(no subject)

[gonna_owe_me]

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.

Comments

[haole_cop]

He considers it a positive sign when Steve gets irritated enough to snap at him, self-defeating as it might seem. He's always done it; poked and prodded until Steve dropped the robot act and lashed out like a human, angry at being dragged out from under his safe walls, reluctant and pissed off from his bunker, every time it was obvious to everyone but him that he was making something personal, still trying to save his father and never able to get back to that moment, so saving other fathers, instead, rescuing kids, salvaging families.

And coming back here, by himself, to drink beers and look out at the waves and have to stay afloat in a world that killed his father and hid his mother for years.

Danny isn't unsympathetic. He feels for Steve, aches for him, hurts for him in a way he's not sure Steve is fully capable of allowing himself to feel. He doesn't want to make things worse, wants to fix what he can, but when there's nothing to do that can fix, the best he can do is to try and draw out as much poison as he can, be there for whatever might help.

So he's unfazed by Steve's tone or words, because it means he's getting closer, wearing down the walls Steve keeps stubbornly adding bricks to almost as quickly as Danny kicks them back down, and he'd comment on it, but Steve actually keeps going, and Danny has to take a second to tamp down on the sudden kick of worry that's decided to use him for punting practice.

Cath. With whom there is nothing happening. Because Steve stopped things with her. Cath. Who knows about them. Who Danny has happily managed not to think about, too much, since two weeks ago, for this exact reason: the filtering sense of dread that's starting to shade his thoughts, the clutch of nerves in his chest.

"And how is Lieutenant Rollins?"

One finger is tapping against the side of his beer bottle; stopping it just starts a bounce of one knee that gets smothered when he leans his weight onto it, forearms barring thighs. And if he sounds a little more cautious, well -- Cath knows. About them. She's the only one who does, and Danny can put two and two together, alright, that's his job, and he doesn't think it's a coincidence that Steve had dinner with Cath and then came back here to stare moodily out at the ocean like someone on the other side of it owes him money.

[thebesteverseen]

The rate gets the smallest shift of a glance, when Steve does actually question it, standing among the shards Danny already stepped on and woke up, again. Whether he's trying to see that's just Danny being roundabout or if it's actually distancing. Doesn't like the idea he's playing one of their opinions off the other, or that he should believe one over the other.

Still it gets the flash of a look, before there's a rough roll of his shoulders back, out, stretching muscles rolling and popping, resettling himself with a absent sort of frown toward the sea, and Danny's hate of it, and Cath's loss of it. "As well as any sailor docked interminably, while waiting for their ship to be decommissioned."

And if that sounds a little pointed, and entirely applicable to himself, that's fine. That's good, even. It's still true. It's one of those things that will never stop being true as far as he's considered. It hasn't really in three years. It didn't entirely ever leave during missions abroad for years. Which is where SEALs were, just as much as the water. It just settles like a bruise a little further under. Taking special skill to hit just right.

Which Danny has always had a speciality for. "She says it's giving her a chance to see more of the island."

Alright. That one. Wasn't exactly true. She may have implied that about this whole situation more than hers with the Navy.

[haole_cop]

That seems like it could be a really involved metaphor, but Danny's not going to try wrapping his head around it just now, as regards Steve, because he's frankly never been all that excited about Steve's drill weekends or the possibility that he'll get called back into full time service, and that's what Reserves means, isn't it? That they call, and Steve goes?

Why would he want to think about that, right now? Isn't all this complicated enough?

But he can't miss the pointed tone, or the lack of specificity in Steve's other comment. He bets she never got to see much of it before, aside from the view from Steve's bedroom window, but that's actually cruel and unjust and not fair to Catherine, who has always been nice enough to him. He can't pretend to completely understand whatever it was the two of them had, but Steve said it was done, so that's good enough. Right?

Which still doesn't explain the way Steve is still eying the water speculatively, conversation still just skimming the surface of whatever's going through his messed-up head, that he won't tell Danny.

Which only makes Danny want to know more.

"Is that what she says?" He shifts in his chair, shrugs, turns to look at the water with an air of I guess this isn't so bad, if you like that kind of thing, waves one hand towards the long open stretch of rippling waves.

"Is that why you're stuck on watching the waves with that look on your face, or was it something else she said?"

[thebesteverseen]

Danny is shifting around over there, not sounding the slightest bit calmed and relieved for any of the answers. If anything his tone is lignering on, poking at the whole reason Steve is sitting here thinking. When he's pretty sure Danny wouldn't actually enjoy knowing what that point of fact was.

"She said a lot of things," is blase and a little sharp, with a half roll of his eyes. "It wasn't all that important."

Not all of it, you know. Some of it was work related, and some of it was updates on both sides. Since she's here long enough to actually be getting them, and not for it to be six or eight months later. When you just wash the deck, of whatever the statuses and horrors last were, and start with how everything is all over, again. She actually is here. To ask about how Malia or Kono's recovery is.

To prod, carefully, into how he's doing, even though that remains to be the same answer, for the most part, so long as he's standing and breathing. Everything else is just a wash, a flash in the pan. Even Wo Fat and Doris, though he can not let go of them. So. Yeah. There was a lot. And some of it, Danny'd just nod through, not that Steve owns him a play by play.

The whole idea is spiky and somehow also frustratingly slashed with something like guilty ownership. Because it isn't the other thing. When he tilts in his chair, More his shoulders, and is looking up at the trees not far to the sides, considering the removal of a branch before he glances back at Danny,

"I mean, she even thought it was cute to take a page out of your book and refer to you as my boyfriend for the first part of dinner." There have an example, Danny. Of the things that hadn't actually carried much merit, but were still there. Overdone and overreaching, and somewhere still stuck in his skin. Maybe not even knowing how much until it was knocking boots against that other thing in his head.

