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]

He doesn't even know how to explain that feeling, like something explodes in his brain, behind his eyes, levels his chest, when Danny even jokes about that. Danny who has spent every day of two years, in which he was present anywhere near Steve, telling him how terrible of a cop he isn't, and how many rules he's breaking, and how everything is different on the ground. Hearing him shove it all out the window?

Maddening. Even more so than Danny's tone, amused and rejecting. When he doesn't fight, falls into bed, hands snaking up against Steve's skin. Possessive, fingers stretching wide, still dragging him in. Closer, closer, closer. The words like a heart beat. Like the world already stopped existing against, and it's just Danny. From one end of the spectrum, where he was quite and freaking out, to the other, where those hands are everywhere.

Words singeing the air Steve's trying to breathe in. When breathing is over rated. Everything is overrated but Danny. Danny touching him. Trusting him. Choosing him. Over everything he's clutched tighter than air, only marginally less tighter than Grace. When Steve's leaning down, the fire Danny talked about, already soaring under his skin, in the faster breaths from Danny. In leaning in and finding his mouth, while sliding. A knee between Danny's legs, a hand on the other side of Danny, while shaking his head.

Like he's got some control. Any leg to stand on, for mocking Danny, and his decent into madness. Isn't matching every step.
Hasn't been walking it long enough he paved the path, built shelters to hide behind, long before Danny even got here.

"No, I don't think so," Steve said, letting his mouth loose. "The damage from those is incredibly minimal."
"Well." His head tipped in thought a beat. "Unless you're going to stab someone in the eye with it."

Or, really, any orifice. Structural integrity wouldn't survive much else down with the sticks. If that.

[haole_cop]

"You're an idiot, you know that?"

He pulls back enough to give Steve an exasperated look, though his hands don't leave his skin, and he's shifting to allow that one long leg to slide between his so he's just as tangled up in Steve's arms and legs as he is on a far more metaphorical level. After leaning up to meet that kiss, anyway, letting Steve push him back and just dragging him down, too.

"Although if you're admitting to only using grenades when they might be absolutely necessary -- no, you know what? They are never absolutely necessary. I'm sure that for legal purposes I should never know the extent of the weaponry and incendiaries you have in this house -- considering the number you keep in my car, without my express permission. One time you needed grenades here, once. That's it. Please stop thinking of children's playthings in terms of the amount of damage they can do. Your brain is a terrible place."

The worst. And yet Danny hasn't stopped, can't, won't. Is wrapping one hand around the back of Steve's neck, fingers brushing into short dark hair. Body tipping towards Steve, leg sliding over Steve's calf.

Like there's nothing for it except to be as wrapped up as possible. Pull him closer, shift to find the spaces he fits, while Steve is on the way to blanketing him entirely. He could cover every part of Danny, crowd him into the bed, into the pillow, and Danny would let him. He might put up a fight, go down wrestling, but not right now, not when he still feels peeled and raw from the words Steve coaxed out of him, that he hadn't wanted to say.

Forgotten, now, in the press of Steve's mouth, the low, full of humor tone of his voice. The way he's looking down at Danny smug and arrogant and so pleased with himself, like this is what he'd wanted all along. Panic that's drifted away on the sounds of the air conditioner, the breeze outside, the curve of Steve's stupid smile.

[thebesteverseen]

It's wrong how much he loves that. Choosing words he knows will distract Danny even at his most distracted. Making him have to pull back into the pillow, away from Steve. Wrinkling up his face, into that disgusted look that he knows so well. That one that isn't so much offended as almost affectionately resigned to an endless barrage of Steve's harrowing, horrible facts that collect on his tongue at a seconds' notice.

That he does, throws words at Steve's head, without letting go. Like the space between their faces is all Danny will allow. Almost like a perverse punishment, when snapping at him is more necessary than kissing him. Dragging him down into the sheets and the muddle of the blankets they're making. Like Steve can't feel it. Danny shifting to make room for him, so he can slide down a little, lay out across Danny, while he's ranting.

The hand warm and solid on his neck, and the leg curling over his. Not trapping him anymore than his will to stay there, and his will has nothing else in the world it wants. Than he wants. To be here. Danny under him, covering him, pulling him down, yelling at him about toys and cars and the house and weapons. Voice louder than a whisper, again, as he lectures Steve on other things he knows and doesn't care about the rules of.

"Slander." Steve defend, a hot vainglorious twist to his tone, dropping his mouth. Ghosting his lips along the edge of Danny's jaw, in no rush for this second. When he's half way to gusts of air, that haven't quite made it to laughter at Danny's brow beating. "I wouldn't keep more than the legal limit allowed in this house."

Blistering warmth that is at once mockingly offended and probably all sorts of a prime confession. Rules. Steve doesn't follow rules. Obviously. Isn't that proof right here. When he stops at the juncture between Danny's jaw and his neck, sucking the skin between his teeth, just barely. Just enough to pull at it from the muscle.

Before nipping the skin lightly. Aimed for a reaction, without driving him crazy or marking him up. Again. Maybe, yet. Maybe.

But he's too busy to care about the thought, the heady rush of possibility, when he's lifting his head to catch Danny's eyes, dark with mischief.

"And you love my head." God. Talk about bizarre miracles. Because Danny had to do something more than hate it. Or be exasperatedly resigned to it. To be here. Danny wasn't the person who made choices without some kind of general agreement all across himself. He didn't just shut off everything, to take whatever he could, was offered, from the world. Even if he hated the rest of it. "Don't lie."

[haole_cop]

"That is so much less than reassuring."

Of course Steve has more than the legal limit. Of course he does. Danny doesn't look into it, because it would be awkward arresting his best friend and partner, and Steve can at least mostly be trusted to keep them here and hidden, right? At least, he's unlikely to go rob a bank.

There are two parts of what Steve says and does that are easy to respond to, and one that his brain balks at like a cat splashed with water. Clumping gears, swiftly shutting them down, slamming walls up. One word that works like a tripwire and sends him sprawling.

