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cowandcalf · 4 days

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I have been thinking a lot about this, and I've come to the conclusion that it's surreal that the H50 fandom, and the McDanno community specifically, have so seldom used a very specific trope, compared to others.

I remember a discussion, on a Good Omens server whether The Best Trope™ to portray A/C was the "fucking just once at the very beginning, then stopping and silently pining one for another until the very end" option, the "mutually pining for the other from the very beginning but never acting on it because of course it cannot be mutual, and then having the mutual OH moment and finally fucking" option, or even the (probably most favorite) one which was either called "fucking while pining" or "pining while fucking", a sort of intensified Friends with Benefits trope.

So, about Danny and Steve, I've seen the almost totality being the second one, with some egregious FWB (alas too rare, because someone kept throwing in girlfriends at any corner, and both of them are too good to be cheaters), but I noticed an alarmingly scarcity of the first kind of trope. It might be my fault, but I only found, what? Two or three.

Which, to me, is….baffling? I mean, let's just do this mental exercise for a moment.

I know we all love to point out that for Steve, meeting Danny was love at first sight, later consolidated by love at first punch, because he saw in Danny something fascinating and alluring, someone who didn't bow and salute and yell "Sir, yes Sir" and obey to Steve's role with no questions asked. That had been Steve normalcy until the moment he stumbled upon Danny, either obeying or being obeyed, but never giving or being given a choice. He was so fascinated by Danny's attitude and his stubbornness to keep his case, that the only way he had to keep this new, shining toy, was to ditch the Navy, go into the Reserves, put aside all his plans to leave, and accept the Governor's offer.

Because he had found something that had made him change his mind.

And then we have years and years of longing gazes, yearning stares, constant touching and hugging and caressing and being in each other's personal space, showing an intimacy and a tenderness and a trust, and simply put, a perfect synchrony and a perfect telepathy since the first moment, like they were always meant to walk together. And that stubborn refusal to build a life with someone else, postponing the choice and diluting the feelings, until the relationship, every relationship, fizzles out and vanishes. Danny keeping this sort of stubborn shadow that he could go back to what he and Rachel had, rebuild a time when everything was new and good, revive the corpse of some long dead love instead of committing to someone new. Steve hanging on the threads left by an on/off friends with benefits thing that they both left to die, and being the only one who sees a future of, because mourning something you once had is easier than blaming yourself for not taking what you want. Always going back to the other, finding that comfort they seem unable to find in anyone else. That comfort they look unwilling to look for in anyone else.

Yet, we could imagine something different here. Because let's be honest: for how impulsive Steve can be, that choice in his father's garage was a huge change into his plans, and plans are his field of expertise. He gathers intel, he plans, he acts. Straight to the point. Isn't it a bit odd that this steel-minded man, suddenly, impulsively, sees this man he knows NOTHING about, decides "Yes, this is the one. I want this one. I'll do everything I can to keep him", and ditches all his carefully plotted plans, and his career too? For how interesting and endearing it can sound, it's still an odd behavior.

But what if that moment in the garage hadn't been the first time he had met him? What if their mutual rage and aggressiveness had another explanation, aside from stubbornness, impulsiveness and alpha-maleness? What if their anger was simply a cover for another feeling, one like….Shock? Fear? Guilt? Shame? Better to yell, scream, point a gun, and take some pissing contest, see who's boss.

Let's imagine. And see if it doesn't all make much more sense, this way.

It's the evening before their fatal meeting. Steve, after donning his dress blues to attend the service for burying his father, all authorities present, after paying his respects and taking care of what was left, before leaving to hunt Hesse, goes back to his temporary dwellings, dismisses his formal uniform, and sporting just his cargo pants and tee, goes to find some old joint to get thoroughly plastered, drinking at his father's memory. He gets inside, and proceeds with his plan, determined not to feel or remember a single thing about this day when he'll wake up the day after with the mother of all hangovers.

He purposely chooses some dubious, smoky, unnamed, not touristy alley, where it's obvious he can find only people with his same goal in mind, and no need to do small talk or mind someone else's business. He's halfway through his plan, remembering all things that could've gone better and all those that went spectacularly wrong, when he notices someone in a shadowy corner, not far from where he sits, sporting some of the sourest faces he's ever seen, one which makes him think this man, this haole who sticks like a sore thumb in a crowd of dark hairs and tan complexions, is having an even harder time than he is. Blondest hair Steve has ever seen, blond eyelashes fanning the bluest eyes, so blue they are shining even in the dark corner he sits in, blond stubble over his cheeks and around those rosy lips. Muscular shoulders and a chest to die for. Awakening something Steve thought long dead and buried. Wearing a goddamn tie over a tight shirt over dress pants. In Hawai'i.

Of course, since Steve is already half-shitfaced, he doesn't notice he's been staring. For a while. And of course the haole has noticed. He gets up, bringing his scotch and glass with him, and lands on the seat opposite to Steve. Staring back. Silently. Until he barks out, voice raspy maybe for too much scotch or maybe too much crying (his eyes, so blue, are red rimmed, Steve can clearly see it from this near), if he's something to tell him or if he intends to keep on staring like a creep. If he's seen something he likes. And smiles.

