Not Myself Today, Part 1/5
Title: Not Myself Today
Author: hllangel
Artist: everythingshiny
Word Count: ~35,000
Rating: NC-17
Characters/Pairings: Steve(f)/OMC, Steve/Danny, Kono, Chin
Notes: Thanks so much to donutsweeper. Without her, this fic would never have been finished. I started it over a year ago in a "challenge accepted" way, and it quickly spiraled out of control. At one point I thought it might be 12,000 words, tops. Thanks also to everyone who encouraged me though the year it took to finish. This would have stayed a WIP in googledocs forever, otherwise.
Warnings: Genderfuck, internalized homophobia
Summary: Steve has a lot of issues and the Universe has a perverse sense of humor. So does Kono for that matter. When Steve wakes up with the wrong body, he has to figure out what's wrong and how to fix it. Kono's known all along.
***
It’s fuck-off o’clock when Steve wakes up. He desperately wants to go back to sleep but his phone is ringing, and Steve’s never been able to ignore his phone.
“Hello?” he says, not looking at the caller ID. His voice feels off, but he puts it down to the fact that he was just woken out of a sound sleep.
“Oh, sorry, wrong number,” Kono says. She sounds puzzled, and the line goes dead. Then starts ringing again.
He coughs before he answers, but his “Kono?” still sounds odd, even though his throat feels perfectly normal.
“Boss?” She sounds hesitant. “Are you OK?”
He pauses to take stock. Nothing’s broken, nothing hurts, but his body doesn’t feel like it’s his anymore and he’s not sure what the hell is going on with his voice. “Yeah,” he says anyway, because he’s the boss and she obviously called for a reason. “What’s going on, Kono?”
“Surf’s up, brah. You forget?”
“It’s Sunday, isn’t it?” He groans and rolls out of bed. He’d promised to head up to North Shore ages ago, then they’d caught a case and had spent way too many days in a row on stakeouts overnight, catching a few hours of sleep in the office when possible, and Steve had lost track of which day was which. He’d stumbled home late last night after Danny had kicked him out of the office because apparently the help he was giving was effectively doubling what they actually had to do. Or so Danny informed him before closing and locking the door behind Steve.
“Pick you up in ten,” Kono says, voice way too bright and cheery for the time.
His body feels off as he stumbles to the bathroom, scrubbing his face with one hand as he reaches for the light with the other. When his eyes adjust enough to catch a glimpse of himself in the mirror, he’s expecting the dark shadows under his eyes.
He’s not expecting the lack of stubble, the slightly larger eyes or the high, sharp cheekbones tapering down to a more narrow chin. The changes are subtle, and he still mostly looks like himself except for how he looks like a total stranger.
And then he looks down and realizes that it’s not just his face that’s changed, and thank god Kono’s on her way because fuck.
***
By the time Kono pulls up in the driveway, the pre-dawn sky is growing brighter, but Steve hasn’t taken too much notice of it. He’s made it downstairs at least, and thrown on a t-shirt and shorts, both of which fit him perfectly the yesterday but which are now hanging off him. Thirty years later and he's playing dress-up, except that he's in his own clothes.
Kono knocks and Steve shouts at her to just get in here, already. By the time he sees her, he knows she’s cottoned on to the fact that something’s not right, and she’s approaching him cautiously.
“Shit, Boss,” she says when she sees him.
The absurdity of the situation catches up to Steve suddenly and he laughs. “That’s all you can say?”
“Not sure there’s anything else to say, other than a good old-fashioned what the fuck.” She’s smiling now, too. “So surfing’s obviously out this morning.” She starts digging through the cabinets. “You’ve got to have tea in here somewhere,” she says. “This isn’t a conversation to have over coffee.”
“Second drawer from the left,” Steve tells her. “I’ll get the kettle.”
Making tea isn’t something Steve does all the time, but he likes it enough that the procedure is ingrained, and he can do it without thinking too much. It’s good to have something to do with his hands (so that he doesn’t have to sit and stare at them and wonder if his fingers were ever that slim).
Once they each have a warm mug in their hands, Kono guides him out to the lanai and they sit, watching the sky get brighter and the water change color in the bay.
“We’ll skip over the big questions for now. I suppose we’ll figure out the how and why eventually. But first things first, how do you feel?”
“I woke up and I’m in the wrong body. How the fuck am I supposed to feel?”
“I can’t tell you that, brah,” Kono says.
“Not myself,” Steve finally comes up with.
Kono turns to face him and Steve is aware that she’s really looking at him for the first time this morning. It feels like it takes forever, but in reality it’s probably only a minute. He crosses his hands over his chest defensively, and struggles with himself to keep his arms where they are when they don’t sit in position the way he’s used to.
“Up,” Kono says, grabbing his hand and pulling him out to the lawn. Steve watches her crouch slightly into a defensive stance, but before he can ask what she’s doing she says, “Hit me.”
“You’re joking,” he says.
“Nope. You need to get more comfortable in that body before we go out and the best way to do that is to test it. You can’t swim because I’m guessing you don’t have appropriate swimwear and you don’t want to run until after we go shopping. Trust me,” she says, gesturing to Steve’s chest. “But we can spar.” She gives him her best shit-eating grin. “Come at me, Boss.”
And so Steve does.
He’s not aiming to hurt her, or even really land a blow, but she’s right. He’s learning where his arms and legs end, where his center of balance is, and how good his reflexes are. He doesn’t realize that he’s sweating until Kono flips him neatly over her knee and plants him on his back on the grass. “Gotcha!”
Steve groans, and flexes his back, both to make sure that he hasn’t actually hurt himself and because he’s not ready for round two. He should have seen that move coming. He wants to blame it on his new body and his crappy morning, but he’s pretty sure that she’d have been able to pull the same stunt on him regardless.
When she offers her hand and helps pull him back to his feet he realizes that yeah, the world is starting to slot back into place; he feels more grounded now.
They sit back down and sip at the now-lukewarm tea in silence. When they’re finished, Steve carries the mugs into the kitchen and washes them right away. He hears Kono come back inside behind him. “Now what?” he asks.
“Now we go shopping.”
It takes longer than he thought it would to get dressed. His pants are too long and they’re dragging under his heels; his shoes are both too wide and too long, and he trips over them twice before he gets outside the bedroom door; Plus, his shirts don’t fit quite right; they’re too tight in the chest, and way too loose around his arms. He finally settles on a pair of board shorts and a t-shirt and a pair of Mary’s slippers (left behind the last time she came to visit) that are slightly too small and pinching his feet, but he can deal with that so long as he can wear shoes and stay upright for more than five steps at a time.
“Where are we going?” he asks, as he takes the list Kono hands him and looks it over. The list is short, but Steve has a feeling that it’s more complicated than it looks because given how long it took him to find this outfit, he basically needs an entirely new wardrobe.
“Mahalo,” he whispers in her ear once they're done and Steve's standing in his living room surrounded by bags and bags of new clothes.
***
This time, it’s the alarm that wakes him up. He set it early so he could go swimming, his usual Monday morning routine. In the first few seconds as he’s moving from lying down to standing up he wonders why the hell his body is beat up and sore and wrong before he remembers that, oh yeah, he has an entirely new body and he spent a good chunk of yesterday letting Kono beat him into the ground.
He’s hurting enough that he considers skipping the swim, but knows that he needs it. The salt water has always had a remarkable effect on his senses. Besides, the whole ordeal meant he was deprived of surfing yesterday.
Swimming the same distance takes longer today, so by the time he gets back to his house he’s got just enough time to rinse off the salt water and get going. As he grabs the first outfit he finds from the neat, newly-clean stack Kono had left him with the night before, he makes a mental note to thank her for getting him a completely mix-and-match ready wardrobe. It means that the first thing he grabs actually looks decent.
He pays little attention to his hair until he’s halfway to the office, when he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror and laughs. His usual policy of not doing anything and letting his hair stick up every which way looks ridiculous on his new features. He attempts to smooth it down, but nothing works and by the time he actually gets there he’s more or less resolved to keep it that way, because he doesn’t have a clue how to handle it.
Kono’s car is in the parking lot when he pulls in, and she’s still in the car. When he doesn’t get out right away, she does. It’s like she’s been waiting for him, which, he reflects, she probably has. She knocks on his window and hands him a cup of coffee when he opens it.
“Your hair looks ridiculous,” she says by way of greeting.
“Thanks,” he responds. His tone is sarcastic, but he hopes she realizes that it’s more than that.
Steve takes a few minutes to sip his coffee, and Kono waits for him, leaning against the side of the truck, enjoying her own coffee and waiting.
“Let’s go,” Kono says. “Crime waits for no man.”
“Or woman?” Steve unbuckles his seat belt and opens the door, finally ready to go inside.
“I’ve got something in my desk for your hair,” Kono tells him as they fall in step.
Somehow, that makes the whole thing better. Neither Chin nor Danny are in yet, and so Steve retreats to his office and Kono follows shortly carrying a small tub of something that she uses to attack his pincushion hair. She manages to mold it into something she deems acceptable before running back to drop in in her desk, promising that she’ll pick up some for Steve after work and show him how to use it.
Of course, the two minutes she’s not in his office is the exact time Danny picks to barge in. And when he takes in Steve-the-woman sitting at Steve’s desk with his legs kicked up, browsing through a case file he naturally assumes that Steve is a threat and draws on him.
“Do not say a word,” Danny snarls. “Put the folder down and keep your hands where I can see them.”
Not wanting to get shot, Steve complies. He wonders where the hell Kono is and how long it takes to put a little tub of hair goo back into her desk.