Making his voice come cranky in reply, aggravated, watching Steve with annoyance when he lifts his head back up from the faint sting at Danny's neck. "Will you watch it? I don't know if you noticed, but it isn't exactly fun for me when Kono starts in on what I am sure is at least mostly well-meaning questions about my love life."

That smile, dark and arrogant and knowing, isn't helpful. Only pushes him further into digging in his heels, stubbornly ignoring the thing screaming around his head, landing in a soft punch to the gut, to his chest. Threatening the structural integrity of his ribs. He can't. Alright? Looking at it makes it real. Acknowledging it means he's even more screwed than he already is.

So he bats it back, instead, prickly, exasperated, letting Steve get under his skin, in that way where Steve basically resides there at all times already.

"Wrong. You're a psychopath."

And he just won't pay attention to any part of him that says otherwise, okay. Two freakouts in one night is more than enough.

[thebesteverseen]

"I don't know," Steve decides to lead with, unmartial by any of the insults, one arm crossing Danny's chest and resting there, fingers driving through an endless brush of pressed curls that are becoming so common they're almost for granted. Until a second strikes, like this one. When he actually looks down, watches his fingers spread wide over part of Danny's chest, past the back of his hand, covering as much space as possible.

"It was pretty amusing last time." You know in every seconds where he wasn't completely standing in the back of the bull pen, waiting to see what exactly would fall out of Danny's mouth. Especially with how much Kono looked like a kid suddenly. At Christmas. With her first board. Bright as thought none of the stuff with Adam had been going on.

At least for a few seconds.

A sentiment he didn't entirely hate, when it lines up with the fact he's not entirely immune to the effect, himself, it seems. Forgetting for a few minutes here and there, everything else, when Danny is right here. Right next to him. Serious or ranting or laughing or teasing. He forgets for a few minutes, when Danny is here. All the rest of the crap waiting right outside the door of this room.

Of his head. That he doesn't forget. Any of it. That sometimes Danny is right. His head is a miserable place to be. He keeps it all.

"Wanting to know how it was you got up to something she didn't know about yet." If there were moments she really did remind Steve how young she was. Everything was new and delightful. Even seconds after the look of utter shock about things with Gabby being done. She was onboard with wanting to be Danny's conspirator for whatever it was that was already happening. "Totally cool with getting the brush off. Because that's completely the kind of detective she is."

Maybe because it went well with her own. With Adam. Secrets, and excitement.

And then, not to be missed, also, because it was just Kono. Endlessly bright and willing to join in. "Mostly."
Steve's voice was a riot of dark humor, repeating that word the way Danny had said. Thinking about his collar grabbing.

It was terrible that he actually felt more compelled to be obnoxios and lay into Danny's skin with that thought, wasn't it?

[haole_cop]

He watches Steve look down, study the splay of his fingers over Danny's chest and it makes those muscles tighten in response, contracting under touch and under glance. Still not used to Steve noticing him. Running fingers over Danny's stupid hairy chest, thick muscle that makes him heavier than he looks. That Steve wants to see. Touch. That Steve has run that smart mouth of his over, bitten faint marks into. That Steve somehow has not yet gotten enough of.

When it still blows his mind that Steve wants it at all. That everything Steve is could possibly want Danny. Danny and his temper. Danny and his five million words, most of which are used to insult Steve day in and out. Danny and his hands in the air everywhere.

It's mind-boggling. It's unreal. Steve shouldn't. He wasn't supposed to. But here he is, pressing Danny into his bed. Didn't let Danny leave. Reminded him that it's them. Together. Like always. "I'm just saying, you could maybe keep it below shirt level, huh? Or, better idea, avoid it in the first place."

Steve probably is amused by Kono and her less that subtle hints that Danny needs to tell her what the hell is going on, and, okay. If it weren't about him (if it weren't about Steve), Danny would find it cute. Endearing, even. She's sweet about it, and she's just concerned because they're friends and coworkers and she's in the middle of dealing with the fallout from one hell of a messed-up secret relationship of her own, which reminds Danny of how Steve mentioned she could have found a less complicated bed to fall into.

Which is hilarious, in retrospect. In that way where Danny doesn't want to laugh at all.

Except Steve is busy making all the alarms in Danny's head go off, and he's shaking his head, moving one hand to find Steve's chest, like he could possibly hold him off at all.

"Hey. Hey. No. I know that look. That is the look that says I should invest in some turtlenecks, and Steve, it is way too hot here for those, so, please, restrain yourself."

[thebesteverseen]

Steve might be moving toward a smirk. When Danny's chest sinks in, a breath pulled in and muscles firmed up. Like somehow, there's a way Danny could pull away. That wouldn't involving having to go straight through his own spine and the mattress's below him. Let him. Startle a little. Be unnerved. By whatever it is, that flashes through his head, when Steve is not about to move his hand.

The ends of his finger curling against muscle. The beat of Danny's heart trapped under the area of where three different fingers are stretched. Danny might be lecturing him about how or where, but he's nowhere near even started with memorizing where every single muscle on Danny's body is. What it looks like. Feels like. Tastes like. Until it's branded into him deeper than any other scar left on his skin, any other story he can't share, wouldn't, doesn't want to.

That hand that shoves at his chest makes him laugh. Like it's actually going to get him to go anywhere. While Danny's other arm is wrapped around him, as well as a leg. As long as part of Steve's weight is actually resting as much against Danny's chest as the bed. The heady combination of all together, making it so easy. Catching Danny's hand at the wrist and forcing it out. Back, above, to the side of his head.

Smiling too broadly, challenging, and not in the slightest thwarted. Leaning down, with that as the only warning, without shifting, and let his mouth touch on the center of Danny's shoulder. Maybe not center. But where there's a semi-circle. He can't see it without the light. But he knows it's there. Somewhere close to where he lays a kiss on Danny's shoulder.

"You have to stop making such--" When he's tracing slowly inward on that shoulder, pausing his sentence, the lasting statement of any picture clear enough. Until he can brush his lips, and the skin around it against the rise of Danny's pulse. But only that. Not kissing him. Not pulling on the skin.

