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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That's marginally better. That makes the twist in his lungs almost feel like he can breathe past it.

And he makes a show, a faint spectacle of finding the right place to tuck his hand under Danny's side, like he couldn't for the life of him care what's coming out of Danny's mouth. Even though he does. Even though it's like hot water tugging the muscles into his shoulders free.

Danny griping loud and annoyed, like he's not settling back into Steve's arms, relaxing. Like Steve's not going to notice the trashing, wiggling and smacking of blankets or arms, tugging at being restrained back and down a little, actually does not look anything like trying to get free at all.

"You're noisy," Steve said, gruff and low against part of Danny's shoulder and the back of his neck. Against breathing in his skin. Skin that still smelled of sex and sweat, of Steve, and Danny. Danny. His whole bed smells like Danny. It always does. And he buried his nose just a tiny bit more against Danny's neck, even when his words are quiet, but sharply derisive. "What was that? Two-three minutes only?"

And just to push it a little, like he's not stepping on ice, he smothers in easily. "Guess I'll have to go harder you next time."

If he holds his breath just a little, counting the spaces of darkness and silence, after it's nothing, right?

So there's Steve, pressed flush up against him, like Danny's an over-sized teddy bear, a body pillow. Something to grab onto and curl around, all rough affection, blunt fingers sliding between his side and the mattress, and it washes over him in swirling, suffocating relief.

With Steve shifting back there, long and heavy and boneless, voice raw-edged, sandpapery and sarcastic, and it all helps, because Steve's not going anywhere if his arm is belted across Danny's side and chest, he's not going anywhere sounding like something that got washed up on shore. And then there's that. Steve's nose.

Just the tip of it. Nudging into the back of his neck. And then. Steve's face. Mouth, nose. Pressing into warm skin still a little damp and flushed from sex. Burying there. Breathing him in.

Making Danny's stomach fold over on itself unexpectedly. Making his eyes close, creasing a little, and it might look almost like he's in pain, but that's because it is, a kind of, it's an ache, sweet and spreading slow from some crack that just appeared in his chest that should make it impossible to breathe, right, and that's why it's impossible to breathe, for a second.

That's all. Nothing else.

Not words smudged into his skin. Not Steve nosing the back of his neck, breathing gently against his shoulder. Not the pit that's opened in his stomach, that his heart trips against and falls into, banging against unseen walls on the way down.

Every breath suddenly as fragile as glass. That skip in his pulse totally normal, considering how difficult it is to breathe right, and it's for balance that his hand goes to cover Steve's forearm, nothing else. Thumb stroking along his skin because. Because.

Not because he just needs to touch him. Find a way to sneak between his ribs and set up shop there, the way Steve's doing right now, has done, has taken over, bought out the space, claimed it as his own.

Not for that. Maybe because Steve's not breathing, either, and one of them should be getting a decent oxygen flow, if only so they can be able to drag the other one back to consciousness if necessary. "Yeah, right," he bluffs, blusters. When his thumb never moves faster. His fingers never tighten or grip harder.

"Shut up, you're embarrassing yourself. Next time, I expect you to deliver on this so-called ability to reduce me to an inability to speak, okay. That was just sad."

"Bring it, bitch," is still smothered against Danny's neck, with a hot amused snort of a challenge. When in some part Steve might not move again unless Danny made him, and in all honesty it'd probably have to be a good reason even then. His grip tightening a little even at just the though. Hopefully not one for leaving the bed indefinitely. Before dawn. Before work made them.

"Whenever you think you're ready." Half threat and half promise, both entirely, scaldingly, unwavering.

When there's something oddly amusing about the words, that trip out. Tugging at his memory. Something about words like it. From the first day, first-second night. Something he can't quite put his finger on, because everything from that time is a little hazy. The way everything is in periods when he hasn't slept or eaten correctly for so long he can't even tell when it stopped being bearable, survivable, strain and started being constant, well-trained, surviving.

But there was something like that. He vaguely remembers it. Some kind of laughter. Banter. Bluster. Boasting.

Yet there's no way he doesn't mean it, too. He's ready. He could, wants. Wants to run Danny through every pace he's ever gone himself, been shoved by someone else, wants to give him every good piece, sheared from every worst cold, empty second stored right there with the rest of his. Ready. Ready, and waiting. And willing to wait. And conflicted, but willing to let it stop. Willing to just lay here, and pretend that it isn't like every other part of his body has grown shadowy and half dissolved, except from where his skin is touching Danny's.

Except for where that fingers of Danny's is stroking his skin. Soft enough not too be desperate, hard enough that it feels like Danny needs to make sure his skin is there. The kind of words that don't have words. The kind of message he doesn't know what to do with, does't what to say to, doesn't know what means at all. And still he can't help feeling like there's a spotlight there. Like he's supposed to. Know. Say. Do. Something with it.

Danny's thumb rubbing back and forth like a lifeline. His breathing thin, the way people actually shot in the chest do.

When Steve could -- would -- right now, if the answer was right now, yes, let's go. But it won't be. He's mostly certain. As certain as he ever is about Danny, given that he was utterly wrong about this. All of this never happening. Danny never wanting anything to do with this. Utterly wrong about this earlier evening. Continues to be utterly wrong at every turn, and still Danny doesn't leave. Burned words on to his lips like Steve could ever forget. Will be ever able to.

