All the Earth Awaits Thee - R - Steve/Danny - Part I
Author: portraitofafool
Recipient: forcellari
Title: All the Earth Awaits Thee
Rating: R
Pairing(s)/Character(s): Danny/Steve
Summary: Steve knows all about war and willpower, but this is the hardest battle he’s ever had to fight.
Warnings: Language, life threatening illness.
Word Count: 33,916
Disclaimer: All Hawaii Five-0 characters herein are the property of CBS. No copyright infringement is intended. All characters engaging in sexual activity are 16 years or older.
Author's Notes: AU roughly after episode 1x22 or 1x23.
All the Earth Awaits Thee
I
“In the after
(and it is always the after for
naming it as after is only the beginning of
always)
there is sometimes the urge to scream
it.”
- Ruth Baumann
“Diagnosis”
There are two spots of blood on Steve’s pillow one morning when he wakes up. He notices them as he’s making his bed before leaving for work. His left hip is hurting so bad he’s almost limping and telling himself over and over, I do not have arthritis. I do not have arthritis. He’s been reassuring himself of that for about two weeks now after waking up on another morning so stiff and achy he could barely turn over.
He frowns at the bloody spots, stretching his leg out behind himself as he bends over for a closer look and sighs a little when his hip pops loudly, granting him a modicum of relief while he waits for his Aleve to kick in. The blood is dry, the two spots dark and rusty colored against the white of his pillowcase and he touches them lightly. Where the hell did it come from? Steve pats a hand along his face, starting at his chin and working his way up to his hairline, checking to see if maybe he has a zit. He doesn’t have a pimple and even at 36 he does occasionally get them, a revelation that had delighted Danny to no end the first time he ever had one, just a smallish red bump above his right eyebrow, but Danny acted like he’d hit the Give Steve Shit lottery. He’d cashed that ticket in all day until he’d popped it for Steve later that night.
“You wanna see?” Danny had asked.
“Yeah,” Steve had said like it should’ve been obvious.
Then they’d both cringed at the sight before Danny had washed his hands and the evidence of Steve’s pimple down the kitchen sink. Danny had informed him that his willingness to assist Steve with the alleviation of such a burden was a sure sign of affection.
Steve had believed him, no doubt. A week earlier he’d popped a nasty ant bite on Danny’s shoulder that he couldn’t reach. Maybe it is love after all.
Steve leaves the house snickering about that and goes to meet Danny who’s waiting out by the Camaro for him. He doesn’t give the blood much thought aside from thinking he’s going to need to change his sheets soon because he can’t leave it there to set in and permanently stain. He figures maybe he popped himself in the face during the night; it wouldn’t be the first time. He doesn’t say much about it and neither does Danny, whom he shares a bed with more often than not these days, but Steve has nightmares and some of them are brutal. Hell, the very first time Danny had slept over, Steve had kicked him right out of the bed and then spent the next few days making up for that and being sure Danny had ice for his black eye. It was, after all, his fault Danny’s face had met the corner of the nightstand.
So, he puts the blood out of his mind and concentrates what attention he can on willing his hip to stop hurting. By the end of the day that has mostly worked and the chewing ache of the pained joint has faded to an easily ignored throb.
~*~*~*~*~*~
The morning after that, there is more blood smeared on his pillow and a little pale red-brown streak of it above his top lip, but it’s still nothing to worry about. Steve’s right elbow hurts so damned bad though that it makes him gasp in surprised pain when he tries to bend it at first. Then his training kicks in and he soldiers through that, moving through the grinding ache as he finally strips his bed and tosses the sheets in the washer to soak while he’s at work. There’s a twinge of pain in between his L4 and L5 vertebrae, but he pays it no mind. It’s nothing compared to his elbow and his hip which has chimed in yet again, but he can deal with it.
~*~*~*~*~*~
One morning about a week and a half after he first noticed the blood on his pillow, Steve takes off running after a perp that’s trying to make a break for it. Even by his standards it’s too early for this shit and every jarring thump of his feet hitting the pavement makes pain scream through his knees, his hips-yes, plural, because the right one has joined the left in its chronic, bleating complaints. His elbow protests the back and forth pumping of his arms as he runs, but Steve grits his teeth and lowers his head like a charging bull as he closes the distance. Behind him, he can just hear the sound of Danny catching up, cursing between his panting breaths and then Steve sees his opportunity, draws himself in tighter and leaps for the perp.
He hits him full force from the back, arms wrapping around the guy as he tackles him, but they’re of a comparable height and weight and he doesn’t go down as smoothly as Steve had hoped. Instead, the guy hits his knees and rolls, taking Steve right along with him. His back hits an overturned cooler on the lawn they’re currently tumbling across and Steve snarls when the asshole throws an elbow and catches him right below one of his eyes.
Steve gets the guy subdued, but he was a fighter and Steve has to offer a small amount of grudging respect for that even if he is pissed off about what’s going to be a black eye. He’s got a rip right in the ass of his cargo pants, too and that means a trip back home to change. He can deal with a torn shirt, no big deal, but having everyone looking at his Sylvester the Cat boxers is a bit too much.
A car from HPD shows up to take the perp off their hands and Steve slides into the driver’s seat of the Camaro, intent on going back to his house to change. Danny is amused by the whole situation and is smiling beside him. Steve is not amused, he’s sore and bruised, his pants are torn and every major joint in his body is hurting now after falling. He doesn’t like this shit and he’s tired of hurting all the time; it’s been going on for over a month and he does not have arthritis, Steve McGarrett does not have fucking arthritis. He can’t, there’s just no way.
“I can’t believe… How did you rip your pants?” Danny says, cutting into his thoughts. “Oh, man, this is priceless. Wait ‘til I tell the others.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t take a picture,” Steve grumbles as he puts the car in reverse and clenches his jaw against the throbbing pains radiating from his knees and on up.
“Who says I didn’t?” Danny asks and Steve turns to look at him, mouth open to tell him to delete the picture if he did take one.
He’s so not in the mood right now; the constant pain is making him snappish and short-tempered lately and people have started to notice it, too. Danny looks like he wants to say something about the thunderous look on Steve’s face-he’s overreacting and they both know it, but then his eyebrows shoot up and his expression changes to one of concerned surprise.
Steve feels it a split second before Danny says, “What the hell?”
Steve swipes beneath his nose and stares at the bright red blood smeared across the back of his hand. “The fuck?” Steve says and feels more blood run out of his nose, creep-tickling over his lips and snaking its way on down his chin.
“Steve, hey, hello?” Danny says, waving a hand to get his attention and then he just reaches over to tilt Steve’s chin up and look at him.
“We can’t sit here like this,” Steve says too quickly as he pulls away from Danny’s grip on his chin before he can start mother-henning him to death. He wipes his nose again, that time smearing blood all over his forearm and face. “We’re in the middle of the street.”
He backs up the rest of the way and turns the car in the direction they need to go as Danny rifles in the console between the seats. “Here,” he says and passes Steve a Kleenex from a small pack he keeps there for emergencies.
“Thanks,” Steve says and presses it to his still bleeding nose and drives with one hand, wondering what the hell caused it. He’s not even thinking about the bloody spots on his pillowcases those couple of times; it just doesn’t register at the moment.
