(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]

There's nothing quite like the sensation of being wanted. Of hearing the way Steve's voice bottoms out, feeling fingers dig into his side and his hair, a long tension of muscle contracting above him, because of him. Because Steve wants him.

Enough to sound distracted. Almost drugged. Voice barely there at all, rubbing itself over sandpaper as his hips rub over Danny's slacks. Danny can feel Steve's pulse tapping hard at his tongue; opens his mouth to pull at the skin, rewarded with the hand at the back of his head pushing harder, the body over him trying to move, restless, straight through him.

It's such a high he's not sure he'll ever be able to come back down. Biting gently on the cord of muscle, licking at damp, flushed skin, is like having that one last shot, the one that's really a bad idea, that'll send him into a spiral of fogged up, boozy poor decisions. The one that unlocks words, drops filters, numbs him to the possibility of repercussion. How the hell is he supposed to think about next when right the fuck now is already smoldering impatient coals under his skin, shoving them into his skull and making every single bad idea he's ever had seem like fate?

"Yeah, well..."

The hand not currently sliding up under Steve's shirt moves to the side of Steve's head, tips it with blunt square fingers threading into short hair, so Danny can chase the line of Steve's rabbiting pulse up to the soft underside of his jaw. "Last time was a month ago, and you have to admit there was a lot going on at the time."

Like, for example, every barrier he'd held, smashed in the space of a few second, a few hours, a single day. Gone from bro hugs and back pats to trying to climb down each others' throats, unable to keep their hands off each other for longer than a ten minute stretch. The words I want you screaming like falling meteors in his ears. When, Christ, he never just falls into bed with somebody, works up to it through coffee and dinners and movies and a few sessions of making out on the couch.

But not one of his roadblocks stopped him, that day. Not until that. The kitchen. The look on Steve's face. The apology, when there wasn't any need for apologizing. Not having any clue of how the mechanics of it all worked, terrified at the sudden loss of all control.

And. Well. If he's being honest?

Terrified of putting it all on the line, in one day. That Steve would be satisfied with it. That one day would have been all there was.

His fingertips track along Steve's waistband, palm filling with warm, soft skin and firm muscle, light cotton an afterthought across the top of his hand. "But I'd hate to think that took any options off the table."

He won't lie. The whole idea makes him nervous as hell, skittery as a racehorse and just as prone to tossing himself into a wall. But he wants so much it feels like it's going to start cracking bone, splitting skin, wants it all, everything Steve's willing to give or show or do, with only the vaguest idea of what that might actually be.

[thebesteverseen]

Danny is trying to break him. Rip him open all along a vein of fire that feels like its getting everywhere. Gotten everywhere. Burning down everywhere that once existed in any other fashion before this. Before this wiped it out. Firm, soft lips and the rough drag of stubble and the way he feels his center twisting tight and knotting down.

Talking to him, while kissing his skin, while dragging it from his own neck. Sucking on his skin and making Steve's world feel like parts of it are shattering. Just because of this small touch. His mouth, and those hands. Pulling him pushing him, his head, when there's no fight. Danny is shoving him moving him, to do more, take more. Hand up his shirt, across the fragile skin at the small of his back. His side. His neck and his hair. Impossibly everywhere.

Trekking fire up his throat, biting at the muscle there and making him shake. Making him drop out Danny's name. Something like a warning for what he's asking for, prodding, poking, shattering all the walls around. But it's so bare, so base and the bottom of the barrel, everything he wants, everything that burns him alive at the center carefully trapped. But always there.

When none of this was supposed to be there either. Danny was supposed to be gone. He was going to be gone or pissed drunk at this point. Not here. Not having no understanding how the world flipped upside down. Doesn't understand when his breath is shuddering more in his chest that even making it from his lungs, up his throat to his mouth. Wasn't supposed to end up here. Not on top of Danny.

Not talking about sex, not thinking about flashes of every dirty, secret, fantasy born not of the last year, but of the last month. Of getting almost everything. All those touches, tastes, watching him when he falls back. Knowing to taste of Danny's skin, his cock, the span of his hips, the way he thrusts, slow from restraint and fast when control snaps. The way he shakes, writhes, drives glorious bruises in with his fingers and hands on Steve's own hips, the way he curls perfectly inside Steve's arms, how his own face fits against the back of Danny's neck or his shoulder.

The way he sounds when he's shattering, swearing, pleading Steve's name over.

Steve can piece it together like an op puzzle. Has. Hasn't tried. But he's only human.


And there is no one on the planet he's wanted as much as Danny is such a long time. Maybe ever.

[haole_cop]

It's hard to say what that word is. That one word, just his name, just Steve grinding out Danny in a tone that's so close to helpless Danny thinks he must be hallucinating, because Steve McGarrett doesn't do helpless.

But it is. It's low and needy and threaded with desperation, even though they're both still mostly fully clothed and no one's doing anything worse than the tiny circular motions Steve's hips keep finding, as his fingers clench on Danny's side.

Which is good, but not enough, not good enough, and Danny snakes his hand out from under Steve's shirt just long enough to grab the one at his side, and drag it up to his chest, fingers fitting in a perfect curve over the slight rise of his pec, nipple nudging at Steve's palm. His own heart beating a frantic tattoo in nerves and exhilaration, hammering away against Steve's life line.

He wants to tell Steve to relax. Wants to remind him to breathe, in a way that doesn't feel like Steve is hitching air consciously into his chest only because he might pass out if he doesn't. Wants to point out that they don't have to talk about this now, that he's just putting it on the table, so Steve knows, because apparently Steve didn't know, Steve didn't assume, Steve took one kneejerk reaction as the absolute truth, and it was, that night, but maybe not anymore. And Danny's not saying they need to try anything new right now, tonight, this week, whatever -- Christ, he's not sure he's up for that, yet, no matter how hot his body burns --

He's just talking. Opening the door, or at least unlocking it. Like he feels he needs to unlock Steve, when his hand drops from Steve's wrist to find that spot at the vulnerable small of Steve's back again, licking a stripe against his throat, stroking firm fingers over bare skin, grazing teeth against the beginnings of stubble.

"I know my name. Tell me something new." Just as scraped out, and a lie, because he loves that hearing his name, two syllables that suddenly translate to Steve not being able to think, Steve laid out and wrecked, Steve desperate and shaking. A lie he tells, anyway, breathes against Steve's throat, the muscles that work there when he swallows, his back and core stringing so tight he can feel them wanting to give, to shake and roll apart.

Not yet.

[thebesteverseen]

"No." God. The word is breaking, all but literally dissolving down down his throat, in a flash of fire and whirlwind of ashes. In Danny's hands, and his words, and his mouth. While every rubberband and duct-tape in Steve head stretching toward a snap. Trying to hold, desperately begging to go. Being sabotaged with C4. And Danny does that. Says that.

Danny's heart beat is suddenly under his hand, fierce and solid, going so fast. "It's not. It's not off the table."
Not anymore than breathing is off the table. Or being able to live. Or being able to walk away from him.

When he's shaking free the shirt sides and hating his own shirt. The fact he can't feel Danny's skin everywhere. There's too much clothing, and too much air. Too much sliding out of his head like it's turned into a mudslide, everything from under the mountain of work and sanity erupting up from under it. Coming like Danny called it. Called him. Answers Danny's voice, like every part of his body answers every touch.

Like everything in him is keyed to the tone Danny uses and how much he's moving.

The way everything, everything is falling and he rips back from Danny's mouth at his jaw, lighting bonfires under his chin, dripping lava down his throat, to kiss him. Hard, this time. Fierce as the goddamn racing heart under his fingers. As the walls going in his head. A little vicious, and too hot. And over. Over in a flash. But without him moving.

The world is so still. Everything is everywhere at once. And nothing is. Because there's only Danny. There only ever is.

"It couldn't be." Words are tripping. "Won't be." Stumbling, falling, shattering like clumsy mortars turned to glass. When he has to pull back, drinking down air like it's become thick enough to be water, churning in his chest, making his chest rise and fall faster into Danny's when he pulls back just enough to see Danny's face below his. His eyes, his mouth, his while face. "I'll never not want you. Never not want-" God. He's. Fuck.

