Chapter Text
Two days after the highly stressful hostage situation at Grace’s winter formal, Danny and Steve are hanging out at Steve’s place watching football, but Danny suspects that neither of them are paying much attention to the game; Steve has been periodically glancing over at Danny and looked to be on the verge of saying something several times before apparently deciding against it and turning his gaze back to the TV. As much as Danny would love to focus on the football to try to keep his mind off his most recent trauma, it’s impossible to concentrate while his partner is fidgeting around and clearly attempting to motivate himself to initiate a potentially difficult conversation. But Danny is also reluctant to rock the boat by demanding to know what’s on the giant goof’s mind, so he resigns himself to awkwardly waiting it out.
It’s quite some time before Steve finally turns to Danny and abruptly inquires, “When you told me to pick a base, would you really have kissed me if I asked for that?”
Ah. That certainly explains Steve’s hesitancy and Danny isn’t sure whether it’s a good idea to give an honest answer. He cautiously scrutinizes Steve’s face but his partner’s expression is deliberately neutral. Danny figures he can still blame temporary insanity if this goes in a bad direction, so he shrugs and calmly replies, “Yes.”
The brief and almost imperceptible widening of Steve’s eyes suggests that he wasn’t expecting that response, but his expression shifts to pleased and hopeful as he asks, “Do you want to kiss me now?”
Always, Danny thinks giddily, but he’s waited so long for this moment that he feels like Steve should have to work a little harder for it, so he smirks and says facetiously, “I don’t know… you haven’t saved me and my daughter from mortal peril today, so what have you done to deserve a kiss?”
Steve gives him a look of fond amusement and chuckles softly before earnestly informing him with unmistakable adoration, “I love you.”
“That’ll do,” he answers with a grin, eagerly reaching out to welcome Steve into his arms.
Moments later their lips meet for the first time and the kiss is slower and more gentle than Danny ever imagined it would be, but it’s so unbelievably perfect that he finds himself wanting to laugh and cry at the same time. Of course he doesn’t actually do either of those things because that would mean he would have to stop his thorough exploration of Steve’s mouth.
Eventually, Steve is the one who breaks the kiss and pulls away just far enough to be able to look Danny in the eyes and give him a breathtakingly beautiful smile full of blissful happiness. Danny has no doubt his own expression is remarkably similar.
However, two seconds later Steve’s smile disappears, his eyes become disturbingly blank, and his hands go slack and slip away from Danny.
“Steve?” Danny gasps worriedly, but there’s no response.
Danny starts frantically calling his partner’s name repeatedly and since his own hands are still on Steve’s face and head, he also adds some careful shaking and finally tries a light slap. His level of panic is increasing exponentially with each second that passes with Steve remaining frozen in place and he anxiously considers the possibility that his partner is having a stroke, although if he remembers the signs correctly this doesn’t seem quite right.
Nonetheless, after what feels like hours but is probably no more than ten seconds, he lets go of Steve and grabs his phone to dial 911, but in the final moment before he makes the call Steve suddenly moves. Danny’s immense relief is however depressingly short-lived because Steve’s next course of action is bizarre to say the least - he turns back to face the TV and starts watching the game again as if nothing unusual occurred in the last few minutes.
“Steve,” Danny says urgently. “What the hell just happened?”
Steve appears to be startled and confused by Danny’s tone. “Uh, if you’re talking about the game, I don’t know… I guess I zoned out for a minute.”
“It was much worse than just zoning out,” Danny tells him uneasily. “You were completely motionless and unresponsive for long enough to seriously freak me out. I thought you were having a stroke. And maybe you were if you don’t remember the extremely important thing that happened before that.”
Steve frowns. “I don’t remember anything other than watching football.”
“Oh my god,” Danny groans unhappily. “You asked me if I meant it when I offered to kiss you after the dramatic rescue at the winter formal, I said I did, you told me you love me, then we kissed.”
Steve stares at Danny incredulously. “I think I would remember that. Maybe I’m not the only one who zoned out.” Steve pauses to smirk before continuing, “Do you often have daydreams about making out with me?”
“Yes, you insufferable, gorgeous bastard,” Danny snaps. “But that is not what just happ…”
Danny doesn’t get to finish his sentence or move on to expressing his opinion that they should go to the ER to get Steve’s brain checked out, because Steve suddenly pounces on him and kisses him soundly. Despite his eminently valid concerns, Danny is unable to resist the powerful desire to return the kiss. It’s wildly passionate and therefore couldn’t be more different than the previous one, but Danny is definitely not complaining.
Once again Steve is the one who backs off first, this time to grin at Danny and murmur, “I love you.”
“I know,” Danny replies flippantly. Then he adds more softly, “I love…”
He trails off and stares in horror as Steve freezes and goes mentally absent again. Alarm bells are ringing inside Danny’s head, because a medical issue now seems unlikely to be the cause of these episodes. He suddenly recalls the ominous words of the ‘witch’ he encountered (and offended) twenty years ago, ‘If you ever meet your soulmate, you won’t be able to experience intimacy with them.’ While Danny laughed it off at the time and has never had any reason to believe magical curses could possibly be real, he has no choice but to entertain the idea now.
Just to confirm, Danny waits until Steve casually returns to watching football again, then simply leans over and unceremoniously kisses him. It’s brief and a bit violent and Steve stares at him in bewilderment for the few seconds it takes for the curse to kick in again; Danny is positive now about that being the explanation for Steve’s affliction.
Danny mechanically turns to face the TV himself before Steve recovers from the third memory wipe, gazing blankly at the screen while desperately trying to process the shocking truth… magic is real, Danny is cursed, Steve is his soulmate but they can’t ever be together thanks to Danny and his big mouth…
Danny valiantly attempts to fight back the tears that are suddenly filling his eyes, but ends up losing the battle. He turns his face away from Steve then gets to his feet and mutters, “bathroom,” before trying to flee, but his wavering voice betrays his distress and Steve manages to snag his wrist to prevent him from leaving. Damn him and his lightning fast reflexes.
“What’s wrong, Danno?” Steve asks softly.
Danny merely shakes his head helplessly, unable to share the truth and too overwhelmed by anguish to have sufficient mental agility to invent a convincing lie.
“Let me go,” he begs shakily, crying steadily by this point.
“Let me help you,” Steve counters, sounding distinctly upset himself simply from witnessing Danny’s misery.
Danny caves and allows Steve to drag him back down onto the couch and into a warm hug.
“Is this about what happened, or what could have happened, at the winter formal?” Steve asks gently.
Danny gladly seizes this excuse and responds with a jerky nod. Frankly if he allowed himself to dwell on the memory of seeing guns aimed at his daughter it’s entirely possible it might bring him to tears.
“I know it must have been terrible,” Steve comments soothingly, “but Grace is fine, you’re fine, and I’m always gonna do everything in my power to make sure you and both of your kids stay that way.”
Danny merely nods in acknowledgement again since talking is currently beyond him. Given what happened just minutes ago, being in Steve’s arms is simultaneously wonderful and torturous. But at least he probably won’t have to deal with Steve making any further attempts to kiss him today now that he has become a blubbering mess. Danny knows he should tell Steve what’s really going on, but at the moment he’s having a hard enough time accepting it himself without trying to explain it to anyone else, let alone the person who is most deeply affected.
Suddenly feeling exhausted by the relentless pressure of his heartache and guilt, Danny fully relaxes into Steve’s comforting embrace with the intention of taking a nap on his soulmate. Maybe when he wakes up he’ll be able to summon the courage to disclose everything.