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]

Steve pulls away, about as far as he can get into the pillow, and it wouldn't stop Danny from leaning down and kissing that tension right off the corners of his mouth, except there's something in Steve's expression, the way he looks at him, that makes him hold back. Because Steve's watching him, but it's not those lazy bedroom eyes, despite being in bed, despite Steve's arms around him, despite Steve's fingers in his hair. Despite kisses that felt like drowning, or, no. Less cataclysmic. Like sinking into a warm bath.

But Steve's paused now, searching out -- something. Answers, maybe. Whatever might be written across Danny's face, and he knows, alright, he knows that it's probably pretty clear, he's never been able to keep a decent poker face. Not in moments like this, when everything else is laid out and vulnerable. When he doesn't actually want to hide anything from Steve. Especially not when Steve is watching him with something so much like actual trepidation.

Like Steve thinks this is somehow his fault. Like he can be help responsible for the crap floating through Danny's head, and you know, he might be the one who jokes about that shit, but this is not Steve's responsibility. He should be able to crack jokes. Anyone should. These things are meaningless, and Danny is the one handling them like a grenade about to go off when to the whole rest of the world, they're plastic Easter eggs.

Harmless. Absurd. Maybe silly, but certainly not painful.

And definitely, definitely not on Steve's shoulders. He'd admit to it, if it would wipe that expression of Steve's face. Maybe should. So Steve stops thinking whatever it is that's making him cautious, still prodding at it.

"No. No. No. Definitely not that bad."

Thumb rubbing light along the line of Steve's jaw, like he could draw the truth of it right into his skin. Not that bad. Not Steve's fault. It isn't Steve's fault that Danny is a wreck. That he's a handful. That he's sensitive.

He avoids the word fine, because that's just like pulling a trigger, and shakes his head in negation of whatever is pushing through Steve's brain right now, that made him stop, that made him bring it up again. "Seriously. I just trip myself up. It's not that bad, and you can stop looking at me like you want to put yourself in the corner, okay, it's not you."

Well. It is. But nothing he did. Nothing he is. It's the fear of losing him.

Nothing new.

[thebesteverseen]

This is maybe not terribly worse, when Danny doesn't pull away. In fact, there's the whole question left hanging, by flickers of movement, leaning, pulling back, barely even half inches, when he wonders if Danny won't even permit him to breathe, think, speak. Wants to just push him back under. Has any clue how easily that would be accomplished give enough focus toward shoving at him.

Like this. Here. Danny. Everything, and, even, anything, Danny is. Will. Can. He couldn't stop. Wouldn't want to.

Except he doesn't. He stays there. Barely an inch away, looking down. Maybe a little pained for the reminder. Like some part of him was certain Steve would, could, just forget for the breath of a kiss. For the rubbing warmth, enfolding weight and cover, of Danny slowly ending up across more of him. Their legs, and the arm across his chest, leading to the hand curved at the bottom of his face.

How simple that would be. How normal. Easy. Even, damnably, tempting. Except that this is Danny.

Except that even when he wants that, to slip under it, shove all of this away, it's Danny. And he always wants more. Wants everything.

When believing him is a two-fifths game of chance. Especially after the frantic, long winded, spiel of absolutely nothing about anything is wrong. But there is nothing frantic about these words here. Nothing drastic, or desperate. It's just quietly pained and sore. His thumb still stroking Steve's skin in a way, that sends warmth and friction rippling down through his skin and muscles like hot water. Dragging his eyelids lazy, and a small leaning into that touch, that feels harder to resist that necessary.

If Danny isn't pulling away, why should he. Even if he doesn't really believe the words fall around him. Like raindrops. Commentary. Shading in an absent shape. Negative space around the unknown. When all of it has a twined fire and ache. Shifting a little in Danny's touch, reaching up and nearly brushing his lips, again. Frustrated want in different directions, for wholly different things. Everything.

Brushing the his nose against the skin of Danny's cheek, when he's leaning into him, dragging him down a little, letting his mouth touch against Danny's, the whisper of a touch, of an arch into the man above him, against him. His words so much more smart mouthed, in and of themselves, than that tone they fall out with, quiet and rough and just the hairsbreadth beyond flatly pushing, negating. "Little early for 'it's not you, it's me,' isn't it?"

They were both here. Both here, with their hands, and their making a mess, and he's pretty sure whatever it is wouldn't happen it Danny wasn't. Here. Which does make it his fault. Something he should have known. Should have stopped. Should be able to make better. Everything could not have happened earlier, to fall apart right here, and now.

Not when Danny is touching him like this still. Not when every part of him is focused on touching him back. While he can. Dipping his fingers into Danny's hair and pulling him, like it's necessary, like it isn't the space of a breath, lifting from the pillow at the same second, to kiss him, again. Again, while he can, as long as it's possible he still can.

[haole_cop]

He almost doesn't notice that there are words. How is anyone supposed to notice words when Steve is shifting under them, fingers steady and firm in their hair, nose brushing against cheek, lips brushing against lips. Voice so low Danny feels it more as a vibration than hears it, feels it as a puff of breath against his lips, one that's already got him leaning down to find Steve's again, like kissing Steve is the absolute only gravity left in the world, before he figures out something was said. Smart and prodding, except not. Except drawn out from someplace deep and bottomed out.

And Steve doesn't even give him a chance to respond before he's pushing up, muscles tensing under Danny's fingers, sending Danny's head spinning, making him take in a sharp breath before his eyes close and he's opening his mouth to a kiss like an implosion. Fingers tightening on Steve's back, muscles contracting as he tries to get him closer, pull him up, push himself down. A short fuse lit and following a dancing spark in his head.

When it's the only fucking thing in the world that makes him feel like he can breathe. Like maybe things are okay. Will be. Even after the shock of opening the door. Even after Rachel, and Doris. Even with all the pitfalls he keeps tripping into.

And he'd be happy to continue not noticing words, but Steve is not letting him off the hook, and Danny knows better than to think a kiss is going to be the end of it, so he slews a little to one side, tracing lips across the corner of Steve's mouth, his cheek, toward the angle of his jaw. Wanting to be as much of a smartass, except Steve isn't being a smartass. Not really. Not with that tone. The one that half expects Danny to, what. Go? Actually mean it, that phrase, the way it's been defined by people for decades, probably since the beginning of human civilization? Like Danny's going to actually hand him the world's best-known break-up phrase when that is the thing that terrifies him the most.





Or, was. Before he realized that maybe they're together enough to merit a break-up, which is a thought process he really, seriously can't go down right now.

"Way too early, I agree."

