FIC: Rough Patches (3/3)
Apr. 20th, 2011 12:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stellarmeadowTitle: Rough Patches
Author: stellarmeadow
Fandom: Hawaii Five-0
Pairing: Steve/Danny
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Three cases that shine a light on particular issues inherent in any relationship between Steve McGarrett and Danny Williams.
Notes: Huge thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
celli, chelseafrew and corilannam for cheerleading, reading, feedback, support and general awesomeness. More notes on celli at the end of the chapter...when they won't be a spoiler. ;-) Special thanks on this chapter to firstyoufall for last minute reading and reassuring! :)
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
It felt like they'd been asleep for all of five minutes when the phone rang, but the pale sunlight peeking in through the windows proved it was more like five hours. Danny managed to pull his arm out from under Steve, who was draped over Danny's body like a blanket, and grab for the phone.
"What?"
"Commander McGarrett?" The Governor was far too awake for this time of the day.
Danny sighed. "No, he's asleep. Uh, upstairs."
"Right, of course, Daniel," she said, sounding amused, "upstairs."
Well, it wasn't a lie. He was asleep upstairs. Danny was just there with him. "I'll get him on the phone," he said.
"You do that. Upstairs."
She was all but laughing, and Danny muted the phone and counted to ten as he shook Steve awake. "What's wrong?" Steve said, rolling off Danny and sitting up in bed, actually managing to sound as if he hadn't just been out so deep he hadn't even heard the phone.
"I don't know," Danny said, "but the Governor's on the phone."
He unmuted the phone and handed it to Steve, who hit the speaker button so Danny could hear. "Hello, Governor."
"Commander," she said, still sounding amused. "Sorry to bother you so early, especially on a Saturday, but I'm afraid it can't wait. We've just received information that a very large shipment of guns is about to be delivered and sold in Hawaii. What we don't know is exactly when, where or by whom."
"It's not like there are a lot of players who can handle a large shipment in this region," Steve said, frowning.
"You're right, except that everything seems to point to an entirely new group of players. Hence the urgency. We have very little time and not much to go on."
Steve nodded, even though she couldn't see him. "We'll be in shortly. Send us everything you have."
"Already waiting on you. Sorry, I know it's been a long couple of weeks."
Considering she'd called Danny directly to find out how Steve was doing after the Waters murder, Danny knew she was sincere. And yet she was calling anyway. "That's what we're here for," Steve said, ruining the effect--at least on Danny's end of the conversation--with a yawn.
"Thank you."
Steve hung up, and Danny took the phone and put it back on the base. "I'm starting to daydream about sleep," Danny said.
"I know." Steve rubbed his face, then shook his head. "Okay," he said, his hand landing on Danny's shoulder for a second, "let's go."
They called Chin and Kono from the car and told them to come in. By the time Chin and Kono joined them, Steve and Danny were already sorting through the evidence, what little there was of it. "I don't even know how they got that much from this little," Danny said, frowning as he looked through the papers again.
"See, this line," Steve pointed at an email from one of the alleged gun runners, "that's how they know the size of the shipment. It's code for--"
"Yes, that part I followed, thank you, I'm not five years old." He held the papers up with both hands. "It's just--codes and guesses and adding one and one and getting four...it doesn't give us much to work with is what I'm saying."
"We'll figure it out."
Chin was looking at the email Danny still held in one hand. "They included the email headers, so we can start with the IP addresses and do some tracing there."
Danny handed him the print out. "I don't know what that means, but I'll take it," he said.
Kono was looking at a grainy picture she'd pulled out of the small stack of papers. "This place looks familiar. Let me start scanning all of this into the computer and see if it can help us figure out something we might be missing on our own."
"You do that," Danny said, before draining his mug. "I'm going for more coffee."
He hadn't even hit the button to brew the coffee when he heard Steve coming up behind him. "Tired?" Steve asked, left hand landing on Danny's shoulder, drifting lightly over the tire iron bruise he knew was under the shirt--eerily accurate on the location, Danny realized, not that he was surprised.
"I'm fine." He turned around to face Steve. "We still need to talk." He held up a hand to stop Steve before he could start. "No, not now, obviously. But...soon. Fucking gun runners couldn't wait one more day to accidentally reveal the tip of their annoying little plan?"
"Clearly we need to give the criminals a copy of our personal schedules."
"Think maybe if we told them the next three years were booked they'd stay out of Hawaii?"
"Worth a try."
The coffee finished streaming into Danny's cup and he turned back around to pull the mug out, adding a generous amount of sugar before tasting it. "It's not sleep, but it's better than nothing," he said, heading for the door. "Coming?"
"In a minute." Steve held up his own empty coffee mug
Danny went back into the main room. Chin and Kono were bent over opposite sides of the computer table, but they looked up, saw Danny alone, and stopped in unison to fix Danny with identical expressions.
"What's with the Wonder Twins thing?"
"What?" they said at the same time.
"Never mind. What's wrong?"
Chin glanced at Kono, who looked at the door. "How's he doing?" she asked.
"He'll be fine," Danny said, reluctant to talk about any of it with them, especially before he and Steve really had a chance to talk. "And my shoulder's fine, too, by the way, thanks for asking."
Kono sighed. "Danny--"
Steve walked in, silencing her. When Danny looked back at the computer table, Chin and Kono were huddled over it once more, as if they hadn't ever stopped. They went back to working on the case, and by the time Steve left the room again, it was as if the question had never been asked.
By Wednesday, Danny would've given up his right arm for even the amount of sleep he'd gotten Friday night. They were gaining ground on their gun runners, and knew the sale wasn't going down until Friday, which was good. But if they didn't gain a little faster, they would be too late, and they were all frustrated and exhausted.
Steve had, at least, been acting normal. Acting being the operative word. Something was off, and Danny was too tired to figure it out, and they were too busy trying to catch the gun runners to talk.
The conversation, unfortunately, wasn't one they could fit in between shoveling down meals over paper trails on their gun runners, running down leads, and falling into bed long enough to have sex and pass out. And even if Danny had been willing to say, whoa, hang on, put that back in your pants so we can talk, he wasn't stupid. He could see it in Steve's eyes, could feel it in the way he held on too tight-- trying to stop him to talk would not be helping anything. All he could do for the moment was give him what he needed.
The way Steve stroked his fingers lightly over the tire iron bruise, the rest of his body tense, but his fingers so, so gentle, wasn't lost on Danny either. Steve might be pretending like nothing was wrong, but he hadn't gotten over anything. Not yet. And maybe he never would.
Danny was never going to stop nagging him about things like driving too fast, leaping off things that could get him killed--there was a long list. It was less about getting over it and more about learning how to live with it, especially when what you were living with was letting someone you cared about throw themselves into danger head first.
If he could live with it when that person was Steven "I'm going to jump off this cliff holding a grenade" McGarrett, Steve sure as hell could find a way to return the favor.
He checked his watch, wondering where Steve was. He'd gone to follow up on a lead that had turned out to be another dead end, and called to say he'd be back soon, but that had been half an hour ago. He should've been back in fifteen minutes.
Danny went back to the papers he'd been reading, new communications they'd collected that morning, frowning as he read a phrase for the third time. "Engaging tropical vista," he muttered out loud. Something about it seemed vaguely familiar.
Then it hit him--he'd seen the phrase in a listing for a rental when he'd first moved to Hawaii. The realtor had used it to describe the view, and it had stuck in his memory. He'd even looked at the place, which had been a nice size, despite the 'engaging tropical vista' actually being a parking lot, with a few straggly palm trees on the other side. It had been a little too much money anyway, and he'd ended up in his one-room shit hole instead.
Surely it couldn't be that easy. He went back to his computer and searched for the term, and found the house as the only result. Would the gun runners really have risked giving away their location like that? It didn't seem likely, but they were running out of time and leads, so he should at least check it out.
Chin and Kono were off talking to a source, and Danny tried to reach Steve, but got voicemail again. He left a message with information on where he was going, left a note for Chin and Kono, and headed out to the Camaro. The house was about half an hour from HQ, but the parking lot was exactly like he remembered it, with only about a fourth of the spots filled. Not as good for surveillance if he wanted to blend in, but it did offer a great view of the house.
He parked, watching the house from his car for a while as the sun sank lower in the sky, but nothing happened. In a couple of hours it would be dark and much harder to see anything. Then again, he assumed at least one of the cars in the lot belonged to the current occupants. Maybe if he looked around at the cars, he might get lucky a second time. He got out carefully, looking around his own car and frowning as if he'd lost something. Slowly, he moved to each car, pretending to look, while checking out what was inside of each.
The fifth car was a beat up late-90s Taurus, which had likely once been silver, but was now a dirty brownish-gray. It was the kind of car you wouldn't even notice on the street, but when Danny saw the papers on the passenger seat, it had his full attention. He recognized a picture in the pile as the one Kono had thought was familiar, but had yet to place. He suspected, however, that the map lying under it might pinpoint the location. If he could just get a slightly better look, he thought, rubbing the window to clear away the dirt.
"What the hell do you think you're doing to my car?"
Danny crouched down, pulling his phone out of his pocket. "Nothing," he said, standing and holding up his phone. Three goons stood side by side a few feet away. "I was talking to my ex, and I got mad and kicked the phone, and have been trying to find it. It was under your car. Sorry."
