Fanfic - Textual Analysis [Hawaii Five-0: Steve/Danny]
Title: Textual Analysis; or, How a Book Changed Danny's Life
Rating(s): PG-13
Pairing: Steve/Danny
Summary: An answer to this prompt. Sometimes, it takes fresh eyes to see what's right in front of you.
Author's Notes: So, a week or two back, I posted a fragment of an idea I had. Here's the actual story.
This story was begun pre-S1-finale, so those new revelations won't play a part in the story. Does that make this alternate canon? Eh, let's just pretend nothing of what we found out has happened yet, all right?
Textual Analysis
or, How a Book Changed Danny's Life
As it turns out, possibly the entire state of Hawaii has read The Book, or at least the pertinent sections (Chapter Three, pages 68-92).
“Your hubby okay?” one of the officers at the scene asks, and Danny very nearly tells her that no, Steve got shot but when has that ever stopped him from pulling his psycho SEAL manoeuvres, before he realises what she’d said.
“What is it with everyone thinking we’re married?” he demands instead.
She shrugs. “Hey, you knew who I was talking about.”
Which yes, is a good point, Danny will give her that much. It would have been a better point if The Book hadn’t been released a month ago and somehow spread all over the damn islands. Sometimes, Danny really hates how it seems like everyone here knows everyone else, especially when it comes to certain things he’d rather keep to himself.
“You read it too, huh,” he says.
“I think everyone has,” she says, and doesn’t even have the decency to look apologetic when Danny throws his hands up and stalks off.
The thing is, Danny’s learned that denying it does absolutely nothing for him. It’s been that way even before The Book, and now that everyone’s got that little piece of evidence in their corner, denial’s even less likely to work. Hell, his little sister had just called him up last week asking when he was going to tell them he’d gotten hitched again. At least that was family, but then his ex-partner from NJPD had called asking the same question, and there’s really just so much Danny should be expected to take.
He will talk to Kono, Danny decides, who besides being someone who can update him as to the status of the drug runners they were after, is also someone who will not comment on his apparent marital status. The latter is largely because she’s already gotten the jokes out of her system (the first two weeks after The Book came out were a miserable, miserable time), but it’s the thought that counts.
Then Danny spots a minor problem and veers off his path, coming up behind Steve and lightly smacking him in the back of the head.
“You have problems,” he says.
“I’m not the one going around hitting my partner,” Steve tells him.
“No, you’re the one with a gaping hole in your arm -” Danny begins.
“- It’s a graze, not a hole -” Steve interjects.
“- A gigantic, bloody, gaping hole in your arm,” Danny continues blithely, gesturing for the EMT to continue working on a sulking Steve. “Which you apparently are content to bleed out of until you collapse. And let me tell you, you think you’re getting in my car while bleeding out, you’re wrong. You know how much it costs to get the upholstery cleaned? I will tell you, it costs a lot. Way more than I get paid, unless I want to cut into my Grace fund, which is not happening, so you can get that thought out of your head -”
“I wouldn’t ask you to,” Steve says in an injured tone.
“And without tapping that fund, there is no money for cleaning upholstery so there will be no bleeding in the car, are we clear?” Danny goes on. “The bleeding will be stopped. The bleeding arm will be wrapped up. The bleeding person - that’s you, if you were wondering - will be cleaned and ready for transport like a civilised being. That is, I mean, that’s contingent on the lovely lady here releasing you, and - no, damn it, you do not do the death glare thing on her, her job is to make sure you don’t die of blood loss and if she says you need to go to the hospital, you go to the damn hospital, are we clear?”
“Do you do this every time Grace scrapes a knee?” Steve asks. “No, really, I’m just curious -”
Danny points a finger at Steve’s nose, and manfully resists the urge to laugh as Steve goes cross-eyed following the motion. “Hate you so much,” he says, then turns to the EMT. “Done? Only, I can talk more if you need me to.”
“Done,” she says, also looking like she’s manfully (womanfully?) resisting the urge to laugh. “I’m sure your husband will be glad to know he won’t need to go the hospital.”
Danny opens his mouth to protest the designation, then shuts it again. He knows a losing battle when he sees one.
Danny’s second marriage starts with a phone call from the Governor. This is not the usual outcome of a phone call from the Governor - the usual outcomes tend to involve gunfights and things blowing up and a lot of frantic praying - so when the call comes, Danny’s blissfully unaware of what’s about to happen. All he really registers is annoyance at the tagalong they’ve just been assigned.
As far as devils go, Dr Jeffrey Reese looks like a particularly benign one.
Danny hasn’t ever had an observer attached to him before, but he’s known folks who have. Theoretically, a ride-along in New Jersey should’ve been far worse than anything Hawaii could throw at Dr Reese. Un-theoretically, Danny wonders if he should be warning the guy to run away before he gets blown up.
Also, Steve has his aneurysm face on, and Kono doesn’t exactly look happy either, so Danny steps in to perform damage control.
“Danny Williams,” he introduces himself, sticking out a hand. Dr Reese’s handshake is firmer than Danny expects. “These are Steve McGarrett, Kono Kalakaua and Chin Ho Kelly.” He barely stops himself from waving at thin air and adding Jenna’s name to the list; it hasn’t been all that long since she returned to the CIA. Sometimes, he still expects to see her standing there beside Kono.
“Jeffrey Reese,” the doctor says. “But please, just call me Jeff. It’s a pleasure to meet all of you.”
Steve looks like he sincerely doubts that.
“So,” Danny says briskly, ushering Jeff over to a chair. The rest of the team find various positions around the room as they settle in to listen. “The Governor was a little vague on what exactly you’re here for. Mind filling us in, Jeff?”
“Well, the short version is that I was commissioned by Washington to write a book about leaderships and partnerships in law enforcement,” Jeff says. He mops his forehead with a handkerchief. Danny can kind of sympathise; the heat here hits you hard if you’re not used to it. “I’ve been travelling across the states, riding along with various officers and so forth. The point is to analyse various working styles and possibly come to a conclusion about which ones are the most effective.”
“In other words, you’re doing a survey on how to work well together,” Kono says.
“More or less,” Jeff says, grinning. He doesn’t look offended. “The hope is that whichever styles are found most effective will be adopted by more law enforcement agencies across the states. I’m all for anything that improves the likelihood of an officer surviving, of course, so I agreed to the proposal when I first heard it.”
Whatever any of them might think, that’s not a sentiment they’re going to argue with. They discuss how this thing is going to work, settle on a couple of dates for ride-alongs and interviews and things, and then Jeff picks himself up and there’s another round of hand-shaking and he’s out the door.
“I don’t like it,” Steve grumbles. “He’ll be a liability.”
“He’ll be a person with hands free to call for back-up,” Danny says brightly.
Danny gets Grace that weekend, which automatically makes those two days the best he’s had in the past couple of weeks. Of course, that makes the following Monday the worst he’ll have for the next two weeks. Mondays following Grace-weekends, Danny always has a little extra aggression he needs to burn out; he’s always a little slower to rein Steve in, and even the inevitable complaining doesn’t have much heart to it.
In retrospect, they really should have scheduled Jeff’s first ride-along for another day.
