Every Direction is Ocean and Sky 1/10

[ruyu]

~Chapter One~
The Arrival
(5283/50000 words)
The waves heave against the side of the carrier. Loud crashes bring a fine mist of sea water against the gray metal of the hull. Steve can’t feel the spray, but he can smell and taste it, breathes it into his lungs with deep gulps. It almost tastes right, but he’s in the wrong ocean, wrong side of the world and the water here is a different color, sounds different too. The glare of the sun is just this side of too hot and the sunburn he’s developed on his neck is too raw to be comfortable.

This isn’t his ocean. Isn’t his home.

Steve McGarrett looks down the airstrip, sees the heat shimmer against the pavement, the lines are distorted and shaky. Men and women walk up and down the runway, sunglasses darkening their faces, protection against the sun’s glare. They’re in downtime right now, setting a steady course against the waves as they make their way across some ocean he’ll never be able to tell anyone about anyway. None of them ever will. As far as command is concerned, they aren’t technically here.

“Steve, my man.”

Lieutenant Mason Davis makes his way up to the lip of the carries where Steve has made his lookout, the sea groans from below as his booted feet hangs over the edge. “Cutting it a bit close aren’t we?”

Steve shrugs. They both know the rules and warning. To Steve, though, even a ship this big can make him feel cut off from the sea. The thick steel walls of the interior muffle the sounds and hold back the rocking of the sea around them. Steve hates it. He’s surrounded by it, but can’t touch it.

Davis shuffles around to sit by him, legs curled beneath him instead of dangling like his own. They’re so high above the water the spray can’t even reach them.

“You okay?” Davis asks gently, though he probably knows Steve’s answer. Everyone else does.

It started with a phone call. If he had known what was on the other side of the phone he might not have answered. but he can never change that now. What’s done is done, no matter how many nights Steve wakes, garbled words and names on lips. It hurts to remember and he hurts all the time.

He can’t see the road, but he can feel it’s terrain as the truck bounces against the hilly slopes of the jungle road. The forest is a dazzling green outside of their windows, but he can’t be distracted now, not when he has what he wants, or part of what he wants in his grasp. Antoine Hess stares at him across the interior of the truck. His dark eyes are sunken and his face bruised from his run in with Lieutenant Steve McGarrett, Navy SEAL extraordinaire.

Steve can’t quite contain his glee about the capture. After all their hard work, his hard work, they finally have part of the puzzle. A half grin crawls upon his face and he really can’t help the cocky smile his gives Hess, but he’s confused by the matching grin on the man’s face.

“Cocky, aren’t ya?” Hess sneers, twisting his handcuffs between his knees.

And after everything that’s happened in the past five year Steve thinks, Yeah, I am cocky. I just caught your sorry ass and I’ll get your brother next.

The phone in his pocket rings and Steve, not knowing that the phone call and the smirk on Antoine Hess’s face have anything to do with each other, answers.

When Steve doesn’t answer, Mason doesn’t repeat his question. Steve’s silence is a good enough answer. How can you say you’re sorry? What can you say to the grieving to console them? Mason throws a worried glance at his friend and aches for him. The guy has just lost his father, over the phone, heard the gunshot through the speaker. His dad, just....gone. In the blink of an eye and Steve had heard it all. How can you move on from something like that. Steve has his shoulders hunched, hands wrapped around the railing like it might make them give way with enough force. Steve seems untouchable and inconsolable right now, but Mason decides to try anyway. Moving slowly, he curls an arm across his friend’s back, ignoring how Steve flinches at the contact before he finally settles his fingers on the muscled mass of Steve’s shoulder. His body is tense and coiled so tightly, Mason thinks he might actually break beneath his hands. But he knows Steve, knows how he hides so much, hides from himself.

“Jesus, I’m sorry Steve.” He murmurs softly, fingers gripping muscles as though that alone would hold Steve together.

Steve just falls apart anyway.

~

The crew is sailing home, away from the sand and the fine dust that fills their lungs. Everything is white washed and power fine with wear and constant sand blasting that leaves everything worn and soft to the touch. The desert heat is left behind with the craggy mountainous valleys that steal their soldiers, their lives and their moral. The deserts takes everything and reduces it down to smooth rock.

