gonna_owe_me | (no subject)

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Steve is really good at avoiding her.

Normally, she probably wouldn't even call it "avoiding." Normally, she would call it his usual M.O. and chalk it up to being a side effect of being halfway around the world from each other. There are times they've gone for months with no contact, and two weeks is barely the blink of an eye, particularly when she's busy and he keeps getting high-profile, high-priority cases.

At least, that's what she hears, when she hears anything at all.

But those weeks and months of zero contact, running silent, off the grid: those days aren't exactly applicable when there are extenuating circumstances such as A. they are living on the same island and B. she knows there's something he really doesn't want to talk to her about.

Ergo, avoidance.

She's not an impatient or nosy person, though, so she lets it slide, for a little while. He clearly needs to get used to the idea himself, and, frankly, so does she. It's not that they haven't stumbled across a situation where one or the other of them was out of commission for their normal arrangement, but in general, those interrupting factors were not potentially career-threatening. Not to the extent of sleeping with a subordinate. Not to the extent of sleeping with a partner. Not seriously.

And it is serious, whether Steve is admitting to it, or not. It's splashed across him like someone doused him in paint and sticky sunlight, in the way he'd magnetized towards the door, the way he'd run out after Danny. Maybe even more because he didn't bring it up until he absolutely had to.

So Steve is avoiding her, and she can sympathize, because this is not a conversation she particularly wants to sit through, either, but it still needs to happen, because, knowing Steve, he hasn't told anyone else and is shutting it back into compartments poorly designed for a situation of this magnitude and complexity.

Which is why, when she called him on the next weekend inferred to be Danny's weekend with Grace, she's given him the benefit of both giving her the slip for two weeks and the peace offering of meeting at a place with really excellent drinks, one of which she has in hand as she sits at a table by an open window, chin in her hand, looking out at the quietly rolling ocean. It's early evening, and she's come off a twelve hour shift, so it's nice to sit, let her thoughts unhinge, ebb and flow with the waves and mild breeze. Wrangling an affirmative had proved to be difficult, but she'd managed it, pointing out that they might as well meet out, seeing as they're definitely going to make it to the restaurant this time.

It strips him of the home field advantage, too, but he's not the only one who knows how to keep a wall at his back and a few tricks up his sleeve.

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Jesus. He might actually come undone just from this -- not the finger pushing slowly back, or Steve's arm pressing him into his own stomach, but this. Steve's voice. Winded and hoarse, like his throat's gone dry, and, Christ, he's not sure he's ever really heard Steve want before.

Not like this. Not with his whole body tense and withholding, restrained in a perfect straitjacket that only allows the faintest of tremors to show how much control it's taking, how telling it is. Not when he's trying to sound normal, and only succeeds in sounding like a man lost in a desert, offered a way out, and it scrapes over Danny's raw nerves like sandpaper.

Everything seems so quiet against the buzzing in his head, the jagged attempts at breathing, the low panicked hum of he's touching there and it feels weird and it feels invasive and it feels kind of good at the same time, while he wonders in a tilting carousel of detaching thoughts what the protocol for this is. Like...is this clean enough? Was his shower this morning too long ago? What exactly are the expectations for unpleasant surprises, for body hair or lack thereof, for...seriously, how does anything fit?

There might already be something wrong. Hell. It's not like he woke up today and decided it was a good day to ask Steve to start fingering him, he's got no idea what level of preparation is necessary or, you know, polite.

It's the whisper-lightest of pressures, but enough to make his whole body clench in confusion, muscles not sure why it isn't being rejected, head pausing, considering, it's Steve, so he needs to wait, to listen, to pay attention. And Steve is shifting, tugging at the lack of room in Danny's pants, and, shit, it's about to get real, if they lose clothes it's really happening and he has simultaneously never wanted anything so much and never wanted to run so far away in his life.

Which is a shitty, cowardly reaction to have. He's still breathing. Steve's still careful, even with the toll it's taking, that he's trying to pretend isn't there. Asking, without demanding. Letting Danny bring this as far as he wants, without pushing him any further. Which means when Danny nudges experimentally against that finger, it's because he wants to, trying to figure out how this feels, beyond strange.

"In that case, we may as well go upstairs."

Where there's space. Room. A comfortable bed. Not a couch they might roll off any second, even if he's compelled by more than just lack of space to hang onto Steve, fingers curling against bluff muscle.

But upstairs is something else, too. Upstairs is bed. Upstairs is reality. It's not just fooling around on the couch, which has the sheen of casual to it. And his heart's hammering against his ribs, in his head, but he's not about to back down, either.

The muscles in his arm actually shake. Not from surprise, but from how strong the reaction after the first one, but the reaction to try and make himself hold still. How strong that one has to be. While Danny is wiggling. Just a little. Just enough. Pushing back and down against his hand. His fingers. Finger. This isn't the angle. This really isn't the space to. But it's still there. The second Steve's jaw locks and his head is still leaned in, and his eyes clench closed a second.

And he's trying so hard not to shove forward, not to give up on, give a damn about Danny's pants. Let it all fall by the wayside like the buttons they've scattered all over his house in the last month. Like every inch of Steve that's been scattered and burned. Shove for space. Shove against Danny's skin, the ring of muscle not far from him, without anything on hand, on his own hand or Danny's skin to make any of that easier for a first time.

When he knows it's only been a month. Which might at times feel like an eternity to him, but sometimes it feels like seconds. And a lot of the time it still feels like never, if Danny isn't nearby to blunt that. And Danny doesn't even approve of coffee with people he's actually flatfooted and tongue tripping over. Which doesn't change the way he's pushing down against Steve's hand. Careful, uncertain, like someone holding on to a ladder testing the ground.

But still doing it. Shoving a spike of overwhelming fire anywhere Steve had air seconds ago.

"Couldn't hurt," Steve said, agreed, like there was any option in him not to, any air to use to speak. Like he wasn't fighting back an incredible world of options that shoved at his head, like a torrent on top of Danny's movements. His bed. The things in his room. His bed table "More room." Danny on his bed. Bereft of clothes and. He doesn't even know how to finish that. There. There. Possible. Something. Maybe. When he can't help the way his fingers curl against Danny's skin.