[haole_cop]

He should never be surprised at Steve's ability to pick the most efficient target and hit it, but it does, occasionally, mean that conversations with him are like getting punched in the kidney, because, well, boyfriend. That word sticks, like he's trying to swallow around a piece of raw turnip suddenly shoved down his throat, and he feels it like a lump behind his breastbone.

Boyfriend. Which is. It's not. This isn't. Right?

It's not like working up to that word with Gabby, finally admitting to it after a few careful months of cautious and low-key dates: coffee, dinner, more coffee, a lunch now and again, a movie once or twice. Riding the line between 'hanging out' and something more, unable to even call it being good friends, because they are, were, but they never built up that desire to just be around each other all the time, never felt the need to let the other one know, first, whenever anything interesting happened. It was easy. 'Boyfriend' fit, after a while, even if nothing else really did, and he's a pretty good boyfriend, when the job allows him to be. Enjoys spending time helping someone unwind, likes sharing coffee in the morning and doing dishes together at night. Is happier just having someone else in the room, even if they aren't paying attention to the game or his conversation.

But that's not. He isn't. It's only been a month, and he doesn't even know where to begin crossing that line, here, or even if one exists, because he's pretty damn sure Steve doesn't do the 'boyfriend' thing and frankly the thought alone is bizarre, to say the least.

They're partners, best friends. There doesn't need to be -- they aren't at -- what's the use of another label, anyway? Who needs this tightening in their chest, the sudden desire to get up and walk around, just to clear their head? Danny sure as hell doesn't, not added to the usual sense of sharpened aggravation and clinging gray tint to all his thoughts that comes from dropping Grace back off.

"So what you're saying is, some of it was important," he says, after a second, hauling himself back to the point at hand and gripping it tight, stubborn perseverance pushing past the lump of granite sitting in the hollow of his throat.

Keep on point. It's the best thing to do.

[thebesteverseen]

It does at least shut him up. For enough seconds Steve knows it hits. For enough seconds he actually considers a glance over and whether he should feel like a dick for chucking it at Danny instead of any other option on hand. But the other options aren't any better. In fact, they're worse. When Steve feels like he's holding a grande in his hand, like maybe he always has been, but until this second he let himself be distracted by everything else.

Not like this was that. Not like it's an option. Cath's term. Something all three of them were aware of.

For among other things, the exact reasons sitting on his other hand. All the walls, reasons that it shouldn't.

The fact he could deal with all the rest of them. Still half didn't mind his whole mentality being a fuck it, fuck 'em all sort of rote towards the papers, with a tense, sort of reluctant distance toward half his team, that got too complicated about complicitness and deception. Things he put aside for getting to dig his fingers into Danny's hair, or giving in to Danny showing up seconds after he was done with everything else.

Reveling in the fact Danny wanted to be here. With him. Not just when he had a second. Was free. But all the time. Maybe he doesn't want to know how much of that would go. Could. Will. Slipped through like the sands in the desert, tearing off skin, reckless and heedless and heartless, while you ignored it and pushed on through for the right reasons. Maybe he wants it to stay a few minutes longer. Even if he can't see anything but the grenade.

Selfish Bastard, point two. Steve reached up and rubbed at his jaw, before giving Danny a look over. Again.

"No, I'm saying it was a dinner. There were a lot of things said." Goes pretty flat. Generic, except for that too fine edge. Like all dinners there was a lot of talking. Except that it wasn't like all dinners. It was someone who knew. It was Cath who knew. Cath who he still wasn't sure he would have told if he had the option. He might have. But he might have not, just the same. Because maybe he hadn't wanted to hear someone else say them, someone else who wasn't also saying fuck those rules and holding on like everything in the world had gone to flame.

"You probably had a more interesting time with Grace." Steve said, flipping it back on him. But without stopping on that reference either. Wrangling even more toward something else. Because it has been a month, because she's probably old enough to know something is happening. "How's she?"

[haole_cop]

"She's good, which is why I am in a relatively decent mood tonight, unlike you."

It doesn't take much to neatly turn that question on its head, because as distraction tactics go, it's pretty damn blatant, and unworthy of Steve. It's like tossing a tennis ball in front of a dog, or holding out a treat; assuming that the topic of Grace will get them on less rocky shores, but that's not how this works. "Come on, what's going on? You look like you want to go out and bust some heads; you're telling me that's a normal reaction to dinner with a friend?"

A friend who knows. The only friend who knows. Who was previously pushed aside specifically because of this, because of him, and Danny feels a little sliver of ice slide into his heart.

He resists it. Tries to, anyway. Cath had been amiable that night, and he's got no reason to think she and Steve even discussed it. Right? Maybe they talked military nostalgia all night. Or considered the various types of supercomputers available.

All of which is easier to consider than the fact that she had Steve for years, and he can't imagine why anyone wouldn't want to put up a fight against the guy who's snuck in for a month.

He's watching Steve now, with no pretense of even glancing at the water, leaning over his knees to peer across his shoulder, at flat look, tight jaw, mechanical drinking of the beer in his hand, when he remembers it's there, and that's not right, none of this is right. He's happy to talk about Grace, but not when she's being used as a diversion.

"What gives? Hey." He shifts a little, leaning slightly towards Steve. "Talk to me."

