PSL: Sentinel AU

[dann_0]

Danny 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.

Comments

[a_very_distinctive]

He usually doesn't let anyone touch his hair--has snapped a couple wrists on instinct before he had time to think through the reaction over the years--but he tips his head into Danny's hands, eyes slipping shut as his fingers slip through his hair and gently work over his scalp. It's good. Almost as good as his voice, as the words that feel like they're sinking under his skin and settling into his bones. Not a thing. Not owned or controlled. But wanted.

He lets himself sink into the kiss, nothing urgent about it anymore. It's perfect in a completely different way than before, slow and easy and warm instead of bruising and hot. It's all gently exploratory now, as they learn each other, and Eliot slides his hands slowly along Danny's shoulders and back, down his flanks and over his ass, just because he needs to touch. Needs to feel every inch of him and commit it to memory, and when Danny pulls back and leans into his shoulder Eliot nuzzles his face into his throat again, nose pressed lightly to that soft spot beneath his ear as he listens to the steady beat of Danny's heart and lets it lull him.

It takes him a moment to process the question, so focused on Danny's heartbeat that the words are just noise at first, but then he huffs without moving, breath washing warm over Danny's skin. "Donuts?" It's lazy and low and rough, not quite slurred anymore. "Fuck that, I'll make you somethin' better." If he can make himself let go--or even move--long enough to manage it, anyway.

[dann_0]

Danny doesn't really move yet, instead he just stays that close, pressing a soft kiss to Eliot's neck. "Or we could grab lunch somewhere. I had planned to grab something after I checked out that lead so.." He hasn't eaten much yet. Eliot's breath on him warms him to the core and he is in no hurry to move. But finally he leans up, kissing a trail along Eliot's neck until they are face to face.

"Unless you feel like making lunch. If you're as good at lunch as you are with dinner I have a feeling I'll enjoy that."

[a_very_distinctive]

Eliot shivers at the kiss, humming contentedly against Danny's skin, though he makes himself move to accommodate Danny's clear desire for eye contact as the other man works his way up his neck with small, warm kisses. The look he gives Danny is heavy-lidded and warm, and his lips twitch up in a smirk at his last words.

"Def'nitely rather feed you, sweetheart," he rasps, one hand slipping up to cup Danny's jaw, let him press a thumb to his bottom lip, still red and kiss-swollen. "That way I don't hafta worry 'bout keepin' my hands to myself."

[dann_0]

Danny grins and nips at the thumb before he captures it with his lips and sucks ever so gently, the grin is still playing on his lips and obvious in his eyes. "Could be fun watching you struggle to be a good boy, but not tonight."

He shifts and finally moves to stand, looking around for his clothes. He rather quickly finds the pants and pulls them on and then he searches for the shirt. When he finds it he holds it up, studying it. "Well, there isn't any blood on it so that is better than with Steve the first time. Our first case together, I managed to get shot in the arm. I punched him for it later and he just smiled."

[a_very_distinctive]

Eliot's eyes darken impossibly further at the quick press of teeth, at the way Danny wraps his lips around his thumb and sucks. It's too damn easy imagining them wrapped round his dick, and there's no way in hell he's agreeing to either of them walking out that door any time soon.

"Got no interest in bein' good," he answers, low-voiced and rough, and it's hard to even let Danny slip off his lap and stand. He doesn't make any move to follow, though, just watches from beneath half-lidded eyes as Danny collects his clothes and pulls his pants on, catalogs every mark he's left on pale skin with possessive satisfaction.

If he weren't damn near forty he'd probably be hard again, though the satisfaction slips from his face to be replaced by a look of narrow-eyed displeasure at Danny's words. He's still too off balance to be able to conceal his emotions, and isn't sure he'd be able to with Danny even if he was more settled and in control.

Either way, his hackles are instantly up, possessive and threatened by mention of Steve in this context, no matter what the other Sentinel had said about not being bonded. It makes it only marginally better when Danny continues and it... seems like he's not talking about sleeping with Steve. Though fuck knows Eliot's gotten laid with more than a few bullet holes in him over the years.

