Hawaii Five-0: Crisis Response (Steve/Danny, sort of)
Title: Crisis Response
Fandom: Hawaii Five-0
Pairing: Steve/Danny, sort of
Rating: PG-13
Word count: ~4550
Summary: Danny reaches out to Steve after North Korea, and they both wind up wishing he hadn't
Crisis Response
To the surprise of absolutely no-one, Steve's burns (burns, from someone using a cattle prod on him, like an animal) get infected. By the time they land in Oahu (and Danny's never, in all his life, been so glad to see a place he doesn't even like), he's drifting in and out, and it takes Danny and Chin to keep him upright and moving.
"Wanna go home," Steve says as he, Danny, Chin and Lori climb into the back of a cab. His head drops onto Danny's shoulder like he doesn't even know he's doing it, and Danny feels Chin and Lori watching them as he gets his arm around Steve, the way he would with Grace. "Where's Kono?"
"She went ahead with Jenna." Danny keeps his voice low and soothing - for all that she got shot, twice, Jenna is actually doing much better than Steve right now. "You'll see her at the hospital."
Steve struggles like he's trying to sit up, then collapses back against Danny. "I don't want to - I want to go home. Danny, let me go home." He sounds desperate, enough that Danny's glad he can't see Steve's face.
"You have to get checked out." Lori leans forward to rest a hand on Steve's knee. "Commander White's orders."
Danny glances over at her, gets a raised eyebrow in return. White split the second they landed, so Danny suspects Lori is full of shit with that, but it works, sort of, Steve going still and quiet as they drive through early evening streets. Danny watches the people, kids and families and young couples, all walking around like they're completely safe. They've got no idea what Steve and Jenna went through, or what Five-0 did to get them back.
He feels like he's watching them on a screen - like the people out there are the movie, and the four of them in the cab are all that's real. So much so that he actually starts when they pass Iolani Palace, the same way he does when a New Jersey landmark unexpectedly shows up on TV.
Pressed against him, Steve makes a low noise of pain. Danny rubs his arm gently, says, "It's okay, we're safe now," and really hopes he's telling the truth.
*
At the hospital, Danny catches sight of Kono, holding Jenna's hand as the staff hook her up to some sort of IV. She must feel him looking - she turns her head enough for him to see that she's smiling, though her eyes are red and too bright.
Chin leaves during the half hour they spend in the waiting room while Steve's examined, citing the need for someone to pretend like they've actually been in the office working for the last few days. After a moment's hesitation from her, he also manages to take Lori with him, for all that she clearly wants to stay.
Danny drinks two cups of bad coffee, texts Grace, flips through a magazine without any idea what it's even about, and then the doctor comes back, tells him he can see Steve for a few minutes.
In the hospital bed, Steve looks even worse. His bruised, cut face looks wrong against the clean, white sheets, and he's holding his body awkwardly, obviously in some kind of pain. When he meets Danny's gaze, his eyes are glassy, distant with whatever drug is in his IV, or maybe from the infection, from exhaustion and the adrenaline crash of finally being safe.
"Hey, babe." Danny crosses the room until he's firmly in Steve's line of sight. He hesitates, one hand on top of the blankets, uncertain if he can touch Steve without hurting him more. "Doctors only gave me a couple of minutes to check on you."
"They gave me something." Steve tugs at the IV line, not hard enough to pull it out. "I don't remember what."
Danny doesn't either, but Steve sounds anxious and not all there. "Probably something to help you sleep. You need it."
"You going to see Grace?" Steve shifts, wincing in pain and trying to cover it up.
"Soon," Danny lies. He's got no idea what day it even is.
"Right. Next weekend. You should bring her to the house."
"Maybe," Danny says quietly.
"The others as well." Steve's eyes are starting to drift closed, his voice slurred. "And Jenna, if she's back in Hawaii."
"Malia, too."
"Yeah, sure. And Jenna."
"Yeah, and Jenna," Danny says, instead of telling Steve he already said that. "Go to sleep, okay?"
"Right." Steve closes his eyes, and Danny stays very still, watching Steve sink down into what looks like sleep.
He's maybe zoning a little himself when the door opens abruptly, the blind rattling with the motion. Steve startles awake, one hand reaching for a gun that isn't there, and he starts to sit up before Danny can stop him.
"Detective Williams -" the nurse starts.
"Don't -" Steve says. "Danny?"
"I'm right here," Danny says, ignoring the nurse. "Hey, Steve, come on."
"I don't want to be here." Steve's voice breaks, his eyes wide and scared, something Danny never expected to see on Steve's face, not when everyone is safe. "Danny, please, I don't want to be here."
"Detective Williams, you need to leave." The nurse actually tugs at his arm until Danny shakes him off, reaching out for Steve.
"I know, okay, I know, but you have to stay here and get better so you can go home."
"No." Steve shakes his head. "No, please, I don't want to."
Danny hates this, hates being helpless, hates that he failed to keep Steve from going to North Korea, failed to keep him from getting hurt, and now he's failing to keep Steve from feeling scared and threatened.
"Let me stay with him," he says to the nurse. "Just till he's asleep again, please."
"Hospital policy," the nurse says, not a shred of sympathy on his face, and Danny hates the guy with the kind of visceral hatred he feels for Wo Fat and Victor Hesse. "You can leave, or I can call security to see you out."
"I -" Danny starts, doesn't get any further when Steve jerks upright, reaching for him. There's no presence behind his eyes, and he's barely holding tight enough for Danny to feel it. Instead, he feels the heat bleeding off Steve, the panic.
