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]

The coolness isn't entirely unexpected. Nor the way her lips thin, now and again, when she looks at him. When.

Because if anything she's looking more at Danny, even if they all seems to be torn between who exactly to be looking or not looking at. But it's not unexpected when she looks at him, sharp and discerning, after his joke. He's pretty sure whatever figured itself out between them over yesterday and today, already saw itself out. Right around the first time Danny did.

Lingering in her gaze, the ways her eyes narrow for just a moment, full of this thing he didn't say out loud. Never told her. Because Danny actually did that part. Which he hadn't anticipated happening, or had any sort of game plan ready for. If anything he was going to get around to figuring out what the answers to those question that side checked him suddenly were on Danny's part. At some point. Sometime. That hadn't even been a must for tonight or tomorrow.

Instead it was all laid out, face up, like cards on the island separating all of them into different kitchen quadrants.

The one that still blurs everything. He's had both of them in this room at one point or another. More than once. The memory of her laughter everywhere. Of Danny making that face. Standing there, tonight, chopping vegetables. The number of meals cooked here by his mother, his parents together, when he was too young to know things could be different than they'd always been. His father or him or Mary getting underfoot and being sent away, or conscripted to help.

He hears the words, the way she tips toward Danny, figuratively, with her very to-the-point blunt words. Confiding in way that seems to both comfort and startle Danny, but in a way that, really, is all Cath. Everything is always on the surface with her. He isn't really surprised, he isn't, when her last words there, words he doesn't know if are gracefully bowing out or just fleeing the room, the house, all of this, as calmly as possible, are for him.

That they sound like a question, but they aren't one, at least as much as they ever are. But he nods, saying, "Sure."

Standing up from where he was leaning and giving Danny a short look more than any words, like there's was some need to imprint upon him, standing there still toying with the beer between his hands as what seemed his one safe focal point, that he was coming back. Like there could ever be a question to it. Even if the words never actually leave Steve's head, never even touch his throat or his mouth.

Before he's holding a hand out, still polite, if more edge-worn again, for ladies first, even in the kitchen, -- but especially because somehow, for some reason, she's still going easy on this all so far -- and then following her out from both the kitchen and Danny, aware it might actually only extend to being that way in Danny's presence.

[gonna_owe_me]

Danny doesn't follow, and she didn't think he would. He looks uncomfortable enough already, and she's willing to bet Steve was the one who dragged him back in the house to begin with. Standing there, looking like the counter he's leaning on is giving him an allergic reaction that he's trying not to show.

It's fine. She doesn't know what to say to him right now, anyway, thought there's a tiny part of her that wants to pat him on the shoulder and commiserate, because Steve is a handful and the people who care about him can get put through the wringer. Something she could say, as someone who's cared about him for years, even past the point of worrying when he disappears for extended periods of time. He's always made it back in one piece, after all. Is trained to do the sorts of things even plenty of the military never sees.

Still. She certainly sympathizes.

None of it plays across her face when she takes that invite and heads into the living room to grab her tote, though. Slinging it over her shoulder, finding flip flops and sliding her toes into them, before looking back up at Steve and tucking her hair back behind her ear. "I'd say be careful, but I know better than to think you might actually be," she says, without preamble. Straightforward, looking at him dead on with that same mix of concern and exasperation and faint disapproval that she just can't get rid of. She's got nothing against Danny. It's not him, personally, she disapproves of. He seems like a great guy, cares about his kid, a good cop and partner.

It doesn't matter how much she likes him or would approve under any other circumstances. These are the ones Steve's blundered into, and these are the ones he'll have to deal with.

Still, she softens, slightly, and stops at the door to reach up and give him a brief hug, arm looping around his neck, taking a second without giving in to the weak impulse to close her eyes, tuck her face into the crook of his neck, breathe him in. Unwilling to give that knot in her stomach that's already missing him any further ammunition.

It's fine. With them, at least. It always is.

It's him she's worried about.

She settles back on her feet, eyes finding his face again, dark and sober and a little sharp, still, the softness a momentary lapse, now almost stern. "We are not done talking about this." A reminder, in case he might try to get out of it, like she knows he will, before she reaches for the door. "See you later."