Danny’s pretty sure that the syllables Jeff’s slurring together are a prayer of some sort - Hail Mary maybe, he can’t quite make out the words, so who knows. The black car ahead of them takes a wild right turn, cuts off an on-coming truck, clips the barrier, and keeps going. Steve slides smoothly around the truck and continues, still driving one-handed like they’re on a pleasure cruise. Jeff’s mumbling gets a bit more frantic.
“Hey, uh, Jeff,” Danny says. “You’re from Oregon, right?”
“Yeah,” Jeff says in a voice that is barely a step above a squeak.
“Guess you’re not really used to this,” Danny says conversationally. “The uh, the driving. Steve’s driving, anyway. I don’t even, I mean, one day we will all die a horrible death in a big, messy conflagration, but this thing called safe driving, this thing he thinks is a myth, it doesn’t even register with him so I don’t even bother anymore. Mostly.”
“Conflagration,” Steve mumbles under his breath.
“Yes, conflagration,” Danny says impatiently. “Big bonfire, you know, everything goes boom and catches on fire, you’d like that. Not so much the burning alive bit, maybe. Shit, watch out -”
The guys they’re pursuing finally lose control, fishtailing wildly across both lanes. Danny spares a moment to be thankful that they’ve got this road closed down already, and then another moment to be thankful for Steve’s reaction time and training, because Steve’s smart enough to hit the accelerator instead of the brakes. The Camaro screams by the spinning car with inches to spare, and Steve executes a neat bootlegger turn and comes to a stop pointed back at their suspects.
Danny’s out the door practically before the car even stops moving. “Hands!” he barks, squinting to see through the smoke and dust. His gun remains trained on the silhouettes he sees through the window. “Lemme see your hands! Get ‘em up, up!”
Their suspects are shaken enough from their crash that actually cuffing them and taking them in is anti-climatically easy. A couple of HPD cruisers pull up at a more sedate pace and offer to take them in.
“I presume,” Jeff says, then clears his throat. “Uh, that this, uh, is an aberration?”
Danny opens his mouth, then pauses and shuts it again. Steve’s talking to the HPD officer, too far away for Danny to hear anything, but the wicked little smirk on Steve’s face speaks volumes.
“I hate to break it to you,” Danny says, and pauses sympathetically for Jeff to scrub his face in despair. “But this is pretty tame, by Steve’s standards.”
The sound that Jeff lets out is a lot like a whimper, and Danny pats him on the back. He actually feels kind of sorry for the poor guy.
A week later, Jeff looks a lot more frazzled than he did when he first stepped into Five-0’s offices. At least Chin’s warming up to him, Danny thinks, though as taciturn as Chin tends to be around strangers, that doesn’t really mean much. Steve and Kono, though, they’re still taking an unholy pleasure in sitting within earshot of Jeff and discussing the many completely illegal means of obtaining information that Five-0’s engaged in.
So Danny, because he’s a nice guy like that, takes it on himself to make life easier for Jeff. The man’s just trying to do his job, and Danny refuses to be one of those idiots who take their frustrations out on other people. Sure, it’s inconvenient having Jeff around, and he’ll be happy when the guy’s gone, but that’s no reason to make his life miserable while he’s here.
This all essentially means that Danny takes Jeff out for drinks on Friday, and they have their little interview at Lulu’s, of all places. Danny is appalled at Jeff’s choice, but then realises he’s even more appalled at himself for thinking the place to be a tourist trap, like what, he’s going native, and that, that is a terrifying prospect right there. So he doesn’t say anything as they order their drinks and Jeff yanks out his iPhone to record their conversation because it’s easier, he says, to just talk instead of having to stop for him to take notes.
Maybe it’s the fact that they’re at a bar and not an interview room (like the others had chosen), or maybe it’s that the beer is loosening Danny’s tongue a little, but he finds himself talking pretty easily to Jeff. It helps that Jeff wants to hear about Steve, and Steve’s crazy ways, and what Danny thinks of them - and seriously, that’s a topic Danny will never run out of material for, so he tells Jeff about the shark tank, and the roof, and the inability to open doors like normal people, and at the end of it, Jeff looks a little pole-axed and a lot amused.
“So Steve’s pretty important to you, huh?” Jeff says.
“Well,” Danny says, licking at a stray drop of beer on his knuckle. “Obviously.”
The next Monday, Danny’s alarm clock and coffee-maker both decide to give up the ghost. He doesn’t have time to stop by a café for his elixir, so he reluctantly decides he’ll make do with the stuff at the office. It’s not a great start to the day, and he’s not in the best mood when he gets to the office, so when he steps in and sees Steve’s face, the urge to turn right around and walk out again is strong.
“I cannot deal with this without coffee,” he says plaintively, and makes a beeline for the coffee-maker.
Steve doesn’t say anything. Kono’s not as quiet.
“Jeff’s not here today,” she says brightly. “Think we scared him off?”
Danny slants an amused look at her as he roots around for a K-cup. With two ride-alongs, a group interview and four individual interviews under his belt, Jeff has mentioned the wisdom of getting the hell out of Dodge. Danny’s all for that, but he can’t deny it’s nice having someone around who understands what it is to be around people who are bat-shit crazy. “Possibly,” he says. “He did say something about having plenty of material already.”
“Been talking to him?” Chin asks, and wow, that’s a totally unsubtle look he’s throwing at Steve.
“Yeah, he called me yesterday,” Danny says. “Why, you wanted him here?”
“Not really,” Chin hedges. “It’s a lot easier not having to worry about a civilian in the way.”
“Mm, yeah,” Danny says. The coffee finally starts streaming into the cup, and he fidgets impatiently. “Jeff mentioned that.”
“Mentioned what, that he was - baggage?” Kono asks.
“Maybe not the word I’d use,” Danny says, and takes a deep, long draught of coffee. He feels better already. “But yes, he knows he is, that’s why he wanted to get this shit done quick so he could get out of our hair. He’s trying to make it easy on us - but apparently professional courtesy is not generally something that’s reciprocated around here. I do not know,” he adds, punctuating his words by gesturing with his coffee cup, “why I expected otherwise given the general shenanigans that go on around here. Not to mention the uh, cultural aversion to ties.”
“We don’t hate him,” Chin says.
“Not you I was talking to,” Danny says pointedly. Steve’s silence is conspicuous, and Danny wonders what it’s going to take to break him. Now that he’s got caffeine in his system, he’s actually looking forward to it.
“Well, you seemed to be getting along well enough for all of us,” Kono says, and Jesus, she’s sulking like Steve does when Danny won’t let him blow stuff up. That settles it; he’s got to keep Steve away from Kono before he really turns her into a mini-SEAL and Hawaii ends up a smoking crater. A bigger one than it already is, whatever.
“I was trying,” Danny says, rolling his eyes, “to make things easier on him. It’s what the Governor said to do, yes? You do remember her? Person who calls the shots on this team, that lady? Said, and I quote, ‘I expect you’ll extend every courtesy to Dr Reese for the duration of his stay’?”
“Does that really count?” Kono asks, wrinkling her nose adorably. “I mean, it’s not like it’s really work-related, she can’t tell us to like a person if we don’t.”
Danny pats her on the shoulder. “Welcome to politics, chica. Got any leads on Braxton?”
“Oh, yeah,” Kono says. “Got a few people I want to try talking to, see if they’ll cough up any info.”
“So take Chin and get to it,” Danny says briskly. “We get paid to work, you know? Blowing stuff up’s incidental.”
