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sirona_gs and I wrote 7800 words in about 5 hours (and while working), which proves our awesomeness to the world, I think. This whole thing was inspired by this picture and the conversation that issued. It's a 5 times fic, sort of. stjarna1984 did a super quick beta job because she's brilliant. Enjoy!
Danny can't believe his luck, he really can't. 52 degrees outside -- okay, it's January, if there's any justice it should be 25 degrees and sleeting, but it's Hawai'i, and Danny's at least starting to come around to the idea that every day is a balmy June afternoon in this place.
But it is 52 degrees outside right now, and the sky is teeming with massive black clouds, and he can see lightning cleave the horizon in two somewhere in the middle of the ocean. The view from Steve's bedroom window is spectacular, if nothing else. He rubs his hands over his goosebumping arms; his thin cotton shirt is no defence against this kind of temperature slump.
A smile grows on his face when the solution presents itself, until he's beaming at the chilly air outside. All his old stuff is still packed up in boxes and shoved in the attic, to mingle with forgotten McGarrett tidbits of a previous life. He tugs the stairs down and clambers up, and he knows exactly which box he's looking for. He slices the tape off with the knife he borrowed from 'Boy Scout' McGarrett's nightstand, peels the flaps back -- and there it is, wrapped in the same soft tissue paper his sister Angela lent him when he was throwing things in boxes in a hurry, well over a year ago now.
It's still as soft as the day Rachel gave it to him for his birthday. The thought no longer rips through him like it used to, melded as it is with wistful memories of cold evenings wrapped up in a pile of blankets and enfolded in soft, fuzzy sweaters. It's always been Danny's weakness. The thought of indulging it here, in Hawai'i, with the prospect of mocking Steve's face when he sees Danny wearing it, well. If he's grinning like a loon when he replaces his shirt with the soft cotton, he can't be blamed overmuch.
He runs his hands over his arms again, just to test the softness, hunching up his shoulder and pressing his cheek to the sweater, standing there in the middle of the attic and feeling like he’s back in New Jersey, if only for a second. The material reminds him of Christmas and his mother’s hugs and Rachel’s smiles, the one that were not yet clipped and always a little angry at the corners. It reminds him of her pregnancy, when she wore all those oversized sweaters and he’d press his ear to her bump to listen to Grace, push words against the swell of her belly and wonder if his little girl understood him. It used to make Rachel laugh.
“Danny?”
Danny blinks the memories away as Steve’s voice echoes from somewhere below, and he moves swiftly, leaving the attic and going down the stairs carefully, not willing to break a leg now. He curls his fingers in the sleeves of the sweater when he walks downstairs and finds Steve in the kitchen.
“You hungry? I’m making some pasta - what’s that?”
“This is a sweater, Steven. I know we live in Hawai’i and the concept is foreign to you, but I was cold, so. Sweater. And yes, thank you, I’d like some food if you’re cooking something.”
Danny is determined not to let Steve’s surprised, slightly bewildered stare throw him. Steve himself is wearing one of these made-for-military undershirts, black with long sleeves, clingy in all the right places. They couldn’t look more different if they tried.
"It looks..." Steve starts, and seems to trail off in confusion. Danny narrows his eyes.
"Oh, do go on, Steven," he says, a note of fell warning in his voice. He likes that sweater.
"A sweater, Danny, I mean, why the hell did you even pack this, I'm overheating just looking at you. We're in Hawai'i, can't you just accept it already?"
Danny stares at him, at the shifty eyes that flick over his torso, at the twitching fingers. He'd bet his monthly supply of malasadas that Steve is trying to come up with ways to divest him of it. Danny would like to see him try.
"Look, you. I like sweaters. Sweaters are warm and soft and fuzzy, they are comfortable, they provide comfort, do not knock the sweater, I warn you."
Steve makes a face, that face that says Danny is being too New Jersey for Steve's liking, and there's that faint niggling worry in the back of his head that Danny leaving him for his first love is inevitable. Danny kind of wants to knock his head into a wall to reboot that brain of his.
He walks up to where Steve is staring down into the pasta sauce like it's refusing to help him with his enquiries, and accidentally-on-purpose bumps his arm into Steve's. Because Steve is not human, he has the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to just below his elbows, and so Danny takes the opportunity to rub his belly on the bare skin of Steve's arm when he leans over to look at the sauce.
Steve’s expression suddenly changes, and he turns towards Danny, even closer, but then Danny was the first one to invade Steve’s space so he can’t really complain. They’ve never really cared much for personal space and silly concepts like that anyway.
Steve’s large - so fucking big, seriously, it still makes Danny’s mind reel and his heart beat faster - hands wrap around Danny’s hips, over the sweater, thumbs moving over the material slowly, and Danny feels small and soft and he’s not a woman, he very well knows that, but he doesn’t mind feeling that way when he’s alone with Steve. It’s not like he’s going to talk about it, anyway.
“Okay. Not knocking the sweater.”
“I like this sweater, Steve, it was a present from Rachel -” Danny rolls his eyes when Steve’s face shows clearly what he thinks of that, like maybe he wants to go to New Jersey himself and buy all the sweaters so Danny will never have to wear this particular one again. “Stop with the face already, it means nothing more than she has good taste, okay. I don’t like the sweater because of Rachel, I like it because it’s soft and comfortable, stop looking at me like that.”
“It is soft.”
“I know, doofus. Hey, the sauce is going to stick to the pot in a second and then it’ll burn and I’m not going pot-shopping with you ever again, McGarrett, once was enough. Shopping is not a military operation.”
Steve's eyes linger on him for a second, like it's hard to tear them away from the sight of Danny's shoulders wrapped in the soft fabric, but then he snaps back to the sauce and starts stirring like it's going out of fashion. It looks terribly awkward, because he still hasn't moved away from the spot by Danny's side, where the hem of Danny's sweater just touches the back of his left arm. Danny smiles to himself, and steps closer.
Dinner is a quiet affair; they take the kitchen table for once, since the rain is now coming down in sheets of roaring water down the sides of the house. The noise is soothing; Danny hadn't realised just how much he'd missed staying indoors during a rainstorm, a lazy afternoon with a warm body next to him, and he's already feeling drowsy by the time he's eaten his weight in spaghetti and Marinara sauce. Steve lifts their empty plates from the table and carries them to the sink, pushes his sleeves even higher and starts the hot water. He's just about to set to scrubbing when Danny decides to take matters into his own hands. It's a tough job, teaching Steve 'cyborg' McGarrett how to relax, but someone has to do it.
So he swipes the washing up liquid from Steve's hand and pours a squirt of it inside the dirty pots and dishes, lets the water swirl until foam threatens to overflow, then shuts off the tap.
"You, come with me, now."
"Danno," Steve whines, because God forbid the dishes have to wait for a few hours.
"Come on, control freak, I swear to god, I don't know why I put up with you sometimes," Danny grumbles, but they can both hear the fondness in his voice, clear as day as he drags Steve out of the kitchen by his elbow and steers him into the living room.
The couch is not a particularly good fit for two grown men, one of them over spec, but Danny pushes Steve down onto it anyway, curls up over his welcoming chest and sprawls, taking up all available space like if he doesn't pin Steve down, Steve will find a way to escape.
Steve drapes an arm around Danny’s shoulders, fingers grazing his upper arm. At night, Steve tends to cling, when he lets go enough to wrap himself around Danny as if he’s the one needing Danny, but when he’s conscious, it seems harder for him to allow it. Now, though, Danny watches thoughts cross over Steve’s face, and he almost makes a comment on how Steve is going to break his brain in a second, but Steve surprises him by shifting the two of them until he’s the one with his cheek pressed to Danny’s chest.
“Whoa, hey, okay, give a man some warning next time, will you?”
“Sorry.”
Only Steve doesn’t sound sorry at all, he sounds content, the words rumbling out of him a little gravelly, as if he’s falling asleep already. They had a lot of food, okay, but even for Danny - who is old and has a kid, so he’s perfectly entitled to go to bed at half past 9 if he wants to - it’s early.
Danny brings his hand to Steve’s hair, finding himself quite happy in their current position, and Steve’s hair is terribly soft against his fingertips. He raises an eyebrow when Steve starts rubbing his cheek against Danny’s sweater, though, and resists puffing out his chest for a second.
“Are you purring?”
The low, rumbling noise stops, and Steve stills, going a little tense under Danny’s hands. Stupid, silly goofball of a Navy SEAL.
“I didn’t say you could stop, McGarrett. You ever sat in one of those huge massage chairs things? It felt exactly the same.”
From what little he can see of Steve's face, his eyebrows are furrowing a little. Danny resumes running his hand through the black strands tickling his palms, pressing a little onto Steve's scalp, rubbing soothing circles into it. Steve grows heavy over him, relaxed once again, and he tips his face into Danny's strokes when he runs a thumb over the crease between his brows. He turns his nose into Danny's belly, stubbled cheeks catching over the fine knit, and Danny can feel Steve's lips moving when he presses a kiss right over Danny's sternum. His breathing slows, and his hands tuck themselves under Danny's sides, and Danny can feel the precise moment Steve starts to drift by the way his head sinks into Danny's belly and he curls himself up a little onto his side.
