The man in the velvet mask 9
Danny wakes up with the mother of all headaches. He doesn't remember drinking at all but berates himself anyway, until the memory of a powerful blow to the back of his head surges as he gingerly fondles the goose egg that, considering the position of the sun in the sky, had quite a few hours to develop under his thick hair.
Taylor ! The bastard hit him when Danny tried to run after Steve. He's going to skewer the guy and feed him his innards. Cut his dick off and give it to the pigs. If anything happened to Steve…
"Take it easy," a gentle voice advises him as he tries to sit up and moans loudly to express how dumb an idea that was.
He fights to open his eyes again and take in his surroundings. He's travelling in an open cart and the other man, sitting in front, gathers the reins in one hand to be able to offer him his flask.
"I'm Meka," he says while Danny drinks to wet his parched throat, "Meka Hanamoa. I'm a friend of Steve's."
"I know," Danny remembers, giving back the flask, "and you work for Adam Noshimuri. You'll have to thank Adam for me. I'd be dead without him. And you, in fact. So thanks, man."
Danny offers Meka a hand to shake, realizing at the same time he's tied to the cart by a long and strong chain, and he swears again he's gonna kill Taylor slowly and very painfully.
"Can you take this off ?" he asks Meka.
"Sorry, I can't."
Meka looks almost apologetic.
"You can't, or you won't ?"
"Bit of both, I guess. I don't want to incur Nick's wrath, or Steve's disappointment if you run after him and get caught."
"What do you mean, run after him ? Where is he ?"
Meka's grimace doesn't bode well.
"Meka, where's Steve ?" he insists and looks at the sun again. "It's been more than two hours. Tell me he's back. Or we're the ones late to the rendezvous point, is that it ? Tell me !"
"I'm sorry, Danny. We haven't heard from him yet, that's why Nick put you in the cart and asked me to drive you south."
"South ? As in Hawaii ? Without Steve ?"
"Yes, to Hawaii. Nick and Chin stayed behind to see if they can find Steve but we have to regroup and get home. The longer we stay out here, the bigger the danger."
"Meka, even with Steve, I can't go to Hawaii. I have to go to my children, let them know I'm alive. And my family, they have to be worried sick ! I can't leave like that."
"I'm sorry, Danny. I have my orders. You'll have to take it up with Steve. Or Nick."
-------------
"Your Majesty wanted to see me ?"
"Yes, Lady Catherine. Come in."
The beautiful young woman, wearing a pricy dress and a convoluted headdress over her dark hair, smiles pleasantly at Steve as she makes her way towards the throne.
"Catherine, this is my son. Steve, meet Lady Catherine Rollins, the favorite."
Steve manages to hide his surprise enough that neither woman calls him on it.
"Lord McGarrett," the favorite salutes him with a light but earnest curtsey.
"Lady Catherine," he replies, bowing as little as possible.
The woman seems sincere enough, but he won't be swayed by a pretty face. Favorites have been used by sovereigns throughout history to gain knowledge and good will as well as attention and prestige. After what his mother put his family through, he wouldn't put it past her to use her lover to get information from him. Or to try and turn him away from Danny.
"Lady Catherine is not only my lover," Doris explains, "though she has everything a male king could want, which makes it easier for me to keep the charade. She is also my foremost informant. Her charm is equaled only by her sincere interest in people. Which is why no one is better than her at making people talk and bringing me the information I need."
"Okay," Steve says, neutral.
"She will be our liaison," his mother continues, guileless, though he can't help being sure there's a double entendre here, a test of his devotion towards Danny. "She will travel frequently to Oahu to collect your reports. I want regular updates on how your research is going when it comes to Wo Fat. For this, you will use the governor mail coach. You will also report to Lord Denning every time he calls upon you, and you might have to work for him at times if he needs your expertise or special knowledge of the province."
"I won't betray my friends."
"That's not what I'm asking. I'm just saying that I can't at the moment make you officially my deputy in Hawaii, not until Wo Fat is found or pronounced dead. In the meanwhile, I ask that you refrain from targeting royal belongings, so that I don't have to send you to jail again, and that you and your friends act as a police force in those places where the governor holds no real power. Is that something you'd like to do for your country, Lord McGarrett ?"
Steve feels the emotion like a hand squeezing his throat tight and he blinks, twice or thrice, rapidly, to get rid of the speck of dust in his eye. All those years fighting, and then jail time… it all seems so different now. He has Danny, a new life to look forward to, and this at last. An endorsement, a recognition - even if somewhat tempered - of the good he's done for the land and the people he loves.
"When you say police force, do you mean that I have authority over everyone, tax collectors as well as common thieves ? Violent lordlings as well as plebeian murderers ?"
"Provided you don't abuse it and that you learn to abide by the rules, absolutely."
"I will. I can't promise I won't ever have to resort to violence, but I won't actively seek it. Danny wouldn't let me, anyway."
He probably could have done without this little reminder, tailored specially for the king, that Danny will be by his side, but… no, in fact, he couldn't, because he still has trouble believing he's going to get all he ever wanted, including this incredible man. He might have to remind himself more than once every day until he rejoins his friends and can take Danny in his arms again.
He can't wait suddenly. He has to leave, ride towards Hawaii, now. He needs not only Danny, but the scent of the wind blowing in the trees, down in his peninsula, the sight of the ocean connecting with the land in high jets of water. He's not sure if he'll ever see his mother again, but then he's lived most of his life without her. He doesn't need her. Doesn't recognize her in this genderless stranger who looks at him with a mixture of motherly love and calculated interest, both equally disconcerting. He's not even sure he believes her when she assures him she didn't know about his imprisonment. Wo Fat kept him alive as a bartering card to get the king to do his bidding, it's now very clear to him. Which means there's a very good chance he told her from the get-go her son was in his hands.
His suspicions are just as terrible when he thinks of the person who had the most to gain from Wo Fat's death. Or maybe the most to lose. Any way he looks at it, the king's name tops the list of likely culprits.
