haole_cop | AU: Trope Minefield

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AU: Trope Minefield

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I haven't see you around before," says the kid, with a winning smile that lands somewhere about three feet past and to the wide left of Danny, because Danny isn't paying attention, can't.

"Yeah," he says, distracted, "I'm new around here."

The kid's smile is wide and white and it would probably be a balm, any other day, to have this attention: like it was with Amber, young and beautiful and smart, even if she was stupid the same way this kid is, being interested in Danny. There's nothing for him here, just like there wasn't for her, and Danny's still got enough of a grip on his own mental state to think it's not all because of Steve.

That would be stupid, and he knows it. Has known it. It's not even a thing to know. It's not them. It's him. How Danny finally had to come to the conclusion that Steve was always going to get in the way, because Steve is never not going to be in some kind of trouble, and need back up, and that's Danny. That's not a question, and it hasn't been for years. He's the back up, and maybe it's slowly taken over every aspect of his life not already owned by Grace, and shouldered its way into even a few of those, but he can't look back on it now and say he'd be any better off if he'd taken that same energy, time, dedication, and put it into a romantic relationship -- one he wouldn't have time or space for, anyway.

So maybe it is because of Steve, because Steve's his partner and they're in this together, so when the kid -- who might have introduced himself, Danny's not sure -- leans in a little, making some comment about fresh off the mainland, Danny reaches to put a hand on his arm, friendly, but dismissive. "Sorry," he says, already moving past, "I just remembered, I hate scotch."

They aren't far, which means that, first, he has almost no time to come up with some kind of reason to make his way there and butt in, and, second, that he's not sure he cares, because the guy's turning to face Steve, and Danny can see the way his lapel brushes against Steve's sleeve, feels it in his own chest like a punch. How the guy's smiling. How Steve's smiling back.

And not pulling away. Like he would. Like he should, which Danny recognizes as an insane thought, which is a kind he's come to recognize quickly, because Steve has slowly but surely stripped away any resemblance of sanity Danny might once have enjoyed. It's gone, blown into bits on grenades and blinded by flashbangs and lost, adrift, on the collaborator's grin Steve will shoot his way after a good day, after a day when no one dies and they catch the bad guy and Steve maybe gets to bodily tackle someone into the water.

Gone, but it's left a ghost of itself, like the shadows left on walls after a nuclear explosion, that still whispers to him, as he comes meandering by, close enough for it to be idle, and comes to a rest near Steve's free side, shaking his half-empty glass at the bartender, because there's one thing he can always do, rely on, use:

He can complain, and he can be loud. "This," he says, to no one in particular, but aiming slightly over his shoulder at Steve, "is terrible. It's like nobody on this island has ever tasted decent booze before, how is that possible? Is the trade-off for living on an island paradise losing the use of your taste-buds, huh?"

Steve is looking between Campbell and Danny with the kid. The kid who is glued to Danny the way people get all the time. When he's teasing them over buying coffee, or joking about things in the grocery store line, getting fast food, the cops downstairs on his way up, running Grace's groups. The way bugs go toward light and filings towards magnets, and Danny doesn't even look like he's registered it. But then Danny never does, not even when he's gone goofy, tripping over his tongue, because someone's caught his attention. He still never notices he has theirs.

Steve jokes that he's dense when he points it out and Danny denies him. But that's just Danny, too. Like Danny walking away and passing him, and Campbell, the almost ignored, while the kid stands there like an unmoored buoy looking at the retreating form of Danny with this deer in headlights look of confusion, utterly uncertain what he did wrong.

Steve almost feels sorry for the sap. Kid. Almost.

But Danny doesn't notice. He's on the job. He's walked off.

Steve has a grim satisfaction in it, that he tells himself is the job. That he can always rely on Danny to stay on top of it, on focus, eyes on the prize. Even if there's a warmth under the current of Campbell talking that tells him its not about the job. He knows that one like old hat, too. He's not supposed to feel it. But he feels it still, carried it like a photograph in his pocket, the ache in an old battle wound. Done and over, even if never started, never was real, but there all the same. Ignorable.

Feel it, then cut it off. Push it down. Burn it off. Barely two seconds all told.

Campbell's still in the middle of talking about The Aloha Spirit, voice getting thicker and lower as it's beginning to imply just how he'd love to welcome the establishments new arrival on the behalf of Hawaii. Like it's his pleasure, and not a service. Like he wouldn't be purchasing Steve to do whatever he wanted, to have Steve do whatever Campbell wanted, regardless of his own opinion of it or any promises made this side of the VIP area.

But Danny gets loud right by his side. Voice cutting in suddenly like a siren in Steve's ears, making Steve aware of every single inch of where Campbell is presently touching him, and causing Steve's back to stiffen more out of surprise (it's totally surprise, only surprise, it's not the other thing, Danny doesn't know, there's nothing to know) than anything else. Like he hadn't noticed until that second that Danny had gotten to right behind him.

Which annoys him. He hates having his back to a room. Anyone.

(But he lets it sit. Danny has his back. Danny always has his back.)

Steve's still smiling, when giving an, also, disparaging look at the guy to his side. Danny. Noisy and complaining. He could just walk up and brush Campbell off. Steve's already officially his for the night. Set to the schedule. Because it was more convenient that way. The cover making it so neither of them had to worry about other people if they were pushed to that problem, while Steve rolled his eyes and made potshots about being Danny's date. One breath, and a different profession, and too much respect for both of them, and a little wariness toward the concept, away from actually letting himself get to joking that he was Danny's whore for the night.

Steve head-tipped to Campbell who was all but grumbling. His posture had grown inconvenienced, Steve could tell without looking. "Supposedly they've got the ritz on tap if you have the right connections."

"Well, the thing is --"

He's leaning on the bar, on his forearms, but when Steve glances over, and the pilot fish there trying to score a night with him sends a dirty look Danny's way, he just can't stay still. Pushes back, with both palms on the bar edge, shoulders setting straight, and then turns to lean back against it, idly glancing over the room, elbows on the bar, lounging against it like he owns the damn thing. One hand drapes next to his own ribs, the other waves lazily, almost enough to catch on Steve's sleeve. "Me, I don't have those connections. I'm new in town."

It's like playing those old teenage party games, right. Two lies and a dare.

Someone meets his eyes from across the room, and he winks at them, with a crooking smile, before glancing back up to Steve, and easily ignoring his entirely forgettable companion.

Which, guy like him? With connections, and a suit that probably cost more than Danny's car?

Yeah, that ought to piss him off just exactly how Danny wants it to.

Like he's a nobody. Less important than a waiter trying to get Steve's drink order.

