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]

Maybe he breaks it down to small things. The feel of Danny's hair slipping through fingers, and the other hand that catches at his side, helping hold him while Danny's shifting his legs and Steve's finding a place for his own, to which the honest answer would be, is, anywhere that is not this couch. But Steve doesn't care. Kicks one leg over the arm of the couch and the other is sort hanging off, at a right angle, foot actually flat on the floor.

But he doesn't care when Danny's settling after figuring out his own.

When it's just his fingers against soft cotton, and the solid warm weight of Danny landing, slowly, heavily against him. Twinging his rib just enough he feels it. Not enough he cares, and nothing like the rest of him, in his head, being pushed slowly, steady back. Away. Against the feeling in those fingers. Warm heavy had on his throat, fingers against his ear. That every ounce of two decades training says snap to attention for, but he doesn't have to.

Against the taste of Danny's mouth, and that soft, low sound that seems to be heard by his ears but be amplified inside every corner of his chest. Like that one sound can paint the inside of him. All the things he's counting, like grains of sands in the palm of his hands, waves rolling in, stars appearing. Exact, details. Every sensation. Paid a more full, and specific, attention. While he lets that other thing put itself away.

In boxes of boxes somewhere else. Quiet, dark, slowly, painstakingly, further and further away for now.

Until he can summon it in himself, small lopsided quirk of his mouth, in one of those seconds when air suddenly seems necessary, to toss out. Well, up. Head resting at that angle on the arm rest looking at Danny, gorgeous and lighter, bright, making it so easy to keep his own expression easy, fingers rubbing along the muscles on one side of Danny's lower back. "You never did answer the question."

[haole_cop]

In no world is there actually room for them both on this couch, if they aren't sitting on it the way God and the makers of the thing intended, but it's not stopping Steve. He just unfolds, long legs shifting under Danny, hanging over two sides of the couch. Hand persistent on his side, his back, sending ripples of electric sensation over skin he hasn't even touched yet, which is unfair, and should be impossible. One hand sneaking under the hem of his shirt should never be able to shut him down so completely, send all focus to those few inches of skin and the fingers brushing over it.

But Steve lives in the world of the impossible, apparently even in this situation, so it's almost distracting enough to keep him from trying to figure out where the hell to put himself, here. Steve's bruises are old now and less painful, but that cracked rib can't possibly be healed yet, and he's trying to be careful, but that's the one thing Steve isn't, won't let him be, either. Not with his fingers sinking into Danny's hair and his mouth under Danny's lips, laying himself out like a rug and dragging Danny down to lie on him, until Danny's legs are sort of fitting themselves one on either side of the one Steve's still got mostly on the couch, and he's shifting up to be able to keep kissing him. One hand leaving Steve's face to brace against the arm of the couch as they slide down, before it leaves the leather and finds Steve's shoulder, fingers curving, sliding down to his chest.

And yeah. It's still sort of strange to think about, how wanting slim, small, soft curves turned into needing Steve instead, heavy lean muscle flexing under his touch, but it doesn't matter, it's a stupid distinction to make or care about. It's all just bodies anyway and Steve is warm and big and more comfortable than Danny would ever have guessed, and it's Steve, which is the important thing. Blinking open lazy blues eyes that catch at Danny's heart and squeeze it painfully, long lashes, slow easy smile, and those fingers, smudging prints into his skin.

He doesn't even try racking his brain for whatever Steve's talking about; it's long gone.

"Please repeat the question and I will attempt to answer it to my fullest ability."

[thebesteverseen]

He won't really be able to move around like this. It isn't that he's pinned. There are at least three or four different ways he could flip Danny off of him from right here, with only the leverage of a hand on the back of the couch. But he won't. And it's not all that bad, honestly. Danny laid out, figuring out where to balance, how to fit himself on the couch. The fact Danny probably would fit on this couch, while Steve is akimbo and overflowing on it when he's by himself, even falling asleep during a game.

Heavy warmth spreading over his chest as the faint whispers of discomfort fade from lack of attention, or from easy inundation. From the feel of Danny spread across him, almost like the blanket or a roll of heavy, heavy fog. Fingers finding their way to making sure all of him is still there, under Danny, in the right places. Across his shoulder, briefly brushing his bicep as it flees to run toward part of his chest. The way it continues to make him push-up, surging just a little up against that roaming touch.

The way it remakes his skin, grounds him back here. Not drifting away as everything else. Keeping him here, even if the rest of it fades a little. The thoughts, the walls in the rooms around him, the couch. On that crazy bright smile, like Danny thinks he's insane for the comment. And maybe he is. There isn't a chance in all the hells out there Danny has the smallest clue, now, what the hell just came out of his mouth.

The smile is so great, like his fingers, tracing down muscles in Danny's back can almost be touching that smile.

"Your weekend with Grace," Steve prompts, mouth warm and wide, smile turning cocky. Like he's proven he can think more than Danny. Remember more than Danny. Has muddled Danny's head more than Danny has done his. "You never said how it was."

Because good might have squeaked out in that moment of shock and terror tearing apart Danny first few seconds. One swallowed word, before he was gone, was not a answer from Danny. Steve didn't care at all that it had made sound, and from him it might even be a full answer. One word was never an answer from Danny Williams, and Steve wanted more of those. It was easier when he was going on.

Maybe it's a distraction. Even from something about Danny, himself. Danny's storm of words often are. Even from himself. But the question is honest, too. And he does wonder and want to know. How Grace is, whether there was an aquarium, if she knows about Rachel n' Stan, how she got him into the jeans and whether he can make that happen again under some kind of possible, similar circumstances.

[haole_cop]

"Oh, that question."

Not even asked by Steve. Asked by Catherine, accompanied by the kind of bright, easy smile that can only be found in the bliss of total ignorance, right before he bolted and that ignorance was shattered. Because not even Catherine, who knows Steve better than anyone, would think the person he was suddenly involved with was Danny. Why would she?

But it's not Cath asking now, it's Steve. Who pushed him out the door on Saturday morning and didn't even let him waffle about whether he should go or not, because Steve knows. Steve knows he always has to, not just because of this new mess, but because there is no time, not even after this hell of a week, that Danny can't go to her like a moth to a light. Not when he gets so few chances, and when just seeing her smile is like all the crap he pushes through every day gets airlifted away in a hot air balloon. "It was good."

He shifts a little, without really thinking about it. Hand lifting away from Steve's face, elbow sneaking between Steve and the couch back so he can rest his head on his palm and prop himself up. Other hand lifting from Steve's chest to gesture idly, before returning again. Lifting again. Returning. Forearm resting on the slope of muscle dipping from Steve's chest to his stomach. Settling more on his side, like Steve's not even on the couch, or is part of the couch, and Danny is getting comfortable to watch a game, or have a normal sort of talk. Thoughtless fingers toying with the fabric of Steve's shirt, watching them idly, without paying any real attention to them.

