Title: Game of Survival
Fandom: Hawaii Five-0
Characters: Steve McGarrett and Danny Williams
Rating: Mature
Length: 3702
Warnings: features mentions of one night stands, men hunting other men, and killing
Summary: Danny and Steve wake up in cages, separated, in cages. They are told that they have to run for their lives.

 

I'm not going down without a fight, Danny thinks, even as he struggles to increase the distance between himself and his adversaries. His adversaries aren't wounded, sleep deprived, half-starved, and dehydrated, though. There is nothing slowing the men down, and they’re gaining on Danny, hurling insults and terrible promises of pain and torture at him. The men also seem to know the territory, whereas Danny doesn't.

It isn't fair, but Danny has no time to think like that. His only option is to run for survival, and negative thoughts will only wear him down, make it easier for the enemy to gain the upper hand.

He wonders, almost idly, how Steve is doing, if he'd, in true Navy SEAL fashion, already bested his own foes and was out there, looking for Danny. Danny hopes so, but he can't waste time on thinking about Steve either. He needs to find a way to slow down his pursuers. A way to survive this little game of survival that he and Steve have been thrown into.

 

---

Hours before, Danny had fallen asleep, naked, in Steve's arms. It hadn't been the first time that they'd fucked, and he’d hoped that it wouldn't be the last.

He'd woken, naked and disoriented, in a rusty metal cage, surrounded by dense vegetation and tall trees that blocked out most of the sun. His mouth felt like it had been glued shut, and he blushed at the memory of what he'd done with his mouth the night before. At least he hoped that it was only the next day, that he hadn't lost several days between working out some sexual tension with Steve and waking up wherever the hell it was that he'd woken up.

His head felt stuffy, and his limbs ached. His throat was parched, and his left leg throbbed painfully with every breath that he took. It was definitely not a good way to wake up.

For a while longer than he'd like to admit, he laid there, and tried to make his mind work. Tried to remember how he'd gotten from Steve's bed to wherever it was that he'd ended up. His mind was a complete blank, though, supplying only unhelpful images of what he and Steve had done to each other prior to collapsing into a much needed sleep.

Mind in a fog, Danny finally had the wherewithal to wonder where Steve was. He shifted, as much as he could, in the confining cage, and searched the surrounding area for Steve.

"Steve?" he called out tentatively, voice quiet and raspy. It felt like he'd swallowed rocks.

His vision wasn't too clear either. He was mildly alarmed, and wondered if he'd been drugged, because he should be feeling a lot more worried and panicked than he was right now.

A ringing vibration startled him, and Danny hit his head against his metal prison. The source of the jarring noise wasn't immediately evident, and the ringing vibration started and stopped two more times before Danny finally found the source of it.

A cellphone, one of the old flip-phone types, was lying on the bottom of the cage, toward his feet. He'd never seen it before, and was mildly worried that answering it would cause an explosion, or something worse than that. Though, what could be worse than an explosion in a metal cage, Danny didn't really know. His mind was still a little (a lot) slow on the uptake.

It took him three more rings to reach, and answer, the phone. He was breathless, and he could feel his heart pounding in his head.

He tried to wet his lips, and clear his throat, but his mouth was too dry, and when he attempted to speak, the only thing he managed to get out was a pathetic sounding croak.

A frog in the Sahara Desert, Danny thought.

There was a voice on the other end of the phone. Danny didn't recognize it, didn't understand the words either. His head was still in a fog, and he could barely hear anything over the pounding of his heart and his labored breaths.

Dizziness washed over him, and the world monetarily disappeared into a buzzing white cloud with black edging. It was bizarre, and just short of terrifying.

Danny listed to the side, groaning, trying to cling to consciousness, and the damn phone, because he knew what the encroaching darkness meant, and knew that it was important for him to listen to whatever it was that the voice on the phone was trying to tell him. Something inside of him knew that both would mean the difference between life and death.

"Do you understand the rules of the game, detective?" the voice was garbled, and Danny's hearing kept fading in and out, but he heard those words, and frowned.

"Detective?" the voice sounded impatient, and then faraway, as though speaking to someone else, and Danny thought that maybe the man was doing just that, because the man's next words didn't really seem to be meant for him.

