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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]

"You got something against classic literature?"

Droll and dry, said over his shoulder, with his eyebrows cocking like he might actually be spoiling for a fight if Steve says he doesn't enjoy the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, as if he cares what Steve reads, or if Steve reads, as if he ever has time to even glance at a book these days.

Well, okay, he does. Have time. He's got spades of time, tons of time, more time than he knows what to do with, which is why he normally takes weekend shifts on the weeks he doesn't have Gracie, just stays at the office, going through papers or filing reports. There's plenty to do, if he puts his mind to it, and it's only kind of the mind-numbing boredom that would have made him want to jump off a cliff before a year was up.

But that's all neither here nor there, right, what he chooses to do with his free time, even if it's to make it anything other than free. The point is, he's not sure he likes Steve's attitude. At all.

But how is that anything new?

[thebesteverseen]

The center of Steve's brows pinch oddly, nearly matching a smug tug at the edge of his mouth.
Eyebrows raising at the center, because, seriously, there's no way Danny is a book-beater.

He's seen that 'house.' It's not like there were piles of books hiding anywhere.

Not that Steve doesn have a problem with books. Even ones he hasn't read or considered, with good reason, especially since being sent away from Hawaii. Not that he'd ever been interested in Doyle much growing up, but he'd been even less interested in most of the things his father had an interest in pretty shortly thereafter. And most things Sherlock Holmes related, aside from the odd one-off sideways joke, landed squarely in that box.

Which Danny just happened to trod on, unrelated, like his leg was in front of the mustang to roll over. The oddest memories coming from nowhere. Dusty and unused, as impotent today as they were unimportant the two decades of time spent not looking at them. But it was worth it to see Danny take it a little personally. From his comment on four million words, to his focus on just one of them, and not a single other.

[haole_cop]

He takes quick little glances over, hitting the blinker and taking a turn at the next intersection. Steve McGarrett, mystery. Suddenly brought to life out of the pages of bare text and the single photograph in Danny's file that looks like basically every other military personnel headshot he's ever seen: American flag, white cap, neat uniform, deadpan expression that's nothing like the faint -- is that amusement?

He almost wants to squint, and look closer, would, if doing exactly that wouldn't mean he'd probably ram his Mustang straight into a fire hydrant or telephone pole.

It couldn't be. This guy doesn't have a sense of humor, right? It must be one of those things they stopped handing out at boot camp.

But it does kind of look like it. Amusement. Or something like it, perched there in the furrow between his eyebrows, and the way one corner of his mouth is looking a little softer, like the shadow of a smile that's existing in some other universe, on some other Steve McGarrett's face.

Whaddya know.

He sneaks one more quick, exasperated glance. "Anyone ever tell you people normally use words to communicate, not just steely glares and judo moves?"

[thebesteverseen]

"Pretty sure that's just what the people without them say."

Sure. Okay. He could say nothing, or he could let a few words roll off his shoulder.

Not that he was saying, as Danny just naively put it, 'steely glares and judo moves' hasn't gotten him several things, several times, but it's not like he's needed to rely on that with a guy sitting next to him in a long time either. It's odd, he can admit that, being somewhere his rank and skills mattered enough to be the fire behind the movement of this whole day, but also nearly non-existent where it came to individual people. Like the man sitting next to him. Talking to him about talking.

Both like he doesn't know how to, and like it was anything even remotely important in what Steve consider necessary communication, or necessary interactions, in a normal day. Not that today was normal in any part. Not that anything has felt it since Anton mentioned not talking to his dad enough, but even if that snowball hasn't stopped he's maybe still looking at Danny like this is almost entertaining. Like he's debating whether it is, or Danny having opinions is.

Since he seems to have one, and feelings on it, on every single thing that crosses his path.

Just to punch it in, he adds with a nod out the front, "Don't miss the turn in."

[haole_cop]

"You know, there's nothing wrong with my eyes."

As in, he can see the upcoming turn just fine, thanks, doesn't need some Navy SEAL sniper-vision to see a giant fast food sign on the side of the road, just like he's never needed jiu-jitsu or whatever the hell it was Steve pulled on him back at Doran's, okay, he's always been fine fighting quick and dirty, whenever it's come up. And steely-eyed looks are a dime a dozen.

He might not give a damn if people like him, but at least he reacts to them like a human.

One flick of the blinker and lane change, and he's making that turn Steve was so thoughtful as to remind him of and pulling into a parking spot before putting the car in park and switching the engine off. "Anything else you'd like to help me improve on, or are you done?"

[thebesteverseen]

Steve doesn't even know where to start. Seriously.

Which might be conveyed in the look that last a beat too long in the direction of the driver.

But it happens, and then Steve just reaches for the door handle, opening the door. "I'll let you know."

