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

[haole_cop]

At least he listens.

That's pretty good, the best Danny can hope for, because Steve gets -- and somehow this has happened enough times that he can actually say Steve gets a certain way and have other times, proof to back it up, how insane, how absurd -- well, focused. Like Steve always focuses, and it's fucking intense, that laser sight on him, like it is Steve's goddam mission to get Danny off, and he's going to do it the way he does everything else, by burning him to the ground, busting him wide open, shoving him without preamble or hesitation towards a crumbling cliff edge.

And without bothering with himself, either, except as an afterthought, when his other hand creeps down and Danny can see his shoulder moving, which just latches into his gut like a fish hook and rips him open, but that's not how it should go, okay, Danny should get a say in this, no matter what the control freak on top of him thinks.

So he's glad that Steve actually does move, in sort of a distant way. Glad not really being able to stand up to Steve's mouth on his neck, tugging at skin that, Christ, if he leaves another mark there is going to be hell to pay from Kono, but it's also driving him crazy, pulling at nerves and at his wildly beating pulse and at the groans that keep trying to escape the back of his throat. Because Steve's hand is tight and hot and so good, moving slick and fast and hard, each motion up and down like getting punched in the gut, pleasure so intense it's tumbling stomach and lungs and heart and everything else into a puddling mess.

And Steve should know. He should know what's happening, what he's doing, just by existing, by being Steve. He should have known when Danny couldn't take his eyes off him, half-naked and sprawled artfully across the couch. Should have known when Danny couldn't leave. When Danny ran.

Because Danny wants too much, and he always has. He wouldn't say it's that much. Wouldn't ever have. Nobody would look at his life before, a beautiful wife, a loving daughter, a good job, and say, that's too much, too selfish, right? Except it was. Too much. And wanting Steve is wanting too much, too, because --

Because it is. It must be. Has to be. In no world should Steve say those words, the ones still misfiring like a bad song through Danny's brain. And in no world should Steve be here, able to listen to him, willing to strip off pants, shove at them, shove words like an order at Danny, who can't keep his eyes from trailing up and down every new exposed inch, like he's never seen it before, like he's about to go blind and wants this to be the last thing he sees: Steve, his face, blue eyes blow black, skin catching the lamplight and shading it into cuts of muscle and bone.

While Danny's lifting hips off the couch to push off boxers, curling to reach his feet and get rid of the damn socks. "God, you're pushy."

[thebesteverseen]

"Excuse you?" Steve's sputtering in a semblance of annoyance, that isn't quite real, and involves words getting tossed at him in gulps of air over there. And shoes. Shoes that suddenly happen to exist at him. At the end of his feet. In the way of his pants. The kind good for hiking a mountain. And he was going to have to get to them, as Danny was curling, getting rid of boxers and sock, and tossing words at his head.

"Weren't you just the person making demands about less clothing?" He's jerking at knots, pants around his tights and calves and getting in the way sloppy on the tops of those boots, and only half entertaining the inconsequential prices of shoelaces and the easy, convenient uses of knives. How the air in the room is making his skin prickle and how much time he doesn't want to have for shoes. Did not care about these things. But Danny asked.

And, really, how much wouldn't he give if Danny wanted it. Especially right now. When gravity is existing like the swoop of a ship rocking on waves, even when you're standing still. He tossed off one boot, sock still half hanging in it, with a resounding thud against the floor, and moves on to the other, still talking. Jerking at more laces. Jerking sound at the air.

Tugging at Danny in the only way he can for another twenty or forty seconds. "Or are against anything being fair tonight?"

Like he's not aware, not already casting a side glance, knowing Danny is at that before he is already, too. But knowing that, thinking about it, just makes it both harder and more focused to be yanking at knots till they go. Danny. Already clothing free. Not currently brushing his skin anywhere, now, making all of it tighten and spark with sensation, like loss can be felt physically across every inch he'd been against second ago.

Lending him to half yanking, half kicking off his second shoe, and grabbing the pants around his thighs, knees, and ankles, starting skinning out of them in the next breath after the boots are gone.

[haole_cop]

"Hey, I am fair. Fairness is my middle name. You are the one who likes to maintain clear levels of tactical superiority."

Which he actually has, for maybe the first time ever, because his shoes got kicked off already and that means he can lie back, one hand on his chest, fingers trailing lightly, the other propping up and gesturing a little lazily to find his point, which is...

Well, he had one. He thinks. And he's pretty sure it started and ended with Steve being naked, which is currently on it's way to happening, possibly by way of violent boot death, the way Steve is attacking it. Like that boot killed his dog, and then stole his car. Like it's a sleazy bookie dating his baby sister. Like he hates that boot, with the growl transferring to his comments to Danny, who is enjoying this way too much.

It's just that, come on. How often does he get to see Steve not one hundred percent on top of a situation? And having a hard time getting the upper hand with an inanimate object, no less?

Which makes Danny's eyebrows lift as the shoes get kicked off, and he's going to say something about watching out for the nearby lamp, but then Steve is all motion and rapidly baring skin and all those words just kind of dry up and drift away, unimportant. Nothing is, except to lean up and meet him again, hands seeking out hips and ass and thighs, everything that had been covered and is now laid out, for him, because he asked, and he really thinks his heart might explode, soft and messy, painting the walls of his chest like a gunshot, because this is better, it's so much better, there's nothing at all except skin and pulling Steve back down to him, nothing in the world.

[thebesteverseen]

He does like tactical superiority. Loves it. Would be raising an eyebrows toward Danny about his choice of words, or maybe his choice of pointing out there that Steve has nothing to do with fairness, when he can be overrunning it. Control something. Which might be true. Even when he's about to toss a tired comment at Danny, which would help if when he looks up from skinning boots and pants, Danny didn't still have that look on his face.

That one that had been pretty much wiped away with deep kisses, with so much less than threaded breath, and grasping hands. Back there. Earlier with the stuttering, and making his mocking of the word better sound like a sudden commitment to the idea that the word couldn't even fit it. Lining his mouth and the color of his eyes, and the hands, that are rapidly finding him. Dragging him back in and down.

And for a moment, it's seriously like being shot. Again. All over, again.

