(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]

"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.

[haole_cop]

"You think I ever think you listen?"

He just can't stop himself, has to keep it up, even when his stomach is squirming and Steve is dipping his head closer, that half-hook of a smile spreading, turning knowing and sly, and it doesn't matter. Whether Steve listens or not. Danny can't think of a single less important question, when it's clear that Steve's listening to something else, the thing he hasn't been saying out loud but which has been thrumming in his blood and head and ears for the last few minutes.

Electricity leaping at the brushing of a nosetip, the puff of breath, long fingers sliding along his jaw like they own it, and that smirk. That mocking, arrogant, slow and warm as honey half-smile, cocky and fully self-aware in a way that's nothing like the uncertainty of earlier, the way Steve had drawn in on himself, disappeared behind a haze of smoke and barbed wire.

This is better. Nothing like outside, either; no desperation and no violence. It's not a reminder, or proof, hard evidence they can point to and say this isn't gone yet; it's not a fight to keep the right to stay here. To be this person. The one Steve looks at like that, like there are no movies and no worries and no responsibilities, no bad guys or disappointing parents or evil lawyers. Like there is absolutely nothing else he needs in the world.

Making Danny's fingers tighten on Steve's leg, before he has to move them, run them along Steve's jaw and throat and sink them into Steve's hair, retracing paths that almost disappeared on him, that haven't been detailed in days too long. Paths he'd been burning down before, that he wants to just re-find now, wander over, a million times more addictive and intriguing than whatever the hell's going on onscreen.

[thebesteverseen]

He doesn't actually listen to Danny's words. This time.

The rest is a bold, smoking a lie. Of course. That he doesn't listen. That he doesn't have to, especially as partners. As his boss. As his friend. As whatever else he's become, that Danny just refused with violent volatility for him to not be. That he wants to half the time. That he misses the fuss when the house is empty and silent.

That even when he's distracted, entirely, somehow he stil manages to remember whatever it was Danny was ranting about at a given time, and the most ludicrous, crazy, five-year-old reasoning that falls out of his mouth sometime. That he frequently doesn't give it or Danny the time of day, in knowing he's listening, yeah, that happens. A lot, even, maybe.

But right now, Steve's definitely not listening to the question that gets smothered on his lips, when the thin skin under Danny's jaw has the tapping rhythm of his pulse shotgunning a little faster against Steve's fingers. The way Danny's fingers dig into his thigh. Not for balance or to hold him still this time. Before that hand is moving. Chasing over his skin, smooth and quick, getting everywhere on his skin. He's listening to those things.

To the way Danny seems to give up shifting, with conscious thought about position and sort of melts into him at the same time as meeting him. When Steve is chasing off the impulse for a shiver from the fingers in his hair and kissing Danny. Not furious, not blank and expected. Finding the flavor of his tongue, and the tang of the beer, and that something that is only Danny. That he thinks he'd miss if kissed anyone else at any point soon.

There's no rush. Not even with the screaming in the background. He can just kiss Danny. Because he still can.

[haole_cop]

It's maybe a little odd to be doing this with the background noise they've got, but the room is pretty dim and the movie isn't on too loud, and, really, as far as distractions go, Steve is just honestly stellar. Even when he's not demanding all of Danny's focus, he gets it anyway, because there is so much to take in: the stubble scraping rough against Danny's fingers, that still can't hide the softness of skin underneath, the warmth that goes chasing through veins and floods close to the surface to follow the path Danny's fingers trace. The tiny hitch, not of breath but of everything, the slightest of pauses when Danny curves his fingers into Steve's hair.

Making the world focus down to just this. Breath, and the brush of tongue and lips, and sinking into it, twisting slightly for a better angle. He'll have a hell of a crick in his neck, but he doesn't yet, and it's worth it, to be back here, to have Steve leaning into him and around him, back in his space like he doesn't think Danny should get to have it all to himself.

And it feels like kind of a turning point, something Steve isn't going to argue or weaponize, something he's not going to lock away as a potential landmine. The kind of normal kiss that Danny's starting to get used to again, just because Steve is there and he'd rather be tasting him, following the branching pulse point s across Steve's body with his mouth and fingers, would rather listen to the way his breathing starts and stops and holds, nowhere near the ragged disastrous edge but just this side of not quite normal, either.

Not that this is the best position, exactly. He can't really get hands on Steve the way he wants, like this, but there's something to be said for these small touches, when only their sides are touching and their hands are at the other's jaw, cheek, the nape of their neck. Intimate in a way that's nothing really like the times they're pressed flush to each other, like they're each trying to go straight through the other one. This is quieter. Calmer. Almost sweet, if that was a word Danny felt like might ever be used for Steve.

