5-O Fic: Bound (By All The Rest), S/D, PG-13, 1/1
Title: Bound (By All The Rest)
Summary: Steve and Danny are stuck with each other.
Pairing: Steve/Danny
Word Count: ~ 5500
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not mine, Lenkov's et al, a work of transformative fiction.
A/N: Written for prompt at Spring Fling 2013, Steve and Danny. Handcuffed together, either in the middle of a rainforest or locked in a windowless room, or some equally "oh this is going to be difficult" scenarios. Cue some Bad Guys coming after them. (Maybe they've been on each other's nerves and this helps them work through issues or maybe this is the straw that broke the-thing-between-them's back. stevedannoslash
Title from "Stuck With You" by Huey Lewis and The News
* added missing Steve POV paragraph on 4/22 - whoops
BOUND (BY ALL THE REST)
Steve thrashes into consciousness. Scrunching his eyes closed, he tries to jerk his right hand up to cover them from the blinding sunlight, but it's much too heavy. He rolls halfway onto his belly, sinks his palm into the damp ground to push himself up and retches, bringing up a whitish red gelatin of glop and an amazing amount of green bile, and then dry heaves over the smushed down grass for hours, nose and throat burning, eyes tearing, before he sways right and let himself fall back over away from it, lifting his left hand to cover his eyes.
"You okay?" Danny says.
Spreading his fingers, Steve cracks his eyes open. Danny's laying on his left side, nose to nose with him, eyes narrowed.
"What the fuck?" Steve chokes.
"You tell me," Danny says, his words almost lost in the breeze through the trees and the familiar bird call. There's no traffic noise or people talking.
Steve frowns. "You okay?"
"I have no idea," Danny says.
Steve drops his hand and struggles to sit up, noticing the handcuffs connecting he and Danny's right hands before dizziness hits him as hard as a North Shore double-up. He sinks back down again. Danny tugs on Steve's wrist as he gets his own hands up under himself to sit up and away from Steve before he starts retching again.
"Aw, come on, man," Danny complains.
Several minutes later, Steve rolls onto his back, his hand dangling in the air, and squints up at Danny. Danny's sitting on his butt, his legs akimbo, his hair hanging in his face, eyes closed, breathing through his mouth.
"Did you..."
"No."
"Are you..."
"Shut the fuck up for a minute," Danny says through his teeth.
Steve shuts up. Not able to keep shading his eyes, he lets his hand drop and shuts them.
*
Steve startles hard, a shout in his throat.
"Whoa, buddy," Danny growls, flattening his right hand on Steve's chest to keep him from sitting up.
Steve settles under his hand, staring at him through wide, glassy eyes, panting hard, but not panicking this time. "What the fuck?"
Danny sighs and lifts his left hand. Steve frowns. Danny sweeps his hand through the air and watches Steve follow it, his focus gradually shifting beyond it. Taking in the canopy, the slanting sun, the apparent wilderness surrounding them, Steve slowly comes to, his gaze sharpening. When Danny thinks he'd adjusted, he takes his right hand off Steve's chest, waiting to see what comes next.
This time when Steve half-rolls to puke, his stomach really is empty. After a minute, he spits and settles back, actually looking at Danny. His gaze doesn't wander this time. He scans Danny, obviously assessing his physical state, before he meets his eyes again. "Nice shiner."
Danny shrugs. "We need to move. It's gonna be dark soon."
Steve nods. He sits up slower than any of the five other times he's already tried this and seems much more awake. His tongue runs across the dried blood of his split lip. "How..."
"I don't know, Steve. We've already been through this."
"We have?"
"The last three times you woke up."
"Oh." He stares at Danny.
"You dizzy?"
"Not much. Just give me a minute."
Steve's pale, and while his shirt's still soaked, sweat isn't beading on his hairline or rolling down his neck. Danny counts that as a win. He considers once more the route he's chosen out of the small clearing they've been dumped in. Two deer trails go in either direction, one sloping downhill and one up, but after waiting on Steve for most of the afternoon, dragging him a couple of yards away from his vomit by his arm and shirt every time he passed out again, Danny wants gone. He's desperately thirsty and after listening to the birdsong shift, dropping off the lower the sun falls, and trying to recall the very little bit of woods lore he knows, he thinks maybe there's a creek not too far away. Not that they can just drink from it, but he'll worry about that once they find it.
Turning back to Steve, he points over his shoulder at the narrow downhill trail. "I think there's water that way."
Steve pats at the various pockets on his cargo pants.
"I already checked, you got nothing." Danny stands up, keeping his right hand low to accommodate Steve's. His khakis are hopelessly dirty, and wet in the seat, thighs and knees. Lucky him, it's unholy hot for April.
Turning his hand over, Steve studies the cuffs, the spreading bruise and needle mark at the crook of his elbow, and the chaffed red skin of both their wrists. Danny has an identical needle mark, but not the bruise. He'd never pegged Franzetti as the drug 'em and dump 'em type. But it beat being dead. "Smith and Wesson."
"Shit," Steve breathes.
Smith and Wesson makes the best steel cuffs. Short of keys or a heavy-duty hack saw, they are attached to each other for the duration.
Steve eases off his butt until he's kneeling and then cautiously straightens up before climbing to his feet. He takes a couple of deep breaths, in through his nose and out his mouth. "I don't remember how we got here, do you?"
"No. Can you walk?"
Steve nods.
Danny turns all the way around, so that he's facing the same way as Steve, Steve's right arm now crossing Danny's lower back. "I'll take lead, just warn me before you puke or fall over."
Steve only huffs.
It takes them thirty yards on the rutted trail, the underbrush fingering and catching their clothes, odd fringes of wide leaf that Danny can only call fronds brushing their faces, to figure out their striding. If Steve steps on the back of his heel even one more time, Danny's going to hit him. Something heavy crashes away from them on the right. Steve stumbles and plows heavily into Danny when he stops dead.
"Sorry, sorry," Steve mutters.
"I'm more worried about the big thing in the woods."
"It was running away. We're fine. Until dusk."
"What happens at dusk?"
"Mosquitos."
"Where the fuck are we?"
Steve shrugs. "Still on Oahu, I hope."
"Oahu," Danny repeats, trying to wrap his head around that thought. He raises his left hand to jerk his tie loose, but encounters the skin of his throat and remembers he isn't wearing it. Still, his throat feels tight. He drags in a breath and then coughs. His heartbeat pounds in his ears. He leans over, jerking Steve into him as he places both hands on his knees, and tries to catch his breath.
"Danny, you okay?" The guy actually sounds concerned.
"You can't remember asking what the fuck seven times, but you can remember my name," Danny bites out. "You can remember we're 'still on Oahu,'" he pants, lifting his hands two inches off his knees to form air quotes.
"Probably on Oahu," Steve corrects. "We'll know soon enough. Practically every place is a ridge."
"Oahu's in Hawaii," Danny says, straightening up and turning to face Steve. "It's hot enough, but really, that's what you think?"
Steve drops his gaze and glares at the ground. He looks up, considering the trees around them, and then the sky. He cocks his head, listening to the cacophony of birds, Danny assumes.
Watching him makes Danny twitchy. "We're not on Oahu," he says firmly.
"The coquis are starting up. Unless we're in Puerto Rico or the DR, we're on one of the islands. Leeward on Oahu. Maybe... north of Kaneohe Bay?" Steve scrubs his left hand over his face and back across his head, to scratch his neck. "Maybe on the Big Island? Near Hilo? On Kauai? I was getting coffee with Chin..."
