(no subject)

[gonna_owe_me]

Steve is really good at avoiding her.

Normally, she probably wouldn't even call it "avoiding."  Normally, she would call it his usual M.O. and chalk it up to being a side effect of being halfway around the world from each other.  There are times they've gone for months with no contact, and two weeks is barely the blink of an eye, particularly when she's busy and he keeps getting high-profile, high-priority cases.

At least, that's what she hears, when she hears anything at all.

But those weeks and months of zero contact, running silent, off the grid: those days aren't exactly applicable when there are extenuating circumstances such as A. they are living on the same island and B. she knows there's something he really doesn't want to talk to her about.

Ergo, avoidance.

She's not an impatient or nosy person, though, so she lets it slide, for a little while.  He clearly needs to get used to the idea himself, and, frankly, so does she.  It's not that they haven't stumbled across a situation where one or the other of them was out of commission for their normal arrangement, but in general, those interrupting factors were not potentially career-threatening.  Not to the extent of sleeping with a subordinate.  Not to the extent of sleeping with a partner.  Not seriously.

And it is serious, whether Steve is admitting to it, or not.  It's splashed across him like someone doused him in paint and sticky sunlight, in the way he'd magnetized towards the door, the way he'd run out after Danny.  Maybe even more because he didn't bring it up until he absolutely had to.

So Steve is avoiding her, and she can sympathize, because this is not a conversation she particularly wants to sit through, either, but it still needs to happen, because, knowing Steve, he hasn't told anyone else and is shutting it back into compartments poorly designed for a situation of this magnitude and complexity.  

Which is why, when she called him on the next weekend inferred to be Danny's weekend with Grace, she's given him the benefit of both giving her the slip for two weeks and the peace offering of meeting at a place with really excellent drinks, one of which she has in hand as she sits at a table by an open window, chin in her hand, looking out at the quietly rolling ocean.  It's early evening, and she's come off a twelve hour shift, so it's nice to sit, let her thoughts unhinge, ebb and flow with the waves and mild breeze.  Wrangling an affirmative had proved to be difficult, but she'd managed it, pointing out that they might as well meet out, seeing as they're definitely going to make it to the restaurant this time.

It strips him of the home field advantage, too, but he's not the only one who knows how to keep a wall at his back and a few tricks up his sleeve.

Comments

[thebesteverseen]

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.

[thebesteverseen]

More than anything, probably than is even apparent, Steve is paying attention.



To way Danny's knees move, thighs open, even as he seizes up.

Freezes in place, only to tremor, tightening muscles Steve's hand is pressed against.


The way they tremor with a fight Steve can't even see, but he can feel it. He can feel it when he does nothing more than let his fingertips wander in half inches of space they barely fit into already, with Danny's hellaciously tight pants, and him hard, and a good Steve's forearm down his boxers. The way moving, even to open his legs strains the fabric of Danny's pants and space available in them even. And, god, but these pants need to go sometime soon. That's the thought when Steve makes himself take a breath.

Straining to keep ahead of the voice in his head telling him to stop, stop now and the one whispering go, go, go. Trying to shut both of them behind doors. Made of only the sound of Danny breathing, the silence of his living room and the movie he wants to throw something at the tv screen so it'll shut up. So he can only hear Danny.

The way Danny swallows. The way his breath rushes through his nose. Gets stopped. The way his hand is tightening on Steve's shoulder, but also in other places it hasn't left, other places where it's whiting out his vision a little, pressing his fingers tips a little harder on Danny's skin in new place while he's trying to steady his head, his pounding pulse, but he should be okay, right? Even with that. Unless Danny starts fisting him suddenly. But that really doesn't seem likely.

Not with the fingers in his shoulder. Not with the way Danny is clinging closer, jangle of impulses and reactions, while Steve is stroking thin, sensitive skin soft as he can manage like this. What he can reach. Not that he isn't consider the possibility of, or possibilities of, a few seconds or minutes from here. But for this second he's not. Not aimed at shut gunning to a point, not at fucking crashing through walls with as little restraint as possible.

Not aimed for shoving himself someplace he's not wanted. Not aimed for slamming doors that had only barely cracked.

Not aimed for making Danny back up the words he threw everywhere. Not this exact second at least. Not when Danny is nudging him forward, nudging into him, even with those tremors. Like he's holding on to Steve, because Steve is the only thing he can hold on to, trust to take care of it, him, everything. When Steve can hear the uncertainty and the lace of fear, that was barely a whisper earlier, and even the utter honesty of the words smacked right back to him.

