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[haole_cop]

 "Now it's my crime scene."

Those could have been, should have been, the last words he heard from McGarrett, and in a kinder world, they might have been, but the world hates Danny Williams, and he's not exactly feeling all that generous towards it, himself, so he's honestly not even a little surprised when the authoritative rap on his door comes attached to a too-tall, too-broad, too-aggressive Navy SEAL with revenge on the mind and Daddy issues from here back to the boardwalks of Wildwood.

He hates him. 

Because of this joker, he's home in the middle of the day, instead of at work, work, he might point out, where he's attempting to catch the guy who did this to McGarrett, Sr., which is normally what the child of a murder victim wants, right? They want the cops to do their damn job and haul the dirtbag in for justice.

They don't storm in and take over like it's their goddamn platoon out in fucking Afghanistan.

Except McGarrett, okay, he doesn't seem to have gotten the memo. There's a reason officers don't get involved if the deceased was a family member, and this is exactly why: it makes people angry, irrational.

(He hopes to hell this is McGarrett being irrational.)

It's too close, too personal -- and it's also not his case anymore, so he's got no idea why McGarrett, shirt sticking to his skin from the soaking rain that just hit, because it rains every goddamn day here, what a fucking miracle, Hallelujah, is standing on his doorstep, because it isn't that.

(And it's not that either, he refuses, it's not happening, and there's no possible way this whackjob noticed. It could be he doesn't even have a timer, or got his blown off while single-handedly stopping an insurrection with a couple of grenades and a can-do attidtude.)

So he just stands and waits, with one hand still on the doorknob, ready to slam it shut just as soon as possible.

 

Comments

[haole_cop]

"This is going really well."

It's mostly to himself, though, quiet, because he gets it. Okay? He does. He knows exactly what it must be like to be forced out of the force, accused. Whether Kelly did it or not isn't the point. When the people who are supposed to have your back against everything and anything accuse you of betraying their trust and the trust of everyone you protect, it's gotta hurt.

He remembers Peterson, the denials, the bargaining, the attempts to coax Danny onto his side. There's none of any of that, here: just a man who desperately wants a chance to do exactly the thing he can't do anymore.

So, yeah. Really well.

[thebesteverseen]

That aside isn't to him. But it might as well be. It smacks just as hard as the squeal of the chair had. The gnawing, exploding thing in his gut that can't have another dead end. He can't. He needs this too much, and the person with the skills and contacts to make this happen is two steps away. And there has to be a way through the maze of his bitterness and the HPD's hovering judgement.

Which really only makes one thing important, if this is the very last second of a chance he has, and he lets it fall.

"Did you take the money?"

He can hear the way Chin's voice went iced with surprise, like he just stomped on a grave without hesitating. And he did. It's part of why he holds. Fingers laced a long second, to not look too desperate. As desperate as he really is. As everything crawling up his spine is. It's a decided turn, starting the question, without even looking at Chin yet.

"Did you--" He pressed on the word as his eyes slide to Chin's face suddenly. "-take the money."

Chin took a step back, face gone to a shattered spot beyond certain, and voice rough, headed toward cracking, when he said, "No."

Steve shoved out of his chair, leaning on it, the impulse that said this was right. "Then come with us." That nothing about anything Chin had said or done since this morning had given him a second of doubt. "And we don't need to talk about this again." Not today. Not at any point that he'd met and interacted with Chin when he was younger either. "Ever." He wouldn't drag it out to trip Chin up. He wouldn't let Danny.

The fact Chin stood, eyes shining, squinting at him, trying to make sense of Steve or what Steve was saying, made him push right on, too, even as he kept his voice steady. "This is your ticket back into the game. Call it payback. Call it whatever you want. I don't care. But I need you." And he did, and he wouldn't lie about that. Not when the man looked like this, had been raked over so completely already, and the offer had come out of realizing what a resource he could be.

"How do you know you can trust me?"

Because he had to, and, when it came down to it -- "Because my old man did."

Because, even Chin said earlier this morning, his dad had always stuck by him. Even after HPD's decision.
His dad was a lot of things, but generous beyond reason was nowhere in the list where it came to family or coworkers.

[haole_cop]

He wonders if Steve actually, truly, in his heart, believes that if he says something with enough conviction, other people will start believing it, too. He wonders if Steve honestly thinks he can make things happen, just by wanting them hard enough.

The thing is, he's not sure he can come up with any solid proof that it isn't working.