So he takes his time. Enjoys it. Forgets all about the movie in the background, the beer sweating lightly against his slacks. Everything there is except Steve and the slow warm press of his mouth.

[thebesteverseen]

His fingers have to end up in Danny's hair. There isn't any other way. Sliding back easy, through it, against the curve of his head. When this time it's not about holding him still, or keeping him there. About holding on, or holding him from getting away. When for a moment all of the tiniest things making this up are precious and perfect and so fragile, the way a vase or a glass is right before it smashes into the floor.

Right when you can remember everything it was, before it was broken apart, changed forever, irreparable.

The soft warm way Danny's lips part. The way Danny never, actually, kisses with just his mouth. It's a full contact sport, even smooth and small and simple like this. The heavy, but unweighted drag of Danny's fingers dragging against the sharp rise of stubble, the skin under it and along it. The way he turns, the way he leans in, taking as much as he's giving. Forgetting the world and all his words at once.

Like nothing in the movie, or in anything he was saying, the bluster and the bitching, was as important as thing. As Steve kissing him, as kissing Steve back. The way it makes Steve feel the stirring impulse lacing out already. The want to pull him even closer. Under or over, and just. Just closer. Like he could feel cracks he'd pressed into the glass just minutes ago, begging for it to break, trying to pulls it apart at every weak seam, and where it should have broken, and where it didn't, and how he still had this. How Danny was....Danny.

The only person to stand up to him and scream at him, get in his way, shout him down, fight him down no matter that he couldn't match him, or didn't look like he should be able to. Who he listened to for something beside rank and responsibility. The only person who could get him to come down. From destroy anything, even himself. Even....them? This? Is it a them. He laughed at the earlier term. He was pissed at the idea he could offer Danny nothing. But Danny is still here.

Danny is here and saying he'll do whatever it takes to keep this. Even if it gets out.

And Steve can almost look at that clearly. Through a haze of tension and uncertainty about the whole concept.

Maybe not the concept itself. Maybe not all of Five-0 and the Governor and Rachel and everyone knowing. Maybe at least the part where Danny, the middle grade of five feet and never anything less but attacking the world and holding out tenaciously against the world taking his things from him, might have decided Steve was one of those things. Even more. And that Steve didn't get a vote in it either. Somehow.

For some reason that was too complicated to consider while Danny was kissing him. While his lips were smooth and slightly wet, while the world existing melted. Until he had to take a breath and could open his eyes, stare a little windedly and little dazzed at the man in his arms, like he wasn't just holding on because it was the only thing he could do. The only one that made any sense, or felt right at the very bottom of whatever else be Actually Right.

[haole_cop]

Steve is an idiot.

This only solidifies the opinion, that Steve is an idiot, because only an idiot would consider giving this up, on the off chance that other people might figure it out before it inevitably runs itself off a cliff anyway. Only an idiot would think that sounds like a good idea, would think that's sensible, reasonable. Only an idiot would even try.

Or a self-sacrificial dimwit who doesn't think he deserves to have anything good in his life, and, fine. Danny can admit that he may well not be all that great an addition, okay, he's certainly not vain enough to think he's that good of a thing, would be skeptical and wary if Steve said so. He brings baggage and worry with him, a truckload of problems that Steve seriously does not need to be dealing with, these days, and there's not a whole hell of a lot he can do to help Steve with anything going in his head, either.

But Steve wants him here. Steve hasn't shoved him out the door. Steve kissed him that first day, instead of telling him they couldn't, for all the reasons he just listed out on the beach, all the ones that march through Danny's head every now and again, goose-stepping and trailing along a dark twisted cloud of dire consequences.

Steve wants him. Said so. And words might mean shit, but Steve acts like it, too. Runs his fingers up into Danny's hair to curl his hand around Danny's skull, pull him closer, tugs a tiny sound from Danny's chest to break on Steve's lips. And Danny finds it inexpressibly frustrating that Steve doesn't think he should get what he wants.

Because it's more than that. Not just something he thinks. It's not an active thought process. It just is. Something he'll give up, because he should. Because it's the right thing to do. Because under all that crazy and all those years of violence, Steve is the guy who'll do anything to find someone, to fix a broken family, to save the day. He doesn't think about himself. Nobody thinks about Steve, puts him first, or in the picture at all.

So Danny will. And he might not be able to explain Steve wanting him, or Steve wanting this, but since Steve does, that's good enough for him.

