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When Danny finds out that they have to go to London to testify against Marshall Eliot, the first thing he thinks is ‘I gotta call John.’
***
They haven’t seen each other in some time, nor have they exchanged more than a few emails meanwhile, but it’s the kind of thing when you feel like you only just parted with the person yesterday. John is John, meaning he’s neither hugging Danny nor being excessive in how he expresses himself, but Danny has no doubt that he's just as glad to see Danny as Danny is to see him.
“It’s been a while,” Danny says, having just clapped John on the back, because John is John, but Danny’s Danny.
“Yeah, yeah. Two years—no, two and a half?”
Danny nods. “Wow,” he adds. “They’ve gone fast.”
John’s lips stretch thinly, the lines around his eyes deepening. “Not for all of us,” he says, and right, Sherlock’s ‘suicide’ and his return from the dead! Danny wants to put his foot in his mouth. John doesn’t seem to have taken offence, though. It makes Danny wonder how much other people’s attention—the good, the bad and the ugly—John’s had to endure in the last couple of years.
They take their beers and move to stand by the narrow window. They’re in a tiny little pub that Danny’s sure John has chosen in order to give Danny a sense of something local—old and British. So Danny ignores the odd smell and the ridiculous lack of space, and focuses on the buckets of character the place has: mahogany wood, dark red and brown colours, old prints (Or maybe even originals—who knows in a place like this?) in old-fashioned frames on the walls.
“So how have you been?” John asks.
Danny tells him in quite a short time—it’s shocking, really, how simple his life sounds when he relates it to someone who’s got no connection to it whatsoever. Work and family, family and work. Like the rest of humanity, Danny thinks. But yeah, those two, that’s about it.
There’s also Steve, of course.
But the thing with Steve is that he’s both work and family, yet also something entirely his own, too. He’s just…Steve. Everywhere.
Danny isn’t sure how to ask John about his life, if he should do it with or without mentioning Sherlock. Because while Danny’s last two or whatever years have been pretty much same old, same old in the big picture, John’s life is the stuff to make the papers. The bitter irony of it being that at some point it actually did, and front page, too.
It was odd for Danny to find out things about someone he knew first through the news and then through personal contact. The news of Sherlock’s death—at the time considered very much real—found Danny while he was doing an obscene amount of paperwork closing a case. Chin walked in with one of the tablets, said, “Hey Danny, didn’t you and Steve work with a guy named Sherlock Holmes when you were in England?”, Danny confirmed, pen already frozen in his hand, then Chin’s face spoke volumes before his actual words. “He’s committed suicide. It happened yesterday,” Chin said in that quiet way of his and Danny went back to his paperwork in an hour. His first thought was of John; his second, of Steve.
He didn’t write to John for a week to allow him some space in his grief. Danny read up details on the internet, even the kind of stuff that was lurid or plain weird. He got Chin to do some discreet checking on the circumstances, but England was far away and meanwhile there were a few really gruesome cases, stacked up so close that Danny didn’t sleep more than something like fifteen hours in a week. So the incident was pushed back in his mind, and then John answered his email after a couple of weeks, apologizing for the delay and telling Danny that he was still trying to make sense of it all. The thing Danny remembers being struck about in that email was John’s absolute conviction that his friend had not been a fraud. (On the way to meeting John today Danny wondered whether John hadn’t expressed his grief or whether it had been there, in a word, in a disorderly sentence or between the lines, but Danny had pushed it aside, because it’d been too close to some of his worst fears.)
Six months later Sherlock’s name was cleared. Danny and John exchanged emails around that time as well. It felt good and right, the simplicity of keeping in touch with that man all the way across the globe—John was a good guy and true, Danny had spent mere hours in his company the only time they’d met, but he felt like he knew the man, like they’d bonded in a way.
When another year later Sherlock returned from the dead Danny wrote to John immediately, his message unequivocal in how happy he was for John. And for Sherlock, of course, although no matter what reason the guy had had to do that whole thing Danny still kind of wanted to punch him in the face. From John’s reply Danny had the feeling the same urge might have risen in John, too.
In John’s reply Danny could see that things were complicated and a bit crazy, which hello! People coming back from the dead! Not just that—best friend and flatmate coming back from the dead—of course it was crazy.
That was only three months ago. Danny hasn’t spoken to John since then, so he feels he’s justified to sweat a bit about what he should or shouldn’t say. He knows how he’d feel if something so messy and private had happened to him and Steve, and people shoved their faces in Danny’s business, pushing the wrong buttons.
“How about you, buddy?” he asks eventually. “Everything back to normal now?”
“It depends,” John says.
“Meaning?”
“What you mean by ‘normal’. Nothing’s ever normal about living with Sherlock, you know.” John’s grin is lopsided but friendly.
“Yeah.” Danny grins too. “Yeah, I got, I got that the last time. That was my impression. But you’re both good now? I mean, things are back to your kind of normal?”