"We had fun. You know, aquarium. She loves the uh, the fishes. The more colorful, the better." Fingers flicking through the air, as he's remembering, like fins flicking through water. "I think she's about this far away from trying to feed them peanut butter sandwiches. You know, like in that movie. She was all..." Fingers spreading wide, smile spreading wide, just to think about it. "Plastered against the glass. I think, uh. I think Stanley is going to have to shell out for one of those fancy home aquariums."

It's barely even a jar, but it's there. Stan. Stan and his money. Stan and Vegas.

Stan who wasn't there all weekend, so screw Stan.

"We went out, had a nice dinner. God." His eyes focusing on something that isn't his hand on Steve's chest, isn't the room, this moment. Remembering Gracie sitting prim and proper at that table. Little purse hanging over her shoulder. The only concession to being a little girl still the shade of pink she picked to wear. "She's getting so big."

[thebesteverseen]

This is where Danny actually gets comfortable. Not hands all over him. Well. Okay. Hands still all over him. Because those hands don't stop moving almost ever. But he shifts and settles in a different way. Like it's not exactly Steve's body under him anymore, like the focus or remembering it is slips. Settling like he's laying on something. Like a board or a couch or a bed. Which somehow makes Steve mouth stay curled.

Fingers gently tracing the slope down the small of his back, only to go still when Danny starts talking. Not because he specifically wants to, but because he can't even think to be doing anything else. Having this so close, watching it splash across Danny's face. Bright as sunshine on the water, direct to the water. Not a golden molten lava fading at the end of the day, or that silver in the morning. That intense, blinding white when it catches hard and can even blind the best surfer.

Something you can't not see. Because it's everywhere and so much bigger than you could ever be.

Steve hasn't a clue what movie Danny's talking about but that's fine. Some kids' movie. Doesn't matter. Inconsequential detail beside the way Danny has lost him entirely. Laid out on top of him, shifting like Steve's just a cushion under him, looking through him to his most favorite place in the world. The way any tension in his face almost fades, like there's no way to fight it, keep it, in the face of Grace.

"You got a long time still." Steve says it because it's the first thought. She's young, and she's going to be young a lot longer than the next five minutes or five days. Before the thought of Vegas even appears seconds later. Doesn't make it any less true. Whatever happens. Danny's got years.

Steve fingers track down. Easy, economic move. Trace half a inch above the line of denim and skin, before tugging the top of the jeans between thumb pad and the side of his pointer finger, dragging out a smirk, and poking Danny for more. More of all of this, on that curve of his smile. "You're telling me you wore these to a nice dinner. Seriously? You hit your head on something?"

Steve loved it. He was pretty sure Danny meant yesterday about dinner. But he couldn't keep himself from the thought.

Every time Danny looked anything like he belonged here, like he might like it here, it needed ragging and dragging out a long while.

[haole_cop]

The thing about Vegas is that Vegas isn't just a faint possibility. It's not like Rachel trying to take him to court over the misguided apprehension that his job puts Grace in danger (even when it does, God, if he'd ever thought Peterson would come back and try to take him out, he might have signed that order himself). And Steve's right, that the battles over her will do nothing but hurt Grace, because she's old enough now to know what's going on, to not believe Danny and Rachel when they try to pretend everything is alright. She was there, too, last year, waiting at the airport to take that red-eye back to Newark.

And the bleak likelihood is that Rachel and her team of miserable attorneys will probably win. So Danny shouldn't be making any promises. Can't. Even more than usual. He can't control what might happen on the job -- a stray bullet could take him out in the blink of an eye. A car accident during a chase. Any number of situations gone wrong. But this could take him away without any sort of violence, with plenty of warning. Not from Grace.

From here. From Five-0. From Steve. From this.

He can't even say with any degree of accuracy he'll still be on the island in six months, because Steve's right about that, too, no matter how Danny declares he's not leaving, if Grace goes, he goes, too. He'd sworn he wasn't leaving Jersey, put his foot down, but then Stan said Hawaii and here they all are.

But it's not worth thinking about right now. It's not. It just means he can't do or say the things he would normally do or say, so that when Steve asks things like where does that leave us? he can't have the answer he'd want to give.

It hasn't happened yet. It might. It still could. But it isn't yet, so his attention comes back to this, this moment, lying here on Steve like he's an extension of the couch, when Steve doesn't seem to give a damn, is teasing Danny like normal, tugging on his jeans and smiling that crooked smirk that flips Danny's stomach over like a pancake.

"Don't be an idiot. Do you think my sartorial choices are that limited? Jeans are never appropriate for a nice dinner. They are barely appropriate for McDonald's. No. I did not, you Neanderthal. These are because we went to the park today and I did not happen to have any clean khakis, which, by the way, are my normal dress-down pants of choice, alright. Usable for work in a pinch, and they go with everything."

[thebesteverseen]

It's the best thing in the world. Like reaching up and fluffing all of Danny's hair the wrong way on accident. That second when he coils up, like all his hair was shifted, and launches. How the whole thing is a bodily coil and shift -- Steve can feel mapped across his legs, stomach, chest -- and then all the words come.

A storm of annoyed words tossed at his head like he must be an insane idiot. With the names, popping out in it.

Not that Danny could ever show up anywhere he considered "civilized" like this. Especially when Danny sounded so incredibly annoyed and disappointed in the world that he'd had to wear these jeans to a park. These ones. Right here. Where Steve first two fingers were following down the back center. A belt loop, before following the lines stitched at the bottom of where belt went.

Blue jeans on Danny. Such a novelty. Danny bitching about proper clothing. So not. But together, and on top of him. Laying this out with everything except a smack to Steve's chest or shoulder he has half certain almost might happen. It's perfect, then. Eyes and focus so very exacting, so lightly insulted. When Steve leans up, a little, aimed for grazing the side of his neck. When it's far more a chuckle, than it ends up being anything else being done by his lips first.

Golden warmth, of all of that, rolling out of his mouth, while his hands are spreading over Denim, thumbs tucking inside the waist, fingers spreading over his hips and holding Danny down against him. When the only word to even make it out, even gold is thick and heavy and comes out low, blackly amused mocking against the so fragile, so thin, so warm skin of Danny's throat. "Sartorial?"

