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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He's as surprised as he isn't surprised, or just as pleased as he is pleasedly exasperated.

By Danny's mouth, when his fingers can feel the faintest tremble or the push of Danny's body against them, one hand still wrapped tight and the other trailing lighter, but firm, specific fingers. When Danny's voice was lost to himself seconds ago. When he didn't have enough air to breath, to swear, to anything more but try to climb through his backwards, heels digging in along fingers fisting his blanket to white knuckles the darkness hides from his eyes.

And still. This. Snappy. Sassy. Smarting. Backtalk. That makes Steve want to smack him and best him and go back to blowing him and kiss him hard and laugh, until the bed shakes, or at least until it's shaking his chest against Danny knee he's leaning against, and fuck him, until the entire damn world has been tilted sideways and nothing will ever be the same again in Danny's head. It should be annoying.

It pours down his back like hot water after a too long day, champagne bubbles taking up residence in his bloodstream.

"Yeah, that sounds about right." Rolls off his tongue sharp and irreverent, laden with a tractor of smacking sarcasm and the strong arm of authoritative heavy correction, when Steve is suddenly pushing himself up and over Danny's leg, stretching across his bed and away from Danny, but without actually leaving where his knees are.

Dragging open a bed table drawer and rifling in it as he's saying, still razor sharp and unholy bright in the dark room, night, against Danny's slander. The words that roll off the most loved, coveted, arrogantly thick. "Because I was the one of us gagging a few seconds ago." When his mouth was full, but Danny's was the one entirely blown beyond his control to even make his first word form.

Fingers catching without too much problem on the small bottle in question.

Especially given that he didn't abide much mess in most of this house, much less his space, which this room was at least as much as outside, and more than the un-chagned, un-aging larger sections of this house. Fast enough he's got his fingers closed around it and he's shoving the drawer back closer, before half-snapping, half sagging back toward where his balance is still settled.

Steve doesn't actually get distracted, ever. He is occasionally derailed when one of them says or does something he doesn't expect, but it never deters him from the mission du jour. His laser focus doesn't allow for things like distraction, or split-attention. When Steve's attention splits, people die.

So Danny doesn't actually mean distracted, because he's not sure Steve is physically capable of allowing distraction to exist, not just throwing up the mental blinders that must have been handed out with the uniform and the ability to switch off any degree of empathy or feeling when he graduated from Annapolis. Which is handy, when they're chasing down hardened criminals who have a tendency to go after innocent civilians and wreak broad swathes of public damage, but maybe less attractive in bed.

Not that Danny doesn't appreciate the attention. He does. But there are times when a guy could use a little distraction, maybe, when the normal back and forth banter they toss at each other all day -- in the office, on the job, in the car, on the couch -- is enough of a life raft to keep him afloat in a sudden tossing sea.

Okay. He wants this. He asked for it. He pushed and prodded Steve about it, and he's not going to freak out now and freeze up -- he's not -- but that doesn't mean he doesn't kind of want to sidle up to it, a little, take away from the capitalized letters his head keeps trying to type it out in by making it not the only thing going on. So it helps, when Steve teases, when Steve's mouth handily shuts down any attempt or ability to speak, because when Steve gets halfway up, reaches for the bedside table drawer, and rummages inside, there's really no going back.

Frankly, he's a little ashamed of the way his breath catches, knots deep in his lungs, unwilling to play nice. He's not a fan of how he can feel tension lacing up his back, down his legs, of the pit that's just opened up in his stomach. It's just sex. It's different sex, sure, but it's just sex, it's just Steve, and he knows Steve, trusts Steve, has spent the better part of two years cataloguing everything about Steve, in order to complain more efficiently and also, fine, because while it's good to know as much as you can about your partner, that doesn't generally extend to how they take their coffee, what their favorite food is, how they spend a free five, ten, or thirty minutes.

But he knows it all, anyway.

"There was no gagging," he says, because he knows he's supposed to, and he's grateful to Steve for giving him the distraction Steve would never take for himself. "Those were sounds of deep appreciation, my friend, but they were not gags."

You'd have to be blind and deaf and something -- senseless? -- to miss it. The way Danny suddenly loses almost all of his elasticity. It's as drastic and obvious as someone snapping on a light in this room would be. Shifting the mattress right around him with his start. Body tightening up like the wind up clock just hit twelve. Everything pulling inward in a solid movement and stabbing something in Steve's chest, even when Danny is making himself keep up the conversation.

Which loses all its insult, too. He's corrected, but it's an effort. It's an effort Steve can actually hear. In Danny's voice. In the way he shapes the letters, the way the air comes out like somewhere Danny's in there using his back and shoulders, in a way that would ruin his knees, to shove it and the sounds along with it, out of his throat. Aiming for something like holding on. When he isn't holding on. Still isn't actually touching Steve

Whose entire first reaction, while getting his feet back under himself, is to smooth a large hand down Danny's too tight thigh muscles. That is the body having the response to close up and pull in, that his entire body is in the way of Danny's legs listening to. The bottle dropped for the second somewhere between his own legs, so that he can have his hands. To run one loose and heavy down Danny's thigh, while the other returns to the place it left.

A cuff of fingers, dragging up slow, when he leaned back down, laying his mouth against the rise of Danny's hipbone, for words that had nothing to do with Danny's either. "I've got you."

Like anything ever slips past Steve. Steve will bring up conversations held weeks before, after apparently locking them away in some ridiculously over-protected safe somewhere behind the barbed wire and landmines in his head, long after Danny's forgotten about them. He'll wait for the exact right moment, then pull out a direct quote that yanks the rug right out from under Danny's feet, leaves him gaping and bewildered while Steve turns back to whatever he was previously doing with an expression soaked with righteous smugness.

So it comes as no surprise that Steve's keyed to the slightest motions of Danny's body, that he's noticed the tension seeping in and taking up residence, turning the balmy night air into cement dust that weighs heavier and heavier with each breath, while dizziness threatens and Danny's all too aware of the solidity of the bed underneath them.

Of the solidity of Steve's hand. The one stroking down his thigh, making that muscle clutch harder against it, and, no, it's good, but it's not what he wants, this careful preparation, Steve distracting him with mouth and hands and the tight perfect circle of his fingers. It's too much focus, too much space up here, cool air against his skin instead of Steve, thin blankets under his fingers instead of Steve, while Steve is breathing those words against his hip instead of against his mouth, making his stomach tighten like he's waiting for a punch.

