Superglue and Scotch Tape (gen, Hawaii Five-0)
Title: Superglue and Scotch Tape
Rating: T
Spoilers/Warnings: finale spoilers; none
Pairings/Characters: none; Kono, Danny, Chin, Steve.
Summary: "Kono Kalakaua, minus the detective, is slowly falling apart." Kono is falling apart after losing her badge, and Danny shows up to remind her just what ohana is.
Author's Note: Many thanks to quoththewriter for reading this over first and saying it was actually good. I needed some finale therapy, and apparently this was how it ended up. Which was a surprise because I started this out with the intention of writing a fix-it for the relationship between Chin and Kono that you know the finale has got to bring. My muse had other ideas.
The sun is dying outside the window, a world away from the bedroom where shadows are being cast across the floor, long and low and never-ending. The air sighs through the open window, as warm as it always is, but it sparks gooseflesh across her arms and she draws the sheet around herself, tighter.
Kono Kalakaua, minus the detective, is slowly falling apart.
It was easy enough to let herself do it. She remembers the feeling like an alcoholic remembers wine. It’s slow and steady, good to let herself go, and if she just lets herself fall apart for one day, one day, she’ll pick herself up tomorrow.
Except that tomorrow never seems to come and she lets herself fall apart at a slow burn, constantly forgetting and wondering where her badge and gun have gone to. It’s the same feeling as before, when she’d try to stand and realize that her knee didn’t quite work and she’d never be the same, that a large piece of who she’s told herself she is is missing.
Reinventing yourself once is hard, almost impossible, but twice is like a brick wall you keep coming up against and don’t even want to face, because the thought of doing it all again is just too much, and there’s nowhere to turn to.
Or, more like, nobody.
She’s mad at him. Unbelievably and undeniably mad in a way she’s never been before. Not since he told her that she had to start over, and that was just him being the messenger, not real anger that makes her stomach burn and her head spin. When she thinks about it, she’s never been this mad at him before. He’s lucky he’s not here, because she wouldn’t be held responsible for her actions. If she saw him she’d be swearing a blue streak and threatening bodily harm, but she’s not there and it’s all she can do to sit in her home.
It’s not that he went back to them, even though that’s exactly what it is. Because this, all of it, was and is ohana and should be even when it’s been taken away. She knows, or at least hopes that she does, why he’s doing it. So that he can help. But she saw Steve, knows the arresting officer was her own cousin, saw the look in Steve’s eyes and felt sick. She’s been getting progressively sicker ever since.
What’s making her mad is that - well, maybe she doesn’t really know, or it’s a combination of things, like how Steve looked and that Chin didn’t tell her what he was doing, and she thought that they were more than that.
Not that he hasn’t tried. He’s at her door every day at six, when he leaves HPD, her cousin Lieutenant Kelly, but she never answers and thinks about locking her door, even though she never does.
So she’s stubborn. Sue her.
She’s stopped sleeping, even though she hasn’t left her bed in at least twenty four hours. She’s been weak, stupid, the opposite of everything she told Chin to do when their positions were reversed, but she can’t help it. There’s no motivation, nothing in her yelling at her to get up and stop being a fool. She’s broken down her immune system because she can’t sleep, doesn’t want to eat, and for the past thirty six hours has been staring at her ceiling as though the answers will be there, plain enough for her to read.
It’s not like she can do anything for Steve. She’s dead weight right now, the girl without a badge. Not that she’d take back what she did. Kono hasn’t even considered that. She’d do it over again without a second thought, because the alternative is so unbearable it’s like a physical ache.
(Maybe, if she was forced to do one thing differently, she’d stand somewhere just a little bit less conspicuous. And if she could step back in time she’d bring a damn decal for their van.)
It’s only been three days, though it feels like a lifetime. A lifetime of waiting for the phone call from IA that will change everything. Kono feels lost, out and floating in the ocean with nothing to grab onto. Maybe she doesn’t want anything to grab onto. She did what they’re accusing her of, after all.
Unlike Steve.
