[Hawaii Five-0] Could Be This Easy
Title: Could Be This Easy
Author:
kitsune_tsuki
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Hints of Steve/Danny
Word Count: ~ 3,700
Disclaimer: In no way, shape, or form do these characters belong to me.
Summary: Danny takes up a hobby.
Notes: ...I don't even know.
The knitting thing comes about because Danny's doctor is a horrible, horrible man who wants to make sure that when Danny does die, he may be healthy, but is also a sad, miserable man who no longer knows the joys of fried foods and has been put on a low-sodium diet.
And maybe that would have been the end of it, but Grace's class does a section about the dangers of high blood pressure soon afterward. (Danny suspects his doctor is an evil mastermind and Grace's teacher is one of his minions.)
Danny has a hard enough time saying no to Grace when he actually has to be a good parent, so when she gives him her best puppy-dog eyes and tells him she loves him and doesn't want anything to happen to him because his blood pressure is a little high he has no choice. (Danny knows, okay. He knows exactly why it's so damned high, and it has absolutely nothing to do with his dietary habits and everything to do with a certain asshole with the initials S.J.M.)
Danny's doctor, clearly knowing he has won and proving he is also something of a bastard, suggests Danny take up a hobby. A hobby, like Danny has time for one with the way things tend to go with Steve around.
Danny makes the mistake of telling Rachel that hilarious bit of advice when he goes to pick Grace up one day when Rachel voices her concern about Danny's blood pressure. At first he thinks it's because Rachel knows him so well, his anger management issues, but then he finds out that his doctor, brilliantly evil man that he is, has somehow gotten to Rachel too. Or maybe, and this isn't completely outside the realm of possibility since Rachel is no slouch at the whole evil mastermind thing, she might actually be the mastermind behind everything.
"I think a hobby would be a fantastic idea," she says. "Wonderful."
"A hobby."
"Yes," Rachel says, smiling pleasantly at him as though she's not secretly laughing herself sick at the expression on his face. "I've been told that finding the right hobby can be enjoyable for people. It would certainly do you some good to have something to do to take your mind off of your work at times."
"Such as?" Danny asks, even though he knows in his heart of hearts that there's no way this can end well.
"What about taking up knitting? Or possibly crochet?" Rachel says, just as Grace runs into the room.
"...Like grandma?" she asks.
And, oh. Right there. Right there when Rachel smirks at Danny, has him exactly where she wants him, is when he knows his fate is sealed. Danny's mother knitted Grace a sweater for her when she was four, all bright colors and soft yarn that Grace loved and wore until it got to be too small, and now exists as a stuffed teddy bear she can't sleep without.
Grace is giving him the same look that had him eating salad, and swearing to follow the low-sodium diet and later that day going to a craft store. He does a lot of nodding while the sales woman helping him loads up a shopping basket and charges an inordinate amount of money for things he has no idea how to use, other than possibly stabbing his own eyes out in a fit of frustration because he can't figure out how the hell this knitting thing even works.
====
====
Danny has books to help him learn how to knit. Said books are geared towards children, and as an adult he should be able to understand and follow the very clear instructions and helpful photographs to cast on. He should, and yet it's fucking impossible.
In his desperation he turns to the internet, a cesspool of cat macros and various do-it-yourself sites (among other things), but in the end proves to be of no help whatsoever, no matter how many times he watches the videos. He's starting to think that learning how to knit is what's actually going to kill him.
"Oh, honestly," Rachel says, when he shows up at her house with his knitting needles and a knotted up length of yarn, undoubtedly looking like a lunatic. "Come inside. Grace will show you how it's done."
"...What?" Danny asks.
Rachel smirks. "I've been teaching Grace how to knit," she says. "You know how she loved that sweater your mother made."
Danny squints at her, still not following. That may be due to the stress he's been under, trying out this supposedly calming, soothing hobby.
Rachel smiles at him, nothing at all like an evil overlord or the woman he fell in love with all those years ago and more like the woman he feels like he's just getting to know. Someone who may just like him in return.
"Okay," he agrees, smiling a little himself. "Why not?"
====
====
Once he learns to cast on, Danny starts to figure out the whole knitting thing fairly easily. He still has days where he seriously thinks about stabbing his own eyes out with the damn needles out of frustration with his life (Steve), work (Steve, Kono, and sometimes Chin, because Chin actually is an evil mastermind), or the actual knitting project he's working on.
