Archive of Our Own

In hindsight, Danny blames it all on the adrenaline. Since the moment he first looks (and draws a weapon) at McGarrett, his life is a constant swirl of one near-death experience after another, and thus he has no time at all to stop, take a breath and register the well-known feeling in his gut telling him what’s going on. The adrenaline, sloshing through his veins due to the neverending panic, is absolutely the reason why it takes him a year to realize he’s found his soulmate.

…

Danny is decidedly unimpressed when he’s pulled out of his bed way, WAY before dawn to look at a dead body.

Again.

It’s not that he values his beauty sleep more than putting another murderous bastard to justice, it’s just that Steve has to be a fucking weirdo magnet, drawing out the crazies of the whole country and bringing them to Honolulu to commit their equally horrifying and nonsensical crimes right where Danny has to deal with them almost on everyday basis. Or maybe it’s just this fucking state – Danny’s not above blaming Hawaii in general and Oahu in particular for everything bad that has happened to him in the past year. There’s literally dozens of states he could’ve ended up in that would not be infested with pineapple and homicidal weirdos, but no, of course his stupid ex-mate had to pick THIS one.

Sometimes, he really hates his life. Like when it’s been several days since he last saw Grace and now he has to sidestep blood at 4:15AM to get a better look at ‘male, mid-thirties, gunshot wound through the skull, and of course no ID included in the neat package that was a guy approximately four hours ago’.

Shuffling around the place looking for clues is a bit of a routine; they try to stay awake (though that’s mostly Danny – Chin, Kono and SuperSEAL look like they’ve just had a healthy ten-hour nap); they bag scraps that might turn out to be evidence and lead somewhere; Danny yells at Steve about procedure and the use of gloves, which at least wakes him up a little, see, he’s trying to look at the bright side, screw McGarrett and his talk of ‘sensitive’.

Then, Max announces that all evidence points to their victim being a part of a soulbond, and Danny mentally winces, because that pretty much erases all his hopes of getting back to bed at least for a few hours. No…  Danny had been in a bonded partnership long enough to remember the special treatment and protection mates got from the government. They’re gonna be expected to deal with this A.S.A.P., so goodbye, sleep, until the murderer is caught. Which is not necessarily a bad thing; if there’s a jerk out there who has it in for mated individuals (again), then Danny wants to catch him as much as the next person, maybe more, considering that the mother of his child could potentially be in danger as well, and even if Danny’s still bitter and hurt and angry over their divorce, he doesn’t really wish any actual harm to come to Rachel.

Danny rides shotgun in his own car on the way back to their HQ, as per fucking usual.

“It’s your fault,” he huffs, just to make himself feel a little better – and to let Steve know how much of a menace he is.

“My fault?” Steve repeats, in that indignant tone he uses when he thinks what Danny’s saying is irrational, and screw that, Danny’s completely rational even though he’s had about four hours of sleep and no coffee yet.

“Yes, Steven, your fault. Because in normal cities, in normal STATES, detectives can go weeks, sometimes MONTHS without having to deal with a mutilated body. You know the last time I had to deal with a mutilated body? Three DAYS ago, Steve, DAYS!”

Steve scowls through the windshield. Danny believes it’s because Steve doesn’t get what the fuss is about; as a SEAL, he probably saw a few mutilated corpses every day before breakfast or something.  However, Steve does stop near a coffee shop, and when Danny refuses to be roped into paying for everything again and stays in the car, Steve gets back with a huge cup of the best blend (which is the one good thing about Hawaii) and a malasada. Danny accepts both as an apology for the craziness and he’s halfway through the coffee and all the way through the pastry by the time they get back to the office. The sugar and caffeine combo puts him in a slightly better mood as he leans against the computer table, listening to what Kono and Chin were able to figure out so far. Steve invading his personal space by standing so close that Danny can feel the radiating warmth of his body is something he got used to weeks ago, so it’s not even a distraction from the files Chin pulls up onto the big screen.

“Our vic’s name is Carl Sugimoto, thirty-seven; he was a successful engineer, invented a few key improvements for car engines several years ago. Sold them to different companies, too.”

“Maybe someone was unhappy that Sugimoto wouldn’t sell exclusively to them?” Danny suggests, and Kono nods:

“That’s what we thought at first, yeah. But the thing is, his designs seem to be specifically designed for a certain type of an engine – I’ll need to check this with a few people, but from what Chin and I have been able to figure out, it doesn’t seem any one company would’ve benefited from ALL of Sugimoto’s designs unless they stole the whole car or bike model from the other company.”

“Maybe they wanted him to start thinking ONLY about their models?” Steve frowns and Danny sighs:

“Great. So we’ve got, what… five? Six huge corporations that won’t be too happy with us poking around their trade secrets, huh?”

“Yeah,” Chin nods, and there are new files and three photos drawn to their attention. None of the guys on the screen look particularly criminal or murderous, but Danny has learned that often proves nothing. “However, only three of these companies had someone on their payroll fly to Oahu within the last week. One of them left days ago, and the other two are still here. I think we should start there.”

The two guys both have solid alibis and a worried look on their faces that says they’re not exactly happy they have to break the news of Sugimoto’s death to their bosses. They also shed some light on how the victim managed to work for several companies for such a long time without any trouble, and it sounds like everybody was pretty happy taking Sugimoto’s designs as long as he sold each design to one company only, which he adhered to almost obsessively. Which means that now they have neither suspects nor a motive, and Danny groans loudly as he flops onto the car seat.

“You alright?” Steve asks, his eyebrows doing that thing where they’re trying to touch in the middle of Steve’s creased forehead. Danny snorts.

“Whatever gave you the idea that I wasn’t?” Danny huffs – even though he feels a little queasy, as always when their victim is someone’s mate, imagining the awful pain the other person must be going through at losing the other half of themselves. It’s a little disturbing how well Steve picks up on his discomfort, so, as always, Danny deflects with the one thing he knows: sarcasm. “Could it be my face when you barged into my home this morning?”

“I needed you at the crime scene. It’s your job,” Steve grumbles, and Danny throws his hands up in the air in frustration:

“My job?! It’s most decidedly NOT my job to wake up to a home invasion! You know what civilized people do when they want to wake someone up in the middle of the night? They CALL. And then they KNOCK! Have you ever heard of privacy? Have you ever KNOCKED in your life, or have you always just kicked down doors?”

“I didn’t kick down YOUR door.”

“Yet,” Danny deadpans, and it’s profoundly disturbing that Steve just shrugs as if the kicking-down-doors is inevitably in their near future.

When they get back to regroup and figure out where to look next, Max calls with the preliminary autopsy results.

“The cause of death is, obviously, the gunshot wound through the brain, but here’s where it gets interesting,” Max’s voice sounds genuinely excited and it speaks volumes about how long Danny’s been with Five-0 that he doesn’t even find it that disturbing anymore. “I found traces of poison in his body, even if it didn’t have enough time to act because our victim was shot before he could experience any pain. The chemical compound used to poison him was rather slow-acting, which means that either the person who killed him couldn’t wait for the poison, maybe needed the victim to die before a specific time, or the shooter didn’t KNOW that his victim was already being poisoned. In any case, the person who poisoned him didn’t know much about how to do it properly, meaning that all medical professionals and such are out of question.”

“Unless someone WANTED this to look sloppy,” Danny points out, and he can basically hear Max’s disapproving grimace.

“That would be a valid hypothesis, Detective Williams, if the chemical used was easy to obtain. As it is, the poison in Mr. Sugimoto’s body is a very specific compound – trace amounts are used in cosmetics, especially skincare, but the compound itself is impossible to get, or make, in a typical household environment. I assume that if someone wanted to divert attention from Mr. Sugimoto, they would use any of the large number of poisons that are almost untraceable due to their availability in common drugstores or even grocery stores.”

“You never fail to make me feel safer in this world, Max,” Danny snorts. Chin and Kono grin and Steve makes a sound that could be both amusement and disapproval.

“One more thing-“

“Yes? Was our victim suffering from a highly-contagious virus that will make us all turn into zombies?” Danny huffs, because that’s the only thing that would make his day even worse.

“Viral infections that cause zombification are almost never airborne, Detective Williams, but I assume you were just being sarcastic and uninformed as usual, so I will let it slide. No – based on the level and type of heart tissue damage, I can safely assume that our victim was a part of a soulbond that was either in the process of breaking, very far gone, or completely broken just recently.”

Danny can feel his breath being trapped in his throat, his whole chest tightening with the memory of that exact same pain, and well, at least he knows why he’s felt so weirdly connected to their victim. While breaking a soulbond is not unheard of, it is by no means a common occurrence, and the process is infinitely painful.

Before he can really catch a breath (and ignore Steve’s hand at the small of his back, what is that, he’s not breaking down here, he’s pretty sure people shouldn’t even notice that there’s something going on with him – but trust the damn SEAL to know anyway), Kono raises an eyebrow:

“The process? What do you mean ‘process’ – isn’t a soul-bond just… there or not there?” she asks doubtfully, and Danny can’t hold back his sigh.

“It’s a process. Trust me.”