"I told you not to give him too much of that crap. Fuck, I don't think he's understood a damn thing I've said. If your stupid little stunt has damaged the goods..."

There was a murmured response that Danny couldn't hear, though he tilted his head, crammed the phone closer to his ear, in an effort to eavesdrop on the other speaker. Had he been thinking clearly, he'd have realised how ridiculous he looked, and the futility of his actions. He wasn't thinking clearly though, and couldn't help but agree with the cross voice on the phone, even if he was being called damaged goods.

"He's smaller than the other one you fucking idiot, " the voice growled. "I'll give this one another half an hour, and if he's not ready, you're going to be the one to put him down, and answer to the boss. We've got four men out there, looking for a good hunt, and right now only one of the prey is actively involved in the game, because, like the idiot you are, you didn't adjust for a difference in size and weight when you bagged and tagged our stag."

The phone clicked, and Danny held it to his ear for far longer than he should have. It took him precious minutes to understand that he'd been hung up on, that he should probably shut the phone, see if he could make a call out with it, try to find a way out of the cage. His mind just wasn't working like it should be.

It was weird, because there was a part of him which was thinking clearly. It was telling him to move, to try to make a call to one of his teammates. Hell, he could even try the governor. That same part of him, which sounded an awful lot like micromanagement-Steve,  was urging him to test out the strength of the cage, to see if the door would budge. To find a way out, and to safety.

Unfortunately, the part of his brain that controlled his body just wasn't awake or alert enough to comply. Whatever the 'idiot' the voice had been speaking to had given him had really done a number on him. He hoped that it would wear off in the half an hour he'd been allotted. He didn't relish being put down like an animal in a cage.

 

---

Danny can hear his pursuers -- two men with semi-automatic weapons, hunting him down like an animal -- knows that they are gaining on him, that they paid a handsome price for the pleasure of hunting him down and killing him.

Whoever gets the kill shot will have bragging rights, and he’ll wind up on someone’s mantle, his teeth, or ear lobes on someone’s necklace, tongue yanked out of his mouth.

It had all been explained to him, calmly and matter-of-factly during the second phone call, and then he’d been released from the metal cage and told to run. It had taken him a few precious seconds to understand the importance of the command, and Danny can’t help but think that those few seconds of standing dumbly at the exit of the metal cage will cost him his life.

It’s no consolation knowing that there are two other men hunting Steve. He doubts that either man will have the pleasure of killing Steven. That, at least, is a consolation. One of them will survive this. One of them will be going home.

Danny wonders if they will eat his flesh, or if they’ll harvest his organs, or if they’ll have him stuffed. Will they give him marble eyes the same shade of blue, or will they carve away his flesh and keep his skeletal remains? He wonders what Steve will tell Grace and Charlie when he manages to make it to safety and Danny doesn’t.

There is no doubt in Danny’s mind that Steve will kill his own pursuers with his bare hands and make it out of the wilderness like a pro. Danny hopes that Steve will avenge his death.

 

---

Steve needs to find Danny, no matter what. He’s killed before, and has no qualms with killing the men who’d been hell bent on chasing him through the wilderness and shooting him, like he was some kind of beast.

The things they’d shouted at him as they hunted him would no doubt return to him in nightmares, but for now he pushes them aside to focus on figuring out where Danny is. Weaponless and naked, Danny won’t be able to defend himself. He’s not trained for hand-to-hand combat. He’s never killed a man with his bare hands.

They’d been together the night before. Just sex, they’d agreed. Except, it’s become more than just sex. No matter how much Steve wants to deny it, he thinks he’s falling in love with his best friend. He can’t let Danny die. Not like this. Not hunted down like some kind of animal.

 

---

When this had first begun, it had taken him a minute, maybe two, to recognize that the ringing he was hearing wasn’t in his head, but somewhere in the vicinity of his feet, and even then, it had taken some doing for Steve to figure out how to stop the ringing. When he had finally moved, a sick wave of dizziness washed over him and he had to stop to catch his breath before moving to reach the phone planted at his feet.

His last memory was of Danny. They’d been lying together in the aftermath of sex, and Danny’d said something completely ridiculous, some raunchy pun about sex. Steve had laughed, and his heart had skipped a little when Danny had nestled against him. It was more intimate than they’d ever been after sex.

