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

[thebesteverseen]

Steve rolled his eyes, even as his awareness shifted briefly to his gun and back away. It wasn't needed anymore tonight, except in the smallest of probability. Not that it ever stopped him from keeping one near him, loaded and ready, even when he was asleep at home, or several waiting in the car. Danny's, as well as his own truck.

"Or you could save us the trouble of having to come to your rescue every time."

Like Danny was helpless. A damsel. Tripping over his own feet and getting caught.
Like it hadn't been planned both times, and working exactly the way it was supposed to go.

If anything about tonight, aside from catching the bad guy -- and that was all that mattered, right? -- went the way it was supposed to. But Steve's mouth moves to meet the words that find his ears, without thinking. Voice hollow, but feeling almost unable to not say anything. To not reach for the last shreds of what had been normal before he was left with a jagged whole were his stomach should be and the irritating constant realization his mouth was still looking for that elusive taste.

The one that was just enough scotch to burn, and all too much Danny. Painted inside his head. Mouth. Chest. Elusive. Ached after, even as he ignored it. Grit his teeth every time he found his tongue at his teeth like it was on some damned quest to find something it never would again. Never had to begin with. Danny never wanted that. Steve just. Took it. Called it the job, and pushed in where he should have. Shouldered up hard. Battered down the door. Demanding.

He could give himself the first. That wasn't actually the problem. Even if it was every single reason not to want any Scotch for weeks, maybe months. Unless he was trying to throw himself on the fire. It wouldn't even be long now, Steve counted the mile numbers he never needed. Off the highway already, and through half the neighborhoods. Almost to his own front door. Where he could get out and say whatever the hell was needed to just get this over with.

Danny running away home. Steve trying to scourge it out. Tomorrow being tomorrow. If he was lucky.

[haole_cop]

That actually makes him look over, because Steve insults him, often, and Steve makes fun of him, even more, but it's not that blunt, that unapologetically annoyed.

As if it weren't the plan, for Danny to be the one to draw them out: the men who hated haoles, this guy. Because Danny can take care of himself, if he needs to, and his face isn't as immediately recognizable, a lot of times, as Chin's or Steve's, and people underestimate him.

Making his own retort a little blunter than usual, too, in return, because Steve has ever right to be pissed at him now, but it's not like Danny's gone into these situations with no idea of what was going to happen, no back-up, no plan. "Then I guess you'd better use someone else as bait, next time."

Sharper than he means it to be, maybe. It's hard. Trying to keep himself from spouting his thoughts all over the inside of the car, painting it thick with words and apologies and everything Steve needs to know, but it's not where he'd want it to be, okay. Steve is a captive audience here, would be forced to listen to it. Facing away from Danny. Too close and too far, all at the same time.

Arguing with the part of himself that thinks it would have been better if someone else had been picked tonight, and hating the sudden bite of jealousy that surfaces at the thought. Of Chin, or anyone else. The way it bit every time Steve smiled at Cath, or wrapped an arm around her, in every way Danny wasn't supposed to begrudge her or want for himself.

The way it growled at every bartender who cocked a flirty smile and sent a free drink Steve's way, or tourist girls on the beach would outright stare, smiles full of promise.

Chin would have been able to pull it together, keep it professional, at least. Danny might have hated it, but it would have been better. Should have been. He should never have let this happen, in the first place, to begin with. He should have known.

[thebesteverseen]

Sharp, short and blunt. Smacking through current conversation, and making it real. Deflating any joke there with harsh reality.

It catches him in the face, runs a riot in his chest like something burning had been thrown through it, exploding the whole way, domino chain fireworks raining acid, even when he doesn't suddenly jump. His eyes flicking over to Danny finally. Now. When they shouldn't. Not now. When Danny had made it abundantly clear, in even closer words to the night, to what just happened, that he was wrong. Everyone was wrong. That Danny didn't want to be here. There. Made a mistake.

