Fic: Malasada's H5Obigbang chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: The Un-hoped For Reunion
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He didn’t sleep, his training and instincts not allowing the healing reprieve though he had been awake for over twenty four hours now. Two hours after they hit the open water the security patrols dropped to practically non-existent and Steve figured they felt secure enough on the open water that only a bare minimum of lookouts would be necessary. The urge to just climb down from his hiding place and take out every single son of a bitch on this boat that stood between him and his partner sat in his limbs like a viper coiled to strike. Waiting had always been the worst part for him, and after waiting for so long already he was nearly at the end of his rope.
The problem was that they were still too far out from Hawai’i for a chopper to make the distance to them, and they didn’t have contacts in L.A. that they could trust so Steve was forced to sit on his thumbs and wait; he didn’t want to deal with Danny griping at him for acting prematurely and fucking up the plan to rescue him before it even started. Of course their plan was kind of a Hail Mary at this point, so if anything did go wrong Steve would have to improvise and convince Danny that that was exactly how it was supposed to happen. Thinking about it made him grin darkly to himself.
Late afternoon shadows cast beyond his perch slowly turned darker as night approached. There was a heaviness in the normally cooler open water air that suggested rain might be on the forecast and his clavicle ached where it had healed from a break years before. Some of his teammates, the few he worked with long enough after that injury that got a brief chance to know him, used to joke that he was a human barometer on the ocean; he could predict nearly to the hour when it would start to rain when there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. It had been a neat party trick to pull out sometimes, he’d pocketed a decent amount of coin while on ship between missions with the betting pools that he ‘did not’ know about or partake in, but right now it made him uneasy.
It felt like it could be a heavy storm. A heavy storm could delay, or even obliterate their evacuation plan and Steve did not want Danny on this ship a minute longer than was absolutely necessary.
By the time night fell he was cramped from not moving, had to piss like a racehorse, and was focused enough to know that mercy was not something he was overly keen on showing to anyone while he was here. A few minutes after zero one hundred hours it was dark enough to move.
He ignored the ache in his joints that came with not moving for an obscene length of time and carefully slithered over the wooden roof of the crate, his belt catching briefly on its lip as he twisted around and went over the edge feet first. He lowered himself slowly until his feet dangled only a foot from the ground and dropped the rest of the way. The stun grenades in his pocket clunked together dully, the only sound he made, and he didn’t waste time worrying about it because there was nobody in the area to hear. Quickly relieving himself against the wall, not caring a speck about the rudeness, he kept a sharp ear out until he was finished and ready to move.
He edged silently back to the stairwell, sticking his head around the corner and pulling back sharply. There was nobody there, as expected, but he wasn’t one to take stupid chances…well, not when he didn’t have to at least. The majority of Marcel’s crew would probably be tucked away in their bunks on the deck level, but he’d still have a skeleton crew patrolling the decks because Marcel had things to hide. People who had things to hide were always more cautious than the innocent. Steve figured there would be two guys with their boots on the ground and one up high keeping a look out for approaching boats slinking in in the dead of the night. Plus he’d have a few people on the bridge to maintain their voyage.
First step: Figure out how many people were on the ship and confirm where they were most likely to be. Second step: locate Danny. It didn’t need to happen in that order. Simple.
He moved swiftly up another set of stairs, the sound of the massive ships propellers churning the water far below him loud in what would be a quiet night. He came out on the deck beneath the helicopter landing pad, ducking lower as he passed by a train of windows that led into a dark room. The night was blacker than black with the cloud cover that had rolled in during the evening but there were still lights illuminating all the gangways and rooms, leaving dark recesses all over the place but making it difficult to move along unnoticed.
He passed the looming lifeboat, hunched over and keeping along the wall, gun ready in hand in case he needed it, hoping it wouldn’t be an issue just yet because it would break his cover before he wanted to. He cut down a corridor that led to the centre of the ship, pausing to listen carefully outside a stairwell before moving in. He came out two floors above and in the corridor that led to three places: The bridge, the chart room, and the head. The bridge was the only place that would have anyone at this time of night, and sure enough there were two men diligently making sure the ship kept course.
He itched to take them out. He moved back to the stairwell and began his descent. He would check each corridor but he’d have to be even more cautious because he figured Danny would be somewhere on the upper four decks, close at hand to Marcel and what he’d probably taken as his main personal space on the ship. There would most likely be a guard. Steve hopped there was a guard, because he didn’t want to know what kind of condition Danny would be in if he didn’t require one.
Half way down the first set of stairs an alarm began screaming.
Steve froze on the spot, heart hammering in his chest at the blaring klaxon. There was no way they knew he was here! No way! Fuck!
He moved, throwing himself down the stairs. He needed to get back to a corridor where there would be less of a chance of being spotted and fast. The problem was he couldn’t be in a worse place on the ship to hide. Chances were the alarm wasn’t for him, but he had no idea what else would set it off in the dead of the night and he had no intention of getting killed before he found his partner.
Two floors down and the door he’d just passed was thrown open, its edge just clipping his shoulder. The man who threw it open had been moving so fast he was practically on top of Steve. Steve stopped sharply, twisting around and throwing his whole body into a roundhouse that literally knocked the stunned man right off his feet. He staggered and fell back into the hall he’d been coming from and Steve jumped down the next five stairs, landing on the platform with a jarring thud. He could hear another person already taking the place of the first and he wasted no time moving to the next level in two giant steps, hand on the railing to support him. He looked up just in time to see a gun leveled on him, a clear shot, and reacted instinctively. Using the momentum he already had he threw himself at the door and all but flew through it just as a bullet whizzed by his head to ricochet off the wall.
