Who Would've Guessed Reading And Writing Would Pay Off?
Today started with an asshole bus driver and ended with a doctor's appointment and exhaustion. I'd like this week to be over with already. One more day till the week is done, three more days until the cruise. I can make it!
So once upon a time, I wrote Same As It Ever Was and I've Become A Cliché because Danny and Steve being married and accidentally having sex will never stop being funny. Here's the threequel.
This is 5,320 words of Steve and Danny and the team at the beach. Sorry, Gus, still no threesome, but I hope it's funny! Kisses to charliehey for holding my hand while I went through my quarterly writer crisis and always reading my stories, even when she's not in the fandom. That's love. ♥
And Now For Something Completely Similar
It's been one of those weeks where everything that could go wrong does go wrong.
Chin gets shot on the job, reminding Steve that despite what he thinks, Chin isn't goddamn Superman; Danny gets thrown off a roof by a suspect, and it takes all of Steve's strength and his shoulder almost being pulled out of alignment to keep Danny alive and scared ("Concerned, Steve," he tells Steve later when they're back at the station and he refuses to let go of the wall, and then Steve's arm, "I never get scared, but I do get concerned") and pissed off; and Kono gets involved in an honest-to-God brawl at a local bar because she makes the mistake of trying to be calm and reasonable with drunk, angry people. She sports a black eye the next day and communicates in grunts and snarls when anyone tries to ask her what happened.
Everyone is angry and tense, feeling stretched too tight in their skins, and Steve is too busy running around Hawaii with a gun and a bad attitude, trying to keep the peace and his team from getting hurt, to give into the big freak-out over him and Danny having sex that he's been due for. Sometimes, he manages to go whole minutes without remembering what Danny tasted like, the way his skin had felt against Steve's palms, the rumble of his chest when he'd laughed at Steve's sloppy blowjob technique and how he'd pulled Steve up and kissed him fondly, roughly, like he was happy and horny and content.
Steve has jerked off to those brief flashes of memory more than he cares to admit to, and every interaction with Danny is now fraught with the scent-memory of his hair and the sense-memory of his naked body against Steve's, to the point where Steve sometimes has to get away from Danny just to be able to think clearly again. The foundation of his relationship with Danny was built on trust and sarcasm, a mutual sense of duty and honor, and also friendship beers. Adding sex to it should've fucked it up, but it really hasn't.
Steve thinks that's what freaking him out the most. He and Danny should have been awkwardly pretending none of this happened or fighting over it all the time, and it should've been this huge, awful thing between them, but instead, they've just... continued on like nothing has changed, like nothing is different. They don't talk about it, but it isn't this uncomfortable, guilty secret like Steve had expected it to be; it just sits there at the surface, driving Steve crazy, making Danny smile softly at him at odd moments, like when they're cuffing suspects or Steve makes coffee for him in the morning before Danny gets into the station, and there's no mocking involved on either side.
But nothing fundamental has changed. Steve still drives Danny crazy by doing the exact opposite of what Danny says, and Danny still makes fun of Steve on several levels, including his clothes, his hair, his truck, the way he conducts his interrogations, and his complete inability to stop himself from singing along to every shitty Top 40 song on the radio coupled with the fact that he actually knows the lyrics to most of the shitty Top 40 songs.
("Really?" Danny squints over at him like he cannot believe what he's hearing. "Katy Perry? You know she doesn't even spell 'girls' right on that song you're butchering. How can you sing a song that purposely misspells something? That's, like, a violation of some kind of code, right?"
Steve takes a minute to give him a heavy look. "Seriously?"
"California Gurls," Danny says deliberately, putting heavy emphasis on the last word so it comes out sounding like 'guuuuuuuurls', which just makes Steve want to smack him.
"I have this gift--" he starts telling Danny.
"Gift?"
"--gift for being able to remember any song lyric I hear, no matter how stupid the song is," and Steve's hands are moving like a conductor's, weaving his thoughts into a coherent whole, and fuck, he's been with Danny too long if he's using his hands to talk. "So when I hear it, I have to sing along with it."
Danny has a pained look on his face. "This song is painful enough on its own."
"It's a compulsion," Steve says adamantly, knuckling the wheel as he speeds his way to the station.
Danny looks at him, then looks at the radio, then back to him again, and then back to the radio once more. "I'm changing the station," he declares, his look practically daring Steve to say something. Steve doesn't and they ride the rest of the way to the station listening to Sammy Davis Jr. croon about his girl being nice to come home to because Danny apparently has a thing for Vegas crooners that Steve knew nothing about.
He isn't sure about Sammy, but he looks at Danny and agrees with the song.)
The only difference is with Steve, with his memories and how they make him see Danny, and he knows that he's the only one having the issues because it's always him. Danny is more than happy to talk about that night, in extravagant hand gestures and colorful Jersey colloquialisms, but Steve refuses to let him, keeps trying to bury it and move on. It's never happening again, he tells himself for the tenth time this morning, since he'd looked up to see Danny squinting at his fancy keypad, his face turned down in a frown as he tries to figure out how to get the information he wants to pop up onscreen. It's never happening again and Steve should just forget that the whole night happened and be happy that he and Danny are still the same, that their entire relationship isn't fucked up by this.
Except it refuses to lie down and fade into distant memory, haunting Steve at every fucking turn of the road in their conversations, making him snappish and short-tempered with everyone because he just doesn't know what the fuck to do about this.
Chin washes his hands of the whole thing, declaring himself Switzerland, and ducking out whenever Steve starts getting what Danny calls his 'angry o' face. "I'm out, ladies," he tells them as he lights out of the office like he's being shot at. "I don't feel like dying today. The last man standing can call me if he needs anything."
"Abandoner," Steve calls after him while Danny just holds his hands out in bewilderment and whines, "Really? Not even a Thunderdome joke?" to Chin's departing back.
Kono ostensibly cares because she wants Steve and Danny to be happy together, but Steve's starting to think that she's also getting a total kick out of messing with him and his love life. She still harasses him about dating Danny, dropping by his office to have serious talks with him about this thing he has with Danny, sending him e-mail and text reminders that he's never going to find someone who understands him better than Danny, and once, memorably, sending Danny an e-invite to a date using Steve's taskforce e-mail address. Steve had panicked, but Danny had just laughed and agreed to take Steve out for dinner as he'd headed out the door on a B&E call, and Steve had to duck Kono in the men's washroom, again, before she could come up with the next plank of her 'pitch woo at Danny' plan.
