New fic: All the madness in my soul, Steve/Danny, 1/1
A missing scene for 3x20, because Danny worries.
Title: All the madness in my soul
Words: ~1600
Many thanks to
dogeared for the beta, also to
siriaeve who helped plant the image of Danny fixing Steve's tie.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
All the madness in my soul
"They say sometimes people put walls up, not because they want to block people out, but because they want to see who cares enough to knock them down." --unknown
Sure enough, the water snapped off before it'd had time to so much as wet the stall, let alone anyone standing under it, and Danny rolled his eyes. Clearly not even the day from hell would break Steve of that hoo-yay deny-all-needs habit. Three minutes on the dot, if he were any judge, which huh, apparently he was, seeing as he could now time a Navy shower without even thinking about it.
He glared at the closed door and thought about sneaking back to the lounge room so Steve wouldn't find him hovering, but screw that. If Steve didn't know exactly where he was right now, he'd eat his hat. Besides, why should he hide, huh? He worried, it was a thing, and he wasn't going to feel bad about it.
He shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his dress pants and tried to stretch his hearing to whatever was going on behind the closed door, but Steve was a stealthy son-of-a-bitch so he couldn't make out much. He heard a squeak as the cabinet door opened, then the sound of the faucet and finally a clink when what had to be Steve's razor hit the basin -- so, okay, then, shaving; shaving was good.
He rocked back and forth, heel-toe, toe-heel, just for something to do, because waiting was the most impotent damn feeling in the entire world, and he seriously wasn't any good at it. Shouting? Now that was something he was good at -- it was in his genes, probably, and he'd had a lot of practice -- but it was possible that somewhere, among the things that shouting hadn't fixed, he'd maybe learned to listen just a little bit, too. And so now he was waiting.
Because Steve had asked.
"Give me some space, Danny," he'd said, looking like shit, slumped into the corner of the Camaro. Danny didn't want to even think about the last time he'd seen Steve looking so pale and exhausted, so giving him what he needed was right at the top of his list of priorities.
So, right, space. He could do space, he could do a whole Alpine tundra of space if that's what Steve wanted. And he figured that Steve just meant no-questions space, not actual leave-me-alone-space, so he'd talked all the way home from the base -- about what the team had been up to while Steve was away, and Kono's spanking new board (apparently it carves) -- and swallowed pretty much everything else that was trying to bubble its way up and out of his mouth.
And, well, maybe it worked or something, because Steve might have raised his eyebrows when Danny launched into the story of Gracie's new obsession with field hockey (seriously, who runs around sports fields outdoors in winter?), but inch-by-inch he'd relaxed, and when he finally reached over to grip Danny's hand hard it felt like thanks, and gratitude, and Danny had gripped back equally hard and held on tight the rest of the way home.
So here he was now, hovering in the corridor like a damned high school monitor, because this day wasn't even halfway over yet.
Steve hadn't said a word about what he'd been doing since 8am, which left Danny to fill in the gaps. And he was pretty sure that what he'd been doing was talking himself hoarse answering questions, because, apparently, when a highly trained field operative makes the decision to take a sanctioned mission off-grid to get it done right, every mother-fucker within a bull's roar of the chain of command wants in on the debrief. Surprise!
It made Danny's blood boil that the Navy hierarchy would pull this kind of bullshit today of all days, because what the hell kind of timing was that? Was it a test or a punishment? Damned if he knew, but it seriously pissed him off that after everything Steve had done, all the blood, sweat and tears he'd expended serving his country, he still had to put up with that level of crap. But he'd stayed out of it because he was willing to concede -- reluctantly -- that Steve knew more than he did about 'Standard Procedure' and just getting through it all the least painful way possible.
The sudden click-slide of the lock releasing pulled him out of his head, then the door swung open and Steve was right there, one hand on the knob, the other braced on the basin, the towel he'd used to dry off slung low around his hips.
"Hey," Steve said, and their eyes met for a long second.
