[Hawaii Five-0] Steve/Danny - Ho'oponopono (2 of 2)
Title: Ho'oponopono
Fandom: Hawaii Five-0
Pairing: Steve/Danny (background Chin/Malia)
Word Count: 17,047
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Groundhog Day AU. Danny finds himself trapped in the same day over and over again.
Notes: This story has pretty much ruled my life the last couple weeks. Thank you to sirona_gs for the wonderful beta job. Any remaining mistakes are mine. Also, thank you to annundriel and sycophantastic for offering advice and being generally supportive and awesome. :)
Part 1 is HERE
This story is also at AO3
---
Danny’s not trying to be fatalistic, really, he’s not, but sometimes he thinks he’ll never get out of this Friday.
“I would kill for it to be Saturday,” he says to no one in particular. He’s driving to pick up Grace…again. “I could even go for a Monday at this point.”
He’s tried everything he could think of to improve the lives of those around him. He makes sure to apologize to Rachel every morning, and he’s making progress regarding the Chin and Malia situation. He and Kono are on pretty good terms; he tells her about the time loop thing on an almost-daily basis, now. It makes things easier, knowing that someone else knows what he’s going through, even if they only know it for the next eighteen or so hours.
For reasons Danny can’t entirely justify, he hasn’t tried to tell Steve yet. Except for that one time when Steve was drunk, and that totally doesn’t count. He isn’t sure why; it isn’t as though he’ll have to live with the consequences if Steve thinks he’s completely gone off the deep end. Maybe he just isn’t prepared to deal with a patented Steve Face.
He hugs Grace when he sees her, one thing he’s never going to change. If there’s one thing he’s grateful for, it’s that this endless day happened to be one where he gets to see his daughter. Seeing her is well worth listening to her talk about Mr. Hoppy for the umpteenth time.
He must have zoned out without realizing it, because suddenly Grace is breaking the normal pattern, saying, “What’s the matter, Danno?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Danny says, realizing he wasn’t being very attentive. “It’s just…long day.”
“But the day just started,” Grace points out.
“Yeah…yeah, it did.” Danny doesn’t like to think about it.
He pulls up in front of her school, and gives her another hug. She hasn’t reached the age yet where hugs are uncool. “I love you, so much,” he says.
“I love you more,” Grace mumbles into his arm. “I hope your day gets better.”
If only. Danny watches her run inside. He’s never going to see her grow up, he realizes suddenly. As much as he dreads the day when she finds hugs from dad to be uncool, dreads how quickly she grows up, the idea of cell phones, driving, boyfriends-the thought of never getting to see any of that makes something inside him constrict painfully.
He needs to find a way out.
---
Another thing Danny realizes, when he wakes up (again) to the sound of Rachel calling him, is that he’s never going to see New Jersey again. He’s going to be trapped in an endlessly repeating loop on this pineapple-infested hellhole forever.
Okay, so maybe calling it a hellhole is a bit is harsh. He will grant that Hawaii is not as bad as he had originally thought it to be. The fact that he can surf passably well now is a definite plus.
And on second thoughts, he isn’t trapped here, necessarily. He may be repeating the same day over and over again, but there’s no rule that says he has to remain in Hawaii, right?
After answering Rachel’s call, Danny does a quick search on his phone. Ah, the wonders of technology. There’s a Continental flight leaving at 9:30, direct to Newark. It’s a ten-hour flight, but that will still give him at least eight hours in New Jersey. At this point, he’ll take it. Anything for a change of scenery.
He’s got the flight booked in minutes. He calls Kono’s phone, knowing it will go straight to voicemail, and cancels their surf lesson. Excited now, at the prospect of doing something different with his day, Danny gets ready. He leaves the house a few minutes earlier than normal, hoping to get ahead of the construction traffic he encounters every time. He stops along the way at a pay phone, calls in the anonymous tip to HPD about the bank robbery. Can’t have that happening while he’s out.
Danny goes straight to the airport after dropping Grace off at school. He doesn’t have a bag to check, so printing his boarding pass and making it through security doesn’t take too long. Soon enough, he’s sitting in his seat. It’s cramped; he has a middle section seat, and there isn’t anywhere near enough arm space, but Danny deals with it.
The flight takes off. They play the in-flight movie, some action piece that came out a few months ago. Danny tries watching for about five minutes, before giving up and trying to sleep. Because he’s always woken up twenty minutes before his alarm clock goes off, he has a perpetual feeling of not getting enough sleep.
The food sucks, the company on either side of him is awful, and after ten of the longest hours he’s experienced in this time loop, the plane lands. Danny turns his phone back on. There are several voicemails there, but he ignores them.
Danny has a moment of dissonance when he finally steps out of the airport, and it’s pitch black out and thirty degrees. He buys a jacket from one of the airport’s shops. Stupid, stupid, stupid, he thinks. Of course it’ll be cold, it isn’t Hawaii, after all. And of course he forgot to take into account the time difference. His watch says 7:30, but it’s after midnight. Too late to bother his parents, at any rate. If he were to go to their house, it would be close to 2 am by the time he got there.
Danny gets into his rental car and just drives for a while. Now that he’s here, he’ll admit he didn’t really have any sort of plan of what he wanted to do. Those plans would have been ruined anyway by the fact that the only things open at this time are gas stations and casinos. And tempting though it might be to use the time loop to his advantage in gambling, what’s the point when he wouldn’t even be able to keep any money he won?
Danny’s driving takes him to Point Pleasant Beach, where he parks at the end of the boardwalk. He gets out of the car and leans against the hood. It’s chilly, and all the shops and attractions are boarded up for the night, but it’s a strange sort of comfort to hear the distant sound of waves, something he didn’t quite realize he was missing until now.
How long Danny sits there, he isn’t sure, but it’s still dark out when another car rolls up a couple spaces next to him. Danny looks over, and oh shit, it’s Steve. He’s getting out of the car, and the look on his face is one Danny has never seen before, anger and worry and fear all rolled into this pinch-lipped expression.
A second later, and he’s got Danny by the collar of his shirt. “What was that about?” His voice is frantic. “You can’t just-you don’t…we’re a family, Danny, and you can’t just run out on that without even a word!”
And under normal circumstances, Danny might argue for argument’s sake. He might flail his arms and get in Steve’s face and clock him in the jaw for thinking he can manhandle Danny about. But he’s tired. He’s tired of this day and he’s tired of being the only one going through all of this. He’s tired, and the fight goes out of him. Steve seems to sense it immediately, too, because the anger dissipates, leaving only worry and tension. The last time Danny saw Steve this worried was…shit, the last time he got shot by Neil, when Steve was frantically pressing a shirt to Danny’s bleeding neck. Steve releases Danny’s collar, taking a half-step back.
“I’m not-” Danny begins. “I wouldn’t…leave you guys, I wouldn’t do that without warning. It’s just…this day. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try me,” Steve says, his tone dangerous.
“All right…okay, I will. But you first. How did you even get here so quickly?”
“Kono said you bailed on her this morning. She tried calling you, but you weren’t answering, so she contacted me. When neither of us could get you, I tried locating you by the GPS on your phone, but it was turned off. So, I tapped into and tracked your credit card activity.”
“Of course you did,” Danny said. He really should have expected this, after playing hooky with Grace.
“I saw that your flight had just left. I got on the next plane to LAX, and the first connecting flight to Newark from there.”
“And how did you find me here?”
“I may have…contacted some of my connections in Naval Intelligence and asked for a satellite search based on your rental car info.”
Danny nods. It all makes sense, and honestly he can’t say he’s surprised.
“Your turn,” Steve says, the look on his face implying Danny’s explanation had better be pretty damn good.
“I’m trapped in a time loop,” Danny says simply. Like a band-aid, best to do this quickly. “I’ve been repeating the same day over and over again.”
Steve’s expression darkens. “I’m serious, Danny.”
“So am I. Every morning, I wake up and it’s 5:40 am on this day. It never ends. I’ve lived through so many variations I’ve lost track. And today…today I realized I might never get to see New Jersey again, so I booked a flight.”
Steve looks dubious. Danny doesn’t blame him, but that doesn’t stop him from forging ahead.
“I know it sounds crazy, but look at me, Steve. Look me in the eye, and tell me I’m lying.”
He’s pleading and he knows it, imploring Steve to believe him. For some reason, it’s very important that Steve understand. Danny can see the moment it sets in, sees the crease between Steve’s eyebrows diminish.
“Okay,” Steve says, and Danny feels himself relax, tension he didn’t realize he’d held in dissipating. “Okay…I believe you.”
“Thank you,” Danny says. He feels weary.
“So…let me get this straight,” Steve says slowly. “You left Hawaii without warning, traveled on a ten-hour flight to get here, and the first thing you do once on Jersey soil again is go to the beach?”
“Fuck you.”
Steve raises his hands in deference. “I’m just calling it like I see it.”
“I admit to nothing,” Danny says.
They lean against the hood of the car for several minutes in companionable silence.
“Where are the waves?” Steve asks.
“It’s the East Coast, the beaches aren’t for surfing. They’re for arcade games and funnel cakes.”
“Ah.” Steve draws the syllable out longer than strictly necessary, looking out at the deserted boardwalk. “So…Groundhog Day. You tried robbing any banks yet?”
“No, though I managed to prevent one.”
A look of genuine astonishment passes over Steve’s face. “Chin mentioned something when I called him…about HPD stopping a bank robbery attempt thanks to an anonymous tip. That was you?”
“You’re welcome.”
Steve nods, suitably impressed now. “Have you tried staying awake until-when was it?-5:40 am?”
Danny levels a withering glare at him. “Please, what do you take me for? I tried that in the first week. It feels like changing a channel. One moment I’ll be doing something, and then the next I’ll be waking up to my damn phone ringing at 5:40 am.”
Danny glances at his watch. “Though…thanks to the time difference, I’ve actually got until 10:40.”
Steve pushes off the hood of the car, takes a step forward. “Well, come on, then.”
“What?”
“You traveled a third of the way around the world just to get here; did you plan on sitting there until the reset button gets hit?”