Keeping him focused. Tracing the place where Danny's thigh joins his body. The skin right over his prostate in the middle. The curve right where his cheeks start. Two rising mounds of muscles, from the thin, smooth skin right before it, pushed together by the weight of laying sideway. That he can only barely even touch much of like this. But only just touching, even when it's making his own heart pound hard. Nothing else.

Touching Danny and trying, to shut out the tide of everything else hammering louder and louder, to hear only Danny.

"Nah, pretty sure I missed that all with the yelling and henpecking," Steve offered, sharp insult against Danny's mouth and face so close and pressed up against him, like the rest of Danny pushing him into the couch, maybe like the words were a lifeline. When the only thing he's doing is willing Danny to breathing, to relax even a little, waiting for him. Even if it feels like he can't decide if the waiting is impossible, or the fact he's touching Danny at all is.

[haole_cop]

Steve's being careful, and Danny appreciates it.

Steve rarely is, after all. Careful. Normally he's tossing himself at every breakable thing in a five-mile radius, busting through walls, leaving a trail of broken glass and skewed, abandoned vehicles, but he's not doing that, now. He's not burning Danny down, taking him systematically apart, like he was before, with nothing more than a kiss and hands at his shirt, pushing him into the couch. He's not saying anything, asking for anything.

He's just being careful. Exploring, as gently as possible when his hand is pinioned by slacks that were too tight before and now feel like they're about to split completely open, making Danny shift a little uncomfortably and wonder if they should just give up and get naked, right before his heart makes an anxious little stumble, and he catches himself on the meathook of this, whatever it is, fear that is anything but defined, that's a combination of the unknown and the known but misunderstood and all the things he'd made fun of as a jackass teenager and an insecure adult, nursing that tight little ball of fear behind it all. Fear. Of something different. Something faintly mysterious. Something he never understood, because it just never seemed appealing, seemed wrong even without being wrong, until he figured out there's no wrong things, just things he'd never tried and had no idea if he wanted or not.

Which is striking home in an unprotected spot deep in his chest now, aimed with breathtaking precision, and, no, that's the wrong way to think about this, Steve is not attacking him.

Steve is touching him with care. Fingers gently stroking, pressing. It's not an invasion. It's an exploration. Pads of fingers, rough calluses, moving over skin that's never been touched with deliberation, and that's new, and different, but when Danny takes a deep breath and lets it out again in a rush, forehead pressing against Steve's and his eyes closed in concentration, it doesn't feel bad.

It almost feels good, even. Once he gets past the weirdness, and, yeah, it'll probably be a little while before he gets past the weirdness, but he's glad to see he didn't inadvertently lie to Steve when he said he wanted more. While Steve is criticizing him, words sharp and fond, puffs against his lips, and all Danny can do is hang on, and shake his head against them, against the idea, because he's at a loss, right now, isn't sure he can pick up the usual banter, make this something it isn't, distract himself into believing it's not happening, that Steve isn't, that he doesn't feel more than a little curious about what it would be like to do it to Steve back.

[thebesteverseen]

Danny isn't quiet unless there's a problem. That fact is coded somewhere in Steve's DNA now. He knows it like breathing.

It prickles up under his skin, when Danny's fingers stay buried. When Danny shifts, irritably, fighting with his clothes, or maybe Steve's hand, only to go still again. When Danny's breathing only when and where it seems absolutely imperative to his body taking over. Which keeps going. Danny not speaking. Danny quiet and trapped somewhere behind his forehead digging into Steve's, and his eyes closed so tight there are creases at the edges of his eyes and between them.

When Steve can't tell if he should breathe, or he should stop. Can't look away from Danny's face, because it's the only handhold he has left, with Danny's mouth tight and closed and silent. When he's running out of space, but Danny isn't pulling away. He isn't frozen solid. He's just still, just focusing. That it goes like that until he'll let a breath out and suck one in, until he's shaking his head at Steve.

When Steve has no idea if that's good or it's the lid top on a panic he can't see, can't read. He doesn't think it is, but they've already covered that Steve's judgement here is broken. Beyond broken. In what he wants, in what he assumes, in what he tries to do when he thinks. Of knowing what Danny thinks or wants from him. When he's sliding his middle finger back, pulse pounding in his ears, between Danny's ass cheeks. Following the flat small valley of skin there, even when it's pressed together due to this position.

Letting his fingertip skate across puckered skin, and almost feeling the temptation to close his own eyes. Because there's so much else, so much he could, he wants, holy fucking god he wants, all of it, everything, Danny, to be touching him, to be fucking him, for any of it to be true, and not back to gone in seconds, to have it all. It aches through his chest, screaming in the awkward position of his arm and his hand, when all he's doing is the same.