He never expected to see his mother again, and this is not the happy reunion he could have hoped for. Whatever Doris might imagine, he doesn't feel anything for her, and it's time for him to go. She does still know him enough that she's able to read it in his eyes, along with his doubts and questions.
"Catherine," she says, "go find my secretary and bring him back with you. Tell him to bring whatever he needs to write several lettres de cachet. The king has decrees to dictate. People to exonerate."
"Yes, Majesty."
With a curtsey, Lady Catherine is gone to fulfil her orders.
"I want you to travel with Catherine," the king orders Steve once they're alone. "That way, you and she can establish a rendezvous point, since I guess you won't agree to take her to your secret camp. She will take to the governor the same letters I'm going to give you so that Denning will enforce my orders in the whole province. You will be free to go, and respected, not as my son, of course, but as the leader of the special police force of the crown."
Steve's mother turns into the distant king once more when Lady Catherine is back with the secretary. Many precious letters are written, that Steve checks up to every last detail, and most of all the one pardoning Danny. Doris has been so hard on him that Steve only half trusts her to keep her word about Danny's freedom.
While the man writes under dictation, Steve tests for the first time Lady Catherine's well of information.
"Do you know what became of Bailiff Hesse ?"
"As a matter of fact, I do," she replies pleasantly. "He was attacked by the mob and transported in a hurry to the hospital. Doctors are not overly optimistic about his recovery."
-------------
They've met with Steve's friends, but of Steve himself there's still no sign. Danny worries more and more and Taylor is getting on his last nerve. They already had a fight the previous day when Danny called him a coward for leaving Steve behind and running away with his tail between his legs. There's a good chance for another fight today.
"You gotta let me go," he demands as soon as he spots Steve's second. "My kids need me."
"Sorry, Danno, that's not an option."
"Okay, first, you don't get to call me Danno. Second, that's an option if I say it is. And I do, so unchain me and let me go on my way."
"And explain to Steve after that that I had to let your majesty go because you asked me to ? Sorry, Danno, still not an option."
Danny fumes, but there's nothing he can do at this minute.
There's something terribly wrong about this man. It's more than the fact he enjoys doing exactly what Danny told him not to, or that he visibly takes great pleasure in pushing his buttons. Danny can't quite explain it, but his gut tells him he can't be trusted, and Danny's never ignored such a strong hunch. Not since he kissed Angela Wharton's cheek when they were both twelve, and then as a result found himself pushed into the ocean for taking liberties she hadn't offered. It also cured him of answering stupid dares issued by so-called friends. Just like ignoring his hunches, those never end well.
And so he's stuck. This is not the longest trip of his life, the army provided a lot of change of scenery back when he was younger. But it feels like it when you're tied up and don't have any say in your fate. When you fulminate and keep on thinking that your children are far from you - farther every day - and maybe in danger. That your lover is missing and most likely in danger too, potentially back in prison.
"Danny, it's okay," Meka tries to reassure him. "You'll see your kids soon, I promise."
On the other hand, Meka is great. He's just the opposite of Taylor. Easy smile, friendly demeanor, he talks to Danny constantly when his dick of a boss is not around. He tells Danny about his wife Amy, and their son Billy, about his wish to arrest those who profit from their status to gain money, judged by the same people they've robed. In the weeks traveling to Hawaii takes, Danny and Meka become friends.
Danny tells him about his own kids, and his whole family. Including Steve, of course, but when Meka begins to talk in return about the one he considers like a semi-god, Danny realizes they're not quite envisioning the same person. No one looks like a semi-god in prison, not even the man you're in love with.
It makes him doubt, of course. Is he crazy to want a relationship with a man he hardly knows ? Not in his real life anyway, not as the leader of a rebellion he feels sympathetic to but that definitely goes against the law he's strived his whole life to serve. Not even mentioning this, what about the everyday life, all those little details that make a relationship successful or unbearable and that Danny escaped when he became tipstaff at Fort Hohokus, bypassing the boring and often irritating moments of married life. He knows how Rachel and he felt after a few years, conjugal bliss a memory. He knows that apart from his close family, people tend to stop loving him when they discover the real Danny. So if Steve and he aren't already secure on the foundations of their life as a couple, how could they withstand the storms they're sure to run into ?
He's moody and depressed, and Taylor's goads are like salt on his injured heart. Danny tries to tell himself that he saw the real Steve in Hohokus, the one behind the mask of the leader, the man deprived of dignity who commanded Danny's respect by still standing tall and strong. But doubt is Danny's middle name. He's like St Thomas, he believes what he can see, and Steve isn't here to make him a believer.
It gets only worse when they get to the last leg of their trip. The weather has become hotter than ever and Taylor decides to blindfold him in a show of mistrust that fails to impress Danny. All in all, Danny understands they're close to their destination. His worry about what happened to Steve surges to new height, and he can see he's not the only one in this. Meka, Chin, Kono… they're all worried. Only Taylor keeps his cold front in place.
To ignore the horrible likelihood of Steve back in prison, Danny focuses on his other fears. What if Steve finally looks at him and sees the same thing Taylor does ? What if some old lover is waiting for him to take their place back in Steve's heart ? What if this, and what if that ? Danny's never in pain to find new reasons to imagine a terrible end to their love story. And he can't even reassure himself with the knowledge that his kids at least are safe and happy.
When the cart stops for the last time, Danny's not ready to face the new life waiting for him. He's got no idea where they are beyond the certainty that this place is somewhere in Oahu, or how many people look at him right now. A lot, it seems, judging by the brouhaha of many voices, some talking in a language he doesn't even recognize.
Hands grip him by the arms and help him get down the cart. Danny isn't helping, ranting to be let go. Serves them right for blinding him, good if they don't like it !
Someone cuts his ties, and then his blindfold is taken off. Danny's eyes open as wide as they can.
"Steve ?!" Danny exclaims when he's finally sure he's not dreaming. "But… how comes you're here ?"
"I took the direct roads, not the countryside tracks. I've been here for a few days already."
