Two Weeks

[haole_cop]

 Danny hates this.

He hates picking up the role of 'head of Five-0,' he hates meeting with Denning, he hates that he's been so short with the team that Kono has probably only been restrained from outright murder by the fact that Chin really would rather not book and imprison his own cousin. 

At least he was acceptably apologetic, after the last time, because he's not sure Chin would have actually bothered holding Kono back, and, fine, maybe he's been riding them a little hard, maybe his temper has been on the short side, maybe the only bright spot in this miserable world was his time with Grace last weekend. He catches the glances Kono and Chin shoot to each other, and he hasn't been totally unaware that they've both tried to get him to come out to bars or home for dinners or to the beach or to Kukui High's football games a lot more often, okay. He knows what they're doing, and why.

Just like he knows exactly how long, to the hour, to the minute, Steve's been gone.

It isn't Japan all over again. It won't be six weeks, only two, and he knows exactly where Steve is, even knows, mostly, when he'll be home. Not that he's been counting down the days, but it could be as early as tomorrow. Maybe. Probably. 

And they've kept busy. The two weeks, they haven't dragged -- there was that drug bust that kept them hopping for most of the first, and a number of smaller cases with more relaxed timeframes during the second, and he's been plenty busy, all right, he's barely had time to notice the days turning over, and he's even almost gotten used to sleeping alone in his own bed again.

But he hates it. He hates that Steve is gone. He hates that Steve is gone, and out of his sight, and nowhere where Danny can have his back if Steve needs it, and he's sure the Navy's got great people working there, he is, but none of them are him and he is Steve's partner, should always be there in case things get hot, and they always get hot, it's Steve. He runs at a perpetual fever grade.

He's fine. Danny knows he's fine. And he'll be back tomorrow, or the next day, and he'll have that same stupid moon of a smile and his cheeks might be slightly thinner and his hair will be shorter but he'll look exactly the same as ever, and Danny will stop being able to sleep for an extra half hour in the mornings because he'll probably be going back to needing to drive to his house for new clothes.

Not that he's actually taken advantage of that half hour. He's been in early and stayed late almost every day, and today was no exception, but there's only so long the human body can tolerate that kind of nonsense, because unlike Steve, Danny does not stay in a perpetual cycle of denying himself things under the misguided notion of calling it training, so when he blinks and realizes he'd nodded off on the couch and missed an hour of the DVR'd Jets game, he gives up the ghost, shuts off the TV, and shuffles, yawning, back through the house to brush his teeth, head to the bedroom, hitting lights along the way.

And maybe tomorrow he'll sleep better, back at Steve's, but he's so wiped that for once, for now, it doesn't matter, and it only sort of matters that the sheets and pillow don't smell anything like Steve, and he's out like a light, clutching one pillow and buried in another, before five minutes have clocked out.

Comments

[thebesteverseen]

It's tempting to stand for a few seconds, maybe like he's waiting. Waiting, just to see if Danny's actually going to leave him alone and roll right back over, and possibly even fall asleep again. It's happened. A lot of things have happened. He's sure they have to be nearing some kind of hundred box of all the things they've done and keep doing Steve was certain would never happen. Not with Danny, and really not with anyone ever. Because he just...didn't.

Things like this didn't happen in his world. His life. SEAL. Task Force leader. It hadn't mattered. Certain things didn't stick. So maybe he is waiting, wondering, some part of him insanely keyed up now. When the hot water is running rivulets down all of his skin and he's scrubbing the same shampoo into his hair and then his skin like he's been in a jungle, a swamp pit, snow drifts, and not just the back of a plane for hours. Like there's a reason to make it a minute and half.

Because Danny could turn up any minute now, too. Because that's happened, as well. Enough to end up with water running cold, and secondary showers having to be taken, while Steve jokes about which of them is lacking in having any patience now. When the answer is both of them. They're like flint and steel, going up in a explosion of heat and brilliance every time. Leaving him listening through the water, once he's scrubbed it all and gotten back under the water.

Rubbing it all off with wide hands and helpful water. As much loving the heat as entirely distracted from it, too.

But the door knob doesn't turn, and the tirade of noise doesn't ever follow him into the bathroom. Which is fine. It's not always. But some part of him is harping, wishfully, warningly, it could be now. Or now. Or now. But it keeps not being it. Which, just as much, keeps tripping up his feet, like ankle shackles, even when he's pushing the faucet handle back in and everything goes to silence, while he's rubbing water off. But no Danny.

Pushing the curtain open and grabbing a towel, still dripping water half of everywhere on that bathroom rug while he borrows the toilet. Giving an odd look to the rug, because he has the second. To notice it, like all the homey touches in this place seem just a little out of place to him, more toward a Danny Steve has taunted him about not being and who might have existed years ago and there are suddenly small signs of everywhere.

Things he's not certain he likes now that is happening. When it's insane. Because the Danny who bought the bathroom rug that matches the whole generic bathroom set, whenever that was, with this house, and all its other little homey touches and changed opinions on places, which he knows are all for Grace, is still the Danny threw his shirt back at his retreating back and threatened not to let him get laid if he didn't get into and out of the bathroom fast enough minutes ago, is still the same Danny. At least hypothetically. Right?

He steals Danny's toothbrush, with something not quite making it to a frown. Toothpaste and in that goes, while he's glancing at Danny's razor and giving his cheek the odd brush over with his other hand. Wiry and wet, the amount of a day only, because he still had to look ship shape this morning, even if it will take him a few more minutes just to do fast, rough job of getting it neat more than gone.

[haole_cop]

Steve is taking forever.

It must be well past three minutes. Right? It's well past three minutes, and heading into infinity; Danny can feel himself getting older as the seconds, minutes, years tick by, while the shower finally cuts off, only for the toilet and the faucet to start running a few seconds later.

"How long does it take to brush your teeth?" he wonders out loud, rolls onto his back with his arm lying across his face. "Doesn't that get timed in the Navy?"

This is ridiculous. No one should be expected to stay in bed and wait while Steve McGarrett is naked in their bathroom, freshly showered, and it's been two weeks since the last time he was under their hands, all right? It's superhuman, this patience, and he groans into his own arm, wondering if maybe he was insane to kick Steve out before, if he should've just dragged him in right then, because the truth of the matter is that they're probably both going to need another shower in less than an hour, a thought that flicks a flame into life just below the roiling metallic mess in his gut, starts melting it all over again. "Jesus Christ, how slow can jet lag make you?"

That's loud enough that Steve ought to be able to hear it, and he doesn't care that if the roles were reversed he'd be taking his own sweet time, enjoying his shower and hot water and the feel of freshly-shaved skin, but, Christ, he hopes Steve doesn't bother shaving. What would be the point, what would it possibly do except slow him down further?

[thebesteverseen]

Steve is trying not laugh. Nearly everything carries to him, even if it's a low indiscernible muttering, which isn't too surprising, and it's also something he should keep in mind, not that he's positive he'll ever be in this house, in this position, during any time when he'll need to be keeping it in mind other ears could probably hear, too. But it's worth noting. Like all the other things he knows about Danny, and about Danny's things.

