hawaii 5-0 fic: curving like the ocean toward you {steve/danny, NC-17} [2/2]
For more information, please see Part One.
Grace picks out a bright yellow for the walls of the room that used to be Steve’s, after spending 45 minutes with color choices spread in front of her like battle plans. “This is important, Daddy,” she says when he tries to hurry her along, sounding so much like her mother that Danny’s chest hurts a little. “I’ll pick when I’m ready.”
“Take all the time you need,” Steve says. He’s smirking at Danny over her head; one of these days they’re going to make obnoxiousness into an Olympic sport, and Steve is going to fucking medal.
“Thank you, Steve,” Grace says, and gives Danny a look that says, See?, and really, when did everyone turn against him, that’s what Danny wants to know.
“Smart kid,” Steve says, when they’ve somehow both ended up in the kitchen--Danny to get a soda and Steve, he suspects, to get Grace a bowl of ice cream. “Weighing her decisions carefully, good for her.”
Danny snorts. “You’ve never weighed a decision carefully in your life, McGarrett, don’t even try.”
“That’s not true,” Steve says, and when Danny glances up from the fridge Steve is looking at him, intense and focused. “There are some decisions I don’t take lightly at all.”
Danny swallows hard, but can’t bring himself to look away. “Is that so?” he says, and hey, at least his voice sounds normal, there’s today’s small victory. “You wanna look at the evidence there, because I can think of six--twelve--twenty times you’ve recklessly endangered yourself for no good reason, and that’s in like, the last month alone--”
“Yeah,” Steve says, still too serious, “that’s not really the kind of thing I’m talking about.”
Danny stares at him over the fridge door, and this, this is why this was a bad idea. Steve probably means the military, or, or shit with his sister or something, the things Danny is extrapolating here are probably not rational, are definitely not rational, and Steve’s too close to him, too intent by half.
“Um,” Danny says, his tongue thick in his mouth, and then Grace is calling “Okay, I’ve got it!” and the moment is broken.
They take her to Target, and Danny says “Don’t spoil her, Steve,” to little avail. He leads her shamelessly down every goddamn aisle, pointing out things she could choose--bedspreads and sheet sets, posters for the wall.
“Remember that this is for, you know, a tourist kid,” Danny says at one point, because Steve is trying to help her decide between two different bright pink coverlets. “And also, you picked yellow for the walls.”
“I trust Gracie’s taste,” Steve says, but he has the decency to at least look a little shamefaced about it. Grace, on the other hand, has suddenly never had less shame in her life. She’s throwing things in the cart with aplomb, and Danny resolves to have a talk with Rachel about setting an allowance for her or something, because this whole ‘I want it and I shall have it’ attitude is really not becoming.
Not that Steve minds. Not that Steve’s doing anything to discourage it. Not that Gracie hasn’t found the perfect loophole.
“I think that any kid would like this Hannah Montana poster,” she says, pointing it out to Steve. “Everyone likes Hannah Montana.”
“Okay,” Steve agrees, because he knows nothing at all about kids and it’s up to Danny to be the voice of reason. Again.
“Steven,” he says, “you, my friend, are letting my daughter pull the wool over your eyes. You know about her poker face, right? Because I taught her the poker face, okay, you’re getting taken for a ride here, and, because it’s your house, I don’t have the authority to stop her without...you know.”
“Without what?” Steve says, tilting his head.
Danny waves a hand, uncomfortable suddenly. “Without, you know. Implying. Things. About co-ownership, okay, I don’t want to confuse her more than we’ve probably already confused her--but she’s bleeding you dry here, is my point.”
“She’s having fun,” Steve says, shrugging. His shoulders have gotten tense, and he looks decidedly less happy than he did a minute ago; Danny doesn’t have time to figure out why, because Grace calls him ahead to look at a lamp. Danny hangs back with the cart, feeling like an asshole but not sure why, and so he only catches the tail end of the conversation Steve and his daughter are having with the salesgirl.
Unfortunately, the tail end of that conversation is the salesgirl smiling at Gracie and saying, “It’s awfully nice of your father to let you pick out all this stuff.”
Danny’s not sure what the worst part of it is, if it’s the way Steve’s whole body goes completely still or the way--even though it’s irrational, even though it’s not Steve’s fault--he wants to punch Steve in the fucking face. He just stands there with his mouth open like a beached whale, trying to get a handle on his own stupid Stan-related ridiculous inadequacy feelings that have nothing to do with Steve, okay, or the salesgirl or anything, anything but the idea that anyone but him is Gracie’s father. He stands there, and Steve, next to him, looks terrified, and this is maybe the first time since the day they met that neither one of them has the capacity to be any kind of backup.
He stands there, and Steve stands there, and then Grace--who is, jeez, Danny’s the luckiest guy alive, she’s the best kid in the entire goddamn world--takes Danny’s hand in one of hers, Steve’s in the other, and glares.
“Steve’s not my dad,” she says. “Danno’s my dad. Steve’s his partner.”
Steve’s shoulders relax by half an inch, and Danny nudges Grace a little with his foot, because now that he can breathe again he’d like to get that expression off Steve’s face. “And my friend,” Gracie adds, turning to smile up at him. “And he’s not being nice, he’s redecorating. I’m helping.”
“Oh,” the woman says, and she obviously thinks Gracie meant partner in a very different sense. Danny can’t really be fucked to correct her. “I’m sorry, I didn’t--”
“It’s fine,” Danny says.
“Fine,” Steve agrees, sounding strangled.
“C’mon, Monkey, let’s go look at the rugs,” Danny says, because Steve’s looking like he’s maybe gonna need a minute.
“Okay!” Gracie agrees. She lets go of Steve’s hand and tugs on Danny’s arm, and when he glances back Steve’s looking resolutely up at the ceiling, like there’s something in the tiling he finds utterly fascinating.
Maybe there is, Danny thinks, kind of desperately, as he help Grace pick options to show Steve. Maybe he wants to change out the ceiling in the living room. Maybe it’s not a family thing at all.
He’s not really fooling anybody, but it doesn’t hurt to try.
--
They put up a primer coat in Gracie’s room--in the kid’s room, the random tourist kid, it’s not Grace’s room, it’s not--when they get back to Steve’s house, because she’s too excited to wait.
“This way we can put up the yellow tomorrow!” she says, waving her hands. “So I can see it before you have to take me home.”
The way she says home makes something tighten in Danny’s chest; he doesn’t even notice it until Steve knocks into him, until the contact makes the feeling lessen somewhat.
“Sorry,” Steve says, looking anything but, and there’s paint on Danny’s arm, but he can’t bring himself to mind.
Steve talks about going to a movie when they’re done, but Danny takes one look at Grace--her drooping eyelids, the way she’s stifling yawns--and shakes his head at Steve behind her back. “Let’s order a pizza, huh?” he suggests. “We can watch a movie here, you’ve got Netflix, right?”
“Netflix?” Steve says, blank, and it figures this is the one part of the internet he doesn’t know about.
“Yes,” Danny says, “Netflix, Steven, it’s--”
“You don’t know about Netflix?” Gracie demands. “You have to get it, Steve, you’d like it, everyone likes movies.”
“We can use my account,” Danny says, rolling his eyes at Steve’s still-blank expression. “Even I can set it up, and that’s saying something. Gracie, baby, what do you want on your pizza?”
“Pepperoni,” she says, in the same tone of voice she’d use if telling him the sky was blue. He smirks at Steve, waiting for a diatribe on the whole ham-and-pineapple thing, but it doesn’t come. Steve just grins at her, agreeable, and orders the pizza while Danny screws around with his laptop and the requisite cords.
“You would have the most complicated television in the world,” he says, when he’s finally gotten the damn thing set up. “You’re not replacing this, I’m not going through this process again, you understand?”
“You’re coming in loud and clear,” Steve says, grinning, and goes to the door to get the food.
They watch Up, eating out of plates on their laps, Grace sandwiched between them on the hideous goddamn couch. She passes out about halfway through and lists to the right instead of the left, her head landing on Steve’s bicep. He goes still at once, glancing down at her every few seconds like he has no idea what to do, and Danny’s sense of vindication is probably inappropriate.
“I’ll take her up,” he says, when she’s been out for long enough that she won’t wake. “I’m going to put her in the guest room, okay? There’s probably not fumes in her--in the kid’s room anymore, but I’d rather not risk it, you know?”
“Yeah,” Steve whispers, still frozen. “Yeah, that’s fine, I’ll get the pizza shit cleaned up.”
“Language,” Danny says, but he’s mostly joking; from the eyeroll he gets in return, he knows that Steve knows it. He gathers Gracie up, surprised as always by how big she is--in a couple of months he won’t be able to do this anymore, and it’s kind of a terrible thought.
“Danno?” she says, when he’s got her tucked in. Her eyes are only half open, and she’s yawning even as she says it; he brushes her hair out of her eyes and checks her covers one last time.
“Yeah, Monkey?”
“I had fun today,” she says, turning into the pillow.
“Yeah,” Danny says, “me too. Go to sleep, okay? That room isn’t gonna paint itself tomorrow, you gotta be awake, you hear me?”
“Mmmhmm,” Grace says. “Love you, Danno.”
“Love you too,” Danny says, and stands there for a long moment before he goes back downstairs.
Steve’s waiting for him with a beer when he reaches the living room, and Danny follows him out onto the lanai without really thinking about it. He sinks down into one of the chairs, clinks the neck of his Longboard absently with Steve’s, and stares out at the ocean.
“It’s nice,” Steve says, after a few quiet moments. Danny jumps a little without meaning to, jerked out of thoughts he can’t even remember now. “The ocean at night, I mean. Peaceful.”
“Steve McGarrett talks peaceful,” Danny laughs, leaning back against the chair. “Alert the criminal element, their sworn enemy is calming down.”
“Fuck you,” Steve says easily. “SEALs don’t calm down, we just get scarier with age.”
“I hear that,” Danny says, and takes a pull from his beer.
They go quiet again, and Danny realizes all at once that he’s happy, that he feels good, that shit is, with a couple glaring exceptions, exactly the way he wants it to be. And he can live with a few exceptions--he figures everyone has those, things that aren’t quite the way they want them. He can work around it, he thinks, given enough time.
“Yeah,” he says, taking a deep breath of the salt air. “You’re right. It’s nice.”
--
They paint the kids room the next day, and the guest room too, because Gracie doesn’t want to stop painting and Danny doesn’t want her to stop smiling. They’re all kind of wiped out by the time he takes her back to Rachel’s, and Danny’s back is killing him, on fire from his night on the couch. It’s worth it, though, for the way she’s talking a mile a minute when she hits the door, telling her mother about everything they did like it was the best weekend of her life.
“Still nothing to tell you,” Danny says, when Rachel raises an eyebrow at him. “What, did you think I was lying before? I’ll tell you if there’s ever something to tell.”
“There doesn’t need to be something to tell, Daniel,” she says, shrugging. “I’m...willing to talk about it, if you need an ear.”
“Thanks,” Danny says, surprised. It’s not like he’s ever going to take her up on it, but... “Thanks, I appreciate it.”
“As I believe I have mentioned,” Rachel says, “I don’t think you give me nearly enough credit.”
“Probably true,” Danny admits, and she smiles at him, and this is nice too, this communication that doesn’t feel forced. It’s been better for awhile, the thing with him and Rachel--a lot better, since what happened with Matt--but it still feels good, being able to do it right.
