(no subject)

[haole_cop]

"All I'm saying is, if we'd stayed on land last week, the chances of us getting boat-jacked and left to die out in the middle of the ocean in a sinking boat -- I'm sorry, dinghy," his hand drops from where it had lifted, preemptively, to stop Steve from arguing, "dinghy, I know, I know -- would have been much more slim.  I'd say that there would easily have been a zero percent chance of that happening.  Mainly because one does not use boats -- or dinghies -- on land.  Don't get me wrong, I fully accept the possibility of something else horrible happening.  It always seems to, every time we leave civilization."

Which is why they are here.  At a bar.  Having a few drinks, while Danny eyes the pool table and the TV with equal amounts of casual interest, catching a few glimpses of the previous week's games and keeping an eye out for the Jets.

More to the point, as great as it is that Steve wants to show him his favorite hiking trails or mountainous drives or fishing spots from when he was a kid, the guy is already surrounded by memories of a life that, all of a sudden, turned out not have been necessary at all.  The thought of Doris McGarrett, hiding out somewhere on the island, unapologetic for doing what she'd called necessary and what Danny counters was cruelty, makes rage spark low in his stomach and burn up through his chest, so they're out of the house that she'd left so miserable and broken twenty years ago and planted solidly in the present.

There are worse ways to wrap up a week.  Actually being around other people, instead of opting for Steve's lanai or living room or kitchen.  When, somehow, miraculously, Danny is still wanted there.  Around.  And they've fallen into something almost like normality.

He hasn't thought about it too hard.  That's how you jinx a good thing, and this is good, a bright light shining somewhere in the cave of bullshit that collapsed around them the day Fryer was murdered and Shelburne turned out to be Steve's not-nearly-as-dead-as-she-had-previously-appeared-to-be mother.  Add it all to the firestorm of a custody battle from hell, and, look, all he wants is a decent night out at a bar before, hopefully, going back tipsy to Steve's house and enjoying the comfort of his couch or bed.  

Is that really so much to ask?

"Best to just resist the impulse to tempt fate, my friend."

Comments

[thebesteverseen]

There really is no way to keep standing. Even half-laying here. Muscles straining at the edges of his eyes with the effort of pushing through at all. Against Danny, kissing him, against the stroke of his fingers. The way his name comes out, broken and snapped, like Danny's voice got lost, but even that couldn't keep him from escaping him.

Shuddering through Steve, flooding his chest even further. When it feels like everything has turned into lava and is losing all it's hard edges. The world. The walls. The room. The bed. Anything that is not Danny under his fingers, the shape of his face, the faces he's making. The utter, spiking madness that is watching him, shoving him and being at his mercy all at once.

There center of his body winding down and in, coiling tighter and tighter. Tearing him between the urge to to push down with his hip against the bed, like somehow that will help him or save him, from the shattering explosions tearing up his vision, his thoughts. Or if it's when his hips snap and he can't control them at all for seconds. Jerking hard, erratic, forceful into the cuff of warmth designed to take everything down.

But he's not going down alone. When he's got his eyes closed, and that softness is probably Danny's head, his hair, somehow against his forehead, and he's getting close to considering biting his lips when it feels like everything up and down stroke of his hand on Danny's body is directly circuited, connected to the windows shattering in his own head, through his own body.

[haole_cop]

Jesus. He doesn't see how he's managed to survive a month of this. He's got no idea how he's lived through the last hour, how he ever thought he might have any control over any of this, because Steve burns through it like a flaming brand through tissue paper. His muscles are shaking, hand squeezing tight, and that, Christ, that look, it's gorgeous, the best thing he's seen all night. Rivals the smile Steve's been wearing since the bar, since the girls, since Danny started snapping at them and Steve didn't bother telling him to back off. Like he didn't mind. Like he was amused.

Or better.

Grabbing him in the living room, like something was about to break. Like something is, here. Now. Pressing his forehead against him, eyes tight, face crumpling.

Until it all goes up, sudden, like a cliff sliding sheer into the ocean. Roller after roller crashing into his gut, punching out a desperate sound, somewhere between pleading and Steve's name and a curse. Spasms splintering behind his eyes, as everything goes too sharp, too sensitive, too much, impossible to hold back, hips stuttering, and he's got to keep pushing, pumping his hand, shoving Steve, wanting him closer, lips on skin, hands denting accidental bruises into hip or arm or back.

Fuck. How's he supposed to react to anyone trying to come between him and this? Of course he was jealous. Of course he'd hate them. And this, that second of hanging by a slowly spinning, fraying thread before crashing down in a shower of glass shards and pleasure so intense he feels it like a dull explosion at the back of his skull. Forcing him to hold onto sensation and reality with a drowning man's grip, unwilling to slide down into oblivion alone.

[thebesteverseen]

Steve couldn't honestly say one way or another what it really is. The strangled, wanting noise that claws its way out so close to his ears, stabbing into his stomach and his heart at once. The sudden grip of his hands, almost like an undeniable command as much as the sudden desperate attempt to hold on, as Danny goes. Shaking under him. His fingers suddenly warm and wet.

