For my own cathartic purposes...
His heart pounds, but not the kind of pounding that drives a man to his knees, because God and his country know that that place is reserved for those willing to admit that it's okay to be in the broken part of the world. It's reverberating in his chest and if he breathes slow enough, he can feel it through his shoulders, down in his spine, and into his feet. His eyes are closed, and for a moment he doesn't even realize it because sand dunes and sandcastles trade places like bolts of lighting streaking across the Mainland sky in the heart of a storm, but eventually they burst into tiny fragments of malfunctioning memories and dissolve into darkness.
The wind discovers the exposed skin of his face and arms, and intertwines between his fingers dangling listlessly at his side as he listens to the sound of waves cresting over and lapping at his feet mere inches away. He pulls himself from the abyss, opening his eyes to see the ocean he's swam in his entire life only to be drowning on land.
His heart continues to pound, this time painfully, as the waves crest over with therapeutic enticement and he shoves a fisted hand into his pants pocket and lets the other hand finger his sternum so he won't give in. However, he's just about to step one foot into the sea, tempted by the hypnotizing notion of something so simple curing something so complex when a voice calls him from behind.
"Steve!"
It's one word, one name, and he doesn't want to, nor does he, turn around, because he's in too many pieces to be considered whole, to be considered Steve.
"Hey, Steven," the voice is closer and undeniably belonging to Danny as he adds that extra 'n' like he contains the ability to become the only person McGarrett can hear. "What in that ridiculous head of yours has you down here while Grover's buying everybody a round of drinks?"
Maybe Danny does have that ability, because he suddenly can't hear the ocean persuading him anymore and he drops his hand from his chest to fist it in his pants pocket opposite the other. He smirks at the man walking through the sand until he's standing beside him and he can get his face molded back into one of a convincible facade. "I was just waiting for the good stuff. You know how he likes to start cheap," Steve shrugs his shoulders and nudges Danny as he turns to make his way back to the restaurant.
He takes the vacant seat at the table beside his partner and wiggles to pretend he's just getting comfortable in order to hide the squirm he feels at the tightness in his chest. He offers an annoyed eye roll at whatever it is that Grover says, but he can't hear, and wraps his hand around the cold neck of the bottle Chin nudges his way across the table.
He takes a long sip, feels the familiar burn down his throat before placing the glass back down on the table without letting go. He turns his head in the direction of Jerry, who's talking about something Steve can't seem to grasp as if he's speaking a different language, but one glance at the others shows awaited ruptures of laughter forming behind their lips, so he rubs a hand over his own as if to figure out why they aren't working properly. He receives no answer, and his brain seems to burst like a bull from a cage in search of something to focus on. It latches on to the outbreak of screams from the bar as fans of whatever sport is playing on the TV cheer for their team, but it makes his leg jerk and he keeps it bobbing when Danny's head turns to look at him.
He takes another drink, just long enough that Danny will turn away without asking and drops the drink in his lap and squeezes the neck of it as his pulse beats against his own.
"Hey, McGarrett! McGarrett! Just squeeze, dude. Squeeze and stay with me, and don't get perverted on me. I know you got a thing for Rollins," Jamie yells over the sound of gunfire erupting around them. He leans over him, pushing a hand in his, instructing him to squeeze in pulses and focus on the muscles in his hand.
His body shivers hard enough that Jamie thinks he's disobeying an order and yells at him again, "Trust me, McGarrett. Do it, or when we get back to base I'm going to tell Rollins why we call you Smooth Dog."
Steve squeezes the neck of the bottle, his knuckles turning white before he releases it and does it again. He's in a rhythm now, knuckles rolling like the waves of the ocean, and he squeezes it just a bit harder when something brushes up against his arm.
He has to open his eyes to look, and he feels like busting the glass to shards when he can't remember when he closed them, but he glances at Danny who's leaned back casually in his chair far enough that their shoulders touch and answering a question that was directed at Steve by the looks being sent his way by everyone else.
"Time to get that third round," Grover says and Steve does burst the bottle after that because his voice, along with everything else in the room, pierces in his ears with such suddenness that the bottle slips from his fingers as he jerks his leg again.
They're all looking his way as he kicks the glass with his feet, struggling to get words to stick to his tongue, but something must have happened, because Chin is standing up and taking Grover with him to get that third round and all the rest start having a forced conversation before Danny can wrap a hand around his arm and pull him up from the spilled drink with words like 'time' and 'go'.
The car engine dulls the hammering of his heart as Danny drives towards the McGarrett home with the mumblings of a rant pouring out of worriedly-bitten lips.
"-this bad? Huh? Hell-o! Steve? Are you listening to me?"
