Work Text:
Steve dares to reach for his phone again.
She lets him get away with a lot. She’s aware; it’s a conscious choice. There aren’t that many men around who boast Steve McGarrett’s kind of assets. She knows what she’s got; she’s not going to risk it on a temper tantrum, a hissy fit. Jealous rage.
“Yeah, Kono, hey,” he says into his phone. The bluetooth connection failed, so he’s driving with one hand on the wheel and his phone in the other. God forbid he wait ten minutes for them to get to the restaurant. “You’re with him, right? You’re taking him?”
She can hear Kono’s voice but not what she’s saying. Better that way—her temper is dangerously close to the surface, her skin thin today.
“No—yeah, please stay with him. Yeah. He won’t go if you don’t make him. Not unless you physically walk him into Queens ER and sit with him until they get the x-rays. Yeah. Yes, I do. Please. Thank you.”
He ends the call and absently pushes the phone back into his pocket, the smile he sends in her direction falling about three feet short. Or maybe it’s missed its mark entirely; how far away are they from the hospital he’s sending Danny to?
It doesn’t matter. Clearly, whatever case they worked was a tough one, but it’s over now, and so is Danny’s time to enjoy Steve’s attention. It’s her turn, and there’s no point in wasting it on insignificant nothings.
“So I’ve been looking forward—”
Steve’s eyes widen. He grabs for the phone he just let go, and shoots her a glance that is no doubt meant to be apologetic. “Sorry—sorry, forgot something. Hold that thought.”
Her last glimpse before she turns away is him trying to make yet another call while, still, driving. It’s petty, maybe, but she wishes they’d get pulled over. No chance of a ticket for the head of Five-0, obviously, but it’d still be entertaining to watch him be embarrassed. Would he even be embarrassed? Probably not.
“Chin. Yeah, the Camaro—it’s still sitting there behind the building, where I parked.”
That ball of annoyance fragments, becomes shards of fire that dig into her insides. She grits her teeth and looks out the window—it’s work. He’s dealing with work. She does it too. He never complains. She shouldn’t either.
“No, he’s—no, Kono’s taking him to Queens. Yeah. That’d be better. Yes. Yeah, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
It was only a few seconds. It’s fine; she gets it. He’s a good leader, he wants to take care of his team, that’s not—
“Chin, hey, Chin, wait. Can you—can you, uh, grab some groceries on your back and drop them off at Danny’s? I know he meant to go shopping this weekend, he probably doesn’t—yeah, cool. Thanks, brah, I’ll pay you back.”
Once more, he thumbs the phone off and disappears it in his pocket. Another smile, this one paler, no eye contact.
The switch flips. Blood boiling, she turns to him. “Why are you paying for Danny’s groceries?”
The eyebrow of his she can see dips. “What?”
“You heard me. Why are you paying for Danny’s groceries?”
He shoots her a perplexed glance, several of them, while expertly swerving around slower-moving cars. “I’m not paying for Danny’s groceries. I’m comping Chin, who doesn’t need to be short. Me and Danny, we’ll work it out later.”
On the surface it makes sense, one of those slightly demented things that sounds just logical enough for Steve’s attractive face and charisma to sell. Except, they all live in each other’s pockets, and Chin doesn’t look like fifty bucks is going to make him go hungry over the weekend.
He merges into the turn lane and switches on his signal, into the parking lot for— “Rainbow?”
Steve looks startled, like he forgot she’s there. “Yeah. Isn’t that—”
“You said Rainbow,” she snarls. “I said Side Street and you agreed. Remember?”
The way he opens his mouth, then closes it tells her he doesn’t. He punches the signal to get out of the turn lane and cuts off a minivan pulling out. They get honked at.
On Ala Moana, there is traffic. In ten minutes they barely traverse a mile, and the huge truck he only drives when she’s with him contracts into a shoebox, the air slowly running out.
His phone rings. “Yeah, Kono. What’s up?”
She wants to rip it out of his hand and pitch it out the window. She wants to grind her heel on it until it splits and shatters.
He’s silent, in a gut-punched way. “It’s definitely broken? Does he need surgery? Okay, good. Okay, yeah. Yeah, that’s a good idea. Can you stay with him until—yeah. Thanks, Kono. I mean it. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
As soon as he can. As soon as he’s appeased his demanding not-girlfriend with a rushed dinner and the pretense of interest. Does he even realize what he’s doing? How he’s keyed in to every aspect of Danny’s life and psyche, how he’s obsessed with him? But in the name of friendship, it’s okay. It’s okay, because they’re bros. If Danny were a woman she’d at least have a leg to stand on.
At last they pull into the correct parking lot. Steve turns off the engine, still clutching his phone, and pops his door. The phone goes off again, and where it is in his hand, Catherine can see the caller ID.