Please. Don't.

And

Please.

Don't. Don't. Don't.

When it's easier to let those sail past him that to think he'd really like ten or twenty minutes of sleep, himself, before considering anything. Against the burn in his bicep and wrist. The coil half unfettered and half too tight in his gut. When there are half a dozens questions on his tongue, barred by his lips, and he has no idea how to even frame or phrase a single. All he really has is the way everything smells like Danny when he breathes in.

And this tiny part of his head echoing those words Danny said to him. Except to Danny, himself, now.

Edited 2013-06-06 04:37 (UTC)

It's easier like this, with Steve badgering him and insulting him. Like usual. Just normal. Calms the frantic spill of thoughts and worries, insidious things that keep snaking their way into his head, the drowsy cotton-filled center of it.

Next time. Because there will be a next time. Even if he's not sure yet that he wants a next time, can handle a next time. He'd bluffed his way through this, tonight, and it's starting to show, to press and prod and suggest, annoyingly, that maybe he shouldn't have. Should have. Shouldn't. Should have known more, done some legwork on his own, figured it out, tried -- who knows? Gauging the looseness of complaining muscles. Forgetting all about the strange, slick feeling, until he tries moving again. "You're gonna have to give me a second."

Or a night. A day. Maybe a couple. Enough time for him to work through whatever it was that just happened. That he wanted, yeah. If not because he wanted it, for him, then because he wants Steve, and if this is going to happen, that's a part of it. He's not going to plant himself on Steve's chest and keep him from leaving, and then refuse the basic building block of sex, okay, he's not that guy. Doesn't want Steve to feel like he's missing out on anything, being here. Staying. Isn't giving anything up to do that.

Except he is. And Danny knows he is. He's too new at it, and too jaded by it at the same time. Different parts of the same whole. Has no idea what to do with these new ideas, possibilities; is all too aware of what can, will probably, go wrong.

But Steve's still here. Arm tucked firmly around him. Settled in like gravity, going nowhere fast, mumbling words into the back of his neck. Claiming. Possessive. Like Danny's another piece of this bed. House. Life. Steve's hand snug and stubborn against his side, bracing against argument.

It's nice, considering the free fall his thoughts are taking, of good, bad, weird. Steps he never takes, that he'd pole-vaulted over. Not sure if he recognizes or is sure of the place he's landed, feet sinking into quicksand, threatening to drag him down, suffocate him, snuff this all out with moving too fast, too much, too soon. Unable to do anything else, because it could all go in the blink of an eye, the sharp report of a firing gun.

He just needs a second. Or two. Or several thousand. It's fine.

"One." Steve shoots off his mouth, low and rough and self-amused, to no one's surprise. Obviously counting that second.

Maybe even looking for Danny to smack back at him. Words warm against cooling sweat and drying skin. The tickle of the mess of Danny's hair against most of his face, where his eyes are closed. Where he's not counting, maybe if only because he doesn't know. Whether it count up or count down, or where to, whether, how, when. Only why. He knows that one, but it's not like it clarifies a damn thing.

Even though Steve doesn't move in the slightest for being a bastard and poking that. Danny saying he needs a second and counting for one. He doesn't move at all. Just throws it out there like a target, letting himself soak into the bed. The exhaustion in his bones that exists. He can feel it. But it's beneath a glass wall, again. Where everything else is so highly keyed to Danny.

To each breath. To his few words. To when he moves. To how he holds still. To the way the stillness and the silence wouldn't bother him, not with anyone else. He'd roll over, or depending say goodnights, or whatever. Whatever the situation called for. Usually sleep. Just let himself sleep. Done with everything that needed doing. Except. That Danny doesn't do still, or quiet, or the smallest touch. Not when any of the three can be grand, large, and loud.

Not when every single thing he just did is nothing he's done before, and it's highlighted by all three of those.

His derisive snort is almost as tired as it is exasperated. "That's funny."

Fingers tightening slightly against Steve's arm. Wondering when, or if, Steve will drift off. Wondering if that will make it easier or worse, trying to sort through the muck and mire his feet are stuck in, that he's slogging through. A confused mess, sheer edges, thin ice cracking everywhere he steps.

He'd rather it didn't. Not now. He's too tired, doesn't want to be up for hours turning the same things over and over in his head, with a heavy weight sitting on his chest. He wants to sleep. Dig his face into the pillow that smells like Steve, roll up in sheets that smell like Steve, sink into the warmth behind him. Sleep. Deal with it tomorrow. In the morning. Or. Later.

Just not now, which is unfortunate, because now is when it keeps tapping at the door he's trying to slam. Insistent and annoying. Saying that was stupid. That was abrupt, rushed. He shouldn't say things unless he knows for sure he absolutely means them. Shouldn't let himself believe them unless he knows. Or maybe never, because it's not like his track record is anything to be especially proud of. Full of things he's gotten wrong, keeps getting wrong.

"Shut up and go to sleep."

It might make things easier. It's nothing Steve should have to deal with, anyway.

