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"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.
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.
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That might or might not be here tomorrow night, the same as it wasn't this morning. Only time, and Hesse can tell. The meet if the meet works. But those are all thoughts he can have not in this place, too. Which makes it easy to head out of the door, to go back down the hallways and toward the ample staircases and historical, austere, opulence that is the main foyer before they get out.
He's not expecting the elbow and it's a marvel he doesn't suddenly sideswipe him, with the laptop, of even the arm Danny smacks suddenly, from the surprise. He doesn't. It just makes his core tightened and the muscles in his shoulder, when he's telling himself to let go. It's normal. Not a hair trigger on a bomb. Nor a reason to slam someone into a wall. It's just an elbow, and the man is going on talking already. Like it's what? Normal? Like he just can?
It's that strange combination all flooding through his head, momentarily shoving the rest aside, that makes him furrow his brow and say right back, "I didn't piss off the big man."
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"Well, that's one person."
Actually, come to think of it, all facetiousness aside, the guy at the shave ice stand actually might be the only person Steve hasn't pissed off today. "I can tell you're really great at making friends. You're just a real people person."
It could come off as insulting, or aggravated, but it's mostly just mild sarcasm, more conversational than outright argumentative, as he heads down the hall, box in hands. He can play nice, for a little while. The world might have dumped a carton of lemons on his head today, but, fine. Whatever. He can roll with it.
If they're partners -- and they are, at least for today, at least for tomorrow -- he can act like it. Can nudge the guy towards some small relaxation, can try to get to know him, at least better than what's on the page in John McGarrett's file. Even without the numbers, he's only doing what a decent partner would. Giving him a distraction for a little while, before he has to be alone with his thoughts. Showing some sort of interest in him as a person.
There's nothing unusual about any of this, okay? He's just trying to be a decent human being, for some reason, because he apparently hasn't learned his lesson about what happens when he actually makes the attempt.
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If that was the goal, his first meeting with Jameson, or any call to her afterward, would have gone differently. He was respectful, even when he get dolling out a list. He might have cared about anything but what he could get from the Danny's current desk sergeant. He might have done something more than roll straight over Danny in his garage. But he wouldn't have. Even if he redid this day, he'd do it all the same way.
It was effective and efficient. He'd gotten a good deal done on a late start, that he's never intended to be starting.
Besides, it wasn't like Danny could even talk. "You think you're the one to give anyone lessons on that?"
Steve had a catalog of the face people had made while either talking about Danny, warning him about him, or not really actually even coming to his aid. It wasn't like Danny had earned himself any pointers in his favor during the last year here. And yet. Even on the backend of Steve's retort. The man was carrying that box of surveillance equipment, and offering him a ride, and had just side-armed him into a beer. A. Singular. Basically like he had no choice to it.
Besides it wasn't like Steve wanted to have a clear out and out discussion of where all his friends ended up either.
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Maybe not here, maybe not closer than five thousand miles away, but they exist. He supports the box with one arm against his chest, waves the newly freed hand in a vague circle before pointing at Steve. "I may rub you sensitive islanders the wrong way, but least I don't make people think I'm about to waterboard them if they don't give me the information I want. I'm just saying, you give off a very Full Metal Jacket vibe, it's alarming."
But despite all of that -- and it's all true, all that and worse -- Steve is falling into step next to him. Steve's opening his mouth and replying, with words. Steve isn't just shutting this down into two sides of a wall, Steve is sort of playing along, which only a few hours ago, Danny would have sworn was impossible.
So maybe there's a little something behind the soldier boy and the mission, after all.
Not that he's holding out much hope. He hip-checks open the glass door to their ramshackle office, and pushes it out further with his shoulder, hands busy with the box.
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If its, also, slathered with Steve's disbelief about him having any friends, it's not in Danny imagination either.