So by the time a month has passed by, Steve is worn the fuck down by life and his own body's betrayal and Kono's terrifyingly aggressive concern, and agrees to talk to Danny about what happened that night if Kono will stop hounding him. Kono just smiles sweetly and pats Steve's shoulder. "Of course, boss," she says easily as if she hadn't spent the last month harassing him into giving in. "Whatever you say."
Steve wonders when he'd lost control of his team and why he hadn't seen it coming.
***
It's one of those perfect mornings that are endemic to Hawaii: blue skies, bright sunshine, soft breezes, and the perfect amount of heat and humidity so that everything is warm and golden, but not sticky and muggy. It's a perfect day for lounging at the beach, riding a few waves, and maybe drinking some beers on the sand.
So of course, Danny is complaining about everything simply because Hawaii is not New Jersey. Steve had tuned him out about ten minutes into his usual "everything in Hawaii is wrong compared to Jersey" routine and now that Danny's singing his other favorite song, "what is wrong with you, seriously, this is not normal," Steve's even less inclined to listen to him.
"You know what I hear every time you talk?" he finally asks, tired of listening to Danny whine before they've even made it to the beach.
"Copacabana?" Danny guesses, his arm propped up against the door of the truck while he rests his head in his hand to look over at Steve. For all his bitching, he looks pretty relaxed in a pair of long board shorts that Steve had to, practically (metaphorically) at gunpoint (repeated harassment and his saddest face), make him buy and a loose gray shirt that looks like it had seen him through college at least.
Only Danny would dress like a pseudo-Amish person for the beach.
Steve nods his head in that lazy way he does when he's contemplating something that hadn't occurred to him before. "I was thinking Sinatra, but Manilow works much better," he says with a grin, ignoring Danny's aggravated look and the way he turns his face to look out the window, signaling the conversation is over with until they get to the beach. This totally makes up for having to drag Danny out of his hole this morning and putting up with his mocking when Steve couldn't drink the bitter sludge he calls coffee.
At the beach, Kono and Chin are setting up for a day of surfing, stripping down to their bathing suits with their boards dug in the sand like exclamation points. Kono's got on one of her tiny, colorful bikinis that practically dares people to look at her, even though they know it'll just lead to heartbreak when she turns them down, and Chin's walking around with thigh-length, tight black shorts, which marks only the second time they've seen him in anything that wasn't jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. Steve's never met an islander more averse to getting undressed than Chin. There's something seriously wrong with that.
"Hey, you made it," Kono says happily, looking fondly at Danny when he makes a disgruntled sound and drops his bag of clothes at his feet. "I thought you were going to punk out again like the last time."
Danny eyes her like he's thinking of taking her down, although he's not that suicidal, even without his daily double dose of caffeine. "What part of 'I hate the beach' did you guys not understand?"
"The part where you hate the beach," Chin says smoothly, opening up a foldable chair and setting it down next to the other one by his side. "That's just crazy."
"Madness," Kono says with an exaggerated look of shock on her face, giggling when Danny rolls his eyes and sits himself down on the chair. He glares up at them like he's personally been offended, even as he shifts and turns and makes himself comfortable, and adjusts his shades on his head.
"Cats lyings with dogs, spontaneous human combustion, et cetera," Steve says, getting in on the act because it annoys Danny, and that's pretty much his most favorite thing in the world to do. At least that will never change, no matter how often they have sex and don't talk about it after.
"You guys are funny," Danny says sarcastically, pulling his mirrored shades down to cover his eyes, leaning back with his arms crossed over his chest. "Really, you should take that act on the road. You'd make a fortune."
"Don't you just want to eat him up?" Chin asks dryly, ignoring Danny's flipping him off in a friendly manner, and grabs his board, heading down to the water. "C'mon, 'cuz. Race you to the water." And he grabs her arm and pulls her back, ignoring her outraged "Hey!" as he runs full-speed into the surf. She knocks him down before he can even put his board in, laughing when he picks her up and carries her into the water, throwing her in and diving in after her.
For once, Chin's smiling and Kono's laughing, and Steve thinks it's worth owing the Governor a favor if it means his team finally gets a real weekend off for once. It's definitely worth owing her a favor when he sees Kono and Chin take to their boards, looking happy and relaxed like they haven't looked in a while. He'd work non-stop if it meant seeing them smile like that more often.
"Sit down," Danny says lazily from behind him, the sun already affecting him because he sounds sleepy and calm, none of that usual frantic energy and aggravation that marks his daily mood. "You're blocking my sunlight."
Steve grins and sits down on a chair next to Danny, reaching into the nearby cooler that he'd brought with him and bringing out two Longboards. He hands one to Danny who takes it with murmured thanks. "I thought you hated the sun."
"No, I hate the beach," Danny corrects him. "I like the sun just fine. Get to work on my tan."
Steve turns and looks at him relaxing in the chair, his legs stretched out in the sand in front of him in those absurdly long shorts and his soft gray shirt that only shows off his arms from the elbows down. "Yeah," he says slowly, "you keep working on that, pal. You'll get there someday."
"You know," Danny says conversationally, "I can actually hear the sarcasm a full minute before you speak."
Steve tilts his head in acknowledgment, a smile threatening to break out on his face. "I've been practicing."
"I appreciate the effort."
Steve pauses for a moment to drink his beer. "Hey, you think Kono was right when she said we were one argument away from being married?"
Danny sips his beer gingerly, like he's afraid it's going to rear back and slap him in the face to prove a point. "One argument?"
"You were thinking it was more like two?" Steve asks curiously, watching Kono in the water, riding a wave and showing off for the benefit of an entire crowd of people gathering on the beach to watch her. He still has a thing for her, he realizes, even after she'd spent the last month terrorizing him. Somehow, the fact that she can make him do things, that she could probably take him in a fight, even an unfair one, if she really tried, just makes her hotter. Clearly, he needs some kind of intervention to stop him from falling for people who make him crazy and boss him around all the time.
Danny snorts rudely. "I'm thinking we're already married, sweetheart. All we need are monogrammed 'his' and 'hers' towel sets and we might as well move in together."
"Like hell," Steve says adamantly. "I've seen how you live. I'd have to put you in an armlock just to get you to pick the towels up off the floor."
"Bitch, bitch, bitch," Danny sighs, his hand resting under his shirt against his belly, and Steve has this brief, crazy urge to lick the flat of Danny's stomach like he did on the night they're no longer allowed to speak about. "I give you the best years of my life-"
"It's been nine months," Steve says dryly, taking a long swig from his bottle and wondering what the hell is the matter with him. They said never again, he was fine with never again, he's been grateful to Danny for not ever bringing it up again, so why the hell does he feel disappointed that they're back to the way they used to be? "You've still got your best years ahead of you, Danno."