"Can't." Steve says it easy. Another single, solid word. But all traces of that rough humor gone.

As simple as any unbrookable denial Danny were asking, or telling him, to back the hell down on a case when he knows.

That something is wrong. That someone is playing him. That someone is still in mortal danger. That he needs to be alert. Needs to be focused. Needs to not take his eyes off the people in danger. Needs to be more than human, more than a cop, whatever it takes to do the job. Needs to keep digging, keep hitting harder, going further. As far he has to go until his gut stops saying he has to.

And he does. Know. Maybe not exactly. Not the words. Not what is happening in Danny's head. Not the specifics. If this is what regret looks like on Danny. Like a trip and trigger of every single tic the man has gone, not icy, no, but absent. Empty. Taking him somewhere Steve's hands can't reach. Even when Danny's hand is getting tighter and together on his forearm. Making Steve sure the last thing he should do is listen.

At least to the words. To Danny telling him to shut up, to go to sleep, to let go, to leave it alone.

"Hey." Steve nudged Danny with his nose. Voice low, with only the faintest note of uncertainty being smothered more in its sleep, with strong armed, forced certainty, because someone has to be. "Come here." Words that are being said as Steve lets go though. Pulling his hand free from under Danny's side, even as he's tugging at Danny. "Turn around."

Toward him. Not away from him. Before he starts believing it's the one out Danny actually is clinging to.

"Won't," Danny returns, like it's any other argument, and Steve is just being difficult, because it is. Just any other argument. He can handle this. He can deal with it. It's fine, he's fine, Steve's fine, everything's fine. He's a grown man, he knew what he was getting into, asked for it with his eyes wide open.

It's fine. It's just new. Strange. Invasive? Strange. It's what he keeps coming back to. It can't get defined as good or bad yet. He has no idea if he liked it or not. It's just. Strange.

But this isn't. Steve prodding him. Bugging him. Dragging him around, pulling at him with the hand that's been snug under his side, and forcing Danny, making complaining noises, around and onto his other side. While Steve doesn't bother to move, so now there's a little more space, but it's still close. Close enough for legs and knees to bump up against each other. For him to feel the soft brush of Steve's breath against his cheek.

And now he does feel naked. After having been that way for the better part of an hour. It was easier when he didn't have to face Steve. When his eyes were closed, and he could at least pretend everything was -- no, everything is, fine. He doesn't need to pretend.

He just doesn't want to be looking Steve in the face, when he says so. It's not Steve's problem. He's not sure it's a problem at all. No one's saying it is, okay.

But he turns anyway, because Steve's pulling him, it's Steve asking him, and Steve never asks for anything, even when Danny bitches and tugs and pokes and rubs salt viciously into open wounds, sticks his big stupid foot in his big stupid mouth. Hand going automatically to Steve's side, under the sheets and blanket, even if he's not exactly sure what expression he should be wearing right now, so settles for harried. Which is easy. Won't give him away. With luck.

Because it's fine. He just needs to wrap his head around it. The idea. That's not so hard. People would kill to do what he just did with Steve. For Steve to want to do it to them. "Jesus, do you ever stop ordering people around?"

Bluster and bluffing, arguing back like he knows he's supposed to, around the sinking feeling in his chest that Steve is about to say something he won't like. Wanting that option to just not exist.

Danny bumps and bungles, angrily snippy, and Steve would really take that over silent and still in any second. Even is he is all fussy and frustrated about blankets, knees, hands, where things go. While not looking at him. And Steve's sure for the first second of that assumption he's just being too pick, idiotically melodramatic, over assuming except it stays.

Except then there's Danny's shoulders, the set of his jaw before he does look up.

Like it's an actual effort. And he actually was avoiding looking at Steve. Even in the dark.

The realization of which at rips at his lungs, like the air is losing oxygen and picking up mustard gas.

"Not according to you," Steve offered, sounding edgy even into unruffled. Because Danny would probably be telling him that until he left the island, or died, or whatever else happened first. Probably most of all because he was good at it. Because he spent the last decade doing it. And, oh, right, because he still spent anywhere from eight to twenty hours doing it every day right now, because this was his Task Force still, too.

When he can run his hand up Danny's arm, ignoring the burn in his bicep and wrist, and end up with it at the side of Danny's head. Not moving it, not tilting it, not tipping, not at all. He only moves himself. Just himself. Moves his own head, closing his eyes and pushing his mouth against Danny's forehead for a breath that doesn't feel like it actualy involves getting any air into his lungs.

Before he said, looking down at Danny. "You're okay."

Because. God. God, fuck him. He has to be right. Has to hope.

Hope and fear waring desperately at each other that he didn't actually just fuck up every single thing that had gone back to even vaguely okay after Danny drug him back in from the beach. Where he doesn't, Danny asked, but this. This, right here, right now, is not the face or the voice or the tone or the posture of the person that said please, don't, don't or the one that said shut up and fuck me.

Because he has to be. Because Steve needs him to be. Because it will be. He will be. Okay. With whatever the hell is behind Danny with all the doors closed. Whatever it means. Whatever he needs to do or not do again. Whatever he needs to say. Whether he needs to get the hell up and away and even just leave Danny here in his bed and give him space and apologize for enjoying any of it.

