PSL: Sentinel AU
Apr. 9th, 2017 11:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dann_0Danny is Steve's guide. He is still pretty new at it and working with a Sentinel who has some bad experiences. To top if off, while working a case in Portland he finds out that a guide can have more than one Sentinel who is their perfect match.
Re: Danny and Steve: Surprise, I'm in Portland
Date: 2017-04-17 04:27 am (UTC)"I've actually done that, not the show but the jungle survival camping with only a knife. We should do it sometime. It'd be fun and good training." Danny would likely hate it and complain the whole time, but Steve would be in his element. "Although I'm thinking no more hotel TV for you. You'll become addicted to some 'housewives' show and make me watch it with you." He curls his nose and shudders dramatically. "I'm warning you now, you do and I'm making good on that survival weekend for us."
Steve shakes his head. He doesn't have a room, rather he was hoping for some closeness. "I wouldn't make you pay." He's quiet a second. "I'd make the governor pay... Or the city of Portland." He grins at his partner then shrugs. "Just after lunch. I took a military transport over and will back. No cost there. We're mostly just running down potential leads on the ongoing cases." He hugs Danny back just as ferociously. "Nothing pressing. How's it going with your case?"
Re: Danny and Steve: Surprise, I'm in Portland
Date: 2017-04-17 04:01 pm (UTC)Danny gives him one good squeeze before he moves over to get food out of the bag and set up so they can settle into the two chairs with the food. "Well. I thought we were about to run out of options, but then I got another good lead. That is what I was doing all night. Seems like the vic had contacts out at the airport, friend of a college roommate works out there and has called our vic's phone number ten times in the last week before the vic died. I am thinking he knows what our vic was transporting that made him a target." He grabs a box and a pair of chopsticks and sits down. "Had I known you'd be coming in I'd have gotten more. What have you been doing since lunch? Have you been sitting here the whole time?"
Re: Danny and Steve: Surprise, I'm in Portland
Date: 2017-04-17 06:26 pm (UTC)Steve helps get things set up, then sits. "Sounds like a good lead. That mean you're close to tying this one up?" The last time they'd talked it had sounded like it might be at least another week, possibly more and that had partly encouraged Steve's impromptu visit. Danny had Grace next weekend, and while the other man would be home for that, Steve had wanted a bit of alone time before that happened so he wouldn't be so needy when Grace was around. "I wanted it to be a surprise, and if we need more, we can order delivery."
Focusing on his food for a moment, Steve's jaw moves to the left and the right as he tries to work out how to tell Danny what he did. "I uh... I went to lunch when I got here... I might have possibly stopped at that place you recommended." Okay, so Danny hadn't quite recommended it in the sense that Steve should check it out but that was just semantics. Surely Danny knew Steve would look into things.
Re: Danny and Steve: Surprise, I'm in Portland
Date: 2017-04-18 11:33 am (UTC)He blinks and frowns when Steve admits to what he has been doing. "You saw him?" There is worry in his voice but it is not clear if it is directed towards Steve or Eliot. "Why? I mean I know why, I know you, but still, Steve, do you really think it is a good idea to go poking at a guy who just wants to be left alone. He knows how to find us if he wants to talk."
Re: Danny and Steve: Surprise, I'm in Portland
Date: 2017-04-18 05:24 pm (UTC)Accepting a pancake with a nod of thanks, he makes a face that can only be described as goofy, as yes, he does miss Danny. Very much. "Chin definitely does. He keeps telling me he needs babysitters pay when you're away. Kono walks around like she has something to say but is missing her gossip buddy."
"Talked to him even, although that was not my intention going in." Steve raises an eyebrow at Danny. "I can't do a military search on him, Danny." Regardless if there was anything there to find at all, Steve doesn't have a good reason for it and he's not taking that chance with Catherine questioning what he's looking for. "I know what my kind is like. Intel was needed. Besides, as soon as I walked in, they knew exactly who I was so he's been doing some research on us. He showed up a few minutes later. It was good. We got to talk and... Did you tell him we were bonded?" There's no accusation in Steve's voice, just puzzled curiosity.
Re: Danny and Steve: Surprise, I'm in Portland
Date: 2017-04-19 06:27 pm (UTC)"Chin does deserve to be paid. Remind me to buy him a beer when I get back. And no that does not mean free beer for everyone, just Chin."
Danny frowns at the mentioning of bonding. "No. I think I called you mine a few times but no... I don't even know what the whole deal is about."