Digging his forehead in against Danny's forehead, thumb circling through curls on Danny's peck. Running the pad of his thumb back and forth across his nipple hard and faster. Faster than Danny's own heart beat. Hard the way he wants to clench his own teeth until they crack. Because want is not the word. It's so small compared to everything flattening through him. Through the way he would could will always consider throwing Danny over the back of the couch. Or shoving him into the pillows on the bed.

The porch. The chairs. The beach. The computer at work. A desk. Danny's sleeping form.

There is not something that isn't laced into there, feeling the stays rip, spilling organs everywhere. Leaving him breathing too fast and looking into Danny's eyes. Giving a shake of his forehead along against the way his body is tensing and shift already. Trying to hold on, hold off, keep his eyes on Danny, his forehead, the half finished sentence dangling on his lips.

That he'll always want that. This. More. Everything. Everything thrumming in every part of his skin.

Tell me something new, he said. It's hanging on his blue eyes. Tell me something new, he said. That fluttering line between fear and fascination. Tell me something new, he said. Clogging up Steve's head and falling out his mouth, like there's nothing left in his chest. Even when it's almost impossible to find one sentence in five millions images that flood his head, behind staring into Danny's.

"I want to watch the sweat trickle up your spine when you've lost the ability to even balance on your hands or your arms," comes fast. Almost too fast. Dark and thick and fast. "Watch your hands fist in sheets, unable to stay anywhere even two seconds, even long enough to hold on." Like any second Danny will change his mind. Any set of words will suddenly, so suddenly, drain the color from Danny's face and send his eyes wide. "To know-" goes hoarse, almost too big, too big, because he can't put it back. "What you feel like."

Either way. Both ways. Every single way. Every single thing that's every come in and dash or been bashed out. When there's a kind of panic squealing somewhere right at the bottom of this, that he could risk everything earlier but not this. Not like this. Not now. When everything could fall apart inside him, against Danny like this. In a way it never could out there, a way it never did with anyone else. No one who needed this.

Steps and words and slow, shoving new words up his throat, once he's barely even let paddle in the shallow of his head. Desperate, shower slicked and midnight dark secret thoughts. Working over a puzzle he already boxed up and put away, even if he didn't shut the door. Can't. Doesn't. Finds it there every single time Danny touches him. Until they are falling out.

"We could take it slow. Easy. I could, I would even go first." The words. The word slip out like a gunshot ringing in his ears. Because it's not what he said the first time, and it's not going to matter. Because what he said and he meant. They aren't there. Couldn't be. Can't be. Not now. Not here. Not Danny, who hasn't even. And he doesn't care. It might be so much easier for Danny if he started on bottom.

Because either way it's not going to matter. Either way, no matter where he is or isn't, top, bottom, position, no matter what he's going to have to guide Danny. But there's something tremulous and shaking in the center of his chest. Because he doesn't, wouldn't, hasn't. These aren't the kinds of offers he makes to people. Words. Words are never needed. Just skin, and the rhythm of need. Beginnings so far behind. Left in the dust. Trod on by time and experience

"It could be like this even." There's the first look away, with a gesturing to more of how they're positioned. The awkward fluttering desperation and overwhelming slam running his heart, tearing up his veins, making him nearly tremble with the force of holding still against Danny. "It could be as close to what you're used to as possible."

And he'll just. Pretend somehow, somewhere, there's even a feasible universe where his mind isn't suddenly full of the image of riding Danny. On his couch. Of Danny beneath him, shoved up inside him, like every piece of Danny he shoves under Steve's skin and never extricates, even like that, like this. Rising and falling. Of the way he feels a little too cut open while eyes stay settled back on Danny.

[haole_cop]

Good, he wants to say, but it sticks in his throat. Good, it's not off the table. Good, Steve is talking.

Steve is. Steve is stringing words together like he's threading wires into a bomb, beading each one with shaking fingers and sliding them carefully along a wickedly thin cord, but then it's like they just all drop to a haphazard lump at the bottom, while he focuses on starting another, a newer sentence, leaving Danny with a pile of words like sticks the growing sense that this room has simply folded around them, completely.

Paused while Steve kisses him, and there's something so ragged and desperate in that kiss, Danny can taste it, acrid like the sting of salt water in a cut, fear fogging up behind his eyes, so thick in the room he's breathing it in like smoke. Only, it's not his. It's Steve's.

Steve. Who has now let go of one end of the string entirely, words clicking and lost as they slither off the end and he keeps adding more, before Danny can keep up or react, dazing him with couldn't be, tripping him with won't be. Slamming a stage door wide open, so hard cracks appear in the walls of Danny's chest, with I'll never not want you.

It's not. This isn't. That wasn't what Danny was. He wasn't angling for that. Hears the words, licks the kiss off his lips and finds them dry with his shock and surprise and the sudden shameful swell of sheer impossible hope. That it might be true. That it could, somehow, really happen.

That the things Steve said outside were a cold wind blowing, screaming outside a house that can't be breached. That they were lies. That this can't go anywhere. That it's wrong. That he can't give, be, whatever it was, that they should just wash their hands of it and let it go, pretend it never happened.

That maybe this could be the truth, instead. A place where I'll never not gets replaced with what that actually means, because what that means is years, not days. It means always. It means a life and a home with another person, together, in whatever way that might, could, maybe, come to fruition. It's not the thing you say to a casual fuck buddy. It's not what you tell someone you were just trying to push away.

Not when it comes with rapid-fire words after it, all of them dropped like sticks of dynamite that are so old no one knows when or if they'll blow, because Steve is, Steve is worried. Steve is shaking himself right into panic, desperation lacing every skipped-pebble word, reaching for handfulls of them and scattering them across the dumbfounded stilled pond that is Danny's mind right now. Sending ripples of reaction washing up and over him, and he could swear he's actually tumbling away on them, on this, this thing that's sweeping up and across him and wiping away all the bullshit and fear like a wave wipes sand off a rock, leaving him naked and feeling raw with how wide open his chest has cracked. It's vivisection. These words. Steve's half-wild eyes, the near frantic look on his face.

And all Danny can think of to do, all he wants to do, is cradle Steve's face in his hands, and draw him down to kiss him, kiss these words and that uncertainty, that, God, is that fear? right off Steve's mouth. Leech it out of his skin, slowly, Christ, slowly, while he tries to piece together the things Steve said that Danny almost lost completely after that I'll never, because, Jesus. He needs to sort them out. Needs to respond. And he wants to, has words, has an answer, somewhere, but everytime he thinks he can open his mouth to put them into the world, he's overwhelmed again, lost in a confused and grateful swirl of Steve's generosity, that stupid clumsy heart of his, offering this, offering to make it easy, to try to make it as good as he can, to make it something Danny knows, as much as possible.

Already bending over backward, words dropping rapid and awkward, like he's afraid they'll get batted away if Danny gets the time to react. Like it's something he's been planning, and now can't help spilling every tiny detail. Blue eyes wide, forehead heavy on Danny's, and, fuck, Jesus, he can't feel this way about his indestructible partner, can he, like he needs to protect him, needs to soothe him, while Steve is trying, giving everything he's got. As if that somehow isn't good enough. As if there's possibly a way Danny could find it, him, wanting. As if Danny could want more.

More than Steve doesn't exist.

"Slow," he says, when he can catch his breath, when Steve's not scraping him from the inside out with mental images -- his own fingers clutching sheets, Steve's breath hot against the back of his neck -- "Yeah. Slow. And easy. It sounds good. Jesus, Steve. It all sounds good. You sound good, just, Christ. Babe. Come here, breathe, it's good, okay, I want it too, I want you, too."

Drawing him down with every word, like he's talking Steve down the rungs of a ladder. Hands cupping Steve's jaw, lips parting to press soft and firm and perfect against Steve's still feverish one. A brain-melting image searing itself on the inside of his skull. Hot, firm, moist skin pressing, bellies and legs and chest. His knees hiked up by Steve's slim hips. The long expanse of Steve's back, flexing and curling in front of him.

He can't breathe, he wants it so bad. Steve. Wants Steve like he hasn't wanted anything in years. Maybe ever. Enough that it shakes like adrenaline in his muscles. Breaks down sanity. "I want --"

Steve. Wants Steve. But. No. It's more than that. To make Steve see. That's it's not just him, is never just him. They're in this together. "I want you to have what you want. I want you to feel good."