Letting his finger tip run over Danny's skin, trying to hold himself still. Keep himself in check against the reaction to Danny's skin. A smooth, small valley of skin, starting and ending with a puckered circle of skin. That it takes all his power not to spend more time focused on immediately. When his voice is broken, and a little hoarse, trying for solid, when he's saying against Danny's lips, "We should get rid of these."

Which comes with the motion of Steve letting his arm strain outward, in direct motion against Danny's boxers and pants. It's the closest he's going to get to a question, and he doesn't think ripping them off would go so well at this moment. Even if the image is violently splashed in red and gold paint behind his eyes, making his voice thick and tempting him more with a grain of sand slipping through his head every second.

[haole_cop]

Jesus. He might actually come undone just from this -- not the finger pushing slowly back, or Steve's arm pressing him into his own stomach, but this. Steve's voice. Winded and hoarse, like his throat's gone dry, and, Christ, he's not sure he's ever really heard Steve want before.

Not like this. Not with his whole body tense and withholding, restrained in a perfect straitjacket that only allows the faintest of tremors to show how much control it's taking, how telling it is. Not when he's trying to sound normal, and only succeeds in sounding like a man lost in a desert, offered a way out, and it scrapes over Danny's raw nerves like sandpaper.

Everything seems so quiet against the buzzing in his head, the jagged attempts at breathing, the low panicked hum of he's touching there and it feels weird and it feels invasive and it feels kind of good at the same time, while he wonders in a tilting carousel of detaching thoughts what the protocol for this is. Like...is this clean enough? Was his shower this morning too long ago? What exactly are the expectations for unpleasant surprises, for body hair or lack thereof, for...seriously, how does anything fit?

There might already be something wrong. Hell. It's not like he woke up today and decided it was a good day to ask Steve to start fingering him, he's got no idea what level of preparation is necessary or, you know, polite.

It's the whisper-lightest of pressures, but enough to make his whole body clench in confusion, muscles not sure why it isn't being rejected, head pausing, considering, it's Steve, so he needs to wait, to listen, to pay attention. And Steve is shifting, tugging at the lack of room in Danny's pants, and, shit, it's about to get real, if they lose clothes it's really happening and he has simultaneously never wanted anything so much and never wanted to run so far away in his life.

Which is a shitty, cowardly reaction to have. He's still breathing. Steve's still careful, even with the toll it's taking, that he's trying to pretend isn't there. Asking, without demanding. Letting Danny bring this as far as he wants, without pushing him any further. Which means when Danny nudges experimentally against that finger, it's because he wants to, trying to figure out how this feels, beyond strange.

"In that case, we may as well go upstairs."

Where there's space. Room. A comfortable bed. Not a couch they might roll off any second, even if he's compelled by more than just lack of space to hang onto Steve, fingers curling against bluff muscle.

But upstairs is something else, too. Upstairs is bed. Upstairs is reality. It's not just fooling around on the couch, which has the sheen of casual to it. And his heart's hammering against his ribs, in his head, but he's not about to back down, either.

[thebesteverseen]

The muscles in his arm actually shake. Not from surprise, but from how strong the reaction after the first one, but the reaction to try and make himself hold still. How strong that one has to be. While Danny is wiggling. Just a little. Just enough. Pushing back and down against his hand. His fingers. Finger. This isn't the angle. This really isn't the space to. But it's still there. The second Steve's jaw locks and his head is still leaned in, and his eyes clench closed a second.

And he's trying so hard not to shove forward, not to give up on, give a damn about Danny's pants. Let it all fall by the wayside like the buttons they've scattered all over his house in the last month. Like every inch of Steve that's been scattered and burned. Shove for space. Shove against Danny's skin, the ring of muscle not far from him, without anything on hand, on his own hand or Danny's skin to make any of that easier for a first time.

When he knows it's only been a month. Which might at times feel like an eternity to him, but sometimes it feels like seconds. And a lot of the time it still feels like never, if Danny isn't nearby to blunt that. And Danny doesn't even approve of coffee with people he's actually flatfooted and tongue tripping over. Which doesn't change the way he's pushing down against Steve's hand. Careful, uncertain, like someone holding on to a ladder testing the ground.

But still doing it. Shoving a spike of overwhelming fire anywhere Steve had air seconds ago.

"Couldn't hurt," Steve said, agreed, like there was any option in him not to, any air to use to speak. Like he wasn't fighting back an incredible world of options that shoved at his head, like a torrent on top of Danny's movements. His bed. The things in his room. His bed table "More room." Danny on his bed. Bereft of clothes and. He doesn't even know how to finish that. There. There. Possible. Something. Maybe. When he can't help the way his fingers curl against Danny's skin.

