dann_0 | PSL: Sentinel AU

Danny sips his coffee and listens as Eliot speaks. "Will having me around once in a while but not all the time make it harder for you, now that the damage is already done?" He watches Eliot closely, feeling the tension lurking under the surface and he wants to reach out and pull Eliot close and make him forget about that again. He offers his hand to him.

"You did stay in control. That is a long time, you're stronger than you think."

"Don't know," he admits roughly, and puts the mug down because he needs something to do, something to distract him, and he's about to turn and start pulling ingredients from the fridge so he can at least cook something when Danny reaches out... and he can't resist. He curls his fingers around the smaller man's and pulls him close, because he can't just touch, apparently. He buries his nose in his hair and just breathes for a moment.

"Feel more grounded with you here than I have in years." And he's zoned more since meeting Danny than he has in years as well, but he knows a big part of that is just unexpectedly struggling to cope with how absolutely his focus zeroes in on Danny when he's around, and then trying to make his old coping mechanisms fit again when he's not. "Not sure how you not bein' round'll change that."

"Maybe I could leave some stuff here? Steve says it helps, the scent. Stuff that can help you stay grounded when I am in Hawaii." He slides his arm around Eliot and holds him firmly against him. "As I said, if we want to do this really our only option is to try things out. Maybe your crew could learn some tricks too. Chin and Kono... The two other members of the taskforce have learned some to help Steve when I'm not around."

"That... might help," he concedes. "Scent... scent's one of my biggest triggers, so that could... it could be good." It could maybe be enough, combined with phone calls. With visits... but those are what he's worried about, because without them it absolutely won't be, and there's only so much he can expect Danny to disrupt his life to help a stranger, no matter how strongly he claims to feel about it. "But me goin' t'Honolulu'd be a bad idea."

"Maybe there is somewhere else we could meet. Somewhere in the middle. Well not out in the ocean but.." Danny smiles and tightens his grip on Eliot, just leaning on him before he pulls back just enough to drink his coffee. "This is good coffee."

"Not much of a sailor, so yeah, maybe not there," he agrees, and it's not much, but his tone's lightened just a little with the joke, and when Danny pulls back he lets him go. Or, well, Eliot lets him have enough room to drink his coffee, anyway.

"Can figure somethin' out, though... if you're sure you wanna." Because he still can't make himself feel comfortable accepting that.

"Yeah, I am sure." He leans in to kiss Eliot's chest and the lick away the drop of coffee he left there. "I would want to even if I didn't get to do this. That's just a bonus." He smiles up at Eliot.

He leans his forehead at Eliot's shoulder again, just enjoying being close for a moment before his stomach decides to ruin the mood with grumbling.

When Eliot shivers in reaction he's not sure how much of it is to Danny's lips and tongue on his skin and how much of it to the absolute assurance of his answer. It feels like something he can believe, or at least something he wants to, no matter how hard over two decades of hard-learned paranoia is making it to accept.

He curls a hand at the nape of Danny's neck and stretches his thumb just far enough to rest over the steady throb of his pulse, matching the feel of it under Danny's skin to the sound he feels his own heart trying to sync up to. He's just using his thumb to tip Danny's head up, giving up any pretense of resistance as he ducks down to catch his lips again, when Danny's stomach decides to have his say, and Eliot stops with his lips a hair's breadth from Danny's, eyes wrinkling and lips twitching up with humor before he closes the distance for a soft, warm, almost chaste kiss.

"Guess I'm gonna hafta feed you before I can fuck you, huh?" he asks, breathing the words against Danny's lips.

Danny tips his head easily enough, enjoying the way Eliot takes control. He knows at some point he'll want talk to Eliot about it, figure out how far Eliot wants it to go. But right now he is just happy taking what he can get. He blushes a little at the sound, but it is quickly ignored as Eliot kisses him and he kisses back, sighing softly, contently into the kiss.

Then he chuckles at the words. "You don't have to but my stomach growling doesn't make for the best soundtrack." He steals another kiss. "You want help?"

Eliot likes how easily Danny moves into his touch, how soft and warm and responsive he is against him. It's just one more thing reeling him inexorably in, making it impossible to do anything but accept the impossible promises he seems to make as easily as breathing.

