haolehothead | Timeloop

Entry tags:

- game: tabula rasa

Timeloop

Danny wakes up to the severe pain in his back that only comes accompanied by his pull-out bed. The alarm is blaring, the police radio is sounding that someone needs to check on John McGarrett, and when Danny rolls over to turn off the alarm, his body comes into contact with about two hundred pounds (give or take) of warm flesh. Danny doesn't have to think much to know what this day is. True, the events after he goes to the crime scene are just a little bit more vivid, but he'd been on the island the day that John McGarrett was killed and that was the day he'd picked up the case.

He wakes up fully, giving a wary look beneath him and bracing his weight against Steve's torso with both palms, staring at Steve in the pull-out bed of his crappy apartment. This is going to be so bad for Steve and Danny isn't even sure how to begin going about it. How do you? Steve had been thousands of miles away the first time this happened, there's no way that he's going to deal with this normally. It's Steve, after all.

And the radio keeps asking for someone to check on McGarrett, who went AWOL after lunch.

Danny knows this isn't possible, this has to be a bad dream. He pinches at the flesh of his skin, but it aches thoroughly and now he's faced with the knowledge that he has to figure out how to tell Steve about this. "Steve," he hisses, pushing at him. "Steve, wake up."

First he gets him awake and calm, then they figure out what to do about all this.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Danny lets out a soft sigh and looks at Steve warily, not truly sure how he's coping with the whole thing. He opens his mouth to ask, but is interrupted by another kiss, indulging in that while turning their bodies so he's on the bottom and Steve's atop him. "Hey," he breathes out. "You okay, babe?"

"Yeah," Steve replies, after a moment of dwelling, looking down at Danny as he props his elbow up on the pillow, resting his head in his hand. Even as he says the words, he knows they're the truth. "Yeah, I'm gonna be."

Danny reaches up to let his fingers slide into Steve's hair, playing with the softness lightly as he musters up a tired smile. He's exhausted and he's still a little spooked, truth be told. Where he might have ranted a little about how Steve is so very not okay (or so Danny thinks), he ends up quiet instead, tapping Steve's hip twice just so he'll get off him.

Steve rolls over, stretching out on his back against Danny's side, staring up at the ceiling and just quietly musing, his brow furrowed in thought, one hand resting lightly on his stomach as his brain revisits every word his father had spoken to him.

What he's done - what they did - it may not actually change the outcome of what really happened, but he knows now, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that his father really had cared.

Danny's on his feet while Steve lays out on his back. Danny's half-naked, considering how they went to bed the night before, but he heads straight for the bathroom and closes the door behind him to get some kind of privacy. He's shaken, fuck, he's shaken. His fingers are trembling mildly, but he needs to get it the fuck together when Steve's had to see worse than Danny's experienced.

"Hey!" he calls out, mimicking his normal tone as best as he can. "So, why don't you go blow off some ITF steam this morning, huh?"

Steve sits up slowly in bed, the fingers of one hand smoothing over his hair, and frowns slightly at Danny's words, even though he figures the intention behind them is a good one.

"I don't know," he replies. Actually shooting Victor Hesse had been fairly satisfying in terms of any residual steam Steve might've needed to blow off. "Maybe not today. Do you want breakfast? I could make breakfast."

Danny closes his eyes tightly. He needs a couple hours to himself to just get this out before Steve comes back. He's not hungry, he's not sure he can sleep, and mostly, he just wants to hug Grace so tight that she complains she can't breathe, but he can't do the latter. "Not really hungry," he replies back, a bit feebly.

"Okay," Steve answers, and when there's no other response from Danny's side of the bathroom door, he takes that as a hint. He's dressed in clothes for running and heading out the door without stopping to do anything else - except to let out the dog to do his business - and sets off on his normal jogging route, looping around the Compound and then taking the road back that runs along the beach.

Danny waits until Steve is absolutely and for sure gone before he creeps out of the bathroom and closes the bedroom door. He uses Zulu as a Grace-substitute, not bothering to change out of his pajamas as he curls the pup in as tight as possible, burying his face into the dog's fur as he tries not to scare himself too much with what-ifs and that fleeting moment where there had been nothing at all.

Steve takes a longer run to give himself more time to sit in his thoughts, finishing up his trip with a quick dip in the ocean as he nears their hut. He strips off his shoes and socks, leaving his shirt on the shore alongside them as he dives in, washing off sweat amidst the back-and-forth routine of doing laps. There's something cathartic about the water, cleansing of more than just the obvious sweat and grit of running, and he stays out as long as he's able.

