sluttylyingliar | For Steve

For Steve

She swears. She swears she wasn't snooping. She was minding her own damn business and watching fucking Housewives of Beverly Hills and then it was just there. She thought it was just a regular episode of the Steve and Danny EyeFuck Parade and had half thought about going to find Danny, to point to at least five instances that to her at least, proved those two were screwing back home. That was before it all went to shit. Before Danny's kid was kidnapped. Before she made herself sit through the whole damn mess because she had to know what happened. For Danny's sake.

But now what? She can't just leave the thing lying around. But she has no idea if Danny should know. It would torture him. It would absolutely ruin him and he's happy and Grace turned out to be okay so it doesn't even seem worth it. If there's been any maturity gained in the past two years, however, it;s that she knows it's not really her decision to make.

So she runs off to find Steve, instead. It's probably disturbing that she knows their schedule this well but she speeds over to his office, reel stuffed into her bag.

She quickly shuts the door behind her, and pushes sweaty hair off her face before Steve can even say hello.

"We need to talk," she bites out, letting out a shaky breath.

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Danny keeps steady, even though it's killing him. He wants to scream, he wants to do a million things (like shoot Rick, like kill Rick), but he can just sit here steadily. "Both of you, just, go. Steve, don't be at the house for a few hours," he gets out, voice so soft, it's almost hard to hear.

"Danny, I don't - "

He feels helpless standing here, looking over at Rachel, and realizes his face probably more than makes that clear at this point.

" - I can't leave," he says, quiet and insisting. "I won't leave you to deal with this alone. It's different, now that we're - it's what I'm supposed to do for you. Be here."

This is rapidly entering not your place territory so Rachel nods to Steve and squeezes Danny's shoulder before leaving as quietly as she can. She takes a few steps outside the rec room before leaning against the wall and squeezing her eyes shut, hoping to hell that Danny lets him stay.

Danny gives Steve a helpless look, not sure how he can even begin to put this into words. He doesn't want to feel like this, he doesn't want to feel any of this. "You just watched me pour out my heart to Rachel, you just watched my baby girl get kidnapped, you watched my scumbag ex-partner torture me. Steven, I can't process this with you staring over my shoulder. I need to get through one hurdle at a time right now."

"Then I'll look at the goddamn wall if I have to," Steve replies, his voice rising, becoming more insistent even if he stays well below the barrier between yelling and normal conversation. "You think I would've let you go through any of this alone if we'd lived it out ourselves? Some versions of us did, but I'm going to tell you right now, Danny, I wouldn't have done it any different. I would've been there every step of the way, finding out everything I could about this son of a bitch, stopped at nothing to make sure Grace made it back home to you and Rachel, and I'm going to be here for you, now."

Danny's been holding it back, the desperate need to let it all out, but the minute Steve's done, the minute, Danny can't even try. His eyes are shiny with tears, he lets out a choked cry, and just wants to be back home, more than any other time. "He took my baby, Steve, he took -- he took her," he says, that edge of panic still in his voice as he claws at the air, the anger mixing with desperation.

Steve doesn't say anything for a long time, bowing his head slowly, the tension in his jaw reappearing again before he nods, willing his hands to unclench from their fists. It'd be a hit for the rest of the team in any situation like this, but it hits harder now, because it's Danny, and because he just wants to be able to do something to make it better. "And we get her back," he whispers. "And we're gonna keep her safe. All of us."

Danny feels like he can't breathe and he's grateful that he's not wearing a tie -- if he were, he feels like it might be strangling him, at this point. Still, as it is, he grasps at his collar, the burning fury not subsiding at all. "I want to kill him," he growls. "I want to kill Peterson, I want him dead, I want him to suffer for what he did to her."

"After what he pulled, Danny, he's going to be locked up for a really long time," Steve replies. "And I'll be there at every parole hearing with a list of reasons why his ass needs to rot in there."

"I don't want him locked up. I want him dead, I want him dead," Danny insists, as sharply as he can. He doesn't want Rick to live. "He took my daughter!" he shouts, as loud as he can. "He took my Grace. You saw it. You saw it twice. What would you do, in my place?"

"I'd kill him, Danny," Steve replies, without a tentative note in his voice. "But what would happen if you had that chance to kill him and took it, huh? You think Grace would want to be visiting you every day through a glass window? Talking to you on that phone? You can't take that kind of a risk with your future. Or with hers."

Danny takes a deep breath, reminding himself of his one-true purpose in life -- protecting Grace -- and knows that if he were to kill Rick like he wants, his baby girl would never have him. "Okay, I wouldn't kill him," he admits, exhaling sharply. "But, god, Steve. What he did -- I don't understand. I testified, I told the truth. His actions were his actions, he just got caught."

"People like that, Danny, once they get a taste for corruption, sometimes they can't get enough," Steve admits, keeping his voice even as he speaks. "It works its way into every part of their life until they're turning on the people they care about, and they don't care who gets hurt in the process."

"Like my family," Danny says, because it still isn't sinking in, not totally, and it makes him want to throw up, he hates it so much. "My family, he hurt my Grace, he tried to make me kill Stan."

"I think it was because in some sick, twisted way, he wanted you to have the happiness with Rachel and Grace again that he'd lost with his own family," Steve softly answers. "Hearing that voicemail you left - somehow, it became his mission to accomplish for you."

Danny pauses, because he realizes, now, that it must have killed Steve to be listening to that voice-mail, to hear himself beg for Rachel. He sobers up, trying to put aside his all-encompassing panic about Grace for just a second, if only because the guy he's going to spend the rest of his life with is the one standing in front of him.

"I would have begged you, you know," Danny says, quietly. "If we got it together. I would have --" He clears his throat. "I would have begged, for you."

"I know," Steve whispers, because really, there isn't a doubt in his mind that Danny would be willing to resort to begging if the situation was theirs instead, theirs instead of Danny and Rachel's, but even he can't begin to predict how it all would've gone down if it'd been their happiness that had been targeted, how Peterson would've tried to get to Danny through him.

"I know, Danny. It doesn't matter now."

"It's pretty much the only thing that does," Danny points out weakly. After all, Grace isn't there and he can't hold her so tight that she bursts. He can't put a bullet in Peterson's kneecap again like he so desperately wants to. So, all he's got is reassuring Steve that everything here is going to be okay. "Or do you want a voicemail?"

"Even if you had a way of sending it, I wouldn't need it," Steve promises, stepping in to close the space, his hand sliding along Danny's shoulder to tug him in, tipping his forehead against the top of Danny's head while he breathes him in, his lips moving slowly across Danny's temple. "This, this right here - this is all I need, Danno, okay?"

"Are you treating me like the little wife again?" Danny asks, muffled against Steve's chest as he tries to free his way out. He grabs hold of Steve's hips and tries to push him away slightly. "Babe," he says. "Can we go get so furiously drunk right now?"

"C'mon," Steve murmurs, relinquishing his grip as he takes a step back, still running his hands over Danny's shoulders. "I'm in if you are."

"What, drunk Steve?" Actually, the thought of it makes him feel just the smallest bit better. When Steve gets drunk, Danny feels like he actually gets to take care of something. "I don't know how good it will make me feel, but at least I might not remember this in the morning."

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For Steve

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