While Danny's looking up at Steve with his best, absolutely certain, smugly victorious smile, like they've already got an in-joke, a rapport. Like Steve's already his.

(Which lands a little sour in his stomach, because he is. The plan. Bought and paid for. But. Not like that.)

They do. Have in-jokes, a rapport. But tall, dark, and fuming over there doesn't need to know that, just like he doesn't need to know it's easier than instinct for his hand to brush Steve's arm, plucking the material of his suit between his thumb and the knuckle of his index finger. "But hey, maybe I didn't come here to drink, anyway. What about you, stretch? You like it so far? Or you, uh..."

Now his eyes do slide, derisively, to the other guy, and he shrugs, looks back at Steve. "Always let somebody order your drinks for you? Did I miss the sign that says this is the kids table?"

The thing is....Danny is better at this than anything he implied, amid his normal storm of caustic grumbling, that he was too old to be any good at really. The kind of thing he would never do. Scoffed at the idea of. When Steve has to make it an actual effort not to let his eyes travel any further than a good show of being surprised and unable to not look at the man to his side.

He already knows what this suit looks like on Danny. That it is problematic.

When Danny is throwing out a wink toward some stranger, and Steve actually looks.

In a way he hopes is curious and surprised, not the sharp suddenness that flares through him, making it feel like a small jerk in his neck, that fast twist. Only a touch stronger when he sees a guy over there shifting a more upright in his seat, looking surprised that he got it and absolutely in no way having expected it or brushing it off. He doesn't need Danny tossing his face at more people and making them even more trouble for the night.

Except Danny doesn't stop there, Danny never stops there. Not even when the hand on Steve, the one closer to Danny's side but not Danny's (never Danny's, he didn't even mean, but suddenly) tightens on his jacket and ribs, while Danny starts actively, actually, insulting the guy next to him. Before his wine even made it back.

Danny's hand on him, pulling at his suit jacket suddenly, while Danny William's mouth wraps itself around words Steve never even dreamed once, in the worst distracting dreams, ever considered, implying he's here for the things not on the menu. Namely Steve. Namely everything else. (But not Steve. Not anything else.) It's the only reason he doesn't actually freeze and pull back suddenly from the offending hand on his side.

"You missed the one that said this was a private party," Campbell broke in right over both things, his voice made of flat ice.

"Yeah?"

Playing it cool isn't usually his strong suit, but it's necessary here, and, besides, it'll make the unlucky man next to Steve over there more pissed off than ever. He's already furious, and it's visible, and he knows it, which only makes him angrier, which is a win, in Danny's book.

Sure. All they really need to do is get rid of the guy. It's not actually necessary to antagonize him, and Danny's pretty sure he doesn't want to look too closely at the impulse to do it anyway, because it's an argument he's never going to win with himself, but he's also not going to just let it slide.

He touched Steve. Whether it's Danny's place or not, he thinks that means the guy ought to pay -- even if it's just a little.

So he rakes an indifferent glance over the guy, standing there, fuming in his nice suit, while the bartender comes back up and wisely remains silent as he deposits two glasses of wine in front of him. "Hey, Anderson Cooper, I don't think I did. It's just I think you mistakenly believe you've been invited."

And maybe -- okay, it's stupid and it's messed up as hell and he's going to pay for it later, when he could have made this easier on everybody, but maybe he kind of wants Steve to pick him.

As if this were actually real. As if there were any reality, any possible universe, in which any element of this situation could come to pass, and he knows there's not, couldn't be, won't, but it's still there. The want to just know, okay. For that part of himself he hasn't been able to shut up after five years and two girlfriends.

His own tone amiable, if bored: just another way to make this asshole feel like he's being undermined, somehow, as if there's something going on he's not in the know about, while he makes a scene with his icy tone and possessive posture that Steve could snap in a second.

He's the kind of guy who hates being ignored, so Danny ignores him, focuses back on Steve like the other guy's just an annoying, buzzing insect, something to be waved away and forgotten.

(It's not like the way he talked over Steve instead of including him endeared him to Danny any.)

"That fancy crap, you like that sort of thing? Because, you know --"

Hand in motion again, while he leans a little towards Steve, angles close enough he can feel his body heat, even through this suit, and that's a thought process he absolutely needs to shut down, immediately. "Don't get me wrong, I love the finer things in life, but when a glass of wine comes with a string attached as long as your arm, maybe it's too pricey, you know what I mean?"

If there was a time when Steve would have loved this -- and there has to have been, was, really was, for a good long, long while, even if it was just for the night, before he forgot about both sides of the tug-a-war entirely for his own war against being good enough and being the best -- it was a very long time ago now. Makes him feel older than he likes to ever let himself get away with remembering he is, except when something doesn't heal fast enough or aches before it rains.

But that doesn't stop the smile from tugging up his cheeks, smug and entirely cocksure.

When Danny is right in his bubble, pressing him between them. Campbell who's not moving anywhere, especially with Danny posturing up into Steve's space, and Danny. Danny who is so close, his voice is over-powering Campbell and the music, and Steve's need to keep checking the room. Especially because Steve's got a whiff of that cologne Danny wears when he's actually making an effort, that Steve is sure he could pick out in his sleep at this point.

That it was probably true long before he was helping Grace add it to the list of Christmas things she could buy her Dad.

"Excuse me--" Campbell starts, but this time Steve looks only long enough to catch the reddening of his face, before he's looked back to Danny. "-but you--"

"Yeah?" Steve says, and it's not relieved or demurred. It's not curious or concerned. He's not even apologetic when Campbell's breath catches and his hold trembles with a kind of danger he'd put akin to a fly. There's not but a low slung challenge thrown at Danny. Because two can play this game. If that's what Danny wants for this to look like. Something messy and maybe closer to real than it should be. Than it could never be.

A taste of the life Danny Williams would never need. Never want. Steve leaning half back into the arm behind him, as he cocks his head, eyes never leaving Danny except to glance down at how close Danny is, as a clear equivocation of his own offer on the table now. Both of them vying for Steve. Even if he'd be a commodity with slim choice. "And what does yours come with?"

The sputtering from Steve's other side is worth it, and it would be for its own sake, but it's even better when Steve cuts off whatever enraged comment was coming Danny's way, and picks up the challenge with the same light in his eye that he gets whenever someone thinks they can shoot faster than he can.