He considers the offer for a moment, something he wouldn't normally do, but if he can actually share a kitchen with the guy and not want to lobotomize him before they're done, well... it might not actually be a fair test, but he can't really afford to be fair right now. "Sure."

He ducks in for another kiss, slow and deep this time. "Should have everything I need for a risotto, how d'you feel 'bout choppin' some onions and mushrooms?"

Danny kisses back eagerly and then nods. "That I can do. How fine?" He does like helping out, he was raised helping out, learning his grandmother's recipes by heart. He might not be as good as Eliot, but he is far from bad. He looks around the kitchen and grabs an apron and puts it on before he hands another one to Eliot. It is easy making himself at home.

Once the ingredients are out he starts with the onion. He doesn't have the speed of a professionally trained chef but he does do a good job. Soon enough there is a consistent, fine dice on the onion as he moves it over into a bowl before he starts on the mushrooms. Those he keeps a little bigger, he is a fan of a little texture in his food after all.

"This reminds me of cooking for big family gatherings back in Jersey. My mom and grandmother bossing everyone around but also giving everyone a job to do."

For his part, Eliot pulls out arborio, chicken, asparagus, wine, and some stock he had in the freezer, the latter of which he sets in a pot on the stove to defrost. He might not live here, but he uses the place often enough (generally for one night stands) to keep it well stocked. He watches Danny work, but it doesn't take long to determine that he knows what he's doing well enough he doesn't need to be closely supervised, and gets on with his own preparations instead.

"Sounds like it was nice," he comments as he takes Danny's onions and adds them to the pot. Nice is probably an understatement, but completely alien is closer. He has a vague memory of his mother in the kitchen before she died, and there's a feeling of comfort and safety that goes with it, but he was over thirty before he ever found any comfort in a kitchen again. "Your family get together often?"

"Yeah, we're a close family. It's a little harder now, me being in Hawaii. But it was either that or not see Grace." He glances over at Eliot as he works. "Now it is mostly cooking for Steve and me and... well, there are a lot of late nights as cops. We end up going to Kamekona's a lot. He makes some strange dishes at times but his garlic shrimp is good. There are a bunch of other good places. I miss a good Italian place though."

He finishes the mushrooms and puts them in a separate bowl. He watches Eliot work, there is something fascinating about it that he loves.

"Got lots of good seafood there, though. Ain't the same as a really good pizza, or homemade tagliatelle, but it's gotta be some consolation, right?"

Eliot relaxes a lot when he cooks, and even with Danny's presence splitting his focus every movement is easy and precise, like something he's done so often and so well he could almost do it perfectly in his sleep. "Grate me some parmesan?" He nods to the block of reggiano he pulled from the fridge. "Graters in that cabinet there."

"Oh yeah there is plenty of good food, I am not saying that. It's just sometimes you miss the stuff you've grown up on. Or at least I do."

Danny nods at the order. "Yes, sir." He gives Eliot a little grin, testing the waters before he fetches the grater and starts grating the cheese. "You one of those people who believe there is a limit to how much cheese you should put in or should I just keep going until my arm hurts?"

"Yeah, I get that. Guess you just gotta make do when you go home." He got the chicken stock defrosted and gently simmering now, and starts adding it slowly to the rice.

"Don't call me sir, I work for a living," he answers almost by rote, but he meets Danny's grin with a small smile of his own. "Nah, a bit over a cup'll do it. You use too much an' it gets gluey."

He raises an eyebrow at Eliot's comment about working, but he doesn't say anything else right now. He doesn't want to scare Eliot off now that they've finally figured out they want to give it a try. He moves to grate the cheese and gives Eliot a smile. "When did you start cooking?"

He wants to learn more about the other man. More is an understatement. He wants to learn everything. What makes him smile or laugh, how to spoil him, everything. He breaks off a little bit of the cheese and offers it to Eliot to nibble on.

The comment itself doesn't have any great meaning, but never having been military, Danny might not recognize it as the noncom's standard answer to being sirred. For all that they both started military, Eliot had a very different career track to Steve, and even if he hadn't been burned and cut loose so long ago he likely never would have been an officer.