Enough of this shit. Danny'll bite his tongue a bit longer since Steve's too out of it to make sense. Wait him out and see what transpires. "Come on, I'm thirsty," Danny says, and starts down the trail again, Steve stumbling and tripping over his own feet as he follows behind.
*
There's definitely water ahead. Big water, Steve guesses, because they've been hearing it for several minutes. Now that his brain fog's lifting, he really has to piss. He grabs Danny's left bicep. "Danny, stop, I gotta take a leak."
"Yeah, okay, me, too." Like they've been shackled together all their lives, they both turn to their lefts so they're facing away from each other and fumble with their zippers one handed. The relief is tremendous. After he shakes off, Steve bends at his waist, trying to get himself arranged comfortably again.
The cuff jerks and pulls as Danny yanks back against the pressure. "Shit. Stop it, asshole, I'm not done."
He can't stop the grin that rises on his face. In his periphery, he sees Danny turn his head and frown at him, which makes him grin even bigger.
Danny yanks Steve's arm back and uses both his hands to do up his pants and adjust his belt. And then he spins on his heel, and drags Steve back into shuffling motion.
Another fifteen minutes of link step walking brings them to the trail head. The ground drops off in front of them at a steeper angle and then crumbles into the edge of a wide, fast-moving stream, filling their ears with the burble and rush of white water. Glancing right, Danny gasps. The sun, impaling itself on the sharp susurrations of a long, dark ridge, spills streaks of bloody, red light across Danny's face.
"See what you been missing by not camping with me, Danno?" Steve half-shouts.
Danny rounds on him, scowling, his fingers closing on Steve's wrist. The cuffs clank. Danny yanks Steve forward as he draws his left hand back and up, his fist clenched tight. "Who the fuck are you?"
A swirl of yawing stillness opens in Steve's chest, the feeling so rare to him at such a deep level it takes him a full second to place it as total confusion. "What?"
"Who the fuck are you?" Danny growls through his teeth, his lips raised in a feral snarl.
Steve's fingers had automatically clasped onto Danny's wrist in response to his hold. He loosens his grip and relaxes his stance. "Danno..."
The blow explodes through his cheek, blinding him, and rocks him back on his heels. The next sits him painfully down on his left hip. Danny follows him down, kneeing him in the lower back to knock him onto his belly while forcing his right arm behind and up, until Steve's knuckles thump onto his own shoulder blade.
"You're Steve. I got that the three times we exchanged names before you really woke the fuck up. I assumed you were drug task force, maybe a fed, someone else Franzetti wanted out of his way. But we're not dead, and you seem to know a whole hell of a lot more about me than I do you. Why'd you call me Danno?"
"Danny," Steve huffs, wondering who Franzetti is.
Danny lets more of his weight sink into the knee planted on Steve's spine as he threads his fingers into Steve's short hair and pulls Steve's head back.
Steve swallows against the pressure, his dry throat clicking as his adam's apple works. What the fuck?
"Why. Danno," Danny snarls.
"Gra..."
*
Fuck, fuck. Danny lets go of Steve's hair and scrambles off him. Steve obliges by taking a wheezy, shallow breath. Rolling him into recovery position, Danny lays his fingers into the hollow above Steve's collarbone, reassured by the instant steady beat he finds. He sinks back onto his heels, closes his eyes and blows out his own labored breath. Fuck. Man already has a concussion, probably, on top of whatever drugs they've been loaded with. Way to lose it.
He watches blood trickle from the fresh cut above Steve's eyebrow from Danny slamming his face into the ground. It runs across his half-open eyelid, over his bloody nose and drips onto the reddish grey dirt of the trail to join the blood dripping from his re-opened split lip.
Steve coughs and then launches upward, jerking Danny forward onto his knees, nearly taking his right arm from the socket, and lands crouched on his feet, hands spread to steady himself. Danny opens his mouth, amazed at the pure athletic grace Steve managed out of total unconsciousness. Steve tilts forward and dry heaves.
Great, another front row seat. Face screwed up as his belly heaves, hands now planted on the ground to support himself, Steve doesn't try to stop the tears that join the blood running down his face. Danny's stomach rolls in empathy. He focuses on the dying light smothering the impossible, unbelievably lush, and, based on the complete lack of electric lights, uninhabited mountain beyond Steve. Maybe they're upstate. Though he can't reconcile the heat and humidity at this time of year. Shit, maybe Franzetti ran them South. Georgia has mountains, right? Though how asshole here could possibly know Grace calls him Danno, he can't figure. His head hurts.
After forever, Steve sinks onto his forearms, letting his forehead rest on the trail, before he finally folds his haunches and just breathes. He reminds Danny of his dog, who's growing older and lies at his feet panting for hours at a time.
Patience wearing thin, Danny slaps at a mosquito boring into his neck and sighs. Steve grunts. He eases his upper body up in the now full on dark. The weak moon limes the outline of his head as he turns it and shrugs one shoulder up at a time to wipe his tears and blood and snot onto either shirt sleeve.
He rocks up and stands, taking Danny's right arm with him. He sways. Despite himself, Danny finds himself on his feet, steadying the asshole.
Steve staggers in the direction of the stream, leaving Danny no choice but to follow. Over the crash of the water, Danny hears him curse as reaches down and picks something up from the stream's edge.
"The fuck is that?" Danny blurts. "A canteen?"
Steve holds it out and Danny takes it. It's empty. Reflexively, he shakes it. Something small rattles inside. He unscrews the top, turns the canteen over, and jiggles it until two tiny pebbles fall out into his hand, but it's too dark to see them. Rolling them in his palm, he finds they are smooth and uniformly round. "Pills," he murmurs.
Steve bends over and fumbles with the top of his boot. The bright flare of a match makes Danny squint. He stares at Steve while Steve stares at the pills in Danny's palm. He shifts, bringing the match up to search Danny's face. The flame burns down close to his fingertips before he flicks his wrist and drops the match into the dirt between them. He swipes soil over it with his boot as he speaks. "Iodine."
"I don't understand."
"Chemical water purification."
Danny waves his left hand. "People just leave canteens by rivers in Hawaii? Because they don't in New York. Or Georgia."
"No."
"This is not Franzetti's style."
Steve takes the canteen back and kneels to fill it. When he's done, he stands and holds it out.
Danny drops the tablets back in. "How long?"
"The water's cold." Every word sounds like an effort. "An hour."
"Shit," Danny complains. "Ow!" He slaps at his shoulder and then his cheek.
"We need to cross and go upslope for the night."
"Why?"
"Flashfloods. Wildlife. Whoever left the canteen."
"Wildlife?"
"Boars."
"Shit."
"Yeah."
*
The koa's trunk is better than six feet around and has several sturdy, spreading branches. Despite starting out in a controlled descent, Steve flops the final distance to the ground, taking Danny down with him.
"Goddamnit," Danny grumbles. He thrashes around and sits up, throwing half composted leaf litter and seed pods over them both.
Steve attempts to contain his own sprawl, but his limbs aren't responding very well to his efforts. It isn't the best idea he's ever had to lay here unprotected, but the spongy mat and overhead cover the tree offers isn't the worst, either.
"You okay there?" Danny asks.
Steve nods, and then regrets the movement as his head throbs.
"I'll sit watch. Wake you up every so often," Danny says. "I don't want to get stuck cuffed to a DB, and then have to drag you around, so don't even think of dying on me, got it?"
Steve tries to give Danny a thumbs up, but fails. It's been a long time since he's been quite this incapacitated in the woods. At least these woods are his own backyard.