But the last part definitely gets to making him laugh. He can't really help it. Even if it's probably idiotic of him to give into it, because he's got a blade against his face with nothing between him and it but a handful of mostly already dripped away water. Having forgone shaving cream and mostly just taking the edges off of looking maybe the other side of having seen nothing of civilization for the last twelve hours in a hold of carrier. It's not close, and it's not sheer, but it's manageable until morning.

Especially because he probably couldn't get himself to stand here another five minutes and make it perfect and smooth even if he was offered double his best hazard pay. Because there's a note of downright rebelliously dissenting whining carrying through the house that smack Steve in his gut and makes it sizzle. Because Danny is bitching now about Steve actually doing what he said, and taking what Steve is certain might only barely be at five minutes now. There's really no answer to that but to laugh.

To laugh, and drop the razor in a cup, pulling the towel from around his waist and using it to pat his cheeks and his chin. Before tossing it over the shower rod without much really looking at it, or straightening it out, or any amount of considering picking up all the things he left on the floor and the bathroom counter in his wake. Because there is no point in hanging around, when everything else in him is the taut pull of that magnet in his chest and the warm heady amusement.

"I'm sorry," is drawled, with a heavily dripping mocked arrogance, when Steve is headed from the bathroom toward the door of Danny's bedroom, without a stitch of clothing or self consciousness. Just a golden ribbon of smugness and the tingle of the the water left on his skin turning cold with movement. "Weren't you just saying something about how awful and inhumane the back of a plane was?"

He actually pauses to accent these words, standing there in the first part of Danny's bedroom. Damp skin, and all but blinding smirking. Because who wouldn't be. Who wouldn't want to drag Danny straight over the coals, if Danny was talking about them like this. Like he was a teenager, like they both were and it was impossible to make five minutes. Like they hadn't just done fine with two weeks. But another minute would break the world in half, and they'd break it now at thirty seconds because even that was too long.

So, he stands there, a right bastard and gone proud and high pretty much with all of the insane lot of it. "Who was it that shoved me out of their bed and asked how could I have not have stopped and showered first? How could I have not brush my teeth before accosting them in the middle of the night? After traveling a whole day in subpar conditions to get there?" There's a flourish of one hand in the darkness of the bedroom, that comes to rest on bare hip. "I'm definitely sure it wasn't me."

[haole_cop]

Steve can laugh all he wants, setting Danny's skin burning and his gut knotting, remembering the way that laugh feels against his mouth, thinking about how it lights Steve's whole face, turns him from something perfect and predatory to human, warm as a Hawaiian beach laid out under a baking sun, suddenly available, approachable. Allowed. He can laugh, as long as he hurries up, gets back in this room before Danny's resolve snaps like a twig and he has to toss back the covers and pin Steve right to the counter in his own bathroom, where it won't be nearly as warm or comfortable and is distinctly lacking the bedside table with its drawer of handy supplies.

He doesn't have to, though, because he can hear Steve moving around, sounds with finality; the flood of light when he opens the door and the subsequent click of the switch and sudden swallowing darkness.

Not dark enough not to see, though. Not dark enough not to tell, that when Steve walks in, he's left the towel behind. Not dark enough that there isn't enough light to catch on the water-glossed angles of his shoulders and hips, the definition of muscle, the way he moves, all shoulder, like a few steps faster would allow him to stride straight through a wall.

Except he doesn't keep coming, just stands there, looking satisfied with himself, hand on his hip while he points out that Danny was the one who insisted on the shower, anyway, and he did, he did, is still pretty sure it was the right choice, but he's not thinking about Steve being clean, when he's shoving at the sheets and blanket and getting his feet on the floor; isn't patting himself on the back for making Steve brush his teeth and -- yes, shave -- when he's pushing up off the mattress and making a beeline straight for his partner, the asshole, who's been gone now two weeks and five minutes too long. "You saying you didn't enjoy my shower?" he's saying, but it's all but growled, and he's not stopping or slowing the closer he gets to Steve, just keeps walking right into him, lifting a hand to get on his chest and shoving him back until Steve hits the wall and his chest hits Steve's, and then he's got a hand in Steve's hair to drag him down.

And he doesn't care, okay. It's great that Steve is warm and clean and shower-fresh and that he tastes like mint, but those five minutes, they felt like fifty years, and Danny has never been so desperate to get something under his hands before, doesn't give a damn that he's still in his t-shirt and boxers and his hair is wild and his own stubble is thick and prickly.

All he cares about is getting Steve's mouth back on his, feeling the way the world lurches, feeling that near-sob of a sound catching in his chest, soft and raw where he's breaking right open, because Steve is back, Steve is home, and he couldn't even wait long enough to sleep in his own bed, to take the flights he was supposed to take. And Steve is saying, he just said, he said he took the cargo plane, flew in the back of an Air Force cargo plane, to get here.

Not to his house. Not back to Five-0. Not back to Hawaii.

Here. He took it to get here. Back to Danny.

And that's exactly where Danny's not going to let him leave.

[thebesteverseen]

Steve fights for a response, but even that's a lie. He's not fighting for one. He makes a noise that could have been the beginning of a worded response, would have been a response, if his back weren't being shoved into a wall and a hand weren't grabbing his neck, and sliding into his hair, dragging him down like the wrath of angry, bitter, forced to wait too long, God, and it's only a tender mercy or a miracle that he doesn't make that sound again. The one from the hot water and shower.

The one long gone, along with that bluff of words, because everything else turns sideways and Chinese, as unimportant as instructions in a box. Because Danny's chest hits him, and then his hand, and then his mouth, and there's something nye on punishing about it. Like no one should ever make Danny wait again. Shooting through Steve's veins like fire, tightening every inch of his skin, when his hands are on Danny, one in coming up and finding his head and the other fisting his shirt and dragging him closer.

It's like bursting into flame and not caring. Everything boiling and burning under Danny's hands. A demanding kiss, that makes him want to fight back just as hard. Demand from Danny everything. His anger and every single ounce of missing any of this, every single hint from his tone. He wants more of that sound, the one that gets stuck between them, between their mouths, put out and swallowed in the same gasps, nearly knocking teeth and the scratch of the wall on the knobs of his spine, but the way it's almost soft and ragged and raw, so real its nearly painful. That sound.

None of which matters, nothing, nothing, nothing matters but kissing Danny back. Wanting him, all of him, and not having it. The way that spikes like an assailable threat and Steve's hands are on that shirt, fisted in the cloth, dragging Danny against him, between his legs, with even as he's dragging it upward, coughing up air somehow to say, "Off. Off. Off," into Danny's mouth, all sharp short annoyed orders, dragging his last two fingers solid firm up those ribs to Danny's armpits with the cloth.

He wants all of Danny, and he's not asking. He never is. They never are. It's always like a war, and he missed that last week. Having a fight in his drill somewhere, and having Danny shoving at him like his own personal little war, that never gives in and never gives up, never relents to make him want to bring everything just a hard, all of himself, right back at Danny. Makes him shove words, hard and hot, against Danny's tongue and his lips, "How do you still have clothes? You had five minutes."