He's only known the guy for a few hours, but this is the second time he's seen him railroad someone into working with him; pinpointing their motivation and skewering them with it. It worked on Danny, and it's working on Chin Ho Kelly.

Who does, actually, have a choice that Danny didn't have, but who is standing there, struck, staring at Steve, and Danny can't say he can blame the guy, right? Like, is he for real?

Just dropping the stigma of an inquiry into Chin's character and morals and job performance. Saying it doesn't matter, when Danny knows it's the reason the man left his fifteen-year, stellar career, is the thing behind the hunger and the calm desperation in his face, the bitterness in his laughter. Standing there, straight-shouldered and easy, the solution to everyone's problems. Snapping his fingers and just making it happen.

Making the world shift.

He wonder if that's a usual thing around Steve McGarrett, the complete uprooting of reality. Steve striding in and changing the whole game, lifting the players, breaking all the rules. He should hate it. It should unsettle the hell out of him.

So how come he's finding himself starting to feel some begrudging respect?

It's not like any of this is going to stay, is it? Maybe Steve said he'd transfer to the Reserves and take on this...what, task force, but once they've got Hesse, he'll go back and so will Danny and Chin, right? How far does this ticket actually take them? It's not actually enough to hope for anything, is it? Just because Steve says so, just because Steve is calling it a way back into the game, that doesn't make it one.

Right?

Chin seems wary, too, but unlike Danny, he seems to know when a fight's been lost, and breaks eye contact first, shaking his head in something like wry disbelief. "Okay," he says, after a second. "I'll talk to him for you. But I warn you: the man knows how to bargain, and information won't come cheap."

[thebesteverseen]

"When does it ever," Steve says, letting something of a bare curve touch his mouth even if it couldn't be called a smile.

The kind of thing here, and then gone, like a flash of light on water or metal. Relief and triumph and gratitude here and then, gone. Because it means that they have a direction. Another person to slide into Danny's car, or follow them. But a possible solid direction, too. Someone who might know where the Snakeheads that brought in the kid and Hesse could be found. They've got Chin, and Chin's got the next step up the ladder.

Besides it's not like every agency out there wouldn't slap down a handful to find Hesse.

If that was all it took. Which it won't be. But it's one more step in the right direction of finding the bastard and bringing him in. Here, on American soil, even though they've played chase around the entire world for five years and an endless score of horrors better left between the untouched sides of another folder somewhere. Costs money couldn't even touch.

"Let's go, then." Steve said, barely looking away from Chin's face, while the man still seemed to be testing if this was real.

"I need to tell them I'll need the rest of the day." Certain, even in that way that makes his uncertainty clear. He's not rocking the boat on what he has for the thing he's not positive is even possible, even with Steve standing there, waiting, unmoving, mind made up and not about to change for anything. "I'll meet you two out front."

[haole_cop]

Chin gives Steve a tight, almost curt nod, and slides a glance at Danny, but before Danny can define it or start translating it, the man's headed past him, back to the security office they found him in, shoulders tense and hands fisting at his sides.

Danny's getting up as he heads past, and he watches him for a second, eyebrows raised, while he wanders his way over to Steve, one hand in his pocket, the other swinging idly at his side. "That is a man with zero job satisfaction."

It would be a bad idea to question Steve's decision, right now. He knows it, and, honestly, he's not sure he wants to try. Sure, it's a bad story -- it always is, when a cop is accused and drummed out of the force -- but it's not like HPD's given Danny much reason for loyalty or blind, close-minded belief. Maybe Chin didn't take the money. Maybe he's on the outs with HPD, just like Danny is, for no good reason at all, other than that they're a bunch of bigoted, close-minded assholes with a talent for banding together against anyone who doesn't march in step with the rest of them.

So he doesn't argue it, or bring it up. He's got his own suspicions, but there's no instinct screaming red lights and sirens in his brain and gut that Chin's a bad egg, and they do need him. "You have anymore misfit toys to pick up today, or are we done? Because I have to warn you, my car only seats so many, and you already take up about a third of the available cab space."

[thebesteverseen]

Danny's talking to himself, or Steve, and Steve lets him ramble.

It's starting to be a common denominator background noise whenever there is a pause in the world. Like being able to to hear the waves no matter where he is. Danny Williams. Talking. Too. The first comment doesn't really have to be answered. Not when they're watching Chin walk away, and Steve's not promising any of them that either. But Danny is sidling up toward him, from a corner, and getting Steve to look over, saying those words that are to him.

