AU: Trope Minefield

[haole_cop]

He's pretty sure this goes against his contract.

Actually, he's sure it goes against not only his contract, but also the various non-harrassment papers they all have to sign every time some aide in the Governor's office gets a little twitchy.

Like after Lori left. And after he and Gabby...

Well.

So maybe he hasn't made the best choices in the world, in the last few years. Maybe things have been a little extra rough, for him and Steve and the rest of the team, between Doris and Kono wandering around looking for Adam and --

(he doesn't think about Reyes, or about Matt, unless he has to, and he doesn't have to, tonight, so he just skips, like a record needle scratching)

-- well, that building. With the bomb. (And Amber, who -- speaking of bad ideas. Good kid. But a kid.)

Anyway you slice it, they deserve a win, Five-0. All of them do. It's been a hard few years, and they've all taken their lumps.

So when this got served up to them, it seemed too good to be true. Right? Straightforward. Sleek facade concealing sleazy underhanded deals, that first came across Duke's desk for possible fraud and tax evasion, now linked to not one, but two murders -- which means it's theirs, now.

Danny was even happy about it, until it turned out they'd be going in UC, until he's the one pulling open the door, stepping into a wash of air conditioning and dim lighting from Hawaii's sultry Saturday night, until this plan started looking less like recon and more like a heist.

At least this suit still fits.

Comments

[haole_cop]

In the end, in this room, there's nowhere to go.

Not once he closes the door behind him, after Steve's already let the knob go, and walked right in, like he's heading to a firing squad. Not once the light comes on, and Steve turns to look at Danny with that strange and caged expression. Wary, like he never is. He's never been wary of Danny, even when he walked into Danny's house to find him sitting calmly in the kitchen with Reyes' money spread out across the floor. Not even when he should have been, because as dangerous as Steve can be, Danny knows he's not the only one who can snap, who can pull a trigger, or the nails off someone's hand, in cold blood. There are times Danny's not safe to be around, either.

Except for Steve, he would have thought. Steve and Grace were safe from him, no matter what. No matter how angry. How insane. How desperate, or fearful. He'd never, never, hurt either of them.

And then, tonight, he did.

He's got no excuse, nothing to stand on, nothing to hide behind. All he can do, the door at his back like he thinks Steve might make a break for it -- and he might, it's possible, Steve doesn't want to hear this and Danny can't blame him -- is lift his hands, and let them fall again, one to his side, and the other to his mouth, while he looks down, away, because he let Steve down in the worst possible way. Potentially ruined everything. Is here, now, to beg to keep even the smallest semblance of what it was only a few hours ago, before Danny kissed him and fucked it all up. "Look, I'm --"

Licks his lip, and forces his eyes up, because he's going to take this, all of it, everything he deserves. Steve's stony expression and his silence and when he rejects what Danny has to say, Danny will just have to fucking accept it, because it's what he deserves. "I'm sorry, okay, seriously, Steve, I'm so -- I never meant it to get that far, and I'm sorry I pulled that shit on you, alright, I know, I know -- I know -- and you did great, you went along with it, but you shouldn't have had to, and it was never part of the plan."

Because it couldn't be. Because he knew he wouldn't be able to handle it. The jokes and everything else aside, he'd managed to convince himself he could handle it, because it wouldn't be anything like real.

Except here he is, so far away from Steve, holding up his hands like he's trying to make sure of the wall between them. "I know you needed to make it look good, okay, but it's done now, so you can, just, you can yell at me, or whatever, punch me if it helps, alright, I deserve it. Whatever it takes."

An aborted step, like in the driveway, before he remembers he's supposed to be keeping his distance, and stills, but keeps his eyes on Steve, wide and sincere and as intent as he can be, while it feels like he's been painted onto glass that someone just hit with a hammer. "I just don't want to have fucked everything up."

[thebesteverseen]

The moment Danny looks at him stretches too long. Again.

Especially while Danny -- Danny, who asked to talk to him -- clings to the door. Like he chose wrong again. Like maybe he wanted to talk, but he wanted to talk somewhere not in Steve's house. Even after asking for it. Maybe. Not. Not in an enclosed space. Steve's space. Maybe he'd wanted it to stay near his car now, where he could run away very quickly once he got done with this. Only followed Steve, because Steve stipulated with his short answer. He did this.

But then Danny's hands raise, again, leaving the door and he starts talking. Beginning with an apology, that makes Steve's eyebrows push toward the center in confusion. Especially when he keeps going. Laying out his words, like somehow this is his fault. Not that Steve has the faintest clue how he got to this. It's wrong. It's worse than wrong. Somehow Danny is blaming himself for what Steve did now. Like Steve, what? Couldn't help himself? Was too weak to maintain his own control? If Danny did his job?

He doesn't even have time to answer it, because Danny moves.

Or doesn't. He'd been about to. Shifted to come forward. But didn't.

The same as the hand that had raised toward him and stopped. Danny stopping the very impulses that drove. Hands and feet, noise and movement. Because he's making no sense, but that hasn't changed. He doesn't want to be anywhere near Steve still. Which at least is the one thing that does still make sense to Steve. Even as Danny's saying he doesn't want things to be fucked up. Something not adding up anymore. Danny apologizing, with absolutely no reason to, throwing himself under the bus about the case. For Steve? Because of Steve? But over there. As far away as possible.

[haole_cop]

He can't go towards Steve, but he has to go somewhere, when Steve just stares at him, with that faint line pulling between his eyebrows, like Danny came in here and started yelling at him in Latin, or Chinese, so he moves. Not closer, because Steve doesn't want him closer, but back and forth, worrying a line across the room, into the carpet and hardwood floor, hands in the air. Dropping to his hips, lifting again, raising to card through his hair, hard enough to feel the pull, and wish he could strip the skin right off bone, peel off every part of himself he can't trust, can't look at, doesn't want, if it puts him here.

In Steve's living room, where Steve isn't talking to him.

Making him think, for the first time, with a cold drop of his stomach, that maybe Steve knows.

Maybe he's always known. Maybe he's only let it slide because they're good friends and good partners and Steve was always sure Danny would never, actually, act on it. Maybe he's been obvious all along, and this was just the last straw.

And if Steve knows, then maybe it's already too late to save any of this.

But he still has to try. Even with Steve standing silently over there, waiting, watching, letting Danny work himself into a lather, desperate to find the combination of words and sincerity that will make it clear, let him know, it's okay. Danny will make it okay, however he can. Whatever way Steve needs. "Look, I know you don't want to talk to me, alright? I know you probably don't want to look at me, and I know you damn sure don't want to be anywhere near me right now, okay, but --"

He pauses, holds up his hands, like he's surrendering. "I'm not gonna -- I promise, I won't touch you. And I never meant to -- for God's sake, Steve, I promise, it won't happen again, you don't need to worry about it. It doesn't...it doesn't matter."

Except how it does. How what he's feeling matters more than anything, because he can't control it, and he wasn't prepared for it, and he never meant to fall in love with Steve any more than he meant to freak him out tonight, but how was he ever supposed to guard against it? How could anyone?

How has everyone managed what Danny can't, what he'd hate most: walking out the door. Leaving him behind.

Just the thought makes him a little wild, hands going wide, and steps, forgetful, bringing him closer, until he stops, grinds the heels of his hands into his eyes with an exasperated groan at himself. "I know I weirded you out. I'm sorry. It was too much, and I should have...and if you want to hate me, I don't blame you, okay? I just...I'm sorry, alright? You trusted me and I let you down and I'm sorry, I'm sorry I feel this way, I'm sorry I couldn't control it, I'm sorry."

