Every Day With You Is Like A Punch In The 'Nads.
This was supposed to be porn. Unrepentant, filthy porn between Chin and Danny with nary a plot in sight. So of course, it's 7,459 words of Chin wooing Danny and Danny trying to figure out if Chin wears boxers or briefs because I am genetically incapable of writing any kind of smut. I also have no idea why I'm so in love with the idea of Kono playing matchmaker that it's become an actual thing with me, but what can you do? Sigh. Samara screamlet, I'm leaving my TV on for you.
Many thanks to charliehey for always appreciating all the food romancing in my stories and getting even my dumbest jokes. For alexandriabrown who deserves all the Chin/Danny in the world and leupagus because she's spending twelve hours on a plane and that's just not right at all. I hope this lives up to your expectations, ladies!
Spoiler Alert
It starts with a cup of coffee on his desk and a note that says, "You'll need this," in Chin's restrained cursive, a neat sprawl of letters that somehow manage to be tidy and messy at the same time, an impossibility that can only exist with someone like Chin Ho Kelly. The coffee is hot and strong, black with one sweetener, just the way Danny likes it, and he drinks it with gusto. He feels something shift cautiously inside him at the thought of Chin putting this on his desk, writing that note with his brow furrowed in concentration because everything Chin does is deliberate and meaningful, including his writing.
Danny isn't surprised anymore by the dichotomies of Chin, the way he's quiet and funny, angry and loose, the way he holds himself steady like he's afraid he'll throw the world off-balance if he moves too far in one direction. Chin is a conundrum that he hasn't yet figured out, but he's going to get it. He's always been good at puzzles, at solving mysteries, and he's got the time to study Chin and figure him out.
"How's it?" Chin nods as he passes by Danny on their way to the briefing room.
"Damn good cup of coffee," Danny says appreciatively, feeling good when Chin smiles at him as Steve starts laying out their next case for them.
The coffee cheers Danny up from a day's contemplation of the vagaries of crime in Hawaii and the idiosyncratic nature of Steve's obsessive tendencies while driving recklessly, as usual, through the streets of O'ahu trying to catch a suspect. He ends up smiling through a drug bust, a punch aimed at his face, and being pre-emptively slammed into a door by Steve to stop a bullet from going through him. Steve makes pointed comments about Danny being a pod person, Kono pinches his cheeks and tells him he needs to smile more often, and Chin just bumps fists with him as he passes by Danny. Like the coffee, it's a small gesture, but it does a lot to bolster Danny's mood.
Danny's life is built on small gestures and tiny, thoughtful tokens, and Chin's apparently taken it upon himself to contribute meaningfully toward that.
Why, is another question that Danny's going to figure out eventually. For now, he's just going to enjoy the coffee and contemplate whether Chin is a boxers or briefs kind of guy.
***
So maybe he likes Chin a little. It's not like he's ever going to act on it. He can just enjoy watching Chin move and talk and laugh from afar. It's not like he hasn't done that before anyway.
Danny knows how these things go, and the odds are against him that this will work out in his favor. Longing from a safe distance tends to work for him, so he's going with that.
He's thinking that Chin wears boxers.
***
There are malasadas on his desk, wrapped in a white bag, with a note that says, "You need the sugar," stapled to the front. Chin's name is a compact spread of letters under the note, and Danny feels his insides squeeze tight at the sight of those angular black lines on the fine white paper.
Steve looks over at the bag, frowns, and then looks at him. "Okay," he says slowly, like he's trying to work out exactly where the bomb is, hands out as if measuring the room, "what am I missing?"
Danny holds up his hand immediately, not wanting the moment ruined. He knows Steve and what he's like if Danny doesn't draw boundaries around him (although they might as well be drawn in crayon for all the good they do him with Steve's general disregard for rules and lines and personal space), and goddammit, Chin's right, he needs the sugar right at this moment. "You shut the fuck up," he snaps, feeling the paper crumple against his fingertips, smelling the sweetness of freshly fried dough with powdered sugar on top. "Let me just enjoy this for one fucking second."
Steve makes a rude noise. "Enjoy your early morning heart attack, is more like it. Do you know how much sugar is in one of those things? And we're not even talking about--"
"Don't say 'carbs'," Danny begs, but Steve just looks at him like Danny is breaking his heart. Danny sighs, feeling the warmth inside him flee at the disapproval in Steve's voice. Defiantly, he opens the bag and grabs a malasada, stuffing it into his mouth and sucking the sugar off his fingertips just to spite Steve. "You know," he says idly to the horrified look on Steve's face, "you just suck the fun out of everything. How do you even live with yourself with the whole lack of sugar in your diet?"
Steve pats his belly with a smug grin. "I have zero percent body fat and I can bench press you without even breaking a sweat. The ladies love me."
Danny rolls his eyes and pops another malasada in his mouth, almost swooning at the taste of fried dough and sugar on his tongue, although he'll deny it to his dying day. "I'm having an orgasm in my mouth right now," he says through a mouthful of doughnut. "Stop talking."
Steve makes a face and looks at the white paper bag like it's a grenade. "You are just wrong," he tells Danny seriously, but his eyes are focused intently on the bag of fried dough in Danny's hands.
"Your lips say 'no'," Danny teases, and he should feel bad at the hungry look on Steve's face, but mostly, he's just really fucking amused that Steve's not as much of a hardass as he pretends to be. "But your eyes say--"
"Blow me," Steve retorts, but there's no real feeling to it. He's too distracted by the bag, Danny knows.
He holds it out to Steve, managing to keep the smile off his face through sheer effort. "Try one," he offers sweetly, and Steve holds his hand up like Danny's offering him poison.
"Zero percent body fat," he says, but he already sounds defeated when Danny waves the bag in front of his face like a threat.
Danny considers it a personal triumph that he's managed to get this far without Steve smacking the bag out of his hands like he's a toddler headed for a light socket with a fork in his hand. He picks up another one and eats it slowly, watching the tormented look on Steve's face as he makes pleased little noises, enjoying the way he squirms when Danny licks his fingers. "You know it's just a fried doughnut, right?" he asks carefully, in case Steve wasn't aware, in case Steve had crawled out from under a rock this morning and has just been introduced to modern Hawaiian life. "One won't kill you. Embrace the cliché already."
"I hate you," Steve sighs, giving in ungracefully and reaching into the bag to grab one. He shoves it in his mouth like a secret and Danny laughs at the beatific look on Steve's face when the taste hits him.
"Good, huh?"
"You ruined a five-year streak of not eating these," Steve says with a guilty swallow. "I'm going to fucking force-feed you protein shakes until you cry."
"I'll shoot you before I let that happen," Danny promises him, licking the powdered sugar off his lips and dusting it off his tie. "You're giving Chin a raise so he can buy me doughnuts and coffee every day."
"God, you're easy," Steve groans, rubbing his hands together to get rid of the crumbs. "If I'd known you could be had for a cup of coffee and some malasadas, I would've--"
"Oh, fuck you," Danny laughs. "If you were to make a move on me, you would need a six-pack of beer at least."
Steve glares at him. "Why do you get all expensive with me?"
Danny counts points off on his fingers, starting with his pinky. "One, you get me shot at all the time; two, you're the boss so you get the bigger paycheck; three, you're an asshole so you have to work harder to get me; four--"
"Four," Steve interrupts, "I am awesome and you would be lucky if I hit on you--"
"Five," Danny says through clenched teeth, "again, you get me shot at all the fucking time--"
"Six, I'm great in bed--"
"Seven, Chin looks better in biker boots than you do."
Steve stops and gives Danny a wounded look. "That is so below the belt, you fucker," he snipes, and Danny almost chokes, he's laughing so hard. "You never insult a man's boots."
"You are so ridiculous," Danny snorts, holding out his bag of malasadas at Steve. "Have another one. It'll make up for me insulting your boot honor, and," he adds, pointing an accusing finger at Steve, "the fact that I actually said that without cracking up should be fucking applauded."
"Gimme," Steve says fatalistically, sparing a mournful look down at his body as Danny nudges the bag into his hand. "You're ruining my life," he tells Danny, popping another malasada in his mouth and looking like he's just found heaven. "And my waistline."
Danny shrugs. "So you're, like, one percent body fat instead of zero. You can just dangle another suspect off a building and you'll reach your target heartrate in no time."
"Definitely a bad influence on me," Steve says with a reluctant smile. "So what's the deal with Chin feeding you anyway? Like you don't get fed enough at home?" He stops and looks Danny over carefully. "You are getting fed at home, right?"
Danny sighs and shakes his head. "Don't you fucking start with me," he warns. "I don't need you to go all Julia Childs, McGarrett-style, on me when I'm not expecting it. I have enough problems dealing with you professionally."
"You love me," Steve says confidently, reading over the note that was pinned to the bag, a little furrow between his brows as he squints as Chin's writing. "I'm awesome."
