Chapter Text
Hawaii Five-0
Danny wasn't sleeping on the couch. He may be short and stout, but a ten-hour flight on any plane these days was enough to make even a child-sized person fight someone for the first available bed they came across. Not that he was going to fight Steve for the bed; the guy had his arm in a sling, his ear was missing bits of skin, and his face was a smorgasbord of different cuts and gashes. But Danny wasn't going to fight Steve for the bed because he knew he wouldn't have to.
Steve was exhausted physically, emotionally, and mentally. As Danny scanned the room, he saw two beers on the table in front of him, remembered the third bottle that was in the trash, and knew that it wouldn't take Steve long to want to lie down somewhere. Danny would make sure it was the bed and would do his best to help Steve fall asleep. And to do that, Danny knew he needed to be right beside his partner.
He heard the toilet flush and the sink run, and a few seconds later Steve was stepping out of the bathroom, still tired, still haggard, his eyes wide and bright and filled with so much anger and sadness that it made Danny's heart stop just for a few seconds. "You eat anything?" He asked, watching as Steve made his way back to his seat on the couch and practically fell sitting onto it. When Steve didn't answer, Danny leaned forward. "Steve?"
"Hm."
"Food. You want any?"
It really didn't matter if Steve wanted food or not. Danny was here and one of the reasons he'd flown 5,000 miles was to make sure that Steve was okay and taking care of himself. Part of that was making sure he ate, so he ignored Steve's protests and assurances that he wasn't hungry and stood up, making for the desk where, in all hotels, big, small, rich, poor, and in between, the local take out and room service menus were strategically placed. Passing up the hotel's dining menu for what looked like a locally owned pizza joint, Danny took out his phone and dialed, ordering a large pizza and a few bottles of water. "They don't do Hawaiian here in D.C.; they're civilized," Danny looked at Steve and was happy to see that comment at least a good natured eye roll from him. "But they did have pepperoni, so that's what I got."
Slipping his phone back in his pocket, Danny grabbed the remote off the desk and flicked the television on, moving to sit beside Steve and prop his feet up on the table. He felt Steve's eyes on him, but he just continued going through the channels until he found something benign and silly, a movie to occupy their time and fill the dead space in the room between now and when the pizza arrived.
"It's funnier than it looks, believe me," Danny settled in and folded his arms across his chest. "Grace was too young when it came out, but she watched it at some point when she got older, which meant I did too. It's kind of intelligent, the comedy's not bad; it's written by Saturday Night Live writers-"
"Danny."
"What?"
"Shut up and let me watch the movie." Steve slumped a bit against Danny, shoulder to knee pressed against his partner, and Danny did as he was told, not moving an inch away from Steve as he did.
By the time the pizza arrived some 35 minutes later, Steve had cracked a few smiles and had even laughed once. Actually, it was more like a huff of air, but Steve's lips had been slightly upturned, so Danny had counted it as a laugh. He'd laid out the pizza in front of them and gotten some paper towels from the bathroom and while it wasn't perfect and he would've much preferred plates, the fact that once Steve realized that he was actually hungry and had already put two slices down made Danny so happy he forgot to bitch about the lack of proper dishes. "Oh, hey, you'll enjoy this part here," Danny tapped Steve's arm and pointed at the television. "She gave her carb bars, you know, the kind that make you gain weight really quick if you need to up your weight class for wrestling or something?"
Towards the end of the movie, Steve had actually laughed – a genuine laugh – once and had (of course) known that the tie breaking answer to the math problem had been 'the limit does not exist'. Danny thought that phrase was rather representative of Steve, because often times Steve didn't know his own limits. Early on in their partnership, Danny had honestly believed that no limits existed where Steve McGarrett was involved. It was only when Catherine left the second time that Danny began to see his partner in a new light. Steve did have limits, and whether it was with his ex-girlfriend or his mother, with John McGarrett or Greer or Joe White, Steve's limit all revolved around one word: abandonment. Steve had been abandoned and so betrayed by the people in his life, by the people he should have least expected that kind of pain from. And now here Steve was sitting on a couch in an upscale D.C. hotel paid for by the organization who had caused his family so much heartache, eating pizza and watching Mean Girls because Steve had reached his limit.