[thebesteverseen]

So much for a few minutes, given that Danny gives that answer in two words. Off hand. Like it's an obvious detail. And it is. That Grace is good. That he's happier and lighter because he got to have a weekend seeing her smiling face. That it was finally her in front of him, and not the idea of her he was arguing with someone into a phone, or setting up out lying court dates for the battle over.

It would be easier to go out and beat someone. Not that it is a worthy thought. But it's there. It would be so easy to take someone apart, methodically, until all that was left was pieces. Bits of bones. Smears of paint. The empty, echoing silence after. Something that is just as coldly clinical as it is appealing as it is appalling.

When it says something that he'd rather be there than here. This second.

But he doesn't give himself the liberty of that thought. When has he ever. He licked his lips and he turns his head, meeting Danny's flat stare. That obviously annoyed, pointed look, that says Danny thinks he has his number, even when he knows nothing. Or only just enough to be dangerous, but not enough to know what the hell he's pushing for, stepped off the cliff edge toward. What the hell he keeps asking for.

And he is. Asking for it. Already set aside the chance for extra seconds. A few more minutes. He already made that decision. Him and his face. And his hair that somehow catches the light, no matter the time of day. And his eyes, blue blue, best seen far closer up. That Steve does not look away from, nor specifically want to watch his face change from even this level of peevish annoyance, that's still soft at the edges.

Like it could easily dilute away if Steve gave him something else. Anything else.

Anything else, except, a flat, even, "We shouldn't be doing this."

[haole_cop]

Maybe he should have been expecting that.

Maybe he would have. Was. Definitely was, except then Steve said things like I want you, and did things like stayed all night when Danny could barely move.

Wanting Danny. Only him. He said so. Just inside, after Cath left, because Danny was, he'd felt, reasonably concerned that Steve might have changed his mind.

The way he has apparently changed his mind.

He gives it a moment, watching Steve. Focusing on the faint remembrance of a cold beer bottle in his hands, that he knows is still there, even though it's barely a dull echo of sensation, battering moth wings against the thick glass that's cutting through all his thoughts and leaving them severed. Twitching. "No?"

It's measured, because it has to be, because Steve said, he said, and Danny hadn't wanted to believe him, but he did, because Steve kept saying it. And even Danny told him. They know the rules. They know exactly how they're shattering them. It's not like they're pretending the rules don't exist. They're flying in the face of them, painting across them, flicking on a lighter and letting them burn.

Are. Were?

"Is that what Catherine thinks?"

He measures it because the alternative is to get up and yell, to argue, to fight, and he can feel it already starting to squirm, the need to get up, to pace and walk, to let his hands move and words fly out, but he might say anything, do anything once that happens, and he can give it a minute's worth of rational thought. Right? He can.

[thebesteverseen]

He hates the way it catches Danny. The way there is a pause. An honest, to fucking God, pause. From Danny. From Danny who always has the words to answer. Always has the words to coat someone in. Always has enough words to douse anyone within spitting distance in the length of a dictionary and breadth of a squall whether he's happy or angry. And he pauses. He pauses, staring at Steve. Silent.

In a way that makes every alarm in Steve itch to go off. Deafeningly. Going, rolling over, under his skin, like bits of glass and splinters of metal, because he's refusing to pay attention to the fact that isn't right. Because he's the one doing it. Because it means it hit. Because as far as tactical moves go, he'll always shoot center, whether it's with a gun or his mouth. And when he speaks first, it's still only a single word. A single word, with two letters. A farce of sound.

And Steve wants to take them back as much as he wants to build cement walls with them. Needs to hold firmly to the fact it's true. More true than anything else starting slimy and slick building in the bottom of his stomach. Needs to stare with a kind of blank, sympathy. Because he doesn't want to hurt Danny. He is. But shooting someone in the kneecaps, is still leaving them their heart. Their brain.

There's so much more Danny could lose than one month. It's not like they won't still have work.

It's not like it was much. A good dream. A dream too real to be true, with a price too high to keep forgetting.

"It doesn't matter what she thinks," Steve said, sitting back in his chair. Fortifying against the wood. Shoulders a flat board and spine straight as a line. Unblinking, like its facing down a gun. Because Danny deserves more. He deserves everything. And Steve can't take that from him. He held all of this for over a year, but can't even hold this idea. Not even for two hours. "You know it's true."

[haole_cop]

"No."

The leash is already starting to snap, because he can't hold that one in long enough to give it a once-over and make sure it doesn't snap too clearly, or leave his chest with the force of a fired bullet. He can't quite keep one hand from lifting, either, to make his point, though he can, still, keep the rest of himself down. In the chair. Like he's tied there. Which Steve said not to do, but fuck that, because he knew it and Steve told him no, told him yes, told him I want you and stay, wrote him an invitation.

If he didn't know it would get him made fun of, he could probably pull the damn thing out as evidence. Come to bed, idiot Danno idiot.

Written. Because Steve was impatient and Danny was hedging. But Steve knew. Steve didn't change his mind, turn around and show Danny the door, and now this?

No. No. Everyone has the right to a change of heart or mind, but no. He needs to stop the freeze creeping up his ribs, shattering icy fingers towards his heart. "No, no. I don't, actually, know that. I remember saying something similar weeks ago, and I remember that conversation going a very different way, and I very much do not remember you thinking this on Friday, so color me curious, Steve, about your sudden about-face, here."

Because he doesn't appreciate being dropped off a cliff, when he'd previously been assured he was in a nice, level, safe field. Doesn't like Steve shoving him there, or the freefall his stomach is taking, and, really, this isn't even the pertinent question.

But Danny can't ask. Doesn't want to know, hear it. Whether it's not shouldn't, but can't.