"Really?" The middle goon asked. And Danny had thought it sounded believable, but apparently not so much. "It looks like it's in good shape for something you kicked across sandy pavement."
Danny shrugged. "What can I say, Windows Mobile is sturdier than it looks."
"Right."
Figures he'd end up with criminals who weren't as stupid as they looked. "Anyway," Danny said, side stepping to the end of the car, "I'll just be heading home now."
"I don't think so," the man said. As the three advanced on him, with the car blocking him from behind, Danny did the only thing he could. He dropped his phone, shoved it just underneath their car with his foot, and surrendered.
And of course, it being Wednesday (and he was really starting to hate Wednesdays), they put in him a windowless room and tied him to a chair. At least they used rope and not duct tape, which he was thankful for. Because duct tape hurt like a bitch when you ripped it off, no matter how you did it, and the mere fact that he knew that far too well made him hate Wednesdays even more.
He jerked at the ropes a little just to have something to do. In addition to not being entirely stupid, the goons were apparently good with knots. They'd tied him pretty thoroughly, arms behind his back, legs to the chair, and he was stuck with nothing to do wait for rescue. Wait...and stare at the particularly hideous pineapple wallpaper that the dim overhead light managed to make look sinister. He hoped that the team showed up before that wallpaper drove him crazy.
There was no doubt the team would show up. Their gun runners weren't stupid, but they were cocky, and cocky people made stupid mistakes, no matter how smart they were. They also had no idea what they were up against. The only reason they were keeping him was so that in "the unlikely event someone actually catches up with us, we have leverage." So they'd said before they'd smacked him around a bit, anyway--and really, he'd had worse, but they were easily fooled by a little blood into thinking they'd really hurt him.
He didn't disabuse them of the notion.
Steve had the address on his voicemail, and Chin and Kono had it on paper back at HQ. His rescue was not in question. In fact, he was kind of surprised the team wasn't there already. Then again, it would only just be getting dark out, if his concept of time wasn't completely fucked up, and darkness would give them an edge in taking the house unnoticed.
As if on cue, he heard shouting and gunfire from the front of the house. The firefight over with satisfying speed, and the echoes of the last shots weren't even gone when he heard Steve yelling his name. "In here!" Danny called back, glad the gun runners hadn't bothered to cover his mouth. A moment later, Steve was crashing through the door, gun out, checking every corner from the doorway. "You think they'd have let me call out to you if someone had been in here?" Danny asked.
Steve blinked, frowning as he holstered his Sig. "I was just being thorough," he said, kneeling beside the chair to try untying the knots in the ropes around Danny's hands. He spent a few seconds on it before growling, pulling out his knife, and cutting the ropes away.
"Thank you," Danny said, rubbing his wrists gingerly and starting to flex his legs. He felt creaky as he moved around, but he was starting to feel like the chair was becoming a permanent part of his ass, so he pushed himself up to his feet, only to lose his balance and fall into Steve. "Sorry."
He glanced up at Steve's face, frowning at the look there. Steve was staring past Danny, and Danny followed his eye line to see it was the chair that had Steve's attention. Of course. Another chair, one week to the day from the Waters murder. "Can we get out of here?" Danny said, pushing Steve toward the door. "I'm sick of the wallpaper."
The nudge seemed to shake Steve back into his 'acting normal' self. "Kind of ironic," he said, fingering the design before he walked out. "What with your fondness for pineapples."
"Shut up," Danny said, giving him a little shove toward the front of the house. Chin, Kono and several members of HPD were busy removing the gun runners from the house and bagging evidence. Danny stopped to talk to Chin and Kono, but he'd barely gotten a sentence out before Steve was guiding him out the door.
Only when they stopped at the back of an ambulance did Danny realize what was going on. "I'm fine," he said, glaring at Steve.
"Humor me."
"Humor you? I humor you every day, Steven. I let you call me Danno, I let you blow shit up, I let you put your neck on the line--I don't think I need to stoop to getting checked out over a couple of punches." He looked at the EMT, nodding at her with a quick smile. "No offense, I'm sure you are very good at your job, but I'm fine."
Steve took a deep breath, looking down his nose at Danny in that way that caused an itch under Danny's skin, just at the base of his hairline. "Don't make me lie to Grace the next time she asks me if I take care of you out here."
"That's low." Danny growled, but Steve just continued to stare at him. "Fine." He hopped up onto the back of the ambulance, managing to hide the wince from the movement, and let his feet dangle over the bumper. "Just so you know, I am doing this under protest, solely for Grace's benefit--and so this nice lady here didn't come all the way out here for nothing." He smiled at the EMT. "I appreciate your sacrifice," he said, "I know we keep you busy."
She smiled as she wrapped a blood pressure cuff around his arm. "The overtime is paying for my daughter's college," she said. "Don't sweat it."
"See?" Steve said. "We're helping her put her kid through school. Isn't that great?"
"You are psychotic," Danny said, wincing as the cuff tightened on his arm, his muscles sore from being tied behind his back for so long. The EMT checked other routine things, poked around his bruises a bit, and pronounced him to be fine, relatively speaking.
"You see that, Steven? I'm fine."
Steve rolled his eyes. "Relatively speaking."
"Whatever, can I go back to doing my job now?"
Surveying the scene for a long moment, Steve shrugged. "They look like they're winding up. Let me take you home."
As much as Danny wanted to argue, he looked around and realized Steve was right. There wasn't much left for him to do, and he'd only be in the way while CSU did its job. "Fine." Danny hopped off the ambulance and thanked the EMT before following Steve to his truck. "I need to get my car," he said as Steve pulled away from the scene.
"We found it." Steve said, his jaw tight. "And your phone, which led us right to their car." He reached into his pocket and took out Danny's keys and his phone, handing them over. "Nice work with that, by the way. HPD took care of the Camaro. It should be waiting for you."
"Thanks." The ride passed in silence after that. Danny was nursing muscles that ached now that the adrenaline had worn off, and Steve seemed lost in some less than pleasant thoughts. Danny had a feeling that might have something to do with Steve's father's death, the Waters murder and now this, but he didn't know what to say, and short of banning chairs from existence, he didn't know how to stop it from happening in their line of work. Bad guys liked to tie people to chairs. There really was no getting around it.
So he closed his eyes and tried to ignore the aches every time they hit a bump. It wasn't until they made a turn that seemed odd that he opened his eyes and realized they were going to his apartment, not Steve's house. He gave Steve a long look, but either he was too busy thinking to notice, or he was ignoring it.
They pulled up, and Danny saw his car was parked there, which explained it. He could've done with not having to drive until tomorrow, but he also wasn't fond of leaving her here overnight unattended.
He undid the seatbelt and reached for the door handle, but Steve's words stopped him cold. "Get some sleep. I'll see you tomorrow at HQ."
Danny ignored the twinge as he twisted his head to look at Steve. He was facing Danny, but his eyes were fixed on Danny's hand on the door. "O...kay." He wanted to ask why the hell he was being relegated to his own place yet again, but they were somewhere in that gray area of dating--if you could call what they were doing dating--where he felt the right to ask, but not necessarily the ability.
"You need some sleep," Steve said, softly, as if that was the only explanation for him dropping Danny off.
"Okay...." Danny shook his head. He was too tired to argue. "Yeah, I'll see you tomorrow."
He got out of the truck and made his way slowly up the stairs, feeling Steve's gaze the entire way. When he had closed the door, he heard the truck pull away.
Not for the first time, he wondered if this was really worth it. There were easier relationships to be had--even without the obvious issues of a relationship with his partner, who happened to be a very male Navy SEAL, even if he was in the reserves, Steve was a great big mess. Only an idiot would choose to jump into the middle of that.
But then, there wasn't much of a choice. It just was, and he couldn't stop himself any more than he could stop Steve from breaking every rule in the playbook on the job. Steve might be a basket case, but he was Danny's basket case, and nothing else mattered in the end.
And he'd need a lot of sleep to deal with his basket case in the morning, Danny realized. He headed off to the shower, wondering if that morning would come in the middle of the night with Steve standing over him, waiting to attack.
When he realized he hoped the answer was yes, he knew he was really screwed.
***
Danny awoke to bright sunlight, the sound of his alarm buzzing softly, and the sound of Mr. Kapule's incredibly bad singing over the knocking shower pipes in the apartment next door. There was no sign of Steve, no sign he'd been there, and Danny's phone had no texts, voicemails or missed calls.
He wasn't sure if that was good or bad. He wouldn't find out if he didn't get to work, though, so he stretched a little to work out the aches and got ready to go. Steve's truck was in its parking spot when Danny pulled into his own beside it. The truck had apparently been there for some time, judging by the cold tires and engine.
They were really going to have to have a talk about his apparent lack of understanding that even he, on occasion, needed to sleep.
Kono was coming out of the front door of the building as Danny walked up the short steps. "We catch a case?" Danny asked, not sure if he wanted the answer to be yes or no.
She shook her head. "I'm going for coffee."
They had a state of the art coffee machine that could make almost anything they wanted. "Why?"
"I don't know what you did to piss McGarrett off, but my coffee break is going to be very long if you don't promise to fix it when you get in there."
"What I did?" Danny threw his hands in the air. "What I did was get dumped off at my place like a library book he'd had out too long and told to 'get some sleep.' So if you're waiting for me to fix whatever's wrong with him, you might as well make the coffee break a day off."