Danny smiles as he lets his fingers rub the white patches at Steve's temples, ever so gently, and Steve starts to snore.
---
It's been a long and gruelling week, and worst of all, the stupid case has kept him away from the house. Danny's spent the last six days squatting in an abandoned warehouse, playing the part of a haole bum, down on his luck. He hasn't showered, he hasn't slept all that much, and the fuzzy edges of exhaustion threaten to close over his head even as they cuff the suspect and shove him into a waiting police car.
He hasn't even seen Steve in a week, but all Danny can think of is taking a long, hot shower, and then finding some food, and then finding his own version of insane pyromaniac and kissing him to within an inch of his life.
It's been a hard few days for Steve, too -- he wasn't allowed anywhere near the operation, because HPD had requested assistance specifically from Danny, not the rest of the Five-0s. Danny, blissfully clean at last after he showered for half an hour at the HPD locker rooms, expects to find him wearing the carpet thin in the office, or working furiously on the Marquis, or dripping salt water all over the kitchen when he comes in from a 10-mile swim -- because Danny is a bastard, and he's probably going to be in the dog house for this, but he hasn't called to tell Steve that the case wrapped up earlier than expected, and that he's on his way home. Part of it is because the anticipation of seeing Steve again is making his blood sing with need, and part of it is because he'd rather spend another two days in that warehouse than let Steve see him like that, filthy and bloody from a gash on the head and stinking to high heaven. This is going to be hard enough as it is, explaining the cuts and the bruising without Steve going apeshit on their suspect.
What he doesn't expect to find when he finally makes it home, is a quiet lack of Steve in any one of those places. Danny double checks, because for such an overgrown human being, Steve is quite stealthy and he’d win against Grace at hide and seek all the time if he set his mind to it. But no, there is no Steve anywhere downstairs, so Danny pads upstairs as quietly as he can make it - he doesn’t see what Steve could be doing besides sleeping, there is no sound of running water.
He pushes the bedroom open with one finger, only to stop dead in his tracks. Steve is here, and Steve is sleeping indeed, but there is no mistaking the piece of clothing rumpled under his cheek, under his nose.
Steve is sprawled over the bed, as if he wants to make up for Danny's absence by taking as much space as he can, and his face is tucked into Danny’s sweater, one of the sleeves bunched into the crook of his neck, like Steve put it there, curled the sweater around him in the hope that Danny would magically appear inside it in the position Steve wanted him to be.
Something swells huge and bursts inside Danny’s chest, travels to the tips of his hair and down to his toes, coating the whole of him with affection. He’s certain his heart is showing in his eyes as he tiptoes closer, losing his shoes and his pants and his shirt before climbing into bed next to Steve, who opens his eyes right away, startled, then worried, then angry, then relaxed, the feelings all passing clouds over Steve’s face until he settles on the last one.
“Hey, what are you doing here?”
“Wrapped the case earlier than expected.”
Danny reaches out as he whispers the words, feeling like if he talks any louder he’ll burst some invisible bubble that closed around them. He runs the back of two fingers along the heavy, soft scruff on Steve’s cheeks. “You know, when I agreed to move in with you, I didn’t agree to move in with a bear person.”
Steve smiles the muzzy smile of the still sleepy, now that he's confirmed it's Danny and not a threat climbing into his bed, and twists his head, nips at Danny's fingers when they get close to his lips.
"Chin wouldn't let me go into headquarters," he admits sheepishly. "Not after--I--may have lost it a little on Monday." He avoids Danny's eyes, sneaking his fingers over Danny's and winding them together, and yeah, Danny remembers hearing about that source that almost took a dive off the 12th floor of a corporate high rise.
"Jesus," he sighs, leaning forward and pressing his forehead against Steve's, closing his eyes and breathing in the sleep-soft smell of him. "What am I going to do with you? How is it that you revert to a Neanderthal every time I'm not there to reign you in?"
Steve mumbles something against Danny's jaw, and Danny snaps his head back, because if Steve just said what Danny thinks he said...
"Did you just call me Beauty to your Beast?!" he asks, not knowing whether to laugh himself sick or squish the stuffing out of the goof.
"No," Steve says, unconvincingly, and buries his face in Danny's jumper.
"Uh-huh," Danny says, pries it out from under him, and pokes and prods at him until he's sprawled on top of Danny's chest, sweater spread under his cheek. "You're such a goof, babe," Danny tells him, like Steve doesn't know.
Steve makes a "mrmph" sound into Danny's belly, even as he nuzzles into the warm knit. Danny falls asleep to the feel of Steve's fingers stroking his side.
---
“Danno, look!”
Danny has to turn and squint at the sound of Grace’s voice calling out for him, and he can’t help but grin and chortle when he sees her standing on a small mound of dark sand, and Steve buried under said mound, only his head poking out.
“Help! Grace stole my body!”
Danny walks closer with a bottle of water in hand, schooling his features in a serious expression.
“Oh my God, Grace, what have you done with the rest of Steve’s body?”
“I hid it.”
“And you won’t even tell me where it is, Monkey? You won’t tell your Danno?”
Grace shakes her head forcefully, accepting the water that Danny hands out to her. Danny throws a sympathetic look at Steve, but he’s smiling, his eyes half-closed. Of course he would have no issue with being buried in the sand and have to stay there until Grace is bored of the game.
“I can’t tell you.”
“Hey, if you tell me, I promise you that I’ll find an even better hiding place for Steve’s body. I have the perfect place in mind, nobody will come look for it there.”
“Where?”
Danny grins when he sees Steve has now opened his eyes and the way he asks is a little rough, as if he knows exactly what Danny means - hey, Danny happens to like that body and wouldn’t mind having it in bed always. Not that he can tell his daughter that.
“Can’t tell you, Steve. Can’t even tell Grace, if she tells me where the rest of you is hidden. Nobody can know!”
Grace sighs, rolling her eyes, and then pokes a toe in the sand. She apparently is now bored of the game, most probably because Danny’s attention is not exclusively on her anymore.
“He’s heeeeere, Danno, I didn’t really steal his body!”
"You are a most benevolent princess, my lady," Danny says, in the atrocious British accent that always makes her laugh, and sweeps her a courtly bow.
She giggles, like he knew she would, and even helps him dig Steve out. Steve pushes himself to a stand and shakes off the excess sand, which Danny knows for a fact he'll be finding later between their sheets, no matter how thoroughly Steve showers. Steve knows it, too, going by the sheepish grin he sends Danny.
Grace is filthy with sand and seawater and sunscreen, as only a child can get, so Danny whisks her away for a bath before combing out her hair and braiding it for her. They come back downstairs to find Steve cutting up the sandwiches he's made into quarters, carefully measuring the precise angle of the incision, a frown of concentration on his face. Danny smothers his smile into Grace's clean-smelling hair, and helps her set the table.
Once they've eaten, Steve busies himself with washing the dishes while Danny takes his own shower; when he's back down, soaking the excess water out of his hair with a small hand towel, Grace is fast asleep in the hammock out on the lana'i, and the sun is hidden by clouds, a few rays breaking through here and there. It's not until he walks out to check on her that he notices his sweater, the one that now resides permanently in his drawer in their bedroom, carefully draped over the top of her, tucked in along her sides. It covers almost all of her, only her head, arms and lower legs peeking out, sprawled as she is on her front.
Steve looks suspiciously nonchalant when Danny walks back inside; he's drying the dishes and putting them away, kitchen towel flicking skillfully over porcelain. He lets out an 'eep' of surprise when Danny backs him into the counter, and Danny would laugh, but he's too busy tugging Steve's head down and kissing him, deep and sure, tongue flicking over his lower lip and poking its way inside Steve's mouth. Steve lets him in easily, throws the towel over his shoulder and curls an arm around Danny's neck, drawing him closer. His body is warm and firm where Danny presses into him; he tastes of cucumber and butter, no crusts, and Danny loves him so much in that moment that he has to break the kiss to re-learn how to breathe.
Steve noses his way along Danny's hairline, buries his face in Danny's hair, and holds him a little tighter.
---
Danny re-emerges from the house after having changed from his work clothes into his now favorite sweater and some sweatpants he found in Steve’s drawer of the dresser. He had to roll them up over his ankles, but they’re loose and comfy and warm just like he wants. He joins his team again, grabbing a beer from the cooler sitting close to the fire they made on the beach - one of the benefits in having your own private beach, he guesses.
Kono is telling a story about Chin and surfing, but Danny walked off in the middle of it, so he doesn’t know why it makes Chin look sheepish and Steve laugh. They’ve just closed a long case, the kind that wears at your brain slowly, and they’re celebrating with grilled tuna steaks and Kono’s mom's special rice salad and marshmallows and s’mores grilled over the fire.