A bonus he wasn't expecting from picking up a hobby, in his case knitting, is that now he has a weekly group knitting date with Rachel and Grace in which they laugh at his sad, attempts at knitting and tells him that, no, it really does look okay, it's fine, don't worry, and everything is. Everything is good. They teach him how to knit, and while he still doesn't really grasp the importance (apparently there is such a thing) of various weights and kinds of yarn when approaching a knitting project, he gets to spend time with both of them that's just...theirs.
====
====
"Danny - "
Danny's working on his latest project when Kono comes into his office to ask him a question. He can practically feel her confusion because, yes, knitting, but he still isn't good enough to be able to knit without looking at what he's doing, and if he drops another stitch and has to tear the damn thing apart to start over one more time, he may well kill someone.
"Um. I..." Kono says, obviously having problems using her words because she's staring, a little incredulous. Laughing, but in the same way Chin does when he doesn't want people who don't know him to think he's anything but stoic and noble and all about duty and honor and not at all a bastard with a deeply twisted sense of humor. Steve dropped in an hour ago, but his reaction had mostly been confusion, like maybe he didn't trust what he was seeing, before he'd backed out of the room.
And maybe that had had something to do with Danny telling him a few weeks ago after an incident involving major property damage that there was a good chance he was going to lose it one day. Just up and snap because his partners, his team didn't seem to understand that hey, most people didn't keep grenades in the car, no matter how safe they claimed grenades were before the pin was removed. (No, Danny doesn't think Mr. Grenade is his friend, except for that one time - one time - Mr. Grenade cleared out the gunrunners and their little blockade that included a fucking bazooka, Jesus.)
Danny ignores Kono and her not-laughing until he gets to a good stopping point - no dropped stitches, thankfully - and sets his knitting down before looking up at her. "Is there some way that I might possibly be of help to you?"
Kono opens her mouth. Closes it. Opens it again, clearly not sure if he's the crazy one in this situation or if it's her, and then holds up a file. "The case?" she says, making it into more of a question that statement of fact.
Danny raises an eyebrow and waits. He's knitting, yes. Knitting while at work, in his office waiting for the lab to call with whatever they've found at the crime scene that may or may not help, and until then there's not a lot he can do but wait. If Kono expects him to be the first to break, to explain why he's knitting, she's sadly mistaken.
"...I."
"Yes?"
Kono stares at him, and then shakes her head, like she's reminding herself she's a member of the governor's personal task force, a team made up of lunatics and madmen trained to use firearms and, frequently, explosives. "I think I have something," she says, sounding more like the professional she is, and opens the file to show him what she's found.
====
====
Danny learned early on that working with Steve meant getting acquainted with the fact that things like plans, or good intentions, or, well, anything, really, never went the way they were expected to. That a stakeout - previous long, boring, and tedious if done right, had a depressing tendency of ending in some kind of violence, whether it involve firearms or some kind of physical altercation.
He also learns that bringing his knitting along makes for the best goddamned night he's had in a while, which is not only sad and pathetic but also - Well, no. It's just sad and pathetic.
Steve has apparently decided to try to respect Danny's lifestyle choice of having picked up knitting or something, Danny seriously doesn't want to know, and hasn't made a single comment. Not even when Danny pulls his knitting out and starts working away at it after Kono and Chin go home to get some well-earned sleep, but there have been looks directed his way. Steve biting his lip to keep from asking if Danny's okay, if there's something Danny needs to talk to him about when it comes to the knitting, like the knitting is a warning sign for mental illness.
He also learns, when things turn to shit because the people they're watching are paranoid bastards, that knitting needles make for pretty fucking fantastic weapons. And, sure, his knitting project gets ruined because bloodstains are a bitch to get out, but the important thing is that the two of them get to go home without any bullet holes or stab wounds, and that's a big fucking win in Danny's book right there.
====
====
Danny's first finished knitting project was supposed to be a hat. Something simple Rachel suggested that he couldn't ruin, but oh, how wrong she was.
"...Perhaps you should try crochet instead," Rachel says, when she sees the completed hat-thing.
Danny holds it up and eyes it critically. "Perhaps," he agrees.
====
====
Danny decides to dump the hat-thing at HQ, if only for the entertainment value. The others haven't come out and asked why he's knitting. He's gotten bewildered looks (Steve), concerned looks (Kono and Steve), and amused looks (Chin and Kono). He's also gotten looks that say, "It's Hawaii, Danny, Hawaii. Scarves and mittens and sweaters don't work here." Also, " Warmers of any kind make no sense, like you with the knitting."