Just proving once again he really has no idea where the things that come out of Danny's mouth do, and it almost makes him want to throw something back. Banter the way he might have with any of his men when not in the middle of a mission hot seat. That sideways consideration, near amusement, raking up residence in the odd once over he gives Danny, and the way his mouth curves crookedly up on one side.

Because the real answer is as many as it takes. To bring Hesse to justice. To bring his Father to justice.

"Don't worry about it," Steve tossed out, too dry for light or silly, but there was a snap of wit in it as he was nodding the direction he started walking. Out of the cantina, with its large, block letters of Remember Pearl Harbor, headed back toward the parking lot they'd just come from. "If we run out of space, you're small enough you could fit in the trunk. Easy."

[haole_cop]

He laughs.

It's almost a reflex, it feels so natural, until he remembers after a second that he hates Steve, and that Steve is actively trying to ruin his life and/or get him killed, and hasn't shown any signs of a sense of humor or any human feelings at all, but he can't help it. He does laugh.

It's short and amused by way of sarcastic and dry, but it's there, hand shoving first into his pocket as they walk before it lifts out again and swings through the air, fingertips brushing the sleeve of Steve's shirt. "Don't think for even one second that you are going to get anywhere near the driver's seat of my car, McGarrett. You can get out and walk, if it gets too crowded."

[thebesteverseen]

There's that laugh again. The second time. Surprising enough, it makes Steve look back toward him, connecting that sound to the car, and his daughter, and then again to this moment. When it's short and sarcastic, but it's actually there for a moment, and it makes Danny something like...human. Warmer. Less like a rabid piranha attacking at the slightest hint of provocation for any bit of skin on a hand held out toward him.

Steve's not really even entirely through the thought when Danny is digging in his pocket and then reaching out to smack his arm. Giving him an unexpected view of a long set of zeroes on Danny's wrist, even while his own mouth is curving more freely this time. Because Danny actually took a god forsaken joke as a god forsaken joke, and he can wonder if Danny is one those cases that proved Fates' promise crumbles to dust like everything else on this small, swiftly spinning, planet.

But he doesn't entirely want to lose the slippery step toward whatever this is.

It wasn't like he'd shove Danny into the back of the actual car except under dire circumstances.

But dire circumstances had a whole lot less rules and options attached to them. And they weren't anywhere near there yet.

"What?" Steve tipped his head upward, quick fast like a question. Mouth pulling tight, even as his eyes glinted with the smile his mouth didn't step near. "You afraid I'll show it how it's meant to be driven, and it'll never come back again. It's a sweet car." Which is something like a compliment. To the type of car. Of course. "Deserves to be used how it was designed to be used."

[haole_cop]

"I realize you probably got to play with all the really great toys while being all Black Hawk Down on the far side of the world, but, please, believe me when I say this: you don't get to touch my car. And I am an excellent driver."

He fishes his keys out of of his pocket, lets them jingle as they walk back down the blacktop to the parking lot, steps jaunty, and he's actually feeling a little less like murdering everyone on sight, which is a definite step up for him today.

And Steve -- Steve is actually loosening up. A little. A very little, okay, it's still basically like trying to bend a steel pipe into a pretzel shape, but every now and then, like just now, a slight crack in the facade appears. So maybe he's not just a tin soldier, then. Maybe he actually is human, with thoughts beyond revenge and how to most efficiently clear a jammed gun.

Danny's still not sure he's buying the line of zeros on his wrist, but it's a start.

[thebesteverseen]

"Already touched it," slides out of Steve's mouth faster than even he was expecting.

He rolls, the hell, with it. Because he's not about to be caught flat footed by his own mouth.

But it happened about on par with the second when he was having the thought itself. Just another volley to send over the wall, toward those keys being shaken in the air. Like he doesn't take in Danny's height and steps for a second, like an actual consideration, in the back of his mind, of how easy to would be to reach out, and snap then. Like a quick strike. He doesn't. But the assessment still plays out in his head.

Yeah, sure, maybe its grade school appropriate as responses go, but for a moment what it does is actually make him miss his men. Pokes the door so unexpectedly where that festering black stone in black of his heart and the back of his gut hides. Makes him miss Freddie. Wide smiling, always joking, son of a bitch. But that's too close, too real, too recent, too. Everything going still and cold the next second. Making him look back toward the buildings, for any sight of Chin, for the promise they can get rolling, keep rolling, back on schedule, staying on task, on the job, rolling toward Hesse.