How the hell is anybody supposed to guard against this?

What's he supposed to do, when Steve's hand is engulfing first his arm and shoulder, and then his head, muffling everything that's going on in there down to a dull roar. When Steve is pressing forward, quiet but insistent, and pressing his mouth against Danny's forehead in a kiss that's not a kiss but still splits Danny's heart wide open like a kiss. The way a lip splits when it gets punched.

What's he supposed to do, huh? When Steve won't let it just be his problem, when Steve won't let it go, won't let him sink into a preoccupied, withdrawn stew. When Steve's telling him things Danny's not even believing from himself. Maybe he's not okay. Maybe that's not such a bad thing to be.

It means this is big. Huge. Important. Serious. That word he keeps bumping on, that neither of them will admit to or slap on the table along with all their chips. It means this is not something he can do and just roll over, sleep on, like nothing's changed. Things have changed. It's different now. Not worse. Maybe better. But different.

Except Steve's asking. A question disguised as a statement, threaded through with everything Danny's not sure he wants to hear in Steve's voice. It's cautious. Worried, maybe. All the bluster and bragging, the smug certainty, is leaked out, evaporated. Even in the dark, he can see the way Steve is peering at him, close, like he might be able to read Danny's thoughts in his face. "Yeah."

Half breathed out, and, okay, he's here, and Steve just did, so he allows it, gives himself this, a push forward that has sheets rustling, his hand sliding from Steve's side to his back, nudges forward to press nose, mouth, into the crook of Steve's neck. Breathes. It's easier, here. "I'm okay. I am, you know, a little weirded out. That was definitely new. But okay."

It helps that Steve's here, and not going anywhere, and that he hasn't tried to do anything idiotic like leave again. It all helps.

It takes a second. This second where Steve can't tell if the world just actually hit pause, like a tv program. A movie forgotten. Where suddenly milliseconds crawl by like ants even, when Danny is looking up at him. Before Danny suddenly lets a breath out. And for a moment it kicks out every other sound in existence. The waves. The wind. Steve's own heart beat. Every thought.

This tiny, tiniest, word. Where Steve. He'd. He'll be glad it's there, can't tell if he should grasp it or wait for more. But the next thing is sudden movement, and that's almost better. It's at least on par with a word. A word that sounds hollow, confused, reluctant. Movement into him that only needs him to be there to swarm at him, almost like normal. Almost. When there's Danny's face pressing into his chest, shoulder, the crook of his nose.

Canceling out any other world. Any other place or time. Letting his hand slip back, carding into Danny's hair and cradling just this side firm, possessive, pressure against the back of his head. His arm slipping over Danny's back, tugging, pulling him the last little bit as close as possible, holding him as close as Danny needs to burrow in. Because at least it's something. Because if his chest aches with a confused, needy, sharpness, it's at least in a good way.

Like lancing poison. When Danny is latching on to him. Breathing into his skin. And then. Then, there are words falling on his skin, falling against his throat, and his pulse. Both, suddenly pounding in his head, like they just burst into life again, and being shoved out for those words. Because he wants them, these words being muddled more into flesh than air, than he wants the ocean, and to go to work in the morning, and to still be able to breathe five minutes from now.

Wants Danny's words. To know where he is. To know if is. Okay. If he is. They are.

When he can tuck his head down against Danny's head buried into his shoulder and neck and the pillow, tuck his face against Danny's head and his hair and grab at anything in his own chest. Words like they aren't anything but shapes in piles, letters strung to make words, in buckets, that he has no idea what the weight, cost, use of them was, might be. When he's talking to the darkness and his close eye-lids.

"Well, that's better than absolutely terrible and shucked off your dance card for life as tried once, right?" Which would make a great joke. It would probably be wonderful if it was in a hilarious, ripe, slightly black tone. But it isn't. It's calm, and it's quiet, the smallest side of poking on certain word or two, but the tone of his voice is so bare he doesn't think the darkness in the room is cover enough even.

Steve's arm wraps around him, just like before, only this time, Steve's nuzzling into his hair, and Danny's chest is pressed so close to his that he can feel Steve's heart beating, wings against a wall. Without making fun of him. Just letting him hold on, letting him find his center of balance again, the gravity that's been missing from the toddling steps his thoughts keep trying to make.

When it's not a big deal. Shouldn't be. But it is.

It's embarrassing. Despite his bluster, he's not a prejudiced guy, unless he's being asked his opinion on drug runners and the lowlife scumbags who do shit like kidnap women and children and sell them on the street. His precise and stubborn opinions on food and the superior state in which to live and raise a family do not extend to ragging on lifestyle choices, because who the hell is he to judge? Some single guy, living in a series of progressively worsening apartments, divorced dad who ended up falling for his partner, boss, best friend.

Yeah, he's in no spot to lay judgment on what anybody does in bed with anybody else.

But that doesn't mean it's not still weird. Strange. Unsettling. It's a first time, he wouldn't expect fireworks, or for it to be anything but a confused mix of unpleasant, awkward, and the kind of clumsy-good familiar to teenagers just trying this whole sex thing out for the first time the world over.

