delicatale | Feels like more than distance between us, PG-13, 673 words

Post finale ficlet that doesn't solve anything but I needed it very badly. Danny visits Steve, when he is allowed.

stjarna1984 looked this over because I bothered her with it.Obviously spoilery if you haven't seen the finale.

Danny tries his best not to allow his heart to break when Steve appears. He looks – defeated, body slumped forward when he sits, but his eyes burn brighter than they ever have, and this fact, this tiny piece of his old self Danny files away in his mind, next to the goofy smiles and all the lines they’ve crossed together.

They both pick up the phones on either side of the glass panel, Danny has no idea how he’ll manage to talk. Steve looks thin and tired, the circles under his eyes dark and painful. Danny knows he doesn’t look that much better. He’s got so many other things he needs to deal with, that keep him from sleeping at night, but he’ll keep on pushing them back, further back until Steve is out and cleared. Steve sighs, the sound small. His eyes are red-rimmed already.

Danny speaks first.

“Are you okay?”

It’s stupid, he knows, he knows, thank you so very fucking much, but he can’t help it. He bites on the inside of his lip, that spot that is already battered and broken, still tasting of blood, and Steve shrugs one shoulder, pressing two of his knuckles to the glass.

“We’re getting you out, Steve. I promise, okay? I fucking promise you, we’re working on it. We’re getting there.”

“They put me back in solitary,” is all that Steve answers. He’d spent the first 10 days in solitary already, released into the main pen only for two days, but at least now he can receive visitors. “I got into a fight during lunch. Didn’t start it, though.”

“That’s what you say. I’d like to see the security videos for that one, I know how you get when someone tries to steal your jello.”

It’s a ghost of a smile on Steve’s face but it’s something. Danny – he wants to break down that fucking glass pane, wants to break down the whole prison, stone block by stone block, with his bare hands, feel his knuckles get bloodied as he breaks his own heart repairing Steve’s, getting him out of this mess. He didn’t do it – he did stupid things, sure, things Danny doesn’t agree with, but he didn’t do this, wouldn’t have, never, and nobody in their team would believe for a single second that he did. It’s inconceivable. And they have all these holes in the case that he and Chin and Kono and Jenna keep on digging into, Wo Fat’s job on this one sloppy, urged.

“You’re getting me out?”

Steve sounds so forlorn, scared, like a kid afraid of the dark and Danny has never seen Steve look so vulnerable, not even when they first met and his heart was on his sleeve because his father just died. Not even when all his daddy issues resurfaced and his eyes turned misty as he listened to people telling their stories. Not even when they sat side by side on the beach that one night and he’d leaned in and kissed Danny, his emotions on the corners of his lips and in the color of his eyes when he’d pulled back.

Right now, Steve is scared for himself and it’s the first time Danny sees it and he feels so much rage, so much hatred for the man who managed to bring Steve down, if he could kill him himself, with his bare hands and feet and teeth, he fucking would.

Danny pinches the bridge of his nose, pushes his thumbs into the corners of his eyes, trying to ignore the sting of tears. When he looks back up, he presses his fingers against Steve’s, where they still rest against the glass pane. It’s not enough, not nearly fucking enough, Danny wants to hold Steve and run his fingers through his too-long hair, kiss the tired lines around his mouth and eyes. Watch him sleep for hours, ward off the nightmares and loneliness.

“We are. You have to come out anyway, I’ve been practicing my eggs. You’ll be blown away.”

Steve snorts, his hand closing into a fist against the glass separating them, the small sound turning into a sob. Danny clenches his jaw to keep from doing something catastrophically stupid, like killing the guards around and getting Steve out.

“I’m sure I will be.”

Companion piece: we were always just that close.