Danny takes in his surroundings, sees the many people smiling at them, and then turns back to his lover. Steve's arms have come around him and they are so close now that Danny doesn't know what to look at, Steve's eyes or Steve's lips, the happiness radiating off of him that he knows is matched on his own face, the feeling of his warm body that he missed so much while they were separated. Soon, they lean towards each other and kiss, fervently, bodies molding against the other, Steve following him and asking for more kisses as soon as Danny tries to come up for air and speak.
"Steve !" he finally manages to say. "Listen to me ! I'm so happy to be here, more happy than you'll ever know, because you're here, and you're well, and free, but I can't stay. It kills me but I have to go. I have to find my children. They're in danger now that I'm free."
"No, you don't have to leave, Danny. Your children are here."
"Here ?"
"Didn't you think the first thing I'd do was to keep your children safe ? I knew that would be your first instinct, so I did it for you."
Steve looks far too adorable for Danny to resist kissing him again.
"I will thank you privately and very profusely later when we're alone," he states against his lover's lips, low enough to be sure no one but Steve can hear him, and his blush proves that his meaning was clear to him. "But now I need to see Grace and Charlie to reassure them I'm safe."
Steve swallows, as if pushing down the images of Danny taking him. He pecks him one last time, and then, Danny's hand in his own, leads him towards another part of the camp. People keep smiling at them as they walk, maybe because Steve looks happier than Danny's ever seen him.
"Do they know that I was your prison guard for such a long time ?" Danny asks.
"If they don't, I'll have to make sure that everyone knows you protected me and made sure my life was still good."
Danny forgets everything else when he hears his name yelled by two young voices he'd recognize anywhere.
"Daddy ! Danno !" the voices repeat before two small bodies collide with his and more arms come around him, never to let him get away again.
He kisses the kids again and again, taking a good look at each of them to find them healthy and radiating happiness. Steve joins their little love fest, snaking one arm around Danny's shoulders and the other securing the kids with them.
From the corner of his eyes, Danny gapes when he sees Melissa and Eric, looking at him with the same happy expression. Duke and Nahele are standing a few feet apart, and they're all smiling at him.
Danny turns back to Steve and kisses him hard.
-------------
Epilogue
They've shared a lot of explanations - Danny's pretty sure Steve is keeping some things from him but he has time now to pry it all from his lover in a leisurely fashion. Danny has been introduced to the beautiful lady Catherine - another worry to add to the long list he keeps updated, but he was relieved to learn she was blindfolded too before Steve brought her to the camp - and to many friends of Steve's - some who looked happy about him, some others a lot less, whatever the reason. Then they had dinner, a banquet really, because even though the food was scarce, there were lots of people, far too many to remember them all.
Danny's totally ready to retire for the night and be with Steve only, which he tells him, lips against his ear, as soon as he's able to without offending anyone on day one in the camp he plans to live in for as long as Steve will.
Steve's answering shiver tells him they're on the same page. They need to be alone together at last, relearn each other once more. Danny's fingers itch to touch Steve's skin, his cock twitches in anticipation and response to Steve's every little touch, every sweet caress under the table.
They already said good night to the kids when Melissa took them to bed so there's no reason they can't leave. Steve takes his hand and they stand up, moving away without anyone trying to stop them. Maybe the possessive arm over his shoulders lets everybody know that they need to be together. Maybe the reverence those people obviously lavish Steve with comes in handy to offer them the necessary respect that allows them to slip off quietly.
They take their time going through the woods the camp is hidden in. More than once, Danny can't help pushing Steve against a tree to kiss him, and Steve isn't better at refraining himself.
Danny is curious to see Steve's place and his surprise is great when he sees it.
"You live in that ?!"
Steve makes a face but doesn't argue.
The small cabin is built about three feet high above the ground. They access it with a rope ladder that reminds Danny that Steve used to travel at sea before he took up rebellion leader as his new day job. The sea Danny knows is only a mile away, ready to take Steve back. He's not sure if this is another topic of worry he should add to the list, now that the king is backing him up and Steve is about to see his quest ending : becoming a sailor's companion, one constantly waiting for his lover to come back to him. It would probably be his just deserts after what he put Rachel through, but he hates the idea all the same. If he has too, he'll follow Steve onto his ship. No way is he letting his man go without a fight.
His thoughts take an entirely different turn as he looks at Steve's ass climbing the ladder and then going into the cabin. Now is for reconnecting, and making love, he tells himself.
Tomorrow will come soon enough, with his unending trail of new questions and worries.
He's got so much to lose now.
-------------
As soon as the door is closed behind Danny's back, Steve starts undressing. It's a quick job in this weather, quicker than in the Jersian winter. There's no undershirt to deal with, no double layer of socks. Just light clothes and swift nakedness.
Danny's eyes are just as ravenous as ever as they take in his naked body. Darkness has fallen through the trees so there's not much light in Steve's home at this late hour of the day but for the oil lamp giving just enough clarity to paint shadows on his skin, hopefully making him look mysterious enough that Danny will want to travel the distance between them and touch him. Make him feel alive again like he can't remember ever feeling before they found each other.
Danny does approach. He looks on the prowl, dangerous cat ready to pounce on his very willing prey. Or snake maybe, hypnotizing his just as willing victim. Whatever the metaphor, Steve can't wait to see what Danny will do to him, how the tricks he'd found work the best, back in Hohokus, will work here on his lover. They're both free to go their own way now, nothing tying them to one another anymore, and Steve isn't sure he likes it that much. Danny's not going anywhere and Steve's prepared to do anything to ensure this fact.
Steve shivers once more when Danny settles against him. Being naked in front of his wholly clothed lover takes him back to the time in the fort, and particularly the first days after becoming lovers, feeling dazed and loved and beautiful. It reminds him of the baths that Steve dreaded so much at first, and then began to look forward to, before he simply learned to use them as a powerful tool in the conquest of one Daniel Williams.
In the few days while waiting for Danny's arrival down here in Oahu, Steve's let loose all his fantasies and he's decided to institute a new rule in their house : as the leader of the rebellion, not to mention the king's son, he's entitled to create a new position. Something he's taken to call bath-boy, though he doubt Danny will like it, and there's only one person Steve wants to fill the job. He might have to sweeten the pot by offering him another job, a real one this time, as his deputy. Brother in arms, second in command. Whatever fits the task his mother gave him, as long as Danny keeps on washing him every day before they go to work together.
