Disingenuous Mountebanks With Their Subliminal Chicanery. A Pox On Them!
Thought for today: someone needs to write the crack story where John McClane wins the trip to Fhloston Paradise goes to Hawaii for some reason (Matt's giving a lecture on cyber terrorism and John's along to make sure no one kidnaps him, maybe?) and a bunch of terrorists take over the building while John's in the bathroom and the 5-0 team has to try to figure out a way to get in while John communicates with Steve and tries to figure out a way to take the terrorists down and there is banter and explosions and John wearily telling Danny, "All things considered, I really fucking hate Hawaii" while Danny agrees vigorously and Matt somehow finds a way to contact Chin and keep the team updated on the terrorists' goings-on and there are many inappropriate jokes about sexting and hackers and John and Steve disapprove of it all.
Can you tell I was bored at work today and had too much time to think?
So a while back I wrote Roll Like A Team and Tu Moi Aussi?, which was Steve/Danny/Kono. Since my life appears to be all about the trilogies these days, I wrote 7, 519 words of the threequel to this series. I seriously don't even know what to do with myself anymore.
My eternal love and gratitude to traveller for looking this over to make sure it was postable and then discussing Michael Biehn's badassery with me. That's awesomeness in action, folks. I hope this lives up to the other two stories, despite the lack of porn and me putting Steve in peril.
And That's When My Heart Departed
Rule #1: don't let your personal life interfere with your professional life.
Despite what Danny believes about him, Steve has rules that he follows when it comes to his life and his job and everything in-between. Rules one to five are the most important ones, the ones that deal with not fucking up your job and your life with poor lifestyle choices, while the rest tend to be a little more Navy-specific, like don't start a fight in a bar because you want to punch out your CO because you will get your ass handed to you, special training or no, but anyway. The point is, Steve has rules for every situation, every occasion, and he's learned most of them by trial and error and a shitload of humiliation in the process.
Like the 'don't let your emotions interfere with your job' rule? A pretty good idea when you're running classified ops in an unspecified jungle where anything and everything can kill you if you breathe wrong, and you need to keep your focus so you and your team can make it out alive. Steve forgot it only once and ended up with a bullet in his back, collapsing a lung because he's just that lucky, and it took three months of recovery and rehab to make sure he never forgot that lesson again.
Danny doesn't understand him when he talks about his rules while Kono just eyeballs him like she can't believe the shit coming out of his mouth, and Steve is frustrated that they don't get it. Just because he doesn't follow every law to the letter doesn't mean he doesn't follow the rules that govern his life. He's tried to explain this to Danny on several occasions, but the guy just throws up his hands and walks out halfway through, claiming that Steve is just making him crazy with his non-explanations. Kono doesn't fare any better, giving him looks that speak eloquently as to how full of shit she thinks he is.
The point is that Steve has rules, very specific rules, for how to live his life with no complications. It's worked for him since he lit out at eighteen and joined the Navy, and now Danny and Kono are fucking with those rules with extreme prejudice.
"Really?" Danny asks dubiously, giving Steve a long, measured look. "No touching in public? This is one of your rules?"
Kono looks like she's torn between outrage and laughter, which usually means Steve's going to get smacked in about five minutes. "What if I have to get your attention? Do I have to put up my hand like I'm back in kindergarten?"
"No," Steve starts, and Danny cuts in with, "So, like, no touching at all? Not even a pat on the back?"
Steve sighs, knowing he's losing this fight, but not yet ready to concede defeat. "That's not what I--"
"If you fall off the roof," Kono says with deceptive calm, "does this mean we can't grab your hand and pull you back up?"
"That's not what I meant," Steve says, aggravation making his hands move out in sharp gestures because he's been hanging around Danny way too much.
Danny raises an eyebrow at him, a very judging eyebrow, Steve feels. "Because, you know, I'm thinking you're going to want us to pull you back up," he says evenly, adopting the same tone as Kono because now that they've all been sleeping together on a fairly regular basis, the both of them have teamed up to make Steve's life a living hell. Danny waves his hand casually, a faint smile on his lips. "I know you're delusional enough to think you're Superman and shit, but even you can't defy gravity. Not that you won't try," he adds in a not-so-quiet undertone.
"You know," Steve makes a face, the one Danny calls his 'constipation face', which is really not as fucking funny as he thinks it is, "technically, I am your superior and I can--"
"Oh," Kono laughs, "I would love to see you try, boss. Seriously."
Steve winces. He knows Kono well enough to know that whatever she'd do, it'd be unpleasant and long-lasting and potentially disfiguring, depending on the mood she's in. "That wasn't what I--"
"Uh-huh," she says dryly, and Steve briefly longs for the time when she didn't know him so well and he could get away with all of his shit. It's unnerving to be this known to someone, let alone two people, and he continually feels the urge to crawl out of his skin when they both look at him this intently, like they know him and understand him and aren't afraid of him.
"Look," he sighs, aware that he has their full attention and trying not to tense up over it, "it's not that I don't want to, okay?" His hands are out in a pleading gesture. "I'm just-- I'm trying to set boundaries here. I don't want this to cross over into work."
Danny snorts. "Says the guy who co-opted my daughter's nickname for me, even though I asked you not to, like, a million times, and has spent the last six months playing grabass with me before we even fucked."
"I'm just trying to be professional," Steve argues mulishly, but Danny laughs so hard, most of Steve's point is lost in the high notes and even glaring at the fucker doesn't stop him from choking on his own amusement.
"He does have a point, boss," Kono grins, looking like she's enjoying herself way too much. It's sad how much it turns Steve on when she gives him shit. He is so fucked.
"Yeah-- well." Steve's shoulders slump as he realizes that he's just not going to win this one. Maybe if they were separate, he'd have a chance (Danny is not immune to the sad panda face and Kono has a weakness for explanations being whispered in her ear), but together, they're like this impenetrable force of not letting Steve get away with jackshit, so he just writes it up as a loss and moves on. "Fine, just-- do whatever you want. I'm going to do paperwork."
Behind him, he can hear Kono and Danny crack up, Danny wheezing "Paperwork" like it's the funniest thing he's heard all day, and Steve's shoulders slump even further as he shuffles back to his desk and glares at the tall stack of files in his In box. Ten minutes later, Danny drops by to shove a cup of coffee at him before taking half the files off of his desk and Kono arrives five minutes later to take the other half of his files out of his In box. She punches his arm as she passes by, but she pulls it halfway, and Steve finds himself smiling wide enough that his cheeks hurt.
"Still an asshole, asshole," Danny calls from his desk, but even that isn't enough to dent Steve's smile, not when he can hear the affection in every word and not when Danny's smiling to himself when he thinks Steve isn't looking.
It's hard to feel like he's lost this fight when Kono's sitting on Danny's desk and Danny's got his chin in his hands and both of them are looking at him with their usual mix of exasperation and affection. It's hard to even remember what the fight was about at times like this.
***
Rule #3: no fucking your co-workers.
Rules #1 and #3 about personal vs professional lives and not fucking your co-workers get broken the first time they all get drunk and fuck on the floor of his house, so those two don't really count anymore. Steve tries to care, but he gets stupid and sloppy after an orgasm, and he just can't work up the energy to throw a fit when two of his main rules get violated within the span of twenty-four hours. Especially after breakfast the next morning. Steve had tried to pull back, to stop this before it went too far, but he doesn't have his defenses in place quick enough, and he ends up between Kono's thighs on the kitchen table and then pressed up against Danny against the kitchen counter, and he's lost for good after that.
They end up having breakfast at this little dive of a diner that Kono swears is the best hangover cure she's ever found, and Steve has to agree with her. The food is hot and greasy, the coffee, as most diner coffees tend to be, is the hot and strong and perfect, and it's early enough in the morning that everything is quiet, the low hum of conversation adding a warmth to the place's shabby charms.
Danny's got his head resting on the table while Kono pets his hair and flips through the menu. "Kill me," he begs, his hair a floppy mess between Kono's fingers.
"After breakfast," she says serenely, unflappable now that she doesn't have to cook anymore. "I'm thinking the house special?" she says to Steve, nodding her head at his menu as he leans over to look at hers.
Danny lifts his face up to look at the menu in her hands, whistling low when he sees where she's pointing. "That is a meal and a half, princess. You sure you can handle that?"
Steve looks at his own menu and feels his eyebrows raise as he reads what the house special is. "Holy shit," he says with something close to awe. "Two eggs, bacon, sausage, ham, home fries, toast, pancakes-- are you seriously going to eat all of this? Today?" he asks Kono with wide eyes, feeling like she has to be fucking with him at this point. This meal would be too much for a lumberjack, let alone someone as slight as Kono.
Kono opens her mouth to give him a blistering put-down -- he knows it, he can see it in her eyes -- and then she stops. "Oh," she says quietly, "I forgot you didn't know me back then."
"What?" Danny asks, his face squinched up in confusion and the lingering effects of his hangover.
