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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.
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.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-08 02:41 pm (UTC)"Most people," he starts, and this is just the beginning, okay, there are so many lectures he could spit at Steve's head about what most people do, there are millions, there are legion.
Most people don't keep incendiaries in the car where hitting one of the omnipresent potholes in Hawaii's back roads could set them off and blow everyone in a fifty foot radius to smithereens.
Most people don't get up at the crack of dawn even on weekends to self-flagellate with exercise.
Most people are appropriately aware of the boundaries, personal and professional and every other kind that Steve just bulldozes through like they're made of tissue paper and not thirty-plus years of emotional issues. And, well.
"Most people would not sound so please with themselves about that statement," he says, eyeing Steve with deep skepticism through the falling water, because, seriously, he's known for a long time that there's something catastrophically wrong with the way Steve's brain processes even the simplest of expectations, but he's never quite gotten over the hope that one day, Steve might react in a way Danny is used to, expects, knows how to handle. "Most people would not put themselves in a position to make that statement in any way true, because most people would not break into their partner's house in the middle of the night under the impression that it would make for an appropriate surprise."
Not that he expects any of this to do anything more than bounce off Steve's head the way water droplets are bouncing off Steve's skin, but what can he say? He's a sucker for a lost cause.
And this is a lost cause. Not Steve -- him. He is so far beyond gone that there's no rehab or twelve-step program that can get him clean from this addiction. There's no getting Steve out from under his skin, or out of his head, or out of his dreams, his days, his every waking thought.
So maybe he's just as bad as Steve. Maybe he's worse. "Here's an idea: how about you never do that again, and we call it still definitely not even."
(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-08 05:23 pm (UTC)The part where Danny's so real it's almost staggering at seconds. That he's there. Not a clipped flash of Steve's memory inserting itself somewhere. The part where, watching him do this, look annoyed, wave a hand, and throw out insults and reprimands, like Steve needs to be reminded he's an adult, and he didn't just come from weeks of more orders than conversations, does devastate everything. Mow it down, with lines of open fire, and the waste land of a chain of explosives. Nothing else is there. Except Danny.
Waving his hand, spitting his words, eying Steve like he doesn't think any single one of those words is landing, or making it inside his head. While Steve's heart just bangs into his rib cage, like it can't take a step in any direction without falling, sliding, slamming the walls of its prison inside his skin every time Danny just breathes. It aches, everything does, in a way that has nothing on his skin, has nothing on Danny's pains he'll be hearing about all day long, even if it's just in momentarily vicious glares.
The ones he's going to collect like a reward all day long, making Danny throw his hands up even more.
He stands still through the next few sentences of Danny's tirade, that hover of a smirk going nowhere, maybe tucking in even more. Like an idiot, like someone who's been humoring Danny just to listen at all. It's wrong how much of a kick he gets out of all of it, but he still goes for beating right over the noise, for riling Danny up further, by making all of it not important, not even vaguely regrettable, for every second that came after, for this, for every single second right now, than by ever considering unwinding him.
Bypasses acknowledging the suggestion or even agreeing entirely, just to let his head tilt a little and nod toward the water still falling everywhere on Danny's skin, that Steve definitely isn't fighting to urge to touch again, or trace, with his lips, under those trickles of water. "You gonna share and let me wash this out, or do I need to borrow the sink?"
(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-08 05:43 pm (UTC)"Share, he says," grumbled, while Danny fights the urge to cross his arms and add make me.
Because that worked out for him so well last time. "You, you don't share, you take, you pillage, you requisition. What, like my car, my job, my whole life aren't enough for you, you gotta have my shower, too? Gotta break into my apartment and give me your -- unasked for, I might add -- opinion on how to secure it? Huh? You are greedy, my friend. This is, you know what this is? Avarice. Sheer avarice."
Steve doesn't deserve the water. Steve doesn't deserve Danny's good will. Steve tried his level best to give Danny an outright heart attack last night, and Steve has been gone for two weeks, and Danny's still not tired of looking at him, still can't quell the itch that says he needs to reach out and touch, make sure he's real, so clearly Steve deserves to be punished, right? For doing this to him. For making him this much more crazy than usual. Steve deserves to stand there without rinsing off until the soap and shampoo start itching across his skin, the way this want itches across Danny's. Danny shouldn't give him the benefit of washing that smug look away with his water, his shower, his soap and shampoo. Not unless it's Danny's hands doing the washing, the scrubbing. Running his hands all over Steve's body until there's no memory left of a uniform there, no touch felt except his.
It's insanity. It's addiction. It's Steve, and Steve won't stop getting under his skin, and instead of hating him for it, Danny just wants more.
So he does, actually, move. Puts his hands on Steve's hips and starts turning them in the small stall space, like even though Steve's the one who asked for the water, Danny can't trust him to make it there on his own.
Not because he wants Steve's skin under his hands again. Skin, or the lift of his hipbone, or the flex of muscle. It's insane that he wants it at all, impossible to continually want it across hours and days and weeks and months, unheard of that it could still be new and perfect and more compelling than almost anything else he knows.