Like Steve had somehow granted that time to Danny and not the other way around. Steve who'd had and managed to shove everything into his barely five minutes, and Danny was laying on a bed complaining and he couldn't even take the time to get his clothes off after saying this was coming.

[haole_cop]

He's laughing and gasping for breath in the same second, drunk on it all, on Steve smelling like his shampoo, on Steve's bare skin under his roaming hands, on Steve here in his room, on Steve, Steve, Steve, the best, worst, only drug he'll ever want. "Who's impatient now?"

Steve is, and it'll never stop being a smack in the face of giddy, childish glee that Steve is impatient for Danny to lose his shirt, every stitch of clothing, that he wants this, Danny, as much as Danny wants him, that he can't wait anymore, not even the two seconds it takes to skin thin cotton off his back. His stomach and chest are brushing up against Steve's as he grips the hem of his own shirt and pulls it off over his head, drops it, somewhere unimportant, everything is unimportant except this. Except Steve.

Back, and in one piece, and the first thing he wanted to do was scare the living daylights out of Danny, because he couldn't wait even one more night for this, because neither of them could, and five minutes for a shower and clean teeth is five minutes and an eternity too long. He's got his hands back on Steve as soon as the shirt is gone, and it's still not soon enough. He wants his mouth on the pulse point under Steve's jaw, and he wants to never this clash of a kiss that's more warfare than affection, and he wants to taste that vast expanse of clean warm skin, and he wants it all now, now, now, can't stand not to have it all under his hands.

It's been gone so long. Steve's been gone so long, and it's driving him crazy. "Come on, come on, there's a bed over here, didn't you see it?"

Rough and ragged, like he's not the one pinning Steve to this wall, like he wasn't the one who left that bed and came here, because he just couldn't wait any longer, not even the few seconds it would have taken Steve to walk across the room. He needs this like air, like sunshine, like the job, like life. Hands skating up Steve's back and along Steve's sides, tracking patterns over skin and leaving it real behind them; palm flat over a hip and down a thigh and back up to cup the side of Steve's neck, hard and demanding, because he's damned if he'll ever back down, even now. Especially now.

And their are still boxers, but Steve's a smart guy. Danny's sure he'll manage to take care of them somehow.

[thebesteverseen]

Impatient is not the word. Not when Danny's voice is coming out shattered like ice chips, but made of molten heat. Accented by the press of his fingertips, dulled nails, insistent lips and rough stubble into Steve's own skin. Dull points of pain that sing furiously through him, wanting only more. When he's being pushed into the wall, while Danny presses his joke right back on him. But Steve wasn't the one complaining, nor was he was he the one saying what was going to happen before he was shoved up against a wall.

But thinking, thinking is a terrible idea. It's splintering like a sledge hammer taken to a china cabinet. When Danny is laughing, gusting hot breath on to his skin, throwing his shirt and putting his hands right back on Steve, shaking him and asking questions like somehow Steve missed the rest of the room and Steve was the one who chose to be shoved up against this wall, under the weight of his partner.

It's hard to say with any honesty that the idea of moving is tempting, when Danny is pressing into him and his hands are running down Danny's back, grabbing on to his hips and pulling him even closer. Because the wall is good, and so is the floor. So is anything, anywhere, that means he doesn't have to give up touching Danny. Because not touching him sounds like grounds for treason and shooting someone, even if his gun and his badge and everything needed isn't anywhere near him.

The logic is faulty. Fuck him. Logic existing at all in the world seems faulty, when he wants to spin them and pin Danny, pin Danny against the wall, hands above his head, and map every inch of his skin with his mouth and whatever hand is left, but Danny's hands are already mapping down his own, and his own are slipping inside Danny's boxers without any direction. The fabric that's left rubbing on his legs and stomach, and everything else thundering a marching band through his head with every square inch of pressure, and wrestling friction. When there are fireworks going off under his skin, and behind his eyes, and it's not enough.

Like calling wouldn't have been enough, and tomorrow or the day after wouldn't have been enough. Like this is barely enough. It's the first strike of a match and Steve is just going to cannibalize it all without looking back. "What bed? Hmm?" It's rusty and dark, and there's a sadistic slight to it, when Steve's fingers are straining against the fabric of Danny's boxers. One hand curving around his hip.

So that he can stretch his hand, tilt his hips harder into the wall, and brush the pad of his thumb and maybe half of it, but only that, up the length of Danny's cock between all of that soft, smooth, hardening skin and the stretch of boxers. The fabric doing nothing but antagonizing Steve's own skin, and nothing at all to keep Steve from feeling every inch of Danny, pushing against his leg, his stomach, him. Nothing at all, from making Steve tip in, and lower toward Danny, even a little more, when he's prodding Danny with more words, "Where's that?"

[haole_cop]

He makes a strangled sound at the brush of Steve's thumb along electrified skin, every nerve in his body sputtering into life there, making his boxers feel too small, his skin even smaller. It shivers all the way along his back and up into the nape of his neck, while his hips tip helplessly into Steve's touch, and he's going insane.

He must be. There's no way to take this and live, no way to come out of it without a shattered, useless mind. It's already too much, too good, and not enough, and not nearly enough, all at once, but there's nothing he can do about it except keen a desperate, ragged sound into Steve's mouth, while Steve mocks him. Like Steve can actually keep his head on his shoulders right now, thread words together into something approximating a sentence, when the only thing Danny wants to do is make Steve forget how to say even his own name.

The problem is, he's not sure he'd even be able to make it back to the bed. His knees feel watery and his muscles are shaking, quads and hamstrings tight enough to tremble. "Where? You mean you didn't case the place when you broke in? Pathetic."

It's all but gasped against Steve's mouth, while he's seeking air like he's drowning, and maybe he is. Steve's always been a force of nature, like the ocean, a solid wall rising and slamming into him, before everything dissolves and he's dragged under, washed out to sea, but who could blame him? He's almost going under, just from the rush of having all this under his hands, because Steve is all go go go and it seems like two weeks was two weeks too long for him, too. "But we're gonna end up on the floor if you don't find it, babe."

It's not a threat. It's certainty. He's not going to be able to keep standing against this avalanche; he doesn't want to spend even a second's thought on gravity and what it would do to his knee if he hit the ground without any warning. He wants nothing at all on his mind except this: Steve under his hands, teasing under his boxers, searing hot against his skin, laughing into his mouth with a low dark chuckle that burns like well whiskey. "God, come on, come on. Don't stop."

[thebesteverseen]

Christ. That is perfection. There is no memory of that as good as it happening.

The strangled gulp of air and sound when Danny's body goes taut in reaction, like everything gets electrified by a jolt so hard, he can't even move for the breath of one half-second. Before it explodes into that ragged sound and Danny shoving into his fingers, into his body. That sound that Steve wants to frame. No, wants to hear echoing on these walls, because it goes to his head like too many shots, something headier and hotter than fire.

He wants to swallow it whole, and he wants to pry it writhing from Danny's skin. Over and over and over again.

Until he's shuddering and begging and it's all that come out instead of words and thoughts.

