Chapter Text
The sweet scent of the soft-petaled flower in his hand couldn't lift his mouth into a smile. The lulling backdrop of gentle waves lapping at the sand of his beach couldn't soothe his aching heart. The low, gray clouds rolling in from the east mirrored the mood pervading his land, his home, his mind.
He swallowed. The flower, bright pink and white-striped, fell between his fingers to the sand between his bare feet. He looked down at it. Heard thunder roll in the distance. Looked back up at the water, a nearly-flat blue-gray as the storm rolled in, stretching to the horizon. Not a boat or a fin, not a swimmer or the spout of a breathing whale. Lifeless. Endless. Exactly how he felt.
He thought back to the joking, the laughter, the merriment of yesterday as he, Chin, Kamekona and Danny had stood in the same room at the same tuxedo store, all trying on their fitted tuxes for the wedding that was taking place this Saturday on the beach, as Chin's had. Talk of the Jersey Slip, Danny's face reddening when Steve mentioned him handcuffing himself to Lori.
Chin's bright, happy eyes, no longer going to be the only married man on the Five-0 team. Kono's ribbing and ooh's and aah's because she'd seen the bride's dress and it was perfect, beautiful, gorgeous, according to her. Steve's simple enjoyment of Danny's sparkling blue eyes, the crinkles at the corners of them because he hadn't been able to stop smiling, the teeth always showing through his perma-grin.
Danny was happy.
Danny was getting married.
The bachelor party, being thrown by Steve, of course, was tomorrow night. Guys' night out, one last hurrah before the big day.
Kono was throwing a bridal shower for Dr. Asano tomorrow at eleven in the morning. Grace was attending, was all Steve knew about it.
Danny was happy. That was all that mattered. All Steve wanted. He hadn't lied when he'd said that while on the run from authorities. It'd been truth.
He swallowed, felt a lump growing in his throat. Felt the world around him shatter, heard it tinkling like glass as it fell from the perfect but oh-so-fragile bubble he'd created when he'd pulled Daniel Williams and Chin Ho Kelly and Kono Kalakaua into it. Tried so hard to preserve it. But things moved on. Life kept rolling along. People moved on.
They were ohana. They would always be ohana.
But now Chin had Malia, a world of his own to go back to at the end of the day. And Kono didn't want to hang out with her boss, for God's sake, she wanted to catch waves with her friends, hang out with her family, date all the men who felt so privileged to be chosen for even a single outing by a woman as beautiful as she.
And while Danny had always had Grace, it had grown into a little world that Danny let Steve into there for a couple of years. Where so often it was Grace and Danny and Steve, whenever Danny had her, because Steve had a private beach, and Steve knew all the fun places on the islands for kids, and Steve always welcomed his partner and his adopted niece with wide-open arms.
Only Steve did that because of the one thing he hadn't realized until he'd seen Danny standing there yesterday in his tuxedo – bow tie, cummerbund and all. He hadn't understood before what it was that made him want to keep Danny in his world, and when the light bulb had gone off standing there with the other groomsmen and the groom himself, it had caused his world to shift, tilt, completely stop and then start spinning the other direction.
Chin had stared at him quietly for a few seconds, but said nothing. Kamekona hadn't seemed to notice. Danny had been too busy preening in the full-length mirror, and then had turned and started ribbing Steve for not having his jacket on yet because Danny wanted to see them all, dammit, in all their glory, so he'd know they all would look perfect.
And Chin had continued to give him looks.
And Steve had plastered on a smile, had put aside the epiphany, had felt like the stupidest, most idiotic ridiculous man on the planet for not having realized sooner. For not having seen it. For not having recognized the pull toward Danny for what it truly was.
Steve wasn't gay.
He wasn't even bi.
He'd been heterosexual his entire life, and maybe that's why it had never occurred to him that this friendship with Danny was more. Could be more.
Of course, Danny wasn't gay either.
Nor, as far as Steve knew, was he bi.
Danny had been heterosexual his whole life, from what Steve knew of it, so there you had it, plain and simple.
Two heterosexual men.
One of them getting married.
"It won't change anything, Steve, I'll still provide you with multiple rants on an hourly basis, babe."
Those had been Danny's words, but Steve knew Danny was wrong.
Things would change, of course they would. Danny had someone to go home to now. He didn't have a lonely, empty apartment. His life wasn't only filled when he was working or had Grace. Now he had a new life he was embarking on, as a new husband to a wonderful, beautiful, perfect woman in Gabrielle Asano. Hell, they'd probably have at least one child, if not more, as much as Danny loved kids, loved being a father.
