tourdefierce (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tourdefierce) wrote2011-05-14 11:59 am
tourdefierce) wrote2011-05-14 11:59 am
Part One: It Ain't Me Babe (Nah), It Ain't Me You're Looking For (Babe)
After every case, Danny makes a list.
Lists are safe. Lists are simple, straightforward and lists, here's the deal, lists never get anyone shot at. Lists will never be charged with reckless endangerment of their partners. Lists, he's sure, make sure their partners are safely tucked in after a long day at work, with a promise to memorize the Miranda rights for the next arrest before turning on a night-light on their way out.
Before he met SEAL boy, he had a very short list entitled: Things That Almost Got Me Killed. It was a list that Danny rarely took out. Why? Because New Jersey is a pretty safe place. Sure, there are gangsters and traffic jams and just, generally unpleasant things that come with being a cop in Jersey but for the most part, truly life-threatening situations were on low down. When he moved to Hawaii, the bastard state, there were only four items on the list: Coney Island, Forgetting to Duck, Joey "Jo" Fillipelli and Marriage to Rachel.
He was looking forward to adding a few things in his lifetime. For example, he was waiting to add Gracie's first boyfriend and Gracie's first year in college--that is to say, there are some things that Danny is sure will be painful and heart-attack inducing but completely worth it. There are risks when one has a child that is both very beautiful and very smart. He understands that.
What he doesn't understand, is why he now misses that list. Oh, he misses that list like he misses his mother's lasagna. He longs for that list like he longs for a new bed—a bed that is a bed, all the time. He yearns for that list like he yearns for a loaded hotdog from Mike's on a summer night. Okay? He fucking pines for this list.
You ask why? That's okay. You're totally entitled to ask why. The why is not complicated. The reason? It's a lot like the lists, simple and easy.
The why is Steve McGarrett, government psycho with a pretend police badge and no concept of parking laws, let alone police procedure or things such as due process. Because of this mutant dolphin, Danny doesn't have a Things That Almost Got Me Killed list anymore. If he did, it'd be as long as the islands he now lives on. Instead, he's had to make new categories—he's had to reorganize his lists because McGarrett is a crazy man. He's a loon.
Danny used to like lists. They used to comfort him.
But now? Now it's just another area of his life that McGarrett has taken over with brute force, like the way pineapple forces its way through all the other flavors when it's put on pizza until all you can taste is pineapple and not a single taste bud remembers what it's like to taste good pie.
Lt. Commander Steve McGarrett is a hijacker of lists.
(Among other things.)
Mondays aren't Danny's favorite day.
It's not that it's the end of the weekend, because Danny can't remember the last time he had a solid Saturday and Sunday that didn't involve criminals or life-threatening situations. Whatever. It's his job and he's damn good at it. Now that he's with the Five-0, he has learned to loathe Mondays with a new passion.
Every Monday is Surf-Monday. What does that mean? Well, it means that even though everyone on this demented, tourist trap of an island spends their spare time either breaking the law or swimming in the freaking ocean, Monday is when the craziest locals get up at ass-o'clock in the morning and surf.
Now, Danny knows what you're saying to yourself. But Danny! You're not a local, you don't surf—what could you possibly have to bitch about?
You? You have no idea. You're probably real smart and have never left the glorious state of New Jersey in your lifetime and therefore, have never spent a Monday morning at the Five-0 headquarters. You're lucky. You're probably a very sane person. You're probably still holding on your heterosexuality.
Danny is not.
"That was wicked island, brah," Kono says, actually fistbumping the fucking Governor and shaking her head, water droplets flying from her hair like a wet dog.
Danny needs more coffee.
They're both very beautiful women. Danny knows this, hell, Danny sees this with his very eyes. The Governor is wearing surf-trunks and a bikini top, her skin pink from the sun. Kono, she never wears enough clothes. It's an island. He knows. But that doesn't stop him from staring at Kono in her tiny two-piece swimsuit that he will never let Gracie see because she loves Kono, looks up to her, and as soon as Gracie sees that stupid, inappropriate swimwear, she will want one and Danny would rather eat sand than see his baby girl in a swimsuit like that.
But ya know, on Kono, it's not bad.
Danny is not complaining about the lack of appropriate work attire from the ladies, although he will say that he's the only one in his damn office who even owns a tie and there is something wrong with that. He's not even complaining about Chin Ho, good old Chin, who is currently tracking sand into HQ like he doesn't complain about the tiny little granules when they get into the future-machine they call the tech-table. Chin is not wearing a shirt either, his flip flops are making a very annoying sound on the ground and he's dripping salty water all over the hallway while he talks animatedly with the ladies.
No, see, none of this is what makes Danny's hands shake with something that might be lust but is probably more like fury.
