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]

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

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

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

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

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

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 Which was only superseded by the worst one.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

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

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

Maybe even anything.

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

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

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

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

How wrong. As wrong as wrong could be.

[haole_cop]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[thebesteverseen]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[haole_cop]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[thebesteverseen]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[haole_cop]

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

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

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

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

"We're crazy."

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

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

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

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

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

[thebesteverseen]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[haole_cop]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[thebesteverseen]

Whatever Steve was expecting to come next, too many questions or more strung together words, it doesn't.

Danny laughs with him, ribbing him, and right here, right here, this exact second is where Danny would smack him on the shoulder, or shoulder bump him, or thwap his back. Except Danny's hands are on him. A fact he can't forget, but keeps, suddenly, remembering again. Because nothing is the way it was even five hours ago. Laughing. A different laugh then, but not entirely, either. Giving each other shit about outfits, the lack of wires, and eyes open.

This isn't that. That had been everything. The everything that was everything. The everything he had left to lose when he walked into this room. Before all of this, and Danny is suddenly looking at him. Like that. Grin cracking his face, and making his eyes crinkle. The edges of his mouth. His chest rumbles with it. Steve knows how those go. Steve's been there.

Danny's worst moments. His best. He knows what Danny needs, how to get him through things, and where to take him after.
There are plans and paths, and this one. Where this laugh, this smile, this joke happen, this isn't one of those paths he knows.

None of those paths have it written in years of a blood and dust that this is where Danny leans in and kisses him again. Again. Making his fingers tighten and his lips part without even thinking. Making him push down, pushing at the muscles in his back to meet Danny kissing. So bright it almost hurts to look at, he's barely even parsed it existing at him, without a beer, or Grace somewhere nearby while Danny is bragging about her, but he can't remember.

Because. Danny is kissing him. Laughing against his lips. Sending his heart -- the winded, wicked, racing thing in his chest, that suddenly exists too, furiously pumping, jumping, somersaulting -- tripping and falling down all of his ribs on that sound. Breathed against his lips, his teeth, his tongue. Wanting to suck it down, like oxygen at a too high altitude. Danny is the person who centers him when he can't. A mooring point when the whole world is the ocean in the middle of mother nature's worst.

Nothing about Danny's touch is centering. Mooring. Helping.

Steve doesn't care. Doesn't care about not caring. Doesn't even think about it.

Not when he has to kiss Danny back. When the first real struggle is with the thought about where to drag him, to cut the burn starting across his shoulder blades, and how he can't pick Danny up the way he would have just moved Cath, depositing her somewhere, and whether he gives a damn about any of that even. Someone could shoot him and he might not even feel it if Danny kept kissing him. The sarcasm still thick, even when it's broken between kisses that are more necessary than his getting out, "Would I do that?"

If he means it to be a real question, he's failing, because he only kisses Danny, again. Like the words are an air stop gap. Not real. Not necessary to be heard or responded to, because he gives up trying to think. Pushing Danny back toward the door they still haven't gotten far from. It's not going to help, but he doesn't give a damn. He just wants more of Danny. The rest of the world can burn. His muscles included. Which is maybe how the momentary pop in his head happens. Dragging out Danny's, we're crazy, again.

Making him push his forehead against Danny's, "Christ, Danny," irreverent, sharp and so air thin, not even sure which thing he's swearing at before he's kissing Danny, again. Not knowing at all, or not being able to even think straight if Danny keeps his hands on him. Fiercely against any notion of Danny putting them anywhere that isn't presently on him, unless it's on another part of him. That he's one of the few men made to walk through hell and come out in one piece, and he's going to dissolve, right here, against Danny's mouth.

He wants to.

[haole_cop]

Steve does reply, but it takes Danny's brain a second to catch up with it, because it's breathed out against his lips between kisses that feel like being dipped into hot oil, over and over again. Covering his head. Boiling him alive.

And Steve would. He thinks. Steve laughs at him all the time, because Danny is his favorite joke, and Danny is his favorite punchline, but -- "Laughing isn't what I thought you'd do."

It's not the anger he expected, cold and furious and betrayed. It's not a fist to his jaw (even if it feels like one to his stomach, repeatedly). And when his back hits the door -- again, and again, for the third time tonight, Steve's pushed him into a door and kissed him -- it just sends a new flush of heat scudding across his skin.

His hands are following rules of their own. One slipping out from under Steve's jacket, only to track up his side and his arm to cup the other side of his neck, while the other slides down between them until Danny's palm is against his chest. Another spot his hand has rested, a hundred, a thousand times, but never like this. Not with Steve's heart jack-rabbiting beneath it because of Danny, and not the fight he wants to get into or break up.

He's so warm. Danny can't get over it, how warm he is, even beneath the layers of fabric that are starting to feel stifling on his own back, sticking between his shoulder blades.

Everything tipping up and down and absurd, and the joke is still that Danny knows Steve would laugh, but Steve wouldn't take it this far and Steve was never supposed to find this funny, but he wasn't supposed to kiss Danny, either, but then Steve's forehead is heavy against his, and Danny's blinking into his face, while those words come out. A swear, and his name, like he's never heard it, punching an ice pick into his chest, because Steve is saying his name like he's just climbed Everest, or been dragged out of the back of a truck, or was shot.

