Take Your Fandom Home With You Day. (What do you mean that's silly, shut up.)
Last night gyzym wrote this adorable thingy where Danny and Steve are living in her home state and doing home state-y things, and it got me to thinking - a few years ago somebody hosted this awesome "Take Your Fandom To Work Day" (which I still want to revive at some point, seriously) where you took your characters and sometimes your canon plots and
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"Danny, what the fuck--" she says, but Danny cuts her off with a hand slicing the space between them.
"No, no," he says, "if that was going to be a complaint out of your mouth, if that was going to be you bitching about the mainland in general or the northeast specifically--Kono, god help me, if you were about to blame me for this offense to the good name of weather everywhere--" He pauses, presumably to breathe. His cheeks are pink between the scarf and the hat.
"Uh," Kono says, "sorry." Her jeans are soaked to mid-thigh, because that is how high the snow is. It's still falling. It feels like being buried alive. The perp has gone to ground at his mother's house, which is here, somewhere off Salina St. The rental Jeep is three blocks back and she's afraid they might be walking the wrong direction. They've already passed four liquor stores, two open strip clubs and one that looks condemned but she swears she heard club music coming from one of the windows.
"Can we just find this jerkoff and drag him through the blizzard already?" Danny says. The snow caught in his eyebrows makes him look like Jack Frost, like a cartoon.
"On it!" Kono says as cheerily as she can manage, then fights one leg free of the snow that is somehow measurably deeper than it was half an hour ago when Danny thought he saw the right house number through the white blinding haze, parked the car half-in a snowbank, and started this whole mess.
*****
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"Well," Danny says, "this is--ironic. I think."
Her name is Sandra Gail, and she offers them hot coffee and whatever they want on the menu, free of charge. Kono lets Danny order for both of them, since nothing really looks familiar to her and he actually claps his hands when he sees fried egg and home fries on the list of specials.
"He's a son of a bitch," Sandra says, pouring the coffee. It's nice and warm in their cozy booth, but the heat is a mixed blessing; Kono's face feels like it might defrost sometime this century, but the snow on her clothes, which had previously been only a nuisance, is now melting into a frozen, chafing mess, sticking her jeans to the backs of her knees.
"Whoa," Danny says, "your own son, come on, ma'am. With respect."
She shrugs. She's plump and fiftyish, blonde hair streaked with gray, and she wears calf-high pink-and-white snowboots that Kono is coveting right now more than she has ever coveted the wickedest surfboard, the hottest pair of pumps.
"Dennis, he's just an asshole. Some people can't help it. You say he robbed some poor girl?"
"Not just some girl," Kono says. "The governor's cousin. He didn't take much, but she's pretty pissed." The kid had crashed a dorm at UH Manoa and stolen one XBox, one laptop computer, forty bucks in cash and a necklace with sentimental value. The girl was sobbing when they asked for her statement, so they let Danny handle it. He sat her down and listened, hushing and touching her arm lightly when she lapsed back into tears.
"She should be," Sandra says. The lines around her mouth deepen. "Excuse me a moment." She takes the empty coffee pot back into the kitchen. There's a clatter, and then silence.
Kono looks to Danny. His face is buried in his coffee cup and he's moaning.
"Ew," she says, "TMI."
"This coffee," he says, "it's so bad. It's the worst coffee I've ever had." He sips again, still moaning in what she now thinks might not be pleasure. Maybe he's burning his tongue. "It is so burnt, this is terrible diner coffee and I love it so much."
"Okay," she says. Sandra comes stomping out of the kitchen, her snowboots leaving slushy gray prints across the linoleum. She's pushing a skinny, pierced kid ahead of her, who looks just like his mugshot except for the dirty apron and the tray full of hot steaming food. Kono can feel her mouth fill with saliva, for the warmth as much as the substance, snow still falling steadily against the window. Dennis puts the tray down in front of them.
"Home fries," Danny says, "with onions, oh, Lord. Also, you're coming back to Hawaii with us to stand trial." He scoots inward, making room in the booth. "Please, sit down."
Dennis looks to his mother. She raises one eyebrow. He sits down.
"Now," Danny says, "we are going to have a nice long talk about robbing people and how you do not do it, especially when they are related to the governor of the state you have chosen to make temporary residence in. And honestly, I feel like a chump taking you back to the island with me, you and this fucking weather deserve each other. But first, I am going to eat my home fries. And so is Kono."
"Yes, sir," she says, forking some potatoes and smelling them. They're kind of pinkish red but also look delicious, so she chews and swallows. "This is amazing," she says, with her mouth full.
Sandra smiles. "Dennis," she says, "your job and your old room will be here when you get back. If you cooperate with these nice people. Okay?"
He looks sick to his stomach. His nose is long and straight over his upper lip and he looks like he might puke. Kono guards her plate with one hand. "Should we wait the storm out?" she asks Danny.
"Might be tough," Sandra says. "Snow all week, they're saying. No flights out, either. But listen, my husband and I live upstairs. We've had Dennis in his old bedroom, but there's a couch too, and sleeping bags. No reason we can't fit two more." She smiles. Everyone groans.
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Plus:
"This coffee," he says, "it's so bad. It's the worst coffee I've ever had." He sips again, still moaning in what she now thinks might not be pleasure. Maybe he's burning his tongue. "It is so burnt, this is terrible diner coffee and I love it so much."
I laughed so hard at this. You're a freaking genius, this is gold.
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Bad diner coffee is my favorite thing ever. Me and Danny, we're on the same wavelength about that.
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So awesome! Diner food I miss you so much! Thank you for this!
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Also, for you and other current or past Syracuse residents: there is a Mom's Diner in Syracuse, but it's on Westcott, not off Salina. Artistic license. They do have amazing home fries though!
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LOL awesome! I go to a pub when I get home to get that taste of home I miss and there's also a diner my sister takes me too. :-)
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This was just great. Love the diner and the trekking through the snow (I know exactly how that goes) and Kono coveting the snow boots. And Danny moaning over his coffee.
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