Steve looks down at his packed bag, eyeing the once crisp, blue t-shirts, now only a dull grey blue. All is old and useless. He can’t find a clean thing in his pack, in his room, in his possession. He wants something new; just for him.

He just doesn’t know where to look anymore.

~

“When was the last time you talked to your father, Steve?”

Steve doesn’t know what he’s done wrong, except maybe not to expect Victor Hess to use a loved one against him. He just didn’t think he had any of those left. Loved ones.

“I swear to God, Hess, if you hurt him...” Steve whispers because he knows both brothers can hear him, loud and clear. Antoine’s eyes are dangerous and slitted, watching Steve’s face like a man who’s got nothing but time on his hands and isn’t in handcuffs with three guns pointed at him.

Steve feels sick, but he writes a note to send HPD to his father’s home in Hawaii. His fingers shake as he writes.

Victor’s voice cackles across the satellite phone and Steve grits his teeth against the sound. “We wouldn’t be finding ourselves in this position if you’d have given up on us when you had the chance,” he says calmly.

“I’ll never stop hunting you,” Steve growls.

Victor laughs hysterically. “I think if you asked your father, he’d say otherwise.”

Steve’s breathe seizes and his heart throws itself against the back of his rips. A raspy voice comes over the phone he hasn’t heard in over ten years and Steve wants to scream at someone, anyone to help him.

“Hey, Champ,” his father announces, sounding worse for wear.

He’s not ready for this conversation. No one ever wants to have this conversation. The inside of the trucks feels empty and cold, despite them being in the middle of some jungle where even the rainfall can’t cool you off and he’s got three armed men sitting around him. Uneven bits of road jostle the truck back and forth and makes him feel unbalanced and so fucking lost. Steve’s eyes flicker around, trying to find something to latch onto, something to help him deal, but there is nothing, only Antoine Hess’s devilish eyes and sharp-toothed smile that makes Steve want to kill him right then and there. He wants to watch his knife sink slowly into this throat as the blood gushes out and his gargles voice wails out in agony.

“Steve...” his father’s voice pulls him back from his rage and Steve’s too sick with worry to think about moving. He wants to tell him to shut up and that everything will be fine but the words get stuck in his throat. “No matter what happens, Steve, don’t give them anything!”

“Dad!” Steve yells when he hears a loud thud and a groan from the other end of the phone.

“I think you’ll find this a simple instruction: let my brother go or I shoot your father, right here, right now, Commander,” Victor demands.

What does he do?

~

Hawaii greats him with a warm breeze, the sun beaming against his face as he leaves the helicopter pad at Hickam Air Force Base. No one is there to greet him, save for the taxi he had the base call in for him before his arrival. It waits for him outside the check-in gates of the base. He orders the driver to his father’s house on the far side of the island and dumps his duffel bag into the bag passenger seat and settles in for the ride.

Honolulu looks just about the same as he left it; bright, bustling and picturesque. Bikinis and board shorts line the sidewalks and beaches, and an array of Hawaiian shirts assault his eyes. Tourist with their sunglasses, camera’s and leis wander the boardwalks and tourist traps, sporting bright beverages with umbrellas. Teens and young adults rollerblade and skateboard down the sloped street. Their scuffed shoes and scarred knees distinguishing them from the simple young tourist out for morning ride on the pavement.

Steve’s not sure what he’s come back to.

“Aloha, brah,” the driver says after Steve’s paid him the hefty cab fee from the air base. The McGarrett house is mostly unchanged but to Steve he will always remember how he left it, waiting for him the rear view window of the police car he was escorted to the airport in. The cab pulls out of the driveway and Steve is left with his lonely little duffel that seems like his only possession at the moment worth carrying into the house. He doesn’t know what to do, how to proceed, how to move on - hell, how to step into the house.

Then, before he can begin to panic - he hears it.

The ocean.

The mid-morning waves crash against his beach and calls to a deep place in his soul that he hasn’t felt in years and years and years. Salty wisps of air brush past him and entice him to walk around the side of the house and climb onto the lanai, the wood is faded, but still sturdy and un-warped under his shoes. He lets his bag fall to the ground and he unlaces his boots and strips off his sock before making his way to the waters edge.