[thebesteverseen]

Breathe. Breathing seems impossible. Like his lungs are anywhere near under his control or something he can even feel attached to him, or his mouth, at this point. When everything he can feel is cataloged along the lines of Danny's body underneath him now. The hands that have gotten free and are almost too soft and still on his face. Framing his jaw, his cheeks, his mouth, the sides of his head.

When it's so much easier to warily eye the words coming back, falling up at him out of Danny's mouth. The ones saying he does want it. Or even more that he does want Steve. When those aren't new words, but they are in a new way, and not one that's been anything like clarified before. Not something that was supposed to happen today, tonight, now. When it's easier to let Danny just keep talking, to let Danny's hands on his face draw him down into a kiss again.

A kiss on the razor edge of everything too highlighted by the careful hands on his face. The careful way beforehand the word Danny caught on was slow. The first one he could give back. The way nothing in Steve wants to listen to that, wants to remember he said it. Wants slow. Goes slow. Ever remembers to check for anything before jumping in the way of a threat or dashing five floors and jumping out the nearest window if necessary. All without hesitating.

There is nothing about anyone he's ever had, or anything he's ever done, they've done that screams slow.

There is nothing about slow written in his blood. But he's kissing Danny, because Danny pulled him down.

Becuse be put it out there. Meant it. Or wants to mean it. Like a splinter, like the need for it be there in himself if he dug hard enough, force himself to hold still enough, be patient enough, willing enough. The ability to do this the way Danny could. Would. The way the word want keeps catching on Danny's tongue, being repeated, crashing a note in Steve's ears, causes his heart the pound harder, trying to ring a bell in Steve's heard. Like he's forgotten something.

When he's already proved it false, already said he wants more, he wants everything, always does, always has, always will, but nothing more is more true that the way he shakes his head a little at Danny's last few words. Without ever breaking the frame of those hands, and his words as simple and few this time, "I already have that."

Because of Danny. Because Danny is still here. Because Danny somehow didn't leave him when he shoved away.

[haole_cop]

The first thought he has in response is that's absurd, because there's no possible way Steve already has what he wants, because what he has right now is Danny in all of Danny's confused and terrified jagged pieces, that keep trying to fit back together but just haven't quite found the correct pattern yet. Who would want that? And if they did, if Steve does, how could it, in any conceivable way, be enough?

That's what Steve is saying, isn't it? Giving Danny a non-answer, a shrug of words that says he's good, that he's set. With this. Already. Like just this is already enough, or even more than, which is exactly as crazy as it isn't.

Like Danny doesn't feel that way, too. Sure. He wants more, more touches, more contact, more of everything he can get, because he's greedy, selfish, always has been, and there's so much here to want and learn and give that it takes his breath away just thinking about it. But this -- just this, just getting Steve, who let him stay, who let him talk Steve down off the insane ledge of we can't do this -- is so much more than he ever expected, and more than he knows what to do with, aside from hold on as hard and stubbornly as he can.

And there are other things Steve wants. He just listed some of them, the things he must have thought about, wondered about, allowed fantasies to fill in blanks of actual absolute knowledge. He's not saying having Danny on his couch, pressed under him, breathing hard and dizzy with want, is the be-all and end-all of things he desires.

But maybe it's enough. Like it's enough for Danny. Something that wasn't supposed to happen, so how can he ask for more?

Which is insane. But Danny can't say he doesn't know the feeling, and when has this ever dipped back into the realm of sane, anyway?

"I can think of a few other things that might go on that list," he says, instead, smiling, because Steve isn't shaking out words anymore like they're coins stuck in his throat, he's not wired to blow any second, and when he kissed Danny back, it was rough and real and almost sharp enough to cut, but it wasn't the panicked grasping need of don't leave.

Which means his hands can wander back down the slope of Steve's spine, both of them sliding up under the hem to find skin he keeps leaving too soon, that should just be bared so he there's no single barrier between them at all.

[thebesteverseen]

It's easy to watch Danny's disbelief flash fast across his face first, like there's no way that's possible. Before it sinks in and Steve doesn't know if the expression following that one has any even vaguely deeper understanding of the fact it's true. Of how true it actually is. Of how it would take so much more -- a kind of more he can't even quantitatively add or point to, but more -- before they'd hit Steve needing anything.

Find something he couldn't live without. At least not the way how looking down in Danny's face does. The way feeling Danny's fingers smooth out under his skin invading it again, causing him to tighten his muscles and stretch his spine, pushing into Danny's chest with his own and hand still trapped there, does. When he was so ready to find the way to live without all of this only seconds ago.

Against the way right now he would snap someone's fingers and part the pieces of their larynx individually for speaking a single word against this or trying to pull them apart. When it feels insanely like Danny is the only thing on the planet that can anchor him to it. But Steve can let that though vanish like a balloon a child accidentally letting go of a ballon when Danny smiles.

The way the tug of his lips demands everything in Steve's head. Shoving awkward warmth into that tight space, tugging him from being that space and more pulling him out from being smothered by it. When he's not going to prove or make that same point again. Maybe not any of the ones that have left his mouth recently. When its easier to stretch his hand and shift so he run his fingers over the muscles in Danny's chest. His ribs. The constant heart beat rising and dropping his skin.

"Yeah?" Steve's mouth seems to be following Danny's, but when as that ever been news. That he's starting to smirk with an outlandish kind of exasperation that at the very edges might look like is only paint trying to cover very rusty affection. "And what are those?"

And whose are they exactly. His on his list, or Danny's own list and answer to that question? Any question.

[haole_cop]

"Yeah."

He wets his bottom lip, considering, relaxing a little further at the smirk that's pulling on Steve's mouth, backing them both a little further away from the wide-open bareness of a few minutes ago, challenging Danny to say continue, to -- what? Shock him, surprise him? Set a fire roaring in his head until he can't even hear his own thoughts anymore, let alone the things Danny's saying, or wants to say. Detail every fantasy he's ever had, that he's sure Steve's had, too? List all the things he knows nothing about, even after surreptitious internet searches that probably only confused him more?

He's not a dirty talker. There's a reason Kono managed to write a filthier text message than he ever could. Even with all the words he's got at his disposal, all his bluster and bravado, he's not. Hasn't ever managed it. Making sex just about the physical, which seems necessary for dirty talk to exist; or, at least, to shrug off the self-consciousness needed to say it all out loud.

Because, Christ. It's not just physical. It's visceral. The way he feels about Steve. The things Steve makes him feel. How he looks, how he sounds, when soft gasps turn rough and needy, punching Danny low in the stomach and twisting there, grabbing a fistful of gut and yanking it out.

And there's so much of it. That he wants. That he could list, if he could. Watching Steve's back arch, watching his arms shake and tremble with the force of trying to keep himself up. The way, when he wraps his hand around Danny, it's like the whole world shrinks to that fist, and Danny wants to know what it would be like with Steve's body, instead of his palm and fingers. Wants to know fast and hot and rough, wants to know mind-bendingly, screamingly slow. Wants to feel slick tight heat, try fingers, tongue, cock, everything there is. Wants to know what makes Steve shudder, what makes him moan, what makes him lose the ability to form words or coherent thought.

Wants to be able to say all that out loud, to him, for him. "You want to fuck me."

Everyone's got to start somewhere. He takes a breath, lets it gust out against Steve's lips, that are so close, the edge of Steve's jaw, that he considers going back to, hiding in without looking like he's hiding in it. Feeling a flush come up on his face that doesn't have everything to do with the long lean heavy frame of Steve on top of him.

But Steve talked, so Danny can, will, too. Because he's pretty sure this is something Steve wants, too. To hear it. To see it. To listen to Danny telling him it can, will, happen. "You want to make me lose my mind. You want to get buried so deep in me you don't even know where you start anymore. You want to make sure I can't even breathe without it coming back out as your name. " His heart is scattered and ramping now, beating like he's terrified, and he is, but he's elated, too, and Steve is, Christ, Steve is just so beautiful, lying here, every inch of him a miracle. Six feet of tanned skin, tattoos, and loyalty that never quits. A big stupid goofy heart that just wants to make the world safe, and never once thinks of himself.