He hasn’t had a nosebleed since he was about eight years old, as far as Steve knows right then. He only remembers that because he’d been giving a book report to his whole class at the time and blood had just started oozing from his nose. He hadn’t even noticed until his classmates had begun shouting out loud proclamations of, “Ew!” and “Steve’s face is yucky!” (that had been from Miles Akamona, not the brightest crayon in the box). It’s one of those childhood embarrassments Steve keeps to himself, thanks so much.
“Since when are you prone to nosebleeds?” Danny asks and moves Steve’s hand away from his nose to check his face again when he brakes for a stop sign.
“I used to have them when I was a kid,” Steve offers as and turns his head better for Danny to have a closer look; giving up and letting Danny check him over after all just long enough to hopefully satisfy him before he pulls away again. “I’m fine, Danny.”
“That was still weird,” Danny says.
“Weird, but not unheard of,” Steve says. “I have a… history of them and just about anyone can have a nosebleed at anytime.”
“Is this sound, scientific fact?” Danny asks and Steve hears the sarcasm there, but doesn’t rise to the bait. He only tightens his jaw again when the mere act of accelerating to merge into traffic makes his knee throb with a sick pulse of pain.
“Sure,” is all Steve says and beside him, Danny scoffs.
“If you say so, Bill Nye,” he says.
“Who?”
“Just drive,” Danny says and flaps a hand.
Steve has nothing to say to that, so he just does it and before long they’re back at his place, he’s changed into rip-free cargos and taken four more Aleve from his new bottle that is quickly dwindling. He’s taking too many and figures he’s going to have to switch to Advil so the damned Aleve doesn’t end up giving him an ulcer. That would just be the icing on Steve’s, I do not have arthritis cake.
He’s adamant about that.
“Come on, beauty queen,” Danny calls from downstairs and it startles a grin out of Steve.
“Yes, dear,” he mutters and makes a note to never say that loud enough for Danny to hear him. He’d never shut up then.
So he just bolts back downstairs at his usual pace, joints aching and wobbly feeling from the pain with every jolting step of his feet on the risers.
Danny’s waiting for him and Steve messes up his hair just to distract him so he doesn’t see the way Steve’s hobbling before he manages to pull his shit together well enough to walk normally. If he winces a little then that’s fine, too, because Danny’s behind him, combing his hair back down and reading Steve the riot act.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Later that same night after all of the bad guys have been arrested for the day and the paperwork is all done (well, most of Steve’s is anyway) they make it back to the house. Danny doesn’t even allude to going back to his rat-trap apartment and Steve doesn’t try and pretend he’s going to. Honestly, they’re well past that point by now and the only people they’d be fooling if they tried to pretend otherwise would be themselves.
They just blunder their way up the doorsteps and into the house, tired down to the bone and in Steve’s case, hurting everywhere he has skin by that point. Up the stairs they go, walking like blind, drunk mice and bumping into the walls of the house even though they both know it incredibly well. They manage to kick their shoes off before they get into the bed; Danny belly-flopping down on the mattress with a groaned curse and Steve following suit more gingerly.
He lies out on his belly, too, because his back is throbbing and he hasn’t leaned back in a seat for about four hours; he’s sure as hell not going to lay down on it. That’s how they fall asleep, half tangled together and fully clothed, foreheads nearly touching.
The next morning, Steve cracks his eyes open to find Danny watching him blearily. “What?” he mutters.
“That’s a hell of a shiner,” Danny says and touches his cheek so lightly Steve can barely feel it in all honesty. It still hurts like a motherfucker though.
He just makes an unintelligible grunting sound and lets his eyes flutter closed again because he feels so, so tired; like he hasn’t slept at all.
Danny watches him for a minute and then blinks his eyes rapidly in an attempt to clear the sleep from them. He gets out of bed, still groggy and also thoroughly rumpled, rakes his fingers through his hair and then throws the sheet over Steve whose skin is prickled with goosebumps, which is weird. He’s too tired to give it much thought and just stumbles out of the bedroom half-blind and still about three-quarters asleep to go make coffee and hopes like hell Kamekona doesn’t drop in for a butt-crack-of-dawn visit this morning.
Two hours later Steve is shambling around his bedroom, trying to work out the stiffness all over his body and failing. He wants to pace and instead he’s barely managing a quick shuffle and he knows Danny is watching him, too. Steve still doesn’t feel rested even though Danny was so “kind” as to let him oversleep.
“I don’t see what you’re so pissed about,” Danny says and looks on as Steve strips yesterday’s t-shirt off.
“Late, Danny, late,” Steve says and stops to scald his tongue with some coffee, trying like hell to wake up, but the truth is he really wants to crawl back into bed and sleep another twenty hours or longer.
“Not yet and besides, you’re the boss, so no one cares,” Danny informs him and takes a bite of his candy bar. It had taken Steve nearly two weeks to figure out that he was hiding the candy in his freezer, but he’s had to replace the Snickers bar stashed behind the frozen shrimp twice, so he doesn’t say anything. Danny’s bad eating habits are rubbing off on him though, at least some. Still, he refuses to eat SPAM-that just isn’t going to happen-but that’s not Danny’s food… stuff… of choice anyway.
When he turns around again to get a clean pair of pants, he hears Danny’s sharp intake of breath. Steve looks over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow and Danny gestures at him. “Have you seen your back?”
“No, I have not seen my back,” Steve says. He knows it hurts like hell though and has for a few days, but especially bad since yesterday morning.
“You’ve got a bruise the size of Uruguay across the middle of it,” Danny says.
“Uruguay?”
“Uruguay. Hold on.”
He hears Danny fumbling with his phone, threatening it under his breath and a few seconds later he hears the sound of the phone’s camera snapping a shot. “Look,” Danny says and hands the phone to Steve.
Steve looks and frowns. The thing is huge, a purple-black smear across the width of his back. It’s less like Uruguay though and more like the shape of the cooler lid he rolled over yesterday. “It’s not that bad,” he says and hands the phone back to Danny.
“Are you serious? It looks like you went a few rounds with Ike Turner and lost,” Danny says as he looks at the picture and then at Steve’s back again even as he tugs his shirt down over the bruise.
“No, it doesn’t,” Steve says and there, he’s dressed. He grabs his coffee and the car keys, already walking out of the room, raising his arm with his watch on it, waving it around.
“Yeah, hint taken,” Danny says and goes with him.
“Besides,” Steve adds as an afterthought. “I could totally take Ike Turner.”
Danny coughs out a laugh and pats him on the shoulder. “Of course you could.”
His legs feel like they each weigh a ton and with every step his joints throb, but when Danny laughs, Steve smiles anyway.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Three days after that they catch a kidnapping case that keeps them running almost nonstop for 48 hours. Steve finds himself locked in the restroom trying to catch his breath after running to catch up with Chin before he made it to the elevators. He rubs his forehead and hisses in a breath at the pain in his still very black eye. He’s got a bruise on his left wrist that’s thankfully hidden by his watch band to go with the one on his face and back and there are more littered all over his body now in various shapes and sizes. He’s being extra careful not to let anyone see him in anything resembling a state of undress, which isn’t currently a problem, given the case and all. But it will be.
Danny’s watching him all the time with this funny look on his face and he’s asked him if he’s okay to the point Steve wants to grab him, shake him violently and tell him, yes. The thing is: Steve really doesn’t like lying to him.