It might not be that hard to sell, considering how Danny is already reveling in the spirit of his new function, kissing Steve's neck with enthusiasm.
"Danny," he whispers, overwhelmed. "I missed you so much. I love you so much."
"Are you sure this is love ?" Danny wonders, always so insecure. "That you're not just grateful ?"
Steve looks Danny in the eyes. His answer has to be heard and believed.
"Grateful wouldn't have pushed me to put my life on the line again after I was free, not when I was needed here. Grateful is not the only thing I feel for you, you can trust me on that. And you know what, I realized I had totally forgotten for a while the reason why I wanted so badly to come back to Hawaii."
"What's that ?" Danny asks, hands still caressing Steve's back.
"My fight first, of course, but also find the reason why I was arrested and thrown in jail with no one the wiser. I knew there was something hidden under the reasons I was given, I was obsessed for a long while with finding out what that was, but then, when I thought of you, miserable and locked in a cell like I was, I just couldn't care about anything else anymore and I had to go back to save you. Because I don't want to live without you, Danny. Not now, not ever."
It's just so Danny to think that no one can love him, not really, not in the way Steve does. But if he has to, Steve will spend his life proving to him that his feelings are the kind that never go away and only keep getting stronger as time passes.
The kind of love that changes a man. Danny's seen him at his worst, at his lowest, powerless and miserable. He's witnessed humiliations visited on Steve, or their consequences anyway. He's met a Steve no one had ever seen before, the one deprived of his pride and will to live, and still Danny fell in love with him. He accepted Steve the way he was, and in the process helped him become someone else, accept that part of him Steve had always put down hard. He's learned that there's no shame in being weak at times, not when you can lean on the one who loves you. That's why being naked in front of this man is so freeing, sharing with him everything he is.
He wonders how they will go from there now that he's back at the helm and doesn't intend to step down again, but he's not worried. He loves a good challenge, and Danny is nothing if not the biggest one of all. He will contradict Steve at every turn if he thinks he has to, make his voice heard, and Steve will love him for it.
They're kissing now, Danny's hands taking advantage of Steve's nakedness as they make their way to the bed. Then they're lying down together without Steve really remembering how they got there, Danny on top of him.
So immersed in his body's feeling he can't quite keep thinking either, Steve yelps when he feels Danny's hand closing around his balls, in a way not meant to give pleasure.
"You left me behind," Danny recalls, hand like a vice around Steve's balls, "and I warned you what'd happen if you did."
"I did, but it worked for the best, didn't it ?" he smiles to charm his lover.
If anything, Danny's eyes pin him down with the same added strength his hand applies to the grip on his balls. It lasts long enough that Steve begins to get nervous, and his scrotum a lot more so.
"If you ever do that again," Danny threatens, loud and clear, "I'll put your balls and dick in a very small metal box with a lock, and I'll throw away the key. Get it ?"
"Got it. But you love them too much to lose the key."
Steve kind of squeaks when the grip tightens. It's not painful yet, just teasing the edge of forceful and arousing, the best way to get Steve's undivided attention
"As pretty as they are, I love you more, so now would be a good time to learn to be cautious. Do you understand me ?"
Steve feels himself turning to mush hearing Danny's words of love.
"I do, Danny. I really do. And I love you too. You won't lose me, I swear. You and me, we're here for the long haul."
Danny looks at him as if searching for the truth and whatever he finds must appease his fear for his hand gets more amorous than threatening. He rubs Steve's balls against each other and Steve's eyes close, giving himself back to the sensation.
There's no more threat after that. Breath taken away by kisses, they caress each other, they give and get pleasure, and their level of urgency rises. They don't even need words to understand it's time. Danny slides into him as Steve opens up wide to let him in, in all the ways that count. And he cries out, because it's so good, and he wants more, he can't give a damn if anyone hears him. On the contrary, he wants everyone to know, to feel as great and connected to the one they love as when Danny is with him, totally, just like they are in this moment, joined, crazy with love and lust.
Danny's losing it, running after their pleasure, and Steve knows they won't last much longer. He closes his legs around Danny's waist and pushes as hard as he can to get him inside as deep as possible. They moan almost in unison and kiss feverishly. Danny's hands run over Steve's ass, loving and possessive, and Steve doesn't even have time to take his cock in hand before he feels himself coming hard. His eyes close on their own volition and he savors the incredible feelings rushing through him.
Danny's coming too, and it's so beautiful, such a gift that Steve's legs don't want to let go of him.
He has to, after a fashion. Danny wants to rest by his side. He tells himself it's preferable, that it's too hot here to sleep stuck against one another, but he doesn't believe himself for long. Not when his body takes over and rolls on the side to be able to see Danny and take the image of his gorgeous lover with him into his dreams.
Tomorrow, or soon enough, when the time is right, he'll ask Danny to marry him, to make an honest man of him. The few days he's spent with the children here in the camp before Danny arrived have made him pretty sure he wants to be involved in their lives too. Wants them all to be a big family, just like he told his mother. He'll love them both like they're his, because they're Danny's and because they're great kids.
With Danny by his side, Steve thinks, there's nothing he doesn't feel capable of accomplishing.
Wo Fat can come. He's ready to take him.
-------FIN-------
End notes (beware spoilers) : As I said above, the story was much longer than I thought at first, so long that I had to cut some threads and end it there to finish and meet the deadline. But I fell in love with my heroes, hard, and Wo Fat, like a bad habit, is extremely difficult to get rid of, so there's a very good chance that I may revisit them all someday.
I have no plan to do so at this very moment, and many other stories to tell - especially that other big bang I alluded to in my notes at the beginning that I still want to finish. So don't count on a sequel anytime soon.
