(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]

If the knuckles and backs of fingers weren't moving against the bottom of his stomach, shifting, tugging his belt, popping a button that exposes more skin to Danny, to the air, Steve is pretty sure his head would be on straighter. But isn't. And he would care about that, if he could, and he could, but why the hell would he want to. When his stomach is tightening and there are images of any of the dozen things that come from here already spooling out in his head. None of which include keeping much of his head.

At least Danny does come where he's drawn, when the room is around them, making each actual noise more crisp, louder, in a tiny space. No vaulted ceiling and open space to absorb breaths and snaps. The shuffle of shoes. Even against the blood pounding in his ears, it all stands out. Making him want to grasp all of it, even as it slides like sand through his fingers at each new touch.

Of Danny's fingers against his skin, Danny's skin under his own hand.

This kiss that crushing the world out from between them, again.
As though anything could get there, stay there, between them.

When there's something horribly, perversely amused, in Steve's voice, mouth ghosting to Danny's jaw, up toward the juncture of it, his neck, and his ear, "I hadn't actually meant for this."

Which is so much more a lie even as a truth. He's been thinking about this in some part, sick with arrogant giddiness since his mind connected Danny and slamming sound of the beer bottle on the bar top behind him. Making it a necessity to let go of Danny's hair and drag it down. His hand. Find those buttons driving him crazy, start pulling at them, fast and certain after getting to do it so often this month.

[haole_cop]

"Nope," he says. There's a laugh that gets stuck in his throat. "Wrong, that's a lie. You, one hundred percent, meant for this."

It's amazing, what a month can do for the powers of perception. For example, before a month ago, he wouldn't have noticed if Steve looked at him any differently or any more intently at certain times, definitely wouldn't have caught whether or not Steve was snagged on something as tiny as Danny tugging as his own collar. Like he had, earlier, resulting in a look from Steve that should have been able to light a fire twenty feet away.

Granted. Those looks probably didn't exist, before, because the other thing a month does, sleeping with someone, spending even more time than all day with them, is that looks like that start happening. When everyone involved knows what's going to happen; isn't imagining it, isn't going back unhappy and frustrated to an empty bed or a cold shower. That look was outright anticipation, and there wasn't any missing it.

Just like there's no missing the determination in the way Steve attacks his buttons, working efficiently, like he's found the cleanest angle of attack over the multiple efforts, and has got it down to a methodical science, one he doesn't even have to think about. Certainly he's quick; fingers nimble, sliding buttons loose, working their way down. Fingertips brushing skin, making Danny shiver, eyes sliding half-lidded as a shaky breath punches out.

A month means Steve knows that drives him crazy, the low voice near his ear, thousands of nerves lighting against the brush of lips and breath. When he can barely, but still has to, because that's how they work, as he loosens Steve's belt, slides the zipper down, turning his hand to palm him through boxers, around now loose pants. "You wanted this since the bar, you liar."

[thebesteverseen]

"Not true," is out fast, with a laugh stumbling somewhere under it. In his tone more than out louder. His hands pushing the sides of the shirt apart the further the buttons go. More of Danny's skin to graze. Warm, a little moist, whirls of curls. He's almost annoyed, briefly, there isn't more light. He can't see every inch of the skin coming back out. That somehow maddens him through long days.

Danny. Perfectly pressed and neat, from his hair to those loafers, except for a few buttons. And he's this, too. Fingers tensing into his skin, breaths fast and ragged. The hand that shoves in and splinters his entire thought process like it's not his hand. It's a live wire, and Steve shuddered into it. Unable to keep himself from pressing into Danny's hand, all of him.

The last words disjointed, but even further amused in the second when it's all his power to just fist the shirt through the first feeling like his head wants to melt, needs more. "No--" he says. The first word a little choked, as he's demanding it some back. At least his voice if not his feet, or the rest of his body. Betraying him away from thinking.

Hands skimming over Danny's chest, up across ribs and compact muscle, even when he's looking at Danny as head on as possible. Okay. Maybe the lack of light saves him there. Even if nothing really can from, "Then, I just wanted to shove you up on the pool table--" Hands somewhere among forgotten balls and sticks, feet hanging down, fingers digging into a table that wouldn't give. "--and blow you, right there."

Maybe not with the people, mind. But, he'd wanted him already. And now the image slammed so many other places.

[haole_cop]

There is way too much fabric going on, here: under his hand, catching against his shoulders, blocking Steve's hands as they run up and over his chest. Even as it feels like it's going to burn right off his skin at what drops out of Steve's mouth, like a bomb.

Making him remember the night of the barbeque, the picnic table that still, now and again, makes him shake his head at himself. Picturing getting shoved up onto green felt, Steve's hands running down his sides, his legs. The clatter and discomfort that's got no place in this thought, the thought that Steve was -- and all the time that girl was there, he was thinking this, wanting that.

And Danny has to toss something back at him, because that's what they do and that's a ridiculous thing to say, that shouldn't be so fucking hot, but what he wants more than anything is Steve's skin against his, and why the hell are they both still wearing so much? "On the pool table? You don't think we've traumatized enough furniture already? Admittedly..."