Put that way, sitting on the hood of his car in the chill, pre-dawn light did seem a bit ridiculous. They begin walking along the boardwalk. It’s quiet, except for the sound of their footsteps on the wood planks and the ocean gently rolling on the shore.
“When I was a kid, my family used to come out here every summer,” Danny says. “I would hide underneath the boardwalk and hold dollar bills up through the cracks, and then pull them down when people tried to grab them.”
Steve laughs. It’s a good sound, Danny realizes.
“By the way,” Steve says, “I don’t know if you realize, but New Jersey charges ridiculous tariffs for you to drive on their highways.”
“Ah, so I see you’ve encountered the turnpike,” Danny says with a laugh. “You get used to it. And you learn to find alternate, if more time-consuming routes.”
Soon they aren’t the only ones on the boardwalk; early morning runners are there, trying to get in a workout. Shop owners start opening up the various attractions. Danny challenges Steve to a game of mini-golf at the Castaway Cove course. Danny wins; he’s got years of experience as both a kid and now a father, and he knows all the traps on the course. Steve tries and fails to hide his Aneurysm face at losing.
Danny buys fudge and saltwater taffy from his favorite candy shop. He offers some to Steve, as a consolation prize.
“Tell me,” Danny says between bites. “If I had been coming back here for good, what was your game plan?”
Steve hesitates, and Danny recognizes that face, it’s the I-don’t-want-to-talk-about-my-feelings face. “You never do anything that impulsive,” Steve says, his voice guarded. “I knew that something had to be seriously wrong, if you were leaving without warning.”
“Uh-huh,” Danny says. “Now, what’s the real reason? Don’t lie, you know you would have missed me.”
“Yeah, so what if I would?” And there’s a challenge in Steve’s tone, one that Danny’s not sure if he wants to step up to or not.
“Would you have tried to woo me back to Hawaii with Liliha’s cocoa puffs and promises to drive no more than fifteen miles over the speed limit?”
Steve grins. “You know what? I’m not going to tell you.”
“Not fair,” Danny huffs.
“You’re a detective, you can figure it out,” Steve says. “Or, if you make it past your cutoff time, I’ll tell you.”
“I can figure it out? No, you do not get to pull that shit, not on fucking Groundhog Day. If you think I’m going to suffer that ten-hour flight again-to come all the way out here-just to test how you would react, you’ve got another thing coming.”
“I thought you liked it here?” Steve asks innocently.
“I do like it here! It’s where I grew up. Only…”
Only, the answer is on the tip of Danny’s tongue, but he can’t quite place it. Steve is looking at him expectantly, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, as though he already suspects where this is going, damn him.
Only…
---
Danny wakes up.
His phone is ringing. It’s 5:40 am.
He can still taste the echo of taffy in his mouth.
First things first, he answers Rachel’s call, agrees to take Grace to school. He gets ready, like he’s done countless times before, the actions automatic.
His mind is elsewhere. You’re a detective, you can figure it out. And Danny is mentally kicking himself. How could he have not seen it? All of his near-misses with the bank robbery and getting shot, and Steve’s reaction. The not-so-near-misses, too. Steve always offering to drive Danny home. All the times Steve had shown up when he was with Grace, and invited himself along on their plans. Steve’s desire to see Danny surfing; Steve’s reaction when he thought Danny had left for Jersey. More than a hundred Fridays he’s lived through, how could he have missed this?
“You’re slipping, Williams,” Danny mutters to himself, grabbing his surf gear as he heads out the door.
He calls Kono on the way, leaves a message that he’ll be a little late to their lesson. He stops at a payphone, calls in the anonymous tip to HPD. He doesn’t feel like encountering that particular source of stress today. This is what his life has become, a series of patterns. He can’t quite hate it entirely, however, when he sees Grace run out to greet him. He will never get tired of seeing her.
After hugging Grace and asking her to wait in the car, Danny goes up to the door to talk to Rachel. It’s a small thing, apologizing to her for the way things turned out, but it does give him some amount of catharsis every time. That, and it’s worth it for Rachel’s reaction.
He meets Kono after dropping Grace off at school. He tells Kono about the time loop, no sense in not telling her since she’s relatively easy to convince. After proving it by landing a perfect wave, Danny recounts some of the advice she’s already given him, as well as the entire trip-to-Jersey situation.
“And we’re standing on the boardwalk, and Steve’s all, ‘I thought you liked it here?’ And I do, I love Jersey, only…and that’s when I woke up, and it was today again.”
Kono, who hadn’t been at all surprised by Danny’s recounting of Steve’s behavior, says, “Only, what?”
Trust her to get right to the heart of the matter.
“Only…the more I think about it, the more I realize I’ve made a home for myself, here,” Danny finds himself saying. He isn’t normally one for heart-to-hearts, but if there’s one really good thing about this time loop, it’s that he can say what he feels without worrying about what people will think. “Going to New Jersey, it didn’t feel like going home. Something was missing. I’ll always love it, and I’ll always consider myself ‘from’ there, but my heart is here. Grace is here. And not just her, but you guys…I’ve never had a team that I cared so much about, where I always felt like someone would have my back.”
Kono grins, a wide smile that dimples at the corners, and punches him lightly on the arm. “Knew you liked it here, brah.”
“I have, on occasion, been known to be wrong,” Danny says grudgingly. “By the way…I know you don’t remember most of it, but I truly appreciate all your help with the surfing. I couldn’t have gotten as good as I am without you.”
Kono beams.
“So, are you going to tell Steve and Chin?” she asks.
Danny’s used to this. Kono has asked the same thing a handful of times on the days he tells her about the time loop, depending upon the direction their conversation takes. Usually, he waves it off, saying that he’s tried to convincing them, to no avail (which is only partly true, though Danny doesn’t count the times they believed him only because they were drunk). Today is different, though.
“Yeah, I’ve got a plan regarding that, actually. Though I may need your help.”
Kono’s smile is devious, and Danny reminds himself, not for the first or the last time, never to get on the wrong side of her designs.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got your back,” she says.
Danny checks his watch. He’s got to hurry, if he wants to get the timing right.
“I’ve got to go for now, errands to run,” he says. “Meet you at headquarters later. When I get there, I need you to keep Steve distracted while I talk to Chin. Don’t tell him anything.”
When Danny walks into the Five-0 headquarters later, Kono already has Steve engaged with some piece of heavy weaponry that she requisitioned from HPD’s armory. Suffice to say, Steve is sufficiently preoccupied. Chin is at the surface table, paging through possible leads.
“Chin, can I talk to you for a sec, in your office?”
Chin looks up, surprised. Once they’re in his office, Danny shuts the door.
“Okay, I know this is going to sound completely bizarre, but bear with me. I’m trapped in a time loop, Groundhog Day, whatever you want to call it. I’ve been repeating this day for months now.”
Chin opens his mouth, about to bring up the fact that Danny’s right, that does sound bizarre, not to mention impossible. Danny holds up a finger to halt him.
“Please, I know what you’re going to say, just let me finish. Kono can vouch for me, she believes me. Point is, I’ve been repeating this day for quite some time now, and I noticed on some occasions that you seemed down about something. Well, we’re a team, right? We watch each other’s backs. You weren’t very forthcoming at first, but after seeing your behavior, and talking to you about it…I found out that Malia was the reason you were troubled.”
Chin is still disbelieving, Danny can tell, though his eyes take on a carefully guarded look at the mention of Malia’s name. “She isn’t to blame for anything,” he says.
“Yeah, I came to realize that. Months of the same day, remember? I made the mistake initially of asking Kono about the situation, but on later days I just did my own detective work. Point being, and I’m sorry for this, I did a bit of prying. It wasn’t my intention to invade your privacy, just to find a way for you to be happy. I’m stuck in my own personal Purgatory, you see, and Kono had this theory about ‘making things right’ with those I’m closest to. Ho’oponopono.” Danny has had plenty of time to both research the practice and pronounce it correctly.
Chin gives a nod of recognition. He’s partly there, is willing to trust in what Danny is saying. He just needs a little more convincing. Danny checks his watch.
“Anyway, in exactly three minutes and twenty-three seconds, Malia is going to call your phone.”
“What?” Chin asks, eyes wide. There’s a moment of panic there, as though Chin is calculating whether or not it’s worth taking a dive out the window. Or maybe that’s just what Danny’s used to with Steve’s expressions. “What did you do? What did you tell her?”
“I arranged to have a bouquet of flowers delivered to her with the message, ‘E kala mai,’” Danny says.
“‘Forgive me,’” Chin murmurs.
“I didn’t put any name with the message, but she’ll know they’re from you. They’re purple dendrobium orchids.”
“Her favorite.”
Danny nods. “I know.” He checks his watch again. “One minute, forty-four seconds.”
There’s the edge of panic again. “Danny, I can’t do this.”
“Yes, you can, and you can hate me or thank me later. I also made you reservations for 6 pm, here,” Danny says, holding out a piece of paper. It’s the restaurant that Chin took Malia to on their first date.
Chin glances at the paper, looks up, and Danny can see that he believes him, now.
“What if this doesn’t work? What if she says no?”
“She won’t,” Danny says simply. “I’ve been repeating this day for quite a while, now…I’ve had time to get the details right. And when she calls in a minute and twenty seconds, just talk to her. Apologize for the way you handled things, and take the second chance that she’s willing to offer.”
He hugs Chin then, a quick embrace. Chin looks stunned after, though arguably most of that is from the conversation they just had. Danny gives him a quick thumbs up, and leaves the office. He goes and sits down at his own desk. Right on time, he hears the phone ring.
Steve walks up a couple minutes later. “So,” he says, casually, though his demeanor suggests the opposite. “You were at the beach this morning. Kono says you’ve been getting pretty good.”
Danny shrugs, his manner just as insouciant as Steve’s. “She’s the expert.”
Steve pouts-and yes, that is a definite pout. Danny wonders why he didn’t notice it earlier. He tells himself he’s not supposed to find it endearing. “C’mon, Danny, I want the chance to see you surf.”
Danny gives a very put-upon sigh. “Well, I suppose, as I’m no longer at risk of completely embarrassing myself, you could come along next time. It would put to rest your comments that I can’t swim.”