Lastly, the Chevalier d'Éon was a French diplomat and spy in the 18th century, famous for being such a believable transvestite that everyone wondered until his death what sex he really was born into. As is often the case, his life looks more fascinating and fictional than anything a writer could come up with ! He was my inspiration for a particular plot point of this fic.
Taylor ! The bastard hit him when Danny tried to run after Steve. He's going to skewer the guy and feed him his innards. Cut his dick off and give it to the pigs. If anything happened to Steve…
"Take it easy," a gentle voice advises him as he tries to sit up and moans loudly to express how dumb an idea that was.
He fights to open his eyes again and take in his surroundings. He's travelling in an open cart and the other man, sitting in front, gathers the reins in one hand to be able to offer him his flask.
"I'm Meka," he says while Danny drinks to wet his parched throat, "Meka Hanamoa. I'm a friend of Steve's."
"I know," Danny remembers, giving back the flask, "and you work for Adam Noshimuri. You'll have to thank Adam for me. I'd be dead without him. And you, in fact. So thanks, man."
Danny offers Meka a hand to shake, realizing at the same time he's tied to the cart by a long and strong chain, and he swears again he's gonna kill Taylor slowly and very painfully.
"Can you take this off ?" he asks Meka.
"Sorry, I can't."
Meka looks almost apologetic.
"You can't, or you won't ?"
"Bit of both, I guess. I don't want to incur Nick's wrath, or Steve's disappointment if you run after him and get caught."
"What do you mean, run after him ? Where is he ?"
Meka's grimace doesn't bode well.
"Meka, where's Steve ?" he insists and looks at the sun again. "It's been more than two hours. Tell me he's back. Or we're the ones late to the rendezvous point, is that it ? Tell me !"
"I'm sorry, Danny. We haven't heard from him yet, that's why Nick put you in the cart and asked me to drive you south."
"South ? As in Hawaii ? Without Steve ?"
"Yes, to Hawaii. Nick and Chin stayed behind to see if they can find Steve but we have to regroup and get home. The longer we stay out here, the bigger the danger."
"Meka, even with Steve, I can't go to Hawaii. I have to go to my children, let them know I'm alive. And my family, they have to be worried sick ! I can't leave like that."
"I'm sorry, Danny. I have my orders. You'll have to take it up with Steve. Or Nick."
-------------
"Your Majesty wanted to see me ?"
"Yes, Lady Catherine. Come in."
The beautiful young woman, wearing a pricy dress and a convoluted headdress over her dark hair, smiles pleasantly at Steve as she makes her way towards the throne.
"Catherine, this is my son. Steve, meet Lady Catherine Rollins, the favorite."
Steve manages to hide his surprise enough that neither woman calls him on it.
"Lord McGarrett," the favorite salutes him with a light but earnest curtsey.
"Lady Catherine," he replies, bowing as little as possible.
The woman seems sincere enough, but he won't be swayed by a pretty face. Favorites have been used by sovereigns throughout history to gain knowledge and good will as well as attention and prestige. After what his mother put his family through, he wouldn't put it past her to use her lover to get information from him. Or to try and turn him away from Danny.
"Lady Catherine is not only my lover," Doris explains, "though she has everything a male king could want, which makes it easier for me to keep the charade. She is also my foremost informant. Her charm is equaled only by her sincere interest in people. Which is why no one is better than her at making people talk and bringing me the information I need."
"Okay," Steve says, neutral.
"She will be our liaison," his mother continues, guileless, though he can't help being sure there's a double entendre here, a test of his devotion towards Danny. "She will travel frequently to Oahu to collect your reports. I want regular updates on how your research is going when it comes to Wo Fat. For this, you will use the governor mail coach. You will also report to Lord Denning every time he calls upon you, and you might have to work for him at times if he needs your expertise or special knowledge of the province."
"I won't betray my friends."
"That's not what I'm asking. I'm just saying that I can't at the moment make you officially my deputy in Hawaii, not until Wo Fat is found or pronounced dead. In the meanwhile, I ask that you refrain from targeting royal belongings, so that I don't have to send you to jail again, and that you and your friends act as a police force in those places where the governor holds no real power. Is that something you'd like to do for your country, Lord McGarrett ?"
Steve feels the emotion like a hand squeezing his throat tight and he blinks, twice or thrice, rapidly, to get rid of the speck of dust in his eye. All those years fighting, and then jail time… it all seems so different now. He has Danny, a new life to look forward to, and this at last. An endorsement, a recognition - even if somewhat tempered - of the good he's done for the land and the people he loves.
"When you say police force, do you mean that I have authority over everyone, tax collectors as well as common thieves ? Violent lordlings as well as plebeian murderers ?"
"Provided you don't abuse it and that you learn to abide by the rules, absolutely."
"I will. I can't promise I won't ever have to resort to violence, but I won't actively seek it. Danny wouldn't let me, anyway."
He probably could have done without this little reminder, tailored specially for the king, that Danny will be by his side, but… no, in fact, he couldn't, because he still has trouble believing he's going to get all he ever wanted, including this incredible man. He might have to remind himself more than once every day until he rejoins his friends and can take Danny in his arms again.
He can't wait suddenly. He has to leave, ride towards Hawaii, now. He needs not only Danny, but the scent of the wind blowing in the trees, down in his peninsula, the sight of the ocean connecting with the land in high jets of water. He's not sure if he'll ever see his mother again, but then he's lived most of his life without her. He doesn't need her. Doesn't recognize her in this genderless stranger who looks at him with a mixture of motherly love and calculated interest, both equally disconcerting. He's not even sure he believes her when she assures him she didn't know about his imprisonment. Wo Fat kept him alive as a bartering card to get the king to do his bidding, it's now very clear to him. Which means there's a very good chance he told her from the get-go her son was in his hands.
His suspicions are just as terrible when he thinks of the person who had the most to gain from Wo Fat's death. Or maybe the most to lose. Any way he looks at it, the king's name tops the list of likely culprits.
He never expected to see his mother again, and this is not the happy reunion he could have hoped for. Whatever Doris might imagine, he doesn't feel anything for her, and it's time for him to go. She does still know him enough that she's able to read it in his eyes, along with his doubts and questions.