Danny cut the tv off as the credits rolled and sat back, letting the room fill with quiet. "You gonna take a shower?"
Steve shrugged with his good arm, letting the movement speak for him. Danny nodded. "I'm gonna go have one if you don't mind. That mouth breather smelled like he'd gotten off a barge."
"That's what that smell is." Steve looked at him and Danny saw the ghost of a smile through his beard. His mountain man beard that he'd had not even a year ago in Montana, and he was wearing that same, haunted, untrusting expression he'd had when Danny had hopped out of the car only to find Steve taking up post behind a water trough on Joe's ranch with a gun and bullets just itching to be fired.
"Yea," Danny pushed up from the sofa, looked down. "You still gonna be out here when I come back out?" The only answer he got was a grunt, but Danny accepted it and headed into the bathroom, stripping quickly and hopping into the shower. He made do with the hotel shampoo and conditioner, quickly washing and rinsing his hair before giving his body a perfunctory glaze of soap and shutting off the water. The shower was just barely over five minutes, not what Danny really wanted but he needed to get back out into the room more than he needed to luxuriate under the hot water.
Danny ran a towel over his body and found his boxers and under shirt and tugged them on, wrinkling his nose a bit. He hadn't even gone home to pack an overnight bag after learning that there was a non-stop flight to D.C. taking off in 45 minutes from Honolulu International and racing to the airport straight from headquarters, flashing lights and blaring sirens the whole way and damning the rule book the entire time. He'd used his badge to get to the front of the line, booked the flight, and made it to the terminal with ten minutes to spare before the plane took off. And as he stepped out of the bathroom to find Steve with another beer in his hands, Danny found that he didn't regret any of it. Immunity and means came in handy sometimes and he felt no guilt for using both for a personal gain, not now.
Steve was staring out the window, the Capitol's dome cloaked in a dusky sky by now, lights brightening the city scape below. It was a testament to how out of it Steve was, that he didn't hear Danny move up behind him as he raised the beer to his lips again.
"Steve," Danny's hand came between Steve's mouth and the bottle's rim. "Why don't you go shower, huh?" Danny gently gripped the beer and gave a placid tug, happy that Steve released it without a fight as he got up from his seat. "You need help with the sling?" His partner stopping and turning his protected arm towards Danny was all the answer he needed. Danny was fairly used to this by now, having worn every cast or sling known to man during his time with Five-0 and if he hadn't, then Steve certainly had. Carefully releasing Steve's arm from the sling, Danny folded it over the back of the chair and led Steve towards the bathroom, helping him take off his sweater and under shirt and then unbuttoning his partner's pants for him. "You good?" Danny looked up, caught Steve staring at him – staring through him, kind of. "Steve?"
Focus returned to Steve's eyes and be blinked. "Hm."
"You good from here or you need me to…?" Danny motioned at Steve's waist. There was literally nothing in the world that Danny wouldn't do for Steve and if Steve needed help getting his pants and boxers off then, hey, Danny was his man. Hell, if Steve needed help in the shower, Danny may have just dried off, but there were extra towels and he'd get wet again if only Steve said the word.
"I got it," Steve murmured, slipping his cargos and underwear off easily and gingerly stepping into the shower, flipping it on.
Leaving his boxers and undershirt, Danny picked up his cargos and sweater. "I'll be right outside if you need anything, Steve, okay?" He saw Steve flap his hand at him through the shower curtain and, satisfied, Danny stepped over the threshold and closed the door to the frame, leaving a slight crack.
Five minutes passed. Ten minutes came and went. By 15 minutes, Danny was thinking about popping his head into the bathroom and checking on Steve because, in all seriousness, his partner was coming up on the longest shower he'd probably ever taken in his life, and that was more than enough to cause a seed of concern to sprout in Danny's chest. When he looked at his phone for the umpteenth time and clocked the shower time at 19 minutes, Danny headed for the bathroom door and knocked softly. "Steve, babe; you okay in there?"
No answer.
