It had been a week since what Danny called 'The Incident' and neither he or Steve spoke about it; Steve out of embarrassment and Danny because he didn't want to trigger another flashback, but Danny reminded Steve that he loved him when they woke up and went to bed together every day. Grace and Charlie came back for another weekend with them after much pleading to Rachel and this time Steve needed no encouragement to take them down to the beach. They'd even found a therapist to speak to, both separately and together, about their ordeal and Danny thought that things were slowly going on track, that maybe they could start living their life. But in true Danny Williams style, it didn't stay that way for long.
Steve was in the shower when Danny's phone rang, and the blonde man smiled as he answered the call from Chin. He figured it was an invitation to watch this weekend's football game round his house with their ohana, but the smile was quickly wiped from his face as Chin spoke, and by the time he'd hung up Danny was slumped on their bed with his head in his hands.
Danny glanced up as Steve padded into the bedroom, his skin flushed after another hot shower, and threw on some old workout clothes. Danny instantly had to look back down as the floor. He did not want to have this conversation with Steve.
"What's up?" Steve said as he finished towelling off his hair, frowning as he looked down at his partner and didn't get a reply. Alarm bells starting ringing in his head as he noticed the phone behind Danny, and sat on the bed next to him. "Danno?"
"That was, um… that was Chin," Danny said slowly, watching Steve's face for his reaction as he carried on. "About the case against Santino. They're not playing ball, and unless they confess it'll go to trial soon…"
Steve sighed and fidgeted next to him, squeezing Danny's hand when his partner reached for him. "Fuck."
"But also," Danny's voice wavered, and that did nothing for Steve's nerves, "... Fuck babe, I'm sorry."
"What?" Steve didn't like where this was going. "Please, Danny, tell me."
"If it goes to trial, you'll probably have to give evidence." Danny confessed. "Me too. I'm so sorry, Steve."
Steve took his hand back from Danny and stood up, shaking his head as he began to feel the panic rise. "No, I can't. Danny, I can't tell…" He whispered as he scrubbed his face with shaking hands and retreated from Danny, towards the bedroom door. Steve's ribs had almost healed but they still protested as he began to hyperventilate, his whole body trembling.
"Breathe slowly, babe, your ribs-" Danny held a hand out towards him, but Steve shied away from his touch.
"No!" Steve shouted. His hands were balled into fists at his side, and Danny briefly wondered if he was going to hit something. "I can't…" Steve choked back a sob as he stared out of his bedroom window, before suddenly running away from Danny and down the stairs.
Danny knew better than to go after him; as much as it pained him to do so, he knew that Steve needed time on his own to gather his thoughts. He stood by the window and could see Steve heading onto his private beach with his shoulders slumped, and Danny could feel his heart break as he watched the man he loved sink onto the sand. He wished he knew what to do, wished that he could just click his fingers and take Steve's pain away.
And Danny hadn't even told him the worst part, that photographic and video evidence of Steve being raped had been recovered from the gang's cell phones and CCTV cameras in the lockout. The thought made him feel sick to his stomach, but as Danny looked out onto the beach he realised that if he felt like that, how the hell did Steve feel?
Steve had always loved this view. The ocean looked endless as it stretched into the horizon; when he was a kid he believed that if he kept on swimming, he'd end up in the sky where it blended with the sea. But now, as he sat hugging his knees to his chest and feeling the water occasionally brush against his bare feet that were nestled in the sand, Steve couldn't even begin to enjoy it.
That week had been most definitely the worst of his life. His body had been violated in the worst way possible, his dignity snatched away from him.
But he was healing. In the comfort of his own home with the man he loved, his body had mostly recovered from its ordeal, and he was on the long journey to repair the psychological damage done.
Until now.
Steve screwed his eyes up in an attempt to stop a fresh wave of tears from falling, but sadly it was too late. As he cried, Steve tried to imagine himself standing up in court and telling a crowd of strangers what had happened to him.
Deep down, he knew that he'd have to tell people about it eventually - but he had told Danny and his therapist, wasn't that enough? How many more people needed to know his deepest and darkest secret? Steve didn't want to tell anyone in the first place after it first happened… well, apart from Danny. Even if they weren't together, he'd have probably told his best friend.