It hits him, like a thirty foot wave, like the tsunami that never happened: how close they came to losing Steve, losing Jenna. What they just did, how it could have ended.
He can't be there.
"I'm sorry," he says, so soft he knows Steve won't hear it. "I'm sorry, Steve, I have to go." Steve tries to hold onto him, and it breaks Danny's heart that he can't, even as he makes use of it to push Steve down onto the bed, the nurse swooping in to inject something in his IV.
Danny can't look at him, afraid he'll see betrayal on his best friend's face. He walks out, doesn't look back, and doesn't let himself listen for any sound that might follow him.
He doesn't remember the cab ride home, just finds himself on the couch, his hands tapping out a message to Grace without any input from his brain. He finishes it, takes a shower, drinks the two beers left in his fridge in rapid succession, then the tail end of a bottle of Vodka Kono left behind. It's a bad idea, but he doesn't care, because it works.
He falls into bed, and sleeps for fourteen hours without dreaming.
*
For three days, Danny hangs out with Grace, goes to work, checks in on Steve and Jenna through the others, and tries not to think about Steve, begging Danny not to leave him behind.
On the fourth day, he doesn't even make it out of the parking lot before he knows he's got to see Steve, replace the image of him in that hospital bed, or the sight of him in the back of the truck, clutching Jenna's hand, both of them looking more dead than alive.
Danny was prepared for the possibility of Steve locking his door, but it still takes him a moment to dig out the key that no-one ever uses. He doesn't bother knocking, figuring Steve will know he's there or Steve will be asleep and should stay that way.
He's confused for a moment, stepping into the house that looks exactly the same as the last time he was there. Maybe that's the reason he doesn't catch the out of place movement, or maybe it's that he's too focused on Steve to actually see - well, Steve.
Gun raised, defensive posture, moving fast - Steve.
Danny gets his hands up, palms out and open because the other option is to go for his gun and he doesn't know where Steve's head is, where Steve is in his head. "It's me. I'm standing still, I'm not moving, I've got my hands up." He tears his eyes away from Steve's gun just in time to watch awareness crash back over Steve's face. "Hey, babe. You want to stop pointing that thing at me?"
Steve blinks, obviously confused. "Yeah." He sounds out of breath, and his hands shake slightly as he lowers his weapon until it hangs at his side like he's forgotten what happens next. "Sorry."
"Happens to the best of us." Danny takes the gun from Steve's unresisting hand. "I'm thinking, Mama Williams' tried and tested Bolognese pasta, maybe ice cream - real ice cream, Steve, frozen yogurt does not count."
Steve follows Danny, or maybe he just follows Danny's voice, into the kitchen and sits when Danny nudges him gently. He doesn't say anything when Danny stashes the gun in a kitchen drawer - best he can do for now, and it makes Danny breathe a little easier.
"There's coffee," Steve offers.
Danny pauses in the middle of surveying Steve's cupboards to notice the pot staying warm on the counter. "Oh," he says dumbly. Steve drinks coffee when it's there, but he doesn't brew it himself unless someone is coming by. Someone like Danny.
"Thanks," Danny adds, and knows his theory was right when Steve smiles back, small but there.
*
Steve's more there than not while Danny cooks and they eat, and nowhere near as bad as at the hospital. He even takes his pills without complaint, something Danny's never seen him do before.
They settle on the couch after dinner, Steve directing Danny to put on a movie he's never heard of, which appears to be about gardening and Steve claims belongs to Lori. It's all British accents and prisoners, more Rachel's thing than Danny's, but it's quiet and lacking explosions, so Danny will take it.
Steve doesn't so much drift off as fade out, become less present to the point that Danny looks over, checking he's still there. Steve's eyes are closed, his head tipped back against the couch. In the fading light, the shadows around his eyes look like bruises, and his actual bruises like black paint splotched on his face. He might be sleeping, Danny can't tell, and he knows he should look away, but he can't.
They could have lost Steve, nearly did. Wo Fat is still out there, and he's not going to just give up. Steve's not going to give up, not after what Wo Fat did to his parents, to Josh and Jenna. To Steve himself, but Danny can't think about that without wanting to go back to Korea, track Wo Fat down and shoot him until he's dead.
If he closes his eyes, he can see Steve and Jenna, sprawled on the floor of that truck, both of them bleeding, hands clasped tight. He'd thought they were dead, had been half-expecting that since they took off for Korea, and the thought of finding Steve's dead body makes something in his chest crack with the kind of sharp pain he felt when Rachel said she was taking Grace to Hawaii.
He can't imagine being in Hawaii without Steve, now, or even leaving Hawaii and Steve behind. Steve's part of his family, maybe the most important person on the island for him after Grace.
Danny reaches out, rests one hand Steve's shoulder, and it's only when he's done it that he realizes Steve is restless, tense and unhappy in his sleep. Dreaming.
"I'm right here," Danny says softly. "You're safe, Steve."
Steve's breath comes harsh and fast for a few seconds. His whole body goes rigid, and he starts awake with a gasp. Danny has a moment of indecision, not sure whether to let go or hold on; before he can do either, Steve's hand closes tight over his wrist, Steve's eyes darting about the dim room.
"It's just me." Danny keeps very still, waiting for the recognition to hit Steve's face. "That looked like a hell of a dream, babe."
"I'm not -" Steve's grip on him relaxes, but Steve doesn't let go. He looks exhausted, worse than he did when they first met. "I didn't think you were here."
He makes Danny's heart hurt. "Come here." He tugs at Steve's shoulder, light enough that Steve can resist. He doesn't, lets himself fall against Danny, and makes a soft, hurt noise when Danny wraps his arms around Steve and holds onto him.