Just that. The rub of smooth lips. The friction of warm skin, and sharp stubble there, only. Exhaling against that thin skin, where it thrums with the rush of blood. And it takes a second, windfall blown through his dropping level of voice, against the warm ache slicing through his own chest, like the word isn't even enough to explain, taunt, torment with.

Doesn't even know which of them that it's truer of, for. "--obscene noises when it happens, first, Danny."

The sounds that drag up out of Danny. When his name becomes this completely different word, unlike every other million times Danny's said it. Playing in his head like liquid fire. When those fingers are digging into his skin. His back, his arm, his hip, his shoulder, his hair, depending on what part of Danny's skin he's gotten to. Like Danny doesn't turn tense and pliant in waves, isn't pushing into him, opening up, giving him whatever he's willing to take next.

Like he can forget. Don't stop. Two words that don't leave him. Tip and tumble like dice, like a card turned over in his fingers. An ace he'll never use. Something he can hardly believe. Doesn't really want to look at, or toward. Isn't proud of. And, still. Even then. Danny and his hands, the reckless abandon beyond even understanding why or how. But still with him.

Still wanting him, giving him everything, even when the tether on his control, beyond even Danny's control, snapped.

[haole_cop]

"'Obscene?' Really?"

This is going to be the death of him. He's sure of it. The way Steve grins, lunatic and fond all at the same time. The way he pushes at Steve's chest but can't actually convince himself to try pulling away, or moving, or letting go of Steve at all.

Doesn't actually try to take his wrist or hand back, though he does pull at it, more with exasperation than any desire to actually have it freed. Really, Steve? "You think pinning me down is going to help with any of that? Your inability to keep from giving me bitemarks and hickeys, I mean. Are you thirteen? Is that what this is?"

Even if he thought he could get away with it, he wouldn't try. Or couldn't, maybe. Has to be right here, holding Steve as firmly as he's trying to shove at him. While Steve just laughs, cocky and self-assured, a wide smile stretching so teeth glint white in the dark, so the corners of his eyes crease up and he looks actually happy for a second. In a way Danny hasn't seen enough of, ever. Can't get enough of the smile that lights this whole room and blitzes the inside of Danny's chest like a floodlight.

He'd do anything. Say anything. Keep poking and prodding and protesting, keep tossing stupid insults at Steve's stupid head, keep giving in to Steve's mouth on his skin, whatever it takes, just to keep seeing it. To wipe away the memory of that other, so lost, look. The one that felt like someone attached Danny's ribcage to a short rope and then dropped the rest of him off a rooftop. "I should not be responsible for your lack of self-control, Steven."

Dropping his name in two disapproving syllables, even when his skin is shivering against that bare touch. Shorting out nerves like Steve's lips are brushing past skin, right against the sensitive, too large, too fragile, glass-blown thing that's taking up residence in Danny's chest. And knowing that Steve shouldn't stop. Shouldn't ever stop. That Danny would give almost anything to make sure this keeps happening, insane as it all is.

[thebesteverseen]

It's a rush. Insane, washing him out, even when he's holding still. Danny shivers against his mouth, under his chest, in his arms. Hand still tugging, downward at the offending hand holding his. Mouth still tossing out barbed darts, in his name, at his head. All three at once. "Obviously." Steve said it pert and thick with disbelieving sarcasm.

"We've already covered you failed at that." Like Danny was nothing where it came to his control. Totally unneeded.

"Ages ago." The moment he said those words. The moment his lips parted and his fingers fisted in Steve's shirt, like a life line. The moment it took him more than a minute with those two, before Danny could even shove either of them back to ask what the hell had just happened to his world.

Their world. This world. When everything changed in a seconds.



Steve was absolutely fine before all that. If fine was all he was aiming for being.

Fine, and not this stupidly heady, high feeling, that causes him to rub words into Danny's skin, like he can't get enough of it, before propping himself back up. Without actually giving in to doing anything in the slightest, like some smug iota of proof, when Danny is shivering from a seconds' effort.

The cage of his fingers around Danny's one wrist, releasing and dragging down his forearm a few inches. When he can't help and doesn't even pretend there's any remorse going on in him. Because there isn't. There is so very little he actually feels anything untoward about all of this, and hit most of it already.

[haole_cop]

"I failed at that? Am I holding some kind of leash? Do you realize the sort of hazard pay I should be getting if I am somehow in charge of your ability to restrain yourself? At the very least I deserve a raise, because that is another full-time job. Or are you just always about to lose your self-control?"

Look. Surely Steve managed to function for years before he met Danny. Right? Okay, yeah. He was a loose cannon for a lot of those first months, and still is, but Danny likes to think that maybe Steve has grown. Mellowed, possibly. At least from those first moments, guns in each others' faces, twisting Danny's arm behind his back. Something he hasn't tried since, no matter how many times Danny gets up in his face, or yells at him, or tries to reason with him (usually a lost cause).

But then there are those days when it's like meeting Steve all over again. Like last week. When they were up here, but there were no smiles and there was no laughter, and Steve really didn't give a shit about marking up Danny's skin. Not in the way that makes him groan, or whimper. Like he was angry at it. Because he was angry at Danny. And Danny knows this is a thin and shaky line they walk, between Steve being like this and Steve being like that.

That. Nowhere near like this. When Steve is teasing, murmuring words into Danny's neck, making the skin there spark and shrink in reaction, making Danny bite down on one of those sounds Steve just referred to. The ones he said were obscene, which, Danny begs to disagree. They are not. It's not his fault that Steve drags them out of him, like he drags shakes and tremors and insanity. Like he drags all these ridiculous words that mean absolutely nothing, because they're all just skimming the top of this bottomless well. Drops here and there. Barely touching the litany in his head.

The one that can't stop reminding Danny how gorgeous Steve is. Like this. In the half light. Naked and relaxed. Or at work, with sleeves rolled up tight above his elbow, letting Danny see the muscles in his forearms flex and loosen in a way that is guaranteed to make him lose his mind, now.

