So I haven't written/posted anything in what feels like forever, but I'm still around - lurking. Work is busy, so I don't get much time to write any more, plus, you know, there's that whole real-life thing that tends to get in the way of creativity. I'm probably going to get told off by some of you for writing something new when my other Five-0 fic, Stoic is still unfinished but I writes what the bunny wants, and for some reason bunny wanted a Hawaii Five-0 fic, set somewhere mid season 2, that's based on an old Baywatch episode called Armored Car.
I hope you forgive me my lurking and lack of fic-finishing, but here's some soggy Danno for you reading pleasure to make up for it. Enjoy!
Supernoodle x
15/1/2013
PS. Just in case this kind of thing bugs you, I'm English so I spell armoured with a "U". It's not a spelling mistake, it's how we spell it in England.
Danno Don't Surf
By Supernoodle
ooo
"Danno don't surf." Wasn't that what Grace Williams had told Steve on one of their first meetings? Well, it was true. Surfing was for little rubber people who didn't shave yet – and Kono. Not for a straight laced, tie wearing detective from New Jersey.
Danno don't swim on the hand wasn't true – he swam very well, thank you very much, just only when he had to. What he didn't do so well was breath under water – that was more Steve's department, and despite all the macho craziness that Steve had put himself through at SEAL school, Danny wasn't convinced his partner was actually doing any better in the situation they had found themselves in, in fact, he knew he wasn't, because so far all Steve had done was almost pop a blood vessel in his head trying to pull the huge safe off of him and yell himself hoarse.
And if Danny wasn't trapped against the bed of an armoured truck that was rapidly filling with the Pacific ocean, he'd be smug as hell.
ooo
It was supposed to be a simple PR job. Governor Denning was keen for Five-0 to have more "visibility", what with all the controversy surrounding them of late, and Danny understood - kinda. They were cops, after all, and even though they were more used to screaming around the island at a million miles an hour in a hail of gunfire and adrenalin, sometimes they had to do the less cool stuff like visit schools, and do press conferences, and promote tourism for the islands. And sometimes promoting tourism involved having your picture taken inside an armoured truck on the end of a pier with a million dollars in prize money in a giant safe that they had been brought in to guard.
The real guards were a private security company hired in by the PR company that were running the Visit Hawaii campaign, but having Five-0 on the scene made everything just that bit more exciting, or so the excitable blonde PR chick had gushed, before ushering them into the back of the truck for their pictures whilst Chin and Kono had looked on with great amusement.
"So some lucky shmuck is gonna win a million bucks and a holiday to Hawaii?" Danny had murmured to Steve out of the corner of his mouth as the photographer snapped away. "I guess you gotta take the good with the bad."
Steve had opened his mouth to reply when suddenly there had been an almighty crack as the wood of the pier beneath the wheels of the truck had given way, tipping it cab first towards the water below and sending Danny and Steve skidding backwards into the back of the truck and slamming the doors shut tight behind them. A moment later, the rest of the pier gave way and the truck fell with an almighty splash into the water below.
ooo
"Steven?... Jesus Christ, please be okay..."
Steve McGarrett had opened his eyes to his partner frantically yelling his name, and for about twenty seconds he'd had absolutely no idea where he was. What he did know was that he was freezing cold, soaking wet, and his head was absolutely killing him.
"Danny?" he'd groaned, reaching around the back of his head and letting his fingers gently explore the lump that felt roughly the size of an ostrich egg on the back of his skull, and when the bloody, blurry shapes where his fingers had once been began to vaguely resemble body parts again, he'd decided that he should at least try to get up out of the cold water he seemed to be sitting in and see what the hell Danny was yelling about.
It had taken a good five minutes for his foggy thoughts to clear enough to realise what had happened, but it was only just dawning on him now that they were actually in real trouble. The huge safe that had looked so good in the publicity photos was real, and the damn thing was heavy. Heavy enough that it had Danny pinned in the corner against the armoured metal. On one hand Danny had been lucky that it had slid back at an angle and was now wedged against something on the floor of the truck. If it had gone straight backwards, he probably would have been crushed to death, but now, on the more unlucky side of things, Danny was trapped against the far wall, pinned by the arm, with just enough room to be able to draw breath, and if that wasn't enough to make even the most unfazable man batshit crazy with claustrophobia, water was steadily pouring in through a crack in the roof. It was only ankle deep so far, but it wasn't going to take long before it started becoming a serious issue.