[haole_cop]

He kind of misses the way Steve's fingertips were tracing down the sloping small of his back, callused but gentle against his skin, but not enough to not despair at Steve's lack of finesse when it comes to clothing options. A fact he'd point out, if Steve weren't also tipping up, slightly, towards the line of Danny's throat, where it's stretched by the way he's propping up his head on one hand. Warm breath pushing against skin, sending shivers racing goosebumps down the ladder of his spine. Darting like silvery minnows under his skin.

And Steve is toying with the jeans. Toying. Tracing the stitching like he's never seen a pair of Levi's before. Following the seam, carefully, as if he has no idea where it might lead. And saying that word against Danny's throat. Edging at him. Nudging him into a confused mixture of annoyance and desire swilling in a sudden bewildered storm in his head and chest.

"Yes, sartorial. Of or relating to clothes. What, I gotta buy you a dictionary, now?"

He tries. He does. But it comes out a little tight, a little wound, a protesting fishing line being tugged away by something under the water and pulling him along with it, no matter how he digs in his heels. There's no defense against this.

Then again, he's not sure he wants one. It's not like he isn't all in, already. Not like he could turn around now and decide he needs or could possibly use some kind of protection against Steve. It's way too late for that, and he can't even bring himself to care. Knows he should, but right now, with Steve's fingers studying the details of his jeans and Steve mocking him right into his own skin, it's a pretty good scene, all around.

His own fingers spread flat on Steve's chest, and he tries to pretend it doesn't look possessive, but in all honesty, he can't even convince himself it's not. "Just because you go everywhere in cargo pants and t-shirts doesn't mean the rest of the civilized world agrees that they are appropriate for every occasion."

[thebesteverseen]

He can not ever get enough of that. The way Danny keeps talking, because Danny will fall off a cliff before Danny will stop talking, but his tone changes. It clenches like the muscles in Danny's throat where his lips brushed. The muscles in his neck, down through the tops of his shoulders. As unable to keep his reaction to himself as he is to keep his words from being thrown out, even as they shatter in the air.

It moves like a ripple all its own, which makes Steve never wants to let go of Danny's jeans or his hips. A ripple of something that isn't quite a shiver, but still all the muscles tighten rolling down. Down Danny's spine, felt across his chest, into his muscles above his hips, where Steve feels it against his thumbs, fingers. He smiles, stupidly bright, heady with some great relief that he still can.

"They're very versatile," he said back. A snipe, but one laced with so much obvious amusement over Danny's own word problems.

Steve's glee almost to gloating, bright in his dark blue eyes, when Danny's hands are suddenly spreading wide, firm and proprietary, causing Steve to look up at him. Then to those hands, and back up to Danny's eyes, like he's calling him on it. Thick, solid, dependable on any gun, open across his shirt, across his shirt. Something he's starting to find on him more often, or at least as often as on any gun, Five-0 computer. Like they are right now. Like Danny knows this.

Like he knows he can. But, also, like he's not even thinking about. He's just claiming even more of Steve than he always had. Not content with a shoulder or wrist or arm. Catching him everywhere now. Sides of his face seconds ago, and now this, too. Not a thought. Just there, just because he can and wants to or needs to. Making it shove at Steve. The urge to turn them over, trace Danny's skin. Owning it, again. Prove he can, again.

Dive in. Trace the place Danny's heart is stuttering, the lower circle collar of his shirt, the spot of the very first bruise.

[haole_cop]

"No. Wrong. Just because you wear them everywhere does not mean that they are actually versatile. It's just that you happen to have a badge and a gun and people are inclined to let you come in anyway. They are not versatile. The word you're looking for is practical, which, for you, is a good thing, considering the amount of times you jump onto or off moving vehicles or rooftops on a weekly basis."

Steve doesn't look like he's paying attention, which, fair enough. Danny is on this particular rant at least once a week, maybe more often. But Steve is glancing at him, and then down to the hand spread over his chest, and back up again, and he's got this ridiculous, absurd, wide smile that makes Danny feel like he's been cracked against a countertop like an egg and now this gooey, messy center is getting everywhere.

Eyes flicking down to look at his own fingers, because Steve is giving him a look that's amused and knowing and a little expectant all at once, like he's waiting for Danny to catch on to what he's doing.

So Danny looks. He sees his hand spread against the thin cotton of Steve's shirt, arm bent and laying comfortably on Steve's chest and stomach. Fingers, thick and blunt and usually all too busy getting in someone's face, good on a gun, not always delicate or careful enough for other things. Spread wide, like he can take ownership of a few inches of Steve's skin, never mind the fact that he's lying on top of him, edged a little towards the back of the couch. "What?"

Nudging towards challenging, with a creasing smile at the corner of his eyes. A little lazy, a little lidded, as his other arm moves, curls loose against the armrest Steve's head is leaning against. Fingers barely lifting, just to tap against his chest like a reminder. "You don't like it?"

Not a chance. Not when Steve is looking at him like that. Not when Steve's fingers are still toying with the seam of his jeans, and Steve is smiling at him like there is nothing wrong with this picture at all.

[thebesteverseen]

When did this happen? When exactly did everything become just barely edging toward breathable, again?

Not this second, not Danny touching him. Being touched at all. When it had taken Cath and he almost the better part of that whole first afternoon and evening to realize they could still rag on each other, like normal. With occasional touches, but she still let him be. Was careful. Not to get too much in his face, or too close, when she was dragging him out of his head, again. For the newest second dozenth time.

Now. There's Danny. Laying out on him, warm and heavy, drug down there by him, like a blanket too small to actually cover him. Smile tugging even more free as he's looking at his own hands on Steve's chest. Not the smallest bit wary of Steve, or Steve's need for space, or Steve's ability to flip sometimes, too sharp, too short, too reactive, on a dime. And, God, how much he doesn't want that.

Almost wants to crush Danny, and his surprised smile, to him briefly. Just to blot out the thought he might stop. Or have to.

Danny who looks back up, no less blinding on that smile going from surprise into something far more smug and unconcerned, than when he looked down. The light catching in his hair as he moves. An arm of his moving to brace on the arm of the couch beside Steve's head, that he only glanced to for a quarter of a second. Habit.

An arm blocking in, around him, and a finger poking his ribs, muscle, the next second. Danny asking that question.

When it's beating in the hollow space of Steve's throat. The want to kiss this sudden brilliance off Danny, again. Slow, smug, and warm, rolling off of him like the sun. Like no one told him it already wen down and it's night time. It's living in Danny's face, and his eyes. Making Steve so aware. A minute. Two. Obviously, that's too long. Already. Except there's that finger making a point still, along with those eyes and words.