Maybe it's a good thing they won't ever be able to get to the point of boring and used to each other. Right? He's not sure he ever wants to take any of this for granted, never wants it to be dulled or usual or routine. If it's got to go, at least he'll be able to remember it like this: as not being able to keep his hands to himself for even one single minute, when they're alone.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-08 06:41 pm (UTC)Making that thing in Steve's fingers just want to push Danny back, through the water, and take him instead.
Which is entirely why there's a series of fast, surprised reactions when Danny's fingers catch his hips. The way it tightens all of his muscles from his middle down, making them stiffen even as he pushes briefly up into Danny's hands and towards him. Toward his touch, and his being so damnedably close suddenly. Lighting the blood under his skin with everything that has absolutely nothing to do with the words being thrown at his head.
How he's greedy, and selfish, and he is. God. He is. Because Danny's fingers slide on his skin, free of the earlier slick from the conditioner, prickling up tiny hairs, and Steve pushes away his request, his reasoning, without evening needing to look at it, back in its direction. The flat place before there was a cliff to jump off. The way you never look back. Not until you land. Which is why his feet are shifting the way Danny's turning him, but he doesn't take any steps backwards.
Isn't even paying attention when the water scalds against the skin on his side and starts running down, because his hand has to find Danny's shoulder, and he's leaning down to find Danny's mouth, spouting crap like it matters, words falling in the water, in the catch of his breath and Danny's -- a fast, short, stoic laugh of arrogance in "Hasn't stopped working yet." -- like anything actually matters, isn't just rust and drowning canon fire, before the descent to Danny's mouth.
Before even that fades away in a flash of light at actually finding it, and if Danny ends up half under the spray himself, well, he can deal. Steve might even say that was proof he could share, if everything in him wasn't busy, blighted, blown away, selfishly, utterly fixated on the lips under his, and the the fingers on his hips, and how the idea of sharing anything related to Danny with anyone else on the planet was the most insane, outright rejected concept, after letting go.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-08 11:42 pm (UTC)"You're not even using it," he grumbles, but it's half-hearted. He doesn't care that Steve's not actually taking advantage of the falling water he'd been asking for, because Steve's pulling him in and it's better this way, it's so much better. Fresh water, and the faint too-slick taste of shampoo. It's running in streaks down Steve's neck and shoulders, and Danny's smiling more than he's complaining, grinning against Steve's mouth, running fingers up into Steve's hair just like he'd thought about doing, scrubbing in blunt circles against his scalp.
It's not like Steve ever seems to care as much for touch as Danny does. He knows that, is plenty aware that of the two of them, Steve is the one who either keeps his distance or burns any space between them straight to the ground, but Danny's the one who just can't keep his hands away: not here, not at work, not in bed, not anywhere, and, fine, he has kind of a soft spot for fingers running over his scalp, for the light massaging pressure of getting his hair washed. There are a lot of nerve endings and sensitive spots and it's not like it's a usual place to be touched, which makes it all the better.
Not that he's actively washing Steve's hair, okay, because he's not. He just likes the sensation of creamy suds and wiry hair and the way his forearms slant up over Steve's shoulders and behind his head, likes how it pulls him close, fits him nice and perfect against Steve's stomach, chest, hips, legs, wet skin sliding, and, Christ, he wishes it were a weekend. Wishes they could waste their time in here, before wasting it out on the couch or on his own little lanai or back in bed. Not that he's not plenty relieved to know Steve will be back in the Camaro and in the office today, but he lied, before. Steve's not the selfish one: he is. There's a part of him that would be absolutely fine with abandoning the outside world and everyone in it for a few more hours like last night.
They won't. He won't. Wouldn't. But that doesn't make it any less an appealing thought, or this any less sweet, if that word could ever be accurately used to describe Steve in any way, at all. Doesn't mean he won't run his fingers over Steve's head and back down over his shoulders, fit them back against his hips, those indentations that seem perfectly meant just for Danny's fingers, before pulling back and blinking in the water that's sluicing down into his face, dragging out something approximating mockery, because that's what they do, it's what they've always done, and he won't stop just because his gut feels all melted into useless goop. "Sorry, is this a team effort? You need me here, now, too?."
(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-09 03:31 am (UTC)Except he goes quiet, too, without becoming anything like limp or defeated. He just meets it, like a wave meeting the beach. Like it was always supposed to go like this. Words and bitching, fading into lips, and the soft groan of surprise, sliding warm and unexpecting up Steve's throat, when Danny's hands slide into his hair suddenly. Unexpectedly. Making Steve's shoulders tense even when he's tipping his forehead against Danny with the surprise of that sound and the warmth.
Having no clue all over again. About Danny, and his hands, and the warmth that slips down his neck to meet the flush of warmth crawling up his back from the spray of water, and that Steve has this uselessly needy surge of wanting to push into, that just makes him feel like he should pull instantly back, leaves him hovering uncertainly toward and from it all at once, while Danny is pulling away from the kiss, skin still glistening with water, throwing words out like they never stopped.