Not that Steve has any room to talk. He's not expecting anyone to call and check up on him about everything with his Dad here. He's already heard all he'll probably hear from his CO during the call that had him transferring to the Reserves for this whole cracker box setup. Which they've all worked the craziest angles before for the job.. That's why the unspoken, but completely understood by everyone, expectation is he'll do what he has to, in any government bed he has to do it in, to get Hesse and then he'll be back.
The only person who would have called to see, wouldn't be. Couldn't. Now. He should call Kelly. That should be on him.
But even that turns up the sour, bright taste of copper under his tongue and knots in his gut. Because he won't be soon either.
"Can't say it hasn't worked," Steve pops off, outpacing his head and keeping up with Danny as they cross the parking lot. "Unless you think I'm missing something."
Which he wasn't. He'd gotten a handful of people. A plan. Sure, okay, one dead body that was still a sore spot. One clock to the jaw that, even when he tested his jaw shifting, really wasn't. It wasn't even an itch compared to what he was used to roll out with at times. Everything about how he presented himself, and how he acted about what he expected of everyone at every level, got the job done.
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He lifts one hand just enough to give it an indifferent wave.
"Close enough."
He doesn't really care. Army, Navy, Marines...it's all military nonsense to him. He doesn't have the first idea what the difference between a Captain or Commander is, wouldn't give a damn about it even if he did. Kind of like how he doesn't really give a damn for Steve holding the door for him, or say thanks, even in passing. What? It's the least the guy can do.
Which brings them out into brilliant sunshine that makes the earlier rainshower seem like an impossibility, while Danny screws up his face and squints against the light. It's everywhere here, reflecting off water and shiny windows and glossy cars, and Danny's pretty sure he lost his sunglasses in the movie. It's accosting, this sunshine, aggressive. It attacks in a way he'd previously thought impossible, because the sun rises and sets at a decent time in Jersey, and is occasionally blocked by things like clouds, which Hawaii has clearly never heard of, which makes it sort of a pleasant anomaly when there is a clear, sunny day.
He's pretty sure this sun is out to get him. It'll be a miracle if he manages to keep from developing melanoma.
Fortunately, Steve opens his mouth again, and just gives to him, an open invitation. It's practically engraved, with his name on it. "Do I think you're missing something? Do I have to only pick one? As far as I can tell, you're missing all kinds of things, including, but not limited to, a sense of self-preservation, a sense of humor, the ability to disengage from whatever personal mission you're currently obsessing over, a car of your own, perspective, and the basic understanding that people and not the same thing as equipment."
At the car, he leans the box between his hip and the car side so he can open the trunk. "But you know, I'm just spitballing, here."
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Stories you told. Like it wasn't made of mountains of actual broken bodies and sacrifices you couldn't ever take back, and wouldn't. Not even if you were given the chance. A million chances. People for whom the words honor and duty and loyalty and sacrifice actually meant something.
Who took pride in exactly where they were, what they did, were called.
No wonder he didn't fit into this place. Hawaii cared a good deal about those things, too.
But far be it for Danny to actually stop there. He gets into the sun, with a frown at the sky, that absolutely perfect sunny blue sky that Hawaii is famed for and chased after for, and starts a ranting diatribe on Steve's point like it actually was a question. Like anyone anywhere would or could actually question that he'd come in and done an effective job with less than adiquate resources and time.
Stopping, apparently, is something he doesn't do. Because he's still there, still going on while they cross the parking lot and Danny is slinging suggestions at him like Steve should care about half of those things. Like they would serve him on any level in getting down what he had to get done, as quickly as possible, without letting anything -- even himself, and his now all too personal body count involvement, the logical volatile reactive responses to such losses -- trip him up.
He has to. Has to do the job, and not be the job or in the way of the job if he doesn't want to be booted.
Not take it any more personally than the words that are bouncing off of him while he rounds on the passenger side, with that annoyance mixing toward mild amusement and pointedly sarcastic disbelief, tossing out as he's pulling on the door, "That's really specific for just starting, isn't it?"
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Sliding into the car, he slams the door with a creak and a bang, reaches for his seatbelt after starting the ignition and letting the engine growl. "Or are you saying your original request was facetious?"