Shoving at Steve's pants, lifting his hand just long enough, to push at them, while toeing off his shoes, before sliding it back again, stroking up and down. Leaning in to find the pulse point, beating like panic, under Steve's jaw.

"It really would be an excellent way to get those girls to beat it."

Because Steve is. Not touchable. Not available. Not for them, anyway, random barflies just looking for a good time, looking for this, the rush Danny's got under his hands, threatening to drag him under and eroding any possible desire to try and save himself.

[thebesteverseen]

Too much clothing. Too much everything. When Danny's hand is stroking him through the cloth of his boxers, and his pants are still there, and Danny's are, and his shirt, that he can only shove so much of because one of Danny's hand is busy trying to masacre though occurring at all. Even when those words were totally worth it for the moment of dead silent shock, that sends Steve grinning like a fool in the dark.

It's wrong, but it's so right. Christ, how is not supposed to have these thoughts, when Danny is getting all pissy and scrappy. When it's as hilarious as it is hot. When he just wants everything. He wants everything all the time now. These thoughts, slamming him from out of right field during a normal day. When Danny's hand toys with his badge across the rise of his hip. Or the way he can play with a pen, or really anything he picks up.

In his hands, against his mouth, shorting out Steve's want to focus on life or death situations for some seconds.

Like now. When it isn't life or death, but Danny's mouth finds his the skin under his jaw, and his fingers are digging in against Danny's ribs on one side. Lifting a leg on the other, bent at the knee haphazardly feeling in the dark, without looking for his shoes. Stupid shoes. Stupid shoelaces. That he's jerking at to pull out of a knot and bow, without moving from Danny.

When it's narrowly sliding by not making him groan, fire seeping in both direction, up and down, while he's still trying to keep any part of his ability to think with him. "We haven't accosted anyone else's furniture yet." Only his parents, and that had been odd enough for a little while after returning from Japan. When everything felt off and wrong. Everywhere. "Might be fun."

The knot came free, and his was circling his ankle, not caring at all where it fell, only that it made that solid thud and had gone sailing down to the floor beyond him. Shifting, beginning to try for the second one, when he totally says, "They weren't that bad." Completely aware it's like smack a beehive. Even if it was true, too. He'd dealt with a lot worse in his time.

[haole_cop]

That grin, self-satisfied and manic, splits him open like a nut getting cracked, even as he's rolling his eyes at the way Steve wriggles. Tightening one hand on his hip, trying to keep him still enough that he can keep moving the other. Sliding fingertips just along the waist band, when the motion gets to be too much, and this, Steve, is one area where loafers beat out hiking boots by a mile. Easy to get off, without having to worry about hooks and double-tied knots that reach Navy specs of structural integrity.

"While I am generally in favor of this plan, I have to point out that we should probably try to avoid getting hauled in on counts of public indecency. To say nothing of the likely hygienic issues inherent in fucking on a bar pool table, the thing is probably crawling with germs the size of spaniels."

All things he is uncomfortably aware might not actually take root in his willpower the way he hopes they would, because Steve has this way of cracking straight through everything Danny thinks is a bad idea, and making him want it. Or, just, him.

Him. Yeah. Anywhere he can get him. After spending the day with him, working, tripping over this newfound thing when he least expects it, catching Steve's eye and knowing he knows, knowing this is there, always, under everything. Forced to take a back burner, but occasionally blasting through, just to prove it can.

Even while his good humor solidifies into an aggravated sound, like a snort. Fingers tightening against Steve's hip, possessive, like he might, even now, make a break for it. "Cute."

Teeth against the skin of his neck, adding a nip not quite entirely blunted, or affectionate. "Fine. They weren't so bad. But I still would be more than okay with all three of them suddenly moving off the island. For good." Hands moving, gripping Steve's hips. Him pushing in, swiveling, turning them around, aiming for the bed, because fuck that, Steve came back with him, Steve wants him, and he is not going think about them again, or he really can't be held responsible for what he might do.

"Do I look like I want to talk about those girls right now? I am much more interested in getting you out of your stupid cargo pants, seriously, I am this close to looking for scissors."

[thebesteverseen]

One sock down, seconds later Steve was on to the other shoe. Having to switch which hand where was on Danny, the way Danny was at his hip. His other hand having to slow until there are just fingers, against his waist, against his stomach, drifting, skin throbbing from touch only seconds ago, from the friction of cotton and cargo. Making him yank the laces a little harder and faster on this side.

Steve may have snorted with a shake of his head at Danny's talk of the pool table. It wasn't like they'd done anything near people. The closest they came to anything was those moments when Danny seemed to forget -- maybe that they were in public or that there had to be some space -- and would lean on him suddenly. But making him go hard still and list. When Steve wouldn't react, or at least wouldn't reach out. And Danny went on like it was all normal.

Something Steve have down in facts and details. But then there is a better example.

Fingers digging into his hip and teeth bared in against his skin all at once, sending his heart bouncing around wildly, while making him chuckle. Even if that chuckle flipped fast. Fingers tightening on laces and Danny's skin, Steve's half contorted body pressing up into the Danny. Trying to get down with his shoes, but stalled a second pressing in against Danny.