Which leaves Danny with a set of feelings too simple to be called complicated, but which are, because he shouldn't be using this mission as a chance to pretend it's anything like real life. Shouldn't take the vicious pleasure he does in the fact that Steve ignores the other guy, and turns to him, instead. It's not like it's a real situation, where he's actually won the round, and Steve's faked interest wasn't planned ahead of time, wasn't a sure thing, but he can't help feeling mollified, anyway. It makes him want to be louder, to wave his hands more and steal Steve's attention from the whole rest of the room, make him laugh, or grin in that way that means he thinks Danny's a nutjob, but that's coated in five years of trust and affection.

He wishes there wasn't a part of him that feels like looking back out over the room isn't just keeping an eye out for their mark, but could be an actual part of the game. Tagging each other, coaxing and prodding and teasing, like this is a real night at a real bar and he's really trying to steal Steve away, and not because they're partners and it'll just be easier if they don't have to deal with any civilians tonight. "Me?"

Eyebrows arcing up, while he looks back at Steve, that free hand lifting to point at his own chest. "Who said I'm getting you a drink?"

Pick it up, run with it. Like always. Pushing at each other, challenging each other, never giving any quarter and never caring what anyone around them might think.

Danny probably shouldn't love it as much as he does, but he does. Which is fine. He's been crazy ever since he let Steve drag him into this whole mess, five years ago.

Steve doesn't even hesitate. Nothing in him knows how to. (Even if that's lie. Even if it's been a lie for a few years now. He hesitates now in ways he didn't. Ways that he shouldn't. Didn't used to. But this isn't that.) This is only Steve cocking a eyebrow and being entirely flagrant when he says right back, no single beat of breath, no shift from Danny's space, or looking away from his face, "Who said I was asking about the drinks?"

As though the whole bar part wasn't what they were really talk about. As though Steve was asking him about the other part of the equation he'd mentioned. The longer price tag, not the bloom on the rose. The humid buzz in the base of the room, in the people who knew, like the man beside him. The unspoken agreements and acknowledgement about what this game, this dance, was really about.

Not even like a normal bar, when he was going to them, even a handful years back, where you might find someone, you might get along, you might end up in a dark corner plastered somewhere, or drug home due to the kind of liaison it was. This place only had the veneer of paint of looking like it was chance to the oblivious ones. It was the obvious and the sought in those who were in the know.

Steve wanting to know just for a second. Flirting with a darkness he'd never play with.
Live with and without. Long enough that it didn't matter, and it didn't.

Because so many things mattered more where it came to Danny.

Maybe he's a bastard, dragging it shamelessly to sex and tawdry, bought and paid for sex, in back rooms, when the volition is complicit and the actions are about as x-rated as one could get if they wanted to, without anyone blinking. But Danny started it, and he wants to know if Danny will keep playing with it. Danny who wanted to go with the gay thing not so long ago. Wants to know if he dish it out as much as he just blew it off like it could be normal. Something that never would be.

That Danny knows nothing about. But he wants to shove it at Danny and see if he'll keep up still.

"See here," the voice fumes from his side. The hand on his side trying suddenly to actually move Steve. Not realizing until the moment he's trying to that Steve is brick wall, a goddamn solid brick wall, when he wants to be. Not just because he's tall and he's built like one. But because he's trained. Because people don't get from him what he doesn't want to give.

Which means Steve feels it when Campbell strains confused at his effort not making Steve shiver even.

He looks confused, a little darkly, someone who doesn't know no's or having to make an effort, when Steve glances back, maybe a little smugger than he should be for his cover. He recovers though, his hands going nowhere, pushing forward against Steve instead, and looking toward Danny instead of Steve who is only instigating instead of rejecting. "We were busy already over here. If you have any manners, you would see that and find someone who isn't."

So there it is, dropped in the air between them, while Steve waits to see if Danny will bat it back, or let it drop like a hot potato.

And it will. Burn his fingers, singe the inner lining of his lungs with how true it can't be, how he'll have to deny with every breath after this the reality of it, words in his mouth, images burning onto flimsy photo paper in his head that curl in on themselves in flames. Lit on the way Steve's watching him, eyes dark and that smile playing around his mouth, like he knows he's given Danny an impossible dare, even if he doesn't know why. Filling his head with white noise, and steam. Warmth creeping up along the collar of his cool white shirt.

Except he doesn't get a chance to say anything, because the other guy manages to finally bluster his way into the conversation that he hasn't been a part of since Danny came over. It's probably for the best, because Danny's pretty sure that whatever was about to come out of his mouth, already half-open to respond, wasn't going to be anything like pretend.

Fortunately, Cialis Spokesman over there provides both the perfect distraction and the perfect punching bag on which to work out the frustration of everything he can't say, do, want. "Wrong," he says, leaning one elbow onto the bar and addressing the guy directly, head-on for the first time since he came over here, "You were busy. And, hey. The thing is, you're mistaking me for someone who has manners. I've got no reason at all to care about your rules, and, you know what? Neither does he. Hey."

Directed back to Steve, batting the back of his hand against Steve's shoulder, and tilting his head as if to say c'mon, let's blow this popsicle stand. "How about it, hotshot? You like manners? C'mon."

The last word lower, in register and volume, coaxing and intimate. The hand that had just smacked Steve's shoulder -- and that's usual, he does that all the time, it's familiar, and comfortable -- pauses, and then crooks the index finger, runs it down Steve's arm, while Danny's eyes follow it.

Mind churning a thousand rotations a second, in panic, at this touch, that's nothing like all the millions he's smacked at, pushed at, grabbed at Steve over the years.

Clutching in his chest, like teenage nerves. Cracking him open to that wide, wide wash of longing that he can normally shove down, bury with work and duty and every reminder of Catherine he could ever force on himself.

Until he reaches the edge of Steve's sleeve, and reaches to crook that same finger into the belt loop just below, which requires slipping up under the edge of his jacket, like he's allowed.

Like Steve won't mind. (He hopes Steve doesn't mind. It wouldn't be great for the cover if he got punched right now.)

Eyes finally coming back up to meet Steve's, eyebrows lifting in challenge. "You gonna make me ask you to prom?"

That Steve continues to hold still has less to do with Campbell's continued presence against his side now, that is actually beginning to grate in a fashion that isn't going to be good for the continual existence of him having a hand or an arm, but what is happening to his own other arm. As Danny suddenly decides to invade his space the way he always does, but in a way he's, also, never done before.

Danny's always in his space. Danny is always waving his hands, and leaning all over him, using him as a physical prop, in fashions Steve has become so accustom to he doesn't even give it a glance sometimes on the job. Because it won't get in the way and it is just Danny being Danny. Even if it's not something anyone else, even Cath, would ever have done. So it's not the first part that gets to Steve so much.