He’d answered the phone on the fifth try, and then it had taken him a full minute to understand the words that the man on the other end was saying. His blood ran cold, but whatever drug was running through his system still had its claws in him, and it had taken him even longer to realise that this wasn’t some kind of sick joke, that his life, and Danny’s, was in danger.

“We’re going to play a little game, here, cop,” the man had said, his voice sounded mechanical.

“You and your partner are the prey, and my clients are the hunters. When I release you from your cage, you will have a minute’s head start before I release the hounds.” The man had chuckled then, the sound made Steve shiver, and his heart thundered in his chest as he thought about Danny.

“What’s the game?” Steve had asked in a raspy voice.

The man had laughed again, a tinny sound that made Steve sick to his stomach. “Big game hunting,” he said. “On the count of three, I will release you, and then, little piggy, you’d better run.”

Steve had never even heard the counting over the rush of blood through his veins, but he was ready when the buzzer sounded and he was released from the cage. It took  him a few faltering steps before he gained his bearings, and then, instead of running, he took in his surroundings, and, after trying the phone, only to find that it was dead, within a half a minute, he had a plan for how to turn this ‘game’ on its head, to switch from being the hunted to being the hunter.

Once he took care of his pursuers, he’d go after Danny.

 

---

“Danny?” Steve whispers to himself. He stops mid run and tilts his head to the side to listen for the sound that he’d thought he heard, the sound of someone fumbling his way through the wilderness.

A crash sounds to his right, and Steve holds his breath, and his world turns white and cold when he hears the retort of a gunshot followed by a cry of pain. Danny’s cry.

There is no thought process, Steve simply turns and runs in the direction of the sound, unmindful of the branches that rip at his skin, and the vines that reach up to trip him. There’s only one thing on his mind. One word. Kill.

 

---

Danny’s out of breath and disoriented, and he trips over a vine, goes sprawling onto his stomach. His head is aching, and he doesn’t know which way is up. The idiot, whoever the fuck he is, had given him too much of whatever drug that he and Steve had been dosed with, because it’s still fucking with him and making it impossible for him to think straight. He’s going to die, alone, naked and afraid, and he’s not sure whether to laugh or cry about it.

“I’m sorry,” Danny whispers into the dried mud, and then he pushes himself up on shaky arms and starts off at a lumbering run, legs feeling much too heavy. He hasn’t been this clumsy since his awkward teenage years.

“I love you, Steve,” Danny whispers into the wilderness. “Please tell Grace and Charlie that I love them, that I will be looking out for them from heaven, or hell, doesn’t matter.”

He should probably conserve his breath, should concentrate on running, rather than whispering messages into the trees, but he has to at least say what’s in his heart and on his mind before he’s gone and god knows what happens to his body.

Maybe they’ll leave him to the scavengers of the forest. Would a wild mongoose run off with his nose? Would birds peck out his eyes? Would a wild boar tear into his flesh with its tusks and gore out his innards?

Oddly enough, these thoughts ground him, and give Danny an extra boost of energy, greater control over his limbs, and then he sees them, and he blinks sweat from his eyes, because he doesn’t really trust them at this point. He stops cold, almost trips over his own feet, hand slapping against a tree, heart thudding in his chest.

He wants to laugh, but his throat has gone dry, and his world has been narrowed down to two pairs of eyes, glittering menacingly in the sun filtered through the trees. One of them huffs and Danny swears he can see a smile, though it’s impossible because how could they smile?

There’s a rush of air that soars past his face, ripping into his ear with enough force to make it bleed, and he cries out at the sting of it. It’s a strangled, undignified sound, but not as undignified a sound as the wild boar makes as the bullet rips through it, causing it to spin around with disorientation and pain before it falls over on its side, panting, eyes roaming wildly for the source of its pain. Its partner makes a mad dash for safety, doesn’t make it two steps before it too is dropped, shot by the men pursuing Danny.

Is it luck? Fate? Some kind of sick joke? A pictorial display of what is about to happen to him? They’d called him a pig, more than once, and had explained, in graphic detail, what they would do to him once they caught up to him, how they’d gut him and skin him and make him watch while they pulled his insides out.

