Post 3.01 - The McGarrett Family Home

[gonna_owe_me]

It doesn't come as any kind of surprise to her that she hasn't been able to stop thinking about Steve.

Neither does the fact that those thoughts come with a hefty side-helping of guilt. She should have known those trees were too close to the window. She should have been faster, more alert. Maybe they could have caught him, if she'd been doing the damn job Steve told her to do, if she'd done it the way he thought she could.

No surprise there: like she told him, she's not a bodyguard. She's a long way from basic, or doing anything that isn't in a gym or in front of a computer, and he doesn't blame her, but in some ways that just makes it worse.

So she puts in her request for leave right away, requests the weekend, and it's granted without too many hoops to jump through, but she's got to give up her Friday night and part of Saturday morning, which is fine, too. All she needs is to change, find a pair of shorts and a breezy, teal-colored top that hangs loose off her shoulders. Slides a pair of sandals on, brushes out her hair, washes her face, puts on a little makeup. She skips the gym, but throws running shoes, shorts, and a sports bra into the little bag she packs, along with a swimsuit, before slinging it over a shoulder and hitting the pavement.

The sun is high and hot, and she stops at a food truck, first, grabs two cardboard boxes, steaming with a scent that makes her stomach rumble and curl in on itself, before hailing a cab and sliding into the too-warm, hot polyester scented backseat, and giving the address.

It's been a while since she's been here. Cab rolling off in a faint crunch of gravel, leaving her with the tote over her arm, the food in her hand, looking up at the house with eyes squinting in the sun.

Doris left last night. Right? That gives Steve last evening, all night, and this morning to do his thing, be alone, brood if he wants to, deal with the admittedly ridiculous hand he's been given, and she'd have respected that, even if she didn't have to work, which is why she didn't call or text, just let him be, but it's daylight now, and it's gorgeous out, and there's only so much alone time Steve can really take. No matter what he might think.

Leading her up the path to the door, to knock, adjusting the slippery straps of her shirt, brushing hair out of her eyes as she waits. Rearranging her expression just like she does her makeup, or her clothes, so that when the door opens, she's got nothing there but a smile and the usual pleased light at seeing him.

Comments

[thebesteverseen]

It should be wrong, how much his chest stays warm and tight watching Danny's eyes track across the few words there. The way his mouth twists, unsurprised and harried, toward a frown. Eyebrows lowering, even when Danny looks up. Like Steve is the worst this he has to put up with in the world. That paper being flung through the air, waving with his hand, the point to drag in, drag Steve's eyes back to.

Like his gaze can be peeled off Danny's face. Aways from that aggravation that doesn't actually change the exasperated warmth in Danny's blue, blue eyes. Or the way his hair is a mess, everywhere, hanging around his face, brightened up by the lights, making him want to thread his fingers into and drag Danny, and every crease at the edge of his eyes and mouth, back closer.

Like twenty feet to the desk, and the two or three left between them, once he got back, was too far all of the sudden, and, again.

A prize for pushing even more buttons, making Danny rant even more, like he can't stand Steve's harebrained antics.

Which might be true, in some small part, if it were not for that other hand, and those fingers that curl around his wrist. If Danny's eyes weren't making a drunken sway around his face, hooked against his mouth. Up and down, eyes meeting, drifting, fingers curling on his skin. Shoving at each other, more and more, and dragging it further away. Dragging Steve further away.

From the desk, and the couch, and the living room. And most any recollection of the front door and the lawn. When the only urge is to follow that hand. The cuff of warmth that it feels like all the blood in his body reacts to, like a siren sounding. So that Steve follows without any hesitation. The direction of that hand, of Danny, of the stairs, and the voice throwing words at his head like the rubble still loitering the ground all around them, like the clothes and shoes lost and forgotten somewhere far behind him.

"You asked for it," Steve sniped, right back, all sharp edges, if sharp edges and mocking would or could be made of blistering warmth and pleased success, of that way his mouth curves wide, head ducking slightly in contrast. They were still headed up the stairs, toward his room, after all. No matter how it happened, how it turned on its head, Danny dragging him, shaking his head and complaining, fingers circled like a necessary leash to drag him, it still felt like he'd won in the end.

Danny was staying and Danny was dragging him up, shaking his head at himself and Steve, the whole world.

[haole_cop]

"Incorrect. I said nothing about invitations, and, if I had, I definitely would not have asked for one with an insult tacked onto the end. What are you, six, that you think that's funny?"

Because he does, clearly. It's smacked clear across Steve's stupid face, how amusing he finds all of this, how he obviously thinks that was basically the greatest brainwave of all time, and Danny's pretty sure he'll be smirking about it for at least the next twenty, thirty minutes, easy.

All night, even, which ought to be annoying as hell, and it is, sure, but Danny will also get to be here all night and he's pretty okay with that plan, no matter how aggravatingly pleased with himself Steve is. "That was your big idea. Admittedly, I should know better than to encourage you, but you know, I live in hope."

Making determinedly for the stairs, fingers still wrapped firm around Steve's wrist, like the guy might try to make a break for it. He might. It's possible. No matter how often Steve tells him to stay, or makes fun of him for wanting to be sure, there's still that niggling doubt, burrowing in the back of his head, latched on to his skull. Pointing out, unhelpful, that Steve could change his mind any time.

Which doesn't match up with anything Steve's said or done, so Danny can only conclude it's not actually about Steve, that voice. He might have his worries, but the available evidence suggests Steve wants pretty much the exact opposite, right, otherwise he wouldn't have told Cath, would have spent the weekend hooking up with her like usual. He wouldn't have run after Danny onto the front yard, wouldn't have watched him like he did, splayed out on the couch, dark blue eyes following every movement Danny made, trained on his face and blown wide open and soft instead of just feverish.

