[Hawaii Five-0] Life Unexpected
Title: Life Unexpected
Author:
kitsune_tsuki
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Pre-slash, Steve/Danny
Word Count: ~ 2,190
Disclaimer: In no way, shape, or form do these characters belong to me.
Summary: When Danny blows out his knee for good he has no idea what he's going to do with his life. And then Matt calls and tells him about a couple of clients who are looking to sell an idea they have for a television show, and are looking for a consultant.
Notes: Part of a series in the spirit of the Five Ways fics - in this instance Five Ways Steve and Danny Don't Meet (...And Eventually Live Happily Ever After).
When Danny blows out his knee for good he has no idea what he's going to do with his life. And then Matt calls and tells him about a couple of clients who are looking to sell an idea they have for a television show, and are looking for a consultant.
Danny knows better, he does, but he has to ask. "What kind of consultant?"
Just like that, Matt's off and running, talking about something that sounds like Gilligan's Island meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets every buddy cop show ever made. Honestly, it sounds like a disaster in the making, but Matt's confident these clients of his can get someone to buy the damn thing and make it work.
"So what's the catch?" Danny asks. He knows Matt. Knows there's some kind of -
"They want a consultant," Matt says.
"Yeah, no," Danny says, still leery. "I got that part, what I don't understand is what it has to do with me." Only he does. He knows Matt, and he knows what's coming.
"It's a police show." Matt pauses because of all the things the show sounds like it wants to be? A police show is so very low on the list. "Okay, okay, so it's got the bones of a police show buried in there somewhere," he amends, able to follow Danny's line of thought with distressing ease. "They're convinced having someone who knows police procedure from the get-go will help them sell it to the network bigwigs."
"No." Danny's actually met a few ex-cops who worked as consultants for television shows. The horror stories they'd had to share had been enough for him decide it was a fate worse than death, and then there was the way television shows and movies had a habit of handwaving things like proper police procedure away as being inconvenient to the plot. "Not a chance in hell."
"Come on," Matt wheedles, almost whines. "Do it as a favor to me."
Danny snorts because as these things go, Matt owes him for the rest of his natural life.
"Okay, okay. I can see how that was a poor choice of words on my part," he says. And then, the fucker goes and plays dirty. "They're hoping to shoot it on location." A pause, and then he's talking again, moving in for the kill like Danny taught him when they were younger. "They want to set it in Hawaii."
====
====
It would have been easy, so fucking easy to blame the separation and divorce on Danny fucking up his knee, but that's the problem right there.
It would be easy, and a perfect way to put the blame on Rachel when Danny knows he's just as much to blame for whatever went wrong as she is. If there's even any blame to be had, which, when he's being completely honest he's not so sure there is. The signs were there for him to see long before that last case, the one that fucked up his knee and ended his career, he'd just ignored them. And kept ignoring them until finally it blew up in his face and Rachel took Grace and left.
Things are better now, and maybe it's because he's had to come to terms with his bad knee and the limp he's going to have for the rest of his life and the fact that his grandmother was right when she told him life loved to fuck with you, and the only thing for it was not to let it. There was a little more to it, but basically, you either kept moving forward or you didn't.
Hardly a poster with a kitten hanging on for life, urging you to just hang in there, but far more useful and less likely to get PETA on your ass for animal cruelty.
====
====
Danny will never really know how, but Matt's clients get their show green-lighted with a few tweaks here and there, and then Danny's packed up and moving to Hawaii. He spends his days arguing with actors and directors and what feels like an endless parade of assholes on the right and wrong way to do something when it comes to police procedure.
It takes a few months before he realizes it's not as horrible as he was expecting.
"Yeah," Carol from make-up tells him when the realization hits him smack in the face in between shooting scenes for an episode. "It hits people like that sometimes. Welcome to show business."
Carol is a harpy who delights in making Danny's life a living hell. He wouldn't have survived the transition from Jersey to Hawaii without her.
And then one of the leads for the show runs past them in nothing but a shoulder holster, whooping and yelling with the director in hot pursuit screaming about script changes and losing the light.
"Jesus Christ." Danny cannot believe this is his life now.
"Pretty much," Carol says, and snags a fry from Danny's plate like things like that are completely normal.