Re: Danny and Steve: Surprise, I'm in Portland
Date: 2017-04-22 02:33 am (UTC)Steve makes a face at Danny. "Fine. Play favorites. I'm sure Kono and I can find something to keep us occupied..." Steve has more than a few ideas that quickly come to mind.
It makes Steve smile to hear Danny refer to him as 'his'. Prior to Danny, Steve couldn't remember feeling like he belonged to or with anyone since his mother had passed. Yes, he was part of the Navy but that wasn't the same thing. The smile is fleeting though with the seriousness of the subject matter. Making a face, he shrugs trying to make things lighter than they are. "Bonding cements the connection between sentinels and guides. Makes it stronger. Some sentinels have said that they have more control over their senses with the help of a bonded guide. Once bonded, they become a pair. Like being married in a way. If separated for too long they go through bond sickness."
It's clear that he's leaving things out. Glossing over the positives and not mentioning any of the negative. Should Danny have questions though, he will try to fill in the blanks.
Re: Danny and Steve: Surprise, I'm in Portland
Date: 2017-04-22 07:29 pm (UTC)He takes a breath, looking at Steve. "Is it something you want?" He isn't sure. Maybe it would make them easier to find or may be it would be something Catherine could find out. "I mean I don't really want to be married again. But if it is something that you need..." Then he'd do it. Fuck, Steve can ask for anything and Danny will give it to him.
"I don't want Grace out in the wilderness with you. If she's going out there it is doing something safe and sane, not learning how to hunt a raccoon with her bare hands or what ever you plan on teaching her."
Re: Danny and Steve: Surprise, I'm in Portland
Date: 2017-04-22 08:24 pm (UTC)Contemplating what Steve knows about the pairs he's met, he bites his lower lip as he thinks on that a moment. Most of what Steve's knows about guides is negative and he doesn't want to taint Danny's perception of who he is or what his role should be. Danny isn't the type of guide he knows and is familiar with. Surely without the military's interference the bond isn't as much of a master / slave relationship as he's accustomed to seeing. At the same time, he doesn't want to hide things from Danny either. Especially now, Danny needs to know what Eliot and he does, what they have been lead to expect or anticipate - even if it, hopefully, doesn't apply here.
"It's supposed to be better. The sentinel is supposed to be stronger, more grounded and capable. The guide doesn't need to work as hard to produce the results they need in their sentinels - whether to calm or to guide or focus. Zoning is theoretically supposed to be less. And I've heard that there's an added mental component, they can feel each other. What the other is thinking or where they are." He sighs out, looking uncomfortable. "Most of what I've seen though... It's not like that. In the military, guides are very mission focused and sentinels are trained to obey their guides. The training isn't..." Steve frowns, looking for the right words. "It's like being made addicted to a drug and then being controlled by that addiction."
Steve shakes his head. "I don't need it. I... I can't be bonded. The Navy tried. Multiple times. It never took." He shrugs. "I don't necessarily see that as a bad thing. It hampered the types of missions I could be used for or sent on." Steve needed a guide, he needed that support and guidance just as much as any other sentinel but that he could also pull away from his guide and do what he believed, it made him unpredictable at times. "Besides, being bonded could cause problems for you if Catherine found out. If I get reactivated... If we were bonded, the bond sickness would out us and you'd be forced to join me in the field."
What all they would do to Danny is beyond what Steve wants to consider. Tearing him away from Grace and making him military would be bad enough, but they'd need to acclimate him to the military way for guides... Steve will do whatever he possibly can to prevent that from happening.
A pout pulls on Steve's features, he may be a bit insulted. "If she ever ends up in the wilderness alone, Danny, it's best that she can take care of herself and work with what she has. That's what I'd teach her. Better than her starving, or worse, poisoning herself because she ate the wrong pretty berry."
Re: Danny and Steve: Surprise, I'm in Portland
Date: 2017-04-22 08:41 pm (UTC)"You know I'd follow you if you needed it, right? If it meant keeping you safe, I'd go join up tomorrow." His words are quiet and above all else honest. Even if he is just a drug Steve needs, Steve is more than that to Danny and Danny will follow him to the ends of the earth.
He swallows because he knows Steve is right and that Grace should know that. "Fine fine. There is that group, the Aloha girls or whatever it is called. When she comes by next weekend we can ask if she's interested. That a good compromise?"