When he's so hung up on the curve of Steve's mouth, and he'll never not be able to think about the things Steve has done with it, how it feels when Steve's breath gusts hot or gentle across his bare skin, shocking him like he'd been dropped in icy water.

Never won't know how different it is when Steve's fingers drag down his arm, instead of looping quickly at his wrist, letting go right away. Tugging everything else into a slow slide that's going to end with Danny in a pile at the foot of a cliff, and there's no helping it.

Not when he's looking up at Steve and he just can't even tear his eyes away, because, Christ, Steve is the most beautiful thing he knows, and it keeps hitting him, when he least expects it, sidelining him like a semi smashing into his skull.

It's screwing with his thoughts. It has to be. Because the words that drop out of his mouth are insane, something he should never say, never condone, or offer. Or challenge, if that's what this is.

"So then lose it. But don't blame me."

[thebesteverseen]

Holy Christ, what is he actually supposed to do with Danny?

When his own mouth is creasing up his cheeks, hard and fast and wide, reminding him all too glaringly of It's fine. Do it everyday. I like it. And that stupid, smile that dragged out across his lips, and he had to turn and walk away. When things like that hit him long before things like this were even the jagged bits of broken glass he was walking barefoot on.

But it's banking to a dangerously sharp edge quickly. Not about forcibly calling him Danno, stealing it from him and batting him about the head with it, until Danny gave him permission. Like Danny keeps doing right now. Danny's voice filling up his head and his chest, until it might burst. Not occasional words. Dozens of them. Staking our their claim on his sanity, on his breath, on the ability to us his head against the movement of his blood thundering.

Still possible. I want to be with you. Good. Because I just want you. Those rules can screw themselves. So then lose it.

Like dropping all the appliances this house owns in a bathtub, only after they've all been cranked up to high, and shoved under his skin, with sparking, frayed wires. So that Danny's words, and the way he's looking up, like there might be nothing else in the world, that Danny wants, that Danny can even see, that guts whatever he had been holding in the way of wanted patience and pressed, flippant amusement.

Like the length of any leash actually holding his want to be cool and smug goes up like flash paper on Danny's mouth losing it there.

"But I'm good at it," is goading and arrogant, every proof and promise, when he's leaning back in. Taking it for a goddamn golden ticket. Raising the hand that had originally stolen Danny's wrist, to find the side of his face, cheek, jaw and tip it up more. Lips splitting against the thick cording muscles and the rapid beat of Danny's pulse.

Running the tip of his tongue against it, before sucking up his skin, gently, between his lips. A tumbler, a thimble of awareness, left, to try and keep to that. Gentle. To a point, if there was a point. When he didn't clarify it at all. His words. If it's blaming Danny. Or losing control. Or dragging every single sound out of Danny that is better, higher, hotter, scorched into his head and his skin, than anything he once imagined.

[haole_cop]

There are lots of things Steve is good at. Like driving Danny up a wall. Or shooting things. Making other things disappear in as large an explosion as possible. Driving things, flying things. Swimming, and diving. He's good at running, good at strategy, good at getting the attention of even the most jaded and bored of waitresses.

And he's good at this, too. Mouth clever against Danny's skin, but lighter than Danny expects. Especially when Steve is grinning at him, and his hand was at Danny's wrist.

Not anymore. Now, it's tipping Danny's head, fingers pressed warm against his jaw and cheek, leaving Danny's hand free to find the back of Steve's head and cradle it, all too aware now of the tiny sound trying to force it's way up and free from the grip in his lungs. He's got to be, now that Steve's mentioned them, labeled them obscene, which is, thanks, just not accurate, alright. This is not some porn session, there's nothing heavy and creepy about this. It's almost a whimper, choked into a moan that doesn't actually make it past the lowest part of his throat.

"Oh, sure," he says, instead, goading, despite the threadiness of his voice, the way air doesn't quite seem to be working the way it normally does in his voice. "But you, you're good at everything, aren't you." Heavily sarcastic. Disbelieving. Like Danny can't believe Steve manages to put his shoes on the right feet in the morning.

"No, don't answer that. I don't need your ego getting in bed, too, there's only so much room here."

[thebesteverseen]

Steve can't stop himself from laughing into Danny's skin, briefly losing his focus entirely for the hilarity of the conversation.

One he's not even needed for, which is even better. Shivers of his chest shaking all through his back and head against Danny. Sarcastic and setting himself up, only to diffuse his own setup, too. Half like Danny's castigating whatever smug thought paraded into Steve's head, and half like he's correcting himself out loud, even through words that are being thrown at Steve's own head for nothing more than thinking.

Okay.

For a little more than thinking.

When Danny's fingers are threading through his short hair, curving around his head. Holding on to him, keeping him where he is, even without a single grip. As though Danny ever needs to use an actual grip. When his fingers circling Steve's wrist, a hand brushing up flat against his chest, the hand of one catching his arm. They all work as well as if someone twice Steve's size stopped him in a sudden choke hold. The whole world stops flat, on a dime, disorienting stillness and air shoved in.

He's never less than aware where Danny's touching him, when he isn't. If he isn't. Every single word rolling out. The way Danny is putting up a fight of still insulting him. Like his voice isn't careening sharper, breathier. As though those words make any of the rest of it less apparent. The way Danny's muscles tighten. The way his chest raises and falls faster, but not as fast as the pounding of his pulse picks up.

Which just leaves Steve where he was, when his laugh died. Mouth finding that same spot, but on the opposite side of his neck now, and sucking a little harder, as his thumb brushed through the stubble on his cheek, before dropping. Finding his shoulder and chasing down the muscles there. Fingers brushing through curls, chasing the line of muscles. Pulling just the smallest bit harder again, on the skin between his lips, when his hand settles against chest, and he, casually, rolled the flat of his thumb over Danny's nipple. And back.

Small steps, more focus, more force. Wanting. Moving gently against him. The rock of his hips, his upper body. Shifting closer, tighter, more into Danny, against his sheet. The ones that already smell like him. His pillow. When he still has his point. That he wants. The is steaming up the glass somewhere in his head. Sliding between it, and just the growing want for it.

