad? And maybe minimize the likely damages while he's at it.

[thebesteverseen]

"Danny." There's a sigh. Almost like it can't stop fighting to get out of him. It's so big, so massive in his head. The want to hurt someone, something. The hurt, almost embarrassment, full-ownership of those words that feels like lands more solidly like a slam to Steve chest than any bullet, any weapon that's torn up his skin.

"Sure, you can-" No. No, no, no. That's not what he wants to even have in "--and this month has--" but that. No, not that either. He doesn't. It's been hell. Danny knows that. Danny. Danny who's been there with him for all of the fall out. All the rolling, exploding fall out.

When this, them, Danny, is the only reason he feels like he can breathe on any of these day. At his side, joking, walking their cases. Danny is the only reason he has any moments, stolen in the middle of the night, flooding him with reasons other than that he should curl up, numb and solid and run hard through all of this. When he doesn't know how to put that into words, how to make any of it come up out of his throat.

The hand at Danny's ribs coming up, find the other side of his face. Not like a frame, like he has to demand it. He needs all of Danny's attention. Every bit of it. For no other world, ghosts, idiot people he can't hurt to be there between them. "Maybe you aren't--" No. No. No. He just leans forward, trying to, god, ripping up the center of him, all that he is certain of.

"You are--" Okay, yes. Maybe. Who cares. There's no one here, but Danny. Danny, whose face, is everything, that he's dragging less than two inches from him. Who actually believes. That he isn't "--the best thing to happen to me this month." When his voice might crack, even this thick. "The only good one." When everything else. Their whole team. Their enemies. Their families. Everything. Everything else was falling apart.

Everything except them. Coming together. Even when it makes everything complicated, sure, and harder. But better.

[haole_cop]

He's not sure he's ever seen Steve actually at a loss for words. No, not just words. Sentences. Stopping and starting like the faulty engine of the Marquis, stopping and starting with his heart. Dragging it forward, letting it go, falling a sickening drop before catching again, lifting. He can -- what? Be difficult? He knows that, just agreed to that, has never tried to pretend that he's an easy person to be around, to be with. And this month --

Yeah. This month. Wringer doesn't even cover it, can't define the level of hell they have all been through, but Steve, Steve especially, and he tries, he does. To make it easier on him, as much as he can, but that's just one more reason to keep the pressure low, which is something he is completely failing to do, because of this. What he can't deny to himself. The way it feels like his whole ribcage gets jacked higher, body so tuned to Steve's touch that the whole rest of everything -- the room, the faint sound of the waves, the lack of light -- gets tuned off like Steve's turning a radio dial

Because he can't give this up. Can't help but give into it, this thing that feels so fragile but threatens to hit him like a ton of bricks, that is filling the days and nights with so much more, so much of what he thought he'd never get again, never.

But the hands on his face are demanding his focus, so he focuses, on Steve, the look on his face, blown bare and almost desperate, like Steve is suddenly speaking in tongues and needs Danny to understand, to translate, which would make sense, because what he actually says, when he strings words together into a sentence, doesn't make sense at all, at first.

He is --

No, he knows those words. Says them to Gracie all the time. You're the best thing to ever happen to me, Monkey, promise. Familiar endearments rolling off his tongue, meaning it every single time. He hears them in his own voice, brings them out from his own heart, countless times in a year.

But when, seriously, when, when was the last time someone said them to him, about him? While he's staring at Steve, feeling like a mountain's caved in on his head, and his fingers are gripping his shirt, his side, needing to feel Steve under them, because, Christ, he must be dreaming. He is dreaming Steve watching him, intent, like he's afraid Danny's not going to get it, and he gets it, Jesus, he does, yes, but that's not, it isn't, hasn't ever been, and he can't take it if this is anything less than one hundred percent meant. Feels himself like a sheet of melted sugar, spread thin, close to cracking.

Like Steve's voice. Which strikes an answering fault in Danny's heart, to hear it. Making his own barely a whisper, rusted out and unsure and, God, he can hear it in his own voice, he is so screwed, this is running him over like a truck and want is too small of a word for the thing that's swelling, painful and brilliant inside his chest, like someone set off one of those huge chrysanthemum fireworks in there.

"It has been a crappy month." Barely there. Not even a joke. He doesn't have it in him, in this second. Scraping along the part of himself he'd thought got frozen out back in Jersey, in the courts and the motel room where he stayed and the cases he buried himself in. "But I can say the same." Easily. A hundred percent.

This. The only good thing to come out of this plane crash of a month. The best thing. Something so amazing, so impossible. So good. "I, uh." Reaching up. One hand on Steve's side, one, fingertips resting against Steve's wrist. "This is, I mean. You are, you -- " Make all of this bearable. Better.

But that's about when all his words fail him, because there's none left to say that says it any better than the ones that are still ringing in his ears.

[thebesteverseen]

There's a long space of silence when Steve isn't sure what's louder when he thinks he might have just said too much, said absolutely the wrong thing. When he can't tell if the beating of his own heart, trying to escape his chest like he'd just run a mile, or Danny's, thundering against his fingers tips curled under his jaw, half against his throat, is louder, or faster.

When he's too close not to see the shock, surprise, scrabble for denial or understanding or something.