It's never too early for things to go wrong, but it was far, far too early to suggest they might be insurmountable. Right? Even though it is him. Would be him. Someone Steve might want, but Steve has no idea what kind of role wanting actually plays in being with someone without wanting to set the air they breathe on fire. He can think of plenty of people he's wanted who he hasn't liked. It wouldn't stop hatred from settling in.

But it isn't that now. It isn't what Steve's insinuating now, and Danny can go ahead and draw it right across his skin. Or at least, he can try.

[thebesteverseen]

Danny's mouth is an incredibly good distraction, and if he hadn't meant to be distracted by it, or to distract Danny by pressing against it, he might have thought a little more before he was kissing him. Not that he can. Not that he ever does. Not that he did that morning in his living room, when the world obliterated on so few words, the strangest disjointed questions, and the inability to not. To not step into Danny's space, and take everything.

Fingers in his hair, finding Danny's mouth and tasting everything right off it. Every real word and impossible fantasy.

No part of him that really wanted to keep fighting, not for another minute, another second when those words. The way his muscles clench and he stretched long and out under Danny's weight, against the warmth of his breath. The press of his lips. Danny's mouth shifting across his face. Drawing heat down across his cheek, toward his jaw. Breath pressed into him, friction that makes his head rush, eyelids straining to close, tilting his head away.

Leaving himself at the mercy of Danny's touch, whatever skin Danny wants. Even when it's all, everything else, important still, only hanging on by tender hooks, under the heavy breaths escaping out his nose, causing his chest to rise slightly faster. Fingertips digging in against muscle on Danny's back for purchase, when he's pushing up against Danny's mouth. Tracing against his skin, words trapped there, not argued. Like maybe his point isn't lost. It's not black and white. One or the other. Danny can't own it all.

Uncertain whether he's going to manage focusing, or simply loose it along the way. Hanging on against that touch, the fire singing itself into his skin, under Danny's touch, fingers creeping further into Danny's hair, cradling his head close against him, even when he's giving him as much skin as he could possibly want, anything he wants. "And we're in this together, right?"

Not one sided. Not casual. Not other people. Not ending today, tonight, tomorrow morning. Not keeping each other in dark about what's going on. Where they're going, what they're doing. Doesn't that mean this, too? Or does it? He doesn't even know. Wants. To know. Needs to. Wants. Him not to stop, or pull away, right now, again.

[haole_cop]

It's amazing how one question can take the floor right out from under him, again. But this time without the panicked drop. One question. One word. Suddenly emptying out this huge hollow space in his chest that just as swiftly expands out further, because it isn't actually empty, it's so full, cracking with light. Aching so hard. Like Steve shoved the entire island under Danny's breastbone.

Together. And we're in this together. Right?

Like it could be questioned. Ever. Like he doesn't always want to be right where he is. Right next to Steve. Like he doesn't always want Steve to be right where he belongs, next to Danny. This huge tilting plain reaching wide through his chest, threatening to burst him wide open.

How could he forget? How could that not have factored into it? Except he knows this panic. This panic is brought on by together suddenly being separate. Separate beds, separate bank accounts. Dinner at separate times. Separate weekends with Grace.

But Steve's not Rachel. Steve's in this. With him. Together. "Yes."

He can't lift his head to look Steve in the eye, make sure he understands, make sure he knows, because Steve's hand is cradling him close and Steve's head is tipping to let Danny's mouth search its way down the column of his throat, so words end up getting smudged into skin, as he works closer to Steve's ear, the only chance he's got of being even slightly clear. Even though his voice is suddenly sounding sandpaper-rough. "Like always. You and me."

Together. Like every day. Except when Steve left, when Danny felt as abandoned as if Rachel had closed the door on him one last time, just for kicks. Because that wasn't together. That wasn't partners. That wasn't him being able to get Steve's back. It was him, alone. Steve, alone. Wrong, in every sense of the word. This is them. Together. Always. It's theirs. Whatever shape and form. Together, against everything the world has got, and it's got a lot, but not this. Never this. This belongs to them.

His hand sliding back over Steve's side, along his stomach, up his chest, burying fingers in hair, back down to his shoulder, his arm. Not slow, but not rushed. Wanting every single inch of Steve under his palm, against his fingers.

[thebesteverseen]

Like always. You and me.

Steve doesn't even know where it comes from, or how it all goes. But it's like the walls explode. Seize sharp, unexpected. Always. Like two years, like two weeks, is an always that can displace everything. Everything that suddenly is so scattered around like rubble. More than two decades against it. When he doesn't want to remember, doesn't mean to, and it comes unbidden anyway. I never stopped loving you.

Just because I wasn't around, doesn't mean I wasn't your mother.

Words. The last words he wants to hear when Danny mouth is dragging a line of fire up his neck, brushing the bottom of his ear. In a tone that is suddenly so rough, and so true, it almost hurts. Or maybe that's the rest of it. He can't tell. His lungs feel like they are obliterating. Turning into steam under the warm breath on fragile, thin skin. The rush of his pulse, crashing throb behind his eyes. The pain slamming in the middle of his chest.

Like always. Your and me. Words beating themselves into him, like fire on metal, like a life raft against the rest. All the other things, he doesn't know if are true. Aren't just words. Wishing he could grab these five and hold them. So they don't suddenly seem so insubstantial, that question makes his entire head and sense of reality buck at. Twisting further, dominoes crashing. Chased by lips on his skin, and then by a hand getting everywhere. Tugging at something too big, and too endless, threatening to flood everything in the middle of him. And where they hell did that come from. That wasn't the point. It wasn't his.

He didn't expect Danny's voice to almost shake with sudden, undeniable feeling, nearly right in his ear. Causing his stomach to clench, desperate and wanting. For there to be any truth in it, no matter what he can or can't do with it beyond this second. Just let it be true right now. Here. In this second. With Danny pressed against him. When he turns his head, back, cheek and jaw pressing against a mass of hair, words turning faintly feverish, even pressed. "Then, talk to me, Danny."

Fingers staying threaded in his hair, voice winded and low, the air staying everywhere but in his lungs. When he doesn't tug Danny up, doesn't make him look up, or move, from where he's buried against Steve's neck, the humming race of his pulse. Maybe is even grateful it's not Danny's face. It's just Danny's hair. Like there's nothing to make have to back up that any of these words, words, words that are never his, are falling out of his mouth, into Danny's hair. "It's just us. You and me. Here, right now."

Maybe it's hypocritical, he doesn't know if he'd even know what to say, wouldn't go utterly silent if Danny said the same to him. He just knows he wants it to be true. He wants to know. Wants to drag it out from existing anywhere in Danny. Replace with only those words a second ago. That sound in Danny's voice. That are so undeniably true there, that his heart is pounding more about that voice than any part of Danny's hand, Danny's mouth making their way with his skin. Wants to know. Know what not to do again. To keep it like this, as long as possible.