That Danny was pissed at Steve. No matter that he'd started this conversation.

Danny hadn't wanted to be the bait. He was disgusted with what he'd had to do. Sure, toss Kono at him and he's fine. Time and time, again, in a set up they've needed -- that Steve could't do, because he was too recognizable, and Chin couldn't do, because he was family, because they needed Danny and the outsider, haole, angle -- the two of them were absolutely fine with it. Soft whispers, laughing, teasing over the mic, when Steve was left listening to the friction of the mics against hands and clothes. Or blurring past him when he busted in. But not him.

He was not okay. It shouldn't hurt. It shouldn't. It's been years. Steve knows better. It still feels like every single words is kicked, with frozen, metal-toed, boots, right into his center. Like Steve should have known better. Had. Let Danny laugh, along with everyone else, about how it'd be fine. He was good at his job. He could handle this. It was just undercover and the stakes were high, important, people were dying. But he hadn't known then, and he did now.

Steve can deal with feeling sick with himself, but the idea that it's a rift in their partnership. A distance Danny wants, needs, to be able to handle this cuts his throat. Sure. There's Lou. Or he could pull Kono, or Chin. They're all trained as best they can be. Best Hawaii has to offer, every single one of them. But only one person is his partner, only one of them gets him, shoves him forward, slows him down, stays right at his side, would even dare get in the way of his wrath when he's about to leave someone, good or bad but deserving, in a puddle of blood and pile of ripped apart bones, and it's the same one over there hissing he doesn't want to be the bait that has to touch Steve, has to pretend he can stomach Steve touching him, ever again.

"That's not hard," he says. Too serious, too still. He owes Danny some kind of answer, and if he can get there, with as few words as possible before he gets out of the car and into his own house, where he can hit his head on a wall repeatedly until he can pass out, since it will happen before he can make any sense of why he let any of it come out, he'll still be getting so much less than he deserves.

He can find someone else. Maybe pull Chin if this ever had to happen again. Or go by himself. Handle it himself.

It's not like he hadn't been able to get some attention. It wasn't like he wasn't trained to be able to take it all alone.
It's not like they were even going to need this, again. They hadn't needed it in all these years, until this murder string.

The camaro pulled up into the driveway, and Steve left the engine running. Hands moving to his seatbelt as the click noise filled the space after his words. Any other night he'd be dragging Danny in by the scruff of his neck, insults and even winded long day comments. Asking if he wanted a beer, to watch something. Unwinding the way they did, beers and jokes, rehashing the events and not all at once, when he knew Danny didn't have Grace waiting at home or to be picked up. But Danny didn't want that, and Steve didn't either. He wanted as far away from this night, and himself, as he could get already.

[haole_cop]

Steve says that, too raw and too clear and too real, and looks over at him, finally, and it's like being stabbed in the chest and the back with twenty steak knives, all at once, and over and over again.

That he agrees. That he doesn't think Danny should do that job. Didn't think Danny should take it tonight.

Danny knows he should have known better. That he shouldn't have run his nerves out on the jokes and insults before they went, while this plan was being concocted, because it was such a hilarious thought that he could want Steve at all, let alone enough to do something questionably legal. That he could ever play that part.

When of course the joke was always going to be on him, for not even getting to play it right to the edge, to take that sword he's been carrying around for years and finally shove it straight up to the hilt into his chest. "That's not --"

Starting, for something, now that Steve is looking at him, and meeting his eyes unlocks something in Danny's chest, something in his head and throat, makes him open his mouth to say, Christ. Whatever he can. Anything. The truth. Why Steve's right, but he's wrong, too, and why Danny knows Steve doesn't want him around, but he has to at least listen to this, first, because Danny's never been able to let Steve walk away from him or anything else, before, and he doesn't think he even knows how.

But then Steve looks away, leaving Danny hanging with his chest cracking open and his mouth still trying to form words, noticing only after Steve undoes his seatbelt that they've arrived at Steve's house.