Who knows which it really is, where or when. Maybe it's all of them. Danny's voice, and Danny's hands, and Danny going. Dragging him down under with him. The way Danny does everything else. Dragging him along, on an invisible cord he could no more cut than want to. God. He'd follow him straight through the jaws of hell if needed.

Which isn't where he's headed. When he's losing in against the not quite death grip, desperate on his skin, demanding his everything. Not coaxing him off, but shoving him straight through plate glass and the seven walls of bricks that feel like he successively slams through and feels fall, all of them, on his head, at once. When his body slips from him entirely, slamming over and over.

Against fingers, against Danny's thigh so close to him like this. Skin so feverishly warm, it's almost all he can feel, aside from the fact somehow his fingers have moved, found the side of Danny's body, trying, trying beyond the ability to remember when or how, he'd gotten a hand off, sensitive skin. Before he needed it. His fingers, gripping into something, like ship capsizing under.

The blankets being inches too far, when he finds a shoulder. Danny's hair. When it's silent, but so completely. Shaking his body with such violent precision, shattering all of everything, shifting the bed a little against the floor. Taking from him the wind and the waves, Danny's shaking breath and the feel of the blanket as much as Danny, with an obliterating tumble toward whiteness.

[haole_cop]

There. Pushing Steve through the last few jerks, as he shakes, fractures, comes apart at the seams. Scraping the feet of the bed against the floor with the violence of it, before Danny's palm and thigh are sticky and wet, and Steve's muscles cut out like someone turned a key.

Which means Danny can let go, move his hand, find Steve's hip, wrap the other arm loosely around Steve's neck and let the bed catch him, let gravity swallow him as his eyes close and the world comes to a slow, drunken sway.

Up. Down. Back, and forth. Like they're on a hammock. A low, swishing sound sliding against the edge of his consciousness, that he knows must be the waves outside, the wind in palm fronds. And Steve's breathing, somewhere near his ear.

And the only thing he can think is how good this is. Good. Just. Everything boiled down to one word. Good. Being here. Steve's weight. Smell of sex, Steve, salt. Things he never would have associated together, before a month ago, that he can't get out of his head, now. His clothes smell like Steve, half the time. Are on this floor, or folded up on the dresser nearby, plenty of nights.

When was the last time he used his own coffeemaker?

Eyes closed. Steve within reach, and he's not going anywhere, either; Danny doesn't give a damn for any jokes that might be made, sly remarks slanted his way. It hurt. Not being able to touch him. To take some kind of stand. Was a sharp ache, and the sickening pain of a cracked bone.

So, yeah. He'll be possessive while he can, dammit, this, right now, Steve, here, under his hands, in his arms, laid out and wrecked because of him, home with him, it's his in this moment. Damn straight he's holding on.

It's the last thing he checks before letting everything else slide into welcome tidepool of relaxation.

[thebesteverseen]

The world is swaying. Soft. Lumbering. Slow. Warm. Heavy.

It's takes a little while, or at least it feels like a little while, to even begin to separate them out from a cocoon made all together of them, into disparate pieces. The rise and fall of Danny's chest, half under him. The in and out of his breath, hitting Steve's cheek. The gentle mingle of the waves and the breeze, the bushes and the trees.

The faint rumble of the air conditioner. That had nothing on the in and out of Danny's breath, and that solid thumping that it took Steve an extra second to figure out what was knocking up against his shoulder so specifically, patterned. Not an actual knocking. Not a code. Before oh, slid across his brain, tugging his mouth, slow and fuggy rueful.

Twitching his shoulder even when he doesn't give into the urge to slide his hands free from -- huh, Danny's hair, apparently -- to lay it over Danny's heart and listen to it even closer. Like maybe it actually is a code. Thundering against him. The exertion petering out slowly as the world grow dividing lines. Self and other. Him, and Danny.

Skin and smoke and sex and sweat. Warmth like sitting too close to a fire. But better.

Steve took a long breath in, without twisting to kiss Danny's temple, even though that thought rolled through like a boulder, stopping up his thick breath. Fingers moving just the smallest bit in his hair, finding his finger tips slowly, chin brushing Danny's shoulder as he argued a little too much with his head trying to come back. This was perfect. Who really wanted to.

[haole_cop]

Steve shifts, but only slightly, a long heavy weight, like gravity's hitting him twice as hard now, fingers soft in Danny's hair, which has got to be everywhere, just -- everywhere, but he doesn't give a good goddamn, because it feels amazing. Close, and intimate, and he's relaxed enough that that doesn't set off unwelcome alarms shrieking through his head.

Just keeps his arm slung around Steve's neck, head turning, mouth and nose brushing against Steve's -- what is that, forehead? cheek? -- without making those fingers move. He can keep them there as long as he wants, that's fine. He can stay right here, half on Danny and half next to him, a puddle of melted, brainless SEAL that no one would believe could hurt a blade of grass in his current condition.

