Summary: Still new in their partnership and friendship, Steve still teases and pressures Danny about his pineapple-hate. But Steve doesn't know that the Jersey-native's relationship with the tropical fruit is more complicated than that, it's a love-hate relationship after all—one that could leave him at Death's Door if he's not careful.
HAWAII . FIVE - 0
Menace
Danny put on a pair of clear plastic gloves. Everything was set up on the counter in his tiny little kitchen, neat and orderly—like a surgical tray. Grace was next to him, watching with rapt attention, wearing gloves of her own that were too big for her tiny hands.
The large, yellowish-brown fruit with its lumpy skin and tuft of thick pointed stock of leaves at that top, was an oddity in his small kitchen, an unusual burst of bright colour.
Grace had never tried pineapple before Rachel moved her to Hawaii, the pineapple capital of the world. Danny was still working in HPD when she asked the question of trying it. Of course, he and Rachel had told her about Danny's deathly allergy to the tropical fruit and the little girl had immediately changed her tune, being the kind and sweet monkey that she was. No matter how eager she had previously been to try it, she had steadfast refused then, declaring that she wouldn't, or even like something that would hurt Danno.
Danny had knelt down in front of her, hands on her little knees and informed her: "Pineapples are my favourite fruit."
Grace had looked at him, confused. "How can something you aren't allowed to eat, be your favourite?"
"I did eat it, once, when I was a little younger than you." Danny explained, "We didn't know I was allergic at the time, but I loved every bite of it. Even twenty-nine years later, I remember it like it was yesterday. That it tasted bright." He'd gave her a reassuring smile, "We'll get you tested at the clinic, just to be safe, and when you're cleared... we'll get you some fresh pineapple—none of that canned stuff for my monkey!"
Grace had slowly beamed at him, reading the calm and confidence in her Danno; that he wasn't scared or mad at her for wanting to try something that could harm him.
And here they were now... in his kitchen, cutting up pineapple like they were disarming a bomb. Of course, in regards to Danny, it was a potential deathly fruit bomb.
When Grace was a toddler in Newark, they had her taken her into the clinic and given her a general scratch test along with the specific test of pineapples and other citrus fruit, as well as latex. It was common amongst those allergic to pineapple, but luckily, both were clear of that—and the toddler didn't appear to be allergic to pineapple like her dear old dad. It was one less thing that he had to worry about. But now in Hawaii, they'd tested her again, because again, it wasn't uncommon for an allergy to appear suddenly and later in life, especially since she had a genetic disposition for it. But again, she'd been cleared.
Danny had been tested as a toddler, too, all his siblings had. His mother had a peanut allergy. But luckily, non of her brood had the same affliction. None had reason to cheek for a pineapple allergy, it was a freak anomaly that Danny had been straddled with.
Of course, they didn't discover this until he was six-years-old. He'd been two-years younger than Grace was now. He was young, but it was just one of those moments that stuck with him in full clarity—with good reason, of course.
He had loved it. He didn't think something could taste FRESH. That BRIGHT could be a flavour. Then his mouth and throat and ears started to itch. His tongue felt fuzzy. His skin started to burn. He broke out in a rash and hives. Then things started to swell as his body responded against what it perceived as a toxin invading. Lips, tongue, throat, eyes. He went into a severe anaphylactic shock—if the pineapple didn't kill him first, the seizure and asphyxiation would.
But luckily, his mother had her EpiPen on her, that reduced the reaction enough to keep him alive until the ambulance arrived and he was raced to the hospital to be treated. He was in there almost two weeks, before he looked human again and the doctors confident enough to release back into the world.
He was forced to wear one of those medical alert bracelet's; the school had to be informed. It made him a target. His life from then on was readying labels. When he started going to high school, he took the bracelet off, then put it back on before he got home. When he went to collage, he tore it off so fast it left a mark. Takeout food was a hassle, even if pineapple was a rarity. And he didn't want to want to think what his life might have been had he had his mother's nut allergy instead.
"Always got to be careful, right, monkey?" he carefully cut away the thick leaf tuft at the top, and cut away the rest of the skin with the butcher knife to reveal the bright yellow, juicy flesh off the fruit.
He pushed the shavings aside with the knife on the cutting board, and with her own gloved hands, Grace scooped them up and diligently threw them into the plastic bag to be put in the dumpster later.
"Uh-huh." Grace watched as he cut the fruit into halves and then strips, before he cut them into bite-sized pieces; confident and smooth in his strokes as any surgeon. When finished, he put a quarter of the pieces into a disposable plastic bowl, the rest going into a plastic container for later.
Then it was the clean-up.
Scrubbing the cutting board in the sink with a rough sponge with a disinfectant dish soap he'd found, and wiping the counter with bleach wipes, disinfecting any pineapple traces. The gloves, sponge, and wipes went into the same plastic bag to be disposed of.
Danny set up another cutting board in front of Grace, with other various fruits, and kept a close eye on her after he showed her how to cut them and not herself.
Grace loved pineapple. And though it was Danny who was allergic to them, he saw no reason why she shouldn't be able to eat them, even around him. As long as they took care and cleaned up after themselves with vigilance—there wasn't a problem. And there hadn't been since the eight-year-old started eating them.
After all the other fruit was cut, he filled Grace's bowl, then put the rest into his own. If she washed her hands properly, brushed her teeth and used mouthwash afterward, there wasn't a problem. Of course, the frozen yogurt and chocolate syrup balances things out.
On the island for fourteen months, on the Task Force for eight, he'd only had to use his EpiPen twice. In Pineapple Hell, that definitely had to be some sort of accomplishment—especially when around every corner it could be his death. Steve didn't really help with his record.
-xH50x-
They were having one of their after-case, case-closed, unwind dinners at Steve's. It was a simplified night, so they ordered in and paired it with some cold Longboards. They ordered an extra-large ham and pineapple and a small cheese for Danny. Sitting around the table in Steve's dinning room, Danny made sure to keep his distance—but as always, the sharp super SEAL was being oblivious as usual and acting like a man-child—a bully on the schoolyard trying to 'force' the black sheep to eat a worm—trying to goad him.
"Don't even try it, McGarrett." Danny warned him, watched as the man put too much announcement into his hand movement as he talked about surfing with the cousins. The blond had been keeping a close-eye on those fingers as they pick out a piece of pineapple from under the cheese of his slice and popped it into his mouth like it was a piece of candy. He could see the gleam of grease and juice on them—which they were just now occupied with such a yellow piece as he was 'caught up' in his discussion. "Keep that away from my food and face, and keep your pineapple-slicked finger's to yourself."
"Aw, come on." Steve rolled his eyes. "I wasn't doing anything!" Danny gave his hand a pointed look and Steve popped the piece into his mouth. "If you just tried it once..."
"Not in your lifetime." But Danny relaxed slightly now that the man wasn't waving it around like a live grenade.
Being the anal-retentive man that Danny knew him to be, he knew that Steve had got his NPD file and read up on the Detective Sergeant, so when they'd first become partners for Five-0 and Steve brought up going out for a slice of ham and pineapple, Danny had blinked at him trying to decide if Steve was teasing him (because no way did they know each that well for shit like that yet) or if the man was just a class A asshole—the Jersey-native was more shocked to discover that the SEAL had no clue that Danny had a severe allergy to the tropical fruit. But instead of telling his brand-new partner the important truth, Danny retorted that pineapple on pizza was an utter affront to pizza kind and whoever had the audacity to come up with the idea deserved to be castrated. Because though Danny loved the fruit, you don't mess with a Jersey-man's pizza with fruit.