"You keep telling yourself that, Ace," Danny says with a head shake, thinking that between Chin's little friendly gestures and Steve's arbitrary insanity, his life is the kind of weird you usually only find in books or TV shows. Then he looks over the note in Steve's hand, sees the curves and loops of Chin's name, and feels something heavy move inside him. The good kind of weird, he decides as Steve nudges him and hands the bag back to him. The kind of weird that Danny can live with.
"You're not even Chin's type," Steve says, disrupting Danny's happy thoughts because no one's ever taught him to stop talking at least one sentence before.
"Asshole," Danny says sourly, scowling at the bag once he sees it's empty. He crumples it up and throws it in the garbage, but he keeps the note in his drawer, ignoring Steve when he accuses Danny of being a lovelorn teenager.
Danny can't explain why he keeps the note or why it's joined the coffee note in his drawer, but whatever, he just wants to keep them, okay? It's a free country and he's fucking allowed.
He adds the bag of malasadas to the growing list of things he doesn't know about Chin, but needs to find out soon.
***
Maybe he likes Chin a lot. Enough to want to get naked with him.
No, he's not yet ready to admit to that out loud. This is only going to end in tears and he likes Chin too much to fuck everything up on the off-chance that Chin wants to fuck him stupid like he's been dreaming about.
But he does want it, he reluctantly admits to himself as Chin walks by with Kono, laughing at something she says that involves a lot of expansive hand gestures. He smiles and nods as Danny as he passes by, and Danny waves silently, stifling the urge to go over, put his hand on Chin's ass, and see what happens.
Definitely not briefs. Chin just doesn't seem like a Fruit of the Loom kind of guy, he finally decides, taking a sip of coffee and wincing when it doesn't taste anything like the stuff Chin had left for him. One week and he's already spoiled for every other brand of coffee out there, including his own stuff that he makes at home. Chin's coffee had some kind of spice in it, like nutmeg or chicory, that made it taste better, and now Danny can't even drink his own brew or the station coffee without thinking mournfully of Chin's coffee or re-reading the note he has hidden in his drawer.
Goddamn Chin is ruining his life.
***
There's a bottle of Polish beer waiting for him on his desk when he gets back from his stakeout with Steve with a note that says, "You'll like this." The bottle is still cold, dripping some condensation, which means that Chin was probably waiting around to see when Danny would get back before dropping off the beer and the note.
It's absurd how much Danny likes that.
He sips the beer gingerly, sighs at how good it feels going down, and wonders how much longer he can pretend that all of this isn't screwing up his ready arguments for why it's never a good idea to fuck your colleagues. Even if they're hot Hawaiian cops. Especially if they're hot Hawaiian cops.
Danny drinks his beer and silently admits that even he isn't buying his own bullshit anymore. His life is so fucked that he's even having this argument with himself and losing.
Maybe boxer-briefs? Danny thinks that's more Chin's style anyway.
***
Okay, so the thing is, he really likes Chin. Besides the general feeling of wanting to put his mouth all over the man, Danny just genuinely likes him. Underneath all that discipline, empathy, and quiet strength is a sly sense of humor and a general appreciation for the absurd, which comes in handy when you work the 5-0 with someone like McGarrett. Danny likes hanging out with Chin and the team after work, drinking beer and shooting the shit about everything from bikes to music to fictional movie characters they all wanted to be like when they were growing up.
(Steve says Steve McQueen, mostly for the car, Chin says the Man With No Name because he's a Sergio Leone fan from back in his teens, Danny goes with Sonny Corleone because the guy's a classic for a reason, and Kono says Trinity from The Matrix, which makes everyone feel old and defensive and Kono threatens to punch all of them if they make any more rookie jokes.)
So, you know, he likes Chin, period. But there is that whole thing where he wants to get naked and sweaty with the man, and he still isn't sure whether that's something Chin would want or not. Random gifts and notes aside, Chin hasn't really made his naked intentions very clear, and Danny's past the age where he can recklessly throw himself at someone else and pick himself up if the other person doesn't catch him. He'd rather wait for Chin to make a move so he can at least figure out which direction he wants to be heading toward.
Somehow, his life has become even more complicated when he wasn't looking, and this time, it's because of Chin's generosity. He wonders if he did something bad in a past life to warrant Hawaii and all its whimsical madness. He's pretty sure he'll forgive all of it, though, if Chin wants him back.
Steve's right, he really is that easy. Fuck his life.
***
It goes like this for a while: Danny will come into the office and find something on his desk with a note from Chin, usually telling him that it's necessary or that it reminded him of Danny somehow. Sometimes, it's something simple and necessary, like a pen set so that Danny doesn't keep cadging pens off of an increasingly irritated Steve to write his notes (look, they fall out of his fucking pockets, which just aren't deep enough, and he's not wearing cargo pants like some of the Billabong fashion victims he works with, so it's not his fault if he loses one or twenty pens, all right?), or a burned CD of songs that Chin thinks Danny would like. Sometimes, it's a little more upscale, like the leather belt he finds wrapped up in a small, flat box that fits him perfectly, or the silk tie that goes with all his suits and looks good enough that even Steve can't give him shit for wearing it.
Danny makes it a point to go and thank Chin personally every time he receives one of these gifts, moved in ways he still can't put into words, still unsure about Chin's motives for all of this. Well, he thinks he knows, but he's not really sure. Chin's never shown any interest other than professional or friendly with Danny, and other than the gifts, nothing seems to have changed in the last few weeks between them. Danny's not expecting flowers or heartfelt declarations of love (been there, done that, has it all spelled out in his divorce papers), but he's expecting a dinner invitation, a kiss, a handjob in the men's bathroom, something. He knows that Chin is really into this enigmatic thing, but just once, Danny wishes the guy would throw him a clue so he isn't flailing around in the dark here.
Whenever he asks him about the gifts, though, Chin just shrugs and says, "Just thought you'd like it, that's all," looking at Danny in a way that Danny can't understand, but he feels that look all the way in his bones.
"Thanks," he says hesitantly, and lets Chin pat his arm before he walks away, leaving Danny even more confused and riled up than before. He has no idea what he's doing, what Chin is doing, but it's getting to the point where Danny needs to say or do something, possibly reckless, before he explodes.
***
He stops contemplating Chin's underwear preferences the first time he gets a noticeable hard-on picturing Chin somewhat unclothed and has to excuse himself from their briefing to go hide in the men's washroom. Later, Steve has a long, uncomfortable talk with him about feelings and how they're natural and Danny shouldn't be ashamed of them, and Danny spends half an hour yelling at him about how he's not a goddamn teenager and doesn't need the sex talk and feels better when Steve gets his standard bitchy look on his face and walks out in a huff.
He can't keep living like this, he thinks desperately, if only because everyone at the station thinks he has a tiny bladder for the sheer number of times he's hidden out in the men's room every time Chin passes by him. Something's going to break soon, and he's afraid it's going to be him.
***
It comes to a head a few weeks later after a long, difficult case, and this time, it's all Kono's fault. He's totally laying the blame on her for this. Danny was more than happy to let Chin do his usual Man of Mystery routine around the office while Danny just kept checking him out on the sly and driving himself crazy, but Kono is impatient, too fond of matchmaking, and is possibly getting Danny back for all the times he had agreed with Steve that Kono should pull kid detail because of her rookie status.
Somehow, it always comes back to Steve. He constantly ruins Danny's life, even when he isn't trying. Or even present.
It starts when Danny's coming off a long shift and an even longer argument with Steve about the actual definition of civil rights and why what he does to suspects and criminals is just wrong, even with the Governor's permission. He's tired and worn out and not quite on his guard when Kono pops up beside him, taking him completely by surprise, and says casually, "You know Chin likes you, right?"
At any other time, Danny would've caught the meaning behind her words, the look in her eyes, but he's spent the last two hours arguing at full volume with Steve, complete with extravagant hand gestures and a near-punch or two. So instead, he just nods at her, smiles tiredly, and says, "What's not to like?" before walking away.
"No," Kono starts to say, but Danny waves her off and hurries home, knowing that she's going to make him pay for interrupting her. Kono really hates a) being interrupted, and b) being dismissed, so Danny's going to die once she gets over her moral qualms and beats down his front door to kick his ass, he knows. He promises himself that he'll make it up to her in some way that doesn't involve her teaching Grace how to surf or taking Danny shopping for casual clothing or burning all of his ties.
So he really shouldn't be surprised when he comes in after twenty-four hours of uninterrupted rest and a distinct lack of aggravation in the form of Steve to find a bouquet of flowers sitting on his desk. The card just says "Dinner?" in neat, block letters and is signed in Chin's elegantly messy flourish, and Danny is very confused and ready to throw a fit when Kono comes strolling in with a satisfied look on her face. Danny narrows his eyes at her and holds up the card. "You had something to do with this, didn't you?" Because he knows her well enough by now to know that she did.
"Should've listened when I told you, brah," she says smoothly, reaching over to pluck the card from his hand. He glares over at her while she looks at the bouquet on Danny's desk and her face gets all soft in ways that he's totally going to mock her for as soon as he gets over the fact that Chin gave him flowers. "Lilies are so pretty," she sighs, and Danny rubs his hands over his face like he can make this all go away if he just wakes up.
