Chapter Text
Steve McGarrett hates Sentinels. Hates them with a burning passion.
He hates how they walk around with their shoulders back, like they’re more important than anyone else. He hates how they stride forward, expecting people to make way. He hates how their hands wrap so tightly around their Guides, as if chaining them and preventing their escape.
Their freedom.
He thinks its one of those things in life where you hate something with all your guts, like broccoli, or carrots, or mushrooms. He thinks he will hate Sentinels forever.
To a lot of kids their age, Danny Williams isn’t much to look at.
Danny moved from New Jersey to Hawaii in the third grade. He’s small so the other boys tend to pick on him. They make fun of his bright golden hair, calling him Goldilocks. They say he’s a girl in boy’s clothes, and they make kissy noises when he walks by them.
When Steve firsts sees him, he thinks he’s the most beautiful creature he’s ever seen.
When he tells his dad, all he does is smile and say, “Sometimes you have to look inside a person to find beauty, Steve.”
Steve nods like he understands but doesn’t get it at first. He isn’t sure Danny’s guts will look beautiful, because he’s pretty sure nobody’s guts can be, and then wonders if there’s something inside of his tummy that sparkles prettily. He wants to talk to him, to search his tummy to find that pretty thing but he thinks Danny wouldn’t take that very well.
He’s not wrong.
For the first time since Danny transferred to Kaimuki Elementary School a week ago, Steve walks up to where he’s sitting by the window in class and asks the question that’s been on his mind since last Thursday.
“Can I check your guts?”
All he gets in response to that is a mouth falling open, and arms flapping in the air. He’s very amused and wants to ask him to join him and his friends during lunch, when Danny just bolts out of class.
Steve is left staring after him in shock for a few seconds before a wave of rejection almost sweeps him off his feet. He collapses in Danny’s chair as he starts getting dizzy. He feels horrible, his tummy hurts and he feels like he’s going to throw up.
Its when Danny doesn’t come back to class even after it starts that Steve starts feeling a little angry. He doesn’t understand why Danny ran away after Steve was being nice to him. He was going to check his guts, then ask him to spend lunch with him, then they could become best friends, then he could have Danny all to himself everyday!
Steve looks over at Danny’s desk at the opposite side of the room and wonders if Danny will come back to get his stuff. He grins as a plan forms in his head.
Danny won’t know what hit him.
“-and then he asks me, ‘can I check your guts?’, and I’m like, what?! Is that the Hawaiian way to say ‘does your face wanna meet my fist’? Huh? Kono? Huh?!”
“But Danny, Steve’s really nice! I’m sure that wasn’t what he meant!”
“Yeah? You think so? What do you think he meant then? He wants to check my innards?”
“… I dunno what innards are. Is that part of a chicken? Do you have a chicken, Danny?!”
“Uhh no, never mind. Class should be over by now. I left my stuff and now I have to go back, ugh. I hope Mrs Kalena didn’t call my mom! She’s gonna scream at me for sure… Anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow Kono! Your cousin picking you up?”
“Yeah, Chin and his girlfriend, ewww. Bye Danny! And don’t worry about Steve, he’s a great guy, you’ll see!”
At eight years old, Danny is very brave. Things that usually scare kids his age, like the dark or the boogieman, don’t scare him at all. He knows that all the night-time animals come out and play in the dark so it can’t be all that scary, and that the boogieman can’t live under his bed simply because he can’t fit.
Danny has a lot of Sentinel and Guide books.
So when he heads into the dark classroom to get his stuff, he’s ashamed to admit that he screams like a little girl when a hand comes out of nowhere from behind and lands on his shoulder. His arms slice through the air, trying to push himself away from whatever monster has got him, but when that fails and he turns around to push the monster away from him instead, he’s met with a wide grin and smiling green eyes. Danny can only stare a little because, what?! That isn’t what a classroom monster should look like!
“Hi Danny!”
“… 'Hi Danny,' he says. What is wrong with you? Do you want to give me a cardiac arrest?!”
Steve can only stare because he isn’t sure what ‘cardyaxe’ means but he definitely doesn’t want to arrest Danny, especially when he’s looking up at him with such lovely, wide bright blue eyes. So he tells him.
