Fandom: Hawaii Five-0

Pairing: Steve & Danny

Rating: NC-17

Warning: None

Summary: After Danny's brother leaves, he goes in search of solace. On his second try, he finds it. (Takes into account canon only through episode 1.18, Loa Aloha.)

LOST AND FOUND

by

Candy Apple

I never looked at the clock. I just drove. I don’t know why I went to Rachel’s after Matt’s plane left. I’m not sure what I thought I’d find there. Maybe something I lost long ago, something I thought I needed now that Matt was really gone. I did look in on Gracie; that always makes me smile, even when things are lousy. How can things be lousy when I’ve got such a great kid?

Except, I don’t have her. I do, but I don’t. I’m too much a visitor in her life to suit me. I don’t miss fighting with Rachel, but I do miss living with my daughter.

Rachel was nice. She hugged me. She made tea even though I don’t like it. She kept the venom out of our conversation. It reminded me a little of what it was like when we first got married, why I loved her in the first place. She’s beautiful, smart, and if you’re on her good side, she’s kind and understanding. Just piss her off, and you better get ready to run. Maybe that was part of her charm when we were newlyweds. Trust me, that wears thin after a while.

When I pulled up in front of Steve’s place, I didn’t look at the clock either, which I guess makes me a selfish ass. I should have gone home. I’m not sure what I thought he could do about any of it now that he couldn’t do in a few hours, when he was awake.

I knocked, and it seemed like an eternity before I saw a light come on and then he was there, opening the door. He was wearing boxers and a tank shirt, his hair was messed up and his eyes were kind of squinty. I think it was then that I realized that it was really, really late.

“Danny,” he said, his voice sounding way kinder than I deserved for dragging him out of bed for no apparent reason. Sometimes the kindness in his voice is like...someone putting their arms around me when things are rough.

“You were asleep,” I said stupidly. No shit, Sherlock.

“I usually am at three in the morning,” he replied, but he had a little grin on his face. It was one of his “you’re an idiot but I love you anyway” faces.

“I should go,” I said. Makes sense, now that I woke you up, I’ll just leave.

“You wanna come in?” he asked, gesturing at me to do that, stepping back so I could walk in past him. I suppose it beat having me stand out there like a moron on his porch, staring at him.

“Yeah,” I replied, glad to be inside, glad when he closed the door. This was what I’d been looking for when I went to Rachel’s. I needed to feel like I could go home to somebody who cared, when I felt like somebody just ripped my guts out. “Matthew’s gone.”

Steve paused a minute. “Gone” could mean dead or flew the coop.

“He took that plane,” I added.

“Did you get there before he left?”

“Yeah, but it didn’t matter. What was I gonna do? Shoot him? Nothing I said mattered.”

“You did everything you could for him.”

“You lied to the feds,” I said. I still was moved beyond what I could say that he’d done that. If they figured it out, it could fuck up his life, too.

“I suppose you think that was the first time?” he asked, and the grin was back. Sometimes for an ex-Navy SEAL tough guy, I can’t get over how damn cute he is. Like a little kid who got away with something. “You want a beer?”

“You’re probably tired.”

“Nah, I’m fine. Thirsty, though,” he added, going to the refrigerator to get a couple beers. We sat on the couch, a couple feet apart. We were both quiet a while.

“I went to see Rachel. I’m not sure why,” I added. I really wasn’t sure why I was telling him that.

“Sometimes when you lose family, you want to be with family. Grace is there.”

“She was asleep, but yeah, I looked in on her. I used to tuck her in at night, read her whatever story she wanted to hear, even if it was about princesses or ponies with blue hair or something.”

“Now she can just download what she wants and read it on her phone,” Steve quipped, and I laughed. He was right. She was kind of a spoiled little techno-junkie. She knew her way around an iPhone better than I did, but then that didn’t take much. My mother is faster at texting than I am.