And that had set up the tone in regards to pineapple for the pair even now, eight months in. Steve's constant pestering for him to 'just try it', and the blond's disregard. Danny honestly didn't know why he didn't just tell the man the truth—especially now that they had become close friends, and how 'dangerous' the man was. Getting shot at on what felt like almost every case they ran, fine, that was work; but this? it was a needless danger dragged into his everyday/civilian life.
"Just once, come on, Danno." Steve put on a pout and traced Danny's bare forearm with his rolled up sleeve (and hey, look, he'd even 'relaxed' enough to discard his tie before they came in) with fingers painted in invisible poison.
"STEVE!" Danny yelled, and jumped out of his chair and to his feet. The others waited for the rant as the man went a little red in the face, chest heaving, but they were surprised when instead he spun on his heel and rushed from the table and down the hall. The bathroom door slammed.
"Well, that was unexpected." Chin finally voiced.
"Was it something I said?" Steve joked, but his gaze flickered worriedly toward the bathroom out of sight.
"He looked really upset, boss." Kono admitted. "Maybe you should ease up on the pineapple thing—he clearly doesn't like them."
"How can he if he's never had them before?" Steve said stubbornly, his jaw tight.
The cousins shared a look; this was clearly more than a simple dislike of pineapple.
...
Danny immediately pulled the EpiPen that he kept tucked away in his sock; his backup weapon usually went on his left ankle, and his Pen on his right. The bright orange cap went flying and he jabbed the needle into his thigh like a punch.
Feeling a little less panicked but no less concerned, he shoved the used EpiPen into his pocket without thought to be disposed of later at home and turned on the sink tap. He stuck his entire forearm under the stream, scrambling for the bar of soap. He scrubbed his arm in the hope of diluting the fruit's juice already absorbed by his skin—but the short distance from the table to the bathroom was already enough direct exposure to affect him.
He could feel the burn of it on his skin that had nothing to do with his cleaning treatment. The skin was already reddened in the exact trails of Steve's fingers as the rash started to form. It was just the juice and it was just on his arm, and he was sure that he got to his EpiPen fast enough that his airway wouldn't be affected, but he knew that the rash wouldn't stay in the uniform of Steve's touch.
Drying the arm on the towel, and he flexed his fingers, already feeling a little tingly at the infection to his arm as he searched Steve's medicine cabinet behind the sink mirror. He found the tube of half-used toothpaste and twisted off the cap, squirting the mint-y paste onto his arm before he put it back.
He spread it in a thin layer over his splotchy, itchy forearm. It was an old trick that his mom had showed him, and it was one of the reasons why he smelled of mint sometimes. He washed his hands clean again before he carefully rolled each of his sleeves down, buttoning the cuffs. He bottomed the one at his throat as a precaution as well.
If he started to get a tight throat, or his mouth and ears started to itch, then he knew that he would have to pay a visit to the ER. But this was just a minor infraction and as soon as he got treated it with his usual regime, it would stop being a worry.
Right now, he really needed to get away from Steve.
He left the bathroom finally and found the others in the kitchen, cleaning up dinner, the relaxing mood from earlier obviously killed.
"You alright, brah?" Kono asked, spotting him in the open doorframe.
Danny paused at the threshold and didn't venture in further. "It's late. I'm gonna head home. I'll see you guys at work in the morning."
The cousins voiced their goodbyes, and Danny went through the living room towards the door, but Steve wasn't going to be brushed off, not after Danny's sudden exit.
"It's not that late," he protested, watching the blond closely as he slipped on his loafers. "Come on. I'm sorry. Now stay, Kono brought malasadas..."
"I'm going home, Steve." Danny replied curtly, straightening. "Thanks for the pizza; next time, maybe, keep your infected fingers to yourself—I know it's a foreign concept in that toddler-brain of yours—and I'll stay for desert."
Then he was out the door before the SEAL could retort. Under a minute later he heard the Camaro's door, then the rumble of the engine. The headlights shone briefly through the living room windows before they were gone, along with Danny.
Shit. He'd screwed up, that much was obvious. But for the life of him, he couldn't understand why it had driven the man so upset.
...
Danny turned the radio on, loud, as he drove home, something loud and nonsensical, the bass high. His annoyance upped a notch that he was forced to adjust the distance of his seat from the wheel in his own goddamned car.
It wasn't entirely Steve's fault—the car thing, 100%; but the pineapple thing... Danny hadn't after all, told the team of the deathly allergy—even as it was clear as day in his medical file (and he still didn't understand how Steve could have missed that when the animal had gone snooping into him).
Danny honestly didn't know why he was being so stubborn about this. If he had been going to tell them, that would probably have been the best moment to. He knew that if he did, they would back off immediately.
Steve would be the most angry and horrified, of course; some at Danny for not saying anything, but then at himself because how could he not have known something so vital about his partner and best-friend? How could he have missed something so important when he did his background check when he was highly trained in information gathering?
And then somehow, that self-pity at how many times he could have actually killed Danny with a slice of ham and pineapple if he had any less control than a highly trained SEAL, and had given into the deep urge to force the blond mouthpiece to eat a slice—physically (which Danny knew Steve would never do). And expertly turn it back around into a trust issue. That Danny didn't 'trust' him to know about this allergy—this 'weakness'—so he wouldn't have to feel things at threatening his partner's life with 'real' danger a couple times a week (at least) and as opposed to the shoot-outs, car chases, etc. because that was work and this was friendship. So he would make it anger that didn't solve anything and would just rile Danny up (rightly so) and then it's become a whole other thing.
Thus, Danny might as well just avoid it now. He could be a stubborn blockhead too, you know? It was the New Jersey in him.
He'd come down into a subdued and exhausted mood when he finally made it home to his humble little shit hole. He immediately jumped into the shower and scrubbed thoroughly despite just getting the juice on his arm. It made him feel better. He slathered his arm in calamine lotion, soothing the burning rash on his arm and the hives that had popped up at the base of the throat while he was in the shower, and helping with his resistance to scratch the itch.
He swallowed a Benadryl to help with any inflammation or breathing issues that might crop up later in the night. He remembered to pick out his used EpiPen from his pants and dispose of it in the sharps container that he kept under his bathroom sink before he threw them into the dirty laundry. He would definitely be using bleach with the next load of dirty.
Because the thing was, as much as he said that Steve was playing at Superman, Danny was the one that had a real-live Kryptonite.
-xH50x-
Danny made a quick stop at Kamekona's shaved ice and shrimp trunk on his way home. It was a little out of his way normally, but he was coming from this side of the island as opposed to the Palace. Danny gave his order (no pineapple), to Kame in the window, who relayed it to a skinny Polynesian in the kitchen, a trainee that Kame was trying out. He gazed out to the beach as he waited, wondering how someone else could fit in there with Kame.
Danny got his order from the shelf of the window, paying and nodding his thanks to the kid. He was already taking his first bite of the breaded shrimp as he turned towards his car parked in the open lot.
He was already reaching for his second shrimp when his mouth went itchy. He paused, just at the bench outside the truck, and ran his tongue around his mouth. He looked at his basket of breaded shrimp for a moment, dropping the one in his hand and grabbing a napkin as he spun on his heel in the sand.
"Kame," he called, "You didn't put pineapple in this, right?"
Kame stuck his head out the window. "Nah, brah."