Danny is obviously wondering the same thing. “Kono!” he calls, right before she materializes over his shoulder. “Did you know this woman was here?”
“Put the gun down, Danny,” Steve says.
“You, stop talking. Kono, answer me.”
“Put down the gun, Danny,” Kono says, her tone even.
“You know her?” Danny still hasn’t holstered his weapon, but his posture has shifted a tiny bit, his grip on the gun just a bit looser.
“So do you. That’s Steve.” Kono pushes past Danny and plants herself on the other side of Steve’s desk. She’s not in the way of Danny’s shot, but she’s placed herself between them, and that, more than anything else, gets Danny to lower his weapon. But he still doesn’t holster it.
“Explain,” he says. “She is not Steven J McGarrett, ninja SEAL extraordinaire.”
Steve slowly gets to his feet and walks around the desk, staying a few feet away from Danny. It’s not close enough to disarm him yet, but he’s putting himself on more equal footing.
“It’s me, Danno. Ask me anything.”
Steve sees Danny’s grip tighten on his gun, but it stays at his side. “What’s the first thing I did when I met Steve?”
“You drew your gun on me,” Steve answers. “I’m having flashbacks right now.”
They both fall silent, not moving. Danny's damn gun is still in his hand.
Steve looks at Kono, who shrugs and breaks the silence.
“Are you two done yet? Danny, that’s Steve. Please don’t shoot him. The forms for workers’ comp are a bitch, and I refuse to clean up any bloodstains.”
Apparently Kono is magic or something because that’s what it takes to get Danny to flick the safety back on and holster the gun, which lets Steve relax again.
“What the fuck, Steven?” Danny asks. “Or should I call you something else? Stevette? Stephanie? Katie? Emily?”
“Jesus, Danno, I’m still me,” Steve says, interrupting. He’s learned that it’s better just to cut Danny off before he really gets going. It only halfway works, because Danny leaves the name thing but starts in on the whole thing.
“I leave you alone for one day, Steven, and this happens. Only in Hawaii. Only on this stupid tropical paradise island would my partner, my partner, wake up in a different body.” Danny pauses and turns to Kono. “Anything else happen this weekend? Someone important get shot? Some big drug deal go down? Anything?”
“How the hell would I know?” Kono says, gesturing at Steve. “I spent my day beating this one into the ground.” She sounds frustrated, but her eyes give her away.
“What, and you didn’t call me? I’d have dropped everything to see that.”
And just like that, the tension’s gone and they’re his team again; Danny’s his partner again, and when Chin arrives it doesn’t change.
He does one double-take at Steve, takes in the relaxed posture of everyone else and cracks, “Nice hair, brah.”
***
They spend the morning doing paperwork. Or rather, Danny and Kono and Chin do paperwork while Steve continues to dig through old case files.
He’s about to crumple up the entire file and toss it in the trash when Danny pokes his head in.
“Let’s go. It’s lunchtime. We’ll grab a sandwich and then head to the firing range.”
Steve just raises an eyebrow.
“You let Kono beat you up to get the feel of your new body. But unless you shot up the side of your house you haven’t held a gun since your magical transformation. And since you proclaim that you’re still you, which I have no reason to doubt by the way, you’re going to be shooting at someone within twenty four hours and I need to be sure that my partner can still handle her gun.”
Steve smacks him upside the head, but follows him out.
“What was that for?” Danny complains, even as he tosses Steve the keys to the camaro and buckles in, waiting patiently while Steve adjusts the seat and mirrors then backs out fast enough to make Danny clutch at the door, just because he can.
“I get it, alright? You’re still my crazy as all fuck partner. Nothing’s changed.” Steve looks over at Danny. “Now will you please drive like a normal human being and try not to get us killed before we even leave the parking lot?”
They’re on the highway before Steve speaks again. “You called me ‘her’,” he says.
“What the hell else am I supposed to call you? You turned into a woman overnight. That’s who you are now.”
“I’m still me, Danno. I’m still Steve. I’m the same guy, I’ve just been - temporarily reassigned.”
“So, you know how this happened? And that you’ll wake up maybe tomorrow or maybe the next day and be Steve again, not Stevette.”
“Not the point.”
They’re on the highway now, driving down the beach to Steve’s favorite lunch shack, popular with the locals but virtually unknown to tourists, so they don’t mind when the wait is twenty minutes for a simple sandwich.
“Then what is the point, Stevette? Enlighten me.”
Steve sighs and grips the wheel harder. He doesn’t know how else to explain that he’s still Steve and that he hasn’t changed at the core, even if the packaging is different for now, because he can tell that Danny looks at him and sees a new person.
“Just stop calling me ‘her’,” is what he finally settles on, before changing the subject.
They talk about everything else as they eat. Danno tells him about Grace’s latest masterpiece, and the fact that she’s taking piano lessons now; he rants about how Rachel’s new job is taking up even more time than his, even though he’s the one with the psychotic boss. They fight over music in the car and Steve wins, as usual. It’s a hollow victory, though, because all they’re doing is avoiding talking about the big pink, surfing elephant in the car.
The tension that’s building up between them bleeds out abruptly when they get to the firing range and pull out their weapons. The headset means that Steve doesn’t have to hear Danny, he can block him out and concentrate on hitting the paper targets. He mentally paints Danny’s face onto the target for the first few rounds and fires two in the chest and one more between the eyes before loosening his grip and re-imagining Wo Fat. He gets through a clip on three different guns before he’s finally ready to step back from the targets and let Danny have a go.
Steve watches as Danny fires a clip without any hesitation whatsoever, then calls the target forward to show off the cluster of holes in the middle of the target’s blank face.
"Nice precision."
“Some days, Steve, this is what I what I want to do to you. I want to shoot you in the face because you’re too crazy by half for this island.” He folds up the target and shoves it at Steve’s chest before retreating to the car.
“Shave ice?” he asks. It's a peace offering, and Danny knows it.
“Anywhere but Kamekona’s,” Danny replies.
Steve nods and they head for the stand that’s down by the office, grabbing two extras for Kono and Chin before going back.
“Caught a case,” Chin tells them when they walk in. “HPD asked us to dig into this guy’s background.”
“What’s he into?” Steve asks.
“His name is Randall Evans, he’s a professor over at the University. They started looking at him when that girl, Carolyn Green, went missing. They’ve found some things in his background that are off, but that they don’t have the resources to fully tap as quickly as they need to.” Chin’s been working on the computer table as he talks and soon enough has an array of IDs up on the monitors.
“So far, we’ve found five different aliases, and all of them used near college campuses where girls have gone missing,” Kono says before taking a bite of her shave ice.
“That’s a hell of a coincidence,” Danny says.
“That’s what we’re thinking.” Chin hits the tabletop a few more times and four photos pop up showing four different bodies, all of them naked, dirty, bruised and dead. “They’re held for at least seven days, starved and tortured, and eventually dumped close to home.
“So this girl, Carolyn, when was she taken?”
“This morning,” Kono says. “HPD is coordinating the search for her, but they need us to find what we can on him, especially since they’re holding him until the end of the day.”
“OK, Danny and I will take the house. You two keep doing what you’re doing. We need to know everything.”
And then they’re off again, Steve driving as fast as he can to Evans' rental near campus. Danny’s yelling at him over how fast he takes the turns and did he really have to blare the sirens and run that red light because they almost got hit, thank you very much, and since Danny moved out here to be with his daughter won’t Steve just feel that much more guilty when he gets her Danno killed by being an idiot behind the wheel.
When they finally get there, something’s not right. It’s mid-afternoon and there should be people here, but it’s deserted. Steve can only see two cars on the whole street, parked at least two units away from Evans’. “Call HPD,” he tells Danny. “We need backup.”
They put on vests and wait, and Steve tries to forget how badly he fits into it right now, because even a poor fit is better than nothing if this search goes to hell.
Except that nothing happens. There’s nothing rigged to the doors, no explosions. They find nothing more than a few fake IDs is the drawers (Three aliases they know, two more they haven’t seen yet. Steve bags those to take back to Chin), and as they’re cleaning up to head out, Danny gets into an argument with one of the HPD guys over the fact that he was called out for nothing.
He can’t shake the feeling that there’s something more going on in this street, but they have no evidence and no reason to be barging into the other houses, much less a warrant to do it.
“Still feel like shooting me in the face?” he asks Danny once they’re back on the highway.
Danny shakes his head. “Only because then I’d have to deal with HPD even more.”
The new names bring in new rap sheets, and HPD has enough to hold Evans overnight while they continue to search for Carolyn.
Danny’s the first to break. “I’m calling it,” he says. “I’ve read the same sentence three times and I still don’t understand it. I’m going to go home and hug my daughter and sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Steve follows suit, needing to be alone for a while.
“Call me if you need anything,” Kono says.
Steve nods and shuts the door behind him. He needs to clear his head, so he goes home and changes into his new running clothes and heads off down the beach, feet pounding on the sand in a rhythm so familiar that he can almost (running with boobs just isn't quite the same, no matter what the label on the sports bra says) forget how fucked up the last two days have been and just be.
Nothing but the scratching of the sand, the roaring of the ocean and the pounding of his own heart.
Perfection.
***
Days pass and they get nowhere on the Evans case. HPD hasn’t found Carolyn, and the Five-0 is getting nowhere with their attempt to figure out why. They’re exhausted and snippy by Wednesday afternoon when Danny overrules Steve and sends everyone home to regroup.