Like this has, somehow, not just wounded, but heart-shot him. Killed him. Hit him, center mass, and he's bleeding out all over Danny and the floor and about to drop.

Making Danny's hands slide up to frame the sides of his head, fingers gentler than they have been, because it's Steve. Like he just realized. It's Steve, and Steve is the toughest and most able and most capable person he knows, and Steve is also the most broken. The vulnerable spots he still has, that are the reason Danny loved him to begin with, because Steve's a person and not just a weapon, a weapon doesn't care if its hurt or tossed aside, and Steve cares too much --

Two words, that hit sore and leave him feeling bruised and too raw, while he's shaking his head against Steve's, fingers tightening, a little, possessive now, instead of just aggressive. "Yeah. I know. Come on, c'mon, c'mere, babe."

Tipping his mouth back up to Steve's. Needing to drink him in, even while this low, ragged voice is still coming up, quiet in the quiet room.

"You drove me crazy all night."

[thebesteverseen]

He doesn't expect this either. Danny's hands on his cheeks. Danny's voice, telling him to come closer, come back, come to him. Which hits harder into his chest. Somehow. He can't explain how. Turns it sore, instead of hot as fire. Like someone Dany gets it. Something. Even when he can't. Because Steve doesn't, but it's been so long since Steve thought that was a reason to stop, to even question his orders. Steve doesn't question Danny in this voice.

Danny's hand had been poised over his heart. The place no one touches except Cath. No one is allowed.

It's too much of a risk. It's too close to the kill shot you can't come back from. The hearts pumps out 2,000 gallons everyday, so it bleeds out in seconds, and Danny's hand was there. Making every warning go off. Making him shudder and want to push into it. Because Danny would never. Because Danny has his back. Has him. Always has. Can have whatever part of Steve he wants. Ever wanted.

Especially with voice that drags him. The careful, calm one, that sounds like it hurts, too. The one Danny only uses so rarely. When Doris left, and when Cath left. When he told Danny about Freddie, too late, but without him yelling either. The nights when Danny just sat by him and was smart enough to be careful when he reached out to touch Steve, or didn't at all. Knew too well how much more dangerous and fast Steve was when he didn't know why even if he kept mouthing the reasons.

Danny kisses him. Again, and again. Those hands still on his face, fingers pressed in. Like Danny is trying to prove some point. Adding those words that make Steve want to roll his eyes. Like Danny could never understand. Not really. That Danny has driven him crazy for years. The most important person he's possibly ever met, and how many of the things that made Danny the happiest he'd been in these years -- barring Grace, never Grace -- had been the things Steve wanted to hate.

Pushed him toward. That joy that made him make that face. That face he was just making at Steve blinding him.
That it hadn't mattered. The madness. Sting. If Danny was happy. It was more than he got living the madness for missions.

"You?" Again. That unrepentant words. With too much in it. Not a question. A rebuff. He can hear it in his voice, when it's flushed through him. Like Danny can't have any possible clue. That if it's even true, then Danny still has the lesser of that load, and somehow Steve has to prove it. Or can't stop himself. Both. When one hand veers from Danny's shoulder, across the seam on Danny's vest. Too heavy, slow, purposeful. "Have you seen yourself?"

There's something dark in it. Yearning. Impossibly not okay. With himself. "I hate this suit. I've always hated it."

Because it looks so good. It hugs every line of Danny's body. Not like those shirts, with their straining buttons that play havoc with Steve's mind and even more with his dreams. This one is painted on all of Danny. Crisp lines. Form fitting. He's wanted to put his hands on it from the first time Danny walked out. Strutting. Grinning that shit eating grin, before twirling Kono right there in Bull Pen, ready for their UC.

Touching her, even joking and showing off, smiling, in a way he would never ever touch Steve. Couldn't know Steve wanted. Except. Except. Those words stumble, drunken into Steve's head again. Danny apologizing. Danny seconds ago saying he didn't Steve would be laughing. Danny minutes ago saying. What had he been saying. Steve could punch him. Steve could fire him. And the whole world would laugh at that.

"I could never--" just falls out of his mouth, against Danny's. Refusing to let the those thoughts exist in the world. So wrong, and absolutely impossible. When Danny is the best man, the best cop, the best detective, the best friend he's ever had. He can't even imagine, or understand, the people who walk away from Danny. He can't imagine hating Danny, reviling him, even if he didn't feel this way. Even if his fingers are heavy on Danny's buttons. But don't. He doesn't.

His hand coming back up, finding that loose open collar and pulling Danny's head to him. Kissing him more. Trying to tell him.

He'd relieved Danny of duty for only that one time. With the man who had chained and hurt little girls. Who Danny took to a deep personal place he couldn't not go to as a father, with Grace as the center of his entire existence, and Steve couldn't even be allowed to touch, or he'd do so much more than he let Danny. There wouldn't have been a smear left if Steve had allowed himself. He hadn't stopped Danny, or mentioned anything about his oaths in Columbia. Not before, or after, that gun went off.

There's nothing Steve could ever do, willing to do any of those things to Danny for. He had Danny's back. He'd break almost any rule. Maybe any rule. For Danny. He'd follow Danny into hell. Sheild, gun, get away. Whatever Danny needed of him. Everything he did. Even if he didn't know what it was, and Steve had to run it. Like on that plane to Columbia, with all the cash in a bag. There was nothing Danny could say to him, ask of him, need him to do that he wouldn't do. He could never. Never. Not ever. It wasn't in him.