Kono waves her hand. "College, frat parties, hangover cures, you weren't there, never mind. Anyway, trust me," she tells Steve, patting his arm soothingly like she's reassuring him, "I can handle it."
Danny looks at the menu, then at her, doubt written all over his features. "Twenty says you can't," he finally says, a gleam in his eye as she frowns at him.
"A hundred says she can," Steve says easily because this is way more fun than thinking that he's completely fucked up his life by sleeping with members of his team, even though he knows how badly these kinds of situations have ended in the past. Besides, Kono can do anything she says she can, and this bet has the added bonus of irritating Danny, something he never gets tired of doing.
"Are you seriously betting on me?" Kono asks with surprise.
"You bastard," Danny says, a grudging admiration in his voice. He's sitting up now, his hair flopping over his face and making him look a lot younger and somehow more vulnerable, which twists Steve's heart, and he looks over at Kono. "What do you think?"
"Seriously," Kono asks Steve, "you're betting on me?"
"Why should you get to keep your dignity when I don't have any left?" Danny asks, flipping through his menu and sipping his coffee, not even noticing Kono glaring at him because he's squinting over some dish in the lunch section. "There has to be some kind of rule against putting pineapple in everything," he complains, giving at Steve and Kono a disgruntled look like it's their faults that pineapple even exists. "Even on this island, there has to be a line. I'm willing to concede the point on fruit cups and blue drinks, but pizza? Pancakes? With my eggs?" He makes a face. "That shit is just not right."
Kono looks at him for a moment like she's not quite sure where he came from and what she's doing with him. "He's like this all the time?" she asks Steve curiously, looking amused and baffled at the same time, and Steve remembers that Kono is still new to them in some ways, still learning all the ways they interact and argue with each other, and how they are when they're apart. It feels like she's known them forever, but it's really only been a few months.
"Don't get him started on the beach," Steve mutters, ignoring the way Danny's trying to glare a hole into his head with just his eyes. "If he had his way, all of us would be wearing HAZMAT suits every time we went out."
"You'll be thanking me when you're cancer-free at a hundred," Danny says in the same resigned tone he has whenever he's repeating their usual arguments. "But hey, if you want to constantly risk melanoma for a chance to show off your abs on the beach, like a low-rent David Hasselhoff, be my guest." He makes the usual hand gestures that mean whatever Steve does, it's on his head now.
Kono puts her head in her hands. "Okay," she sighs, "I am not drunk enough for this conversation."
"Welcome to my life," Steve says dryly, and flags the waitress down. When she leaves to get their orders taken care of, he looks over at Danny again. "So we have a bet?"
Danny looks at Kono. "Do we have a bet, princess?" he asks casually, but he's got this smirk on his face like he knows what she's going to say.
Kono tries to scowl, but her mouth quirks up into a grin at the last second. "Fuck my life," she laughs, shaking her head. "Fine," she tells Steve, "we have a bet."
"Be prepared to lose a hundred bucks, Danno," Steve crows, laughing when Danny shoots him the finger.
"I'll just take it out on your ass later," he promises, sounding softer and gentler than Steve had expected.
"Promise?" Kono asks, a speculative look on her face as she watches them, watches the way Danny looks at Steve and the way Steve's face stains pink when he notices Danny watching him.
"Promise," Steve smiles, thinking that maybe just this once, he can relax the rules a little.
***
Rule #4: no sex on the job, no quickies at work.
The no-quickie rule gets broken about two weeks after Tequila Night when he and Danny have a loud, public fight in the middle of the squadroom, and Steve stalks off to the bathroom to punch the wall until he feels better. Because Danny is Danny, he follows after him, arguing the whole way since he never knows when to leave an argument alone.
"And let me tell you one more thing, motherfucker," he yells as he shoves open the door and barrels in behind Steve, his hands grabbing Steve to turn him around.
Steve takes a lot from Danny in ways that he isn't sure that Danny even knows about. He's let Danny into his life, lets Danny push and stretch him in ways Steve can't even begin to deal with, has let Danny take over his life in subtle ways, and while he doesn't regret any of it, he's starting to realize that he needs a break from this constant tension between them. Fucking has only made it worse, has made it so that he's so entangled with the other man, he doesn't even know where their work lives end and their personal lives begin. Danny harasses him and cares about him and pushes him so far out of his comfort zone that he sometimes has to shut down just to be able to cope.
All he wants is five fucking minutes of quiet, of peace, of no Danny so he can get himself together and do his job. But Danny pushes and yells and gets in his face, and Steve feels his control snap when Danny shoves his hands against Steve's chest and says, "I am not letting you do this--"
He yanks Danny into one of the stalls, has enough presence of mind to shut the door, goes down on his knees and unzips his pants while Danny yelps and tries to push his hands away. "Jesus, McGarrett, what-- fuck, now? Really-- Jesus Christ, Steve--"
Steve slaps his hands away, pulls his pants and boxers down, and goes down on him with a determination and desperation that rattles him to his core. He hasn't felt this helpless and out of control since his teens when everything seemed to fall apart, no matter how hard he tried to hold it together, and when Danny comes with a sharp cry and his fingers clutched tightly in Steve's hair, Steve loses it. He shoves his hand down his pants, manages to just touch his cock before he comes, his face pressed against Danny's belly, his whole body shuddering helplessly.
"Jesus," Danny says weakly, his fingers curling around Steve's shoulder as he tries to hold himself up. "Christ, Steve, what the fuck was that?"
"I don't know," Steve says hoarsely, his hands clenched tightly around Danny's thighs as he tries to remember how to make his muscles move again. "I don't know, Danno."
"C'mere," Danny says softly, tugging at Steve's shoulder until Steve's on his feet, swaying unsteadily like he's still learning to get his land legs back. He kisses Steve desperately, dirty open-mouthed kisses that leave Steve breathless and lost, his hands curled into fists pressed against Steve's back. "I got you," he tells Steve quietly, holding Steve tightly when Steve just shakes. "I got you, sweetheart."
Steve is so far gone that he doesn't even remember to mock Danny for using that as a term of endearment and not sarcastically as he usually does.
Later that night, Kono comes over to his house, shoves him onto his bed, holds him down and fucks him with her fingers until he's a wreck. Then she rides his face and his cock until they're both worn out and exhausted, both of them curled around each other like interlocking pieces.
"Next time you act this stupid," Kono whispers into his mouth, sounding sleepy and content, "I'm just going to punch you in the face."
He smiles, feeling too mellow to really take offense. "That's not good conflict resolution tactics, Kono."
"I could just let Danny shoot you," she offers, wrapping her arms around his waist and fitting her head against the space between his chin and his shoulder.
"Nah," he says softly, holding her closer. "He hates paperwork. I'm thinking he'll fuck with my truck somehow."
He can feel Kono's smile against his skin. "Now why didn't I think of that?" she asks just before she falls asleep, and Steve feels something heavy and tight curl up inside him at the easy way she rests against him.
Divisions between work and personal life, he tells himself as he kisses her forehead, and don't ever cross the streams with them. He should've known he was going to break that rule when Danny and Kono came into his life. They have 'exception to the rules' written all over them in ugly striped ties and colorful bikinis, and neither one of them knows how to take no for an answer.
If he's honest with himself, he'll admit that he never expected anything less from them. And maybe he likes it more than he wants to say.
***
Rule #5: leave your emotions at the door when you're on the job or else shit gets complicated.
Steve's starting to feel like his personal life is a sitcom written by very lazy writers whereas his professional life is written by some soap opera writer who clearly stopped giving a shit about logic and suspension of disbelief midway. It's the only way he can explain the barrage of terrorist threats, bomb threats, escaped serial killers, and drug cartel cases that hit the 5-0 within the span of a month and a half, swamping HPD and the team, and making it so that everyone has to work the cases in long, staggered shifts. Everyone works the overtime and complains and drinks bad coffee and generally acts like the goddamn good cops that they are, working their asses off to close the cases and keep Hawaii safe.
Chin practically lives at his desk for the whole month, tracking bank accounts and money trails and false IDs and plane schedules. Kono interviews suspects, processes crime scenes, and canvasses neighborhoods while Danny and Steve pull stakeout duty and spend most of their time bitching at each other about coffee and boredom and trying not to fuck in the backseat; mostly because it's not professional, but also because Kono will kill them if they do anything without her there to referee.
They catch a break on the bomber explosion when Chin tracks down an old case from ten years ago. "I had to go through actual files, McGarrett," he complains, looking at the paper cuts on his fingers with a disgruntled air. "Boxes of them. Stacked three high. It's like I was trapped in the '80s again."
"I know," Steve sighs, yanking the file out of Chin's hands and flipping through the details. "Humanity was so technologically-impaired ten years ago. Where are the flying cars when you need them? Et cetera."
Chin's bland look speaks volumes about how unamused he is. "I'm going to go work with someone who doesn't know all my lines."
Steve's mouth creases into a half-smile. "You'll have better luck with that on the mainland."
