Way 57
Don't expect a band to play whenever you help with the housecleaning.
Danny was the type of guy who needed reassurance. He'd admitted as much to Steve when they first met, so he was also aware of it himself. Steve knew this.
And Danny, well, he was a good cop. He was good at what he did. He knew the procedural manual like the back of his hand, and made sure to let loose on his partner whenever he didn't follow it. Which was Danny's way of coping with stress. Steve knew this, too.
And while most people tended to stare in disbelief, or ask Steve questions like, "How the hell can you put up with that mouth?" or just shake their heads when Danny was in the middle of a particularly blistering commentary on Steve's intelligence, lineage or lack of common sense, Steve was okay with the verbal fruit salad. Because Danny's words and tone of voice were the temperature gauge by which he judged just how fucked up things truly were. Danny's voice belied amusement when he was just talking to talk, and Steve knew this.
But for all that Danny was self-aware enough to know he needed pats on the back from time to time; for all he was giving proper procedure lip service from dawn 'til dusk and yet still staying by Steve's side when he refused to follow said procedure; for all that Danny's rants sometimes made less sense than an infant's baby talk, well…he didn't really seem to understand that other people need kudos, too.
Other people like…well, like Steve, for instance.
Yes, Steve.
Now, Steve was the kind of guy who, admittedly, fit Danny's perception of him as a 'shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later kind of a guy.' Yeah, Steve knew he was like this.
And Steve was also the kind of guy who generally didn't give a rat's ass what anyone else thought of him, or how he did things, as long as he was successful in accomplishing his mission at the end of the day. Lots of people had problems with such an attitude, and therefore didn't think very much of the Navy-man-turned-cop. Steve knew this, too.
And for all the understanding he had about his own lack of, as Danny put it, 'mammal-to-mammal' skills, Steve was able to empathize and sympathize when necessary; he was able to get information out of people – never mind that in many cases it was simply from terrifying them into spilling their guts – and he could be understanding about other peoples' emotions even as he faulted them for feeling them to begin with. Yet where daddies and little boys and younger sisters were concerned, well, he was a bit over-the-top. And, yes. Steve knew this as well.
But the one thing Steve would've liked, embedded somewhere in one of his partner's rants, was just some sort of tiny acknowledgement that he was doing a good thing here with Five-0. That in spite of his penchant for waiting until a suspect's nearly dead from multiple gunshot wounds to worry about Miranda; that in spite of the fact that Steve was trying to improve his communication with his partner and others; and in spite of the fact that he was trying to keep from being looked upon by Hawaiians as the lolo haole with a lot of guns, the one thing Steve wasn't getting from Danny was any sort of positivity.
For a while, Steve thought maybe just the fact that Danny was still hanging around in spite of Wo Fat and Jameson, in spite of Korea and Jenna, in spite of the constant turmoil that seemed to surround Steve every second of every day, was enough of a reassurance that he was at least trying, that he wouldn't need to hear the words.
But…he did.
So when he finished cleaning out Danny's old apartment for him on the evening of the day Danny had packed all his stuff into Steve's pickup for move-out, he scrubbed the floor and bathroom extra hard. He even shampooed the rug and bleached the shower. And as a final touch, he washed the windows and even touched up some scuffs on the walls.
Yes, he knew the apartment complex was going to be destroyed, but Danny still had to get his security deposit back after all, and had made no bones about the "idiot landlord" demanding the apartments "be spotless" when the tenants left, in spite of the fact that they'd be rubble within a week.
So.
So Danny returned from his chat with the landlord and handing the keys in. The landlord was with him.
Danny's eyes widened when he stepped into the apartment, the big, fat Samoan dude with him obviously looking for anything he could find that he could claim was damage to the place.
There was nothing for him to find, and Steve knew it. Hell, he'd even sanded the rust off the elbow joint of the pipes under the kitchen sink.
After a seemingly endless forty-five minutes, the Samoan landlord finally, begrudgingly, signed a piece of paper saying Danny's full security deposit would be returned to him within seven business days via direct deposit to his bank account.
Danny looked relieved; Lord knew he needed the money, so Steve understood.
Then the landlord left, and Danny closed the door behind him. Steve stood in a lazy slouch, hands in the pockets of his cargo pants, mouth quirked up in a half-grin.
"Don't you think you went a little overboard?" Danny asked and inwardly, Steve rolled his eyes. His partner just had to focus on the negative, didn't he? "I mean, waxing the kitchen floor? Cleaning out the inside of the toilet tank? Repainting the window frame?"
Steve couldn't take it anymore, and honest-to-God pouted. "I just wanted to make sure you got your whole deposit back," he said.
Danny was quiet, and this meant, of course, that Steve just had to look up to see what sort of Danny-version of Aneurism Face he was dealing with here.