“Detective Williams is correct,” Max speaks up again, and Danny’s grateful to the man because at least Kono and Chin have to pay attention to the medical examiner’s explanations and not to Danny’s grimaces, studying him like they’re afraid he’s gonna explode. And he’s better, he really is, it’s been nearly two years since his bond with Rachel started breaking and Danny believes it’s really over now, even though he gets phantom pains and aches and he still remembers how bad it was, how he felt like he was losing his mind along with a mate… but it’s over and he shouldn’t be this affected by the death of some other poor guy who got his bond broken.

Except that it could be him, dead because some close-minded jerk found enough hatred in himself to attack just because he didn’t like the ‘sanctity of a bond tarnished’ or some shit like that.

“Breaking of a soulbond is very uncommon, yet possible; depending on the length and strength of a particular bond, the process can take anywhere from several weeks to several months. According to the victim’s heart, I would say that in this particular case, the process lasted about three to four months, pointing to a soulbond that was in place for at least seven or eight years, maybe a decade. Due to the recent nature of this break, I believe some clues could turn up if you find Mr. Sugimoto’s mate. I will contact you again if lab results bring any new light to the case.”

Max hangs up and Danny doesn’t have to look up to feel the three pairs of eyes staring worried holes into him. He frowns and shakes his head:

“Calm down, guys. I’ve been cleared for active duty, remember? My heart’s working just fine.”

“Except it’s been broken,” Kono says, and Danny appreciates the dry humor she tries to smuggle into the worried remark, but it’s not enough to make him grin. Not about this, not yet.

“It’s not a broken heart, for god’s sake,” he more sighs than snaps. “The bond-breaking is extremely stressful to the body, thus the changes. Basically it’s the same as working with a crazy SEAL so if you’re worried about MY heart, you should get yours checked as well.”

Steve looks hurt, but Danny doesn’t have enough strength to apologize now; he mutters something about coffee, threatens to shoot anyone who says something about caffeine and heart diseases and stalks off, leaving them behind so they can conspire about how to make him eat healthy. Not that it’s gonna help since McGarrett practically drags him into at least one gunfight every week, which can’t be great for his heart, but Danny seriously doesn’t worry about that because at this rate, he’s gonna get shot dead a long time before his heart decides to give out on him.

He sits in his office, eyes closed and mind swirling in all the directions he doesn’t like; he doesn’t really feel the time flow, but it’s maybe ten minutes, fifteen tops, before the door opens quietly and there’s the familiar, beautiful sound of a takeout cup being set down on the table in front of him. And sure enough, when Danny opens his eyes, there it is, along with Steve who looks positively constipated, which means he’s been thinking about human emotions.

Danny has to nip that in the bud, today.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he points his finger at Steve: since he’s sitting down and Steve’s a giraffe, it really can’t be seen as having that finger IN Steve’s face, which is a calculated move because Danny really does not want to get a dislocated shoulder and bruised knuckles today.

“Yes, you do,” Steve shrugs, and Danny opens his mouth, but Steve’s quicker this time: “But  this talk probably requires a sixpack of Longboards and I can’t bring you beer while we’re dealing with a murder, so take the coffee and let’s go see what the mate knows.”

Danny takes the coffee and the advice, since not thinking about Rachel will probably just improve his day and Steve’s good at giving him other things to think about, like worrying about his life. As a payback for the coffee, Danny gives back a petulant huff:

“Ex-mate. And I can have a beer, it’s not like this is gonna be the miracle day when you let me drive my own damn car.”

It’s also not like he hasn’t already told Steve all there is to know about him and Rachel; they met when they were very young, a bond formed almost instantly, a few months later they were mated… and ten years later, he started coming home tired, aching inside and out, and Rachel confessed to having found someone with whom she felt a stronger bond. Just Danny’s shitty luck that his wife was one of those rare cases who could find more than one mate in her life… and that he wasn’t the one who could make her stay.

Steve knows this, all of this, in embarrassing, drunken detail from the time he’d invited Danny over and then managed to get him completely wasted- okay, so maybe it wasn’t Steve’s fault that Danny kept inhaling one beer after another, but the break was pretty new then and Danny was, whether he liked it or not, a bit out of control. He’s better now, the wounds closing, the aches fading, his body and mind healing as best they can in this situation. But it still hurts sometimes to think of the perfect family he used to have, and Steve knows – in his own way, he understands, a little, at least that’s what Danny feels. They don’t talk about Steve’s life much, under the pretense that it’s all classified, but from the bits and pieces he knows, Danny’s figured that Steve knows his fair share about loss and heartbreak, even without a soulbond in his history.  Maybe that’s why they work so well together, despite all the irritation and arguing and mild harassment, even despite Steve commandeering Danny’s car like he owns the damn thing.

They find Sugimoto’s mate at home, shaken and teary-eyed since the HPD has called her already. She’s a tiny blonde thing in a pretty dress, wringing her hands together as she invites them in, and Steve shoots Danny an unreadable look when they follow the woman to a neat, if old-fashioned, living room.

Danny would never admit to the momentary comfort that Steve’s large hand touching his shoulder provides, but he doesn’t shake off the touch and sits down next to Steve in a huge sofa that threatens to swallow him whole.

It turns out that Ellen Sugimoto found another mate about half a year ago, and she and her husband started drifting apart almost instantly. The victim agreed to a divorce pretty peacefully – at least that is what the wife tells them, and Danny exchanges a quick look with Steve. Yeah, SuperSEAL’s not buying that either, despite the fact that he hasn’t been in this exact same situation. Danny has, and he knows that breaking of a soulbond can be described by a number of words, but ‘peaceful’ is nowhere near that list. Even with people who are more mellow than Danny and Rachel, the stress, the pain, the emotional instability, it had to be hell, and Ellen Sugimoto is describing it like a business deal.

When Chin calls to tell them that they found out Ellen’s just started a job at a huge cosmetics company, they definitely have a suspect again – for the poisoning, at least. It takes an hour in the interrogation room for Ellen to break and admit that she did try to slip her husband ‘something to make the break easier, I read about it on this webpage, I swear I didn’t want to kill him, oh my god’. By that time, Danny’s basically crawling out of his skin, rubbing at the back of his neck irritably.

“How stupid or cynical do you have to be to do something like that,” he breathes out through gritted teeth and Steve just claps a hand on his shoulder again – this time, Danny wants to shake it off, he really does, because Steve shouldn’t think that he can make Danny achieve Zen just by touching him, Jesus Christ, what kind of a Neanderthal communicates through huffs and touching: but it does actually help with the tension, and Danny’s so tightly wound that the last thing he’s gonna do is look a gift SEAL in the mouth. 

“Did she give you the name of the webpage?” Chin asks, and Steve shakes his head (his hand still on Danny).

“No, but we’ll retrieve her laptop, maybe that’ll give us a clue.”

“Good idea. I’ve never heard of any chemical solutions making a break any less painful,” Kono shrugs and looks at Danny, who just shakes his head:

“Me neither. Trust me, if there was something like that, I’d be on it,” he laughs a bit, not as bitter as he would’ve just a few months back. It still makes Steve frown, and Danny slaps his impossibly flat stomach with the back of his hand:

“Lighten up, Steve, Jesus, what’s with you. Let’s go see if we can find a gun in the Sugimoto house and close this case.”

Of course they find nothing of interest. Danny just wants to go home, take a shower and collapse into bed; Steve gets strict instructions not to barge into Danny’s home before at least seven in the morning. With a constipated face, he just nods, which is as good to an agreement as Danny’s gonna get, so he takes it and sighs a huge sigh of relief when he finally, finally steps under a spray of hot water and lets it wash away the stress of the day.

Except he’s not feeling relieved at all; the case’s not closed, the shooter still might be someone with a bone to pick with soulbonded people, which puts Rachel, and by proxy Grace, in danger, and then there’s the nagging feeling in the back of Danny’s mind that he’s missing something here. He stands in the shower until the water turns lukewarm, but even as he’s getting into bed, something’s just not right and the beginnings of a headache make him reach for a painkiller.

Steve keeps his promise – the numbers on Danny’s alarm clock shine 7:05 into his face when he wakes up to Steve standing at the foot of his bed.

“One of these days, I’m going to have a heart attack because of you,” Danny grunts and rolls out of bed, but the funny thing is, he’s not even surprised by now. Maybe his body has stopped perceiving Steve as a possible threat, which is a bad thing, because Steve is absolutely a threat, what with his inability to correctly diagnose situations as potentially harmful to people around him.

The next day brings very little development and Danny just wants to scream as they pore over a website advertising ‘easy solutions’ for bond problems, trying to figure out how the pieces fall together.

“I have no way of confirming the suspect’s claim that the product from the website is our poison,” Max says, and Danny sighs, because he knows what that means: they will have to obtain a sample right from the source. And who better to pretend to have trouble with his bond than a guy who lived through that hell himself?

“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Steve grouses as he drives Danny to the address from the website after they’ve set up a meeting with an ‘advisor who will tailor the correct dosage to your needs’.

“Well, that makes two of us, but it’s not like we have a ton of options here, so shut up and drive, will you?” Danny huffs, rubbing at his eyes.