[haole_cop]

Have you seen yourself? Steve asks, into Danny's mouth, with a tone that's almost vengeful, and it doesn't make sense. None of this does, is only believable in the very slightest of degrees if it's actually just another dream, that Danny will wake up from feeling guilty and turned on in equal measure, but that is an especially impossible thing for Steve to say.

Sure. Danny's seen himself. He knows how he looks, knows he keeps himself in decent shape, is overly-protective of his hair and the few pieces of nice clothing -- more, now, ever since he started making a better salary -- and tonight, he made an extra effort, to look the part. Wore his best suit, the one that looks most like it belongs on this island, crisp and light. His best shirt. And he still didn't look anything like Steve, or half the other men in that joint. And there are people who look like Steve, who wear a tux like Steve does, but they're in movies and on magazine covers. They stop traffic, and pick up phone numbers like dropped pennies.

They don't get stuck on Danny. It's absurd. The very idea of it. That he could have been driving Steve as insane in that room, as he felt. Like his skin was about to boil right off. Wanting to snap each one of that guy's fingers, where they lay on the small of Steve's back, one by one, slow and satisfying.

Looking down, to follow the line of Steve's fingers, as they drag down his chest, to the buttons of this vest, that Steve already undid once tonight, without knowing it was like he was unbuttoning Danny's sanity, one at a time. "What's wrong with this suit?"

There's nothing to hate about this suit. He loves this suit, paid more for it than for any other single item of clothing he's ever owned, and it was worth every penny. Tailored precisely. A little different. Classic lines, that Steve is painting with heavy pressure, and clouding up Danny's head, catching Danny's breath as his fingers pause at the buttons, only to reach up and drag him in by the collar of his shirt, while Danny's hands shift down, to Steve's hips, partly to keep him close, and partly to keep his balance, and partly because he's still not at all sure this is even happening.

Steve saying never. But not meaning the never Danny still thinks, believes, knows it true, because he can't start being sure that down is up just because he feels like he's tumbling into the sky. This was never going to happen. Steve was never going to understand it or want it. The very best case scenario was always that Steve, finding out, wouldn't hold it against him, because sometimes things happen and peoples' feelings get complicated.

It was never, never, this.

[thebesteverseen]

"Everything." That means nothing. Nothing is wrong with that suit, except everything it makes Steve think. Want.

When his mouth is saying all the things he should never say. Never. Wasn't supposed to look at in the light of day. It didn't matter if he'd spent most of that first night awake, pillow pressed into his face, trying to force sleep, or suffocation, if it would help, and unable. "I hate it on you." Beat. "And the idea of it off of you-" Steve's teeth almost snap, but his body is humming, like he's in the middle of a hard run.

God. He remembered. Okay. He remembered, like he's supposed to remember everything. Hating watching Danny leave. Broad shoulders, skip in his step, the swing of his hands. Hating the idea he was going home. Maybe even to Gabby, while still looking this good. Hated his mind for thinking about delicate fingers, thin and graceful, professionally polished, on this vest, on the collar. Maybe even a casual brush of lipstick on the folded edge of it.

Other things. Of course. Because he just said. Admitted. He'd thought about it not on Danny. Somewhere else.
When Danny isn't stupid enough to miss his voice and just assume Steve meant hanging up and not left on the floor.

Danny, who is an idiot. At least as much as he is. Bristling up his ruffles at Steve's insult, that wasn't, even when he's not letting go. Even when his hands find Steve hips and Steve's chest wants to let go of another sound he shouldn't, can't, won't, as they collide into each other again. Sending a shuddering hard jolt through his body because of it. The walls cracking all around him. But not the ones holding up the door. Never those. They stand silent vigil over all the sins in this house.

He can believe it, but he can't. The way Danny looks just the edge of antagonist, puffed up, defensive. Proud of his suit. Not certain if Steve is just lying to him. Like anyone could miss it. Danny cuts a line through a room, and maybe everyone doesn't look. But enough people. Enough people that Steve wants to chunk things at their heads. Because they can look. Do. As he's forced to watch. Pretend he doesn't care, notice, mind.

Maybe it's even part of the reasons, the unlooked at ones at least, more than half the time, that he bulls ahead and expects Danny to follow in the wake he makes, so he doesn't have to see it. He knows it's happening. Especially when Danny is happy. Shined up so that people get dazed by his smile and his ebullience. A million words and that happy go lucky tone. Making the whole world pale before it.

Making Steve unable to look away, but unable to lean into the feelings that batter him like bullets, sends him into a hurtling into a faster, harder free fall than jumping out of an airplane, that he has had to find the strength and will, again and again and again, to wrench himself from. How it's impossible, and a given. Like breathing air. He breathes in even when he doesn't think about, holds his breath without thinking about it. He wants Danny, even when he doesn't think about. Even when he's busy with other things. Other problems. Other people.

Tries not to think about what shoves in like bamboo under his nails. That maybe this is part of why, too.
Because there's so much he's given Danny, can't not give him now, that he couldn't share. Not even with Cath.