He drives back to Steve’s house without thinking about it, already looking forward to a beer and maybe some Chinese takeout. It’s only when Steve raises his eyebrows from where he’s cooking a steak--one steak--on the grill that Danny realizes they don’t actually have a project to work on.
“You’re back,” Steve says.
“I...am,” Danny agrees, feeling like an idiot. “I, uh, sorry, autopilot, I guess. I’ll just--”
“No!” Steve says, too quickly, and then, more calmly, “uh, I mean, no, I was...going to call you. Because.”
“Because?” Danny prompts, hoping against hope that Steve has some kind of reason for him to stay here. The idea of going back to his apartment now is...oh, god, it’s almost unbearable. Danny wonders what’s going to happen when the house is finished, when there’s nothing else left to do, and finds he can’t even consider it.
He’ll figure something out. Something will come up. He’ll break shit if he has to--no, that’s crazy, it’s crazy, but he can’t--the idea of not--
“We need to put up another coat,” Steve says. “Of paint. In the rooms we did today. It, um. I read a thing that said that three coats is better.”
“Oh,” Danny says, latching on to this like a crazy person, “yeah, that’s...right, I forgot about that, we’ll have to do another coat in the other rooms, the ones we’ve done already, because we only did--”
“Two coats,” Steve says, “yeah, that’s right, isn’t it, my bad, I guess we should have thought of that.”
“Yeah,” Danny says. “That’s--yeah.”
They stare at each other for a second, and then Steve kind of smiles at him and gestures at the grill. “You want dinner?” he says. “I actually have another steak in the fridge, I just didn’t know that you--I mean, I hadn’t realized, you know. That you’d be back before I could call. I figured you’d get something while you were out.”
“I could eat,” Danny says. “I’ll just...go get it?”
“Okay,” Steve says, and lets out a breath like he’s been holding it in, and smiles properly. “Top drawer, next to the--”
“I know where you keep the meat, McGarrett,” Danny says, waving a hand, and it’s not until he gets to the fridge that he realizes that’s probably part of the problem.
--
Three coats of paint is a stupid amount of paint, and Danny knows it. He helps Steve put it up anyway, anything for the excuse, and doesn’t realize that it’s going to mean fresh fumes and another night on the couch until it’s too late.
“Urgh,” he says, trying to get comfortable after Steve’s gone upstairs. His back feels like there are people stabbing it, and every position he tries just makes it fucking worse. He spends an hour, and then two, shifting around, but he can’t get comfortable enough to fall asleep for more than five minutes.
At one in the morning he gives it up for a lost cause and gets up, figuring even the floor will be better than this. He pulls the blanket and pillow down with him, muttering under his breath, and he’s feeling...well, he’s feeling a lot like he’s lying on the fucking floor, actually, when he hears Steve’s feet on the stairs.
“Do you ever not make noise?” Steve says from above, his voice sleep-scratchy and annoyed. “Seriously, you’re like an elephant, what are you doing down--Danny, what the hell.”
Danny glares up at Steve, who’s standing over him now, arms folded across his chest. “Your couch is a menace, okay? A fucking menace, a man cannot sleep on exhaustion alone, all I ask for is a hint, a hint of comfort, Steven, that is all. I am no stranger to sleeping uncomfortably, alright, the bed in my apartment is not exactly made of feathers and rainbows, but that thing is a goddamn torture device.”
“Well, you’re not sleeping on the floor,” Steve says, reaching a hand down to help Danny up. Danny takes it, but only because he’s really fucking tired.
“What, exactly, do you suggest?” Danny says. “You got another bedroom hidden in here I don’t know about, because the floor is better than inhaling--”
“My bed is big enough for two people, Danny,” Steve says, rolling his eyes. “Could you just stop arguing and come on, please, it’s the middle of the goddamn night.”
Danny should argue. He should definitely argue. He should get in his car and drive home is what he should do--is what he should have done when he realized the couch wasn’t a feasible choice, why didn’t he do that, why didn’t that even occur to him, oh god. He should argue, but it is the middle of the night, and he’s so fucking tired he could die, and his back hurts something awful, and Steve’s offering to take him to bed.
He doesn’t mean it the way Danny wants him to mean it, but he still just doesn’t have it in him to turn him down.
Of course, he should know better than to think it’ll be easy. Steve slides back under the covers and is out again in seconds, but Danny can’t even bring himself to close his eyes. The heat radiating out from next to him would be distraction enough, but then there’s the breathing, the soft, barely-there snores, and the fact that it’s Steve, it’s Steve, it’s fucking Steve. Danny hasn’t shared a bed with anyone in more than two years, barring a few brief and ill-advised one night stands; he hasn’t shared a bed with someone he was in love with in a lot longer. This is worse than the couch was, worse than anything would be, because of all of the ways it’s so much better.
Then--oh, god, then Steve’s rolling over, sprawling the way he does, splaying an arm out across Danny’s chest in his sleep. And Steve’s just like this, isn’t he, always reaching out even when he doesn’t mean to, even when he doesn’t know he’s doing it; Danny knows that about him, but it doesn’t make it any easier to bear. His arm is warm, too warm, practically burning a hole through Danny’s t-shirt, and Danny wants to remove it from his person. Wants to never remove it from his person.
Wants to lick it up and down, the curve of every muscle, each whorl of that damned tattoo.
Control yourself, he thinks, staring at the wall. Think of anything, Daniel, anything, anything, Grandma Williams naked, the fucking periodic table, anything, you can’t think about him, you can’t even think about thinking about him, he is right there, what is the matter with you?
Steve shifts a little then, so Danny’s back and his chest are pressed together, and Danny’s going to scream, he’s going to explode, he’s going to catch on fire. He is cuddling, okay, he is cuddling with Steve McGarrett against his will--against both of their wills, for fuck’s sake, how is this happening, how is this his life.
“Steve,” he says finally, nudging back a little, “Steve, hey, you’re a little--”
“Shuddup,” Steve mumbles against the back of neck. “’M sleeping, Danny, god.”
And the thing is, it’s still torture, it is, Danny’s balls are so blue that they’re probably glowing neon by now. It’s still torture, but Steve said his name, okay, which means he is aware enough to know what the hell is going on, a little, kind of. Which means he’s not going to wake up and shove Danny out of the bed and then kill him with some kind of ninja SEAL technique, which, yeah, probably not a rational worry, but Danny can relax a little, can let a couple of muscles go loose.
He’s not sure if it’s exhaustion or the rush of Steve’s breath against his shoulder that takes him the rest of the way, but he’s out in ten seconds flat.
--
It’s three days later when he cracks and goes to Rachel.
She is, all things considered, probably the wrong person to turn to. A year ago, he would have swallowed his pride and called Matt; six months ago he would have called no one, sat in his own misery for the rest of his days, and tried not to think about it. He would ask Chin or Kono about it now, but “Hey, I’ve got it bad for our boss,” would put them in kind of an awkward situation. If it were about anything, anyone else, he’d go to Steve, but he’s kind of shit out of luck on that front.
And he trusts Rachel again--has always trusted her, really, even if he’d hated her for a minute there. There are bits and pieces of her he’s lost, parts of their relationship he’ll never get back, but they’d been best friends until they weren’t even friendly anymore, and it’s hard to let that go.
“I am,” he says, when she opens the door, “I am so fucked, okay, Rach, I just, I’m sorry to make you drop everything like this and this probably--I mean, yeah, I know, that this is not something you want to hear, I’m sure it’s not, or maybe it is, I don’t--”
“Daniel,” she says, stern but fond. “Breathe. And come in, the neighbors will think we’re under attack, you look atrocious.”
“I haven’t slept,” he admits, following her into the kitchen. “I mean, not since Sunday, I slept great Sunday, I slept so good I can’t even believe it, I slept like a baby, okay, but since Sunday it’s been not so much, with the sleeping.”
“And what happened on Sunday?”
“I slept with Steve,” Danny says, and then waves his hands when Rachel’s eyebrows hit her hairline. “No, no, I mean...I mean literally, okay, I mean we shared a bed in like, in like a platonic, buddy-buddy, help a guy off the couch kind of way--”
“You shared a bed in a buddy-buddy kind of way,” Rachel repeats slowly. “Daniel, you’re not making any sense.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Danny demands, throwing his hands in the air. “You think I don’t know about the crazy, because I know, Rachel, oh, do I know, I know so much more than you do it’s not even funny, I am a scholar of crazy, okay, I am the fucking foremost expert on crazy, nobody knows crazy like I know crazy.”
“One lump or two?” she asks, perfectly calm, which is when he realizes that she’s made tea.
“Four,” he says, dropping his head into his hands. “Seven. A million, fuck, fuck, what is the matter with me, huh? What’ve I done here?”
“Well,” she says, putting in only three lumps because she’s heartless, “to be entirely fair, I can’t really answer that question until you tell me what’s happened, can I? So why don’t you start at the beginning--slowly, Danny, please--and tell me exactly what’s going on. “
Danny...starts at the beginning. And the beginning, it turns out, is before the first anniversary of Jack McGarrett’s death--the beginning is before Pacific Home and Home Depot and the stupid bottle of Scotch. The beginning is those nights at the Kahala Hotel Steve bought for him and Gracie, and Meka’s funeral, and pushing that rust bucket junker car up that hill. The beginning is Steve saying “Maybe you’re not as alone on this island as you think,” and Danny doesn’t even know it until he tells her, can’t believe he’s missed it all this time.
Rachel’s smiling when he’s done, half sad and half gently mocking, like Danny’s a turtle on his back, his legs windmilling in the air. “Oh, Daniel,” she says.
“Really?” he says, staring at her. “Really, that’s all you’ve got, it’s just ‘Oh, Daniel,’ huh? Because, I mean, this has to be kind of weird for you, I get that, I do, but I’m pouring my heart out over here, you haven’t got more for me than ‘Oh Daniel,’ is that really what you’re telling me?”
“Do you know what book Grace is reading right now?” Rachel asks, and Danny groans.
“Does right now seem like a good time for a parenting quiz?”
“This isn’t a test,” Rachel says, rolling her eyes. “As if that’s been in question, honestly, must you be so paranoid? Just answer the question, please.”
“Okay,” Danny says, “yeah, okay, she’s reading--what, James and the Giant Peach, right, and that one by the guy who wrote those Wayside School books she used to love.”
“Louis Sachar,” Rachel confirms. “Holes, it’s called. Stanley and I have been reading it her at--oh, for god’s sake, Daniel, don’t make that face, Stan is allowed to read to her, control yourself.
“I just don’t see what this has to do with--”
“I am getting there,” Rachel says, and sighs. “There are two characters--and don’t think it’s lost on me that I have to use a children’s book to explain this to you, because it certainly isn’t, believe me--but there are two characters who are in love, but afraid to say so. And the one is a handyman, and so the woman--Kate, I believe--has him come over to fix things.”
“Okay,” Danny says, “it’s not that I don’t get, kind of, ish, what you’re driving at, but--”
“And when he’s fixed everything in the house,” Rachel continues, “they invent things to fix, and they fix things that aren’t broken, because it’s not really about the house at all. Daniel. Honestly. Three coats of paint?”
“Okay, but,” Danny says, “I mean, the walls do look really--”
“Let’s try this another way,” Rachel says, exasperated. “You remember Mikey, I assume?”
“Mikey,” Danny says, “Mikey, my partner of seven years Mikey, no, no, don’t know who you’re talking about, doesn’t ring a--yes, Rachel, of course I remember Mikey.”
