'Tired' doesn't even begin to describe how fucking fed up with this war Danny is, after four months spent sleeping on the ground, sweaty, sore and always half-awake in case there is another attack. His bad knee is acting up again under the strain of endless marches, under the weight of his armor, and he doesn't really want to take up too much of the healers' time, since they've got their hands full with feverish soldiers piling up by the day; his head and heart are not much better off, even though the dull ache in there comes from the fact that he hasn't seen his daughter in weeks. He feels like he's moving more out of habit than out of any real drive to fight – anger at the world fuels his movements, but when he stops swinging a sword around, he feels empty, and the emptiness just brings more anger.
In other words, his life fucking sucks, and the only good thing to come out of these miserable skirmishes with that stupid eastern duke's units is that Danny can vent his anger at people who actually deserve it.
The war's not big or particularly bloody, but it draws out at a slow, wearisome pace, stretches over days and weeks, and Danny is torn between wishing that everyone involved would just fucking man up and get a real army together, stop with the crappy, shady politics so they could slaughter each other like civilized people, have one real battle for a day or two and then just go home, and dreading it will happen, because it's not that Danny fears death as a concept, but his death would mean that one little princess would cry her pretty eyes out, and Danny can't have that, can he.
So when he stalks through the woods that should be empty for his own reconnaissance and stumbles upon an enemy camp, his hand is itching to curl around the handle of his sword: but the camp is really conveniently located and thus could be a trap. Danny signals his men to stand at the ready and starts creeping closer, sword slowly drawn and eyes flickering between the enemy soldiers, trying to assess how many there are.
They don't get to attack first; someone charges from the other side of the enemy camp, and at first, Danny doesn't even realize what's happening. There are a few strangled yelps; it occurs to Danny that there are injured soldiers hiding out in this camp. Then there's a clang of metal against metal and there's no mistaking it, some fighting's going on the opposite side of the camp, but there are thick bushes all around and Danny can't really see what's going on. His men look at him, and Danny can read hesitation in their eyes – they're not 'his' men, and they have yet to learn to trust him, after all these weeks. They know what he can do, and yet they doubt him, don't treat him as one of their own; the knowledge doesn't really sting any less with the passing days, because no matter how many times Danny has fucking saved their asses, he's still an outsider to them.
He shakes his head at them a little, to indicate that they should wait, in case it's still a trap, and in case that the someone slaughtering enemy soldiers from the opposite side is not actually an ally.
A man jumps from behind one tent, and a soldier in enemy colors shouts, then goes down with a bubbly, disgusting sound when a sword goes through his neck. Another enemy soldier shows up – he's finished before he can even assess the situation, and Danny scowls when the killer looks around for more enemies, giving Danny a clear view of him. He doesn't recognize the man – but then a soldier in allied colors comes out and talks to the man, so he has to be connected to the 'good' side somehow.
Danny stalks out of the bushes where he's been hiding without giving so much as a look to his men; it wouldn't do much good anyway, because Danny's seeing red (and not just because the tents seem to be sprayed with fresh blood all over).
"Who the fuck do you think you are and what the hell are you doing on my battlefield?!" Danny yells – he gets a face-ful of sword before he even finishes speaking, and his own blade, thrust forward half in defense and half in a threat, almost brushes its bloodied counterpart in the stranger's hand.
"Who the fuck are YOU?" the stranger snarls back, his dark eyes flashing with cold fury and mistrust. The man's dark hair stick to his forehead, sweat beading over his face; he's tall and broad-shouldered, wearing only simple, linen trousers, well-worn boots and a fucking chain-mail shirt, who he fuck charges into an enemy camp in a fucking chain-mail shirt, no helmet, no chestplate, no nothing?!
They start talking at once, even though Danny doesn't feel like justifying his presence to this arrogant, suicidal ogre; but he does want to slap him in the face with the fact that Danny belongs here and this other guy, even with the allied forces, doesn't.
"Lieutenant Daniel Williams, twelfth platoon of the Western kingdom-"
"Commander Steven McGarrett, sixth section of the Southern kingdom -"
"-put your sword down-"
"No, YOU put your sword down!"
They stop shouting and size each other up with deep scowls and quiet huffs of breath – Danny is not particularly happy about this asshole's presence, fucking with his investigation of what the hell happened last week, when apparently the King of Southern got himself killed-
"At the same time," the guy growls, and Danny raises an eyebrow, because what the actual fuck.
"At the same time? What, like on the count of three?" he echoes in disbelief, because he can't believe he's being ordered around to put his sword down at the same time as this jerk who doesn't even belong here.
"Yeah, sure, three's good. One-"
"-two-"
"-three."
-and then it all clicks in Danny's head. Just as he reluctantly slides his sword back into his scabbard, he can see why this jerk actually looks a little bit familiar, where he'd seen that scowl before, looking a lot like the guy will just bleed in his head and die any moment. He recalls some drab political bullshit he never paid much attention to when Rachel's father was trying to turn him into a suitable husband to his dear princess of a daughter: something about the Southern King, and his dead wife, and his son who was off fighting whatever there was to fight somewhere far away from his homeland.