====
====
Danny knows the show isn't even trying for realism anymore when they bring in an outside stunt crew who have a helicopter and given the size of their equipment trailer, probably a tank or two.
"Seriously?" Danny asks of no one, really. Carol's gone off to make the lead look like he's been through a helicopter crash and lived to tell the tale, and he's at loose ends for the moment.
"Hey, you must be the police consultant guy."
Danny turns because one, he has a name, and two, he doesn't recognize the voice. There's a guy standing behind him, tall and lanky wearing a shirt with a logo for the new stunt crew. "And you must be the helicopter guy."
Helicopter Guy grins at him. "Call me Steve."
Danny squints at him because "Call me Steve" is rocking on his heels a little and smiling like an idiot and this, okay. This is the guy who's going to be doing aerial stunts Danny's still not sure they managed to get permits for, and this is the guy who's going to be doing the aerial stunts. He's pretty sure it's all going to end in an actual fiery crash and not one the digital effects guys have been slaving away at creating. "Danny Williams."
Steve's grin widens and he looks like he's about to say something when the sound of a muffled explosion reaches them. Danny's head snaps around towards the parking lot where they can see a plume of smoke starting to rise over the trees.
"Oh," Steve says. "That's. Huh. I thought she wasn't going to test that until later."
Danny glances back at him, phone half-way to his ear. He knows they have a fire crew on set, but that's a lot of smoke and old habits die hard. "What?"
Steve shakes his head, the mildly confused look on his face rearranging itself back into that stupid smile. "Kono," he says. "She's part of my crew. She's been working on a new mix. Explosives?" When Danny just stares at him, not sure he's heard right, Steve roll his eyes like Danny's being deliberately difficult.
"She gets bored," Steve says. Like being a stunt person who jumps off cliffs and out of moving cars - and that's just some of the things Danny's seen Steve and his people do in the first couple of days they've been on set - is the kind of job where boredom is rampant.
And this. This is exactly why Danny has to remind himself that he hasn't somehow found himself in an alternate dimension some days, that this is his life now. People blowing shit up like it's no big deal and (hopefully pretending to) crashing helicopters like it's something they do every damn day before breakfast.
"Right," Danny says, and puts his phone away. Steve's still looking at Danny like maybe Danny's the one who's not quite right in the head. "There's something wrong with you, you know that right?"
Steve just grins at him like Danny's just paid him the best compliment he's ever gotten.
====
====
The thing about old habits dying hard is that Danny notices things. The way the new director they brought in for this episode has been acting skittish whenever he crosses paths with Steve and his crew. Things like Steve and his crew and the way they have of sticking out among a bunch of people who could never, ever be mistaken for anything approaching normal in polite society.
"Hey. Fuck you, Jersey," Carol says, even though she's a fellow Jersey transplant.
"Zip it, harpy," Danny says, and absently pushes his fries closer to her.
Carol shrugs. "What's your problem with them anyway?"
Danny doesn't have a problem with them, per se. It's just. There's something about them that's been setting off all the alarm bells in his head. Like they're waiting for something to happen, and on a set like this where that kind of something could get someone hurt or killed? It's almost enough to make Danny wish he'd swallowed his pride and taken a damn desk job instead.
====
====
"I'd like to say this is a refreshing surprise," Danny says, when it turns out he hasn't lost his edge and Steve and his people aren't exactly who they say they are. "But it's not."
"Hey, you want to focus here?" Steve is a pissy little fucker who has control issues.
"Oh, no," Danny says, holding his hands up. "This is your show, buddy. I'm just the consultant. Dazzle me."
They're locked in a building the show's using for the episode and Steve and his people are goddamned bounty hunters who have been trying to catch a friend of the new director. The worst thing about the whole thing is that Steve's story is actually better than any of the plots the show's writers have come up with.
"It still sounds like a bad movie," Danny says, when he thinks about it. "Like. I don't even know. Direct-to-DVD movie bad."
Steve glares at him and pushes past him to try and find a way out. "Well I'm sorry we couldn't come up with something better. Like, oh, I don't know, a vampire working as a private investigator in Hawaii. What the hell is that, anyway? Is he an idiot?" Steve bitches.
And even though Danny secretly thinks the show is kind of shit, for better or worse, it's his show.