"He said you weren't his." It's almost a growl, harsh and tense and, under it all, harder to find, worried. He knows he can't have this, can't keep it, but he's not ready to deal with it falling apart on him already.

[dann_0]

Danny frowns and turns, looking at Eliot as the tone changes. He shakes his head. "We're not fucking. We live together because he has space and all I can afford is a crappy little apartment that isn't a good place to have Grace over. And we're not bonded if that's what you're worried about. Steve says he can't." Danny doesn't know much about the whole thing so he has to trust Steve.

"But he is my Sentinel. You both are." He also isn't going to lie to Eliot. He deserves the truth. "He is also my boss and my partner. But none of that changes that you're my sentinel too. That this -" He motions to the two of them " -works. It doesn't change that you feel right and safe and that I trust you. It is different with Steve because I trusted him before I knew I was a guide, but... You're both my Sentinels. I don't know how it works. But it just feels right with both of you. And it feels like I can help."

[a_very_distinctive]

Eliot listens, but his expression doesn't shift, tension and suspicion barely hiding hurt and fear as the words wash over him. They may be true, but that doesn't make them any kind of reassuring, not when what they're saying is exactly what Eliot's known, or should have, from the beginning. That he can't have this. That Danny won't stay. That he's upended his life and wrecked his control, shattered well over a decade of hard-fought coping mechanisms and he's going to leave. Go back to his boss, his partner, and his family and his job and leave Eliot here, hemorrhaging what's left of his sanity and control.

He pushes to his feet, expression shutting down, going blank and tight as he reaches for his own pants. "Shouldn't'a done this," he snarls as he pulls them on, not bothering with his underwear. He just needs dressed and out, as quickly as possible. "I was fuckin' fine before this, I've been fine for over fifteen god damn years!"

There's less rage in his voice than he's comfortable with, more hurt and a fear he can't let himself look at, because he's lying. He's lying to Danny and he's lying to himself, has been lying to himself for years now. Because he's not fine. Maybe he never has been. He's figured out how to get by, how to balance on the knife's edge of something like sanity, but it's never been easy. Never been fine. And it's been getting harder year by year, to do something that's not even supposed to be possible for his kind--to stay sane and functional without a Guide to anchor and balance him. Leverage has helped, Hardison and Parker and the kitchen have helped. And he's leaned on them harder and harder the last few years, even if they haven't really understood that he was, let alone why. But even that's not enough, and he's known for a while now, even if he's refused to look at it head on, that it's just a matter of time--weeks, months, maybe a couple more years if he's lucky--before he loses his painfully maintained balance and slips one way or the other. Either zoned out so far he can't claw his way back, or feral and bloodthirsty, needing to be put down.

He's known, and even without letting himself fully face it he's started making plans, because he can't risk hurting his team when it happens. Can't leave Parker and Hardison hanging without backup because he's so lost in his own head he can never get out again, or actually hurt them, kill them, himself because he's finally lost his mind entirely. And Danny might have blown his carefully built and precariously maintained defenses straight to hell with his presence, but all he's done is speed up the timeline. And Eliot knew, or should have known, from the second he caught his scent in the bar that there was no other way this could end if he let himself get reeled in.

"How the hell is this helping when you're just gonna fuckin' leave?" When he's just going to go back to Steve.

[dann_0]

Danny reaches out for him. The hurt and fear he hears in that voice cuts way deeper than any rage Eliot could have had. He swallows. He can't leave even if he wants to tell Eliot he'll stay here with him. He has Steve and Grace and they both need him too. He takes a deep breath.

"Eliot. I am not leaving you for good. I am going to come back here as soon as I can if you let me. If you want me to. I want to try to work this out. I want to be your guide. But I have to be around for Grace. I can't move here, I have to go back to Hawaii. But I'll come back here as often as I can, we can talk on the phone everyday. There are ways to make this work."

[a_very_distinctive]

"How?!" he demands, barely managing to make himself take a half-step back. Because even now everything in him is demanding that he move closer, that he take that outstretched hand. "How the hell is that s'posed t'work?"