Looking back at Steve's slightly dazed expression, feeling a little like his own head has started melting right off his shoulders. Tip of his tongue darting, tasting Steve on his lip. "That your new argument strategy?"

If so, he has to admit it's effective.

[thebesteverseen]

There would be no way to replace this. It's the thought that settles both light as a feather and heavier than a dozen human lives on his chest. This way that Danny's face is flushed, warm, and he's already smiling, in the barest second since that noise escaped him to lodge itself like a living, thrumming, beating thing inside Steve's chest. The ways Danny' tongue tips out rubbing against his bottom lip, before he's already got words to throw.

Because Danny always has words to throw. They're about as important as they aren't. Compared to this.

It would be like every time he looked at the Chesapeake Bay, and always knew. Knew, deep in his gut, in his mind, in his soul, his mana, whatever people wanted to call it, that put their lives, their histories, their atoms together. That it might have been a vast body of water, it might sooth the gaping maw in him for hours at a time, but it was not the ocean.

It was not Hawaii. It was not home. It never would be. But home was not an option; nor was an the end to that ache.

It's the strangest series of so quick thoughts, even when Steve mouth is curved beyond his control. Too pleased, like Danny's words are so much less slander and more like a standing ovation. When he lifts his eyebrows with a smoked through kind of flash brilliant menace, and shifts his hands, like he's making a point, but it never really comes out of Danny's hair, fingers maybe even brushing into a slightly more friction against Danny's scalp.

"It did get you shut up, didn't it?" Steve latched on to that smile and the few seconds that were spinning out between watching Danny smile and lick at his lip and the already bubbling faint urge to kiss him again. Kiss him until he couldn't remember anything. The taste of his beer. The things Steve said. The fact he meant them. Until the idea in Steve's head might melt away from being as clear as it was, clouding and crowding up the back of his head.

It would probably be like that. The Bay. Maybe it's been like that for a year already. They way nothing ever fit right.

The way nothing in him holds away, waiting still, and nothing else comes close to comparing to this smile on Danny's lips.

[haole_cop]

Better. The way Steve's smiling, the way he's joking, voice low and a little rough now, like he's got a lungful of smoke, teasing without taking his eyes off Danny's face or his fingers from Danny's hair. Even when they move, it's to push further, firmer, and his eyes have that sleepy half-lidded look that smolders like a smoking campfire, looking innocuous and hiding the flash of brilliant arrogance lurking just below the surface.

He might look like a slow-talking, harmless surfer boy, but it's all an act; Danny can feel the coiled energy, the way he tenses and relaxes at each brush of Danny's fingers over his skin.

It's kind of heady, really. Addicting. Impossible, except implicitly not; possible enough to be dangerous, possible enough Steve felt like he had to shut it down.

At least he's not saying anything so idiotic right now.

"It's a temporary fix," Danny informs him, unfazed by Steve's smug certainty. And it never actually quiets him for long; it's just that the things coming out of his mouth afterwards tend towards the desperate and the indecipherable. Someone screams onscreen, someone else unsheathes a sword in a wet whisper of metal, but he doesn't care, has no idea what's happening. None of it matters even a little, none of it means anything at all or is worth even the tiniest inch of his attention.

Not when Steve is looking at him like this. Like there's nothing else in the room, or on the island, or in the world. Eyes hooked on the tiny flicker of Danny's tongue against his lips, or on some detail only Steve can find in his face, the skin of his throat, the open collar of his shirt. "Don't get used to it."

Which makes him lean up, tug Steve down. Again. Already. Because, fuck it. They're on the couch and Steve is an idiot, and Danny may have made his point, but he can make it again, keep making it, until Steve stops thinking of it as an option, until he's sure Steve will lose that wary, blank look that precedes self-destruction. This isn't a bullet Steve can take; it's not a grenade he can throw himself on. It's just him, and he might not be any prize, but he's sure as hell not going to let himself get pushed out the door while Steve still wants him.

[thebesteverseen]

He's barely agreeing. Barely signing the check on Steve being right. On the fact he did shut up, except for that noise drug out of his chest and offered up from his lips, without even stopping kissing Steve. But it doesn't matter, because of the way Danny's looking at him. The tension at the edges of his eyes and the wariness inside them draining out, slowly. Letting the skin crinkle and betray Danny's lightening mood.

But those last words stick a little. Don't get used to it. That's the problem, isn't? Part of the problem wrapped up in everything from earlier, too. He's not. He's not used to it. He's still pretty sure if he accidentally smacked his head into something hard enough he'd wake up and none of this would have happened at all. Because maybe he passed out during a case somehow, doing on of any of the ten thousand things Danny screams at him not to do in pursuit of a suspect.