Danny quickly set the dish on the picnic table where the team usually sat when they came here for lunch during a case, needing a more relaxed atmosphere to let the leads percolate. "Can I get water—fast?" he pulled out the small packet of wipes from his pocket, and pulled one free, quickly working his fingers clean, and mouth.
"Sure, brah." Sensing something wasn't quite right with the little haole, the large men got an ice cold bottle of water and quickly made his way to the blond from the back of the truck. "You okay, brah? You look more sweaty than usual, little man." He handed Danny the water.
Danny cracked the lid and did several rinse and spit takes, before dumping more water on his hands. "Just the beginnings of a little anaphylactic shock," he reported.
"Anifi—" Kame's eyes widened in realization for what he was on about. Danny was allergic to pineapple. "No, brah. No. I don't cross my foods—I run a clean house."
"Yeah," Danny agreed as he sat on the bench and pulled his EpiPen from his right sock, pulling off the orange cap and jabbing the needle into his thigh. He never once had a problem with Kame's foods since he started coming here after he joined Five-0—that was, when Kamekona was the one serving him. "What about you're little friend there?" he waved his hand at the truck and the skinning kid watching them worriedly.
"I..." the kid stuttered as Kame turned to him too.
"Nah, brah, you can't do my little haole like that."
"It was an accident!" the kid protested.
"You got to go, brah." Kame fired him. No one endangered his customers like that, and certainly not his friends. But the kid left without further argument, sputtering apologies to Danny as he left. "Alright?"
"It's fine, Kamekona." Danny said, scratching at his throat where he could already feel the outbreak of hives. His mouth and throat were really itchy now, and his tongue felt a little fat, but he got to the EpiPen fast, and it would help cool down the symptoms of ingestion. "I'll stop by the ER before I head home."
He would definitely have to because he'd ingested it, though he knew it would just be juice traces on the shrimp instead of a solid piece; but his fleshy insides reacted aggressively against any and all traces of pineapple, no matter how small.
"Brah, you sure you're okay?" Kame shook his head, the usually pale skinned haole looked ruddy-cheeked. "I'm sorry, brah, I didn't know."
"I didn't say anything." Danny waved it away, wiping at the rash that was started on his fingers now, too. "Accidents happen, Kame."
"No." He said firmly. "It shouldn't have happened. I'll prepare your food myself from now on. I've got you, brah." He clapped him on the shoulder with a meaty hand.
"Thanks, Kame," he paused. "Listen..."
"McGarrett doesn't know, does he, brah?" Kame said knowingly. "The other's too." He guessed correctly, readying Danny's blotchy face well. "He's gonna flip, brah. Every time he tried to get you to eat it—"
"I know. I know." Danny stood, used EpiPen in hand. "I'll get to it... eventually." He started for his car.
"Get better, brah." Kame called after him. "And good luck!"
He climbed into his Camaro and pulled from the lot, heading towards the ER, a location he knew very well.
This just wasn't his month. Two EpiPens. He'd just gotten over the itchy, burn-y rash that Steve gave him when the SEAL got touchy; it had taken him about two weeks to get over it (and he definitely hadn't gone to the ER for that one like he was supposed to as recommended when he had to used the EpiPen [which he always had to]), but this time, he had no choice. He had ingested it. As little amount as it was, one breaded shrimp, he could feel it already wrecking havoc on his insides. He knew they were going to make him take ipecac, and that was going to suck.
Turning up his radio, he baldly refused to see the external intervention and drowned them out.
-xH50x-
To make up for almost killing him, Kamekona invited Danny and Grace to come to the shrimp truck to try some of his new shrimp recipes. Most were with a certain yellow fruit, but Danny assured Kame that Grace wasn't allergic, she loved the fruit, he was far from spiteful, and everything was fine as long as they were all careful.
And then, somehow, Steve showed up. Either the man was stalking him (he did bring Danny fresh malasadas the next morning at work after the pineapple incident at his house, even if he didn't seem to know exactly what he was apologizing for), or it was just coincidence.
Steve eyed the setup the blond was putting up in front of his daughter on the table as he slipped onto the bench on the opposite side with graceful long limbs. "We were secretly in the army, Danny?" it was like a makeshift sterilisation unit.
"I know you've read my file, Steve." Danny told him almost conversationally. "No Black Ops. for me." He winked. "What's wrong with a little order?"
Steve snorted lightly. "Who are you and what have you done with my partner? Order? Have you see your office?"
"It's called organized chaos," Danny explained. "We've been partners for eight-months. That doesn't mean we know every little thing about each other... clearly." He uttered the last word under his breath.
Steve opened his mouth, but the conversation which was short in turning to an argument was halted as Kamekona came bearing a tray of edible gifts in disposable dishes.
"Prepared them myself," Kame nodded at Danny as he distributed the orders. First, Danny's; then he came around the table and gave Grace and Steve his new pineapple-shrimp inventions. "Enjoy."
"Thanks, Kame." Grace smiled at him.
"Call if you need anything, brahs." And the man went back to his truck to attend his other customers.
Danny watched Grace, a longer distance between them than usual on the bench, instead of digging into his own, even as Steve already started in on his—fingers and all, the Neanderthal. Grace, on the other hand, picked up the plastic utensils provided and took her first bite.
"How is it?" Danny asked. "Good?"
"Mm-hm!" Grace nodded, swallowing before she gave her dad a big grin.
"Good." Danny grinned back. "You're going to make Kame a very happy man."
Grace went back to happily eating—like she was seated with the Queen—and Danny started in on his own shrimp.
"She definitely didn't get your table manors from you, Danno." Steve chuckled, watching the little girl.
Danny looked across at him with a look of distaste as the dark-haired man ate with his fingers. "And they definitely didn't teach you any table manors in the Navy." He shook his head. "And it's pineapple, what do you expect me to do?"
"I wish you could eat it, too, Danno." Grace told his sadly, using her napkin as she paused to address him. "I know you would love it, too."
Danny gave her a gentle smile. "I bet, Monkey." He flicked her ponytail affectionately. "But you're just going to have to love it for the both of us." She nodded and turned back to her food, swinging her legs happily.
Steve's brow puckered. He said slowly, "Danny doesn't like pineapples, Grace."
Grace glanced at her father before turning to Steve with a serious expression. "I know," she said, "Danno loves pineapple!"
Danny chuckled at her, but Steve just grew more confused. But before he could say anything, Danny pulled a small packet of wipes from his pocket and handed her one as the girl finished her food.
"Wipe your hands and throw out your bowl. I'm sure Kame would love to hear your thoughts on his new dish."
Grace thoroughly wiped her hands and mouth before she took her tray and left the table for the truck.
"You said you didn't like pineapples," Steve finally spoke as Danny turned back once again to his own food, finishing it off. "So, either you're lying to me or you're lying to Grace—I'm not sure which I prefer." He admitted the last part quietly to himself.
Danny chuckled to himself and held out a wipe to the man. "Wipe?" Steve took it, but only because he was distracted.
Hadn't Danny said that? "Didn't you say...?"
Danny shook his head, wiping his own hands clean. "I tried pineapple when I was six. It was my first and only time."
Steve furrowed his brows in thought as Grace came running back to the table, hopping back onto the bench beside Danno.
"Mouthwash." Danny poured her a small capful from the travel-sized bottle he pulled from his pocket. Danny was sure Steve's cargo pants, with all its pockets was very handy (he'd seen the man pull out a grenade once; it was like a scary version of the Travelling Pants), but they weren't the Jersey-native's style. And he'd die before he got caught with a fanny pack. He made his traditional slacks work, without any unappetizing pocket bulges either. He wasn't a rookie.