Danny doesn’t know, or care if it is luck or fate or a sick look into his future. He drops to the ground just as another bullet rushes through the air. It hits the tree directly across from him at chest height, and he’s not sure if he should run, or just stay put, because running would expose him and staying put will just allow the men to walk up to him and put a bullet in his back. Hunters or not, Danny doubts that they have any morals stopping them from putting a bullet in someone’s back, no matter how unsportsmanlike that is.

Mouth full of dirt, Danny closes his eyes and simply breathes. If he’s going to die, he’s going to die, there’s nothing he can do to stop it. If he runs, he’ll be shot, if he stays put, he’ll be shot, or toyed with and then put out of his misery. Either way, he’ll be dead. Does he want to prolong his life by a few seconds, or face death head on?

 

---

Steve curses when he hears a second gunshot and then his mind clears and he focuses, not on Danny, on what he’ll find left of his partner and sometimes lover, but on taking out the men who dared to hunt down a man as good as Danny as though he were nothing more than a lowly animal.

There is the promise of death in his bones and Steve closes out all other feelings as he goes on the prowl, tracking the men by the sounds they make as they close in on their kill. They aren’t subtle in their movements. They don’t know they’re being stalked. Steve smiles. It’s cruel, and sick, and just a little insane.

The men never knew what hit them. Steve comes at them from behind, silent as the ninja Danny’s always accused him of being, deadly as a cobra using its full venom. He breaks the neck of the first man, and uses that man’s gun to shoot and kill the other. It’s quick and anticlimactic, and for a moment Steve just stands there watching blood seep from the neat bullet hole he put in the second man’s head. He lets the first man drop a few seconds later, ignores the thud that the man’s body makes at it impacts the ground.

 

---

Danny lays face first on the dirt. It’s cool, almost comforting. He doesn’t relive the highest points of his life, or think back to all of the regrets he’s leaving behind. Instead, he thinks about Steve and the few times that they’ve been together. He wonders if, given time, their one night stands would have become something more, because he thinks that maybe, somewhere down the line, he might just have started falling in love with the big goof.

It should be shocking. It isn’t.

He should be taking stock of his life as he’s lying buck naked in the middle of a forest waiting for a bullet to be put in the back of his skull. Instead, he’s thinking about a man that had somehow become an integral part of his life without him even noticing.

“I am love’s ass,” Danny mutters and huffs out a laugh. He gets a mouthful of dirt for his effort and turns his head to look at the trees. It’s almost peaceful, and he wonders what’s taking the men so damn long to come to him, now the he’s down for the count.

He hears a gunshot, but doesn’t feel the sharp bite of a bullet, and wonders if maybe he’s in shock, or if he died instantly. That would be a relief. Maybe he’s already entered the afterlife, and just has to wait for that white light that he’s heard about. He raises his head, it feels heavy and stuffy. There is no white light, though there is a dark shadow in his line of vision.

“So, hell it is.” Danny grunts, and shoves himself up into a sitting position, ignoring the way the world around him tilts sickeningly.

The shadow crouches, and Danny blinks back the pinpricks of light that mar his vision as the shadow takes on a shape.

“Hell, Danno?” the shadow says.

Danny can hear a smile somewhere in those two words, his own smile is slow to come as he recognizes the voice. It isn’t hell coming for him after all. It’s Steve.

Hands grope him, and Danny tries to push them away, but they are insistent in their search. “Where are you wounded?”

Danny blinks up at the shadow that is Steve and he shakes his head in confusion. He wasn’t wounded. Not really. He raises a hand to his ear, hisses when touching it produces pain. He looks down dumbly at the blood on his fingers and raises them toward Steve.

“Just a flesh wound,” Danny says. “They killed some boars.” Laughter bubbles up in his chest, and Danny sets it free, leaning against Steve when the man moves to sit beside him.

When his laughter subsides, he closes his eyes, resting where he is. He’s safe with Steve’s arms wrapped around him, even in the middle of an unknown forest, having survived certain death.

“We should get out of here, find the men who orchestrated this,” Steve says, though he makes no move to get up.

“Yeah,” Danny agrees, though instead of moving to get up, he turns his head and presses a kiss to Steve’s lips.

They should get up and leave the forest. They should let the rest of their task force know about what happened so they can track down the masterminds behind this sick and twisted game, and bring the whole operation down, but for now, Danny is content to enjoy a heated kiss with Steve, the cloying stench of death hanging fresh in the air.