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Normally, it bothers Danny to interrupt a cozy scene such as this one between Steve and Catherine. It’s obvious that given a few more minutes – okay, maybe more than a few minutes in Steve’s case, but definitely only a few for Cath – of peace and quiet, and a little heavy petting, the movie will be forgotten. Clothes will be removed, sweat will form, and bodies will writhe. It is only going to take longer for Steve, because clearly he is more interested in the end of the movie, rather than Cath. And Danny can’t really figure that one out; seriously, Cath is hot, there is no doubt about it. Steve should be all over that. But apparently, a scary movie holds more appeal. Go figure. Smooth Dog must have maybe pulled the same trick one too many times, and curiosity is finally catching up with him.
Danny would be content to let him have his night, however it is going to end – either in the sack with Catherine, or on the couch screaming like a girl at a Hollywood B-grade schlock-fest bloodbath. He doesn’t care – normally. Only this particular night, he does. He needs to be here, to see Steve, to bring Grace around, to settle his nerves, to wind down after an all-time bitch of a week. He shouldn’t, he knows that, but there it is, the plain truth. Gracie, his baby, ripped a hole in his heart, not wanting to trick-or-treat with him, and nothing is going to make him feel better but to bring his little bumble-bee Monkey around to Steve’s to help fill in the gaps.
Strangely, he suspects Cath’s hand in this somewhere. As sweet and lovable as his little girl is, she’s too young to think of something like this, something so complex yet at the same time so simple it almost hurts to contemplate. Really, it shouldn’t even be a blip on his parental radar, but this is flashing all the colours of the rainbow. Grace is smart, and perceptive, and the most loving little girl in the world, but she is still only ten. Dressing up again and redoing Halloween just to make her Danno feel better, because of something she’d done – well, that is a grown-up concept. Yeah, he smells Cath’s hand in this, and he is more than okay with that. And that is another reason he doesn’t mind barging in on Steve and Catherine – Grace is dropping hints broader than the side of a frigate berthed at Pearl that she wants to talk to Cath.
Still, he isn’t exactly expecting Catherine to just scrunch up into the corner of the couch and pull Gracie into her side, nor is he thinking she will stop the movie she and Steve are watching. If this was him, he’d be putting up a little bit more of a fight. Steve is a catch, and with that hard SEAL body, and all those muscles, he must to be something fierce in bed. He isn’t complaining, though, oh hell no, because no. No way. No way in all the fires of hell is he letting Grace see that shit. The movie, not the making out, although he’d not allow that either. No. He’d put a hole through Steve’s nice flat screen TV first. And Steve can pull all the constipated faces he wants, it still isn’t happening. And really, what the fuck is Steve’s problem, anyway? The barge that sails to the land of orgasm heaven left long before he rang the doorbell. Steve isn’t fooling anybody. He might have thought – possibly still thinks – maybe at the beginning of the night, that he was going to reach his happy target, but Cath clearly thinks otherwise. Why else would she sit up so quickly, and be so willing to put on a different movie?
Still, all this doesn’t explain why Steve is just standing there like a pole-axed cow. Yeah, Steve’s night is interrupted, but so what? Suck it up, and be a man. A SEAL, for fuck’s sake. His best friend. Sit down beside him on this very comfortable couch and help him feel better. That’s what friends do for each other, right? They help; they are wing-men, they are back-up, they help each other up off the ground, they sit next to each other on couch’s that aren’t made for four and deal, and oh. Maybe they don’t want to sit next to their friend so closely. Maybe they are stupid homophobic fucks who think it would make them gay to sit too close to another man. Stupid super-SEAL. As if he’d ever do that to Steve. Never even crossed his mind. Except for now, but that doesn’t count, not really. It’s just in passing, and only because he is reasoning out Steve’s reluctance to sit the fuck down, already.
Seriously, he’d be insulted if he had ever thought of Steve as anything other than a friend, which he hadn’t. Okay, well, he had, but he’d squashed that thought the second it popped its ugly little face into his head. He didn’t need the distraction of thinking his partner was hot, and just what he’d like to do to him and with him. He had plenty of other distractions thanks to said partner, such as bullets, and explosions and stupid life-endangering heroics to deal with. So he notices Steve’s hard body, and those muscles – so what? And the tattoos – he doesn’t dream about licking a path along the outline of each, tracing each one out with his tongue, he most certainly does not. No, because he beat that idea into submission, and no, no, no, he did not use his hand.