Naturally, Kono picks Steve up bright and early Thursday morning and they hit the surf before it gets overrun with tourists. The water feels fantastic until Steve shifts his weight in a move that is still second nature to him and manages to flip his board and go under. By the time he drags himself and the board back to the beach, Kono is doubled over laughing.
“Nice form.”
“Shut up.”
They head back out into the water for one more wave (and so that Steve can do some damage control on his reputation) before rinsing off and heading in to the office.
Danny and Chin are already there. Danny takes one look at them and throws up his hands. “You went surfing, didn’t you? Because we have so much free time right now. It’s not like we don’t have an urgent case. But I forgot. This is Hawaii and there’s always time to hit the beach.”
“Next time we’ll pick you up on the way,” Kono tells him. “And you can watch Steve wipe out after botching a beginner’s move.”
“Any other day, Kono, I would pay to see that,” Danny concedes.
In the middle of it all, it’s nice to laugh, but Danny’s right, there’s a missing girl. HPD’s been staking out Evans’ house for days, but they’ve still got no idea where she is.
“Danny,” Steve calls abruptly some hours later. He barely waits for the door to darken before he asks the question. “Was it just me or was something off when we searched Evans’ place the other day?”
“Quiet neighborhood,” Danny says, leaning against the door.
“Let’s go.” Steve picks up his gun, badge, and backup weapon, and heads to the car.
“Are you going to clue me in? I’m your partner, not the backup. You need to tell me what’s happening so that I can do all those things that you don’t. You know, like at least attempting to get warrants? Letting our other partners know what’s going on so that they, too, can help me in making sure that your stunts at least have a veneer of legality on them. But no, you insist on dragging me to the car without explanation.”
“That street was too quiet,” Steve says. “Chin! I need you to look into who owns all the houses on Evans’ block. I have a hunch.”
Chin nods and bends over the computer.
“You have a hunch,” Danny says. “Hunches do not get us warrants. Hunches do not stand up in court. Your hunch is not going to lead us to evidence we can use to put this scumbag behind bars.”
Steve doesn’t respond to him. “Call me if you find anything, Chin.”
They’re halfway to the house when Chin calls. “Three other houses on that street are rentals,” he says without any preamble. “All are rented in the name of Scott Barnes. The same Scott Barnes bought one of the other houses on the street two months ago.”
“And I’m guessing Scott Barnes is tied to Evans,” Danny says.
“Scott Barnes is Evans. Or rather, the other way around. It’s his oldest alias. He’s an investment banker from New York, and so far we’ve found five of his own aliases on his client list.”
“So the guy’s laundering money through his own investment group.”
“That’s the shape of it. I’ve put in warrant applications for all of the properties and Kono’s on her way out with backup from HPD.”
“Thanks,” Steve says. He steps on the gas and ignores Danny’s yelp of frustration when he takes the next corner at a higher speed.
Steve still isn’t quite sure what they’re looking for, but he directs the HPD teams to search for attics, trapdoors and hidden rooms along with all the standard things. He and Danny are in the house furthest from the one Evans had been living in. From the chatter on the radio, all the houses are completely empty. No furniture, nothing except the thin curtains that prevented them from just looking in the windows the first time.
The house they’re searching is empty, too. But there’s a rug at the bottom of the stairs and it stands out because it’s the only personal thing in the place. Steve kicks it out of the way and finds a trapdoor.
“Danny,” he says. “There’s something here.”
“Oh good, here I thought this entire exercise was a waste of our time.”
Steve wants to smack him, but holds back because there are more pressing things to deal with. “On the count of three,” he says, hooking a finger into the embedded brass ring.
When he yanks the door open he finds a ladder down to an unfinished space. “Cover me,” is all he says before dropping down, bypassing the ladder entirely.
There’s a dim, bare light bulb hanging in one corner, and Steve can make out a lumpy figure on a mattress in the corner. It has to be Carolyn.
“Get HPD to secure this house and call an ambulance,” he tells Danny. “I think I found her.”
After checking the rest of the room to be sure there’s no one else hiding in the corners, Steve holsters his weapon and approaches the figure. He can feel a pulse and she’s breathing, but she’s unconscious and he doesn’t want to move her too much until the paramedics can get her out. All of the other girls had been found with multiple broken bones and he doesn’t want to put her in more pain than she’s already in.
It doesn’t take long for the paramedics to arrive and to lift Carolyn out of the basement, and then Danny drops down followed by a few crime scene techs and they start dusting for prints and combing for trace evidence.
“OK, so your hunch was right this time,” Danny says. “I want you to repeat after me: This does not give me the right to disregard procedure in the future.”
Steve just glares. “We need to go.”
“Where do we need to go? Where? We found the girl and the guy is locked up.”
Steve just moves for the ladder.
“No, we are not going to casually drop by Halawa so that you can satisfy your Army-induced bloodlust.”
“Navy,” Steve says automatically.
“I want no part in this,” Danny says. “As of this moment I’m out. I wash my hands of you.”
“Get in the car.”
Danny does without complaint and Steve just smiles.
Steve’s badge may cut it everywhere else, but when they get to the prison Danny has to talk him in because the picture on his ID no longer matches his face. Luckily, this is the kind of the thing Five-0 is known for, so there’s not much of a fuss made as Steve turns over his weapons and anything remotely sharp or dangerous. Danny just crosses his arms and taps his foot while he waits for Steve to finish.
By the time the guards actually bring Evans out, some of Steve’s red-hot anger has faded, but it’s the smaller part, and even though he knows that he’s most likely going to induce a rage-stroke for Danny, he hauls back and punches Evans in the face, watching with satisfaction as the blood starts dripping out of his nose.
“Two seconds. I turn my back for two seconds and the guy’s already bleeding. Christ, Steve. You are never allowed to interrogate anyone ever again.”
“Why are you calling her ‘Steve’? She some freak under her clothes?”
Steve is moving fast, ready to land his fist in the guy’s face a second time, but Danny gets there first and blocks his access.
“I ask the questions, here,” he says to Evans, rubbing his knuckles. “Me. That’s my job. Your job is to disregard the psycho in the corner and tell me what I want to know.”
And so Steve stays in the corner, fuming. He’s leaning against the wall, arms crossed, scowling at Evans because where the hell does he get off calling Steve a freak? What the hell does he know about anything? Blood is pounding in Steve’s ears and he misses most of what they actually get from Evans, which isn’t much, Danny tells him later.
As the guard comes in to escort Evans out, Evans gets the last word by spitting blood in Steve’s face, and Steve finds out just how fast Danny can move when he’s suddenly being dragged away back to the guard station before he has time to fully react.
He blindly puts all of his weapons back in place and when he finally snaps the holster for his gun closed he feels like he’s back on an even keel. Well, as even as he can be for now. Thankfully, Danny doesn’t question him while they’re still inside Halawa, and when they get to the car, Steve’s phone rings. It’s chin on the other end telling him that Carolyn woke up and will be OK.
He drives back at a slightly more normal pace, even if he speeds into a few of the curves on the highway.
***
When they walk into HQ, Kono throws an arm around Steve’s shoulders. “Successful day, yeah Boss?”
“Yeah,” Steve agrees. He’s exhausted, more than he should be for what happened today, but it is what it is, and despite everything he knows that there’s only one way to wrap up a day like this. “Drinks on me,” he says.
“And he really does have his wallet this time,” Danny vouches.
Steve hits him upside the head before disappearing into his office to find a different shirt because his has more grime on it than he’d previously noticed. There’s one in the bottom drawer, and he quickly strips the old one off in favor of the plain white spare, and only belatedly realizes that he probably shouldn’t do that with the door and blinds to his office wide open. There doesn’t seem to be a riot going on in the office though, so he’s pretty sure he got away with this one.
Or at least he is until Danny gives him a wolf whistle when he emerges from his office.
"You may want to..." Danny gestures at Steve's face, "before we go."
"If you're going to suggest I put on makeup --" He's speaking in a low growl, and some of what he's feeling, possibly all of it, punches through to Danny.
"Calm down, Steven. I was merely suggesting you wipe off the blood. But, if the ramboette look is really your thing, by all means, run with it. I'm not gonna stop you. I'll just politely suggest that civilized people that don't get into fistfights with suspects every other day tend to make sure they don't have dried blood on their faces before going out in public."
Steve scowls, but stalks off to the bathroom to splash water on his face, because Danny is right. He wishes he could get out of going tonight, but it is their tradition, and Chin and Kono have already left. Besides, he just knows that Danny is going to refuse make excuses for him to the others, because Danny can be contrary like that. Instead, he starts thinking of how he might be able to escape after one drink.
When they get to the bar, the first round has already been ordered, and Steve gratefully grabs one of the full bottles sitting on the table next to Chin and swallows. He stays mostly silent as the rest of the team chat about everything that’s not work, because even though it’s been nearly a week, Steve’s voice feels wrong to his ears and he has to fight the urge to cringe every time he hears it.
At the very least, no one’s really looking his way, where he’s slumped down in his chair, and he can almost pretend that it’s a normal night out. When the beers keep coming, he keeps drinking until he needs the bathroom. He excuses himself from their table and pretends that he doesn’t know Danny is watching him.
His hand is on the door when a big, drunk guy drapes his arm around Steve’s shoulders. “Hey sweetie,” the guy whispers in Steve’s ear. He starts to slur something else, but Steve can’t hear it because in one swift movement he’s got the guy pinned against the wall, the offending arm at an awkward angle. Steve is pressed right up against his back, toes kicking the guy’s heels. Steve can feel his heavy breathing as much as he can hear it, and he leans in more, resting his chin on the guy’s shoulder to hear what he’s trying to hiss out.
