Chapter Text
As Steve’s consciousness swam slowly into wakefulness, the first sensation he became aware of was safe. Then he was overwhelmed by love. His eyes were partly crusted shut from all the crying he’d done, but he forced his eyelids open at the same time that he breathed in deeply, only to find himself surrounded by Danny Daddy…memories.
He was facing the wall on the side of the bed where he usually slept, and warm puffs of breath were leaving dampness on the back of his neck. He was engulfed in everything Danny, his partner’s arms wrapped around his chest, Danny’s knees tucked up under the backs of Steve’s in their near-fetal position.
Chest hairs warmed and tickled his back and morning wood pressed against his tailbone. Rather than tense up, which is what Steve always expected he would do if he woke in bed with his partner like this – and yes, the thought had more than just crossed his mind in the past – Steve felt himself remain as relaxed as he apparently had been while sleeping.
And that? That was saying something.
Both that he’d actually been relaxed and that he had slept.
The first rays of the sun were peeking in through the room’s lone window, casting an ethereal glow in shades of pinks and grays. Danny snuffled a bit and Steve prayed Danny would stay sleeping just a little longer so he could really and truly mesh conscious with subconscious; logic with emotion; reality with fantasy.
His whole life, he’d only recently begun to understand, he’d been trying to impress his father. To win love that seemed never to be there for either him or his sister. Where his mother had been warm, gentle and generous with kisses, hugs and touches, his father had been distant. Not cold, exactly, but not forthcoming with approval or praise.
As a boy of only six, having just learned to ride a bicycle without training wheels, Steve had expected a pleased look on his father’s face at the very least. He’d hoped for a hug, some words of praise. Instead, he’d received criticism over wobbling along the white line on the side of the road, and had been told precisely what he was doing wrong. His mom had hugged him, crowed over his achievement.
But as welcome as that was from her, that wasn’t what little Steve longed for.
Taking his first full thirty-foot barrel run on the surfboard Mamo had hand-crafted just for him at age ten had been exhilarating, a thrill like no other that to this day Steve found hard-pressed to equal with anything else in his life. And while his father and mother had never been into surfing like he and Mary were, growing up there, his mom beamed with pride and lauded him for the achievement.
When he’d excitedly relayed his triumph to his father that night after his dad came home from work? John had barely batted an eyelash.
Steve tried now, as an adult, to rationalize his dad’s behavior. He understood a little better how preoccupied John had been with the truths he was uncovering, with the systematic investigation that was revealing just how corrupt Honolulu’s police department and very government was from top to bottom. He got how much that must have affected his dad, how worried he was about his family. Hell, Steve had even sent Mary away the same as their father had done to both of them to try and keep her safe. So yeah, logically, he got why his dad was always preoccupied. Was so focused on work that he didn’t seem to have time to lavish his family with love and attention.
Yet understanding that logically didn’t help the little boy locked tightly away deep inside the core of his being who never got what he wanted from the man he tried so hard to please. To find out from Chin that John had attended every single one of his football games, even dragging his partner with him and exuding his pride without prejudice in Chin’s presence hadn’t made Steve feel better. It’d made him feel worse.
Because how could John sit on the bleachers with his work partner and gush over how good his son was, yet never actually tell his own son that to his face? How could he want to see Steve play so much that he would come in uniform, Chin at his side also in uniform, stay for the whole game and then cut out before Steve had ever known he was there? What had made John so emotionally unavailable that it’d left this hollow, aching need inside Steve that he’d never been able to fill?
Well, never until now, maybe.
The thing was, Steve wasn’t entirely sure how explain his seemingly strange and yet very real need for praise, acceptance and being cared for like he was still a little kid. Strange because it somehow had gone from simply wanting to be told he was good at what he did – much like Danny had confessed he wanted not long after they’d met – to being something wound so tightly with his libido that when Danny offered those things because it was simply in his nature to do so, it made a different kind of want and need bubble to the surface.
He supposed he hadn’t lied to Danny in telling him it had started back when Danny had looked after him when he came down with a cold. Steve never got sick. In fact, as a child he’d been sick maybe five times all-told from birth to age eighteen. As an adult, he’d gotten sick once as a sophomore at Annapolis when a flu epidemic swept through the campus and took down three-quarters of the student and teacher population for a whole week.
But this cold, well, it blindsided him, and it was something he simply hadn’t wanted to give into because of everything that was weighing on his mind, everything that he was trying to un-learn and re-learn about being in the Navy vs. being a civilian cop. And through it all those first seven weeks, never missing a beat, had been Danny.
It was, if Steve allowed himself to get stupidly romantic about the whole thing…it was as if Danny had been sent specifically there, even though it was against his will, to be waiting for Steve when he arrived in the aftermath of hearing his father murdered. As though the five-foot-five man who wore bravado like armor was the entire reason Steve had returned to Hawaii. Like maybe John’s death and the governor’s task force had simply been the means by which Steve would be forced to leave active duty and remain on Oahu.