Tracing with a pressure that isn't as light as it was, but isn't as focused either. Because they're talking to. Tearing a divide in his mind, that he knows his mouth is losing out to his hand. To his couch. To not letting go yet. Even when he adds, like it's important at all at this second. "A lot less Tarantino."

"Room would be good."

Of course, there's a flaw in this plan, this half agreed upon plan to get off the couch, go upstairs, and lose the rest of their clothes, which is that in order to get there, he has to let go of Steve, and Steve has to let go of him.

It's not an appealing thought, for a number of reasons. First, naturally, his mind and body both rebel at the idea of actively letting go and stepping away from Steve, like they would at the thought of leaving a campfire on a snowy night to wander the cold woods alone and freezing. Secondly, all this momentum comes to a screeching halt, and while that might not be such a bad thing -- he's seen how Steve does with stopping once he's gotten started, the guy's like a hurricane that just keeps feeding itself -- it's going to feel a little like stepping into an ice-cold shower.

The hand he's got around Steve squeezes, and lets go, reluctant, slides up the clutched muscles of Steve's stomach, along the biceps of the arm that's currently halfway down Danny's pants, a fingertip there pressing closer now, striking nervous fires into life. It's not immediate, intense good like it is when Steve's got that hand wrapped around him, pulling and stroking, dragging insanity into his bloodstream, but it's not bad, either.

He wonders what it'll be like with no clothes in the way, when they're not lying on their sides, when there's all the room in the world to lie out and open up, a though that heats his face, spreads a slow feverish flush through his chest. Having Steve. Having all of Steve, which as a concept is both terrifying and exhilarating, shouldn't be possible, should definitely not be available, and yet here it is. Steve. With that dragged-out, scraped-out voice, and thinly disguised want that sounds a whole lot like need. Faintly distracted, like he's already three steps ahead of Danny, considering what comes next, after pants are gone and they have room to do this without breaking any furniture or pulling any muscles.

"This movie's always on replay, anyway."

As if the movie matters. As if either of them were even paying attention to it to begin with.

Danny is helping and he's not helping. Talking about letting go, and making the first motion toward that giving Steve's body a warm, almost reluctant, squeeze that leaves Steve feeling like a bubble of adrenaline was shot directly into his stomach, snapping a firecracker inside his ear drum. Which makes it even more confusing, sort of like a slap of air, when that next thing Danny does actually is let go.

It's. He. Steve can't figure out if he's more grateful that he can tell there's air, or more annoyed that Danny let go. But Danny's fingers are catching on his forearm and his bicep and it is, if anything, a quiet sign, along with his words, to let go. To pull back. To be with him. To follow him now. When even half of his head is saying this is about letting go, to get to more, and something else, visceral and base, possessively doesn't want.

To let go. To pull away. To even hold a candle of belief that if he steps back, he'll get to step right back up. There is every chance that with air, clothes, another floor, breathing, thinking, Danny will change his mind. And he hates the part of him that knows, sweating a slick oil into the molten pool of his stomach, that Danny has every right -- he even needs Danny to know he has every right -- to do absolutely nothing. Even now.

But he is at least listening, unable to tell while Danny's talking about the tv-movie, if he's tightening his shoulder because he needs to move or because he needs to relax the muscles in. Shifting to drag his hand out of between Danny's thighs, holding that thought. Pulling out, and flexing his wrist in a circle twice, amid rubbing his fingers and his palm, the back of it, on some combination of his pants and his bare side.

Before reaching up to rub his face, trying to take a breathing, trying to remember that last thought. When the only thought that stays is that that was probably the very singular thing he should not have done. When he's suddenly breathing in warmth, shared sweat and a strong musk off his own hand. Breathing in Danny and Danny's skin. Setting a hive of bees buzzing in his ears, in his teeth.

When he can't even tell if the landstrike in his stomach, tightening his ab muscle in and down hard, is trying to make him groan in frustration at his own stupidity or with the way his body suddenly aches like someone is shoving a sharp blade through his flesh, smooth as butter, as he never can fight Danny. When he truly meant to just sort throw his hand away, like somehow he could cast it off his body to help, but it just ends up scrabbled on the next closest thing. Danny's chest.

Settling only for the briefest second, when his body decides far faster than his mind. The hand sliding up to catch Danny's chin, pushing up at the same second and leaning in to find his mouth. He's. Moving. He'll get there in a second. A moment. Another. Whenever he stops feeling like something just burrowed in right under his breast bone, and stopped his lungs, and this is the only thing, the only way he knows how to breath.

Catching Danny's lips, without even responding. Needing to pull him in. To push over him halfway, legs still tangled.

Edited 2013-05-26 22:45 (UTC)

It takes Steve a second, but he does actually move. Let go. Slide his hand out from between Danny's legs, leaving him feeling strangely bereft at the lack of warm pressure, careful fingertips.

That's a good sign, right? It must be, when he sort of misses Steve's hand there, wants to feel it back again, if only so he can figure out whether he likes it or not, so he can figure out how to do the same thing to Steve, if Steve wants him to, and he thinks Steve probably does.

He wonders how many times Steve has done this, with who, and feels a sudden sickening flash of jealousy that shoots into his stomach and leaves him feeling shaky and more than a little unnerved, because whoever it was, they aren't around now, no one's around now, except for him. Steve said so. Said he wanted Danny. Only him, and Danny doesn't think he was lying, or exaggerating. He's not sure it's possible to fake the kind of desperation that was in Steve's voice, in the way he kept himself between Danny and the door, in his eyes and frustrated arguments. No one else. Nothing else.

Steve. Trying to push him away, because he thought it was the right thing to do, for Danny, for Grace. Holding onto him, kissing him right into the ground outside, vicious and possessive, laced with loss Danny never wants to see on his face again, ever again.

And now finding Danny's chest with that hand, warm palm over Danny's sprinting heart, eyes wide and looking more than a little crazy, faintly unhinged, like Danny hit him in the temple with a rock instead of suggesting they take this upstairs, but Danny only sees it for a second before that hand is moving again, and Steve is kissing him, tangling them up, pushing Danny back and making the world and all his reasons for moving vanish in a blip like a soap bubble popping. Danny's hands move over his back, wide expanse of skin, rolling muscles, and for a minute, there's no fear. No panic, no nerves.