"I don't know about that," Danny says absently, his eyes trained on Kono in the distance, although how he can see anything through those clichéd '80s cop shades of his is beyond Steve. "I gave eight years of my life to Rachel, I think I'm tapped out."
"At least you got Grace," Steve points out.
Danny nods seriously. "There is that," and he holds out his bottle, smiling when Steve clinks his against it.
They're silent for a while, the susurrus of the crowd providing a pleasant background noise to the chaotic thoughts in Steve's head. He's managed to put together a pretty coherent picture of what happened that night and… it turns out that things were so much worse than he'd originally thought. It turns out that it wasn't just sex and moaning and wrapping himself around Danny like he was hired to be a security blanket; it turns out that he'd said things to Danny, embarrassing things about how hot Danny's ass is and how long he's wanted him and something about blowjobs at his desk whenever he wanted it. He thinks at one point, he might have legitimately told Danny that he loved him. Well, he might have slurred it into the guy's chest, but it's pretty much the same thing.
Somehow, Steve's more mortified by the emotional confession than he was by the drunken gay sex. He thinks Danny may have a point about needing a shrink.
"So," he starts, wondering if he's violating some unknown partner rule by bringing this up when they'd already agreed to ignore it, "are we still not talking about it?"
Danny pulls his shades down his nose and frowns over at Steve. "Which 'it' are we not talking about?"
"We have more than one 'it'?" Steve asks dubiously.
Danny gives him a look that says Steve's a constant disappointment to him. "It's you, sparky. We have tons of 'its' that we're not talking about. Which one is this one?"
"That night we got drunk."
"Oh," Danny says quickly, pulling his glasses up to his head and resting them there, and frowning over at Steve. "I thought you didn't want to talk about it."
"I didn't. But now I do."
Danny looks amused. "Does this have anything to do with Kono riding your ass about making an honest man out of me?"
Steve makes a face as he remembers Kono's brand of care when it comes to him and Danny; he knows gang leaders who aren't half as aggressive as she is. She'd even cornered him in the men's room, which is at least five different rule violations, and she hadn't even looked guilty either. "I'm pretty sure she's planning a wedding for us," he sighs, chugging the rest of his beer down because even the thought of it makes him want to drink.
"Well, I'm not wearing white," Danny says easily, lazing on the chair, his feet digging into the sand.
Steve holds his hands up. "Hey, you said that, not me."
Danny shrugs, taking off his shades and putting them on top of his bag, and takes another sip of his beer. "What? I'm comfortable with my sexuality."
"I suppose one of us has to be," Steve says, reaching into the cooler to get another beer. "So," he says after another long moment of silence and sunlight, "are we talking about it?"
"What exactly do we need to be talking about?" Danny asks in a kinder voice than Steve feels he deserves after the past month of confusion and his less than pleasant temperament.
He shrugs. "Just-talk, I guess. Share our feelings and shit."
Danny laughs, cackles, really, which Steve feels is such an unattractive quality in a man. "Oh, mark the day on the calendar," he wheezes, holding his beer tight against his chest like it's all that's stopping him from rolling to the floor from the force of his amusement. "The great Steve McGarrett wants to talk about his feelings."
"You know," Steve says with irritation, "sarcasm does not become you. And you're not funny."
"I'm fucking hilarious," Danny chuckles, wiping at his eyes like he can't contain himself, and Steve wonders if it's too late to take back every good thing he ever thought about Danny. "And cute," he adds cheerfully. "It's why we're having this discussion."
"No, we're having this discussion because we got drunk and did… things together."
Danny sputters with laughter again. "Things," he says weakly, almost falling out of his seat from how much he's enjoying himself. "Oh, man, I take it back. You are hilarious."
"I really don't like you," Steve says moodily, drinking his beer defensively and wondering why he never gets a chance to best any of them in an argument. "I'm definitely sorry we had sex. You were probably lousy in bed anyway."
"Hey," Danny yells, sitting up and glaring at Steve, "I'll have you know that I've never had any complaints about my techniques or my morning-after manner." Steve waves his hand dismissively at him and yelps when Danny smacks his arm. "I'm serious," he tells Steve, glowering at him like he's offended that Steve would even think to question him.
"Oh, sure, you say that," Steve says casually, enjoying the way Danny's face goes red and blotchy with aggravation. "You can't even take your shirt off when you get to the beach."
"You want my shirt off?" Danny asks through clenched teeth. He gets to his feet, jamming his bottle into the sand, and yanks off his shirt in a swift, angry movement, throwing it at Steve. Steve ducks, but he gets a faceful of shirt anyway; it smells like detergent and Danny, and it's embarrassing how much he likes that scent. He holds it against his chest as Danny stands in front of him, half-naked and lightly tanned and looking a lot better than Steve remembers from his drunken groping.
"Happy now?" he asks Steve acidly, looking vaguely embarrassed to be so exposed. On a beach. In Hawaii. Steve's life is so fucked that he even finds that endearing.
"Why the hell do you hide that body under clothes?" Steve says without thinking because seriously, Danny is built like football player, broad shoulders and a strong back and muscled calves and a perfect ass that Steve wants to bite. It's criminal that he even walks around with pants on. "You look like that and wear long sleeves and a tie. In Hawaii."
"It's called professional attire," Danny says with the resigned air of a man who's had this argument at least a hundred times. "It's something you should look into when you get tired of dressing like an escapee from a frat party." He touches the waistband of his shorts with a moue of distaste. "I am a professional, therefore, I attire myself thusly."
"Thusly?"
"Shut up, all right?" Danny snaps, running his fingers through his hair and eyeing his shirt like any second he's going to snatch it back and pull it on. "I'm starting to feel a sexual harassment charge coming on," he says with a cutting look at Steve. "Are you done looking at my ass? Can I get dressed now?"
"No," Steve says firmly, deciding that he's tired of pretending that he doesn't feel anything for Danny, tired of pretending that they didn't do anything, tired of keeping himself in check when he knows that he can have Danny if he just asks. Danny never tells him no; he says "maybe" or "not right now'" or "look, at least wait until there aren't people around," but never an actual no. Maybe it's time Steve did something about it before Kono locked them in a room together and used a bullhorn to encourage them to kiss.
"No?" Danny asks curiously, his head tilted as he looks Steve over.
