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t_veranoTitle: Love How He Obeys Me (Does Things That Just Amaze Me So)
Fandom: H50
Length: 15,467 words
Rating: R (language, mostly)
Slash, Steve/Danny
CRACK.
Worst. Genie. Ever.
(on AO3: here)
On LJ: part 1 here, part 2 below.
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Danny stuck his head out of the bathroom door. "There's a new toothbrush I just bought in the medicine cabinet, you can use it. Get a mug or something out of the cabinet near the stove."
"What?" Steve's face was all screwed up. It was enough to make a person wonder about the Navy's IQ requirements, if a fully qualified SEAL couldn't follow a simple host-to-houseguest directive about oral hygiene opportunities.
Danny rolled his eyes and removed the toothbrush from his mouth, then repeated his words more clearly. It was obvious Steve had never been married, or he'd have better multitasking communication skills. Which was a waste, really. Not that Danny would encourage Steve to pass his genes along, and future generations should thank Danny for that consideration, but someone ought to have been having lots of regular sex with that body. Somehow Danny didn't think foxholes, or ocean floors, or any of the other fascinating places SEALs probably spent the majority of their time were likely to be hotbeds of swing-from-the-chandeliers fucking.
He swapped places with Steve, trading him the bathroom for the living room and unfolding his lumpy sofa into its equally lumpy impersonation of a bed. His closet yielded a spare set of sheets and a blanket, which he tossed onto the floor in the only free space big enough to accommodate six-foot-whatever of sleeping SEAL.
"I get the floor?"
Danny glanced up as Steve left the bathroom, then scrunched his eyes closed — fast — and sighed. Okay. He understood that Steve didn't have much choice. It was boxers or cargo pants or jaybird naked, so Steve sleeping in his boxers made sense.
But Danny was considerately wearing the PJ bottoms left over from one of Rachel's attempts at 'civilizing' his sleeping habits and an old, loose sweatshirt. There was very little skin involved.
Steve's dark blue boxers, on the other hand, were on the short side. And they were clearly thin and soft and…and drapey boxers.
And no fabric whatsoever, soft and drapey or not, was even attempting to obscure anything above hip level.
How, exactly, was this fair?
Danny opened his eyes reluctantly and swallowed. His throat felt thick. "I'm sure you've slept worse places."
Steve's lips quirked up in one of his infuriating Mona Lisa smiles and Danny knew what was coming next. "That's classified," Steve said, and yeah, there it was. The man was so predictable whenever he wasn't being asininely insane.
He blocked the pillow Danny tried to smack him with far too easily, his hand brushing against Danny's fingers where they were clutching the pillowcase — lingering against Danny's fingers. Oh, shit. "You're afraid to share your bed with me, Danny," he said, his face serious and his voice all low and throaty, and just fuck. "Admit it."
Truer words were never spoken. "There isn't a sane person alive who wouldn't be terrified to sleep with you," Danny answered. So there was a little bluster in there; between Steve's sex-me voice and his shirtless, sex-god body and the hot, prickling zap rocketing straight from Danny's fingers, from where Steve was still touching them, to his apparently suicidal dick, Danny needed all the distance bluster could give him.
"Does that include sleeping with me, or just sleeping with me?"
Danny groaned. "Please tell me you've never tried to use that line with anyone else before. Or at least tell me nobody's ever fallen for it. I need to retain some respect for the human species as a whole."
Steve's Mona Lisa smile was back. "Are you falling for it?"
"No," Danny retorted.
"Liar."
"Get over yourself, McGarrett. I wouldn't sleep with you if my life depended on it. Me, bed. You, floor." Danny illustrated the key points with gestures, jerking his hand away from Steve's lingering, fucking electric touch and stepping back as far he could in his shitty, mousetrap-sized living room. "End of discussion."
"Fine." Steve's voice had gone all clipped and cold. Terrific. Of course someone with the emotional maturity of a five-year-old would take Danny's sensible caution as a personal rejection.
Danny ran his hands through his hair. Steve's eyes were distant and unreadable: the drawbridges were up, hatches battened down, the metaphorical tac-vest on, like he was expecting a couple of rounds center mass.
"Look," Danny said, sighing, "leaving aside the potential for actual, weapons-related disaster here if I accidentally asked you for anything, I don't know what this is, all right? Sex, sex is great, I enjoy sex, I do, but I don't do the bar scene, I don't do faceless fucks, one-night stands, blowjobs with strangers in the corner stall of the restroom. Not my thing, you understand? I was married for ten years — that's what I do. Long-term. You, you're here for what? The next five minutes? A day, a week? As soon as Kamekona and his cousin straighten this mess out, you go back in your pineapple, back to your mission, or wherever. That's…not going to work for me."
The drawbridges went down, the hatches up, just like that. "Okay," Steve said, and his eyes were back with Danny again; his voice warm and gravelly and deep, and doing absolutely nothing to help the situation. "Okay, I get it. Um, we can just sleep, you know. 'Sleep' sleep. Nothing else."
"No, see, we can't. I can't. I fall asleep with you in the same bed and I'd wake up legally married to your thigh or something. It would be embarrassing."
"I don't think humping my thigh in your sleep counts as legal marriage." Steve sounded amused. "Anyway, I could just as easily wake up married to your thigh, yeah? Equal opportunity embarrassment." Danny shook his head, and Steve sighed. "Right, floor it is. You suck at being a gracious host, though, I have to tell you. As your guest, I should rate the bed."
"First of all," Danny said, stabbing a relieved finger in Steve's direction, "you are not my guest. Did I invite you? I did not. You told me to rub the pineapple. Ergo, you invited yourself. And now I have a fuckton of illegal and unexplainable weapons in my apartment that I'm going to have to deal with somehow, and Haji's likely to bar me from ever crossing the Minit-Mart's threshold again, and you, Steven, are in debt to me. Invited guest? Bullshit."
"Ergo. Really? 'Ergo'?"
"None of the rest of what I said even registered, did it?" Steve was busy mouthing 'ergo' silently to himself, and Danny rolled his eyes. "If I felt even the slightest shred of guilt about making you sleep on the floor, it's gone now, asshole."
Steve prodded the sheets and blanket on the floor with a bare foot. "Do I at least get a pillow?" he asked. Snarky, but that kind of shit never fazed Danny. The way Steve's abs had just rippled, on the other hand…
"Pillow, Danny? Or would that be too lenient of your Unwilling Hostness? I wouldn't want to put you out or anything."
Danny wrenched his thoughts, and his gaze, away from Steve's six-pack and generously gave Steve the pillow he was holding.
Well, tossed it at his head. Not that a polyester-filled pillow made much of a statement as far as projectile objects went.
But at least it was Danny's thinnest pillow. And there was a lumpy spot in one corner that had a knack for giving a person a kink in the neck if you weren't careful how you slept on the thing.
"Okay, what's with the smile? You look way too happy all of a sudden." Steve was eyeing Danny suspiciously and Danny felt his smile widen.
"Classified, babe," he said, and absolutely did not watch as a scowling Steve knelt down to arrange his bedding, causing the thin fabric of his boxers to stretch across his ass with an intimacy Danny was absolutely not jealous of.
Not in the fucking least.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"God hates me," Danny said, between gritted teeth. "If there is a God, which I doubt. First you, with the — and then the — all day, and now like that: you, like that, when we can't — and then this? Too? God hates me so much."
There was a grunt from the floor off to Danny's right. Danny propped himself up on an elbow and looked down at Steve. There was just enough light to see Steve's perfect, mean-spiritedly uncovered and totally naked chest. Also to see the pillow covering his face.
"Uh-huh. Sheila and Clancy are getting to you, too," Danny said, gratified. Steve deserved sleeplessness. "I'm sure you've been trained to withstand torture, but that was just ordinary torture, not my neighbors' attempt at porno-movie sound effects. I could rent those two out to the CIA. Waterboarding would become passe."
"Danny." Steve's voice was only slightly muffled by the pillow, which, you know, Danny's thinnest pillow; it made sense. "Shut up. Shut up, okay? You're driving me crazy."
"Me? Do you not have ears? They sound like dying cows, McGarrett. Cattle on their deathbed, mooing out their eternal, as in never-ending, passion. Clancy, there, has to be on Viagra or something, because it's just not normal to keep it up that long, even if you're a lot younger than Clancy is. I would be impressed if I wasn't so disgusted. And sleep-deprived." Danny glanced at Steve again. "You can't tell me you're enjoying listening to this anymore than I am."
The pillow gave a gusty, if muffled, sigh. "I was blocking it out, Danny. I'm trained to be able to sleep in difficult conditions. You talking, on the other hand? That's not a difficult condition, that's above and beyond any difficult condition even the most highly trained person should have to —"
"I just wish they would get it over with already, for fuck's sake," Danny muttered, insulted. Yeah, sure, he was a verbal kind of guy. What else would you expect him to be? The Newark Williams were all —
"Yes, Clancy, yes yes YES!" Sheila's shriek made Danny's eardrums ring. Before the echoes could die away Clancy was letting out a bellow that was loud enough to be heard by every cow currently residing in the western hemisphere, heartfelt enough to leave every bull suddenly feeling undersexed and inadequate.
Then there was silence.
Blessed, blessed silence.
Even Steve's pillow on the floor wasn't saying any—
Oh, shit. Shit.
"Steve!" Danny scrambled out of bed like the mattress had caught fire. "Sorry. Hey, I'm sorry. That was an accident. I didn't mean to —"
Steve was gone. The bedding was still there, and the pillow was still warm from his breath, from Steve bitching at Danny through it, telling him to shut up — like Danny had listened, fuck — but Steve was gone.
