(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

[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.

[haole_cop]

Steve spends a lot of time laughing at him when they're like this, and Danny's never totally sure what, exactly, is so amusing, mainly because he's never totally sure just what's going through Steve's head. Actual amusement seems unlikely, considering. It's not like Danny thinks Steve finds any of this funny, when Steve is doing his best to level every thought, every word that might not be related directly to what he's doing, splintering Danny's sanity with dedicated focus.

Muscles and bone of shoulder blades moving smoothly under tan skin, reminding Danny of the way Steve had leaned over the pool table, a long line drawing down his back to hips, all control, all efficiency. When that gets a little rocky, at moments like this -- Steve's control starting to tug at itself, efficiency tossed out the window in favor of finding every possible spot, like he might, somehow, have missed something obvious in the last month of these nights.

Like there might still be some secret code to Danny's skin, some pattern of nerves to be hit, electrified, shattered. Added to every spot Steve's already found, everything he's already discovered about Danny's body, and the way his fingers fit along lines of muscle, into the dip of his spine, splayed across his stomach.

Pushing forward like he wants to bury this under Danny's skin. Some reminder. The asked-for proof. While it feels like the heat's been cranked up in the room, or maybe like someone's lit the house on fire, and finally, finally, he feels like he can shove past earlier, not being here, before they came back, at the bar, and everything, everyone there, to just.

Here. Steve's breath and low chuckle the only sounds, against the faint hush of waves and wind. The rustle of sheets and blankets and skin. His own pulse, thundering in his ears. The shoving, pressing, pushing feeling in his chest, like a buffalo trying to push its way out of a cocoon. Grinning like a fool at the way Steve shakes his head at him. "What, huh, shaking your head like I'm some kind of lost cause?"

[thebesteverseen]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[haole_cop]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[thebesteverseen]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[haole_cop]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[thebesteverseen]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[haole_cop]

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

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

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

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

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