"Bastard," Chin says affectionately, and Steve laughs and gets the team together for a raid on an abandoned building in Oahu where the suspect was last seen.
The team surrounds the building while Danny and Steve take point, leaving Kono and Chin to guard the rear entrance in case their bomber decides to run out the back. Steve goes in first while Danny follows behind him, guns at the ready and tense with adrenaline and fear. They find their bomber in the middle of the warehouse, sitting cross-legged and patiently waiting for them, a dead man's switch in his hand.
Danny tries to talk sense into him because that's the kind of guy he is, trying to convince him that this isn't what he wants to do and if he gives up now, the sentence will be a lot lighter, but Steve looks into the guy's eyes and knows that he's not going to change his mind, no matter how much Danny tries to reason with him. So he uses the only leverage he had found in that paper-thin file that Chin had pulled out from over ten years of cases.
"Disarm the bomb," he tells the guy with deceptive calm, "or I'll arrest your daughter for aiding and abetting. And she won't get the sweetheart deal that we're willing to offer to you."
It's over after that, all the fight going out of the bomber as he looks at Steve and doesn't see any room to negotiate. He goes through the motions of disarming the bomb, Danny cuffs him, suffers through Steve's gleefully inevitable "Book 'em, Danno," and is leading the bomber out of the warehouse while Steve stays back to make sure everything is secure. Kono is on the phone updating the Governor that the threat has been averted while Chin calls off S.W.A.T. and is helping Danny put the prisoner in the car when the walls of the warehouse start groaning and creaking in protest.
Steve is still standing in the building, looking around to try and figure out where the sound is coming from when the floor lifts up beneath his feet. He looks up and sees the bomber smiling madly, shoving his face into the window to laugh at Steve, and his stomach sinks as the ground starts shaking apart.
"Steve," Chin calls out, beckoning him forward with a panicked look on his face, which scares Steve more than what he's saying. "There's more than one bomb, get--"
Steve realizes what's happening as the earth thunders beneath him, shocks punching up through the concrete to try and shake the world down, and he has a moment to look helplessly at his team as the ground disappears with a slow booming sound, the world gone gray with dust and brick. It's terrible and slow, this end of the world, and the last thing Steve thinks before everything under his feet gives way is, thank God his team had gotten out before they had gotten caught in this. Thank God it isn't Danny and Kono in here with him. He doesn't think he would've survived if they'd hadn't made it out.
When he opens his eyes again, he can see a hole above him where the ground used to be and there is a cluster of masked faces in front of him, checking his vital signs and his body, asking him confusing questions that he can't make out because everything sounds dull and far away. He tries to move his arms, but everything is blindingly painful when he does, and as his eyes focus, he realizes that he's on his back, covered in dust and surrounded by rubble and that the masked faces are EMTs trying to find out how bad the damage is to his body. He tries to respond, but his voice is a croak and he's in too much pain to really be of any help, so he watches helplessly as they assess the damage and carefully move him onto a gurney, carrying him out to the ambulance.
As he's wheeled into the van, he catches sight of his team as they rush toward the ambulance. Chin is right behind Kono and Danny, a shocked look on his face; Kono has tears in her eyes, wiping them away furiously as they fall, and Danny has that slow, bruised look on his face that means he's too miserable to even be angry. Steve's heart squeezes tight in his chest as he looks at them, and he wants to reassure them that he's okay, reaches out to at least touch them so they know he's alive, but the world is still too shaky and he can barely raise his hand high enough to wave let alone reach out to them.
The EMTs slide him into the ambulance and hop in, blocking his view of Danny and Kono, and suddenly Chin's face is all he can see before the doors close behind him. He leans forward to look at Steve as the EMT puts an oxygen mask around Steve's face. "I'm here for you, brah," he says softly, his hand clamped around the railing of Steve's gurney like he's got him, and Steve finally feels like he can relax his guard enough to pass out like he wants to. He tries to ask about Danny and Kono, trying to speak through the mask, but Chin just shakes his head. "Sleep, McGarrett. I've got you. We can talk later."
For once in his life, Steve listens.
***
The light is low when he wakes up, the steady hiss and beeps of machinery reassuring him that he's still alive, that he hasn't gone into the light. Chin's dozing in a chair by his side, looking like he's been run ragged in the time that Steve's been out, and Steve wonders how long he's been waiting here.
He must make some kind of sound because Chin starts awake and looks at him, a vaguely confused, lost look on his face that makes him look about seventeen again. Steve remembers seeing all those trophies with Chin's name on them, the hero-worship he'd felt every time he'd passed those trophies and the need living inside him to prove that he could be as good as Kahuku's golden boy. It's a long, strange road from trying to beat Chin's records to working with him, but Steve's life is a series of coincidences that move in increasingly tight circles, and he really isn't surprised by much anymore.
"Here," Chin says tiredly, grabbing a glass from the table next to Steve and popping an ice chip into his mouth. "You're going to need this."
"Where…?" Steve's still woozy from the painkillers and whatever other drugs they pumped into his system, so his brain isn't exactly firing on all cylinders right now, but Chin seems to understand what he's asking. Steve's grateful for shared history and Chin's working knowledge of McGarrett-speak.
"They're outside," he tells Steve with a nod toward the door of his room. "I told I'd call them when you were finally allowed to have visitors. They've been staying at your place while you were in surgery." He gives Steve a severe look. "We're going to have a talk about what I'm going to do to you if you hurt either one of them. When you're healed enough to take a punch," he adds generously.
Steve winces, knowing it won't be a pleasant conversation, especially since Chin has become overly protective of Danny since the Mekka case. "What…?" he asks weakly, moving his fingers slightly trying to indicate his body.
"Concussion," Chin says grimly, feeding Steve another ice chip. "Three cracked ribs, a fracture in your elbow, a broken leg, multiple contusions and bruises, and a shard of metal that missed your carotid artery by a thousandth of a millimeter." He leans in and gives Steve a weary smile, although there's something terrified underneath it. "You have some luck, McGarrett."
"Story of my life," Steve croaks, managing to work through the drugs and the numbness to lift his hand up to Chin.
Chin clasps it gently and squeezes tight, his mouth a thin, pressed line that speaks volumes about how worried he was. "Next time, brah, don't run into a building that's wired to go off." Steve can hear the implied 'asshole' and appreciates that Chin is restraining himself from the verbal beatdown he clearly wants to give.
He also sounds utterly exhausted, and Steve wonders how long he's been waiting for Steve to wake up, how long they've all been waiting to hear that he'd made it through surgery without any complications. He's pretty sure that the visit with Danny and Kono isn't going to go half this well because Danny yells whenever Steve does anything stupidly heroic and Kono just smacks him until he apologizes and promises to never do it again. He remembers that moment when he was being carried into the ambulance, Kono crying and the terrified look on Danny's face, and everything inside him hurts at the memory.
"I'll remember for the next time," he promises Chin, but Chin just shakes his head like he knows better.
"No, you won't," he sighs, laying Steve's hand down and reaching over to put the glass of ice chips back on the table. "I'm probably going to have to put you in a headlock just to get you to not check yourself out tomorrow because you're clearly labouring under the delusion that you're fine."
Steve laughs and it hurts, but he thinks it's probably better than crying, which is his only other option now that he can't hit anything. "You can try."
Chin rolls his eyes. "Listen, I know you think you're Jean Claude Van Damme with fatigues on--"
"God," Steve groans, "that was such a shit movie. I can't believe that's the comparison you make when you know my head is perfectly in proportion to the rest of my body."
"It's like I'm talking to a teenager," Chin sighs, knuckling the bridge of his nose. "A really irritating teenager who thinks he's funny. You're Ferris Bueller without the charm."
"Also," Steve adds, feeling a little more solid now that Chin's glaring at him like he's an idiot, "I have better moves than Van Damme."
"I'm going to shoot you."
"Can't," Steve smiles, despite the pain and the drugs and the fact that a fucking building fell on him, "just think of all the paperwork you'd have to do."
Chin leans in to glare at him. "I can deal. I'm good with paperwork and my gun's bigger. Don't tempt me."
Steve nods, wincing a little as his head protests. "Can I…?" he asks, flicking his finger toward the door.
"When you've rested more, you can see them," Chin says kindly, briefly pressing his hand against Steve's head in a comforting gesture, making Steve inexplicably feel better. "No offense, but morphine makes for shitty conversations, speaking from experience."
Steve manages to slur out, "Ain't that the truth?" before his eyes get too heavy and he has to close them. Just for a minute.
***
When he wakes up again, Kono's pressed against the railing of his bed with her hand on his forehead as she brushes his hair back. Her eyes are swollen and rimmed with red like she's been crying. Danny's pacing a small section of floor behind her, his hair standing up wildly as he runs his fingers through it. "Danny," Kono says quietly when Steve opens his eyes, and before Steve can even blink, Danny's by his side.
