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]

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."

[thebesteverseen]

Steve's mouth is getting away from him before Danny stops sputtering his dislike of Steve's drastic alternate suggestion. Not that Steve has the faintest clue what they would do right at this second. Dinner and beers are gone, if the mess is on his counters in the kitchen, and the chairs on the end of the grass, left out from using them with Cath in the middle of the day after their hike, are all so far away.

Even if his brow knits together for a second, almost pulling back immediately, judging Danny's momentary winded state. Torn between settling down or whether he needs to move all together. Okay. This, this part isn't exactly copacetic with anything before it. He doesn't just topple down on people. Especially not women, rarely ever even pushed to snapping with Cath, but, more accurately, not anyone, and not ever, if he can help it. And he can. Because he's aware. He's never not aware.

Very tall, sprawling limbs in every direction, and built like a brick house. Which means heavy and solid as one when fallen.

This isn't a place he falls. Not usually. Even if it is a place Danny keeps him at, near, on him. Grabs at him when he tries to leave whether it's serious or joking. Like any time Steve is trying to get out of his way Danny has decided Steve's head has parted way from his body. Again. But then he makes a face like this. And Steve shoulders drag down, tight, brows furrowing inward, trying to decide if he needs to move, regardless of other words or actions or opinions.

Actively uncertain. Especially when Danny makes that face, but goes right on, holding him there, and smacking him about the head with other words not even a second later. When Steve takes from that the only thing really managing to catch, aside from a whirlwind of words, and Danny's voice, which he never ever seems to get all that tired of. Even when he's frustrated as hell or annoyed and seeing red at Danny.

"You're not done appreciating everything yet?" Steve's teeth bit in against his own bottom lip for a moment, letting his teeth drag back across, eyebrows raising pointedly laughing fond and so falsely wary, like that was maybe the most ludicrous, important thing that just fell out of Danny's mouth.

Like driving Steve to distraction and desperation and a want so bad it still felt like it lingered somewhere in the throbbing, snapped hard as thick ice or solid bone, but only after trying to take every ounce of sanity and air with it. And Danny was implying he wasn't anywhere near done yet, and making a storm's worth of noise about it even being implied at being taken away from him?

[haole_cop]

What kind of idiots has Steve been involved with in the past? How stupid where they, that they ever thought there was enough time for appreciation? Seriously, he'd like to know. He would have thought Catherine was smarter than that, that she would at least have the perception to linger as long as she could and savor this. Girls from bars and sidewalks and beaches look at Steve like they'd take all night drinking that glass of water, and he hates it, but at least that's the right idea.

Done. Like hell he's done. None of this was ever supposed to be available to begin with. It was just going to burn, forever, or until he got a grip on himself, in the back of his head. Eating away through level and level of his sanity, like a coal sinking through layers of ice. It was never supposed to be handed to him, was never supposed to be mentioned or thought of. And then. It was supposed to be gone. Right? When Cath was here, and that meant this was over, because Steve may be a dunce when it comes to choices made for his own personal good but even Steve can see that Cath is a better, far more attractive option than Danny, right? Being with Cath makes sense. It's simple. Uncomplicated. Sure, there's the issue of her being out to sea fifty weeks out of the year, but Steve's never seemed to mind that before.

Not like Danny, who is here all the time. Has been since this partnership started. The only way he might see Steve less is if Steve decided to mandate hours spent apart so as not to give the nice HR rep who signs off on their paychecks the kind of heart attack that only blowing the concept of the forty hour workweek out of the water and fraternizing outside work hours can bring.

And yet, Steve still did. Let Cath walk out the door, and kept Danny from doing the same. Went after him. Not her.

Told her. Even before Danny came and shattered any last illusions of secrecy.



In what world is he supposed to have had enough of appreciating this?



"See, you seem to have a basic misunderstanding of the word 'appreciate'," he points out, lazy, hand settling on Steve's forearm. Just light. Palm, gently curved fingers. Not actually keeping that arm there, but it would be one more thing to move, if Steve tried, the way he looks like he's considering. Like Danny isn't built to be able to withstand some pressure, some weight. Like he's not just as solid as this couch, in all the ways that matter at the moment. He's not going to break, and Steve's not going anywhere. Not with that look. "The whole point is to take your time, and savor. Isn't that what you're always saying this whole island lifestyle is about?"

Fingers waving, lifting off Steve's skin, to find a point, bat it away again. "Or have you been lecturing me this whole time for nothing?"

[thebesteverseen]

Fingers settles light on his forearm, followed by a palm. Resting warm and soft all at once, even with the calluses. It's nothing like the hand at his shoulder was, or the loose forgotten existence of legs and ankles curled thighs. It has almost all of his attention for a second. Almost like he can feel the separate brush of skin between each curled digit. His mouth curving a little, looking from the hand back to Danny's face.