It's always a toss-up. By all rights, criticizing McGarrett to his face ought to land Danny face-first in the dirt, with his other arm getting torn out of its socket, but the guy actually doesn't seem to mind, just rolls with it without giving the things Danny's saying much credence, which would be infuriating if Danny really meant them.
Well, he does. Kind of. It's all true, but there's no bite behind the bluster, just faint conversational interest, because maybe McGarrett's not all bad. Sure, he'd rolled in and taken over, stolen Danny's crime scene right out from under him and then requisitioned him like a piece of equipment and then gotten him shot, but at least he's talking, sort of. At least Danny's not some vapid blip in the world, like a strange hole in reality that just needs to be ignored. At least he's not starting fights, or telling Danny off for hating Hawaii and everything in it. He's obnoxious, but he's not the worst person Danny's ever been forced to work with or be around.
Not that it matters.
"So, which way are we headed?"
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Because he might be incapable of silence or patience, but Danny Williams was not a stupid man.
Nor an unobservant one. If anything, he commented on every single piece of flotsam that floated past his vision.
He doesn't really have to answer that, because Danny answered it himself asking. Like some teenaged point that Steve shouldn't ask questions he doesn't want answered. Which should bug him but it really doesn't when he's glancing out the window. As far as odd quirks and annoying habits went, he could have gotten saddled with so much worse in the way of the cops he had. Danny, especially, given he'd gone and made the man his partner based solely on his having landed the sentence of his father's case.
It's not like it matters he doesn't answer either, because Danny is content to carrying right on to something new. Another question. The direction of where he's going, and those beers, supposedly. Back to the place he's spent so little time at, aside from so much earlier today. When he can point toward the direction of the road, and say, "That way," like there's some other direction that isn't that way. Like all roads don't lead to Rome. Even here.
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Not a large one, and not an obvious one, but maybe, like Danny, he's going to at least ride this out past this initial meeting, so he can see what else there is to him. See if the world is totally off its collective rocker, or if maybe fate's got some kind of point that's been anything but clear throughout this entire miserable day.
It's possible. It might even be the only reason Danny can think of for the way Steve lets the insults and criticisms roll off his back, only to tip his head down the road and give a short, vague direction. "Oh, that way, good to know. I almost went the other way, so I'm glad we cleared this up."
He's digging his phone out of his pocket and glancing at it before dropping it in the console, but there aren't any calls from Grace. It's after school now, so she's probably home -- or at one of the numerous lessons Step-Stan's got her attending. Tennis, and who knows what. Piano? French? What kind of lessons does a millionaire think are useful for a happy, complete life, aside from one on how to figure out Wall Street?
Whatever. At least he got to talk to her, at least he'll have her this weekend, come hell or high water, no matter what Steve McGarrett says about his apartment. Maybe it's not Step-Stan's McMansion, maybe it's not an old beach home, maybe it's not a fancy townhouse or loft, but it's what he's got, and it's not so bad. Not when she's there, anyway.
But the weekend feels like an eternity away, even though it's only a couple of days, and McGarrett and this case are the here and now, so he makes the turn, slides the Mustang into light traffic, squinting against the setting sun. "Lucky for us about Kono Kalakaua, huh?"
What? It's conversation. It's even normal, friendly conversation, by societal standards, because there are red zeroes on his wrist reminding him to try and behave, and he doesn't do it well, but he can try.
Sometimes. When he feels like it.
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The way where anything he says is going to be served up with three to five follow up sentences and a full helping of whatever Danny's opinion on the subject of whatever the hell it is, even when there's nothing to have an opinion about. Like getting on the road already. Headed back to his childhood house, like his childhood was an actual place, not a zone left decades ago that could never be touched again. It's easier to picture it as necessary crime scene than that. Or just a place. Like any other.
But there Danny goes. Rolling out words, making Steve shift a look back to him, again, head rolling against the head rest.
