templemarker

til the net breaks
by templemarker

Notes: This, okay, this is now a cliche bingo, even though cliche_bingo is not active right now and I don’t have a card or anything. I just have, you know, an and a roulette wheel of cliches and an propensity to chat spam the former with the latter.

The delightful chaoticallyclev is totally the BAMFy-est artist ever, because she made me this brilliant graphic for my not-cliche-bingo. Thank you so much! And now, on to our third not-a-bingo-square: woke up married.

***

The familiar sound of waves breaking against the shore roused Danny from sleep. He tried to open his eyes and flinched from the sunlight, burying his face back into his pillow. A moment later, he tried again, bringing his left hand up to his face to scrub at his eyes.

When his hand touched his face, he froze. There was metal on his finger.

Danny brought his own hand in front of his face and sucked in a surprised breath. It was a ring, a simple gold band, not the ring he’d had with Rachel–that one had been platinum, her preference–but a different one, in the same spot, hitting the same groove that had been there for years. Until he’d taken off her ring, gave it to his mother to pawn or keep as long as he never had to see it again.

This one. This one was new.

Danny scrambled upwards, wincing against his vicious headache and a soreness in his body, sheet pooling to his waist. He looked to his right. Steve was facedown in the bed, one massive monkey-long arm stretched out into the space where Danny had just been, the other dropped to the far side of the bed. The sheet was draped across his ass, where he was clearly naked beneath it, and–shit.

Danny looked down. He was naked too. Of course he was naked too.

He picked up Steve’s left hand and there it was, a matching band on Steve’s finger, glinting slightly in the morning light.

“Oh, sweet fuck,” Danny said under his breath.

They were in some kind of shack, Danny didn’t know what, but it was some stereotypical paradisical tropical thing with a thatched roof and no real doors, no locks, and a bed that overlooked the ocean. They were in a sea of white sheets, a fan spinning lazily above them and the remnants of their clothes all over the floor. Danny could see his tie poking out from beneath his trousers, and he could remember picking it out, putting it on, but he could not for the life of him remember how they got here.

He slipped from the bed and grabbed his boxers, which were a little stiff with things Danny didn’t want to ask too many questions about. He made a face and rolled them into his button-up, pulling on his trousers and throwing his undershirt over his head. He shoved his tie into his pocket and spared one look back at Steve, who hadn’t moved from his sprawl on the bed.

Danny closed the screen behind himself. He didn’t take the ring off his finger.

*

He drove back to his apartment with his heartbeat throbbing behind his eyes, thankful Steve’s truck was in the lot when he went for his car. At least he wouldn’t be abandoning Steve to massages by lustful wahines or whatever. Danny couldn’t think–his mouth was dry, his eyes were dry, he felt just this side of awful and he had to fucking get out of there.

His apartment was as neat as a shithole could be, and he went immediately to the shower, turning it lukewarm and standing under the weak spray for half an hour. He didn’t think, didn’t let himself think, just went through the motions of cleaning himself off and threw on a pair of boxers, crawling into his bed and closing his eyes.

Whatever happened, he would deal with it tomorrow.

*

Danny’s front door opened, and he sprang awake, gun drawn from the night table and hair falling messily into his face. He slipped from bed and carefully checked his way through his apartment, seeing the shadow of someone heading towards his kitchen. He slid silently into the room, and flicked the light, gun pointed with the safety off.

Steve was standing there looking pissed off and unhappy, a six pack of Longboards in one hand and a frozen pizza in the other.

“Danny,” he said, “please don’t shoot me, I brought beer.”

Danny drew down his gun, clicking on the safety and removing the magazine. He set it on the cheap bookshelf against the wall, and walked into the kitchen. He sat at the island, feet hooked into the stool, and rested his arms on the counter.

Steve set down the beer, pulling one from the pack, popping it and placing it in front of Danny. Then he turned on the oven and unwrapped the pizza.

He was wearing the ring, and Danny’s eyes tracked his hands as they worked.

“I–it sucked when you weren’t there this morning,” Steve said, eyes downcast to the pizza directions.

Danny took a drink of his beer, rolled the bottle through his hands.

“I know we got pretty drunk, but–Danny, the things you said,” Steve said, sounding like it was painful to put together the words.

