*dances* Oh yeah. This was a fun one to write. Hopefully it's a fun one to read.
Shout out to Phoebe Miller for beta reading, and especially for helping me through some parts I struggled with.
Fact #129: Appearances can be deceptive.
Season: Between 4th and 5th Seasons
Steve had him cornered.
Sweat poured between his shoulder blades, his shirt stuck to him, his breaths came quick and heavy. He slowed them down, sucking in deeper and slower intakes of air now that he was at a standstill with his gun leveled at their latest suspect.
They had gone through a roster of them this morning. With no cooperation from Agata, they'd been forced to dig up their own leads and decide which ones were the most viable.
At first, Evan Perez had been low on their priority list, mostly because he had no known ties to the Yakuza. After some arguments from all sides over gut feelings, evidence, grasping at straws, and smoke, they had decided to pay him a visit.
Low and behold, he had split like a jackrabbit as soon as he'd spied them through his window.
Steve blinked sweat out of his eyes. It was hot today. Humid. Sticky. Bad day for a foot chase.
"Put your hands up, Perez. You've got nowhere to go," he said.
He had nowhere to go unless he made the rash decision to take a twenty foot dive off the house they were on, and the way he was eyeing the ground below made that a possibility. Perez would wind up with a broken ankle or leg if he stuck it wrong, possibly even worse. They needed him alive and talking.
"Drop the gun and put your hands behind your head," he repeated.
Perez edged back, shaking his head. His gun wavered.
"Don't do it, Perez," he warned.
He didn't think he'd be able to cover the distance in time to keep him from falling or turning the gun on himself. Perez was on the other side of the roof, trying to put peaked archways over windows between him and Steve. Unfortunately, he'd run out of roof and Steve was steadily closing in.
The gun turned in his hand.
Steve leapt forward vainly. "No!"
A fist snapped Perez's head sideways and the gun fell from his grasp. He teetered on the edge of the roof. That same fist grabbed his shirt and yanked him back to safety.
Steve lowered his gun. "How the hell did you get up here so fast?"
Danny kneeled on Perez's back, jerking his hands behind him and securing cuffs on him. "It's called stairs, Steven. You should try them sometime. They're actually a pretty useful invention. You see, I asked the owner if I could use their stairs and bedroom window to get up here. They were glad to oblige a police officer. And then when I get up here and pop the window open, what do I see? I see you about to herd our only lead off the edge of the roof like you're a caveman hunting a mammoth. What is the matter with you? We need this guy alive."
Steve shook his head at the wall of words. "Well, we've got him now."
"Yeah, and not in a body bag, thanks to me," Danny said. He hauled Perez up by an arm and the back of his shirt.
Steve frowned at the scrapes on the right side of his face. They hadn't started the foot chase with those. He was sure they hadn't been there until Danny had punched him.
"You got him good, buddy," he commented. The scrapes were from scales. They left a distinct mark, he should know. "Book 'em, Da–"
"Oh no! You book 'em, Steven. I'm going to go clean up your mess. I've got to apologize to some poor houseowners because somebody broke a window and tore down a lattice." Danny shoved Perez towards him.
Steve caught the stumbling man and stared after his partner. "You okay, Danny?"
"Peachy. It's not like I've got a headache and am sleep deprived or anything."
Danny disappeared back through the window he'd come through. Steve stayed standing where he was for a moment, both contemplating and admiring his partner's move, until Perez groaned.
"I think I swallowed a tooth," he said.
Steve grasped his shoulder and steered him towards the window. "You picked a bad day to get on Danny Williams' nerves."
Catherine joined him for the interrogation. He figured he'd let Danny have a moment of rest, maybe nap for a few minutes on the couch in his office, give him some space to recover. Really, though, he wasn't in the mood to catch more backlash off of Hurricane Williams.
"You should've let me go, man, you should've let me go," Perez said.
Sweating profusely, trembling in the metal chair of the interrogation room, he resembled a drowned rat more than a drug dealer. Steve had concerns that he was on something.
"You high?" he asked.
Perez wiped his face on his shoulder. "I wish, man, I wish. Being high is so much better than being terrified for your life."
Steve shared a look with Cath. Unlike Agata and Malone, Perez was shaping up to be much more talkative. They hadn't even started and he was already spilling out tidbits they didn't know.
"Who are you afraid of?" Cath asked.
