Disclaimer: I do not own any publicly recognizable characters in this work of fiction, and no profit, monetary or otherwise, is being made through the writing of this. The characters that I can claim 'ownership' of are not representative of any people that I know personally, and what they've chosen to do with their lives is not a reflection of reality.
Warning: This story contains non-consensual sex, as well as drug use. Danny's mostly in his head throughout the course of this fic. There is profanity in this story, and the perpetrators of the assault are teens who are high on drugs (17-19 years old). This story is mostly about recovery. Also features McDanno slash, they are in an established relationship, and Danny has custody of Grace.
A/N: Repetition is deliberate, as is the use of 'poetic' devices.
All in all, it's not that bad.
Being kidnapped.
At least not this time around.
Not that he's been kidnapped all that often.
Or is counting the number of times that he has been kidnapped.
It's not something that one keeps track of, not even in his line of work.
Still.
It's not that bad.
Considering.
"What are you smiling at?" one of the three teenagers asks, upper lip curled in a snarl.
Danny's not sure if it was this teen, or one of the other two, who had slammed the wrench into the back of his head, stunning him enough to give them the upper hand. He'd been seeing double at the time. Still is seeing double a week later, maybe longer. Danny's lost all concept of time. Has no idea how long the three doped up teens have had him.
Danny shakes his head, closes his eyes, opens them, takes a deep breath and shrugs. "Nothing."
Truth is, he's been thinking about home. Steve. Grace. Sitting out on the lanai nursing a beer, the salty smell of the ocean commingling with the scent of steaks grilling on the barbecue. Steve's eyes lingering on him, suggesting all sorts of naughty things that would have to wait until Grace is in bed, fast asleep.
Right now, though, he'd settle for having the full use of his hands, being able to get up to pee on his own, without the help of a grimy teen directing his stream of piss into a plastic bottle.
Circulation would be nice too.
He hasn't been able to feel his fingers properly for days now, and his shoulders feel like they're on fire.
Still, it's not that bad.
Could be much, much worse.
Though, offhand, he can't really think of many things that would be much worse than being held against his will by a group of teenage hoodlums who don't seem to know what they're doing or have an endgame in mind.
From what he can make out of what little they've said to each other - they don't say much to him - they took him just to take him; someone to entertain themselves with. The fact that he's a cop is just icing on the cake.
The only thing that they do seem to understand is how to shut him up.
Turns out that dirty socks stuffed into his mouth when he even so much as opens it to do anything other than answer a direct question, or perform a task that has nothing to do with talking, works wonders for stilling his tongue.
He'll have to remember not to tell Steve about that part of this ordeal.
The last thing he needs is to have one of Steve's thick, sweat soaked socks stuffed into his mouth.
Not much foreplay in that.
Besides, there are other things of Steve's that Danny would much rather have in his mouth. Things that might make it difficult for him to speak, and which would render Steve nearly incoherent and speechless himself should Danny's mouth be applied to them.
The scowling teen whose turn it is to watch him slaps him across the face, hard enough to shock him back into reality. Danny blinks the image of a speechless Steve from his mind, fingers nestled in Danny's hair as he silently begs Danny to let him come.
He misses the image.
Misses Steve. Grace. The lanai. Steaks. Saltwater. The beach, even though it's not his thing.
Danny focuses on the teen that he's dubbed Freckles. Red hair, skin so white that it's nearly translucent - probably from drug use and staying indoors playing violent video games - it makes the brownish red freckles practically pop on his thin, grimy face.
The teen's cheeks are flushed, his eyes - one blue, the other brown - are glassy, and he's got a vacant look on his face. He settles himself on Danny's lap, hands rucking up the black tee-shirt that Danny had borrowed from Steve when he'd gotten blood on his work shirt sometime last week.
Danny doesn't remember the day. Just remembers Steve taking the shirt off his back and handing it to him like it was an everyday occurrence. Muscles glistening in the hot sun. A sun Danny hasn't seen in days, and he wonders if there still is a sun that rises and sets, or if the world has turned completely dark.
