Disclaimer: See initial chapter.

A/N: Written in response to the lovely reviews this story has received, and to a comment on A03 requesting an epilogue. I am not sure that this is an epilogue, and it ends on a very sappy note, but I do hope that it is enjoyed. There is swearing in this (in case that will be a problem for anyone). Mahalo

They decided to camp out on Steve's lanai after the celebration barbecue. Danny was still having a hard time with enclosed spaces. Steve was being understanding.

Chin and Kono had long since gone home, and predawn was just starting to light up the horizon.

They were both nursing one last beer, and Danny still wasn't sure if the memory of Steve kissing him on the lips was something that his oxygen starved brain had made up (if so, why a kiss from Steve, and not some buxom blonde, or at least a different brunette?) or if it had been real.

Not knowing if Steve really had kissed him, or not, was almost more disturbing than being trapped in a windowless room with a taunting teddy bear had been. And the fact that, Danny was focused on a kiss that may or may not have happened, was, in and of itself, more than a little concerning, and on many different levels.

He should be focused on other, more important, aspects of the event, such as the fact that he'd breathed in poisoned air, and he'd been, in essence, dead for a minute, or two, before Steve and the others had found him and brought him back to life, which could, of course, explain the kiss. Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation being what it is and all.

Except, well, mouth-to-mouth resuscitation rarely (never) involved tender lip on lip action. It was always about the breathing. About sending quick, efficient puffs of air into someone else's lungs, and that was not at all in keeping with what Danny remembered, or thought he remembered about the kiss that may or may not have happened.

"What's wrong, Danny?" Steve asked, drawing Danny out of his thoughts, though, when Danny turned to look at him, his gaze landed on the man's lips, the large hands that were holding a beer, the man's lap.

Blinking and turning away, Danny shrugged. "Nothing's wrong, Steve. I was just thinking. You do know what that is, right? It's something that I do often. Something you do less often."

Danny chanced a look at Steve, and almost smiled at the look he was casting in Danny's direction. It was a cross between Steve's constipation face, and his I'm about to go Navy SEAL on your ass, face. It was cute, and Danny found that thought disturbing as well, because, since when had he thought of Steve as cute?

"Cut the crap, Danny. Tell me what's on your mind," Steve pressed, brow crinkled with concern, lips slightly parted (and wet), fingers working the label on his beer loose as though he was just as nervous as Danny.

Heart pounding, mouth dry, palms sweatier than a teenager getting ready for a first date, Danny leaned forward on the lounge chair, let the beer he'd been holding (and not drinking) dangle from his fingertips, focused on that, rather than on Steve being so close that he could feel the heat coming off of the other man.

Throwing aside all caution, and knowing that Grace would probably roll her eyes at him and put down her foot if she knew that he was having what she'd probably call a 'mini-freakout' over this (It's only Uncle Steve, Danno, he loves you.), Danny said, "Did you kiss me, Steven?"

Steve's mouth opened and closed a couple of times before his lips decided on forming something that was a cross between pout and frown. His eyes were crinkled at the edges. Confusion, maybe fear, was etched in the lines of his brow. His fingers were plucking at the beer label as though it was some kind of life work of his, de-labeling beer bottles.

"What?" Steve tossed the question at him as though it was a grenade.

Taking a deep breath, Danny decided to toss that grenade right back into Steve's lap, because, if he was right, then he was the kissee and not the kisser, and as such, it was up to Steve to man up, not that Danny was a girl in any of this. He wasn't. Did not want to wake up in a universe in which he was a girl.

The universe he may or may not have woken up in was confusing enough without factoring in gender swaps. He shivered at the very thought of waking up as a woman, and Steve placed a hand on his shoulder. The warmth of Steve's touch traveled from Danny's shoulder to the rest of his body in zero point one seconds, or one point zero seconds. The beer bottle slipped from his fingers, wobbled and then stood upright.

"You okay, Danny?" Steve was in his face, concerned.

Danny could hear the man's heartbeat, could feel it through Steve's fingertips on his shoulder, or maybe it was his own heart trying to force its way out of his chest.

"In the room, with the teddy bear," Danny said, voice low, too hoarse, "did you kiss me?"

Steve lowered his head, and Danny could hear the man's jaw clenching, it made his own teeth ache in sympathy. Not knowing what to do with his hands, now that they were beer-free, Danny placed them on either side of Steve's face, and lifted it, rested his forehead against Steve's.

Steve's eyes were a storm-tossed blue of worry and fear, and Danny couldn't stop the smile, or the odd bubble of happiness that welled up inside of him, because he knew what had happened that day.

"Did you kiss me, Steven?" Danny asked in a whisper, though he already knew the answer.

Mouth twisting, face screwing up in a look of self-loathing, and shame, Steve licked his lips and nodded.

"Yeah, Danny, I did. I kissed you," the words came out of Steve's lips in an angry staccato. "You died on me, Danny," there was anguish, and accusation in the words that Steve launched at him, as though dying had been Danny's choice. "You fucking died on me."

"You kissed me," Danny said, focusing on Steve's lips, the thin, angry line that they made, the sudden dry quality to them, the memory of how they'd felt on his after Steve had breathed life into him.

"Yeah," Steve repeated nodding, looking at Danny as though he thought he might need to return to the hospital.

Danny rubbed a thumb along the line of Steve's jaw, and felt the tension there. "You kissed me," Danny repeated.

Steve stiffened, attempted to pull away from him, but Danny held him there, ignored the sound of glass hitting the cement when the beer bottle Steve had been holding clattered to the lanai. It didn't shatter, but bobbled in place, toppled, and rolled away, tinkering across the cement, spilling beer in its wake, the bitter scent of it mingled with the thick air that surrounded them.

Steve's heart thrummed beneath Danny's fingertips, he could feel the tension mounting, Steve's need to break away, to move and put some distance between them, but Danny refused to let him go. Refused to lose something before he'd even really experienced it when he was fully conscious, and not befuddled.

"You kissed me," Danny whispered, thumb running across Steve's lower lip, making it tremble. Steve shook, and Danny did, too.

"You kissed me." Danny was stuck on auto repeat, brain exploding with something that he couldn't pin down, because all he could think about right now were Steve's lips, how they'd felt when he'd been out of it, how they might feel now that his brain was fully functional, though it felt oddly oxygen deprived, because he was finding it a little hard to breathe right now with Steve's lips being so close to his own.

Close, but not close enough.

"Yeah, I kissed you," Steve agreed, nodding. "You died. I kissed you."

"Would you do it again?" Danny's voice was thin air, warbling.

Steve nodded, licking his lips. "Yeah, I'd do it again."

There was no unspoken, 'if I had to', just a tender, almost tentative press of Steve's lips against Danny's, the parting of lips, hands shifting to move from shoulder, to knee and thigh. It was nothing, and everything like Danny remembered - dizzying, oxygen depriving, life altering.

"And again," Steve murmured, eyes sparkling, lips quirking upward, hand curling around Danny's thigh.

As the sun's first rays made their way across the horizon, glinting off the ocean that lapped at the shore, painting the morning in a bright orange-gold, Danny and Steve shared another kiss. One that involved teeth and tongue, breathy moans, and the promise of many more to come.