Danny finally rouses, but it's not enough to push him out of bed so much as he sits up with Zulu prowling about his lap curiously, sniffing and whining before plopping right back down, which is as good a sign as any for Danny to follow suit and curl back into the well-worn sheets, pulling the covers right back over his head.

The suit he was supposed to wear (hung lovingly in the closet) goes ignored and Danny remains in the sweats.

Steve dries off outside the hut, leaving shoes out on the porch, and then heads inside, shucking off wet clothes as he goes. He stops in the bedroom after snagging a drink of water, and only has to cast a quick glance in the direction of the bed to know Danny's still there.

He nudges his way in, skin chilled and hair damp, naked, clean and curling up around Danny's sweats-clothed body, nuzzling his way in as he rests his nose against Danny's cheek, one arm thrown across his middle.

Danny lets out a mild yelp when Steve presses in against his warm-body and he gets a sudden shock of cold, but at the same time, it's so goddamn welcome. He lets out a shaky breath that masquerades as a laugh and he lets out a small sound of need as he curls into Steve's naked body. "Hey," he says, voice calm, but broken.

Somewhere, during the run, Steve had stopped to consider the fact that Danny's faced just as much as he has over the past couple of hours - and with Danny, silence always means something. He just pulls himself in even tighter, resting his chin on top of Danny's head. "Hi," he replies.

Danny adjusts, just enough so that he's lethargically positioned atop Steve, a dismal look on his face as he rests his cheek on Steve's shoulder, still feeling weary and worn dry. His little brother always said he was so strong, but Danny doesn't feel it, especially not now. "I want Grace, right now, more than anything," he confesses.

"I know," Steve whispers, reaching up to thread fingers through Danny's hair, over and again, combing through the strands until it almost looks like the way he does it when there's gel involved. "I miss them."

Danny practically leans into the touch like an attention-starved dog, letting out a keen whimper of need when he manages to open tired eyes to Steve, remembering the panic on his face when he'd woken up for the second time. "How are you handling this so well?" he asks, genuinely lost.

"Am I?" Steve asks, wondering out loud. "I'm handling it," he adds, with a small shrug, fingers raking through Danny's hair and gently scratching his scalp. "I don't know how well. Having you here, close - it helps."

Danny lets out another soft sound at the fingers in his hair, his forehead furrowed as he stares up at Steve, adjusting to let his fingers dangle in the small of Steve's back. "Babe," he gets out, before his strength falters and he needs to find it again. "I wasn't raised the way you were. I didn't do the Navy, I'm not...I'm not," he struggles to get the words out. "I can't watch your Dad die like that and come back and be just okay. I can't."

"I never said you had to be," Steve insists, his hand stilling against the back of Danny's neck. "Honestly - Danny, I never said I was completely okay with it. I'm not sure I will be completely okay with it, not for a while - but I'll take my time to dwell, and when I'm here, with you, I'm going to think about the fact that you're here, with me, and you were there with me, every step of the way."

Danny's not even touching on the part that freaked him out the most. He's not sure he can discuss it, just yet. "Steve," he gets out, pained. "I don't know what to do with the knowledge that...I don't even know what happened. All I know is that we went home and your Dad died and then I...and then I..."

Fuck, he can't even get it out.

"It's okay, Danny - you don't have to talk about it right now," Steve whispers, resting a hand on Danny's shoulder and squeezing gently. He can't even begin to comprehend what Danny experienced on his end throughout this entire thing, but he knows it's affected him more deeply than he's admitting.

"I don't know what happened, either. I wish I could offer you some kind of explanation, but know this, Danny. No matter what happens, whether or not it happens again - I will always fight to keep you safe."

"The one thing I do not ever doubt," Danny whispers with a wary laugh, "is that you will go psychotic ninja to protect me. I know that one, Steve, trust me," he promises, easing back in order to strip off his shirt, trying to do the same for his pants in the limited space with Steve's hands on him.

Steve's willing to release a grip on Danny for him to get out of the sweats, rolling over to one side of the bed and curling up beneath the comfort of the bedsheets, warming up after a chilly dip in the ocean. "You bet your ass I will."

Danny shifts and pushes off the sweats, curling back into Steve in order to steal a long kiss from him, letting out a slow moan. "Steve, babe," he murmurs when it's practically electric and for no other reason than he's fully alive to do this.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject