![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sealieRating: Slash; h/c
Word count: ~4,250
Warning: NSFW
Advisory: potty mouth; disability; IT’S A WIP.
Disclaimer: writing for fun not for profit.
Comments: British English spelling.
Spoilers: none, it’s an AU.
Betas: Springwoof – thank you
What a shitty week. I think that I would have paid money to read a long, plotty H50 fic.
The first part is here,
The Co-operative.
By Sealie
Danny carefully dropped the last freshly prepared slide in the old fashioned slide projector housing. Steve was quivering in anticipation. He had been a barely-contained, annoyingly vibrating mess as Danny had prepared the slides.
“Do you want to get the light?” Danny asked, as a blurred image appeared on the projector tripod screen that Steve had unearthed from somewhere within the House.
“What?”
“Lights, Babe,” Danny said, as he tweaked the crude focus control by rotating the cylinder lens. The projector was older than both of them -- possibly older than even their combined ages. Steve flicked off the lights in the claustrophobic museum office.
The image showed a man, maybe late twenties -- early thirties, dipping into the front passenger seat. His face was part-obscured by the wing of the door frame. He was of Asian extraction. The next slide was also of the man, and then two of the black batmobile type car driving away.
“That is my dad’s car.” Steve’s teeth grated loudly in the small office.
“Do you know who that guy is?” Danny asked.
“No…. I’ve seen photos of Wo Yongfu. It’s not him. Well, I don’t think that it’s him. NI only has archived news photos from when he ran for governor a few years prior to his death.” Steve clapped his hands together loudly. “Mamo recognised that Wo Fat might be related to Wo Yongfu, we’ll….”
“Show this pic to Mamo?” Danny asked into the silence.
“What?” Air brushed Danny as Steve spun on him.
“Shall we show this picture to Mamo?” Danny scrubbed introspectively at the late evening bristle on his jaw. Mamo recognising a possible father-and-son relationship had been one signpost on the wiggly route that they were travelling. Time to talk to Mamo again, Danny realised, because he obviously knew Wo Yongfu well enough to recognise a part-photo of the guy.
“Hmm, yeah, and possibly Uncle Choi. We’ll have to get him to come around or go to him.”
“The police officer?” Danny checked. “The one we met in the bazaar?”
“Yeah. I wonder what shifts he’s on,” Steve mused.
“Take a photo with your BlackBerry, Babe. Just disable the flash, take a picture of the screen and email it to Choi and Mamo.”
“Really?” Steve snorted. “And email a pic to Mamo?”
“Yeah, good point.” Danny said, remembering Mamo’s attempts at navigating Laka’s brand new computer tablet. “But you know, we should photograph all these slides. It will probably take a couple of tweaks. Or I’ll have to get my camera and tripod. But yes, it will work.”
“Huh?”
Danny moved on. He’d had tried to keep the photographs in the order that they had been taken. An image of a single page separated into three columns resolved into pristine detail. The writing was recognisably an Asian text, but Danny knew that he couldn’t tell Cyrillic from Japanese.
“What is this?” Danny asked.
“Uhm,” Steve said vaguely. “Hanzi, maybe. Chinese characters. The third column is numbers. They’re definitely numerals.”
Danny cocked his head to the side. Maybe it was a ledger or a financial account. It had the same structure of his own ham-handed attempts to balance his bank balance. Manually operating the projector, he moved onto the next slide, which showed more of the same but different words and numbers, possibly. They were all basically incomprehensible to Danny. The final page had a different cadence, for lack of a better word, and no columns.
“Will Chin know?” Danny enunciated carefully since the room was dark, and Steve was heavily dependent on sight to communicate.
“I don’t--” Steve sighed tiredly, “--know if I want him that involved.” It sounded reluctant to Danny’s ears.
They slid through to the next incomprehensible set of slides -- some shaky, blurred or a wash of colour. He cycled through to the tapestry photograph. It was a good shot, taken in clear daylight. Slide film was really excellent at preserving crisp images.
“What’s happening with the tapestry? Is it being repaired?”
“Given that only the storm and Ke Kā o Makali‘i survived, I don’t see why,” Steve said glumly.
“The what?”
“The night sky at the top of the tapestry. Ke Kā o Makali‘I is a constellation. The Canoe-Bailer of Makali‘i.” Steve held his hands like a cup in the stream of light, casting a giant shadow on the screen to encompass the stars at the top of the House tapestry. “Five stars curve across the sky holding the constellations of Orion and Taurus, if you’re more familiar with those ones. It rises in the night sky -- November to April. It’s part of the method that Hawaiians used to navigate.”
“Steve, the House needs the tapestry. It is the Legend of Seolh.” That spoke deeply to Danny’s romantic soul.
“Where am I going to get a twenty foot high tapestry repaired? My skill set’s pretty expansive, but I can’t knit a tapestry.”
“Don’t be so defeatist. Google is your friend.”
“You’re like a walking product placement. Next,” Steve ordered.
“The Nandi Head,” Danny said unnecessarily, because Steve knew what it was.
“Why take a photo of the sculpture and a photo of the tapestry?” Steve asked, as they both gazed at the screen.
“Hah!” Danny moved the slide carriage on to the first coin picture. “What’s the point of taking a picture of the coins?”
“What’s special about the coins?” Steve asked the world at large. He cocked his head to the side. “Is there a pattern? Other than that line?”
“Are they valuable?” Danny wondered out loud, contemplating the image of coins scattered on the page. Three were in a diagonal line, the others simply tossed over the white background.
Steve was close enough to smell, all savoury and musky. Danny felt his shrug.
“Some are rare, worth a few thousand dollars,” he said, with appalling unconcern. “But there’s no provenance. I’d have to get them chemically analysed to determine if they’re authentic. They didn’t crop up on any stolen items database.”
“But are they the coins? Or are they just a pic of any old coins?” Danny pondered. “Or are these the coins that Mary found, and the other ones that we have found aren’t?”
“What?” Steve demanded.
“Go get the coins from the museum, Steven,” Danny ordered clearly.
