fic: Two Weeks (1/1)
Title: Two Weeks
Author: stellarmeadow
Fandom: Hawaii Five-0
Paring: Steve/Danny
Rating: G
Summary: Two weeks out from a near-death experience can bring you a certain amount of perspective.
Notes: Written at 30,000 feet, on 3 hours of sleep. Hope it makes sense!
Spoilers all over the place from 4.20. You've been warned!
Part of the S4 Coda Series - if you've missed any, visit the master post.
It wasn't funny.
Except for the way it kinda was, in the same way everything in Danny's life seemed to be one big cosmic joke. If anything made him think maybe there was a God out there somewhere it was the way that only someone with an epic sense of humor could possibly have designed his life.
It had been two weeks. Weeks since they almost died, since he'd come out of the remains of a building in more pieces than he'd gone in with.
Two weeks since Steve had forced the words out of him he'd avoided saying to anyone since Rachel.
He'd more or less said them to Steve years ago, after watching him go over a cliff, being sure he was lost forever, only to find him with nothing more than a broken arm. Oh Danny had played it off with an air heart, but it hadn't taken him all that long to figure out he'd meant them far more than he'd realized.
He was painfully aware now.
Steve had taken to saying it in lieu of goodbye half the time, as if he wanted to make sure Danny remembered their talk, remembered to embrace life instead of pushing it away. Or maybe he just thought it was amusing. Who knew with Steve?
So Danny was braced for it as they wrapped up their conversation. " Amber's waiting in the car, I gotta go."
"Amber's waiting in the car?"
"Yeah, Amber's waiting in the car, that's what I said."
There was something odd about Steve's smile. "Things must've gone well in Maui, then."
"They did," Danny said. "You look surprised."
"Well, I'm a little surprised, given your propensity to blow up relationships."
Oh that was rich, coming from the guy who couldn't commit to anything more than a pair of pants."My propensity to blow up relationships? That's funny, coming from the guy whose girlfriend is currently AWOL."
"AWOL?"
"Yeah."
"No, I know where she is," Steve said, sounding a little defensive, at least to Danny's ears. "She's on the mainland visiting friends."
"To get away from you," Danny said. He was teasing, but as much as Catherine was gone lately, Danny was starting to wonder just a little if that was the case.
He wondered if Steve had the same doubts, based on the face he made. "Go to PT," he said after a moment.
"I will."
"Enjoy," he added, his tone mocking now.
Danny mocked right back. "Thank you."
"I hope it hurts."
"Uh-huh."
"A lot." Steve turned to walk away. "I love ya."
"Love you, too," Danny said, the light and breezy tone well practiced after two weeks.
***
Danny watched through the mirror as Steve talked to Dawn. He didn't know how that girl wasn't even flinching--there was seriously something wrong with her. In her shoes, Danny would, at the very least, be rethinking the attitude.
It was Steve's tone, though, that held Danny's real attention, as he told Dawn about his own philosophy of never, ever stop fighting for what's right. It wasn't that Danny wasn't well aware that that was Steve's default setting and always would be--of course he was.
But Steve's tone underscored how much he believed in that to his core, how much it was wired in his DNA. Steve would be that guy until the day he took a bullet or came across a bomb he couldn't diffuse or a building successfully crushed him.
And then Danny would lose him.
Amber was so much safer. She was also far less likely to get killed--that one random bullet incident aside. Of course, there was a good chance she would wise up and leave him. But even if she did, it wouldn’t gut him the way it will when he loses Steve.
There's a lot to be said for safety.
***
Danny was just about to open a beer when his phone rang, Steve's face smiling up from the screen. He put the beer back in the fridge, figuring he was about to leave for a case. "I just dropped you off an hour ago," Danny said. "You miss me already?"
"I always miss you," Steve said in that same tone he'd taken to using when he said 'I love you.'
"We got a case?" Danny asked.
"No." The deep breath that came across the phone had Danny tensing for what might come next. "I'm going to San Diego tonight."
"Okay. What for?"
" I want to tell Kirk Emerson that we got the guys that killed his buddies and injured him."
Danny thought that might be just what Steve needed. "That's a good idea."
"I'm taking a redeye at 10:15. It'll get me in to LA early in the morning and I can drive down to San Diego and then come back tomorrow night." Danny could hear there was more, even through the silence. "You don't have to come," Steve said finally, "but I thought, if you wanted to be there to tell him the news, there's another seat available."