“I’m thinking maybe you’re right about the family thing.” I leaned back on the couch. I felt that peace coming over me that I usually feel when I hang out with him. I knew I should explain that comment, tell him that next to Grace, he was becoming the most important family I have.

“I’m sorry Matt took off.”

“Me, too. I don’t know what I’m gonna tell our parents. Or Grace. Or the whole family, for that matter.”

“The truth. There’s no easy way out of that. He should have stuck around and faced the music, not left you holding the bag.”

“He’s a felon, Steve. He would have done a long stretch in federal prison. For the amounts of money he was playing with? Who was I trying to kid, acting like getting a lawyer and admitting what he did was going to make anything easier?”

“You were trying to stand by him, give him some hope. That’s worth a lot.” Steve sighed and took another drink of his beer. “Facing hard time, versus escaping to someplace exotic and living out his days hiding from extradition...it would take balls to do that. Big ones. A lot of guys probably would have done the same thing.”

“I suppose guys who stole money would do that.” I hated that fatigue and beer and the presence of the one person I could always be myself with, even if he frequently picked at me for it, was making me all misty and mushy and unhappy. “I still can’t...don’t want to believe he did that. And then he just kept getting in deeper. It’s not like he stole some money in some knee-jerk reaction out of fear when he had that big loss, and then came clean. He was going to launder money for a fucking drug cartel to help get his fat out of the fire. It’s like one of those alien movies where they take over people’s bodies and they’re not even themselves anymore. Like when the slimy alien head pops out of the guy’s chest and you realize he’s not that guy anymore, that he’s one of those things.” While I was ranting, Steve had slid a bit closer to me on the couch and gave my knee a little squeeze.

“It would be a lot easier if an alien head popped out of someone’s chest when they betray us, because then it would make sense. It’s when someone you trust, betrays that trust, and you look at them and they’re still the same person...” He let the thought hang there unfinished, and took another drink of his beer.

It was weird. I wanted to cry. I wanted to when I knew Matty was really going, that I couldn’t stop him and that I’d lost the brother I loved, that I thought I knew. I’d wanted to cry at Rachel’s but there was something about being with her that made me not want her to see weakness. Maybe in the back of my mind I figured she’d use it against me somehow later. I should have just gone home, gotten buzzed if not all out drunk, and moped around by myself until I was decent company.

I didn’t realize I was sitting there, mute, with tears rolling down my cheeks until Steve put his arm around me, and muttered a quiet little “It’s okay” close to my ear.

“Must be the beer,” I managed, swiping at my eyes, feeling like a whiny little pussy, crying because things didn’t go the way I wanted them to. Then Steve said something that made me think maybe I wasn’t nuts to feel so bad.

“You lost your brother, Danno. That’s big.”

I don’t know if it was the obvious caring in his voice, his closeness, or all of it together, but I quit worrying about bravado and what he’d think of me, of how I should feel, whether or not I looked weak or stupid. I just cried because I felt bad, and he wrapped his arms around me and held on, just being there, wanting to make me feel better. He didn’t judge me, he wasn’t critical of what felt so much to me like weakness. It sounds corny but he was my shelter, my safe place I could go. This was what I’d been looking for when I went to Rachel’s. She would have been kind about it and understanding if I’d broken down when I was with her. Her eyes were a bit misty, too, during some of our conversation. But I didn’t feel safe there, and I didn’t feel at home.

I felt like a dick for not being there more for Steve when he first got back to the island, right after his dad died. We didn’t know each other very well, but he was grieving and maybe I could have been nicer to him. Steve’s a sensitive guy and he feels a lot, deeply, and people don’t always see that because he doesn’t let them, and because of his background, they don’t expect it. Just because he’s tough and he can take a lot, doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel it. I wondered if anybody held him while he grieved his dad’s murder, a murder he had to listen to over the phone. Maybe he needed a friend as much as he needed another member of his little task force. Maybe that’s why when I showed up in his dad’s garage, he commandeered me. To be on his team, to be his partner, and to be his friend.

