False alarm, no snow here yet. Have some chilly chapters anyway, and who's excited for this week's episode? I know I am. Bring on the whump and bromance, aw yeah.

Art has been added to the art page.

Shout out to Phoebe Miller for beta reading!


Fact #28: Fire breathers are furnaces with legs and scales.

Season: Midway through Season 3

"I can't believe this! What kind of morons are these guys?"

"They can't be t-t-too moronic, seeing as they actually m-m-managed to trap us."

"Fine. Maybe they're not morons, but who in the hell uses a meat locker as a trap, huh?"

"Keeps us s-s-slow without having t-t-to use drugs."

The three of them had been inside the large room for close to an hour if Danny's estimate was right. The gauge on the wall said it was a pleasant 33 degrees Fahrenheit, just the right temperature for the hanging slabs of beef and just the right temperature to make it dangerous. They had been pacing around, checking and double checking every corner in case they had missed a way out.

Unfortunately, it was a well-built meat locker.

Danny tucked his hands under his arms and exhaled a foggy breath. "I hope Kono gets here soon."

"M-m-me too, brah."

He swiveled to face his teammates. The pair of them were shivering. Hard. Their noses and ear tips were bright red and clouds of vapors from their breaths swirled above their heads.

"How c-c-come you're not sh-sh-shivering?" Steve questioned.

"Because I'm from an environment where it actually gets below sixty degrees. Trust me, this is nothing compared to some of the winters in Jersey," he said.

It was partially true. However, in his three years there in Hawaii he had acclimated to the warm weather. His blood had thinned out from what it had been.

Steve was apparently thinking the same thing. "Don't f-f-fire breathers take l-l-longer to s-s-succumb to hypothermia?"

"Th-th-their s-s-stoking chamber k-k-keeps them w-w-warm," Chin nodded.

Chin wasn't lying. However, his was dormant and the only thing keeping him warm was his body's standard response to any kind of injury or illness. If he was checked he would be declared to have a low-grade fever, but that was just how fire breathers with stoking chambers functioned. Sick? Kill it with fire. Injured? Feel the burn. Cold? Crank up the heat.

"Maybe you sh-sh-should start a f-f-fire," Steve suggested sluggishly.

"And then we'll have an oxygen problem. Do you know how much oxygen I have to inhale to stoke something, or how much oxygen a small fire eats up? We'll all suffocate before we get a chance to freeze."

"R-r-right. Didn't th-th-think about th-th-that," Steve said.

Shivering. Sluggishness. Bad judgement. Early warning signs of hypothermia. Danny looked back at the door and wondered if he could knock it down in dragon form. There was the off chance that his claws could tear through the metal and then they'd be home free.

He frowned. The meat locker was in the warehouse district. There had been people, most likely more of the bad guys, hanging around when they had tried to subdue their perp. Was there more of them out there? He may have been fire and somewhat freeze proof, but he wasn't bulletproof. And even then, if he wasn't shot and he did manage to take anyone and everyone down, unless they were dead they would know what kind of dragon he was. Even though all of the goons outside were of bad guy status, he didn't have a taste for needlessly killing people off just because they had seen him.

Looking back at Steve and Chin huddled together against the wall and taking on a more popsicle appearance by the minute, he sighed heavily. He just hoped that their rookie would ping their last known location before their cell phones were crushed under a boot and arrive with the cavalry soon.

He trudged towards them. "Scooch over."

He wedged himself between the pair of them and wrapped his arms around their backs. Diamond shaped scales overlapped on his hands up to his elbows, insulating him from the cold.

Steve's icy fingers touched his neck. "M-m-man, you r-r-really are w-w-warm."

"Hey, hey! Watch where you're putting your hands. That goes for you too, Chin," Danny snapped.

Chin kept his hands firmly pressed against his ribcage despite the warning, hugging to his side as closely as possible. Steve stiffly inched nearer until he was flush against his other side.

Danny tipped his head back, resting it on the wall. A rush of heat flared to life in his chest. He grimaced. The feeling started at the base of his ribcage where it was the most intense and then faded up to his collarbone. It wasn't as hot as usual, nowhere near melting temperatures. He wasn't suicidal.

"D-d-do you actually g-g-get c-c-cold, or are you j-j-just hot h-h-headed all th-th-the time?" Steve asked.

"I'll have you know that my temperament has nothing to do with my type. Full blood, mixed blood, or human, I would still take up issue with you being a boneheaded Neanderthal every chance you get. Do you even know how high my blood pressure shot up when I started working with you?"

Steve smirked. "S-s-so I'll t-t-take that as a y-y-yes."

"Really?"

"C-c-consider it m-m-my one q-q-question for the d-d-day."

Danny swallowed, not enjoying the acidic nature of his stoking chamber pumping heat that close to his stomach and lungs. That was one of the hazards of only partially shifting.

"Well, since I'm a man of my word, I'll answer your question," he said.

Chin raised a brow at them, but held his tongue.