He shrugs wide shoulders, eye widening in approximation innocence and unexpected defense so transparent he's not even trying. "I didn't say anything." Which he didn't. Which has nothing on saying he didn't start anything. Especially, when he's sliding his hands, both of them, into the pockets of Danny's jeans, and pulling him in one smooth, easy movement, higher closer, voice all too amused. "If I said something it'd be more like this--"

Which pauses, when he decides Danny's close enough, and still not going to accidentally elbow him or smack him in the face flailing those arms and hands with a mind of their own. Until he can catch Danny's eyes, even in the middle of reacting to being manhandled, and just let his voice drop. Bottom of the barrel, eyes turning completely world-ending serious, at the drop of a pin, and focusing only on Danny's eyes, leaning up until the tip and then side of his nose brushed faintly against Danny's.

Until his chest ached, like mad for at least two different reasons, and it dropped nothing like a request. "Kiss me."

[haole_cop]

No, he didn't say anything. Steve rarely says anything when he's getting Danny started; he doesn't need more than a look, a shift of expression, a lift of eyebrows. It's a skill, really. Rendering entire arguments down to the flicker of one corner of his mouth, or the way he sets his shoulders.

Just like he didn't say anything now. Unnecessary, when that one look, down to Danny's hand and back again, said everything. Really, Danno? mixed in with pleased self-satisfaction, like he's won, somehow, by Danny giving in and spreading fingers wide and proprietary over his chest. Like he doesn't give a damn that Danny's trying to own him. Like that was his plan all along.

And he doesn't say much now, either, smug, gloating, eyes wide and unconvincingly innocent, because he can't possibly not know what Danny's talking about, or not know that he's working Danny over like one of those little wind-up toys that goes trundling into walls, unable to stop once they've started. Like he doesn't know he's irresistible. The definition of bedroom eyes, lazy-lidded and deliberate, voice low and quiet, the kind of intimate that makes Danny shiver just to hear scraping a delicate path into his head and narrowing straight into his chest.

When Steve has got to be a fever dream. There's no way. He shouldn't be real. Shouldn't be this beautiful. Shouldn't be lying under Danny, wanting Danny's hands on him, leaning up to brush the tip of his nose, his cheek, breath soft against Danny's mouth. Shouldn't be saying those words. Two words. Nearly an order. Just hearing them dropped low and meaningful against his mouth makes a low groan start in his chest, and it's like a seatbelt snapping during a crash. The way his fingers sink into Steve's hair. How he can't do anything but obey, find Steve's mouth so close to his, breath irregular and shallow.

None of it should be happening to him. Steve is. Steve is perfect. In so many ways. Maybe the single most beautiful person Danny's ever seen, in a way that is so completely different from Rachel's precise loveliness that he can't even compare the two. Definitely the best. In ways he never sees or considers important. It's who he is: honor, duty, loyalty. Self-sacrificial in a way that drives Danny crazy, sends his blood pressure sky-rocketing, because Steve never sees it. Himself. Everything he is. So much more than the SEAL on the resume, the best they've got.

There's no way to fight those words, so he does. Lets himself be slid up further onto him, hand dropping from chest to sneak under the hem of his shirt, fingers in his hair, heart dizzy and pounding. Kiss him.

Like he could do anything else.

[thebesteverseen]

It's perfect. That second Danny almost seems to stop breathing after the words come out. Barely a second, maybe a half second, before the movement, even if it requires less than half an inch of space covered, hits him like a high swell. First this groan Steve can't even label, but it's flinging itself through Danny's chest, like it could hit him solid. Like the sound alone isn't trying to liquify Steve's stomach.

Before Danny's mouth against him. Feverous in the same rush that sends fingers into his hair and suddenly on to his stomach. Causing a sound to choke its way up, fingers sinking into denim tight. Like for a second he can only hold on. Like he might not have been sure if Danny would take it as a joke or a dictate, an explanation, or the want burning through every single part of him. How could anyone resist this? Danny.

How did he get this? How did Rachel walk away, twice, knowing he loved her beyond slight or mistake, and how did Gabby ever let Danny leave, knowing him how she must have after all these months? How did this fall into his hands? Except that's such a passive thought. Fall. When Danny's fingers are tightening in his hair, pulling him closer, like Steve isn't curling toward this already, and rough, calluses on fingers brushing hard, against the taut muscles of his stomach, his side. And it feels like fire is waking up under each of those.

Waking up. Exploding alive, and awake. Like it never got put out. Like it was just waiting there through all these hours.

He can't say there isn't anything passive about Danny, but there doesn't feel like there is right now. No. Not at all. Not even slightly. When the only thing in him is to answer. Surges back like a domino explosion, caused by the first. Mouth opening under Danny's touch, but pushing up, into him forceful, wanting. His. That sound that Danny made, and this mouth, the taste of Danny, warm and wet and more necessary than air that he's taking from Danny, denying Danny access to.

The fingers finding him, that drag Steve's like a magnet into motion, in a rapid quick fire movement from those pockets, and up Danny's back. Pushing his shirt up with it. The skin of his back. Wide, and firm, and soft under wide-spread hands that coming up that expanse, warm, solid, fingertips dipping into muscle. Holding him down, close, like close will never be close enough. like he doesn't even know.

Like he could feel every ounce of all that energy and movement all composing Danny, making him three times bigger than he ever actually is. Filling all that space. Like he could drown Danny in himself. In this fire he's already been set on and is feeding right back to where it came from.

[haole_cop]

Steve says kiss me but it isn't like Steve isn't an agent of his own destruction, here, because he's pushing up, digging hands under Danny's t-shirt and making Danny feel like the damn thing could just die, burn right off his body so there's no possible interruption between fingers making their way and his skin. So scorching hot he can't believe the cloth isn't smoking, but then, he's more focused on Steve's anyway. Steve's damn shirt, which is catching under Danny's torso and pinioning his wrist, his arm, keeping it from being able to snake up under fabric the way he suddenly needs to, like the rest of Steve might have disappeared when he wasn't looking. Like there might not be hot smooth skin and firm muscle and the ragged pattern of Steve's breath pushing up and down.

He has to push himself up to free it, but he's pushing against Steve's hands, and Steve's hands are holding him down. Flattening against his back, sweeping up along trapezius to shoulderblades, moving like a forest fire, burning Danny down. And it's so ridiculous. That he is here, and not Cath. That Steve wants him, only him. Words hammering in his temples, beating in his blood.

Nobody has ever wanted only him. Rachel picked Stan, twice. He doesn't. He never. And he shouldn't, now, but Steve keeps opening this door and shoving him through and it turns out this door has been open for a while and he just never saw it. But how could he have missed it, this. How could he have never noticed, all the times they've been together, all the times he's reached out to touch him. Pats on the stomach. On the back. Fingers wrapping around his wrist. Every time he hated Steve's attention being taken away, and denied it as being something else, a character judgment, not jealousy.