Even when Danny's shaking into him, hips grinding upward into one errant thumb, which is really wholesale the rest of Steve's body, making him bite into his own lip and nearly into Danny's. There's momentary savage longing to just let it snap past his control, in a gout of burn heat and blistering light, tensing up his back, when he's sliding down, fingers digging into Danny's skin with a tremor, and they are going anywhere but backwards toward the bed at the moment when Danny is crashing toward him and wall, talking about the floor.

Laughing into his mouth, half threat and half promise, making Steve grin a sort of grim, smile into Danny's mouth, and his cheek, before he's pushing himself up. Because he has so many more aims than that. Just falling into a resolute pile on the floor. Or jerking Danny off so hard and fast Danny would forget his boxers are still on and the ceiling is up, that anything exists except holding on. Not that it isn't deeply tempting when Danny is telling him not to stop.

But he's not stopping. Not when he straightens up, weight dropping back in calves and the balls of his feet, even when his fingers are curling around Danny. Pretending the notion of right here, right now, doesn't have a devastating appeal, when his fingers make a cage around Danny's skin, and slide down and up, while he's standing, even though he can't stand up entirely doing it. He's not aimed at it, but he's nudging Danny back with a shoulder at the same time.

Off of him, off of the wall. Taking the first steps toward the bed that will be better than any bunk he's been staying on, which is really just starter steps to get Danny actually back to the thought process of walking that he's sure his hand isn't helping in the slightest. But he's not letting go. Or stopping. And hell, he's not really helping with the other one either. Finding Danny's mess of hair, all soft and crazy, and tilting his face to catch his mouth, again.

How did he breathe without any of this for weeks. Was it even breathing. Because this is barely enough air to be.

Kissing him, while saying, straight into his teeth, "Bed." A smug reminder. "I want all of you."

[haole_cop]

There's no term for the sound he makes when Steve's fingers wrap around him, warm and firm and callused. It's a sore, helpless noise, the soft tissues in his chest tearing like damp Kleenex, catching soft claws in his throat, and he'd swallow it out of pride, but what's the point? Is there seriously any reason at all to pretend he doesn't want this exactly as much as he does?

Because he does. Has been damn near dreaming about it every night, and, sure, most of those fantasies didn't start with Steve breaking into his house, but they mostly skipped ahead to this part, anyway: to surprisingly soft skin over the hard plane of muscle, to the way he smells, to the glide and gnash of their mouths and the way Danny almost unbalances when Steve starts walking him backwards. "Come on," he says, thick, manages just barely to make it a taunt and not a plea. "I know you've been -- fuck -- come on, come on, tell me, tell me how you've been thinking about this for the last two weeks, how bad you wanted it, how you want all of me."

He's never let Steve just roll him over and he's damned if he's going to start now, even when his skin feels like it's about to start melting off just from this first touch. He won't, will only push back, keep challenging, hauling on the back of Steve's neck and dragging him along as they stumble back towards the bed and its rumpled and perfectly soft sheets.

It's not far, thank God, because Steve's got freaky long legs and they keep banging knees into each other and Danny trips more than once, barely able to breathe, knowing he should try to slow this down, because it's not like tonight is the last night they'll ever get. No one almost died, and no one is leaving, and nothing horrible happened, for once. So there's no need for this fire to burn so brightly, right? No need for this desperation, like he might actually die if he doesn't get Steve under his hands and under his body and feel him everywhere, on every inch of his skin.

No need. So someone should tell that to his lungs, which are working overtime, and his brain, which isn't working at all.

[thebesteverseen]

How was he supposed to wait? Bubbles of the strangest, insanest, clarity, that aren't anywhere near clear, keep escaping, like bubbles in boiling water, surging for air. How was he supposed to wait two days or two planes or two more minutes, before this? Before he could be here? Before Danny was dashing sounds on his lips like he's being cut open, raw and bleeding want instead of blood, while those fingers are digging hard into his neck and the base of his head.

When Danny is somewhere between begging and asking, words falling everywhere, while they're doing the most disjointed version of walking anywhere, but Steve can't even deny it. God, no. He thought of this. Fell down on beds that aren't unlike any other bunks he'd slept in off and on for weeks and weekends for most of his adult life, and found it harder to sleep than ever before. Especially five or six days in.

A night, two or three, sometimes, but it was never a week anymore. Never two. Danny was always there somewhere. In his space. A six pack, and some food. Still talking about the case of the day or the newest round of things with Rachel's lawyers, before. Things. All those things he should be asking about. Thinking about for more than another milliseconds escaping air bubble but he isn't. He's thinking about the feverish way it was impossible not to think about Danny.

Rolling over in bed at nearly a week, confused about being alone, even in a bunk that would make a twin bed look spacious. That could not, without much banging of heads, knees and elbows, ever fit two people, no less them. When his skin felt foreign and more incapable of becoming numb than he could ever remember. Maybe never had. And now, here, with Danny, everything was awake, on fire, pressure and want surging head first through a well of denial.

Because Danny is here, his, under his hands, and they run into the bed at just about the perfect moment. Which is the second before Steve is going to give up on the bed and take Danny up on the damn floor, because two minutes and five minutes and ten feet from the wall to the bed, it's all too much now. And he does have to let go, but it isn't like letting go sounds. It's the snap of his hand and his patience, with the words, "Every day," just falling out, like an accusation.

When he's pushing Danny down into his sheets. The hand in his hair finding his shoulder and shoving it until Danny's flush with the bed, held down by his weight on that hand and shoulder, while Steve's still in motion. His free hand, still skin warm not even stopping, painting itself fingers-wide spread across Danny's chest, all muscles and hair, hand dragging down his breast bone and his stomach. Like Steve found mecca in his skin. Maybe he did, had, would.

Because he was leaning down to kiss Danny's chest. "The beds aren't even-" Then, again. Lower.

Shaking his head, because it's five kinds of fucked up insane, if this is normal. "--and there are two dozen other guys-"

Which is a problem, and not that he hasn't rubbed them out in a room full of men under blankets. All of them have, and all of them have rolled over and looked the other way while other people were. Boats and tents are only so big, and sometimes the next day is only exponentially worse if there's nowhere a man can catch some kind of break. But it was never what he wanted. It was never enough. It was never this.

The skin of Danny's stomach flushed hot under his lips and fluttering, while his hand is grabbing the waistband of those boxers and shoving downward, because they need to be gone. An unsightly, insulting enemy to be vanquished. Along with the fact he's still trying to string words, and not just burying his nose into Danny's skin. "--and all I could think about was this," gets ground out somewhere right below Danny's navel. "You."

When his fingers have abandoned Danny's shorts, not even at his knees entirely, for curling back around Danny's cock. Stronger grip, and stiffer fingers "Your skin." The way it smells. Warm and rich, heavy with work, faint cologne and hair products, things Steve doesn't keep anywhere. "The way it's tastes -- the way you --" But Steve, Steve doesn't have words. Words, are Danny's, and if Danny doesn't have them, then maybe they are just blown away in the wind.