Danny, here, with him. Saying words like that out of nowhere and making him want to break the whole damn world if they'll just be true.

[haole_cop]

It's ridiculous. No, really. Steve being the one to talk him down.

Except Steve is always the one to talk him down. When he decides not to be a dick about things, he can actually hit the nail right on the head. Does things like turns his face into Danny's hair, which just makes any fight left at all evaporate right out of his muscles. Pausing. Before making the conscious decision to let it go. To stop pressing kisses to Steve's skin, and instead bury his face there, nose nudging against Steve's neck, eyes closing. Breathing in deep, getting cotton and detergent and Steve. Warm and rich and the most addicting, the most compelling thing that's out there.

Breathe. And talk to him. He can do that. Right? When Steve is asking so quietly. When Steve's hand is cradling the back of his head, and Danny feels protected. Comforted. When Steve is pointing out what should be obvious: that it's only them, that it's okay. Reminding Danny of the one truth he knows is constant, aside from his love for Grace.

That he trusts Steve. With his life. With his daughter.

And now he needs to trust him with this, too. We're in this together. Meaning Danny can't have secrets. Meaning Danny can't brush things off, because they belong to Steve now, too, just like Steve's problems belong to Danny. They're partners, best friends, and. Whatever this is. Together. No one else. Not Cath. Not Kaila. Not the ghost of Rachel or the reality of Gabby.

Which means Danny doesn't need to deal with these things haunting his head, alone. Right? Is that what Steve is saying?

It's just us. And they have taken on so much. He can tell Steve anything. Has always told Steve everything. Will listen to whatever comes out of Steve's mouth, when he might choose to open it.

But he's still glad that he doesn't have to look at him for this.

Hand finding Steve's side again, slipping up to cup the back of his shoulder. A grip that would be hard to get away from, possessive and this edge of desperate, softened into something that might pass as affectionate, or, at the most, faintly skittish.

"We are just so far past a cup of coffee already. You know? How did that happen? It's been zero to a hundred and sixty in no time."

It is an answer. It is. Even if it might not seem that way. It's bringing it back to a conversation that started. A year ago. When Steve was talking him down from the same ledge, without any idea that one day Danny would have the same reaction to him. Everything there is. Everything he can lose.

Voice low, and still rough at the edges. Because, what the hell. This matters. It all matters. Steve matters. And Danny doesn't want to lose him.

It's what it boils down to, maybe.

[thebesteverseen]

Well, he asked for that, didn't he?

Danny's fingers gripping into his shoulder, like he might need to be stopped from leaving, and Danny's voice, small and quiet and uncertainly fast, against his skin, where Danny's face is now pressed. Where he'd held still, except for that breath Steve could count through inhale and exhale in the perfect sudden stillness of the room before those words spilled out suddenly. When he wasn't certain he'd just cracked the glass and pushed too hard. Again.

Like Danny might just get up and go, or say nothing at all, because Steve kept not letting it go. Even after he was asked. Repeatedly.



And then there were those words. He doesn't know if they are an answer, or the answer, but he does know they are a point. At least he's sure of that much through the sudden, unexpected tension in his chest, the feeling of Danny's hair in his fingers, even when he isn't moving his hand in the slightest. Because. Yeah. Okay. He knows that. Or at least he's relatively sure, and has spent some time trying not to know it.

Has spent a year trying not to know. The last two months, especially, clutching something, something he couldn't ever acknowledge. Still hasn't.

Steve wants to make the joke it did start with one. A cup of coffee. Or rather with Danny attacking a coffee cup, in the defense of all of this, even before Steve got it. When Steve thought he was just being a bitch about Kaila or something with Gabby, or, hell, even just for getting touchy and grouchy over nothing more than not having slept for nearly two days, and was ready to ream him for every phone lecture he'd never reached Steve to give over walking away without a face to face.

Except it wasn't nothing, which makes the joke rock-hard and three times too big for his throat.

It wasn't ever nothing. Not when Danny was banging on the edges of the cup, over and over, with his spoon.

Not when Steve was making flippant, low, heated comments about wanting to kiss him until he didn't taste the coffee.

Not when it's barely two weeks later, and he knows on the other side of his front door there's a blistering lecture waiting. The first of what might be many, the least of which could effect his record. But one that could effect the respect of his longest friendship. Or. His job. Eventually his job. He knows that, too. And he's still here. Fingers in Danny's hair, breathing out in the same space, nodding, staring at it, again, and still not letting go, not pulling away.

"I know." He does. He knows. It's insane. God, all of it. Wanting more than he can ask for, and he had earlier, did the once even. Which he knows. He knows it's like a damn landslide clobbering him for Danny in comparison to what he watched with Gabby. For what he still has no quite mapped time frame for when it started with Rachel. From when they were fighting, before she was suddenly in his arms, that night in hospital.

But the last year. The last year, it had taken gargantuan feats of annoyance and brow beating honesty to get Danny to even consider taking those small steps. A cup of coffee with Gabby. Like digging up boards with his bare hands to have Danny answer questions about how they were doing, or to mention her at all. And involving Grace? God, beyond himself, beyond that sharp, heavy, half drunk weight that covered that butterfly in his head, Danny had nearly had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to that.



And Danny was here. Now. Not being dragged. Not kicking and screaming. Not even two weeks. Hell. If they were being honest, not even one day. Not even half of one. Not five, ten, fifteen minutes after Danny'd said those words. Before it was like the world was on fire. Upside down. More insane than a nuclear bomb going off. Before clothing was being forgotten on his floor, and the day blurred. Into that file. Into that next night and his own furious desperation. Into that weekend. Into the days at the beginning of this week.

Into the blur that happened whenever they touched. Sometimes, even so little as a single look. Like the look Danny pinned him with before running. Into something so much bigger than every moment. Like the words that fell out of his mouth Friday night before Danny could leave, before Danny tumbled into him and never let go.

It feels too long ago, with the so much. So much has happened. So much keeps happening. Keeps throwing itself at them, at Five-0. Barely keeping them above water. Delano. Wo Fat. Doris. Malia. Kono. Chin. Both of them. But it's only been days. Only nearing two week since he got home, the first time. And the only other thing he's ever seen Danny agree to in hours, in days, was being requisitioned to Five-0, which wasn't this smooth, wasn't this necessary, wasn't hard to fight than giving up breathing. So, he knows, okay. He knows.

The same as he knows that as much as he knows those things, desperate and fierce and too piercingly blindingly clear right this second, against Danny's voice, he doesn't know why or how this happened, why Danny is here with him, now, has been, almost every step, but he doesn't want to slow down, doesn't want to stop this, getting this far, having Danny like this, doesn't know if those are going to be the next words, even when all of tonight still fits into all of that.