But Danny's different, I trust him with my life. Steve thought. I don't want to tell anyone else… How can I, when I can't even say the word. Not even to myself.
Nobody wants Santino and those… things… to pay more than I do - apart from Danno, obviously - but I can't, I just can't.
Steve bit his lip almost hard enough to draw blood as, once again, his mind drifted back to that dark place.
The first time it had happened, they'd taken him by surprise in his cell with a chloroform rag and dragged him to another room where Santino forced himself upon him. Steve had been shoved face down on a dirty mattress and his body and mind were initially still floating on the effects of the drug, but that all changed when he felt his ass explode with pain as Santino plowed mercilessly into his virgin hole before handing him over to his goons for their turn on his body.
And they laughed. They fucking laughed as they took turns on his ass and his mouth - fuck, his throat had stung for days after one particular guy - every time they drugged him and took him to the "fun room" as he heard one guy call it. Steve vividly remembered when he felt something trickle out of his ass after one guy had finished with him, and was mortified when his attacker brought his hand up and smeared a small combination of blood and come (and the worst thing was, Steve didn't even know whose it was at that point) on Steve's abdomen, laughing all the way. He struggled against the handcuffs that held him against a hook at the end of a long table, disgusted and ashamed. But then another man approached him and roughly spread his legs, and as much as he tried Steve was helpless as his body was violated yet again.
And in the midst of it all, amongst the crowd of shouting men standing around the table impatiently waiting until either his mouth or his ass was free, Steve occasionally caught glimpses of what they were holding. Cell phones, recording his ordeal. He shuddered in spite of the warm Hawaiian sun beaming down on him, wondering who else now knew that he had been "their little whore", as they once called him.
Steve would have accepted any form of torture over that. His private relationship with Danny had been growing, and he'd longed to give himself entirely to his partner like he'd dreamed of doing way before their first kiss. He'd wanted his first time with Danny to be special; he'd never get another chance at it now, his virginity had been taken in the most brutal way.
Danny. Steve squinted up at the sky as he thought of him. Danny has been his rock ever since they came home, comforting him after he's woken up from many a nightmare shaking and sweating. Not to mention his kids, they didn't know the full extent of his ordeal (and would never know, Steve told himself), but still Grace and Charlie got him out of bed when nothing else could.
Steve had wanted a relationship with Danny for so long, and now he was in one he was too traumatised to do anything. He thought back to last week, when he thought that jumping Danny was the answer, but that only resulted in a flashback when the blonde man nudged his prostate while prepping him. Steve knew that time was a great healer, but… what if he never recovered? He'd always love Danny and want to be with him, but would Danny feel the same if he couldn't bare to be intimate?
"Useless," he muttered to himself before hanging his head on his folded arms, giving up on holding back the tears.
The soft padding of approaching footsteps from behind signalled his partners arrival and Steve instinctively tensed his shoulders. Danny remained silent as he lowered himself onto the sand next to Steve. Swallowing past the lump in his throat he kept his face hidden; Steve was glad that Danny was here, but he had no idea what to say.
So when he felt a hand slowly massage the back of his head and fingers scratch at the short hair here, Steve couldn't hold back the sob that burst from his throat at the show of affection.
"Sshh, it's okay babe," Danny whispered, "Just let it all out."
Steve sucked in a deep breath as he lifted his head up, taking a look at the endless ocean before slowly turning his head to the right. Danny's hand was still on the back of his neck, and Steve was blinking furiously to try and clear his vision of the man next to him.
"Danno…" Steve breathed, "Please don't make me."
Danny shuffled closer until he could wrap both his arms around his lover, whom he could see was still practically hyperventilating. "I promise you, I won't make you do anything you don't want to. Even if it does go to trial, the evidence is so overwhelming they may not even ask you to speak."
"I can't… can't go." Steve shook his head. "Don't want them to look at me."
