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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"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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