No. Well, yes. It still could happen, and Danny's sure it will, at some point, but Steve's taken to looking outright offended at any sort of suggestion headed in that direction, so Danny can only conclude it's his own fucked up head saying this to him, convincing him it's true.

Which doesn't make it easier to ignore, but does allow him to vastly enjoy the way Steve follows him up the stairs like Danny's fingers around his wrist are some sort of leash, some imperative thing he can't help but follow.

[thebesteverseen]

It's totally funny. At least that's what the smirk staying pressed into the groove of his mouth is saying. When Danny neither sounds nor looks as angry as Steve knows he can get. Not even all that, honestly, put upon. Steve getting into his way, at the first set of stairs, jostling Danny's shoulder, but never moving in the slight to extricate the hand that it would take so little to.

Maneuver's for freedom slip into and out of his head unneeded. Never once dimming his look, or being given the time of day. Not when he can ungracefully, and purposely, end up in Danny's space, continue needling at him, in a fashion that brash and ultimately, entirely transparent at this point. Words for no more sake that the pleased, sizzle of sound they make between breaths, the catch of eyes and the heavy, slow, stomp of feet. "Hey, it's no skin off my nose, if you can't recognize class when it's in front of you."

It's worth every bit of it. Danny turned up five or six notches, still complaining, still walking away and dragging him behind, by that loose ring of fingers. Like Steve would go anywhere else, had anywhere else to go to. Anywhere else he wanted to be. Than headed up the straights. Skipping the occasional step as they went, leaving lights and piles behind, again. Something that catches at just short of the landing.

Lights at the edge of his vision, tipping his vision that way. Except that it's not the clothes that get caught up in the momentary sweep of the living room. It's not even the shadows that never move, even in the pitch dark. It's just that room, and this house. How it prickles everything under his skin, like a fine layer of glass dust, suddenly shifting to remind him it's there. Between his bones, sunk into his muscles. Tightening the ones in his upper back.

This house. The living room where Danny and Cath have both spent time trying to fill the gaping maw all that spaces and endless reaching floor have become. A place completely solid and yet now thinly, translucent like glass. Inverted in on itself, like it could snap with the faintest pressure, shatter into more pieces than china. That there's something in the black of his head, quieter than a whisper, than any voice, trying to imply it already has.

And, really, the lights and the mess can stay. Because the last thing he wants in that second is to go back down there this second.

[haole_cop]

"Let me explain something to you: yellow legal paper and crossed out words do not a classy invitation make."

He's had more than enough of legal pads these days, seriously. There are times when just seeing that particular shade of yellow makes his blood pressure sky rocket and drifts a haze of red across everything he sees.

Not here, okay. Not with Steve. But sometimes. Yellow legal pads and phone calls and miserable lawyers breathing down his neck, waiting for him to slip up, making sidling comments about his apartment, his job, his lack of a serious committed relationship, as if lawyers have any right to tell him how fast or slow to move with anybody.

Still, he'll bet Rachel's team will be more than happy to hear that Gabby is no longer in the picture. And this would probably be the best ammunition he could possibly hand them: sleeping with his partner and best friend who is also his boss. Someone he'd actually gone into North Korea for, went after the CIA itself for, and if that wasn't foolhardy, if those didn't jack up his potential demise and the possibility of leaving Grace without a father, then he doesn't know what might.

Which is a terrifying truth that he doesn't want to look at too closely: the sure knowledge that those things he said to Steve on the first days, I am not getting killed for your vendetta, might not be entirely accurate, anymore.

Because there's nothing he can do, if Steve needs help, but to go there, and do whatever he can. Anything he can.

Thankfully, none of that's needed tonight, not when he's got Steve by the wrist and he just had two good days with his daughter. Except Steve isn't looking smug anymore; Steve is looking behind them at the living room, and his expression has side-slipped into something else, a little of that treading water feeling of the last few days, faintly lost, almost confused.

There are no words for the level of fury Danny feels at Doris McGarrett right now for putting even one glimpse of that expression on Steve's face, but at least that doesn't show, though his fingers tighten, tugging at Steve's attention.

"Come on, this was your idea, like you've got something so great up here. I know leaving a mess insults your Army sensitivities, but it'll keep for one night without anyone giving you twenty four hours of cold water training or whatever it was they did in SEAL school if you didn't tie your shoelaces."

Any maybe the growls are a little more purposeful than usual, but Danny wouldn't ever admit to it, even if caught red-handed.

[thebesteverseen]

Steve's brow wrinkled, catching it half a second late, but -- words in a whirlwind, trying to tug at his thoughts, his focus, the annoyed slippery slope of all those seconds. Doris sleeping, Doris nearly crying, Doris saying ... all she said, Doris potentially lying through every single one. Layered with that noise that couldn't be missed, or heard, like speaking or listening in a sand storm, until it was -- like someone had just wafted shit under his nose.

Causing him to turn his head, with a grimace at the obnoxiousness of a single word, well-worn insult.

One that by now was never used except like a cattle prod, and never stopped hitting every time either. "Navy."

There's something to it. Like the echo that comes when you snap a chuck of ice hanging. That needs movement. More movement. Like he'd been frozen for a second. Even one second, and that was too long. Too still. Too in danger of being caught up in it, or found by it. And not now. Not now. Not here. Not while Danny was here. But it doesn't stop him from pulling his arm free.

Needing to move. Needing not to be held still. Needing not to be in one place. Or held to something. Which doesn't actually keep him from slipping Danny's hand with a fast twist of his own wrist, elbow, shoulder. "I should make you go get it all--" Beat. "--and the kitchen--" With the stack of plates and bottles from dinner, still waiting. "-- since you can't even seem to remember the most basic of things anymore. If you ever did."