Maybe he is.

It doesn't matter. He doesn't -- Steve could probably do just about anything to him when his mouth is doing that, hot and heavy around his cock, and he'd barely notice, too blissed out to be paying attention, but that's not what sex is about, okay, not for him, it's never supposed to just be about him, and that's what it's been ever since those words came out of his mouth.

Which is why he's reaching for Steve's wrist, both of them, tugging them, wanting him back up here, wanting his mouth, to get lost in him, feel all of Steve instead of just his hands and lips and tongue. Voice low, and too sincere, but he doesn't give a single fuck, who cares? Steve's the only one who'll hear it.

"I know. Come on, come up here, with me."

It all hits across his head far too fast. The fingers on his wrists tugging. Danny's voice, that way. It's gotten low and just the edge into plaintive, catching like cold fingers in Steve's intensities and jerking hard. When he's reassessing a world of things. Like how things will be, could be, more problematic, inventive if not at all impossible, elsewhere. Before it slides straight into whether that's a cease fire.

Whether it's because of those precious few seconds of pause when he got the lube. Whether he should have gotten it before getting on the bed, shouldn't have paused at all, or done it later on, or at all even, that one digs in the edge of a shard deeper. Maybe it is as far as Danny can, or will. Maybe he shouldn't have even done that that first night he said anything back. He said.

He said any of those things, that are one side too blistering hot to drag up with fingertips, piercing singe to his thoughts, even as they are sinking like solid steel lumps in the bottom of his stomach suddenly. Maybe he is trampling, already trampled, across the only step Danny wanted to take. Putting it all out there, possible. Possible (still possible) instead of impossible.

Steve's head moving too much, too fast, when seconds are only passing and he keeps coming back to the one thing he can't ignore. Not even for his thoughts. Fingers circled around his wrists. Danny's hands. Warm. Solid. Undeniable. Unignorable. Tugging at him still. Necessary, direct, almost and half of him is already going before the thought about going is even a question about whether to go. Before the reassertment of how moving could, would, might be more problematic.

Before he pulled back at hand, twisting sideways and pulling it for a fast circle, to breaking the hold of Danny's grasp one of his wrists, hand scrabbling down against the blanket for the bottle against one of his calves. Even as he is ending up over there. The other side of Danny's leg. Outside of them, ending up toward Danny's side, on his side, half propped by the arm that caught his weight moving that way.

It's dark, but not dark enough that he doesn't see, okay. He sees. He knows every one of Steve's expressions, from stony to thunderous to brilliantly lit, and this one is some stumbling combination of consternation and the kind of preoccupied withdrawal that comes the second before someones fist comes flying at your face: the anticipation of a hit.

Which is just about the stupidest fucking thing he could be thinking right now, alright? Danny's not going to hit him. Danny's hauling him up, tugging on the one wrist he's still got a hold of, and waiting to find the other one again, fingers looping like warm iron, until Steve is closer, gravity of the bed shifting along with his weight, long lean frame slipping to the side. Propping himself up, which is all wrong, and Danny's deeply annoyed at the whole prospect of it, decides to tell him so.

"What are you doing, where do you think you're going, I said come here, what are you, deaf? Come on, we haven't even gotten to the mindblowing stuff yet, pay attention."

Hands working up Steve's arms like he's pulling in a rope as he talks, fingers finding a shoulder to curl around, the back of Steve's neck and the rough edge of Steve's hair, dragging him down as Danny's whole body shifts towards him, half-rolling, and he's always been a tactile person, but there's so much more than hands that can be put into play, here. He can roll flush against Steve, box him with his whole body, leg sliding over Steve's so the outside of Danny's ankle bumps gently against the inside of Steve's calf. Tangle him up, find every possible connecting point.

Hand drifting from Steve's neck down over his shoulder, pressing firmly down the slope of his back, hooking briefly at his hip, moving to curve, proprietary and jealous, over the curve of muscle that, really, those cargo pants do not do justice. Soft skin, hard muscle, pliant and pale after the long stretch of tanned, tattooed skin -- though Danny's thumb rubs familiarly over the ink that's normally threaded under cargo pants, just peeking past board shorts or boxers.

And because Steve had that look on his face -- that one that said he's thinking too hard, and about something Danny would probably yell at him for -- he keeps it up, nipping at Steve's bottom lip before messing it back up with a kiss that is genuinely messy, open-mouthed and decisive, selfish, wanting Steve's mouth all for himself, wanting Steve's teasing back, not soft words if they're coupled with Steve being too far away to touch.

He doesn't want that. He wants this. To wrap himself entirely around Steve as possible. To be part of this, because Danny accepted long ago that Steve is probably going to be his downfall, but it's not like he's isn't running towards it, refusing to leave.

"They let you get a tramp stamp in the Army?"

Danny smashes back into him with the force of a wave, getting everywhere. Taking every one of his last silent, few words and his efforts to touch anything but Steve, and blowing all of them up with a sudden, absolute onslaught that nearly makes Steve tense up rigid. Muscles tensing under suddenly moving hands, trying to get everywhere, dragging him in, dragging him down, shoving up into his space noisily.

Maybe the water analogy is wrong. Maybe it's more like a bomb. Loud and everywhere, splitting seams without warning, before you can even be sure that walls were around you they are done, gone, every bit of them flying at you. The first set of words shoving sort of like a wire brush, sounds connecting with fingers on the fragile skin of his neck, heels being thrown over digging into his calf like his body is made of pillows that will adjust to Danny.

And just when there's the kind of overhaul of everything everywhere suddenly, rising like unexpected bile, this need to fend off, to shove away, hold, find a breath, breathe is, release five or ten triggers all being jammed, going off at once, loud and red, then Danny's mouth is on his. There are teeth digging sharp into his lip, even if briefly, causing his fingers to catch on Danny's side, dragging him closer as his skin is palmed harder against a shudder. Neither of which he can actually pay attention to. None of it. Because then Danny is kissing him.

