(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

[thebesteverseen]

God.




He does not know what to do with this man.




This man. Danny Williams. Rambling off words that make Steve's chest ache in a vice, even when that touching is still unwinding him like a top. These words that keep rolling out of his mouth and landing like daggers slitting between Steve's throat and his chest. A line going straight down cutting him open. When it feels like saying one of these words himself would tear that forming slit wide open.

That he'd be scattered to the corners of the world, the wind, from all coherent solidness, and Danny just keeps going. Rubbing at his face. Rubbing at Steve's legs. Catching his eye, until Steve just can't look away. Just can't even determine whether this is a bravery he somehow has failed matching or an aggrandizement beyond anything Danny or he could ever meet, fill out, last through, for. But he can't, still. He can't look away.

Like every word, betraying and refusing the world for him, for this, is tucking tiny hooks into his eyes, into his chest where this infinitesimally small bubble is forming. Slow, tiny, warm. So fragile he wants to pretend he can't even feel it taking shape. Like the breath of a thought toward recognition or acknowledgement could shatter it, would shatter it, is asking the world to just do it, unrecognizably and unrecoverably. Here. Now. Today.

His throat doesn't even want to work when he swallows, because Danny is done. Danny is done with those words about how he's the best thing he's got. Steve. Steve. Not Grace, or Five-0. And it hangs there in the air, like a language he should understand and an idea that makes absolutely no sense. The one good thing, making Steve remember calling this the only good thing since he came home.

Making him try again. Making him shove out a breathe feels like it weighs tons, and caves his chest just to get out. When he does the thing that seems about as hard, but doesn't have words yet. Reaching out and placing his hand over Danny's. Palm resting over the back of his hands. Too large, too long fingers spanning across his and a good part of his forearm. Forcing himself to swallow and say, "Okay."

[haole_cop]

"Okay," Danny repeats, "okay, well, good. Glad we're on the same page."

He can glance at it, now. Allow himself, that, once Steve's hand covers his and he takes a deep breath to steady himself, before letting himself look at the sheer mindless relief welling up like blood from a pinprick.

Not that he can stop, once he's started. Cracking that door gives an inch that's rapidly eaten away and kicked into a fullblown flood, rushing through his veins and chasing away the cool calm that he'd forced himself into after the yelling wore itself out, after Steve tried to burn straight through him with a kiss. But here it is, erasing it all, making his hands firm on Steve's legs so they don't shake with it, making him want to duck his head to press his forehead against the back of Steve's hand, breathe in the scent of cotton and skin and sun, with the air starting to cool against his back and the last glimmers of sunset now nothing but a faint memory. The sky is perfect clear teal, fading darker, and Steve's features are a little harder to see.

He's got no idea if Steve meant to stay out here, if he still does, but Danny's knee is starting to complain, and when he pushes up, it gives a bad-tempered crack that makes him grimace.

He doesn't straighten far, though, just far enough to lift the hand not covered by Steve's, curl it at the base of Steve's skull, and lean in to find his mouth, again, eyes sliding shut, kiss firm and gentle and more longing than he'd meant it to be, because it was supposed to be brief, like punctuation, so this conversation could be over, but instead it lingers. He lingers. Breathing in against Steve's cheek, focused on a kiss that's nothing like the one that almost took him apart just a few minutes ago, that's just this, something to get lost in, something to remind Steve, in case the words didn't stick.

That he's the one Danny wants. That it's enough, in the face of a world continually trying to beat them down, push them around, crush them, kill them.

That Steve matters. That nothing could change that.

[thebesteverseen]

It's insane. Is really what it is. Danny had a hundred words back about forty seconds before all Steve could squeeze out was one, like it was suffocating him for that, and from there, Danny's words seem to fail. Danny, who slips into repeating himself, not that it's new. But repeating something small, seeming almost winded by it. By words it seems like he said only a short time, ago, but Steve isn't placing anything but this second.

This one here where suddenly Danny's shouldesr seem to give like dam bursting suddenly, slumping part of his spine and maybe his will. And Steve knows in some distant part of himself he may never really deserve whatever the hell, however the hell Danny manages to shoulder enough whatever he calls it, they call it, anyone does, to smack him back down when he gets angry, when he gets out of control, when he ---

Suddenly forgets everything in his head, when Danny's knees give a ominous snap that doesn't stop his concerned remembrance, that Danny shouldn't even be stuck in this position so long, from being just as shut up as his head, when Danny's got his fingers on his neck and his mouth back on Steve. When the struggle to remember, and the want to get him going a little haywire on the slow, firm way he's being kissed.

Like a reminder. Like the pin in a point. Like...like Danny can't stop after a second. Even once this moment is continuing to inflate the space in Steve's chest too far. When Steve's fingers tighten across Danny's, and all he can do is give over to this one. Not stampede it, not take over, not force it any deeper, or harder, or more intense. Not even to do more than put a breath out through his nose, that might related to snort only by coming from a breath of air.