"Say something."
"M'kay," Steve forces out through his tight throat. His stomach squirms over on itself like a small animal burrowing into his belly. Bile rises into his throat. He swallows convulsively.
"Sure you are, buddy."
Steve's right hand and arm thump and jump on his chest as Danny situates himself with his back to the tree. He doesn't dare ask Danny what year he thinks it might be, or how old Grace is. It had not been a good idea to say Grace's name and it isn't smart to lay here unprotected. The seed pods beneath him are poking through his shirt and scratching his neck.
He concentrates on Danny's breath for a while, the rustle of his clothes as he shifts every now and then. The coquis whistle, their calls rising and falling in the same rhythm of the waves along his beach. But he can't fall asleep.
When Danny's hand lands in a firm hold on his forearm, Steve startles and becomes aware he's quivering, pressing his hands down hard against the rigid tenseness of his belly and thigh. He clamps his jaw down and wills himself to stop as he rolls towards Danny, tries to get upright.
"Shhh..." Danny soothes.
He slides his free hand behind Steve's shoulder and helps him sit up as he starts to shake in earnest. Steve grabs onto him, trapping their cuffed hands between them, twists the back of Danny's shirt in his fingers, and buries his face in the crook of Danny's hot neck, sucking in his familiar scent in shuddering gasps as his muscles jerk.
"Adrenaline let down," Danny says, hugging Steve in tight. "That's all."
Steve nods, holding on, letting the shakes cascade over him, knowing they'll pass faster if he doesn't fight it. After they start to fade, he loosens his grip and lets Danny pull away from him. Danny reaches over, grabs the canteen, twists the cap off and hands it to him.
"Me, first, huh?"
The side of Danny's mouth quirks up. "You noticed that."
"Subtle you're not." He braces himself for the flavor of the iodine, but still shudders, which gets him started shivering again. His split lip cracks and burns as he drinks.
When he hands it back, Danny takes two big gulps, grimacing at the taste. Eyeing Steve, he shakes the canteen. "What do you think?"
"We'll be okay. We can collect rainwater with that."
"If it rains."
"It's Hawaii, it'll rain."
Danny considers that statement a long moment. Steve holds his gaze. Sighing, Danny glances away and then lifts the canteen to drink again.
*
Still propped against the trunk of the koa, Danny wakes stiff and cold, into a bubble of hushed pre-dawn. Some bird with a hoarse, stuttery call questions the morning from somewhere behind them. His shoulders ache. He groans and raises his hands to scrub his face. A heavy weight stops his right arm.
Cuffs, right. Tall, dark and pukey.
Rolling his head, Danny opens his eyes and looks down at the man with his head pillowed on his thigh. Steve's still out, face soft. A trail of crusty, dried blood slashes diagonally from above his right eyebrow to the curve of his stubbled chin. His swollen lip gives him a pout. The flutter of desire deep in his belly surprises Danny, even as his dick hardens. He's not been attracted to a man since he started dating Rachel. And now is the worst possible time to re-claim that particular proclivity.
Steve frowns in his sleep as if he can hear Danny's thoughts. His breathing quickens. The fingers of his cuffed hand, resting palm up on Danny's knee, close. Danny watches, fascinated that he can see Steve surfacing inside. It's different than watching him come to over and over again yesterday. It's easier, for one thing, more of a rippling up than the rough currents he suffered through before.
The muscles of Steve's face tighten as he wakes and Danny winces for him. Unthinking, he cups Steve's face with his right hand, and wraps his left around Steve's bicep. He strokes the crease between Steve's eyes with his thumb. Amazingly, Steve relaxes under his hands.
He opens one eye halfway. "Danny," he croaks.
The inside of a big truck fills Danny's inner eye. Canvas cloth is rough under his fingertips, heavy over his shoulder, echo of gunfire, his vest tight across his chest, strap of an AK wrapped around his forearm, this man, Steve, hollow-eyed and wild, stares back at him, bloody and bruised.
"Danny?"
"Who the fuck are you?"
Steve stiffens and stares up at him, eyes scared. "Do you remember yesterday?"
Danny swirls his left hand through the air. "No, I mean, yes. You're Steve MacGarrett. You think we're in Hawaii. I mean, who the fuck are you? Why do I..." Steve turning to him, a wide, deserted beach beyond, reaching out to take a beer from Danny's hand, the sun lighting the tips of his hair, rimming his ear, then his cheek as he gives Danny the biggest, most beautiful, shit-eating grin Danny's ever seen and then tilts his head back and laughs out loud. "Why are you in my head?"
"You're mine."
"What?"
"You aren't in Jersey anymore, Danny. You're part of my team, you're my partner. We live in Honolulu. Grace is ten. Does Five-O mean anything to you?"
Growing colder and colder with each word, Danny's stomach plummets to somewhere south of Patagonia. Heavy beard, green jacket, angry voices all around, Steve crumpled at his feet. "Green jacket."
Cuffs clinking together, Steve closes his hand around Danny's, still laid upon his face. "You remember?"
Danny shakes his head. "No. Just..."
"The guys who stopped us on the road, the one in charge was wearing a green jacket."
"A Patagonia raincoat." A brunette girl in purple, spinning in front of him, legs coltish and brown, gleaming brown eyes, the warm rain sluicing over both of them, plastering his hair down over his face until he shakes like a dog and she laughs and laughs at him. "Grace has one."
"Yeah. She does."
"I know you?"
"Yeah, Danny, we've been working together three years now."
"We, uh... we more than that?"
Steve closes his eyes momentarily, his fingers tightening on Danny's. "Yeah, I think so."
"What does that mean?"
"It means we've never talked about it. Or acted on it. Don't move."
"What?"
"Do not move." Steve lifts his left arm just as something tickles Danny's neck. He goes rigid, every instinct in him telling him to leap, move, get away. He rolls his eyes left, but can't see whatever's on him.
"Trust me, Danny, okay?"
In slow motion, Steve runs the back of his hand down over Danny's cheek. Danny hyperventilates and fights the crazy urge to lean into Steve's touch. Steve works his hand onto Danny's shoulder in a scooping fashion and then slowly moves it away and down. A huge fucking flesh-colored spider entirely covers Steve's palm, clinging to the sides of his index and pinky fingers with its funky long legs. Danny scrambles up and away as far as the cuffs let him.
Steve's head thunks to the ground, but his left hand stays steady. "Cane spider," he says. "Harmless. If you don't scare it." He lowers the spider to the ground and with a gentle thrust, encourages it to escape in its many-legged, scrabbling, spidery, ugly way.
"Really, Steven?" Danny bursts out and then draws his head back and frowns at his own words.
Steve tilts his head back and grins at him upside down.
That's when they hear the dogs. Lots of them.
*
"They're hunting us," Danny pants, fingers twined through the chain link fence they just ran into. Its ten feet high and topped with coils of razor wire.
"Catch pen," Steve confirms.
"I hate Hawaii," Danny says, laying his forehead on the cool metal of the fence.
"So you remem--"
"No, I don't remember anything. I'm not even sure I believe you, but if this is Hawaii, I hate it. No one hunts cops in Jersey like they're deer or raccoons or whatever. Who hunts with fucking dogs, anyway?"
Steve opens his mouth, because he knows the answer to that question, but Danny cuts him off with a glare.
"Don't answer that. I am a cop, still, right?"
"You are."
"Don't you mean, 'we are'?"
"I'm kind of... not?"
Danny sighs. "I don't want to know. Are we going over this fence or what?"