Because there is nothing else in the world but Danny and Danny's skin, the way it's here, right now, and the way his fingers slide back when his mouth wraps around Danny, and the whole world comes down to those two things with such overwhelming necessity. The way Danny's smells and tastes, hot and heavy on his tongue when he's taking as much as he can, because he can, because there isn't anything else that exists.

[haole_cop]

He knew. Of course he knew, because it was exactly the same here, with him, minus the two dozen guys and the bunk and the drilling and the whole other life --

But it was the same. Every day, hitting him when he least expected it, socking him in the jaw with a sucker punch of need. A sudden, visceral memory, of Steve's fingers and Steve's tongue and the taste of Steve in his mouth and on his lips. The tiny and not so tiny sounds Steve makes, when he's letting go, just forgetting the world outside each other even exists for anything but to be taken apart.

Wanting this. The way he hits the sheets and Steve's on him so fast he doesn't have time to bounce, is swarmed by six feet of tanned, solid, fit Navy SEAL like he's a beach to be stormed, kissing down his chest, painting words with letters of fire deep under his skin, shoving at his shorts while Danny squirms, tries to get them off, before. Before. "Fuck, Steve."

The hiss of water hitting a red-hot stovetop, when everything is a rapid expansion and then tightening spiral of tight wet heat, and one hand fists in his sheet while the other finds Steve's shoulder, gripping with nerveless fingers.

It's too much. It's always too much, but, Christ, Christ, he feels like he's being swallowed whole and he'll never last, will come embarrassingly fast, like a teenager who's never been touched before, if Steve doesn't stop it. But Steve won't. Not after saying, doing, that, not after breaking into Danny's house like the psychopath he is because the thought of staying away even long enough to call and wake Danny up was insanity, would have been too long, impossible. "You," he's saying, babbling, lips dry and throat screaming. "You, you. I wanted you. Your goddamn bed, smelled like you, I couldn't sleep --"

Steve does something with his tongue and it shoves Danny's head back into the pillow, back arching already, an almost noiseless hum running wherever Steve's fingers move on his skin, settles in the bottom of his throat and muddies every break. "You know, sailor fantasies, they are not as amazing as everyone says."

He's fighting for every word, reaching down deep and dragging each one out kicking and screaming, forcing them to build themselves together out of the shattered, broken window of his sanity. "They're not -- Jesus -- so great. Uniforms in the way. You, just you, is so much better."

[thebesteverseen]

There's swearing and clutching, dull pain ricocheting down his shoulder into his arm and chest, from five fingers digging into his skin like he's the last jut in a cliff wall between Danny and oblivion, which smacks through him just to slam into something that looks a lot like super wave of vicious victory. Warm and alive, with heady arrogance and even more drive, spreading everywhere.

He knows logic is going, or gone, because whatever he'd been thinking about the importance of breathing, its gone again. Replaced by a want, and a will, to never breathe again. To make those minutes he could without breathing stretch an eternity, because Danny is clinging to him and rambling. Like he doesn't have tonight, tomorrow, the rest of forever to talk, has to get them all out now. Words filling up the darkness behind Steve's eyes and inside his ears, making him want to hold on tighter.

Because somehow, even here, even now, it seems impossible. Surprising.

Even when Danny already shoved him into a shower and then a wall, and this isn't even seconds later. Still hearing him, hearing that Danny wanted him all of this time. While they were all here, all home, all doing everything that was normal and the only thing that was missing was Steve, Danny was missing him. Danny had tried sleeping in his bed, without him, and couldn't, because it smelled like him, which goes down in an unexpected bomb in his gut, flashing fire and lightning everywhere.

None of it even having the chance to stay still, while he's pulling up and down on Danny's skin, and twisting his fingers every time he follows his mouth up, and Danny is rambling about sailor fantasies. Which just makes Steve laugh. And maybe he shouldn't. Mouth more than half full. Lips ringed around the head, but he can't seem to help it. That's not quite something he ever pictured Danny picturing. But he missed this. He did.

Danny's mouth and the way it never stops. The way it never stops and he wants it never to stop, and he wants to stop it and he's too far from it all at once. The quiet moments of the last weeks seemed accented everywhere with wrongness, when no one was there to suddenly break them, throwing in the most outlandish things into it. When it's all just a game, debris falling off the cliff with them.

Which has to be the only reason he raises his head, pulling back, licking his lips, to toss out, like it's a smug 'ah-ha' moment, even when it's thick with smugness and the hoarse confusion of air and sound finding his throat instead of more Danny. "So that's why my uniform's all over your house now."

[haole_cop]

"No."

Even without air, he can still stuff that word with every crammed ounce of exasperated disdain, like he can't believe Steve manages to get himself dressed correctly in the mornings, let alone undressed at night. "Your uniform is all over my house because even you are not thick-headed enough to shower with your clothes on."

He can breathe a little, now that Steve isn't swallowing him hot and heavy and whole, can prop himself up on one elbow to stare down the length of his own body and see him. Lying there, eyes dark and drunk and almost dangerous, with his fingers still wrapped around Danny's cock and running a thin blade of keening desperation under his skin, and, Jesus. It all still feels so unreal.

Two weeks is almost enough time, and more than enough time, to convince himself something never happened at all. To go back to being without Steve, to not talking about it, to having no one who knows -- aside from Catherine, and, frankly, he doesn't think he's quite up to chatting with her about it just yet.

It's been a strange purgatory, the last two weeks, and it feels like this can't be happening, isn't, shouldn't; that he'll wake up any second and Steve won't be back, after all, and this will be just another of those vivid dreams that will send him for a shower, alone and cold, or to snake his own hand down under the covers, pretend it's the one he's seeing now, gasping at the memory of a laugh shaking warm and gusting around him, instead of the real thing.

There are more words; he cobbles them together, tosses them blindly into the dark. "Aren't there rules about that kind of thing, ruining your uniform on purpose? Huh?"

While his hand is curving at Steve's neck and he's pushing himself up further, tugging at Steve, wanting him back here, close enough to breathe in and believe. "Come here, come here, slow down, Jesus, are you trying to shove me off a cliff?"

[thebesteverseen]

Watching Danny fight shouldn't be as basely gratifying as it is.

The space where a groan of compliant for stopping could be is filled instead with fierce insult about Steve's head.

All of it making Steve smiling idiotically in the dark and drag his fingers up Danny's skin almost like throwing a rock back. No one on the planet is thick enough to shower in their clothes, but Steve's spent enough time in several layers of uniform in pouring rain and high water for the notion to not even seem all that far off from familiar. Though it's the blip of a seconds thought, gone by the time Danny is pushing himself up.

Rumbling movement of his chest catching air, elbow on the bed. The fingers on Steve turning from ledge spikes into something pushing at him and then tugging on him. When it's impossible, okay. All of it. Not to get a stumped watching Danny raise up, all long lines of solid packed muscle and winded aggravation that couldn't be real aggravation right now if Danny was trying. But he isn't. There's nothing about it that has claws except the earlier desperate press of those fingertips.