Wanting more, even if it was electricity threatening to fry his sanity, in the pursuit of a subject that had already proven it could totally take Danny's.

Cute was not the word he would have used for it. Fingers and teeth. Like Steve might somehow swap Danny with a girl somehow. Here. In his bedroom, half dressed, wanting Danny hand back where it had been, wanting so much more than that against the way all of Danny's grip shifted.

The second shoe barely dropping before Danny was jerking him from where he was, thrusting them both toward the bed, like it was suddenly a mission, backed by the sudden reemergence of his annoyance. It shouldn't drive him crazy, it shouldn't make his blood rush. But it does. Fuck but it does.

He wants to grab Danny and kiss the jealous, smarting word right off his tongue, suck up every sparking annoyance.

When Steve really probably shouldn't, but he can't help it, knowing it's for far more than smart mouthing right back about who is to blame for bringing them into the bed, same as who brought them into their night at all "You were the one that brought them up, Danny."

It's totally true. Beyond. Danny did. And Steve's totally pointing it out. Mouth trying to press flat, but it's not working. There's a sharp, dangerous and dangerously pleased, smile trying to break out, as he's shoving back Danny's shirt. Across his shoulders, down across his biceps, because that needs to get the hell out already. Then, his hands dropping to Danny's pants. Pulling at his belt as Danny was shoving him back until his calves hit his bed.

[haole_cop]

"Did that seem like an invitation to have a discussion to you?"

Okay, fine. He brought them up, but that's different, he wasn't the one they were after all night, and frankly every time Steve implied he hadn't noticed anyone else at bar at all, he'd felt a little smoother, a little less on the edge of a threatened implosion of his skull.

The last thing he wants is for Steve to be thinking about those three girls -- or anyone else, at all, anyone -- right now, when there is zero reason to even consider the existence of other human beings. Flirtatious girls, angry ex-wives, mothers who aren't as dead as previously thought -- they can all just vanish, as far as Danny's concerned; can go up in a flash of flame and go away.

It's not like they won't all come back, but later, later. A few minutes without them, this without them, is all he's really asking for.

Which leads into shoving at Steve, and it goes straight to his head, like always, like the belt of good whiskey, that Steve lets him. Lets Danny push him around, here, like he lets Danny get between him and whatever unfortunate soul is about to get squashed like a bug, allows a touch to hold him back. As Danny's dragging his arms out of clinging fabric, shoving it away, impatient, wanting to get his hands back there, on Steve, because Steve should not be thinking about that, should not be thinking anything at all.

Reaching back to find a hip, the back of Steve's head, push into a kiss that will at least shut him up, if nothing else.

[thebesteverseen]

The words are edged like darts. Daggers. Annoyed and sharp, insult and demand. And Steve can almost hear every insult and annoyance to how dare he even touch this subject. At all. But now. Here. Even if Danny did. Could. It's makes him want to laugh. The anger. The irrationality. The jealous possessiveness.

Even here, seconds from being drug into Steve's bed.

But there's no time to laugh, because Danny's fingers find his head and drag him down in a kiss that sets any air gathered in his lungs on fire. Searing through him. Making him drag Danny close, everything close and not close enough. The friction of it, after Danny's fingers, dragging small explosions if white at the edge of his vision.

It's all going backwards. Up in flames, the bare brace of the bed against his skin, while Danny argued with getting the shirt off and Steve was finally getting his belt open, zipper and button going with a flick of his wrist he doesn't even need to pay attention to. Only a step still in it.

Getting to the ability to slide his hands to the side, fingers gripping pants and the elastic top of boxers and shoving them both down. Away. Off. Like they were offensive. Anything keeping itself between him and Danny now. When he's barely waiting for the sound of them getting toward the floor, on the floor before he is.

Dragging Danny back on his bed, down on him.

[haole_cop]

That's better.

Back to the rush and push and press of this second, wrestling with clothes, shoving everything aside that is not skin, that his hands run up and down, along the bumps of Steve's ribs, cut and rise of muscle. Momentum dragging them closer, gravity kicking in like a freight train hitting, when Steve drops back, pulling Danny with him, while he's still trying to figure out how to get rid of these slacks and boxers that can really, just, go away, he doesn't care how.

Fingers finding Steve's hair, hands at both sides of his head, like he still needs to demand Steve's attention, the way he couldn't in the bar. And, really, he's not going to trace disapproval across skin in purple-blue blotches that take the better part of a week to fade, but that doesn't mean he's not doing his damndest to burn himself right into Steve's skin. Mark himself there, to match the tattoos the girl had found so compelling. Like he could ink a sign, here, across Steve's chest, warning anyone else who even tries to back off, that they aren't allowed, wanted, needed.

Selfish. He is. Undeserving, taking too much, like always, and here he is, burning up with jealousy, unable to consider the possibility of someone else coming between them, here. Or anywhere.

Unable to let himself be jealous of Cath, the way he wants to be, because she's different, special, been there for years, long before him, and, fine. Fine. He and Cath can...make it work. He likes Cath, wouldn't want ever to hate her the way he hated the girls, the world and everyone in it tonight.