[thebesteverseen]

Danny does finally take those steps. Not toward him, but flinging himself into the movement he was bound to be broken free by eventually. Even misery and rage didn't stop Danny from moving. Nothing ever did for long. It's Steve who stands still. Even today, while Danny is beginning to pace and weave in this box of space he's inventing for himself. With occasional, confusing long look over at Steve, when he goes still for a moment, stricken, and then goes back to it.

Pacing. Weaving. Hands in the air, right along with the sound of Danny's voice now rising and filling this whole room. Words spilling from Danny's mouth that make even less sense the more he says them. The more words come out. About. Steve can't be sure with the rambling -- but, about him being certain he'd done too well of a job at the place? That somehow he'd pissed off Steve? Or?

Whose near confessional moment took a vast step back. Sour and cold with both relief (for the possibility of reprieve) and dread (for the possibility of reprieve), none of which he could focus on through the mounting confusion that did not stop heaping itself upon itself the more words were coming out of Danny's mouth. Becoming shorter, and faster. Panic and heavy need laced in nearly every word. That makes no sense. Because there's not a way in the world he thinks he could ever hate Danny. Not trust him. It's like the world turned sideways.

Like he missed an important step somewhere. Danny was supposed to be yelling at him. Not. Not doing this. Not saying these words. Not making him wonder if he got hit on the head, or barrelled into a dumpster with that spring jump at the perp and this is all a delusion. It's a more possibility this year than it's been in a while. He hates that. Which is only punctuated by Danny quickly stepping toward him and stepping back again. It hitting Steve like a fist to his jaw. Hands too fast. Danny's face too desperate.

Steve not only missed something. He missed something big. How lost had he been inside himself all night?

"You aren't making any sense." The words come free themselves as if from mellinnias old stone. He knows what Danny doesn't want to be feeling, right? Why he's not coming closer, no matter what his words say. "You couldn't control what?"

He's baffled and it's making things scattershot, sharp, confused. "You were fine earlier." Because it wasn't Danny who did anything wrong. Chose wrong. Let this happen. "Everything was fine." He repeats the word, the whole second sentence, and he can hear his own voice. How wrong it sounds. Too tight, too empty, like a rope straining to pop. Wrong. Too fast. Nowhere near honest. Just out loud.

[haole_cop]

He's not even sure he knows what he's saying, anymore. It's all starting to blur into a haze of panic and fear, and he might be repeating himself, or he might be making no sense at all.

Which is what Steve says, finally, when he says something at all. Looking befuddled, and a little cautiously uncertain. Saying Danny's not making sense. And then.

Asking what. What Danny couldn't control, and following it up with everything was fine, which is so patently untrue, and the first question is such an obvious softball, that Danny's nerves shatter a little, and he starts laughing.

High, and a little unhinged, and disbelieving, until one hand covers his mouth and rubs it away, and the other points, a little loosely, at Steve. "Are you hearing yourself?"

He's still grinning, but it's sharp and miserable and feels like stepping on cut glass, but he can't stop, nerves misfiring in his cheeks, along his skin, in his brain. Cutting him loose like a marionette, to swing drunkenly and get in his own way, tie himself up on his own string. What's that sailing expression? Hoisted on his own petard. "Fine? That was not fine. That was an exercise in everything you should fire me for."

Everything he swore would never get in the way. But did. Because of course it did. Because he's never been able to stop it. Danny falls in love the way other people fall into sinkholes. He never comes back out again, and there's never any handhold to keep himself from getting lost. "What, what do you mean, what, I couldn't control this, myself, I’m talking about not being able to keep my fucking hands off you, when you need me to be able to do my job. I’m talking about a thirteen year old being able to do a better job of not losing it under cover. I’m talking about everything I did that made you so uncomfortable you couldn’t wait to get away from me, that’s what."

His face is sore, but the smile is gone. He's breathing hard, and thinking, distantly, that he really might stroke out from this, the pressure, the guilt, the fear. But Steve's staring at him, and he can't stop.

He won't lie to Steve. He won't. He won't be like every other person in Steve's life, who said they loved him, and lied, and left. "And I know, okay, I know. I know I shouldn’t want you, but I do, and I shouldn’t have let myself get in that situation tonight, okay. I shouldn't have kissed you, but I did, and I knew I shouldn’t, but I thought, you know, I could handle it, for the cover."

His hands are shaking. He feels a little dizzy. But the words keep coming, won't stop, like he might be able to halt the inevitable, if he talks at it long enough, if he just never stops talking long enough for Steve to do what he's going to do.

What Danny needs to make sure he knows he can do. "And if you want to send me to therapy or a harassment seminar or suspend me, or work with someone else for a while, okay, I understand, I do. Whatever it takes. Anything it takes, so you know I’m not gonna let it ever get in the way of our jobs, ever again, and you’ll never have to worry about me doing, or saying, anything. Anything. You’re my best friend, Steve, and that’s the most important thing, okay, I can’t lose that, I can’t lose you over this. But if you — I know it’s weird and wrong and I hate that I did this to you, that I made you feel like this. That you trusted me, and I — if you’re gonna ht me, or fire me, okay, I get it, but I just need you to know, alright, I won’t ever let it interfere with the job again. Never again.”

[thebesteverseen]

What comes first is only more worrying, sending something with sharp legs made of ice crawling up and down his spine. Danny laughing, and talking faster. Responding. Suddenly shrill at what little Steve had just said. Managed to ask. To try and shove his foot in there. Even if everyone the world over would have been able to tell he was full of bullshit for what he just said. For the way he couldn't even make it believable.

But Danny is laughing, grinning in a stretch that is not happy, threatens to shred Danny's face and Steve's lungs. While laughing and it's not in a good way either. Throwing his words back at him suddenly. Before.

Before.

Before.

It's like. . .

It's like a bomb detonating too close to you.

Knowing you can't run or jump far enough no matter how hard you try.

The impact slamming into you so hard that everything that comes after it skews out of order. The brain, fragile, delicate mass that it is, still reeling from the trauma and not even able to assess its own, or the body's damage. But other things still work. Firing off like a roulette wheel, catching bits and pieces, and flinging them across the suddenly pitched upside down board. It's the only thing that runs into his head first. The dumpster, and a bomb.

Because Danny opened his mouth, laughing, high pitched, and then he said. There were words. Some that made a lot of sense, like I thought, you know, I could handle it, for the cover. Steve knew that. Ha believed it. Let himself. Chose wrong for both of them. But he can't have said, I’m talking about not being able to keep my fucking hands off you, because that makes no sense. Because Danny doesn't want to touch him. Because Danny doesn't. Danny isn't. He'd know. He knew everything.

He knew everything, just enough to feel the room spin, the darkness in the adjoining rooms, windows, loft closing in on the yellow light at I know I shouldn’t want you, but I do and suddenly there is no air. Danny is ranting. Ranting about something. Their friendship? Hitting him? The job? Steve can't even. The words are filling up the room. White noise in his head. He can hear them. It just keeps repeating.

I shouldn’t want you, but I do
I shouldn’t want you, but I do
I shouldn’t want you, but I do

Leveling off everything left in his head, in the room. Danny's face still perfectly clear in front of his face, hands moving to fast, face too flushed. He needs to move. Needs to say something. Can't breathe in. Must have gone insane in the last few seconds. Because. Because. Because. Danny. Just. Danny said. Danny. Is so far away. Danny. Looks terrified.


Danny.



Wants him?

[haole_cop]

Every time.

Every time, it's the same thing.

He's standing in the living room, staring at Rachel.

He's standing at an airfield, unable to pull a trigger.

He's standing here, and Steve is there, looking like Danny just stabbed him.