Steve. Pulling the floor out from under his feet, with his you are the best thing, the only good thing. Words sewn into his heart. Needlesharp and painfully precious. Something to take out, carefully, and look at, before putting it away again, quick and careful, terrified of shattering it. Like a bubble. Filmy glass. So easily dropped, and he is so clumsy.

But not right now. They can stay, right there, warm and secret, while he breathes in against Steve's skin, everything unwound, loosened, perfect. Blank exhaustion stealing in like a low tide. Considering letting his hands glide, slow, over Steve's skin, to indulge himself in the tactile, the reality, solidity of him. Touch him the way he ought to be, like something amazing, incredible. Not all a blunt instrument, only meant for destruction. There's this, too, and the accompanying bittersweet ache filling his chest that makes him feel strangely protective, possessive. Like he needs to tell the whole world to back off and leave Steve alone, jeez, just for a little while, the guy deserves a break, doesn't he?

And if he wants this, if this gives him a little of that, then there's nothing that will keep Danny from giving it. Anything. Everything. Steve is owed, fucking owed, by the world.

[thebesteverseen]

Danny shifts in little waves. The arms that curves around his neck. The muscles where that wrist is resting. The flicker of eyelashes not far from skin. How close he is. Close enough Steve opens his eyes, just enough to focus, before drowsily shutting them, against this slow, soft glide of Danny's mouth brushing his skin.

The brush of warm, smoother than normal skin, causing prickled to rise straight down his neck. Causing his spine to straighten and shoulders to stretch a little, muscles tensing and relaxing like a wave, small pops and pulls, as the fingers in his hair curled gently.

Like somehow, without wiggling closer, without moving toward him at all, it might still not stop too fast.

Like maybe if he doesn't look anywhere else the world will just keep turning on with this. Danny half curled around him. The mess they've made of his blankets again, since they never do get to the bed unmade first. The sea and the sound of his breathing, his heartbeat. The way how anytime during the day he thinks of moments like this, it hurts almost like he's stabbed a pen in his leg.

But right now. Right now, it doesn't hurt. It feels like...breathing. Actually breathing. Actually quiet, heavy, almost peaceful. Even when he knows, he's not ignoring the shit storm that is waiting outside the front door for them tomorrow, and the next day and the next. Because it doesn't wait, and they charge in at it as much as it charges in at them. But right now, it's in it's place. It's tomorrow.

And he doesn't have to do anything else. Be anyone else. Just breathe out and let his head rest.

Court something a little like exhaustion. But a lot more like peace than any other part of his weeks lately.
Safe and quiet, drifting in and out, between consciousness and the temptation to give in to the place beyond it.

[haole_cop]

He really doubts anyone would believe him, if he ever tried to tell anyone that Steve can be calm, peaceful, relaxed like this. Not that he would. He's jealous of it, knowing he's the one who gets to see this, be part of it, be the thing Steve's curled into, pillowed on. So well aware that heads would have rolled if any of those women really had tried to drape themselves the way his arm is currently draped.

Which is maybe a bad thing, possibly (definitely) an over-reaction, but at least he can think about it without the sudden mind-burning fury of earlier. If anything, this is a smug thought, still disbelieving, but fully aware of the amount of sheer luck and good fortune it implies. Being allowed. Wanted. Even if Steve suggesting he liked the way the bar drove Danny up one side of a wall and dropped him headlong off the other is insane, at best.

But this? This is great. Perfect. So comfortable that he could probably drift right off, amid cooling sweat and tacky skin and messed up blankets, knowing from a month of experience that moving, in this moment, would be ill-advised. Steve gets handsy when he's been knocked flat, and Danny's never gotten far.

Not that he'd want to.

His hand is loose against Steve's shoulder, the other curved lightly at Steve's hip, and he's not holding on, exactly, but Steve's not going anywhere fast like this. Head heavy, breath evening. Dashed to the bottom after sprinting to the top and jumping off, and now just floating, face cleared when Danny cracks a heavy lid to look at him, before letting it slide shut again.

It's true. This is good. The best. He's got his weekends with Grace, and nights with Steve, and those are the things keeping him sane, right now. A few moments, hours, against the world, before Steve is up and swimming, running against whatever clock is ticking inside his head, and Danny's inbox is full, phone ringing off the hook.

"See," he says, low and drowsy into the air, just for the hell of it, just to say something, picking out words all slow and methodical, "I told you going out wouldn't be so bad."

Even if he could have given all that up, just for this. Easily. In a heartbeat.

[thebesteverseen]

The whole world is, annoyingly, present outside his head. Finite shapes and noises. The way the endless wall and wash of white ebbs off, almost entirely, even when it leaves him heavy muscles, strained until a snap, still loose. He could still jump into action with little thought to it. But he's avoiding that thought, letting it continue on to whoever it needs, because he has had to. For a month.

They've only had to get up and run after a case once or twice. The rest of these night cocoon themselves into darkness, sleep, the solid warmth, touch, feel of a body sleeping at his side. The one half under him right one. Danny's. The though he could move off Danny is even less active, after all these weeks, than the one where he could for work.

