Mcdanno, #39. Long distance relationship??
Thank you for giving me a prompt!! :D
This story takes place in the “Chosen” universe, but you needn’t have read that to understand this little piece. Hope that’s okay
Steve scrambles for the phone, jumping over the coffee table and almost landing on one of Charlie’s Lego structures.
“Yes, hello,” he pants into the receiver, as he plops down into the couch, his leg already sore from the exertion. “Hello?”
The line crackles, followed by, “hey, babe.”
Steve sits up, never minding his cramping leg. “Danno! How are you?”
“Better now that I’ve got a hold of you.”
“Awww, you really think that sounds romantic, don’t you? I pity your game.”
“Oi, I have ten minutes to use the phone, you sure you want to use it up insulting me?”
“Yeah, kinky, but, how about not.” Steve pouts in response, and Danny continues, “tell me, how are you? How are things? The leg? The kids? My parents? Did Nahele find his lucky socks, did we bring them from Hawaii? How about—
Steve blinks, adjusting to the change of pace. This is not how he envisioned a long-distance relationship with Danny.
“Okay, hold your horses there, more conversation, less interrogation, okay? The kids are fine, or as fine as they can be, your parents are lovely as usual, and absolutely delighted to have the kids around.”
Danny snorts (and it does not sound pretty over the phone).
“You’ve been dumping them with my Ma every week, huh?”
Steve takes a beat before answering, “dumping sounds harsh, it’s more like…”
“Sorry, giving them the opportunity to enjoy the kids on a semi-regular basis.”
“Yeah,” he nods to himself, “much more dignified, that works.”
Danny snorts again. Steve can almost see him shaking his head.
“But in all seriousness, Steve, how’s the leg?”
“It’s fine, Danno, much better than last time we saw each other. I’ve been doing PT and everything.” Steve strokes his thigh as he talks, remembering how it used to be less than a year ago. “Today I walked all the way from the kids’ school to your parents’ house.” Steve wiggles his eyebrows satisfied with his accomplishment.
“Oh, wow, that’s actually a lot more than I expected,” Danny says, a huge smile in his voice. “Congrats for you.”
“Thank you.” Steve answers, satisfied smile of his own dangling from his lips. “So, uhm, how’s your thing going, you adjusting to training well?”
“Uuuuh, yeah, people are, you know, a bunch of average joes for the most part, and a good part of them wash out in the first week, so I’m holding my ground, comparatively I’m okay.”
Oh, that’s code speak for I hate it, Steven, I hate it so much.
“Does that mean you’re objectively a klutz and your drill sergeant hates you?”
“Ha-ha, very funny. Naah, I’m fine, I’m five-oh, we know how to keep it cool and interesting, you know?”
“Riiiight, you bored out of your mind yet?”
“Maybe.” Steve can sense the way Danny shrugs only one shoulder and finds it endearing.
Next to the telephone, there’s a whole wall of salvaged pictures in mismatched frames. There’s a handful of people there he’ll never get to see again, whose voice he’ll never hear again. Some of them were gone way before They came, but some other, he just couldn’t save.
There’s a shift all around him, reality sets in, the strangeness of it. Danny deployed, Steve pining for his boyfriend, unable to help, still convalescent from his various wounds.
“Did they test you already?” Steve blurts out, unable to rein it all in, profoundly aware of how these things go, it is after all what he does as a “hobby” since Danny went; get as much information as he can on the situation. He couldn’t pretend the test wasn’t happening at some point, all people who present the gene and are clearly not wash-outs, are tested. Danny was bound to get tested as soon as the alliance could get their hands on him. His background as a LEO is a huge asset that can’t go ignored.
There’s a small fraction of a second where the line goes silent, and then it connects again.
“Yeah, yeah, no, sure, I mean, yeah. I got tested. A bunch of us did.”
Steve frowns, that’s Danny deflection 101.
One more time, the line goes silent for less than a second.
“Hmm, uhmm, babe, look, I’m pretty sure this call’s been monitored and as you know we can’t really discuss… the process: it’s classified.”
Steve huffs. He hates that ultimately, he can’t truly know, because he’s not there.