At that same time as he's using his newly freed hand to push Danny toward and through the bedroom door. Hand catching him across a shoulder blade. Warm, sweat dried skin, under his fingers. Every single opposing message from his words, far more direct. Demanding they were followed through on more than anything else, passing between them, or him and this place.

[haole_cop]

It's wrong, how that snapped response makes him want to grin. It has to be. It's like rubbing the fur on a cat the wrong way, until its back arches up and it bats a paw in aggrieved temper. Of course he knows. They all know Steve's background. Five years Naval Intelligence before joining up with the SEALs. He's seen the uniform, the casual work shirts. Of course it's the Navy. He's known that since he first got assigned John McGarrett's murder and read his file.

That just makes Steve's aggravation all the more enjoyable.

Besides, it knocks that other expression right off his face, replaces it with heavy exasperation, and Danny can't even mind when Steve twists his wrist out of Danny's grip, because he doesn't go anywhere, doesn't do anything except keep complaining, while pushing Danny into the bedroom in direct contradiction to the words coming out of his mouth. "Yeah, I can tell that's your grand plan. Whose mess is that, by the way? I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure getting rid of clothes was definitely started by you."

Sort of. Except for the way he'd stared at Steve, and told him to lose the shirt, that is was better that way, so much better, and, Christ. They're still naked, and Danny's still got his jeans in the hand that hadn't been busy with Steve's wrist, and he honestly had sort of forgotten all about that. Not that he doesn't enjoy it, of course, or the view, when Steve is in front of or next to him, but it's so --

Natural. Like there isn't anything weird or off-putting or worrying or stressful about having no clothes. Like they're already at the point when they can just walk around each other, naked, and not get uncomfortable.

Which...they are, apparently, and that's a strange little twinge even as he's tossing his jeans at a chair and turning to face Steve, with a well-practiced and familiar frown of disgruntlement that barely lands on his features at all, means nothing, just like the hand that lifts to push at Steve's.

"Besides, I've definitely been very specifically invited up here."

[thebesteverseen]

"To bed," Steve said, clarifying, with a small bit of a shove toward it, some combination colliding between a roll of eyes and straight forward challenge. Like somehow he could have meant anything different, than rolling Danny into his bed. Like he was splitting the hair on Danny's point of being exactly where he'd been asked to get to, and not being only about five to ten feet from actually at the point.

Like in the hall, or on the stairs, or in the bedroom were not actually listed anywhere on that paper. The same with that whole fact, it wasn't at all like Danny could have ripped the small yellow piece of paper in two, pointed at him ranting up a storm about the rocks in his head, until he kissed him and forgot. As if he didn't note the triumph flare in Danny's eyes, even through the heavy helping of a frown he was using like a crutch over there.

"Which you still aren't in," got leveled with stepping in toward Danny, easily adjusting to the lesser light and gravitating into the flip and swing of words. Away from the prick of frozen nails still lingering in his skin after the recognition of everything around him, on every floor and wall, that was not Danny.

"And half of it is totally yours." Steve mouth twisted back toward flippant, dragging out a disgusted smirk as he was pushing Danny toward the bed, until the backs of his legs hit it. "Some of us wouldn't be caught in leather loafers for anything less than threats to national security."

His lips curls with a twitch, shaking his head, at an impossibly terribly quandary. "Maybe not even then. The country might have to take that one."

[haole_cop]

Steve's back in motion, back to taking control of everything he can, from correcting Danny to pushing him towards the mattress, insulting Danny's shoes.

Again.

"They are shockingly comfortable," he points out. "I know personal comfort isn't even a blip on your radar, but it's nice for the rest of us who don't routinely find the most horrible things we can do to ourselves and make them happen for fun or in the name of training. Not to mention, they are professional. Professional. As in, of, relating to, or characteristic of a profession. As in, my job. Losing the tie hurt enough, okay? I realize cultivating a professional demeanor may seem like a waste of time to you, but I happen to like it, alright, I'm not going to go all Tommy Bahama just because I happen to be working on this godforsaken sand spit, understand. It is still work and I am still a detective."

More work on some days than others. "I can't believe you would consider the very respectable loafer a worse alternative to a break in national security. Surely that would have come up in the eight thousand years you spent chasing war criminals around the world."

The problem -- the only problem, really -- with being naked is that there isn't much to grab onto and tug when Steve pushes at him again, crowding him into the edge of the bed and making Danny sway for balance. There's no belt loops to hook his fingers into, no shirt to snag and pull.

There is the option to back down quietly and get in the damn bed, but when has Danny ever opted for quiet?

So his hand reaches up for the back of Steve's neck, the other landing on Steve's arm, fingers curling over ink that looks smudged and blurred in the dark. Finding leverage. The urge to say make me is rising giddily in his head, but he's not actually thirteen, no matter how much he might be acting like it lately, and that would be like waving a red flag at a bull before holding open the door to a china shop in invitation.

"What, are we in some kind of rush?"

Considering it can't be more than, what, eight? If that?

There's definitely more than enough time for Danny to pull at him and drag him down, if he has too, to find that smart mouth of his and shut it up for a minute.

[thebesteverseen]

"It has." Dozens of time. Which the serious honesty is nowhere in Steve's face, when all he does is let the word bull doze out his mouth. Pointed and sharp, like Danny just made his point even more true. He's faced dozens of threats to national security. Years of them. And he'd still choose those over loafers.

He'd probably choose it over nearly anything. He definitely chose it over have 'a normal life' in any location, mediocre or paradise, for decades. But, definitely, there could be no doubt, in that thick, implying, tone. Definitely over loafers.