Danny.
He turns luminous eyes on her, imploring, as if she’s the irrational mother and he the innocent child who wants to stay out late playing. It sends another jolt of fury directly into the back of her head, makes her skull thrum.
He has the audacity to say, “Can you go ahead and get a table, Cath? I have to take this.”
Her first impulse is to stay in the car, mulishly stare at him while they talk, but what would stop him from getting out himself? Angry doesn’t license stupid. Be constructive.
Maybe food will help her mood. She is hungry, starving—they were supposed to be doing this two hours ago, and of course she waited, felt foolish about it. She always waits, she’s always waited, but the feeling foolish is newer.
“Hey, Danno,” she hears behind her, softness in his voice that’s reserved for Danny alone. Her stomach pulls together sharply. She shoves the door with the intention of slamming it, but it’s too heavy and just closes.
She marches through the parking lot, to the street. She could just get a rideshare, go home.
She doesn’t have a home. Her home is his home. What the hell was she thinking?
He didn’t even ask, not really. Just said stay here, and she took it to mean long-term, caught in the rush of relief and regret after the debacle with his mother. That was weeks ago. Nothing has changed except superficially; he didn’t make room for her in the master bedroom closet, didn’t redecorate. Her boxes are still in Mary’s room, her furniture in storage.
The restaurant is decently crowded. The bar it is, then—she really has no desire to sit by herself at a table without even a book to keep her company, and she won’t be scrolling her phone like a trophy wife. If he has a problem with sitting there, he can deal.
The bar is a long L, two seats free on its shorter limb. She takes the one closer to the wall, almost orders a gin martini—then switches to a tequila shot and an ahi appetizer. That should mellow her out, especially on an empty stomach. She throws it back without ceremony, sucks on the lime wedge until her gums sting.
Ten minutes, fifteen. Her appetizer arrives. The guy across the bar is looking at her, much too old and plain for her to even consider flirting. Besides, Steve wouldn’t buy it, not in a million years.
The tequila’s coursing warmth down her limbs, but instead of softening her, it makes her angrier. Twenty minutes, she’s been sitting here, like a chump. Twenty minutes. Baldie isn’t a good prospect, but maybe the tall blonde two seats over from him? He’s good-looking, bronze skin and green eyes, sharp jaw, talking to his Asian friend, both of them dressed in business casual.
Not just talking, apparently, but transfixed by him—another wave of fury punches low in her gut, makes her neck throb. They’re both enthralled by the other, watching each other’s mouths, hanging on every word. Just like Steve and Danny. And exactly like them, these men pay her no mind whatsoever either.
And then the blonde leans in and kisses his friend, on the mouth.
Her stomach hollows, like a sudden roller coaster drop.
How has this not occurred to her before? Because she’s assumed Steve’s straight?
Steve is straight. She’s seen him want women; she’s seen him want her. She’s never seen him want a man.
He and Freddie were close. She and Freddie almost never overlapped; the only time she met him was briefly when they were transferring planes on her aircraft carrier. He’d mention Freddie’s name, but never give details. She’d chalked it up to SEAL habits.
DADT was still in effect then. Is it so hard to believe he might have kept his same-sex attraction under wraps? Steve is nothing if not intelligent, disciplined. He’s so not the type to leave base to cruise, have risky flings, get caught with gay porn. He’d never do that, leave his team short. DADT is gone, but maybe old habits die hard.
The blond guy’s aware of her attention. He squints at her, quizzical, and Catherine yanks her gaze away, remembering to breathe.
—
The way Steve jumps when she opens the car door is almost comical. She slides into the seat, her anger long gone, her skin fizzling like caught in a shallow break.
“Hey, Danno,” Steve says, glancing at her like she caught him doing something illegal. She supposes she did. “I have to call you back. Okay? I’ll call you back.” He taps the phone off, putting it away. “I’m sorry, Cath, this case today—”
“Were you and Freddie lovers?”
Steve starts like she stabbed him. Panic lights his eyes, widens them; the color fades from his cheeks. “What?”
“You heard me,” she says, but gently. “Were you and Freddie lovers?”
He swallows, tears his gaze away from her, directing it out of the car. He wipes his mouth with one hand, leaves it there to cover the bottom half of his face. Nice trick, Commander, but she knows what he’s doing. “Where’s this coming from?”
“I’m just curious. Were you?”
His eyes shift rapidly while he, likely, sorts through potential ways to evade her question. “Freddie is dead. You helped me recover his body. And now you’re asking me if—”
“If you were lovers, yes,” she says, unperturbed. “I should’ve asked then, you’re right. It just didn’t occur to me. Until today.”
“What’s so special about today?”