“Bad night?” Steve turns to him immediately, his Worried Scowl™ perfectly in place. Danny isn’t sure if he appreciates or hates that Steve can read him like an open book.

“Nothing I haven’t dealt with before,” he shrugs, which only kicks up Steve’s worry a notch, or at least deepens his scowl, if that’s an indication of anything.

“Danny, you don’t have to-“

“-do this? Yes, I do, so if you would be so kind and stopped doubting me, that would be great,” Danny grumbles, and for once, Steve actually does what he’s told and shuts up. Danny’s not sure whether it’s because ‘I was told multiple times to do this’ or more of a ‘I’m pissed-off so I’ll sulk until someone asks what’s up’, but he’s grateful for the silence, interrupted only by the screeching of his poor car’s tires (and he’s gonna make Steve pay for the new ones, he swears).

He doesn’t even look back at Steve when they get to the clinic, just gets out, doesn’t slam the door because it’s HIS car he’d be abusing, and strides into the building that could only be called a clinic by someone who has never seen a proper place of medical practice before. It’s not exactly run-down, but it doesn’t inspire much confidence, what with the nondescript signs, the tiny waiting room slash reception, and especially the receptionist who looks like she’s seen the inside of a correction facility more than once. Danny sits down on the hard, slightly smudged plastic chair and lets his leg bounce impatiently as he looks around, cataloguing every detail and playing into his role of an upset bondee. By the time he’s called in, he doesn’t even have to pretend he’s nervous – thinking back to his time with Rachel makes him fidgety enough, and the sudden realization that he fits in here a little too well doesn’t help.

Just as predicted, the ‘doctor’ asks a lot of personal questions (and phrases them in a way that makes Danny almost certain this guy’s never taken even one semester of psychology anywhere). Danny describes both the physical and the mental distress as he remembers it, doing his best to find some balance between saying enough to be believable for the doctor’s sake and not being overly dramatic, since his team hadn’t agreed to let him go in without a wire. After maybe an hour, he’s let go with a bottle of pills and a strict dosage schedule – he tosses both to the backseat as he settles back into his car and groans at Steve wordlessly. Steve gets it and starts the car, and Danny is feeling blessed for moments like this, when a few grunts can go a long way in establishing a line of communication between the two of them. 

Of course, the blessed silence doesn’t last long; they’re just getting back onto the highway when Steve glances at him for the fifteenth time and Danny snaps.

“What?!” he huffs, glaring back at his partner. “What is it? You want to say something? Then go ahead and say it because I’m not up for mind-reading today, really.”

“Was it true? What you said in there?” Steve asks quietly, and of course he couldn’t just let it go. Danny can’t say he totally blames the guy: if it was his partner in there, he would probably want to know what to expect as well. He sighs and mentally goes over what he told the doctor: the migraines, the hurting back, the depression… yeah, he didn’t really add anything, quite the opposite, in fact.

“I’m fine now,” he repeats what he already told all of them when they looked at him earlier; it was rough, but there’s no need for them to treat him like he’s still broken, incomplete, incapable of doing his damn job. It’s enough that he feels broken sometimes, he doesn’t need to be seen that way as well.

“Not what I asked.”

“Well then I guess you’ll have to be more specific,” Danny snorts, a deflection and a dare in one. Steve’s not good at talking about feelings – he’s awful at it, actually, and that means he probably won’t be asking about the psychological side of the process.

“The pain. Was it really that bad? You said that you couldn’t even move some days…”

Danny acknowledges the non-question with a nod:

“I think the not-moving thing was a combination of all of it… the headache, the nausea, and not having the willpower to do anything. I wasn’t paralyzed, I just… didn’t feel like I had the strength to move.”

“So if you had to,” Steve asks after a moment of contemplative silence, “you could’ve moved? I mean… if you tried really hard. Could you get over it sooner?”

And what the fuck is that supposed to mean?! Danny half-turns in his seat with a genuine growl.

“Are you kidding me? What do you think I did, curled up and waited to die?! I tried, okay, it wasn’t that easy!” he snarls, crossing his arms over his chest in a huff. He hates how Steve’s question makes him feel like he should’ve tried harder, like he didn’t do everything in his power to ‘get over it’… like he could’ve done more, been there for Gracie earlier, moved to Hawaii sooner instead of only three months after finalizing the divorce. Those three months of waiting for the bond to dissipate completely, something that would’ve probably taken longer had Rachel stayed in the same city as him, were the longest three months in Danny’s life, misery and loneliness and preparing to uproot himself completely so that he could see his daughter at least once every two weeks. And now, Steve asks if he could’ve ‘tried really hard’. Fuck him, Danny thinks through the red rage that bubbles in his mind, and purposefully doesn’t try to fill the oppressive silence that fills the car.

Danny’s glad to see the HQ, and he doesn’t wait for Steve to get out of the car; he grabs the obtained evidence (or hopefully-evidence) and stalks to the labs to get the samples to Charlie for analysis. Kono and Chin are out looking at the several suspects who, based on the information from the wife, might’ve had a bone to pick with Sugimoto, so Danny’s spared the excessive worried looks on the way to his office. He pulls up all they have on their victim again, trying to find something they have missed, but he can’t concentrate, can’t sit still, his leg bouncing impatiently as if his body is waiting for something that his mind hasn’t caught up with yet.

Steve slinks in with his tail between his legs, and Danny does his best not to look up or give his partner the impression that he’s forgiven – which he’s not. Danny doesn’t usually hold grudges for insignificant stuff, but this case has him strung up and caught in depressing reminiscence, so he’s not in the greatest mood to let things slide. Steve must pick up on that (Danny’s not exactly concealing his irritation), because when Danny does glance up again, Commander Smartypants is slumped in his own office, in that ridiculous chair, and looking like he just ran over someone’s puppy. Danny lets him stew in it and turns back to the documents, his brain slowly settling back into work routine, filtering out everything that doesn’t relate to the case at hand.

Several hours later, he’s still trying to find connections that he’s not sure even exist. He doesn’t really know why he looks up, because there’s no actual sound alerting Danny to Steve’s presence, but sure enough, his partner’s in the doorway, waving a phone at him.

“Chin just called. They went to check on Ellen’s new soulmate and they can’t find him anywhere. His boss said he didn’t show today.”

Danny rises from the chair almost automatically, nodding:

“Maybe we should go ask our dear suspect where her sweetheart might be.”

“That’s the thing,” Steve scowls. “I just pulled up the video feed from the interrogation room. Ellen’s missing.”

Danny hisses a curse under his breath and follows Steve’s long strides out of the office, trying his luck with Charlie Fong. The guy repeats several times that he doesn’t want to jump to any conclusions, but the analysis they’ve been able to do so far points to the pills being vaguely harmless barbiturates, which means that Ellen Sugimoto was most likely lying her little ass off when she said she hadn’t meant to poison her husband.

They’re headed for the car when Steve’s phone rings again.

“It’s Chin,” Steve mutters and puts him on speaker as he starts the engine. Turns out Kono has found a weapon in Luke Jordan’s trash that matches the type used to kill Sugimoto, and that the man has basically withdrawn all of his savings in cash just a couple of days ago.

The next hour passes in a blur and a minor car chase (and how crazy has Danny’s life become that he thinks of twenty minutes of screeching tires and at least three near-deaths as ‘minor’). When they finally get their suspects, Ellen Sugimoto tears up and her new soulmate glares at them, but they both keep quiet; not like their confession is necessary to detain them long enough for the gun to be processed. Steve and Danny try anyway, but both Luke and Ellen just give them blank stares, for hours at a time.

“They won’t break so easily,” Danny sighs when they get out of the interrogation room again and he notices it’s already gone dark outside. Steve looks just as tired as Danny feels, more frustration at getting nowhere than physical exhaustion, and Danny can sympathize when Steve sighs deeply, rubbing a hand down his face.

“They’re both surprisingly tenacious for cosmetics lab workers,” Steve remarks wearily, and Danny snorts:

“It’s the bond. Must be strong already, and they subconsciously draw on each other for mental support, so unless we want to ship one of them to the mainland to sever their connection for easier interrogation, we probably won’t get much without physical evidence. And before you say anything,” Danny scowls and stabs the air in the direction of Steve’s face, “we’re not doing that, because it’s illegal as well as unethical.”

Steve grins at him, slow and amused, and Danny can feel his face responding in a similar manner. He can’t help but feel relieved that this case is close to done, that it’s most likely a crime of passion instead of a conspiracy against bonded people. However, his momentary relief is quickly replaced by his stomach twisting in a bout of nausea when Kono comes in, looking a bit shaken and frowning at her phone.

“Charlie just called,” she looks up at them, and Danny has a feeling he won’t like what she says next.

He doesn’t.

“The prints on the gun… it looks like Ellen was the one to pull the trigger,” she says quietly, and Danny can feel Steve’s hand on the small of his back again, and he wants to keep being mad at Steve, he really does, but he’s not strong enough to be the hypocrite of the month and deny that he can use the support right about now. He thinks back to Rachel involuntarily, to that intense feeling of betrayal when he figured out what was going on with her, with them, and wonders if this could’ve been them. Steve’s touch keeps him grounded as Kono shoots him a distressed look.