That look he can't explain or justify. Doesn't have the words to even pry from Danny.

Now at this second. Not when Danny is inches away from touching, and then not at all. Fingers skirting his hips, the first touch on newly bared skin, but they aren't staying, still headed back further, curving and pulling with the same earlier strength and thinking about that face even is going to have to wait. Because Steve doesn't have room for both of them, and there is no room for anything but following that touch, but getting back to Danny.

One knee landing between Danny's legs, the other following close behind, and the first hand threading back in his hair, down his head, to the back and his neck tipping his head up. Catching his mouth as Danny drag him back down. When it's going from the brush of fingers on his skin, to the brush of legs and leg hair, to mouth, opening soft, slipping too quickly, too easily back toward wanting more, wanting the everything of seconds ago.

He can't help the groan that splits free, spills on to Danny's lips, tightening fingers briefly, nerve ending firing like a dominio chain of fireworks in his skin. The rest of the world slipping to the side, out of the room, off the too small couch, beyond anything that is not Danny and Danny's hands and and Danny's skin under him. And the way, his weight settles against Danny's body for only a moment, before he has to shift. Tip his hips and rub into Danny, shallow, shameless movements.

[haole_cop]

His hands have to move, following back up Steve's body as he comes back down, palming hips before sliding to the dip at the small of his back and running up over skin surprisingly soft, cross-hatched here and there with interrupting scars far tinier than the things that must have caused them, days of smoke and sand and grit, bullets chopping air, explosions spitting destruction. Things Steve never details, and Danny doesn't ask about, that are hidden behind a particular kind of smile and arms that cross across his chest like a DO NOT ENTER sign, taping it all off in crime scene yellow and black.

There's nothing like that up right now, though. Not when Steve is moving back into his hands, back against his body, and it's so much better with skin than caught under too hot, too tight clothes. Not when he's sleek and settling between Danny's legs, letting him hook a leg over the back of Steve's knee. Not when there's a groan against Danny's mouth, and fingers carding through his hair, and, seriously, Steve seems to have a thing about his hair, those hands seem to keep ending up in it, pushing through it or tangling in it or fisting hard in it, each time tugging on every nerve ending in Danny's body along with each strand.

Making him want things he doesn't even have words for and others he does. Has too many words for. Words that can ring all the more hollow for everything they used to carry, that strike like fear, the gut-twisting anticipation before getting hit.

But even that doesn't matter, not with this searing comprehension right out of his brain. A hand finding the back of Steve's neck, the other searching for a hip, right before they slide just there and he sucks in a breath against a world of piercing white and soundless noise. It trips back out over his tongue, taking "Steve" with it, and he'd say something else, but no other words come, just "Steve" again, soft and thready and without any punch behind it. One word, said, shouted, groaned and insulted so many ways, for so many times, over so many months. An exasperated second syllable added for extra emphasis when he is being especially insane. Called out against the sharp report of gunfire. Desperate, last week, when bullets punched into Kevlar and Danny felt them like this hit his own chest.

Now said thin into Steve's mouth, like he still can't get over it. This being Steve. Not some shoddy substitute that couldn't even exist. Not his hand and imagination. Not Gabby, or Rachel, tiny and near weightless compared to the natural disaster currently blanketing him. Steve. Who wants him. Who told him to stay. Twice. Three times. More than that. Making that name so much more than a name. Making it everything he could want, and the confusion of being handed it all when he keeps expecting it to punch him in the jaw instead.

Maybe not everything. But enough. More than. More than there should be. And he's, god. Selfish. Greedy. And Steve somehow hasn't caught on yet that Danny wants too much, shouldn't have any of this, it wasn't supposed to happen. None of it.

[thebesteverseen]

The world for a second is a greying-out ribbon of white. That parts only for Danny's mouth, Danny's voice, like no atom of him could ever shut it out. No matter how far or how overwhelming anything else happening to him even for half a second is. Keyed to the sound of Danny voice. Even when it shoots for his center, like that earlier look. Danny gasping his name on an indrawn breath. Danny saying is again, winded and so low, like he can't stop himself.

Steve knows that feeling. Down into his bones, where that voice seeps into all the cracks, threatening to drip in like water, and freeze bigger than it started, tear apart everything he knows to be true. Everything he expects. When all he can do is continue to move against Danny. Slow and steady, watching his face. Even this close. So close his name is being said on his own lips.

In a tone that is so blown and thick with reaction. All of it going to his head, expanding in such a small tight space.

Like being at a too high altitude too long. Not enough air. No way to get it. No willingness to come down.

When all there is are Danny's blue eyes, closing even briefly against all this, and moving against him. Dropping a hand to hitch Danny's leg up a little higher. At his hip. Sliding in closer, closer and firmed, getting rid of space, anything that isn't their bodies, isn't lining up, tucking into Danny, like it's somehow possible to eradicate air from existence, and everything, somehow Danny makes everything feel possible.

When the only thought in his head is making this face never leave Danny's face. Ever. Ever, again. However he can.

Never letting that other face exist. Burning it off until there wouldn't even be smudge mark left to remember it by.

Keeping a set movement of his hips, so much more almost like the rock of a circle. Up and in, drag back, and in, again. But slow, a grinding heat somewhere at the base of his spine, threatening to melt metal with the long, steady burn. The same time as he tips his head, giving Danny an amused, if still intense, "What, Danny?" very purposely acting like his name had been some sort of adress for his attention. Needed for something.

Something other than the friction rushing between bellies, sliding tight and close, right against hard, hot skin and coarse tight curls.

[haole_cop]

More.

More is what he wants to say. More of, Jesus. Everything. More of Steve. More of this heat and pressure and friction. More hands, everywhere, all over his body. Just. Christ. More. Everything he doesn't know yet and has no clue how to ask for, because this is good in a gut-deep, bone-melting way, and panic can't live anywhere near it. Maybe it's yapping somewhere near the base of his skull, sparked into sudden frenzy by the strange feeling of having his leg hiked up by Steve's hip, a weird deja vu of having done that, himself, on plenty of other occasions with a smaller, slimmer, smoother leg, but it's muffled by Steve's hand there. Ignored in favor of rolling his hips and closing his eyes against the wave that pushes straight over him. Forcing them open again to catch the crook of a smile trying to tug Steve's mouth into a negligent curve.

When Steve's trying to sound conversational, but can barely make it a question. Two words that feel like a paper airplane lit with a match and tossed his way, landing like coal.

And it almost does. Almost comes. That word. Almost. He can feel it in a lump in his throat, drying up his mouth, breaking him out into sweat that's slick against skin. Almost. He could. Put it out there. Like before. Like the kitchen. More. More than this, even when this is puddling his brain in a useless melted goo, heating him steadily until he feels flush with sunburn.

It could be. He could. Shut that yapping, annoying, wordless voice up.

And he's not proud knowing it won't. That it will stay there, lodged in his throat, sizzling in his head. Pushing "don't stop" past it instead, low and wrecked, voice feeling like tissue paper.

[thebesteverseen]

He's not even sure he expects Danny to say anything. Not when he's not actually stopping to ask the question. Like maybe it's just a sort of boastful rib at him. Some point that Steve can put words together. Still find a way to get under Danny skin, when every inch of it is pressed against some part of him. When Danny's movement are awkward only for a second, adjusting, a long enough half second Steve considers laying a hand on Danny's thigh.

Considers whether to apologize, or whether to move it back without a single word. What might be -- except then Danny is arching up to him, slamming every single thought in his head, a like a wave coming up and washing the deck blinding white. Making his hand tighten, against the back of the couch, behind Danny's head, catching himself as his hips answered without the need for any other part of him to think about it first. Like there could be any other answer.

Which makes it hilarious that Danny's words come about then, forced out, drug out like he's using a tow truck. Hilarious like the sky raining fire. Hilarious like the ability to stop breathing because someone dared you to. Like to possibly could. Stop breathing. Out run any of this. Like he could even manage walking away.

It'd be easier to go down under the waves and never come up, beyond all his training to succeed and survive.

He leans down, letting his voice stay ragged, rough and thick, keeping it low, against Danny's ear, saying, "I wasn't planning on it." Anything other that continuing this. Pushing toward insanity. Emphasizing those words with moving faster, thrusting with more force in against Danny.

That hand actually dropping to Danny's hips, his thigh, holding him close, pulling him closed, matching the tips of Danny's own body, and those hands on his back, his sides, pulling him, digging in, like close might never be close enough. Weight settling back on his knees, his legs, and shoving forward against Danny each time like a loaded recoil snapping, again and again.

Clenching his jaw against other considerations, fingertips digging in, straining to keep certain things in line, out of a burning clarity of thought, even more than aligned. Against the back and forth, dragging Steve's ability to focus from himself in waves.

[haole_cop]

There's nothing to do except hold on and push back, arching up under Steve, arm sliding around the small of his back, leg hitched up and wrapping solidly. As if he could somehow curl himself around Steve entirely, pull him closer, when there is zero room between them now and even the air around them is charged and sparking. This couch, he's never going to be able to look at this couch the same way again. Just like the picnic table. Just like the kitchen island. Will never not know what it feels like to be sliding on leather, pushed down by the fucking boulder that is Steven McGarrett. One hand huge on his hip, his leg, fingers tight, tugging him closer. Bracing the other somewhere behind him.

And saying low, terrible words into his ear. Terrible. Because Danny wouldn't be able to scrub them out of his skull with copper wire. And Danny can't do anything with them but thread some air into his lungs with a gasp, forehead pushing into Steve's shoulder and he's gusting a laugh on the air he can't get, before it's his mouth on Steve's shoulder, at the perfect curve where it meets his neck.

He just keeps falling to pieces, and Steve just keeps putting them all in a box and keeping him together and, God, this is great, but that might be better. All the ways it happens. So sure as he was that this evaporated over the weekend without him even knowing it, gone before he could even put up a fight.

And he would. He didn't think so, earlier, but he would, he would have to, because this is suddenly here in the world and Steve is still Steve and no more or less than he ever was, still larger than life and painfully, spectacularly amazing, like it's routine, being the best there is, and it is for Steve, but not for Danny. Who has never been the best at anything, for anyone. No more or less Steve, but suddenly so much more of Danny. Old thoughts edging nervously back into consideration. Old habits kicking in. Old instincts driving the thrust of his body and the way gravity falls a little heavier on this house and makes it so hard to actually walk away.

So he would have to. Which is insane. In twelve days, give or take, he should not be so sure, should not be so invested, but it's like saying twelve steps over water shouldn't put him under the surface. He was a goner from the very first time he put his foot down.

[thebesteverseen]

There's the hairline edge of something completely else that shudders down his back, through him, under Danny's fingers. The forearm against at his back, and Danny's leg tightening, shifting more comfortable, more fitting, easier to squeeze, heel pushing into the tight muscle low on Steve's back, his ass. It has to say something, somewhere that he just bites his cheek on something more scalding than surprise and lets it burn all the way down into his chest.

While Danny is laughing into his skin, and his head feels like it's being slammed by even more than every single smash of pleasure trying to boil the bottom of his stomach and all the organs in there he supposedly needs. When he's gripping the couch hard enough to feel it in the ache of his knuckles, and still slips a little, when Danny's mouth finds his neck. Dragging fire down on a vein, like he dropped a match. A million matches. Causing everything to skip, slip, split on a dragged up, beaten sound of near surrender.

Shifting lower, hips sputtering hard against Danny's skin and his own, slick with sweat and more by now. A little frantic.

That he's refusing, by the edges of his fingertips, somewhere against the pain in his hand and the faint taste of blood in his mouth. Forcing himself to breathe in, and push outward. Not reckless, not losing control completely, not now. Not because this feels so damn good he wants to stop fighting and give in, not because he has some idea what better might be, not because it might be another step easily slid toward another and another.

Because it is still Danny. Danny still doing this, still is clinging to him, begging him not to stop, curled around him this tight, again, making every inch of him ache in a new way, with those two words. That voice shaking into his shoulder. Lips still tugging on his skin, at his pulse careening wildly, thundering through him. Danny. Trusting him. To listen. Trusting him. Still. To keep it together. To not ride ragged right over him. Not again. But not to stop.