Except the car is still running, and Steve is starting to get out, and Danny can't let him do this. Send him away, without a chance to tell him, first, how wrong he knows it was, how it won't ever happen again, how sorry he is. If he can't say any of it now, he never will, and this will be the norm from now on: neither of them knowing how to talk to each other, when talking used to be like breathing, and Danny never had to worry about what he was going to say or do.

Making him wave a too-quick hand at the ignition, while going for his own seatbelt, and tipping his chin at the wheel. "Turn the car off. What, you think I can afford to just let it sit here and burn gas? You don't pay me enough for that."

[thebesteverseen]

The first thought is so wrong Steve's fingers actually close into a fist.

When Danny's snapping at him about more things he's costing Danny tonight. His time and his money. When Steve's thought hits like lightening, lodging in his lungs, iced cold, because if all Danny's care about is the money that he never has, he can have Steve's. All of Steve's money, and there's quite a bit of that, if it will keep Danny from walking out of their friendship, partnership, his life because of this.

The bile in his throat might not be real. But it makes him shiver anyway.

He's not even the guy who just wants to touch, kiss, overwhelm someone who doesn't want him to even be near them now. He's the guy who thinks, even for a moment, about buying off a friendship. A partner. Like that's not worse in a lot ways than anyone who just got carted away for buying sex.

He made his hand uncurl, before reaching for the keys and shoving it off. Yanking the keys free and pushing out of the car against a stream of red, blistering words to himself about exactly what he was. Who. Sore. Even when it's not true. He'd never ask. He'd never want to, and Danny would never accept. But it's like that phone call all over again.

Except Danny isn't half the world away and he's not about to say he loves Steve, but there's something more important he's got to do. Instead it's slipping through his hands again, because he's going to put Steve in his place, with that look on his face, that will still be on his face tomorrow, and the next day. The next week. The month after. Like he took something from Danny. Just like all the other people who Danny gave everything to, promise he would, could, and tried, and who let him down.

Like Steve let him down.

Steve who was never going to be one of them.

But he was now. Because of this thing inside of him.

Steve stood by the car, not looking toward the walkway up to the house, through the darkened garden and house. He didn't want to stand still. He didn't want Danny to come anywhere near him. Making him step away from the driver's side door to give Danny the room he deserved and held out the keys, with the fob out so Danny wouldn't even have to touch his fingertips. It was probably too much that Danny had to be within inches of him again.

[haole_cop]

Steve doesn't answer, just shuts off the car like he'd rather be punching it, so hard Danny's sure for a second that the keys are simply going to snap off in the ignition, and then shoves his way up and out. Like the very air inside the car is disgusting him. Like he can't stand to be even within two feet of Danny, anymore, needs to be up, outside, away.

And it's the same when Danny gets out, and walks around the car, after a hesitation, because Steve hasn't just tossed him the keys like usual or started moving towards the house. He's standing there like a monolith, face blank, holding the keys out by the fob. Like he won't offer any part of himself to accidentally be touched. Like it would burn him, if Danny's fingers brushed his skin.

And silent, which isn't the worst thing for Steve to be, but is, when he's doing this. Shutting down. Boxing himself away. And Danny can't help, this time, can't snap him out of it by getting him mad or getting him to see reason or joking around until Steve finally cracks a smile, because, this time -- for the first time -- it's Danny's fault. He did this. Shoved Steve into his own head. Abused -- betrayed -- their partnership, friendship, Steve's trust. He deserves it. He deserves for Steve to never want to touch him again, or talk to him again, and if it were only about that, maybe he'd just take these keys and let it go --

Except he can't, either, hasn't ever been this person, even without the job and their friendship to fight for. He can't keep quiet, and he won't let Steve, even if he should, because in the end, Danny's never been able to keep his feelings to himself, even when it would be smart, even when it would save him.