[haole_cop]

"Fine. You don't get to drive it. That specific enough for you, wiseass?"

The Mustang is still sitting where they left it, heatwaves radiating in gentle wavering lines off its hood and roof, gray paint dully reflecting back the sun. It's not quite the silver he wants it to be, and it's not the newest model or anything, but it's fast and it's gruff and he likes it, and no, it is not going to be driven by anyone other than him.

Not now. Not ever, until he sells it, on the off chance that he might ever be able to afford a better car.

It definitely won't be handed over to the lunatic who stole Danny's crime scene and kidnapped him into partnership, okay, that's for sure.

He's just at the car, leaning a hip against the trunk door, as footsteps sound, and Chin Ho Kelly appears, steps quick and purposeful. "It's not far," he says, as he comes into earshot, before nodding to a sleek motorcycle parked nearby. "You guys okay with following?"

[thebesteverseen]

Steve's look toward Danny, pressed lips and barely a tug left at the corner of his mouth, is some far more like bare acknowledgement that the man spoke at all more than any kind of reaction to the words anymore. He needs to close this case. He needs to do it for both of them. Losing Freddie to Anton's capture, and his dad to Hesse's blackmail move. He knows he's too close, but he's one of the few who has been here for the last straight five years. One of only a few who might be able to not miss anything.

All the same he's grateful Chin finally reappears, striding across the parking, a lot, Steve can't help noting without any change to his face this time, like someone escaping. As much as he wouldn't compare this security job, waiting outside the Arizona, to a sinking ship, there's probably nothing about it that could hold Steve here for five minutes, no less a few years. If Chin's been here for years. It's not like Steve has the time to get his hands on even an employment file for Chin and know where he's been, what he's been up to.

He's going on gut and need this time. The means and the connections the man can make over the facts laid out.

"Yeah, we're good," Steve answered for Danny, in the middle of raising his eyebrows with a little surprise and compliment in it watching Chin walk toward a motorcycle. Not what he expected after that outburst, but it's so much more Hawaii in a way, too. Free and uninhibited from the elements. Even if Steve is quick to note the lack of anything looking like a helmet anywhere around the bike, themselves, or Chin's hands.

He'll just head for the passenger seat without asking, or waiting. Pulling the door open and be sliding inside. All fast, direct movement. Too aware of his blood beating through pulse points and drumming in the back of his hearing. Forward is the only direction that matters right now. Toward this CI, and the Snakeheads who smuggled the girl and Hesse on to the island. A bead on where they might be, now that Hesse'll be looking to use the same means to get off the island as soon as possible, too.

[haole_cop]

It's a cool ride, for sure, but then, it goes along with what he's seen so far of Chin Ho Kelly. Even in his absurd security guard get-up, with the tucked in polo shirt and shorts, the guy seems breezy and cool. No helmet, which is a dumb move for a cop who should know better, but he swings one leg over the bike with easy familiarity, so Danny can't say it doesn't seem like he knows what he's doing, and it's not like he's going to put on the flashers and pull him over.

Chin might not be a cop anymore, but call it a professional courtesy.

The Mustang's engine turns over with that deep guttural growl he loves so much, while Chin's bike kicks in with a roar, pulls out and away with a low purr that Danny has to say is pretty damn cool. He's always liked bikes -- who doesn't? -- but it's not like he has any complaints with his own ride.

He keeps an eye on Chin as they pull out onto the main road, chasing him along the oceanside pavement, wondering. If that no was a lie. How it all went down. Whether Chin left of his own accord, or was kicked out, or just pushed to the point where he couldn't stay anymore. "Seems like a good guy."

Steve doesn't seem like much for talking, and that's fine by Danny -- pretty much every time the guy opens his mouth it just makes Danny want to punch it -- but he's curious, and there is literally no one else to talk to.

It's got nothing to do with the line of red numbers glowing gently against his wrist. This isn't giving Steve a chance, or a break, okay, it's just trying to get through this trainwreck of a partnership in one piece. "You hear much about him from your dad?"

[thebesteverseen]

Steve couldn't really say where his head was before Danny's voice broke through. Somewhere between where he's sitting, and where he's watching Chin on the bike, and somewhere far across the world, as far as phone calls never stop being even when you're standing where the call originated.

The first words out of Danny's mouth make his line of vision slide that direction, toward the driver's seat and the man sitting in. He's really not going to go for it if Danny thinks he's anywhere above the slander that's probably been thrown around on Chin's name, and his family's. Which begs the question of how many Kelly's are even still on the force. If they had to turn tail with him, or if they're still clawing their way through.