Steve huffed loudly, and Danny felt chilled as his warmth moved away. Dark-red light flooded the office as Steve entered the museum proper. Absently, Danny scrolled back to the image to look at the Mercury Marquis -- the photo was deliberately angled so that the license plate wasn’t captured.
Steve switched on the office light as he returned with the coin box. Apparently, he knew Toast’s database and the museum like the back of his hand, or he had checked the coins more than once.
Danny cycled back to the first coin slide -- the close-up image of lots the coins splayed on a page of white paper.
“Here.” Steve held up a coin with a distinctive nick on its edge between his finger and thumb. It was on the photo, bottom left-hand corner. Meticulously, Steve went through the coins, identifying more than half.
“Okay, so that proves that this is the film with the coins from your mom’s secret stash?” Danny said.
Steve tugged aimlessly on his bottom lip as he contemplated the image. His gaze was about a thousand yards behind the screen.
“I’m going to get Chin to look at the documents.”
“Hang on.” Danny lurched and grabbed Steve before he could march out of the office. “It’s almost eleven o’clock, Babe.”
“What?” Steve asked, but the tautness of his spine screamed: why are you stopping me?
“It’s eleven o’clock. If Chin’s not asleep, Malia will definitely be asleep. She spent all day at the hospital and is battling morning sickness. Do not disturb.” Danny did not say -- although the imp of teasing really wanted to -- that it was also well past Steve’s normal bedtime.
Steve consulted his wristwatch, brow furrowed, but he couldn’t mentally force the clock back. He sagged, frustrated.
“I know. I know,” Danny commiserated in the face of that frustration. “This isn’t television. We’re not going to be able to sort this out in forty three minutes. Time for bed, Steve.” Deliberately, he switched off the projector.
“D,” Steve whined, reinforcing the being sent to bed scenario. Danny had definitely heard that tone more than once. He missed Grace’s steady presence in his life as if bereaved.
“I’m going to grab a change of clothes from my room. I’ll be back in five.” Danny contemplated the red-tinged light of the museum. He could go through the museum and come out down the staircase beside his studio. He couldn’t believe that that hadn’t occurred to him before, instead of walking along the corridor in various stages of undress.
“If you move into--” Steve began.
Danny held up his hand.
“I know what you’re going to say. Later, Babe.”
~*~
Danny hung his freshly pressed shirt -- he liked to dress professionally as an employed naval contractor -- on a hanger, and hooked it over a doorknob on Steve’s fitted wardrobe. Danny looked around Steve’s tidy and sparsely-furnished second bedroom. Steve rattled around the eyrie like a forgotten toy in all its designer magnificence. It was tempting to move into the apartment, but it really was early days, and he did have Grace to consider.
Danny shrugged out of his shirt and balled it up with his slacks into the laundry basket beside the door. He made a note to check how many of his boxers were lurking in the bottom. They definitely needed to do some laundry.
Nude, except for his most comfortable, saggy-baggy, disreputable, chequered shorts, he caught himself giving a delighted wiggle. Steve’s enjoyment of skin freedom was contagious.
As he trooped up to the lighthouse bedroom, he suspected that Steve would be deep in the Land of Nod. Steve had been looking a little owl-eyed as they had separated to prepare for bed. Danny had taken the time to iron tomorrow’s shirt, and then ferry his tripod up to the office. He had debated about taking the photos of the slides, but he was tired and had switched off the ancient projector. Leaving Oh’s disc next to his camera, he had made a mental note to check out the photos of the dolls and the other things in the collection tomorrow with Steve.
The lights were on in the bedroom.
“Hey, Babe.”
Steve was caught in mid-flip of snapping out a thin blanket over their freshly made bed. Tonight’s colour scheme was navy blue and cream.
“I’d forgotten we’d messed up the sheets.” Danny leered.
“What?” There was a peek of his sea tattoo over the hem of Steve’s shorts as he leaned over to flatten out a microscopic crease in a bed that was about to be creased. Steve had done one of his super-fast navy showers judging by the disordered array of his tufty hair and pink-scrubbed skin. Steve had dispensed with the bandage protecting the scrape on his arm.
Danny slid in, and used the jut of Steve’s hip to turn him into his hold. He got a kiss on a luscious bottom lip and dabbled a finger under Steve’s thin, worn t-shirt to check his side. Steve had moisturised.
“What are you doing?” Steve mumbled against his mouth.
“Checking.” Danny moved onto Steve’s arm. It was healing nicely.
“Mmmm.” Steve’s lips nibbled across Danny’s stubbled jaw as his broad hand stroked down Danny’s bicep, and over his forearm. His thumb stopped, encountering rough, sensitive skin.
“Mmm?” It was Danny’s turn to mumble. He craned his head away from Steve’s lips, mouthing against the hinge of his jaw. Gently, Steve circled his thumb over the multicoloured bruise in the centre of Danny’s forearm. The half-moon scab of Steve’s gouging thumbnail might even scar. “It was an accident, Babe.”
“Dr. Chowdhry pencilled you in for the last Thursday of this month at fourteen hundred hours. Family session. You have to call her and confirm.”
“Family session. Chin too, maybe?” Danny offered.
Steve contemplated that with a mask more appropriate to a poker game.
“Babe?”
“I’ll talk to Chin,” Steve said with a hint of reluctance.
“It’s okay. It’s just a thought.” Maybe the thought had been a mistake, but Danny was prepared to think about it. The idea had come out of nowhere, where the best thoughts normally came. It was probably a good idea. Maybe Kono should come too, and Mamo.
There was a deep, knotted furrow between Steve’s eyebrows.
“Time for bed.” Danny hooked an ankle around Steve’s calf and used his lower centre of mass to topple him onto the bed.
“Danny!”
In answer, Danny climbed on top of him.
~*~
Danny woke to a lonely bed. The sheets under his questing hand were cool. Steve was long gone. The sun was dancing over the horizon. Exercise boy was back in play, Danny guessed, as he sat up and scratched his sternum, ruffling at hairs.