Because Danny doesn't make him, and Danny is actually far more talkatively, almost disappointed, when he does. Pull away somewhere else. The few times he ever managed to disentangle any bit of himself from Danny. From wanting to burrow even further into the smaller man. The warm solidness of him, his breath, heart beat, never completely still movements.

Like now even. When the faintest movements still catch like pins being dropped in abject silence. Or is just abject, obsessive, observance of Danny, of nothing but Danny? The way the arm blanketing him tightens, so briefly, not even strong enough he thinks its on purpose. Like Danny's body still talks even when his mouth isn't yeti

It should annoy him. Be clingy. Or something. Especially by now. Weeks in. But it doesn't. It's a interesting thought really to have trampled by Danny's rough low voice. Low. Not so far from his face. His ear. Everything else.

When Steve can't help the jerk of the muscle in his cheek, how it makes his mouth curve trying for sharp, even semi-clinging to muddled. Making him open his eyes, challenge Danny's stupid mouth, even when he's remembering how fast and sharp Danny had gotten annoyed about Steve opening his mouth to respond last time.

"We'll just do it, again, tomorrow, then," is coolly smug and challenging. And just the smallest bit distracted by letting his hand in Danny's hair shift. Curve against his head, through more of his hair. Fuzzily considering the notion of tipping it and kissing him now. Already.

Because he would. For this, the way it left him feel winded and warm and the way they were still, well, like this. He didn't care if it was crazy. Not when it felt this good. Ended like this. Even this was great.

[haole_cop]

"Nope."

He shakes his head, pressing his lips into negation hovering somewhere between resigned and fond. "I think I'm set for life."

Not that Steve seems to be paying all that much attention, hand moving in Danny's hair, making him want to push back against those fingers, because there is nothing like the feeling of blunt nails and strong fingers against his scalp, no wonder dogs love it. While Steve sounds fuzzy and amused, quirking a smile that disappears into the mess of blankets, and doesn't move. Tugging an answering one from Danny, because this feeling is goofy, this feeling is Hallmark cards and stupid songs on the radio, and he doesn't even care. Just lets it trample him, unimpeded for the moment, aware that he'd be knocked flat if taken by surprise, but now just floating along the surface.

It's there. That's all he needs to know right now. The rest can be worried about later, right?

He might even be able to joke about the girls, now. Lying here with incontrovertible proof that they weren't wanted, in the end.

Maybe. It still feels like pressing on a bruise, to remember, but at least the murderous thoughts that had been painting the inside of his head with red are gone.

[thebesteverseen]

The words are easy.

Steve could probably guess, within a very close approximation, the exact kind of smile on Danny's face. Pleased, like he expected it, but a little flinty, like the notion that Steve thinks he gets to poke this at all is hilarious. Expected. Unwelcome. And almost amusing because it's Steve, and he will anyway. The way it gets said, with that shake of Danny's head, brushing into his fingers, but never pulling away or snapping.

But at the same time they aren't. Easy. Those words. That should be. Logging awkward somewhere between his ears and his chest. The words themselves. Danny, and his joking tone, set for life. Here on the other side of having snapped and snarled at anyone who considered having an opinion, arms loose and lazy, around his shoulder, hand on a hip. Here. With Steve. Set for life.

But that's not what he means, even when the notion creeps hard, sharp and surprising under Steve's skin.

Even when he knows they're talking about the bar. The girls. The situation. By not. Knows that notion is insane. That this isn't, they aren't, anything like that. Whatever it is. Whatever they are doing. Still doing, all these weeks later. Knows no matter what he does or doesn't know about this thing they are or aren't or keep doing, that isn't him. Hasn't ever been him. His life. Anyone in it. Not even his family.

No. Not them. Especially now. With Mary, main-landed and still unknowing. And Doris, lost, again, in parts unknown. Alive.

Steve thoughts, and the freezing hold somewhere in his stomach, distracted at the faint lean of Danny's head. Against his fingers moving. Not hard, not insistant, not like he was making a point or asking for anything. Just like he was listing toward the touch. Enough Steve glanced up a little. At his face, after a careful second of pause, carding his fingers in against Danny's head, and before straightening his fingers and following the hair out, feeling it long and smooth between his fingers.

Maybe a little too precise in the way he said, "I'd love to see how you explain that one to Kono."

[haole_cop]

His hand doesn't lift off Steve's hip, exactly -- his fingers do, arching loosely, and it shifts a little, a muted gesture, but it doesn't actually go anywhere. "You know, contrary to what she believes, that woman has no actual say in my social life."

He could point out that Steve didn't seem to care what Kono thought the day after he left Danny covered in bruises, visible enough that her scarily sharp eyes caught the one at his neck a mile away. It's true that Kono would hound him for weeks if she thought he was just being difficult, but Kono still thinks he's seeing someone on the sly, which he has not, exactly, argued with.

He just hasn't used any names, or even insinuated that it's a woman. Still, he's glad there haven't been any more, uh. Incidents, regarding his neck and any marks she might be able to see.