He doesn't fill the tee-shirt out like Steve does, and it's nearly rancid now from sweat and other bodily fluids - some his own, others not his own. He'll have to buy Steve a new one. Just as soon as Steve comes for him.
His stomach clenches, and he bites his lip, closes his eyes and wills himself away from the clammy hands that rake over his overly heated flesh. Tries not to tense up, because it will make the strain on his shoulders (being handcuffed - with his own handcuffs - to a pipe coming from the wall is uncomfortable enough without any of this other crap going on) worse. The thin, ratty, bug infested mattress that lies beneath his ass offers very little comfort.
When he gets out of here, he's going to buy a new mattress. One that isn't too hard, like Steven's, or too soft like the one he's sitting on. One that will be good enough to please both Goldilocks, and Super SEAL.
The room's windows are boarded up, and with his eyes closed, Danny feels like he's suffocating.
He's been here for minutes, hours, days, nights, an eternity of hell.
Part of him knows that, even when Steve and the others do find him, he'll never really leave this place, these hands, the drugs that sometimes send him far away from this broken down place, and into a different sort of hell altogether.
Sometimes he burns.
Others, it feels like ice is pumping through his veins, slicing him open.
It's worse when he feels nothing at all - like he's been hollowed out, and is spinning, spinning, spinning in a black, empty hole that will never end.
His stomach hurts, especially when the drugs first leave his system. He eats whatever is shoved at him. A bite of a sandwich that's passed around between the four of them. Moldy bread. A spoonful of cold beans. Melted ice cream. Greasy shrimp and cold rice. Nothing at all, because drugs are more important than food, and a needle pricks his skin instead.
What he wouldn't give for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, or one of Kamekona's shrimp plates, or a burnt batch of Rachel's chocolate chip cookies, hard as a rock. Hell, he could even go for one of Steve's healthy tofu, seaweed shakes right about now.
Sometimes he turns his head and licks the condensation off the brick wall, because water isn't a given. Once he was forced to drink his own pee, or maybe it was the pee of one of his captors. It was salty and warm. Danny had nearly gagged, but he'd been forced to swallow a full bottle of it.
Though he knows Steve probably has his own adventurous tale about drinking pee while on some foreign op, Danny doesn't want to exchange pee drinking stories when he's free. He wants to go home, beg Steve to fuck him blind, and forget it all.
But he knows better than that, knows that what's happening now, what happened in previous days, and days to come, will remain with him for as long as he lives.
It'll come to him in memories that will take hold of him when he least expects them to, nightmares; he'll see the ghosts of his captors in Grace's boyfriends when she's old enough to date and Steve will have to pry his fist loose, hold his hand, keep him from doing something stupid because Grace wouldn't date these types of losers.
The fingers are long and bony and cold. They make it impossible for Danny to lose himself anymore in his musings as they scrape and pinch him. They make him flinch and his skin crawl, and Danny holds his breath when Freckles' mouth latches onto his neck, sucking a mark there with loud, obnoxious sounds that make him sick.
Freckles' mouth moves from the tender skin on his neck to his jawline. Danny's stomach lurches. He fights off a wave of dizziness, the sudden urge that he has to lose yesterday's random meal of stale cereal.
"The drugs make him horny," another teen, the one Danny calls Twitch, says with a titter.
The slight teen's high-pitched laughter echoes in the small room. Makes Danny think of a hyena, and Grace's fascination with the wild dogs, Steve's patience when they'd visited the exhibit at the zoo, the way he'd hoisted her up onto his shoulders and pointed out each of the animals to her, even the ones hiding in the brush. The way that he'd blindly reached for Danny's hand, held it like it was the most natural thing in the world for them to hold hands in public.
Danny's mind goes blank and he tries to remember to breathe when Freckles starts to grind against him, hips rocking forward to create friction, bony fingers slipping between them, loosing flesh and gripping, pulling, stroking, stroking, stroking...
Danny's cheeks are wet and his eyes are closed, but everything is white instead of black behind the comfort of his eyelids.