~*~*~*~*~*~
The day they finally close the kidnapping case, Steve gives everyone an early weekend to celebrate it. They take off around 3:00PM Thursday afternoon and make plans to go to the movies that evening so they can all unwind together. It’s a festival of Elvis movies. Danny thinks they’re all insane for thinking that is anything at all like a good idea and loudly tells them so at great length, no less. Elvis he’s fine with, he even likes the guy, but he does not want to sit through six hours of The King either, he tells them. Chin and Kono look at him like he’s just cursed their ancestors and Steve, well; he’s quietly entertained by the whole thing.
Steve just hums the tune to “Blue Hawaii” to amuse and distract himself more from what feels like a full body toothache. He can feel his muscles quivering with exhaustion and he’s downed more coffee in the past few days than he usually does in a week or at least it feels like he has. It’s bad enough that he has a bona fide case of the caffeine jitters, hands shaking lightly like a junkie with the first fluttering signs of the DTs. He can barely seem to stay awake though and he’s pushed himself harder than he has in a long time just to keep going.
They get back to his house, Danny once more going on in with him and not a word said about it. Steve thinks he should just move in, but he’s not about to actually bring it up and when Danny calls first shower Steve is more than happy to let him have it. All he wants to do is lay down and sleep until they have to meet Chin and Kono at the movie theater.
He stretches out on his side on the couch and the next thing he’s aware of is Danny shaking him awake and telling him if he wants to shower before they go out then he needs to get with the program.
Steve doesn’t move an inch for at least five minutes because he’s honestly worried he’d cry out in pain if he did. He musters himself though and limps on to the bathroom, feeling Danny’s eyes boring into his shoulders until he’s out of the room.
~*~*~*~*~*~
At the movies that night Steve sits bolt upright in his seat because leaning back hurts too damned much. The Advil isn’t even helping the pain anymore, not even a smidgen of a little bit. It’s rude for him to do it and he’s aware; the guy sitting behind him muttering something about tall assholes thinking they own the place just before he moves only punctuates that. Normally Steve would be fine about slouching down in his seat so people could see over his head, but he can’t bring himself to do it. So he sits rigidly, trying to watch the films and failing because he’s so busy concentrating on using his SEAL training to ignore the pain he’s in. He doesn’t even really hear Danny’s remarks about the movies; is only aware of the laughter from Chin and Kono and the other moviegoers shushing him loudly.
Danny lightly touching his arm grounds him a bit and Steve focuses on the warmth of his fingers against his clammy feeling skin as yet another way to distract himself. It’s a comfort, too, but that’s one more thing he won’t say out loud. Danny is scarily perceptive sometimes, but in a lot of ways Steve has come to rely on Danny’s perceptiveness. He can sense what needs to be done, but he’s good enough to never say anything about it and he’s generous enough to offer it without Steve having to ask, which he would never, not in a million years, do because his pride won’t allow it.
It’s what makes Danny a good detective and also what makes him good at figuring Steve out, which is sometimes a bit of an irritation, Steve can admit that. He’s not used to someone knowing him and punching holes in his defenses just by being themselves because Danny doesn’t even have to try, he just does. In his more introspective moments Steve finds that he’s more than a little floored by that, too.
He relaxes some at last, but he still doesn’t lean back, he just focuses on Danny’s fingers against his arm and tries yet again to watch the movie. He’s managed to do it well enough at last when his nose starts to bleed again and okay, Steve thinks maybe he should worry. It’s still hard to really accept that there may be something wrong with him though. He’s not the kind of person to consider anything less than standing in a puddle of his own blood and feeling lightheaded as any kind of indication he may be in trouble.
The blood is thick and warm as it runs out of his left nostril and down its usual meandering path, over Steve’s lips and headed for his chin. He’s got a wadded up napkin on his knee, courtesy of Danny using him for a catch-all since he doesn’t have room for all of his concession purchases and accoutrements in his own damned lap. That’s Danny though, moving in and taking over and Steve lets him do it, too, which also surprises him. If it were someone else, he’d have their head for using him as a napkin holder. With Danny, he just doesn’t care and yeah, it’s odd and something he’s still learning to deal with in his quiet way. It almost makes Steve smile as he picks up the napkin, but the smell of his own blood in his nose quashes that reaction.
He picks up the napkin and wipes his face, inhaling the odors of stale chemical butter and popcorn as they mix with the scent of his blood. Something about the cheerful odors of things that say, fun and good times mingling with the copper tang of his blood makes Steve’s stomach flip unpleasantly. He just wipes his face again and feels his upper lip twitch involuntarily as the tickle of more blood creeps down his face.
“I’ll be right back,” Steve says and stands up before anyone can ask him what he’s doing.
He walks up the aisle of the theater with the napkin held to his face and out through the lobby to the men’s room to wash the blood off. By the time he gets there his nose has stopped bleeding, but there’s this feeling of shivering uneasiness somewhere in the middle of Steve’s chest as he splashes water on his face and try as he might, he can’t shake it.
The door opening makes him pick his head up and he sees Danny reflected in the mirror, standing there in the cold fluorescent glow of the overhead lights. Steve brushes the bloody napkin off the counter into the little trash receptacle set between each of the sinks so he doesn’t see it. Danny’s still watching him in the mirror and Steve sees him open and close his mouth a couple of times.
Finally, he blurts out, “What’s going on with you? And no, do not tell me you’re okay because you’re not. You haven’t been okay for about a month now, so what gives?”
“Nothing,” Steve says after running several possible answers through his head and finding that to be his best response. It’s lame and isn’t going to cut it and he knows it even as he turns around to look at Danny head-on and sees the way Danny narrows his eyes.
“Bullshit,” Danny says and he’s getting irritated, which isn’t a hard feat to accomplish at all, but the sound of his slightly-louder-than-normal voice echoing in the bathroom is still kind of jarring. “How’s your back?”
Steve presses his lips into a thin line and turns back around so he can watch Danny in the mirror again. He feels like a coward and hates it, but he really does not want to talk about this shit. “It’s doing better,” he says and wow, that’s a fucking lie and he does hate lying to Danny, but he doesn’t want something like a little (another lie there) bruise to become a thing as they are wont to do with Danny.
“I say again: Bullshit,” Danny says and crosses the room to grab the tail of Steve’s shirt.
“Danny…” he says, warning in his voice.
“Shut up, Steven, I’m looking and that’s all there is to it,” Danny says and yep, there goes the tail of his shirt inching up his back.
“Fuck,” Steve grumbles and he does not like this being coddled crap one bit and he doesn’t want to know what the bruise looks like now, not really at all.
“An eloquent understatement right there,” Danny says as he peers at Steve’s back. “This thing looks bad. How’s the pain?”
“Manageable,” Steve replies and he’s on a roll with the lying thing now that he’s gotten started. Except it is basically manageable for him because he’s been taught to deal with these things in a calm manner. It doesn’t change the fact that it hurts so, so bad though. He can ignore the pain, but he can’t actually block it out.
“You’re a liar,” Danny says and pulls his shirt back down for him. “But it’s okay; I understand your tendencies for living in denial about these things.”
“Do you now?” Steve asks, lips quirking a little bit.
“Indeed I do,” Danny says. “I could write a whole paper based on the denial tactics of one Steven J. McGarrett. It could make me famous.”
“Right,” Steve says and he’s still trying not to smile, but his face is threatening to crack anyway.
Then Danny says, “Seriously though, I think you need to go see a doctor.”
“I do not.”