“But fun!” Kono sings, and then, bless her, takes the hint and leaves, Chin trailing in her wake. Danny turns to stick another K-cup in the machine, because extra caffeine is never a bad thing when he’s dealing with a pissy Steve.
“Just so you know,” he says. “You’ve got a face, you’ve got that face on right now.”
“I don’t have a face,” Steve says.
“I sure as hell hope you do,” Danny says.
“Funny,” Steve says after a moment to parse out what Danny meant.
Danny turns, fresh cup of coffee in hand. “I thought so,” he says. “Come on, babe, your office, I really need to sit down, stupid knee’s acting up again.”
“Need to see your doctor?” Steve asks, and it’s just so typically Steve, concerned even while trying to give Danny the stink-eye, that Danny can’t help but grin a little.
“Nah, I’ll just stay off it for a bit, it’ll be fine,” Danny says, then watches as Steve determinedly strides over to the mini-fridge like he’s on a mission, and retrieves an ice-pack. “And ice it, sure, that’ll help.”
Steve pauses, like he’s not sure there wasn’t an insult in there somewhere, but Danny just gives him a smile and presses the ice-pack to his knee. It does help, and the smooth glide of coffee down his throat helps even more.
“So,” Danny says. “You gonna tell me what’s up with you, or do I have to guess?”
“Nothing’s up,” Steve says, glowering.
“Sure, sure,” Danny says. “I’m going to take a wild guess here and say it’s something to do with Jeff - oh, there we go, aneurysm face, guess I was right.”
“I don’t have an aneurysm face,” Steve mumbles.
“You really do,” Danny assures him. “Talk, McGarrett. Don’t make me break out the big guns - Gracie’s been known to make stronger men than you collapse like wet origami.”
Wet origami, Steve mouths.
“I will sic Grace on you, don’t think I won’t,” Danny says, very nearly tipping his coffee over when he gesticulates with it.
“Kono said she saw you at Lulu’s on Friday,” Steve says, very fast.
Danny takes that in and decides that two coffees aren’t enough. All the coffee in the world wouldn’t be enough to deal with this. “Yeah,” he says. “Jeff did all your individual interviews earlier that day, remember? There was just mine left, so we decided to do it over drinks.”
Steve’s jaw clenches unhappily.
“How is this my life?” Danny demands of the ceiling. Then he sits up and leans forward. “Are you jealous, McGarrett?”
“No,” Steve says swiftly.
“That’s jealousy, my friend,” Danny says.
“You -” Steve says, then breaks off, squinting at Danny suspiciously. “You’ve… been waiting a long while to say that, haven’t you.”
Danny smirks. “Hell, yeah,” he says. “The difference in this case being that Jeff’s not out to kill us, and will soon, very soon, be out of our hair completely. Think you can play nice that long? I promise you you’re still my bestest best friend, Stevie, I’ll give you a friendship bracelet if it makes you feel better.”
“You’re a funny guy,” Steve tells him. He’s lost the tension around his eyes, which are now crinkling at the corners in a smile he won’t let his lips express. “I want to talk to Kamekona about the gun shipments, he might know something.”
“Okay,” Danny says agreeably, because he can afford to be magnanimous when he has clearly won this bout.
Jeff returns in the afternoon to discuss a few things briefly with the team, then inform them that he’ll be leaving in two days, he’s enjoyed working with them, he hopes they weren’t too inconvenienced by him, he’ll be sure to send a copy of the book when it’s published. Steve even unbends enough to give him an actual smile.
Danny’s pretty sure that Jeff counts the smile as a sign of the apocalypse, but it’s the thought that counts. Danny just thinks that if the offer of a friendship bracelet was all it took to make Steve relax, Steve would be drowning in bracelets by now. He’s sure Grace would teach him, and of course she’d insist on making a bracelet for Steve herself, and Steve would get that shy, happy look on his face he always wore whenever Grace did something sweet like that.
Friendship bracelets and the ocean. These are apparently what it takes to get Steve to unwind. Danny watches from Steve’s lanai as Steve cuts a sleek line through the waves, pushing up to his feet only when he’s as far into the shallows as he can comfortably swim. Steve runs his hand through his sopping hair and over his face, whisking away most of the water in a few quick movements. Walking takes care of the rest, the water sliding down his body and vanishing into damp sand.
Danny turns and pops another bottle of beer.
“Is that mine?” Steve asks, hauling himself up onto the lanai.
“Yeah,” Danny says. His voice is a little hoarse, and he takes a swig of beer to clear his throat. “Ugh, think the sand’s getting to me.”
“Most people find the beach good for their throats,” Steve says.
“Am I most people?” Danny says. “I’m -”
“No,” Steve says, grinning. “I can safely say you’re not.”
Danny can feel the words tumbling over his tongue, but Steve’s just turned them into an incomprehensible mess of gibberish. “Okay,” he says, and pretends not to notice how soft Steve’s eyes are.
It’s months of harrowing near-death experiences after that - par for the course, really, and sometimes Danny hates that he’s actually gotten used to it. It still doesn’t stop him from verbally slapping some sense into Steve every time Steve tries something particularly idiotic. Sometimes, Steve even listens. Danny counts those as wins, weighs them up against the losses when Steve doesn’t listen. They about even out, which is something Danny can work with, odds which don’t make him mentally re-visit his will when he can’t sleep at night, just to make sure he’s got everything squared away right.
Danny’s pretty much forgotten about Jeff and his book, until one day he gets home from work and finds a package waiting for him. It’s just barely small enough to fit in his mailbox, and for a moment he’s completely confused as to what it can possibly be. Then he sees the return address and name, and remembers Jeff’s promise of a courtesy copy of the book.
It’s pretty nondescript: sienna covers, a vague blurb on the back, a picture of a faded black-and-white on the front, blocky text spelling out Got Your Back and below that, in letters just a little smaller, A Study of Partnerships in Law Enforcement.
The contents page is fairly straightforward, too, and Danny chuckles as he reads the titles of the chapters. Jeff’s apparently organised the chapters by the different styles of partnerships he wants to talk about, and he’s gone with catchy names for each style. There’s “Psychic,” and “Married Couple,” and “Goofballs” - six in all. Given the names, Danny’s pretty sure that they’ve been classified as either “Military” or “Family (not Mafia).”
The index tells him to go to page 69 for the first mention of Hawaii Five-0, so he does. He reads the page, then puts the book down and gets a fresh pack of beer out of his fridge.
Book and beer in hand, he heads out to his car. Steve should be at home about now.
“Hello, husband,” Danny announces, breezing in through the door.
“Knock!” Steve says, then pauses. “What did you call me?”
“Husband,” Danny says, tossing the book onto Steve’s table. The beer gets set down a little more carefully. “Or Jeff thinks so, anyway. Page 69.”
Steve frowns and picks up the book, flipping to the page in question. Danny pops a bottle of beer and watches as Steve’s eyes flicker across the page quickly, then slow down as his eyebrows go up in surprise. He re-reads the page twice, but when he starts going over it again, Danny reaches over and closes the book for him. He gets it, he really does. He can safely say that he never expected that he and Steve would be the case study for a “Married Couple” style of partnership.
“You do realise, husband mine,” Danny says, slanting amused eyes at Steve, “that we will never live this down.”
Steve looks up at Danny with a vaguely shell-shocked look on his face.