Shower, shower, shower, went the litany in his head. The comfy bed held him. In reality, they had what they had been looking for, so why go into Pearl?
Abruptly, Danny sat up, and stared out at the ocean through the chink in the curtains. They should go to work, unless they had a good reason not to, otherwise…. Danny grimaced. Were they under that level of surveillance, he wondered. They were under surveillance, certainly, but that intense -- he wasn’t entirely sure. Steve said that observers were in the woods out back. They had to have been observed in the eyrie. The watchers had to know that Steve had entered into a relationship with a man.
Thank God for the curtains.
This level of paranoia was impossible to handle without coffee.
Danny rolled out of bed.
Steve wasn’t his dirty little secret. He wasn’t Steve’s dirty little secret. He was not ashamed.
He grabbed a t-shirt from Steve’s wardrobe. It was soft with years of washings and worn out of shape. Maybe once upon a time it had been navy blue. He yanked it on; his bed head was going to be outstanding.
“That’s a new look,” Chin observed, as Danny staggered into the kitchen.
“Chin,” Malia rebuked, gently.
“It was an observation.”
“You obviously haven’t caught him on his morning walks of shame,” Mary said gratingly.
It was the last thing that Danny wanted to have fired at him.
“They’re not ‘walks of shame’, Mary. There’s no shame involved. I’m in a relationship with your brother. We sleep together. Sleep is a’ euphemism for sex.” Danny made speech marks with his fingers. “I’m sure that you have had sex. You’ve seen us sharing a bed. And you’ve burst in on us when we’ve been in the shower.”
“Wow, you’re a grumpy bear before you’ve had your coffee.”
The old percolator was running, so Toast had been up early before heading into the University. Danny poured hot, stewed coffee into the biggest mug he could find. He toasted Mary with the coffee mug.
“You’re up early. You’re all up early. Why?” Danny asked.
“It’s not that early, brah.” Chin glanced at the kitchen clock. It was just before eight. Steve didn’t have an alarm clock, and Danny had no idea where his wristwatch was hiding.
“My shift starts at nine,” Malia said.
“I’m dropping Malia off at work, and Mary’s my buddy for the day,” Chin said.
Mary smiled impishly.
“Mary?” Danny couldn’t help saying.
“Hey, Chin’s cool.” Mary had a toothy smile. “We’re going to meet Sidney and see Chin’s gallery.”
“Sidney?” Danny had heard Chin mention Sidney before.
“My agent. I have a meeting at nine thirty,” Chin said. “And then maybe shopping.”
“Don’t forget to pick up my shampoo and conditioner.” Malia patted her fiancé’s shoulder.
“Yes, dear.”
Mary mimed poking her fingers down her throat.
She’s just jealous, Danny thought, but didn’t say.
“Has Steve gone out running?” Danny asked.
“Check the basket on the fridge,” Chin directed, as he stood and gathered up their breakfast dishes.
Reaching up on tiptoes, Danny grabbed the basket in front of the dusty radio. Steve’s hearing aids were rolling around the bottom with his iPod-like control.
“Gone swimming,” Chin inferred, as he set the dishes in the sink and turned on the faucet.
“Leave them,” Danny said, “you need to get moving if you want to get into Honolulu by nine.”
“Thank you, Danny,” Malia said.
“Thank you, Danny,” Mary chimed sweetly.
“Git.” Danny pointed at the door, thinking he really wanted ten minutes of peace and quiet.
“Thanks, Danny,” Chin said soberly.
“I just have to grab my bag.” Mary darted out of the kitchen. “I’ll see you out front.”
Malia stood, and moved around the kitchen table to bestow a kiss on Danny’s unshaven cheek.
“You all right, Danny?”
“Just woke up on the wrong side of the bed.” He scratched his cheek, where Malia had pecked a kiss, and dredged up a smile.
“That happens,” Malia judged, and let it go.
Chin was a lucky, lucky man, Danny thought, not for the first time. She sauntered over to where a large handbag sagged against the bookshelves, stooping to grab her bag.
“Did you see Steve this morning?” Danny asked between sips of coffee.
Chin shook his head.
So there hadn’t been a chance to ask Chin if he could translate the ledger. Danny couldn’t ask him to hang around for Steve. He didn’t want to ask if Malia was present. The less people who knew about the ledger the better, he guessed.
“When are you back?”
Chin eyed him. “Probably around lunch time. Are you going into Pearl Harbour-Hickam today?”
“I dunno.” Danny checked the clock again. “It’s not like we’ve been doing a nine ‘til five, but we’re running late today.”
“Steve told you about Governor Jameson’s funeral on Friday, yes?” Chin said.
The non sequitur threw Danny, but what the Hell, he went with the flow.
“Yeah?” Danny said. Steve had basked when Danny had made it obvious that they would be going together.
“It will be a formal affair, with a wake afterwards at the Governor’s mansion.” Chin’s gaze encompassed Danny’s state of dress.
“Shit!” Danny said succinctly.
“Sorry, Brah, I thought that I better say something. I’d lend you a jacket, but….”
“It wouldn’t fit,” Danny said. “Thanks, man, I had completely forgotten. I better go see Mrs. Yaayaa.”
“I thought that we were in a hurry!” Mary came into the kitchen from the garden side. She had to have gone out the front door, seen that they weren’t waiting by Chin’s car, and circled around the house.
Mary, Danny thought, had a lot of energy.
“Hey.” Steve came up behind her, and made a deliberate effort to shake seawater on his sister.
“Steve!” Mary pushed at his chest like a scalded cat. “You’re getting me wet!”
Chortling, he eeled around her. “Morning.”
“More like bye.” Mary poked him hard in the side, going for a ticklish point with sibling precision.
“Didn’t get that. No ears,” Steve said, with new equanimity, as he lithely squirmed away from her fingers.
“We are going to town.” Chin jingled his car keys. “Mary and I will be back for lunch.”
Steve squinted.
“Bye.” Malia waved and moved to the door, pushing Mary ahead of her.
“Talk to you later, Brah.” Chin followed his fiancée.