[haole_cop]

"You know, it's not actually all that comforting when you laugh like that at a time like this. I would even maybe classify it as 'unsettling.' Occasionally deeply so."

Okay, maybe it's ridiculous that he's still trying, but words are his only defense, when Steve is rolling a little further over him, and Steve is laughing into the thin, sensitive skin of his neck. Lighting Danny up like some circuit board got thrown and everything plugged in at once, traveling in sheets of light that travel under his skin and won't dim for anything. That laugh shaking into his core, sounding like the greatest thing Danny's ever heard.

So far from Steve's tense words and cold terse anger during their standoff in front of the door. Not even anywhere close to the quiet coaxing of earlier. This is something different. Something Danny's. And he's filled with the urge to just be ridiculous, to hear it again. Rant and rave, insult Steve, toss whatever absurdities into the air he can find, just to keep it coming. Recording it somewhere, deep inside, to play back, as if he might be able to convince himself that way that it's real. That Steve's laughing, muddling breath into Danny's skin, and lighting that patch with every possible nerve, until Danny's making his own words a lie by craning his head away to give him more room.

Whatever he wants. Every inch of skin. Breathing in sharp and hard at the thumb rubbing over skin that feels suddenly like the focal point of his whole body, everything clustered together under Steve's fingers. Stomach contracting, back trying to arch, shoulder blades pushing back.

Shifting, rolling towards Steve. Pushing into the gentle rocking motion. Wanting it all. Not to burn down the house, or the bed. Not to run sprinting to the finish line.

Just to feel Steve all pressed up against him. Stomach, thigh, leg. Steve's breath sifting into his. Steve's skin so warm and surprisingly soft under his hands, that feel so big and clumsy when he is struck with the ridiculous desire to be gentle. With Steve. Who is the human version of a tank. Who is nigh unbreakable. Heavy and fit, prone to acts of extreme violence, and currently on top of Danny and apparently determined to thread what's left of Danny's steadily melting brain right out through his spine.

But it's there. The want to trace light fingertips over the muscles of Steve's back as they flex and relax. Memorizing the way they move, how they feel. Down to his hip, before palming that rise of bone and muscle.

Realizing belatedly that he's stopped talking, because the air in the room seems to have been suctioned all away. It must be, because he's breathing faster and harder than ever, but his head is as dizzy as if he's looking off a mountaintop onto a sheer drop.

[thebesteverseen]

Danny keeps right on rolling. Words falling out, breathed pauses between words, and scandalous concerns Steve truly need to stop and be chastised for. Like laughing into his skin doesn't make Danny's finger hold on a little tighter. Doesn't makes his voice seem that much more strained. Like he isn't tilting his head into the pillow, giving Steve even more of his skin.

Making it impossible not to shift up, his whole body, trace his mouth up the line of muscle.

Pretending maybe that he doesn't feel how responsive the entirity of Danny's body has become. Like there is any way to ever not notice it. Not feel it. When Danny's entire body shifts, like the ground under him going up. Rising to meet him. Fighting to feel more. To be touching Steve more. Arching into him, chest and stomach suddenly pushing up into his fingers, while Danny's stretches wide, open and available.

That his own skin prickles into sharp awareness under the slow, heavy drag of Danny's fingers over him. Down his back. Like he doesn't even know. Like Danny's going to touch every inch of it suddenly. Again. Following the lines of them straining, themselves, as his fingers move. Wholly almost unrelated to movement of his mouth, the brush of his finger, still rolling back and forth.

The way those fingers trailing down, cause his stomach muscles to tighten and loosen in waves he really can't focus on stopping. Before they find his hips. Cupping the edge of like Steve's hip was always meant to fit there, and he just didn't know until now. Like the bones and curve of his body there, cut of muscles, shape of skeleton, belonged in the curve of Danny's hand.

Rocking a little harder, just in the swing of the movement, more than the helpless rut into Danny's upper thigh.

Like a joint testing twisting in a new socket. The hold of that hand on his skin. The movement of his hip, shifting, in, under it.

Air. Who needed air. Danny pulse is burning against his tongue, melting into the throbbing filling his ears, running higher and faster through his own body. Even the quiet just reminds him, when it catches up with him. However long that takes when Danny's breathing, and the shift of his skin, and the drag and cup of his hands on Steve's own skin, blurs his sense of when anything was and is, reminds him. That he doesn't want that.

Silence. That isn't what he's looking for. The best things about Danny's mouth have nothing to do with it. Well. Most of them. And he's jut going to let the hiccup where his breath evaporated on a rejoinder evaporate on his tongue, through his lungs, on a thought that only helped to burn down more of braincells. But he wants other things right now. The whole delirious aim. To find the point where Danny's mouth drives him mad. Drag that back out. Point at it. High and far over.

When he's shifting again. Mapping his mouth down. Through curls warmed between the press of both of their skin. The smell of Danny's skin filling up his head, and the fast feeling of hair brushing his cheeks, his noise, as he moved across Danny's breast bone, the rise of muscle in his chest. Taking his time, pulling up skin, until he gets to the same place his fingers are, and takes that, too.

Lips tripping over the rise of flesh. Pausing barely, to breathe, to lick his lips, before he's using the tip of his tongue around Danny's nipple. Gentle briefly, almost making a full small circle. Before his lips close on Danny's skin, hot and moist, dragging it up against his tongue and teeth, too.

[haole_cop]

The only halfway clear thought is that it's ridiculous that they're considering doing this again, and he realizes he's said so, when he hears the silence in the room broken by his voice, coming thready, scraping against vocal chords that feel thick and useless.

"Seriously, you are exhausting, what do you think I am, a teenager?"

He's not. He's on the wrong side of thirty-five, and so is Steve, and it's not even like he's been totally celibate since the divorce, alright. He can explain away the four times -- four times, what the hell -- on the first day as what happens when lust and surprise and relief and Steve all come together in a perfect storm of Things Designed to Take Down Danny's Sanity.