"You are a goddamn menace," Danny says in a low, clenched whisper, his hands wrapped tight around the railing like he's trying to restrain himself. "I'm going to fucking kill you when you get better."
"Danny," Kono sighs, leaning her head against his hip, looking so tired and worn out that Steve feels his heart break at the sight of her.
Danny stops, his mouth clenching around everything he wants to say, and puts his arm around her, holding her tightly to him. "This isn't over," he promises Steve, looking angry and scared and so unlike Danny that Steve doesn't even know who this furious man is. He thinks that this is what Danny must be like when Grace is hurt, this fierce, angry bear of a man who would do anything to protect the ones he loves, and then Kono reaches over and pops an ice chip in his mouth and Steve's grateful for the water and the distraction.
"Walker is in lock-up," she tells him, and he feels better for knowing that, for knowing that Kono knew he'd needed to hear that. "He had more bombs and he didn't disarm them all, by the way, despite what he told us. Rumor has it that he's going to get the maximum sentence for the attempted murder--" She stumbles over the word, and Steve reaches out to grab her hand, hating the way she looks bruised and wounded every time she looks at him.
"Kono, I'm fine," he tells hoarsely, sounding like he still has building dust in his lungs, and he doesn't know what he's expecting -- maybe for Kono to slap him or yell at him or call him names -- but he isn't ready for her to lean over his bed and press her face into shoulder, her hands trembling as she curves them around his neck.
"The whole building went down," she says shakily, her voice muffled, but Steve can still hear the fear underneath it all. "We thought you were dead. Oh my God, Steve, I was so afraid I was never going to see you again."
It isn't easy to lift his hands up when he still feels so drugged out and numb, but he manages, wrapping his arms around her and holding her tight against him. She smells like his soap and shampoo, and it's comforting. "I'm impervious to bombs," he says reassuringly, and she shakes, but he's not sure whether it's with laughter or tears.
"That's not funny," Danny says hoarsely from behind her, and when he moves to Steve's other side into Steve's line of sight, Steve can see that he's got that same tense air about him, like he's holding himself back with an effort. He reaches out and brushes his thumb against the line of Steve's cheek, like he needs that physical reminder that Steve is alive to drive him crazy. "Seriously, it's just not. We had to dig through pieces of building to find you. Okay? You were under a collapsed building. Do you get that? It's not a joke."
They're both so still, Steve thinks as he watches them look at him with worry, neither one of them moving about and gesturing expansively like they normally do. Everything feels wrong between them and it's worse than waking up with a dry mouth and an aching body and the knowledge that he'd missed dying by a thousandth of a millimeter and pure dumb luck. "Come on," he cajoles softly, desperate to make this right between them, needing them to be okay again. "I took on a building and lived. How awesome am I?"
Against him, he can hear Kono let out a soft snort as she lifts her head to look at him. "God, you're an idiot," she sighs, leaning over to press desperate kisses against his mouth. "I'm going to punch you in the face when you're all better."
Steve tries to hold back a laugh, but it comes out anyway, making him cough a little. "Chin said the same thing. I'm going to start taking it personally if you guys keep this up."
Danny presses the heels of his hands against his temples, looking like he's about to burst from all the things he's not saying to Steve. "You know I was sane before you, right?" he asks Steve in an aggravated tone, and Steve feels the tightness in him ease as he realizes that Danny's forgiven him just like that.
"You lived in Jersey," Steve says because he knows how this argument goes. "How sane could you be?"
Danny points at him. "Apologize," he barks, and Steve laughs again, feeling good as Kono holds his hand tightly and Danny glares at him like he's got at least fifty things he wants to yell about, but won't because he's promised to behave himself.
"Hey," he says after a few minutes of hand-holding and appreciating the total lack of everyone calling him a psycho with a death wish, "wasn't there a rule about displays of public affection?" He looks pointedly at Kono's hand in his. "I'm pretty sure it was rule number two." And okay, it's not like he really means it because he is in a fucking hospital, so you know, that rule can be suspended, but he's made it a habit of affectionately giving them shit at every turn, and he's not going to stop now just because he almost died. Again.
Maybe the team has a point about his psychosis.
"Fuck your stupid goddamn rules," Danny says easily, leaning in brushing his lips against Steve's until Steve kisses him back, kissing him briefly and fiercely. It's like he's putting his heart and soul into it, and it leaves Steve breathless and lost when he finally pulls back. "Especially the rule about no public displays of affection," he smiles, gently pressing his thumb against Steve's mouth
Kono leans in after him and kisses Steve hard, the soft, helpless sound she makes telling Steve all he needs to know about how scared she had been. "It's a really stupid rule, boss," she says apologetically, and Steve laughs because she's right and he knows it.
"I have all these rules for a reason," he says, though, because he never goes down without a fight.
Danny shrugs. "Yeah, well, we have a few rules of our own." He nods at Kono who says, "Rule number one is golden: don't do anything that's going to get you killed."
"Oh, come on," Steve whines, his hands twitching in protest. "It's not like I intentionally--"
"We know," Kono sighs, holding her hands up to head off his protest. "And we're not asking you to stop pretending you're Rambo, okay? God forbid," she adds, not actually rolling her eyes, but Steve knows she wants to.
"Just," Danny holds his fingers an inch apart, "turn it down a notch. A notch. Like say, don't run into a building full of explosives."
"I thought he'd disarmed--"
"Don't step in front of speeding bullets," Kono says with a tight smile, and fuck, that's right, Steve had forgotten he'd taken a bullet in the chest for her. Which, he had a vest on, so he has no idea why she's still freaking out about that, but okay, no eating bullets, he can do that.
"Or," Danny says, his hands spread wide like a thought's just occurred to him, "here's a idea: wait for back-up. It's a revolutionary idea, I know, but police officers have been doing it for years--"
"Just," Kono says softly, "try not to die, all right?" She reaches out and brushes her fingers against his cheek.
Steve nods loosely, his head still feeling like it's not attached to the rest of him, but that won't fade until he's off the painkillers. "Fine, I can try," he admits grudgingly.
Danny holds up his hands. "We're not asking for the impossible here," he points out, using his reasonable tone because he knows it irritates Steve. "Just try to be remember you're not actually the Man of Steel, that's all. You can't leap buildings in a single bound. Don't make the joke," he warns Steve when Steve opens his mouth. "We spent ten hours waiting to hear if you were dead or alive. It's not the time."
Steve closes his mouth.
"Also," Kono says with a faint smile, "try not to jump off ships or swim in shark-infested waters. I know it's a hobby of yours, but just try."
"For us," Danny says, leaning his hip against Steve's bed. "Because we're both too young to go into cardiac arrest every time you're on a case."
Steve flips Danny off, feeling absurdly happy when Danny laughs. "It's so like you to pick on a man when he's concussed and defenseless," he says with an eyeroll.
Kono shakes her head. "I can't believe we were worried about you," and Danny leans in and looks at Steve and sighs, "Yeah, you're going to be fine."
"Which is what I was saying," Steve say, his hands flashing out in aggravation. "Why does no one ever listen to me?"
Danny puts his arms around Kono's shoulders and tugs her away from Steve's bed. "We will once you start saying something worth listening to," he says a little more cheerfully, resting his cheek against Kono's head. "In the meantime," he says with a pointed look at Steve's leg, "do what your doctor says and don't even think of checking yourself out of here."
"But--" Steve protests.
Kono holds up her hand, quelling him instantly. "You leave, I break your other leg," she tells him seriously. "I'm sending Chin in to sit on you if you even think about moving without your doctor's permission."
"Dictators," Steve snipes, sulking when they laugh at him. "I have rights, you know."
"You and all the people you interrogate," Danny says heartlessly, leaning in to press a firm kiss against Steve's mouth, his fingers lingering against the curve of Steve's jaw.
"I'm so oppressed," Steve sighs.
"Let me play my tiny violin for you," Kono laughs, leaning in to cup her hands around Steve's face and kissing him until he's breathless. "Take care of yourself, Commander," she whispers gently. "I have plans for the both of you when you're out of here."
Steve's heart cracks a little from how good they look together, how they look longingly at him, how Kono's hand reaches for him like he belongs with them. He holds her hand and squeezes tight, thinking that rules don't apply to these two, have never applied to them, and he should've realized that when he'd first met them. "Looking forward to it," he tells her, meaning it.
"You'd better," she tells him seriously, Danny's arm wrapped around her waist as he leads her out.
"I'd listen to what she says," Danny stage-whispers to Steve over his shoulder, his face crinkled in amusement as Steve shoots him a dirty look. "She can take you."
"Yeah," Kono says fiercely and then stops, turning to Danny. "You're gonna help me, right?"
"Totally," Danny grins, both of them laughing when Steve yells out, "Fuck you guys, seriously," and watches them walk out, both of them looking back every few seconds to make sure Steve hasn't left the bed while their backs were turned.
