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Steeped

Summary:

Steve’s mother might not have taught him a lot about how to open up and care for other people—but she did believe in the healing power of a hot beverage. Sometimes, faced with his partner’s pain, it’s all he has.

Five times Steve makes Danny a cup of tea and one time Danny beats him to it.

Notes:

I woke up with yet another whole mcfreaking fic idea in my head over Christmas break and basically wrote one vignette a day over six days. Plus, I have Feelings™ about not only the inherent comfort of tea, but Steve trying to take care of people when he hasn't really been taught how aside from shooting threats and getting justice.

This fic is set roughly between seasons 2-7, not based around any particular episodes. All tea definitions are amalgamations taken from information found on Merriam-Webster Dictionary and Pique Tea.

Bon apetit!

Chapter 1: Earl Grey

Chapter Text

 

Earl Grey – (n.) a black-tea blend flavored with bergamot oil. This tea is known to help with autophagy and can have a calming effect.

 

Steve knows it’s bad when he pulls into the driveway after a trying case and Danny’s car is already parked there.

Just the fact that he somehow beat Steve to his own home sets off alarm bells—they left the Palace at the same time; Danny can never complain about reckless driving again—let alone why he’d come here instead of his apartment.

Steve indulges in a moment of just sitting there, staring at the Camaro. Brows knit.

Well…that’s fine, he thinks. It’s not like this is a rare thing. Danny comes by for beers after a long day at least once a month, sometimes as much as a few times a week. Steve can play host for the night.

Then he gets out and sets his hand on the Camaro hood—stone cold.

Danny beat him here by a lot.

Steve doesn’t even bother fishing for his keys, simply pushing at the door knob. It opens easily, and he can only hope this will be true of Danny as well.

He’s been off for a few days. Sometimes he’s quiet for long spells and other times Steve will catch him staring off into space, eyes glazed, taking in nothing whatsoever.

“Hey…”

That’s about all Steve manages.

A whistle of air zips past him, which upon closer inspection turns out to be Danny. He paces in a tight little circuit from one end of the living room to the other. His hair’s frazzled on one side, the right, mauled by Danny’s dominant hand being run through it on repeat.

His white button up has long since come untucked, rolled up to the elbows, striped socks nearly colliding with the corner of the coffee table when Danny spins to start the loop all over again.

He’s honest to God panting.

“Hey,” Steve says again, louder this time, with a little authority injected into his tone. A feeble and useless attempt to get Danny to stop moving. “What’s going on, man? You okay?”

Danny ignores him, of course.

His eyes dart either to the floor or the wall, and in this too Steve senses he’s not really seeing anything. With a sigh, Steve bypasses him for the kitchen. He dumps his gun and badge in the junk drawer. This habit is a new one, ever since he met Danny. In fact, Danny’s presence changed a lot of things, areas of growth that Steve is still discovering and learning to enjoy.

Normally he’d just leave his gun on the table, but ever since little eyes and hands started to inhabit his home more often…

Steve’s hands pause in shutting the drawer. Eyes wide, he hurries back out in the living room.

“Danno? Everything good with Gracie?”

It’s the magic word, a bit of a trump card really.

Sure enough, her name captures Danny’s attention at once. Or at least part of it. “Yes. She’s perfectly fine…” He checks his phone. “Just finishing cheerleading practice at the moment.”

Steve is about to push and demand more of an explanation, but Danny opens his mouth first.

“Is this Mary?”

It’s not exactly the coda to their non-conversation Steve expected. He’s fallen into the trap of assuming Danny’s anger is volatile and out of control, like everyone else does who only know him at a surface level.

However, with Danny there usually are no explosive yells or tears or throwing of breakable objects.

There’s just Danny, fixated on…

Following his eyes, Steve sees a faded picture on the bookshelf. It depicts a tiny girl in a fuchsia bucket hat, grinning for the camera despite an ice cream cone melting down her hands in gloopy streams.