He's trying to hold on, hold back, keep himself in control, even as he slip slides out of control.
The bony fingers make his body do what he doesn't want it to do, respond in a way that he tells it not to.
It doesn't listen. It never does. Thinks it knows better. That he needs this. But what he needs is Steve. Warm, firm fingers, calloused from work with guns, from tinkering with an old, beat up car.
His body doesn't care. Doesn't listen to his mind as it screams, screams, screams, shouts a denial. Denounces the reactions that are wrought by fingers that feel like death.
He's being fucked by a skeleton, and his body doesn't get it. Doesn't seem to understand that it's wrong.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Freckles' soft exhalations bounce off of Danny's cheek, his ear, the inside of his mouth.
They tear him apart, and he has to bite back his body's betrayal, keep his mouth from joining Freckles' mantra.
"Fuck, unh, unh, fuck, fuck, fuck, unh, gonna, gonna, gonna, fuck, unh, unh, unh..."
Hardness pressed together, come slicked fingers that slide and grip and twist and hurt.
Danny cries, stifles the sound of it by biting his tongue. The taste of copper explodes in his mouth, as his body surges up, off the mattress, arms pinioned behind and slightly above him. It hurts, feels like he's being torn apart, but he quickly falls into place, back against the brick wall.
Freckles' wet, slobbery mouth is gumming his jaw, working its way toward Danny's mouth, and Danny can't feel a damn thing in the warm, sticky aftermath of being used.
He's shaking, can feel the brick scraping at his back, but it doesn't hurt.
Nothing hurts.
There's a ringing in his ears and his mouth opens when Freckles' tongue worms its way in.
Freckles' mouth tastes sour and it makes Danny gag. It reminds Danny of the first time one of them had shoved a sock into his mouth - took it right off his foot and just jammed it in there - when he'd been trying to talk them into letting him go, explaining that he was a cop, that he had a daughter.
"Knock that shit out," their leader, tall, lanky, all muscles, snarls.
Danny's named him Crow, because of his shock of black hair and dark eyes. The kid looks nothing like Brandon Lee.
They're all skin and bones. Wasting away on drugs and junk food. Dying from the inside out. Maybe even dying since the day they were born.
"Fucking idiot." Crow hauls Freckles off of Danny, sends him sprawling across the room.
Freckles smirks at his leader, at Danny, pulls his pants up - they were down to his knees - and shrugs. The teen's already half-hard again.
Stamina, teenage hormones, Danny thinks. He wonders if he's going mad.
"Shit, ain't the first time I fucked him. You fucked 'im, too," Freckles accuses.
Danny doesn't want to think about it. Doesn't want to remember.
Crow shakes his head, jerks his chin in Twitch's direction. "Clean 'im up."
Danny shudders, swallows past the lump in his throat, reminds himself that things could be worse. That it could be Grace sitting here on the mattress, or Kono. That either one of them could be in his place, drugged up, providing entertainment for a group of derelict teens.
It's not that bad. It isn't.
He closes his eyes, forces breath in and out of his nostrils, tries not to think about the way that Twitch's fingers linger, or the way the boy shakes as he's cleaning him, tucking him back into his jeans.
His zipper sticks halfway up, and Danny almost laughs, but it's not funny. Nothing is funny about any of this.
This is a story he never wants to tell. Fodder for nightmares that he doesn't want to have, but knows he will, because he will be found, and he will be rescued, no matter how long it takes for Steve, Kono and Chin to find him.
"Leave him alone," Crow orders, and Danny sags in relief when the other two teens saunter from the room.
The older teen's breath stinks, and he's close enough for Danny to see the scar that graces the youth's cheek, just beneath his left eye. It's distinctive. Something that Danny will never forget.
Crow's his dealer, pusher, whatever. Ties off his arm, digs the needle in, and releases the drugs.
He stays a few seconds, minutes, hours, to watch. Laughs when Danny, influenced by drugs, cries or starts to panic and talk about things that aren't there.
Waits until Danny's head lolls on his neck, chin tilted forward, resting on his chest.