"I'm sorry," Danny said again to the empty room. "Steve. I'm sorry."
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Danny made himself take a couple of deep breaths. That had never helped him much in the past, no matter how often the marriage counselor he and Rachel had gone to had talked it up for stress relief, and it wasn't helping him much now, either.
But there was no reason to panic here. They'd gone through this before, after all. The last time Danny'd made an actual wish, Steve had just popped back into the pineapple and recharged or something. It hadn't even taken very long. All Danny had to do was wait a few minutes, and Steve would be back, all recharged.
Ready to rip Danny's head off, yeah, but Danny was right there with him on that one.
The pineapple was on the floor against the back wall of the apartment and Danny sat down next to it, ignoring his bad knee. He rubbed its brass belly with the palm of his hand. "You okay in there? Steve?"
No answer.
Steve just needed a couple of minutes, that was all.
"Look, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say what I said. Take your time, babe, all right? Come back out when you get…topped off, or whatever happens in there. Hey, I'll even swap with you; you take the bed and I'll take the floor."
No answer.
Danny let his fingers trace the brass scales of the pineapple. "I'm considering taking up a collection to have Clancy neutered, just so you know. Not just because of tonight — you realize I have to bribe Clancy and Sheila on Grace's weekends? Bribe them to not have sex while my innocent daughter is trying to sleep right next door to all their bovine bellowing and shrieking?"
The pineapple stayed stubbornly silent. Danny sighed. "Okay, so cows don't shriek. I assume they don't, maybe they do, I haven't eavesdropped on enough cows to be an expert. The streets of Newark aren't exactly teeming with farm animals."
He paused for a minute to give Steve a chance to insult New Jersey, trying to ignore the flicker of fear he felt when Steve didn't say a word. "Anyway, what I do is I pay for them to spend the night at the Aloha Sunrise just down the block. The only reason they go for it is the Sunrise has Jacuzzis." He leaned back against the wall and straightened his knee for a few moments. "I can't really afford it, but between the Triple-A discount and the senior citizen discount I can wangle for them, it's cheaper than any place I'd want to take Grace to spend the night. Yeah, I know what you're thinking, you're thinking my apartment isn't a place I should want my daughter to spend any time in. And you're right. The problem is, a cop's salary doesn't fly in your island paradise, my friend. Add in alimony, which Rachel does not fucking need, and child support, and you get this." He gestured at his surroundings with the hand that wasn't rubbing against the pineapple in small, soothing circles.
Not that he felt soothed. Maybe the pineapple did. He tried again. "Steven. I would really appreciate it if you would get your ass back out here."
This time he heard something. Maybe he heard something. A groan.
Maybe.
"Steve? Steve?"
The groan didn't get repeated and Danny slumped back against the wall. "Great. Take your time. So, you want to hear about my family back in Jersey? You'd like my ma. Everybody likes my ma. She, on the other hand, would probably not like you at all. You're freakishly tall, for one thing. And you had steamed vegetables and broiled chicken for dinner, who does that? Lemon chicken and eggrolls, McGarrett. Shrimp fried rice. That's why you order Chinese delivery, not steamed vegetables. How have you never learned this? You need to taste Ma's five-cheese lasagna, it would be a life-changing experience for you, trust me…"
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"— breaks free from the hive mind long enough to sabotage the cargo-bay airlock, which you wouldn't think would be enough to make a difference, yeah, but the aliens forgot to allow for —"
"Do you ever shut up?"
Steve's voice came from in front of Danny, not from the pineapple on the floor beside him and Danny's eyes flew up from contemplating his bare, lonely — and, frankly, worried — toes to drink in the sight of Steve standing near his abandoned bedding, and looking —
Fuck. Like he was about to pass out.
Danny got to his feet in a hell of a hurry, one his knee would be speaking to him about later, and lunged for Steve's arm.
Of course the idiot tried to brush off Danny's help, but it was like he was on some sort of slow-motion, wobbly time delay, and Danny found it frighteningly easy to tow him to the nearest piece of furniture and push him down onto it.
The moron immediately tried to stand up again, and Danny shoved him back down onto the La-Z-Boy with possibly a little more force than was strictly necessary. "Stay," Danny growled. "You. Stay there, or I will injure you."
"I'm fine, Danny," Steve said halfheartedly. Pinocchio with his nose shooting out long enough to use as a yardstick would've been more convincing.
"Gray is not your color, babe. Stay." Danny jabbed a finger into Steve's shoulder, then headed for the fridge. He didn't bother with a glass, just grabbed the orange juice carton and returned to Steve, slapping the carton into Steve's hands.
Which were shaking, just a little bit.
Blood sugar. It was low blood sugar, that was all. Not fucked up genie mojo, just a simple case of low blood sugar, and if Steve would just fucking drink the juice — "Drink," Danny demanded. Why couldn't he have gotten a cooperative fake genie, huh? Instead of Steve?
Steve rolled his eyes, but since that reminded Danny of how close Steve probably was to passing out, Danny didn't stop glaring at him until he gave in and chugged down a healthy amount of OJ. He set the carton down on the side table — a little less shaky in the hands now, maybe? — and wiped juice off his chin with the back of his hand. Then he just sat there, blinking slowly.
Danny sighed and went over to the sink, coming back with a damp paper towel that he handed to Steve. The last thing he needed was for Steve to go grenade-happy here because his hands had gotten sticky. "You were raised by orangutans, weren't you," he said, barely resisting the urge to wipe Steve's face and hands with the paper towel himself instead of watching Steve fumble through the process.
"Yeah, Danny. Orangutans. You got me." Steve leaned his head back against the chair's headrest and closed his eyes. Danny's gut twisted a little. Steve was still way too pale and shaky, and there was a crease in his forehead that made Danny wonder if he should break out the Advil.
"I'm sorry," he said, in case Steve hadn't heard him before. "I am very sorry that happened. I'll be more careful."
"It's okay." Steve didn't sound pissed off, just tired. He didn't open his eyes.
Fuck, his eyelashes were longer than Rachel's, even after she spent half an hour with her little wand-y brushes and sponges and bottles of various scary things. Rachel would hate Steve. His eyelashes, anyway.
The thought made Danny smile for the first time in what felt like hours. Rachel meeting Steve — Danny would pay to have court-side tickets for that meeting.
Too bad Steve wasn't going to be sticking around long enough for Danny to arrange it. Danny's smile vanished.
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"Cap'n Crunch. You actually eat Cap'n Crunch. Or… Christ, Cheetos? How are you still alive?"
Danny stumbled into the kitchen area, relieved to see that flaking out in the recliner for a couple of hours and finishing the night stretched out on Danny's bed had restored Steve to full, if irritating, throttle. He didn't entirely feel at full throttle himself. For one thing, he needed coffee, now. For another thing, it was a little hard to feel rested when you'd spent most of the night before watching someone sleep, half afraid they might disappear into thin air again.
He'd only gotten some sleep after he'd given in and crawled into bed beside Steve. Not too close beside Steve, he wasn't that dumb, okay? Steve was still a crazy, pitifully unsocialized and dangerous disappearing asshole who would be heading back to his camouflaged life, doing his Mission Impossible shit, any day now. But the pathetic fact of the matter was that Danny hadn't been able to relax until he circled a hand around Steve's wrist and kept it there, feeling Steve's pulse beating steadily against his fingers.
The weird thing was Steve hadn't even noticed, unless you call making some sort of humming noise and relaxing even more deeply into sleep noticing. That was just…freaky: a highly trained, demonstrably paranoid supermilitary-ninja type relaxing that deeply in a strange bed with somebody he'd known for less than twenty-four hours, somebody who'd nearly gotten him killed a few hours before.
Killed. Disappeared. Something.
Danny cleared his throat and glared at the freak. "Why are you rooting around in my cabinets?"
"Breakfast. I'm hungry." Steve stuck his long, snoopy nose into the next cabinet, then jerked his head back away from its shelves like he'd been slapped. "Wow."
"You do realize that is not acceptable houseguest behavior —'Wow' what?" Not that Danny really wanted to know. What he really wanted to know was where the defensive tone in his voice had come from.
"Twinkies? Seriously, does anyone over the age of ten even —"
Danny pushed past Steve and slammed the cabinet door shut, narrowly missing that irritating nose. "You? Shut up."
The fucker hadn't even had the common decency to start up Danny's coffeemaker. Or put clothes on. "Orangutans," Danny said to himself. "Barbaric, completely asocial orangutans." He glared at the coffeemaker, keeping his back turned to Steve.
Because of the unmade coffee, okay.
Not because the morning light was sliding over Steve's bare chest and making itself familiar with all that stupidly gorgeous skin and all those flawless muscles the way Danny's hands wanted to be making themselves familiar. That wasn't it at all.
It wasn't, okay? It just wasn't.
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"How hard can it be for you to understand a two-letter word? No. N as in Not a chance in fucking hell and O as in… okay, O turns out to be a little disappointing here, a little wimpy, I get that 'Obviously not' isn't nearly strong enough for somebody who probably arm-wrestles crocodiles for laughs. But still, no."
Steve's eyes — no, make that his entire manipulative face — turned tragic. "But it's Sunday," he said. "Everybody goes to the beach on Sunday."
Danny snorted. "First of all, this is supposed to convince me? If I want crowds, I'll fly back to the East Coast and hit the subway during rush hour. And second? I don't like the beach. As I mentioned already. More than once."