He can do this. He's done so much more, and he's done so much worse, right? He can do this, too.

Wants this. Wants Danny more than he wants anything else trying to help him go blind. Danny, here, with him.

Steve grit his eye lids closed, unable not to twist so Danny's mouth would have more skin, more of him, as much of him as he wanted. Leaning his weight on his hand on the couch, and ignoring the pain, or the ache. Focusing on Danny. The rush of movement. The way it's like wire dropped in water. Everything is snapping and popping on every single strike of movement front or back.

Building in the back of his head, and the bottom of his stomach, clenching like a rock, desperate, tight and fast, efficient movements. Threatening he knows. The way buildings sway in high winds. Held usually girders, but all of his are falling away. Cementing wobbling over sand, teetering toward a brink, and keeping simple thoughts at the blistering forefront. Danny. Danny. Danny. His breathing. The pressure of his fingers, his leg, the impact of his hip bones. Holding out until.

[haole_cop]

This ain't the handsy, reckless, clumsy bump and grinds of his teenage years, fumbling over clothes and shoving awkwardly together, just to feel the desperate burn of friction. It's not the directionless dry humps of someone just starting to figure this whole thing out, how bodies work and fit and move together. This is his legs cinching tighter against Steve's hips, one curled, one caught between Steve and the couch back. It's hot sweaty slick pure motion, rolling like a wave, like a straight shot of highway free and clear, narrowing towards a fast-approaching horizon.

It's his fingers digging five dents in the muscle over the back curve of Steve's ribs. His mouth hard on Steve's neck, finding the delicate spot just below his jaw and biting down on the corded muscle there. Unable to keep it soft, when that sound Steve made is stumbling down into the coiled, tangled knot of his stomach and melting on contact there. Bleeding heat, small sounds getting lost on Steve's skin, at the taste of salt and sweat and that something else, the clean deep something that's just Steve, that's now all over Danny and his clothes, that he can sometimes find himself breathing in even if Steve isn't there, after leaving in the morning.

And the whole concept of sex on a couch, with all the lights on, in the still early evening, is nothing short of bonkers. His mind keeps tripping on thoughts resurfacing from years spent drowned under a crushing weight of bitter cynicism. Wondering in a panic what if Gracie comes downstairs? before remembering this is Steve's house, and Grace doesn't live here. That he doesn't have to muffle himself, swallow sounds or gasps or groans, because there are no small ears to disturb. No one is likely to come knocking on this door, except for him, and he's already here.

But he does, anyway. Pushes moans that can't be held back into the skin of Steve's neck, Leg tightening, trembling, hips stuttering. More. Steve. Pushing up into him, core tightening and aching, skin sweat-slippery and feverish. More. Faster. And harder. Eyes screwed shut, breath tearing at what's left of his lungs, the space in his chest where it feels like something very necessary has gotten crushed to make way for everything else. All of this. Steve. A coil that's starting sudden and demanding in the lowest part of himself, and he knows where it's going, is torn towards rushing towards it and holding back. Just for more. A little longer. A little rougher. Good, and then better. And better. Heart careening towards a crash that he can't stop and wouldn't if he could.

[thebesteverseen]

The world shorts out in a hard blister, like being smack with all the pieces of a falling wall at once, when suddenly there are teeth biting into his skin. Pain, slamming into his system, sharp and unexpected. Like being snowed without warning, vision cutting white and grey and red, through a fierce slam of it sending him hard into shakes and harder, reckless, wild, thrusting, before he can even consider trying to shift or stop it.

Like lifting a hand could have held back a tsunami slamming into the whole side of a country. Like he was going to own either of his hands or any of his body, except one last raggedy bloody inch he can't even see right now. Not now. Not now when there's something desperate like a groan snapping on his lips, like he's shattering a sound the way you shatter the glass in a window.

From desperate and wanting, almost like the last note in a god forsaken plea he hasn't said a word about, into something dark and almost beyond explaining, that want running rampant into a demand. When he's dropping his hand from supporting him self, feeling the world slide in and out from underneath him, but he can't stop. Hand dropping and catching Danny's other leg. Fingers catching under Danny's other knee and calf and pulling it up, to match the other one. Making sure it's above his hip and can't, won't, slow him down.

When he knows, fuck, he knows he's playing with fire, already burning up on it. Danny shaking around him and moaning into his skin, in this reckless, broken open, needy sound that Steve can't even find the will to breathe through. Wants. Wants. Wants so bad it's screaming in each rushed breath, steaming in and out of his lungs without touching them. Because he wants to feel this. Even more. Danny falling apart. Reckless and wrecked.

When it feels like he's only feeding that insane want and fire getting hotter, trapped under and inside his skin, when can't do anything but thrust hard against him. Wrecked with need, with the fingers digging into his back, mouth at his throat, legs so tight around his center. Pushing hard, chest heaving, sweat dripping down across his muscles. Patience and will something that are burning fast under a raging fire.

When he knows there's more than one reason, and at least of of them is the desperate shrill alarm of want inside himself, when he's reaching up and dragging Danny's head back by that hair. Saying, "C'mon," Into his mouth, before kissing him, hard and sharp, biting at his lips. Needing, needing something to snap. Shoving for it. Harder and faster, matching Danny's frenetic movements. Because it can't be him. Which, maybe, means it's all just fucked.

It can't be him, he can't lose every inch, and he's already sliding down a spiral where the stairs are melting, and the one person he needs to keep them still, the only person he can ever trust to make them still, to make him breathe, think, do anything but burn everything down out whatever's in front of him, until it doesn't exist, that one person who when everything bleeds away, when all of his control, that thin frayed line, snaps like spider silk in a rough breeze, is the one he's trying to make lose everything first.

[haole_cop]

It's rough, and it's ragged. A shriek of air in the destruction of his lungs, and Steve, holding at that bite, before pushing into him with desperate, short thrusts. All speed and messy rhythm, shoving Danny's heart into overdrive and electrifying muscles until they shake. A hand slipping under his leg, tugging it up, and he lets it, wraps that leg up by Steve's hip. Curling under him, legs tight, arm tight, fingers tight.