It’s good, the best way to relax, Danny thinks, feeling his Longboard sweat over his fingers and down, fat droplets of water dampening the material of the sweatpants he’s wearing. He’s sitting next to Steve but not too close - not that Kono and Chin don’t know or don’t support them, but just because that’s the way they are; signs of affection are rarely shown in public. Touches and looks are common, but when they’re on duty they don’t mean anything else than reassurance or annoyance, marking the beginning of a rant or a fight or a quiet talk to stop Steve from doing something stupidly ninja-like.
“Earth to Danny, Danny, are you still with us?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah, sorry. Tired.”
“Yeah, yeah. Do you want another s'more?”
“I’m good, Kono, thanks.”
He looks up to smile at her and she grins back, the dimples around her mouth making him want to reach out and graze his fingers against them, tell her how important she is, maybe, something silly like that. He turns away before he does something pathetically mushy, and his eyes meet Steve’s, and Danny is unable to mistake the look on Steve’s face for something it’s not. It is most definitely desire, the exact same look he gives Danny when he joins him in the shower and crowds him against the wet tiles to kiss him before he slides to his knees.
And with the fire illuminating Steve’s face, it’s even stronger, more intense, a little raw. Danny feels his stomach drop and twist.
"We're, uh. Gonna head off," Kono says, trying not to laugh.
Danny feels the tips of his ears heat at the knowing look she sends him. He daren't even look at Chin for fear of his face pinking right up.
"I'll see you to the door--" Steve starts to rise, but Chin waves him back, barely hiding a yawn.
"Get some rest, both of you," Chin says, and when Danny does look at him, there's only an affectionate, if somewhat sly smile twisting his lips.
"See you Monday," Danny says, giving them a wave -- tomorrow's Friday, but all of them are taking it off -- they need the rest before the next big case rears its ugly head.
The roar of engines catching is faint from all the way at the front of the house, but it's a clear enough sign that they're alone at last.
"Did you have to be so damn obvious?" Danny gripes, even though he's not really angry.
Steve gives him a wounded expression. "Wasn't obvious," he says, before a smirk takes over his face. "Besides, this is entirely your fault. You know what seeing you wear my pants does to me."
Danny swallows his retort, because okay, maybe he hadn't been playing fair. It's not just the pants, though, is the thing. He pushes out of his chair and stalks over to Steve, who's watching him with wide eyes, tongue flicking out to wet his lips. Danny's eyes zero on it, and he straddles Steve where he's slouched in the deck chair, barely enough space for his knees to fit. It's not a position he can keep for long, before his legs cramp, but it's long enough for him to dip his head down and suck that tongue into his mouth, nibble gently on it while Steve's entire body arches up to press against his.
Steve groans in his mouth, hands burrowing under the warm cotton to get at his stomach, his chest, his back, fingers digging into the smooth muscle. Danny sinks lower onto Steve--which is the exact moment his bad knee comes in contact with the back of the chair, sharp edges digging in. His answering groan is not one of pleasure.
Steve wastes no time in pushing him off, following him up. "Inside," he says, curling a large hand around Danny's neck, tugging him in until he's leaning on Steve to keep his weight off his aching knee. They walk inside slowly, and Danny thinks, that's it, he's ruined the mood, they're probably just going to watch a game on TV until they're out enough to go to sleep, but no -- Steve steers him right past the sofa and onto the stairs. They climb in expectant silence; Danny doesn't know what Steve is up to, but he's willing to go along with it for the time being.
Danny walks through the bedroom door and turns to ask Steve what he's up to--the words die in his throat. Steve is completely naked behind him, clothes neatly folded in his arms, tanned skin shining softly in the dim light. He drops them off on top of the dresser and advances on Danny, unmistakable intent in his eyes.
“You always have to ruin my fun.”
Steve raises an eyebrow at Danny’s words, his eyes still so dark but there’s a little confusion there, too. Danny flails his hands around helplessly, unable not to smile up at Steve and his face, stupidly expressive these days, now that he’s not trying to hide everything in the folds and shadows of his own heart.
“You got naked and you didn’t even let me do it. I’ll have you know, I enjoy taking your clothes off, Steven, it’s like Christmas or my birthday every day. And here you go and spoil it.”
“I can put them back on, if you want?”
Steve is so earnest Danny has to bite on his knuckle not to laugh out loud.
“Don’t be an idiot. Come here.”
He holds a hand out and Steve grabs it, walking closer and closer until Danny has to step back, and soon enough he’s trapped between Steve and the bed. He’s been in worse places. Steve dips his head, breathing close to Danny’s ear, hands warm and surprisingly gentle around Danny’s middle.
“Are you wearing anything under this?”
“Why don’t you check, huh?”
Steve nuzzles that spot under Danny’s jaw, that little patch of skin that Steve likes to lick because it makes Danny moan and gives him goosebumps. Then he moves his hands down, sliding them under Danny’s sweater, and okay, he’s not wearing anything underneath because he likes the way it feels against his skin, and Rachel always told him that it turned her on to know there was just this one layer of softness between her fingers and his nipples.
He doesn’t want to be thinking about Rachel right now, though, not when he’s got his arms full of amorous Navy SEAL carefully kissing and nipping his way around Danny’s neck and jaw.
Danny goes to lift up the hem of his sweater; teasing is all well and good, but the heat of Steve's body through the cotton is making him dizzy with the need to press closer. The grip on his wrist surprises him.
"No, wait, leave it on, Danno, God, please," Steve groans in his ear, and okay, wow, there goes all of Danny's blood, heading south.
"Nnngh," he manages, because Steve is taking matters into his own hands, catching both of Danny's wrists in one huge palm and holding him still while he tugs his borrowed pants down with the other, crouching so he can get Danny's feet out of the bunched fabric.
Danny could break free, of course, anytime he likes; Steve's fingers barely encircle both his wrists, and there isn't enough leverage to hold them in place if Danny tugs. Danny doesn't want to, though.
He's naked from the waist down, soft cotton teasing at the skin of his lower belly, an inch away from the base of his cock. It's torture; he's so hard now that he's jutting straight out, a jerk hitting Steve's cheek with the dripping head. Steve moans like he's dying for it, greedy, sucking the head of Danny's cock into his mouth and flicking that tongue in and out of the slit.
Danny's knees give and he sinks back onto the bed, cock slipping out from between Steve's lips. He whimpers.
Steve gathers him up and pushes him back, so all of him is on the bed, head resting off-center on Steve's pillow. Steve's all over him, climbing up Danny's body to straddle him, pressing his ass down over Danny's stomach, muscles tightening when they encounter the knit.
"You kinky bastard," Danny manages, but he bucks up into Steve's weight, trying and failing to find friction for his straining cock. "You get come on that, there will be a reckoning."
"A reckoning?" Steve repeats, the corner of his lips twitching.
"You're going to hear about it, all right? You've been warned."
Too late he realises whom he's talking to. Steve will see that as a challenge if there ever was one. Danny groans to himself, because fuck, he likes this sweater and he doesn’t have many uses for it in Hawai’i, fair enough, but he’d still be able to wear it in public if he wants to, and dried come on grey - any kind of material, okay, it doesn’t really disappear, and this sweater is delicate and Danny doesn’t want to wash it too much in fear of wrecking it forever. Already because of Steve’s kinky obsession Danny’s never going to be able to wear this sweater at home again, if he wants to be able to look into his mother’s loving eyes without blushing.
Pushing thoughts of his family out of his mind, Danny grips Steve’s thighs, so much bigger than his hands but he likes the way the muscles bunch under his fingers and how silky smooth Steve’s skin is there, paler than anywhere else on his body.
“I can’t believe I’m letting you do this. Seriously, though - as I told you before, I like this sweater -”
“I like it too.”
“Exactly, well, if you want me to wear it again, you will make sure it doesn’t get stained, okay?”
“Does that mean I can’t jerk off into it when you’re away?”
The grin on Steve’s face does not amuse Danny at all, who points a finger up in Steve’s face, the countless moments where he’s had to leave Steve alone coming back to him. Fuck, he was away for a whole week a month ago, when he went back to Jersey for his sister’s wedding.
“I’m never away, what are you even - you animal, please tell me you didn’t do that.”
Steve laughs, open, full of heart and making Danny’s panic and annoyance subside. He leans down over Danny, kissing his chest through the sweater, bursts of laughter shaking him and Danny both. Steve’s hands slide under the solitary piece of clothing Danny’s wearing and his thumbs press in the dips of Danny’s hipbones.
“I promise I didn’t do it, Danny. I like having it around, is all. It smells like you - even after it’s just been washed.”
“You know you have access to my aftershave.”
“S’not the same.” Steve says the words with his mouth around Danny’s bellybutton, and the warm air makes Danny squirm a little. Then Steve is going lower against and then he’s fitting his head between Danny and the sweater, licking his way around Danny’s stomach. Danny has to laugh.
The truth is, while the sweater does smell like him, it also smells like Steve, like the two of them together. Steve doesn't wear it (that Danny's seen), but Danny catches him sleeping with it almost every time Danny's been away, and he doesn't know whether Steve notices, but Danny doesn't wash that sweater nearly as often as Steve seems to think.