"I." Steve is staring at it, trying to figure out what the hell it is, why it's shaped the way it is, and most importantly, what the hell it's doing sitting on the computer table. An ugly, horrible little thing made of yarn and evil, or so Steve's expression seems to say. "What is it?"
Danny hasn't had the best of days, and to make things better he gets to do the paperwork. "It's a pineapple cozy," he snaps. "Enjoy."
It's probably not fair to Steve, leaving him with the monstrosity he'd created, but what the hell. If he can't torment Steve, who can he torment?
====
====
Under Rachel and Grace's somewhat tender mercies, Danny picks up crocheting a little faster than he did knitting. He's not sure if it's the mechanics behind it, or if he does better (for varying definitions of the word "better") because he knows how to knit, but his first project starts out looking closer to what it's supposed to be.
Naturally of course, this means it's completely ruined when a drug kingpin decides to set up shop in his city and sends a goon after them. And while a crochet hook is just as effective as a knitting needle when used as a weapon, it's also messier.
"That's going to be a bitch to get out," Steve comments, looking at the goon Danny put down with a crochet hook for fuck's sake. The expression on his face says that while he may not completely understand the knitting and crocheting, he's definitely learning to appreciate it.
Danny shrugs. "He started it," he says, like the guy on the ground curled around the crochet hook in his side muttering to himself about crazy goddamned cops should have known better. (He really should have, but that's beside the point.)
That startles a laugh out of Steve. Stupid Steve with blood on his face and what Danny suspects might be a cracked rib and Jesus, his life.
"Hospital for you," Danny says, not in the mood to argue with him about it.
Steve takes one look at him and all the ways Danny isn't joking about this, about how not funny he finds someone trying to kill them - kill Steve - is, and nods. "Yeah," he says, mouth quirked in an odd little smile. "Okay."
====
====
"Really, Daniel," Rachel says, when Danny shows up to that week's knitting/crochet date with a new crochet hook and yarn. "Must you?" There's concern there, mixed with amusement because she's actually met Steve.
Danny sighs. "You have no idea," he says. Tired because for all that he actually doesn't hate his life as it is, there are things he could do without. Amused because there are things, people, he can't, and isn't that a kick in the head.
====
====
"...Danny."
Danny glances at Steve. Steve who is sitting next to him in the passenger seat with a look of utter confusion on his face. It's familiar, that look. "What?" he asks, just to be a bastard.
"I." Steve frowns, raising a hand to tap at the newest decorations the Camaro's picked up. "What. What the hell?" Steve finally asks, when he remembers to use his words.
"My car, Steven," Danny reminds him in a level tone of voice. "So shut it."
Steve's eyes narrow, shoulders coming up like he's about to start in about consulting him when it comes to the ways in which it is okay to decorate the car - still Danny's, the last time he checked the paperwork but it's not like that means anything to Steve, really - but then he stops. Frown smoothing out into this. This look, Danny can't even describe it, eyes going to Danny and the tiny pair of crocheted hand grenades dangling from the rear-view mirror.
"Shut it," Danny repeats when he sees the start of Steve's goofy smile spreading over his face. "Just. Shut it right now if you know what's good for you, McGarrett."
As if he's trying to prove he's really a giant dork, Steve mimes zipping his lips and throwing away the key. The effect's somewhat ruined by the shit-eating grin on his face, but what the hell. Danny's learned to take what he can when it comes to Steve.
====
====
Maybe Danny should have known better than to think things would be easy after that, that they could get through this case without serious incident. That the goon would be the worst of it.
Steve catches a bullet and Chin gets a knife in his leg, and that's before the boat blows up, when they finally manage to bring the drug kingpin down. He and Kono don't get through it unscathed, but they're better off, although that's doesn't really mean much. The important thing is that they're conscious and mobile, even if they're pretty much at the end of their respective ropes because there's nothing they can do but wait for news.
"Hey," Danny says, voice steadier than it has any right to be. "Get over here, rookie."
Kono's pacing, frustrated and and helpless without anyone to shoot or punch or roundhouse kick in the face. Angry, like she thinks Danny's going to send her home, tell her to get some rest, to get some fucking sleep while they wait for Steve and Chin to wake up.
"No, really," Danny says, when Kono ignores him, lost in her own thoughts. Endless loops of misery and what ifs, Danny knows. "Do I look like I'm kidding here?"
Kono's head comes up, expression tightening. She looks like she's getting into the same sort of headspace that precedes a serious ass kicking.