Forget explanations, or plans, or yelling at him; Danny is kissing him like he wants Steve to forget he's thinking. Which half is working, when Steve's hand is finding his shoulder and cheek and his hair, and he's kissing Danny back about as recklessly. With a sharp jagged razor of relief that doesn't even stop burning for the hands everywhere, for Danny taking away his air. Because he's wrong and he's an idiot and fucking hell, he doesn't even know, but he knows Danny's mouth, and he's taking on the taste of it like someone who hasn't had anything but sawdust for decades.

When all of that throbs under his rib cage, high pitched and hard, when Danny pulls away to mocking his tattoo, like his fingers are currently tracing it and digging into it, and everything around it, in equal measure. When the first burst of frustration and fire is easy to twist into a word, even the word Danny is begging for. "Navy, Danny." His name, more like he's saying asshole, somewhere between a burst of annoyance and sardonicism.

Then. Like he's saying it for a child, he enunciates it a second time, in two syllables. "Na-vy."

"And no one gives a damn what's under your A.J.'s." he clarifies, like it matters at all here.

With Danny's fingers running prickles down his skin, that are still running both directions in the line of reasoning. When he's dragging Danny closer, liking at the light at the core of madness, because they already are flushed, and it's so goddamn easy to thrust up against Danny and his stomach as he says, "Unless they have a reason to be under them at the time."

Which his tone is already implying, heavy laced, no one ever has a problem with them at that point either.

Edited 2013-06-01 02:19 (UTC)

He can't stop himself. It's like a sickness. Pressing up against Steve's thrust, breathing hard through the way it shorts out his vision for half a heartbeat. "I'm sorry, did you say Marine Corps?" Another push of his hips, fingers tracing the line where Steve's thigh meets the curve of his ass, sensitive thin skin. "Air Force?"

He's so curious, uncertain and blundering but on fire, too, and, Christ, is all night going to be enough time? Part of him wishes they could head back to the beginning of the weekend -- as if their jobs make sure to give them Friday evening through Monday morning off, as if the concept of a weekend applies to the dirtbags they routinely go after.

But if they could. If there were all the time in the world.

He would use it. Could use it. To lay Steve out, sprawled and beautiful in nothing at all but starlight or sunshine. Map him out with mouth and fingers, push him slowly and ruthlessly into restless moans and the short, sharp gasps of no air and no words.

To figure this out. As if it's possible to take a crash course, and be good with it, as if he's probably not going to still be awkward and uncertain about it weeks from now. As if it won't be an embarrassingly long time before he's getting it right.

(Hopefully. Hopefully he'll be able to take an embarrassingly long amount of time, because hopefully Steve's not going to pull this shit again, hopefully Steve won't leave before then.)

"That sounds like the plot to a porno," he points out, as well as he can when his breath is getting tight and he can't really talk too well with his mouth on Steve's, wet and hot, sliding but never falling back far enough to pull in some oxygen or find some space. "No, shut up, I don't want to know."

He would be happy going the rest of his life not knowing, okay? Sure. He's not the first. And it's not like he's been chaste his whole life; no way.

But he can't swallow around the vicious snap of jealously that sinks into his stomach, at the thought of there being other hands touching Steve like this, other mouths on his, that he kissed like this, touched like this. At the thought that it'll be someone else, again, after this, and it shakes him, the flat denial that lifts like a sudden brick wall in the face of those thoughts.

That no one should ever touch Steve like this. No one but him.

There's something sickeningly smug layering itself over the incinerating fire tearing right back into his lungs, sharp and fast and blinding. Popping behind his eyes and in the muscles in his neck, reminding him of how close things could get, or be, if he let them, if he doesn't watch it. If Danny just keeps tilting up into him, against him, or he keeps thrusting into Danny. Listening to those words roll off his tongue, feeling those careful, no quite to and not quite not skittish, fingers testing his skin.

His voice at first flippant and tauntingly disgusted, before Danny contradicts himself with a tone Steve has locked in a specific box of recognition. A special, rare place, where he knows it's wrong, but his fingers are running lines into Danny's back the way Danny's running cracks in the foundation under his feet, under every thought doing this. Used only on specific people Danny really doesn't want anywhere near him.

Old friends, certain superiors, old not-quite-girlfriends. This acid spike that's curling his voice, and cutting his taunting, and, best or worst of all, making Steve rumble a laugh, half in his chest and half onto to Danny's lips, that's smug and too aware, shooting back. "You changed your mind, then?"

When he knows Danny hasn't. Or at least he's pretty sure he hasn't, given all this. But they aren't talking about that. Not when he's using Danny's flippant, sudden, sparking turn around tone as a springboard. Steve's pretty sure Danny's mind hasn't been changed at all, just that he doesn't exactly want the details of other people on top of it. Which, Steve can't actually argue, even when he's cruelly needling.

Which is why he doesn't leave it at that entirely. Because it's not entirely inconvenient, this setup Danny's given him.

Danny wrapped around him, over him, in a way that makes Steve drop his hand from Danny's side and his back to that leg swung over his. Finding the back of Danny's thigh and pulling him closer, pulling Danny's leg higher, pushing into the space under it, getting even closer. Narrow hips rocking a little shamelessly, into a more comfortable position, against the momentarily blinding image of both of Danny's legs both wrapped like this.

Higher. Tighter. Fighting to exist in the same space again. Fingers digging in against the heavy back, inside of Danny's thigh briefly.

Before he's running his palm up the back inside of it. Experimenting with the interestingly wide open space he'd not at all really counted on between Danny's legs given by the position. Even while he was baiting Danny onward, with this syrupy sarcastic lead, when he's capturing Danny's lips to kiss him and to keep poking at the same time. "Because this's just sadistic if you have."

Especially when Steve doesn't sound in the slightest honest, or worried, or like he gives care. Isn't soaking it up like sunshine in the middle of a Saturday afternoon when naps just slam you over with the Aloha feeling of not needing to be anywhere, doing anything but lapping up the sun and the breeze and the shade and the sea.

Like he absolutely loves it every single time Danny turns into a short-sighted, raving idiot due to jealousy.

Edited 2013-06-01 06:12 (UTC)

If he had, if for some ridiculous reason he had actually changed his mind, he thinks this might change it back. Steve's hand, huge on his leg, Steve's voice a low smug rumble in his chest, words smudging into a kiss that's all ownership, and he doesn't give a shit if it's him owning it or Steve or the two of them both just falling headlong into selfish want.