So he reaches to take the keys, but leaves them in his hand, without turning back towards the car, and chews for a second on the inside of his lip, watching Steve. Wanting to shatter that blankness. Get him to yell, or sneer, or swear, if that's what it takes, because Danny could take that, but he can't take this.

Which is why, instead of just leaving, like he probably should, he purses his lips for a second, and then says: "Can I come in for a sec?"

It's admittance, finally, that something's wrong. That neither of them has said, but they both know, because Danny wouldn't ask, and neither would Steve, on a good day. On a normal day. On any day when Danny wasn't ninety percent sure he'd never get back to that ease with Steve, ever again.

[thebesteverseen]

It's not quiet, but silent. They've done quiet, into the lull on the beach, or the hum of the car in a long drive, or while a game is playing, when only good moves or odd commercials earn a noise more than a comment even. But this isn't quiet. This is silent. This is being able to hear the hum of the proximity light sensor on the house next door, even though it can't see them yet. This is the wind in the trees above them. The waves beyond them. The friction of Danny's shoes on the driveway.

But nothing else. A nothing else that chisel new chips from him every new second.

Danny took the keys, but he didn't move away. Didn't move anywhere, or at all. Didn't even look away from Steve. Standing there. Staring at him with dark eyes that weren't even blue in the late night shadows, and only made Steve's muscles tense when he remember that electric shot of blue brighter than high flame. He looked away and back, trying to banish it. Danny didn't want him to touch him, so he certainly didn't want Steve remembering what would be burned on the inside of his head. What Danny looked like for anyone he actually chose to have those reactions for with.

They could just up the ante. Fucked over by Steve. Fucked over by his own body.

Steve wants to snap something. Hard, fast. Like What, already? because it more unnerving to be stared at by a silent Danny than it is to be screamed at by five million of his words and helicopter hands. It's every proof he never wanted of what it must have been like for them at a point. Rachel. Gabby. Amber. Good, until it wasn't anymore. Until Danny didn't even want to talk about them, no less seemed to ever spend any time talking to them. Staring at Steve, something knit in his face, lips pressed together. Until the question.

Too carefully, like Danny's decided this needs to be official. He has to have it out, instead of letting Steve shove it the hell under the rug. A handful of drinks. An epic ice bath. Probably a jack off where he hates himself to the things he shouldn't remember, and still, viciously, sickly, doesn't want to forget. Falling asleep too close to dawn for it to count as real sleep. Because sleep hates him most of the time. Which will make it dawn, and a swim, and back to this face.

It'll be here tomorrow. Maybe it should be tomorrow. Further away. An easier lie. "It's been a long night--"

[haole_cop]

There was a second, where Steve held out the keys, where Danny considered just grabbing his wrist, instead of them. Like he could. Like anything he did tonight was allowed, wanted. Like touching Steve wouldn't leave a burn on his palm that he's all too sure he'll be feeling the heat of, later, by himself, trying to imagine any other face but the one he saw earlier, in the dim light of the back room, impaling himself on this one.

Where Steve's watching him like Danny's a bomb about to go off. Or. Worse. Like Steve stepped without looking, and heard the click of a land mine arming itself. Like if he moves, the whole thing will blow.

Danny might. He feels like he might. His chest is so tight he thinks he might actually be having some kind of heart attack, except it isn't. It is is heart. But it's not cardiac arrest. It's panic, masquerading. It's love, that he ruined, and betrayed, and sullied.

And now Steve is trying to get away, and Danny can't blame him, but Danny also can't let him, and the reason he was thinking about reaching out earlier is popping back up in his mind now because he has to actively clench his fist to keep from grabbing Steve's arm, and keeping him here. Desperation is welling up like water in sand, drowning him, and he can't, he can't, he can't let it end like this. "Please."