Everything burning into a blaze of desperation and need so thick it's like requiring air to breath or blood to run. Wanting Steve under his hands, wrapped in legs and arms and anything else he can get on him, as deep gut-punches of pleasure rock him in shudders and groans stifled deep in his throat. Sweat sliding between his shoulders and back and the couch cushions, and there's nothing, nothing in existence except Steve and the back and forth glide of bodies, interrupted and stumbling, now, frantic, pushing for speed and not elegance. Steve's hips bucking smooth under his hands, and Steve's fingers reaching for his hair, tugging him away from the pulse flying under his tongue.

Mouth opening to that word, head spinning. When Steve. Steve. Steve. Is bringing him along, dragging him onto this insane rollercoaster, next to him, with him, like always, right there, never more than an outstretched hand away. Now close enough to kiss, for Danny's breath to be half air and half Steve's staggered gasps. The snapping brilliant shock of teeth, nipping at his lip, making him push back, harder, shoulders lifting off the couch as his stomach contracts, muscles shivering. Hips tucking helplessly.

When there's nothing, nothing at all he wants more than he wants Steve. All of him. Every inch of him. Every messed up thought and inclination and every escalated response, every bad memory and every luminous smile. Shaking hard enough the couch could shiver apart. Muscles standing out hard under skin, as he pushes, shoves, erasing everything but sheer pleasure from the shattered remains of Danny's thoughts.

Where nothing else is worth a damn. Not bad ideas, or old fears. Not the knowledge this will end, and probably badly. Not the trapdoor that had opened under his feet. Nothing but his fingers digging into Steve's skin, and the dominoes that aren't getting tipped so much as they are being devastated. Everything coiling tight, begging to snap, and it's close, he's so close, can't even control his body anymore, just lets it take over with helpless jerks, because Steve's got him, okay, saying c'mon because they're in this together, like always.

Hand at the side of Steve's neck, sliding to palm the side of his face, back down again, and the cards are starting to fall everywhere, silent flashes incinerating in his head and chest. There. There. As the ground opens up beneath him again and he topples into it, joints locking, body shaking hard and heavy, head-punched and demolished.

[thebesteverseen]

He's everywhere. You'd think it would be impossible. He's smaller. Maybe broader in some places, but definitely a lot shorter. Couldn't even lay out over Steve like a blanket. And somehow he's everywhere. Everything. Every sensation. Clinging to him with fingers digging into his back, his shoulders, his arms. Thighs that keep tightening on his sides, calves at his back, the inside of knees and the curved end of heels digging in behind. Hard. Hard enough it isn't hard enough.

Because it's burning at all his edges. How easily. From here. Like this. With Danny holding on him desperately, pushing into him for more, more, more. Burning, blistering fireworks with every rise of his hips. And he wants to be able to. Push in and pull out, drag stars across Danny's vision with the movement of a single inch, the madness of just holding still for a few seconds longer when you think you can't take it. Pummel forward, hard and fast and deep, beyond sanity or thought.

Especially when he's throwing it all into kissing Danny. Holding on that simplicity, like it's the last burning torch of a look out tower in the dark. The taste of his mouth, against a torrent of fire. The softness of his lips beneath teeth, against the insane galloping march and muscle burn in his legs, nowhere near stopping. The way Danny pushes up from the couch, gasping for air and pushing for more, more, more, too. Meeting it out, dragging it down into him.

Nothing still and stated about either of them. About any of this. Nothing simple or easy or for granted. Danny nearly left.

A thought that can't hold as Danny goes deadly still for the breifest second, every hand, arm, leg, seizing around Steve harder before he's shuddering erratically, riding hard against Steve's own body, slamming up into him, out of control, and Steve has to look up to see his face. Doesn't want it buried and lost. He gets this. Still gets this. Doesn't have to wait. Isn't tearing himself apart, desperate in a way he never is. Never. Not with anyone.

Danny's hand coming up to cup his cheek only to fly away toward his shoulder, and there's something in that. The movements, the touching, the desperation of it, the last second of the world falling part, he thinks he recognizes and he says, "I got you," even when he isn't sure Danny will even hear the words, or even if they are true because of all he's thinking. Because it's true. Because it's truer than everything else going on in his head and every offer Cath flashed in his direction.

And he's not about to let Danny fall on purpose. Not here, like this. Not before, like that. Never. Not Danny. He won't let him.

Even if everything else in his head is coming in as a fast falling fade. When Danny is already going, going, gone, curled under him heavy and shaking and looser, and Steve can just curl forward. Leaning his head against Danny's, against the couch arm, and push against the gate of hell inside his head. Shove hard against the now even wetter skin of Danny's stomach, and let the image in his head burn out, seer his skin, his stomach, his throat. Give it the inch of his head, because Danny is already, and he's not actually giving in to moving anywhere else or doing anything else.

"Danny, Danny, Danny," falling out, endless low feverish, repeating whisper, his hips at a dangerously snapping pace.

Everything, everything obliterating inward, almost without warning. A fast void-like stunning swoop of momentarily razor sharp terrifying relief, and then it explodes outward like a bomb. Taking all the walls, taking all his thoughts, taking all the struggle and the images, slamming through him in a sensation blinding the world outside his head goes with one inside it. Leaving him without a though in the world, not even the one where he's probably more half off the couch like this than he is half on it.

When what part of him all is, mostly spans across Danny, which is where he's going to end up.

[haole_cop]

There's a harsh, low, repeating rasp of his name, tiny against his skin, pushing with each crush of hips, with Steve gripping him tight, tighter, impossible to move or escape, aching pain spreading against those fingers. Feeling like he'd be crushed if those arms were around him, snapping ribs and pulverizing organs. Already snapped, already pulverized. Hit like a truck, the sudden shock of gravity kicking in, sending him screaming into an implosion that leaves a smoking crater where his stomach used to be.

Muscles shaking with aftershock, tremors skittering across thighs and arms. Holding on, tight, as Steve goes up like a crashing plane, shaking apart, caught in critical momentum, unable to stop or do anything but push through. Straight into destruction. And it's. God. Beautiful. Body wire-tight and coiling hard, before it all collapses, head heavy next to Danny's, burying himself there, into Danny curling up around him.