"So unless you're going to follow that up with 'we shouldn't be doing this, but I don't give a damn,' then I, for one, would really appreciate some clarification."

[thebesteverseen]

And then there it comes. Words that slipping out. Scatter shot, echo, like the hard cracking of thick ice. The constant chatter of a machine gun, when those three words come so fast finally. And Danny thaws in the snap of the sound. Suddenly forcing words out, and his face finally moving. Hands, hand, moving.

"We've already been over all the reasons, Danny. It's not like they've changed."

They had. They already said all the reasons. Every single one in the dark.

They already whispered each one into the void, into the night, tattooed them on each other's skin, with lips and teeth that are sharper than any burning hot blade, to leave scars that will be worse than any weapon, because they'll hover like untraceable whispers, keeping time and company with all the ghosts. Close enough to taunt and haunt, but never close enough to reach out and touch.

"And you know you don't actually not give a damn about any of it," is pointed, and sharp. It has to be. It's too true. It's the reason the words, get dropped on skin, in the middle of a forest fire of fingers. Because it matters. It all fucking matters, and they just kept letting this matter even more than that. For stolen moments. For kisses that branded skin and seared out thought. Because every single thing mattered. Every single rule had a reason they lived.

There would never be a day their jobs didn't matter. They would never be a time it wouldn't destroy everything.

Because Catherine was right about one thing. Even if she never latched on to it, if she only dropped the crumb for Steve to find.

Piece by piece in this god forsaken house, with an empty chair next to him. Danny couldn't be that term. He could never offer him that. He can't actually offer him anything. The couch, this chair, to fuck him, to make him laugh and leave him gasping, for a few minutes, that always end, always have to be put away and forgotten, like they are somehow wrong, something to be ashamed of, that Danny is, ever might be.

The iron clad promise that if it got out, Danny could, and most likely would lose his job, his case, his little girl.

And none of that is okay. It doesn't know how he let himself be, but -- "It's not worth it."

Steve said it, having to push up out of his chair, taking the beer with him. Because that was true as everything else. This isn't worth Danny losing everything. This isn't worth Danny losing the job he said right here he needed to have, needed to be good at and told he was good at. This isn't worth knowing, learning, what it look like if, when, it comes out and damages every shred of credibility between Danny's character and Grace.

Being the single, absolute canon ball to any slight chance. It's not worth it. Steve's not.

[haole_cop]

"Oh, I don't, huh?"

Snapped out, pissed off and more than a little afraid, because Steve is looking -- Steve is looking grim, determined, and Danny has a sudden vision of a letter landing back on his desk, of Steve saying I had to do that as justification for some damn crusade that's only going to get him killed, because Steve has never cared about that. His own death. Just getting the mission done. Bringing the villain to justice. Doing the right thing. Doing his duty, like a good little tin soldier, even knowing he might get tossed into the fire at any second. "Thanks for clarifying that for me, I had no idea. I'm pretty sure that's not what I said before."

When he said those rules could screw themselves. When the reasons couldn't, didn't stop them, even for existing, swatted aside like so many aggravating mosquitos.

The reasons haven't changed, but something else has, because Steve didn't give a damn before, either. Not enough to stop. Not enough to do this, this...it isn't even pushing. It's like watching Steve methodically cut away his own lifeline, hanging from a sheer cliff face, and Danny wants to know, needs to know, because he can't let this happen. Not so soon. Can't let it slip away, sand between his fingers, not before it has to be. Not the way Steve smiles, or the warm puff of his breath against Danny's over-heated skin, or the tracks his fingers have traced over muscle and bone and limbs. Something's wrong. Something's off. It's not the reasons; it's Steve, and Danny wants to keep going, but Steve gets up and that's like loading a spring, pushing Danny out of his own seat.

Beer down on the tiny table, every muscle suddenly singing with readiness and temper, hands up, like a blocker, like Steve might be trying to make a break for it, and Danny can't let him, has the sudden frantic feeling that if he lets Steve walk away, this might actually be it. An end. One he'd had no idea he was walking into, and he's just so suddenly sick of that, of continually walking into a slamming door.

It winds him up, sends him across the grass to park himself in front of Steve, who isn't moving, but it's pre-emptive, okay, and so is the way one hand finds Steve's arm, the other his hip. "It's not worth it?"

Actual shock and hurt in his voice, in his eyes, wide and creasing his forehead with surprised lines. "Jesus Christ, your head is a piece of work."

Not worth it? Steve? In what fucked up world is Steve not worth the price that comes with him, huh? Where's it written, where's it been rung up? Does Steve think Danny somehow fell into this without a clue about what it might mean if things went south? Steve. This. Not worth it. It's an equation that strikes itself out, is so wrong Danny's not even sure how to argue against it, because it should be, is, obvious. "Do I get a say in any of this, or are you just gonna decide for me? Because, I have to tell you, I'm really getting pretty fucking tired of people telling me what to do or where to go, or what I think. Not worth it? Are you insane?"

His fingers tighten, and he gives Steve's arm a little shake, tiny compared to the one he wants to give, to rattle Steve's brain back into place. Voice gone intent and still sharp, eyes fixed on Steve's face, bewildered but determined.

"It's worth it."

[thebesteverseen]

The fingers on his arm are worse than an actual burn, and he can almost hear the way his jaw snaps tight suddenly and his muscles go rigid, shivering. Half from reaction, and half from the control it takes not to send Danny shoved in other the direction instantly. When the man is in his face and trying to get in his way, and doesn't understand he's already there. Wherever the hell there is. Danny is already there. Under his feet. In his skin. Burning him alive.

Making him want to be more and better than he's ever thought he was capable of before.