Tracing with a pressure that isn't as light as it was, but isn't as focused either. Because they're talking to. Tearing a divide in his mind, that he knows his mouth is losing out to his hand. To his couch. To not letting go yet. Even when he adds, like it's important at all at this second. "A lot less Tarantino."

[haole_cop]

"Room would be good."

Of course, there's a flaw in this plan, this half agreed upon plan to get off the couch, go upstairs, and lose the rest of their clothes, which is that in order to get there, he has to let go of Steve, and Steve has to let go of him.

It's not an appealing thought, for a number of reasons. First, naturally, his mind and body both rebel at the idea of actively letting go and stepping away from Steve, like they would at the thought of leaving a campfire on a snowy night to wander the cold woods alone and freezing. Secondly, all this momentum comes to a screeching halt, and while that might not be such a bad thing -- he's seen how Steve does with stopping once he's gotten started, the guy's like a hurricane that just keeps feeding itself -- it's going to feel a little like stepping into an ice-cold shower.

The hand he's got around Steve squeezes, and lets go, reluctant, slides up the clutched muscles of Steve's stomach, along the biceps of the arm that's currently halfway down Danny's pants, a fingertip there pressing closer now, striking nervous fires into life. It's not immediate, intense good like it is when Steve's got that hand wrapped around him, pulling and stroking, dragging insanity into his bloodstream, but it's not bad, either.

He wonders what it'll be like with no clothes in the way, when they're not lying on their sides, when there's all the room in the world to lie out and open up, a though that heats his face, spreads a slow feverish flush through his chest. Having Steve. Having all of Steve, which as a concept is both terrifying and exhilarating, shouldn't be possible, should definitely not be available, and yet here it is. Steve. With that dragged-out, scraped-out voice, and thinly disguised want that sounds a whole lot like need. Faintly distracted, like he's already three steps ahead of Danny, considering what comes next, after pants are gone and they have room to do this without breaking any furniture or pulling any muscles.

"This movie's always on replay, anyway."

As if the movie matters. As if either of them were even paying attention to it to begin with.

[thebesteverseen]

Danny is helping and he's not helping. Talking about letting go, and making the first motion toward that giving Steve's body a warm, almost reluctant, squeeze that leaves Steve feeling like a bubble of adrenaline was shot directly into his stomach, snapping a firecracker inside his ear drum. Which makes it even more confusing, sort of like a slap of air, when that next thing Danny does actually is let go.

It's. He. Steve can't figure out if he's more grateful that he can tell there's air, or more annoyed that Danny let go. But Danny's fingers are catching on his forearm and his bicep and it is, if anything, a quiet sign, along with his words, to let go. To pull back. To be with him. To follow him now. When even half of his head is saying this is about letting go, to get to more, and something else, visceral and base, possessively doesn't want.

To let go. To pull away. To even hold a candle of belief that if he steps back, he'll get to step right back up. There is every chance that with air, clothes, another floor, breathing, thinking, Danny will change his mind. And he hates the part of him that knows, sweating a slick oil into the molten pool of his stomach, that Danny has every right -- he even needs Danny to know he has every right -- to do absolutely nothing. Even now.

But he is at least listening, unable to tell while Danny's talking about the tv-movie, if he's tightening his shoulder because he needs to move or because he needs to relax the muscles in. Shifting to drag his hand out of between Danny's thighs, holding that thought. Pulling out, and flexing his wrist in a circle twice, amid rubbing his fingers and his palm, the back of it, on some combination of his pants and his bare side.

Before reaching up to rub his face, trying to take a breathing, trying to remember that last thought. When the only thought that stays is that that was probably the very singular thing he should not have done. When he's suddenly breathing in warmth, shared sweat and a strong musk off his own hand. Breathing in Danny and Danny's skin. Setting a hive of bees buzzing in his ears, in his teeth.

When he can't even tell if the landstrike in his stomach, tightening his ab muscle in and down hard, is trying to make him groan in frustration at his own stupidity or with the way his body suddenly aches like someone is shoving a sharp blade through his flesh, smooth as butter, as he never can fight Danny. When he truly meant to just sort throw his hand away, like somehow he could cast it off his body to help, but it just ends up scrabbled on the next closest thing. Danny's chest.

Settling only for the briefest second, when his body decides far faster than his mind. The hand sliding up to catch Danny's chin, pushing up at the same second and leaning in to find his mouth. He's. Moving. He'll get there in a second. A moment. Another. Whenever he stops feeling like something just burrowed in right under his breast bone, and stopped his lungs, and this is the only thing, the only way he knows how to breath.