But he is free to hate them. So he does. Stokes the fire going in his chest, kisses Steve hard, because he can, before finding the cord of muscle at the side of his neck and starting his way down, again, where he was before. Before getting distracted by Steve and his words. Smartass.

[thebesteverseen]

It's a clash of sensation and roughness. Not like a fight, but like the message is there that one would be put up. But why would he ever fight this? Why would anyone? How could anyone have walked away from it? Danny's body colliding with his, and the very little give of the bed, with a hiss.

Like the act was something trying to melt his spine straight up.

Quick silver and heated brands taking the place of any bones that had been there running the ramrod of his back and neck. Dissolving into the grip into Danny's arm and the leg catching over behind one of Danny's knees even as Steve was still dragging them both back across another foot or two of the bed.

A feat of epic proportion when Danny's fingers are fisting his hair and Danny is kissing him like it is life or death, and Steve's mouth need never doubt it. Nothing else would be good enough. Would be allowed to touch him. Again. Ever again. How that thought against the fierceness of kiss makes so he can't shiver or go too still. He's too busy kissing back. Too busy, hands firming down Danny's shoulders. His ribs.

It doesn't stop. Of course, it doesn't. He doesn't want it to. Wants to be burned alive by this. Every bit of Danny's messy, unnecessary reaction. When there are lips and teeth brushing, sucking against his throat causing him to shudder and jerk up against Danny with a groan if his name not buried enough in all that hair brushing his chin and cheek now.

Finding the small of his back and pulling him close. Like all of his wasn't. Nothing was. The blisters of light. The promise of it. Everything he wanted was right here, and there was nothing to hold him back. From touching him. Kissing him. Thrusting up against Danny. His skin, his stomach.

[haole_cop]

He doesn't think he'll ever get sick of it. The way Steve's voice sounds, grates, rough and at the edge of wrecking itself, against his ear, saying his name. In a whole new way that hasn't gotten old, anywhere near it, in a month, that Danny thinks he could hear forever and never get used to it, never stop feeling that answering torque in his stomach, the squeeze along his spine. Nothing like teasing, sympathy, amusement, conversation. Nothing like his name has ever sounded before.

Pushing one hand between the covers and the back of Steve's shoulder, while the other leaves his hair, too, to slide down his chest, palm running down his stomach, fingers curving around his side. Danny shifting to give his own hand room, needing Steve under his hands, like he somehow hasn't managed to touch him enough, like somehow last night and the other nights this past month got wiped from his memory and all he's had to cling to, ever, were a few brushes at work and an evening of incendiary jealousy out at the bar.

Where Steve wanted him. Even then.

Steve, who's pushing up into him like this already needs to be shoved off a cliff, and, Christ, he should slow down, but he can't, it's too damn hot, brain cells sizzling like they're in a frying pan. Steve's skin salty against his tongue, pulling up on it with his mouth, feeling the pulse beneath go spattering and wild. Running his free hand over everything he can touch: back up over his chest, over his shoulder, along his bicep, where that tattoo is dark and looking blurred without light to pull it from Steve's tan. Down to his wrist, where Danny's fingers curl, possessive, and he pushes down. Like he could possibly pin Steve.

But Steve might. Let him. Just for a second, just while he gets his head back on straight and recognizes the fact that they came back together and fell into bed together and Steve said, he said that thing, that proves he wanted Danny even back in the bar, and he knows that, okay, he knows all of that.

But he still holds Steve's wrist. Anyway. Like it's a grip on the night, the world, this thing that hasn't tossed him off yet, even though he keeps expecting it, every second, but only just now, just tonight, had to come face to face with it.

[thebesteverseen]

It's not enough for Danny to be trying to make fire of his bloodstream, his hands have to be everywhere. Like when he's talking, when they are absolutely not necessary. But they are so much a part of Danny. Everywhere in the air, moving, gesturing, gesticulating shapes that somehow go along with the sounds, make pictures. Except that's only vaguely related. Because they aren't making shapes right now.

They are tracing down his skin. One way and then another, while Danny remained a not-all-that-heavy weight on top of him, that he might never grow to find cumbersome. Sliding up one side of him, down another. Fingers curling, palm dragging. Tighter and looser, pressing fingers in against him, making him feel entirely bare in a way that walkin around with nothing on, or nearly nothing, hardly ever even registered again. Like Danny was going to find every single patch of skin, hollow between bones, the shape of each muscle.

Like somehow he hadn't figure it all out before. Every time he could get away with it.

The first impulse is always to resist.

When anything is restricted. It's trained deeper than thought. Leverage his elbow, stretch the muscles along his ulna, twist his wrist so that his palm turns up and his fingertips are grazing the point of pressure being held down. That is the back of a hand, Danny's. Which is the second his movement twinges. Danny. Who would never, had never done, anything to hurt him, hold him.

Who was doing a great job at keeping Steve head and his impulses at completely opposite ends of the spectrum. Fingertips grazing the back of Danny's wrist, wrist twisting only slightly for another second. Like maybe he was checking Danny's hold. When maybe this does get the small bit of a twist to look toward him in the dark, the location of his face. To figure out, somewhere inside the maddening race of his heartbeat and his blood thundering, if that's a sign Danny needs him to stop.