"Okay, good. Good," Danny says, eying Kono warily and wondering if he's making serious strategic error as he hands her one of the crochet hooks Rachel left with him when she was there earlier with Grace.
Kono chokes out a laugh, startled and incredulous. "I. Danny, what - "
"Quiet, you," Danny says, voice gruff as he holds up the bag of yarn for Kono to pick through for something she likes. "I'm about to induct you into a very exclusive club, which, by the way, you should appreciate if you know what's good for you."
There's a long moment of silence, and then. "Whatever you say, Danny." It's said in the tone of voice she uses whenever she's humoring him, amused and fond.
Danny slides a look at her as Kono goes through the yarn, willing to be distracted for the moment. "All right," he says, showing her how to hold the crochet hook, how to position the yarn. It's something small, this, but it's all he can do for her now. All she'll let him do, and a far cry better than leaving her to run through God only knows how many variations of what she could have done differently in her head, how she could have kept Chin or Steve from getting hurt, like it's hers alone to carry. Like Danny isn't right there with her even though he knows how useless that kind of thinking is. “Think you're up to this, rookie?”
Kono doesn't quite laugh, but there's a smile on her face, small, not quite sure of itself, but there all the same. “I think I can handle this,” she says, rolling her eyes.
"Never doubted that for a minute, rookie," Danny says. "Never doubted that for a minute."
====
====
Steve is an idiot. Danny knows this. He's known it from the moment they met, Steve trying his damnedest to put Danny in his place, to let him know just who was going to be running things with Steve back in town.
Jesus.
"You're an asshole," Danny says, even though Steve's out of it from whatever his doctor has him on and clearly isn't tracking. "Like. I can't even begin to tell you all the ways in which you, Steven J. McGarrett are an asshole, that's how much of an asshole you are."
Steve grins at that, big and wide and goofy. Danny thinks there may well be drool involved. "Christ," he mutters, automatically leaning forward to wipe the drool away using the edge of Steve's blanket. "I don't know why I put up with you some days."
Even drugged out of his mind Steve can hear the fondness Danny says that with, his smile getting even wider. "Love you too, Danno," he says, drawing out his vowels, face lighting up when he sees what Danny's working on.
"You." Danny stares at Steve and his stupid hair and stupid face and stupid smile and realizes that for better or worse, Steve is his idiot. Drool and all. "Shut up."
Steve's still smiling when the drugs pull him down into something like sleep. When Danny leaves a few hour later, he settles his latest crochet project in next to Steve, a larger version of the fuzzy hand grenades in the Camaro.
====
====
A few weeks later Steve and Chin are hobbling around HQ like a pair of old, decrepit men.
"I'm going to kill them, Danny."
Danny and Kono are holed up in Danny's office with their crochet projects. "Look at them!" Kono hisses, crochet hook coming dangerously close to Danny's eye as she gestures to where they can see Steve and Chin doing their best to look like they're not the stupidest, most stubborn jackasses Danny has ever known.
"Rookie," Danny says, giving her a long look. "I am not stopping you."
Kono stares at him for a long moment before slumping down into the couch cushions. "It'd serve them right," Kono mutters, making little jabbing motions with her crochet hook. "Knock some sense into them."
"Yeah," Danny says. "That'll teach 'em good."
This time Kono laughs, ducking her head, elbow bumping against his side. "Shut up. It totally would."
Danny nods, biting his lip to keep from smiling. "Hey, no. I'm with you on this one, okay? One thousand percent, all the way on your side."
Kono's smiling, looking better for all that she really does want to go out there and kick the shit out of Steve and Chin for scaring them so badly, for being stupid enough to think they were doing well enough to come into work when they should be resting.
"I give it another hour, tops," Kono says.
Danny thinks about it for a moment. "Two," he offers. Steve may not have the most patience when it comes to dealing with paperwork, but Chin's digging into his share like he's determined to stick it out, make it through the workday just to prove a very, very stupid point. About what, Danny can't bring himself to care because they're both idiots, but it means Steve's trying to out-stubborn Chin. And that, that is just not going to happen anytime soon.
Kono cocks her head to the side, a slow smile curving her lips as she considers it, them. Steve may be Danny's special idiot, but he's Kono's too, in the same way they belong to one another. "Yeah," she agrees. "That sounds about right."
These are the hand grenades Danny made for Steve. :D
For more in this 'verse, go to With Bells On over on LJ, DW, or IJ.