That it happened even on a daily basis, brushed off like the random rainstorms. In the car, and in the office, and on the job. Danny. Every day. Always on some lower level. Something he just handled and accepted. Like Doris being gone, and Wo Fat being more than he'd thought, but less than he assumed. Danny. With his stupid dome of perfect hair and --

"And your stupid shirts," Steve shakes his head. "Are you trying to drive me crazy?" Because it worked.

"What is with this look like you are waiting for your clothes to just fall off if you actually remember to take a breath?"

[haole_cop]

Five minutes ago, he would have said he was as surprised as he was going to get, tonight, when Steve leaned in -- pushed in, shoved in -- and kissed him, instead of breaking his jaw, or simply never speaking to him ever again, but that was before now. Before those words, punching their way out of Steve.

Getting strangled off like there could possibly be more to that sentence, but if there is, or if Steve says anything else, Danny can't hear it. Can barely feel Steve's fingers against his collar. Those other words coming like Steve's saying them under water, under glass, beneath a mile of ice, muffled and unimportant. Something about his shirts, except Danny can't care about his shirts, or even what Steve thinks of them, because Steve hates this suit. Hates it on Danny, and the idea of it off of Danny.

Because he has apparently been thinking about it off off Danny.

Shutting off Danny's ability to think, breath, or react like he hit a power switch, because Danny's brain is currently a wash of white noise and confusion. When. Okay. Maybe it wouldn't be so surprising. Maybe he shouldn't be so stunned. It's not an unusual thing to hear from someone who has spent the last ten minutes dedicatedly kissing him into the door.

But it is, because it's Steve. And Danny hasn't even been able to wrap his mind around this news that Steve wants him, comes to a hard stop at the thought that maybe Steve has wanted him for a while.

I've always hated it. This suit. Steve's always hated it. Danny's thoughts backpedaling in a furious panic to try and even figure out when the first time Steve saw this suit was, and coming up with...

That can't be right. That's too long. That's not tonight. That's years. Almost back to when Danny himself figured it out, years.

The kind of years that were filled with two girlfriends (him) and the return and subsequent departure of Cath (Steve) and too many close calls along the way, years.

Years in which Steve has hated this suit. Imagined it off Danny. Somewhere on a floor. That isn't this one.

Or was?

Which is a thought that kicks Danny in the throat, his throat, that's suddenly gone Sahara-dry and clogged.

When what he might say -- teasing or flirtatious or heavy with sparking promise -- to someone he expected to like this suit and want to peel him out of it doesn't seem to fit, because none of those people were Steve.

And because: "I've had this suit for years."

Slow, like he's just catching up, now. And maybe he is, except he's not sure he wants to know, doesn't want to look too closely at this swelling bubble of dread that's pushing against his lungs.

Because if Steve's always hated this suit, and Danny's had this suit for years, then he's gotten a lot of things very, very wrong, for a very, very long period of time.

[thebesteverseen]

Danny's words catch up with Steve like a bowling ball. His tone a struggling confusion and Steve wants to go still. He needs to take those words back from Danny and from himself. They shouldn't have come out like that. He shouldn't have let them. He needs to get himself back under even a millimeter of control. Even with Danny pulling him into pressing Danny right against the door. Somehow. He needs to. Has to.

His heart jackrabbiting, again, because of what those words betray. Things he shouldn't have admitted. That are stupid, and long. So long he doesn't look at it long. That it's not new for him, whatever Danny's suddenly realized. This impossible thing where Danny was apologizing and afraid in waves earlier because he felt this now. But it wasn't like that for Steve, and something bitter, and remotely shameful, yet sharp defensive of itself, crawls up his spine on the inside. Pricking him with metal splinters from every crawling leg.

He doesn't want to say a word now. Not a single one. He already said it all, didn't he? All, and too much.

That it was already happening at the point when Danny bought this suit, and wore it for the job, and Kono, and anyone else he might have worn it for. That night. To later dates. It's a good suit. An expensive suit. Danny should have been using it. Danny should be happy. With his things. With his people. Except even the thought feels like Steve punched his open face flat on, his fist taking out teeth and driving itself perfect down his throat.

Too much. He said so little and he still said too much. This is why he wasn't supposed to ever speak. That it had been years ago. That it's been years since he was interested. In his male partner, maybe even in other men. Maybe even long before that. Which adds another layer of bile to the stillness that's making him want to pull away from the insane warmth of Danny's body. Danny's eyes. His quick, confused breaths.

When he feels suddenly trapped, between having said the truth and knowing it's nothing like the truth. That if he opens his mouth, or Danny asks, he'll have to say now, because he doesn't lie to Danny. He's avoided it masterfully for years. The way he's avoided everything in those files he can't tell Danny either. All of them with their own special mission code names, redacted lines, shredded photos and records.

Danny has a box like that. In Steve. He always had. Names, and redacted lines, and shredded photos, and records, all.

[haole_cop]

Steve doesn't say anything, but he doesn't have to: it's written on his face like someone pulled down a chalkboard across it and scrawled letters there. That it's both been years, and that Danny wasn't supposed to know.

Which. Well. Explains why he didn't. And he knows why, even if his brain keeps restarting every time he tries to wrap it around the concept of Steve wanted him for years.