[thebesteverseen]

The wait isn't all that long, and it's not even all that far away from the kitchen and Danny. Somehow in the mix of this, in less than minutes, it already feels odd to have left both of them behind to talk to the other somewhere else. Which is just strange, like a disjointed little alarm, that leaves him unable to actually focus one place and one person at one time. Not helped by the fact each of them is talking about the other.

About the whole of this situation, escalating to a mini-implosion instead of anyway he would have chosen.

He can't even be annoyed at her first words. They don't them words when it actually matters, and he's not surprised she waited until this moment. Not in front of Danny, who she knows, but not well, and who already looks like someone kicked him five times too many and too hard, like being swallowed by the floor is even more grace than he'd be allowed to have at this point now.

But even more so, Danny isn't her problem. He'd say friend. But he's sure the term actually is problem.

Given the pointed looks and the way she's still holding herself. Which he knows has more to do with holding herself back, against a nearly overwhelming opinion and reaction, both still going on. Something managed in everything but that first second after the door slammed, when it was white-washed straight across all of her. Impossible but happening right in front of her. Falling out of her mouth loud and sharp and begging a denial no word could stop.

There is no real defense for first ones, because she's right. He knew what he was he was doing. He knew what he wasn't doing for the last year. He still made the choice to say those words and pull Danny in and kiss him, instead of sending him away and saying all the official words that never even came waltzing into his brain during that second. He knows, and mostly just trailed after her, toward the door, without a defense. Because there wasn't a point in pretending one.

What he isn't expecting is the almost reluctant softness that fills her face before she's reaching up to hug him -- and that she is, at all -- even though his hands fill in. Cross over her back and her waist, with a heavy huff, he didn't mean to let out, going through her hair. Because she's still right here. For a moment, even. Softness pressed all across him, hands and arm tight enough around his neck he can't even begin to guess what all is going on in there.

Just holds on, and tries not to feel very suddenly, above and beyond, selfish that he's glad she does know, and, all pointed looks and cool demeanor aside, is still here. In his arms. Smelling a mixture of his shampoo and her suntan lotion and something softer, that is only her. Even when she's stepping back, disapproval trying to run rough shod over everything else that had been there for a second as she pulled back.

Maybe that's all part of it, too. Knowing they're going to be fine. Even if she doesn't approve. That she's allowed to have her opinion, and at some point he's going to have to -- which is, of course, when she says that. Which shouldn't make one side of his mouth and cheek almost twitch. He's pretty sure she wouldn't appreciate the amusement at the irony or at being right. Since he's most certainly choosing wrong according to every book and each of her frustrated looks.

"Yeah." He knows. Not enough according to the way she's looking at him. But he does. So, he nods. Barely. A clipped, short thing, when he's reaching out to get the door, but not leaning toward or away from it at all. Stationary. "Call whenever you know what your next few weeks look like."

If he isn't busy -- or avoiding it, which it's only like half a chance, right? It's not like he ever puts her off forever. Just cases, and planes, and unexpected things, make it a few days more often than not after the call or message, like it was last week -- he'll get right on that. Setting up a time when she can warn him, as loud and annoyed and close to yelling as she ever really gets, to her hearts' content.

When Danny isn't waiting, alone, in his kitchen. Thinking God know's what at this point. Tonight. Already.

It's still like a zip cord pulling him back and forth. Danny thinking he would, when Steve hadn't even considered until now how much that was true. Not when they were so different, when neither of them could really fill the shoes of the other. They were too different. Too completely different. They meant different things. Did different things. And even if she was mad, or whatever she would call this?

Steve leaned on the door, letting her get maybe five or six feet, before he's dragging it out. Words he might not any other time. Maybe because this is, today, this weekend, isn't like any other time. As much as he and she and they keep pretending it is, too. Like it has comparisons, like it's the same as anything else, especially now that it's all out. "Hey, Cath?"

He only waits for the half-beat, vaguely started turn to look back, before he plunges on. "I'm still glad you came. It was a good weekend." Even if she didn't know and does now. Because she isn't the stand-in for Danny, anymore than he could be for her, and even if it was a crappy, shit-weekend in comparison to more than a couple dozen others they had, it was better than anything he'd ever have gotten up to on his own. Especially after last week.

And that? That was true of every single time he saw her, no matter the year or month or events going on.