"Try the phone again." Steve told his partner as he felt around the safe's cold metal edges for something to get proper purchase on, gathering his remaining strength for another attempt at pulling it away.
"It's no good, Steven. There's no service."
"Try it anyway." Steve replied, and Danny dialled Chin's number for the tenth time, sighing at the beep that signalled unsurprisingly that there was still no reception twenty feet below the surface of the Pacific ocean.
Everyone had seen what had happened, Danny had no doubt that Chin and Kono were right this second arranging their rescue, and while he was far from happy about the whole situation, there wasn't a lot he could do about it either, other than wait for the cavalry, but Steve wasn't exactly a sit back and wait for help kind of guy. McGarrett had spent the past twenty minutes either trying to pull the safe off of his partner, or pacing around in the rising water like a caged animal.
"There's no signal, Steven." Danny said, putting the phone back on top of the safe. "It doesn't matter anyway. I'm sure Chin and Kono will have a crane out here, or a tug boat or whatever to drag us back to shore. Or someone's out there right now with an acetylene torch to cut open the doors."
"And what good will that do, Danny? If you could cut open the doors of an armoured truck with an acetylene torch under water, which you can't, you're still pinned." McGarrett snapped, and with those words, he grit his teeth and pulled the safe with every ounce of strength he had. The safe, however, remained where it was.
Danny heard the splash as Steve fell back in the water that was now nearly up to his waist, and just for a moment, he felt a little bit like screaming. He was nothing if not a realist, and reality was that they were trapped in what was very soon going to be a giant armour plated coffin. If they got the door open somehow, Steve was right, he was still pinned, and he would very quickly drown. But panicking wasn't going to help the situation they were in, panic rarely helped anything, and Danny took a deep breath and forced the urge to scream back down deep inside himself. "You're gonna give yourself a stroke or something, Steven." Danny said instead, hearing his partner panting with exertion over the other side of the safe.
"Think I already did..." came his partner's shaky reply, as he dragged himself out of the water and slumped against the side of the truck. He was grey faced, unsteady on his legs, and looked like he was about to puke - which Danny did not need right now. It was bad enough being ass deep in freezing water, he didn't want to be ass deep in barf as well.
McGarrett had been out for a good ten minutes after the truck had come to rest at the bottom of the sea, and Danny could see from the blood that was still trickling down the back of his partner's neck, that he had taken a pretty good hit to the noggin.
Good job he was such a knucklehead.
"You okay?" Danny asked and Steve nodded, staggering forwards until he was resting against the safe.
"My head feels a bit like it's been caved in, but other than that, I'm just great," he murmured, resting his head in his hands. "How about you?"
"I think my arm's broken, but I can't really feel it because it's pretty much completely numb. But it doesn't matter much because I'll probably be drowning in the next half an hour or so."
Steve straightened up and looked Danny straight in the eye, jaw set and eyes full of the steely determination that Danny had grudgingly come to admire. "Not gonna happen." And just for a moment, Danny completely believed him.
ooo
"So explain to me that drownproofing business." Danny called over to McGarrett who was busy fishing around, chest deep in water, trying to feel what the safe was caught on. Steve seemed to have given up on the idea of using brute strength against a 1000lb lump of metal, and was now trying to think Danny out of his fix instead. "They teach you how to breath underwater in the SEALs?"
Steve looked round the edge of the safe. "Drownproofing is just a technique that instils confidence in the water and teaches you not to panic. Just in case you find yourself in the water incapacitated or injured, you know, like now. Most people drown, Danny, because they panic."
"Huh..." Danny replied. "I thought most people drowned because they sucked down a crap load of water into their lungs."
"That's waterboarding."
"They teach you how to do that at Annapolis too?"
Steve gave his partner his most withering look. What do you have against SEALs, Danny?"
Danny shook his head. "I don't have anything against SEALs. I just struggle to get my head around the fact that someone would choose to put themselves through all that crazy stuff. Drownproofing? Hell Week?"
Steve shrugged. "I didn't exactly choose, Danny. When my Mom died, my Dad... Well, I guess he was pretty scared. He sent Mary off to live with our Aunt and I got sent to the Navy - I didn't really get that much of a say in it."
"But you wanted to be a SEAL, right?"
"It was one of my options, I guess. What with my Grandpa being in the Navy and all. I kinda wanted to play football too... There were a few scouts interested in me before my Mom died..."
Danny whistled. "Jeez, Steven. And there I was thinking that you came into the world humming Reveille."
Reveille is Army, Danny. And life doesn't always pan out the way you think it will, does it?"
