Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting
Pairing: Steve McGarrett/Danny Williams
Spoilers/Warnings: possessive!Steve. (slight understatement)
Author's note: What if we paid the modern equivalent of nine chickens and two oxen to someone's family in order to marry them?
I wanted to write a story where Danny was somewhat given no choice but to marry Steve, while trying not to make Steve a gigantic douche nozzle (but he kind of is, since it's his way or the highway a lot of the time anyway).
It's not a D/s world, but you could say there are hints to something like it.
Originally published (on ao3): August 2013
Danny had made a huge mistake and now he was paying the price. Well, technically, it looked like Steve would be the one doing the paying, but nevertheless. Danny had made a really stupid mistake.
Coffee cup in hand, head pounding, eyes still not wanting to focus properly, he stared at the document lying on the kitchen table in front of him. What the hell had possessed his incredibly drunk brain to do this?
Steve came up behind him, placing his hands on Danny's hips lightly, thumbs brushing over the waistband of his borrowed sweats.
"Did you forge my signature?" Danny asked, hopeful. Maybe he could argue this in court. But then, he may be hungover and he may have memory gaps, but there was something he could still remember of signing this thing while Steve could barely keep his hands off him. That was why his signature had an extra long looped line at the end of his last name, when Steve had thrust his hand in Danny's pants.
"Of course not. You brought it up first. All I did was call the Governor and have his secretary sort it out through legal."
"I can't believe they did this. This has nothing to do with Five-0. This is personal. Why the hell did they rush this thing through? And at whatever godforsaken time of night it must have been?!"
Steve laid his head on Danny's shoulder. "Because the guy in legal has a crush on Kono and I may have promised to put in a good word."
"Oh my God," Danny put his mug down and leaned over the table, his face cradled in his hands, he continued to stare at the agreement. "I don't even agree with this kind of thing. On principle. Not to mention vowing I'd never get tied down again." He stood abruptly, angry. "Why the hell did you do this? You knew I was drunk!"
"I was drunk too!" Steve argued back, then grabbed Danny's hand and pulled him flush with his own body. He nuzzled close to Danny's ear, his tongue flicking out to touch the lobe, then his teeth joined in as he tugged at it before trailing nibbled bites down Danny's neck. "I don't even care if you were joking when you mentioned it. It's what I've wanted since I met you and last night you gave me the opportunity. I grabbed it with both hands." And Steve did just that, as both his hands gripped into the flesh of Danny's ass, lifting him onto his toes as their groins rubbed against each other. Steve's body was beginning to respond, but there was no way they were going to act on anything, not when they needed to sort this thing out.
"Steve, please. Get it cancelled, annulled, whatever."
Steve pulled back enough to look at Danny like he'd grown a second head; the idea was ludicrous in his eyes. "You have read it, right? The amount of money that's going into Grace's college fund over the next ten years? The arrangements put in place for you? You won't get a deal like that anywhere else."
"I never wanted a deal in the first place," Danny said, imploringly. "And now that you mention it, you're right; this one is pretty ridiculously high. I paid only a fraction of all that for Rachel, and I got even less back when I passed her on to Stanley."
"I would have offered even more but it was you who told me this was enough!" He gestured at the legal paper. "People do stupid things when they're drunk, but Danny, we spent hours going over this. Hours. Think about it logically. Grace is going to be well taken care of, so it's a win there. I get what I want, which is you, so I win right there. So what about you, huh? Are you really going to tell me you'll be miserable for the rest of your life by agreeing to this?"
This was all news to Danny. That Steve really wanted to marry him, to buy him? Okay, so he'd caught Steve looking at him before, and he suspected there was something between them. But he'd been adamant about the 'no marriage' thing, because he neither wanted to pay for someone to break his heart again, nor did he want to be sold and feel some kind of obligation to be a good husband. He really hated marriage laws, he was firmly on the side of the pro-love movement who wanted to do away with the marriage payment laws completely and have consensual, non-profit unions. Just like was already in place in some European countries.
Sure, dowries had long gone by the wayside, but if someone wanted to be married to another person and they paid the family a hefty enough sum of money or assets then they could have that person. The idea never sat well with Danny, despite the fact that he'd married Rachel. But when he did that, he courted her properly, they didn't get married right away, they'd even lived together for a few months before he'd asked her father for her hand. She'd been a willing participant in the whole deal and had been a full part of the negotiations alongside her father. The laws still allowed for marriages of convenience and arranged marriages to take place and Danny hated that aspect of them. Money just didn't seem to have its place in creating families and yet, according to the US government, it did.
And Steve had spent his life so far in service to the US Navy; he was all about rules, regulations, sticking to the law. And he seemed to like this one. He seemed to like the idea that he could offer up money or whatever for what he wanted and he could get it. They'd talked about this at work a long time ago, when they'd had a case where the husband had murdered his wife so he could be free of the deal he'd signed up for. He'd wanted to leave her without having to pay anything back, without worrying about belonging to her anymore and it proved to Danny that these marriages were wrong. Steve had argued then that he didn't think the principle of paying for someone's hand was bad, just that some people corrupted the system and since he had no plans on being corrupt, then the current marriage laws would work fine for him… one day… when he paid to be with someone. Which, it seemed, was now. And Danny.
"I never said I'd be miserable, I just… I've never liked the idea of people being property."
"You're not a slave, Danny."
"No, because we're so much more civilized than the old slave owners," he rolled his eyes.
Steve took a calming breath then crowded Danny close to the table, which forced him to lean up against it so far that he was practically sitting on it. Steve's hands lay on the flat surface on either side of Danny's hips. "I'm not letting you out of the deal. We're going to have the ceremony this afternoon out back, and then tonight I get to have you naked in my bed. Don't tell me it's not something you want, too."