Nearly the same words as the ones he'd tossed about the promise that wasn't either accepted or rejected. It wasn't like Danny actually wanted his commentary either. But it wasn't like he was lacking in places where pointers weren't obvious and glaringly needed. Like, for say, knowing how to drive sports car. Even an old one. But it's not like Danny was asking. Not with the tone he had going. Not like he was one of Steve's men he could shoot the shit with in any fire-free second.

He hadn't been hungry when he was talking about coffee and Danny was talking about getting food, but there was something of a stumbled jump from his stomach once he was out and looking to, then head toward, the L & L, able to smell the long days' cooking and cooked food from a distance. Maybe the food idea wasn't a terrible one. If it didn't slow them down any. He still wanted to know more about the name Chin got, but he hazily admit that he was, absently, curious to see what the place was offering.

[haole_cop]

"Yeah, you let me know."

Grumbled as he gets out of the car and slams the door, and it's such a fucking joke, right? It just be, just like the rest of his miserable damn life. "I'll just be waiting with bated breath for that, so you can tell me how to live my life."

Like everyone else on this glorified sandbar keeps doing. Telling him to relax. Telling him he'd like the beaches here, because everyone likes the beaches here, they're the best in the world. Telling him to get out more. Telling him to drop the attitude and just calm down, because it's so damn easy to look in the shuttered and barred windows of his life and find the ways to fix it, right?

Well, they can go to hell, because his life is a joke, just like the numbers on his wrist that mean he's destined to land face first in a steaming pile of bullshit. It was bad enough they went off when a gun got shoved in his face and his crime scene was taken away; bad enough they blinked into zeros for someone he already, unequivocally, entirely, hates, like he hates Nazis and sunburn and never getting to see another Yankees game from the stadium seating, but now? They're partners.

Which means, even if by some insane chance he hits his head or has a stroke and forgets he hates Steve, or Steve gets a complete personality makeover and starts acting like he enjoys human company, nothing can happen.

So it's just a joke. The way his left hand closes briefly, like a cuff, over his right wrist and those hilarious, laughable numbers, before he swings them apart and heads for the restaurant door.

[thebesteverseen]

He won't. But that's not the point. It's not really a conversation.

Just like Danny doesn't really want his opinion, and Steve isn't all that inclined to give it.

Partners, it's all they have to be. Steve requisition a person. Team mate. Partner. Out of a cop no one wanted. Well, two specifically. But there's only one catching up with him to walk into the place. It's all this has to be though. Partners. Not a friend. Not another brother in arms. Just a man who's willing to get the job done, bring in the bastard who shot his dad, kidnapped that girl and very likely her family and so many others.

Not to mention the dirty laundry list Steve can't share that the Hesse's had washed the world in chains and blood doing.

More reasons, nipping at his heels like dogs, to open the door to the place and go striding towards the crowds and counter like a man on a mission. This is just a box of food and whatever Chin has to tell them will be more important than anything in these five minutes, now. He can pick something. Anything. While an eager, far too young kid, with perfectly tanned skin and hair swept back after her shoulders, the kind of smile untroubled by winds, water, or life.

Piped up fast with, "Aloha. Welcome to L & L. What can I get for you two?"

Steve glanced back at the board, singling in on a certain picture which didn't look so bad, something leaf steamed, pork, rice. A soda. "The Lau Lau. And--" His voice drug as his eyes darted across the offerings, aimed for something safe, that he could easily guess would be passable for someone who'd lived here, and actually appreciated real Hawaiian food enough to tolerate the fast food equivalent of it. "And a Loco Moco."

Not the best, but he bet Chin would be grateful for surprise early dinner or late lunch as it was.

Before his gaze shot over to Danny, taking a step away to let him do his thing, hands staying on the counter.

[haole_cop]

Steve steps back, which is one more courtesy than Danny expected from him, after actually ordering food, which is probably a good thing, too. Not that the guy can't take care of himself -- although Danny's not convinced he can, it's not like Navy SEALs are exactly famous for having real world skills and being able to cope with life outside black ops missions and orders -- but it settles something in his chest, mollifies that instinct he's never quite been able to quell. The one that makes him cut the crusts off Grace's sandwiches, the one that made him call his parents when they were out later than they said they'd be, to see where they were, the one that always made him step in between Matt and whatever schoolyard bully was giving him a hard time.

He knows people don't need him. The world has made that crystal clear, and it's a lesson he's learned the hard way over the last few years, but he can't quite stop the impulse to try. He's a cop and a dad. Telling people they need to eat as as instinctive to him as loving his daughter.

So he'll chalk Steve's order up as a small triumph in a life that has almost none, even as he steps up to the counter himself, orders the closest thing he can find to chicken cutlets. Katsu, whatever it is -- it's not bad, he's had it before, is basically chicken tenders and rice and some kind of sweet dipping sauce, and it'll hold him over fine until later. He's digging in his pocket for his wallet while the smiling girl rattles off their total -- no big deal, Steve already shelled out all the cash he had for those awful shirts, earlier, so Danny can step up and buy lunch. Especially if it was his idea.

