A/N: Sorry this is late! This week, we have Steve's reaction to George.
An office in Kaneohe on windward side of Oahu. Danny has given Kono a ride over to the crime scene in his neighbor's car. Kono is not impressed with the small creature living in the glovebox.
"Hey," Steve greeted Danny and stopped at the sight of the dead woman. "Our Midnight Stalker again?"
"Looks that way." Crouched beside the body, Danny rifled through her clothing looking for any trace evidence the perpetrator might have left behind. They'd had three other cases in the past few months and the only similarities were that the victims were smaller than average and worked a late shift on the windy side of the island. "Janice Schulz. Bookkeeper for the office here."
"Not usually a late shift job." Steve circled the woman and adjusted his holster subconsciously. "Why was she here so long after hours?"
"Not sure. Kono's interviewing her coworkers now." From the corner of his eye, Danny caught Steve giving him a quizzical once-over. "What?"
"I didn't see your car in the lot."
"That's because my car isn't in the lot." Danny didn't bother to elaborate. He felt Steve's eyes on him as he made a show of examining the wounds on the woman's torso. "Look at these stab wounds. They're all fairly shallow."
Steve barely glanced at where Danny was pointing. "So where is it?"
"Where's what?"
"Your car, D."
"In the shop."
"How'd you get here?"
"A loaner." Danny pressed his lips tightly together, determined not to grin. Making the man fish for answers was half the fun. Twisting his head, he could see his partner staring blankly into space as he mentally sorted through the cars in the parking lot and tried to decide which one belonged to Danny.
"The red Honda?" Steve tried.
His capacity for near-photographic memory was astounding, if irritating at times. "No."
"The green Jeep."
"No."
Steve sighed and thought some more. Then his brow suddenly furrowed. His nose wrinkled and he pursed his lips in evident disdain. "Not the blue Geo," he tried hopefully.
"That's the one."
"That's your loaner?"
"Yup."
Across the room, Kono was grinning as she followed the exchange.
"For how long?" Steve asked with dread in his voice.
"Until my car is fixed."
"Which is…?"
Danny shrugged. "They'll call me when it's ready."
Steve frowned and pressed his lips tightly together in clear disapproval.
"Oh, it's not that bad," Danny chided in his Parenting Voice. "You can try it out on our way back to the station. It parks like a charm." He watched Steve carefully. As expected, the man had other ideas.
"Actually, I rode over with Chin," Steve hedged, clearly intending to take the same ride back.
"I've got plenty of room in my car."
"I left my water bottle in Chin's car."
"Since when do you carry a water bottle?"
"I always carry a water bottle."
That was a lie, but Danny shrugged it off. "So just throw it in my car before we leave."
While Steve tried to concoct some excuse for why that wouldn't work, Kono appeared suddenly at their side. "Sorry, boss!" she said apologetically. "Cuz and I have to stop by Auntie's on the way back. She's not doing so well, you know?" She patted Steve sympathetically on the arm while surreptitiously winking at Danny. "We'll see you two back at the Palace."
Steve deflated.
Danny grinned openly.
This was going to be fun.
…
"What the-" Barely two minutes into the ride, Steve jerked away suddenly, slamming his body into the back of the seat as the car's third passenger made an abrupt appearance. "What the hell is that?"
"Oh. Yeah." Danny had been hoping for an impressive reveal, and George didn't disappoint. Catching his friend's surprised and somewhat unpleasant expression, Danny masked his snort as a short cough. "I see you've met George."
"George."
"Yes." Danny was driving the car, which hadn't taken much convincing after Steve had seen it up close. Apparently his partner was only a control freak when it came to pristine, expensive sport cars. Driving an old, dinged-up, blue beach buggy didn't interest the ex-SEAL in the slightest, and he had slumped low in the passenger seat as though embarrassed to be seen in it. There, his knees scrunched against the dash, he had somehow knocked the glovebox and the door had popped open, surprising him with George.
"You have a cockroach," Steve pointed out unnecessarily.
"Yes."
"In your glovebox."
"I can see that." Danny wished Kono could be here for this moment. He really needed to have Steve's expression memorialized on camera.
"There's something wrong with you." Steve's face was stuck somewhere between alarmed and horrified.
"That's my line."
"I'm serious, D. You're smiling like you enjoy this. There's something wrong with you."