"No." Steve's hand clutches tight around Danny's shirt. "I have doubts about your techniques," he tells him carefully, hoping that Danny will pick up on what he's trying to say because Jesus Christ, Steve is shit at talking about his emotions. Except when he's drunk, but he's not focusing on that right now. Or ever.
Danny mulls that over for a moment. "So you want me to prove myself?" he asks slowly, his mouth quirking up in one of those absurdly sweet smiles that always get Steve right in the heart. "For the sake of my reputation, of course."
"Of course," Steve says generously. "This is all for you, you understand."
"You're so giving," Danny laughs, his hand pressed against his heart like he's truly touched. "So when do you want to... save my reputation?"
Steve finds himself smiling despite himself. "Tonight? You can come by the house."
Danny pretends to think about that. "I don't know," he teases. "I might be busy tonight."
Steve waves his empty bottle at him. "I'll have beer," he promises.
"Fuck your beer," Danny tells him with a grin. "Just feed me and I'm yours. Now can I have my shirt back?"
Steve laughs and shakes his head, dumping Danny's shirt in his chair as he gets to his feet. "Nope," he says easily, grabbing Danny by the hand and dragging him toward the ocean, actually managing to get him in into the water up to mid-thigh. "You get your shirt back when you actually swim."
"For my life?" Danny asks incredulously.
"For fun," Steve says exasperatedly, stopping when Danny grabs his hand back and stands still.
"Swimming is not fun," he starts, and Steve throws up his hands in despair.
"Okay, what exactly do I have to do to get you to actually swim in the ocean?"
Danny grins wickedly like he's just been waiting for this moment, like he's been steering Steve to this exact point in the conversation for his own nefarious reasons. "Blowjob," he says succinctly, and Steve doesn't know how he knows it, but he smells Kono's handiwork all over this.
"Kono put you up to this, didn't she?" he asks Danny suspiciously, and his theory is confirmed when Danny cackles and rubs his hands together with glee.
"Do you know how many times I almost took that stupid shirt off just so I wouldn't melt in this heat?" he tells Steve, and it's official, Kono and Danny have teamed up, and he's never going to be safe again.
"I actually hate you," he tells Danny earnestly, but Danny just waves him off and grabs his elbow, yanking him further into the water.
"No, you don't, sweetheart," he says cheerfully, his fingers curled gently around the soft inner flesh of Steve's arm, and Steve finds it hard to resist that kind of good mood, especially when Danny is touching him in a non-mocking way. "You like me too much for that to be true."
"Maybe," Steve admits grudgingly, and yelps when Danny hooks his leg around Steve's and drops him into the water. "You bastard," he sputters when he comes up for air, hearing Danny howl with delight.
"Oh, man," he cries, pointing at Steve, "you should see your face."
"You're a dead man, Williams," Steve says warningly, rushing Danny silently and quickly and knocking him into the water before Danny even knows what's going on.
"You son of a--" Danny surfaces with a murderous look, promising retribution as soon as he catches his breath. Steve laughs and dives into the water, swimming out rapidly, looking back every once in a while to see Danny catching up to him.
Along the way, he runs into Kono on her board, paddling around where the waves are just gentle swells, not her usual ten-foot challenges. She sits with her chin resting on her hands when she sees Steve and she watches as he swims up to her. "What's up, boss?"
"You and Danny," he says, and she smiles proudly at him, like a student who's just managed to solve a complex mathematical equation.
"Isn't it great how that all worked out?" she asks with a great big smile, looking so pleased with herself that Steve doesn't have the heart to yell at her for conspiring with his partner. And then she stops and narrows her eyes at Steve, making him shiver involuntarily. "You are working this out, right? None of this 'I'm going to pretend this didn't happen because I don't want to feel feelings' bullshit that you've been doing for the past month--"
"Oh my God," he says disbelievingly, his palms spread out in unconditional surrender, "you're worse than Mary Ann. She used to harass me about this shit when we were teenagers."
"Well, someone needs to."
"Well, stop," he pleads. "One woman riding my ass about my love life is enough." He pauses and replays that in his head. "Wait, that came out wrong."
She reaches out and cups his face affectionately. "You're an idiot," she says fondly. "Please go make up with Danny and stop acting like an emotionally stunted moron at work, and I promise not to harass you anymore."
"Liar," he tells her because he fucking knows her better.
She shrugs easily. "Okay, a little harassment. But it's for your own good. Also," she points down to the water, "watch out for Danny."
"What--?" is all he manages to get out before Danny rises up from the water like a fucking shark and yanks him down underneath the surface. When he breaks through, Danny's swimming away at full speed, clearly swimming for his life, and Kono's paddling away fast, laughing loudly enough that Steve can still hear her through the water in his ears.
"You're both dead," he yells at the departing figures, vowing to find some way to get them back for this and all the various other indignities that he's had to suffer through in the last month. Although at least Danny hadn't pantsed him, so there is some small comfort in that.
Steve swims after Danny and plots his revenge.
***
Later that evening, Danny kisses him without the alcohol and Steve gets to relive the wonder and terror and joy of fucking Danny without the awful hangover the next morning. Danny kisses him like he can't get enough, his hands map out every line of Steve's body, and when they're done, he curls up against Steve and falls asleep with his head tucked in the hollow of Steve's throat.
Steve stays up most of the night watching Danny sleep, memorizing the curve of his cheek and the line of his mouth, the way he twitches and kicks halfway through the night, the way he mashes his face into Steve's shoulder and drools a bit. Every moment feels like a small triumph, every movement and expression a hard-fought victory, and even though Danny mocks him thoroughly the next day for being creepy and also a sap, Steve doesn't regret it one bit.
When he finally wakes up sometime in the afternoon, Danny doesn't throw himself off the bed, Steve doesn't go in hysterics, and they have a quiet, leisurely lunch in Steve's backyard. It's a pretty good start, Steve thinks as Danny leans into him, his head on Steve's shoulder while Steve puts his arm around Danny's waist. It's not quite what he'd expected -- although he isn't sure what he was expecting, really, maybe something a little more dramatic, involving yelling and punching, or evil twins and plastic surgery -- but he likes it so far.
At least now he's married to Danny and having sex with him, and it's a pretty sweet life. He's almost certain that nothing can go wrong.
At some point, there will be thoughts on Dennis Lehane's The Given Day and how it breaks my heart and makes my soul happy at the same time. For now, let me just say that I wish I had even a third of the guy's talent with words. Also, I will love Luther and Lila and Danny and Nora for fucking ever.
Dear Hollywood,
Never turn this into a movie. You'll just fuck it up like you've done with just about every other movie you've made of his books.