They're ridiculous, he thinks with a quiet smile as he settles back in his bed, and he's ridiculous for letting himself get talked into doing everything he's not supposed to do in situations like this. And maybe everything will get completely fucked, like it has in the past, like it always seems to whenever he lets himself forget how the world works, but he's willing to risk it this time.
Because Kono promised and Danny reassured him and maybe, just maybe, it's all going to work out this time.
At some point, I will work up the nerve to post the H50 haikus I wrote while bored at work today. Because I've reached that level of dorkery with this damn show. Sigh.
Can you tell I was bored at work today and had too much time to think?
So a while back I wrote Roll Like A Team and Tu Moi Aussi?, which was Steve/Danny/Kono. Since my life appears to be all about the trilogies these days, I wrote 7, 519 words of the threequel to this series. I seriously don't even know what to do with myself anymore.
My eternal love and gratitude to traveller for looking this over to make sure it was postable and then discussing Michael Biehn's badassery with me. That's awesomeness in action, folks. I hope this lives up to the other two stories, despite the lack of porn and me putting Steve in peril.
And That's When My Heart Departed
Rule #1: don't let your personal life interfere with your professional life.
Despite what Danny believes about him, Steve has rules that he follows when it comes to his life and his job and everything in-between. Rules one to five are the most important ones, the ones that deal with not fucking up your job and your life with poor lifestyle choices, while the rest tend to be a little more Navy-specific, like don't start a fight in a bar because you want to punch out your CO because you will get your ass handed to you, special training or no, but anyway. The point is, Steve has rules for every situation, every occasion, and he's learned most of them by trial and error and a shitload of humiliation in the process.
Like the 'don't let your emotions interfere with your job' rule? A pretty good idea when you're running classified ops in an unspecified jungle where anything and everything can kill you if you breathe wrong, and you need to keep your focus so you and your team can make it out alive. Steve forgot it only once and ended up with a bullet in his back, collapsing a lung because he's just that lucky, and it took three months of recovery and rehab to make sure he never forgot that lesson again.
Danny doesn't understand him when he talks about his rules while Kono just eyeballs him like she can't believe the shit coming out of his mouth, and Steve is frustrated that they don't get it. Just because he doesn't follow every law to the letter doesn't mean he doesn't follow the rules that govern his life. He's tried to explain this to Danny on several occasions, but the guy just throws up his hands and walks out halfway through, claiming that Steve is just making him crazy with his non-explanations. Kono doesn't fare any better, giving him looks that speak eloquently as to how full of shit she thinks he is.
The point is that Steve has rules, very specific rules, for how to live his life with no complications. It's worked for him since he lit out at eighteen and joined the Navy, and now Danny and Kono are fucking with those rules with extreme prejudice.
"Really?" Danny asks dubiously, giving Steve a long, measured look. "No touching in public? This is one of your rules?"
Kono looks like she's torn between outrage and laughter, which usually means Steve's going to get smacked in about five minutes. "What if I have to get your attention? Do I have to put up my hand like I'm back in kindergarten?"
"No," Steve starts, and Danny cuts in with, "So, like, no touching at all? Not even a pat on the back?"
Steve sighs, knowing he's losing this fight, but not yet ready to concede defeat. "That's not what I--"
"If you fall off the roof," Kono says with deceptive calm, "does this mean we can't grab your hand and pull you back up?"
"That's not what I meant," Steve says, aggravation making his hands move out in sharp gestures because he's been hanging around Danny way too much.
Danny raises an eyebrow at him, a very judging eyebrow, Steve feels. "Because, you know, I'm thinking you're going to want us to pull you back up," he says evenly, adopting the same tone as Kono because now that they've all been sleeping together on a fairly regular basis, the both of them have teamed up to make Steve's life a living hell. Danny waves his hand casually, a faint smile on his lips. "I know you're delusional enough to think you're Superman and shit, but even you can't defy gravity. Not that you won't try," he adds in a not-so-quiet undertone.
"You know," Steve makes a face, the one Danny calls his 'constipation face', which is really not as fucking funny as he thinks it is, "technically, I am your superior and I can--"
"Oh," Kono laughs, "I would love to see you try, boss. Seriously."
Steve winces. He knows Kono well enough to know that whatever she'd do, it'd be unpleasant and long-lasting and potentially disfiguring, depending on the mood she's in. "That wasn't what I--"
"Uh-huh," she says dryly, and Steve briefly longs for the time when she didn't know him so well and he could get away with all of his shit. It's unnerving to be this known to someone, let alone two people, and he continually feels the urge to crawl out of his skin when they both look at him this intently, like they know him and understand him and aren't afraid of him.
"Look," he sighs, aware that he has their full attention and trying not to tense up over it, "it's not that I don't want to, okay?" His hands are out in a pleading gesture. "I'm just-- I'm trying to set boundaries here. I don't want this to cross over into work."
Danny snorts. "Says the guy who co-opted my daughter's nickname for me, even though I asked you not to, like, a million times, and has spent the last six months playing grabass with me before we even fucked."
"I'm just trying to be professional," Steve argues mulishly, but Danny laughs so hard, most of Steve's point is lost in the high notes and even glaring at the fucker doesn't stop him from choking on his own amusement.
"He does have a point, boss," Kono grins, looking like she's enjoying herself way too much. It's sad how much it turns Steve on when she gives him shit. He is so fucked.
"Yeah-- well." Steve's shoulders slump as he realizes that he's just not going to win this one. Maybe if they were separate, he'd have a chance (Danny is not immune to the sad panda face and Kono has a weakness for explanations being whispered in her ear), but together, they're like this impenetrable force of not letting Steve get away with jackshit, so he just writes it up as a loss and moves on. "Fine, just-- do whatever you want. I'm going to do paperwork."
Behind him, he can hear Kono and Danny crack up, Danny wheezing "Paperwork" like it's the funniest thing he's heard all day, and Steve's shoulders slump even further as he shuffles back to his desk and glares at the tall stack of files in his In box. Ten minutes later, Danny drops by to shove a cup of coffee at him before taking half the files off of his desk and Kono arrives five minutes later to take the other half of his files out of his In box. She punches his arm as she passes by, but she pulls it halfway, and Steve finds himself smiling wide enough that his cheeks hurt.
"Still an asshole, asshole," Danny calls from his desk, but even that isn't enough to dent Steve's smile, not when he can hear the affection in every word and not when Danny's smiling to himself when he thinks Steve isn't looking.
It's hard to feel like he's lost this fight when Kono's sitting on Danny's desk and Danny's got his chin in his hands and both of them are looking at him with their usual mix of exasperation and affection. It's hard to even remember what the fight was about at times like this.
***
Rule #3: no fucking your co-workers.
Rules #1 and #3 about personal vs professional lives and not fucking your co-workers get broken the first time they all get drunk and fuck on the floor of his house, so those two don't really count anymore. Steve tries to care, but he gets stupid and sloppy after an orgasm, and he just can't work up the energy to throw a fit when two of his main rules get violated within the span of twenty-four hours. Especially after breakfast the next morning. Steve had tried to pull back, to stop this before it went too far, but he doesn't have his defenses in place quick enough, and he ends up between Kono's thighs on the kitchen table and then pressed up against Danny against the kitchen counter, and he's lost for good after that.
They end up having breakfast at this little dive of a diner that Kono swears is the best hangover cure she's ever found, and Steve has to agree with her. The food is hot and greasy, the coffee, as most diner coffees tend to be, is the hot and strong and perfect, and it's early enough in the morning that everything is quiet, the low hum of conversation adding a warmth to the place's shabby charms.
Danny's got his head resting on the table while Kono pets his hair and flips through the menu. "Kill me," he begs, his hair a floppy mess between Kono's fingers.
"After breakfast," she says serenely, unflappable now that she doesn't have to cook anymore. "I'm thinking the house special?" she says to Steve, nodding her head at his menu as he leans over to look at hers.
Danny lifts his face up to look at the menu in her hands, whistling low when he sees where she's pointing. "That is a meal and a half, princess. You sure you can handle that?"
Steve looks at his own menu and feels his eyebrows raise as he reads what the house special is. "Holy shit," he says with something close to awe. "Two eggs, bacon, sausage, ham, home fries, toast, pancakes-- are you seriously going to eat all of this? Today?" he asks Kono with wide eyes, feeling like she has to be fucking with him at this point. This meal would be too much for a lumberjack, let alone someone as slight as Kono.
Kono opens her mouth to give him a blistering put-down -- he knows it, he can see it in her eyes -- and then she stops. "Oh," she says quietly, "I forgot you didn't know me back then."
"What?" Danny asks, his face squinched up in confusion and the lingering effects of his hangover.
Kono waves her hand. "College, frat parties, hangover cures, you weren't there, never mind. Anyway, trust me," she tells Steve, patting his arm soothingly like she's reassuring him, "I can handle it."
Danny looks at the menu, then at her, doubt written all over his features. "Twenty says you can't," he finally says, a gleam in his eye as she frowns at him.