She nodded. "Good idea. Call me if we get a case. I'll be at the shore."
They hadn't had a day off in around two weeks, and the informal rule was that they could take time here and there as long as they were reachable, so he just waved and watched her disappear around the corner before going inside.
He could hear Steve yelling when he walked through the doors. The silence that followed, punctuated by more yelling, told him at least it was someone on the phone getting reamed, and not Chin. Danny went to the kitchen to find Chin sitting at the table with a cup of coffee.
"What did you do to him, brah?" Chin asked.
"Why does everyone assume this is my fault? The guy is certifiably insane--maybe his imaginary friend drank the last of his protein shakes." Chin raised an eyebrow and sipped at his coffee. "Okay, fine," Danny continued, "we may occasionally piss each other off a little, but I swear to you, this one is not on me. I haven't seen him since he dropped me off last night."
Chin put the coffee down. "I see."
"You see? You see what?"
"Never mind." He got up. "Have you seen Kono?"
Danny punched the button on the coffee machine with more force than necessary. "I saw her out front. She was going surfing."
"Damn. She beat me to it."
For a second, Danny thought of telling him to go, too. They usually tried not to be more than one man down during a weekday, but it had been a hell of a couple of weeks, and it wasn't like they would be that far away if anything happened. Then Steve's yelling was punctuated with a slam. "Too bad," Danny said, not giving a damn if he was a coward who didn't want to be left alone with Steve all day, "you'll have to be faster next time."
"I'll be filing if you need me," Chin said, picking up his coffee and leaving the kitchen. Danny knew there wasn't that much that needed to be filed, since most of the paperwork for the last two weeks was still unfinished on his desk, but the filing room was the most remote room in their offices. He had a feeling Chin would find a way to be in there for a long time.
He took his coffee toward his office, then realized that the yelling had stopped. Might as well at least get this part over with, he decided, switching directions and stopping just inside Steve's door. "Morning," he said.
Steve looked up from the files he was tearing through, the anger on his face shuttering down instantly to a polite mask. "Morning," he replied, eyes fixed on Danny's coffee cup. "Feeling better?"
"Oh, yes, a night on the crappy pull out sofa in my apartment was just what the doctor ordered."
Steve's jaw looked like it was about to crack under pressure, but the polite mask remained otherwise. "You should've taken something."
"I didn't want to sleep through any home invasions," Danny said, intentionally baiting now. "But apparently I didn't have to worry."
"You want your home to be invaded in the middle of the night?" Steve asked, the mask slipping just enough to show confusion.
"Depends on who does the invading."
The mask slammed back into place. "Oh." He glanced down at his files. "I've got to, uh...the Governor. I need to take her a file, and it's..somewhere here," he said, waving a hand at the pile.
"Good luck with that," Danny said, retreating to his office.
He lost himself in paperwork, the only good thing about that part of his job, only noticing how long he'd been at it when his stomach growled. He checked his watch, surprised to find it was after 2. Stretching a little, his muscles protesting, he got up and went to find Chin, who was still in the filing room. He was working at a laptop, confirming Danny's suspicion that he'd gone in there to hide. "Have you eaten?" Danny asked.
"Yeah, I brought lunch. I ate a little while ago."
Danny nodded. "I'm going to get some food," he said, turning around and heading for the front door. He could hear Steve banging around in his office, and after a moment of hesitation, he stopped there. "How'd it go with the Governor?"
"Fine," Steve said, not looking up from his computer.
"I'm going to go get something to eat. Have you eaten?"
Steve was staring at his screen as if it contained the secret to life. "No, but I'm fine," he said. "I'll eat later."
So he'd been there since God only knew what time that morning and hadn't eaten, and he still wasn't interested if Danny was involved. Warring between "what the fuck?" and "whatever," Danny's stomach made the decision for him when it growled again. "I'll be back," he said, leaving before Steve could ignore him any further.
He went out to Caffe Grazie, where at least the pasta almost reminded him of home, if he didn't think too hard about it, lingering over his meal before finally dragging himself back to the office. He stopped by Steve's office, and he could've sworn Steve picked up the non-ringing phone as Danny rounded the corner, but he was listening as if it was a matter of national security.
Danny sighed, dropping a sandwich on Steve's desk, because a pissed off Steve combined with a starving Steve was not a good combination. He left Steve to his very possibly imaginary conversation and went back to his office to bury himself in paperwork.
He was almost done when Chin appeared in his doorway. "I'm heading home," he said. Though neither of them would say it for fear of jinxing it, Danny knew they were both thinking the same thing--maybe the quiet day meant they'd get at least one quiet night. They all needed the rest, but Danny also needed the time to talk to Steve before this went any further.
"Have a good one," Danny said, stretching in his chair again as Chin walked out. He looked at his watch and decided the last few papers could wait. The ones that needed Steve's signature Danny picked up and carried quietly into Steve's office, careful not to give him enough warning to suddenly be on the phone again.
He was sitting at his desk, staring at nothing. "Hey," Danny said, and Steve jumped a little.
"Didn't know you were there," Steve said, almost, but not quite, meeting Danny's eyes.
"I did the hard part," Danny said, holding up the stack of files. "Your turn."
Steve nodded as Danny laid the stack on the desk. "Thanks. You should head out, man."
"Really?" Danny wondered if Steve actually thought that was going to work, or if it was a Hail Mary. "I don't think so."
"Sure, go ahead. It's been a long couple of weeks."
Shaking his head, Danny shifted to lean against Steve's desk. "How well do you know me?"
Steve blinked a few times. "Pretty well, I guess?"
"So what about me, exactly, makes you think I'm just going to meekly go home and pretend like there's nothing going on here?"
The polite mask remained, but barely, as Steve tensed up. "There's nothing going on. You just need a rest."
"I'm old enough to figure out when I need to sleep, thanks," Danny snapped. "I don't think the same could be said for you."
"I'm fine."
"You sure about that?"
The mask was slipping, and Steve's eyes narrowed. "I said I'm fine."
"I know what you said," Danny replied. "I'm just not sure you're using the same definition of fine as the rest of us."
The muscle in Steve's jaw was twitching. "Danny," he said, his voice low and dangerous, "go home."
"No." If provoking a fight was the only way he was going to get through to Steve, then so be it.
"Go. Home."
"Make. Me."
Steve pushed himself out of the chair and was standing less than an inch away from Danny in a flash. "You need to go now," he said, his face close to Danny's.
"Or what?" Danny asked, leaning in until their noses were almost touching. "What are you gonna do?" He didn't even care if he got punched at this point--enough was enough. "What do you care enough to do, Steve? Tell me, because I don't know anymore."
"You're right," Steve said sharply, muscles so tight Danny could see the veins in his neck. "You don't know what I'm gonna do. So you should get out now."
"Why? I know you're not gonna hurt me--that would require laying your hands on me. And you can't handle that right now, can you?"
Something hot and dark burned in Steve's eyes for a brief second before he...shut down. Danny didn't know how else to describe it. His eyes were as blank as his face, and it was ten times worse than before the argument. "I'm not doing this," was all he said, as if he was speaking with a complete stranger. He backed away, leaning against the wall, and folded his arms over his chest and looked right through Danny as if he didn't even know him.
"Right." Danny nodded, flexing his fingers in and out of a fist. "Okay."
"So I'll see you tomorrow?" Danny considered his options long enough that Steve actually met his eyes. "You forget where your car was?" Steve asked.
"No, no, I know where that is." Danny shifted his weight, making his decision. "But I actually came in here for another reason. Well, I came in here to give you the files to sign, obviously, but there's a problem I need you to deal with down the hall."
Steve blinked. "What is it?"
"I'm not exactly sure. But it needs to be fixed before it gets any worse."
"Tell me where it is. I'll go look in a few minutes."
Danny shook his head. "I need to show you."
"Danny, I'm not in the mood--"
"Oh come on, Steven. This is your task force. You have to deal with this."
He sighed heavily. "Fine." He pushed away from the wall and started toward the door.
Danny took one moment to make sure Steve's gun was on the desk before leading the way down the hall to the interrogation room. "Damn. Can I borrow your phone?" Danny asked as they reached the door. "I just need to make a quick call to Grace and I have to call her before she leaves for her friends' house."
Steve pulled his phone out of his pocket and handed it to Danny before walking into the interrogation room. Danny pulled the door shut and made sure it locked, and nobody on Earth could blame him for getting a little enjoyment out of the look of shock on Steve's face, before Danny turned and walked away.
He went to his office and sent a text to Chin about where to find them if something came up. He placed Steve's phone next to his in a drawer, taking his time to give Steve time to think. After gathering a few things he'd need, he went back to interrogation to see Steve pacing like a caged panther. Danny unlocked the door long enough to step inside, letting it close with a particular click that made Steve jump. "You just--"
"Locked that door? Yes. Yes, I did." Danny put the bottles of water he'd brought with him on the table. "Because you and I are going to talk."
"That only opens from the outside when you do that, unless--tell me you have the key."
"I will tell you no such thing. You are stuck here with me until someone shows up tomorrow and lets us out."
Steve stared at him. "You're joking."
"Do I look like I'm joking?" Danny waved at the bottles. "I brought water and everything."