“I don’t want to arrest you Danny! And hey, how’d ya know my dad’s a police officer, Danny? Oh, and Danny, I don’t know what cardyaxe means. You sure are smart, aren’t you, Danny? You like big words, Danny? ”
This time Danny is the one blinking in shock because he didn’t realise how weird it was to hear your own name so often in one mouthful. He’s also a little flustered because Steve is standing so close to him and everything but the green eyes staring into his own is blurry. He doesn’t think about why he stutters a little before responding.
“I do, I do like big words okay?!”
Danny winces. That wasn’t one of his more creative comebacks and he doesn’t want Steve to think he’s stupid now after showing an interest in Danny. He isn’t stupid and he wants to make sure Steve knows it, though he isn’t sure why. He thinks its because he wants to have more than one friend but somehow that doesn’t feel right. He manages to put that thought (and all the others running through his head) aside when Steve steps closer, looking nervous.
“Can I check your guts, Danny?”
Danny wonders if it’s possible for people to still live even though their hearts have stopped. That’s what he feels like and he thinks if he doesn’t drop dead soon, he’s going to be at least paralysed from the waist down.
When that doesn’t happen for at least 10 seconds of the intense staring session, Danny makes a decision. He doesn’t want to run away from Steve, because although the TV at home has told him saying stuff like that can only lead to a confrontation, Steve looks so earnest and nervous and hopeful that Danny thinks there’s no way he’s going to hurt him.
“Why?”
The wide smile that blooms across Steve’s face is awesome, Danny thinks, especially when it’s directed at him. He opens his mouth and looks geared up for a long explanation, so Danny sits down on his desk. Without prompting, Steve slides in next to him, putting his arm across Danny’s shoulder as he starts to babble away.
Halfway through the story, Danny’s face is as ripe as a tomato because Steve has called him -and his eyes- beautiful (twice) but he wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. He thinks that despite the bad start, the both of them are going to be the best friends the world has ever seen. He doesn’t like to keep things inside so he tells Steve. Steve’s answering smile makes his eyes water with all the bright light shining into his eyes.
At least that’s what he’s told people.
Oh, and he’s also told Steve how its impossible to check someone’s innards without them dying. Danny thinks he gets the idea when a look of horror passes across his face. He’s sorely disappointed when Steve asks him why he’s asking him to kill his chicken. Danny can feel it already.
The start of a beautiful friendship.
Danny thinks Sentinel and Guides are way cool, and that he would want to be a part of that when he’s older. It doesn’t matter to him whether he becomes a Sentinel or a Guide but he’d like to think himself more on the Guide side of the partnership. He thinks Guides are just as cool even without all the awesome senses and that just from looking at his mom and dad, he thinks Guides have the real power in the relationship.
He tells Steve how amazing it is when his mom can smell what the neighbour cooked for dinner yesterday, or how sometimes when they go out, his dad has to hold his mom so she doesn’t hurt herself with the sensory overload, or that time when his mom went almost crazy when someone accidentally pushed his dad to the ground. He thinks he’d like to be a Guide, if he can help someone he loves like that. He smiles as he says it so Steve doesn’t know how to tell him he hates Sentinels. How he hates them so much.
How they took his mom away from their family when he was five and Mary just two, how all of a sudden she had just packed all her things and left without looking back, how his dad had cried every night for two weeks, and how he heard news of his mom and her Sentinel getting married a month later.
Steve doesn’t want Danny to hate him so he doesn’t say a word.
As Steve and Danny walk out to the front to wait for their parents, he wonders that if Danny can love Sentinels and Guides so much, he might learn to not hate them too much.
He fails. Horribly.
People have been telling Danny since middle school to prepare himself to be a Guide because he’s seen as having all the qualities of one. He was so excited when his father told him how having a compassionate nature was a sign, and that ‘with being a great Guide, comes great responsibility’.
(He didn’t get it then when he was eight, but now that he’s watched the movies, he doesn’t appreciate his father quoting Spider Man to him.)
If it’s true, he can’t wait to be tested because this is what he’s been wanting his whole life.
When he thinks about it, a lot of signs point to him being Guide.
The two friends he has wants to protect him so fiercely, Hammy the hamster loved him the most out of all his classmates in elementary school, and all the teachers tell him how adorable his face is.
