#danny isnt afraid of steve he never has been

[herveiwfromthefloor]

Of course this is the first post I read on Tumblr today, I wasn't expecting to get hit by mcdanno so hard. 5x07 is such a gem of an episode and it amazes me how with every rewatch people have more thoughts and metas. My favorite type of episode is a super whumpy and emotional one with lots of family stuff mixed in and that's basically 5x07 in a nutshell. I'm always so amazed with Alex's acting, he leaves me breathless.

I started writing in the tags and then I couldn't stop so they get quite rambly. Sorry to anyone who reads this. 🤣

Tonight they broadcasted episode 5x07.

Huh. Been a while since I last watched it.

I'm not here to state the obvious, since there are better meta around here. I'm not even entertaining the thought of why Steve chose not to redeem Kamekona or Jerry.

No. It's another idea that's obsessing me since the first minutes of the episode (as always, I'm ignoring the only thing in canon that I allow myself to ignore, i.e. P*L existence. Things go like this bc reasons, not surely their writing).

The thing is, since when I remember existing, I've always been a lucid dreamer, meaning I'm almost always aware of being asleep and dreaming, and most of the times I'm also able to shift, change and control what happens inside the dreams, wake up at command if things get horrible, or in case they're good or interesting (very rare eventuality) and I'm suddenly awakened, I can go back and resume the dreaming from where it stopped.

See my point? I suddenly understood that, drugs or not, there was no way Steve could've been awakened, tortured, drugged, and then start dreaming/hallucinating exactly from the moment he had stopped, keeping the story continuity. He was subconsciously steering the dream. He had some sort of control over it, despite his conditions.

Not just this. He was given drugs to tell the truth...so what I implied, is that Steve was specifically imagining something he believed so strongly inside his head, that his subconscious had subverted reality and translated it into this new one.

Which means....how many times Steve had already daydreamed about this alternate reality? How many times had he indulged in these sort of reverie, sitting alone on his chair at night, on the sand, listening just to the ocean waves? How long had he refined this fantasy of his, carving details and sceneries, choosing words and actions, settings, characters? How many times had this alternate universe he wanted so desperately to be reality, come visiting him in his dreams, and how many times had he changed some subtle detail until his story and Danny's were perfectly never-endingly happy, and yer together?

Steve has spent his whole fucking life being the savior, the protector, the defender, the self-sacrificing lamb. Steve has always been the one never allowed to fail, except for Freddie, and his dad. He couldn’t save Freddie, because it was his oen fault and his own alone, and nobody could've prevented Freddie's death except Steve, and Steve failed.

Not his dad. Listen, in this universe he could've saved Victor's brother, and so also his dad. But Steve is fucking tired of saving everyone and everything and never fucking up, so in this universe he fucked up too. It wasn’t Steve changing fate: it was Danny. Danny is Steve’s valorous knight in shining armour. Danny is Steve’s savior, Steve’s protector, Steve’s defender. Danny's the one saving his father, capturing Hesse, gaining the intel from him with questionable methods thus sparing Steve from always staining his hands, finding Wo Fat.

Danny here has Steve's back in many ways, much more than usual. Danny saves Steve from falling deeper into the pit he's nevertheless fsllen after his father death. Danny's changed Steve’s fate, even more than in reality: not for nothing, Steve’s and Danny's scene drinking beer on the beach at the end of the day is replaced with Steve and John drinking the same beers in the same spot at the same hour. Danny's become Steve’s father figure after John's death, but in a universe where John was saved in time, it's been Danny, Steve’s hero, the father who's replaced his own, saving John....not Steve.

Of course Danny is happy, of course he's chosen Ohau over Jersey (because Steve still fears Danny will flee away), of course he's married with an adored Rachel (because Steve is still heartbroken after Danny's hook-up with her after the sarin, and of course he cannot believe he could ever beat her for Danny's heart), of course Danny drives Steve around (because Steve unconsciously would love so damn hard to let Danny take control and chase every worry away), of course it's Danny asking Steve to stay and work with him.

And so on. Every little detail is hurting even more if you think that maybe Steve was just reliving a fantasy he'd honed and polished for years, night after night, daydream after daydream, waiting for his brave knight to barge in and save him from himself and his fate.

I'm not ok.