He wasn’t expecting to be tackled by who must be the biggest mother on the planet! The moment he jumped beyond the door he was sent flying to the floor with a dropped shoulder that drove the air from his lungs. He hit hard, dazed for a second before realizing that his assailant was still on top of him, pulling a fist back and preparing to attack.
Then he saw that it was Danny.
He sure as hell wasn’t going to hit back, he barely had time to block the vicious punch and until he managed to suck in a breath he couldn’t actually warn his partner to stop. He did the only thing he could think of and wrapped a leg firmly around the back of Danny’s thighs, thrust his arm behind him for leverage, and flipped him over.
Dragging in the lungful he needed he wanted to open his mouth to apologize but he didn’t have the time to waste when three armed and seriously pissed off looking men surrounded them. One of them had a handcuff dangling from his wrist. Steve reacted, shoving Danny against the wall and crouching over him protectively. He’d lost his gun in the fall (stupid, amateur move) so he pulled one of his knives instead and contemplated the pros and cons between throwing it at one of the attackers or trying to engage them all in close combat.
The decision was taken out of his hands when Danny, pressed tightly against the wall behind him, wheezed out an increduluous “Steve?!” as the men stared at him through hardened, but clearly shocked, eyes. Steve didn’t get the chance to answer Danny, not really sure what he would have said anyway, as the closest one fired his weapon.
Bolts of electricity shot through his limbs, the current seizing muscles and taking him down almost as effectively as Danny had. He was pretty sure he managed to elbow Danny somewhere sensitive if his grunt of pain was anything to judge by, but that was a distant concern to his own pain and the echo of Danny yelling at them to “Stop! He’s down already! What the hell is the matter with you!”
This wasn’t exactly the reunion he’d been aiming for.================================================================
The moment they stopped tasering Steve they flipped him roughly onto his stomach and snapped his hands together with flexi-cuffs. He hated flexi-cuffs, they always ended up cutting off his circulation in a bad way but he probably shouldn’t complain too much about that as they’d used the ones he’d had stored in his back pocket. It was a cruel irony. They didn’t give him a chance to recover, two of them stepping in and hoisting him to his feet. He didn’t make too much effort to help them, partly because his limbs were still shaking and not responding fully, partly because he’d never really been good at making things easy for people he didn’t like.
Seeing as they’d wrapped Danny’s wrists in his flexi-cuffs as well, forcing him to lead the way with threat of more serious harm to Steve, Steve could safely say he didn’t like these men. Though that had been a given the moment Danny had been set on their ship. Either way it wasn’t an easy walk with their jerky, uncoordinated dragging of him and Danny trying to look over his shoulder, looking like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing every few seconds. Steve’s vision was still a little wonky from the shock of the taser, but it was clearing rapidly and he tried to take stock of Danny’s condition as they moved along. He couldn’t tell much from behind, not with the baggy black clothes his friend was wearing, but one thing he could see very easily was that Danny had dropped too many pounds.
He didn’t have much time to dwell on this new information as a moment later they were pulled into a ludicrously luxurious room that had more place being on a luxury yacht than a cargo ship. Steve’s legs were kicked out from under him before he got more than a glance at the new surroundings. He fell hard to the ground, no arms to help support his fall and his chest connected hard, driving the air from his lungs for the second time. He ignored the stars that appeared in his vision, rolling slightly to his side to relieve some pressure from his chest and inhale deeply. The stars cleared, his anger did not.
Two very shiny, expensive looking black shoes appeared inches from his nose. He tried to look up, but a boot shoved firmly into his back pinned him to the floor and he barely turned his head to the side in time to avoid smashing his nose.
“What have we here?” the Man above him spoke with a smooth tenor voice, his accent clearly dutch if you knew what you were hearing though it wasn’t as strong as it could be, and Steve knew without a doubt that it was Marcel van Hoorn. Steve’s current enemy number one. He clenched his teeth, trying to suck in a few more even breaths so he could answer, but didn’t get as far as opening his mouth before Danny, true to form, decided to open his own. Later Steve would decide that he didn’t always appreciate Danny’s verbal impulse control, or occasional lack of it, because the idea of Danny doing it strictly to protect him was not acceptable. Ever.
“As if you don’t know,” Danny growled, voice slightly raspy and clearly unafraid to express his anger. “As if you didn’t shove a glossy eight by ten depicting that chiseled face in front of me the day after we met. As if you didn’t sit back and watch as two dipshits punched bullets into him to put on a show for you. Ignorance doesn’t suit you Marcel,” he attacked, clearly ready to antagonize the crap out of Marcel to give Steve a minute to catch his breath, to try and regain control of his still shaking body.
“Danny,” Steve tried to warn him off, which in hindsight wasn’t a brilliant idea because he could feel the shift of attention in the room rest on him, namely from the man himself. He also heard him suck in a heavy, preparatory breath.
“No, don’t you Danny me you oversized, clearly undereducated, manfish! How did you even get here? Did you swim? Do you have gills tucked behind your ears that I should be made aware of? Because that might be the only thing that makes sense with your whole presence here, which I shouldn’t need to point out is in the middle of the Pacific, in the first place; and please note that I am putting special emphasis on the only! Seriously, where in the history of rescues does it demonstrate that this is an acceptable mode of operation? Don’t answer that!” He was breathing heavily, clearly agitated, but Steve liked to think he knew Danny enough to have gathered the emotions hidden beneath the angry tone; he heard the worry for his safety, the relief that Steve was here with him, the guilt at feeling the relief, and the weariness that overlapped it all. Steve was relieved himself to know that Danny was okay enough to rant in the first place, but the lack of energy behind it was concerning.