There's no fire, no point, when Steve pulls back barely. Only from Danny's mouth. Not from his face, not from that hand cupping his neck and not away from Danny. Just enough to have his mouth back. Enough to be able to open his eyes and see Danny's face. This washed out something, exhaustion and relief so bright it's almost blinding. To reach up his free hand for Danny's shirt without an aim.

"We get should get you up," It's quiet. Maybe as much a comment about some point, as it is distraction, as it is just common sense. Maybe it's the closest he come to saying he's sorry for this, any of this that is smashed across Danny features and his eyes and that kiss, like it's fragile and for a moment it was breakable and, even worse, gone. As close as he can come without taking it back. Ever being able to.

Fingers catching up from there to Danny's shoulder, even without pushing him. Solid, there. Just like he's re-equating himself with Danny being solid. Real. Like he could push it and make him move, but he doesn't. Doesn't push him, doesn't move him, doesn't look away, or pull away any more than that quarter of an inch, half an inch between their mouths. Letting his voice roll out too rusty to be sharp enough for the mocking he may be trying for yet. "You'll be bitching all night if you stay like this."

But, at least. At least he's giving that Danny's going nowhere? That's. Something, right? That he's a damn idiot sometimes, but that he does understand Danny isn't going anywhere, is putting it out there, that he does, that Danny doesn't have to go anywhere, if he isn't.

[haole_cop]

"Yeah, well, you and your lawn chairs, they're not exactly bad-knee friendly."

Not when he's crouched in front of them, anyway, and even with all the tricks he knows -- put his weight on the other leg and let that one bend more than the right, keep shifting it around -- it's really not a good idea for him to even do this sort of half bent over sort of deal. Not like there's any danger of wrecking his knee just by crouching down on it, not if he hasn't had to have surgery thanks to the shit they pull every week, but it's not exactly comfortable, either.

Except Steve's not pushing him back with anything other than words, and even those are low, quiet, anything but confrontational. Almost an apology, lacking any seriously sharp edge or arrogance, and that sucks, too, that Steve's unable to even mock him the way he always does. To call Danny a wilting flower or rusty Tin Man, like a bad knee is some kind of personal failure on his part instead of something he can't do shit about, something he should just go ahead and change, already, what is he, lazy? But Steve doesn't. Is just looking at him, with this something written across his face in broad strokes Danny can't translate. Fingers warm on Danny's shoulder, more like he's steadying himself than Danny, like all the light's gone out and he needs to navigate by touch.

Which is fine, but in Danny's experience, navigating with touch is a whole lot more enjoyable if they're both on the same piece of furniture.

"Okay, fine." Most of his weight right now is on Steve's thigh, anyway, the hand there balancing him, and he presses down again as he leans forward, erases the half-inch of space for a kiss that's almost as casual as the ones he presses to Steve's damp salty post-swim pre-coffee mouth in the mornings, before he has to go. Easy. Like any other touch. Like he can, just because he wants to. Like he owns Steve's mouth and kisses and it's a totally normal thing to do, which it seems to have become, over the last month, and that's strange enough. "Come on."

Pulling back, fingers sliding off Steve's skin, out from under his hand, stretching his back as he straightens, shifting his weight to his left leg by conditioned response. "You wanna watch a game, or something, or stay out here?"

[thebesteverseen]

Danny kisses him. Again. A third time. It's crazy that he can count them tonight. It'd be impossible most other days, to try to figure out how soon after waking that line had already been cross, or after arriving here, or tugging wach other somewhere, anywhere, safe and theirs. When all the angry voices and willingness to snap Steve knows is really only a breath and a wall away.

Which isn't quite as close as Danny is now. When he's agreeing, but he still has to kiss Steve again. Casual and light, and like it's a last check on whether it's still there. His mouth. Or maybe Steve. Or maybe the fact he's allowed to be kissing Steve, without it being angry or overwrought. Or, god, fuck, if Steve actually knows. It's a press and slide of skin, soft and smooth, easy and fast before he's standing.

Done before Steve can swallow or take a breath or hold on or pull him closer. Making his chest ache, making him want to grab Danny and pull him in. He doesn't even know if it would be to kiss him. Just to be sure Danny is there. Even when Danny isn't looking anywhere else, doing anything else. Is still focused on him. But is standing up, is pulling away, is further away than a foot and half. Still looking at him. Talking sense. Like Steve cares about that.

Except he does. He just said. Needs to remember. But he just. Feels like a mountain caved in over his head, and there's just this mess everywhere around him suddenly. When he doesn't want to be that far from Danny, much at all. Maybe for a while. Which has him pushing back up from the chair, without thinking about it. Just agreeing. "Yeah, sure. A game, or movie, sounds good."

There's the roll of a shrug that comes along with that. Because he could get behind the couch. He could get behind noise filling up the too quiet, and somewhere Danny can sit without being in pain. Somewhere he can sit and turn off his head, for something that doesn't require much focus. Somewhere he can pretend he isn't spending half of glancing at Danny, wondering what the hell, and how, or why. Like those words aren't all caught on the hooks in him still.