"Hey, yourself," Danny replied, his chest clenching with the sudden switch from wanting to turn a flame-thrower on the Navy brass, to wanting to pull Steve into a crushing hug. But as far as he knew they were still doing the "space" thing and he wasn't exactly sure where the boundaries were.
He blinked, let his eyes slide away to take in the shaving gel on the bench, the razor, and the slight tremor in Steve's hand as he straightened. And okay, so that's how it was, huh? Space might be hard to define but he could still recognise a McGarrett-style ask for help when he saw one, and that he did know what to do with.
"How about you sit your ass down and let me do that for you, huh?" He tilted his chin in the direction of the bathroom and made sure he looked anywhere but at the bruises that marked Steve's chest and abdomen. "A chin full of tissue paper would not be a good look with your dress blues, am I right?"
Steve hesitated, then nodded, the start of a smile lifting the corner of his mouth. "Yeah, okay," he said, then turned and sat on the closed toilet lid. He kept still until Danny stepped between his knees with the supplies, then looked up and said, "Thanks, Danno."
Danny sucked in a tight breath, because really, there were limits to this saint-like behaviour he had going on, and that face right there would push even Francis of Assisi to the edge. He swallowed hard and waved the razor in a deliberately nonchalant arc.
"Oh, don't thank me yet," he drawled. "There's still time to draw blood."
Steve smiled a second longer, then tilted his head back and let out a genuine laugh. It was the first Danny had heard since he'd collected him from the airport 24 hours earlier, something Danny knew intrinsically, the same way he knew just how long a Navy shower lasted -- because he'd been watching, he'd been paying attention, caught up in Steve's orbit and Steve in his, but there it was, filling up the small bathroom.
He finally let a fond, stupid grin spread over his own face, took hold of Steve's jaw and rubbed a thumb over his bristly chin and in a gentle line up the side of his cheek. "All right, come on, laughing boy," he said more quietly, "let's get this done."
"Okay," Steve simply replied, and then he tilted his face up and closed his eyes.
Danny's breath stopped in his chest, because fuck -- even pale and exhausted and steeling himself to go bury a brother-by-choice, Steve McGarrett could still tie his heart in knots.
He somehow managed to smooth the gel over Steve's rough stubble and keep his hands steady enough to shave the bristles away; to wipe up the remnants with a wet cloth, and with that, it seemed he wiped away a good chunk of Steve's tension. Enough so, that by the time Danny dragged him into the bedroom, helped him re-apply the layers of Navy -- shirt, socks, pants, obscenely shiny shoes -- Steve was almost himself again.
"All right, then," Danny finally said, threading Steve's tie under his collar. "You think you could finish this off?"
He patted Steve's chest and turned to grab the uniform jacket, but when he looked back, Steve was fumbling with the knot, a small frown wrinkling the skin between his eyebrows.
He left the jacket where it was. "C'mere, let me do that," he said, reaching up. "What? You've forgotten how to do your tie all of a sudden? Who doesn't know how to knot a tie."
"Maybe I've gotten used to you doing it." Steve shrugged and tried to take over, but Danny batted his hands away.
"Get your hands out of the way, Steven. Seriously, you're just going to mangle it."
He finished it off, made sure the knot sat flat between the wings of Steve's collar then made the mistake of looking up. In a breath he lost himself in Steve's big eyes and goofy face, and then Steve's lips were on his, soft and careful and tasting incredible.
Fuck that, Danny thought, and pressed in closer, so done with careful. He deepened the kiss, and by the time it ended, they were both holding on too tight and breathing too hard; Danny's lips were tingling. He ducked his head, blinking hard, and rode the wave of feeling as the tight knot of worry in his chest finally released, swept away by a ridiculous high.
Steve let out a deep shuddering breath and took a half step back, and Danny looked up, met Steve's soft grin with one of his own. Because this -- this was his life now, this roller-coaster ride of worry, fear and joy, vested in this crazy lunatic half-ninja asshole, and it didn't look as though it would change any time soon.
And strangest thing of all? He didn't feel like complaining.