It being Danny, who when pushed, does almost nothing but push back, getting more and more riled, the more he's pushed. Shoved back, just makes him push himself even more into Steve's space. Pushing his weight down. Standing more firmly without going. Fingers, warm and familiar with Steve's skin, grafting themselves to him. His neck. His arm. Like a threat or a challenge that he can't make Danny. Fall the next few feet. Wouldn't. Couldn't. Hasn't already. More than once.

Like its not instantly distracting Danny is pulling at his neck already. Cutting at the nearly foot of space, with fingers in the muscles there, even if be isn't to dragging Steve forward to eradicate it yet. Danny might hesitate, like he isn't a readable book, isn't considering what could, if it was just given a few more seconds. Solid shoving. More complaining. His face already a clear and obvious and then he'd that Steve can't even resist.

He never was good at remembering to wait.

He's even worse at remembering the idea exists when Danny is looking at him like the.

"It's Sunday. Last I checked, neither Grace or jeans required you to look professional. Or even cared."

Because how the hell is he supposed to resist? That face. Those fingers. Danny ranting like he has any idea really what being perfectly pressed day in and day out from his head down to his shoes even was. His own words making him feel like there were suddenly so few minutes left before work. Work, that he loved, but took this out of his hands, even when Danny at his side all day barely let him forget it for half an hour. Too soon.

All of which together just culminates in skipping forward for Danny, or himself. Shifting forward still, more weight more pressure. Long fingers and large palm wrapping Danny's side, when Steve is leaning down without the direction to. Taking Danny's lips and backing them, both, toward the bed, even as he's kissing him. It's at least one step below tipping them toward it with his weight as a promise it'd happen.

[haole_cop]

"But even you would wear them if it came down to loafers or letting down the country. Right?"

Obviously. Of course he would. Even Steve is not that stubborn. But Danny can't resist, can't keep from poking further, angling into it like he doesn't actually know better, like there's even a single thing Steve wouldn't do if avoiding it meant failing his duty and oath to protect.

Which Danny knows all too well, because he's seen it in action a thousand times, in a thousand heart-stopping ways, when Steve's lack of self-preservation became damn near suicidal and far too close for comfort. Spiking Danny's blood pressure along the way. Throwing himself heedlessly into anything, whatever was required. When Danny knows Steve would give everything of himself he has, without question, and without looking back.

It drives him nuts, it really does. And if anyone ever asked, he'd be the first to say, loudly, at length, that he would be happy if Steve maybe thought, first, before diving headlong into the fray, or if Steve ever actually considered his own bodily well-being before doing the same, but that's that tiny part, small and sure, walled off from the storm of the rest that knows it's not true. Steve wouldn't be Steve if he were like that, and Danny --

Can't keep from pulling him closer, that smirk dragging itself across Steve's face like a green light beckoning him closer. Not when Steve's moving down, still sniping, and Danny's shaking his head even though his breath feels short. "What's the point of owning shoes I can't work in? Aren't the jeans bad enough? It's a waste of what is, I promise you, very limited bureau space."

And he could probably keep going, too, but Steve's bending down further and now Steve's mouth is on his and words dissolved into a sound that settles in Danny's chest, far quieter and nowhere near as argumentative.

[thebesteverseen]

It's probably true. Wherein probably is like saying Steve wouldn't get naked, in loafers alone, if the fate of the world went bat shit insane and required that. But threats to national security never involved shoes. Especially ones he'd, even, vastly prefer his dress shoes to if he had to be pointed that direction. But he really doesn't have to answer when Danny is rambling on with those words, about his shoes, and his jeans.

His jeans which Steve sadly cannot rub his fingers down Danny's skin and still find pressed against his stomach, hugging his hips and his thighs. When even that momentary wistfulness is literally done right under, and burned right over into a crisp, at a violently pleased sort of possession to the memory of them. Having to pull and peel and jerk them off of him. How if Danny doesn't have room for them, Steve would make it.

"I don't know," comes in a gusted laughed, right against Danny's lips. The reluctance to let go of Danny's mouth, of the way Danny dissolves into him, pushing in and up, and meeting him, with the kind of force that goes from a fight to like interlocking puzzle pieces in seconds. Only barely beaten out by the need to toss, sizzling words. "The jeans have done pretty well so far."

Hand traveling down Danny's side, sliding out and back across the inward slop at the small of his back. Blunt, calloused finger tips traveling the decent of his spine, right down against starting curve of Danny's ass. "I'm pretty sure I can find a space on a closet shelf," Theres the flicker of smirk, the movement of his mout probably lost except for movement against Danny, but his cheeks still tug up and along with his eyebrows, "-or the floor, for them, if you can't."

[haole_cop]

He doesn't mean it.

Danny knows that, okay. He hears the tone of voice and sees that crooked, arrogant smile, and he knows it's a joke. Just like that crack about wedding bands, before.

It's a joke because that is the kind of thing people joke about. Nobody says that twelve days in and means it. Danny's jeans are not going to end up in Steve's closet, or anywhere else in this house that isn't the fucking definition of temporary. There isn't going to be a drawer that turns into a drawer and a toothbrush, that turns into buying groceries and leaving some of them here. And then he'll get pissed about buying too much food and letting it go to waste in his fridge, and the single drawer will turn into half the closet space and half the dresser and, Christ, he can't let that happen, he can't hate Steve one, two, ten years down the line because one of them forgot to buy toothpaste, how are they going to solve cases if they aren't talking to each other and --

He can't. No. Doesn't want to ruin the way Steve's lips brush against his when he's leaning this close and saying things that are making Danny's pulse careen into the red in a panicked, catapulting sprint. A pair of pants in the closet might as well be the death knell.