"Look, I'm sorry about your father," Danny finds himself saying, and McGarrett, no, Prince Steven, huffs out what sounds a lot like a fuck-off to Danny. He can't help but feel equally pissed-off and sympathetic towards this guy, who stands here in his stupid worn-out chainmail like he doesn't even care if he survives all this. "I'm sorry, but you can't be here. This is still a battlefield, and you need to leave."
McGarrett looks at him as if Danny lost his mind.
"It's not a battlefield anymore," he says in the end, shrugging and looking around, and alright, maybe he has a point, there's no one left standing except Danny and his men, and a few soldiers who are just now emerging from around the tents – Danny glances at them and raises an eyebrow, because it doesn't seem like they had much to do with the massacre that happened in the camp: or at the very least, they're much more efficient, as in, not showered in blood like their dear Prince.
"It is," Danny grits out through clenched teeth, scowling. "Just get out of here, whatever you're doing here, I'm in command in these parts, you hear me, this is my battlefield and I'm not letting you screw this- where are you going?!" Danny shouts when the guy just turns around like Danny isn't even fucking there.
So he follows, because he's not nearly finished listing all the reasons for Steven fucking-Prince McGarrett to not be here, but what he sees is an older, blonde woman sitting on a horse not too far away. He knows her; he'd seen her once or twice, and he was told she's the High Priestess of Southern, basically in command of everything the King doesn't give a fuck about. Which, from what Danny heard, was a lot in the recent years.
Steve walks right to her, and so does Danny, actually curious what kind of bullshit this is: what he hears when he gets close enough doesn't really help improve his mood.
"…you said 'no' two days ago," she speaks, her voice reproachful, but the criticism seems to slide off McGarrett like water off a goose's wing.
"I'm saying 'yes' now."
There's mild disapproval in her eyes, but she shrugs and jumps off her horse, more agile than Danny would expect.
"Kneel," she tells McGarrett, and Danny gapes. What the-
"Right here?" McGarrett seems to share Danny's view of things on this one – but in the end, when she just gives him a pointed look, he obeys, gets on his knees, and recites words Danny is pretty sure were not meant for prickly, dusty forest floor covered in blood.
When he's done, the Priestess looks over the soldiers standing around them:
"All hail King Steven."
They all bow, and Danny feels his jaw go slack, thinking what the actual fuck is wrong with this retarded Kingdom?!
The newly-appointed King Steven merely shrugs, turns, ignores the soldiers paying his respects all around them, and flashes Danny a toothy, shit-eating grin:
"Now it's my battlefield."
And just like that, Danny knows he's fucked.
….
Danny returns to their camp, because there's not much else he can do at the moment. It grates on his nerves, the sheer arrogance of this ignorant asshole of a Prince- no, not a Prince anymore, a King, and they're all royally fucked up the ass apparently, because Southern supplies a good half of the allied forces, and if they are all commanded by a reckless shithead like their new King Steven, then they can all pack up and go dig their own graves.
Something in Danny's head pipes up with a reminder that McGarrett seemed to know what to do with a sword: but then again, that alone has never assured a victory in an actual war, and McGarrett's apparent penchant for charging head-first into enemy territory does not bode well for his strategic thinking.
Danny sighs and rubs a weary hand over his face, willing his body to relax and rest while he can, even though his mind is full of questions about what he is supposed to do now, whether he should pack up his men and move to a different area – technically this part is not his problem anymore, he does not have the privileges or powers that would allow him to command a King around; but it's very much Danny's privilege to hang back in case there's help needed, because if McGarrett gets himself killed (and Danny knows it's really a matter of 'when', not 'if'), the Southern kingdom will be fractured and weakened without a rightful heir to the throne and then they're all truly fucked.
A horse stomps and snorts right in front of Danny's tent and there are muffled voices sounding much like Danny's men arguing with someone: he stands up with a scowl, and then McGarrett stalks in without so much as a polite cough announcing his presence.
"I found a lead," he announces and starts rattling off names and information. He's dripping wet because it's been pouring cats and dogs since midnight and he must've ridden for at least two hours to get to Danny's camp – Danny pulls back the heavy fabric of his tent a little to check outside, and no, there's no royal escort waiting outside, which means the idiot just rode through what is basically still enemy territory alone, wearing that same fucking chain-mail shirt, with just a sword at his side.
Danny's not so much impressed as he is amazed at how this guy could have survived in the Eastern jungles.
"You came alone," Danny comments dryly, and that stops McGarrett in his track for a moment.
"Yes," he says in a tone that clearly implies 'duh', then frowns and adds: "No one followed me, I double-checked, don't worry."
Danny raises an eyebrow.
"What I mean is, you came alone, as in, without any escort, what are you, suicidal?! Not even a sixteen-year-old footman would come out there for a solitary ride, what the hell is wrong with you, you're the King, you've got a fucking target painted on your back, don't you get it?"
The guy looks a little puzzled for a moment, like he sees no problem in what Danny is saying, then scowls and resumes his rant about some leads and suspicious people and basically, he's not really asking for Danny's help, he's telling Danny to help him.
"Why the hell should I help you?" Danny snarls, taking a deep breath to tell dear King Steven to kindly fuck off – because Danny doesn't have much noble blood in him, but he's dealt with enough nobility in his life to know when they're just downright crazy, dragging people to their deaths with them. He nearly chokes on that breath, flooded with the heavy scent of rain that McGarrett brought inside with him, a bit of a wet dog and iron and horse and man; it's not the smell of a King, it's the smell of a soldier, an ordinary man who knows battle first-hand, and somehow that stirs sympathy inside of Danny, even though he's rationally sure McGarrett doesn't deserve it at all.