Steve grasps the seatbelt laying across his chest with his right hand and squeezes.
"I'm fine, Jamie."
"Yeah, a piece of shrapnel sticking out of a person's gut is exactly the picture in the dictionary next to the word 'fine', buddy. You hit the nail on the head. I'm proud of ya," Jamie winks at him and squeezes Steve's hand in between the injured man's pulses.
"I knew you would be," Steve says and quickly squeezes twice in succession, because he can hardly control his quivering muscles anymore.
"You, my friend, need to start doing Grace's vocabulary homework, because you clearly do not, I repeat, do not understand what words like fine mean," Danny says, and Steve quickly blinks away the memory playing in his head as he gives the seatbelt another squeeze. "What is that?"
"What's what?" He asks, and does his best to still himself.
Danny points to his hand around the seatbelt despite his efforts. "What's- That! That. You keep squeezing the seatbelt like a...like...," he trails off and fists his hand a few times to demonstrate, "a stress ball or something. You stressed? Or are you fine? Why do you do that?"
Steve blinks at him, but has enough energy to form his face into an expression that eats Danny up. "Oh, silence, now? That's always good. That clearly means you're good, you know, with a thousand yard stare, and all. Yeah."
"I's just waiting for clarification on which question you wanted answered," Steve replies with a shrug of his shoulders.
Danny bites his lip in a similar way like when he gets finished arguing with Rachel over the phone. He pulls one hand away from the steering wheel again and pinches his fingers together, but pauses as he formulates his next question. "Why do you keep squeezing the seatbelt?"
"Like I said before, when you laughed might I add, I get car sick when I don't drive. This," Steve pulls the seatbelt away from his chest and squeezes, "helps me to not get sick."
"Like busy work to keep your mind off the situation?" Danny asks with enough mockery to remind Steve of his words when they were stranded in a dinghy at sea.
"Exactly, only there was no situation then. I had it under control."
"Ah! Control being the operative word there and don't think that getting us in that loophole will prevent me from bringing up the fact that you were doing that thing back at the restaurant. You kept squeezing the bottle like that without the threat of getting carsick, and let's not forget when you decided to drop it on the floor."
Silence lingers between them and Danny takes his gaze off the road to once again say, "Hell-o. You with me, or are we going to have to have this conversation all over again?"
"Well, you didn't ask me a question before, so I wasn't aware I had to respond," Steve counters and his hand finally drops from the seatbelt as he looks at Danny with that shit-eating grin of his, and the detective notices all of it.
"Well, lucky for you, Mr. Evasive, we're here at your place so you can use getting out of the car and walking in as another distraction tactic, until we get inside the house-"
"Woah, woah, woah! Who said anything about you coming in?," Steve questions after unbuckling and leaning forward so he can twist to look at his partner.
Danny sticks his neck out and lifts an eyebrow, opting to throw a hand up vaguely as it rests on the steering wheel, "Just so I'm clear, are you pretending like you convinced me that you're fine or do you stupidly, stupidly, believe that you are?"
"Danno, I'm tired, if I was a little off-"
"I'm sorry. A little?"
"If I was off my game, Navy SEALs get tired, too. Okay? Now, I'm going in my house," Steve says as he exits the car, then bends down to look through the door, "which you are not invited to come into tonight, and I'm going to bed. So if you decide you want to come in, you'll be considered an intruder and treated as such, got it?"
"Oh please, would you stop with the intimidation Navy SEAL crap? That may work on the misguided people of Hawaii, but not me. I happen-"
"Good night, Danno," Steve says as he shuts the door and heads into the house.
"Last time I checked this wasn't your bunk, Princess," Jamie shouts over another round of gunfire that's close enough that he bends down to shield himself and Steve.
McGarrett blinks, and squeezes Jamie's hand as hard as he grits his teeth upon realizing he'd started to drift. "Couldn't sleep with you so close to me anyway," he tests and tries to straighten up his posture to make up for the way his voice sounds.
"Now's not the time to be gettin' awkward around me. Quit movin' or you'll bleed out."
For silence to be defined as the absence of sound, it has a presence that's deafening. It rings inside of his ears, pulling him from the memory that's thieving him of his sleep. He's on his back, heart hammering enough that it feels like the comforter he didn't bother peeling back is throbbing and he unfolds his arms from where they were crossed over his chest in favor of pulling at his hair.
There's a curse that rattles the inside of his mouth and it tastes like the failed attempt that it is mixed with a little bit of desert sand, gritty and sour. He coughs, expelling imagined particles of granular substance before gasping for a breath that's just as dusty and then his feet are trying to make balanced purchase on the floor long enough to get him to the bathroom.