"A hundred says she can," Steve says easily because this is way more fun than thinking that he's completely fucked up his life by sleeping with members of his team, even though he knows how badly these kinds of situations have ended in the past. Besides, Kono can do anything she says she can, and this bet has the added bonus of irritating Danny, something he never gets tired of doing.
"Are you seriously betting on me?" Kono asks with surprise.
"You bastard," Danny says, a grudging admiration in his voice. He's sitting up now, his hair flopping over his face and making him look a lot younger and somehow more vulnerable, which twists Steve's heart, and he looks over at Kono. "What do you think?"
"Seriously," Kono asks Steve, "you're betting on me?"
"Why should you get to keep your dignity when I don't have any left?" Danny asks, flipping through his menu and sipping his coffee, not even noticing Kono glaring at him because he's squinting over some dish in the lunch section. "There has to be some kind of rule against putting pineapple in everything," he complains, giving at Steve and Kono a disgruntled look like it's their faults that pineapple even exists. "Even on this island, there has to be a line. I'm willing to concede the point on fruit cups and blue drinks, but pizza? Pancakes? With my eggs?" He makes a face. "That shit is just not right."
Kono looks at him for a moment like she's not quite sure where he came from and what she's doing with him. "He's like this all the time?" she asks Steve curiously, looking amused and baffled at the same time, and Steve remembers that Kono is still new to them in some ways, still learning all the ways they interact and argue with each other, and how they are when they're apart. It feels like she's known them forever, but it's really only been a few months.
"Don't get him started on the beach," Steve mutters, ignoring the way Danny's trying to glare a hole into his head with just his eyes. "If he had his way, all of us would be wearing HAZMAT suits every time we went out."
"You'll be thanking me when you're cancer-free at a hundred," Danny says in the same resigned tone he has whenever he's repeating their usual arguments. "But hey, if you want to constantly risk melanoma for a chance to show off your abs on the beach, like a low-rent David Hasselhoff, be my guest." He makes the usual hand gestures that mean whatever Steve does, it's on his head now.
Kono puts her head in her hands. "Okay," she sighs, "I am not drunk enough for this conversation."
"Welcome to my life," Steve says dryly, and flags the waitress down. When she leaves to get their orders taken care of, he looks over at Danny again. "So we have a bet?"
Danny looks at Kono. "Do we have a bet, princess?" he asks casually, but he's got this smirk on his face like he knows what she's going to say.
Kono tries to scowl, but her mouth quirks up into a grin at the last second. "Fuck my life," she laughs, shaking her head. "Fine," she tells Steve, "we have a bet."
"Be prepared to lose a hundred bucks, Danno," Steve crows, laughing when Danny shoots him the finger.
"I'll just take it out on your ass later," he promises, sounding softer and gentler than Steve had expected.
"Promise?" Kono asks, a speculative look on her face as she watches them, watches the way Danny looks at Steve and the way Steve's face stains pink when he notices Danny watching him.
"Promise," Steve smiles, thinking that maybe just this once, he can relax the rules a little.
***
Rule #4: no sex on the job, no quickies at work.
The no-quickie rule gets broken about two weeks after Tequila Night when he and Danny have a loud, public fight in the middle of the squadroom, and Steve stalks off to the bathroom to punch the wall until he feels better. Because Danny is Danny, he follows after him, arguing the whole way since he never knows when to leave an argument alone.
"And let me tell you one more thing, motherfucker," he yells as he shoves open the door and barrels in behind Steve, his hands grabbing Steve to turn him around.
Steve takes a lot from Danny in ways that he isn't sure that Danny even knows about. He's let Danny into his life, lets Danny push and stretch him in ways Steve can't even begin to deal with, has let Danny take over his life in subtle ways, and while he doesn't regret any of it, he's starting to realize that he needs a break from this constant tension between them. Fucking has only made it worse, has made it so that he's so entangled with the other man, he doesn't even know where their work lives end and their personal lives begin. Danny harasses him and cares about him and pushes him so far out of his comfort zone that he sometimes has to shut down just to be able to cope.
All he wants is five fucking minutes of quiet, of peace, of no Danny so he can get himself together and do his job. But Danny pushes and yells and gets in his face, and Steve feels his control snap when Danny shoves his hands against Steve's chest and says, "I am not letting you do this--"
He yanks Danny into one of the stalls, has enough presence of mind to shut the door, goes down on his knees and unzips his pants while Danny yelps and tries to push his hands away. "Jesus, McGarrett, what-- fuck, now? Really-- Jesus Christ, Steve--"
Steve slaps his hands away, pulls his pants and boxers down, and goes down on him with a determination and desperation that rattles him to his core. He hasn't felt this helpless and out of control since his teens when everything seemed to fall apart, no matter how hard he tried to hold it together, and when Danny comes with a sharp cry and his fingers clutched tightly in Steve's hair, Steve loses it. He shoves his hand down his pants, manages to just touch his cock before he comes, his face pressed against Danny's belly, his whole body shuddering helplessly.
"Jesus," Danny says weakly, his fingers curling around Steve's shoulder as he tries to hold himself up. "Christ, Steve, what the fuck was that?"
"I don't know," Steve says hoarsely, his hands clenched tightly around Danny's thighs as he tries to remember how to make his muscles move again. "I don't know, Danno."
"C'mere," Danny says softly, tugging at Steve's shoulder until Steve's on his feet, swaying unsteadily like he's still learning to get his land legs back. He kisses Steve desperately, dirty open-mouthed kisses that leave Steve breathless and lost, his hands curled into fists pressed against Steve's back. "I got you," he tells Steve quietly, holding Steve tightly when Steve just shakes. "I got you, sweetheart."
Steve is so far gone that he doesn't even remember to mock Danny for using that as a term of endearment and not sarcastically as he usually does.
Later that night, Kono comes over to his house, shoves him onto his bed, holds him down and fucks him with her fingers until he's a wreck. Then she rides his face and his cock until they're both worn out and exhausted, both of them curled around each other like interlocking pieces.
"Next time you act this stupid," Kono whispers into his mouth, sounding sleepy and content, "I'm just going to punch you in the face."
He smiles, feeling too mellow to really take offense. "That's not good conflict resolution tactics, Kono."
"I could just let Danny shoot you," she offers, wrapping her arms around his waist and fitting her head against the space between his chin and his shoulder.
"Nah," he says softly, holding her closer. "He hates paperwork. I'm thinking he'll fuck with my truck somehow."
He can feel Kono's smile against his skin. "Now why didn't I think of that?" she asks just before she falls asleep, and Steve feels something heavy and tight curl up inside him at the easy way she rests against him.
Divisions between work and personal life, he tells himself as he kisses her forehead, and don't ever cross the streams with them. He should've known he was going to break that rule when Danny and Kono came into his life. They have 'exception to the rules' written all over them in ugly striped ties and colorful bikinis, and neither one of them knows how to take no for an answer.
If he's honest with himself, he'll admit that he never expected anything less from them. And maybe he likes it more than he wants to say.
***
Rule #5: leave your emotions at the door when you're on the job or else shit gets complicated.
Steve's starting to feel like his personal life is a sitcom written by very lazy writers whereas his professional life is written by some soap opera writer who clearly stopped giving a shit about logic and suspension of disbelief midway. It's the only way he can explain the barrage of terrorist threats, bomb threats, escaped serial killers, and drug cartel cases that hit the 5-0 within the span of a month and a half, swamping HPD and the team, and making it so that everyone has to work the cases in long, staggered shifts. Everyone works the overtime and complains and drinks bad coffee and generally acts like the goddamn good cops that they are, working their asses off to close the cases and keep Hawaii safe.
Chin practically lives at his desk for the whole month, tracking bank accounts and money trails and false IDs and plane schedules. Kono interviews suspects, processes crime scenes, and canvasses neighborhoods while Danny and Steve pull stakeout duty and spend most of their time bitching at each other about coffee and boredom and trying not to fuck in the backseat; mostly because it's not professional, but also because Kono will kill them if they do anything without her there to referee.
They catch a break on the bomber explosion when Chin tracks down an old case from ten years ago. "I had to go through actual files, McGarrett," he complains, looking at the paper cuts on his fingers with a disgruntled air. "Boxes of them. Stacked three high. It's like I was trapped in the '80s again."
"I know," Steve sighs, yanking the file out of Chin's hands and flipping through the details. "Humanity was so technologically-impaired ten years ago. Where are the flying cars when you need them? Et cetera."
Chin's bland look speaks volumes about how unamused he is. "I'm going to go work with someone who doesn't know all my lines."
Steve's mouth creases into a half-smile. "You'll have better luck with that on the mainland."
"Bastard," Chin says affectionately, and Steve laughs and gets the team together for a raid on an abandoned building in Oahu where the suspect was last seen.
The team surrounds the building while Danny and Steve take point, leaving Kono and Chin to guard the rear entrance in case their bomber decides to run out the back. Steve goes in first while Danny follows behind him, guns at the ready and tense with adrenaline and fear. They find their bomber in the middle of the warehouse, sitting cross-legged and patiently waiting for them, a dead man's switch in his hand.