"She yours?" McGarrett asks, hand waving in the general direction of a small, silver frame set over Danny's blanket – it holds a painting of Gracie he keeps with himself at all times, and it's more than a year old, reminding Danny of how little he gets to see of his daughter lately, and also of the reason he's in this war, trying to make a safer home for her.
He scowls at McGarrett's question instinctively, thinking of threats and how he's not taking kindly to them – but then he actually glances up to McGarrett's face, half-turned away into the shadows, and there's a wistful look in his eyes as he stares at Gracie's picture, something indescribably heavy and lonely, and Danny sighs. His immunity to kicked puppy eyes is still not perfect, especially when it comes from unexpected sources, like a fucking King of Southern, for example.
"Yeah," he shrugs in response, and McGarrett turns to him, his expression pure business once more, most likely unaware that Danny caught him looking like that a moment ago. Danny decides to not dwell on McGarrett's strangely vulnerable grimaces and tells him what he knows about the people King Steven wants to chase and most likely torture: he cannot mask his surprise when McGarrett nods and turns away with a curt:
"Alright, let's go check that out."
"Wait," Danny stares, "we? As in, me included? Why should I follow you? As you've mentioned earlier, it's not my battlefield anymore."
McGarrett turns to him, and his eyes flicker to that silver frame again – Danny realizes it's not a threat, it's McGarrett grasping Danny's motives, knowing the response to the questions Danny is asking, and knowing that Danny knows as well.
"Because I'm the King, and I'm making you my second-in-command," McGarrett announces with an irritating shrug as if he just spoke about dinner, and what the fuck is wrong with him, he can't just make people from other kingdoms his second-in-command, what's up with that, that's absolutely crazy and it's not gonna fly with the Southern army at all-
-and despite all these things fighting for attention in Danny's head, despite all the warning bells ringing like mad, he grabs his cloak (because he's not a suicidal asshole who actually seems to want to catch his death in that fucking rain) and follows King Steven outside.
….
They arrive into a village in the middle of the war-zone pretty safely – the houses are small, the streets full of shit and the eyes of the citizens shiny with fear. They try to look like they haven't even noticed two armed men riding through, but Danny is aware they're being watched.
"Shouldn't we wait for your army?" he suggests quietly – the peasants could quickly become hostile and Danny has no wish to slay people who can't even hold a sword, much less use it (or own it).
"You're my army," the Moron King says, and Danny gapes at him: but he doesn't have the time to expand on how spectacularly retarded that idea is, because the idiot is sliding off his horse in a move that belongs more to a circus than to a battlefield, and starts slinking up the street to one of the small shacks huddled together.
"I fucking hate him," Danny mutters to himself and then follows, hand on his sword just in case.
It ends up much like Danny expected – with him getting cut, someone getting killed (not that Danny is too sorry about throwing a knife through the jerk who took an innocent girl hostage), and McGarrett acting all high and mighty and pissed.
"He could've told us where Victor is!" McGarrett bitches, hung up on some Count who supposedly led the assault that cost McGarrett's father his life. Danny huffs in disbelief, pointing a finger accusingly in the moron's face:
"I saved your life, you asshole!" he yells, not giving a damn that he's speaking to a King – because this King is pretty shitty, and he's not even DANNY's King, no matter what he seems to think, Danny's not his liege, so he can fuck off (even though it does not explain why Danny let himself be dragged out here and pulled into this mess). "He was going to kill you, or cut that girl's throat, and I don't care about your stupid revenge, if you get yourself murdered on my watch, I'm gonna get blamed and possibly imprisoned or executed, and I've got a daughter, do you understand?!"
"Take your finger out of my face," McGarrett growls, and of course he's gonna do all the stupid big-guy posturing now. It pisses Danny right off the scale, because McGarrett might be half a head taller than Danny, but the bonus space is obviously filled with hot air and nothing else instead of more brains, and Danny's not taking anyone's shit just because Mother Nature didn't bless him with ogre-level height.
"Listen to me, you stupid-" Danny starts, but that's as far as he gets before his wrist is caught in an iron grip and his arm twisted back until he has to clench his teeth to not yelp aloud.
"You listen," McGarrett growls, his voice washing over Danny in low and guttural waves, reminding him of that one time when he was a boy and he got lost in the woods. Wolves appeared, and he climbed a tree pretty fast, but he never forgot the rumbling of their anger. That's a lot how McGarrett sounds like now – but Danny's not nine years old anymore, and his fears have different shapes. Right now, the vibrations of McGarrett's voice stir mostly irritation in him, and he holds on to that to not drown in humiliation.
"You might not like me," McGarrett continues, with the understatement of a century, "but there's no one else to do this job right now, alright?"
"Alright, let me go," Danny hisses – McGarrett does, and in the next second gets a fistful of Danny right in the face. Something gives a satisfying crunch, and Danny's not sure if it's in his hand or King Asshole's face, but it's a nice sound anyway, and Danny stalks of with a dark grin. The jerk's right – Danny does not like him one bit.