“Fair warning,” Danny says, shrugging. “It’s already been published, and you know how word gets around this place. And can you imagine when Kono and Chin get their hands on this?”
Steve lets out a strangled sort of sound and leans back in his chair, scrunching his eyes shut and plastering his hands over his face. Danny grins and gets up, patting Steve on the shoulder as he passes.
“I’m sure they’ll get over it,” he says, heading into the kitchen. There’re two steaks defrosting in the fridge. “Oh, hey, you expecting someone?”
“You,” Steve says, voice muffled. “You always come over after we close a big case.”
“Guess we really are married,” Danny says philosophically, then laughs as Steve lets out another strangled groan. “Relax, babe. We get ragged on for a few days, and then they’ll forget about it. I mean, how long could it possibly last?”
Two weeks later, Danny’s ready to burn any and all copies of The Book that he manages to find. The only thing stopping him is that he doesn’t think he’ll manage to get them all, and anyway, it doesn’t change the fact that people have read the damn thing and worse - are taking Jeff literally.
Danny can’t go anywhere without someone asking about his husband. The longest he’d gone without any mention of Steve-the-husband was three days, and then the stupid mug they were arresting broke the streak by asking if Danny’s man was always that crazy. Danny might have accidentally knocked the guy’s head on the car when he was pushing him in.
Grace asks about Danny’s marriage to Steve, and that devolves into a brilliantly awkward conversation. Rachel’s no help whatsoever, sitting there on the couch looking like she desperately wants to laugh, but is trying not to do so in front of their daughter. To make matters worse, after Danny stumbles through an explanation of how he’s not actually married to Steve, Grace blithely announces that she doesn’t mind if her Danno gets married to Uncle Steve, because Uncle Steve is pretty cool and she likes him and he makes her Danno happy so that’s good and besides, she wants to be a flower girl, can she be a flower girl, she’s not too old already, is she?
That’s where Rachel loses her staid English composure and laughs so hard that tears come to her eyes.
But then another week goes by, and another, and somewhere along the way, Danny’s surprised to find that he doesn’t really care anymore. Sure, the old nudge-nudge-wink-wink is a little annoying, and there are some homophobic assholes (who mostly go silent after the first guy Steve puts in hospital, though Danny isn’t stupid enough not to realise what some of those looks are about) but when someone genuinely believes that he and Steve are hitched and is happy for them - well, Danny finds it less and less important to correct that false impression.
Steve apparently doesn’t care much, either, if his casual acceptance of the side-long glances and unsubtle comments is anything to go by.
And it’s not like Danny can’t see where they’re coming from. He and Steve practically live in each other’s pockets. He trusts Steve with Grace; Grace calls him Uncle Steve, has done so for months, did so the first time without any prompting from anyone else. Steve makes noise occasionally about Danny entering his house without knocking, but Steve gave him a spare key, for “just in case.” Steve’s cleared out a room in his house for Danny and Grace, when they go over, because they always go over on their weekends, they barely ever stay at Danny’s place anymore. Steve’s forced Danny into bringing over some of his clothes because Danny stays over so often it’s just easier than running between houses. Half the time, Danny’s the one who buys groceries for Steve’s place, and he even remembers to get the healthy crap Steve likes to eat.
Danny nags Steve about taking less risks, and Steve nags Danny about eating better, and fuck him blind, they’re married.
“We should be having sex,” Danny announces as he walks in, and then belatedly notices Kono and Chin in Steve’s office. “Oh. Hi.”
“Go on,” Kono says, looking very interested. “Don’t let us stop you.” Chin sort of looks like he wants to be anywhere but here. Steve just looks like he doesn’t know what to do with his hands.
What is it Rachel always likes to say? In for a penny, in for a pound? “Okay,” Danny says, then turns to Steve. “We should be having sex,” he reiterates.
Steve opens his mouth, then shuts it.
“We’re married,” Danny presses on. “Jeff knows it, Kono and Chin know it, half of Hawaii and at least ten percent of New Jersey knows it. Also, Grace wants to be a flower girl, and don’t you dare tell my baby she’s too old for it, she’s not, and she will be the prettiest flower girl there ever was.”
Steve’s mouth sort of flaps a little.
“So if we’re married, where’s the damn sex?” Danny flings his arms out. “I demand sex, I demand mind-blowing sex, goddammit, putting up with you all the time, I better have some fringe benefits, right? I mean, I’ve practically moved into your house anyway, and don’t think I don’t realise you were the one doing most of the moving, you sneaky SEAL bastard. I buy you multi-grain bread and if that isn’t a sign of undying devotion, I don’t know what is, so would it kill you to, I don’t know, at least fuck me through the mattress or - mmph!”
Typical Steve, Danny thinks as he kisses back with everything he’s got, even though his hands are still flailing a little - typical Steve, always have to cut him off at just the most interesting part. This, though, this is a form of shutting him up that Danny could easily get used to.
He thumps Steve in the shoulder once, just because he can, then wraps his arms around Steve, far as they can go, which is not nearly far enough, stupid huge Steve with his broad back and long arms all the way around Danny’s body, pinning him close but not so close that Danny can’t try and climb nearer, his arms tight and fingers digging into Steve’s shoulder-blades - and he just - holds on.
“Aww,” Kono coos.
Danny flicks the finger at her without breaking the kiss.
The sex is fantastic. Mind-blowing, even.
“We should sound-proof the walls,” Steve says, afterwards.
“Mmuh?” Danny says.
“You scream,” Steve says. “And Mary always said the walls are thin. And if Grace is going to be staying over...”
“Mm-fmhph,” Danny says into the pillow.
“I don’t know how much it’ll cost,” Steve says thoughtfully. “We’ll have a look around, I guess.”
It takes a heroic effort, but Danny manages to lift his head from the pillow. “Are you always this chatty after sex?” he demands.
“Nope,” Steve says, and rolls halfway onto Danny’s back, nipping at the nape of his neck. Danny absolutely does not whimper, okay, the sound that comes out of his throat is not a whimper, it’s just a - groan. “Just when I’m ready for the next round.”
Okay, maybe Danny whimpers.
“Got laid?” Chin asks.
Danny gives Chin a very smug look.
“I take it you worked things out, then,” Chin says, and this time he gives Danny a grin. It’s a teasing look, sure, but it’s also affectionate, and Danny’s more warmed by the easy acceptance than he has any right to be.
“Yep, all fine in McGarrett-land,” Danny says. “And Williams-land, for that matter.”
“Good,” Chin says. They work on in silence for a few minutes, before Chin looks up again. “So…” he begins, and Danny’s immediately wary because that voice holds nothing but mischief. “When’s the wedding?”
~fin
Yes, the choice of page number is an intentional joke. My maturity, let me show you it.
CC?
Also, a question: does anyone know where I can find a Hawaii Five-0 timeline?
Official would be good, but if not, fan-made is perfectly fine. I'm just hoping for a summary of what events/episodes occurred when, as a fic aid - instead of having to dig through episode summaries (I unfortunately don't have the eps on hand). Thanks in advance for any help you might be able to give me!
ETA: Oh my god, this fandom is freaking AWESOME. Hearts in my eyes, people, hearts in my eyes. Like so --> ♥_♥ I think this is possibly the largest haul of comments I've ever had in my life.