Sometimes he settles himself on the mattress beside Danny, takes a hit himself, shares in the shakes, or the laughter or the tears, or whatever madness befalls Danny in the minutes, hours, days that the drug rides his system.
Leaves when it's over, and lets Twitch or Freckles pick up the pieces of Danny that have shaken themselves free.
When he returns, minutes, hours, days later, it starts over again. A perpetual loop. A nightmarish roller coaster that rises and plunges and makes death defying turns that leave Danny panting, his heart jack-hammering in his chest.
Danny has no idea how much time has passed since Steve gave him the shirt off his back, since the last time Crow pumped him full of a drug that makes his blood itch, makes him want to die, makes him feel like he can fly and kiss the sun. Makes him forget, momentarily, where he is, what's happening to him.
He shakes his head when Crow leans over him, greasy hair brushing across Danny's cheek, his forehead. "No...please, I...I have a little girl..."
It's useless, his begging. He won't drag Grace's name into this.
He's surprised by the soft chuckle, the press of the teen's knuckles against his cheek, the inky depth of the boy's eyes. They're like drops of oil, not flat and glassy like those of the other two. They hold a spark of intelligence that's not been touched or broken by drugs, or whatever abuses he's suffered in his short seventeen, eighteen, nineteen years of life.
This boy is still human, but Danny can't get through to him. Can't reach past the feral nature of the boy to the portion of humanity that lies hidden beneath the rough exterior.
Words don't work. Haven't worked yet.
He licks his lips, tongue darting over the dry, cracked skin. There's little moisture, and he tastes like Freckles, like the dirty socks that have been shoved into his mouth when he's made any attempt to communicate.
"Relax." It's a whispered command. "It'll all be over soon."
Swallowing, Danny closes his eyes, refuses to acknowledge the words. He doesn't feel the prick of the needle.
Liquid fire courses through his veins, sets his heart aflame. There are tiny red ants crawling all over him, inside of him, and there's nothing he can do to make them stop.
He screams until his throat is raw; scrabbles, in vain, against his handcuffs, against the brick wall.
"Please, please, please," he begs, eyes opened wide in terror, staring into pools of thick, black oil that laugh at him, mock his pain, his misery.
Hands cup his face, skeletal fingers dig in, and he's being held down, pinned to the mattress by a body that weighs less than his own.
He's powerless to stop it, can't make his body, his mind, listen to reason, because there is no reasoning with fire. It licks, it eats, it burns, and it doesn't stop. Will never stop.
"Shh...just let go," Crow urges, lips pressed against Danny's forehead in a mockery of familial intimacy. "You're okay man, just let go. It's okay. It'll be over soon."
Danny lets go, lets the fire, and Crow's voice, his lips, his hands, take him away.
And it is over soon, like Crow promised it would be, though Danny has no idea how much time has actually passed between one moment and the next. He's floating, floating, floating, and then he's gone, being lifted up in the arms of an angel with a broad chest and hard muscles that ripple beneath a shirt that's too tight.
Gabriel or Michael, Danny isn't sure which archangel is holding him. Doesn't matter, though. He'll return to Grace, to Steve, as a guardian angel. Watch over them, keep them safe from people like Freckles and Crow and Twitch.
Dark, steel blue eyes, the color of a storm tossed sea bring him back. The ocean crashes to shore, the sound of his heart beating drowns out everything, and Danny struggles to make his eyes focus.
"Danno." His daughter's name for him passes through lips that are not Grace's. Lips that are turned downward in a deep frown, and Danny squints at mouth. It's familiar. It's not the mouth of the angel of death after all.
"My name's Danny," he manages to push past lips that feel like rubber, eyes closing with the effort that speech took.
A dry chuckle makes him force his eyes open again, because there's something that he's missing. Something he needs to see. To know. To remember.
"Steve?" Danny isn't sure whether to laugh or cry. Can't get the muscles of his mouth to do what he wants them to do, or his eyes to stop closing.
"Wh'-ho-wh'r?" He knows his lips are moving, trying to give shape to words that his mind can't seem to grab onto. Each question that he wants to ask vies for attention, tumbles out past his dry lips as though they're a single entity.