Steve lays open-mouthed kisses all over Danny's lower belly, nibbles at his hipbones, runs his hands up Danny's sides under the sweater, rubs his cheek along the fabric when he slides up Danny's body to kiss him again. A slow rumble vibrates in his chest; Danny feels it against his cotton-enfolded skin, drags his own hands down Steve's back, dips his fingers inside the crease of Steve's ass, and Steve jerks against him.
"Danny," Steve groans, desperate. "No, Danny, please, can I--"
He starts to pull, and Danny lets himself be turned onto his side, tugged onto his knees with his back to Steve, hands braced against the headboard. Steve plasters his chest along Danny's back, and when Danny straightens, the edge of his sweater just teases the tops of his asscheeks. Danny has a vision of Steve pushing between them, cock disappearing underneath the hem of the sweater, the fabric whispering over Steve's shaft as he withdraws and pushes in again, and he can't help the raw sound he lets out, that he can claim Steve as Steve claims him.
"Please," Danny says, desperate, pleading.
Steve freezes for a second and then he's gone; not a moment passes before he returns, two slick fingers nudging their way inside Danny's ass, past the clamping muscles and deeper. Danny struggles to relax, to let him in, but he's so turned on that he doesn't know whether to tighten or unwind. All he knows is that he needs Steve inside him, right this second.
"Come on," he growls, pushing back, getting those fingers as far inside as they can go.
Steve mumbles something behind him, but Danny's too far gone to hear; and then, finally, the fingers slip out and Steve replaces them with the head of his cock, thick and insistent, surging relentlessly inside until Steve curls over him, until Danny braces himself and lets Steve take over.
Compared to the soft kisses and giggles from earlier, this is turning frantic and frenzied quickly, Steve pressing his forehead to the top of Danny’s spine as he thrusts deep and fast, grunting with his movements. Danny reaches back with one hand, fingers digging in Steve’s thigh, the muscles shifting forcefully under his palm, and Danny finds himself panting as he arches his back, tucks a foot between Steve’s legs, anchoring himself to his body as the sensations threaten to make his seams burst.
Steve feels so fucking good inside of Danny, and his hand, spread wide over Danny’s stomach, isn’t keeping the sweater from rubbing against Danny’s skin, to the point where maybe he’ll get a rash but he really doesn’t give a damn because Steve is fucking him hard and deep and Danny is losing his mind and sweating inside his sweater and pleasure is exploding all over his body, making his toes curl and his spine dissolve.
“F-fuck, oh, Jesus, Steve - need you to - to touch me. Please.”
Danny’s not one to beg much in the bedroom; he likes it better when people beg for him, but right now he doesn’t even think, the word just leaves him as Steve thrusts particularly deep and Danny goes blind for a second.
Thankfully, Steve doesn’t seem to want to make Danny beg even more; he just moves his hand down and grips Danny’s cock, moving slowly, such a contrast to the way he’s driving his hips into Danny’s ass that Danny isn’t sure whether to push back or thrust forward, his mind spinning. He’s drowning in all the sounds and smells and movements, no rhythm to the way they pull and push at each other.
“Fuck, Danny, so - oh, shit, I - you -”
Steve is always at his most coherent when he’s close, and Danny would laugh, or at least smile, but right now he’s far too gone himself, fingers curled into the sweater he’s still wearing so tightly he tears it a little, but he can’t care, he can’t be upset or annoyed, he’s too close to an explosive orgasm and he can’t think of anything else, can’t think at all. He’s a bundle of nerves and bliss has replaced the blood in his veins and Steve moans when Danny clenches his muscles around him.
It's there, right there, but he just can't--it's not enough--until Steve bites at the slice of his shoulder revealed by the stretched neckline, sucks the skin into his mouth even as he makes small, helpless sounds around it, and suddenly it is.
Danny blacks out a little with the force of it, teeth gritted and throat raw and eyes squeezed tight, head thrown back onto Steve's shoulder. He feels Steve push inside him again, once, twice, and his hips stutter in desperation while he moans his release into Danny's neck. Both of them slump to the side, like their strings have been cut, leaving floppy, shaky, trembling limbs that press them together until they can catch their breaths.
It takes a while for Danny to get his awareness back where it should be, in the here-and-now. When he does, he takes a deep breath and, against the habit of years, doesn't start yelling straight away. Yes, his sweater is ruined, beyond ruined, stained with come and sweat and torn in a couple of places. It's about fit for a rag to wax the car with.
But. He thinks about how it got to be this way, and that it took two to get it there, and he can't find it in his heart to blame Steve for it.
As it happens, he doesn't have to.
The first he hears from Steve is a distressed meep, before Steve is turning him gently on his back and staring down at the filthy piece of clothing. The look on his face is mournful, like he's lost his favorite toy -- and Danny can sympathise, he really can. He can also not yell at him about it.
"Bound to happen eventually, babe, the way you and me go on," he soothes. Steve looks bereft; Danny's heart squeezes with love for this man, so deadly and yet so human.
"Sorry, Danno," Steve says, looking down at him with sad eyes.
"Don't be sorry, it's okay," Danny says, rubbing a comforting hand over Steve's arm, straining to hold his weight up so he can look at the disaster that is the sweater. "It had a good life, and it was loved. It's time to let it go now."
Steve nods and carefully helps Danny out of it, taking with it the smeared mess between them. Danny kisses Steve before the goofball starts talking about taxidermy or framing it and put it over the bed, or something ridiculous like that. He pushes the sweater to slide off the bed as he curls himself close to Steve, and he doesn’t really feel that sad.
---
Danny has a headache - it’s been a long morning, and Steve has disappeared early on to go ‘run errands’, with Danny’s car of course, and there is no way Danny is driving that humongous truck, okay, he’s got standards and self-respect.
Thing is, Danny is stuck here and the milk has gone sour and Steve still isn’t back by lunchtime, which is a little annoying. He’s back not too long after, but by then Danny is sprawled over the sofa with his headache and a documentary about sharks on TV and he’s not that far off from shooting himself in the head.
“...Danno?”
“Hmrf.”
“What?”
“I’m annoyed at you. You left me to be bored when you could have cooked me breakfast and we could have had sex in the shower.”
“You said all that in ‘hmrf’?”
“You do not give me enough credit.”
“This is true. Which is why - I got you a present, Danny.”
Danny perks up, though he's also instantly suspicious. There's no occasion for it, and to Steve, a present that explodes when poked is the best kind of present, so forgive Danny if he's feeling a little apprehensive.
"What kind of present?" he asks warily.
Steve makes that face, the one when he thinks Danny's being unnecessarily difficult. Danny sees that face a lot.
"Here," Steve says, handing him a paper bag. From it Danny withdraws a large box, exquisitely wrapped in blue-grey tissue paper, with a little sticker on the side that seems faintly familiar.
"Go on, open it," Steve says when Danny just stares at it, and there's a note in his voice that on anyone else Danny would identify as nerves.
Danny rips the tissue paper -- no reason to save it, even though it feels lovely. He lifts the top of the box--and stares, speechless, at the three perfectly folded sweaters, one light blue almost the same shade as his eyes, one the same shade of white-grey as the one they ruined, and one a dark burgundy color almost exactly matching his second-favorite tie.
"Oh," Danny says, propping the box on the coffee table and filling his hands with soft cotton, indistinguishable from the weave of his old one. And then he realises why the sticker looked so familiar. "How did you get hold of those?" he asks, baffled. "Wait, no, how did you even know where to look?"
Steve looks smugly pleased with himself and faintly sheepish at the same time, a combination only he could possibly pull off.
"I called Rachel," he admits at last, looking anywhere but at Danny. "I just wanted to know what shop she'd got it from; I didn't even think she'd remember, but she did, and then she asked why I wanted to know--no, no, God, don't look at me like that, I didn't tell her, I'm not insane, contrary to your frequent rants on the subject, shut up. Anyway, she harangued me into handing over my card, and she ordered them for me."
“I married a smart woman, once.”
“Is that why she divorced you?”
Danny reaches out and flicks the tip of Steve’s ear, shaking his head. He can’t help the funny feeling in his stomach, the thought that maybe possibly one day he could be asking Steve what he asked Rachel once - he could, he could just ask Steve to make a life with him, until death do ‘em part and all that jazz. The thought has been swirling around his head for a while now, but he has yet to gather the strength. He doesn’t believe a ring would cut it with Steve, but he’s been idly drawing silly little designs that he thought they could get tattooed if ever, one day.
“Hey, asshole, do you think StepStan is a better catch than me?”
Steve pretends to think about that one for a moment, and Danny reaches out to flick his ear again, only to have Steve grab his wrist and pull him closer.
“No.”
“Good. Okay,” Danny looks up, smiling at Steve and the earnest, genuine adoration written all over his face. If Danny was fifteen, he’d be squirming happily at the attention. “So, thank you. For the sweaters. And for letting Rachel choose.”
“You think she has good taste. I thought it was safest.”
“Good call, babe.”
Danny tugs his head, kissing him lightly once, twice, three times before letting the kiss deepen, his fingers threading through the short hairs at the back of Steve’s head. Steve kisses back with fervor and intent, making Danny grin.