The wet sand is cool under his feet, licking at the bottom of his cargo pants and turning the fabric dark with sea water. He wants to cry and yell, wants to dive headfirst into the crashing waves because this, finally, is his ocean. The green-blue waves crest a few hundred feet out and roll onto the beach with frothy, foaming bursts and Steve breathes it all in with big gulps and he smiles for the first time in weeks. This, at least, can be home for a while.

His beach hasn’t changed, nor has the midday sun erred in it’s path across the sky. The purple and white Plumeria that line the side of the house haven’t yet bloomed, but soon, Steve thinks. Most of what he doesn’t want to think about lies in the interior of the house, but if he can just hang out here for a while he won’t have to think about any of it. Just for now he can think about the place he compares everything else too in his travels. Why the water is never the right color, the right taste, the right sound - because everywhere else hasn’t been here.

The last time he saw this beach was when his mother died, all those long years ago. He had waded out into the surf and let the waves crash over him because his grief was so heavy he though the waves might wash it off of him. But it hadn’t. He’d cried and screamed into the inky night sky, the water breaking against his chest with loud slaps and he could hardly breath.

Steve wants to cry now and let his sorrows out into the ocean again. The last time he cried was with the sound of the ocean miles away and the green of the forest suddenly too bright and hostile. He wasn’t where he needed to be, but hadn’t been able to find where he belong.

He was always being sent away, here and there and back again. Maybe it was finally time that he came home, even if that home was now empty. No one was left to come home to. His only sister was somewhere on the mainland, backpacking only God knows where. The last he’d heard from her was from somewhere in Dallas at a large concert. She’d mailed him photos of her friends and herself, arm slung around each other as the crown thrashed around them. Her hair was still as golden as ever, bangs pushed messily across her forehead, the lips of her hair looking blue and green in the photo. He misses her terribly, but he doesn’t know how to fix anything right now much less his relationship with his sister.

The beach is peaceful and the sun is hot on his face. The wind whips his t-shirt askew and he can feel the air kiss the skin of his stomach in small puffs. He thinks about just stripping and taking a dive into the water, but on second though, he should probably wait and buy some trunks first, to avoid scaring the neighbors.

With a sigh, he heads back up to the back of the house and wonders how he should enter. The front door still has police tap across it, but the backdoor is tape-less, but locked nonetheless. Boots tied and bag in hand, Steve walks back round the house to the door on the side that leads to the garage. It’s an addition to the house with no other entrance than the one that leads outside and his Dad never worried about burglars enough to secure it. Their old key might still be hiding in their somewhere.

The door is rickety and the handle is loose, Steve hardly needs to turn the handle before the door swings open with the gentlest of pushes. It’s dark and murky inside the old shed. An dirty window lets little light through and Steve has to squint for a moment to see inside. Stepping around the covered vehicle to get to the work bend takes some maneuvering, considering there’s junk everywhere. His Dad must not have gotten out here much. Steve grimaces when he feels a pang in his chest at his line of thought.

Steve turn on the work bench light, a simple lamp that his father had screwed into the wall. Light floods the table and he sees all the tools that are scattered around. Everything is coated in a think layer of dust, an old puddle has mold growing across the table in creeping circles. He’s looking for the spare key when he sees it - the toolbox with the word CHAMP inked across the front. It’s old and rusty but obviously used judging by the disrupted dust around its edges. Steve lets his hand skim the top of the box and wonders if this has anything to do with what is father said to him. He’d called him ‘Champ’. His father had never called him that a day in his life. That had to mean something, didn’t it?

He starts to take off the lock when a loud voice interrupts him, his hand automatically reaching for his Beretta.

“HPD, hands where I can see them!” the man says sternly, calm, Steve notes. “Put the gun down, now!”

The man’s weapon is drawn and pointing squarely at Steve’s chest but his eyes are fixed on Steve’s, weighing the situation, watching every move that Steve makes. “You put your gun down. My name is Commander Steve McGarrett with the US Navy.”