It's Steve. Kissing him, and not anyone else. His hands on Steve's skin. Steve's hips shifting under his thigh. "Did you hit your head on something?"

Moving off Steve's mouth, to the cutting angle of Steve's jaw, down lower, to take revenge for Steve's stupidity on the pulse point just below the line of his chin, mouth latching onto it, sucking hard, a vicious hot pull against his tongue that ends with a dulled bite. "Do I look like I've changed my mind?"

Not when his leg is being hitched up. Not when his hands are all over Steve's skin, and his mouth is seeking out and laying claim to the rapid hammering of Steve's pulse. "Besides, I'm not into that."

Sadism, that is, because in no way is he not deeply responsive to pretty much everything Steve's doing, everywhere he's touching. It's better like this, blanketing each other, getting involved, getting into it, hands tracking Steve's skin just like Steve's are tracking his. The room sinking back into warmth and silence that isn't that warning ringing sound echoing in his ears. Muscles loosening, and there's no holding back, anymore. No gripping the sheets instead of Steve, no intent focus and concentration only making him tense up further.

Just Steve, and that laugh that spills into Danny's chest and bubbles up into his head and makes him want to keep talking to say the stupidest thing he can think of, just so he can hear it again, just so it's Steve's stupid goofy pleased smile pressing into his mouth, his skin, and not soft caution, carefulness that seems so alien to everything he knows about Steve.

Not that he doesn't appreciate it. He appreciates it. This is crazy, even for them, and he kind of would like to keep it from being outright painful as well as awkward, if possible, so a certain degree of care is nice.

But he's not going to break, and he's not going to run, and he's not going to change his mind. "You think maybe it would even be slightly possible to change my mind and not want sex with you? Because I gotta tell you, babe, this is not the way to go about making that happen."

There's half-rusted out groan carving it's way, bloody and dark, already on fire, from his throat before he even knows it's coming. When the world shifts from the endless, low-fire of Danny's skin and his hands, to lips dragging madness down his jaw. Against the underside of it. From him just tilting his head and pushing into the movement without a thought, to the second where his fingers dig into the muscle of Danny's thigh and ass.

To the moment where everything is sharp, hot, sparkling under Danny's mouth on that spot, because he's pulling, because there are suddenly teeth. Wet and hard against Steve's neck, making all of his body feeling like it's throbbing as one thing, surprised by a sudden jolt of lightning. Causing him to grind himself into Danny. His chest, his hips, him. Making his body sieze and shudder a handful of time, even when he's dragging Danny closer, into him, setting explosions off from firecrackers.

Hand sliding over and down and more in. Wanted, burning through him. Grafting across the cheeks of Danny's ass, thumb settled up the crease of that skin and fingertips stretched, in a rough, sudden cup around him. Pressing up on the place where they are slammed together, pushing fingers tips, possessively, against the smooth skin at his center, and the loose skin of his balls and the base of him, as the world burned against teeth, against want, against a desperate, wanted, courted dissolution.

Like there was a need to compress Danny there, flush and flat, touching everywhere, everything, never let him go.

When he wants to kiss Danny, wants to burn it down into his lungs, but he's already tipped his head. He's already pushing his neck still against Danny's mouth, words, voice, cheek, chin, head, even when it's like asking Danny to fry the rest of the wires, when he should care give a damn, tomorrow morning, but it's a long way away and Danny's mouth is here now. He wants it on his skin now.

"Is this your version of less talking, more action?," Steve is grating out, as sarcastic and buoyed by undoing as that undoing was unraveling his want to hold stil, say, think. Shorting his voice out somewhere into Danny's hair, stripping it from his insides like muscles ripping up from bones. Because the idea that Danny is still there, makes him want to fuck the rules, fuck Monday mornings, fuck waiting or asking or anything but up the ante for the reasons Danny is plastered against him.

He grins, wild and sharp, against the prickling stubble on Steve's neck, the muscles of his throat that are working hard, against lips, against tongue and teeth and suction, and that's probably going to leave a mark, but Danny doesn't care. It's not like he's not painted from the neck down, already, due to Steve's complete one-eighty regarding whether or not they should be doing this. Like he needed to have those spots there, to remind him, to keep him focused.

Owning his skin, just like that hand is, hot and firm and it feels like everywhere all at once, palm pressing against spots almost painfully sensitive, and bursting washed-out colors behind his eyes, exploding in his chest, messy, shrapnel getting everywhere, making him bleed out this thing that isn't blood, getting it all over, in sloppy stripes against Steve's skin, making his hands shake and his breath shorten hard, a racehorse getting reined in just before the final turn.

Necessary, maybe, because the way they're pressing against each other, tipping into each other, they might not last long enough to do anything different, to get inside anywhere, and that would be a shame, right, he should try slowing down, hasn't even had his hands on Steve since the couch, hasn't gotten his mouth anywhere on him but lips and here.

Bulling his way back up Steve's neck to cheek and jaw and mouth, getting dragged unceremoniously into what is definitely not any extra space, is just more Steve, unrelenting and unforgiving as a wall, everywhere, because he is a fucking construction project, not a normally built human. "This doesn't seem like action to you?"

Fingers blunting dipped circles into the muscle of his ass, arm going around his shoulders, and he kind of feels like he's climbing up a wall that could collapse on him at any time, but, whatever, Steve has a big enough bed there's plenty fo space to roll around. "Then we must not be doing it right."

Right, wrong, it doesn't matter, not when it's all skin and heavy breaths and getting so hot and hard it's starting to drive him crazy every time their hips tilt toward each other. "I'm waiting on you, big guy. You take that stuff out just for its aesthetic appeal, or were you planning on doing something with it?"

Playing with fire doesn't even begin to describe what he's doing, what he knows he's doing, pushing at the threadbare edges of Steve's sanity, trying, actually trying to snap Steve's self-control, and he'll probably pay for it, but it's better than Steve thinking too hard, focusing too much, forgetting that he gets to enjoy this, too.

And, well. Sometimes it's easier to take the plunge if you rev up your engine and go speeding off the cliff, instead of tiptoeing to the side of the edge.