No one liked a traitor, and most of the world couldn't give a damn about doing the good job to find out if it was true.

Which Steve didn't know. Couldn't know. Steve didn't answer those first words again, thinking about Chin's face and his outbursts. He didn't read like he was lying. Angry. Bitter. Hurt. Sure. Nowhere near letting it go however many years later it was. Yeah. Yet still capable of that wide smile this morning, and that gratitude toward his father mixed with the remorse for hearing about his murder. Had his ear to ground, or someone's ear, enough to know what was going on with his Dad's case and that Danny had been handed it.

But the question. That one stops him. Made him focus again on Chin's back in front of them, the wind rippling the fabric of that blue-green shirt as it pressed against him and he flew threw it, heading them toward the beach. "Not lately."

Is the easy answer. Because lately, or anytime in the last five to ten years, he didn't hear much from his Dad at all.

"Back when I was kid, my Dad couldn't shut up about him." It's even and flat, no hint of jealousy, because there was nothing like that in it. Then, when his dad fell into his work not to drown. Or now, when Steve udnerstood it so much better. Even if the man on the bike probably knew his father better than he ever did or could. "He was one of the rising stars of the rookies he trained."

[haole_cop]

"Yeah?"

Danny's got one hand on the steering wheel, the aching left arm relaxed at his side, hand in his lap because it hurts too much to stretch it all the way up to lean on the door, like he normally would. "I heard he was one of the best."

He doesn't add before, because it doesn't need to be added. The whole thing stinks, honestly, and he wouldn't trust HPD to back any guy who might step a little out of line. Maybe Chin accidentally pissed off a superior, or maybe he was butting heads with the higher-ups -- whatever it was, it's easy to accuse someone of taking payoffs and hard to prove it without actually finding a stash of cash or a suddenly plump bank account anywhere.

So it's none of his business. None of it. Not what Steve knew about him before, not Chin's past and definitely not Steve's, so he definitely shouldn't be asking "You knew him when you were a kid?" like it's anything he actually wants to know at all.

Goddammit.

He doesn't want to know. Wants to shove the cap on it, these questions, the ones that are slowly becoming less about Chin and more about Steve, who he is, what he was before. He doesn't need to know about Steve's childhood, or what he used to talk about with his dad. It doesn't matter, doesn't pertain to the case. Steve picked Chin, and that's good enough for him.

But he did ask. And he does, exasperation grating hard against his refusal to let any of this go past the barely speaking distance they'd sort of managed to find a truce at, want to know.

Goddammit.

[thebesteverseen]

It's like looking through a foggy glass. Not like the stupor of being drunk or battle rage, mission focus, losing it for a little while. It's like looking back through smoke and fog at a time he's spent decades not remembering, and not needing to remember, because it had no place in his life. The years after he let go it finally becoming so much easier and lighter than the ones he'd held on to them and raged helplessly about a touchable, unreclaimable, loss.

It's a different life, belonging to a different person, with a different family. There's a line in the sand and everything.

"Some." Steve hedged, looking across that line in his head. "I was young, then. There was some dinners, and seeing him at the station when I ended up there, once or twice for Dad, but it really wasn't on my radar to be watching out for what kinds of cops my Dad was rolling out on the press."

Which was true. He was a kid then. Obsessed with surfing, football, the newest cheerleader, his dreams of the Navy.

"But he'd been the last one, and he'd stuck around as my dad's partner up until his retirement."
He gaze shifted to the window and the man, again, voice shifting, just marginally.

"He said my Dad stuck by him even through everything."

Earlier. Before Steve had known exactly what everything entailed, when it was just a detail before a warning.

It wasn't that he was questioning it. If anything, it made sense. The only kind of sense his dad ever made after they crossed that line. Chin had stuck by his father through his wife's accident, sending the kids away, up until his retirement, so John stuck by him through whatever investigation and drum out Chin went through if there wasn't reasonable cause to doubt him.

[haole_cop]

"Well, good partners. That's what they do."

Stick by your side, no matter what. Always have your back.

Unless they really did betray you, and everyone you know and respect and work with.

But this isn't about Peterson, it's about Chin, and John McGarrett, and McGarrett's son, sitting here in the cab with him, trying to solve his own father's murder.