"Of course I'm here," Danny says. Steve's warm and solid against him, a visceral reminder that they got him back, that he's alive and safe. "Where else am I going to be?"
Steve says, "Danny," the word muffled between their bodies. Something about Steve's body shifts, makes the hug less about comfort and more about something that Danny has tried his best not to put a name to over the last year and a half.
He hesitates, again. Steve is quicker than him, says, "Danny, please -"
Steve's kiss is not a surprise, and neither is the way of it, soft and close-mouthed against the corner of Danny's mouth. Steve's not stupid, and he has to -
Steve's hand slides up to cup Danny's shoulder as he kisses Danny again. It feels weird, Steve's stubble against Danny's face, but it's Steve. Danny presses into the kiss, gives it back to him, feels how Steve's shaking.
It's weird, kissing a man. Danny feels like he's waiting for the strangeness to abate, for his body to notice that he's not kissing any man, he's kissing Steve, his best friend in the world, the reason he goes to work on the bad days, the guy who's always there for him, risking his life in crazy ways and trying to be every part of the social network Danny left behind in New Jersey.
Steve breaks away abruptly, ducking his head to half-hide a jaw-cracking yawn. "Sorry," he says, sheepish, but oddly happy. "I should - it's the stuff the hospital gave me, I just want to sleep all the time."
"Then you should go to bed. Alone," Danny adds before Steve can say anything else. He definitely isn't ready to take that step yet.
Steve sneaks another kiss, playful and sweet, and Danny wonders if he couldn't get used to this.
*
When he gets home, there's a message waiting for him from Gaby, wondering if he wants to get together when she's back from her trip at the weekend. Danny listens to it twice, can't bring himself to delete it. At the least, he owes it to her to call it off in person, even if they haven't gotten all that serious yet. She hasn't even met Grace.
He takes himself off to bed, but he can't sleep, restless and keyed up.
He tells himself - hell, he doesn't tell himself anything, he's alone in bed in the dark, and it feels really good to slide his hand into his boxers and stroke himself, slow and easy. He thinks about Steve, the kisses on the couch, and imagines it going further.
In his head, Steve isn't injured, doesn't still and wince and shake. Instead, Steve's relaxed under him, open and teasing. Danny imagines tracing Steve's tattoos with his fingers, following the shapes of ink on skin over muscles he works for and soft curves.
Danny blinks his eyes open, letting go of the momentary fantasy of Gaby's breasts in his hands. Steve, he's thinking about Steve.
Rachel liked to be on top in bed, and in the beginning, when it was still good, they'd wrestle and roll across the bed, play-fighting for control. He bets Steve would be the same, wanting to be in control, wanting to set the pace. Or maybe Steve would go relaxed and easy the way he does sometimes, when he's had a little too much to drink and he can let down a few of his guards. Maybe he'd let Danny lay him out and explore, find all the places that make her shiver and gasp and want.
"Fuck," Danny mutters, pushing the image away again. His dick in his hand is hard now, the head wet.
Steve has big hands, strong and callused. The first woman Danny slept with was a fire-arms instructor, and her gun calluses felt amazing on his dick, sparking sensation in ways he hadn't even known were possible. Steve's hands would feel like that, big and steady on Danny's cock. He'd do Danny the way he liked it, the first time, until he learned how Danny liked it. That Danny likes small, cool fingers wrapping around his cock, that he likes getting sucked off by a woman wearing fresh lipstick, likes the marks left on his dick after, the way her lipstick smudges. That he loves the feeling of sinking his dick into a woman's wet cunt, of having her slide down onto him and ride him while he cups her breasts and thumbs her nipples until she climaxes around him, the way she'll sound as she comes, the way it feels to roll her onto her back and slide back into her and fuck her until she's coming again and Danny is -
Danny is thrusting into his own hand and coming, and the face he's picturing, the name that's slipping from his lips, isn't Steve's.
*
"I think I screwed up," Danny tells Chin, the two of them hidden away in the back booth of the bar they occasionally hit when the sniper twins have gotten too much and they need some adult conversation between the only two people on their team who know what it's like to be a regular cop.
Chin puts on his best sympathetic face, sips his beer, and says, "It can't have been that bad. What did you do?"
"With Steve," Danny clarifies. He turns his beer bottle once, hoping Chin will fill in the blanks. When he doesn't, Danny goes on. "I went over to his place last night. We - there might have been - kissing."
Danny chances a glance at Chin, who raises both eyebrows back at him. "I thought you and him weren't like that."
"We're not." Danny wants to bang his head against the bar. "I don't know, he is, I'm not. I was - I kept thinking about how he nearly died."
"And from there to kissing the guy you said you didn't feel that way about?" Chin asks, dustbowl dry.
"He's -" Danny doesn't have the word. Or, he does, he just hates applying it to Steve."Vulnerable. I don't know."
"People have gotten together in - I was going to say worse circumstances, but maybe not."
"I'm still not gay," Danny says, a little too loud in his frustration. "I'm not - I don't feel that way about Steve."
He drops his head into his hands, hating himself. Chin's hand on his shoulder is very light. "Oh, Danny," he says softly.
"I screwed up," Danny says again.
"Yeah," Chin agrees.
"I knew how he felt. And now he thinks that's what I want."
"Just a suggestion, brah," Chin says, ruthlessly pragmatic, "But maybe you shouldn't jump into getting involved with people when you're having a bad day."
"Advice that would have been much more useful twenty-four hours ago," Danny tells him. "Or a few months ago, actually."
Danny feels Chin shrug. "So now what are you going to do?"