"Catherine," she says, "go find my secretary and bring him back with you. Tell him to bring whatever he needs to write several lettres de cachet. The king has decrees to dictate. People to exonerate."
"Yes, Majesty."
With a curtsey, Lady Catherine is gone to fulfil her orders.
"I want you to travel with Catherine," the king orders Steve once they're alone. "That way, you and she can establish a rendezvous point, since I guess you won't agree to take her to your secret camp. She will take to the governor the same letters I'm going to give you so that Denning will enforce my orders in the whole province. You will be free to go, and respected, not as my son, of course, but as the leader of the special police force of the crown."
Steve's mother turns into the distant king once more when Lady Catherine is back with the secretary. Many precious letters are written, that Steve checks up to every last detail, and most of all the one pardoning Danny. Doris has been so hard on him that Steve only half trusts her to keep her word about Danny's freedom.
While the man writes under dictation, Steve tests for the first time Lady Catherine's well of information.
"Do you know what became of Bailiff Hesse ?"
"As a matter of fact, I do," she replies pleasantly. "He was attacked by the mob and transported in a hurry to the hospital. Doctors are not overly optimistic about his recovery."
-------------
They've met with Steve's friends, but of Steve himself there's still no sign. Danny worries more and more and Taylor is getting on his last nerve. They already had a fight the previous day when Danny called him a coward for leaving Steve behind and running away with his tail between his legs. There's a good chance for another fight today.
"You gotta let me go," he demands as soon as he spots Steve's second. "My kids need me."
"Sorry, Danno, that's not an option."
"Okay, first, you don't get to call me Danno. Second, that's an option if I say it is. And I do, so unchain me and let me go on my way."
"And explain to Steve after that that I had to let your majesty go because you asked me to ? Sorry, Danno, still not an option."
Danny fumes, but there's nothing he can do at this minute.
There's something terribly wrong about this man. It's more than the fact he enjoys doing exactly what Danny told him not to, or that he visibly takes great pleasure in pushing his buttons. Danny can't quite explain it, but his gut tells him he can't be trusted, and Danny's never ignored such a strong hunch. Not since he kissed Angela Wharton's cheek when they were both twelve, and then as a result found himself pushed into the ocean for taking liberties she hadn't offered. It also cured him of answering stupid dares issued by so-called friends. Just like ignoring his hunches, those never end well.
And so he's stuck. This is not the longest trip of his life, the army provided a lot of change of scenery back when he was younger. But it feels like it when you're tied up and don't have any say in your fate. When you fulminate and keep on thinking that your children are far from you - farther every day - and maybe in danger. That your lover is missing and most likely in danger too, potentially back in prison.
"Danny, it's okay," Meka tries to reassure him. "You'll see your kids soon, I promise."
On the other hand, Meka is great. He's just the opposite of Taylor. Easy smile, friendly demeanor, he talks to Danny constantly when his dick of a boss is not around. He tells Danny about his wife Amy, and their son Billy, about his wish to arrest those who profit from their status to gain money, judged by the same people they've robed. In the weeks traveling to Hawaii takes, Danny and Meka become friends.
Danny tells him about his own kids, and his whole family. Including Steve, of course, but when Meka begins to talk in return about the one he considers like a semi-god, Danny realizes they're not quite envisioning the same person. No one looks like a semi-god in prison, not even the man you're in love with.
It makes him doubt, of course. Is he crazy to want a relationship with a man he hardly knows ? Not in his real life anyway, not as the leader of a rebellion he feels sympathetic to but that definitely goes against the law he's strived his whole life to serve. Not even mentioning this, what about the everyday life, all those little details that make a relationship successful or unbearable and that Danny escaped when he became tipstaff at Fort Hohokus, bypassing the boring and often irritating moments of married life. He knows how Rachel and he felt after a few years, conjugal bliss a memory. He knows that apart from his close family, people tend to stop loving him when they discover the real Danny. So if Steve and he aren't already secure on the foundations of their life as a couple, how could they withstand the storms they're sure to run into ?
He's moody and depressed, and Taylor's goads are like salt on his injured heart. Danny tries to tell himself that he saw the real Steve in Hohokus, the one behind the mask of the leader, the man deprived of dignity who commanded Danny's respect by still standing tall and strong. But doubt is Danny's middle name. He's like St Thomas, he believes what he can see, and Steve isn't here to make him a believer.
It gets only worse when they get to the last leg of their trip. The weather has become hotter than ever and Taylor decides to blindfold him in a show of mistrust that fails to impress Danny. All in all, Danny understands they're close to their destination. His worry about what happened to Steve surges to new height, and he can see he's not the only one in this. Meka, Chin, Kono… they're all worried. Only Taylor keeps his cold front in place.
To ignore the horrible likelihood of Steve back in prison, Danny focuses on his other fears. What if Steve finally looks at him and sees the same thing Taylor does ? What if some old lover is waiting for him to take their place back in Steve's heart ? What if this, and what if that ? Danny's never in pain to find new reasons to imagine a terrible end to their love story. And he can't even reassure himself with the knowledge that his kids at least are safe and happy.
When the cart stops for the last time, Danny's not ready to face the new life waiting for him. He's got no idea where they are beyond the certainty that this place is somewhere in Oahu, or how many people look at him right now. A lot, it seems, judging by the brouhaha of many voices, some talking in a language he doesn't even recognize.
Hands grip him by the arms and help him get down the cart. Danny isn't helping, ranting to be let go. Serves them right for blinding him, good if they don't like it !
Someone cuts his ties, and then his blindfold is taken off. Danny's eyes open as wide as they can.
"Steve ?!" Danny exclaims when he's finally sure he's not dreaming. "But… how comes you're here ?"
"I took the direct roads, not the countryside tracks. I've been here for a few days already."
Danny takes in his surroundings, sees the many people smiling at them, and then turns back to his lover. Steve's arms have come around him and they are so close now that Danny doesn't know what to look at, Steve's eyes or Steve's lips, the happiness radiating off of him that he knows is matched on his own face, the feeling of his warm body that he missed so much while they were separated. Soon, they lean towards each other and kiss, fervently, bodies molding against the other, Steve following him and asking for more kisses as soon as Danny tries to come up for air and speak.