He’s only vaguely aware of the fact that the entire bar’s gone quiet, and that everyone is looking at him. Soon enough he feels yet another hand on his shoulder, but this time it’s accompanied by a very familiar voice.
“Steve. Let him go. Come on, Steven.”
Steve lets go and lets himself be escorted out to the car. Instead of getting in, though, Danny crosses his arms and leans back on the hood. “What the hell was that about?”
And then he’s silent, waiting for Steve to respond, and it’s more important than he thought because Danny is never silent and still.
Steve isn’t sure how to answer, because he’s not used to guys just draping themselves over him; he’s not used to the way people look at him now. He’s still himself, but his body is wrong, and people are just acting differently.
Danny starts in again when Steve can’t figure out what to say, but his tone is much more gentle this time.
“OK, let’s start at the beginning. What did he do?”
“He called me ‘sweetie.’” Steve’s looking at the ground somewhere near Danny’s feet.
“And this is a problem because you’re a big macho SEAL and no one calls you sweetie. I get it.”
Steve starts pacing because he feels like he needs to move or he’ll end up giving Danny a shiner too. “No, Danny, you don’t. He treated me like a girl.”
“Well, to be fair...” Danny gestures to Steve. “You have looked in a mirror recently, right? You’re a pretty good looking girl, even if you are freakishly tall.”
That gets Steve to stop. “Freakishly tall?”
“I ever tell you I like freakishly tall?”
“You’d have to,” Steve says, laughing.
“Get in the car, you asshole. I’m taking you home.”
They’re halfway back to Steve’s when Danny speaks again. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on in that head of yours, especially right now, but civilized men don’t throw down because some drunk guy hits on them. What is the matter with you? I’d ask who taught you that violence solves all your problems but I already know the answer to that one. But tell me, what’s wrong with a good, old fashioned ‘no thank you’.”
“I -- “ Steve starts, but his mind is blank now that he’s coming down from the adrenaline rush.
Danny doesn’t give him time to put his thoughts in order. “I have seen many men react like you. I have seen people end up in the morgue because of guys like you. If this is going to be a thing, you need to figure out why so that you can cut it out. I'm not bailing you out of jail for a fistfight.”
The pull into Steve’s driveway in the middle of the speech.
“Now go sleep it off, big guy, I’ll pick you up in the morning.”
Danny waits until Steve gets inside and closes the door before reversing out of the driveway. Steve watches from the kitchen window until he can’t see the lights anymore before he heads upstairs.
Steve knows Danny is right; he overreacted by about a mile, but it was the first thing he could think of. The only thing he could do to get that guy’s arm off his shoulder as fast as possible; before anyone could see.
Which is a truly absurd reaction, Steve observes, because he looks like a woman, and there’s nothing unusual about what happened. He does a quick mental calculation to be absolutely sure he never pulled a stunt like that, and says a quick thank you to no one in particular that none of the girls he’s chatted up ever pinned him, even if most of them were capable because until he came back to Hawaii, most of the bars he frequented (when he had the time) were filled to capacity with off duty military.
And that’s the root of the issue.
Steve’s used to drinking with grunts and jarheads and the like. People he worked with, who could report him to his superior and kick over a can of worms that Steve doesn’t want to look under because he’s been sidestepping it his entire life. If he’s honest with himself, it’s probably the worst thing the Navy ever taught him.
Steve groans and flops onto the bed after shedding his clothing and carefully putting his guns in the bedside drawer. Danny must think he’s a real asshole after tonight’s episode. More even than the thing with the sharks, but somehow Steve just knows that it’s not the same. Danny isn’t going to be bringing up tonight’s incident for laughs when he introduces Steve to new people or when he wants to make a point about how fucked in the head Steve really is in front of the rest of the team.
No matter how many times Danny accuses him of being psychotic, or offers to find him professional help, or even just stands in front of Steve and waves his hands around in an attempt to make his point, Steve’s pretty sure that Danny’s never entertained the thought that Steve is just an ass. At least, until tonight.
And that hurts.
Steve decides to save the ‘why’ on that one for another time, when he’s had a few less beers and a lot more space between tonight and whenever.
Instead, he downs a glass of water and a dose of advil and closes his eyes, resolving not to open them until the alarm goes off in the morning.
***
When Danny picks him up for work in the morning, Steve is braced for something. A conversation, another rendition of Danny yelling at him for what happened; whatever it is, Steve knows that something is coming.
So he’s not prepared for Danny to hand him a cup of coffee and simply ask if he’s feeling better. Steve drinks the coffee gratefully, but stays silent for a while.
“I didn’t mean it,” Steve says.
“I know.”
Something unclenches in Steve’s chest and he smiles as he takes another swig of the coffee. It’s hot and strong, black, no sugar. Just the way he always takes it. “I just - “
“I get it,” Danny interrupts. “You’re military.”
As if that’s the rationale Danny uses for every crazy stunt Steve pulls. Except for the fact that Danny is normally shoving the crazy back in Steve’s face and telling him in excruciating detail how he’s not normal and how there are no excuses for why he is the way he is unless they put him in boot camp at age five and never let him out again.
Steve wants to tell him that it’s more than that, more personal than that, it’s not about the rest of the world, it’s about him and everything he’s done since he was a teenager to stay on the right track. Only he can’t find the words, and then they’re at the office and whatever clarity Steve’s found is gone.
Kono walks out of her office as they walk in. Her hair’s a mess and she’s wearing the same clothing as she was yesterday.
“The hospital called right after you two left last night,” she says. “Carolyn’s developed pneumonia. They’ve put her in a coma and on a ventilator, but they’re not sure if it'll help."
"Go home," he tells Kono.
She does, but not without a look at Steve.
***
“So, about tomorrow,” Danny says on the way out. He’s got Gracie this weekend, and Danny had tentatively agreed to let Steve take her snorkeling.
Steve cringes. He wants to say that their plans haven’t changed, that he still wants to take Gracie out and show her that even the hidden parts of the island are beautiful, but Danny’s tone suggests that he doesn’t want to confuse Gracie with this thing that’s happened to Steve.
“Tell her I’m sick,” Steve says, and almost chokes on the words. He hates lying to kids, but it’s probably for the best. “We’ll go another time.” Once I’m right again, he mentally tags to the end of the sentence. It nearly kills him to do it, and once he gets in his car he speeds off right away, exceedingly glad that Danny’s not in the passenger seat telling Steve that he’s a menace to society and that Danny would like to live long enough to see my daughter turn ten.
He’s home all of five minutes before Kono calls.
“Get over here,” she says. There's no room for argument in her voice.
But Steve argues with her anyway. “I just got home."
“Do you really think I’m going to let you mope around the house all weekend?”
“Because going out last night ended so well,” Steve says.
“Give me a little credit, brah. We’re not going out with the others. Just you and me and one of the tourist clubs in Waikiki that you wouldn’t be caught dead in.”
“I think you left out the five hundred tourists.”
“Nah. We’re at the end of the season,” Kono says. “There won’t be more than three hundred. Maybe four.”
Steve complies mostly because he really doesn’t want to be on his own tonight, and given his current condition, the people he can call are limited to Chin, Kono and Danny, and the latter’s already off the table.
As it turns out, their first stop is Kono’s apartment, again. She hands Steve a beer before rummaging through her closet for a new shirt and shoes, then disappears into the bathroom to put it on.
“You can change out here, you know,” Steve says after she closes the door. “We’re both girls.”
The bathroom door opens just enough for Kono to throw one of her shoes at him, but there’s no real force behind it.
“Still no idea why, huh?”
“Nothing,” Steve says.
She comes out of the bathroom with her hairbrush and sits down. “My auntie used to tell me stories about the Kupua,” Kono starts. “Mostly, they were the scary ones. They’d eat people, destroy homes, provide something for the hero to come clean up.”
Steve laughs, remembering some of the stories, too. He’d looked up Hawaiian mythology a long time ago, wanting to learn more about the islands that had adopted his family.
Kono continues, “But, some of them could change their shape. They could appear as human one day, as a shark the next. But there was always a reason for it.”
“Are you saying that you think I’m Kupua?” Steve asks.
Kono hits him. “I’m saying that this isn’t random, whatever it is.” She disappears into the bathroom to put her brush down. “And that we’ll figure it out eventually.”
“It’s the eventually part that I’m afraid of,” Steve admits.
“Come on, Boss. Being a girl isn’t so bad.”
Based off the look Kono’s giving him, Steve has no choice but to agree if he wants to escape without any bruises.
Steve drinks his beer and skims the book on Kono’s nightstand while he waits. A murder mystery with surfing. It’s her style, all right. By the time she comes out, Steve is actually getting wrapped up in the plot and still has no idea who the killer is.
She’s wearing the same jeans, but she’s put on strappy sandals and a new shirt. She’s also done something with her eyes that make them look even bigger, and Steve can’t help but stare.
“Put your eyes back in your head, brah. I work for you.”
“You’re not going to do that to me,” Steve says.
She attacks his hair instead. “Do I look like I have a death wish?”
“You had me on my back last weekend,” he reminds her.
She shrugs. “Beginner’s luck.” When Steve opens his mouth to protest she clarifies. “You’re a beginner and I got lucky.”
He’d argue the point but given the whole new body thing, he realizes that she’s right. About him being a beginner, anyway. “It’s more than luck,” he says, standing to give her a hug. “You’re good, kid. Now let’s get out of here before you decide to fix more than just my hair.”
“The hair’s the only thing I can fix,” she says, but she grabs her keys and wallet anyway, and they head for the door.