The source of all of these stupid feelings is bringing up the rear.
Lt. Commander McSpeedo is glowing, literally, from Vitamin B. He's tall, dark and smiling like a goof—like he's just spent the last three hours "catchin' waves, brah" and "hangin' loose" or whatever the hell these yahoos call it. He's relaxed, like the nights he's gotten laid, and the worst part of it is, Danny can see it. He can see it very clearly because Steve is wearing a speedo that clings as if to announce to the whole entire island that yes, Navy boys do look very good in blue and yes, all those other rumors, such as Steve's impressive tackle, are true as well. Steve's not wearing anything else. Just a speedo and a smile.
Danny pulls out his list. It's one of many now dedicated to Steve.
Things About McJackass That I Do Not Like.
He underlines speedo and annoyingly attractive obliques twice and ignores the rest of the list, which contains but is not unlimited to the following: tattoos, nipples, trigger-happy finger, dick sucking lips, ninja skills, shiny pectorals, driving habits, clingy cargo pants, and last, but certainly not the least annoying, Steven's stupid emotive face.
If there's another list (Things That Give Me An Inappropriate Erection), there might be some overlap between them.
Danny underlines speedo again just as Steve catches him staring and gives him two thumbs up.
"I hate you," Danny says, smiling through his teeth as the rest of the team high-fives and splits off in different directions. Steve stands, satisfied smile still stretched across his face, and Danny just wants to—he just, he just wants to...
He just wants.
When Steve finally blinks, his face going from SEAL-blank to sheepish boy within a few seconds, Danny wills himself not to watch when Steve walks toward his own office. He wills himself to stop looking at Steve's swim toned, Rambo-trained ass but he can't look away.
It's like some sort of Hawaiian hypnosis.
"Pull yourself together, Danno," he says to himself, forcing his eyes back to the colossal mountain of paperwork on his desk.
It's not like Danny is completely unaware of his homo-tendencies. He was in college! He was man enough to admit it to Rachel when they first got together—full disclosure and all that. He has, occasionally, had a dick in his mouth. Sure, he married Rachel but she's... Rachel and let's all be honest with each other right now, who fucked who in that marriage? Who got reamed in the ass in the end? Right? Thank you so very much.
Danny still likes women and he's even picked up a few since coming to this sand-infested, skin-cancer ridden, hell-hole of an island. He's had dates. He's had flings. He's had romantic partners.
But it's just not working for him.
He gets off. They get off. There is coffee in the morning and digits exchanged. There are even calls in the days following being laid by Danny Williams. He's good at it and he's polite.
Even when he's not entirely focused.
He was doing fine dealing with the fact that his bisexual tendencies were roaring their dick-hungry head when he first came to Hawaii and got assaulted into a partnership with Steve. He was doing fucking peachy, alright? He had his hand and the occasional opportunity to fuck a tall, dark and handsome stranger when he was particularly desperate and couldn't stop thinking about licking Steve's stupid, cliché tattoos.
He was working on it.
But then Kono had to ruin it. Why? Because she's a demon. She's a straight up demon—a mini-Steve in training, if you will—and all she wants to do is wear bikinis, surf waves and blow shit up.
The shit in this situation is Danny's life.
It went down like this:
Danny was late for work, already pissy after a fight with Rachel and not in the mood for any Five-0 bullshit. Which was precisely why he walked in to headquarters and caught Kono in the middle of her plan to ruin his mother-fucking-life.
"So you didn't screw when you were in the Navy?"
Kono was sitting on the tech-table, no matter how skinny she was—Danny was totally telling on her to Chin. Steve was eating a banana and spinning around in a desk chair like he was five years old.
"Not really," Steve said with a shrug. "On leave I'd go out but not while we were on an op."
"No one could give you a hand?"
Steve laughed. "There was the occasional hand-job but Kono, I don't fuck straight guys. Women? Sure. Straight men? Not my thing."
Kono shook her head. "What about DADT?"
"We were SEALs, brah. We had bigger things to worry about than politics," Steve said casually, and Danny was beginning to see where his disrespect for the law came from. "Beside, DADT was more a suggestion than a guideline in the SEALS. You know that, you grew up here. It was always ohana first, ops second and everything else fell away—we took care of each other."
"Yeah, hang loose, brah," Kono said with a nod, like this all made perfect sense to her warped mind. Then, because no conversation is complete without talk of mass destruction, she said, "Do you think the Governor will let me borrow the T-80?"
"I don't see why not. It's just the standard artillery tank and not the—"
Danny turned around, marched out of the building and totally did not jerk off in his car.
(He totally did.)
Ever since Danny found out that his boss is gay and not just, gay because he was in the NAVY but like, gay since birth and oh wait,it's not a fucking secret--he's been a little fixated.