Because not even that changes it.

The way he wakes up, half expecting someone to be on the other side of his bed. Even when it's empty. The way one of his pillows has taken on the smell of Danny's shampoo, and gel, and him, just his skin. This combination that Steve buries his face in and considers not getting up to swim, on the few mornings we he can find himself managing to keep his head above the jangling fresh anger and confusion at everything else.

The way he is sort getting use to it. Even if it won't last, can't last. Even the way Danny will smile at him and then look right back down at the work on his desk, like he can't stare at Steve too long or someone else will notice. The way he's gotten to claiming Steve's space even more, when Steve can't even tell if Danny's doing it on purpose or not. His back, his arm, his shoulder. For noticeably longer presses of his fingers even during the day.

But he doesn't have long to think about that, to even realize the reaction to it has completely over-mapped any impulse or recognition for a need to respond. Because Danny's fingers on his jaw are dragging him back down, and the last really cognitive thought, is about how he's not sure he could ever not be used to Danny's mouth. Soft, and dry. The way he's pulled back in, and Danny opens up. As much taking as inviting as demanding, and it's such an easier language. Easier responses.

Fingertips tensing against Danny's scalp and tipping his head back, kissing him, demanding, shouldering into his space instead of just merrily being lead. Maybe a little more pointedly. Heatedly. Maybe because there is a point. But maybe because it isn't that he shouldn't get used to Danny silent. Maybe because he's already used to this. This thing where Danny pulls him in, and his lips open. When the world Steve has been trained to be hyper aware of at all seconds shorts out in static, for kissing Danny back. For stamping everything he has on those lips, on that mouth that he spends his whole day listening to.

Because nothing, nothing out there, could replace this. Because even if it had worked he'd still have woken up tomorrow morning and been confused in those first few seconds why Danny wasn't in his bed, deep heavy breaths of sleep alive in the room, and even when he realized it, maybe even because he realized it, why, why he wasn't. He would have drug that other pillow over his head and searched for any last trace of him that was still Steve's. Still there. Still in his arms.

Like this. When Steve is maybe not touching enough of him. When he can't kiss him long enough.

When the thought of letting go might be tantamount to treason now. Because he tried, and he doesn't have to now.

[haole_cop]

There's some turning point, right, there has to be. There always is, where things go from good but just good to necessary, when he stops being able to think on his own or breathe without this. He doesn't have any idea where that point is, where it tips, stops being just a kiss, just because, like saying 'hi' or adding punctuation to a sentence, and starts enveloping the whole world in a brilliant fog.

Maybe it's when Steve's fingers tighten against his head, thread further into his hair. It might be when Steve's weight shifts, and the space between them suddenly shrinks, when Steve is suddenly everywhere, like humidity or light or the scent of the sea. Being pushed back, towards the couch back and Steve's arm, still there like a warm bar, holding him in place, except Danny doesn't want to be here anymore. He wants to loop arm arm around Steve's neck and drag him down, turn this into a contest of strength and wrestle him closer, but he's got the wrong arm curved against Steve's chest, forcing him to face forward, and he's still got the beer in the other hand, ignored, sitting against his leg and spreading and damp patch into his slacks.

It's not good enough. Not when Steve is giving in, gave in, let Danny convince him, because he must not have wanted to be convinced, had wanted to just put down that gate and push Danny out the door. Saying things that are going to echo in his head, now, until they come true, the shouldn'ts and can'ts.

As there's a way this could be wrong.

He knows it must be. Knows Steve is right, that it would ruin his chances in court and probably get both of them fired, but knowing it and feeling this, this perfection, that tug and drag like gravity, are two different things, don't even exist in the same hemisphere. Because this, this is nothing but right, and it needs more, better, than this contorted angle, when Steve is pushing closer, pressing in. He has to lean, pull them both off the couch back so he can find the floor with the bottle, and then shift, bodily, completely, slide the arm that had been at Steve's chest down and around, hand slipping from Steve's jaw over his throat and shirt, to push between Steve and the couch. Replace it with the hand that had been holding his beer, warm skin instead of cool damp glass.

Better. What this deserves, what Steve deserves: his full attention. The movie is a movie; they can always watch another movie. Nothing happening onscreen or in the room has anything on Steve's kiss, his own opening, lips and tongue and gentle clash of mouths. Not trying to push his way under Steve's skin, but making a stand, making a point, branding a reminder, while his head starts trying to spin and breath starts forgetting that it needs to be even and deep enough to a point in order to keep everything together.