Just Steve, everywhere. All around him, over him, wrapping around him with long octopus arms and legs, dragging him close and tight, owning him like Danny's damn sure he's never been owned before, like Steve is staking a claim, won't ever be satisfied with the marks raised up on Danny's skin or the fact that he's the first to do so much of this.

They may not be moving upstairs, but it's not like there's any huge rush, right? It's still early. They have all night, and that might have been presumptive before, but there's no chance Danny's heading out that door before morning arrives. No chance he's going to give Steve the space to think and reconsider.

And he's not exactly dying to pull apart and take the few minutes to walk upstairs, either. Appealing as the thought of getting there is, he rebels against the idea of letting go, of being able to breathe, to think, to move without tripping over his own heart or Steve's obnoxiously long limbs.

God. God, fuck. That. That is perfect. That snaps something in his head, with the kind of relief that feels like a dam is crumbling like someone took the key stone and the whole wall is failing without a fight. When Danny's mouth opens under his, and his hands are suddenly sliding on Steve's skin, trying to touch his whole back. When it's like diving into the ocean, and having the waves wash right up at him, around him, everywhere. When Danny moves, and he feels like something in his chest is so overwhelmed its full stuffed with cotton.

Almost immobilizing him, even when he doesn't stop. With Danny still there. Not only the fingers carefully digging into his shoulder like that grip on a rock cliff. Not the careful touch of anything else, like the uncertainty the ground would still be there any next second. Not the perfect silence. Not his closed eyes. Not that that fraught stillness, from a man who is almost never still, never silent. Who literally surges to life under his mouth, like he's never stepped out, like he could never leave Steve alone in the fierce, uncontrollable all of this at his fingertips.

Literally. Had been at his fingertips. Crashing like waves on his lips. Making him disoriented, giddy, buoyed.

When all he wants for a moment is this. To kiss Danny and to feel Danny kissing him back. Fully engaged, involved, unafraid. Pulling Steve down at the same time as shoving into his space, into his chest and his face, the way Danny always has, since that very first day. Going toe to toe, dangerous and endlessly, heart always sloppy on his shoulder, so honest, so Good. So unwilling to give anything less than his all, demanding to be seen, recognized for all it, blinding Steve with it every day.

He wants that. All of this. Wants this in everything else. For Danny to be able to breathe, laugh, and spend his time lobbing insults at his head the whole way. Even if it won't, it might not. He doesn't know. But it's still here. It's still here, when he can't tell which of them is gulping this down like water after being dehydrated for days more. When Steve is more clear, more drive for the static shorting it all.

Even when he's letting go of his grip on Danny with the free hand not wrapped under him, and reaching out blindly. Searching on the edge of table for the god damn remote, without a single part of him that wants to let go of Danny's mouth or Danny's hands now that he's reclaimed them. Now that they aren't lost, and Danny isn't still. Doesn't want to let go of it, anymore than he could let go of the sea, or breathing.

Edited 2013-05-27 04:34 (UTC)

Jesus. Okay. This, this is better, this is something he understands, knows, and it clicks like a key sliding home, hitting all the right tumblers and unlocking the muscles that had been so tightly wound. Steve's rolling them half over, and Danny goes, back sticky against the leather of the couch, which is honestly going to have to get cleaned, wiped down, something, because they keep doing this, keep losing clothing and the couch is going to get absolutely ruined, which is maybe just as well, because it's John McGarrett's couch, not Steve's.

Not that this is the time to engage in idle musings about interior design.

Not when Steve's hand lifts off his skin, and Danny hears the clatter of things on the table being shoved around; books and coasters and whatever else Steve has on there, hopefully not a gun, hopefully not a knife, fingers seeking something out without him actually lifting up to look, without him seeming to really care at all if he finds whatever it is, and that's fine, that works for Danny just great. The last thing he wants to do is let go of Steve, now that he's back on solid ground, now that he knows what he's doing, and Steve's skin is right there, warm and a little sweat-slick, Danny's fingers skating across, leaving tracks of dull red from barely there pressure, the blood so close to the surface it rises with hardly any help at all.

All he wants to do is knot himself here, and refuse to let go. Stay like a snarl that would have to be cut away, nothing Steve can just shoo out the door and be done with; tangle and put down stubborn roots and be unmovable, a thorny, prickly cluster that isn't going anywhere. Legs wrapping around the back of Steve's knees, across his calves, bellies pressing close, hips shoving together and whiting out his vision, his plan, every thought for a jarring half-beat of blinding heat.

They might actually fall off the couch. He's not sure he'd care, is too wild with the sudden release of tension, adrenaline flooding his system and bursting bubbles in his head like champagne. He feels giddy, drunk, high, wants to laugh, wants to prod at Steve and tease him and shove him further along, because that was a step and everything is still fine, the floor didn't fall out from under him, and maybe it was a tiny step, barely a step at all, but everything is still fine.

How the hell does he begin to express that, if not like this?

Kisses open-mouthed, tongues and slick lips and the scrape of stubble, rubbing on him like raw wires, bursts of electricity pushing through, and he's grinning when he can, feeling absolutely stupid with relief, with still being here, with getting to stay.

"We seem to have taken a few steps backwards."

From the going upstairs plan, anyway. Maybe not anything else.

He's not expecting Danny to graft to him suddenly with some kind of giddy desperation, leg behind his knees and hands carving up his back like it's tracks of land Danny can divide, conquer, claim, keep. Making him laugh, a little quiet-dark-warm sound gusting into Danny's mouth, when he's trying to find the remote still, and Danny is keeping him there, pulling him in, like quicksand.

Finger catching for purchase on the table, awkward balance, but not about to give up the fever with which Danny is kissing him. Like he's a last meal. Like he's everything. All the movement like a sudden storm shook loose, battering itself on his lips, his skin, the roll of Danny's hips, digging up into him, pushing lights and stars into the places where his head is still ringing. Driving want into looping, soaring, falling through the sky, relief. Setting it all on fire.

Shoving warmth and adrenaline, something dangerously like success, like liquid gold, into Steve's veins.