So it's ridiculous that he might be able to recover from the exhaustion of earlier, and he knows it, because it's just biology, alright, mortal men are not supposed to be able to go multiple rounds every time they wind up in bed, but his body seems to be having other ideas. And those words, the ones dragged up and breathless, they're coming with a faint gust of what could be laughter if air weren't so tight, because, come on. He's arching into Steve, and no matter what he might say, he's responding. Like Steve's tongue is touching electricity right through him. Sending his pulse careening. And Steve is such a bad idea. They've just been over it, sort of. The rules. The ones that can burn down and get thrown away. The ones he'd be happy to scatter as ashes, because there is no giving this up.

It's madness. An insane thought, cut off by the knifing sensation at his chest, the trail Steve's mouth took burning like it was a match being drawn down his skin and not lips.

"Jesus, Steve."

Making those other words lies. Fingers gripping Steve's hip like nothing in the world could possibly make him let go. "Are you trying to make a point, or should I just chalk this up as one more way you've discovered to drive me crazy?"

[thebesteverseen]

It's really harder to decide which one shoves at Steve more. That almost desperate whine about how this was impossible. Steve was impossible. They were. Or the way Danny's voice can't even hold still, before he's blowing out words like that. Reckless shards of sound that dig into Steve's skin. Swearing and saying his name. Like Danny can't fight it even, the way it runs at and over everything. Steve is. Even every logical card in his hands.

Steve lifted his head, canting in the direction of Danny, and all his breathless, complaining words. Like his brain wasn't connected at all to that thin threaded voice or the writhing that kept happening under Steve. And Steve, beyond exhilarated in the fact it really is that simple, and that Danny, under him, is proving really every point ever, about driving him crazy, just lets his mouth shoot off. "It can't be both?"

Not that he exactly planned for follow through, which left that a little in free fall.

Not that he actually had a problem with the concept, but it left him amused, watching Danny's face.

Thumb back to stroking the slippery puckered rise of Danny's skin, once his face had lifted. Too dark eyed to actually fill the shoes of the seeming innocence of nonchalance of his posture, as he was waiting for Danny to fill him in on the fact that obviously he wasn't supposed to be talking, or he was disturbed in the head, and wrong.

Even when everything about Danny, except his mouth, said Steve was right. Said Steve could have both of those. Could have everything. Drop his mouth back to Danny's skin, with a flush movement of letting his fingers pull on Danny's skin. Dropping his mouth, but not covering yet. Brushing his lips across the top. Slow, using it to trace the circle of his own lips, before saying. "You already drive me insane."

Drive him crazy. Not distract him. Not get in his way. Not just make a point. Drive him crazy. Beyond thinking, or breathing. Beyond being able to do anything, but let it roll off his tongue, as dangerous a confession as it is an admission and accusation, with such a dark threat and absolutely no barb in it. Losing it on Danny's skin, the way he loses everything else. Every time. Before he drops his his mouth back and pulls hard this time. Dragging his teeth up long the skin, roughened friction without a bite to it, and used his hand to hold Danny's side.

[haole_cop]

"Yes. No. It can't be both. I know you. It's definitely going to lean one way or the other. I realize you are an excellent multitasker, but I'm fairly sure you have an actual plan of attack here, and probably single-minded one at that, though obviously killing more birds with one stone is appealingly effective."

Steve's got a conversational tone Danny's not sure he appreciates, when Steve is also dragging madness across Danny's skin, leaving him cold when he lifts his head to join the debate, which makes it all the more dizzying when his lips brush back over that sensitive nub of skin, pushing Danny's head back into the pillow involuntarily, Danny's eyes closing against the sensation, fighting to keep from pushing up into that lazy mouth, for more, harder.

"You think that's not mutual?"

Because Steve is the reason for like at least sixty percent of the stress in Danny's day to day life. Sure, things with Rachel are taking a toll, yeah, he hates the arguments and the lawyers and the scumbag criminals they chase after week in and week out, but Steve, alright, Steve is like a virtuoso when it comes to getting on Danny's nerves. There are the weapons, and his desire to leap off very tall objects or very moving objects, and his firm belief that sometimes violence actually is the answer. And his stubborn refusal to think that anyone else's methods might work.

"You're already insane. I can't possibly be making that much of a difference. But me! I was level-headed, once upon a time. I had psych evals that were so clean they would make our current legally-required team of head-shrinkers weep. You know, more than they already do at the crap we pull."

Times when he never would have considered infiltrating North Korea, and -- okay, he probably still would have gone after the CIA, but he would have had a damn good reason and not forgone backup.

And that's all before even getting into this.

This, where Steve is breaking Danny's sanity apart like he's shredding paper, piece by piece, until it all comes ripping apart and Danny gasps, sharp, fingers hard against Steve's head, as the air in the room boils and every nerve in his body lights in painfully brilliant sensation, arrowing straight to that one point. Sending him rocking into Steve, jerking against the hand holding him down, his free hand skating helpless over Steve's back. "Fuck -- Christ --"

[thebesteverseen]

Steve's voice is far too smug. Even when it shakes right along the edges. Like it's been dipped in oil and is already burning inward toward his center from every one of those edges. And he is. He can feeling it, digging at the floor under his balance, finger tips, even laying on Danny. Especially laying on Danny. Hear it in the singed ash of his control smudging up even his own voice.

"Fucking Christ." He shakes his head into Danny's skin, repeating Danny's words. A variation on them. His shoulders even tremble. And it may not all be from some approximation like breathless huff of laughter. It's probably not even possible it's only that. Not with all this. Not when Danny does that. Says that. But it's that, too. When he's half-turning his head, to get Danny's face back in part of his direct line of sight.

Shift with the deadliness exactness of every other hairpin turn in his life. Every turn of the car, or a case. Except on Danny. When his mouth firms, against a struggling smile. So pleased, so full of nearly bragging. "And you talk about having some modicum of control left."

Steve's or Danny's. Because hell, it was like one rope, thrown over a cliff, going up in flames, like it hadn't already frayed down strands before that happened. But Steve didn't stop. "When you sound like that?" Shoving every coal straight into Steve's hands. Especially the one tracking down Danny's chest, brushing fingers across his stomach and his hip, while he shifted his torso, mouth finding a higher patch of muscle on his chest. "And you feel like this?"