“That really is disconcerting,” Steve said in the wake of their exit, as he stripped off the plastic wrapping around his healing forearm, and tossed it in the garbage can.
“What is? You want eggs for breakfast? Omelette?”
Steve canted his head to the side, and pinched a blue earplug shaped like a Christmas tree out of one ear, and then the other ear.
“Dr. Marcus recommended that when I go swimming I use earplugs to reduce the chance of inflammation and infection.”
“Disconcerting as in a hundred percent no hearing?”
Steve waved his hand in the I don’t have a clue what you said gesture. It had been an ill formed sentence.
Danny got eggs from the fridge as Steve swapped earplugs for hearing aids. He desultorily dried his ears with a dishtowel.
“I hope you’re going to put that in the laundry now,” Danny observed, trying to decide between omelette or French toast.
Steve was suddenly in his space, palming his tummy, and scratching blunt nails through the hair peeking over Danny’s loose waistband.
“I like this new look.” Steve feathered kisses against Danny’s temple. “Scruffy.”
“You’re wet, Babe,” Danny protested, as Steve hefted him onto the kitchen countertop so he could better get at that sensitive spot just under Danny’s jaw. A spot that made Danny’s toes curl. “Jesus.”
Danny was about to forcibly point out that hauling him up on to a counter like --
Steve stuck a damp hand through the slit in Danny’s boxers.
“Holy fuck, we’re in the kitchen.”
“I like the kitchen. It’s my favourite place in the House.”
“More than your lantern bedroom?” Danny said, as he leaned back over the worktop, banging the back of his head lightly against the cupboard behind him. Holy fuck. Steve worried at that sensitive spot. “Don’t give me a hickey.”
Man, they were going to a funeral on Friday, he couldn’t have a hickey.
“Oooh.” Danny groaned, arching his back, jutting his hips out. Steve was getting better with practice. He felt so proud.
“Come,” Steve whispered.
Danny came with a long, drawn out sigh, hips juddering. He sagged, and the only thing that was holding him up was Steve’s grip.
Steve chortled against his neck.
Man, that had all been Steve. Danny hadn’t had to start anything. Ambush Steve for the win, he giggled internally.
“Where did that come from?” Danny nuzzled Steve’s damp hair.
“I like swimming.” Steve smacked an affectionate kiss against Danny’s neck.
“Swimming makes you horny?”
“Exercise makes me horny,” Steve revised.
“Yeah?” Danny slipped a hand over the interested mound in Steve’s swim trunks. There was no purchase on the slick, wet fabric.
Steve ground his hips against Danny’s hand.
“Is it even possible to come in these trunks?” Danny wondered out loud.
“You wanna try?” Steve leaned back in Danny’s hold and raised an eyebrow.
“The game is on.” Danny slipped off the kitchen counter, slithering down Steve’s body.
It was Steve’s turn to blaspheme, as Danny sucked on his cock through the tight fabric. Steve was bracketed over him, hands braced on the counter, legs astride.
This is so naughty, Danny thought. The kitchen door was wide open. Mamo or Mrs. Keawe could appear at any moment. Steve tasted salty. He strained against the lycra fabric. Looking up the arch and curves of Steve’s t-shirt covered chest, Danny was treated to the patrician line of his jaw as he threw his head back.
Oh, for a camera, Danny thought.
“Stop thinking,” Steve rebuked.
Danny hummed ‘ You will always find me in the kitchen at parties’ and the vibration made Steve giggle. Fun sex was the best. The trunks were better than a chastity belt. The pressure had to be driving Steve insane.
Two handed, Danny yanked the trunks down and Steve’s cock sprung free, almost taking out Danny’s eye. Laughing, Danny dove in. My god, this is insane. The angle was atrocious. He could only mouth the head, and butt his own head against the line of Steve’s abs. Steve didn’t seem to mind, as Danny carded his fingers through coarse dark curls to cup tight balls.
“Gonna,” Steve grated.
Danny sucked him down, taking every last drop. He slid down onto the floor, as Steve flopped over the kitchen counter, and just hung there on wobbly legs. Danny kissed the head of his dangling, flaccid cock.
Steve said something, but it wasn’t intelligible in any language. Danny splayed his legs out over the cool tiled floor, and relaxed as if all the bones in his body had turned to water. The fly of his boxers gaped open, leaving nothing to the imagination.
Steve slurred again.
Uncoordinated, as if newly born, Steve fumbled down to slump next to Danny, and slung a casual arm over his shoulders. His trunks were halfway down and tightly stretched over his thighs.
“That can’t be comfortable,” Danny observed.
“Can’t find the energy to do anything about it,” Steve mumbled.
“Is that Mamo’s truck?”
“What!” Steve was up on his knees and yanking his shorts up. He glared at Danny who hadn’t moved an inch. “You bastard.”
“It would have been hilarious,” Danny said unrepentantly, between laughs.
“Are you nuts?”
“Hey, you’re the one that started kitchen nookie. Gotta take the risks with the reward.”
Steve cackled, out and out cackled. “It was fun wasn’t it?”
He held out his hand, and Danny let Steve pull him to his feet. Danny casually resituated his damp boxers, squirming just a fraction. Simultaneously, he stole a kiss. Sometimes he could multitask.
“Yeah, that was fun. So, you hungry?” The counter was a mess, but four of the eggs from the box had survived Steve’s sneak attack. “You want an omelette?”
“Yeah,” Steve mused, singsong, “I feel like I deserve a protein rich breakfast.”
Danny eyed him, because that tone was different. Steve stroked a thumb over the corner of Danny’s mouth, mopping something up, and then licked his thumb.
“Guess you’ve had your protein today.” He grinned, supremely satisfied with himself.
Danny poked him on principle, and poked him again because he could poke him with impunity.
~*~
Tbc
Part ninety two
This chapter was brought to you by the powers of:
Scroll…..
Scroll…..
Scroll…..
Scroll…..
source
Word count: ~4,250
Warning: NSFW
Advisory: potty mouth; disability; IT’S A WIP.