Stop....he doesn't even know what. But he knows, beyond any words they never ascribe to it, that he listens. He listens when Danny gets in between him and someone. The smallest touch. Completely inconsequential to the damage Steve could do. And he stands there. The fury of a racehorse and the violence of trained battering-ram held in check by the flick of fingers at his chest or fisted in his shirt.

A pressure, a stop gap. He gets lost in things, caught up in the direct line, the white and black, and Danny drags him back.

The fingers of his other hand tighten a very little, barely his fingertips pushing in, against the side-small of Danny's back on one side. But more like he needs that pressure, that movement to hold himself still, than like he's dragging Danny. And his other hand doesn't move at all, anymore, more and more aware of the weight and pressure Danny has against it.

The way he could snap his wrist back with barely any consideration or fight to it. The same as he could flip this entire set up.







But he won't.

[haole_cop]

It isn't long. And when Steve's other hand presses, a little, into his back, he relaxes his fingers, lifts the weight he'd been pressing. Turns it into any other time he'd circled Steve's wrist, before letting go entirely, and lifting his hand, shifting his whole body. Pushing upwards, palm against Steve's cheek, fingers splayed over his ear, pushing into his hair, to find his mouth again, kiss him deep and deliberate.

As he shifts his weight a little to one side, thankful that at least Steve's rib is mainly knit back together, that he doesn't flinch or tense when Danny presses against that side, which is good, considering Danny might be shorter than Steve, but he's built solid and heavy.

It helped. Okay? It did. Maybe it's crazy, maybe he's crazy -- he definitely is, over Steve, and that can't stay in, gets muttered against Steve's mouth: "You drive me crazy" pushed into a kiss, like Steve is to blame for Danny's loss of sanity, which is totally the case. Why else would he find himself wanting to take the heads off of completely innocent bar-going girls? Why else would he find himself here, night after night, making nights on the pullout even more unbearable than ever.

But it did help. Holding that wrist. Like he could hold Steve here. Like he could ever have that power. Like anyone ever could, unless Steve gave it to them.

And Steve did. Let him. It's not like Danny doesn't know, alright, he does. Steve could break his grip and his wrist in a half a second, and Danny's strong, but he doesn't know what Steve knows, how to do the most damage to delicate joints and bones. So he appreciates Steve's hand lying still, there, grateful for the way this thoughts and mind feel soothed. Like a rough stone washed by waves.

Hand moving again. He can't stop it. Down Steve's neck, over his chest, fingertips brushing a nipple, over the smooth slope of ribcage down to stomach, soft skin, to the cut of his hip. Able to stop kissing him only because he wants to take a second to just look, lift up, watch Steve's face, the play of shadows there, familiar features turned strange by moonlight, beautiful in the dark.

[thebesteverseen]

There's something more. He knows that. Knows that when Danny's is pausing in a way that continues to leave him there, breathing, a little too suddenly higher strung while Danny is looking at other things. His hand holding down Steve's wrist. When he doesn't know why or what for. And it goes just about when Steve's throat finally is shoving itself together enough to swallow, about to ask.

But that's when Danny moves again. Weight lifts, fingers trailing down, around his wrist. Gentler. Normal. Fingers ringing his skin, before just as suddenly they let go and Danny is leaning back up. Hand smothering the skin on one side of his face, acros his ear, and into his hair, Danny mouth against his. Then, those words. Those words that land with something that is both mad pride and a too sharp pain, before Danny is kissing him.

Drawing a sound out of his chest, trapped on his lips, when he's kissing Danny back, that other hand sliding in against the small of Danny's back, covering and holding, while Danny keeps moving and shifting. While it feels like something is happening, with Danny, back behind his hands and his words and his deliberate kiss, something he might be missing.

Which feels misshapen and unsettling, moving in under his skin in the spaces where there are already bones and muscles, fitting in at the wrong angles under it all. But wanting to know, even when Danny keeps moving. Almost manic suddenly after the moment of tension, weight and stillness. Suddenly, his hand is coasting everywhere and

It's distracting, in a way that could be tuned out. But how could he, why would he, would it even be possible. Danny fingers drawing light and fire across his skin. Causing his chest to cave in without air when he's tracing over sensitive skin, making the inside of Steve ache and throb in response. When he wants.

He wants to drag Danny down, fingers in his hair, mouths tangled and hot, skin sliding never close enough, never fast enough, racing for disaster. But Danny is tracing his skin. Slow and specific. Like someone something is trapped there, stealing all his focus. His chest and his stomach, down across the planes of everything. Cuts into muscle and the spaces beside the raise of bones.

But. Danny is looking down at him. Steve's body. Danny's own hand. Like what?

Like somehow it's different? Like somehow he's changed since the night before last?

When Steve doesn't even know what question it is he's asking when he asking, only that he is, forehead furrowing lines, because he knows his partner, his focus, even if not why or how or what. The way's Danny William's pauses or fixates on things.

When the smallest too long silence, or lack of movement means something is going on, even in the car, during a normal day. He's had so long to watch him. Know him. So it slips out quiet, and little side ways, like a check-in. "Danny?"

