What I Need to Set Me Free - Part Four
Much later that night, Danny lies awake in his bed. Which he supposes is technically Steve’s, bed. Despite his earlier joking, sorting the attic is not practical at night as there are no blackout curtains. The few stolen kisses he and Steve shared on the way home continue to turn over in his mind and he finds himself restless. When they had returned to the house, Danny’s knee was bothered enough for him to accept Steve’s help getting up the stairs. He’d leant his weight on the sailor and taken advantage of the chance to keep pressure off it all together. Of course, the bonus opportunity to sneak a goodnight kiss did not go wasted and the two spent a few minutes softly exploring with tongues and gentle nips.
Steve is similarly restless, lying on his back and staring up into the darkness above him. He hadn’t wanted to share a room with Danny but now he wishes he’d taken the offer. To change his mind now would be suspicious and emit an air of rank privilege that he genuinely does not feel. He briefly considers spending a couple of hours snoring as loudly as he can in the hopes that the other patients will complain, allowing him the chance to offer to take to his room. But that seems a little juvenile. Besides, there’s always the attic tomorrow, although Danny has warned him that they actually need to do some work up there as a large linen order is expected within the week.
Eventually, the two men drift off to sleep, apart from each other but with their thoughts on the same thing. This thing, this chance to explore something real and quite unlike anything Steve has ever experienced before.
* * *
“Excuse me, Commander. Have you seen Danny this morning?” one of the patients, Ensign Prichard Steve thinks, approaches the dining table and asks Steve just as he’s finishing his breakfast.
Steve shakes his head. “Not yet. Why?”
“It’s nothing. I’m meant to be having a session at 0930h but he’s probably overslept again. He says that the alarm clock in his room is broken. If you ask me though, I think he is not a morning person at all.”
Steve chuckles. “That really wouldn’t surprise me. I’ve seen how much coffee he drinks with breakfast and it’s a good thing he’s here where the is plenty of it instead of on the mainland.”
Steve stands and slaps the ensign on the shoulder cheerfully. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll go and poke the sleeping bear and you could read the next chapter of that book I saw on your cot this morning. A Sherlock Holmes if I’m not mistaken.”
“Yes, Sir,” the sailor blushes. “Miss Grace talks about them a lot.”
“That girl has all of us wrapped around her little finger, that’s for sure.”
“That she does, Sir,” Prichard agrees.
Steve makes his way up to the landing and stands outside Danny’s door, listening for signs that he is awake and moving about the room. There are none. He knocks gently but there is no answer. Turning the knob, he pushes the door open and is about to offer a loud, teasing comment to rouse the other man but the words die on his lips. The bedding is strewn in a rough radius around the bed and Danny is lying in the middle wearing only his shorts but sweating heavily.
“Danny?” Steve rushes to his side and presses the back of his hand to Danny’s sweaty forehead.
“’M fine,” Danny groans. “I’ve got a cold. My nose feels like someone stuffed two cobs of corn up it and my head aches but I’ll be alright after a shower and some breakfast.”
Steve looks unconvinced but leans forward to help Danny out of bed and into the bathroom. “I’ll just…” he looks to the door. “Give you some privacy.”
“You can stay,” Danny says through his stuffed up nose. “If you want to that is.”
Steve nods. “I want to help you.” He reaches past Danny and turns the water on, adjusting the temperature until it is tepid but not too cold. “Let me help you, Danno.” He kneels between Danny and the bathtub and gently eases him out of his shorts, kissing the soft skin of his hip as it becomes exposed. The flesh is warmer than it should be and Danny tastes salty from his feverish night. Despite his injury, Danny is fit and the play of his muscles under his skin cause Steve to choke back a very undignified sound.
“Steve,” Danny moans. “I’m really not up for…”
“Shh.” Steve presses another kiss before leaning back and lifting Danny’s leg so he steps out of his shorts. “I know you’re not.” He stands and cups Danny’s elbow as he steps over the side of the tub and into the stream of water.
“You’re gonna get wet,” Danny warns him when Steve reaches out and rubs soothing circles over the sick man’s shoulders.
“I don’t think I’ve spent so much time out of water since the war began.”
“Fair enough then,” Danny smiles and tips his head back and lets the water run over his face and through is hair. “So, do you, uh, want to… I mean if you felt like it wasn’t too fast to get in too that would be very okay with me.” Danny would probably be blushing if he weren’t already flushed with a slight fever.
Steve swallows. “You have no idea.” He steps into the shower before either of them can change their minds and pulls Danny tightly to him as the cool water flows over them.
“You could have taken your clothes off first, you giant dork,” Danny laughs into Steve’s very wet shirt.
Steve shakes his head. “No, I couldn’t have. Not if I wanted to retain a modicum of self control.”
