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Danny opens his eyes to odd noises.
They don’t register as threatening, just odd. Sibilant s’s and the occasional suppressed squeal, a quiet litany of “Oh-my-god, oh-my-god, oh-my-god”s.
Grace. Grace is home.
Two thirty-four, his bedside clock accuses in acid green. His mouth is dry, his tongue stuck. Heartburn prickles up his throat.
This is what he gets for his questionable gastronomical choices last night. Dinner was fine, of course—he cooked it—but then Steve had to go and have the brilliant idea of sneaking one snack out of their stocking fillers. The chocolate-covered pretzels Danny gorged on, that’s what lit the reflux fires in his throat. He’s rapidly running out of ages that begin with forty; he really should know better by now.
The reflux he could deal with by stacking some pillows, but the thirst not so much. Grudgingly, he pushes up to sitting, looking for his glass of water on the nightstand.
It’s not there. Because Grace is home from her UCSF marine biology masters, and his whole bedtime routine got shot to shit. Which, obviously, is fine; he’d rather have his daughter near and live routine-less like a caveman than not get to see her for the holidays.
His feet and his right knee are far from happy when he gets up, make him gimp across the room for a t-shirt and shorts to pull on over his boxers. Scratching his chest, he makes his way out of his room, through the hallway, and to the stairs.
He can see the TV walking down: ice hockey. Ice hockey? There’s no game on tonight. Is there? Grace is on the floor too close to it, kneeling with a pillow clutched to her chest. When did she get into ice hockey? Why doesn’t Danny know—
It is not ice hockey. At least not the kind of ice hockey Danny’s ever seen—in one scene, one of the hockey players checks the other into the boards; in the next, they’re naked and sweaty, the same guy has the other one face down on a couch with a hand on his head, and they are obviously having sex. Enthusiastic, athletic sex.
Danny misses the next step and slips; he has to catch himself with both hands on each banister and still his ass hits the stairs. His knee flares in protest.
Grace leaps to her feet and in the same instant turns the TV off. “Dad!” She tosses the pillow away and rushes over. “Oh my god, are you all right? What the hell are you doing?”
“Working on my dismount, obviously. What are you doing? Why aren’t you in bed?”
“I was watching my show,” she says, helping Danny boost himself up. “Well, rewatching.”
“Rewatching. That good, huh?” She nods, a dreamy expression on her face. “What is it?”
“It’s called Heated Rivalry. These two idiot hockey players fall in love. It’s really good.”
“Oh, yeah? Should I watch it?”
She follows him into the kitchen. “I don’t know if you’d like it. It’s very romance-y. And it’s two guys. With a lot of, you know, explicit stuff. I don’t know if that’s your aesthetic.”
It’s not his go-to, obviously, but if his kid likes it, he’s more than willing to give it a chance. And maybe he’s come around to the romance-y stuff in his old age. “Why did you turn it off like you were burnt, then?”
She looks guilty. “I thought you were Uncle Steve. I know for sure it’s definitely not his aesthetic.”
Paused in his task of digging out antacid tablets, Danny watches her pour him water. “Why do you say that? He’s not homophobic.”
She gives him a look. “I know he’s not. I’m just saying, there’s a lot of baggage there.”
“No, seriously, Steve is fine. He’d be fine with you watching that.”
“Okay,” she says again. She doesn’t roll her eyes, but somehow manages to weave it into her voice. “Sure.”
“Why do you think that?” The antacid is chalky and too sweet. He forces it down.
“Well, that one time—do you remember Ethan, my friend from high school?”
“Was he golf boy or theater boy?”
“Both,” she says. “Well, he’s pretty obviously out, and this one time we ran into Uncle Steve and Charlie at the shave ice stand and Ethan made a kind of flirty comment to Uncle Steve about how good-looking he is—gross, obviously, but it was funny, and you should’ve seen Uncle Steve, he snapped into Lieutenant Commander mode so fast I’m sure he had bruises afterwards. He never did that with my girlfriends. He’s just weird about that stuff.”