Except that Danny isn't looking at him by that time even. He's looking at his phone in a way Steve could never miss. Because his men, at least the larger portion of them, all have something they look at like that. Even if it looks like a regular object to everyone else. That touchstone to the thing that keeps them going, or that they left behind. A picture. A letter. A piece of jewelry. A toy. He's seen the gamut of it. So, no, it's not like he could miss it.
The way Danny looks at his phone, for something he doesn't find, that makes his shoulders raise and fall slightly.
The way it could only be his daughter, and Steve had, somehow, forgotten mostly about her for the hours between then and now.
It's not even all that surprising, when he's focusing. Details that are inconsequential, sliding out and back in, while he's wondering if he's in the way of something. If this is when Danny usually calls her. Once he's off the clock and leaving for home in the evening. If it's not just weekends in that hovel. But something daily. If people did that. Families did. Danny did. When it's on his tongue to open his mouth and ask something, or say he can still call, whoever, like he's not seeing that look on the man's face, the way he never talked about the faces on his men, out in the back nine incapable of a call.
But Danny's dropping it in the console, and sliding into traffic, with words that have nothing to do with that.
When he's still looking over there, but not looking, but has a reason to, at being addressed. "We'll see tomorrow."
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Not only is it a crap job -- UC is the worst, he hates it, and this is bound to be dangerous -- but it's a crap job working with both him and Chin Ho Kelly. No matter how lauded John McGarrett was, no matter what a hometown hero his son might be, there's not a damn person in HPD who would do either Danny or Chin a favor. No one there would bother to pour a glass of water on them, if they were on fire. "She seems like she's got a good head on her shoulders."
Smart, and quick, and good on her feet -- those are all things that will make tomorrow's operation go as smooth as possible. Even if that's a relative term.
The light changes; he depresses the accelerator, sends the Mustang growling across the intersection. "We on this road for a while, or what?"
It's just that there's aren't a lot of hotels, this direction. There are a million in Honolulu, but they all seem to be situated along the larger public beaches, or near the expensive surf clubs and boatyards: the Hilton, and all the rest, stacking their glossy multi-storied windows into the air.
This way is a lot more residential. It's possible McGarrett's renting, but he only got here, what. This morning? Yesterday? Is housing something the Governor can swing, too, or is he just fast?
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"As long as she can keep it on her shoulders tomorrow." There's no derision in the statement. He's seen men who were trained for years, ready for the hardest, grueling, mentally wearing, work, choke that first day when it was suddenly more real that the training house. There was, also, the chance Kelly might be touchy with one of his own as risk in the field. They'd be close enough by to handle that if it happened. If anything happened. He would be.
The need to catch Hesse, before he could slip out again, far outweighed the risk, and the bait was more than willing.
If Danny over there can't seem to hold still, Steve is nearly the full opposite. Watching those fingers drum at the edge of his vision whether he's looking at Danny, out the front, or out the side. Stillness, silence and patience was just not a skillset the man seemed to have. Which just made Steve even more aware of the finite place he found himself sitting in, hand keeping the laptop in place while the car moved. More still than his partner. More still than anything, shining in the sun, at ease, out there outside his window.
There's a furrow in his brow when Danny asks. As if the destination isn't as obvious as Danny's inability to sit still.
"Not long. We're headed back to the house." His dad's. Singular. Casting out that look of confused curiosity Danny's got going over there, with his question. Like Steve had time for anything else. Like he could just chose to take off a night like this was some kind of tourist destination for him, or like he even knew how to stand around long enough to try and let it be. With all of it's hazy edged memories from way back and jobs that still needed doing.
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"You got something else to pick up there?"
Because...
No. The other option is too insane, even for McGarrett. Isn't it? No one would willingly stay in the house their parent was murdered in -- at least, not with that parent's blood still splashed on the walls, not when the house itself is still an active crime scene. Even if it's Steve's crime scene. Danny supposes that might make it allowed, but...
No way. No way. No one should have to do that.