John nods a couple of times meditatively. “Well, he’s back working and annoying everyone he meets, and I’m blogging about it. Oh, and someone shot at me twice in two months.”
“Good times!” Danny’s eyebrows move in what he hopes is mischief.
John laughs, but then his face folds up on itself so quickly that Danny almost wonders if he didn’t imagine the laugh. John looks to the side, silent, hand absent-mindedly rolling the glass in his hand, the beer sloshing in it.
And just like that Danny feels the grief, the complications, the tons of other stuff that he can only sense is there, but has no idea of its shape or size or meaning. He just knows John’s been through a lot.
“How are you doing with all this?” he asks carefully.
John’s eyes meet his, lower down, then re-establish connection. Danny’s all ears; he can feel his hairs crackling with sympathetic attention.
John’s cheeks expand as he takes air in, holds it, then finally lets it out, shaking his head. His gaze drops to the table again then returns to Danny, and whatever John sees makes him relax, visibly. His shoulders loosen and he suddenly giggles quickly, head bowing and shaking. “God, I don’t even—” He looks up at Danny. “It’s mad, you know? Just—Well, it’s Sherlock. Nothing’s ever simple or, I don’t know—not mad.”
Danny nods vigorously. “I hear you, man.”
John’s face grows serious. “I didn’t want to speak to him at first. I was so—I don’t know. I think I was pretty overwhelmed actually.”
“Hey, buddy, I was all the way over there, the other end of the world, and just reading about it I was a bit, well, I can’t say ‘overwhelmed’, but let’s just say I was like—” Danny widens his eyes to the max and waves his arms about, drawing a fucking Ferris wheel in the air. “So I can’t imagine what this whole rollercoaster must have been like for you. And don’t get me wrong, I do not wish to.” He adds the last bit injecting as much respect in it as possible.
“No,” John agrees simply.
Danny waits for a few moments before continuing, voice quiet. “But he’s back, right? That’s what’s got to matter the most. Right?”
John’s face provides Danny with all the answers to the question how much Sherlock being back means to John.
***
Turns out, however, Danny ain’t seen nothing yet, before he’s actually seen John’s face around Sherlock. There’s much of the old John, but a couple of times Danny catches something new in his eyes that makes Danny avert his own and think that poetry has nothing on real life. Not that the look is actually lyrical. It just says, ‘I was so lost without you and I cannot believe you’ve been given back to me.’ So, yeah, simple, and Danny hasn’t read a lot of poetry, but he imagines it’s the kind of stuff that poets should thrive on.
These insightful observations and reflections of Danny’s take place on a tourist-y thing along the river Thames. It’s Steve and Danny’s third day in London—on the first, they arrived in the afternoon, from then it was eighteen hours of trying to deal with their jetlag. Okay, that was Danny; Steve, the freak, was working out and eating healthy and driving Danny up the wall as if he’d fucking beamed himself to London and not flown like a normal human being.
Danny met with John on the second day in the early evening, so on the following day, after Steve and Danny did what they’d come here to do in the first place, it was boat time. (Danny’s so glad that bastard Eliot is going behind bars, he feels he can actually walk on water alongside the boat.)
Their tour started from Westminster Pier where Steve and Danny met Sherlock and John at one. Danny was almost surprised to see Sherlock—from memory the man was caustic, withering, eccentric, and not one bit the kind of guy who chills out on boats along rivers. (Or chills out at all.) Plus the previous day John said that the chances of getting Sherlock to leave to house for something that didn’t involve a corpse washed out on the river bank were extremely slim. But Sherlock was there. A bit thinner than Danny remembers him and all kinds of inapproachable.
Ten minutes after their departure Danny’s hopes for a pleasant, normal afternoon sink slowly but surely. Sherlock is buried in his coat and is deducing every passenger’s life and personal circumstances in short, off-hand remarks. He’s also rolling his eyes a lot and looking like a surly child. John tries to maintain a conversation with Danny, acknowledging Sherlock from time to time—Sherlock still does not take well anyone having John’s attention while he himself isn’t busy—but eventually John throws his hands in the air and tells (yells at?) Sherlock that maybe he could go and check whether they have harpoons on the boat, so he could keep himself occupied for the duration of the trip. Danny has no idea what that means and isn’t sure he wants to ask.
He has his own cares. Around the same ten-minute mark he has a short, very animated row with Steven on the topic of how when a person is on a tourist boat, the normal conduct is to take advantage of the pretty impressive sights of centuries-old buildings and such, instead of scanning all passengers with laser eyes as if they’re all terrorist suspects. It’s a small boat and there are like ten people altogether, what with the weather being so grey, so both Sherlock and Steve don’t have much to go on, but they damn well do their best. John and Danny exchange a few looks and things do not look good at all, but then the sun breaks through the clouds, literally and metaphorically. The water glistens, the sights are awesome, no one is talking much, so by the time they arrive at Greenwich Pier Danny’s pretty good, pretty good.