Every time, it's the same. Danny yells. Danny makes a scene. Danny gets sensitive, and Danny lets his emotions get the better of him, and every time, every. Time. It's not enough.

Couldn't convince Rachel, or Matt. Won't convince Steve, who's staring at Danny like Danny's head just rolled off his shoulders and across the carpet.

There might be some magical collection or sequence of words to say, to convince him, to put this back to being right, but Danny's never been able to find them, when it counts, and he still can't, probably couldn't even if he didn't feel hollowed out inside, gutted and empty.

Leaving him to wait, for a long moment, while Steve just stares at him, until he takes in a deep breath, pinching the bridge of his nose and squeezing his eyes shut against the ache in his head, the dizzy one in his chest, and huffs out a breath. "Okay."

There's something final about it that he hates, and he wants to wait, give Steve another chance, but it's never happened before, and it won't here, now, either, and he doesn't want to always be that guy, right, the one who can't buy a clue, so he drops his hand, waves it towards Steve. Turning. "You just go ahead and mull that over -- or forget it, whatever works best --"

Already taking steps back towards the door, hand up. "And I'll see you Monday morning, unless I get a call saying I'm suspended. Okay? Okay. Good talk."

[thebesteverseen]

And then it's not terrified.

It's despair. The one without the anger to guard it, biting sharp and hard and loud.

Despair. Absolutely rock bottom with silent staring. Nuclear. All over Danny's face. The kind that digs a switch knife around in Steve's intestines and makes him want to forgo oaths and bomb houses. The way Danny looked after Rachel left him the second time. The way he looked after Grace had been kidnapped. The way he looked about Matt both times. Except it's not about Rachel. Or Grace. Or Matt. Or Gabby. Or Amber. It's

I shouldn’t want you, but I do

I shouldn't have kissed you, but I did

Steve blinked and Danny, with only another handful of words, blasted past his ears. A roar of debris, and then he was turning. Still talking. Telling him to forget it. Like Steve ever forgot anything. Like there was any way for him to forget -- what he could hardly even see, hear, hold on. Was slipping away. Because Danny turned and he was walking toward the door. Fast steps, reaching for the handle, while Steve's throat struggled out suddenly, "Stop."

A good order, even though reversely hypocritical. (I shouldn’t want you, but I do) Because Steve was taking huge strides across the space to where Danny had been. Not sure where to stop. How. When. Rocking back a few feet, one hand raised. Except Danny didn't want to touch him. Flinched each time he almost took even a step since getting in here.

Or did. not being able to keep my fucking hands off you and I won't touch you making him stop. Even stopping feels impossible.

There's a swelling feeling threatening to stampede straight through the front of his rib cage. "You wan-" But the question dies on his lips. Parched. Impossible to force. Steve who doesn't stutter. Stammer. Have any problem giving even his boss his a piece of his mind. A victim. A terrorist. Anyone. But he can't. That one is. "Earlier--" is safer, even when everything feels like it's electric in his body. Plugged directly into a socket. Fork in it. Too many volts. Barely holding still. "--you wanted--"

He needs to see Danny's face. He needs Danny to stop moving. He needs to be sure Danny won't flinch if he reaches out.

[haole_cop]

His hand is actually on the knob, turning it, when Steve finally says something. If Danny can call it that. The one croaked word is barely speech, barely a word, but it does what it's supposed to do, right, because Danny stops. He doesn't drop his hand, or un-turn the knob, but he stops, looking slightly over his shoulder, cautious, but there's no follow up, and he's about to pull the door open, when there's a sudden footfall against the floor.

Not heavy boots. The light shoes that go with this suit, the one Steve wore tonight, to play the part, that Danny had his hands all over, hates for how good it looks, hates the costume it is.

But maybe not as much as he hates standing here, waiting for Steve to get close enough to...what? Take him up on the offer of a free punch, maybe, except the steps stop a few feet away, and Danny cants a little further, still without fully looking back, until.

Until Steve starts with a question, that freezes thick in Danny's throat, because he doesn't sound pissed, or cold, or stony. He sounds. Confused? Bewildered?

Sentences starting and stopping, mid-word, in a way Steve never does, which makes Danny turn, almost as much as those last three words do, that actually fit together.

Earlier, you wanted --

Which Steve lets drop, or drift, for Danny to answer, and the thing is, Danny will. Has to. He's offered, already put his head on the chopping block, and Steve deserves it. The truth. The whole truth. "Yes."

Which isn't, and is an answer. Half-turning, now, to look at Steve, while his hand stays on the door, wary. "Earlier, I wanted. All of it. You. Everything I shouldn't want from you. Everything I know you don't --"

But all the words just stick in his throat, and he shakes his head, looking down, before he finds Steve's face again, waiting for the hammer to fall. "You're my best friend, and I love you."

In every way. With every part of himself. But those words, the way he's said them, have never been a lie, either. "But I let you down tonight."

[thebesteverseen]

He stops, but he doesn't stop leaving. Not the entire time.

His hand stays on the door, and his look, even when he looks back, is pained.

It's the face Steve could drag out in a handful of ways on his beach with a single question. Has to. Sometimes. To check on Danny. How he's doing with the things they don't talk about every day. That it's another part of their friendship. The one that was like nothing before Danny. Not even Freddie. When there's to it something more about making sure he's okay, too. But he can't hold on to either of those statements when Danny's words happen.

Danny looking away from the door, right at him, and this time it isn't ranting dictionaries being thrown at him, wide eyed and wild. It's that pained expression and there are only a few sentences so bare and to the point Steve is almost sure he's insane. Dreaming. Things that only happen in occasional dreams, where sanity and reality aren't needed. These words that make him want to swallow but there's a desert there now.

I wanted. All of it. You. Growing across his whole body.

Clashing like tidal forces. Riptides. An undertow. I wanted. All of it. You.

Danny cementing it with those words. About being his best friend. About. Loving him. Those words Steve uses more rarely than it snows in Hawaii. On the phone with Mare and Joan sometimes. Always when they are leaving, again. He's used it more frequently and publicly with Danny that he ever did with Cath. Than he really ever even said it to her. Always telling himself she knew. She did. She always had. But Danny. Danny. With those words shuddering in his his head.

I wanted. All of it. You. slamming, brutally, mercilessly, into and I love you .

Those words they exchanged and wrote off like the hot breeze here. Steve dragging it out of Danny, mocking him with the words he couldn't say as comfortably anywhere else. Even if Danny said them easy as the wind. Like it was nothing. And Steve tried do that, too. Use the words. Pretend they were nothing. So long as he didn't look at them. Not even when it wasn't. In bone crushing hugs where he almost lost Danny again, or thrown at his head like an insult. Like it didn't mean everything those words were supposed to mean. Everything those words meant but could never be said to anyone else like that. Easy. Even when they never were.

But nothings is staying. Nothing is holding firm. Nothing is anchored and it comes at him in battering storms when Danny looks down suddenly, and he needs Danny to be looking at him. Is moving even closer into Danny's space, shoes almost touching, before he even thinks about it. He needs Danny to be looking at him. He needs to be sure Danny isn't fucking with him. Isn't lying. Feels sick that he even thinks Danny would do this just to fuck with him. Here. Tonight. Now. Ever.

When it's an onslaught suddenly. Or not suddenly. Maybe it's never stopped. Since. Hands in his hair. Fisted in his shirt. The perfect sound when Steve forgot Danny was Danny, without ever forgetting at all, and run his mouth up Danny's throat. (His pulse was sky-rocketing.) Thoughts coming so fast. Bullets raining. Kissing him hard. Hand under his jacket. Saying. Saying. Steve can't remember any of the words. But he remembers. How hard Danny drug him in. He remembers Danny's gruff, winded voice shooting sparks down every vein.