Posted at http://kitsune-tsuki.dreamwidth.org/357179.html. | You can reply here or there. |
Author:
kitsune_tsuki
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Hints of Steve/Danny
Word Count: ~ 3,700
Disclaimer: In no way, shape, or form do these characters belong to me.
Summary: Danny takes up a hobby.
Notes: ...I don't even know.
The knitting thing comes about because Danny's doctor is a horrible, horrible man who wants to make sure that when Danny does die, he may be healthy, but is also a sad, miserable man who no longer knows the joys of fried foods and has been put on a low-sodium diet.
And maybe that would have been the end of it, but Grace's class does a section about the dangers of high blood pressure soon afterward. (Danny suspects his doctor is an evil mastermind and Grace's teacher is one of his minions.)
Danny has a hard enough time saying no to Grace when he actually has to be a good parent, so when she gives him her best puppy-dog eyes and tells him she loves him and doesn't want anything to happen to him because his blood pressure is a little high he has no choice. (Danny knows, okay. He knows exactly why it's so damned high, and it has absolutely nothing to do with his dietary habits and everything to do with a certain asshole with the initials S.J.M.)
Danny's doctor, clearly knowing he has won and proving he is also something of a bastard, suggests Danny take up a hobby. A hobby, like Danny has time for one with the way things tend to go with Steve around.
Danny makes the mistake of telling Rachel that hilarious bit of advice when he goes to pick Grace up one day when Rachel voices her concern about Danny's blood pressure. At first he thinks it's because Rachel knows him so well, his anger management issues, but then he finds out that his doctor, brilliantly evil man that he is, has somehow gotten to Rachel too. Or maybe, and this isn't completely outside the realm of possibility since Rachel is no slouch at the whole evil mastermind thing, she might actually be the mastermind behind everything.
"I think a hobby would be a fantastic idea," she says. "Wonderful."
"A hobby."
"Yes," Rachel says, smiling pleasantly at him as though she's not secretly laughing herself sick at the expression on his face. "I've been told that finding the right hobby can be enjoyable for people. It would certainly do you some good to have something to do to take your mind off of your work at times."
"Such as?" Danny asks, even though he knows in his heart of hearts that there's no way this can end well.
"What about taking up knitting? Or possibly crochet?" Rachel says, just as Grace runs into the room.
"...Like grandma?" she asks.
And, oh. Right there. Right there when Rachel smirks at Danny, has him exactly where she wants him, is when he knows his fate is sealed. Danny's mother knitted Grace a sweater for her when she was four, all bright colors and soft yarn that Grace loved and wore until it got to be too small, and now exists as a stuffed teddy bear she can't sleep without.
Grace is giving him the same look that had him eating salad, and swearing to follow the low-sodium diet and later that day going to a craft store. He does a lot of nodding while the sales woman helping him loads up a shopping basket and charges an inordinate amount of money for things he has no idea how to use, other than possibly stabbing his own eyes out in a fit of frustration because he can't figure out how the hell this knitting thing even works.
====
====
Danny has books to help him learn how to knit. Said books are geared towards children, and as an adult he should be able to understand and follow the very clear instructions and helpful photographs to cast on. He should, and yet it's fucking impossible.
In his desperation he turns to the internet, a cesspool of cat macros and various do-it-yourself sites (among other things), but in the end proves to be of no help whatsoever, no matter how many times he watches the videos. He's starting to think that learning how to knit is what's actually going to kill him.
"Oh, honestly," Rachel says, when he shows up at her house with his knitting needles and a knotted up length of yarn, undoubtedly looking like a lunatic. "Come inside. Grace will show you how it's done."
"...What?" Danny asks.
Rachel smirks. "I've been teaching Grace how to knit," she says. "You know how she loved that sweater your mother made."
Danny squints at her, still not following. That may be due to the stress he's been under, trying out this supposedly calming, soothing hobby.
Rachel smiles at him, nothing at all like an evil overlord or the woman he fell in love with all those years ago and more like the woman he feels like he's just getting to know. Someone who may just like him in return.
"Okay," he agrees, smiling a little himself. "Why not?"
====
====
Once he learns to cast on, Danny starts to figure out the whole knitting thing fairly easily. He still has days where he seriously thinks about stabbing his own eyes out with the damn needles out of frustration with his life (Steve), work (Steve, Kono, and sometimes Chin, because Chin actually is an evil mastermind), or the actual knitting project he's working on.