“Yes, yes you do and I’ll tell you why-”
“Of course you will.”
“I will if you stop interrupting me.”
Steve does laugh at that and it eases some of the tension between his shoulders. He turns around again and looks at Danny with one eyebrow half raised. “So, by all means, illuminate your reasoning for me.”
Danny closes his mouth before he starts speaking to scowl and he points at Steve, earning a grin in return. Then he does start speaking while still pointing at Steve and he says, “Because you look like hell, which I am sure you haven’t noticed, what with being you and all, but you do. You have circles under your eyes competing with the bruise there already and you can barely stay awake. You’ve got the bruise that ate Godzilla and therefore saved Japan, but fucked you up in the process and there are even more to go with that one. You’re running on empty, I think and you’re only making things worse. Go to the doctor, get yourself some vitamins and when he tells you to take some time off and rest-which he will-you listen to what the nice man says to you. And the nosebleeds because yes, I noticed, I don’t even know what to say about those aside from I don’t accept your excuse of saying they’re normal; not like this they’re not.”
Danny has definitely noticed things no matter how hard Steve’s been trying to hide them. Although Steve actually has noticed that he looks like hell. He is stubbornly pleased though to realize that Danny doesn’t seem to have noticed him limping or how stiffly he’s been moving. That brief flare of pigheaded triumph is squashed though when he realizes that it’s more likely Danny just didn’t think to mention that part. Yet.
“Are you done?” is all Steve actually says.
“Are you going to go to the doctor?”
“I don’t know, are you going to get an apron and a pair of high heels to match your wifely tone?”
“Do you want me to run you over? Because I will. Now stop deflecting and answer me, please.”
“Maybe,” Steve concedes.
“Yes,” Danny insists.
Steve huffs a breath and thinks that the men’s room of a movie theater during an Elvis marathon is about the most ridiculous place to be having this kind of conversation. He wants to sit down anyway, standing up like he is seems to be making his back hurt worse and his knees aren’t liking the way he’s got them straightened out, putting his weight on them.
Still, in the name of not backing down, Steve says, “Maybe,” again then leans down and kisses Danny quickly to shut him up. He pulls away and walks out of the bathroom before Danny can wind himself back up.
He almost hunches his shoulders against the weight of Danny’s eyes on him once more, but he just waves and says, “Come on, I want to catch the beginning of Jailhouse Rock,” as he pushes the door open and heads into the lobby.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Friday afternoon Steve goes for a swim and is so out of breath when he gets out of the water he has to sit down right there on the beach until he can get his wind back. He’s caked with sand by the time he comes back up to the house and ends up just stripping off his wetsuit top and shorts in the backyard because there’s no way the sand is coming off until it’s dry and he sure as hell doesn’t want to have to sweep all that up.
He notices a bruise on his hip that kind of looks like Danny’s handprint. He’d grabbed Steve the night before to stop him from thrashing in his sleep. Danny had barely avoided getting head butted for the attempt. It’s something Steve feels kind of bad and vaguely embarrassed about now that he’s really awake, but grabbing him when he’s like that is never a good idea and if he’d been fully conscious himself then Danny would’ve known that, too. It was just a fuck up of a night overall, but their Friday has gone pretty well at least until Steve lost his breath like that.
He’s more preoccupied with the new bruise than thinking about telling himself he wasn’t going to let anyone see just how banged up he’s gotten lately. Because of that, he walks back into the house naked and when Danny sees him, he stares for a few seconds then says, “You’re going to the doctor. That’s the end of it.”
Steve actually doesn’t argue with him that time.
~*~*~*~*~*~
The rest of the weekend goes well and Danny keeps his fussing to a minimum. They go to dinner Saturday night and don’t call it a date even though they both know it is.
On Sunday morning, Steve talks Danny into having sex in the hammock and they nearly fall out of it. He laughs and Danny throws his socks at his head, but he’s laughing, too. It’s comfortable and they fit together so well that it’s terrifying sometimes for Steve who has always had friends with benefits, but never an actual relationship. Especially not one that crept along on silent little feet like some softly whispering ghost and took up residence in his life without him noticing until months after it happened.
He feels better than he has in a while and thinks maybe he did just need the rest. When he goes to bed that night with Danny, who has stayed the whole weekend since he didn’t have Grace, he thinks he may forget about going to the doctor after all. Then he wakes up on Monday morning sometime before dawn with his back and hips hurting so bad he can barely breathe because of that and he changes his mind.
That shivering uneasiness curls up in his chest again and doesn’t let go until he finally drifts off again sometime around sunrise after the pain has banked back down. Danny sleeps through it all and Steve is at least glad for that.
He calls and makes an appointment with his doctor the first chance he has that morning.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Steve goes in for his doctor’s appointment Tuesday morning at 10:00AM. The doctor notices that he hasn’t had his yearly physical yet and since he’s already there they just go ahead and get it out of the way. It hurts a hell of a lot, but Steve manages and he thinks he does fine. The doctor tuts over his bruises that have barely faded and tells Steve to try ice on them; says that if the one on his back doesn’t improve in a couple of days that he may need to have the blood trapped underneath his skin drained off. It’s an unpleasant proposal, but Steve’s not against the idea either. At this point he wouldn’t be averse to putting a couple of leeches on the thing, but he doesn’t tell the doctor that.
All in all, Steve thinks it goes pretty well and when the doctor tells him he needs to take some time off and rest, Steve can’t help grinning and that gets him an odd look.
“Have a nice day, Commander McGarrett,” is all the doctor says though and gives Steve a distracted smile before he turns away to go see to his next patient.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Friday morning rolls around and Steve’s getting ready for work as usual. He’s alone this morning and he’s not even trying to cover the way he’s limping around the house. Maybe he should take some time off, he thinks. The temptation dangles in front of him like a carrot-or a grenade, Danny would probably say-but Steve doesn’t like doing that either, so he thinks not.
He’s on his way out the door when his phone rings. A glance at the caller I.D. shows the number for his doctor’s office and he accepts the call.
“McGarrett,” he says as he goes down the doorsteps, feeling like an eighty year old man, but feeling even less like falling down, which he thinks he would do if he tried to run down them like he usually does.
“Commander McGarrett, hello and good morning,” his doctor says and Steve stops on the next to last doorstep.
The doctor’s voice crawling into his ear makes that shivering knot coil up in his chest again and Steve swallows before he makes himself walk on out to his truck. “Doctor Miles,” he says as he unlocks the door. “What can I do for you?”
Doctor Miles is silent for a beat too long and Steve opens the truck door and gets in. Then he hears him take a deep breath before he says, “We got the results of your blood panel back and I was wondering if you could make time to come in so we could talk about it.”
“Sure,” Steve says and swallows again. He’s no fool and if the doctor is calling him instead of having his nurse or receptionist do it then he knows he’s not going to like whatever it is the man has to tell him.
“Is now a good time?” Doctor Miles asks.
“No time like the present,” Steve says and there’s so much false bravado behind those words that he would laugh at his own bullshit if not for that knot that’s growing tighter and colder with every second.
“Good, I’ll see you soon then,” Doctor Miles says.
“Yep,” Steve says and hangs up without saying goodbye.
He calls Danny to tell him he’s going to be late that morning and when Danny asks why, Steve tells him. He says he’ll see them all later though and no, he doesn’t want Danny to come with him; he’s a big boy now. Danny snorts at that statement and then they say goodbye.