He lifts a hand to massage at the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache coming on. "Just hop on over from Hawaii for the weekend?" It's not even that he doubts Danny means it, that he wants to help, that he intends to try and be there for him, it's that he doesn't know if he can accept that it'll work... or risk that it won't. No matter how damn much he wants to.

[dann_0]

Danny drops the hand and looks at Eliot. "Yeah, or when things are slow with the task force. I know it isn't what you want. It isn't what I want either. But it is all I can offer. I am sorry Eliot. I want to give you more. I want to take you back to Hawaii with me but that wouldn't be fair either."

He sighs and moves to pull on his shirt. "I can make sure to have things set up so I can be here on the first flight if you need me to." He looks at Eliot. "Want to grab some coffee or something and talk about it? Work together to find out how we can make it work?"

[a_very_distinctive]

"It ain't just want," he points out gruffly, even if that is a large part of it--just how god damn much he wants this almost perfect fucking stranger, bone deep and in a way he can only only let himself look at from the corners of his eyes if he doesn't want to go spiraling down into memories he can't afford to let himself touch.

"An' even if I could leave here, even if I wanted t'leave here, there's no way in hell I could go to Hawaii." Too much military presence, too many Sentinels and Guides in the Naval programs. Too much chance of being recognized, of being reeled back in to hell.

He pushes a hand through his disheveled hair and pads towards the kitchen, barefoot and shirtless, Danny's marks along with a multitude of scars standing out on his bare skin. "I'll make coffee." It's not like they can talk about it in public, after all, and... for all his determination barely five minutes ago to get out as quickly as possible and not come back until Danny was long gone, he doesn't want to even share his company with anyone else right now. He's basically a massive, irrational pile of neurosis and contradictions right now and he knows it.

[dann_0]

Danny follows him, shirt open since there is only a few buttons left and those were the ones he didn't button to begin with. "I know. I need you too. But that is the point. I need Steve as well and he needs me." He leans on the counter, just out of reach, giving Eliot space but all it takes is a step closer.

"Is it the pineapples? They put pineapples on everything." He tries to joke, but he has a good idea of what it is. "It isn't all military. But we see more of them than most, espeically with Catherine coming around. She's Steve's old handler. They think he's... dormant, is that the phrase?"

He watches the coffee being made for a second and then continues. "So, I can't leave Hawaii for good and you can't go there. We can meet inbetween but it won't be constant. We can have phone calls like Steve and I do when I am here. They seem to help some."

[a_very_distinctive]

"Dormant, yeah." He glances up, tense and wary, from where he's pulled coffee beans, a hand grinder and a french press out of one of the cabinets. "So they're keepin' tabs on him an' hopin' he'll come back online." Jaw tight, he nods in understanding before addressing any of the rest of it.

"But see, that's the thing." He shakes his head, glad for the distraction of something to do with his hands as he pours beans into the grinder and starts to crank. "You don't. You go back an' you'll have your Sentinel. There's nothin' I got that you need." And no guarantee that once Danny's safely back home with the man, the Sentinel, he's so devoted to, that he'll actually keep any promises he makes here and now in the heat of the moment.

Maybe you call a few times, maybe you come out once or twice before it's too much of a hassle. Gets in the way of your job, your time with your kid... your time with Steve." And then it stops. And Eliot's fucked. "An' hell, even if you don't disappear on me... it's over six hours from here to Honolulu, even without taking into account maybe havin' t'wait hours for the next flight. If I tip the scales in the wrong damn direction that's a body count in the double digits an' nothing an' no one here to stop me." Which is something Danny needs to understand, whether he's potentially going to be here to face it down or simply get stuck dealing with the aftermath. He saw enough today to have some idea of what he's looking at getting himself into, but he needs to understand what kind of shit he might be looking at dealing with, not shrug it off with some optimistic bullshit about making it work out.

[dann_0]

"Yeah. We're trying to make sure they don't notice. And that they don't notice about me, for Grace's sake if nothing else." He pauses, watching Eliot work. "One of my Sentinels. I need you just like I need him. It isn't like when he was here over the weekend I didn't need you. I did need you and I wanted you."