He falls into the sink, hip bones protesting at being used to hold his weight up against the vanity as he reaches out with unknown shaking hands until he can't grasp the handle hard enough to turn it. He pulls them back away from the faucet, watching them shake tenfold as his brain suddenly struggles to stop the involuntary movement. He bunches them into fists, feels the weakness in his fingers as he can't quite dig his nails painfully into his palms.
Spreading his fingers wide again, he jerks his hands back and forth as if they are merely asleep and then he's back to wrapping them around the handle to turn on the water. He's successful, but his victory comes when he splashes the cool water over his face and that dry heat of the Sandbox recedes from his skin for the split second the water rushes his face, but seeps back with a vengeance that has him sinking to the floor, skin of his back scraping across the handles of the cabinet as his shirt rides up from his descent.
He welcomes it, because it's the only thing he can feel of the world around him, his own heart beating to a rhythm of a memory etched across his stomach in a faded scar. His hands shake as one lays listlessly by his side, the other in his lap, and he squeezes.
Thirty minutes later, Danny finds himself wondering if the phone call from Rachel is a blessing or a curse, and ten minutes after that, he knows it's a curse that has nothing to do with his ex-wife and late night phone calls and everything to do with the man who's door he knocks on.
It's three times in quick succession followed by opening the door anyway while being slightly bothered that it wasn't locked. "Hey, Steve, don't shoot me! I just came to pick up Grace's book she left here the other day. Refuses to go to bed without having it read to her tonight of all nights, so don't go getting all excited," he calls already making his way to the dinning room table where the book sits abandoned.
It's held between the fingers of his left hand by the time he finds the lack of reaction odd and it's tossed on the couch when he hears the sound of running water coming from upstairs. He'd have walked out the door if it sounded like the shower and left scott-free, but he knows it's not, and makes his way up the stairs.
"Hey, Steve," he calls again, and stops at the top of the staircase when he sees the light from the bathroom flood the hallway through the open door. "Steve?"
There's no response, not even the creak of the faucet handle turning off the water, and Danny steps forward with his hand near his gun-holstered hip, just in case. He peers around the frame and stops short at the sight.
Jamie's free hand grabs a hold of his jaw and from Steve's half-mast eyes he can see the expression he himself has worn too many times already in this war while kneeling over a fallen brother.
"Hey, what'd I tell you about nappin'? Joe's gonna be pissed when he hears you were sleepin' on the job, man. Get up," Jamie shakes Steve's face from side to side, watches with bated breath as McGarrett blinks sluggishly.
"I did it," Steve says, because his brain is crumbling into microscopic memories of a hard life worth living and he straightens up a bit, no longer feeling the blood pooling on his abdomen.
"What?" Jamie asks, unable to decide if Steve's answer is more important than the enemy fire outside.
"It's okay," and then Jamie's back to looking at him, absolutely certain McGarrett's response deserves his attention more, because it's what they all prepare for, what they all want to be capable of saying in the end.
"Hey," his voice is sharp, much more so than Steve remembers, and he flinches as a hand pats the side of his face hard enough to smart his skin, because Jamie didn't do that.
"No, no, no. Hey, come on, Steve. Look at me," and Steve jerks back, head hitting the cabinet behind him and knees drawing up at the voice that he can't place because it doesn't sound anything like Jamie's. "Woah, easy. Easy, it's just me. Danny."
Steve rapidly blinks, but he thinks he shouldn't be able to do so. He was sluggish before. "D-Danny," the word tumbles out of his mouth and he's so unsure of what he's saying it comes out like the question it should be from a man it shouldn't.
"I'm not that easy to forget, am I, Babe?" Danny asks, and Steve's vision clears just enough that he can see his silhouette stand to tower over him, and Steve jerks back again, this time sliding sideways so his spine connects hard with the door frame. "Hey, calm down," and Danny's back to squatting now and talking in an equally low voice. "Just turning off the water, no need to get defensive."
Steve turns away from the hand on his face as stray bullets dart above their heads. He pulls his hand from Jamie's, trying to get the word 'go' to quit sticking to his tongue.
"I'm not goin' anywhere without you, Smooth Dog," Jamie says, and he captures Steve's hand again. "I'm gonna get us out of here, just keep squeezing my hand, alright? Squeeze like I taught you. Don't think about anything else except squeezing, you understand? Give me that shit-eatin' grin of yours, if you do."
Steve can't manage it, but lifts the corner of his mouth, and Jamie says, "Ah ha, there it is," anyway and pats him on the side of neck, proudly. "I'm gonna lift you, listen to me, hey, actually listen to me, you stubborn son of a bitch, I'm gonna lift you and it's gonna be hell for you... and me, so you keep squeezing, I don't care how bad it is, you don't stop, because I ain't gonna carry your heavy ass just so you can sleep, got it?"