Danny thought about sleeping through the night on a plane next to Steve. That was a bad idea. But supporting Steve, being there for him...that trumped anything else. "I'll pick you up at seven," Danny said. "Wear something nice and I might even buy you dinner," he added, teasing.
"I'm not a cheap date," Steve joked back.
"I have the bar tabs to prove that," Danny said with a laugh. "I'll see you at seven."
"Okay." Steve said. "Hey, Danno?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks."
***
Danny fought his way through the darkness of sleep at the sound of his name, quiet but with concern. He woke to find his head on Steve's shoulder, his arm lying in Steve's lap. He sat up, looking around, but no one on the plane seemed to be looking at them.
Steve was asleep, but shifting uncomfortably, muttering. Danny heard his name a couple more times before he wrapped a hand around Steve's bicep. "Hey, Steve," he said soft against Steve's ear. "Wake up."
He shook Steve's arm a little, and Steve blinked sleepily at him, panic and fear evident in his eyes before whatever dream he'd been caught up in faded, taking them with it. "Danny?"
"Yeah."
"Are we there?"
"No, about another hour." Danny hesitated, then decided to go with it. "Still having the dreams?"
"No."
Danny raised an eyebrow at him. "You were just asleep beside me, and I woke you up. You want to try that answer again?"
Steve sighed. "Yes. Sometimes. It got worse after the bomb," he said quietly, eyes tracking somewhere around Danny's nose. "It had died down a little the past few days, but this case...."
"Yeah." Danny eyed him carefully. "You know I'm here if you wanna talk, right?"
"Yeah. I just...don't know what to say. It's all up here," Steve said, tapping his temple, "and I have to learn how to live with it, you know?"
"Yeah," Danny said softly. "Yeah, I do."
He leaned into Steve's warmth and closed his eyes, savoring the feel and smell of him so close in the middle of the night.
He didn't sleep.
***
Steve was quiet until they got close to San Diego. He told Danny a few stories about the time he'd spent there, stories about trouble he and Freddie and their friends had gotten into that Danny had difficulty believing all of, because they'd all managed to graduate without getting kicked out.
It was good to hear Steve talk about Freddie, though, outside of his nightmares. He thought it was a good sign, that he wasn't just pretending he hadn't existed. And Danny liked hearing stories from Steve, who had once guarded so much of his past so zelously.
When they walked into the rehab center, Danny felt overwhelmingly guilty. Two weeks ago he and Steve had walked out of a building that fell on them, walked away from a bomb mostly intact. And it wasn't even their first near-death experience from explosives.
These guys hadn't been so lucky.
"Do me a favor," Danny said. "You hear me complain about my PT ever again, I want you to punch me in the head, okay?"
He could tell from Steve's quiet "Okay," that he took it as it was meant.
They spotted Emerson on a table, doing pushups. Danny wasn't surprised to see he had the same mentality as Steve--just doing my job, bad day at the office...right. He remembered Steve's voice when he'd been talking to Dawn the day before, and saw the same kind of determination and fight in Emerson. In everyone around them.
He got it, really, he did. He was a cop so far down into his core that it had cost him his marriage. But even a cop got to go home and sleep in a bed most nights. They rarely had to worry about IEDs or RPGs or any other kind of thing blowing them up. And he knew plenty of cops who'd gone through their whole career without even getting shot.
These guys who went out on the front lines and slept in tents or on the ground, who did it for shit pay because they believed in a cause were another class of human altogether. They had this almost childlike belief in a freedom Danny often questioned was really free anymore, even if the fact that he could question it said it was.
Emerson's reaction reminded Danny of one of the things he loved about being a cop. It was a grim satisfaction, being able to tell someone the people who took something from them were going to pay, but it was still a satisfaction. And in a job like his, he had to take them where he could get them.
He glanced around the room again, imagining Steve here, having not been so lucky with one of his near misses Danny had heard so much about. He could picture him going through the exercises with the same determination he faced everything, stoic and refusing to give in to self-pity.
It made Steve's optimism in the face of all he'd seen and done make more sense. Steve took the world as it was and did everything he could to make it better, and just hoped that it all had to make a difference in the end.
If Steve could do that, if all these guys could...maybe Danny wasn't setting his optimistic sights high enough.
Maybe he should rethink the idea that Steve was too high a risk to take.
Of course, that presumed that Steve hadn't decided Catherine was a better choice anyway. And that he could get Steve to actually break up with her.
He shoved the negative thoughts aside, content to let the idea lie quietly in a corner of his brain. He'd let it stay there for the moment and see if it grew.
If it did, maybe, just maybe, he'd think about taking a chance.