Words that hit something hard, like an arm of steel clanging a bell at those words, sending two trains on a collision course with the center of his chest. The first one swearing faster than a breath that he doesn't, doesn't need anyone, shouldn't, can't, won't, can do anything necessary, with or without anyone there to back him up or ever see it, or him again. Slamming into the second that happens just as fast and just as certainly. If almost unsteadying him it's certainness.
The one that can't look down into Danny's eyes, sagging slightly from the retreat of his hands, and the crinkle around his eyes and the edges of his mouth, making it more joke than insult, and not feel it smack him. Like a two by four, or a pan, or anything solid, smacking the back of his head with a sickened crunch of bone slicing through all the lies he tells himself. Silenced with this wave of pain and certainness.
How he never seems to stop needing Danny to be there. Everywhere. Anywhere. Anything. All the time. Especially now.
"No one's forcing you to stay." Steve finds a way to force out, shrugging as he's standing straighter, like it's easy. Like there isn't a rough drag to the notes in his voice. Like it's totally completely absolutely write-off-able on Danny's mouth and those hands. Like everything else he puts off on them.
But he doesn't move from those hands on his hips. Doesn't pull away, or stir to take that step. Not even when he's raising his hand from Danny's shoulder and making a gesture at Danny's head of slicked back, dripping, hair. "I know it's going to take you the next hour to figure out how to get that all locked down again."
(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-09 02:58 pm (UTC)Which is...he's just going to let that thought slide right on by, because he doesn't want to focus on it too hard. How many mornings he does exactly that. How he's gotten the timing down to a science, down to the precision ticks of a carefully wound watch.
It doesn't matter. If it mattered, he would think about it and figure out what it means, what he's planning to do about it, but it doesn't, because there's no possible next step. Not for them, not with this, because as optimistic as he tries to be, there's no way he can beat Rachel and her team of expensive, bloodthirsty lawyers.
So.
So, he's just going to enjoy this while he can, and that means not spending hours of his life worrying about something that isn't anything.
Right?
Like Steve says. No one's forcing him to stay. Just like no one's forcing Steve. And maybe he's already thinking too hard about it all, what it means and what it is, so he just shakes his head, grinning, and tightening his fingers on Steve's hips instead of reaching for the soap. "And leave you here to fend for yourself? That would just be cruel."
Like Steve can't even manage to wash himself correctly without Danny's supervision, and Danny knows, he does, that Steve was mostly fine before he came along. Able to do things like shower and sleep without him. Able to excel at what seems like the worst and hardest job in the world.
But he wasn't this. Danny can't even imagine the Steve he met that day in the garage ever looking this soft, this approachable. Able to joke and laugh and take a hit when it's meant as the softest of blows. That Steve was all edges and cracking bulletproof glass, that Steve never met an edge he didn't ride, that Steve wasn't so much self-destructive as he was just uncaring of himself as collateral. That Steve was only a fraction of the person this one is.
Danny doesn't take credit for it. He can't, because it's not due to him, but he'll sure as hell take credit for being the one who's noticed every shift and change and adaptation, and taking damn near as much pride in it as if it were because of him. If Steve was damn near perfect before, a precision instrument, how could anyone possibly resist when he also became human?
(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-09 04:36 pm (UTC)Whispering the want to pull him under; his want to always go under, sink down and down and down.
Into the ocean, and into this. The blue light in Danny's eyes, all warm and unending, like nothing he's ever known.
Nothing he was supposed to ever know. Not in the past, and not know. These eyes, this smile, those hands on his hipbones, the way pads of fingers shift, like they are finding the exact place they belong. Like he does. They do.
"You insinuating I don't how to do something in the shower?" Steve joked back easy. He'd meant to reach up and push at Danny's shoulder. Push them apart, push them toward morning. It'd been in the half second scoff in his head that said -- SEAL. Capable of so much more, and worse, than anything that could be done in a shower. Alone, together, or against someone else, even here. Except the severity slipped away just as fast as it came, with the water, and the joking tone.
"That there might be something wrong with my hands?" The way he'd been meaning to move his hand and smack Danny shoulder, but never remember to move that way had. Because his eyebrows went up, but his hand went down instead. Thumb and fingers grazing the side of Danny's ribcage, until it could curve down the side of his stomach, thumb pushing down into the cut of his abdomen, riding straight down the wet, dripping, muscled line inside his hip and the just starting edge of thick, damp curls.
Blown past insinuation, and straight into the blowback that happens when you run right through the warning sign.
If he's dangerously spitting on the fire that is the little time between dawn and work, there's something about having Danny back that just makes him want to keep pushing his luck. Draining down the seconds in every minute. Pulling Danny back to him. Dragging out the madness that he seems to be able to, to keep getting to. But especially now, after being gone. When it was easier to admit, arrogant and flippant and wild, that it's always there, right under his skin, blown open with a dizzying hunger that's never anywhere near done.