[haole_cop]

He does think he knows. That's true. Danny doesn't doubt that for a second. Steve has seen him through the giddy rise and subsequent sickening drop of Rachel, was the one who dragged him, past reluctance into actual anger, into the few small steps he'd taken with Gabby. So Steve has some idea, has some clue.

But he doesn't know how terrifying it is. Steve is fearless in a way Danny has never been. Injury to self is the last thing on his mind. It doesn't even compute. The leaps Danny's head takes, from jokes about closet space or the consideration of asking someone out for a cup of coffee to divorce and hatred and ruin wouldn't make sense to him. They would seem like lunacy, because they are lunacy. And Steve hasn't had to do this, before.

Okay. Well. Obviously, parts of it he's done. There are places here where Danny knows Steve's experience far outweighs his own, but he's not talking about the physical stuff, alright, he's talking about the kind of damage a divorce like his leaves behind. Cracks splintering everywhere, all of them widened, weakened again when Rachel stopped picking up her phone and he found himself begging to her voicemail. Begging. So far past distraught. Broken down into something that didn't give a damn how short of a straw he pulled, as long as he got to keep it.

Steve knows what it's like to lose everything. To have the entire world shatter around you. But it happened to Steve when he was just a kid, which makes it more unfair, but also changed him irrevocably. Sure. Danny only knows, really, about the last two years. He supposes it's possible there was someone, someone other than Catherine, someone Steve loved like Danny loves Rachel. Anything is possible. Just like it's possible he'll wake up tomorrow and be able to have a friendly lunch with Rachel and Stan while Grace plays nearby and no lawyers show up at all.

Right? Anything is possible.

Like this is somehow possible. Steve, breathing quiet and steady against him. Steve's fingers in his hair. Steve, naked and wanting him here. Arms around him. Letting Danny's fingers trail over bare skin. Letting Danny think, and talk. Like Danny could just. Talk. The way he might into an empty room. Talk until he's worked it out for himself. Until the panic has been boxed away in words. Until he can breathe, and think straight. Until he no longer feels like he's hanging over the edge of a cliff, gripping for dear life onto a rope that's already snapping. Because Steve is being quiet, and Steve is being softer. Voice low. Not pushing or prodding. Not teasing or taunting. Just opening the door a crack more, instead of kicking it down or blowing it off the hinges.

And it's such a relief. Such a fucking load off. Seriously. They are tiny things, but they let Danny breathe like he's just been let out of a sealed box.

"Look, you know me. I make these leaps. I'm not ready to start considering what it might take for you to start hating me, alright? I know it's nuts. I know it's not even two weeks, and nobody even knows anything except Catherine, and that was by accident, and that I am a lunatic to rival even your most ridiculously out-of-bounds moments, alright. I understand that. I am -- we are -- just, occasionally, a little nerve-wracking."

Call it self-preservation. The kind Steve doesn't have. The kind Danny knows is useless, because he's already here, already in it. Because they are so far past a cup of coffee. Because this is something he knows and recognizes and is not nearly dumb enough to not know or recognize when the evidence is right in front of him, not once it's been lined up like this.

Because he's already fallen off that cliff. Holding onto a trailing end of rope that's falling with him is no more than a stubborn instinct; it won't help when he hits.

Except. When they. They. Because they're in this. Together.

[thebesteverseen]

Steve doesn't move. It's hard to say which instinct has that down really. Stay. Still. Don't. Move. Keep. Breathing. Keep listening to Danny's voice. The way Danny is rambling in against his shoulder, against his neck. He knows these words. Had these conversations. From the outside. When it was never. It wasn't going to be him. Because Danny was falling on his ass for an admittedly pretty face. And then running as far as possible as fast as possible.

Because he remembers. Danny terrified, angry and sure. Insanely, sure. But still there, too.

When it was easy to say coffee was just coffee. Gabby was a pretty easy bet in that way.

A sure thing, if Danny would pry his damn feet off the ground. Coffee, dinners. Dating. Grace. The easy, logical progression. That Danny skipped to ending, and Steve just shoved toward being good, making Danny happy. And any of those other words clog. Hard. Against all the muscles. His jugular. The race of his pulse, like it isn't slowing. Slamming his head with a wall. Because he isn't moving.

The only thing moving is Danny. Spilling all these words out on him, making him aware of one very clear thing.
He isn't a sure thing. He didn't. They. This situation. It's not like he could start hating Danny.
It's not like he ever found a way to bury this in a hole ten feet deep.

But it's not like he can even offer Danny --

"Cath probably wouldn't agree with that." Steve shifted the hand in Danny's hair to rub at his own forehead, barely an inch, maybe two, between them, Danny's head and where his still is, against it, when he shook his head, closing his eyes briefly against the rub. "She'll probably use several more choice words than 'ridiculously out of bounds' for this."

But then Cath expected him to fall on any bomb, terrorist, mission grade objective placed before him. Without hesitation. To the level of his ability. Ballsy, arrogant, best there is, oath living and breathing SEAL. Something she got, to a clear and perfect understanding, that Danny didn't have. Or might have had and didn't want to know if was anywhere near accurate, for his sanity or the teams. Or maybe even Steve's.

But she didn't expect this. She didn't expect to find him fallen on Danny. Not actually. Not like this. Ever.

Dying, swearing to be more than human for the job, fine. But breaking all the rules. For Danny. With him. By him.

[haole_cop]

"Yeah, there's that, too."

The badge he wears, the things he's not supposed to do. People he isn't supposed to want. Not because Steve is a guy. Because Steve is his partner. Because Steve is, in all the ways that matter in a situation like this, his boss.

Steve's fingers, leaving his hair, allowing Danny to shift. Not missing them, exactly. Glad for the ability to move, because now that the first words are out and they're actually, sort of, talking about this, he wants to leave the warm curve of Steve's neck and prop himself up enough to look down and see Steve's face, meet his eyes. The hardest part is done, starting. Now it's a conversation. Kind of.

Sure. It has Steve rubbing at his eyes, talking in a tone that's less dejected and more resigned, knowing what's coming and not looking forward to it, but not avoiding it, either, and Danny's sort of relieved that Steve picked that part to continue with, and not the others. Isn't telling him you're crazy, Danny, or lifting his eyebrows incredulously at the bizarre leaps of non-logic Danny can take with such perfect ease.

All of that is awful, alright. But it's awful in a time that hasn't happened yet, whereas this part -- Cath, knowing. Them knowing. Because they do. They know this shouldn't be happening, and not for any subjective personal reason, alright. Because it is actually against the rules. The Book. The one Danny loves and clings to with an iron grip, because the things that happen when he doesn't scare the crap out of him. To be frank.