And if you do option it for a movie, don't let Scorcese direct it. I don't trust him to get its heart right.
In conclusion: just don't.
Me.
So once upon a time, I wrote Same As It Ever Was and I've Become A Cliché because Danny and Steve being married and accidentally having sex will never stop being funny. Here's the threequel.
This is 5,320 words of Steve and Danny and the team at the beach. Sorry, Gus, still no threesome, but I hope it's funny! Kisses to charliehey for holding my hand while I went through my quarterly writer crisis and always reading my stories, even when she's not in the fandom. That's love. ♥
And Now For Something Completely Similar
It's been one of those weeks where everything that could go wrong does go wrong.
Chin gets shot on the job, reminding Steve that despite what he thinks, Chin isn't goddamn Superman; Danny gets thrown off a roof by a suspect, and it takes all of Steve's strength and his shoulder almost being pulled out of alignment to keep Danny alive and scared ("Concerned, Steve," he tells Steve later when they're back at the station and he refuses to let go of the wall, and then Steve's arm, "I never get scared, but I do get concerned") and pissed off; and Kono gets involved in an honest-to-God brawl at a local bar because she makes the mistake of trying to be calm and reasonable with drunk, angry people. She sports a black eye the next day and communicates in grunts and snarls when anyone tries to ask her what happened.
Everyone is angry and tense, feeling stretched too tight in their skins, and Steve is too busy running around Hawaii with a gun and a bad attitude, trying to keep the peace and his team from getting hurt, to give into the big freak-out over him and Danny having sex that he's been due for. Sometimes, he manages to go whole minutes without remembering what Danny tasted like, the way his skin had felt against Steve's palms, the rumble of his chest when he'd laughed at Steve's sloppy blowjob technique and how he'd pulled Steve up and kissed him fondly, roughly, like he was happy and horny and content.
Steve has jerked off to those brief flashes of memory more than he cares to admit to, and every interaction with Danny is now fraught with the scent-memory of his hair and the sense-memory of his naked body against Steve's, to the point where Steve sometimes has to get away from Danny just to be able to think clearly again. The foundation of his relationship with Danny was built on trust and sarcasm, a mutual sense of duty and honor, and also friendship beers. Adding sex to it should've fucked it up, but it really hasn't.
Steve thinks that's what freaking him out the most. He and Danny should have been awkwardly pretending none of this happened or fighting over it all the time, and it should've been this huge, awful thing between them, but instead, they've just... continued on like nothing has changed, like nothing is different. They don't talk about it, but it isn't this uncomfortable, guilty secret like Steve had expected it to be; it just sits there at the surface, driving Steve crazy, making Danny smile softly at him at odd moments, like when they're cuffing suspects or Steve makes coffee for him in the morning before Danny gets into the station, and there's no mocking involved on either side.
But nothing fundamental has changed. Steve still drives Danny crazy by doing the exact opposite of what Danny says, and Danny still makes fun of Steve on several levels, including his clothes, his hair, his truck, the way he conducts his interrogations, and his complete inability to stop himself from singing along to every shitty Top 40 song on the radio coupled with the fact that he actually knows the lyrics to most of the shitty Top 40 songs.
("Really?" Danny squints over at him like he cannot believe what he's hearing. "Katy Perry? You know she doesn't even spell 'girls' right on that song you're butchering. How can you sing a song that purposely misspells something? That's, like, a violation of some kind of code, right?"
Steve takes a minute to give him a heavy look. "Seriously?"
"California Gurls," Danny says deliberately, putting heavy emphasis on the last word so it comes out sounding like 'guuuuuuuurls', which just makes Steve want to smack him.
"I have this gift--" he starts telling Danny.
"Gift?"
"--gift for being able to remember any song lyric I hear, no matter how stupid the song is," and Steve's hands are moving like a conductor's, weaving his thoughts into a coherent whole, and fuck, he's been with Danny too long if he's using his hands to talk. "So when I hear it, I have to sing along with it."
Danny has a pained look on his face. "This song is painful enough on its own."
"It's a compulsion," Steve says adamantly, knuckling the wheel as he speeds his way to the station.
Danny looks at him, then looks at the radio, then back to him again, and then back to the radio once more. "I'm changing the station," he declares, his look practically daring Steve to say something. Steve doesn't and they ride the rest of the way to the station listening to Sammy Davis Jr. croon about his girl being nice to come home to because Danny apparently has a thing for Vegas crooners that Steve knew nothing about.
He isn't sure about Sammy, but he looks at Danny and agrees with the song.)
The only difference is with Steve, with his memories and how they make him see Danny, and he knows that he's the only one having the issues because it's always him. Danny is more than happy to talk about that night, in extravagant hand gestures and colorful Jersey colloquialisms, but Steve refuses to let him, keeps trying to bury it and move on. It's never happening again, he tells himself for the tenth time this morning, since he'd looked up to see Danny squinting at his fancy keypad, his face turned down in a frown as he tries to figure out how to get the information he wants to pop up onscreen. It's never happening again and Steve should just forget that the whole night happened and be happy that he and Danny are still the same, that their entire relationship isn't fucked up by this.
Except it refuses to lie down and fade into distant memory, haunting Steve at every fucking turn of the road in their conversations, making him snappish and short-tempered with everyone because he just doesn't know what the fuck to do about this.
Chin washes his hands of the whole thing, declaring himself Switzerland, and ducking out whenever Steve starts getting what Danny calls his 'angry o' face. "I'm out, ladies," he tells them as he lights out of the office like he's being shot at. "I don't feel like dying today. The last man standing can call me if he needs anything."
"Abandoner," Steve calls after him while Danny just holds his hands out in bewilderment and whines, "Really? Not even a Thunderdome joke?" to Chin's departing back.
Kono ostensibly cares because she wants Steve and Danny to be happy together, but Steve's starting to think that she's also getting a total kick out of messing with him and his love life. She still harasses him about dating Danny, dropping by his office to have serious talks with him about this thing he has with Danny, sending him e-mail and text reminders that he's never going to find someone who understands him better than Danny, and once, memorably, sending Danny an e-invite to a date using Steve's taskforce e-mail address. Steve had panicked, but Danny had just laughed and agreed to take Steve out for dinner as he'd headed out the door on a B&E call, and Steve had to duck Kono in the men's washroom, again, before she could come up with the next plank of her 'pitch woo at Danny' plan.
So by the time a month has passed by, Steve is worn the fuck down by life and his own body's betrayal and Kono's terrifyingly aggressive concern, and agrees to talk to Danny about what happened that night if Kono will stop hounding him. Kono just smiles sweetly and pats Steve's shoulder. "Of course, boss," she says easily as if she hadn't spent the last month harassing him into giving in. "Whatever you say."