I hadn’t really made that easy for him, but for some perverse reason of his own, he wanted me on his team, and in his life, and he worked at it until I wanted that, too.

I felt better after getting it out of my system, and I felt so good in his arms, so right, so at home. If I let myself admit it, there was no better place in the world than right there, with him.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, pulling back, smiling a little, knowing I should feel self-conscious and yet, oddly, I wasn’t.

“You hungry?” he asked, handing me a couple tissues. I wasn’t sure where they came from, then I spotted a box on the end table nearby. I blew my nose and thought about it. I was hungry. Could it be that easy that I didn’t have to feel weird about falling apart in front of him? Now we were talking about food?

“I could eat,” I said.

“I’ve got leftover pizza in the fridge.”

“Probably some kind of ham and coconut and pineapple thing,” I said. I had to give him a little grief. Otherwise he’d think I was really in bad shape.

“Pepperoni. Satisfied?”

“That’s more like it.”

“I’ll eat the ham and pineapple one,” he said, and we both laughed at that.

He heated up the pizza and I grabbed a couple more beers out of the fridge. We ate our strange meal that was too late for a snack and too early for breakfast.

“Maybe Rachel would let you take Grace for a couple extra days this week. We could take her to a movie or something,” Steve suggested. “Spend a little time with family.”

The thought of having both Steve and Grace with me at the same time was about the best thing in the world, and it made me feel so much better. Matt was still gone, and that was a wound that still had to heal, but spending time with Steve and Gracie would go a long way toward making that happen.

“Sounds great. I should probably make the most of it while she feels sorry for me.”

“Timing is everything,” Steve quipped, licking a little pizza sauce off his thumb.

I felt myself falling in love with him at that moment, for what he meant to me and how kind he was to me when I needed him the most. Sometimes I would let myself look at him and really see how fucking hot he is. Those soulful eyes of his that give away just how much he feels, even when the rest of his face is like stone, the way he’s built, his dark-haired good looks. I can swing both ways, I’ve just always chosen notto let myself swing that way. It’s a hard road for a cop. Even as things get better in our generally fucked up world, the cop world - and the military world - aren’t especially gay-friendly. So since I like women, focusing on them makes sense. It’s easy. It’s not complicated.

Leave it to Steve McGarrett to completely fucking complicate every part of my life. My knee is worse, I’ve been shot, thrown out windows, and otherwise put in the cross-hairs of some of the world’s worst criminals. It shouldn’t surprise me that he’d throw me a curve ball like this, too. Making me fall in love with him, want him in a way, given his interest in women, I didn’t think he wanted me. Of course, I liked women, too, and I was sitting there staring at his biceps, wondering how it would feel if we got naked and hugged. Horizontally.

He was looking at me now, all concerned, because I was staring at him blankly and not talking. I don’t know if he thought I was going to burst into tears again, if I had pepperoni lodged in my throat, or I was staring at him like I wanted him. I did, so much.

“You might as well crash here for a couple hours.”

“Thanks. Gotta get going for work pretty soon anyhow,” I said, but I was having trouble not thinking of how good it felt to be close to him. I wondered if there was any chance he wanted me that way. Sometimes he was so warm with me, so obviously glad to have me around, and sometimes he almost looked hurt when I teased him a little too harshly or got annoyed with him calling me “Danno.” Maybe right from the start he wanted to be part of my family, and that was his way to put himself there. To call me something my daughter called me. Like he was family. Aside from his flaky sister, he had no family anymore. Except for me and, by extension, Grace. Chin and Kono were close to both of us, and our team was like a family almost, but the bond between Steve and me was different right from the start. It was deeper, just...different.

And then there was Catherine. I wondered just where she factored into all this. It was a lot to think about on the heels of Matt taking off. People don’t make good decisions when they’re emotional, and if I was smart, I’d just put this all aside.