Steve knows Danny's going to hate his answer.
*
Kneeling on the back of a sputtering, middle aged, pot-bellied New Englander, Danny holds onto what he's got while Steve strips various pieces of clothing off the guy to gag and tie him. His fitter buddy is lying a few feet away, no longer breathing, his head cocked at a bad, wrong, un-natural angle from having the chain of their cuffs wrapped around his neck.
"Okay," Steve says after he's checked every pocket for the handcuff key. Snatching up the New Englander's rifle, he backs away to arm's length.
Danny stands. He drags his foot over the guy's back slow and if it grinds into his kidney by accident, well, not his fault. They lock step back over to muscle boy and Steve checks his pockets, too. No key, but he snatches the Glock from the guy's thigh holster and hands it to Danny, taking the Bowie knife for himself.
Danny checks the chamber, drops the magazine, finds it half-loaded, and pops it back in. His blood pressure drops twenty points just from having the gun in his hands. "Who the fuck are you? And no more of this Five-0 task force bullshit."
Steve rolls his eyes."Lieutenant Commander Steven J. McGarrett, U.S. Navy Seal, Reserves. Nice to meet you. Can we continue now?"
Danny makes an 'after you' gesture.
*
The third man they take carries a walkie, binoculars, and a Mossburg 20 gauge shotgun. Danny almost blows the approach when he trips over Steve's heel, but seconds later, his chest muscles follow, hot and fluid against Steve's back, and his sweat slick skin drags along the hair of Steve's arm, his fingertips bruising the hollows of Steve's wrist, as he rides Steve's motion while Steve slices the man's neck from behind. They mirror each other, the three of them, front to back to front, stepping backwards twice while the man's life bleeds out.
He holds the keys.
*
The dogs mill frantically below, fighting over the three squirrels and two rabbits Steve bagged in silence with the crossbow they took from the fourth hunter. Two of the some-kind-of-hunting hounds have their front paws parked on the trunk, baying up at him. The koa tree isn't as big as the one they slept under and Danny knows when the rest of the hunters appear and look up, he'll be clearly visible. He looks across this tiny bare spot in the woods, trying to locate Steve, but Steve is clearly not visible and must not smell anything like himself at all.
The dogs slobber and snap at each other. Danny's stomach growls.
*
Some of the hounds are starting to lose interest, making small forays into the underbrush. Danny whistles, sharp and short, but firm, just loud enough to carry under the magnificent voices of the five hounds actually doing their job. The straying hounds swing their heads around, their bodies following, and return to the koa, nosing into the pack, searching the ground for any bit of meat that might be left, licking the blood off each other's mouths and heads.
Steve can't help but think of entering that agent's house, drawing down on the dog coming right at him and how Danny just stepped forward, hand down, and took charge, making the dog his in seconds without hesitation. He remembers playing up his pout, his disgruntlement just keep that care-free looseness it unleashed in Danny unspooling a few minutes longer. Steve spends way too much time thinking up ways he can induce that happy freedom in Danny again. It's become his addiction. This morning, waking up with his guard down, has him wondering if one day he can put that looseness into Danny's days, drag that grin from him at night. Danny's hair is nearly as wind-blown and shaggy as it'd been that day, with the dog riding shot gun, but his face is sober, serious. He's focused only on the chaos below him and he's working hard to keep the hounds honest.
The hunters are so sure of themselves, they're yelling insults at Danny and fingering their triggers before they come into range. Steve doesn't bother to warn them before he shuts their fucking mouths forever.
*
Steve stinks. He's rubbed some nasty combination of river mud and stinky herbs and squirrel blood onto his cargos and tee, over his arms and neck, up onto his face and into his hair, which is sticking straight up on top in blood stiffened spikes. The dogs are trailing after them down a wider path than they've seen all day like Steve is their God.
Steve's fingered the phones they've collected for info and when they found reception, called in Five-0 and air support or some such shit on their GPS reading. Danny's got a .22 with a scope over his shoulder, the Glock, and a Remington semi-auto rifle in his hands. Steve's rocking the crossbow, a shotgun, and a semi-auto Colt 223 with a pistol grip. They aren't expecting more company, but they're walking in ready position, just in case, as they head to the rendezvous.
"Don't I remember you almost shooting a dog? In a victim's house? You hate dogs."
"These aren't dogs."
"They aren't?"
"They're hounds."
Danny lets his mouth turn down and swings his rifle to both sides, front and back, taking in the lolling tongues and dusty coats and streaks of blood on snouts and sides. "They look like dogs."
"They're working dogs, not pets."
Steve in black, geared up, wound up about... something. Steve's shoulder bunching under his hand as he turns away. Cool glass under his palm as he thumps on the window of a police car. On the other side, Steve's glazed eyes
as Danny shouts. What he shouts, he doesn't know. The hounds are soldiers, not civilians. Navy, Danno, I'm in the Navy.
Danny shakes his head, corrects his faltered step. "You'll be lucky not to get some squirrel borne pathogen that kills you. Did you have to put that shit on your face? You have cuts. That one above your brow needs stitching."
Steve gives him a sideways glance. Memories flood into Danny with that look. He's seen that face a thousand times.
"Aneurysm Face, right? Am I right? Yeah, I gave you that cut. I'm sorry. But you don't just appropriate the nickname a two year old has given her Daddy and not expect him to react. Oh, good, Squinty Eyes, yeah, one of my favorites, isn't it?"
"Danno."
"Oh. Oh, it's back to Danno, is it, even though I just told you..."
Steve swings around to face him and stops. The hounds crowd around and between them. "You like it when I call you Danno. It's a term of...."
This time, the memories take him to his knees.
He hears Steve's voice both inside him and out. Warm bodies jostle him and there's moist dog breath in his face. A nasty smell. Steve's hands wrap around his biceps. A familiar whump of rotors overhead and he's standing on a rocky ledge, looking up at Steve rising into a helicopter on the lap of an EMT. He raises his hands, not sure of what he wants to say, knowing he can't say it out loud, needing the relief it will give him. His hands sketch a heart under the backwash and then he points, throwing it, all of it, into Steve's court. And then he waits.
Backwash whips his hair into his eyes when he opens them to stare at Steve. Steve, his best friend. His partner. "I want to talk about it," he shouts over the roar of the helicopter and the howl of the hounds who have decided to make a stand against the monster above them.
Steve is on his knees in front of him, fingers digging what will no doubt be impressive bruises into his arms, but looking up at the 'copter. Danny follows his gaze. Chin's hanging out the side, strapped to the hilt. Steve waves and Chin gives him a thumbs up. As the 'copter tilts over, turns towards the field the trail opens into about a hundred yards ahead, Danny catches a glimpse of Kono's tanned arm, the whip of her ponytail. The sun glints off her sniper rifle.
"I want to act on it," Steve yells.
Danny looks at him to find him looking back.
"I want to act on it," Steve repeats at a lower volume. The hounds shut up except for their panting. Steve leans in and Danny meets him halfway. His lips are warm and he opens his mouth when Danny traces his tongue over the rough, swollen split in his lower lip. They deepen the kiss, Danny's head filling again, with every time he's wanted this.
He asks for more and Steve gives it to him, until they are pressed tight against each other, the hounds pressing in and whining. The kiss breaks naturally and they breathe into each other for a moment longer. Steve snatches at his lips and they trade short kisses until they hear voices at the trial head and the hounds begin to bounce in anticipation.
"I want to act on it, Danno," Steve says into his ear. "I love you."