Part 2 || Part 3 || Part 4 || Part 5
Author: hllangel
Artist: everythingshiny
Word Count: ~35,000
Rating: NC-17
Characters/Pairings: Steve(f)/OMC, Steve/Danny, Kono, Chin
Notes: Thanks so much to donutsweeper. Without her, this fic would never have been finished. I started it over a year ago in a "challenge accepted" way, and it quickly spiraled out of control. At one point I thought it might be 12,000 words, tops. Thanks also to everyone who encouraged me though the year it took to finish. This would have stayed a WIP in googledocs forever, otherwise.
Warnings: Genderfuck, internalized homophobia
Summary: Steve has a lot of issues and the Universe has a perverse sense of humor. So does Kono for that matter. When Steve wakes up with the wrong body, he has to figure out what's wrong and how to fix it. Kono's known all along.
***
It’s fuck-off o’clock when Steve wakes up. He desperately wants to go back to sleep but his phone is ringing, and Steve’s never been able to ignore his phone.
“Hello?” he says, not looking at the caller ID. His voice feels off, but he puts it down to the fact that he was just woken out of a sound sleep.
“Oh, sorry, wrong number,” Kono says. She sounds puzzled, and the line goes dead. Then starts ringing again.
He coughs before he answers, but his “Kono?” still sounds odd, even though his throat feels perfectly normal.
“Boss?” She sounds hesitant. “Are you OK?”
He pauses to take stock. Nothing’s broken, nothing hurts, but his body doesn’t feel like it’s his anymore and he’s not sure what the hell is going on with his voice. “Yeah,” he says anyway, because he’s the boss and she obviously called for a reason. “What’s going on, Kono?”
“Surf’s up, brah. You forget?”
“It’s Sunday, isn’t it?” He groans and rolls out of bed. He’d promised to head up to North Shore ages ago, then they’d caught a case and had spent way too many days in a row on stakeouts overnight, catching a few hours of sleep in the office when possible, and Steve had lost track of which day was which. He’d stumbled home late last night after Danny had kicked him out of the office because apparently the help he was giving was effectively doubling what they actually had to do. Or so Danny informed him before closing and locking the door behind Steve.
“Pick you up in ten,” Kono says, voice way too bright and cheery for the time.
His body feels off as he stumbles to the bathroom, scrubbing his face with one hand as he reaches for the light with the other. When his eyes adjust enough to catch a glimpse of himself in the mirror, he’s expecting the dark shadows under his eyes.
He’s not expecting the lack of stubble, the slightly larger eyes or the high, sharp cheekbones tapering down to a more narrow chin. The changes are subtle, and he still mostly looks like himself except for how he looks like a total stranger.
And then he looks down and realizes that it’s not just his face that’s changed, and thank god Kono’s on her way because fuck.
***
By the time Kono pulls up in the driveway, the pre-dawn sky is growing brighter, but Steve hasn’t taken too much notice of it. He’s made it downstairs at least, and thrown on a t-shirt and shorts, both of which fit him perfectly the yesterday but which are now hanging off him. Thirty years later and he's playing dress-up, except that he's in his own clothes.
Kono knocks and Steve shouts at her to just get in here, already. By the time he sees her, he knows she’s cottoned on to the fact that something’s not right, and she’s approaching him cautiously.
“Shit, Boss,” she says when she sees him.
The absurdity of the situation catches up to Steve suddenly and he laughs. “That’s all you can say?”
“Not sure there’s anything else to say, other than a good old-fashioned what the fuck.” She’s smiling now, too. “So surfing’s obviously out this morning.” She starts digging through the cabinets. “You’ve got to have tea in here somewhere,” she says. “This isn’t a conversation to have over coffee.”
“Second drawer from the left,” Steve tells her. “I’ll get the kettle.”
Making tea isn’t something Steve does all the time, but he likes it enough that the procedure is ingrained, and he can do it without thinking too much. It’s good to have something to do with his hands (so that he doesn’t have to sit and stare at them and wonder if his fingers were ever that slim).
Once they each have a warm mug in their hands, Kono guides him out to the lanai and they sit, watching the sky get brighter and the water change color in the bay.
“We’ll skip over the big questions for now. I suppose we’ll figure out the how and why eventually. But first things first, how do you feel?”
“I woke up and I’m in the wrong body. How the fuck am I supposed to feel?”
“I can’t tell you that, brah,” Kono says.
“Not myself,” Steve finally comes up with.
Kono turns to face him and Steve is aware that she’s really looking at him for the first time this morning. It feels like it takes forever, but in reality it’s probably only a minute. He crosses his hands over his chest defensively, and struggles with himself to keep his arms where they are when they don’t sit in position the way he’s used to.
“Up,” Kono says, grabbing his hand and pulling him out to the lawn. Steve watches her crouch slightly into a defensive stance, but before he can ask what she’s doing she says, “Hit me.”
“You’re joking,” he says.
“Nope. You need to get more comfortable in that body before we go out and the best way to do that is to test it. You can’t swim because I’m guessing you don’t have appropriate swimwear and you don’t want to run until after we go shopping. Trust me,” she says, gesturing to Steve’s chest. “But we can spar.” She gives him her best shit-eating grin. “Come at me, Boss.”
And so Steve does.
He’s not aiming to hurt her, or even really land a blow, but she’s right. He’s learning where his arms and legs end, where his center of balance is, and how good his reflexes are. He doesn’t realize that he’s sweating until Kono flips him neatly over her knee and plants him on his back on the grass. “Gotcha!”
Steve groans, and flexes his back, both to make sure that he hasn’t actually hurt himself and because he’s not ready for round two. He should have seen that move coming. He wants to blame it on his new body and his crappy morning, but he’s pretty sure that she’d have been able to pull the same stunt on him regardless.
When she offers her hand and helps pull him back to his feet he realizes that yeah, the world is starting to slot back into place; he feels more grounded now.
They sit back down and sip at the now-lukewarm tea in silence. When they’re finished, Steve carries the mugs into the kitchen and washes them right away. He hears Kono come back inside behind him. “Now what?” he asks.
“Now we go shopping.”
It takes longer than he thought it would to get dressed. His pants are too long and they’re dragging under his heels; his shoes are both too wide and too long, and he trips over them twice before he gets outside the bedroom door; Plus, his shirts don’t fit quite right; they’re too tight in the chest, and way too loose around his arms. He finally settles on a pair of board shorts and a t-shirt and a pair of Mary’s slippers (left behind the last time she came to visit) that are slightly too small and pinching his feet, but he can deal with that so long as he can wear shoes and stay upright for more than five steps at a time.
“Where are we going?” he asks, as he takes the list Kono hands him and looks it over. The list is short, but Steve has a feeling that it’s more complicated than it looks because given how long it took him to find this outfit, he basically needs an entirely new wardrobe.
“Mahalo,” he whispers in her ear once they're done and Steve's standing in his living room surrounded by bags and bags of new clothes.
***
This time, it’s the alarm that wakes him up. He set it early so he could go swimming, his usual Monday morning routine. In the first few seconds as he’s moving from lying down to standing up he wonders why the hell his body is beat up and sore and wrong before he remembers that, oh yeah, he has an entirely new body and he spent a good chunk of yesterday letting Kono beat him into the ground.
He’s hurting enough that he considers skipping the swim, but knows that he needs it. The salt water has always had a remarkable effect on his senses. Besides, the whole ordeal meant he was deprived of surfing yesterday.
Swimming the same distance takes longer today, so by the time he gets back to his house he’s got just enough time to rinse off the salt water and get going. As he grabs the first outfit he finds from the neat, newly-clean stack Kono had left him with the night before, he makes a mental note to thank her for getting him a completely mix-and-match ready wardrobe. It means that the first thing he grabs actually looks decent.
He pays little attention to his hair until he’s halfway to the office, when he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror and laughs. His usual policy of not doing anything and letting his hair stick up every which way looks ridiculous on his new features. He attempts to smooth it down, but nothing works and by the time he actually gets there he’s more or less resolved to keep it that way, because he doesn’t have a clue how to handle it.
Kono’s car is in the parking lot when he pulls in, and she’s still in the car. When he doesn’t get out right away, she does. It’s like she’s been waiting for him, which, he reflects, she probably has. She knocks on his window and hands him a cup of coffee when he opens it.
“Your hair looks ridiculous,” she says by way of greeting.
“Thanks,” he responds. His tone is sarcastic, but he hopes she realizes that it’s more than that.
Steve takes a few minutes to sip his coffee, and Kono waits for him, leaning against the side of the truck, enjoying her own coffee and waiting.
“Let’s go,” Kono says. “Crime waits for no man.”
“Or woman?” Steve unbuckles his seat belt and opens the door, finally ready to go inside.
“I’ve got something in my desk for your hair,” Kono tells him as they fall in step.
Somehow, that makes the whole thing better. Neither Chin nor Danny are in yet, and so Steve retreats to his office and Kono follows shortly carrying a small tub of something that she uses to attack his pincushion hair. She manages to mold it into something she deems acceptable before running back to drop in in her desk, promising that she’ll pick up some for Steve after work and show him how to use it.
Of course, the two minutes she’s not in his office is the exact time Danny picks to barge in. And when he takes in Steve-the-woman sitting at Steve’s desk with his legs kicked up, browsing through a case file he naturally assumes that Steve is a threat and draws on him.
“Do not say a word,” Danny snarls. “Put the folder down and keep your hands where I can see them.”
Not wanting to get shot, Steve complies. He wonders where the hell Kono is and how long it takes to put a little tub of hair goo back into her desk.