"No." He spits it out, cold and a little too sharp. Surprised, defiant sharp. "It's not."

Not every single kiss. Not knowing the way his face crinkled so aggravatedly in the early dawn hours crawling into bed. Not knowing. Not trusting Danny to catch him if he lets go. Not trying to find his foot in whatever the hell this had become, that he could breathe and sleep easier because of, even when the whole house was a hell ripping apart as its seams.

"You wanna know where this goes, Danny?" There's a jerk of his arm, trying to shake Danny's hand. That makes him feel sick. Because it's shoving into his arm, up his skin, his muscles, and filling him with a kind of sharp, screaming dread. One that wants to pull away like he's on fire, and the other that is - that he can't. He can't listen to the rest. He can't. Needs to keep rolling.

"No where. Absolutely no where. It'll be never become anything else you need it to be." Danny. Danny with his cups of coffee and a real life, and can't be not serious. Well, he can't fucking give him serious either, can he? Because this can never be serious, and it can never be Real.

"And when someone finds out, because they will," It's vicious, and it even comes with a step into Danny's space, leaning in while standing too straight, too tall, like this was anything and anything worth reaming in uniform. "Because secrets always get out, then what? It'll stil be worth it? When Five-0 is under investigation, and possibly shut down? When you're out of job, and maybe Kono and Chin, with you?"

"And your case-" And Steve's tongue stumbles on that, like it's a damn brick in his throat because it is. Because he could be the one piece of debris to start an avalanche for all of them. And he's the only one with a safety net that will save him while they smolder in rubble. "Grace." God. He doesn't even want these words. "Is it still going to be worth it when every single thing you've said or proved on record is thrown out as inadmissible?"

It not a question. It's not a damn ultimatum. He just wants to, needs to walk away. Because Grace is everything. More than the job. More than the parts and sum of everything else. He knows that. He's known that since the first day he met Danny. Since the first, awkward confusing, eye-roll worthy, but utterly clear and sincere Danno loves you. She's the the pure and untainted center of Danny's universe. The one thing no one should jeopardize and everyone does.

And Steve, God help him the selfishness, does not want to ever be lumped in with Rachel and Stan that way. Or ever.

[haole_cop]

There's nothing to do but stare at him, as Steve hits slapshot after slapshot right into Danny's chest, words hitting like pucks, balmy island air suddenly knife-sharp and as cold as any winter morning Danny's ever lived through. Feeling like the ground has actually cracked open and swallowed him up, because Steve is seething, attacking, punching words like Danny's nothing more than a heavy bag, swinging ponderously, just waiting for the next blow.

He doesn't even notice the way his hand tightens on Steve's arm, fingers digging into shirt and skin, knuckles whitening, stubbornly refusing to let go.

Because Steve is saying these things. And keeps saying them. And believes them. And Danny's chest, stomach, gut, is an aching empty void. Lungs vanished. Stomach muscles tightening like he anticipates a hit.













"My job? My case? My daughter?"

Those are the reasons. They're good reasons, he'll give Steve that. Excellent reasons. Reasons he knows, and has known, and that haven't stopped him anyway, and he can't stop now, feels his voice rising like the shriek of a teakettle whistle. "Oh, no. No. You don't get to make this about me. If you changed your mind, you don't want me anymore, say it. But don't you dare stand behind Grace."

Nowhere. Nowhere. Nowhere. It beats in his blood like a fever, twists in the empty space, knotting and unknotting. This goes nowhere. Nowhere is waking up in Steve's bed with Steve still there, occasionally. Or waking up in Steve's bed with a pillow that smells like Steve. Nowhere is Steve whispering I want you and slowly driving him crazy. This is nowhere? All of this? The jokes Steve made, the way he talked Danny off that ledge, just two weeks ago. Saying it's just them.

Saying. Saying so much. Words kept squirreled away like contraband. Grinding disappointment into the surprise, the sudden breathless pain. Saying they were.

"Don't tell me what I need. I thought we were in this together, not that you get to shove me out the door just because you think you know what I need. So, just --"

Pushing closer, into Steve's space, bristling and stubborn, because he refuses, okay, he refuses to back down, to be pushed over, to roll onto his back and just let this happen. He refuses to lose this. Steve. Not over this. Not because of him.

But.

His voice drops, low and reluctant, words pushed by willpower, not because he wants to know the answer. "Tell me. If you changed your mind. You don't want this anymore. You don't want me. And I swear I'll leave you alone."

Even when just saying it feels like dropping a pile of bricks into his chest. He would. He'd have to. If that was why, and this cloud of excuses is just a smokescreen.

[thebesteverseen]

He doesn't even flinch when the worst of the worst parts come out -- words he prized so carefully, confused for some land he didn't know, trying to help, desperate and necessary and true. Still true. Hitting into his ears, into his chest the force of small grenades, showering shrapnel. But inundation to explosions, means at a point you don't even jump at the noise. You learn to process it as much as turn it out.

He's had ages to learn how to do that with his heart and head. Both in the field, turning it off. Turning it all off.

And especially this last month. With Doris. But watching Danny, the anger and pain that turn his eyes just shy of cold, blue lightning. That way each one of this words is edged in pain suddenly. In that breathless sort of pain Steve only had to heard one or two timess after Rachel. Back when he didn't even know there were phone calls and voicemails that were even worse.

When he can make out the tinned edge of a kind of fear that hardly ever touches Danny's voice, while his fingers are digging into Steve's skin. Tearing gouges into his stomach and churning his guts in a mush of meal not even the the most feral of dogs would eat, and saying those words. Saying them once. And then, again. Missing the whole god forsaken point.