Fingers finally finding the remote and gesturing blindly toward the same space his tv has always been. Jamming the button half a dozen times, until there's silence suddenly louder than the dialogue that had been there. None of which holds a candle to Danny pulling back. Face flushed and so alive. So alive it makes Steve feel like someone's dosing him with high voltage electroshock. Except that he wants more of this.

"Yeah." Steve agreed. Mouth curving toward a unruly smirk, even when it takes his eyes a second to adjust from looking at the absolutely glorious smile finally caught up on Danny's mouth again. The light in his eyes. So much, so much more than second ago, when Danny was shuttered away, somewhere inside, somewhere he couldn't touch. Danny, under his fingers, looking right. Making him lightheaded with want, with relief, with the sparking of a plan.

Piece falling perfect into place, into an order, in a design, an understanding, a plan of attack. Even when he's prodding Danny, and pulling up, getting a handful of Danny's pants to tug him with, even when Steve's still half on top of him. "You seem to be failing this whole plan to get off the couch and out of here."

"I do?"

The largest leaps and bounds Steve's made has been to shut off the TV, and Danny's pretty sure he was about three seconds away from just throwing the remote at the thing and hoping it would hit the right button, or maybe knock the television off the stand altogether.

The silence is blissful, though, even while it highlights the ringing in Danny's ears, the galloping clumsy beat of blood in his head, rushing through his body in an insane torrent. "Who's the one still on top of who, here?"

Though Steve is starting to move, letting cool air flood between them, allowing Danny to breathe again, head back against the couch cushion, face flushed, licking at his lip and tasting Steve there, eyes heavy-lidded and lazy, blown dark and fevered. Steve's hand at his pants isn't helping, they're both more than half undone, and there's a flash of skin past Steve's boxers that Danny's eyes zero in on, impossible to decide whether he wants to reach and tuck Steve back into some semblance of neatness before this whole plan goes up in smoke and flames, or if he just wants to say fuck it and get rid of those pants, those boxers, right here and right now.

Except Danny can't take his eyes off Steve's face when he looks back up. It was a tactical error, looking at Steve, because now he's struck, blinded; light's shining off Steve like someone hit a switch and decided the sun should rise early, right here in Steve's living room. Mouth laughing, eyes crinkling, shined up like Christmas, like the Fourth of July, like every present Danny ever wanted and never got, handed to him on a silver platter.

Christ. He's so fucking beautiful. How is anybody supposed to say no, how is Danny supposed to do anything but go where that hand is tugging him, his own palms finding the couch instead of Steve's skin, pushing him up to sitting, unable to get further while Steve's still on his legs, still tangled up in him, a freaking octopus with control issues and a significant body weight advantage. "Get off me, you natural disaster. This is like fooling around with a giant squid, Jesus, you are a sea creature, you could guest star in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, how am I supposed to move anywhere with you all over me, huh?"

So much better. When Danny's insulted, looking momentarily outraged. If outrage can even exist in that emotions splashes all over Danny's face. The flushed skin and the brilliant brightness Steve wants to lick off his skin, wants to bow his head and brush his nose again, and whisper into Danny's ear everything starting to slowly etch itself right beneath Steve's veins.

Coming for him. What he wants to do. Is going to do to Danny. For Danny. Until he can't even remember this minute.

Or his name. Or the ability to press his lips and hold his tongue. When he's too distracted to even consider it.

But he doesn't. When the hell does he give Danny warning anyway? Not in the camaro, not with the windows, not with suspects. He can find his feet. Seriously disastrous smirk hanging on his lips about as well as his pants are hanging off his hips, when he's dragging Danny with him. This akimbo of feet that he half neatly steps out of, half planned retreat jumps from, untangling like it's nothing. Heart keeping time somewhere in his ears.

When his hand hasn't let Danny's pants, only curling into the material, pulling him harder. Goofy with it when his other hand is finding Danny's far shoulder and hassling him with the same pull. Not even really waiting for Danny to get his feet under him before he's pulling at both. Being a hassle in Danny's space, as Steve's only getting his own feet under him. "That's lot a talk, with absolutely no walk. On your feet, Williams.

"Unless you've already managed to forget where the bed is since you brought it up."

Edited 2013-05-27 16:58 (UTC)

Steve, like this, shining like he's been plugged in, half undone in a way that's worse on the imagination than even flat-out nakedness would be, laid out and perfect. This is rough, rumpled, unruly, makes Danny want to button him up, makes Danny want to wreck him further, twist fingers through his hair until it's standing on end and sticking every possible direction, graze teeth along the lift of his collar bone and the bumps of muscle bricked across his stomach. Wants to see that back arch, those shoulders taut and trembling.

And Steve, Steve's smiling at him, dragging him, pulling him up and off the couch while Danny's head swims from lack of blood and too close proximity to too much light. It's like staring into a wave caught in the sun, water shattering into blue glass, perfect and clear and dangerous, about to roll him onto the sand, a reef, rocks, the tendrils of another wave ready to fall right on his head.

He can't care. There's nothing in the room but this, nowhere to go byt where Steve is pulling him, even though he complains, even though he bats at those grabbing hands and grumbles at the smile Steve's got beaming high wattage glory at him. "I'm up, Jesus, I can move on my own, you lunatic, let go of me."

Shoving at Steve's shoulder and chest with a palm, pushing him back towards the stairs. "Quit complaining and get moving, wile you, before I trip over your gargantuan feet."

Acidic, words spat at Steve's stupid goofy head, that must be filled with cotton and sunshine right now, or something, because he just looks so damn pleased, impatient and delighted, like this is a great game, the best game ever, Danno, and sometimes being around Steve is like throwing sticks for a giant friendly dog to catch, with the knowledge that if one gets thrown too far, things like gardens and cars and windows will probably get run through and wrecked.

But they are, actually, moving, and it's not so bad, even if he's just as undone as Steve, pants loose and falling low on his hips, shirt God knows where, shoes still by the coffee table where he left them earlier. Moving is good. Moving will get them upstairs, and that is a goal he can get behind.