…
Unfortunately for Danny, his personal opinion of McGarrett's methods does not change the fact that he gets dragged around with the man, usually ending up in battles that should not be fought by two men only. Somehow, they miraculously survive, even though Danny always wonders how long until McGarrett truly gets him killed. He voices his opinions on the matter, loudly and aggressively, but King Look-At-Me-I-Don't-Need-An-Army pretends he doesn't hear Danny's reasoning most of the time.
Danny's still not too sure what being second-in-command means in Southern, because Danny would've thought it required him poring over strategy somewhere in the middle of an army camp, making sure the King's commands are heard. Instead, Danny's current position includes a lot of break-neck horse-chases, arrows swishing just past his face, and McGarrett acting like being in the center of a war conflict is the most natural state of being for any man alive.
They settle into an uncomfortable routine pretty fast: the King devises some sort of a half-assed plan that mostly consists of him jumping in the middle of the enemy camp, with Danny acting as a back-up army; somehow, they survive all the shit; Danny vents, or more like tries to yell some sense into McGarrett; McGarrett successfully resists all reason; Danny ignores him for a bit; repeat until dead.
And somehow, Danny's not quite sure how, in this heap of crap this stupid King drags him through, McGarrett becomes first 'King Steven' and then 'Steve', when Danny sees his constipated look every time Danny calls him by his rightful title.
Maybe it's got something to do with the fact that Steve is actually quite a simple man. Danny is so used to (and tired of) all the background politics and fake pleasantries at Rachel's father's court that Steve's slightly rash, no-bullshit ways can be considered an improvement of sorts. That is, if his ways aren't momentarily putting Danny in mortal peril.
Also, Steve has a sense of humor Danny thought was mutually exclusive with royal heritage; he pokes fun at Danny, at his city-guard armor, at his hair, at his personality, at a thousand little things, but never once does he mention Danny's height, or the fact that Danny isn't really from around here. It probably says a lot about how fucking lonely Danny is at this point in his life, if even an idiot like Steve can make him feel a bit more like he belongs, merely by not pointing out that he doesn't – but Danny could always appreciate even small things in his life.
The war drags on and on like a really tired, but still poisonous snake; days slither into weeks and Danny grows so fucking tired of it that he keeps lashing out at Steve – who somehow learns to take it in stride, and it no longer feels tense when Danny yells, merely a way of communication which, however dysfunctional, seems to work for them. Or at least for Danny; and Steve has yet to complain, so Danny's not shutting up.
He's just waking up under another tree, because fuck if Steve is capable of actually finding them an inn somewhere, no sir, they keep sleeping under stupid trees and Danny's knee is hurting and his hair is always full of leaves and insects in the morning – and this time, he doesn't even have the time to complain about it for real before his own bag lands in his face, and Danny growls quietly, glaring at Steve as he clutches at the worn leather:
"What?!"
"Get up. We need to move."
"Yeah, sure, why would you even bother with telling me where we're going, seriously, no need to tell me anything, I'll just follow you, oh great King," Danny sneers miserably, rummaging in his bag for that last apple that was there yesterday. Steve scoffs and doesn't say anything, and Danny bites into his breakfast-slash-lunch-slash-hopefully-not-dinner with a bitter feeling that he's going to do exactly that – follow Steve, and when has that turned into a thing, it definitely wasn't a thing a few weeks ago, why is he following this crazy man to his certain death, it doesn't even make sense.
Only it does, though not the kind of sense Danny has learned to expect from Steve. They don't turn up in a smugglers' den, or an enemy camp, or a spy's room at an obscure, shady inn: in fact, they turn up in a city Danny knows all too well, and he gives Steve a suspicious sideways glance, but he doesn't get much of a response until they're in front of the royal palace – the very building which Danny reluctantly called home for about seven years.
"Steven," Danny says warningly when they dismount, because he would rather not lose all the pitiful remaining privileges he still has in this city and in this castle – especially not the privilege to see his daughter, just because Steve decided they need to go play war right here.
Steve doesn't react in any way, just stalks right inside, and Danny follows him with a heavy sigh and a foreboding feeling squeezing his throat tight. His daughter's just a few confusing corridors away, and he wonders if he'll be able to see her before their business here is over and Steve drags him somewhere else.
It's a little reassuring that this time, Steve doesn't skulk through shadows or climb the outer walls to get inside. Danny looks around with a bit of melancholy, recognizing places that are no longer his to call home, straining his ears all the time for the sound of Gracie's voice anywhere. He didn't even realize how terribly he misses her until he's just a few steps away from her. Maybe he could tell Steve to go about trying to kill himself alone for an hour or so… then again, Steve probably would.
They end up in the audience hall, and the décor is even worse than Danny remembers: there's Rachel, and her stupid new husband, who is pasty and a little bit round and old (okay he's maybe just past forty, but still, he doesn't have any sort of a military bearing around him, and it makes him look fleshy and idle, sitting a little hunched on that throne). Danny frowns; he has come to terms with Rachel's decisions months ago, even though they still hurt; that she would so readily agree to have her father disband their marriage for a stupid Duke, because of political alliances, because, as she said, Danny was still more of a city guard than he would ever be a nobleman, and she needed someone 'fit for the throne' at her side.