She bites her lip, affection flaring in her chest. Steve is so transparent. “I’m sorry, Steve. I don’t think I understood before. I’m sorry for your loss.”
He finally looks at her, his breath puffing out. Whatever he sees in her face makes him close his eyes. “Yeah. Thanks.”
They sit there, silent, staring outside. A car pulls up, two young women get out of it. The shorter one does a double-take at Steve, then regards her with a measuring look. They keep walking.
“Were you?” Catherine asks. “Lovers.”
Steve exhales. “No.”
“Why not?”
He’s tipped his head away from her. The way he blinks, however, makes her wonder if he’s fighting tears. “I—didn’t.” He exhales. “It wasn’t—mutual.”
Sorrow heavier than she anticipated fills her heart. “How do you know?”
He shrugs.
“Did you ever tell him?”
His next exhale is impatient. “The whole time I knew him all he ever talked about was how he was gonna marry his girlfriend. What was I supposed to say?”
That’s a good question. She touches his forearm. “I’m sorry, Steve.”
He swipes his hand across his face, sniffs, and shrugs her off. “You didn’t answer me. Where is this coming from?”
She lifts a shoulder. “Nowhere particularly.”
He makes an abortive gesture toward the door, then stops. “I don’t—I want to go home.”
Their gazes catch peripherally, and even so, she’s shaken by the grief in him. She tips her head in agreement.
The drive back to his house is silent. Steve keeps his elbow on his windowsill, his face turned away from her. She’s too busy thinking about the logistics to make small talk.
Upstairs, he doesn’t need to be told. He enters the bedroom ahead of her, collects his pillow and a blanket from the closet, and brushes past her.
“I’ll start looking for a place,” she says.
Steve falters just outside the door, his back tense. He nods and coils himself to keep going.
“You should tell him. Don’t make the same mistake twice, Steve.”
He turns, eyebrows pulled up, apparently perplexed. “Tell whom?”
Is he serious? She lets her expression reflect her incredulity, tilts her head to underline it.
She can see the moment the coin drops. He bristles. “It’s not—I can’t—that’s not—” Flustered, he exhales. “Just—good night. I’m sorry about dinner.” He opens his mouth to add something—maybe I’m sorry about everything, because he should be—but reconsiders. He disappears down the stairs.
—
She wakes up at 3 a.m., mouth dry as sand, and pads out of the bedroom, down the stairs, in search of water. The lights are off in the living room; she keeps her gaze away from the couch and slips into the kitchen, not bothering to turn on any lights.
She’s sucking down the second glass when the hallway light flicks on. She turns.
Steve, eyes bloodshot, peers back at her, arms across his chest, leaning against the doorframe. The skin under his eyes looks sunken.
She doesn’t ask if he couldn’t sleep; asking the obvious questions was trained out of her long ago. They stand there and consider each other, he with his body language, she with the empty glass she rests against her hip.
“So, what—” he says, and his voice disappears like down a ravine. He clears his throat. “We’re over, then?”
Had they ever started? And yet it feels like he’s always been a part of her, someone to be made space for in her future, like a seat saved for a friend who might or might not make it to the special showing of her favorite movie. In the absence of him, would there be sorrow or an absence of expectation? Would she be lonelier or freer?
“I think we were over when you met him, Steve.” She places the glass down on the counter, carefully. It doesn’t make a sound. “Don’t wait until it’s too late.” She doesn’t voice it, the again; she’s too kind to do so. It rings in the space between them anyway.
Level with him, she pauses, leans against his bent arm and reaches up to kiss his stubbled cheek. “You’ll be all right,” she says, more for herself than for him. Then she goes back to bed.
—
He must have pulled some strings for her to get the card, the one that she tucked away in the folds of her burka. With only her eyes visible in the loosely draped black fabric and her fluent, accent-less Pastho, she can travel under the radar, even pass for local. Her escort today is one of the local station case officers, his burnished skin and slightly unkempt beard completing the picture of them belonging to the small cafe the exchange is to take place.
You were right, Steve wrote, in his spartan, blocky handwriting on the Thank You card. In the envelope also was a picture of him with Danny, a candid, handsome in their joyousness and almost golden in the gentle light of the setting sun. Steve’s hand cupping Danny’s cheek, Danny’s on his elbow, twin bands of gold around their ring fingers.
She should’ve destroyed it, much less carried it out of the embassy, and she certainly intended to, but then couldn’t bring herself to do it. She’ll look at it again tonight, maybe with a glass of wine, before she burns it. In odd, silent moments she still feels the tug of not-quite longing, for the random phone calls that promised fun, and the sex that will always be memorable.
But then her asset steps into the cardamom-tinged cafe, and it gets washed away in her exhilaration, her favorite thing in life—the thrill of a mission to complete.