Re: Danny and Steve: Surprise, I'm in Portland
Date: 2017-04-22 09:22 pm (UTC)"No!" Steve shakes his head in fierce determination. "Promise me that no matter what happens you will never do that. That you will never join up or tell Catherine, or any military personnel, what you are." He looks at Danny desperately. "No matter what happens to me, you have to promise me that you won't... Please." He shakes his head. "I don't want them using you. And they will. They'll use you to get to me. You aren't a tool, or a drug, to be used, Danny. That's all the guides are to the military as well. They have it better than the sentinels but they're being used too." None of this is worth the risk to Danny... Or Grace. It may not be right or fair, but Steve knows that's the way to make sure Danny doesn't sacrifice himself for Steve. "With you being a guide, they'll want to test Grace... It's not worth the risk." He's not worth the risk. "With us not being bonded, we won't go through the separation sickness. The military doesn't need to know. For me... Nothing will change from the last time I was active."
Steve nods and gives the other man a grin. "Yeah, partner, that's a start."
Re: Danny and Steve: Surprise, I'm in Portland
Date: 2017-04-23 05:37 pm (UTC)He licks his lips, hesitating before he looks back up. "I won't tell them. But I am not going to let them have you either. We have to make sure they don't know you're active again. How long do you think they'll wait before they give up waiting for you?" He hopes not long. He hopes the two of them can be safe at some point.
Re: Danny and Steve: Surprise, I'm in Portland
Date: 2017-04-23 07:28 pm (UTC)"I... I don't know that there's a test or a way to find out." After he found out Danny came online being exposed to him, and his abilities came back being exposed to Danny, he thought that was possibly how it happened. When he wasn't on mission, the Navy often had him working with new recruits. A small handful of them he knew became guides, most however were transferred out. "Maybe it's an exposure thing, like how you came online? I don't know that there were guides present when I did the first time..." Steve had been under great emotional stress that he had no idea how to cope with. His senses going haywire seemed to be his body's way of trying to deal with that overload. "But maybe it's different for guides?"
He nods at Danny's answer, satisfied the other man will protect himself, at least for his daughter's sake. Then, he shrugs. "Honestly, I have no idea. It's been two years already..." Looking down at his food, Steve moves it around on his plate. Part of him doesn't think they'll ever stop watching and waiting, although he knows Catherine is getting impatient. He's literally stalled out her career and she has high aspirations.
Re: Danny and Steve: Surprise, I'm in Portland
Date: 2017-04-24 09:55 am (UTC)"Eventually they'll grow tired. I know you hate being patient but we'll wait them out." He reaches over to give Steve a pat on the shoulder and then pushes some more of the food against him. "And until then we'll just be careful."
Re: Danny and Steve: Surprise, I'm in Portland
Date: 2017-04-24 07:58 pm (UTC)Steve leans in slightly to Danny's touch. He was too focused on what he had to tell Danny about meeting Eliot to fully enjoy the other man's presence when he arrived, but now that the news was out he was starting to unwind and relax in his guide's presence.
"I hope you're right, partner. Honestly, I think Catherine is more than ready to move on as well. With her waiting on me she's not able to advance like she wanted to in her career." It would be difficult though for them to assign someone new to Steve with him not being in active duty, no way for any form of friendship to properly develop in order for the guide to be effective at all. Difficult but not impossible, especially if Catherine didn't get results soon - it could go the opposite way for them. He shudders at the thought and implications of that.
Shaking his head, he pushes the food away. Appetite not really there. "Should Eliot decide to..." He makes a motion with his hand to indicate joining them or at least allowing Danny to help. "He might be able to add more insight on some of this. He's had different experiences and has access to resources that we can't use."
Re: Danny and Steve: Surprise, I'm in Portland
Date: 2017-04-28 08:34 pm (UTC)Danny raises an eyebrow. "He has? I thought his story was a lot like yours, military and then trying to stay off the radar." He frowns, thinking back to that brief meeting with the other Sentinel. "You think he will?" Danny looks to Steve. "You'll be alright with that if he does?" He knows that Steve considers him his, just as much as Steve is Danny's.
Re: Danny and Steve: Surprise, I'm in Portland
Date: 2017-04-29 04:24 am (UTC)The rewarding squeeze gets a small smile in response. As soon as Danny is done eating, Steve will clear the table is hoping they can move somewhere more comfortable. Not that he's in any particular rush but he's been without physical contact for several days and only has a couple days with Danny before he'll be on his own again.
"Not quite. He's military but has been out for over a decade and he's not being monitored by the military at all. I don't even think he's on their radar and he mentioned the name he's using now isn't the name he used then." Biting his lower lip a moment, Steve tilts his head. Honestly he doesn't think Eliot will be able to stay away regardless of what he may want to do. "Yeah, I think he'll be around." He offers Danny a smile. "A guide that isn't corrupted by the system is not easy to walk away from. Especially since he's been going without for so long."