There's a sharp, derisive, snort when Steve gets out from under hand and foot, but not far enough Danny couldn't smack him with a hand. Just enough to let him stand, let him go, close enough Steve could definitely drag him right back in. Even consider it. Watching Danny amble toward uprightness, bitching but never once touching any actual anger or annoyance.

He coming, at least. Not that Steve doesn't expect him to. Even if there is some small quashable, ball of nerves, tight and small as the beginning of a rubberband ball, somewhere in the center of his stomach, floating, half melted in the pool melted silver making up the middle of his body. The part that whispers there's the smallest percent that isn't sure. The smallest flicker he drowns out, with his smile, with taking a look at him, watching Danny check like he needs to check for things.

For his shoes or his clothes or something, when Steve already got designs, instead, on the rest of what is more off Danny than on him, decorating the floor next to his bed. Or his stairs. Or anywhere at all that isn't Danny's skin. So that he can let his thumbs catch on the pointed bones of Danny's hips. Catch and drag in the cut of muscles going down the sides of his stomach. Let his hands drift, drop from his waist, across all of his skin.

When it's only a handful of steps to have them hit the base of the stairs and he's still looking more to Danny than them.

If there's even a glitch of a second wondering if he should be stopping to think of this, remember this, it's gone.

It's nothing, not in comparison to how much he wants Danny. Danny with his stubble covered flushed cheeks, his messed up hair, his pink-wet lips and his wide shoulders. Wants him on his bed. Wants him so far bar overboard he won't be able to move himself, or trip over anything, because standing won't be an option. There is nothing but the quick one-two clomp of his boots going up the stairs, and the glance at Danny at his side, simultaneously ready and waiting for it to hit, again.

Stairs. They made it to the stairs.

There is actual motion happening, which is good, because Steve is starting to act like a kid at Christmas, jittery, moving fast and certain, steps quick on the stairs, shooting glances at Danny that he probably thinks Danny doesn't see or notice.

Like he thinks maybe Danny's going to change his mind, halfway up the flight, or by the time their feet hit the landing, because in Steve's world, that's a thing that might happen, somehow, apparently, which Danny finds insane. How could he be expected to turn around and leave, to change his mind, to stop and think and reassess, when Steve is next to him, ahead of him, ink tracing tantalizingly out across the dropped waistband of his pants,

Looking eager. Looking like he wants the stairs to drop into an escalator and pull them both up, because the fifteen seconds it takes to run up them is apparently too long, and he keeps glancing over, until Danny puts a hand in the middle of the back and shoves him forward, out of the way and up to the landing, grabs onto the back of Steve's pants and uses it to help pull, push, drag. Manhandling them both up to where the stairs end and they have only a few steps to stumble towards the bedroom.

He does, actually, remember where it is, Steven.

The hand on his back should not actually surprise him in the slightest, but somehow it does. The shove followed by the fist of his pants, doesn't, even when that ends up both sending him forward and half keeping him from doing it is even more amusing in some ways. If amusing is even the word to use. When they're getting back away from the lights he's left on again toward dark hallways, and nearly there.

When Danny's fingers on him, manhandling him, like he always does. Like Steve isn't taller, larger, heavier, better trained. Like he's baiting exactly what happens. The stumble across the last few steps. The way Steve's hand catches on Danny's forearm and uses his own shoved momentum to drag Danny toward him, throwing his own strength into the already useful movement and pulling Danny directly into running into him. His chest.

Tangling his the fingers of his free hand into Danny's hair and dipping his head in to find Danny's mouth. Even when he hasn't given up steps. Walking and jogging backwards, except that by that second, the thought is a little, okay, a lot, in flames on Danny lips. On the taste of his tongue, And the wall is just there. And it's too easy to use it. Too hard not to push Danny into it, push himself back into Danny. Prove that one of them is better built for this game.

To kiss Danny, and let his other hand get to Danny's hip, fingers, knuckles, smacking the wall, but not caring. Not giving a damn about anything else in the world, especially not his fingers or the wall, or even the other twenty feet, through the door and to the be, when he's kissing Danny's lips and letting his fingers dig in against Danny's muscles. Running his hand back between Danny's back and the wall, getting the his palm flat into the small of Danny's back.

Kissing his head back against the wall, without cease, at the same time as he's pulling Danny closer by his stomach and his hips, flush tight against him. Like nothing is close enough, nothing will be, even getting this close, having an idea turning the liquid in his veins from blood to lighter fluid waiting for a spark, is too long for this second.

Edited 2013-05-27 19:22 (UTC)

In retrospect, he probably should have expected that.

Right? They barely made it up off the couch; he should absolutely not have thought for even one second that it would be a matter of some simplicity getting upstairs, but he did, because he must have forgotten that he's dealing with Steve "No Time Like The Present" McGarrett, here, and Steve does not believe in delays.

Steve believes in momentum and the force of forward motion; he's like a tornado ripping through Danny's world, upending everything he has and knows and thought he wanted, tossing them all into a place Danny had never considered or imagined before. Where all he wants is Steve, and it goes so far beyond just falling into bed: where he wants to wake up with Steve and bitch about coffee with Steve and remind Steve that regular humans sleep in on weekends, instead of go for ten mile swims. He wants to let Grace come play in the cove here, hang out and watch one of Steve's eight thousand channels, because Grace loves Steve and Steve loves Grace and that makes all this both far simpler and so much more complicated than it should be.

That's what he means, when he says he wants Steve in every possible way: not just wants, like this, blood rushing and pulse pounding and the strong possibility of poor decisions being made, but wants, like wanting to be able to sleep and wanting an easy day at work and wanting to get the bad guy early enough in the game that no one has to die.

Which is complicated as hell, but Steve simplifies it, now, by pulling Danny up a few more stairs and then apparently deciding that this is good enough for now, because his mouth is on Danny's and his hand is in Danny's hair, the other one kneading muscles tensing along Danny's back as he tries to keep his balance. His fingers grip the waistband of Steve's pants, yank him closer by instinct, even while he's protesting in noises that get muffled against Steve's lips, disappear on Steve's tongue, and, fuck, Steve is burning him down, right here, on the stairs.

Shoving his heart into overdrive. Cramming a buzzing beehive into his chest, right after shaking it, setting an angry hum starting in his head, in his lungs and ears.