He doesn't add it, though, because Steve's gone still. Not relaxed, still, like he's just had some sort of second thought, and when Danny blinks his open to half-mast and looks, there he is, watching him, looking too serious and too -- what is that? Wary? For what? Where would that even come from right now, when the room is close and the dark is soft and warm and weariness is blurring the edges of all Danny's muscles and thoughts.

Making Danny's eyebrows dip, slightly, drawing loosely together before lifting. Fingers settling back on Steve's skin, uncertain what might be causing that slightly stilted tone, but it's not a warning or a complaint, so he's not letting go.

Possibly wouldn't, even if it were.

"I think she thinks I'm doing okay for myself recently, anyhow."

[thebesteverseen]

Steve snorted at the first one. A little slow, uncertainly testing, when he let his fingers drift back into Danny's hair.

Follow, slowly, in the same direction he'd run them once already. Dragging them slowly through Danny's utterly messed up hair, still a little stuck from product all pulled apart, except here and there. Causing Steve to stop halfway through, twisting a piece with too much between his pointer finger and thumb, loosening the grip of adhesive holding it all together.

He's doing that when Danny looks at him, and maybe it's excuse enough not to drop his eyes and catch him. Like he can actually see anything more than the wisp of a shadow of that hair between his fingers as he's releasing it. Anything more than all the rest of the darkness. "That's probably for the best."

Even rhetorical, it meant less questions if people were taking things for granted. Even if the idea people were imagining Danny with some mystery woman still made Steve's skin snap like it tightened on his muscles. Not now. But in the occasional mention in person. That still came even though it had become pretty widely settled Steve was dead set that if Danny didn't want to talk about it, then he was following his partners lead.

Which might have been just as much lie as truth. It was complicated.





But convenient, too.





It didn't hurt that no one expected Steve to have anyone stashed anywhere.

Not after the last two years. Certainly not Danny. Like he'd just harped on. He wasn't like that. He didn't have the time or drive or need or whatever it was that drove people. That wasn't simply duty. It wasn't something people expected of him. There wasn't a single reason for there to be. But something about that, the reaffirming from a completely different direction of his earlier thought, makes him slide his fingers.

A little wider against Danny's head, a little firmer drag of finger tips against his scalp. Like, he didn't even know, some incredibly stupid proof that he was here. Still here. Right now in this moment. No matter how much everything said he shouldn't be, or wouldn't be long.

[haole_cop]

He could probably fall asleep, just like this, and live with the mocking Steve would milk for years, falling asleep while Steve plays with his hair, but it feels good, okay? It's one of the side effects of wearing it this way, all slicked back -- getting messed up, having fingers run through it, feels amazing. It always has.

He doesn't, though, because Steve's fingers aren't just. They pause, toy with a piece, rolling it gently between fingerpads, which is a strange sort of idleness, for Steve. He isn't usually given to just touching for touch's sake, even like this, even when his hands never leave Danny's skin. It's like distraction. Like he's hoping Danny not meeting his eyes will mean Danny has hit his head somewhere and forgotten how to read the rest of his face.

And it just doesn't fit. The words, and that expression. Like he's steeling himself. Finding some guardrail, against...what, exactly? "Yeah, maybe."

He's not. Okay. He is sure that's probably better. Right? He's got no idea how any of this would go down with the team. Aside from wreaking havoc with protocol, they've been professional, working together. This hasn't screwed up their partnership the way he thought it might. Nothing's different, it's just...more.

He's not sure Chin and Kono would find that comforting.

But outside work. Outside work brings people like those girls, sharks in sparkly tank-tops with toothpaste-commercial smiles, and he's just not sure he's entirely sold on the prospect of that continuing to happen, while he continues to not be able to stop it one it starts. Or before.

None of which explains why Steve is looking the way he is, toying thoughtlessly with Danny's hair the way he is, except then his fingers tighten and rub hard against Danny's head, making him close his eyes briefly, while his arm tightens in response. Like he's checking in. Making sure Steve is good. That everything is still on the shelves in that head of his, and not mixed up in pieces on the floor.

As much as can be expected, anyway.

And, okay. Maybe, just a little bit, standing his ground the way he wished he could have at the bar. "Everything good over there?"

[thebesteverseen]

The two words are soft. A little lulled and fuzzy, just a little suspicious.

He knows Danny is still looking at him. Head on. Very specifically. Isn't sure what he's seeing, or why he's still looking. Which is an insane thought, right? After the whole evening, and sex, and they're still in a pile, on the blankets, not specifically even lined with with pillows and sleeping, so much as a muddle of limbs they haven't taken back.

When it's a little harder to focus on, when his fingers tighten just enough against Danny's scalp, and almost instantly the hold Danny has across his shoulders tightens, too. Holding him firmer, closer, instant and complete. Encompassing. Fingers at one shoulder, the bar across him back. The warm, sort of absent way the touch is so completely like a check in.

Either with his skin, or with him. Which the words that come next roll right over. Making his chest tighten.

"Yeah." It's a little too settled. Not said with any rush, but fast out his mouth as compared to his thoughts. When the only one to escape the sudden dust up, shove away of all the terrible thoughts he's been thinking, was that he wanted it to be. As much as wanting anything good to survive got him anywhere in the last month.

