Post 3.01 - The McGarrett Family Home

[gonna_owe_me]

It doesn't come as any kind of surprise to her that she hasn't been able to stop thinking about Steve.

Neither does the fact that those thoughts come with a hefty side-helping of guilt. She should have known those trees were too close to the window. She should have been faster, more alert. Maybe they could have caught him, if she'd been doing the damn job Steve told her to do, if she'd done it the way he thought she could.

No surprise there: like she told him, she's not a bodyguard. She's a long way from basic, or doing anything that isn't in a gym or in front of a computer, and he doesn't blame her, but in some ways that just makes it worse.

So she puts in her request for leave right away, requests the weekend, and it's granted without too many hoops to jump through, but she's got to give up her Friday night and part of Saturday morning, which is fine, too. All she needs is to change, find a pair of shorts and a breezy, teal-colored top that hangs loose off her shoulders. Slides a pair of sandals on, brushes out her hair, washes her face, puts on a little makeup. She skips the gym, but throws running shoes, shorts, and a sports bra into the little bag she packs, along with a swimsuit, before slinging it over a shoulder and hitting the pavement.

The sun is high and hot, and she stops at a food truck, first, grabs two cardboard boxes, steaming with a scent that makes her stomach rumble and curl in on itself, before hailing a cab and sliding into the too-warm, hot polyester scented backseat, and giving the address.

It's been a while since she's been here. Cab rolling off in a faint crunch of gravel, leaving her with the tote over her arm, the food in her hand, looking up at the house with eyes squinting in the sun.

Doris left last night. Right? That gives Steve last evening, all night, and this morning to do his thing, be alone, brood if he wants to, deal with the admittedly ridiculous hand he's been given, and she'd have respected that, even if she didn't have to work, which is why she didn't call or text, just let him be, but it's daylight now, and it's gorgeous out, and there's only so much alone time Steve can really take. No matter what he might think.

Leading her up the path to the door, to knock, adjusting the slippery straps of her shirt, brushing hair out of her eyes as she waits. Rearranging her expression just like she does her makeup, or her clothes, so that when the door opens, she's got nothing there but a smile and the usual pleased light at seeing him.

Comments

[thebesteverseen]

"You are-" And Steve raises a hand to rub his chin, fingers dragging almost into a pinch over his bottom lip, when it's actually an effort not to snap back. Snarl. Nodding, and looking at him, even and thin. "-doing great in the compliment department tonight."

"So, now, if I've got this right-" Which comes with a gesture of his hand toward his own chest. "I'm sleeping with Cath, and I couldn't possibly know what I want or don't want." It's thick, with a narrowness toward the set of his eyes. "Are you done with this now, or you just getting started?

"Because if you're just getting started, I'm going to get a beer before you keep going." Not that it looks or sounds at like a positive choice. Not that it looks like he's even going to move toward getting said drink. "Then I'll at least have something to do until you're done telling me what I must be or should be doing, without once, actually, asking me what might or might not have happened, while you weren't here to have a clue."

[haole_cop]

He's paused, hands still lifted, elbows bent, like they're just waiting to start moving again once his brain has processed the things Steve is saying.

Like there is zero legitimate reason for Danny to have left like he did. Like there was really nothing there that should have pinged wrong at all, and, okay, yeah, he assumed and it's true about that whole 'making an ass' saying about assumptions, but it was really just out of him, and not out of Steve, and he knows that, but it's not like he can rewind time and go back to before he went right the hell back out of that door.

"I'm done. Here, you want a beer? Have mine, I'm done with that, too."

Moving forward in sudden motion, holding the bottle out, expectant, pushing it towards the closest one of Steve's hands.

"But I don't know, I guess I thought you must have wanted me to stay once you said stay, so here I am. I am a jackass who leaps to conclusions, alright? I didn't say it was a good idea."

He's an abrasive asshole who gets things wrong and always has, and it sucks, the way his stomach is still trying to collapse in on itself, and also the way Steve pinpoints his arguments and targets the foundations, leaving Danny feeling wobbly and unbalanced and suddenly uncertain of everything that had seemed clear just a few minutes ago.

Like Steve actually did. Want him there, even if Danny made a scene, even if he was too much to handle, even if he just made everyone in the room uncomfortable. And he's saying it like Danny should know better, the same as the of course from outside, when Danny doesn't know how to know better and there has never been an of course before.

Fingers rubbing at his forehead, mouth working for a second, to find something to say, when Steve has opened up what Danny always thought was a wall, proving it to be a door instead, with a whole room of options he'd never even known existed inside, and he's standing there saying that's the room Danny should have been in the entire time.

What the hell is he supposed to say to someone who puts that in front of him, when even the want to believe in it feels like a trap, but he has to try, because the alternative is Steve being disappointed in him from now until the end of this?

"Look, I'm sorry. I fucked up and I'm sorry, okay."

[thebesteverseen]

It's funny how that reference almost more than anything nearly makes him twinge. The ones he's barely comfortable admitting to himself in the silent, locked down, black lined, redacted areas of his head. Because he did say that word, and Danny tumbled into the god damn bed with him and didn't act like it was the second coming when it took half the night before they even remembered to lose their clothing and find the sheets.

Steve's only recourse really when the bottle is being shoved at him is to snap out his closest hand and catch Danny's wrist, while he's talking. Because that wasn't the point. The beer, or the apology. Though the apology doesn't actually do Danny any damage. To as much stop him from thrusting the beer at him, as keep Danny in one place, under the annoyed expression he's pretty sure he couldn't get off his own face with a fillet knife and a fourth of an inch of skin.

"I did." Especially when he's forcing himself to say words that are the least likely he wants to after the last few, but they are true. "Mean it."