"Tell me about it." Danny huffed. "If my life had panned out how I'd wanted it too, I'd still be married to Rachel and living in the same house as my daughter in Jersey, not sitting at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean in a frigging armoured truck. In Hawaii of all places."
"And what do you have against Hawaii, Danny? These island, they're beautiful... It's sunny everyday... How can you hate being here so much?"
Danny sighed. "I don't hate Hawaii. Not really. I hated the fact that I didn't get a choice about moving here. Your Dad might have been able to live without his kids around, but I can't. It already kills me that I only get to see Grace a few hours a week."
Steve nodded. "She's a lucky girl, Danny."
"Lucky, like her father?..." Danny sighed, attempting to wiggle the fingers of his trapped arm and unsure if he was moving them at all. "How long does it take before a blood starved limb drops off?"
"Your arm hurting?" Steve asked, and Danny shrugged. Not so much. Just kind of numb now. Probably from the cold more than anything, I don't really want to think-" but before he could finish his sentence, Steve had taken a gulp of air and dipped under the water.
Thirty second passed before Steve popped up again, and wiping the salt water from his eyes, he smiled at Danny's expectant expression.
"Well?"
"You are lucky, Danny. Whatever this safe is caught on stopped it from crushing your arm entirely. I don't think it's gonna drop off before we get out of here."
"But is it going to drop off before the water gets to my head, because my nipples are getting kinda chilly here, Steven, and I'm not really seeing much progress with the whole us being rescued thing."
"It's gonna take a while for them to get something big enough to pull us in to the beach... Chin and Kono won't let us down."
"Let us down, or let us drown?… I get that the logistics are going to be a little difficult here, Steven. " Danny replied, trying to pay no attention the icy tendrils of panic that were slowly wrapping themselves around his insides again. "I get that this is not an everyday situation. But the water is still coming in and pretty soon we are going to be trying to breath seawater!"
"Calm down, Danno." Steve said. "Try to control your breathing. We only have limited air."
"Yes, thank you Captain Obvious. That's exactly what I'm trying to say here!"
"Shut up, Danno!"
Danny glared up at him. "Shut up?... SHUT UP?"
"Yeah, Danno. Shut up a minute. I- I thought I heard something."
Danny opened his mouth to argue them what Steve had actually said registered in his half-panicked brain and he shut his mouth, watching his partner wade towards the doors of the truck and press his ear to the cold metal.
"Well?" Danny yelled after Steve had said nothing for nearly a minute, but he could see by the expression on Steve's face that whatever noise he'd thought that he'd heard hadn't been repeated, and the momentary spark of hope that had ignited in his heart, fizzled out like a wet match.
That was also the exact moment that Steve lost the plot.
Danny had seen his partner angry before, seen him ready to take down an entire building full of Yakuza but generally, it was with an eerie, focused laser-beam calmness that Danny guessed came from spending so many years in the military. He had never seen Steve completely lose it and he flinched as his partner threw himself against the doors of the truck, yelling an impressive array of curses that even Danny would have balked at using at the top of his lungs.
"Steve!" Danny yelled. Even from where he was wedged, Danny could see blood beginning to drip from McGarrett's knuckles as he pounded his fists against the solid metal doors and his stomach gave a queasy flip. "Steven! Stop it!"
Clutching the door lock, Steve stopped his yelling and Danny watched his partner struggle to regain his composure. For a good minute, the only sounds in the truck were the steady stream of water and Steve's ragged breathing and when Steve finally turned back to look at him, Danny could see the defeat written all over his partner's pale face.
"I can't get us out of this, Danny," he whispered hoarsely. "I - I can't... I can't do anything."
Danny swallowed dryly. Even though he knew they were in deep shit, in the back of his mind he'd somehow believed that Steve would manage to MacGyver them out of this. What was the point of having a Super-SEAL for a partner if he wasn't going to be able to make a magic safe-lifting door-opening devise out of pocket lint and a freaking neck tie? No point. That's what, and Danny closed his eyes and tried his hardest to ignore the water that was now lapping at his throat.
This was all just a bad dream. Had to be. Or some delirium brought on by some bad shrimp. Maybe the past couple of years had all been a bad dream and really he was still at home in Jersey, he was still married, his life was still good... That was definitely what was happening here, it was too ridiculous to be anything else other than a bad freaking dream...
Suddenly there came a dull thunk, followed by two more and Danny's eyes flew open, searching for McGarrett's.
Steve held his hand up to silence Danny before he spoke as the noise began again and after a dozen or morethunksSteve's face broke into a tentative smile.