It must just be a stop. Right? A stop on the way to a hotel, and Danny can buy the guy a beer and they can have a short, prosaic talk, and he can pat himself on the back and say he tried, even if it was only a little, and isn't it a shame it didn't work out?
That's how this is going to go. That house of ghosts is going to stay closed down and empty tonight.
Isn't it?
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"No. Long as I can get the sat connection working, I've got everything I need."
The last part which goes with firming a large hand across the back of the laptop and the spool of wound cord.
It's not true. Not entirely. There were a lot of things he still needs, but they are all plates in the air. Spinning. Waiting. For links, for calls, for the meet, for Sang Min, for Hesse, for any number of small things to come back to home with some new detail he hadn't yet examined every side of. Pieces sent away early. Some new detail Chen Chi or Duran's girlfriend might told anyone who was currently working with either of them.
As for the rest. It'd be faster with a landline, to get into checking on everything for the rest of the night, but given his father's hate of computers that wasn't a thing he'd find waiting for him there. A sat connection would be easy to piggy back off of. Access from the base or the governor, whichever one was faster. Probably back channel it, on private military global lines first, until either of those two decided which way was up which would take much longer.
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It's probably unsafe, staring across the cab at Steve instead of watching the road, but he's so flabbergasted, so disturbed, he can't help himself. "You're staying there?"
Distaste is freezing at the base of his spine, running icy fingers up along his back, but it's swamped in the next breath by an unexpected wave of pity that he hopes to God doesn't show on his face, because McGarrett is probably the kind of guy who takes being pitied as a mortal offense, the kind of insult that requires a duel to the death so he can retain his honor.
But it's there all the same, racing uninvited and unchecked through him like warm white water, because no one should have to stay in the house their father was murdered in, with blood still on the walls and yellow crime tape still closing it off to the public. No one. And especially not someone as clearly out of touch with his emotions as McGarrett, where it'll just become another stone in the massive pile of crazy he seems to be spending his time collecting, like he's going for the record in the "most fucked up life" contest. "Are you insane?"
It comes hard on the heels of the sympathy, blunt dog claws scratching the hollowed-out floor of Danny's stomach: unease. That maybe Steve really is. Insane. Or that the murder of his father actually did drive him over the edge, and it's not just Danny's hyperbole, because he's so damn calm about it, sitting over there, discussing getting a satellite connection from the house his father was murdered in, like that's the only questionable aspect of it. The only quality or possible lack of amenity that matters to him. "Couldn't you get, I don't know, a hotel room, or something? It's Hawaii. Hotels are everywhere. I'm pretty sure we just passed three in the last thirty seconds."
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Danny has a problem with nearly everything he's done since the man walked in on him in the garage, with the only caveat being whether he's muttering it in something that's hilarious not under his breath, saying it with his fist, or this kind of reaction. Where he's clutching the wheel with one hand and seems to have forgotten he's driving at all, looking at Steve like he just announced he was going to bounce to the moon.
"Watch the road, will you? Or do I need to drive the car now, too?" Is sharp and annoyed, with a thrust of his closest hand toward the front window. Because he hasn't looked back yet, and Steve would like to make to that house without a few broken bones to add to his stack of annoyance for the day.
Steve was shaking his head, at being questioned in the several tones that came across with those words and just in general. It wasn't a thing someone would have done, and kept doing, where he came from. You didn't bitch up the chain. You might have asked. Hazarded to ask. Respectfully. With your boots and hat in hand, knowing it was just as likely you'd never get any answer except to go where you were sent, to whatever you'd been sent to. It's all there in the flash of annoyance.
(But so is the thing that sinks cold fingers, digging them up into his guts, in from the back. The part he's not look to or for or at. Not this morning, and not now.)
"I can't get a better look at the crime scene if I'm somewhere else." He had no need for pristine walls and sheets. As anonymous in Hawaii as they were in every other country. Filled with milling tourists that would be even more useless and empty-headed than Danny was being right now. "Figure out if Hesse, or the guy with him, left any clues behind that I missed this morning."