So Danny will, for him. He'll try. "You want my sweat on your tongue and you want me to forget which way gravity is supposed to go. You want to have parts of me not one single person has ever gotten before. I bet you want to rip this shirt straight off and have me right here on the couch, and I bet you don't want it slow and easy, either."

His mouth is dry and his fingers have tightened gradually against Steve's back, until now they're pushing divots into firm muscle. "Or maybe that's all just me."

Things he wants. That won't, probably shouldn't happen right now, because it's one thing to talk about it and another to actually start down that path, and he's pretty sure neither of them exactly came prepared for sex on the couch tonight.

Which is maybe just as well, considering the way his heart's hammering, making him light-headed and forcing the room into a strange half-unreality around them.

[thebesteverseen]

He never sees it. Danny. Not Steve, Danny. When Steve can watch them almost like exact tics. The way his eyes and his face tip, just enough, like he's struggling not to look away, to burry his face down, the way there are fingers digging into Steve's skin. A little harder for every single set of words etching into his head with the kind of finite scorching fire and razor sharp focus, pain, precision that only comes from a tattoo pen.

The way every single set of words in painstakingly sure, even when Steve can watch being dragged out by a force of will that shows clear as day in Danny's eyes. Electric blue, electrified, scared. Scared, but not stopping. It's in his face, turning red. It's in his fingers, digging hard into muscle. It's in the way he's holding on to Steve for life, the way he holds on to the console, the door, his own legs, the dashboard when Steve is chasing another car.

Holding on to Steve, like he needs Steve to keep him from falling off the cliff, to be his lifeline, even when he's trying to shove Steve there the same time. With the exact same words. And it's not that it isn't hot. It's not that his body isn't on board with every single word falling out Danny's mouth, melting down that second, seconds ago, when he'd been smiling, slipping back to normal and social and here. It's that Danny does it anyway.

Even afraid, even terrified, pulse pounding at juncture of his neck, where the open shirt has left it frames, he's brave. He gives Steve's reckless a run for its money, and he never sees it. God. That's as clear as everything on Danny's face. His lips, his words, his movements. Want, yes, and fear, and god, the mouth on him. That Steve can't tell if he wants more to shut up or listen to or put to work on some part of his skin, tattooing any chance of any of that into him already.

Even then he pushes forward, brave and solid. And Steve knows he's right. Knows every single word is right. The redder fog in his head, the heavy move of his hand over Danny's skin, the way he's hard and his skin is steaming, suffocating inside his clothes, every single image bypassing his head and lodging in the melted silver pooling at the base of his gut and his spine, twisting him, stroking him like it might as well be Danny's fingers.

And still. Even with all of that his chest is flooded with this overwhelming feeling. Nebulous. Like he wants to jerk Danny up to sitting and just kiss him. Just somehow convey that he sees it. All of it. All of what Danny's doing. Whether he deserves it or not. Especially tonight. When he's stuck with that in his throat, along with the inability to deny anything Danny accuses him of. He does want all of it. He does want all of Danny. In every way he says.

Rolling words off his tongue that will never be silent, unspoken secrets again.

Because -- You want to get buried so deep in me you don't even know where you start anymore. is true, and You want to make sure I can't even breathe without it coming back out as your name barely begins to scratch the surface of the desperation laced in wanting to know what happens when Danny can't even remember how to talk.

Because he's selfish. Because he's fucking selfish bastard, who just tried with all his might to shove Danny, head and shoulders out of all of this, and Danny is still right. He wants every single piece of Danny no one has ever touched, not even himself. Definitely not Rachel or Gabby or any number of his past harem of slim, petite, women with bright, eyes and classic, restrained upscale fashion.

He wants to be first. The first person to take Danny. The first guy Danny ever fucks. Wants Danny to have to compare him to every single person who might come after and find them wanting, find them mediocre and himself aching beyond the ability to breathe or lie, for this, because it was all done better, best, first here. Wants to burn these people alive, for even existing in his head to touch Danny, fuck Danny, exist anywhere near him. Wants to be the only person allowed to touch, look at, have Danny. And he's never even had him.

Was willing to leave him not long enough ago that the burn marks aren't everywhere around him. The hypocrite.

Never let himself think he might still get to except in moments of weakness, want, desperation, the heat of the moment, the black of imagination. The burning edge of reality and whatever, whatever this actually is. That won't end. That didn't end when he left the island, or they came inside tonight. All of these words, thoughts, carved out organs of truths, like coals, shameful and dark, certain and beyond ferally possessive, set in his gut when Danny's words are ripping out the guts in the walls left, burning through his skin.

Turning his muscles tense and his eyes dark like Danny has found a way to name him truer than his own name is.

He's thinking about the fact that he wants something means nothing. Not with his family. Not with his job. Not with stupid jokes about rocket launchers. But the joke is dead in his throat, from Danny's words, breathed on his lips, and the only thing that tumbles out. Doesn't tumble. It's clear, and it's dark, scorched straight through low and blacker, thicker than tar, threaded with every bit of that truth. "Be careful what you ask for, or I will."

Lose everything. Lose every last shred of everything that is tremulously waiting, wanting, thrumming harder with every second when he has to kiss Danny now. Has to. Has to taste these words, and even the most thin possibility any of them are true. Has to have them, have him. Because the world can splinter, and fall apart, and be sucked into the sea. But he can't not be here, pulling Danny into him, as hard as the fingers digging into his back, demanding Danny say more, say it in a different way, back it up as more than words and wind.

[haole_cop]

That's the point, isn't it? Saying things out loud. So Steve doesn't get the wrong idea. So they're on the same page. So he knows, and knows that Danny knows, too. All these things that haven't been said out loud, clarified, put anywhere even close to the table since Steve slammed past both their filters that first night in the kitchen.

Asking for it, even when it feels like there's no air left in the room to use for talking, or breathing, so it's a good thing Steve doesn't wait for an answer, just slides to find his mouth, searing hot, like he wants to brand it on Danny's skin. Voice ripped slow from the bottom of a barrel, absolute, a promise, not a challenge. And it's so clear. It could. It could happen, here, now. Steve is resourceful. Danny's pretty sure there are ways to make it happen, rough and wrecked, a collision of bodies and sheer drive, licking electricity like he's wired into the grid for the whole city, all of Honolulu's lights and heat and laughing freedom shocking straight through them both in a wild ride.

But he doesn't think Steve would. Will. Not when Steve's voice was so broken before, not when he was so careful, words beating rapid and fragile as bird wings, trying to get them out, to make Danny see that it doesn't have to be like that. That it could be slow. Easy. Something like what he's used to. Even though Steve is the guy who rolls off building tops and leaps aboard moving trains, who could burn this whole place down without a second's thought if it needed doing or was in the way.

It's Steve who's hot and hard and heavy on top of him, and it's not weird anymore, watching his eyes go dark, blue swimming thin around black. Steve holding him down, while he's trying to shake, adrenaline winding a high-pitched whine in his head, that drowns out the last hints of the movie, if that's even still on.

He doesn't give a shit. He's got Steve, right now, and that's the only thing on God's green Earth he wants right now.

Fingers digging into Steve's back, before scrabbling at his hem, tugging at it, wanting this shirt off even though he doesn't want Steve's mouth going anywhere, isn't willing to lose any part of him pressed up against Danny's legs, stomach, chest. The leg that got pushed off the couch coming back up now, bending at the knee to push the inside of his thigh snug against Steve's hip. Pretending they fit on the couch. Pretending he's not at the jagged edge of some kind of severe cardiac episode, but how is that anything but the usual, with Steve?

Sex with Steve is like everything else with Steve: dangerous, a slam of adrenaline and excitement, and possibly going to kill him.

[thebesteverseen]

Steve is grateful when Danny doesn't pull back. When he doesn't simply kiss him back and keep going. When everything, everything winds to a snap and suddenly Danny is kissing him back the way he's kissing Danny. When words, words, seems shattered, scattered broken, even when each one if sitting in a cage, to be thought about later, to shove up under his skin in the wrong ways in seconds from now.

When Danny wants that to happen. Danny made that happen. Danny is shoving him closer and closer to it.

While Danny's hands are jerking at his shirt, and his legs are crossing around Steve. Where he finds the urge to laugh and almost let loose a noise from the bottom of his chest that will be more wild than sinful. God. He wants to dig his fingers into Danny. Bites his lip like a punishment, before that sound that comes out between his parted lips is more like dangerous frustration that he has to let go at all now.

