H50 fic, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, 18
Title: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
Author: quoththewriter
Rating: 18
Characters/Pairings: Steve/Danny, Kono
Word Count: 4331
Warnings: gratuitous misuse and abuse of military lingo, non-explicit sex
Disclaimer: I own neither the show nor the characters and make no money from either.
Summary: Seriously? Who the hell gets off that bad on speaking in phonetic code?
A/N: This fic was inspired by a conversation sirona_gs and I had about what Danny using military speak would do to Steve. Entirely her fault! It's not exactly what we discussed, but it's got some elements in there. It's sort of half-crack and a fuckton of metaphorical language towards the end, but whatever. And it starts in media res because I seem to be incapable of giving anything a proper beginning. Unbeta'd so all mistakes are mine.
xxx
That’s when Steve decides to mumble military words into his ear.
Danny stops licking his way down his partner’s neck with an audible groan as he quickly shoves away, giving the man a furious, half-hearted glare in the process.
“Why did you have to do that?” He starts up, exasperated. “We had a perfectly good thing going here and then you had to go and do, that-” Danny shoves his hands forward in an all-encompassing gesture of frustration. “and now, now I’m not kissing you."
“But-" Steve for his part sounds all for the world like a whining child and Danny determinedly avoids looking at him because he just knows Steve is making that face he hates; that face that crumbles in all the right places, specifically designed to be his downfall, and he’s not falling for it, not this time.
Steve’s hand falls on his shoulder and tries turning him so he’s facing Steve and dammit if Steve can’t manhandle him into moving, the bastard. It’s not his fault his partner has the strength of a fucking vampire.
Danny still isn’t looking at him, though.
“But I thought you liked it when I talked like that," Steve says, a little lost, a little confused and Danny snaps up at that, finger raised and ready to poke Steve in the chest.
“That is exact-ly,” he says, punctuating each word with a stab of his finger, “why you are no longer being treated to the expertise of my tongue, Steven, because you cannot imagine what those words do to me and we,” he waves between them for emphasis, “are in the middle of your office. Your office, which, by the way, is nothing but a wall of glass and everyone - everyone - can see what goes on in here. So no, Steven, I don’t like when you talk like that because it makes me want to very, very dirty things to you and the workplace, as in here, where we are currently standing, is not the place to do them in. Are we clear?" He accentuates the words with one final poke and draws back with a look of satisfaction on his face because there is no way even Steve could miss the obvious points he so clearly just spelled out for him.
Except, of course, Danny’s life seems to be one big, cosmic joke and Steve was obviously only put on this Earth to completely turn everything inside out and upside down because unlike normal people, who get things spelled out for them nice and neat and actually understand, Steve McGarrett, apparently, does not. Because there is maybe a second, two if he’s being generous, between the moment Danny steps back and the moment Steve slides forward again, into Danny’s space and Danny backs up and holds up his hands because didn’t he just tell him not to-
But then Steve towers over him, freakishly long fingers splayed across his chest, pushing him gently backwards until Danny’s hip collides with Steve’s desk and Steve’s mouth is on his, pressing him back and down even though there’s no where else to go and Danny honest to God can’t remember why he even argued in the first place.
“Besides," Steve says into his mouth between kisses, “isn’t that kind of,” he takes a breath, runs his nose along Danny’s throat until Danny shoves them back together, and then Steve breaks away again to add, “counterproductive?"
And Danny isn’t listening. Not really. Because really, Steve is a quiet guy, for the most part - at least, he’s quiet in comparison to Danny who, let’s face it, he knows he talks a lot but whatever, he likes to talk, likes to fill the silences with words and is there anything wrong with that? No. But Steve is generally a quiet guy and now, now he chooses the time to talk?
“Babe," Danny says, and yeah, he sees the irony a mile away. “Stop talking."
“I can shut the blinds,” Steve mutters, trailing kisses along his jaw. Danny twists his fingers into Steve’s hair and tries to let the words wash over him, hopes that if he doesn’t answer Steve will give up on this, but he waits until Steve’s mouth stills on his neck to remember that Steve is a stubborn bastard and he sighs wearily because Steve obviously doesn’t get it.
“People can still walk in. As much as I would love to cave into your outrageous demands, I do not, I repeat, do not, want Rachel and Stan to have to explain to Grace that Danno went to jail for indecent exposure, okay?”
His answer earns a fleeting kiss to the base of his throat and Steve murmurs with his lips still against the skin in a way that wakes Danny’s body up in the worst of ways, “So? I’ll lock the door.”
Danny’s hands slide back into his hair and give a little tug that has Steve exhaling against his ear. Danny suppresses a shiver.
“Smartass, they can still hear us.” He snorts. “You’re not exactly quiet."
A sharp knock on the door startles them apart, and Steve, for all his smooth seduction attempts, breaks away and ducks his head, muffling a groan. Danny just chuckles and pats Steve good-naturedly on the shoulder as Kono’s cheerful voice floats through the glass.
“Boss, Chin got a lead on Fuentes. And there’s something else, you gotta see this!"
He’s too slow to catch the smirk he just knows is on Kono’s face, but he’s positive it’s there because there is just no way she hasn’t seen them, no way, so he sends Steve his best half-glare with a look that clearly reads “I told you so” and Steve obviously gets the message because he shoves Danny lightly and concedes with a “Okay. Okay, so you were right this one time.”