So it's not unexpected, just...annoying. Which is why he huffs laugh into Steve's shoulder that's as skeptical as an eyeroll, as much as it is dryly amused. "You think I've got a dance card for anything, McGarrett? Still not a girl."

But. No. Not off the card. Or off the table. Nothing is. He just needs a little time to work up to it. To ease himself into it. Going full-bore is Steve's style, not his. But, still. There's that tone again. The caution Steve never has. Wary and sincere all at once. The tone of a man willing to not just rip off a band-aid, but saw off his own cast, if necessary. Or maybe a leg, or an arm. His voice coming stripped down to the skin, waiting to be flayed or snapped at.

Danny shakes his head against Steve's neck, lets out a breath. Easier with Steve's arm wrapping around his back; he's not going to question it, just let it carry him along. "But no, no, nothing like that, okay? It'll just take some getting used to. This isn't exactly how I usually do things."

None of it is. Not the sex. Not the speed. Not staying over four or five nights a week. Not getting involved with his boss. His partner.

He's relaxing slowly enough. Steve can feel it. Slow increments, the way you can begin to notice even infinitesimal movement when you've been stuck in a tree or a hole for days at a time. Until you are so lost in utter stillness, everything else is a little jarring, a little, sometimes a lot, like having a boiling red spotlighst and blaring sirens going off. It's a little like that. Not the spotlight, and the siren. But he can feel it going.

Under his arms. Under his head. Against his chest. Danny undoing with the slow, steadiness given perfectly timed second hands on a good watch. Unfurling not in seconds, but in breaths. Pulled in, through his nose against Steve's neck, and pushed out in these solid warm gusts against his shoulder, the top of his chest. When it's only marginally better, Danny coiled into him instead of away from him. But it's a marginal he can deal with. A marginal he can feel.

His mouth curves just faintly when Danny laughs. That sounds almost hurts, but it's perfect, too. He wants ore of that. Even just barely there, before Danny is smarting off at the words Steve put out there. Not letting go, but waving what verbally amounts to a hand brushing the implication away. As though anything about Danny could. Make him think of a girl. Make him want a woman. Want anything but this.

The confused muddle of knots inside his arms, that he's pretty sure starts at Danny's spine beneath his fingers and does not stop until it comes out the other side of his own back. But it's still true. This. He wants this. More than anything. And he knows what it is. And what it isn't. And, he's aware, even, of what it really might never be. Of the razor edge it walks in terms of the timeline of Danny's future, and the seismic ground Danny dropped on to with one kiss.

Even when Danny is finding more words. Less careful. Repeating, denying. Like he's fighting away some assumption of Steve's, and Steve can't even be entirely sure what it was. That was seconds ago. But Danny was now, which was the only place he could be, knew how to be. Before stopping with that implication. That Steve knows. Because Steve knows Danny. What Danny can give, will give the world. A person. And all of it doesn't match here. Everything Danny does.

"So you just like me more than the rest of the world, is what you're sayin'."

That one at least tries to cross over earlier. Thick, but just tripping toward assumptively arrogant.

Like the only reason Danny could ever have chosen this path, chosen these choices, attacked his coffee and been willing to be kicked out of Five-0, jumped through a hundred hoops in so many days, when he threw a fit about take one step even toward a hoop in the direction of Gabby, be here at all, in his arms, his bed was that obviously Steve obviously was better. More. The Best.

Because everything else. Every other else in his head. It isn't supposed to be there. It's somewhere else. Behind other doors.

He grimaces into Steve's neck, digs a little with the tip of his nose, disgruntled.

"No, no, no, incorrect, that is wrong, that is not what I'm saying. I can count at least three and up to several thousand people I like better than I like you. People I haven't even met yet."

At least that's easy to rebuff, to shove back, rough and aggravated at the assumption, at Steve's arrogance. At least Steve's tone has dropped from tense and wired up to crisis-management-mode and back down to something teasing, poking at Danny as if he didn't have his fingers flat on Danny's skin, as if he didn't have his mouth and nose in Danny's hair.

And the answer is so obvious. As if there's a rest of the world to compare to Steve, like Danny could wave a magic wand and put any of the people he's ever met even in the same category. Like there's any one category.

Like Steve isn't talented, capable, competent, exceptional. Like he's not the best. The best the Navy had. The best of his team. Like Steve doesn't have a massive, fractured heart that beats for the ones who can't save themselves, who need him. Like Danny hasn't seen him hunt down criminals no one should be able to get, because Steve is willing to do anything to bring them down, and then play with Grace the next day looking like nothing so much as an over grown kid.

Like there's any part of him that doesn't know, in his core, that Steve is one of the best people he knows, has ever seen. Is dedicated, devoted. Sure. Married to the job, like they all are. Crazy as a loon. Prone to horrific damage because he just doesn't give a shit about what happens to him, because he is always, always collateral, acceptable damage.

But he isn't to Danny.

None of which he can say out loud, so he shoves it further into familiar territory, even while he's betrayed by the way his fingers splay possessively over Steve's back, dipping gently into the track of his spine. "You're just prettier than most of them."