Of Danny's skin, of Danny, to get his hands down there on his own shirt. Crossing his arms and tugging it off with the help of the other hands all over him. But not going back. No. No. He's not waiting. He's got no patience. He wants everything and he wants not to explode before he gets there in the fastest flash bright burst of a lack of any control ever. Wants him. Now. Wants everything. Every word. Danny.

"Up, up, up," word repeating, splintering, a hard firm, buck no responses, five AM, crack of dawn, authoritarian, order. While Steve's using all his strength and dragging Danny up from the couch cushions, by the edges of his shirt thrown wide open, wanting it gone next. Needing it gone. Wanting all of Danny's skin and his hands. Wanting everything he should never be allowed to have or touch or keep breaking, tonight, or ever, that keeps laying itself out in front of him like he's done something to ever deserve the best person he's ever met.

When he can't even wait. One of his hands is shoving at the cloth over a bicep and the other is at the side of Danny's throat, as careful as it is demanding and sudden, hair-fine-line controlled, palm wrapping stiff around the column of muscle, fingers in his hair, pulling his head one way, because he's already leaning in, finding Danny's shoulders, the solid muscle there with his mouth and pulling at the skin, like he's going to make Danny wear all of his promises.

So that Steve can see them every time he's certain he just went crazy again, and can't open his mouth to ask.

So that when he gets lost, and he forgets, and he sets it aside, he can find himself again, the way Danny always does.

[haole_cop]

At least he has some purchase this way, foot up on the couch cushion, inner leg pressing hard against Steve's hip and the outside of his calf, but his foot almost slips back to the floor when Steve moves, a sudden slick powerful wave, allowing a rush of what feels like damn near arctic air between them at the loss of contact. While Danny's still dazed and struck from that sound, licking at his bitten lip and tasting the faint coppery sharpness of skin that's not quite broken, and they're both grabbing for Steve's shirt, tugging it off him, leaving him exposed, perfect, light glancing off his skin in the stuttered strobe of the television screen, flickering with every change of shot and scene.

God. Just. Fuck. He should be on that screen. He should be in a magazine spread. Steve's chest is heaving, stomach muscles contracting and loosening with each breath, and he's so beautiful it actually hurts, aches in a swift blow to Danny's sternum, sinks beneath the bone and clutches at his heart, that poor fractured thing that's bounding recklessly into the fray, keeps stumbling, fumbling, limping every other step, nowhere near able to fly the way it thinks it can. A sorry excuse for one, continually lost and bewildered, too easily stepped on, out in the open like it is.

But chasing Steve, and Steve's impossible beauty, is what it's doing anyway, hammering in his chest like it's trying to burst straight out, leaping into his throat when Steve pulls him up, can't even wait for Danny to get the damn shirt off his shoulders and arms before he's all over him. Hand wrapping at the side of his neck, fingers shoving up into hair. Making Danny shiver, a full-bodied hard shudder that feels like fever, a low groan pulling out of him as Steve's mouth falls on his shoulder. Trying to strip his suddenly clinging shirt off his arms, sleeves catching on his biceps and elbows, shaking rough and unsteady.

"Fuck, Steve."

He's already left marks all down one side of Danny's throat and onto the skin of his shoulder, but apparently that's not good enough, and Danny can feel the blood striking against his own skin as Steve pulls on it, mouth so hot and so good, fitting perfect and slick against bunching muscle.

His shirt can die. That would be fine. He's about three nanoseconds from just ripping the damn thing himself before he feels it finally, finally, slide off his wrists, letting him wad it into a ball and toss it aside, and his hands, his hands are free, finally, Christ, he can't get enough of Steve's skin under them. Sitting up, stomach crunching and back taut, arms circling Steve's ribcage, a wealth of warmth and smooth skin and shifting muscle underneath his palms, fingers, blunt nails trying to find purchase, scraping lines into Steve's perfect skin, soothing them again with fingertips.

Pushing his face into the crook of Steve's neck, trying for more, for closer, because he used up all the words he had, bottomed out, and all he's got left now is to listen to his own harsh breath and sink into Steve, smelling like salt and shampoo and sun-soaked skin.

Holding on. Hard. Like Steve is a life raft, and maybe he is. Danny was sure as hell adrift before they met, and whatever he has to cling to now is all because of Steve.

[thebesteverseen]

That shudder is almost perfect. When Steve can feel it, against this mouth, against Danny fighting with his shirt and the one hand Steve is not using as well as he could when his vision is out of use, and his busy tracing Danny's skin with his mouth. Chasing down it. Staying only long enough to drag skin into his mouth, like he's collecting, tagging and cataloging all of it.

Like he's labeling each piece as his. Because Danny said he was, he wanted...

When his thoughts aren't even that coherent against the groan that wracks out of Danny's chest beneath his fingers and his mouth, while Danny is stil struggling with the cloth, tensing and shaking it with his own growing frustration and distraction under Steve's mouth, and Steve is seriously beginning to consider the necessity of a casualty. Because it would go so fast if he grabbed both sides and just ripped it down Danny's back.

But a wave of relief sags through Danny about the second after that thought and Danny is moving, finally shaking a hand free. An arm, moving to the other, before there's the noise of something being thrown and landing away from them. Somewhere away that Steve doesn't need to be looking, because Danny's hands are on him. There are nails digging across tight muscles, active, muscles making him shiver and stealing his breath, even when he's arching into them for more.

Even if he won't let go. Not really. Not long enough do more than look at Danny's chest, again. And his face, while Danny's getting his hands, his arms as far as they can go right now around Steve. When he's solid and warm, a matching frantic, shoving his face into Steve's skin and making his chest ache with a fierce spike because he didn't do it earlier, but suddenly he's doing it now.

More than those fingers. Hanging on. Hard. Holding. For dear life. Or something like it. Burying himself into, against Steve, in a way he hadn't done when he was blushing, nervous, and painting sentences with a bravery that Steve is not sure he even possesses except like this. Grafted inside his arms, to his chest, trying to choke his ribs, whispering that this is everything and not enough. That Danny wants him. And more.

Wants everything he can do, give, take. Even when it scares him, makes him nervous, sends him somewhere he's never been.

When Steve let's it hit, like a bomb, but doesn't stop. Lets his fingers card up into Danny's hair, from over his throat, almsot like a caress for only the space of something like half a second, before he's pulling Danny back down. By his hair, by his head, needing his skin back, needing to trace further. Keeping hims body a few inches above the cushions, while he keeps going, by the sheer strength of will and no want for Danny to be further, for Steve to have to contort more.

Down more skin, insistent and focus. The valley between his shoulder and his collar bone, the rise of his collar bone itself. The solid mound of muscle that is his pec. The flat of his breast bone. Running soft, half-chapped lips across that skin. Pulling it into his mouth, every second or other second, when he's made it too long ago. Before he needs the tang of salt and the flavor that is only Danny, burning on his tongue, against his stubble, filling his nose.

Like he's trying to find, with any of his senses, where something changed while he hadn't noticed. Going to make it so he can tell every place he's been with a mark, so he can know where every other inch of Danny he still needs under his tongue, in him, pulled up, messed up, torn apart, the way he just did to everything that even exists in Steve.

Setting about bagging and tagging all of it that he gets to, so he knows exactly which inches of Danny still might hold the ember of that elusive, burning truth that was shoved into Steve's body and is thrumming toward an explosion all it own. Dragging his mouth over Danny's nipple next and pulling on it. The taste of skin, and feel of hair against his lips, his tongue, when he's not going any gentler on anything more sensitive. When maybe it's a little harder, even. When he wants to everything, and he wants it now.

Because Danny said. He said so much. Him and his million words, and they are burning Steve alive.

When he's going to drink Danny in, burn Danny down. Fingers hard in his skin, arm muscles tense with the weight but not shaking and Steve needs, wants all of him, now, now, now. Wants every single thing that fell out of disown mouth, the Danny's mouth, rubbing on his skin and his mind like a match, that Danny just lit everywhere, all over him, on purpose.