"Explain this," he says with an edge in his voice. "Please," he adds politely when Kono raises her eyebrows at him.
"Told you," she smirks. "Chin likes you."
"Of course he likes me," Danny says as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. "Everyone likes me. I'm likable."
She shakes her head like Danny's disappointed her again. "You are not listening to me, Danno. Chin likes you. As in 'likes you' likes you. As in he wants to get into your pants." She tilts her head a little to look over his outfit. "Although I don't know why," she says sadly. "You dress like a cliché and those pants are just not flattering."
"It's called dressing like a goddamn professional," Danny yells, ignoring the way his hands reach down and tug at his pants, trying to flatten them out a little at the sides. Kono notices, though, because she's a cop, born and bred, and grins at Danny like she's aware of how idiotic he is at times. "Not all of us can do our shopping at the Gap," he adds sarcastically, and Kono laughs.
"Please," she snorts at him. "I live at Saks and you know it."
He eyes her gray tank top and tan cargo shorts. "Oh, yeah," he says insincerely, moving his hands out to encompass her shape, "I can see that. I like the way the gray mixes in with the beige. Very fashionable."
She rolls her eyes and smacks him on the arm, sighing when he complains that she broke him. "How I dress at work and how I dress for play are two completely different things," she tells him with exaggerated patience, making a face at Danny's skepticism. "God, you and Steve drive me crazy, you really do."
"Do not," Danny says firmly, "compare me to that lunatic again."
Kono shoots him the finger. "So back to the topic of Chin liking you--"
"Can we go back to making fun of your wardrobe?" Danny pleads, his hands clasped together in front of him like it's going to do him any good with Kono. "I like that a lot more."
"Anyway," she says with an edge in her voice, glaring at him until he sighs and makes a 'continue on' gesture. "You like him, right?"
Danny looks up at her, startled. "Who, Chin? Yes," he adds quickly at the look on Kono's face. "Of course I like him."
"I meant that way, dumbass."
He frowns at her. "What are we, fucking twelve years old? Yes, that way. In all the ways, really." And he hates admitting to that out loud when it's been this thing he's been carrying around with him for weeks now, but Kono looks serious, and Danny's sore enough from the last case that he really can't take another friendly punch from her.
"You hurt him, I will break you," she says quietly, which terrifies Danny because he knows she means it. She is fiercely protective of her family, and Chin is a huge part of that; Danny has no doubt that she would beat the crap out of him if he did anything to Chin, as much as she likes him, and he respects her for that, even as she scares the hell out of him.
"Aren't you jumping the gun a little?" he asks hesitantly because his mouth never consults with his brain before it goes running off with his thoughts. "I mean, he just asked me out to dinner. It could be a work thing."
Kono gives an exaggerated look at the bouquet on Danny's desk and the card lying next to it with Chin's name on it. "And you made detective?" she asks disbelievingly, smirking when Danny flips her off. "My cousin doesn't buy lilies for just any girl."
"That's not at all funny in any way," Danny says, arguing just for the sake of arguing, really, not because he actually objects to Kono's mocking. Somehow, this is all Steve's fault for conditioning him to argue every point, even when he agrees. It's yet another way he's ruined Danny's life. "And I'm really not a flowers kind of girl."
He picks up the bouquet and touches his fingertip to one of the vivid orange petals, feeling the soft, smooth slide of it against his skin. He's never gotten flowers before, unless you count the corsage at prom that got ripped off five minutes after they'd left his date's house, and Danny's never figured himself to be a flowers kind of guy, but there's something about Chin's arrangement of lilies that punches him in his gut, leaves him feeling breathless and unguarded. Maybe it's the care Chin's taken to pick something unique and beautiful, something that stands out from the roses and the carnations Danny's been giving his whole life. Each flower looks like a miniature sun against the white of Danny's shirt, and the whole thing leaves him feeling hot and bothered, little licks of heat curling up in his gut as he brings the bouquet to his nose and inhales the light scent of lilies and thinks of Chin picking each flower just for him.
Chin chooses that moment to come in because he knows how to make an entrance. Danny's nearly convinced that the man stands and watches, waits until he finds Danny at his most vulnerable before he walks into the room. "Hey," he smiles at Danny, for once dropping that ambiguous routine of his and just looking at him and Kono like it's Christmas morning at the station. "You got my invitation."
Danny feels the urge to be defensive, maybe break the tension with a bad joke or two, but he tamps it down. Hard. This is something that's been building up for a while and he wants to see where it goes if he doesn't fuck this up. "Yeah," he says, feeling heat creep up his neck when Chin looks him over with deliberate intent. He holds up the card. "Nice penmanship, by the way."
Chin beams at him, and Danny thinks he would commit acts of indecency to keep Chin looking at him like that. "Mrs. Hekekia would be so pleased," he tells Danny wryly. "She was kind of obsessive about writing neatly and legibly."
Danny ducks his head a little, feeling his face flush when Chin smiles at him. "Well, she would be proud," he says, silently thinking he sounds like a moron and hating himself for even worrying about it.
Kono makes a gagging sound. "Oh my God," she says despairingly, "I'm going to go somewhere where it's not so thirteen-year-old-boy-meets-girl all of a sudden."
Danny and Chin turn to look at her. "Hey," they say in unison, and she waves them off as she leaves.
"Remember what I said, Jersey," she throws over her shoulder, making a sharp slashing gesture at her throat as she looks at Danny.
"What was that about?" Chin asks, a vaguely concerned look on his face.
Danny shrugs. "Your cousin."
"Even I don't understand her all the time," Chin admits ruefully.
"That could be problematic."
Chin smiles, one of those ones that light up his whole face and make Danny feel warm inside. "Are we going to do this back-and-forth thing all day or can we move onto another topic?"
Danny makes a face, ducking his head a little and running his fingers through his hair. "I could do with a little more back-and-forth," he admits, feeling a nervous flutter as Chin moves closer to him. Chin's fingers brush lightly against his, making Danny jump a little, and as soon as he's done quietly hyperventilating about what this all means, he's going to remember to mock himself thoroughly for acting like a skittish horse around a man he's known and worked with closely for over a year.
Chin leans in, smelling like the ocean and some kind of light aftershave that makes Danny want to bite his neck, and looks at Danny closely. "Kono said I was being too subtle," he says carefully, like he's trying not to spook Danny, and that kind of snaps Danny out of his incipient panic attack. "She said that practical gifts could be written off as friendship, and if I really wanted to get you to notice me--"
"Oh, fuck, this really is thirteen-year-old-boy-meets-girl," Danny groans, palming his face with his hands as all his suspicions finally fall into place. Jesus, Chin has been wooing him, trying to get Danny to notice him as something more than just a friend and colleague, and Danny would laugh if he hadn't spent the last month tying himself in knots over Chin and his gifts and what they all meant.
Chin gives him an apologetic look. "If you're not comfortable--"
"Did I say I wasn't comfortable?" Danny asks fractiously, resisting the urge to smack Chin upside the head. He figures that's Kono's right, and only Kono's right, so he settles for glaring at him like he's trying to burn a hole through him with just his eyes. "I'm comfortable, all right? I just didn't expect to be..." He makes a vague gesture with his hands, not knowing how to finish that.
"Romanced?" Chin offers.
Danny thinks about that for a minute. "Let's go with that," he says quickly.
Chin makes a face. "I'm a little out of practice," he sheepishly admits.
"Since when, high school?" Danny holds up his hands when Chin gives him a cutting look, although a part of him really wants to hear about a teenage Chin romancing the girls in his high school, and Jesus, he has it really bad if this is what his stream of consciousness comes up with. "Okay, okay, that was a little over the line--"
"I just didn't want to proposition you like you were drunk at a bar," Chin says crossly, folding his arms over his chest and generally looking displeased with how this is all going down. Danny seems to have thrown him off his game, and Danny has to admit, he likes knowing that he has this kind of effect on Chin, who is usually unflappable under most circumstances. "I thought you deserved better than that."
"So you fed me and made me mixtapes and bought me clothes?"
Chin sighs. "Well, sure, it sounds bad when you put it like that."
Danny can't help but laugh, feeling a little more steady at the chagrined look on Chin's face. In the span of ten minutes, Chin's gone from being a non-criminal Riddler to being a regular guy who gets embarrassed and irritated just like everyone else; Danny likes this guy even more than Mystery Chin, and he'd liked Mystery Chin a lot. "Look," he says kindly, "just so you know, I appreciate the gifts, okay?" He holds his hands out to show his sincerity. "I really do. They were thoughtful and nice and I appreciate them."
"But?" Chin asks cautiously.
Danny shrugs, grinning. "I like being propositioned."
Chin nods. "Right, New Jersey."
"Don't stereotype," Danny sighs, and Chin laughs, running his fingers through his hair in a careless gesture.
"So," he says after a few minutes of silence, "how do you like to be propositioned?"