He meant it when he was in bed and, suddenly inexplicably terrified in a way Danny never needed to know, about Danny being gone, and about Danny not leaving him alone. Even once he wasn't alone, for the rest of the weekend, he still would have rather had Danny with him. But other things took priority. He didn't contest that. He didn't hold anything against Grace. Especially not with what was going on with her parents now.

But even not-being-alone hadn't changed that he meant it. If anything the universe offered him the one thing he always said yes to and even that wasn't anything in compassion to the loud mouthed, angry, assumptive, idiot who was busy telling him everything he wanted was not even wrong, it was impossible he wanted it, when everything he wanted was right here.

Finally here, again. Because it hadn't stopped being Danny.

Even in the one moment he's pretty sure he will never, ever, tell Danny happened. Danny was still the person on his mind.

[haole_cop]

He looks down, almost in surprise, at the sudden fingers wrapping around his wrist, warm and a little harder than necessary, like Steve thinks Danny's going to make a break for it, and this is just a warning, but it could be more than that. Could be deterrent, or cuff. When Steve's looking annoyed enough that Danny's not totally sure he would be against actually cuffing him somewhere, and not in the fun way.

"Okay, then."

He takes the last step needed to shift a little to Steve's side, reaches his free hand to Steve's side, fingers tucking at his shirt before reaching to press that cotton into skin. Other hand in Steve's fingers gone still and cautious. "So if I promise not to try and escape, will you stop blocking the door?"

Steve is stubborn, and more than a little archaic in his methods of getting things done, or keeping them from happening, and Danny's pretty sure he'd stand here all night, as long as he thought Danny might try to go away.

Which, okay, fine. He's still not sure he actually deserves to be here, and he's definitely sure Steve shouldn't want him here, but Steve seems to disagree, and there's not much Danny can do about that except pray it's not a preference that leaves any time soon.

[thebesteverseen]

There's. Danny's fingers are. He can't even decide what the word is. Those fingers have been all over his skin.

And they feel almost. Coltish. Almost desperate. Uncertain he's real, but settling close. Warm through cotton. So warm. Making his whole chest hurt, like he hadn't realize he'd gone down too far into the black n' cold, and was through more than three-fourth of a double air tank supply. Making the entirety of his focus settle on that hand for a too sharp second.

When, for that second, that piercing sharp scalding second, all he can process is both how close, and not close enough, Danny is. Before it faded back a little, like the shrilling piercing hum of a radio wave too loud, and then gone, echoing, but not overwhelming.

"Maybe." Is a little terse, snapping back to Danny's word, when Steve's shifting his shoulders, the set of his spine, the position of his hips, the smallest shifts through most of his posture, because of that touch. "I don't know." Those single, so few, inches actually touched. "I haven't decided I'm not throwing you through it."

When he absolutely could, but the way he says it is far more noise and wind than an actual promise or threat, even for the frown that's hovering but as at least given up being a hard line on his mouth.

Steve tipped his head, slightly, as though counter-checking before deciding to agree or reneg, blue eyes, dark and silently wary. "Are you going to stop deciding you're the only person who gets to be right for at least two or three minutes?"

[haole_cop]

"Well, if you do, can you at least open it first? It's a sturdy piece of wood, and I'd hate to cause any damage to your house. Not to mention my head, which is obviously already a lost cause."

He's sort of testing the waters here, with those words, and with the fingers at Steve's side, with the careful shift a little closer. Close enough that those fingers can flatten, spread wide against tense muscle and warm skin through light cotton. Like he's, who knows. Calming a wild animal. Because Steve is dangerous, and he's never not dangerous, but right now he's tense and wire-tight and thrumming with coiled energy.

Not quite trying a smile, because he's sort of concerned Steve might snap any second and, who knows, actually throw him through the door. He doesn't think so, but it's never really a complete impossibility.

But they seem to be coming to some kind of wary truce, with that last statement, like he's testing Danny, like Danny has been so wrong this whole time he should just stop talking altogether, and Danny can't say Steve is wrong to think that, he often thinks it himself. Trouble is, he never can seem to actually stop

And maybe he's not quite sure he's able to drop all the old certainties and truths that he's known, but Steve's right, he should get a say. "I will at the very least be open to other interpretations aside from my own, which, I think we've established, can be inaccurate, to say the least."

[thebesteverseen]

"I'm not opening the door to throw you through it. Then I'd just be throwing you through a doorway."

Steve frowned, absently, like Danny, Mr. Dictionary, needed a lessen in definitions. No, he implied 'the door' and he meant 'the door.' If only because for a moment the concept had some great symmetry. Because it would hurt like a bitch, but Danny probably still wouldn't honestly go through the door and out of the house.

Which wasn't at all because that hand is moving, and it is definitely a hand now.

He can feel it when Danny's palm settles. He can feeling when Danny's fingers stretch wide.

When he can't tell if every part of him is waiting or straining to snap soon. Just from the last, he doesn't even know. It can't have even been a half hour, since he was laughing with Cath on the couch and honestly making it through Sunday evening, when he hadn't known how to handle sleeping on Friday night.

"Good." Steve said, pushing a breath out of his nose and letting go of his snagged grip on Danny's wrist. "Because I'm getting tired of your crap." Getting tired of being told every single impulse in his head is wrong. He's going to get that from Cath soon enough, deservedly. He doesn't want it from Danny, or to think Danny believes it. He wants to remember that he pulled away, and stopped himself, and he actually said it was really good. In the dust and debris of half a dozen epic disasters.

He wants to forget there's any reasons in Danny's head he shouldn't be doing this. Raising that hand up, instead of letting it fall down, catching Danny's chin and tugging him up and closer in to kiss him, before Danny can find the words to respond his overbearing insult when Danny was finally giving a little, like there isn't any world, anywhere, that Steve hasn't been waiting every second since he saw Danny walk in, and every other minute since Steve watched him walk out yesterday, wanting to do this.