"Hey, at least he doesn't make his friends go undercover as a stunt crew!" Danny shoots back because seriously. That's some 80s television shit right there. "Whose brilliant idea was that anyway?"
There's a telling silence from Steve, who re-doubles his efforts to get them out.
"Oh, my God. You're a moron, aren't you?"
"Shut up!"
"Jesus Christ. I suddenly understand Chin so, so much." Danny pulls his phone out because the director and his buddy are exactly the kind of idiots who don't bother to do a thorough search and calls Carol.
He knows Kono could rig some kind of explosive to blow the doors open, and Chin would probably just drive through the front of the building using Steve's truck. Carol, on the other hand, would bring someone from the set construction crew who could just take the door apart to get them out.
====
====
"So..." Steve fails so much at holding actual conversations, it's incredible.
Kono and Chin have taken the director and his friend in to get their rewards, and the crew are wrapping up shooting for the day. They'll have to put off shooting the rest of the episode until they can fly a new director in.
And despite the fact that Steve, Kono, and Chin aren't actual stunt people, the producers have been trying to convince them to stay on with the show for the rest of the season. Apparently a good stunt crew is harder to find than a semi-competent director.
"Here," Danny says, and slaps a piece of paper with his phone number in Steve's hand to save them both the embarrassment of Steve fumbling his way towards asking if Danny maybe likes him a little. He's pretty sure Kono and Chin are going to bring him around to accepting the offer to stay on with the show, but Steve doesn't seem to realize that yet. "Call me if you get locked in a building by stupid criminals again."
Steve snorts, mouth curving up into a faint smile. "Sounds good."
Danny opens his mouth to say something else, but then one of the guest stars starts shrieking about lizards in her trailer and he can see Carol making her way towards them in full-on harpy mode.
"Jesus Christ," Steve says, looking around like he's only now noticing how fucking insane Danny's life has become, as if his own life is the very definition of normal.
Danny smirks. He recognizes the look on Steve's face. Remembers seeing it in his own mirror when he started working on the show. "Yeah," Danny says. And this isn't anywhere close to where he expected to be at this point in his life, but he's actually okay with that. "It hits people like that sometimes."
Posted at http://kitsune-tsuki.dreamwidth.org/343857.html. | You can reply here or there. |
Author:
kitsune_tsuki
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Pre-slash, Steve/Danny
Word Count: ~ 2,190
Disclaimer: In no way, shape, or form do these characters belong to me.
Summary: When Danny blows out his knee for good he has no idea what he's going to do with his life. And then Matt calls and tells him about a couple of clients who are looking to sell an idea they have for a television show, and are looking for a consultant.
Notes: Part of a series in the spirit of the Five Ways fics - in this instance Five Ways Steve and Danny Don't Meet (...And Eventually Live Happily Ever After).
When Danny blows out his knee for good he has no idea what he's going to do with his life. And then Matt calls and tells him about a couple of clients who are looking to sell an idea they have for a television show, and are looking for a consultant.
Danny knows better, he does, but he has to ask. "What kind of consultant?"
Just like that, Matt's off and running, talking about something that sounds like Gilligan's Island meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets every buddy cop show ever made. Honestly, it sounds like a disaster in the making, but Matt's confident these clients of his can get someone to buy the damn thing and make it work.
"So what's the catch?" Danny asks. He knows Matt. Knows there's some kind of -
"They want a consultant," Matt says.
"Yeah, no," Danny says, still leery. "I got that part, what I don't understand is what it has to do with me." Only he does. He knows Matt, and he knows what's coming.
"It's a police show." Matt pauses because of all the things the show sounds like it wants to be? A police show is so very low on the list. "Okay, okay, so it's got the bones of a police show buried in there somewhere," he amends, able to follow Danny's line of thought with distressing ease. "They're convinced having someone who knows police procedure from the get-go will help them sell it to the network bigwigs."
"No." Danny's actually met a few ex-cops who worked as consultants for television shows. The horror stories they'd had to share had been enough for him decide it was a fate worse than death, and then there was the way television shows and movies had a habit of handwaving things like proper police procedure away as being inconvenient to the plot. "Not a chance in hell."
"Come on," Matt wheedles, almost whines. "Do it as a favor to me."
Danny snorts because as these things go, Matt owes him for the rest of his natural life.