Something he can't name before Danny's fingers are digging into him. Gripping his shirt, with the same fierceness suddenly as when he first grabbed Steve. But with something different. Desperation and fear, God, they're still in this room, but that isn't it, is it? When thy can't let go. When Danny's voice finally comes wind, thin, like it's beaten to a pulp, might crack under any more weight than it has.

And then Danny, with his million words, seems to lose them. A handful of them scattering out, stacked against each other, all pointing to him, to something about him, and Steve has to smile. Even if it's a little twisted. Pleased, but shatter-able. Right here at the cusp of admitting anything is good is still left in his life, like saying it is begging for life to round house kick his head, to leave him with dirt, blood, bits of teeth and spotted vision.

But he can't not appreciate this. Danny, with all the words to throw at those girls, to bomb Steve with, is sputtering them now. A boat motor trying. but unable to start. A hand finding his wrist, so there are fingertips against the more delicate, vulnerable inside of his wrist, where is pulse is running away with itself the way Danny's face, inability to make words, fingers just brushing him, are running away with Steve.

Making it easier to stop him, for a second, not forever. Even half torn between the impulse to pull back, pull away, anything good, nice, real obvious bound for shattering, he still feels the other side, wanting to drag him even closer. Feel every inch of him, again. Until he could blot out that he has any fears. Like the nightmares and snapping awake, that faded until the only times he might wake up for a second was the odd passing noise or when Danny snuffled and curled up into him in the dark, in his sleep.

It's so easy, too easy, which part of what makes it seems so easy to break, when he just tips his head to stop these words of Danny's he can't seem to. Stop, or make into sentences. About Steve, who know's he can be hell on people, especially Danny. That he's impossible to understand at times. Just look at tonight. He loved tonight. Every second of Danny's irate jealousy better than the beer or any passing flirtation. When he can't even admit it won't be like that every time.

But he can kiss him now. And stop the storm of words that are refusing to make even for Danny.

Slow and specific, without moving his hands, or trying to burn him down. Just with all of...this. Everywhere.

[haole_cop]

This quiet is not totally new.

There have been parts of it, late at night, deep in dark and drowsiness, after everything's been burned away, leaving them just clinging to this side of consciousness. Or out on the lanai, watching stars, watching waves, watching the sun diving down into peaceful water.

There's not a lot of it, but there's enough to pinpoint parts, enough to know this is different, in some way that Danny doesn't want to try and define. It's comforting, like a warm blanket. Companionable. Sifting away the necessity of trying to say the unsay-able, before he tries and fails and brings that look back to Steve's face.

Fingers tightening, barely, at Steve's wrist, the pad of his thumb marking the rush of Steve's pulse, fast without being thready, yet, and this could spiral into that, too, but he wants to hold it here, just for a minute. Regain his footing after the floor fell away beneath him. Try to wrap his mind around a world where he is the best thing to happen to someone.

Whatever freight truck just drove through his chest left him feeling hollow and aching, brittle at the edges, an old feeling that isn't unwelcome, right now. Steve knows he's not bulletproof, so what's the point in pretending he is?

Hand sliding along Steve's side, soft cotton, firm muscle, warmth radiating like he'd spent the last day in the sun, on a board, on the sand, soaking it in the way Hawaii begs people to do. Letting this touch wipe out any thoughts of any others, manicured nails and dainty fingers, possessive anger and fear starting to fold back into their box. Cool water poured on an over-heated temper, threatening to snap at any second with the weight of fears that are just drifting out of touch, now; sun hitting mist, a slow kiss that he could drown in, if Steve weren't holding onto him.

Careful. Like explanation, not punctuation, and it hurts, this unfolding, but the way over-worked muscles hurt, the way healing bones hurt.

And Steve is a goof and a crazy person, and he brings all kinds of violence and wreckage along with him, but there is no single other person Danny wants the way he wants him, not least because the thing Steve never seems to see clearly is that, for all the destruction that surrounds him, Danny has never met anyone so dedicated to fixing every single break he finds. That he builds as much as he takes down, gives more than anyone should, or could, without a single thought for himself.

It knocks him flat, every time.

[thebesteverseen]

There are hands moving, over his sides, parts of his back. Heavy, but slow. Almost like Danny was only in these seconds remembering he was here. Really here. His body. Him. When Steve lets his mouth lift with a breath out. Less like he was burning things out of it or writing things on it, but just remembering it was there. Steve. Under his hands. Still.

It's a strange second. Because he knows this feeling. Almost hopeful, certain but uncertain, wholly aware, with too much training to his life's name not to see it this way, too. As a gaping vulnerability. Something that screamed to be shored up, but couldn't. Even when he trusts Danny. Is safe with Danny.

But he'd been pretty certain about the safety of dead people staying dead, too.

He doesn't want that here. He didn't want it anywhere. And it got everywhere. Even when that thought made him want to beat his head on a wall. Because he couldn't wish her gone. Well. She was already gone. He couldn't wish her dead. Again. Couldn't wish himself any blindness. That was even more stupid.

It gets in everything. Fingers everywhere. All he is. Was. Might be. Touch.

When he just wants this to be good. He knows it might not stay, Danny might not stay, any more than any other teammate before him. Especially now. But he still wants it. Him. Every day, set of minutes, he can wrest from the world. When he's looking down at Danny, through the darkness, studying his eyes, his face. The feel of the fingers on his side, on his wrist.

The steady, unsteady, beat of his own heart in the dark with him.