[haole_cop]

That gets a face, lips twisted and unimpressed, because, really. "There is no need for violence, Steven --"

Interrupted first by Steve continuing to talk, rude and aggravated, which Danny would definitely argue, if Steve's hand wasn't warm at his chin and Steve's lips weren't suddenly catching his and making this freefall stop with the soft abruptness of landing in a pile of mown grass. Turning those words already rising in his throat into a soft and surprised sound, instead, before his hand, which lifted slightly, tracks back onto Steve's side and slips around, fingers curving into his back, while the rest of him pitches forward in a step he can't help.

And it honestly feels like finding the ground again. Like the world has stopped its insane spinning and gone back to normal, a normal speed, a normal angle, and he's no longer dropping. When all he wants to do is get hands all over every part of Steve he can, already, wants to curl his fingers around the nape of his neck, run them into his hair, catch his jaw with the palm of his hand. Run over shoulders and arms and chest.

Because Steve hasn't thrown him out, wants him to stay. Because Steve told Cath nothing could happen, because of this. Because of Danny. And Steve is kissing him, even though he's probably still annoyed. Him. Not Cath.

The hand that's holding the bottle moves forward, knuckles brushing Steve's stomach, and the other moves up, sliding up over his chest and shoulder to curve at his neck. Drawing a proprietary path, like someone else might barge in and try to take him away.

Not wanting to break away for anything, even breath, because it's been too long and he's been worried and the last half hour is still sitting sore in his chest. Not wanting to go any further than a breath when he does, feeling dazed, whacked with a hammer.

"So, the door. Decided against it?"

[thebesteverseen]

There's a moment, with this muffled sound from Danny he can't tell is lost or confused or annoyed, especially when Danny goes still and his hand lifts off Steve's side entirely, that he wonders if banging his head on the wall would be a better tactic than yelling at or kissing Danny suddenly. But it's only a half a second before the ability to think so clearly wipes away almost entirely.

Because Danny's lips move, and he gets in so close their chests bumps and his fingers are suddenly digging into Steve's back with a desperation, momentarily, that has to almost match anything he saw in Danny's face, standing just about here or outside. When his lung burn briefly from refusing to breathe in, just kissing him, just letting himself be kissed by Danny, suddenly, like it's a ravenous need.

Hands and fingers scaling Steve like he was a mountain to be climbed. Along his side, up his chest, around his neck. Fingers heavy and possessive, almost unable to stay anywhere, moving, moving, touching more of him and more of him. Brushing his stomach, and pulling back, far before he's ready to find air, would ever need to take a single breath yet. When there's hot air moving fast against his lips.

Then, for a flicker of a second he thinks of Cath. Except not of her so much as of that moment. The feel of it, breath against his lips before the brakes were slamming harder than any vehicle he'd ever crashed, and how all it did was bring him right back to this. To Danny, with his eyes wide, solid and warm against him, hands everywhere, with that air rough and ragged, being gulped in and out, and that blue.

A drunken, electric, dunked, alive blue now. Wide and endless, like the sea in the tropics.

When you could look down and down and down and down, and it looks like fifty feet, but it was actually hundreds.

It's not until the question, everything clarifies again from the gallop of his heart rate and the way staring at Danny's face makes it so the world suddenly has color, again. Like everything had been dim. But the question still comes, and Steve mouth still firms up a little on the edges, but he doesn't let go of Danny, not that he has any idea when his arm got around Danny.

It might still be annoyed, but it's weary thin, nearly transparent, kind of annoyance. Without any razor sharp edges or heavy emphasis. Thumb rubbing absently at Danny's shirt, even when his face isn't entirely loosing that edge of seriousness or the crack of normality, the blur somewhere between them, that makes his words not as much as joke as they could be anywhere else. "It's still pending review. You can check in on it later."

Much later. Once the fact that Danny looked dazed wasn't still being considered as good, only because he didn't look gut shot.

[haole_cop]

"That's good, I like that."

A little dry, but no amount of attitude thrown at those words can mitigate his relief even slightly, because Steve might still be pissed, and Danny's maybe not totally clear on the why and wherefores of it all, but his arm is circling Danny now, thumb running the pad against the soft cotton t-shirt, like he might not be totally done with him, but he's not going to let Danny move, either.

Which is just classic Steve. Because Steve might complain that Danny is taking ownership of all the right and wrong thoughts in this room, but Steve's the one who just pushes through and grabs on, regardless of what Danny might say or do or think, and he always has, from the day he banged on that flimsy apartment door and made Danny his partner.

Even now. Maybe especially now, when Steve is staring at him like there's some sort of absolution readable in Danny's face, and Danny's not sure what might be there aside from the faint flush of warmth that comes from proximity and the ridiculous intoxicating rush of kissing Steve. Particularly when he'd thought, for a long, vertigo-inducing drop of a moment, that he wasn't going to be able to, anymore, that over the weekend somehow this train had left without him.

"I'm pretty sure disciplinary action shouldn't take the form of being tossed into a solid structure, but who am I talking to, here?"

Steve, is who. Meaning Danny really actually wouldn't be totally surprised to end up with his face plastered to the door and his arm twisted up behind his back, because Steve is just the level of crazy to do that and think it's an appropriate response to Danny pissing him off.

But he hasn't. Yet. Is still standing there, in the way of the door and the outside and the walk where Danny lost all ability to breathe or thing straight, and his arm is still warm and solid and his hand is still resting on Danny's shirt, and those are all good signs, no matter how stormy his face might still be, and also Danny just wants to make sure he's still allowed to do it, okay, so he pulls at the back of Steve's neck to drag him back down. Clouds starting to settle, all that crap floating around in his head starting to clear away, vanishing at the touch of Steve's lips and the tiny hesitating puff of breath evaporating between them.