Danny and his mouth. They're going to try to kill Steve. Not that Steve hasn't been aware of this aim and game since the moment the man walked into his house. The first time. But right now, at the bleeding edge of sensitivity, while Danny's throwing smack, between small gasps for air, he thinks Danny might actually be trying for it. When nothing he's doing puts a hand on the heat to turn it even slightly down.

When Steve is trying hard not to focus on the blinding truth burning across his thoughts like a fucking steamroller.

How few inches and how with just the right force of a thrust, core muscles and thighs tight and sudden, focused, he could could be buried in Danny. To his hips. A world of heat and tight, melting the whole world. Especially like this. Especially when Danny is climbing up him, scraping skin, shifting positions, making it feels like his skin is starting to crack from the tension of holding still, of letting him. How little he'd have to move to be there, to do that.

His hand already there, how it would be easy to shove Danny into the right place, inches from where here is.

How close. How easy. How desperately wanted. How much it burns, blotting out the sun.

While Danny is shoving out words about whether he plans to do anything. Making him want to snap back as much as tense his jaw. When he's wrestling free where his other arm is, pulling, pushing, shoving it under Danny, between his shoulder and neck and the bed and turning his face, with a burning exasperation, that comes out sharp with a time-worn insult and strain. "Don't you ever shut up."

Steve leaning in to catch his mouth, hard and fast. Those aren't even the words to describe this kiss. It's more like ruthless. It's more like attack or siege. It's more about plunging into the one place he can at that second, when he needs to shove it all somewhere, while he's having to use all the strength in his arm and his shoulder to just pry his fingers off Danny's ass. To not move, to not touch him, fuck him, strong arm him and send him reeling straight over. Yet. Like this.

To not shove the fuck forward and apologize on the other end, when they're both broken and broken-open and blitzed gone. But he gets there. His fingers, his arm, burning muscles and tension. Letting go. Searching on the bed for the bottle while he's searching the entirity of Danny's mouth for his sanity.

At least he finds the first one. Can vaguely admit he doesn't give a damn about the second, wants to lose it, wants to let go, wants to not give a single fuck about burning every line and wall between them, especially when he's flicking the bottle around in his hand and there's the definite sound of plastic uncapping with a snap. Twisting that until it's the right direction, toward his fingers and palm and aware a dripping mess is just as likely on whatever bits of their skin are right below his hand.

The bottle getting tossed down somewhere behind his legs, too hard to hold on to when he's rubbing his fingers together through lube, and he doesn't wait or ask this time. He just pushes even closer, bumping hip bones and thighs and hips, like it's possible still, when he's sliding one thigh hard and thigh-high between Danny's legs, to create space while he starts slicking up Danny's skin, and pushing, specifically, this time with the tip of his middle finger.

Down, in, around, against muscles he knows will give if he just gives it the right amount of his nearly void patience.

Does he ever shut up.

Well, yeah. There are plenty of times he'll shut up. This mouth of his gets a vacation in bed, because A. he's usually doing something better with it and B. he's still working on "there's a baby in the house, let's not wake her up and scar her for life."

And there are other times. When he's too preoccupied to even start, when he'd rather play something close to the chest, because he doesn't always need everyone he knows knowing about everything in his life, alright, no matter what Steve says or thinks or how annoying he can be in trying to wheedle out the problem, going into investigative, high-focus mode, like he thinks Danny's being blackmailed or something every time Danny doesn't tell him what's wrong.

But this is not one of those times. This is talking Steve into reality, out from under whatever umbrella of mission-ready focus he'd steeled himself for, because this should all be taken seriously, but that doesn't mean it should be taken seriously, and, really, Danny's warning sirens all go off blaring their unhappiness at him when Steve gets that narrowed concentrating look, like he's defusing a bomb.

Which is not to say that when he gets what he asks for -- a click of plastic and drops of slick liquid falling on his skin, and then, pressure, like before, except Steve doesn't stop, Steve keeps going -- he doesn't tense up.

But it's not like he's under sights of a firing line. It's confusion, uncertainty, bewilderment, muscles not sure what's happening, body trying to adjust, to give more room and take it away at the same time, and he's concentrating too hard on finding that space to really be able to tell if it feels good or not.

It doesn't feel bad. It feels weird. Strange. Pressure where he's not used to pressure. Clarifying for him exactly how tight he is, how new this is, and Steve's fingers are long and clever, but they're not exactly small, either, and this is just the tip.

But it's. It's not bad. Just new. And it's Steve, so, really, when has he ever not gone where Steve went? Next to North Korea, this is a cakewalk.

So he says the first thing that comes to mind, that ricochets off what Steve said downstairs, about what he wants, has wanted, will do, wants to do. "Make me."

Those two words fall like stones. Like a match on a pool of gasoline that's already boiling.Because he could. Because it would be so easy. Because he wants to so much more than he wants to do anything else. Especially when Danny is goading him, and he knows he's goading him for so much less. Because that order, that challenge is coming out on the tension radiating through Danny's body. Making it highlight the need to keep going, to make it work, to make it right.

To not force every single thing that Steve possibly could. Wants to, more than breathing. Is waiting to even have the faintest chance of getting at if he doesn't mess this up. Even when he's hazarding, like he's harrying Danny, a threat that is as much a promise as any other words that had come out of his mouth, ever. "That is the point."

When Steve is nowhere near giving up or considering stopping. Even if it was just prep for more, in any other thing, it takes time. Well. When you aren't just deciding to throw it all to the wall and slam right past it. Which does have it's own pitfalls and amazing points both. Things he's thinking of and trying to cast aside. At least for today. At least until Danny's past this. Chiding the universe on breaking him of the whole idea, rule, thing, of no one brand new.

It's pushing against the muscles suddenly torn between tensing up on his finger, around it, and trying to relax. All in series of movements he can't help but feel. Pulling in and out, as much to manipulate the muscle as to get lube on the inside. To make the friction less and the traction for movement more, when he's past his first knuckle, pulling back and then pushing forward for his second. Not stopping. Dragging his finger, back and forth working at skin he can't see. Only feel this way.

Pushing against tense, confused, resistant muscle. Swallowing through a dry throat and empty lungs. That way he feels like hard is a sensation that left his own body behind an hour ago. Underestimation of where it is now, what he is now. Every part of him keyed to the claustrophobic feeling of being swallowed whole going on around his finger, to there, that want for it to be around him. This friction. This movement. The way he can tell each time it gets marginally easier to move. Further forward or to the sides, to pull back and push back in.