Danny tries to talk sense into him because that's the kind of guy he is, trying to convince him that this isn't what he wants to do and if he gives up now, the sentence will be a lot lighter, but Steve looks into the guy's eyes and knows that he's not going to change his mind, no matter how much Danny tries to reason with him. So he uses the only leverage he had found in that paper-thin file that Chin had pulled out from over ten years of cases.
"Disarm the bomb," he tells the guy with deceptive calm, "or I'll arrest your daughter for aiding and abetting. And she won't get the sweetheart deal that we're willing to offer to you."
It's over after that, all the fight going out of the bomber as he looks at Steve and doesn't see any room to negotiate. He goes through the motions of disarming the bomb, Danny cuffs him, suffers through Steve's gleefully inevitable "Book 'em, Danno," and is leading the bomber out of the warehouse while Steve stays back to make sure everything is secure. Kono is on the phone updating the Governor that the threat has been averted while Chin calls off S.W.A.T. and is helping Danny put the prisoner in the car when the walls of the warehouse start groaning and creaking in protest.
Steve is still standing in the building, looking around to try and figure out where the sound is coming from when the floor lifts up beneath his feet. He looks up and sees the bomber smiling madly, shoving his face into the window to laugh at Steve, and his stomach sinks as the ground starts shaking apart.
"Steve," Chin calls out, beckoning him forward with a panicked look on his face, which scares Steve more than what he's saying. "There's more than one bomb, get--"
Steve realizes what's happening as the earth thunders beneath him, shocks punching up through the concrete to try and shake the world down, and he has a moment to look helplessly at his team as the ground disappears with a slow booming sound, the world gone gray with dust and brick. It's terrible and slow, this end of the world, and the last thing Steve thinks before everything under his feet gives way is, thank God his team had gotten out before they had gotten caught in this. Thank God it isn't Danny and Kono in here with him. He doesn't think he would've survived if they'd hadn't made it out.
When he opens his eyes again, he can see a hole above him where the ground used to be and there is a cluster of masked faces in front of him, checking his vital signs and his body, asking him confusing questions that he can't make out because everything sounds dull and far away. He tries to move his arms, but everything is blindingly painful when he does, and as his eyes focus, he realizes that he's on his back, covered in dust and surrounded by rubble and that the masked faces are EMTs trying to find out how bad the damage is to his body. He tries to respond, but his voice is a croak and he's in too much pain to really be of any help, so he watches helplessly as they assess the damage and carefully move him onto a gurney, carrying him out to the ambulance.
As he's wheeled into the van, he catches sight of his team as they rush toward the ambulance. Chin is right behind Kono and Danny, a shocked look on his face; Kono has tears in her eyes, wiping them away furiously as they fall, and Danny has that slow, bruised look on his face that means he's too miserable to even be angry. Steve's heart squeezes tight in his chest as he looks at them, and he wants to reassure them that he's okay, reaches out to at least touch them so they know he's alive, but the world is still too shaky and he can barely raise his hand high enough to wave let alone reach out to them.
The EMTs slide him into the ambulance and hop in, blocking his view of Danny and Kono, and suddenly Chin's face is all he can see before the doors close behind him. He leans forward to look at Steve as the EMT puts an oxygen mask around Steve's face. "I'm here for you, brah," he says softly, his hand clamped around the railing of Steve's gurney like he's got him, and Steve finally feels like he can relax his guard enough to pass out like he wants to. He tries to ask about Danny and Kono, trying to speak through the mask, but Chin just shakes his head. "Sleep, McGarrett. I've got you. We can talk later."
For once in his life, Steve listens.
***
The light is low when he wakes up, the steady hiss and beeps of machinery reassuring him that he's still alive, that he hasn't gone into the light. Chin's dozing in a chair by his side, looking like he's been run ragged in the time that Steve's been out, and Steve wonders how long he's been waiting here.
He must make some kind of sound because Chin starts awake and looks at him, a vaguely confused, lost look on his face that makes him look about seventeen again. Steve remembers seeing all those trophies with Chin's name on them, the hero-worship he'd felt every time he'd passed those trophies and the need living inside him to prove that he could be as good as Kahuku's golden boy. It's a long, strange road from trying to beat Chin's records to working with him, but Steve's life is a series of coincidences that move in increasingly tight circles, and he really isn't surprised by much anymore.
"Here," Chin says tiredly, grabbing a glass from the table next to Steve and popping an ice chip into his mouth. "You're going to need this."
"Where…?" Steve's still woozy from the painkillers and whatever other drugs they pumped into his system, so his brain isn't exactly firing on all cylinders right now, but Chin seems to understand what he's asking. Steve's grateful for shared history and Chin's working knowledge of McGarrett-speak.
"They're outside," he tells Steve with a nod toward the door of his room. "I told I'd call them when you were finally allowed to have visitors. They've been staying at your place while you were in surgery." He gives Steve a severe look. "We're going to have a talk about what I'm going to do to you if you hurt either one of them. When you're healed enough to take a punch," he adds generously.
Steve winces, knowing it won't be a pleasant conversation, especially since Chin has become overly protective of Danny since the Mekka case. "What…?" he asks weakly, moving his fingers slightly trying to indicate his body.
"Concussion," Chin says grimly, feeding Steve another ice chip. "Three cracked ribs, a fracture in your elbow, a broken leg, multiple contusions and bruises, and a shard of metal that missed your carotid artery by a thousandth of a millimeter." He leans in and gives Steve a weary smile, although there's something terrified underneath it. "You have some luck, McGarrett."
"Story of my life," Steve croaks, managing to work through the drugs and the numbness to lift his hand up to Chin.
Chin clasps it gently and squeezes tight, his mouth a thin, pressed line that speaks volumes about how worried he was. "Next time, brah, don't run into a building that's wired to go off." Steve can hear the implied 'asshole' and appreciates that Chin is restraining himself from the verbal beatdown he clearly wants to give.
He also sounds utterly exhausted, and Steve wonders how long he's been waiting for Steve to wake up, how long they've all been waiting to hear that he'd made it through surgery without any complications. He's pretty sure that the visit with Danny and Kono isn't going to go half this well because Danny yells whenever Steve does anything stupidly heroic and Kono just smacks him until he apologizes and promises to never do it again. He remembers that moment when he was being carried into the ambulance, Kono crying and the terrified look on Danny's face, and everything inside him hurts at the memory.
"I'll remember for the next time," he promises Chin, but Chin just shakes his head like he knows better.
"No, you won't," he sighs, laying Steve's hand down and reaching over to put the glass of ice chips back on the table. "I'm probably going to have to put you in a headlock just to get you to not check yourself out tomorrow because you're clearly labouring under the delusion that you're fine."
Steve laughs and it hurts, but he thinks it's probably better than crying, which is his only other option now that he can't hit anything. "You can try."
Chin rolls his eyes. "Listen, I know you think you're Jean Claude Van Damme with fatigues on--"
"God," Steve groans, "that was such a shit movie. I can't believe that's the comparison you make when you know my head is perfectly in proportion to the rest of my body."
"It's like I'm talking to a teenager," Chin sighs, knuckling the bridge of his nose. "A really irritating teenager who thinks he's funny. You're Ferris Bueller without the charm."
"Also," Steve adds, feeling a little more solid now that Chin's glaring at him like he's an idiot, "I have better moves than Van Damme."
"I'm going to shoot you."
"Can't," Steve smiles, despite the pain and the drugs and the fact that a fucking building fell on him, "just think of all the paperwork you'd have to do."
Chin leans in to glare at him. "I can deal. I'm good with paperwork and my gun's bigger. Don't tempt me."
Steve nods, wincing a little as his head protests. "Can I…?" he asks, flicking his finger toward the door.
"When you've rested more, you can see them," Chin says kindly, briefly pressing his hand against Steve's head in a comforting gesture, making Steve inexplicably feel better. "No offense, but morphine makes for shitty conversations, speaking from experience."
Steve manages to slur out, "Ain't that the truth?" before his eyes get too heavy and he has to close them. Just for a minute.
***
When he wakes up again, Kono's pressed against the railing of his bed with her hand on his forehead as she brushes his hair back. Her eyes are swollen and rimmed with red like she's been crying. Danny's pacing a small section of floor behind her, his hair standing up wildly as he runs his fingers through it. "Danny," Kono says quietly when Steve opens his eyes, and before Steve can even blink, Danny's by his side.
"You are a goddamn menace," Danny says in a low, clenched whisper, his hands wrapped tight around the railing like he's trying to restrain himself. "I'm going to fucking kill you when you get better."
"Danny," Kono sighs, leaning her head against his hip, looking so tired and worn out that Steve feels his heart break at the sight of her.