“How could she do that? I mean… even if their bond was getting weaker… shouldn’t it be impossible?”

“Let’s find out,” Danny says, willing to focus on interrogation and pretend this case doesn’t affect him at all.

Just as predicted, faced with hard evidence and the threat of being imprisoned across the country from her new mate, Ellen breaks and spills the beans. Turns out her account of how peacefully Sugimoto took their impending divorce and bond-break was just as exaggerated as Danny predicted – maybe even more so, since the sobbing murderer claims that her husband said he would only allow their bond to break completely ‘over his dead body’. Danny can’t help but wonder what would’ve happened to him, had he resisted the break more, had he told Rachel something similar. Would she have gone to an extreme like Ellen…? Danny likes to think not, but he knows the pull of a bond is not something to be trifled with.

In any case, he’s glad when the most crucial paperwork’s done and they’re sitting in a nice hotel, enjoying beer along with the soft breeze, the oppressive heat of the day giving way to a milder, more pleasant evening air.

Chin and Steve are busy discussing some mutual acquaintance of theirs who’s getting married and Danny doesn’t even notice at first when Kono sits down next to him, fidgeting with her beer and staring into the distance. He gives her space and time to think, but he knows she’s bracing for a question.

“You okay?” she says eventually, and Danny has a feeling that’s not what she wants to ask, but if she needs more time to gather the courage for the real deal, he’s game. The stress of the day has mostly worn off and he’s not so tightly wound anymore that he would feel like snapping at everyone who shows concern, so he gives her a small smile:

“Yeah. Don’t worry about me. It’s just… I hate when a bond’s involved in a case.”

Kono nods slowly, takes a swig, and Danny can practically feel her working up to the real question.

“What’s it like?” she mutters eventually, her eyes curious as she turns to Danny.

“Working on a case like that?” he grins, being just a bit difficult, and he’s relieved when she snorts and slaps his shoulder lightly: whatever’s on her mind can’t be too heavy then.

“Ha ha. You know what I mean. What’s it like, being bonded? I mean… I’ve heard the whole evolution thing, I just… I want to know what it feels like, you know?”

Danny wonders if she’s met someone, if she’s feeling a particular relationship more strongly than any other, and he gets strangely melancholy at the possibility of Kono being bonded and/or mated soon. Not that he feels it like an opportunity lost: Kono’s gorgeous and funny and smart (and deadly, let’s not forget deadly), but he’s never felt for her anything that could’ve blossomed into more than strong friendship. She’s too much like a sister to him, despite the fact that none of Danny’s sisters can wield a sniper rifle like Kono, but she’s like a younger sister and it makes Danny feel a little old and world-weary to think of her as going off to bond with some guy.

“The ‘evolution thing’ must be right, though, since Gracie’s perfect,” he chuckles at first – everyone’s heard the theory, and it’s more of a widely accepted fact by now, what with so many studies done on children born from a bond. It makes sense, even, that nature would develop some way to get two people together if their genetics match to produce healthier, more capable offsprings. The studies vary in degree of perfection achieved through bonding, but looking at his beautiful daughter, Danny’s willing to accept even the wildest guesses.

It’s not what Kono wants to hear, clearly, but she gives him a laugh and wordless agreement. Danny concedes in the end, even though she doesn’t press the issue.

“I can only tell you what it felt like for me,” he starts with a warning, though he doesn’t think it’s necessary; there’s enough movies out there about ‘bolts of lightning’ and ‘bond at first sight’, so Kono must know enough not to believe it completely. It’s highly probable that even in her enormous family, there are a few bonded people – but Danny can imagine how awkward it could be to ask an auntie or a grandparent about these things.

“I didn’t really know at first. Rachel and I went out a few times before we realized it could be a bond forming… it wasn’t just attraction, though. I can’t honestly say I was in love with her the moment I saw her, but I did feel better in her company, at ease, somehow, like I was where I was supposed to be, you know?” he smiles at the memory – no matter what sort of shit they’ve been through with Rachel since that time, Danny can still remember the good parts clearly. Maybe that’s what made the break so hard, knowing how good they used to be together.

“That sounds great,” Kono smiles, and Danny wonders for a moment if she isn’t doing this on purpose, making him talk about the good part to help with the sour taste at the back of his throat that this case has left. He wouldn’t put it past Kono, with her sharp eyes and kind heart… but even if it’s true, Danny does feel better for talking about this.

“Yeah. It wasn’t all perfect – we argued a lot about some things, but even when we were fighting, we knew we belonged together. Well… up to a point, obviously,” he smirks, and it’s a surprise to him that he’s a lot less bitter about it than he used to be. There’s a feeling in the back of his mind that he can’t place, though, and he’s too tired now to worry at it until it unravels, so he turns to Kono with a smile.

“Anything in particular that brought this on?” he asks, and Kono shrugs: there’s no sign of a blush, though, so Danny wonders if he was wrong about Kono thinking of someone special.

“I just wanted to know. I mean… today, I just couldn’t wrap my mind around it. How could someone want to kill their mate? Don’t you usually want to protect that person?” she frowns, and Danny can see she’s genuinely upset by the notion. Something in him swells with pride and warmth at the thought of Kono, who doesn’t even know what a soulbond feels like, understanding this thing so well.

“Usually, there is,” he shrugs. “I wanted to protect Rachel from everything bad, make her feel better when she was down… and when she announced that she met someone else, it was like someone yanked the ground from under my feet. I wasn’t considering murder, mind you – but I guess bonds can make people do weird things,” he chuckles. At that moment, Steve laughs loudly at something Chin must’ve said, and Danny’s eyes wander to the source of the sound, gliding over Steve’s throat, arched a little as he laughs with his head thrown back, his eyes crinkled at the corners, his hair tousled against the back of his chair… and that uncertain, undefined thought from before shifts and breaks loose like a ball of wool dropped to the ground, leaving a strand to follow straight into the abyss that is the realization that all Danny wants to do is stand up, cross the distance between him and Steve and just… touch.

Bonds can make people do weird things. Like agree to follow a suicidal SEAL on a mission to avenge his father. Like staying with a task force that clearly poses much more risk to his health than the job with HPD. Like sitting by that suicidal jerk’s bed when he gets shot through the thigh and nearly bleeds out before they get him to the hospital, counting down minutes and mentally yelling at the guy to wake up, wake up, wake up. Like yelling at someone because they drive like they wanna wrap the car around the nearest telephone pole, and letting them drive time and again anyway. Like seriously wanting to strangle someone when they leap into the direct line of fire and then taking comfort in that huge arm slung over his shoulders afterwards.

Like following Steve’s stupid ass into a terrorists’ den in a hostile foreign country because he couldn’t imagine sitting safe at home while Steve was getting tortured and possibly killed.

“Danny? You alright there, brah?” Kono’s voice reaches him as if he were underwater, and maybe he is, drowning in this epiphany that he hasn’t asked for, could’ve lived without happily ever after. Danny takes a deep breath, forces air into his lungs because he feels like he’s seriously going to pass out from the lack of oxygen in his brain, and then gives Kono a smile. He doesn’t even try to tell himself it’s sincere – she must sense something’s wrong, because she frowns a little, but he waves her off before she can ask.

“Yeah, exhaustion and certain memories don’t mix well. I just need to sleep this off… see you tomorrow,” he says and stands up. Steve’s eyes follow him and Danny bites at the inside of his cheek as he waves them all goodnight and fucks off as quickly as possible, wondering if Steve’s gaze has always burned like a brand on his skin.

Sleeping it off doesn’t really help, mostly because Danny doesn’t do much sleeping that night. He tosses and turns and tangles himself in the sheets and in his thoughts, debating whether he should or shouldn’t tell Steve. Chances are, Steve hasn’t noticed yet – there are the rare cases when one person feels the bond stronger than the other, and Danny just hopes this is that case. He’s only noticed tonight, so maybe Steve doesn’t know, maybe Steve doesn’t FEEL it yet: if it’s like that, Danny can just… go away, go see his parents in Jersey for a week and hope the bond’s not strong enough, hope it’ll just wear off, break without too much pain so that he can continue living in Honolulu peacefully. He’ll probably have to leave Five-0, find an excuse, and the thought of not working with Chin and Kono (and Jesus, Steve, for all the bitching and arguing they do, they’re a great team), the thought of going back to being the unwanted haole almost makes Danny break out in hives. Then he realizes he’ll have to quit the police work most likely, since Five-0 is usually in close contact with the HPD – shit, they work in the same building, which would be extremely counter-productive to a clean break. It’s funny, really, in an ironic and unamusing way, that after Rachel left, Danny had to leave everything behind, his family, his friends, his gym and his dentist and his collection of signed baseballs and his favorite indie band that only ever performs in that tiny pub six blocks from their apartment - he discarded it all for Grace and he would do it again and again as long as he gets to see her at least a few times a month, but the truth is, he always had his job to get him through the days without his daughter. He had his job, and the knowledge that he was damn good at it, that he was making a difference… and now, he’s gonna have to give that up as well.