Because he didn't say anything, either. Did absolutely everything in his power to make sure Steve never knew, when lying is anathema to his whole being and he's never been able to keep his feelings either stifled or concealed. Which meant they pushed out in strange, obvious ways that he was always sure Steve would see and finally understand: jealousy about Cath, annoyance with the United States Navy and their penchant for plucking Steve up and sending him away without notice. His fury with Steve, every time Steve left without saying anything or asking for backup, or did something deadly and stupid, or was reckless to get the job done, like there wasn't anyone who might miss him once he was gone.

Flying halfway around the world to be there at his hospital bedside. Being here to listen to his worries and suspicions about Doris, about Cath, about Wo Fat. Not leaving the hospital for that whole first, terrible night and day, after they found him in that room, with Wo Fat's body at his side.

His mouth is working, but it's soundless. So flummoxed even his trusty words have failed him, because it's too big to try and hold, too big to try and break into bite-sized pieces, even.

Steve's wanted him for years. Including, probably, most of, or all of, the years Danny spent so much time and energy making sure Steve never knew that Danny wanted any of this, because Danny wasn't supposed to, and it was never going to happen.

Except not never. Except it was there, and he missed it.

It'll hit soon enough, he knows: the regret and the guilt and the anger and sick disgust at himself, for having wasted time that he had no idea was even an option, but for now, all he can do is stare at Steve, and want to swear he won't miss another second.

Not a single one. If Steve wants this. Him. Still. "And here I was, trying to make sure you never had to know about this. When that whole time --"

Shaking his head. Feeling like a mat that needs to be peeled up off the floor. "Jesus Christ, I can't believe I missed it."

He can't believe they could have been here, years ago. Years ago. How much would have changed. If it might have worked out. If there's even the slightest chance that three years ago could have seen them still here, today. "When we could have --"

If he lets himself think about it, those years are going to swallow him whole with all their unknowable possibilities. And it's not even true, maybe. If he'd told Steve back then, it still might not have ended like this. It might have blown up on their faces. It might have been the worst decision they ever made.

But. They could have tried it, at the very least. He wouldn't have had to wait those years since.

And, apparently, neither would Steve.

[thebesteverseen]

Danny's mouth keeps moving, while nothing happens, and for one far too long second he thinks he might have broken Danny. Finally, truly, let on too much. That somehow it was fine to let on that he wanted Danny's hands on him, but that it wasn't to have accidentally spilled that he always had. Or at least nearly. So nearly when looking back that it's only a sliver of their partnership and friendship that hadn't had it somewhere in there, even buried down under the floorboards.

Then the words start rolling out and Steve doesn't know what to make of them really. Steve can't tell what he wants. No, he can. He wants to go back to kissing Danny, and not being able to think, because he wouldn't have to be thinking about whether he wants Danny to be able to talk or talk, to be talking or not.

"We could be now--" Steve stresses, trying to make it a joke, even if his voice isn't entirely playing along. "--if you weren't so busy talking about."

Danny was bound to, though, wasn't he? Have to talk. It's not even a surprise. Even when Steve fought the urge to just smother his mouth and drown him out. Put him back against the door and keep kissing him until those hands moved somewhere else and his brain just shut up. Sometimes you lived when you weren't supposed to, when there was no way out and you couldn't even explain to yourself how it worked. This was like that.

"Besides, you were busy then, too." Is a lie. A bad excuse. Even at honest, and real. Actual. He had been. There'd been other people. Rachel, at one point. Then, Gabby. Then, Amber. "And this, this--" A headroll, tilt, circle, to all of this. Them. The Door. Him. Decidely not large, solid, and definitely not female. "This was not something you were looking for."

Steve says it sharp and certain, but something in his eyes isn't anymore. It's even more unmoored. It's bobbing out there in the dark waves. Slipping through Danny's fingers with trying make sure you never had to know the whole time. When there might be worse things than not knowing. When maybe shutting Danny's head up wouldn't be the only reason to going back to melting his own out from between his ears.

Because didn't. He hadn't. Steve had watched Danny closer than anyone over these last few years. Danny didn't linger after any man they way he could get tripped up, tongue-tied, lean and look for even a second about a pretty girl. Lithe, limber, bright eyed and dark haired for the most. He'd never looked at anyone like Steve. Any man. Except he had looked at Steve.

Except Steve hadn't noticed entirely somehow. Something this big. Right under his nose. Hiding. Being avoided. (Again.)

Which just kicks a foot made of ice into his stomach as the thought spins out. If he didn't know about himself, about Danny having any interest in men. . . are there others, then? More than Rachel, and Gabby, and Amber. The occasional bartender or waitress flirted with before Steve drug him away. Were there others, he'd never known about, never seen, been kept from seeing? It lodges in his center, that iceberg, that always makes him want to cut off fingers and snap out bones, suddenly picturing him with them.

Maybe part of the newer, looser Danny that had come about even into sleeping with Amber before Grace met her.

It slides into the heat freezing it in his veins. The idea of it. Phantom hands, kisses, even --

[haole_cop]

Steve's trying to brush it off, like they didn't somehow lose three whole years. It's true. Now is better than never, and Danny's grateful for it, fucking grateful, or will be, once the dust settles and he's sure it's not some big goof, or a particularly painful dream, but he's not sure he'll be as quick as Steve to say they don't matter.