Because this is shallow, non-serious fun, and Danny has also recently acquired some new property, right, if Steve believes that, Danny's got a bridge he knows Steve would just love to buy.

Danny puff's up, wordy, with heavy denials, and Steve is failing, entirely, not smiling.

Even if he might be trying to press his lips together to let it out entirely. But that, that is so much better, too. He doesn't mind which words Danny says, which subject he decides to talk about, to lodge in his skin, but more of them. He needs more of Danny, and more of Danny's words, or less of then, but Danny loose and easy, ready to sleep, not so silent, so trigger tight Steve begin's to think of him more as a threatening bomb than a person.

But that thought doesn't stay, when Danny fingers are widening on his skin, covering more ground while Danny rolls it off as being superficial. As thought Danny has more than two or three inches of superficial bone in his body. He likes attention, of course. He likes a pretty face, as much as the next man. And he likes the two together, because who wouldn't. But Danny Williams couldn't live on a buffet of that.

Steve hasn't even ever seen him give more than twenty or thirty minutes of a night to that.
Before the rest kicked in. Before everything a pretty wasn't, didn't measure to kicked in.

Which makes it even more hilarious, mocking and disagreeing, even when his voice simply dips warmer.
"At least you're admitting that now." There's a laugh, rumbling in his chest and falling out free all in Danny's hair.

Even though it doesn't sound like Steve ever had cause to doubt. Or ever did. And maybe he didn't. Hasn't. Ever. But maybe it's nice to hear it fall out of Danny's mouth. Even as insult. A good half of the best things to ever fall out Danny's open mouth were. "And that's, what? Half the war, already?"

As though Danny could ever be won by a pretty face, as though Steve ever gave his own face and physique a moment's benefit of the doubt to even mattering where it came to Danny, long before now, before coming home. Danny who had seen his face every single day in and out. Seen him get rid of clothes in the name of cases as much beaten to a pulp and in need of rescue from Wo Fat. If anything it was one of the things he probably thought mattered the least, didn't register in the line of important things to Danny right after guy, partner, boss.

This was Danny, after all. Who had fits about cups of coffee Steve forgot to even have over meals he forgot to offer to buy.

He can feel it all starting to slide away.

Not that it isn't still weird. Not that he doesn't still feel strange, loose in some places and tight in others, still messy, wanting a shower, wanting sleep, wanting to leave it alone and go back to nothing threatening, like necking on the couch for hours instead.

Except he doesn't want that. Not really. Because it doesn't actually matter, the way Steve looks, but the truth is Steve is impossible to resist. Impossible for Danny not to want to touch, to run his hands over hard muscle and softer than expected skin, rasp lips against stubble, taste Steve all the way down, salt and sweat and musk. Beautiful in a way Danny can't even comprehend, sometimes, because it's not like he always saw it, knew it was there. Sure. He knew Steve was good-looking. Got more than his fair share of female attention. But beautiful? Irresistible? Something Danny has to reach out and touch?

That's new. New-ish, anyway.

It's something else. Lots of things. He could spend hours listing them all, and never really get to the bottom of it. Not like Steve wants, with his how did it start and why and when. Like Danny could even have just one answer to that.

He doesn't know. It just is. Came upon him all sneaky and slow and then slammed him into the cement with the force of an 18-wheeler.

Okay. So maybe keeping it G-rated for a while won't be happening, and that's fine, too. It all is, if it ends up like this, with Steve here, arm looped around him, breathing soft and even into his hair, taunting him like they're in the car on a case and he's got nothing better to do. Making every knot loosen a little further with distraction, with each smile getting a little drowsier.

It's warm, and he's tired, and morning is going to come far too soon, even if it can't be that late, yet. "There you go, you only got half left to try and get."

Which is another lie. He wouldn't be here at all if it weren't already a hopeless cause.

"Another month, then?" Steve is shooting off his mouth and he knows it, but he lets it go. Lets everything go, because Danny is. Slowly. Letting everything go, getting heavier against him and the bed, breathing deeper. Driving Steve for wheedling against a burst of relief so massive it feels like it pulsated as a small explosion in his center, hiccuping his sanity, toward a brief, brilliant moment of being high.

"Three and half weeks for good behavior?" Like a prompt. Before it shifts, smugly, like a dauntless promise, "Or three. Maybe three. If I decide to actually put my back into it this time."

As though every single day, every single moment since Danny said those words, and told him he was ready to be fired now, because he had to be honest, had to answer the question, wouldn't lie, hasn't been something like counted. Precise. Known. Seen. Recognized. Each day, like single grains of sand in a too large jar. Not even enough to fill the space between two fingers pinching some yet. Which is he knows insane really when he puts that together with it being Danny.

That any of this. Any of it at all keeps happening.

But it is. He is. Here. Still. In Steve's arms. Said all those words. Earlier. Is breathing, slow relaxing in his arms. Now. Where times matters to Steve as much as dawn, as much as other people, as much as any rule in any rule book sitting outside this room. This bed. This house. Them. Nothing and none of them matter. Except for Danny. Except for the way he's slowly talking easier, unwinding toward what might be actually be relaxed. Might at some point become sleep.