He knows the darkness is making him a little bit hysterical, but he can’t stop the flood of horror scenarios that go through his head. He’s driving himself into one corner after another, arriving to various conclusions, starting (but not ending) with him turning into a stinky hobo Gracie wouldn’t even want to visit because he won’t be able to find and hold a proper job. His head is pounding with a steady pulse of pain that he knows all too well, and he has to laugh at himself because all this time, he thought it was because of Rachel and the remnants of their bond fading away. He gets a migraine like this from time to time, and only looking back now can he see the pattern: Steve being away on some super-secret business, Steve getting hurt enough to warrant a hospital stay, Steve not being there after a stressful or painful day to alleviate the strain.

The sound of the door opening resounds through the tiny apartment and Danny’s on alert even through the awful headache, his hand on his gun before he can look towards the door to see who is stupid enough to decide to rob a cop’s place when the cop’s car is in plain view right outside.

“Danny?” a whisper comes, together with the too-familiar silhouette of a goddamned giant, and Danny heaves a sigh, hating that the pressure behind his eyes eases up a little. How has he never noticed this before tonight? If anything, he could’ve saved himself a few hours of pain.

“What did we say about knocking, Steve, seriously… can’t you just take a damn hint,” Danny grouches as he swings his feet off the bed (well – off the sofa, really) and stands up to throw Steve out, because he can’t deal with this now, he can’t, he’s not in his right mind and he’s still imagining how it will feel when he leaves for Jersey, preferably as soon as possible.  God, he’ll have to explain it to Gracie…

“I was worried. You took off like someone was chasing you,” Steve frowns, and there’s concern, genuine, heavy concern in his tone as he steps closer, and Danny wants to take a step back, shit, he does, but he’s rooted to the spot and basically crawling out of his skin with the need to close the distance and touch, and he hates every second.

“There’s this thing called a phone,” he growls and turns away, walks towards the small kitchen area under the pretense of getting some water, while wishing Steve wouldn’t follow.

So of course Steve does, and Danny’s hyper-aware of Steve’s every step in a way he definitely wasn’t before. It reminds him of Rachel, of their first months after marriage when she would get up early as usual and putter about the house, making herself some tea and reading the newspaper, and he would lie in bed and see her clearly with every sound, the movements she made, the way she curled herself in a chair, making it creak lightly, the way she frowned when there was a sad story in a magazine and turned the page quickly to something else with a soft rustle, the way she would hold the mug of tea close to her lips, not quite touching, when something got her interest and she forgot she wanted to drink, then remembered and set it aside with the tiniest clack. Danny can see Steve just as clearly now, he can see the worried hunch of his shoulders, the line between his eyebrows, even if it’s dark in the apartment and Danny’s not even looking.

And Steve’s not saying anything to the phone thing, so Danny turns his head and frowns at him while he waits for the glass to fill with lukewarm tapwater.

“Why didn’t you call?” he repeats the underlying accusation and Steve honest-to-god fidgets and sticks his hands into his ridiculous cargo pockets. Danny turns off the water and shifts his weight, because there’s another nagging feeling in the back of his head and- no. No. That can’t be.

“Steven,” he says, a warning and a threat. “Why are you here?”

“Just wanted to make sure you’re okay,” Steve deflects, and Danny could take it as a normal answer if Steve’s eyes didn’t shift to the side, if his shrug wasn’t a bit too casual to be honest. People who are casual about seeing if their friends are okay don’t go checking up on someone at – holy shit, it’s two in the morning and Danny must’ve been tossing around on his bed for a lot longer than he would’ve thought.

It just makes Steve all the more suspicious, though, because there’s no way Kono and Chin stayed back at that hotel drinking with Steve until now, which means that Steve had to have gone home and then driven up here.

Another spike of migraine pulses against his skull and Danny reaches out to rub at his temple. However, he doesn’t fail to notice the slight jerk of Steve’s arm, as if he wanted to reach out and only having his hand in his pocket prevented him from doing so. Almost… almost as if he knows that his touch would help with Danny’s pain.

Danny lets his hand drop slowly. No. He still can’t believe it… but he has to ask, he has to know.

“Why did you come here, Steve?” he repeats quietly, and there must be something in the way he looks at Steve, because the other man crosses the distance between them in two steps and Danny can feel himself gravitating towards him involuntarily, leaning a little into Steve’s space.

Steve touches him then, just a simple, light grip of his huge hand around Danny’s bicep, and the tension, the pain drains out of Danny like a tide, leaving him sighing in relief and closing his eyes for a second.

When that second’s over, though, there’s no space left between the two of them for doubt on whether or not Steve’s aware of their peculiar situation.

“How long?” Danny asks, feeling all the cracks left in his mind by the physical pain of that migraine filling with righteous indignation. “How long have you known?”

Steve’s thumb rubs an erratic pattern into the naked skin of Danny’s arm, and Danny should really pull away right about now.

“A couple of months, I guess,” Steve murmurs, gentle and warm, and that just shows that the bond’s not complete, because scratch indignation, Danny’s suddenly overflowing with rage which Steve would definitely feel like an acidic burn down to his damned toes if they were mated.

“So you knew!” Danny growls and yanks away from Steve’s touch, stalking to the living-room area because even with the futon bed unfolded, there’s more space for pacing there and right now, Danny needs to pace in order not to follow Ellen Sugimoto’s example and murder the person he definitely doesn’t want to be bonded to. “You knew what was going on from the start and you didn’t think you should TELL me about it?!”

Steve’s not exactly crossing his arms over his chest, but somehow, he still manages to look super-defensive as he scowls right back at Danny through the half-lit room:

“I didn’t know, okay? Not from the beginning, anyway. By the time I realized what was going on, it was too late to stop it!”

“You still could’ve said something, for fuck’s sake!”

“How was I to know you weren’t already aware?! Jesus, Danny, out of the two of us, you’re the one with the actual experience, I didn’t even know-“ Steve breaks off mid-sentence and runs a hand over his hair as he practically collapses onto Danny’s sofa-slash-bed. He looks up and resembles a lost dog so much that while Danny can’t really tone down his rage, he can see that Steve’s just as helpless in the face of this as Danny feels. And that doesn’t sit well with him, not at all. Much as he’s used to bitching at Steve for being a Neanderthal and a crazy person, he’s also used to seeing Steve handle everything, get things done… he’s not used to Steve looking to him like Danny has all the answers.

Which he decidedly doesn’t, to their great misfortune.

Danny takes a deep breath and sinks into the creaky old mattress, cautious not to sit too close to Steve. They probably shouldn’t touch until their bond’s broken properly… it will just make things harder if they do. Danny can’t say he won’t miss the hugs and pokes and friendly slaps, but hey, it’s a sacrifice he has to make, since his stupid body has decided it needed a new mate. A guy mate, of all the things. And no matter how mad Danny is that Steve hasn’t told him anything, it’s a bit of a pot calling the kettle black here, because he has considered the same just a few minutes (hours?) ago, not telling Steve and hoping he hasn’t noticed on his own so far.

They sit in heavy, oppressive silence for god knows how long before Danny lets out a frustrated groan and rubs at his eyes. Now that his migraine’s mostly gone, he wants to just curl up and sleep, especially considering what’s in store for him in the next few weeks. And hopefully, it will only be weeks – after all, his bond with Steve can’t be so far gone that it would take longer, right? A part of him begs to differ, though: it’s the same part that just wants to grab Steve and curl up next to him, drawing on the closeness to make things better. But Danny can’t do this… he can’t bond with Steve for real, can’t allow this to go on. It has to go away, as soon as possible.

“I need time,” he says in the end, and the hopeful look Steve gives him almost breaks his heart: but this is madness, it’s not what either of them want: it’s just an error in how they’re wired, a hiccup of the natural order of things, and they’ll both be better off without this. Danny knows it, despite the cloud in his head that’s pushing away rational thoughts, and he also knows how it has to feel for Steve: he’s not used to this, he doesn’t know what a bond feels like and that makes it all that much harder to resist. Especially since Steve’s shit at displaying emotions, but inside, he’s a huge mushy pile of feelings and this must be tearing him apart.

“I need time,” he repeats and braces for the unpleasant part, looking away from Steve’s puppy-dog expression to muster the strength to say it out loud. “So I’m gonna take a few days off. And I need you not to call me, unless it’s an absolute emergency, and by ‘emergency’ I mean ‘the world is imploding’ kind, okay?”

“Danny-“ Steve starts, and Danny can’t do this, can’t hear anything except Steve saying ‘yes’ to this, so he interrupts with a raised hand and shakes his head:

“No, Steve. Just say you’ll do this. Please.”

He can practically feel the fight going out of Steve as the mattress shifts, Steve slumping forward a little, elbows braced against his knees and his head hanging down.

“Okay,” he mutters in the end, and his voice is all sorts of ragged and Danny wants nothing more than to rub Steve’s shoulder a little and say ‘it’s gonna be fine, babe’. It’s not even a startling realization, and Danny has to mentally chide himself for not noticing sooner; heck, he’s been calling Steve ‘babe’ for months now, comforted him more than once and been comforted in return, sat at Steve’s bedside when he was hurt and woke up in a hospital to see Steve hovering over him… how could he not see this sooner?