[thebesteverseen]

Steve is pretty sure, he has no good damn idea really what's going on. No, that's not true. He knows what, he can hazard toward why. The way, in pitch blackness, you look toward actual hazard lights, barb wire fences, spot lights and keep out signs. It starts with Rachel and ends with the freaking out on his lanai. He just hadn't expected it today, now. Aside from the fact he was very certain of this, of Danny half a minute ago, when he couldn't think about it in the slightest.

Except he could now. When he wasn't scanning Danny's face for everything there, and everything he had no idea of what might be under it, but obviously there was mountain of it somewhere, leading to all of the last half hour. To walking in, and running out. To staring at his beer, and Cath leaving. To thinking the worst of him, or everything. Listening to him talk, but it's all words, words, words. Caught in the wind, the air conditioner, dropping to the floor, with less weight than raindrops.

Because, no, he doesn't think Danny gets to have a vote in the way a very small part of him isn't kidding about the door.

But it doesn't mean he actually, actively fights back the way Danny's fingers shift at his neck, or how he's looking up, meeting Steve's eyes, or being drug back down, again. Nor does it mean he doesn't miss the dig in the words that are still far less impacting than the very clear second of hesitation before Danny kisses him, again. Ticking half-seconds that gouge into his skin like burning steel.

Enough that this time it's maybe not as gentle as the first one. As the moment that was shutting Danny up, and making him listen, making so he couldn't keep throwing words at Steve's head. Like any of it was defensible. This, no this is slightly rougher for a whole different purpose. Because he hadn't, and wouldn't, and shaking Danny and slamming him into the door could not take away Danny looking at him like he'd gutted him and all his innards were falling out.

He doesn't push them, anywhere. He didn't even go for any of Danny's clothes. He does find Danny's shoulder. One of his hands recognizing Danny's hair, when it's harder. Soft hair against his palm and the just bare enough urge, but not followed through on, to bite Danny. Because kissing him straight into the ground right on this spot, apparently, is winning ou. For this moment.

Like maybe he can imprint the words he kept saying -- and Danny kept hearing and either brushing off as mocking ironic or just fumbling through like they were Chinese and he just had to nod so they'd stop -- straight on to Danny's skin, his mouth. Nothing happened. He didn't even now what would happen if it did, he didn't even know this would happen, but it was too much of risk.

Just like it was too much of a blistering, aware, possibility in this second even. Losing Danny.

[haole_cop]

There's something uncomfortably reminiscent of last week -- or, actually, it's almost two weeks ago, now -- in this kiss. More like argument than need, like Steve's about to prove a point again, all over Danny's body.

Except he's not. He's actually sort of restrained. He's pressing down, hard, mouth insistent and hot, and his hands are on Danny's shoulder and at his hair, but that's all. There's no shoving. No yelling. No teeth sinking into the cord of muscle at his neck, no marks being sucked into his skin. But there's nothing gentle about it.

It's more like Danny's being held here, like he's grounded, or being sent to the corner until he learns his lesson. Like he's being sat down and told to look at what he's done, until he apologizes for it. And it's actually more intense with the lack of motion than it would be if Steve really did slam him into the door, like he's threatening, in that way that might not actually be one hundred percent a joke. Steve bearing down on him when Danny knows that behind that sniper-tight focus is all the force of a howling hurricane, winding itself up into Steve's head.

Or maybe not. But there could be. Easily. Because Steve hasn't accepted his apology, or done much other than be disdainful and annoyed since the moment it seemed like Danny might actually take him at his word. That nothing happened. That, of course, nothing happened. Leaving Danny caught in this strange new reality where that is actually the case. Trying to wrap his head around the implications, of Steve pushing Catherine away. For him. Even if he didn't have to. Even if they never actually said he needed to. Even if he didn't want to.

He did. And it slots into place, that look that's been carved across Steve's face, cranky and exasperated. Pushes it right back into a memory of that night after the barbeque, when Steve looked so insulted at the idea that he might not have noticed, somewhere over the last two years, that Danny sucks at casual and never does anything but get too involved. Like Danny's ridiculous insecurities are in some way a slight against Steve's character, and not just proof that getting involved with Danny is probably in no way a good idea for anyone, least of all Steve.

And yet he's here, saying of course just like he said you think I don't know that?, affronted and annoyed, and now he's kissing Danny in a way that makes Danny feel like he's being actively scolded, not wanted. When Steve still looks -- not disappointed, but frowning and stormy.

Not that it makes it any easier to actually pull away, even to say "Okay, I get it, alright, I am sorry for besmirching your character with baseless accusations." Flippant sounding, maybe, but he is, because for one second he does get it, sees a flash of Steve's face in the yard and another on the lanai and it all slots together so perfectly in a way that makes him feel like the world's biggest moron, because Steve literally knows him better than anyone on the planet. It's not like Steve of all people might not know what he's getting into. He knows everything, has seen Danny broken down by Rachel, is the one who hauled him back on his feet again.

He's probably going to lose it again in a second, but getting it out is important, more important than any kiss, especially one that feels like punishment.

[thebesteverseen]

Danny starts it, even if Steve refuses to let him control it, and he ends it. Pulling away.

Words spilling out of his mouth, again. The way Danny, always, is. Even if these one drop into Steve's chest and then his stomach like pieces of metal coated in inches of ice. Making it, almost, too easy not to consider doing anything else. Leaning in or pulling away. Not even sure how to take the words.

Not quite thrown at him. Not quite not sounding glib. When the set of words is like an angry hornet darting around inside his chest. Alive, and contained in itself, but slamming into his sides and his chest and the bottom of his throat. With no way out and no idea even what to do with it. Nothing like the four words from earlier that it felt like he could have picked up and held to himself.