He's not even giving the once over of the file a head-tip. The cops were the cops. They probably did an okay job. Danny included. But they didn't know Hesse. They definitely didn't know the Hesse brothers the way Steve did. Hadn't studied every location, every body, and dead end until he could recite them off the top of his head from the second he opened his eyes every time. The way Victor probably left every trace of himself on the house and no clue toward the next steps of his plan. But if Steve was lucky maybe his flunky hadn't been that good.
Had gotten sloppy in the rush between Anton being captured and Hesse choosing to checkmate with his dad.
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He does look back at the road, but it's just a glance, before he's turning that befuddled, disturbed glance back on Steve.
"There is something deeply wrong with everything you just said."
He's not even sure he would be able to go into detail about everything wrong with the words that just came out of Steve's mouth, or the distanced, disconnected expression on his face or the complete lack of emotion regarding the murder of his father, but Danny can say this for the guy: he can compartmentalize like a pro.
Which, Danny guesses, actually is part of his job.
He's taking a deep breath as he turns back to the road, one hand loose on the top of the wheel, the other arm on the door, wrist loose and every now and again catching him with the persistent red check of glowing numbers. Which keep calmly staying put, even as every attempt from him gets another dealbreaker from Steve: it's not resetting, not realizing its mistake, even as he keeps cautiously prodding the idea and getting only dead ends and definitely, definitely nots.
It's still there. Convinced that somehow, the psychopath in his passenger seat is his...soulmate? Is that even the right word? Some people think it means they've met the love of their lives, but Danny's not sure, that seems too simple, because Rachel, he loved Rachel, numbers or not. So maybe it's not about love. Or whatever, because he's pretty damn sure that's not happening, even if the numbers say it's inevitable.
He can't stand Steve and Steve can't stand him. It's a non-starter.
He was an idiot to think it could be anything else.
There's a liquor store up ahead in a small strip mall; he flicks the blinker on and pulls into the turning lane, shaking his head, and he almost asks what kind of beer goes best with the destruction of your childhood home? but manages to choke it down. "Anything else you need, while we're stopping?"
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That he's going to do that job. Whether they are getting along or not. Whether that was his house once upon a time or not.
That a lot of dead people, and a lot more who are still alive, are riding on his ability to make sure he doesn't give a damn.
He can give a damn when the case is over. He can give a damn when he's dead. Until then he has a job to do.
One he has to focus on, while he's ignoring Danny, because he knows. Alright. He knows how close all of this is, and should be. He knows how easy it would be, to look over his shoulder, and go sliding on the first rough patch of ice. Not the house. The house is. It's just a house. The last place from the last day of another life. Where three people once lived who didn't exist any more. The house actually isn't the thing. It's the rest of it.
He knows how easy it would be to go sliding, if he looks at the rest of it. Or if he lets the house, or the last week, get a foot hold anywhere inside of it. Inside of him. If he lets it get personal. What it cost just to bag Anton. What Victor took when he killed Anton. The words on his phone. The tool box. The mini cassette recorded.
He knows. Has careful markers placed out. Where he can't sit, stand, look too long. Not yet. Not until this is done. Only then. It may annoy the crap out of him, or both of them, but he gets that Danny can't get that. That a greater portion of the world can't. That there's a reason why there are less than three thousand people who can do the job he does out of over three hundred million in their country. Because they are different. Elite. Able.
Steve looks up at the question, and there's that odd sloshing incongruity to it all. Danny, who's back to thinking he's insane, is still stopping, still getting beer. That he somehow thinks he's going to manage to keep having with Steve. Even though every time Steve says anything real the man goes five sheets of indignant and ignorant. But he's still asking. Still doing it. Still stopped, and it just jangles oddly in Steve's head. Making less sense than anything in the last few minutes.