His headache is gone.
sirona_gs and I wrote 7800 words in about 5 hours (and while working), which proves our awesomeness to the world, I think. This whole thing was inspired by this picture and the conversation that issued. It's a 5 times fic, sort of. stjarna1984 did a super quick beta job because she's brilliant. Enjoy!Danny can't believe his luck, he really can't. 52 degrees outside -- okay, it's January, if there's any justice it should be 25 degrees and sleeting, but it's Hawai'i, and Danny's at least starting to come around to the idea that every day is a balmy June afternoon in this place.
But it is 52 degrees outside right now, and the sky is teeming with massive black clouds, and he can see lightning cleave the horizon in two somewhere in the middle of the ocean. The view from Steve's bedroom window is spectacular, if nothing else. He rubs his hands over his goosebumping arms; his thin cotton shirt is no defence against this kind of temperature slump.
A smile grows on his face when the solution presents itself, until he's beaming at the chilly air outside. All his old stuff is still packed up in boxes and shoved in the attic, to mingle with forgotten McGarrett tidbits of a previous life. He tugs the stairs down and clambers up, and he knows exactly which box he's looking for. He slices the tape off with the knife he borrowed from 'Boy Scout' McGarrett's nightstand, peels the flaps back -- and there it is, wrapped in the same soft tissue paper his sister Angela lent him when he was throwing things in boxes in a hurry, well over a year ago now.
It's still as soft as the day Rachel gave it to him for his birthday. The thought no longer rips through him like it used to, melded as it is with wistful memories of cold evenings wrapped up in a pile of blankets and enfolded in soft, fuzzy sweaters. It's always been Danny's weakness. The thought of indulging it here, in Hawai'i, with the prospect of mocking Steve's face when he sees Danny wearing it, well. If he's grinning like a loon when he replaces his shirt with the soft cotton, he can't be blamed overmuch.
He runs his hands over his arms again, just to test the softness, hunching up his shoulder and pressing his cheek to the sweater, standing there in the middle of the attic and feeling like he’s back in New Jersey, if only for a second. The material reminds him of Christmas and his mother’s hugs and Rachel’s smiles, the one that were not yet clipped and always a little angry at the corners. It reminds him of her pregnancy, when she wore all those oversized sweaters and he’d press his ear to her bump to listen to Grace, push words against the swell of her belly and wonder if his little girl understood him. It used to make Rachel laugh.
“Danny?”
Danny blinks the memories away as Steve’s voice echoes from somewhere below, and he moves swiftly, leaving the attic and going down the stairs carefully, not willing to break a leg now. He curls his fingers in the sleeves of the sweater when he walks downstairs and finds Steve in the kitchen.
“You hungry? I’m making some pasta - what’s that?”
“This is a sweater, Steven. I know we live in Hawai’i and the concept is foreign to you, but I was cold, so. Sweater. And yes, thank you, I’d like some food if you’re cooking something.”
Danny is determined not to let Steve’s surprised, slightly bewildered stare throw him. Steve himself is wearing one of these made-for-military undershirts, black with long sleeves, clingy in all the right places. They couldn’t look more different if they tried.
"It looks..." Steve starts, and seems to trail off in confusion. Danny narrows his eyes.
"Oh, do go on, Steven," he says, a note of fell warning in his voice. He likes that sweater.
"A sweater, Danny, I mean, why the hell did you even pack this, I'm overheating just looking at you. We're in Hawai'i, can't you just accept it already?"
Danny stares at him, at the shifty eyes that flick over his torso, at the twitching fingers. He'd bet his monthly supply of malasadas that Steve is trying to come up with ways to divest him of it. Danny would like to see him try.
"Look, you. I like sweaters. Sweaters are warm and soft and fuzzy, they are comfortable, they provide comfort, do not knock the sweater, I warn you."
Steve makes a face, that face that says Danny is being too New Jersey for Steve's liking, and there's that faint niggling worry in the back of his head that Danny leaving him for his first love is inevitable. Danny kind of wants to knock his head into a wall to reboot that brain of his.
He walks up to where Steve is staring down into the pasta sauce like it's refusing to help him with his enquiries, and accidentally-on-purpose bumps his arm into Steve's. Because Steve is not human, he has the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to just below his elbows, and so Danny takes the opportunity to rub his belly on the bare skin of Steve's arm when he leans over to look at the sauce.
Steve’s expression suddenly changes, and he turns towards Danny, even closer, but then Danny was the first one to invade Steve’s space so he can’t really complain. They’ve never really cared much for personal space and silly concepts like that anyway.
Steve’s large - so fucking big, seriously, it still makes Danny’s mind reel and his heart beat faster - hands wrap around Danny’s hips, over the sweater, thumbs moving over the material slowly, and Danny feels small and soft and he’s not a woman, he very well knows that, but he doesn’t mind feeling that way when he’s alone with Steve. It’s not like he’s going to talk about it, anyway.
“Okay. Not knocking the sweater.”
“I like this sweater, Steve, it was a present from Rachel -” Danny rolls his eyes when Steve’s face shows clearly what he thinks of that, like maybe he wants to go to New Jersey himself and buy all the sweaters so Danny will never have to wear this particular one again. “Stop with the face already, it means nothing more than she has good taste, okay. I don’t like the sweater because of Rachel, I like it because it’s soft and comfortable, stop looking at me like that.”
“It is soft.”
“I know, doofus. Hey, the sauce is going to stick to the pot in a second and then it’ll burn and I’m not going pot-shopping with you ever again, McGarrett, once was enough. Shopping is not a military operation.”
Steve's eyes linger on him for a second, like it's hard to tear them away from the sight of Danny's shoulders wrapped in the soft fabric, but then he snaps back to the sauce and starts stirring like it's going out of fashion. It looks terribly awkward, because he still hasn't moved away from the spot by Danny's side, where the hem of Danny's sweater just touches the back of his left arm. Danny smiles to himself, and steps closer.
Dinner is a quiet affair; they take the kitchen table for once, since the rain is now coming down in sheets of roaring water down the sides of the house. The noise is soothing; Danny hadn't realised just how much he'd missed staying indoors during a rainstorm, a lazy afternoon with a warm body next to him, and he's already feeling drowsy by the time he's eaten his weight in spaghetti and Marinara sauce. Steve lifts their empty plates from the table and carries them to the sink, pushes his sleeves even higher and starts the hot water. He's just about to set to scrubbing when Danny decides to take matters into his own hands. It's a tough job, teaching Steve 'cyborg' McGarrett how to relax, but someone has to do it.
So he swipes the washing up liquid from Steve's hand and pours a squirt of it inside the dirty pots and dishes, lets the water swirl until foam threatens to overflow, then shuts off the tap.
"You, come with me, now."
"Danno," Steve whines, because God forbid the dishes have to wait for a few hours.
"Come on, control freak, I swear to god, I don't know why I put up with you sometimes," Danny grumbles, but they can both hear the fondness in his voice, clear as day as he drags Steve out of the kitchen by his elbow and steers him into the living room.
The couch is not a particularly good fit for two grown men, one of them over spec, but Danny pushes Steve down onto it anyway, curls up over his welcoming chest and sprawls, taking up all available space like if he doesn't pin Steve down, Steve will find a way to escape.
Steve drapes an arm around Danny’s shoulders, fingers grazing his upper arm. At night, Steve tends to cling, when he lets go enough to wrap himself around Danny as if he’s the one needing Danny, but when he’s conscious, it seems harder for him to allow it. Now, though, Danny watches thoughts cross over Steve’s face, and he almost makes a comment on how Steve is going to break his brain in a second, but Steve surprises him by shifting the two of them until he’s the one with his cheek pressed to Danny’s chest.
“Whoa, hey, okay, give a man some warning next time, will you?”
“Sorry.”
Only Steve doesn’t sound sorry at all, he sounds content, the words rumbling out of him a little gravelly, as if he’s falling asleep already. They had a lot of food, okay, but even for Danny - who is old and has a kid, so he’s perfectly entitled to go to bed at half past 9 if he wants to - it’s early.
Danny brings his hand to Steve’s hair, finding himself quite happy in their current position, and Steve’s hair is terribly soft against his fingertips. He raises an eyebrow when Steve starts rubbing his cheek against Danny’s sweater, though, and resists puffing out his chest for a second.
“Are you purring?”
The low, rumbling noise stops, and Steve stills, going a little tense under Danny’s hands. Stupid, silly goofball of a Navy SEAL.
“I didn’t say you could stop, McGarrett. You ever sat in one of those huge massage chairs things? It felt exactly the same.”
From what little he can see of Steve's face, his eyebrows are furrowing a little. Danny resumes running his hand through the black strands tickling his palms, pressing a little onto Steve's scalp, rubbing soothing circles into it. Steve grows heavy over him, relaxed once again, and he tips his face into Danny's strokes when he runs a thumb over the crease between his brows. He turns his nose into Danny's belly, stubbled cheeks catching over the fine knit, and Danny can feel Steve's lips moving when he presses a kiss right over Danny's sternum. His breathing slows, and his hands tuck themselves under Danny's sides, and Danny can feel the precise moment Steve starts to drift by the way his head sinks into Danny's belly and he curls himself up a little onto his side.