The plea carries him forward, one step, until he realizes, and stops himself, that hand he can't quite control floating somewhere between him and Steve, wanting to reach out and grab his jacket arm, unwilling to find out what would happen if he did. "Look, I'm -- I'll be quick, okay, and then you can deck me or go for a run or do whatever you need to do to. You want me to go after, that's fine, okay, I get it, I understand --"

His hands are up, now, palms facing Steve, waving a little more wildly than he wants them to, but he's started, now, and he can't stop, a stone rolling down a hill, crushing everything in its path, trying to avoid this one, precious thing. "Just let me say I'm sorry first, okay, let me explain, because I can't -- this is all wrong, this, right now."

Gesturing to the air between them, that feels heavy as the held breath before a thunderstorm, or hurricane. He should stop, stop talking, let Steve just go, if he wants to, but he can't seem to pull it together now that he's opened his mouth. "I don't want to come into work on Monday and have you still not talking to me, okay, so can we please, can we, just, can we please -- can we talk about this, for a second?"

[thebesteverseen]

The last thing Steve wants to do, especially when Danny's voice is suddenly everywhere and his hand comes out only to abort in the air, like Danny couldn't help reaching out or not wanting to, both, is to talk. Which is insane. Because the silence is just as bad as the sound. Because Danny is saying words he shouldn't have to and arguing for time and space he's never had to. Strong-arming his way into Steve's house for the latter part of the first week.

Showing up uninvited and lying about knocking. Doing it only really with guests or Grace in tow.

Knowing Steve didn't mind. Knowing before he got that far, if Steve was in a place he couldn't do people.

Danny's hand floats there in the air too many seconds, Steve's eyes glued to it, while too many words are pouring out, Steve hating this tone of Danny's voice. This tone that edges manic desperation by steps, after starting with that please, and moving into, even more baffling and damning, apologies. Like Danny had anything to apologize for. Like somehow he hadn't kept up. Hadn't been enough, because couldn't. Didn't. Because Steve couldn't keep it together for him, too.

Please, he says. Please. Like the word doesn't flay at his skin in at least the same way as torture starts. Please, just let him come inside. Please, just let him explain. Please, just let him kick the bedrock stone out from under them completely, when Steve either has to lie his ass off entirely, over something he's managed to avoid outright lying about for almost half a decade now, or it all just explodes the wrong way, making him lose even more than he has already. All of it so caustic in his skin.

But Danny won't stop talking, and Steve wasn't trained to look away from a gun cocked at his head.
Danny wants to talk, because Danny isn't blind and an idiot. Or at least he isn't anymore about this now.

"Inside." Is terse, with a jerk more of his chin than any part of his head being used to nod or tip that way.

Because if he has to have this conversation. If that's what this case, and this year, wants to drag out from under his nails and between his vertebrae now, take from the only parts of him he's ever known how to hold onto, when he's always known nothing stayed, he isn't doing it here. On his lawn. For all of god and country to see, or hear. This wasn't up for display for anyone else, especially if no one knew and the idea of telling Danny was tantamount to swallowing dynamite.

[haole_cop]

Steve stares, not at him, but at his hand, which only serves to make Danny feel even sicker, stoke that gut-twisting desperate rage at himself. Because Steve is staring at his hand, like he can't trust it. Like it's a snake that might be about to bite. Like if he doesn't keep his eyes on it, it might end up on his skin again, on his waist, travel down his arm or back in every way Danny touched him tonight that he knew would be too much.

Too strange. Even with all the times Danny's leaned on him or smacked him in the head or slapped his shoulder or grabbed his arm -- but none of those were like what he did tonight. Friendly touches: maybe a little more often than with most friends, but still mostly platonic.

And no one ever talked about the bone-crushing, breath-destroying hugs, after another too-close call. No one talked about how Danny found himself in Afghanistan at a military hospital, or how Steve got to Colombia, or why. It just happened, and then they went on with their lives, because all it meant was that they cared about each other, just the way friends and partners should. Willing to do anything. Go anywhere. Take a bullet. Break a law, or a hundred.

Everything Danny's thrown into the trash, because it somehow still isn't, wasn't, enough for him. He had to push it further. Had to give in.