How had he never burned his fingers on Steve's skin. How had he spent two years with him, and never gotten a clue until he was gone?

There's no excuse. Even if he didn't feel this. It's too pervasive, everywhere, packed into the empty space of his lungs and making breathing impossible. In the sudden sharp sense of loss, hating any space, even an inch he might be able to force in order to push his hand further up under cloth, towards Steve's chest, thumb rubbing over the nub of a nipple. He can't breathe, but who needs air when Steve's mouth is stealing it away, when Steve's hands would set it all on fire anyway?

[thebesteverseen]

The muscles of his stomach crumple, dig inward, fast and tight. Fingertips, and short, blunted, regimental nails, digging into muscles on Danny's back, even when the rest of him arches up into Danny's fingers rubbing against him, like Danny slammed past sensitive into tapping Steve with an electric current. Dragging a rough, half shuddered, gasp of a breath, nearly a groan from Steve's mouth.

There were going to be other words. A joke, that was the point. Questions. He could have drug out more details. About Grace. That was. Except it's dying on breathing in only fumes. Tasting only Danny. Hearing only his heavy, rushed breath. Because that can't be air. The rest of it falling, like a file. Out of his hand, off his lap. Filling with Danny's hands, and Danny's mouth, and how damn close he is, and how insanely not close enough it feels still. Suddenly. Always.

Danny was right to ask. How had he ever made it the whole year. If he'd known it was like this he never would have made it, couldn't make it again. Knowing what it felt like to really know what it meant saying Danny's hands got everywhere. Marking him hotter, harder, deeper that any of the dozens of needles for his ink.

Lasting so much longer, hooks in his skin, that became a low grade dull throbbing ache when this was gone.

He didn't want to think what it would be like if Danny suddenly wasn't here, on the island at all.

If Danny was gone. More gone than two feet outside that door. Mainlanded in the center of a desert. Following the one thing Danny could never leave behind. No one should ever ask Danny to leave behind. Steve couldn't believe Rachel could even consider Danny wouldn't look at, dig his heels in and start screaming. It was the one thing you didn't touch. The one thing as integral and irremovable as those blue eyes, and that gold hair, as the hands tracking his body.

Grace. Nothing in the world mattered or stood in the way between Danny and Grace. Not any location. Not any person. Not Rachel. Not Stan. Not his divorce. Not a paradise island, only Danny could hate. Because he could. He could hate everything that wasn't Grace when he needed to. And, not Steve. Who wasn't ever going to ask, but could feel it spreading out. Under the fire. Like that look on the lawn.

So small and sudden and now in comparison. So much another reason that other thing couldn't ever happen. Wouldn't.

But it doesn't stop him now. Maybe it should. Maybe it's the whole reason to slow down, back off, step out now. Make it easier. On who he doesn't know. Danny. Himself. But he can't. He can't help that the whole idea makes him dig in more, arch up into Danny's touch harder. Like it's limited, like he needs it to burn him forever as much as it just is every single time.

Not for Cath. Not for Rachel and Stan. When a bubble of air is stealing into his head, against the flood and the fire, and he's finding the bottom of Danny's shirt. That rumpled pile of wrinkled he keeps shoving up so he can touch more. Touch all of Danny, here. Still here. He didn't leave, when he ran out. Still touch those words he'd said, about wanting to be with him. Even now. Even with all of this.

Their jobs and the team and Cath, and whatever is going to happen with his contesting. One of those should make it impossible enough to stop. All of them should be like a god damn sign they should have pulled over miles ago. Except they aren't. Except they can't. Except this keeps happening. When Steve's trying to tug at Danny's shirt, against his shoulders, and he doesn't even want Danny to stop touching him. Wants the shirt will wise up and just dissolve, so he can have both.

Danny's skin and Danny touching him, the way it all goes to his head, the way it makes nothing else matter. Nothing but this.

[haole_cop]

He could make some stupid point about how if Steve hadn't liked where his hand was before, he must really hate it now, but then Steve arches up into his touch like a solid wave, like the shoreline fighting back against waves, all strength and no grace. Not for this, even if there's some kind of almost poetry in the way his muscles flex and relax, sliding under tan skin, the perfect deliberation of a body that is always in perfect control. Danny's seen it. Knows it. Has seen Steve balance on a board, launch himself into the air for a tackle, cut through the water. Half fish, half bruiser. The strangest mix of precision and brutality he's ever seen. Capable of taking a man out with three or four lightning-quick hits, as well as sparring, full-body and rapid, with multiple opponents. Sometimes going for the quick and dirty route.

Hell. Even before all of this, it's not like Danny didn't know Steve's body in motion was a beautiful thing. It was just academic. Appreciation. Like appreciating art, or a nice car, or a beautiful woman.

But now. Under his hands? That body edges towards the thin and ragged line of snapped control. Which is crazy. Steve always knows what he's doing. But the way his hands move over Danny's back is thoughtless, the way he pushes up into Danny's body instinctual. It's a heady, crazy thought, how he wants to see Steve fall apart into reflex and reaction, no room for thought or control. Heady, crazy, to think that he could. Can.

Only Steve is shoving at his shirt and it's bunching up uncomfortably under his arms, at the back of his neck, starting to drag against his stomach, and, you know, he really sort of hates this shirt right now. The shirt, and the jeans, and everything Steve is wearing, too, which is nuts. They were just talking. Everything was just quiet, and now it is all on fire and the house is burning down around them.

And it's making him laugh. A stupid, relieved, breathless laugh, that he ducks into the curve of Steve's neck, hand pausing against Steve's skin, body pausing before the sudden headlong dive that he knows will take his brain and punt it into the ocean, tie his willpower up in a dark room and leave it there.

Pushing himself up, to look down at Steve, and he can't help the smile, this stupid brilliant smile tugging at lips and ribs and spreading him wide.

"You have something against my shirt, now?"

[thebesteverseen]

He doesn't exactly know how it happens. It's almost disorienting in it's fastness. This dazzlingly bright, giddy smile smacks itself across Danny's mouth in front of his eyes, when that mouth is not still trying to pull the bottom of his spine out through his tongue, and then suddenly, that smile and Danny's face, and this bubble of soft laughter is being smothered into his neck.

There's blonde hair catching on his stubble and messy across his cheek and his vision, nearly in his eyes. Air plungering itself into his lungs and veins and Danny is laughing. Soft, low, like he just got the best joke. And Steve doesn't even get to ask before he's back up, again. Back up, the echo of biting, fierce pressure still on Steve's mouth, and the warmth of breath and friction against his neck, while his eyes are back on that smile.