Is this true? Has Danny just never noticed it? Has he ever had occasion to notice it? Steve’s thoughts and feelings about male homosexuality aren’t exactly high on the list of things he thinks about.
Fifteen years they’ve known each other, lived in each other’s pockets. Sure, yeah, Steve was gone for a year in that time period, a little longer if Danny were to add up all the small absences before the big World Tour for Peace in 2020 (spoiler alert: it wasn’t anywhere other than home), but the bulk of it they spent in direct proximity to one another. Since Steve returned it’s been smooth sailing, living in Steve’s house just the two of them, working part-time, mostly as consultants to Junior and Director Tani, their power couple replacement.
He wracks his brain. All he can come up with is Steve stating they aren’t gay, at some stakeout or another. Was it an apartment? Someone’s apartment? Was there a cat? Maybe. Danny hadn’t thought twice about it.
“So you like this show?” he asks Grace.
“Oh my god, are you kidding? I’m obsessed,” she says. “It’s so well-written and well-made and the guys are so hot, especially Ilya, and his father is, like, this really mean Russian guy and his brother is an asshole who mooches off of him and is mean to him. And, oh my god, Shane’s a good boy and, like, he’s all repressed and he has really nice parents but they’re all over him and no one can know they’re in love because hockey, you know, they’d lose all their contracts and they might get fired—”
“What? Why? It’s illegal to discriminate based on—”
Now she does roll her eyes at him. Loudly. “Oh my god, Danno, it’s a TV show. But also, it’s major league hockey. It’s the culture.” She gestures at him with both hands. “I mean, you should know. Law enforcement is like that too, isn’t it?”
Danny—does know? Kind of? He’s been with Five-0 fifteen years. He hasn’t thought about other law enforcement in at least as long.
Jersey, though. What was that guy’s name—he was in Danny’s Academy class, they hit the beat around the same time. He was a good-looking tall blond, clean-cut, always smelled good. He was sharp and competent; hard-working, but never really socialized with anyone at work. People talked about him, said stupid things, especially that rat Petersen. Eventually the guy got tired of the titters and transferred to a Manhattan precinct, if Danny recalls correctly, now with the same fist in his gut he’d felt then. He met Rachel not so long after, never thought about it again.
Evan. Evan was his name. Him leaving did not make their precinct any better, that Danny remembers well.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve worked closely with anyone but our team, Monkey, but yeah, sure. Law enforcement, sure.”
She finishes her own glass of water and fixes him with an askance look. “So you don’t think your office is phobic?”
“Five-0? No, of course not.” He shrugs. “I mean, we don’t really—no one on our team, you know, plays for the same team. Other team. You know what I mean.”
She raises one judgy eyebrow. “And you know that how?”
Danny blinks. How, indeed? Does he know that?
Grace, vindicated, shrugs her eyebrows at him, and steps away. But, he couldn’t have offended her too much, because as she passes him, she still presses a kiss to his cheek.
He trails after her to the living room, where she is turning off the lights. He gestures at the TV—he doesn’t want her to stop on his account. “I’m going to watch on my phone,” she says. “We’re having a rewatch marathon with my roommates before the last episode comes out next Friday. Good night, Danno.”
“Good night, babe.”
He stares at the dark TV for another few seconds before he follows her up the steps.
—
He binges the whole thing Sunday afternoon.
Charlie’s at Rachel’s; Grace is off with her friends. Steve met Junior in Kailua for spearfishing, which Danny knows, out of experience, is an all-day affair. He has the house and the TV to himself.
It starts off slow. The two guys meet, share some smoldering eye contact, flirt both awkwardly and not, and do all that looking so young Danny seriously considers turning it off.
The scene with the water bottle makes him think, oddly enough, of Steve. Their fingers brush like that too, all the time. Sometimes Steve will even capture Danny’s fingers and not let him go, goofball that he is. Danny’s never really thought anything of it before.