Danny instantly understood, nodding as he rubbed gentle circles on Steve's back. He knew that seeing their attackers against would not be a good idea for Steve, and if the trial went ahead he planned on keeping him as far away as possible. Danny half expected him to want to be there, to look them in the eye… but maybe that was wishful thinking, as that would mean that his Steve, his trained-to-kill Navy SEAL, was still in there. But in a way, Danny was glad that Steve was letting his emotions out; he shuddered to think what would happen if he kept it bottled up and one day the bottle overflowed.
"I don't want them to look at you either, Steve." Danny said, their heads touching as Steve turned more into his side. "They don't have any right to."
Steve sniffed and rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his hand, his chest still heaving as he took each breath. He focused on the feel of Danny's cotton shirt under his cheek, of the hand still on his back and of the steady rise and fall of the blonde's chest in front of him. Steve sat up and properly looked at Danny, and his blonde hair waving in the gentle breeze did something funny to Steve's chest and finally brought a small smile to his face. Danny reached up and cupped the side of Steve's face, thumb stroking along his cheekbone.
"You have nothing to worry about, okay?" He looked directly into Steve's eyes, and hoped that the sparkle in them would come back soon, regardless of this setback. "Like I said, there's so much evidence against them, they've got no hope."
Steve swallowed. "Yeah…" He cringed as he thought about what he was going to divulge, but one look at Danny eased his worries. He had a feeling that this man wasn't going anywhere.
"They filmed me," Steve blurted out, looking down at his toes as he spoke. "In that room, while they were…" His eyes briefly flicked up to look at Danny, who was listening intently and rubbing his back and forearm, and Steve's eyebrows twitched. "Y'know. Cell phones in my face and everywhere. Don't need much more evidence than that."
Danny nodded, his expression solemn as Steve wiped his face and gathered himself. He decided to keep quiet about the CCTV footage; the cell phones mainly focused on Steve but Danny knew that the security cameras caught everything, a fact that Steve didn't need reminding of.
"Wanna come inside, babe?" Danny asked. "We can do whatever you want. There's a new series of that show you wanted to watch on Netflix, I could get the comforter down from our bed and we could camp out?"
Steve bit his lip as he felt his heart race again, but for an entirely different reason. "Our bed." Maybe… maybe it'll be okay.
"On the recliner?" He said hopefully. Danny beamed, and after getting to his feet he held out a hand that Steve didn't hesitate to take.
"If that's what you want." The blonde man drew Steve into his arms, noticing the small sigh of relief from the taller man but saying nothing about it. "I love you, babe. I love you so much… I'm gonna take care of you, okay?"
Steve held Danny close, deeply inhaling his unique scent that was quickly becoming his favourite thing ever. "Love you too, Danno… I'm so glad you're here."
Once back in the house, Danny made good on his promise and brought the necessary things from their bedroom downstairs for their Netflix binge. He wasn't sure that they would both fit in the recliner, but Steve was mostly sprawled over him anyway.
Steve got himself comfortable on his human cushion and sighed in contentment when Danny wrapped the comforter around them both. He wasn't cold by any means, but something about it made him feel safe, like nothing and nobody could get to him while he was in his Danny-bedsheet-esque nest. Steve's mind drifted to his earlier thoughts, about how he couldn't bare to be intimate with the man that he loved, and even though right now they were very much in each others personal space Steve still worried that this was the closest they'd ever get. In one corner of his mind, he wouldn't blame Danny if he eventually left him for someone who wasn't so damaged.
Danny could almost hear the cogs in Steve's brain whirring, and shook his head as he tipped the brunette's head up to smile at him. He rubbed his nose against Steve's and relished the blush that crept up his face before claiming his lips in a passionate kiss, hand still on the side of his face. Danny let Steve control the kiss, but still slid his tongue past the other man's once or twice.
Steve broke the kiss after a few minutes but didn't move away from Danny. He had a surprised look on his face, like he couldn't believe what he'd just done.
"I'm not going anywhere, Steve." Danny whispered against Steve's lips, his other hand running up and down his back. "Okay? So please stop worrying."
"Yeah," Steve licked his lips and swallowed. He clutched at Danny's shirt as he finally pushed those doubts out of his mind, and Danny could see the weight being lifted from his shoulders. "You won't, Danno."