By fixated, he means that his dick is rubbed raw all the damn time and his imagination is joining Kono in her ever present quest for world domination by destroying him with images of Steve in all sorts of compromising situations that involve Danny's dick.
He's made plenty of lists but none of them seem to help. Things I Shouldn't Be Attracted To is practically a tome by now. Steve's Faces
There are other lists too. Lists that are just embarrassing and make him feel all twisty inside, like when he hasn't seen Gracie for a while because of Rachel and Step-Stan's busy socialite schedule. It's those lists that make Danny want to flee back to Jersey, reclaim his bi-curiosity and never see a single pineapple for the rest of his godforsaken life. Those lists are kept hidden in Danny's drawer of shame, which doubles as a sidetable, and is where he keeps the lube he uses to jerk off to fantasies of Steve and the condoms he will never use because he's got too many feelings. Way too many feelings. He's got feelings enough for Steve and half of New Jersey and Christ, he's turning into his Ma here.
He pulls out his couch, crawls onto the shitty mattress and tries, quite desperately, to think about anything but Steve's stupid face.
"Fucking hell," he mutters, smashing his face into the pillow and willing the anger to go.
Cause that's what it's really about, isn't it? All the anger holed up in his chest and lashing out to bite at everyone but Gracie—that's what ruined his marriage to Rachel. Sure, the job didn't help and he didn't make detective this young by just sitting on his ass. In the end, the void between him and Rachel was just full up of anger—plain old anger. That's the heart of it though. Before Gracie, Danny had never felt anything but anger. Not truly. He did feel other things, of course he did, but never without the lingering cover of his rage just boiling under the surface.
Then Grace happened and when he looks at her, her face all bright and loving, Danny feels nothing but love. He's never felt anything like it before; not when he looked at Rachel on their wedding day, not when his Ma saw him graduate from the police department—not a single moment in his life was like looking at Gracie and just letting her invade all those dark places inside of him with so much light.
Gracie makes him want to be a better person. Who doesn't want to truly become the hero their kid thinks they are? He's been working on this anger thing, it's just, it feels like he feels everything at once—one big blast of emotion that just gets all tangled together and what comes out is just ugly fury and nothing like what went in. Danny's been working on it. For Gracie.
"Stupid fuck," he says, rolling over again to stare at the ceiling.
The problem now, isn't that Danny's afraid of screwing up Grace. He still worries about that, don't read him wrong, he worries about doing lasting damaged to his baby girl's heart all the time. More than once, he's thought about quitting the force and getting some cushy job where he won't be anywhere near bullets or meth addicts, so he can go home to Gracie and make promises he absolutely knows he can keep.
If Gracie was any other kind of daughter, maybe she'd let him get away with being a selfish coward.
No. The problem isn't Gracie. It's the fact that when Danny moved here, he thought that he had tackled his biggest hurdle—getting past all his shit and putting Gracie first. But then he met Steven-fucking-McGarrett and now, goddamn it, now he wants to dig through all the anger and figure out what's underneath.
He's never felt this way before.
It just... happened with Gracie. He had to work for it after she was born and he took it all out on Rachel. Looking back, he's surprised they stayed together for so long. They had a solid five years before everything started to go to shit and then they fucked, angry and vengeful, for two more years before slowly dissolving into strangers hating each other inside the same house.
There was a lot in between. So much. But Danny spent all of it fighting back the anger just to look Gracie in the eye and do the right thing—be a better man.
Now, looking at Steve, Danny's so screwed.
He's beyond screwed because all he wants is to dig, drink, fuck or plead his way past all that boiling anger and find out what's underneath it all when it comes to Steve.
He wants to try for Steve and it scares the ever-loving-shit out of him.
When Danny picks Steve up the next morning, he looks like he got laid and Danny's grinding his teeth before they make it out of the driveway.
"Catherine in town?" He doesn't sound casual at all but Steve doesn't seem to notice, staring out at the ocean as they make their way toward headquarters.
"Hmm?"
"I said," Danny forces out, "is Catherine back on land?"
Steve blinks, before smiling widely. "Nahhh."
Danny hates everything.
He speeds all the way into town and doesn't feel an ounce of pleasure when Steve gets out of the car shakily, as if Danny is a bomb.
"Danny—"
"Do not," Danny says, slamming the door. "Do not start with me today, Steven. I am not in the mood. I am so far not in the mood for whatever bullshit you got going on right now that it's actually pretty astounding how much I don't want to look at you right now. So, let me just say this. If you and your goofy-I-just-got-laid face get me shot today because you're off in la-la land reliving your wild night of super-SEAL sex then I will literally kidnap my daughter off this wretched island and be back on the mainland before you can say haole, you mother-fucker."
He storms into headquarters and doesn't look back.