Not great, though. He hasn’t been great since he parted with John the previous day. Hell, he hasn’t been great since the reality of meeting John after all that’s happened hit him. Last night Danny walked all the way back to the hotel, a knot of anxiousness right where his solar plexus is, unable to loosen it or shake it off.
Then he saw Steve and suddenly the knot had a name.
Everything that John had been through…Danny imagined having to watch, helpless, as Steve died right in front of his eyes; he imagined the night after that, then the next, then the one after that, then having to go to work every day. He suddenly wasn’t able to breathe very well, so he told Steve he wasn’t feeling well and went up to his room, leaving Steve baffled in the lobby. Steve called him three times, came knocking on his door, but Danny pretended that he was asleep, texted him that he was still jetlagged, texted him again to say that yes, he would wake Steve up if he needed a doctor or anything, then had a night of uneasy, sweaty slumber.
This morning he spent ten minutes in front of the mirror, shaving slowly and talking to his reflection in his head. Things like how this was their job, this was the kind of life they had—there was risk, that Danny knew that. Things like how Steve had learned to rely on Danny; that he always watched out for Danny, which meant less free time to throw himself in the way of danger; that these days Steve was insane only on a semi-weekly basis; that Steve had been with normal people for a while now; that maybe some of Danny’s wisdom and concern had rubbed off on Steve.
They managed to have a nice breakfast. Danny thinks he did a pretty good job with his evasive tactics, so Steve had to let go of his enquiries about the previous night. It didn’t mean he wasn’t trying to drill holes in Danny’s skull with his big, deadly, ocean-like eyes of the silent inquisition. Thankfully going to court completely took both of their minds off other things.
***
Half an hour after they sit outdoors in a nice pub by the river, Sherlock gets a text message that has him all but dancing John around. The strong sense of kinship Danny felt with John when he first met him hits him again upon the realization that danger and mayhem evoke that sort of response not just in Steve—who, admittedly, is much more subtle, therefore more dangerous, because you can’t always predict him—but in Sherlock, too.
They barely have the chance to make some hasty provisional arrangements for the next morning. John gains even more of Danny’s respect when he firmly manages to put his foot down by telling Sherlock that he, John, intends to find an hour to meet with Danny and Steve on the next day even if Sherlock’s investigating the murder of the Queen, and no amount of pouting on Sherlock’s part will change that. Then they’re off, Sherlock’s cheerful and surprisingly friendly, “Ta-ta!” echoing in the air.
Steve and Danny look at each other for a long moment, then start laughing at the same time. Danny looks at Steve’s face and it’s like a giant claw releases Danny’s head.
They sit quiet for a moment, watching the water glistening under the magnificent skies, because Danny will give that to London—the clouds are pretty dramatic. It’s chilly and beautiful and kind of private for where they are. For a moment Danny thinks of Steve’s house and the lanai at the back—different water, but the same intense feeling of comfort, the same bubble of joy that keeps swelling in Danny’s chest these days, like he’s found himself a place where he belongs that’s got very little to do with the kind of water they’re facing.
The gust of wind is a bit unexpected and shit, icy, too, making Danny wipe his eyes. He turns to Steve to make a comment about it and sees that Steve’s watching him, face so complicated Danny has to do a double-take.
“Hey Danny,” Steve says at that moment, which alone gives Danny all he needs to know about how rehearsed that is. “Listen,” Steve continues, “what do you say we go out tonight? Someplace special, I’ve got a few restaurants bookmarked so we can pick one.”
Danny is a bit surprised by why Steve should ask so…officially, but other than that it sounds good.
“Yeah, all right,” he says. “Does it have to be someplace formal? Don’t get me wrong, I do not wish to deprive this great city of the sight of me wearing a suit and a tie. And okay,” Danny adds, because he is a generous person, “you scrub up well, too. It’s just that I want to kick back and relax a bit.”
“No, no, okay. We won’t do that, then.” Steve’s so quick and so endearing to agree, and he does that often, and it disarms the shit out of Danny.
“Whoa, hey, whoa. Let’s talk about this,” Danny says lifting both hands in a pacifying gesture, although Steve is anything but hostile. Like a kicked puppy, more like it.
“What’s there to talk, Danny? You don’t want to go to a fancy restaurant, we won’t go. I just thought it’d be nice, you know.” Steve’s throat works around the beer he drinks from his glass, while his eyes aren’t leaving the water. Danny’s caught with his mouth ajar. He senses that there’s something else underneath here, so he’s torn between his ever present need to speak and the smart move to wait for Steve to spit it out.
Steve squints when the sun peeps from a small clearance in the clouds and hits a spot in the river that sets it ablaze. His lips part and look like they’re taking out the first letters of different words for a spin, until finally he speaks. “It’s kind of cool that we’re both in London today, so I thought we can do something to, I don’t know...Just something.”
“You, my friend,” Danny tells him emphatically, “do not make any sense.”
Steve finally turns his head to look at him. “I’m just saying, Danny,” he murmurs, crestfallen and like each word costs him a year of his life.