A bonus he wasn't expecting from picking up a hobby, in his case knitting, is that now he has a weekly group knitting date with Rachel and Grace in which they laugh at his sad, attempts at knitting and tells him that, no, it really does look okay, it's fine, don't worry, and everything is. Everything is good. They teach him how to knit, and while he still doesn't really grasp the importance (apparently there is such a thing) of various weights and kinds of yarn when approaching a knitting project, he gets to spend time with both of them that's just...theirs.
====
====
"Danny - "
Danny's working on his latest project when Kono comes into his office to ask him a question. He can practically feel her confusion because, yes, knitting, but he still isn't good enough to be able to knit without looking at what he's doing, and if he drops another stitch and has to tear the damn thing apart to start over one more time, he may well kill someone.
"Um. I..." Kono says, obviously having problems using her words because she's staring, a little incredulous. Laughing, but in the same way Chin does when he doesn't want people who don't know him to think he's anything but stoic and noble and all about duty and honor and not at all a bastard with a deeply twisted sense of humor. Steve dropped in an hour ago, but his reaction had mostly been confusion, like maybe he didn't trust what he was seeing, before he'd backed out of the room.
And maybe that had had something to do with Danny telling him a few weeks ago after an incident involving major property damage that there was a good chance he was going to lose it one day. Just up and snap because his partners, his team didn't seem to understand that hey, most people didn't keep grenades in the car, no matter how safe they claimed grenades were before the pin was removed. (No, Danny doesn't think Mr. Grenade is his friend, except for that one time - one time - Mr. Grenade cleared out the gunrunners and their little blockade that included a fucking bazooka, Jesus.)
Danny ignores Kono and her not-laughing until he gets to a good stopping point - no dropped stitches, thankfully - and sets his knitting down before looking up at her. "Is there some way that I might possibly be of help to you?"
Kono opens her mouth. Closes it. Opens it again, clearly not sure if he's the crazy one in this situation or if it's her, and then holds up a file. "The case?" she says, making it into more of a question that statement of fact.
Danny raises an eyebrow and waits. He's knitting, yes. Knitting while at work, in his office waiting for the lab to call with whatever they've found at the crime scene that may or may not help, and until then there's not a lot he can do but wait. If Kono expects him to be the first to break, to explain why he's knitting, she's sadly mistaken.
"...I."
"Yes?"
Kono stares at him, and then shakes her head, like she's reminding herself she's a member of the governor's personal task force, a team made up of lunatics and madmen trained to use firearms and, frequently, explosives. "I think I have something," she says, sounding more like the professional she is, and opens the file to show him what she's found.
====
====
Danny learned early on that working with Steve meant getting acquainted with the fact that things like plans, or good intentions, or, well, anything, really, never went the way they were expected to. That a stakeout - previous long, boring, and tedious if done right, had a depressing tendency of ending in some kind of violence, whether it involve firearms or some kind of physical altercation.
He also learns that bringing his knitting along makes for the best goddamned night he's had in a while, which is not only sad and pathetic but also - Well, no. It's just sad and pathetic.
Steve has apparently decided to try to respect Danny's lifestyle choice of having picked up knitting or something, Danny seriously doesn't want to know, and hasn't made a single comment. Not even when Danny pulls his knitting out and starts working away at it after Kono and Chin go home to get some well-earned sleep, but there have been looks directed his way. Steve biting his lip to keep from asking if Danny's okay, if there's something Danny needs to talk to him about when it comes to the knitting, like the knitting is a warning sign for mental illness.
He also learns, when things turn to shit because the people they're watching are paranoid bastards, that knitting needles make for pretty fucking fantastic weapons. And, sure, his knitting project gets ruined because bloodstains are a bitch to get out, but the important thing is that the two of them get to go home without any bullet holes or stab wounds, and that's a big fucking win in Danny's book right there.
====
====
Danny's first finished knitting project was supposed to be a hat. Something simple Rachel suggested that he couldn't ruin, but oh, how wrong she was.
"...Perhaps you should try crochet instead," Rachel says, when she sees the completed hat-thing.
Danny holds it up and eyes it critically. "Perhaps," he agrees.
====
====
Danny decides to dump the hat-thing at HQ, if only for the entertainment value. The others haven't come out and asked why he's knitting. He's gotten bewildered looks (Steve), concerned looks (Kono and Steve), and amused looks (Chin and Kono). He's also gotten looks that say, "It's Hawaii, Danny, Hawaii. Scarves and mittens and sweaters don't work here." Also, " Warmers of any kind make no sense, like you with the knitting."