"Mahalo," she says, taking the money with another bright smile. "Your order will be right up."

"Yeah, thanks." He waits for his change, glances at Steve to tip his head towards the waiting area, and heads that way himself, drumming his fingers on the counter and mulling over the day so far.

Garage. Getting kicked off the case. Getting pulled back in. Doran. His sore arm, and Steve's sore jaw. The open gap in his shirtsleeve, over a white bandage and torn muscle. Chin Ho Kelly.

And those zeros, flat and unchanging, inside his wrist.

[thebesteverseen]

It's not much effort to move toward where two or three people are already milling, holding receipts, purses, looking toward the counter in a combination of anxious, impatient and bored. Waiting. Not pointing out that Danny Williams brilliant plan is knocking more minutes off the afternoon. Sure. Food probably isn't a world eradicating concept, but he didn't choose it, wouldn't choose, over the alternative, and he'd rather it took less time than it was already.

When he's standing in an open spot, arms crossed, waiting there for it.

Trying to tune out Danny drumming his fingers. Because the man never stops moving.

It's not much. The bare room, with it's normal cliche number of small tables and smaller chairs.

The kind that every fast food chain on the face of the planet, countries over, must order from the same place, just in different colors and textures, types of wood and plastic. Where kids are sitting, swinging their feet, with frazzled parents telling them to stop playing with their toys, or their food, and eat. Couples and groups together, packing away whatever their plates are, passing words between bites, and the occasional loner who snagged a table, buried in their phone or laptop.

No one in this place is a threat. Even the concept is laughable, and the barest few seconds it takes to know that doesn't actually eradicate the waiting time either. Leaving Steve irritably longing to moving, to get everything moving, to get way from this innocuously inconvenient pause, even though he stands there perfectly still. Like he could under any circumstance, no matter how inconvenient to his person. Going over the last things. Hoping that whatever lead Chin Ho has just laughed about at them before getting on his bike was a good one.

That whatever it was would be an actual lead, to the leader of the Snakeheads, and not just another small fish that might have another name, who have another name, along with a list of superficial demands that, again, were more cheatingly cumbersome than actually taxing. Someone they could roll on to put them in the right direction for Hesse, and soon. Soon. Before time ran out, in their increasingly closing window closed. The clock that was closing for Hesse, and even more for them, because he wouldn't be anywhere waiting for them to catch up and there was good money he could be even less predictable because of Anton.

Leaving Steve glancing at his kobold, and the kids behind the counter, willing them to just call the number so they could get going.

There were more important things to do with this evening, and he wanted to be back doing them already. Not standing here.

[haole_cop]

The best thing about fast food? It's fast. Danny doesn't think it's more than three minutes from when they order to when the smiling girl behind the counter calls out their number and presents a large brown paper bag with the L&L symbol stamped on the side, by by God he feels each and every one of them like the seconds are actual grains of sand trying to drown him. McGarrett -- somewhere in the last hour or so, he'd started to think of the guy next to him as Steve, and that seems like one of those bad decisions he's always making that bite him in the ass, so he's trying to cut that shit out -- looks relaxed enough to the casual eye, but he's strung tight as a garrotting wire. How he hasn't collapsed yet of a stress-induced stroke is beyond Danny, but maybe it's more that McGarrett prefers instigating those in others.

But he's impatient, and it shows: the way he keeps glancing from his watch to the counter, the way he cases the restaurant interior like he thinks a suicide bomber might stroll in any second. Just standing next to him is making Danny's blood pressure rise, from sheer proximity, and it's not like it was low to begin with.

His own nervous tics escalate in response: while Steve grows more still, he feels edgier than ever, fidgety and impatient, fingers tapping against the counter until he glances down at them, twists his wrist just enough to see the first curves of two zeros.

Which just makes him purse his lips in annoyance, and go back to tapping.

So, all in all, it's good that the L&L staff are efficient and fast, and that maybe a grand total of five minutes have elapsed before he's grabbed the bag containing their lunches, and headed back for the door, checking his phone for the time and -- though it's not something he'll admit, not out loud and definitely not to McGarrett -- just in case Grace texted or called again.

She didn't, and it's just another weight that decides to sit on his stomach, along with the hunger gnawing there. "Okay," he says, brushing past it, sliding the phone back in his pocket, and pushing open the glass door. "Next stop, the Palave."

[thebesteverseen]

It's annoying. Standing. Waiting. Even knowing the minutes will pass, and the food will come to them, and then they'll be out of this place. Even if, and he's not acknowledging this to Danny standing over there, still drumming his fingers, like he can't manage to bear with five minutes without moving or making some noise, the standing here is making him aware he might be hungry.