“Well,” Rachel says, “then tell me this. When’s the last time you and Mikey had a sleepover, hmm? When’s the last time Mikey asked you into his bed because the couch was uncomfortable?”
“Well,” Danny says.
“And if you’d told Mikey it was time to redecorate his house, he would have--”
“Told me to fuck off,” Danny says, “but Steve’s--”
“And if somehow,” Rachel says over him, “if, somehow, he didn’t tell you to bugger off, if he asked you to spend the night helping him paint and spackle and whatever else you and Steve have been up to for months and months on end, would he have invited you to bring Grace over to decorate a room of her very own?”
“It’s...the kids room...” Danny says, but he recognizes that it’s a weak play.
“It is honestly beyond me how you two manage to solve crimes,” Rachel sighs, and puts her hand lightly on top of Danny’s own. “Daniel. Danny. It’s not about the house.”
“I,” Danny says, but then his phone is buzzing with a text message in his pocket. He glances down before he can help himself, and when he looks up Rachel is smiling at him, her hand pulled back from his and curled around her mug.
“Go on, then,” she says. “See what he’s got to say.”
Text from Steve McGarrett to Danny Williams, 6:03 PM HST
Hey, where’d you go? Chin said you left right after you finished booking Anderson. I’m putting the last coat on the living room trim, if you want to come help. Out of beer, if you think of it.
“It’s not about the house,” Danny says, trying it out on his tongue. He can’t tear his eyes away from the screen, because--because they’ve put the last coat on the living room trim four times already, the living room trim is fucking drowning in paint, and Danny’s supposed to pick up beer. He’s supposed to pick up beer, because they’re out of beer, because Danny drank the last one in the guest bedroom last night, trying to stifle the urge to wander down the hall and slide under Steve’s sheets.
They’re out of beer, and they’re both idiots, and it’s never been about the damn house.
“Go,” Rachel says, when he looks up. “It would be a favor, actually. I’ve far too much to do to coax you into any more emotional revelations tonight, and Grace will be home from her play date soon. Go on, you are officially uninvited from my kitchen--oh, for heaven’s sake, don’t look at me like that. Is it so hard for you to believe that I’d like you to be happy?”
“No,” Danny says, and she looks so surprised when he says it that it breaks his heart a little. “Rachel, I--thank you, okay, seriously, I don’t know what--”
“You’re wasting valuable time,” Rachel says, grinning. “Get out of here, Daniel.”
Danny goes.
--
Steve’s in the living room when Danny gets in, without beer, because the prospect of stopping to buy it seemed overwhelming. He kind of regrets making that call now that he’s here--Steve’s shirtless, with little droplets of cream paint dotting his shoulders.
He is also standing in front of that leather couch from Pacific Home, and yeah, Danny could go for a drink right about now.
“You don’t have my Longboards,” Steve says, frowning. “I know I phrased it like a suggestion, but I meant it more like a command.”
“You bought the sofa,” Danny says. “You--the four thousand dollar couch, Steven, does it turn out to wash your dishes after all, why would you spend that kind of money on a--”
“You liked it,” Steve says, shrugging. “And it works in here, I think--Chin said it did, anyway, and he’s been right so far. I figured--”
“You figured that you’d,” Danny says, and stops. “What, you figured you’d lure me in with the--oh my god, McGarrett, Steve, babe, we are such idiots, you and me, okay, we are just such jackasses that I can’t, I keep thinking about and I just cannot believe how fucking stupid--”
“What are you talking about?” Steve says, and there’s a paint roller still in his hand, and it knocks into the perfect goddamn triple-coated eggshell blue wall when Danny kisses him. They’re going to have to paint it again, and Danny doesn’t care, he doesn’t give a flying fuck, because Steve’s mouth is opening up under his and the roller is dropping from his fingers and his hands are sliding up under Danny’s shirt.
“Wait,” Steve says, “wait, you said that we’re--wait, how long have you--”
“The whole time,” Danny says, and runs his hands down Steve’s bare back. “The whole fucking time, Steven, what the hell did you think I was doing here every night, huh, did you think I was indulging my secret interior decorating fantasy, is that what you thought--”
“Well what do you think I was doing,” Steve says, “I dragged you into bed with me the other night, how much clearer was I supposed to get, did I need to send you a memo or something?”
“I thought you were being,” Danny says, waving his hands, “I don’t know, nice, I guess, what the hell was I supposed to think, okay, I didn’t even know if you liked guys, it’s not exactly the kind of thing you usually talk about--”
“We’re idiots,” Steve says, blinking.
“That,” Danny agrees, “is what I am saying here,” and then Steve swears and grabs him by the shoulders, hauling him in.
Danny’s never shed his clothes so fast in his life, tossing them haphazardly, tripping over them as they wrestle their way up the stairs. Steve’s hands are everywhere at once, it’s a feat of science, it has to be--they’re undoing his pants and tangling in his hair, pulling at Danny’s tie like he’s personally offended by it. Danny’s giving as good as he gets, shoving Steve against every available surface and kissing him like he’s thought about, fuck, like he’s thought about for so long now that it almost feels like he’s dreaming.
But he can’t be dreaming, can he, because he knows the layout of this house like the back of his hand, like he’s going to get to know every inch of the map that is Steve’s musculature. He knows this house so well that he doesn’t trip over anything but his pants and shoes, which just won’t come clear fast enough, and Steve’s laughing at him as they crash onto the bed.
“You’ve got paint,” Danny says, “everywhere, everywhere, McGarrett, if I get that in my mouth we are calling Poison Control, I refuse to submit to your, your field medicine, okay, you’d try to fix me with a twig or something--”
“I can think of part of my body that definitely doesn’t have paint on it,” Steve says, and Danny groans.
“You are not smooth,” he says. “Whoever told you that you were smooth was a fucking liar, you understand? You gotta know that right now, because--oh, fuck, Steve.”
Steve’s got his hand on Danny’s cock, and how did it even get there, how is he so ninja fast all the time? He’s got one hand on Danny’s cock and another hand is reaching into his bedside table, is pulling out a little tub of lube, and--
“Hey,” Danny says, “hey, hey, who decided you were gonna be the one doing the fucking here? Did we have that conversation, because I don’t remember it, where you going with that lube, what are you--”
“Danny,” Steve says, pupils blown wide, mouth bruised already, “if you think I haven’t thought about every way this could go, you’re crazy.”
“I,” Danny says, “what?”
“I don’t care,” Steve clarifies. “Top, bottom, hell, you can just give me a hand job like we’re in the eighth grade--”
“You were doing this in the--”
“Danny!” Steve yells. “I have been thinking about this for months, I don’t care how we do it, I’d just like to come at some point tonight in the same room as you, okay?”
Danny wants to say something easy and light, something like “That can be arranged,” or “Eager much, McGarrett?” but he can’t. The way that Steve is looking at him, breathing hard out of his nose, his fingers still tracing lines of his shoulders like he can’t bear to pull them away--Danny feels the urgency drain out of him, leave him with something bigger and harder to ignore.
“Okay,” he says, “yeah, that’s--I--yeah, babe, okay.”
He reaches out, lets the pads of his fingers bump against the splatter of paint at the edge of Steve’s jaw, and sighs before he can help himself. It’s a soft, contented sound, comes out more reverent then he really intended, and when Steve kisses him again that’s soft and contented too. He licks his way into Danny’s mouth, slow and careful, and Danny lets his hands drift everywhere, slide down Steve’s thighs, catch in the hollow behind his left knee.
And this is really happening, isn’t it, they’re really doing this, it’s real, this has turned out okay. Danny smiles, feeling the relief of it wash over him; he grins hard into Steve’s mouth, tugs at the back of his neck, loops a leg over his calves to pull him that much closer.
“Danny,” Steve says, pulling back just enough to tilt Danny’s chin up, to press a kiss into what is, almost certainly, Danny’s jugular--he would be like that, Danny thinks distractedly, probably knows every weak spot on my body, the creepy freak. “Danny, oh, Christ, Danny, I want to--”
“Fuck me?” Danny suggests. “Because I would be really interested in that myself, I’m just saying, it’s definitely something to put on the table.”
Steve frowns at him, braced on one of those stupidly muscled arms. Danny leans up and bites down lightly on the edge of that tattoo, just because he can; Steve groans, but the expression on his face doesn’t go away.
“But you said,” he says, “Danny, you pitched a fit about this three minutes ago--”
“I did not pitch a fit,” Danny says. He’d like to be annoyed at Steve, but he can’t get the smile off his face, so that’s probably a lost cause. “I objected to you being all--you know, unilateral decisions, you control enough of my life already, okay, and you’re always driving my car, and I would just like some say in what goes in my ass, you know?”
Steve makes a choking noise, and Danny can feel him getting even harder against his thigh, and oh, hey, McGarrett’s an easy lay, who knew?
“I’ve decided your dick is the best candidate for the position,” Danny says, “and, hey, also probably your fingers, it’s been awhile--but if you’re going to keep staring at me like that, we can just scrap this whole plan and--”
The noise Steve makes this time doesn’t make him sound like he’s choking; it makes him sound like he’s dying, and he crashes back down into the kiss, pulling Danny’s lower lip into his mouth. Danny grinds up into him and arches his back, and Steve catches him in the position--Steve holds him like that, braced with one hand, while he lubes up three fingers on the other. They hiss together when he slides the first one in, Danny from the sensation and Steve from...well, Danny can’t be sure, but he’s gonna guess it’s from seeing him laid out like this, more or less at Steve’s mercy.
“I could still take you,” Danny says, which is completely nonsensical but feels necessary to point out. “Just to be clear. You may have me a little--aah, fuck--a little bit over the barrel here, Steven, and maybe I’m, you know, maybe I just don’t ever want you to stop doing that, oh, fucking fuck--but just because I’m all, all stupid about you doesn’t mean that you can just start doing whatever you want. “
“Yeah,” Steve says, breathless, licking his lips, “yeah, sure.”
“You’re not even listening to me,” Danny says, but there’s no heat behind it. He moves around Steve’s fingers, clenching a little, and there’s the heat, right there. It’s on Steve’s face, in the parted crease of his lips, the way his eyes are fixed on Danny’s body like it’s some kind of apparition; it’s in Danny’s ass, radiating out from where Steve’s fingers are coaxing him open, are pulling him so deftly apart.
“Danny,” Steve says, “Danny, is this--can I--”
“More,” Danny says, “Jesus, who do you think I am here, you think I wouldn’t tell you if I didn’t--Steve, yeah, c’mon, I can take it.”
Steve’s got three fingers in him now, working him wider, and Danny’s thinking suddenly of all the places Steve’s hands have been, of all the things he’s done with them. Steve’s hands have been across the world and back, because for all Danny makes light of it, that SEAL thing is no joke--Steve’s hands have been places Danny’s own will never go. And they’ve been here too, in this house, in every version of this house, painting the walls and stripping the counters, brushing against Danny’s arm in the darkness.
Danny wants to learn them, all at once, wants to pull them into his mouth and taste every dip of the skin, every long-since faded scar. It’s just that he wants Steve in him--really in him--a little more.
He hauls himself up, balancing his weight on Steve’s shoulders to do it, and licks into his mouth hot and dirty. Steve must get the message, because he’s pulling his fingers out, and Danny’s dripping from the lube already, messing the sheets up. He’s more or less in Steve’s lap, he realizes, scraping his teeth along the line of his jaw, and that’s probably not dignified. It doesn’t matter, though, because Steve’s reaching around to pull a condom from the drawer and tearing it open, and his hands are shaking, his fucking hands are shaking, and Danny’s not exactly sure why that makes him want to die.