Danny could plead with Steve non-stop to have him break their deal, to have the Governor expedite the annulling of it, he could so easily do that, but Steve was stubborn enough that he wouldn't relent. And Goddammit if Danny wasn't getting hard at the thought of being in Steve's bed, of them cementing their relationship. It was all enhanced in his imagination with remembered kisses and fumbles from the night before while they sat on the couch. It had all been drunkenly sloppy and there had been mishaps and giggles and yet it had felt amazing. He remembered that. He remembered Steve's hands wrapping around his wrists and holding him down, his dirty mouth spilling words about what he wanted to do to him once it had been made official. Once he owned him.
"I always knew you were controlling," Danny started, unable to tear his eyes from Steve's darkened gaze. "I never really thought to apply it to your love life. I should have though, I should have known. If this was what you wanted all along, then you found a way to get it."
Steve shrugged. "I'm also very patient. Over two years I waited for this. But tell me honestly, Danny. Is it really going to be so bad being married to me? Living here with me?" His voice smoothed out as it lowered, his eyes dropping to Danny's mouth. "Having sex with me?"
"That depends on if we're doing it for the right reasons."
"I know I am," Steve said confidently. "And as far as I can tell, you're only protesting on principle. And the irrational fear that I'll be like Rachel and want to leave you. Which, by the way, is never going to happen."
"Those are both very good reasons not to do this, though."
"No, they're excuses. I think you want to be with me. We talked about this last night, Danno. The two year, slow-burn courting… And you outright admitted that you were practically taking advantage of the laws in order to provide for Grace. You've never once mentioned not wanting me."
Danny swallowed. Okay, so… maybe… maybe he'd looked at Steve. Maybe it had been the same kind of looks Steve had given him. Maybe he'd had the occasional wet dream, or jerked off in the shower to the thought of Steve but he'd thought that realistically they'd never do something like this. He thought they'd maybe, eventually, do the whole 'benefits' thing like Steve had once had with Catherine. He'd thought there was an attraction, but that it might be more of a fun distraction in their lives, not a full blown commitment. That Steve had agreed to this payment plan, that he'd actually offered more, that he was prepared to do that much for Danny? It was flattering to the point of embarrassment.
"Why not rip it up and do this without the bank details and the signing over of half your assets? Why not do this on trust, on love, on the idea that you do it simply because you want to and not because you're being held to ransom by some piece of paper written up by the Government?"
"Because this piece of paper," Steve held it up between them, and his low voice was adamant as he spoke. "It says you belong to me. That I paid for you fair and square. And that you agreed to it." The intensity of his reasoning made Danny swallow. "Marriages without deals like these break down easily, the divorce rate is higher for those without proper documents. My mom left my dad because their deal sucked and it was easy for her to do so before she ran off without a trace. Rachel left you for the same reason, and I'm grateful that she did because it means I get to have you now. But the point is, this piece of paper means you're not going to leave me, not without one hell of a fight."
"Now who's the one bringing fear into this discussion?" Danny asked. Steve was a control freak, sure. And that clearly had something to do with all of this. He'd not thought to add in his abandonment issues, too. Sometimes he wondered how Steve even functioned, certainly not without therapy, considering the things he'd been put through in his life; the losses he'd suffered as a teenager and as a SEAL.
Steve finally leaned back and wiped a hand through his hair. "Would you just…" He stopped short on whatever he was going to say, letting his hand drop to his side. "Would you just go shower and start getting ready? The Governor will be by around one o'clock to officiate."
Danny stood again, now able to do so as he was given room to breathe. "That's it? Discussion over? Captain Caveman has made his point and the rest of us have to live with it?"
"Yes," Steve growled, his shoulders and arms flexing with his contained strength as he did his best to lay down the law. "Chin will be by at eleven with our suits. Kono and Kamekona are bringing the things we need for the ceremony."
Danny just shook his head as Steve continued; partly in disbelief, partly in anger… partly in resignation to his drunken stupidity at the things he got himself into and the things Steve McGarrett convinced him to do. Because even if it had been his idea, Steve must have done something to manipulate it around to what it had become. To where Steve had the advantage.
"Marriage to you is going to be fan-fucking-tastic, I can just tell," Danny said, punctuating his words with as much sarcasm as he could manage.
Before he got to the kitchen door, Steve grabbed Danny by the arm and swung him round. The momentum pulled Danny in against Steve so fast that he couldn't protest. Then Steve's lips met Danny's so hard, with teeth knocking together, it was bound to leave bruises. Danny's scalp felt pulled tight as Steve's fingers tangled in his hair and forced his head to pull back to compensate for the height difference.
As the kiss ended, their faces were flush and they were breathing heavily. Neither man said anything, Danny just pulled away and backed out of the door to head upstairs, hoping the shower would ease the tension in his body.
His mind was in conflict. Attraction aside, there was no denying that his relationship with Steve could be fiery, no matter how much the two of them downplayed it at times. But yes, he loved Steve in his way, and he was his partner and he'd do his best to protect him. But could he marry the man and be happy? Could he come to terms with Steve's dominant nature, his control issues, and live with them? These weren't just kinks of Steve's this was who he was. He didn't just get off on owning Danny like they were playing a game. Steve may be one of the kindest and most giving men he knew, he was also one of the most protective he'd ever met, but he was possessive. He was the kid in the playground who refused to share and threw a tantrum if someone tried to argue with him over what he could and couldn't do.
There was the potential for disaster here.
He sighed and sat on the master bed in Steve's room, worry and nerves making his hands shake.
He had made a stupid mistake. He was getting married to Steve McGarrett, and there was no way out of it.