Danny smiles as he lets his fingers rub the white patches at Steve's temples, ever so gently, and Steve starts to snore.
---
It's been a long and gruelling week, and worst of all, the stupid case has kept him away from the house. Danny's spent the last six days squatting in an abandoned warehouse, playing the part of a haole bum, down on his luck. He hasn't showered, he hasn't slept all that much, and the fuzzy edges of exhaustion threaten to close over his head even as they cuff the suspect and shove him into a waiting police car.
He hasn't even seen Steve in a week, but all Danny can think of is taking a long, hot shower, and then finding some food, and then finding his own version of insane pyromaniac and kissing him to within an inch of his life.
It's been a hard few days for Steve, too -- he wasn't allowed anywhere near the operation, because HPD had requested assistance specifically from Danny, not the rest of the Five-0s. Danny, blissfully clean at last after he showered for half an hour at the HPD locker rooms, expects to find him wearing the carpet thin in the office, or working furiously on the Marquis, or dripping salt water all over the kitchen when he comes in from a 10-mile swim -- because Danny is a bastard, and he's probably going to be in the dog house for this, but he hasn't called to tell Steve that the case wrapped up earlier than expected, and that he's on his way home. Part of it is because the anticipation of seeing Steve again is making his blood sing with need, and part of it is because he'd rather spend another two days in that warehouse than let Steve see him like that, filthy and bloody from a gash on the head and stinking to high heaven. This is going to be hard enough as it is, explaining the cuts and the bruising without Steve going apeshit on their suspect.
What he doesn't expect to find when he finally makes it home, is a quiet lack of Steve in any one of those places. Danny double checks, because for such an overgrown human being, Steve is quite stealthy and he’d win against Grace at hide and seek all the time if he set his mind to it. But no, there is no Steve anywhere downstairs, so Danny pads upstairs as quietly as he can make it - he doesn’t see what Steve could be doing besides sleeping, there is no sound of running water.
He pushes the bedroom open with one finger, only to stop dead in his tracks. Steve is here, and Steve is sleeping indeed, but there is no mistaking the piece of clothing rumpled under his cheek, under his nose.
Steve is sprawled over the bed, as if he wants to make up for Danny's absence by taking as much space as he can, and his face is tucked into Danny’s sweater, one of the sleeves bunched into the crook of his neck, like Steve put it there, curled the sweater around him in the hope that Danny would magically appear inside it in the position Steve wanted him to be.
Something swells huge and bursts inside Danny’s chest, travels to the tips of his hair and down to his toes, coating the whole of him with affection. He’s certain his heart is showing in his eyes as he tiptoes closer, losing his shoes and his pants and his shirt before climbing into bed next to Steve, who opens his eyes right away, startled, then worried, then angry, then relaxed, the feelings all passing clouds over Steve’s face until he settles on the last one.
“Hey, what are you doing here?”
“Wrapped the case earlier than expected.”
Danny reaches out as he whispers the words, feeling like if he talks any louder he’ll burst some invisible bubble that closed around them. He runs the back of two fingers along the heavy, soft scruff on Steve’s cheeks. “You know, when I agreed to move in with you, I didn’t agree to move in with a bear person.”
Steve smiles the muzzy smile of the still sleepy, now that he's confirmed it's Danny and not a threat climbing into his bed, and twists his head, nips at Danny's fingers when they get close to his lips.
"Chin wouldn't let me go into headquarters," he admits sheepishly. "Not after--I--may have lost it a little on Monday." He avoids Danny's eyes, sneaking his fingers over Danny's and winding them together, and yeah, Danny remembers hearing about that source that almost took a dive off the 12th floor of a corporate high rise.
"Jesus," he sighs, leaning forward and pressing his forehead against Steve's, closing his eyes and breathing in the sleep-soft smell of him. "What am I going to do with you? How is it that you revert to a Neanderthal every time I'm not there to reign you in?"
Steve mumbles something against Danny's jaw, and Danny snaps his head back, because if Steve just said what Danny thinks he said...
"Did you just call me Beauty to your Beast?!" he asks, not knowing whether to laugh himself sick or squish the stuffing out of the goof.
"No," Steve says, unconvincingly, and buries his face in Danny's jumper.
"Uh-huh," Danny says, pries it out from under him, and pokes and prods at him until he's sprawled on top of Danny's chest, sweater spread under his cheek. "You're such a goof, babe," Danny tells him, like Steve doesn't know.
Steve makes a "mrmph" sound into Danny's belly, even as he nuzzles into the warm knit. Danny falls asleep to the feel of Steve's fingers stroking his side.
---
“Danno, look!”
Danny has to turn and squint at the sound of Grace’s voice calling out for him, and he can’t help but grin and chortle when he sees her standing on a small mound of dark sand, and Steve buried under said mound, only his head poking out.
“Help! Grace stole my body!”
Danny walks closer with a bottle of water in hand, schooling his features in a serious expression.
“Oh my God, Grace, what have you done with the rest of Steve’s body?”
“I hid it.”
“And you won’t even tell me where it is, Monkey? You won’t tell your Danno?”
Grace shakes her head forcefully, accepting the water that Danny hands out to her. Danny throws a sympathetic look at Steve, but he’s smiling, his eyes half-closed. Of course he would have no issue with being buried in the sand and have to stay there until Grace is bored of the game.
“I can’t tell you.”
“Hey, if you tell me, I promise you that I’ll find an even better hiding place for Steve’s body. I have the perfect place in mind, nobody will come look for it there.”
“Where?”
Danny grins when he sees Steve has now opened his eyes and the way he asks is a little rough, as if he knows exactly what Danny means - hey, Danny happens to like that body and wouldn’t mind having it in bed always. Not that he can tell his daughter that.
“Can’t tell you, Steve. Can’t even tell Grace, if she tells me where the rest of you is hidden. Nobody can know!”
Grace sighs, rolling her eyes, and then pokes a toe in the sand. She apparently is now bored of the game, most probably because Danny’s attention is not exclusively on her anymore.
“He’s heeeeere, Danno, I didn’t really steal his body!”
"You are a most benevolent princess, my lady," Danny says, in the atrocious British accent that always makes her laugh, and sweeps her a courtly bow.
She giggles, like he knew she would, and even helps him dig Steve out. Steve pushes himself to a stand and shakes off the excess sand, which Danny knows for a fact he'll be finding later between their sheets, no matter how thoroughly Steve showers. Steve knows it, too, going by the sheepish grin he sends Danny.
Grace is filthy with sand and seawater and sunscreen, as only a child can get, so Danny whisks her away for a bath before combing out her hair and braiding it for her. They come back downstairs to find Steve cutting up the sandwiches he's made into quarters, carefully measuring the precise angle of the incision, a frown of concentration on his face. Danny smothers his smile into Grace's clean-smelling hair, and helps her set the table.
Once they've eaten, Steve busies himself with washing the dishes while Danny takes his own shower; when he's back down, soaking the excess water out of his hair with a small hand towel, Grace is fast asleep in the hammock out on the lana'i, and the sun is hidden by clouds, a few rays breaking through here and there. It's not until he walks out to check on her that he notices his sweater, the one that now resides permanently in his drawer in their bedroom, carefully draped over the top of her, tucked in along her sides. It covers almost all of her, only her head, arms and lower legs peeking out, sprawled as she is on her front.
Steve looks suspiciously nonchalant when Danny walks back inside; he's drying the dishes and putting them away, kitchen towel flicking skillfully over porcelain. He lets out an 'eep' of surprise when Danny backs him into the counter, and Danny would laugh, but he's too busy tugging Steve's head down and kissing him, deep and sure, tongue flicking over his lower lip and poking its way inside Steve's mouth. Steve lets him in easily, throws the towel over his shoulder and curls an arm around Danny's neck, drawing him closer. His body is warm and firm where Danny presses into him; he tastes of cucumber and butter, no crusts, and Danny loves him so much in that moment that he has to break the kiss to re-learn how to breathe.
Steve noses his way along Danny's hairline, buries his face in Danny's hair, and holds him a little tighter.
---
Danny re-emerges from the house after having changed from his work clothes into his now favorite sweater and some sweatpants he found in Steve’s drawer of the dresser. He had to roll them up over his ankles, but they’re loose and comfy and warm just like he wants. He joins his team again, grabbing a beer from the cooler sitting close to the fire they made on the beach - one of the benefits in having your own private beach, he guesses.
Kono is telling a story about Chin and surfing, but Danny walked off in the middle of it, so he doesn’t know why it makes Chin look sheepish and Steve laugh. They’ve just closed a long case, the kind that wears at your brain slowly, and they’re celebrating with grilled tuna steaks and Kono’s mom's special rice salad and marshmallows and s’mores grilled over the fire.