And he leaves the room before Danny can gather his wits enough to make a response, with a half-spluttered and indignant “this one time?-” on the tip of his tongue.
xxx
“No, Steven. Nada-October, okay?”
They're sitting in Steve’s office, Danny on the couch with his feet propped up on the coffee table while Steve perches on the corner of his desk - because god forbid superSEAL ever use an actual chair. The current case’s paperwork and a forest of empty bottles lay on the table between them.
“Remember what happened this morning? I repeat, Nada-October. Not a chance.”
And yet Steve gets up from his desk and maneuvers around the rapidly-depleting case of longboards and the next time Danny blinks, he finds Steve standing in front of him with his arms crossed. He expects a pout, but when he looks up, he finds a creased look on his face, like the look he puts on whenever Danny tries explaining civilised rules to him (which, honestly, why does he even try?)
“Don’t hurt yourself,” he jokes as Steve shifts, rearranges his arms, and opens his mouth. Closes it again before something like Aneurism Face breaks across his brow.
“’Nada-October’, Danny? Really?” and there’s another look there, an intensity he can’t pin down.
“Whatever,” he says testily, waving a hand. “I figured maybe you’d get the point if I spelled it out for you. You know, in military-speak or whatever you call it, because that’s what you do, don’t you? You-“
And suddenly Steve is right up in his face, crouching over him, crowding him back into the couch with a hand on his shoulder and looking very much like he wants to eat Danny alive.
“November-Oscar,” Steve murmurs, voice rough, almost a growl. His eyes are dark, his pupils blown wide and holy shit, he’s actually turned on by this, isn’t he?
Danny bites back a groan and focuses on the fact that no grown man should ever be this turned on by random months of the year, because what. What the fuck? What’s so special about November that it would get Steve so hot under the collar?
“November-Oscar,” Steve repeats slowly, breathless like he’s fucking the words with his mouth and what the actual fuck is even going on? Why does he keep saying that? And with such longing-
Oh. Oh.
November-Oscar.
And seriously? Is Steve seriously trying to fucking correct him? And more to the point, who the hell gets off that bad on speaking in phonetic code?
“Hang on,” Danny says, raising a hand because he needs some clarification here. “Hold up. Are you speaking military to me again? Because, shit, Steve. You look like you’re about to cream your pants and I haven’t even touched you.” He swallows roughly, tries to avoid the intensity in his partner’s eyes and the obscene way his tongue flicks out to swipe nervously at his lips. Like he doesn’t even know what that does, what that’s doing to Danny right now.
It’s then that he realizes something, makes a connection between the phonetic code and the face he’s seeing, and his eyes soften. His voice is gentle as he asks,
“If this is how you- if you end up like. Like this-“ he stumbles over the words, gives up, and waves at his partner’s flushed and disheveled state instead. “How did you survive?” because Danny isn’t sure, but doesn’t the military talk like that all the time?
But Steve is already shaking his head, pushing forward in earnest so that he almost ends up in Danny’s lap.
“No,” he says and his voice is still rough with want and lust and God- “No, just. Just- you-”
“Oh,” Danny says faintly, scratches at his cheek and shifts a bit because, “Oh. So you want me to-“
“I’ll teach you,” Steve offers, reading him, rushing the words out like they can’t come fast enough. Only after, he realizes how desperate he sounds: how he sort of, kind of, almost just begged, and he flushes a light shade of pink all the way up his neck that privately, Danny will admit is kind of adorable. He ducks his head and flashes Danny that self-conscious little grin and Danny shakes his head and chuckles a bit because they are so past self-consciousness here.
“Okay,” he agrees because, yeah, he could get used to this. Get used to seeing super SEAL so flustered and undone and know that he caused it to happen. “Okay. Yeah. Why not.”
And that’s how the lessons start.
xxx
“How’s the phonetic going, Danno?”
Steve is standing in the doorway, dopey grin on his face. Danny sighs, runs a hand through his hair and drops his pen because he knows the paperwork isn’t getting done until Steve is finished torturing him.
“Fantastic, McGarrett. Whiskey-Oswald-Narnia-Dexter-Edison-Rides-Fearless-Umbrella-”
“Whiskey-Oscar-November-Delta-Echo-Romeo-Foxtrot-Uniform,” Steve corrects automatically, breathing heavy, and when Danny looks up at Steve, the freak, his eyes are dark with lust.
“Lima,” Steve finishes softly and Danny swallows, thick, heavy and suddenly it’s hard to breathe, like someone replaced all the fucking air with cement. So Danny takes deep breaths, runs his tongue nervously over cracked lips and tries to ignore the way Steve’s eyes follow him eagerly.
“Yeah, whatever, hooked-on-phonics. I’m learning, okay?”
Steve is suddenly in front of him, damn his silent ninja training or whatever, because he somehow got from the door and around the desk without Danny noticing. When Danny opens his mouth to complain, Steve dips his head and catches his mouth and suddenly Danny finds a much more interesting use for his tongue.
Steve shoots him that stupid smile when he pulls away, proud and affectionate with a twinkle in his eyes, and Danny waves a hand at him, feeling something uncomfortably warm and fond bloom in his chest.
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll keep working. Go get back to your paperwork, you big lug, before I get Chin on your ass for slacking.”
xxx
“Good morning, Sierra-Tango-Echo-Victor-Echo,” Danny says cheerfully one morning, hiding the smirk that threatens to break when Steve’s hand jerks so suddenly he spills coffee over the rim of his mug.