[haole_cop]

Cath bites the bullet and leaves, trailing with her the kind of grace that exists even outside her blunt words and awkward silences. He guesses he's grateful for it, somewhere, distantly, but the truth is, she shouldn't have to leave at all. Steve should have let him go home, he shouldn't have come by, shouldn't have let shock drive him back out immediately. Shouldn't have -- well, maybe a lot of things.

But he did, and here he is, alone in Steve's kitchen, determined to not listen to whatever the quiet words being said in the other room are, staring at his bottle of beer and considering the wisdom of tossing it out and looking for something stronger.

He's really not sure when the last time was that he felt like such an unbelievable dick. Not sure when the last time was that he would honestly prefer being swallowed by the floor, when he's sort of hoping that his phone rings and he'll have to go work, or argue with Rachel, or discuss homework problems with Grace, because anything beats standing here, feeling like this.

When he has no right. Has no right to tell Steve what to do or not. They never discussed that. Never decided anything. Has no right to let jealousy and sick surprise override his sanity and drop him off a ledge.

But there's no good way to get out of this maze he's locked himself in, now. Still unsure what to believe, while determined that it shouldn't matter what he believes, Steve's a grown man, he can make his own decisions. And now Cath knows, because Danny let her in on it, and that's a whole other problem he doesn't know how to even glance at yet, because he's got no idea what Steve does or doesn't want to be telling anyone. He certainly didn't explain to Kono and Chin where those marks on Danny's neck came from, and he'd always kept whatever he had with Catherine below the radar. And that's. Fine. He knew that about Steve. Has always known that about Steve.

So he shouldn't be standing here, feeling sick. He shouldn't be feeling punched, or raw. Shouldn't be wondering about what's happening in the other room, because if it turned out that the two of them were going to put things back to normal, it might even be the better outcome of all the ones now available. When the whole idea makes him weary, and resigned, and it hurts, a dull throb in his temples and under his breastbone, but it would at least dump him off this ride in a place he recognized. Just get it done with. He should, possibly, tell Steve that's what he should do. When it's always going to end up with that feeling of closing the door and walking away, and there's no escaping it, no matter how many weeks they manage to make it through.

The Longboard tastes sour and he picks at the label without drinking it. Embarrassed and tired and he's really not looking forward to getting reamed out, even if it's deserved. Unsure why Steve told him to stay, when all it's done is made Catherine leave, in a flurry of weirdness and a door quietly closing in the other room, leaving the house quiet.

He should go. Right? He should sit down and take a long hard look at himself, at what this did to him, at exactly how screwed he is because one look was enough to crack open all those fractures that have been cautiously sealed back up since last year. Like Steve needs this, now, this week. When he needs his friends, and not Danny having a panic attack in his front yard and putting too much on him that Steve never asked for.

It actually doesn't feel unlike that first day. Steve in the living room. Danny here, feeling like he's about to face the firing squad. He's not sure he can head to it, this time, but it's not like waiting here is going to help anything. If the only thing he can do is take responsibility, he can do that, still.

Which leads him to prying off the counter and heading towards the living room, measured steps and caution, and the feeling that he can still look this in the eye, if he has to. No matter how reluctant he is to watch it strain or fall apart.

[thebesteverseen]

There's a weary kind of relief when the door closes, with the kind of response and firmer goodbye that says compliments won't get him anywhere and he's not getting out of this. Not that he's trying. Which he knows will be her point eventually. He's not trying to get out of this. If he was, he wouldn't have stopped her. He would have just given in and done a bang-up job of proving it didn't matter.

So, it matters. The door clicking, and the empty, hollowness, stuff up the silence of his house. When he's looking at the room. Tired of all the other things it tugs at him over. The way it looks all the same. To everyone, here, except him. When that hasn't changed, but everything has changed. He flipped the locks on the door, having no idea if they'd stay that way or be flipped back and Danny'd be headed that way soon, too.

Which, apparently, it isn't too early to wonder when he turns around to find Danny walking out of the kitchen. Slow, methodical, beer still there in his hand -- making Steve want one himself, or something else; definitely something else, but a beer would be a good place to start and a smarter place to stop, given they have work tomorrow. When he wants to wonder if Danny was listening at the door, waiting to come out.