[haole_cop]

It's such a different way to say his name, quiet, clear. Low, in the dim room, where sometimes, like now, it feels like the lack of light muffles everything. Folds in over them like a blanket. Making it easy -- too easy, maybe -- to lose track of his thoughts, to catch himself tripping on other ones.

That he should push away, right? If one thing has been made clear tonight, it's that Steve thinks he's an idiot for thinking any one of those girls might have had a chance. That kissing him was the only thing Steve wanted to do all night. That the last thing he should be thinking about are any ways in which those things might not be true, next time.

It isn't next time. It's now. And he should stop.

Steve's there, solid, under his hands. It's his touch that made him moan, his kiss Steve leaned into. Him that Steve dragged into bed. Him who's allowed to be here, see him like this, touch him like this, and he knows, he knows, okay, that thinking about when it's going to get taken away is the wrong thing to do.

Steve's not even making fun of him for it anymore, sounds genuinely -- not concerned, not all the way to concerned, but nudging. Like when he knows through some freaky sixth sense that Danny's not telling him everything (like it's Steve's job to solve all of Danny's problems, Christ, like the guy doesn't have things spilling off his plate already). It pulls Danny away from his contemplation of shadow over skin, looking up, pressing a smile that tugs a little higher at one side of his mouth than the other.

"Just appreciating."

God. He is appreciative. He's grateful, so grateful. Even before all this, Steve was the best partner he'd had, his best friend, the guy who went out of his way and forced Danny into a life he had no idea he could want. Helped him keep his time with Grace, back when they barely knew each other.

It's just unfair, the things Steve does for the world, for everyone in it, and it repays him like this? What kind of bullshit is that?

His hand firms against his skin, though, travels to the lift of Steve's hip, thumb sliding into the cut of muscle there, and he leans back in to find the cradle of Steve's shoulder and neck with lips and tongue and the light graze of teeth.

Those thoughts can take a back seat. He's got more important things to focus on, right now.

[thebesteverseen]

Steve's not sure he believes it. Or if he does believe it, because he's not sure he's actually calling it a lie, that it doesn't seem like either, maybe doesn't think that it's all that's there.

When Danny Williams, fan of the endless storm of sound and movement, settles for silence or for only two, four words when there are two or ten thousand, even when he's close enough, Steve can make out the shape of his mouth smiling. When his tone isn't one of a handful of things that would set off warning bells loud and sharp like even the softest click of a trip wire.

When Steve isn't at all sure what to do with those words that slip out. Appreciating what exactly? His body? The fact he's actually still here? Like anyone else was some place he could be. Or anything else was what he'd turn himself out to the world as. When it's snarling somewhere in the middle of his head. Not know. Not being certain of what exactly this is.

Even when Danny's hand firms again. More pressure, demanding some attention, more focus elsewhere, slipping in between the muscle there. Like his fingers belong, were always meant to fit, somehow, like dove tail edges, locks and keys. A thought that can't even stay long, when Steve own fingers are trying to lock in over Danny's shoulder, across Danny's back, when his mouth attaches back to his skin.

Causing his shoulders to sieze and then stretch outward, following the wave of a low grade shudder from the friction of Danny's teeth against skin, his skin being pulled at by Danny's lips, the brush of his tongue. When it slams straight into the other cloud of confusion, tension snapping right back, never gone. The maddening rush slamming him dead to the face.

When he's held still long enough, too long, and it's far too easy to let it spin out under his skin, glide, hot and a little wicked. Tug Danny's head upward by his head, fingers slipping from Danny's shoulder to his head. Wanting his mouth. Barely getting out the words, "I'll give you something to appreciate," like it's crooked warning, even said that warm, before he's kissing Danny.

And using his other hand -- for the first time still since he laid it flat waiting on Danny's signal -- to push at Danny's shoulder, aiming Danny toward the bed behind him, and pushing himself up. Giving him a better vantage point to launch from.

[haole_cop]

Better. Better. Almost all the way back to good, but he knows all it'll take is seconds. That they'll shoot past good and barrel into delirious like a train jumping tracks into a warehouse full of dynamite. Not far now, when Steve's heart is a jackrabbit under Danny's chest, the pulse a frantic beat against his tongue, and, yes, like that, Steve's shoulders unfolding, stretching out for him.

Before fingers knot into his hair, drag him up, and Steve's talking, warm breath brushing over Danny's skin before his mouth is demanded. Taken. As Steve is pushing at his shoulder, rolling them over, and Danny finds himself landing against the mattress, one hand reaching for the back of Steve's neck, the other gripping his hip.

A laugh pushes its way out, against the sandpaper resistance of breath. "You're such a control freak, babe."

Hey. He's amazed Steve lets him take control at all, sometimes, but he's no pushover, no fragile wilting flower, and he can give as good as he takes. Can push back, be the one pulling groans from Steve's throat, his name from Steve's mouth, reflexive, gorgeous.

But he's glad for it now, for the way Steve shoves at him, pushes up above him. Not going anywhere, even without Danny holding him down. Kissing him deep and hard until a low sound gets dragged out of Danny, wanting, an ache starting under his sternum and spooling up his chest. Fingers carding into hair, logic evaporating in the face of this, like a puddle before a wildfire.