Danny is obviously wondering the same thing. “Kono!” he calls, right before she materializes over his shoulder. “Did you know this woman was here?”
“Put the gun down, Danny,” Steve says.
“You, stop talking. Kono, answer me.”
“Put down the gun, Danny,” Kono says, her tone even.
“You know her?” Danny still hasn’t holstered his weapon, but his posture has shifted a tiny bit, his grip on the gun just a bit looser.
“So do you. That’s Steve.” Kono pushes past Danny and plants herself on the other side of Steve’s desk. She’s not in the way of Danny’s shot, but she’s placed herself between them, and that, more than anything else, gets Danny to lower his weapon. But he still doesn’t holster it.
“Explain,” he says. “She is not Steven J McGarrett, ninja SEAL extraordinaire.”
Steve slowly gets to his feet and walks around the desk, staying a few feet away from Danny. It’s not close enough to disarm him yet, but he’s putting himself on more equal footing.
“It’s me, Danno. Ask me anything.”
Steve sees Danny’s grip tighten on his gun, but it stays at his side. “What’s the first thing I did when I met Steve?”
“You drew your gun on me,” Steve answers. “I’m having flashbacks right now.”
They both fall silent, not moving. Danny's damn gun is still in his hand.
Steve looks at Kono, who shrugs and breaks the silence.
“Are you two done yet? Danny, that’s Steve. Please don’t shoot him. The forms for workers’ comp are a bitch, and I refuse to clean up any bloodstains.”
Apparently Kono is magic or something because that’s what it takes to get Danny to flick the safety back on and holster the gun, which lets Steve relax again.
“What the fuck, Steven?” Danny asks. “Or should I call you something else? Stevette? Stephanie? Katie? Emily?”
“Jesus, Danno, I’m still me,” Steve says, interrupting. He’s learned that it’s better just to cut Danny off before he really gets going. It only halfway works, because Danny leaves the name thing but starts in on the whole thing.
“I leave you alone for one day, Steven, and this happens. Only in Hawaii. Only on this stupid tropical paradise island would my partner, my partner, wake up in a different body.” Danny pauses and turns to Kono. “Anything else happen this weekend? Someone important get shot? Some big drug deal go down? Anything?”
“How the hell would I know?” Kono says, gesturing at Steve. “I spent my day beating this one into the ground.” She sounds frustrated, but her eyes give her away.
“What, and you didn’t call me? I’d have dropped everything to see that.”
And just like that, the tension’s gone and they’re his team again; Danny’s his partner again, and when Chin arrives it doesn’t change.
He does one double-take at Steve, takes in the relaxed posture of everyone else and cracks, “Nice hair, brah.”
***
They spend the morning doing paperwork. Or rather, Danny and Kono and Chin do paperwork while Steve continues to dig through old case files.
He’s about to crumple up the entire file and toss it in the trash when Danny pokes his head in.
“Let’s go. It’s lunchtime. We’ll grab a sandwich and then head to the firing range.”
Steve just raises an eyebrow.
“You let Kono beat you up to get the feel of your new body. But unless you shot up the side of your house you haven’t held a gun since your magical transformation. And since you proclaim that you’re still you, which I have no reason to doubt by the way, you’re going to be shooting at someone within twenty four hours and I need to be sure that my partner can still handle her gun.”
Steve smacks him upside the head, but follows him out.
“What was that for?” Danny complains, even as he tosses Steve the keys to the camaro and buckles in, waiting patiently while Steve adjusts the seat and mirrors then backs out fast enough to make Danny clutch at the door, just because he can.
“I get it, alright? You’re still my crazy as all fuck partner. Nothing’s changed.” Steve looks over at Danny. “Now will you please drive like a normal human being and try not to get us killed before we even leave the parking lot?”
They’re on the highway before Steve speaks again. “You called me ‘her’,” he says.
“What the hell else am I supposed to call you? You turned into a woman overnight. That’s who you are now.”
“I’m still me, Danno. I’m still Steve. I’m the same guy, I’ve just been - temporarily reassigned.”
“So, you know how this happened? And that you’ll wake up maybe tomorrow or maybe the next day and be Steve again, not Stevette.”
“Not the point.”
They’re on the highway now, driving down the beach to Steve’s favorite lunch shack, popular with the locals but virtually unknown to tourists, so they don’t mind when the wait is twenty minutes for a simple sandwich.
“Then what is the point, Stevette? Enlighten me.”
Steve sighs and grips the wheel harder. He doesn’t know how else to explain that he’s still Steve and that he hasn’t changed at the core, even if the packaging is different for now, because he can tell that Danny looks at him and sees a new person.
“Just stop calling me ‘her’,” is what he finally settles on, before changing the subject.
They talk about everything else as they eat. Danno tells him about Grace’s latest masterpiece, and the fact that she’s taking piano lessons now; he rants about how Rachel’s new job is taking up even more time than his, even though he’s the one with the psychotic boss. They fight over music in the car and Steve wins, as usual. It’s a hollow victory, though, because all they’re doing is avoiding talking about the big pink, surfing elephant in the car.
The tension that’s building up between them bleeds out abruptly when they get to the firing range and pull out their weapons. The headset means that Steve doesn’t have to hear Danny, he can block him out and concentrate on hitting the paper targets. He mentally paints Danny’s face onto the target for the first few rounds and fires two in the chest and one more between the eyes before loosening his grip and re-imagining Wo Fat. He gets through a clip on three different guns before he’s finally ready to step back from the targets and let Danny have a go.
Steve watches as Danny fires a clip without any hesitation whatsoever, then calls the target forward to show off the cluster of holes in the middle of the target’s blank face.
"Nice precision."
“Some days, Steve, this is what I what I want to do to you. I want to shoot you in the face because you’re too crazy by half for this island.” He folds up the target and shoves it at Steve’s chest before retreating to the car.
“Shave ice?” he asks. It's a peace offering, and Danny knows it.
“Anywhere but Kamekona’s,” Danny replies.
Steve nods and they head for the stand that’s down by the office, grabbing two extras for Kono and Chin before going back.
“Caught a case,” Chin tells them when they walk in. “HPD asked us to dig into this guy’s background.”
“What’s he into?” Steve asks.
“His name is Randall Evans, he’s a professor over at the University. They started looking at him when that girl, Carolyn Green, went missing. They’ve found some things in his background that are off, but that they don’t have the resources to fully tap as quickly as they need to.” Chin’s been working on the computer table as he talks and soon enough has an array of IDs up on the monitors.
“So far, we’ve found five different aliases, and all of them used near college campuses where girls have gone missing,” Kono says before taking a bite of her shave ice.
“That’s a hell of a coincidence,” Danny says.
“That’s what we’re thinking.” Chin hits the tabletop a few more times and four photos pop up showing four different bodies, all of them naked, dirty, bruised and dead. “They’re held for at least seven days, starved and tortured, and eventually dumped close to home.
“So this girl, Carolyn, when was she taken?”
“This morning,” Kono says. “HPD is coordinating the search for her, but they need us to find what we can on him, especially since they’re holding him until the end of the day.”
“OK, Danny and I will take the house. You two keep doing what you’re doing. We need to know everything.”
And then they’re off again, Steve driving as fast as he can to Evans' rental near campus. Danny’s yelling at him over how fast he takes the turns and did he really have to blare the sirens and run that red light because they almost got hit, thank you very much, and since Danny moved out here to be with his daughter won’t Steve just feel that much more guilty when he gets her Danno killed by being an idiot behind the wheel.
When they finally get there, something’s not right. It’s mid-afternoon and there should be people here, but it’s deserted. Steve can only see two cars on the whole street, parked at least two units away from Evans’. “Call HPD,” he tells Danny. “We need backup.”
They put on vests and wait, and Steve tries to forget how badly he fits into it right now, because even a poor fit is better than nothing if this search goes to hell.
Except that nothing happens. There’s nothing rigged to the doors, no explosions. They find nothing more than a few fake IDs is the drawers (Three aliases they know, two more they haven’t seen yet. Steve bags those to take back to Chin), and as they’re cleaning up to head out, Danny gets into an argument with one of the HPD guys over the fact that he was called out for nothing.
He can’t shake the feeling that there’s something more going on in this street, but they have no evidence and no reason to be barging into the other houses, much less a warrant to do it.
“Still feel like shooting me in the face?” he asks Danny once they’re back on the highway.
Danny shakes his head. “Only because then I’d have to deal with HPD even more.”
The new names bring in new rap sheets, and HPD has enough to hold Evans overnight while they continue to search for Carolyn.
Danny’s the first to break. “I’m calling it,” he says. “I’ve read the same sentence three times and I still don’t understand it. I’m going to go home and hug my daughter and sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Steve follows suit, needing to be alone for a while.
“Call me if you need anything,” Kono says.
Steve nods and shuts the door behind him. He needs to clear his head, so he goes home and changes into his new running clothes and heads off down the beach, feet pounding on the sand in a rhythm so familiar that he can almost (running with boobs just isn't quite the same, no matter what the label on the sports bra says) forget how fucked up the last two days have been and just be.
Nothing but the scratching of the sand, the roaring of the ocean and the pounding of his own heart.
Perfection.
***
Days pass and they get nowhere on the Evans case. HPD hasn’t found Carolyn, and the Five-0 is getting nowhere with their attempt to figure out why. They’re exhausted and snippy by Wednesday afternoon when Danny overrules Steve and sends everyone home to regroup.
Naturally, Kono picks Steve up bright and early Thursday morning and they hit the surf before it gets overrun with tourists. The water feels fantastic until Steve shifts his weight in a move that is still second nature to him and manages to flip his board and go under. By the time he drags himself and the board back to the beach, Kono is doubled over laughing.