Danny pushed the door open and headed for the shower. "Steve?" He heard… something. A sluice of water, a shift against tile. "Steve, I'm taking a peek, okay? Just want to make sure you're alright-" Danny tugged the shower curtain to the side just enough to see Steve settled on the floor of the shower, knees drawn up to his chest, the water pounding so hot and hard against his back that angry, red splotches were spreading over already abused and sore skin. Through it all, Danny could tell the tremor of Steve's shoulders told the story of a man crying and trying not to be heard. Danny knew that story very well, having written novels of his own after his divorce, finding out about Charlie, Grace's kidnapping, her accident, so on and so forth.
"C'mon, babe," Danny reached in and turned off the water, grabbing a towel from the rack afterwards and covering Steve's back with it. "Steve, come on. Stand up, babe." It was a struggle; Steve was over six feet and someone who was five foot whatever trying to take on someone of Steve's height was usually a study in comedy if there ever was one. But Danny managed it, getting Steve to step out of the tub carefully so that they didn't have a broken leg to add to all of his troubles, and wrapped a towel around Steve's waist.
"C'mon, sit down here, sit," Danny, with a soft, crooning voice, led Steve over to the bed and sat him on the edge while he took the time to look over Steve's back. The water had been hot, but not scalding; nevertheless, Danny left Steve to wipe at his eyes while he headed back into the bathroom. Finding some complimentary lotion, he grabbed it and went back to Steve's side, spreading some on the patchy red spots mottling the skin. It wasn't the best, but it was what they had, and Danny would rather put some moisture back into Steve's skin than not at all, not to mention his impromptu massage seemed to be calming Steve down. "It'll be okay, buddy," Danny murmured, getting off the bed and reaching for Steve's boxers. "Come on, let's get these on." He managed to get the boxers up and took the towel off afterwards before reaching for Steve's t-shirt and helping his partner slip his arms through the sleeves. The sling was the last thing to add and Danny quickly worked Steve's arm back into it, buckling and tightening it in various places before Steve sighed, nodding it was how it should be.
"You need some sleep, Steve. Okay? Did you book a home flight yet?" Danny was gratified when Steve shook his head no, rubbing his eyes tiredly. "Good. No getting up early to catch a flight means you can sleep, yea? Come on, get in bed."
Just as he'd done since Danny had showed up, Steve let himself be led, let Danny tuck him under the covers, just let Danny be there for him, and Danny was as grateful for that as he knew Steve was for him showing up here tonight.
Flipping off the lights and leaving the curtains open, Danny headed for the couch and the remote, planning on watching some television a little while longer while keeping an eye on Steve. A muffled protest caught his ear as he sat down, and he looked over to where Steve was gazing at him over his shoulder. "What's up?"
"I didn't mean – the bed's big enough, Danny," Steve's voice was rough and tear laced and Danny almost vaulted off the sofa at the sound of it, his heart answering Steve's obvious want for him to be at his side.
"I was just going to watch some tv, that's all," Danny assured him as he was putting the remote back down on the table and getting up; the Jets game recap suddenly didn't seem all that important. He made his way to the other side of the bed and climbed in, getting comfortable. Steve watched him, wary, sad, so infinitely sad that Danny couldn't help but brush his fingers gently through his partner's beard. "Whatever you're thinking right now, stop it, okay?" Danny whispered. "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere. You're safe…" he swallowed, "and it is not your fault what happened to your mother; understand?"
The amount of relief Danny felt as Steve nodded, accepting Danny's words as if they were the only things in the universe that mattered, almost made him feel lightheaded. "She made some really bad decisions but in the end, she was your mom, Steve, and I know… I know she loved you. I know it didn't seem like it sometimes, but she had to love you because who couldn't?" Danny's finger caught the tears trickling from Steve's eyes. "In the end, she was trying to do something good, do something for you and Mary and Joanie. Maybe it was to make up for not being there for you most of your life, maybe not, but she did it because she loved all of you-" he had to stop because the sound that came from Steve made it sound like he was retching up every ounce of sorrow he had building from the last two months and then some. Danny pulled Steve towards him, settling his partner's head against his shoulder and holding him tightly, careful of his injured arm as his hand ran the length of it and Steve's back.
"It'll be okay, Steve, I promise," Danny pressed a kiss against Steve's hair, feeling tears seep into his shirt. "It'll be okay. On our terms, I promise. It'll be okay."