“Yeah, it is.” Steve steps up beside his partner. Glancing askance, he spies a slight tremble in Danny’s fists. “She’s three here and I remember it was her first time having ice cream at the beach. Heavenly Hash is her favourite flavour to this day.”

Danny’s mouth does a funny twist. At least this photo has somehow done the impossible and stopped his agitated motions. He cants his head.

“She’s really small,” he notes, with emphasis.

Steve blinks. “I suppose. Mary was always under the growth chart for her age, just like I was off it.”

“So small.” Danny’s voice is quieter when he repeats this, still studying Mary’s photo. He sounds so devastated that Steve feels like he’s been roundhouse slapped.

His first instinct is to reach out and touch Danny, because that’s what they do when the other person looks as if they might do something stupid. Danny’s tactility gives Steve access to new ways of living, a permission slip to brush a hand over Danny whenever he wants.

That first year of working with him, Steve almost felt drunk on it.

The Navy psychologist made a note about ‘touch starvation’ on his file all those years ago during a mandated review, and Steve bristled at it. He lived his life in the sardine tin-quarter presence of other men. Constantly. Squished up against him in the barracks and huddled over his back to use binoculars and jostling his arm to wake him for last watch.

How could he possibly be touch starved? 

Now…now Steve gets it. Comradery touch is not the same thing as tender friendship touch.

There’s a language to it, one Steve speaks more fluently every day. Touch can be harsh, like a swear word. Stroking someone’s hair says an earnest, ‘I love you.’ A bracing back pat can bolster, encourage someone to find their nerve.

All of this means that Steve is dying to rest a hand on Danny’s shoulder. Get his partner to look him in the eye and spill the beans.

But Danny’s simmering anger throws up a caution flare to anyone in a mile radius. It’s there in bright red ribbons across his face and wound around his neck, climbing up to his ears and into bloodless lips around grit teeth.

“You’re a good parent, Danno.” The words slip from Steve’s mouth like a note passed in class—murmured, barely noticed, a messy scrawl of humanity.

Danny straightens in a snap. “Apparently not.”

Steve’s frown deepens. He watches the fury, the self loathing, self doubt, slather together along his friend’s face in an ugly masque.

“Charlie?” Steve asks, even though he doesn’t need to.

“She promised.” Danny huffs out between his teeth. “Shame on me for believing that, huh?”

“Who, Rachel?”

Danny paces in a teeny tiny circle barely larger than a hula hoop.

Steve’s mind scrambles. It’s not Charlie’s birthday. Not a holiday coming up. He’s done his hospital appointments, poor kid. The news of Charlie’s paternity came out eight months ago and it’s been hard for everyone to adjust, to reconcile how Rachel could lie about such a thing.

In a slow, agonizing motion that raises hairs on Steve’s arms—Danny loosens one fist and then cinches it, tighter than before. His eyes dilate with repressed rage.

If Steve floundered before, he’s downright drowning now. Rarely has he seen Danny so full of one-dimensional ire. He steps closer, casting a shadow over Danny’s body, but doesn’t touch. “What’d she do, Danno?”

His near-whisper does the trick. It’s same the tone Steve uses with traumatized victims on a case, not that Danny notices. Thank God. Steve has a strong hunch Danny will punch anything that gets within his personal space bubble right now, including him.

Riling Danny further is not an option.

“Rachel and I had an agreement this month: she and Stan teach him how to ride his first bike and I…” Danny runs his hand through the left side of his hair this time. His eyes are big and wide and a little wet, though Steve can’t tell if this is from his heightened blood pressure or he’s about to cry. Either way, Steve feels his heart shatter. “She promised I could take him to swim with the dolphins tomorrow.”

It hits Steve a beat later, the colossal significance of this. “Because that was your first big outing with Grace when you moved here.”

“Yeah, thanks to you. I should have known Rachel wouldn’t keep her promise. That she still doesn’t trust me.”