It's eight-fifteen. So much for that anger business.
"What'd you do to bossman?"
Danny looks up from the paperwork, notice how it's just paperwork and not his paperwork, only to find Kono looking at him like he made a deal with Poseidon to get rid of all the waves in the entire world.
"What?"
Kono wrinkles her forehead and crosses her arms. "Steve won't give me hand to hand because he's grumpy and he wasn't grumpy when I left him last, asshole."
"Who you callin'—"
"You," she says, cocking her hip and snarling at him. "I'm calling you an asshole! He was fine when we met up to catch some waves at dawn, next thing I know, you're hauling into HQ like someone pissed on your malasades and Steve looks like you took away his rocket launcher. I know how he feels about his rocket launcher, Danny. He really loves that thing."
Danny hates this. He hates how Kono is unafraid of anyone. He hates how she reads people so well, better than Chin, and just storms into anyone's office to push her way into their personal business. Chin? He's a wait-and-see sort of cop. He's the kind who's right there and ready to save your ass, look at you smugly while you get a bandage wrapped around your face and say, "I told you so." Kono? She's not that kind of cop. She's the kind of cop who breaks into your house and lies in wait, pouncing on you when you've turned out the lights and you're only wearing your underwear. She's as if fear didn't exist and then someone gave it breasts.
"Leave it alone, Kono," Danny says tiredly. He's got a fucking headache that mountains of caffeine couldn't cure. "Just—listen, it's not my fault McGarrett's in a mood. Does it look like I care? Does it look like I give a damn about him right now? No. Why? Because I'm doing his damn paperwork for the hundredth time, trying to figure out colorful euphemisms for tortured at the hands of the state and I'm too fucking busy to notice or, you know care, if your crazy-buddy is not feeling like playing with you today, kiddo."
Silence greets him. Danny feels his eyebrow twitch.
"Kono—"
"No. It's fine," she says, voice as cold as steel. "I'll do the fucking paperwork, Williams."
Before he can open his mouth and apologize, she's grabbing half of the papers on his desk and tearing through the door like she's going to beat the truth out of a perp with those papers, stuff them down someone's throat and then go in to get them with a sharp hook normally used to kill sharks.
She slams her own office door and Danny puts his head down on the desk.
He attempts to breathe.
Chin appears at his door not twenty minutes later.
"Is there something wrong?"
Danny looks up from his cold cup of coffee. "I did a thing."
"A thing?"
Danny pinches the bridge of his nose and leans back in his chair. Chin is leaning against the doorjamb like nothing is wrong, even though Danny is 100% sure he stopped by Kono's office and got shouted at.
"Yes," Danny sighs out. "I did a thing and now I'm in trouble."
Chin squints. "Do you... want to talk about it?"
"Absolutely not."
Danny loves that Chin looks relieved. Even with all of Chin's family baggage and Internal Affairs constantly breathing down his neck for one thing or another, Chin is a relatively balanced human being. It's a beautiful thing to behold.
There are a few beats of silence before Chin taps his foot on the ground and says, "I've got a thing."
"Does it involve the beach?" Because Danny doesn't think his fragile mental state could take the beach right now.
"No."
"Hit me."
Chin shrugs. "Couple years back, guy raped and assaulted a friend of mine and then skipped town before we could get a warrant."
"Bastard," Danny murmurs. Chin nods.
"He just showed back up, hanging out at his old haunt like I would forget."
"Dumb bastard."
"Wanna go pick him up?"
Danny looks down at the paper work on his desk. It's not going to do itself. Then again, it's been sitting here for a couple of weeks and no one has been breaking down his door for it. He looks at his cold cup of coffee and then back at Chin, who arches an eyebrow.
"He's a rapist?"
"Nasty, smug son-of-a-bitch, brah."
"He doesn't have a thing for explosives? Is he a terrorist? Or, I dunno, does he have fire that comes out his eyes or anything remotely psycho other than he doesn't know that no means no? Which, believe me, is enough."
Chin grins. "He's just a perp, Danny—just a nasty bastard that has it coming."
"Chin Ho Kelly, you are a good man."
Danny stands up, throws his coffee into the trash and grabs his keys.
"I'm driving," Danny says sternly but Chin is already out the door.
A good ol'fashioned perp who needs to be roughed up and brought in? This is exactly what Danny needs. Just... police work. Not talking about his feelings. Not getting grenades thrown at him. Not riding in a car with Steve or getting a lecture from Kono.
If he walks a little faster by the other offices on his way out, he doesn't notice it.
The bust is routine. Gloriously routine.
"Is there a window in there?" Danny asks as he checks the door knob of the bathroom.
"Don't think so," Chin responds, looking around the bar and clearing most of the patrons out with a casual nudge of his gun in their direction.