Steve’s got his Boyishly Ecstatic face out, and Danny can’t help but grin in response.
Danny doesn’t try to tell Steve that afternoon. Kono shoots him pointed look, but he ignores it. He’ll do this on his own time, damn it, and he wants to wait until later.
Danny pretends to occupy himself throughout the afternoon, all the while steeling himself for what he’s going to say.
The thing about Steve is, he may think he’s stoic and carefully guarded, but for someone who rarely shares his feelings, he’s surprisingly easy to read. He wears his emotions on his sleeve, his facial expressions hiding nothing. It just took Danny a while to recognize that Steve’s panic (on the days when Danny got shot), his concern (on the days Danny played hooky with Grace and wasn’t answering his phone), his relief (when he realized Danny wasn’t planning on uprooting to Jersey again) went deeper than on strictly a friendship level.
If anything, it was his own feelings regarding Steve that he was out of touch with. He wasn’t blind, he knew Steve was good-looking, but that wasn’t what this was about. Steve had worked his way into Danny’s life, to the point where-if he was honest with himself-the real reason he wouldn’t go back to Jersey was because of Steve. Grace was the reason he had come to Hawaii, yes, and the reason he stayed, and he loved her more than anything. But Steve…Steve had made being here worthwhile, had made it enjoyable. Steve was like a gravitational force, pulling him in, and he had no desire to resist that pull any longer.
When it becomes clear they aren’t getting any interesting cases for the day (thank you, Detective Williams, Danny thinks to himself), Steve gives them permission to leave early. Chin seems nervous, probably about his date later that evening, and Danny gives him an encouraging pat on the shoulder.
“You need a ride home, Danny?” Steve asks.
Way to be obvious, I don’t even have an injury for plausible deniability’s sake, Danny thinks. “You know, I did drive myself here.”
Steve seems momentarily crestfallen. Danny takes pity on him.
“Better idea,” Danny says. “How about I give you a ride back to yours? You owe me a beer or three.”
“Sounds great,” Steve says, flashing a smile. Danny tells himself that it isn’t completely adorable.
Kono, across the room, raises an eyebrow. Danny can feel how pointed her gaze is. Fortunately, she says nothing.
Danny is nervous the entire drive over, even though he tells himself he has no reason to be. Anything he messes up he can repeat. Of course, there’s always the chance he misinterpreted the cues Steve was giving him, and he might be setting himself up for a fist to the jaw.
“Something the matter, Danny?” Steve asks as they pull into the driveway.
You don’t know the half of it. “Why do you ask?”
“Because you’ve never been this quiet in the car before.”
Point. “Long day,” Danny says vaguely. He doesn’t want to have this conversation here.
Steve doesn’t press the matter, but there’s a crease of worry between his eyebrows. A couple minutes later, they’re inside, each with an open bottle of beer. They’re standing in the kitchen, and Steve keeps looking at Danny expectantly; Danny realizes he’s acting strange, is never this quiet anywhere, but he just needs a second to collect his thoughts, okay.
“All right, want to hear a funny story? Well, the funny part is subjective,” Danny says. “I woke up one morning. Just your seemingly average day, except for the fact that I was woken up early by a phone call from my ex-wife. I drove my daughter to school, I had a surf lesson with Kono, I came to work. A bank robbery happened. I got shot, but no worries, I was wearing my vest. All in all, my day could have gone better, but considering my track record since I met you, far from the worst.”
“What does this have to do with the way you’ve been acting today?”
“Will you just let me finish, please? Thank you. Anyway, I go to bed. Next morning goes the same as the one before, only I notice, hey, my injury from the previous day is gone. That’s a bit strange, but there’s always the possibility I could have been dreaming. Whatever. I go about my day, same stuff happens, I go to bed.”
“This had better have a point soon, Danny,” Steve says, his no-bullshit face on.
Danny continues, heedless. “Next morning, I wake up. It’s the same day. Every single day, the same as the one before, over and over again. It never ends.”
He’s staring at his beer now, not looking at Steve, not quite sure he wants to know what he’ll see there. He risks a glance upwards now. Steve’s brows are furrowed, his expression part confusion, part disbelief. He’s assessing the situation, but Danny doesn’t know how this is going to play out. This variable is a new one.
Steve crosses his arms. “You realize that what you’re saying is impossible, right?”
Danny laughs, can’t help it. The sounds comes out strained and desperate. “Don’t I know it,” he says, rubbing at his temple with his free hand. “I know, okay? I know that what I’m saying-what I’m trying to convince you of-is completely outside the realm of physical possibility. But it’s the truth, alright? I’m telling you the truth.”
“I don’t know, Danny…” Steve trails off.
Danny lets out a defeated sigh. He doesn’t know why he thought convincing Steve would be easier this time around. “You believed me last time,” he says, mostly to himself.
“Okay,” Steve says slowly. “Hypothetically speaking, if what you’re saying is true, what was it you said or did ‘last time’ that convinced me?”
Danny laughs to himself. “I’d just travelled on a ten-hour flight to New Jersey. You followed, wanted to convince me to come back. I explained that I’d only done it because, thanks to the time loop, I was worried I’d never see Jersey again. You believed me, because it was the only excuse for the irrationality of my behavior.”
Steve’s gone visibly tense at the mere mention of Danny leaving Hawaii. But really, that doesn’t surprise Danny in the slightest; the guy hopped on a plan to follow him. That sort of behavior is standard when it comes to Steve. Danny’s mind is occupied with another detail, with the fact Steve believed him on the previous day, because he thought Danny’s actions to be irrational. Danny, who is always the one to talk Steve down from stupid behavior, did something impulsive.
“You know what?” Danny says, setting down his beer on the counter. “If you don’t believe me, that’s fine. It’s okay, it doesn’t matter. Believe this.”
And then he’s moving in, barely giving Steve time to react. He gets his hands on Steve’s face, thumbs tracing the line of stubble, and then pulls him down into a kiss. It’s impulsive, it’s hard and fast and fierce. It’s a little uncomfortable, but great at the same time. Then Steve opens his mouth, and it turns into something wonderful, Steve slowing the pace down somewhat as he deepens the kiss. And Danny wants to laugh, really he does, that Steve of all people wants to kiss more slowly. But Danny goes with it, because it’s taken him this long to realize how much he wants this. Even knowing he’ll have the chance to repeat this again, Danny still wants to commit this moment, this day, to memory.
Steve pulls back, far enough that their lips are parted, but their foreheads are touching. “I believe you, Danny…I believe you,” he says softly.
“Yeah,” Danny murmurs. “Wait…what? That’s what it took to convince you?” He pulls back.
There’s a flicker of guilt in Steve’s eyes, and he suddenly seems to find the countertop pattern fascinating. “Uhh, that is…Kono told me everything. I was waiting to see if you would tell me on your own.”
“She what?!” Danny sputters, indignant. “But she-I told her not to tell…She said she had my back.”
Steve’s trying to soothe Danny, pulling him back in, but Danny is bristling with annoyance. “She seemed concerned that you might-ah, how did she put it?-use your knowledge gained by the time loop to take advantage of me.”
“‘Take advantage of you’? You’re not a blushing virgin. And that she would think that I-” Danny stammers, words failing him. “And you! You knew this entire time, and you let me carry on with that charade of telling you!”
Steve shrugs, unapologetic. “I admit, I was a bit curious to see how you’d try to convince me.”
Danny gapes, incensed. Steve takes the opportunity to lean back in and mouth along Danny’s jaw. “I can’t believe I find you attractive,” Danny bemoans.
Steve tilts his head, grinning smugly. “So, you’re admitting you do find me attractive?”
Danny is pulling at the hem of Steve’s t-shirt, running his hands underneath and against the taut muscles of Steve’s abdomen. “What kind of a question is that, huh? Of course, why else would I be kissing you?”
Steve shrugs. “Time loop? Because there aren’t any consequences?” He says it casually, but Danny can see the way Steve tenses at the possibility.
“What are you-Is that what you think this is?” Danny asks, pushing Steve back so he can properly see his face. “Look at me-no, look, you overgrown man-child. I don’t know how much Kono told you, but I’ve been stuck on repeat for a while now. A long time…and it’s given me some time to think. And I realized something, during that time. Yeah, I’ve done a lot of things without regard for consequences, like taking a ten-hour flight to New Jersey, or pulling Grace out of school for the day just to spend time with her.”
He pauses, making sure Steve’s following, because Danny needs him to trust, to understand this next bit.
“But what I realized is, somehow everything kept coming back to you. No matter what crazy things I did, you were a constant in my life. I’m not sure how or when it happened, or if it was always that way and I’m only just now realizing it, but it’s the truth. And yeah, this time loop might have given me the courage to make that first move and kiss you, but I’m not doing this because I’ll have a blank slate the moment I wake up. You got that?”
“Yeah, Danny,” Steve says, smiling fondly. “Yeah, I got that.”
Steve leans down, kisses Danny again, slowly at first. Now that they’ve got a rhythm going, things speed up pretty quickly. Steve presses against Danny, and he pushes right back, forcing Steve backwards until he’s braced against the counter.
“Off, get this off,” Danny mutters, tugging at Steve’s shirt hem again.
Steve pulls his shirt off as Danny slides down his torso, licking and nibbling at the planes of his stomach. He nuzzles the smattering of hair he finds there, then thumbs open the button and zipper on Steve’s cargo pants. Steve’s cock is hard in his boxer-briefs, and Danny tugs down the grey cotton until he can pull it out. Steve shivers at the contact, making a small noise of protest-“Hey, you’ve still got your clothes-” which quickly gets cut off as Danny closes his mouth over the head of Steve’s cock.
He takes it in as far as he can go, working his hand where his mouth won’t reach. Steve groans, head falling back, exposing the long line of his throat. Danny releases Steve’s cock for a moment.
“Look at me, Steve,” he says.