He doesn’t smell, he even showered before he brought Grace around, and no, not for Steve, but because it was a long fucking week, and he just wanted to wash the stench of the case off his body. Literally. Ritual killing? Nasty business. And hell, he even shaved – a little, sort of – and put aftershave on, and washed his hair. He did it for Grace, she hates the wild man of the bush look. Says it is hard to hug, or give him a kiss, and he isn’t going to think about testing that theory with Steve. So no, he can’t figure out why Steve is so reluctant to sit down next to him.
So yeah, he notices that Steve’s body is one giant mass of muscle. So fucking what? It’s hard not to, what with the fact that the man can barely keep his shirt on for more than half a day, sometimes not even that long. And he is ridiculously insane about taking care of himself, as well – yeah, there is the health food, and the stinky protein shakes, and who can live off that crap, because, ew, wrong. That shit is nasty. But there is also the pulling his pants down in front of his own partner – his male partner, and what the fuck is up with that? Because if he is trying to torture Danny in some bizarre, twisted psychological attack, he is succeeding. So in that particular case it was to stick a needle in his ass so he didn’t get tetanus. Again, so what? That’s what hospitals, or doctors are for.
Calling him a girl just because he didn’t want to see it happen wasn’t really fair. Part of him did want to see the needle go in, just to be sure that Steve did, in fact, actually have the fucking shot. He just didn’t want to examine too closely the small part of him that admired the curve of Steve’s ass as it was bared by the idiot dropping his pants, not right then, especially not as said ass was bared right in front of him. The ass that is finally sitting down beside him. Even as Steve’s face looks as if he is about to have an aneurysm. Or is in the active stages of said aneurysm. It doesn’t matter, the man is finally seated. Against him. Tight against him. He did not actually think this out too well. Steve is pressed up against him from knee to shoulder, and yeah, it is nothing like Grace on his other side. Nor is it anything like having Rachel or Gabby, or any of the half-dozen or so other women who have been in his life over the years, curled up next to him.
Those women have always been the ones he’d put his arm around, but Steve is the bigger person here, quite literally. Danny isn’t used to having someone put their arm around his shoulders, and pull him in tight, and it takes a split second to remind his body that it doesn’t need to tense up, because this is Steve, his best friend, his partner. And then it takes another split second to tell his body not to do that, not to get hot, not to get sweaty – he has to remind his lungs to pull in air, that oxygen is necessary, and hey, since when did he have to do that around Steve? Friend, remember? Not crush, not wannabe lover, just friend, even if there is that small part of him that wishes otherwise.
Only all of a sudden, he is more than glad to have that big bowl of popcorn on his lap, to hide the boner he knows he shouldn’t have. And all because Steve leans over and whispers in his ear, tells him how much he is going to hate the new movie Cath and Gracie are so looking forward to watching. And he doesn’t care about the movie, because Steve is breathing hot, moist air on his neck as he leans over to get more popcorn, and Jesus! is he smelling his hair? Christ, he is. He is smelling his hair, he can feel his hair ruffling and yeah, that is Steve’s nose pressing against his scalp. Wow, that shouldn’t be nearly as hot as it is.
But even though it is hot, and it’s just about the best he’s felt since long before his marriage imploded, he’s not going to let himself fall into the trap of thinking it’s anything more than an accident. Because it has to be. It can’t be anything else. Steve is straight. He’s his best friend, and he’s fucking straight, and that’s as far as it goes. So he will just sit here and enjoy having Steve’s arm around his shoulders, and if he maybe leans his head against Steve’s chest, who cares, because it’s been that all-time bitch hell week, and he’s fucking tired, okay, and Steve’s comfortable.
And as the movie starts, and he settles in, he tucks this memory away with all his other precious Steve memories, to be brought out and treasured when times are rough, or he’s feeling especially lonely, because right this moment, he feels more loved and cared for than he can remember.