He could almost see a giant finger in the sky moving the pieces of different peoples’ lives around seemingly at random, but with a greater purpose in mind. He saw as the finger moved Rachel into another man’s arms, and away from Danny. He saw the finger move Rachel, Stan and Grace to Hawaii even as it flung Anton Hesse to Korea and his brother Victor to Honolulu. He saw as the finger decided Anton would die, decided John would die, and wondered if the owner of that cosmic finger had known what a need for justice that would instill in Steve’s psyche.
The cosmic consciousness must have known. It must have known when it moved Danny to Hawaii, like moving chess pieces square to square on a board, that six months later not only would Steve hear his father shot to death, but that Danny would be given the case, and be working it without his partner at the time.
It almost made Steve’s head hurt to think this way, and maybe it was all just wishful bullshit. But to now see the type of man Danny was, how desperately he needed to be a father, loved it, reveled in it…and for Steve to know how much he himself needed a man he could trust implicitly with every facet of who he was, well…Steve didn’t see how anything but Fate or God or numerous gods or the Universe or whatever anyone wanted to call it, could have brought New Jersey and Hawaii so close together when they were five thousand miles apart.
It had taken his breath away when he’d seen Danny hug Grace for the first time. Seen the love shining from those blue eyes, seen the features of Danny’s face soften into nothing like the sarcastic, swaggering, ranting partner he’d come to know. There was a magnetic pull in Danny even back when they’d first met that had stirred something deep in Steve’s belly. Something he would never have been able to identify back then, just having come off an op gone bad, from having been in the Navy his entire adult life. But he’d seen something, and so he’d done the only thing he knew how to do: ordered the man to remain in his sphere of existence by making him his partner.
And then had come ‘Danno.’
What his daughter called him. A special word between the two of them only. A name nobody other than Grace used, something Danny found so sacred that he forbade Steve from saying it. Which, of course, hadn’t stopped Steve one bit.
He supposed it could have gone either way, really, after he started using it regularly in conjunction with ‘Book ‘em.’ He supposed Danny could have clocked him in the jaw again, that Danny could’ve sat him down and explained in no uncertain terms, at great length and with great volume precisely why if Steve ever called him Danno again he’d find out just how Jersey Danny could go on him.
But that’s not what had happened. Steve, for his part, couldn’t help but want to call his partner that name, because to Steve, it represented that unconditional love Danny had for his little girl...for his child. And getting to say the word, even if it only was any time he wanted Danny to book a bad guy, somehow let Steve into that in the most peripheral, yet real, way possible. He got to call him Danno. The word would roll of his lips and send a surge of equal parts pleasure and warmth singing through his mind and body.
And then it happened. Suddenly one day Steve felt the need to explain himself, and the best way he could think of that wouldn’t make Danny look at him cross-eyed was that this was a term of endearment. And…it was. It was Steve’s way of referencing Danny’s fatherhood, Danny’s inherent streak of ‘caretaker’ that he tried to keep hidden but so very often failed to. “This is me needing to be able to see you that way,” Steve wanted to say, though at that point he hadn’t quite understood how far that need had gone. “This is me wanting to be to you what your daughter is, me wanting that look leveled at me, wanting those arms around me, wanting to be taken care of and loved the way you do her.”
But Christ, it was so much more than that.
Instead of telling Steve to shut up, instead of berating him for lacking in common sense or brain cells…instead of interrogating him about why, though, Danny had simply said, “Do it every day, I like it.”
Steve’s smile had burst forth without him even being aware of it. On some level, whether Danny had known it or not, he’d accepted Steve as his in that barely-there moment. Steve didn’t know if Danny had a clue about him back then, didn’t know if Danny had purposely accepted this just because Steve never let it go or whether something deeper was at play in Danny’s mind or even in his subconscious.
But whatever Danny’s reasons for the permission he’d given, it had made Steve’s heart leap within his chest, made him simply want to grab hold of the smaller man and never let go. And it wasn’t lost on him, the irony that the man he was looking up to was a man he had to look down at the majority of the time due to stature. Steve had turned to walk away from him then, afraid his smile or his eyes would give away about how much Danny’s words had meant to him. Afraid that if he didn’t walk away, he would act on the desire for closeness that was hitting him from every possible angle as he looked into Danny’s eyes.
And then North Korea had happened, and Steve had felt so very alone, drawing on every bit of strength he had both mental and physical to survive. His dream, his fantasy, had been Danny the Father coming to rescue his son from being stuck up the tree with no way to get down. From being surrounded on the playground by a group of bullies intent on beating Steve the Boy to a bloody pulp. To rescue him from his misplaced trust in another human being. To rescue him, maybe, from himself. Yet he’d known it was nothing more than a pipe dream, that Danny wouldn’t know he was in trouble. That Danny wouldn’t fly all the way to North Korea, that there was no way he’d show up there like Steve made himself fantasize over and over just to stay sane, awake and alive.
But the flap had lifted, light blinding him. And in the glow that happened before his eyesight adjusted, he’d seen Danny’s face appear like maybe it was coming from Heaven itself. Like Danny was a magical being who’d somehow found him and was there to save him once and for all from everything that was wrong and broken, from North Korea, from insanity, from death.
It wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t fantasy. It was real.
Danny was there.