"Like a slutty, drunk guy at a bar," Danny smiles, his breath catching a little when Chin leans in and brushes his lips against Danny's cheek.
"Let me take you home and fuck you," he says softly, his lips barely touching the shell of Danny's ear, and Danny feels the world shrink down to just him and Chin and the bare inch of space between them. "I'll make it so good, baby."
"Jesus," Danny breathes, his hands automatically coming up to press against Chin's chest, feeling the heat of him against his palms. "You say that shit in bars?"
He can feel the curve of Chin's smile against his jaw. "Only to the people I really want to take home," Chin whispers, and Danny's knees finally give up the ghost and buckle, making him unsteady enough that Chin actually has to hold him up and rest him against his desk. Danny can almost hear Steve's hysterical laughter and reminds himself to go punch Steve in the face for still being a dick in his hypothetical scenario; Steve will understand once he gets over his aggravation.
"Right," Danny says hoarsely, his hands clenched tightly around the edge of his desk. "So about dinner tonight--"
"Wanna eat in?" Chin asks with a smirk, and fuck, fuck, Danny could get used to Chin and innuendo and that absurdly pleased smile on his face like he knows he's got Danny and is delighted by it.
"Yes," he tells Chin fervently, even as Chin moves away like he's not certain he can control himself when he's this close to Danny. Which is hot and makes Danny want to push Chin until Chin pushes back, maybe fucks him on his desk.
But this is Hawaii, the island that never sleeps, and he has maybe a minute or two of Chin staring hotly at him before Steve walks through the door at a quick pace, waving a folder at them. "New case," he tells Chin and Danny, nodding his head over at the door. "Meeting at the briefing room in five minutes."
"Got it," Chin says calmly, all business and efficiency once again now that Steve is in the room. One of these days, Danny's going to find out how he does that and then he's going to push until Chin's control is gone. "I'll see you later," Chin tells Danny with feeling, making it a promise, and Danny is quietly pleased that apparently Chin's control isn't absolute when it comes to him.
"What was that all about?" Steve asks with a confused look on his face.
Danny grins as he walks out the door. "I'm Chin's type."
***
Dinner is pizza and beer, both of which get tossed aside when Chin drags Danny onto his couch and kisses him until Danny has to push himself away just to be able to breathe again. Chin is a no-underwear kind of guy, as Danny finds out, and the discovery just about does him in.
"Fuck," he gasps when Chin stands up and yanks his jeans down his thighs. "Commando."
"I'm thinking the rank thing is more Steve than me," Chin laughs, leaning into Danny and kissing him thoroughly before Danny can protest any of it.
"Don't mention Steve when we're getting naked," he begs Chin. "I can't handle the trauma."
"I'll pay for your therapy," Chin promises as he undoes Danny's belt, yanks Danny up by his tie to kiss him, open-mouthed and dirty until Danny is clutching helplessly at Chin and trying to shove Chin's hand down his pants without any shame. It turns out that when Chin isn't being cool and mysterious around the office or a badass with a shotgun on the job, he's been studying ways to push all of Danny's buttons until Danny is a trembling, moaning, embarrassing wreck of a human being lying half-naked on Chin's couch.
Chin's got his hand down Danny's pants and his fingers around Danny's cock, his grip just a shade too much for Danny to be able to keep still. He's moving helplessly under Chin, making these humiliating whining noises that push Chin harder against him, his teeth sharp against Danny's throat. "Fuuuuck," Danny groans, about the only word he can remember since he'd walked through Chin's door and been tackled down onto the couch.
"We'll get to that," Chin promises, a hint of laughter in his voice, and Danny resents the fact that Chin is still together enough to tease him.
"You-- just-- goddammit--" Danny's got his hands clenched into fists by his sides as Chin slides down to his knees and takes Danny into his mouth, easily riding Danny's first desperate thrust and using his hands to keep Danny down on the couch.
It's embarrassingly quick after that. It's Chin's mouth and tongue and his dark head between Danny's thighs, it's Danny shaking and making desperate sounds and his hands gripped tight in Chin's hair. He comes and it feels like the world is ending and Chin's the only solid thing he can touch, and when he comes back to reality, Chin's rubbing himself against Danny's hip in short, sharp thrusts until he comes with a sigh. Danny kisses him as he comes, tastes that soft, satisfied sound, and briefly wishes he were young enough again that he could be ready to go in minutes, not hours. He's got so much he wants to do with Chin and one night is not enough to cover it all; a week might not be enough to cover it all, so maybe it's a good thing that Chin is planning on this lasting a while.
Danny shifts until Chin is between his legs, resting comfortably on top of Danny without the threat of falling off the couch. Chin's head is on Danny's chest and Danny's arms are draped loosely across Chin's shoulders. "Well," Danny says once he remembers how to breathe and think clearly again, "that was exciting."
Chin's laughter is muffled against Danny's clavicle. "Oh, baby, you are so smooth." He bites at the bend of Danny's shoulder and sucks a bruise into his skin. Danny hasn't had a hickey since his first year of marriage to Rachel, but it's Chin and he has a really nice mouth and Danny can deal with it as long as Chin does it all over his body.
He nudges Chin in protest. "You made my come my brains out. I think I'm allowed to say stupid shit for the next few minutes."
Chin lifts his head up, an amused look on his face. "Is that an official rule? Is there a handbook? Should I be taking notes?"
Danny narrows his eyes at him. "You know, you've been hanging around Steve way too long. This sarcasm thing, it doesn't suit you at all."
"It doesn't?"
"No one likes a smartass," Danny says firmly, biting the inside of his cheek so that he doesn't laugh at the look on Chin's face.
Chin doesn't actually smile, but Danny can see the lines of amusement on his face, in his eyes. "Wait, aren't you the sarcastic one in this relationship?"
"I," Danny says confidently, "am not sarcastic."
"You're not?"
"I am not. I can be cynical, occasionally disrespectful, and," he holds up his finger as an exclamation point, "dare I say it, even hostile at times, but never sarcastic."
Chin's laughter is helpless and Danny really likes that. "So," Chin says after a few moments, lazily tracing the line of Danny's collarbone, "what you're saying is that you don't want a thesaurus for your birthday."
"That is exactly what I'm saying," Danny grins, humming contentedly when Chin leans in and runs his tongue over where his fingers were. "It's like you can read my mind."
"I've had practice," Chin admits, sighing when Danny strokes his fingers through Chin's hair, fingertips pressed gently into his scalp. "I have been trying to get your attention for a month."
"Next time, and," Danny gently tugs on Chin's hair, watching the way his eyes flutter closed at the slight pressure, "I'm telling you this just as a courtesy, from one buddy to another--"
"Such a polite boy," Chin laughs softly, moaning softly when Danny licks the hollow of his throat.
"Skip the flowers and just do me on the desk."
Chin twitches against Danny like the idea appeals to him more than he can express in mere words. "I'll remember that for the next time," he says hoarsely, and Danny laughs and lies back on the couch, lets Chin memorize his lines and his blunt edges while he runs his hands over Chin's sharp features and indulges his curiosity.
Danny thinks that maybe, just maybe, he's managed to put one of those puzzle pieces of Chin's personality into place. He's starting to see the shape of him, the scope of him, and while a lot of it is honor and duty and family, there's another fairly big part of it that is all about the dirty talk and desperate sex with Danny on any available surface.
Danny likes that. He can work with that and make plans around that, and maybe next time, they'll get around to doing some of the more creative things that Chin had promised while he was jerking Danny off and whispering filthy things in his ear.
"Hey," he nudges Chin, "do I still get coffee and malasadas now that I gave the cow away for free?"
Chin sighs and hides his face in Danny's chest. "There are so many things wrong with that, I don't even know where to start."
"Is that a yes?" Danny laughs.
"I should've seduced Steve," Chin grumbles, although he has his palm pressed against Danny's waist and his cheek is resting comfortably on Danny's chest. "At least he gets his metaphors right."
Danny makes a rude sound. "It's not worth the headache or the bullet in the ass."
Chin lifts his head up slightly to give Danny a startled look. "From Steve?"
"Criminals," Danny says succinctly, and Chin nods like he should've expected that.
"That's fucked up," he says, and Danny pokes him in the shoulder and whines, "Feeeeeeeed me, Seeeeymour. Seriously," he adds when Chin just looks at him. "I'm starving. You seduced me before I had a chance to eat anything, and lunch was, like, six hours ago."
"You kill a good afterglow, Danno," Chin sighs, but he rolls off of Danny and yanks his pants back on, helping Danny sit up and get haphazardly dressed.
"But you still love me, right?" Danny asks teasingly as he pulls on his undershirt and gets to his feet to help Chin with the boxes.
Chin hands him a pizza box with a half-smile, something secret and pleased and infinitely thrilling on his face. "We'll see," he says quietly, and Danny thinks that he's definitely ready for whatever this is going to be.
"There had better be no pineapple in this box," he says warningly, smiling because he can't help himself when Chin looks at him like that. "Pepperoni only or I walk."