Not that he wants Steve shaking his head or rubbing at his forehead, but as reactions go, it's not terrible. The room is quiet and his head is calming down and they're still here, with everything to acknowledge, if not talk about. Rules. Definitions. Who knows. Who should know. What they'll say when people keep asking about the girlfriend Kono thinks he has, or when the others assume Cath is staying with Steve. "There are plenty of people who will definitely agree with her if they find out."

If. Because who knows if they'll end up telling anyone. The idea starts a cold wash skating over his heart -- it's one more step, a serious step. Telling people. Making it real, outside this house. Bringing it into work, into the few parts of their lives that are separate.

Like telling Grace.

Like telling Rachel.

Like having it show up in one of his court appearances, or being used as ammunition by one of Rachel's attorneys. Because it will. It's too good for them to not use. Upstanding cop? You mean this guy? The one sleeping with his boss?

Yeah. He can't wait for that to get added to the reasons why he's unfit to parent his daughter.

[thebesteverseen]

He know's Danny's moving, it's more than half the reason he cracks his eyes open, again. To see where to and how far away. Even if it just brings him even further up short on the whole need to breathe in or out at all. Watching Danny settle. Not away, just a little more upright. Propped so he has to see Danny's face now. That cautious, worried, uncertain expression that tries to just unfoot the hell out of Steve.

Because it looks like it's waiting on him. Probably is with those words. And what does he even have?

They both know where that goes. That there aren't any good path's past the words he just used. There are capital 'R' rules for a reason. So the line don't get blurred. So you don't over or under react, and you don't jeopardize the job for unprofessional reasons. The whole reason cops recuse themselves from cases with friends or family. Because judgement is blown. Beyond recognition, beyond the ability to be objective.

"If they find out," Steve said, middle of the road, hand awkwardly settling somewhere not back in Danny's hair, against his raised shoulders. Aware it was the last thing that sounded at all good, or smart, or wise. For either of their lives. Any of their job. Cath might yell, but Cath, also, wouldn't take it any further. She wouldn't do anything about it. Wouldn't threaten him. Anger and disappointment would the highest price to bear there.

Because everything here is blown beyond objective. It's not just good clean fun. There's no understanding that they'll just get up, and shake hands, and call it good times. Walk away and just look back and say. What? That it was fun? When the words that kept coming out, the few of them their were, weren't those ones. Were as far from those as you could get

Still possible. I want to be with you.

I want you. Only you.

Could he even walk away now? Now that his mind couldn't forget. The feel of Danny's fingers, beyond his wrist or like a ward against his chest stopping him. Danny's voice, turning the two syllables of his name into something to make the ground crumble. Did they even have a choice? When it was clear. Absolutely clear, there was only one path in front of them, and it wasn't the one they were on.

When he knows all that is in this face, and those words, and the, what, fear, Danny believes he has it in himself to hate Danny. When wanting Danny -- respecting him and working with him, seeing all that he was, went through, chose to do in spite of pain or past, feeling this thing fisting all of the inside of his chest -- is something that's defined him at least half as long as Five-0. When looking at this face makes him so aware. He's breaking every rule, and that's wrong. But this doesn't feel like that. Wrong.

Wanting Danny doesn't feel wrong any more. It did for so long. Every single thought worse than desperate and dirty. But not when Danny's hand is still on him, and he's staring at him. Even without a single helpful answer for every question in Danny's words unasked. To take it might be wrong to so many people, but wanting Danny more than anything he's wanted for himself in ages longer than he can remember. That doesn't feel wrong.

The last thing he wants to do is lose any part of his life. His job, his military career. But how's he supposed to consider that if the cost is Danny?

[haole_cop]

"You don't think they will eventually?"

He's dubious, but it's a real question. Because, well. These things come out. They always do. By accident, if not on purpose. They spend too much time together, interact with too many people to make it a safe bet that no one will notice.

Like Kono, and Chin. Who are two of the best detectives Danny's ever worked with. The only reason they haven't already worked it out is because they wouldn't have any reason to suspect that the marks on Danny's neck were from anyone other than Gabby or some other girl.

But, eventually. If this keeps happening. If it somehow, miraculously, doesn't stop. If Steve keeps meaning and believing those words. If he doesn't decide to say no thanks to Danny's.

He's not exactly advocating heading to Dennings' office tomorrow morning and filling out the required paperwork, or having that conversation that he feels, a little uncomfortably, should probably have been had a week ago, but the idea of telling people pings just as wrong as the idea of not. Like if they don't, he might somehow been seen as being ashamed of it. He's not. Could never. Blown away, yes. Overwhelmed, sure. Terrified, definitely.

But ashamed?

Never. Never. Not of Steve. Never of Steve. Who is so much better than he gives himself credit for, because he takes credit in all the things people already see: the talent, the skill, the fearless and absolute loyalty to his duty. He doesn't ever see the way his heart gets taken away from him on the cases where kids get hurt, or parents are killed. He doesn't notice how above and beyond his care of the team is. How generous he can be. Compassionate, even. How nothing touches any member of his team, any of his people, without Steve taking swift action against it, and doing everything he can, personally, to improve the situation.

"I'm not saying we ought to go have a chat with Dennings tomorrow, but I get the feeling that people finding out by accident might be worse than the alternative. At the very least, Kono would definitely hit at least one of us."

It's sort of meant to be light-hearted, but it comes out tense and contracting along with the sudden painful compression in his chest. He might not be ashamed, but he is, alright, afraid. Right now, this is just theirs. Only them. In this together. There's time to figure things out, steps that can be tripped over, and it only screws with them, and no one else.

Bringing other people into it raises the stakes instantly, terribly. And he's not sure he's anywhere near ready for that. The best he can do is deflect it, like he did in the car, with Doris. I'm seeing someone.

We're taking it slow.

Yeah. Slow like an avalanche.

[thebesteverseen]

It's not something you do. Have this conversation. Consider the idea there's a different way of looking at the box. The small space this room is, that feels like it's getting smaller, the more Danny stares him, the more Danny says. Like it's absolutely logical. Like this is anything at all like everything else he's done in his life. Like it all lines up and there won't be problems. Wouldn't be repercussions.

That some things are better not talked about, simply because that's the whole truth of the matter. That's how you handle them. Silently.

Steve's face isn't doing him any favors, turning over and over it all too fast, watching him, close, but further without even moving. The way Danny's talking about this like somehow this part is any more simple, and not epically worse to even consider, no less discuss, than whatever started this. Danny thinking Steve could hate him made more sense than considering announcing this.

To anyone. Especially to Dennings. He didn't even have a handle yet on what he was going to tell Cath, or when that was.

