In which Steve is embarrassed, and Danny Wins All
It had all happened so fast. That was what came of having a big mouth, thought Steve. After all, he was Mr. Cool and Nothing-Fazes-Me McGarrett, and he’d been confident that Danny would never think of anything that embarrassing. He’d even plonked down $50 on the outcome, which of course meant that Danny put in an extra effort.
* * * *
“There is nothing more offensive to my eyes than that appalling shirt,” Steve said, staring in bemusement at the green and yellow monstrosity Danny had bought for their office one-year anniversary party.
“It is not offensive. It is a Hawaiian shirt. It is like your native dress. I’m making an effort here to show you how I’m trying to accept your coconut-strewn salt-encrusted retirement dump as home, and you reward me like this.” Danny folded his arms across the gaudy nightmare and pretended to glare at Steve.
Steve just shook his head. “See, there is your problem right there. You’re wearing Hawaiian without any conviction. You can’t carry it off. It’s just wrong. Like you in a tux. You said so yourself, remember?”
“I have plenty of conviction right now. I’m convinced I want to crack your head open.”
“Guys!” Kono called from her desk where she was on the phone. “Can it wait till tonight?”
“So you think you could wear this and carry it off?” Danny ignored Kono.
“Probably not that,” Steve said with a grin. “There are limits. However, if I chose to wear something embarrassing like that, I’d at least wear it with attitude.”
“So you are so cool and full of yourself you couldn’t be embarrassed by something you are wearing.”
Of course Steve should have shut up right there, but Danny’s constant moaning about Hawaii was getting under his skin, and he wasn’t about to let him have a victory he didn’t deserve.
“I think I have sufficient panache to deal with the situation, yes.”
“Oh, we have panache do we? Well, let’s put that to the test, James Bond. $50 says you can’t wear what I suggest with any panache whatsoever. Tonight.”
“At the party?”
“Yep.”
“You’re on.”
“A teddy bear suit.”
* * * *
And here he was, three hours later, in an ill-fitting plush pink bear suit, because of course when you are as tall as McGarrett, you have to take what you can get, and gray or black masculine colours in teddy bear suits are difficult to find at the last minute, as if masculine and teddy bear suits could ever co-exist anyway, and he keeps knocking his head against lintels with the ears and banging into doorways as he climbs the stairs to the office, hoping against hope that nobody will be there yet and he can stroll confidently into the room and make Danny’s bet and take this damm thing off.
Sounds of laughter and glasses clinking dash his hopes. It sounds like a party already. Steve grits his teeth, takes a deep breath and waddles into the room, somewhat awkwardly as his underwear has given him a wedgie and he can’t adjust it with his paws.
A stunned silence descends over the party. Through his eyeholes, Steve can see the partiers staring at him with dropped jaws. The office appears stuffed with people. Danny, Steve notes, has changed his island horror for a cool open-necked polo sans tie. It looks good. Bastard.
Oh God. Steve now understands the reason for the awkward silence. In the middle of the room is the Governor, as well as the D.A. and the coroner, the head of HPD, and everybody else he’s ever known.
The Governor looks at him for a long moment, and Steve squirms in utter humiliation. Then her mouth twists in the peculiar way people do when they’re struggling not to burst into laughter, and she says:
“Somebody get that bear a drink.”
* * * *
Many, many drinks later, Steve is feeling relaxed enough not to care about his attire any more. All of the honchos have left, and he is left with Danny who is smiling at him with beery affection and a curious gleam in his eyes. Kono is somewhere with a police officer she’d taken a shine to, but they are effectively alone, and Steve smells trouble.
But Danny raises his beer to Steve in salute. “I’m impressed, partner. You have courage.”
“But not panache,” Steve responds wryly.
“I will admit that I gave you an impossible task. But you did deserve it. However, payment has been made in full, and also in my total enjoyment of your discomfiture, and further correspondence will not be entered into.” Danny slid $25 across the table. “Deal?”
“Fair enough. Deal. Now can I take this thing off?”
Danny cocks his head sideways, considering him. He smiles, and that smile means no good. “Not yet. There’s one more little thing I want to do.”
“You are not taking a photo.”
“I don’t want to look. I want to feel.”
Steve realizes that Danny is pretty drunk, but he’s getting into some fairly weird territory here, and he feels suddenly, acutely vulnerable because he can’t make a break for it.
“Turn around.”
“You’re kidding me. You’re getting off on my bear suit? All that humiliation wasn’t enough for you? You said I’d paid in full.”
“This is a little extra bonus for us both.” Danny puts down his beer and approaches Steve, who tries to fend him off, but he can’t get a grip with the stupid oversized paws, and Danny just whips him round and bends him over the table. “You know I always loved my teddy bear as a kid.”
And he’s suddenly up behind Steve’s body, rubbing against the plush like it’s some sex toy, and Steve can feel Danny is hard, and he has no idea where this has come from except that Danny is getting off on him and Steve likes it very much indeed.
Danny grabs the seam of Steve’s pink pants and rips. It pulls apart conveniently.
“How long have you had that wedgie?”
“Shut up.”
Danny does, eliminating the wedgie neatly by pulling down Steve’s briefs and closing on him again, cock pressed against his ass. Steve groans and pushes back.
“Jesus, fuck me you piece of shit. Fuck me hard.”
“Oh, a talker you are now.”
“What are you, Yoda?”
“You’re the one in the bear suit.” They continue in drunken ecstasy. It’s wonderful. Steve rises up, and opens his eyes, and his gaze encounters Kono, who has wandered back to the office to get her phone, and is standing in the doorway awestruck at the sight of her team-mate panting noisily while humping their boss in a pink bear suit.
She stares in disbelief. Then she grabs her phone and takes a pic, and runs off, howling with demented laughter.
They will never, ever live this one down.