It’s good, the best way to relax, Danny thinks, feeling his Longboard sweat over his fingers and down, fat droplets of water dampening the material of the sweatpants he’s wearing. He’s sitting next to Steve but not too close - not that Kono and Chin don’t know or don’t support them, but just because that’s the way they are; signs of affection are rarely shown in public. Touches and looks are common, but when they’re on duty they don’t mean anything else than reassurance or annoyance, marking the beginning of a rant or a fight or a quiet talk to stop Steve from doing something stupidly ninja-like.
“Earth to Danny, Danny, are you still with us?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah, sorry. Tired.”
“Yeah, yeah. Do you want another s'more?”
“I’m good, Kono, thanks.”
He looks up to smile at her and she grins back, the dimples around her mouth making him want to reach out and graze his fingers against them, tell her how important she is, maybe, something silly like that. He turns away before he does something pathetically mushy, and his eyes meet Steve’s, and Danny is unable to mistake the look on Steve’s face for something it’s not. It is most definitely desire, the exact same look he gives Danny when he joins him in the shower and crowds him against the wet tiles to kiss him before he slides to his knees.
And with the fire illuminating Steve’s face, it’s even stronger, more intense, a little raw. Danny feels his stomach drop and twist.
"We're, uh. Gonna head off," Kono says, trying not to laugh.
Danny feels the tips of his ears heat at the knowing look she sends him. He daren't even look at Chin for fear of his face pinking right up.
"I'll see you to the door--" Steve starts to rise, but Chin waves him back, barely hiding a yawn.
"Get some rest, both of you," Chin says, and when Danny does look at him, there's only an affectionate, if somewhat sly smile twisting his lips.
"See you Monday," Danny says, giving them a wave -- tomorrow's Friday, but all of them are taking it off -- they need the rest before the next big case rears its ugly head.
The roar of engines catching is faint from all the way at the front of the house, but it's a clear enough sign that they're alone at last.
"Did you have to be so damn obvious?" Danny gripes, even though he's not really angry.
Steve gives him a wounded expression. "Wasn't obvious," he says, before a smirk takes over his face. "Besides, this is entirely your fault. You know what seeing you wear my pants does to me."
Danny swallows his retort, because okay, maybe he hadn't been playing fair. It's not just the pants, though, is the thing. He pushes out of his chair and stalks over to Steve, who's watching him with wide eyes, tongue flicking out to wet his lips. Danny's eyes zero on it, and he straddles Steve where he's slouched in the deck chair, barely enough space for his knees to fit. It's not a position he can keep for long, before his legs cramp, but it's long enough for him to dip his head down and suck that tongue into his mouth, nibble gently on it while Steve's entire body arches up to press against his.
Steve groans in his mouth, hands burrowing under the warm cotton to get at his stomach, his chest, his back, fingers digging into the smooth muscle. Danny sinks lower onto Steve--which is the exact moment his bad knee comes in contact with the back of the chair, sharp edges digging in. His answering groan is not one of pleasure.
Steve wastes no time in pushing him off, following him up. "Inside," he says, curling a large hand around Danny's neck, tugging him in until he's leaning on Steve to keep his weight off his aching knee. They walk inside slowly, and Danny thinks, that's it, he's ruined the mood, they're probably just going to watch a game on TV until they're out enough to go to sleep, but no -- Steve steers him right past the sofa and onto the stairs. They climb in expectant silence; Danny doesn't know what Steve is up to, but he's willing to go along with it for the time being.
Danny walks through the bedroom door and turns to ask Steve what he's up to--the words die in his throat. Steve is completely naked behind him, clothes neatly folded in his arms, tanned skin shining softly in the dim light. He drops them off on top of the dresser and advances on Danny, unmistakable intent in his eyes.
“You always have to ruin my fun.”
Steve raises an eyebrow at Danny’s words, his eyes still so dark but there’s a little confusion there, too. Danny flails his hands around helplessly, unable not to smile up at Steve and his face, stupidly expressive these days, now that he’s not trying to hide everything in the folds and shadows of his own heart.
“You got naked and you didn’t even let me do it. I’ll have you know, I enjoy taking your clothes off, Steven, it’s like Christmas or my birthday every day. And here you go and spoil it.”
“I can put them back on, if you want?”
Steve is so earnest Danny has to bite on his knuckle not to laugh out loud.
“Don’t be an idiot. Come here.”
He holds a hand out and Steve grabs it, walking closer and closer until Danny has to step back, and soon enough he’s trapped between Steve and the bed. He’s been in worse places. Steve dips his head, breathing close to Danny’s ear, hands warm and surprisingly gentle around Danny’s middle.
“Are you wearing anything under this?”
“Why don’t you check, huh?”
Steve nuzzles that spot under Danny’s jaw, that little patch of skin that Steve likes to lick because it makes Danny moan and gives him goosebumps. Then he moves his hands down, sliding them under Danny’s sweater, and okay, he’s not wearing anything underneath because he likes the way it feels against his skin, and Rachel always told him that it turned her on to know there was just this one layer of softness between her fingers and his nipples.
He doesn’t want to be thinking about Rachel right now, though, not when he’s got his arms full of amorous Navy SEAL carefully kissing and nipping his way around Danny’s neck and jaw.
Danny goes to lift up the hem of his sweater; teasing is all well and good, but the heat of Steve's body through the cotton is making him dizzy with the need to press closer. The grip on his wrist surprises him.
"No, wait, leave it on, Danno, God, please," Steve groans in his ear, and okay, wow, there goes all of Danny's blood, heading south.
"Nnngh," he manages, because Steve is taking matters into his own hands, catching both of Danny's wrists in one huge palm and holding him still while he tugs his borrowed pants down with the other, crouching so he can get Danny's feet out of the bunched fabric.
Danny could break free, of course, anytime he likes; Steve's fingers barely encircle both his wrists, and there isn't enough leverage to hold them in place if Danny tugs. Danny doesn't want to, though.
He's naked from the waist down, soft cotton teasing at the skin of his lower belly, an inch away from the base of his cock. It's torture; he's so hard now that he's jutting straight out, a jerk hitting Steve's cheek with the dripping head. Steve moans like he's dying for it, greedy, sucking the head of Danny's cock into his mouth and flicking that tongue in and out of the slit.
Danny's knees give and he sinks back onto the bed, cock slipping out from between Steve's lips. He whimpers.
Steve gathers him up and pushes him back, so all of him is on the bed, head resting off-center on Steve's pillow. Steve's all over him, climbing up Danny's body to straddle him, pressing his ass down over Danny's stomach, muscles tightening when they encounter the knit.
"You kinky bastard," Danny manages, but he bucks up into Steve's weight, trying and failing to find friction for his straining cock. "You get come on that, there will be a reckoning."
"A reckoning?" Steve repeats, the corner of his lips twitching.
"You're going to hear about it, all right? You've been warned."
Too late he realises whom he's talking to. Steve will see that as a challenge if there ever was one. Danny groans to himself, because fuck, he likes this sweater and he doesn’t have many uses for it in Hawai’i, fair enough, but he’d still be able to wear it in public if he wants to, and dried come on grey - any kind of material, okay, it doesn’t really disappear, and this sweater is delicate and Danny doesn’t want to wash it too much in fear of wrecking it forever. Already because of Steve’s kinky obsession Danny’s never going to be able to wear this sweater at home again, if he wants to be able to look into his mother’s loving eyes without blushing.
Pushing thoughts of his family out of his mind, Danny grips Steve’s thighs, so much bigger than his hands but he likes the way the muscles bunch under his fingers and how silky smooth Steve’s skin is there, paler than anywhere else on his body.
“I can’t believe I’m letting you do this. Seriously, though - as I told you before, I like this sweater -”
“I like it too.”
“Exactly, well, if you want me to wear it again, you will make sure it doesn’t get stained, okay?”
“Does that mean I can’t jerk off into it when you’re away?”
The grin on Steve’s face does not amuse Danny at all, who points a finger up in Steve’s face, the countless moments where he’s had to leave Steve alone coming back to him. Fuck, he was away for a whole week a month ago, when he went back to Jersey for his sister’s wedding.
“I’m never away, what are you even - you animal, please tell me you didn’t do that.”
Steve laughs, open, full of heart and making Danny’s panic and annoyance subside. He leans down over Danny, kissing his chest through the sweater, bursts of laughter shaking him and Danny both. Steve’s hands slide under the solitary piece of clothing Danny’s wearing and his thumbs press in the dips of Danny’s hipbones.
“I promise I didn’t do it, Danny. I like having it around, is all. It smells like you - even after it’s just been washed.”
“You know you have access to my aftershave.”
“S’not the same.” Steve says the words with his mouth around Danny’s bellybutton, and the warm air makes Danny squirm a little. Then Steve is going lower against and then he’s fitting his head between Danny and the sweater, licking his way around Danny’s stomach. Danny has to laugh.
The truth is, while the sweater does smell like him, it also smells like Steve, like the two of them together. Steve doesn't wear it (that Danny's seen), but Danny catches him sleeping with it almost every time Danny's been away, and he doesn't know whether Steve notices, but Danny doesn't wash that sweater nearly as often as Steve seems to think.