Steve’s breath hitches, and he leans his head forward, watching Danny. Danny grins, flicks his tongue out to taste precome, swirls it around the head, before swallowing Steve’s cock again. The angle is a little awkward, but it’s worth it to see the way Steve’s pupils are blown wide with arousal. One of Steve’s hands is gripping the edge of the countertop tightly, and the other comes down to twine in Danny’s hair. It isn’t forceful, but Danny leans in all the same, trying to take Steve deeper, groaning around the weight of him in his mouth.
“Fuck, Danny,” Steve grates out.
Danny loves this, loves watching Steve come undone. And to think he could have had this-that Steve wanted this-over a hundred Fridays ago…well, better late than never. He just needed time to realize the signals Steve was sending his way.
Steve tugs at his hair, mutters, “Danny, Danny, I’m gonna-”
Danny just grips Steve’s hips tighter, holds on until Steve is coming down his throat. He swallows around Steve’s cock, nuzzles him through the aftershocks. Steve shudders as Danny slides off and gets to his feet.
“C’mere,” Steve says, grabbing Danny’s tie and pulling him forward.
Steve kisses him forcefully, chasing the taste of himself across Danny’s tongue.
“You sure you haven’t done this before? Another day in your time loop?” Steve asks, voice breathy.
“Babe, are you saying I blew your mind?” Danny can’t help the grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.
Steve laughs. “Not as much as I’m gonna blow yours,” he says, low and dangerous.
“Is that a promise, Steven?”
Steve’s response is to pull Danny forward by his tie, tugging as he walks backward through the kitchen and into the living room. He pulls the tie free of its knot, tossing it until it lands on the back of the couch. Their progression is halted momentarily as both of them try to undo each other’s clothes at once.
“No, I got-let me…”
“Jesus, Danny, just go with it.”
Finally, they’re fully naked, and Steve crowds into Danny’s space, gets him onto the couch and on his back. Danny groans at the contact of skin on skin, loves the feel of Steve braced above him. They kiss for a while, and that’s good-great, even-but Danny seems to remember a promise to have his mind blown.
“How long?” Danny asks.
“Hmm?” Steve hums against Danny’s throat, and it’s almost enough to distract him again.
“How long…have you wanted this?”
Steve seems surprised at the question, though he’s quick enough to come up with the answer. “Almost as long as I’ve known you,” he says. A small huff of laughter escapes him. “I admit, I thought about all sorts of things I would do to you involving your ties.”
Danny raises an eyebrow. “Oh? Do continue, please. Don’t withhold information on my account.”
Steve grins, a devious glint in his eye. “Well, there was the obvious…tying you down to the bed.”
Danny’s breath hitches at the mental image that produces, being spread out and restrained beneath Steve’s fingertips.
“And then, there were plenty of times I considered using one as a makeshift gag to shut you up.”
“You aren’t the first or the last person to think of that one, babe. C’mon, something a little more creative,” Danny says, the challenge heavy in his tone.
“Well, in that case,” Steve says, trailing off as he moves down Danny’s torso. He grabs Danny’s tie from where it’s draped over the couch back. Then, with a glance back up the couch to make sure Danny is watching, he wraps the tie in a loose hold once, twice, around Danny’s cock. He begins to jack Danny through the material.
“Oh, fuck,” Danny exhales, head falling back on the armrest.
The silk of the tie as it slides up and down the length of his cock feels fantastic. Steve varies his pace until he finds one that works, his wrist twisting on the upstroke in a move that makes Danny’s hips stutter with pleasure. He doesn’t think he’ll last long, but then the bastard uses his free hand to tug the ends of the tie until it’s snug around the base of his cock. Not tight, but snug enough that he won’t be coming anytime soon.
Steve ducks his head, licking at the head of Danny’s cock, teasing at first, before taking him in, soaking the edges of the tie. Danny makes a noise that is completely undignified.
“Nngh…fuck, Steve,” He groans, wanting to make a snarky comment on Steve’s creative use of ties but managing only, “Fucking-fuck me.”
Steve pulls his head up, and Danny totally does not whimper at the loss.
“I, uh…don’t have any supplies here. They’re all upstairs,” he says, sheepish-as sheepish as one can look when that someone had just been sucking cock.
“Oh my god, you totally and completely fail as a Boy Scout forever,” Danny complains, and then makes a flailing gesture with his hand. “Pants, my pants. Back pocket.”
Steve disappears a moment from Danny’s field of vision, and then he’s back, waving the condom and lube sachet. “Danny Williams, are you sure you weren’t planning on taking advantage of me?”
“Oh for fuck’s-I swear, if you don’t get your fingers in my ass sometime in the next twenty seconds, I will honestly snap, and shoot you in the face.”
“I’m just pointing out that this was clearly premeditated…”
“In. The. Face.”
That gets Steve moving, though whether it’s because of his own impatience or because Danny’s threat had any impact is hard to tell. He slicks his fingers and slides one in. Danny forces himself to relax, accommodate the change. Steve’s being considerate, taking his time, but after a few seconds of that Danny mutters, “Another, come on.”
“Stop being so bossy,” Steve says, but adds another finger.
Danny draws in a sharp breath. “Wouldn’t…be me if I wasn’t.” The fingers inside him twist, crooking upwards. “Oh, yeah.”
Once Danny’s loose, Steve pulls his fingers free. He’s hard again, and he rolls the condom on, using the rest of the lube sachet to slick himself up. Then he lines himself up and presses forward. Danny groans, letting out the breath he’s holding, as Steve slides in. Steve pauses a moment, as if to gain his bearings, and then he begins to move. Danny bears his hips down, trying to take Steve in deeper.
After a few moments, Steve brings one of his hands to Danny’s cock, still wrapped up in the tie. He grips it again through the material, and begins jacking it hard and fast. That’s what does it for Danny, sending him over the edge as he shoots across his belly. Danny’s orgasm has Steve faltering, and after several short thrusts he’s shuddering, letting out a low, broken noise.
Steve holds himself there for a moment, unmoving, before pulling out, disposing of the condom, and slumping down on top of Danny. He nuzzles at Danny’s collarbone, and while Danny would be perfectly content to remain that way for the remainder of the night, their bellies are sticky with come.
“Steve,” he says, pushing at Steve’s shoulder. “Hey, c’mon, get up.”
Steve makes an unintelligible sound, burrowing his face deeper against Danny’s neck.
“Not that I don’t love you boneless and all, but any chance we could move this someplace more comfortable?”
“Mmm, comfy here,” Steve murmurs, but there’s a smug smile tugging at the corners of his mouth that says he knows just how difficult he’s being.
Danny’s trying to shove Steve off him. “What are you, some kind of octopus man? Do you grow extra limbs when no one’s looking? Off. Bed, now. I want to make the most of the time I still have, and I plan on coming at least once more tonight. Preferably, I want to keep going until we both pass out from exhaustion.”
Steve lifts his head, waggles his eyebrows suggestively. “I can get behind that idea.”
“Oh, for the love of-you think you’re so clever, don’t you? I don’t even know why I’m attracted to you.”
Steve is laughing, getting off the couch and pulling Danny to his feet. He leans in, kisses Danny quick and deep, and Danny tries to ignore the way it feels like a goodbye, tries to forget the fact that they won’t have this when he wakes up.
But then Steve pulls back, and whatever had passed over him momentarily is gone now, replaced by a fond smile. He leads the way upstairs, and Danny can’t help but follow.
---
The sunrise is bright against Danny’s eyelids, easing him gently into wakefulness. He blinks his eyes blearily a few times, disoriented. For the first time in longer than he can remember, he isn’t waking up with a sore back. It’s that detail that clears his head. He tenses instantly. No phone call from Rachel waking him up, no 5:40 am, no dingy apartment ceiling above him.
He’s in a bed. Steve’s bed, as the details from last night-last night, yesterday-all rush back to him.
“I’m still here,” Danny says, feeling dazed.
The bed shifts, and Steve stretches an arm across Danny’s torso. “Were you planning on going anywhere?” he mumbles, half asleep.
A brief wave of panic grips him. Him, and Steve…last night. And now, where do they stand? He meant everything he said last night, but he had still been expecting to wake up and have it be the same day. He had never dared to hope…
“I’m still here,” Danny repeats, because he can’t seem to get past that. “Steve, I’m still here.”
Steve’s waking up now, and Danny sees the moment it dawns on him.
“It’s tomorrow,” Danny says. “Today…it’s Saturday.”
Steve goes tense then, as the implication of that sinks in for him. “So it is,” he says, and his voice sounds way too cautious for comfort. “Any regrets?”
Danny gapes at him-because no, no way in hell is he going to pull that, not after last night.
“What did I tell you, huh? What part of I wanted this do you not understand? Was it when I was telling you about my epiphany-that sometime during the last year and who knows how many repeated days I realized, hey, my life partly revolves around you?”
“I heard you last night,” Steve says, but he still isn’t meeting Danny’s eyes. “I just-I didn’t think-…”
Danny realizes the reason for Steve’s wariness. He’s self-conscious, worried that Danny doesn’t feel the same way. And it’s stupid, completely ridiculous, that Steve would feel that way…but also a little endearing.
“No, you didn’t,” Danny agrees, unable to keep from smiling. “You’re just…you are so goofy sometimes, you know that? I love you, but you’re emotionally stunted.”
Steve perks up. “What did you say?”
“You heard me. Want to make something of it?”
Steve’s moving then, pinning Danny beneath him and kissing him almost senseless. They’re both sore in awkward places from last night, they both need a shower and to brush their teeth, but right now it’s the best feeling Danny’s ever had.
“Wait, wait a second,” Danny says when Steve pulls back. “Oh my god, is that all it took? Was us having sex all that was needed for the universe to set itself to rights?” He’s appalled. All those Fridays, when if he’d only gotten a clue sooner…
“I’m flattered you think sex with me could have that much effect on the inner workings of the universe,” Steve says, grinning broadly, “but it probably has more to do with what you told Kono, about considering Hawaii your home now.”
“I said no such-…Oh, god, I can’t tell her anything, can I?” Danny complains, though there’s no animosity in his tone. “You’re going to be insufferable now, aren’t you?”
Steve laughs, and leans down to kiss him again. It’s warm and welcoming; it feels like relief and love and home. And yeah, Danny thinks, as he shifts them so they’re both on their sides, he could get used to this.