“Okay, what is going on with you?” Danny’s smiling, but he’s sure his eyes betray his seriousness.
And Steve honest to God blushes. Danny can see the colour rising up his neck—he’s wearing a very nice grey v-neck sweater, and it’s so soft. Danny asked him about it, but Steve just shrugged. Danny’s pretty sure it’s cashmere. His most expensive item of clothing ever was a cashmere coat Rachel got for him for his thirtieth birthday.
So now Steve’s chest right above the cashmere is red and so are his ears. Danny waits and waits, until finally…
“It’s a special occasion, Danny,” Steve says, voice coarse.
Danny just stares at him. Steve risks eye contact, sees Danny’s expression and turns a darker shade of red. “Three years ago to the day, that was when we met.”
Danny is completely speechless, which okay, points to McGarrett. Speechless and suddenly the word ‘overwhelmed’ floats very close. He can’t string together any of the threads that start running haphazardly through his head, but all he knows is that he feels all tensed up and also kind of good.
***
The dinner is super awkward, a fitting end to an awkward afternoon. They are both dressed up and looking fine, Steve especially—people were actually staring—it’s the kind of look that evokes James Bond’s name and makes Danny’s skin itch in about two hundred different ways that he can’t name. But yeah, they look good, the food is great, the place is classy. The conversation is forced with just the rare glint of something genuine and them. Danny spends most of his time willing his palms to stop sweating.
He doesn’t even know what’s going on with him anymore, tonight and in the last two days. Or with Steve, who is like a stranger across the table, and who Danny wants to shake, make him spit out his friend who’s hidden somewhere in there. But Danny knows it’s him, too—after all, he can hear himself and he knows he’s tried to look at Steve out of the corner of his eye all night, real eye contact suddenly so embarrassing it’s like Danny’s on a first date or something—
“Did you enjoy your food, gentlemen?” the waiter asks politely, interrupting Danny’s train of thought and leaving him staring at the train disappearing into some imponderable tunnel.
They both give out various sounds and words in confirmation. Steve’s eyes barely leave Danny’s face for a cursory glance at the waiter. Danny on the other hand knows how to behave in civilized society, so he does look at the waiter properly, which doesn’t stop him from secretly wishing the guy would just bring them the check they asked for and leave. Maybe that’s the thing about McGarrett; maybe he does what Danny often wants to do, but feels compelled to ignore or squash for so many reasons and rules and boundaries. Steve lives Danny’s wishes out loud, as it were.
Jesus, where did that come from? Danny hasn’t even had that much to drink, what the hell is the matter with him?!
The waiter meanwhile is still there. He opens his mouth with some hesitation, but then looks at Steve and says, “Paris has the reputation, but London can be just as romantic if not more,” before taking off.
Danny thinks the waiter is fishing for a tip.
He also thinks the guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about, because you can’t just go around making assumptions about people.
Danny thinks he should make a joke about it right about now or give Steve the kind of look that goes ‘Can you believe this guy?’ that prompts Steve to give him one back, and they can do the whole non-verbal communication thing at which they’re frighteningly good.
Then Danny doesn’t think much, because of the way Steve’s looking at him, a shyly playful yet intense thing in his eyes, one eyebrow quirked just the tiniest bit, like he’s challenging Danny, like he’s saying, ‘So the guy thinks we’re together, what do you say to that, Danny?’ To which Danny's eyes say, ‘What are you doing, Steven, huh?’ and then Steve’s eyes become these warm, scary, compelling fucking wells of blue and pure Steven McGarrett, and what Danny would like to say to that is, ‘We’ve officially past any line that constitutes appropriateness of eye contact, stop looking at me like that, because—’
And it seems like they’re doing the non-verbal communication thing after all, only it’s not gone the way Danny thought one bit.
He clears his throat and his eyes jump away. He wishes he could come up with some actual words, but the bastards have all scuttled away, because Danny’s brain has always been a traitor, either making his mouth run away with him or keeping it blank in awkward, charged situations like now, Jesus, where’s that waiter?
“Man, it’s warm in here,” Steve says and Danny looks at him, incredulous, seriously, Steven, that’s what you’re going with, that’s like the biggest cliché ever, and what’re you trying to say—
“Here’s the check, gentlemen,” the waiter blissfully says. Then there’s the whole massive, blush-inducing thirty seconds in which they argue about who’s paying, until Steve does pay, managing to render Danny inoperative for a few seconds by saying something to the effect that it was his idea they celebrated their anniversary. Danny wants to stab himself in the leg with his fish fork. Or possibly he wishes to stab the stupid idiot more, because that’s not the kind of thing you say in front of waiters who already believe you and your work partner and okay, best friend, are romantically involved.
Steve takes advantage of the fact that Danny’s rant and arm flailing are entirely internal due to Danny having some manners and pays the bill, leaving Danny with a wisp of a suspicion that the remark was there on purpose to throw Danny off his game.
“Ready?” Steve says, lifting eyebrows with the question.