These ones just keept bouncing inside his body. Like they might not stop echoing, even if he already wanted them to. Like he wasn't aware he should be saying something, but nothing was really coming up the pipe. Just the dull throb of what had been momentarily scalding anger however many steps ago. Edged cold and not wary, but uncertain of just what the point was if he'd wanted Danny to say something different.

But couldn't find it in himself to say anything back once Danny finally had.

[haole_cop]

There used to be a lot of this sort of staring with Rachel. When Danny would be pouring out words and apologies and explanations and arguments, and she would be standing there, the cold steady eye in the whirling hurricane that ripped their marriage apart. Arms crossed, staring him down. Ending it with a terse three or four word sentence, usually starting with bite me or kindly piss off, Daniel, before walking away. Which is how it always, invariably, ended. With Rachel walking away. No matter how he shouted or pleaded or argued.

So instincts are kicking in, when Steve is staring at him in a similar way, leading to that same sinking feeling that he just keeps catching his foot in unseen cracks and tripping over them. "No? That's not right, either?"

Kissing him doesn't seem to be right. Apologizing doesn't seem to be right. Finally thinking he had it, that turns out not to be right, either, and he kind of wishes Steve would just throw him into the door and be done with it. It's not like he seems to be happy Danny stayed, after all, even if he doesn't want him to go, and the derision of earlier rubs raw against everything opened up by the door swinging to show Catherine sitting there, not ten feet away.

"Okay, so, what, I am still giving you crap? Or am I not supposed to be trying to stop being wrong, here?"

[thebesteverseen]

Danny tone gets a little sharper, more demanding and Steve takes a deep breath in through his nose, letting it expand his chest and pass out again, while Danny is suddenly throwing out words, like somehow absolutely everything he's trying is suddenly wrong. Instead of defensible and maybe a little wrong, if he's needled into not being able to look away from what he did.

And Steve knows he has to say something. He knows this tone, incredibly well, the direction it heads.

Frustration crossing his Danny with something that anyone else might think is desperation or exasperation, but Steve can pretty easily identify it as fear. That first flicker of concerned focus like something might have gone with with Grace, while he's being updated things from Rachel.

Steve freed one of his hands, reaching up to rub his neck, forcing his mouth to open, and shoving from whatever thick blank, confusing, feeling was stumbling everywhere and painting the inside of his chest momentarily grey. "Yes. No." The words scatter at rehashing the questions, before he just, shoves them away, feeling too tall and like he's taking up too much space, and too unwilling to let his other hand leave Danny.

Letting the one at his neck drop, for a straight sliced gesture in the air. "It's fine." Because that's not the most awkward, or inaccurate set of words for an apology. That might have been flippant but was at least said. When Danny might be at least finally expressing some acknowledgement that Steve's weekend hadn't been designed to end on the note that was sucking away all the happiness he found with his time with Grace.

He just didn't have any idea what to do with. What to do with it, that wasn't a programmed, very uniformed, trained answer. The kind that was so much less of an actual answer than saying absolutely nothing at all. When it was show, pomp and circumstances, but it wasn't this. When Steve just wrinkles his face a little, tipping his head, and what falls out is, "Besmirching? Really?"

[haole_cop]

"Yes, really, and no, it doesn't seem fine."

Because it's not. And he'd rather it not pretend to be, because that way madness lies, that way is the direction of the beginnings of resentment and aggravation that flares into anger. Fine is not the way Steve is looking at him right now, when his hand lifts and Danny's drops from his neck to land, light, at his hip. "You actually considering breaking your door with my head doesn't seem fine, and what's sick is that you not breaking your door with my head actually seems like it might be worse, because at least then we could agree that I've been a moron and move on, but this--"

That hand lifts back up, moves back and forth in the air between their chests, what little there is, knuckles brushing against Steve's shirt before fingertips brushing Danny's.

"This seems solidly stuck in the not fine arena. Look, who says I have a right to blow my top over anything you do or don't do? Not that I'm saying you did--" with a faint warning look, because Steve already seemed about two seconds away from shoving Danny's head into a wall to make that point, "--okay, I believe you, but if you did, it's not like I have a leg to stand on, here, so I would appreciate it if maybe you'd, I don't know. You know what? Do whatever you want. Toss me through the door. But I'm not sure frowning and telling me I'm full of crap is really clearing matters up, and I'd sort of like to take my foot out of my mouth sometime soon, but, you know me, that's not looking all that likely."

[thebesteverseen]

"I wouldn't break the door." Intentionally, at least. But he adds, settle, with a breath after. "Or your head."

Urge or not aside, he actually likes to think he's not that insane even on his worst days, even in the worst situation. Even if he knows the last part of that sentence might have about as much truth in it as any of the last thirty second of words Danny is spitting out there. Rapid fire, having gone from zero to ten thousand words in less than a handful of seconds.

Steve shaking his head, with a snort, before those words are even finished past Do whatever. Fingers tightening on Danny, not much more than because he still got shirt, and the warm skin under it, underneath his palm, and he can't stop himself from gripping Danny, like there's any chance he'll do it all, all of it, over again.

"That is such crap, too." The words are so heavy. The last two especially. "Do whatever? I'm sorry, did I just imagine the part where you bolted and then forgot to leave, even? I'm pretty sure, that doesn't look anything like do whatever," which there is a scoff, too.

And. You know. Danny has already thrown it at him several times tonight, like it's some secret to be ashamed of. Like Cath is. Or anything they've had, that obviously did not add up right after it didn't add up to her being his girl friend, and his cheating on her with Danny.