Danny's got no idea what kind of compartmentalizing ability that must take to even begin, let alone get through, but that's the kind of thing they train into SEALs that they don't into regular law enforcement officers, because regular law enforcement officers still need the ability to empathize. SEALs don't. They're weapons. He'd be better off reminding himself of that, instead of trying to figure out what amounts to a walking grenade with a pulled pin.

Except.

Except he's not sure he believes it. Not entirely. Maybe before, but -- he glances over, then back at the road -- Steve can be bruised. Steve can snap. Steve can, incredibly, even tell a joke, or get one.

So maybe, somewhere deep down, underneath all the training and the steel-jawed, stubborn fortitude, he's actually human.

[thebesteverseen]

"Supposedly." Steve turned his head, barely, to look that way, with the word.

Like he might have been making a point. Or pressure gauging the whole idea.

Might have been thinking about his saying I'm making you my partner. We're going to get along great.

It wasn't as if he hadn't had amazing men at his side and his six for over a decade now. Whether it was one other man, for a mission that never existed, and would never have a rescue from, or several platoons working in synch to handle a problem bigger than all of them, and taking more than half of them down to complete. That was what the Navy did, strung you together, standinging as one, falling as one, all for the mission and Steve supposed he could see that in the police force. If to a much smaller, and incredibly localized, degree.

But there was, also, the whole part where Danny Williams, with the yelling and the snapping, who no one had a good word about aside from his turnout and to whom no one even considered coming to the rescue of, when his face was nearly in the dirt, was talking about good partnership. In a very few words. Like he might actually have an idea of what that was like. Not in Hawaii, obviously. Though, supposedly, he didn't get on too badly with his partner. But before maybe. Since obviously he had a before.

Something that wasn't bemoaning Hawaii and living for a job where he hated everyone else working with him.

[haole_cop]

It makes him miss Grace.

Not his daughter, though he misses her on a near-constant basis, a low level thrum that's always under his skin. The woman she's named after. Grace Tilwell. Feisty, fiery, reckless Grace, with her wicked smile and unyielding sense of justice. He trusted her like she was an extension of himself, and she trusted him, too.

Look where that got her.

This is not going to be that kind of partnership, because Danny doesn't have those partners anymore. He and Meka get along fine, but they're not like two sides of the same coin, working together so seamlessly that it's like they've known each other all their lives. They don't talk about everything and anything. Sure, Danny's met the family, been over for dinner, they got out for beers, but there's always going to be a disconnect. It's not like Grace. They're friends and partners, but they're not the second or even third most important person to the other one.

Which is fine. He's not sure he wants another partnership like the one he had with Grace. They were too tight, maybe. Too close. And how many other people in the world are ever going to accept him as completely as she did?

Chin's signaling a turn, so Danny hits the blinkers, changes lanes to follow. "Well, it's good for us you know him. That was a good call."

[thebesteverseen]

It's good for them that Chin called him out this morning, but time will prove the rest of that.

There's no proof it was a good call yet. There's not enough time. Even the next situation is a big questionmark. Because it is curious if it'll work. Who the CI is. How Chin still has his ear to the ground about a lot of things. It's still a question of whether good work maybe more than a decade ago will still eek out to good work more than a decade of unused skills and festering wounds later.

Things he doesn't know. But risks he's willing to take to bring in Hesse.

Who could do worse left rampant than Chin and Danny and every one of Danny's misfit toys put together.
He's gone with so much longer odds though, and he's so close. Hesse is on this small spit of land somewhere.

But Steve's not entirely lost in his thoughts enough to realize, if several seconds late, that Danny just gave him a compliment. Light, normal, not thrown at his head, and not twisted to being mocking all over the words at the sametime, which he hasn't had a single problem with displaying so far. It makes him stay focused toward Chin over Danny. Watching the bike detour toward a beach.

Because the proof of that was still holding out, even if he could acknowledge hearing it there. The proof that still mattered more to him, even in something in just hearing it softened the edges of his mouth, even when all he said was, "Yeah. We'll see."

[haole_cop]

Well, it's a start, right? It's something. A few civil, if not actually friendly, words. Ones he didn't have to scrape up, reluctantly, and that Steve didn't immediately make him regret saying.

It's not great, but it's something. They can't waste all their energy attacking each other; it'll only make them make mistakes, and Hesse is not the kind of guy who'll wait around for the people chasing him to get their asses in gear and their priorities in order. He still doesn't like Steve, and he's pretty sure the feeling is mutual, but maybe they can at least work together.

Maybe.