There's that arrogance back again, soaking into every word and insult, suggesting there's no part of this Steve won't hit out of the ballpark, just like he does with everything else.

"It is hilarious to me that you think 'good behavior' is on the list of things anybody anywhere could actually expect from you."

Because Steve is purposely ignoring the fact that it doesn't work like that, one month in and halfway there doesn't mean it'll just double by the time the two month mark rolls around. Except Steve's joking about making it two months. Which hits a soft jolt to his sternum, because nobody's even made faint allusions to any kind of continuation, yet; those conversations had been fraught with tension and then degraded into stupid jokes from Steve, and the topic just hasn't come up.

Which makes Danny kind of want to nudge at it, carefully, like it might accidentally get shoved off the tabletop and smash on the floor if he even breathes on it too hard. Who knows what might happen in a month? "We'll reassess at a later date. I want to see some of this so-called 'effort' you think you can put in."

Shoveling derisive disbelief onto Steve's shoulder, and slipping back, finally, to find space on the pillow, breathe air that's not flavored by Steve's skin. The gorilla that had been sitting on his chest has apparently decided to move elsewhere, and he's okay with that, but he's not moving far, either. Unwilling to break this cocoon, where everything's fine, and panic can't find its way past Steve's barrier arm or the low comfortable rumble of his voice.

"Oh, I'm good," Steve strives at smart mouthed, words pressing down in the air, even when they are flash-bright bragging straight though the first appearance of a yawn, when he's releasing the hold of his muscles. Not enough to move himself just then. Not enough to let Danny escape. But enough to sort create a cage Danny can wiggle around in.

Being obnoxious, even as he's watching Danny settle down. "I've got references."

Like they matter. Like anything, anyone, outside of watching Danny settle down did. Even existed.

Shifting his own shoulders, Steve slid himself down a little. To where his head won't only hit the head board and the top half of the pillow now, since Danny is finding the pillow, which makes Danny's head and his hair less apt to be the structure supporting right where Steve's head had been resting. Puts him in a closer vantage point. Gives him the ability to see Danny's face, again.

Danny's face which, at the very least, has gone back to looking something more normal. Which makes another set of knots in his shoulders undo. Like somehow the sight of it is a surprise, a relief, even when Danny's voice has been fine for the better part of a minute or two. When Steve finds other words lodging like rocks in his throat. Comfort, with words he doesn't own, has never needed to hear or say. That stay there.

Lodged in his throat, behind that boasting twist of his mouth, and that hand, flat and unwavering, on Danny's back.

"Yeah, I think I'm okay with not checking any of those, thanks."

He's pretty good with never wanting to think about any of those references, or what Steve did with them, or what glowing reviews they might be able to paint. It shutters something close in his chest, that wants to be held jealously in a closed hand, hidden, protected. He knows there have been other people, women, men. He's seen a few of them. Can't forget the sick surge of annoyance that climbed into his throat every time Kaila smiled at Steve, the way he'd wanted to shred the napkin with her number on it.

He might not get to keep this, and there will probably be plenty more through the revolving door, but for now, it's his. Steve is. And he doesn't feel like sharing, even with people long gone -- or not so long, considering Catherine's back on the island.

So the comment comes with a twisted grimace, exasperated, but falling short of being actually annoyed or unhappy. "I'll come to my own conclusions."

Which is what he does every day, for his job, and this is no different.

Nobody's pushing anything right now, though, unless he counts sleep that's starting to weigh down his eyelids and muffle the world into something hazy and forgettable, existing somewhere outside the heavy half-circle of Steve's arm. Nothing he needs to deal with, nothing to worry about. Stress leaves behind a kind of dulled drowsiness as it seeps away, and he's feeling a little dopey now that he's not continually hooking himself further and further up the rungs of self-conscious fear.

"You do that." He said, with this snort was still more half a quiet laugh.

Steve would be just fine with that. He's not sure he'd want any of them near Danny either.

He's not even entirely sure about this whole BBQ, which decides to reassert itself along the lines of other people and Danny, and anyone knowing about Danny to comment to him about anything at all. About him, about things Steve'd probably like best left in the far past, too. Never heard about. Never known about. About Cath and Danny in the same space, which happened to be the same space where all the rest of his people would be at that time.

Which didn't change he already put it out there, like a bet he wouldn't lose. Nor that Malia truly could use people.
Thoughts that spring in, swirl around, and slide away. Leaving the ground under his thought slimy and stilted.

But still incapable of not getting caught up on watching Danny make faces. The way he can make out the movement of Danny's cheek, his mouth, his eyebrows even in the little more than half-darkness. The way there's something in that, complicated as it is uncomplicated, that he wants to hold on to it. Wants it to be his only, and not touched by anything, anyone else. Even if it doesn't make sense. Even if it doesn't answer any question or problem.

When he just leaves it there, all of it, with that last senseless, pointless, flippant set of words and the settling quiet of the room around them. The way he's starting to feel slowly, inch by inch, like maybe he can let go. Relax away from attention and focus, away from too much awareness. Except for how, even when he rubs the side of his face in the pillow, eyes shutting a little, his attention and awareness of Danny doesn't dim in the slightest yet.