“I’ll do it,” he says, “I got it, babe, just gimme a second here, huh?”
Steve kisses him again while he’s trying to get the damned thing on him, and Jesus, it’s not like Danny doesn’t get it, it’s not like he hasn’t been waiting on this forever himself but--“Hold still, McGarrett, god, you impatient--”
“You trying to tell me you’re feeling patient right now?” Steve says, and Danny’s pretty sure he meant it to sound cocky. It mostly sounds unsure, and thank god he’s finally got the condom rolled out over Steve’s dick, because really, really, what the hell.
“No,” Danny says, “no, would you just--come here, okay, okay, just, c’mon, I want you to--”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m--” Steve says, and then, oh fuck yes, then he’s sliding home.
When Danny’s imagined doing this--which has been once or twice or maybe a thousand times, it’s hard to tell, he’s had trouble keeping track--he’s pictured it a hundred different ways. He’s sure Steve doesn’t leave his ninja skills at the bedroom door, he’s probably some kind of black belt in sex, and Danny’s not exactly lacking in the imagination department. He’s thought about it standing up and sitting down, in the back of the Camaro and on Steve’s stupid pristine desk, up against the wall and down by the ocean. He’s though about it every way there is to think about it, but fuck, he’s glad now for the goddamn missionary position, because he already feels like he's going to catch on fire.
Steve feels huge inside of him, gigantic and aching and whitehotgood, and Danny’s so full that he can't think. He can't do anything, really, except pant desperately into the curve of Steve's neck and scrabble his hands along Steve's back, and he hasn’t felt unhinged, undone like this, in maybe his entire life. He’s struck dumb and blind, and Steve’s pounding into him with that furious intensity he brings to every fucking table, and when Danny does manage to choke a word out and it's “Please, fuck, please.”
He doesn't even know what he's asking for, if he wants it harder or faster or just more,
if he's asking Steve to push deeper or to just...to not stop, to never fucking stop, Jesus Christ.
Steve’s saying something, he’s babbling something, there are words, Danny knows there are, but he doesn’t know what they mean. He clenches his ass around Steve’s cock and fucks himself desperately onto it, and he can’t understand, can’t begin to piece together what Steve is saying in the face of how good it feels. He’s lost to it, and he chokes on his breath and closes his eyes until his orgasm punches out of him, without so much as a hand near his dick, whiting out his vision and coating Steve's stomach.
When he shakes himself into a clearer head space, he looks up, and Steve’s face is wrung tight and desperate, like he’s not really holding himself together at all. He's still pushing into Danny, thrusting with all he’s got, but he doesn't have any rhythm anymore; it's just these little jerks, like he can't control himself, can’t help it. Danny’s never seen Steve like this, sweating and shaking all for him, and he stares, fascinated, until Steve opens his mouth.
“Danny,” Steve says, and it’s mostly sob, like just the act of saying it is more than he can bear, “Danny, Danny, oh god.”
Danny doesn’t have to think, not for this, not when what Steve needs is so glaringly, stunningly obvious. He jerks his hips up as much as he can manage, boneless still, and buries a hand in Steve’s hair. He pulls at Steve’s shoulders until they’re pressed together everywhere, the contact leaving his own body lit up with warmth, and rubs his thumb against the back of Steve’s neck.
“C'mon,” Danny says, as low as he can manage it, “hey, hey, c’mon, come for me, babe, you’re right there, you’re so close, yeah, Steve, c’mon.”
Steve cries out, just a little, a strangled yell that’s mostly muffled into Danny’s shoulder. His whole body shakes when he comes, every part of him that’s pressed to Danny alive with tremors, and Danny grins into his shoulder and hangs on. He hangs on even after Steve’s stilled, after he’s collapsed completely into him, their chests stuck together, their breathing shallow. Danny would stay like this all night, actually, except for how it’s disgusting, a little, or it least it should be.
Also, he can’t really breathe.
“Steve,” he says, jabbing him lightly in the stomach, “hey, McGarrett, babe, you gotta move, we gotta get cleaned up. A towel or something, go get a--”
“Mmph,” Steve says, because he’s apparently the type who goes all useless after sex. Danny probably shouldn’t find that as endearing as he does. “You do it.”
“Well,” Danny says, “I would, but I got this person on top of me, you know?”
“Bitch, bitch, bitch,” Steve mumbles, but he rolls off, sliding out of Danny in the process. Danny feels loose and empty without him, stretched too wide, except for how Steve’s still right there, his free arm draped across Danny’s chest. He pulls the condom off and ties it one-handed--Danny knew he brought his ninja skills to bed with him--and tosses it in the direction of the trash can without looking.
Then he casts an arm over the side of the bed, feeling around blindly until he pulls it back up, clutching--
“That is my tie,” Danny says, taking it and swiping it across his stomach anyway. He wipes Steve off with it too, because it’s ruined already anyway, and he might as well. “You weren’t even looking--you did that on purpose, didn’t you?”
Steve's face is half hidden against the pillow, and he’s stretched out everywhere already, tree-limb legs splayed into Danny’s space. He cracks his one visible eye open and smiles, shit-eating, at his happiest and his smuggest all at once--and hell, who is Danny kidding, they’re probably associated states for him, he probably can’t tell them apart.
“I hate you,” Danny says, far too fondly to be convincing.
“You’re a liar,” Steve says, and his smile’s just gotten bigger, and god, god, he’s fucking right.
Danny shouldn’t reward this kind of behavior; he knows better than to give Steve McGarrett an inch, knows all too well he’ll take more than a mile. He slides down and kisses the stupid grin off his face anyway, sex-slow, languid, in this house they’ve rebuilt for themselves.
--
In one of those coincidences Danny’s pretty sure Steve has engineered somehow, his lease comes up for renewal two days after they finally declare themselves done with fixing up the house. It’s been three months since they abandoned their desperate attachment to paint chips for a desperate attachment to something else, and Danny’s been kind of amazed to realize how much slower the renovation process is when it’s not fueled by sexual tension.
When he shares this with Rachel, she laughs at him until she cries. Danny can’t really blame her at all.
The point is: he’s slept at his apartment exactly once in three months, Steve bitching about the sofa bed the whole time, but he still feels like he’s got to consider the decision to give the place up. There’s the whole “It’s crazy to move in with someone you’ve only been with for three months” thing--Danny knows that it doesn’t really apply when you’ve been more-or-less platonically married to the guy for over a year, but still--and then there’s...well. He doesn’t want to presume anything, right, because who knows what could push Steve over the edge into commitment-phobia, he’s not exactly the most stable guy in the world on the best of days, is he?
“You’re being an idiot,” Kono says. “A gigantic idiot. Seriously, I doubt your intelligence more with every passing day.”
“Don’t look at me,” Chin says, “I never had much faith in it to begin with.”
“Why do I get this feeling,” Danny says, “that whenever I leave the room I’m the butt of every joke?”
“Because you are,” Chin says, impassive.
Kono grins. “Well, no. Sometimes it’s Steve.”
“Or you and Steve,” Chin adds. “But yeah, brah, the mockery, you draw it. Sorry.”
“Fantastic,” Danny says. “That’s great, the love, I am feeling it, thanks so much. Anything else to crush my spirit with, while we’re on the topic?”
“Eh,” Kono says, “it’s too easy when you offer it up. Takes all the fun out of it. Can we get back to work now?”
Danny tries to talk to Rachel next, but she’s all aboard the “You’re a moron,” train, not that he really expected any different. Hell, even Gracie gives him a look when he asks her if she’d be okay with him leaving his apartment, one that says she’s maybe a little bit ashamed to know him.
“Danno,” she says, “why would you keep your apartment when you’ve got a house?” and yeah, okay, she’s kind of got a point.
He bites the bullet and asks Steve in the end, the lease papers unfolded on the table in front of him, after work one night. Steve glances up from his dinner, mostly disinterested, and shrugs.
“Your call,” he says.
“My,” Danny says, “I’m sorry, my call? What kind of answer is that, my call? I ask you about giving up my lease, which, Steven, is a decision you should have a part in, because I do not mean give up my lease and live on the streets, okay, I mean--”
“Look,” Steve says, “if you want to keep paying for an apartment you don’t use, that’s none of my business--it’s your money you’re throwing away, not mine. We both know you live here, so, yeah. Your call.”
“Oh,” Danny says, staring at him. Steve’s eyebrows are up, a small, knowing sort of smile tugging at his mouth, and after a second Danny smiles back. “I, uh. Oh. Well. Okay, then. Thanks for your input, I guess.”
“You want another slice of pizza?” Steve says, and that turns out to be the end of that.
The party is Steve’s idea; Danny knows this because he doesn’t even realize it’s a party until it’s already underway. He’d thought it was just going to be the team grilling out after a long week, but hey, there’s Kamekona and his girlfriend, there’s Sargeant Lukela from the precinct, there’s Rachel and Gracie and, Jesus, even Stan coming through the door.
“You could have mentioned it to me,” he says, mostly on principle, as Steve grins and ushers them inside.
“Where’s the fun in that?” Steve says.
“It’s a housewarming, Daniel,” Rachel adds, laughing as she presses a bottle of wine into his hands. “Try to be a little warm about it, hmm?”
The truth is, he can’t really help but be warm about it. He’d kind of like to, if just for the sake of driving home a point, but he’s a little too happy to care. His apartment is empty, his house is full, his daughter’s dragging Chin up the stairs to see her room...yeah, he’s doing alright.
It’s about fifteen minutes in when Kono, who’d said she’d be a little late, comes through the door. She’s with a woman who--hey, wait a second--
“Babe,” he says, nudging Steve with his elbow, “isn’t that--”
“Nalani?” Steve says, staring, and yeah, okay, that’s what Danny thought too.
“Commander McGarrett,” she says, smiling “and Detective...Williams, am I right? Nice to see you again.”
“Oh, god, call them Steve and Danny, please,” Kono says, before either of them can say the same. “You wouldn’t want me to feel like I’m at work, would you?”
“Definitely not,” Nalani says, and she slips her hand into Kono’s, and wow, okay, some detective Danny is. He hadn’t known Kono was seeing anyone, although when he thinks about it, she has seemed happier than usual lately.
No less crazy, of course, but Danny’s pretty sure Steve’s had that effect on all of them.
“I gotta say, guys,” Kono says, her eyes sparkling, “I was kind of nervous about bringing Nalani out tonight--introducing the girlfriend to the boss, you know how it is--but then she told me the strangest story when we pulled into the drive.”
“I didn’t realize you’d turned the house around so much,” Nalani says. Her eyes are approving as she looks around, and Kono’s holding back her laughter, and jeez, this is definitely up there on the list of embarrassing moments in Danny’s life. “I could probably sell it now, actually, if that’s still something you’d like to pursue--Kono said she didn’t think you were interested anymore, but it never hurts to ask, right?”
Danny doesn’t know what to say--there’s not exactly an easy way to explain it, is there, especially in the wake of what they’d let her think during their first meeting. He’d thought then that Steve needed fresh space, a new start, and had found out the long way around that they were both looking for something else entirely. He wouldn’t move out of this house now if his life depended on it, not after all he and Steve have poured into it, not now that they’ve gone and made it theirs.
Steve puts a hand on the back of his neck, warm and friendly, and solves his problem for him.