Chin's pulling to a stop, parking his bike and swinging off it again in another smooth motion, while Danny pulls up nearby and parks, glancing out the window at the little shack nearby, beachfront park filled with kids and beachgoerss, squinting in the sun as he shuts the door behind him. "Waimea Shave Ice?"

[thebesteverseen]

"Could be worse." His voice has an odd dot of dry amusement, as he's snapping his belt off, getting out the car and shutting the door behind him in a smooth movement. Before he's off after Chin, already, expect Danny will follow.

It's crawling with people. That's the first thing Steve notices.

The kind of spot that has dozens on dozens of witnesses of every age and walk.

Which works well both directions really. It means no one could come straight at you here, without all those eyes. There's a modicum of safety in the utter lack of anonymity. As well as a shell of normality, soaked a place most people would visit and forget all about. Shave Ice. On the beach. Front area covered in benches, boards, and hammocks. It's a island paradise afternoon spooling out slow, with golden sun and high waves. A lot of worse places out there. Steve's would know.

"This way," Chin says when they get to him, turning to lead them up through the crowd of beach goers everywhere between them and it.

"Hey, Komekona!" Chin calls out, all loose easy shoulders, and broad smile you can hear all over his voice. Which, apparently, isn't entirely out of place. When he and the large guy behind the counter, clap hands and lean in for a shoulder bump and back slap, even through the wall and counter of the place. "Howzzit?"

"Good to see you, my bruddah." The other guy is saying as he pulls back, and Steve can helping think he blends about as well as the place. All bright, broad strokes, wide smile himself, and that powder blue shirt. That all changes, when Chin is leaning in, dropping his voice. Asking for a name, and changing everything about that face. The easy Aloha smile withering, for a look toward Steve and Danny, with an eyebrow cocked. Same with his voice, when he's nodding to the beach, and saying, serious and even this time, "They wait out there."

That's...annoying, but it's not all that surprising. Which is why Steve catches Chin's eye, when the man turns back, as though it needs relaying. But Steve is turning away , to walk off, because he doesn't really need another person to say it. He'd rather be hearing this discussion, but he'd rather have Hesse than split any hairs about how he got there. Not when there's a chance he might actually have a name.

"After they pay." Comes from over his shoulder and he turns back. That's not all that surprising either, when Steve's hands are already in his pocket, and that whale of a guy is turned back, talking to someone else in the beach shack. "Two cones. Two t-shirts. To go!"

"Medium," Steve adds, not arguing, as he pulling money off a stack he fished out of his pocket. Peeling a fifty off the pile.

"XL and up, brah," the guy -- Komekona -- is saying. Shirt stretched wide in front of him. About as wide and obvious as that glint of enjoyment he's getting from this. "My face don't fit on anything smaller."

But Chin is still smiling, so Steve doesn't feel any need to rock the boat. He folds the bills back holds them, willing to get along to get along. Sliding into words he hasn't used since getting back, since a long while back even. Short visits ages ago, his childhood. "How much kala, pupule?"

He's nodding, even though he doesn't look all that impressed. "You speak bird."

"Yeah." Easy. Natural. Falling toward something like a smile. "I grew up here."

"Doesn't matter," the guy says, with this short shake of his head. "You still look haole to me."

Steve doesn't let go of any of the words. It doesn't matter. Because it's not the first time. It's not like he didn't hear it all the time in his childhood before it wore through, thin and stupid and ultimately ignorable. Besides if a little insulting goes along with his shirt and snowcone, he can pay that too. He's not a thin skinned panty-waste who's going to take offense from a shave house shack runner, when the things on the line are more important.

He half-rolled his eyes but handed over the crisp bill. Watching the man, flatten it and look at it in his hand. "This one feels a little bit lonely, brah."

Which actually maybe does annoy him. It's more than the cost of the extortion of goods already, and he wants more for the name. Making Steve slide a sharper look at Chin, but he's half-easy, half at attention, and gives a nod, like Steve should just do as this Kamekona is saying. Like Steve wouldn't give nearly everything on himself for Hesse. Which he does. Pushes his hand in, without thinking or looking at it, handing over the rest of the cash in his hand.

Reminding himself one stack of cash for Hesse is still less than anyone else has ever paid, or had a chance to. "Cool."

But he's turning away, to go past Danny, toward the waves and sand. When that voice sounds again, smooth and smug and aloha broad even with that warning note already pinching the muscles in Steve's shoulders tight. "One more thing I need you two fine, white gentleman to do."