“Yeah,” Danny responds and for a split second he has the mortifying mental image of Steve walking behind his chair to assist him like any gentleman would do for his date. Danny bumps his hips at the table, that’s how fast and clumsy he de-chairs himself. Steve looks at him, half-confused, half-disapproving, the giant with perfect body coordination, and heads out to the exit ahead of Danny. Danny glares at his always confident strut, which adds insult to injury, then suddenly he is accosted by the thought that Steve might hold the door open for him. It’s happened. It happens all the time, now that Danny’s thinking about it. He doesn’t want to be thinking about it. He doesn’t even know anymore. He had two beers and some white wine with the fish, that’s all!
Thankfully, there’s no cab available outside so that allows them to make small talk on the subject of London cab service, compare to things back home—it doesn’t surprise Danny anymore to discover that to him ‘back home’ means the island, but the feeling is stronger now, because what’s more natural to compare cabs in London to than to compare them to cabs in New York? Yet Danny doesn't. His shoulders ease a bit, his stomach unclenches, and he’s looking at Steve’s focused, earnest face, cherishing the familiarity of it and calling himself an idiot.
That’s until they fall back into silence again, once they’ve climbed into the dark cab, sitting close to each other and slithering through the traffic of the brightly lit city.
“Danny, you all right?” Steve asks him quietly. Danny turns to look at him, not sure what the question means or even about his answer. Yeah, he’s all right. He’s damn good: he’s in one of the capitals of the world, he had some amazing food and he’s with one of the very, very few people he wants to have around all the time. Steve still has that expression from back at the restaurant minus the dare and it hits Danny how genuine everything about Steve is, how real and him. Danny feels his Adam’s apple bob.
“All right, what’s with the third degree? I’m fine, Steve, just watch the sights out of your window, okay? We’ve talked about it already only today!”
Steve’s lips twitch and he doesn’t look away for something like an hour. Danny’s about to physically reach out and grab the man’s damn chin to turn his head away, when Steve does look out of the window on his other side. Danny is abruptly faced with the line of Steve’s throat and the most flattering perspective to Steve’s ridiculous eyelashes. They fan out in all their glory and tremble almost imperceptibly with the motion of the car as Steve does take in the sights unblinkingly; or maybe he isn’t taking any sights at all, because that’s the kind of length of time without blinking a man spends when he’s not really seeing what’s right in front of him.
Danny takes a sudden breath and remembers to blink himself.
He passes his hand over his face and hopes they get to the hotel soon, because he’s back to feeling uneasy and off kilter and slightly euphoric, like someone’s burst a whole lot of fireworks in his belly. He’s running some background check on that restaurant first thing in the morning, starting with the beer and wine suppliers.
They arrive at the hotel in another few minutes and Danny pays the cab fare, uncertain whether to be glad or worried by the complete lack of objection on Steve’s behalf. A subdued Steve is only a sign of impending doom in Danny’s experience.
They walk through the lobby in silence and that’s how they ride the elevator. When the doors go ‘ping’ on their floor Danny is ready to point three damp patches on his shirt. They walk down the corridor side by side, like they’ve walked down countless corridors in the last three years, falling into step, close enough to feel the other’s presence palpably, but there’s nothing unselfconscious about the act now. As they approach their two singles, two doors right next to each other, the fireworks are back going off, this time along the length of Danny’s spine. One must have burst in his skull all right, because Danny thinks that this is the moment when Steve will turn to him and ask him if he wanted to come in for a nightcap.
Steve McGarrett, however, lives to torment Danny Williams one way or another. He stops in front of his door without a word and Danny walks over to his own, taking his cardkey out of his pocket. He turns his head to Steve to find him rummaging in his own pockets for his key. It’s in the inside pocket of his jacket. Danny stands there like a moron, watching Steve’s profile, the line of his body in the suit, the white of the shirt lapels glowing lightly under the dim light in the corridor.
Steve turns to face him, eyes boring into Danny’s. Danny gazes at him, expectant; it’s Steve, you gotta be expectant with Steve, always.
“G’night, Danno,” Steve says.
Danny swallows. “Night.”
Steve disappears inside his room and Danny hears the soft click of his door closing just as his own opens.
He takes a couple of steps in and hears the sound of the door lock sliding into place behind him. It’s dark, but Danny doesn’t really care to put on any lights right now. He stands in one spot, his body twitching, unused to that kind of stillness. His mind is a whirlwind of questions, but at the same time it's blank, like each time a question is about to reach to its end, some invisible scissors snap its ribbon. All the ribbons are flapping behind Danny’s eyes, adding to the vibrations he feels in his belly. He has no questions, no answers, nothing but restless need.
He stops completely, motionless for a long few seconds, eyes staring ahead in the dark, then he turns around and opens the door.
The moment he steps outside he hears the sound of Steve’s door opening. Danny walks to it, one, two steps, and he’s at the door, Steve there in his shirt only, one more top button undone like he couldn’t bear its restriction the moment he shut the door behind his back. The sight does something very dangerous to Danny.