“Finish searching him,” Marcel ordered dryly, ignoring Danny which Steve figured he’d be hearing about later, assuming they were locked in the same cell together. Assuming they didn’t just shoot him and toss him overboard like Bryce and Eric.
“He dropped this when the healer ran into him,” one of the guards placed his pistol on a tall, dark wooden table that was secured against the wall behind Steve. He knew this because the sound of his weapon hitting a hard surface was very distinctive.
“Thanks for that, by the way,” Danny muttered, no real heat in his words and Marcel’s feet shifted out of sight as rough hands began digging into all of Steve’s pockets and then getting a little too personal to ensure that he wasn’t concealing anything further. His tools joined his weapon one by one on the table.
“I do not understand where you thought you were going?” Marcel announced, irritation clear as he moved to stand in front of Danny, who was sitting where he had been shoved into the couch just within Steve’s line of sight. “How many more times are you going to try to leave us? And in the middle of the ocean? What were you going to do, swim back to your past?”
Danny did this thing with his face that conveyed so much disgust it practically radiated from him but he didn’t answer Marcel, and though Steve couldn’t see Marcel’s face he could see the anger in his posture.
“I was having a most peaceful sleep when you decided to make another ill advised attempt at leaving,” Marcel stepped closer and ran his long fingers through Danny’s wild hair, before clenching his fist in a tight grip and jerking Danny’s neck back at an uncomfortable angle.
Steve didn’t growl, but it was a near thing and he shifted, testing their hold on him to see if maybe he could shove them off and charge Marcel despite being tied up and pinned to the floor. He got a heavy kick in the side for his trouble, the sharp pain slicing into him and he couldn’t help the grunt that escaped at the impact.
“But,” Marcel sounded a little more satisfied now, “it would appear that your inconvenient night wanderings led us right to our stowaway. Perhaps I should be thanking you instead, because we may have never known he was visiting if you hadn’t bumped into him.” Danny’s nostrils flared in anger, his breathing heavy and face beginning to turn a little red in the bright light of the room, but his lips remained pressed together and he didn’t say anything. Marcel stood above him another long moment, staring, before a small smile broke out and he released Danny’s hair, smacking him on the chest with the back of his hand like a buddy trying to get his attention. Danny hissed and curled over himself, hindered by his arms locked behind him, before straightening up and adopting the face he normally wore when in the presence of people he really didn’t care for but had to be polite to for political reasons.
Marcel ignored it and turned back to Steve just as the door behind them swung inward and the click-click of narrow heels trailed into the room. Steve was hauled to his knees, the movement pulling on his aching ribs from where Danny had taken him down like a professional linebacker, but his attention was drawn to the woman dressed in a cream coloured pantsuit that stopped beside him.
The only thing that gave away her surprise at his presence was the momentary widening of her cold brown eyes as she looked Steve over. Steve hid his surprise by ignoring her. Despite the lack of glasses and the pencil straight long brown hair that cascaded just below her shoulders he recognized her instantly. He had thought she’d been working with the brothers that grabbed Danny and had assumed she’d probably also met her fate with a watery grave when they couldn’t find a trace of her on the islands. One more thing he was wrong about.
“Did you find anything of interest?” Marcel addressed the men surrounding the room, giving a little nod of greeting to the woman as she smoothly took a place next to him, her eyes flittering over and dismissing Danny in a way that had Steve seething. Danny, for his part, was giving Steve a stink eye worse than the first time he’d got him shot, which was just plain unfair but Steve would be the bigger man and ignore it for now.
“Knives, metal string, grenades, some kind of glucose gel supplements, a button, and a cell phone,” the tallest of the guards announced in heavily accented English, stepping forward to hand the phone to the woman, who instantly flipped it open and began to explore.”
“Looks like somebody was planning to be a menace,” Marcel’s eyes narrowed as he looked down on Steve and behind them Danny snorted in dark amusement.
“That’s his default,” Danny grumped, not helping their situation. Marcel wasn’t amused.
“I do not like it when people intend to harm my property,”
“I could say the same,” Steve spit out without thinking and just like that Marcel seemed amused again, looking back at Danny who was pretending to take no interest in them but was no doubt watching with the same awareness he watched everything: intensely.
“No, you couldn’t,” Marcel dismissed Steve’s words with a dangerous grin, “as nothing currently in my possession belongs to you.”
“I’d like to point out that I’m not a commodity,” Danny interrupted, “and also sitting right here.” Steve clenched his jaw, flaring up the toothache he’d developed from doing that exact thing these last few weeks. He didn’t comment further though when the woman snapped his phone shut and focused her attention on him Steve wanted to punch her in the face and no: he really didn’t have a problem hitting a woman who deserved it.
“It is not his personal cell,” because he wasn’t an idiot, even if he did get caught unintentionally and way too soon, “and he has only contacted one person on it. The messages are misleading, saying that he had to leave town for a family emergency and doesn’t know when he’ll be back.” She eyed him speculatively.
“When were they sent?” Marcel sounded bored.
“Right after departure yesterday. He must have already been on the ship.”
“Hmmm,” Marcel pursed his lips and then nodded at one of the guards looming over Steve. He had just enough warning to see the man shifting but not enough to do anything about it as a fist smashed into his face, splitting his lip, nearly dislocating his jaw and it took a bit of straining to not go down to the ground with the force of the swing. The second hit to the jaw nearly finished the job and his head rang, vision blacking for a moment as his body adjusted to the pain before pulling through it. It had been a while since he’d been in this position and he couldn’t say the time away made it any better.