And Steve is joking, but it doesn't matter. Someone used to tell him jokes always have a grain of truth, and normally he thinks that's bullshit, but right now he's not so sure, is too busy drowning in it, heart thumping hard against his temples.

"Maybe I'll just throw them away."

There, problem solved. No need to find space anywhere, and start with the first of the little annoyances that will invariably end with Steve wishing he'd never seen Danny at all, which is for the best for everybody, right?

[thebesteverseen]

He's too close not to catch some of it. Like the second Danny goes still, goes from pushing into him to pulling back a little. That whole movement caught between his own body and the fingers tracing down Danny's spine. When Steve can hear Danny's breath seemingly stop almost in the middle of speeding up. Feel it against his lips. It might not, but his heart definitely does pick up suddenly.

"Seriously?" Steve raised his eyebrows. A little wary, but more confused about the strange set of words. It's less a comment thrown to up the whole of the ludicrous head nod to Steve being owned by a piece of a clothing. And like. He doesn't know. The desperate, almost apologetic set aside of the whole subject. The whole existence of the pants happening at Steve, at all.

Like somehow Steve wasn't saying he liked them. Hadn't been very clear about that. Earlier or right now.

When he doesn't know what Danny's saying, why or how that sentence, and can only attempt to rib him slightly more about it.

Thicken up the obvious smugness, and let his fingers fan out, across the flat of Danny's spine and the curve of skin, tug him closer. Because. Okay. He did not imagine Danny grousing about him wearing clothes, and staring at him with bright eyes blown electric, mumbling his name into his skin like the words was more than air, fingers digging into Steve's hips, holding him so tight and close. "You saying they haven't done anything good for you today?"

[haole_cop]

It's not the jeans.

It is the jeans.

It's the stupid joke Steve breathed against his lips. Tungsten steel. And closet space.

It's the rapidly shrinking space in Danny's chest, the closed-in ribs, that's making it hard to breathe in all the wrong ways, none of the ways he wants associated with Steve being this close. With Steve's hands curving possessive over his body, like Steve owns his skin. And Steve pushing his amusement all the more insistently, leaning into him in a way that Danny desperately wants to just want, without tripping over himself into a pitch-black pit, the kind that has a bottom, far down enough it'll break every bone in his body when he lands.

"They barely lasted long enough to say they'd done anything," he points out, edging cautiously around the pit mouth, conscious of the lack of barrier or rescue rope. "And anyway one good evening is hardly enough to go on."

He can do this. Relax. Steve's not working on it, like he did on that stupid Tungsten steel crack. He's not riding the edge of Danny's nerves. The wound-taut coil in his center loosens, minutely.

[thebesteverseen]

Danny is throwing out words in sentences that actually surprise him. Actually come in somewhere around least likely thing to come out of Danny's mouth. Especially while he's standing there in nothing, less than half a foot from the bed. Very sure he was being touched and kissed seconds ago. Seconds ago, before Danny's voice started twisting the way it does when the car is sliding in a hair pin turn around a curve, fingers gripping the armrest to white.

Before Danny was referencing anything happening downstairs like it was absolutely nothing. Like it was something that needed to be forgotten, and shoved under the bed beside them, as quickly as possible. Like that was the use for it now. When his tone and the way he's moving, or maybe not moving enough, is setting off sirens in Steve's head. Leaving him staring at Danny's face, taking the hit from all of those words somewhere far too unexpected.

Tightening the muscles in his chest and twisting up his stomach, like Danny might have reached his hand in and turned it upside down suddenly. Brow furrowing. Far too easily letting those words land in far more about him than the subject he'd chosen to rag on just now. Because, really, what the hell is going on suddenly?

"Right, cause it working out once," His tone is testier than it should be, partly sharp unspoken question already, and more wary than confused that this is stepping even further to the side, prodding right back at the words given to him. "That's a perfect reason to toss in the towel and throw them out now? Because that makes every bit of sense."

[haole_cop]

Danny disagrees. Just because something worked once has no effect on whether or not it will continue working, or even work twice. People change. The thigns they like change. Steve likes the jeans now, but Steve has been in this for less than two full weeks, and Danny doesn't care, a year's worth of wanting only fuels more impossibilities. You can fantasize about anything you want, if it's never going to happen. Run hypothetical situations over and over through your head, polishing them up every time, until every bump is worn away.

It doesn't go that way, when it actually happens. Especially if it was never supposed to happen. Never going to happen. He used to like when Rachel made him tea, too. He thought it was cute. He could never have predicted how much he would miss coffee on weekend mornings, when she was home. You like something one day, and can't stand it next week. Something working once seems to him the perfect time to toss it out and never think about it again, okay, look where trying to remake the past got him last time.

And he knows that's about more than jeans, and more than a one-off joke about closet space, alright, he knows that, he has not totally lost his mind, though it's looking like a good seven-eighths of it have just walked off and left him behind. It's just that knowing all that is a very logical, measured, reasonable response, and panic obeys absolutely none of those parameters.

Steve's tone is turning a crank in Danny's stomach, the one that fuels the alarms now blaring in his head, flashing panic red and neon across every thought, spilling ABORT ABORT ABORT through any available space, splashing it across dead-end walls.

The way Steve is looking at him doesn't bode well, either. That smile and low teasing voice is gone, he's not ragging on Danny anymore, and not amused. He looks confused, and Steve's default reaction to being confused, especially this week, is rarely what Danny would call ideal, okay. He's the shoot first ask questions never kind of guy, and Danny can see the countdown clock ticking to Steve's breaking point as clearly as if it were on a scoreboard in a rink. That thread of annoyance in his voice is only the first step, the one that says he's noticed something's off, but doesn't know what it is, and that so rarely works out well for Danny, but heading Steve off at the pass is easier said than done, especially when Danny is still feeling like his feet have gotten caught in wet cement that's slowly sealing him in.