"Steve !" he finally manages to say. "Listen to me ! I'm so happy to be here, more happy than you'll ever know, because you're here, and you're well, and free, but I can't stay. It kills me but I have to go. I have to find my children. They're in danger now that I'm free."
"No, you don't have to leave, Danny. Your children are here."
"Here ?"
"Didn't you think the first thing I'd do was to keep your children safe ? I knew that would be your first instinct, so I did it for you."
Steve looks far too adorable for Danny to resist kissing him again.
"I will thank you privately and very profusely later when we're alone," he states against his lover's lips, low enough to be sure no one but Steve can hear him, and his blush proves that his meaning was clear to him. "But now I need to see Grace and Charlie to reassure them I'm safe."
Steve swallows, as if pushing down the images of Danny taking him. He pecks him one last time, and then, Danny's hand in his own, leads him towards another part of the camp. People keep smiling at them as they walk, maybe because Steve looks happier than Danny's ever seen him.
"Do they know that I was your prison guard for such a long time ?" Danny asks.
"If they don't, I'll have to make sure that everyone knows you protected me and made sure my life was still good."
Danny forgets everything else when he hears his name yelled by two young voices he'd recognize anywhere.
"Daddy ! Danno !" the voices repeat before two small bodies collide with his and more arms come around him, never to let him get away again.
He kisses the kids again and again, taking a good look at each of them to find them healthy and radiating happiness. Steve joins their little love fest, snaking one arm around Danny's shoulders and the other securing the kids with them.
From the corner of his eyes, Danny gapes when he sees Melissa and Eric, looking at him with the same happy expression. Duke and Nahele are standing a few feet apart, and they're all smiling at him.
Danny turns back to Steve and kisses him hard.
-------------
Epilogue
They've shared a lot of explanations - Danny's pretty sure Steve is keeping some things from him but he has time now to pry it all from his lover in a leisurely fashion. Danny has been introduced to the beautiful lady Catherine - another worry to add to the long list he keeps updated, but he was relieved to learn she was blindfolded too before Steve brought her to the camp - and to many friends of Steve's - some who looked happy about him, some others a lot less, whatever the reason. Then they had dinner, a banquet really, because even though the food was scarce, there were lots of people, far too many to remember them all.
Danny's totally ready to retire for the night and be with Steve only, which he tells him, lips against his ear, as soon as he's able to without offending anyone on day one in the camp he plans to live in for as long as Steve will.
Steve's answering shiver tells him they're on the same page. They need to be alone together at last, relearn each other once more. Danny's fingers itch to touch Steve's skin, his cock twitches in anticipation and response to Steve's every little touch, every sweet caress under the table.
They already said good night to the kids when Melissa took them to bed so there's no reason they can't leave. Steve takes his hand and they stand up, moving away without anyone trying to stop them. Maybe the possessive arm over his shoulders lets everybody know that they need to be together. Maybe the reverence those people obviously lavish Steve with comes in handy to offer them the necessary respect that allows them to slip off quietly.
They take their time going through the woods the camp is hidden in. More than once, Danny can't help pushing Steve against a tree to kiss him, and Steve isn't better at refraining himself.
Danny is curious to see Steve's place and his surprise is great when he sees it.
"You live in that ?!"
Steve makes a face but doesn't argue.
The small cabin is built about three feet high above the ground. They access it with a rope ladder that reminds Danny that Steve used to travel at sea before he took up rebellion leader as his new day job. The sea Danny knows is only a mile away, ready to take Steve back. He's not sure if this is another topic of worry he should add to the list, now that the king is backing him up and Steve is about to see his quest ending : becoming a sailor's companion, one constantly waiting for his lover to come back to him. It would probably be his just deserts after what he put Rachel through, but he hates the idea all the same. If he has too, he'll follow Steve onto his ship. No way is he letting his man go without a fight.
His thoughts take an entirely different turn as he looks at Steve's ass climbing the ladder and then going into the cabin. Now is for reconnecting, and making love, he tells himself.
Tomorrow will come soon enough, with his unending trail of new questions and worries.
He's got so much to lose now.
-------------
As soon as the door is closed behind Danny's back, Steve starts undressing. It's a quick job in this weather, quicker than in the Jersian winter. There's no undershirt to deal with, no double layer of socks. Just light clothes and swift nakedness.
Danny's eyes are just as ravenous as ever as they take in his naked body. Darkness has fallen through the trees so there's not much light in Steve's home at this late hour of the day but for the oil lamp giving just enough clarity to paint shadows on his skin, hopefully making him look mysterious enough that Danny will want to travel the distance between them and touch him. Make him feel alive again like he can't remember ever feeling before they found each other.
Danny does approach. He looks on the prowl, dangerous cat ready to pounce on his very willing prey. Or snake maybe, hypnotizing his just as willing victim. Whatever the metaphor, Steve can't wait to see what Danny will do to him, how the tricks he'd found work the best, back in Hohokus, will work here on his lover. They're both free to go their own way now, nothing tying them to one another anymore, and Steve isn't sure he likes it that much. Danny's not going anywhere and Steve's prepared to do anything to ensure this fact.
Steve shivers once more when Danny settles against him. Being naked in front of his wholly clothed lover takes him back to the time in the fort, and particularly the first days after becoming lovers, feeling dazed and loved and beautiful. It reminds him of the baths that Steve dreaded so much at first, and then began to look forward to, before he simply learned to use them as a powerful tool in the conquest of one Daniel Williams.
In the few days while waiting for Danny's arrival down here in Oahu, Steve's let loose all his fantasies and he's decided to institute a new rule in their house : as the leader of the rebellion, not to mention the king's son, he's entitled to create a new position. Something he's taken to call bath-boy, though he doubt Danny will like it, and there's only one person Steve wants to fill the job. He might have to sweeten the pot by offering him another job, a real one this time, as his deputy. Brother in arms, second in command. Whatever fits the task his mother gave him, as long as Danny keeps on washing him every day before they go to work together.