Steve's heart does a complicated and not entirely funny thing, one it hadn't done in a long time, a very, very long time, since when he joined the Navy and the SEALs. Probably even before, surely before, when he started attending Annapolis and those muddled, hazy, flustering thoughts could've compromised his entire future and left him adrift, even more than he already was, without a purpose and a goal. So it was easy to decide to cut that side of him, keep only the allowed one, and never act on it again. Think, maybe. Dream, sure. Wish, sometimes. But never act because he had too much to lose, and anyway, it wasn't like anyone had ever made a mystery of finding it extremely easy to ditch and abandon him. The Navy, though, it was a sure thing, definitely an exigent owner, but a sure thing that would've never abandoned him as long as he obeyed, behaved, and kept sacrificing himself.

Now he's not on duty, though. He's no one, at least for these few days. He's just John's son, mourning his father and reading himself for a revenge mission that could take his life in the process. He's drinking alone in a shady bar where no one can recognize him after so many years, and surely not when his first impression on these people had been one of a fully decked out Officer in high uniform. And with a beautiful, lonely, sad man who's maybe interested in the same thing he is: forgetting everything that's going on in his life right now, forgetting everything just for this night, feeling good, feeling empty. But feeling good is surely a nicer option than feeling empty. And the haole is definitely interested in feeling good and empty at least for today. No explanations needed, no niceties, no buying drinks, no asking about what brings him here. So they carefully test the water before diving in headfirst, and just a look is enough to understand they are on the same page.

Steve is more careful than ever that no one would recognize him when he leaves the bar, the blond man following him at a distance as they walk the few alleys and streets to Steve's place while he's in Hawai'i, heading in just a few minutes after Steve and going straight to the point, in the half-light coming from the open curtains. It's not sentimental. It's not sweet. It's not meant to be, and yet….Yet there's some kind of instantaneous and instinctive connection between them, to the point that while they agreed this was just a one night thing, and they didn't need to know the other's bruises and griefs, or the reasons for taking this leap, for needing this kind of anonymous comfort, they can't help but exchanging their names. Just that. And if you know someone's name, you hold them in your power, or whatever that shit was.

It's not romantic, but it almost is. And Steve is almost crying because of Danny's (the beautiful, golden stranger's name) protectiveness and gentleness with him, like he's sensing or understanding by experience alone that Steve might scowl and purse his lips all he wants, but he's way more inexperienced at this than he liked to think he was. Danny has strong hands, but they are so soft and careful, like he's accustomed to handling frail, little, tiny things, like people's hearts or children's hands. Steve, for the first time since when he was a little kid on his mother's knees, feels cared for. Loved, almost. And it makes him sick, because being loved and cared for is not something he's allowed to.

But this isn't love. This is a one night stand, and he's a Navy SEAL, and DADT is still in full force, and tomorrow he'll leave for his quest, and he'll never see this kind, caring, attentive man who's offered him at least one night of comfort like he's never felt even with Catherine (it had never been about the comfort with her, it was about taking a breath before diving again, and it was his role to be up to the task, always), giving without asking, offering without expecting. He had said he was looking for relief, but in reality he had offered it. This man who now is gathering his clothes, dressing back and heading for the door, a brittle smile on those gorgeous lips while he turns and looks at Steve for the last time before disappearing. This man whom Steve will never meet again, taking with him this memory of how people, even complete strangers, could be a beacon of life in the darkness that had swallowed him too long ago to remember a time where light existed. This man who clearly carried a heavy burden of his own, an unspoken pain, and whose eyes were so bright and yet so sad.

Steve drifts to sleep too, wondering how much time will pass until he'll forget the beautiful stranger's face, and how much until the stranger does the same.

Funny how the answer to that question, just the following morning, would suddenly come to him while raising his gun and yelling at an uncomfortably familiar face, a face equally frozen when taking in his own face.

Of course, being partners, and being Steve technically Danny's boss (even if Danny has opinions, very loud opinions, on this matter), and being Steve still in the Navy, means that they look at each other over a beer that same evening, and with just one look agree that it must stay exactly as they had agreed: a one night stand among two strangers trying to run away from their nightmares for just some hours. And that's it. Or so they believe.

Turns out that when you know exactly how your partner and best friend looks like in the dim light of a bedroom, what he sounds like, what he tastes like, and how he is when he's at his most vulnerable….it's very difficult not to remember it constantly, and to fight back the yearning and the longing. Especially if you've been such an idiot to fall in love with a stranger you met in a bar. But they had agreed and shaken hands, and that had to be it. Living the rest of their lives, both of them, wanting to have just that one thing they thought the other considered the worst mistake of his life, not imagining he wanted it back so badly, so desperately, that everyone else coming in their lives could never stay enough before the ghost of that night hunted them out of Steve's or Danny's bed, and heart.

Funny how the answer to that question turned out to be Eternity.

#mcdanno #mcdanno headcanon #h50 #meta #steve‘s POV #GREAT STUFF

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