"You can't be in Hawaii and not like the beach." Steve abandoned tragedy and went for an expression that Danny could only assume was meant to project reasonableness — as if Steve would recognize reasonableness if it head-butted him. "We don't have to go anywhere crowded, Danny. I know some good out-of-the-way places, really peaceful. You don't have to get in the water, you can take a book, sit in the shade, read, whatever. Or I'll just go myself."
Oh hell no, he wouldn't.
"Look, whatever Kamekona said, you're not my owner, Danny. I can go to the beach if I want to. Which I do. I haven't… it's been a while since I've been able to go for a swim in any ocean, much less here, okay? To just go for a swim, I mean, with nothing else… you know. Not as part of a mission, or training. Just a swim."
And that, that right there, that particular face right there — Danny buried his head in his hands. That face made him sure, absolutely certain to the core of his bones, that somewhere inside Steve McGarrett — motherfucking Navy SEAL, arrogant and high-handed walking disaster area, Genie of Doom and Destruction, shirtless cocktease — was somebody who didn't expect much for himself.
Of himself, yeah. But for himself — pretty much zip.
Not that Danny should care, right?
But it wouldn't actually hurt him to take the Ed McBain he'd bought for fifty cents at a library book sale to one of Steve's really peaceful beaches. There would be sand, yes. And possibly jellyfish. Or crabs. Falling coconuts. But still, spending a couple of hours at a beach probably wouldn't actually hurt him.
Danny sighed. "Towels we can use as beach towels are in the closet, sunscreen in the medicine cabinet, cooler under the sink. Wash your hands before we go, because we are not stopping anywhere, for any reason, up to and including emergency medical care or the Apocalypse. We are not destroying any public or private property today, Steven, I mean it."
Steve beamed. There wasn't any other word for it. He fucking beamed, like a kid on Christmas morning.
Danny sighed again.
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Somehow hanging out on the beach wasn't turning out to be so bad, not that Danny planned on admitting that to Steve. If he ever saw Steve again, that was. Or saw more of him than a tiny dark dot moving slowly back and forth in the water, way too far the fuck out, out where nobody could help him if he got a cramp or got sucked in by a riptide, or if a giant squid tentacle came up out of nowhere and snagged onto his ankle.
Danny stopped trying to pretend he was reading his paperback. The dot that was Steve-the-lunatic was making towards shore, finally, and Danny felt himself relax.
Which was ridiculous.
Of course, Steve was ridiculous, so what could you do?
Steve stopped swimming and stood up, wading back through the surf. He looked — and how did Danny deserve this? How? — like he'd just gotten laid, the asshole. All breathing hard and blissed out, with drops of water rolling down his chest, basking in some sort of aquatic afterglow —
It was totally unfucking fair. Major Stick-Up-His-Ass on TV got to keep his Jeannie. Genie. "Damn it, babe," Danny said under his breath, watching Steve start to jog up the slope of sand towards him. "I want… Fuck. I wish you could just stay."
Steve froze, staring at Danny. Turned white.
Turned whiter.
Oh, Jesus. No.
Not again. Danny was on his feet, running towards Steve, panicking. "No. No. I didn't — that wasn't. Steve, that wasn't, I swear — you weren't supposed to hear that. That wasn't a wish, goddammit."
It wasn't. Even if it was, which it wasn't, Danny couldn't wish Steve into wanting to stick around. That would be wrong. So wrong.
"Danny. I can't…" Steve's voice sounded strange and Danny was too far away, not that he could do anything, Jesus, what had he done, and Steve —
Steve wasn't there anymore.
Just his footprints, wet on the drier sand this far up on the beach.
A moment later they were gone too.
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God damn Steve and his off-the-beaten-path beaches. It took Danny way too long to get back to his apartment, even with blue lights and siren going and the gas pedal floored almost non-stop, fuck the slow two-lane traffic and the hairpin curves and the imminent water-logged death waiting bluely just beyond all the guardrails.
He couldn't get the way post-wish Steve had looked last night out of his mind, the way Steve's hands had trembled, the way he hadn't had enough horsepower to stand on his own two stupid feet. Kamekona's words kept replaying in Danny's ears — fucks with Steve's energy, could be bad, could be bad — and it already had been bad, how could he have done this to Steve, how could he have done this —
He pulled into his parking slot at the apartment complex with a squeal of brakes and headed for his door at a run, his fingers fumbling for his keys. Maybe Steve wasn't entirely wrong about opening doors with grenades — it would be faster than this, anyway, when Danny's hands weren't steady enough to get the fucking key in the lock, but the key finally slid home, and that was good; Steve would be there, waiting for him, yeah? Standing — wobbly, sure, or maybe sitting on the floor in a wobbly heap, but Danny would take it — waiting beside that stupid pineapple, waiting for Danny —
He wasn't.
He wasn't there.
The pineapple wasn't there, either.
The pineapple wasn't there.
Danny tore through his apartment looking for the fucking pineapple everywhere, anywhere, impossible places, places it wouldn't fit, places —
Oh, Christ. Steve's stuff was gone too. All the lethal shit Steve had genied up, all the weapons, the fucking crossbow, the mace — everything was gone.
Okay. He didn't need to panic. Maybe this was just your basic B & E, the weapons would've been Christmas and Fourth of July all wrapped up together for any self-respecting felon. Maybe the asshole had thought the pineapple statue was worth something too, or else he just liked pineapples. Danny could track him down — no way a weapons stash like that wouldn't make waves on the black market. Find the weapons, find the felon, find the pineapple. No problem.
No problem at all.
Kamekona could help. Kamekona would be falling all over himself to help.
Or Danny would flatten all six hundred pounds of him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Fo' real? You must've been smokin' the good stuff, brah. 'Bout time you loosen up some." Kamekona was looking at Danny like Danny was trying to pull his enormous leg, like Danny was the craziest fucking haole he'd ever seen. He was chuckling.
The only thing that was keeping Danny from perpetrating actual and permanent violence against the son of a bitch was that he wasn't lying. Kamekona was the world's worst liar; he had so many tells Danny could read him like one of Grace's old Max picture books. If Mr. Shave Ice King was lying now, Danny would eat Steve's leftover pineapple-bedecked pizza.
If he could. The leftover pizza had vanished from Danny's apartment along with everything else Steve-related, even the empty Giametti's box. Danny was trying very hard to chalk it up to his arms-acquiring felon being hungry.
Hungry, and needing some greasy, pizza-scented cardboard for…something.
So Kamekona wasn't lying, and he didn't have a cousin in the Middle East. "Closest I got is an uncle in Cannes, Danny. Sorry. Hey, my cousin Apikai almost moved to Dubai a couple months ago. Okole puka job fell through, though."
He didn't know anything about a brass pineapple. either."Two-foot-tall brass pineapple, you shittin' me? Crazy. Who's gonna buy that? Nobody local's that lolo and it's too big for tourists to cart back home."
He did know Steve, yeah. Which was terrific. "Hey, you met Steve? I didn't think he been 'round for a while. You musta met him from his dad being a cop before, huh? Funny about Steve coming here, though, he's always off doing all kinds of secret SEAL stuff. He don't come here much, not since his mom died and his dad pack him and his sister off to the mainland. Sad thing, fo' sure."
Genies? "Sure, Aladdin and his lamp, I heard of that. Everybody heard of that. Kid stuff. You want real, you talk with kahuna here. But genies? Marketing, Danny, gotta be marketing. Not real."
Danny wanted to flatten him with a fucking steamroller.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Brooding over what you'd had and lost was an American pastime, a divorced guy's hard-earned right, and a skill Danny had honed very nicely, thank you, since he and Rachel had split up. His brooding was familiar, methodical, grooved.
More than enough to satisfy anybody. Absolutely.
But here he was, branching out, brooding over something he'd never had in the first place, something that hadn't even fucking happened. It was making him crazy, just a little.
He could track down Steve if he wanted to.
He could try, anyway, through Steve's father, through the Navy.
But for what? Steve — if he still existed, if he hadn't been genied into fucking nothingness — had a life he was scarily well-suited for, blowing shit up all over the world and getting to play with all kinds of shiny, dangerous toys.
More than that — if Kamekona didn't remember what had happened, if Haji 's restroom door hadn't ever gotten blown up, if Lono's had never received a shipment containing a brass pineapple — maybe it hadn't happened.
For Steve, anyway.
Danny kind of hated Steve for that. Because it had certainly happened for Danny.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
McGarrett, John M.
COD: single shot to the forehead, execution-style.
Daughter: Mary Ann McGarrett, current residence Los Angeles, copy of California driver's license appended.
Son: Lieutenant Commander Steven J. McGarrett, USN, currently deployed out of Coronado. Copy of official military ID appended.
Transcript of phone conversation between Commander McGarrett and suspect Victor Hesse, as provided by McGarrett through official Navy channels, appended.
The first Danny knew about it wasn't from the local news, it was from catching the case at HQ, and he spent the next five minutes in the restroom, splashing cold water on his face and trying not to think about Steve saying "No" when Danny had asked him if he had any family here he wanted to see, trying not to think about Steve saying, "Visiting him doesn't usually work out so well." Trying not to think about the way Steve's face had looked when he'd said that.
Steve — the Navy probably let people go to funerals, right? Unless he was deployed somewhere they couldn't call him back from? Still, Danny could do this. Maybe he'd see Steve, maybe he wouldn't, but he could still do this. He just had to be careful, remember that Steve wouldn't remember him. Treat Steve like any surviving family member of a vic, not like Steve.