When Danny collects his attention back again, and make it apparent he's not at all thinking about any of the things Steve is. Only Steve's attention and castigating anything he assumes might have been behind those words, and that seconds ago teasing to the statement itself. Busy lecturing Steve about things he's still sure he knows far more about than Danny, when the man refuses to do much more than walk outside his door when it comes to anything other than Grace.

Okay. Yeah. Maybe it's not that bad now. But it was when he first got here. It's marginally better now.

Steve hand raised to catch Danny's. Waving fingers and half wanting it back, half not wanting it to have left. More impulse than decision still, when his fingers are catching Danny's hand and dragging it back, like claimed treasure. Even while he smirked, smugly overbearing, "So you were listening."

Like that at least meant he was getting through the concrete walls of Danny's head and winning by proxy. His voice in Danny's head. Like he didn't hoard every minute Danny looked happy surfing, or sitting out on the lanai, or realizing he actually did like some kind of food here that he'd never tried. The slow divestment down to tighter shirts that were more open, even if he never lost his loafers and dress pants.

Well. Almost never.

[haole_cop]

"I listen."

Protesting, if mildly so, somehow managed past the sudden choke of warmth in his chest that's threatening to spill out everywhere into the kind of words Steve probably won't be smiling so smugly at. These are. This is. This is like his first crush, like being thirteen and agonizing over every second spent in accidental company with the object of his affections, during and after. This is one foot in his mouth levels of self-aware awkwardness that makes him feel as goofy as a cartoon. These are foil-wrapped, saccharine saying candy feelings. If he's not careful, he might find himself back in the 80's, requesting songs from a DJ recorded three states and four hours away.

That is how idiotic all of this is making him. These are ridiculous feelings, feelings that have no business attaching themselves to a natural disaster like Steve, a human wrecking ball, no matter how soft his eyes are or how endearing that smile.

Right?

Except he knows better. There's no turning back now, he's already caught in the tar pits, sinking blissfully away into certain doom and disaster.

But it's not right now. Not tonight. Tonight is still good, and Steve is dragging his hand back, like it isn't Danny's to move, like it belongs to Steve and he hadn't given permission to take it away. Which clenches that strange, half-painful knot in his chest, washes him out with warmth.

"I don't always agree, but I listen. There's no need for slander."

[thebesteverseen]

Steve smirked at the snap of correction alight with fond amusement. And maybe with the way Danny actually doesn't fight having his hand stolen from him, like it's a possession Steve could just waltz off with and not connected to every other part of him. Especially when it's one of the parts that's always moving.

Maybe making it even more compelling. The knowledge that even he can only make it stay still so many seconds, or minutes. That he could hold on to him longer, but the truth is that'd be like the cemented plane museums. There's something wrong about all the stillness in things made to move and fly, fast and sharp through the air. When Danny's, even just his hands, it's like that.

So he knows it'll only last so long, and he knows he'll only hold it so long.

Even when it's a little funny. The way he tips his head, to watch between his thumb sliding in, to brush along the center of Danny's palm as he turns it, and settles it back down between them, and Danny's face through the complaints. Like it's something big, like somehow he hadn't just taken advantage of every single inch of Danny's skin, without much in the way of a request or questioning anywhere in it.

Mouth quirking upward at a corner, when he shoots straight back with, "But you're agreeing with me now."

If only because it was a convenient excuse or example to try and make Steve stay any more still than he ever really did.

[haole_cop]

Steve's got this tiny, triumphant glint in his eye, that's kind of softened a few steps away from his usual smug arrogance, but it's still enough to snag a loose thread in Danny's chest and tug on it, because, come on, it's not like anybody ever looks this glad to keep his hand, right? Most of the time they pretty much are glad to get him and his hands both out of their faces.

But not Steve. Not now. Looking at Danny all satisfied and companionable, somehow still not tired of him, after two years, after nearly two weeks.

"Look, don't get used to it. I still think people are way too laid-back on this godforsaken sand spit, but there is occasionally some merit to taking it easy. And I wasn't agreeing, I was, uh..."

He trails off, stumbling back over the conversation in his head, eyes drifting away from Steve's face and a faint frown parking itself, bemused, between his eyebrows.

"I had a point. It was disagreeing with you, I remember, because I am almost always disagreeing with you. However, I seem to have gotten away from it. Marginally."

Something about not moving. Right? Except then Steve tossed out the idea of bed, and as much as Danny hates the thought of getting up, or leaving this spot, or letting Steve move away even an inch, he has to say that bed, with its lack of sticking leather and all of Steve's body weight, is sounding like a better and better option.

[thebesteverseen]

The insult to Hawaii does get a pointed look, but with the faintest shake of his head, like he really can't expect any better of Danny, and he can't, Danny's pretty much bound to dislike Hawaii, only taking the most minuscule of inching steps toward liking anything on it at Grace's behest or a lot of shoving. The thought doesn't stay long though, because watching Danny really is sort of like a spectator sport.