And then. Quiet. Ragged breathing. A gradual increase of weight, sticky warm bellies pressing close together, softer now, muscles trembling into looseness. His hips ache from flexing, bending; his knee will probably never stop giving him hell, and the couch is going to get tacky with sweat, need to be wiped down.

But for now. All he can do is breathe. Hand finding, clumsy, the back of Steve's head. Temple tucked against Steve's cheek. Eyes sliding closed. Breathe. Steve so heavy and warm and fallen apart now, a loose collection of body parts, relaxing slowly after being paused and poised, bowstring-tight and now collapsing like a building with the foundation blown out from under it.

When not even the taut discomfort in his hips makes Danny want to let go, or move. Like. He's here. Steve put him here. Wanted Danny wrapped around him. He doesn't have to let go if he doesn't want to. And he doesn't want to. Wants to lie here, curled. Breathing in Steve and leather and salt. Wants to forget there ever being even a second when this was gone. Wants to blow the desperate, almost pleading look right off Steve's face, banish it to some locked room that never sees the light of day again.

Joints relaxing, painful as they loosen, feet sliding down the back of Steve's legs, until he isn't a knot tied around him anymore, but they're draped. Possessive. Impossible for Steve to get up without tripping. Nothing he can do to leave. Or go any further than Danny is comfortable having him be. Which is. Not even inches, okay. He can pretend later.

Right now, his arm, hand, leg is still holding him close. And it lets him. Breathe.

[thebesteverseen]

The world ships out, disorienting pleasure washing through with rocking waves, hitting him still like pieces of that earlier falling wall, still falling, never running out of raining pieces. Somehow like there are no hands to defend the falling. As it keeps punching his stomach, his head, wringing him out from the inside, and pulling him over. Every nerve ending alive with each ripple of release. Each muscle in his chest aching to every edge with each heavy labored breath.

Everything feels boneless and caustic, even when there are suddenly fingers finding his hair. Slow, clumsy, sort of finding and settling, like his head might have been lost. Maybe it had been. Still was. It doesn't stop his mouth from twitching faintly, when that hand is following by Danny's head and his hair, leaning in against his head. Well, his cheek. Soft silky hair against his cheek, all causing a tiny, soft, lost, comfortable sound to drag out of Steve's scorched sandpaper throat.

He can't make his eyes work yet. Barely feels coherent about the touches that fade in and out, as his skin is still shivering outward from the center. Heart beat loud in his ears, breath heavy and warm against Danny's skin, breathing in the smell of it. Danny, and whatever it is he uses in his hair, and that something that is only him, and sweat, and sharpness, and leather. His couch is going to need work, but he can't bring himself to give a damn. Not right now.

Can hardly hold a thought. Barely feel the muscles in his back having snapped from thick cement to running water.

Yet somehow feeling Danny's faintest shifts. Loosening back into the couch. Uncertain if he could even come up with a joke in his head. It's not like he's a blanket over Danny right now, fallen like a rock slide, a solid avalanche. Like before. Not when Danny is loose but wrapped around him still. When even unfurling, his ankles and legs staying around and over Steve's legs. When everything else wanes, but there are fingers at his back, still, the back of his head, a check touching Danny's head.

When Steve seriously feels like he can't distinguish where exactly he ends, and Danny begins at the moment. Like they've become too tangled to still be two different bodies in this space. When he's not sure that hasn't been true for a long time. The world awash of with warmth, the heavy steady rise of a chest under his, not quite lifting him with each breath. When everything is still too heavy, too fuzzy, too fluid to do much more than shift and brush his lips and cheek, a little, against the hair tickling at the skin and stubble of his cheek.

[haole_cop]

A long, slow breath leaks out, dusting past Steve's shoulder, and Danny's arm lifts, slings lazy over the back of Steve's neck. It's about the sum total of how much he feels like moving and he closes his eyes after, letting the in and out of breath calm him back down to a foggy, fuzzy, half-real existence. Floating gently awash on clouds that are hazing across every thought, muffling every sensation, softening the world into something less glaring and bright than lit lamps and a sticky couch.

Even if the leather feels like it's molding to the back of his shoulders, which it is. As far as good choices for couch fabrics on which to have sex go, leather is not exactly ideal; in fact, it will only get increasingly uncomfortable as they cool down, and he gets the distinct feeling he'll have to be pried off, once the leather bonds directly to his skin.

It's worth it. For the way Steve is piled on top of him like a snowdrift at the end of a driveway, all loose heavy limbs and warm weight, loose as water. Breathing shallower and slower now, swallowing against caught breaths and letting them out in puffs that waft pieces of Danny's hair, sticking it damp against the skin of his neck and temple.

And there's that brush. Faintest movement. The tiny sound he makes, barely heard through the slowing rush of blood in Danny's ears. Dropping like a penny in a well, spreading warm ripples through lax muscles, dragging a tired half smile onto Danny's mouth, that quirks a little wider at that little motion, the shift that could almost be accidental, of lips against his hair, a cheek rubbing gently over the mess Steve's fingers and the couch cushions made.

He's pretty sure one or both of them were trying to make a point earlier, but whatever it was, it seems to be escaping him at the moment.

[thebesteverseen]

Danny is breathing, in and out, in and out, in and out, against his shoulder. Slow, gentle, persistent waves of warm air. Only interrupted with the small movements Danny makes, that Steve almost feels like his body remakes itself around. His shoulder spreading slowly under the sensation of breath. His neck and his shoulders under that toss of an arm over him. That lax, yet almost possessive touch. Like he's not allowed to move.

Not that he's thinking about moving. Or at least not that he's thinking about morning much. It's more comfortable than any of the top ten worst places he's been stuck, and his body feels like his bones are still half made of a jello, but it's nowhere near the best place to be, hanging off the couch. Not even slightly close to the best places he's found himself in this predicament.

Still gasping for air, slower and slower, ache in lungs diffusing as air keeps coming and going. Plastered over Danny, like a limp mat. But he doesn't really fit here. On the couch. And it's not really all comfortable, even when on Danny is, and where he wants to stay, half hanging off the couch is not. Steve made a disgruntled noise, twitching his nose against blonde hair and reaching up a hand to brush at his own face.