But what he really can't stop is the way his brow knits, at Danny looking so slumped, while his own mind is slammed with the heaviness that's still clouding up his chest. Because he might believe have thought too many times already he wasn't good enough for Danny, didn't have enough to offer Danny, for what he knew of Danny and what Danny wanted or needed, if he could ever even figure out how to offer it or even try to reach the smallest percent of that.

It was a wholly different thing to stare at Danny wondering if the whole point was that his partner, his best friend, believed that, too.

About him. About what he'd do the moment Danny wasn't there. Why did it matter, then? Why the sudden panic on the lanai last week? Why all the slowly pieced together words on his walk that feels seconds ago? Did it matter? Did Danny want to get out of here, just as quickly as Cath had? Did he even want there to be anything left, under the circle of his finger, still echoing on Steve's skin, and the Jesus, I believe you that did not actually touch the point.

Or really sound like Danny believed him much at all. Especially if this was all in there, before now.

Things that big, didn't just vanish in seconds, after a few words were thrown at them, right?

It's all there. All there, jostling with the part of him that is exasperatedly exhausted already at the look Danny has, like he's already been rolled over by a truck, or a mountain. Like there's no light there, just a matching heavy weight, guilt and embarrassment, an awkward lack of wanting to be here, anywhere near Steve. He almost hates how badly he just wants to wipe that off Danny's face.

To not give a damn what all of this says about himself, or Danny's assumptions, that all of it could say anything still, weeks after that year snapped into a reverie he can't even explain, if he could just find a way to make all of that leave Danny's face first. He could handle the rest. He'd handled everything else. This week. This last few months. This whole year. He could take this, too, if he had to.

But maybe not the silence in this room. This room already full of too much in all it's silences and ghosts and memories.

It's still middle of the rung, still as relieved as it is sort of rough, when he just tips his head, saying, "Hey."
Not in the least comfort by how much easier his chest feels just seeing Danny, here, in his house, still.

[haole_cop]

There's no getting around it: he acted like an asshole and he deserves, at the very least, for Steve to yell at him about it. For giving up whatever details Steve implied Cath got in the last fifteen minutes or however long it's been, off of Danny's face and Steve's reaction. He wouldn't be surprised if Steve shoved him out of the house and told him to cool off until he can deal with this without freaking out and shattering at the thought that somehow, in two days, Steve slipped right through his fingers.

Except he didn't. Right? He's still here, got actively angry at the idea that Danny thought he'd done anything. Whatever might screw with this thing that isn't a joke to him. Danny's still not sure that actually lays down any ground rules, but Steve was adamant about it and more than a little insulted, so he does, actually believe him. That he told Catherine he couldn't.

It just keeps reading as an error message. That isn't what other people say, regarding him. That is what people tell him. Like Rachel, on the few occasions she replied to any of those desperate messages. Telling him she couldn't, had to make it work with Stan.

So the thought that Steve would say that, do it, pick him over Catherine, just doesn't read right. It's like a skipping record, continually jumping over that spot with every spin inside his skull. Even now, when Cath is gone, and that just makes him feel guiltier. Making a hand lift to scratch at the corner of his eyebrow, rub a fingertip into his temple and find something to say, some response to Steve's one-word greeting and the way he's standing at the door, looking wired and tense and just as tired as he did yesterday morning, when he already had more to deal with than anyone should have, without adding Danny's bullshit to the mix.

That hand dropping, to wave a little haphazardly. "Sorry Catherine, uh, beat it. And, you know, for swarming your kitchen with awkwardness. I promise that was not my intention when I drove over here."

He is, too. Legitimately sorry. If anyone had to leave in a haze of awkwardness, it really should have been him. No matter how much, just walking into this room and seeing Steve, he wants to stay. Facing the music or not.

[thebesteverseen]

His house is full of momentary standoff's. When his single would plunks down in the middle of the silence like a heavy coin hitting water solidly, before it vanishes entirely, eaten by the same water it hit. That's how it feels at least. Like it came out, sounded for a second, and without an echo even, gotten by the room.

By the look on Danny's face. How his entire reaction is this helpless section of movements. Rubbing at his face again. His eyes, his temple, looking like he has not a single clue in hell what to even say to Steve's stupid one-word greeting. Like he hasn't been here a while already. Like greetings of any kind weren't torched under the flood boards a while back, and Steve's just choosing to ignore it.