"Are you insane? What if there's a fire?"
"Well, I don't think there's enough water in those to put it out, so I guess we'll burn together."
Steve stared at him. "What if we catch a case?"
"Then Chin and Kono will have to come here anyway and they'll find us." He left out the part where Chin already knew where they were. The less Steve thought someone might come save him, the better.
"What the hell is wrong with you, Danny?"
Danny's eyebrows shot up. "Me? What's wrong with me? I'm not the one walking around alternately biting everyone's head off and acting like polite-pod-Steve. No, that would be you, my friend."
"What? I'm fine." He stopped pacing then, his eyes on the bottles of water. "There is nothing wrong with me."
"Oh there are so many things wrong with you I don't even know where to start, babe. And the mere fact that you think that there isn't anything wrong would be scary, except I know you're lying. So why don't you man up and tell me the truth. What is really going on here?"
Steve drummed his fingers on his thigh, his gaze making it to Danny's chin. "Okay, fine. You wanna do this now? Okay. I think we should stop."
"Stop? Stop what?"
"This. Us. We should...stop."
"Should we now? Why is that?"
"Because... " Steve turned on his heel, slowly crossing to the other side of the room, "because it's a bad idea."
Danny perched on the edge of the table, arms folded over his chest. "Really? Where have I heard that before? Oh, wait, from me. Less than a month ago. I said, repeatedly, 'This is a bad idea, Steven,' and you said 'no, no, this is a great idea!' You were very emphatic about it as you all but dragged me by the hair to your bedroom."
"Oh, yeah," Steve pivoted again, pacing back across the floor, "and you were kicking and screaming the whole way."
"No, I was not, and do you know why? Because you persuaded me--very effectively, I might add--that this was an excellent idea."
"Then we were both wrong."
Blinking, Danny balled his hand into a fist under his arm, restraining himself from lashing out. "We were wrong? How do you figure that one?"
"Because I'm in the goddamn Navy for Christ's sake! If they found out--"
"Nice try, Super SEAL, but Don't Ask Don't Tell don't matter no more. What's your next argument?"
Steve's nostrils flared as he continued to pace, only glancing in Danny's direction from time to time. "We're partners," he said, finally. "There are rules."
Danny laughed, both his hands in fists now, clutching at his shirt. "Rules? When the hell have you ever cared about rules, other than to laugh in their face as you're breaking them?"
Steve whirled around to face Danny. "At least I'm not off getting myself kidnapped and strapped to a chair and beaten or...worse!"
"Oh, no, you never get yourself caught or injured! Ever!" Danny raked a hand through his hair before putting the hand tightly back under his other arm again. "Look," he said, trying to bring his voice back under control, "I get that what happened last week freaked you out, okay? I get it. I was there the day your father was murdered--you have to know I get it, right?"
"That has nothing to do with this!"
Danny laughed. "Right. Nothing to do with it, and yet me being tied to a chair yesterday was apparently your last straw. You do know that chairs are not inherently evil, right?"
"Shut up, Danny, or I'll find a way to break bulletproof glass just to get out of here."
"No. Because I am not going to let you throw away any chance you have of a semi-normal non-work life."
Steve snorted. "You think pretty highly of yourself there, bud."
"Well, fine, then, if it isn't me you're running from, it'll be someone else!" Danny yelled, waiting until he saw that sink in. "And I'm not letting you do it, Steven. You want to get rid of me, you're going to need a better reason than 'You got yourself tied to a chair,' because really, Steven, you see this chair?" Danny picked up one of the chairs from under the table. "Watch this."
He threw it hard against the wall, smashing it into several very satisfying pieces, before turning back to Steve. "It's just a chair. It breaks."
Steve was staring at the pieces of wood. "It's not the chair," he said, his voice low.
"I know," Danny said quietly, most of his anger dissipating with the force of smashing the chair. "I know what it is. And you do, too. I can see it."
"Danny." Steve's voice was soft now, pleading."Just...don't. Let it go. Please."
Danny hardened his heart against the tone. "Why?"
"I just...we can't. I can't."
"You can't what?"
Steve walked over to the far corner, turning to lean back into it, his arms so tight over his chest he was practically hugging himself. "I can't do this."
"Do what?"
"This! Us! I can't, because I couldn't stand it if--"
"If what?" Steve shook his head, staring at his feet, and Danny pushed off the table and walked slowly over to him. "Let me help you out, then," he said, stopping just a foot away from Steve. "You couldn't stand it if something happened to me?"
Steve nodded, and Danny let out a long breath. "You do realize that all the training in the world isn't going to make this go away? You could never even look at me again and it wouldn't change what you felt if something happened to me, you know that, right?"
"But at least it won't be my fault," Steve said.
"I have news for you, babe. I decided to go into law enforcement on my own. I can quit anytime I want. So if you think that somehow makes any possibility of something happening to me your fault, then you have a highly over-developed sense of your super powers."
"There are a lot of people gunning for me," Steve said. "The chance of one of them...retaliating by using you--"
"You mean like they did your mother and your father?"
"That's not--"
"Yes it is. It's exactly what you were thinking, and it's exactly the problem. You think that one day you're going to walk in to some scene, or get a call, and it's going to be me, and you're going to have to go through that all over again. Tell me I'm wrong."
That got Steve's eyes to at least dart up to meet Danny's for a second before they landed on the floor again. "I know that scares the hell out of you," Danny said, quietly, "and I know you've had your share of losses, and I get that there have been enough issues with chairs this week to make stronger men than you run for the hills."
He got another one of those startled glances, and really, if this weren't quite so serious, he would laugh at how little Steve realized he was transparent. At least to Danny. "But you can't let it win. Don't give up just because you think it'll somehow make it easier if I get hurt or kil--"
"Don't say it!" Steve was looking at him now, his eyes intense. "Just don't."
"Okay." Danny held his hands up, palms toward Steve. "Like I said, I get that you are scared. You think it doesn't stop my heart every time you do some stupid crazy ninja move? Why do you think I get so pissed at you for it? You think I just like yelling at you in general?"
He thought maybe, possibly he might've seen a brief glimmer of a smile tugging at the corner of Steve's mouth at that. Or at the very least, some hint of something that wasn't fear. "Tell you what," Danny said, moving closer, ignoring the sudden flare of panic in Steve's eyes. "I'll give you a chance."
Danny opened his stance as he moved closer still, straddling Steve's legs where they stuck out a little from the wall. "Give me sixty seconds, and if you can tell me that you don't want me, I'll give up."
He leaned in, capturing Steve's lips, light, easy pressure at first, dragging his tongue across them until Steve opened his mouth. Danny pushed inside, his hands moving down Steve's sides to his hips, one hand reaching between them to cup Steve through his pants. He stroked, feeling Steve's hips automatically adjust to the rhythm as Danny's other hand moved to the back of Steve's neck.
Steve's arms moved at last, wrapping around Danny and pulling him closer until Danny had to take his hand out from between them. Steve whimpered into Danny's mouth, hips thrusting against Danny as Steve's hands dug into Danny's back.
With supreme effort, Danny pulled his head back, lips centimeters from Steve's. "Tell me you don't want me," he whispered, "and I'll go."
"You can't go," Steve whispered back, his fingers flexing against Danny's shoulder blades. "The door's locked."
"You know what I mean," Danny said, his voice low and urgent now. "All you have to do is say, 'Danny, I don't want you,' and I can go sit in my own corner and we can ignore each other until morning."
"Danny," Steve whispered, almost cross-eyed from trying to look at Danny's mouth, so close to his own, "I don't want you...to go. Stay."
Danny smiled into another kiss, his hands moving down to Steve's ass. They kissed for a long time, until Danny was out of breath and had to break away, his forehead falling to Steve's shoulder as he breathed. "I would kill for a bed right now," Steve said, his hands conducting their own inspection of Danny's ass. "Why did you have to go and lock us in here?"
"Oh, I don't know," Danny said, raising his head to look Steve in the eye. "Maybe because you're an idiot?"
For a moment, Steve looked like he might argue, but instead, he shrugged. "But I'm your idiot?" he said hopefully.
"Yes. And if you remember that, we won't end up doing this again. Now," Danny said, moving away from Steve, "I think we should go find that bed."
"Are you forgetting we're locked in here?"
"No." Danny dug into his pocket and pulled out a key.
"You had that the whole time?"
Danny nodded. "What do you take me for, an idiot? That's you, my friend. I have a daughter. What if there had been a fire? I'm not dying in here and leaving her to Step-Stan just because you're a moron with the social skills of a hermit."
Steve was grinning now, a sight that made Danny's heart a little lighter. He didn't kid himself that this was over, not by a long shot, but he'd jumped the first hurdle. He could take the rest without even losing speed. "Let's go, then," Steve said, holding out his hand for the key.
"I'll unlock it, thanks."
"What, you don't trust me not to lock you in here like you did me?"
"No."
Steve laughed. "Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't blame you. But if I locked you in here," Steve said, dropping his voice an octave and leaning close to Danny's ear, "I couldn't fuck you all night long in my bed, now, could I?"
Danny swallowed, licking his suddenly dry lips. "Home. Now," he said, opening the door as fast as he could.
"That's what I thought."
