Chapter Text
Steve stood frozen for a moment, staring after Danny’s car as it pulled away from the kerb, his eyes wide at the reaction Danny had, had. He could still hear Danny’s words echoing around his head, making him shiver at the thought of Danny even disliking him slightly.
He had to make this right, explain to Danny that there had been no other option available for him to take. He had known the general layout of the hotel so he had known about the balconies beneath them. If he hadn’t of taken the risk then their suspect in a triple homicide would have been gone and they would have been screwed, probably never finding the guy until he struck again, taking another life. It was a risk he couldn’t afford to take not when people’s lives were at stake.
He swallowed, his mind replaying the scene of coming back to the roof and seeing Danny hunched over, Chin and Kono close to him, talking to him clearly trying to calm him down. His face had been pale beneath his tan and his eyes had been wide and dark as though he was seeing things that none of the rest of them could see. Steve had reacted without thinking, moving towards Danny and grabbing his hand, placing it against his chest, his palm was over Steve’s heart so Danny could feel that he was still alive and with him, whatever reaction he had been expecting it certainly hadn’t been the one which he had received.
Steve licked his lips nervously before he made a movement towards his truck, If he left now then he could reach Danny’s house within five minutes of him, hopefully before Danny shut him out and turned the high tech alarm system on, the same high-tech alarm system which Steve had, had installed while Danny had been away for a few days.
He came to a stop when a hand suddenly gripped his elbow tightly, he looked round surprised to see that it was Chin holding him back, a look on his face which reflected his annoyance as clearly as though he had shouted the words out loud.
“Chin?” Steve demanded.
“Just leave him alone for a bit Steve” Chin responded. “If you go after him now then you’ll just make things worse, let him recover first and calm down and then go and see him, he’ll be more likely to let you in to talk if you do, if you go now then you won’t get anywhere and he’ll just get seriously pissed off instead of just being pissed off” The older man instructed. Steve bristled for a moment at the assumption that Chin knew his partner better than Steve did but he forced himself to push the feeling down.
“So what do you suggest? That I just leave him alone when he’s feeling rough?” Steve questioned, his free hand curling into a fist at his side, he saw Chin’s eyes flicker down to it briefly before he looked back up at him and spoke quietly.
“I’m suggesting you let Danny have a hour or two to himself before you go to him, you’re both upset at the moment and the last thing either of you need right now is an argument where you’ll say things neither of you mean. Just stay here and work the scene with us Steve.” Chin instructed. Steve breathed out nosily, yanking his elow out of Chin’s hold before he glared at the man.
“Fine” He said through gritted teeth. “Chin, stay here and oversee CSU, as soon as they find anything I want to know about it, Kono you’re with me. I think it’s time we took our free jumper back to headquarters and get some answers from him.” He told them, he saw them share a quick look with one another before they nodded.
“You got it boss” Kono said lightly.
Steve nodded, turning and heading towards his truck. The sooner he dealt with the case the sooner he could go and check on Danny.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Danny stared at the TV in front of him, barely paying attention to the Ice Hockey game he was watching. He had seen it before but there was something about it which soothed him, calming him down. He felt better now, weak and tired but better. Good enough that he felt almost guilty about telling Steve he sometimes hated him. He knew what his partner was like, the other man wasn’t going to change his ways and certainly not for Danny.
He leaned forward, snagging the mug of tea from his coffee table and taking a sip, normally he’d watch the game with a cool beer but after a panic attack he liked things to be a certain way, beer however pleasant couldn’t beat the memories of his mother bringing him a hot cup of tea whenever he had felt out of sorts with a cold or something similar, it was a habit which he had continued when he had come to Hawaii to live, a habit he tended to keep quiet from the others.
He twisted his head when he heard someone knock on his door, his eyes narrowing slightly before he sighed and came to his feet. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t been expecting the visit, he was only surprised that it had taken Steve this long to get there. He had almost expected to be barricading his door against the other man as soon as he had arrived home but instead hours had past. Part of him had been disappointed but the other part had been thankful, he had needed the time to get himself back together.
Placing the mug on the table he pressed the pause button on the remote and stood up, heading out of the room and down the hallway stopping outside the front door. He stared at it for a moment before he opened the door, staring at Steve who slowly lowered his fist from where he had been clearly about to knock again. Danny stared at him for a second, his eyes dropping to the large brown bag that Steve was holding. They were silent for a moment before Danny spoke.