Disclaimer: writing for fun not for profit.
Comments: British English spelling.
Spoilers: none, it’s an AU.
Betas: Springwoof – thank you
What a shitty week. I think that I would have paid money to read a long, plotty H50 fic.
The first part is here,
The Co-operative.
By Sealie
Danny carefully dropped the last freshly prepared slide in the old fashioned slide projector housing. Steve was quivering in anticipation. He had been a barely-contained, annoyingly vibrating mess as Danny had prepared the slides.
“Do you want to get the light?” Danny asked, as a blurred image appeared on the projector tripod screen that Steve had unearthed from somewhere within the House.
“What?”
“Lights, Babe,” Danny said, as he tweaked the crude focus control by rotating the cylinder lens. The projector was older than both of them -- possibly older than even their combined ages. Steve flicked off the lights in the claustrophobic museum office.
The image showed a man, maybe late twenties -- early thirties, dipping into the front passenger seat. His face was part-obscured by the wing of the door frame. He was of Asian extraction. The next slide was also of the man, and then two of the black batmobile type car driving away.
“That is my dad’s car.” Steve’s teeth grated loudly in the small office.
“Do you know who that guy is?” Danny asked.
“No…. I’ve seen photos of Wo Yongfu. It’s not him. Well, I don’t think that it’s him. NI only has archived news photos from when he ran for governor a few years prior to his death.” Steve clapped his hands together loudly. “Mamo recognised that Wo Fat might be related to Wo Yongfu, we’ll….”
“Show this pic to Mamo?” Danny asked into the silence.
“What?” Air brushed Danny as Steve spun on him.
“Shall we show this picture to Mamo?” Danny scrubbed introspectively at the late evening bristle on his jaw. Mamo recognising a possible father-and-son relationship had been one signpost on the wiggly route that they were travelling. Time to talk to Mamo again, Danny realised, because he obviously knew Wo Yongfu well enough to recognise a part-photo of the guy.
“Hmm, yeah, and possibly Uncle Choi. We’ll have to get him to come around or go to him.”
“The police officer?” Danny checked. “The one we met in the bazaar?”
“Yeah. I wonder what shifts he’s on,” Steve mused.
“Take a photo with your BlackBerry, Babe. Just disable the flash, take a picture of the screen and email it to Choi and Mamo.”
“Really?” Steve snorted. “And email a pic to Mamo?”
“Yeah, good point.” Danny said, remembering Mamo’s attempts at navigating Laka’s brand new computer tablet. “But you know, we should photograph all these slides. It will probably take a couple of tweaks. Or I’ll have to get my camera and tripod. But yes, it will work.”
“Huh?”
Danny moved on. He’d had tried to keep the photographs in the order that they had been taken. An image of a single page separated into three columns resolved into pristine detail. The writing was recognisably an Asian text, but Danny knew that he couldn’t tell Cyrillic from Japanese.
“What is this?” Danny asked.
“Uhm,” Steve said vaguely. “Hanzi, maybe. Chinese characters. The third column is numbers. They’re definitely numerals.”
Danny cocked his head to the side. Maybe it was a ledger or a financial account. It had the same structure of his own ham-handed attempts to balance his bank balance. Manually operating the projector, he moved onto the next slide, which showed more of the same but different words and numbers, possibly. They were all basically incomprehensible to Danny. The final page had a different cadence, for lack of a better word, and no columns.
“Will Chin know?” Danny enunciated carefully since the room was dark, and Steve was heavily dependent on sight to communicate.
“I don’t--” Steve sighed tiredly, “--know if I want him that involved.” It sounded reluctant to Danny’s ears.
They slid through to the next incomprehensible set of slides -- some shaky, blurred or a wash of colour. He cycled through to the tapestry photograph. It was a good shot, taken in clear daylight. Slide film was really excellent at preserving crisp images.
“What’s happening with the tapestry? Is it being repaired?”
“Given that only the storm and Ke Kā o Makali‘i survived, I don’t see why,” Steve said glumly.
“The what?”
“The night sky at the top of the tapestry. Ke Kā o Makali‘I is a constellation. The Canoe-Bailer of Makali‘i.” Steve held his hands like a cup in the stream of light, casting a giant shadow on the screen to encompass the stars at the top of the House tapestry. “Five stars curve across the sky holding the constellations of Orion and Taurus, if you’re more familiar with those ones. It rises in the night sky -- November to April. It’s part of the method that Hawaiians used to navigate.”
“Steve, the House needs the tapestry. It is the Legend of Seolh.” That spoke deeply to Danny’s romantic soul.
“Where am I going to get a twenty foot high tapestry repaired? My skill set’s pretty expansive, but I can’t knit a tapestry.”
“Don’t be so defeatist. Google is your friend.”
“You’re like a walking product placement. Next,” Steve ordered.
“The Nandi Head,” Danny said unnecessarily, because Steve knew what it was.
“Why take a photo of the sculpture and a photo of the tapestry?” Steve asked, as they both gazed at the screen.
“Hah!” Danny moved the slide carriage on to the first coin picture. “What’s the point of taking a picture of the coins?”
“What’s special about the coins?” Steve asked the world at large. He cocked his head to the side. “Is there a pattern? Other than that line?”
“Are they valuable?” Danny wondered out loud, contemplating the image of coins scattered on the page. Three were in a diagonal line, the others simply tossed over the white background.
Steve was close enough to smell, all savoury and musky. Danny felt his shrug.
“Some are rare, worth a few thousand dollars,” he said, with appalling unconcern. “But there’s no provenance. I’d have to get them chemically analysed to determine if they’re authentic. They didn’t crop up on any stolen items database.”
“But are they the coins? Or are they just a pic of any old coins?” Danny pondered. “Or are these the coins that Mary found, and the other ones that we have found aren’t?”
“What?” Steve demanded.
“Go get the coins from the museum, Steven,” Danny ordered clearly.