---
END
More special thanks tocelli for saying, "Ooo, you should lock Steve in interrogation!" As celli commands, the rest of us do! ;-)
Author: stellarmeadow
Fandom: Hawaii Five-0
Pairing: Steve/Danny
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Three cases that shine a light on particular issues inherent in any relationship between Steve McGarrett and Danny Williams.
Notes: Huge thanks to
celli, chelseafrew and corilannam for cheerleading, reading, feedback, support and general awesomeness. More notes on celli at the end of the chapter...when they won't be a spoiler. ;-) Special thanks on this chapter to firstyoufall for last minute reading and reassuring! :) Chapter 1
Chapter 2
It felt like they'd been asleep for all of five minutes when the phone rang, but the pale sunlight peeking in through the windows proved it was more like five hours. Danny managed to pull his arm out from under Steve, who was draped over Danny's body like a blanket, and grab for the phone.
"What?"
"Commander McGarrett?" The Governor was far too awake for this time of the day.
Danny sighed. "No, he's asleep. Uh, upstairs."
"Right, of course, Daniel," she said, sounding amused, "upstairs."
Well, it wasn't a lie. He was asleep upstairs. Danny was just there with him. "I'll get him on the phone," he said.
"You do that. Upstairs."
She was all but laughing, and Danny muted the phone and counted to ten as he shook Steve awake. "What's wrong?" Steve said, rolling off Danny and sitting up in bed, actually managing to sound as if he hadn't just been out so deep he hadn't even heard the phone.
"I don't know," Danny said, "but the Governor's on the phone."
He unmuted the phone and handed it to Steve, who hit the speaker button so Danny could hear. "Hello, Governor."
"Commander," she said, still sounding amused. "Sorry to bother you so early, especially on a Saturday, but I'm afraid it can't wait. We've just received information that a very large shipment of guns is about to be delivered and sold in Hawaii. What we don't know is exactly when, where or by whom."
"It's not like there are a lot of players who can handle a large shipment in this region," Steve said, frowning.
"You're right, except that everything seems to point to an entirely new group of players. Hence the urgency. We have very little time and not much to go on."
Steve nodded, even though she couldn't see him. "We'll be in shortly. Send us everything you have."
"Already waiting on you. Sorry, I know it's been a long couple of weeks."
Considering she'd called Danny directly to find out how Steve was doing after the Waters murder, Danny knew she was sincere. And yet she was calling anyway. "That's what we're here for," Steve said, ruining the effect--at least on Danny's end of the conversation--with a yawn.
"Thank you."
Steve hung up, and Danny took the phone and put it back on the base. "I'm starting to daydream about sleep," Danny said.
"I know." Steve rubbed his face, then shook his head. "Okay," he said, his hand landing on Danny's shoulder for a second, "let's go."
They called Chin and Kono from the car and told them to come in. By the time Chin and Kono joined them, Steve and Danny were already sorting through the evidence, what little there was of it. "I don't even know how they got that much from this little," Danny said, frowning as he looked through the papers again.
"See, this line," Steve pointed at an email from one of the alleged gun runners, "that's how they know the size of the shipment. It's code for--"
"Yes, that part I followed, thank you, I'm not five years old." He held the papers up with both hands. "It's just--codes and guesses and adding one and one and getting four...it doesn't give us much to work with is what I'm saying."
"We'll figure it out."
Chin was looking at the email Danny still held in one hand. "They included the email headers, so we can start with the IP addresses and do some tracing there."
Danny handed him the print out. "I don't know what that means, but I'll take it," he said.
Kono was looking at a grainy picture she'd pulled out of the small stack of papers. "This place looks familiar. Let me start scanning all of this into the computer and see if it can help us figure out something we might be missing on our own."
"You do that," Danny said, before draining his mug. "I'm going for more coffee."
He hadn't even hit the button to brew the coffee when he heard Steve coming up behind him. "Tired?" Steve asked, left hand landing on Danny's shoulder, drifting lightly over the tire iron bruise he knew was under the shirt--eerily accurate on the location, Danny realized, not that he was surprised.
"I'm fine." He turned around to face Steve. "We still need to talk." He held up a hand to stop Steve before he could start. "No, not now, obviously. But...soon. Fucking gun runners couldn't wait one more day to accidentally reveal the tip of their annoying little plan?"
"Clearly we need to give the criminals a copy of our personal schedules."
"Think maybe if we told them the next three years were booked they'd stay out of Hawaii?"
"Worth a try."
The coffee finished streaming into Danny's cup and he turned back around to pull the mug out, adding a generous amount of sugar before tasting it. "It's not sleep, but it's better than nothing," he said, heading for the door. "Coming?"
"In a minute." Steve held up his own empty coffee mug
Danny went back into the main room. Chin and Kono were bent over opposite sides of the computer table, but they looked up, saw Danny alone, and stopped in unison to fix Danny with identical expressions.
"What's with the Wonder Twins thing?"
"What?" they said at the same time.
"Never mind. What's wrong?"
Chin glanced at Kono, who looked at the door. "How's he doing?" she asked.
"He'll be fine," Danny said, reluctant to talk about any of it with them, especially before he and Steve really had a chance to talk. "And my shoulder's fine, too, by the way, thanks for asking."
Kono sighed. "Danny--"
Steve walked in, silencing her. When Danny looked back at the computer table, Chin and Kono were huddled over it once more, as if they hadn't ever stopped. They went back to working on the case, and by the time Steve left the room again, it was as if the question had never been asked.
By Wednesday, Danny would've given up his right arm for even the amount of sleep he'd gotten Friday night. They were gaining ground on their gun runners, and knew the sale wasn't going down until Friday, which was good. But if they didn't gain a little faster, they would be too late, and they were all frustrated and exhausted.
Steve had, at least, been acting normal. Acting being the operative word. Something was off, and Danny was too tired to figure it out, and they were too busy trying to catch the gun runners to talk.
The conversation, unfortunately, wasn't one they could fit in between shoveling down meals over paper trails on their gun runners, running down leads, and falling into bed long enough to have sex and pass out. And even if Danny had been willing to say, whoa, hang on, put that back in your pants so we can talk, he wasn't stupid. He could see it in Steve's eyes, could feel it in the way he held on too tight-- trying to stop him to talk would not be helping anything. All he could do for the moment was give him what he needed.
The way Steve stroked his fingers lightly over the tire iron bruise, the rest of his body tense, but his fingers so, so gentle, wasn't lost on Danny either. Steve might be pretending like nothing was wrong, but he hadn't gotten over anything. Not yet. And maybe he never would.
Danny was never going to stop nagging him about things like driving too fast, leaping off things that could get him killed--there was a long list. It was less about getting over it and more about learning how to live with it, especially when what you were living with was letting someone you cared about throw themselves into danger head first.
If he could live with it when that person was Steven "I'm going to jump off this cliff holding a grenade" McGarrett, Steve sure as hell could find a way to return the favor.
He checked his watch, wondering where Steve was. He'd gone to follow up on a lead that had turned out to be another dead end, and called to say he'd be back soon, but that had been half an hour ago. He should've been back in fifteen minutes.
Danny went back to the papers he'd been reading, new communications they'd collected that morning, frowning as he read a phrase for the third time. "Engaging tropical vista," he muttered out loud. Something about it seemed vaguely familiar.
Then it hit him--he'd seen the phrase in a listing for a rental when he'd first moved to Hawaii. The realtor had used it to describe the view, and it had stuck in his memory. He'd even looked at the place, which had been a nice size, despite the 'engaging tropical vista' actually being a parking lot, with a few straggly palm trees on the other side. It had been a little too much money anyway, and he'd ended up in his one-room shit hole instead.
Surely it couldn't be that easy. He went back to his computer and searched for the term, and found the house as the only result. Would the gun runners really have risked giving away their location like that? It didn't seem likely, but they were running out of time and leads, so he should at least check it out.
Chin and Kono were off talking to a source, and Danny tried to reach Steve, but got voicemail again. He left a message with information on where he was going, left a note for Chin and Kono, and headed out to the Camaro. The house was about half an hour from HQ, but the parking lot was exactly like he remembered it, with only about a fourth of the spots filled. Not as good for surveillance if he wanted to blend in, but it did offer a great view of the house.
He parked, watching the house from his car for a while as the sun sank lower in the sky, but nothing happened. In a couple of hours it would be dark and much harder to see anything. Then again, he assumed at least one of the cars in the lot belonged to the current occupants. Maybe if he looked around at the cars, he might get lucky a second time. He got out carefully, looking around his own car and frowning as if he'd lost something. Slowly, he moved to each car, pretending to look, while checking out what was inside of each.
The fifth car was a beat up late-90s Taurus, which had likely once been silver, but was now a dirty brownish-gray. It was the kind of car you wouldn't even notice on the street, but when Danny saw the papers on the passenger seat, it had his full attention. He recognized a picture in the pile as the one Kono had thought was familiar, but had yet to place. He suspected, however, that the map lying under it might pinpoint the location. If he could just get a slightly better look, he thought, rubbing the window to clear away the dirt.
"What the hell do you think you're doing to my car?"
Danny crouched down, pulling his phone out of his pocket. "Nothing," he said, standing and holding up his phone. Three goons stood side by side a few feet away. "I was talking to my ex, and I got mad and kicked the phone, and have been trying to find it. It was under your car. Sorry."