"I do get cold. I do own jackets. I had to wear gloves and snow pants and a hat when I went sledding with Grace back home. I like my room to be cold when I sleep. What I don't like is that the weather is so consistent here. Every day, it's sunny and then we get a brief rain shower while the sun is still out. Back in Jersey, we had variety. Somedays it was so hot that you could smell the oil on the asphalt, somedays it was so cold that if you spit it would freeze before hitting the ground. The wind blew, there was hail, there were blizzards, there was weather!"

He coughed as he finished. It was harsh and dry. Tiny tendrils of smoke swirled away from his mouth and nose.

"Th-th-thought you said y-y-you couldn't s-s-stoke s-s-something?" Chin said and gave him a quizzical look.

"I'm not," he cleared his throat and swallowed again. The bitter aftertaste of the smoke lingered in his sinuses.

"Y-y-you dry s-s-stoking, brah?"

His silence betrayed him.

"D-d-dry s-s-stoking?" Steve echoed.

"For someone that always goes on about how you had to learn about all things dragon in the Navy, you sure are ignorant to a lot of terms."

Steve huffed unhappily and rubbed one now warmed up hand down his face. "G-g-give me a m-m-minute, my b-b-brain is f-f-frozen."

"Maybe I need to stick Super SEAL in the deep freeze more often. It slows him down enough that I can prepare better for whatever he's planning on doing or saying next."

Steve glared at him. "Dry s-s-stoking is when y-y-you h-h-heat up your ch-ch-chamber without anything in it t-t-to burn."

"Gold star to the guy that was actually paying attention in class," he said before falling into another coughing fit. More smoke curled away from him.

"D-D-Danny, you're g-g-going to h-h-hurt yourself," Steve objected.

He sucked in a chilly breath and relished the initial bite it had before it too was warmed. "I'm fine, babe, really. I've dry stoked for an entire night before."

"W-w-when?"

"Sorry. You used your free question for the day."

Chin snorted and Steve narrowed his eyes at him.

Gradually, they began to regain feeling in their fingers and the shivering died down to minor trembles. Danny had been counting the minutes since they had gotten locked inside the meat locker, but had stopped after his attention was diverted to not causing internal damage to himself. His rough estimate was that another thirty minutes had gone by since he had huddled up with his teammates.

Thirty minutes of dry stoking. Thirty minutes of acrid smoke from having nothing to burn. Thirty minutes of uncomfortable heat too close to sensitive organs. Thirty minutes of self-induced fever.

He was just really starting to hurt when there was a hiss.

The seal on the door was cracking.

He retracted his scales and brought his stoking to a grinding halt, the sudden cease in heat making him feel drained and flushed. Steve and Chin, both now more awake since they had defrosted a bit, went for their guns.

"Holy crap, it's cold in here."

"Kono!"

"Steve? Are Danny and Chin in here, too?"

"All three stooges are accounted for, and might I add, you are like a glorious ray of sunshine on a cold winter's day," Danny patted her arm as the three of them nearly bolted from their cold prison.

"A freezer? Really, guys?" Kono shook her head and followed them out into the mild Hawaiian temperatures that permeated the warehouse. "Only you guys would get trapped in a freezer."

Danny glanced around at all the activity. HPD was crawling the premises, leading various handcuffed men to cruisers and collecting evidence for the case. Kono had indeed brought the cavalry.

Donning a proud grin for their rookie, he made a beeline for one of the doors.

"Danny," Steve jogged to catch up to him. "You doin' okay?"

He set his hand against his chest and waved the other at the warm light beaming down on the cars parked outside. "I'm no longer confined in a tiny place and slowly being frozen to death with you, so I am doing fantastic, thanks."

"Come on, man, dry stoking is tough on the body."

"No, working with you is tough on the body," he corrected. His face pinched as a rolling wave of heat made his ears burn and his stomach churn.

"Woah, you going to be sick?"

"I just need to cool down. Get the message across to my body that I'm no longer in peril and let my stoking chamber take the rest of the day off."

"How about a nice cold beer at my place?"

"Beer?"

Chin and Kono approached the pair of them. Kono looked hopeful at the prospect of getting to chill out after performing a rescue in under two hours. Danny didn't blame her. He had been the lead on last minute raids and rescue missions before, and it was a nerve wracking job. Cold beer was a heavenly reward at the end of a situation like that.

"Yeah, sure. We all need some time to kick back. Everyone want to meet at my place?"

"Totally. I'll finish up here and be over in no time."

Chin rubbed his hands together and turned on his heel. "I'll stick around and wait for her."

After watching the cousins walk back into the flurry of officers, they both made their way back to the Camaro with the intent of clocking out. Before they could get in the car, however, Steve paused and caught Danny's eye over the top.

"Mahalo, brother."

Danny nodded. "Couldn't have you losing your fingers to frostbite. Then how would you load your grenade launcher?"

They grinned like brothers do after surviving an incident.


I guess it's standard procedure that once you've been in the Five-0 fandom long enough you throw them into a freezer at some point. Think it's the juxtaposition of freezing to death in Hawaii?

Art has been added to art page. Note me if you still need the link (has to go through PMs, so I can't send it if you're not signed in or your PMs are disabled).

Thursday on "Dragons", the team has a debate over flavors of shave ice and Danny wonders how you can taste a color.

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