She was right, Danny knew that; he was miserable trying to live up to her (and her father's) standards, trying to become a nobleman for her, learning all these things about politics and diplomacy and art and music and food, and hating every second of it, enduring it because it made Rachel, and later Gracie, happy. And yet it stings, that she was so quick to forget the way they used to love each other, the way that she begged her father once to be allowed to marry Danny.
Rachel looks down at him from her throne, and Danny meets her eyes, lifts his chin a little bit in defiance, refusing to bow. She used to be his wife, she's still the mother of his child – he will not play peasant to her royal bullshit. He considers asking to see Grace, but McGarrett's talking, requesting rooms or something, and Danny doesn't even want to know right now. He looks at Rachel, who holds his gaze, and he thinks here I am, an ordinary man once again, but I'm still a part of Gracie's life, even if you shut me out of yours.
It's funny that he doesn't think much about her anymore, even though it hurt so badly when she came to him, saying their marriage was over. He really loved her once, he can still feel the embers of that love burn him inside, but he doesn't think about her anymore, doesn't really miss her, even though he misses Gracie like crazy. He doesn't think about not belonging anywhere; maybe because even if the Jerk King right here isn't exactly a place, he forced his way into Danny's life and made them belong, to the impossible things they do, to the danger he throws them in, to each other, in that they try their best to not get killed (and in Danny's case he tries to not let Steve get killed either).
So he looks at Rachel, lets himself be washed away by the steady stream of half-hurt memories, and startles a little when he feels Steve's hand on his arm: Danny looks away from the mother of his child and Steve's there, nodding at him with that carefully blank expression of his he usually gets around people he doesn't like. Danny glances at Prince Stanley (doesn't even much cringe at the memory of being in his place, having his title and his family), and the guy's sweating quite a bit: Steve must've said something again, and Danny's almost sorry he's missed it, floating off to nostalgia-land on his own. He grins a bit, and Rachel frowns, knowing him too well to not know when he's enjoying someone else's squirming, but he doesn't care: he's vaguely thankful to Steve for doing what Danny himself cannot do as long as Rachel wields the power of allowing or denying him meeting Gracie.
"Come. We'll rest here a while," Steve says and steers him out of the hall: Danny is then handed to a servant who leads him towards the guest wing. It's not a man Danny would remember from his stay here, but he treats Danny like a really important guest, so Danny just lets it go and soaks up all the care, because god knows that staying with Steve makes any man crave the luxury of a real bed and maybe not hunting their own dinner all the fucking time. They put him into a ground-floor room, and Danny would never admit it, but he's secretly glad he doesn't have to suffer through all those stairs with his knee.
There's a bath at the back of his room when they enter, two servants already filling it up with hot water, and Danny sighs in bliss just at the sight. It takes him maybe an hour to emerge, clean and shaved and not smelling like a homeless hermit. There are clean clothes prepared for him on the bed, nothing too fancy, but he feels human again as he fastens the buttons on the dark-blue waistcoat and pulls on the light leather boots.
There's not much to do, so he sits by the window and just watches the clouds roll over the bright blue sky, the wind ruffle the meticulously cut grass in the park just outside of Danny's window: the day looks amazingly clear and warm, like there aren't people dying just a few miles away. It twists Danny's stomach strangely, though he's glad that his daughter has been shielded from the horrors of war.
That just brings him back to thinking about Gracie, and he wonders if he could maybe go find Steve and ask what's up, and how much time he has to go find his daughter. Just then, the door creaks open and Danny sighs, turning away from the window with a resigned feeling that NOW is the time Steve will drag him somewhere again, somewhere unpleasant and bloody and weird.
"DADDY!" Gracie shrieks, much like a street urchin instead of a little princess, and runs to Danny – he almost doesn't crouch in time, but he manages, opens his arms and lets his baby just fall into him, curl her tiny hands into his shirt and hair and cling to him forever. He does much the same, breath choked in his chest from the way his heart expands impossibly – he didn't even know it shriveled from the long absence, but now, the feeling of being whole again is flooding his senses. He holds on to her for a long time, and she doesn't complain at all, and then he leads her to the window seats and makes her tell him everything she's been doing for these past months, when all he knew about her was from the occasional letters from Rachel. It's a little strange, because in those letters, Rachel made it clear that she did not want Grace to even think about soldiers and wars, thus he shouldn't come see her too often, or Gracie might start asking questions. However, here he is, still in the middle of a war, maybe even a crazier, more dangerous one considering there's Steve – and Grace can see him and talk to him and she stays until dinner, so Danny decides to not look the gift daughter in the mouth.
Dinner itself is a grandiose, annoying affair, with servants bustling around the long, heavy tables and musicians fiddling away at their instruments, replaying quiet melodies that were probably written to nourish subtle, cultured conversation to go with the many dishes that keep piling up in front of the guests – but to Danny, the music is just incredibly monotonous and boring. He never had much of a taste for this high-culture crap, and he's once again reminded that this isn't his world anymore. He would actually feel relief at escaping all of that pretentious nonsense, if he didn't know that it would be just a weak effort at not missing his child so damn much. It goes on for hours, and the only reason Danny doesn't say 'fuck it' and walk away is that Gracie keeps stealing glances at him, and waves and smiles from time to time – of course Danny isn't sitting at the main table with the 'royal family', but just seeing his daughter after such a long time is enough to keep him right where he is, waving back occasionally.
