His eyes are blown black, with the thinnest rim of the brightest blue that Steve has ever seen in Danny's face. It's so electric he can't look away, and it feels like licking a socket just to look at it. While Danny licks his lips, and Steve can feel the shift in the air against his own lips, without actually getting the friction. Even when it feels like he's pulling his muscles off his bone, not to lean what can't be more than the whisper of a breath of space and catch Danny in the middle of that movent.

Danny, who is still staring at him with those eyes, but whose hand suddenly jerks off his shirt. Off of him. Like Danny couldn't get off him fast enough, at least in the only way he could. Since the rest was Steve pressed to him. Whose back tightens up as he wants to suddenly pull away. To get the hell off Danny who doesn't want him there. When he's invading Danny's space. Danny's skin. Danny's body. In a way that is so wrong he can't even quantify it. It's just a falling swoop.

When Danny says those words. Three of them. Short.

Like Danny would rather not say a single thing about this already.

Danny. Danny, who had a million words every single day and every single situation. Who had a hundred to throw at the guy at the bar throwing himself, actually, at Steve, rather than the one sentence that could just tell Campbell to take his hand off Danny's property. He gives Steve three words, with those wide dark eyes, and his fist that isn't touching Steve and has his jacket awkwardly out from his body to keep it that way.

Steve makes himself swallow every feeling, dry dust down his throat. Shattering cold seeping out from somewhere in the pit in his stomach and his ribs. Because those three words hit like high power ballbearings lodging in his skin. Too few, and reading as too much. Convincing. Like that was all it was, and Steve has to remind himself that's all it's supposed to be. Ever can be. That he should be grateful Danny is only saying he can lie and show off well.

(That it shouldn't feel like Danny stuck a night between his ribs and got his lung,
because it wasn't like Danny even knew. But still. There's a hollow, hungry pain, wide awake.

The one that knew Danny shouldn't know. Couldn't know. Didn't like. Had an operating line of beautiful girls.
That even Danny, of all people, couldn't, wouldn't want hm. A thousand logical answers, known, but it still stung.)

He makes it cold, himself, to be able to make more words word. Rusty voice. Even when he rolls his eyes, like he's not shoving his hands and his head in lye. "Not you." As though this is nothing. Somehow could ever be. Like all those moments. Except with every inch of his skin caught in Danny's teeth. But it's fine. Absolutely fine. If he can take nearly bleeding death, trekking through frozen cold, carrying two other people. He can take this. He can let Danny know he knows. It's nothing. It's just the job. Sometimes it pushes them too far. Often. But it's still that. Just the job.

His throat is raw. Like his skin. "We should split." Like every nerve ending, when he shifts, tilting his head like he might have dropped it to do what he thought of early. What he's thought of a million times. What he couldn't even think straight enough to consider two seconds ago. Let's his mouth whisper the words next to Danny's jaw, like he was busy there. "See if he'll follow you." Unless Danny had a better plan. Any plan.

Something that wasn't the world throbbing, edged in red, still begging for him to just let. Give in.

Find Danny's mouth, again, hard and heavy, and just ruin the only truly, reliably good thing left in his life.