Catching Danny's lips, without even responding. Needing to pull him in. To push over him halfway, legs still tangled.

[haole_cop]

It takes Steve a second, but he does actually move. Let go. Slide his hand out from between Danny's legs, leaving him feeling strangely bereft at the lack of warm pressure, careful fingertips.

That's a good sign, right? It must be, when he sort of misses Steve's hand there, wants to feel it back again, if only so he can figure out whether he likes it or not, so he can figure out how to do the same thing to Steve, if Steve wants him to, and he thinks Steve probably does.

He wonders how many times Steve has done this, with who, and feels a sudden sickening flash of jealousy that shoots into his stomach and leaves him feeling shaky and more than a little unnerved, because whoever it was, they aren't around now, no one's around now, except for him. Steve said so. Said he wanted Danny. Only him, and Danny doesn't think he was lying, or exaggerating. He's not sure it's possible to fake the kind of desperation that was in Steve's voice, in the way he kept himself between Danny and the door, in his eyes and frustrated arguments. No one else. Nothing else.

Steve. Trying to push him away, because he thought it was the right thing to do, for Danny, for Grace. Holding onto him, kissing him right into the ground outside, vicious and possessive, laced with loss Danny never wants to see on his face again, ever again.

And now finding Danny's chest with that hand, warm palm over Danny's sprinting heart, eyes wide and looking more than a little crazy, faintly unhinged, like Danny hit him in the temple with a rock instead of suggesting they take this upstairs, but Danny only sees it for a second before that hand is moving again, and Steve is kissing him, tangling them up, pushing Danny back and making the world and all his reasons for moving vanish in a blip like a soap bubble popping. Danny's hands move over his back, wide expanse of skin, rolling muscles, and for a minute, there's no fear. No panic, no nerves.

Just Steve, everywhere. All around him, over him, wrapping around him with long octopus arms and legs, dragging him close and tight, owning him like Danny's damn sure he's never been owned before, like Steve is staking a claim, won't ever be satisfied with the marks raised up on Danny's skin or the fact that he's the first to do so much of this.

They may not be moving upstairs, but it's not like there's any huge rush, right? It's still early. They have all night, and that might have been presumptive before, but there's no chance Danny's heading out that door before morning arrives. No chance he's going to give Steve the space to think and reconsider.

And he's not exactly dying to pull apart and take the few minutes to walk upstairs, either. Appealing as the thought of getting there is, he rebels against the idea of letting go, of being able to breathe, to think, to move without tripping over his own heart or Steve's obnoxiously long limbs.

[thebesteverseen]

God. God, fuck. That. That is perfect. That snaps something in his head, with the kind of relief that feels like a dam is crumbling like someone took the key stone and the whole wall is failing without a fight. When Danny's mouth opens under his, and his hands are suddenly sliding on Steve's skin, trying to touch his whole back. When it's like diving into the ocean, and having the waves wash right up at him, around him, everywhere. When Danny moves, and he feels like something in his chest is so overwhelmed its full stuffed with cotton.

Almost immobilizing him, even when he doesn't stop. With Danny still there. Not only the fingers carefully digging into his shoulder like that grip on a rock cliff. Not the careful touch of anything else, like the uncertainty the ground would still be there any next second. Not the perfect silence. Not his closed eyes. Not that that fraught stillness, from a man who is almost never still, never silent. Who literally surges to life under his mouth, like he's never stepped out, like he could never leave Steve alone in the fierce, uncontrollable all of this at his fingertips.

Literally. Had been at his fingertips. Crashing like waves on his lips. Making him disoriented, giddy, buoyed.

When all he wants for a moment is this. To kiss Danny and to feel Danny kissing him back. Fully engaged, involved, unafraid. Pulling Steve down at the same time as shoving into his space, into his chest and his face, the way Danny always has, since that very first day. Going toe to toe, dangerous and endlessly, heart always sloppy on his shoulder, so honest, so Good. So unwilling to give anything less than his all, demanding to be seen, recognized for all it, blinding Steve with it every day.

He wants that. All of this. Wants this in everything else. For Danny to be able to breathe, laugh, and spend his time lobbing insults at his head the whole way. Even if it won't, it might not. He doesn't know. But it's still here. It's still here, when he can't tell which of them is gulping this down like water after being dehydrated for days more. When Steve is more clear, more drive for the static shorting it all.

Even when he's letting go of his grip on Danny with the free hand not wrapped under him, and reaching out blindly. Searching on the edge of table for the god damn remote, without a single part of him that wants to let go of Danny's mouth or Danny's hands now that he's reclaimed them. Now that they aren't lost, and Danny isn't still. Doesn't want to let go of it, anymore than he could let go of the sea, or breathing.