Another entertaining point of the dinner is that Steve seems miserable – not that it shows, of course. The black-and-blue jacket he's wearing is a big step-up from his usual dirty chainmail shirt and greenish pants (Danny's not even sure if the color comes from all the grass Steven rolls around in, or if green is Steve's way of saying 'I live in a forest, deal with it'). He's smiling and even maintaining a polite and boring conversation, charming half of the table easily – but Danny knows that tick in the corner of Steve's eye, and it's usually followed by people's heads being cut off. Danny spends a few minutes submerged in morbid imagination of Steve jumping on the table and kicking Stan in the face; then, he waves at Gracie again and just grits his teeth when the woman sitting at his right shows interest in the 'exciting news from the battlefield'. He produces the most gruesome story he can think of, half of it not even true, but he wants to be left alone and by the way her face goes pale, he thinks he's managed to include just enough spilled guts. He catches Steve's eye across the table, and in a split second, he wonders if Steve is going to frown – but Steve grins at him, and for a moment, his face loses that pinched look and Danny feels some sort of a connection between them, as in 'two people who clearly have nothing to do here'.
Except that's wrong, because Steve is a king, he has every right to be here, and the fact that he's sitting near Danny is extremely weird, because he should be sprawling right next to Stan as a guest of honor, or something. Danny frowns down at his plate; somehow, the idea that Steve has much more in common with Stan than with him grates on his nerves, and a stubborn little voice in his head even starts arguing that it's not true: in the past weeks, Danny has come to know Steve, and he's definitely not like any other king Danny has ever seen (not that he's not crazy enough).
That tiny annoying voice doesn't stop even when Danny's alone in the room later that night, finally able to just drop onto the bed, an actual bed for once, not a bed of leaves or moss or whatever. He takes precisely two deep, happily tired breaths before the window squeaks: Danny instinctively rolls out of the bed on the side that is further from the noise, drops to a half-crouch just in case –
-and promptly curses when he sees, in the faint light from the garden outside, who has just jumped onto the windowsill.
"Whatever it is, it can wait until the morning, Steven," he grumbles – he's tired, and he wants to just sleep and make Steve go away at least for one night.
The tiny voice in Danny's head just sighs and shrugs, though, too used to Steve's constant presence in Danny's personal space to care overmuch.
Steve is quiet for a moment, then outstretches an arm towards Danny – it takes a moment until Danny steps closer for him to realize that he's holding out a pint of beer to Danny.
Not that it's unwelcome after the heavy, too fragrant wine served at the dinner; Danny takes the pint with a sigh and eyes Steve, still crouched on the windowsill, with half awe and half resignation.
"I'm not even going to ask how you broke into this room without spilling it."
Steve gives him a shrug and takes a drink, because of course he's got another pint in his other hand, and Danny really, really doesn't want to know anything about his crazy ways.
Except that Steve's usually not that quiet. Danny looks up, and through the shadows he can see the slight tension in Steve's shoulders, the way he stares at the wall in front of him like it personally offended him a while ago. Danny remembers the way Steve looked during the dinner, sitting at the ordinary guest table instead of the royal one, the way he smiled at Danny as if he were the only worthwhile person in that hall… and it all clicks suddenly, making Danny take a deep, long breath.
"You really hate this, huh," he says, and Steve's eyes snap to him as if Steve wasn't even aware that Danny is right next to him. He's tense all over for a moment, then he kind of sags, his long feet slipping into the room as he sits on the windowsill, sighing:
"The war? Yeah, I guess."
"No, not the war," Danny shakes his head, "though I believe every sane person in the world hates wars, and the fact that you had to add 'I guess' after that sentence makes me uneasy, just so you know. But no, I meant this," he waved his hand in a circle around the room, "the castle. The clothes, the dinner… y'know. All that kind of goes with you being a king."
Steve raises an eyebrow at him and even smirks, but it's a grimace so laced with bullshit that Danny can practically smell it.
"Why did you accept the title, then?" he asks, and Steve merely shrugs and takes a swig of his beer.
"There was no one else to do the job."
And it strikes Danny that that's the kind of a man Steve is; he's out of his mind and his sense of self-preservation is practically non-existent, and sometimes he does absolutely ridiculous shit, but when all is said and done, he's the guy who will do something he completely hates, just because it has to be done and there's no one else to do it.
Danny finds that kind of… admirable. They sip their beer in silence, and it's not uncomfortable, though Danny fills it in the end with all that Gracie has told him earlier, just because he's a proud father and because he's told Steve stuff about his daughter before, and it seems to him as if hearing about someone's child melts Steve a little, softens his eyes until he almost looks human.
Eventually, he becomes human enough so that he actually asks, something unrelated to their cases, and yet difficult to answer for Danny.
"Do you miss it here?" Steve says quietly, slurring the words a bit, and Danny has a feeling it's not because of the beer, more like in order to give himself an escape route, as if he's worried Danny might take the question wrongly, so Steve unconsciously relies on the rushed 'you must've heard wrong' if all goes to shit. Danny would think it cowardly in any other man – but Steve does weird, bravely moronic things every day, so that doesn't fit. Danny has to settle for 'socially inept' instead – and then, he has to actually think about Steve's question.