--- the end ---
Title from:
"I'll love you with all the madness in my soul"
- Bruce Springsteen, Born to run
Also posted at http://artisan447.dreamwidth.org/241209.html where there are
more comments
Title: All the madness in my soul
Words: ~1600
Many thanks to
dogeared for the beta, also to
siriaeve who helped plant the image of Danny fixing Steve's tie.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
All the madness in my soul
"They say sometimes people put walls up, not because they want to block people out, but because they want to see who cares enough to knock them down." --unknown
Sure enough, the water snapped off before it'd had time to so much as wet the stall, let alone anyone standing under it, and Danny rolled his eyes. Clearly not even the day from hell would break Steve of that hoo-yay deny-all-needs habit. Three minutes on the dot, if he were any judge, which huh, apparently he was, seeing as he could now time a Navy shower without even thinking about it.
He glared at the closed door and thought about sneaking back to the lounge room so Steve wouldn't find him hovering, but screw that. If Steve didn't know exactly where he was right now, he'd eat his hat. Besides, why should he hide, huh? He worried, it was a thing, and he wasn't going to feel bad about it.
He shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his dress pants and tried to stretch his hearing to whatever was going on behind the closed door, but Steve was a stealthy son-of-a-bitch so he couldn't make out much. He heard a squeak as the cabinet door opened, then the sound of the faucet and finally a clink when what had to be Steve's razor hit the basin -- so, okay, then, shaving; shaving was good.
He rocked back and forth, heel-toe, toe-heel, just for something to do, because waiting was the most impotent damn feeling in the entire world, and he seriously wasn't any good at it. Shouting? Now that was something he was good at -- it was in his genes, probably, and he'd had a lot of practice -- but it was possible that somewhere, among the things that shouting hadn't fixed, he'd maybe learned to listen just a little bit, too. And so now he was waiting.
Because Steve had asked.
"Give me some space, Danny," he'd said, looking like shit, slumped into the corner of the Camaro. Danny didn't want to even think about the last time he'd seen Steve looking so pale and exhausted, so giving him what he needed was right at the top of his list of priorities.
So, right, space. He could do space, he could do a whole Alpine tundra of space if that's what Steve wanted. And he figured that Steve just meant no-questions space, not actual leave-me-alone-space, so he'd talked all the way home from the base -- about what the team had been up to while Steve was away, and Kono's spanking new board (apparently it carves) -- and swallowed pretty much everything else that was trying to bubble its way up and out of his mouth.
And, well, maybe it worked or something, because Steve might have raised his eyebrows when Danny launched into the story of Gracie's new obsession with field hockey (seriously, who runs around sports fields outdoors in winter?), but inch-by-inch he'd relaxed, and when he finally reached over to grip Danny's hand hard it felt like thanks, and gratitude, and Danny had gripped back equally hard and held on tight the rest of the way home.
So here he was now, hovering in the corridor like a damned high school monitor, because this day wasn't even halfway over yet.
Steve hadn't said a word about what he'd been doing since 8am, which left Danny to fill in the gaps. And he was pretty sure that what he'd been doing was talking himself hoarse answering questions, because, apparently, when a highly trained field operative makes the decision to take a sanctioned mission off-grid to get it done right, every mother-fucker within a bull's roar of the chain of command wants in on the debrief. Surprise!
It made Danny's blood boil that the Navy hierarchy would pull this kind of bullshit today of all days, because what the hell kind of timing was that? Was it a test or a punishment? Damned if he knew, but it seriously pissed him off that after everything Steve had done, all the blood, sweat and tears he'd expended serving his country, he still had to put up with that level of crap. But he'd stayed out of it because he was willing to concede -- reluctantly -- that Steve knew more than he did about 'Standard Procedure' and just getting through it all the least painful way possible.
The sudden click-slide of the lock releasing pulled him out of his head, then the door swung open and Steve was right there, one hand on the knob, the other braced on the basin, the towel he'd used to dry off slung low around his hips.
"Hey," Steve said, and their eyes met for a long second.
"Hey, yourself," Danny replied, his chest clenching with the sudden switch from wanting to turn a flame-thrower on the Navy brass, to wanting to pull Steve into a crushing hug. But as far as he knew they were still doing the "space" thing and he wasn't exactly sure where the boundaries were.