“Danny,” Steve said, placing his hand over Danny’s on the counter, forcing Danny to look up. “What–”

“I don’t remember,” Danny said roughly, pulling his hand back. “This, you, these,” he said, holding up his left hand, “I don’t remember what happened, I don’t remember what I said, I don’t–I don’t know why we woke up in the same bed this morning.”

There was an awful pause, and Danny wished he could take the words back, but they were too important to take back.

“Oh,” Steve said, and he sounded so tired and small.

Danny took another pull off his beer, stood, and walked out the front door of his apartment to the empty courtyard of the complex.

He left the door open.

*

Steve sat next to him at the pool, his long legs making new ripples. “So, we got married,” Steve said carefully.

Danny snorted.

“That’s not helpful, Danny,” Steve said, kind of prissily, and that was so normal to hear that it almost knocked Danny out of the fucked up head-space he was in.

Steve took a breath, and then took Danny’s hand into his own. Danny let him.

“Last night, when we closed the zoo case, we went out for a drink,” Steve said, and Danny watched the fluorescents in the pool waver with the movements of their legs.

“One turned into four, and we just kept staying up and talking and talking, and drank more, but I–I thought.” Steve stopped. He took a deep breath and continued. “Anyway. You said that you didn’t know how you could be in love with someone who drove you so crazy all the time. And we laughed, and I kissed you in the middle of the bar.”

Danny could feel the flush travel up from his navel to his ears. He–he barely let himself think that, most of the time, just when he was alone with his hand and his heart and his imagination. There was Grace, and this thing with Rachel and Stan, and his stupid brother breaking his heart and his mother blaming him for Matty disappearing, and more assholes to chase down, and. He didn’t have room to think those things, so he didn’t let himself do it.

But he had.

“I said I loved you too,” Steve said, his voice flat with honesty. “I’ve loved you from the moment I met you, since–since the moment you clocked me.” He couldn’t help but smile at that; Danny caught it from the corner of his eye.

“You said the last time you felt this way you’d gotten married to the girl that hit you with a car,” Steve continued, “and I said, you hit me with your fist, and you started laughing, pulling me, close, and said to me, you whispered, you said, let’s do it, let’s get married, I miss being married, I wanna be married to you. That’s what you said to me, Danny, and I told you I wished my mom was there to see it, and you kissed me again and said my mom would have loved you, that you were great with parents. You made me laugh.”

Danny squeezed Steve’s hand, and a shock of breath came out of Steve like he’d been punched. “And Danny, we got a cab and we went to the cheesy, ridiculous all-night chapel, and they didn’t bat an eye because I think they were bored, and we picked out rings and I paid with my credit card and I don’t even remember what the guy said until he said we were married. And you kissed me like–”

Steve was making deep, heaving breaths, and Danny carefully, cautiously, placed his other hand over Steve’s, clasping them together.

“And then we went to the Halekulani, and you got us a room, and then you–you fucked me, and I had never let–I don’t, how could you not remember, Danny?” Steve said, a desperate note threading through his voice, and Danny’s heart was fucking breaking because shit, how could he not remember this. This, one of the top five moments in his life, he fucking married Steven McGarrett and he woke up with no memory and the instinct to bogart.

What an asshole, he thought, disgusted.

They fell into a weird silence, hands still together, and Danny kept breathing until he thought he could speak, say something that wasn’t a useless apology or self-recrimination.

“Steve,” he said, and Steve turned to him immediately, face betraying nothing except quiet resolve and “I’ve taken worse bullets.”

“Steve, I–” he tried again, and choked on the words.

Steve’s face fell a few more degrees towards, “lemme just go self-sacrifice off this cliff here,” and Danny shook it off and found his fucking balls.

“Steven McGarrett, I have loved you since you put my daughter’s welfare above your own pride,” he said stiffly. “Will you marry me.”

Steve’s mouth dropped open, and he seemed stuck on shock for a long moment, but he finally recovered and said, hoarsely, “Yeah.”

Danny blew out a breath and closed his eyes. “I’ll make the first wedding up to you with the second one, okay?” he said, raising a hand to Steve’s face. Steve turned his face into the touch, and Danny closed his eyes again.

“Danny,” Steve said, his voice finally free of tension.

“Yeah, Steve?” Danny said, opening his eyes to see Steve’s face say “I forgive you” and “I love you too, asshole” and probably something like “you better not make me wear a tie to my second wedding.”

“I can see your cock through your boxers,” Steve said, starting to laugh, and Danny looked down and swore.