But blaming himself isn’t going to help, so Danny pushes away the guilt for now and stands up, because he needs to get away from Steve if he’s gonna be able to go through with the break.

“Good night, Steve,” he says quietly, and the dismissal doesn’t sit well with him either, but he’s not sure what else to say here.

After Steve gets out, quiet and dejected, Danny tries to swallow down the aching knot in his throat with a beer, but the Longboard just reminds him of Steve’s backyard and evenings spent there, so he leaves a good half of the drink untouched, crawls into bed and books a ticket to Jersey for the next day before going to sleep.

……………………………….

 To say that Danny’s crawling out of his skin would be the understatement of the century. Of course, his parents were glad to have him home at first, but it’s been a week, Danny has seen all of his friends that he’s got left here, either for lunch or for a beer after work, his sister, the one who lives close by, has come visit as well with her three kids, and Danny has helped his parents with what feels like a year’s worth of household chores… and yet he can’t seem to find peace. His head hurts almost constantly, he feels nauseous most of the time and his back feels like he’s overdone it at the gym three days in a row. The physical side isn’t even the worst thing. He does something, or eats something, or just sees something peculiar and he finds himself missing Steve, wondering what the man would say or how he’d laugh or roll his eyes, how he’d make that happy sound if he tasted Danny’s favorite burger, the real Jersey stuff, not the weird shit with pineapples… and Danny’s not even completely sure it’s just because of the bond. Steve has become his best friend, in a way and at a speed that Danny would’ve never guessed at the beginning, but he’s not capable of enough hypocrisy to brush it off as just an unfortunate bonding experience. Despite all the things that he hates about the SEAL, he also genuinely likes Steve, admires some of his traits and reluctantly puts up with a few others, but all in all, Steve’s a good guy. Aslo, Danny’s not blind: Steve’s hot, in a really stereotypical, perfect, and slightly annoying way, even though Danny has tried not to think about that too much. It’s a little bit like that thing with the chicken and the egg: Danny can’t say for certain whether the bond took off before or after his stomach started doing those unsettling little flips when Steve would pull off his shirt or emerge from the damn sea like some ridiculous marble statue. In any case, Danny’s gotten good at ignoring that spike of lust: he’s not fifteen anymore, he doesn’t think he’s  gonna die if he doesn’t hit on every person who catches his eye, but the attraction is more than a little unfortunate, since it’s just one more thing he has to forcibly not think about now, one more hurdle on his road to a successful break.

 He’s waiting patiently (well, as patiently as he can) for the worst to be over, but he just grows more and more anxious with every day he wakes up almost five thousand miles across the country from Steve and it’s not any easier. It should be – it really should, considering that he was bonded to Rachel for over a decade before their bond broke, and it took him about six months to get over the worst of it: if Danny’s counting right, that means he should be getting over Steve a lot sooner than he is. The problem with his calculations is that he has no way of knowing just how much Steve’s presence helped him deal with that first break. He thought he was healing on his own, when in reality, he was apparently just unconsciously bonding to Steve, so of course he got over it pretty quickly (even though it felt like centuries to him). There’s no telling how bad it will be the second time, without the benefit of being distracted from his worries every day by a life-threatening situation (and spectacular abs).

The worst part is, Danny still hasn’t decided what he’s gonna do about his job. He will have to go back to Hawaii soon: his Gracie weekend is coming up and he wouldn’t miss that for anything in the world, but it also means he’s gonna have to figure out whether he’s staying at Five-0 or not. His hysteria from that first night has abated slightly, especially in the face of the realization that he’s never been anything else but a cop, so his chances of finding a job outside of law enforcement are pretty slim and he can’t afford to go into minimum-wage work at his age. He could become a private security contractor, god knows there are enough of those on the damn island teeming with celebrities hoping to catch a tan instead of a bullet to the head, but that still doesn’t solve Danny’s problem of being a haole sticking out like a sore thumb among the natives and being treated like crap. Without even knowing, he’s bought completely into the whole ohana thing they’ve got going with Chin and Kono and Steve, and god, he’s a sorry excuse for a well-adjusted adult, because he doesn’t have any friends on the island that wouldn’t include their tightly-knit circle. He’s been okay with that so far, never really feeling the need to find any other friends, but it just makes it harder to think he’s about to lose them all. Hence his neverending dilemma that doesn’t really help with the migraines.

On the eight day, though, he finally wakes up feeling better. His stomach’s not rolling, for once, and his head’s a little fuzzy from having hurt for so long, but the pain’s not making his eyes tear up, so it’s definitely more manageable than before. Danny’s almost whistling as he gets into the shower and then dons a pair of comfortable sweats. He’s going back to Hawaii in a couple of days, but unlike yesterday, he’s now confident that he can make this work. If he’s feeling better after slightly more than a week, he should be fine living in the same city as Steve already… maybe they could even work together after all.

Danny almost skips down the stairs – even his knee isn’t much of a problem today, which might be because it hasn’t been dragged through McGarrett’s particular brand of crazy for a few days. He heads for the kitchen, thinking about coffee and about the presents he can bring Gracie from this trip, when a soft voice makes him stop in his tracks.

“Morning, Danno.”

Danny’s heart does a somersault and his stomach tightens. He knows that voice, Jesus Christ – and even if he didn’t, nobody calls him ‘Danno’, nobody but his little girl and-

“Steve,” he breathes out, and holy crap, why does he sound relieved, he’s not relieved, what the fuck is Steve doing here, in his parents’ living room, his knees nearly up to his chest in that ridiculously old sofa and his big hands curled around a mug Danny has been drinking out of ever since he was seven years old.

Of-fucking-course he’s not lucky enough to be getting over the bond already – no, he’s feeling better because the guy he was trying to get away from has been sitting in a living room right under Danny’s bed, for god knows how long. Perfect.

“Your mom said I could wait for you to wake up,” Steve says, as if THAT is the problem here. “She went out to buy something for lunch, I didn’t get what it was, something Itali-“

“Steve,” Danny interrupts and manages to un-freeze himself from the spot, walking just a few steps closer and falling into the nearest armchair. He remembers sitting in it when he was a kid, drawing his knees up to his chest and curling his arms around his legs when he was upset, and he kinda wishes he wasn’t too old for something like that. All he can do now is claw his hands into the armrests and scowl:

“What are you doing here?”

That’s when he notices that Steve’s nose is a little bit redder than usual, his eyes a little more glassy, and considering the guy lives in Hawaii, he can’t be sweaty due to the unusual heat of New fucking Jersey.

“I caught a cold,” Steve says, and Danny gapes.

“You caught a cold… so you took a ten-hour flight to see me?” he asks slowly, and it should make sense, Danny’s sure it does, somehow, but he can’t see it – he’s still in shock from having Steve sprawled over his mother’s sofa.

“Do you know when I had had a cold last time, Danny?”

“I don’t know what you’re-“

“When I was ten. That’s twenty-five years without a cold.”

Danny gives him a snort in response. Is that supposed to mean something to him?

“While I would love to sit here and rehash your biography trivia-”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know what it means,” Steve jumps in again, frowning back at Danny, even though his fiddling with the mug’s chipped edge betrays how jittery he must feel. “I’ve read up on this stuff, Danny, on what happens when you separate. The pain, the stress, the lowered immunity… I know that you’re trying to break the bond.”

He takes a deep breath, looks up at Danny, all sincerity and hurt and hope and worry, and Danny experiences an enlightening moment in which he knows what Steve’s going to say even before it comes out of his mouth.

“I came here to tell you that you don’t get to decide this on your own, okay?”

Steve’s words are quiet, but they still roar in Danny’s ears and he holds on to the anger in fear of what will happen, which emotions will take its place, if he lets it go.

“You can’t be serious, Steven,” he growls. Does Steve want to employ his model of ‘benevolent dictatorship’ even in this situation, is that it? “What do you want me to do? Just sit back and let the bond grow for real so that I can be even more of an outcast on your goddamned island than I already am?! What would you even get out of it? You can’t possibly want to be bonded to me, Jesus, we’re both guys, it’s not like the bond would even mean anything, it’s just a glitch in our genes!”

He understands it was precisely the wrong thing to say from the way Steve’s face crumples into a grimace and he looks away, glaring a hole into the wall, or maybe the old fireplace, Danny can’t say from this angle. Well. He wouldn’t have expected Steve to take the liberal approach to same-sex bonds, after his time in the Navy, but maybe things are different when it is him in such a bond, when it’s personal. Or Danny has misjudged Steve, once again.

“It might be just a glitch to you,” Steve huffs, eerily quiet, “but it would’ve been nice of you to give me the heads-up. I could’ve braced for the pain.”

Danny blinks stupidly. He’s got his mouth open for a cynical joke about how Steve has been through torture, numerous times, and never complained, when it hits him that indeed, Steve would not complain about a mild headache or slightly sore muscles. Steve’s not a whiny guy – on more than one occasion, Danny’s been driven half-mad by Steve’s dismissal of fractures, gunshot wounds and concussions.