But, maybe, it was worth something. That the want hadn't been pummeled from his hands by all of this.

[haole_cop]

It's not totally unbelievable, but it's definitely not the truth. When he's still watching Steve, a little more keenly now, even if Steve isn't looking back at him.

He's not sure anything's wrong, exactly. It seems like an imprecise term for the strange shuttered thoughtfulness on Steve's face, the careful consolidation there, like he's reteaching his face to not mirror his thoughts. As if that could happen. Steve can play a part with the best of them, but not like this, not right now, not without Danny knowing the difference.

But he's not stiff, just still. His hand is still in Danny's hair, and he hasn't pulled away; has only drawn slightly closer, fingers gripping gently, like he's drawing himself back, into this. Right now. From wherever he went in his head. As if any option for that could be a good one, this month.

Leaving Danny with two choices: to push at it, or let it slide. Either way, mouth pressing slightly, considering, making a little mm-hmm noise of neutral agreement, just skeptical enough to illustrate the fact that he's not, a hundred percent, buying it. "Okay."

Not arguing, but not agreeing, either, while shifting a little towards Steve. If all he's got to go on is a not-quite-truth and the flex of Steve's fingers in his hair, he'll go with the latter, lift his hand from Steve's hip to his face, and tip it, palm steady against the angle of his jaw, fingers spread wide, before leaning in to kiss him.

Feeling like it's a deep breath after being underwater for hours, even now, after all that, after Steve demanding his mouth and spinning Danny's head with kisses. It's not like those. Slow. A little lazy and indulgent. But that hand at his jaw, like he's telling Steve to focus.

Who needs it. Anything that would make him look like that. It's not necessary, here and now.

[thebesteverseen]

Danny makes that noise. The one in the back of his throat and noise. Skeptical, dragging sound. Followed up with the word. The kind he's been making most of the night humoring Danny. Which is the last thing he wants right now. It makes the skin on his back feel too tight, like little claws are dragging up in from the inside. He doesn't want to be humored.







Perhaps, anymore than he expected, suddenly, getting kissed.

Like somehow, even only inches from him, even though it'd required him having to a little annoyedly shifted his head at the instruction of fingers finding it, he hadn't followed entirely. Except that there were fingers spread across his jaw. Lines of warmth dragging his focus forward, when Danny's kiss isn't chaste but it's slow.

Not like time that won't pass. Slow, the way the sun sink down below the waves. Starting first with a ribbon of gold, and the slow growing cape of endless night filled with diamonds everywhere. It's like that. Fingers on his jaw, making him pay attention to the slow shift of lips, of fingertips. Stealing his breath, and making whatever's in his chest, suddenly there, suddenly tight and fragile and huge against his ribs, threaten to shatter.

Shifting his own fingers, The palm of his hand coming to rest against the back Danny's cheekbone, with his thumb outward, against the hair beyond his temple. While every thought went to this suddenly. The slow, slide of lips, like they were continents demanding and dictating the moves of the entire universe. His. And when had he ever been able to not listen when Danny moved him?

[haole_cop]

Better.

He feels Steve's attention shift, like a physical thing, like moving Steve's face or taking his arm or pushing at his chest has the same effect. Focus. Over here.

Where Danny is concentrating solely on him. This. The way it feels, bare skin pressed to bare skin, blood-warm, against cooling air. The give of the mattress. The lump of blankets under them. Steve's mouth, the way it parts, lets Danny deepen this kiss until his head is spinning and loose, until everything in his chest is glowing and gorgeous, feeling like his ribs are cinched too tight to contain it.

Palm against rough stubble, a peaceable, content noise at the back of his throat, nothing like the skepticism of earlier. Just. Being here. Getting to be here. It's enough to cut his legs out from under him. The insanity of having this under his hands. Of Steve, letting him lean in to kiss him.

Making him wonder when the hell his luck is planning on running out, and how he can avoid that happening for as long as possible.

Determined to break Steve's thoughts from whatever miserable cycle they were looped in, because he knows that look, okay, he's seen it a thousand times, when Steve thinks he's being sneaky but is really just being dense. Trying to -- what. Prove that whatever it is, whatever of the last month that's tried its best to cut them both down, he's still here? That he cares, that he gives a damn, that Steve is important. To him.

And he is. Danny's hand gentling against his jaw, because this isn't about pushing, it's about coaxing, about just sliding back into the bubble they manage to create here, where the world can knock outside and doesn't have to be let in.

[thebesteverseen]

Even when he doesn't want to listen, in the worst frames of mind, when sanity is giving way to such incontrovertible rage, he'll find he does. It works like cutting the brakes. The rest of the car might try to keep going, might be able to keep going, but, suddenly, one certain part isn't working. That's what Danny does to him with a touch. Sometimes. In the field. In here.

The thoughts don't vanish. Any more than his disgust and hate ever dies instantly. They float somewhere around him, but instead of being sucked under by it. He's held back from by a few fingers. Usually at his chest. Right now, curved against his jaw. His shoulder, when Danny is kissing him slow and specific. Taking his time, with the way his hand stays against Steve's skin, cupping.