When more of his palm is ending up closer, flatter, flush against Danny's skin. When he can start trying to angle up. To dig back against muscle. To find the the right place to hit just that much harder, firmer. Considering already if he should be moving on to two fingers, even as he keeps going, picking up his speed instead.

Edited 2013-06-01 19:34 (UTC)

Yeah. Definitely weird. Definitely an entirely new feeling, and he'd sort of assumed he was past the age where that was something he might ever come across, but apparently not, because this is not like anything he's ever done before.

And it's strange. A weird mirroring of things he's done, himself, with the women he's been with, only that had been pliant and easy and nobody had ever seemed uncomfortable, generally speaking. There wasn't a lot of prep involved, aside from foreplay, it's not like the mechanics needed to be helped along like this.

But now it's not his finger, it's Steve's, and it feels so bizarre, this fullness that he can't place, hasn't felt before. It's not painful, thankfully, but he wouldn't exactly classify it as comfortable, either. It just...is. And then there's movement, slow but purposeful, and Steve going a little deeper, and this is, he's not, part of him wants to protect his manhood and the other part of him thinks that whole idea is a load of crap, does it matter whose finger is where, who is fucking who? It doesn't make him a girl, doesn't make him any less in control of what he does, what he wants.

Right?

It's definitely not unpleasant, once he gets used to it. Pressure, filling. Slick friction against something that nudges cautiously in the direction of good, and then Steve shifts his hand and it flashes full into it, with a surprising speed that takes what little breath he's got left away, strangles it in his chest and makes his fingers clench, where they've moved to Steve's back and his arm. "That's more like it."

Tense words, confused and dropping like quarters, and he shifts his hips, experimentally, tries pushing himself further, and gets another flash of heat that leaves him shaking gently, from the way his muscles are keyed up, from the surprising shotgun flare of unexpected pleasure.

It's not enough. Not nearly enough, and he's not an idiot, he doesn't expect the first time to be smooth, or good, or to wind up a pro before sleep whacks them over the head with a mallet, but it's heartening, to say the least.

The strangled sudden gasp, when there are two sets of fingers digging into his skin, almost makes him stop. Not because he isn't expecting but because it's entirely possible to hurt him to. But then Danny's words are falling out, baffled and uncertain and just this edge of sound into curiously, almost complimentingly commentary, distracted. Like he's got something better than Steve's head to insult, else to focus on.

And then he's pushing back, getting this snort of a laugh from Steve's mouth. Before Steve is leaning close to Danny. Danny half distracted in newness, pushing down on his hand and then squirming on his hand, muscles shaking throughout Danny's body against his body. Shuddering through Steve this roll of choking black relief, knotted up with arrogant achievement that's getting brighter by the second.

Rolling out of his mouth, dark and menacing, "You sure?"

"I was thinking that this was." The only words to hit the air, before he's taking it for all the encouragement he needs.

His hand moving with only that little warning, before it doesn't stop. Sudden. Faster, harder, deliberate. Once. Twice. Again. The smack of his palm hitting Danny's skin actually beginning to make noise each time now, given the only place his palm can end up, when his finger is all the way back in Danny. He'll get to more fingers in second. He wants Danny back to that soft gasping and shivering now. Again. He wants to shove him into it.

Words. They exist somewhere. He knows they do. Somewhere beyond his current inability to find them.

It's not quite up to what Steve was talking about, before. He hasn't lost the ability to speak, hasn't forgotten how to make words, push them into the air; he's just got a few other things on his plate, like struggling with his body's contradictory impulses to make this stop and get more of it all at the same time.

Hips shifting, legs moving awkwardly, trying to find the best spot, the one hitched up by Steve's hip trembling slightly with the effort of staying there. Muscles he'd never even considered, starting to ache from a combination of tension and trying to stay in the best position -- whatever that might be.

And then Steve's hand is moving, finger harder and faster, and even if it isn't mind-blowing, even if he's too tense and too uncertain to just lay back and enjoy it, it feels good, better than he expected, and he can feel himself loosening up, allowing it, the slick-slide of lube making things easier, erasing any fear of dry rubbing friction, and, okay. It's just one finger, but that's one more than he's ever had there before and he feels like he's doing pretty well with the whole not-freaking-out-about-gay-sex thing, all things considered.

"It's a good start," he tosses back, finally, hand going to Steve's jaw and dragging him in for a kiss, open-mouthed, wet and clumsy, and it's maybe to hide the way his breathing is getting shorter, shallower, and maybe it's because this is a touchstone. Steve's mouth. Steve's breath, and smile, and the triumphant smirk on Steve's face that Danny can't even try to wipe away, because, all right, this is pretty amazing. Isn't it?

Of everything he ever thought would never happen, this is right at the top of the list.

He's quiet. Or, well, operatively, it's quieter. Not quiet. Not gone. He hasn't checked out. He's wiggling around. Jumpy as well...a teenager, almost, though Steve tries to squash that thought. Because Danny is nothing like a teenager. Danny Williams. His partner. The most loyal, bull-heard, loud-mouthed, entirely failing but not failed at being self-sufficient, partner. Who is anything but a teenager.

With his damnedable wardrobe that is nothing like a teenagers and frequently make Steve feel like someone turned back the clock and made him one though. Made it so he can't deal sometimes with a pair a perfect sized pants and a long set of shirts that have to be custom made. Nothing fits like that. Even when custom isn't Danny, and it leaves Steve ache everywhere from his chest to his pants, like he just hit fourteen again, he still doesn't want them to go.

Because nothing about this is about teenagers. But Danny is in the middle of something so new Steve isn't even quite sure he can remember how 'new' felt the first time. Awkward? Strange? Odd? Rushed. Not the first time. But definitely the second first. When he knows it's all new for Danny. Every reaction, every impulse. When he's momentarily tensing his jaw when Danny is shifting his hips and moving against him, where Danny doesn't even seem to know, but it's tearing showers of electric sparks up the center of Steve's stomach, hazing out his vision for at least a full second.