Which means that Danny has persuaded himself that he’s been feeling this bond more strongly, that Steve has been getting closer to him just to comfort Danny, that if Danny could crawl into some hole and get through the break, they would be fine.

He has never considered that while some bonds make one partner feel it more strongly, that partner could very well be Steve.

The realization makes Danny take a sharp breath as he runs a hand through his still-damp hair. He needs to gauge how bad it is, whether his assumption’s correct and if so, how much stronger Steve is feeling it.

“What kind of pain?”

Steve exhales, and Danny can see it in his face, two shades paler than usual, the circles under his eyes glaring like a damn neon sign, I’M-NOT-OKAY, I’M-NOT-OKAY.

“I don’t know, all sorts- I threw up a few times, so I thought I just ate something bad, but then my head started hurting too, and at times I just couldn’t stand any sound around me, and… god, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, okay? I should’ve said something. But I kept waiting for you to take a hint, and then you left, and I just had to…  it was such a relief when I got here, you can’t even imagine.”

Danny can – Danny knows the feeling because it was a relief for him as well, even though he didn’t know at the time it was because Steve was near. So he focuses on a different part of Steve’s strangled spiel and frowns:

“What do you mean, take a hint? People don’t just take a hint out of thin air if there are no hints to be taken.”

Steve looks like he just bit into an extremely sour lemon, and Danny groans at yet another epiphany. Of course there have been hints. The coffee, the beer, the malasadas, the gift card for the swimming with the dolphins for Gracie… the touching, the looks. There have been hints, dozens of hints and Danny has just been too busy avoiding his attraction to Steve like a plague to even wonder if it maybe went both ways.

Maybe he should really just return his badge and go wash the dishes for Kamekona, because right now he feels like he doesn’t deserve to call himself a detective.

“Let me share a secret with you, Steve,” Danny sighs in the end. “Soulbonds don’t give people telepathy. You should really see someone about this inability of yours to put any emotion into words.”

It makes Steve’s mouth curl a little bit, as always when Danny mentions a therapist – and that shouldn’t be funny, seeing a professional about a problem is not a laughing matter, but of course, Steve’s sense of humor is insanely warped and Danny shouldn’t be finding that attractive in the least.

He shouldn’t, but he does. That’s basically the story of his life ever since he got to Hawaii and met Steve. And Danny wishes he was strong enough to resist this pull, but it’s been insanely easier to pretend he could just up and leave Steve and the rest of Five-0 behind when Steve wasn’t sitting across from him, fidgeting and twitching all over the place.

“Okay,” Steve shrugs, “I’ll put it into words. I don’t want a break. I want us to give this a shot.”

“A shot-“ Danny gasps in outrage that’s only half-pretend. “Bonding is not something you ‘give a shot’, Steven, bonding is just something that happens, something you do, ideally, and usually, for life!”

“Danny-“

“It’s not something you try on for size and then get rid of, it’ll just be harder down the road if we don’t end this right now, okay?”

“Danny!”

“I’ve been through this, Steve,” he says, not ready to allow Steve to talk yet, not when Steve looks like he’s got something to say too and Danny just remembers all of this, with Rachel, from the other side. Pleading her to give them another shot, to not leave, and then both of them whisper-screaming at each other in order not to wake Gracie up because she was sleeping in the next room, their beautiful, perfect daughter and if they couldn’t make it work for Grace, how could he and Steve have any ridiculous ‘shot’ at succeeding? “I can’t, I can’t do it a second time, so I’ll thank you to take your half-assed talk of shots somewhere else.”

He doesn’t really expect Steve to just get it and get out, but Steve’s outwardly projected calm is just wrecking Danny’s nerves here. The guy shifts forward in his seat, like physical proximity will make Danny believe him.

“Danny, I’m not making myself clear here – I think we can do this. We’re good together, you and I, and… I trust you.”

Danny gets that for Steve, trust is probably a far larger issue than love, considering that the people Steve loves have betrayed him time and time again. Steve’s heart is a lot more inviting than it looks, but his trust is something to be earned, and Danny feels privileged to be among the select few who have.

“I trust you too, buddy,” he gives Steve a smile, small and a little sad, because trust is nice, but Danny knows what he has to say next. “That still doesn’t mean we should proceed with this. I mean… we’d just be painting massive targets on our backs. Have you seen what people are like when two guys, or two women, are bonded?”

“It’s not like half of the island doesn’t already think we’re married,” Steve shrugs, like it’s no big deal, and Danny kinda wants to strangle him, just a bit.

“Not the same, Steve, you know that just as well as I do. Plus I have Gracie to think of… it’s bad enough she’s the kid of a broken bond… do you know what she’d have to endure if it got out that her dad’s bonded to another guy now? That both her parents found new mates, and so quickly, none the less?”

Danny can only imagine the stupid jokes. He’s not going to allow any stuck-up special snowflake call his baby girl a mistake.

“Nobody would have to know, Danny. We could just… you know. Keep it quiet.”

“What, like a secret affair?” Danny scoffs. “Are you asking me to have an affair with you, McGarrett?”

“Neither of us is married or mated, but if you need that illicit twist to it to get you going, sure,” Steve’s mouth turns up in that contagious, playful grin. They’re almost back to their usual banter for a second, and Danny’s drinking it up like a thirsty man in an oasis, he is, but Steve’s words just make him frown again, in the end, when he gets over how stupidly goofy and attractive Steve is at this very moment.

“What about that, Steve? Marriage?”

Steve blinks, obviously confused.

“Well, there’s civil union, but we’ve definitely skipped a few steps-“

“No, doofus, I’m talking marriage, as in you, some nice woman, having kids, you know… the whole deal,” Danny gestures wildly around himself, and it hurts a little that he can imagine that, Mr. and Mrs. McGarrett and their little perfect-kid army (Navy, it’s NAVY, Steve’s voice echoes in Danny’s skull like a reminder of the things he shouldn’t want this badly). Now he just needs to sell this idea to Steve, somehow. “You’d be robbing yourself of that, buddy, because I like to think I’m an understanding guy, but I’ll be honest here: I don’t think I could stand being bonded to someone who would go and marry someone else.”

“Is that your only problem with this, then?”

Danny feels like he’s missing something here, because Steve says ‘the only problem’ as if Danny has just admitted that he could be bonded to Steve, if only Steve bought new kitchen chairs or let him drive his own car sometimes. No, wait, scratch that: Steve would definitely kick up a bigger fuss about the driving thing.

“Well it’s a BIG problem, don’t make it sound like I’m making a huge deal out of nothing, Steven. I’ve seen how you are with Grace, how you are with cases that include parents and kids, and… don’t you want that for yourself? I mean… you know bonds are predominantly supposed to be about kids. We wouldn’t have that.”

Steve just looks at him for a while, and Danny considers rephrasing the problem somehow, because it seems that the words aren’t penetrating Steve’s brain after all – but then Steve comes back online somehow because he tilts his head a little to the side, his brow creased.

“Was that what you meant back then? With the ‘glitch’ thing? I thought it was because you were… you know,” Steve mumbles the last part through a sort of a weird full-body twitch, which he would probably deny but Danny can read him, so he just waits it out until Steve finally manages: “Straight. Freaking out.”

And okay, Danny can’t believe Steve has been thinking about that the whole time, about one stupid word Danny said in a fit of rage and didn’t even really mean. Okay… he CAN believe it, he just feels like a jerk all of a sudden, and it’s not his favorite feeling of all time.

“I am,” he concedes with a small smirk, then clarifies: “Well. I am definitely freaking out, but it’s not because of some existential sexuality crisis. Even if I thought I was straight too. Mostly.”

Steve gives him a goofy half-smile at that, and how can he manage to appear both smug and bashful at the same time, Danny will never understand.

“Same here, buddy. But I also thought I would never bond with anyone, and then you came along and when I realized what was going on… I don’t want to stop this, Danny. You’re my one chance at something special, something deeper, and I’m not going to let it just slip away. If you don’t want to tell anyone, fine by me… just give us a chance.”

“You could still find someone,” Danny says, and he really wants to specify that, someone normal, someone better, someone who can give you kids and a real family… someone not yet broken. But none of that fits, so he just leaves it hanging in the air for Steve to take it as he would.

Of course, Steve’s response is another scowl:

“I already have. And he’s a stubborn jerk who refuses to acknowledge a chance at something good when it’s hanging in front of his nose.”

“What if you find another person to bond with later on, huh?” Danny snarls, and he’s really glad all of a sudden that his parents are out of the house because having this conversation with either of them listening in would be mortifying. Well. More mortifying.

“Danny,” Steve sighs, rubs at his neck wearily. “That’s not just improbable, but likely impossible. How many people do you know who bond twice in their lives? I’ve been around the world a few times, and I’ve seen maybe… five or six cases of that. And that number goes down to maybe three if I don’t count you, Rachel, and our recent case. So why can’t you just give this a try? I know it’ll be harder if you decide you don’t want this further down the road, but you’ve got all the time in the world to make us both miserable later.”