The very mature part of me giggles happily at the fact that I currently have 69 comments. Now to respond! *bounces off*
Rating(s): PG-13
Pairing: Steve/Danny
Summary: An answer to this prompt. Sometimes, it takes fresh eyes to see what's right in front of you.
Author's Notes: So, a week or two back, I posted a fragment of an idea I had. Here's the actual story.
This story was begun pre-S1-finale, so those new revelations won't play a part in the story. Does that make this alternate canon? Eh, let's just pretend nothing of what we found out has happened yet, all right?
Textual Analysis
or, How a Book Changed Danny's Life
As it turns out, possibly the entire state of Hawaii has read The Book, or at least the pertinent sections (Chapter Three, pages 68-92).
“Your hubby okay?” one of the officers at the scene asks, and Danny very nearly tells her that no, Steve got shot but when has that ever stopped him from pulling his psycho SEAL manoeuvres, before he realises what she’d said.
“What is it with everyone thinking we’re married?” he demands instead.
She shrugs. “Hey, you knew who I was talking about.”
Which yes, is a good point, Danny will give her that much. It would have been a better point if The Book hadn’t been released a month ago and somehow spread all over the damn islands. Sometimes, Danny really hates how it seems like everyone here knows everyone else, especially when it comes to certain things he’d rather keep to himself.
“You read it too, huh,” he says.
“I think everyone has,” she says, and doesn’t even have the decency to look apologetic when Danny throws his hands up and stalks off.
The thing is, Danny’s learned that denying it does absolutely nothing for him. It’s been that way even before The Book, and now that everyone’s got that little piece of evidence in their corner, denial’s even less likely to work. Hell, his little sister had just called him up last week asking when he was going to tell them he’d gotten hitched again. At least that was family, but then his ex-partner from NJPD had called asking the same question, and there’s really just so much Danny should be expected to take.
He will talk to Kono, Danny decides, who besides being someone who can update him as to the status of the drug runners they were after, is also someone who will not comment on his apparent marital status. The latter is largely because she’s already gotten the jokes out of her system (the first two weeks after The Book came out were a miserable, miserable time), but it’s the thought that counts.
Then Danny spots a minor problem and veers off his path, coming up behind Steve and lightly smacking him in the back of the head.
“You have problems,” he says.
“I’m not the one going around hitting my partner,” Steve tells him.
“No, you’re the one with a gaping hole in your arm -” Danny begins.
“- It’s a graze, not a hole -” Steve interjects.
“- A gigantic, bloody, gaping hole in your arm,” Danny continues blithely, gesturing for the EMT to continue working on a sulking Steve. “Which you apparently are content to bleed out of until you collapse. And let me tell you, you think you’re getting in my car while bleeding out, you’re wrong. You know how much it costs to get the upholstery cleaned? I will tell you, it costs a lot. Way more than I get paid, unless I want to cut into my Grace fund, which is not happening, so you can get that thought out of your head -”
“I wouldn’t ask you to,” Steve says in an injured tone.
“And without tapping that fund, there is no money for cleaning upholstery so there will be no bleeding in the car, are we clear?” Danny goes on. “The bleeding will be stopped. The bleeding arm will be wrapped up. The bleeding person - that’s you, if you were wondering - will be cleaned and ready for transport like a civilised being. That is, I mean, that’s contingent on the lovely lady here releasing you, and - no, damn it, you do not do the death glare thing on her, her job is to make sure you don’t die of blood loss and if she says you need to go to the hospital, you go to the damn hospital, are we clear?”
“Do you do this every time Grace scrapes a knee?” Steve asks. “No, really, I’m just curious -”
Danny points a finger at Steve’s nose, and manfully resists the urge to laugh as Steve goes cross-eyed following the motion. “Hate you so much,” he says, then turns to the EMT. “Done? Only, I can talk more if you need me to.”
“Done,” she says, also looking like she’s manfully (womanfully?) resisting the urge to laugh. “I’m sure your husband will be glad to know he won’t need to go the hospital.”
Danny opens his mouth to protest the designation, then shuts it again. He knows a losing battle when he sees one.
Danny’s second marriage starts with a phone call from the Governor. This is not the usual outcome of a phone call from the Governor - the usual outcomes tend to involve gunfights and things blowing up and a lot of frantic praying - so when the call comes, Danny’s blissfully unaware of what’s about to happen. All he really registers is annoyance at the tagalong they’ve just been assigned.
As far as devils go, Dr Jeffrey Reese looks like a particularly benign one.
Danny hasn’t ever had an observer attached to him before, but he’s known folks who have. Theoretically, a ride-along in New Jersey should’ve been far worse than anything Hawaii could throw at Dr Reese. Un-theoretically, Danny wonders if he should be warning the guy to run away before he gets blown up.
Also, Steve has his aneurysm face on, and Kono doesn’t exactly look happy either, so Danny steps in to perform damage control.
“Danny Williams,” he introduces himself, sticking out a hand. Dr Reese’s handshake is firmer than Danny expects. “These are Steve McGarrett, Kono Kalakaua and Chin Ho Kelly.” He barely stops himself from waving at thin air and adding Jenna’s name to the list; it hasn’t been all that long since she returned to the CIA. Sometimes, he still expects to see her standing there beside Kono.
“Jeffrey Reese,” the doctor says. “But please, just call me Jeff. It’s a pleasure to meet all of you.”
Steve looks like he sincerely doubts that.
“So,” Danny says briskly, ushering Jeff over to a chair. The rest of the team find various positions around the room as they settle in to listen. “The Governor was a little vague on what exactly you’re here for. Mind filling us in, Jeff?”
“Well, the short version is that I was commissioned by Washington to write a book about leaderships and partnerships in law enforcement,” Jeff says. He mops his forehead with a handkerchief. Danny can kind of sympathise; the heat here hits you hard if you’re not used to it. “I’ve been travelling across the states, riding along with various officers and so forth. The point is to analyse various working styles and possibly come to a conclusion about which ones are the most effective.”
“In other words, you’re doing a survey on how to work well together,” Kono says.
“More or less,” Jeff says, grinning. He doesn’t look offended. “The hope is that whichever styles are found most effective will be adopted by more law enforcement agencies across the states. I’m all for anything that improves the likelihood of an officer surviving, of course, so I agreed to the proposal when I first heard it.”
Whatever any of them might think, that’s not a sentiment they’re going to argue with. They discuss how this thing is going to work, settle on a couple of dates for ride-alongs and interviews and things, and then Jeff picks himself up and there’s another round of hand-shaking and he’s out the door.
“I don’t like it,” Steve grumbles. “He’ll be a liability.”
“He’ll be a person with hands free to call for back-up,” Danny says brightly.
Danny gets Grace that weekend, which automatically makes those two days the best he’s had in the past couple of weeks. Of course, that makes the following Monday the worst he’ll have for the next two weeks. Mondays following Grace-weekends, Danny always has a little extra aggression he needs to burn out; he’s always a little slower to rein Steve in, and even the inevitable complaining doesn’t have much heart to it.
In retrospect, they really should have scheduled Jeff’s first ride-along for another day.
Danny’s pretty sure that the syllables Jeff’s slurring together are a prayer of some sort - Hail Mary maybe, he can’t quite make out the words, so who knows. The black car ahead of them takes a wild right turn, cuts off an on-coming truck, clips the barrier, and keeps going. Steve slides smoothly around the truck and continues, still driving one-handed like they’re on a pleasure cruise. Jeff’s mumbling gets a bit more frantic.