"You know, I think a lack of regular appearances is part of their charm."

That doesn't mean he can't try. Even if appeasing might be a long-gone dream right now.

[thebesteverseen]

Those last words. They aren't entirely off, and they aren't entirely wrong. Steve actually gets the whole appeal of something hardly there. His entire world had been made of drastic extreme's where the rest of the god given free world fit into that idea. Having charm because it lacked any common daily appearance in his life. Between boats and missions. But it's not helping Danny here and now.

Not even if he couldn't deny that seeing him ever so rarely in board shorts or jeans was a lot like that.

It doesn't actually change the fact Danny is inches from him and shifty. That it makes even words that aren't wrong, seem like they are screaming wrong. Like the last thing Danny wants to do is be agreeing or not agreeing or even speaking. Like standing here talking about this is somehow suddenly the last place Danny really wants to be. Like he's grasping at words, and that there so few of them there to even force out.

Every single bit of it suddenly only continuing to rub the wrong way against Steve's skin. Against how Danny is. How Danny was only a handful of seconds ago. Which makes absolutely no sense. Like Danny suddenly stepped off a dock in a frozen water and was treading it, trying to push it through, like his words were nothing, like this was nothing, like Steve wasn't going to notice. Didn't notice everything about Danny, whether it made sense or not.

Each passing second, ticking harder into his skin. Less words and less movements and even more strange. Even more bothersome when Danny is skirting the whole thing, digging into his skin. Driving him into breaking this sudden farse of a conversation, that somehow stopped being about pants like a minute ago, but he has not idea where it's gone while they're still talking about them.

"Hey." His head tipping, leaning in a little, like it's possible, to get closer, catch Danny's eyes in the low light, breaking it like a wall he doesn't give a damn about, because he doesn't, because he has to know, doesn't even get what the hell, or why Danny is barely rambling along side it, expecting him not to notice Danny trying to get outside his own skin, and instead tangling up every bit of Steve's ability to focus on anything. "What's your deal?"

[haole_cop]

There used to be a time when he could tell Steve to drop it, and Steve actually would. Sort of. Kind of. It usually showed back up later, but by that time, Danny was normally a little more prepared to deal with whatever it was, like Steve wanting to know who "Danno" was or why hanging a guy off a roof is not considered standard police procedure.

That time is long gone. He's pretty sure if he said those two words right now, Steve's expression would go from bemused and determined to outright mulish, and things would go downhill from there in record time.

See? He's starting to get back into the swing of these things already.

So he can't do that. He could try, but it would only ring those alarm bells that he knows are going off in Steve's head even more, would end with Steve pushing him hard enough that at least some of this insanity will get spilled out into the air, and he doesn't want that either, okay, he knows it's stupid, knows he's overreacting, knows Steve never meant any of it, not like that, he knows.

Just like he knows that it's not going to stop everything from swelling, adding to itself, snowballing into an avalanche that's threatening to take everywhere they got to since that tense standoff in the doorway with it. Because Steve said. And he said. But five or six words are only five or six words, and words can be forgotten or changed, even words written down and notarized, signed by multiple witnesses. It doesn't change how desperate he is for this to not disappear on him, or how terrified the thought of it continuing makes him. When it turns out the long straight corridor he'd thought he was walking down is actually lined with mirrors and tricky as a funhouse.

And he can't not notice the way Steve tips, to look at him more closely, catch his eyes. Because Steve cares. Okay? So many of Danny's problems can be boiled down to that one truth. Steve cares. He won't let Danny get away with it, but he wouldn't get it, either, because Steve has never offered someone a drawer or a spot on a shelf and woken up one day to realize they'd taken everything else, too, and left with it. And Steve wouldn't get why those jokes should be off-limits. Wedding rings, and closet space. Because they shouldn't. Because Danny should be able to handle them, not freak out like a war-zone survivor with the kind of PTSD that kicks in when a car backfires or sirens wail.

Jesus, is he really that much of a hair-trigger?

"What deal? Who's got a deal? There is no deal."

He's said deal too many times.

Crap.

Look, it's too much to put on Steve, to ask him to deal with every trip-up and sudden panic attack. Steve's mother just turned up alive. This shouldn't be about Danny. Neither of them should have to deal with this bullshit, especially when it exists nowhere but inside Danny's head.

But Steve can only joke about it because he hasn't lived through it. Can say stupid things about wedding bands without getting a vice of terror clamping everything in his chest. It's all funny to him. But Danny remembers staring at that plain gold band as it sat in his palm, more completely shattered by it than any bullet he'd ever taken, any bone he'd ever broken. One innocuous thing. He remembers the cleared-out look of drawers that used to hold his clothes. The sudden space in a closet half-emptied. How the space in his chest was entirely vacated. Not halfway. Not shared, and suddenly split. Hollowed out entirely. And Rachel unable to talk to him without anger or freezing disdain.

Steve can't. He can't let that happen. No matter how certain it is, now that this ball has started rolling. "I just think it's a moot point, considering how often we work on weekends anyway, so they're unlikely to find themselves in rotation for a while."

[thebesteverseen]

The ranting response suddenly throwing his own words back at him, vehemently pressing the fact there's absolutely nothing happening, only makes him even more certain. That something. Something enough to make Danny snap and sputter whole statements. When Danny is shaking that word, those, like he could drain all the meaning out of it, or beat it at Steve's head.