His eyes. The blue ocean turned to erratic leaping flame. The taste of him. (Not a lie.)

In the middle of one. The whole night was one. But. . . Danny wasn't. Danny --

The jealousy about Campbell, and not using the line he should have.

Steve took another step. Dangerously close. The whole room is gone. Maybe the whole world. It's him, and it's Danny, and Danny has his hand on the door like it's the only sane thing left in the room. To escape. To run away. And Steve suddenly, insanely, can't keep his mouth from saying exactly what his head says, "Let go of the door." A directive, that doesn't even request. It's like orders, without being ordered, specifically. But it isn't a question. Isn't a request. Shudders with something like hilarious terror and the expansive high right after shooting a sniper rifle (for the right reasons), taking down a body like a landslide.

Because he doesn't want Danny's hand on his door. His head is shuddering, unable to stay still. A landslide.

He doesn't want that hand on his door. He wants Danny's hand back on himself. Fisted in his hair, his clothes. His sanity.

[haole_cop]

The room has gone silent, again, but it's a different silence, now: not sullen and heavy, but electric, crackling. He can feel all the hair on his arms standing up, the trill of goosebumps chasing across his skin. It's the kind of tension that's bound to crack like bone, and leave screaming and pain behind.

But he doesn't move. Steve told him to stop, and Steve wanted to know, so Danny stopped, and told him, because it's the only thing he can offer, now, the only thing he can do to prove he's still Steve's friend, above everything else, that being Steve's friend is the most important thing to him, right now, in this moment.

Important enough that he'll willingly ruin it, to tell Steve the truth, because Steve wants it. Wants to hear it. Wants Danny to say it, clear as day and un-erasable. Wants Danny to write it in permanent marker across the air of this room, that feels like it's slowly filling up with lightning, prepping to spark and burn them both alive.

And Danny gets it. He does. Wouldn't have offered, if he weren't willing, but Steve, Steve is still pushing it. Still. After cracking Danny's chest open, and making him dictate everything Steve is peering at, Danny glances up at a nudge against his shoes, to see Steve right there.

Close. Too close. Pushing panic back into his chest like a tree branch, when there's nowhere to go and Steve won't just let him leave, which is ridiculous, because Steve didn't want this, in the first place. Tried to get Danny to let it go, before ever coming in. Tried to give him an out. Left the car running.

But now he's in Danny's space, exactly where Danny told him he shouldn't be, and Danny never thought of Steve as a particularly cruel person, but right now he feels like a bug, pinned to a board, struggling as Steve pulls his wings and legs off, one by one, slowly. "Steve --"

Half a plea, half a warning, eyes flicking to Steve's face, and then away again, because Steve looks like he's standing on his very last, snapping thread of sanity.

Telling Danny to let go of the door. Allowing him no escape. A bubble of misery cracking Danny's ribs, when his fingers tighten -- isn't this enough, hasn't he said, done, proved enough -- and let go.

Feeling like he's let go of the only handhold keeping him from plummeting into the chasm, but lifting his hand, in proof, in capitulation. In defense? Head turned, because Steve is too close, and Danny can't look at him like this, after saying that, after doing what he did.

Maybe he deserves it. His back against the door. Hands up, like Steve's about to execute him. Steve this close, close enough Danny can feel the heat he's throwing, can remember in vivid, perfect detail how it felt for Steve to take the last step and press him into the wall. His own voice too quiet and too careful and too wrecked on the rocks his willpower is trying to dash itself against, when he says, "You should really back up."

Because he's already proven, right, that he can't be this close. Can't be trusted. Not even when he should be bracing himself for the fallout. The punch. The anger. The disgust.

Can't stop himself, from already wanting to grip Steve's jacket, and drag him closer, and keep him here, until Steve says they'll be okay, it's okay.

When it's not. And Danny knows it's not. Won't be. Maybe not ever again.

[thebesteverseen]

Danny's words aren't sticking more than any of his thoughts. Danny's voice with his name. That sharp, dangerous edge that is Danny begging him to back up. Miserable, the way only Danny can. Threatening to bite. Hurt turning with the fastest ease to bitterness. Acid spitting everywhere. A growl to warn that next comes the bite for the throat and Steve shouldn't want to push it. Push him. See how far it would. How many steps until Danny lunged or evaded. How many until Danny would. So many things fill that space.

But not words. Even as Danny tells him to back up.

But he doesn't. He takes another step forward. His knee running into Danny's leg.

In his ears, he can already hear Danny yelling. Use your words. Loud. Shrill. Smack him on the shoulder. The back. A fist in his shirt, pulling it out. Dragging him around, like he's a rag doll and not a SEAL. Words, Steven. Except he can't. He doesn't. His hand hits Danny's chest, palm flat. Buttons into his palm with the force of his movement. Too fast, and forceful. All his muscle behind it. Backward. Pushing him away. Like a rational human being. But there aren't any. He's made sure.

That there weren't any words for this when Danny was in the hospital. Any time he was beaten. Anytime someone tried to break him. His heart. His body. People. Rachel. Falling buildings. Bastards. With zip ties, and guns, and black bags. For every hole newly gouged into him. Any part of him. Every time Steve wanted to repay with the full extent of his training on that person. Steve made sure there were never any words for this. For the better part of half a decade.

There aren't any. He's good at his job. He follows the rules.

There's a madness shattering through him with every thought. That one.
Twisted, distorted, exploding. When Danny's back does hit the door. Danny's head.

There's a rattle of the door actually being impacted. He's staring into Danny's face. Those dark eyes. Like it's a burning sign. A leveled town. Smoking crater. Then he's leaning in, doing absolutely everything he shouldn't. Can't help. Burns with want over. Reawakened. Insanity. Impossibility. This isn't real. It can't be. There's something dark crawling up his throat, a noise he can't admit to, doesn't want to claim or acknowledge, when his mouth crashes into Danny with so much less though that everything else earlier.

Everything fitted into his veins like an elephant inside a needle. Like a ship finding an ice berg or a reef of coral too late. He's always been too late to stop this. Years ago. In that doorway, calling his name over and over. Last week. When he agreed to let them do this, laughing. Today. When Danny told him not to punch him and leaned in.

[haole_cop]

He doesn't even know why he bothers, because it's not like Steve ever fucking listens to him, and he doesn't now, either. Steps in, like Danny isn't a grenade primed to explode, all over him, while Danny can't go backwards, because backwards is only the door, where he really would be trapped, and he can't push forward, because that would mean touching Steve, and he's not allowed to touch Steve anymore, because he ruined it. Took something amazing, unique, maybe a little confusing to an outsider but sensible to them, and ground it under his heel.

Everything Steve is to him. Everything he's supposed to be to Steve. All the times they've come for each other.

So he stands his ground, feeling like a puffer fish, slowly filling, needles prickling everywhere, invisible through his skin, and glares, and says, finally, "sto--"

That never gets finished, except in a push of breath, as Steve's hand hits his chest, and Danny's shoved backwards, and, honestly, his first reaction is surprise, that Steve will actually do it, but he shouldn't be. Right? In the end, Steve's a SEAL. Military. And just because DADT got repealed, that doesn't mean most men in the military would react well to their male best friend telling them they enjoyed kissing them, touching them. Wanted them.

Were in love with them.

Steve's hand hits his chest, and he hits the door, hard enough to knock his breath loose, hard enough to whack his head against the wood, and he can't move, because Steve's hand is still an anvil on his chest and Steve's pushing in, determined and pissed off, and Danny's got just enough time to brace for getting the shit kicked out of him, the way he's seen Steve take down countless scumbags, when Steve pushes into him, instead, and the world world shrinks in on itself and explodes at his mouth hitting Danny's, hard.