But it’s clearly not the same, because these guys, they’re attracted to each other, they have obvious sexual chemistry, which is consummated not long into the first episode. He should fast forward the sex at least; they’re so young, are they Grace’s age? Younger?
It’s done well though, tasteful, and the acting is superb. He can tell how fast Shane’s heart is beating, how much he wants it. How much fun they’re having. He feels no aversion at all, whether surprisingly or not—on the contrary, he’s borderline envious of their incredible connection. He wouldn’t be opposed to a male partner at all if he knew, for a fact, that that’s how it was going to be.
Not any male partner, obviously. Only one male in his life would have any hope of making the cut, who, incidentally, looks better on a bad day than those young, strapping actors at their best. Yes, Steve would definitely look good laid out like that, all sun-kissed, smooth skin and taut muscles, eyes closed in ecstasy. He’d look amazing.
Danny’s never watched anything like it. Sure, men kissing, rightfully found on regular TV now, he’s seen lots of times, and that one time in high school, he’d jeered and booed at gay porn along with his friends even though they were all hard in their pants, but never anything like this. He’s hard now; impossible not to be, faced with this much gusto about sex, no matter between whom it is. Just like Steve, who, with his big, changeable eyes and full lips and blindingly beautiful smile, is universally attractive to everyone regardless of gender and sexual orientation, so are these men, if to a paler degree.
He inhales the third episode without pausing it once.
The older hockey player, whether it’s his giraffe height or control freak nature or some other intangible something, reminds him of Steve. He and his barista boyfriend’s story feels so real, the acting so skilled, it seems impossible that he’s watching a TV show and not some post-modern documentary of two people in love. By the end of the episode, he has a lump in his throat.
The fourth episode returns to the original couple who are, mercifully, older now. He recognizes the montage of the sex scenes interspersed with the hockey from last night, yells at Shane that no, his straight roommate does not give two fucks about whether or not he’s going to get laid, and, okay, the sex scenes in this episode, he’s definitely, unmistakably, into them. It’s hot, no two ways about it, and he’s too old and too self-aware to lie to himself about it.
That those images blend with Steve’s in his mind, that’s a little harder to explain, but oddly enough, instead of awkward, he feels stupid that it’s never occurred to him before. A whole new well of fantasy, wasted like his thirties. Yeah, sure they work together, but he’s a grown-up in good control of his mental faculties, isn’t he? He would’ve handled it. Most definitely.
If Steve knew what was going through Danny’s mind, he’d laugh. Would he be curious too? Probably not. He wouldn’t be angry though; Steve doesn’t have a single hateful bone in his body, a big reason why Danny loves him so thoroughly. Would he be disturbed? Baggage, Grace said. What kind of baggage?
On the screen, Shane meets a girl, an actress: Rose. She reminds Danny of Catherine, even though the woman playing the former looks nothing like the latter—another vague, hard to define gut feeling. The conversation Shane has with her in the beginning of the fifth episode only amplifies the resemblance.
Danny watches them talk and grow into friends. He watches Shane and Ilya finally get on the same page. He watches one of them get hurt on the ice, the other visit him in the hospital, and knows exactly how that feels.
He watches Scott Hunter be lonely in the rink after winning the cup, and in his isolation resemble Steve so much it makes Danny’s heart ache. He watches Scott call the love of his life down to the ice and kiss him, to cheers and applause, for everyone to see. The camera work, the music, the cuts—it is incredibly well made. It makes his heart soar for the characters, his chest feel too small for the burst of emotion the scene evokes.
The episode ends; the credits roll, on a black background. On it, a reflection—he’s not alone.
He whirls around. Steve, hair mussed, in boardies and tank, one hand forgotten on the doorframe, the other pressed to his mouth. He’s flushed; his face is wet.
Their eyes meet. Before Danny can form so much as a thought, Steve bolts.