Until he does open his mouth, and Danny's voice fills part of that silence everywhere. Skipping any response and going right back to what plastered across his entire expression. Apologizing for Catherine, who could hold her own against sailors, but wasn't much a fan of awkward drama. Or him burning the rulebook he never burned unless it was for saving someone's life. Now.

Steve's eyebrows lifted, sharp and direct in the tired look he's giving Danny, without even making the gesture to get much further form the door than one, two, maybe, three steps. "Which was?"

Because maybe it's cruel. But he thought he knew.

He thought he knew, when Danny stepped in the door, still in a t-shirt and those blue jeans, the ones still on him now, that Steve has not seen Danny anywhere near enough times to fill the count on one hand. That meant he must have come, without even going home, right? When Steve was barely halfway into the surprise of getting to see Danny anytime before tomorrow morning, all the way into forgetting there was anyone sitting by him, before it pulverized by on the look on Danny face and he ran away.

[haole_cop]

His hand drops to the back of his neck, the other still holding that beer bottle, and he wishes it weren't there, so he could stuff the other into his pocket, because they feel empty, and they are both itching for -- what, to move? Or to find Steve, his wrist or arm or back, some part of him, solid and warmer than the current tone in his voice. Like Danny is too much to deal with right now, but he's going to, anyway, because Danny is making him.

Which is pretty true, so he can't begrudge the guy that.

Still, the answer to that question is, he thinks, pretty self-explanatory. He'd hated leaving Steve on Saturday, spent the weekend wondering how he was doing, and came over as soon as he could, like that could possibly make up for leaving him alone at the worst possible time.

Not that he regrets a single second with Grace. Not that he ever could. He just wishes that, this weekend, of all weekends, he didn't have to choose between them, could have somehow managed both. His hand drops, and he presses a nearly sharp breath out of his nose. "To see you, obviously. This weekend was going to suck and I felt bad I had to go and leave you alone, so I came back once I dropped off Grace."

To find that Steve wasn't alone. Which is a good thing, now that he can actually think about it, now that he's not taking Catherine's presence as an underlined clue that he was no longer needed or wanted. That there was no reason for him to bother.

But he had. Is still dressed in these stupid jeans and t-shirt because he hadn't bothered to stop at home on the way, because the beat of Steve Steve Steve was in his blood and breath and every thought past already missing Grace. "I need a reason?"

[thebesteverseen]

All of Danny words. He can tick them off. From the face on yesterday morning. Things he knew, even if he hadn't known Danny would come back right away. Hadn't ever consider we would, wanted to, might. But it's the last sentence that sticks like a burr into the space where his shoulders had almost dropping a little for Danny's first words.

"Yeah, Danny," Is annoyed, and it actually comes out slightly patronized, without any hedging moment to even consider or think about the question, or the answer. "I think you do. Especially if it takes all of -- what? two seconds? -- for it to vanish."

Which is unfair, and he's knows its unfair when it's left his mouth.

Because Danny was on the walk, when Steve had gotten the door open, but he wasn't leaving. He didn't even look like he had it in him to figure out how to leave. Like it had taken everything out of him to grab the door, vanish through it, and let it slam shut behind him. Before everything else in his will fled him for parts unknown.

But it's really no more unfair that walking into his house and fleeing without letting Steve even get a word out, without asking, without anything but assuming the very worst of him, like that was what Danny knew to expect from him. After all of these years. And. Fine. Fine.

He might not have some comfortable record for Danny to hold up in his hands, or esteem. But he wasn't that either.

[haole_cop]

"Oh, you're saying it should have taken longer?"

Now his hand is seesawing back and forth, traveling in a line across his body, extending out towards Steve. Like he needs the momentum to find words, and maybe he does, because they keep rolling, stung into self-defense by that tone, and, okay, he gets it, he is not easy, he is difficult to deal with and always has been, but that hurts. The patronization. Like now that the first fear is gone, Steve's slid straight into disdain. Like it shouldn't have mattered.

"So you think if I came back because I felt bad that you were alone all weekend, and found out that not only were you not alone, but you looked pretty cheerful and were with someone you routinely slept with, for years, I should have just let that roll and come joined you two on the couch? It didn't really look like I was needed. You seemed to be doing just fine, so what does it matter why I came or why leaving, then," his hand is slicing now, fingers rigid, moving faster to section the air in front of his torso, "seemed like the better idea?"