"Because you managed to figure any of this out so easily?" Which might be a little low, but it's a holding point, too. Danny didn't figure it out and he'd been at Steve's side nearly every time he wasn't sleeping, or with Grace. Didn't know. Sputtered at Steve like this was beyond impossible the first minute after being kissed. How. How was it even possible. That Steve would be interested. In him. In anything like this. Had ever looked at a man, no less his partner, in that way.

Hadn't figured out that it had been so long. Hadn't even known about other people Steve might have seen during the time they'd known each other.

It's not that he enjoyed lying to Danny. It's not that pressed to put it into words, he'd ever even agree he did lie to Danny. He didn't. He never once negated it wasn't there. It didn't come up. It didn't need to. He managed it. It wasn't like he wanted to lie to Chin or Kono, or well, he could give a rat's ass about Denning's opinion, so long as Denning's wasn't stripping Danny of his position, or dragging him from Five-0, for this, but sometimes people didn't need to know.

Hadn't Danny just been pointing it wasn't even two weeks and it beyond fast. What if it burned out in less than another two?
Cath. Cath was a badly timed accident. He hadn't known Danny would be coming. If he had, she wouldn't have still been here.

[haole_cop]

"Ouch."

He doesn't even not really mean it. Look. He gets that he probably should have noticed. Detective, paid to notice exactly these kind of things, and it was happening right under his nose. It's embarrassing, alright? "Okay, fine, I don't actually think that's a good idea, alright? I just thought I would point out that it is, occasionally, a hazard, and will probably show up at some point. You know, if."

Which is a sentence he doesn't want to finish, because there's no good way for it to go. If this doesn't go down in flames. If Steve doesn't change his mind.

If Danny doesn't get pulled away to Vegas.

Because that's there. It's possible. Maybe even probable. And that would shut all this down without having to tell anybody at all.

So it might never come to that, which is why it's best just to not continue with that train of thought. He hates secrets, but there are times when they need to be kept. He'd managed to keep things with Rachel under wraps even from Steve. He can do it again.

Even if he hates the idea of pretending. Like it might somehow make any of this less real, just because it isn't out in the world. Like it somehow devalues this. Which is the last damn thing he wants. When it's the only thing aside from Grace and the job keeping him sane. When it's so much to ask for, but somehow, is being given. Offered. Freely. Like someone just handing a starving man a loaf of bread and a check for thirty thousand dollars.

There's no stopping Cath knowing, now, but he's fairly sure Cath won't tell.

At least, he hopes not.

[thebesteverseen]

He won't apologize for the comment. He has no regret for it. It served him at the time. The rest of it being things he hadn't thought Danny needed or wanted to know. And if anything, he's closer to wondering if he hadn't would this have all started sooner. Could he have drawn this all out of Danny himself? Would it still have been like this, if it hadn't been Danny in his living, being so glaringly honest Danny would never even see it for the kind of bravery it was?

Or would it have all just ended that much sooner? Would he be on the other side of it, with his only knowledge of it looking back?

When Steve's not ready to be looking back. Not ready for however this whole thing ends. Or what it takes with it when it goes.

"If?" It stumbles out of his mouth, more frustrated challenge than resignation, before he can press it flat enough in his mouth. Make it slide down his throat and get caught in the fist that's presently holding all of his intestine. Somewhere under Danny's other arm, resting on him.

When he knows, has, holds, too many of those himself. Every single thing that is not Danny, right here in front of him feels like it fills up that words. Every option, that involves any step from this one where they are at this very second, that could slam a dead end at them without warning. Every single part of this house, looming everywhere, that could have had another life, almost thirty years ago.

[haole_cop]

"If it doesn't blow up in our faces."

It's almost matter-of-fact. The kind of thing he used to always say, bemoan to Steve, during the few times he actually talked about Gabby that weren't limited to she's fine or that things were okay. Which was always an exaggeration, right, because nothing about Gabby suggests that anything anywhere might be blowing up. She was sweet and pretty and smart and classy, but she was never a wrecking ball sort of person.

Steve is. If this goes down, it's going down in flames. There's no other way, because Danny already pointed out that casual really isn't his game and Steve is essentially a walking talking truck full of propane with a casually lit match headed its way.

He's honestly not sure which is worse, when it comes to dizzyingly stressful thoughts: the idea that this is going to end, and end badly, or that it won't.

But it's not just him. Something Steve had to remind him of, that he's conscious of this whole time, now. Especially when Steve's stomach tightens under Danny's, in a way that makes the hand that had traveled to his shoulder slide back to his side, thumb pressing gently into muscles that are clenching, giving him away even if his voice isn't. Even if his face weren't.

Except it is. It's painted right across him, again, that same look from earlier. Some heartwrenching mix of hopefulness and caution and frustration that dropkicks Danny's heart right through his ribs. Steve shouldn't be looking at him like this. Steve should never have. This shouldn't have happened, wasn't supposed to happen. Steve wasn't supposed to kiss him in the living room.

But he did. And is. And he's still here.

Danny doesn't want to jinx it. Feels like if he breathes too hard, talks too much, says the wrong things, he will. "Which is not something I want to think too hard about or look for in this particular moment."

[thebesteverseen]

Fingers skate down across his ribs and settle on his stomach, causing the muscles to flutter. Tenser where Danny stops again, and then slowly, marginally, looser against Danny rubbing his fingers in. He can't even say when that tensed up. And when did this flip. When did Danny start looking at him like he was the one having a problem with this that needed coaxing, instead of the other way around from Steve tugging at him until he gave.

Which is just a little more frustrating on top of all of it. Because it isn't. He knew. Right? When he kissed Danny. How short this road probably was. Long walk, short pier, and he hadn't cared. Didn't care. Didn't want to. Not when Danny is looking at him the way he is right now. This complex mess of caution and reassurance, resignation and will. Making Steve drag his hands up. From that loose awkward hold on Danny's shoulder, up his neck, wrapping there, two fingers up across his chin, looking at his face.

That was the problem wasn't it. With his face. Everything, everything that meant so much of anything here, was tangled up right here. In knowing Danny always had his back. That Danny would never let anything slide if it shouldn't. That he'd hold his ground, and get in Steve's face. That he was every stop gap and warning system and even every part of every good things Steve had here. Job, and what little of any 'real life' there might be.

"No?" Steve prompted a little, one side of his mouth tugging slightly, ruefully, upward. Almost sardonic.

He considered sliding his thumb against Danny's skin, but didn't move, except to tilt his own head and raise his eyebrows.