It's shot through with a lot of everything else going on, but the constant food smells, tugging and tucking themselves into him as familiar, even old familiar, more than foreign, start his gut churning a little bit. Tightening. Maybe it's not the worst idea. If Danny can manage to get them back to The Palace without another pitstop it'll have been worth it, and there can be food while they're decompressing whatever this new information is.

Steve can will, while not giving in to the urge to reach up and rub at his neck, that Chin Ho won't need any distractions first.

He heads for the doors nearly the moment he watches Danny's hand go connecting with the bag, even if it makes that churning in his stomach a little more present. But it's not like he hasn't ignored far worse for far longer when he needed to, and he'll have his next meal within the next twenty minutes. He doesn't want it now, regardless of what his body is saying. He wants to be in The Palace. Wants to see if Jameson's quick outfit is good enough. Wants to be hearing what this lead is.

Once that's happening he can see to the rest of it. Because he'll have a direction finally. A name. A head to stomp on, and with that will come a location to a storm. Everything will go back in a center point. One he'll keep from being shot before he has the information on Hesse this time. Even if that thought only comes with a half glance toward the other side of the car, when he's grabbing his door and sliding back into the passenger seat.

[haole_cop]

Steve slides back in and slams the door, and Danny does the same, only he finishes his off by tossing the bag of food unceremoniously into Steve's lap as the door's still closing. "Here, hang onto this."

A quick snap of the buckle, key in the ignition, and his hand on the back of the passenger seat to lever himself so he can see out the back window, and he's backing out, fast enough that the tires squeal, which is actually a nice break from McGarrett's stone-cold silence. He'd almost thought they were starting to get along, like maybe there was a human underneath the killing machine, but a glance towards the passenger seat makes him shake his head at that clear misstep of a theory. McGarrett's back in his own head again, got that thousand-yard stare of his, like he doesn't have the same damn zeroes lining his wrist that keep glaring up at Danny every time he twists his hand, like it wouldn't have given him that same brief jolt Danny got in the garage, the one he thought was adrenaline until he looked down and saw the single line of red curves.

He really is a cold fish, isn't he?

Except the problem is that Danny's sort of hooked, now. He's in this enough to need to see it to the logical conclusion: catching Victor Hesse at the very least, figuring out what the hell to do with the new information his timer keeps calmly reminding him of at the most. He can't just walk away, go back to his lonely island of a desk at HPD and ignore McGarrett making him his partner: the Chief wouldn't let it fly, and he'd get ostracized even further for dropping a hometown hero, the son of an HPD legend, in the drink and letting him wash away.

Nope. He's stuck here, like he's been stuck ever since he got here, but at least this case has the faint tang of freedom to it, like a window just barely open in an otherwise sealed room, like if he could just crack it, he'd be out, free, able to live his own goddamn life again, and not the one he's had to scrape off the leavings of everyone around him.

Of everything else, that might be the thing he hates most about this whole scenario -- about McGarrett himself: that he can see this sliver of light, this crack in the door, and it's only going to come slamming shut on him as soon as he thinks he can make a break for it. This asshole is playing with lives and careers he'll probably just leave in the lurch once Hesse is caught, and still, still, Danny is enough of an idiot to think there might actually be some hope.

So who's the real asshole, here?

At least Iolani Palace isn't far: a few intersections later, and they're turning in towards the city, buildings piling up around them, and the white facade of the palace looming ahead.

[thebesteverseen]

Steve doesn't actually balk much at the food shoved at him. Mostly likely because he's already having to catch it before it hits his lap and the seat between his legs before he can really be making much noise about it, and he really doesn't care that much about it. Holding it. Danny is driving, and Danny's already shown he's just as incapable of talking without his hands in the car as he does anywhere else he was talking.

The Palace is a lot like he remembers it from his early teens. At least for the outside. Towering. Stately. Historically picturesque. He'd never given the inside much thought, and returning it's an odd feeling to have that completely reversed. The outside is nice. Like a paint coat is nice. Like a golden statue is nice. But he doesn't care about it at all. He wants to know where his offices are, and wants to be in there already. The rest is just details.

Like the minutes between the getting the food shoved at him and parking, between the parking lot and pushing into the building, into a sudden cloud of office could air. Stopping one person to get directions to the area Jameson had said now belonged to him. Upstairs wasn't far, and it was better, by far, than the worst he'd managed in the past. Empty offices, empty furniture everywhere else, gear wrapped in plastic, and one space in the center that had been cobbled together in n obvious hurry. But one that looked like it worked.

Chin Ho Kelly was already eyes deep in a laptop as they walked in, and had half-filled a suspect board behind him self.
Both of those, by themselves, without his father, anchored a little more respect for the man, himself, in Steve's eyes. At least topically.