But there's still that question. That Steve really hasn't a clue about it. He doesn't know what's there. Or what he could possible need between now and the morning. All of the options that sprout up are things he could get delivered, or catch a cab for, and it's not like plate meals can't be bought at a place on nearly every nonsuburian street. It's not even like he needs the beer. He just doesn't hate the thought of it either.
Which leaves him shaking his head, and just saying, "No, I'm good."
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Steve's answer comes as they pull into the lot and park, leaving Danny to peer at him for a long second from under beetled brows, before shrugging and unbuckling his seat belt. "I guess that's one way to phrase it."
Which leads to him pushing the door open with a creak and pushing himself out right after it, without waiting for Steve, who may or may not decide to come in. Danny doesn't care either way, would maybe even prefer it if Brute Squad would just stay in the car and give him a second alone with his still-swirling thoughts, the thick scent of baking pavement and hot metal, and the zeros on his wrist that won't go away. He's got the insane urge to try and shake them off, even flicks his hand a couple of times like he's shaking water off it, but it's no Etch-a-Sketch: they stay put, more permanent than ink, glowing a gentle red that should in no way put him in mind of the fiery abyss of a doomed soul.
But does.
That's what love is, right? And he's not even convinced the numbers mean love, love, right, because he loved Rachel, loved her with everything he had, sprinted right off that cliff to be in her arms, to be the one to make her smile, gasp, sigh, laugh, and he doesn't feel a damn thing about McGarrett except pity that's tangled up in fury, and the same consistent cloud of self-loathing that's been storming around him since Rachel told him she was leaving. There's nothing to build on, here, and no ground he wants to try and break, no foundation he wants to build. Okay. Sure. He feels bad about the guy's father. He wants to catch Hesse, even if he doesn't have the same burning drive that's got Steve hellbent for leather. He liked the way Steve treated Chin Ho Kelly.
But none of that does a future or a family make. He's pretty sure, gun to his head right this second, he doesn't want Grace anywhere near Steve, and his guns, and his thousand-yard stare, and his total lack of social intelligence, aside from how to best manipulate people into giving him what he wants.
And that's really the kicker, right? Without Grace, there's no chance. Not for anyone.
It's not like they need anyone else. He doesn't. She doesn't. They have each other. That's enough. If it has to be. And he's pretty sure it has to be.
And yet he's still pushing the glass door open, hearing a bell jingle above his head, and striding to find the refrigerated section for the cold six-packs, because apparently, he can make all the goddamn decisions he wants, but he'll still find himself out there, on the line, holding out that offer and just waiting for it to get smacked into a mud puddle and trampled on.
Because he's an idiot.
(But at least Longboards are on sale.)
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But he hadn't. Considered it. Not past the point where Danny asked if he'd wanted anything, and he pointed out he didn't. Or the one where if Danny Williams could shoot a lead witness without supervisions, he could definitely buy a pack of beer without it. The same way Steve would manage to stomach whatever it was the man bought, because he'd had worse than any civi-store could turn out. Trash-pail made gut rot to burn the tar off roads when you needed it to do that, too.
The same way Steve would find his way through that half an hour of Danny was injecting himself into off the clock time.
Time Steve could have spent focusing on another piece of the equation. Even if he did have all night, and he was certain to run into walls about how much of that could be done. The resources that could be reached from here. The time needed to wait between what had been sent out and when it was coming back in. The way nothing around here seemed to want to go quickly.
It's a thought that happens as a group of people in beach gear caught his eye in the side mirror. Strolling by, laughing.
So very little here happened quickly. It was a place that knew how to have a good time, and let go of everything else.
Which was everything he needed to be no part of as long as this was all hanging over his head. Waiting.
It's not long though, minutes at most, before Williams was returning. Thrusting words and a six pack at him from the still driver's side that suddenly wasn't still anymore. A world of movement and sound shattering the silence Steve hadn't even noticed had swelled into the space of Danny missing from the car until suddenly it was the thing in the car missing. Something he let pass him by when he's pulling at the plastic bag the six pack is in, and coming face to face with that bright yellow label.
"Huh."