How was Steve supposed to even think. How was Steve supposed to think of work, and other people. When Danny started falling apart in his hands. When Danny was the one letting out these gasps and groans, swearing, and calling on God, and turning Steve's name into words Steve had no hesitation in the thought he'd want to gut anyone else on the planet from even hearing fall off Danny's lips.

Because it was his. God. Danny falling apart against him, every jerk and gasp. While telling Steve it was all his own lack of control.

"But, hey, maybe I'm wrong." Steve said, stopping to brush his mouth on the inside rise right where Danny's collarbone started to go out. Before he lifted, looking at Danny's face. An all too smug tone, literally making his words all but the reverse of every single one that rolled off his lips. "Maybe you like your delusions that you were ever level-headed better."

The same as they hadn't happened. Since the kitchen. Since that night after Steve literally staked out Danny's parking lot. Since the bruise that purpled at Steve's neck, and then Danny's whole set had faded. That maybe there were reasons why it shouldn't or it didn't and why it wasn't and it hadn't since. Grace, and Five-0, and the general rest of the too opinionated world.

That things above board hadn't been brooked once since. Not on either side since they vanished. Even before leaving.

"But, me?" Steve asked, whisper quiet, dark and low, breath falling against Danny's lips as his mouth was turning into a sharp smirk, the edges of his eyes crinkling. "I think you like it."

After all, wasn't that every thing else they'd said already, here, too? It wasn't. They shouldn't. He didn't.

There were rules. But that didn't mean you couldn't f eel it. Couldn't still want it.



"I think it's exactly what you want." Which had Steve tipping Danny's chin again, and kissing him, deeply.

[haole_cop]

"You obviously have some control left, if you can keep talking."

Jesus fucking Christ on a pogo stick, he really is the most aggravating person Danny's ever met, makes Danny want to snap at him even now, even when he's pushing into Steve's hands and rolling closer, wanting Steve pressed flush against him, all lean long six feet of him, every infuriating inch that Danny alternately wants to burn down or shut in a corner so Steve can think about what he's done.

Because Danny was fine before he met Steve. In that way where fine meant he hated everything and everyone, never got close to a single person other than Gracie and, eventually, Meka. Hating Hawaii, and Rachel, and HPD, and not knowing the language and digging in his heels to make sure he never did. Hating Steve more than any of it, all of it. Until one day he wasn't hating Steve anymore, one day Steve was his best friend and the person Danny trusts most in the world and now --

And now Steve is teasing him with fingers and mouth and stupid, smug words, pointing out the fact that Danny clearly lost it long ago, and, okay, he probably has a point, but Danny's certainly not going to give it to him that easily.

He's gone crazy. Steve makes him crazy. Making him want to rip those rules to shreds, the ones that say they shouldn't, can't, be here. That they both know exist. And he should listen to them, but all that thought does is spark a sudden, deeply horrified thought that maybe Steve will listen to them, that maybe that's how this is going to go, cut off even before they get anywhere, which is insane, which only goes to show that, yes, he has actually lost his mind.

He doesn't care. It makes him press up into this kiss, palm sliding heavy up the back of Steve's neck to his hair, down again, arm wrapping around Steve's waist and tugging him bodily closer. Steve's a big guy, but Danny can move him around, always has, has got zero issue with getting in Steve's way and putting him exactly where Danny thinks he should be, which is usually further from some poor scared sucker of a witness than Steve likes.

Hauling him further onto him, and, yeah. Okay? Yeah. Words dark and muttered low into Steve's mouth.

"Oh yeah? You know what I want, huh, Steve?"

He's idiotic. He's giddy. It's gone straight to his head like thirty year old Scotch, and he's pretty sure Steve could answer that question, challenge, dare, with just about anything, and it would be right, because it would be Steve, Steve, Steve. Name tight and winded, pressed into the single drowning breath before he kisses him, again.

[thebesteverseen]

He's being pulled at and shoved, and the last thing Steve's about to do, even when he's trying not to laugh at the irritating making sharp edges out of all of Danny's words, is not follow. God. Like there's any way he'd move anywhere else. Anything else in the world, the universe, needed more than following those hands. Being drug so that he's covering even more of Danny, laying on top of him.

Unable to keep a groan from slipping through his lips, into Danny's mouth. Because he might have been fine with just driving home the damn point, but Danny would not be. And his own body is making it stunningly clear, especially when he's manhandled like he's anything smaller and easier moved than he is, that it really likes all of this. Which is not a surprise. But it still has his back arch, stomach muscles all crunching tight, grinding down into Danny at a flash of actually unexpected sparks.

"Yeah," Steve shot back. Not a single second's hesitation for Danny's question, that wasn't taken up in kissing Danny.

In driving the man's head into the pillow, by a handful of hair, or into the bed with the hand at his hip still. Before he slid his face, like he couldn't get close enough. Didn't want a single inch between his mouth and Danny's ear. Like Danny could possibly miss it. Even from five inches away.

When Steve barely permits the one in the smoldering, golden, doubtlessness of, "Me."

Every bit of him. Somehow. No matter how crazy, beyond of control, it is and he is and they get. Danny keeps saying it.
Keeps dragging him in, and pushing him further, harder, higher. Always meeting him and giving him just as much, too.

[haole_cop]

"Look at that, you're getting it."

As if it isn't obvious. As if he hasn't been saying so since the first day. In words, touches, looks. The way every now and again he honestly can't take his eyes off Steve, even when he's not doing anything particularly interesting. Even if he's just sitting at his desk, or on his couch, or driving the car, or drinking a beer or one of those horrifying green shakes he's so fond of.

Snagged on him. Stopped dead in the middle of whatever he was saying or doing to wonder what the hell is wrong with the way he thought the world works, that he somehow gets this. Gets Steve. No matter how soon or how ugly the end might be, he has him, right now. In bed. Whispering that words into his ear, with absolute confidence. So fucking beautiful it takes Danny's breath away, which is a lot more appealing in movies and music than it in real life, when it means a sudden sharp crack in his chest, the inability to catch any air at all.