"How do you think this is gonna end for you?" Danny yells into the bathroom. "You gotta come out eventually and let me tell you pal, I've got nowhere to be. I could sit here all damn day and wait to shoot your ass, or you could come out now and I'll only let Kelly punch you once or twice for being a lousy human being."
"Fuck you!"
Danny nods. "I see where you're coming from but I'm not really interested in what you got to offer. Did you see what I did there? No means no, Mr. Davidson. No means no. Now, if you understand this, then you'll come out and go to prison like a good little bastard. If you don't understand what it means when a fine little lady like myself says no, then you should just stay in there and we'll reiterate the lesson."
There is a frustrated pause and then Danny feels Chin's presence beside him.
"You sure feel like talking now," Chin mutters, a smile plastered on his face as he nods to the door handle, which is jiggling.
"Are we doing this now? Is this going to be a thing? Because let me clue you in on something, Kelly, I pay a guy to listen to my problems and not judge me. So, I don't really need to do this. Also, I'm holding a gun and I've already got so many things that I don't really need one with you."
"Hey lady, you're the one projecting here," Chin says before he kicks down the door and tackles Mr. Davidson, who is howling like a madman, to the ground.
Somehow, Danny gets a boot and an elbow to the chest during the ensuing scuffle but it's enough to make him ignore the excessive force Chin uses when installing the cuffs. If Davidson pees blood for a few days, it's the least he can suffer for giving Danny a nasty bruise blooming on his sternum. He doesn't bother to look at it as they drag the perp down to HPD's headquarters but he can feel it and he knows it's going to be pretty ugly. Luckily, it means he won't have to go to the beach with Rachel and Step-Stan this weekend. Unexplained bruises suspiciously shaped like a rapist's boot tend to make Gracie frown—although it's the most adorable frown in the entire world—and that means he can wear his suit and his tie to the beach to pick up his daughter, instead of having to spend a morning watching Rachel and Stan hold hands and skip in the sparkling sunlight.
He rubs his chest all the way back to Five-0 headquarters, sharing a satisfied grin with Chin and not, not, thinking about what awaits him back inside.
Rachel's ringtone blares from his pocket and yes, he realizes it's a sign of just how sad it is that he would rather take her phone call than step in to deal with Kono and Steve—but give him a break, okay? Kono is scary and Steve... well, Steve's face is not something Danny can deal with right now. A man's got to have limits, alright?
"I'll be in after I'm done," Danny mutters but Chin's already rolling his eyes.
"You're a coward!"
Danny laughs, leaning back on the Camaro. "Kono's been sharpening her knives, Kelly. Don't patronize me! I just caught bad-guys with you."
Chin laughs, waving him off and disappears into HQ just as Danny answers the phone.
"What do I owe the pleasure of this surely—"
"Danno!"
He grins, stupid and happy because, hey, his little girl is cute. "Gracie, my darling, my light, my life! How was school?"
"Totally epic."
Danny frowns. "Is that a word you learned from Tommy? Because, babe, I've got a feeling that Tommy isn't so smart. In fact, I know he's not. He's probably lost all his brain cells from surfing at too young an age. You hear me?"
"Daaaad," Grace drawls, whining and excited. "Guess what happened today?"
"Alright, alright. Did you work on your spelling?"
"Spelling is boring. This is better."
Danny scuffs his shoe against a rock and hums, hamming it up for Grace. "What in the world is better than spelling, my dear?"
"Mr. Hoppy and another bunny wrestled!"
You know when you know, beyond all doubt, that something bad is going to happen but you can't see which direction it's coming from?
"They wrestled?"
"Yeah! Mr. Hoppy was playing in his pen when someone brought another bunny. Her name was Abby and Mr. Hoppy didn't like her so he tackled her and wrestled her to the ground," Gracie said, excitedly, as if she was giving him a play-by-play of the latest Yankees game.
"Whoa. Okay? Listen, Mr. Hoppy clearly has aggression issues—"
"Dannnnoooo, Steve said if I don't like someone I should just tell him and he'll take care of them. He meant tackling didn't he? Dad, Steve is so cool."
And that is exactly what Danny needs right now, the image of Steve tackling someone to the ground and humping them. This is why children shouldn't have pets. Ever. She's probably scarred for the rest of her life and years down the line, Danny's going to explain just what kind of wrestling Mr. Hoppy was doing and totally ruin her innocence.
"Gracie, baby girl, Steve is not cool. Steve is a maniac. Steve thinks tackling is appropriate because nobody hugged him or gave him rabbits as a child," Danny said firmly. "Also, if anyone will be tackling anyone, especially that little twerp Tommy, it's going to be me."
"Nobody hugged him? Danno," Gracie says, seriously, completely ignoring Danny's last comment, "you should hug Steve more. You give the best hugs."