It doesn't change a thing.

I said I want to be with you and I meant it.

I'm not giving up the one good thing I've got.

He may not get why or how, or have any idea what. Not in comparison to like the entire section of his plans where this was all about Grace. But he can. Stand. Reach up and rub at his jaw, let his hand smooth to his neck and the back of his own close clipped hair. When he can step through jostle Danny shoulder and his side, like he's not thinking about Danny's knee or his colossal fail of the last however long that was,

Just jostle him and turn toward that house, that isn't any friendlier at this second than the beach and say, "Inside."

[haole_cop]

"Yeah, works for me. I need something to clear away Grace's latest G-rated favorites, anyway."

Bluffing, because there's something he loves about what used to be family movie night and what is now just him and Grace's movie night, heavily featuring Disney characters and the newest tween heartthrobs, none of whom he ever recognizes. He loves settling her in a nest of blankets and pillows on the couch, balancing a bowl of popcorn between them, making Grace laugh when he tries to determine the usually vague and inconsistent motivations of the various characters.

It's worth it all to see the smile on her face, feel the way she tucks into him when she gets sleepy.

So he's okay with the whole idea of relaxing on the couch for a while, letting some stupid movie or game wash over him. If they're lucky, something like a James Bond marathon will be on, and he won't even have to get worked up about terrible calls by refs who must be blind or brain-damaged, can just sit there and finish his beer and let the exhaustion stealing over him fade itself out.

Because it's tiring. The panic and the fear and the anger. He doesn't feed on it, the way Steve seems to think he does; not when it's like this, not when it means something. When it hasn't even been a fight, but he still feels like he'd been tossed into a cage match and had to grapple with a monster three times his size. It's just draining, okay? And right now, he doesn't want to relive it, think it over, second-guess himself or Steve. He wants Steve next to him, or draped over him, and he wants a beer, and he wants a mindless action film with an eyebrow-raising premise and unlikely, tacked on love interest, and that'll do him just fine for a Sunday night.

So when Steve nudges him, he goes, bending to grab his beer, the other hand fitting against the small of Steve's back like it was never going to be anywhere else, even as he's nodding to the abandoned bottle of earlier.

"You gonna pick that up, or am I gonna have to issue a citation for littering?"

[thebesteverseen]

Steve has to look back, even though he knows what it is before his gaze even gets there. The bottle he dropped when he was kissing Danny. When the only thing left in existence, not even on the planet because the planet was gone, in all of thought and touch, was kissing Danny. Which makes his stomach clench in a vague sour fashion, when he's looking back.

Half distracted by the hand pressing a palm and fingers into the small of his back over his shoulder, while he says, a little more mocking than blank, "Private property. I could have given my permission."

It's a load of trash, because Steve would never. Not for any place on the island, and certainly not for his home, but it is something to throw out to Danny. That could be true, if it were anyone else, in some ways. People did choose to permit dumping in the oddest places. Something to leave him with when Steve it stepping away from that hand, and leaning down, with a swipe of a land toward the ground to pick up the bottle.

Wet down the side, with grass and dirt clinging to the half beaded, half spilled, with tenacious fragility. He absently goes about wiping it off with his hand, wiping his hands off on his pants. He's held worse, had worse on him. He could give up the grate of reminders to minutes ago. At least for a second. Stepping back around the chairs and nodding, gesturing his head toward the house and the direction he's headed with faster, focused strides, for Danny to keep up already.

[haole_cop]

That deserves exactly the kind of snort Danny gives it. "Yeah, maybe."

Because Steve's regimental neatness would allow it. Like one dropped bottle wouldn't probably drive him crazy, just like an unmade bed or hair that's gotten too long. But that's all Steve says, and it's still better than the pulled-tooth no or okay of earlier, the low blank erasure of Steve that left Danny talking to a statue that sort of looked like his partner.

Anything's better than that.

The quick steps towards the house are a good sign, too; the faster they're inside, the sooner he can park his ass on the couch and not move for the next few hours, just keep Steve nearby and let some stupid movie or show drain over him, finish his beer and ignore the way his nerves keep jumping, twitchy and uncertain that this is the last of it, that Steve won't choose to be stupid again.

Hopefully not. He'd really rather just spend the night without having to point out the fact that he has no plans to fold under pressure and let threats push him away, and it's another little triumph when they get inside and no other sinkholes have opened up under his feet.

That leaves just making his way through the dining room and kitchen, headed for the spot on the couch that somehow became his normal one, after two years and change, without bothering to wait and see if Steve's getting a new bottle, in favor of grabbing the remote and flipping the TV on as he sits with a sigh. The idea of even going through DVDs seems pretty pointless, so he just flips through channels, waiting for something to catch his eye.