[thebesteverseen]

Steve's not sure if it's the quip, the last word, or the laughter that starts as one and then filters into Danny's voice, in each of those words that makes the smile seared across his mouth broader. Almost more feral, kissing Danny again. Like it's the sudden swooping explosion of victory.

"You love it," is flash bright and rough, between kissing the point into him. Begging Danny to even pretend it isn't true.

That his fingers don't tighten, his heart rate doesn't increase, he didn't just groan like nothing on the planet existed that could stop this, and he isn't meeting every single kiss. Doesn't even fight Steve pushing him over, hand only shifting to let his thumb drag against the muscles of Danny's shoulder and near it once his back is on the bed.

Dragging his mouth, half ready and half like the whole concept of leaving where it is at all is insane beyond belief, away from Danny's. Weight shifting to the hand on the bed, keeping him half up, while the other splays across Danny's side, half over smooth skin and half over friction of curls, when he's leaning down.

Letting his mouth find the rise of Danny's collar bone, not all that far from the skin that shivered above the race of his heart.

[haole_cop]

"Oh, I do?"

Christ. He does. Steve drives him crazy, requires Danny to smooth every situation over, when Steve is a blink and a snap of spiderweb-fine self-restraint away from turning some annoying suspect into a smear on the floor or wall, and he's got to control every tiny splinter that so much as edges into the frame of his scope. Has got to drive Danny's car, be the one to take the bullet, know every last detail of everything happening outside his direct line of sight. Sometimes attacks Danny, like this is warfare, not sex; a battlefield, not a bed.

And Danny does. Love it. Not for itself -- what is there about needing control in this psychopathic way that is, exactly, lovable? - but because it's Steve doing it, part of who he is, what he does. And.

Fingers tightening, an ugly snag in his chest threatening to catch breath, pulse, reality. Pushing aside the clear clang in his head, to grin into the air, pulling in a breath, eyes sliding closed as his skin lights up like Steve flipped a switch. "That seems like uncharacteristically poor judgment on my part."

Hand pulling at him, though Steve's laying half against him already, balancing his weight above Danny's chest. The other running from the back of Steve's head to the back of his shoulder, to curve around his bicep, palm to tattoo inl.

"Control freak and delusional."

[thebesteverseen]

Fingers running over his skin, words filling in the silence. This is how so many of his nights end up happening.

Even when they don't exactly plan it. They don't really have a pattern or a habit. Half because their jobs really can't give it to them, throwing all nights and double days straight work at them from nowhere, or nights with Grace, or crack of dawn mornings in court, or days they all show up to sit with Chin if Malia has a complication or another surgery. Half because, who knows, they don't plan it.

Until someone has to ask the end of the day, braves it. Edge of a smile, as quietly hopeful as ready for a pass.

Which just has him shaking his head at the droning insults spattering up the darkness around them.

"Liar." It's the same word Danny threw at him earlier.

Except Steve accents it with shifting and dropping his mouth over Danny's nipple.

Dragging at his skin mercilessly. Not anywhere near what he did once. What he always remembers somewhere, just outside the frame of his thoughts. Always has some gauge against. Too hard. Too much. Not that Danny wanted an apology, or for him to stop. But. A level of broken, smashed and shattered control beyond the kind this all would already throw into the situation, end the situation.

Not that. It winks out, a tiny star of a thought. But still rough. Leveling his point like a firing shot across the bow.

[haole_cop]

"Prove it."

The words practically doing the job for him. Coming out rough-edged, like a battered piece of metal. On the edge of a groan, fingers wrapping around Steve's arm, sliding over warm skin like he owns it. Because Steve is a jerk, and a smartass, and he's been teasing Danny all night, acting like coming back here with him was the only realistic option. Or, no. The only option.

Like everything else just never even crossed his mind.

So he can pay, a little, though anything else that might have been tossed at his head, like playing cards he can brush off, evaporates into brilliancy and the sharp blade of sensation, Steve's mouth striking lighting into that spot. Making Danny's back curve, pushing up, looking for more, harder, like Steve's got the ability to just wipe his mind clean of words, his body of all willpower. Anything but the want for him, his hands, his mouth, his skin under Danny's fingers and lips. The weight of him, pinning Danny down. Long legs and arms tangling so inexorably it's like they'll never get free of each other.

And Danny's regretting ever taking his hand off Steve, away from making his muscles shiver and his eyes close, but he can't help but want this, too, make it his, let everything from the night just go, because Steve's right about one thing, he loves this, all of it, every part of it, and Steve's right about something more, too: that he was jealous, green in the face, temperamental elephants stampeding through his head.

But jealous doesn't even begin to cover the way he'd guard against anyone trying to take this away. God help the person who tries, it's his, and so few things are, and it's too much to ask, but he wants Steve to be one of them, which is terrifying and exhilarating all at once, and Steve is still massacring his ability to think straight. Which is probably for the best.