Danny splashed more water on his face and did not, did not, picture what it must've done to Steve, that phone call from Victor Hesse.
Hesse was going down. That son of a bitch was Danny's. It didn't matter that Steve would never know why Danny cared so much about bringing Hesse down. Catching murderers was Danny's job, after all.
And he could do this. For Steve, he could do this.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There was a sound from the back of McGarrett's garage, a clunk. Movement in the shadows. Danny's pulse started its familiar rollercoaster ride , speeding up and slowing down all at once as adrenaline jacked itself up and his training kicked in.
"You! Hands up, don't move!" The SP2009 was a steady, reassuring weight in his hands. Not so reassuring was how fucking fast the intruder was, whirling to face Danny with a gun he'd pulled out of nowhere and aimed at Danny with way too much confidence.
"Who are you?" the intruder demanded.
"Detective Danny Williams. Who are you?" Danny yelled back. But it was reflex — that voice, he knew that voice. He knew that body, now that he'd moved forward and had a better angle of light to see the back of the garage.
He knew that face. He knew, God help him, those crazy eyes.
"Steve," he said stupidly.
He should've known Steve would be right where he shouldn't be, that was what Steve did. Except for the times when Steve wasn't where he should be, and Danny could've said a lot about that too. Would've. Couldn't. Fuck.
Danny cleared his throat, ready to cover his mistake. He didn't know Steve, right. They'd never met. Goddammit. "Excuse me," he said, trying to sound like nothing more than a polite, badge-carrying stranger. "I assume you're Steven Mc—"
"Look, whoever you said you were, this is… Wait. What's going on here?... What the fuck is going — Danny?"
"—Garrett, Detective McGarrett's… Wait a minute, you remember me?"
"No. Yeah? Sort of, yeah." Steve lowered his gun and scrubbed a hand over his face. The skin was stretched so tightly across his cheeks Danny half expected the bones to poke through at any moment. It made his own face ache. Steve wasn't supposed to look like that. His stupid rubber face wasn't supposed to look like he was so…fragile. So close to breaking.
That was wrong.
Okay, hold on — 'sort of'? "Did you just say 'sort of'?" Danny said, stabbing the air with short, furious gestures, because seriously. "That's not — you remember me, huh? Please don't tell me you remembered me before this. Because if you remembered me and didn't pick up a fucking phone long enough to track down my phone number and call me and tell me you were still alive, not disintegrated in some fucking black hole of failed genieness, I swear to God I'm going to —"
"Danny. Shut up."
The crazy eyes were still in force, but there was something in their depths that looked almost lost. Danny wanted to smack himself in the forehead. "Your dad. Fuck, Steve. I'm sorry."
"Yeah." Steve's jaw clamped down. "Hesse's going to pay for this."
The tone of his voice set off alarms in Danny's head. "Steve, we'll get him. I will get him for you, all right? You have to leave this to us. HPD, I mean. You know that."
"Actually, I don't have to leave him to you. You can help me, though."
Crazy, arrogant asshole. "Babe —"
"You know, I've spent the last couple of months pretty sure that what I could remember of that day with you was some kind of PTSD symptom, wondering if I needed to turn myself over to the shrinks and confess that I apparently had some deep-seated need to delude myself that I'd been a really crappy fucking genie for a day. But it wasn't PTSD, was it? It happened."
"Yeah. It did. Hard to believe, I know, but yeah. At least from where I'm standing."
"I was here, in Hawaii. With you."
"Yes."
"Kamekona — he knows, right?"
"He did. He just…the way it ended, he doesn't remember anything about it now. I wanted to kill him."
"It doesn't make any sense. But It was real. Somehow? The pineapple. Sharks in your couch."
"Of course you would remember a reference to sharks. Anything deadly — and you probably remember every single bloodcurdling item in the arsenal you genied up, don't you —"
"It was real — not sleeping with you. Sleeping with you."
Deadly, yeah. Steve's memory was as deadly as the rest of him. Unfortunately. Danny cleared his throat. "About that —"
"Right," Steve interrupted, suddenly brusque, all business. "Hesse — you'll be working with me, Danny. We've got full immunity and means. I can probably get you a nice jump in salary. We'll get the son of a bitch, count on it."
"What? We need to talk about —"
"It doesn't have to be anything else, Danny, it can just be work." Steve pulled his cell phone out and punched in a number, not looking at Danny. "That's up to you."
"Steven, would you for fuck's sake let me actually speak here —"
"Yeah, Governor Jamison, please," Steve said into the phone. "Tell her it's Steve McGarrett."
Danny rolled his eyes.
"Governor, I'll take the job." Steve looked over at Danny. "Let's just say I found something that changed my mind. I'll transfer to the reserves and I'll run your task force. I've already got the first member lined up."
Smug bastard.
Danny glared as Steve stowed the phone back in his pocket. "Task force?" Danny said. "You asshole. You are the role model for all assholes everywhere, you should know this. Have I said yes? I don't even know what the fuck you're talking about, why should I even consider —"
"I should probably tell you I don't plan on taking no for an answer. I think it'll work out great." Smug, arrogant, conceited bastard. Danny wanted to punch him.
Wanted to grab his smug, stupidly rubber face between both hands and pull it into range so Danny could kiss the living fuck out of his smug, stupid mouth.
"So you in, Danny?"
Hopeless, the man was hopeless, Danny could only despair of him. He sighed. "Yeah," he said, "yeah, I'm in." Of course he was in. Jesus. He was so far in it was ridiculous.
"And for your information," he said to Steve, who was still standing half the length of the garage away, like a moron, "I think it does." Steve opened his mouth, looking befuddled, and Danny took pity on him. "You said it doesn't have to be anything else. I'm saying it does. I know the timing sucks here, and we need to take it slow, but at some point, yes, I…"
Or maybe taking it slow was overrated. Steve certainly seemed to think so.
Unless Danny was misinterpreting the crazy-hot eyes, the hands — how many hands could one non-mutant, purportedly semi-normal person have, anyway? — his fucking tongue, what, did he do push-ups with his tongue as a hobby? pick handcuff locks? not that Danny was complaining —
Jesus. Yeah, Danny was in. As if Steve had even had to ask.
______________________________________________________________________________
Title adapted from Buddy Kaye's lyrics to the I Dream of Jeannie theme song:
Jeannie, fresh as a daisy.
Just love how she obeys me,
Does things that just amaze me so.
She smiles, Presto the rain goes.
She blinks, up come the rainbows.
Cars stop, even the train goes slow.
When she goes by
She paints sunshine on every rafter,
Sprinkles the air with laughter,
We're close as a quarter after three.
There's no one like Jeannie. I'll introduce her,
To you, but it's no use, sir,
Cause my Jeannie's in love with me.
Fandom: H50
Length: 15,467 words
Rating: R (language, mostly)
Slash, Steve/Danny
CRACK.
Worst. Genie. Ever.
(on AO3: here)
On LJ: part 1 here, part 2 below.
Danny stuck his head out of the bathroom door. "There's a new toothbrush I just bought in the medicine cabinet, you can use it. Get a mug or something out of the cabinet near the stove."
"What?" Steve's face was all screwed up. It was enough to make a person wonder about the Navy's IQ requirements, if a fully qualified SEAL couldn't follow a simple host-to-houseguest directive about oral hygiene opportunities.
Danny rolled his eyes and removed the toothbrush from his mouth, then repeated his words more clearly. It was obvious Steve had never been married, or he'd have better multitasking communication skills. Which was a waste, really. Not that Danny would encourage Steve to pass his genes along, and future generations should thank Danny for that consideration, but someone ought to have been having lots of regular sex with that body. Somehow Danny didn't think foxholes, or ocean floors, or any of the other fascinating places SEALs probably spent the majority of their time were likely to be hotbeds of swing-from-the-chandeliers fucking.
He swapped places with Steve, trading him the bathroom for the living room and unfolding his lumpy sofa into its equally lumpy impersonation of a bed. His closet yielded a spare set of sheets and a blanket, which he tossed onto the floor in the only free space big enough to accommodate six-foot-whatever of sleeping SEAL.
"I get the floor?"
Danny glanced up as Steve left the bathroom, then scrunched his eyes closed — fast — and sighed. Okay. He understood that Steve didn't have much choice. It was boxers or cargo pants or jaybird naked, so Steve sleeping in his boxers made sense.
But Danny was considerately wearing the PJ bottoms left over from one of Rachel's attempts at 'civilizing' his sleeping habits and an old, loose sweatshirt. There was very little skin involved.
Steve's dark blue boxers, on the other hand, were on the short side. And they were clearly thin and soft and…and drapey boxers.
And no fabric whatsoever, soft and drapey or not, was even attempting to obscure anything above hip level.
How, exactly, was this fair?
Danny opened his eyes reluctantly and swallowed. His throat felt thick. "I'm sure you've slept worse places."
Steve's lips quirked up in one of his infuriating Mona Lisa smiles and Danny knew what was coming next. "That's classified," Steve said, and yeah, there it was. The man was so predictable whenever he wasn't being asininely insane.
He blocked the pillow Danny tried to smack him with far too easily, his hand brushing against Danny's fingers where they were clutching the pillowcase — lingering against Danny's fingers. Oh, shit. "You're afraid to share your bed with me, Danny," he said, his face serious and his voice all low and throaty, and just fuck. "Admit it."