She swished it all around.
"Are you some kind of sudden germophobe now?" Steve wondered; and he thought he had a lot of things in his pockets. "A closeted dentist?"
"It's pineapple," Danny repeated as Grace spit into his empty cup. He stood. "Ready, Monkey?" he tossed his trash, tucking his things back into his pockets.
Grace nodded and took Danny's hand. "Bye, Steve!" she waved to the man.
"Bye," Steve waved back, but he stayed sitting at the bench.
"Hey," Kame returned. "You alright, brah?"
"I think I'm missing something," Steve admitted to the large man, distractedly tearing up the used wipe.
"Yeah, brah." Kame agreed.
Steve finally looked up. Kame knew what he was missing—but the Hawaiian man was already back at his truck. The man could move when he wanted to.
Danny was hinting, implying... something that should be obvious to the SEAL as it was apparently to everyone else, but for the life of him, Steve had no idea what. Danny was being oddly tight-lipped when Steve usually had a difficult time shutting the Jersey-native up.
-xH50x-
Danny paused in his stride through the bullpen with the touch table (that he admittedly still had a little trouble handling, even after nine-months; that was usually Chin and Kono's area), his hands full of takeout coffee and reports, to scratch the back of his left calf with his right foot, before he continued on—not noticing that he'd knocked his EpiPen loose.
But Chin did.
"Hey, brah." Chin called. "You dropped something."
"What?" Danny paused and turned to look back at the pair, everything was still in his hands.
"I think he meant, something fell out of your pants, brah." Kono chuckled lightly. "All things considered... not the first thing I would have thought of." She bent and picked it up from the floor.
Danny's eyes flashed wide with panic as he realized it was his EpiPen, before he schooled his features. "Oh, I must have still had one of Grace's makers on me." He lied, decidedly not that guilty at using his innocent daughter as a scapegoat. "I was helping her with an art project for school when I had her this weekend."
Kono furrowed her brow as she turned the thick auto-injector with its bright orange cap between her fingers, examining it. "I've never see a maker like this before." She held it up for Chin to examine, too.
"It's, you know..." Danny waved the hand with the folders, they flopped in his grasp. "One of those glitter pens!" he took a self-conscious drink of his coffee as the pair stared at him. "I really didn't know that there was no such thing as too-much-glitter; you learn something new everyday."
"There is such a thing a too-much-glitter." Kono corrected him.
Danny shook his head, eyes skittering over the Pen as Chin took it in hand, resisting the urge to drop the coffee and folders and grab it. Like that wouldn't make them anymore suspicious than they already were. Of course, with Chin having it in-hand, it was only a matter of time. "Not to an eight-year-old there isn't." It wasn't that he wanted to lie to them... it was just something that he'd kept to himself for so long, it was like second nature now.
All Chin had to do was read puny writing on the wall, and dread trickled into the pit of Danny's stomach as that was what the Hawaiian did. He might have been able to pass it off with Kono, but not Chin.
"Danny... This is an EpiPen." He looked up and across at the man.
"What?" Kono looked at her cousin. "An allergy pen?" Chin nodded. They were both looking at Danny now. "I didn't know Grace had an allergy."
Danny swallowed but didn't answer. He didn't know what to say. He was suddenly sweaty-palmed in front of his friends as his blue-gaze flickered between the pair.
"No, not Grace." Chin concluded slowly, peering at him. The realization of it was clear in his dark-eyes. "Danny, why didn't you tell us?" he asked softly.
"Danny—" Kono's realization was more visible, her shock and confusion clear.
Danny just shrugged helplessly.
Always keen, Chin seemed to realize Danny's reluctance and/or embarrassment. "Brah, it's us. You know you can tell us and we're not going to judge you." His even, soft tenor was encouraging. "You have nothing to be embarrassed about." He held out the EpiPen to Danny.
Danny slipped the folders under his armpit of his coffee-hand, and took it with his now free hand, clenching the Pen tightly at his side.
"Danny?" Kono wondered softly, worriedly, taking a short step towards him.
Danny suddenly straightened his shoulders and raised his chin. "Pineapples. I'm allergic to pineapples."
That was definitely not what the cousins was expecting. Though now the blond's aversion to the fruit (not eating; not even touching it or anything else that had come into contact with it) made 100% sense now. It was more than just a dislike or a way to annoy Steve.
"What?!" Kono cried out in horror first. "Oh, my god!"
"Why?" Chin asked, definitely more restrained than his young cousin, but just as horrified. "Why wouldn't you tell us about this? Your allergy is dangerous about to have that EpiPen"—he gestured at said EpiPen clenched in Danny's hand—"and we're around pineapples all the time. Every time we go out to lunch..." His eyes flicked in remembrance
Kono made a strangled noise in the back of her throat as she seemed to remember the same thing as Chin. "We have pineapple-everything and you sit right across from us! What if..." she couldn't even finish the thought, didn't want to. Chin gave her shoulder a brief squeeze.
"You guys are overreacting." Danny told them. This was exactly that kind of reaction he expected out of them—but he was sure the same could not be said for Steve. But now he felt bad for making them feel this way and attempted to assure them. "I'm careful. Without even realizing it, you two are careful. I'm not going to combust just because I'm five-feet away from a pineapple," he attempted a joke that clearly fell flat. "If I don't eat it—trust me, you don't want to see that—and going through that twice was quite enough for me ~ or get in skin contact with the juice or residue or anything like that... I'm all good." He waved away their concern, "There's nothing to worry about."
Kono suddenly gasped and pointed at the shorter man. Both men looked at her in a little surprise. "About a month ago, after we finished that robbery case and we had dinner over at Steve's and we ended up ordering pizza—with pineapple—" Chin's eyes flickered in sudden remembrance of that night as well. "Steve started bugging you about have a bite."
"The child." Danny agreed mildly.
"And then he touched your arm." Chin cut in lowly. "You jumped out of that chair like you'd been burned."
"We expected you to rip his head off, give him one of your mile-a-minute lectures about etiquette or something, but you bolted to the bathroom instead." Kono put her hand over her mouth. "We all definitely thought it was off—you were in there for ten long minutes."
"It took some convincing to get Steve not to kick his own bathroom door in." Chin said. "And you left pretty quickly after that."
"Yeah," Danny had no trouble remembering that night. He sighed. "I had hives and a stupid rash for almost two-weeks because of that."
"You should have told us then." Chin said a little sharply, before he took a breath and regained his self-control.
"For an Elite Task Force, you guys can be pretty oblivious."
"Why haven't you told Steve?" Chin continued reasonably, "You know when he finds out—and you know he will—it'll really upset him to think of how many times he could have carelessly harmed you. Even killed you." He said that last part very quietly and Kono shuddered next to him.
"I know," Danny sighed and smoothed a hand over his hair self-consciously. "Kamekona said the same thing."
Kono made a little indignant noise at this new information. "Kame knows?" she tried to keep the hurt from tingeing her voice.
"There was an... incident," Danny admitted reluctantly, "A couple of weeks ago. A new kid he was trying cross-contaminated my order." He tried to shrug it off. What they didn't need to know was that he'd spent six-hours in the ER, hooked up to an IV, puking for about two of those on-and-off because of the ipecac they'd given him (definitely better than getting his stomach pumped like when he was six), wracked with cramps and don't get his started on the diarrhoea… "Accidents happen."