"And, yeah, I would know. So would Catherine." Maybe he had slept with her enough that only persons who knew his body better were mandate physicians and his own hands. And it's a little vicious. "So would a lot of other people." Because there are some parts of the life, it suits. It has no other options. You choose service, you choose a lot of the inconvenient things that come with it.

Like not having a building to come to every morning, or a house in New Jersey, or a wife, or husband, or kids.

"But you n' me?" And that comes with a sharp gesture between them. "The last thing you said was not casual, and the last I checked. Rolling out bed with one person? And right into bed with someone else less than five or ten hours later? That is so far below standard that even those people would find it disgusting." Which, god. Danny's face.

Danny's face, hollowed with shock, without a single shred of doubt or question in the conviction one second in his door.

He can't stop it. Even slightly. His grip or the the way his voice nearly pitches black. "And I have never." Not at his lowest. Not at his worst. Not even when he most needed to remember what a human connection, one that was anything not covered in spraying blood and broken body parts, was.

[haole_cop]

Danny seems to have knocked some sort of hole in the pipe Steve's keeping all his words and thoughts in, because they come streaming out now like a blast of steam and boiling water. Words darting with sharp tips right at Danny's head, impatient and insulted and angry, even. Steamrolling over his lifted hand when he says, "okay, well, to clarify --" and Steve just keeps going.

And Steve doesn't talk like Danny does. Doesn't use a thousand words when one or two might suffice, but when he does decide to let loose, he does so like going at a heavy bag, punches flying, compact and direct. Which means Danny doesn't get to clarify anything, as Steve's fingers tighten painfully and his tone gets harder, darker, like the very idea is so beneath him that he can't even believe Danny suggested it or thought it could possibly happen. Worse than insulting, and maybe it is, okay. It definitely is, but--

But the tension from the last few minutes, ten, twenty, thirty, is buzzing in his skin like a swarm of bees and he can't just stand here anymore, alright, he has to move, has to pace, but Steve is holding him here so Danny has to pull away from that hand in order to get a little space and stop feeling like walls are closing in on him like that scene in Star Wars, or like something slimy is trying to grab his ankle, like in that same scene. Hands out in front of him, bending to put his beer down on the table by the door, so they're both free. Taking quick steps, here and back, turning away, and back towards Steve. Reaching forward, dropping his hands back, like he's collecting points like pennies and dropping them in a jar.

"Okay, yes. I did say that. I did. To which you replied with a joke about wedding bands and that topic sort of got dropped, so forgive me for not really being a hundred percent sure we were actually on the same page with that, you know, your mockery of my concern was a really good smokescreen, if that was your intention, alright." One hand having dropped to his hip, the other moving in a swift almost blocking motion in front of his chest. Mr. Miyagi's got nothing on him, screw wax-on wax-off, go for broke, that's Danny's motto.

"Secondly, yes, okay, it was a stupid thing to think, but insulting your character wasn't really the first thing on my mind when I opened the door and realized Catherine was already here, okay? My mind did not make the leap to 'oh, well, Steve must have slept with Catherine, what a dirtbag,' alright, but you have known her for so long and this?"

Finger pointing at Steve's chest, at his own, eyebrows lifting high, before that hand lifts again, fingers spread wide, like Steve might start charging and need to be stopped. "This is not even the blink of an eye compared to that time. Are you kidding me? There is always you and her when she's around. So I wasn't thinking, Jesus, that bastard, Steve. I was thinking, who the hell am I to get in the middle of that? I know there are other people in between, when the Enterprise is off in the middle of the ocean, doing whatever it is they do out there, alright, but she always turns up and now she's turned up again, so, I don't know. She is the Navy and gorgeous and smart and you've known her for a thousand years and I am the asshole who yells at you for inappropriately using incendiaries at work, so you do the math."

[thebesteverseen]

The world immolates down without so much as whisper when Danny 's first reaction isn't even words. His first reaction is to pull away, and maybe he deserves that. Maybe he does. But it does not keep his skin from feeling like every finger was a hook and his scream is ripping itself, without moving, to go in the same direction of that hand that is moving. When his hand is in the air.

Leaves him having nothing better to do, nothing other to do than cross his arms. While the beer gets set down and Danny comes back, hands already up, words already pouring out and getting everywhere. Filling up his living room with voice. Agreement as much as denial. Reasons that run into excuses that bleed out as words so thin and fast it's like they are trying to get out before the emotion in that town can even get it's slippery hands on them.

"Do the math?" Seriously? It's a snap. "I don't have to. I was here, and so was she. Pretty much for the moment you left."

Which is punctured down, but it's not a point. Because that he has nothing against. He made Danny go. Knew he had to. No matter what was going on in the space behind his own eyes. And Cath being here kept the entire place from being empty, too. If not in the same way.

Not when he went to bed alone and woke up alone. With no words chasing out the ones repeating in him still. With little rest.

"And all of that time? Any of it that wasn't spent checking up on the rest of the team--" Steve added on, because it was true, of his last two days. Both of them. All three of them. "She spent it, at arms length, trying her level best at every single direction to figure out more about you."

[haole_cop]

"Which is a conclusion literally no one who has seen you two together and was not here this weekend would land on first."

He holds up a hand, palm out, shifting like he needs to ground himself in the floor, the other hand at the waist of his jeans, shoulders drawing wide and hard. "I am not saying that is not the case, understand. Okay? I'm not arguing that. But if you expect anyone, anyone at all, to walk in and see you and Catherine together and not think you aren't doing your same old thing, at least for the first moment, then you have vastly misunderstood the general consensus towards," his hand waves at Steve, and an absent Catherine, "the two of you."

Anyone would think the same thing. No one else would have his reaction, but Kono or Chin, even Kamekona, would all assume that Steve and Catherine were, well. Steve and Catherine. It's not even a questions. None of them precisely know what to call the casual friends-with-benefits arrangement they have -- had -- but they all know it's there. Have teased Steve about his girlfriend more than once. Met her as his date. Right before he decided to ship out with her on the Enterprise as a Valentine's Day present.