The thing he spent the last year and a half avoiding doing, the one thing he really doesn't want to do. "Talk to Steve."
*
Steve's still sleeping enough that it breaks his day into chunks, makes the evening come on sooner. In between naps, Lori visits for a while and must leave while he's sleeping, because he wakes up alone. He calls Mary, pretends like he's out of work with a minor injury, rather than as a result of being tortured, and isn't sure he fools her. In between naps and visitors and calls, he keeps up a text message conversation with Jenna, a mix of intelligence sharing, apologies, and the weird bond that comes from both having lost people they love to Wo Fat. He's still not sure what's going to happen to her, but he's mentally putting together an argument for bringing her on to Five-0.
He's glad for the distractions and even for the effects of the drugs, because the rest of the time, he can't sit still, for all that moving around hurts. The pain's a decent distraction for the agitation jittering under his skin. Danny said he'd come by tonight after work.
Danny kissed him the night before last. Let Steve kiss him.
Steve's not an idiot, no matter what Danny sometimes tells him, and he's not unobservant. He's fairly sure Danny's known how Steve feels about him for a lot longer than either one of them will admit. Certainly since before Gaby, before Rachel.
Steve wants to believe he's just this lucky, that nearly losing him and Jenna was enough for Danny to finally make a move, acknowledge feelings he's kept hidden, even from Steve. He wants to believe, but it feels too much like the kind of luck he doesn't have. Somewhere between the governor's betrayal, the recording of his dad shaking hands with Wo Fat, and Jenna trading him for Josh, he lost his faith.
The knock at his door startles Steve out of contemplating the book shelves. He turns as Danny lets himself in, and one look at Danny's face is enough for Steve to know he was right: he doesn't have this much luck.
"I was going to bring dinner." Danny hesitates inside the door, watching closely as Steve crosses to the recliner and lowers himself into it. "But I wasn't, um, sure what to -"
"It's fine," Steve says, before Danny can tangle himself up more. "Lori brought me something."
"She a good cook?" Danny waves the question away before Steve can answer it. "Never mind, do you have any coffee?"
Steve nods and Danny ducks into the kitchen. "You want one?" he calls back. Steve doesn't bother answering, hears a second cup on the counter anyway. "You see the doctor again?"
"Tomorrow. If she changes the meds, I'll be back at the end of the week."
Danny rolls his eyes as he hands over Steve's coffee. "You've got serious injuries, and you were hospitalised with an infection. It's okay to take a few days off."
"I'll be back at the end of the week," Steve repeats. He's had enough of being in this house, of waking up from nightmares and being alone all day.
He wants to reach out to Danny, prompt some sort of response, instead of this awkward politeness. He's had friendships fall apart after ill-advised attractions, but the thought of that happening with Danny makes him feel kind of sick. He blames it on the meds.
"Look." Danny meets his eyes firmly, and Steve braces himself for what comes next. "We need to talk. About the other night."
Steve looks away, hating himself for it. A year of being so damn careful around Danny, even when he was so sure he wasn't in it alone. He knows better.
"It was a mistake, Steve. It was my mistake, I -"
"It's all right. You don't have to - we can just chalk it up to having a bad week."
"Steve, hey." Danny touches Steve's arm. "Don't do that. You don't have to give me the easy out here, okay? I'm the one who screwed up."
Steve keeps his eyes on his coffee. He can't tell Danny that he's giving himself the easy out, avoiding hearing Danny say that he just doesn't want Steve that way, and putting an end to the scrap of hope Steve clings to on bad days.
"I never meant to hurt you. Everything that happened - I freaked out, I got scared and I thought I could do this with you, I knew it was what you wanted."
"Don't." Steve wants to tell Danny to shut the hell up, that if he cares about Steve at all, he won't force Steve to listen to this.
"I'm sorry," Danny says softly.
"Yeah."
"Do you want me to go?"
"I don't - maybe." Steve wants, stupidly, to invite Danny over for beer on the beach and let Danny's affectionate insults wash away his hurt. One more reason why falling for his best friend is a bad idea.
"I'll go." Danny stands up, and after a moment, Steve does too. Danny's hunched over a little, his expression hurting. "I'm sorry," he says again. "I wish -"
"Don't," Steve says firmly.
Danny nods. "You know you're my best friend, right? And I'm not going to have some kind of straight guy freak-out and demand a new partner or something."
It shouldn't make Steve feel better - he knows, or should know, that what Danny's saying is true - but it does, enough that he can smile at Danny. "Like anyone else on the team would have you."
"I am desirable partner material, I'll have you know." Danny grins, but cuts his usual rant short, and Steve's glad for it. He's a little too raw to hear about how much people want Danny, even if it is in a work context. "Can I give you a hug?"
Steve's an idiot, knows this about himself far better than he wants to and doesn't care. He needs the comfort, right now.
Danny pulls him close, holds on with none of the macho back-slapping Steve's gotten used to from getting and giving hugs. Steve makes himself keep the hug to just friends: no folding himself around Danny, no turning his face into Danny's body. No holding on when Danny presses his hands against Steve's back and lets go. "I'll see you at the office in a couple of days," Danny says.
Steve nods, walks Danny to the door. "Thanks," he says.
Danny grimaces. "You're a good person, Steve. I'm glad you're my friend."
Steve watches him until the Camaro's tail lights disappear into the darkness, and then watches the space they were in for a while longer, not ready to go back into the house. That's it, then. A few kisses, two days of foolish, doubtful hope, and no deeper relationship with Danny. But still Danny's friendship, still Danny's declaration of care for him, his status as Danny's partner and best friend. It could be worse.
It'll have to be enough.