"Accident?!" Kono shouted, upset that something like that could have and did happen, and they knew nothing about it or could have done anything about it.
Chin put his hand on the back of her shoulder, calming her. "You should have at least told Kame," he scolded, "So something like that would never have happened." Danny gave a nod, at least looking chastised by the older man. "If you didn't want to tell us—you seem to have your reasons—fine." Kono made another sound but he talked over her, "But as someone who prepares your food and handles pineapples—you should have told him."
"You're right and I'm sorry." Danny told them. "It always caused trouble for me when I was in school. And when I was with HPD... being a haole that no one wanted to work with was bad enough—but when they found out about my allergy to pineapple... they were relentless."
"Well, that's not going to happen with us." Kono told him firmly, determinedly.
"At least we know now," Chin said, "Even, if it wasn't your intention today—we're better off knowing." His tone was diplomatic, and Danny knew exactly what he was going to say next. "But you're going to have to tell Steve—and soon—this has gone on long enough. And the worse it will end up being. It's a dangerous secret to have, Danny—especially with team-mates who don't know. What something happened out in the field—"
"I know." Danny stopped him with a raised hand, the EpiPen still clenched in it. "It could endanger myself, the team, and innocent bystanders if I had an attack and you guys didn't know what was going on, or I'd lost my Pen. I'd be a liability." He closed his eyes briefly. "You're right, you're right."
"Are my ears deceiving me," Steve questioned with a grin as he finally came into the office right on the very tail-end of the conversation, not noticing the taut shift in the atmosphere, "Or did Danny just admit that someone else was right?"
"I did," Danny agreed, quickly pushing his EpiPen into his trouser pocket. "To Chin and Kono, who are wise, observant, understanding people—unlike certain SEAL's I know." He pointed at the man with a now empty hand, "So don't even get me started." He turned from the trio and started back for his office.
Steve turned and watched him go with a raised brow. His eye caught the bright orange thing sticking out of his pocket.
"Danny." Chin called after him pointedly.
"Later," Danny answered the undertone in his name. He needed to plan this right, was all, to lessen the blow-out.
Steve turned back to the cousins. "What was that?" he threw his thumb over his shoulder after the blond man.
The pair shared a meaningful look. Kono crossed her arms as he looked back to the taller man. "You'll find out soon, boss." She eyed him. "Sooner or later."
"I'm sure it will be soon." Chin agreed.
If that wasn't a few ominous statements, Steve wasn't sure what was. There was a tension between the three of them, or at least directed at him, and he had no idea what he'd done to cause it. He narrowed his eyes on the pair, planting his fists in his hips as he regarded them. "I know Danny's been hiding something from me. You two know, as your Lieu—"
"As you're friends," Chin took a step forward, interrupting, "It's not our place to tell."
Steve pursed his lips. "You don't pull your punches—that's rough."
Kono chuckled a little darkly. "Trust me, he was."
Steve sighed and left it alone—for now. But he was never one to be patient and left in the dark for long, especially where his blond partner was concerned. Right now, he'd distract himself with their current case. "Tell me you've tracked down where the letter came from."
-xH50x-
It would just figure that Danny ended up here, hanging onto the edge of an empty, twenty-foot deep empty vat, wondering what would kill him first. Steve, the drop, or the pineapple. He'd just invited himself over to Steve's for dinner tonight so he could finally tell his partner his deep dark secret when they got a tip on their suspect.
Karma or some other bitch had it out for him, that was for sure. It was some shutdown pineapple processing plant, disused for years. It wasn't like Danny had known that before he and Steve pulled up in the Camaro and saw their suspect flee into the factory, giving pursuit. It was a was the broken sign inside that gave it away, but by then he was too busy chasing after the suspect, kicking up dust and debris. Gasping in lungfuls. Running up grated steps up to the rusty catwalks after their guy—Steve going around to head him off, box him in.
"Five-0, stop!" Danny shouted, wheezing already a little, and it had nothing to do with the run. He tried to blink the dust from his eyes. The next thing he knew, he was being shoved. The gun fell from his hand onto the grated catwalk, and he tumbled backward. With a shout, the small of his back met brief resistance of the rusted out railing, and he was falling.
Now here they were, not two minutes later...
Their suspect knocked out further down the line and handcuffed.
Steve with a dislocated right shoulder, on his stomach on the catwalk, the vertical pole of the broken railing pressed against the same shoulder as an anchor, his left arm over the side, holding Danny's right wrist in a death grip. Danny's left hand gripped the rusted out edge of the empty vat, cutting into his palm but he didn't dare shift his grip.
"Steve, I think we need to talk." Danny's voice was low and strained, as he tried to keep the rasp out of it, tried to breath as shallowly as possible given his situation. But he was covered in it, the pineapple dust; no matter how old, it didn't just become inert and it was not likely at all that they would clean and disinfect the factory when it was decommissioned and abandoned.
A drop of sweat trailed from his temple down the side of his face, and into the collar of his shirt, searing heat through his irritated and inflaming skin.
"Daniel, I indulge your need to talk about everything—but now... I just don't think it's the time." Steve's voice was strained, the weight of Danny pressing roughly at his shoulder. "I'm trying not to drop you as it is."
"While I appreciate that, babe, truly I do; I think we should have this conversation—now, Steve, now!" having his own sweat drag across his smouldering flesh was one thing, but having Steve's drip down onto him from the strain was another. "This can no longer wait until dinner and beers."
"It's just a twenty-foot drop," Steve muttered, glancing along the length of Danny's back and into the dark depths of the vat. His face was just as red as Danny's, if for an entirely different reason. "Worst case... you break an ankle."
"Oh, so this is the one time you're not going to go Super-SEAL on me?" the blond demanded, affronted. "You baby is trapped in a wrecked car and you're not going to go Super-Mom Adrenaline Monster and save me?"
Steve blinked at him as much in bemusement as to get the dust and sweat out of his green eyes. "Are you calling yourself my baby in this scenario, Danno?"
"That's what your latching onto right now? Really, Steven?" his indignation pushed through the rasp and tightness of his throat. His eyes were scratchy and itchy, and he rubbed his face helplessly against the shoulder of his shirt—that just made it worse. "I don't want to die," he groaned through a congested nose.
"If you roll into it, the worst that could happen is you twist your knee and inflame your old injury." Steve told him helpfully as Danny's feet scrambled against the smooth wall of the metal tank, but his shoes found no purchase. It was a fruitless struggle that just kicked up more dust for him to breath in. "So stop exaggerating," he rolled his eyes as something pinged and banged against the bottom of the vat. "Was that your backup weapon?"
Danny tipped his head and out of the corner of his eye, he could see the small tag of his orange-capped EpiPen at the shadowed bottom. He cursed. "My EpiPen..."
"What?" Steve almost let go of his wrist in surprise as it registered what his partner said, before he tightened his sweaty hand. "What?"
Danny definitely had trouble swallowing now. It was the familiar constriction of his throat starting to swell. He might as well have snorted a packet of powdered pineapple Kool-Aid. Even the artificial crap he daren't try. He met the man's eyes above him. "I'm allergic to pineapple, Steve." Danny finally admitted in a croak after nine-months of partnership.
He expected Steve to start yelling, chewing him out for keeping this secret, but there was just silence, stillness.