"Deal," Chin says, and Danny opens the box and smiles. Well, what do you know? It's pepperoni.
So that's done. Now I'm off to have lunch and eat the gulab jamuns my mom gave us last weekend. Mmmm, mmmm, good.
Many thanks to charliehey for always appreciating all the food romancing in my stories and getting even my dumbest jokes. For alexandriabrown who deserves all the Chin/Danny in the world and leupagus because she's spending twelve hours on a plane and that's just not right at all. I hope this lives up to your expectations, ladies!
Spoiler Alert
It starts with a cup of coffee on his desk and a note that says, "You'll need this," in Chin's restrained cursive, a neat sprawl of letters that somehow manage to be tidy and messy at the same time, an impossibility that can only exist with someone like Chin Ho Kelly. The coffee is hot and strong, black with one sweetener, just the way Danny likes it, and he drinks it with gusto. He feels something shift cautiously inside him at the thought of Chin putting this on his desk, writing that note with his brow furrowed in concentration because everything Chin does is deliberate and meaningful, including his writing.
Danny isn't surprised anymore by the dichotomies of Chin, the way he's quiet and funny, angry and loose, the way he holds himself steady like he's afraid he'll throw the world off-balance if he moves too far in one direction. Chin is a conundrum that he hasn't yet figured out, but he's going to get it. He's always been good at puzzles, at solving mysteries, and he's got the time to study Chin and figure him out.
"How's it?" Chin nods as he passes by Danny on their way to the briefing room.
"Damn good cup of coffee," Danny says appreciatively, feeling good when Chin smiles at him as Steve starts laying out their next case for them.
The coffee cheers Danny up from a day's contemplation of the vagaries of crime in Hawaii and the idiosyncratic nature of Steve's obsessive tendencies while driving recklessly, as usual, through the streets of O'ahu trying to catch a suspect. He ends up smiling through a drug bust, a punch aimed at his face, and being pre-emptively slammed into a door by Steve to stop a bullet from going through him. Steve makes pointed comments about Danny being a pod person, Kono pinches his cheeks and tells him he needs to smile more often, and Chin just bumps fists with him as he passes by Danny. Like the coffee, it's a small gesture, but it does a lot to bolster Danny's mood.
Danny's life is built on small gestures and tiny, thoughtful tokens, and Chin's apparently taken it upon himself to contribute meaningfully toward that.
Why, is another question that Danny's going to figure out eventually. For now, he's just going to enjoy the coffee and contemplate whether Chin is a boxers or briefs kind of guy.
***
So maybe he likes Chin a little. It's not like he's ever going to act on it. He can just enjoy watching Chin move and talk and laugh from afar. It's not like he hasn't done that before anyway.
Danny knows how these things go, and the odds are against him that this will work out in his favor. Longing from a safe distance tends to work for him, so he's going with that.
He's thinking that Chin wears boxers.
***
There are malasadas on his desk, wrapped in a white bag, with a note that says, "You need the sugar," stapled to the front. Chin's name is a compact spread of letters under the note, and Danny feels his insides squeeze tight at the sight of those angular black lines on the fine white paper.
Steve looks over at the bag, frowns, and then looks at him. "Okay," he says slowly, like he's trying to work out exactly where the bomb is, hands out as if measuring the room, "what am I missing?"
Danny holds up his hand immediately, not wanting the moment ruined. He knows Steve and what he's like if Danny doesn't draw boundaries around him (although they might as well be drawn in crayon for all the good they do him with Steve's general disregard for rules and lines and personal space), and goddammit, Chin's right, he needs the sugar right at this moment. "You shut the fuck up," he snaps, feeling the paper crumple against his fingertips, smelling the sweetness of freshly fried dough with powdered sugar on top. "Let me just enjoy this for one fucking second."
Steve makes a rude noise. "Enjoy your early morning heart attack, is more like it. Do you know how much sugar is in one of those things? And we're not even talking about--"
"Don't say 'carbs'," Danny begs, but Steve just looks at him like Danny is breaking his heart. Danny sighs, feeling the warmth inside him flee at the disapproval in Steve's voice. Defiantly, he opens the bag and grabs a malasada, stuffing it into his mouth and sucking the sugar off his fingertips just to spite Steve. "You know," he says idly to the horrified look on Steve's face, "you just suck the fun out of everything. How do you even live with yourself with the whole lack of sugar in your diet?"
Steve pats his belly with a smug grin. "I have zero percent body fat and I can bench press you without even breaking a sweat. The ladies love me."
Danny rolls his eyes and pops another malasada in his mouth, almost swooning at the taste of fried dough and sugar on his tongue, although he'll deny it to his dying day. "I'm having an orgasm in my mouth right now," he says through a mouthful of doughnut. "Stop talking."
Steve makes a face and looks at the white paper bag like it's a grenade. "You are just wrong," he tells Danny seriously, but his eyes are focused intently on the bag of fried dough in Danny's hands.
"Your lips say 'no'," Danny teases, and he should feel bad at the hungry look on Steve's face, but mostly, he's just really fucking amused that Steve's not as much of a hardass as he pretends to be. "But your eyes say--"
"Blow me," Steve retorts, but there's no real feeling to it. He's too distracted by the bag, Danny knows.
He holds it out to Steve, managing to keep the smile off his face through sheer effort. "Try one," he offers sweetly, and Steve holds his hand up like Danny's offering him poison.
"Zero percent body fat," he says, but he already sounds defeated when Danny waves the bag in front of his face like a threat.
Danny considers it a personal triumph that he's managed to get this far without Steve smacking the bag out of his hands like he's a toddler headed for a light socket with a fork in his hand. He picks up another one and eats it slowly, watching the tormented look on Steve's face as he makes pleased little noises, enjoying the way he squirms when Danny licks his fingers. "You know it's just a fried doughnut, right?" he asks carefully, in case Steve wasn't aware, in case Steve had crawled out from under a rock this morning and has just been introduced to modern Hawaiian life. "One won't kill you. Embrace the cliché already."
"I hate you," Steve sighs, giving in ungracefully and reaching into the bag to grab one. He shoves it in his mouth like a secret and Danny laughs at the beatific look on Steve's face when the taste hits him.
"Good, huh?"
"You ruined a five-year streak of not eating these," Steve says with a guilty swallow. "I'm going to fucking force-feed you protein shakes until you cry."
"I'll shoot you before I let that happen," Danny promises him, licking the powdered sugar off his lips and dusting it off his tie. "You're giving Chin a raise so he can buy me doughnuts and coffee every day."
"God, you're easy," Steve groans, rubbing his hands together to get rid of the crumbs. "If I'd known you could be had for a cup of coffee and some malasadas, I would've--"
"Oh, fuck you," Danny laughs. "If you were to make a move on me, you would need a six-pack of beer at least."
Steve glares at him. "Why do you get all expensive with me?"
Danny counts points off on his fingers, starting with his pinky. "One, you get me shot at all the time; two, you're the boss so you get the bigger paycheck; three, you're an asshole so you have to work harder to get me; four--"
"Four," Steve interrupts, "I am awesome and you would be lucky if I hit on you--"
"Five," Danny says through clenched teeth, "again, you get me shot at all the fucking time--"
"Six, I'm great in bed--"
"Seven, Chin looks better in biker boots than you do."
Steve stops and gives Danny a wounded look. "That is so below the belt, you fucker," he snipes, and Danny almost chokes, he's laughing so hard. "You never insult a man's boots."
"You are so ridiculous," Danny snorts, holding out his bag of malasadas at Steve. "Have another one. It'll make up for me insulting your boot honor, and," he adds, pointing an accusing finger at Steve, "the fact that I actually said that without cracking up should be fucking applauded."
"Gimme," Steve says fatalistically, sparing a mournful look down at his body as Danny nudges the bag into his hand. "You're ruining my life," he tells Danny, popping another malasada in his mouth and looking like he's just found heaven. "And my waistline."
Danny shrugs. "So you're, like, one percent body fat instead of zero. You can just dangle another suspect off a building and you'll reach your target heartrate in no time."
"Definitely a bad influence on me," Steve says with a reluctant smile. "So what's the deal with Chin feeding you anyway? Like you don't get fed enough at home?" He stops and looks Danny over carefully. "You are getting fed at home, right?"
Danny sighs and shakes his head. "Don't you fucking start with me," he warns. "I don't need you to go all Julia Childs, McGarrett-style, on me when I'm not expecting it. I have enough problems dealing with you professionally."
"You love me," Steve says confidently, reading over the note that was pinned to the bag, a little furrow between his brows as he squints as Chin's writing. "I'm awesome."
"You keep telling yourself that, Ace," Danny says with a head shake, thinking that between Chin's little friendly gestures and Steve's arbitrary insanity, his life is the kind of weird you usually only find in books or TV shows. Then he looks over the note in Steve's hand, sees the curves and loops of Chin's name, and feels something heavy move inside him. The good kind of weird, he decides as Steve nudges him and hands the bag back to him. The kind of weird that Danny can live with.