“She won’t let you take Charlie?” Steve can’t help it, the way his volume rises in affront at the idea of Rachel being petty and rescinding her promise on something Charlie would love so much. That’s two victims in her wake.

“No, Steve.” A vein flutters in Danny’s neck. His voice is soft in that dangerous, alligator-still way he uses sometimes to interrogate a criminal. “She took him to swim with the dolphins already. Today, while I was at work. Pulled him out of school at lunch, made a day of it and everything.”

A white page of absolute nothing replaces Steve’s thoughts. The words shoot him point blank, ears ringing.

There’s no way such a thing actually happened. That Rachel would, could, do something so low just to deliberately spite Danny.

No, not just to spite him—to steal from him. It’s theft, plain and simple. She took the joy of something unique to Danny and his kids and bankrupted him of it.

Red usurps the white in a violent lurch.

Steve’s hands hurt with the need to drive over and snatch Charlie out of Rachel’s arms. It’s such a strong urge that he staggers away a few steps.

Danny is quite frankly the best parent Steve has ever met. End of story. A little overprotective and fretting maybe, but he always puts those kids first, in everything. If Rachel can’t see that, then she’s negligent in a way Steve barely has coherent words for. It’s blasphemous to even consider robbing Danny of spending time with Charlie, let alone in a way that’s sacred to he and Grace already. 

Danny breathes out again through his nose, faster this time. Picking up speed. “Why, Steve? Is my job really so dangerous that she’d rather I not be in his life?”

“Don’t you dare think that way. None of this is your fault.”

Steve’s growl is louder and harder than even he expects; it’s no surprise when Danny jumps. He reddens more, somehow, and there’s a flash of teeth when his lips draw back.

“Maybe she’s right.”

“Charlie is lucky to have you.”

“How can you say that?” Danny barks back. “I have no hope of competing with his mother and he’s only just starting to understand that I’m his real father! All he’s ever known is Stan.”

“That’s her fault, not yours.”

Danny paces away again, like he doesn’t even hear this. “How could I not know? How could I not see that he’s my son?

Void of the ability to comfort him using touch, with his words not getting through, Steve’s own heart races. He has zero idea of how to help his partner beyond these methods, how to support him through such a distressing loss. This isn’t something his upbringing prepared him for. Professional training doesn’t cover distraught best friends when they can’t get to know a son they never knew they had.

“Sit down, alright? Just…” Steve points at the couch until Danny drifts near it. He doesn’t stop pacing, but the proximity is a start. “Just wait here.”

Steve all but runs into the kitchen to…to what? What on earth is he supposed to do? He’s practicing motions he’s seen other people go through before. Emotionally fraught situations require running into the kitchen to grab things that will comfort, let the person know they’re not alone.

Danny came here, Steve realizes. At least he knew to go somewhere he feels safe when he’s upset.

It’s a start.

Steve begins rummaging through the cupboards and fridge. Completely clueless.

A beer. Steve nods to himself, eyeing the dwindling pack of Longboards. No man ever felt worse for wear with a beer in his hand.

This feels flat, however. A band aid pasted over a stab wound.

Not to mention that it is also just a mimic of what he’s seen other men do. Maybe its comfort is not as real as everyone thinks.

Steve senses that handing Danny alcohol when he’s like this will result in broken lamps or broken words. Not that Danny’s a mean drunk or someone likely to lose control of himself, far from it. But he’s been pushed past an already stretched line of longsuffering today, one Rachel can’t get back, and alcohol will only magnify those feelings.

A telltale trembling is just starting in Steve’s hands when he opens up a little used spice cupboard over the stove.

And halts.

Behind the salt, a small box with navy lettering stares back at him.

Where did this even come from? Steve has no memory of buying the generic tea brand and by the thin coating of dust on top, it’s been months since anyone helped themselves. Maybe Mary left it here on her last visit or Aunt Deb sent them a box among the yearly Christmas parcels.

Earl Grey.

Huh.