[haole_cop]

He's not quite sure how he got dragged into all this. Ending up standing by the Mustang, dismissed from getting any information, with a passionfruit shave ice in one hand, wearing a powder blue shirt that's about six sizes too big for him, over the button-down and tie he'd chosen this morning, with the words "Waiola Shave Ice" stamped over Kamekona's broad, beaming face.

Somehow it's Steve's fault. Right? He can make this Steve's fault.

Or maybe it's some joke between Chin and Kamekona. Humiliate the haoles, see how far they'd go to get information, and normally, okay, normally, he'd tell the big guy in the stand exactly where he can shove both this shirt and this cone, okay? It's bad enough being told to turn away, get out of earshot, but that's why they brought Chin.

But there's nothing for it. He'd held up the shirt with a skeptical expression, but a glance from Chin had him pulling it over his head, another layer in this sweltering heat, silent and resigned, while being handed a shave ice he doesn't even particularly like, okay, it's no water ice and this isn't Ocean City, but, fine. CI's need to be treated delicately, so he'll eat crow and passionfruit shave ice, and lean against the Mustang like this isn't basically the lowest point in an already crap day.

[thebesteverseen]

He's not actually eating or drinking the ice that's slowly making his fingers aware of the cold. He's not actually going to shift, and give the world the pleasure of the annoyance at the shirt. He's going to stare out at the milling people, and he's going to silently recite the top twenty scenarios that were more annoying, painful, dirty, and disgusting above this.

Maybe thirty. Or forty. Because this is peanuts compared some of the crap and hell he's been put through.

It is. Annoying, but not life threatening. Demanding his patience, even when what it has is his annoyance. Waves. People. Scenario's. Faintly cold fingers, holding an inert object he has no intention of eating. Maybe it had been something other than cotton candy. Maybe if he was holding it for any other reason than someone telling him to go be a billboard for the ice shack basically.

"Are you a cop?"

There's a confused look out one side, where there's no one, and down to where there's a little girl in a beach dress.

Even while the words are kicking across his brain with a kind of disgust that's taking no prisoners. Because he's nothing like a cop. Even if he said those words into the phone. Nothing like the man standing next to his side. He's a SEAL. There's nothing else on the planet he's ever wanted to be, or would want to change to being. "No."

"Well," She shifted on her feet, swaying a little, like gravity was just an option for her. "You look like a cop."

No, he didn't. He looked nothing like those guys. The guy standing next to him, all slacks and a tie. In Hawaii. And no he didn't need this distraction of this little person suddenly taking place in his op. Which meant the only course of action was getting rid of her. Fast as possible. Leaning down and holding out his neglected shave ice.

"Do you like cotton candy?" Please. Take it. Save him. For it. And her. "Go find your mom."

[haole_cop]

"I don't like cotton candy," she says, firmly, which, okay, the kid has decent taste. No one likes cotton candy flavor, all right? It is an abomination.

But Steve's floundering in a way Danny hasn't seen at all today, and honestly can't, for a second, believe he is seeing, while treating this small child like she's an international threat, asking for state secrets instead of curious about whether or not they're cops, and, frankly, people are starting to pay attention. He's too brusque, too sharp with her, too obviously trying to get rid of her, and, apparently, is even worse at damage control than he is about not causing the damage to begin with.

Which means Danny's up to bat, but that's fine, okay? He may not be a SEAL or the leader of some highly trained death squad, but he can handle a little girl. "I got something you might like, okay?"

It's a world of difference between Steve's tone and his. Steve's all blunt, interrogating, and Danny is relaxed, friendly without being too friendly (because frankly, as a father, he can't think of anything that would make his blood run cold faster than two grown men showing too much interest in Grace), but it's a moot point. He's already handing his cone to Steve so he can reach through the passenger seat window and search until his fingers encounter soft plush and floppy ears. "How 'bout --"

The rabbit's huge and pink and floppy, and she lights up like it's Christmas morning when she sees it, which hurts a little, because he didn't get to see that smile on Grace's face, but it's triumphant, too, when she says, eager: "Yeah. Thanks!"

Taking it without further invitation, the stuffed animal almost as big as she is, and running off, and it's a good feeling, too. Even if it aches a little.

It's easy to make kids happy, but that doesn't make it any less incredible to see or satisfying to do. "You're welcome," he says, as she scampers off to play, leaving him to put his empty hands in his pockets, smiling to himself a little rueful, before turning back to Steve to get his cone back.

Only to find the other man already watching him, an unreadable expression on his face, that makes Danny squint in the sun, trying to interpret. "What?"