He blinked, let his eyes slide away to take in the shaving gel on the bench, the razor, and the slight tremor in Steve's hand as he straightened. And okay, so that's how it was, huh? Space might be hard to define but he could still recognise a McGarrett-style ask for help when he saw one, and that he did know what to do with.
"How about you sit your ass down and let me do that for you, huh?" He tilted his chin in the direction of the bathroom and made sure he looked anywhere but at the bruises that marked Steve's chest and abdomen. "A chin full of tissue paper would not be a good look with your dress blues, am I right?"
Steve hesitated, then nodded, the start of a smile lifting the corner of his mouth. "Yeah, okay," he said, then turned and sat on the closed toilet lid. He kept still until Danny stepped between his knees with the supplies, then looked up and said, "Thanks, Danno."
Danny sucked in a tight breath, because really, there were limits to this saint-like behaviour he had going on, and that face right there would push even Francis of Assisi to the edge. He swallowed hard and waved the razor in a deliberately nonchalant arc.
"Oh, don't thank me yet," he drawled. "There's still time to draw blood."
Steve smiled a second longer, then tilted his head back and let out a genuine laugh. It was the first Danny had heard since he'd collected him from the airport 24 hours earlier, something Danny knew intrinsically, the same way he knew just how long a Navy shower lasted -- because he'd been watching, he'd been paying attention, caught up in Steve's orbit and Steve in his, but there it was, filling up the small bathroom.
He finally let a fond, stupid grin spread over his own face, took hold of Steve's jaw and rubbed a thumb over his bristly chin and in a gentle line up the side of his cheek. "All right, come on, laughing boy," he said more quietly, "let's get this done."
"Okay," Steve simply replied, and then he tilted his face up and closed his eyes.
Danny's breath stopped in his chest, because fuck -- even pale and exhausted and steeling himself to go bury a brother-by-choice, Steve McGarrett could still tie his heart in knots.
He somehow managed to smooth the gel over Steve's rough stubble and keep his hands steady enough to shave the bristles away; to wipe up the remnants with a wet cloth, and with that, it seemed he wiped away a good chunk of Steve's tension. Enough so, that by the time Danny dragged him into the bedroom, helped him re-apply the layers of Navy -- shirt, socks, pants, obscenely shiny shoes -- Steve was almost himself again.
"All right, then," Danny finally said, threading Steve's tie under his collar. "You think you could finish this off?"
He patted Steve's chest and turned to grab the uniform jacket, but when he looked back, Steve was fumbling with the knot, a small frown wrinkling the skin between his eyebrows.
He left the jacket where it was. "C'mere, let me do that," he said, reaching up. "What? You've forgotten how to do your tie all of a sudden? Who doesn't know how to knot a tie."
"Maybe I've gotten used to you doing it." Steve shrugged and tried to take over, but Danny batted his hands away.
"Get your hands out of the way, Steven. Seriously, you're just going to mangle it."
He finished it off, made sure the knot sat flat between the wings of Steve's collar then made the mistake of looking up. In a breath he lost himself in Steve's big eyes and goofy face, and then Steve's lips were on his, soft and careful and tasting incredible.
Fuck that, Danny thought, and pressed in closer, so done with careful. He deepened the kiss, and by the time it ended, they were both holding on too tight and breathing too hard; Danny's lips were tingling. He ducked his head, blinking hard, and rode the wave of feeling as the tight knot of worry in his chest finally released, swept away by a ridiculous high.
Steve let out a deep shuddering breath and took a half step back, and Danny looked up, met Steve's soft grin with one of his own. Because this -- this was his life now, this roller-coaster ride of worry, fear and joy, vested in this crazy lunatic half-ninja asshole, and it didn't look as though it would change any time soon.
And strangest thing of all? He didn't feel like complaining.
--- the end ---
Title from:
"I'll love you with all the madness in my soul"
- Bruce Springsteen, Born to run
Also posted at http://artisan447.dreamwidth.org/241209.html where there are
more comments