Oops. Danny quickly masked his smirk into a tight-lipped grimace. "Why is there something wrong with me?" he gestured in protest. "And what do you have against the roach? Are you prejudiced against cockroaches, Steven?" Danny almost snorted as Steve puffed up in the seat next to him. Sometimes, pushing the Navy man's buttons was just too easy.
"It's a roach, Danny," Steve leaned forward and tried to snatch 'George' as it scurried away from the light. "I'm not prejudiced; it's a roach."
"Hey!" Danny swerved slightly at this sudden movement. "What are you doing?"
"Getting rid of it," Steve growled, pawing deeper into the box where George had slithered under the owner's manual. "That thing is unsanitary."
"That 'thing' has a name. George. And don't get rid of it. He's not bothering you."
"That 'thing' cannot be insulted," Steve shot back, most of his arm now swallowed by the dash. "It doesn't have feelings. It doesn't know if I call it Greg, Gloria, or Disgusting Insect."
"But I will know if you call it Disgusting Insect."
Steve stopped what he was doing and fixed Danny with a piercing stare. "You are emotionally attached to this bug."
"I am not emotionally attached to him," Danny protested.
"You've given it a name and a home. You don't want me to kill it. You're attached."
Danny bit back his initial retort and tried to decide how to best proceed. Selling the lie was proving to be far easier than he anticipated. Keeping George alive, however, would be the tricky part. "I just think that you should leave well enough alone," he said slowly as he pulled onto the H3 ramp. "George isn't bothering you; ergo, don't bother him."
"He is definitely bothering me."
"You can't even see him," Danny pointed to the dark cubby where George had disappeared. "How exactly is he bothering you?"
"His presence. Knowing that he's there."
Danny rolled his eyes. "Fine, how's this: George isn't hurting you, so you can't hurt him. The classic school-yard rule of self-defense. That's how things normally work in this world."
" 'Normally?' Danny, there is something pathologically wrong with you if you think anything about this is normal."
"Just because it's abnormal, doesn't make it wrong." Danny adjusted his shirt collar- a habit he had picked up when he abandoned wearing a tie- and shot Steve a pointed look. "Besides, he's serving a very useful purpose."
"And that would be…?" Steve questioned, still poised on the edge of his seat in case the cockroach reappeared. "Enlighten me."
"George is keeping you from storing grenades in my neighbor's glovebox."
"I wouldn't-"
"Oh yes, you would, and don't deny it. It's one thing in my car, but I can't let you use my neighbor's car as your private weapon's locker. George here," Danny gestured to the insect, which had reappeared and was peeking cautiously out from behind an old coke bottle, "is a natural grenade deterrent."
Steve opened his mouth to argue, but suddenly started and jumped back in his seat.
"What now?" Danny asked irritably.
"It hissed at me!"
"It did not hiss at you. Cockroaches don't hiss…" but a fresh look at the large, brown insect standing defiantly in the doorway of the glovebox cast doubt on this idea. "Okay, so maybe it did hiss. But it's harmless."
"It's a menace," Steve hissed back at it and scooted further away in his seat. "It's a menace and it needs to go."
…
Steve bailed as soon as the car pulled into the Palace parking lot, jumping out and slamming the door behind him before the car completely stopped. Trying not to laugh, Danny climbed out after him.
"Yo! Wait up!" he called, jogging slightly to catch up as his partner stalked toward the Palace. "Geez, what's your rush?"
"We've got a killer to find," Steve bit out, yanking open the lobby door.
"Huh," Danny followed him into the mailroom. "And here I thought you were afraid of George."
"What?"
"You clearly don't like him." Danny bounced on the balls of his feet while he waited for Steve to finish checking their mailbox. "I think you're afraid of him."
"Danny, I am a Navy SEAL." Crossing his arms, Steve drew himself up to his full height and fixed Danny with a stare that he normally reserved for criminals in their interrogation room in the basement. "I have faced down terrorists and eaten scorpions and cleared underground bunkers and traversed deserts in the most remote parts of the world. I've survived horrors you can't even imagine. I am not afraid of a cockroach."
"Uh huh," Danny turned away with a shrug that he knew would infuriate his partner even more. "That's okay, Steve. Your secret is safe with me." He headed for the stairs.
"There is no secret!" Steve bellowed after him.
A/N: I'm less happy with this chp, but I've re-read it many times and I'm just not sure what to fix. Hope Steve's reaction didn't disappoint.
Saturday we get to see Chin and Gracie!