"Sometimes," he shrugs, and his shoulder brushes a bit against Steve's – he didn't notice when they've come that close, but it's not a big realization to Danny; it's not like Steve doesn't invade his personal space most of the time, anyway. It's not like Danny has minded much, from the beginning. "Mostly, I just miss Grace."
"So why don't you come back here?"
And it's not like Steve means much by it – he's grown up a Prince, even though he's been in many conflicts and missions and all that crap. But it irritates Danny a bit anyway, it strikes him as if Steve is implying that Danny isn't doing whatever the fuck he can just for a moment with his daughter.
"Don't you think I'd love to, Steven? You really think I enjoy running after your suicidal ass, getting stabbed or maimed or shot at, instead of being with my sweet little girl? Because let me tell you, I don't. Not everyone is born with not just a silver spoon, but a fucking set of silverware in our mouths, alright? I do what I can, and I'm just a city guard, all I can do when I'm not actually married to a princess is fight, just like every able-bodied man in this country fights right now, unlike several fat, rich noblemen who sit on their fat asses all day, stealing people's families," he growls – and that last bit was maybe a bit too much venting, and even a little untrue, because Danny suspects that Duke Stanley was actually the least of the problems his marriage with Rachel was suffering, but it still feels good to blame someone, even when right now, Danny's not even (primarily) raging at Stan.
Steve goes quiet, and the silence that follows gets more tense and stretched by the minute: Danny wonders if he should say something, but it's Steve's turn and Danny's feeling irritated and petty enough to not break the silence.
In the end, Steve slips out of the window, quietly and without so much as a 'good night' – not that Danny would accept it, but come on, royals should have some manners – and so Danny gets back to his bed and tries to enjoy the soft materials and comfortable pillows: but he was always bad at sleeping on his own anger, and no amount of first-rate goose-feathers can soothe the flares of irritation (and maybe just a tiny bit of parental guilt) that spike through Danny when he thinks back to McGarrett's stupid questions.
It's alright, though – they say time heals everything, and Danny definitely has a lot of time as he tosses and turns and quietly swears his way through the night.
…
Danny finally gives up pretending to sleep just before dawn – he scrambles up and dresses, ready to just stalk to Steve's rooms and argue some more, just to clear the air. Their arguments have shifted in the past weeks from real irritation to easy banter, where one side usually gets a little more worked up than the other, depending on the issue (granted, it would be Danny more than Steve, but Danny remembers the time when he pointed out that Steve's horse was getting kinda old, and Steve scowled and huffed for a good half hour that the horse was a pure-bred something-or-another and thus didn't get old and stubborn, it got character). Yesterday, though, things have gone kinda sour, and Danny fully intends to… well, if not make his amends, then definitely force Steve to make his.
He nearly collides with a servant boy walking out of Steve's room – he's carrying bed linens, and Danny frowns: did Steve get drunk last night and throw up on his bed or something? But his senses and his brain tell him that the sheets look almost clean, if a little rumpled, and there's no acrid smell of vomit in the air.
"Is King Steven in his chambers?" Danny asks, and the servant shakes his head – not that it's a surprising answer, in all honesty. Danny scowls nonetheless.
"Where is he?"
"He said he was leaving, sir," the servant shrugs a little, then eyes Danny: "Would you, by any chance, happen to be one Daniel Williams?"
A simple nod gets him a roll of parchment in his hand from the servant, with a quick 'he left this for you' – Danny seethes and kind of imagines Steven's stupid face when he breaks the heavy wax seal.
What he finds inside makes him swear loudly and stalk towards the stables at a speed Steven's stupid heap of purebred molding bones couldn't achieve even if the poor animal tried.
He catches Steve just as the man attempts to make his hasty retreat into the lonely wilds or some similar crap.
"Are you out of your fucking royal mind?!" Danny screams at his lungs' capacity, which is a lot, probably so much even Steve's half-deaf grandpa of a stallion hears it and stops in its tracks, like everything fucking should when Danny is using that kind of a voice.
Steve just turns and frowns at him, and Danny can see it in his stupid eyes that he did plan to just fuck off and not say a word and be the Grand Gesture Guy of the day. Or a year. And, yeah, no, not happening, not if Danny can help it and he damn well can, thank you very much.
He's at the side of Steve's horse in a few purposeful, irritated strides, and he grabs the reins with determination that lets both Steve and his animal know they're not going anywhere until Danny's satisfied.
And Danny's not going to be satisfied until Steven looks properly sorry.
Which, judging by his hard frown, is not happening anytime soon.
"Isn't that what you want?" Steve asks petulantly, and ooh boy, is that a wrong question if Danny ever heard one.
"What?" he snarls back, staring up at Steve, who is too damn tall even with his feet on the ground, and now he is sitting on a horse – but Danny's too pissed-off to really feel small, except that it's uncomfortable to crane his head up like that.
"The one thing I don't fucking miss is being forced to become someone I've never been," Danny continues, "why the fuck do you think I would accept this?!"
The damned roll of parchment lands somewhere on Steve's chest when Danny tosses it – Steve curls an arm around it instinctively before it can fall, and stares dumbfounded back at Danny, as if he didn't understand the words coming out of Danny's mouth.
"But you could stay here. With your daughter."