“Seriously, that’s your solution? Turn him into a punching bag? Classy,” Danny snapped but, like Steve always ragged him about, his tone gave away his concern and Steve did not miss the flash of victory in Marcel’s eyes before he turned to look at Danny.
“Maybe not classy but it certainly makes me feel better,” his tone was cool and the room fell into a long moment of silence as Marcel stared at Danny and Danny stubbornly held the gaze. Steve got the distinct impression that this wasn’t the first time they’d locked into a battle of wills like this and unease squeezed his chest. “Take them back to Mr. William’s room,” Marcel decided with an abrupt break to the silence. “Make sure Detective McGarrett is comfortable.”
“Lieutenant Commander McGarrett,” Danny snapped, eyes flashing angrily and giving away too much of his true emotions. Steve couldn’t get upset by it, watching his friend wrap his anger around himself as a protective barrier. Weeks spent in these conditions were taking their toll. A heavy, hot feeling knotted his stomach as Marcels’ dark hawk-like gaze never wavered from Danny. Then he abruptly turned about and left the room, the woman following closely, tossing Steve’s phone carelessly onto the table by the door.
It didn’t take a lot of prodding to drag Steve back to his feet, his knees angrily protesting at their harsh treatment while on the ground, and Danny struggled to his own feet before attempting to twist from the grip of the shorter, broad shouldered guard.
“I know the way,” he snapped and Steve noted how the guards’ fingertips turned a lighter shade as his grip tightened. This guy would be the first one Steve ended.
The procession was fairly quiet, the conversations short and in a language Steve only knew a few swear words for, before they were pushed into a windowless room with one cot bolted to the wall and a toilet and sink off to the side, a privacy shield barely high enough to cover a seated person in place. Danny was crowded up against the wall, the guard not bothering to pull a taser on him as Steve was covered by two himself and they all seemed to understand that with Steve here Danny wasn’t going to try anything.
Steve kept his face blank as the guard that had had the handcuff dangling from his wrist earlier moved behind him and roughly snapped it around one of Steve’s wrists before knocking Steve to his knees and shoving him harshly back against the bedframe. The other end of the cuff snapped around metal and a knife, one of Steve’s he noticed with an irritated burn in his chest, was produced to cut the plastic cuffs from his wrists. He wasn’t careful, a sharp slice splitting a patch of skin. Steve didn’t move as the two men backed away and Danny was turned by the shoulder and pressed into the wall as his guard sliced the plastic from his own wrists.
They left without a backward glance, the heavy thud of the door and bolting of the lock resounding throughout the small room. Thankfully the lights remained on and Steve finally pulled his hands out from behind him, the chain of the cuffs rattling around the cots leg and couldn’t go that far, but at least they were moderately free. He watched as Danny leaned his forehead against the smooth white wall, raising his freed hands to press his palms flush to the surface and breathed deeply.
Steve knew that technique, it did not bode well for him, but he ignored it in favour of taking the moment to study Danny more closely. Danny who was too skinny and who had bruises clearly outlined on his wrists, dark fingertip smudges stood out just above his elbows. He had lost the tan he had stubbornly refused to get for the first seven months of his tenure in Hawaii. Steve wondered at his own psychoses when that, more than the bruises, made the rage bubble up in his chest. He took deep breaths of his own in the tomb silent room, steadying his nerves, and watched as Danny gently knocked his forehead against the wall. Twice. When he finally spoke his voice was deceptively soft.
“Steven,” he turned from the wall and leaned back against it, crossing his arms and staring across the small space to where Steve was still sitting on the floor, leaning against the bed. Steve wasn’t a big fan of the distance.
“Danny,” he returned evenly, eyes roaming over his friend once again, seeing the way the black cotton t-shirt that should have hugged his frame hung slightly baggy instead. Noting the yellowing bruises in the last stage of healing on Danny’s jaw, the day old stubble not hiding his too sharp features.
“Grenades?” Danny started with and yeah Steve had expecting something along the lines of ‘what are you doing here?’ or ‘do you enjoy being an idiot? Is this a thing with you?’ But seeing as it was Danny he had stopped trying to predict what would come out of his mouth about two months into their partnership: it was more amusing that way and kept him sane.
“Stun grenades,” Steve corrected, something clicking back into place within him when Danny’s eyes narrowed and he straightened his shoulders the way he would have before this entire FUBAR of a month had happened. It calmed Steve, a pavlovian side effect of being around Danny for so long, and it must have shown on his face because Danny’s dull blue eyes flashed to life in a way they had been lacking before. Irritation the front runner, and that calmed Steve just a fraction more.
“Stun grenades he says, because that makes it all better!” Danny waved an arm, barely held back a wince of pain, and continued as though it hadn’t happened. “Because clearly, when one is infiltrating a massive cargo ship manned with gun runners, whom I can definitely say enjoy spending time using their products, they need to pack the grenades in a pocket that is attached to pants on the side of their leg. You were hit with a taser, Steven! What if that set them off?! Don’t for a second think that I can just regrow your leg for you!” Steve opened his mouth to explain why there was no need to be concerned about the electric pulse setting off the grenades, that his leg had been perfectly safe, but Danny didn’t give him a chance. “And knives! How many do you think you really need? Did they even get them all? I saw five of them on that table! Where in the world is it safe to conceal that many sharp objects on your body? I could have been stabbed when you oh so gracefully blundered into my path and halted my, up to then successful, escape attempt!