[haole_cop]

Jesus. Okay. This, this is better, this is something he understands, knows, and it clicks like a key sliding home, hitting all the right tumblers and unlocking the muscles that had been so tightly wound. Steve's rolling them half over, and Danny goes, back sticky against the leather of the couch, which is honestly going to have to get cleaned, wiped down, something, because they keep doing this, keep losing clothing and the couch is going to get absolutely ruined, which is maybe just as well, because it's John McGarrett's couch, not Steve's.

Not that this is the time to engage in idle musings about interior design.

Not when Steve's hand lifts off his skin, and Danny hears the clatter of things on the table being shoved around; books and coasters and whatever else Steve has on there, hopefully not a gun, hopefully not a knife, fingers seeking something out without him actually lifting up to look, without him seeming to really care at all if he finds whatever it is, and that's fine, that works for Danny just great. The last thing he wants to do is let go of Steve, now that he's back on solid ground, now that he knows what he's doing, and Steve's skin is right there, warm and a little sweat-slick, Danny's fingers skating across, leaving tracks of dull red from barely there pressure, the blood so close to the surface it rises with hardly any help at all.

All he wants to do is knot himself here, and refuse to let go. Stay like a snarl that would have to be cut away, nothing Steve can just shoo out the door and be done with; tangle and put down stubborn roots and be unmovable, a thorny, prickly cluster that isn't going anywhere. Legs wrapping around the back of Steve's knees, across his calves, bellies pressing close, hips shoving together and whiting out his vision, his plan, every thought for a jarring half-beat of blinding heat.

They might actually fall off the couch. He's not sure he'd care, is too wild with the sudden release of tension, adrenaline flooding his system and bursting bubbles in his head like champagne. He feels giddy, drunk, high, wants to laugh, wants to prod at Steve and tease him and shove him further along, because that was a step and everything is still fine, the floor didn't fall out from under him, and maybe it was a tiny step, barely a step at all, but everything is still fine.

How the hell does he begin to express that, if not like this?

Kisses open-mouthed, tongues and slick lips and the scrape of stubble, rubbing on him like raw wires, bursts of electricity pushing through, and he's grinning when he can, feeling absolutely stupid with relief, with still being here, with getting to stay.

"We seem to have taken a few steps backwards."

From the going upstairs plan, anyway. Maybe not anything else.

[thebesteverseen]

He's not expecting Danny to graft to him suddenly with some kind of giddy desperation, leg behind his knees and hands carving up his back like it's tracks of land Danny can divide, conquer, claim, keep. Making him laugh, a little quiet-dark-warm sound gusting into Danny's mouth, when he's trying to find the remote still, and Danny is keeping him there, pulling him in, like quicksand.

Finger catching for purchase on the table, awkward balance, but not about to give up the fever with which Danny is kissing him. Like he's a last meal. Like he's everything. All the movement like a sudden storm shook loose, battering itself on his lips, his skin, the roll of Danny's hips, digging up into him, pushing lights and stars into the places where his head is still ringing. Driving want into looping, soaring, falling through the sky, relief. Setting it all on fire.

Shoving warmth and adrenaline, something dangerously like success, like liquid gold, into Steve's veins.

Fingers finally finding the remote and gesturing blindly toward the same space his tv has always been. Jamming the button half a dozen times, until there's silence suddenly louder than the dialogue that had been there. None of which holds a candle to Danny pulling back. Face flushed and so alive. So alive it makes Steve feel like someone's dosing him with high voltage electroshock. Except that he wants more of this.

"Yeah." Steve agreed. Mouth curving toward a unruly smirk, even when it takes his eyes a second to adjust from looking at the absolutely glorious smile finally caught up on Danny's mouth again. The light in his eyes. So much, so much more than second ago, when Danny was shuttered away, somewhere inside, somewhere he couldn't touch. Danny, under his fingers, looking right. Making him lightheaded with want, with relief, with the sparking of a plan.

Piece falling perfect into place, into an order, in a design, an understanding, a plan of attack. Even when he's prodding Danny, and pulling up, getting a handful of Danny's pants to tug him with, even when Steve's still half on top of him. "You seem to be failing this whole plan to get off the couch and out of here."

[haole_cop]

"I do?"

The largest leaps and bounds Steve's made has been to shut off the TV, and Danny's pretty sure he was about three seconds away from just throwing the remote at the thing and hoping it would hit the right button, or maybe knock the television off the stand altogether.

The silence is blissful, though, even while it highlights the ringing in Danny's ears, the galloping clumsy beat of blood in his head, rushing through his body in an insane torrent. "Who's the one still on top of who, here?"