"You're not even Chin's type," Steve says, disrupting Danny's happy thoughts because no one's ever taught him to stop talking at least one sentence before.
"Asshole," Danny says sourly, scowling at the bag once he sees it's empty. He crumples it up and throws it in the garbage, but he keeps the note in his drawer, ignoring Steve when he accuses Danny of being a lovelorn teenager.
Danny can't explain why he keeps the note or why it's joined the coffee note in his drawer, but whatever, he just wants to keep them, okay? It's a free country and he's fucking allowed.
He adds the bag of malasadas to the growing list of things he doesn't know about Chin, but needs to find out soon.
***
Maybe he likes Chin a lot. Enough to want to get naked with him.
No, he's not yet ready to admit to that out loud. This is only going to end in tears and he likes Chin too much to fuck everything up on the off-chance that Chin wants to fuck him stupid like he's been dreaming about.
But he does want it, he reluctantly admits to himself as Chin walks by with Kono, laughing at something she says that involves a lot of expansive hand gestures. He smiles and nods as Danny as he passes by, and Danny waves silently, stifling the urge to go over, put his hand on Chin's ass, and see what happens.
Definitely not briefs. Chin just doesn't seem like a Fruit of the Loom kind of guy, he finally decides, taking a sip of coffee and wincing when it doesn't taste anything like the stuff Chin had left for him. One week and he's already spoiled for every other brand of coffee out there, including his own stuff that he makes at home. Chin's coffee had some kind of spice in it, like nutmeg or chicory, that made it taste better, and now Danny can't even drink his own brew or the station coffee without thinking mournfully of Chin's coffee or re-reading the note he has hidden in his drawer.
Goddamn Chin is ruining his life.
***
There's a bottle of Polish beer waiting for him on his desk when he gets back from his stakeout with Steve with a note that says, "You'll like this." The bottle is still cold, dripping some condensation, which means that Chin was probably waiting around to see when Danny would get back before dropping off the beer and the note.
It's absurd how much Danny likes that.
He sips the beer gingerly, sighs at how good it feels going down, and wonders how much longer he can pretend that all of this isn't screwing up his ready arguments for why it's never a good idea to fuck your colleagues. Even if they're hot Hawaiian cops. Especially if they're hot Hawaiian cops.
Danny drinks his beer and silently admits that even he isn't buying his own bullshit anymore. His life is so fucked that he's even having this argument with himself and losing.
Maybe boxer-briefs? Danny thinks that's more Chin's style anyway.
***
Okay, so the thing is, he really likes Chin. Besides the general feeling of wanting to put his mouth all over the man, Danny just genuinely likes him. Underneath all that discipline, empathy, and quiet strength is a sly sense of humor and a general appreciation for the absurd, which comes in handy when you work the 5-0 with someone like McGarrett. Danny likes hanging out with Chin and the team after work, drinking beer and shooting the shit about everything from bikes to music to fictional movie characters they all wanted to be like when they were growing up.
(Steve says Steve McQueen, mostly for the car, Chin says the Man With No Name because he's a Sergio Leone fan from back in his teens, Danny goes with Sonny Corleone because the guy's a classic for a reason, and Kono says Trinity from The Matrix, which makes everyone feel old and defensive and Kono threatens to punch all of them if they make any more rookie jokes.)
So, you know, he likes Chin, period. But there is that whole thing where he wants to get naked and sweaty with the man, and he still isn't sure whether that's something Chin would want or not. Random gifts and notes aside, Chin hasn't really made his naked intentions very clear, and Danny's past the age where he can recklessly throw himself at someone else and pick himself up if the other person doesn't catch him. He'd rather wait for Chin to make a move so he can at least figure out which direction he wants to be heading toward.
Somehow, his life has become even more complicated when he wasn't looking, and this time, it's because of Chin's generosity. He wonders if he did something bad in a past life to warrant Hawaii and all its whimsical madness. He's pretty sure he'll forgive all of it, though, if Chin wants him back.
Steve's right, he really is that easy. Fuck his life.
***
It goes like this for a while: Danny will come into the office and find something on his desk with a note from Chin, usually telling him that it's necessary or that it reminded him of Danny somehow. Sometimes, it's something simple and necessary, like a pen set so that Danny doesn't keep cadging pens off of an increasingly irritated Steve to write his notes (look, they fall out of his fucking pockets, which just aren't deep enough, and he's not wearing cargo pants like some of the Billabong fashion victims he works with, so it's not his fault if he loses one or twenty pens, all right?), or a burned CD of songs that Chin thinks Danny would like. Sometimes, it's a little more upscale, like the leather belt he finds wrapped up in a small, flat box that fits him perfectly, or the silk tie that goes with all his suits and looks good enough that even Steve can't give him shit for wearing it.
Danny makes it a point to go and thank Chin personally every time he receives one of these gifts, moved in ways he still can't put into words, still unsure about Chin's motives for all of this. Well, he thinks he knows, but he's not really sure. Chin's never shown any interest other than professional or friendly with Danny, and other than the gifts, nothing seems to have changed in the last few weeks between them. Danny's not expecting flowers or heartfelt declarations of love (been there, done that, has it all spelled out in his divorce papers), but he's expecting a dinner invitation, a kiss, a handjob in the men's bathroom, something. He knows that Chin is really into this enigmatic thing, but just once, Danny wishes the guy would throw him a clue so he isn't flailing around in the dark here.
Whenever he asks him about the gifts, though, Chin just shrugs and says, "Just thought you'd like it, that's all," looking at Danny in a way that Danny can't understand, but he feels that look all the way in his bones.
"Thanks," he says hesitantly, and lets Chin pat his arm before he walks away, leaving Danny even more confused and riled up than before. He has no idea what he's doing, what Chin is doing, but it's getting to the point where Danny needs to say or do something, possibly reckless, before he explodes.
***
He stops contemplating Chin's underwear preferences the first time he gets a noticeable hard-on picturing Chin somewhat unclothed and has to excuse himself from their briefing to go hide in the men's washroom. Later, Steve has a long, uncomfortable talk with him about feelings and how they're natural and Danny shouldn't be ashamed of them, and Danny spends half an hour yelling at him about how he's not a goddamn teenager and doesn't need the sex talk and feels better when Steve gets his standard bitchy look on his face and walks out in a huff.
He can't keep living like this, he thinks desperately, if only because everyone at the station thinks he has a tiny bladder for the sheer number of times he's hidden out in the men's room every time Chin passes by him. Something's going to break soon, and he's afraid it's going to be him.
***
It comes to a head a few weeks later after a long, difficult case, and this time, it's all Kono's fault. He's totally laying the blame on her for this. Danny was more than happy to let Chin do his usual Man of Mystery routine around the office while Danny just kept checking him out on the sly and driving himself crazy, but Kono is impatient, too fond of matchmaking, and is possibly getting Danny back for all the times he had agreed with Steve that Kono should pull kid detail because of her rookie status.
Somehow, it always comes back to Steve. He constantly ruins Danny's life, even when he isn't trying. Or even present.
It starts when Danny's coming off a long shift and an even longer argument with Steve about the actual definition of civil rights and why what he does to suspects and criminals is just wrong, even with the Governor's permission. He's tired and worn out and not quite on his guard when Kono pops up beside him, taking him completely by surprise, and says casually, "You know Chin likes you, right?"
At any other time, Danny would've caught the meaning behind her words, the look in her eyes, but he's spent the last two hours arguing at full volume with Steve, complete with extravagant hand gestures and a near-punch or two. So instead, he just nods at her, smiles tiredly, and says, "What's not to like?" before walking away.
"No," Kono starts to say, but Danny waves her off and hurries home, knowing that she's going to make him pay for interrupting her. Kono really hates a) being interrupted, and b) being dismissed, so Danny's going to die once she gets over her moral qualms and beats down his front door to kick his ass, he knows. He promises himself that he'll make it up to her in some way that doesn't involve her teaching Grace how to surf or taking Danny shopping for casual clothing or burning all of his ties.
So he really shouldn't be surprised when he comes in after twenty-four hours of uninterrupted rest and a distinct lack of aggravation in the form of Steve to find a bouquet of flowers sitting on his desk. The card just says "Dinner?" in neat, block letters and is signed in Chin's elegantly messy flourish, and Danny is very confused and ready to throw a fit when Kono comes strolling in with a satisfied look on her face. Danny narrows his eyes at her and holds up the card. "You had something to do with this, didn't you?" Because he knows her well enough by now to know that she did.
"Should've listened when I told you, brah," she says smoothly, reaching over to pluck the card from his hand. He glares over at her while she looks at the bouquet on Danny's desk and her face gets all soft in ways that he's totally going to mock her for as soon as he gets over the fact that Chin gave him flowers. "Lilies are so pretty," she sighs, and Danny rubs his hands over his face like he can make this all go away if he just wakes up.
"Explain this," he says with an edge in his voice. "Please," he adds politely when Kono raises her eyebrows at him.