"I." Steve is staring at it, trying to figure out what the hell it is, why it's shaped the way it is, and most importantly, what the hell it's doing sitting on the computer table. An ugly, horrible little thing made of yarn and evil, or so Steve's expression seems to say. "What is it?"
Danny hasn't had the best of days, and to make things better he gets to do the paperwork. "It's a pineapple cozy," he snaps. "Enjoy."
It's probably not fair to Steve, leaving him with the monstrosity he'd created, but what the hell. If he can't torment Steve, who can he torment?
====
====
Under Rachel and Grace's somewhat tender mercies, Danny picks up crocheting a little faster than he did knitting. He's not sure if it's the mechanics behind it, or if he does better (for varying definitions of the word "better") because he knows how to knit, but his first project starts out looking closer to what it's supposed to be.
Naturally of course, this means it's completely ruined when a drug kingpin decides to set up shop in his city and sends a goon after them. And while a crochet hook is just as effective as a knitting needle when used as a weapon, it's also messier.
"That's going to be a bitch to get out," Steve comments, looking at the goon Danny put down with a crochet hook for fuck's sake. The expression on his face says that while he may not completely understand the knitting and crocheting, he's definitely learning to appreciate it.
Danny shrugs. "He started it," he says, like the guy on the ground curled around the crochet hook in his side muttering to himself about crazy goddamned cops should have known better. (He really should have, but that's beside the point.)
That startles a laugh out of Steve. Stupid Steve with blood on his face and what Danny suspects might be a cracked rib and Jesus, his life.
"Hospital for you," Danny says, not in the mood to argue with him about it.
Steve takes one look at him and all the ways Danny isn't joking about this, about how not funny he finds someone trying to kill them - kill Steve - is, and nods. "Yeah," he says, mouth quirked in an odd little smile. "Okay."
====
====
"Really, Daniel," Rachel says, when Danny shows up to that week's knitting/crochet date with a new crochet hook and yarn. "Must you?" There's concern there, mixed with amusement because she's actually met Steve.
Danny sighs. "You have no idea," he says. Tired because for all that he actually doesn't hate his life as it is, there are things he could do without. Amused because there are things, people, he can't, and isn't that a kick in the head.
====
====
"...Danny."
Danny glances at Steve. Steve who is sitting next to him in the passenger seat with a look of utter confusion on his face. It's familiar, that look. "What?" he asks, just to be a bastard.
"I." Steve frowns, raising a hand to tap at the newest decorations the Camaro's picked up. "What. What the hell?" Steve finally asks, when he remembers to use his words.
"My car, Steven," Danny reminds him in a level tone of voice. "So shut it."
Steve's eyes narrow, shoulders coming up like he's about to start in about consulting him when it comes to the ways in which it is okay to decorate the car - still Danny's, the last time he checked the paperwork but it's not like that means anything to Steve, really - but then he stops. Frown smoothing out into this. This look, Danny can't even describe it, eyes going to Danny and the tiny pair of crocheted hand grenades dangling from the rear-view mirror.
"Shut it," Danny repeats when he sees the start of Steve's goofy smile spreading over his face. "Just. Shut it right now if you know what's good for you, McGarrett."
As if he's trying to prove he's really a giant dork, Steve mimes zipping his lips and throwing away the key. The effect's somewhat ruined by the shit-eating grin on his face, but what the hell. Danny's learned to take what he can when it comes to Steve.
====
====
Maybe Danny should have known better than to think things would be easy after that, that they could get through this case without serious incident. That the goon would be the worst of it.
Steve catches a bullet and Chin gets a knife in his leg, and that's before the boat blows up, when they finally manage to bring the drug kingpin down. He and Kono don't get through it unscathed, but they're better off, although that's doesn't really mean much. The important thing is that they're conscious and mobile, even if they're pretty much at the end of their respective ropes because there's nothing they can do but wait for news.
"Hey," Danny says, voice steadier than it has any right to be. "Get over here, rookie."
Kono's pacing, frustrated and and helpless without anyone to shoot or punch or roundhouse kick in the face. Angry, like she thinks Danny's going to send her home, tell her to get some rest, to get some fucking sleep while they wait for Steve and Chin to wake up.
"No, really," Danny says, when Kono ignores him, lost in her own thoughts. Endless loops of misery and what ifs, Danny knows. "Do I look like I'm kidding here?"
Kono's head comes up, expression tightening. She looks like she's getting into the same sort of headspace that precedes a serious ass kicking.