“Sucks been told that, huh?” Steve rolls his eyes, trust Danny to keep grudges alive
for the better part of a decade. “Can’t believe it took a major world-wide disaster to get you back on that one.” Danny tries to keep it light, but even before he says it, Steve knows whatever Danny comments will fall flat.
There’s a short silence where neither of them talks, and Steve can hear the hub dub behind Danny—wherever he is. It sounds familiar in a disorienting way.
On more the one occasion he had told someone from outside to not purposefully make it hard on his team guys. His stomach clenches, and Steve takes a deep breath as he racks his brain for safe topics to talk about.
“How about the food? We can talk about that, right?” He exhales after the last word, ordering his body to relax.
Danny clicks his tongue. He knows what Steve’s up to, and he’s game.
“Oh, yes, we can! I don’t know what’s the deal with these guys, one week everything is delicious and hearty, makes you want to go for seconds and thirds, some seasoning has been so inspired it I use my free time trying to figure out the recipes.”
A distant memory flashes behind Steve’s eyes, Danny cooking back in Pikoii street, barefoot and carefree. Steve sniffs against his will and has to cover his mouth with the back of his hand as to not disturb Danny.
“And then for a few days or a whole week, bland crap, gruel, Steven, veritable gruel—makes me want to go in an involuntary diet. Yuck.”
Steve swallows thickly. “Sounds like regular military experience if you ask me, in fact, above regular, all I ate was gruel for the first four years of my service.”
“Nu-uh! Impossible, I know from a good source you were happy to eat rations in the comfort of your own home when good steak was readily available.”
Steve swallows again, tears spilling over his hands.
“It was Italian food actually,” he croaks.
“Even worse, babe, you’re really not helping your case.”
“What can I say, I get nostalgic sometimes.” He trips mentally on the nostalgia and a sob slips past his tight emotional control.
Danny sighs. Heartbroken as well.
“Babe, babe, Steve. I’m sorry, please don’t cry. I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about,” he sniffs.
“Look, I don’t mean to beat you while you’re down…” Danny trails off, but Steve can connect the dots.
“Basic training is extending then? You gonna be a specialist now?”
“Ugh, you’re killing me Steven. It’s cla—no, you know what, fuck this shit, whoever is out there screening my calls, you listen to me you son of a bitch,” Danny yell-whispers to the third party on the line. “I’m talking with my boyfriend right now, who I would have married if not for the giant clusterfuck we are all living through right now, he’s the father of my children and my best friend, so I’ll tell him whatever the fuck I want, you censor this call and I swear I’ll hunt you down and bash your head in, you hear me?!”
Steve chuckles wetly, this is the hothead he loves.
There's a soft clicking sound in the background. It sounds definitive. So, he chooses to believe the censor’s gone.
“You would have married me, huh?”
“Pfft, please, you were a sure thing.” Steve wants to protest, but Danny keeps talking
over him. “Look, now that the censor is gone. There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”
“What?” Steve rushes to ask, fearing the worst.
“I love you too. What else?”
“I miss you more. What else?”
“I already made it through basic and I’m being fast-tracked to pilot.”
Even though he suspected, having confirmation is like a punch to the lungs. No wonder the censor left, a pilot has different privileges, a pilot scares people away, even if they’re being hoisted as the only chance they have left.
“You’ve never been one to pull your punches.”
“No, I haven’t. Which is why, once I’m done with that I’ll be coming home for a whole month, okay?” Danny pleads, “I got special leave. I’ll be home for Christmas, okay?”
For Steve, it’s like the world’s ending all over again. The future path folding in on itself in front of him, rearranging into a yawning void made of the fearful and the unknown.
Christmas is only two months away. He can foresee his life up until Christmas. He can push through to that.
“Christmas it is.” He sniffles again.
“Yeah, Christmas. Look, I still have about five minutes on the line, why don’t you tell me about the kids, they adjusting well?”
More tears run down his face, but he talks. About homework, about tantrums, about movie nights, about burnt popcorn, about the kids begging to get a dog, about shortages of chocolate and coffee, about going insane with the bickering and the meaningless fights, about never doing so much laundry in his life, the herb garden Charlie and Nahele are doing together as a school project, Grace’s dissertation and newfound interest in nursing. Steve talks and talks, enough to carry Danny home, safe and sound, only two months away.
*beams* I’ve been wanting to expand this little verse forever, thank you again! :D