“Oh, happiness, is it? Plenty of people are happy without a bond,” Danny huffs, but he can feel his defenses slipping, his heart already skipping down that sunny path of rainbows and unicorns and all the content warmth that awaits beyond the first curve of the road if he’s only brave enough to take it. Of course, there’s equal chance there’s just misery down that very road… but the way Steve’s been phrasing this, like he’s one-hundred-percent sure that HE won’t be the one to get cold feet, like the only possible negative outcome in this is if DANNY doesn’t want it to happen… it fills Danny with both confidence and dread. Because it feels like the responsibility of this decision is his – like Steve has already zoned in on their bond with his laser focus, and Danny knows from experience that Steve doesn’t let go of things easily. He doesn’t let himself want things easily, either, so even if Danny has been sorely disappointed in a bond before, he’s reluctantly inching towards the decision to stop comparing Steve and Rachel and give the man that chance he’s pleading for.

Then, Steve slides over the sofa in one smooth move, and his hand catches Danny’s over the armrest of the old chair.

“Danny… you make me a better person, a better man, every day. You drive me crazy half the time, yeah,” he chuckles, shakes his head, and shit, Danny’s heart is already melting. “But I want you right next to me. Always. If the same’s at least a little bit true for you, please. Give us this chance.”

And fuck him if that’s not the most perfect thing Danny’s heard in the last… heck, he doesn’t even know how long. He takes a deep breath and the tinny voice in his head yelling it’s an awful idea is drowned by the steady, approving thrum of his heart.

“Steve… I-… okay,” he says, but before Steve’s face can brighten too much, he holds up a hand: “Wait, wait. I didn’t mean I agree one hundred percent. I want you to go home now, and think really hard about whether you want to do this, for real. I know how you think, buddy, and it’s always shoot first, ask questions later. So I want you to ask questions first, for a change, just this once. Think this through. Weigh pros and cons, make a list, I don’t care, just… think about it. I’ll be back the day after tomorrow, and then it’s my Grace weekend, and we can talk afterwards, but I want you to have a clear idea of what you’re getting into. What we would be getting into. Alright?” 

Steve deflates a little, the joy in his face transforming to something calmer, like understanding.

“Alright,” he repeats, smiling at Danny a little bit – and then he’s leaning over and brushing his lips against Danny’s and it’s… wow, okay, Danny’s too old to believe in fireworks and butterflies, but it’s nice, it’s comforting and strangely enough, familiar, and Danny can imagine waking up and going to bed every day, knowing that this was in store.

He pulls back anyway and chuckles, shaking his head.

“Steve. I haven’t said ‘yes’ yet.”

“I know,” Steve grins, “but you said I should think about every aspect. So I guess you should too.”

………………………

It does get a little easier after that. The headaches ease into just a little bit of pressure, and Danny wonders if it’s because he’s not actively fighting the bond or because Steve calls four times in the days it takes Danny to board a plane to Oahu. Danny’s kinda glad he forgot to renew the phone ban. They tiptoe their way through the first call, a little too cautious, a little too avoidant of the elephant on the same line, but the second time is better, and the third time consists mostly of Steve being cheeky and being repaid with a loud rant, so Danny guesses they’re okay.

More than okay, really, if the way Steve looks at him when Danny steps into the arrivals hall is any indication. He must’ve been serious about being okay with keeping their bond, or a possible relationship, under wraps, because he doesn’t try to kiss Danny again, just offers a hug that really couldn’t be called anything but brotherly – there’s back-slapping and ‘hey, buddy’, the whole package. Danny’s not disappointed, no, he didn’t expect a make-out session in the middle of a damn airport, but… Jesus, these past two days have brought another aspect of a bond to his attention, an aspect that had him waking in the middle of the night, hot and sweaty and breathing hard, and it wasn’t because of a nightmare.

Danny knows he should’ve told Steve not to come pick him up, but shit, that thirty-minute ride in his own car, with Steve behind the wheel, makes Danny feel like he’s come home. It’s a hundred fucking degrees outside and Danny’s boiling in his own skin, and yet he breathes easier now that he knows Steve will always be just a few miles away, tops. Unless he decides to go on a suicidal vengeance mission halfway across the world again, and that’s another can of worms that Danny doesn’t want to touch with a ten-foot pole.

To his relief, Steve doesn’t linger, just pulls up at Danny’s house and leaves him to his thoughts (and a stocked fridge, which is both slightly creepy and weirdly heartwarming). Thanks to jet-lag and a swirl of confusing thoughts, Danny drops onto his sofa-bed and doesn’t get up until seven in the morning when he has to drag himself into a shower, get some coffee and pick up his little princess.

“Can we go to Uncle Steve’s?” is the first thing out of Gracie’s mouth right after the obligatory ‘hey, Danno’, and Danny bites his lip for a moment, glancing at his daughter.

“Not today, monkey. Uncle Steve’s busy.” Thinking about whether or not he really wants to bond with your daddy, he adds in his mind and sends a quick prayer to the heaven that whatever the final decision between him and Steve is, Gracie won’t be affected.

“Why not?” she pipes up, and god, Danny knows that tone, not really on the way to a tantrum but definitely displeased.

“We can go to the beach, no problem,” he offers, sure that his daughter just needs something to feed her unhealthy attachment to saltwater, but Grace’s eyebrows draw up in a way that’s almost eerily similar to Steve.

“It’s not the beach. Not just the beach,” she amends because she’s a good kid and she’s been brought up never to lie. “Is Uncle Steve busy?”

“Yeah, a little.”

And that’s technically not a lie – Steve should be busy giving a serious thought to their situation, and Danny tries not to feel all warm and fuzzy about the idea that Steve might be thinking about him right now. Jesus, he’s not a hormonal teenager anymore, what’s wrong with him, he should be focusing on his perfect baby.

Who looks a tiny little bit less perfect with that unhappy face on.

“Did you two have a fight?” she asks pointedly, and Danny looks at her properly this time, gaping just a little.

“No, we- how did you even think about that, monkey? We’re fine, Uncle Steve and I. No fighting.”

“Because we usually go to his house when I’m staying with you for a whole weekend. And now we’re not, and he said that he was never too busy to have us over, so I thought you two must be fighting.”

Danny blinks, trying to think back to a weekend with Grace that didn’t involve Steve at least for a few hours, a lunch or a dinner, a quick swim or Steve tagging along on a hike. It’s not that he can’t remember a time with Gracie without Steve, it’s just that he has to dig really deep to find those memories. She’s right – not going to Steve’s this weekend does feel a little weird even to Danny, who knows the reasoning behind giving Steve some space to think, alone, without any distractions. Danny should be doing the same, frankly, but his daughter will always come first for him, and he knows that Steve wouldn’t even think of arguing with that.  

“Will Uncle Steve come to my dance recital?” Grace interrupts his thoughts again, her voice full of genuine worry  and Danny freezes as it occurs to him that if Steve’s and his bond has taken on a life of its own, and all this time, Danny has been taking Grace to see Steve too… then Jesus Christ, his beautiful baby girl must be feeling it. It’s ironic, really, that he told Steve to think about every single consequence, every pro and con of keeping or breaking their bond, and Danny himself has missed the most important thing.

Steve isn’t just important to him. Steve’s important to Gracie, and while Danny’s willing to put himself through a second break, he’s definitely not up for robbing Grace of someone who has come to play a major role in her life, to whom she’s grown so attached (and really, how come Danny didn’t think it was weird how quickly she took to Steve). Danny’s not up for kidding himself anymore. He’s given Steve the weekend to think about them, but really, it was for himself. He’s the one who needed to be sure… and now, he is. Now, it’s almost a physical ache, thinking that he should stay away from Steve when he doesn’t really have to anymore.

“Maybe Uncle Steve can be persuaded to get breakfast with us, huh, monkey? And you can ask him if he can make it to your recital,” he says, smiling as he turns the car towards a certain beach house, Grace bouncing happily in her seat and listing off all the places with the fluffiest pancakes where they could go.

Steve’s eyes reach the standard saucer size when he opens the door to find Danny standing there, smiling, and Grace practically collides with the SEAL, giving him a bear hug. Steve automatically crouches down to her level to hug her back, but he’s still staring at Danny like he’s afraid to say something so that it won’t be the wrong thing.

“Danno said you’re busy,” Gracie pulls back and smiles at Steve, and Danny’s heart is seized with a sweet ache as he thinks ‘this is where I belong’. “But we thought you might want to have breakfast with us?”

“I thought it was worth a shot,” Danny says slowly. Steve holds his gaze for a moment and Danny can see the exact moment he gets it, because his whole face brightens like a light-bulb, the goofy smile, the squinty happy eyes, the whole nine yards, and Danny has a hard time wondering why he ever thought this was a bad idea.

“How about we throw your dad a ‘welcome home’ party?” Steve turns to Grace with a smile. Just as his daughter launches into a convoluted explanation about why parties should be done in the evening instead of for breakfast, Steve moves closer and touches Danny’s shoulder, and it’s nothing more than it has been the past few months, it’s nothing dramatic or life-changing, but Danny can’t help but smile at how right it feels. Yeah… welcome home it is, he thinks and follows the two to the kitchen.