Truer words were never spoken. "There isn't a sane person alive who wouldn't be terrified to sleep with you," Danny answered. So there was a little bluster in there; between Steve's sex-me voice and his shirtless, sex-god body and the hot, prickling zap rocketing straight from Danny's fingers, from where Steve was still touching them, to his apparently suicidal dick, Danny needed all the distance bluster could give him.
"Does that include sleeping with me, or just sleeping with me?"
Danny groaned. "Please tell me you've never tried to use that line with anyone else before. Or at least tell me nobody's ever fallen for it. I need to retain some respect for the human species as a whole."
Steve's Mona Lisa smile was back. "Are you falling for it?"
"No," Danny retorted.
"Liar."
"Get over yourself, McGarrett. I wouldn't sleep with you if my life depended on it. Me, bed. You, floor." Danny illustrated the key points with gestures, jerking his hand away from Steve's lingering, fucking electric touch and stepping back as far he could in his shitty, mousetrap-sized living room. "End of discussion."
"Fine." Steve's voice had gone all clipped and cold. Terrific. Of course someone with the emotional maturity of a five-year-old would take Danny's sensible caution as a personal rejection.
Danny ran his hands through his hair. Steve's eyes were distant and unreadable: the drawbridges were up, hatches battened down, the metaphorical tac-vest on, like he was expecting a couple of rounds center mass.
"Look," Danny said, sighing, "leaving aside the potential for actual, weapons-related disaster here if I accidentally asked you for anything, I don't know what this is, all right? Sex, sex is great, I enjoy sex, I do, but I don't do the bar scene, I don't do faceless fucks, one-night stands, blowjobs with strangers in the corner stall of the restroom. Not my thing, you understand? I was married for ten years — that's what I do. Long-term. You, you're here for what? The next five minutes? A day, a week? As soon as Kamekona and his cousin straighten this mess out, you go back in your pineapple, back to your mission, or wherever. That's…not going to work for me."
The drawbridges went down, the hatches up, just like that. "Okay," Steve said, and his eyes were back with Danny again; his voice warm and gravelly and deep, and doing absolutely nothing to help the situation. "Okay, I get it. Um, we can just sleep, you know. 'Sleep' sleep. Nothing else."
"No, see, we can't. I can't. I fall asleep with you in the same bed and I'd wake up legally married to your thigh or something. It would be embarrassing."
"I don't think humping my thigh in your sleep counts as legal marriage." Steve sounded amused. "Anyway, I could just as easily wake up married to your thigh, yeah? Equal opportunity embarrassment." Danny shook his head, and Steve sighed. "Right, floor it is. You suck at being a gracious host, though, I have to tell you. As your guest, I should rate the bed."
"First of all," Danny said, stabbing a relieved finger in Steve's direction, "you are not my guest. Did I invite you? I did not. You told me to rub the pineapple. Ergo, you invited yourself. And now I have a fuckton of illegal and unexplainable weapons in my apartment that I'm going to have to deal with somehow, and Haji's likely to bar me from ever crossing the Minit-Mart's threshold again, and you, Steven, are in debt to me. Invited guest? Bullshit."
"Ergo. Really? 'Ergo'?"
"None of the rest of what I said even registered, did it?" Steve was busy mouthing 'ergo' silently to himself, and Danny rolled his eyes. "If I felt even the slightest shred of guilt about making you sleep on the floor, it's gone now, asshole."
Steve prodded the sheets and blanket on the floor with a bare foot. "Do I at least get a pillow?" he asked. Snarky, but that kind of shit never fazed Danny. The way Steve's abs had just rippled, on the other hand…
"Pillow, Danny? Or would that be too lenient of your Unwilling Hostness? I wouldn't want to put you out or anything."
Danny wrenched his thoughts, and his gaze, away from Steve's six-pack and generously gave Steve the pillow he was holding.
Well, tossed it at his head. Not that a polyester-filled pillow made much of a statement as far as projectile objects went.
But at least it was Danny's thinnest pillow. And there was a lumpy spot in one corner that had a knack for giving a person a kink in the neck if you weren't careful how you slept on the thing.
"Okay, what's with the smile? You look way too happy all of a sudden." Steve was eyeing Danny suspiciously and Danny felt his smile widen.
"Classified, babe," he said, and absolutely did not watch as a scowling Steve knelt down to arrange his bedding, causing the thin fabric of his boxers to stretch across his ass with an intimacy Danny was absolutely not jealous of.
Not in the fucking least.
"God hates me," Danny said, between gritted teeth. "If there is a God, which I doubt. First you, with the — and then the — all day, and now like that: you, like that, when we can't — and then this? Too? God hates me so much."
There was a grunt from the floor off to Danny's right. Danny propped himself up on an elbow and looked down at Steve. There was just enough light to see Steve's perfect, mean-spiritedly uncovered and totally naked chest. Also to see the pillow covering his face.
"Uh-huh. Sheila and Clancy are getting to you, too," Danny said, gratified. Steve deserved sleeplessness. "I'm sure you've been trained to withstand torture, but that was just ordinary torture, not my neighbors' attempt at porno-movie sound effects. I could rent those two out to the CIA. Waterboarding would become passe."
"Danny." Steve's voice was only slightly muffled by the pillow, which, you know, Danny's thinnest pillow; it made sense. "Shut up. Shut up, okay? You're driving me crazy."
"Me? Do you not have ears? They sound like dying cows, McGarrett. Cattle on their deathbed, mooing out their eternal, as in never-ending, passion. Clancy, there, has to be on Viagra or something, because it's just not normal to keep it up that long, even if you're a lot younger than Clancy is. I would be impressed if I wasn't so disgusted. And sleep-deprived." Danny glanced at Steve again. "You can't tell me you're enjoying listening to this anymore than I am."
The pillow gave a gusty, if muffled, sigh. "I was blocking it out, Danny. I'm trained to be able to sleep in difficult conditions. You talking, on the other hand? That's not a difficult condition, that's above and beyond any difficult condition even the most highly trained person should have to —"
"I just wish they would get it over with already, for fuck's sake," Danny muttered, insulted. Yeah, sure, he was a verbal kind of guy. What else would you expect him to be? The Newark Williams were all —
"Yes, Clancy, yes yes YES!" Sheila's shriek made Danny's eardrums ring. Before the echoes could die away Clancy was letting out a bellow that was loud enough to be heard by every cow currently residing in the western hemisphere, heartfelt enough to leave every bull suddenly feeling undersexed and inadequate.
Then there was silence.
Blessed, blessed silence.
Even Steve's pillow on the floor wasn't saying any—
Oh, shit. Shit.
"Steve!" Danny scrambled out of bed like the mattress had caught fire. "Sorry. Hey, I'm sorry. That was an accident. I didn't mean to —"
Steve was gone. The bedding was still there, and the pillow was still warm from his breath, from Steve bitching at Danny through it, telling him to shut up — like Danny had listened, fuck — but Steve was gone.
"I'm sorry," Danny said again to the empty room. "Steve. I'm sorry."
Danny made himself take a couple of deep breaths. That had never helped him much in the past, no matter how often the marriage counselor he and Rachel had gone to had talked it up for stress relief, and it wasn't helping him much now, either.
But there was no reason to panic here. They'd gone through this before, after all. The last time Danny'd made an actual wish, Steve had just popped back into the pineapple and recharged or something. It hadn't even taken very long. All Danny had to do was wait a few minutes, and Steve would be back, all recharged.
Ready to rip Danny's head off, yeah, but Danny was right there with him on that one.
The pineapple was on the floor against the back wall of the apartment and Danny sat down next to it, ignoring his bad knee. He rubbed its brass belly with the palm of his hand. "You okay in there? Steve?"
No answer.
Steve just needed a couple of minutes, that was all.
"Look, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say what I said. Take your time, babe, all right? Come back out when you get…topped off, or whatever happens in there. Hey, I'll even swap with you; you take the bed and I'll take the floor."
No answer.
Danny let his fingers trace the brass scales of the pineapple. "I'm considering taking up a collection to have Clancy neutered, just so you know. Not just because of tonight — you realize I have to bribe Clancy and Sheila on Grace's weekends? Bribe them to not have sex while my innocent daughter is trying to sleep right next door to all their bovine bellowing and shrieking?"
The pineapple stayed stubbornly silent. Danny sighed. "Okay, so cows don't shriek. I assume they don't, maybe they do, I haven't eavesdropped on enough cows to be an expert. The streets of Newark aren't exactly teeming with farm animals."
He paused for a minute to give Steve a chance to insult New Jersey, trying to ignore the flicker of fear he felt when Steve didn't say a word. "Anyway, what I do is I pay for them to spend the night at the Aloha Sunrise just down the block. The only reason they go for it is the Sunrise has Jacuzzis." He leaned back against the wall and straightened his knee for a few moments. "I can't really afford it, but between the Triple-A discount and the senior citizen discount I can wangle for them, it's cheaper than any place I'd want to take Grace to spend the night. Yeah, I know what you're thinking, you're thinking my apartment isn't a place I should want my daughter to spend any time in. And you're right. The problem is, a cop's salary doesn't fly in your island paradise, my friend. Add in alimony, which Rachel does not fucking need, and child support, and you get this." He gestured at his surroundings with the hand that wasn't rubbing against the pineapple in small, soothing circles.
Not that he felt soothed. Maybe the pineapple did. He tried again. "Steven. I would really appreciate it if you would get your ass back out here."
This time he heard something. Maybe he heard something. A groan.
Maybe.
"Steve? Steve?"