[haole_cop]

Steve's mouth is going to be the end of him, he knows it. Every touch of it streaks lightning across his skin, chasing it with fire, like touching a match to a trail of gasoline, or lighting the smoke of a just blown-out candle. It laces across his whole chest, around his back and ribcage, threads into his stomach and hangs on as his muscles tighten and tighten further. Steve's marking him up, and Danny can feel it, feels the bruises forming, the scrape of teeth that will turn into pink lines once it's all over and leave him reminders in the mirror, as if he could forget.

As if there's any way to forget the fact the he didn't go anywhere. Told Steve he'd do whatever it took. Pushed into his space and said don't, said please, and Steve isn't doing anything nearly as polite as that. He's painting thick swathes of ownership over Danny's skin, leaving behind angry red marks that may actually muddy into purples and blues by morning, as if Danny hasn't had enough of bruises, as if the last few weeks weren't spent mostly recovering from the previous ones. Not that this is anything like being attacked in an alley, except that --

Well, it is kind of like being attacked in an alley. Able to fight back, but unwilling to, even when Steve's shoving them both towards the couch again, the fingers that had just been sliding up into his hair now fisting, yanking dull pain into Danny's scalp, dragging him down like an undertow. Mouth hard and hot, muscles flexing under Danny's fingers, into his nails, pushing up into his grip like he can't get enough of it. Even after almost shoving it all out the door, slamming it shut behind him. Trying to push Danny out to the car, out of his life, out of his bed, out of his arms, but it was all a lie, had to be, because it's like he can't let go, now.

Pressing Danny back down. Smothering the world in him, in Steve, scent of him and taste of him and the solid heavy reality of him. Dragging madness through his skin, mouth latching onto his nipple, tongue hot and wet and just this side of rough, enough to make Danny roll his head back from where his face was buried in Steve's neck, chest heaving without any breath finding its way through. Shoving up, mindlessly, hips pushing, core contracting so hard he wonders if it'll be sore tomorrow, the way it is if he does too many crunches or spends more time than he's used to on a surfboard.

Not that it matters. Not that any of it matters, except for Steve, and the way Steve's not arguing with him anymore, or trying to say he doesn't want this, isn't deflecting, isn't holding back. Spiking Danny's heartrate into the red zone, and he's not sure if his hands are all over Steve more for as much contact as he can get, or just to hold on, while Steve douses him in gasoline and lights a match.

Steve's a man of action, after all. Why wait and talk about it, think it over, when he can just throw himself off the cliff into the fire and drag Danny with him?

[thebesteverseen]

How is he ever supposed to make sense of this. Ever want anything else on the planet. Anything but Danny.

Danny with his Do you want me to go? soft and so bare it's gouged into the bare floors of Steve's head right next to I want it, too, I want you, too. Gouged in a way that will never go. That will still be there, dug in with stronger than a chainsaw and more deadly than a circle of landmines, that will still be there when all the red marks on Danny's skin are a memory.

Somewhere so deep nothing physical or debilitating could compare. Marking him aside, coloring him completely.
Putting itself somewhere he can never tear out of his own skin, or Danny's. Something wild and terrifying and permanent.

Lined in the way Danny doesn't pull away, doesn't tell him to stop. Grinding up into Steve's body, leaving him muffling a groan into Danny's skin he can't stop, because he never saw it coming, slamming his body, his chest, and his mouth with the speed of a mac truck going top end, careening. Making him hiss in a sharp breath and have to let go so he doesn't bite down on Danny's skin in shock hard enough to rip it or draw blood.

When. God. He can't even be fiercely annoyed for longer than half a heart beat, because he's rewarded, knocked out, with the sight of Danny with his head thrown back, the faintest sheen of sweat broken out on his skin, catching the low light of the lamps in the room and giving his skin a faint glow. Right up his chest, shadowing into his neck and his jaw, and his face. When Steve is floored by how gorgeous, how impossible.

That Danny wants anything to do with him. Especially tonight. Said all of it now. Still. After. Looks like this because of him. Is holding on to him like the world would shatter and fall apart if he let go of Steve now. Like he's falling apart inside his skin, flush and shining with antagonized patches of skin Steve shouldn't take such a visceral pleasure in, but he's so far beyond guilt or shame for that. He knows where that belongs tonight, and it's not on Danny's skin.

Maybe for caving. Maybe for wanting this more than anything else. More than he even wanted to be Good, to do Right.

But not for leaning into Danny's skin, licking a path up his breast bone to find his mouth again, while his hands are headed for Danny's pants. Tugging at the fabric with quick efficient movements while he's trying not to have to think about that part where he's going to have to move anywhere else to get these pants off Danny. That can wait, everything can wait.

When he's gotten the zipper and button, even with his mouth busy and his unwillingness to move yet from between Danny's legs. When it doesn't involve needing to move, to slip his hand in Danny's boxers without any preamble or introduction until he can get his hand on Danny. When knocking his knuckles against Danny's cock even before he's twisting his wrist to wrap his fingers around it and pull lightly already, is filling and fueling his head with dozens of images he'd never have let creep in this soon, this vividly.

[haole_cop]

Nowhere. That's what Steve said, before. This goes nowhere. Nowhere Danny needed, but Danny has to disagree with that assessment, would suggest maybe Steve can kindly stick his opinion of what Danny does or doesn't need where the sun doesn't shine, because, Christ, this is need.

This, shaking, gripping, grabbing for Steve like a junkie chasing down a fix. Feverish and flushed, so deadly addicted that the idea of letting go is insanity, because Steve is gravity and air and the electric shocks shooting under his skin; he's boiling Danny's blood and evaporating his brain into a fogged up cloud of steam. Danny can feel the path of his tongue, striping his skin, like Steve's tracing that line with coals, and then his mouth is under attack, the button and zipper of his pants. Steve is besieging him, like Danny is enemy and ally and objective all at once, and, Jesus, Danny would slow him down if he could, point out that there's no need for desperation, he's right here, isn't going anywhere, isn't planning on it, obviously just proved to Steve's thick head that he means to stick around as long as he can, but that would require talking.

Which, still, stupidly, needs breath. Oxygen. The ability to sift through his vast mental dictionary, find words, string them together into what is traditionally known as a sentence.

Something he was maybe still able to do, before Steve shoved a hot, impatient hand into the sudden space in Danny's pants, and that high-pitched whine ringing in his ears screeches a few decibels higher, turns into the kind of white noise you know is there but can't hear clearly anymore, the sound equivalent to watching a muted explosion, and, Christ, Christ, fuck, he couldn't give this up. How could anyone give this up, Catherine must be dumber than he thought she was, how could she just let Steve go?

Steve, who is making Danny come all undone with a single hand, and Danny feels like a hockey skate being unlaced, swift, Steve's long finger hooking behind his bellybutton and yanking him into clumsy loops. His stomach clenches so tight it feels like being punched, and his groan interrupts Steve's mouth in its mission to seek out and destroy each remaining individual braincell.

He'd love to be able to talk. Would love to try saying a few more things, see what reaction he'd get, working Steve even further, pushing him, coaxing him, needling him, but he's not sure he'd survive it, isn't positive he'll come out of just this in one piece. His hands are making a frantic study of Steve's back and sides and hips, coasting over his back pockets, palming the curve of his ass through too-thick, too-annoying material. Trying not to pull him and erase the space Steve's putting to use, but hating the way they aren't pressed skin-tight to each other, like he wants.

More than this. He wants more. He wants it all, everything Steve might want to give, everything he can offer up, wants to know. Being with Steve has always been a singularly new experience; this is just one more, something else he can trust Steve with, wants Steve with him for, at his side, always.

Making his voice come threadbare and pleading, no matter how he tries to shove it back, pace himself, saying "Jesus, babe, that's so good, Christ. Steve. I can't --" With a petulant tug on Steve's pants. "These are in the way."

[thebesteverseen]

It's a head rush, it always is. Watching Danny react. Feeling it across him. When sensation shudders through Danny's body. Against his hands, against the stiflingly restrained area inside Danny's pants that Steve's hand is now taking up the rest of. Against his legs, the leg clutching around his. The immediate shift of touch, before it's broken the next second with the groan that reaches Danny's mouth finally.