This entry was originally posted at http://bluflamingo.dreamwidth.org/204316.html, where it has
comments. I'd prefer comments there, but comments here are loved just as much
Fandom: Hawaii Five-0
Pairing: Steve/Danny, sort of
Rating: PG-13
Word count: ~4550
Summary: Danny reaches out to Steve after North Korea, and they both wind up wishing he hadn't
Crisis Response
To the surprise of absolutely no-one, Steve's burns (burns, from someone using a cattle prod on him, like an animal) get infected. By the time they land in Oahu (and Danny's never, in all his life, been so glad to see a place he doesn't even like), he's drifting in and out, and it takes Danny and Chin to keep him upright and moving.
"Wanna go home," Steve says as he, Danny, Chin and Lori climb into the back of a cab. His head drops onto Danny's shoulder like he doesn't even know he's doing it, and Danny feels Chin and Lori watching them as he gets his arm around Steve, the way he would with Grace. "Where's Kono?"
"She went ahead with Jenna." Danny keeps his voice low and soothing - for all that she got shot, twice, Jenna is actually doing much better than Steve right now. "You'll see her at the hospital."
Steve struggles like he's trying to sit up, then collapses back against Danny. "I don't want to - I want to go home. Danny, let me go home." He sounds desperate, enough that Danny's glad he can't see Steve's face.
"You have to get checked out." Lori leans forward to rest a hand on Steve's knee. "Commander White's orders."
Danny glances over at her, gets a raised eyebrow in return. White split the second they landed, so Danny suspects Lori is full of shit with that, but it works, sort of, Steve going still and quiet as they drive through early evening streets. Danny watches the people, kids and families and young couples, all walking around like they're completely safe. They've got no idea what Steve and Jenna went through, or what Five-0 did to get them back.
He feels like he's watching them on a screen - like the people out there are the movie, and the four of them in the cab are all that's real. So much so that he actually starts when they pass Iolani Palace, the same way he does when a New Jersey landmark unexpectedly shows up on TV.
Pressed against him, Steve makes a low noise of pain. Danny rubs his arm gently, says, "It's okay, we're safe now," and really hopes he's telling the truth.
*
At the hospital, Danny catches sight of Kono, holding Jenna's hand as the staff hook her up to some sort of IV. She must feel him looking - she turns her head enough for him to see that she's smiling, though her eyes are red and too bright.
Chin leaves during the half hour they spend in the waiting room while Steve's examined, citing the need for someone to pretend like they've actually been in the office working for the last few days. After a moment's hesitation from her, he also manages to take Lori with him, for all that she clearly wants to stay.
Danny drinks two cups of bad coffee, texts Grace, flips through a magazine without any idea what it's even about, and then the doctor comes back, tells him he can see Steve for a few minutes.
In the hospital bed, Steve looks even worse. His bruised, cut face looks wrong against the clean, white sheets, and he's holding his body awkwardly, obviously in some kind of pain. When he meets Danny's gaze, his eyes are glassy, distant with whatever drug is in his IV, or maybe from the infection, from exhaustion and the adrenaline crash of finally being safe.
"Hey, babe." Danny crosses the room until he's firmly in Steve's line of sight. He hesitates, one hand on top of the blankets, uncertain if he can touch Steve without hurting him more. "Doctors only gave me a couple of minutes to check on you."
"They gave me something." Steve tugs at the IV line, not hard enough to pull it out. "I don't remember what."
Danny doesn't either, but Steve sounds anxious and not all there. "Probably something to help you sleep. You need it."
"You going to see Grace?" Steve shifts, wincing in pain and trying to cover it up.
"Soon," Danny lies. He's got no idea what day it even is.
"Right. Next weekend. You should bring her to the house."
"Maybe," Danny says quietly.
"The others as well." Steve's eyes are starting to drift closed, his voice slurred. "And Jenna, if she's back in Hawaii."
"Malia, too."
"Yeah, sure. And Jenna."
"Yeah, and Jenna," Danny says, instead of telling Steve he already said that. "Go to sleep, okay?"
"Right." Steve closes his eyes, and Danny stays very still, watching Steve sink down into what looks like sleep.
He's maybe zoning a little himself when the door opens abruptly, the blind rattling with the motion. Steve startles awake, one hand reaching for a gun that isn't there, and he starts to sit up before Danny can stop him.
"Detective Williams -" the nurse starts.
"Don't -" Steve says. "Danny?"
"I'm right here," Danny says, ignoring the nurse. "Hey, Steve, come on."
"I don't want to be here." Steve's voice breaks, his eyes wide and scared, something Danny never expected to see on Steve's face, not when everyone is safe. "Danny, please, I don't want to be here."
"Detective Williams, you need to leave." The nurse actually tugs at his arm until Danny shakes him off, reaching out for Steve.
"I know, okay, I know, but you have to stay here and get better so you can go home."
"No." Steve shakes his head. "No, please, I don't want to."
Danny hates this, hates being helpless, hates that he failed to keep Steve from going to North Korea, failed to keep him from getting hurt, and now he's failing to keep Steve from feeling scared and threatened.
"Let me stay with him," he says to the nurse. "Just till he's asleep again, please."
"Hospital policy," the nurse says, not a shred of sympathy on his face, and Danny hates the guy with the kind of visceral hatred he feels for Wo Fat and Victor Hesse. "You can leave, or I can call security to see you out."
"I -" Danny starts, doesn't get any further when Steve jerks upright, reaching for him. There's no presence behind his eyes, and he's barely holding tight enough for Danny to feel it. Instead, he feels the heat bleeding off Steve, the panic.