Guides were known not only for their empathetic nature, but how they had an innate ability to draw others into protecting them. Their size, face and mannerisms all bring out the ‘caregiver’ gene, especially in adults. One of the more popular Guide psychologists found that this instinctive nature of attachment had evolved through time and natural selection. According to the professor, Guides were highly coveted and valued for their ability to control their sentinels since the beginnings of mankind, and to ensure their continued survival into maturity, they possessed instincts that encouraged their Sentinel and other mature adults into protecting them.
Though Danny is looking forward to being a Guide and helping his future Sentinel, he isn’t ashamed to admit that he’s had a Napoleon complex since he started school. The other kids bully him because of his looks, but he is not a girl, damn it! Adults don’t take him seriously enough and are always trying to protect him, so he came up with the logic that if he learnt how to talk like adults when he was younger, he could get through to them. If all they saw was a cute face, what good would he do in the future if his Sentinel didn’t have the confidence in him protecting them? He wants to protect his Sentinel and he doesn’t want to be kept out of harms way if they were in trouble. He wants to stand by their side and do his duty to protect them too. He especially doesn’t want his Sentinel getting hurt while trying to protect him. He wants his future Sentinel to trust in his ability to stay alive.
So that’s why he was always explosive and loud when he was in elementary and middle school. Back then he thought it had been working, but it was when people started commenting on how adorable it was that he stopped trying. People never took him seriously and all he hopes is that when he finds his Sentinel, he would be the one person in the world who understood his need to protect other people. How he could be trusted to protect them too.
Steve has been the only person in his life to actually listen to what he’s saying. His parents just think all his opinions lack experience to back it up, and even Kono gets glassy-eyed when he starts to get really into something, like she’s visibly restraining herself from glomping him. With Steve, he gets this really concentrated look on his face like he’s trying to remember and memorise every word Danny’s saying and to him, that’s just so cute.
He doesn’t get why people don’t call Steve cute. At fifteen, Steve is remarkably still hanging out with him as usual. Danny thought he’d be going out on dates and getting girls by the dozen but instead, they’re as attached to the hip as when they were nine. To him, Steve’s always been sweet.
Danny’s face flushes as he remembers Steve calling him beautiful in the third grade.
When Steve got his growth spurt in freshman year, somehow words that were used to describe Steve included: hot, sexy or even god-like.
Of course, Danny gets it. He has eyes, come on. He’s seen how girls and guys alike get all glass-eyed and drooling as he walks by them, or the multitude of phone numbers that have made their sneaky ninja way into Steve’s backpack. He gets it. He’s even been guilty of getting a little hard at the sight of Steve during football practice. Its probably got something to do with those abs, or that face, or the eyes. Oh god, those eyes, those heart palpitation-inducing eyes.
So Danny understands. Everyone notices Steve.
But that doesn’t mean he has to like it.
It’s only when Steve is fifteen that he truly starts to believe he will hate Sentinels for the rest of his life.
In sophomore year, when the Guide Centre sends its team to his school on a Wednesday, it’s not a surprise when Danny’s tested positive at the Guide screening test.
What does surprise him is the next day it seems like word got around and the kids at school all start paying more attention to him and the two other Guides.
Especially the popular ones.
They smile at him, and what were once before painful pushes, now are gentle nudges. As the months go by, a few more Sentinels at school become active, and with that they start pursuing Danny. The first one to outright approach him was just a few weeks after the test, but Steve managed to scare them away with his fiercest ‘prey-on-someone-else’s-best-friend-you-motherfucker’ face. Which is great, because he does not want any Sentinel at school trying to make passes at him. It’s disgusting how just after activating, everyone has magically inhaled all the Guide pheromones in the air and started to act like they’ve always been nice and kind and decent to Danny. Which is not true. Danny hasn’t forgotten getting pushed against lockers just because of his small size and girly hair. He hasn’t forgotten the painful slaps his butt has gotten from the boys in the locker room just because they think he’s cute. He hasn’t forgotten the demeaning remarks as he waits at the bleachers for Steve. He’s a boy, and he’s been suffering with those kinds of statements for what seems like most of his life. He plays baseball and he’s incredible at it, but all they comment on is how appropriate his position as shortstop is, or how his butt looks amazing as he runs, or if he’d like said butt to get a pounding.