His heart! God, what she does to his heart!
"I think Steve would like getting hugs from you better," he says, because what else is there to say? Of course he wants to hug Steve! Hell, he wants to tackle him to the ground Mr. Hoppy-style too but that's neither here nor there. His daughter, apparently, has a thing for wounded souls and strays.
"When I come over this weekend, can we hang out with Steve?"
Danny wants to say no. He wants to say that Steve is the last man he wants to see on his days off and that no, Steve will not encroach on his father-daughter bonding moments. But that would all be a lie. Danny doesn't like lying to his daughter. That's gross. That's what bad fathers do—lie to their children and totally damage them from ever having appropriate displays of feelings for the rest of their lives. (Mary and Steve are so screwed up. They're like the model of all things Danny doesn't want his Gracie to be when she grows up.)
"Sure, babe. I'll ask him and we'll do something fun," Danny says, sighing in defeat.
"And you'll hug him?"
She sounds so hopeful, so sure that hugs could cure Steve—hell, that they could cure Danny—that he says yes. Why? Because he loves his daughter. Also? He's a masochist and it's been a long time since he's called his mother to cry but hey, this weekend is as good as any time to weep to your mother about your insane life on islands where she refuses to vacation. His ma is still bitter about not being able to see Gracie all the damn time.
"Yeah, Gracie. I'll hug him. He'll probably need us both to hug him after I get done with him," Danny says, making his way across the parking lot and into the building.
"Is Steve being naughty again?"
Danny cringes. "Babe, do me a favor? Don't say that word again, it makes it sound like your grandma-England."
She giggles across the line. "Don't be mean to Steve. He's not as good at following the rules as you are, Danno."
He's smiling, soft and soppy and totally hating his daughter for being so right, even when she has no idea what's going on. She's perfect. He can't believe they're related she's so fucking perfect.
The smile slides right off his face as soon as he can see into the main room of HQ.
"Gracie, I got to go."
"To catch the bad guys?"
"Yeah, babe—Danno's got to save the world," he says warily but Gracie doesn't seem to notice. She cheerily signs off and Danny is left with the scene in front of him.
Danny looks at the way Kono is throwing knives. Normally, this would just be creepy instead of scary but she's throwing them in the general direction of Steve and she's got her bitch face on. It's the face she wears when tackling 300-pound gun runners—all blank faced rage and crazy eyes that she most definitely learned from Steve.
Technically, Steve totally deserves to get knives thrown at him. There are so many reasons. So many.
He proceeds with caution.
"What do you mean it was an accident?" Kono pauses, knife in her hand as Steve, calm as can be, just stands there.
"Um, it was an accident?"
Kono whirls around to face Danny, throwing up her hands (which, for the record are still waving around a fucking knife that looks like it could butcher wild hogs from sight alone) and making this scrunched up face that says, Can you believe this guy?. Danny tries to look affronted, mostly he's just terrified he'll get knifed by accident, but it seems to satisfy Kono, who turns her wrath back onto Steve. Danny is assuming that they're ignoring the little incident from this morning. Thank fuck.
"An accident? How do you fuck someone accidentally?"
Aaaand there goes all the thanks he has. Danny thinks he might stroke out.
Kono? She doesn't give a shit. Steve is still cool as a cucumber, staring death in the face and probably winking at it.
Danny is scared for him. He can admit that. He's a big enough man.
"Kono—"
"Seriously, did he trip and fall on your dick? I'm having a problem with the logistics here, Commander."
Danny blinks, the room going stark white for a moment because he's having a godforsaken aneurysm right the fuck now.
Steve tilts his head, face SEAL-blank and emotionless, as if he's considering the answer and not, you know, thinking about ways to disarm his crazed protegee. Danny starts to hyperventilate a little. Mostly because having this conversation with Steve is something that Danny has been avoiding and he really, really does not want to watch Steve die by the hands of Kono. She's messy and even though Danny would really like it if Steve went away so that he wouldn't have to deal with the complete and total way his dick wants inside that man—he doesn't think murder is the answer.
It's a little extreme. God, his life is a little extreme.
"Come on," Kono says snidely. "Tell me how you accidentally fuck my first boyfriend. Did he fall off his fucking surfboard and land on your dick?"
The moment before Steve opens his mouth, Danny knows it's going to be terrible. He's got this face—this face that says, Look at me! I'm an adorable puppy and I'm going to piss in your shoes. RIGHTNOW.
"Technically, I'm the one who tripped onto his—"
Thank God for Chin Ho Kelly, who comes into the room and tackles Kono to the ground before the rage can fully transform and transduce into throwing the knife at Steve's smug face. Kono is kicking as Chin tries to get the knife out of her grip but she's not putting up a real fight. Mostly, they just wrestle on the ground for a while as Kono whines and says things like: I wasn't gonna kill him, cuz and Bossman deserved it. Danny watches in shock as Steve, insane adrenaline junkie from hell, removes the knives from the doorframe and takes a call on his phone, looking a bit sheepish but otherwise blank.