It hits him, like a thirty foot wave, like the tsunami that never happened: how close they came to losing Steve, losing Jenna. What they just did, how it could have ended.
He can't be there.
"I'm sorry," he says, so soft he knows Steve won't hear it. "I'm sorry, Steve, I have to go." Steve tries to hold onto him, and it breaks Danny's heart that he can't, even as he makes use of it to push Steve down onto the bed, the nurse swooping in to inject something in his IV.
Danny can't look at him, afraid he'll see betrayal on his best friend's face. He walks out, doesn't look back, and doesn't let himself listen for any sound that might follow him.
He doesn't remember the cab ride home, just finds himself on the couch, his hands tapping out a message to Grace without any input from his brain. He finishes it, takes a shower, drinks the two beers left in his fridge in rapid succession, then the tail end of a bottle of Vodka Kono left behind. It's a bad idea, but he doesn't care, because it works.
He falls into bed, and sleeps for fourteen hours without dreaming.
*
For three days, Danny hangs out with Grace, goes to work, checks in on Steve and Jenna through the others, and tries not to think about Steve, begging Danny not to leave him behind.
On the fourth day, he doesn't even make it out of the parking lot before he knows he's got to see Steve, replace the image of him in that hospital bed, or the sight of him in the back of the truck, clutching Jenna's hand, both of them looking more dead than alive.
Danny was prepared for the possibility of Steve locking his door, but it still takes him a moment to dig out the key that no-one ever uses. He doesn't bother knocking, figuring Steve will know he's there or Steve will be asleep and should stay that way.
He's confused for a moment, stepping into the house that looks exactly the same as the last time he was there. Maybe that's the reason he doesn't catch the out of place movement, or maybe it's that he's too focused on Steve to actually see - well, Steve.
Gun raised, defensive posture, moving fast - Steve.
Danny gets his hands up, palms out and open because the other option is to go for his gun and he doesn't know where Steve's head is, where Steve is in his head. "It's me. I'm standing still, I'm not moving, I've got my hands up." He tears his eyes away from Steve's gun just in time to watch awareness crash back over Steve's face. "Hey, babe. You want to stop pointing that thing at me?"
Steve blinks, obviously confused. "Yeah." He sounds out of breath, and his hands shake slightly as he lowers his weapon until it hangs at his side like he's forgotten what happens next. "Sorry."
"Happens to the best of us." Danny takes the gun from Steve's unresisting hand. "I'm thinking, Mama Williams' tried and tested Bolognese pasta, maybe ice cream - real ice cream, Steve, frozen yogurt does not count."
Steve follows Danny, or maybe he just follows Danny's voice, into the kitchen and sits when Danny nudges him gently. He doesn't say anything when Danny stashes the gun in a kitchen drawer - best he can do for now, and it makes Danny breathe a little easier.
"There's coffee," Steve offers.
Danny pauses in the middle of surveying Steve's cupboards to notice the pot staying warm on the counter. "Oh," he says dumbly. Steve drinks coffee when it's there, but he doesn't brew it himself unless someone is coming by. Someone like Danny.
"Thanks," Danny adds, and knows his theory was right when Steve smiles back, small but there.
*
Steve's more there than not while Danny cooks and they eat, and nowhere near as bad as at the hospital. He even takes his pills without complaint, something Danny's never seen him do before.
They settle on the couch after dinner, Steve directing Danny to put on a movie he's never heard of, which appears to be about gardening and Steve claims belongs to Lori. It's all British accents and prisoners, more Rachel's thing than Danny's, but it's quiet and lacking explosions, so Danny will take it.
Steve doesn't so much drift off as fade out, become less present to the point that Danny looks over, checking he's still there. Steve's eyes are closed, his head tipped back against the couch. In the fading light, the shadows around his eyes look like bruises, and his actual bruises like black paint splotched on his face. He might be sleeping, Danny can't tell, and he knows he should look away, but he can't.
They could have lost Steve, nearly did. Wo Fat is still out there, and he's not going to just give up. Steve's not going to give up, not after what Wo Fat did to his parents, to Josh and Jenna. To Steve himself, but Danny can't think about that without wanting to go back to Korea, track Wo Fat down and shoot him until he's dead.
If he closes his eyes, he can see Steve and Jenna, sprawled on the floor of that truck, both of them bleeding, hands clasped tight. He'd thought they were dead, had been half-expecting that since they took off for Korea, and the thought of finding Steve's dead body makes something in his chest crack with the kind of sharp pain he felt when Rachel said she was taking Grace to Hawaii.
He can't imagine being in Hawaii without Steve, now, or even leaving Hawaii and Steve behind. Steve's part of his family, maybe the most important person on the island for him after Grace.
Danny reaches out, rests one hand Steve's shoulder, and it's only when he's done it that he realizes Steve is restless, tense and unhappy in his sleep. Dreaming.
"I'm right here," Danny says softly. "You're safe, Steve."
Steve's breath comes harsh and fast for a few seconds. His whole body goes rigid, and he starts awake with a gasp. Danny has a moment of indecision, not sure whether to let go or hold on; before he can do either, Steve's hand closes tight over his wrist, Steve's eyes darting about the dim room.
"It's just me." Danny keeps very still, waiting for the recognition to hit Steve's face. "That looked like a hell of a dream, babe."
"I'm not -" Steve's grip on him relaxes, but Steve doesn't let go. He looks exhausted, worse than he did when they first met. "I didn't think you were here."
He makes Danny's heart hurt. "Come here." He tugs at Steve's shoulder, light enough that Steve can resist. He doesn't, lets himself fall against Danny, and makes a soft, hurt noise when Danny wraps his arms around Steve and holds onto him.