Not that it matters, when Steve just steals it again.

Or when Danny tips his head to the side, and drags Steve back up from his ear to find his mouth, because he's sick of talking. Yes. Even him. There are times. Times to swallow words he's already got lining up to be let out, because Steve is a lunatic and it's dangerous to give him too much free rein, but at this point, the car is already sailing off the cliff, so he might as well go ahead and set it on fire.

[thebesteverseen]

He really doesn't have long to look smacked over with smug, because Danny's not giving him the time. Words. Words, come out, a little biting and just enough edged with humor, like Steve was a child who might have announced the sky was blue. And maybe that goes to his head, too. Flippant, sharp and amazed. Because really, Danny being so completely on level fine with the reference still makes his heart race faster.

Something he can barely think about either, when Danny's face is turning and he's being drug, over, back up. Direction doesn't even seem to matter, or exist anymore. It's just finding Danny's mouth, and meeting the kiss that's gone looking for him. This touch that feels at once like a reckless challenge, and vicious surrender. Nothing easy in them. Maybe on the outside. When this, this entire push and shove, bark and bite, taunting and teasing, thing feels like the easiest thing in the world.

Feels like the single, one and only, thing he doesn't have to fight. Doesn't have to struggle to feel real, keep breathing, his head over water.

When he doesn't think, it happens in the space of breathing. The whole world falling away on the taste of Danny's skin. The movement of his lips. The ways his fingers always find their way into Danny's hair. The way he can never, may never, get enough of the feel of Danny's hands captured from the air, plastered on his skin. Like for the first time in his life there isn't enough of it. His skin, his body. Usually too much, and too tall, and perfect for slamming into things, but careful else wise. Compact unless he's at ease.

Like Danny might find all of it and keep going, elsewhere, once its done. Insane, feverish thoughts. When he can't get over the smallest space of Danny. The sound of him breathing. The feeling of his stomach muscles under the hand Steve has drifting between his hip and his side. Like there could never, never, be enough hours in a day, a weekend, a month to memorize all of it. All of him.

[haole_cop]

Apparently that's good enough, or distracting enough, because Steve drops the act and the words and stops taunting Danny only to set about burning down the room around them, the bed underneath them. Letting himself be hauled onto Danny, while Danny's leg bends at the knee, brackets him in, leaning hard against Steve's leg. Danny's arm tight around the back of his waist. Meeting that kiss like a goddamn landslide, threatening to bury Danny under it all, and, Christ, he wouldn't care. Would be happy to let it happen, because he never wants to leave this spot, okay.

Whether Steve is attempting to shatter him, or drag Danny's lungs right out through snapped ribs, or muffling him into the mattress, or not. He likes it here. Said so.

Here is where Steve's hand is flat against his stomach, making Danny's muscles contract, hard, against his touch, like they've been zapped with a jolt. Back arching, shoving shoulders down, torso up. Against Steve's weight. And he'd like to keep his eyes open to watch all this, to make sure it's happening, but he can't, because Steve's mouth is destroying him and building him right back up again, brick by broken brick. Wanting him. Even against the rules.

Danny has never been so glad Steve has never met a rule in the time he's known him that hasn't been left crumpled and cracked open on the wayside.

It's a lie that there's nothing left to say. There's plenty. All about how he still isn't this kind of girl, Steve, only, it appears he is. Falling back into bed, the most complicated bed there is, right here, again. With zero plans to stop it before it stops on its own. And about how Steve should really rethink this Viking mentality, okay, Danny is not a village to be burned and pillaged and sacrificed to whatever horrifying three-faced god or deity that allows Steve to pull the shit he pulls with barely a scratch here and there.

But it just comes out as Steve, Steve, tiny and damaged against Steve's mouth, a fucking litany, like he still can't believe it, even with proof in his hands, pushing against his body, setting off, huh, sparklers in his eyes.

Not the kind to do damage, though. Which, that really was just sick.

[thebesteverseen]

For a smaller, if deceptively stocky, man, Danny has a pretty constant habit for locking him into a place. Or at least doing his best to throw all of himself at it, or the idea of it. Any other time or place or person in his life, Steve's pretty sure he would have a few more issues with it. But here, now, all he wants to wrap Danny around himself, or vice-versa, and never resurface. What would be the point. Why should they.

The world could keep from trying to poison and kill itself for a few days, right?

So that he could give into this. Not just a few hours. Feeling like he's stealing each second from the sun. Both the one that set and the one getting closer with each passing minute. When Danny's been gone, or he was, or the world, in its many facet's was trying shake apart in their hands. So that Friday is a blur, and most of the weekend, aside from Cath's laugh, and her shock, and the hellish endless day, comprising many days without sleep, in the week before it.

Back to nearly the beginning of last week. Or maybe right before the beginning. Which is insane. That one can't still be the first weekend, and they can't have lost this whole week. Lost the chance to even note it was still here, because they weren't, hadn't been. Here. Got caught up in so much else going on out there. But it is. It's already gone. With every single jagged bite it took out of every obvious and not-so-obvious place already.

It's almost possible to forget it entirely, when Danny's got his leg curl over the backs of his, and he's got an arm almost like a bar against Steve's back. Holding him there. Again. Like Steve had plans on getting up and go anywhere else, doing anything, anyone, else.

Like he's even capable of doing anything but feeling the burn in his chest, through his lungs, as Danny surges up against his like a wave. Danny straining up into him, muscles and ribs, and the loud, thundering race of Danny's heart, pressing into Steve's own chest. Before the words come, breaking on his lips, his teeth, and his tongue, and Steve still feels like it's insane Danny doesn't get it. The power he has in a single word. Set of syllables he's heard all his life.

Tripping and escaping, fast off Danny's mouth into his, with the force of a shovel pummeling the back of Steve's head.

When he doesn't know which perverse part of his braincells left clinging on has him whispering, "Breathe, Babe."