"Told you," she smirks. "Chin likes you."
"Of course he likes me," Danny says as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. "Everyone likes me. I'm likable."
She shakes her head like Danny's disappointed her again. "You are not listening to me, Danno. Chin likes you. As in 'likes you' likes you. As in he wants to get into your pants." She tilts her head a little to look over his outfit. "Although I don't know why," she says sadly. "You dress like a cliché and those pants are just not flattering."
"It's called dressing like a goddamn professional," Danny yells, ignoring the way his hands reach down and tug at his pants, trying to flatten them out a little at the sides. Kono notices, though, because she's a cop, born and bred, and grins at Danny like she's aware of how idiotic he is at times. "Not all of us can do our shopping at the Gap," he adds sarcastically, and Kono laughs.
"Please," she snorts at him. "I live at Saks and you know it."
He eyes her gray tank top and tan cargo shorts. "Oh, yeah," he says insincerely, moving his hands out to encompass her shape, "I can see that. I like the way the gray mixes in with the beige. Very fashionable."
She rolls her eyes and smacks him on the arm, sighing when he complains that she broke him. "How I dress at work and how I dress for play are two completely different things," she tells him with exaggerated patience, making a face at Danny's skepticism. "God, you and Steve drive me crazy, you really do."
"Do not," Danny says firmly, "compare me to that lunatic again."
Kono shoots him the finger. "So back to the topic of Chin liking you--"
"Can we go back to making fun of your wardrobe?" Danny pleads, his hands clasped together in front of him like it's going to do him any good with Kono. "I like that a lot more."
"Anyway," she says with an edge in her voice, glaring at him until he sighs and makes a 'continue on' gesture. "You like him, right?"
Danny looks up at her, startled. "Who, Chin? Yes," he adds quickly at the look on Kono's face. "Of course I like him."
"I meant that way, dumbass."
He frowns at her. "What are we, fucking twelve years old? Yes, that way. In all the ways, really." And he hates admitting to that out loud when it's been this thing he's been carrying around with him for weeks now, but Kono looks serious, and Danny's sore enough from the last case that he really can't take another friendly punch from her.
"You hurt him, I will break you," she says quietly, which terrifies Danny because he knows she means it. She is fiercely protective of her family, and Chin is a huge part of that; Danny has no doubt that she would beat the crap out of him if he did anything to Chin, as much as she likes him, and he respects her for that, even as she scares the hell out of him.
"Aren't you jumping the gun a little?" he asks hesitantly because his mouth never consults with his brain before it goes running off with his thoughts. "I mean, he just asked me out to dinner. It could be a work thing."
Kono gives an exaggerated look at the bouquet on Danny's desk and the card lying next to it with Chin's name on it. "And you made detective?" she asks disbelievingly, smirking when Danny flips her off. "My cousin doesn't buy lilies for just any girl."
"That's not at all funny in any way," Danny says, arguing just for the sake of arguing, really, not because he actually objects to Kono's mocking. Somehow, this is all Steve's fault for conditioning him to argue every point, even when he agrees. It's yet another way he's ruined Danny's life. "And I'm really not a flowers kind of girl."
He picks up the bouquet and touches his fingertip to one of the vivid orange petals, feeling the soft, smooth slide of it against his skin. He's never gotten flowers before, unless you count the corsage at prom that got ripped off five minutes after they'd left his date's house, and Danny's never figured himself to be a flowers kind of guy, but there's something about Chin's arrangement of lilies that punches him in his gut, leaves him feeling breathless and unguarded. Maybe it's the care Chin's taken to pick something unique and beautiful, something that stands out from the roses and the carnations Danny's been giving his whole life. Each flower looks like a miniature sun against the white of Danny's shirt, and the whole thing leaves him feeling hot and bothered, little licks of heat curling up in his gut as he brings the bouquet to his nose and inhales the light scent of lilies and thinks of Chin picking each flower just for him.
Chin chooses that moment to come in because he knows how to make an entrance. Danny's nearly convinced that the man stands and watches, waits until he finds Danny at his most vulnerable before he walks into the room. "Hey," he smiles at Danny, for once dropping that ambiguous routine of his and just looking at him and Kono like it's Christmas morning at the station. "You got my invitation."
Danny feels the urge to be defensive, maybe break the tension with a bad joke or two, but he tamps it down. Hard. This is something that's been building up for a while and he wants to see where it goes if he doesn't fuck this up. "Yeah," he says, feeling heat creep up his neck when Chin looks him over with deliberate intent. He holds up the card. "Nice penmanship, by the way."
Chin beams at him, and Danny thinks he would commit acts of indecency to keep Chin looking at him like that. "Mrs. Hekekia would be so pleased," he tells Danny wryly. "She was kind of obsessive about writing neatly and legibly."
Danny ducks his head a little, feeling his face flush when Chin smiles at him. "Well, she would be proud," he says, silently thinking he sounds like a moron and hating himself for even worrying about it.
Kono makes a gagging sound. "Oh my God," she says despairingly, "I'm going to go somewhere where it's not so thirteen-year-old-boy-meets-girl all of a sudden."
Danny and Chin turn to look at her. "Hey," they say in unison, and she waves them off as she leaves.
"Remember what I said, Jersey," she throws over her shoulder, making a sharp slashing gesture at her throat as she looks at Danny.
"What was that about?" Chin asks, a vaguely concerned look on his face.
Danny shrugs. "Your cousin."
"Even I don't understand her all the time," Chin admits ruefully.
"That could be problematic."
Chin smiles, one of those ones that light up his whole face and make Danny feel warm inside. "Are we going to do this back-and-forth thing all day or can we move onto another topic?"
Danny makes a face, ducking his head a little and running his fingers through his hair. "I could do with a little more back-and-forth," he admits, feeling a nervous flutter as Chin moves closer to him. Chin's fingers brush lightly against his, making Danny jump a little, and as soon as he's done quietly hyperventilating about what this all means, he's going to remember to mock himself thoroughly for acting like a skittish horse around a man he's known and worked with closely for over a year.
Chin leans in, smelling like the ocean and some kind of light aftershave that makes Danny want to bite his neck, and looks at Danny closely. "Kono said I was being too subtle," he says carefully, like he's trying not to spook Danny, and that kind of snaps Danny out of his incipient panic attack. "She said that practical gifts could be written off as friendship, and if I really wanted to get you to notice me--"
"Oh, fuck, this really is thirteen-year-old-boy-meets-girl," Danny groans, palming his face with his hands as all his suspicions finally fall into place. Jesus, Chin has been wooing him, trying to get Danny to notice him as something more than just a friend and colleague, and Danny would laugh if he hadn't spent the last month tying himself in knots over Chin and his gifts and what they all meant.
Chin gives him an apologetic look. "If you're not comfortable--"
"Did I say I wasn't comfortable?" Danny asks fractiously, resisting the urge to smack Chin upside the head. He figures that's Kono's right, and only Kono's right, so he settles for glaring at him like he's trying to burn a hole through him with just his eyes. "I'm comfortable, all right? I just didn't expect to be..." He makes a vague gesture with his hands, not knowing how to finish that.
"Romanced?" Chin offers.
Danny thinks about that for a minute. "Let's go with that," he says quickly.
Chin makes a face. "I'm a little out of practice," he sheepishly admits.
"Since when, high school?" Danny holds up his hands when Chin gives him a cutting look, although a part of him really wants to hear about a teenage Chin romancing the girls in his high school, and Jesus, he has it really bad if this is what his stream of consciousness comes up with. "Okay, okay, that was a little over the line--"
"I just didn't want to proposition you like you were drunk at a bar," Chin says crossly, folding his arms over his chest and generally looking displeased with how this is all going down. Danny seems to have thrown him off his game, and Danny has to admit, he likes knowing that he has this kind of effect on Chin, who is usually unflappable under most circumstances. "I thought you deserved better than that."
"So you fed me and made me mixtapes and bought me clothes?"
Chin sighs. "Well, sure, it sounds bad when you put it like that."
Danny can't help but laugh, feeling a little more steady at the chagrined look on Chin's face. In the span of ten minutes, Chin's gone from being a non-criminal Riddler to being a regular guy who gets embarrassed and irritated just like everyone else; Danny likes this guy even more than Mystery Chin, and he'd liked Mystery Chin a lot. "Look," he says kindly, "just so you know, I appreciate the gifts, okay?" He holds his hands out to show his sincerity. "I really do. They were thoughtful and nice and I appreciate them."
"But?" Chin asks cautiously.
Danny shrugs, grinning. "I like being propositioned."
Chin nods. "Right, New Jersey."
"Don't stereotype," Danny sighs, and Chin laughs, running his fingers through his hair in a careless gesture.
"So," he says after a few minutes of silence, "how do you like to be propositioned?"
"Like a slutty, drunk guy at a bar," Danny smiles, his breath catching a little when Chin leans in and brushes his lips against Danny's cheek.
"Let me take you home and fuck you," he says softly, his lips barely touching the shell of Danny's ear, and Danny feels the world shrink down to just him and Chin and the bare inch of space between them. "I'll make it so good, baby."