Danny’s left on the couch, heart racing, breath coming short. How long has Steve been standing there, why did he react like that, was Grace right? Why does Danny know nothing about how Steve feels about any of this, why have they never talked about it?
Several minutes pass like that, in silence. Every muscle on edge, he waits for Steve’s truck to turn over. It doesn’t. Eventually, he climbs to his feet, ignoring the aches from his five-hour stint on the couch. Outside, the sun is setting.
He starts with the lanai, the beach, but Steve’s not out there. He slowly circles around the house, hands in his pockets.
Steve’s on the steps by the front door, huddled into a miserable ball, elbows on his knees. He’s not crying anymore, thank god, just staring at the ground.
Danny takes the turn wide, so Steve has ample warning of his approach. When Steve doesn’t budge, he inches as close as the post on the other side of the steps, and, with his hands still in his pockets, leans against it.
He almost says something, almost asks Steve if he’s okay, but in the nick of time, knows to keep his mouth shut.
Minutes pass. The shadows have grown so long they have complete control over the scene. Through the house Danny can see the bright pink and purple of the sky, the gunmetal grey of the ocean. The breeze smells of salt and sand, the barest hint of Steve’s aftershave.
“Was that—” Steve creaks, and clears his throat. He doesn’t go on.
“This show Grace likes. I want—I never want us to run out of things to talk about, you know.”
Steve nods. “You let her watch stuff like that?”
“She’s twenty-three. She’ll watch what she wants; if I’m a jerk about it, she just won’t tell me.” A lesson learned the hard way, and has been true since she was thirteen.
Steve nods again.
The seconds drag on. Danny asks, “It bothers you?”
Steve shakes his head. “No. No. It’s just—” His voice still has a teeter to it that Danny’s only heard once or twice. The last time in the hospital, when he was shot, right before Steve left. “I used to dream about that. You know?”
No, no, Danny doesn’t. He absolutely doesn’t, except maybe deep, deep down, somewhere in his essence, maybe he had an inkling. “Yeah?”
Steve’s mouth quirks, almost a smile, but the corners of his eyes are tight, pained. He carefully doesn’t look at Danny. “Yeah. There, um, there was this boy. In high school. Kalani. He was on the football team with me. It wasn’t ever gonna work, but we used to dream about running away together. You know? I used to—” He cuts himself off, rubs his hand across his mouth. Danny’s chest hurts. “I used to dream we’d win the playoffs and everyone would be happy and impressed, so much so that when I—did that, they wouldn’t—you know.”
Danny’s eyes prickle. He wants to touch Steve, take him into his arms, comfort him, just like—just like those twenty-something kids he’s been watching for five hours. It seems wrong they should be allowed to do that but Steve and Danny aren’t.
He settles for sitting down next to Steve, close enough that if Steve wanted, their shoulders could touch.
“And then it was—Mason. At Annapolis. We get deployed, to, you know, wherever, and together we end the war, all the wars, and then everyone’s so grateful and impressed that, when, at the medal ceremony, I hold his hand and kiss him, instead of kicking us out of the Navy, they cheer and everything changes.”
Danny stares at the ground too, teeth gritted. His throat is clogged shut; he couldn’t say anything even if he knew the words.
They sit silently, the minutes rolling on. It gets dark, so dark Grace must be about to come home, but Danny doesn’t want them to lose this moment. He doesn’t want them to take another fifteen years to get here.
“Was that all? Was he the last?” he asks.
Out of the corners of his eyes, he sees Steve smile, the brightest yet.
“No. Then it was—it was, uh, here. I’d—I’d apprehend Wo Fat in Japan, and I’d walk him off the plane and then I’d—uh, I’d kiss you, and Kono and Chin wouldn’t bat an eyelash because they’re, you know, they’re cool people, but you—you’d be impressed enough that you wouldn’t punch me, and—” His breath coming in a ragged exhale, he wipes his hands on his boardies and stands. Danny’s head is spinning. Having to look up doesn’t help.