He's staring at Steve, feeling more defensive than ever, and also like a train is bearing down on him so he might as well just jump off the bridge.

"Okay? You are the reason I came, end of story. What the hell other reason would I have to come here instead of go home?"

[thebesteverseen]

Because it matters. Because it matter more than everything else. And all the rest of the words.

It matters more than his leaving and not leaving, and Cath leaving, and the way Steve still hasn't left being a handful of feet inside the door, almost like he's blocking the door and any chance of Danny following her, a second time, without having thought or considered doing so. There are so many words, and too many thoughts.

Because he gets it, even if Cath really is just an old, good friend, and even if they are close, even if the sex is great, and they've known each other, what feels like, forever, it's never been more than that. Not even when she very clearly, but not forcefully, wanted it to be. Which hasn't been for a long number of years, now. It's been fun, but comfortable. Easy.

The way this isn't.

The way this trips up Steve's feet, like he's got his own pair of cement shoes and he can't help shocking and disappointing Cath, or shocking and -- and, he doesn't even know what word encompasses whatever all of that, all of what was on Danny's face, the coming and going -- to Danny. Who, at least, seems to have found his mouth, and that readily available current of angry, defensive words always in there.

"Well, I'm still here," is abjectly pointless on his tongue, even when it's what comes out. Because he is.

"I've been here almost the whole time." The whole weekend. Not counting the the Steps, the hospital, and the Wind Cliffs.

Right here. Waiting for this weekend to end. Not saying a damn thing specifically about Danny, until he was sure. Which he has no idea if was pointless, or what this even looks like to Cath now. When on the other side of professional annihilation, where he'd said it was really great, the first example she has of that is now...this.

[haole_cop]

"Well, that makes sense, because this is your house."

Steve's still standing by the door, looking like a bouncer as much as anything. Not actively threatening, but there's a low-level grim cloud hanging around him, collecting near his shoulders, that makes Danny think that trying to get out that door would be an exercise in futility, and maybe result in a scuffle. "Or is your point that you're here and therefore my reason has not actually been invalidated?"

He's watching, eyebrows lifting, hand still lifted and still in motion, while the one holding his beer joins it, a little less fervent but certainly not lacking in energy.

"Maybe it's that you think I should have stayed, even though I personally think it is painfully clear that would easily have been the worst possible scenario. You know, I realize that was poor behavior on my part, and I'm sorry about it, okay, but I seriously doubt sticking around would have improved matters."

It could only have made them worse. Trying to wrap his mind around Catherine being there, and wondering how long she'd been visiting. Just today? Since yesterday? Before even getting anywhere near the heart-freezing question of whether anything happened between the two of them.

Whether he has a right to wonder or not is moot. He would. Anyway.

[thebesteverseen]

He's moving, a lot, and talking, a lot, and mostly what Steven is hearing is prevaricating, and noise.

It's at least from the person he expects both things from. But the whole point is that it's words he should be paying attention, poked a hole toward Danny to get, and they aren't. He doesn't. Danny doesn't seem to.

Steve just let his brows raise, just enough. Not pointed, but a point. Taking his words very carefully, maybe like it was nothing more than ante, a card dropped on a table, trying to hold still, more held back than revealed, and far less than a damning confession that at least one person in the house, well, not in the house anymore, had at least caught on to.


"Even if I wanted you here." More than he cared. About the mess. About the running. About Cath knowing.

[haole_cop]

"Nobody would want me here then."

It's not a question. It's a moot point whether Steve would have wanted him here, because nobody would. It's something he's come to terms with, being the person who is always barging in, being too loud and obnoxious and pissing everyone else off. And Cath, she is easy to deal with. She is uncomplicated, and everything Steve knows and likes, maybe the only chunk of his past that isn't drenched in tragedy. Nobody has to deal with Cath the way they have to deal with Danny, and he knows that and he gets it, but he's never been anything but abrasive, yelling at the world that never listens to him.

It isn't something to add to the equation, it's a theoretical that doesn't exist.

And if he thought Steve had...

Well, he didn't. Because he doesn't. Because they looked fine and perfectly comfortable without him and he was only going to ruin that dynamic, probably quickly and conclusively.

[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.