Only making Steve's expression tighten, jaw clenching at the repetition and denial so thick it's obvious as ten foot spotlight.

Trying desperately to remember anything at all that would have made, given Danny any reason. Going over. When there were hands, and stupid jokes about not getting into bed because it was eight, even though Danny, himself, had drug him up the stairs by that hand, and his own wrist. Hands on his skin, lips pushed warm and firm against his. Stupid pointless joking words about shoes, and jeans, no more than the landing or stairs.

Before suddenly going all Jekyll and Hyde over this one foot space and his jeans suddenly, for no god damn reason Steve can recognize or point at. When he can't feel anything but like everything that is anything lurched five feet to the right without him, making him too tall and his hands too big, and touching, touching just gone to beyond awkward. Like maybe he shouldn't be this close and shouldn't still have his hand past Danny's waist, down his back, even if he isn't dressed and the bed is right there.

"Right, because why leave it as any kind of available option, where you might have to enjoyed yourself?" Steve wasn't sure if the irritant was more with trying to lift his hand, and figure out if he needed to be steps back and away, or the annoyance Danny was sticking to his thin veneer topic, like the floor hadn't suddenly vanished. "You done yet? Or is there more to this sudden about face where your clothes have found some way to offend you from a whole floor away?"

And him. That somehow Steve had. Again. Like always.

Like complimenting them, even admitting something new about Danny drove him crazy, was even more wrong.

[haole_cop]

He can make this work. Right? He can definitely, totally, drag himself back from the edge of totally ridiculous panic that he was in no way prepared for or should be feeling, because Steve was joking, like he's been joking this entire time.

"I thought you were the one my clothes offended."

He can even smile when he says it, and it's not so hard. Just the act of batting words back at Steve makes him feel a little better, even though the look on Steve's face has gone from confused and faintly concerned to outright testy. He hasn't let go, and he's poking at it in that way Steve does, like he can't help picking at a scab or a splinter. "I'm not offended, how could I be? They're my clothes. You're the one who keeps complaining about them. Besides."

Steve's hand is feeling suddenly hesitant, even though it hasn't moved, even though Steve hasn't moved, like he's waiting for an invitation, like the one tucked now with the aforementioned jeans themselves, across the room.

So Danny gives it to him, drops the hand that had been at Steve's arm to Steve's hip, instead, thumb slipping into the cut of muscle there, following a path that's getting familiar.

Nothing to panic about here. He's starting to know this. To recognize all the parts of Steve; the way his muscles flex and where patches of skin turn red with bloodflow when he starts heating up, the line where his tan gets thwarted by board shorts.

"I enjoy myself more without them, anyway."

[thebesteverseen]

Steve is going to stand there, against all those words, lodging at him, and go right over it again. Because, okay, he might get offended at Danny's clothing being on him -- with is admittedly his own actual problem, especially now that Danny is getting into a penchant of taking them off for him, or letting Steve strip them straight right off him -- but he was not -- Was. Not. -- the one who said, only second ago, the jean should be tossed out.

Right against Steve having said they should keep them around.

They were two completely different insinuations.

Which is just clouded up and confused more, like his head doesn't have its own problems, between travel and sleep and everything that happened between Asia and Hawaii last week, but Danny's hands are on him. Dropping to his side. Thumbs catching in the lines between solid muscle and tracing down through it. Causing muscles all along his stomach and his back up into his shoulders to tense.

Like it doesn't feel good. Except it does. He can't even stop the way he leans into the touch, like some part of him had drastically slammed a wall like it was over, like they were heading toward a cliff or a steep waterfall plummet, and the slightest brush makes him shamelessly press into it like it's air after being down too long. Necessary as air. Not enough already. Like his skin totally is beyond needing to check in with his head before reacting, wanting more, moving.

As if the touch was somehow more important than the words making absolutely no sense.

The touch that roughens his voice, unexpectedly, with too much air, when he's dragging his own hand up Danny's back, slow, searching touch, spreading his fingers and palm wide across Danny's skin, pulling him closer, with solid movement once his hand finds the middle of Danny's back. "Seriously? You're just not going to tell me?"

Would be sharper if it could, but it can't, stumbles out just distractedly low and pointedly knowing.

Not cut with everything else. Not cut with insane relief at Danny touching him, at the way Danny's awkwardly trying to smile.

[haole_cop]

At least Steve is still pulling him in. At least his hand is still there, flattening warm and secure against Danny's back. At least his tone is nowhere near angry, not even pissed off or argumentative, even if Steve might want it to be.

Instead, it just sounds sort of, what. Wistful, almost. Low and a little rough at the edges. Making Danny's other hand slide from the back of his neck, arm curving around Steve's so he can curl his fingers over Steve's shoulder from the back. Closer. Which might help.

Telling Steve might help, too, if he weren't sure Steve wasn't going to think he'd lost his mind. It's sort of a hopeless case, though, when Danny really has, when his brain just tripped right out of his head and ignored all the evidence right in front of him to present him with the worst possibilities ever. He's not sure Steve would get it if Danny said just quit it with the jokes, I don't want closet space, because he's not sure it would make sense to anyone outside of the walls of Danny's head.

But he doesn't exactly feel great about lying and pretending everything's fine, either.

And Steve's seen this, before. Which is why Danny knows he won't get it. Because to Steve, a cup of coffee is just a cup of coffee. It isn't divorce papers being served up along with your biscotti, alright, not to Steve.

But these things start small, and this is already a thousand miles further than he was before two weeks were up with Gabby. Moving faster, being reckless, careless.

And when the idea of losing Steve already dropkicks him like a mercy rule field goal, he's in way too deep. Already. Meaning a joke like that, the reality of it, is too damn close to being the beginning of the end. Already.