“We’re not on the market,” he says. Danny leans into his touch, knows it’s the truth, and smiles.
Grace picks out a bright yellow for the walls of the room that used to be Steve’s, after spending 45 minutes with color choices spread in front of her like battle plans. “This is important, Daddy,” she says when he tries to hurry her along, sounding so much like her mother that Danny’s chest hurts a little. “I’ll pick when I’m ready.”
“Take all the time you need,” Steve says. He’s smirking at Danny over her head; one of these days they’re going to make obnoxiousness into an Olympic sport, and Steve is going to fucking medal.
“Thank you, Steve,” Grace says, and gives Danny a look that says, See?, and really, when did everyone turn against him, that’s what Danny wants to know.
“Smart kid,” Steve says, when they’ve somehow both ended up in the kitchen--Danny to get a soda and Steve, he suspects, to get Grace a bowl of ice cream. “Weighing her decisions carefully, good for her.”
Danny snorts. “You’ve never weighed a decision carefully in your life, McGarrett, don’t even try.”
“That’s not true,” Steve says, and when Danny glances up from the fridge Steve is looking at him, intense and focused. “There are some decisions I don’t take lightly at all.”
Danny swallows hard, but can’t bring himself to look away. “Is that so?” he says, and hey, at least his voice sounds normal, there’s today’s small victory. “You wanna look at the evidence there, because I can think of six--twelve--twenty times you’ve recklessly endangered yourself for no good reason, and that’s in like, the last month alone--”
“Yeah,” Steve says, still too serious, “that’s not really the kind of thing I’m talking about.”
Danny stares at him over the fridge door, and this, this is why this was a bad idea. Steve probably means the military, or, or shit with his sister or something, the things Danny is extrapolating here are probably not rational, are definitely not rational, and Steve’s too close to him, too intent by half.
“Um,” Danny says, his tongue thick in his mouth, and then Grace is calling “Okay, I’ve got it!” and the moment is broken.
They take her to Target, and Danny says “Don’t spoil her, Steve,” to little avail. He leads her shamelessly down every goddamn aisle, pointing out things she could choose--bedspreads and sheet sets, posters for the wall.
“Remember that this is for, you know, a tourist kid,” Danny says at one point, because Steve is trying to help her decide between two different bright pink coverlets. “And also, you picked yellow for the walls.”
“I trust Gracie’s taste,” Steve says, but he has the decency to at least look a little shamefaced about it. Grace, on the other hand, has suddenly never had less shame in her life. She’s throwing things in the cart with aplomb, and Danny resolves to have a talk with Rachel about setting an allowance for her or something, because this whole ‘I want it and I shall have it’ attitude is really not becoming.
Not that Steve minds. Not that Steve’s doing anything to discourage it. Not that Gracie hasn’t found the perfect loophole.
“I think that any kid would like this Hannah Montana poster,” she says, pointing it out to Steve. “Everyone likes Hannah Montana.”
“Okay,” Steve agrees, because he knows nothing at all about kids and it’s up to Danny to be the voice of reason. Again.
“Steven,” he says, “you, my friend, are letting my daughter pull the wool over your eyes. You know about her poker face, right? Because I taught her the poker face, okay, you’re getting taken for a ride here, and, because it’s your house, I don’t have the authority to stop her without...you know.”
“Without what?” Steve says, tilting his head.
Danny waves a hand, uncomfortable suddenly. “Without, you know. Implying. Things. About co-ownership, okay, I don’t want to confuse her more than we’ve probably already confused her--but she’s bleeding you dry here, is my point.”
“She’s having fun,” Steve says, shrugging. His shoulders have gotten tense, and he looks decidedly less happy than he did a minute ago; Danny doesn’t have time to figure out why, because Grace calls him ahead to look at a lamp. Danny hangs back with the cart, feeling like an asshole but not sure why, and so he only catches the tail end of the conversation Steve and his daughter are having with the salesgirl.
Unfortunately, the tail end of that conversation is the salesgirl smiling at Gracie and saying, “It’s awfully nice of your father to let you pick out all this stuff.”
Danny’s not sure what the worst part of it is, if it’s the way Steve’s whole body goes completely still or the way--even though it’s irrational, even though it’s not Steve’s fault--he wants to punch Steve in the fucking face. He just stands there with his mouth open like a beached whale, trying to get a handle on his own stupid Stan-related ridiculous inadequacy feelings that have nothing to do with Steve, okay, or the salesgirl or anything, anything but the idea that anyone but him is Gracie’s father. He stands there, and Steve, next to him, looks terrified, and this is maybe the first time since the day they met that neither one of them has the capacity to be any kind of backup.
He stands there, and Steve stands there, and then Grace--who is, jeez, Danny’s the luckiest guy alive, she’s the best kid in the entire goddamn world--takes Danny’s hand in one of hers, Steve’s in the other, and glares.
“Steve’s not my dad,” she says. “Danno’s my dad. Steve’s his partner.”
Steve’s shoulders relax by half an inch, and Danny nudges Grace a little with his foot, because now that he can breathe again he’d like to get that expression off Steve’s face. “And my friend,” Gracie adds, turning to smile up at him. “And he’s not being nice, he’s redecorating. I’m helping.”
“Oh,” the woman says, and she obviously thinks Gracie meant partner in a very different sense. Danny can’t really be fucked to correct her. “I’m sorry, I didn’t--”
“It’s fine,” Danny says.
“Fine,” Steve agrees, sounding strangled.
“C’mon, Monkey, let’s go look at the rugs,” Danny says, because Steve’s looking like he’s maybe gonna need a minute.
“Okay!” Gracie agrees. She lets go of Steve’s hand and tugs on Danny’s arm, and when he glances back Steve’s looking resolutely up at the ceiling, like there’s something in the tiling he finds utterly fascinating.
Maybe there is, Danny thinks, kind of desperately, as he help Grace pick options to show Steve. Maybe he wants to change out the ceiling in the living room. Maybe it’s not a family thing at all.
He’s not really fooling anybody, but it doesn’t hurt to try.
--
They put up a primer coat in Gracie’s room--in the kid’s room, the random tourist kid, it’s not Grace’s room, it’s not--when they get back to Steve’s house, because she’s too excited to wait.
“This way we can put up the yellow tomorrow!” she says, waving her hands. “So I can see it before you have to take me home.”
The way she says home makes something tighten in Danny’s chest; he doesn’t even notice it until Steve knocks into him, until the contact makes the feeling lessen somewhat.
“Sorry,” Steve says, looking anything but, and there’s paint on Danny’s arm, but he can’t bring himself to mind.
Steve talks about going to a movie when they’re done, but Danny takes one look at Grace--her drooping eyelids, the way she’s stifling yawns--and shakes his head at Steve behind her back. “Let’s order a pizza, huh?” he suggests. “We can watch a movie here, you’ve got Netflix, right?”
“Netflix?” Steve says, blank, and it figures this is the one part of the internet he doesn’t know about.
“Yes,” Danny says, “Netflix, Steven, it’s--”
“You don’t know about Netflix?” Gracie demands. “You have to get it, Steve, you’d like it, everyone likes movies.”
“We can use my account,” Danny says, rolling his eyes at Steve’s still-blank expression. “Even I can set it up, and that’s saying something. Gracie, baby, what do you want on your pizza?”
“Pepperoni,” she says, in the same tone of voice she’d use if telling him the sky was blue. He smirks at Steve, waiting for a diatribe on the whole ham-and-pineapple thing, but it doesn’t come. Steve just grins at her, agreeable, and orders the pizza while Danny screws around with his laptop and the requisite cords.
“You would have the most complicated television in the world,” he says, when he’s finally gotten the damn thing set up. “You’re not replacing this, I’m not going through this process again, you understand?”
“You’re coming in loud and clear,” Steve says, grinning, and goes to the door to get the food.
They watch Up, eating out of plates on their laps, Grace sandwiched between them on the hideous goddamn couch. She passes out about halfway through and lists to the right instead of the left, her head landing on Steve’s bicep. He goes still at once, glancing down at her every few seconds like he has no idea what to do, and Danny’s sense of vindication is probably inappropriate.
“I’ll take her up,” he says, when she’s been out for long enough that she won’t wake. “I’m going to put her in the guest room, okay? There’s probably not fumes in her--in the kid’s room anymore, but I’d rather not risk it, you know?”
“Yeah,” Steve whispers, still frozen. “Yeah, that’s fine, I’ll get the pizza shit cleaned up.”
“Language,” Danny says, but he’s mostly joking; from the eyeroll he gets in return, he knows that Steve knows it. He gathers Gracie up, surprised as always by how big she is--in a couple of months he won’t be able to do this anymore, and it’s kind of a terrible thought.
“Danno?” she says, when he’s got her tucked in. Her eyes are only half open, and she’s yawning even as she says it; he brushes her hair out of her eyes and checks her covers one last time.
“Yeah, Monkey?”
“I had fun today,” she says, turning into the pillow.
“Yeah,” Danny says, “me too. Go to sleep, okay? That room isn’t gonna paint itself tomorrow, you gotta be awake, you hear me?”
“Mmmhmm,” Grace says. “Love you, Danno.”
“Love you too,” Danny says, and stands there for a long moment before he goes back downstairs.
Steve’s waiting for him with a beer when he reaches the living room, and Danny follows him out onto the lanai without really thinking about it. He sinks down into one of the chairs, clinks the neck of his Longboard absently with Steve’s, and stares out at the ocean.
“It’s nice,” Steve says, after a few quiet moments. Danny jumps a little without meaning to, jerked out of thoughts he can’t even remember now. “The ocean at night, I mean. Peaceful.”
“Steve McGarrett talks peaceful,” Danny laughs, leaning back against the chair. “Alert the criminal element, their sworn enemy is calming down.”
“Fuck you,” Steve says easily. “SEALs don’t calm down, we just get scarier with age.”
“I hear that,” Danny says, and takes a pull from his beer.
They go quiet again, and Danny realizes all at once that he’s happy, that he feels good, that shit is, with a couple glaring exceptions, exactly the way he wants it to be. And he can live with a few exceptions--he figures everyone has those, things that aren’t quite the way they want them. He can work around it, he thinks, given enough time.
“Yeah,” he says, taking a deep breath of the salt air. “You’re right. It’s nice.”
--
They paint the kids room the next day, and the guest room too, because Gracie doesn’t want to stop painting and Danny doesn’t want her to stop smiling. They’re all kind of wiped out by the time he takes her back to Rachel’s, and Danny’s back is killing him, on fire from his night on the couch. It’s worth it, though, for the way she’s talking a mile a minute when she hits the door, telling her mother about everything they did like it was the best weekend of her life.
“Still nothing to tell you,” Danny says, when Rachel raises an eyebrow at him. “What, did you think I was lying before? I’ll tell you if there’s ever something to tell.”
“There doesn’t need to be something to tell, Daniel,” she says, shrugging. “I’m...willing to talk about it, if you need an ear.”
“Thanks,” Danny says, surprised. It’s not like he’s ever going to take her up on it, but... “Thanks, I appreciate it.”
“As I believe I have mentioned,” Rachel says, “I don’t think you give me nearly enough credit.”
“Probably true,” Danny admits, and she smiles at him, and this is nice too, this communication that doesn’t feel forced. It’s been better for awhile, the thing with him and Rachel--a lot better, since what happened with Matt--but it still feels good, being able to do it right.