Tell me. If you changed your mind. You don't want this anymore. You don't want me.

When Steve's throat is still smarting from in this together because it burns. Because none of those. Because every time he so much as tries to swallow, tries to shift the muscles to open his mouth, to even pull air in, everything locks. Because there is no world without Danny. He already knows that. He's already been there. He lived through the last year. He lived through the six weeks away, gasping for a moment's breath with each message.

He might never be able to scour Danny Williams out of his skin. His sheets. This beach. His bathroom. His mind. Especially now. Now, when it wasn't a dream. It was real, and Danny said all those things, and meant them, if maybe not as wisely as he could have been. He'll never. But. He keeps trying. His lips firm and his eyes feel suddenly parched desert dry to a dull sting. It's only a small set of words. A small lie.

If he could just say them he could set a statue, a brick in a wall, that could be built on. That could never be undone.But he can't. It's stuck in his throat. Like the two sides are Velcro, the lie jammed thick. That there will ever be someone else at the moment. That he could even believe himself that someone at sometime might come along and make him forget what a year hasn't.

This face, and these eyes, that mouth that has been everywhere on him, whispered, teased, promised and shouted things he can never unhear. The utter devotion of this man, the stunning work he does every day, how no one he's ever met is a singularly good, the way he smiles, lighting up like the sun rises in him. How he wears his heart and fears on his sleeve, loudly, with no shame. The way every single finger on his skin singularly undoes him, and makes him want more. The way that hand is even now.

Thoughts that turn Steve's heart to bleeding, throbbing, rusting lead with each new thought. Forcing him to shove it down. Hack it back, with a better, sharper focus, like a machette taking out weeds. Because there are more important things than whatever he feels, or can or can't live with. He's lived with worse. He made a year, without Danny ever knowing. He could make another and another, a few, especially for all these reasons that are bigger than him, bigger than them.

He could make Danny understand, when the man is shoving into his space, even closer, making the world fall away, and the whole point feel so much clearer, sharper, insaner, that he was able to do his job just find for the last year. Choking him roughly at, "That's not the point. It doesn't mat-"

[haole_cop]

"Shut up."

Only it comes out faster, rolled together, shuddup, thick Jersey aggravation wrapping around two words merging into one. His hand leaves the general area of Steve's hip, points at Steve's chest instead, and, you know, part of him really does just want to slug the guy again and be done with it. "It's not the point? Did you smack your head, getting out of the truck earlier? Guess what. You do not get to throw yourself on this grenade."

He can't even be relieved. He's too strung out on sudden adrenaline, cool and sick in his stomach, vibrating with fury, which is fine, because at least fury isn't desperation, he can cling to anger and not think about the fact that he'd probably beg, if he had to.

Except he doesn't. Because Steve didn't say so.

He had the opening. Danny told him, twice, to say it. Just say it. Hit him in the gut and let him bleed out. Get it done with.

And Steve just stood there with that face, like he was trying to swallow a stone, and it's just pissing him off even more, the kind of anger that springs from fear and helplessness, knowing something's wrong and being powerless to fix it, because Steve actually thinks this. Steve legitimately thinks that the things he wants, feels, don't matter. Those were the words Danny cut off. It doesn't matter.

"Like hell it doesn't matter, it matters, okay, you matter. You think I want to lose any of those things? Well, I don't. But I'm not going to stand here and let you be the thing I lose, either, just because you've decided it's easier that way. "

It's not. It couldn't be. It wouldn't be. He's already so far beyond compromised that this is like slapping a band-aid on a dam that's already blown and leaked away the whole damn lake.

[thebesteverseen]

If anything Danny turns vicious on a dime. All those muscles tightening like a spring, to counter balance what Steve was mostly sure, is half calculating not staying, a finger pointing in his chest. Only narrowly not his face. And somehow, it's not a fist. Which is what all Danny's body language is saying it should be. A flat out vicious attack, with that finger that doesn't even touch him, that should have been a fist to his jaw.

It might have honestly gone better for both of them if it was a a flat out punch. Instead he just points while Danny's voice geting thicker and angrier. Spouting words like wind finally -- finally? -- and so close Steve swears he can smell him. Mixed with the flowers, and the salt from the sea. Making his throat tighten and lips press on a flavor not even in his mouth.

And he wants to pull back. Violent, quickly. Away. Away from the hand pointing at him.

Aways from the fingers white knuckled into his bicep still.

Not because he couldn't take Danny. He's still relatively sure he could, technically, though Danny would give good and he'd walk away limping, if he was walking. No, it's every other impulse. Every other one, waking up, screaming bloody murder in the background, even when it's only a whisper. Only the uncertain, disability to shift his feet on a too wet surface. Like his balance might fail him if he can't shut it all down.

"It's not easier," Steve all but spat the word back. Nothing, nothing about leaving Danny alone with be easy. Easy was not the point. Not the point, when he's backhand Danny's hand out of the space in front of his chest with a wave of his own hand. "It's the right thing to do. You want to actually have a chance, don't you?"

It's an accusation that is as sharp as it isn't. He does. He's done everything he hates doing. He contracted a lawyer. Steve's caught him looking at houses on the government's dime, once or twice. Which he doesn't care about for that reason. They can do whatever between their work. But he does for this.

Danny's putting all his fucking ducks in a row so some board of people who don't even know him, will give him maybe twelve, cumulative, hours, across hallf a dozen unconnected months, of their time and decide something Steve knows. Implicitly. That Danny deserves everything. That he is the best cop and the best father Steve has ever seen. He should get to have more time with Grace. He should have the job, the life, whatever the hell he actually wants. He deserves it.