Fandom: Hawaii Five-0
Pairing: Steve/Danny (background Chin/Malia)
Word Count: 17,047
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Groundhog Day AU. Danny finds himself trapped in the same day over and over again.
Notes: This story has pretty much ruled my life the last couple weeks. Thank you to sirona_gs for the wonderful beta job. Any remaining mistakes are mine. Also, thank you to annundriel and sycophantastic for offering advice and being generally supportive and awesome. :)
Part 1 is HERE
This story is also at AO3
---
Danny’s not trying to be fatalistic, really, he’s not, but sometimes he thinks he’ll never get out of this Friday.
“I would kill for it to be Saturday,” he says to no one in particular. He’s driving to pick up Grace…again. “I could even go for a Monday at this point.”
He’s tried everything he could think of to improve the lives of those around him. He makes sure to apologize to Rachel every morning, and he’s making progress regarding the Chin and Malia situation. He and Kono are on pretty good terms; he tells her about the time loop thing on an almost-daily basis, now. It makes things easier, knowing that someone else knows what he’s going through, even if they only know it for the next eighteen or so hours.
For reasons Danny can’t entirely justify, he hasn’t tried to tell Steve yet. Except for that one time when Steve was drunk, and that totally doesn’t count. He isn’t sure why; it isn’t as though he’ll have to live with the consequences if Steve thinks he’s completely gone off the deep end. Maybe he just isn’t prepared to deal with a patented Steve Face.
He hugs Grace when he sees her, one thing he’s never going to change. If there’s one thing he’s grateful for, it’s that this endless day happened to be one where he gets to see his daughter. Seeing her is well worth listening to her talk about Mr. Hoppy for the umpteenth time.
He must have zoned out without realizing it, because suddenly Grace is breaking the normal pattern, saying, “What’s the matter, Danno?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Danny says, realizing he wasn’t being very attentive. “It’s just…long day.”
“But the day just started,” Grace points out.
“Yeah…yeah, it did.” Danny doesn’t like to think about it.
He pulls up in front of her school, and gives her another hug. She hasn’t reached the age yet where hugs are uncool. “I love you, so much,” he says.
“I love you more,” Grace mumbles into his arm. “I hope your day gets better.”
If only. Danny watches her run inside. He’s never going to see her grow up, he realizes suddenly. As much as he dreads the day when she finds hugs from dad to be uncool, dreads how quickly she grows up, the idea of cell phones, driving, boyfriends-the thought of never getting to see any of that makes something inside him constrict painfully.
He needs to find a way out.
---
Another thing Danny realizes, when he wakes up (again) to the sound of Rachel calling him, is that he’s never going to see New Jersey again. He’s going to be trapped in an endlessly repeating loop on this pineapple-infested hellhole forever.
Okay, so maybe calling it a hellhole is a bit is harsh. He will grant that Hawaii is not as bad as he had originally thought it to be. The fact that he can surf passably well now is a definite plus.
And on second thoughts, he isn’t trapped here, necessarily. He may be repeating the same day over and over again, but there’s no rule that says he has to remain in Hawaii, right?
After answering Rachel’s call, Danny does a quick search on his phone. Ah, the wonders of technology. There’s a Continental flight leaving at 9:30, direct to Newark. It’s a ten-hour flight, but that will still give him at least eight hours in New Jersey. At this point, he’ll take it. Anything for a change of scenery.
He’s got the flight booked in minutes. He calls Kono’s phone, knowing it will go straight to voicemail, and cancels their surf lesson. Excited now, at the prospect of doing something different with his day, Danny gets ready. He leaves the house a few minutes earlier than normal, hoping to get ahead of the construction traffic he encounters every time. He stops along the way at a pay phone, calls in the anonymous tip to HPD about the bank robbery. Can’t have that happening while he’s out.
Danny goes straight to the airport after dropping Grace off at school. He doesn’t have a bag to check, so printing his boarding pass and making it through security doesn’t take too long. Soon enough, he’s sitting in his seat. It’s cramped; he has a middle section seat, and there isn’t anywhere near enough arm space, but Danny deals with it.
The flight takes off. They play the in-flight movie, some action piece that came out a few months ago. Danny tries watching for about five minutes, before giving up and trying to sleep. Because he’s always woken up twenty minutes before his alarm clock goes off, he has a perpetual feeling of not getting enough sleep.
The food sucks, the company on either side of him is awful, and after ten of the longest hours he’s experienced in this time loop, the plane lands. Danny turns his phone back on. There are several voicemails there, but he ignores them.
Danny has a moment of dissonance when he finally steps out of the airport, and it’s pitch black out and thirty degrees. He buys a jacket from one of the airport’s shops. Stupid, stupid, stupid, he thinks. Of course it’ll be cold, it isn’t Hawaii, after all. And of course he forgot to take into account the time difference. His watch says 7:30, but it’s after midnight. Too late to bother his parents, at any rate. If he were to go to their house, it would be close to 2 am by the time he got there.
Danny gets into his rental car and just drives for a while. Now that he’s here, he’ll admit he didn’t really have any sort of plan of what he wanted to do. Those plans would have been ruined anyway by the fact that the only things open at this time are gas stations and casinos. And tempting though it might be to use the time loop to his advantage in gambling, what’s the point when he wouldn’t even be able to keep any money he won?
Danny’s driving takes him to Point Pleasant Beach, where he parks at the end of the boardwalk. He gets out of the car and leans against the hood. It’s chilly, and all the shops and attractions are boarded up for the night, but it’s a strange sort of comfort to hear the distant sound of waves, something he didn’t quite realize he was missing until now.
How long Danny sits there, he isn’t sure, but it’s still dark out when another car rolls up a couple spaces next to him. Danny looks over, and oh shit, it’s Steve. He’s getting out of the car, and the look on his face is one Danny has never seen before, anger and worry and fear all rolled into this pinch-lipped expression.
A second later, and he’s got Danny by the collar of his shirt. “What was that about?” His voice is frantic. “You can’t just-you don’t…we’re a family, Danny, and you can’t just run out on that without even a word!”
And under normal circumstances, Danny might argue for argument’s sake. He might flail his arms and get in Steve’s face and clock him in the jaw for thinking he can manhandle Danny about. But he’s tired. He’s tired of this day and he’s tired of being the only one going through all of this. He’s tired, and the fight goes out of him. Steve seems to sense it immediately, too, because the anger dissipates, leaving only worry and tension. The last time Danny saw Steve this worried was…shit, the last time he got shot by Neil, when Steve was frantically pressing a shirt to Danny’s bleeding neck. Steve releases Danny’s collar, taking a half-step back.
“I’m not-” Danny begins. “I wouldn’t…leave you guys, I wouldn’t do that without warning. It’s just…this day. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try me,” Steve says, his tone dangerous.
“All right…okay, I will. But you first. How did you even get here so quickly?”
“Kono said you bailed on her this morning. She tried calling you, but you weren’t answering, so she contacted me. When neither of us could get you, I tried locating you by the GPS on your phone, but it was turned off. So, I tapped into and tracked your credit card activity.”
“Of course you did,” Danny said. He really should have expected this, after playing hooky with Grace.
“I saw that your flight had just left. I got on the next plane to LAX, and the first connecting flight to Newark from there.”
“And how did you find me here?”
“I may have…contacted some of my connections in Naval Intelligence and asked for a satellite search based on your rental car info.”
Danny nods. It all makes sense, and honestly he can’t say he’s surprised.
“Your turn,” Steve says, the look on his face implying Danny’s explanation had better be pretty damn good.
“I’m trapped in a time loop,” Danny says simply. Like a band-aid, best to do this quickly. “I’ve been repeating the same day over and over again.”
Steve’s expression darkens. “I’m serious, Danny.”
“So am I. Every morning, I wake up and it’s 5:40 am on this day. It never ends. I’ve lived through so many variations I’ve lost track. And today…today I realized I might never get to see New Jersey again, so I booked a flight.”
Steve looks dubious. Danny doesn’t blame him, but that doesn’t stop him from forging ahead.
“I know it sounds crazy, but look at me, Steve. Look me in the eye, and tell me I’m lying.”
He’s pleading and he knows it, imploring Steve to believe him. For some reason, it’s very important that Steve understand. Danny can see the moment it sets in, sees the crease between Steve’s eyebrows diminish.
“Okay,” Steve says, and Danny feels himself relax, tension he didn’t realize he’d held in dissipating. “Okay…I believe you.”
“Thank you,” Danny says. He feels weary.
“So…let me get this straight,” Steve says slowly. “You left Hawaii without warning, traveled on a ten-hour flight to get here, and the first thing you do once on Jersey soil again is go to the beach?”
“Fuck you.”
Steve raises his hands in deference. “I’m just calling it like I see it.”
“I admit to nothing,” Danny says.
They lean against the hood of the car for several minutes in companionable silence.
“Where are the waves?” Steve asks.
“It’s the East Coast, the beaches aren’t for surfing. They’re for arcade games and funnel cakes.”
“Ah.” Steve draws the syllable out longer than strictly necessary, looking out at the deserted boardwalk. “So…Groundhog Day. You tried robbing any banks yet?”
“No, though I managed to prevent one.”
A look of genuine astonishment passes over Steve’s face. “Chin mentioned something when I called him…about HPD stopping a bank robbery attempt thanks to an anonymous tip. That was you?”
“You’re welcome.”
Steve nods, suitably impressed now. “Have you tried staying awake until-when was it?-5:40 am?”
Danny levels a withering glare at him. “Please, what do you take me for? I tried that in the first week. It feels like changing a channel. One moment I’ll be doing something, and then the next I’ll be waking up to my damn phone ringing at 5:40 am.”
Danny glances at his watch. “Though…thanks to the time difference, I’ve actually got until 10:40.”
Steve pushes off the hood of the car, takes a step forward. “Well, come on, then.”
“What?”
“You traveled a third of the way around the world just to get here; did you plan on sitting there until the reset button gets hit?”