"Really?" The middle goon asked. And Danny had thought it sounded believable, but apparently not so much. "It looks like it's in good shape for something you kicked across sandy pavement."
Danny shrugged. "What can I say, Windows Mobile is sturdier than it looks."
"Right."
Figures he'd end up with criminals who weren't as stupid as they looked. "Anyway," Danny said, side stepping to the end of the car, "I'll just be heading home now."
"I don't think so," the man said. As the three advanced on him, with the car blocking him from behind, Danny did the only thing he could. He dropped his phone, shoved it just underneath their car with his foot, and surrendered.
And of course, it being Wednesday (and he was really starting to hate Wednesdays), they put in him a windowless room and tied him to a chair. At least they used rope and not duct tape, which he was thankful for. Because duct tape hurt like a bitch when you ripped it off, no matter how you did it, and the mere fact that he knew that far too well made him hate Wednesdays even more.
He jerked at the ropes a little just to have something to do. In addition to not being entirely stupid, the goons were apparently good with knots. They'd tied him pretty thoroughly, arms behind his back, legs to the chair, and he was stuck with nothing to do wait for rescue. Wait...and stare at the particularly hideous pineapple wallpaper that the dim overhead light managed to make look sinister. He hoped that the team showed up before that wallpaper drove him crazy.
There was no doubt the team would show up. Their gun runners weren't stupid, but they were cocky, and cocky people made stupid mistakes, no matter how smart they were. They also had no idea what they were up against. The only reason they were keeping him was so that in "the unlikely event someone actually catches up with us, we have leverage." So they'd said before they'd smacked him around a bit, anyway--and really, he'd had worse, but they were easily fooled by a little blood into thinking they'd really hurt him.
He didn't disabuse them of the notion.
Steve had the address on his voicemail, and Chin and Kono had it on paper back at HQ. His rescue was not in question. In fact, he was kind of surprised the team wasn't there already. Then again, it would only just be getting dark out, if his concept of time wasn't completely fucked up, and darkness would give them an edge in taking the house unnoticed.
As if on cue, he heard shouting and gunfire from the front of the house. The firefight over with satisfying speed, and the echoes of the last shots weren't even gone when he heard Steve yelling his name. "In here!" Danny called back, glad the gun runners hadn't bothered to cover his mouth. A moment later, Steve was crashing through the door, gun out, checking every corner from the doorway. "You think they'd have let me call out to you if someone had been in here?" Danny asked.
Steve blinked, frowning as he holstered his Sig. "I was just being thorough," he said, kneeling beside the chair to try untying the knots in the ropes around Danny's hands. He spent a few seconds on it before growling, pulling out his knife, and cutting the ropes away.
"Thank you," Danny said, rubbing his wrists gingerly and starting to flex his legs. He felt creaky as he moved around, but he was starting to feel like the chair was becoming a permanent part of his ass, so he pushed himself up to his feet, only to lose his balance and fall into Steve. "Sorry."
He glanced up at Steve's face, frowning at the look there. Steve was staring past Danny, and Danny followed his eye line to see it was the chair that had Steve's attention. Of course. Another chair, one week to the day from the Waters murder. "Can we get out of here?" Danny said, pushing Steve toward the door. "I'm sick of the wallpaper."
The nudge seemed to shake Steve back into his 'acting normal' self. "Kind of ironic," he said, fingering the design before he walked out. "What with your fondness for pineapples."
"Shut up," Danny said, giving him a little shove toward the front of the house. Chin, Kono and several members of HPD were busy removing the gun runners from the house and bagging evidence. Danny stopped to talk to Chin and Kono, but he'd barely gotten a sentence out before Steve was guiding him out the door.
Only when they stopped at the back of an ambulance did Danny realize what was going on. "I'm fine," he said, glaring at Steve.
"Humor me."
"Humor you? I humor you every day, Steven. I let you call me Danno, I let you blow shit up, I let you put your neck on the line--I don't think I need to stoop to getting checked out over a couple of punches." He looked at the EMT, nodding at her with a quick smile. "No offense, I'm sure you are very good at your job, but I'm fine."
Steve took a deep breath, looking down his nose at Danny in that way that caused an itch under Danny's skin, just at the base of his hairline. "Don't make me lie to Grace the next time she asks me if I take care of you out here."
"That's low." Danny growled, but Steve just continued to stare at him. "Fine." He hopped up onto the back of the ambulance, managing to hide the wince from the movement, and let his feet dangle over the bumper. "Just so you know, I am doing this under protest, solely for Grace's benefit--and so this nice lady here didn't come all the way out here for nothing." He smiled at the EMT. "I appreciate your sacrifice," he said, "I know we keep you busy."
She smiled as she wrapped a blood pressure cuff around his arm. "The overtime is paying for my daughter's college," she said. "Don't sweat it."
"See?" Steve said. "We're helping her put her kid through school. Isn't that great?"
"You are psychotic," Danny said, wincing as the cuff tightened on his arm, his muscles sore from being tied behind his back for so long. The EMT checked other routine things, poked around his bruises a bit, and pronounced him to be fine, relatively speaking.
"You see that, Steven? I'm fine."
Steve rolled his eyes. "Relatively speaking."
"Whatever, can I go back to doing my job now?"
Surveying the scene for a long moment, Steve shrugged. "They look like they're winding up. Let me take you home."
As much as Danny wanted to argue, he looked around and realized Steve was right. There wasn't much left for him to do, and he'd only be in the way while CSU did its job. "Fine." Danny hopped off the ambulance and thanked the EMT before following Steve to his truck. "I need to get my car," he said as Steve pulled away from the scene.
"We found it." Steve said, his jaw tight. "And your phone, which led us right to their car." He reached into his pocket and took out Danny's keys and his phone, handing them over. "Nice work with that, by the way. HPD took care of the Camaro. It should be waiting for you."
"Thanks." The ride passed in silence after that. Danny was nursing muscles that ached now that the adrenaline had worn off, and Steve seemed lost in some less than pleasant thoughts. Danny had a feeling that might have something to do with Steve's father's death, the Waters murder and now this, but he didn't know what to say, and short of banning chairs from existence, he didn't know how to stop it from happening in their line of work. Bad guys liked to tie people to chairs. There really was no getting around it.
So he closed his eyes and tried to ignore the aches every time they hit a bump. It wasn't until they made a turn that seemed odd that he opened his eyes and realized they were going to his apartment, not Steve's house. He gave Steve a long look, but either he was too busy thinking to notice, or he was ignoring it.
They pulled up, and Danny saw his car was parked there, which explained it. He could've done with not having to drive until tomorrow, but he also wasn't fond of leaving her here overnight unattended.
He undid the seatbelt and reached for the door handle, but Steve's words stopped him cold. "Get some sleep. I'll see you tomorrow at HQ."
Danny ignored the twinge as he twisted his head to look at Steve. He was facing Danny, but his eyes were fixed on Danny's hand on the door. "O...kay." He wanted to ask why the hell he was being relegated to his own place yet again, but they were somewhere in that gray area of dating--if you could call what they were doing dating--where he felt the right to ask, but not necessarily the ability.
"You need some sleep," Steve said, softly, as if that was the only explanation for him dropping Danny off.
"Okay...." Danny shook his head. He was too tired to argue. "Yeah, I'll see you tomorrow."
He got out of the truck and made his way slowly up the stairs, feeling Steve's gaze the entire way. When he had closed the door, he heard the truck pull away.
Not for the first time, he wondered if this was really worth it. There were easier relationships to be had--even without the obvious issues of a relationship with his partner, who happened to be a very male Navy SEAL, even if he was in the reserves, Steve was a great big mess. Only an idiot would choose to jump into the middle of that.
But then, there wasn't much of a choice. It just was, and he couldn't stop himself any more than he could stop Steve from breaking every rule in the playbook on the job. Steve might be a basket case, but he was Danny's basket case, and nothing else mattered in the end.
And he'd need a lot of sleep to deal with his basket case in the morning, Danny realized. He headed off to the shower, wondering if that morning would come in the middle of the night with Steve standing over him, waiting to attack.
When he realized he hoped the answer was yes, he knew he was really screwed.
***
Danny awoke to bright sunlight, the sound of his alarm buzzing softly, and the sound of Mr. Kapule's incredibly bad singing over the knocking shower pipes in the apartment next door. There was no sign of Steve, no sign he'd been there, and Danny's phone had no texts, voicemails or missed calls.
He wasn't sure if that was good or bad. He wouldn't find out if he didn't get to work, though, so he stretched a little to work out the aches and got ready to go. Steve's truck was in its parking spot when Danny pulled into his own beside it. The truck had apparently been there for some time, judging by the cold tires and engine.
They were really going to have to have a talk about his apparent lack of understanding that even he, on occasion, needed to sleep.
Kono was coming out of the front door of the building as Danny walked up the short steps. "We catch a case?" Danny asked, not sure if he wanted the answer to be yes or no.
She shook her head. "I'm going for coffee."
They had a state of the art coffee machine that could make almost anything they wanted. "Why?"
"I don't know what you did to piss McGarrett off, but my coffee break is going to be very long if you don't promise to fix it when you get in there."
"What I did?" Danny threw his hands in the air. "What I did was get dumped off at my place like a library book he'd had out too long and told to 'get some sleep.' So if you're waiting for me to fix whatever's wrong with him, you might as well make the coffee break a day off."