Danny's last question gives Steve a moment of pause. It's complicated and not just a strict yes or no answer. Instinctively he feels like Danny is his and he doesn't want to share but he knows that he has no rights to the other man. They aren't a couple or bonded. Worse, Steve can't be exclusive with Catherine and the military at his back, he could easily be called back into active duty even if they don't find out his abilities have returned. It's not fair to Danny for Steve to ask for more than what's been offered or put demands on him that he can't reciprocate. If things were different... But they're not and he doesn't let his mind go down that road.
Forcing a smile he shakes his head and stands, picking up his dish to take to the trash. "I'll be fine. You feel like you can trust him and I trust you. Besides, I think he needs the type of support that you can offer. Those in our situation should help each other if we can. He's very protective of his friends, Hardison and Parker, and I can see him adding you into that inner circle quickly." If he hasn't already.
Re: Danny and Steve: Surprise, I'm in Portland
Date: 2017-04-29 03:16 pm (UTC)"You'll tell me if that changes right? If you're not fine?" Steve is first priority when it comes to this. He wants to help Eliot and he is proud of Steve for wanting to as well, but he won't let it come between Steve and him. "I hope he plans on adding you to that as well." He smiles as Steve as they finishes cleaning and then moves to the bed, pulling off his tie and shirt as he moves. He knows the skin contact makes it easier for Steve and he enjoys the warm touch as well. He pats the bed next to him and reaches for the remote.
"You mean a guide that isn't going to hurt you for messing up. I... Fuck how can they feel connected like this and allow you to be hurt?" Danny didn't understand that. He might not be as sensitive as a Sentinel but he can tell when Steve's upset. It makes his skin crawl.
Re: Danny and Steve: Surprise, I'm in Portland
Date: 2017-04-30 04:59 am (UTC)He appreciates Danny's concern, but he won't be changing his mind and he simply nods in response. The only other option for Steve is to make unfair demands on Danny and he won't be doing that. If Danny wants to help this other sentinel, unless Steve sees signs of danger or trouble, he will support Danny fully.
"We'll see how things go." They seemed to get along well enough but he's well aware that Eliot's draw here is Danny. "Right now I think he needs to find his footing and adjust to the changes you've already introduced and are offering him." Steve is just an extra complication, but here too he plans to be supportive. The easier he can make this for Eliot, the easier it will also be for Danny and that is his ultimate mandate.
As Danny pulls off his shirt and tie, Steve becomes fixated. The scent that fills the room and sight of all that exposed skin... His guide's skin... Before he even realizes he's moving he's pulling off his own shirt and crawling up onto the bed to snuggle into Danny. What he really wants to do is push his nose into Danny and inhale deeply but that's a sure fire way to make himself high on his guide. The need is there but he has enough control to rest his head over Danny's heart and hug the other man close, sighing in contentment. "I'm not certain they feel the connection the same way you do. You saw me as a friend first. Being this came much later after we already had a solid friendship. The guides I worked with... I was assigned to them, always an asset first. The training... Part of it is them seeing how far they can push my limits, supposedly so they know when to back off in the field and not push too far in a bad situation. In the beginning zoning is a fairly regular thing, but it's also part of the training so they can learn to bring me back out. You've never sent me into a zone, only helped bring me out of them." A high yes but that was completely different and more like a stress relief for Steve.
Re: Danny and Steve: Surprise, I'm in Portland
Date: 2017-04-30 04:56 pm (UTC)And for that he hates them. Someone doing this on purpose to Steve and to Eliot? Yeah, no they are people who doesn't deserve anything but his hate. "Come on. We'll discuss this tomorrow, you've had a long day. Let's just relax and watch bad tv, hm?"
Re: Danny and Steve: Surprise, I'm in Portland
Date: 2017-05-01 03:57 am (UTC)He smiles into Danny's chest, happy that the other man finds it so easy and natural to help him. Sometimes Steve worries that he's taking advantage of Danny or that Danny might feel that way. Knowing that the other man enjoys their closeness and finds helping Steve obvious eases that worry. He knows it's not as easy for all guides - at least not all those he's had to work with. "I think that's all you, Buddy. You do what comes naturally and you care. I know I can trust and depend on you to have my back. It makes a difference. Having the ability to be a guide doesn't make the guide."
To Steve, that sounds like an excellent idea. "You going to make me watch that Naked and Afraid show you were talking about?" The tone of his voice reveals that he really wouldn't mind if Danny does. He'd give Danny the moon out of the night sky if that's was possible and the other man wanted it.