She doesn’t doubt his innocence. It’s the same faith she put into Chin over three years ago now, the very second he was accused. It’s a faith that’s unconditional. To think that there’s someone out there who could possibly believe anything different makes no sense to her. Why would it?
There’s a knocking at the door she doesn’t want to answer, because it’s after six and if it’s not Chin, she doesn’t want to talk to whoever it might be. And if it is Chin, he’s already been here once today and she didn’t answer the first time.
But then there’s a click to the door and she knows she should have locked it. Footsteps that are most definitely not her cousins make their way through her house, like they’re searching, and Kono’s breath catches in her throat.
If she’s in trouble, she has nothing. No gun, no badge to scare them off, and all she has is her cell phone.
“Kono? You here?”
Danny.
She doesn’t know why she didn’t expect him to show up: maybe she figured he’d be too busy trying to save them all from the mess they’d made, but she’s annoyed at herself for actually being grateful that he’s here. She caused half this mess. If she’d been more careful, done something just a little bit differently, she could actually be helping him instead of waiting for the Calvary to come and rescue her.
Darkness encroaches, chasing the shadows from the corners of the room. The sun has long ago dipped below the horizon. Kono groans as the bed dips down, but she keeps her eyes on the ceiling.
“Leave,” She murmurs to him, then louder, coughing. “If you know what’s good for you, Daniel Williams.” The words are cut off, short, nothing like they’d usually be. It’s an empty threat, and the both of them know it. She hears him draw closer. “I don’t need a gun.”
“You don’t need a gun, huh? You know what, I’m sure you don’t, and I’m quite enjoying my neck attached to my shoulders. I’m just gonna turn on the light. That require any extra, protective armor I should be forewarned about?”
She rolls her eyes even though it’s too dark for him to see her. “If you did, why would I tell you?”
He reaches across and light floods the room again, the darkness receding into the smallest of spaces. She doesn’t know how she looks, hasn’t cared to look in a mirror, but if the look on Danny’s face is indicative of anything, she looks like death warmed over and fed to a shark. She feels like it, too, if she’s being honest with herself.
He doesn’t look much better than he feels: Danny looks like he hasn’t slept since she last saw him, like he’s going to crash and burn at any minute, and why shouldn’t he? His partner is in jail, half his team have no badges, and the other fourth just went behind their backs.
Kono sits up, pulling her hair behind her head with an old elastic.
“Shouldn’t you be out there?” She jerks her head towards the outside, where she knows is where he had to be. It’s not like he’s going to rest before Steve’s out of jail. If she was able to, she’d be out there nonstop, too. It hurts that she can’t, that’s she’s useless.
Danny smiles at her, and the knot in her stomach unclenches in the smallest of ways. It’s easy to see it’s a forced smile, but it’s the remnant of a familiar smile, the shadow of something none of them can quite put their fingers on right now. Kono wants that smile back, more than anything - wants Steve’s crazy stunts and Danny’s rants, Chin’s calm exterior and amused smiles, wants the warm Hawaiian sun on her back as the four of them sit on the beach with Longboards and talk over cases, or on more than one occasion, absolutely nothing.
The familiar smile reminds her of everything they’ve lost.
Kono draws her knees close and rests her forehead on them. “We’ve fucked up.”
He puts his hand over hers. “Just a little.”
She raises her eyes.
“Which translates to, yeah, we fucked up a lot. Massively. We’re extremely fucked into next week, or maybe the week after that, and we’re gonna have to go by the books this time. Word by word and law by law, honey. But I’m gonna get us unfucked.”
Kono can’t help the snort. “That is so not a word.”
“What? It’s perfectly a word.”
“Unfucked?” Her eyebrows shoot into her hairline. “Try again.”
Danny points a finger at her. “Shut up.”
The momentary laughter ebbs and she feels drained again. The next time she meets his eyes, they’re full of everything she knew they’d be - regret, fear, ambition, exhaustion. She knows because she’s been on the other side of this, the friend of the wrongly accused.