Danny can only nod, head too filled with Steve, with all the moments past, and hope for all the moments to come, to speak.
Summary: Steve and Danny are stuck with each other.
Pairing: Steve/Danny
Word Count: ~ 5500
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not mine, Lenkov's et al, a work of transformative fiction.
A/N: Written for prompt at Spring Fling 2013, Steve and Danny. Handcuffed together, either in the middle of a rainforest or locked in a windowless room, or some equally "oh this is going to be difficult" scenarios. Cue some Bad Guys coming after them. (Maybe they've been on each other's nerves and this helps them work through issues or maybe this is the straw that broke the-thing-between-them's back. stevedannoslash
Title from "Stuck With You" by Huey Lewis and The News
* added missing Steve POV paragraph on 4/22 - whoops
BOUND (BY ALL THE REST)
Steve thrashes into consciousness. Scrunching his eyes closed, he tries to jerk his right hand up to cover them from the blinding sunlight, but it's much too heavy. He rolls halfway onto his belly, sinks his palm into the damp ground to push himself up and retches, bringing up a whitish red gelatin of glop and an amazing amount of green bile, and then dry heaves over the smushed down grass for hours, nose and throat burning, eyes tearing, before he sways right and let himself fall back over away from it, lifting his left hand to cover his eyes.
"You okay?" Danny says.
Spreading his fingers, Steve cracks his eyes open. Danny's laying on his left side, nose to nose with him, eyes narrowed.
"What the fuck?" Steve chokes.
"You tell me," Danny says, his words almost lost in the breeze through the trees and the familiar bird call. There's no traffic noise or people talking.
Steve frowns. "You okay?"
"I have no idea," Danny says.
Steve drops his hand and struggles to sit up, noticing the handcuffs connecting he and Danny's right hands before dizziness hits him as hard as a North Shore double-up. He sinks back down again. Danny tugs on Steve's wrist as he gets his own hands up under himself to sit up and away from Steve before he starts retching again.
"Aw, come on, man," Danny complains.
Several minutes later, Steve rolls onto his back, his hand dangling in the air, and squints up at Danny. Danny's sitting on his butt, his legs akimbo, his hair hanging in his face, eyes closed, breathing through his mouth.
"Did you..."
"No."
"Are you..."
"Shut the fuck up for a minute," Danny says through his teeth.
Steve shuts up. Not able to keep shading his eyes, he lets his hand drop and shuts them.
*
Steve startles hard, a shout in his throat.
"Whoa, buddy," Danny growls, flattening his right hand on Steve's chest to keep him from sitting up.
Steve settles under his hand, staring at him through wide, glassy eyes, panting hard, but not panicking this time. "What the fuck?"
Danny sighs and lifts his left hand. Steve frowns. Danny sweeps his hand through the air and watches Steve follow it, his focus gradually shifting beyond it. Taking in the canopy, the slanting sun, the apparent wilderness surrounding them, Steve slowly comes to, his gaze sharpening. When Danny thinks he'd adjusted, he takes his right hand off Steve's chest, waiting to see what comes next.
This time when Steve half-rolls to puke, his stomach really is empty. After a minute, he spits and settles back, actually looking at Danny. His gaze doesn't wander this time. He scans Danny, obviously assessing his physical state, before he meets his eyes again. "Nice shiner."
Danny shrugs. "We need to move. It's gonna be dark soon."
Steve nods. He sits up slower than any of the five other times he's already tried this and seems much more awake. His tongue runs across the dried blood of his split lip. "How..."
"I don't know, Steve. We've already been through this."
"We have?"
"The last three times you woke up."
"Oh." He stares at Danny.
"You dizzy?"
"Not much. Just give me a minute."
Steve's pale, and while his shirt's still soaked, sweat isn't beading on his hairline or rolling down his neck. Danny counts that as a win. He considers once more the route he's chosen out of the small clearing they've been dumped in. Two deer trails go in either direction, one sloping downhill and one up, but after waiting on Steve for most of the afternoon, dragging him a couple of yards away from his vomit by his arm and shirt every time he passed out again, Danny wants gone. He's desperately thirsty and after listening to the birdsong shift, dropping off the lower the sun falls, and trying to recall the very little bit of woods lore he knows, he thinks maybe there's a creek not too far away. Not that they can just drink from it, but he'll worry about that once they find it.
Turning back to Steve, he points over his shoulder at the narrow downhill trail. "I think there's water that way."
Steve pats at the various pockets on his cargo pants.
"I already checked, you got nothing." Danny stands up, keeping his right hand low to accommodate Steve's. His khakis are hopelessly dirty, and wet in the seat, thighs and knees. Lucky him, it's unholy hot for April.
Turning his hand over, Steve studies the cuffs, the spreading bruise and needle mark at the crook of his elbow, and the chaffed red skin of both their wrists. Danny has an identical needle mark, but not the bruise. He'd never pegged Franzetti as the drug 'em and dump 'em type. But it beat being dead. "Smith and Wesson."
"Shit," Steve breathes.
Smith and Wesson makes the best steel cuffs. Short of keys or a heavy-duty hack saw, they are attached to each other for the duration.
Steve eases off his butt until he's kneeling and then cautiously straightens up before climbing to his feet. He takes a couple of deep breaths, in through his nose and out his mouth. "I don't remember how we got here, do you?"
"No. Can you walk?"
Steve nods.
Danny turns all the way around, so that he's facing the same way as Steve, Steve's right arm now crossing Danny's lower back. "I'll take lead, just warn me before you puke or fall over."
Steve only huffs.
It takes them thirty yards on the rutted trail, the underbrush fingering and catching their clothes, odd fringes of wide leaf that Danny can only call fronds brushing their faces, to figure out their striding. If Steve steps on the back of his heel even one more time, Danny's going to hit him. Something heavy crashes away from them on the right. Steve stumbles and plows heavily into Danny when he stops dead.
"Sorry, sorry," Steve mutters.
"I'm more worried about the big thing in the woods."
"It was running away. We're fine. Until dusk."
"What happens at dusk?"
"Mosquitos."
"Where the fuck are we?"
Steve shrugs. "Still on Oahu, I hope."
"Oahu," Danny repeats, trying to wrap his head around that thought. He raises his left hand to jerk his tie loose, but encounters the skin of his throat and remembers he isn't wearing it. Still, his throat feels tight. He drags in a breath and then coughs. His heartbeat pounds in his ears. He leans over, jerking Steve into him as he places both hands on his knees, and tries to catch his breath.
"Danny, you okay?" The guy actually sounds concerned.
"You can't remember asking what the fuck seven times, but you can remember my name," Danny bites out. "You can remember we're 'still on Oahu,'" he pants, lifting his hands two inches off his knees to form air quotes.
"Probably on Oahu," Steve corrects. "We'll know soon enough. Practically every place is a ridge."
"Oahu's in Hawaii," Danny says, straightening up and turning to face Steve. "It's hot enough, but really, that's what you think?"
Steve drops his gaze and glares at the ground. He looks up, considering the trees around them, and then the sky. He cocks his head, listening to the cacophony of birds, Danny assumes.
Watching him makes Danny twitchy. "We're not on Oahu," he says firmly.
"The coquis are starting up. Unless we're in Puerto Rico or the DR, we're on one of the islands. Leeward on Oahu. Maybe... north of Kaneohe Bay?" Steve scrubs his left hand over his face and back across his head, to scratch his neck. "Maybe on the Big Island? Near Hilo? On Kauai? I was getting coffee with Chin..."