Steve huffed loudly, and Danny felt chilled as his warmth moved away. Dark-red light flooded the office as Steve entered the museum proper. Absently, Danny scrolled back to the image to look at the Mercury Marquis -- the photo was deliberately angled so that the license plate wasn’t captured.
Steve switched on the office light as he returned with the coin box. Apparently, he knew Toast’s database and the museum like the back of his hand, or he had checked the coins more than once.
Danny cycled back to the first coin slide -- the close-up image of lots the coins splayed on a page of white paper.
“Here.” Steve held up a coin with a distinctive nick on its edge between his finger and thumb. It was on the photo, bottom left-hand corner. Meticulously, Steve went through the coins, identifying more than half.
“Okay, so that proves that this is the film with the coins from your mom’s secret stash?” Danny said.
Steve tugged aimlessly on his bottom lip as he contemplated the image. His gaze was about a thousand yards behind the screen.
“I’m going to get Chin to look at the documents.”
“Hang on.” Danny lurched and grabbed Steve before he could march out of the office. “It’s almost eleven o’clock, Babe.”
“What?” Steve asked, but the tautness of his spine screamed: why are you stopping me?
“It’s eleven o’clock. If Chin’s not asleep, Malia will definitely be asleep. She spent all day at the hospital and is battling morning sickness. Do not disturb.” Danny did not say -- although the imp of teasing really wanted to -- that it was also well past Steve’s normal bedtime.
Steve consulted his wristwatch, brow furrowed, but he couldn’t mentally force the clock back. He sagged, frustrated.
“I know. I know,” Danny commiserated in the face of that frustration. “This isn’t television. We’re not going to be able to sort this out in forty three minutes. Time for bed, Steve.” Deliberately, he switched off the projector.
“D,” Steve whined, reinforcing the being sent to bed scenario. Danny had definitely heard that tone more than once. He missed Grace’s steady presence in his life as if bereaved.
“I’m going to grab a change of clothes from my room. I’ll be back in five.” Danny contemplated the red-tinged light of the museum. He could go through the museum and come out down the staircase beside his studio. He couldn’t believe that that hadn’t occurred to him before, instead of walking along the corridor in various stages of undress.
“If you move into--” Steve began.
Danny held up his hand.
“I know what you’re going to say. Later, Babe.”
~*~
Danny hung his freshly pressed shirt -- he liked to dress professionally as an employed naval contractor -- on a hanger, and hooked it over a doorknob on Steve’s fitted wardrobe. Danny looked around Steve’s tidy and sparsely-furnished second bedroom. Steve rattled around the eyrie like a forgotten toy in all its designer magnificence. It was tempting to move into the apartment, but it really was early days, and he did have Grace to consider.
Danny shrugged out of his shirt and balled it up with his slacks into the laundry basket beside the door. He made a note to check how many of his boxers were lurking in the bottom. They definitely needed to do some laundry.
Nude, except for his most comfortable, saggy-baggy, disreputable, chequered shorts, he caught himself giving a delighted wiggle. Steve’s enjoyment of skin freedom was contagious.
As he trooped up to the lighthouse bedroom, he suspected that Steve would be deep in the Land of Nod. Steve had been looking a little owl-eyed as they had separated to prepare for bed. Danny had taken the time to iron tomorrow’s shirt, and then ferry his tripod up to the office. He had debated about taking the photos of the slides, but he was tired and had switched off the ancient projector. Leaving Oh’s disc next to his camera, he had made a mental note to check out the photos of the dolls and the other things in the collection tomorrow with Steve.
The lights were on in the bedroom.
“Hey, Babe.”
Steve was caught in mid-flip of snapping out a thin blanket over their freshly made bed. Tonight’s colour scheme was navy blue and cream.
“I’d forgotten we’d messed up the sheets.” Danny leered.
“What?” There was a peek of his sea tattoo over the hem of Steve’s shorts as he leaned over to flatten out a microscopic crease in a bed that was about to be creased. Steve had done one of his super-fast navy showers judging by the disordered array of his tufty hair and pink-scrubbed skin. Steve had dispensed with the bandage protecting the scrape on his arm.
Danny slid in, and used the jut of Steve’s hip to turn him into his hold. He got a kiss on a luscious bottom lip and dabbled a finger under Steve’s thin, worn t-shirt to check his side. Steve had moisturised.
“What are you doing?” Steve mumbled against his mouth.
“Checking.” Danny moved onto Steve’s arm. It was healing nicely.
“Mmmm.” Steve’s lips nibbled across Danny’s stubbled jaw as his broad hand stroked down Danny’s bicep, and over his forearm. His thumb stopped, encountering rough, sensitive skin.
“Mmm?” It was Danny’s turn to mumble. He craned his head away from Steve’s lips, mouthing against the hinge of his jaw. Gently, Steve circled his thumb over the multicoloured bruise in the centre of Danny’s forearm. The half-moon scab of Steve’s gouging thumbnail might even scar. “It was an accident, Babe.”
“Dr. Chowdhry pencilled you in for the last Thursday of this month at fourteen hundred hours. Family session. You have to call her and confirm.”
“Family session. Chin too, maybe?” Danny offered.
Steve contemplated that with a mask more appropriate to a poker game.
“Babe?”
“I’ll talk to Chin,” Steve said with a hint of reluctance.
“It’s okay. It’s just a thought.” Maybe the thought had been a mistake, but Danny was prepared to think about it. The idea had come out of nowhere, where the best thoughts normally came. It was probably a good idea. Maybe Kono should come too, and Mamo.
There was a deep, knotted furrow between Steve’s eyebrows.
“Time for bed.” Danny hooked an ankle around Steve’s calf and used his lower centre of mass to topple him onto the bed.
“Danny!”
In answer, Danny climbed on top of him.
~*~
Danny woke to a lonely bed. The sheets under his questing hand were cool. Steve was long gone. The sun was dancing over the horizon. Exercise boy was back in play, Danny guessed, as he sat up and scratched his sternum, ruffling at hairs.
Shower, shower, shower, went the litany in his head. The comfy bed held him. In reality, they had what they had been looking for, so why go into Pearl?