Making him gasp out "Too far?" in the half-second he can get a breath, before Steve's mouth is there again, melting his brain straight out his ears, sharp angles of shoulderblades working against the hand Danny runs up to find them, palm hard and flat against skin that's damp and so flushed it looks like Steve just came in from a sauna.

There are hands on his pants, jerking him forward, closer, closer, never close enough, even when he's blanketing Danny hard into, against a wall, and he's taking stumbling steps he can't see, doesn't give a damn about so long as his boots don't come down hard on Danny's socked feet accidentally. Because nothing matters but the way Danny growling and grumbling at his lips like he's going to push away.

Like Steve is an idiot. Like he can't think. Can't wait. Can't make any sense of anything. Except he can. Because that sound vibrates against his lips, gets lost in his throat, but the only thing Danny does is kiss him back and drag him in. Fighting back. Pulling him down. Demanding they lose even more space. Mouth and fingers doing the exact opposite of pushing him away. There's not even a second's worth of a fight to it. Even when he's shoving words in Steve's teeth, shoving them into his head, and his blood stream.

Making him remember language even exists. Even when there's a laugh shaking his chest, between Danny's chest and his hands up on Steve's shoulder, something like fire-bitten helium bubbling inside his chest, swapping itself with his air, when he's saying, "Never," and, pausing only long enough to sound deliberately, smugly, so damn self-amused and sure, before, "Always," because they'll get there, because it's still working right now, his plan, and because it'll never not to be true.

Even if Danny'd left, that thing, those words, would haunt him and they'd never not be true.

Five feet would be too far away from Danny. The distance between every single set of chairs. The space of breath.

Before Steve pulls himself back. A purposeful step, matching the winded shit eating grin, while he's dragging Danny bodily forward with him, past stairs and feet in the hallways, headed backwards for the door to his bedroom. "Come 'on already. What is it with you and the walls of my house?"

Aside from the fact he looks so damn good against them, and feels even better crowded up against them, still fighting back, and how Steve's mind is glad to come up with at least a half dozen, maybe a dozen more ways, he'd looks amazing plastered against one. The way Steve skin feels like it's never not on fire anymore, finger running against the raise of blood and the sheen of sweat, against every single brush of Danny against him, the high pitched ringing in his head as they get closer and closer.

"What is it with me and your walls?"

He's breathing hard when Steve pulls away, after blanketing across him, shoving him into the wall like he wants to hang Danny there on a hook, in a frame. It's probably a good thing Steve's got his fingers curled into Danny's pants, because he stumbles a little, trips on the last stair, and it would really be an ignominious way to go, falling down Steve's stairs and breaking his neck, half-dressed and desperate to get Steve's body up against his again. "Either they have some incredibly strong magnetic force, or someone keeps shoving me into them, huh, what do you think, Steven?"

Biting out Steve's full name in a pissy complaint, like Steve just dropped grape juice all over a white sofa, or filled the cab of the Camaro with smoke.

But they've made it. Mostly. They're on the landing, without anyone losing balance or the rest of their clothes, and Danny's got his hands on Steve's pants, tugging at the material as they stumble towards the bedroom, half wondering how it is that a month in they're still doing this, still unable to keep their hands off each other once they've started, still feels like tossing himself into a bonfire every time Steve touches him, kisses him, and half thinking about the fact that Steve still has his boots on, the moron, how the hell is Danny supposed to get him naked when he's still wearing hiking boots?

The door is here, somewhere; he misjudges a step and knocks a shoulder against the wall and the jamb with a hiss of annoyed pain, before one hand gives up on Steve's pants and reaches for Steve's hair, drags him back down, to find that mouth, slippery now and slightly swollen from pressure, lips that keep smiling and turning Danny's stomach, chest, innards upside down, before stirring them into useless, gooey warmth.

It can't possibly be a good way to feel around Steve McGarrett. At the very least, it's not exactly topping the list of 'things that will aid self-preservation,' but Danny's basically given up on that, at this point.

Blah, blah, blah, blah. That is what the rise of Steve's eyebrows are probably saying about Danny and his five million words and complaints falling out, not far from his chest and his mouth, and the way he's still following, even almost falling, but not falling. Except that it's not, too. It's not because there's something disastrously pleased in the hook of his mouth on Danny's shrill use of his full name.

Because Danny looks like sun. When he breaks the surface at dawn, even getting drug further into the shadows, into the dark places of his house, his room. And he wants to kiss this smile until those words dissolve. Until they fracture and shatter, until they're half formed and desperate, until those fingers on his skin are digging in, desperately laying nail bites and fingerprints on him, not like he's a hand hold, but like Steve's the last anchor actually securing Danny to the entire planet.

The answer is already making it up his throat, flash bright and dark as sin, only to get thwarted by Danny suddenly smacking his shoulder and that changing entirely what he's about to say. But then so does Danny. Danny who does not slow down for even the consideration of his shoulder, who's grabbing on to what he can fo Steve's hair and dragging him back in, back down. No words. Just that hiss and then Danny demanding a kiss now.

Fingers sliding in sweat, and digging into the muscles in Danny's shoulders, arm circling him and pulling him close, through a short, but unexpected moan. When he never has time to question how even long enough, before Danny is every single thing in the space of his chest, shoving his heart into his ears, his wrists and pounding pulse points, but everywhere but his chest suddenly. When nothing feels close enough, and everything is so sharp, so hot.

Kissing Danny back like the walls could fall off the whole house and he'd never noticed. Never. Not once. Not compared to this, to Danny. Who tears apart his want to focus on anything. Even Danny. Until he's biting at the bottom of Danny's lip, sucking for air off his mouth, hands sliding down his bac and pushing at Danny's pants and his boxers.

Fingers sliding halfway past both, dragging the loose, hanging fabric with them. "These are done now."

And if he's backing Danny up against his bed at the same time, that's right where he wants it, and him, to be, too.

"You're done now, you lunatic."

Muttered petulantly, faintly annoyed at Steve for pulling back, even as Danny's legs hit the mattress and the bedframe, for losing Steve's hot slick mouth and that perfect sound, dragged out and reluctant and never previously scripted, never faked, scratching phosphorus into flaring, brilliant life in the cage of Danny's ribs and lungs and faulty, irresponsible heart.