The way his mouth opens, the taste of Danny, the feel of his tongue. The jagged place somewhere inside of him that drops like a floor disconnecting from any supports. When this kiss isn't anything like the ones exchanged after dragging Danny away from civilization, in living room, in the hallway upstairs, in here, only so long ago.

The soft, quiet sound rumbling through Danny. Mixing him with the wave, the wind, relaxed and pleased. Taking up residence in his chest, just as much as this kiss. Pushing things out of direct focus at least. Making his shoulders hold stubbornly, until the hold droops a little, curves. Less apart, divide, more curling, just the smallest bit. Around Danny. Around that shoulder underneath his chest.

Shifting into him, closer. Into the slow crackle of warmth, like the seduction of fire from too long cold.

Doesn't matter if he's been here the whole time. A little closer. A little more focus on Danny.

On this thing that keeps surviving everything Steve's sure that it can't or won't.

[haole_cop]

He's pretty okay with this taking up as much time as Steve will allow, finding the space between his lips, the space between his breath, slipping between his ribs and pushing gently outwards. Tightening when Steve shifts, curls more closely into him, stubborn resistance in the shoulder under his loose arm melting away, like Steve is resigned to giving him, without any truth behind his reluctance.

Look, it's crazy. Their life. The world. Everything thrown at them, aiming to bury them both, and Steve more than Danny, beneath the rubble.

But it's not all rubble. Not all crazy. Not that he'd ever say so out loud. But there's still this. There's still Grace. There's still Kono, and Chin; still Malia, hanging on with the kind of grim determination that knocks Danny flat to see, her strength shoring up her husband's. This. Again. Something to keep stealing, and, yeah. Maybe to protect, because it's too fragile for the way the world could so casually shatter it, a bored cat knocking glass of a table.

And there's no words for it. The way Steve listens, holds himself, then moves closer. Like he wants Danny under his skin as much as Danny wants to be there. Pulling away only to lean in again, meet lips, study mouth, breathing. His hand sliding from Steve's face to the side of his neck, to the rounding of his shoulder, back again. Take a minute. Breathe. There's no time during the day, no allowance. Something Steve would never take for himself, but he's only human, when everything's said and done, lines drawn beneath definitions.

Even he needs a break. They all do. This month has been hell, and it's not likely to get much better. He refuses to even think it might, considering the risk that thought would take, offering up any last stand of optimism to get blown out the window.

He pulls away without actually pulling away, still shifted close and comfortable, arm still slung around Steve, hand still at his neck. "Okay, better."

At least Steve feels a little less like he's about to leap up and start hunting someone down, though Danny wouldn't put it past him. Relaxed might be too strong a word, but most of the tense stillness seems to have seeped away.

[thebesteverseen]

He doesn't always have a clue, what Danny is seeing when he takes a long second to look at him. Because Danny knows everything that's ever been anything (that Steve could share). Has looked at his face for over two years, so he can never write it off like that. Making Steve hold still while his insides twist like a child that won't hold still, like one of those tourist straining to cover any too available, too pale skin under a wrap.

He knows what the girls in the bar see. He knows he's attractive and as fit as he possibly can be at almost all times. He even knows what it looks like, catching it once or twice, when that looks burns, random and miraculous, on Danny's face when he looks up from doing something at work. And Danny snaps away, like he's been caught with a button out of place in public, flushing just noticeable enough he can see it because he is paying attention.

He knows what to do with that one. Maybe terribly. Getting in Danny's way. Leaning on the door to his office. Finding a reason to bug him. While smirking a little too much while Danny strives to either do his work, or Steve's work, or just stops and banters with him. Like there is no other thing to do. But this. This look he never knows what to do with.

Fingers sliding across his skin. All over. His shoulder. His neck. Across part of his chest. Up into his hair. Stopping kissing him to study his mouth, his face, like. He doesn't know. Like Danny's looking at them, as much as through them, at something else. Things Steve has no comprehension of whether or if he should apologize for. There's so much everywhere. He knows he's lucky that Danny. Well. Everything. All of this.

These things that weren't him. And Steve tries to keep it past tense. Sometimes it's present. But when Danny's busy stroking his skin, maddeningly like he's going to create a new language between it and his fingers, Steve has to shove it. The concept it wasn't, might not be. Hold on to this as much as stand confused by it.

Especially when Danny stops with those two words and Steve's brow furrows. Lines creasing up his forehead, between his raising eyebrows, when he rests his chin on the hand curved over Danny's shoulder under his own neck and chin from the moving. Letting that movement, this close, be as much the question as comes. When it could be about either of them or anything.

Or Danny just throwing words at the air like silence is as profane as anyone touching him.

[haole_cop]

In a shocking turn of events...

Steve doesn't reply.

Not vocally, anyway. Just settles his chin on the back of his hand, weight pressing gentle against Danny's shoulder and feeling like the reassuring pressure of piece, badge, seatbelt, eyebrows lifting. Inviting Danny to explain himself, even though Danny knows any attempt at explanation will be followed with the faintly amused, knowing look Steve gets when he thinks Danny is talking too much, using unnecessary words.