"Okay, okay. I can see how that was a poor choice of words on my part," he says. And then, the fucker goes and plays dirty. "They're hoping to shoot it on location." A pause, and then he's talking again, moving in for the kill like Danny taught him when they were younger. "They want to set it in Hawaii."
====
====
It would have been easy, so fucking easy to blame the separation and divorce on Danny fucking up his knee, but that's the problem right there.
It would be easy, and a perfect way to put the blame on Rachel when Danny knows he's just as much to blame for whatever went wrong as she is. If there's even any blame to be had, which, when he's being completely honest he's not so sure there is. The signs were there for him to see long before that last case, the one that fucked up his knee and ended his career, he'd just ignored them. And kept ignoring them until finally it blew up in his face and Rachel took Grace and left.
Things are better now, and maybe it's because he's had to come to terms with his bad knee and the limp he's going to have for the rest of his life and the fact that his grandmother was right when she told him life loved to fuck with you, and the only thing for it was not to let it. There was a little more to it, but basically, you either kept moving forward or you didn't.
Hardly a poster with a kitten hanging on for life, urging you to just hang in there, but far more useful and less likely to get PETA on your ass for animal cruelty.
====
====
Danny will never really know how, but Matt's clients get their show green-lighted with a few tweaks here and there, and then Danny's packed up and moving to Hawaii. He spends his days arguing with actors and directors and what feels like an endless parade of assholes on the right and wrong way to do something when it comes to police procedure.
It takes a few months before he realizes it's not as horrible as he was expecting.
"Yeah," Carol from make-up tells him when the realization hits him smack in the face in between shooting scenes for an episode. "It hits people like that sometimes. Welcome to show business."
Carol is a harpy who delights in making Danny's life a living hell. He wouldn't have survived the transition from Jersey to Hawaii without her.
And then one of the leads for the show runs past them in nothing but a shoulder holster, whooping and yelling with the director in hot pursuit screaming about script changes and losing the light.
"Jesus Christ." Danny cannot believe this is his life now.
"Pretty much," Carol says, and snags a fry from Danny's plate like things like that are completely normal.
====
====
Danny knows the show isn't even trying for realism anymore when they bring in an outside stunt crew who have a helicopter and given the size of their equipment trailer, probably a tank or two.
"Seriously?" Danny asks of no one, really. Carol's gone off to make the lead look like he's been through a helicopter crash and lived to tell the tale, and he's at loose ends for the moment.
"Hey, you must be the police consultant guy."
Danny turns because one, he has a name, and two, he doesn't recognize the voice. There's a guy standing behind him, tall and lanky wearing a shirt with a logo for the new stunt crew. "And you must be the helicopter guy."
Helicopter Guy grins at him. "Call me Steve."
Danny squints at him because "Call me Steve" is rocking on his heels a little and smiling like an idiot and this, okay. This is the guy who's going to be doing aerial stunts Danny's still not sure they managed to get permits for, and this is the guy who's going to be doing the aerial stunts. He's pretty sure it's all going to end in an actual fiery crash and not one the digital effects guys have been slaving away at creating. "Danny Williams."
Steve's grin widens and he looks like he's about to say something when the sound of a muffled explosion reaches them. Danny's head snaps around towards the parking lot where they can see a plume of smoke starting to rise over the trees.
"Oh," Steve says. "That's. Huh. I thought she wasn't going to test that until later."
Danny glances back at him, phone half-way to his ear. He knows they have a fire crew on set, but that's a lot of smoke and old habits die hard. "What?"
Steve shakes his head, the mildly confused look on his face rearranging itself back into that stupid smile. "Kono," he says. "She's part of my crew. She's been working on a new mix. Explosives?" When Danny just stares at him, not sure he's heard right, Steve roll his eyes like Danny's being deliberately difficult.
"She gets bored," Steve says. Like being a stunt person who jumps off cliffs and out of moving cars - and that's just some of the things Danny's seen Steve and his people do in the first couple of days they've been on set - is the kind of job where boredom is rampant.
And this. This is exactly why Danny has to remind himself that he hasn't somehow found himself in an alternate dimension some days, that this is his life now. People blowing shit up like it's no big deal and (hopefully pretending to) crashing helicopters like it's something they do every damn day before breakfast.