Steve pulls his nose—his eyes look wet again—and manages a wan smile. “Anyway. I—uh, I need a shower. Sorry. Sorry about that.”
He walks away before Danny can fit two words together.
—
This is big, it’s such a big thing, such a big revelation. He should be freaking out, panicking, pacing, not sitting on the couch nursing a tea.
His best friend. His best friend, with whom their fingers used to brush all the time, who used to take off his shirt in front of him and hang onto his every word and spend every minute he could get with him and want to know everything there was to know about him.
His best friend without whom he can’t imagine his life. His best friend, his family, weaved into the fabric of his being unlike any other person before, not even his ex-spouse. Maybe it’s the show he’s been watching, maybe it’s been there the whole time, but holding Steve’s hand, touching his body, giving him pleasure—the thought doesn’t feel weird at all. It feels like slipping into comfortable clothes he forgot he owned, like discovering a whole other wing of his house, one he desperately needed but kept walking by its closed door for no other reason than sheer ignorance.
What would even change? They already spend every free minute together, share all their meals, a home. They’d sleep in the same bed, which would be great, it would be amazing; it would take care of those first few minutes of the day Danny spends in gut-wrenching anxiety until he can verify for himself that Steve hasn’t vanished in the middle of the night. He misses sharing a bed with someone he loves, those conversations, silly and last at night, sleepy and first in the morning. There isn’t anyone else in the world he’d rather have them with, never was.
Grace, well-raised by her loving family—especially her father’s side—clatters in with Chinese. Impossible that Steve didn’t hear; yet, he doesn’t come down. While she and Danny are setting the table, he texts them both: Too exhausted for dinner. Calling it a night. See you tomorrow. Danny’s stomach plummets.
Twelve years ago, the moment Steve mentioned. Or was it thirteen? Danny remembers the panic, sour and breathless in his chest when they’d lost contact with the plane. He remembers the relief of watching Steve step out of it, the weight of Steve’s arm, how good he’d smelled after so many weeks of separation. And that’s what Steve was thinking then, pulling Danny close and planting one on him? Why didn’t he do it? Danny wouldn’t have punched him. Judging by the yearning careening in his chest now, it would’ve flung those doors wide open, those doors Danny didn’t even know existed. They could’ve had so much time together.
“Are you okay?” Grace asks.
He blinks himself out of the past. She’s three quarters done with her food; he’s maybe taken two bites. He shakes it off—tries, at least. “I watched your show.”
She flinches, grimacing. “Oh, god. You did? What did you think?”
“I thought—” He flinches too. They’ve come a long way since she snuck off to that party at thirteen, Danny’s made sure they did, he did, and he prides himself on being sex-positive for very similar reasons, but even he has his limits. “I thought it was very well done. I thought all the main characters were well-developed and compelling. I thought that last episode was very good. Very emotional.”
“Oh, that one’s my favorite,” she says, with obvious relief. The episode which, notably, lacked the explicit sex. Good—Danny can work with that, and he does, encouraging her to chatter about the emotional resonance, and the parallels that he completely missed and how inspired the main couple’s bilingual phone conversation was.
That night she’s promised to spend at Rachel’s. Danny sees her off, checks the locks, and heads upstairs, turning off lights as he goes.
At Steve’s door he stops, leans against the frame, not quite pressing his ear to it. Silence, unsurprisingly. Sure, yes, Steve’s avoiding him, no question, but even so, he’s probably long asleep.
He continues on to his own room, his insides crawling with disquiet. A decade and a half they’ve known each other, and on countless occasions he’s missed Steve like a limb, but not once, not in all those years, as much as in this very moment.
—
He can’t sleep. At three a.m. he gives up and, grabbing a pillow, a blanket and his phone, shuffles back out. At the landing he pauses. If he goes and lies down on the couch, he’ll more than likely fall asleep, giving Steve ample opportunity to sneak out without letting Danny talk to him.