"Maybe," is snapped, hot and smart, smiling, and it's so much more a yes than it could ever be a no, or a maybe. Because it's not like Danny wasn't going, willing to go. Shoving him into the wall, telling him not to stop, holding on to and making the kind of noises that are never ever going to let Steve have a peaceful week of sleep without them again. Nor this face. Or the ragged, raw sound of Danny's voice as he keeps rolling forward, unstopped and unstoppable.

"Seriously? You want me to slow down? Now?" There's a fast, taunting edge to it, even when he's throwing the words out, fighting the hand tugging him forward, with an arrogant smile. It's easy to roll with, keep going, fire and brash fall out of his mouth, like it was made to. Half moving forward, half not, smile sharp and the curl of his fingers nothing like kind, or letting go. "You want I could go get my uniform and fold it up correctly now, while you're busy catching your breath?"

[haole_cop]

"I want to not burn through this."

He doesn't want to. And does. Wants to shove it all onto the fire, toss on a lit match and a few hundred gallons of propane, and just let the sucker burn, and just collapse back into sleep with Steve laid out flat next to him.

And he wants to dial it down to a dull roar, to slow down and enjoy it, even if his body is screaming at him to just shove it all into fifth gear and gun it straight off this mountaintop and into a spitting pit of lava, and, really, waht would be the point of catching his breath, slowing down? Why not just give it up, let it go, hit hard and fast and drop into incoherent afterglow in less than five minutes, be back asleep not even half an hour after Steve woke him up?

He wants so much it's driving him crazy, a blender whirring in his head and tossing out stray thoughts here and there, contradictory impulses, disconnected sentences. But it doesn't matter. None of it does, it's all just details, white noise, falls out in the wash, because there will, somehow, impossibly, be a next time for anything that doesn't happen right now. Next time, they could go slow. Next time, he could have Steve right up against the wall, until they both collapse to the floor. Next time, next time, and when did that start happening, when did he stop worrying that each time would be the last? So it doesn't matter. There's only one important piece of information here, about what he wants, about how he wants it. "I want you."

Just Steve. Any way Steve wants to give himself. However he could possibly imagine.

And he wants there to be a next time, and time after that, and a time after that. Wants to be so sure that next time (next time) Steve goes away, Danny's head won't so clogged up with all the possibilities of having him once he's back that he can't sort through them all long enough to pick one.

[thebesteverseen]

Steve doesn't believe him. Nor do the points on his shoulder that he can't feel anymore.

He's certain one or two of will end up with dark smudges staining his skin like someone dipped their fingers in ashes and brushed him in passing. Things he could have easily gotten anywhere. Especially while out on drills. But he'll know. The way he knows now, even when he can't feel them, that one or two of them will end up staying. But that's point. Even in the dark, even when he says it, Steve doesn't believe that. Doesn't have to see it to know.

But he does believe the nearly breathless, nearly a complaint, nearly an insult, nearly a cover, nearly a confession that falls out next. The way it races out of Danny's mouth like it should be able to straddle the divide of every single thing Danny has done and said, up to and including the last one. He's never ready for it when it happens. The way he can be down to his skivvies already, and Danny says three words, and it feels like Danny pushes through everything like there was an everything left to be pulled off still.

His skin and his muscles and his bones, to whatever it is that's left in the middle and just shoves his hands into that.

Maybe Steve's smile smooths out in a completely different way, and his hand slides to something close to slow, maybe even close to if not quite to stopping, when he shakes his head. Asking himself for the fifty million time, how he got here, with Danny, of all people. Danny, with his heart on his shoulder. Danny, with that face that couldn't hide a damn thing if he got it surgically frozen in place, and his tone that gives everything away.

His heart bleeding on his shoulder. For Steve. Because of Steve. Somehow. Tripping up Steve's feet at the same time flooding his chest with this wash of warmth that is getting the hell of everywhere. When he's moving, again, pushing up from the balls of his feet, with something like a laugh, but it's softer than usual. Free hand coming up to find the nape of Danny's neck and drag Danny closer, like he wasn't just fighting Danny doing the same thing.

Maybe it wasn't the same thing, when he's leaning in, and tipping his face up, brushing Danny's mouth with his, all precarious balance nowhere that he doesn't give a damn about because he has to be saying, "I'm right here. You've got me." Like maybe everything he's already done today -- with the planes, and the house, and the shower -- isn't enough to show that. Somehow. He's here. He's here, when he shouldn't be but had to be.

But he can say it, too. With trill of humor like it can lay a mask over how bare it really is. What it all means.

[haole_cop]

It won't ever not land like a kick to the stomach, Steve saying those words, however he says them, whenever he says them. Low against Danny's mouth, finally giving into the hand that's been trying to drag him up and bowling Danny gently back into the mattress, the pillow, while a bomb goes off in a muted explosion in Danny's chest and paints the inside of his ribs with a warm splatter, sets him awash and drowning, and Steve shakes his head like he's the one who can't believe this is happening, like it's still insane, even to him.

Like Steve isn't continually rearranging Danny's world into a pattern that's both easier to understand and incomprehensibly complex, terrifyingly fragile behind a solid rock facade. Like this, this house, this life, would have been possible without Steve, like there might possibly be anyone else Danny could be saying those words to, right now.

There isn't. Because, somehow, magically, impossibly, he's got Steve. Steve is telling him so. Has told him so. Keeps saying it, with that strange, half-smug, half-disbelieving smile. Steve came back, Steve's his, his, Steve loves him.

He wonders if Steve has any idea what it's like to be loved by someone like him. It's like being loved by the ocean, something vast and terrifying, prone to acts of breathtaking, pitiless violence, before being laid out and lazy under a softer sun. His heart is tripping all over itself, dissolving into something embarrassingly gooey and soft, and he feels like he can't breathe, hands finding their way back up Steve's body, moving slow, full palms and fingers, the soft part skin of his forearms brushing over Steve's skin. Leaning up into his mouth, pulling him down, deeper into the bed, because two weeks is too long and Steve traveled for a day to get here. With him. Because Danny's got him, and he's not letting go.

"Good. That's good." Stolen from the air his body is trying to tell him he needs to live, but he doesn't, can't, it's a ridiculous thought. He doesn't need to breathe. He only needs this. "There's no such thing as getting enough of you."

[thebesteverseen]

Then they are going down, again, toward the mattress. Danny's shoulders and Steve needs to actually find the bed for the first time, for more than pushing Danny into it. Even if that is what's happening for a second time, and is what he used it for a first time, but he's being pulled down with it this time. Like Danny's an undertow that he can't resist. Which might as well be true after today.

He could, some tiny voice in him fights back, reminds him doggedly, but he doesn't want to. Or have to.

He can just let his knees find the bed, crawling up, straddling Danny lap, and fall under Danny Williams lack of anything like passive restraint even when he's at a loss. When Danny is kissing him, and there are hands running up and down his skin everywhere. Not stopping, like Danny needs to find all of it to be sure it's there. Like he wasn't just on a base, and could have somehow lost some of it without telling Danny over the phone.