Enough of this shit. Danny'll bite his tongue a bit longer since Steve's too out of it to make sense. Wait him out and see what transpires. "Come on, I'm thirsty," Danny says, and starts down the trail again, Steve stumbling and tripping over his own feet as he follows behind.
*
There's definitely water ahead. Big water, Steve guesses, because they've been hearing it for several minutes. Now that his brain fog's lifting, he really has to piss. He grabs Danny's left bicep. "Danny, stop, I gotta take a leak."
"Yeah, okay, me, too." Like they've been shackled together all their lives, they both turn to their lefts so they're facing away from each other and fumble with their zippers one handed. The relief is tremendous. After he shakes off, Steve bends at his waist, trying to get himself arranged comfortably again.
The cuff jerks and pulls as Danny yanks back against the pressure. "Shit. Stop it, asshole, I'm not done."
He can't stop the grin that rises on his face. In his periphery, he sees Danny turn his head and frown at him, which makes him grin even bigger.
Danny yanks Steve's arm back and uses both his hands to do up his pants and adjust his belt. And then he spins on his heel, and drags Steve back into shuffling motion.
Another fifteen minutes of link step walking brings them to the trail head. The ground drops off in front of them at a steeper angle and then crumbles into the edge of a wide, fast-moving stream, filling their ears with the burble and rush of white water. Glancing right, Danny gasps. The sun, impaling itself on the sharp susurrations of a long, dark ridge, spills streaks of bloody, red light across Danny's face.
"See what you been missing by not camping with me, Danno?" Steve half-shouts.
Danny rounds on him, scowling, his fingers closing on Steve's wrist. The cuffs clank. Danny yanks Steve forward as he draws his left hand back and up, his fist clenched tight. "Who the fuck are you?"
A swirl of yawing stillness opens in Steve's chest, the feeling so rare to him at such a deep level it takes him a full second to place it as total confusion. "What?"
"Who the fuck are you?" Danny growls through his teeth, his lips raised in a feral snarl.
Steve's fingers had automatically clasped onto Danny's wrist in response to his hold. He loosens his grip and relaxes his stance. "Danno..."
The blow explodes through his cheek, blinding him, and rocks him back on his heels. The next sits him painfully down on his left hip. Danny follows him down, kneeing him in the lower back to knock him onto his belly while forcing his right arm behind and up, until Steve's knuckles thump onto his own shoulder blade.
"You're Steve. I got that the three times we exchanged names before you really woke the fuck up. I assumed you were drug task force, maybe a fed, someone else Franzetti wanted out of his way. But we're not dead, and you seem to know a whole hell of a lot more about me than I do you. Why'd you call me Danno?"
"Danny," Steve huffs, wondering who Franzetti is.
Danny lets more of his weight sink into the knee planted on Steve's spine as he threads his fingers into Steve's short hair and pulls Steve's head back.
Steve swallows against the pressure, his dry throat clicking as his adam's apple works. What the fuck?
"Why. Danno," Danny snarls.
"Gra..."
*
Fuck, fuck. Danny lets go of Steve's hair and scrambles off him. Steve obliges by taking a wheezy, shallow breath. Rolling him into recovery position, Danny lays his fingers into the hollow above Steve's collarbone, reassured by the instant steady beat he finds. He sinks back onto his heels, closes his eyes and blows out his own labored breath. Fuck. Man already has a concussion, probably, on top of whatever drugs they've been loaded with. Way to lose it.
He watches blood trickle from the fresh cut above Steve's eyebrow from Danny slamming his face into the ground. It runs across his half-open eyelid, over his bloody nose and drips onto the reddish grey dirt of the trail to join the blood dripping from his re-opened split lip.
Steve coughs and then launches upward, jerking Danny forward onto his knees, nearly taking his right arm from the socket, and lands crouched on his feet, hands spread to steady himself. Danny opens his mouth, amazed at the pure athletic grace Steve managed out of total unconsciousness. Steve tilts forward and dry heaves.
Great, another front row seat. Face screwed up as his belly heaves, hands now planted on the ground to support himself, Steve doesn't try to stop the tears that join the blood running down his face. Danny's stomach rolls in empathy. He focuses on the dying light smothering the impossible, unbelievably lush, and, based on the complete lack of electric lights, uninhabited mountain beyond Steve. Maybe they're upstate. Though he can't reconcile the heat and humidity at this time of year. Shit, maybe Franzetti ran them South. Georgia has mountains, right? Though how asshole here could possibly know Grace calls him Danno, he can't figure. His head hurts.
After forever, Steve sinks onto his forearms, letting his forehead rest on the trail, before he finally folds his haunches and just breathes. He reminds Danny of his dog, who's growing older and lies at his feet panting for hours at a time.
Patience wearing thin, Danny slaps at a mosquito boring into his neck and sighs. Steve grunts. He eases his upper body up in the now full on dark. The weak moon limes the outline of his head as he turns it and shrugs one shoulder up at a time to wipe his tears and blood and snot onto either shirt sleeve.
He rocks up and stands, taking Danny's right arm with him. He sways. Despite himself, Danny finds himself on his feet, steadying the asshole.
Steve staggers in the direction of the stream, leaving Danny no choice but to follow. Over the crash of the water, Danny hears him curse as reaches down and picks something up from the stream's edge.
"The fuck is that?" Danny blurts. "A canteen?"
Steve holds it out and Danny takes it. It's empty. Reflexively, he shakes it. Something small rattles inside. He unscrews the top, turns the canteen over, and jiggles it until two tiny pebbles fall out into his hand, but it's too dark to see them. Rolling them in his palm, he finds they are smooth and uniformly round. "Pills," he murmurs.
Steve bends over and fumbles with the top of his boot. The bright flare of a match makes Danny squint. He stares at Steve while Steve stares at the pills in Danny's palm. He shifts, bringing the match up to search Danny's face. The flame burns down close to his fingertips before he flicks his wrist and drops the match into the dirt between them. He swipes soil over it with his boot as he speaks. "Iodine."
"I don't understand."
"Chemical water purification."
Danny waves his left hand. "People just leave canteens by rivers in Hawaii? Because they don't in New York. Or Georgia."
"No."
"This is not Franzetti's style."
Steve takes the canteen back and kneels to fill it. When he's done, he stands and holds it out.
Danny drops the tablets back in. "How long?"
"The water's cold." Every word sounds like an effort. "An hour."
"Shit," Danny complains. "Ow!" He slaps at his shoulder and then his cheek.
"We need to cross and go upslope for the night."
"Why?"
"Flashfloods. Wildlife. Whoever left the canteen."
"Wildlife?"
"Boars."
"Shit."
"Yeah."
*
The koa's trunk is better than six feet around and has several sturdy, spreading branches. Despite starting out in a controlled descent, Steve flops the final distance to the ground, taking Danny down with him.
"Goddamnit," Danny grumbles. He thrashes around and sits up, throwing half composted leaf litter and seed pods over them both.
Steve attempts to contain his own sprawl, but his limbs aren't responding very well to his efforts. It isn't the best idea he's ever had to lay here unprotected, but the spongy mat and overhead cover the tree offers isn't the worst, either.
"You okay there?" Danny asks.
Steve nods, and then regrets the movement as his head throbs.
"I'll sit watch. Wake you up every so often," Danny says. "I don't want to get stuck cuffed to a DB, and then have to drag you around, so don't even think of dying on me, got it?"
Steve tries to give Danny a thumbs up, but fails. It's been a long time since he's been quite this incapacitated in the woods. At least these woods are his own backyard.
"Say something."