"Of course I'm here," Danny says. Steve's warm and solid against him, a visceral reminder that they got him back, that he's alive and safe. "Where else am I going to be?"
Steve says, "Danny," the word muffled between their bodies. Something about Steve's body shifts, makes the hug less about comfort and more about something that Danny has tried his best not to put a name to over the last year and a half.
He hesitates, again. Steve is quicker than him, says, "Danny, please -"
Steve's kiss is not a surprise, and neither is the way of it, soft and close-mouthed against the corner of Danny's mouth. Steve's not stupid, and he has to -
Steve's hand slides up to cup Danny's shoulder as he kisses Danny again. It feels weird, Steve's stubble against Danny's face, but it's Steve. Danny presses into the kiss, gives it back to him, feels how Steve's shaking.
It's weird, kissing a man. Danny feels like he's waiting for the strangeness to abate, for his body to notice that he's not kissing any man, he's kissing Steve, his best friend in the world, the reason he goes to work on the bad days, the guy who's always there for him, risking his life in crazy ways and trying to be every part of the social network Danny left behind in New Jersey.
Steve breaks away abruptly, ducking his head to half-hide a jaw-cracking yawn. "Sorry," he says, sheepish, but oddly happy. "I should - it's the stuff the hospital gave me, I just want to sleep all the time."
"Then you should go to bed. Alone," Danny adds before Steve can say anything else. He definitely isn't ready to take that step yet.
Steve sneaks another kiss, playful and sweet, and Danny wonders if he couldn't get used to this.
*
When he gets home, there's a message waiting for him from Gaby, wondering if he wants to get together when she's back from her trip at the weekend. Danny listens to it twice, can't bring himself to delete it. At the least, he owes it to her to call it off in person, even if they haven't gotten all that serious yet. She hasn't even met Grace.
He takes himself off to bed, but he can't sleep, restless and keyed up.
He tells himself - hell, he doesn't tell himself anything, he's alone in bed in the dark, and it feels really good to slide his hand into his boxers and stroke himself, slow and easy. He thinks about Steve, the kisses on the couch, and imagines it going further.
In his head, Steve isn't injured, doesn't still and wince and shake. Instead, Steve's relaxed under him, open and teasing. Danny imagines tracing Steve's tattoos with his fingers, following the shapes of ink on skin over muscles he works for and soft curves.
Danny blinks his eyes open, letting go of the momentary fantasy of Gaby's breasts in his hands. Steve, he's thinking about Steve.
Rachel liked to be on top in bed, and in the beginning, when it was still good, they'd wrestle and roll across the bed, play-fighting for control. He bets Steve would be the same, wanting to be in control, wanting to set the pace. Or maybe Steve would go relaxed and easy the way he does sometimes, when he's had a little too much to drink and he can let down a few of his guards. Maybe he'd let Danny lay him out and explore, find all the places that make her shiver and gasp and want.
"Fuck," Danny mutters, pushing the image away again. His dick in his hand is hard now, the head wet.
Steve has big hands, strong and callused. The first woman Danny slept with was a fire-arms instructor, and her gun calluses felt amazing on his dick, sparking sensation in ways he hadn't even known were possible. Steve's hands would feel like that, big and steady on Danny's cock. He'd do Danny the way he liked it, the first time, until he learned how Danny liked it. That Danny likes small, cool fingers wrapping around his cock, that he likes getting sucked off by a woman wearing fresh lipstick, likes the marks left on his dick after, the way her lipstick smudges. That he loves the feeling of sinking his dick into a woman's wet cunt, of having her slide down onto him and ride him while he cups her breasts and thumbs her nipples until she climaxes around him, the way she'll sound as she comes, the way it feels to roll her onto her back and slide back into her and fuck her until she's coming again and Danny is -
Danny is thrusting into his own hand and coming, and the face he's picturing, the name that's slipping from his lips, isn't Steve's.
*
"I think I screwed up," Danny tells Chin, the two of them hidden away in the back booth of the bar they occasionally hit when the sniper twins have gotten too much and they need some adult conversation between the only two people on their team who know what it's like to be a regular cop.
Chin puts on his best sympathetic face, sips his beer, and says, "It can't have been that bad. What did you do?"
"With Steve," Danny clarifies. He turns his beer bottle once, hoping Chin will fill in the blanks. When he doesn't, Danny goes on. "I went over to his place last night. We - there might have been - kissing."
Danny chances a glance at Chin, who raises both eyebrows back at him. "I thought you and him weren't like that."
"We're not." Danny wants to bang his head against the bar. "I don't know, he is, I'm not. I was - I kept thinking about how he nearly died."
"And from there to kissing the guy you said you didn't feel that way about?" Chin asks, dustbowl dry.
"He's -" Danny doesn't have the word. Or, he does, he just hates applying it to Steve."Vulnerable. I don't know."
"People have gotten together in - I was going to say worse circumstances, but maybe not."
"I'm still not gay," Danny says, a little too loud in his frustration. "I'm not - I don't feel that way about Steve."
He drops his head into his hands, hating himself. Chin's hand on his shoulder is very light. "Oh, Danny," he says softly.
"I screwed up," Danny says again.
"Yeah," Chin agrees.
"I knew how he felt. And now he thinks that's what I want."
"Just a suggestion, brah," Chin says, ruthlessly pragmatic, "But maybe you shouldn't jump into getting involved with people when you're having a bad day."
"Advice that would have been much more useful twenty-four hours ago," Danny tells him. "Or a few months ago, actually."
Danny feels Chin shrug. "So now what are you going to do?"