As if Danny might have missed whatever was going on, over there, just a minute ago. As if he could possibly have overlooked that expression on Steve's face, the lie that everything is fine, the soft singing of tense muscles in his back and shoulders. Drawing himself together. Ready at all times to prove that the best defense is a good offense, even when there's nothing coming after him.

Not in the room, anyway. Not from Danny. Which leaves only one option.

His fingers curl into a loose fist, and he knocks them, gently, against the side of Steve's head. "It's like rats in a maze in there." Always working. Always moving. Finding dead ends and trying to scratch their way through. Steve's head is a miserable place, but that doesn't give it the right to ruin Steve's night.

Rats that can suddenly turn into stampeding buffalo, if Danny steps wrong, but they're in Steve's bed, it's late in the night, the world is as peaceful as it can be in their immediate vicinity, and when has he ever let Steve's unwillingness to be dragged back into sanity keep him from trying?

One day, maybe, Steve will snap and just gag him (least violent of the possibilities, but he's willing to bet he wouldn't be outright murdered -- there would be too many questions and Kono, at least, would miss him), but he doesn't think it's going to be tonight.

[thebesteverseen]

He could stop that, that rap to the side of his head, as quick as it starts. Snap the hand under his chin up. The muscle doesn't even twitch. But the possible reaction, action, roll from bring touched to incapacitating, flickered into and out existence, at the back of his mind, while he looked drolly unimpressed.

Steve rolls his eyes, which may be what Danny's expecting given his own expression. Gaze going up, when his chin tilts against that back of his head, before turning a shake of his head. Like he can't really expect much better from Danny.

Yet. Without any insult to it. Or any refuting of those words.

When its easier to look blandly insulted by highly amused, just saying, with a raise of his fingertips without lifting his hand or head,"Your game was better with the kissing and groping."

Like this was some objective commentary on Danny's moves. Not that state of the mess Steve kept from his team. Though Danny was blurring so many of those lines. As much shoving his way in, as Steve was, every once in a while, grabbing Danny and dragging him across that line, like he was the last life raft on the planet. In the disjointed sprawl of his world.

Where only Five-0, his team, and Danny made sense. Kept him together.

Where, he was aware, were the only people who knew how bad it might be, were, too.

[haole_cop]

"Yeah?"

He takes that roll of the eyes with a grain of salt, lets it slide off his back without digging in, because it's deflection and he knows it, knows Steve knows he knows. So is that comment, but Danny can rise above that kind of shit.

Most of the time, anyway. "You think so? I was thinking it might not work so well for conversation, but I have to admit it's got its place."

It does. When Steve melts against his, loose and lazy and feeling okay enough to snipe back at him, he definitely can't say there's anything wrong with either kissing or groping. Jesus Christ, he's not even used to it yet, still feels his head spin dizzy with bewilderment when he thinks about it too hard. Being here. Everything that led up to being here. Steve wanting him. His own spun-around perspective. The impossibility of it still happening, except it's still happening.

One gorgeous, brilliant, bright point to his days and weeks.

He shifts to find the most comfortable spot, Steve still half curled over him, while his hand slides to Steve's shoulder, half lifts, gesturing slightly. "What, I can't be curious? I have this reaction when you get all wound up in your own head, okay, it is so rarely about anything good."

Not that there's anything wrong with that, right now. Right? If Steve can't relax enough to actually think about all the things happening here, now, with him, then where can he? It's not a problem. Danny doesn't want to keep it from happening, okay, but anything he can do to mitigate the worst of it is what he'll try.

The kissing and groping, though, they do have some pleasant side benefits.

[thebesteverseen]

Danny wiggles and, not for the first time, Steve almost moves. It happens a lot of the time. It's an adjustment on the last few years. On the women have been in his bed so much more than nor. Laying there, half on Danny, while the man is curled around his shoulders, in a way Steve wouldn't leave half his weight on a woman. A way that triggers on habit at the movement.

Except that Danny only shifts closer, shifts staying where he is. Like he's looking for the perfect place to leave his shoulders, ribs, hip bones. Places that tuck into each other so much easier than Steve could have believed. Remembers at all, until the moment after he goes still, waiting until Danny settles, waiting to see if he'll need to go. Except Danny's arm never moves, he never pushes him away.

There is no face or five thousand words to it.

Just twisting, getting closer, like a key fiddling in a lock.

Which lets Steve relax, again, in rather unanimous release down his back.

Even when those are the words Danny chooses to be going on about, and Steve could not tell, exactly, all the things he's walked through, touching on even in the last five minutes. When he doesn't think there's a thing in the planet, that isn't Danny Williams mouth already preoccupied, that could keep Him from asking questions and shooting out opinions.

Steve tilted his head, unimpressed by humor ing, without any insult. When he leaned down his head, brushing his mouth down across the spot where Danny's collar bone met the furthest point of his should. "My head's the one that's all wound up now?"