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By the grace of God -- or something less mystical, maybe -- it doesn't actually come out argumentative, even if it's still kneejerk defensive. Like, okay, maybe they've got different tastes in beer -- which, how would that be surprising, that would literally be the last thing to surprise him, today, along with probably picking up the only kind of beer McGarrett doesn't like, because that is how Danny's luck works -- but how the hell is he supposed to know? It's not information that got volunteered. The guy didn't give him any preferences. Danny's just doing his best, all right, and he doesn't actually mind Longboard. Lacking Yuengling, this is the only decent lager on the island, and, sue him, he figured most people like lager, it's about as inoffensive as beer gets.
So maybe there's some tension threading itself through his shoulders, getting ready for a fight, when he's turning the key and the engine is growling to life and he's looking over at the plastic bag, up at McGarrett's face. "You don't like that kind?"
Set and ready for the answer to be no, because of course it is, because it's not like he can get a damn thing right today, or ever, as Rachel, the Chief, the world keeps reminding him.
Whatever. He's not going back in for more.
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That cheerful yellow cardboard, with it's very shining Hawaii look. Waves, and boards, and flowers, and trees.
Looking at it, and looking through it, even as he's blinking back from the wash of memories older than he'd ever considered in a long time, when he's realizing Danny asked a question. Or how. A question than didn't have to do with the innocuous things filling up his head and his mouth, with more than the single, "No," when he's shaking his head. It's just more along the line of --
"I remember these, from back-" There's a kick of his head and shoulders like he meant to look over his shoulder without ever getting to that movement entirely. Being able to look away from the box. Back when he was younger. Too young to be at a party or two he got drug to, because he was the star quarter back breaking every record, even if he was sixteen. From when his mom and dad had them in the house, before it was all scotch bottles and whiskey. "-when I was a kid."
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Lost. In thoughts. Or memories? Staring at the yellow box like it's a snake that jumped out and bit him, or is coiled there, thinking about it and hissing menacingly. Not a six pack of beer that couldn't hurt them if it tried, unless someone else was swinging it at his head. It's not even enough to get them both drunk.
But it's Hawaiian, and he guesses it probably is something Steve would recognize, even if he hasn't been here for years. That's not why he picked it up, but now he's wondering if he should've considered that factor, that maybe it would be familiar, and not in the good way. Though Steve doesn't seem to be caught in bad memories. Or good ones. He's just...caught. Stuck, for a second, like a record needle running into a piece of gum on the plate.
Huh. That's new.
"Yeah?"
He has to look back at the road as he's merging, checking over his shoulder at the blind spot, but he glances over again once they're on the way. "It's pretty much the only decent beer on this hunk of volcanic rock."
He can't help it. Goes for grating and annoying even when there's something strange tentatively flipping itself in his head, in his throat, in his stomach, that says maybe he should tred a little more gently in this particular waste of quicksand and mat-covered pits, but he can't. Pushes and prods instead of draws back. He always has. He inserts himself where he's not wanted or needed, rolls straight into whatever place wants him least. Like here. Now. Tossing out his opinion like it's a thing that has even the slightest relevance on whatever's going through this guy's head right now.
Whatever. He probably doesn't want sympathy, anyway, no matter how gruff it might be.
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Closing the bag doesn't actually change what it is, but it causes a distraction. A distortion of white plastic, it's not impossible to see some of the most distinct shape and colors through, to at least create a barrier of some small kind. Letting him blink and lean back in seat, glance out the and back toward Danny, all while he's still nodding. Just let some of those words escape because they are filling up the space in there.
"My Dad would've agreed with you." There's something distant to that. Not really fond. Even while intimate.
"Said it was lucky the local was any good." Especially here. Which he hadn't understood much then. But he did now.
But tossed together with his odd thoughts, has Steve, looking back over at Danny a little speculatively, since this is the oddest small two foot space of strangely not burning common ground, asking a question before he even gets to thinking better of whether he should or shouldn't. "You ever been on the tour?"
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