The groan didn't get repeated and Danny slumped back against the wall. "Great. Take your time. So, you want to hear about my family back in Jersey? You'd like my ma. Everybody likes my ma. She, on the other hand, would probably not like you at all. You're freakishly tall, for one thing. And you had steamed vegetables and broiled chicken for dinner, who does that? Lemon chicken and eggrolls, McGarrett. Shrimp fried rice. That's why you order Chinese delivery, not steamed vegetables. How have you never learned this? You need to taste Ma's five-cheese lasagna, it would be a life-changing experience for you, trust me…"
"— breaks free from the hive mind long enough to sabotage the cargo-bay airlock, which you wouldn't think would be enough to make a difference, yeah, but the aliens forgot to allow for —"
"Do you ever shut up?"
Steve's voice came from in front of Danny, not from the pineapple on the floor beside him and Danny's eyes flew up from contemplating his bare, lonely — and, frankly, worried — toes to drink in the sight of Steve standing near his abandoned bedding, and looking —
Fuck. Like he was about to pass out.
Danny got to his feet in a hell of a hurry, one his knee would be speaking to him about later, and lunged for Steve's arm.
Of course the idiot tried to brush off Danny's help, but it was like he was on some sort of slow-motion, wobbly time delay, and Danny found it frighteningly easy to tow him to the nearest piece of furniture and push him down onto it.
The moron immediately tried to stand up again, and Danny shoved him back down onto the La-Z-Boy with possibly a little more force than was strictly necessary. "Stay," Danny growled. "You. Stay there, or I will injure you."
"I'm fine, Danny," Steve said halfheartedly. Pinocchio with his nose shooting out long enough to use as a yardstick would've been more convincing.
"Gray is not your color, babe. Stay." Danny jabbed a finger into Steve's shoulder, then headed for the fridge. He didn't bother with a glass, just grabbed the orange juice carton and returned to Steve, slapping the carton into Steve's hands.
Which were shaking, just a little bit.
Blood sugar. It was low blood sugar, that was all. Not fucked up genie mojo, just a simple case of low blood sugar, and if Steve would just fucking drink the juice — "Drink," Danny demanded. Why couldn't he have gotten a cooperative fake genie, huh? Instead of Steve?
Steve rolled his eyes, but since that reminded Danny of how close Steve probably was to passing out, Danny didn't stop glaring at him until he gave in and chugged down a healthy amount of OJ. He set the carton down on the side table — a little less shaky in the hands now, maybe? — and wiped juice off his chin with the back of his hand. Then he just sat there, blinking slowly.
Danny sighed and went over to the sink, coming back with a damp paper towel that he handed to Steve. The last thing he needed was for Steve to go grenade-happy here because his hands had gotten sticky. "You were raised by orangutans, weren't you," he said, barely resisting the urge to wipe Steve's face and hands with the paper towel himself instead of watching Steve fumble through the process.
"Yeah, Danny. Orangutans. You got me." Steve leaned his head back against the chair's headrest and closed his eyes. Danny's gut twisted a little. Steve was still way too pale and shaky, and there was a crease in his forehead that made Danny wonder if he should break out the Advil.
"I'm sorry," he said, in case Steve hadn't heard him before. "I am very sorry that happened. I'll be more careful."
"It's okay." Steve didn't sound pissed off, just tired. He didn't open his eyes.
Fuck, his eyelashes were longer than Rachel's, even after she spent half an hour with her little wand-y brushes and sponges and bottles of various scary things. Rachel would hate Steve. His eyelashes, anyway.
The thought made Danny smile for the first time in what felt like hours. Rachel meeting Steve — Danny would pay to have court-side tickets for that meeting.
Too bad Steve wasn't going to be sticking around long enough for Danny to arrange it. Danny's smile vanished.
"Cap'n Crunch. You actually eat Cap'n Crunch. Or… Christ, Cheetos? How are you still alive?"
Danny stumbled into the kitchen area, relieved to see that flaking out in the recliner for a couple of hours and finishing the night stretched out on Danny's bed had restored Steve to full, if irritating, throttle. He didn't entirely feel at full throttle himself. For one thing, he needed coffee, now. For another thing, it was a little hard to feel rested when you'd spent most of the night before watching someone sleep, half afraid they might disappear into thin air again.
He'd only gotten some sleep after he'd given in and crawled into bed beside Steve. Not too close beside Steve, he wasn't that dumb, okay? Steve was still a crazy, pitifully unsocialized and dangerous disappearing asshole who would be heading back to his camouflaged life, doing his Mission Impossible shit, any day now. But the pathetic fact of the matter was that Danny hadn't been able to relax until he circled a hand around Steve's wrist and kept it there, feeling Steve's pulse beating steadily against his fingers.
The weird thing was Steve hadn't even noticed, unless you call making some sort of humming noise and relaxing even more deeply into sleep noticing. That was just…freaky: a highly trained, demonstrably paranoid supermilitary-ninja type relaxing that deeply in a strange bed with somebody he'd known for less than twenty-four hours, somebody who'd nearly gotten him killed a few hours before.
Killed. Disappeared. Something.
Danny cleared his throat and glared at the freak. "Why are you rooting around in my cabinets?"
"Breakfast. I'm hungry." Steve stuck his long, snoopy nose into the next cabinet, then jerked his head back away from its shelves like he'd been slapped. "Wow."
"You do realize that is not acceptable houseguest behavior —'Wow' what?" Not that Danny really wanted to know. What he really wanted to know was where the defensive tone in his voice had come from.
"Twinkies? Seriously, does anyone over the age of ten even —"
Danny pushed past Steve and slammed the cabinet door shut, narrowly missing that irritating nose. "You? Shut up."
The fucker hadn't even had the common decency to start up Danny's coffeemaker. Or put clothes on. "Orangutans," Danny said to himself. "Barbaric, completely asocial orangutans." He glared at the coffeemaker, keeping his back turned to Steve.
Because of the unmade coffee, okay.
Not because the morning light was sliding over Steve's bare chest and making itself familiar with all that stupidly gorgeous skin and all those flawless muscles the way Danny's hands wanted to be making themselves familiar. That wasn't it at all.
It wasn't, okay? It just wasn't.
"How hard can it be for you to understand a two-letter word? No. N as in Not a chance in fucking hell and O as in… okay, O turns out to be a little disappointing here, a little wimpy, I get that 'Obviously not' isn't nearly strong enough for somebody who probably arm-wrestles crocodiles for laughs. But still, no."
Steve's eyes — no, make that his entire manipulative face — turned tragic. "But it's Sunday," he said. "Everybody goes to the beach on Sunday."
Danny snorted. "First of all, this is supposed to convince me? If I want crowds, I'll fly back to the East Coast and hit the subway during rush hour. And second? I don't like the beach. As I mentioned already. More than once."
"You can't be in Hawaii and not like the beach." Steve abandoned tragedy and went for an expression that Danny could only assume was meant to project reasonableness — as if Steve would recognize reasonableness if it head-butted him. "We don't have to go anywhere crowded, Danny. I know some good out-of-the-way places, really peaceful. You don't have to get in the water, you can take a book, sit in the shade, read, whatever. Or I'll just go myself."
Oh hell no, he wouldn't.
"Look, whatever Kamekona said, you're not my owner, Danny. I can go to the beach if I want to. Which I do. I haven't… it's been a while since I've been able to go for a swim in any ocean, much less here, okay? To just go for a swim, I mean, with nothing else… you know. Not as part of a mission, or training. Just a swim."
And that, that right there, that particular face right there — Danny buried his head in his hands. That face made him sure, absolutely certain to the core of his bones, that somewhere inside Steve McGarrett — motherfucking Navy SEAL, arrogant and high-handed walking disaster area, Genie of Doom and Destruction, shirtless cocktease — was somebody who didn't expect much for himself.
Of himself, yeah. But for himself — pretty much zip.
Not that Danny should care, right?
But it wouldn't actually hurt him to take the Ed McBain he'd bought for fifty cents at a library book sale to one of Steve's really peaceful beaches. There would be sand, yes. And possibly jellyfish. Or crabs. Falling coconuts. But still, spending a couple of hours at a beach probably wouldn't actually hurt him.
Danny sighed. "Towels we can use as beach towels are in the closet, sunscreen in the medicine cabinet, cooler under the sink. Wash your hands before we go, because we are not stopping anywhere, for any reason, up to and including emergency medical care or the Apocalypse. We are not destroying any public or private property today, Steven, I mean it."
Steve beamed. There wasn't any other word for it. He fucking beamed, like a kid on Christmas morning.
Danny sighed again.
Somehow hanging out on the beach wasn't turning out to be so bad, not that Danny planned on admitting that to Steve. If he ever saw Steve again, that was. Or saw more of him than a tiny dark dot moving slowly back and forth in the water, way too far the fuck out, out where nobody could help him if he got a cramp or got sucked in by a riptide, or if a giant squid tentacle came up out of nowhere and snagged onto his ankle.
Danny stopped trying to pretend he was reading his paperback. The dot that was Steve-the-lunatic was making towards shore, finally, and Danny felt himself relax.
Which was ridiculous.
Of course, Steve was ridiculous, so what could you do?
Steve stopped swimming and stood up, wading back through the surf. He looked — and how did Danny deserve this? How? — like he'd just gotten laid, the asshole. All breathing hard and blissed out, with drops of water rolling down his chest, basking in some sort of aquatic afterglow —
It was totally unfucking fair. Major Stick-Up-His-Ass on TV got to keep his Jeannie. Genie. "Damn it, babe," Danny said under his breath, watching Steve start to jog up the slope of sand towards him. "I want… Fuck. I wish you could just stay."