Put that way, sitting on the hood of his car in the chill, pre-dawn light did seem a bit ridiculous. They begin walking along the boardwalk. It’s quiet, except for the sound of their footsteps on the wood planks and the ocean gently rolling on the shore.
“When I was a kid, my family used to come out here every summer,” Danny says. “I would hide underneath the boardwalk and hold dollar bills up through the cracks, and then pull them down when people tried to grab them.”
Steve laughs. It’s a good sound, Danny realizes.
“By the way,” Steve says, “I don’t know if you realize, but New Jersey charges ridiculous tariffs for you to drive on their highways.”
“Ah, so I see you’ve encountered the turnpike,” Danny says with a laugh. “You get used to it. And you learn to find alternate, if more time-consuming routes.”
Soon they aren’t the only ones on the boardwalk; early morning runners are there, trying to get in a workout. Shop owners start opening up the various attractions. Danny challenges Steve to a game of mini-golf at the Castaway Cove course. Danny wins; he’s got years of experience as both a kid and now a father, and he knows all the traps on the course. Steve tries and fails to hide his Aneurysm face at losing.
Danny buys fudge and saltwater taffy from his favorite candy shop. He offers some to Steve, as a consolation prize.
“Tell me,” Danny says between bites. “If I had been coming back here for good, what was your game plan?”
Steve hesitates, and Danny recognizes that face, it’s the I-don’t-want-to-talk-about-my-feelings face. “You never do anything that impulsive,” Steve says, his voice guarded. “I knew that something had to be seriously wrong, if you were leaving without warning.”
“Uh-huh,” Danny says. “Now, what’s the real reason? Don’t lie, you know you would have missed me.”
“Yeah, so what if I would?” And there’s a challenge in Steve’s tone, one that Danny’s not sure if he wants to step up to or not.
“Would you have tried to woo me back to Hawaii with Liliha’s cocoa puffs and promises to drive no more than fifteen miles over the speed limit?”
Steve grins. “You know what? I’m not going to tell you.”
“Not fair,” Danny huffs.
“You’re a detective, you can figure it out,” Steve says. “Or, if you make it past your cutoff time, I’ll tell you.”
“I can figure it out? No, you do not get to pull that shit, not on fucking Groundhog Day. If you think I’m going to suffer that ten-hour flight again-to come all the way out here-just to test how you would react, you’ve got another thing coming.”
“I thought you liked it here?” Steve asks innocently.
“I do like it here! It’s where I grew up. Only…”
Only, the answer is on the tip of Danny’s tongue, but he can’t quite place it. Steve is looking at him expectantly, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, as though he already suspects where this is going, damn him.
Only…
---
Danny wakes up.
His phone is ringing. It’s 5:40 am.
He can still taste the echo of taffy in his mouth.
First things first, he answers Rachel’s call, agrees to take Grace to school. He gets ready, like he’s done countless times before, the actions automatic.
His mind is elsewhere. You’re a detective, you can figure it out. And Danny is mentally kicking himself. How could he have not seen it? All of his near-misses with the bank robbery and getting shot, and Steve’s reaction. The not-so-near-misses, too. Steve always offering to drive Danny home. All the times Steve had shown up when he was with Grace, and invited himself along on their plans. Steve’s desire to see Danny surfing; Steve’s reaction when he thought Danny had left for Jersey. More than a hundred Fridays he’s lived through, how could he have missed this?
“You’re slipping, Williams,” Danny mutters to himself, grabbing his surf gear as he heads out the door.
He calls Kono on the way, leaves a message that he’ll be a little late to their lesson. He stops at a payphone, calls in the anonymous tip to HPD. He doesn’t feel like encountering that particular source of stress today. This is what his life has become, a series of patterns. He can’t quite hate it entirely, however, when he sees Grace run out to greet him. He will never get tired of seeing her.
After hugging Grace and asking her to wait in the car, Danny goes up to the door to talk to Rachel. It’s a small thing, apologizing to her for the way things turned out, but it does give him some amount of catharsis every time. That, and it’s worth it for Rachel’s reaction.
He meets Kono after dropping Grace off at school. He tells Kono about the time loop, no sense in not telling her since she’s relatively easy to convince. After proving it by landing a perfect wave, Danny recounts some of the advice she’s already given him, as well as the entire trip-to-Jersey situation.
“And we’re standing on the boardwalk, and Steve’s all, ‘I thought you liked it here?’ And I do, I love Jersey, only…and that’s when I woke up, and it was today again.”
Kono, who hadn’t been at all surprised by Danny’s recounting of Steve’s behavior, says, “Only, what?”
Trust her to get right to the heart of the matter.
“Only…the more I think about it, the more I realize I’ve made a home for myself, here,” Danny finds himself saying. He isn’t normally one for heart-to-hearts, but if there’s one really good thing about this time loop, it’s that he can say what he feels without worrying about what people will think. “Going to New Jersey, it didn’t feel like going home. Something was missing. I’ll always love it, and I’ll always consider myself ‘from’ there, but my heart is here. Grace is here. And not just her, but you guys…I’ve never had a team that I cared so much about, where I always felt like someone would have my back.”
Kono grins, a wide smile that dimples at the corners, and punches him lightly on the arm. “Knew you liked it here, brah.”
“I have, on occasion, been known to be wrong,” Danny says grudgingly. “By the way…I know you don’t remember most of it, but I truly appreciate all your help with the surfing. I couldn’t have gotten as good as I am without you.”
Kono beams.
“So, are you going to tell Steve and Chin?” she asks.
Danny’s used to this. Kono has asked the same thing a handful of times on the days he tells her about the time loop, depending upon the direction their conversation takes. Usually, he waves it off, saying that he’s tried to convincing them, to no avail (which is only partly true, though Danny doesn’t count the times they believed him only because they were drunk). Today is different, though.
“Yeah, I’ve got a plan regarding that, actually. Though I may need your help.”
Kono’s smile is devious, and Danny reminds himself, not for the first or the last time, never to get on the wrong side of her designs.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got your back,” she says.
Danny checks his watch. He’s got to hurry, if he wants to get the timing right.
“I’ve got to go for now, errands to run,” he says. “Meet you at headquarters later. When I get there, I need you to keep Steve distracted while I talk to Chin. Don’t tell him anything.”
When Danny walks into the Five-0 headquarters later, Kono already has Steve engaged with some piece of heavy weaponry that she requisitioned from HPD’s armory. Suffice to say, Steve is sufficiently preoccupied. Chin is at the surface table, paging through possible leads.
“Chin, can I talk to you for a sec, in your office?”
Chin looks up, surprised. Once they’re in his office, Danny shuts the door.
“Okay, I know this is going to sound completely bizarre, but bear with me. I’m trapped in a time loop, Groundhog Day, whatever you want to call it. I’ve been repeating this day for months now.”
Chin opens his mouth, about to bring up the fact that Danny’s right, that does sound bizarre, not to mention impossible. Danny holds up a finger to halt him.
“Please, I know what you’re going to say, just let me finish. Kono can vouch for me, she believes me. Point is, I’ve been repeating this day for quite some time now, and I noticed on some occasions that you seemed down about something. Well, we’re a team, right? We watch each other’s backs. You weren’t very forthcoming at first, but after seeing your behavior, and talking to you about it…I found out that Malia was the reason you were troubled.”
Chin is still disbelieving, Danny can tell, though his eyes take on a carefully guarded look at the mention of Malia’s name. “She isn’t to blame for anything,” he says.
“Yeah, I came to realize that. Months of the same day, remember? I made the mistake initially of asking Kono about the situation, but on later days I just did my own detective work. Point being, and I’m sorry for this, I did a bit of prying. It wasn’t my intention to invade your privacy, just to find a way for you to be happy. I’m stuck in my own personal Purgatory, you see, and Kono had this theory about ‘making things right’ with those I’m closest to. Ho’oponopono.” Danny has had plenty of time to both research the practice and pronounce it correctly.
Chin gives a nod of recognition. He’s partly there, is willing to trust in what Danny is saying. He just needs a little more convincing. Danny checks his watch.
“Anyway, in exactly three minutes and twenty-three seconds, Malia is going to call your phone.”
“What?” Chin asks, eyes wide. There’s a moment of panic there, as though Chin is calculating whether or not it’s worth taking a dive out the window. Or maybe that’s just what Danny’s used to with Steve’s expressions. “What did you do? What did you tell her?”
“I arranged to have a bouquet of flowers delivered to her with the message, ‘E kala mai,’” Danny says.
“‘Forgive me,’” Chin murmurs.
“I didn’t put any name with the message, but she’ll know they’re from you. They’re purple dendrobium orchids.”
“Her favorite.”
Danny nods. “I know.” He checks his watch again. “One minute, forty-four seconds.”
There’s the edge of panic again. “Danny, I can’t do this.”
“Yes, you can, and you can hate me or thank me later. I also made you reservations for 6 pm, here,” Danny says, holding out a piece of paper. It’s the restaurant that Chin took Malia to on their first date.
Chin glances at the paper, looks up, and Danny can see that he believes him, now.
“What if this doesn’t work? What if she says no?”
“She won’t,” Danny says simply. “I’ve been repeating this day for quite a while, now…I’ve had time to get the details right. And when she calls in a minute and twenty seconds, just talk to her. Apologize for the way you handled things, and take the second chance that she’s willing to offer.”
He hugs Chin then, a quick embrace. Chin looks stunned after, though arguably most of that is from the conversation they just had. Danny gives him a quick thumbs up, and leaves the office. He goes and sits down at his own desk. Right on time, he hears the phone ring.
Steve walks up a couple minutes later. “So,” he says, casually, though his demeanor suggests the opposite. “You were at the beach this morning. Kono says you’ve been getting pretty good.”
Danny shrugs, his manner just as insouciant as Steve’s. “She’s the expert.”
Steve pouts-and yes, that is a definite pout. Danny wonders why he didn’t notice it earlier. He tells himself he’s not supposed to find it endearing. “C’mon, Danny, I want the chance to see you surf.”
Danny gives a very put-upon sigh. “Well, I suppose, as I’m no longer at risk of completely embarrassing myself, you could come along next time. It would put to rest your comments that I can’t swim.”