Like this was a non-event.
Danny turns, walks back into his office and crawls underneath the desk to process.
It's clear that denial, although efficient for most, isn't going to work this time. Danny is going to have to re-evaluate and... evolve.
Or something.
"What the fuck." Danny says into his knees and slowly lets his mind go over what exactly just happened.
Thankfully, criminals don't stop committing crimes simply because three-fourths of the Governor’s task force is barely restraining themselves from murdering each other. An AmberAlert goes up on North Shore just as the radio silence breaks, crackling to life and announcing two officers down at a possible arson scene. Kono takes the missing kid, jumping into an SUV and speeds off with only a few terse glances at Steve. (Danny is not thinking about Ben, Kono's first boyfriend, who apparently went gay for Steve a couple of times. He does not think about it at all.) The three of them head out to the parking lot to grab vehicles to pursue the probable cop-killing. Danny thinks about asking to ride bitch with Chin but is saved from actually opening his mouth when Steve jumps into his truck, mutters something about the Governor and speeds off, taking the corner on two wheels.
"Slow down you fucking freak!" Danny yells, because he can't help himself.
Chin raises an eyebrow and Danny throws up his hands in defeat.
"He wasn't even wearing a seatbelt," Danny mutters, slipping into the driver's seat and pulling out with Chin laughing in his rearview mirror.
"I hope you eat bugs."
Chin secures the two officers, waiting on the ambulance and watching the front of the house. Danny goes around the back of the blazing fire, he's not going in there because he's sane and not flame retardant but he wants to at least make an effort here.
He comes around the corner only to get clocked in the knee, his good one, by a man so old that one good gust of wind looks like it'd kill him. He's down, clutching his knee and cursing as the old man swings back the baseball bat to hit him again.
Lucky for Danny, because the universe takes pity on his soul, the guy sees the flash of his badge and pulls up short.
"Police?" He asks in heavily accented English, before gesturing to the house and starting to yell.
"Thank Christ," Danny mumbles, waiting for his knee to start turning colors.
This day, this fucking day.
The EMT makes fun of him the entire time. The fire department says it's probably arson and they're all looking at each other like it's going to be a long week. They really have no idea. Apparently, this type of arson is more in tune with the style of serial arsonists—like serial killers except with fire. Danny wants to know who in the world doesn't want to burn down old man Koi's house because he is one mean bastard.
He stares down at his knee and winces. It's turning a deep shade of purple that will be black tomorrow.
"You're lucky it wasn't your bad knee," the EMT says calmly. "You'd have to have surgery."
"I'm feeling real lucky right now," Danny replies, deadpan.
The EMT shrugs before walking off to make sure the two officers with bad smoke inhalation are doing alright, leaving Danny with a bag of quickly melting ice on his knee.
The scene is general pandemonium, fire still smoldering and people gawking behind the police tape. Danny scans the crowd a little, trying to remember faces. Seems these type of perps like to watch the drama unfold afterwards, which bodes well for Danny because that means they are smug psychos and isn't that just what he needs right now?
Eventually, the painkillers they give him kick in and he can walk, aided by cane, with minimal shooting, stabby pain to his knee. He finds Chin and gets an HPD officer to record the faces of the crowd, collecting cameras and phones for good measure.
"Got a text from Kono, said it's all clear on her side," Chin says and Danny shakes his head.
"I guess we better go back and see if they've killed each other yet."
Chin squints at him. "Brah, my money is on Kono."
Danny has HPD take Chin's bike back to HQ and makes him drive the Camaro.
Danny expects to get to HQ and find just rubble where it used to stand. In the place of carnage, he finds Kono and Steve eating shave ice and cleaning guns together, smiling at each other every so often and being completely buddy-buddy.
"Whoa, did I miss something?"
Kono looks up from where she's cleaning a rifle to frown at him.
"You miss a lot of things, brah," she says a little coldly. And yes, that means her earlier reprieve about this morning is gone with her aggression toward Steve, leaving Danny confused and a little miffed that Steve got off with only knife throwing. Kono will probably keep this grudge for a good two weeks and possibly try to drown him during their next surfing lesson.
"You get the kid?" Chin says, coming out of nowhere like he has ninja training. "Because we've got a potential serial arsonist."
Kono and Steve's eyes light up. Danny needs another painkiller.