He shouldn't ever have to look the way he did a year ago. He can't be the next one to do that this time.

[haole_cop]

He's breathing hard through his nose, lips dry when he presses them together, a muscle screaming in his jaw, so tight he can barely loosen it enough to get words out, tongue flicking to wet lips that feel thin and drawn into a line.

"I get," he says. Low and steady. The kind of warning tone he uses when he's just about had enough, when the only thing keeping him hanging on by a single thread is his own rapidly fraying willpower. "That you actually think that's true. That you think it's the right thing to do. I appreciate--"

The word sticks like knives in his throat, but he grimaces around it, gets it out, because Steve is doing this in some fucked up attempt to be helpful, and Danny can appreciate the sentiment, even if he wants to punch Steve in the head for going about it like he has, "-- that you want to...help. But this is not the way to do it."

Look. His chances are slim, sure. But they're slim for a million other reasons, not because of Steve, and, honestly, having someone he's involved with? It might even make things a little easier. They'd frown on it being his boss, but Danny's not a hundred percent sure that's worse than being a single workaholic dad with a crappy apartment.

Steve bats his hand away like it's an annoying fly, but all that does is make Danny grab his wrist, wanting to shake him, make him listen. "But if it's my case you're worried about, then I get to make that decision. Okay? My case. My call. And my call is that I'm not going anywhere, so you can just forget about it."

Blunt, bluff, annoyed to every cell. He;d had a pretty good weekend, all told, and he'd been looking forward to getting over here and seeing Steve, shooting the breeze, having a beer or two, giving up on the increasingly impossible practice of trying not to touch him.

This? This was nowhere near the plans, and it's freaking aggravating. Steve standing there like a martyr, trying to take a bullet that hasn't even been fired yet.

[thebesteverseen]

The hand catches around his wrist and it's rote. To catch the urge that say free yourself, fast as possible. To feel the automatic second response that says this is Danny, listen, listen. Even when it shoves hard against the fact he needs to not be. He needs to take a step back, he needs to not be so close he can see where the wind is pulling on individual strands of his hair, and the striations in his eyes.

Close enough he can't make out every hovering shift to Danny's tone in the words he is gritting out.

Angry and hurt, like he has any comprehension. Any at all. When he has none. When he doesn't get that Steve would do it, will, just to keep it here. Just that it never gets past this. This is the worst way Danny could or would ever look at him. This is the worst he could ever be at fault for doing to him. Giving him this for a month and ripping it out of his hands.

That hand. That one still on his wrist. The one that's wavering in the air and he wants to look away from it but he isn't. Jaw tightening, loosening, tightening. Lips following suit in a flux, against too tense, too hard muscles through his cheeks, his throat, down into his shoulders.

"I can't--" God, those two words just fall out. They feel like every line and curl and sound of them was cut directly out of his chest, and he can't even get to his chest, to his lungs, to let himself say the other words. He can't. Because Danny hates Rachel at times. He loves her. He's always going to love her. Beyond any epic wrong she continues to do to him, he gets that. But he hates her, too.

Even if only in brief seconds when he's beating his phone on the steering wheel of the camaro. When he's avoiding her calls. When he's giving her ring tones that display every ounce of vehemence. It's there, too. Like crevices that stay even when the ice thaws from where it crept. And Danny might say he hates Steve. Regularly. Loudly. Angrily. At his face. But he never really means it.

He's never meant it. Even when he's scared. Even on the voicemails, where threats wove into pleas.

And the idea Danny could. Mean it. He could take everything with this, and that could take Danny from him. Further than this ever conversation, or decision, ever could. He doesn't think there is even an example for how desperately far past torture the concept is, sliding slick and sharp in his head, through his veins, icing up his stomach.

[haole_cop]

"Steve."

It's still low, and still intent, but it's grinding less in his chest, painting his vision with something other than glassy red, because Steve looks like he's tearing himself apart.

Not that he's moving. He isn't. He's standing stock still and regimental, leaning slightly towards Danny and the hand circling his wrist, eyes on Danny's face, jaw clenched so tight Danny can watch the muscle jumping in it like a fish flipping underwater.

It's enough to make him back off, if not back down, because Steve's motionless, but that doesn't mean there's nothing going on, under the tense thrum of muscle, like Steve's not quite sure if he's going to try and break Danny's grip or not. Blue eyes stuck on Danny's face, and there's something in them that reminds Danny of someone clinging to a window ledge, knowing they're going to have to let go any second -- the desolation and resignation. Some twisted idea of duty that has Steve so tangled up in himself that he can't even move.

Making Danny's fingers tighten, but not to hold, this time. Not because Steve is still not listening, but because Steve looks like he needs that, someone to pull him back up. "You can't what?"

When it's still gruff, but almost gentle, because he needs to know, okay. He needs to know what it is, so he can fix it, and Steve can drop this whole we shouldn't do this idea.

[thebesteverseen]

"Forget." That's not the word he was going to say earlier. He's not even sure what those ones were anymore.

He's not sure when Danny's voice is becoming marginally softer, and his shoulders aren't as tense. When his name is like a whisper sharper than steel and harder than hail. Not when he feels like he's standing at the top of cliffs or mountains and the wind is screaming past his ears. That perfectly balmy, evening wind, that is barely swaying the palm trees and tugging at the grass. Is screaming through him, when he looks back toward Danny's face.

"I can't forget." But doesn't make it. Again. He's looking at Danny's fingers circled on his wrist. Tightening.

Burning into him. Burning through him, like he's not indestructible. A wall, a bullet, a battering ram.