"Shh, Danny, it's okay. I've got you now. It's over," Steve's voice reassures him.
The man's trembling. Steve doesn't tremble, but Danny can feel it through Steve's chest and his arms, the way that Steve leans against the wall as he crushes Danny to his chest and works his fingers through his tangled mop of hair.
Danny licks his lips, tries to get his eyes, his lips, his mouth to cooperate as he looks at Steve, marvels in the tender, yet haunted look that Steve's giving him. "G-got-ta shower an' shave."
Another dry chuckle, and Steve's eyes are filled with tears. Danny shakes his head, tries to say something that will make things better, take away the look of pain, the tears that are now falling from Steve's eyes.
"Okay, D." Steve nods, clutches him closer yet, fakes a smile. "When we get home, we'll get you all cleaned up. You're safe now," he repeats.
He's safe in Steve's arms, Danny knows this, but he won't feel truly safe until he's back home again, lying in bed beside Steve, Grace in the next room.
"Home," Danny says, lifts a shaking hand to Steve's face and brushes at the tears there. His shoulder burns with the movement, and he feels pathetic, weak, like he's spent the past week or so compressed in a small, contortionist's box.
Steve nods, and his smile becomes less fake. He presses a kiss to Danny's forehead.
"Home," he agrees, and he places his lips against Danny's, grimaces at the damage he finds there.
"Clear. I've got him. I've got Danny." Steve's voice sounds tinny, as though he's speaking into a can, but there's a sense of relief in his tone.
Danny, knowing, at least in part, that it's over, lets go completely and closes his eyes. He ignores Steve's frenetic pleas for him to open them, and to stay awake.
He'll do that once they're out of this hell hole. Once they're home - the peaceful, lulling sound of waves crashing to shore - he'll do as Steve asks.
He's barely aware of the hustle and bustle surrounding him. The arrival of an ambulance, being moved from Steve's arms and onto a gurney, the journey to the hospital, and everything that takes place after that.
Exams and tests are run, and Danny answers questions like a parrot repeating back its owner's words. He's numb and tired and just wants to go home and sleep away the week - Steve had told him that he'd been gone for nine days - that he'd lost.
It seems like an eternity before he's given clean clothes and allowed to take a shower, Steve standing just outside of the stall, silently offering help should he need it.
He doesn't.
Would welcome Steve's presence in the shower with him - exchanging blowjobs; exploring each others bodies with tongues, fingers, mouths - at any other time, but this.
Today he needs the privacy, the time to gaze at his body, at what has been done to it, without the jealous, guilt-ridden, pained eyes of his lover looking on.
He needs time to quietly weep, and mourn. Time to let the spray of the shower-head wash his tears away and down the drain.
Time to symbolically wash off the invisible dirty hands that he can still see in his mind's eye, the memory of them touching, stroking, pinching...
Time to simply be by himself - he hasn't been alone for what feels like years - and let the memories of what happened wash over him, catch in the drain and flow away.
There are a thousand questions in Steve's eyes once the drama of finding Danny's passed, and they're safely ensconced in the hospital, but Danny doesn't want to answer any of them. At least not yet. Maybe not ever.
Danny relishes the feeling of being clean, though his mind reminds him that he'll never be completely clean ever again. That there will be dark memories that will be triggered by loving touches, or innocently spoken words.
There'll be nightmares, and maybe flashbacks.
He'll have to see a shrink for the next foreseeable future, and that's okay. He's fine with that. He knows that talking about it, getting it out in the open rather than bottling it all up, will help.
But right now, he's safe, and clean and in clean clothes, and it's good, and he just wants to live in the moment. Be warm, and comfortable, not feel like his skin is crawling with insects, or worse.
According to the doctor, he'd developed a few bedsores, and his muscles had started to atrophy. In addition to a slight concussion, he also has the start of what could possibly be an upper respiratory infection and will need to be tested every few months for AIDS.