"Okay, good. Good," Danny says, eying Kono warily and wondering if he's making serious strategic error as he hands her one of the crochet hooks Rachel left with him when she was there earlier with Grace.
Kono chokes out a laugh, startled and incredulous. "I. Danny, what - "
"Quiet, you," Danny says, voice gruff as he holds up the bag of yarn for Kono to pick through for something she likes. "I'm about to induct you into a very exclusive club, which, by the way, you should appreciate if you know what's good for you."
There's a long moment of silence, and then. "Whatever you say, Danny." It's said in the tone of voice she uses whenever she's humoring him, amused and fond.
Danny slides a look at her as Kono goes through the yarn, willing to be distracted for the moment. "All right," he says, showing her how to hold the crochet hook, how to position the yarn. It's something small, this, but it's all he can do for her now. All she'll let him do, and a far cry better than leaving her to run through God only knows how many variations of what she could have done differently in her head, how she could have kept Chin or Steve from getting hurt, like it's hers alone to carry. Like Danny isn't right there with her even though he knows how useless that kind of thinking is. “Think you're up to this, rookie?”
Kono doesn't quite laugh, but there's a smile on her face, small, not quite sure of itself, but there all the same. “I think I can handle this,” she says, rolling her eyes.
"Never doubted that for a minute, rookie," Danny says. "Never doubted that for a minute."
====
====
Steve is an idiot. Danny knows this. He's known it from the moment they met, Steve trying his damnedest to put Danny in his place, to let him know just who was going to be running things with Steve back in town.
Jesus.
"You're an asshole," Danny says, even though Steve's out of it from whatever his doctor has him on and clearly isn't tracking. "Like. I can't even begin to tell you all the ways in which you, Steven J. McGarrett are an asshole, that's how much of an asshole you are."
Steve grins at that, big and wide and goofy. Danny thinks there may well be drool involved. "Christ," he mutters, automatically leaning forward to wipe the drool away using the edge of Steve's blanket. "I don't know why I put up with you some days."
Even drugged out of his mind Steve can hear the fondness Danny says that with, his smile getting even wider. "Love you too, Danno," he says, drawing out his vowels, face lighting up when he sees what Danny's working on.
"You." Danny stares at Steve and his stupid hair and stupid face and stupid smile and realizes that for better or worse, Steve is his idiot. Drool and all. "Shut up."
Steve's still smiling when the drugs pull him down into something like sleep. When Danny leaves a few hour later, he settles his latest crochet project in next to Steve, a larger version of the fuzzy hand grenades in the Camaro.
====
====
A few weeks later Steve and Chin are hobbling around HQ like a pair of old, decrepit men.
"I'm going to kill them, Danny."
Danny and Kono are holed up in Danny's office with their crochet projects. "Look at them!" Kono hisses, crochet hook coming dangerously close to Danny's eye as she gestures to where they can see Steve and Chin doing their best to look like they're not the stupidest, most stubborn jackasses Danny has ever known.
"Rookie," Danny says, giving her a long look. "I am not stopping you."
Kono stares at him for a long moment before slumping down into the couch cushions. "It'd serve them right," Kono mutters, making little jabbing motions with her crochet hook. "Knock some sense into them."
"Yeah," Danny says. "That'll teach 'em good."
This time Kono laughs, ducking her head, elbow bumping against his side. "Shut up. It totally would."
Danny nods, biting his lip to keep from smiling. "Hey, no. I'm with you on this one, okay? One thousand percent, all the way on your side."
Kono's smiling, looking better for all that she really does want to go out there and kick the shit out of Steve and Chin for scaring them so badly, for being stupid enough to think they were doing well enough to come into work when they should be resting.
"I give it another hour, tops," Kono says.
Danny thinks about it for a moment. "Two," he offers. Steve may not have the most patience when it comes to dealing with paperwork, but Chin's digging into his share like he's determined to stick it out, make it through the workday just to prove a very, very stupid point. About what, Danny can't bring himself to care because they're both idiots, but it means Steve's trying to out-stubborn Chin. And that, that is just not going to happen anytime soon.
Kono cocks her head to the side, a slow smile curving her lips as she considers it, them. Steve may be Danny's special idiot, but he's Kono's too, in the same way they belong to one another. "Yeah," she agrees. "That sounds about right."
These are the hand grenades Danny made for Steve. :D
For more in this 'verse, go to With Bells On over on LJ, DW, or IJ.
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