Making his grip stick for a second, as Danny's is pulling on his face. Danny. Danny who suddenly needs something to move, to do, there's almost a frantic energy to it. His words, his face, the way he's breathing in and our faster than would have it getting much to his lungs at all. When he's kissing Steve like somehow he's going to miss all of this. Miss how he's cataloging the sprint of Danny's heartbeat into a slow racing gallop. The more serious, necessary grip of his fingers. The focus of his mouth. Needing Steve.

Needing Steve's attention, Steve's mouth, Steve to be there with him, have him, keep him floating from both ends. Even when he's returning the kiss rather than finding words to give back to Danny's. How he's shifting his finger in a wide circle, before pulling out. Before rubbing at his pointer finger before he's pressing down again with both. Stretching his fingers apart at the same time as pushing down now. Because this is only going one direction, now, and it's not backwards or slower.

It's a good thing. Steve coming down when Danny drags him, because they need to be on the same page, need to be in this together, like Steve said, like Danny said. It's not Steve doing this to Danny, it's both of them, doing it together.

Right.

Which is all the more necessary when Steve's finger slips out, leaving him feeling strangely empty, and then pushes back in, with another, scissoring apart and ripping the first true tear of actual pain through him. Not just discomfort. Like tearing skin, ripping stitches, and his breath catches in all the wrong ways while he rides it out, muscles thrumming and fingers white-knuckled against Steve's skin, breath shoving straight out of his chest.

It doesn't last, thankfully. Pain dulls quickly and it has a way of carting away even the memory of it as soon as it stops being felt, but his body is cautious, uncertain, unsure if it's going to happen again, if it'll be like that every time, even as he starts adjusting to further intrusion, two fingers stretching parts of him that's he's pretty sure were never meant to be stretched. Steve's palm cupped between his legs. A low groan that's more reaction to discomfort than it is to desire, but it's getting better.

More quickly than he'd think, though there was definitely a backwards step for a second, there, muscles clenching hard, body freezing up briefly, breathing against Steve's mouth as his eyes close and he focuses. Lets it roll through him. Makes relaxation a conscious effort, breathes it in and out until he can feel himself opening up.

And maybe this is the flaw in his plan, because he's good at talking Steve over a ledge or off one, but this is verging into brand-new territory and he needs a second just as much as he doesn't, as much as he's sure it's probably better to just shove ahead and damn the consequences.

Or maybe not. He doesn't know, which is sort of the point.

It happens in a flash. That freeze that hits his body like a bucket of ice water. Danny seizing up around his fingers, leg muscles clenching suddenly into something far closer to clinging around his hips. Fingers digging into his back with the kind of force to bruise small dots into his back or arm, but not in the right way. Not like this. Not when Danny's pulse is spiking harder, but it comes with a gasp for air, sudden flinching and that sound that stumbles out Danny's mouth.

That nearly makes Steve's chest try to jump outside of himself. Idiocy and concern vying for each other, against something slick, oiled, and stupid clawing its way up the inside of his chest, inside of his ribs, his spine with long needle like claws. Something like desperation smashing in those waves rocking up from the pit in his stomach that has nothing left to stand on.

"Hey," Steve said. Firm, firmer than anything feels in him. Moving a little slower, a pacing consistency, but not stopping. Not about to stop. Not about to let Danny's seize up entirely and undo all he's already done, doing so well with, pushing into himself. Not until or unless Danny asks him to. Needs him to. Which isn't quite yet. He thinks. Hopes. Pushes. Himself, and Danny, fingers still moving.

When he's licking his lips and talking into Danny's mouth. Keeping his voice that way. "Stay with me, Danny."

Here, with him. Where Danny drug him up to. Here, with him, where he keeps telling Danny he is. Where he keeps shoving everything else out for, no matter how loud and dizzyingly distracting it gets, or how much it feels like he's going to combust if something doesn't happen, because he wants Danny, here with him, wants to be here with Danny, more than he wants any of the rest of it. Because he'd still choose to be here, here with Danny, even if he hadn't said anything on the couch downstairs.

Which makes him all the more of fool for pushing and then needing to say it. For needing to find his way into Danny's mouth, pulling on his bottom lip before kissing him, like an even more immediate request, or demand, teasing drag to pull Danny's focus back to him, back to the better things. Because it'll get easier. He knows that. If it doesn't stop, it'll get better. Along with the list of reasons he doesn't do this kind of thing, but would rather have his skin boiled off before he'd leave Danny or stop or want it to be anyone else.

Edited 2013-06-02 05:39 (UTC)

There's a lot of give and take, with the two of them. There always has been, but it's never felt like anyone was taking, never felt like either of them was holding something out for it to be snatched away. It's more like tides, rising and falling. Or like shadows and sunshine, one pushing forward, the other giving way, until it gets turned around again.

A partnership. That's what it is. A good one, the kind where they trust each other, know how far the other one can be pushed, be certain that they always have each other's backs. A friendship where they share everything, triumphs and problems and losses.

And now Steve wants to share this. Wants him here, present, right now, in this second, which means Danny needs to drag himself out of his preoccupied focus, the way he'd dragged Steve earlier, and respond, letting out a breath he didn't know he was holding, pressing up for a kiss, letting his fingers let go, even when it feels like prying them off Steve's skin or moving them to another spot is just asking to slide right off the cliff face.

Except he won't. Because Steve's got him. Steve's right here. Moving careful and slow, without stopping, pushing in, and Danny's struck for a second by how right it is that Steve, who's been metaphorically shoving himself into Danny's chest and head and under his skin for two years now is the one to be doing it for real, to slip inside and make room for himself where there wasn't any before.

Making his voice hoarse when he answers, but it's there. He's here. Is along for this ride, just like he said. He's not leaving Steve hanging out here alone, no matter how strange it all feels.

"Okay," he says, lets his iron grip relax, spreads his fingers, skates palm and careful fingers over Steve's skin instead of digging in again. "I'm here."

He isn't surprised it's an effort, even when the muscles in his own back are probably listening as well as Danny is. Detaching slowly, feeling Danny prying up his fingers from those muscles they were gouging in against. Which doesn't hurt, not at least the way he thinks about things hurting. The caustic pause between his words and Danny's, his words and Danny moving, those are more concerning than a little pressure.

He'd rather it was him than the bed. Then pulling way altogether. Than it happening at all.

He breathes out. Danny. And the words come, almost the same as the fingers. But they still mean something. Because Danny's words always do. They don't always mean the words he's shoving out. Whether it's millions, or three. But they always mean something. They always reflect the color of everything inside of him. The ways these ones, and his hands, carefully spreading on Steve's skin do.