He drives back to Steve’s house without thinking about it, already looking forward to a beer and maybe some Chinese takeout. It’s only when Steve raises his eyebrows from where he’s cooking a steak--one steak--on the grill that Danny realizes they don’t actually have a project to work on.
“You’re back,” Steve says.
“I...am,” Danny agrees, feeling like an idiot. “I, uh, sorry, autopilot, I guess. I’ll just--”
“No!” Steve says, too quickly, and then, more calmly, “uh, I mean, no, I was...going to call you. Because.”
“Because?” Danny prompts, hoping against hope that Steve has some kind of reason for him to stay here. The idea of going back to his apartment now is...oh, god, it’s almost unbearable. Danny wonders what’s going to happen when the house is finished, when there’s nothing else left to do, and finds he can’t even consider it.
He’ll figure something out. Something will come up. He’ll break shit if he has to--no, that’s crazy, it’s crazy, but he can’t--the idea of not--
“We need to put up another coat,” Steve says. “Of paint. In the rooms we did today. It, um. I read a thing that said that three coats is better.”
“Oh,” Danny says, latching on to this like a crazy person, “yeah, that’s...right, I forgot about that, we’ll have to do another coat in the other rooms, the ones we’ve done already, because we only did--”
“Two coats,” Steve says, “yeah, that’s right, isn’t it, my bad, I guess we should have thought of that.”
“Yeah,” Danny says. “That’s--yeah.”
They stare at each other for a second, and then Steve kind of smiles at him and gestures at the grill. “You want dinner?” he says. “I actually have another steak in the fridge, I just didn’t know that you--I mean, I hadn’t realized, you know. That you’d be back before I could call. I figured you’d get something while you were out.”
“I could eat,” Danny says. “I’ll just...go get it?”
“Okay,” Steve says, and lets out a breath like he’s been holding it in, and smiles properly. “Top drawer, next to the--”
“I know where you keep the meat, McGarrett,” Danny says, waving a hand, and it’s not until he gets to the fridge that he realizes that’s probably part of the problem.
--
Three coats of paint is a stupid amount of paint, and Danny knows it. He helps Steve put it up anyway, anything for the excuse, and doesn’t realize that it’s going to mean fresh fumes and another night on the couch until it’s too late.
“Urgh,” he says, trying to get comfortable after Steve’s gone upstairs. His back feels like there are people stabbing it, and every position he tries just makes it fucking worse. He spends an hour, and then two, shifting around, but he can’t get comfortable enough to fall asleep for more than five minutes.
At one in the morning he gives it up for a lost cause and gets up, figuring even the floor will be better than this. He pulls the blanket and pillow down with him, muttering under his breath, and he’s feeling...well, he’s feeling a lot like he’s lying on the fucking floor, actually, when he hears Steve’s feet on the stairs.
“Do you ever not make noise?” Steve says from above, his voice sleep-scratchy and annoyed. “Seriously, you’re like an elephant, what are you doing down--Danny, what the hell.”
Danny glares up at Steve, who’s standing over him now, arms folded across his chest. “Your couch is a menace, okay? A fucking menace, a man cannot sleep on exhaustion alone, all I ask for is a hint, a hint of comfort, Steven, that is all. I am no stranger to sleeping uncomfortably, alright, the bed in my apartment is not exactly made of feathers and rainbows, but that thing is a goddamn torture device.”
“Well, you’re not sleeping on the floor,” Steve says, reaching a hand down to help Danny up. Danny takes it, but only because he’s really fucking tired.
“What, exactly, do you suggest?” Danny says. “You got another bedroom hidden in here I don’t know about, because the floor is better than inhaling--”
“My bed is big enough for two people, Danny,” Steve says, rolling his eyes. “Could you just stop arguing and come on, please, it’s the middle of the goddamn night.”
Danny should argue. He should definitely argue. He should get in his car and drive home is what he should do--is what he should have done when he realized the couch wasn’t a feasible choice, why didn’t he do that, why didn’t that even occur to him, oh god. He should argue, but it is the middle of the night, and he’s so fucking tired he could die, and his back hurts something awful, and Steve’s offering to take him to bed.
He doesn’t mean it the way Danny wants him to mean it, but he still just doesn’t have it in him to turn him down.
Of course, he should know better than to think it’ll be easy. Steve slides back under the covers and is out again in seconds, but Danny can’t even bring himself to close his eyes. The heat radiating out from next to him would be distraction enough, but then there’s the breathing, the soft, barely-there snores, and the fact that it’s Steve, it’s Steve, it’s fucking Steve. Danny hasn’t shared a bed with anyone in more than two years, barring a few brief and ill-advised one night stands; he hasn’t shared a bed with someone he was in love with in a lot longer. This is worse than the couch was, worse than anything would be, because of all of the ways it’s so much better.
Then--oh, god, then Steve’s rolling over, sprawling the way he does, splaying an arm out across Danny’s chest in his sleep. And Steve’s just like this, isn’t he, always reaching out even when he doesn’t mean to, even when he doesn’t know he’s doing it; Danny knows that about him, but it doesn’t make it any easier to bear. His arm is warm, too warm, practically burning a hole through Danny’s t-shirt, and Danny wants to remove it from his person. Wants to never remove it from his person.
Wants to lick it up and down, the curve of every muscle, each whorl of that damned tattoo.
Control yourself, he thinks, staring at the wall. Think of anything, Daniel, anything, anything, Grandma Williams naked, the fucking periodic table, anything, you can’t think about him, you can’t even think about thinking about him, he is right there, what is the matter with you?
Steve shifts a little then, so Danny’s back and his chest are pressed together, and Danny’s going to scream, he’s going to explode, he’s going to catch on fire. He is cuddling, okay, he is cuddling with Steve McGarrett against his will--against both of their wills, for fuck’s sake, how is this happening, how is this his life.
“Steve,” he says finally, nudging back a little, “Steve, hey, you’re a little--”
“Shuddup,” Steve mumbles against the back of neck. “’M sleeping, Danny, god.”
And the thing is, it’s still torture, it is, Danny’s balls are so blue that they’re probably glowing neon by now. It’s still torture, but Steve said his name, okay, which means he is aware enough to know what the hell is going on, a little, kind of. Which means he’s not going to wake up and shove Danny out of the bed and then kill him with some kind of ninja SEAL technique, which, yeah, probably not a rational worry, but Danny can relax a little, can let a couple of muscles go loose.
He’s not sure if it’s exhaustion or the rush of Steve’s breath against his shoulder that takes him the rest of the way, but he’s out in ten seconds flat.
--
It’s three days later when he cracks and goes to Rachel.
She is, all things considered, probably the wrong person to turn to. A year ago, he would have swallowed his pride and called Matt; six months ago he would have called no one, sat in his own misery for the rest of his days, and tried not to think about it. He would ask Chin or Kono about it now, but “Hey, I’ve got it bad for our boss,” would put them in kind of an awkward situation. If it were about anything, anyone else, he’d go to Steve, but he’s kind of shit out of luck on that front.
And he trusts Rachel again--has always trusted her, really, even if he’d hated her for a minute there. There are bits and pieces of her he’s lost, parts of their relationship he’ll never get back, but they’d been best friends until they weren’t even friendly anymore, and it’s hard to let that go.
“I am,” he says, when she opens the door, “I am so fucked, okay, Rach, I just, I’m sorry to make you drop everything like this and this probably--I mean, yeah, I know, that this is not something you want to hear, I’m sure it’s not, or maybe it is, I don’t--”
“Daniel,” she says, stern but fond. “Breathe. And come in, the neighbors will think we’re under attack, you look atrocious.”
“I haven’t slept,” he admits, following her into the kitchen. “I mean, not since Sunday, I slept great Sunday, I slept so good I can’t even believe it, I slept like a baby, okay, but since Sunday it’s been not so much, with the sleeping.”
“And what happened on Sunday?”
“I slept with Steve,” Danny says, and then waves his hands when Rachel’s eyebrows hit her hairline. “No, no, I mean...I mean literally, okay, I mean we shared a bed in like, in like a platonic, buddy-buddy, help a guy off the couch kind of way--”
“You shared a bed in a buddy-buddy kind of way,” Rachel repeats slowly. “Daniel, you’re not making any sense.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Danny demands, throwing his hands in the air. “You think I don’t know about the crazy, because I know, Rachel, oh, do I know, I know so much more than you do it’s not even funny, I am a scholar of crazy, okay, I am the fucking foremost expert on crazy, nobody knows crazy like I know crazy.”
“One lump or two?” she asks, perfectly calm, which is when he realizes that she’s made tea.
“Four,” he says, dropping his head into his hands. “Seven. A million, fuck, fuck, what is the matter with me, huh? What’ve I done here?”
“Well,” she says, putting in only three lumps because she’s heartless, “to be entirely fair, I can’t really answer that question until you tell me what’s happened, can I? So why don’t you start at the beginning--slowly, Danny, please--and tell me exactly what’s going on. “
Danny...starts at the beginning. And the beginning, it turns out, is before the first anniversary of Jack McGarrett’s death--the beginning is before Pacific Home and Home Depot and the stupid bottle of Scotch. The beginning is those nights at the Kahala Hotel Steve bought for him and Gracie, and Meka’s funeral, and pushing that rust bucket junker car up that hill. The beginning is Steve saying “Maybe you’re not as alone on this island as you think,” and Danny doesn’t even know it until he tells her, can’t believe he’s missed it all this time.
Rachel’s smiling when he’s done, half sad and half gently mocking, like Danny’s a turtle on his back, his legs windmilling in the air. “Oh, Daniel,” she says.
“Really?” he says, staring at her. “Really, that’s all you’ve got, it’s just ‘Oh, Daniel,’ huh? Because, I mean, this has to be kind of weird for you, I get that, I do, but I’m pouring my heart out over here, you haven’t got more for me than ‘Oh Daniel,’ is that really what you’re telling me?”
“Do you know what book Grace is reading right now?” Rachel asks, and Danny groans.
“Does right now seem like a good time for a parenting quiz?”
“This isn’t a test,” Rachel says, rolling her eyes. “As if that’s been in question, honestly, must you be so paranoid? Just answer the question, please.”
“Okay,” Danny says, “yeah, okay, she’s reading--what, James and the Giant Peach, right, and that one by the guy who wrote those Wayside School books she used to love.”
“Louis Sachar,” Rachel confirms. “Holes, it’s called. Stanley and I have been reading it her at--oh, for god’s sake, Daniel, don’t make that face, Stan is allowed to read to her, control yourself.
“I just don’t see what this has to do with--”
“I am getting there,” Rachel says, and sighs. “There are two characters--and don’t think it’s lost on me that I have to use a children’s book to explain this to you, because it certainly isn’t, believe me--but there are two characters who are in love, but afraid to say so. And the one is a handyman, and so the woman--Kate, I believe--has him come over to fix things.”
“Okay,” Danny says, “it’s not that I don’t get, kind of, ish, what you’re driving at, but--”
“And when he’s fixed everything in the house,” Rachel continues, “they invent things to fix, and they fix things that aren’t broken, because it’s not really about the house at all. Daniel. Honestly. Three coats of paint?”
“Okay, but,” Danny says, “I mean, the walls do look really--”
“Let’s try this another way,” Rachel says, exasperated. “You remember Mikey, I assume?”
“Mikey,” Danny says, “Mikey, my partner of seven years Mikey, no, no, don’t know who you’re talking about, doesn’t ring a--yes, Rachel, of course I remember Mikey.”
