He wasn't exactly sure how it happened, but somehow they'd stumbled to the master bedroom and now Danny was kneeling on the bed next to Steve who had too many limbs moving around, all the while doing his best to get through to his drunken partner.

"Okay, listen to me. You are not your father. Or your mother. And neither am I."

"But the contracts-"

"Fuck that, Steven. Take a step back for me, okay?"

"I'm sitting down." Okay, drunk Steve was going to be like this then. And Danny was going to struggle as it was; the whiskey had done a number on him, too. He didn't remember Steve being quite so out of it last night.

"We really shouldn't have been drinking," he wiped a hand over his face, trying to get his eyes to see clearly again.

"But we were celebrating… until my mom…" Steve seemed to drift in and out of his thoughts, then snapped back enough to give Danny a level look. "Let's get back to celebrating."

With that he pretty much lunged at Danny, knocking him over in his haste to try and start opening buttons and slipping a hand down the waistband of Danny's pants like he couldn't decide which was more important to get to first.

Danny fumbled to push against Steve's bulk, his weight lying heavy on top of him, but he was able to brace in against Steve's shoulder blades and give an almighty push and Steve landed on the floor with a thump.

"God, no, Steve, now is not the time," Danny said, scrambling onto hands and knees, ready to defend himself if needed. "Not when we're drunk, and you're upset and I'm pissed off as all hell."

"Tomorrow, Danny. We'll deal with it all tomorrow, can't we just have tonight? The day had been going so well," Steve moaned petulantly.

"Think back, please, over the events of the last 24 hours, and you tell me when things were going well from my point of view. Huh? When did I last seem okay with everything?"

"But…"

"No 'buts', Steve. The fact that you started your sentence like that means you damn well know I've not been. And you've been ignoring my concerns because you've been in your own lala happy-land."

Steve gingerly stood, with a slight tilt in his inebriated form, and carefully sat himself on the bed next to Danny.

"I just wanted everything to be perfect. And I just want to give you what I can."

"But you're not giving me what I want. And we can't both be happy if we don't work out how to get us to that point."

"When I got up this morning I felt so good. There's no better cure for a night of drinking than waking up and realizing that you got what you'd been fantasizing about." Steve closed his eyes. "I've been dreaming about what it would be like being married to you. Being able to touch you, help you, look out for you."

"You think you couldn't do all that without a marriage contract?"

Steve was quiet for a moment, his eyes unfocused again, looking all around himself while a hand blindly moved out to Danny's thigh. "I never wanted to start something that could end. I wanted to get you locked down, make the deal and know for sure that this was it. This was us, all in place and not going anywhere. I always said that would be how I'd do it."

"You think your father felt the same?" Danny looked up at Steve again slowly, gauging his reaction.

"He wanted to give my mother everything."

"And in the end he didn't. She didn't exactly explain what made him change his mind. If he had been that passionate about it, why did he relent to a weaker deal?"

"Maybe he didn't love her as much as I love you."

Danny leaned his forehead on Steve's shoulder and felt the other man's arm go around his waist. "Or maybe he realized his demands were making her unhappy, and they couldn't have the future he wanted, if she wasn't on board with that."

"I don't want to lose you," Steve clenched his fingers into Danny's hip.

"Your mother was right about one thing, even if she put it really badly." Danny attempted to turn closer to Steve but it was difficult to maneuver himself around in the tight space between Steve's arms. "You could still lose me. And it doesn't have to be because I suddenly have the perfect counter-offer to be able to divorce you. But I could die on the job, or contract some kind of fatal disease, or I could decide one day that I've had enough and just run away. And do it properly. Or hell, you could leave me in the same way."

"You couldn't run. They'd catch you; they have like a 90% success rate in catching marriage dodgers."

"You're a Navy SEAL and I'm a decorated police officer. Pretty sure if either of us wanted to dodge out of our responsibilities here, we'd find a way to do it."

"You still wouldn't. You've got Grace to think about."

"Considering the penalty I'd incur from ditching you, plus the contractual obligations; I think adding on abducting my own child wouldn't make much of a dent. I'd grab her, get us some fake credentials and we'd be in Iowa before you woke up from the drugs I'd use to make sure you were down for the count."

"Iowa?" Steve looked at him with such a clueless face that Danny couldn't help but smile.

"Wherever, babe. Look, this morning I ran out on you because I thought I had done the most monumentally stupid thing in the history of stupid things. That I'd made myself into your kept man and pretty much lost my freedom to you and it felt so constricting that I had to get out of here. I looked at the contract and a lead weight dropped in my stomach because I felt trapped with no way out. Doomed to live a life by your rules and demands and needs… I felt like my world was changed for the worse."