“Why are you here, Danny?” She softly questions, wrapping her arms around her knees.
“I heard you were holing yourself up.”
“So? Can’t do anything anyway.”
“So? What’d you think I was going to do, huh? Let you beat yourself up? I can’t let you sit here and make yourself sick.”
“Chin sent you.”
“No, no he didn’t. I came here because you, okay, are not doing any good sitting here.” Danny presses the back of his hand to her forehead. “You’re doing nothing but making yourself sick.”
“You’re such a father. Steve needs you more.”
“Twice, actually. Would you believe that one?” He’s ignoring the last sentence she said, but his response shocks her enough to get her to look up, but the only thing he does is sigh. “Later. Much, much later, when we’ve finished the malsadas in your kitchen and I’m not afraid you’re going to die on me. I have enough work to do without having to fill out more paperwork. Kono Kalakaua, COD fatally stubborn.”
A sigh rattles her. “Fine, Detective Obnoxious.” When she swings her feet off the bed, she feels like she might actually fall over, but she steadies herself after a moment and folds her arms across her chest.
“Happy?”
“The happiest.” Danny throws his hands into the air like he’s showing her just how much. “You know where your kitchen is, or do I have to remind you?”
Kono gives him a hand gesture of her own. She can hear his footsteps behind her as she makes her way to the kitchen and finds -
She’s going to kill them, all of them, and it will be absolutely un-fucking-traceable.
“Steve.”
“What, I’m gone for three days and I’m a celebrity?”
He’s grinning, ear to ear, like he’s won all the prizes in the world, and she’s laughing despite feeling a bit dizzy as she throws her arms around him like they’ve only got seconds to live.
“How?”
“Security cameras,” Chin looks a bit gaunt, pale and exhausted like the rest of them, but the simple fact of him sitting next to Steve on her couch speaks volumes. “It just so happens there was one she never told Wo Fat about. Steve was released an hour ago.”
“Actually, cuz, I was wondering how you ninja’d your way into my house without me noticing.” She tries not to laugh, pressing her lips together. “But that too.”
“I am,” Danny says from behind her, “A very loud speaker, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“Oh, we’ve noticed, brah.” Chin grins.
Kono sits down on the arm of the couch, perching there like a bird. “You’re still with HPD?” She hates that he’s back with them even though she knows why he is - if he hadn’t been working from the inside, Steve wouldn’t be sitting here now, and she’s sure of it.
And besides, she knows her cousin, and he’s not a traitor.
Chin nods. “Until we can set things right.”
Her eyes survey the room - Danny sitting at her kitchen table eating what were supposedly her malsadas, Chin relaxing on her couch, and Steve unshaven but out of prison.
“Looks like you did.”
“We’ve still got some unfinished business involving a certain cousin of mine.” He says, and her breath almost catches in her throat before she sighs.
“Look, guys, there’s nothing you can do. I was there. I stole that money.”
“So did I, Kono.”
Her eyes are daggers. “I’m not letting you take the blame, boss.”
“Neither are you.” Steve shoots back. She opens her mouth to argue before Danny interrupts.
“Nobody is taking the blame for this one except Jameson, okay, because all of this is her fault. She put the money back to cover it up, and before that? Who do you think told us we couldn’t negotiate in the first place? The both of you saved Chin’s life that day, and that’s what we’re going to tell them tomorrow, when the four of us go down to sort out the rest of this entire fuck of a mess. But right now, we’re going to eat malsadas, and I hear there’s a game on.”
It sounds good, better than anything she’s ever heard. Better than evenings sitting on the beach at Steve’s house, because this - it feels earned, like they have a right to push aside everything else for the rest of the night and simply be, like they haven’t in quite some time. So when she elbows Chin in the ribs to give her more room, or when Danny digs his toes into Steve’s thigh, and she screams so loud for a touchdown she’s sure she woke the entire island, there are no regrets.
Tomorrow, they’ll go sort this out. The four of them. Maybe right now she’s being held together by superglue, scotch tape, and malsadas, but it’s better than any fix-it she could have done on her own.