Abruptly, Danny sat up, and stared out at the ocean through the chink in the curtains. They should go to work, unless they had a good reason not to, otherwise…. Danny grimaced. Were they under that level of surveillance, he wondered. They were under surveillance, certainly, but that intense -- he wasn’t entirely sure. Steve said that observers were in the woods out back. They had to have been observed in the eyrie. The watchers had to know that Steve had entered into a relationship with a man.
Thank God for the curtains.
This level of paranoia was impossible to handle without coffee.
Danny rolled out of bed.
Steve wasn’t his dirty little secret. He wasn’t Steve’s dirty little secret. He was not ashamed.
He grabbed a t-shirt from Steve’s wardrobe. It was soft with years of washings and worn out of shape. Maybe once upon a time it had been navy blue. He yanked it on; his bed head was going to be outstanding.
“That’s a new look,” Chin observed, as Danny staggered into the kitchen.
“Chin,” Malia rebuked, gently.
“It was an observation.”
“You obviously haven’t caught him on his morning walks of shame,” Mary said gratingly.
It was the last thing that Danny wanted to have fired at him.
“They’re not ‘walks of shame’, Mary. There’s no shame involved. I’m in a relationship with your brother. We sleep together. Sleep is a’ euphemism for sex.” Danny made speech marks with his fingers. “I’m sure that you have had sex. You’ve seen us sharing a bed. And you’ve burst in on us when we’ve been in the shower.”
“Wow, you’re a grumpy bear before you’ve had your coffee.”
The old percolator was running, so Toast had been up early before heading into the University. Danny poured hot, stewed coffee into the biggest mug he could find. He toasted Mary with the coffee mug.
“You’re up early. You’re all up early. Why?” Danny asked.
“It’s not that early, brah.” Chin glanced at the kitchen clock. It was just before eight. Steve didn’t have an alarm clock, and Danny had no idea where his wristwatch was hiding.
“My shift starts at nine,” Malia said.
“I’m dropping Malia off at work, and Mary’s my buddy for the day,” Chin said.
Mary smiled impishly.
“Mary?” Danny couldn’t help saying.
“Hey, Chin’s cool.” Mary had a toothy smile. “We’re going to meet Sidney and see Chin’s gallery.”
“Sidney?” Danny had heard Chin mention Sidney before.
“My agent. I have a meeting at nine thirty,” Chin said. “And then maybe shopping.”
“Don’t forget to pick up my shampoo and conditioner.” Malia patted her fiancé’s shoulder.
“Yes, dear.”
Mary mimed poking her fingers down her throat.
She’s just jealous, Danny thought, but didn’t say.
“Has Steve gone out running?” Danny asked.
“Check the basket on the fridge,” Chin directed, as he stood and gathered up their breakfast dishes.
Reaching up on tiptoes, Danny grabbed the basket in front of the dusty radio. Steve’s hearing aids were rolling around the bottom with his iPod-like control.
“Gone swimming,” Chin inferred, as he set the dishes in the sink and turned on the faucet.
“Leave them,” Danny said, “you need to get moving if you want to get into Honolulu by nine.”
“Thank you, Danny,” Malia said.
“Thank you, Danny,” Mary chimed sweetly.
“Git.” Danny pointed at the door, thinking he really wanted ten minutes of peace and quiet.
“Thanks, Danny,” Chin said soberly.
“I just have to grab my bag.” Mary darted out of the kitchen. “I’ll see you out front.”
Malia stood, and moved around the kitchen table to bestow a kiss on Danny’s unshaven cheek.
“You all right, Danny?”
“Just woke up on the wrong side of the bed.” He scratched his cheek, where Malia had pecked a kiss, and dredged up a smile.
“That happens,” Malia judged, and let it go.
Chin was a lucky, lucky man, Danny thought, not for the first time. She sauntered over to where a large handbag sagged against the bookshelves, stooping to grab her bag.
“Did you see Steve this morning?” Danny asked between sips of coffee.
Chin shook his head.
So there hadn’t been a chance to ask Chin if he could translate the ledger. Danny couldn’t ask him to hang around for Steve. He didn’t want to ask if Malia was present. The less people who knew about the ledger the better, he guessed.
“When are you back?”
Chin eyed him. “Probably around lunch time. Are you going into Pearl Harbour-Hickam today?”
“I dunno.” Danny checked the clock again. “It’s not like we’ve been doing a nine ‘til five, but we’re running late today.”
“Steve told you about Governor Jameson’s funeral on Friday, yes?” Chin said.
The non sequitur threw Danny, but what the Hell, he went with the flow.
“Yeah?” Danny said. Steve had basked when Danny had made it obvious that they would be going together.
“It will be a formal affair, with a wake afterwards at the Governor’s mansion.” Chin’s gaze encompassed Danny’s state of dress.
“Shit!” Danny said succinctly.
“Sorry, Brah, I thought that I better say something. I’d lend you a jacket, but….”
“It wouldn’t fit,” Danny said. “Thanks, man, I had completely forgotten. I better go see Mrs. Yaayaa.”
“I thought that we were in a hurry!” Mary came into the kitchen from the garden side. She had to have gone out the front door, seen that they weren’t waiting by Chin’s car, and circled around the house.
Mary, Danny thought, had a lot of energy.
“Hey.” Steve came up behind her, and made a deliberate effort to shake seawater on his sister.
“Steve!” Mary pushed at his chest like a scalded cat. “You’re getting me wet!”
Chortling, he eeled around her. “Morning.”
“More like bye.” Mary poked him hard in the side, going for a ticklish point with sibling precision.
“Didn’t get that. No ears,” Steve said, with new equanimity, as he lithely squirmed away from her fingers.
“We are going to town.” Chin jingled his car keys. “Mary and I will be back for lunch.”
Steve squinted.
“Bye.” Malia waved and moved to the door, pushing Mary ahead of her.
“Talk to you later, Brah.” Chin followed his fiancée.
“That really is disconcerting,” Steve said in the wake of their exit, as he stripped off the plastic wrapping around his healing forearm, and tossed it in the garbage can.