The finger dragging down his sleeve, even as Danny stares at it. Playing his part well.

It's when his hand rumples the bottom of Steve's jacket, threading through his belt loop and tugging barely.
That's when Steve doesn't take a breath in, and other parts of him that shouldn't tighten in his chest, inside his head.

He wants to make a joke about whether these are what Danny's moves actually look like, voice absolute mockery, to break the tension pushing up his spine, but riding the high line edge of a blade on not wanting to know, but wanting to keep push it, seeing how far he can push, what he might get, Danny might do, while he really shouldn't. He should be pulling back, but he isn't. Can't. Too. It wouldn't fit here unless he was rebuffing Danny and it wouldn't fit the cover already in place. (Plus, he's a fucking hypocrite. Because he knows that isn't why at all, too. But it's convenient, and it's necessary, too.)

"Yeah. Maybe. Why should you get anything for free?" That Campbell hadn't, was implied.

Because at least one of them was putting in some kind of effort. (One of them actually wanted something from him.)

"Sir, your drinks." A voice interrupted entirely, again.

Making Steve look back to the bar and realized the same second that hand had come off of him somewhere in the last short while. He should have noticed. He should have been watching. Red wine glasses on the counter. Bartender who, with the air of someone who was very used to not seeing and no judging whatever was in front of him, even three men seconds ago in a strange tangle, was studiously looking at nothing but the man who ordered.

Campbell straightening his cuffs while he barked, clear and calmly, "They won't be needed anymore."

He stopped breathing, somewhere around the second he actually started touching Steve with purpose, and his chest is contracting now with something that is probably the need for air, but feels like something else. Something huge and immovable, that he should have tried harder to move, that lurches like a boulder when he gusts out a breath of a laugh, that feels more wry than it should, for their cover. "Oh, I'm sure I'll pay for this."

For months, if not years. Even if Steve never cottons on, this is the stuff his dreams are made of, when it comes to giving Danny a hard time. At the very least, Danny will pay for every single liberty he takes tonight by being the butt of jokes, which will honestly be the best possible outcome, because it would beat it all getting erased in a miasma of embarrassment, never spoken of again because Steve's too weirded out by how naturally it all came to him.

But he'll pay, regardless. Even if Steve does nothing. Even if it changes nothing. He knows Steve's weight, and how much effort it takes to haul him back from some scumbag Steve wants to turn into a red smear, and he's pushed and pulled Steve around, bodily, before, but not like this. Not this tiny tug, that still manages to shift him, a little. That feels more intimate than the thousand things he's not allowed to dream of and sometimes wakes from, anyway, flushed and sweating like a thirteen year old who just discovered girls.

He'll pay for it just like he's paid for all the rest of it, every day and every time he stays over at Steve's place and every time they're a little too close or Steve lets Danny touch him for a little too long, every time Steve's there with a six-pack or whatever else Danny might need, to listen to him or back him up. It's just one more thing to toss in the coin jar he carries around, make it a little heavier, a little less easy to ignore.

Unlike the other guy, who Danny remembers only suddenly when it's become clear that he's given up, leaving Danny with the feeling of having swum up from deep water, blinking when he breaks back into the air.

The guy giving in. Graceless, and annoyed, and about to leave, which means he'll have to let go of Steve's beltloop and try to stop feeling like he'd spent the last five minutes scuffing wool socks over a carpet until all the hair on his body stood on end. "Have a nice night," he says, to no one in particular, because he's still caught on watching Steve, even if some of it is studying now for when the mask drops and Steve starts being Steve again, not his cover, not the person who might be interested, who'd let Danny touch him like this and flirt like this and make heavy, sparking promises.

He likes to just keep an eye out for when the hammer drops, okay.

As much as Steve jokes about it, insults it, tears it down, and rolls his eyes, like he's plagued with a child on his hip, Danny is good at his job. He came good at his job. He stepped up to the plate of what The Governor, and Steve, needed the task force to be capable of and he hasn't backed down since. Danny has done whatever he needed Danny to do for years now. Which isn't the same as everything he's ever wanted Danny to do.

But it's better. He can admit that to himself. Even when he can't ever find the words to admit that to Danny.

Which is usually when he's beat to all fuck in a hospital bed, opening his eyes to find Danny there. Still there. Always there. No matter where there is. In the back of a truck. In other countries. Under the rubble of a whole building. On the floor of that warehouse. Every time it should have been the last time. Every time no one else, not even his men from his SEAL team might have been able to make it, he opens his eyes and Danny is there.

Danny. Jersey-turned-Hawaiian cop. With no more training than general police.
But more will and more loyalty than Steve would even be able to believe in if it weren't for him.
Steve knows Danny is good at his job. It's the reason he can depend on Danny. Does. Even when he hates it.

When Danny is screaming at him about his motivations or the depravity of his plans, lack of plans, or decisions about how to handle the person they're after. When they butt heads, even half a decade later about the differences between they way they would each take a case at that point. But he's never bad at his job. He never lets Steve steamroller him. Knows Steve values his work. Knows Steve knows he's good at his job, the way Danny needs that to be known and seen.

The way he is now. Pulling Steve in by that small tug on his belt loop that Steve shouldn't slide a half step toward him over, but his body has listened to Danny pulling him directions without fighting it for years. Because Danny moves him around like he isn't half a foot taller, several pounds heavier and capable of taking him in a no bars, no mercy, fight if he had to. The way he does now. Doing the job right. Dragging Steve into him. Making their legs bump together.

Making Steve need to remember that when Danny is looking at him like this. Danny's good at his job.

He doesn't mean in it in the slightest. Danny doesn't go in for this kind of thing. He's never needed to. With his train of dark haired, and bright eyed, petite, classy, beautiful, younger women. (Women.) The only reasons he has his hands on any part of Steve like this is because the case calls for it. Because he's good at his job. Which Steve intones in his head like a mantra he needs to keep him grounded. As thought that isn't Danny's unspoken job, too, for as much as his hands and eyes aren't helping.

Because he's doing it too well right now. Steve can feel it in his skin. He's going to go home and fall on his bed and remember this face. Try and fail not picturing what it would feel like if Danny's fingers had chosen hooking into his pants and somehow brushing his skin instead of the length of shirt tail. But it won't. Danny won't. He's good at his job, and it's what Steve needs more than anything else. Because the last thing he actually needs is any of this from Danny. He hasn't in years. He never did, if he's honest.

Danny is already more than Steve could ask for. Or deserve. And he doesn't leave.

Steve doesn't need more than that from Danny. It's more than anyone's ever given him already.
(He shouldn't need that. But he knows he does. Knows he drinks it down like an obliterating black hole.)