No wonder Steve's barely looking at him, no wonder Steve doesn't want to talk. No wonder Steve's only response is a tight, single word, and a jerk of his chin. Still holding himself so dangerously still, and Danny wonders, briefly, if he will get hit before the night is out, once Steve finally snaps.

Maybe. It's not like he doesn't have it coming.

He can't even relax when his request is granted. It just tugs on the knot between his shoulders, drags it a little tighter, even as they slump a little, and he nods, lips pressing together, and drops his hands, to head towards the house. Silent, dark. Nothing like it should be. Staring at him with dark windows, that he's sure are blaming him for being another person to take Steve's love and trust and act like they're worth nothing to him.

He won't. He won't let it. Won't be another in that list. Steve can hate him, if that's what he needs, but he's not going to be one more person to drive straight over everything they have, and not apologize for it, or even acknowledge it. Steve deserves that. He deserves at least that.

[thebesteverseen]

The yard is dark, with the large shadowed shapes of everything, after he opens the gate and he heads toward the porch and the door without missing it but without seeing it, too. The looming mass of house that just needed to hold one more thing in its eternally straining seams. His father's blood, and secrets. All three of his mother's lives, and her lies. The seldom appearances of Mary and Joan. The last phone call with Cath. Still not full, it would get to add this to its walls, too. Danny.

Steve dug in his pocket for his own keys and unlocked the door. He pushed the door open into the empty house, stepping in through the doorway, and leaving it for Danny to manage on his own. Getting through and closing. He was a grown ass man and Steve was already finding it impossible to find some spot in this room Danny hadn't been in, leaned on, sat, stood and dancing around in while waving his hands and explaining something, fallen into a pile of others during holidays and bbqs.

It was slipping away as fast as it could be remembered. Real once, but not anymore.

Like Saturday morning pancakes. Working in the garage on the Marque with his dad; helping his mother around the house; Mare sliding down the hallway in her socks. His mom in this room, right here, red faced and older, crying and yelling. Lying. So many lies he had no idea what was and wasn't. Especially after Wo Fat. Again, and always. Promising to be honest, and vanishing into the wind.

Cath's dark eyes, and laughing smile. The easy way they challenged each other, without having to push. The way she crinkled her nose either when something was too weird or when she called him on his shit. It'd been weeks since he'd found even a single stray long brown hair in his bed, the laundry, the shower, caught up in the piles that got swept from the floors.

At least he understood hers. In a way no one else in Five-0 seemed to at all. Danny least of all.

After signing your life away for six, or eight, or twenty years to what someone else needed you do, there was an immense freedom in finding something you did. Something that needed you, as much as you needed it. The way Steve felt about Five-0, even when it didn't compare to the work of being a SEAL. Good, but not the same good. She was where she needed to be, doing what she needed to be doing. Making the world a better place, like they'd all been called for.

Yeah, maybe it hurt. Yeah, it wasn't with him. But he at least got it. None of them had been completely his own fault. Sure, he hadn't tried to force himself into his Dad's life after any of his graduation's. Or Mary's. He'd tried with his Mom. And Cath. He might have done a piss poor job of knowing what grace was, or always remembering. But he'd tried. He could say that much for himself no matter how they'd ended.

This. This was all on him. This was him becoming the hands of the mess, as he found a light switch and flicked it. Sudden, warm yellow light suffusing the single wide room as he looked back at Danny. His lungs hardening as he to tried drag sensible thoughts together, to justify, even to himself, what he'd need to convince Danny of. That it wasn't a problem. That he hadn't even thought about this in years. Not really. Not except for those times. When he couldn't help it getting everywhere. When desperation, or relief, or near destruction seemed to drive both of them.

That it wasn't like that. Danny didn't have to worry. He would never touch him like that again.
But he could be better. He could not be any of those things. Or whatever else Danny didn't want him to be.

[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.