“No, please, you first,” the cop insists with a thick layer of sarcasm.

Steve’s heart has stopped racing at this point because if the guy had ever though he was a threat, that had ended when the sarcasm started. “I need to see some I.D.”

“My I.D.?” he says incredulously. “I think you’d better show me yours first, tough guy.”

Steve’s starting to enjoy himself a bit, wondering what this guy will say next. He’s obviously haole with his blond hair and short stature. The accent is what Steve notices first. How can he not? The thick Northern slang is heavy on the guy’s tongue that probably no amount of time will completely erase.

“No, you see, I can’t do that,” Steve says with a regretful tone, just to fuck with the guy. “You first, man.”

The man’s eyebrows climb into this sun bleached hair. “Oh, really?”

Their guns are still fixed on each other and Steve can see the man’s muscled forearm straining against the rolled up cuffs of his shirt. Now that he thinks about it, the guy is dressed like... well... a mainlander. His striped button-up is slightly wrinkled and is slacks are still looking hot off the iron. But Steve kind of loses it at the tie.

The guy has a tie on and he can’t take this guy seriously anymore.

“Together?” the guy suggests.

“Together, together?”

“Yeah, like on the count of three. I put my weapon down, you put yours down. Capiche?”

Each of them is suspicious of the other, but they manage to lower their guns at the same time and not Steve wast worried or anything but even he gives a sigh of relief.

“So who are you?” Mr. Mainlander asks while tucking his gun back into its holster.

Steve does the same and holds out a hand to the guys. “Commander Steve McGarrett. Two
r’s, two t’s. McGarrett.”

“Right, Commander.”

“And you would be?” Steve prompts and the guy grips Steve’s hand in a tight handshake.

“Detective Danny Williams, Honolulu PD.” Danny releases his hand to pull his badge out of his side of his belt and show it to Steve, the metal ridiculously shiny compared to all the stuff in the garage. “And I’m very sorry for your loss, Commander.”

“Thanks,” Steve begins, not wanting to ruffle this guys feathers any further. “I’d say it’s nice to meet you, but what are you doing here? I could have shot you, you know.”

“Highly doubtful, but I’m glad you didn’t, either way,” he says with another shit eating grin on face like he’s simply humoring Steve, maybe his is. The detective’s face turns slightly more serious and sorrowful when he adds, “I’m also investigating your father’s murder.”

Steve nods solemnly. “Yeah, about that...”

“I’ll stop you right there. Don’t give me anymore of that mainlander, Jersey-boy, hoale bullshit,” the man vents, his face turning red. “I have enough of that down at the precinct to last me a fucking lifetime and I don’t need it from you either. My quota is full, you hear me?”

He stares at Danny’s face for a few surprised seconds before he blushes and yeah, maybe that’s what he was gonna say but now he feels guilty. So guilty he is compelled to apologize to the man.

“Look, Danny. I can call you Danny right?” he tries. “Yeah, you look at bit...,” Steve stops at the tight-lipped glare he gets. “...a bit professional to be working in Hawaii. I’m just saying you could dress down a bit, you know?”

Danny signs and rubs a spot on his forehead as if it causes him serious pain. “Why does it matter so much what I wear?” He drops his hand in realization. “You know what, Commander? It was nice to have met you and again I am very sorry for your loss, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave. This is an active crime scene.”

Steve isn’t sure what just happened, but one second he’s thinking maybe this guy won’t end up punching him in the face for thinking he’s a mainlander to suddenly being shoved out of his own house.

Rethinking his plan, Steve steps back to the toolbox and clicks the lock before Danny can see what he’s done. It will keep him from snooping for just a little while long until Steve can sort out his situation. “Find, Detective, I’ll just be..,” but he doesn’t actually know where to go after this. He was hoping that he’d be brave enough to go into the house, but now he’s being kicking out before he get the change to.

“Yes, Commander?”

Steve swallows thickly. “I actually just flew in and I don’t have anywhere to go at the moment.”

Danny’s face softens and his eyes look around the filthy garage. “You want to stay here?”

“I mean, I can get a room at a motel or something, but I just...,” and his voice must crack or something, Steve’s not sure. “I’m not sure what I’m doing here.”