He locks his eyes with Steve, glued to his spot. Steve steps aside and opens his door fully, and Danny walks in, not looking at him. He can only hear Steve close the door behind both of them.
He turns around and suddenly Steve’s very much there, as close as a hand’s reach. The only light is coming from the bathroom—it illuminates Steve at an angle, showcasing the miracle that this ridiculous man is. Scant light, but Danny sees it all: the loyalty, the passion, the recklessness, the brains, the physicality, the heart of pure gold, the courage—and it’s all poured into this incredibly sexy mixing bottle, the cocktail already making Danny drunk just by the thought of it, Jesus Christ, there’s your impending doom, Williams…
“Steven, are you going to stand there all night or what?” Danny says. His palms are officially completely wet.
Steve moves without Danny’s eye noticing any actual movement. If Danny was a lesser man and if he hadn’t made it to top level on how to be around Steve McGarrett, he’d have stepped back on instinct. As it is, he is only giving himself a neck problem by looking up to Steve’s towering face. He’s so close, they’re exchanging air. Danny’s face heats up, his heart swells in his chest, everything so magnified that a part of him wishes Steve would just pick him up and crush him—
Steve walks him back two steps until Danny’s back hits the wall and kisses him.
Danny goes for it like they’re on the clock. The unleashed arousal vanquishes any and all thought or reservation that Danny might have had about this. He feels Steve tongue sweeping against his in slow desperation and he grabs Steve’s head to align them better, then pulls Steve’s body flushed against his. Being surrounded, wrapped up in Steve becomes not just a priority, but essential for Danny, because he’s never had nice things, not really—Gracie’s the one exception, the best thing in the world, yet still not his, she could always be taken away—but this, Steve? Danny wants to have him for himself only and he can. He knows he can because he knows this man like the back of his hand. “Danny, Danny.” Steve’s pleading while he keeps kissing him, running his big hands all over Danny, eager and a little frantic. “Danny,” he breathes out, pledging to Danny anything, everything, himself—so that’s how Danny knows.
“C’mere, Steve, come on,” Danny rasps, dragging him in the general direction of the bed, not letting go of him for one second. They fall on it, ungraceful, Steve landing on top of Danny, to which Danny has zero objections. He moans at the way Steve’s weight against him ignites Danny’s body, Steve’s body offering pressure where Danny’s abruptly too aware of needing it. His legs take on a life of their own, shifting underneath that entire expanse of firm, delicious muscle and falling open. Steve rolls between them with muffled sounds and he keeps kissing him, mouth moving down to Danny’s jaw, then to his throat. Danny arches, letting Steve have more of it, letting him take it all, maybe begging a little.
Steve’s still doing his litany of Danny’s name as his fingers work clumsily on clothes, both Danny’s and his own. “Here, let me,” Danny says, trying to help, then, “God, Steve, yeah, okay, I’m here,” as they keep going back to kissing and muttering into each other’s mouths. At last he’s naked like the day he was born, while for some reason Steve’s still in his shirt, despite that all the buttons are undone; still in his boxer shorts, too. Danny can feel how hard Steve is under there and suddenly it’s like he’s got a sense memory of Steve in his hand, teasing to the point of pain. He pants against the crook of Steve’s neck and shoves his hand inside his boxer shorts.
Steve throws his head back and moans, eyes shut, neck a flushed strain of power and sex. Danny narrowly misses going out of his head; his hips lift in blind search of friction, bump against Steve’s hip, making Danny squeeze his eyes shut, a soft, “Fuck,” rolling off his lips. He relishes having Steve hard and hot in his hand; he wants to bring him off so much that it dizzies him, and God help him he can hear his own exhalations like little whimpers. He starts moving his hand and Steve groans again. Danny’s so content, he wants nothing more than this for now, so they do that for some time—Danny does his best to make Steve come, drinking in his lost face, while Steve strains on top of him, arms tautly shaped up on both sides of Danny’s head like the stuff of sculpture books.
Only that’s Steven, so he can’t just let Danny have his best sex ever, and that’s without even being touched himself. No, first he leaks over Danny’s fingers, which makes Danny even happier and more turned on than he thought he could be, and then he breaks the perfect little situation they’ve got going on to roll them onto their sides, and then he just slides down the bed, taking hold of Danny’s ass like he’s already owning it. He takes Danny in his mouth and Danny whimpers in earnest this time, one hand scratching at the sheets in helplessness, while the fingers of the other mould around Steve’s skull. He’s going to come within a minute, he knows it. He is so hard he could bruise someone with that thing, the thing that’s luxuriating in Steve’s wonderful, depraved mouth, God.