Steve wonders when he'd lost control of his team and why he hadn't seen it coming.
***
It's one of those perfect mornings that are endemic to Hawaii: blue skies, bright sunshine, soft breezes, and the perfect amount of heat and humidity so that everything is warm and golden, but not sticky and muggy. It's a perfect day for lounging at the beach, riding a few waves, and maybe drinking some beers on the sand.
So of course, Danny is complaining about everything simply because Hawaii is not New Jersey. Steve had tuned him out about ten minutes into his usual "everything in Hawaii is wrong compared to Jersey" routine and now that Danny's singing his other favorite song, "what is wrong with you, seriously, this is not normal," Steve's even less inclined to listen to him.
"You know what I hear every time you talk?" he finally asks, tired of listening to Danny whine before they've even made it to the beach.
"Copacabana?" Danny guesses, his arm propped up against the door of the truck while he rests his head in his hand to look over at Steve. For all his bitching, he looks pretty relaxed in a pair of long board shorts that Steve had to, practically (metaphorically) at gunpoint (repeated harassment and his saddest face), make him buy and a loose gray shirt that looks like it had seen him through college at least.
Only Danny would dress like a pseudo-Amish person for the beach.
Steve nods his head in that lazy way he does when he's contemplating something that hadn't occurred to him before. "I was thinking Sinatra, but Manilow works much better," he says with a grin, ignoring Danny's aggravated look and the way he turns his face to look out the window, signaling the conversation is over with until they get to the beach. This totally makes up for having to drag Danny out of his hole this morning and putting up with his mocking when Steve couldn't drink the bitter sludge he calls coffee.
At the beach, Kono and Chin are setting up for a day of surfing, stripping down to their bathing suits with their boards dug in the sand like exclamation points. Kono's got on one of her tiny, colorful bikinis that practically dares people to look at her, even though they know it'll just lead to heartbreak when she turns them down, and Chin's walking around with thigh-length, tight black shorts, which marks only the second time they've seen him in anything that wasn't jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. Steve's never met an islander more averse to getting undressed than Chin. There's something seriously wrong with that.
"Hey, you made it," Kono says happily, looking fondly at Danny when he makes a disgruntled sound and drops his bag of clothes at his feet. "I thought you were going to punk out again like the last time."
Danny eyes her like he's thinking of taking her down, although he's not that suicidal, even without his daily double dose of caffeine. "What part of 'I hate the beach' did you guys not understand?"
"The part where you hate the beach," Chin says smoothly, opening up a foldable chair and setting it down next to the other one by his side. "That's just crazy."
"Madness," Kono says with an exaggerated look of shock on her face, giggling when Danny rolls his eyes and sits himself down on the chair. He glares up at them like he's personally been offended, even as he shifts and turns and makes himself comfortable, and adjusts his shades on his head.
"Cats lyings with dogs, spontaneous human combustion, et cetera," Steve says, getting in on the act because it annoys Danny, and that's pretty much his most favorite thing in the world to do. At least that will never change, no matter how often they have sex and don't talk about it after.
"You guys are funny," Danny says sarcastically, pulling his mirrored shades down to cover his eyes, leaning back with his arms crossed over his chest. "Really, you should take that act on the road. You'd make a fortune."
"Don't you just want to eat him up?" Chin asks dryly, ignoring Danny's flipping him off in a friendly manner, and grabs his board, heading down to the water. "C'mon, 'cuz. Race you to the water." And he grabs her arm and pulls her back, ignoring her outraged "Hey!" as he runs full-speed into the surf. She knocks him down before he can even put his board in, laughing when he picks her up and carries her into the water, throwing her in and diving in after her.
For once, Chin's smiling and Kono's laughing, and Steve thinks it's worth owing the Governor a favor if it means his team finally gets a real weekend off for once. It's definitely worth owing her a favor when he sees Kono and Chin take to their boards, looking happy and relaxed like they haven't looked in a while. He'd work non-stop if it meant seeing them smile like that more often.
"Sit down," Danny says lazily from behind him, the sun already affecting him because he sounds sleepy and calm, none of that usual frantic energy and aggravation that marks his daily mood. "You're blocking my sunlight."
Steve grins and sits down on a chair next to Danny, reaching into the nearby cooler that he'd brought with him and bringing out two Longboards. He hands one to Danny who takes it with murmured thanks. "I thought you hated the sun."
"No, I hate the beach," Danny corrects him. "I like the sun just fine. Get to work on my tan."
Steve turns and looks at him relaxing in the chair, his legs stretched out in the sand in front of him in those absurdly long shorts and his soft gray shirt that only shows off his arms from the elbows down. "Yeah," he says slowly, "you keep working on that, pal. You'll get there someday."
"You know," Danny says conversationally, "I can actually hear the sarcasm a full minute before you speak."
Steve tilts his head in acknowledgment, a smile threatening to break out on his face. "I've been practicing."
"I appreciate the effort."
Steve pauses for a moment to drink his beer. "Hey, you think Kono was right when she said we were one argument away from being married?"
Danny sips his beer gingerly, like he's afraid it's going to rear back and slap him in the face to prove a point. "One argument?"
"You were thinking it was more like two?" Steve asks curiously, watching Kono in the water, riding a wave and showing off for the benefit of an entire crowd of people gathering on the beach to watch her. He still has a thing for her, he realizes, even after she'd spent the last month terrorizing him. Somehow, the fact that she can make him do things, that she could probably take him in a fight, even an unfair one, if she really tried, just makes her hotter. Clearly, he needs some kind of intervention to stop him from falling for people who make him crazy and boss him around all the time.
Danny snorts rudely. "I'm thinking we're already married, sweetheart. All we need are monogrammed 'his' and 'hers' towel sets and we might as well move in together."
"Like hell," Steve says adamantly. "I've seen how you live. I'd have to put you in an armlock just to get you to pick the towels up off the floor."
"Bitch, bitch, bitch," Danny sighs, his hand resting under his shirt against his belly, and Steve has this brief, crazy urge to lick the flat of Danny's stomach like he did on the night they're no longer allowed to speak about. "I give you the best years of my life-"
"It's been nine months," Steve says dryly, taking a long swig from his bottle and wondering what the hell is the matter with him. They said never again, he was fine with never again, he's been grateful to Danny for not ever bringing it up again, so why the hell does he feel disappointed that they're back to the way they used to be? "You've still got your best years ahead of you, Danno."