“Danny-” he whines, honest to god whines, voice rough and almost pleading and Danny is two seconds away from jumping him when Kono suddenly appears at his elbow.
“Whoa, boss.” She stops short and stares at Steve. “You don’t look so good.” There is a hint of worry in her tone and that’s it, Danny can’t hide the smirk anymore.
“Don’t worry, Kono," he says brightly, crossing his arms over his chest. "Steven here is perfectly Foxtrot-India-November-Echo. Isn’t that right, babe?” He cocks an eyebrow in triumph at the flush that sweeps up Steve’s neck and his grin widens, shark-like, when Steve shifts, aroused and anxious to hide it.
Kono looks confused for maybe a second before her boss’ discomfort dawns on her and her eyes widen almost comically. She looks between him and Steve, the gears obviously turning, and she’s fast because it’s only seconds before her face shifts and then she’s smirking and, what. What the hell is she smirking about?
“What, what the hell are you smirking about?” Danny asks, to break the silence and because he really wants to know.
“Oh, nothing,” Kono sing-songs and Danny glares because like hell with that tone of voice ‘nothing’.
“It’s just,” She continues, fully smirking now. Steve’s got his poker face on and Danny’s instincts are flashing red hot for danger. “It looks like your military speak is turning the boss on."
Kono nudges him playfully in the ribs and Danny suppresses a wince because ow, pointy elbows.
Steve ducks his head and gives a smile that might have passed for sheepish if Danny didn’t know him so well; didn’t know that Steve is like that good-looking kid in high school who knows his looks will get him out of trouble and he isn’t afraid of using them. So Danny groans and looks to Kono, but she’s no help, of course she’s not, because she’s on Steve’s side, the traitor, and she’s got a very, very evil-looking gleam in her eye.
“What’s with that look, huh?” he asks her, because attacking her is easier than dealing with Steve’s lazy cat-like satisfaction at being caught and really, only Steve would be satisfied about this. The freak.
“That look,” he stresses when Kono tries giving him a confused pout. “Don’t try to hide it, five seconds ago you had this gleam in your eyes that spelled out the end of the democratic human race as we know it. God help me,” he buries his face in his hands before waving them in her direction. “You’re plotting to take over the world again, aren’t you?”
“Dunno what you’re talking about, brah.”
Kono continues giving him the wide-eyed “I-didn’t-do-it” look, which, okay, Danny might have believed if he didn’t have each and every one of his partner’s faces catalogued in memory and God help him if this wasn’t a carbon copy of McGarrett’s “Don’t-look-at-me-Danno-I-didn’t-blow-up-that-building-it-happened-on-its-own” look.
A moment passes, where Danny puts pressure on his glare and Kono’s face crumbles into a smile, a goddamn smile and,
“That is so wrong! You aren’t supposed to smile when you’re beat, Kalakaua. And I, my rookie friend, just beat you. Why. Why are you smirking at me like that and- hey!"
It turns out Kono had been a distraction all along, because Steven, the stupid silent SEAL, chooses that moment to sneak up on him and wrap one freakishly large hand around his bicep.
He levels one last glare at Kono before whipping around to face at his partner. His stupid, obnoxious, self-satisfied, handsy partner.
“You!” he starts, stabbing Steve in the chest with a finger. “You need to learn about personal boundaries. I, personally, like my space. I like my space a lot. Generally, I like my space when you and it are not in the same area code!"
He continues protesting but Steve just grins at him, blinding and stupidly happy enough that Danny actually has to fight the urge to smile back, so he turns to Kono with a plea on his face.
The devious little wench just shoots him a shit-eating grin and winks, actually fucking winks.
“I’ll cover for you," she says, and then she’s gone.
“Cover for me. Cover for what?!” he yells after her, voice raising in pitch, though the question is pointless and everybody knows it. Danny, especially, knows it when Steve tugs him forward, a sharp jerk that’s hard enough to unbalance him and sends him sprawling gracelessly into Steve’s stupid waiting arms. Stupid, muscular, tattooed waiting arms, which, Danny realises belatedly, he can see.
“When did you change?" he asks, a little dazed at the ink staring him right in the face. He resists the urge to trace his finger along it, but only just. He’s still supposed to be angry about this, no, livid about this, but Steve and his stupid presence are making his anger increasingly hard to hold on to.
“Doesn’t matter," Steve says, pressing his lips into Danny’s hair, behind Danny’s ear, down his jaw and all over his face like he needs to taste Danny just to breathe, and really, really, Danny doesn’t mind.
“God, Steven, you’re like a horny teenager. Can’t you go one hour, one hour, without trying to molest me in public? Is that really too much to ask?” He keeps talking, but he’s winding down, his protests becoming slower and farther in between as Steve continues to cover every inch of available skin with his lips and teeth and tongue.
“Okay,” Danny concedes, once he gets his breathing back under control. “Okay. You win. You hear me, McGarrett. You win. Whiskey-India-Novemb-”
Steve gives him one final shove towards his office and slams the door behind them.
xxx
"Easy, dammit! If you break that door, it's coming out of your salary!"
"Shh, Danny. Just, be quiet for a second.” His lips brush Danny’s temple. “Enjoy the moment."
"Enjoy the moment? Did you really just- Enjoy the- Steven, you just physically molested me in front of our rookie coworker and you want me to just enjoy the moment?”