Danny stops, his mouth clenching around everything he wants to say, and puts his arm around her, holding her tightly to him. "This isn't over," he promises Steve, looking angry and scared and so unlike Danny that Steve doesn't even know who this furious man is. He thinks that this is what Danny must be like when Grace is hurt, this fierce, angry bear of a man who would do anything to protect the ones he loves, and then Kono reaches over and pops an ice chip in his mouth and Steve's grateful for the water and the distraction.
"Walker is in lock-up," she tells him, and he feels better for knowing that, for knowing that Kono knew he'd needed to hear that. "He had more bombs and he didn't disarm them all, by the way, despite what he told us. Rumor has it that he's going to get the maximum sentence for the attempted murder--" She stumbles over the word, and Steve reaches out to grab her hand, hating the way she looks bruised and wounded every time she looks at him.
"Kono, I'm fine," he tells hoarsely, sounding like he still has building dust in his lungs, and he doesn't know what he's expecting -- maybe for Kono to slap him or yell at him or call him names -- but he isn't ready for her to lean over his bed and press her face into shoulder, her hands trembling as she curves them around his neck.
"The whole building went down," she says shakily, her voice muffled, but Steve can still hear the fear underneath it all. "We thought you were dead. Oh my God, Steve, I was so afraid I was never going to see you again."
It isn't easy to lift his hands up when he still feels so drugged out and numb, but he manages, wrapping his arms around her and holding her tight against him. She smells like his soap and shampoo, and it's comforting. "I'm impervious to bombs," he says reassuringly, and she shakes, but he's not sure whether it's with laughter or tears.
"That's not funny," Danny says hoarsely from behind her, and when he moves to Steve's other side into Steve's line of sight, Steve can see that he's got that same tense air about him, like he's holding himself back with an effort. He reaches out and brushes his thumb against the line of Steve's cheek, like he needs that physical reminder that Steve is alive to drive him crazy. "Seriously, it's just not. We had to dig through pieces of building to find you. Okay? You were under a collapsed building. Do you get that? It's not a joke."
They're both so still, Steve thinks as he watches them look at him with worry, neither one of them moving about and gesturing expansively like they normally do. Everything feels wrong between them and it's worse than waking up with a dry mouth and an aching body and the knowledge that he'd missed dying by a thousandth of a millimeter and pure dumb luck. "Come on," he cajoles softly, desperate to make this right between them, needing them to be okay again. "I took on a building and lived. How awesome am I?"
Against him, he can hear Kono let out a soft snort as she lifts her head to look at him. "God, you're an idiot," she sighs, leaning over to press desperate kisses against his mouth. "I'm going to punch you in the face when you're all better."
Steve tries to hold back a laugh, but it comes out anyway, making him cough a little. "Chin said the same thing. I'm going to start taking it personally if you guys keep this up."
Danny presses the heels of his hands against his temples, looking like he's about to burst from all the things he's not saying to Steve. "You know I was sane before you, right?" he asks Steve in an aggravated tone, and Steve feels the tightness in him ease as he realizes that Danny's forgiven him just like that.
"You lived in Jersey," Steve says because he knows how this argument goes. "How sane could you be?"
Danny points at him. "Apologize," he barks, and Steve laughs again, feeling good as Kono holds his hand tightly and Danny glares at him like he's got at least fifty things he wants to yell about, but won't because he's promised to behave himself.
"Hey," he says after a few minutes of hand-holding and appreciating the total lack of everyone calling him a psycho with a death wish, "wasn't there a rule about displays of public affection?" He looks pointedly at Kono's hand in his. "I'm pretty sure it was rule number two." And okay, it's not like he really means it because he is in a fucking hospital, so you know, that rule can be suspended, but he's made it a habit of affectionately giving them shit at every turn, and he's not going to stop now just because he almost died. Again.
Maybe the team has a point about his psychosis.
"Fuck your stupid goddamn rules," Danny says easily, leaning in brushing his lips against Steve's until Steve kisses him back, kissing him briefly and fiercely. It's like he's putting his heart and soul into it, and it leaves Steve breathless and lost when he finally pulls back. "Especially the rule about no public displays of affection," he smiles, gently pressing his thumb against Steve's mouth
Kono leans in after him and kisses Steve hard, the soft, helpless sound she makes telling Steve all he needs to know about how scared she had been. "It's a really stupid rule, boss," she says apologetically, and Steve laughs because she's right and he knows it.
"I have all these rules for a reason," he says, though, because he never goes down without a fight.
Danny shrugs. "Yeah, well, we have a few rules of our own." He nods at Kono who says, "Rule number one is golden: don't do anything that's going to get you killed."
"Oh, come on," Steve whines, his hands twitching in protest. "It's not like I intentionally--"
"We know," Kono sighs, holding her hands up to head off his protest. "And we're not asking you to stop pretending you're Rambo, okay? God forbid," she adds, not actually rolling her eyes, but Steve knows she wants to.
"Just," Danny holds his fingers an inch apart, "turn it down a notch. A notch. Like say, don't run into a building full of explosives."
"I thought he'd disarmed--"
"Don't step in front of speeding bullets," Kono says with a tight smile, and fuck, that's right, Steve had forgotten he'd taken a bullet in the chest for her. Which, he had a vest on, so he has no idea why she's still freaking out about that, but okay, no eating bullets, he can do that.
"Or," Danny says, his hands spread wide like a thought's just occurred to him, "here's a idea: wait for back-up. It's a revolutionary idea, I know, but police officers have been doing it for years--"
"Just," Kono says softly, "try not to die, all right?" She reaches out and brushes her fingers against his cheek.
Steve nods loosely, his head still feeling like it's not attached to the rest of him, but that won't fade until he's off the painkillers. "Fine, I can try," he admits grudgingly.
Danny holds up his hands. "We're not asking for the impossible here," he points out, using his reasonable tone because he knows it irritates Steve. "Just try to be remember you're not actually the Man of Steel, that's all. You can't leap buildings in a single bound. Don't make the joke," he warns Steve when Steve opens his mouth. "We spent ten hours waiting to hear if you were dead or alive. It's not the time."
Steve closes his mouth.
"Also," Kono says with a faint smile, "try not to jump off ships or swim in shark-infested waters. I know it's a hobby of yours, but just try."
"For us," Danny says, leaning his hip against Steve's bed. "Because we're both too young to go into cardiac arrest every time you're on a case."
Steve flips Danny off, feeling absurdly happy when Danny laughs. "It's so like you to pick on a man when he's concussed and defenseless," he says with an eyeroll.
Kono shakes her head. "I can't believe we were worried about you," and Danny leans in and looks at Steve and sighs, "Yeah, you're going to be fine."
"Which is what I was saying," Steve say, his hands flashing out in aggravation. "Why does no one ever listen to me?"
Danny puts his arms around Kono's shoulders and tugs her away from Steve's bed. "We will once you start saying something worth listening to," he says a little more cheerfully, resting his cheek against Kono's head. "In the meantime," he says with a pointed look at Steve's leg, "do what your doctor says and don't even think of checking yourself out of here."
"But--" Steve protests.
Kono holds up her hand, quelling him instantly. "You leave, I break your other leg," she tells him seriously. "I'm sending Chin in to sit on you if you even think about moving without your doctor's permission."
"Dictators," Steve snipes, sulking when they laugh at him. "I have rights, you know."
"You and all the people you interrogate," Danny says heartlessly, leaning in to press a firm kiss against Steve's mouth, his fingers lingering against the curve of Steve's jaw.
"I'm so oppressed," Steve sighs.
"Let me play my tiny violin for you," Kono laughs, leaning in to cup her hands around Steve's face and kissing him until he's breathless. "Take care of yourself, Commander," she whispers gently. "I have plans for the both of you when you're out of here."
Steve's heart cracks a little from how good they look together, how they look longingly at him, how Kono's hand reaches for him like he belongs with them. He holds her hand and squeezes tight, thinking that rules don't apply to these two, have never applied to them, and he should've realized that when he'd first met them. "Looking forward to it," he tells her, meaning it.
"You'd better," she tells him seriously, Danny's arm wrapped around her waist as he leads her out.
"I'd listen to what she says," Danny stage-whispers to Steve over his shoulder, his face crinkled in amusement as Steve shoots him a dirty look. "She can take you."
"Yeah," Kono says fiercely and then stops, turning to Danny. "You're gonna help me, right?"
"Totally," Danny grins, both of them laughing when Steve yells out, "Fuck you guys, seriously," and watches them walk out, both of them looking back every few seconds to make sure Steve hasn't left the bed while their backs were turned.
They're ridiculous, he thinks with a quiet smile as he settles back in his bed, and he's ridiculous for letting himself get talked into doing everything he's not supposed to do in situations like this. And maybe everything will get completely fucked, like it has in the past, like it always seems to whenever he lets himself forget how the world works, but he's willing to risk it this time.
Because Kono promised and Danny reassured him and maybe, just maybe, it's all going to work out this time.
At some point, I will work up the nerve to post the H50 haikus I wrote while bored at work today. Because I've reached that level of dorkery with this damn show. Sigh.