[thebesteverseen]

Steve doesn't have to. Prove it. Even if his mouth wasn't busy, even if talking was even an option, this is better than any set of sarcastic, sparking words he could find to string together. When Danny's body arches up, shoving into Steve's mouth, his face. Fingers tensing along Danny side, half pinning him. Even when he really isn't. God. Doesn't want to.

Every muscles beneath his lips, his fingertips, straining tight, pushing upward, demanding more.

Steve could stay in this second, feel the rush of this moment, for hours, days, years.

Danny stretching every muscle and bone to meet his mouth. Danny's hand sliding on his skin, fingers seeking purchase in the muscles of his arm, like neither can decide whether they are pushing off or digging in due to the sharp, overwhelming, reaction, and so each is as necessary as the other. Who would be if he could let that go, who could possibly not push it even further.

Steve shifted, putting his knee on the other side of Danny, pinning the sides of his thighs but not settling his weight on Danny's legs, when he settled. Knees, points of leverage, movement and balance. Barely even considered, because Danny's hands are the only thing in his head, his skin is the only thing registering against his tongue. When the whole world isn't here. Here, in this spot, where he has to push further, take more, go for broke. For everything.

"Good enough?" Steve asked smug, lifting from Danny's skin. Like somehow he can still remember that was a challenge.

Fingers of his free hand, moving, brushing into that same space. Finding the raise of puckered skin, still moist from his mouth, and rolling it between his forefinger and thumb. Bottom lip lightly throbbing, chin still tingling from the friction of stubble rubbing against chest hair, all of his ribs making fast against his jaw bone. When he's not evening thinking of those. They are a wash of sensation, like a ocean that threatens sea-sickness around him, and he stands still in the center of it.

Almost drunk with a crazy sort of amusement, or power. No, that the wrong word. Ability. That Danny lets him. The list in his tone pulls to one side.

"Or, maybe?" The second word more darkly heavy than actually a question is barely out before, he leans down to catch the other in his mouth. Still hard. Harder. Pulling with his lips, against the friction the curl of his tongue around that small raise of skin. Teeth brushing, surrounding like a frame that didn't bite in, but dragged, digging just enough into skin.

The thumb of his other hands, rolling the bud of that first nipple hard against the side of his forefinger as well. Not to pinching it, as he simply rubbed up the pad of his thumb across the skin, across his own finger, matching, or at least trying to mimic the force of his mouth in parallel to it.

[haole_cop]

A chuckle is trying to do more than tumble deep in his chest, but it keeps getting circumvented by the ragged edge of his breath and Steve's apparent dedication to the prospect of actually wiping words straight out of Danny's head. Words, definitions, syllables; the bricks he uses to build every day, every action and reaction, all evaporating in front of him. Decimated by Steve's attack. Steve moving, lifting, settling over Danny without any of his weight resting on him, like he'd just pounced and knocked Danny flat, and is determined to keep him there.

Which might work, because the ability to move is tied directly to the sections of his brain that are all misfiring right now, short-circuiting into bursts of light and sound. Coinciding with the rhythm of Steve's mouth, his fingers, as they pull sanity, thread by thread, away from Danny's grasp.

"I have to say, it's a persuasive argument."

It's about all he manages, because Steve is driving him crazy in the best way possible, and Danny wants it to never stop, but he wants to drag Steve up by the hair and kiss him, hard, too. Wants to flip them over again and give Steve a taste of his own medicine, find those spots at his throat and chest and groin that make him shiver, push, start to break apart.

Right now, though, Danny's the one cracking, the one reaching, fingers digging blunt half circles into Steve's hip, because the fact of the matter is, Steve's got nothing to prove. Not here. In this. With that statement, because he is, a control freak, a lunatic, and Danny loves it as much as he hates it too.

[thebesteverseen]

Steve snorted at those words, like Danny still had anything left to be denying. When his body was a riot of signs that said he was right. Yesterday, today, maybe would be quite some time still. When Danny is breathing heavy, when he's actually remembering to breathe at all, and, he can't even complain. Not really. Steve. That Danny is stubborn enough to deny it even now.

Fingertips hard in the skin of his hip. Where he was starting to get used to having this appearing, disappearing, dusted tattoo. Faintest blue-purple dots. Not all the time, but now and then. It just made him smile now. Because Danny could. Hold on, tight as he needed. Steve would never stop him. Pull him back. No. He was too busy, shoving him forward knocking his feet out from under him, shoving straight beyond his straight laced, perfect pressed control.

Into this. This thing that no one in the world got but him. Danny Williams, undone. Hands everywhere, fingers grasping.

Making it gets a chuckle of amusement. Lost against the peak of skin his tongue was folded around. Making his focus waver, forehead drop against Danny's chest for a brief second there. The hilarious high of every single misfiring communication of Danny there. No, but yes. Refusal to admit while basically both sides of accosting Steve with not being able to either control himself or have a willingness to let Steve stop.

Why would he want anything else, when every bit of this lit up his chest, just with a passing second. The hand on Danny's side moving a little. Palming down his side, across his hip, thumb riding down the ridge of flesh where his hip cut down the muscle, as Steve shook his head and moved to trekking his mouth across the lower part of Danny's breast bone, ribs. the top of his stomach.