The stupid, brilliant smile that he hasn't a clue what or how or where exactly. Only that's it there, and bewilderingly, it's making the edges of Steve's mouth twitch. He's so damn beautiful. How can he, or the rest of the world with the chance to, not see that. More people catch it than Danny ever seems to see. Steve doesn't. But then Steve was number one on that list. Of the people who noticed and whom Danny never saw.

Until now. Now, when Danny is staring down at him with that smile, bright and teasing, calling him on being impatient and reckless and maybe having a pattern, rushing forward like every single second is a sprint. Like Steve might have a single thing to be embarrassed about where it came to this, or even Danny himself. Like Danny pushing up like this, won't make it even easier to pull the shirt off him, that he isn't already there. Five steps ahead of there.

Ahead of the curve, and off the cliff. Even though he likes these jeans and he likes Danny's weight on top of him. Even like the thoughts it inspires that are nowhere near the menu of anything they've been doing for these two weeks. But he's hardly about to apologize for that, when Danny is jeans, on top of him, with smile, making every single inch of his skin on the outside pull tight and splashing the inside of his chest with such warmth.

He lets the words come out better than warmed in the sun all day, smooth and thick and slow, drawing out every single word in the sentence with far more intention and implication than the spoken words themselves, "I have a problem with every single piece of your--" And he pauses, to give Danny's chest towards his jeans a one second look. "--clothing."

And even when the words roll on, a spark of smugness dragging his mouth crooked and leaving it there, his tone and every implication, even though the rest. "You haven't been listening at all the last two years? I made it pretty clear."

[haole_cop]

"Hey, no."

Shifting carefully, a little more weight on his knees, which leaves him straddling Steve's leg, sitting back a little, the hand at Steve's hair sliding to the couch cushion, arm straightening. "You had a problem with the ties. I have not noted any filed complaints against the rest of my wardrobe. Shoes aside."

And, okay. He's not an idiot. He knows this is like waving a red flag at a bull, lifting up a little, ragging on Steve about how much Steve hates all of his clothes, because he does. Steve always has. Hated how Danny never wanted to fit in, to look Hawaiian. How he dug in his heels and wears the haole costume with grim pride.

But he just can't pass this up. He can't. It's impossible. The very idea that there is something about him and the way he looks -- goofy face, hair nothing like Steve's easily tousled easily worn regimentally short cut, built like a triangle or a bulldog, a full seven inches shorter. There are reasons he is sometimes invisible near Steve, no matter how loud he is or how much space he takes up.

But Steve is looking at him with this bewildered, short-circuiting desire, and it goes straight to his head like a tequila shot and high-voltage chaser, makes him a little crazy, wants to see how far he can push it, how far it can go. Is this for real? That slow lazy drawl, sun-thick, slow molasses. The way Steve's eyes move down his body, trailing a sensation of hands in their wake, like he's taping off broad strokes of ownership. Of t-shirt. Jeans. Danny.

"You're a liar. Weren't you just saying you like the jeans?"

[thebesteverseen]

"On the floor, maybe," is such a lie, no matter how much truth is in it, too. No matter how hotly he can toss it out.

When Danny is seated on him. Sitting. Moved to change his posture entirely. Straddling him. Asking him to think about Danny's jeans. The denim very few feet from him, and how his hands find Danny's hips, just to help him settle at first. Incase. But how that doesn't stop his thumbs from from sliding into the creases of the denim where Danny's hips bend, stroking pads of thumbs in the bend there, or him from feeling the steady weight of all of Danny's body settling on him.

Danny's words, asking about them, to make him look at the jeans. At Danny's waist, and his straddling legs, and the tight lines and bunching areas of jean, tight, created by the way he's sitting straddled alone, his own knuckles faintly white with pressing in. Remember that he did make that comment. When it's an overwhelming feat not to move beneath him. Shift his hips. Tip up just too far up from Danny, solid weight and almost painfully unhelpful imagination, on pure impulse.

When he's not even sure he can convince himself he didn't. Doesn't. Isn't. Dragging his eyes back up to Danny, anything but easy or light, and his fingers up to find belt loops, already torn between driving fingers into them and jerking him back down or pushing up and meeting him, even now, in the middle, before possibly toppling him over the other way.

[haole_cop]

"Well, that's saucy."

God, he's giddy. He is actually light-headed from this, sitting back on his haunches, hand trailing out from under Steve's shirt to his hip, pushing that hem up enough that he can rub his thumb over the dip of muscle there. Steve's skin, always tan, now flushing darker, warm to the touch. Eyebrows lifting like he could in any way be surprised at the things that come out of Steve's mouth, but the truth is, he is. He can't get over it. Steve. Thinking those things. About him. Steve's hands on his hips, thumbs sliding into the dents of his groin, possessive. Like no one should ever get to touch Danny again. And his eyes are traveling over him like they could burn straight through cotton and denim. Making Danny acutely aware of how tight these jeans are, sitting like this, how much less room there is in them now than there was before.

Christ, it's like having a bell to ring for anything he wants in the world. Like winning the lottery. Part of him wants to see just how far he can stretch this. What would happen if he changed into jeans and t-shirt one day at the end of work in the office. If this new appreciation will extend to board shorts and work clothes. How. How can he makes sure it never stops, that Steve keeps looking at him like this, eyes going dark and dangerous in a way that makes Danny tense and brace himself, because Steve's fingers are finding holds on his beltloops and Steve has always had a suicidally short fuse when it comes to restraint.

Even if Danny's not done enjoying it yet. Looking down at Steve splayed under him, lolled against the couch, gorgeous lines of shoulders and long arms, the flat plane of his stomach and the way his shirt hangs against his frame. He wishes he had a camera but he's got no idea if it could ever do this scene any amount of justice. Not the tiniest percentage. The lift and fall of Steve's chest. Shadow of stubble. Hair mussed and rumpled from Danny's fingers, lips pinked from Danny's kisses.

And eyes on Danny. Like there's nothing else in the whole world, and he thinks there is any coming back from this. There couldn't be.

[thebesteverseen]

The muscles in his stomach are trying to turn rubbery and trembling under Danny's touch. Tightening and releasing in fast spurts against the friction of that finger. But Steve's hardly letting it slow him down, if anything it just adds to everything. More kindling tossed at a fire begging to be allowed to get out of hand already. When Steve's attack comes in three completely different parts, going two directions, all at once.