Though Steve is starting to move, letting cool air flood between them, allowing Danny to breathe again, head back against the couch cushion, face flushed, licking at his lip and tasting Steve there, eyes heavy-lidded and lazy, blown dark and fevered. Steve's hand at his pants isn't helping, they're both more than half undone, and there's a flash of skin past Steve's boxers that Danny's eyes zero in on, impossible to decide whether he wants to reach and tuck Steve back into some semblance of neatness before this whole plan goes up in smoke and flames, or if he just wants to say fuck it and get rid of those pants, those boxers, right here and right now.

Except Danny can't take his eyes off Steve's face when he looks back up. It was a tactical error, looking at Steve, because now he's struck, blinded; light's shining off Steve like someone hit a switch and decided the sun should rise early, right here in Steve's living room. Mouth laughing, eyes crinkling, shined up like Christmas, like the Fourth of July, like every present Danny ever wanted and never got, handed to him on a silver platter.

Christ. He's so fucking beautiful. How is anybody supposed to say no, how is Danny supposed to do anything but go where that hand is tugging him, his own palms finding the couch instead of Steve's skin, pushing him up to sitting, unable to get further while Steve's still on his legs, still tangled up in him, a freaking octopus with control issues and a significant body weight advantage. "Get off me, you natural disaster. This is like fooling around with a giant squid, Jesus, you are a sea creature, you could guest star in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, how am I supposed to move anywhere with you all over me, huh?"

[thebesteverseen]

So much better. When Danny's insulted, looking momentarily outraged. If outrage can even exist in that emotions splashes all over Danny's face. The flushed skin and the brilliant brightness Steve wants to lick off his skin, wants to bow his head and brush his nose again, and whisper into Danny's ear everything starting to slowly etch itself right beneath Steve's veins.

Coming for him. What he wants to do. Is going to do to Danny. For Danny. Until he can't even remember this minute.

Or his name. Or the ability to press his lips and hold his tongue. When he's too distracted to even consider it.

But he doesn't. When the hell does he give Danny warning anyway? Not in the camaro, not with the windows, not with suspects. He can find his feet. Seriously disastrous smirk hanging on his lips about as well as his pants are hanging off his hips, when he's dragging Danny with him. This akimbo of feet that he half neatly steps out of, half planned retreat jumps from, untangling like it's nothing. Heart keeping time somewhere in his ears.

When his hand hasn't let Danny's pants, only curling into the material, pulling him harder. Goofy with it when his other hand is finding Danny's far shoulder and hassling him with the same pull. Not even really waiting for Danny to get his feet under him before he's pulling at both. Being a hassle in Danny's space, as Steve's only getting his own feet under him. "That's lot a talk, with absolutely no walk. On your feet, Williams.

"Unless you've already managed to forget where the bed is since you brought it up."

[haole_cop]

Steve, like this, shining like he's been plugged in, half undone in a way that's worse on the imagination than even flat-out nakedness would be, laid out and perfect. This is rough, rumpled, unruly, makes Danny want to button him up, makes Danny want to wreck him further, twist fingers through his hair until it's standing on end and sticking every possible direction, graze teeth along the lift of his collar bone and the bumps of muscle bricked across his stomach. Wants to see that back arch, those shoulders taut and trembling.

And Steve, Steve's smiling at him, dragging him, pulling him up and off the couch while Danny's head swims from lack of blood and too close proximity to too much light. It's like staring into a wave caught in the sun, water shattering into blue glass, perfect and clear and dangerous, about to roll him onto the sand, a reef, rocks, the tendrils of another wave ready to fall right on his head.

He can't care. There's nothing in the room but this, nowhere to go byt where Steve is pulling him, even though he complains, even though he bats at those grabbing hands and grumbles at the smile Steve's got beaming high wattage glory at him. "I'm up, Jesus, I can move on my own, you lunatic, let go of me."

Shoving at Steve's shoulder and chest with a palm, pushing him back towards the stairs. "Quit complaining and get moving, wile you, before I trip over your gargantuan feet."

Acidic, words spat at Steve's stupid goofy head, that must be filled with cotton and sunshine right now, or something, because he just looks so damn pleased, impatient and delighted, like this is a great game, the best game ever, Danno, and sometimes being around Steve is like throwing sticks for a giant friendly dog to catch, with the knowledge that if one gets thrown too far, things like gardens and cars and windows will probably get run through and wrecked.

But they are, actually, moving, and it's not so bad, even if he's just as undone as Steve, pants loose and falling low on his hips, shirt God knows where, shoes still by the coffee table where he left them earlier. Moving is good. Moving will get them upstairs, and that is a goal he can get behind.