There's a sore ache, like Danny shoved something sharp and hot, right behind his breast bone at those words. Words he's not even sure if are for him, or just falling out of Danny's mouth about him while he just happens to be there, too. Because it could be one or the other or both. It's Danny and Danny's mouth, the tangle and muddle of all the words that come of it and get tangled up in Steve's head, because he's never not listening.

When his only defense to not letting the sore spot grow like someone placed the muzzle of a barrel to his skin and pulled the trigger, is laugh, again. Low, heavy and derisive, instead of kissing Danny, when he should be kissing Danny. Even that spot under his bones is saying so. But instead he's talking. Danny Williams is more than just under his skin, he's poisoning Steve's sense of humor and his dedication to his game, and Steve couldn't care in the slightest.

He's finding the side of Danny's jaw, while it happens, that laugh and the word. "I'm going to remind you that you said that tomorrow." At work, in the car, in evening when the day has been too long without touching him like this even once more, and pushing him into a closed door is because it's the closest surface after the world is shut out and it's all he can take. Steve's lips passing over a briar of stubble working toward the lower part of his jaw, the crook at the top of his next. "And next day."

Right where it turns smooth and Steve can't even tell which he wants more. "And the next."

Because there is no such thing as enough of Danny, everything Danny is, either.

[haole_cop]

They're a tangle of movement, arms and legs that are too long for the space they're trying to fit in, which is apparently beneath each other's skin, but Steve's letting him pull them both down, down, chasing the line of Danny's jaw to skin that feels tissue-thin and on fire, before laughing right into it, and, God, fuck, fine, that's fine, Steve can remind him of this as often as he wants tomorrow and the next day and the day after that, because that means Danny gets to have him for at least three more days. It's three more days he'll have this, and it's not enough, not nearly enough, but it's so much more than he ever thought he'd get that he would take it in a heartbeat, even if he knew Steve would change his mind once the three days were up, like it's a fairy tale and three is the magic number.

It might be. It could. Danny's still not wholly sure how this happened at all, even months in, even after Steve stuck with him through them both nearly being blown up, or how he's managed to hold onto it. By all rights Steve should have come to what few senses he has by now, now that they're well past anything even remotely resembling casual and in the middle of a one hundred percent real and happening affair, one that keeps blowing in like a hurricane and leveling everything in sight, scattering any attempt at a fence or wall he might try to put up.

It would never stand. Not against this. Not when he wants it so badly, can feel it shrilling through his system like someone plugged him into the Times Square power grid, not when he's dazedly thinking back on the last two weeks and wondering what he did with them, who he was with, how he slept, while Steve works his mouth down Danny's neck until he groans. Rolls his head to the opposite side, to give Steve more space, more room, anything, anything he wants at all. Hands roaming down Steve's back, to the curve of his ass, down along his thighs, tracking strong muscle that was trained for so much more than anything Danny's ever seen thrown at it, legs and hips and sides and ribcage, all these parts that somehow make up this insane, unstable, perfect man Danny can't stop loving.

Who is making him laugh, even as his eyes squeeze shut against the exquisite, sore perfection of Steve's mouth on his skin, of Danny's fingers sliding along Steve's, until one hand slips between his legs. "Promises, promises. You go ahead, all it'll mean is -- ah, ah, Christ -- that you're thinking of this --"

Fingers curling around smooth, hot, hard, soft skin, possessive and firm. "And you'll know I'll be -- I'll know it, right in the car, at work, when you're doing something idiotic that'll probably get us both killed --"

[thebesteverseen]

There are endless lists Steve could make of what he can do with his hands. Most of them classified and redacted. Most of them deadly, trained deeper than thought, faster than choice, and all of them a hairsbreadth from accessible at a seconds need. Things he can only imply to the outside world, and that inside world regards him with a healthy modicum of respect and distance both.

He can list them all, and none of them surprise him like the simplicity of the one he has right now.

His fingers curled around Danny's side. Unlike weapons, and mission specs, and debriefings, this is always new, always potentially going to not be there when his hands searches for it. Like it might vanish under his fingertips, under his lips, even when Danny is arching into his body and groaning like there was nowhere else on the planet or even in his house that wasn't this muddle of them. Making room for him. Making him want to mark all over it, again.

Like somehow Danny will have forgotten, or the world might have. When the thoughts are insane, because Danny is right here, hands dragging heat and goosebumps along Steve's skin, that hasn't been touched by anything but uniforms and well starched sheets in two weeks, and the world is out there, where they always leave it until the sun demands this give this up for another day.

Steve is somewhere in the loop toward a dark smirk, at Danny's reference, because this keeps happening, more and more, as the weeks pass, the hooked references, or looks, and touches the linger just this side of too long. Especially if they are left alone. And he's got a crass, smug remark about it heading, like a bowling ball for a strike, right out of his mouth, before the whole world slams sideways into a fierce crackle of white and an explosion of heat eating the air in his throat.

Driving his hips to pump into Danny's hand and his forehead into Danny's shoulder, when his knees are shifting out like close to his hand and his body isn't close enough, to the inferno licking flames on his skin, and making him smother, "Fuck," and "Danny," hard on Danny's skin. Because it's like getting smacked full in the face with a brick wall at high speed. Or like standing still and having the brick wall slam straight into him at break neck speed.

His bones going rigid while his muscles snapped straight to movement.

Even with the world submitting to something like smoke and fire curling all the edges, there is nothing like surrender or retreat in the book of Steve's head. Hips still shifting when he makes himself lift enough to give Danny a sharp, half annoyed expression, that isn't entirely either, snapping out fast and flippant, "You don't think you're hard enough to work with already?"

Like, maybe, he means like normal. Like every single day of the last three to four years and the way they've gone from not getting along and possibly general hate, to more and more it being this play act of constant yelling and supposed hate, that neither of them would deny doesn't except if the smallest pressure was placed on it. Or, maybe he means, now. Now, these weeks, these months.

Madness when he can't reach out and Danny. Madness when everything goes even more haywire than it always did whenever they're in a tight spot, guns are blazing and some goes down or gets hit. Madness when he can look up, randomly, middle of crime scene or the office, and just the way Danny is twisting his wrist or swallowing his coffee or toying with a pen can hit Steve's body like an searing hot wrecking ball lodging in his gut, turning him on like a teenager emulating light switch, and demolishing every ounce of sense and focus in its path.

[haole_cop]

It's perfect, the way Steve's whole body goes haywire and for a second, he's not thinking, isn't talking or leading or in control; he's just reacting, hips pushing into Danny's hand, knees spreading, his whole body going tense, trying to get closer, wanting more. Those words burned into Danny's skin, and the side of his throat, that he's sure are going to smoke there for the rest of the night, falling like a reflex out of Steve's mouth, and maybe it's not as incoherent as Danny wants, yet, maybe it's not only his name, over and over, in a helpless litany, but it still lands a solid punch to the stomach, cuts off whatever supply of oxygen was still going to his head and keeping him from giddy intoxication.