"M'kay," Steve forces out through his tight throat. His stomach squirms over on itself like a small animal burrowing into his belly. Bile rises into his throat. He swallows convulsively.
"Sure you are, buddy."
Steve's right hand and arm thump and jump on his chest as Danny situates himself with his back to the tree. He doesn't dare ask Danny what year he thinks it might be, or how old Grace is. It had not been a good idea to say Grace's name and it isn't smart to lay here unprotected. The seed pods beneath him are poking through his shirt and scratching his neck.
He concentrates on Danny's breath for a while, the rustle of his clothes as he shifts every now and then. The coquis whistle, their calls rising and falling in the same rhythm of the waves along his beach. But he can't fall asleep.
When Danny's hand lands in a firm hold on his forearm, Steve startles and becomes aware he's quivering, pressing his hands down hard against the rigid tenseness of his belly and thigh. He clamps his jaw down and wills himself to stop as he rolls towards Danny, tries to get upright.
"Shhh..." Danny soothes.
He slides his free hand behind Steve's shoulder and helps him sit up as he starts to shake in earnest. Steve grabs onto him, trapping their cuffed hands between them, twists the back of Danny's shirt in his fingers, and buries his face in the crook of Danny's hot neck, sucking in his familiar scent in shuddering gasps as his muscles jerk.
"Adrenaline let down," Danny says, hugging Steve in tight. "That's all."
Steve nods, holding on, letting the shakes cascade over him, knowing they'll pass faster if he doesn't fight it. After they start to fade, he loosens his grip and lets Danny pull away from him. Danny reaches over, grabs the canteen, twists the cap off and hands it to him.
"Me, first, huh?"
The side of Danny's mouth quirks up. "You noticed that."
"Subtle you're not." He braces himself for the flavor of the iodine, but still shudders, which gets him started shivering again. His split lip cracks and burns as he drinks.
When he hands it back, Danny takes two big gulps, grimacing at the taste. Eyeing Steve, he shakes the canteen. "What do you think?"
"We'll be okay. We can collect rainwater with that."
"If it rains."
"It's Hawaii, it'll rain."
Danny considers that statement a long moment. Steve holds his gaze. Sighing, Danny glances away and then lifts the canteen to drink again.
*
Still propped against the trunk of the koa, Danny wakes stiff and cold, into a bubble of hushed pre-dawn. Some bird with a hoarse, stuttery call questions the morning from somewhere behind them. His shoulders ache. He groans and raises his hands to scrub his face. A heavy weight stops his right arm.
Cuffs, right. Tall, dark and pukey.
Rolling his head, Danny opens his eyes and looks down at the man with his head pillowed on his thigh. Steve's still out, face soft. A trail of crusty, dried blood slashes diagonally from above his right eyebrow to the curve of his stubbled chin. His swollen lip gives him a pout. The flutter of desire deep in his belly surprises Danny, even as his dick hardens. He's not been attracted to a man since he started dating Rachel. And now is the worst possible time to re-claim that particular proclivity.
Steve frowns in his sleep as if he can hear Danny's thoughts. His breathing quickens. The fingers of his cuffed hand, resting palm up on Danny's knee, close. Danny watches, fascinated that he can see Steve surfacing inside. It's different than watching him come to over and over again yesterday. It's easier, for one thing, more of a rippling up than the rough currents he suffered through before.
The muscles of Steve's face tighten as he wakes and Danny winces for him. Unthinking, he cups Steve's face with his right hand, and wraps his left around Steve's bicep. He strokes the crease between Steve's eyes with his thumb. Amazingly, Steve relaxes under his hands.
He opens one eye halfway. "Danny," he croaks.
The inside of a big truck fills Danny's inner eye. Canvas cloth is rough under his fingertips, heavy over his shoulder, echo of gunfire, his vest tight across his chest, strap of an AK wrapped around his forearm, this man, Steve, hollow-eyed and wild, stares back at him, bloody and bruised.
"Danny?"
"Who the fuck are you?"
Steve stiffens and stares up at him, eyes scared. "Do you remember yesterday?"
Danny swirls his left hand through the air. "No, I mean, yes. You're Steve MacGarrett. You think we're in Hawaii. I mean, who the fuck are you? Why do I..." Steve turning to him, a wide, deserted beach beyond, reaching out to take a beer from Danny's hand, the sun lighting the tips of his hair, rimming his ear, then his cheek as he gives Danny the biggest, most beautiful, shit-eating grin Danny's ever seen and then tilts his head back and laughs out loud. "Why are you in my head?"
"You're mine."
"What?"
"You aren't in Jersey anymore, Danny. You're part of my team, you're my partner. We live in Honolulu. Grace is ten. Does Five-O mean anything to you?"
Growing colder and colder with each word, Danny's stomach plummets to somewhere south of Patagonia. Heavy beard, green jacket, angry voices all around, Steve crumpled at his feet. "Green jacket."
Cuffs clinking together, Steve closes his hand around Danny's, still laid upon his face. "You remember?"
Danny shakes his head. "No. Just..."
"The guys who stopped us on the road, the one in charge was wearing a green jacket."
"A Patagonia raincoat." A brunette girl in purple, spinning in front of him, legs coltish and brown, gleaming brown eyes, the warm rain sluicing over both of them, plastering his hair down over his face until he shakes like a dog and she laughs and laughs at him. "Grace has one."
"Yeah. She does."
"I know you?"
"Yeah, Danny, we've been working together three years now."
"We, uh... we more than that?"
Steve closes his eyes momentarily, his fingers tightening on Danny's. "Yeah, I think so."
"What does that mean?"
"It means we've never talked about it. Or acted on it. Don't move."
"What?"
"Do not move." Steve lifts his left arm just as something tickles Danny's neck. He goes rigid, every instinct in him telling him to leap, move, get away. He rolls his eyes left, but can't see whatever's on him.
"Trust me, Danny, okay?"
In slow motion, Steve runs the back of his hand down over Danny's cheek. Danny hyperventilates and fights the crazy urge to lean into Steve's touch. Steve works his hand onto Danny's shoulder in a scooping fashion and then slowly moves it away and down. A huge fucking flesh-colored spider entirely covers Steve's palm, clinging to the sides of his index and pinky fingers with its funky long legs. Danny scrambles up and away as far as the cuffs let him.
Steve's head thunks to the ground, but his left hand stays steady. "Cane spider," he says. "Harmless. If you don't scare it." He lowers the spider to the ground and with a gentle thrust, encourages it to escape in its many-legged, scrabbling, spidery, ugly way.
"Really, Steven?" Danny bursts out and then draws his head back and frowns at his own words.
Steve tilts his head back and grins at him upside down.
That's when they hear the dogs. Lots of them.
*
"They're hunting us," Danny pants, fingers twined through the chain link fence they just ran into. Its ten feet high and topped with coils of razor wire.
"Catch pen," Steve confirms.
"I hate Hawaii," Danny says, laying his forehead on the cool metal of the fence.
"So you remem--"
"No, I don't remember anything. I'm not even sure I believe you, but if this is Hawaii, I hate it. No one hunts cops in Jersey like they're deer or raccoons or whatever. Who hunts with fucking dogs, anyway?"
Steve opens his mouth, because he knows the answer to that question, but Danny cuts him off with a glare.
"Don't answer that. I am a cop, still, right?"
"You are."
"Don't you mean, 'we are'?"
"I'm kind of... not?"
Danny sighs. "I don't want to know. Are we going over this fence or what?"
Steve knows Danny's going to hate his answer.