Steve wraps his fingers around Jamie's knuckles with just enough pressure that the man nods and starts to stand. Steve does his best to track him, hand still applying small amounts of pressure to Jamie's, and then he manages to squeeze hard enough that his friend says, "That's my boy," when he finally manages to focus on the soldier's face, but suddenly a red dot appears on his friend's forehead and blood begins to pool from it as the sound of a gunshot deafens his ears and Steve feels Jamie's lifeless hand slip from his.
Danny starts to stand up in order to shift his weight from his bad knee, but suddenly Steve starts covering his ears, arms shaking and legs rocking from side to side where they're drawn up against him. "Steve? Hey, what's wrong? Come on, Babe, talk to me," and Danny's back to squatting and reaching out a hand towards McGarrett's arm. He wraps his hand around it, but Steve bucks wildly, and moves to strike Danny with his free left fist, but the detective blocks it, saw it coming before Steve's training could even tell him to do so, and then he's grabbing the back of his neck, putting pressure there and telling him to, "Calm the hell down, McGarrett," and for whatever reason it works.
"Steve! Damn it, listen to me and calm the hell down, McGarrett," Joe's voice cuts through the high pitched ring of his deafened ears and he's being pulled up from the ground before he can even find the face of his Commanding Officer. There's someone else there, hands under his legs as Joe maneuvers his own under his arms. They start to carry him away, taking him to a place where Jamie said he'd never go without him, and Joe's suddenly telling him someone's bringing Jamie's body, too, like he's trying to prove that he understands Steve better than his own father does, or maybe it's because Steve begs him to from a sluggish mouth with a copper taste.
Steve feels the world begin to fade and struggles to make purchase on something with his right hand until he feels some kind of material bunch between his fingers and he squeezes.
Steve sucks in air like he's breathing through a straw, still trying to protect his ears from a sound Danny can't hear, and the shorter man let's him, but keeps his hands steady on his partner's right arm and the back of his neck. "That's it, buddy, you're doing good, just...just keep doing that, okay?"
Steve lists to the side, likes he's trying to be somewhere else, but Danny keeps him steady, asking him, "Where are you trying to go? Stay with me, alright? This is a good a place as any right now," but instead of responding, Steve lets his right hand curl up into a fist at the side of his head and Danny can feel the muscles in his forearm tense as he does so.
"What's with you and the squeezing today, huh?"
Steve's only reaction is to frantically find something to grab onto, and for a brief moment a pair of glazed blue eyes burst from behind tight eyelids spilling panic into the room for the few seconds it takes for Danny to let go of the back of his neck in order to grab his hand. "Hey, hey, right here. I'm right here, Steve. Right here," and he feels his partner's fingers squeeze around his hand, before momentarily letting go in order to do it all over again.
Danny takes his other hand from around Steve's arm to put it on the back of his partner's neck to keep him still at his sudden desire to squirm. "Can we focus on one thing at time, please? Like getting you to quit breathing like an asthmatic? Let's start with that, okay?"
He catches Steve's eyes again as they open bravely to a world Danny's sure he's been checked out of, "Hey, that's good. Look at me, you with me?"
Steve sucks in a breath, tendons in his neck jutting out from the effort, and blinks at him, giving his hand two more squeezes before he nods.
"Yeah?"
"Danny," and the detective takes it for the reassurance that it is and squeezes Steve's hand back in conformation, but it causes McGarrett to jump.
"Woah, easy. Your hand hurt?," Danny questions, looking between the flexed fingers around his hand and his partner's face that seems solely interested in their hand.
Steve shakes his head once, glancing at Danny a moment before looking back down and shaking it some more. "Helps."
"Helps- helps what?" Danny urges when Steve seems more inclined to close his eyes again and start this whole process all over, but waits patiently in between the light squeezes his partner gives his hand.
"Grounds...me," Steve says, head falling back against the door frame before dropping down again.
"Oh...kay, um, I just need a little bit more words, Babe. Let's try for a full sentence, hmm?" His tone isn't back to one usually meant for his rants, but it's enough of something that has Steve taking in an easier breath and Danny starts squeezing back in between the release of pressure from his partner.
"Flashbacks are shit," Steve says, his voice lowering the way his shoulders finally do.
Danny doesn't say anything, not for a long time, because while he may have stumbled over the idea a time or two, he never expected the situation to punch him in the gut like this. He blinks at him until he feels Steve's hand trying to escape his, but squeezes it instead of letting go, because Steve's looking at him as if the next time he's forced to relive a memory he'll be convinced that it's all he is.