The years before, when he was so sure, and trying whatever he could to forget it or get past it or just deal, on a daily basis, with it, while Steve pushed him at Gabby and commiserated about Amber (Melissa, right, her name's Melissa, not that it matters anymore) and shacked up with Catherine whenever she was in town.

Catherine, who was on the island, when they ran that first UC op with him and Kono, the first time he wore this suit, and he'd think more about the timing of all this, maybe, if Steve weren't already back-pedaling, pointing out why it wouldn't have mattered, because Danny was busy. Making Danny frown, eyebrows pulling together at the word, because busy is one thing, but unavailable is another, and they were both busy, but they both found time for a personal life.

It's a bad excuse, but Danny can't even refute it before Steve's pushing onward, finding something else, adds that.

Words so inaccurate it's almost blinding, and Danny has to take a second to re-calibrate, because it's Steve's turn to be: "Wrong."

Beyond wrong. So wrong. More wrong than Danny knows how to define, because it's a wrong that goes beyond words and down deep into the marrow of everything Danny is and Steve is and they are, together.

All of it, wrong. The phrasing. Looking for. When Danny was perfectly content not to look for anything at all, and only reacted when the world pushed people into his path. And this, this --

Maybe he wasn't looking for it, but it found him, anyway. Crawled into his head and his chest, curled up there, refused to leave. Took up residence to growl and snap at anything that threatened it.

Which he doesn't know how to put into words, but is about to try, anyway, when Steve stiffens under his hands and against him, with no warning and for no easily discernible reason, leaving Danny to watch him in bemusement and no small amount of concern. "Hey, Steve."

Not because Steve's gone tense, though that's never a good sign. Not even because his sentences are a poor excuse at a smokescreen.

It's his face. Gone tight and blank, and unreadable. Shuttered and dark, and drawn in on himself, on some thought, that makes Danny lift a hand to grip his lapel and shake him, drag his attention back to Danny, make him focus. "Hey, knock it off. When you've got me pushed up against a door and you just finished telling me how much you hate this suit on me is not the time to get lost in your miserable rat-trap of a brain, huh?"

Brash and more than a little hypocritical, but he doesn't care: the point isn't to keep tallies or score, to point is to drag that expression right off Steve's face. "What are you thinking, huh?"

Whatever it is, Danny doesn't like it. Not that face. Not the tension. Not the way it came hard on the heels of Steve talking about how this wasn't something Danny was looking for. When maybe he wasn't looking for it, but it came at him anyway like a meteor from on high, and became the thing he wanted.

Fingers gripping the fabric, eyebrows lifted and challenging. "If you're not gonna talk, then you better be kissing me again, McGarrett."

[thebesteverseen]

Wrong, Danny says, throwing his own single word answer back at him.

Wrong about the fact Danny hadn't been, even then, looking for something like this.

A guy? A guy like Steve? Steve? Except it's been years, and Danny is not someone anyone would feel they needed to give a pity fuck to. Or pity for any kind of attention. With those pants, and those shirts, and, sure, okay, maybe the loafers were still a little much. But it's not like he wouldn't turn heads in those places. But he'd never noticed. Even the first year, when that surfer and Toast both hit on him. Obvious as the sun flashing on the water. While Steve stood there smirking, laughing, chucking comments right along, and it went over Danny's head.

Or it didn't. Steve didn't know now. He did. He knew. He had to have known. He knew Danny. He did. He knew everything about Danny. Apparently, excepting that Danny was claustrophobic and liked men. Had. For who knows how long. That he's wrong. When Danny is throwing more and more words at him, mingling with his thoughts, neither of them giving dominance to the other or managing to cross the other out.

When he should be kissing Danny. Wasn't he just bitching at Danny, and complaining in his head, that this would all be easier if they were already kissing and no longer talking. How is that thought is the only one in his head, too loud and too distant when Steve ignores it all for -- "How long?"

How long has he not known this, too? How long has there been this whole other part of Danny's life that he didn't know? How long ago did Steve become part of it? How long has he missed this, too? Were there times when he could have been there for Danny during this, too? Whenever it started? However? Why hadn't he known? Why hadn't Danny told him? Because he was a cop? Because Steve was his boss, or he thought Steve wouldn't be okay with his choices, or that he'd --

Except he had. He'd said those even. That he expected Steve to punch him, fire him.

But that was today. That was his hands all over his body, and his mouth grafted to Steves.

And as desperate as he was for all of that, he still needed to know, what about every day before this one?

[haole_cop]

Steve doesn't take the bait, and that expression doesn't do anything but dig itself a little deeper into the lines of his face, now with the additional aspect of something that isn't anger, but looks almost as intense, and accompanying those two, short words.

Demanding an answer, and, fine, he should get to know. Even if he hadn't told Danny, even if Danny hadn't paid attention or caught that word, before, that kicked all this off, he'd tell Steve, if Steve asked. "Pretty long."

Even if it's been so long, he's not even sure of the exact day, or if there was one. "Since sometime in that second year."

Sometime after Rachel broke his heart for the second time. Sometime after North Korea, and before Mary visited and called them surf buddies. That was when he knows it started. "But I didn't really get it until you left to find Shelburne."

When it actually clicked, somewhere between missing Steve and hating him and not talking about him to anyone, including Chin and Kono, but calling him every day, multiple times, that it wasn't just the jealousy of a devoted friendship, or a few strange dreams here or there, or a fluke. That he wanted Steve back. That he wanted Steve.