Which is all he can think, a little sour and more true than he likes to face in the light of day -- even the low lights and the faint thumping music that is low and not agressive -- when Campbell's voice is cold and further away. While Danny just says goodbye to the man without looking at him. Eyes never leaving Steve. These blue blue eyes Steve knows better than his own in the mirror. Just like the ocean and just as readable, if you know how to read it.

Danny's good at his job. Keeping this up without blinking, without freezing, and Steve can do it, too. He's a SEAL. He's done worse for both less and more. Actively broken piece of his body without paying attention to them broken and bleeding. He can ignore this, too. Ignore the rush of warmth when he leans in, the steady thunder of his pulse in his ears, pressure points. Make it flippant, even if his voice is low, and he's leaned in toward Danny, leaned in to make it look like he's whispering something in Danny's ear, dirty and tawdry and letting this second guy win, the one who bought and paid for him, the way he should be.

"Feeling the need to intimidate your competition?" There's a laugh in it. Sticking to mocking. Teasing. Bullshit.

Edited 2015-10-04 15:26 (UTC)

Steve moves when Danny tugs him, because Steve always moves when Danny tugs him, and not for any other reason, so it should absolutely not go to his head, and make him wonder what else he might be able to get away with, here. What Steve would let him do, for the sake of their cover. What he might be able to get.

Which is wrong, on so very many levels, not least of which is the one where it's not even what he would want, right, it would be cheap and more than a little sleazy, because it wouldn't be right. The right thing to do. Making Steve do or accept something he doesn't want, just so Danny can live out a few of those fantasies he shouldn't be having, anyway.

Steve's his friend. Best friend. His partner. His boss. The guy who's always there, for everyone, who'll break down doors and push through rubble and fight through armies just so no one is ever left behind, or alone. Who has saved Danny's ass on more times than Danny can count, and been there every single time Danny needed him. In his uniform at Meka's house or in the courtroom, speaking passionately about how Danny is a great father. In Colombia. Talking him down from panic, while a laser paints Danny's chest red. Talking him down from panic, while a building crumbles around and over them.

Steve's always talking him down from something, the one who drags Danny back to earth, is the brick wall at his back, supporting him, when he needs to face his fears -- and there are so many fears. Fear of water. Of small spaces. Of heights. Of crowds. Of losing Grace. (Of losing Steve.) Of being a terrible father, or boyfriend. Of failing as a cop.

Steve's heard them all, and he's talked Danny down from every single one.

But he's not talking Danny down, now. Not when he's leaning in, closer, focused like a sniper's site on Danny's face, and Danny should be letting go of that beltloop and laughing it off right now, but he can't. Isn't sure he can breathe, or think, when Steve's breath is ghosting in his ear and Danny can feel the heat he's throwing off like he's standing next to a furnace.

He should let go. That's what should happen, and not what does, which is how his fingers tighten, reflexively, with the instinct to pull him closer, pull him down make it so his lips and not his breath are brushing the shell of Danny's ear, that he's never aware of but which suddenly has all his focus, every nerve in his body reacting to each mocking word Steve's whispering.

Teasing. Making fun of him, like Danny knew he would, while Danny's getting wrecked on impossible possibilities and Steve being too close, when he's always too close, but it's never like this. Never when it's anything other than a casual slap on the back or an arm slung around his shoulders on the couch or even a bone-crushing, air-denying hug, after yet another day when they nearly died.

This is different, feels like he's been dropped into hot oil, sizzling up the back of his neck. "That's the only thing guys like that understand," he says, finally, and makes himself let go of Steve's beltloop, only to lift that same hand and tug on the lapel of Steve's coat, which feels automatically both safer, and frustratingly distant, even while his hand stays gripped lightly there. Hauling himself back into reality, the mission, the goal.

"It wasn't much of a competition."

Steve's a little surprised to feel his belt loop tugged on again, the fabric getting tighter in Danny's grip on it.

But just as much he isn't, too. It's the location that makes it feel like he's got his hand over a flame, but not the touch itself. Not the fact Danny's hand is always moving even when touching his shoulder, his back, his arm. Little flickers of movement that are part of him, even if it makes things in the wrong places on Steve want to pay more attention than it deserves.

Which is proven a second later with how fluidly Danny just lets go of it. His belt loop. His pants.

The sudden, and undeniably familiar feeling, of feeling like his guts rip out through his skin, wrapped in those fingers.

While Danny is casually answering his question, and tugging on his jacket instead now. Everything above board. Above the flat of where hit clothes fall. Danny retreat to the safe area. The normal ones. The ones where he always is, and always will be. Which is better. It feels like an injection of air pushes itself sharp and cold into Steve's blood, running through him in seconds, while he's only raising his eyebrows, dubious bow of his mouth and dark glint to his eyes.

Can't smack at Danny's hand, like normal (hasn't actually touched him yet, shouldn't yet), so he goes about throwing himself right into the ice bath where he belongs. Making this normal. Making this the job, where they constantly cut each other apart in the car between locations, or in the office between needing to show up and run out. "I would have thought you could have five more seconds, or even a few minutes, before deciding to go jealous on the first guy you saw."

He's looks too smug even for his semblance of a frown. Like Danny's antics upset his plan. Like Danny is his favorite toy.

"You could have waited until I got my eighty dollar glass of wine at least. Do you even know how rarely those things come around?"

He hates how easily Steve starts jibing at him, prodding him, and that's got to be a sign that it's the better move, right?

Because this can't happen. Won't, and couldn't ever. Steve doesn't. He doesn't. It's nothing, and it's going to stay nothing, even as the skin of his fingers and palm burn like he removed them from dry ice, and not Steve's beltloop. "What, and have to spend time talking to someone else?"

He lets go of the lapel to tug at Steve's tie, sharp and possessive, before dropping his hand altogether, and leaning back on the bar, eyes sliding from Steve's face to the room behind him, because they're here on a job, not a date, and they'll both get their asses handed to them if their guy wanders in and out without either of them noticing. "You know I hate talking to people."

Which is true. It's even, probably, true of a place like this, if there's any reality in which he had the money or inclination to come to a place like this, but he doesn't. Not either. Call him a sap, but he's never been the guy for pick-up culture, to go to a bar just to bring someone home, get laid, never know their name or care about it. How could he? He's got a daughter. He's got a job that calls him out in the middle of the night. He's got a too-interested in his life, too-paranoid and too-dangerous Navy SEAL of a best friend, who thinks its his God-given right to burst in on Danny's life at any time of day or night without warning.