“Danny.” Steve’s voice is close and quiet, an intimate whisper that stops Danny in his tracks. He looks up at Steve to find that look on his face, that unguarded, bar-no-holds, open affection that catches his breath in his throat and sends his heart right up with it. That look, that one special look is so rare that he’s only caught glimpses of it out of the corner of his eye, gone by the time he turns his head to get a closer look, to see if maybe, he was seeing it wrong.
But no, there it is. No mask, no walls, no avoiding eye contact. Steve is looking him straight in the eyes with something so close to reverence that it almost hurts to look at. For sure, it takes his heart and does a fast, staccato number on it in heels, but the pain is only panic, because how. How can he possibly compete with that? How can he show Steve that the look he’s giving him, the rare, once-in-a-lifetime smile he’s getting isn’t just one-sided? Because Danny, now, he tries to give as good as he gets and hell if he isn’t just as head-over-heels for this big, goofy smuck as Steve is about him. And he’s always been emotional. Sensitive, Steve calls it. He doesn’t say anything he doesn’t feel, 100%, and he’s always, always been able to express himself.
But now? When he needs it? He doesn’t know what the hell he can possibly do, staring into the face of such love and devotion, to show Steve that it’s all full circle, baby. He feels it too.
So for once he swallows his words and surrenders. He pushes in, pushes close, and “okay, okay," they’ll do this Steve’s way. They’ll skip the talking and save the explanations for later because this thing that they have but haven't defined, it’s a hell of a lot bigger than Danny initially thought and he’s not ready to mess it up with clumsy, abstract words and sweet, empty phrases that mean nothing and everything at all.
So he stops talking, gives himself over to the moment, forfeits his words because actions speak louder than words, anyway. He ignores the fact that they’re at work, in the middle of Steve’s office - Steve’s glass office, no less - because Kono said she’d cover for them and there’s nothing that girl can’t do if she puts her mind to it.
(It occurs to him belatedly that she hadn’t looked at all surprised to find her superiors connected at the lips, some detective he is, and he wonders how long she knew. He also assumes Chin knows, too, or if he didn’t, he surely does now and God, that’s a little embarrassing because Danny is a professional thank you very much and, wasn’t he protesting this just last week?)
In the end, Danny sighs and blames Steve, because everything is always Steve’s fault - and he steadily ignores the fact that he’s partly to blame for being such a hopeless pushover when it comes to his Neanderthal of a boss.
“Are we doing this or what?” Danny asks and those must have been the magic words because Steve is on him in a second, kissing him like he’s starved for it and it sparks something in Danny, sets him ablaze and then he’s gone, burning into Steve’s mouth, hungry, desperate.
For a few breathless moments everything is lost to the push and pull of hands and lips and teeth. Steve pushes him back onto the couch, wraps himself around Danny like some sort of long-limbed human octopus while Danny pushes back, hands fisted in Steve’s shirt and for a second everything stills; their heartbeats in harmony, their breath mingling, heedy and warm, like an unspoken promise.
And then everything shifts into first gear and they’re moving fast, touching everywhere they can reach; a near-violent flurry of motion like they have to make up for the stillness. Danny’s hands roam up muscled arms to inked shoulders, trace lazy patterns there and down over Steve’s back, brush against the exposed flash of skin that flirts with the top of his pants. His fingers wriggle up under Steve’s shirt, dip into the the hollows of his hips and then up, over firm muscle and tanned skin as he drags the shirt up and over Steve’s head, separating their mouths just long enough for Danny to catch his breath.
Steve has already removed his tie and Danny only realises his shirt is unbuttoned when it bunches around his arms and hinders him from moving. He shucks it off and the fabric hardly has time to hit the floor before Steve pounces on him, pressing them both back into the soft leather, hands working their way down his body with care and precision, pressing and stroking and scratching and Danny loses himself to the ecstacy of sensation, lets it travel through him and rides it out with his eyes closed in bliss.
He opens them when Steve’s hands leave him but seconds later Steve is there, body warm and solid against him, skin on skin, and Danny can’t resist the urge to arch into that warmth, needs to get closer, and he reaches up, cups a hand around the back of Steve’s neck and pulls him down. Steve pants into his neck as they rut together, nothing but naked warmth and need between them, and Danny rakes his fingers through Steve’s hair. One of Steve’s hands comes up to cup his face, stutters when Danny bucks against him and finds his neck instead, curled halfway between jaw and collarbone. The other hand slides south, skims along his body like a phantom touch and Danny shivers and gasps when it brushes against his cock.
Danny has just enough semblance of mind, just enough sanity left to get out one last remark,
“That’s it,” he gasps, bucking into Steve’s hand, his hand that’s curled around them both, wedged between their bodies and it’s awkward and it’s beautiful and Danny doesn’t give a damn about anything else in the world. “Charlie-Oscar-Mike-Echo for me, babe!”
The push and pull of their bodies are the goddamn tides upon the shore, the strain like a riptide just waiting to take them under and with Danny’s words Steve’s body jerks and pulls them out to sea, spilling like an ocean in between their bodies.
When the whitewash of pleasure clears their minds, Danny looks over at Steve sprawled, blissed-out and boneless against his side and feels something wild and untamed still in his chest. He feels the steady, drumming pulse of life beneath his fingers, watches dark lashes shutter open and warm, indisputable affection meet his eyes and he waits for the panic to settle in; but all he feels is a dawning and steadfast contentment, a pleasant tide of fondness that washes away all doubt, and the thrum of panic dissipates, washed away by the sea.