It might not be that hard to sell, considering how Danny is already reveling in the spirit of his new function, kissing Steve's neck with enthusiasm.
"Danny," he whispers, overwhelmed. "I missed you so much. I love you so much."
"Are you sure this is love ?" Danny wonders, always so insecure. "That you're not just grateful ?"
Steve looks Danny in the eyes. His answer has to be heard and believed.
"Grateful wouldn't have pushed me to put my life on the line again after I was free, not when I was needed here. Grateful is not the only thing I feel for you, you can trust me on that. And you know what, I realized I had totally forgotten for a while the reason why I wanted so badly to come back to Hawaii."
"What's that ?" Danny asks, hands still caressing Steve's back.
"My fight first, of course, but also find the reason why I was arrested and thrown in jail with no one the wiser. I knew there was something hidden under the reasons I was given, I was obsessed for a long while with finding out what that was, but then, when I thought of you, miserable and locked in a cell like I was, I just couldn't care about anything else anymore and I had to go back to save you. Because I don't want to live without you, Danny. Not now, not ever."
It's just so Danny to think that no one can love him, not really, not in the way Steve does. But if he has to, Steve will spend his life proving to him that his feelings are the kind that never go away and only keep getting stronger as time passes.
The kind of love that changes a man. Danny's seen him at his worst, at his lowest, powerless and miserable. He's witnessed humiliations visited on Steve, or their consequences anyway. He's met a Steve no one had ever seen before, the one deprived of his pride and will to live, and still Danny fell in love with him. He accepted Steve the way he was, and in the process helped him become someone else, accept that part of him Steve had always put down hard. He's learned that there's no shame in being weak at times, not when you can lean on the one who loves you. That's why being naked in front of this man is so freeing, sharing with him everything he is.
He wonders how they will go from there now that he's back at the helm and doesn't intend to step down again, but he's not worried. He loves a good challenge, and Danny is nothing if not the biggest one of all. He will contradict Steve at every turn if he thinks he has to, make his voice heard, and Steve will love him for it.
They're kissing now, Danny's hands taking advantage of Steve's nakedness as they make their way to the bed. Then they're lying down together without Steve really remembering how they got there, Danny on top of him.
So immersed in his body's feeling he can't quite keep thinking either, Steve yelps when he feels Danny's hand closing around his balls, in a way not meant to give pleasure.
"You left me behind," Danny recalls, hand like a vice around Steve's balls, "and I warned you what'd happen if you did."
"I did, but it worked for the best, didn't it ?" he smiles to charm his lover.
If anything, Danny's eyes pin him down with the same added strength his hand applies to the grip on his balls. It lasts long enough that Steve begins to get nervous, and his scrotum a lot more so.
"If you ever do that again," Danny threatens, loud and clear, "I'll put your balls and dick in a very small metal box with a lock, and I'll throw away the key. Get it ?"
"Got it. But you love them too much to lose the key."
Steve kind of squeaks when the grip tightens. It's not painful yet, just teasing the edge of forceful and arousing, the best way to get Steve's undivided attention
"As pretty as they are, I love you more, so now would be a good time to learn to be cautious. Do you understand me ?"
Steve feels himself turning to mush hearing Danny's words of love.
"I do, Danny. I really do. And I love you too. You won't lose me, I swear. You and me, we're here for the long haul."
Danny looks at him as if searching for the truth and whatever he finds must appease his fear for his hand gets more amorous than threatening. He rubs Steve's balls against each other and Steve's eyes close, giving himself back to the sensation.
There's no more threat after that. Breath taken away by kisses, they caress each other, they give and get pleasure, and their level of urgency rises. They don't even need words to understand it's time. Danny slides into him as Steve opens up wide to let him in, in all the ways that count. And he cries out, because it's so good, and he wants more, he can't give a damn if anyone hears him. On the contrary, he wants everyone to know, to feel as great and connected to the one they love as when Danny is with him, totally, just like they are in this moment, joined, crazy with love and lust.
Danny's losing it, running after their pleasure, and Steve knows they won't last much longer. He closes his legs around Danny's waist and pushes as hard as he can to get him inside as deep as possible. They moan almost in unison and kiss feverishly. Danny's hands run over Steve's ass, loving and possessive, and Steve doesn't even have time to take his cock in hand before he feels himself coming hard. His eyes close on their own volition and he savors the incredible feelings rushing through him.
Danny's coming too, and it's so beautiful, such a gift that Steve's legs don't want to let go of him.
He has to, after a fashion. Danny wants to rest by his side. He tells himself it's preferable, that it's too hot here to sleep stuck against one another, but he doesn't believe himself for long. Not when his body takes over and rolls on the side to be able to see Danny and take the image of his gorgeous lover with him into his dreams.
Tomorrow, or soon enough, when the time is right, he'll ask Danny to marry him, to make an honest man of him. The few days he's spent with the children here in the camp before Danny arrived have made him pretty sure he wants to be involved in their lives too. Wants them all to be a big family, just like he told his mother. He'll love them both like they're his, because they're Danny's and because they're great kids.
With Danny by his side, Steve thinks, there's nothing he doesn't feel capable of accomplishing.
Wo Fat can come. He's ready to take him.
-------FIN-------
End notes (beware spoilers) : As I said above, the story was much longer than I thought at first, so long that I had to cut some threads and end it there to finish and meet the deadline. But I fell in love with my heroes, hard, and Wo Fat, like a bad habit, is extremely difficult to get rid of, so there's a very good chance that I may revisit them all someday.
I have no plan to do so at this very moment, and many other stories to tell - especially that other big bang I alluded to in my notes at the beginning that I still want to finish. So don't count on a sequel anytime soon.
Lastly, the Chevalier d'Éon was a French diplomat and spy in the 18th century, famous for being such a believable transvestite that everyone wondered until his death what sex he really was born into. As is often the case, his life looks more fascinating and fictional than anything a writer could come up with ! He was my inspiration for a particular plot point of this fic.