(And someone would find out. Some cop in HPD. Pass it along to Chin or Kono. And then Steve would know, and Danny would have to see what the rental situation is like for holes in the ground near Honolulu.)

But their guy isn't here, so he rolls his eyes at Steve, unimpressed, and feels immediately better for it. "Yeah, because you always make me buy you drinks, and I don't have the cash for an eighty dollar case of wine, let alone glass. I'm sorry, you want me to go grab your buddy? I've got a feeling he might be a little less pleasant after all that, but I'm sure he could be brought around."

He doesn't know why he says it, except he does. It's a reminder, right, that he can't have this, that Steve's as likely to want Mr. Panties-in-a-twist as he is to want Danny, and it comes out a little sharper than he intends, a little defensive, because he could have waited. Steve can handle himself. And he didn't have to make a thing out of it, could have just pulled Steve aside, like they planned for.

He just didn't like the guy, okay.

Danny looks away, making it feel, impossibly, like he can finally take a breath in for the first time since that hand settled fingers against his waist. Even three layers from his skin. More of Danny doing the right thing. The thing they shouldn't stop doing. Steve let his eyes follow Danny's, maybe like they'd been discussing Campbell walking off, and he was looking up to see where he'd gone instead of casing the room, again.

But it's only a quick skirt of faces he couldn't paint a second later if he wanted to, because suddenly his shoulders and head are being jerked down, muscles pulling back hard behind and around his breast bone, pressing that breath he got in just as quickly out. Only getting his eyes to his tie in Danny's hand as it's already being let go on. Tugging as he gives that inane response that's as false as anything. Danny could talk paint off a wall if he wanted to.

"And yet you get off on interrupting anytime you can," Steve smacks right into the middle of Danny's words.

Waiting for Danny to stop talking was like waiting for days it was clouding in Hawaii. It wasn't impossible, just a whole lot less than anything near likely. Not that he'd wanted to talk to the guy for long, or even cared about the guy coming back or going away empty handed and pissed off. But there were easier, cleaner, more precise ways to have made that happen than Danny's choice.

Which is what Steve tells himself he's thinking about, and not anything else, when he's reaching up to make sure his tie is still straight after that. Smoothing a hand down the long line of it, down to where it shifted inside his jacket. Already at wanting to not have it on, but fine about ignoring that impulse to the lowest, innocuous hum.

"Nah, he's not the type," Steve says, and he instantly wants to eat the words. Like they are too telling. About the guy. About Steve. Things he knows. Sees. Has done. Even if his brain screams it could have been completely nothing sound either. Making him shove more words out of his mouth, "So you definitely owe me a drink now."

"No?"

There's no reason to feel this flare of jealousy, but then, he never really needs a reason, it turns out. Not when it comes to Steve. "I had no idea you got to know him so well."

Which is...a stupid thing to say, because it sounds jealous, and he is jealous, but Steve's not supposed to know that. Not anymore than he normally picks up on it, and has, for years, like when he was so pleased that Danny was annoyed by Bull Frog, before Bull Frog turned out to be a cold-blooded murdering psychopath.

Still. He should cool it, because it's not like he's looking to come clean to Steve anytime soon, and especially not tonight, when they're in the middle of a job and their mark could come strolling in any second, while Steve's standing there, tracing his hand down his tie and along his own chest like all he really wants to do is test Danny's resolve.

Like he does every goddamn day. Being constantly underfoot, and annoyingly helpful, and illogically loyal, given how many of his close friends and family members have roundly and continually abused that same loyalty.

But he still is. Loyal. Still does. Trust. Danny, and Chin, and Kono, and now Max and Grover and even Jerry, and his pal in the D.A.'s office, what's her name, Ellie. Somehow, Steve keeps handing out his trust to people, even if the ones who earned it before, who were as close as Steve and any of the team members (even, yeah, maybe even Danny), only threw it right back in his face. Steve wouldn't say so. He'd say -- and Danny would agree, or say it for him -- that he has trust issues. And he does. But that doesn't mean he's cut it out of himself like he might have, five years ago.

So of course Steve hangs around, being distractingly attractive and frustratingly, continually, incredible, doing things like running his hand down the tie he never wears, apparently for the express purpose of trying to melt Danny's brain into sludge.

Making his voice a little gruff, when he half-turns to the bar to wave down the tender: "Same old, same old -- at least he had some kind of a return on a drink, me, I only get poorer."

Steve can pretend he's amused by Danny sounding entirely put out. Still grumbling and growling after he got his way, scared off the guy Steve could have gotten rid of just fine once he, or they, need him to. A junk yard dog still rattling his chain just in case anyone else got stupid enough to want to talk to Steve. Might consider the risk, or just want to give it a whirl. The way he used to.

Even if 'the way he used to,' seems so long ago and far away now. Like he got old without realizing it.

He hasn't really even wanted to consider it, with anyone, since Cath left. There were a few seconds where he'd considered Ellie, but he couldn't find it in him for anything longer than those seconds and their pasts were mixed up enough, in ways he couldn't entirely settle out his fingers on. She was better as a colleague, and Steve was better off figuring out that maybe he didn't have it in him to be any of those things everyone was looking for.

He was good at what he did. The best. But maybe the rest had gone the way of black marks and redacts, too.
Some men had what it took to be both of those, and some didn't. It was just the way of things.

It's too self-pitying even as a thought, blown off, when Steve shrugs, "You meet one of them, you've met them all."

He means the type. Rich, proud, and expecting the seas to part before and behind them. But he means the guy, too. Not that he's ever been paid for it. But he's done enough things he'd rather Danny never figured out. Things that get close to places like these, even if it hasn't been for a decade in the widest set of examples and just what's on offer specifically, the men (though, the ones here aren't anything like Steve's ever gone looking for), even in the years Danny's known him. If seldom and few enough to keep it quietly off the table. For several reasons.

Steve drug a stool closer to Danny. Close enough it's closer than he'd have normally considered natural or given even for them. Close enough it gives the appearance of there being a reason Steve chose this guy over the guy half around him, willing to shell unneeded money at him. He didn't really care. Neither of them did. Not when Danny's actually flagging down the bar tender without a real argument. The fuss and fire of grousing.

"You get my sterling company," Steve leaned toward Danny, even if his smirk was smugly pointed, "All to yourself now." Before he set a forearm easily on the front of the bar after considering the woodgrain and few stains. Even if these weren't any of his blues and whites. Old habits. Flicking in and out, between his words. "What else could you want?"

What else could he want. That list is too long, and too impossible, and too full of things he doesn't need Steve to ever know Danny's even thought about, let alone tried, or wanted.