Author: quoththewriter
Rating: 18
Characters/Pairings: Steve/Danny, Kono
Word Count: 4331
Warnings: gratuitous misuse and abuse of military lingo, non-explicit sex
Disclaimer: I own neither the show nor the characters and make no money from either.
Summary: Seriously? Who the hell gets off that bad on speaking in phonetic code?
A/N: This fic was inspired by a conversation sirona_gs and I had about what Danny using military speak would do to Steve. Entirely her fault! It's not exactly what we discussed, but it's got some elements in there. It's sort of half-crack and a fuckton of metaphorical language towards the end, but whatever. And it starts in media res because I seem to be incapable of giving anything a proper beginning. Unbeta'd so all mistakes are mine.
xxx
That’s when Steve decides to mumble military words into his ear.
Danny stops licking his way down his partner’s neck with an audible groan as he quickly shoves away, giving the man a furious, half-hearted glare in the process.
“Why did you have to do that?” He starts up, exasperated. “We had a perfectly good thing going here and then you had to go and do, that-” Danny shoves his hands forward in an all-encompassing gesture of frustration. “and now, now I’m not kissing you."
“But-" Steve for his part sounds all for the world like a whining child and Danny determinedly avoids looking at him because he just knows Steve is making that face he hates; that face that crumbles in all the right places, specifically designed to be his downfall, and he’s not falling for it, not this time.
Steve’s hand falls on his shoulder and tries turning him so he’s facing Steve and dammit if Steve can’t manhandle him into moving, the bastard. It’s not his fault his partner has the strength of a fucking vampire.
Danny still isn’t looking at him, though.
“But I thought you liked it when I talked like that," Steve says, a little lost, a little confused and Danny snaps up at that, finger raised and ready to poke Steve in the chest.
“That is exact-ly,” he says, punctuating each word with a stab of his finger, “why you are no longer being treated to the expertise of my tongue, Steven, because you cannot imagine what those words do to me and we,” he waves between them for emphasis, “are in the middle of your office. Your office, which, by the way, is nothing but a wall of glass and everyone - everyone - can see what goes on in here. So no, Steven, I don’t like when you talk like that because it makes me want to very, very dirty things to you and the workplace, as in here, where we are currently standing, is not the place to do them in. Are we clear?" He accentuates the words with one final poke and draws back with a look of satisfaction on his face because there is no way even Steve could miss the obvious points he so clearly just spelled out for him.
Except, of course, Danny’s life seems to be one big, cosmic joke and Steve was obviously only put on this Earth to completely turn everything inside out and upside down because unlike normal people, who get things spelled out for them nice and neat and actually understand, Steve McGarrett, apparently, does not. Because there is maybe a second, two if he’s being generous, between the moment Danny steps back and the moment Steve slides forward again, into Danny’s space and Danny backs up and holds up his hands because didn’t he just tell him not to-
But then Steve towers over him, freakishly long fingers splayed across his chest, pushing him gently backwards until Danny’s hip collides with Steve’s desk and Steve’s mouth is on his, pressing him back and down even though there’s no where else to go and Danny honest to God can’t remember why he even argued in the first place.
“Besides," Steve says into his mouth between kisses, “isn’t that kind of,” he takes a breath, runs his nose along Danny’s throat until Danny shoves them back together, and then Steve breaks away again to add, “counterproductive?"
And Danny isn’t listening. Not really. Because really, Steve is a quiet guy, for the most part - at least, he’s quiet in comparison to Danny who, let’s face it, he knows he talks a lot but whatever, he likes to talk, likes to fill the silences with words and is there anything wrong with that? No. But Steve is generally a quiet guy and now, now he chooses the time to talk?
“Babe," Danny says, and yeah, he sees the irony a mile away. “Stop talking."
“I can shut the blinds,” Steve mutters, trailing kisses along his jaw. Danny twists his fingers into Steve’s hair and tries to let the words wash over him, hopes that if he doesn’t answer Steve will give up on this, but he waits until Steve’s mouth stills on his neck to remember that Steve is a stubborn bastard and he sighs wearily because Steve obviously doesn’t get it.
“People can still walk in. As much as I would love to cave into your outrageous demands, I do not, I repeat, do not, want Rachel and Stan to have to explain to Grace that Danno went to jail for indecent exposure, okay?”
His answer earns a fleeting kiss to the base of his throat and Steve murmurs with his lips still against the skin in a way that wakes Danny’s body up in the worst of ways, “So? I’ll lock the door.”
Danny’s hands slide back into his hair and give a little tug that has Steve exhaling against his ear. Danny suppresses a shiver.
“Smartass, they can still hear us.” He snorts. “You’re not exactly quiet."
A sharp knock on the door startles them apart, and Steve, for all his smooth seduction attempts, breaks away and ducks his head, muffling a groan. Danny just chuckles and pats Steve good-naturedly on the shoulder as Kono’s cheerful voice floats through the glass.
“Boss, Chin got a lead on Fuentes. And there’s something else, you gotta see this!"
He’s too slow to catch the smirk he just knows is on Kono’s face, but he’s positive it’s there because there is just no way she hasn’t seen them, no way, so he sends Steve his best half-glare with a look that clearly reads “I told you so” and Steve obviously gets the message because he shoves Danny lightly and concedes with a “Okay. Okay, so you were right this one time.”