It’s all very simple, really.
Part II
Recipient: forcellari
Title: All the Earth Awaits Thee
Rating: R
Pairing(s)/Character(s): Danny/Steve
Summary: Steve knows all about war and willpower, but this is the hardest battle he’s ever had to fight.
Warnings: Language, life threatening illness.
Word Count: 33,916
Disclaimer: All Hawaii Five-0 characters herein are the property of CBS. No copyright infringement is intended. All characters engaging in sexual activity are 16 years or older.
Author's Notes: AU roughly after episode 1x22 or 1x23.
All the Earth Awaits Thee
I
“In the after
(and it is always the after for
naming it as after is only the beginning of
always)
there is sometimes the urge to scream
it.”
- Ruth Baumann
“Diagnosis”
There are two spots of blood on Steve’s pillow one morning when he wakes up. He notices them as he’s making his bed before leaving for work. His left hip is hurting so bad he’s almost limping and telling himself over and over, I do not have arthritis. I do not have arthritis. He’s been reassuring himself of that for about two weeks now after waking up on another morning so stiff and achy he could barely turn over.
He frowns at the bloody spots, stretching his leg out behind himself as he bends over for a closer look and sighs a little when his hip pops loudly, granting him a modicum of relief while he waits for his Aleve to kick in. The blood is dry, the two spots dark and rusty colored against the white of his pillowcase and he touches them lightly. Where the hell did it come from? Steve pats a hand along his face, starting at his chin and working his way up to his hairline, checking to see if maybe he has a zit. He doesn’t have a pimple and even at 36 he does occasionally get them, a revelation that had delighted Danny to no end the first time he ever had one, just a smallish red bump above his right eyebrow, but Danny acted like he’d hit the Give Steve Shit lottery. He’d cashed that ticket in all day until he’d popped it for Steve later that night.
“You wanna see?” Danny had asked.
“Yeah,” Steve had said like it should’ve been obvious.
Then they’d both cringed at the sight before Danny had washed his hands and the evidence of Steve’s pimple down the kitchen sink. Danny had informed him that his willingness to assist Steve with the alleviation of such a burden was a sure sign of affection.
Steve had believed him, no doubt. A week earlier he’d popped a nasty ant bite on Danny’s shoulder that he couldn’t reach. Maybe it is love after all.
Steve leaves the house snickering about that and goes to meet Danny who’s waiting out by the Camaro for him. He doesn’t give the blood much thought aside from thinking he’s going to need to change his sheets soon because he can’t leave it there to set in and permanently stain. He figures maybe he popped himself in the face during the night; it wouldn’t be the first time. He doesn’t say much about it and neither does Danny, whom he shares a bed with more often than not these days, but Steve has nightmares and some of them are brutal. Hell, the very first time Danny had slept over, Steve had kicked him right out of the bed and then spent the next few days making up for that and being sure Danny had ice for his black eye. It was, after all, his fault Danny’s face had met the corner of the nightstand.
So, he puts the blood out of his mind and concentrates what attention he can on willing his hip to stop hurting. By the end of the day that has mostly worked and the chewing ache of the pained joint has faded to an easily ignored throb.
~*~*~*~*~*~
The morning after that, there is more blood smeared on his pillow and a little pale red-brown streak of it above his top lip, but it’s still nothing to worry about. Steve’s right elbow hurts so damned bad though that it makes him gasp in surprised pain when he tries to bend it at first. Then his training kicks in and he soldiers through that, moving through the grinding ache as he finally strips his bed and tosses the sheets in the washer to soak while he’s at work. There’s a twinge of pain in between his L4 and L5 vertebrae, but he pays it no mind. It’s nothing compared to his elbow and his hip which has chimed in yet again, but he can deal with it.
~*~*~*~*~*~
One morning about a week and a half after he first noticed the blood on his pillow, Steve takes off running after a perp that’s trying to make a break for it. Even by his standards it’s too early for this shit and every jarring thump of his feet hitting the pavement makes pain scream through his knees, his hips-yes, plural, because the right one has joined the left in its chronic, bleating complaints. His elbow protests the back and forth pumping of his arms as he runs, but Steve grits his teeth and lowers his head like a charging bull as he closes the distance. Behind him, he can just hear the sound of Danny catching up, cursing between his panting breaths and then Steve sees his opportunity, draws himself in tighter and leaps for the perp.
He hits him full force from the back, arms wrapping around the guy as he tackles him, but they’re of a comparable height and weight and he doesn’t go down as smoothly as Steve had hoped. Instead, the guy hits his knees and rolls, taking Steve right along with him. His back hits an overturned cooler on the lawn they’re currently tumbling across and Steve snarls when the asshole throws an elbow and catches him right below one of his eyes.
Steve gets the guy subdued, but he was a fighter and Steve has to offer a small amount of grudging respect for that even if he is pissed off about what’s going to be a black eye. He’s got a rip right in the ass of his cargo pants, too and that means a trip back home to change. He can deal with a torn shirt, no big deal, but having everyone looking at his Sylvester the Cat boxers is a bit too much.
A car from HPD shows up to take the perp off their hands and Steve slides into the driver’s seat of the Camaro, intent on going back to his house to change. Danny is amused by the whole situation and is smiling beside him. Steve is not amused, he’s sore and bruised, his pants are torn and every major joint in his body is hurting now after falling. He doesn’t like this shit and he’s tired of hurting all the time; it’s been going on for over a month and he does not have arthritis, Steve McGarrett does not have fucking arthritis. He can’t, there’s just no way.
“I can’t believe… How did you rip your pants?” Danny says, cutting into his thoughts. “Oh, man, this is priceless. Wait ‘til I tell the others.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t take a picture,” Steve grumbles as he puts the car in reverse and clenches his jaw against the throbbing pains radiating from his knees and on up.
“Who says I didn’t?” Danny asks and Steve turns to look at him, mouth open to tell him to delete the picture if he did take one.
He’s so not in the mood right now; the constant pain is making him snappish and short-tempered lately and people have started to notice it, too. Danny looks like he wants to say something about the thunderous look on Steve’s face-he’s overreacting and they both know it, but then his eyebrows shoot up and his expression changes to one of concerned surprise.
Steve feels it a split second before Danny says, “What the hell?”
Steve swipes beneath his nose and stares at the bright red blood smeared across the back of his hand. “The fuck?” Steve says and feels more blood run out of his nose, creep-tickling over his lips and snaking its way on down his chin.
“Steve, hey, hello?” Danny says, waving a hand to get his attention and then he just reaches over to tilt Steve’s chin up and look at him.
“We can’t sit here like this,” Steve says too quickly as he pulls away from Danny’s grip on his chin before he can start mother-henning him to death. He wipes his nose again, that time smearing blood all over his forearm and face. “We’re in the middle of the street.”
He backs up the rest of the way and turns the car in the direction they need to go as Danny rifles in the console between the seats. “Here,” he says and passes Steve a Kleenex from a small pack he keeps there for emergencies.
“Thanks,” Steve says and presses it to his still bleeding nose and drives with one hand, wondering what the hell caused it. He’s not even thinking about the bloody spots on his pillowcases those couple of times; it just doesn’t register at the moment.