“Hey, uh, Jeff,” Danny says. “You’re from Oregon, right?”
“Yeah,” Jeff says in a voice that is barely a step above a squeak.
“Guess you’re not really used to this,” Danny says conversationally. “The uh, the driving. Steve’s driving, anyway. I don’t even, I mean, one day we will all die a horrible death in a big, messy conflagration, but this thing called safe driving, this thing he thinks is a myth, it doesn’t even register with him so I don’t even bother anymore. Mostly.”
“Conflagration,” Steve mumbles under his breath.
“Yes, conflagration,” Danny says impatiently. “Big bonfire, you know, everything goes boom and catches on fire, you’d like that. Not so much the burning alive bit, maybe. Shit, watch out -”
The guys they’re pursuing finally lose control, fishtailing wildly across both lanes. Danny spares a moment to be thankful that they’ve got this road closed down already, and then another moment to be thankful for Steve’s reaction time and training, because Steve’s smart enough to hit the accelerator instead of the brakes. The Camaro screams by the spinning car with inches to spare, and Steve executes a neat bootlegger turn and comes to a stop pointed back at their suspects.
Danny’s out the door practically before the car even stops moving. “Hands!” he barks, squinting to see through the smoke and dust. His gun remains trained on the silhouettes he sees through the window. “Lemme see your hands! Get ‘em up, up!”
Their suspects are shaken enough from their crash that actually cuffing them and taking them in is anti-climatically easy. A couple of HPD cruisers pull up at a more sedate pace and offer to take them in.
“I presume,” Jeff says, then clears his throat. “Uh, that this, uh, is an aberration?”
Danny opens his mouth, then pauses and shuts it again. Steve’s talking to the HPD officer, too far away for Danny to hear anything, but the wicked little smirk on Steve’s face speaks volumes.
“I hate to break it to you,” Danny says, and pauses sympathetically for Jeff to scrub his face in despair. “But this is pretty tame, by Steve’s standards.”
The sound that Jeff lets out is a lot like a whimper, and Danny pats him on the back. He actually feels kind of sorry for the poor guy.
A week later, Jeff looks a lot more frazzled than he did when he first stepped into Five-0’s offices. At least Chin’s warming up to him, Danny thinks, though as taciturn as Chin tends to be around strangers, that doesn’t really mean much. Steve and Kono, though, they’re still taking an unholy pleasure in sitting within earshot of Jeff and discussing the many completely illegal means of obtaining information that Five-0’s engaged in.
So Danny, because he’s a nice guy like that, takes it on himself to make life easier for Jeff. The man’s just trying to do his job, and Danny refuses to be one of those idiots who take their frustrations out on other people. Sure, it’s inconvenient having Jeff around, and he’ll be happy when the guy’s gone, but that’s no reason to make his life miserable while he’s here.
This all essentially means that Danny takes Jeff out for drinks on Friday, and they have their little interview at Lulu’s, of all places. Danny is appalled at Jeff’s choice, but then realises he’s even more appalled at himself for thinking the place to be a tourist trap, like what, he’s going native, and that, that is a terrifying prospect right there. So he doesn’t say anything as they order their drinks and Jeff yanks out his iPhone to record their conversation because it’s easier, he says, to just talk instead of having to stop for him to take notes.
Maybe it’s the fact that they’re at a bar and not an interview room (like the others had chosen), or maybe it’s that the beer is loosening Danny’s tongue a little, but he finds himself talking pretty easily to Jeff. It helps that Jeff wants to hear about Steve, and Steve’s crazy ways, and what Danny thinks of them - and seriously, that’s a topic Danny will never run out of material for, so he tells Jeff about the shark tank, and the roof, and the inability to open doors like normal people, and at the end of it, Jeff looks a little pole-axed and a lot amused.
“So Steve’s pretty important to you, huh?” Jeff says.
“Well,” Danny says, licking at a stray drop of beer on his knuckle. “Obviously.”
The next Monday, Danny’s alarm clock and coffee-maker both decide to give up the ghost. He doesn’t have time to stop by a café for his elixir, so he reluctantly decides he’ll make do with the stuff at the office. It’s not a great start to the day, and he’s not in the best mood when he gets to the office, so when he steps in and sees Steve’s face, the urge to turn right around and walk out again is strong.
“I cannot deal with this without coffee,” he says plaintively, and makes a beeline for the coffee-maker.
Steve doesn’t say anything. Kono’s not as quiet.
“Jeff’s not here today,” she says brightly. “Think we scared him off?”
Danny slants an amused look at her as he roots around for a K-cup. With two ride-alongs, a group interview and four individual interviews under his belt, Jeff has mentioned the wisdom of getting the hell out of Dodge. Danny’s all for that, but he can’t deny it’s nice having someone around who understands what it is to be around people who are bat-shit crazy. “Possibly,” he says. “He did say something about having plenty of material already.”
“Been talking to him?” Chin asks, and wow, that’s a totally unsubtle look he’s throwing at Steve.
“Yeah, he called me yesterday,” Danny says. “Why, you wanted him here?”
“Not really,” Chin hedges. “It’s a lot easier not having to worry about a civilian in the way.”
“Mm, yeah,” Danny says. The coffee finally starts streaming into the cup, and he fidgets impatiently. “Jeff mentioned that.”
“Mentioned what, that he was - baggage?” Kono asks.
“Maybe not the word I’d use,” Danny says, and takes a deep, long draught of coffee. He feels better already. “But yes, he knows he is, that’s why he wanted to get this shit done quick so he could get out of our hair. He’s trying to make it easy on us - but apparently professional courtesy is not generally something that’s reciprocated around here. I do not know,” he adds, punctuating his words by gesturing with his coffee cup, “why I expected otherwise given the general shenanigans that go on around here. Not to mention the uh, cultural aversion to ties.”
“We don’t hate him,” Chin says.
“Not you I was talking to,” Danny says pointedly. Steve’s silence is conspicuous, and Danny wonders what it’s going to take to break him. Now that he’s got caffeine in his system, he’s actually looking forward to it.
“Well, you seemed to be getting along well enough for all of us,” Kono says, and Jesus, she’s sulking like Steve does when Danny won’t let him blow stuff up. That settles it; he’s got to keep Steve away from Kono before he really turns her into a mini-SEAL and Hawaii ends up a smoking crater. A bigger one than it already is, whatever.
“I was trying,” Danny says, rolling his eyes, “to make things easier on him. It’s what the Governor said to do, yes? You do remember her? Person who calls the shots on this team, that lady? Said, and I quote, ‘I expect you’ll extend every courtesy to Dr Reese for the duration of his stay’?”
“Does that really count?” Kono asks, wrinkling her nose adorably. “I mean, it’s not like it’s really work-related, she can’t tell us to like a person if we don’t.”
Danny pats her on the shoulder. “Welcome to politics, chica. Got any leads on Braxton?”
“Oh, yeah,” Kono says. “Got a few people I want to try talking to, see if they’ll cough up any info.”
“So take Chin and get to it,” Danny says briskly. “We get paid to work, you know? Blowing stuff up’s incidental.”