Everything's winding down, lead in his eyelids, sand gritting up his eyes, every breath getting slower, deeper. There's more to think about, there's more to wonder, there's a whole world of potential panic to trip and fall into, but it all seems pretty far away, right now.

He's pretty sure Steve wouldn't be watching him like he still is, if there were actually something to worry about. If he's disappointed, somehow. If there's something to second-guess.

Who knows? He's not up to analysis right now, when Steve's rubbing his face into the pillow like an oversized cat, face loose and tired, making something stupid and clumsy like affection well into his chest, like blood from a papercut. "Yeah, I will."

He nudges forward, eyes heavy-lidded, butts Steve's forehead gently with his own. "Now will you go to sleep, or did you have more you wanted to discuss? Like maybe you want my opinion on the niceties of due process?"

Bluffing. Blustering. Voice going low and grumbly, sleep-thick and aggravated, while his thumb starts dragging slow, deep circles in the skin of Steve's back. Not quite moving to work out knots, not hard or heavy enough to keep either of them awake.

Just around. Around. Pressing into relaxed muscle. Heartbeat against his palm, settling his head back on the pillow, eyes sliding shut once, blinked blearily open; twice.

Maybe it's okay. Maybe it really is. Maybe he really is. Like Steve said. Like he did. Maybe being new and slow and not really someone who does great with change isn't a death knell, won't ruin everything. He's willing to try, okay? He said so, and meant it. Because he's willing to try so much else, to do whatever it takes. Fight for it. This. Steve. Like he said outside. Sink his teeth into it and refuse to let go. Let it drag him so far out to sea there's no coming back from it.

Just so long as Steve's there, too, he doesn't mind.

"I would be," Steve muttered, with a glare through the mire of darkness. "If someone else would shut up."

But there's no actual steel or fire to his tone. Not when he's curving his back and stretching into Danny's thumb. Listening, with something like surprise and something like resignation, to realization the muscles through his right side, front and back are sore from holding in a different position for so long, even while moving.

It's not surprising, and yet it's not like he noticed either. There were other things to focus on.
Which makes the pressure feel even better. Sore, but good. Like it's pushing in pools of warm water.

Leaving him with his head still where it was, when Danny bumped him, pushing an urge to tilt his face and just kiss him again through Steve. Even though he doesn't do it. Doesn't move. Only watches Danny settle, through half closed, and mostly closed, eyes. Edging, without a single movement, toward the thought it maybe finally, actually, is okay. Because Danny is settling, and breathing in and out long rusty, stomach deep, breaths.

"So shut up."

Muttered self-righteously, like Steve might somehow have forgotten, and been talking about himself instead of Danny. He follows it up with what's got to be a conversation-ender; pushes closer and finds Steve's mouth for a brief, quiet kiss, mouth warm, pressing softly. Not clumsy, not insistent. Just to go to sleep with the feel of Steve's lips, a last breath that's full of him.

Eyes already closing, jaw cracking in a yawn as he pulls back. "Goodnight, Steven. Try not to accidentally kill me in my sleep with whatever weapon you keep stashed under your pillow, okay."

It's already fading off as he settles back into the pillow, thumb still circling gently, a little more erratic, loops going oblong, slower, slower. Along with his breath deepening, going slower, slower.

They're still here. Even if it doesn't make everything okay, it's a hell of a start, and it's enough. Enough to let him slide sideways into sleep, somewhere between one breath, and another.

It's so simple for him. Suddenly; and a good half of all the time. All the times that weren't ten minutes back. Danny just pushes into his space, rearranges his world, flashes warm against his mouth the way a light flares blinds your eyes, without warning, leaving you staggered, and everything goes on while you're still stuck. Already muttering words, yawning and curling into his pillow. Cajoling the world, in this dwindling roar. Like he's all in charge, never had a second he wasn't.

Leaving something in Steve's chest stumbling, bumping along just a step too fast and too dizzy, disoriented, right into the walls, even for all his quiet, stillness. Focused on the way the last breaths take Danny's shoulders exaggeratedly up less and less, as he slips away. Trailing the warmth, still, into Steve's side. Muscles and lower ribs, movements slowly, like they are being pushed through mollasses, before, between one breath and the next that hand on Steve's back succumbs to being boneless and heavy. Laying there only only.

Like Steve, watching him, in clips and flashes until he's gone. Somewhere else. Able to find peace now. Leaving him alone with the night, the waves, the wind, the darkness, those heavy breaths coming into and out of Danny's body. But not alone the way he was supposed to be tonight. Doesn't leave the night any of the ways it was supposed to end. Danny fighting, pleading, giving himself in, over, to something even newer.

Steve doesn't, honestly, think he's tired, or if he is he's so tired it's somewhere out the other side of it. Combined with how watching a spec through vision goggles for a whole shift night of black sky, makes it so easy to just stare at his face in the dark only inches away. Like somehow if he closes his eyes, it'll all change, again, rearrange itself, again, and he barely even know what to do with what keeps being left in his hands at the end. How the outcome keeps break every expectation he walks into this with.

Can't ignore the confused tangle that says it should have gone, be gone, but isn't, and will be, if he just closes his eyes a second.

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