Danny tries not to make small movements like a piston, then he remembers what he was doing a moment ago, how much he was enjoying making Steve mindless with arousal, so he tries to pull him back up. Steve refuses, of course, and it’s the check in the restaurant all over again, including the nefarious means Steve employs to render Danny utterly incapable of anything other than to look down at Steve’s bobbing head, empty of will to do anything than thrust lightly into his mouth. So Steve wins and that’s the story of Danny’s life, really, because when has he ever managed to really put his foot down with this man, when? Steve will probably own Danny’s ass, just like he made space for himself in Danny’s life, against Danny’s sense of self-preservation and better judgement, and has slowly claimed the rest: his head, his heart, the hidden, dark corners of Danny’s soul.
Danny starts trembling, looking down, hypnotized, watching Steve sucking him off with the same abandon with which he’d throw himself between Danny and an explosion. The world narrows down to here and now and this is Steve, yet stretches out, expansive, like the summit of all they are to each other, every moment they’ve shared before this one. Steve’s eyelids flutter up and he meets Danny’s eyes, pauses for a second that nails Danny’s breath to his chest, then moans around Danny and keeps moving, their eye contact uninterrupted and filled with their thing; they know, Danny knows; he can hear Steve in his head, all that Steve wants to do to him, how much he wants to make Danny feel good, what Danny means—
“Steve, St-eve,” Danny stutters, face twisting like he’s about to cry, trying to warn Steve. He barely manages to slip out of Steve’s mouth and seeing himself in plain sight next to those eyes proves to be the final straw that tips him over. Steve’s hand catches him, helps him ride through waves of pleasure bigger and wilder than any wave back home, but Steve’s there. Danny can spend himself to the last drop, be wrecked and ecstatic, and he’s fucking safe with Steve McGarrett. How about that?
He’s left panting and a bit useless for a moment, one arm flung over his eyes, the other cupping Steve’s neck. Steve’s pulse is beating softly and desperately against Danny’s palm like the echoes of a trapped fledgling’s fight, and Danny is pretty sure he would actually take out his heart and give it to the stupid idiot if he asked that of him.
He looks down with one eye to find Steve contemplating Danny’s nether regions, his chest, and his face like a man who’s about to make them his life’s study. There’s something so subtly content in his expression that Danny feels he should speak up.
“All right, enough with the looking, I’m not actually your handiwork, you do realize that,” Danny murmurs, finding his voice soft and gentle, and a bit raw. He tries to tug Steve upward with little success. “Come up here,” he says. Steve meets his eyes with that old, old infuriating blank mulishness. Danny sighs, speaks a bit louder. “Please? Can you please come up here like a normal person so that we can keep having sex, because I quite like it, I think it’s awesome, and we’re pretty great at it. And I’d like to continue if that’s okay with you, which at this points means that I’d like to show you some of the Williams love—See, you made me do that, I just said ‘the Williams love’, please, don’t ever mention that to me or anyone else, okay, let’s just—”
Steve crawls up all over him, kissing him deeply and trying to somehow fold down Danny’s head and neck into his arms, the Neanderthal, but obviously Danny’s not right in the head, because he’s stupid for this Neanderthal and he wants to give him his heart, apparently, as well as blow him, pretty bad. Trouble is, he’s as weak as a kitten—also McGarrett’s fault—and Steve’s mumbling “Danny, God, Danny,” while unconsciously humping Danny’s leg. At which point Danny recalls the fantastic time they were having earlier and grabs firm hold of Steve. “I’ve got you,” he says and watches Steve quickly unfurl then fall apart in his hands.
It’s a little bit terrifying how much he wants to see that immediately again.
***
Danny’s got a reason to be exceedingly proud with his sense of perspective when he does not in fact call John to say his goodbyes and apologize that they will have to go directly to the airport without meeting with him. They are in London and Danny likes John. Plus he doesn’t get that many chances to hang out with normal people off work. Steve will also benefit from some normal people companionship, because Danny may be head over hills with the man, but that is not a reason to abandon his life mission to bring some improvements into Steve McGarrett’s social skills. If anything, that’s become even more important now, because nothing about Steve or Danny says ‘casual’. Nothing about Steve and Danny says ‘casual’, either. So fine, maybe Danny can reflect on his life choices another time; for now he’s happy that his day-to-day choices are sound and in this case include getting ready and showing up in the hotel lobby at 11 o’clock to meet John.
What Danny has grossly miscalculated is the fact that John comes in a package with his own crazy person. Sherlock is there, surprise number one. He looks at Steve, bored—Danny suspects only half of it is fake—then his eyes transform to something so sharply focused and discerning that Danny can swear they looked like the lens of a camera opening. Steve catches the look and is a bit taken aback, but then his chin lifts in calm self-assurance. Sherlock’s gaze flicks all over him, jumps on Danny, making Danny want to physically jump back himself. He glares at Sherlock, then for good measure lifts his eyebrows in a clear, ‘This is so impolite you can put a picture of it next to ‘impolite’ in the dictionary.’
He doesn’t expect Sherlock to start with machine gun speed, but he does expect a succinct, accurate assessment of the significant change that Steve and Danny’s relationship has undergone in the last twelve hours. But Sherlock only stands there, a bit awkward, eyes still on Danny but not really caring about him anymore. It’s both a relief and kind of disconcerting.