No one ever accused me of making overly smart life decisions. So when he got up from the table and took the plates to the sink, I followed him, and stood right up behind him until he turned around, looking a little amused and confused at the same time. Then he looked sympathetic and he hugged me. I guess he thought I was having another wave of melancholy and needed it. I could bear the pain of Matt turning out to be a crook and turning his back on me and our whole family and everything that’s right and going on the run. But losing Steve or Grace would finish me. They’re my life and my oxygen and my reason for getting up in the morning. That was beginning to hit me full force as he held onto me, not letting go until I did.

So when he pulled back a bit from the hug, I looked him right in the eyes, and there was no question about what that look was saying. He blinked once, like he had to really look hard to be sure he was reading me right, and then we were kissing so hard and so hot and so eagerly that it was almost painful. And he wasn’t playing around, either. He was pulling my shirt out of my pants, yanking it open, pushing it off me, not that he had to fight much to do that. I was more than willing to send it flying.

I yanked his tank shirt off, and we almost destroyed the moment struggling for which one of us was going to get the other naked faster. He let me go first for a split second so we didn’t kill each other before we got to the good part, and then he was unbuckling my belt, and I was stepping out of my pants, or trying, when they stuck on my shoes.

“This would be easier if you were wearing flip flops,” he teased as we paused, and I toed off my loafers.

“Shut up,” I replied eloquently, kicking my pants off.

I had to keep up the momentum or lose my nerve, so I went for the waistband of his boxers, and he just kept kissing me, my chin, my neck, his hands all over my back, sliding under my shorts so as soon as I’d pushed his down, he was doing the same to mine. We were naked in the kitchen, going after each other, when a thought froze me in place.

“Is the door locked?”

“Who’s gonna come over this time of the morning?” he asked, laughing.

"I don't know, but do you want them to see us doing this in your kitchen?"

"No, I want to do it in the bedroom instead."

"Couch is closer."

"Bed's bigger." Steve grabbed my hands and started walking backwards, pulling me along. We were still kissing and stopping to grope and grab at each other along the way, but we did manage to get upstairs without killing ourselves or falling over the railing, and he was right. It was worth the trip to make it to the bed.

With the bed under us, we could relax a little. Part of me worried that would give Steve time to figure out what a huge mistake all this was, but instead, he rolled us so he was lying on top of me, and then he looked into my eyes with so much love it just melted my heart. I wondered if he looked at Catherine that way when they were together.

"What's wrong?" he asked, stroking my cheek gently, still looking into my eyes with that intensely focused expression of his, like he was trying to see into my soul.

"Nothing's wrong."

"Something is," he insisted. And I knew why he said it. I wasn't as hard as before and he could feel it. "Maybe our timing isn't so great. You've got a lot on your mind," he said, but he was still on top of me, still touching my face.

"Yeah. I got you on my mind," I said, laying my hand over his heart. I decided to go for it. "I love you."

His face lit up like a kid at Christmastime.

"Is that all?" he asked, grinning at me. "'Cause I love you, too, so we don't seem to have a problem here."

"I mean, 'I love you'." That sounded as nonsensical as I thought it would. Somehow, I wasn't surprised that he looked confused. "It took me a long time to get over my divorce," I added.

I knew how ridiculous it was to be pressing him for some kind of commitment before we even did it once. When women did that, it got me evaluating the location of the nearest exit and how long it would take me to get there, and whether or not I’d given her my cell number yet.

"Could we at least get together before we break up?" He kissed my forehead. "Shut this down for a while and just feel."

"I do. I feel a lot. It's just - "

"Danny, it’s fucking hard to kiss you when you won’t shut up.” He smiled at me when that effectively did shut me up for a minute. Then he kissed me, but it was so much different than the tonsil-swabbing lip-wrestling we’d done downstairs. It was gentle and sweet and romantic, the way you kissed somebody you loved with all your heart. It had been a long time since somebody kissed me like that. I’m not sure any other kiss could measure up to that one, but then I don’t think I ever loved anyone I’d kissed the way I love him.