Steve froze, staring at Danny. Turned white.
Turned whiter.
Oh, Jesus. No.
Not again. Danny was on his feet, running towards Steve, panicking. "No. No. I didn't — that wasn't. Steve, that wasn't, I swear — you weren't supposed to hear that. That wasn't a wish, goddammit."
It wasn't. Even if it was, which it wasn't, Danny couldn't wish Steve into wanting to stick around. That would be wrong. So wrong.
"Danny. I can't…" Steve's voice sounded strange and Danny was too far away, not that he could do anything, Jesus, what had he done, and Steve —
Steve wasn't there anymore.
Just his footprints, wet on the drier sand this far up on the beach.
A moment later they were gone too.
God damn Steve and his off-the-beaten-path beaches. It took Danny way too long to get back to his apartment, even with blue lights and siren going and the gas pedal floored almost non-stop, fuck the slow two-lane traffic and the hairpin curves and the imminent water-logged death waiting bluely just beyond all the guardrails.
He couldn't get the way post-wish Steve had looked last night out of his mind, the way Steve's hands had trembled, the way he hadn't had enough horsepower to stand on his own two stupid feet. Kamekona's words kept replaying in Danny's ears — fucks with Steve's energy, could be bad, could be bad — and it already had been bad, how could he have done this to Steve, how could he have done this —
He pulled into his parking slot at the apartment complex with a squeal of brakes and headed for his door at a run, his fingers fumbling for his keys. Maybe Steve wasn't entirely wrong about opening doors with grenades — it would be faster than this, anyway, when Danny's hands weren't steady enough to get the fucking key in the lock, but the key finally slid home, and that was good; Steve would be there, waiting for him, yeah? Standing — wobbly, sure, or maybe sitting on the floor in a wobbly heap, but Danny would take it — waiting beside that stupid pineapple, waiting for Danny —
He wasn't.
He wasn't there.
The pineapple wasn't there, either.
The pineapple wasn't there.
Danny tore through his apartment looking for the fucking pineapple everywhere, anywhere, impossible places, places it wouldn't fit, places —
Oh, Christ. Steve's stuff was gone too. All the lethal shit Steve had genied up, all the weapons, the fucking crossbow, the mace — everything was gone.
Okay. He didn't need to panic. Maybe this was just your basic B & E, the weapons would've been Christmas and Fourth of July all wrapped up together for any self-respecting felon. Maybe the asshole had thought the pineapple statue was worth something too, or else he just liked pineapples. Danny could track him down — no way a weapons stash like that wouldn't make waves on the black market. Find the weapons, find the felon, find the pineapple. No problem.
No problem at all.
Kamekona could help. Kamekona would be falling all over himself to help.
Or Danny would flatten all six hundred pounds of him.
"Fo' real? You must've been smokin' the good stuff, brah. 'Bout time you loosen up some." Kamekona was looking at Danny like Danny was trying to pull his enormous leg, like Danny was the craziest fucking haole he'd ever seen. He was chuckling.
The only thing that was keeping Danny from perpetrating actual and permanent violence against the son of a bitch was that he wasn't lying. Kamekona was the world's worst liar; he had so many tells Danny could read him like one of Grace's old Max picture books. If Mr. Shave Ice King was lying now, Danny would eat Steve's leftover pineapple-bedecked pizza.
If he could. The leftover pizza had vanished from Danny's apartment along with everything else Steve-related, even the empty Giametti's box. Danny was trying very hard to chalk it up to his arms-acquiring felon being hungry.
Hungry, and needing some greasy, pizza-scented cardboard for…something.
So Kamekona wasn't lying, and he didn't have a cousin in the Middle East. "Closest I got is an uncle in Cannes, Danny. Sorry. Hey, my cousin Apikai almost moved to Dubai a couple months ago. Okole puka job fell through, though."
He didn't know anything about a brass pineapple. either."Two-foot-tall brass pineapple, you shittin' me? Crazy. Who's gonna buy that? Nobody local's that lolo and it's too big for tourists to cart back home."
He did know Steve, yeah. Which was terrific. "Hey, you met Steve? I didn't think he been 'round for a while. You musta met him from his dad being a cop before, huh? Funny about Steve coming here, though, he's always off doing all kinds of secret SEAL stuff. He don't come here much, not since his mom died and his dad pack him and his sister off to the mainland. Sad thing, fo' sure."
Genies? "Sure, Aladdin and his lamp, I heard of that. Everybody heard of that. Kid stuff. You want real, you talk with kahuna here. But genies? Marketing, Danny, gotta be marketing. Not real."
Danny wanted to flatten him with a fucking steamroller.
Brooding over what you'd had and lost was an American pastime, a divorced guy's hard-earned right, and a skill Danny had honed very nicely, thank you, since he and Rachel had split up. His brooding was familiar, methodical, grooved.
More than enough to satisfy anybody. Absolutely.
But here he was, branching out, brooding over something he'd never had in the first place, something that hadn't even fucking happened. It was making him crazy, just a little.
He could track down Steve if he wanted to.
He could try, anyway, through Steve's father, through the Navy.
But for what? Steve — if he still existed, if he hadn't been genied into fucking nothingness — had a life he was scarily well-suited for, blowing shit up all over the world and getting to play with all kinds of shiny, dangerous toys.
More than that — if Kamekona didn't remember what had happened, if Haji 's restroom door hadn't ever gotten blown up, if Lono's had never received a shipment containing a brass pineapple — maybe it hadn't happened.
For Steve, anyway.
Danny kind of hated Steve for that. Because it had certainly happened for Danny.
McGarrett, John M.
COD: single shot to the forehead, execution-style.
Daughter: Mary Ann McGarrett, current residence Los Angeles, copy of California driver's license appended.
Son: Lieutenant Commander Steven J. McGarrett, USN, currently deployed out of Coronado. Copy of official military ID appended.
Transcript of phone conversation between Commander McGarrett and suspect Victor Hesse, as provided by McGarrett through official Navy channels, appended.
The first Danny knew about it wasn't from the local news, it was from catching the case at HQ, and he spent the next five minutes in the restroom, splashing cold water on his face and trying not to think about Steve saying "No" when Danny had asked him if he had any family here he wanted to see, trying not to think about Steve saying, "Visiting him doesn't usually work out so well." Trying not to think about the way Steve's face had looked when he'd said that.
Steve — the Navy probably let people go to funerals, right? Unless he was deployed somewhere they couldn't call him back from? Still, Danny could do this. Maybe he'd see Steve, maybe he wouldn't, but he could still do this. He just had to be careful, remember that Steve wouldn't remember him. Treat Steve like any surviving family member of a vic, not like Steve.
Danny splashed more water on his face and did not, did not, picture what it must've done to Steve, that phone call from Victor Hesse.
Hesse was going down. That son of a bitch was Danny's. It didn't matter that Steve would never know why Danny cared so much about bringing Hesse down. Catching murderers was Danny's job, after all.
And he could do this. For Steve, he could do this.
There was a sound from the back of McGarrett's garage, a clunk. Movement in the shadows. Danny's pulse started its familiar rollercoaster ride , speeding up and slowing down all at once as adrenaline jacked itself up and his training kicked in.
"You! Hands up, don't move!" The SP2009 was a steady, reassuring weight in his hands. Not so reassuring was how fucking fast the intruder was, whirling to face Danny with a gun he'd pulled out of nowhere and aimed at Danny with way too much confidence.
"Who are you?" the intruder demanded.
"Detective Danny Williams. Who are you?" Danny yelled back. But it was reflex — that voice, he knew that voice. He knew that body, now that he'd moved forward and had a better angle of light to see the back of the garage.
He knew that face. He knew, God help him, those crazy eyes.
"Steve," he said stupidly.
He should've known Steve would be right where he shouldn't be, that was what Steve did. Except for the times when Steve wasn't where he should be, and Danny could've said a lot about that too. Would've. Couldn't. Fuck.
Danny cleared his throat, ready to cover his mistake. He didn't know Steve, right. They'd never met. Goddammit. "Excuse me," he said, trying to sound like nothing more than a polite, badge-carrying stranger. "I assume you're Steven Mc—"
"Look, whoever you said you were, this is… Wait. What's going on here?... What the fuck is going — Danny?"
"—Garrett, Detective McGarrett's… Wait a minute, you remember me?"
"No. Yeah? Sort of, yeah." Steve lowered his gun and scrubbed a hand over his face. The skin was stretched so tightly across his cheeks Danny half expected the bones to poke through at any moment. It made his own face ache. Steve wasn't supposed to look like that. His stupid rubber face wasn't supposed to look like he was so…fragile. So close to breaking.
That was wrong.
Okay, hold on — 'sort of'? "Did you just say 'sort of'?" Danny said, stabbing the air with short, furious gestures, because seriously. "That's not — you remember me, huh? Please don't tell me you remembered me before this. Because if you remembered me and didn't pick up a fucking phone long enough to track down my phone number and call me and tell me you were still alive, not disintegrated in some fucking black hole of failed genieness, I swear to God I'm going to —"
"Danny. Shut up."
The crazy eyes were still in force, but there was something in their depths that looked almost lost. Danny wanted to smack himself in the forehead. "Your dad. Fuck, Steve. I'm sorry."
"Yeah." Steve's jaw clamped down. "Hesse's going to pay for this."
The tone of his voice set off alarms in Danny's head. "Steve, we'll get him. I will get him for you, all right? You have to leave this to us. HPD, I mean. You know that."