“Well,” Rachel says, “then tell me this. When’s the last time you and Mikey had a sleepover, hmm? When’s the last time Mikey asked you into his bed because the couch was uncomfortable?”
“Well,” Danny says.
“And if you’d told Mikey it was time to redecorate his house, he would have--”
“Told me to fuck off,” Danny says, “but Steve’s--”
“And if somehow,” Rachel says over him, “if, somehow, he didn’t tell you to bugger off, if he asked you to spend the night helping him paint and spackle and whatever else you and Steve have been up to for months and months on end, would he have invited you to bring Grace over to decorate a room of her very own?”
“It’s...the kids room...” Danny says, but he recognizes that it’s a weak play.
“It is honestly beyond me how you two manage to solve crimes,” Rachel sighs, and puts her hand lightly on top of Danny’s own. “Daniel. Danny. It’s not about the house.”
“I,” Danny says, but then his phone is buzzing with a text message in his pocket. He glances down before he can help himself, and when he looks up Rachel is smiling at him, her hand pulled back from his and curled around her mug.
“Go on, then,” she says. “See what he’s got to say.”
Text from Steve McGarrett to Danny Williams, 6:03 PM HST
Hey, where’d you go? Chin said you left right after you finished booking Anderson. I’m putting the last coat on the living room trim, if you want to come help. Out of beer, if you think of it.
“It’s not about the house,” Danny says, trying it out on his tongue. He can’t tear his eyes away from the screen, because--because they’ve put the last coat on the living room trim four times already, the living room trim is fucking drowning in paint, and Danny’s supposed to pick up beer. He’s supposed to pick up beer, because they’re out of beer, because Danny drank the last one in the guest bedroom last night, trying to stifle the urge to wander down the hall and slide under Steve’s sheets.
They’re out of beer, and they’re both idiots, and it’s never been about the damn house.
“Go,” Rachel says, when he looks up. “It would be a favor, actually. I’ve far too much to do to coax you into any more emotional revelations tonight, and Grace will be home from her play date soon. Go on, you are officially uninvited from my kitchen--oh, for heaven’s sake, don’t look at me like that. Is it so hard for you to believe that I’d like you to be happy?”
“No,” Danny says, and she looks so surprised when he says it that it breaks his heart a little. “Rachel, I--thank you, okay, seriously, I don’t know what--”
“You’re wasting valuable time,” Rachel says, grinning. “Get out of here, Daniel.”
Danny goes.
--
Steve’s in the living room when Danny gets in, without beer, because the prospect of stopping to buy it seemed overwhelming. He kind of regrets making that call now that he’s here--Steve’s shirtless, with little droplets of cream paint dotting his shoulders.
He is also standing in front of that leather couch from Pacific Home, and yeah, Danny could go for a drink right about now.
“You don’t have my Longboards,” Steve says, frowning. “I know I phrased it like a suggestion, but I meant it more like a command.”
“You bought the sofa,” Danny says. “You--the four thousand dollar couch, Steven, does it turn out to wash your dishes after all, why would you spend that kind of money on a--”
“You liked it,” Steve says, shrugging. “And it works in here, I think--Chin said it did, anyway, and he’s been right so far. I figured--”
“You figured that you’d,” Danny says, and stops. “What, you figured you’d lure me in with the--oh my god, McGarrett, Steve, babe, we are such idiots, you and me, okay, we are just such jackasses that I can’t, I keep thinking about and I just cannot believe how fucking stupid--”
“What are you talking about?” Steve says, and there’s a paint roller still in his hand, and it knocks into the perfect goddamn triple-coated eggshell blue wall when Danny kisses him. They’re going to have to paint it again, and Danny doesn’t care, he doesn’t give a flying fuck, because Steve’s mouth is opening up under his and the roller is dropping from his fingers and his hands are sliding up under Danny’s shirt.
“Wait,” Steve says, “wait, you said that we’re--wait, how long have you--”
“The whole time,” Danny says, and runs his hands down Steve’s bare back. “The whole fucking time, Steven, what the hell did you think I was doing here every night, huh, did you think I was indulging my secret interior decorating fantasy, is that what you thought--”
“Well what do you think I was doing,” Steve says, “I dragged you into bed with me the other night, how much clearer was I supposed to get, did I need to send you a memo or something?”
“I thought you were being,” Danny says, waving his hands, “I don’t know, nice, I guess, what the hell was I supposed to think, okay, I didn’t even know if you liked guys, it’s not exactly the kind of thing you usually talk about--”
“We’re idiots,” Steve says, blinking.
“That,” Danny agrees, “is what I am saying here,” and then Steve swears and grabs him by the shoulders, hauling him in.
Danny’s never shed his clothes so fast in his life, tossing them haphazardly, tripping over them as they wrestle their way up the stairs. Steve’s hands are everywhere at once, it’s a feat of science, it has to be--they’re undoing his pants and tangling in his hair, pulling at Danny’s tie like he’s personally offended by it. Danny’s giving as good as he gets, shoving Steve against every available surface and kissing him like he’s thought about, fuck, like he’s thought about for so long now that it almost feels like he’s dreaming.
But he can’t be dreaming, can he, because he knows the layout of this house like the back of his hand, like he’s going to get to know every inch of the map that is Steve’s musculature. He knows this house so well that he doesn’t trip over anything but his pants and shoes, which just won’t come clear fast enough, and Steve’s laughing at him as they crash onto the bed.
“You’ve got paint,” Danny says, “everywhere, everywhere, McGarrett, if I get that in my mouth we are calling Poison Control, I refuse to submit to your, your field medicine, okay, you’d try to fix me with a twig or something--”
“I can think of part of my body that definitely doesn’t have paint on it,” Steve says, and Danny groans.
“You are not smooth,” he says. “Whoever told you that you were smooth was a fucking liar, you understand? You gotta know that right now, because--oh, fuck, Steve.”
Steve’s got his hand on Danny’s cock, and how did it even get there, how is he so ninja fast all the time? He’s got one hand on Danny’s cock and another hand is reaching into his bedside table, is pulling out a little tub of lube, and--
“Hey,” Danny says, “hey, hey, who decided you were gonna be the one doing the fucking here? Did we have that conversation, because I don’t remember it, where you going with that lube, what are you--”
“Danny,” Steve says, pupils blown wide, mouth bruised already, “if you think I haven’t thought about every way this could go, you’re crazy.”
“I,” Danny says, “what?”
“I don’t care,” Steve clarifies. “Top, bottom, hell, you can just give me a hand job like we’re in the eighth grade--”
“You were doing this in the--”
“Danny!” Steve yells. “I have been thinking about this for months, I don’t care how we do it, I’d just like to come at some point tonight in the same room as you, okay?”
Danny wants to say something easy and light, something like “That can be arranged,” or “Eager much, McGarrett?” but he can’t. The way that Steve is looking at him, breathing hard out of his nose, his fingers still tracing lines of his shoulders like he can’t bear to pull them away--Danny feels the urgency drain out of him, leave him with something bigger and harder to ignore.
“Okay,” he says, “yeah, that’s--I--yeah, babe, okay.”
He reaches out, lets the pads of his fingers bump against the splatter of paint at the edge of Steve’s jaw, and sighs before he can help himself. It’s a soft, contented sound, comes out more reverent then he really intended, and when Steve kisses him again that’s soft and contented too. He licks his way into Danny’s mouth, slow and careful, and Danny lets his hands drift everywhere, slide down Steve’s thighs, catch in the hollow behind his left knee.
And this is really happening, isn’t it, they’re really doing this, it’s real, this has turned out okay. Danny smiles, feeling the relief of it wash over him; he grins hard into Steve’s mouth, tugs at the back of his neck, loops a leg over his calves to pull him that much closer.
“Danny,” Steve says, pulling back just enough to tilt Danny’s chin up, to press a kiss into what is, almost certainly, Danny’s jugular--he would be like that, Danny thinks distractedly, probably knows every weak spot on my body, the creepy freak. “Danny, oh, Christ, Danny, I want to--”
“Fuck me?” Danny suggests. “Because I would be really interested in that myself, I’m just saying, it’s definitely something to put on the table.”
Steve frowns at him, braced on one of those stupidly muscled arms. Danny leans up and bites down lightly on the edge of that tattoo, just because he can; Steve groans, but the expression on his face doesn’t go away.
“But you said,” he says, “Danny, you pitched a fit about this three minutes ago--”
“I did not pitch a fit,” Danny says. He’d like to be annoyed at Steve, but he can’t get the smile off his face, so that’s probably a lost cause. “I objected to you being all--you know, unilateral decisions, you control enough of my life already, okay, and you’re always driving my car, and I would just like some say in what goes in my ass, you know?”
Steve makes a choking noise, and Danny can feel him getting even harder against his thigh, and oh, hey, McGarrett’s an easy lay, who knew?
“I’ve decided your dick is the best candidate for the position,” Danny says, “and, hey, also probably your fingers, it’s been awhile--but if you’re going to keep staring at me like that, we can just scrap this whole plan and--”
The noise Steve makes this time doesn’t make him sound like he’s choking; it makes him sound like he’s dying, and he crashes back down into the kiss, pulling Danny’s lower lip into his mouth. Danny grinds up into him and arches his back, and Steve catches him in the position--Steve holds him like that, braced with one hand, while he lubes up three fingers on the other. They hiss together when he slides the first one in, Danny from the sensation and Steve from...well, Danny can’t be sure, but he’s gonna guess it’s from seeing him laid out like this, more or less at Steve’s mercy.
“I could still take you,” Danny says, which is completely nonsensical but feels necessary to point out. “Just to be clear. You may have me a little--aah, fuck--a little bit over the barrel here, Steven, and maybe I’m, you know, maybe I just don’t ever want you to stop doing that, oh, fucking fuck--but just because I’m all, all stupid about you doesn’t mean that you can just start doing whatever you want. “
“Yeah,” Steve says, breathless, licking his lips, “yeah, sure.”
“You’re not even listening to me,” Danny says, but there’s no heat behind it. He moves around Steve’s fingers, clenching a little, and there’s the heat, right there. It’s on Steve’s face, in the parted crease of his lips, the way his eyes are fixed on Danny’s body like it’s some kind of apparition; it’s in Danny’s ass, radiating out from where Steve’s fingers are coaxing him open, are pulling him so deftly apart.
“Danny,” Steve says, “Danny, is this--can I--”
“More,” Danny says, “Jesus, who do you think I am here, you think I wouldn’t tell you if I didn’t--Steve, yeah, c’mon, I can take it.”
Steve’s got three fingers in him now, working him wider, and Danny’s thinking suddenly of all the places Steve’s hands have been, of all the things he’s done with them. Steve’s hands have been across the world and back, because for all Danny makes light of it, that SEAL thing is no joke--Steve’s hands have been places Danny’s own will never go. And they’ve been here too, in this house, in every version of this house, painting the walls and stripping the counters, brushing against Danny’s arm in the darkness.
Danny wants to learn them, all at once, wants to pull them into his mouth and taste every dip of the skin, every long-since faded scar. It’s just that he wants Steve in him--really in him--a little more.
He hauls himself up, balancing his weight on Steve’s shoulders to do it, and licks into his mouth hot and dirty. Steve must get the message, because he’s pulling his fingers out, and Danny’s dripping from the lube already, messing the sheets up. He’s more or less in Steve’s lap, he realizes, scraping his teeth along the line of his jaw, and that’s probably not dignified. It doesn’t matter, though, because Steve’s reaching around to pull a condom from the drawer and tearing it open, and his hands are shaking, his fucking hands are shaking, and Danny’s not exactly sure why that makes him want to die.