Though he doesn't remember anal penetration, according to the findings of the SAE kit, it happened, and he's not sure how to feel about it, because it means that it happened when he was so out of it on drugs that it didn't even register in his mind.
He remembers hand jobs, the forced blowjobs, and some other stuff that went on, but it's as though he's seeing it through a stranger's eyes. Like it didn't really happen to him. That's almost scarier than the stuff that he doesn't remember.
Steve's propped up on the bed beside him, their fingers entwined, thumb stroking the pink scarring left behind by Danny's struggle with the handcuffs. There's only a dull ache there now.
Danny's happy that it was Duke who came to take his statement, and not Chin, or Kono.
Though there was sympathy in the seasoned cop's eyes, there was no pity, or recrimination, and his questioning was matter of fact. He didn't blame Danny for what happened, and didn't let Danny sink into self-blame when he veered off topic.
He'd told Danny that the boys who'd taken him had done this before; that the man they'd kidnapped several months ago had been killed - an overdose of drugs that had, at the time, been deemed accidental. They'd thought the man was a junkie. They hadn't known about the kidnapping, had only connected all of the bits and pieces of the case once Danny had been found, and the boys had started talking, tripping over themselves to confess, hoping to get lighter sentences for what they'd done if they ratted out the others.
According to Duke, they'd spun a sob story of abuse and neglect at the hands of mothers' boyfriends, and step-fathers.
Danny can't find it in himself to feel anything but hatred for the boys who'd done this to him- two of them seventeen, and one of them nineteen.
Their story, even if it is true, is a slim excuse for what they've done to him, and to that other man. Not everyone who is abused kidnaps people and tortures them. Not all of them go out and rape people. Some of them actually make something of themselves, and help those less fortunate.
"I want to go home," Danny says, eyes locked on Steve's thumb, focusing on the soothing sensation of the gentle, purposeful rubbing.
"Soon," Steve promises. "The doctor wants to keep you overnight for observation, let the drugs run their course, and make sure that they've got you on the right antibiotics."
It's not what Danny wants to hear, but he doesn't argue. Lets the rest that's been unspoken - the real fears behind an overnight observation - linger between them. He knows that his mental state is shoddy at best.
"How'd you find me?" he asks the question that has been on his mind for the past nine days.
It's a question that he'd mentally prepared himself to ask the first time that he felt Freckles' rough, bony fingers on him, and he'd imagined the rescue that hadn't happened until he'd been molested multiple times thereafter.
Steve's breath hitches, and he stiffens. It's as though Danny's asked, Why did it take you so long to find me? instead. But that's a question that, no matter how many times Danny's thought it, he won't ask. He knows that cases like this are rough, that breaks don't always come when you want them to, that, though the first twenty-four hours are crucial, there are times when those first twenty-four hours bleed into days, into weeks, and in rare cases when a kidnapping victim is recovered alive, years.
He won't put that kind of guilt onto Steve, or Chin, or Kono. Won't allow Steve to hold onto that kind of guilt either, because it will eat him up alive, and will drive an unscalable wall between them.
Danny squeezes Steve's hand, forces him to look at him, offers an encouraging smile, and air rushes out of Steve as though he's been sucker punched. It's painful to witness, but Danny doesn't look away. He needs to know, though he doesn't understand why, because it should be enough that he's been rescued.
"Kamekona," Steve says, and he laughs. It's a dry, strangled sound that doesn't hold any humor, and Steve's wiping at his eyes with the hand that isn't currently strangling Danny's.
His mouth is twisted in some kind of half-grin, half-grimace that makes Danny want to cry, but he hasn't done that yet. Not in front of Steve. Hasn't shed a single tear publicly, since he's been found, and he doesn't want to, because he knows that once he starts, he won't be able to stop. Not for awhile. He'll keep his tears private for now, so that they won't add to Steve's guilt, and won't snowball out of control.
"Kamekona?" Danny questions, raising a single eyebrow, lips twisting sardonically, the hand not holding Steve's draws a circle in the air, and drops back down to the stiff mattress.