"You felt? Does that mean you don't think like that anymore?"

"Strangely, I think your mother has actually made me realize that I'm not really trapped. I've just made things difficult." Huh. It seemed Danny wasn't so much thinking in his head anymore, rather he was doing it out loud and it wasn't so bad. Maybe he was coming to terms with some things again. Then again, he was also drunk right now, or sobering up a little… which means this is probably how he'd felt the night before without fully being aware of it. No wonder he'd signed, no wonder he'd been open to signing when he so openly trusted Steve on a regular day. He hadn't felt trapped the night before, he'd felt naively confident.

That and he'd gained a hell of a trust fund for Grace, and he always put her first.

Steve interrupted his thoughts. "I just want to be married to you. I just want us to be partners in every sense possible and make sure that we can be that for the rest of our lives."

"I was raised to believe that we don't need contracts to make that happen. That we just need trust, and love, and the matching desire to make that happen. Look at my parents. They're still together with absolutely no intention of leaving. Not everyone is your mother."

"What's their deal like?"

"Basic. Even. When they got together there wasn't an expensive house in the mix. Just a car, handed down family heirlooms, potential earnings from their jobs and projections on how they'd pay for future assets. Which they decided would be fifty/fifty. The only sticking point was my dad's job. Being a firefighter meant having to put in death provisions. They didn't need too much more than the Government's basic requirements because they didn't feel the need. I think the only thing my mother really allowed was the concession of a negotiation ring to show she was off the market, so to speak."

"They made it easy on themselves if they needed to divorce," Steve pointed out.

"No, they took the pressure off. It's why they think they've had an easy marriage. They've not felt indebted to anyone, no weight on their shoulders."

"Why didn't you tell me all this last night?" Steve complained, now moving to face Danny better and reaching out to smooth his hands over Danny's chest, a hand catching in his half-open shirt.

"I don't know," Danny sighed, his hand joining Steve's. "I got carried away. We looked up the form on Google for fuck's sake, I didn't think we were really filing and I may firmly believe in my principles, but it doesn't mean I don't think about how good it might be to just give in to the old way of thinking. It seems the more drunk I am, the more I turn into a harlequin wench who just wants to fall into your arms."

"I'm the pirate with remarkably well-maintained looks for the age, who will happily catch you."

Danny leaned in and placed a chaste kiss on Steve's lips. He couldn't read Steve's mind, and the other man had been the quieter of the two during the conversation, but he felt he was repairing the damage Doris had done to him. Much like he'd calmed Steve's shark cage tendencies; he may have made a dent in his marriage issues. And okay, he'd also acknowledged that he may occasionally succumb to Steve's crazy, maybe by tying someone to the roof of his car, but in the end he came back to himself and could be the steady hand.

"I'm sorry, Danno," Steve's hand played into Danny's hair. "I told myself you were just keyed up in your usual pain-in-the-ass way, I didn't take you as seriously as I should have. Even after you punched me. Which, by the way, the vodka has really dulled."'

"I'd apologize, but you fucking deserved it."

"I was an asshole," Steve agreed.

"Beyond," Danny spun out. "An asshole wrapped in a crazy fucktard with tunnel vision."

"Okay, I get it," Steve laughed. "Can we stop thinking for the night. Please? After everything I'm just… I'm just beat."

"Yeah," Danny agreed, the whole day had been one big jumble of jumping emotions. He'd spent so many hours locked in his own head thinking up worst case scenarios, imagining how these conversations would eventually go all while trying to gather information and put things in perspective. All these other people with their opinions never helped. It was worse than being on a case. "Yeah, I need to sleep, I'm exhausted."

Danny looked around himself, unsure how to proceed. He'd never slept in Steve's bed before beyond the occasional unthinking collapse while drunk, but they were married now. Should he stay here or go to another room? Or the couch? He liked the couch; he had no problem with it.

But Steve was like a bear combined with an octopus, and he'd manhandled them further up the bed so his legs were no longer hanging off and they were closer to the pillows. He'd wrapped around Danny, practically spooning into him, a hand clamped over his middle and stuck in place like he had suction cups on his skin. He was unmoving, despite the fact they still had their clothes on. Socks and shoes may have been discarded long ago out on the beach, but they still had their pants and shirts on, rumpled with loosened buttons, sure, but they were still wearing them.

Steve's head burrowed in at the back of Danny's neck and nuzzled lazily. "Can I keep the car?" he murmured.

"You're a nightmare," Danny mumbled, putting a hand under the pillow supporting his head.

"I like the car."