In the warm, dark quiet of Steve's room, and the intimacy of this bed, being naked in it, having wrinkled and rolled the sheets, with Steve breathing against him, pinning him here and talking into Danny's skin, his own voice is gravely. Trying to be as quiet and calm as the rest of the room. Trying to keep from shattering the peace he'd been floating in only moments ago.
Even when, suddenly, it seems like he can feel ice cracking underneath his feet, under each cautious step.
He knows, okay. Steve isn't good at opening up about his feelings. He's gotten better, though. Maybe good enough that Danny thought, had started to expect, that Steve would actually answer the question, without freezing up like Danny's a terrorist who got the drop and a bead on him.
It's a work in progress. There are times he needs Steve to coax him into talking about what's really on his mind, the things that wake him up or keep him from sleep in the dead of night. It hadn't taken Steve long at all to figure out that all Danny's bluster is usually a smokescreen, intended as a distraction. For people he's around. For himself.
The harder stuff, the real stuff: that needs to be pulled out and examined. Questioned. Considered.
And maybe it does, here, too. Maybe Steve needs him to talk.
That's fine. Danny can talk. He's never had a problem with talking.
The hand on Steve's back lifts, enough to wave in a slight circle. "As far as we just got, sometimes. Understand, I tried very, very hard to not think about it, alright? It felt all wrong. You didn't know, and as far as I knew, you'd be...I don't know, disgusted. You didn't want it. So I tried not to, right?"
Fingers dipping back and forth, pausing, before settling, a little cautiously, back on Steve's skin. Like just saying that he thought Steve would be against all this, hate knowing he appeared in Danny's head like this, was the subject of too many vivid fantasies, would make it come true. Throw some switch in Steve's head, and remind him that he should hate this, be disgusted by it. Change his mind. Make it suddenly all untrue. "But I couldn't always help it. Thought about it almost every day, you know, especially...well, there've been some bad days."
Too many close calls. Too many times he'd been sitting by Steve's bedside, or stared down death in a gun barrel or at the wrong end of a bomb's proximity sensor.
"Thought about this. Kissing you. Getting to be with you. How it might happen. There were these moments..."
His turn to shrug, a little, uncomfortable. Feeling like he's slicing himself carefully open, like a fish flopping on a butcher's block. "I wondered, a lot. About going to bed with you, what it would be like. What you would feel like. Sound like. I tried not to, but I couldn't always...and then this happens, and it turns out, you know, I've got a pretty good imagination, but I wasn't anywhere near reality, you know? How good it really could be. How much better..."
Dragging off, hand lifting, and settling again, agitated, restless. It's not what he means. It is, and it isn't. "If I'd known, before, okay, what it would, could, really be like, I'd have burned up wanting it. This. You."
no subject
"It depends."
In the warm, dark quiet of Steve's room, and the intimacy of this bed, being naked in it, having wrinkled and rolled the sheets, with Steve breathing against him, pinning him here and talking into Danny's skin, his own voice is gravely. Trying to be as quiet and calm as the rest of the room. Trying to keep from shattering the peace he'd been floating in only moments ago.
Even when, suddenly, it seems like he can feel ice cracking underneath his feet, under each cautious step.
He knows, okay. Steve isn't good at opening up about his feelings. He's gotten better, though. Maybe good enough that Danny thought, had started to expect, that Steve would actually answer the question, without freezing up like Danny's a terrorist who got the drop and a bead on him.
It's a work in progress. There are times he needs Steve to coax him into talking about what's really on his mind, the things that wake him up or keep him from sleep in the dead of night. It hadn't taken Steve long at all to figure out that all Danny's bluster is usually a smokescreen, intended as a distraction. For people he's around. For himself.
The harder stuff, the real stuff: that needs to be pulled out and examined. Questioned. Considered.
And maybe it does, here, too. Maybe Steve needs him to talk.
That's fine. Danny can talk. He's never had a problem with talking.
The hand on Steve's back lifts, enough to wave in a slight circle. "As far as we just got, sometimes. Understand, I tried very, very hard to not think about it, alright? It felt all wrong. You didn't know, and as far as I knew, you'd be...I don't know, disgusted. You didn't want it. So I tried not to, right?"
Fingers dipping back and forth, pausing, before settling, a little cautiously, back on Steve's skin. Like just saying that he thought Steve would be against all this, hate knowing he appeared in Danny's head like this, was the subject of too many vivid fantasies, would make it come true. Throw some switch in Steve's head, and remind him that he should hate this, be disgusted by it. Change his mind. Make it suddenly all untrue. "But I couldn't always help it. Thought about it almost every day, you know, especially...well, there've been some bad days."
Too many close calls. Too many times he'd been sitting by Steve's bedside, or stared down death in a gun barrel or at the wrong end of a bomb's proximity sensor.
"Thought about this. Kissing you. Getting to be with you. How it might happen. There were these moments..."
His turn to shrug, a little, uncomfortable. Feeling like he's slicing himself carefully open, like a fish flopping on a butcher's block. "I wondered, a lot. About going to bed with you, what it would be like. What you would feel like. Sound like. I tried not to, but I couldn't always...and then this happens, and it turns out, you know, I've got a pretty good imagination, but I wasn't anywhere near reality, you know? How good it really could be. How much better..."
Dragging off, hand lifting, and settling again, agitated, restless. It's not what he means. It is, and it isn't. "If I'd known, before, okay, what it would, could, really be like, I'd have burned up wanting it. This. You."