[thebesteverseen]

Walking back to the house, and into it doesn't exactly make him relax. The whole house itself grates like glass that got caught under his skin so long ago it's slipped into bone, build years of muscles and skin over it. But it's low grade. Dull. Throbbing. Constant. Something he can usually, almost, ignore. Tune out. Like a sunburn, or head wound. But ripped raw by, well, whatever, it smarts at all the edged, tattering and tearing, tugging at everything else, tensing the muscles in his neck.

Sends him into the kitchen. Grabbing a cup from one of the cabinet's and upending the rest of the beer into it. Not tossing out the last inch or two left, even after most of it was lost by dropping it in the back yard. Even with the small bits of dirt and grass that go with it, floating in the liquid. Listening to Danny shuffle around in the house like he's hyper sensitive to the sound of it.

To Danny, and what he's doing even more than normal. To this idea he might vanish, and the confused way part of him says thats good and part of him that seizes the ends of his stomach, his nerves, egging him to jog the less than fifteen steps towards the closer door and makes sure he isn't leaving while Steve is in here. While he's not. Moving. Is only standing still, doing this. Pour his beer into the glass. Listening.

To the sound of steps followed by some kind of friction followed by the sounds of voices. Of channels being cut into and out of each other, when the tv is being changed. Steve dropped the bottle in the trash, with a clattering clank, and took his glass with him toward the living room. Where Danny had decide to fall on and sprawl on part of his couch, like it could just start dragging him in. No war necessary. Slouched shoulders and hand out with the remote.

Tossing out "Anything?" as he's sitting down on the other side of the couch. Placing his beer on the table and looking up some point between Danny and the television screen. Already waring with the urge to reach out and take it from him. Check five or ten specific channels instead of this constant shift, shift, shift. Not even because he cares, but because it's something at least. Something to throw this rolling, thundery, pensive, feeling at.

[haole_cop]

"Not yet."

He glances up as Steve comes in, already feeling like he's just about soaking into the couch, which is fine, which is great, except that this is sort of like being in two separate chairs all over again, which is annoying in this superficial, buzzing in his ears sort of way. He's just about made it through the first fifty channels, and there's nothing, so he gives up, tosses the remote at Steve in a careless arc. "Knock yourself out."

He doesn't care what they end up on, as long as it's nothing that makes him have to think too hard, or crushes this carefully cultivated beginnings of relaxation, where he toes off his shoes and follows the remote over to lean his back half on Steve's shoulder and half on the couch back, kicking up his feet and nudging his way into a comfortable spot. Like Steve's part of the couch. Like Steve and the couch are both his to take over, expanding his personal space to a bubble that includes them both.

What the hell's the point of getting back inside and watching something stupid on TV if he can't be comfortable? And it's not like he's got any desire to keep any kind of space between them.

[thebesteverseen]

It's not like there's a manual or pattern for everything that's going on here. They just proved that outside. Very loudly, and very quietly. So maybe it's all that strange either that Steve looks sharply, and a little surprised, at his shoulder being conquered like a continent or a couch cushion that won't defend itself with five hundred spikes against even the air touching it. When Danny's not even settling for just flopping back half on him like it's an accident.

Danny's nudging his way into figure out how to make Steve's arm and shoulder comfortable, like he'll just stop being solid, somehow, which really wasn't all that comfortable for Steve. Nor was the wiggling, and pushing Danny's spine, ribs, shoulder against that part of his body. Which all just sort of cemented a spike of confusion at the whole fact, aside from certain points, they really didn't always, or even usually, end up tangled together in a way that didn't have to do with sex or waking up.

As awkward, unsettling and annoying as that could all shove up under his skin already, it felt like his chest was going to revolt if he shoved Danny right here, anymore than he could outside. He didn't want Danny on the other side of the couch either. So he settled for doing the only thing he could even think of, and just running straight to it, through it, focused and direct and confident in a way he did not feel but wasn't giving up. Making an annoyed noise while roughly jerking his arm up from under Danny, and shoving it out, across Danny's shoulder, to grab his far shoulder.

Manhandling Danny into his side, under his arm, instead of against it and over, with a peevishly annoyed tone. "Settle down already. If you burrow holes in my couch, you'll have to replace it."

Not that his hand actually lifts or loosens from Danny's far shoulder yet, or his arms stops sort of being a bar across the top of Danny's shoulders, behind his neck and head. If he's not even looking at Danny after his words. Already pulling up the guide, typing in the numbers for the movie channels and skimming the titles available. Not at all shifting his head, warily, with the barest peripheral glance every few seconds, watching out for where Danny's own head was ending up.

[haole_cop]

That's another snort, as he settles back, head tipping against the arm that's suddenly been introduced between him and the couch. Far less squishy than the leather, but firm and warm and it fits to support him just right, so he's not gonna bitch about it.

Not when Steve's dragging him in closer, and not pushing him away, even if Danny can feel him tensing before he decides to just roll with it. "Calm down. I'm not a rodent, I'm not burrowing anything in anywhere."

