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Detective Danny Williams is a well-known man at the HPD.
Mainly because he is a foreigner, a man who was born on the mainland and knows anything about living in Hawaii, but mostly he’s known for his bad temper. In fact, his provenance is nothing compared to his grumpiness, the way he seems to think he’s above them all just because he comes from somewhere bigger. There are rules in Hawaii, rules that you have got to know and respect, no matter what, and if you can’t play by the game then you are out, in every possible way.
Steve has noticed the way everyone glances at him when they happen to visit the police department, almost as if between the two of them Danny is the one who’s going to pop out a grenade from his back pocket and blow everybody up.
The first time it’d happened Steve almost hadn’t noticed it, too focused on finding a way to solve their case to let something so trivial like the rest of the world distract him. But then he’d lifted his eyes to ask Danny a question and had taken in the way his spine had been set rigid, arms crossed on his chest and chin held higher than usual, and had quickly understood that something was wrong.
Danny’s eyes had been focused on somewhere else and his posture had been screaming ‘alert’ so loudly that Steve had been surprised he hadn’t felt it earlier.
It’d took him two seconds sharp to locate the man with whom Danny had been locked in a staring contest; a tall, broad shouldered policeman who’d looked like he could take a car and reduce it to a sardine can with his bare hands and who’d seemed very interested in showing off his modeler skills right at Danny’s expenses.
Too bad that no one got to glare at Steve’s partner in such way. Not in Steve’s presence, anyway. “You have something you want to discuss with us, detective Kekoa?” he’d asked, stepping right into Danny’s comfort zone to make his point clearer.
“So it seems,” Danny had stated in reply, words sharp as razors and eyes still locked with the other man’s.
Everyone around them had noticed what was going on but no one had dared to intervene and for a brief moment Steve had thought that he’d have had to punch the aggressive attitude out of the giant in front of him. It’d taken a few seconds before the detective had decided that Danny wasn’t worth the bother – which had made Steve even more willing to teach him a thing or two about manners – and the reprimand that would have followed. “No, sir,” he had replied through clenched teeth, right before turning his back and leaving the room.
Steve had watched him go, eyes digging holes in the man’s back, and then had scanned the room, checking if there was someone else looking for trouble, but the other officers had been too busy feigning indifference to pay attention.
When his gaze had landed on Danny he’d found him reading the deposition that they’d come to pick, as if nothing had just happened. “Does it say where she was buried?” he’d asked, focusing back on their case, and had let his hand slide on Danny’s shoulder.
“Just to be clear, I don’t need you to fight my own battles,” Danny had murmured a few minutes later as they had been walking down the hallway. His words had been slightly clipped, but still, he’d kept walking by Steve’s side, letting his shoulder brush Steve’s arm.
Steve had smiled. “I know,” he’d said. And then he’d took the camaro keys from Danny’s hands and had driven them to their next destination, the sound of Danny’s voice melting with the slow rumble of the car’s engine.
***
During their first few months together as partners, Steve had gone through a vast range of emotions while trying to deal with the different approach the other policemen seemed to have towards Danny.
Confusion had been just a brief preamble to realization, and then rage had followed, closely accompanied by disdain and a lot of other things that had made Steve want to curl around Danny and just snarl at everyone else, because how dare they?
Thing is that at the HPD everyone knows who detective Danny Williams is, but no one really knows who Danny is, no one can tell what he’s thinking just by looking at him, or guess what his next move will be just by the way his hands are flying around. And that’s not because Danny hasn’t let them in, that’s not because Danny is a dickhead who believes he is above everyone else, but simply because no one gave him a chance since day one. And so, like a bull in an arena, the more Danny had got stabbed by the men who were supposed to have his back, the more he’d tried to alienate the people around him, attacking with his head down if necessary.
So no, Steve isn’t surprised that no one knows Danny’s sweet side, how caring he is with Grace, or how loyal and affectionate he can be with his friends, and that’s pretty much why he gets a headache every time they visit the HPD. It makes him so damn angry.
Still, there are times like these, when Danny is sprawled on a deck chair on Steve’s lanai, the sunset light painting dark orange shadows all over his body, when Steve isn’t sorry that things went like that, that no one got to have what Steve has. Even if it makes him feel bad, because he’s learned enough about Danny’s experience at the Hawaiian police department to know that it left its cuts and that there are times when they still sting.
Yet- “I’ll let you know that my socks are starting to feel sexually harassed,” Danny chuckles, soft and relaxed. His eyes are closed and he has his work clothes still on, his white shirt a bit crumpled where Steve has grabbed him a few minutes before, pulling him in for a quick kiss.
“Shut up,” Steve chuckles back, playful. And then he just puts more effort into pulling Danny’s sock off by using his toes, because he is evil like that and exists just to annoy the living shit out of Danny. “It’s not my fault you keep using these weird socks. Seriously, they are almost as bad as that tie Kono got you last Christmas. You know, the one that looks like a soft serve ice cream with a cherry on top.”
They both know why Kono gave Danny that tie. And it’s the exact reason that had Danny take it and hide it in a dark corner of their closet.
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Danny says, but his smirk betrays him.
Once one sock is removed, Steve proceeds to launch it somewhere very, very far – seriously, purple socks with green polka dots, wearing such things must be a crime somewhere – and hopes that some albatross will find it and relieve them of its hideous presence. It surely would make a pretty nest, at least until the chicks will start pecking at the polka dots.
“Do you think that cotton is edible for birds?” he then asks, sliding a bit more on the deck chair to reach Danny’s other foot.
Danny opens one eye and gazes in Steve’s direction, sees him moving onto his next target but does nothing to stop him. “You are a weird man and there are times when you scare me,” he replies, because it’s true.
Steve smiles while yawning, which feels weird and kinda makes him want to do it again just to focus on the sensation. “I’m not,” he complains. He can feel the warmth of the last sun rays seeping into his skin as he stretches just enough to reach Danny’s sock and grab it with his toes.
“Maybe not, but you manage to scare me anyway,” Danny murmurs, lifting his foot to help Steve in his task. The cotton slides easily off his skin, leaving him finally barefoot.
“And yet you still love me,” Steve argues, dropping the sock into an empty flower pot that’s right next to him.
It doesn’t come out as a question – because it really isn’t – and yet, Danny finally opens both his eyes. For a few seconds he just looks at Steve, his clear blue eyes following the smooth, relaxed lines on Steve’s face, searching for something. “Yeah,” he finally says, when he finds it. “God help me, I do.”
Later, when the moon will be brighter and the sea just a constant, distant noise, it’ll probably come the time when Steve will drag Danny inside the house and strip him of the remnant of his clothes. When he’ll rumble low, silky words into his skin and his hands will run on the solid, loved curve of Danny’s shoulders as he’ll kiss him, hungry and slow, taking his time to enjoy it. And Danny will break like he always does, passion pouring out of him as he’ll give himself to Steve, as he’ll put himself in Steve’s hands.
Later, Steve will draw red paths on Danny’s skin, will explore him once again and make sure that their hearts are beating in unison. But for now, he thinks as he gets up from where he is and goes lying right next to Danny, like a big, lazy cat curling around a harmless fire-
For now, this time is theirs.