"Right," Danny says, and puts his phone away. Steve's still looking at Danny like maybe Danny's the one who's not quite right in the head. "There's something wrong with you, you know that right?"
Steve just grins at him like Danny's just paid him the best compliment he's ever gotten.
====
====
The thing about old habits dying hard is that Danny notices things. The way the new director they brought in for this episode has been acting skittish whenever he crosses paths with Steve and his crew. Things like Steve and his crew and the way they have of sticking out among a bunch of people who could never, ever be mistaken for anything approaching normal in polite society.
"Hey. Fuck you, Jersey," Carol says, even though she's a fellow Jersey transplant.
"Zip it, harpy," Danny says, and absently pushes his fries closer to her.
Carol shrugs. "What's your problem with them anyway?"
Danny doesn't have a problem with them, per se. It's just. There's something about them that's been setting off all the alarm bells in his head. Like they're waiting for something to happen, and on a set like this where that kind of something could get someone hurt or killed? It's almost enough to make Danny wish he'd swallowed his pride and taken a damn desk job instead.
====
====
"I'd like to say this is a refreshing surprise," Danny says, when it turns out he hasn't lost his edge and Steve and his people aren't exactly who they say they are. "But it's not."
"Hey, you want to focus here?" Steve is a pissy little fucker who has control issues.
"Oh, no," Danny says, holding his hands up. "This is your show, buddy. I'm just the consultant. Dazzle me."
They're locked in a building the show's using for the episode and Steve and his people are goddamned bounty hunters who have been trying to catch a friend of the new director. The worst thing about the whole thing is that Steve's story is actually better than any of the plots the show's writers have come up with.
"It still sounds like a bad movie," Danny says, when he thinks about it. "Like. I don't even know. Direct-to-DVD movie bad."
Steve glares at him and pushes past him to try and find a way out. "Well I'm sorry we couldn't come up with something better. Like, oh, I don't know, a vampire working as a private investigator in Hawaii. What the hell is that, anyway? Is he an idiot?" Steve bitches.
And even though Danny secretly thinks the show is kind of shit, for better or worse, it's his show.
"Hey, at least he doesn't make his friends go undercover as a stunt crew!" Danny shoots back because seriously. That's some 80s television shit right there. "Whose brilliant idea was that anyway?"
There's a telling silence from Steve, who re-doubles his efforts to get them out.
"Oh, my God. You're a moron, aren't you?"
"Shut up!"
"Jesus Christ. I suddenly understand Chin so, so much." Danny pulls his phone out because the director and his buddy are exactly the kind of idiots who don't bother to do a thorough search and calls Carol.
He knows Kono could rig some kind of explosive to blow the doors open, and Chin would probably just drive through the front of the building using Steve's truck. Carol, on the other hand, would bring someone from the set construction crew who could just take the door apart to get them out.
====
====
"So..." Steve fails so much at holding actual conversations, it's incredible.
Kono and Chin have taken the director and his friend in to get their rewards, and the crew are wrapping up shooting for the day. They'll have to put off shooting the rest of the episode until they can fly a new director in.
And despite the fact that Steve, Kono, and Chin aren't actual stunt people, the producers have been trying to convince them to stay on with the show for the rest of the season. Apparently a good stunt crew is harder to find than a semi-competent director.
"Here," Danny says, and slaps a piece of paper with his phone number in Steve's hand to save them both the embarrassment of Steve fumbling his way towards asking if Danny maybe likes him a little. He's pretty sure Kono and Chin are going to bring him around to accepting the offer to stay on with the show, but Steve doesn't seem to realize that yet. "Call me if you get locked in a building by stupid criminals again."
Steve snorts, mouth curving up into a faint smile. "Sounds good."
Danny opens his mouth to say something else, but then one of the guest stars starts shrieking about lizards in her trailer and he can see Carol making her way towards them in full-on harpy mode.
"Jesus Christ," Steve says, looking around like he's only now noticing how fucking insane Danny's life has become, as if his own life is the very definition of normal.
Danny smirks. He recognizes the look on Steve's face. Remembers seeing it in his own mirror when he started working on the show. "Yeah," Danny says. And this isn't anywhere close to where he expected to be at this point in his life, but he's actually okay with that. "It hits people like that sometimes."
Posted at http://kitsune-tsuki.dreamwidth.org/343857.html. | You can reply here or there. |