Especially once Danny looks entirely at a loss for how it just happened that he was agreeing with Steve, when he meant to point out he was not agreeing with Steve. Leaving him stumbling over his words. Trying to figure out what just happened, and how Steve wasn't wrong, even when Danny was certain he was at the beginning. It's actually kind of enthralling. Delightful. All these not him words. Bubbling up in his chest. Watching Danny's lips come together into a frown, brow wrinkling toward the center.

There with the urge to reach up a hand and brush his thumb at the skin there. Which doesn't happen, but it holds for a long second, considered, like something being turned over and over in his hand, while Danny is still tossing words together at the air, about having lost his train. Steve just plucks at like its own string. Instead of reaching up to smooth the skin. "You admitting you're just talking to hear your own voice now, too?"

"It must not have been very important, if you've already lost it," Steve goaded, unhelpfully, fixing him with a relaxed loose expression, mouth curved and shoulders back to more relaxed. Because he was, always, disagreeing. Maybe even on principle. They both did. All the time. Ever this was, right now. If just at a different tilt and spin. Turning Danny in circles, unmaking his own decision, ignoring the things that were problems.

For the one that should have been the biggest one, and wasn't. Was, more than not, the person who eased every other one.

[haole_cop]

"That's funny."

The kind of ground in exasperation that isn't even exasperation anymore, that is so old and routine that it's more like affection than anything else. Steve is talking him in circles, and Danny digs in his heels, mulish, refusing to keep plodding around in the track laid out for him.

Even if it means acquiescing. This once. Because Steve may have a point, and even if he doesn't, the couch is starting to make itself known in very apparent ways that will soon include fabric creases etched into his skin, not to mention how much less comfortable this thing actually gets, when there are no blankets or pillows and he's also trying to share it with Steve, who simply does not fit, anywhere.

Honestly, there are days Danny's amazed he makes it into the car at all.

And now he's just doing this on purpose. Teasing, prodding, like a little kid with a stick, with that stupid, bright smile washing across his face and painting thick stripes of light in Danny's chest.

It's not enough. Not nearly enough. Steve doesn't smile that way nearly as often as he should, and, yeah, the world is a rough place, vale of tears, and all, but this. Man. This is something else. This is Steve, years dropping away from him. Looking pleased and relaxed and fuzzy-edged. Smiling smug and small, whole giant frame loose and easy, taken apart like his joints have been let out a notch or two.

"I thought you wanted to move, I see no movement happening here, just a lot of you deciding to be a smartass instead."

[thebesteverseen]

Steve's smile turns sharp and dangerously mischievous on the drop of the words. Eyebrows raising, and pulling back a little.

Too bright and full of himself, instantly, "Oh? I'm not moving enough for you now? We can fix that."

It doesn't really take him more than the second to think about it, not even a pause for the words to pop out and register. Even if he knows there's about to be flailing, possibly smacking, definitely bitching is going to follow in with how easy it is for him to not only consider moving, but shove his body, and shift his weight and roll for it. Or more aptly, toss backwards.

Feet toward the ground, toss his weight on way, balance one hand, using the couch beside Danny, to push up and propel even faster, and the other not letting go of Danny's hand in his, dragging Danny upright along with him.

Not aiming for untangling himself, or even stepping back, so much as suddenly springing toward upward, against the space right in front of the couch. Getting his weight toward his calves and his toes, when he's dragging Danny along with that arm, prepared and preparing for that. Even though he's wrapped and and obviously not expecting anything as sudden as the words provoke in Steve a need to show off were utterly possibly.

[haole_cop]

"Hey, whoa--"

It's not fair. It's not fair that Steve has so much more leverage, almost always, and that Steve is big enough to gain the advantage even if he doesn't, because there is no law of physics that says he should be able to pull up and drag Danny with him that easily. Right?

(He's not totally sure, high school physics is a long way away, these days.)

He comes loose with a sticky, ripping sound, snapping at his back, which feels raw and stinging with suddenly cool air. Legs forced to rearrange themselves, the back slipping to bend against the couch back to regain some kind of balance, the other sliding off Steve's, awkward and loose.

It lets his free hand come up to bat at Steve's shoulder, at least, castigating, temper flaring into annoyance. "What the hell is the matter with you? Do you have to take everything literally? Is this some kind of medical condition? Please tell me, because it would actually explain a lot about the way you function."

Steve is a freight train, taking the most direct immediate route to whatever he's trying to accomplish, and half the time Danny feels like someone screaming that the bridge ahead is out, with zero effect on Steve's direction or speed. Stubborn asshole.

And then sometimes he drags Danny with him, like now, looking just as pleased with himself as if he could want nothing else but to have Danny shouting at him, annoyed at being moved, manhandled like a toy or teddy bear.

"Just so you know, this does not actually negate the 'being a smartass' factor. Huh? Are you happy with yourself? Was there a part B to this plan, or have we reached a dead end?"