When he needs to be. He needs it. So he can make it through the next second, because it's so stupidly weak, and so entirely true, it could break everything. In ways that could never be mended. Danny could get over him, but not that. That would gut him hollow, and he'd be too far to even reach to help, and he's become so much more than the angry haole cop from Jersey that Steve allocated for his own use.

So much more. Maybe too much. Maybe it's been too much more for so long he can't remember how it was before.

When there's this swimming sickness, sharp stillness, clawing at his insides and falling out of his mouth, and he can't apologize. Because it is more important. It's everything that is Danny at his core. "I can't be the next person to take Grace from you." Grace, or his chances at her, or Danny from Hawaii when he'd follow wherever she went, like a person swimming up, frantic for air. From him. From Five-0. Everything.

[haole_cop]

What, exactly, is he supposed to do with Steve?

How's he supposed to do anything but just look at him, feeling like all the boards of his ribcage have been ripped out and replaced with sliding, melting walls of honeycomb, because Steve is a stupid selfless bastard and Danny is absolutely helpless in the face of his self-sacrificial idiocy.

Because Steve thinks this is necessary. Steve thinks he needs to give this up to give Danny a fighting chance, and that's -- it's not something Danny knows how to compute. Being more important. Being important, at all. Important enough that Steve's willing to do this just so Danny's chances will get minorly less slim. So, really, just what the hell is he supposed to do, when Steve's saying anything but that he doesn't care, because caring about Danny's chances with the court is about as far from changing his mind as it's possible to get while still staying in the same zip code?

He wants to cup Steve's face in his hands, draw him down. Nudge his forehead up against Steve's granite wall of a head, and make sure he hears, understands. Is close enough for Steve to feel words as breath against his lips, because maybe then he'll get it.

"Hey. Listen to me."

It's accompanied by a tug of Steve's wrist, and Danny peering up at him, flummoxed and feeling more than a little like he's trying to keep his feet after having the rug pulled out from under his feet. "There is no world in which you could take Grace away from me. Okay? Are you getting this? The only person who could do that is Rachel. Not you. Not even the judge. Rachel. Hey. Listen to me."

His free hand goes to Steve's other arm, but it's not a breaking grip, isn't tight; just firm fingers curling over his bicep before he lifts it, moves it to the side of Steve's neck.

"You are a major reason why I still have Grace at all. Okay? If Rachel and her evil, soul-sucking lawyers want to use you against me, if they've got a problem with this, if they find out, then we will deal with it. But I'm not letting you make the sacrifice play because my ex-wife decided to duke it out, okay, it's not an option, so try again."

[thebesteverseen]

He doesn't know exactly what this face is Danny's making. When he's staring up with some combination of shock, something like being punched, confusion and something else. Something so much else, Steve doesn't even know what to make of it, of what to assume Danny is or isn't getting. Danny just keeps staring at him. Everything in Danny's face softening in a way that shouldn't be happening at all.

And Steve. Steve just wants to grab his shoulder, suddenly, and shake him, make him understand. As much as he hates it. Admitting it. Thinking about it. That he would rather be tied up and suspended, helpless, stabbed and beaten, than the other option. The one they are talking about. Because he could survive one of those. Has more times than Danny is allowed to have any frame of reference on.

Just when he thinks Danny will understand and let go, and every last piece of ground will go with it, into the sea, the way it should. Has to. That is when Danny tugs his wrist and gets closer, looking up into his face, with that expression Steve still can't translate. And then starts talking. Keeps talking. Words, and words, and more words. Before he's reaching out more.

Steve's past the point of thinking Danny is even hearing anything when there are suddenly fingers finding his throat. Making him swallow, crashing through the impulse to protect like a tsunami. Curling warm and solid, making his chest ache like it's being squeezed between crushing walls. Or, maybe, making him realize that feeling has been there all along. Has it? When he needs to say no, but all he can hear is the rush of his pulse so close to those fingers, the way his body twitches toward that touch.

And that hand itself. Warm and solid and painful, in the way where he need it go and wants it stay, to never let go.

Because he doesn't have an again. Grace is everything. The core of Danny. It's like saying try to breathe without the air this time.

[haole_cop]

Steve doesn't answer, but he doesn't pull away, either. He just stands there, listing slightly into the hand at his neck, the one wrapping around his wrist, watching Danny like a kid staring at a movie screen hoping for a happy ending to the movie, and it slides a quiet knife into the pat of melting butter that his heart has become.

But if Steve doesn't argue, he doesn't seem to get it, either, that Danny's not going to go anywhere unless he's pushed, and even then, he'd push right the hell back, because this is too good, it's the only good thing he's got right now, aside from the job and Grace, and the job is exhausting and damaging, and Grace is already gone for another eleven days. It's not like Steve is wrong. He knows that. They've been over it before, know that this is crazy, that there are rules, that they should be following those rules, but they're not. Steve said he just wants him. He hasn't said anything about wanting the rules.

The hand at Steve's neck tightens, and Danny tugs, gently, but consistently, because Steve is tall and too far away, looming even when it's only inches to spare, and Steve has a thick head, but he's trying to do the right thing, and Danny can get that, even if Steve has it all wrong.

He can't lose Steve, too.

"Come here."

Pulling at him. Lifting his own face to bump his forehead gently against Steve's, eyes closing, trying to sort it all out. All of this. The things exploding in sudden painful spangles in his chest, swelling and fading into a compressing ache.

"Just -- don't, okay? You don't need to do that. Don't leave, alright." He's breathing deep, the world curling in around him, Steve, right now, this precipice he's tottering on. "Please."