The only consolation to everything was that there weren’t any comments when Steve was around. Danny would like to at least have some dignity where Steve is concerned; he didn’t want Steve to hear anything and get embarrassed for hanging out with him. Steve is one of the best things that have ever happened to him, and if anything were to jeopardise that, he wouldn’t know what to do. He can only hope that now that he’s a certified Guide, his future Sentinel will be as important to him as Steve is.
He doesn’t question why his faceless Sentinel starts having dark hair and intense sea-green eyes.
Steve finds how Danny talks like an adult all the time so damn adorable. Especially with him being smaller than Steve (but then again, majority of people are smaller than Steve) and how he looks like he’s making up for it by using big gestures as he talks. But unlike the others, he sees the frustration in his best friend’s eyes. He knows Danny gets upset that no one takes him seriously, but Steve has always been the one exception to the rule and Danny seems to be happy about that fact. The truth is, lots of people do listen to him, but they just get distracted with all that is Danny. Steve doesn’t tell him that though, because he always wants Danny to see him as special and better than anyone else.
He remembers Danny being the same way when they were in third grade, and how even then, he knew Danny was the one for him. He doesn’t remember calling Danny beautiful, but his dad makes sure he never goes a day without bringing it up. He should be embarrassed, but he’s gotten used to it by now. Not to mention it’s nice to see Danny blush every time his dad brings it up in front of him.
It sucks now that everyone else has noticed how adorably handsome Danny is. He knows Danny longest; he has loved Danny since they were kids! What right do these kids have, touching him and being nice to him all of a sudden? Danny is his! No fucking Sentinel is going to take him away from Steve.
Danny is his.
He admits he’s started looking possessive and territorial whenever they walk down the halls together, and that he always lays a guiding hand along the nape of Danny’s neck whenever a known Sentinel is around. He leans and looms and nudges so Danny can call him out on it and push back. He wants everyone to see Danny comfortable enough to touch him. He wants to show them that as he’s been trying to claim Danny as his, Danny has claimed him in return.
Sentinels don’t seem to get the idea though. They keep approaching Danny at the bleachers while he’s busy making passes during football practice, or when he’s waiting for Steve in the mornings before class, or when he’s in the classes Steve isn’t. But fuck.
Stay away goddamnit!
Fucking Sentinels. He fucking hates them.
He can only be thankful he got a really large negative number when he had to go for his Guide screening test. The horror of actually being bound to a Sentinel gives him shivers. People have actually been telling him he looks like Sentinel material, and honestly, that still pisses him off because how can anyone see him as a Sentinel?! Those vile creatures. He sees that as an insult to his deeper sensibilities.
Perhaps in middle school there was a part of him expecting to have been an active Sentinel by now. He wouldn’t have been overjoyed with it, but he’d thought it would've been awesome if him and Danny could be bound forever. He’d thought of how his mother was taken from her family, and thinking of the same thing happening with Danny… Becoming a Sentinel provided the chance of that never happening and he’d been willing to take it. But alas, the likelihood of activating at 17 has diminished to an infinitesimal value.
Sentinels surface between ages 14 to 17, where hormonal imbalances were at their peak. Most Sentinels become active at 15, where genes and neurotransmitters start to trigger a cascade of chain reactions that lead to a series of changes in the body. Research has found that becoming active after the age of 17 is extremely rare and has had serious consequences on the psychological state of the Sentinel in question.
Because of that, the kids in the high school have mostly settled in their adult forms and any chance of a new Sentinel popping up is close to zero. Steve has profiled every single Sentinel and analysed their potential threat of binding to Danny, which could be seen as obsessive. But really, Steve is only making sure Danny stays happy and safe with him. Their birthdays passed a few months ago and going on to 18, Steve has absolutely no chance in becoming Danny’s Sentinel. He’s already made plans on how to avoid Sentinels once he and Danny leave high school and go on to college. It’s nothing definite yet but Steve has spent hours upon hours making sure the plan keeps Danny happy. He’s thought it through so much that his grades had started slipping awhile back but now that he’s gone over it a few more times, he has time to bring his grades back up in time for senior year.
In all honesty, Steve is exhausted from all this planning but he thinks it’d be worth it when he and Danny are happy together, with no Sentinel pulling him away from Steve. With all the effort he put into it, he really hopes it works or he’ll seriously start crying.
So it especially sucks when the universe decided for him to become active as the Prime Sentinel in senior year.
His two-year plan. Down the drain.
So he cries.