And he leaves the room before Danny can gather his wits enough to make a response, with a half-spluttered and indignant “this one time?-” on the tip of his tongue.
xxx
“No, Steven. Nada-October, okay?”
They're sitting in Steve’s office, Danny on the couch with his feet propped up on the coffee table while Steve perches on the corner of his desk - because god forbid superSEAL ever use an actual chair. The current case’s paperwork and a forest of empty bottles lay on the table between them.
“Remember what happened this morning? I repeat, Nada-October. Not a chance.”
And yet Steve gets up from his desk and maneuvers around the rapidly-depleting case of longboards and the next time Danny blinks, he finds Steve standing in front of him with his arms crossed. He expects a pout, but when he looks up, he finds a creased look on his face, like the look he puts on whenever Danny tries explaining civilised rules to him (which, honestly, why does he even try?)
“Don’t hurt yourself,” he jokes as Steve shifts, rearranges his arms, and opens his mouth. Closes it again before something like Aneurism Face breaks across his brow.
“’Nada-October’, Danny? Really?” and there’s another look there, an intensity he can’t pin down.
“Whatever,” he says testily, waving a hand. “I figured maybe you’d get the point if I spelled it out for you. You know, in military-speak or whatever you call it, because that’s what you do, don’t you? You-“
And suddenly Steve is right up in his face, crouching over him, crowding him back into the couch with a hand on his shoulder and looking very much like he wants to eat Danny alive.
“November-Oscar,” Steve murmurs, voice rough, almost a growl. His eyes are dark, his pupils blown wide and holy shit, he’s actually turned on by this, isn’t he?
Danny bites back a groan and focuses on the fact that no grown man should ever be this turned on by random months of the year, because what. What the fuck? What’s so special about November that it would get Steve so hot under the collar?
“November-Oscar,” Steve repeats slowly, breathless like he’s fucking the words with his mouth and what the actual fuck is even going on? Why does he keep saying that? And with such longing-
Oh. Oh.
November-Oscar.
And seriously? Is Steve seriously trying to fucking correct him? And more to the point, who the hell gets off that bad on speaking in phonetic code?
“Hang on,” Danny says, raising a hand because he needs some clarification here. “Hold up. Are you speaking military to me again? Because, shit, Steve. You look like you’re about to cream your pants and I haven’t even touched you.” He swallows roughly, tries to avoid the intensity in his partner’s eyes and the obscene way his tongue flicks out to swipe nervously at his lips. Like he doesn’t even know what that does, what that’s doing to Danny right now.
It’s then that he realizes something, makes a connection between the phonetic code and the face he’s seeing, and his eyes soften. His voice is gentle as he asks,
“If this is how you- if you end up like. Like this-“ he stumbles over the words, gives up, and waves at his partner’s flushed and disheveled state instead. “How did you survive?” because Danny isn’t sure, but doesn’t the military talk like that all the time?
But Steve is already shaking his head, pushing forward in earnest so that he almost ends up in Danny’s lap.
“No,” he says and his voice is still rough with want and lust and God- “No, just. Just- you-”
“Oh,” Danny says faintly, scratches at his cheek and shifts a bit because, “Oh. So you want me to-“
“I’ll teach you,” Steve offers, reading him, rushing the words out like they can’t come fast enough. Only after, he realizes how desperate he sounds: how he sort of, kind of, almost just begged, and he flushes a light shade of pink all the way up his neck that privately, Danny will admit is kind of adorable. He ducks his head and flashes Danny that self-conscious little grin and Danny shakes his head and chuckles a bit because they are so past self-consciousness here.
“Okay,” he agrees because, yeah, he could get used to this. Get used to seeing super SEAL so flustered and undone and know that he caused it to happen. “Okay. Yeah. Why not.”
And that’s how the lessons start.
xxx
“How’s the phonetic going, Danno?”
Steve is standing in the doorway, dopey grin on his face. Danny sighs, runs a hand through his hair and drops his pen because he knows the paperwork isn’t getting done until Steve is finished torturing him.
“Fantastic, McGarrett. Whiskey-Oswald-Narnia-Dexter-Edison-Rides-Fearless-Umbrella-”
“Whiskey-Oscar-November-Delta-Echo-Romeo-Foxtrot-Uniform,” Steve corrects automatically, breathing heavy, and when Danny looks up at Steve, the freak, his eyes are dark with lust.
“Lima,” Steve finishes softly and Danny swallows, thick, heavy and suddenly it’s hard to breathe, like someone replaced all the fucking air with cement. So Danny takes deep breaths, runs his tongue nervously over cracked lips and tries to ignore the way Steve’s eyes follow him eagerly.
“Yeah, whatever, hooked-on-phonics. I’m learning, okay?”
Steve is suddenly in front of him, damn his silent ninja training or whatever, because he somehow got from the door and around the desk without Danny noticing. When Danny opens his mouth to complain, Steve dips his head and catches his mouth and suddenly Danny finds a much more interesting use for his tongue.
Steve shoots him that stupid smile when he pulls away, proud and affectionate with a twinkle in his eyes, and Danny waves a hand at him, feeling something uncomfortably warm and fond bloom in his chest.
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll keep working. Go get back to your paperwork, you big lug, before I get Chin on your ass for slacking.”
xxx
“Good morning, Sierra-Tango-Echo-Victor-Echo,” Danny says cheerfully one morning, hiding the smirk that threatens to break when Steve’s hand jerks so suddenly he spills coffee over the rim of his mug.