He hasn’t had a nosebleed since he was about eight years old, as far as Steve knows right then. He only remembers that because he’d been giving a book report to his whole class at the time and blood had just started oozing from his nose. He hadn’t even noticed until his classmates had begun shouting out loud proclamations of, “Ew!” and “Steve’s face is yucky!” (that had been from Miles Akamona, not the brightest crayon in the box). It’s one of those childhood embarrassments Steve keeps to himself, thanks so much.
“Since when are you prone to nosebleeds?” Danny asks and moves Steve’s hand away from his nose to check his face again when he brakes for a stop sign.
“I used to have them when I was a kid,” Steve offers as and turns his head better for Danny to have a closer look; giving up and letting Danny check him over after all just long enough to hopefully satisfy him before he pulls away again. “I’m fine, Danny.”
“That was still weird,” Danny says.
“Weird, but not unheard of,” Steve says. “I have a… history of them and just about anyone can have a nosebleed at anytime.”
“Is this sound, scientific fact?” Danny asks and Steve hears the sarcasm there, but doesn’t rise to the bait. He only tightens his jaw again when the mere act of accelerating to merge into traffic makes his knee throb with a sick pulse of pain.
“Sure,” is all Steve says and beside him, Danny scoffs.
“If you say so, Bill Nye,” he says.
“Who?”
“Just drive,” Danny says and flaps a hand.
Steve has nothing to say to that, so he just does it and before long they’re back at his place, he’s changed into rip-free cargos and taken four more Aleve from his new bottle that is quickly dwindling. He’s taking too many and figures he’s going to have to switch to Advil so the damned Aleve doesn’t end up giving him an ulcer. That would just be the icing on Steve’s, I do not have arthritis cake.
He’s adamant about that.
“Come on, beauty queen,” Danny calls from downstairs and it startles a grin out of Steve.
“Yes, dear,” he mutters and makes a note to never say that loud enough for Danny to hear him. He’d never shut up then.
So he just bolts back downstairs at his usual pace, joints aching and wobbly feeling from the pain with every jolting step of his feet on the risers.
Danny’s waiting for him and Steve messes up his hair just to distract him so he doesn’t see the way Steve’s hobbling before he manages to pull his shit together well enough to walk normally. If he winces a little then that’s fine, too, because Danny’s behind him, combing his hair back down and reading Steve the riot act.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Later that same night after all of the bad guys have been arrested for the day and the paperwork is all done (well, most of Steve’s is anyway) they make it back to the house. Danny doesn’t even allude to going back to his rat-trap apartment and Steve doesn’t try and pretend he’s going to. Honestly, they’re well past that point by now and the only people they’d be fooling if they tried to pretend otherwise would be themselves.
They just blunder their way up the doorsteps and into the house, tired down to the bone and in Steve’s case, hurting everywhere he has skin by that point. Up the stairs they go, walking like blind, drunk mice and bumping into the walls of the house even though they both know it incredibly well. They manage to kick their shoes off before they get into the bed; Danny belly-flopping down on the mattress with a groaned curse and Steve following suit more gingerly.
He lies out on his belly, too, because his back is throbbing and he hasn’t leaned back in a seat for about four hours; he’s sure as hell not going to lay down on it. That’s how they fall asleep, half tangled together and fully clothed, foreheads nearly touching.
The next morning, Steve cracks his eyes open to find Danny watching him blearily. “What?” he mutters.
“That’s a hell of a shiner,” Danny says and touches his cheek so lightly Steve can barely feel it in all honesty. It still hurts like a motherfucker though.
He just makes an unintelligible grunting sound and lets his eyes flutter closed again because he feels so, so tired; like he hasn’t slept at all.
Danny watches him for a minute and then blinks his eyes rapidly in an attempt to clear the sleep from them. He gets out of bed, still groggy and also thoroughly rumpled, rakes his fingers through his hair and then throws the sheet over Steve whose skin is prickled with goosebumps, which is weird. He’s too tired to give it much thought and just stumbles out of the bedroom half-blind and still about three-quarters asleep to go make coffee and hopes like hell Kamekona doesn’t drop in for a butt-crack-of-dawn visit this morning.
Two hours later Steve is shambling around his bedroom, trying to work out the stiffness all over his body and failing. He wants to pace and instead he’s barely managing a quick shuffle and he knows Danny is watching him, too. Steve still doesn’t feel rested even though Danny was so “kind” as to let him oversleep.
“I don’t see what you’re so pissed about,” Danny says and looks on as Steve strips yesterday’s t-shirt off.
“Late, Danny, late,” Steve says and stops to scald his tongue with some coffee, trying like hell to wake up, but the truth is he really wants to crawl back into bed and sleep another twenty hours or longer.
“Not yet and besides, you’re the boss, so no one cares,” Danny informs him and takes a bite of his candy bar. It had taken Steve nearly two weeks to figure out that he was hiding the candy in his freezer, but he’s had to replace the Snickers bar stashed behind the frozen shrimp twice, so he doesn’t say anything. Danny’s bad eating habits are rubbing off on him though, at least some. Still, he refuses to eat SPAM-that just isn’t going to happen-but that’s not Danny’s food… stuff… of choice anyway.
When he turns around again to get a clean pair of pants, he hears Danny’s sharp intake of breath. Steve looks over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow and Danny gestures at him. “Have you seen your back?”
“No, I have not seen my back,” Steve says. He knows it hurts like hell though and has for a few days, but especially bad since yesterday morning.
“You’ve got a bruise the size of Uruguay across the middle of it,” Danny says.
“Uruguay?”
“Uruguay. Hold on.”
He hears Danny fumbling with his phone, threatening it under his breath and a few seconds later he hears the sound of the phone’s camera snapping a shot. “Look,” Danny says and hands the phone to Steve.
Steve looks and frowns. The thing is huge, a purple-black smear across the width of his back. It’s less like Uruguay though and more like the shape of the cooler lid he rolled over yesterday. “It’s not that bad,” he says and hands the phone back to Danny.
“Are you serious? It looks like you went a few rounds with Ike Turner and lost,” Danny says as he looks at the picture and then at Steve’s back again even as he tugs his shirt down over the bruise.
“No, it doesn’t,” Steve says and there, he’s dressed. He grabs his coffee and the car keys, already walking out of the room, raising his arm with his watch on it, waving it around.
“Yeah, hint taken,” Danny says and goes with him.
“Besides,” Steve adds as an afterthought. “I could totally take Ike Turner.”
Danny coughs out a laugh and pats him on the shoulder. “Of course you could.”
His legs feel like they each weigh a ton and with every step his joints throb, but when Danny laughs, Steve smiles anyway.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Three days after that they catch a kidnapping case that keeps them running almost nonstop for 48 hours. Steve finds himself locked in the restroom trying to catch his breath after running to catch up with Chin before he made it to the elevators. He rubs his forehead and hisses in a breath at the pain in his still very black eye. He’s got a bruise on his left wrist that’s thankfully hidden by his watch band to go with the one on his face and back and there are more littered all over his body now in various shapes and sizes. He’s being extra careful not to let anyone see him in anything resembling a state of undress, which isn’t currently a problem, given the case and all. But it will be.
Danny’s watching him all the time with this funny look on his face and he’s asked him if he’s okay to the point Steve wants to grab him, shake him violently and tell him, yes. The thing is: Steve really doesn’t like lying to him.