Nowhere except against Steve, and he's not even doing that now that Steve's gotten with the picture and moved the arm that was in the way. It's still not perfect, but it works fine, and is about a thousand times better than pretending he doesn't want to be touching him, pressed against him and sharing body heat along with the couch that they definitely don't really both fit on without this sort of arrangement.

They ended up on the couch the last time Steve talked to Catherine, too, but this isn't anything like that, feels almost awkward, as if there's been any time in the last two plus years that he's been uncomfortable touching Steve.

It's just reassurance. Keeping him under his hand, under his shoulder, against his back and side, watching idly as Steve flips through the available titles. Anything's fine, when he's sitting here sipping a beer and not thinking about the fact that fifteen minutes ago, this almost never happened, at all. Ever. That they would probably have gone back to opposite sides of the couch, if they even were alone together. That something this simple would have been just erased.

It's not like he didn't already know how easy this would be to lose, okay? He could have done without the reminder.

[thebesteverseen]

"Don't think I believe that for a minute," Steve said, shifting enough to jostle Danny just a bit in return, since he couldn't actually just nudge his shoulder like this. "I've seen the places you live." And what he calls 'living' in them, or the lack of. Which everyone saw more than they'd ever really expected while moving him in and out.

"If you don't think you have things in your wall, you're denser than I thought."

Maybe there's something to it, thought. Not the living in that apartment, or the one before, or the strange new nicer apartment or house he was searching for now. On the list of doing things to fit a list for Grace, that somehow didn't involve letting Steve shake him free. This. Not that. The whole Danny sitting so close he could smell his skin again, and the stuff he uses in his hair. The way his hair tickles against Steve's forearm in one spot, when Danny so much as shifts his head a little.

The way there's a glance toward where it's touching him, before he just flicks another set up and down and just clicks on the box for the last half of Kill Bill, Vol I., which at least ran across to the second part after it, in the next box on that line. He doesn't know how long they'll be here, and it's mindless enough he won't hate watching it and he might not even hate Danny deciding to talk right over the whole thing.

He tucked the remote on the other side of his thigh and scrubbed his face, relaxing a little, by increments, as he let a breath out and sunk into the the cushions more than for show, and with a little less 'at attention' awareness. Letting his head roll a little toward the direction of Danny, and the sound of Danny breathing, even as he flicked his focus toward the tv screen.

[haole_cop]

"So now you're equating me to things living in the wall? Thanks, buddy."

Whatever. As long as Steve is fine with the way things are working out, here, he can say whatever stupid thing he wants. He's kind of shifting, slightly, but when Danny waits to see what he'll do, all that ends up happening is that Steve picks a movie and slouches down.

Which means Danny can relax, letting out a breath and sipping his beer, eyes on the screen even as every nerve in his body is hyper-aware of the loose pile of Steve next to him: what he's doing, whether this is weird, wondering if Steve really did get the point earlier, or if he decided to make a tactical retreat, only to bring it back up when Danny least expects it. "I guarantee, the next place will be pest-free."

It'll have to be. His rat-trap of an apartment is as damning a piece of evidence as any night spent with Steve; maybe worse. At least Steve's got a house that isn't infested with mold, or bugs, with a private beach and some nice land attached to it. He might be complicated, but no one could argue this isn't a nice piece of property.

But Grace doesn't stay here, Grace needs a better place than the shoebox he's currently got, because if he gets shared custody, she'll be there a lot more, will really be living there, and he cares too much about his baby girl to let her try to live in the same conditions he's gotten used to over the last couple of years.

Whatever; there are a couple places to look at this week, in all his massive amounts of free time, so why worry about it? At least that's something constructive he can do.

"You know, I think Tarantino's almost as obsessed with gratuitous violence as you are."

[thebesteverseen]

Relaxed is not the thing Danny is. Settled next him, somewhere toward half on him. Under his arm, against his side. Settled in one place, definitely. Sitting and not looking like he's aimed to going anywhere. Drinking his beer, watching the movie, as they both start picking up on the middle of the vendetta in progress. But he isn't relaxed, or relaxing. Steve's touching too much of him not to notice so far.

Or it's that Steve's had too much of him limp, loose, and limber to not know the difference.

Not that he's surprised, but it's a little focusing. He's not sure it's anywhere to concerning or worrisome, given Danny is there. Rambling off his mouth, while Steve shifts glances at Danny between the flick and the side of Danny's face, and in the instance of certain seconds just the movement of his mouth while he's saying things somewhere between his beer bottle and watch the tv screen.

But it's not like Steve doesn't get why. Or can take it back. Or maybe can, but won't. Not the words that came out of his mouth at the beginning or end. All of it was still true, We shouldn't be doing this, stern and pointed, and No, so thin the wind could overrun it. Like the way Danny's voice in his head keeps saying, I'm gonna do everything I can to stay. Everything. I can. To stay. Having no idea how to hold on to any of that.