“Modicum?” Danny leans back and looks up at Steve.
“It means a small quanitity of…”
“I know what it means, dumbass,” Danny leans back against Steve. “I just thought I was the one who used the big words, that’s all.”
“Maybe you’re rubbing off on me?” Steve suggests.
Danny tightens his arms around Steve’s waist and ducks his head to burrow into his warm chest. “Not tonight, honey. I have a headache.”
“God, Danny. When you’re better…”
“I know, Babe. Believe me I know.”
* * *
By the time he is dried and dressed, Danny is feeling much better and thinks he will be well enough to go about his duties as normal. Steve leaves him to fix his hair and goes down to ask Kamekona if there is any breakfast left. He suspects that even if everything has been packed away, he will prepare something filling and warm for Danny.
When he’s eaten, Danny heads out into the yard to find Ensign Prichard. He’s behind on his schedule but it seems a couple of the patients have come down with a mild flu too so he will have some shortened sessions. He wonders if Steve will see to setting the blackout curtains that night so he can continue until a little later than usual. He makes a mental note to ask him at lunch.
No longer needing to invent chores to distract himself from thinking about Danny, Steve retrieves the Sherlock Holmes novel from his cot and takes it up to the landing to read in the little area above the stairs. When he was home on leave, just before the war began, he’d discovered the spot had just the right amount of light for reading but also a sense of privacy. He’d been glad to see there were no cots up there. When they’d looked over the house on Steve’s first evening awake, Danny explained that he thought the gaps between the banisters could be dangerous if a patient had a nightmare or became disoriented during the night and Steve found he had to agree.
Steve is deep in the middle of the climax of the novel when he’s interrupted by a heavy pounding at the front door. He calls out loudly, “I’ll get it,” to save any of the patients rushing to the door and jogs down the stairs to answer it. He pulls it open and is shocked to find a woman standing there, her arms full of blankets. Her face is pale except for dark circles under her eyes and she looks like she can barely hold herself up, let alone the load she is carrying.
Steve steps forward to take whatever the woman is holding from her but before he can say anything, she leans away and frowns at him.
“Who are you?” she asks suspiciously, flicking her eyes up and down his body. “You don’t look like a patient.”
“I’m Commander McGarrett, this is my family home and I am staying here while I am on leave.”
As suddenly as her suspicion had appeared, it vanishes and the woman stumbles over the threshold. She looks so unsteady that Steve takes the blankets, which he’s now realised are about the size of a child, from her arms before she can protest. “You’d better sit down before you pass out,” he advises, kicking the door closed and walking over to lay the large bundle on his cot. He carefully peels back the layers and feels all the blood rush to his head when he sees what’s inside.
“Kamekona,” he shouts as loudly as he can.
Within seconds, the man appears from the kitchen. “Stevie, there pilikia?” he asks.
“Get Danny. Now.”
Kamekona hurries from the room the room and Steve crouches beside the cot.
“Can you hear me, Sweetie? Squeeze my hand if you can hear me, Gracie.”
“Steve?” Danny comes through the back doors as quickly as his knee will allow and drops to the floor beside him. He utters a pained sound when he sees what, or rather who, is the cause of the commotion.
“She’s got a raging fever, Danny. This woman,” Steve indicates the stranger who by now has sunk wearily to sit on the cot beside Steve’s, watching the scene with watery eyes, “Was at the door and…”
Danny tries to stand. “Help me up,” he grunts.
“What?”
“Up!” Danny grabs hold of Steve’s arm and uses his support to get back on his feet. “Steve, this is Rachel. Grace’s mother.”
Knowing that there’s isn’t really a proper thing to say to the ex-wife of the man you hope to have as your life partner, Steve settles for apologising for his abruptness. “You look like you’ve had a really rough night. You should rest while we take care of Grace.” As he spoke, two of the patients who had come to see what the panic was over, were helping Danny to move Grace to the privacy of the upstairs room.
Rachel shakes her head. “Thank you, Commander. But no. My husband is very ill as well. His lungs were damaged earlier in the war. Whatever this flu is, half the plantation has it. I need to return to care for them.”
“Danny woke up with it this morning, but it seems much milder than what you are describing.”
“He’s always been exposed to lots of sickness in his work as a policeman and I don’t remember him being sick very much at all while we were married. I assume it makes his body better able to handle it,” Rachel shrugs. “I brought Grace here knowing that Danny would be able to focus solely on her and more equipped to help her than we are out at the house. We’re so far from everything and if she worsens….” She sobs into her hands.
“Hey, hey,” Steve crouches in front of her and takes her shaking hands in his. “We’ll look after her, okay? I just need a few details about when she became ill and I want to see you eat something before your driver takes you back, okay?”
(On to Part Five)