John had clearly restored all his old habits and Sherlock-related tolerance levels. He just waits him out, frowning slightly, eyes shifting over to Steve and Danny. Sherlock takes a deep breath, stirring back to life, and pushes his hands deeper into his pockets. “Shall we?” he says as he’s already twirling dramatically in his coat and heading for the main door.
Danny wishes he was able to say what he thought of the places they visited. He wishes he remembered at least their names. (One had the word ‘knights’ in it.) Best he can offer are some vague bits of conversation that amount to: some running commentary on what’s in front of their eyes (prompting Sherlock to sigh loudly and make the occasional scathing remark when he feels he’s been ignored for too long), mentions of different social customs (that’s a fair number of different cultures they’re familiar with between the four of them, although Sherlock’s input is completely random and often morbid). And finally, when they sit in a pub, there’s John and Steve comparing more notes that Danny puts under the general header, ‘Military stuff’.
But that’s as precise as Danny can get. Because he made the choice to go out and make the most of his last few hours in London, but it looks like ‘the most’ in this case equals to taking in about a fifth of what’s going on, while the rest of him is Steve-awareness. Danny’s like a giant dish that’s picking up McGarrett signal. He is sure that if Steve was one person in a stadium full to the last seat, Danny would still be aware of him only. Steve has acquired like a whole extra dimension; his colours and brightness are upped and Danny wants to touch him all the time, wants to bicker with him, watch his smiles and his frowns. He listens to his voice, which somehow makes Danny the candle and Steve the flame. He’s sitting in a pub in some small street in the heart of London and he feels so happy that he is a hundred percent sure he’s embarrassing himself.
His consolation is that every time Steve looks at him, there’s goofiness in his smile, in his eyes, in the way his ears continue to pink up—all of epic proportions. And that’s not all there is of epic proportions on his face.
John catches up, surely he does. He’s British so he goes a bit socially clumsy and stiff, but then he gets back to normal pretty quickly, because he’s that kind of guy. Danny really likes John. He invites both him and Sherlock to Hawaii again, to the chorus of Steve’s sincere, inviting gestures and tone. Sherlock rolls his eyes and says, “Yes, because what can be better than hordes of stupid people on holiday? Oh wait. Hordes of stupid people on holiday while I suffer the worst sunburn in my life.”
Everyone ignores him, but he doesn’t seem offended one bit. He doesn’t seem to notice, actually—he’s taken to casting sideways glances at John as soon as they sat in the pub. Danny’s still a cop so Sherlock’s not the only one who notices things, but John, bless him, is first clueless and then a bit confused. At some point he shifts and murmurs closer to Sherlock’s ear, “What’s wrong?” Sherlock turns his head, facing John in really close proximity and making him start a bit. “Nothing,” he rumbles with that voice of his. “I’m fine, John.”
Then Steve leans in and asks Danny if he wants another drink, intimacy and together so plainly written all over him that Danny’s mind overflows with it, with Steve, and he doesn’t quite know what happens with the other two after that.
***
On the plane on the way home Danny scoots closer to Steve and speaks to him in a low, conspiratorial voice.
“You know what I think?” he says. “I think we should travel more.”
Steve pulls away slightly to look at Danny’s face, a line visible between his eyebrows. “Why are you whispering?”
Danny did not expect that, so his own eyebrows rise up a bit. “Why—Why am I whispering?”
“Yeah, Danny, why are you whispering? No one cares whether we should travel more, it’s not a secret.”
Danny despairs sometimes, he really does. “You think that’s why people whisper? Of course you do, it’s all secrets for you. And,” Danny adds, “their extraction, possibly by means of torture.”
Steve looks confused and a little hurt. He is opening his mouth, but Danny doesn’t even let him start.
“I, on the other hand, Steven, have a scope.” Steve’s lips do the twitch thing again and he settles himself comfortably, crossing his arms over his chest. “You have a scope,” he says.
“Yes, what did I just say?” Danny gives him a look to underline how repeating other people’s words is lame. “I have a scope, which means that I am capable of doing certain things taking into consideration a wider set of circumstances.”
Steve’s watching Danny as if Danny is some sort of on-board flight entertainment. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says.
Danny sighs, makes a show of rubbing his forehead. “You know what, never mind. My point was that I wasn’t whispering because it was a secret. I was whispering, because I was mindful of the fact that we are not alone in here. That all these people,” Danny gestures to indicate, “may not wish to know my thoughts and plans for the future, okay? That they might appreciate not being disturbed. I was being considerate.”
Steve blinks at him slowly, his lips still glowing with a smile that’s not even there, but Danny knows it is. It’s so not fair, he is so screwed; screwed and so happy.
Steve unfolds his arms and shifts closer. “Hey Danny,” he softly says, beckoning Danny to come closer with a little nod. Danny leans in. “So.” Steve’s voice is low, close to a whisper. “How mindful are you of the fact that we are not alone in here?”
End