While he's complaining and half-slandering Steve, layering his voice everywhere on Steve, while Steve's noticing this lack of any kind of calm in Danny beneath appearance. When the only thing to do with that seems to be to hold it, and to push at the same second. Rib at Danny at least in a normal way. Letting his face fall toward a unsurprised, distracted time-worn and expected exasperation of insult.

"You don't like Tarantino?" Scoffed almost, with a heavy hand, like he was implying Danny knew just as much absolutely nothing about good movies, as he did about good music on the radio. "All of his stuff ended up being cult classics."

[haole_cop]

This is normal. It is. Mostly. Even with the added difference of having Steve half under him, instead of a couch, while he waves the hand hold his beer a little lackadaisically. "Pulp Fiction is a cult classic," he corrects. "The others are just Tarantino movies, made popular by Tarantino fans. And that's beside the point, I never said I don't like Tarantino, I said he fetishizes violence, which is definitely true."

Particularly in these movies, and though he's got nothing against watching Uma Thurman single-handedly take on all comers and emerge blood-spattered and victorious, it's also not exactly his usual fare. "If I want to see a real brawl, I'll watch old hockey videos. And that couldn't be called pretty by even the most brain-dead of fans. Besides, swords seem so inefficient. I get that it's a personal touch, but wouldn't it be easier to just shoot them?"

At least this is easy enough to fall into; his complaints riffing off a throwaway comment, eventually meandering so far from Steve's original point that they aren't even recognizably connected anymore.

And he can roll his head back to glance at Steve, too, which is sort of nice. He can't watch the guy more than the TV, but it's not like they're both pretending that there's a non-existent stretch of couch between them, which is, Danny thinks, a step in the right direction.

[thebesteverseen]

"Seriously?" Steve snaps, but the bite there is light, prodding and flash bright, more than steel and razor sharp.

"Reservoir Dogs." After all, the point isn't to have another fight over it, but bickering, shoving at Danny's buttons till he decides to relax and unwind, too. So that, at that point, Steve can. That's different. "It was totally a hit before Pulp Fiction, and got bigger even after it, when it broke out of independent movie hell."

Which was how he found it, but he'd had a lot of more important things going on than movies at the time.

It doesn't hurt anything that Danny's turning his head, rolling the back of it on Steve's arm, and looking up at him. That screwed up face like Steve has absolutely no idea what he's talking about and his head is made of rocks and broken bits of beach glass. Or more aptly, broken bits of weaponry and rocks, if Danny's conversation was anything to go on. But it lets him look at Danny again. Hair still half a mess, but his lips aren't half-swollen, and his eyes are blue and not as.

Scared. Scared is the word, and it tries to run away, melt away, slip away even in a thought. Danny, scared of him. Pleading. Terrified, and so damn pissed off unmoving stubborn. Not scared now. Maybe. Tired. Maybe wary? That makes his stomach sour, but he doesn't look away toward the movie even for the screaming. When he feels like it would take some kind of heavy weight, razor sharp object like a katana slicing between them to make him look away for this second.

Even if it's easier to furrow his brow and push back at Danny bitching, while gesturing a hand at the tv. "And make it into every other American shoot 'em up? I know you can be blind, but did you actually miss the whole chinese, martial arts, western mix-up it was going for the first time?"

[haole_cop]

"Fine. Reservoir Dogs." He waves his free hand, which knocks against Steve's knee as it makes a circuit. "I'll give you Reservoir Dogs. I had no idea you were such an aficionado, Roger Ebert. Are you going to tell me how Inglorious Basterds is a seminal film, now?"

Talking works, except he's not really sure of anything he's saying even as it drops out of his mouth, because Steve is looking at him, and not just looking. Watching. Studying. Like he's waiting to see if something else is going on behind Danny's bluster; gesturing at the TV, but not looking over at it.

And, actually, neither of them are, because whatever is going on onscreen is nowhere near as attention-grabbing as this thing crossing Steve's face, forehead crinkling in a way that shouldn't make Danny want to run a finger along those lines, erase them with the pad of his thumb. Watching him like he's waiting to see what Danny will do next, like he thinks the next thing out of his mouth might actually mean something other than that Danny can find something to bitch about in pretty much any situation.

Like maybe part of him still thinks Danny's going to make a break for it, even after everything he said, everything he argued against. It draws a mirroring frown between his one eyebrows, beer bottle balancing against his leg.

"What?"

[thebesteverseen]

Danny's hands start moving, in the air. Which somehow ticks some of the muscles in Steve's back to relax. Somehow. The free hand that actually bounces against Steve's own leg, smacking it for the note of a point, and the one with Danny's beer, that he shifts but doesn't go throwing about as cavalierly. And it's easy to toss a blase, disinterested comment out to the last one.

Which might be good because anything past that point is Danny looking at him suddenly very closely. Not spacially. He doesn't get any closer. But the world Danny is focusing on seems to winnow down suddenly to Steve's face. When he doesn't even look back to the movie and Danny's face is shifting. When he's getting that intent look he does when he thinks he knows what's going on. Or that something is.