The thing he spent the last year and a half avoiding doing, the one thing he really doesn't want to do. "Talk to Steve."
*
Steve's still sleeping enough that it breaks his day into chunks, makes the evening come on sooner. In between naps, Lori visits for a while and must leave while he's sleeping, because he wakes up alone. He calls Mary, pretends like he's out of work with a minor injury, rather than as a result of being tortured, and isn't sure he fools her. In between naps and visitors and calls, he keeps up a text message conversation with Jenna, a mix of intelligence sharing, apologies, and the weird bond that comes from both having lost people they love to Wo Fat. He's still not sure what's going to happen to her, but he's mentally putting together an argument for bringing her on to Five-0.
He's glad for the distractions and even for the effects of the drugs, because the rest of the time, he can't sit still, for all that moving around hurts. The pain's a decent distraction for the agitation jittering under his skin. Danny said he'd come by tonight after work.
Danny kissed him the night before last. Let Steve kiss him.
Steve's not an idiot, no matter what Danny sometimes tells him, and he's not unobservant. He's fairly sure Danny's known how Steve feels about him for a lot longer than either one of them will admit. Certainly since before Gaby, before Rachel.
Steve wants to believe he's just this lucky, that nearly losing him and Jenna was enough for Danny to finally make a move, acknowledge feelings he's kept hidden, even from Steve. He wants to believe, but it feels too much like the kind of luck he doesn't have. Somewhere between the governor's betrayal, the recording of his dad shaking hands with Wo Fat, and Jenna trading him for Josh, he lost his faith.
The knock at his door startles Steve out of contemplating the book shelves. He turns as Danny lets himself in, and one look at Danny's face is enough for Steve to know he was right: he doesn't have this much luck.
"I was going to bring dinner." Danny hesitates inside the door, watching closely as Steve crosses to the recliner and lowers himself into it. "But I wasn't, um, sure what to -"
"It's fine," Steve says, before Danny can tangle himself up more. "Lori brought me something."
"She a good cook?" Danny waves the question away before Steve can answer it. "Never mind, do you have any coffee?"
Steve nods and Danny ducks into the kitchen. "You want one?" he calls back. Steve doesn't bother answering, hears a second cup on the counter anyway. "You see the doctor again?"
"Tomorrow. If she changes the meds, I'll be back at the end of the week."
Danny rolls his eyes as he hands over Steve's coffee. "You've got serious injuries, and you were hospitalised with an infection. It's okay to take a few days off."
"I'll be back at the end of the week," Steve repeats. He's had enough of being in this house, of waking up from nightmares and being alone all day.
He wants to reach out to Danny, prompt some sort of response, instead of this awkward politeness. He's had friendships fall apart after ill-advised attractions, but the thought of that happening with Danny makes him feel kind of sick. He blames it on the meds.
"Look." Danny meets his eyes firmly, and Steve braces himself for what comes next. "We need to talk. About the other night."
Steve looks away, hating himself for it. A year of being so damn careful around Danny, even when he was so sure he wasn't in it alone. He knows better.
"It was a mistake, Steve. It was my mistake, I -"
"It's all right. You don't have to - we can just chalk it up to having a bad week."
"Steve, hey." Danny touches Steve's arm. "Don't do that. You don't have to give me the easy out here, okay? I'm the one who screwed up."
Steve keeps his eyes on his coffee. He can't tell Danny that he's giving himself the easy out, avoiding hearing Danny say that he just doesn't want Steve that way, and putting an end to the scrap of hope Steve clings to on bad days.
"I never meant to hurt you. Everything that happened - I freaked out, I got scared and I thought I could do this with you, I knew it was what you wanted."
"Don't." Steve wants to tell Danny to shut the hell up, that if he cares about Steve at all, he won't force Steve to listen to this.
"I'm sorry," Danny says softly.
"Yeah."
"Do you want me to go?"
"I don't - maybe." Steve wants, stupidly, to invite Danny over for beer on the beach and let Danny's affectionate insults wash away his hurt. One more reason why falling for his best friend is a bad idea.
"I'll go." Danny stands up, and after a moment, Steve does too. Danny's hunched over a little, his expression hurting. "I'm sorry," he says again. "I wish -"
"Don't," Steve says firmly.
Danny nods. "You know you're my best friend, right? And I'm not going to have some kind of straight guy freak-out and demand a new partner or something."
It shouldn't make Steve feel better - he knows, or should know, that what Danny's saying is true - but it does, enough that he can smile at Danny. "Like anyone else on the team would have you."
"I am desirable partner material, I'll have you know." Danny grins, but cuts his usual rant short, and Steve's glad for it. He's a little too raw to hear about how much people want Danny, even if it is in a work context. "Can I give you a hug?"
Steve's an idiot, knows this about himself far better than he wants to and doesn't care. He needs the comfort, right now.
Danny pulls him close, holds on with none of the macho back-slapping Steve's gotten used to from getting and giving hugs. Steve makes himself keep the hug to just friends: no folding himself around Danny, no turning his face into Danny's body. No holding on when Danny presses his hands against Steve's back and lets go. "I'll see you at the office in a couple of days," Danny says.
Steve nods, walks Danny to the door. "Thanks," he says.
Danny grimaces. "You're a good person, Steve. I'm glad you're my friend."
Steve watches him until the Camaro's tail lights disappear into the darkness, and then watches the space they were in for a while longer, not ready to go back into the house. That's it, then. A few kisses, two days of foolish, doubtful hope, and no deeper relationship with Danny. But still Danny's friendship, still Danny's declaration of care for him, his status as Danny's partner and best friend. It could be worse.
It'll have to be enough.
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