Even if it didn't cross much of his demeanor as he lifted a bag, saying they'd gotten food, while he was grabbing the back of a chair to drag over to that roughshod make-shift command center of the moment at the same time. If Kelly looked surprised to have a plate box pushed across the table at him, even after that announcement, it's just another thing Steve could pretend not to notice, too, while gesturing to the laptop and saying he better have something. Again.

[haole_cop]

If it weren't obvious from his own experience today, it would have been clear to Danny from the second they walked into the jury-rigged set up that McGarrett is a man who gets things to move, and, not for the first or (he suspects) the last time today, Danny hates him a little more for it. Guy lands back on the island for the first time in years, and he's handed free rein and all the space and equipment he could possibly need or want, without even asking for it. He'd accepted it, like putting together a team to bring Hesse down and being handed the resources necessary to do it on a silver platter was something he did out of the goodness of his own heart, because the Governor wanted him to, and not because he needed it. Nobody's standing in his way, barring the door, slowing him down, needling him with snide remarks and laughing at him to his face as well as behind his back. No one's even tried to give him a runaround.

And the thing that Danny hates most? Is that he sort of respects it.

Which is all just academic, really, while he's keeping step next to McGarrett as they head into the hastily-assembled office space, whistling low. "Anything else you think you mighta forgotten? Just, while they're at it, you know. This looks like better equipment than my precinct, where've they been hiding it all, huh?"

Dragging out a chair and reaching for the bag to pull out his own box of food, before tipping his chin to Kelly, cardboard unfolding under his fingers. "So? What've we got?"

Turns out they've got something, definitely something. Sang Min, who looks like a snake and a weasel had some kind of bastard child, and that child never cut or washed its hair, is the lead suspect: human trafficking, and fingers in a lot of pies. Which means a sting, which means he's out, and Chin's out, and no one in their right mind would think Steve was a man without means or the ability to get himself off this fucking rock if he wanted to.

[thebesteverseen]

The profile doesn't look much better or worse than any of the hundreds of thousands of flatback pictures of scum Steve's seen over the last decade and half. Or the full and half faces that flicked through his minds at times, the ones left littered on a floor who never had a picture before the necessity of putting them down popped up front and center under acceptable casualty in the purpose of the mission.

But it's the way Chin starts telling them how much none of them would be good for the job Steve wants, putting pressure on this newest piece of lower-level dirt, that leaves him feeling certain, even flatfooted through the speech, about this being a lead-up. "I take it you have the perfect guy in mind?" Rolls off, with the flat tug of one side of his mouth, pleased to have something working still, while Chin says he does.

"Make the call," Steve said with a wave of fork, before he was pushing it back into his plate, and digging in his own pocket.

Dragging his own phone out, and tapping it for the last call, again, before shoving it between his ear and his shoulder while it was ringing. Hand going back to his fork, while he made two to three steps away. Swallowing hard on a bite of food when she answered before he'd finished chewing even. "Yes, Governor."

Rolling straight past anything that sounded like needed an explanation, aside from the barest answer that he had something. Willed it all to be something. To work. To be connected to Hesse. She said free reign, and he was going to take it until she finally decided to push back. "I'm going to need a mobile surveillance unit. Top end as you can free up by tonight. Tomorrow morning, wheels up, at the latest."

[haole_cop]

So, it looks like the answer is yes, and also that the Governor's golden goose hasn't stopped laying eggs, but Danny just rolls his eyes and shakes his head, while Chin, catching sight of him from across the table, chuckles, an easy-going smile spreading across his face, like they aren't tracking an international threat across a tiny island.

Danny finds himself liking him.

"Not a call," is what Chin's saying, but he's pulled out his phone anyway, and is peering at the screen as he scrolls past something, taps, scrolls again until he finds whatever he's looking for. "If I know her, she's nowhere near a phone. Finish your lunches, and let's head to the beach -- I've got a good feeling the thing we need will wash right up in the surf."

He's all amusement and relaxed, easy-going words: it's a far sight from the hard looks he'd cast at the two of them at the harbor, so Danny frowns at him, rolls his head back with a sigh, and wipes his hands from the last chicken tender, tosses the napkin into his empty box.

"Always the beach. Why's it always gotta be the beach?"

[thebesteverseen]

Steve misses a few of their words for Governor Jameson's black boot polish responses, only catching Danny complaining as he's walking back, shoveling more of his food into his mouth. Focused so much less on whether it tastes good and more on just getting it in and over and behind him. If it's all there is between him and his next acquisition on the way to Hesse, it doesn't need to keep existing at all.

He's still halfway through one bite, and about to put another heaping forkful in his mouth, when he interrupts throwing Chin a look of barbed and resigned amusement by way of Danny, "Because everyone else on this island knows how to live."

Not that he was knocking the car. But between the suit and the house and the not swimming. It's not living. Not here.