Morse Code.
"Who's out there?" Danny called, unable to contain himself any longer.
Steve waited until there was no more knocking then waded to the side of the truck and using the edge of his heavy diving watch, he knocked several times in reply.
"Steve!" Danny yelled. "Goddammit, tell me who's out there!"
"It's Kono!" Steve replied. "She asked if we're okay."
"And what'd you tell her. That we're just peachy in here, because I give it about five minutes before I'm doing a Spongebob impression."
"Spongebob? What the hell is a Spongebob?"
Danny shook his head. "He lives in a pineapple under the sea, man... I know you don't have kids, but still..."
Steve looked at Danny like he'd lost his mind before knocking his watch a few more times on the side of the truck. "I told her you've gone mad, but that I'm fine" and when the half a dozen knocks that Danny assumed were a reply had finished, Steve waded back.
"They've got a JCB on the beach - they're hooking up the truck and they're going to drag us out."
Danny nodded and closed his eyes as relief washed through him. The water was now getting close to his chin and he was so cold he could barely feel his limbs, but they were going to make it... Please god, let us make it... please god, let me see Grace just one more time...
ooo
"So what would you do with the million bucks in this safe, Danno?" McGarrett asked. He had sat down as close to Danny as he could get and but the water was only just below his chin, where as it was now lapping at Danny's lips.
"Buy a couple of top of the range scuba kits?... I don't know. What the hell would you do?" He knew McGarrett was trying his best to keep his mind off the fact that he was about to drown, but this was no time for playing If I had a Million Dollars.
"I'd buy you a new house so you could stop bumming at my place." Steve replied, chuckling.
"Yeah, and I'd buy you your own goddamn Camaro so you can stop trashing mine." Danny replied, spitting out a mouthful of water. "Or how about I just leave it to you in my will? You can have my car, everything else goes to Gracie, okay? I don't have a whole lot of money saved, but it can go towards her college fund, or even a pony if she wants one. I want her to have everything she wants in life...Everything... And tell Rachel I never stopped loving her..."
"Whoa, whoa Danny. You are not dying today." Steve yelled. "You can tell Rachel yourself when we get out of this truck."
Danny peered at Steve."By the time that JCB pulls this truck up to the beach the water is going to be almost up to the roof, if you're lucky - all the way up if you're not - and I can't hold my breath that long."
Steve looked frantically up to the top of the truck. Water was still pouring in as fast as ever, and although they were definitely moving, it was almost imperceptibly slowly. Then when they got to the beach, they were going to have to either cut open the doors, which was going to take a while, or get someone from the armoured truck company to override the electronic locking mechanism.
"I'm not letting you drown today, man. And I'm not drowning either. I'm a SEAL. SEALs don't drown. End of story."
"K, good?" Danny replied, coughing out the water that had splashed into his mouth, and Steve carefully hunkered down as close to his partner as he could and cupped his hands around Danny's mouth as Danny gripped his wrist tightly.
"Whatever you do, man, just stay calm. You stay calm and you'll get out of this truck alive, I promise you, Danno. I won't let Gracie lose her Daddy."
Danny nodded, closing his eyes tightly as he fought the overwhelming surge of panic that swept through him. He wanted to believe Steve, wanted it more than anything, but he knew this was it, they were both going to die and for what? For a stupid publicity stunt.
Suddenly the truck lurched, creating a wave of water that completely submerged Danny and knocked Steve off his feet and when the SEAL managed to get back upright, he realised that the truck was now at an angle and that Danny was going to stay submerged.
"No no no!" he yelled, half wading, half swimming back to the safe, and dipping under the water, he grabbed hold of Danny's shoulder. The blond detective was frantically trying to drag his arm out of the safe's death grip, bubbles trailing from his lips and Steve grabbed his arm to stop Danny thrashing around, then the truck lurched again, and Steve was washed backwards towards the doors.
Breaking the surface, Steve coughed out a lungful of water before swimming back to his partner. There was banging on the sides or the truck, but it didn't seem to be Morse code this time and Steve ignored the noise, not even noticing that the water had stopped coming in through the roof, as he took a deep breath and dipped under the water again. Grabbing his partner's face as tightly as he could to keep him still, he pinched Danny's nose and pressing his lips firmly against his partner's, he breathed desperately needed air into his mouth.
Danny's eyes flew open in surprise and he clamped his hand over his lips to keep in the precious air as Steve broke the surface again.
Daaa Daaa Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaa!