"And do what? Pretend I belong while fending off the stares and whispers of the rest of this damned court? Pretend you didn't grant me the title of a count on a whim, on a fucking piece of paper you left me through a servant, because fuck your own laws, obviously? What do you think I could do here, Steve? If I took the position of your ambassador, I wouldn't be able to see Grace much more, I'd be swamped with all your diplomatic fuck-ups, and there are many, we both know that you're incapable of staying out of trouble."
Steve opens his mouth, but he finds himself with Danny's finger pointed straight at his face.
"Shut up, Steve, I'm talking now!"
"You're-"
"Just shut up, seriously, keep your mouth closed and your ears open, because I'm only saying this once and you need to listen, for fuck's sake, just this one time, listen to me, is that acceptable?"
"I always listen-"
"Huh? Do I hear your voice? Why do I hear your voice, I thought I told you to shut up!" Danny scowls, and Steve raises his hands in a defensive apology, one of them still curled around the parchment with his own seal.
Danny nods, and takes a deep breath:
"I don't want to be a count, Steve. The one good thing about Rachel leaving me is that I don't have to measure up to anyone's stupid royal standards anymore, you not included because you don't have standards, even of the non-royal kind, you only have standards for weapons and that's crazy but I'm capable of dealing with that. So. I want to see my little girl a lot more, yes, but that can only happen if this fucking war ends, and as you put it, we're the only ones we can count on doing that job properly, right?"
Steve opens his mouth again, but closes them before Danny can bitch any more about Steve keeping his trap shut; instead, the King sighs and rubs at the bridge of his nose in a weary gesture, meaning Danny is getting through to that thick skull. Good.
"So, I'm not letting you ride alone into the sunset, or in this case sunrise, seriously, why the fuck can't you sleep in like a normal person, but back to the point – you're not riding off anywhere without me, because you pressured me once to join your little Team Crazy, and I'm not letting you just decide you want to go be a reckless, idiotic hero on your own. So suck it up and stop pulling crap like this, because I'm not going anywhere. You wanted to get rid of me? You should've decided that before you went all I'm-the-King-and-you-are-mine on me- hey, hey, what's with that look," Danny gets off the track when Steve slides off his horse. Danny takes a step back – the weariness in Steve's eyes seamlessly blended into a single-minded determination, the kind Steve usually shows right before he goes murderous on someone's ass, only right now, that determination seems to be focused solely on Danny and Danny's stomach feels a little queasy about that, giving way to babbling. "You've got a look and it's a new one, I don't like this look, what the hell are you-"
The rest of that sentence is licked straight off Danny's lips and wow, so that's what this look means, Danny thinks, and then he can't use his brain anymore.
His fingers claw in Steve's cloak – there's the feel of that rugged, old chainmail under the rough fabric and Danny's nails scrape against the warm metal. He's too busy to notice anything much, except the way Steve's biting at his lips, sucking at his tongue, pushing against him as if he's been thinking about doing it for a while and maybe he has, who knows, Danny doesn't, and he doesn't even care. It's good, it's hard and warm and surprising and infuriating, just like Steve, and Danny pushes right back, drags his teeth over Steve's lip and nips at his chin and it's all desperate and lacking finesse or even technique, but neither of them mind overmuch.
Danny pulls back when his lungs can't take the lack of air anymore, and he pants and Steve honest-to-god whines against his lips, trying to follow Danny's movement and prolong the contact.
"Hey, hey, wait a minute, or at least twenty seconds, can we maybe talk about this?" Danny asks, his voice all breathy and needy and wow, he hasn't heard his voice do this particular suggestive drop in a while. It's nice to know his body's still on board with sex – it's just that Danny hasn't really expected to ever want to do his partner, the goddamn king.
Not that he hasn't thought about it. They used to be nice pervy thoughts, too, with about as much probability as 'if I found a magical goldfish, I would wish for a thousand more wishes'.
Only now, that probability is soaring, with the way Steve's eyes burn holes into Danny, and how can there be so much lust and so much insecurity, it's driving Danny crazy.
"Can we maybe not?" Steve says, and his voice is shot to hell, god, Danny's eyes drop straight to Steve's lips, where they're spit-slick and there's that small reddening bit where Danny sunk his teeth just a minute ago, and okay, talking's maybe overrated right now, just a little bit.
"Is this a diversion?" he asks in the end, because maybe he wants to get laid here, but he's still not lust-blind enough to forget the argument from about two minutes ago.
Steve frowns.
"Do you think I'd kiss you just to… shut you up?"
"You would," Danny raises an eyebrow, and Steve sighs, then nods.
"I would. But not if I didn't want to."
"Shut me up or kiss me?"
"Both," Steve says, eyes warm and smile fond, and Danny's heart swells in a way that might very well be some horrible deathly disease, because Steve's a fucking virus that has latched onto Danny and won't let go no matter what – so maybe Danny might as well stop trying to get rid of him, huh, and when has that stopped being what he wanted?
"Promise you won't try to be a stupid hero?"
"I can't," Steve says, and well, at least he's honest, Danny thinks even as he frowns and punches the idiot's arm.
"At least promise you won't try to shuck a damned title at me? You forced me to be on your team, so you damn well keep me on your team."
Steve just smiles, and Danny sighs. That's as good as it gets with Steve.
And despite all the shit going on, for this moment, it's kinda enough.