“Danny-” he whines, honest to god whines, voice rough and almost pleading and Danny is two seconds away from jumping him when Kono suddenly appears at his elbow.
“Whoa, boss.” She stops short and stares at Steve. “You don’t look so good.” There is a hint of worry in her tone and that’s it, Danny can’t hide the smirk anymore.
“Don’t worry, Kono," he says brightly, crossing his arms over his chest. "Steven here is perfectly Foxtrot-India-November-Echo. Isn’t that right, babe?” He cocks an eyebrow in triumph at the flush that sweeps up Steve’s neck and his grin widens, shark-like, when Steve shifts, aroused and anxious to hide it.
Kono looks confused for maybe a second before her boss’ discomfort dawns on her and her eyes widen almost comically. She looks between him and Steve, the gears obviously turning, and she’s fast because it’s only seconds before her face shifts and then she’s smirking and, what. What the hell is she smirking about?
“What, what the hell are you smirking about?” Danny asks, to break the silence and because he really wants to know.
“Oh, nothing,” Kono sing-songs and Danny glares because like hell with that tone of voice ‘nothing’.
“It’s just,” She continues, fully smirking now. Steve’s got his poker face on and Danny’s instincts are flashing red hot for danger. “It looks like your military speak is turning the boss on."
Kono nudges him playfully in the ribs and Danny suppresses a wince because ow, pointy elbows.
Steve ducks his head and gives a smile that might have passed for sheepish if Danny didn’t know him so well; didn’t know that Steve is like that good-looking kid in high school who knows his looks will get him out of trouble and he isn’t afraid of using them. So Danny groans and looks to Kono, but she’s no help, of course she’s not, because she’s on Steve’s side, the traitor, and she’s got a very, very evil-looking gleam in her eye.
“What’s with that look, huh?” he asks her, because attacking her is easier than dealing with Steve’s lazy cat-like satisfaction at being caught and really, only Steve would be satisfied about this. The freak.
“That look,” he stresses when Kono tries giving him a confused pout. “Don’t try to hide it, five seconds ago you had this gleam in your eyes that spelled out the end of the democratic human race as we know it. God help me,” he buries his face in his hands before waving them in her direction. “You’re plotting to take over the world again, aren’t you?”
“Dunno what you’re talking about, brah.”
Kono continues giving him the wide-eyed “I-didn’t-do-it” look, which, okay, Danny might have believed if he didn’t have each and every one of his partner’s faces catalogued in memory and God help him if this wasn’t a carbon copy of McGarrett’s “Don’t-look-at-me-Danno-I-didn’t-blow-up-that-building-it-happened-on-its-own” look.
A moment passes, where Danny puts pressure on his glare and Kono’s face crumbles into a smile, a goddamn smile and,
“That is so wrong! You aren’t supposed to smile when you’re beat, Kalakaua. And I, my rookie friend, just beat you. Why. Why are you smirking at me like that and- hey!"
It turns out Kono had been a distraction all along, because Steven, the stupid silent SEAL, chooses that moment to sneak up on him and wrap one freakishly large hand around his bicep.
He levels one last glare at Kono before whipping around to face at his partner. His stupid, obnoxious, self-satisfied, handsy partner.
“You!” he starts, stabbing Steve in the chest with a finger. “You need to learn about personal boundaries. I, personally, like my space. I like my space a lot. Generally, I like my space when you and it are not in the same area code!"
He continues protesting but Steve just grins at him, blinding and stupidly happy enough that Danny actually has to fight the urge to smile back, so he turns to Kono with a plea on his face.
The devious little wench just shoots him a shit-eating grin and winks, actually fucking winks.
“I’ll cover for you," she says, and then she’s gone.
“Cover for me. Cover for what?!” he yells after her, voice raising in pitch, though the question is pointless and everybody knows it. Danny, especially, knows it when Steve tugs him forward, a sharp jerk that’s hard enough to unbalance him and sends him sprawling gracelessly into Steve’s stupid waiting arms. Stupid, muscular, tattooed waiting arms, which, Danny realises belatedly, he can see.
“When did you change?" he asks, a little dazed at the ink staring him right in the face. He resists the urge to trace his finger along it, but only just. He’s still supposed to be angry about this, no, livid about this, but Steve and his stupid presence are making his anger increasingly hard to hold on to.
“Doesn’t matter," Steve says, pressing his lips into Danny’s hair, behind Danny’s ear, down his jaw and all over his face like he needs to taste Danny just to breathe, and really, really, Danny doesn’t mind.
“God, Steven, you’re like a horny teenager. Can’t you go one hour, one hour, without trying to molest me in public? Is that really too much to ask?” He keeps talking, but he’s winding down, his protests becoming slower and farther in between as Steve continues to cover every inch of available skin with his lips and teeth and tongue.
“Okay,” Danny concedes, once he gets his breathing back under control. “Okay. You win. You hear me, McGarrett. You win. Whiskey-India-Novemb-”
Steve gives him one final shove towards his office and slams the door behind them.
xxx
"Easy, dammit! If you break that door, it's coming out of your salary!"
"Shh, Danny. Just, be quiet for a second.” His lips brush Danny’s temple. “Enjoy the moment."
"Enjoy the moment? Did you really just- Enjoy the- Steven, you just physically molested me in front of our rookie coworker and you want me to just enjoy the moment?”