Steve’s got his Boyishly Ecstatic face out, and Danny can’t help but grin in response.
Danny doesn’t try to tell Steve that afternoon. Kono shoots him pointed look, but he ignores it. He’ll do this on his own time, damn it, and he wants to wait until later.
Danny pretends to occupy himself throughout the afternoon, all the while steeling himself for what he’s going to say.
The thing about Steve is, he may think he’s stoic and carefully guarded, but for someone who rarely shares his feelings, he’s surprisingly easy to read. He wears his emotions on his sleeve, his facial expressions hiding nothing. It just took Danny a while to recognize that Steve’s panic (on the days when Danny got shot), his concern (on the days Danny played hooky with Grace and wasn’t answering his phone), his relief (when he realized Danny wasn’t planning on uprooting to Jersey again) went deeper than on strictly a friendship level.
If anything, it was his own feelings regarding Steve that he was out of touch with. He wasn’t blind, he knew Steve was good-looking, but that wasn’t what this was about. Steve had worked his way into Danny’s life, to the point where-if he was honest with himself-the real reason he wouldn’t go back to Jersey was because of Steve. Grace was the reason he had come to Hawaii, yes, and the reason he stayed, and he loved her more than anything. But Steve…Steve had made being here worthwhile, had made it enjoyable. Steve was like a gravitational force, pulling him in, and he had no desire to resist that pull any longer.
When it becomes clear they aren’t getting any interesting cases for the day (thank you, Detective Williams, Danny thinks to himself), Steve gives them permission to leave early. Chin seems nervous, probably about his date later that evening, and Danny gives him an encouraging pat on the shoulder.
“You need a ride home, Danny?” Steve asks.
Way to be obvious, I don’t even have an injury for plausible deniability’s sake, Danny thinks. “You know, I did drive myself here.”
Steve seems momentarily crestfallen. Danny takes pity on him.
“Better idea,” Danny says. “How about I give you a ride back to yours? You owe me a beer or three.”
“Sounds great,” Steve says, flashing a smile. Danny tells himself that it isn’t completely adorable.
Kono, across the room, raises an eyebrow. Danny can feel how pointed her gaze is. Fortunately, she says nothing.
Danny is nervous the entire drive over, even though he tells himself he has no reason to be. Anything he messes up he can repeat. Of course, there’s always the chance he misinterpreted the cues Steve was giving him, and he might be setting himself up for a fist to the jaw.
“Something the matter, Danny?” Steve asks as they pull into the driveway.
You don’t know the half of it. “Why do you ask?”
“Because you’ve never been this quiet in the car before.”
Point. “Long day,” Danny says vaguely. He doesn’t want to have this conversation here.
Steve doesn’t press the matter, but there’s a crease of worry between his eyebrows. A couple minutes later, they’re inside, each with an open bottle of beer. They’re standing in the kitchen, and Steve keeps looking at Danny expectantly; Danny realizes he’s acting strange, is never this quiet anywhere, but he just needs a second to collect his thoughts, okay.
“All right, want to hear a funny story? Well, the funny part is subjective,” Danny says. “I woke up one morning. Just your seemingly average day, except for the fact that I was woken up early by a phone call from my ex-wife. I drove my daughter to school, I had a surf lesson with Kono, I came to work. A bank robbery happened. I got shot, but no worries, I was wearing my vest. All in all, my day could have gone better, but considering my track record since I met you, far from the worst.”
“What does this have to do with the way you’ve been acting today?”
“Will you just let me finish, please? Thank you. Anyway, I go to bed. Next morning goes the same as the one before, only I notice, hey, my injury from the previous day is gone. That’s a bit strange, but there’s always the possibility I could have been dreaming. Whatever. I go about my day, same stuff happens, I go to bed.”
“This had better have a point soon, Danny,” Steve says, his no-bullshit face on.
Danny continues, heedless. “Next morning, I wake up. It’s the same day. Every single day, the same as the one before, over and over again. It never ends.”
He’s staring at his beer now, not looking at Steve, not quite sure he wants to know what he’ll see there. He risks a glance upwards now. Steve’s brows are furrowed, his expression part confusion, part disbelief. He’s assessing the situation, but Danny doesn’t know how this is going to play out. This variable is a new one.
Steve crosses his arms. “You realize that what you’re saying is impossible, right?”
Danny laughs, can’t help it. The sounds comes out strained and desperate. “Don’t I know it,” he says, rubbing at his temple with his free hand. “I know, okay? I know that what I’m saying-what I’m trying to convince you of-is completely outside the realm of physical possibility. But it’s the truth, alright? I’m telling you the truth.”
“I don’t know, Danny…” Steve trails off.
Danny lets out a defeated sigh. He doesn’t know why he thought convincing Steve would be easier this time around. “You believed me last time,” he says, mostly to himself.
“Okay,” Steve says slowly. “Hypothetically speaking, if what you’re saying is true, what was it you said or did ‘last time’ that convinced me?”
Danny laughs to himself. “I’d just travelled on a ten-hour flight to New Jersey. You followed, wanted to convince me to come back. I explained that I’d only done it because, thanks to the time loop, I was worried I’d never see Jersey again. You believed me, because it was the only excuse for the irrationality of my behavior.”
Steve’s gone visibly tense at the mere mention of Danny leaving Hawaii. But really, that doesn’t surprise Danny in the slightest; the guy hopped on a plan to follow him. That sort of behavior is standard when it comes to Steve. Danny’s mind is occupied with another detail, with the fact Steve believed him on the previous day, because he thought Danny’s actions to be irrational. Danny, who is always the one to talk Steve down from stupid behavior, did something impulsive.
“You know what?” Danny says, setting down his beer on the counter. “If you don’t believe me, that’s fine. It’s okay, it doesn’t matter. Believe this.”
And then he’s moving in, barely giving Steve time to react. He gets his hands on Steve’s face, thumbs tracing the line of stubble, and then pulls him down into a kiss. It’s impulsive, it’s hard and fast and fierce. It’s a little uncomfortable, but great at the same time. Then Steve opens his mouth, and it turns into something wonderful, Steve slowing the pace down somewhat as he deepens the kiss. And Danny wants to laugh, really he does, that Steve of all people wants to kiss more slowly. But Danny goes with it, because it’s taken him this long to realize how much he wants this. Even knowing he’ll have the chance to repeat this again, Danny still wants to commit this moment, this day, to memory.
Steve pulls back, far enough that their lips are parted, but their foreheads are touching. “I believe you, Danny…I believe you,” he says softly.
“Yeah,” Danny murmurs. “Wait…what? That’s what it took to convince you?” He pulls back.
There’s a flicker of guilt in Steve’s eyes, and he suddenly seems to find the countertop pattern fascinating. “Uhh, that is…Kono told me everything. I was waiting to see if you would tell me on your own.”
“She what?!” Danny sputters, indignant. “But she-I told her not to tell…She said she had my back.”
Steve’s trying to soothe Danny, pulling him back in, but Danny is bristling with annoyance. “She seemed concerned that you might-ah, how did she put it?-use your knowledge gained by the time loop to take advantage of me.”
“‘Take advantage of you’? You’re not a blushing virgin. And that she would think that I-” Danny stammers, words failing him. “And you! You knew this entire time, and you let me carry on with that charade of telling you!”
Steve shrugs, unapologetic. “I admit, I was a bit curious to see how you’d try to convince me.”
Danny gapes, incensed. Steve takes the opportunity to lean back in and mouth along Danny’s jaw. “I can’t believe I find you attractive,” Danny bemoans.
Steve tilts his head, grinning smugly. “So, you’re admitting you do find me attractive?”
Danny is pulling at the hem of Steve’s t-shirt, running his hands underneath and against the taut muscles of Steve’s abdomen. “What kind of a question is that, huh? Of course, why else would I be kissing you?”
Steve shrugs. “Time loop? Because there aren’t any consequences?” He says it casually, but Danny can see the way Steve tenses at the possibility.
“What are you-Is that what you think this is?” Danny asks, pushing Steve back so he can properly see his face. “Look at me-no, look, you overgrown man-child. I don’t know how much Kono told you, but I’ve been stuck on repeat for a while now. A long time…and it’s given me some time to think. And I realized something, during that time. Yeah, I’ve done a lot of things without regard for consequences, like taking a ten-hour flight to New Jersey, or pulling Grace out of school for the day just to spend time with her.”
He pauses, making sure Steve’s following, because Danny needs him to trust, to understand this next bit.
“But what I realized is, somehow everything kept coming back to you. No matter what crazy things I did, you were a constant in my life. I’m not sure how or when it happened, or if it was always that way and I’m only just now realizing it, but it’s the truth. And yeah, this time loop might have given me the courage to make that first move and kiss you, but I’m not doing this because I’ll have a blank slate the moment I wake up. You got that?”
“Yeah, Danny,” Steve says, smiling fondly. “Yeah, I got that.”
Steve leans down, kisses Danny again, slowly at first. Now that they’ve got a rhythm going, things speed up pretty quickly. Steve presses against Danny, and he pushes right back, forcing Steve backwards until he’s braced against the counter.
“Off, get this off,” Danny mutters, tugging at Steve’s shirt hem again.
Steve pulls his shirt off as Danny slides down his torso, licking and nibbling at the planes of his stomach. He nuzzles the smattering of hair he finds there, then thumbs open the button and zipper on Steve’s cargo pants. Steve’s cock is hard in his boxer-briefs, and Danny tugs down the grey cotton until he can pull it out. Steve shivers at the contact, making a small noise of protest-“Hey, you’ve still got your clothes-” which quickly gets cut off as Danny closes his mouth over the head of Steve’s cock.
He takes it in as far as he can go, working his hand where his mouth won’t reach. Steve groans, head falling back, exposing the long line of his throat. Danny releases Steve’s cock for a moment.
“Look at me, Steve,” he says.
Steve’s breath hitches, and he leans his head forward, watching Danny. Danny grins, flicks his tongue out to taste precome, swirls it around the head, before swallowing Steve’s cock again. The angle is a little awkward, but it’s worth it to see the way Steve’s pupils are blown wide with arousal. One of Steve’s hands is gripping the edge of the countertop tightly, and the other comes down to twine in Danny’s hair. It isn’t forceful, but Danny leans in all the same, trying to take Steve deeper, groaning around the weight of him in his mouth.