Danny's, that was open to protest, or to try and breathe, finally, but that's not going to happen, won't, maybe ever again, because Steve's mouth is on his and Steve's crushing him into the door and Danny's hand finally lifts to wrap around Steve's wrist, but he doesn't know if it's to keep Steve's hand there, or to try and pull it away.

While that sound reaches up out of Steve's chest and something in Danny's dies, or is born again, or goes up in flames and vanishes into ash.

He's not. He's. But it isn't. Danny just said. Steve told him. He tried to get him to leave. He didn't want this. There's no one watching.

Insane rambles, across his malfunctioning brain, because this can't be happening, because there's no cover to keep up or perp to take down, but Steve is kissing him, and Danny only realizes after a long minute that his free hand is fisted in Steve's jacket, dragging him closer.

But it's enough. An ice cube trickling down his neck, that makes him let go of the fabric like it's on fire, shove at Steve's hip, when he still can't move back further, or away.

Enough to try and get some space, enough to find oxygen and whatever is left of his sanity, because something just happened to turn the world upside down and he has no idea how to even begin to figure out what.

Even when that's the word his lips form, soundless, too far from Steve's, and not far enough, while his fingers are tight enough on Steve's wrist that his knuckles have gone white. "What -- are you doing, Steve, what -- what, what's happening?"

What. Repeating over and over in his head, stupidly, while he still keeps a hold of Steve, suddenly terrified he'll try to pull away, sure Danny should be pushing him.

But he can't. Steve. Steve just. And Danny doesn't know why

[thebesteverseen]

It's like deciding to put his mouth against a cast iron pan, left over the stove, or a night fire out in the middle of nowhere, for hours. Every part of his skin touching it wants to peel, while he tried to breathe somehow without breathing, shove that sound down, away, like he doesn't. Isn't. This isn't. What it is.

Or isn't.

Because Danny is frozen suddenly. Rigid through an actual, physical, flinch. Shock slamming into him like Steve punched him instead. Before there's suddenly a hand on his wrist smashed between them, and then another is grasping his coat. Balled and cinched. Hard like Danny was falling and had no other way to hang on. It's not. Except. It. Except Danny has been by that coat, just as much. The fabric is straining against Danny's grip. The way he'd suddenly jerked Steve closer.

When there isn't a closer to go to. Steve having to slap one of his own hands on the door, not far from where it had been earlier. But this time it isn't a show. It isn't even a thought. He just doesn't want it between. Doesn't want anything between. When the the hell had this gotten between them. It rises only to rush away with every other thought in his head. Because Danny is touching him. Even if it is barely.

Which, of course, is when Danny lets go and shoves at him. In the opposite direction. Away. Away. Off of him.

Bubbles of something, that can't be air or sanity, popping at the top of the soup that sloshes everywhere inside his head, his veins, his skin. That Danny didn't ask for that. Which might have stayed if Danny actually kept pushing him away. If Danny wasn't out of breath, staring at him wide eyed in the slightly dark of Steve's own shadow. Words coming rapid fire, and hectic, like Danny had no hold on them. No control over them. The emphasis or the pitch.

But the words aren't what has Steve. What has Steve is the way Danny's hand is still clenched around his wrist. The red slip of his thoughts from the constriction, the ache of bones crushed close, what it means he should do that he kicks away without a look. Because Danny would never hurt him. Isn't. Not even now. Not even when his wrist is throbbing, bones complaining, Danny's fingers trembling with the force of all of his weight and strength there. Holding on like if he let go, the whole world would upend. Somehow making something pop again in Steve's head.

Scattershot, too fast for even words, thoughts. He wants to laugh, smile, but he only just realizes to take a breath.

He doesn't know when he did last. How many minutes it's been. Because it seems to hit like helium. Straight to his head, straight to his blood. Danny against him, below him, holding on to him. Danny whose hands aren't on him. Steve is blurry on where they are. Smashing into the words not able to keep my fucking hands off you, when what falls out of his own mouth is, "That isn't how you kissed me earlier."

When he kissed Steve for show. When he kissed Steve like he wanted the whole room to know he owned Steve, without the words. The lie. The black and white fool proof cover. Kissed him like he wanted everyone in that back room to know Steve to fuck him right there on the wall. Except it was a lie. It was a cover. Not a real kill but still a kiss good enough to get someone killing. But. He. There's too much. It's explodes everywhere.

Colliding with the images, merged, blended, scratched up and too bright again I wanted. All of it.

He wanted to. To have been. That they were. Hands. Mouths. Hot breath and inability to.

[haole_cop]

Steve's staring at him, eyes blown dark and wild. Like the back room, but not. Like every one of Danny's dreams or fantasies, the late night images he should never have allowed, the ones he kept like guilty secrets. But not.

Because he could never have imagined this. How it looks like any time he's had to drag Steve off a huddled suspect, to keep him from outright murder at the hands of the state. Or. Except it's nothing like. Not that, or anything else he's ever seen on Steve's face. Wild and unlocked. The whole room narrowing down to those eyes, his mouth, that Danny's eyes keep flicking to, because it's slick and a little pink and his lips are parted against the flood of oxygen that looks like its hitting him like someone threw a bowling ball at his head.

Saying that. Crushing Danny against the wall, without breaking his grip, without backing off, and saying that, which isn't an answer. Can't be. Because that would be impossible, okay, it would be everything Danny knew as impossible for years, for so many years he'd honestly stopped keeping track, just started thinking of it as another inevitability, like getting shot at. Another danger of the job, just as deadly. Loving Steve. Wanting Steve.

He never knew, though. Not really. Not how dangerous it actually was, until now, when Steve won't back away, when Steve is here, leaning into his, when Steve just attacked him, because Danny can't even call that a kiss, and Steve's riding the red line of demolition because Steve never does anything else. Fueling the fire with that statement. Like. Like he wants Danny to kiss him, like he did in that club. Forgetting everything, except how Steve felt, and how much Danny wanted him. How much he wanted it to be real. "I wasn't supposed to kiss you like that."

Careful words, against the hammering in his chest, that he needs to strangle, because he can't hope, okay. He can't. It's not possible. This is. Something else. It can't be. Steve doesn't. Danny wasn't supposed to kiss him like that. Or at all. This is, maybe, some kind of test. Testing the resolve Danny just said he had, that Danny promised he could put into practice.

Which is why he hates himself, for saying anything else at all, much less: "You didn't want me to."

Saying it. The words. And how they're almost a question. How careful they are. How cautious. How his fingers are shaking on Steve's wrist, with the strain of it, and the impossible, wild, drunken possibility of it, that he needs to strangle, before it takes hold, latches on, lets him believe, even for a second.

That maybe he's been wrong.

[thebesteverseen]

It's not entirely true. But without making it right. He hadn't, had he? He hadn't really wanted Danny to kiss him at all. At least no more than he wanted to be shot or stabbed. But it had become a casualty of this case. The undercover. A question they never actually asked or answered of each other. When they were making jokes as a group. Whether it was going to get to that point. How good was good and what was good enough for enough or wasn't. For each other. For the guy. For all the people they were keeping alive.

He hadn't wanted to know. At least as much he had. What it felt like. To have Danny pressed like that against him. Hands everywhere. The way it stayed on his tongue. The way it poured gasoline down his veins, lighting torches that had never gone out to begin with. Dusty and ignored, flaring to life, scalding with brutal heat. The same heat in Danny's eyes right now. Blue, wide, confused. Darting to his mouth. Fingers still tight on him.