“Nice form.”
“Shut up.”
They head back out into the water for one more wave (and so that Steve can do some damage control on his reputation) before rinsing off and heading in to the office.
Danny and Chin are already there. Danny takes one look at them and throws up his hands. “You went surfing, didn’t you? Because we have so much free time right now. It’s not like we don’t have an urgent case. But I forgot. This is Hawaii and there’s always time to hit the beach.”
“Next time we’ll pick you up on the way,” Kono tells him. “And you can watch Steve wipe out after botching a beginner’s move.”
“Any other day, Kono, I would pay to see that,” Danny concedes.
In the middle of it all, it’s nice to laugh, but Danny’s right, there’s a missing girl. HPD’s been staking out Evans’ house for days, but they’ve still got no idea where she is.
“Danny,” Steve calls abruptly some hours later. He barely waits for the door to darken before he asks the question. “Was it just me or was something off when we searched Evans’ place the other day?”
“Quiet neighborhood,” Danny says, leaning against the door.
“Let’s go.” Steve picks up his gun, badge, and backup weapon, and heads to the car.
“Are you going to clue me in? I’m your partner, not the backup. You need to tell me what’s happening so that I can do all those things that you don’t. You know, like at least attempting to get warrants? Letting our other partners know what’s going on so that they, too, can help me in making sure that your stunts at least have a veneer of legality on them. But no, you insist on dragging me to the car without explanation.”
“That street was too quiet,” Steve says. “Chin! I need you to look into who owns all the houses on Evans’ block. I have a hunch.”
Chin nods and bends over the computer.
“You have a hunch,” Danny says. “Hunches do not get us warrants. Hunches do not stand up in court. Your hunch is not going to lead us to evidence we can use to put this scumbag behind bars.”
Steve doesn’t respond to him. “Call me if you find anything, Chin.”
They’re halfway to the house when Chin calls. “Three other houses on that street are rentals,” he says without any preamble. “All are rented in the name of Scott Barnes. The same Scott Barnes bought one of the other houses on the street two months ago.”
“And I’m guessing Scott Barnes is tied to Evans,” Danny says.
“Scott Barnes is Evans. Or rather, the other way around. It’s his oldest alias. He’s an investment banker from New York, and so far we’ve found five of his own aliases on his client list.”
“So the guy’s laundering money through his own investment group.”
“That’s the shape of it. I’ve put in warrant applications for all of the properties and Kono’s on her way out with backup from HPD.”
“Thanks,” Steve says. He steps on the gas and ignores Danny’s yelp of frustration when he takes the next corner at a higher speed.
Steve still isn’t quite sure what they’re looking for, but he directs the HPD teams to search for attics, trapdoors and hidden rooms along with all the standard things. He and Danny are in the house furthest from the one Evans had been living in. From the chatter on the radio, all the houses are completely empty. No furniture, nothing except the thin curtains that prevented them from just looking in the windows the first time.
The house they’re searching is empty, too. But there’s a rug at the bottom of the stairs and it stands out because it’s the only personal thing in the place. Steve kicks it out of the way and finds a trapdoor.
“Danny,” he says. “There’s something here.”
“Oh good, here I thought this entire exercise was a waste of our time.”
Steve wants to smack him, but holds back because there are more pressing things to deal with. “On the count of three,” he says, hooking a finger into the embedded brass ring.
When he yanks the door open he finds a ladder down to an unfinished space. “Cover me,” is all he says before dropping down, bypassing the ladder entirely.
There’s a dim, bare light bulb hanging in one corner, and Steve can make out a lumpy figure on a mattress in the corner. It has to be Carolyn.
“Get HPD to secure this house and call an ambulance,” he tells Danny. “I think I found her.”
After checking the rest of the room to be sure there’s no one else hiding in the corners, Steve holsters his weapon and approaches the figure. He can feel a pulse and she’s breathing, but she’s unconscious and he doesn’t want to move her too much until the paramedics can get her out. All of the other girls had been found with multiple broken bones and he doesn’t want to put her in more pain than she’s already in.
It doesn’t take long for the paramedics to arrive and to lift Carolyn out of the basement, and then Danny drops down followed by a few crime scene techs and they start dusting for prints and combing for trace evidence.
“OK, so your hunch was right this time,” Danny says. “I want you to repeat after me: This does not give me the right to disregard procedure in the future.”
Steve just glares. “We need to go.”
“Where do we need to go? Where? We found the girl and the guy is locked up.”
Steve just moves for the ladder.
“No, we are not going to casually drop by Halawa so that you can satisfy your Army-induced bloodlust.”
“Navy,” Steve says automatically.
“I want no part in this,” Danny says. “As of this moment I’m out. I wash my hands of you.”
“Get in the car.”
Danny does without complaint and Steve just smiles.
Steve’s badge may cut it everywhere else, but when they get to the prison Danny has to talk him in because the picture on his ID no longer matches his face. Luckily, this is the kind of the thing Five-0 is known for, so there’s not much of a fuss made as Steve turns over his weapons and anything remotely sharp or dangerous. Danny just crosses his arms and taps his foot while he waits for Steve to finish.
By the time the guards actually bring Evans out, some of Steve’s red-hot anger has faded, but it’s the smaller part, and even though he knows that he’s most likely going to induce a rage-stroke for Danny, he hauls back and punches Evans in the face, watching with satisfaction as the blood starts dripping out of his nose.
“Two seconds. I turn my back for two seconds and the guy’s already bleeding. Christ, Steve. You are never allowed to interrogate anyone ever again.”
“Why are you calling her ‘Steve’? She some freak under her clothes?”
Steve is moving fast, ready to land his fist in the guy’s face a second time, but Danny gets there first and blocks his access.
“I ask the questions, here,” he says to Evans, rubbing his knuckles. “Me. That’s my job. Your job is to disregard the psycho in the corner and tell me what I want to know.”
And so Steve stays in the corner, fuming. He’s leaning against the wall, arms crossed, scowling at Evans because where the hell does he get off calling Steve a freak? What the hell does he know about anything? Blood is pounding in Steve’s ears and he misses most of what they actually get from Evans, which isn’t much, Danny tells him later.
As the guard comes in to escort Evans out, Evans gets the last word by spitting blood in Steve’s face, and Steve finds out just how fast Danny can move when he’s suddenly being dragged away back to the guard station before he has time to fully react.
He blindly puts all of his weapons back in place and when he finally snaps the holster for his gun closed he feels like he’s back on an even keel. Well, as even as he can be for now. Thankfully, Danny doesn’t question him while they’re still inside Halawa, and when they get to the car, Steve’s phone rings. It’s chin on the other end telling him that Carolyn woke up and will be OK.
He drives back at a slightly more normal pace, even if he speeds into a few of the curves on the highway.
***
When they walk into HQ, Kono throws an arm around Steve’s shoulders. “Successful day, yeah Boss?”
“Yeah,” Steve agrees. He’s exhausted, more than he should be for what happened today, but it is what it is, and despite everything he knows that there’s only one way to wrap up a day like this. “Drinks on me,” he says.
“And he really does have his wallet this time,” Danny vouches.
Steve hits him upside the head before disappearing into his office to find a different shirt because his has more grime on it than he’d previously noticed. There’s one in the bottom drawer, and he quickly strips the old one off in favor of the plain white spare, and only belatedly realizes that he probably shouldn’t do that with the door and blinds to his office wide open. There doesn’t seem to be a riot going on in the office though, so he’s pretty sure he got away with this one.
Or at least he is until Danny gives him a wolf whistle when he emerges from his office.
"You may want to..." Danny gestures at Steve's face, "before we go."
"If you're going to suggest I put on makeup --" He's speaking in a low growl, and some of what he's feeling, possibly all of it, punches through to Danny.
"Calm down, Steven. I was merely suggesting you wipe off the blood. But, if the ramboette look is really your thing, by all means, run with it. I'm not gonna stop you. I'll just politely suggest that civilized people that don't get into fistfights with suspects every other day tend to make sure they don't have dried blood on their faces before going out in public."
Steve scowls, but stalks off to the bathroom to splash water on his face, because Danny is right. He wishes he could get out of going tonight, but it is their tradition, and Chin and Kono have already left. Besides, he just knows that Danny is going to refuse make excuses for him to the others, because Danny can be contrary like that. Instead, he starts thinking of how he might be able to escape after one drink.
When they get to the bar, the first round has already been ordered, and Steve gratefully grabs one of the full bottles sitting on the table next to Chin and swallows. He stays mostly silent as the rest of the team chat about everything that’s not work, because even though it’s been nearly a week, Steve’s voice feels wrong to his ears and he has to fight the urge to cringe every time he hears it.
At the very least, no one’s really looking his way, where he’s slumped down in his chair, and he can almost pretend that it’s a normal night out. When the beers keep coming, he keeps drinking until he needs the bathroom. He excuses himself from their table and pretends that he doesn’t know Danny is watching him.
His hand is on the door when a big, drunk guy drapes his arm around Steve’s shoulders. “Hey sweetie,” the guy whispers in Steve’s ear. He starts to slur something else, but Steve can’t hear it because in one swift movement he’s got the guy pinned against the wall, the offending arm at an awkward angle. Steve is pressed right up against his back, toes kicking the guy’s heels. Steve can feel his heavy breathing as much as he can hear it, and he leans in more, resting his chin on the guy’s shoulder to hear what he’s trying to hiss out.