“What is? You want eggs for breakfast? Omelette?”
Steve canted his head to the side, and pinched a blue earplug shaped like a Christmas tree out of one ear, and then the other ear.
“Dr. Marcus recommended that when I go swimming I use earplugs to reduce the chance of inflammation and infection.”
“Disconcerting as in a hundred percent no hearing?”
Steve waved his hand in the I don’t have a clue what you said gesture. It had been an ill formed sentence.
Danny got eggs from the fridge as Steve swapped earplugs for hearing aids. He desultorily dried his ears with a dishtowel.
“I hope you’re going to put that in the laundry now,” Danny observed, trying to decide between omelette or French toast.
Steve was suddenly in his space, palming his tummy, and scratching blunt nails through the hair peeking over Danny’s loose waistband.
“I like this new look.” Steve feathered kisses against Danny’s temple. “Scruffy.”
“You’re wet, Babe,” Danny protested, as Steve hefted him onto the kitchen countertop so he could better get at that sensitive spot just under Danny’s jaw. A spot that made Danny’s toes curl. “Jesus.”
Danny was about to forcibly point out that hauling him up on to a counter like --
Steve stuck a damp hand through the slit in Danny’s boxers.
“Holy fuck, we’re in the kitchen.”
“I like the kitchen. It’s my favourite place in the House.”
“More than your lantern bedroom?” Danny said, as he leaned back over the worktop, banging the back of his head lightly against the cupboard behind him. Holy fuck. Steve worried at that sensitive spot. “Don’t give me a hickey.”
Man, they were going to a funeral on Friday, he couldn’t have a hickey.
“Oooh.” Danny groaned, arching his back, jutting his hips out. Steve was getting better with practice. He felt so proud.
“Come,” Steve whispered.
Danny came with a long, drawn out sigh, hips juddering. He sagged, and the only thing that was holding him up was Steve’s grip.
Steve chortled against his neck.
Man, that had all been Steve. Danny hadn’t had to start anything. Ambush Steve for the win, he giggled internally.
“Where did that come from?” Danny nuzzled Steve’s damp hair.
“I like swimming.” Steve smacked an affectionate kiss against Danny’s neck.
“Swimming makes you horny?”
“Exercise makes me horny,” Steve revised.
“Yeah?” Danny slipped a hand over the interested mound in Steve’s swim trunks. There was no purchase on the slick, wet fabric.
Steve ground his hips against Danny’s hand.
“Is it even possible to come in these trunks?” Danny wondered out loud.
“You wanna try?” Steve leaned back in Danny’s hold and raised an eyebrow.
“The game is on.” Danny slipped off the kitchen counter, slithering down Steve’s body.
It was Steve’s turn to blaspheme, as Danny sucked on his cock through the tight fabric. Steve was bracketed over him, hands braced on the counter, legs astride.
This is so naughty, Danny thought. The kitchen door was wide open. Mamo or Mrs. Keawe could appear at any moment. Steve tasted salty. He strained against the lycra fabric. Looking up the arch and curves of Steve’s t-shirt covered chest, Danny was treated to the patrician line of his jaw as he threw his head back.
Oh, for a camera, Danny thought.
“Stop thinking,” Steve rebuked.
Danny hummed ‘ You will always find me in the kitchen at parties’ and the vibration made Steve giggle. Fun sex was the best. The trunks were better than a chastity belt. The pressure had to be driving Steve insane.
Two handed, Danny yanked the trunks down and Steve’s cock sprung free, almost taking out Danny’s eye. Laughing, Danny dove in. My god, this is insane. The angle was atrocious. He could only mouth the head, and butt his own head against the line of Steve’s abs. Steve didn’t seem to mind, as Danny carded his fingers through coarse dark curls to cup tight balls.
“Gonna,” Steve grated.
Danny sucked him down, taking every last drop. He slid down onto the floor, as Steve flopped over the kitchen counter, and just hung there on wobbly legs. Danny kissed the head of his dangling, flaccid cock.
Steve said something, but it wasn’t intelligible in any language. Danny splayed his legs out over the cool tiled floor, and relaxed as if all the bones in his body had turned to water. The fly of his boxers gaped open, leaving nothing to the imagination.
Steve slurred again.
Uncoordinated, as if newly born, Steve fumbled down to slump next to Danny, and slung a casual arm over his shoulders. His trunks were halfway down and tightly stretched over his thighs.
“That can’t be comfortable,” Danny observed.
“Can’t find the energy to do anything about it,” Steve mumbled.
“Is that Mamo’s truck?”
“What!” Steve was up on his knees and yanking his shorts up. He glared at Danny who hadn’t moved an inch. “You bastard.”
“It would have been hilarious,” Danny said unrepentantly, between laughs.
“Are you nuts?”
“Hey, you’re the one that started kitchen nookie. Gotta take the risks with the reward.”
Steve cackled, out and out cackled. “It was fun wasn’t it?”
He held out his hand, and Danny let Steve pull him to his feet. Danny casually resituated his damp boxers, squirming just a fraction. Simultaneously, he stole a kiss. Sometimes he could multitask.
“Yeah, that was fun. So, you hungry?” The counter was a mess, but four of the eggs from the box had survived Steve’s sneak attack. “You want an omelette?”
“Yeah,” Steve mused, singsong, “I feel like I deserve a protein rich breakfast.”
Danny eyed him, because that tone was different. Steve stroked a thumb over the corner of Danny’s mouth, mopping something up, and then licked his thumb.
“Guess you’ve had your protein today.” He grinned, supremely satisfied with himself.
Danny poked him on principle, and poked him again because he could poke him with impunity.
~*~
Tbc
Part ninety two
This chapter was brought to you by the powers of:
Scroll…..
Scroll…..
Scroll…..
Scroll…..
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2014-05-19 01:28 pm (UTC)Which has made for a very pleasant evening's reading. Love your writing. And still loving this story. I'm glad you're still going with it.
no subject
Date: 2014-05-19 08:22 pm (UTC)