~*~*~*~*~*~
The day they finally close the kidnapping case, Steve gives everyone an early weekend to celebrate it. They take off around 3:00PM Thursday afternoon and make plans to go to the movies that evening so they can all unwind together. It’s a festival of Elvis movies. Danny thinks they’re all insane for thinking that is anything at all like a good idea and loudly tells them so at great length, no less. Elvis he’s fine with, he even likes the guy, but he does not want to sit through six hours of The King either, he tells them. Chin and Kono look at him like he’s just cursed their ancestors and Steve, well; he’s quietly entertained by the whole thing.
Steve just hums the tune to “Blue Hawaii” to amuse and distract himself more from what feels like a full body toothache. He can feel his muscles quivering with exhaustion and he’s downed more coffee in the past few days than he usually does in a week or at least it feels like he has. It’s bad enough that he has a bona fide case of the caffeine jitters, hands shaking lightly like a junkie with the first fluttering signs of the DTs. He can barely seem to stay awake though and he’s pushed himself harder than he has in a long time just to keep going.
They get back to his house, Danny once more going on in with him and not a word said about it. Steve thinks he should just move in, but he’s not about to actually bring it up and when Danny calls first shower Steve is more than happy to let him have it. All he wants to do is lay down and sleep until they have to meet Chin and Kono at the movie theater.
He stretches out on his side on the couch and the next thing he’s aware of is Danny shaking him awake and telling him if he wants to shower before they go out then he needs to get with the program.
Steve doesn’t move an inch for at least five minutes because he’s honestly worried he’d cry out in pain if he did. He musters himself though and limps on to the bathroom, feeling Danny’s eyes boring into his shoulders until he’s out of the room.
~*~*~*~*~*~
At the movies that night Steve sits bolt upright in his seat because leaning back hurts too damned much. The Advil isn’t even helping the pain anymore, not even a smidgen of a little bit. It’s rude for him to do it and he’s aware; the guy sitting behind him muttering something about tall assholes thinking they own the place just before he moves only punctuates that. Normally Steve would be fine about slouching down in his seat so people could see over his head, but he can’t bring himself to do it. So he sits rigidly, trying to watch the films and failing because he’s so busy concentrating on using his SEAL training to ignore the pain he’s in. He doesn’t even really hear Danny’s remarks about the movies; is only aware of the laughter from Chin and Kono and the other moviegoers shushing him loudly.
Danny lightly touching his arm grounds him a bit and Steve focuses on the warmth of his fingers against his clammy feeling skin as yet another way to distract himself. It’s a comfort, too, but that’s one more thing he won’t say out loud. Danny is scarily perceptive sometimes, but in a lot of ways Steve has come to rely on Danny’s perceptiveness. He can sense what needs to be done, but he’s good enough to never say anything about it and he’s generous enough to offer it without Steve having to ask, which he would never, not in a million years, do because his pride won’t allow it.
It’s what makes Danny a good detective and also what makes him good at figuring Steve out, which is sometimes a bit of an irritation, Steve can admit that. He’s not used to someone knowing him and punching holes in his defenses just by being themselves because Danny doesn’t even have to try, he just does. In his more introspective moments Steve finds that he’s more than a little floored by that, too.
He relaxes some at last, but he still doesn’t lean back, he just focuses on Danny’s fingers against his arm and tries yet again to watch the movie. He’s managed to do it well enough at last when his nose starts to bleed again and okay, Steve thinks maybe he should worry. It’s still hard to really accept that there may be something wrong with him though. He’s not the kind of person to consider anything less than standing in a puddle of his own blood and feeling lightheaded as any kind of indication he may be in trouble.
The blood is thick and warm as it runs out of his left nostril and down its usual meandering path, over Steve’s lips and headed for his chin. He’s got a wadded up napkin on his knee, courtesy of Danny using him for a catch-all since he doesn’t have room for all of his concession purchases and accoutrements in his own damned lap. That’s Danny though, moving in and taking over and Steve lets him do it, too, which also surprises him. If it were someone else, he’d have their head for using him as a napkin holder. With Danny, he just doesn’t care and yeah, it’s odd and something he’s still learning to deal with in his quiet way. It almost makes Steve smile as he picks up the napkin, but the smell of his own blood in his nose quashes that reaction.
He picks up the napkin and wipes his face, inhaling the odors of stale chemical butter and popcorn as they mix with the scent of his blood. Something about the cheerful odors of things that say, fun and good times mingling with the copper tang of his blood makes Steve’s stomach flip unpleasantly. He just wipes his face again and feels his upper lip twitch involuntarily as the tickle of more blood creeps down his face.
“I’ll be right back,” Steve says and stands up before anyone can ask him what he’s doing.
He walks up the aisle of the theater with the napkin held to his face and out through the lobby to the men’s room to wash the blood off. By the time he gets there his nose has stopped bleeding, but there’s this feeling of shivering uneasiness somewhere in the middle of Steve’s chest as he splashes water on his face and try as he might, he can’t shake it.
The door opening makes him pick his head up and he sees Danny reflected in the mirror, standing there in the cold fluorescent glow of the overhead lights. Steve brushes the bloody napkin off the counter into the little trash receptacle set between each of the sinks so he doesn’t see it. Danny’s still watching him in the mirror and Steve sees him open and close his mouth a couple of times.
Finally, he blurts out, “What’s going on with you? And no, do not tell me you’re okay because you’re not. You haven’t been okay for about a month now, so what gives?”
“Nothing,” Steve says after running several possible answers through his head and finding that to be his best response. It’s lame and isn’t going to cut it and he knows it even as he turns around to look at Danny head-on and sees the way Danny narrows his eyes.
“Bullshit,” Danny says and he’s getting irritated, which isn’t a hard feat to accomplish at all, but the sound of his slightly-louder-than-normal voice echoing in the bathroom is still kind of jarring. “How’s your back?”
Steve presses his lips into a thin line and turns back around so he can watch Danny in the mirror again. He feels like a coward and hates it, but he really does not want to talk about this shit. “It’s doing better,” he says and wow, that’s a fucking lie and he does hate lying to Danny, but he doesn’t want something like a little (another lie there) bruise to become a thing as they are wont to do with Danny.
“I say again: Bullshit,” Danny says and crosses the room to grab the tail of Steve’s shirt.
“Danny…” he says, warning in his voice.
“Shut up, Steven, I’m looking and that’s all there is to it,” Danny says and yep, there goes the tail of his shirt inching up his back.
“Fuck,” Steve grumbles and he does not like this being coddled crap one bit and he doesn’t want to know what the bruise looks like now, not really at all.
“An eloquent understatement right there,” Danny says as he peers at Steve’s back. “This thing looks bad. How’s the pain?”
“Manageable,” Steve replies and he’s on a roll with the lying thing now that he’s gotten started. Except it is basically manageable for him because he’s been taught to deal with these things in a calm manner. It doesn’t change the fact that it hurts so, so bad though. He can ignore the pain, but he can’t actually block it out.
“You’re a liar,” Danny says and pulls his shirt back down for him. “But it’s okay; I understand your tendencies for living in denial about these things.”
“Do you now?” Steve asks, lips quirking a little bit.
“Indeed I do,” Danny says. “I could write a whole paper based on the denial tactics of one Steven J. McGarrett. It could make me famous.”
“Right,” Steve says and he’s still trying not to smile, but his face is threatening to crack anyway.
Then Danny says, “Seriously though, I think you need to go see a doctor.”
“I do not.”
“Yes, yes you do and I’ll tell you why-”
“Of course you will.”