He makes himself comfortable on the stairs, careful to block the whole way.
—
Something brushes his right leg. He opens his eyes.
It takes him a few seconds to remember where he is and why there is a splitting pain in his lower back. In front and above him, Steve has managed to get one shorts-clad leg past and is in the process of flamingo-ing the other over Danny’s body.
“Steve.”
With a small jump, Steve freezes, one long leg still in the air. It’s lighter out than Danny would’ve guessed; maybe Steve really was beat too. Danny pulls himself into the corner and out of the way; Steve straightens, now both feet firmly on the step above Danny’s perch.
Danny tips his head back, leaning it against the wall. “Where’re you going?”
“For a run,” Steve says, without making eye contact. “What are you doing?”
“Really? You need me to tell you what I’m doing? Sleeping folded in two on hard stairs, likely forgoing the ability to walk without a limp for several weeks? You can’t figure out this mystery without my help?”
Steve exhales. He lifts his hands to his hips, reconsiders, shoves one into his shorts pocket, wipes his mouth with the other. He looks the picture of uncomfortable. Danny wants to take him in his arms and pet it all away. “Can we not?”
“No. We can’t not. I’m sorry.” He nods at the steps. “Sit. Please. Since I won’t be able to get up for at least another hour here, please join me in my new habitat.”
Steve lets out another put-upon sigh, but does as he’s told. He ends up sitting two steps above Danny, small and miserable, long legs folded, elbows on top of them, very much like the day before. He fixes his gaze at some vague point at the base of the stairs; Danny studies him openly.
“You really thought I’d punch you?” he asks, at last.
Steve shrugs. “I thought it was possible. Unlikely, but possible. You had a temper then, and you’d already done it once.”
Danny can’t really argue with that. “Is that why you never said anything?”
“I spent my life not saying anything, Danny. I wasn’t ever going to say anything if that wasn’t—if I hadn’t, the TV, yesterday. And besides, you never—”
That old lump crawls back into his throat. This time, though, unheeding of the back pain, he shifts forward and captures Steve’s left hand where it’s dangling between his knees. Steve looks up, surprised, but he doesn’t pull away. He doesn’t grip Danny’s hand back either. “I never what?”
Steve drops his eyes again. “You never seemed like it even occurred to you.”
“That—that’s correct, unfortunately. You’re right. It never did occur to me.” He squeezes Steve’s limp, cool hand. “Until now. It’s occurred to me now.”
That at least gets Steve to look at him, willingly, even if he’s frowning. Danny strokes his thumb over the back of Steve’s hand, his soft, smooth skin. His palm isn’t much larger than Danny’s but his fingers are longer, the dusting of hair on his knuckles darker. Some odd thrill shivers through Danny at the sight.
“What are you saying?” Steve asks, quiet. He still doesn’t grip Danny’s hand back.
“I’m saying maybe—maybe we stop wasting time, huh? Maybe you let me take you on a date or something, tell me more about those guys you’ve never mentioned before, in fifteen years, so I stop being hurt about it, and maybe you let me kiss you, without an audience first, and then, if you still want, we’ll find a group of people and I’ll kiss you in front of all of them.” His vision is blurry. He blinks it away, glances up—Steve’s mouth is slack, his eyebrows high. He’s riveted. Danny tugs on his hand. “And maybe, maybe just to start with, you hold my hand, huh? Can you do that?”
Steve finally clamps down on Danny’s hand, like, until Danny said it, he hadn’t realized they were holding hands. “Are you—are you serious?”
“As serious as—” He looks around, for a better simile than heart attack—at this age they don’t want to tempt fate, obviously—finds the big, red-dotted garland, unlit at the moment, wrapped around the banister. “Christmas. I’m as serious as Christmas. Full disclosure—I’ve never done anything with a guy before, and in that show they didn’t really go into detail about the pertinent bits, but I have a feeling between you and me, we can figure it out.”