Steve's cheeks puffed out and he took heavy breaths, his face going even redder than before. It glistened with fresh beads of sweat from exertion, the vein in his forehead was prominent at the moment. His arm taut as he grunt with effort as he started to lift the reactive detective. It looked like his face was starting to go from red to purple with the endeavour.
Danny got with the program fast and went from what was probably a dead weight to Steve to an assistant in the matter. His toes pressed against the wall for any type of purchase. His left hand tightened around the edge of the vat, and the muscled in his own arm contracted as if he was working a one-armed pull-up. He gritted his teeth against the pain of the rusted edge grounding into his hand, resisting the urge for his hand to spring open like he was carrying a hot dish. He didn't even feel the warm blood dribble down his wrist and soak into his white sleeve against his burning skin—his grip slipping.
But he rose—more from Steve's Super-Mom strength than his own, he was sure. But it was those two crucial feet for Danny to be able to dig his right fingers into the grate of the catwalk. His own efforts were doubled. He ignored the twinge in his wrist from where Steve had been gripping him. Could hardly pay attention as Steve shifted his grip down his arm, fingers tangle in the blond's sleeve, fingers against his inflamed skin like sandpaper, to grip his elbow.
Soon, Danny was able to move his left hand from the edge of the vat, and into the grating, too, under Steve's sweaty armpit. The edge dug into his chest, and with a heave, his torso made it onto the catwalk. His knees on the edge of the vat was the final push to get him up, gasping.
Steve groaned lowly, rolling onto his back and finally easy his dislocated shoulder off the bar, and allowing Danny more room on the catwalk. His hand was still locked around Danny's elbow; who was halfway on his stomach, almost hugging legs. His fingers were still stuck in the grate, his forehead pressed against the side of Steve's thigh as he tried to focus on breathing through a straw after gargling a mouth full of sand, swallowing instead of spitting.
Steve allowed himself ten seconds to push back his own pain and whatever his immediate response was to Danny's final admission of his allergy. He put himself in SEAL-Mode, spurred on by the dry rattling of Danny's breathing, like the rough crinkle of a mistreated paper bag. He used his abdominal muscles to he sit up. "Danny," He shifted his grip on the blond's elbow and gave it a light pull, urging the man upright—getting one of his first better looks at the shorter man in the dim sunlight that penetrated the factory.
His skin was flushed deeply and blotchy with rash, his eyes puffy and irritated, his neck the same, his hair beyond dishevelled as he tried to wipe the sweat from his face and then started scratching his throat. Steve thought the usually handsome Jersey-native now looked like a diseased lobster boiled incorrectly.
"Thanks," Danny wheezed.
Steve grimaced a little at the grating sound. "Your EpiPen—" he glanced at the vat.
Danny shook his head as he forced himself to stop scratching. "'Nother in the car."
Steve nodded, shifting his long legs underneath him and rising to his feet with little more than a wince of the brow and lack of use of one arm. "Can you make it?" he asked a little tightly. "Walk?"
Danny executed a poor eye roll with his itchy, inflamed eyes and his scoff was aborted with sudden lack of breath. "I'm not dying," he denied. Getting slightly shaky legs underneath him, and back onto his feet with a little assistance. Steve gave him the aneurysm-look. "Right... slowly then."
Steve was not impressed with his attempt to lighten the serious and dangerous situation. They made it from the catwalk relatively stably. For the moment they were forced to leave the suspect cuffed up there. Danny was the priority right now. Steve pulled out his cell and called Chin on the walk to the Camaro, ordering backup to collect their suspect, and an ambulance for Danny.
"Me?" Danny said as he hung up. "You're arm's hanging on by the skin."
"If I poke you with something sharp, will you explode out of your skin?" Steve retorted sharply, putting the cell back into his pants.
"Easy, buddy!" Danny opened the passenger side door of his Camaro.
Steve leaned against the side of the hood, watching through the windshield, holding his right arm across his chest with a clenched jaw. Danny leaned through the open door, his knee braced on the seat as he dug around for his extra EpiPen under the seat.
"You have a stash under the seat that I didn't know about?" Steve was employing every technique in the book to keep himself from throttling the shorter man.
Danny didn't answer, and instead twisted around and sat back onto the seat, a small plastic black kit in his hands. He took out one of the EpiPens, pulled the orange cap and stabbed himself in the thigh without even a grimace.
Steve narrowed his eyes at the orange cap. He'd been seeing that a lot lately. He'd even found a forlorn one on his bathroom a month or so ago and hadn't had the faintest of clue where the hell it came from or what it belonged to—he'd actually spent a minute or two looking for its counterpart—before he just threw the thing out. Now he was wondering how he could have been so oblivious.
Putting the kit and used EpiPen onto the dip in the dash, he opened the gloved compartment and with shaking, tingling fingers, dug around for the small blister pack of Benadryl. He popped two out and swallowed them down with the warm bottle of water sitting in the center consol holder. It helped chase away some of the metallic taste in his itchy mouth.
He attempted a deep breath. He was still a wheezing, struggling mess, but the EpiPen had helped ease back the issues in his respiratory system for the moment. His clothes and skin were covered in a fine layer of the pineapple infected dust, and he knew he needed to lessen the contact as much as he could. He was itchy inside and out.
"Holding up?" Steve questioned as Danny stood from the Camaro, setting the bottle of water on the roof and started to removed his constricting tie and buttoned shirt.
"I've had worse," Danny admitted, and Steve's eyes flared for a moment before he stowed himself. Danny grabbed the water bottle and leaned his head back, dumping some of it over his face and neck. It was a moment's relief as it cleaned away the sweat and dust, before he continued to feel as itchy and burn-y as before. Shaking the excess water off, ignoring his brief bought of imbalance and nausea, he splashed the rest of the water on his arms which were just as red and blotchy and itchy as he was sure his face was, covered in the bumps of hives.
"When I was six..." Danny wheezed, bracing one hand against the car's roof as he ran a hand over his face to wipe away the remaining water (not noticing the faint smears of blood that blended well with his flushed face), and ended up rubbing at his eye with a curled fist. It felt so good but he knew it was bad, he just couldn't help it. But Steve's growl of warning forced him out of it and he jerked his hand away, blinking rapidly to readjust his vision as clear as it would go. "The first time I tried pineapple... I was stuck in the hospital for two weeks—Mgh." He swallowed convulsively against the sudden rise of bile.
"Danny," Steve spoke a little sharply in worry.
Each experience was different, because each exposure was never the same. Ingestion, skin contact, respiratory. Danny wasn't the usual cramp-y that he usually got when he ate something pineapple. This was more a mixture of skin contact and respiratory. But the pineapple was diluted, airborne particles that were wracking havoc on his lungs, the swelling in his throat—like it eked into his every pore. It might not be the same as when he was six, but it was just as dangerous.
Before, it was... one minute he was fine, the next he'd blown up like tube balloon into a twisted deformity of an amateur balloon artist. But here, it had started out slow, but it was building momentum fast. Most of it invisible, but he felt it all.
Danny suddenly turned away from his partner, bending at the waist, and vomiting by the back wheel of the Camaro.
"Danny!" Steve was off the side of the hood and at his doubled-over partner in two strides, ignoring the own stabbing sharp pricks of his dislocated shoulder at the jarring movement. He grabbed a fistful of Danny's white, sweated-through undershirt in his left hand as the man wavered in his position, gasping. "Shit." He could feel the heat of the man's skin through the material, of his inflamed skin, burning hot like he was sick with fever.
It was his immune system jumping into overdrive, over-reaction to the pineapple invader.