“I’ll do it,” he says, “I got it, babe, just gimme a second here, huh?”
Steve kisses him again while he’s trying to get the damned thing on him, and Jesus, it’s not like Danny doesn’t get it, it’s not like he hasn’t been waiting on this forever himself but--“Hold still, McGarrett, god, you impatient--”
“You trying to tell me you’re feeling patient right now?” Steve says, and Danny’s pretty sure he meant it to sound cocky. It mostly sounds unsure, and thank god he’s finally got the condom rolled out over Steve’s dick, because really, really, what the hell.
“No,” Danny says, “no, would you just--come here, okay, okay, just, c’mon, I want you to--”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m--” Steve says, and then, oh fuck yes, then he’s sliding home.
When Danny’s imagined doing this--which has been once or twice or maybe a thousand times, it’s hard to tell, he’s had trouble keeping track--he’s pictured it a hundred different ways. He’s sure Steve doesn’t leave his ninja skills at the bedroom door, he’s probably some kind of black belt in sex, and Danny’s not exactly lacking in the imagination department. He’s thought about it standing up and sitting down, in the back of the Camaro and on Steve’s stupid pristine desk, up against the wall and down by the ocean. He’s though about it every way there is to think about it, but fuck, he’s glad now for the goddamn missionary position, because he already feels like he's going to catch on fire.
Steve feels huge inside of him, gigantic and aching and whitehotgood, and Danny’s so full that he can't think. He can't do anything, really, except pant desperately into the curve of Steve's neck and scrabble his hands along Steve's back, and he hasn’t felt unhinged, undone like this, in maybe his entire life. He’s struck dumb and blind, and Steve’s pounding into him with that furious intensity he brings to every fucking table, and when Danny does manage to choke a word out and it's “Please, fuck, please.”
He doesn't even know what he's asking for, if he wants it harder or faster or just more,
if he's asking Steve to push deeper or to just...to not stop, to never fucking stop, Jesus Christ.
Steve’s saying something, he’s babbling something, there are words, Danny knows there are, but he doesn’t know what they mean. He clenches his ass around Steve’s cock and fucks himself desperately onto it, and he can’t understand, can’t begin to piece together what Steve is saying in the face of how good it feels. He’s lost to it, and he chokes on his breath and closes his eyes until his orgasm punches out of him, without so much as a hand near his dick, whiting out his vision and coating Steve's stomach.
When he shakes himself into a clearer head space, he looks up, and Steve’s face is wrung tight and desperate, like he’s not really holding himself together at all. He's still pushing into Danny, thrusting with all he’s got, but he doesn't have any rhythm anymore; it's just these little jerks, like he can't control himself, can’t help it. Danny’s never seen Steve like this, sweating and shaking all for him, and he stares, fascinated, until Steve opens his mouth.
“Danny,” Steve says, and it’s mostly sob, like just the act of saying it is more than he can bear, “Danny, Danny, oh god.”
Danny doesn’t have to think, not for this, not when what Steve needs is so glaringly, stunningly obvious. He jerks his hips up as much as he can manage, boneless still, and buries a hand in Steve’s hair. He pulls at Steve’s shoulders until they’re pressed together everywhere, the contact leaving his own body lit up with warmth, and rubs his thumb against the back of Steve’s neck.
“C'mon,” Danny says, as low as he can manage it, “hey, hey, c’mon, come for me, babe, you’re right there, you’re so close, yeah, Steve, c’mon.”
Steve cries out, just a little, a strangled yell that’s mostly muffled into Danny’s shoulder. His whole body shakes when he comes, every part of him that’s pressed to Danny alive with tremors, and Danny grins into his shoulder and hangs on. He hangs on even after Steve’s stilled, after he’s collapsed completely into him, their chests stuck together, their breathing shallow. Danny would stay like this all night, actually, except for how it’s disgusting, a little, or it least it should be.
Also, he can’t really breathe.
“Steve,” he says, jabbing him lightly in the stomach, “hey, McGarrett, babe, you gotta move, we gotta get cleaned up. A towel or something, go get a--”
“Mmph,” Steve says, because he’s apparently the type who goes all useless after sex. Danny probably shouldn’t find that as endearing as he does. “You do it.”
“Well,” Danny says, “I would, but I got this person on top of me, you know?”
“Bitch, bitch, bitch,” Steve mumbles, but he rolls off, sliding out of Danny in the process. Danny feels loose and empty without him, stretched too wide, except for how Steve’s still right there, his free arm draped across Danny’s chest. He pulls the condom off and ties it one-handed--Danny knew he brought his ninja skills to bed with him--and tosses it in the direction of the trash can without looking.
Then he casts an arm over the side of the bed, feeling around blindly until he pulls it back up, clutching--
“That is my tie,” Danny says, taking it and swiping it across his stomach anyway. He wipes Steve off with it too, because it’s ruined already anyway, and he might as well. “You weren’t even looking--you did that on purpose, didn’t you?”
Steve's face is half hidden against the pillow, and he’s stretched out everywhere already, tree-limb legs splayed into Danny’s space. He cracks his one visible eye open and smiles, shit-eating, at his happiest and his smuggest all at once--and hell, who is Danny kidding, they’re probably associated states for him, he probably can’t tell them apart.
“I hate you,” Danny says, far too fondly to be convincing.
“You’re a liar,” Steve says, and his smile’s just gotten bigger, and god, god, he’s fucking right.
Danny shouldn’t reward this kind of behavior; he knows better than to give Steve McGarrett an inch, knows all too well he’ll take more than a mile. He slides down and kisses the stupid grin off his face anyway, sex-slow, languid, in this house they’ve rebuilt for themselves.
--
In one of those coincidences Danny’s pretty sure Steve has engineered somehow, his lease comes up for renewal two days after they finally declare themselves done with fixing up the house. It’s been three months since they abandoned their desperate attachment to paint chips for a desperate attachment to something else, and Danny’s been kind of amazed to realize how much slower the renovation process is when it’s not fueled by sexual tension.
When he shares this with Rachel, she laughs at him until she cries. Danny can’t really blame her at all.
The point is: he’s slept at his apartment exactly once in three months, Steve bitching about the sofa bed the whole time, but he still feels like he’s got to consider the decision to give the place up. There’s the whole “It’s crazy to move in with someone you’ve only been with for three months” thing--Danny knows that it doesn’t really apply when you’ve been more-or-less platonically married to the guy for over a year, but still--and then there’s...well. He doesn’t want to presume anything, right, because who knows what could push Steve over the edge into commitment-phobia, he’s not exactly the most stable guy in the world on the best of days, is he?
“You’re being an idiot,” Kono says. “A gigantic idiot. Seriously, I doubt your intelligence more with every passing day.”
“Don’t look at me,” Chin says, “I never had much faith in it to begin with.”
“Why do I get this feeling,” Danny says, “that whenever I leave the room I’m the butt of every joke?”
“Because you are,” Chin says, impassive.
Kono grins. “Well, no. Sometimes it’s Steve.”
“Or you and Steve,” Chin adds. “But yeah, brah, the mockery, you draw it. Sorry.”
“Fantastic,” Danny says. “That’s great, the love, I am feeling it, thanks so much. Anything else to crush my spirit with, while we’re on the topic?”
“Eh,” Kono says, “it’s too easy when you offer it up. Takes all the fun out of it. Can we get back to work now?”
Danny tries to talk to Rachel next, but she’s all aboard the “You’re a moron,” train, not that he really expected any different. Hell, even Gracie gives him a look when he asks her if she’d be okay with him leaving his apartment, one that says she’s maybe a little bit ashamed to know him.
“Danno,” she says, “why would you keep your apartment when you’ve got a house?” and yeah, okay, she’s kind of got a point.
He bites the bullet and asks Steve in the end, the lease papers unfolded on the table in front of him, after work one night. Steve glances up from his dinner, mostly disinterested, and shrugs.
“Your call,” he says.
“My,” Danny says, “I’m sorry, my call? What kind of answer is that, my call? I ask you about giving up my lease, which, Steven, is a decision you should have a part in, because I do not mean give up my lease and live on the streets, okay, I mean--”
“Look,” Steve says, “if you want to keep paying for an apartment you don’t use, that’s none of my business--it’s your money you’re throwing away, not mine. We both know you live here, so, yeah. Your call.”
“Oh,” Danny says, staring at him. Steve’s eyebrows are up, a small, knowing sort of smile tugging at his mouth, and after a second Danny smiles back. “I, uh. Oh. Well. Okay, then. Thanks for your input, I guess.”
“You want another slice of pizza?” Steve says, and that turns out to be the end of that.
The party is Steve’s idea; Danny knows this because he doesn’t even realize it’s a party until it’s already underway. He’d thought it was just going to be the team grilling out after a long week, but hey, there’s Kamekona and his girlfriend, there’s Sargeant Lukela from the precinct, there’s Rachel and Gracie and, Jesus, even Stan coming through the door.
“You could have mentioned it to me,” he says, mostly on principle, as Steve grins and ushers them inside.
“Where’s the fun in that?” Steve says.
“It’s a housewarming, Daniel,” Rachel adds, laughing as she presses a bottle of wine into his hands. “Try to be a little warm about it, hmm?”
The truth is, he can’t really help but be warm about it. He’d kind of like to, if just for the sake of driving home a point, but he’s a little too happy to care. His apartment is empty, his house is full, his daughter’s dragging Chin up the stairs to see her room...yeah, he’s doing alright.
It’s about fifteen minutes in when Kono, who’d said she’d be a little late, comes through the door. She’s with a woman who--hey, wait a second--
“Babe,” he says, nudging Steve with his elbow, “isn’t that--”
“Nalani?” Steve says, staring, and yeah, okay, that’s what Danny thought too.
“Commander McGarrett,” she says, smiling “and Detective...Williams, am I right? Nice to see you again.”
“Oh, god, call them Steve and Danny, please,” Kono says, before either of them can say the same. “You wouldn’t want me to feel like I’m at work, would you?”
“Definitely not,” Nalani says, and she slips her hand into Kono’s, and wow, okay, some detective Danny is. He hadn’t known Kono was seeing anyone, although when he thinks about it, she has seemed happier than usual lately.
No less crazy, of course, but Danny’s pretty sure Steve’s had that effect on all of them.
“I gotta say, guys,” Kono says, her eyes sparkling, “I was kind of nervous about bringing Nalani out tonight--introducing the girlfriend to the boss, you know how it is--but then she told me the strangest story when we pulled into the drive.”
“I didn’t realize you’d turned the house around so much,” Nalani says. Her eyes are approving as she looks around, and Kono’s holding back her laughter, and jeez, this is definitely up there on the list of embarrassing moments in Danny’s life. “I could probably sell it now, actually, if that’s still something you’d like to pursue--Kono said she didn’t think you were interested anymore, but it never hurts to ask, right?”
Danny doesn’t know what to say--there’s not exactly an easy way to explain it, is there, especially in the wake of what they’d let her think during their first meeting. He’d thought then that Steve needed fresh space, a new start, and had found out the long way around that they were both looking for something else entirely. He wouldn’t move out of this house now if his life depended on it, not after all he and Steve have poured into it, not now that they’ve gone and made it theirs.
Steve puts a hand on the back of his neck, warm and friendly, and solves his problem for him.
“We’re not on the market,” he says. Danny leans into his touch, knows it’s the truth, and smiles.