A Patchwork Heart

Danny Williams had never had a lot of luck with love. His first girlfriend dumped him on Valentines day for the pitcher on their rival schools baseball team. His High School sweet heart was caught going down on a guy who was very obviously not Danny while they were at the Prom. The schools biggest gossip had taken a Polaroid of Danny's girlfriend, and had taken great pleasure showing the picture to everyone there much to Danny's embarrassment. His College girlfriend decided she was a lesbian and his College boyfriend decided that as nice as Danny's ass was, he just couldn't handle dating someone as short as Danny. Then of course was Alexa, his training officer at NPD who he had spent several months dating before finding out she was married to a Narcotics Detective. There was also his former partner who he had never dated, but had seriously fallen for before finding out he was a dirty cop.

And of course there was Rachel. Rachel, who he had thought was The One. Rachel who was sophisticated, beautiful and talented. Rachel with the tantalizing accent and the soft delicate touch. Rachel who ran her car into his on purpose just to meet him. Rachel, who married him, gave him his beautiful, glorious daughter. Rachel, who tore his heart out, burnt it and danced on the ashes before taking his Grace to the other side of the country.

After Rachel Danny knew he was never going to have the Happily Ever After that his parents and sisters did. But he tried anyway. He found a beautiful doctor who seemed so much like Rachel but with less monetary expectations of him. And as nice as she was, it had been obvious from the beginning that it wouldn't last. Danny wasn't smart enough or cultured enough to hold her interest for long, and when the offer came for her to head a traveling museum exhibit she had jumped at the chance, leaving Danny behind. For months after that he quietly nursed his bruised and battered heart, trying to console himself with the belief that he didn't need a girlfriend or boyfriend to be happy. He had Grace and he had Five-0. That was all he needed.

Except it wasn't.

Then came the night he thought changed everything. Steve was back from his self imposed secret mission, Danny had escape a bio-weapon once again, not to mention his kidnapping by the CIA, and the two friends were happy to be reunited. The whole team had gone out drinking, tossing back far too many longboards considering the medication Steve had been given by the doctors for injuries from the plane crash, and for the fact that at least three members of the team were expected to be up early for work tomorrow. But drink they had, until one of Kamekona's cousins had dragged them all out of the bar and shoved them into two waiting taxis.

Danny and Steve had stumbled none too quietly into Steve's house, laughing and desperately clinging to each other in order to stay upright. Together they had made it up the stairs, throwing their clothing everywhere, and stumbled into Steve's room. Still laughing Steve had tripped on the edge of his bed, pulling Danny down on top of him. As drunk as they were it hadn't been enough to keep Danny's dick from jumping to attention when it pressed against Steve's own.

What happened next was not the most coordinated, let alone most erotic, encounter of Danny's sexual experience. They had only last a few minutes, too drunk to hold off their orgasms for long. But he still considered it a high point to wake up with a warm SEAL spooned up behind him, telling him to go back to sleep.

He had lain there for hours, unable to go back to sleep as he considered what this for them both. He and Steve had an odd relationship from the very beginning. Neither of them seemed upset or worried by how easily they slipped into each others lives, pushing through barriers that had been keeping others out for decades. They practically lived in each others pockets, spending 8 to 18 hour days together chasing down criminals, only to wander into each others weekend plans as well. They ate dinner together most every night and almost every weekend, even the Grace weekends, were spent together. They teased and flirted non-stop. It seemed so easy to just fall into bed together and Danny could only wonder why they hadn't done so earlier. Everyone else on this island seemed to have realized before them, that they were perfect for each other.

But like all his other relationships this one crumbled in front of his eyes.