"I don't know about that," Danny says absently, his eyes trained on Kono in the distance, although how he can see anything through those clichéd '80s cop shades of his is beyond Steve. "I gave eight years of my life to Rachel, I think I'm tapped out."
"At least you got Grace," Steve points out.
Danny nods seriously. "There is that," and he holds out his bottle, smiling when Steve clinks his against it.
They're silent for a while, the susurrus of the crowd providing a pleasant background noise to the chaotic thoughts in Steve's head. He's managed to put together a pretty coherent picture of what happened that night and… it turns out that things were so much worse than he'd originally thought. It turns out that it wasn't just sex and moaning and wrapping himself around Danny like he was hired to be a security blanket; it turns out that he'd said things to Danny, embarrassing things about how hot Danny's ass is and how long he's wanted him and something about blowjobs at his desk whenever he wanted it. He thinks at one point, he might have legitimately told Danny that he loved him. Well, he might have slurred it into the guy's chest, but it's pretty much the same thing.
Somehow, Steve's more mortified by the emotional confession than he was by the drunken gay sex. He thinks Danny may have a point about needing a shrink.
"So," he starts, wondering if he's violating some unknown partner rule by bringing this up when they'd already agreed to ignore it, "are we still not talking about it?"
Danny pulls his shades down his nose and frowns over at Steve. "Which 'it' are we not talking about?"
"We have more than one 'it'?" Steve asks dubiously.
Danny gives him a look that says Steve's a constant disappointment to him. "It's you, sparky. We have tons of 'its' that we're not talking about. Which one is this one?"
"That night we got drunk."
"Oh," Danny says quickly, pulling his glasses up to his head and resting them there, and frowning over at Steve. "I thought you didn't want to talk about it."
"I didn't. But now I do."
Danny looks amused. "Does this have anything to do with Kono riding your ass about making an honest man out of me?"
Steve makes a face as he remembers Kono's brand of care when it comes to him and Danny; he knows gang leaders who aren't half as aggressive as she is. She'd even cornered him in the men's room, which is at least five different rule violations, and she hadn't even looked guilty either. "I'm pretty sure she's planning a wedding for us," he sighs, chugging the rest of his beer down because even the thought of it makes him want to drink.
"Well, I'm not wearing white," Danny says easily, lazing on the chair, his feet digging into the sand.
Steve holds his hands up. "Hey, you said that, not me."
Danny shrugs, taking off his shades and putting them on top of his bag, and takes another sip of his beer. "What? I'm comfortable with my sexuality."
"I suppose one of us has to be," Steve says, reaching into the cooler to get another beer. "So," he says after another long moment of silence and sunlight, "are we talking about it?"
"What exactly do we need to be talking about?" Danny asks in a kinder voice than Steve feels he deserves after the past month of confusion and his less than pleasant temperament.
He shrugs. "Just-talk, I guess. Share our feelings and shit."
Danny laughs, cackles, really, which Steve feels is such an unattractive quality in a man. "Oh, mark the day on the calendar," he wheezes, holding his beer tight against his chest like it's all that's stopping him from rolling to the floor from the force of his amusement. "The great Steve McGarrett wants to talk about his feelings."
"You know," Steve says with irritation, "sarcasm does not become you. And you're not funny."
"I'm fucking hilarious," Danny chuckles, wiping at his eyes like he can't contain himself, and Steve wonders if it's too late to take back every good thing he ever thought about Danny. "And cute," he adds cheerfully. "It's why we're having this discussion."
"No, we're having this discussion because we got drunk and did… things together."
Danny sputters with laughter again. "Things," he says weakly, almost falling out of his seat from how much he's enjoying himself. "Oh, man, I take it back. You are hilarious."
"I really don't like you," Steve says moodily, drinking his beer defensively and wondering why he never gets a chance to best any of them in an argument. "I'm definitely sorry we had sex. You were probably lousy in bed anyway."
"Hey," Danny yells, sitting up and glaring at Steve, "I'll have you know that I've never had any complaints about my techniques or my morning-after manner." Steve waves his hand dismissively at him and yelps when Danny smacks his arm. "I'm serious," he tells Steve, glowering at him like he's offended that Steve would even think to question him.
"Oh, sure, you say that," Steve says casually, enjoying the way Danny's face goes red and blotchy with aggravation. "You can't even take your shirt off when you get to the beach."
"You want my shirt off?" Danny asks through clenched teeth. He gets to his feet, jamming his bottle into the sand, and yanks off his shirt in a swift, angry movement, throwing it at Steve. Steve ducks, but he gets a faceful of shirt anyway; it smells like detergent and Danny, and it's embarrassing how much he likes that scent. He holds it against his chest as Danny stands in front of him, half-naked and lightly tanned and looking a lot better than Steve remembers from his drunken groping.
"Happy now?" he asks Steve acidly, looking vaguely embarrassed to be so exposed. On a beach. In Hawaii. Steve's life is so fucked that he even finds that endearing.
"Why the hell do you hide that body under clothes?" Steve says without thinking because seriously, Danny is built like football player, broad shoulders and a strong back and muscled calves and a perfect ass that Steve wants to bite. It's criminal that he even walks around with pants on. "You look like that and wear long sleeves and a tie. In Hawaii."
"It's called professional attire," Danny says with the resigned air of a man who's had this argument at least a hundred times. "It's something you should look into when you get tired of dressing like an escapee from a frat party." He touches the waistband of his shorts with a moue of distaste. "I am a professional, therefore, I attire myself thusly."
"Thusly?"
"Shut up, all right?" Danny snaps, running his fingers through his hair and eyeing his shirt like any second he's going to snatch it back and pull it on. "I'm starting to feel a sexual harassment charge coming on," he says with a cutting look at Steve. "Are you done looking at my ass? Can I get dressed now?"
"No," Steve says firmly, deciding that he's tired of pretending that he doesn't feel anything for Danny, tired of pretending that they didn't do anything, tired of keeping himself in check when he knows that he can have Danny if he just asks. Danny never tells him no; he says "maybe" or "not right now'" or "look, at least wait until there aren't people around," but never an actual no. Maybe it's time Steve did something about it before Kono locked them in a room together and used a bullhorn to encourage them to kiss.
"No?" Danny asks curiously, his head tilted as he looks Steve over.
"No." Steve's hand clutches tight around Danny's shirt. "I have doubts about your techniques," he tells him carefully, hoping that Danny will pick up on what he's trying to say because Jesus Christ, Steve is shit at talking about his emotions. Except when he's drunk, but he's not focusing on that right now. Or ever.