---
END
Author: stellarmeadow
Fandom: Hawaii Five-0
Paring: Steve/Danny
Rating: G
Summary: Two weeks out from a near-death experience can bring you a certain amount of perspective.
Notes: Written at 30,000 feet, on 3 hours of sleep. Hope it makes sense!
Spoilers all over the place from 4.20. You've been warned!
Part of the S4 Coda Series - if you've missed any, visit the master post.
It wasn't funny.
Except for the way it kinda was, in the same way everything in Danny's life seemed to be one big cosmic joke. If anything made him think maybe there was a God out there somewhere it was the way that only someone with an epic sense of humor could possibly have designed his life.
It had been two weeks. Weeks since they almost died, since he'd come out of the remains of a building in more pieces than he'd gone in with.
Two weeks since Steve had forced the words out of him he'd avoided saying to anyone since Rachel.
He'd more or less said them to Steve years ago, after watching him go over a cliff, being sure he was lost forever, only to find him with nothing more than a broken arm. Oh Danny had played it off with an air heart, but it hadn't taken him all that long to figure out he'd meant them far more than he'd realized.
He was painfully aware now.
Steve had taken to saying it in lieu of goodbye half the time, as if he wanted to make sure Danny remembered their talk, remembered to embrace life instead of pushing it away. Or maybe he just thought it was amusing. Who knew with Steve?
So Danny was braced for it as they wrapped up their conversation. " Amber's waiting in the car, I gotta go."
"Amber's waiting in the car?"
"Yeah, Amber's waiting in the car, that's what I said."
There was something odd about Steve's smile. "Things must've gone well in Maui, then."
"They did," Danny said. "You look surprised."
"Well, I'm a little surprised, given your propensity to blow up relationships."
Oh that was rich, coming from the guy who couldn't commit to anything more than a pair of pants."My propensity to blow up relationships? That's funny, coming from the guy whose girlfriend is currently AWOL."
"AWOL?"
"Yeah."
"No, I know where she is," Steve said, sounding a little defensive, at least to Danny's ears. "She's on the mainland visiting friends."
"To get away from you," Danny said. He was teasing, but as much as Catherine was gone lately, Danny was starting to wonder just a little if that was the case.
He wondered if Steve had the same doubts, based on the face he made. "Go to PT," he said after a moment.
"I will."
"Enjoy," he added, his tone mocking now.
Danny mocked right back. "Thank you."
"I hope it hurts."
"Uh-huh."
"A lot." Steve turned to walk away. "I love ya."
"Love you, too," Danny said, the light and breezy tone well practiced after two weeks.
***
Danny watched through the mirror as Steve talked to Dawn. He didn't know how that girl wasn't even flinching--there was seriously something wrong with her. In her shoes, Danny would, at the very least, be rethinking the attitude.
It was Steve's tone, though, that held Danny's real attention, as he told Dawn about his own philosophy of never, ever stop fighting for what's right. It wasn't that Danny wasn't well aware that that was Steve's default setting and always would be--of course he was.
But Steve's tone underscored how much he believed in that to his core, how much it was wired in his DNA. Steve would be that guy until the day he took a bullet or came across a bomb he couldn't diffuse or a building successfully crushed him.
And then Danny would lose him.
Amber was so much safer. She was also far less likely to get killed--that one random bullet incident aside. Of course, there was a good chance she would wise up and leave him. But even if she did, it wouldn’t gut him the way it will when he loses Steve.
There's a lot to be said for safety.
***
Danny was just about to open a beer when his phone rang, Steve's face smiling up from the screen. He put the beer back in the fridge, figuring he was about to leave for a case. "I just dropped you off an hour ago," Danny said. "You miss me already?"
"I always miss you," Steve said in that same tone he'd taken to using when he said 'I love you.'
"We got a case?" Danny asked.
"No." The deep breath that came across the phone had Danny tensing for what might come next. "I'm going to San Diego tonight."
"Okay. What for?"
" I want to tell Kirk Emerson that we got the guys that killed his buddies and injured him."
Danny thought that might be just what Steve needed. "That's a good idea."
"I'm taking a redeye at 10:15. It'll get me in to LA early in the morning and I can drive down to San Diego and then come back tomorrow night." Danny could hear there was more, even through the silence. "You don't have to come," Steve said finally, "but I thought, if you wanted to be there to tell him the news, there's another seat available."
Danny thought about sleeping through the night on a plane next to Steve. That was a bad idea. But supporting Steve, being there for him...that trumped anything else. "I'll pick you up at seven," Danny said. "Wear something nice and I might even buy you dinner," he added, teasing.