“Fuck, Danny,” Steve grates out.
Danny loves this, loves watching Steve come undone. And to think he could have had this-that Steve wanted this-over a hundred Fridays ago…well, better late than never. He just needed time to realize the signals Steve was sending his way.
Steve tugs at his hair, mutters, “Danny, Danny, I’m gonna-”
Danny just grips Steve’s hips tighter, holds on until Steve is coming down his throat. He swallows around Steve’s cock, nuzzles him through the aftershocks. Steve shudders as Danny slides off and gets to his feet.
“C’mere,” Steve says, grabbing Danny’s tie and pulling him forward.
Steve kisses him forcefully, chasing the taste of himself across Danny’s tongue.
“You sure you haven’t done this before? Another day in your time loop?” Steve asks, voice breathy.
“Babe, are you saying I blew your mind?” Danny can’t help the grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.
Steve laughs. “Not as much as I’m gonna blow yours,” he says, low and dangerous.
“Is that a promise, Steven?”
Steve’s response is to pull Danny forward by his tie, tugging as he walks backward through the kitchen and into the living room. He pulls the tie free of its knot, tossing it until it lands on the back of the couch. Their progression is halted momentarily as both of them try to undo each other’s clothes at once.
“No, I got-let me…”
“Jesus, Danny, just go with it.”
Finally, they’re fully naked, and Steve crowds into Danny’s space, gets him onto the couch and on his back. Danny groans at the contact of skin on skin, loves the feel of Steve braced above him. They kiss for a while, and that’s good-great, even-but Danny seems to remember a promise to have his mind blown.
“How long?” Danny asks.
“Hmm?” Steve hums against Danny’s throat, and it’s almost enough to distract him again.
“How long…have you wanted this?”
Steve seems surprised at the question, though he’s quick enough to come up with the answer. “Almost as long as I’ve known you,” he says. A small huff of laughter escapes him. “I admit, I thought about all sorts of things I would do to you involving your ties.”
Danny raises an eyebrow. “Oh? Do continue, please. Don’t withhold information on my account.”
Steve grins, a devious glint in his eye. “Well, there was the obvious…tying you down to the bed.”
Danny’s breath hitches at the mental image that produces, being spread out and restrained beneath Steve’s fingertips.
“And then, there were plenty of times I considered using one as a makeshift gag to shut you up.”
“You aren’t the first or the last person to think of that one, babe. C’mon, something a little more creative,” Danny says, the challenge heavy in his tone.
“Well, in that case,” Steve says, trailing off as he moves down Danny’s torso. He grabs Danny’s tie from where it’s draped over the couch back. Then, with a glance back up the couch to make sure Danny is watching, he wraps the tie in a loose hold once, twice, around Danny’s cock. He begins to jack Danny through the material.
“Oh, fuck,” Danny exhales, head falling back on the armrest.
The silk of the tie as it slides up and down the length of his cock feels fantastic. Steve varies his pace until he finds one that works, his wrist twisting on the upstroke in a move that makes Danny’s hips stutter with pleasure. He doesn’t think he’ll last long, but then the bastard uses his free hand to tug the ends of the tie until it’s snug around the base of his cock. Not tight, but snug enough that he won’t be coming anytime soon.
Steve ducks his head, licking at the head of Danny’s cock, teasing at first, before taking him in, soaking the edges of the tie. Danny makes a noise that is completely undignified.
“Nngh…fuck, Steve,” He groans, wanting to make a snarky comment on Steve’s creative use of ties but managing only, “Fucking-fuck me.”
Steve pulls his head up, and Danny totally does not whimper at the loss.
“I, uh…don’t have any supplies here. They’re all upstairs,” he says, sheepish-as sheepish as one can look when that someone had just been sucking cock.
“Oh my god, you totally and completely fail as a Boy Scout forever,” Danny complains, and then makes a flailing gesture with his hand. “Pants, my pants. Back pocket.”
Steve disappears a moment from Danny’s field of vision, and then he’s back, waving the condom and lube sachet. “Danny Williams, are you sure you weren’t planning on taking advantage of me?”
“Oh for fuck’s-I swear, if you don’t get your fingers in my ass sometime in the next twenty seconds, I will honestly snap, and shoot you in the face.”
“I’m just pointing out that this was clearly premeditated…”
“In. The. Face.”
That gets Steve moving, though whether it’s because of his own impatience or because Danny’s threat had any impact is hard to tell. He slicks his fingers and slides one in. Danny forces himself to relax, accommodate the change. Steve’s being considerate, taking his time, but after a few seconds of that Danny mutters, “Another, come on.”
“Stop being so bossy,” Steve says, but adds another finger.
Danny draws in a sharp breath. “Wouldn’t…be me if I wasn’t.” The fingers inside him twist, crooking upwards. “Oh, yeah.”
Once Danny’s loose, Steve pulls his fingers free. He’s hard again, and he rolls the condom on, using the rest of the lube sachet to slick himself up. Then he lines himself up and presses forward. Danny groans, letting out the breath he’s holding, as Steve slides in. Steve pauses a moment, as if to gain his bearings, and then he begins to move. Danny bears his hips down, trying to take Steve in deeper.
After a few moments, Steve brings one of his hands to Danny’s cock, still wrapped up in the tie. He grips it again through the material, and begins jacking it hard and fast. That’s what does it for Danny, sending him over the edge as he shoots across his belly. Danny’s orgasm has Steve faltering, and after several short thrusts he’s shuddering, letting out a low, broken noise.
Steve holds himself there for a moment, unmoving, before pulling out, disposing of the condom, and slumping down on top of Danny. He nuzzles at Danny’s collarbone, and while Danny would be perfectly content to remain that way for the remainder of the night, their bellies are sticky with come.
“Steve,” he says, pushing at Steve’s shoulder. “Hey, c’mon, get up.”
Steve makes an unintelligible sound, burrowing his face deeper against Danny’s neck.
“Not that I don’t love you boneless and all, but any chance we could move this someplace more comfortable?”
“Mmm, comfy here,” Steve murmurs, but there’s a smug smile tugging at the corners of his mouth that says he knows just how difficult he’s being.
Danny’s trying to shove Steve off him. “What are you, some kind of octopus man? Do you grow extra limbs when no one’s looking? Off. Bed, now. I want to make the most of the time I still have, and I plan on coming at least once more tonight. Preferably, I want to keep going until we both pass out from exhaustion.”
Steve lifts his head, waggles his eyebrows suggestively. “I can get behind that idea.”
“Oh, for the love of-you think you’re so clever, don’t you? I don’t even know why I’m attracted to you.”
Steve is laughing, getting off the couch and pulling Danny to his feet. He leans in, kisses Danny quick and deep, and Danny tries to ignore the way it feels like a goodbye, tries to forget the fact that they won’t have this when he wakes up.
But then Steve pulls back, and whatever had passed over him momentarily is gone now, replaced by a fond smile. He leads the way upstairs, and Danny can’t help but follow.
---
The sunrise is bright against Danny’s eyelids, easing him gently into wakefulness. He blinks his eyes blearily a few times, disoriented. For the first time in longer than he can remember, he isn’t waking up with a sore back. It’s that detail that clears his head. He tenses instantly. No phone call from Rachel waking him up, no 5:40 am, no dingy apartment ceiling above him.
He’s in a bed. Steve’s bed, as the details from last night-last night, yesterday-all rush back to him.
“I’m still here,” Danny says, feeling dazed.
The bed shifts, and Steve stretches an arm across Danny’s torso. “Were you planning on going anywhere?” he mumbles, half asleep.
A brief wave of panic grips him. Him, and Steve…last night. And now, where do they stand? He meant everything he said last night, but he had still been expecting to wake up and have it be the same day. He had never dared to hope…
“I’m still here,” Danny repeats, because he can’t seem to get past that. “Steve, I’m still here.”
Steve’s waking up now, and Danny sees the moment it dawns on him.
“It’s tomorrow,” Danny says. “Today…it’s Saturday.”
Steve goes tense then, as the implication of that sinks in for him. “So it is,” he says, and his voice sounds way too cautious for comfort. “Any regrets?”
Danny gapes at him-because no, no way in hell is he going to pull that, not after last night.
“What did I tell you, huh? What part of I wanted this do you not understand? Was it when I was telling you about my epiphany-that sometime during the last year and who knows how many repeated days I realized, hey, my life partly revolves around you?”
“I heard you last night,” Steve says, but he still isn’t meeting Danny’s eyes. “I just-I didn’t think-…”
Danny realizes the reason for Steve’s wariness. He’s self-conscious, worried that Danny doesn’t feel the same way. And it’s stupid, completely ridiculous, that Steve would feel that way…but also a little endearing.
“No, you didn’t,” Danny agrees, unable to keep from smiling. “You’re just…you are so goofy sometimes, you know that? I love you, but you’re emotionally stunted.”
Steve perks up. “What did you say?”
“You heard me. Want to make something of it?”
Steve’s moving then, pinning Danny beneath him and kissing him almost senseless. They’re both sore in awkward places from last night, they both need a shower and to brush their teeth, but right now it’s the best feeling Danny’s ever had.
“Wait, wait a second,” Danny says when Steve pulls back. “Oh my god, is that all it took? Was us having sex all that was needed for the universe to set itself to rights?” He’s appalled. All those Fridays, when if he’d only gotten a clue sooner…
“I’m flattered you think sex with me could have that much effect on the inner workings of the universe,” Steve says, grinning broadly, “but it probably has more to do with what you told Kono, about considering Hawaii your home now.”
“I said no such-…Oh, god, I can’t tell her anything, can I?” Danny complains, though there’s no animosity in his tone. “You’re going to be insufferable now, aren’t you?”
Steve laughs, and leans down to kiss him again. It’s warm and welcoming; it feels like relief and love and home. And yeah, Danny thinks, as he shifts them so they’re both on their sides, he could get used to this.