“I will if you stop interrupting me.”
Steve does laugh at that and it eases some of the tension between his shoulders. He turns around again and looks at Danny with one eyebrow half raised. “So, by all means, illuminate your reasoning for me.”
Danny closes his mouth before he starts speaking to scowl and he points at Steve, earning a grin in return. Then he does start speaking while still pointing at Steve and he says, “Because you look like hell, which I am sure you haven’t noticed, what with being you and all, but you do. You have circles under your eyes competing with the bruise there already and you can barely stay awake. You’ve got the bruise that ate Godzilla and therefore saved Japan, but fucked you up in the process and there are even more to go with that one. You’re running on empty, I think and you’re only making things worse. Go to the doctor, get yourself some vitamins and when he tells you to take some time off and rest-which he will-you listen to what the nice man says to you. And the nosebleeds because yes, I noticed, I don’t even know what to say about those aside from I don’t accept your excuse of saying they’re normal; not like this they’re not.”
Danny has definitely noticed things no matter how hard Steve’s been trying to hide them. Although Steve actually has noticed that he looks like hell. He is stubbornly pleased though to realize that Danny doesn’t seem to have noticed him limping or how stiffly he’s been moving. That brief flare of pigheaded triumph is squashed though when he realizes that it’s more likely Danny just didn’t think to mention that part. Yet.
“Are you done?” is all Steve actually says.
“Are you going to go to the doctor?”
“I don’t know, are you going to get an apron and a pair of high heels to match your wifely tone?”
“Do you want me to run you over? Because I will. Now stop deflecting and answer me, please.”
“Maybe,” Steve concedes.
“Yes,” Danny insists.
Steve huffs a breath and thinks that the men’s room of a movie theater during an Elvis marathon is about the most ridiculous place to be having this kind of conversation. He wants to sit down anyway, standing up like he is seems to be making his back hurt worse and his knees aren’t liking the way he’s got them straightened out, putting his weight on them.
Still, in the name of not backing down, Steve says, “Maybe,” again then leans down and kisses Danny quickly to shut him up. He pulls away and walks out of the bathroom before Danny can wind himself back up.
He almost hunches his shoulders against the weight of Danny’s eyes on him once more, but he just waves and says, “Come on, I want to catch the beginning of Jailhouse Rock,” as he pushes the door open and heads into the lobby.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Friday afternoon Steve goes for a swim and is so out of breath when he gets out of the water he has to sit down right there on the beach until he can get his wind back. He’s caked with sand by the time he comes back up to the house and ends up just stripping off his wetsuit top and shorts in the backyard because there’s no way the sand is coming off until it’s dry and he sure as hell doesn’t want to have to sweep all that up.
He notices a bruise on his hip that kind of looks like Danny’s handprint. He’d grabbed Steve the night before to stop him from thrashing in his sleep. Danny had barely avoided getting head butted for the attempt. It’s something Steve feels kind of bad and vaguely embarrassed about now that he’s really awake, but grabbing him when he’s like that is never a good idea and if he’d been fully conscious himself then Danny would’ve known that, too. It was just a fuck up of a night overall, but their Friday has gone pretty well at least until Steve lost his breath like that.
He’s more preoccupied with the new bruise than thinking about telling himself he wasn’t going to let anyone see just how banged up he’s gotten lately. Because of that, he walks back into the house naked and when Danny sees him, he stares for a few seconds then says, “You’re going to the doctor. That’s the end of it.”
Steve actually doesn’t argue with him that time.
~*~*~*~*~*~
The rest of the weekend goes well and Danny keeps his fussing to a minimum. They go to dinner Saturday night and don’t call it a date even though they both know it is.
On Sunday morning, Steve talks Danny into having sex in the hammock and they nearly fall out of it. He laughs and Danny throws his socks at his head, but he’s laughing, too. It’s comfortable and they fit together so well that it’s terrifying sometimes for Steve who has always had friends with benefits, but never an actual relationship. Especially not one that crept along on silent little feet like some softly whispering ghost and took up residence in his life without him noticing until months after it happened.
He feels better than he has in a while and thinks maybe he did just need the rest. When he goes to bed that night with Danny, who has stayed the whole weekend since he didn’t have Grace, he thinks he may forget about going to the doctor after all. Then he wakes up on Monday morning sometime before dawn with his back and hips hurting so bad he can barely breathe because of that and he changes his mind.
That shivering uneasiness curls up in his chest again and doesn’t let go until he finally drifts off again sometime around sunrise after the pain has banked back down. Danny sleeps through it all and Steve is at least glad for that.
He calls and makes an appointment with his doctor the first chance he has that morning.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Steve goes in for his doctor’s appointment Tuesday morning at 10:00AM. The doctor notices that he hasn’t had his yearly physical yet and since he’s already there they just go ahead and get it out of the way. It hurts a hell of a lot, but Steve manages and he thinks he does fine. The doctor tuts over his bruises that have barely faded and tells Steve to try ice on them; says that if the one on his back doesn’t improve in a couple of days that he may need to have the blood trapped underneath his skin drained off. It’s an unpleasant proposal, but Steve’s not against the idea either. At this point he wouldn’t be averse to putting a couple of leeches on the thing, but he doesn’t tell the doctor that.
All in all, Steve thinks it goes pretty well and when the doctor tells him he needs to take some time off and rest, Steve can’t help grinning and that gets him an odd look.
“Have a nice day, Commander McGarrett,” is all the doctor says though and gives Steve a distracted smile before he turns away to go see to his next patient.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Friday morning rolls around and Steve’s getting ready for work as usual. He’s alone this morning and he’s not even trying to cover the way he’s limping around the house. Maybe he should take some time off, he thinks. The temptation dangles in front of him like a carrot-or a grenade, Danny would probably say-but Steve doesn’t like doing that either, so he thinks not.
He’s on his way out the door when his phone rings. A glance at the caller I.D. shows the number for his doctor’s office and he accepts the call.
“McGarrett,” he says as he goes down the doorsteps, feeling like an eighty year old man, but feeling even less like falling down, which he thinks he would do if he tried to run down them like he usually does.
“Commander McGarrett, hello and good morning,” his doctor says and Steve stops on the next to last doorstep.
The doctor’s voice crawling into his ear makes that shivering knot coil up in his chest again and Steve swallows before he makes himself walk on out to his truck. “Doctor Miles,” he says as he unlocks the door. “What can I do for you?”
Doctor Miles is silent for a beat too long and Steve opens the truck door and gets in. Then he hears him take a deep breath before he says, “We got the results of your blood panel back and I was wondering if you could make time to come in so we could talk about it.”
“Sure,” Steve says and swallows again. He’s no fool and if the doctor is calling him instead of having his nurse or receptionist do it then he knows he’s not going to like whatever it is the man has to tell him.
“Is now a good time?” Doctor Miles asks.
“No time like the present,” Steve says and there’s so much false bravado behind those words that he would laugh at his own bullshit if not for that knot that’s growing tighter and colder with every second.
“Good, I’ll see you soon then,” Doctor Miles says.
“Yep,” Steve says and hangs up without saying goodbye.
He calls Danny to tell him he’s going to be late that morning and when Danny asks why, Steve tells him. He says he’ll see them all later though and no, he doesn’t want Danny to come with him; he’s a big boy now. Danny snorts at that statement and then they say goodbye.
It’s all very simple, really.
Part II