And really nothing is. Nothing at all. Letting Steve face scrunch up in faintly suspicious, entirely dismissive question of what's what? that did not not need any words to be said. Especially, when he's still asking the question Danny tossed out at him before. Not that it was a question. It was just another volley at his taste. "The ending to Basterds ruins everything that was good about it."

What. He's got a beef with movies that are all real, all hands on, and then drop kick themselves off a cliff historically. Sue him. He doesn't give a damn. Some good scenes, not a movie he'd really watch except maybe when he can't sleep or swim or run at two or three in the morning. Better than nothing, but not in the running for much else.

[haole_cop]

The look Danny turns on him is nearly pained. "It's fiction, Steve. Fiction. Besides, it's not like all his movies don't take place in some bizarre alternate universe, anyway. I saw that somewhere, once. I mean, you think this is in any way a realistic portrayal of the break-up of a group of assassins and the subsequent personal vendetta?"

Does that shit ever really happen outside the movies? He's seen both, sure, but not together.

And, really, who the hell uses a katana?

Steve seems to be finally starting to relax, slightly, and that's enough to make a few of the knots clumping up his vertebrae start to loosen, which is nice, because leaning against Steve is actually pretty comfy, when he lets himself get used to the idea. The further they drift from the conversation outside, the better; the last thing he wants to consider is whether or not he's going to have to keep an eye out for a resurgence in the future.

Nope. Better to gesture towards the screen, even if his eyes only glance off it before looking back at Steve, who might not be nearly as interesting to watch but is definitely higher on the list than scenes of unimaginable violence.

Besides, Danny still hasn't quite figured out what that look was, before. The one Steve wiped off without even a second's hesitation, replaced with derision and a scornful frown, complaining about a movie Danny's not even sure he fully remembers. Nazis? Right? And someone killed Hitler?

That's the gist, isn't it?

It doesn't matter. None of it does, except that Steve is talking about something other than shouldn't or going back down that rabbit hole.

[thebesteverseen]

Steve probably shouldn't get off on Danny twisting to look at him like he's lost his mind. Like the words coming out Steve's mouth and going into Danny's ears are being banged in there with bricks. Making him look horrified and a little pained, but mostly like he wants to grab Steve's shoulders and set him straight. Which his mouth opens and starts doing already, because that's Danny.

And. Yeah. Maybe he shouldn't get off on it. But it's normal and it's flawless, and Steve is stupid for it.

The kind of stupid that makes him tense his mouth and shake his head, eyes getting brighter, and rail, right off and back as soon as Danny's mouth has managed to even close long enough for a breath. Shoving in words, like Danny might not even slow down or stop. And he really might not. That was Danny. But Steve didn't mind ramroding right over it if he started back in two seconds from now either.

"Alternate universe that just happened to have our history up until like the last ten minutes?"

He wasn't actually sure on the time frame, or even much in the way of being sure the rest of that was entirely true but it came out fast and direct anyway. Confident and sharper, like it's laughable Danny thinks he has any leg to stand on with the comparisons to the others.

"Even if it was," Steve added in, bringing his hand in a vague wave toward Danny. "The tacked on ending was just crap. Like it'd been shoved in and sewn on from somewhere else." It'd been an excuse for a gun mowing down. That was mostly what he remembered. Over the top even for what he considered plausibly real for anyone to buy.

Before adding anyone who'd been in circumstances like those circumstances.

[haole_cop]

"That's what alternate universe means, numbskull."

He eyes Steve, weighing the option of reaching up to smack him in the head versus staying where he is, where it's comfortable and getting more so by the minute. "Killing Hitler, that creates it, and all the others come after that one. Do you need a diagram?"

He hopes not, because that's literally the only piece of trivia he's got on Tarantino movies, and he's pretty sure that if Steve tried, he wouldn't even be able to hold this one up for long. A brief mention in some article online doesn't exactly make him an expert, and he barely remembers any other details, so he hopes Steve doesn't push it. "Anyway, the point being, it's not like you can take these as fact, okay, I'm pretty sure there aren't people out there levitating or standing on swords or whatever. If there are, then we have seen a shocking lack of ninjas in high-profile cases."

Probably just as well, though he's got the sneaking suspicion Kono could probably take on a bunch of shadowy wall-climbing assassins without even breaking a sweat.

His hand just waves irately at the television, tone grumpy and put-upon. "Will you shut up and watch the movie? Christ, you gotta nit-pick every little thing?"

Willfully ignoring the fact that he's probably said twice or three times as much as Steve, letting his head rest it's full weight, finally, on the arm and shoulder behind him, like Steve's just a big pillow, body-warm and breathing and arranging itself to fit around him, which isn't so bad, come to think of it.