“You know what,” he cut a sharp hand through the air, shutting off Steve’s attempt to respond. “Do not even try to explain that freaky character eccentricity, because it is not healthy and I prefer to bask in the knowledge that my partner is a rational, not at all insane, man who doesn’t feel the need to overcompensate by draping himself in sharp pointy objects!” He shook his head, pausing to look towards the door in a moment of feigned (Steve was pretty sure it was feigned) disgust. There had been no need for the gesture; Steve had already figured out that they were being visually and most definitely vocally monitored from a recording system above the door.
“Overcompensate like buying a big shiny Camaro you mean?” Steve shifted uncomfortably, wishing he could just get up and go to Danny instead of being stuck on the floor.
“Do not even Steven” Danny snapped. “Do not even bring up my excellent taste in motorized vehicles when you spend more time driving it than I do! A vehicle which I have to say I would rather you were driving right now, because I’m sure the nice cushioned seats are a hundred times more comfortable than this floor, am I right?”
“Floor’s not so bad,” Steve said softly, watching as Danny began pacing in agitation, his upper body held stiffly and his arms not moving as expressively as they should be.
“The floor’s not so bad he says,” Danny cut him a glare and Steve kept silent this time. Danny tended to repeat what others said when he was uncertain how to respond, it gave him an extra moment to ground himself. “Of course it’s bad, Steven! The floor is very, very bad! The floor is bad because it is here, are you getting me Steven? Are you understanding what I am saying.” Steve understood, but that didn’t mean he agreed with it. “Don’t get me wrong: I’m glad I haven’t been classified as deceased and more than enthused that you found me when it was probably next to impossible to figure out where I am, but there are ways you can be useful to me that don’t involve being attached to my cot, weaponless, in a windowless room in the middle of the freaking Pacific! You shouldn’t be here Steven! I don’t want you here,” Danny finished and there was that tone, the one that said too much when he didn’t mean to. Danny stopped and leaned against the wall again, tilting his head back and closing his eyes. Steve waited, watching intently.
“I don’t want you here, Steven,” he opened his eyes and unerringly met Steve’s.
“That’s too bad, cause it took a long time to get here, I came all this way, figured I’d stay a while.”
“That is not a good idea. On a scale of one to ten that is a negative infinity on the good idea front and I would prefer it if you went far away. I won’t say no to you taking me with you, a change of scenery would be very appreciated, preferably somewhere on land with my little girl playing safely on a beach and a nice big bag of fresh malasada’s. Your being here, chained to the floor, is not getting me any closer to my malasada’s, Steve so please, please tell me you didn’t come here by yourself, without back-up and without telling anyone where you were going.”
Steve remained silent. Danny looked at him, looked at him harder, and then shook his head in frustration.
“How many times do I have to keep telling you not to do this, Steve! You need to tell people when you’re running into suicidal situations! Wait for back-up, I say. At least call for back up I say, but no, that’s too easy! The great Steve McGarrett laughs in the face of reason and now, now you’re going to be used as leverage! I only just started deciding that you could take care of yourself out there to the point that I could fight them a little harder, and now you’re here.” His irritated gaze drifted pointedly to the blood that Steve knew had dribbled all over his chin and Danny pushed away from the wall, his hand reaching, fingers twitching, and then aborting the action just as quickly.
Steve recognized the gesture, the reaching and pulling back; it was such a typical Danny twitch, something he’d seen the man perform countless times. This was the first time he ever really understood what it really meant, what Danny was stopping himself from doing all those times before. Steve pretended not to notice the aborted reach and tried to wipe the blood away on his shirt.
“I can always take care of myself,” he argued without thinking, a typical response between the two of them, but this time it seemed to hit a nerve and Danny visibly flinched.
“Yeah? Were you taking care of yourself when those two bullets decided to make a home in your chest?” He snapped coldly.
“Wasn’t your fault Danny.”
“Just like it’s not my fault you’re here right now? You have a habit of strolling onto hostile cargo ships that I should know about? Don’t answer that!” Danny waved at him and Steve didn’t respond, his mind briefly flashing on a time long past that involved a ship, police cruiser, a convenient ramp, men with weapons and happy trigger fingers and Danny screaming at him from the passenger seat.
“I could have asked for help,” Steve shrugged, ignoring the throbbing in his side from boot shaped bruises. “It was my choice not to.”
“You mean it was your choice to go it alone so people wouldn’t ask why I’d been taken in the first place, right? To keep my healing thing a secret? This secret is not worth your life, Steve!”
“Maybe not but it is worth yours,” Steve snapped fiercely, glaring. Enough was enough, Danny had had his venting session, he’d played his roll, and Steve was tired of him being on the other side of the damn room. “Would you please stop with the pacing and get your ass over here?”
Danny glared, huffed, rubbed at his tired eyes and then sighed before his shoulders dropped in exhaustion and he finally, finally, moved to join Steve. He sat roughly on the floor next to him, extending his bad leg out and Steve stretched his own to slide alongside.
“Where are you hurt?” Steve demanded the moment Danny settled, resisting the urge to just look for himself. Danny hadn’t reacted too well the last time he’d done that, though Chin later said that the poor reaction probably had something to do with Steve trying to remove his partner’s shirt in front of half the HPD. Whatever, Steve had been in the Navy so long that the idea of being shy over being checked for injury was just stupid. Try telling Mr. Button-up and Tie Firmly Knotted While I Eat Breakfast that.
“I’m fine,” Danny lied, cutting a dark look at Steve. “You can put away that face.”
“I don’t have a face,” Steve denied. He hadn’t even twitched his lips.