He isn't even going to address the fact that Eliot thinks he is going to leave. He tells himself not to be hurt, that Eliot doesn't know him. Doesn't know that once you have Danny's heart he won't let you go. So instead he focuses on the next part, the part about the body count. "And if we call this off, walk our seperate ways after this talk, do you have anything to stop you then?" He isn't being mean, rather honest concern in his voice. Even if Eliot decides he doesn't want Danny after all, Danny wants him to be safe and sound. "I know it is a high body count." He'd seen Eliot earlier today. "If you think me being on the phone would help in that situation, I'll do that. Or maybe I can help you look for another guide here, someone who'd work better for you."

[a_very_distinctive]

It doesn't take him more than a moment to make the leap, to understand what he means about Grace--both in losing him and in possibly being flagged as someone to watch. Someone to collect, willing or not, when the time comes. The thought makes him angry, but so does Danny's claim. "Like hell you did." But it's less an answer and more muttered under his breath as he pours the ground beans into the french press and sets the kettle on the stove to heat... which is a sign in itself of how twisted up he is, because otherwise he'd have had it all coming together with perfect timing, the hot water ready to pour as soon as the beans were ground.

It should be just a minor irritation, but along with everything else it sets his teeth on edge, and he curls both hands over the edge of the counter, knuckles going white with the force of his grip. "The fact you think another Guide's somethin' I can just go shoppin' for is proof you don't know shit about how this works," he growls, though it doesn't come off sounding like a criticism. His next words, though, he delivers flatly, making himself look directly into Danny's eyes. Because if he's going to scare him off he needs to do it now. "D'you know how many of your kind I've had t'kill, 'cause they would'a tried to turn me into a damn push button killer again?" Whether for his own military or some other, even less ethical, organization.

[dann_0]

"You're right. I don't know any of this. But I want to help you anyway you want." He looks at Eliot. People have tried to scare him off before. Usually using that line on the cop side of him. But never have they been as qualified as Eliot to actually do it. But despite that he trusts Eliot. He trusts that he won't hurt him. Then the implication of what Eliot said about people trying to turn him into a weapon makes Danny angry.

"You're not a tool or a thing and I'd go hunt down any guide who tried to make you that myself." His voice is low, angry and there is a determination in them that says he speaks the truth. Eliot is his. UIf Eliot doesn't want them to do something more out of this, Danny will respect that, but that doesn't mean Eliot will lose Danny's protection. "And if they think they can turn you into a weapon then it is a good thing you killed them."

[a_very_distinctive]

Eliot's the one to break eye contact and look away. He has to, because seeing the anger and the honesty there... it's not something he's prepared for. Not something he'd ever have expected from a Guide.

"That's all my kind are, weapons or tools or threats to be put down." It's all anyone he's ever met--military, police, mercenary, mob, civilian--has ever seen Sentinels as. These days even elementary schools have programs to teach kids how to recognize Sentinels and turn them in, so they can be 'helped before they hurt someone'... and he hopes Danny's doing something to counteract the damn brainwashing in his own kid before it bites him and Steve on the ass some day. "You're the first Guide I've met in my whole damn life who didn't see me that way." Though a couple of them had been less because they'd bought into the brainwashing and more because they'd been on opposite sides--of a conflict, of a paycheck--and he'd been an active threat to them and theirs.

[dann_0]

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry not more of us are on your side. I..." He takes a breath. "Before I met Steve, well, before I found out really, I believed some of it too. Not that you're weapons or tools, but that you do better when you're controlled. That's all they ever show us. They don't show us Sentinels being told they are tools, they don't show us forced zoning. I think if people knew..." He licks his lips. "I don't believe any of that anymore and I am disgusted that I ever did." This was stuff he'd never told Steve, never told him he'd bought into the public perception of what Sentinels are.

"Your abilities doesn't make you any less human or any less deserving of respect and freedom."