And it's too soon. Okay. Too soon. After just being sure Steve was already gone. He's already sure he's nuts, here. He doesn't need Steve looking at him like he is, too.

"You like the jeans, I get it. Fine, they can stay. I may even wear them once in a while."

Which is not what Steve was asking. And not the point. But maybe it's rewinding far enough back that there won't be any more questions.

[thebesteverseen]

Least convincing set of words in the world, which might as well be a yes to his question. Because Danny's going to keep talking about his pants, flipping it back to whatever Steve said, like that's suddenly the right answer. Like the hyper, frenetic energy behind the whole thing isn't stil there, thrumming loud and present. While Danny is still pulling him closer, too.

Like neither of them can keep from answering that part. Demanding more of it. Danny pulling at his shoulder, until he's coming another step closer. Like there's even room to get closer. When Danny was already pressed against the side of the mattress, and it's frustratingly, almost desperately and suddenly, like the only thing on the table. Following the pull on his shoulder forward, pushing further into the fingers against his stomach.

Even more into Danny's space, up against Danny. His own hands just moving. Tracking from Danny's back, up his shoulder, and against his neck. Voice growing more flippant and edged, challenged frustration and keen abject loss that was anything but passive. "Right. Great." Fingers heavy on Danny's neck, wrist against his shoulder, when Steve's leveling, catching the edge of his chin and turn Danny's face up toward him. "Was that really so hard?"

The question that isn't even asked as a question, because, obviously, it was. Somehow. For some reason. Like pulling teeth suddenly. No, not even that. Like pulling five hundred ton bricks from a cemented-in wall suddenly. Where absolutely nothing was wrong, and no problem was being had, with that frantic, exasperated, anything to make you stop tone kept coming out as parts of his very few escaping words. Jokes that were nothing like Danny when he was joking. Giving in like nothing it was either.

Anything, everything, that wasn't whatever whatever else was. Which is just winnow the whole world, pants included, to go burn itself down. Elsewhere.

[haole_cop]

Look, it's not that he doesn't feel bad. Okay. He does. Especially because Steve is calling him on his bullshit, and looking disappointed and a little pissed off.

But this is so different from explaining to Steve why asking Gabby out for a cup of coffee was such a bad idea, why Danny was digging in his heels the whole way and had to be shoved into doing anything of the kind. It's one thing when Steve is an outside observer, and Danny has to clear it up for him.

It's something else entirely when Steve is the one Danny's scared as hell to lose. Okay. He gets that it's ridiculous. Maybe even hypocritical. Self-preservation instincts should mean nothing at all, by now. Not when he's already in so far over his head.

So he can't stop them, but he can at least be aggravated by them. Great.

Maybe even more so than Steve, though it doesn't look like it from here, when Steve is tipping up his chin and fixing him with that interrogation room stare, the one that Danny knows can crack the hardest of criminals, and it's not like he hasn't seen it before, alright, but it's definitely working on him, too. Making him want to spill everything, no matter how incredulous Steve looks.

Which is maybe why there's a rueful look back. Wry, with: "You're telling me."

Because Christ, it is hard. It wasn't always. Not years ago, back before he had any clue that Rachel might one day pick up and leave. She used to be able to wheedle anything out of him, and it almost never took any kind of effort. You talk to each other, right? That's part and parcel of the whole thing.

Like he talks to Steve. Tells Steve everything. And sometimes, yeah, Steve makes fun of him or argues with him or looks at him like he's completely whacked in the head, and that's all fine, totally fine, except right now he's not sure he wants any of that to happen. Still feeling raw, now that the flush of heat is gone. A protective, selfish hand curling over the words Steve said. Out loud. Into the living room air. I want you. Only you.

Words Danny doesn't want to change. Or that suddenly need to be rethought, qualified. "Very nice interrogation methods, though. Much better than hanging me off a roof."

[thebesteverseen]

"I got one, if it'll help," Steve gave a direct, short, kick of movement with his head, gesturing with his chin, toward the door leading from his bedroom on to the wide porch, with the thin rails that would actually hold a marginal amount of body weight. But it was very suspect, the whole idea if might hold his body weight and someone else's on the fulcrum of the railings. It'd probably be a really messy way to meet the backyard more than anything else.

"Maybe if you stop feeding me crap, I'll be nice enough not to remind you it was your idea, when you're trying not to fall off it."

It's smack, and it's starting to get sharper the longer this drags, but he doesn't move anywhere toward the door. He doesn't even take a step, or move an inch away in any direction. Not even shift, loosen or tighten his fingers on Danny's face. Because, it's not like Danny's actually fighting him. He's just digging in. Heels down, flush under whatever the hell he can drag between them, even if it's snarky words and thrown insults to his technique for the job.

Especially when at least, for this second, Danny is letting it slip that there is something. If only in the fact he's not denying it. He's just criticizing Steve's words and the actions he's going about trying to get at the whatever it is. Like badgering and insulting Steve will help him anymore than the long string of denials. "What the hell, Danny?"

Because things were absolutely fine minutes ago. Maybe not absolutely fine for the whole time since Danny got here. With Cath, and the front yard, and all that. Before definitely they had still been ten or fifteen minutes ago. Now all he knows is that something is wrong, or at least it is for Danny, that could really only have to with them or them. While Danny is really just giving out sign after sign he'd like to forget whatever it is, wants Steve to just pretend it isn't there or ignore whatever it is and bulldoze right over.

But. Okay. See. The last thing he's ever been able to do, for any of this year, is ignore anything about Danny.

Especially when he's torn between wanting to shake him by the shoulders or kiss him because he's certain either would elicit something real.