He wasn’t an apparition. His voice was washing over Steve as his hands moved quickly to untie him. Once they’d landed in Honolulu many, many hours later, Steve had fully expected a Danno Rant of Epic Proportions. Yet it had never come. Instead had come Caretaker Danny. The look in those eyes when his gaze was leveled at Steve tore into the fabric of Steve’s very being. His quiet, gentle words when he helped Steve through getting his pants and shirt on, his praise for every little bit of progress Steve made as he healed from his wounds.
The way he sat on Steve’s bed and soothed him after a nightmare had made him afraid of his own shadow, cowering in his sweat-soaked bed like a scared little boy. Fear, like a clawing beast raging within him, quieted only by gentle hands, by “Nothing to be ashamed of, Steve,” and “You’re doing pretty good for a guy who got tortured,” and “I’m sorry I didn’t stop you from going,” and “Stay with me, Steve, you’re safe now.” Murmured words, sometimes whispered. Full-blown rages over what Jenna had done, what Wo Fat had done. Overprotectiveness in spades, all directed toward Steve. Words specifically for Steve. About Steve. Of Steve.
And he drank it all in. He even went so far as to wince on purpose sometimes, just to get those hands back on his body, to get that concern back in his space, to listen to Danny take care of him, feel Danny’s love wrap around him solid and sure, a warm, soft blanket made out of titanium that nothing could get through.
Somehow…in ways Steve would probably never fully understand…Danny got it. He got what Steve needed, and to Steve’s great relief, it seemed he wanted it, too. Like maybe he needed to care for Steve as much as Steve needed that fatherly focus on him. And while Steve had never fantasized about being sexually involved with his actual father, there was something about Danny that stirred long-hidden desires. Desires that over time had become so inextricably entwined with every facet of Danny’s personality, every nuance of their interaction with each other, that the more Danny became the father to the child inside of Steve, the more turned on Adult Steve became.
Until at last there was no hiding from it anymore. Danny had been right, there in the laundry room: Steve had wanted to show Danny his body. To seek approval on his looks just as much as he’d always been trying to seek approval on his actions, his deeds. This one last thing between them as yet untouched, as yet unspoken, Steve needed to know. He wanted Danny in every way, wanted this man to never leave his side, to never leave his home, to make it their home. He craved the affection, the touches, the love, both the fierce and tender sides of the man standing in the doorway with his bare feet drawing Steve’s eyes to linger.
And when Danny had taken Steve in his arms, commanded him to use his words, held him so tightly, body telling Steve everything that maybe even Danny hadn’t yet found words for, it was Steve’s undoing. He’d sagged into those arms, into Danny, and hadn’t actually meant to call him ‘Daddy’ yet there it had been, wrapped inside a strangled sob as he allowed himself to give in to it all.
Danny accepted. Danny took charge. Danny laid down ground rules and made it clear this wasn’t a thing where he expected one hundred percent of Steve’s life to become like he was a little kid again. Where Danny could somehow mix the two of them as grown men making love with being the daddy that little Stevie had never had. That Danny could do this for him, that Danny wanted this for them, it stole Steve’s breath away even now as he felt Danny stir behind him.
Steve wasn’t quite sure what would happen when Danny woke. He didn’t know how to act on a lazy Saturday morning in bed with little Stevie wanting Daddy’s attention at the same time Big Steve wanted Danny’s cock buried in his ass again. It was so odd, these warring factions that somehow made up the whole of who he was. But when Danny’s right hand moved and grazed across Steve’s nipple, the gasp that came from Steve told him everything he needed to know.
As did the smile he could feel against the knob of his spine.
“Good morning, Steve,” Danny said, voice rough in its first use of the day. Then he kissed the nape of Steve’s neck, tongue darting out to taste, and Steve let out a sigh of contentment that seemed to come from his very toes.
“Good morning, Danny,” Steve whispered, so careful not to break this precious moment when sleep-warm bodies began to stir. He lifted the hand that Danny was still rubbing through his chest hairs up, and gently kissed the palm of it once…twice.
“I got morning breath,” Danny complained quietly, and Steve grinned.
“Me, too,” he replied. “But your fingers don’t seem to mind.” To prove his point, he sucked Danny’s index finger into his mouth and Danny groaned in response, hips moving forward to grind his erection into the small of Steve’s back. Steve grinned around the finger as he slowly pulled it all the way out, then wiggled his ass. Oh, how he wanted Danny to take him right then and there, no more words, no more thoughts crowding their way into his head.
And Danny showed how well he knew Steve, how much he knew about what Steve needed and wanted, when he said softly, “Use your words, Steven.”
Steve’s eyes closed as an ache settled into his chest that he knew meant love in every sense of the word. Something that he felt sounded so corny, something that he was desperate to convey, that only two words could no matter how cheesy they sounded in his own mind. But Danny wouldn’t laugh at him, because daddies didn’t do that to their boys.
Danny would do it, he knew Danny would, and so he inhaled, eyes closing in a silent prayer as Danny asked, “What do you want me to do, Stevie?”
Danny’s arms tightened around him as if to say it’s okay, I won’t laugh and so Steve obeyed by saying, “Take me.”
It was all he wanted.
And Danny understood.