"Jesus," Danny breathes, his hands automatically coming up to press against Chin's chest, feeling the heat of him against his palms. "You say that shit in bars?"
He can feel the curve of Chin's smile against his jaw. "Only to the people I really want to take home," Chin whispers, and Danny's knees finally give up the ghost and buckle, making him unsteady enough that Chin actually has to hold him up and rest him against his desk. Danny can almost hear Steve's hysterical laughter and reminds himself to go punch Steve in the face for still being a dick in his hypothetical scenario; Steve will understand once he gets over his aggravation.
"Right," Danny says hoarsely, his hands clenched tightly around the edge of his desk. "So about dinner tonight--"
"Wanna eat in?" Chin asks with a smirk, and fuck, fuck, Danny could get used to Chin and innuendo and that absurdly pleased smile on his face like he knows he's got Danny and is delighted by it.
"Yes," he tells Chin fervently, even as Chin moves away like he's not certain he can control himself when he's this close to Danny. Which is hot and makes Danny want to push Chin until Chin pushes back, maybe fucks him on his desk.
But this is Hawaii, the island that never sleeps, and he has maybe a minute or two of Chin staring hotly at him before Steve walks through the door at a quick pace, waving a folder at them. "New case," he tells Chin and Danny, nodding his head over at the door. "Meeting at the briefing room in five minutes."
"Got it," Chin says calmly, all business and efficiency once again now that Steve is in the room. One of these days, Danny's going to find out how he does that and then he's going to push until Chin's control is gone. "I'll see you later," Chin tells Danny with feeling, making it a promise, and Danny is quietly pleased that apparently Chin's control isn't absolute when it comes to him.
"What was that all about?" Steve asks with a confused look on his face.
Danny grins as he walks out the door. "I'm Chin's type."
***
Dinner is pizza and beer, both of which get tossed aside when Chin drags Danny onto his couch and kisses him until Danny has to push himself away just to be able to breathe again. Chin is a no-underwear kind of guy, as Danny finds out, and the discovery just about does him in.
"Fuck," he gasps when Chin stands up and yanks his jeans down his thighs. "Commando."
"I'm thinking the rank thing is more Steve than me," Chin laughs, leaning into Danny and kissing him thoroughly before Danny can protest any of it.
"Don't mention Steve when we're getting naked," he begs Chin. "I can't handle the trauma."
"I'll pay for your therapy," Chin promises as he undoes Danny's belt, yanks Danny up by his tie to kiss him, open-mouthed and dirty until Danny is clutching helplessly at Chin and trying to shove Chin's hand down his pants without any shame. It turns out that when Chin isn't being cool and mysterious around the office or a badass with a shotgun on the job, he's been studying ways to push all of Danny's buttons until Danny is a trembling, moaning, embarrassing wreck of a human being lying half-naked on Chin's couch.
Chin's got his hand down Danny's pants and his fingers around Danny's cock, his grip just a shade too much for Danny to be able to keep still. He's moving helplessly under Chin, making these humiliating whining noises that push Chin harder against him, his teeth sharp against Danny's throat. "Fuuuuck," Danny groans, about the only word he can remember since he'd walked through Chin's door and been tackled down onto the couch.
"We'll get to that," Chin promises, a hint of laughter in his voice, and Danny resents the fact that Chin is still together enough to tease him.
"You-- just-- goddammit--" Danny's got his hands clenched into fists by his sides as Chin slides down to his knees and takes Danny into his mouth, easily riding Danny's first desperate thrust and using his hands to keep Danny down on the couch.
It's embarrassingly quick after that. It's Chin's mouth and tongue and his dark head between Danny's thighs, it's Danny shaking and making desperate sounds and his hands gripped tight in Chin's hair. He comes and it feels like the world is ending and Chin's the only solid thing he can touch, and when he comes back to reality, Chin's rubbing himself against Danny's hip in short, sharp thrusts until he comes with a sigh. Danny kisses him as he comes, tastes that soft, satisfied sound, and briefly wishes he were young enough again that he could be ready to go in minutes, not hours. He's got so much he wants to do with Chin and one night is not enough to cover it all; a week might not be enough to cover it all, so maybe it's a good thing that Chin is planning on this lasting a while.
Danny shifts until Chin is between his legs, resting comfortably on top of Danny without the threat of falling off the couch. Chin's head is on Danny's chest and Danny's arms are draped loosely across Chin's shoulders. "Well," Danny says once he remembers how to breathe and think clearly again, "that was exciting."
Chin's laughter is muffled against Danny's clavicle. "Oh, baby, you are so smooth." He bites at the bend of Danny's shoulder and sucks a bruise into his skin. Danny hasn't had a hickey since his first year of marriage to Rachel, but it's Chin and he has a really nice mouth and Danny can deal with it as long as Chin does it all over his body.
He nudges Chin in protest. "You made my come my brains out. I think I'm allowed to say stupid shit for the next few minutes."
Chin lifts his head up, an amused look on his face. "Is that an official rule? Is there a handbook? Should I be taking notes?"
Danny narrows his eyes at him. "You know, you've been hanging around Steve way too long. This sarcasm thing, it doesn't suit you at all."
"It doesn't?"
"No one likes a smartass," Danny says firmly, biting the inside of his cheek so that he doesn't laugh at the look on Chin's face.
Chin doesn't actually smile, but Danny can see the lines of amusement on his face, in his eyes. "Wait, aren't you the sarcastic one in this relationship?"
"I," Danny says confidently, "am not sarcastic."
"You're not?"
"I am not. I can be cynical, occasionally disrespectful, and," he holds up his finger as an exclamation point, "dare I say it, even hostile at times, but never sarcastic."
Chin's laughter is helpless and Danny really likes that. "So," Chin says after a few moments, lazily tracing the line of Danny's collarbone, "what you're saying is that you don't want a thesaurus for your birthday."
"That is exactly what I'm saying," Danny grins, humming contentedly when Chin leans in and runs his tongue over where his fingers were. "It's like you can read my mind."
"I've had practice," Chin admits, sighing when Danny strokes his fingers through Chin's hair, fingertips pressed gently into his scalp. "I have been trying to get your attention for a month."
"Next time, and," Danny gently tugs on Chin's hair, watching the way his eyes flutter closed at the slight pressure, "I'm telling you this just as a courtesy, from one buddy to another--"
"Such a polite boy," Chin laughs softly, moaning softly when Danny licks the hollow of his throat.
"Skip the flowers and just do me on the desk."
Chin twitches against Danny like the idea appeals to him more than he can express in mere words. "I'll remember that for the next time," he says hoarsely, and Danny laughs and lies back on the couch, lets Chin memorize his lines and his blunt edges while he runs his hands over Chin's sharp features and indulges his curiosity.
Danny thinks that maybe, just maybe, he's managed to put one of those puzzle pieces of Chin's personality into place. He's starting to see the shape of him, the scope of him, and while a lot of it is honor and duty and family, there's another fairly big part of it that is all about the dirty talk and desperate sex with Danny on any available surface.
Danny likes that. He can work with that and make plans around that, and maybe next time, they'll get around to doing some of the more creative things that Chin had promised while he was jerking Danny off and whispering filthy things in his ear.
"Hey," he nudges Chin, "do I still get coffee and malasadas now that I gave the cow away for free?"
Chin sighs and hides his face in Danny's chest. "There are so many things wrong with that, I don't even know where to start."
"Is that a yes?" Danny laughs.
"I should've seduced Steve," Chin grumbles, although he has his palm pressed against Danny's waist and his cheek is resting comfortably on Danny's chest. "At least he gets his metaphors right."
Danny makes a rude sound. "It's not worth the headache or the bullet in the ass."
Chin lifts his head up slightly to give Danny a startled look. "From Steve?"
"Criminals," Danny says succinctly, and Chin nods like he should've expected that.
"That's fucked up," he says, and Danny pokes him in the shoulder and whines, "Feeeeeeeed me, Seeeeymour. Seriously," he adds when Chin just looks at him. "I'm starving. You seduced me before I had a chance to eat anything, and lunch was, like, six hours ago."
"You kill a good afterglow, Danno," Chin sighs, but he rolls off of Danny and yanks his pants back on, helping Danny sit up and get haphazardly dressed.
"But you still love me, right?" Danny asks teasingly as he pulls on his undershirt and gets to his feet to help Chin with the boxes.
Chin hands him a pizza box with a half-smile, something secret and pleased and infinitely thrilling on his face. "We'll see," he says quietly, and Danny thinks that he's definitely ready for whatever this is going to be.
"There had better be no pineapple in this box," he says warningly, smiling because he can't help himself when Chin looks at him like that. "Pepperoni only or I walk."
"Deal," Chin says, and Danny opens the box and smiles. Well, what do you know? It's pepperoni.
So that's done. Now I'm off to have lunch and eat the gulab jamuns my mom gave us last weekend. Mmmm, mmmm, good.