Forcing him to rethink everything he'd previously known about himself. Wondering if this made him gay, or bisexual, or something else he'd never had the cause to find a definition to. Wondering if he should be looking elsewhere, if Steve was just the start, if something had clicked in his adulthood that hadn't existed when he was younger. People change. Supposedly. He even put it to the test, a few times.

But it never mattered. None of them were Steve.

(Just like Gabby wasn't Rachel, and neither was Amber. Melissa.)

Which made it just about as complicated and as simple as that. They weren't Steve. He loved Steve. Wanted Steve. So everything else was a wash.

[thebesteverseen]

Danny talks about a few years ago, making something in Steve's heart and his face soften against a fierce ache of confusion, but it's like someone sagging behind a set of bars, iron steel and artic cold, because it's not what he needs yet and he needs to know before he can let himself fall into it. He knows he's being an idiot. He knows he might be ruining this. He knows he shouldn't give a damn, because of Rachel and Gabby and Amber and Cath and anyone else he might have had for any of those 'just a moment, just a night' things that didn't matter and he'd never want to admit to Danny.

He should give that same benefit of the doubt and understanding to Danny. But he doesn't want to.

He can hear it in his voice, how flat and trying for empty of reaction it is when he prompts, "And before that?"
He adds it, like somehow he can say this without hit guts tightening even to acknowledge the lunacy. "Before me?"

Before he became part of this. Something Danny was interested in. Wanted to touch, kiss, avoided mentioning for years for that reason, too. He wants Danny's hands on him. He wants to kiss Danny through the door and burn any other persons hands off of him. Out of his own memory. Because it's suddenly violently, in such utter stillness, in his head, not okay with him. He doesn't want to understand. He doesn't want to be patient. He wants to know everything.

He wants it cut open and dissected on the floor in front of him. Even when Danny's hand on his waist and his collar. He wants to know, needs to know. Danny's never not told him anything this important. It was shock enough when he wouldn't walk into the cave. That Steve might have missed this even if annoying fear in his partner, that might effect any case. That they'd gone years. That was a surprise enough. Made him feel like a heel and an idiot. Unobservant. Bad at his job. Maybe at their friendship.

But this. This reigns a hairline fracture away from unsettling him entirely in a completely different way. Cut through his intenses, twining knives up into his lungs, wrapping in and out between each rib. Because he can handle this. Whatever Danny says. Whenever, however long, whoever else has been here, he'll know, okay. Because he needs to know. Because Doris is gone, and Cath is gone, and Danny can't be gone, or even only partially here, partially real, but not as much as Steve'd thought he was, kept relying on him to be every time something else broke in his hands.

Especially not when Steve's got him pressed between his own body and the door. A tower against the light.

[haole_cop]

"Before you?"

It's almost as much of a surprise as Steve's slip earlier had been, and Danny has to pause for a second to mull it over, eyebrows crawling together, taken aback. Not the answer, but how simple that answer is. Before Steve. A completely alien concept he hadn't really even considered, before. "There wasn't a before you."

He knows he might be shooting himself in the foot, here. It's not the kind of thing most people like to hear: that they are the only option, the only one, the first, the singular. A lack of experience can be a deal-breaker, and feeling that way towards only one person might seem like...who knows, deflected urges, or something.

But this is not that. Danny's always been this way. There was Rachel, and she was everything, the only person he wanted, the only one in his mind, heart, world. And then there was Steve. And it was the same damn thing, and that was when Danny knew he was really in trouble. "Just you."

When it might be too honest, but Steve's face looks like it's going to crack from the strain, and Steve's questions are too quick and too hard and it might be a little hypocritical of Steve, but Danny doesn't care. They're not the same kind of person. He tried, a couple of times, but it was never enough, never even enough to make a full night of.

It wasn't Steve, and that was a dealbreaker. "It was only ever you."

Which Steve should know, because Steve knows Danny. Knows how Danny operates. How he is when he falls for someone, which is nothing like how he is when he thinks he should probably try dating someone. There wasn't time to be nervous, or to second-guess it, or to worry over dates: it hit like lightning, like a car crash, like a bridge crumbling beneath his feet.

While Steve stares at him, looking like the last thread of his sanity is slowly snapping, and while Danny just realizes that they've been having entirely different conversations for the last few minutes.

[thebesteverseen]

Steve stares, long and hard, like he's not sure he heard right. Even when he did.

Like he's listening for something miles off. Staring that five thousand yard stare. Into Danny.

Because. That's impossible. Isn't it? Like entirely impossible. Like it made sense for him, okay? Even if it was backwards and misplaced. Falling for his partner. Wanting to suddenly push him against a crate or drag him upstairs from the beach. Feeling like his heart stopped every time Danny nearly died. Not the first time. Not the first guy. But maybe the first one who really stuck. Longer than a night. Longer than a desperate need to feel. Longer than not being real at all. Because his career was all.

Danny keeps saying it. Small, single sentences so certain. Reluctant. Almost embarrassed. Like this is the worse admission. Not that it's been years. Not that it was a lie. That it was Steve. Only Steve, only ever Steve. Who feels like the room is shrinking again. That can't be right. It can't be. No one would. Has ever. Except Danny isn't looking away, and he knows Danny's face. The one that can't lie to save itself. That has tic's that read bright as the moon at midnight to Steve at least.