He held me close and we kissed some more, like that, everything kind of slow and easy. I was getting into it again, and so was he, and we finally got to the finish line with a mutual hand job that probably wasn’t the best show of technique for either one of us. It didn’t matter. Touching him, having him in my hand like that, feeling his hand on me...it made my soul dance around inside me somehow. Steve would probably just say it was the pizza digesting, but I know the difference between love and indigestion.

He didn’t need to tell me how he felt about me in words. The way he touched me, held me, changed the whole pace of our lovemaking...he answered all the questions I couldn’t put into words without bothering to use them, either.

His alarm went off, and he reached across me and smacked it into silence. Then he picked up his cell phone and speed dialed someone.

“Yeah, Chin, sorry to call so early. If you guys need us for an emergency, call, but otherwise, Danny and I aren’t coming in. I think we got into some bad food last night.”

I gaped at him. He was not only playing hooky and calling in for himself, he was calling me in, too, with a really lame excuse he didn’t seem to care if someone saw through.

“We’re competing for the john, but we’re both at my place, so we’ll be fine.” He winked at me. “Yeah, rough night, but I think I’ve got enough fluids and Gatorade to keep us alive until we’re back on our feet. Thanks, though.” After a brief pause, he added, “Will do. See ya later.” He broke the connection and replaced the phone on the night stand.

I don’t think he ever called in sick for Catherine, no matter how good the night - or morning - might have been.

“You do know it looks really weird to call us both in sick like that.”

“Wouldn’t do me much good to call in sick by myself, would it?” he countered, laughing.

“They’re gonna wonder what we’re up to.”

“I don’t think this is the first thing they’ll think of,” he said, hugging me close to him. I snuggled against him and enjoyed the feeling of his bare chest rising and falling under my head.

“Don’t be too sure,” I joked.

“Save us the trouble of announcing ourselves, then.”

“You want to announce us?” I asked, rising up on my elbow. I wanted to see his face, and this was serious.

“I’m not big on lying and duplicity, Danny. I want to be part of your life. I want to help you raise Grace. I want to be by your side when it counts. I’m not stepping aside for you to bring some other date to things. When there’s an occasion for couples, you’re taking me. One of these nights, I want to go somewhere with music and dance with you. I want us to go out to dinner and go to movies together.”

I was secretly rejoicing that he felt that way. Then it occurred to me I hadn’t told him I did, too. I think he knew. He can read me frighteningly well, and I think he knew I was afraid of taking a leap with him and then finding myself alone again the next time Catherine was in town. “Just for the record, you better not be planning on going on other dates, either. I don’t play well with others and I go to the shooting range almost as often as you do.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he replied, right before he pulled me back down in his arms and sucked on my neck. I knew it would leave a mark that would show. Asshole. How was I gonna explain that when I was supposed to be spending the day in the john with food poisoning?

“What’s the matter with you? Did you turn into a vampire or something?”

“You didn’t like that?” Now he was giving me that hurt little boy look. Fuck.

“I didn’t say I didn’t like it. I just never realized food poisoning left hickeys on your neck.”

“You worry too much. Did anyone ever tell you that?”

“Yeah, you, I think.”

“I’m marking my territory.”

“Dogs do that.”

“They pee on it. I thought you’d like this better.”

“This is definitely better.”

“If you don’t like hickeys, there are other ways I can put my mark on you.”

“Like what? Tattoos?”

“That’s an option, but I was thinking more about rings. I’ve never been married but I always kind of liked the idea of wearing somebody’s ring. Just a plain band, nothing fancy.”

“No bling.”

“God, no,” he replied, laughing.