"I should get an award for that, shouldn't I?" Stupidly, light and trite, even if his face stays a little more serious than the words or tone should go with it. "That there's something you, and your five thousands words, don't actually want to take apart and talk about until the horse is dead." Until they pressed on the seams of this too hard, and they both had to admit they shouldn't be here. Right here. Naked and wrapped around each other. Closer than breathing.

But weren't going. Were courting a deep disaster than bad taste jokes. For a few more seconds. A few more minutes. Another night.

[haole_cop]

It's so stupid, but he can't help it. Smiling. Little and goofy and it's just this absurd, insane affection, this bizarre fondness for his partner and best friend, who has spent more hours dragging Danny out of his own head than he really wants to consider.

It's pulling at his mouth, tugging the corners up and out, lips together until they have to open because he's laughing low under his breath. Eyes creasing, tracking over Steve's face. "Hey, you're the one who opened the floor."

The one who said talk to me, Danny, when Danny would have been more than happy to just let it all go, try to forget it, buried there in Steve's skin and the curve of his neck. "From what I remember, I was pretty fine right where I was. And busy."

His free hand lifts to find the one Steve's got at his chin, and he ducks his head a little, eyes leaving Steve's briefly, while he concentrates, runs lips along one finger, pauses, takes the tip in his mouth between light teeth, and lets it go again after a second's focus. Every breath deliberate.

Because he's not going anywhere right now, and neither is Steve, and that's what he wants. To be right here. To get to kiss fingertips, and the thin skin just above Steve's pulse, and his mouth, and his shoulder.

Who would be in a hurry to leave any of this?

The rules can throw themselves out a window. He doesn't care. Doesn't give a shit what the Governor thinks, what the military thinks. Kono and Chin's opinions would matter, but he has enough respect for Kono and Chin to think they wouldn't argue. Anyone who would say this shouldn't, can't happen can die in a fire. Screw the rules. None of them mean anything compared to this. Compared to the way Steve is looking at him, heavy-lidded eyes and faint smiles, warm and wanting and still just this side of dubious.

It's Steve. They throw out all the rules anyway.

And rules can't hold a candle to the taste of Steve's skin when he leans down to find his collarbone, track it light with his mouth, before pushing back up, just far enough to kiss him. Still trying to keep his smile under check. Even now, even with all this, even with questions and no answers and rules and not knowing.

He can't help it. It's a stupid giddy bubble, and his lips are still tugging when he's leaning to kiss him again. "See, I knew I got interrupted from something."

[thebesteverseen]

There's that smile. The one that makes a bad joke utterly worth saying, utterly worth smacking seriousness a little upside the head crooked. Where Danny is literally calling him on it and laughing at him, like there's several hundred dozen screws loose wrong with his head, but somehow he's gotten used to it, gotten to like it. And Steve, Steve would love to touch that smile, taste it.

If it weren't for the fact his chest caves in surprise seconds later. Air unimportant. When there are lips and teeth against his finger, and the only movement he's doing at at all is shifting his wrist so it isn't twinging. Listening to his heart trip into a pounding hard. Just long enough to feel like something in his veins popped before Danny lets go. Cold air and released like a sudden secondary shock, surging through all of him.

Before Danny is leaning back down, lips and tongue on his collarbone when Steve's fingers are pushing back into his hair, holding on, and he might be biting down against his lip. Not because it's too much. But because how the hell. Seriously. How the hell would he ever make it. Getting up and walking away from this. From Danny. Maybe. If Danny came to his senses.

Danny, and that hand that ends up at his wrist or shoulder or flat on his chest. Holding him back better than any solid, cement wall. Telling him to cool the hell down and back the hell off. That they don't kill people and they have due process and rules. Danny, who keeps him straighter than he's ever needed to keep himself. Danny, who could stop him, if he need to be, had to be.

Danny who's not going to stop him. Not with still possible still shaking through Steve's head so much more than his words about hating him. Danny whose choice is somehow him. Leaning down and kissing his skin, hollowing out whatever the hell had built up behind his breastbone, filling his head with all that noise and darkness. With one moment.

Lifting with that smile still on his face. Like someone how if he keeps his mouth straight Steve won't see it. In the crinkles at the edges of his eyes. Won't know it'd be in all the blue of his eyes if there was any light left in this room to see them. He knows. He knows all of it. He knows it's there just in the way Danny holds his head, and breathes in. The way his weight is settled.

The lighter, more prodding, teasing tone of his voice. The way he takes the second to taunt Steve, before kissing him again. Finally.

"Burn the floor," Steve said, against his mouth, whenever that first second burst back through from the necessity of mapping Danny's mouth. Thick and dark, against Danny's mouth. Fingers still in his hair, pulling Danny down toward him. His other hand, pushing himself up, into Danny. Back. Back, closer. Like the words and the thoughts and every eventuality got too close, made too much, and it can all burn.

To a blackened crisp. Until it's all gone. Forgotten. Until it's just Danny. "I don't want anything else."

Even if it isn't absolutely true, about Five-0, about the Navy, it's still true. Too. He doesn't want anything else.

Anything less than all of this, every single second and minute he could have of it. Of Danny. In his hands. His bed. His life.

[haole_cop]

If he can't help the smile, he definitely can't help the sound that comes on the heels of those words, the walls building up in his chest collapsing back down in a groan that scrapes up his ribcage. Fingers sinking into Steve's hair, tightening against Steve's side.

"Good."

Breathed out, hard and clumsy against Steve's mouth, and he blinks his eyes open just long enough to catch a breath, and look down at him. Smile gone, replaced by this burning that's setting fire to breath and blood and all the vastly expanding, stuffed-full space inside him. Burn it all down. All of it. Everything but Steve, and Grace, and the team. Burn the rules and the people who don't have any say in any of this, not how Danny feels and not how he acts.

Because there is no turning away from this. No possible way to leave, and stay in one piece. Not even if he thought he should. He couldn't. Because Steve is pulling him down, and Steve is pushing up into him, and Steve is saying those words, singeing like a brand into Danny's mind along with the others. "Because I just want you."

Lower, muffled against Steve's mouth, because Danny can't stay away long enough to say it, is caught back up in the lightning storm that strikes every time they touch each other.

And then he doesn't want to talk anymore, not even him, not even with all the words still swirling, somewhere, within reach if he wants them, because Steve's mouth is the single most important thing on his mind right now. Arm wrapping around Steve's shoulders and pulling him closer, partly off the mattress. Sinking into kisses that lick over him like sheets of flame, slamming the heat under the sheets up to feverish. Kissing Steve like it might possibly erase any doubts. For either of them.

Wanting to laugh, but not able to, anymore. What's left of his voice threadbare and worn down to transparency. "Just to be clear, though, you shouldn't actually be burning anything."