He is not the only one who would come to that conclusion, even if he's the one who would be knocked flat by it. "Look, I am not saying I think that anymore or that it was even the right thing to think, alright, in no scenario was my reaction anything other than abysmal. I am not trying to excuse it. All I am saying is that you have -- had -- a pattern, and there may have been a reason to think what I did. Despite being wrong."

[thebesteverseen]

It's not a pattern. Not really. Not when you're taking all of the years into account. But Danny isn't. He's only talking about the last two. The time while Steve was grounded here in Hawaii and it became easier to match up off times, and steal weekends, when they weren't floating the boat and missions schedules to find something. Somewhere. Anywhere. In the middle.

"Fine." It's firm, and a little annoyed, but there is some concession to it. "We have-" He paused for emphasis, matching Danny's words. "-had-" That doesn't look very giving, even when it is. "-a pattern."

But to be contrite, and honest. Along with several other things. "Sometimes." Beat. Again. "Not always."

Because there were times when she had other people, and, even more, there were sometimes the better part of whole years where they never saw each other. Where lines didn't match up and days were off. Or Steve was somewhere that no one could reach him over and over and over. Because he liked it that way.

"So, where does that leave us?" Because they aren't anymore.

Anywhere near that general consensus Danny keeps using as an example to explain him and Cath. That haven't been him and Cath ever, but especially haven't been since back in early spring. Definitely haven't been for the last few weeks, and it's been underlined as completely not for two days. Because Danny is right there. His own hands and lips still warm from friction.

[haole_cop]

His lips firm, and for a second, shifting his weight, free hand falling to the other hip, he considers tossing that question right back at Steve's head, because so far he hasn't answered it once, except to say it's not a joke.

Except that's not entirely true, because he remembers. Sitting on that couch, in the dark. Steve's arm around him and his fingers against Steve's neck, Steve;s fingers on his skin, so sensitive to every touch that still felt like a fever dream, and that face Steve made, uncertain and wary. When he said he didn't think they were crazy, that this was nuts.

Okay. So what would you have called it?

Impossible?

And the way Steve stared at him, like he didn't want to believe it. Like he thought maybe Danny would pull the rug out from under him. Vulnerable in a way Danny's never seen before -- not when they first met and Steve was mourning his dad, not when his old friend turned out to be a traitor and a crazy asshole to boot. In a different way than the fragile emptiness of the last few days, and the realization that Doris is alive.

And it makes him want to slap himself. Getting so caught up in everything that's always gone wrong with him, with Rachel, and forgetting that, that moment, when all of this seemed clear and simple, because he knew the answer to that. And Steve had kissed him, deep and longing and it aches even to remember. A year. If it's been a year, and he might not know how to believe words, but he's got no reason not to believe Steve. He trusts Steve with his daughter, with his life. He doesn't have a single reason to think he's suddenly started lying now.

And if it's been a year, then what could happen in one weekend to change that, huh? If the shoe were on the other foot, he'd feel sick at even the thought. If Steve thought he could change his mind so easily.

So, where does that leave them?

Right where they were before, and he breathes out, looks up, to find Steve's eyes, and hold them, because this needs to mean more than him running out the door, it needs to be unquestionable. And he'd said it before, but almost instinctively, without really knowing how impossible impossible really must have seemed.

"Still possible."

Steve may not even remember, but Danny does. Saying it's possible, definitely possible and meaning it with every cell in his body, all of them pulling him towards Steve like a wayward confused meteor getting pulled into a star. Feeling like he could live and breathe at the way Steve smiled at him then.

But it might not be enough. So he digs down. Past painful memories. Past the fear of rejection hanging like a street gang on a corner in the worst neighborhood in his brain. Because maybe Steve needs to know, and what's Danny got to lose? Still, it's careful. A little winded. "I want to be with you. So I don't know where that leaves us, only..."

One last, aborted hand gesture, as his eyes dart away and return, forcing them steady. "Only, I know those two things. Okay?"

[thebesteverseen]

He doesn't know what he's expecting. The muscles between his shoulder blades tensing slowly like a clock, winding only inside, the longer Danny stares at him and he has no idea what's going on behind that face. Doesn't even feel that qualified to be guessing at the fleeting shadows coming and going, as Danny seems to be taking his time to come up with the right answer, and some part of Steve is holding still.

Wondering if the answer is the same as it was earlier. Two seconds from coming in. If that actually was the answer, and Steve didn't listen. When he left. When he said he didn't want to come inside. When he stared at his drink. When he was yelling about how all of this, all of it looks obvious, even if he's wrong.

Until he says those two words. And Steve went even more still, if it was possible.

Not because he doubts it. If anything his chest squeezes inward on his heart shuddered somewhere in his chest. It's not that he doubts. It's not even that he'd make Danny stand behind any of the words he's said in the last almost two weeks now. It's that he's not going to forget. He already knows that. Even if Danny changes his mind, and he's said it. One, two, maybe three times.

Danny might change his mind. Quiet. Even. Like he's going to be okay with because he has to be. It might happen.

But he's not going to forget any of it. He didn't get to over the last year. He didn't when he left the country, or last night.

They are two words so easily said, and swallowed by the silence of the room. That slip into his chest and inflate like someone is shoving helium in on double time. Like his lungs were already flattened behind it. Because those words aren't about all of this. This, right here, these last thirty minutes. It's about all of it. And maybe that makes it about the last thirty minutes, too.