She nodded. "Good idea. Call me if we get a case. I'll be at the shore."
They hadn't had a day off in around two weeks, and the informal rule was that they could take time here and there as long as they were reachable, so he just waved and watched her disappear around the corner before going inside.
He could hear Steve yelling when he walked through the doors. The silence that followed, punctuated by more yelling, told him at least it was someone on the phone getting reamed, and not Chin. Danny went to the kitchen to find Chin sitting at the table with a cup of coffee.
"What did you do to him, brah?" Chin asked.
"Why does everyone assume this is my fault? The guy is certifiably insane--maybe his imaginary friend drank the last of his protein shakes." Chin raised an eyebrow and sipped at his coffee. "Okay, fine," Danny continued, "we may occasionally piss each other off a little, but I swear to you, this one is not on me. I haven't seen him since he dropped me off last night."
Chin put the coffee down. "I see."
"You see? You see what?"
"Never mind." He got up. "Have you seen Kono?"
Danny punched the button on the coffee machine with more force than necessary. "I saw her out front. She was going surfing."
"Damn. She beat me to it."
For a second, Danny thought of telling him to go, too. They usually tried not to be more than one man down during a weekday, but it had been a hell of a couple of weeks, and it wasn't like they would be that far away if anything happened. Then Steve's yelling was punctuated with a slam. "Too bad," Danny said, not giving a damn if he was a coward who didn't want to be left alone with Steve all day, "you'll have to be faster next time."
"I'll be filing if you need me," Chin said, picking up his coffee and leaving the kitchen. Danny knew there wasn't that much that needed to be filed, since most of the paperwork for the last two weeks was still unfinished on his desk, but the filing room was the most remote room in their offices. He had a feeling Chin would find a way to be in there for a long time.
He took his coffee toward his office, then realized that the yelling had stopped. Might as well at least get this part over with, he decided, switching directions and stopping just inside Steve's door. "Morning," he said.
Steve looked up from the files he was tearing through, the anger on his face shuttering down instantly to a polite mask. "Morning," he replied, eyes fixed on Danny's coffee cup. "Feeling better?"
"Oh, yes, a night on the crappy pull out sofa in my apartment was just what the doctor ordered."
Steve's jaw looked like it was about to crack under pressure, but the polite mask remained otherwise. "You should've taken something."
"I didn't want to sleep through any home invasions," Danny said, intentionally baiting now. "But apparently I didn't have to worry."
"You want your home to be invaded in the middle of the night?" Steve asked, the mask slipping just enough to show confusion.
"Depends on who does the invading."
The mask slammed back into place. "Oh." He glanced down at his files. "I've got to, uh...the Governor. I need to take her a file, and it's..somewhere here," he said, waving a hand at the pile.
"Good luck with that," Danny said, retreating to his office.
He lost himself in paperwork, the only good thing about that part of his job, only noticing how long he'd been at it when his stomach growled. He checked his watch, surprised to find it was after 2. Stretching a little, his muscles protesting, he got up and went to find Chin, who was still in the filing room. He was working at a laptop, confirming Danny's suspicion that he'd gone in there to hide. "Have you eaten?" Danny asked.
"Yeah, I brought lunch. I ate a little while ago."
Danny nodded. "I'm going to get some food," he said, turning around and heading for the front door. He could hear Steve banging around in his office, and after a moment of hesitation, he stopped there. "How'd it go with the Governor?"
"Fine," Steve said, not looking up from his computer.
"I'm going to go get something to eat. Have you eaten?"
Steve was staring at his screen as if it contained the secret to life. "No, but I'm fine," he said. "I'll eat later."
So he'd been there since God only knew what time that morning and hadn't eaten, and he still wasn't interested if Danny was involved. Warring between "what the fuck?" and "whatever," Danny's stomach made the decision for him when it growled again. "I'll be back," he said, leaving before Steve could ignore him any further.
He went out to Caffe Grazie, where at least the pasta almost reminded him of home, if he didn't think too hard about it, lingering over his meal before finally dragging himself back to the office. He stopped by Steve's office, and he could've sworn Steve picked up the non-ringing phone as Danny rounded the corner, but he was listening as if it was a matter of national security.
Danny sighed, dropping a sandwich on Steve's desk, because a pissed off Steve combined with a starving Steve was not a good combination. He left Steve to his very possibly imaginary conversation and went back to his office to bury himself in paperwork.
He was almost done when Chin appeared in his doorway. "I'm heading home," he said. Though neither of them would say it for fear of jinxing it, Danny knew they were both thinking the same thing--maybe the quiet day meant they'd get at least one quiet night. They all needed the rest, but Danny also needed the time to talk to Steve before this went any further.
"Have a good one," Danny said, stretching in his chair again as Chin walked out. He looked at his watch and decided the last few papers could wait. The ones that needed Steve's signature Danny picked up and carried quietly into Steve's office, careful not to give him enough warning to suddenly be on the phone again.
He was sitting at his desk, staring at nothing. "Hey," Danny said, and Steve jumped a little.
"Didn't know you were there," Steve said, almost, but not quite, meeting Danny's eyes.
"I did the hard part," Danny said, holding up the stack of files. "Your turn."
Steve nodded as Danny laid the stack on the desk. "Thanks. You should head out, man."
"Really?" Danny wondered if Steve actually thought that was going to work, or if it was a Hail Mary. "I don't think so."
"Sure, go ahead. It's been a long couple of weeks."
Shaking his head, Danny shifted to lean against Steve's desk. "How well do you know me?"
Steve blinked a few times. "Pretty well, I guess?"
"So what about me, exactly, makes you think I'm just going to meekly go home and pretend like there's nothing going on here?"
The polite mask remained, but barely, as Steve tensed up. "There's nothing going on. You just need a rest."
"I'm old enough to figure out when I need to sleep, thanks," Danny snapped. "I don't think the same could be said for you."
"I'm fine."
"You sure about that?"
The mask was slipping, and Steve's eyes narrowed. "I said I'm fine."
"I know what you said," Danny replied. "I'm just not sure you're using the same definition of fine as the rest of us."
The muscle in Steve's jaw was twitching. "Danny," he said, his voice low and dangerous, "go home."
"No." If provoking a fight was the only way he was going to get through to Steve, then so be it.
"Go. Home."
"Make. Me."
Steve pushed himself out of the chair and was standing less than an inch away from Danny in a flash. "You need to go now," he said, his face close to Danny's.
"Or what?" Danny asked, leaning in until their noses were almost touching. "What are you gonna do?" He didn't even care if he got punched at this point--enough was enough. "What do you care enough to do, Steve? Tell me, because I don't know anymore."
"You're right," Steve said sharply, muscles so tight Danny could see the veins in his neck. "You don't know what I'm gonna do. So you should get out now."
"Why? I know you're not gonna hurt me--that would require laying your hands on me. And you can't handle that right now, can you?"
Something hot and dark burned in Steve's eyes for a brief second before he...shut down. Danny didn't know how else to describe it. His eyes were as blank as his face, and it was ten times worse than before the argument. "I'm not doing this," was all he said, as if he was speaking with a complete stranger. He backed away, leaning against the wall, and folded his arms over his chest and looked right through Danny as if he didn't even know him.
"Right." Danny nodded, flexing his fingers in and out of a fist. "Okay."
"So I'll see you tomorrow?" Danny considered his options long enough that Steve actually met his eyes. "You forget where your car was?" Steve asked.
"No, no, I know where that is." Danny shifted his weight, making his decision. "But I actually came in here for another reason. Well, I came in here to give you the files to sign, obviously, but there's a problem I need you to deal with down the hall."
Steve blinked. "What is it?"
"I'm not exactly sure. But it needs to be fixed before it gets any worse."
"Tell me where it is. I'll go look in a few minutes."
Danny shook his head. "I need to show you."
"Danny, I'm not in the mood--"
"Oh come on, Steven. This is your task force. You have to deal with this."
He sighed heavily. "Fine." He pushed away from the wall and started toward the door.
Danny took one moment to make sure Steve's gun was on the desk before leading the way down the hall to the interrogation room. "Damn. Can I borrow your phone?" Danny asked as they reached the door. "I just need to make a quick call to Grace and I have to call her before she leaves for her friends' house."
Steve pulled his phone out of his pocket and handed it to Danny before walking into the interrogation room. Danny pulled the door shut and made sure it locked, and nobody on Earth could blame him for getting a little enjoyment out of the look of shock on Steve's face, before Danny turned and walked away.
He went to his office and sent a text to Chin about where to find them if something came up. He placed Steve's phone next to his in a drawer, taking his time to give Steve time to think. After gathering a few things he'd need, he went back to interrogation to see Steve pacing like a caged panther. Danny unlocked the door long enough to step inside, letting it close with a particular click that made Steve jump. "You just--"
"Locked that door? Yes. Yes, I did." Danny put the bottles of water he'd brought with him on the table. "Because you and I are going to talk."
"That only opens from the outside when you do that, unless--tell me you have the key."
"I will tell you no such thing. You are stuck here with me until someone shows up tomorrow and lets us out."
Steve stared at him. "You're joking."
"Do I look like I'm joking?" Danny waved at the bottles. "I brought water and everything."
"Are you insane? What if there's a fire?"