[thebesteverseen]

There's a sharp, derisive, snort when Steve gets out from under hand and foot, but not far enough Danny couldn't smack him with a hand. Just enough to let him stand, let him go, close enough Steve could definitely drag him right back in. Even consider it. Watching Danny amble toward uprightness, bitching but never once touching any actual anger or annoyance.

He coming, at least. Not that Steve doesn't expect him to. Even if there is some small quashable, ball of nerves, tight and small as the beginning of a rubberband ball, somewhere in the center of his stomach, floating, half melted in the pool melted silver making up the middle of his body. The part that whispers there's the smallest percent that isn't sure. The smallest flicker he drowns out, with his smile, with taking a look at him, watching Danny check like he needs to check for things.

For his shoes or his clothes or something, when Steve already got designs, instead, on the rest of what is more off Danny than on him, decorating the floor next to his bed. Or his stairs. Or anywhere at all that isn't Danny's skin. So that he can let his thumbs catch on the pointed bones of Danny's hips. Catch and drag in the cut of muscles going down the sides of his stomach. Let his hands drift, drop from his waist, across all of his skin.

When it's only a handful of steps to have them hit the base of the stairs and he's still looking more to Danny than them.

If there's even a glitch of a second wondering if he should be stopping to think of this, remember this, it's gone.

It's nothing, not in comparison to how much he wants Danny. Danny with his stubble covered flushed cheeks, his messed up hair, his pink-wet lips and his wide shoulders. Wants him on his bed. Wants him so far bar overboard he won't be able to move himself, or trip over anything, because standing won't be an option. There is nothing but the quick one-two clomp of his boots going up the stairs, and the glance at Danny at his side, simultaneously ready and waiting for it to hit, again.

[haole_cop]

Stairs. They made it to the stairs.

There is actual motion happening, which is good, because Steve is starting to act like a kid at Christmas, jittery, moving fast and certain, steps quick on the stairs, shooting glances at Danny that he probably thinks Danny doesn't see or notice.

Like he thinks maybe Danny's going to change his mind, halfway up the flight, or by the time their feet hit the landing, because in Steve's world, that's a thing that might happen, somehow, apparently, which Danny finds insane. How could he be expected to turn around and leave, to change his mind, to stop and think and reassess, when Steve is next to him, ahead of him, ink tracing tantalizingly out across the dropped waistband of his pants,

Looking eager. Looking like he wants the stairs to drop into an escalator and pull them both up, because the fifteen seconds it takes to run up them is apparently too long, and he keeps glancing over, until Danny puts a hand in the middle of the back and shoves him forward, out of the way and up to the landing, grabs onto the back of Steve's pants and uses it to help pull, push, drag. Manhandling them both up to where the stairs end and they have only a few steps to stumble towards the bedroom.

He does, actually, remember where it is, Steven.

[thebesteverseen]

The hand on his back should not actually surprise him in the slightest, but somehow it does. The shove followed by the fist of his pants, doesn't, even when that ends up both sending him forward and half keeping him from doing it is even more amusing in some ways. If amusing is even the word to use. When they're getting back away from the lights he's left on again toward dark hallways, and nearly there.

When Danny's fingers on him, manhandling him, like he always does. Like Steve isn't taller, larger, heavier, better trained. Like he's baiting exactly what happens. The stumble across the last few steps. The way Steve's hand catches on Danny's forearm and uses his own shoved momentum to drag Danny toward him, throwing his own strength into the already useful movement and pulling Danny directly into running into him. His chest.

Tangling his the fingers of his free hand into Danny's hair and dipping his head in to find Danny's mouth. Even when he hasn't given up steps. Walking and jogging backwards, except that by that second, the thought is a little, okay, a lot, in flames on Danny lips. On the taste of his tongue, And the wall is just there. And it's too easy to use it. Too hard not to push Danny into it, push himself back into Danny. Prove that one of them is better built for this game.

To kiss Danny, and let his other hand get to Danny's hip, fingers, knuckles, smacking the wall, but not caring. Not giving a damn about anything else in the world, especially not his fingers or the wall, or even the other twenty feet, through the door and to the be, when he's kissing Danny's lips and letting his fingers dig in against Danny's muscles. Running his hand back between Danny's back and the wall, getting the his palm flat into the small of Danny's back.

Kissing his head back against the wall, without cease, at the same time as he's pulling Danny closer by his stomach and his hips, flush tight against him. Like nothing is close enough, nothing will be, even getting this close, having an idea turning the liquid in his veins from blood to lighter fluid waiting for a spark, is too long for this second.