This stupid thing that hears Steve's voice, in the darkened, intimate shadows of the bedroom, and goes flopping heavily sideways, making the kind of flutter Danny's doctor would probably be extremely concerned by, that must be some kind of hypertension, right, possibly pre-cardiac issues that are undoubtedly signs of worse things to come, because they can't all be Steve-related, though. Under further consideration, Danny is almost completely sure Steve will probably be to blame for any heart attacks he has, that aren't entirely Grace-related.

But not now. Now, it's just making a painful, knifing, sideways beat that makes him catch his breath like he's been stabbed, and it's not such a completely different feeling, really; his breath leaves his lungs in a vacuum and it makes everything spin in an unsettling kind of way, while his hands leave Steve's hair and skin and help shove at his own pants, boxers, needing to sit back on the mattress to get them all the way off, along with the socks.

At least sitting means he's at a decent level to work at Steve's pants, too, leaning in to trace the flat skin under Steve's belly-button with his mouth, shaking his head as he works at thick khaki fabric. "Christ, you're bossy. Ordering me around, get upstairs, these are done, shut up, already, and get rid of these, huh, your clodhoppers are in the way."

Words painting right into Steve's skin, the sharp, disappearing line of muscle angling in from his hip, that gets a nip of teeth and then laved with the flat of his tongue, shoving Steve's pants down over the curve of his ass, and letting his hands find that rounded muscle, under palms, under proprietary fingertips, before he's tugging at fabric again.

"Off, off."

Not even close. Steve is nowhere near done. If anything he's right at the beginning of something he couldn't even let himself believe was going to happen to even have a beginning, or an ending for that matter. It was something outside the box, and his head, and his world. Like it ever snowing on his house. Like making heads of tails of Doris and Wo Fat. When Danny is muttering, sitting and yanking at his pants, and Steve is trying to find a steadying supply of air again.

Especially once Danny is naked and on the edge of his bed and -- trying to breaking down the walls of anything that looks like control with his tongue. When Danny's mouth is suddenly tracing across the bottom of his stomach, right above his boxers. Annoyedly throwing fire and ash at his skin, trying to singe Steve's control right through him. Mouth on his skin, word on his skin. So sudden and so scalding he can't even remember.

How his hand got tangled in Danny's hair, how Danny got his hands past his pants, how the center of his body jerked hard, repetitively, into Danny's mouth, his face, his hands, even when Steve's stomach caved at the same time as his other hand was gripping tight on Danny's shoulder when Danny's teeth dug into his muscle, dragging out a sound too high and needy, while his torso almost tried to curve around Danny's upperbody.

When everything is threatening, wanting, burning through the edges of the space he needs. Only to snap. Hard.
"Danny." Is shoving out this mouth. Hard, harder than he means, desperate to keep his own feet. With reason tonight.

When he's pushing Danny's shoulder back and pulling his head back by a fist of hair. With as much strength as is necessary to shove a foot, or more's, space between them. Because. No. No, he's not going to give in, or fall over. He wants his head. He doesn't care how much he wants Danny's mouth, hot and wet and full of madness, a few inches lower, his fingers to hold on harder, his tongue. Steve wants the ability to think, right now, even more.

As maddeningly insane as that is, as fast it's evaporating, making his grip on it colder, clearer, more necessary.

He lets his hands get free of Danny's hair and his skin, dragging up a leg and catching the toe of his boot on the sideboard of the bed, right between Danny's legs, trying to find space left anywhere in his chest for the air coming in and out hard, to find a perch. Breathing into his own fingers yanking at the knots in his laces, while he's half bent over, his pants sagging toward his knees and his boxers in the crease of hips. Tossing his shoe not far to the side before he's dragging up the other one.

Edited 2013-05-28 04:08 (UTC)

God. That's perfect. The way Steve's whole body clutches in on itself, the way he shakes, sudden and hard, and his fingers fist in Danny's hair with enough force to ache. Making that sound. The one Danny wants to record, dig into plastic and play on a turntable, keep on repeat during the nights he isn't here, can't draw it out for himself. Thin and reedy, wasted, already, even though Danny's mouth is still on muscle and only beginning to drift lower, even though his hands aren't doing anything but squeezing firmly, moving up and down across skin and muscle, tugging at pants that are just in the way, should have been lost forever ago, what was he thinking?

And he's only getting started, when there's a violent, disruptive pull, simultaneous, away from Danny's mouth and tugging Danny's head back, which rumbles a warning sound from Danny's chest. "Hey," he complains. "I was busy!"

Except Steve's already in motion, bending down to work swiftly at bootlaces that should, seriously, can't he just cut them? It's not like he doesn't have a knife on him somewhere, right, pocket or butterfly or a goddamn bowie knife, for all Danny knows.

All he's saying is, for once, it could be put to good use.

But Steve's shoved him away and is taking care of the laces himself, and Danny can't really go to help out without whacking heads, and that's really not a great idea, less than two weeks out of a concussion that had him blanking out and nauseous at the slightest movements for days afterward, so he pushes back, instead, hands that are desperate to get back on Steve's skin in Steve's hair pressing down on regimentally neat blankets and sheets instead. Hearing the short, sharp echo of his name, Danny, said hard and choked, chasing goosebumps down his spine.

The blanket's cool under his skin, and there's so much space, it's heady and strange being able to breathe again, to stretch out, to climb back on the bed, waiting, and realize, Christ, are they really doing this? Time is stretching now, as Steve works at those laces and Danny makes room for him, and he can't tell if his pulse is racing from nerves or trepidation or excitement or good old fashioned lust, or if it's fear starting to kick its way back through the door.

Either way, Steve need to -- "Hurry up, I can't believe you wear boots inside anyway, you are such an unbelievable hassle."

At least the boots go. A second thud following the first. Forgotten about as quickly as they can be.

The same as the only reason he'd need to put them on this evening. He doesn't want to think about that again now.

Focused on the movement of letting himself reach up from over his feet toward his own hips, grabbing and shoving boxer fabric, all in once bunch within his fingers. Catch what he can of his pants, at one knee and half-way down a calf on the other side. Pulling his feet out and the cloth up, bunched in a hand and thrown half haphazardly toward the closet door. He'll get to it later, or if he's lucky, in the morning. While it's still dark and Danny's sleeping.

