No More Missed Chances, Hawaii Five-0
Title: No More Missed Chances
Author: ssw_loved
Pairing: pre-Danny/Steve
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: various season one
Words: 730
Warnings: none
Summary: "If he chooses to think, allows himself that malicious second where the hurricane of pounding, aching questions in his mind will pause, he knows he’ll see why Wo Fat did it."
Author’s Note: For quoththewriter , who said “… you just tagged me.” And I said, “yes, but you can tag me back.” And here we are, only, this really has nothing to do with the prompt she gave me at all, unless you count something about the heat of the moment being in his eyes. And because she turned into my beta. (There was red text involved, and I poked her brain with a storm.)
If he chooses to think, allows himself that malicious second where the hurricane of pounding, aching questions in his mind will pause, he knows he’ll see why Wo Fat did it. Steve isn’t in the business of avoiding himself or lying, but he was trained to stay alive. To think it, actually sit down and confront it, not out of the corner of his eye, would break him.
He can feel it tearing away, eroding at the fabric of his mind until there’s nothing left to look at ¸ and Steve shuts his eyes against it, left with silent screams in the shadow of it.
The one thought that has built, ever since finding out the truth of his mother’s death, the one thought like a malignant tumor, growing, expanding, feeding off of him, and Steven thinks, “this is not how I want to die.”
This cancerous thought eating away at him grows every time Wo Fat takes another one he loves, directly or indirectly.
His mother in one second of explosion and flames. Mary with his father’s decision. The island that he’d called his home.
The thought can’t contain this, can’t keep building. He notices the symptoms, ignores them, keeps going, until Danny.
Danny, who bitches and moans and calls him an animal, but also calls him babe, and who’s love for his daughter is more than Steven can physically comprehend.
Danny.
Book ‘em, Danno.
Ok, do it every day. I like it.
Steve didn’t get to do it today, didn’t get to say three simple words that, somehow, have come to mean they’re friends.
Steve lives in that moment the gunshot goes off and fear rips through him when he realizes he’s not the one in pain, and Danny’s the one that’s gone down, and he’s suddenly caught between chasing Wo Fat or staying next to Danny and for a second, he almost, almost couldn’t make the choice.
And he remembers how he dropped to the ground next to his partner and tried, desperately, to save a life because it was more important than taking one. He remembers, vaguely, Chin and Kono marching a cuffed Wo Fat towards their vehicle, but what he can’t get out of his mind is the color red.
He tries to delay the knowledge, but the color red makes it impossible. He can’t ignore the symptoms, but he can ignore the condition, until he watches Danny’s baby blues blink open and he’s nearly crushed with relief, sucking the oxygen from his lungs. (“Jesus,” he mutters, pushing his face into his hands because he thinks he might be crying.)
“Had… you worried.” Danny says, coughing, and Steve finds himself holding a cup of water to Danny’s lips without knowing how he got there. “But Shit-He-Almost-Died Face,” and here he coughs again, “is better than Aneurism Face.”
He can’t. Can’t exist in this moment where he can hear his heart pounding in his ears like the roar of the ocean, an iron fist closing around his windpipe, suffocating him.
“Now you’re making Faced-With-Reality Face.” Danny says, and Steve wonders how he can still talk right now (finding he doesn’t mind is something he shoves away) and whether or not he should stop him.
“Don’t worry, babe.” Danny says, and there’s that word again, “You can’t get rid of me so easily.”
And that thought, that malignant tumor he’s carried around with him, it ruptures, and he knows what he’s liked to deny all along. He knows why it’s Danny lying in that hospital bed and not him.
Wo Fat takes (tries to, he reminds himself, when the thought crushes him) people Steve loves.
He hurts them, he separates Steve and those he cares most about because somehow he knows that the way to hurt the man who will only allow himself to be attached to a select few is to take those people away.
Not anymore.
Not another chance missed. If Mary wants a picnic, she’ll get one. And if Danny wants this, this “do it every day” thing, he’ll get every day. He’ll get every day until he’s sick of it.
(Steve hopes he’s never sick of it.)