Prying his eyes open, against his rubbing fingers and the light, even if it does not hurt that the first thing he's looking down at is Danny. Which does not help that faint, almost drowning impulse to move. He's so beautiful. All knocked over and drug out, fingers clutching at him thinking he's breaking rules about not being allowed to move at all. Which really all sort of shorts out his head, shoving the warmed coals in his chest briefly toward hot, and shoots off his mouth.

"Hey," Steve prodded, rather than moving more. Finding his feet or any more air. "Who said you could make a mess of my couch?"

[haole_cop]

Steve has decided to move, and Danny's really not sure he's a hundred percent on board with that whole idea just yet, fingers tightening against the back of a shoulder. Aiming a disapproving look at Steve, who is watching him with a goofy, smacked-open look on his face. Moving is not his idea of a good time right now. He's not totally sure that things like legs or feet exist at all anymore, or that there's a reason good enough to force muscles back into some activity that isn't keeping Steve right here, on top of him, looking like the last KO of the night.

"Uh, you did, when you dragged me onto the couch and told me to take off my clothes."

Irascible. The whole idea is displeasing. Steve was the one who put them here, it is not Danny's problem that the couch is starting to stick and that the lights are still on and that Steve is sort of half-flopping off the whole setup. "Why are you moving, who said you could move?"

Can't they, just. Take a second. A minute. It's so rare that they could get the luxury of a whole hour, or evening, and he doesn't give a flying fuck that his hair must be everywhere and his eyes are probably as drugged-out dopey as Steve's are, because he is feeling Toast-level spaced right now, and Steve is looking at him with that face. The one he doesn't get. The one he hasn't defined. That's sort of dopey and relaxed and soft like Steve rarely gets. No mission to snag his every nanosecond of attention, no case to get under that frown and stick there in creases between his eyebrows. No Doris making him look lost in his own body, like that Tom Hanks movie where the kid wakes up one day as a grown man.

Just Steve, looking down at him and seeing God knows what, Danny's crows-feet and fluffed-out hair, the fading flush of heat and the sticky residue of sweat.

[thebesteverseen]

Steve mouth was turning toward a goofy smirk at Danny's words, somehow slamming into that warmth in the center. Because as outlandish as it sounded, even so annoyed on Danny's lips, when his hands are clutching and he sounds like he's just beginning to be riled up, by this moving and talking, it's true, too. Even if Steve would say pushed more than drug.

But he did get Danny on his couch, and tell him to lose all his clothes, and he did, and some part of his brain really must be gone because there's something in all of that which can't keep from spilling out across his face awed and arrogant all in one flush wash of features. Especially when Danny begins to complain about his moving. Fingers pulling at his shoulder to keep him from moving, and putting any more space between their chests.

Like no one's chosen to note Steve's legs are still wrapped by Danny's. That standing wouldn't be an epic feat, but it would definitely take effort, and cause a lot more complaining that the complaining happening at this second while Danny is looking up at him. Blinking bleary blue eyes, and starting the edges of frown lines, pulling him back with a force and that faint beleaguered annoyance in his voice starting. Like Steve is the worst person in the world to have to put up with.

Which shouldn't keep him smirking or smiling. But it does. So much, like it's painting itself on Steve's skin.

One arm tracking in to rest on Danny's chest, as his eyebrows raised. "Maybe you missed the part where we don't fit here."

Well. Danny kind of did. Actually did. Because he had. Slept here several times. Several nights of weeks back in the past. When Steve would walk as quickly by his sleeping form as he could manage lest thoughts of anything like this, or anything else. Even that persistent, annoying, unlabeled ache cause him to stand still longer than a second. But Steve didn't. Steve didn't fit on this couch alone.

Not that it stopped him. From this, in past or the present, or from napping on it from time to time.

Or poking Danny about, while wigging a little as though it would help emphasize the point.

[haole_cop]

"Hey, I didn't pick the couch. That seems like a problem for someone else, not for me."

He fits. He fits just fine, because he is not approximately eighty percent larger than anyone should legally be allowed to be. He and this couch are old friends, and he's crashed here plenty of times, both when staying at the house and just on nights that were too late and too tiring and when the last damn thing he wanted was to go home to his crappy, empty, tiny apartment with a bed no more comfortable than this exact spot. "Are you trying to tell me you want to go someplace else? You have some kind of plan in mind? Because those of us who are not part giraffe are actually doing okay right here. Admittedly, I think I may actually have melded to the leather, here, we should have put down a blanket or something."

Still. His hand moves when Steve shifts, arm settling like a bar across Danny's chest. Like whatever he's saying, he doesn't want to get up, either, break apart this lazy peace that's settled over them and the room and the abused couch and their discarded clothes. Everything tossed aside without meaning, because who gives a damn, when no one is going to interrupt, there's no one here but Steve, and Steve is smiling, smug, like Danny's refusal to budge is really some sort of treat for him.

That hand curving over the round of his shoulder, down to the blue and green ink drawn in curving patterns over biceps, so, well, maybe he's not holding Steve down with at least one limb, anymore.

Steve. Blue eyes all heavy-lidded and happy, creased with a smile that's crooked and self-aware. Stirring a warm puddle in Danny's chest that has no business being stirred by an axe-crazy Navy SEAL with zero regard for personal safety or the structural integrity of private or public buildings. It's idiotic, finding Steve endearing. Tying himself into a knot on the curve of a smile. Fumbling in the dark for the sanity he seems to have dropped and can no longer find.

And apparently has little to no need of, anymore, considering the way his heart wants to hang itself on Steve's smile like a hat on a rack.

[thebesteverseen]

Danny is rambling while his hands moves down across Steve's shoulder and into his arm, half his attention following the words and half following that hand. His hand, warm, heavy fingers and palm filled with lead, and every other place Danny is still touching him, still wrapped around, still not one iota really toward looking like he's about to let go or give Steve back his own body, and maybe he really doesn't hate that. Even if the cost is be uncomfortable.