Making Steve aware no part of him agreed. Not now. Not since. Not when it was barely inches, and these inches were in his own house, while Danny swallowed and made an effort not to stammer but couldn't stop looking between his mouth and his eyes. Danny. With a million words who chose a half handful, and thought Steve didn't want -- "Wrong."

It's a single word, a small one, sobering even as the delirious comment he would have made even three or four years ago -- Kiss me like that, again; low, in order, like a promise of the rain of destruction -- definitely in his twenties, definitely against a random person, faded into his teeth. But he isn't. Danny isn't random. Danny isn't the person to go down on like he's a sinking ship. Danny isn't someone to laugh at the insanity of undressing against his front door, screwing on the couch, and never having to think about it, once the mad drive leaves his skin.

It's Danny, whom he couldn't stand the idea he was about lose. To this same truth. Desperately thought he had. Only ten minutes back. The other side of this door. In the car that couldn't even entirely be cool yet from running. While Danny thought. What had he said? Something about Steve hitting him, or firing him? God. There weren't even words for how wrong Danny was. For how old he felt being aware even that the thoughts took place, consideration of ultimate, futile desemation sliding away.

Maybe he hadn't wanted it when they headed out tonight, but he'd take someone's head for trying to take it away now.
He didn't want to not know what he did now. He didn't want to think of a night where it hadn't happened. Seeing Danny like this.

[haole_cop]

It's amazing how often one word, a single word, can change the course of everything he thought he knew.

Rachel saying yes. Matt saying goodbye.

Steve. Saying he's wrong.

Making that sharp ache flare again, brighter and harder and more painfully, a bird trying to beat its way out of his chest. Not something small and sweet. Something huge. Destructive. An eagle. Or one of those flying dinosaurs. Something that threatens to burst out and leave him as a bleeding, broken shell on the ground, still trying to figure out what it was he got wrong.

Wrong. Like Steve had wanted him to, wrong. Steve wanted that kiss, wrong. Steve wanted his hands on him, wrong. Steve wanted everything Danny was so sure he hated, everything Danny was certain he was disgusted by, wrong.

Danny's not even sure he's breathing, or knows how to, anymore, because if he was wrong about all of that, he might be wrong about everything else, too. Whether up is really up. If down is actually down. If water is wet. If the sun is hot.

He hates the hope that's crawling into his voice, no matter how cautious he's trying to be, while his fingers start to relax on Steve's wrist, and feel the skin underneath them, electrifying him. Asking. Nothing he ever thought he could, because it wasn't even the shade of a possibility, was never an option.

Except. Steve is saying. And so Danny asks, leery, still waiting for the other shoe to drop, the axe to fall.

"How wrong?"

[thebesteverseen]

He asks that question, like Steve has any idea how to answer it. Any way to put the last four years into his hands sensibly. From the moment he realizing, while Danny was with Rachel. Even though Steve hadn't known at the time. Through Gabby. Amber. The fall apart and put together and fall apart, again, of everyone and everything. How he was never going to, so he never had to come up with any eventualities. Lies. A good number of them. But not the truth.

Not the truth, hanging on Danny's mouth, while Danny looks at him like this. A face Steve wants to say he doesn't recognize, but he does. Because he knows all the faces Danny makes. He knows what Danny means, and how there are dozens of different tones, that mean different things, when the rest of the world is sure Danny is just screaming or ranting. It different. Even if no one on the planet, except him, seems to have figured that out.

How wrong everything about that idea is. How there is any way on this earth, even with a gun to his chest, Steve could deny that. Not not. But it's not a word. There are none. There's a struggling pressure in his chest, still fighting to get free, of his shoulders and throat and mouth. Wild and rampant. Trying to drag him back under, when he can't keep his eyes from Danny's face and there's a shock through his skin like fear when Danny's hand loosens. That he might let go.

He can't let go. Not yet. Not now. When Danny is the one for words, and Steve isn't.

Because all he's saying is "Completely wrong," into Danny's mouth, before he's kissing him again.

Shoving out the thoughts that are coming too fast. The rule book that denies. Him. Two of them. One that weighs so much more than the other. But that's not true, is it? Dennings would lose his head, too. The numbers of trainings he'd had to go to for Cath would seem like a picnic in comparison. His career military promotion path, alone. Which was only superseded by the worst one. Cath's voice. On the phone.

That reminder that stabs into his chest. That he's going to fuck this up. That it's all too probable he doesn't have it in him. Whatever they're looking for. Whatever Cath was, before she found where she needed to be. Danny. Danny who. God. It's fierce. Almost angry, and hungry. This kiss, pulling Danny off the wall and toward him, suddenly. Because he knows exactly what Danny wants and needs. Danny with his flowers at the airport and his love of that stupid city. Danny with his beautiful, petite women who were classy in a way people only asked Steve to pretend to be. In tux's like this one.

He can't be any of the things Danny needs either. He couldn't box himself into a small peg for Doris, and just being himself, here, wasn't enough for Cath, and the idea of adding Danny to this house of ghosts he disappointed or didn't stand up tall enough, high enough, go far enough for guts into it. Because Danny is everything. He always has been. How wrong. Wrong in every cell. Danny is the one person he'd do nearly anything for. If he asked.

Maybe even anything.

The anything he's not supposed to give anyone but the US Government.

Danny deserves better than to have that offered, too. When he wouldn't understand it and it would just lead to screaming, while Steve couldn't explain what a million black lines and redacted files, and more than a dozen contracts still swore him to abject, absolute secrecy on. He should pull back. He should stop now. Even now. With this in his hands. With pulling Danny into him and up to him, unable to not kiss him. To not try and show him. How wrong.

But he can't. Because his fingers somehow slid up into Danny's hair, and he doesn't know what he's looking for in Danny's mouth, but the need for it is deeper than any of the words that are falling out his hands like puzzle pieces and pieces of paper he can't remember why he was holding. Because nothing makes sense except kissing Danny. The way all of his skin is flushing hot under this too fitted suit. The way his hands, that he's known all his life and knows nearly to the fingerprint due to his work, move fast and then hesitate, like they aren't connected.

Against the side of Danny's head. His neck, thumb stretching out to run against and hold along the back of his jaw. Because he needs Danny to be here with him, even if he has no fucking clue where here is, no matter wether here has a foundation or gravity or even any air. He needs to know Danny is with him. At his back. At this spot, too. Because that's who they are. Were. Have to stay. Somehow. Even when every single action Steve is taking forgets all of that entirely. Sanity. Logic. Anything but the necessity overpowering every part of him and shutting it down like a black out.

How wrong. As wrong as wrong could be.

[haole_cop]

Danny isn't actually, traditionally, great at willpower. He's never been someone who holds back anything: not his love or affection, not his dislikes or fears or opinions or actions. The only thing that ever manages to keep him under control are The Rules. The same ones Steve loves to make fun of him for abiding by. The ones he's throwing out the window without a second glance, now.

Because Steve is bending back in, and saying those words. That Danny was wrong. Completely wrong. About everything. All of it. Everything he thought at the club. Everything he worried over in the car. Everything gnawing at his stomach lining, once he convinced Steve to let him in so he could throw himself on his own sword.

Steve is saying they're all wrong, completely wrong, except he's not saying it, he's breathing it against Danny's lips, that can't help but part for him, with a sharp intake of breath, that gets muffled into Steve's mouth. Into Danny's chest. Short and sharply sweet, and impossible, but that's wrong. Completely wrong.

