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Steve knows how it looks when Danny pulls him aside at a crime scene and starts to yell – angry words being flung, hands waving, eyes flashing. People back away and look at them askance, even more so when they realise Steve has a wide smile on his face. Steve can't help but smile when Danny gets like this because this is what they do. This is how they are. They don't say the words, Steve finds it hard and Danny has never – would never – push him. Danny does this instead. Danny says it every time his gesticulating hand accidentally hits Steve's chest. He says it whenever his ranting voice gets faster, becomes louder. It's Danny without his words, it's Danny reduced to expressing his feelings the only way he can when he can't say what he wants to. So Steve just smiles and waits for Danny to be done, because he gets it. He gets everything that Danny isn't saying.
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Danny can be loud – he knows this, everyone knows this, but sometimes he doesn't need loud, he doesn't need to hear the sound of his own voice. Moments like this, on the sofa with Steve, Grace squashed between them and The Little Mermaid playing on the television for the millionth time. Danny doesn't need to speak when he has Steve's arm stretched across the back of the sofa, his fingers idly tangled in Danny's hair. Danny doesn't need to hear anything but the movie playing and Grace softly singing along. Danny listens as Grace asks Steve if he ever saw a mermaid when he was in the Navy, and he smiles when Steve answers her in all seriousness. Danny knows Steve has trouble with words, knows that there's only a few people he's ever told he loves them, and those people have left him in one way or another. So Danny doesn't push him, doesn't wonder where those words are because Steve shows it in moments like this. Steve tells him every time he brings Danny coffee in bed after his morning swim. Steve tells him whenever he picks up Grace from school when Danny's in court. And every time Steve kisses him one last time before he goes to sleep, Danny knows what he's saying. For all that he loves to use words, Danny doesn't need them from Steve. Not when it comes to this.