Steve’s teetering on just this side of desperate and thus grabs the box without thinking.

Worst case scenario, Danny throws it back in his face and Steve gets a wet shirt for his troubles. A friendship faux pas they can laugh about later.

The electric kettle takes a minute to boil. While it does, Steve digs out an old, fat mug, the one Freddie bought him in Morocco with a camel on the front. The enamel is chipped in places, thanks to years spent in Steve’s rucksack, but somehow the thought of how Freddie would sympathize with this situation, not getting to spend time with a child, makes its use tonight apropos.

Freddie and Danny would probably have gotten along like a house on fire. The thought warms Steve more than he expects, with none of that nettle pain in his chest he normally gets thinking about his friend.

The kettle pops and tears Steve from his musings. He holds the little paper tab and string while pouring hot water over the tea bag, to keep it from falling in. A lemony citrus smell wafts into the air along with the bergamot.

Here goes nothing.

Steve steps back out into the living room and score—Danny’s actually sitting on the couch. Hunched over his knees, mind you, head in his hands. But at least he’s off his feet.

The red in his neck has also dissipated, bloodshot eyes now at half mast.

“I don’t uh…” Steve walks over the hardwood with careful steps, making sure not to spill. “I don’t know if you like sugar or milk in yours.”

Danny’s mouth drops open and Steve literally holds his breath. He doesn’t inhale again until the mug is presented on the coffee table in front of Danny’s shaky hands. 

“You have tea in this bachelor pad?”

Steve squints, trying to read that strange note in Danny’s voice. “I’m as surprised as you are, trust me.”

It’s the second most shocking event in Steve’s day—

Danny lights up in a small smile, one of those pure, genuine ones Steve doesn’t get to see very often. It makes him look ten years younger in seconds, his eyes happy for a brief moment while he picks up the tea and blows over the water.

He’s stunning and vulnerable and brimming with goodness when he smiles like this.

“I like my tea black with nothing added. Thanks, Steve.” Danny looks away from looping the string around the mug handle. “What?”

Steve catches himself gawking in straight up wonder at this singular moment. At Danny. “I, uh, didn’t know you like tea so much.”

Danny rolls his eyes. “I was married to a British person for ten years, Steve, not to mention my mother who thinks tea is an art form. Though I do have to ask…a camel?”

“Freddie loved that thing.” And it tastes oddly like relief for Steve to say his name out loud, before Danny’s curious face in the cozy air of familiarity that is the McGarrett living room. He’s not sure why, but he doesn’t look this gift horse in the mouth. “We weren’t supposed to sneak off base while stationed somewhere. One night, though, Freddie dragged me out to the market and bought this mug for my birthday…sorry, Danno. You probably don’t want to hear about this right now.”

“No, no.” Danny waves an ever-expressive hand. “Are you kidding me? More dirt on baby SEAL Steve in his younger, even more reckless years? I’ll take it.”

Steve grins along, but he makes sure he has Danny’s eyes when the moment of humour passes. “We’ll figure it out, Danny. Find something special for you and Charlie to do together. Rachel can’t have all of his heart, no matter how hard she tries.”

Danny stares at him in surprise. “I know that, Steve.”

“I’m just saying…” Steve frowns at himself, then reclaims Danny’s gaze. “A child deserves to know his father.”

Danny sinks deeper into the couch, face soft. “I agree, and he will, babe.”

They talk late into the night, laugh, get angry some more. Danny definitely throws one of those couch pillows. But the escalated feel of crisis washes away after that, while Danny sips at his tea and lets Steve tell him stories about Freddie as a distraction. He’s calm, all things considered.

Steve doesn’t stop being in awe of this the whole night.

When the last cold drop is gone, Danny sets his mug down with a rueful snort. “My grandmother used to say tea is the modern day ‘flower language.’ Nutty, right?”

“Yeah,” Steve says, absent. “Nutty.”

His mind, however, doesn’t stop racing for a long time.