"Actually, I don't have to leave him to you. You can help me, though."
Crazy, arrogant asshole. "Babe —"
"You know, I've spent the last couple of months pretty sure that what I could remember of that day with you was some kind of PTSD symptom, wondering if I needed to turn myself over to the shrinks and confess that I apparently had some deep-seated need to delude myself that I'd been a really crappy fucking genie for a day. But it wasn't PTSD, was it? It happened."
"Yeah. It did. Hard to believe, I know, but yeah. At least from where I'm standing."
"I was here, in Hawaii. With you."
"Yes."
"Kamekona — he knows, right?"
"He did. He just…the way it ended, he doesn't remember anything about it now. I wanted to kill him."
"It doesn't make any sense. But It was real. Somehow? The pineapple. Sharks in your couch."
"Of course you would remember a reference to sharks. Anything deadly — and you probably remember every single bloodcurdling item in the arsenal you genied up, don't you —"
"It was real — not sleeping with you. Sleeping with you."
Deadly, yeah. Steve's memory was as deadly as the rest of him. Unfortunately. Danny cleared his throat. "About that —"
"Right," Steve interrupted, suddenly brusque, all business. "Hesse — you'll be working with me, Danny. We've got full immunity and means. I can probably get you a nice jump in salary. We'll get the son of a bitch, count on it."
"What? We need to talk about —"
"It doesn't have to be anything else, Danny, it can just be work." Steve pulled his cell phone out and punched in a number, not looking at Danny. "That's up to you."
"Steven, would you for fuck's sake let me actually speak here —"
"Yeah, Governor Jamison, please," Steve said into the phone. "Tell her it's Steve McGarrett."
Danny rolled his eyes.
"Governor, I'll take the job." Steve looked over at Danny. "Let's just say I found something that changed my mind. I'll transfer to the reserves and I'll run your task force. I've already got the first member lined up."
Smug bastard.
Danny glared as Steve stowed the phone back in his pocket. "Task force?" Danny said. "You asshole. You are the role model for all assholes everywhere, you should know this. Have I said yes? I don't even know what the fuck you're talking about, why should I even consider —"
"I should probably tell you I don't plan on taking no for an answer. I think it'll work out great." Smug, arrogant, conceited bastard. Danny wanted to punch him.
Wanted to grab his smug, stupidly rubber face between both hands and pull it into range so Danny could kiss the living fuck out of his smug, stupid mouth.
"So you in, Danny?"
Hopeless, the man was hopeless, Danny could only despair of him. He sighed. "Yeah," he said, "yeah, I'm in." Of course he was in. Jesus. He was so far in it was ridiculous.
"And for your information," he said to Steve, who was still standing half the length of the garage away, like a moron, "I think it does." Steve opened his mouth, looking befuddled, and Danny took pity on him. "You said it doesn't have to be anything else. I'm saying it does. I know the timing sucks here, and we need to take it slow, but at some point, yes, I…"
Or maybe taking it slow was overrated. Steve certainly seemed to think so.
Unless Danny was misinterpreting the crazy-hot eyes, the hands — how many hands could one non-mutant, purportedly semi-normal person have, anyway? — his fucking tongue, what, did he do push-ups with his tongue as a hobby? pick handcuff locks? not that Danny was complaining —
Jesus. Yeah, Danny was in. As if Steve had even had to ask.
Title adapted from Buddy Kaye's lyrics to the I Dream of Jeannie theme song:
Jeannie, fresh as a daisy.
Just love how she obeys me,
Does things that just amaze me so.
She smiles, Presto the rain goes.
She blinks, up come the rainbows.
Cars stop, even the train goes slow.
When she goes by
She paints sunshine on every rafter,
Sprinkles the air with laughter,
We're close as a quarter after three.
There's no one like Jeannie. I'll introduce her,
To you, but it's no use, sir,
Cause my Jeannie's in love with me.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-11 08:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-08 01:33 pm (UTC)I'm delighted that you enjoyed the fic so much! It totally hijacked me and absolutely *forced* me to write it -- I'm so glad it worked well for you! Thank you so very much for reading and for the very lovely comment (and I apologize again for being sloooooowww replying).
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Date: 2012-03-11 09:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-08 01:41 pm (UTC)Thank you again for your help! Plots scare the heck out of me, especially cracky ones; it was such a relief to be able to shoot the fic off to you and get your perspective on it
Despite the Does It Work angst, this was the most fun fic in the world to write. I'm so happy you enjoyed reading it, and even more happy for your help. *grateful beaming smile*
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Date: 2012-03-11 10:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-08 01:45 pm (UTC)Thank you so much for reading the fic, and for the wonderful comment! I'm so glad you enjoyed it -- I had fun writing the ending as the beginning, sort of. (Okay, I had fun writing the whole fic :-))
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Date: 2012-03-12 03:18 am (UTC)I liked how Steve was ready to jump his bones, but Danny wasn't ready for a one night stand. No matter how tempting a prospect it was. And I kind of melted when Danny had to hold onto Steve's wrist, in order to assure himself he was still there, so he could go t o sleep, and Steve relaxing that little bit more was so telling.
Glad you were able to post the story. I got to enjoy it again, with extras
Laurie
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Date: 2012-04-08 02:29 pm (UTC)The nicknames were... well, they were just THERE. I had no choice. Really. :-)
Verbiage is a totally splendid word. Danny would agree. ::-)
I'm really so happy that the emo worked for you -- I was worried about pulling it off well, but I kind of had to get away from just the fun stuff, since I knew Danny was accidentally going to disappear Steve and feel like crap about it. (And anyway, as we know, I'm always happiest when there's an edge of something not as happy threading around somewhere in the middle of things. :-))
My suspicion is that Danny's final wish took care of the whole situation, revamping things and aligning them so that when Hesse decided to make his move, Danny would be there at the right time to encounter Steve... But, you know, I could be wrong. Happens a lot. :-)
Hope you got the RBB draft done! And that you're having a fabulous Easter! *smooshes you*
no subject
Date: 2012-03-12 03:54 pm (UTC)Wow. I've got all these feeeeelings about your cracky, insane, loony, but poignant, sweet and touching piece here. I lolled at talking pineapples and Danny's insane, stream of conciseness POV, because it was so Danny on a six pack of energy drinks. I had a big smile on my face regarding Steve's love of weapons and Danny's keen eye of Steve's beautiful body.
Then there was Danny's internal struggle of falling for Steve and not wanting to sleep with someone who would disappear and I was impressed how you weaved in and out such emotion within such candy :D
And oh, Danny. Every time Steve went puff, I felt the panic and fear that he hurt Steve, especially when Danny realized the ramifications of that last wish, the feeling of loss. Then mimicking the Pilot and the reunion and the prospect of things to come after they would catch Hesse.
This was a cracking' read hon—yep pun intended. :D
(You take prompts, huh? Me thinks we should do a mini-prompt exchange some time in the future. See what happens)
no subject
Date: 2012-04-08 03:03 pm (UTC)Thanks for reading this, first off, with crack not being your thing! I'm happy as heck that the emotions worked for you (I'm totally an emo junkie, but I never really feel like I pull them off as well as I want to, so I get all jazzed when they seem to work for people reading the fic).
I like Danny being a little less OTT on the whole, usually, but this sort of seemed to call for a very...verbal (or something :-)) Danny. I kept wanting to tone him down, but the fic just kept pushing me back to turbo mode for him. (Possibly the pineapple was beginning to ferment, causing unforeseen side effects. Or that's my story, anyway. :-))
Writing this particular fic was nearly involuntary (hijacked by a Crazy-Eyed-Steve-emitting pineapple :-)), and I'm just totally tickled that you enjoyed it! Thank you again for reading it, and for your very lovely comment!
(You take prompts, huh? Me thinks we should do a mini-prompt exchange some time in the future. See what happens)
Oh, golly. I, um, don't *know* if I take prompts? I get *taken* by one every now and then, and am helpless before it -- I have no idea what would happen in a mini-prompt exchange. I'm surely interested, though (if not entirely confident in my ability to write for prompts...)
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Date: 2012-03-12 05:29 pm (UTC)Even if now I have the theme song from "I dream of Jeannie" stuck in my head!
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Date: 2012-04-08 03:10 pm (UTC)I'm so glad you enjoyed the fic! I wasn't sure at first that Steve *would* remember -- I was glad when he did, too (and yes, I realize that sounds like I wasn't in charge of what happened in the fic -- but I don't usually feel like I'm in charge of the main things in a fic anyway; drives me nuts sometimes :-)).
Heh, that theme song was playing along in the back of my head pretty much the whole time I was writing. Glad to pass the joy along. :-)))
Thanks for reading, and for your lovely comment!
no subject
Date: 2012-03-24 07:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-08 03:15 pm (UTC)Thanks so much for reading, and for your lovely comment (and I'm sorry to be so slow in answering -- RL has kept me tied up way too much lately)!
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Date: 2012-04-04 12:19 am (UTC)I really, really hope you write more HFO (pretty please).
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Date: 2012-04-08 03:29 pm (UTC)And oh, Steve's FACE. His FACES. His MILLIONS OF FACES... I'm completely besotted with them. Him. You know... :-)
Thank you for reading, and again, for your lovely comment! (And you're very kind about writing more -- I'm sure I will write more Steve and Danny, although I know it will likely take me a while, thanks to RL being extremely greedy for my time of late *sighs and wishes for MUCH more writing, reading, and fandom-hanging-out-in time*).
no subject
Date: 2013-05-29 01:46 am (UTC)