"Did a lot of the cookin' when I was a kid, but that was mostly boxed mixes an' processed crap." Which he hadn't liked even then, though he hadn't known it was because he could taste all the chemicals and preservatives. It had been what they could afford and what he could figure out with no real guidance, so it hadn't mattered. "Took home ec in high school, but that was more 'cause the teacher was hot than 'cause I cared." All of which is more than he's bothered to tell anyone before, even Hardison and Parker, but he has the same impulse Danny's feeling--he wants to know everything he can, and he wants to share his own life, within reason, in return.

"Didn't start cookin' proper 'til about eight years ago, when I ran across a guy runnin' a culinary school on the job an'-" He shrugs. "It just kinda clicked." He leans over to take the cheese from Danny's fingers, wrapping his lips around them then curling his tongue around them as he pulls away, eyes going dark again.

Edited 2017-05-11 19:02 (UTC)

Danny licks his lips and shifts. "Easy babe, don't want to get too worked up before we've eaten. Have to make sure to keep our strength after all. I got a feeling this will be a marathon, not a sprint." Not that Danny likes any kind of running.

"I've lived off that boxed crap, right after Rachel and I broke up and I was living in various hotels. Not much you can cook then. What kind of job did you do before this?"

Eliot huffs a laugh and slides his hand under Danny's shirt, callouses catching at the coarse hair on his belly. "Nothin' wrong with keepin' the interest up, though." He smirks and pulls away, going back to stirring the risotto, adding in a bit more of the stock and then starting the chicken in another pan.

"Sometimes y'do what you gotta," he agrees. "I like fresh, home made best when I can get it, though." He doesn't answer the question right away, focuses on seasoning the chicken and adding another small ladle full of simmering stock to the rice. "Worked for a couple different PMCs right after the military." He doesn't mention that it was after the months it took him to heal from the torture. Or what those private military corporations had done. "An' some private security an' a whole lotta other things after that. Been runnin' the restaurant for about three years now, though."

Danny shivers a little at Eliot's hand on his belly and he smiles warmly to the other. He loves all of this, the easy flirting the smell of the food cooking, the way Eliot moves comfortably in the kitchen. He thinks he could watch it forever.

"How are things in the private sector? They more accepting of Sentinels or did they not know?" Maybe that is an option for Steve. Danny doubts it though, he knows the man. He picks up his mug and sips it while they talk. Normally he'd be going for wine but it is a little early still. "It's a good restaurant. Seems popular and for good reason if you ask me."

"It's as much of a shit show there as the military. Only reason the military didn't manufacture me a new identity an' drag me back in was because they figured I was burned out for good, an' once I came back online I kept it to myself. Avoided others of our kind... killed 'em when I had to."

He doesn't meet Danny's eyes, keeps his focus--at least visibly--on the multiple pans he has going now. But he's listening to Danny's heartrate and breathing, drawing in his in his scent, alert for any sign that he can't handle what Eliot's telling him.

"We've been doin' good with the restaurant," he agrees. "Better since Hardison figured out the brewin' part an' learned t'stop tryin' t'mess with my menu. It's solid."

Danny frowns, saddened and angry at Eliot's words but not at Eliot. At the people who hurt him in the past and kept hurting others like him. "You did what you had to." He believes that is true, even if he wishes it wasn't. But why would Eliot lie about this?

"I'll admit I didn't get a good look at it, considering you just decided for me, but maybe later? Or maybe I could just have you cook the dishes here. It is a much nicer view watching you work rather than staring at a bar."

"Yeah, something like that." Because he knows he'd done a hell of a lot more than that, but it's not something he can share with Danny. Not yet, maybe not ever.

"No, you should def'nitely come by the restaurant again before you-" The pause is brief, barely noticeable, but it's there- "Leave for home. I don't spend all my time in the kitchen." Which is probably pretty obvious from the amount of time he's spent tailing Danny, and then waiting on him and with him since the incident. "We can actually eat together." And, hell, Hardison and Parker know he's a Sentinel now, not much point in trying to keep it to himself that he's queer anymore either.

"I'd like that. Been a while since I've been on a real date. On one condition though. That you don't tear all my shirts to shreds. I am going to need something to wear if we go out." Or they'd have to go shopping, which Danny doesn't particularly want and he assumes Eliot feels the same way. "Unless you're going to have me wear something of yours." He chuckles and moves to run a hand up Eliot's back, exploring the muscles under his skin.

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