It's followed swiftly by Steve insulting him, like always, like they always do, that's three-quarters of everything they ever say to each other, and he's honestly relieved beyond imagining that it's no holds barred in the bedroom, too. He loves the way Steve argues back, the way he takes Danny's words and twists them, like he wouldn't be lonely without Danny here, like he hadn't missed Danny just as much as Danny missed him, so Danny can just laugh, tattered with lack of breath, at the very idea. "Hard to work with, who, which of us is hard to work with, I ask you, is it me, the one who always fills out paperwork on time and never goes jumping off buildings or dangling suspects down elevator shafts, huh? Or is it someone else?"

All while his hand never stops moving, sliding up and down, not fast, but deliberate. Memorizing all over again the way Steve feels, hot and heavy and silky under his fingers, the way his body seizes up, how he shakes like he's just run a marathon, how his voice goes rough and pitches low, and Danny can't ever hear enough of it, get enough of it. He wants Steve to never stop talking; he wants to make Steve forget how to string even two words together that aren't Danny or more. Wants to take him apart, this homeward bound soldier, and put him back together into the Steve he'll hit the rounds with tomorrow; wants to erase every mark the Navy left on him and replace them with one of his own.

"Besides, that's a lie, too, you love working with me."

[thebesteverseen]

Danny keeps talking, straight through the flames. Not that that is anything new, but Steve can feeling it like the words are braiding themselves straight through the fibers of his muscles gone taut even in piston movement. The same way he can feel himself gouging holes in the wall and cobbling his fingers over that stack of bricks Danny smacked him with. Because he's talking, and not speeding up. Settled into this low grade, consistent pattern.

A pattern that is still peeling Steve's skin off his muscles, but it's doing it in slow incremental slides. Dragging his gut to and fro like a anchor that's connected to Danny's hand, while Steve's eyes are nearly dazed in the darkness, and still following the movement of Danny's mouth at least as much as the movement of the hand on him that he couldn't ignore unless he was deeply trying to.

"I do not love working with you, you're --" Presently, pulling the nerves off Steve's spine, one by one, with the loop of his fingers. "Loud." Is too sudden, too sharp, and not focused in the slightest, holding on to words my fingertips he's gaining one at time. "And overcareful." If that's even a word in the world. He's just grabbing them from anywhere. "You worry about everything." Which might all be good and fine, if his hips weren't still shoving him into Danny's fingers.

Like everything was the curve of that hand. Like he didn't absolutely love Danny's hands, and Danny's mouth, and every inch of Danny's body. Like he hadn't been half mad with imagining things. Danny's hands on him, or his mouth, or sliding so deep into Danny's skin his sanity peeled off like a sticker on a piece of fruit. He's slipping from sure footing through, on those fingers, and his mouth grasps for "I don't love--"

But even flippant and half on fire, even if those words are a joke, a normal one, they catch like cotton covered in chloroform in his throat. A joke he should be able to make without blinking. I don't love you. But they aren't entirely a joke, and they're so much further from the truth than they used to be. When it's madness, just the slam of denial and confusion from everything in his chest, smacked full speed into everything else, ratcheting it all up, while Danny's fingers are working him over, and all he can do is clench his eyes for a second, and push in to it.

"God." Because even giving the ground of one round is easier than forcing those words into a joke. He can just give that second to Danny, and his damned fingers, and his messy heart that somehow moved itself into Steve's chest, and the tar in Steve's own voice. "Don't stop."

[haole_cop]

"Yes, you do."

Comes out warm and confident, a statement of fact, and of something fiercely protected. It's something he's so much more certain of, in moments like these, when his hand is driving Steve crazy and Steve came to him instead of going home and no matter what Steve's saying, that's not true. He does.

He said it, like carefully inking it into a tattoo just above Danny's heart. He said it straight-faced, looking right at him after a day when he stayed, put Danny before his run, his swim, work, the world.

Danny's not always sure. Doesn't always quite know how to look at it, when it's not side-eyed and distrustful, cautious, like if it looks at it head-on, it'll just blink away, disappear, but he's sure now. Right now, in this exact second, he's never been more sure of anything than that that is a lie, that sentence Steve can't finish, that he chokes on an doesn't end. He can't even pin that last word onto it, nail into Danny's chest with any degree of absolution. It's a lie. The way Steve's moving against, under, into his hand; the way he dragged Danny against him when they were both against the wall, how he hasn't let go of him for a single second since, how his hand curled around the curve of Danny's ribs, how he's saying don't stop, as if Danny ever would, that, that is the truth. "I'm not stopping, are you crazy? You just got back, there's no way I'm stopping."

Not any of it. Not saying things Steve will throw back at his head and call lies, not his fingers on Steve's skin, not the way he's continually shifting, trying to get closer, fit more perfectly, to hear that again, Steve calling on God and telling him not to stop.

Two weeks. Two weeks. It's beating in his head like blood, repeating itself over and over. Two weeks without him, without this, without that voice. Without feeling wanted, like Steve wants him. Without wanting anyone like he wants Steve. "Come on, babe, I just want to touch you."

Like Steve is telling him to stop, or trying to pull away, instead of trying to slide under Danny's skin and live there. Like there's any part, of any of this, that isn't asking for all the more Danny can give.

[thebesteverseen]

Christ. That. That goes to his head, too. But not like just to his head. It's like being knocked off your board and turned around and having the the next run smash through into your face. When you feel your head jar and your teeth knock and the world turn upside from inside of you at the same time as it's running straight through you, like you aren't the smallest bit of flotsam to even stop it from rolling on after making a mess of you.

That's what it's like just hearing Danny retort back, all sun-warmed doubtlessness, that Steve loves him.

Owning that knowledge like it's something he can shove his hands into Steve's chest and just yank out of him.

It's an unfair tactical advantage Steve doesn't approve of and can't help being entirely swept over and under by all at once. Danny's hand running up and down his cock like it was born to. Like Steve's been using his skin wrong the whole time. Danny's words dancing circles into his ear, and sending itself down to latch into his heart, like a snake with fangs, and drag it out of him from the closest available space while Steve is caught in the damn tide of all of it. Because he doesn't want it to stop. Doesn't want that hand to stop.

Doesn't have the faintest clue what to do with that limping, circle running, jumping still stumbling along thing in his chest that calls itself his heart, but it doesn't want to stop either. Doesn't want to stop racing. Doesn't want to stop banging and battered against his ribs, like Danny is still too far away from his even now. Laughing and saying that he's nowhere near stopping. That all he wants is to touch Steve, and how is that not supposed to go to his head, okay? How?

That Danny hasn't changed his mind. That Danny shoved him into a shower, a wall, and his bed. Wants him. Has him. Has had him. Enough times and in in enough ways he could just be done with experiment and walk away already. Take whatever shreds are left of Steve's heart and toss them into the sand and the wind and go, like everyone always has. Had. But he doesn't. His hands are everywhere. He's everywhere. Still here. On Steve, and Steve's skin.

It's insane and it's perfect. It's too many words, when Danny is muttering those last ones, and just enough to finally start cutting through that off, eerie, prattle-free, silence that's been following him around for two weeks. It makes laughter bubble up, boiling, through his blood and out of his own skin, because that can't just be his mouth, and Danny's skin under it. It's not possible. "Because you aren't now?"