Danny heaved, dizzy, fighting to drag a breath in through his swollen throat and beyond his tingling tongue, even as sick was forced out of his throat, spattering his shoes a little. The first had come up clear in the sand, two round blue capsules in the darkened dirt—no longer an assistance to him. The second was the half-digested corner store burrito he'd snagged for a fast lunch.
Finally, he lurched upwards, leaning heavily against the trunk of the car. His wheezing pants sounding like vacuumed up gravel. "'M... fine." He somehow managed to articulate around a numb tongue.
"God, I cannot believe—!" Steve started, still gripping his partner's shirt, but was cut-off at the blessed sound of the ambulance sirens closing in on them; because he was anger, but also because he was more scared that he thought he could be. He'd never seen Danny like this before, he didn't ever want to see his loud-mouth, persistent, annoying, stickler Danny Williams... like this. "Just hold on, Danny. The ambulance is here."
"I have ears, Steven." Danny pushed himself straight with a rattling breath as the ambulance came to a halt close to their location, digging into the loose dirt. It was followed closely by Chin and Kono in a car and an HPD squad car. He decided to ignore Steve's hand fisted in his shirt as they turned for the ambulance, the two medics leaping from the building.
One medic swarmed Danny, honing in on the inflicted man immediately, as the other ran around to the back of the truck.
"What happened?" she asked, leading Danny to the back of the open truck. She looked at Steve for answers.
"Allergic reaction to pineapple." Steve immediately reported. "It's a disused processing factory. Air particles. He breathed it in, got covered in it. Fifteen minutes ago. He used his EpiPen. He vomited a minute ago."
"Steve!" Chin called as the cousins came rushing over as the paramedics helped a very non-resistant Danny up into the truck and onto the gurney.
"Danny!" Kono gasped, hand going to her mouth as she caught a glimpse of the man before he was crowded by the medics. "What happened? Is he okay?"
"We're leaving now, sir!" the woman yelled at him.
"I'm coming with you!" Steve informed, already pulling himself into the back of the truck. "The suspect's on the catwalk in the factory. I'm going with Danny!" and he slammed the back doors.
Chin and Kono quickly jumped back as the ambulance reversed back, lights blaring, and out of the large lot.
"Is he going to be okay?" Kono asked her cousin in worry. "He looked so sick."
Chin surveyed the space around the Camaro: passenger door left open, glove compartment open and contents scattered, the used EpiPen kit on the dash; the little smears of blood on the edge of the roof and side of the trunk, the vomit by the rear wheel, the abandoned shirt and tie with the empty water bottle on the ground. "He'll be okay," he told her, pushing his own worries back at the moment. "Let's go get our suspect booked, then we can head over to Tripler to see what's going on."
Kono nodded and after another look at her friend's car, followed after her cousin. This was exactly what had been their worry when they found out about Danny's allergy earlier this same week. She was already cringing internally at the boss' reaction once he got over the shock of it and the worry—because Danny was going to be fine.
...
Steve tried to follow as Danny was rushed into the Tripler ER from the ambulance, hooked up to an oxygen mask, struggling to breathe, and steered into a private treatment room, and surrounded by doctors and nurses, the automatic doors sliding shut to cut him off.
He was herded away by two determined residents to a curtained bed. He was forced to endure a brief exam, before they determined he only had a dislocated shoulder. He barely held himself off from biting their heads off in his worry for Danny to just hurry up and fucking do it already before he did it himself. He allowed the shot of local Anaesthetic to numb his shoulder, if only to move the pair along. He grunted through clenched teeth when they finally pushed it back into the socket. They wrapped a cracked ice pack on his shoulder and put him in a sling.
He was off the gurney in an instant, ripping aside the curtain, and ignoring the calls as he went for the private room that they were working on Danny in. He just needed to know what was going on, even if he was useless to help his best-friend and partner.
He stood frozen, watching through the door windows as the doctors inserted a tube down Danny's nose and seemed intent on drowning the Jersey-native, flushing his lungs out with saline, in a simulation of medically induced water boarding. Danny thrashed on the gurney and he pinned down on the bed, a long suction tube joining in to collect the contaminated saline that came back up.
"Danny..." Steve had suffered through a more cruder form of torture during his time in active SEAL duty, but watching his friend go through it was something else entirely. It would be an image that was forever burned into his memory.
...
Danny gave a croaking, cracking, broken moan upon waking. His throat was raw and ached. Somewhere between suffocating and drowning, he must have passed out. Good thing too, because he didn't not want to be awake for further medical torture. He cracked his swollen, gritting eyes and spotted a tall blurry figure looming at his bedside. "Steve?" he questioned.
"I'm here, babe." Steve told him. "Here."
And the SEAL fed him some ice chips as he continued to try and clear his eyes, reaching up with a hand to wipe at the gunk. The ice chips both hurt and felt good on his throat. It wasn't long before Steve took his wrist and pulled his hand away and placed it back at his side.
"I feel like a blanched tomato," Danny informed his friend with a rasp, licking his licks, the taste of hospital in his mouth.
"You look like one." Steve agreed.
Danny's blinked at him, finally able to see clearer now. He looked showered and in a pair of hospital scrubs. Danny focused on the sling he was wearing, instead of the stiff expression. "I was surprised you didn't try and pop that back in back at the factory," he tried to tease the man.
"Yeah, well," Steve returned, "If I had done that, you would have started yelling at me and you needed your breath for something a little more important—like breathing!" he hissed out angrily. "I figured it was the best way to get you to the hospital; if I went myself."
Danny scoffed and grimaced at the pain in his throat. "Of course I was going to the hospital, Steven. Unlike you, I know when to admit defeat. Unlike you and your inappropriate blaze of glory, I want to die many, many years from now, peacefully in my bed—not in a disused pineapple factory parking lot looking like a hotdog that had been boiled for too long—thank you very much!" he was gasping from his tirade. "I have standards, even if you don't."
"I have standards," Steve replied, getting dragged into the man's tidal wave of words with narrowed eyes. "Even if I did drop some when I made a loud-mouthed haole my partner!"
"Puh-lease!" he sneered mordantly. "I've heightened your standards, if anything!"
"More like degraded," he muttered under his breath, scratching his cheek.
"I'm you're best-friend and you know you love me!" Danny declared with a scratchy voice and a smirk. "You'd be lost without me and you know it."
"Yeah." His tone made the blond pause and look at him with lightly crinkled brows; he'd never heard Steve sound like that before.
"Steve?" he wondered.
Steve cleared his throat, his shoulder tightened up, his jaw tense as he looked down at the bedridden man. "You are not going to distract me with silver-tongued words, Daniel." He informed the blond, forcing himself to remember the man's condition and not bend over and give him a rough shake. The detective's outward appearance of what the SEAL assumed was a full-body rash, the bandaged hands, the inflamed eyes, his wrecked voice and still wheezy breaths. They were in this situation for a reason, and that reason upset him. "How the hell could you keep this in the dark?" he demanded, a sweep of the hand taking in the short man's bedridden state.
Danny sighed heavily. "I'll take responsibility for my part in this... if you do yours."
"Mine?" that actually made Steve stop and stare. "What do you mean mine?"
"Yeah, babe, you."
"You're the one laying in a hospital bed right now because you've been keeping secrets," he snapped, "and you're trying to put me under the microscope for... what exactly?!"
Danny huffed. "You know what."