“Ignoring the ludicrousness of that statement yes you do have a face, and right now it’s telling me you want to practice your Florence Nightingale schtick even though you’re the one with blood dripping onto his shirt.” Danny slouched a little, his shoulder pressing up against Steve’s. Steve watched him unabashedly, noticing the heavy bob of his adam’s apple at the contact. His eyes drifted down to the exposed arms, the finger shaped bruises, the wrings around his wrists, the large skin-toned bandage spread out over the base of his thumb. The needle marks. The paper thin cut that encircled his index finger. Steve knew what a cut like that hinted at.
Steve was going to tear Marcel apart.
He wanted to ask what happened to his hand, wanted the details so he knew who he should go after harder. Wanted to know what had Danny sore enough that he checked his movements, that had him talking without his hands waving about. He kept silent though, knowing the slight tremor against his shoulder was only a few steps away from becoming a possible breakdown and Danny might not forgive him if he pushed. Not here, not now. Steve might be here now, but it was still hostile territory. They had to hold out a bit longer.
“At least I’m not wearing silk pajama’s,” he returned after far too long of a pause, plucking briefly at the shiny black sleep pants over Danny’s knee. Danny snorted anyway, understanding passing between them.
“You wish you were wearing silk pajama’s.” Weak. Clearly Danny was too tired now to dig up a good comeback, his eyes beginning to droop before snapping open wide in a facsimile of being awake.
“Get some sleep Danno,” Steve bent his head closer to his friend and gave the order softly. “I’ve got your back.”
“Shouldn’t be here,” he grumped but after a long pause he slowly pushed up enough to flop on the small bed at their back. “Moron.” Steve twisted to watch him curl up slightly, his back to the wall, before turning around and settling in for the wait. It felt like he’d been awake for a month already, another night wouldn’t matter. There was a long moment of silence, their breathing the only sound in the room. “Nothing good is gonna happen tomorrow,” Danny warned softly, his worry all too clear and yeah, Steve had an idea of what to expect, not sure if this fell under the ‘been there done that’ category but smart enough to know the next two days were going to suck.
“We’ll figure it out,” he dismissed the concern with a bored tone. Danny didn’t respond, but a moment later his arm flopped out, the back of his hand pressing gently to Steve’s shoulder. Calming, grounding them both before the soft sound of sleep was the only noise behind him.
It took Steve an embarrassingly long time to realize that his injuries had stopped aching before Danny had even gone to bed.
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They’d taken Steve’s watch. Danny had stopped really caring about the time of day once he’d come to the understanding that until he got off this ship he had no real control over when he did what anyway, but Steve clearly didn’t like not knowing the exact position of the sun whenever his blessed little obsessive compulsive heart desired.
“Control freak,” Danny had muttered at him when he saw the guy go to check his wrist for what had to be the tenth time that morning and Steve glared half-heartedly back. Danny didn’t have it in him to point out that if Steve had maybe not infiltrated the ship and become Danny’s roommate he would still have his watch and then not have to obsess about the time. He understood that while Steve probably had some kind of end game in mind having Danny tackle him in the middle of what had most likely been a reconnaissance run had not been a part of his game plan. It hadn’t been a part of Danny’s either and his shoulder was still a little achy from coming into hard contact with the brick wall that was his partner.
Even after that impact, and after Steve had patiently let Danny rail at him after they’d been locked back in the room, Danny still had trouble wrapping his head around the fact that Steve was actually here, in his presence. Don’t get him wrong; he’d expected (more like desperately hoped) his team to eventually figure out what had happened to him, because solving ridiculous crimes were what they did, but he’d imagined that if they were going to find him it would have been when the ship was still at port. Not over a day out to sea with nothing but water for company.
Then again it was Steve and Danny hadn’t been joking with his gill comment earlier, at least not entirely.
So yeah, having Steve sitting across from him, his hands tightly secured together in freshly applied metal cuffs and resting casually on the table, fingers relaxed and laced together, was a bit surreal. And scary. Terrifying actually, because from a distance Marcel could threaten to use him as leverage against Danny as much as he wanted, and he had been mostly successful at it when it came to getting Danny to use his abilities to heal people. It hadn’t been such a good controlling factor when Danny lost his temper and just had to get out.
Now Danny had to determine exactly what he was willing to give up to Marcel in order to keep Steve in one piece.
They’d discussed this of course, before they’d been brought to this elegant dining room with all the bells and whistles and swinging chandeliers and after Steve had gotten a few hours of sleep. Hours he’d protested at first, insisting Danny needed it more and Danny had tried not to wonder at exactly how bad he must look in his friends eyes to earn that determined/worried protest. Especially considering that Steve didn’t exactly look like a spry chicken, what with the bags under his eyes and exhaustion clear in his movement.
Danny didn’t contemplate that too deeply now, because he knew he would just latch onto the guilt train and not let go and there wasn’t time for that just yet. He had to keep his ridiculous, self-sacrificing partner in one piece.
Needless to say Steve’s interpretation of how to deal with Marcel using him against Danny was for Danny to not give in. At all. Just let them kick the ever-loving crap out of him, let them beat on him until they got the idea that they couldn’t force Danny to play ball. Clearly it was anger and not intelligence guiding these directions, because if Marcel did decide to use Steve as incentive to do what he wanted and Danny refused, then Marcel would kill Steve. Maybe not immediately, but he would do it, and that was just…no, it wasn’t happening. Try telling Steve that; he still thought causing a rockslide to take out a transport truck carrying an unarmed nuclear weapon was a good idea.