His knee under Danny lifts and bends at the crook, at the same time as those fingers in Danny's belt loops are pulling him closer, pulling the jeans tight, down the leg that is becoming a fast incline. Paying some attention, but honestly probably not enough, to where exactly Danny is keeping his knees, near the center of Steve's body. He doesn't really think about a lot of that, a lot of the time, but with Danny even more. He just trusts that it'll work, trusts Danny's got himself as much as he's got Danny.

Both of those happen at the same time as all Steve's stomach muscles roll tight, as he uses Danny's weight on him, and not the belt loops, to roll-pull half-crunch himself up to sitting. Without dislodging Danny, and ending up right a breath from him again now. Eyes dark and heavy with something almost exponentially five worlds larger than cocky and fired beyond the shadow of a single doubt with something that is far more a promise to Danny than a comment about it, when he says, "You have no idea."

Yet. He could say so much worse than a side comment about pants on a floor, if it'll make Danny keep looking giddy like that.

If it could smack that smile right off Danny's face and make the paint peel and Danny's heart race with the sudden heat in the room, just on a few words, an image dropped in his ear. In this, in this he has either none or so few doubts that are almost lost in the shuffle. What he can do, could do, has done, has not ever had complaints about. To whom, or how many. The things he could say to Danny, do to Danny, if he wanted them.

Things Danny has probably not considered existing that fall in Steve's standard operating procedure.

[haole_cop]

Maybe not no idea. Sure. He's willing to believe that there's a hell of a lot he's got no clue about, that he's coming to the realization Steve has more than a clue, this is clearly not Steve's first rodeo, and that's fostered all kinds of questions he hasn't really looked at too hard over the last, what, twelve days?

Things that haven't been detailed. Haven't been offered, or even mentioned, aside from that once, that one time in the kitchen the very first night, when he went careening off a cliff of sudden uncertainty straight into panic and Steve never brought it up again. And he has to say he's grateful. This is already moving at light-speed for him, that we're taking it slow he'd hid behind in the car losing all credibility and dissolving into meaningless fog every time they're together. Like all it takes is one touch to short-circuit his willpower and restraint, turn him into a teenager who can't even wait the thirty seconds it would take to get upstairs, let alone the minutes or hours of talking they have yet to do.

And it's not, okay, he has no intention of putting the brakes on every time. He's not stupid, he can guess how this is going to go eventually, but the idea sort of stalls in the back of his head and grips hard onto a handle of fear. Edging towards this sudden hole in his education. A gut reaction he's not proud of that caused a face he'd be happy never to see on Steve again.

But he hardly needs to know details to make some educated guesses when Steve is surging up, gripping his hips, tipping Danny forward and pushing himself close, when Steve's eyes are more black than blue and wicked, wicked, lighting a bonfire in Danny's suddenly tight chest. He doesn't need to know. Steve can do what he wants. He can say what he wants. Danny doesn't care, as long as he keeps looking at him like that, like he is the last fraying thread of Steve's sanity, like restraint is a fragile cardboard web about to be blasted out of existence by a grenade already pulled and primed.

"Give me a break, I'm new to this whole thing."

Right this second, he wishes he did know. That he knew everything. Everything he can do to Steve, everything Steve wants. That he could make more than a guess. When those words come out low and wanting and nothing like the brash, prodding argument it could be. Fingers tugging at the hem of Steve's shirt. "But getting rid of this does seem to be a good starting point, I wholeheartedly."

[thebesteverseen]

The first thing to come out of Danny's mouth nearly makes him groan, fingerings tightening on those belt loops on the still present persistent need for Danny to be closer. Still closer than every second before the second he's in now. The way Danny's tone is so long and beaten, vibrating into his lungs and belly, turning one toward steam and the other toward a puddle, and those words. Those words are still so true.

When some part of his brain somehow catches on to that, like the one person who realizes in a pack of forty or fifty, at the top of the roller coaster, how terrible the coming swoop might be, even when they've been convincing themselves it won't. But the breaks are entirely out of their control compared to everything else going on. Not that Steve is beyond control, but he can feel the grumbling whine spreading like pistons on high are jamming, through himself, at the idea of it, already.

Tightening his fingers, sharpening his gaze. On Danny, with bitten bright lips and bright blue blown eyes.

This expression, this different wanting, almost begging to be broken open expression, he keeps finding on Danny's face. Never knew what looked like before. Never wants to not be seeing it. Again and again and again. When he can drag this out, make Danny voice go low and warm and asking him, so clearly, to follow through as his threats and promises. And the last thing Steve wants is to remember.

That it's so true. That it's not even two weeks, and he knows, beyond a shadow of any doubt anywhere, that before two weeks were done with Gabby and Danny they were hardly figuring out how or where to have dinner a first or second time. It wasn't this. It wasn't anything like this. Rushed and reckless, and threatening to rip apart everything. That Steve might throw everything to the wind, give all of this on one, first night, good time.

But that isn't Danny. It isn't even Danny when his voice is warm in his viens, reminder and request all at once.
They've never even seen a dinner table. If there was ever supposed to be one. Aside from with the team last weekend.

Which doesn't even touch the fact, Danny is new to this whole thing. Here. On Steve's lap. Drug every direction by their hands.

And, fuck, but every part of him still wants, when Danny is looking at him like that. His voice is dipping low, still, and his knuckles are brushing Steve's stomach and the top of his pants, sparks shooting off in his middle even more for the idea of anything being forbidden or requiring patience or him to stop, fireworks lighting his skin when Danny is tugging at his shirt.

When that is anything but please stop, and everything is torn and tossed together all at once, on high, in a wind storm. Where the brush of his skin is like singeing lightning, trying to take that wash of thoughts back out to sea. When Steve can't even stop how low, and overboard that tone is, or that he breathes in sharp without even filling his lungs at the touch and the tugging, smirk tagging in, bright and prodding "Yeah?"

He lets go of Danny's belt loops in a single fast motion, snatching fistfuls of the bottom of his shirt, right out of Danny's hands and pulling it off fast and easy over his head. Left with a handful of cloth, that he pitches somewhere over a shoulder with a brilliantly devil may care expression of almost asking to be called on it. Like he isn't half dressed now, skin flushed, chest rising and falling faster than normal breath, on display simply because Danny requested it.

Everywhere all over his face, when he can't stop his mouth, or the way he leans back for a second, one hand catching the couch to prop himself, unabashed in leaving himself stretched and nearly posed in front of Danny, as he is in the fact his eyes never leave Danny's face, smug as the high sun, and the smallest bit more watchful. "Better?"