His own muscles are still heavy, like they're water logged, except the water is cement. He knows he could move. He could be keep moving like he did a second ago. The ability to move is already well awake and aware in his head, in his skin. But he's clinging a little to this, even when his head is populating with ideas even as Danny is rambling onward about his being overwhelmingly tall. Like he's somehow unaware of it. Draped all over Danny.

"You damage my couch removing yourself from it and you're going to have to fix it," Steve said, eyebrows pointing a little more. His voice, too. But there is nothing but wide space and light in his eyes. Watching Danny ramble, rant, start moving, still clinging to him. Yeah. Okay. It's not the worst thing in the world. Which is maybe why he moves, settling like he's trying to stretch more space into the couch.

He can't really stretch out across it, even all that marginally, when Danny is under him, all around him and he's facing downward, keeping even his calves from hanging off. "There's always the bed." Steve says it slow, like he's having to rectify it with being mid-evening only or having to drag it out from some long forsaken corner of his head. Like he doesn't have every single second cataloged somewhere. At least the ones like this.

"At least I'm pretty sure someone-" Emphasize with a wider slide of a his smile. "-keeps reminding that I keep one of those around here somewhere." He tilted his head, maybe something a little more testing dropping in the smallest amount. "Unless you have other plans?" Which could be ideas, or it could be what it is. Sort of, a run by on whether Danny is planning on leaving sometime soon.

[haole_cop]

"Hey, it is not my fault your fuse is too short to add steps to your thought processes, like, for example, a consideration of whether or not you really want to wreck your couch. I am not taking responsibility for your screwed-up priorities."

Okay. Partly because, well. He can't really argue with those, here. Can't say his own priorities aren't just as screwy, can't say he gave a damn about the couch, or their clothes, or the lights that are still on, or the fact that it's only just past dinnertime and they seem to have once again hurtled straight past possibility into this: Steve collapsed and heavy on top of him, his head swimming in a blissfully warm, generous glow.

The thought of bed doesn't even sound like a bad idea. Space to stretch out in, smooth sheets and soft pillows, and Steve there. Dipping the mattress. Laid out bare against the mattress.

Still, he feels he should put up some kind of argument, for the hell of it, because it's what they do, and because Steve is kind of an idiot if he thinks he has other plans. "No," he says, eyebrows pushing together like he's a little concerned about Steve's ability to remember basic facts. Like maybe Steve just asked whether or not Danny will be at work tomorrow, or if he misses Grace. There are certain questions that just have no other possible answers.

"I have no plans. My entire plan was basically to come here, so it would seem counterproductive to thank you for a lovely evening and leave right away. And, frankly, I find the insinuation that I might have something better to do than go back to my hellhole of an apartment by myself to be a little alarming, considering you know every boring detail of my life. Do I have other plans? I do not. However, I also didn't realize that you are actually a retiree from Florida. You know. Because it can't be past eight pm and you're talking about bed."

It's all just words, though. Handed out through a smile that can't stop itself, because Steve is looking at him with that goofy wide shine all painted across his face, and Steve wants Danny here. In his bed. With him.

And Steve, for all his complaining, hasn't moved. Not an inch, not for anything other than to better point his words Danny's way.

[thebesteverseen]

Steve's pretty sure that first set of words out of Danny's mouth are beyond suspect. Steve and screwed-up priorities were not the hands tracing down every inch of his own skin, with that look that Steve still isn't quite sure how to label, or even look at entirely head on. That one, or the one on the lawn. Because either one won't make him want to move from this spot, for vastly different reasons all together, even though neither make all that much sense.

"Check," Steve said, cheeky, but the better part of his expression stayed more mocking than accusative or serious.

About showing up, just to leave. "You already did those." Without the thanking Steve for a lovely evening, or much of a hello, even, but he had shown up just to leave already. Only Steve didn't really let him go, and Danny hadn't really gone far, and even if Danny might have been all but drug back inside the house against his will and better judgement, he was still here.

Saying words like the one's he had. Shoving and dragging Steve to a more reckless disaster than most things got. Except that night.

Right, here. Under Steve. Looking up at him with those soft, blue eyes and in full flight with his sharp teasing mouth, looking like he didn't want to be anywhere else in the world really. Especially not with the hand at his shoulder, or the legs, all designed like some kind of real seat belt to keep Steve from going as much as they had just gotten over keeping Steve from being able to think of any thought that wasn't closer or faster.

"So, you don't have a better idea, and you don't want to go up?" Steve says, voice getting heavy with far more mocking amusement already before the rest is even out, hands shifting. One pushing up on the tacky couch leather beside Danny's side, and the other pushing up from the forearm safety-barred straight across Danny's chest. "Then we'll just put our clothes back on and do something else."

[haole_cop]

"Whoa, hey, let's not rush into anything, here."

He can't think of anything worse than having to put those jeans back on, confining and clumsy against his skin, instead of being able to feel Steve's, brush of skin, leg hair (still a strange sensation, but not actually unpleasant). Blood-warm and without barrier.

The last word gets wheezed out, under the sudden weight pressing down on his chest, compacting ribs and sternum, and he aims a disgruntled look up, groaning under the pressure, light as it still might be. Nowhere near the kind of gravity Steve can force on a prone body, when prying answers from reluctant tongues. "Christ, can you maybe avoid snapping a few ribs tonight? Clothes. That's sick. How am I supposed to be able to appreciate all of this if you start deciding to put clothes back on instead of taking them off like you have no trouble with at work? Don't you think it should be the other way around?"

And, really, how the hell is he supposed to keep his head when Steve starts stripping his shirt off during the work day, to change after a particularly messy chasedown or to hit the water for reasons Danny can only describe as loose, at best? How is he ever going to be able to not see this, then, to not remember what it feels like to walk fingers down the slope of his back, to feel the slide of muscles, standing out in sharp relief, slick with sweat. He knows how warm Steve is, now. How surprisingly soft his skin is. How it flushes under the tan. What he looks like, half-lit and lazy, in a muddle of pale sheets and shadow.

The short answer is, he can't. Won't. Is never going to not know, now, so the best he can hope for is the kind of brief insanity that clutches him during shootouts, and can be shoved aside for the greater good and the necessity of survival.

"I never said I didn't want to go up."