Steve lays open-mouthed kisses all over Danny's lower belly, nibbles at his hipbones, runs his hands up Danny's sides under the sweater, rubs his cheek along the fabric when he slides up Danny's body to kiss him again. A slow rumble vibrates in his chest; Danny feels it against his cotton-enfolded skin, drags his own hands down Steve's back, dips his fingers inside the crease of Steve's ass, and Steve jerks against him.
"Danny," Steve groans, desperate. "No, Danny, please, can I--"
He starts to pull, and Danny lets himself be turned onto his side, tugged onto his knees with his back to Steve, hands braced against the headboard. Steve plasters his chest along Danny's back, and when Danny straightens, the edge of his sweater just teases the tops of his asscheeks. Danny has a vision of Steve pushing between them, cock disappearing underneath the hem of the sweater, the fabric whispering over Steve's shaft as he withdraws and pushes in again, and he can't help the raw sound he lets out, that he can claim Steve as Steve claims him.
"Please," Danny says, desperate, pleading.
Steve freezes for a second and then he's gone; not a moment passes before he returns, two slick fingers nudging their way inside Danny's ass, past the clamping muscles and deeper. Danny struggles to relax, to let him in, but he's so turned on that he doesn't know whether to tighten or unwind. All he knows is that he needs Steve inside him, right this second.
"Come on," he growls, pushing back, getting those fingers as far inside as they can go.
Steve mumbles something behind him, but Danny's too far gone to hear; and then, finally, the fingers slip out and Steve replaces them with the head of his cock, thick and insistent, surging relentlessly inside until Steve curls over him, until Danny braces himself and lets Steve take over.
Compared to the soft kisses and giggles from earlier, this is turning frantic and frenzied quickly, Steve pressing his forehead to the top of Danny’s spine as he thrusts deep and fast, grunting with his movements. Danny reaches back with one hand, fingers digging in Steve’s thigh, the muscles shifting forcefully under his palm, and Danny finds himself panting as he arches his back, tucks a foot between Steve’s legs, anchoring himself to his body as the sensations threaten to make his seams burst.
Steve feels so fucking good inside of Danny, and his hand, spread wide over Danny’s stomach, isn’t keeping the sweater from rubbing against Danny’s skin, to the point where maybe he’ll get a rash but he really doesn’t give a damn because Steve is fucking him hard and deep and Danny is losing his mind and sweating inside his sweater and pleasure is exploding all over his body, making his toes curl and his spine dissolve.
“F-fuck, oh, Jesus, Steve - need you to - to touch me. Please.”
Danny’s not one to beg much in the bedroom; he likes it better when people beg for him, but right now he doesn’t even think, the word just leaves him as Steve thrusts particularly deep and Danny goes blind for a second.
Thankfully, Steve doesn’t seem to want to make Danny beg even more; he just moves his hand down and grips Danny’s cock, moving slowly, such a contrast to the way he’s driving his hips into Danny’s ass that Danny isn’t sure whether to push back or thrust forward, his mind spinning. He’s drowning in all the sounds and smells and movements, no rhythm to the way they pull and push at each other.
“Fuck, Danny, so - oh, shit, I - you -”
Steve is always at his most coherent when he’s close, and Danny would laugh, or at least smile, but right now he’s far too gone himself, fingers curled into the sweater he’s still wearing so tightly he tears it a little, but he can’t care, he can’t be upset or annoyed, he’s too close to an explosive orgasm and he can’t think of anything else, can’t think at all. He’s a bundle of nerves and bliss has replaced the blood in his veins and Steve moans when Danny clenches his muscles around him.
It's there, right there, but he just can't--it's not enough--until Steve bites at the slice of his shoulder revealed by the stretched neckline, sucks the skin into his mouth even as he makes small, helpless sounds around it, and suddenly it is.
Danny blacks out a little with the force of it, teeth gritted and throat raw and eyes squeezed tight, head thrown back onto Steve's shoulder. He feels Steve push inside him again, once, twice, and his hips stutter in desperation while he moans his release into Danny's neck. Both of them slump to the side, like their strings have been cut, leaving floppy, shaky, trembling limbs that press them together until they can catch their breaths.
It takes a while for Danny to get his awareness back where it should be, in the here-and-now. When he does, he takes a deep breath and, against the habit of years, doesn't start yelling straight away. Yes, his sweater is ruined, beyond ruined, stained with come and sweat and torn in a couple of places. It's about fit for a rag to wax the car with.
But. He thinks about how it got to be this way, and that it took two to get it there, and he can't find it in his heart to blame Steve for it.
As it happens, he doesn't have to.
The first he hears from Steve is a distressed meep, before Steve is turning him gently on his back and staring down at the filthy piece of clothing. The look on his face is mournful, like he's lost his favorite toy -- and Danny can sympathise, he really can. He can also not yell at him about it.
"Bound to happen eventually, babe, the way you and me go on," he soothes. Steve looks bereft; Danny's heart squeezes with love for this man, so deadly and yet so human.
"Sorry, Danno," Steve says, looking down at him with sad eyes.
"Don't be sorry, it's okay," Danny says, rubbing a comforting hand over Steve's arm, straining to hold his weight up so he can look at the disaster that is the sweater. "It had a good life, and it was loved. It's time to let it go now."
Steve nods and carefully helps Danny out of it, taking with it the smeared mess between them. Danny kisses Steve before the goofball starts talking about taxidermy or framing it and put it over the bed, or something ridiculous like that. He pushes the sweater to slide off the bed as he curls himself close to Steve, and he doesn’t really feel that sad.
---
Danny has a headache - it’s been a long morning, and Steve has disappeared early on to go ‘run errands’, with Danny’s car of course, and there is no way Danny is driving that humongous truck, okay, he’s got standards and self-respect.
Thing is, Danny is stuck here and the milk has gone sour and Steve still isn’t back by lunchtime, which is a little annoying. He’s back not too long after, but by then Danny is sprawled over the sofa with his headache and a documentary about sharks on TV and he’s not that far off from shooting himself in the head.
“...Danno?”
“Hmrf.”
“What?”
“I’m annoyed at you. You left me to be bored when you could have cooked me breakfast and we could have had sex in the shower.”
“You said all that in ‘hmrf’?”
“You do not give me enough credit.”
“This is true. Which is why - I got you a present, Danny.”
Danny perks up, though he's also instantly suspicious. There's no occasion for it, and to Steve, a present that explodes when poked is the best kind of present, so forgive Danny if he's feeling a little apprehensive.
"What kind of present?" he asks warily.
Steve makes that face, the one when he thinks Danny's being unnecessarily difficult. Danny sees that face a lot.
"Here," Steve says, handing him a paper bag. From it Danny withdraws a large box, exquisitely wrapped in blue-grey tissue paper, with a little sticker on the side that seems faintly familiar.
"Go on, open it," Steve says when Danny just stares at it, and there's a note in his voice that on anyone else Danny would identify as nerves.
Danny rips the tissue paper -- no reason to save it, even though it feels lovely. He lifts the top of the box--and stares, speechless, at the three perfectly folded sweaters, one light blue almost the same shade as his eyes, one the same shade of white-grey as the one they ruined, and one a dark burgundy color almost exactly matching his second-favorite tie.
"Oh," Danny says, propping the box on the coffee table and filling his hands with soft cotton, indistinguishable from the weave of his old one. And then he realises why the sticker looked so familiar. "How did you get hold of those?" he asks, baffled. "Wait, no, how did you even know where to look?"
Steve looks smugly pleased with himself and faintly sheepish at the same time, a combination only he could possibly pull off.
"I called Rachel," he admits at last, looking anywhere but at Danny. "I just wanted to know what shop she'd got it from; I didn't even think she'd remember, but she did, and then she asked why I wanted to know--no, no, God, don't look at me like that, I didn't tell her, I'm not insane, contrary to your frequent rants on the subject, shut up. Anyway, she harangued me into handing over my card, and she ordered them for me."
“I married a smart woman, once.”
“Is that why she divorced you?”
Danny reaches out and flicks the tip of Steve’s ear, shaking his head. He can’t help the funny feeling in his stomach, the thought that maybe possibly one day he could be asking Steve what he asked Rachel once - he could, he could just ask Steve to make a life with him, until death do ‘em part and all that jazz. The thought has been swirling around his head for a while now, but he has yet to gather the strength. He doesn’t believe a ring would cut it with Steve, but he’s been idly drawing silly little designs that he thought they could get tattooed if ever, one day.
“Hey, asshole, do you think StepStan is a better catch than me?”
Steve pretends to think about that one for a moment, and Danny reaches out to flick his ear again, only to have Steve grab his wrist and pull him closer.
“No.”
“Good. Okay,” Danny looks up, smiling at Steve and the earnest, genuine adoration written all over his face. If Danny was fifteen, he’d be squirming happily at the attention. “So, thank you. For the sweaters. And for letting Rachel choose.”
“You think she has good taste. I thought it was safest.”
“Good call, babe.”
Danny tugs his head, kissing him lightly once, twice, three times before letting the kiss deepen, his fingers threading through the short hairs at the back of Steve’s head. Steve kisses back with fervor and intent, making Danny grin.
His headache is gone.