[thebesteverseen]

Out come the nicknames and insults, that badgered tone, that shouldn't be making Steve smile. But it's totally happening, outside of his control. At least one edge of his mouth is definitely crooked up, the muscle all tense and lifted, while he's watching Danny like there is nothing on his tv that could ever be as compelling as him going off on the most trivial, unimportant, they'll forget it in twenty minutes, if even that, detail.

He, almost says yes, to the diagram. If only because it means Danny won't shut the hell up. He'll just keep going. Him, and his waving hands, and his hair that keeps flopping this way and that when he jerks his head to say something. Gone from the perfectly formed smoothed back. But he doesn't need to, because Danny just keeps on going. Spurred to a roll, meaning Steve really doesn't even need to put in his yes to keep it going.

Sometimes he does, and sometimes Danny can just get on to a tangent and go like a dog with a bone for a good five or ten minutes, with nothing more than a few sounds that imitate Steve having any reaction Danny thinks belongs to the complaining. None of which probably give away this reaction any more than this time seems to be, when Danny settles in a shoving huff. Back against the couch, and his arm, and him.

Steve doesn't have any idea how it does it, but seriously the whole thing, snaps something in his chest. Gone all messy and warm, slapping waves up everywhere inside his chest, and making it not seem like he needs to stop himself. He drags Danny closer than the part of his arm and his shoulder Danny is currently sort of starting to lay out ownership signs on.

But closer. Close enough he's sort of dwarfing part of Danny's shoulder, to lean over and say, almost close enough to be touching the side of his head, almost close enough Danny's heads would barely need a shift to turn and end up in the crook of his shoulder and neck, but not, and not whispering at all, but still quiet. A current of dark amusement touching all the corners of his voice, "Pretty sure I haven't said anything in at least a minute or two."

[haole_cop]

There. Finally. Cracking a smile, that crooked one that pulls across Steve's face like it's being tugged by a train engine across warped tracks. Loosening up past 'stiff as a board' and shifting like a quiet earthquake, pulling Danny further into his personal gravity well, long arm snaking further around Danny's shoulders, and it's more than a little like the way he manhandles Danny into a comfortable spot in bed, like Danny's just a larger version of the stuffed animals even Steve must have had, once upon a time.

Tucking his head close, close enough Danny can feel the warm puff of his breath, close enough that it would take hardly anything, barely a lean forward or anything other than just turning his head a little more, to capture that crooked curve and smooth it into a kiss, and he thinks about it. Eyes dropping to catch on Steve's mouth, that low tone teasing and coaxing at the hairs on the back of his neck.

Mocking. Amused. Leaps and bounds from the walled off silence he'd first walked into, the bucket of ice water Steve kept tipping over his head outside. Letting him fit himself into Steve's side, free hand dropping to rest on Steve's leg, instead of an armrest, fingers casually curving over Steve's knee.

"What did I just say?"

Arguing against Steve being so stupid as to talk now, whether he was before or not, when Danny knows that the things that come out of Steve's mouth aren't anywhere near the reason he's currently focused on it -- still is, even when his eyes lift. it's the arrogant smirks, the subtle tugs, the frowns and full brilliance of his smiles. It starts rolling around in his chest, warm and wistful, a fragile thing like blown glass that could crack at any time, under the slightest pressure, and it still keeps managing to survive being drop-kicked off cliffs and hitting bottom at terminal velocity.

[thebesteverseen]

It's easy, almost too easy to drag Danny's attention from the movie. It's not like he's engrossed in it, or even sounded earlier like he cared about it. But even so, the whole maybe ten second between huffing down and Steve words, before Danny's head shifts a little in relation to his. To his vision trying to find Steve closer, before it does. Find him, leave the tv.

End up focused on his mouth in a way that suddenly makes Steve's lungs expand with a flush of a different kind of warmth. Surprising and a little unsure, but along with a more common wash of reactions. Even if they were just kissing outside. For whatever those count. Both of them. The one standing up, and the small lingering ones from Danny while he was sitting. This is different. Again. Entirely, completely, wholly, familiarly different from those.

When Danny's breath seems to flee him and his eyes don't raised until after the words have already fallen out of his mouth. Like they completely forgot to have any grace, any shame, and Steve needs neither. God. He doesn't even know how he deserves that still. How this is still here. In Danny. Written on his face. Even when Danny's eyes flick back up, finally, like he's innocent, like Steve didn't clock every second of that inability to look away from his mouth.

"How should I know?" Steve asked, letting his voice go slow and low, unflinchingly meeting Danny's eyes.

Dark blue, but something amused sparking there, because he knows this. He knows how to do these things at least. To lean in another half inch saying, "I said you were talking--" Let his free hand lift and find the other side of Danny's face, tilting his head more this way. Until Steve's nose brushes Danny's, the skin under his cheek beneath his eye. "--I never said I was listening."

The smirk, forming like a flick of light, warm and slow across his mouth, smugly at his own words. But only for the breath of a second, only long enough to let them register, the first reaction in his eyes or shift of movement, before Steve slides his fingers further back along Danny's jaw and pulls him into a kiss.