“Danny.” Steve’s voice is close and quiet, an intimate whisper that stops Danny in his tracks. He looks up at Steve to find that look on his face, that unguarded, bar-no-holds, open affection that catches his breath in his throat and sends his heart right up with it. That look, that one special look is so rare that he’s only caught glimpses of it out of the corner of his eye, gone by the time he turns his head to get a closer look, to see if maybe, he was seeing it wrong.
But no, there it is. No mask, no walls, no avoiding eye contact. Steve is looking him straight in the eyes with something so close to reverence that it almost hurts to look at. For sure, it takes his heart and does a fast, staccato number on it in heels, but the pain is only panic, because how. How can he possibly compete with that? How can he show Steve that the look he’s giving him, the rare, once-in-a-lifetime smile he’s getting isn’t just one-sided? Because Danny, now, he tries to give as good as he gets and hell if he isn’t just as head-over-heels for this big, goofy smuck as Steve is about him. And he’s always been emotional. Sensitive, Steve calls it. He doesn’t say anything he doesn’t feel, 100%, and he’s always, always been able to express himself.
But now? When he needs it? He doesn’t know what the hell he can possibly do, staring into the face of such love and devotion, to show Steve that it’s all full circle, baby. He feels it too.
So for once he swallows his words and surrenders. He pushes in, pushes close, and “okay, okay," they’ll do this Steve’s way. They’ll skip the talking and save the explanations for later because this thing that they have but haven't defined, it’s a hell of a lot bigger than Danny initially thought and he’s not ready to mess it up with clumsy, abstract words and sweet, empty phrases that mean nothing and everything at all.
So he stops talking, gives himself over to the moment, forfeits his words because actions speak louder than words, anyway. He ignores the fact that they’re at work, in the middle of Steve’s office - Steve’s glass office, no less - because Kono said she’d cover for them and there’s nothing that girl can’t do if she puts her mind to it.
(It occurs to him belatedly that she hadn’t looked at all surprised to find her superiors connected at the lips, some detective he is, and he wonders how long she knew. He also assumes Chin knows, too, or if he didn’t, he surely does now and God, that’s a little embarrassing because Danny is a professional thank you very much and, wasn’t he protesting this just last week?)
In the end, Danny sighs and blames Steve, because everything is always Steve’s fault - and he steadily ignores the fact that he’s partly to blame for being such a hopeless pushover when it comes to his Neanderthal of a boss.
“Are we doing this or what?” Danny asks and those must have been the magic words because Steve is on him in a second, kissing him like he’s starved for it and it sparks something in Danny, sets him ablaze and then he’s gone, burning into Steve’s mouth, hungry, desperate.
For a few breathless moments everything is lost to the push and pull of hands and lips and teeth. Steve pushes him back onto the couch, wraps himself around Danny like some sort of long-limbed human octopus while Danny pushes back, hands fisted in Steve’s shirt and for a second everything stills; their heartbeats in harmony, their breath mingling, heedy and warm, like an unspoken promise.
And then everything shifts into first gear and they’re moving fast, touching everywhere they can reach; a near-violent flurry of motion like they have to make up for the stillness. Danny’s hands roam up muscled arms to inked shoulders, trace lazy patterns there and down over Steve’s back, brush against the exposed flash of skin that flirts with the top of his pants. His fingers wriggle up under Steve’s shirt, dip into the the hollows of his hips and then up, over firm muscle and tanned skin as he drags the shirt up and over Steve’s head, separating their mouths just long enough for Danny to catch his breath.
Steve has already removed his tie and Danny only realises his shirt is unbuttoned when it bunches around his arms and hinders him from moving. He shucks it off and the fabric hardly has time to hit the floor before Steve pounces on him, pressing them both back into the soft leather, hands working their way down his body with care and precision, pressing and stroking and scratching and Danny loses himself to the ecstacy of sensation, lets it travel through him and rides it out with his eyes closed in bliss.
He opens them when Steve’s hands leave him but seconds later Steve is there, body warm and solid against him, skin on skin, and Danny can’t resist the urge to arch into that warmth, needs to get closer, and he reaches up, cups a hand around the back of Steve’s neck and pulls him down. Steve pants into his neck as they rut together, nothing but naked warmth and need between them, and Danny rakes his fingers through Steve’s hair. One of Steve’s hands comes up to cup his face, stutters when Danny bucks against him and finds his neck instead, curled halfway between jaw and collarbone. The other hand slides south, skims along his body like a phantom touch and Danny shivers and gasps when it brushes against his cock.
Danny has just enough semblance of mind, just enough sanity left to get out one last remark,
“That’s it,” he gasps, bucking into Steve’s hand, his hand that’s curled around them both, wedged between their bodies and it’s awkward and it’s beautiful and Danny doesn’t give a damn about anything else in the world. “Charlie-Oscar-Mike-Echo for me, babe!”
The push and pull of their bodies are the goddamn tides upon the shore, the strain like a riptide just waiting to take them under and with Danny’s words Steve’s body jerks and pulls them out to sea, spilling like an ocean in between their bodies.
When the whitewash of pleasure clears their minds, Danny looks over at Steve sprawled, blissed-out and boneless against his side and feels something wild and untamed still in his chest. He feels the steady, drumming pulse of life beneath his fingers, watches dark lashes shutter open and warm, indisputable affection meet his eyes and he waits for the panic to settle in; but all he feels is a dawning and steadfast contentment, a pleasant tide of fondness that washes away all doubt, and the thrum of panic dissipates, washed away by the sea.