If he's all too aware of touching Steve, these days, it's got nothing on how his whole body goes on high alert when Steve touches him back.
Which also doesn't mean anything, and never has, except that he and Steve are close, closer than most partners, and maybe closer than most friends, because Steve doesn't touch people, and he doesn't like people being in his personal space, but he touches Danny. A hand on his back. Arm slung over his shoulders, hooked around his neck. Tugging him into a bone-crushing hug.
Steve's physical affection has always been has all-encompassing as the rest of him, and Danny knows it.
It's just that Steve's never touched him like this, before.
The deliberate sliding of his hand, without lifting it from Danny's shoulder, until it wraps, too big and just the right size all at once, at the back of Danny's neck, right over a prickle of sudden goosebumps.
Steve's hand is warm, which is too bad, because if it were cool, he'd be able to pass off the sudden hard shiver that vibrates through his shoulders, down his back, and up with a trill of panic along his scalp. But it's not, and he can't.
Leaving his skin feeling prickly and abandoned and too cold when Steve lifts his hand again, and Danny remembers that they were talking about something. To Ruth. Finding her plant, and Steve knows a guy -- "Oh. Oh. Oh, yeah."
The penny that dropped might still be bouncing along the tilting, torn-out floor of his mind, but he can snatch at it, and sanity, because Steve touches him all the time and this is nothing unusual, and, also, two of Steve's fingers on the back of his neck really isn't enough to do this to him, right. No matter how he might have cataloged and questioned and kept preserved any other touches anything even slightly like it.
Giving Ruth his full and undivided attention, because the back of his neck is not still tingling, and he doesn't want Steve's hand back there. Sliding his own fingers out of Steve's waistband, and dropping both hands to his lap, winding the fingers together loosely. "Yeah, he's definitely the guy you want."
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If he's all too aware of touching Steve, these days, it's got nothing on how his whole body goes on high alert when Steve touches him back.
Which also doesn't mean anything, and never has, except that he and Steve are close, closer than most partners, and maybe closer than most friends, because Steve doesn't touch people, and he doesn't like people being in his personal space, but he touches Danny. A hand on his back. Arm slung over his shoulders, hooked around his neck. Tugging him into a bone-crushing hug.
Steve's physical affection has always been has all-encompassing as the rest of him, and Danny knows it.
It's just that Steve's never touched him like this, before.
The deliberate sliding of his hand, without lifting it from Danny's shoulder, until it wraps, too big and just the right size all at once, at the back of Danny's neck, right over a prickle of sudden goosebumps.
Steve's hand is warm, which is too bad, because if it were cool, he'd be able to pass off the sudden hard shiver that vibrates through his shoulders, down his back, and up with a trill of panic along his scalp. But it's not, and he can't.
Leaving his skin feeling prickly and abandoned and too cold when Steve lifts his hand again, and Danny remembers that they were talking about something. To Ruth. Finding her plant, and Steve knows a guy -- "Oh. Oh. Oh, yeah."
The penny that dropped might still be bouncing along the tilting, torn-out floor of his mind, but he can snatch at it, and sanity, because Steve touches him all the time and this is nothing unusual, and, also, two of Steve's fingers on the back of his neck really isn't enough to do this to him, right. No matter how he might have cataloged and questioned and kept preserved any other touches anything even slightly like it.
Giving Ruth his full and undivided attention, because the back of his neck is not still tingling, and he doesn't want Steve's hand back there. Sliding his own fingers out of Steve's waistband, and dropping both hands to his lap, winding the fingers together loosely. "Yeah, he's definitely the guy you want."