Mouth still agape, Steve stares at him. He most certainly does not look like he’s on the same page—leave alone the same book, not even in a store that sells them. Panic stirs in Danny’s gut.
“That—that is, uh, if you’re still—which, I realize now, you might not be, what with it having been over a decade and all since the moment you referred to, and if that’s the case, then just ignore what I said, okay, just ignore—”
“No!” Steve yanks on his hand at the same instant he scoots down the two steps separating them, landing with his shoulder pressed into Danny’s. “That’s not what I mean.”
Danny’s stomach swoops sweetly. He can’t take his eyes off Steve’s mouth. How has he ever managed to function with Steve within touching distance? He’s an idiot, the worst. “What do you mean, then?”
“It—you—I—”
“Eloquent, babe.”
Steve exhales a mulish breath. “Just—just like that?”
“Okay, I’m sorry, do you or do you not have a part of my body inside yours right now?”
“Well—yes, but—”
“So you’re used to it. What’s another part? On a temporary basis, no less.”
Steve’s mouth drops open. Danny sucks in his lips, waiting for him to laugh, but Steve just stares. Maybe Danny should be uneasy, but all he can think of is how adorable Steve looks in his earnest confusion. “It’s not—that’s not—”
“The same thing? You’re right. Thanks. Thanks for clearing that up.”
“But—”
“No but. You think it took me a week of ruminating to make that decision? When you know, you know.”
Steve’s eyes are still wide. He clutches Danny’s hand, gaze drifting to Danny’s mouth every few seconds. “And you’re sure this is what you want?”
Danny rolls his eyes. “I can’t believe you. Now you look before you leap? Seriously? What is the matter with you? What happened to my caveman partner, the one who shoots first, asks questions later, huh? When did you—mmpf.”
Zero warning, just dry, soft lips pressed against his, prickly stubble, Steve’s breath hot on Danny’s cheek. Something red-gold and molten ricochets through him, pools in his groin. Using the grip he still has on Steve’s hand, he tugs him forward, cups his jaw with his free hand and deepens the kiss.
It’s as good as those guys made it look, it’s better; Steve shivers and opens up for him, his tongue hot and slick and cautious when Danny licks into his mouth. He hasn’t kissed anyone in years and this was why: he knew, in some subconscious, logic-defying fashion, that the best kiss of his life was going to be right here, right now, with this man. What is completely, mind-numbingly unbelievable is that it took him this long to realize it.
They end up with Steve in Danny’s arms, his face buried in the crook of Danny’s neck. Steve’s chest keeps expanding with his too-fast breaths, his heart hammers against Danny’s ribs. Danny plays his fingers through Steve’s soft hair and presses a kiss to the top of his head.
“Like—” Steve’s voice breaks. He clears his throat. “You like that?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’d say that was serviceable. Very serviceable.”
Steve’s breathing quiets, turns careful. He tips his head back. The blue-green his eyes have turned is the prettiest color Danny’s ever seen. “And I can do that again?”
“You can do that as many times as you want. You can even do more.”
“Really.” Steve’s fighting to believe him, fighting hard, Danny can see it in his eyes. It breaks his heart. It makes him want to chase everyone who has ever made Steve feel this way and rip their throats out. “You’d—do all that. With me?”
Danny lifts their joined hands to his chest. “Are you kidding? Babe, I would do anything with you.”
Steve’s eyes grow bright. Danny’s sting too. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. Of course.” Danny tries a smile. “This actually looks like way more fun than most other brain-amputated things we’ve done together.”
Steve’s lips quirk up too, finally. “Well, it is. And—” He coughs again. “You know, I could, uh, show you the pertinent bits.”
Danny grins. “Yeah?”
Steve grins back. “Yeah.”