Except Danny. Who is. Being burned alive. Talking right into Steve's mouth and following it with nothing at all, just small sounds so low and deep in his chest they might not be there at all.

[thebesteverseen]

That sound is another example of things Steve would never manage to scour free from himself. The kind of sound that would haunt him, no matter where he went, if he could ever make it there. Which he's not sure he ever could. For all his prowess and history, he's not sure could. Not when the sound is guttering its way out of Danny, who's digging fingers into his scalp and his ribs, and kissing him hard and heavy with response.

Everything he shouldn't say, shouldn't let out, everything Cath will raze him over. And, fuck, if that isn't almost the reason to do it, too. Because he won't back down, or take it back. And she won't be wrong. And why isn't he saying it then. If it's beating in his head, and his veins, and his chest. Every god forsaken, over turned, ledger kicked out from under any footing the world has on the way to Danny. Obliterated in less than second.

That he didn't fight. That he isn't fighting now. That he doesn't have any plan to start doing so, even if he thinks of it.

Can't when Danny is adding words, agreeing with him. Breath rushed and kisses less than stable. Erratic. Made of electricity. Lighting everything up, when Steve is pushing up more. Going even more when Danny's hand is pulling at his shoulder. Like close is not close enough, might never be close enough. Even when he's shifting all his weight, pushing himself toward half sitting and Danny back into the bed.

Having to find the air to chuckle. Low, winded, actual amusement, like Danny is the insane one here. "Seriously?"

Steve lifted to look at him, head on and challenging, smirk totally there even for the dark. "I'm already breaking all the other rules." How is there something insanely liberating in actually saying it. Something that isn't even more like cuffs. He is. They are. They are. Together. Still. Doing this. Breaking every rule. Acknowledging that it's fucking insane, very likely unmanageable in the long run, and still doing it. Still. They both fo them. Together, even in that.

It just shoves the shard and the sarcasm richer, when he's towering over Danny. Mouth firming, eyebrows raising and falling, when he's speaking like he hasn't a single shred of shame or collateral reference. "Next you'll be telling me you still won't let me set off grenades in my own backyard, too."

[haole_cop]

"Okay, well, those rules can screw themselves."

These ones. The ones they're shattering, not just breaking. Every kiss and every night spent together and every time clothes start coming off snaps them into smaller and smaller pieces. And it's not just Steve breaking them. Danny is, too. Danny who doesn't break rules.

Except sometimes. When they can go ahead and burn away, because other things are more important. Meka. Peterson. Grace. Steve. He's been breaking rules left and right for Steve. Went into North Korea, with the knowledge that no one in the States would or could help if things went south. Went after the CIA, by himself, when he knows, he knows how stupid not having backup is.

That was a deja vu he really hadn't needed in his life, ending up in that chair.

And now this. Which seems so much less necessary, right? Rules, those rules, they can't possibly be as important as the weight of Steve as he pushes up, pushes Danny down, shoulderblades hitting the bed and head sinking into the bottom edge of the pillow. Fingers chasing around Steve's side to his back, to splay there, hard. Proprietary. An arm around Steve's shoulders, to drag him closer.

He already loses a heartbeat or five when Steve's in danger, alright. He already cares too much. Has for too long, even before he recognized what this is. Was already ready to do anything, fuck the rulebook and the Governor's displeasure, anything at all to help Steve if he needed it.

He's already compromised. Sleeping with Steve doesn't change anything.

"For what possible reason would you need to set off grenades in your yard, Steven? Can't you just use sparklers like everyone else?"

[thebesteverseen]

He doesn't even know how to explain that feeling, like something explodes in his brain, behind his eyes, levels his chest, when Danny even jokes about that. Danny who has spent every day of two years, in which he was present anywhere near Steve, telling him how terrible of a cop he isn't, and how many rules he's breaking, and how everything is different on the ground. Hearing him shove it all out the window?

Maddening. Even more so than Danny's tone, amused and rejecting. When he doesn't fight, falls into bed, hands snaking up against Steve's skin. Possessive, fingers stretching wide, still dragging him in. Closer, closer, closer. The words like a heart beat. Like the world already stopped existing against, and it's just Danny. From one end of the spectrum, where he was quite and freaking out, to the other, where those hands are everywhere.

Words singeing the air Steve's trying to breathe in. When breathing is over rated. Everything is overrated but Danny. Danny touching him. Trusting him. Choosing him. Over everything he's clutched tighter than air, only marginally less tighter than Grace. When Steve's leaning down, the fire Danny talked about, already soaring under his skin, in the faster breaths from Danny. In leaning in and finding his mouth, while sliding. A knee between Danny's legs, a hand on the other side of Danny, while shaking his head.

Like he's got some control. Any leg to stand on, for mocking Danny, and his decent into madness. Isn't matching every step.
Hasn't been walking it long enough he paved the path, built shelters to hide behind, long before Danny even got here.

"No, I don't think so," Steve said, letting his mouth loose. "The damage from those is incredibly minimal."
"Well." His head tipped in thought a beat. "Unless you're going to stab someone in the eye with it."

Or, really, any orifice. Structural integrity wouldn't survive much else down with the sticks. If that.

[haole_cop]

"You're an idiot, you know that?"

He pulls back enough to give Steve an exasperated look, though his hands don't leave his skin, and he's shifting to allow that one long leg to slide between his so he's just as tangled up in Steve's arms and legs as he is on a far more metaphorical level. After leaning up to meet that kiss, anyway, letting Steve push him back and just dragging him down, too.

"Although if you're admitting to only using grenades when they might be absolutely necessary -- no, you know what? They are never absolutely necessary. I'm sure that for legal purposes I should never know the extent of the weaponry and incendiaries you have in this house -- considering the number you keep in my car, without my express permission. One time you needed grenades here, once. That's it. Please stop thinking of children's playthings in terms of the amount of damage they can do. Your brain is a terrible place."

The worst. And yet Danny hasn't stopped, can't, won't. Is wrapping one hand around the back of Steve's neck, fingers brushing into short dark hair. Body tipping towards Steve, leg sliding over Steve's calf.

Like there's nothing for it except to be as wrapped up as possible. Pull him closer, shift to find the spaces he fits, while Steve is on the way to blanketing him entirely. He could cover every part of Danny, crowd him into the bed, into the pillow, and Danny would let him. He might put up a fight, go down wrestling, but not right now, not when he still feels peeled and raw from the words Steve coaxed out of him, that he hadn't wanted to say.

Forgotten, now, in the press of Steve's mouth, the low, full of humor tone of his voice. The way he's looking down at Danny smug and arrogant and so pleased with himself, like this is what he'd wanted all along. Panic that's drifted away on the sounds of the air conditioner, the breeze outside, the curve of Steve's stupid smile.