He shoveled the last bite in his mouth, tossing the fork inside the container, and with the lack of a trashcan anywhere like conveniently brought in or within sight, the box gets piled with the others, on the table and the rumple of the bag they came in. He's got bigger things to concern him, when he's rubbing his hands together, and against the thick fabric of his pants, before tossing a thumb over his shoulder toward the door they only too recently came through. "Let's go meet your guy."

[haole_cop]

Thing is, Chin's guy? Isn't a guy.

Danny may present himself as angry and bitter and walled off, and maybe he hates this pile of sand and live volcanoes masquerading as land mass, but that doesn't mean he can't be impressed. And he is. He's impressed. Chin Ho Kelly's cousin skates over the water like she owns it, pure confidence and skill. She's taking charge of the least trustworthy element known to mankind, and making it look easy. Graceful. And when she socks a guy in the jaw for jumping her wave, and comes jogging up with wet hair swinging and pure delight clearing her face, he has to say he's pretty damn disappointed his timer didn't choose a later moment to go off.

Say, now, for instance. Her grip is firm and friendly, and she's got a willowy beauty that'll make any guy turn his head, but it only barely disguises the strength he's just seen in action.

Even McGarrett's impressed. It takes him about thirty seconds from getting on the beach to offering her the gig, and the girl -- Kono -- leaps at the chance with the kind of hungry ambition Danny remembers from his own Academy days. She's not discouraged by the danger, she doesn't back down from the challenge -- yeah. She'll be just fine. Young an impetuous, but she seems like she's got a good head on her shoulders, which is more than Danny can say for the rest of them, himself included.

Or maybe himself most, because even once they've got a plan hammered out and arranged for equipment and the sun is starting to sink, he doesn't leave right for home. Doesn't kick McGarrett out of his car and into a cab, doesn't make loud noises saying he needs to get back.

Well, he doesn't. There's nothing for him in that apartment tonight aside from leftover Chinese food and Stanley Cup reruns on Youtube. It's an empty apartment, the kind of place a rat might go to die, and despite everything, despite all the kicks and shoves and the pitfalls the world has pushed him into --

He's not dead yet. And there's a line of numbers on his wrist that the world wants him to believe means he might still have a chance at life.

he might not believe in it, and he might hate Steve McGarrett with the fire of a thousand angry suns, but it's still there. A perhaps. Which is more than the dead certainty of what he already knows he's got, and that might be the saddest fucking thing he's ever thought, but that doesn't make it any less true.

Or maybe it's out of just plain fucking human decency that he says "Need a ride somewhere?" when Chin's headed off to wherever he stays between work hours and McGarrett's looking at loose ends without having a specific task to accomplish.

Or maybe he's crazy. He has to admit, that? Is a distinct possibility.

[thebesteverseen]

It's a short interview, and there's no part of him surprised in the slightest it takes place on a beach. Not in Hawaii. Where everything and everyone got sand in and on themselves, even if they hadn't been in days. He remembered that. It had probably gotten everywhere on him in that short time. He'd be picking sand out of his hair, clothes, and socks before lights out. Even if, in the short pull of the long run, sand was nothing compared to other things he'd gotten out of all of the above.

The kid, and she was a kid, field fresh, even more than the wet-necked tadpoles right out of Coronado that they all got saddled with from time to time, was passable at least. Definitely good for bait. Definitely looked like she could handle herself, whether that was up on a wave, or down with the riff-raff in the surf. He could trust her to at least attempt to take care of herself after seeing that right cross. Though even the best civilian right cross meant nothing against a dozen guns or trained guys.

But it would have to do. These were the resources he had. Here. In Hawaii. The three of them.

He'd done more with less, he reminded himself looking at the beach through dark glasses, and thinking even without them there was something too bright about the place. Too closed. The closer he stood to the ocean. The way his eyes drift back to the furthest point on the horizon where the water became a blurring line with the sky, evaporated ribbon, too far away to see, and made everything here too loud, too close, and too everything else.

Nothing like a boat. A boat. Any kind of boat. Land, sea sky. Nothing military about any of this setup. Or the people milling, and playing in the sun. Nothing demilitarized about the lay of the land, sun and sand and sky as far as the eye. The thoughts crawling up his spine slow, and steady, martial and marching, up his spine, like a line of ants. He used to joke about coming back here. With. With people it was too soon to even glance toward, when he'd never be able to do that again. Glance, or joke.

Do anything more than keep rolling on. Eye on the prize, and on nothing else, or it'll slip out of his hands again, and Hesse was already too good at that. He put it all back every time it crept toward him. Eyes on the prize, and if they think he's hardass, he has reason to be. There are children's lives on the line all over this rock, and more over the world. And if they think it's personal and gone to his head, maybe they're right, too, but they don't say it and he doesn't have to point out it doesn't matter.

They hash out the meet with this Sang min. Secure an interview. Setup a plan around it. And the hours keep rolling.