"Yeah," Steve says, "the kid is safe. What's this about an—"
Danny holds up his hand, leaning on his cane. "Can we just, back up a bit here? Please? For the sake of my sanity. I mean, I understand that you all have emotional issues, deep seated emotional issues that will keep the shrinks of this island in business until the day you all stop getting lucky and actually get yourselves killed. But me? I'm not like that. I need closure."
Kono scrunches up her face like closure has personally offended her. Steve blinks, perplexity crossing his face like Danny just told him it's snowing outside.
Danny sighs. "You were throwing knives at Steve this morning and now, you guys are—" He wraps his middle and pointer finger together, holds them up in the air and shakes them.
She shrugs and reassembles her gun with a few flicks of her wrist, bumping her shoulder against Steve's. "I was being a hypocrite and bossman was being an ass. We got over it. You want to talk about our feelings, Jersey? Because that's workplace harassment."
"You, both of you, know nothing about workplace harassment," Danny objects. Danny has been too afraid to schedule the trainings.
"Danny, everything is fine," Steve says, striping a Glock in no time and smiling, toothily. "We worked it out."
Danny looks at Chin, who just grins back like this is normal, acceptable behavior. Danny wants to shoot him for taking this in stride. He really does. Why? Because then someone would be suffering at just about the same level as he is and that might make him feel marginally better about his life.
"Why do I get the feeling that worked it out means there are bullet holes somewhere I can't see and someone got punched in the face?" Danny sasses backs because seriously? Come on.
Kono pouts. "I only hit him once. Plus, we're even now."
With that, they both look mildly uncomfortable.
Chin starts laughing and Danny feels so out of the loop, more so than normal, and doesn’t like the feeling one bit.
"What? What! What is happening right now?" He says to Chin but Chin just nods to Kono.
"You finally told him?"
She swipes at her nose, like a gangster thug, and shrugs. "Hey, it happens, alright."
"What happens?"
Kono looks from Chin to Danny, back to Steve and then stands up. "I banged his sister. I do chicks sometimes, it happens."
All Danny can hear is white noise. He needs to go back to his office and make some lists to make solid sense of anything that has happened today. He needs paper and a pen and—
"You alright, brah?"
But Danny doesn't have time to reply before Chin is high-fiving Kono and saying, "I'm feeling left out, cuz. I'm the only one here without a homo-agenda. It's like we're the queer crime-fighting team and I'm that boring straight guy no one likes."
Danny wants to kill Chin. He really does because Chin's doing that thing, where he's already figured something out that no one else has and he's been keeping it to himself, until it slips out. Of course Chin is clued in on Danny's issue with Steve and the wanting and the cocks and the feelings but because Chin is a good man, he's been keeping it to himself. Now, now he's airing Danny's dirty laundry in front of everyone and Danny needs to kill someone or make a list—like yesterday.
Kono is laughing, completely missing Chin's slip up and is making jokes about gay super heroes while doing some sort of cuz-ritual with Chin that Danny supposes means that he's proud of her. When Danny chances a glance at Steve, he's got his Constipated Hamster face on and Danny's 95% sure he's been made like fucking Minute Maid.
"So," Kono says, looking between Danny's unmoving body and Steve's face. "Serial arsonist?"
Chin clears his throat. "Yeah, and an 93 year old Japanese man with one hell of a swing."
Danny cringes and pulls up his trouser leg, then all hell breaks loose.
By the time Steve has stopped hollering, Danny is all but duck-taped to a wheelchair that he's fairly sure Steve stole from someone who really needs it because the man is a crazy person. There is probably some elderly man or woman who has just been traumatized and will now go to an early grave having been assaulted by a gun-toting SEAL.
"Can I just say, once again, that I am perfectly fine?"
Danny gets no response. Steve has been lecturing Chin about no brah left behind, brah for a solid twenty minutes after having a complete and total meltdown about Danny's knee. (He's ignoring the gentle way Steve's calloused fingers had palpated his tender bruise and what that did to Danny's chest. He's ignoring the way Steve is freaking out because he cares, looking like a wounded puppy when he tries to connect the dots and blame himself for the old Japanese man's affinity for baseball bats and a swing first, ask questions later attitude. He's ignoring all of it because he's had more than one revelation today and he really just wants to go home, drink a beer and forget where he lives.)
Kono is combing through the video footage from the arson scene because she's still mad at Danny (don't even get him started) and has lost interest in anything that has to do with him.
It's six o'clock, he's hungry and in pain and no one is really speaking to him.
It takes him a little while but he slowly rolls his wheelchair into his office and closes the door, shutting out the noise of Chin and Steve (still talking but Danny has lost the thread of their conversation) and Kono's frowny-thinking face (which shouldn't be noisy but is because she's Kono). He sighs, thinks about all the list he's going to make in the privacy of his own home and falls asleep, too exhausted and blissed out on painkillers to move to the couch.
To the promised porn.