Dragging his mouth from Steve's, and leaving Steve with an explosive bubble of gritty satisfaction exploding inside his chest. Too fast and too big to even really get out a laugh or a snort at it. Running out and wanting more, just as those hands get in on it. Suddenly sliding everywhere, like the objective is for Danny to touch all of him and there's just too much of him everywhere, or like Danny just can't get enough of everything, all at the same second.

Ghost hands on his skin, against his bones, digging into the thick muscles on his sides and across the curved slope of his back. The frantic edge to them probably being the best. When Danny can't even seem to decide whether he's pulling Steve closer, or holding him still, digging fingers and handholds into him. His ass. When there are words, breath-less and thin, and so god damn glorious Steve almost wants to stop just to listen to it. Almost.

Words falling out, pleaded and then petulant, pulling at his clothes and startling that laugh right out of his chest
Caustic and mocking like it got poured out of rich sunshine, slow roasted until it could burn brightness even in the dark.

"You can't what?" Steve asked, with taunting kind of insult, the way he asked Danny anything during a day. In the car, at work, on a case. Prod at his skin, his rants, his heart, his feelings. Scoffing out right on it's heels, "Your hands don't look-" There's a telling half second pause and pressed on addition. "-or feel, broke from here."

Which might be two comments he doesn't actually need to make. Because he gets it. He does. God, does he.

All of these clothes could be gone. They could be doing so much more. Might be. But then if he was going to to play anywhere near fair his fingers wouldn't still be stroking up and down Danny's skin, without any pause for the antagonization or the way the movement is running a raw line along his own wrist against the back of Danny's boxers and zipper.

[haole_cop]

"Yeah."

Comes out heavy on a breath, against Steve's mouth, where he's leaning up to find it again, kisses getting clumsy and thoughtless. "They're not."

Broken. Not like the rest of him feels like it will soon be, but he's not there yet, and even though Steve's carding madness through his bloodstream, making crazy bubble through it like carbonation, Danny's not actually helpless. Steve may be bigger, taller, heavier, but Danny's not wilting daisy, and, more to the point, he has something Steve doesn't.

Leverage.

Which means he can push up with the shoulder closest to the TV, the foot that's flat on the couch cushion, and roll them both towards the inside of the couch. One hand is on Steve's hip, shoving him without preamble, unapologetically, toward's the couch's back, even as stars white out the inside of his head at the shift of pressure, at too much touch, at sudden space appearing between them.

The lack of continuous contact means he can work at Steve's belt and buckle and zipper, though, without trying to contend with Steve's weight, without getting his hand caught and crushed between them, and pinning Steve to the back of the couch means he's got more say in how this all goes down, too. Sure; they don't exactly fit like this, either, packed like sardines, but he just hooks a leg around Steve's and shoves hips, belly, chest up against him, and calls it a draw, hand snaking down once he's got Steve's belt and button undone, tugging at the zipper, the tented fabric that he runs a palm over in a way he tells himself isn't punishment, but isn't a hundred percent sure he isn't lying.

Not that Steve doesn't deserve everything he gets.

Sure. One arm gets partially pinned, but he solves that by sliding it under Steve's neck, slinging it around his shoulders, tugging him tight and close as his fingers navigate cotton to find skin, slick smooth hot hard, and he actually breathes out a sigh into Steve's mouth when his hand wraps, starts moving, up and down, thumb nudging the ring at the head before circling the pad around.

"They seem to work just fine. Huh?"

[thebesteverseen]

He doesn't fit, but really he has to give Danny points for just going the hell with his decision, flipping Steve and leaving him with almost nowhere to shove his legs that isn't still hitting the arm of the couch with the foot of the one under him now, leaving it cramped and bent, and one that magically somehow ends up with his foot off the couch, stretching calf and thigh muscles that haven't in long enough there's a low grade burn in with the surprise.

But none of it. Not Danny rearannging him like he's furntiture, like this a wrestling match, and throwing him at the couch, that he's certain moved an inch or two there, with his weight tossed at it. Not his shoulder smacking the couch. Or having to negotiate Danny's knees, and the damnably important part of managing not to tense his hand on Danny the any more than tense handshake.

None of it is as problematic as Danny's fingers ending up on him, rubbing over his pants.

In the way his shoulders re-shifting, twice, is the first sign that he'd shuddered hard enough it made his own teeth snap. When there's blinding inferno lighting itself up and down every inch of his skin, taking out his vision, and his body doesn't need reminding, doesn't need prompting or leading. It's so ready already, after his own words, after Danny's, that it's a miracle he isn't just gone the second Danny touches him. Making a mockery of every ounce of his claim at self control over any of this.

When it's so strong he might have been thrown into a wall and not a couch. Not Danny's mouth on his, working smug words into his mouth, and forcing him to come back. To dig his fingers into the wall of his head, of thoughts over sensation, like icepicks and make it back. To where he can make his vision focus on Danny's face. On the words shoved into between kisses Steve can feel himself returning even before there's any thought about doing so.

When that's only going to increase, because Danny isn't even touching his skin but he's aimed for it. He is. Making him tense his core, his stomach, pushing down through his thighs with something like a desperate silent prayer, shifting into arms pulling him closer, and dragging Danny against him, half wondering too many things. Losing them in Danny's mouth, and moving his arm now. Shoving the one under himself out under Danny's side, to curl up around his back and drag Danny even closer.

Fingers of his hand, wrist, shifting, trying to find a more comfortable way to keep his hand in Danny's pants. Even when his hips are moving half without his say so -- shifting and push-pull through the cuff of Danny's fingers, up into the movement at the top -- and he keeps returning each of Danny's kisses, a little more ragged than he'd already been, he finds the breath to say, sharp and snappy. "Yeah. Sure. Danno. That looks great."

Just the edge of too tight, when everything, everything is Danny's hand and his eyes, how close his mouth is. Words grated out saccharine sarcastic, and maybe overly supportive, like you'd say it to a child, about an art drawing. Except that no child does what Danny's hands are doing, what Steve's mind is bolting toward, hard and fast. "This looks so much like you managed to get rid of my pants."

Maybe parts of his spine. Parts that are melting into the already boiling center of him. But not his pants. Which he'd really be grateful to have spontaneously combust at this point, honestly. He's got dozens more upstairs. Like he's got smartass to spare, while he's pretty sure the tips of his ears and the edges of his vision are burning. But he's not about to give. "I think we need to revisit your having any idea how this works."

[haole_cop]

He wouldn't put it past Steve to just tip his weight forward and roll both of them onto the floor -- the thought crosses his mind that the beer bottle will be a bitch to land on -- but Steve doesn't.

He makes kind of a surprised noise, and his muscles and fingers tense, but he doesn't actually fight it, or push back, or wrestle Danny back into the couch cushion. All he does is slide an arm underneath him, so they're both hanging on to each other, bicep and forearm muscles bunching, fingers grasping for purchase on skin that's growing slick with sweat.

And, of course, talking out his ass. Still. Because Steve never tires of criticizing Danny. There's always something about his clothes, or his social life; his taste in food, music, or alcohol, his vocabulary, for Steve to pick apart and niggle at, like he's auditioning for the role of Danny's mother. Nitpicking decisions, commenting on the length of his toenails or his choice of lunch food, picking at every detail until Danny bursts a gasket or two and tells him off. Steve will argue with him about literally anything, so it's no surprise he's been found wanting, here, too.

Except he knows it's a lie.

He knows it, because he can hear, see, feel the way Steve's whole body goes suddenly tense and still, coiling in on itself like a struck snake, until he lets out a breath the breaks against Danny's mouth, carries snide words that smudge against kisses, getting sloppy, open-mouthed, catching each other after every other word.

Making Danny laugh, a deep chuckle that resonates in his chest, because Steve is good, Steve sounds happy, Steve is mocking him and that's so much better than the distance of before, that felt like Steve was shoving a javelin into Danny's chest and using it as a guide of how far he should stay away.

Instead, Steve is gripping at him, pulling streaks of lightning up and down his spine with each shift of his hand, and Danny can feel him swelling against his palm, which is, fuck, unbelievably, unfairly hot. "Yeah?"

As conversational as he can make it, when each word feels like a match striking somewhere down deep, lighting tiny fires in quick succession. "I didn't think we ever got off that topic."