Which means eventually they all have to go, civilians do that, fall down once it gets dark. And he'll keep working on. Well. Something. He's still got markers to call in on details. Results that might have come in since the last time he was checking for them. And. There's this place. The rooms and the offices and everything covered in plastic. That needs to be moved. He could ask for people for that, too. During tomorrow, while they were all out. For all he knows that may already be part of the package, since he asked for a quick and dirty setup.

It's checks down a list he's in the middle of when he's looking up and having to focus on Williams talking.

Looking at the room, and it's really an idiotic suggestion even in his head, staying here, working on this, so he nods. Almost too fast, clipped and sure though, like he'd known it was coming or hadn't had any reasons to consider a different answer. "Yeah, thanks. I could use a lift back to where I'm staying." It'd be faster than a cab, and then he doesn't even focus on much. Picking up one of the laptops and the rest of what came with it, while nodding toward another table. "Grab that box."

More equipment he can check for their sake before dawn, too. Make sure everything goes off without a hitch. Get Sang Min. Get Hesse. Maybe then he'd consider something beyond the next twelve hours. For the first time in days. Weeks. The last five years.

[haole_cop]

He doesn't have to, of course.

McGarrett, that is. Doesn't have to listen to the imperative the world has suddenly shoved on them by setting their timers off at the same second, right as they pulled guns on each other -- not everyone does. Danny can speak from experience. Not every person in this nutty world believes the timers, or follows their lead, and some of them even end up happy. It's happened.

Maybe not a lot, but then, Danny's pretty uncertain about fate and it's success rate, too.

But then McGarrett surprises him by accepting, and Danny picks up the box feeling a little out at sea. He'd been pretty sure his offer would get summarily rejected, but here they are, and here he is with his arms full of cardboard, willingly taking this guy wherever he's going for the night, and what the hell is wrong with him? McGarrett is an asshole and a lunatic, and Danny will be very very lucky if those characteristics are only in that order and none other.

And yet, here he is. Box. Partner. And this reflex to try that he's sure will only end in the loss of tooth enamel as he grinds his teeth in his sleep tonight, but -- "How about a beer? You look like you could use a beer."

Well, he does. McGarrett. There's not a guy Danny knows who couldn't use a beer after a day like today, and McGarrett isn't any different. It's not warming up to him. It's not giving him a chance. It's justt doing the basic, decent human thing, and making sure the man has a beer tonight, before he goes to bed and dreams of venegance and blood and the total breakdown of the Geneva Convention.

It's only right. Only the right thing to do. It doesn't have a damn thing to do with the red zeros Danny's studiously not looking at, as he hoists the box into his arms and tips his head towards the door. "C'mon, you can order the Governor around from the car, right? Let's go."

[thebesteverseen]

He's nothing like a SEAL, or any other kind of special forces officer, Williams. Oddly enough, there are half flash moments, where he's not exactly everything his files have made Steve about him either. Danny Williams. Over there. Babbling to himself, with the excuse of it being to Steve, offering a beer.

Which is ... not something Steve thought about either.

Beer, or Danny trying to stick around in any capacity past the first offer.

It's a queer little stab of a pair of thoughts. Whether he even wants the man under his feet after hours, too, when it had taken everything but forklift to get him out of his rat trap match box, slashing itself into the thought that the offer itself is not something he expects either. Danny Williams. Who isn't someone his coworkers or superior supposedly like even. Who punched him, even if he stayed. Offering. Time. A beer.

Sure. The lunch was a badgered event, Steve hadn't asked for, but had no choice but to tag along to. Belatedly grateful when it was gone. The food. Inhaled like he hadn't really eaten in days. Which was true enough. But not a reason he saw to slow down either. Not seeing to that before other things.

Back in the house he could check the rest of the house over, too. See if he'd missed anything else Hesse and his cohort left behind as an accidental calling card, before Steve'd stumbled on the Champ box and Danny in his garage.

"I don't have time for to go out. I have other things I need to do tonight still." It's not near to apologetic. It's nothing like his several, over the top, sarcastic and serious, sorry's in the car. The bullet he couldn't grudgingly get a cop having a problem with the way a SEAL wouldn't.

But he had other things to do. No matter what way he looked at it this wasn't leave. It wasn't a strange moonlighting world between missions that was more toy and trivial than real. He didn't have the time to just forget for a few hours and let it all go. But there's almost an edge of considered, or confused, something to it. The straight forward expression and answer. To the way he looks at Danny.

[haole_cop]

It would be so easy to just take that statement at face value, to let it be the refusal and rejection it sounds like it is. It would really be the easiest thing in the world, to just load up the car, drop McGarrett and his issues off wherever he's staying, and just say adios for the remainder of the day, to let him stew in whatever miserable excuse for a brain he's carting around behind the barbed wire and landmines Danny keeps running into, and say see ya until morning.