“Why don’t you and I just talk a walk and we’ll see what we can do. I’ve got some question for you anyway.” He’s kind of grateful for the distraction Danny gives him.

He forgets momentarily about the toolbox as he follows Danny out of the dark garage into the Hawaiian sun.

~

The explosion causes chaos all around him. Equipment is scattered around and burning pieces of their vehicles are still falling from the sky in simmering hot chunks. The prisoner transport vehicle seems to be the only one not heavily damaged and Steve’s sure it’s because Antoine Hess is sitting across from his. Steve barks out orders as men repel from the sky and that’s when he first notices the helicopter. He honestly hadn’t hear it while he was on the phone, so heavily focused on his father. Maybe that had been Victor’s plan all along, to distract him so he could find them, find his brother.

Another explosion was too close to their truck and it look a hit and Steve felt it pushed on its side. The contents of the vehicle were thrown around, but Steve never let go of the phone or the death grip he had on Antoine’s forearm. He was not letting this man get away. The truck gave a loud metallic groan as the metal frame bent and then finally settled on its side. All he could see was the cerulean blue of the sky and outside of the window. His three companions climbed from the flipped cab an venture into the destroyed convoy that had become a war zone in a matter of minutes.

A swift kick was landed to his calf and Steve gave muffled grunt of pain as he attempted to pin Antoine back against the floor of the truck. “Don’t fucking think about it, Hess!” Steve growled. 

Shoving Antoine out of the window and not managing to get shot was a miracle. They both tumbled to the ground and Steve grabbed a tight handful of his collar to lead him behind the flipped truck as bullets whizzed around them.

Hess’s men where trying to kill and rescue Antoine, but Steve had other plans. Several of his team where coming around another damaged truck lit up in flames when a man came up behind them. Steve raised his gun to shoot when Antoine curled beneath his arm and pushed away from Steve with a gleeful laugh. Steve finished his shot and turned to see Antoine, still cuffed, pick up a sidearm off of dead man and turn to aim at Steve.

Steve didn’t even think twice about shooting him. Antoine gave a gurgled cough and dropped the gun, hands curling around his own throat, the blood oozing out between his fingers and only then had Steve realized what had happened.

He’d just shot the one person he shouldn’t have.

~

Danny leads Steve back to the front of the house where he suddenly plops down on the front steps and gives the place beside him a quick pat, indicating that Steve should join him. Steve’s not sure what this means, this ease in which this detective directs him, but it has always felt good to obey order and this guys doesn’t seem like the kind of man to jerk him around. Steve sits.

“Were you and you father close?” Danny asks gently, his eyes squinting in the sunlight.

“No,” Steve deadpans.

And Danny, God love him, is so patient when Steve remains stubbornly silent.

“And why is that, Commander?” His tone isn’t accusing or even aggressive, just curious and dejected. Steve doesn’t blame him. John McGarrett was a great man, Steve can admit to that, but he feels that his father came up short in things concerning his family. God, Steve hated him for the things he did.

“My father...” Steve tries, but this isn’t something he talks about often, or more like never because it hurts. Telling people how his family fell apart punches him in the stomach each and every time. “My father didn’t always make the best decisions for his family.”

Danny nods like he understand, but Steve’s not so sure. “If you weren’t close-”

“- weren’t speaking,” Steve interrupts, scowling.

Beside him, Danny raises his palms to placate Steve, his eyes are soft and forgiving. Jesus, he thinks he could be friends with this guy. “Alright. But if you weren’t on speaking terms then why did Victor Hess think he could use him against you?”

That right there breaks Steve and he hides his face behind his hands, eyes growing wet and Steve can feel himself flush with grief. The thing was - Victor didn’t know that Steve wouldn’t simply disregard his father and pretend that he didn’t care. Steve could have, but he didn’t, couldn’t. He hated his father, hated what he’d done to their family. Hated that even after his mother’s death he couldn’t hold them all together. Steve remembered losing the sense of security he’d always felt while on the island, the idea of home being everywhere and in everyone he met. They all made up Steve’s world in Hawaii. But he’s lost that when his father had packed his bags for him and sent him to the mainland.