[a_very_distinctive]

He doesn't look back up at Danny, focusing instead on pouring the now hot water into the french press, then pulling out mugs and sugar and cream while it steeps. Even after all these years, though, he flinches--barely, but visibly--at the reminder of being forced to zone, of being driven almost feral, some of it to make him as reliant on a Guide as possible, some of it simply as 'negative reinforcement' for not performing to specifications. None of it changes one simple fact, though-

"Thing is, we are dangerous," he points out flatly, still not making eye contact. "Even with Guides some of us have shit control, an' our sanity can be really damn questionable. An' without Guides-" He stops abruptly and shakes his head, chewing on the inside of his cheeks. The way they're treated by the military is, as far as he's concerned, unconscionable, but there is a legitimate concern behind it.

[dann_0]

"Yes you are dangerous and you are able to wreck havoc if you want to but that doesn't mean you're not human or deserve some say in how you are treated. There is no if or buts about that, Eliot. This is your life, you should get to decide how to live it." He reaches out to place a hand on Eliot's arm and hopefully make him meet his eyes. "I am not trying to make light of a real danger, and making sure normal humans aren't hurt is something we have to work on, but it doesn't justify the way you've been treated."

[a_very_distinctive]

He realizes his mistake a moment too late, as Danny's hand curls around his biceps and a shiver runs down his spine at the contact. There's no way in hell he's going to be able to make himself pull away, and even less chance he'll walk out the door. All he really wants to do is step into Danny's space and press against him, push his nose into his hair and into that soft, warm spot beneath his ear and breathe him in. He just... wants, and no matter how high this whole situation is ramping up his paranoia Danny's presence is still settling the part of him that's been making him plan for the eventual worst from months now.

"I've been out an' on my own for over fifteen years, now, sweetheart." He pauses, jaw tightening a little at the endearment slipping out without conscious intent, but then continues a bit more gruffly. "Your boy's had a lot more'a that shit to deal with than I have." He's just had to deal with keeping his control and his sanity on his own, and if he had a few years that were beyond questionable in that department... well, he's mostly done okay since. And he's got the bones of a plan in place to make sure he's never that kind of menace again.

[dann_0]

Danny's thumb strokes Eliot's skin, warm and mesmerizing under his touch. And he wants to touch more, remembers touching more. But he makes himself pull the hand away. And it is a much harder struggle than it really should be. He just wants to be there, next to Eliot, touching him. Keeping him sane and safe. Instead, he reaches for a mug so he has something to keep himself occupied with.

"Do you want to be on your own? I won't lie, I don't want to leave you, but if it is what you want, I'll respect that. And I know Steve has his issues. I am trying to help him. If you decide you want me, I would like you to have a chat with him. He's only been out a couple of years. You might be able to help. Hell, you might be able to help more than I can."

[a_very_distinctive]

It's almost more than Eliot can manage, not to follow after Danny when he pulls his hand away. But he clenches his hands tight on the counter for a moment, then makes himself depress the plunger in the french press and pour himself a mug before offering it to Danny. It gives him a moment to collect himself, and bite back on the bitter laugh that wants to escape at the question.

"Even if I wanted t'be alone-" And take that as you will, Danny- "... I'm not gonna be safe for much longer." He hasn't even said the words in his own head before this, carefully maneuvering around admitting the worst while steadily preparing for it. He doesn't like admitting it even now, but it doesn't feel like he has much choice anymore. "I've been slippin' already, but you-" He stops, jaw working. "This has blown my timeline t'hell."

[dann_0]

Danny takes the coffee and pours a mug, adding milk but leaving the sugar out. But he freezes at Eliot's admission and suddenly he is filled with regret, he regrets coming here, coming after Eliot, meeting him, the ... not quite sex, all of it. He'd fucked up the balance Eliot had been trying to maintain.

He swallows, looking away. "I... I am sorry Eliot." He doesn't know what else to say, or how to make it better.

[a_very_distinctive]

Eliot doesn't doctor his coffee at all, just takes a drink of the scalding hot liquid more for something to do than because he cares about it. "Like I said, this just sped up the timeline, didn't change the eventual outcome."