“What’s in the bag?” Danny asked quietly, leaning against the frame of the door.
“Food from that place you liked, the one we found that… well you liked it, you said it reminded you of Jersey, figured you probably haven’t have eaten anything since this morning.” Steve said, lifting the bag up slightly. Danny breathed out nosily, searching Steve’s eyes for a moment and caught sight of the carefully concealed pleading look in them before he gave in and stepped back, waving a hand into the house.
“Well you best come in then before the food gets cold” He stated. Steve stepped into the hallway and passed the bag to Danny. “You having any?” He asked, raising an eyebrow when Steve nodded. Danny shrugged. “Go through to the living room then, I’ll be there in a moment.” He watched Steve move through his house, disappearing into the living room before he slowly made his way to the kitchen. He took the containers out of the bag, his mouth curling into a smile when he saw that Steve had gotten them burgers and fries. He placed the food on some plates, hesitating for a moment knowing that they would have to talk about what happened earlier.
He knew it would have happened eventually but he had hoped that it wouldn’t be so soon.
Grabbing a bottle of beer he picked the plates up and brought them into the room, passing Steve the bottle and one of the plates before he collapsed next to him on the sofa, pressing play again.
“You not having a bottle?” Steve asked.
“Nope” Danny answered, picking the burger up and taking a bite, moaning happily at the taste. This burger was the only thing he had found so far which reminded him of home. If he could get away with it then he would eat it all the time but he knew that Grace would somehow find out and he couldn’t bear the thought of the disappointed look she would give him.
“Look Danny about earlier I…” Steve began to say, stopping when Danny held his hand up, stopping him.
“Look I know what you’re going to say so just don’t bother okay? You’re going to apologise and then you’re going to say you’ll try to be better and we both know it’s not going to happen because it’s not who you are or who you’ve been trained to be so let’s just accept for the sake of my sanity that this will happen again, the same way it’s happened before.” Danny stated, keeping his gaze on the TV.
“Danny” Steve said “We need to talk about this.”
“Talk about what exactly?” Danny demanded, eyes narrowing slightly on the screen.
“The fact you get a panic attack when…”
“When you do something stupid or suicidal?” Danny interrupted. “Of course I do you asshole, I care for you and you’re just determined to throw your life away. Yes I understand that it’s our job but strangely enough the rest of us can do our job without trying to kill ourselves.”
“The suspect would have gotten away, he would…”
“He would have jumped straight into Kono’s waiting arms because we had already covered every single exit he could use because we knew he would run. It’s what we do Steve but you didn’t bother to actually think of that did you? Because you think you’re superman and that if you don’t react them somehow the bad guys will escape. You don’t stop to think whether it’s dangerous or that you could be hurt or you could die or anything else, you don’t think about the people who love you who have to deal with everything because you just don’t think.” He ranted before he forced himself to stop and take a bite of his burger, chewing at it, noticing that Steve was silent. He swallowed, his eyes flickered to Steve to see him watching him closely.
“The people who love me” Steve repeated quietly causing Danny to snort even as he silently cursed himself for the slip up.
“Lots of people love you, Chin loves you, Kono does, Mary, Catherine, Joe… do I really need to go on Steve?” Danny commented, picking up a chip and biting into it.
“And what about you? Do you love me? I mean you’ve mentioned everyone else but you didn’t mention yourself” Steve questioned, his food forgotten. Danny swallowed hard, thinking about saving his pride but for once he pushed his nerves to one side, choosing the truth.
“Yeah because I just have panic attacks over everyone, of course I love you, you know I do” Danny told him, forcing his eyes back to the TV screen though he barely paid any attention to it. He almost jumped when Steve placed his plate of food on the table and wrapped his arm around Danny’s shoulder. Danny stiffened for a moment before he relaxed against Steve, a smile quirking his mouth when Steve twisted his head and kissed him on his temple.
“I love you too Danny” He said softly.
“Love me or love me like a friend?” Danny asked
“I love you” Steve said quietly. Danny smiled, placing his own plate on the table and turned the TV off, getting slowly to his feet and looking down at Steve.
“I think it’s maybe time you show me and you know if you could try and stop trying to kill yourself so I can skip another panic attack for a while then I’d be more thankful then you know” He commented, stuffing his hands into his jeans pocket before he turned and headed out of the room, smiling when he heard Steve following him.
Maybe he could think of a better way to keep Steve busy.