"Lucky for you, I'm great at dealing with shit. I got an ex-wife and a pain in the ass partner to prove it," Danny says, and squeezes Steve's hand long enough so that the man can decide it's okay to squeeze back when he releases the pressure.
It's a long time before Steve squeezes his hand again, and even longer when he looks back at Danny prepared to apologize, but the shorter man stops him, "If you so much as say the first syllable of what I know you're about to say, I'm gonna make flashbacks look like a dream. So unless you plan on apologizing for lying to me about what was wrong, you don't ever apologize for this shit, capeesh?"
"Sorry," Steve says anyway, squeezes once, and clarifies, "Hasn't been this bad in years, thought I could handle it."
"Which seems to be the root of all your problems."
Steve smiles wearily at him and attempts to pull his hand away again, but Danny stops him short with a squeeze. "You good?"
Steve nods, and wiggles his fingers as they are freed from his partner's grasp as Danny falls back onto his rear end and leans against the wall.
"How'd you come up with that, anyway? The squeezing thing?"
"Shit," Steve curses as he looks down at the bullet wound in his thigh. Blood gushes between his fingers as he does his best to apply pressure and not let his first battlefield wound become his last at the young age of nineteen.
Suddenly, Joe and another soldier in his unit drop down beside him. Joe takes over the care of his leg and he grits his teeth when the world starts to fade at his ministrations.
"Hey, McGarrett, right? McGarrett, look at me. I'm Jameson, but only candy asses call me that, so you better call me Jamie in front of the C.O.," Jamie grins at him and grabs his hand. "Listen, Princess, don't go gettin' any ideas, I'm just tryin' to keep your ass from cleanin' the ship, so don't check out on me. Squeeze my hand in pulses, just focus on rolling your knuckles as you squeeze, and if you keep doin' that I'll get us three rounds of beer when you're back on your feet, Rookie."
Steve squeezes his hand as instructed and Jamie pats the side of his neck, "That's my boy."
Danny watches Steve closely, sees him fist his hand again and start squeezing. Stretching out his legs, exaggerating for show, he lets his right leg bump Steve's foot and keeps it there. "Well, remind me to ask Jamie the secret to getting through to that thick head of yours."
"You can't."
The response is tight like his partner's fisted hands and at the first sign of a quiver in Steve's arms Danny asks, "Why?"
He waits for the response, tries to take a breath as his mind wraps around the fact that Super SEAL is fisting his hands together so he can claim some sort of grip on the reality he's been dealt and feels an uncomfortable flush rush up his skin, but Steve says, "He died," as pulls his foot away from Danny, throwing up a boundary that the detective knows he'll either have to knock down now while it's still setting, or risk it becoming permanent. "He died saving me, again."
Then, Danny feels his skin flush for a different reason entirely, feeling angry with himself for wishing even the most difficult moments of their partnership, and sure as hell by now friendship, away, because a man died so that Steve could have the chance to live in this moment and Danny can't wait to see him through to the next.
"Then," Danny says as he pulls himself up from the floor to once again squat in front of McGarrett, "take me to thank him one day," and Danny holds out his hand to Steve again and pulls the taller man to his feet, smiling back slightly when Steve's face hints at what it means to him to want to genuinely visit Jamie's grave. "Now, is there anyway I can talk you into trying to get some decent sleep tonight?"
Steve shakes his head and rolls along the doorframe to exit the bathroom. "Not a chance, Danno, but I'll offer you a Longboard if you want to stick around for the after show."
"Make it two."
Steve snorts and wearily trudges downstairs with Danny on his heels. He makes his way to the kitchen but Danny stops him, pushes him towards the couch instructing him to sit. Steve complies with a weak protest of, "Danny," that goes ignored and the detective disappears into the kitchen.
He sends a quick message to Rachel in response to her infinite ones asking where he is, before shoving it back in his pocket and grabbing a beer and water from the fridge. He wanders back into the living room to see Steve leaned back into the cushions of the couch, eyes closed, breathing steady, and fists unclenched.
He's asleep for now, and Danny's seen enough to know that he won't be for long, so he tosses a blanket over him that ends up falling more on the floor than his partner and sits down in the recliner beside the couch.
He sets the bottle of water on the coffee table before leaning back in his chair and untwisting the cap of his beer. At the pop, he lifts the glass a few inches away from him in a small salute. "To Jamie," he says, then pauses with the drink still lifted and glances at Steve. "To our boy."
Danny sits back in the chair, takes a long, deserved swig, and waits for the moment when Steve needs him to get him to the next.