He doesn't know. He doesn't know at all. But he knows those words. He knows the way his throat tightens on something so much bigger than words. The rolls through him, shifting everything in a sudden rain the way the skies just open here, when they feel like it. Making it impossible to swallow or breathe. Almost like it he did either, if he even moved a muscle the whole world might fall apart from every edge.

It's not an apology. It's an offering. A steady reminder. Something bigger than any of this, of now.

Still possible. Cath knows now, someone does. Still possible.. Danny jumped to the wrong conclusions, and tried to run away, but didn't. Still possible. Steve wanted to throw him at door more than a little. Still possible. They've stood here for over fifteen minutes yelling about the edges of all of this. Still possible.

How profane is to hear that, knocking straight through his chest, along with the knobby-kneed sudden race of his heart, beating against his ribs, hear it and understand, and only be left with the sensation that all of this is still happening, and that makes it seems that much more impossible. That this is all real. That he's here. That Danny is saying --

Still possible.

Before Danny is digging out even more words. Words that seep into whatever space was left in him, eating it away. Like acid. Except not. Except made with light. With the careful, compelling way Danny is looking at him and not looking away now. Like he has to get the answer right, and Steve has to hear it this time. I want to be with you.

And his voice drags off. Eyes shooting away, like suddenly that might not be everything, might not be enough, might not be more than words. So much that Steve can see the effort it takes to look back. To just leave it at that. Not to pile it under other words. Like maybe there are no other words in the universe. In all of Danny. Like maybe they end and begin there. Like maybe everything in Danny did.

Still possible.

I want to be with you.

Leaving him stricken beyond the need for air, beyond the need for anything but for Danny to be five or six feet closer than he was. For a recorded to always have those words to hear, not just painstaking tattoo into his memory on this face once. When the only thing he can seem to force out of himself, out the expansion in his that still feels like everything is pressing outward until it's going to leave him a stain beneath it is to nod, and say, quiet and rough, "Okay."

[haole_cop]

He thinks right away that it was probably too much.

Too much, and too specific. While still not being specific enough. When wanting to be with Steve is the only thing he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt, but it's so much harder to admit than that he wants Steve. But still maybe too cowardly. Still maybe open for interpretation. But with all his millions of words, the only ones that ring clear, like coins dropping on a marble floor. It's what he wants. It's still true. Still possible. On his end, anyway, which is the only end he can even pretend to control. When even that pretense is a bald-faced lie, because he can't control this, can only measure it out in two, or six, bare words and a meaningless tag.

Part of him wants to backpedal. To cover those words with an avalanche of others, hide them from plain or easy view. Take the high road of having said them, but behind a smokescreen, and it takes more than he'd be proud to admit not to, when Steve doesn't say anything at all, for a long time.

But then he does.

Not in words. The single, gruff one what feels like minutes later isn't Steve's answer. It's painted across him. In broad strokes over his face, the set of his shoulders. The strange, impossible stillness of him. When he's not waiting to pounce on a suspect. Isn't coiled and ready. Isn't loose, lazily undone, like an unlaced boot. Just, still. Perfectly so. Like he's preserving this in amber, in perfect quiet.

When his face clears, and he's not smiling, or laughing, or relieved. He's not angry or embarrassed. He looks. Like he's suddenly gotten to experience seeing the ocean for the first time, all over again. Paused, with something written in clear letters across his face that looks like nothing Danny's ever seen before. Like. God. Like an arrow shot straight into his chest, and he can't even breathe around it, and now Danny is wrestling with the sticky spider-strands of commercially-approved romantic messages, but then he says that one word, agreement, and relief floods Danny's chest like a dam breaking, carrying pieces of ice away and threatening to crack his ribs like someone snapping a wishbone.

He's no prize. He gets that. He knows. But he chooses to be here, and he wants to be here, and that look, that expression Danny can't name but thinks should belong to some offering greater than his messed up head and heart and self, that look says Steve wants him here, too. Even messed up and making him angry. Even saying the wrong things, all the time. Or too many things, or not enough. "Okay."

His voice has gone a little rough, making him his throat against the tightness there. And, Christ, but he really, just, can't be far away from him anymore. He feels almost lightheaded, like there's not enough air in the room, feels sore all over, and bruised. As exposed as a snail dragged out of its shell and dropped on a rock in the sun.

"So." He feels out of breath, like he's been punched in the stomach, or just finished sprinting a mile, but he puts out his hand anyway, palm up, pinky and ring finger curled just slightly in. Holds it out to Steve. "Will you come away from the door now, please?"

He could go. He could take the few steps back to Steve, get in his space, push his shoulders into the wood of the door and drag him down. But it feels like he needs that okay to be more than a word. Like he's drifting out on this wide blue sea, and he needs to haul himself back to shore, because he hates the sea, it is terrifying and awful and can't be trusted, but Steve gets it and maybe if Steve is adrift with him, it won't be so bad.

[thebesteverseen]

The truth is simple. It take no preamble. It doesn't wait safely caged. Doesn't give you time to breathe or a warning to duck.

It's just there. The way Danny's hand is. Paler on the inside, but still harder than it was the first time he saw them. Holding out from him. A request that is as much words as it is that gesture. Asking him to move and let go of all of it, and he really doesn't think about that part. Because the only thing he thinks looking at Danny's hand, is that if Danny asked he go anywhere. Anywhere.

It's the opposite and exactly the same as when he dropped the letter on Danny's desk. Crisp white edges, and the anything but quickly scrawled Danno. Because he knew. He knew, even before all of this, even without all of this, that if Danny said it was a bad idea, that he shouldn't go, mustn't go, they needed him, Danny needed him, he might never make it to that plane.

There might be so very many problems because of that.

But the tiny voice that says that is shushed almost completely in the way Steve's hand slides into Danny's.

Shoulders loosening, if not dropping, when he's walking toward Danny, even once that has happened. Leaving it behind.