“Okay, I think that’s a good plan. If, that is—” To start the tedious process of getting up, he gently pushes Steve upright. He groans at the pain jangling through most of his leg joints. His back is a mess. “I ever manage to scrape myself from these here stairs—”
Steve descends a few more steps, bringing himself level with Danny’s body, and removes the blanket. He tosses it over the banister, then holds out both hands for Danny to take. “You know why your joints hurt, right? It’s because you never stretch. I keep telling you, Danny, if you want to be able to move, you’ve gotta stretch.”
“I don’t think any stretching in the world is going to help me after spending the entire night—the entire night!—on the stairs because you’re an emotionally constipated, repressed lug who doesn’t know how to ask for what he needs.”
He regrets it as soon as the last word leaves his mouth—Steve, next to him now with his arm around his waist, tenses.
The first two steps are pure agony, from the bottoms of Danny’s feet all the way to his neck, but then it gets better. Steve’s warm body pressed against him helps, both incredibly familiar and exhilratingly new at the same time.
Just as Danny’s drawing breath to apologize, Steve says, “I already had more than I ever thought I would, Danny. I didn’t want to risk it.”
With a tug on his shirt, Danny stops him, and takes the last step up by himself, so he’s slightly taller than Steve. He cups Steve’s face with both hands and tips him up. His eyes are still the same exquisite color.
“That might very well be the case, but it’s not right, okay? You should have everything.” Heart pounding in his throat, he leans down for another kiss, already easy, already practiced, breathtakingly right. Steve exhales the barest sound and Danny kisses it away. He tastes good, sweet, a hint of mint. Fifteen years. Danny is an idiot. “I’ll make sure you have everything you want. Okay?”
Steve’s eyes are screwed shut. When Danny kisses them next, he tastes salt. He pulls Steve closer, into the tightest hug he can manage. “I love you. Okay?”
Steve nods against him, arms coming around Danny’s waist. “I love you too.” He sighs. “Yeah. Okay, Danny.”
—
“I don’t know how I feel about this,” Grace says from the recliner, eyeing first the paused TV and then Danny, where he’s lounging in the corner of the couch. Steve’s perched on the armrest, draped over him, warm and gorgeous. “This show isn’t exactly intended for family viewing.”
“I agree,” Danny says. “Which is why your brother is at your mom’s and the adults are here. Besides, you’re the one who got us into this.” He gestures at the screen where the hockey players are frozen in their pre-game greeting. “The only thing left to do now is watch the last episode together.”
She rolls her eyes. “It’s not the last episode. There’ll be a second season, and also, forgive me for failing to predict that making you watch a gay show would actually turn you gay. If Auntie Kono only knew that’s all it took.”
Steve takes the bait. “No, Gracie, no show can—”
“Oh my god, I know. It was a joke.”
Steve rolls his eyes, smiling ruefully. Danny grins, squeezes Steve’s thigh. “Yeah, well, for all intents and purposes this is all your fault, though, Monkey, so now you can live with the consequences.”
Grace crosses her arms, shaking her head. Steve works the remote free from Danny’s side and pitches it at her. She catches it perfectly, proving, once again, that she is Danny’s daughter.
“Come on,” Steve says, “you keep the remote. If anything comes up that makes it too awkward, you pause it and we’ll watch separately, huh? How’s that?”
Eyes narrowed, she considers it. “Okay,” she says, and pitches it back. “But you should keep it. I’m fine. You pause it if something gets to be too much.”
Danny half expects Steve to argue, but he doesn’t. He just ducks his head, smiling, and murmurs, “Thanks, Gracie,” then shimmies his way between Danny and the armrest. Grumbling fondly, Danny shifts them until Steve’s head is on his chest and they’re both comfortable.
“Good?” he asks, squeezing Steve with the arm he has around Steve’s shoulders.
“Perfect,” Steve says, beaming, and unpauses the show.
—
Six months later, Danny does kiss Steve in front of an audience, of about a hundred-odd people, some local and some from the mainland. It’s not a sports arena but their beach, and instead of a cup, they have cake. The spectators also aren’t strangers; they happen to be their wedding guests.
Steve says it still counts.