Like how he could want this to be something like real, which would, first of all, take them out of this place entirely, and put them somewhere else. That dive bar they've been frequenting, down by the beach, a short drive or slightly longer walk from Steve's place. The office, where Steve always has a beer on offer, for days and weeks that are longer than they should be, considering they have a set amount of hours to them.

Or even Steve's own house, where they end up chewing the fat and drinking beers and watching the water or a movie or a game nine times out of ten, before Danny goes home because he's crashed with Steve too many times and it never gets any easier. And somehow it usually is at Steve's place, that house Danny could have sworn would be impossible to live in, the day he first walked in, the day Steve told him he'd be staying there, with his father's blood still splashed on the wall.

He likes his little house, the one he found, finally, back when Rachel was threatening Vegas and he needed to prove he could give Grace a decent style of living, but while Steve comes over, and pretty often, they tend to wind up, almost every week, in those chairs out by his little beach, watching the water.

Which makes sense. It's where it all began.

So he could wish them there, and while he's at it, he could want to be allowed to touch Steve the way he's "allowed" to touch Steve tonight, in these roles, that no one actually wants to be pushed too far, because that is not a thing you do fucking lightly, okay, even for a cover. It's not life or death, here.

But he'd settle for being able to stand right here, and, when Steve looks up at him from his new spot on the stool, slide his fingers along his jawline, lean in. Like they're pretending he would be able to do. Like would be allowed, even expected, here, even if this front room is pretty conservative, when it comes to bodily contact.

(The others, behind those doors -- those are where the gloves come off.)

But he settles for shifting his weight, slightly, so his hip and the elbow closest to Steve brush against him, and it's Danny's turn to lean in and down just a little, to talk low into his ear.

"How is that different from any other day?"

It's not. That's what he needs to remember. None of this is different, and it really, definitely, won't be different as soon as they make their collar and get the hell out of here, so he needs to keep a wrap on it. "At least it's not my cash, tonight. I'm going to enjoy putting in these reimbursement forms."

Danny's quiet for a long beat than normal, but it's normal in its own way, too. It's not the bad way. The bad silences have hundred of their own markers. This moment of silence he knows, too. This is the one where if he looked over his shoulder straight to Danny's face he'd be rolling his eyes, mouth agape, at a loss for words, even Danny's five million of them, coming from everywhere, with more vocabulary words than any adult needs, is still at a loss for how broken Steve's head it.

How much Steve does not listen in the slightest when Danny is bitching, especially about him.

But. Danny knows he does, too. Rarely misses anything. Or they wouldn't be here. They wouldn't take every case that needed taking, doing nearly anything the cases required of them to take in the bastard and keep people safe. Even, albeit, highly illegally, sex exploiting, organizations. So Steve will be a smug bastard, and Danny will bitch, and the night will go the way all of the other ones go.

They'll win, and then they'll go home, where Steve will continue to be smug and Danny bitchy. Rinse, repeat in the morning.

Danny leans in finally, bumping into him, filling the space next him, the way Danny does and Steve is used to, as highly attuned to it as generally accepting of it now. No one touches him the way Danny does. No one would even consider it. Not on cases and not casually during a day. So Danny bumps into him, still standing, and stays there, warmth pressed to his hip and his shoulder. Danny actually getting to lean down to speak to him.

Warm breath next to his ear, that sends tendrils of warmth straight through his skin and down his spine too fast. Yanking at that ache that isn't supposed to listen. That Steve stuffed in its own box, with it's own name, and own caution tape, and locked up with chains. Doesn't look at except for the days when he can't help it. It's just for a little while he tells himself. This game. This lie. Where they are both keeping up the pretense that everyone around them would assume is just them flirting, asking and promising all the normal things.

Making him tilt his face, a little toward Danny as he speaks. Habit to find his face. To listen when he needs to. To want to see the reactions that cross Danny's face while he's an ass, because they are always the best. Even if there are only seldom and few situations that put him this close to Danny's face. Most of them moment right after they almost died again, but managed not to. Or when someone is drunk and walking suddenly seems less a given.

"Too bad the big guy wouldn't be in for those glasses as a necessity of island security, huh."

He starts to say what? because he'd been paying attention, sure, and this conversation has mostly been making sense to him, but then Steve tipped his head just slightly, and Danny's lost for a second, a flick of his eyes to Steve's mouth that feels like staring even though it lasts for less than a second.

He's so close. And Steve's always close, thinks nothing of shoving his way into Danny's space, the way he's shoved his way into Danny's life and job, and Danny's used to it, but he's not used to this. When there's deliberation, however fictional, behind the way Steve's turning towards him, when Steve's not just railroading him, running him over like a tank and Danny is just an especially persistent ant. When he's. When it would be so easy, when it would be the most natural thing in the world, to lean in closer, see what happens.

Which all leaves him a little at sea when Steve's watching him and waiting for an answer, and Danny's wracking his brain -- was it something about Kamekona? -- when the bartender saves him by appearing, smoothly, at his elbow. "Gentlemen," he says, diplomatic, smiling like he hadn't been here five minutes ago to see Danny steal Steve right from under than other guy's nose, "what can I get for you?"

It's a reprieve Danny's grateful for, since it lets him regain his footing, half-turn back to Steve and push his eyebrows up in a challenge. "Hey, I told you, I'm not ordering for you. What's it gonna be?"

It feels familiar, and a little sour in its familiarity, but that's good, right? It's a reminder, that whatever looks Steve gives him tonight, however he gets in Danny's space or touches him (or doesn't), nothing has changed. None of what matters. Nothing in the real world, in their real life.

Which is good. Better. Even if he feels a little like he's just been punched, instead of saved.

Danny looks down, away from his eyes, hovers and flicks back up, and Steve has to wonder if he didn't actually speak up loud enough to be heard because of the way Danny's expression floundered suddenly. As though he was sure Steve said something, but he's not at all sure what it was. Even if it hadn't been important, Steve had started to lean in further to repeat it. It wasn't as if he could name the governor in this place, by name or title.

Except then came the bartender, again. The one with disastrous timing, who could have been a little earlier last time and gotten him that glass of wine. One, he supposed, he could actually buy for himself. It wasn't like he didn't have the funds. But he wouldn't. He didn't need it right now, and he'd probably forget about before the night even concluded. The smallest sacrifice of a game.

Steve couldn't fault Danny dropping right back into his same show he'd been putting on for Campbell, with the bartender, who'd been there earlier. Who would have seen and remembered it all, even if he was paid to see everything and look like he never had. As equally pleased and respectful of all patrons no matter what he saw happen between them.