He’s only vaguely aware of the fact that the entire bar’s gone quiet, and that everyone is looking at him. Soon enough he feels yet another hand on his shoulder, but this time it’s accompanied by a very familiar voice.
“Steve. Let him go. Come on, Steven.”
Steve lets go and lets himself be escorted out to the car. Instead of getting in, though, Danny crosses his arms and leans back on the hood. “What the hell was that about?”
And then he’s silent, waiting for Steve to respond, and it’s more important than he thought because Danny is never silent and still.
Steve isn’t sure how to answer, because he’s not used to guys just draping themselves over him; he’s not used to the way people look at him now. He’s still himself, but his body is wrong, and people are just acting differently.
Danny starts in again when Steve can’t figure out what to say, but his tone is much more gentle this time.
“OK, let’s start at the beginning. What did he do?”
“He called me ‘sweetie.’” Steve’s looking at the ground somewhere near Danny’s feet.
“And this is a problem because you’re a big macho SEAL and no one calls you sweetie. I get it.”
Steve starts pacing because he feels like he needs to move or he’ll end up giving Danny a shiner too. “No, Danny, you don’t. He treated me like a girl.”
“Well, to be fair...” Danny gestures to Steve. “You have looked in a mirror recently, right? You’re a pretty good looking girl, even if you are freakishly tall.”
That gets Steve to stop. “Freakishly tall?”
“I ever tell you I like freakishly tall?”
“You’d have to,” Steve says, laughing.
“Get in the car, you asshole. I’m taking you home.”
They’re halfway back to Steve’s when Danny speaks again. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on in that head of yours, especially right now, but civilized men don’t throw down because some drunk guy hits on them. What is the matter with you? I’d ask who taught you that violence solves all your problems but I already know the answer to that one. But tell me, what’s wrong with a good, old fashioned ‘no thank you’.”
“I -- “ Steve starts, but his mind is blank now that he’s coming down from the adrenaline rush.
Danny doesn’t give him time to put his thoughts in order. “I have seen many men react like you. I have seen people end up in the morgue because of guys like you. If this is going to be a thing, you need to figure out why so that you can cut it out. I'm not bailing you out of jail for a fistfight.”
The pull into Steve’s driveway in the middle of the speech.
“Now go sleep it off, big guy, I’ll pick you up in the morning.”
Danny waits until Steve gets inside and closes the door before reversing out of the driveway. Steve watches from the kitchen window until he can’t see the lights anymore before he heads upstairs.
Steve knows Danny is right; he overreacted by about a mile, but it was the first thing he could think of. The only thing he could do to get that guy’s arm off his shoulder as fast as possible; before anyone could see.
Which is a truly absurd reaction, Steve observes, because he looks like a woman, and there’s nothing unusual about what happened. He does a quick mental calculation to be absolutely sure he never pulled a stunt like that, and says a quick thank you to no one in particular that none of the girls he’s chatted up ever pinned him, even if most of them were capable because until he came back to Hawaii, most of the bars he frequented (when he had the time) were filled to capacity with off duty military.
And that’s the root of the issue.
Steve’s used to drinking with grunts and jarheads and the like. People he worked with, who could report him to his superior and kick over a can of worms that Steve doesn’t want to look under because he’s been sidestepping it his entire life. If he’s honest with himself, it’s probably the worst thing the Navy ever taught him.
Steve groans and flops onto the bed after shedding his clothing and carefully putting his guns in the bedside drawer. Danny must think he’s a real asshole after tonight’s episode. More even than the thing with the sharks, but somehow Steve just knows that it’s not the same. Danny isn’t going to be bringing up tonight’s incident for laughs when he introduces Steve to new people or when he wants to make a point about how fucked in the head Steve really is in front of the rest of the team.
No matter how many times Danny accuses him of being psychotic, or offers to find him professional help, or even just stands in front of Steve and waves his hands around in an attempt to make his point, Steve’s pretty sure that Danny’s never entertained the thought that Steve is just an ass. At least, until tonight.
And that hurts.
Steve decides to save the ‘why’ on that one for another time, when he’s had a few less beers and a lot more space between tonight and whenever.
Instead, he downs a glass of water and a dose of advil and closes his eyes, resolving not to open them until the alarm goes off in the morning.
***
When Danny picks him up for work in the morning, Steve is braced for something. A conversation, another rendition of Danny yelling at him for what happened; whatever it is, Steve knows that something is coming.
So he’s not prepared for Danny to hand him a cup of coffee and simply ask if he’s feeling better. Steve drinks the coffee gratefully, but stays silent for a while.
“I didn’t mean it,” Steve says.
“I know.”
Something unclenches in Steve’s chest and he smiles as he takes another swig of the coffee. It’s hot and strong, black, no sugar. Just the way he always takes it. “I just - “
“I get it,” Danny interrupts. “You’re military.”
As if that’s the rationale Danny uses for every crazy stunt Steve pulls. Except for the fact that Danny is normally shoving the crazy back in Steve’s face and telling him in excruciating detail how he’s not normal and how there are no excuses for why he is the way he is unless they put him in boot camp at age five and never let him out again.
Steve wants to tell him that it’s more than that, more personal than that, it’s not about the rest of the world, it’s about him and everything he’s done since he was a teenager to stay on the right track. Only he can’t find the words, and then they’re at the office and whatever clarity Steve’s found is gone.
Kono walks out of her office as they walk in. Her hair’s a mess and she’s wearing the same clothing as she was yesterday.
“The hospital called right after you two left last night,” she says. “Carolyn’s developed pneumonia. They’ve put her in a coma and on a ventilator, but they’re not sure if it'll help."
"Go home," he tells Kono.
She does, but not without a look at Steve.
***
“So, about tomorrow,” Danny says on the way out. He’s got Gracie this weekend, and Danny had tentatively agreed to let Steve take her snorkeling.
Steve cringes. He wants to say that their plans haven’t changed, that he still wants to take Gracie out and show her that even the hidden parts of the island are beautiful, but Danny’s tone suggests that he doesn’t want to confuse Gracie with this thing that’s happened to Steve.
“Tell her I’m sick,” Steve says, and almost chokes on the words. He hates lying to kids, but it’s probably for the best. “We’ll go another time.” Once I’m right again, he mentally tags to the end of the sentence. It nearly kills him to do it, and once he gets in his car he speeds off right away, exceedingly glad that Danny’s not in the passenger seat telling Steve that he’s a menace to society and that Danny would like to live long enough to see my daughter turn ten.
He’s home all of five minutes before Kono calls.
“Get over here,” she says. There's no room for argument in her voice.
But Steve argues with her anyway. “I just got home."
“Do you really think I’m going to let you mope around the house all weekend?”
“Because going out last night ended so well,” Steve says.
“Give me a little credit, brah. We’re not going out with the others. Just you and me and one of the tourist clubs in Waikiki that you wouldn’t be caught dead in.”
“I think you left out the five hundred tourists.”
“Nah. We’re at the end of the season,” Kono says. “There won’t be more than three hundred. Maybe four.”
Steve complies mostly because he really doesn’t want to be on his own tonight, and given his current condition, the people he can call are limited to Chin, Kono and Danny, and the latter’s already off the table.
As it turns out, their first stop is Kono’s apartment, again. She hands Steve a beer before rummaging through her closet for a new shirt and shoes, then disappears into the bathroom to put it on.
“You can change out here, you know,” Steve says after she closes the door. “We’re both girls.”
The bathroom door opens just enough for Kono to throw one of her shoes at him, but there’s no real force behind it.
“Still no idea why, huh?”
“Nothing,” Steve says.
She comes out of the bathroom with her hairbrush and sits down. “My auntie used to tell me stories about the Kupua,” Kono starts. “Mostly, they were the scary ones. They’d eat people, destroy homes, provide something for the hero to come clean up.”
Steve laughs, remembering some of the stories, too. He’d looked up Hawaiian mythology a long time ago, wanting to learn more about the islands that had adopted his family.
Kono continues, “But, some of them could change their shape. They could appear as human one day, as a shark the next. But there was always a reason for it.”
“Are you saying that you think I’m Kupua?” Steve asks.
Kono hits him. “I’m saying that this isn’t random, whatever it is.” She disappears into the bathroom to put her brush down. “And that we’ll figure it out eventually.”
“It’s the eventually part that I’m afraid of,” Steve admits.
“Come on, Boss. Being a girl isn’t so bad.”
Based off the look Kono’s giving him, Steve has no choice but to agree if he wants to escape without any bruises.
Steve drinks his beer and skims the book on Kono’s nightstand while he waits. A murder mystery with surfing. It’s her style, all right. By the time she comes out, Steve is actually getting wrapped up in the plot and still has no idea who the killer is.
She’s wearing the same jeans, but she’s put on strappy sandals and a new shirt. She’s also done something with her eyes that make them look even bigger, and Steve can’t help but stare.
“Put your eyes back in your head, brah. I work for you.”
“You’re not going to do that to me,” Steve says.
She attacks his hair instead. “Do I look like I have a death wish?”
“You had me on my back last weekend,” he reminds her.
She shrugs. “Beginner’s luck.” When Steve opens his mouth to protest she clarifies. “You’re a beginner and I got lucky.”
He’d argue the point but given the whole new body thing, he realizes that she’s right. About him being a beginner, anyway. “It’s more than luck,” he says, standing to give her a hug. “You’re good, kid. Now let’s get out of here before you decide to fix more than just my hair.”
“The hair’s the only thing I can fix,” she says, but she grabs her keys and wallet anyway, and they head for the door.
Part 2 || Part 3 || Part 4 || Part 5