So their discussion, steering clear of the heavier ‘are you really okay’ subject matter, revolved around Steve ordering Danny to not give in to Marcel’s demands, Danny telling Steve he was an idiot in many colourful ways, Steve maturely telling Danny he was the real moron of the two of them and Danny deciding he’d just do whatever he could to keep Steve in one piece when the time came. It didn’t help that he wasn’t sure if the recording device in the room came with a sensitive audio and half their conversation involved facial interpretation. Fortunately Danny was a self-proclaimed expert at reading Steve. Like it was hard.
Their conversation, which they both knew may have been overheard, was interrupted by all three of last nights entertainment marching through the doors, clearly meaning business as they’d coldly moved them from the cell-like room to the extravagant dining room they were now seated in. Danny had been in here twice before, forced to sit through meals with Marcel and Anook acting like it were a pleasant dinner party as they Marcel elaborated on his plans for Danny. Danny preferred the colder atmosphere of the small dining room he was usually taken too, with its cool metal table and hard chairs set in a small space just outside what he had determined was the kitchen.
After what felt like hours of being forced to sit in the heavy, french vintage chairs, to the point where even the cushioned black leather seat began to make his ass numb, Marcel finally made an appearance. He was dressed with his usual code to impress, crisp black pants and white shirt without a wrinkle in it. Danny found himself staring at the tie, an olive green piece with gold patterning and he was torn between wishing he had his own tie and wanting to use Marcels’ to strangle him.
“Gentleman,” he greeted, looking first at Danny, his gaze as intense and creepy as always, before taking a brief second to acknowledge Steve and casually slip into the seat that Will pulled out for him at the head of the mahogany table. “Sorry to have kept you waiting so long,” he lied. Steve’s kept his face fairly unreadable, for once, but the look in his eyes promised very bad things. Marcel was unconcerned, pouring himself a cup of the weakest tea ever steeped and stirring in a pinch of sugar. “You must be starving after all that work you got up to last night. I certainly know I am,” he flipped his cloth napkin open with a dramatic snap of the wrist and laid it over his knee before looking up to await their response. The silence that followed was pointedly cool and after a moment he continued, unconcerned. “It was rude of me to have deprived you of breakfast and lunch and I do hope supper will make it up to you. Ah, Doctor, I am glad you could join us.” Danny couldn’t help tensing up when he heard the heavy, stomping footsteps he associated with the doctor as he moved through the room.
The man circled around, nodding politely at Marcel and taking a seat across from Danny and Steve, his attention flittering back and forth between them in interest before Marcel called for attention.
“Mr. McGarrett,” Danny had to force himself not to clench his fists in anger at the title, “I do not believe you have met Dr. Smidt yet. He was the primary physician for my brother before Alfonse recovered from his illness, and he has remained with us in order to care for Mr. Williams’ as well as others among my staff.”
“You mean experiment on him,” Steve pointed out dryly. “Since you’re being so open about things we may as well call it what it is.” Danny stared hard at the dark blue napkin sitting on the table before him. There was no cutlery on Steve and Danny’s side of the table. He wondered if they were going to be eating finger foods only or if Marcel was going to make them shovel the food into their mouths using their hands. When he looked back up Marcel was watching him and Steve was watching Marcel. Danny couldn’t watch them both at the same time so he settled for Marcel.
“We have not ‘experimented’ on Mr. Williams, we have merely been testing his capabilities, recording his body’s responses to try and help him understand how he can do what he does. Surely you are equally interested in understanding how he works, especially after having experienced it first hand.” Marcel’s gaze drifted briefly to Steve’s chest before smiling a grin that was cruel in its lack of emotion. Danny had to push the images of Steve, lying in the dirt and trying to tell him that it was okay that he was dying while the blood was just running out of him in a freaking stream. It had not been okay, it would never be okay! Christ. Danny couldn’t help shifting in his seat, unable to stay still with the angry memory and the tacky feel of blood that had stayed on his hands all night. Beside him Steve seemed utterly undisturbed.
“I don’t need to know how he works,” he said, his gaze never wavering from Marcel. Marcel took another drink of tea, assessing, before leaning back in his seat and tilting his head.
“I don’t believe you.” Well Danny was kind of glad for that as it told him that Marcel hadn’t figured out how to read Steve yet, because he sure as hell did believe Steve. It wasn’t very difficult to read the utter sincerity of the words. Then again on the nights away from work when Danny allowed himself to imagine what it would be like to share his secret he had always felt that it wouldn’t really matter with Steve, not beyond the initial shock.
The sound of a cart being pushed into the room was enough to pull Steve’s dark gaze from Marcel and assess the new threat. Danny didn’t need to look to know that it was the chef, a man that had actively disliked him on sight and made it clear with the way he sniffed in superiority at him every time they were in a room together. Today he curtailed the usual snide glances, maybe because of his boss’s presence or perhaps because he was curious about Steve, and went about setting bowls of stew before them silently. Steve eyed the spoon like he could use it to kill every person in the room and their dog, which as far as Danny knew he could, but he made no move to reach for it.
“You should try to eat Mr. Williams,” Marcel said with a hint of concern mingled with the order, “clearly you can not afford to lose more weight and I may take offence to your acceptance of my hospitality. Yourself as well Mr. McGarrett, lest the meal goes to waste.”
Danny eyed the thick stew and pushed it away, well aware of his friends’ eyes on him. This far out to sea the waves were having an effect on his stomach again, and if it were just the waves he might have been able to stomach it, but coupled with the burning pain scattered across his chest that flared up angrily with every move and there was no chance of keeping his food down.
Steve eyed the food, eyed the retreating chef, and pushed the bowl away as well, resting his hands on the table once again.