Steve peered at him for a long minute before he rocked back on his heels. "You don't even know what you're talking about, do you?" he grinned a little at the revelation.
"That's absolutely..." Danny gave him a look. "True. I just went through my second worst episode of anaphylactic shock. Slowly suffocating, water boarded legally and pumped full of steroids—what do you think, Steven?" he waved his bandaged hand. "Coherence isn't exactly up to the usual standards at the moment. Alright? I admit it."
He tried to take a calming breath, but his ached. He was better definitely, but he wasn't completely over the reaction.
"Fine, then," Steve said, "You just lay there, shut up, and let me do the talking for once, okay?" he was determined to say his piece. The doctors said that he was recovering, they wanted to keep him in for at least three days until his lungs cleared up, but that was their only worry; the rash and hives and his eyes would clear up with some assistance of calamine lotion and eye drops. So he could listen. "Do you have any idea how stupid and selfish you have been? You call me reckless, but hello pot! You've been utterly irresponsible, completely inconsiderate! We're friends. Partners—that actually means something to some people." He panted lightly with emotion. Alright, so maybe he had a little less control on his emotions right now than he thought, or maybe the stress and weariness of standing by and able to do nothing wore down on his self-handling.
Danny did his bid and listened. And of course the Neanderthal didn't have the processing capabilities to separate and handle his emotional response—they were all just jumbled together, clashing and fighting for dominance. The man was a complete mess, but Danny couldn't just lay by with his next words:
"If we can't trust each other with something as important as this, then how can we—"
"If you dare finish that sentence, Steven J. McGarrett..." Danny cut him off with an uttered seethe through clenched teeth. Grabbing the rails on his bed, he pulled himself sitting upright with a grunt, his blue-eyes blazing. "I do trust you. We are friends! We are partners! You don't get to call me the hypocrite—I get to be the kettle!"
"You are the hypocrite!" Steve shouted back, his anger pushing him out of his startlement as Danny's vehement interruption. "I may run into burning building and drive cars onto freighters—but I do that to save lives and arrest suspects." Steve jabbed a finger at him, "You've hidden this deathly allergy and walk through a minefield everyday—you could have stopped at anytime! but you didn't—"
"Are you calling me a pineapple allergy masochist?!" Danny demanded, ignoring the tightening in his chest as he got worked up despite how shit he felt.
"What the hell else am I supposed to think when you don't say anything?" Steve scoffed in disgust. "It's not bullets that you should be worried about when we go out—it should have been this! because you get affected... how was I supposed to have you back?"
"I trust you, Steve. If I didn't, do you think I would let you anywhere near Grace otherwise?"
"Then what is it?" Steve threw up his hands, or at least his left hand, his other arm still confined in the sling, a steady radiation of pain coming from his shoulder, and his constant bodily-agitation wasn't helping it but he was more focused on his emotional diarrhoea right not than physical ache that he was already familiar with. "You'll trust me with your daughter, the most precious thing in your life, but you can't trust me with a stupid allergy? Trust that I wouldn't use this knowledge against you somehow? Do you actually think that I would use this to harm you?" he shook his head, wordless, utterly unable to understand his partner.
"Steve," Danny whispered, shaking his head. "I know you would never use my actual Kryptonite against me."
"Then why? Why couldn't you just tell me! What was there to be so afraid of?"
Danny looked away, swallowing convulsively. He rubbed his fingers together, irritating the rash that was painted between his fingers, reawakening the itch that the calamine lotion he was slathered in had cooled off into an irritation that could be ignore. His chest rattled lightly as he took a deep of breath as he could with his aching lungs.
"I was more than reasonably concerned like I am with most of your insane stunts," he spoke lowly, "I was inconceivably scared. Like I had a guillotine hanging over my head... and I should care about your feelings?" he asked in frustration.
"So instead of telling me—instead of letting me—us—help... you just leave me to pick and fray at the rope—oblivious, until one day you're just gone because of something I did?"
It made Danny's gut clench to know that he was one that put that devastated look on his friend's face. "I'm sorry, Steve." He croaked, forcing himself to stop scrubbing his fingers and spread his hands out on his knees covered by the thin blanket. The rash covered up forearms like a sleeve of same-shade tattoos. "I'm an adult, I thought I could handle it. I have handled it since I was six. I've only had two attacks that have landed me in the hospital like this, including this one. But then this last month, some invisible Hawaiian force must've spotted the loud-mouth haole and thought it'd be funny to see how many EpiPens it could make him use in a month. I should have told you when we first became partners and you asked me out for that slice—and I honestly can't reasonably tell you why I didn't." He ran his uninjured hand through his dishevelled, disfigured blond hair, tangling himself in the tube that led from the crook of his arm. "But I didn't, so I'm sorry."
Steve sighed heavily, suddenly deflated. He leaned a tired hip against the side of Danny's bed and ran a hand over his face. "You were being stupid, Danny."
"I was being stupid." He nodded, laying back onto the bed with a little groan. "For once, it wasn't you being stupid and reckless and putting one of us in the hospital. That's one for the record."
"Don't try and paint yourself as some saint,"
"Okay, I can be stupid sometimes."
"Then we agree."
"Wow, we finally agree on something after nine long agonizing months," Danny mused, "I must be worse off than the doctors thought."
"It only took you almost dying to admit that you were wrong and you like me." Steve flashed him an impish grin, "Maybe I should have tried killing you sooner—get a head start and drag you from your denial."
"You are the one in denial, my friend." Danny informed him, pointing, "Admittance under threat of death—we've been through this, babe."
Steve shook his head, but there was a light in his eyes. "Lie to yourself all you want. I know the truth, partner."
Danny gave a put-upon sigh that had him stifling a crackling cough. "I guess I have grown used to your Neanderthal ways and the constant threat of death you drag around on your cargo-tails." He didn't deny or outright admit, but he gave the taller man a tick of a smile. "I suppose I've had practice."
"No more deadly secrets, okay?" Danny nodded. "So... when exactly were you planning on telling me, if you ever were?"
"What? Of course I was going to tell you!" he said indignantly. "I was actually going to tell you tonight, in fact."
"Tonight, huh?"
"Yeah, tonight. When I generously invited myself over and allowed you my unsolicited civil company."
"Unsolicited," Steve agreed. "Civil?" not so much.
"Yes, civil. You animal."
Steve chuckled quietly. "Alright, so back to the new rule..."
"New rule? What new rule?" he asked.
"So this"—he gestured at Danny—"doesn't happen again, I'm going to start carrying an EpiPen around too. Because I care about you, Danno." Danny was honestly touch by the gesture. "So if and when this does happen again... I get to stab you and it'll be for completely legitimate medical, life-saving purposes." Never mind. The innocent smile was completely not believable.
Danny gaped at him. "You are intending to use this against me!" he accused.
"Only to save your life."
"Only to save my life, he says." Danny muttered, laying heavily into his flat pillow and picking at the oxygen cannula rubbing at the rash on his cheeks. "Probably better you channelling your homicidal-tendencies into in helpful medical gesture, than letting you snap and loose on the innocent people of Oahu." Steve's chuckle was a little too gleeful for his liking.
-end-
HAWAII . FIVE - 0
The toothpaste thing on rashes/hives is a thing of fiction, I believe, it was just an inspired nonsense tidbit that came to me, I do not recommend that you try such a thing. Danny's allergy came out more severe than I had originally intended. I'm not really sure how happy I am with the hospital scene and the 'confrontation' with Danny and Steve; please don't be afraid to tell me what you think.
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