Because Steve is kissing him again, and Danny's only human. Can only hold out against so much. Can only toe the line for so long, against only so much temptation, before he has to give in, and Steve is kissing him. Again. Or for the first time, maybe, because before was less of a kiss than a landslide, but this --

He can feel Steve's mouth. The brush of his tongue. His fingers, that are sliding into Danny's hair, but really slipping into his chest, behind the cage of bone, to wrap around his heart, and squeeze. Dragging Danny up off the door towards him, and Danny goes, is gone, gone, gone, pushing into that pull because Steve has been his gravity for longer than he even knows how to define, and he has to go where Steve drags him. Pressed into his chest, with Steve's hand in his hair, and Danny's heart collapsing, or expanding into a balloon about to burst, in his chest.

Until there's a pause, and the squeeze becomes an ache, desperate and fearful, because Steve just said, he can't have changed his mind already -- but then there's a hand at his jaw, and Steve's thumb laid against his skin. Impossible. Delicate in a way Steve never is. Careful, like Danny might break.

Making the spinning room stop dead for a moment, while this thing in Danny's chest threatens to flood it all, but instead only punches itself into the back of his throat as a soft, winded, aching groan. A sound like he's been locked away for a hundred years, and this is the first human touch he's felt. Pained, and perfect.

In this pause, this held breath, before his fingers loose Steve's wrist, and his palm runs up Steve's arm to his neck, the other hand slipping below his jacket to grip his beltloop, and pull. Drag Steve in, while pushing himself up, because Steve said he was wrong, and Steve said Danny wasn't kissing him like he did in the club, and that means, it means Danny can do better.

Feeling it pop in the back of his skull, like a sparkler going off, but he doesn't care. Not anymore. Steve said. And that means he can.

[thebesteverseen]

It's creeping up on him, while Danny is wavering, fighting for words, like this is a conversation, he can somehow make it one even if Steve can't. That maybe even if Danny was wrong about earlier it didn't mean Steve was right about right now. That maybe he's chucked Danny right off a cliff by trying to keep him from doing that. Or. No. He hadn't. He. It's bottled and baffled, against Danny's mouth. When everytime he kisses Danny it's nothing like it was.

There's something careful or desperate. Something equally shocked and apart. He doesn't know what. His mind is already screaming half a dozen, a dozen, two dozen reasons why. Because there are just as many. Making his feet stick and blocks of ice tumble into his lungs, where there's hardly any air taking up that space anyway. Because maybe he should pull back. Stop. Get his hands back off Danny, and take whatever Danny is willing to give.

Even if it's two word questions about things Steve can barely make coherent thoughts about.

But just when Steve tries to grind down his guts into a palm, to do anything like trying to take charge, make the right decision, Danny suddenly moves. Danny caves into him, but without caving. He's solid and set, moving right into Steve. Hands finally, finally, moving and pushing into him. Up at him. Turning this kiss into something that has the both of them fumbling for sense it seems like, or just where to put hands. Or how to leave them. His other one (the one Danny isn't suddenly leaning his head toward in ways that make everything in him shudder) keeps moving without his thought to it.

The line of Danny's shoulder. Down into his back. The crease of this vest.

He thinks it's madness. But then Danny makes that noise. Holy. God. That noise. Sending his vision sideways and his chest tight. Blown into with a blow torch with that sound in his mouth. Coming from Danny. While he's touching him. Kissing him. Like the one from the bar when Steve was -- and things shiver, sparking under his skin. Suddenly wanting to push Danny back against the door. Hold him there, and do that, again. Not apologetic. Not accidental. Not a brush of lips. He wants to runs his mouth along Danny's neck and hear it again. Pull the sound out and know it's for himself.

But he can't. Because the thought is taken and tossed into the bonfire because Danny's stillness is absolutely gone. Fingers on his shoulder. Wrapping his neck. Barely flickering a warning from the touch. Because he's shuddering into it all. Into that one, and Danny's kiss that suddenly punches up several notches, and the hand getting under his jacket and grabbing his pants, which he doesn't expect and pulling him closer by them. Pulling the waistband, top half of his pants, tight around him as it's used like a leash.

Which was a thought. It had been, before he was slipping. There were steps. He was sure. Shuffling. But it didn't matter. Danny was kissing him, kissing him like he meant it, and he needed. Why did he have to be so. Higher. Purchase somewhere. On something. Except he can't make his mind focus. Not stairs, or couch, or desk. Because this is it. It can hurt. It can burn. His muscles could start pulling off his bones. Because any will power to slow down and hold off, consider anything else, is being stripped away by that mouth and those hands. Set on fire. Tossed through a window. Shards of glass falling everywhere.

He was wrong, completely wrong, to think he ever could have survived this and walked away unscathed.

[haole_cop]

It's insanity. Honestly. Like breathing pure oxygen, or a bullet fired at his head. How he's so much closer to Steve than he's ever been, is all but crawling under his jacket and shirt, and it's still not close enough.

Which is insane. It has to be. It's been years, since the closest he was allowed, could expect, was totally fine with, was a hand on Steve's arm or back. This was never even imagined as possible, on the table, and it's still, somehow, already, not enough.

It's probably because there's still some part of him that's waiting for Steve to wake up and realize what's happening, and shove Danny away, and maybe that part is just hoping to get what it can before the inevitable happens and Steve not only never touches, but also never talks to or looks at him again, but Steve said that part was lying. That it was wrong. (Completely wrong.) And proved it by flicking a match into life and tossing it onto the pile of dormant dynamite than Danny mistakenly thought was his rational self.

And now, he can't seem to stop. There's no mark here to watch, no audience to be wary of, and Steve is telling him to. Wants him to. There's no incentive, other than the need, eventually, for oxygen, to do anything but let the madness burn, and bury him. Send his hand running along Steve's waist, until his hand is flat against Steve's back, under the jacket, over the thin dress shirt, that feels like it might go up in flames like tissue paper over a lit candle. Other palm against Steve's neck, fingers spread wide. He's spent years touching Steve, but never once like this. Imagined it, without any real idea.

How warm his skin is. How soft, from the late-evening shave just prior to the job. What he smells like. Tastes like. Sounds like.

Danny feels like a toaster, overloading, setting itself on fire. A computer spilling over with data, too much electricity. He needs something to ground himself on, but Steve isn't the lightning rod, he's the storm. The wildfire. An earthquake cracking open the ground beneath Danny's feet, and swallowing him whole.

Even when Danny pulls back, half an inch, for air, he can't, doesn't want to, let go, or move further. It's too soon. He's still not sure it's even real.

[thebesteverseen]

He can't even keep track entirely. When one kiss ends and another begins, or whether there are multiples, when it feels like somehow, suddenly, without even planning it, they gave up the need to breathe except through each other. Except through this suddenly shift of mouthes, brush of tongues, Danny's hands lighting fires everywhere they moves. Again. But different this time. Wanting to touch him this time.

But he wanted earlier. It's hard to keep straight, when he's pushing into them, into Danny's bulk. Danny knowing, and choosing. Both of them aware. It's flaming shots. The burn down his throat and the kick in his center, except without any wait between them. Because Danny's hand is pushing around under his coat, and Steve's seconds from pushing the whole damn thing off. The case being over was enough to want out of it. Danny wanting it out of his way, is reason to burn it. Fling it away.

He's about to drag his hands off Danny, as impossible as that thought seems, to start shoving it off when Danny pulls back suddenly. Not just enough to get a gulp of air and smother himself back against Steve. Actually, pulls back. Even if it's not far. Far enough Steve has to focus on Danny's face. It never loses focus. Steve can't lose focus. He's not allowed. Except everything swims even as he's blinking his eyes, and he feels like he's dazed.

Dazed like three or four days of too much blood loss, on his feet, without sleep, unable to stop. That kind of dazed.