“I have to say, Mr. McGarrett, your presence here was greatly unexpected,” he began breaking apart his biscuit and dipping it in the stew, “and I will admit that at first I was not overly enthusiastic with your visit but then it occurred to me that Mr. William’s would be much happier with a colleague around. Especially one he holds in such high regard,” he broke off to eat. The doctor was eyeing Danny intently again, making him feel twitchy and wanting to check himself for the electrode stickers that the man was obsessed with attaching him. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled slightly.
Steve just watched Marcel steadily.
“Now I am quite enthusiastic about having you as a guest as well,” he smiled blandly at Danny. “Mr. Williams was beginning to test my patience with his ill temper. Having you close at hand should certainly help with that.”
Steve remained silent.
A pulse of unease shivered through Danny and he rolled his head slightly to try and dispel it. It didn’t work. Smidt had stopped eating altogether and was watching him closely now. What the fuck?
“You wanna take a picture? Might last longer,” he snapped, getting a quick glance from Steve that he knew was one hundred percent concern despite the stony facade.
“As you can understand we have questions of a personal nature that Mr. Williams is a little more…hesitant to share with us, at least truthfully,” Marcel was back to staring at Danny like he was the passcode to Bill Gates’ bank account. “Coming from you he might be more inclined to answer them.” Clearly Steve was having none of that and Danny was all for that, really he was, but something was wrong. The unease was getting stronger and a familiar itch was beginning to tingle beneath his skin, his fingers twitching without his say-so. He couldn’t help frowning, a warning sign blossoming hot in his chest, like he used to get when Grace became very sick as an infant but couldn’t tell anyone.
He breathed deeply, trying to act like nothing was wrong, and looked at Steve. Steve was still glaring his hardened ‘I am a SEAL and you don’t even want to contemplated what I can do to you with a pixi-stick’ glare. He looked fine. Danny glanced around the rest of the room. Marcel was finishing his meal but Smidt was still watching him, an excited gleam in his eye now that hadn’t been there before.
Marcel pushed away his empty bowl, unconcerned with the lack of response to his attempt at conversation and Danny wasted a moment wondering if answering would shut the man up. He knew from experience it wouldn’t. The man dabbed at his mouth with his serviette and leaned forward suddenly, steepling his fingers in that way he had and demanding Danny’s attention with a look alone. Danny was still distracted by this feeling of foreboding in his chest.
“You will demonstrate to me how you can heal yourself,” he said as though it were fact.
“I can’t,” Danny returned flatly with a distracted air.
“Perhaps you would first like to discuss how your ability to heal wounds at a cellular level should also be able to heal the very cells within our bodies that affects our very age.”
“Doesn’t work that way,” Danny looked to Steve again, and this time he noticed the pinch of distress at the corner of Steve’s eye. His breathing was a little faster now too. “What’s wrong?” he asked, hiding the discomfort of being forced to ask in such a public setting. Steve finally broke his angry defiant glare fest and gave Danny a reassuring smile that last all of two seconds. It failed epically at being reassuring.
“I’m good,” was the clip response.
“That is just incredible! Did you see Mr. Marcel? He actually sensed that something wrong before the subject was aware of it himself,” Dr. Smidt had gone back to glancing between Danny and Steve, practically giddy where he was usually cool and collected.
“I saw,” Marcel was completely ignoring Steve, having eyes only for Danny.
“What did you do?” Danny demanded and pushed up from his chair to go to Steve and fix whatever the hell the problem was. The sickness was clear to him now, a ringing gong where as before it had been a light breeze on his ear. He didn’t make it far as arms came from nowhere, a heavy strap slapping over his chest and arms and tightening so quickly he was stuck to the chair in moments.
Steve reacted violently to this, or he tried to at least. His face flushed and furious he lunged out of his chair, cuffed hands spilling soup across the high polished wood and he staggered an entire step towards Danny before he seemed to just collapse in on himself, head smacking into the table and a fresh cut instantly gushing crimson as he hit the floor.
“Damn it! Steve! Let me go, I have to help him!” Danny threw his full weight forward to try and break free, the chair rocking up on two legs before heavy hands dug into his shoulders and pinned the four wooden legs securely to the ground.
“All in good time,” Marcel picked at a cuticle a moment while Danny watched Steve curl on the floor, his breathing becoming more rapid by the moment. “I believe we were in the middle of a discussion,” he pinned Danny with piercing look and Danny refused to flinch, but it was a very near thing.
“He’s dying!” there was no question, Danny could feel it in his bones, in his very core.
“Cyanide will do that, yes,” Marcel looked bored. “I’m actually surprised it took this long to become so advanced, he’s been wearing the cuffs for quite a while now.”
“Young, exceptionally fit, he would be able to fight the effects for a few minutes longer than the average individual,” Smidt made no attempt to check on Steve and a few minutes ago Danny hadn’t thought it was possible to hate the man more, but there it was.
Steve’s breathing became noticeably labored, his hands pressed tightly to his chest as he struggled to suck more air in. Cyanide. Fuck! Danny had imagined a lot of things happening today; this had not featured in the top twenty. It hadn’t featured at all.
“So, Mr. William’s, my question still stands and I am certain that Mr. McGarrett is quite interested in your answer, isn’t that right Mr. McGarrett?” he didn’t shift his cold eyes from Danny as he mocked Steve on the other side of the table, out of view. “If you are so adept at ‘fixing’ the ill and injured are you also capable of healing yourself? Keep in mind that I know you well enough by now to know when you are lying.”
Danny stared at Steve, so close and so impossible to reach that it felt like it physically hurt to breathe himself. He’d known it was going to come down to having to chose: Steve or the last of his secrets.
It was never really a choice.
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Chapter 15
Masterpost