"Seriously? I'm the hassle?" Steve gave him a look he felt could permeate even the oily oblivion of pitch darkness. Which this wasn't. It wasn't dark enough you couldn't see. It wasn't dark enough he could make out the line of Danny's body. The steady taper of his thighs and the wall, the expanse of his chest, his wide, steady set of his shoulders, the way his eyes reflected just enough even in the shadow.

"You-" And for a second Steve can't even make that word thick enough, deep enough. Can't touch, make words attach to it when he's clambering on to his bed. Chasing the shadow of Danny, like is any world, any place he wouldn't follow Danny, wouldn't be bound and shackled and have to go. When right this second it has nothing to do with being bound and shackled and having. Its about wanting.

Wanting so badly it feels like every inch of his skin is against him. Is a knife slamming into the door he's holding back with ever thought, his whole weight, right behind the only tattered pieces cool and patience? he has left. Shaking his head, when he's got his weight on his knees and he's not at all aimed for Danny's side, or any higher up on the bed. Settles between Danny's calves and is already leaning down. Fingers catching under Danny's knee and pulling it up.

Burying the words in brushing his mouth against the inside of Danny's leg right above his knee. "-are going to drive me insane."

Edited 2013-05-28 23:54 (UTC)

"Can't."

He'd be ashamed of how winded it comes out, if he could feel anything other than the scattered, sprinting, collapsing rush of his heart, or the way everything in his body contracts at Steve's touch, at the brush of lips and sharp scrape of stubble along the sensitive skin just inside his knee. "That would assume you are not already insane, and we both know that's not true, you are certifiable, you should come with a mandatory wanring to keep at least fifty feet away at all times."

God, it's such a lie. He can't even make it sound like anything but a lie, because his hand is already seeking out Steve's hair, trying to reach down to him, but Steve's too far away without Danny sitting up further than he is, balanced here on one elbow and wondering how the hell he's supposed to breathe when his chest keeps locking up like this.

Or when Steve is sounding like that. Predatory. Low and growled. Eyes so hot on Danny that he thinks they're going to leave marks just like Steve's mouth did, skin prickling at the puff of breath against his skin.

Not even Steve usually pays attention to that spot. A little further up his thigh, maybe, but not the inside of his knee, stupid joints that keep betraying him, threatening surgery and longer recuperation if he screws with them again. Not a part of himself he thinks anyone would find particularly attractive, kissable, needed, but there Steve is, with that tone, that look, pouring boiling molasses in a slow insanity down into Danny's chest, tightening the muscles there, in his core, as he stays where he is, fighting the urge to reach down and just grab, drag him up here, tongue darting to touch his lower lip.

"What, exactly, is it that I'm doing to make you crazy, huh? Crazier, I might add."

Everything. Everything that Danny is. Everything that Danny does. The way he smiles, and laughs. The way the air in his tone sounds like he's fighting for it suddenly. Like the night and the room and the bed and Steve just caught up with him, again, or finally. The tremble under his skin. The way Steve can differentiate the faintest pulls of his muscles.

The faintest tension that is surprise. The small jolt of tightening and releasing, that almost looks, feels, like a rock toward him, that the rest of Danny's body isn't following through on yet. When Danny is throwing out words like they're on high heat summer sale now. Almost hoarse insults, goading Steve's head, while he lets very little less than a grin against Danny's leg pass, as he keeps going.

Pushing Danny's leg a little more away, from himself, from the way Danny had been laying, half-sitting, lounging, whatever. Whatever it was he was shifting, even though his mouth doesn't leave Danny's skin. Let's his mouth skate, glid, rubbing his lips and his cheeks against Danny's skin, with a rough chuckle an inch or two up his thigh, breathing words into Danny's skin, and trying not breath in his skin just as much.

"You're not doing so well at that yourself." His other hand is landing on Danny's other thigh smoothing down the broad fim muscle toward his knee. "Unless you're admitting I've knocked out your ability to tell distance. Because this-" Steve punctuated that smugly with sucking a spot half way up Danny's thigh, light but lightening fast, against his teeth. Running his tongue over it, sweat and the spike of salt as his hand, before he finished. "-is nowhere near fifty feet."

Which Danny would never get, because Steve was done honestly with clothes, and lights, and even one foot of space.

Steve's definitely done something to his ability to determine all kinds of things: personal risk, his own previously certain preferences. They've all gotten shaken around in a box marked "REASSESSMENT," along with his ability to breathe, to speak, to do anything other than keep falling into this heat-driven tornado.

They just can't stop. It's insane. They're both hurtling towards forty, if they manage to live that long; they aren't teenagers, aren't drunk and confused college students. They should be able to touch each other without spontaneously combusting, should be able to have discussions about what they should or shouldn't do, have or haven't done, without dialogue giving way to the need to have Steve's mouth against his, breathe his breath, suddenly terrified it might be the last time, that it might sudden't vanish, sand sinking under his feet like he's trapped in a tipped hourglass.

Steve is seriously detrimental to his ability to think, focus, or exist, in every possible way. For example, there is absolutely, one hundred percent, no reason for him to be so intent on Steve's lips against his skin, on the warmth running like water under his voice, that he can tell Steve's smiling. But he can. And it hits him like a jolt from a defibrillator, because Steve is smiling at him. Because of him.

Steve is running his mouth along the ticklish, sensitive skin of Danny's inner thigh, and gently shifting Danny's leg, and he's smiling, teasing, light-hearted. Shining up so dark and bright at the same time Danny's not sure whether it's moonlight hitting the blanket, or just Steve, reflecting back into the night, who is so much of everything that his smile can stop people dead, that crowds part for him, that Danny has, at times, held entire conversations with nothing more than Steve's raised or lowered eyebrows.

How does he do it? How can he not see it? Doesn't he have any idea, any idea at all, what people would give to be Danny right now? To have all that laser focus directed on them, until any lump of coal could be cut into a diamond. He's already starting to over heat, a dull flush climbing up his chest, pressure beginning to build.

"Then I guess you're not the only one going crazy."