Steve nods, brushes at tears and starts to breathe normally again, relief flooding through at Danny's incredulous tone.
It is kind of funny, and bizarre, and Danny wants to hear the whole story, though he doubts that it'll come out of Steve whole, at least not for awhile. They're both kind of shell shocked after everything that's happened, and just being together is a novel concept right now.
Steve nods, barks out a raspy laugh, and shakes his head. "One of the kids tried to steal from him, and your wallet fell out of the kid's pocket," Steve's voice has a faraway quality to it. "He didn't even notice."
Steve isn't looking at Danny, and there's no doubt in the detective's mind that Steve's remembering that day, going over every single to see if there was something that he missed. Something that would have brought him to Danny sooner.
"It took us a couple of days to follow the trail. They were using one of your credit cards. I think they used up all of your cash," Steve explains. "We set up a stakeout at Kamekona's shrimp truck. One of the kids, I think his name was Charlie West, frequented it."
"Red hair, freckles?" Danny asks, gesturing toward his own face. It's not that he needs to know the real names of the boys who did this to him - Duke had rattled them off to him when he'd gotten Danny's statement, but he hadn't told Danny what they'd looked like. Still, it would be nice to put a real name to at least one of his tormentors.
Steve shakes his head, purses his lips, holds a hand up mid-chest. "Skinny little thing, about yea high," he says. "Dark, dirty hair, olive colored skin."
Danny nods. "Twitch," he says, and laughs at the look on Steve's face.
"I gave each of them a nickname," he explains. "Freckles, Twitch, and Crow."
Steve's hand tightens on his own. "I'm sorry," he says. "I should've -"
"No, Steven," Danny cuts him off, chopping at the air with his free hand. "No, don't apologize. Don't you dare apologize. I'm fine," he stresses the word fine, forces Steve to look at him, to read the truth in his eyes. "I knew that you'd find me, and I never gave up hope. Not once."
The truth behind Danny's words sinks in, and Steve slowly relaxes, finally takes a deep breath and draws their entwined hands upward, presses a kiss to each of Danny's battered and torn knuckles. They're swollen, the brick wall had not been kind to him, but he barely remembers that through the fog of the drugs, and everything else that happened.
"I knew that you'd come for me," Danny says, conviction behind his words. "Never doubted it, not even when..." and here's where he needs to stop, because he doesn't want to go there, not yet. Not when Steve's holding his hand, caressing it softly, lips lingering just over the battered flesh.
He doesn't want the memories of what happened to him to mar this moment. He wants to keep it fresh in his mind, whole, clean, and new. Wants to be able to look back on this time, someday in the future, and remember how tender Steve was, how thrilling the touch of his hand, his lips, felt, how cherished and loved and valued Steve made him feel in this moment.
"I would've torn the entire island apart to find you," Steve admits, voice rough.
Danny laughs.
"Nearly did," Steve confesses with a sheepish look.
"Yeah, we almost had to put him on a leash," Chin says, startling the both of them.
Ignoring the way that Danny flinched at his sudden appearance in the doorway, he enters the room, and bypasses Steve to give Danny a hug.
"It's good to have you back," Chin whispers before pulling away. There are tears in his eyes, but there is no remorse, no guilt, only joy at having recovered something important, and special to him, and that almost makes Danny cry, but he smiles instead.
"It's good to be back," Danny says, voice thick and throat sore from the effort it's taking him not to cry.
"Threats of your demise were highly exaggerated," Kono says in a trembling voice. She's hovering in the doorway, an anxious look on her face, eyes searching Danny before she sees something that makes her smile and finally enter the room.
Her hug causes Danny's heart to skip a beat, makes his chest feel tight. He doesn't want to cry, so he breathes in the scent of her hair - flowers and sea salt - focuses on the warmth and softness of her skin, and lets the memories of surfing lessons, barbecues, simpler times, flood him.
"I missed you," Kono whispers, before kissing Danny's cheek and then pulling away.
"I missed you, too," Danny says, voice husky, eyes searching out Steve's.
"Rest and get better," Chin advises. "We're backlogged on cases, and could really use your help."