Staring up at him, almost beseeching. Not to shove his fingers and holes into this. Don't laugh. Don't tear it apart. This is the look he had when Steve got out of Hawala. The look he had all the time after Matt left, especially when he admitted. Not being able to pull the trigger on his brother. For weeks and weeks after they saved Grace. Off and on the evening, then weekend, after Rachel gave birth to Charlie with him at her side. After Reyes, and the way he pretended he didn't look after Amber's ex stabbed him into another hospitalization.

That floundering, flopping thing, with absolutely no defense against itself: Danny's heart. The victim of everything it loved.

You're my best friend, and I love you, swims up from somewhere. Meeting, merging, diluting entirely into it was only ever you, and setting off an explosion that Steve can't tell if is in his heart or his head. All he knows is he has to kiss Danny now. He has to. Pushes into it like maybe he hasn't this whole night. Not when it was just about giving in, but not giving in. Not when it was about the sudden shattering insanity of Danny's mouth on his, hands wandering here in his house.

Danny. Danny loves him. More than -- maybe not like that, but more than they've been saying. Too. Maybe not world-ending. Not like Grace. Or Rachel. But more. Somehow. Someway. More than he thinks he should. Wants Steve so much more than he thinks he should. Enough to feel scared and embarrassed of the bare facts. That he has. That it all started with Steve, even if he never let Steve in on it. It's supposed to be making sense, but his brains cells are popping in a grand crescendo with too much power and too much light, and there are no words for this feeling. None. None at all.

He's got a hand on the side of Danny's face, but it's moving down his throat, to his shoulder and back up. Because he's joked that Danny was smaller than an average man more times than he can't count, but suddenly it's true in both ways. Suddenly he's too small in the scope of the world, too impossible, too nothing like anyone else in Steve's whole life or anyone's he's met, even five years later and he's, also, too large, and Steve's hands have to start somewhere before the rights to even touch it, no less map it, suddenly fade from his grip.

[haole_cop]

He's starting to wonder if he said the wrong thing, if maybe he should be concerned, because Steve is staring at him like he's aiming down the sights of a sniper rifle, laser-focused and intent, looking for, Christ, Danny doesn't know. If it's the truth, maybe. That would make sense, considering how many people Steve has trusted, who turned around and lied to him again and again.

Danny won't. Not now, even when he knows it's probably too much, too soon, too sensitive. Maybe ruining their friendship, or making Steve second-guess everything Danny's ever done for him or said to him. Possibly freaking him out, because feelings are heavy, even if there was that knife-edged thing in his voice earlier, bracing himself for Danny to tell him about someone else. Some mythical, impossible other man, or men.

As if Steve were not the catalyst and result, both.

He doesn't know what else he can say, how much more clear he can be, but he should say something, right, because Steve is still just staring, a whole new sequence of expressions flicking across his face, one by one, until they start blurring together and Danny's mouth opens just in time for Steve to lean in and capture it.

Drag a soft, surprise, wounded sound out of Danny, instead of words, that's all sore relief and longing so pure it shocks Danny himself, because it's only been a minute or two, and he'd lived years without it before ten minutes ago, but he'd missed it. Steve's mouth on his. Needed it, back.

Steve's mouth, and Steve's hand, where no one but Steve would be allowed to touch. Heavy against his throat, that should make him tense up, because it's such a vulnerable spot, easy to crush, easy to pin him -- but then it slides down to his shoulder, and back up again, like Steve doesn't know how to touch him, or how to keep his hand in one place.

While kissing him. Like. God. Like Danny is his first glass of water in a week. Or like he's sucking in fresh air after being nearly smothered. It's not trying to burn him down, or break him into pieces.

Just Steve, curving into him like the tide, and overwhelming him, until Danny's head is spinning and his fingers are tight in Steve's clothing, all over again.

[thebesteverseen]

Danny doesn't stop him.

It's still part of the first confused, consuming ground shaking effect through everything in him, when Danny's mouth is already open. That sound coming up out of him. Soft, almost painfully needful sounding. Socking Steve with a punch he wasn't expecting. Tightening his ribs and taking any air he had only seconds ago. When it's impossible, all of this is impossible. It can't be only ever him, when no one, no one at all has ever wanted only ever him, and this.

No one has ever stayed.

(No one except Danny.)

Making this sound Danny gives up splash into Steve's head like acid, burning through thoughts and walls alike. Like Danny wanted him, needed him, this, already. Kissing him like he understood. That somehow, without anyone telling them, this is the air and not the moment before hand when either of them was capable of drawing breath in. When Steve's clothes are suddenly tight in fisted fingers, again, pulling him closer, close as possible.

Danny too solid to be a shadow between Steve and door, not actually small enough to press into it, to cover him entirely, but it's like they're trying. When Danny is holding on tight, kissing him back, and Steve isn't leaning in so much as pushing in. To Danny, even if that means he's pushing Danny into the door. Them. The door could die. Burn. Vanish. As long as it wasn't right now, while they are crowded against it. He can fix the things in the house.

He doesn't know how to fix this, or even how to have it, but he can't stop. Doesn't want to. Is afraid he'll have to.

The taste of Danny, and the weight of his hands, telling Steve where to go, move, stay, screaming louder.