It would be easy, and he's pretty damn sure that's exactly what McGarrett thinks will happen, and Danny's pretty much set to do exactly that, but then there's that glance. And it's --

What. Hesitant. Questioning? Like Steve, somewhere behind all the regulations and standoffish jackassery, actually doesn't know what the right answer is. Like maybe he's not quite sure, which is a new one for Danny today, because thus far he would have bet his life on the sure statement that Steve McGarrett never questions himself, or the world around him, ever. That everything falls into place and marches just where it should, where problems can be solved by the decisive use of force and the correct bend of willpower. Never in a million years would he have thought he'd see the flicker he's actually pretty damn sure he just saw cross McGarrett's face, but.

He did. And it makes him reconsider the refusal, catch it, look at it from another angle, like he's studying evidence, and the really fucked thing is, it's not actually a refusal. Not really. What it really is, is an excuse.

if Danny didn't know better, he'd swear Steve was just looking for a reason to say yes.

Okay. He can work with that, and before he thinks too hard about why he'll work at it at all -- the easy way is so much easier, and it would mean way less McGarrett, which, despite what his wrist is saying, can only be a good thing -- he's rolling his eyes and injecting challenge into his tone, brash words that he tosses out like a glove he's swatting right at McGarrett's stupid face.

"I realize you've been on the far side of the world eating ready-made-meals out of tinfoil or hunting your own food, so allow me to let you in on a little-known secret: beer? Comes in bottles these days. In some places, you can even exchange money for these bottles, and the nice man behind the counter will let you take them home to drink there. I realize it sounds a little far-fetched, but I've heard of it happening from time to time."

[thebesteverseen]

Steve has to wonder if Danny Williams listens to anyone's answers anymore than he actually needs people there for more than a poster board to rant at. Given that he's heard a lot about, and seen several hours, both. Like his not taking no, even with a follow up for why, for an answer right now. Which is just flinging itself like an unwanted ping pong ball around Steve, questing for whether it's actively bothersome or just a minor impediment or if he honestly gives a damn at all, when Danny hits that word in his newest litanty of goading insults that shoves ice and fire as one into Steve's blood.

Home.

He's not going home. It doesn't matter if it's the last place that ever had that name attached to it. It's not his home. It's a house. It's never even been a place for him to come back to. Until this morning. When it suddenly became both the second to last Hesse-related crime scene and the one that had his father's blood splattered across it.

The sharp knife of it, the one Danny seems to have an alarmingly easy ability to shove back into his gut, makes his words harder and more corrosive. "Will you shut up, and start taking that--" There's a hard jerk of his head toward the box in Danny's hands. "--to the car, if I say yes?"

Like somehow if he moves the words, or Danny, or himself, out of this room, toward the car, he can outrun or out twart the ghost already running those lines in his ears, shoving in with all the force of bamboo under his nails, or a burning knife melting flesh. The ice and fire meeting in a ball in the center of his chest, that gets gummy and spreads like quick cement.

Whispering, breath hard and hoarse, I'm sorry I lied and




I love you, Son. I didn't say it enough.





Like he shouldn't just let it. Like he isn't headed back there now. By choice. Design. Imperative.

[haole_cop]

"I will, at the very least, take this --" he hefts the box like a conversational prop "-- to the car, yes."

It's probably beyond idiotic, trying to even attempt to get McGarrett to relax. Optimistic to the point of lunacy, really, and he's honestly not sure why he's bothering to try. It's like pulling teeth, and it's almost definitely pointless, because he's never believed in the numbers and he's pretty damn sure someone goofed on them now, and yet, here he is. Dragging Steve into reluctant, nearly antagonistic agreement, willfully seeking out more time with someone who can't stand Danny nearly as much as Danny dislikes him.

But maybe it's not about the numbers.

Maybe it's more about the look on Steve's face right now. This strange, shuttered expression that makes him look like he's about ten seconds and a high-stress situation from just snapping. Maybe it's not about the numbers so much as it is the fact that Danny might have a crappy hole in the wall apartment to go home to, but Steve's got nowhere and nobody on this island anymore. It would be like going home to Jersey, and finding his family gone or dead and his house destroyed.

And that? He can't not offer. Can't keep from pushing it, blunt and bluster, into Steve's hands: forced company and a few minutes before he has to be alone with the ghost of his murdered father and the impersonal, static familiarity of a hotel room. John McGarrett is dead. The least Danny can do for his son is have a beer with the guy, right? It's not locking Hesse away, not yet, and it's not shutting down an international ring of human traffickers, either, but it's the best he's got right now.

The numbers have got nothing to do with it.

And they're not why, when he strides by Steve, he sticks out an elbow to knock his arm in passing. "Look on the bright side: if you piss off the cashier, maybe you can get another free t-shirt on the way."