“But fun!” Kono sings, and then, bless her, takes the hint and leaves, Chin trailing in her wake. Danny turns to stick another K-cup in the machine, because extra caffeine is never a bad thing when he’s dealing with a pissy Steve.
“Just so you know,” he says. “You’ve got a face, you’ve got that face on right now.”
“I don’t have a face,” Steve says.
“I sure as hell hope you do,” Danny says.
“Funny,” Steve says after a moment to parse out what Danny meant.
Danny turns, fresh cup of coffee in hand. “I thought so,” he says. “Come on, babe, your office, I really need to sit down, stupid knee’s acting up again.”
“Need to see your doctor?” Steve asks, and it’s just so typically Steve, concerned even while trying to give Danny the stink-eye, that Danny can’t help but grin a little.
“Nah, I’ll just stay off it for a bit, it’ll be fine,” Danny says, then watches as Steve determinedly strides over to the mini-fridge like he’s on a mission, and retrieves an ice-pack. “And ice it, sure, that’ll help.”
Steve pauses, like he’s not sure there wasn’t an insult in there somewhere, but Danny just gives him a smile and presses the ice-pack to his knee. It does help, and the smooth glide of coffee down his throat helps even more.
“So,” Danny says. “You gonna tell me what’s up with you, or do I have to guess?”
“Nothing’s up,” Steve says, glowering.
“Sure, sure,” Danny says. “I’m going to take a wild guess here and say it’s something to do with Jeff - oh, there we go, aneurysm face, guess I was right.”
“I don’t have an aneurysm face,” Steve mumbles.
“You really do,” Danny assures him. “Talk, McGarrett. Don’t make me break out the big guns - Gracie’s been known to make stronger men than you collapse like wet origami.”
Wet origami, Steve mouths.
“I will sic Grace on you, don’t think I won’t,” Danny says, very nearly tipping his coffee over when he gesticulates with it.
“Kono said she saw you at Lulu’s on Friday,” Steve says, very fast.
Danny takes that in and decides that two coffees aren’t enough. All the coffee in the world wouldn’t be enough to deal with this. “Yeah,” he says. “Jeff did all your individual interviews earlier that day, remember? There was just mine left, so we decided to do it over drinks.”
Steve’s jaw clenches unhappily.
“How is this my life?” Danny demands of the ceiling. Then he sits up and leans forward. “Are you jealous, McGarrett?”
“No,” Steve says swiftly.
“That’s jealousy, my friend,” Danny says.
“You -” Steve says, then breaks off, squinting at Danny suspiciously. “You’ve… been waiting a long while to say that, haven’t you.”
Danny smirks. “Hell, yeah,” he says. “The difference in this case being that Jeff’s not out to kill us, and will soon, very soon, be out of our hair completely. Think you can play nice that long? I promise you you’re still my bestest best friend, Stevie, I’ll give you a friendship bracelet if it makes you feel better.”
“You’re a funny guy,” Steve tells him. He’s lost the tension around his eyes, which are now crinkling at the corners in a smile he won’t let his lips express. “I want to talk to Kamekona about the gun shipments, he might know something.”
“Okay,” Danny says agreeably, because he can afford to be magnanimous when he has clearly won this bout.
Jeff returns in the afternoon to discuss a few things briefly with the team, then inform them that he’ll be leaving in two days, he’s enjoyed working with them, he hopes they weren’t too inconvenienced by him, he’ll be sure to send a copy of the book when it’s published. Steve even unbends enough to give him an actual smile.
Danny’s pretty sure that Jeff counts the smile as a sign of the apocalypse, but it’s the thought that counts. Danny just thinks that if the offer of a friendship bracelet was all it took to make Steve relax, Steve would be drowning in bracelets by now. He’s sure Grace would teach him, and of course she’d insist on making a bracelet for Steve herself, and Steve would get that shy, happy look on his face he always wore whenever Grace did something sweet like that.
Friendship bracelets and the ocean. These are apparently what it takes to get Steve to unwind. Danny watches from Steve’s lanai as Steve cuts a sleek line through the waves, pushing up to his feet only when he’s as far into the shallows as he can comfortably swim. Steve runs his hand through his sopping hair and over his face, whisking away most of the water in a few quick movements. Walking takes care of the rest, the water sliding down his body and vanishing into damp sand.
Danny turns and pops another bottle of beer.
“Is that mine?” Steve asks, hauling himself up onto the lanai.
“Yeah,” Danny says. His voice is a little hoarse, and he takes a swig of beer to clear his throat. “Ugh, think the sand’s getting to me.”
“Most people find the beach good for their throats,” Steve says.
“Am I most people?” Danny says. “I’m -”
“No,” Steve says, grinning. “I can safely say you’re not.”
Danny can feel the words tumbling over his tongue, but Steve’s just turned them into an incomprehensible mess of gibberish. “Okay,” he says, and pretends not to notice how soft Steve’s eyes are.
It’s months of harrowing near-death experiences after that - par for the course, really, and sometimes Danny hates that he’s actually gotten used to it. It still doesn’t stop him from verbally slapping some sense into Steve every time Steve tries something particularly idiotic. Sometimes, Steve even listens. Danny counts those as wins, weighs them up against the losses when Steve doesn’t listen. They about even out, which is something Danny can work with, odds which don’t make him mentally re-visit his will when he can’t sleep at night, just to make sure he’s got everything squared away right.
Danny’s pretty much forgotten about Jeff and his book, until one day he gets home from work and finds a package waiting for him. It’s just barely small enough to fit in his mailbox, and for a moment he’s completely confused as to what it can possibly be. Then he sees the return address and name, and remembers Jeff’s promise of a courtesy copy of the book.
It’s pretty nondescript: sienna covers, a vague blurb on the back, a picture of a faded black-and-white on the front, blocky text spelling out Got Your Back and below that, in letters just a little smaller, A Study of Partnerships in Law Enforcement.
The contents page is fairly straightforward, too, and Danny chuckles as he reads the titles of the chapters. Jeff’s apparently organised the chapters by the different styles of partnerships he wants to talk about, and he’s gone with catchy names for each style. There’s “Psychic,” and “Married Couple,” and “Goofballs” - six in all. Given the names, Danny’s pretty sure that they’ve been classified as either “Military” or “Family (not Mafia).”
The index tells him to go to page 69 for the first mention of Hawaii Five-0, so he does. He reads the page, then puts the book down and gets a fresh pack of beer out of his fridge.
Book and beer in hand, he heads out to his car. Steve should be at home about now.
“Hello, husband,” Danny announces, breezing in through the door.
“Knock!” Steve says, then pauses. “What did you call me?”
“Husband,” Danny says, tossing the book onto Steve’s table. The beer gets set down a little more carefully. “Or Jeff thinks so, anyway. Page 69.”
Steve frowns and picks up the book, flipping to the page in question. Danny pops a bottle of beer and watches as Steve’s eyes flicker across the page quickly, then slow down as his eyebrows go up in surprise. He re-reads the page twice, but when he starts going over it again, Danny reaches over and closes the book for him. He gets it, he really does. He can safely say that he never expected that he and Steve would be the case study for a “Married Couple” style of partnership.
“You do realise, husband mine,” Danny says, slanting amused eyes at Steve, “that we will never live this down.”
Steve looks up at Danny with a vaguely shell-shocked look on his face.