[thebesteverseen]

Everything is getting lost in a blur of Danny. The couch isn't big enough. The movie is playing somewhere feet away, another pointless fight scene no one cares about. Busily jammed into this space that one of them barely would fit in no less two. And certainly not two people, their size, doing this. Which should dictate something else to happen.

Something that isn't catching Danny's mouth between his words. Dragging them on to his tongue, sucking them down like the acrid air for a volcano he's teetering on the edge of falling into already. Or maybe he already got burned alive and he's just letting himself think there's still a rim and a chance. There's still anything, anywhere, in the world that isn't the rises and fall of his fist, of Danny's.

The way their chests bumps, and the speed of everyone's breath, mingled as one. Sharing the exact same few feet of air back and forth between themselves. While Danny is laughing, bumping into his stomach and his chest, shaking with that brightness, that Steve swears lightens everything about him. His eyes, and his face, and his hair, his skin. It's like the world reacts to Danny when he's happy.

It all changes, it all stops to pay singular pay attention. Or maybe that's just Steve.

Steve who's keeping his head about the water, above the flames, taking Danny's words and throwing them back.

"If you're get off in your shorts, you're failing it." Steve smoldering, smug smirk is winded only by the constant need for air. The way it feels like his skin can't decide between the want to lose cohesion now and the decision to try and blunt it out, knock focus down, hold out. If should, if they're, whether.

Images crowding Steve's head. Logistics, pants and shoes, stairs and lube, things that aren't staying, because of the warm wide expanse of a palm and the pads of fingers rubbing his skin, which in turn are gouging nails through his ability to think. Melting the wall of wanting to think. To do anything but keep meeting it. To hitch his hips faintly faster. To pull Danny closer. To have more of his skin.

"This-" Which as a single word, is almost more of a grunt when Steve emphasizes that word with thrusting hard into Danny's hand, dragging his hand fast up and down over Danny's skin, and kissing his mouth, like he was going to take Danny's air, and his lungs, and his heart straight up without asking. Which maybe doesn't surprise him that everything burning when he's shoving out the last words like they more than half melted on his own point. "-isn't a discussion."

[haole_cop]

"So, you want me to stop?"

Said with a twist of his hand, a long slow stroke up, and he can't stop grinning, the kind of stupid, goofy grin that fills his whole face and makes every word sound like it's supposed to be laughed. He can't help it. It's insane. This. Steve. Him, with his hand down Steve's pants, jacking each other off like they're teenagers who snuck into school after hours and are afraid of getting caught by the janitor.

As an experiment, he pauses, and loosens the cuff of his fingers, just to see what Steve will do.

It's not a discussion. None of it is. They're well past the discussing stage for pretty much all of this, and they're only getting further and further now that shirts are going and pants are undone. Steve's hand is merciless, squeezing mercury into his veins, making the muscles between his shoulder blades pinch and roll, seeking out more, more contact, even as he teases at stopping, at letting go.

Like he could. Like either of them could.

"Who started this, huh? Who out their hands down whose pants first, here?"

Without bothering to get rid of them first, because Steve doesn't bother with details like pants when he's got an objective in mind. He goes straight in, never mind they were just talking about more than this, and Danny's already shaking, hard, desperately calling up old baseball and hockey plays to keep his grip, not suddenly skyrocket into oblivion, no matter how good it feels, no matter what Steve's words did to him before.

About not remembering how to speak. About his fingers fisting in the sheets. About not being able to so much as hold himself up.

Christ. Steve's mouth, Steve's hands -- they should be weaponized. Illegal to use. They're unfair, like Steve himself is unfair, GQ looks and a body that won't quit and, Christ, that smile, that scraped out black oil tone of voice. The way Steve keeps pushing closer and closer, even when there's nowhere closer to get. Arm hard and stubborn around him, responding in tiny tics that are starting to become familiar. The doped look to his eyes, heavy-lidded and blown dark. The faint tremors that mean strain is starting to tell on him. The flush that creeps up through his chest to his throat and cheeks.

It's an effort to tease a stop, but worth it to see Steve eat his words.

[thebesteverseen]

He's honestly not sure if Danny's face or Danny's hand is worse. The first looks so pleased, so golden and gorgeous, Steve wants to press it into himself, sear it into his skin, so he'd had something to even point to for how when his brain is trying to melt out his ears for Danny's hand, that thing in his chest is just fighting expanding, sloppy, stumbling, exuberant, shoving everything out for that smile, for his tone.

He never wants to stop this, because Danny should look like this at all time.

It's almost painful for a moment, painful air bubbles in his ears burst when he breaks the surface of water after being down too far without the exact proper preparations, disorienting, making you want to slip right back under. And it's not calm or quiet, like slipping under water. This about wanting to step back into fire. Into the twisting slow surge of Danny's hand, and their knocking, crossed forearms.

It would be easy to let it go. His own words, Danny's, to give into the tremor shivering under his skin, the way his body pushes against Danny's impotent fingers, almost making Danny's point for him. Except Steve didn't throw his back into it, or any of the rest of the muscles. There's no denying it feels good. There's no denying he wants to get off, want to come breathing in Danny's voice calling his name.

But it does beg the question, or a thought, and thoughts aren't staying. They don't land and slip slowly through him. They run, carrying torches, burning everything out as they go. Caustic, flippant, and fast. Leaving only a throbbing longing pounding under every inch of his skin. For Danny. For Danny's hands. For Danny's mouth. For this. For everything. For more.

The turn to his expression is dangerous and fast, sharp lines in every inch of pleased derision, dripping with the kind of warning signs that should come before anyone's pushing off a cliff. "You saying you're following my lead now?" Which doesn't even come on it's own whenever, does it.

When does Steve ever fight a war only on one front? His fingers having loosed from a sheath but not stopped moving. Dragging, pushing, cramped fingertips further in, lining his forearm up, so every time it moves, it's friction against Danny's cock and the pressure of pushing it flat against Danny's own stomach. When his fingertips are pushing a line, fighting against the strain of cloth, across Danny's base, across his balls, with only a momentary roll of skin, and the thin, sensitive skin behind them.

To the place right where his skin divides, rising against the fabric, for the twin curves of his ass starting.

[haole_cop]

This is the problem with Steve.

Or. Well. Not the problem, exactly. More like the trouble, this is the trouble with Steve: that there has never been a single moment when he hasn't been able to adapt his angle of attack to anything and everything the world has ever been able to throw at him.

Danny turning him against the couch, or threatening to take his hand away is only the cue for Steve to reconsider his offensive, to try another tack, pressing smug words against Danny's mouth as his hand, fingertips, start to wander.

Down. Where it doesn't seem like there's any space, and Danny's already shifting, opening up his legs to give room, every nerve in his body tracking the path Steve's taking, screaming new and no and yes all at the same time, confused and short-circuiting, because Rachel never, Gabby never, he never, and it feels weird. Unwelcome isn't right, but weird, tensing up his body, locking up muscles into sudden bewilderment, fighting the impulse to shove Steve back with the one to drag him forward.

Knowing without a doubt he'd have decked other people for less, for assuming, and clamping down on the reaction of but that's not right, because it doesn't feel wrong, either.

Just. New. Different. Steve's fingers moving to spots Danny barely even thinks about, let alone touches, considers. Wondering if Steve really means to follow his lead, right now, because Danny's pretty sure he's just about got his hands full with trying to force himself into relaxation, which works about as well as might be expected.

But. "When have I not backed you up when you do something crazy, huh?"

Pressed. Pressed against Steve's lips, in his tightening throat, in words that feel compacted and heavy, pieces of lead bitten off and swallowed hard. Fingers curling around Steve again, needed, that touch, reality, everything that's happening and everything he wants but doesn't understand.

It's important, okay. He always backs Steve up. Always. Follows his lead. Even when Steve's lead sends them both into the bullet-torn fray, crashes planes, gets them tied up and beaten, spares their lives by the fraction of a second and the thankfully dense material of Kevlar vests. Because trusting Steve isn't about always thinking Steve knows best, or never questioning him.

It's knowing Steve will always try. Will do anything. Always. So Danny runs a nervous thumb up Steve's skin, wraps his fingers around Steve's shoulder, and holds on, nudges forward, the absence of breath knocking holes in the walls of his chest, shrinking the world to something that lands between his shoulders and presses there.

He said he's not going anywhere, and he's not.