But Danny's face didn't resemble aneurisms or constipation or even annoyance. No. The man was beaming like he'd just seen Grace for the first time in a month.
"You tackle mundane shit like this the same way you do everything else, don't you?"
"I don't follow," Steve replied honestly.
"Damn the torpedoes!" Danny exclaimed, hands waving around in circles, swoops and arcs. "Full speed ahead!"
Steve shrugged. "Pretty much."
"Well," Danny said, stuffing his hands into his pockets and rocking back and forth from heels to toes as he looked around his shithole place one last time. "Thanks. For being all…" His hand flapped like he was trying to part words until he found the right one. "You."
And there.
There it was.
Steve grinned.
Danny grinned back.
All the reassurance he needed, delivered in the way only Danny could.
Maybe Danny was a lot more aware of what Steve needed, than Steve knew.
Way 58
Make sure she understands everything you're planning to do.
"Okay, we—we're going to do what now?"
"Danny, how many times do I have to go over this? It's not that complicated. I went on missions that were—"
"Steven, do not tell me about your goddamn Navy missions. We are cops, not the military! Nothing cops do should be this complicated!"
"It's not complicated!"
"Steven."
"Daniel."
"Fuck."
"You can that again. Now. Concentrate."
"Do not speak to me like I am six!"
"Just move with me."
"In case you missed it, I'm a few inches shorter than you, asshole."
"What's your point?"
"You can lift higher than I can!"
"Okay, fine, I'll bend down. How's that?"
"Height jokes with your body language. Cute."
"Danny, Christ, stop bitching and just carry!"
"Fine! I'm carrying!"
"Okay, now go a little to your right…other right, Danny!"
"Goddamn I-gotta-be-in-charge-of-every-freaking-thing—"
"Do you, or do you not, want this thing to be safe from tipping?"
"Of course I do! I don't want my baby girl's skull cracking open!"
"It wouldn't crack open on the sand, Danny, it'd just—"
"You, just…shut up. And stop glaring at me. You couldn't get a simple metal swingset, could you? No. You had to go all Rich Uncle on her and buy her the biggest, heaviest wooden jungle gym ever to exist. If I throw my back out, McGarrett—"
"Danny, you're in perfect shape, you're not throwing anything out. There…to the left about an inch. Perfect."
"I'm in perfect shape, huh? Then why do I feel like I just got hit by a pineapple truck?"
"What do you think?"
"About the pineapple truck?"
"About the jungle gym!"
"Oh. Yeah. It's good."
"Good? That's it, that's all you can say is it's good? Danny, she'll be the envy of every rich kid in her school with a playhouse-slash-swingset-slash-slide-slash-gymnastics thing."
"Steve, it's beautiful. Really. Unnecessary, because I don't want my daughter raised not understanding what it's like to be a working class schlub since that's her roots, it's just…"
"What? It's just what?"
"I just wish I'd known when I mentioned what Grace wanted that you were planning on going all gung-ho on it like this. I mean, offering your beach for her and her friends to use, getting this behemoth of a thing delivered and insisting you and I could move it even though there were three men the size of tanks that delivered it, well, it's all good, you know? But…I don't want you to think you should buy her affections like Step-Stan does."
"Danny. Hey, look at me. I know I don't have to buy Grace's affections. She's already told me she loves me, and that was when all I did was give her a conch shell I found on the beach when I went surfing one morning."
"She told you that, huh?"
"Yeah. And it was, you know, nice. And it made me feel like I wanted to repay the favor, so…jungle gym."
"Next time, Steven, maybe just try telling her you love her, too."
"Okay, but I bet that won't make her squeal like this will."
"Don't be so sure. She's got a major crush on you."
"Really?"
"Do not look so happy about that. The jungle gym's only going to make it worse."
"Then we'll tell her you bought it for her. Or that maybe the whole team pitched in or something."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"That's not necessary, it's just…you know…don't need my kid crushing on my partner. It's weird. Besides, you already get enough of that, and your ego's too inflated as it is."
"Whatever you say, Danno."
"It really is a nice jungle gym."
"Wanna try out the slide?"
"What are you, ten?"
"Come on, Danny…"
"Race you to the top."
"You're on, partner."
WARNING! Shameless Self-Promotion Alert: For those of you who may be new to me, and to my writing, I just thought I'd put a little note in here to let you know that I have a book published, available on Amazon in Kindle format. It's called "TAKERS" and if you go to Amazon DOT com (or any of the non-U.S. Amazon sites), and search for 'TAKERS Chris Davis,' you should find it easily. Send me a private message if you are unable to locate it. You can read the first four-and-a-half chapters in preview there, too. If you don't have a Kindle, there's a free Kindle for PC application you can download to your computer to read the book from. You can also check out my author blog at triple-w DOT authorcdavis DOT com.