Danny careful. Worried. Uncertain. Skittish. Possibly scared. Clinging, but not clinging, against that edge he doesn't mind shoving Steve right over, but that isn't as easy to shove himself straight into. Steve doesn't know what the greater urge is his head is. There are so many of them. Defeat isn't an option. Is. isn't. Should be. Except he isn't stopping, is working against the way Danny is touching him.

Trying to take Danny's words for face value against his body's coiled tension. Continuing to push with his fingers, in and out steady, stretching muscles, pressing in and up, against the wall of skin, more and more. Stretching the rope in his head that gets thinner and longer, patient to a patience he doesn't have, always has, has in the kind of spades that makes other people go insane, because he already is, and needling all at once. Tilting his head and kissing Danny's lightly and sloppy before saying.

"That wasn't it, you know." And he could say those words like an apology. Like a concern. Like he's explaining. Comforting. When all of those might be somewhere buried under it. But he doesn't. He drags it him up on sheering, sharp meat hooks from somewhere.

That tone he uses when Danny needs something to attack, something to focus on or tear apart. So he isn't focusing on himself. Tearing himself apart. Steve prodding at him, a little goading and little taunting, half bland like it's obvious to everyone else on the planet. Raising his eyebrows from a faintly smug flicker to toss it's hat into the ring, too.

Always giving him a better target, a better distraction. Even when his hand never stops.

Beat. "The way I'm going to make you shut up."

It helps. The challenge. Danny grabs onto it with both hands, hauls it in, something he recognizes, knows the shape of, the steps to. Not like he knows the mirrored version of what's happening now, knows it's not actually that different, right, except he's on the receiving end instead of giving, but it's all mechanics, right? What the fuck does it matter, as long as everyone involved ends up feeling good?

And it's not like Steve hasn't left the door open for escape if it's necessary. He's not trapped, no matter how much weight is on him, or how they might be wrapped around and in each other. He could call it quits, and hopefully Steve would get it, would recognize that even taking this step by step in one night is a hell of a lot faster than Danny ever goes, that he hadn't really expected to get further than talking about it tonight, that each push for Steve to do more was as much testing himself as it was encouraging his partner.

Like this. Like Steve's rasping voice and messy kiss, which makes Danny's clumsy heart go tripping all over itself again, stumbling off the rungs of his ribs into some soupy mess that he, embarrassingly, can't seem to get rid of around Steve anymore.

Even when he's being a dick. Maybe especially when he's being a dick. When he's doing it on purpose, like now, but Danny doesn't care, can't care, is too grateful for the distraction, the new target to focus on. "Yeah? Good. I was getting worried you lost your touch, there, buddy."

Ragging on him right back, like Steve doesn't have two fingers up his ass and Danny's not trying to figure out how he feels about it all, along with how it feels, to begin with, because the physical reactions are all snarled up with everything going on in his head and his stupid floppy heart that just keeps taking hit after hit, too dumb to run away. "I mean, no offense, but I'm still capable of coherent speech."

EVen when it's an act. Even when his heart is jackrabbiting all over the place, skittish and bewildered in his chest, and his muscles keep trying to tighten around Steve's fingers, even while they're starting to give. Starting to feel better. The pressure and strange feeling of fullness doesn't feel good yet, but it's got that edge that he knows probably will, if he rides it out, bluffs long enough to make it real. It's edging into that feeling, into something to like, something recognizably good, maybe even fun, if he can relax, and just go with it.

He's trying. Steve's helping, but first times are rough all around; he knows, he remembers, has all too many memories of previous first times that were nothing like this, physically, but full of the same uncertainty, not sure where to step and where will send him crashing to the ground or the other person off in a cloud of buzzing frustration.

But he can go with it. Now that it doesn't actively hurt, he can feel panic and worry subsiding, concentrates on Steve's mouth instead of Steve's fingers, on Steve's weight and the slickness of sweat under his hands, on the way Steve looks at him, careful, with a held-back wildness that shows in the blown-out retinas of his eyes, the flush Danny can't see but knows is there, climbing his chest, neck, cheeks. Mocking him, now, in this moment, when it's the best damn thing Steve could be doing for him.

Steve snorts, easy, fast, keeping his mouth light and loose against Danny's words. Against Danny kissing him back. Against Danny grabbing on to something to act out toward like it's life raft, which makes it easier. Slowly ramping up the pace of his hand, that is causing a pretty semi-constant burn in his inner wrist and the first part of his forearm. But ignore it. Ignoring a good half of that. Or at least pretending to.

As much as he could ever ignore this. Touching Danny. Danny on him. Around him. His fingers, his hips, grafted close with just a much fear about the whole thing as trust that Steve isn't going to drop him suddenly. Steve who's pushing through the feeling clouding up his chest, surprising him for it happening now, again, to swat back at Danny's complaints about his style, about the time he's taking, about firsts and Danny's own reactions, like smacking a fly.

Steve says, heavy and sarcastic, sharp insulting bite to his words, "You haven't been coherent a day in your life."

It's not entirely untrue that Steve misses the looks people throw Danny. But he does catch some of them. The ones that get made because of that. Because Danny is mouthy Jersey cop, with a flash-paper short temper and hands that act like planes. Who goes off at the drop of hat, ready to throw several volumes of a dictionary at unsuspecting people's head, with those dangerous hands flying everywhere.

That it can confuse people just as fast when he's happy as when he's angry. Because he's kind of like a massive wave, just hitting you and drenching you with everything all at once. Just keeps coming and covering everything. An onslaught. A squall. Maybe Steve didn't mind because he learned how to stand all those things before he got to it. Or maybe because he catches on to the pea sized matter behind Danny's bluster every time.

Catches on to the way it matters. All of it, even now. Needing to be coherent, needing to be sure, needing to push forward as much as not say he's obviously thought about running away. That it's not easy. And running would be, stopping would be. That easy just took a dive off the cliff Danny shoved Steve over, and he's still gripping the top with his fingers.

Clutching every single known thing he has to consider normal, right, something he already knows and knows he's good at.

All of those things Danny Williams likes having as his foundation. The things he's good at, that he likes to hear he's good at.