[haole_cop]

His intention isn't to make Steve pause, or to bring any kind of wariness or caution to his face, his motions. He's joking, but it's not really a joke, too, because he is out so far beyond over his head now that he doesn't think he could be found without a rescue flare and a crack team of emergency personnel. Brand-new doesn't even begin to cut it, and okay, he gets at least some of the mechanics. Right? He's only got himself for comparison, but the basics are something he gets. The kind of friction that feels good. The spots on Steve's body that make him shiver when they're kissed or touched. He has mapped out rough sketches of things Steve likes, and it has been weird at times, sure, but not panic-inducing. Nothing he couldn't have pictured for himself, on his own.

Past that, though, past the things they've been doing over the past two weeks, the waters don't get so much murky as they are entirely foreign. And part of him his shrieking to take a step back, long enough to ask some questions and get some answers, long enough to breathe and remind himself that not everything has to be dipped into one toe at a time and treated with extreme caution. Steve is not Gabby. Steve is not Rachel. He's already known Steve for two years, knows his flaws and foibles, knows his favorite foods and drinks and schedule, knows the look when Steve's disappearing into his miserable head. It's not like the two of them require any awkward 'getting-to-know-you' stage, although Danny is finding himself more and more curious about certain aspects of Steve's past.

Mainly, the ones that make this so clearly not as strange for him as it is for Danny.

But it doesn't last long, the pause, and it doesn't smack the same self-recrimination across Steve's face as the screeching halt in the kitchen, for which Danny is grateful. It's not a bad thing. Right? Everyone has to start somewhere.

And it doesn't make his throat any less close, or his mouth any less dry, when Steve's giving him that crooked smirk, bright and brilliant, like he can't believe what he's hearing but also could never question hearing it. Like Danny's sure he wouldn't. Nobody who looks like Steve would. Moving in a sudden efficient wave, stomach muscles flexing and standing out under skin, chest stretched, shoulders wide, leaning back into invitation, eyes on Danny's face and a knowing little smirk tucked into his lips. When that expression can't possibly hold the smug expectation that's radiating off every angle, shirt discarded, body on display. No other word for it. Displayed. Put on show. Knowingly, purposefully. For Danny.

Who just. Who just needs to take a second. A second to look. Eyes tracking down faintly fuzzed chest to the ridges of stomach muscles and belly. Steve. Laid out and perfect. Waiting to see what he'll do. But Danny's heart is in his throat, and his tongue feels like someone knotted it onto a bow, or replaced it with a useless piece of felt, because there's nothing he can say. He can just look. Can only shift forward enough to curve his hands around the sides of Steve's waist, thumbs rubbing over the cut of obliques. Run them slowly up his sides. Slow. Reverent. Because, God. He is so damn beautiful. Relaxed and loose. No one should be allowed to touch this. Right? He shouldn't be allowed to.

Fingers and palms moving up, up. Slow. Tracking their path with his eyes. The sheen of warm skin. Deep tan. Dark ink. His hands barely, and then not able at all, to fit around his sides. Pushing up his ribcage, bending forward. Eyes focused on the slope from Steve's ribs to the soft skin over his stomach.

"I, uh. Jesus." His breath gusts in a distracted little laugh, that catches behind his useless tongue. "Yeah, I think so."

[thebesteverseen]

He expects a joke. Some terrible, biting comment about making messes on his own floor like a child. Or something pointed about basically laying himself out in front of Danny, in the air, with that goading statement and his arrogant belief in his physique being utterly unbecoming, no matter what his neanderthal head or the people in his life have led him to believe this far.

Anything but the way way Danny's face shifts. The way his shoulders tense a little under that plain t-shirt, and he swallows hard, like there's a rock in his throat he either can't breathe around, or can't swallow, or maybe both all at once. Eyes riveted to Steve's skin. Like. Like it might be more than just his skin. When Steve keeps waiting for the snap, the moment those words will pour out.

Danny will snap back, and that mouth, with the smile it can't keep out, will spear him, happily. Both said and wanted.

Because Danny has seen this. Okay. Danny saw it early on. When Steve was willing to get half undressed for any necessity of a case. More willing to ask it of himself than anyone else on his team. And Danny had gotten his fair share of seeing him, this all, his body, for years already. Which, sure, he'd looked. The first time like it was a hilarious unfairness that Steve got to look like this and be as insane as Danny found him.

Until there were events through the last year or so, where Danny was still looking and Steve could only bewilderingly have no idea why or what it was. Maybe that he was still insane even years later, untempered by Five-0. Because, obviously, it wasn't anything else when Danny was back to normal minutes or seconds later every time. And Steve got it. Okay. That it was nothing actually. A note. Observation.

That he was one looking for there to be more in it, and how there really was. Case or surfing. Accepted that.

But he doesn't look back up, and as much as Steve can tell, and he's so close, too close to not be sure, Danny doesn't even take another breath in while his eyes trace down Steve's chest with the thickness of an actual touch. A slow, settled, need to see all of it, that makes Steve swallow, watching him heavy lidded. Stomach muscles and lungs all but shuddering the moment Danny's hands touch his sides after those long seconds.

How Danny's still not looking up. How Danny, and his five thousands words, are actually so pin drop quiet it's like shouting.

His thumbs are pressing into the ridges of muscles, tracing, lacing fire into Steve's skin for every quarter inch of skin touched and left behind as he keeps touching more. Brushing slowly, so slowly, it makes him hold so still he think he may start trembling with the sheer effort it takes not to move. Across his obliques, up each rung of his ribs on both sides.

Until he can't help that he's pushing up into the sensation. Into those fingers. Wanting this. More. Everything.

And finally Danny's mouth moves, but not his eyes. He's still not even looking up. His sentence stutters stops twice. First.

What the hell is he even supposed to do, make of that. How is Steve even supposed to breathe, pretend the inside of his stomach and chest don't slip on something oily or fill full of an unexpected free fall, a hard jolt in the center of his chest, a want to grab Danny and kiss him, fiercely, all over again. When he's saying that. When it takes him time to even get to the ability to say that.

That somehow, it is. It is better, actually truly better, a better that looks like it is short circuiting Danny's brain and his mouth in one go, beyond being a smug mocking joke, when Steve is there, under his hands, half dressed, filling his face up with everything shining there that Steve can't even begin to name, and Danny wants him. To touch him. To look at him.

And Steve has nothing better than to rib it, because if he doesn't something else will come out, he doesn't even know what or how or the shape, but it's clogging up his chest and expanding so fast, so hard, taking out the walls and the floors, and it's threatening to just shatter everything else in there his body doesn't need anymore, by command decision of itself. "I'm sorry. What was that? Did you say something?"

Like he could not. Hear Danny's little choked breath. Stutter. Soft swearing. Confession. Burning themselves into his skin.