Danny mulls that over for a moment. "So you want me to prove myself?" he asks slowly, his mouth quirking up in one of those absurdly sweet smiles that always get Steve right in the heart. "For the sake of my reputation, of course."
"Of course," Steve says generously. "This is all for you, you understand."
"You're so giving," Danny laughs, his hand pressed against his heart like he's truly touched. "So when do you want to... save my reputation?"
Steve finds himself smiling despite himself. "Tonight? You can come by the house."
Danny pretends to think about that. "I don't know," he teases. "I might be busy tonight."
Steve waves his empty bottle at him. "I'll have beer," he promises.
"Fuck your beer," Danny tells him with a grin. "Just feed me and I'm yours. Now can I have my shirt back?"
Steve laughs and shakes his head, dumping Danny's shirt in his chair as he gets to his feet. "Nope," he says easily, grabbing Danny by the hand and dragging him toward the ocean, actually managing to get him in into the water up to mid-thigh. "You get your shirt back when you actually swim."
"For my life?" Danny asks incredulously.
"For fun," Steve says exasperatedly, stopping when Danny grabs his hand back and stands still.
"Swimming is not fun," he starts, and Steve throws up his hands in despair.
"Okay, what exactly do I have to do to get you to actually swim in the ocean?"
Danny grins wickedly like he's just been waiting for this moment, like he's been steering Steve to this exact point in the conversation for his own nefarious reasons. "Blowjob," he says succinctly, and Steve doesn't know how he knows it, but he smells Kono's handiwork all over this.
"Kono put you up to this, didn't she?" he asks Danny suspiciously, and his theory is confirmed when Danny cackles and rubs his hands together with glee.
"Do you know how many times I almost took that stupid shirt off just so I wouldn't melt in this heat?" he tells Steve, and it's official, Kono and Danny have teamed up, and he's never going to be safe again.
"I actually hate you," he tells Danny earnestly, but Danny just waves him off and grabs his elbow, yanking him further into the water.
"No, you don't, sweetheart," he says cheerfully, his fingers curled gently around the soft inner flesh of Steve's arm, and Steve finds it hard to resist that kind of good mood, especially when Danny is touching him in a non-mocking way. "You like me too much for that to be true."
"Maybe," Steve admits grudgingly, and yelps when Danny hooks his leg around Steve's and drops him into the water. "You bastard," he sputters when he comes up for air, hearing Danny howl with delight.
"Oh, man," he cries, pointing at Steve, "you should see your face."
"You're a dead man, Williams," Steve says warningly, rushing Danny silently and quickly and knocking him into the water before Danny even knows what's going on.
"You son of a--" Danny surfaces with a murderous look, promising retribution as soon as he catches his breath. Steve laughs and dives into the water, swimming out rapidly, looking back every once in a while to see Danny catching up to him.
Along the way, he runs into Kono on her board, paddling around where the waves are just gentle swells, not her usual ten-foot challenges. She sits with her chin resting on her hands when she sees Steve and she watches as he swims up to her. "What's up, boss?"
"You and Danny," he says, and she smiles proudly at him, like a student who's just managed to solve a complex mathematical equation.
"Isn't it great how that all worked out?" she asks with a great big smile, looking so pleased with herself that Steve doesn't have the heart to yell at her for conspiring with his partner. And then she stops and narrows her eyes at Steve, making him shiver involuntarily. "You are working this out, right? None of this 'I'm going to pretend this didn't happen because I don't want to feel feelings' bullshit that you've been doing for the past month--"
"Oh my God," he says disbelievingly, his palms spread out in unconditional surrender, "you're worse than Mary Ann. She used to harass me about this shit when we were teenagers."
"Well, someone needs to."
"Well, stop," he pleads. "One woman riding my ass about my love life is enough." He pauses and replays that in his head. "Wait, that came out wrong."
She reaches out and cups his face affectionately. "You're an idiot," she says fondly. "Please go make up with Danny and stop acting like an emotionally stunted moron at work, and I promise not to harass you anymore."
"Liar," he tells her because he fucking knows her better.
She shrugs easily. "Okay, a little harassment. But it's for your own good. Also," she points down to the water, "watch out for Danny."
"What--?" is all he manages to get out before Danny rises up from the water like a fucking shark and yanks him down underneath the surface. When he breaks through, Danny's swimming away at full speed, clearly swimming for his life, and Kono's paddling away fast, laughing loudly enough that Steve can still hear her through the water in his ears.
"You're both dead," he yells at the departing figures, vowing to find some way to get them back for this and all the various other indignities that he's had to suffer through in the last month. Although at least Danny hadn't pantsed him, so there is some small comfort in that.
Steve swims after Danny and plots his revenge.
***
Later that evening, Danny kisses him without the alcohol and Steve gets to relive the wonder and terror and joy of fucking Danny without the awful hangover the next morning. Danny kisses him like he can't get enough, his hands map out every line of Steve's body, and when they're done, he curls up against Steve and falls asleep with his head tucked in the hollow of Steve's throat.
Steve stays up most of the night watching Danny sleep, memorizing the curve of his cheek and the line of his mouth, the way he twitches and kicks halfway through the night, the way he mashes his face into Steve's shoulder and drools a bit. Every moment feels like a small triumph, every movement and expression a hard-fought victory, and even though Danny mocks him thoroughly the next day for being creepy and also a sap, Steve doesn't regret it one bit.
When he finally wakes up sometime in the afternoon, Danny doesn't throw himself off the bed, Steve doesn't go in hysterics, and they have a quiet, leisurely lunch in Steve's backyard. It's a pretty good start, Steve thinks as Danny leans into him, his head on Steve's shoulder while Steve puts his arm around Danny's waist. It's not quite what he'd expected -- although he isn't sure what he was expecting, really, maybe something a little more dramatic, involving yelling and punching, or evil twins and plastic surgery -- but he likes it so far.
At least now he's married to Danny and having sex with him, and it's a pretty sweet life. He's almost certain that nothing can go wrong.
At some point, there will be thoughts on Dennis Lehane's The Given Day and how it breaks my heart and makes my soul happy at the same time. For now, let me just say that I wish I had even a third of the guy's talent with words. Also, I will love Luther and Lila and Danny and Nora for fucking ever.
Dear Hollywood,
Never turn this into a movie. You'll just fuck it up like you've done with just about every other movie you've made of his books.
And if you do option it for a movie, don't let Scorcese direct it. I don't trust him to get its heart right.
In conclusion: just don't.
Me.