He hated is father, but he’d never stopped loving him either. Steve never gave up hope that one day his father would beckon him home and tell him everything. Why his sister and himself were sent away? Why his father was so adamant they stay away form the islands and why Steve hadn’t heard from him in over ten years?

Steve didn’t want to have to tell this cop how pathetic his life was. To let this guy learn how he’s been just hiding away in the oceans of the world is just the icing on the cake. This guys gonna think he’s a crazy SEAL with daddy issues and a guilt complex as deep as the Mariana Trench.

The Detective’s fingers slide across his shoulder, much like his friend Davis’s had only a few days ago. But this man’s touch feels different somehow and he’s not sure why. A strong hand curls over the soft part of his shoulder where it meets with his neck and squeezes. Steve tries to breath deep and he can feel how he aches all over and heartache never seems to go away nowadays.

When Steve speaks it sounds weak and broken even to his own ears. Danny must think he’s a miserable thing. “I’ve acted like I hate him. But, Danny,” Steve chokes out, “I’ve never hated him. What he’s done to my life, our life... that’s what I hate. But not him.”

“McGarrett..Steve...”

“I don’t think he knows... knew that. He probably died thinking I hated him.” Steve admits with a sob and Danny’s hand is clamped tightly around his shoulder, their sides now pressed together and it’s the most comfort Steve’s had in days.

“God, that’s not true,” Danny tells him, head shaking as though trying to chase away the words Steve has told him. “John McGarrett loved his children, he loved you. He told me so at least once a week.”

That sobers him up and quiets his breathing for a moment, to think this guy knew his father, worked cases with him. If Steve remembered anything about his father, it was how paranoid he’d become, even before his mother’s death. The fact that his father trusted Danny enough to work closely with him made Steve’s blood sing. He already had the feeling that Danny was a good - great guy, but now he seems like something special. Obviously someone his father thought was special as well.

“Steve,” Danny says solemnly. “There is nothing you could have done to prevent what happened. A madman took something precious from you. It is his fault, not yours. And let me tell you, your father never stopped loving you, missing you or wishing things had turned out differently. He hated that you weren’t in his life, but he never told me why you couldn’t be.”

“Danny, how do you...”

“He told me, Steve. He told me, so I could tell you one day, I think.”

Steve’s got tears in his eyes, and his face feels raw and his feeling so very exposed. “I thought you didn’t know who I was. You drew your gun on me in my father’s garage.”

“Well,” Danny says with a shrug and a sheepish expression. “I didn’t know who you were until you told me your name. The only photo’s John has of you are from high school. And, if I may say so, you’ve changed a lot since then.”

“Then you already knew we didn’t speak to each other.”

“I did.” Danny admits “But I didn’t know what your reason were for not keeping in touch. Now I do.”

Steve isn’t sure what to say to that. He just got manipulated by a mainlander into fessing up to his issues not ten minutes after meeting him. The guy’s got skills, even if those skills tore Steve’s heart to pieces to admit to anything, but still. Skills.

“I missed him. All this time,” is all Steve can say now, and when Danny replies, “He missed you too man,” Steve believes him.

~

His head feels like it is going to explode when the panic sets in. He just shot the one man who could possibly save his father and all of Steve’s hopes are dripping through Antoine Hess’s bloody fingers. Steve can see the wound, the gushing blood telling him that he has hit the carotid artery and he is going to bleed to death. Blood is rushing out of the bullet wound leaving Antoine’s face pale and stricken looking, and Steve knows Antoine wasn’t expecting this to happen. God, Steve didn’t expect this either.

The satellite phone rings and Steve wants this nightmare to be over with. He wants to wake up back in Hawaii and hear the waves crashing against the beach. But he doesn’t wake up because this is real and happening right now.

“What happened?”

Steve wants to lie to him, tell him he’ll give him his brother and he would, Steve realizes, he’d give him up for his father. “Victor...listen...,” but his voice gives him away.

“My brother’s dead, isn’t he?” Victor accuses and Steve can hear the anger and the hatred in his voice. “Well then, your father’s dead to.”

Victor Hess shoots his father and Steve can only scream.

Chapter 2 >>