It's Chin's way of easing the tension in the room, and it works. Everyone laughs. Though it's a bit forced, it's welcome.
The next few minutes are spent in talking about nothing of import. It's casual, natural, and when Danny bites back a yawn, Chin and Kono bid their adieus, with promises to visit Steve and Danny's place once Danny's settled in. Kono's taking care of Grace, has been taking turns with Chin, watching her throughout this whole ordeal, because Steve hadn't gone home the entire time that Danny had been missing.
Danny fights off sleep long after Chin and Kono have left for the evening, isn't sure that he won't slip back into captivity once he closes his eyes, mistaking dream for a nightmarish reality. It's a terrifying prospect - that he's dreamed all of this, the rescue, the exams, Steve holding his hand and talking to him.
"It's okay, Danny," Steve says. "You can let go. You can go to sleep. I'll be right here. Tomorrow, we'll go home, Kono will bring Grace over later in the afternoon, and we can sit out on the lanai and grill steaks, maybe share a beer, if the doctor okays it."
Danny blinks back tears, squeezes Steve's hand, and finally, finally lets go, though he doesn't want to, because it's painful, and he doesn't want to talk about anything just yet. Doesn't want to face the truth about what happened to him, what it means for his and Steve's future. The future of his little girl who will have to suffer having two very overprotective fathers who won't, for months, let her out of their sight for a minute.
He doesn't want to face the prospect of Rachel fighting him yet again for the custody of his little girl. Though Grace has been solely in his and Steve's care for the past half a year, he knows that something like this might cause another custody battle, that Rachel might try to take Grace away from him.
There are so many uncertainties in his future, and all because of three teenagers who were mad at the world, and decided to take it out on Danny.
It's overwhelming, and the dam breaks. Steve gathers him in his arms, and Danny cries for all that he's lost in the past nine days, and all that he'll have to go through to recover who he was before all of this happened. The trials, the tests, the constant looking over his shoulder, visits to the shrink, waking up cold and sweating from nightmares he's already lived through, but will be forced to live through again and again in disjointed memories.
Danny cries for who he was nine days ago. The loss of Steve's black tee-shirt. The three young boys who hardened themselves instead of getting help. The man that they killed.
And through the torrent of tears, the anguish-filled sobs, Steve remains Danny's rock, whispers love in his ear, caresses his back, holds him so close that it's almost like they're inhabiting the same body.
Steve's cheeks are wet, too. Neither of them feels shame. It's okay to cry. They cling to each other, tears subsiding into broken hiccups when both of them are too exhausted to cry anymore.
Their mouths find each other, lips lock on lips, and they kiss until they're breathless, because there are no more tears and no more words, and what Danny, what Steve, what they both need now, is this, something tangible, the knowledge that what Danny endured hasn't stolen this from them.
It's over almost as quickly as it began, the tears dry up, feverish kissing gives way to gentle touches, and unspoken promises. Steve urges Danny to sleep, lies down beside him so that he can, because Danny doesn't think that he'll ever be able to sleep alone again.
"Thank you," Danny says around a yawn.
Steve kisses Danny's cheek. "You're welcome. Now, sleep, Danny. I've got you, and I'm never going to let you go."
Danny snorts, but doesn't say anything, focuses on the feel of Steve's hand on his, their shared heat, and the steady beat of Steve's heart that he can hear pounding against his ear. It's all familiar and safe, and Danny lets sleep pull him under, knowing that Steve has his back, that he'll help keep whatever nightmares may be waiting for Danny at bay.
All in all, it's not that bad. What he went through. What he'll have to deal with, because of everything that he went through.
Still, it's not that bad.
Considering.
After all, he's got Steve to help him through it all. And it could have been much worse. He could've died, or he could be facing all of this alone.
"I love you, Steven J. McGarrett," Danny mumbles, almost asleep, but not quite.
"I love you, too, Danno," Steve says, a little exasperated. "Now, stop thinking, and sleep."
Chuckling, Danny settles in beside Steve, closes his eyes, and sleeps.