“You’d want to wear my ring?” I asked, wondering if things could be any better than they were right now. A few hours ago, I’d felt like I had a hole in my guts. Now I was on top of the world. More important, I was hoping to be on top of Steve before long.

“Only for a few dozen years, until I get sick of your nagging.”

“My nagging?” I was ready to let him have it for that one, but he kissed me so long and so hard that I forgot what I was annoyed about. When I came up for air, I said, “Maybe we could take a vacation. Get away from work for a while, just the two of us.”

“This is one of the honeymoon capitals of the world,” he said.

“So let me get this straight.”

“Wrong choice of words,” he said, chuckling.

“Don’t try to distract me. If we go on a romantic getaway, you want to do it here?”

“I suppose you want to take me to Jersey instead."

“You could meet my family that way.”

“I want to meet your family, but not for this vacation, huh?” He was touching my chest, just running his hand over it. I would have given him my left nut right about then, so letting him pick a vacation spot wasn’t too much to ask.

“Okay. Anyplace but Hawaii,” I added, and he snorted a little laugh.

“How about someplace else exotic? Maybe you’d actually give up wearing a tie on the beach for a couple days if we were in the Virgin Islands, or we could go overseas. I always wanted to go to Paris, see the Eiffel Tower, the whole nine yards.”

“What about skiing?”

“Are you nuts? Purposely go somewhere cold?”

“Ski lodges can be really romantic. Cold nights by the fire, lots of blankets on the bed...”

“I don’t know how to ski.”

“I’m not great at it, so it’s not like we’d have to be training for the Olympics or something. Come on, play in the snow with me, Sunshine Boy,” I teased, kissing him.

“Sunshine Boy? What the hell is that? If you call me that again, I’m rolling you on the floor.”

“You and what army?”

“I’d call in the Navy.”

“Did we just get engaged?”

“Guess so. That okay with you?” he asked.

“Yeah, I can live with it. Grace can get a new dress and be our flower girl. She’ll be happy about that. You know, if we did some kind of party or...ceremony or something.”

I kind of liked the idea of saying vows to him, of seeing Gracie all dressed up with flowers in her hair, seeing me happy for a change. Maybe some tiny part of me wanted Rachel to see that, too. Steve probably wouldn’t be mad if he knew I thought of that. Something told me he’d be just as happy to let someone who’d dumped me see how in love we really were, to show her that he wanted me forever. One thing I know he’ll always do for me, no matter what, is stand up for me and stand by me. Taking vows with each other or getting shot at.

“When do you want to do it?”

“I’m ready now,” I responded, touching his balls, and he laughed, though it was broken with a little indrawn breath.

“I meant, when do you want to...have a party or ceremony or something?” he asked, repeating my clumsy phrase for it.

“We’ve got plenty of time to figure that out. But we’ve only got one free morning to screw our brains out.”

“Sweet talker,” he teased as I climbed on top of him this time, kissing him.

“What about working together?” I asked. I would never give this up willingly, but I also loved working with him, for as much as I gave him grief about how miserable it made me.

“What about it? Unless you can’t stand being with me around the clock.”

“Cops can’t be partners if they’re a couple.”

“I’m not a cop,” he declared, triumphantly, not for the first time. “I’m sure there’s a big enough loophole in there we can work with.”

“I keep forgetting all that extra clout you have.”

“Does that turn you on?” he joked.

“Not particularly, but you do.”

“You talk too much, you know that, right?”

“Communication is important in a relationship.”

“So is sex, so shut up and let’s start fucking.”

“I’ll never forget how you swept me off my feet with your romantic lines.”

“I do love you, even if you are a pain in the ass sometimes.”

“I’m a pain the ass? Oh, that’s funny,” I said, indignant now. “How many times have I gotten you shot? Huh? How many times have I drivenyour car 90 miles an hour someplace where there was no road?”

Believe it or not, we did get around to having sex again, but it took us a while. That was okay. We had the rest of our lives.