"I'm not a cheap date," Steve joked back.
"I have the bar tabs to prove that," Danny said with a laugh. "I'll see you at seven."
"Okay." Steve said. "Hey, Danno?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks."
***
Danny fought his way through the darkness of sleep at the sound of his name, quiet but with concern. He woke to find his head on Steve's shoulder, his arm lying in Steve's lap. He sat up, looking around, but no one on the plane seemed to be looking at them.
Steve was asleep, but shifting uncomfortably, muttering. Danny heard his name a couple more times before he wrapped a hand around Steve's bicep. "Hey, Steve," he said soft against Steve's ear. "Wake up."
He shook Steve's arm a little, and Steve blinked sleepily at him, panic and fear evident in his eyes before whatever dream he'd been caught up in faded, taking them with it. "Danny?"
"Yeah."
"Are we there?"
"No, about another hour." Danny hesitated, then decided to go with it. "Still having the dreams?"
"No."
Danny raised an eyebrow at him. "You were just asleep beside me, and I woke you up. You want to try that answer again?"
Steve sighed. "Yes. Sometimes. It got worse after the bomb," he said quietly, eyes tracking somewhere around Danny's nose. "It had died down a little the past few days, but this case...."
"Yeah." Danny eyed him carefully. "You know I'm here if you wanna talk, right?"
"Yeah. I just...don't know what to say. It's all up here," Steve said, tapping his temple, "and I have to learn how to live with it, you know?"
"Yeah," Danny said softly. "Yeah, I do."
He leaned into Steve's warmth and closed his eyes, savoring the feel and smell of him so close in the middle of the night.
He didn't sleep.
***
Steve was quiet until they got close to San Diego. He told Danny a few stories about the time he'd spent there, stories about trouble he and Freddie and their friends had gotten into that Danny had difficulty believing all of, because they'd all managed to graduate without getting kicked out.
It was good to hear Steve talk about Freddie, though, outside of his nightmares. He thought it was a good sign, that he wasn't just pretending he hadn't existed. And Danny liked hearing stories from Steve, who had once guarded so much of his past so zelously.
When they walked into the rehab center, Danny felt overwhelmingly guilty. Two weeks ago he and Steve had walked out of a building that fell on them, walked away from a bomb mostly intact. And it wasn't even their first near-death experience from explosives.
These guys hadn't been so lucky.
"Do me a favor," Danny said. "You hear me complain about my PT ever again, I want you to punch me in the head, okay?"
He could tell from Steve's quiet "Okay," that he took it as it was meant.
They spotted Emerson on a table, doing pushups. Danny wasn't surprised to see he had the same mentality as Steve--just doing my job, bad day at the office...right. He remembered Steve's voice when he'd been talking to Dawn the day before, and saw the same kind of determination and fight in Emerson. In everyone around them.
He got it, really, he did. He was a cop so far down into his core that it had cost him his marriage. But even a cop got to go home and sleep in a bed most nights. They rarely had to worry about IEDs or RPGs or any other kind of thing blowing them up. And he knew plenty of cops who'd gone through their whole career without even getting shot.
These guys who went out on the front lines and slept in tents or on the ground, who did it for shit pay because they believed in a cause were another class of human altogether. They had this almost childlike belief in a freedom Danny often questioned was really free anymore, even if the fact that he could question it said it was.
Emerson's reaction reminded Danny of one of the things he loved about being a cop. It was a grim satisfaction, being able to tell someone the people who took something from them were going to pay, but it was still a satisfaction. And in a job like his, he had to take them where he could get them.
He glanced around the room again, imagining Steve here, having not been so lucky with one of his near misses Danny had heard so much about. He could picture him going through the exercises with the same determination he faced everything, stoic and refusing to give in to self-pity.
It made Steve's optimism in the face of all he'd seen and done make more sense. Steve took the world as it was and did everything he could to make it better, and just hoped that it all had to make a difference in the end.
If Steve could do that, if all these guys could...maybe Danny wasn't setting his optimistic sights high enough.
Maybe he should rethink the idea that Steve was too high a risk to take.
Of course, that presumed that Steve hadn't decided Catherine was a better choice anyway. And that he could get Steve to actually break up with her.
He shoved the negative thoughts aside, content to let the idea lie quietly in a corner of his brain. He'd let it stay there for the moment and see if it grew.
If it did, maybe, just maybe, he'd think about taking a chance.
---
END