"Well, I don't think there's enough water in those to put it out, so I guess we'll burn together."
Steve stared at him. "What if we catch a case?"
"Then Chin and Kono will have to come here anyway and they'll find us." He left out the part where Chin already knew where they were. The less Steve thought someone might come save him, the better.
"What the hell is wrong with you, Danny?"
Danny's eyebrows shot up. "Me? What's wrong with me? I'm not the one walking around alternately biting everyone's head off and acting like polite-pod-Steve. No, that would be you, my friend."
"What? I'm fine." He stopped pacing then, his eyes on the bottles of water. "There is nothing wrong with me."
"Oh there are so many things wrong with you I don't even know where to start, babe. And the mere fact that you think that there isn't anything wrong would be scary, except I know you're lying. So why don't you man up and tell me the truth. What is really going on here?"
Steve drummed his fingers on his thigh, his gaze making it to Danny's chin. "Okay, fine. You wanna do this now? Okay. I think we should stop."
"Stop? Stop what?"
"This. Us. We should...stop."
"Should we now? Why is that?"
"Because... " Steve turned on his heel, slowly crossing to the other side of the room, "because it's a bad idea."
Danny perched on the edge of the table, arms folded over his chest. "Really? Where have I heard that before? Oh, wait, from me. Less than a month ago. I said, repeatedly, 'This is a bad idea, Steven,' and you said 'no, no, this is a great idea!' You were very emphatic about it as you all but dragged me by the hair to your bedroom."
"Oh, yeah," Steve pivoted again, pacing back across the floor, "and you were kicking and screaming the whole way."
"No, I was not, and do you know why? Because you persuaded me--very effectively, I might add--that this was an excellent idea."
"Then we were both wrong."
Blinking, Danny balled his hand into a fist under his arm, restraining himself from lashing out. "We were wrong? How do you figure that one?"
"Because I'm in the goddamn Navy for Christ's sake! If they found out--"
"Nice try, Super SEAL, but Don't Ask Don't Tell don't matter no more. What's your next argument?"
Steve's nostrils flared as he continued to pace, only glancing in Danny's direction from time to time. "We're partners," he said, finally. "There are rules."
Danny laughed, both his hands in fists now, clutching at his shirt. "Rules? When the hell have you ever cared about rules, other than to laugh in their face as you're breaking them?"
Steve whirled around to face Danny. "At least I'm not off getting myself kidnapped and strapped to a chair and beaten or...worse!"
"Oh, no, you never get yourself caught or injured! Ever!" Danny raked a hand through his hair before putting the hand tightly back under his other arm again. "Look," he said, trying to bring his voice back under control, "I get that what happened last week freaked you out, okay? I get it. I was there the day your father was murdered--you have to know I get it, right?"
"That has nothing to do with this!"
Danny laughed. "Right. Nothing to do with it, and yet me being tied to a chair yesterday was apparently your last straw. You do know that chairs are not inherently evil, right?"
"Shut up, Danny, or I'll find a way to break bulletproof glass just to get out of here."
"No. Because I am not going to let you throw away any chance you have of a semi-normal non-work life."
Steve snorted. "You think pretty highly of yourself there, bud."
"Well, fine, then, if it isn't me you're running from, it'll be someone else!" Danny yelled, waiting until he saw that sink in. "And I'm not letting you do it, Steven. You want to get rid of me, you're going to need a better reason than 'You got yourself tied to a chair,' because really, Steven, you see this chair?" Danny picked up one of the chairs from under the table. "Watch this."
He threw it hard against the wall, smashing it into several very satisfying pieces, before turning back to Steve. "It's just a chair. It breaks."
Steve was staring at the pieces of wood. "It's not the chair," he said, his voice low.
"I know," Danny said quietly, most of his anger dissipating with the force of smashing the chair. "I know what it is. And you do, too. I can see it."
"Danny." Steve's voice was soft now, pleading."Just...don't. Let it go. Please."
Danny hardened his heart against the tone. "Why?"
"I just...we can't. I can't."
"You can't what?"
Steve walked over to the far corner, turning to lean back into it, his arms so tight over his chest he was practically hugging himself. "I can't do this."
"Do what?"
"This! Us! I can't, because I couldn't stand it if--"
"If what?" Steve shook his head, staring at his feet, and Danny pushed off the table and walked slowly over to him. "Let me help you out, then," he said, stopping just a foot away from Steve. "You couldn't stand it if something happened to me?"
Steve nodded, and Danny let out a long breath. "You do realize that all the training in the world isn't going to make this go away? You could never even look at me again and it wouldn't change what you felt if something happened to me, you know that, right?"
"But at least it won't be my fault," Steve said.
"I have news for you, babe. I decided to go into law enforcement on my own. I can quit anytime I want. So if you think that somehow makes any possibility of something happening to me your fault, then you have a highly over-developed sense of your super powers."
"There are a lot of people gunning for me," Steve said. "The chance of one of them...retaliating by using you--"
"You mean like they did your mother and your father?"
"That's not--"
"Yes it is. It's exactly what you were thinking, and it's exactly the problem. You think that one day you're going to walk in to some scene, or get a call, and it's going to be me, and you're going to have to go through that all over again. Tell me I'm wrong."
That got Steve's eyes to at least dart up to meet Danny's for a second before they landed on the floor again. "I know that scares the hell out of you," Danny said, quietly, "and I know you've had your share of losses, and I get that there have been enough issues with chairs this week to make stronger men than you run for the hills."
He got another one of those startled glances, and really, if this weren't quite so serious, he would laugh at how little Steve realized he was transparent. At least to Danny. "But you can't let it win. Don't give up just because you think it'll somehow make it easier if I get hurt or kil--"
"Don't say it!" Steve was looking at him now, his eyes intense. "Just don't."
"Okay." Danny held his hands up, palms toward Steve. "Like I said, I get that you are scared. You think it doesn't stop my heart every time you do some stupid crazy ninja move? Why do you think I get so pissed at you for it? You think I just like yelling at you in general?"
He thought maybe, possibly he might've seen a brief glimmer of a smile tugging at the corner of Steve's mouth at that. Or at the very least, some hint of something that wasn't fear. "Tell you what," Danny said, moving closer, ignoring the sudden flare of panic in Steve's eyes. "I'll give you a chance."
Danny opened his stance as he moved closer still, straddling Steve's legs where they stuck out a little from the wall. "Give me sixty seconds, and if you can tell me that you don't want me, I'll give up."
He leaned in, capturing Steve's lips, light, easy pressure at first, dragging his tongue across them until Steve opened his mouth. Danny pushed inside, his hands moving down Steve's sides to his hips, one hand reaching between them to cup Steve through his pants. He stroked, feeling Steve's hips automatically adjust to the rhythm as Danny's other hand moved to the back of Steve's neck.
Steve's arms moved at last, wrapping around Danny and pulling him closer until Danny had to take his hand out from between them. Steve whimpered into Danny's mouth, hips thrusting against Danny as Steve's hands dug into Danny's back.
With supreme effort, Danny pulled his head back, lips centimeters from Steve's. "Tell me you don't want me," he whispered, "and I'll go."
"You can't go," Steve whispered back, his fingers flexing against Danny's shoulder blades. "The door's locked."
"You know what I mean," Danny said, his voice low and urgent now. "All you have to do is say, 'Danny, I don't want you,' and I can go sit in my own corner and we can ignore each other until morning."
"Danny," Steve whispered, almost cross-eyed from trying to look at Danny's mouth, so close to his own, "I don't want you...to go. Stay."
Danny smiled into another kiss, his hands moving down to Steve's ass. They kissed for a long time, until Danny was out of breath and had to break away, his forehead falling to Steve's shoulder as he breathed. "I would kill for a bed right now," Steve said, his hands conducting their own inspection of Danny's ass. "Why did you have to go and lock us in here?"
"Oh, I don't know," Danny said, raising his head to look Steve in the eye. "Maybe because you're an idiot?"
For a moment, Steve looked like he might argue, but instead, he shrugged. "But I'm your idiot?" he said hopefully.
"Yes. And if you remember that, we won't end up doing this again. Now," Danny said, moving away from Steve, "I think we should go find that bed."
"Are you forgetting we're locked in here?"
"No." Danny dug into his pocket and pulled out a key.
"You had that the whole time?"
Danny nodded. "What do you take me for, an idiot? That's you, my friend. I have a daughter. What if there had been a fire? I'm not dying in here and leaving her to Step-Stan just because you're a moron with the social skills of a hermit."
Steve was grinning now, a sight that made Danny's heart a little lighter. He didn't kid himself that this was over, not by a long shot, but he'd jumped the first hurdle. He could take the rest without even losing speed. "Let's go, then," Steve said, holding out his hand for the key.
"I'll unlock it, thanks."
"What, you don't trust me not to lock you in here like you did me?"
"No."
Steve laughed. "Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't blame you. But if I locked you in here," Steve said, dropping his voice an octave and leaning close to Danny's ear, "I couldn't fuck you all night long in my bed, now, could I?"
Danny swallowed, licking his suddenly dry lips. "Home. Now," he said, opening the door as fast as he could.
"That's what I thought."
---
END
More special thanks to
celli for saying, "Ooo, you should lock Steve in interrogation!" As celli commands, the rest of us do! ;-)