"The same," Steve said, smooth and easy. Like he had no place to be and there could be nothing on his mind, as he caught the bartender's eyes and smirked, a little nodding between his empty glass and Danny, who he looked up at before back to the bartender.

All warmth in the words that rolled out next. Like he was sharing a secret with the man.

"I'll just have to deal with the fact my upgrade didn't come in the cup this time."

Completely willing to infer the higher compliment from Campbell to Danny to a stranger while he rarely ever gave out such comments to the man, himself. But it was there, too. Steve didn't understand Danny's rotten luck with women, honestly. The same with their surprising idiocy where it came to Danny. People got caught in the noise and fuss of him -- the noise and fuss that meant nothing; and everything -- and seemed not to realized what Steve knew at least as well as breathing.

Anyone would be fucking lucky to not drink anything for a year, if they could have the upgrade to Danny Williams.

He's not sure how to parse that look, but he's sure it's a joke, of some kind. Something Steve will hold onto, to mock him with for weeks after this, about upgrades and how Danny is demonstrably not one. It'll fit right in with all the other shit Steve says and doesn't mean, that usually makes it a little easier to just bypass all those things he needs to bypass, on a daily or weekly or monthly basis.

Things he's never really gotten good at shoving down, or away, because he's not Steve, and he never learned how to compartmentalize his feelings. Danny deals with his feelings in direct, blunt ways, or by avoiding them altogether, but neither tactic lets him do what he should, which is to box it all up and shove it in a very dark, forgotten corner, until it just goes away on its own.

It just doesn't come naturally to him. Neither does hiding anything from Steve, and there was a long while where he was sure it was going to come out, where he thought he'd had it, but even when he slips up now, cares a little too much, touches him a little too often, forces his way into Steve's life where he's not needed or even especially wanted, Steve just rolls with it. Calls it Danny being Danny, and doesn't look at it twice.

Like he would -- will -- if Danny doesn't get a grip on this situation. Leaving Danny to glance over at the bartender with eyebrows raised. "Make it two."

"Two it is," the man says, and busies himself with finding glasses, while Danny takes the opportunity to glance back over the room, scanning the slowly thickening crowd.

"Popular place," he says, which is both true, and annoying when it comes to needing to spot their mark. He shifts to drag a stool of his own over, and sits, facing Steve more than the bar, which grants him both a decent viewpoint of the room and a way to speak quietly into Steve's ear, while his hand lands on Steve's shoulder and slides down the fabric of his coat to the small of his back. "You finding anything?"

It isn't that he stiffens. It's not like with Campbell, when everything went rigid for a second. Being touched by someone he didn't specifically want to be, but needed to be, and let it bull forward because the need always outweighs the consideration of any personal reaction. He doesn't stiffen, but he doesn't move for the first second. Just still as Danny's hand makes a path from his shoulder to lower on his back than he really ever gets.

Occasionally. Very, very occasionally. Singular rarity.

Not like the slaps on the back or arm or tugging on his shirt that Steve could not count how many times happened in a week unless he was trying. But this isn't that. This is Danny, who drug his stool close to Steve's. Danny, speaking quiet next to his head, breath warm on his ear and high cheek. Danny, with his hand traveling down and resting on the small of his back, where it's not even a bother to him that other people shouldn't touch him there so much this is just a touch that isn't normal.

Making the words in his head and his mouth not the ones that should come of out his mouth.

Is he finding anything. He wants to snort at those words, even if the sound doesn't come out of him.

He was finding it hard to ignore Danny being this close. He was finding it hard to ignore the hand on his lower back not being there for support of some kind. He was finding it hard to not lean into it or lean away from it. The same with Danny talking close to his ear. He was finding it hard to concentrate on the room, even though he should never admit to that even in his own head. The mission was everything. All. Always.

He's silent a beat too long trying to figure out if he can ignore it for the first words, but even those are a little dangerous. It is popular. A good number of these people probably having no clue what goes on behind the back doors. Those without the knowledge of what the flowers, ribbons and door pertain to. Who are coming here to what they can't get elsewhere except with the greatest secrecy for most of them. It would be popular. It will be missed by some of them for the right reasons.

It's still not the kind of place Steve could have ever actually used. Being recognized even once would be a problem.

Which means it's back to the second words, even though he's probably been too quiet for too long, but he's scanning the crowd over Danny's shoulder and in the mirror, while he lists in the direction of Danny, because he should even if it's dangerously falling into other things, too. "Big crowd, but no one who fits the bill yet." At least no one who didn't look similarly engaged and pleased to be so.

No one who looked about to break into homicidal rage for stupid reasons they'd decided and kill someone here.

He wishes, not for the first time, and probably not for the last tonight, that this were Chin, or Kono. He wouldn't notice how much heat Chin or Kono was throwing off, or the scent of their cologne, or the glint of gray hair at their temple. He wouldn't feel like just putting his hand on the small of their back and leaning in is like standing in a room slowly filling with loose electrical current, tingling in his skin and lifting the tiny hairs on his arms, under this suit and shirt.

He would find it a little awkward and strange, maybe, if they turned toward him, the way Steve is, but awkward would be by far better than this terrible, traitorous want, that he shouldn't feel, that he should have trained out of himself years ago, that he has never going to be able to, because Danny's a fool when it comes to this. If he couldn't rage and argue and fight his way out of loving Rachel, he never had a chance, here.

Which is why he'll never understand Doris McGarrett. Or, to a lesser extent, Catherine, who had a chance, finally, a real one, and left anyway, becoming another in the long line of people Danny simply can't parse, because they keep choosing to leave Steve. Or Bull Frog, who betrayed him. John, who distanced himself so much Steve still has no idea what his own father thought or felt about him with any degree of certainty.

Danny doesn't get it, and he doesn't want to, even on the worst nights, when he's sitting in another cold hospital room, with his hands white at the knuckles, waiting for Steve to wake up, again. Or the ones worse than that, when Steve's nowhere to be found.

He cans barely remember a time when he wouldn't drop everything, to be there, to chase Steve down and find him, to be the one sitting there when he wakes up.

And he wouldn't choose to be anywhere but here, either, if there was a gun to his head. It's their job, and they're partners, and he'll have Steve's back, no matter how much it feels like someone's hooked into his gut and is slowly tugging it out of him with a winch and a rusty chain. "Well, it's early."

A slight motion at his elbow leaves two glasses of wine on the bar, and the tender nodding, graciously, which at least gives Danny an excuse to shift away, and take his hand off Steve's back to fish for his wallet, opening it to slide out a few bills and put them on the bar. "Thanks."

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