Danny knew Catherine was coming back because of the Enterprise being decommissioned, and he had expected her to hang out with Steve again because they had been friends, even if they had had benefits with each other for a while. But Steve and Danny had been dating and fucking each other on every available surface for weeks, months almost, and he had not expected to find his new relationship was a lie. But to have Steve parade it in front of his friends like that, coming to sweep Catherine literally off her feet in the tux that made him look as handsomely dashing as James Bond, while Danny sat there... It hurt. It hurt worse than Lauren blowing Lorenzo at the Prom, it hurt more than Karen's revelation of lesbian hood, and surprisingly it hurt worse than Rachel divorcing him for Stan. His heart felt like it was being ripped out of his chest while his face burnt up with embarrassment. Chin seemed oblivious much to Danny's relief but Kono shot Danny a confused look as if she to didn't understand what Steve was doing carrying Catherine off into the sunset for a romantic dinner when he should be doing that to Danny. Not that anyone at the table actually believed the two would make it to dinner, they never had before.

Danny had slunk home to nurse his wounds shortly after, too hurt to face the look in Kono's eyes as she watched him. She knew, had known what Danny and Steve were to each other. Or at least what Danny had thought they were to each other, but he supposed he was wrong. He was just another notch on Steve's bed post, a friend-with-benefit for when Catherine wasn't there to satisfy his sexual itches. Perhaps that hurt most, thinking that the person who had finally started to mend his heart was also the one to finally tear it to pieces. He had trusted Steve. He had trusted Steve to have his back, to protect him in the line of duty, to be his friend, his Ohana. He had trusted Steve with the bent and mangled pieces of his heart when he had thought he would never be able to do so again.

Choking back a sob he had wrapped himself up in his blankets, burrowing deep into them away from the light coming through his dirty windows. He hid himself away in his little hole of an apartment and pretended he wasn't crying as his heart broke.

He was only vaguely grateful that this had happened on a Friday. That he had two more days to try and patch himself back together into something resembling a whole person. Two days to decide if he could do this, if he could walk into that room knowing what Steve had done and still have his back.

Burrowing deeper into his blankets Danny had closed his eyes and tried not to think.

Two days had come and gone and Danny had been none the wiser on what to do, how to pull himself back together and go on as if nothing had happened. So taking a page from the book of every broken hearted college student, he had called into work sick. Fortunately Kono had answered rather than Steve, and she had promised to cover for him, her voice telling him all he needed to know about her having his back. He was pathetically grateful.

So with her blessing he had gone to the bathroom, downed his last bottle of beer and crawled back into bed.

When he closed his eyes and finally slept he was tormented with memories of Steve. Steve bumping shoulders with him, Steve running his fingers over Danny's tie, Steve kissing him for the first time, Steve running his finger through Danny's hair, Steve touching him, Steve holding him. Steve's scent, the weight of Steve against him. Steve's heart beat through the silken flesh of his dick. It all tormented him, teased him with memories, fantasies of Steve and what Danny thought, wanted, them to be.

Eventually he woke and found that the dreams had only made his misery worse because now he found himself hallucinating. His mind had created a hallucination of Steve sitting on his floor, back against the wall, watching him as he slept.

Grumbling to himself about his stupid mind and stupid cheating SEALs, Danny forced himself out of bed and into the bathroom. Glaring at his reflection in the mirror Danny tried to ignore the imaginary Steve standing in the doorway watching him with worried eyes.

"Danno, you look like crap."

Ignoring the voice Danny dropped his blanket to the floor and stumbled to the John, tugging his dick out of his boxers long enough to release a rush of piss into his toilet.

"Danno," the imaginary Steve whined. "Please stop ignoring me."

"Go away. I'm not sick enough for hallucinations."

Danny glared at the illusionary Steve until it moved out of the doorway. Picking up his blanket and wrapping it around himself once more and stomped out of the room, ignoring Steve's quiet complaint about him not bothering to wash his hands. It wasn't like he was eating anything after all.

Dropping back onto his pitiful pull out bed, Danny wrapped himself up like a burrito again in his blanket and closed his eyes. He didn't want to sleep and to dream of what he thought he had, but he didn't want to be awake and dreaming of it either.

The bed dipped beside him and Danny felt the blankets being tugged. Stupid imaginary Steve was acting all Steve like. Kicking out Danny tried to roll deeper into his blankets, quietly smiling when he heard his hallucination curse. True, it was only a hallucination and it wasn't really Steve he had just kicked, but it made him smile to think it could have been.