Danny staring at him from so close. Breathing fast, as though air was at a premium in the room. Eyes locked on him, wide and dark, but blue in the yellow light with nothing blocking him. His hair suddenly a wreck, and Steve doesn't remember doing that specifically. While a boulder crawls into his chest. Because it's terrible and amazing, and he won't be able to burn this out ever. He's going to go to his grave with it.

Freddie's fierce grin and even fiercer tackle of a hug the day they graduated stumbles about somewhere.

Except it's not like that. It's not gratitude beyond words. He's had that. Here. With Danny. It's not those bone crushing, mind not needed, hugs after the world throws its newest fucked up thing at one of them or both. It's not even those day where close was too close, because some bad day or even a great one, left them toasted far out at sea, hanging on each other and demanding the other listen even when the drinks had made it impossible to keep their sentences clear.

He's been this close to Danny. He has. But never like this. Never without some part of himself reigned back, even when it was crashing around his ears. Mountains falling. Desperation at large. Loud and impossible to fight for a few seconds, even as he never did this. Never let this part happen. His mouth touch any part of Danny. His hands wander anywhere. Not even press him face into Danny. Except.

Except there are excepts. He's not supposed to think about them. Acknowledge them. Remember them.
Slips in judgement. Slips in control. Slips he's not allowed to have, or give into, or allow to exist without being scourged out.

But this one isn't a slip. This one, with Danny's rapid breathing and his eyes that pin Steve in a way no weapon or person ever has. Making him swallow down planes and mountains. Making him try to remember. How to breathe. Or construct a sentence. Or think. When even thoughts are just like trying to hold water in the palm of a hand where his fingers won't curl and close. Because he can't hold on to any of it. Not with Danny here. Touching him like this. Looking at him like this.

[haole_cop]

He's had his hand on the small of Steve's back, or wrapped at Steve's neck, lots of times. More times than he can count, or would want to. More times than he's ever noticed, or paid attention to.

But not like this. His hand hasn't been on Steve's back under parts of Steve's clothing. His fingers haven't landed on the side of Steve's neck while Danny's pressed against his chest, stomach, legs. And while there have been times that Steve has curled over him, plastered against him, it's never been like this, either.

With the taste of Steve on his lips, when he licks them, feeling like he's gotten plugged in, after someone stripped all his wires bare, and Steve is staring back at him, from half an inch away. Not letting go. Not backing down. Looking like someone snapped his leash, and kicked open the door.

Except that must have been Danny, right? He knocked down that door. He pushed Steve to this. Snapped his self-control. What sense or sanity Steve even owns, and Danny just went with it, because he didn't stop to think about how this even happened. Did he? He was saying. And then Steve. And Steve said Danny was wrong, but that's not any kind of clear view into what's happening inside Steve's head right now, which is not great, because this is, literally, insane.

"We're crazy."

Something's happened to his voice: it's gone hoarse and he wants to clear his throat, but he's really not sure it would help.

But they are. This is crazy. They are crazy. This can't, wasn't supposed to, was never going to happen.

And yet he's not letting go, and neither is Steve, and even though Danny doesn't have a single clue how they got here from where they were a few minutes ago, he's not willing to back up any further to find out. "I feel like I missed something important. I mean, there are some pieces of information I feel pretty safe in saying that I'm missing, in all this."

Like. Why Steve didn't hit him. Why Steve kissed him. Why Steve said he was wrong.

Because, somehow, impossibly...Steve wants him, too?

[thebesteverseen]

Danny goes right on staring at him. Catching his breath and then licking his lips, which makes Steve's eyes drop to the movement while something else licked at his inside. A whine like the escape of gasoline rebuilding itself, or just expanding even more outward, making the whine the sound of his bones as everything tried to swell beyond the space it could be contained in. When there's a sharp, heated ache spiking in his stomach and nearly making him lean in.

This time. Because it's not about not doing it. Danny was just kissing him. He was just kissing Danny.

He could, but Danny's mouth finally finds words, and it's like sound finally decides to exist again. An inverted bubble. Sharp and caustic at the words that make his eyes shoot back up to Danny's. Because that's. It's not entirely wrong, either, is it? Everything feels crazy. Sideways. Smashed into pieces all over this floor. With only a single light to illuminate anything, while Steve wants to stop Danny from talking at all. Take the light from the room and the words from Danny's mouth.

Yet he wants them at the same time. Making his head shutter stop with the conflict.
That isn't. It never has been. It'd always been so clear. It was why it had to be put away.

He knew what he wanted. Knows himself. Like his hands. He wanted everything that was Danny.

Which hadn't changed here, apparently, even if he made himself drag in a breath while Danny was starting to pick up steam, rolling down hill, the words that had to come, absolutely had to, it couldn't be Danny without, them finally start rolling down the hill picking up steam. While Danny's hands don't move. There's one on his neck and one on his back, and they press in like Danny is trying to make sure he won't leave suddenly.

Making him laugh. The pressure of those fingers and the words coming out of Danny's mouth, making him pick out suddenly, low and thick, but still fast enough. "You feel like you missed something?"

It's mocking. But not at the missing. It's sarcastic, a little deliriously so. Danny was a detective, even a good detective, the best Steve knows, but he was a SEAL. Supposed to be. There's something sobering and shattering. He's a fucking frogman, trained to notice everything, catalog and move with impunity, in control of everything and never less than aware, because it kept them alive in the crunch seconds;

and his partner was grafted to his body, gasping against his lips, wanting him and he'd missed it?

Missed how that happened? Missed when? Missed how? With Amber and Gabby and Rachel?

[haole_cop]

He had a point, he knows. Or was going to. Was definitely on the way to making one, but then Steve's eyes dropped to his mouth, and it throws Danny like someone parked a tank in the path of a speeding train.

That Steve can't pay attention, because Steve already wants to kiss him again. Even when the very fact that Steve wants to kiss him is sort of the point he was trying to get at.

Which, at least, sort of gets Steve's attention, but before Danny can figure out where he's going with this, and if he should be letting go of Steve or stepping away (or at least taking a hard look at how his body rebelled, instant and jealous, at even the idea of doing either), Steve's laughing, tossing it back at him, and it's familiar. Sort of. Steve moving him, sarcastic and amused and fond all in equal measure, except Steve's not normally stuck on his mouth and Steve's not usually crammed up against him, with his hand in Danny's hair.

Laughing at him. Or. At them. This. The insanity of it. Steve's not exactly the most stable at the best of times, and Danny himself feels like the floor keeps dipping out from under his feet, the way sanity keeps dipping out from underneath him, avoiding his grasp.

He'll let himself think that's why he laughs, instead of yells. Mouth gone stupid and goofy and bright, and it's splashed all over him like paint, this feeling that he can't even identify until he casts around for a foundation to stand on, realizes he's floating somewhere too far above to care. It's too giddy, too shocked to call happy, but it's the only word he knows to describe this bubble in his chest, that's spilling over into idiotic nonsense in his head, fading out everything but Steve into inconsequential white noise.

He missed something. He missed a lot. Clearly. But Steve hasn't hit him and he's not fired yet and Steve is still stuck to him like a stamp to a letter, so he also can't quite be touched by anything that isn't this incredulous, brilliant giddiness. "Are you seriously laughing at me right now?"

He is. But Danny is, too. Laughing. At. Something. It's not that it's funny. It's just this release, and if he were feeling a little more sane, he might worry about it being hysteria, but it doesn't feel like that. Doesn't feel manic, or unhinged.

Just expansive. Into every breath. When he's already leaning back, because Steve was watching his mouth, and just the brush of Steve's lips is enough to blow his head right off his shoulders. No other words required.