And Danny would slide further and further from Steve's side, happy to be there during cases, but mind always on what waited for him in the nights, in bed, with his new family. There was proof that things would change, proof from Chin. He rarely hung out with Danny and Steve anymore, and even Danny had already cut down the amount of nights he spent hanging with Steve in back of the house, or out at a bar throwing back a few and shooting the shit after a rough day.
Now he went to Gabby. Gabby's arms. Gabby's lips. Gabby's bed.
Steve could hardly envision himself holding Danny for longer than a two-second back-slapping hug, and yet now as the sun behind the clouds began to set, he wondered what it would have felt like to try it, even once.
He could hardly envision his lips touching Danny's for any reason other than CPR, and yet now, seated in the white wooden beach chair with the other one painfully empty beside him, he wondered what it would be like to take Danny's face in his hands, caress his cheeks with his thumbs, and touch lips to lips, even for the briefest moment.
He could hardly envision pulling Danny's clothing deliberately away: unbuttoning his dress shirt, undoing his pants. Sliding his shirt from his arms, hearing it fall to the floor with a whisper. Shoving his pants down his thighs, grabbing the waistband of his boxer briefs and tugging them down and away, Danny lifting one foot and then the other.
He could hardly imagine seeing Danny's erect cock up close and personal, nor even taking it into his mouth. Touching Danny's bare skin, fingertips grazing the ample hair covering much of Danny's body. Fingers carding through Danny's perfectly-coiffed hair, mussing it, feeling it silky soft.
Falling into Steve's bed.
Face-to-face.
Chest-to-chest.
Cock-to-cock.
He couldn't fathom it, couldn't see it happening…and yet, could. In vivid Technicolor, there it was before him like a movie that had never been made, a possible future path that would never be taken. It fascinated him, terrified him, embarrassed him. His cock grew hard at the thought of cupping Danny's ass in both his hands. It twitched when the movie in his mind showed him stroking across Danny's tight hole, and his mind's ear supplied Danny moaning in pleasure at the touch.
Steve sucked in a deep, shuddering breath, leaned back in the chair and rested his head on the hard back of it. He watched the storm front roll across the sky, where stars were barely twinkling in the twilight before being erased altogether by deeply threatening clouds.
When the first flash of lightning came from over the water, he didn't even flinch. His eyes were wide open, just staring at nothing in the sky as the full force of what was about to happen hit him like a freight train. Thunder boomed in his ears, but he was frozen in place even as the first raindrops fell from the sky, some splashing into his still-open eyes.
The elation of realizing he was in love.
The confusion of it being with his partner. His partner who was a man.
The heartbreak of knowing he'd lost the object of his affection before he'd even understood that's who Danny was to him.
The despair of knowing that he would never find out whether he could make love to Danny the way he'd made love to women throughout his life.
The loneliness he knew the next many years would bring, watching Danny move on with his life and his new family, while Steve stayed stuck in one place, as though mired in the thickest mud, rooted to this one moment in time where he knew, finally knew, what love was…and could do nothing about it.
It burned.
It seared.
It stabbed.
It fucking hurt.
Soon rain wasn't the only liquid running down Steve's face. He gasped out a sob, doubling forward fast as though he'd been sucker punched in the gut and shot through the heart all at the same time.
He loved Danny.
He loved Danny.
He loved Danny.
And he'd never know what might have been if he'd realized it sooner.
Out on the beach, alone, in the rain, with thunder cracking and lightning piercing the sky in jagged bolts, Steve's pain roared out of him in a heart-wrenching, mournful cry, and then he was silent.
The tears fell even as he fell to his knees in the sand. Bent forward. Hands digging into its wet warmth. Sobs wracking his body, silent open-mouthed screams as more than just this…but everything that had ever hurt him in his life from childhood through to present day was pulled from the very depths of his being. As though internalizing true, pure love had broken the carefully constructed brick and concrete and steel dam he'd built and built and built. As though Danny had become the tidal wave of water…the only thing…that could break through it all.
Down from the heavens poured the rain.
Out of Steve's body, poured emotion.
Until at last, spent and unable to move, he simply fell to the sand, body drenched and painful hiccups spasming his chest and throat.
He laid there, closed his eyes, and breathed, not sure what had just happened, but knowing it had changed him forever.