“Fair warning,” Danny says, shrugging. “It’s already been published, and you know how word gets around this place. And can you imagine when Kono and Chin get their hands on this?”
Steve lets out a strangled sort of sound and leans back in his chair, scrunching his eyes shut and plastering his hands over his face. Danny grins and gets up, patting Steve on the shoulder as he passes.
“I’m sure they’ll get over it,” he says, heading into the kitchen. There’re two steaks defrosting in the fridge. “Oh, hey, you expecting someone?”
“You,” Steve says, voice muffled. “You always come over after we close a big case.”
“Guess we really are married,” Danny says philosophically, then laughs as Steve lets out another strangled groan. “Relax, babe. We get ragged on for a few days, and then they’ll forget about it. I mean, how long could it possibly last?”
Two weeks later, Danny’s ready to burn any and all copies of The Book that he manages to find. The only thing stopping him is that he doesn’t think he’ll manage to get them all, and anyway, it doesn’t change the fact that people have read the damn thing and worse - are taking Jeff literally.
Danny can’t go anywhere without someone asking about his husband. The longest he’d gone without any mention of Steve-the-husband was three days, and then the stupid mug they were arresting broke the streak by asking if Danny’s man was always that crazy. Danny might have accidentally knocked the guy’s head on the car when he was pushing him in.
Grace asks about Danny’s marriage to Steve, and that devolves into a brilliantly awkward conversation. Rachel’s no help whatsoever, sitting there on the couch looking like she desperately wants to laugh, but is trying not to do so in front of their daughter. To make matters worse, after Danny stumbles through an explanation of how he’s not actually married to Steve, Grace blithely announces that she doesn’t mind if her Danno gets married to Uncle Steve, because Uncle Steve is pretty cool and she likes him and he makes her Danno happy so that’s good and besides, she wants to be a flower girl, can she be a flower girl, she’s not too old already, is she?
That’s where Rachel loses her staid English composure and laughs so hard that tears come to her eyes.
But then another week goes by, and another, and somewhere along the way, Danny’s surprised to find that he doesn’t really care anymore. Sure, the old nudge-nudge-wink-wink is a little annoying, and there are some homophobic assholes (who mostly go silent after the first guy Steve puts in hospital, though Danny isn’t stupid enough not to realise what some of those looks are about) but when someone genuinely believes that he and Steve are hitched and is happy for them - well, Danny finds it less and less important to correct that false impression.
Steve apparently doesn’t care much, either, if his casual acceptance of the side-long glances and unsubtle comments is anything to go by.
And it’s not like Danny can’t see where they’re coming from. He and Steve practically live in each other’s pockets. He trusts Steve with Grace; Grace calls him Uncle Steve, has done so for months, did so the first time without any prompting from anyone else. Steve makes noise occasionally about Danny entering his house without knocking, but Steve gave him a spare key, for “just in case.” Steve’s cleared out a room in his house for Danny and Grace, when they go over, because they always go over on their weekends, they barely ever stay at Danny’s place anymore. Steve’s forced Danny into bringing over some of his clothes because Danny stays over so often it’s just easier than running between houses. Half the time, Danny’s the one who buys groceries for Steve’s place, and he even remembers to get the healthy crap Steve likes to eat.
Danny nags Steve about taking less risks, and Steve nags Danny about eating better, and fuck him blind, they’re married.
“We should be having sex,” Danny announces as he walks in, and then belatedly notices Kono and Chin in Steve’s office. “Oh. Hi.”
“Go on,” Kono says, looking very interested. “Don’t let us stop you.” Chin sort of looks like he wants to be anywhere but here. Steve just looks like he doesn’t know what to do with his hands.
What is it Rachel always likes to say? In for a penny, in for a pound? “Okay,” Danny says, then turns to Steve. “We should be having sex,” he reiterates.
Steve opens his mouth, then shuts it.
“We’re married,” Danny presses on. “Jeff knows it, Kono and Chin know it, half of Hawaii and at least ten percent of New Jersey knows it. Also, Grace wants to be a flower girl, and don’t you dare tell my baby she’s too old for it, she’s not, and she will be the prettiest flower girl there ever was.”
Steve’s mouth sort of flaps a little.
“So if we’re married, where’s the damn sex?” Danny flings his arms out. “I demand sex, I demand mind-blowing sex, goddammit, putting up with you all the time, I better have some fringe benefits, right? I mean, I’ve practically moved into your house anyway, and don’t think I don’t realise you were the one doing most of the moving, you sneaky SEAL bastard. I buy you multi-grain bread and if that isn’t a sign of undying devotion, I don’t know what is, so would it kill you to, I don’t know, at least fuck me through the mattress or - mmph!”
Typical Steve, Danny thinks as he kisses back with everything he’s got, even though his hands are still flailing a little - typical Steve, always have to cut him off at just the most interesting part. This, though, this is a form of shutting him up that Danny could easily get used to.
He thumps Steve in the shoulder once, just because he can, then wraps his arms around Steve, far as they can go, which is not nearly far enough, stupid huge Steve with his broad back and long arms all the way around Danny’s body, pinning him close but not so close that Danny can’t try and climb nearer, his arms tight and fingers digging into Steve’s shoulder-blades - and he just - holds on.
“Aww,” Kono coos.
Danny flicks the finger at her without breaking the kiss.
The sex is fantastic. Mind-blowing, even.
“We should sound-proof the walls,” Steve says, afterwards.
“Mmuh?” Danny says.
“You scream,” Steve says. “And Mary always said the walls are thin. And if Grace is going to be staying over...”
“Mm-fmhph,” Danny says into the pillow.
“I don’t know how much it’ll cost,” Steve says thoughtfully. “We’ll have a look around, I guess.”
It takes a heroic effort, but Danny manages to lift his head from the pillow. “Are you always this chatty after sex?” he demands.
“Nope,” Steve says, and rolls halfway onto Danny’s back, nipping at the nape of his neck. Danny absolutely does not whimper, okay, the sound that comes out of his throat is not a whimper, it’s just a - groan. “Just when I’m ready for the next round.”
Okay, maybe Danny whimpers.
“Got laid?” Chin asks.
Danny gives Chin a very smug look.
“I take it you worked things out, then,” Chin says, and this time he gives Danny a grin. It’s a teasing look, sure, but it’s also affectionate, and Danny’s more warmed by the easy acceptance than he has any right to be.
“Yep, all fine in McGarrett-land,” Danny says. “And Williams-land, for that matter.”
“Good,” Chin says. They work on in silence for a few minutes, before Chin looks up again. “So…” he begins, and Danny’s immediately wary because that voice holds nothing but mischief. “When’s the wedding?”
~fin
Yes, the choice of page number is an intentional joke. My maturity, let me show you it.
CC?
Also, a question: does anyone know where I can find a Hawaii Five-0 timeline?
Official would be good, but if not, fan-made is perfectly fine. I'm just hoping for a summary of what events/episodes occurred when, as a fic aid - instead of having to dig through episode summaries (I unfortunately don't have the eps on hand). Thanks in advance for any help you might be able to give me!
ETA: Oh my god, this fandom is freaking AWESOME. Hearts in my eyes, people, hearts in my eyes. Like so --> ♥_♥ I think this is possibly the largest haul of comments I've ever had in my life.
The very mature part of me giggles happily at the fact that I currently have 69 comments. Now to respond! *bounces off*