*
Kneeling on the back of a sputtering, middle aged, pot-bellied New Englander, Danny holds onto what he's got while Steve strips various pieces of clothing off the guy to gag and tie him. His fitter buddy is lying a few feet away, no longer breathing, his head cocked at a bad, wrong, un-natural angle from having the chain of their cuffs wrapped around his neck.
"Okay," Steve says after he's checked every pocket for the handcuff key. Snatching up the New Englander's rifle, he backs away to arm's length.
Danny stands. He drags his foot over the guy's back slow and if it grinds into his kidney by accident, well, not his fault. They lock step back over to muscle boy and Steve checks his pockets, too. No key, but he snatches the Glock from the guy's thigh holster and hands it to Danny, taking the Bowie knife for himself.
Danny checks the chamber, drops the magazine, finds it half-loaded, and pops it back in. His blood pressure drops twenty points just from having the gun in his hands. "Who the fuck are you? And no more of this Five-0 task force bullshit."
Steve rolls his eyes."Lieutenant Commander Steven J. McGarrett, U.S. Navy Seal, Reserves. Nice to meet you. Can we continue now?"
Danny makes an 'after you' gesture.
*
The third man they take carries a walkie, binoculars, and a Mossburg 20 gauge shotgun. Danny almost blows the approach when he trips over Steve's heel, but seconds later, his chest muscles follow, hot and fluid against Steve's back, and his sweat slick skin drags along the hair of Steve's arm, his fingertips bruising the hollows of Steve's wrist, as he rides Steve's motion while Steve slices the man's neck from behind. They mirror each other, the three of them, front to back to front, stepping backwards twice while the man's life bleeds out.
He holds the keys.
*
The dogs mill frantically below, fighting over the three squirrels and two rabbits Steve bagged in silence with the crossbow they took from the fourth hunter. Two of the some-kind-of-hunting hounds have their front paws parked on the trunk, baying up at him. The koa tree isn't as big as the one they slept under and Danny knows when the rest of the hunters appear and look up, he'll be clearly visible. He looks across this tiny bare spot in the woods, trying to locate Steve, but Steve is clearly not visible and must not smell anything like himself at all.
The dogs slobber and snap at each other. Danny's stomach growls.
*
Some of the hounds are starting to lose interest, making small forays into the underbrush. Danny whistles, sharp and short, but firm, just loud enough to carry under the magnificent voices of the five hounds actually doing their job. The straying hounds swing their heads around, their bodies following, and return to the koa, nosing into the pack, searching the ground for any bit of meat that might be left, licking the blood off each other's mouths and heads.
Steve can't help but think of entering that agent's house, drawing down on the dog coming right at him and how Danny just stepped forward, hand down, and took charge, making the dog his in seconds without hesitation. He remembers playing up his pout, his disgruntlement just keep that care-free looseness it unleashed in Danny unspooling a few minutes longer. Steve spends way too much time thinking up ways he can induce that happy freedom in Danny again. It's become his addiction. This morning, waking up with his guard down, has him wondering if one day he can put that looseness into Danny's days, drag that grin from him at night. Danny's hair is nearly as wind-blown and shaggy as it'd been that day, with the dog riding shot gun, but his face is sober, serious. He's focused only on the chaos below him and he's working hard to keep the hounds honest.
The hunters are so sure of themselves, they're yelling insults at Danny and fingering their triggers before they come into range. Steve doesn't bother to warn them before he shuts their fucking mouths forever.
*
Steve stinks. He's rubbed some nasty combination of river mud and stinky herbs and squirrel blood onto his cargos and tee, over his arms and neck, up onto his face and into his hair, which is sticking straight up on top in blood stiffened spikes. The dogs are trailing after them down a wider path than they've seen all day like Steve is their God.
Steve's fingered the phones they've collected for info and when they found reception, called in Five-0 and air support or some such shit on their GPS reading. Danny's got a .22 with a scope over his shoulder, the Glock, and a Remington semi-auto rifle in his hands. Steve's rocking the crossbow, a shotgun, and a semi-auto Colt 223 with a pistol grip. They aren't expecting more company, but they're walking in ready position, just in case, as they head to the rendezvous.
"Don't I remember you almost shooting a dog? In a victim's house? You hate dogs."
"These aren't dogs."
"They aren't?"
"They're hounds."
Danny lets his mouth turn down and swings his rifle to both sides, front and back, taking in the lolling tongues and dusty coats and streaks of blood on snouts and sides. "They look like dogs."
"They're working dogs, not pets."
Steve in black, geared up, wound up about... something. Steve's shoulder bunching under his hand as he turns away. Cool glass under his palm as he thumps on the window of a police car. On the other side, Steve's glazed eyes
as Danny shouts. What he shouts, he doesn't know. The hounds are soldiers, not civilians. Navy, Danno, I'm in the Navy.
Danny shakes his head, corrects his faltered step. "You'll be lucky not to get some squirrel borne pathogen that kills you. Did you have to put that shit on your face? You have cuts. That one above your brow needs stitching."
Steve gives him a sideways glance. Memories flood into Danny with that look. He's seen that face a thousand times.
"Aneurysm Face, right? Am I right? Yeah, I gave you that cut. I'm sorry. But you don't just appropriate the nickname a two year old has given her Daddy and not expect him to react. Oh, good, Squinty Eyes, yeah, one of my favorites, isn't it?"
"Danno."
"Oh. Oh, it's back to Danno, is it, even though I just told you..."
Steve swings around to face him and stops. The hounds crowd around and between them. "You like it when I call you Danno. It's a term of...."
This time, the memories take him to his knees.
He hears Steve's voice both inside him and out. Warm bodies jostle him and there's moist dog breath in his face. A nasty smell. Steve's hands wrap around his biceps. A familiar whump of rotors overhead and he's standing on a rocky ledge, looking up at Steve rising into a helicopter on the lap of an EMT. He raises his hands, not sure of what he wants to say, knowing he can't say it out loud, needing the relief it will give him. His hands sketch a heart under the backwash and then he points, throwing it, all of it, into Steve's court. And then he waits.
Backwash whips his hair into his eyes when he opens them to stare at Steve. Steve, his best friend. His partner. "I want to talk about it," he shouts over the roar of the helicopter and the howl of the hounds who have decided to make a stand against the monster above them.
Steve is on his knees in front of him, fingers digging what will no doubt be impressive bruises into his arms, but looking up at the 'copter. Danny follows his gaze. Chin's hanging out the side, strapped to the hilt. Steve waves and Chin gives him a thumbs up. As the 'copter tilts over, turns towards the field the trail opens into about a hundred yards ahead, Danny catches a glimpse of Kono's tanned arm, the whip of her ponytail. The sun glints off her sniper rifle.
"I want to act on it," Steve yells.
Danny looks at him to find him looking back.
"I want to act on it," Steve repeats at a lower volume. The hounds shut up except for their panting. Steve leans in and Danny meets him halfway. His lips are warm and he opens his mouth when Danny traces his tongue over the rough, swollen split in his lower lip. They deepen the kiss, Danny's head filling again, with every time he's wanted this.
He asks for more and Steve gives it to him, until they are pressed tight against each other, the hounds pressing in and whining. The kiss breaks naturally and they breathe into each other for a moment longer. Steve snatches at his lips and they trade short kisses until they hear voices at the trial head and the hounds begin to bounce in anticipation.
"I want to act on it, Danno," Steve says into his ear. "I love you."
Danny can only nod, head too filled with Steve, with all the moments past, and hope for all the moments to come, to speak.