"Danno please look at me. I need to talk to you."

"Go away. I don't want to talk to hallucinations of living bastards."

The was a loud sign behind him from the hallucination and for a moment Danny thought it might have actually vanished back to wherever hallucinations came from. Sadly, it hadn't.

With a surprised yelp Danny found himself being forcibly rolled out of his blanket burrito. A angry looking Steve standing over him, his blanket in his hands.

Yanking at his already wild hair Danny screamed, "What? What do you want?"

"I want to know why you are avoiding me? Why you are pretending to be sick?"

"You want to know why?" Pushing himself to his feet Danny stormed up to the hallucination of his best friend, the man he thought had been his boyfriend. Pushing into the hallucinations space, ignoring the way the mind twitched at the feel of solid Steve beneath is fingers as he jabbed them into the hallucinations chest, Danny let himself go. He let out his emotions. His pain, his sense of betrayal, his love that was still there despite what Steve had done. "I'm fuckin' pissed off at you. I trusted you! You think I just let me people into my life? That I let just anyone get close to Grace and to me? You think I just fuckin' whore it off to anyone willing to look past the fact that I'm a short, pale, Haole? You think I liked watching my boyfriend, my lover, walk off for a romantic night of food and sex with his skanky little two bit Navy bitch? Really? And you have the gall to come here while I'm trying to put my heart back together and ask me that?"

Pushing even harder against the hallucinations chest, Danny forced the hallucination to back up until it tripped over the end of the pull out, dropping onto its squeaky mattress with a whoop of surprise. "I hate you. Just go away. Just go away and let me wallow in my fuckin' misery!"

"Danno-"

"Shut up! Shut up! Don't call me that like you fuckin' care about me!"

"I do, Danny. I do care."

"Liar! If you had cared you wouldn't have pretended that I was anything more than another of your skanky little bed warmers."

"You aren't! You couldn't ever be-"

"Yeah, I think I figure that out when you carried her off into the sunset." All the fight suddenly drained out of him and Danny felt tried. More tired than he ever had been before. He just wanted to sleep and never wake up. "Go away. Please. Just go away."

"I can't, Danny. I love you."

Sobbing, Danny stumbled back, tripping over the edge of his blanket and falling to the ground. Drawing his knees up to his chest, Danny couldn't hold the sobs back any further.

"I love you, Danny." The illusionary Steve slowly moved off the bed to kneel at Danny side, slowly as if Danny was a frightened animal ready to bolt away. "I'm sorry I hurt you. I didn't think you wanted me as anything more than someone to take the edge off. We just...we just fell into bed together and I didn't think, didn't realize you wanted more. God, Danny."

A hand reached out carefully combing through Danny's hair, tugging gently against the tangled knots. "I love you. I thought...I thought I didn't have a chance for anything more than 'fuck buddies' with you. If I knew you wanted more, then I never would have taken Catherine to dinner, let alone to bed."

Danny sniffled and looked up at Steve from under his lashes, his mind clearing just a bit from the fog of hurt and anger that had been blinding him for days. "Steve."

"I mean it, Danny. I really do love you. I do want to be with you and only you." Steve let his hand slowly slide out of Danny's hair, carefully caressing his jaw. "If it makes you feel better I told Catherine I couldn't be more than her friend anymore. That even if you didn't want to be anything more than a bed partner, I did. I couldn't go to bed with her knowing that I didn't want her, that I wanted you. Only you." Steve gave Danny a watery-eyed smile, his thumb tracing Danny's bottom lip. "Please forgive me, Danny. I need you."

Closing his eyes Danny chocked back the rush of emotions that threatened to drown him. He had been hurt so bad but...Steve loved him. Steve had wanted what he had wanted. They, for the first time, hadn't been on the same wavelength. He was hurt and angry, but so happy. It would take time. Time to forgive and move forward, but suddenly it didn't feel so impossible.

"Apology noted....Acceptance is pending."