No more missed chances.
Author: ssw_loved
Pairing: pre-Danny/Steve
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: various season one
Words: 730
Warnings: none
Summary: "If he chooses to think, allows himself that malicious second where the hurricane of pounding, aching questions in his mind will pause, he knows he’ll see why Wo Fat did it."
Author’s Note: For quoththewriter , who said “… you just tagged me.” And I said, “yes, but you can tag me back.” And here we are, only, this really has nothing to do with the prompt she gave me at all, unless you count something about the heat of the moment being in his eyes. And because she turned into my beta. (There was red text involved, and I poked her brain with a storm.)
If he chooses to think, allows himself that malicious second where the hurricane of pounding, aching questions in his mind will pause, he knows he’ll see why Wo Fat did it. Steve isn’t in the business of avoiding himself or lying, but he was trained to stay alive. To think it, actually sit down and confront it, not out of the corner of his eye, would break him.
He can feel it tearing away, eroding at the fabric of his mind until there’s nothing left to look at ¸ and Steve shuts his eyes against it, left with silent screams in the shadow of it.
The one thought that has built, ever since finding out the truth of his mother’s death, the one thought like a malignant tumor, growing, expanding, feeding off of him, and Steven thinks, “this is not how I want to die.”
This cancerous thought eating away at him grows every time Wo Fat takes another one he loves, directly or indirectly.
His mother in one second of explosion and flames. Mary with his father’s decision. The island that he’d called his home.
The thought can’t contain this, can’t keep building. He notices the symptoms, ignores them, keeps going, until Danny.
Danny, who bitches and moans and calls him an animal, but also calls him babe, and who’s love for his daughter is more than Steven can physically comprehend.
Danny.
Book ‘em, Danno.
Ok, do it every day. I like it.
Steve didn’t get to do it today, didn’t get to say three simple words that, somehow, have come to mean they’re friends.
Steve lives in that moment the gunshot goes off and fear rips through him when he realizes he’s not the one in pain, and Danny’s the one that’s gone down, and he’s suddenly caught between chasing Wo Fat or staying next to Danny and for a second, he almost, almost couldn’t make the choice.
And he remembers how he dropped to the ground next to his partner and tried, desperately, to save a life because it was more important than taking one. He remembers, vaguely, Chin and Kono marching a cuffed Wo Fat towards their vehicle, but what he can’t get out of his mind is the color red.
He tries to delay the knowledge, but the color red makes it impossible. He can’t ignore the symptoms, but he can ignore the condition, until he watches Danny’s baby blues blink open and he’s nearly crushed with relief, sucking the oxygen from his lungs. (“Jesus,” he mutters, pushing his face into his hands because he thinks he might be crying.)
“Had… you worried.” Danny says, coughing, and Steve finds himself holding a cup of water to Danny’s lips without knowing how he got there. “But Shit-He-Almost-Died Face,” and here he coughs again, “is better than Aneurism Face.”
He can’t. Can’t exist in this moment where he can hear his heart pounding in his ears like the roar of the ocean, an iron fist closing around his windpipe, suffocating him.
“Now you’re making Faced-With-Reality Face.” Danny says, and Steve wonders how he can still talk right now (finding he doesn’t mind is something he shoves away) and whether or not he should stop him.
“Don’t worry, babe.” Danny says, and there’s that word again, “You can’t get rid of me so easily.”
And that thought, that malignant tumor he’s carried around with him, it ruptures, and he knows what he’s liked to deny all along. He knows why it’s Danny lying in that hospital bed and not him.
Wo Fat takes (tries to, he reminds himself, when the thought crushes him) people Steve loves.
He hurts them, he separates Steve and those he cares most about because somehow he knows that the way to hurt the man who will only allow himself to be attached to a select few is to take those people away.
Not anymore.
Not another chance missed. If Mary wants a picnic, she’ll get one. And if Danny wants this, this “do it every day” thing, he’ll get every day. He’ll get every day until he’s sick of it.
(Steve hopes he’s never sick of it.)
No more missed chances.