"No, no, no, no, no," he whispered, shaking his head. "I can't. I can't. Just let me go, man."
Steve flipped through the file in his hand casually, taking his time. Danny and Chin had taught him the importance of letting someone stew. Perez probably lost four pounds in sweat by the time he finally started talking.
"Where were you last night at seven thirty?" Steve asked.
"Nowhere. I was nowhere. At home. I was at home. Doing nothing. I was nowhere because I was at home doing nothing," Perez said in one of the least convincing lies that had ever graced Steve's ears.
"Uh huh," he said.
"So, you weren't outside of a certain theater downtown?" Cath asked with a raised brow. She looked seconds away from laughing at how pathetic Perez sounded.
"A theater? No, no, man. I don't have money to go see dancers and stuff," Perez said. He shrugged. Or he did something akin to a shrug, but much stiffer and shakier.
Steve looked up at him over the edge of the file. "How'd you know there were dancers at the theater?"
Perez swallowed hard. His Adam's apple bobbed up and down like a bobber on a fishing line with a shark hooked on it.
"Here's how it's going to go, Perez." Steve closed the file and bent at the waist to look the man in the eye. "You're going to tell us exactly what happened, and maybe we can protect you from whoever you're scared of. But you have to give us a name to start with."
"I don't think you federales can protect me. People in witness protection get whacked all the time," Perez said.
"It's safer than being on the streets with zero protection," Cath said.
Steve straightened up. He pointed at him with the file. "And if Agata strikes a deal with us first–"
"Wait! You arrested Agata?" Perez questioned. He looked around warily, as if expecting her to materialize in the room with them. "Oh no, no, no, no, no. Is she here?"
Cath cast a glance at Steve before answering. "She's in a secure holding cell. She's not going anywhere."
Perez leaned forward against the cuffs latching him to the chair. "Does she know I'm here?"
Steve had the feeling they had found the information they needed to get the answers they wanted. He allowed himself an internal grin while keeping his face neutral. He gestured to the door.
"No, but I can go let her know that her good friend Evan Perez is here."
"No!" Perez shouted, his once timid voice surprisingly loud and booming against the concrete walls.
Steve crossed his arms over his chest and waited.
"No," Perez said quieter. "You can't tell her I'm here. She'll kill me."
"She's in our custody. She's not killing anybody," Steve said. He knew a defeated posture when he saw one, and Perez was a perfect example of one. He was slumped so far forward in the chair that if he wasn't cuffed to it, he would've been on his face on the floor. "Let's start at the beginning."
"I'm Agata's contact on the island," Perez said.
"Contact for what?" Steve asked.
"When her troupe comes to town, she brings in packages and I pick them up from the theater," he said.
"Drugs?"
"Maybe. I don't look in the bags, but it's not that hard to figure out."
That jived with what Fong had said was in the black bag they'd found at the theater. He'd found trace elements of some kind of hallucinogenic, but had been unable to tell them more.
"So, you'd pick up the bags from Agata and deliver them to the Yakuza?" Cath surmised.
Perez furrowed his brows at her. He gave Steve a confused look as well. "Yakuza? No. I mule for the Columbians."
He hadn't had enough of a break to be doing this again so soon, but Eliot was never one to complain about his own injuries. Unless Parker was poking at them.
The Columbian struggled to get out of his chokehold. His nails scrabbled at Eliot's arm uselessly. Dense scales deflected every scratch, making it easy enough to keep a hold on him while braced in a corner. Getting him into the chokehold had been the problem, now that he was in the chokehold it was a piece of cake.
"Quit fightin'," Eliot growled. "I just gotta ask you a question."
"…the hell are you?" the man choked out.
"Right now I'm the guy who could crush your windpipe with another pound of pressure," he said. "What were you doing headin' towards HPD?"
The man tapped his arm. Eliot rolled his eyes and loosened his hold a fraction.
The man gasped for breath. "Scouting out an extraction."
Eliot frowned. "For who?"
"Got one of our best dealers in there," the man said.
That struck him as odd. With Agata's ties, he would have pegged her as a mover for the Yakuza, a gang that had a much stronger presence on the islands than any others.
"Sounds like Agata is dealing for the Columbians, not the Yakuza."
It sounded like it didn't make sense to Nate, either.
"Does the Yakuza know?" Eliot questioned.
"They might now," the man hissed. He froze. "Wait, you're not working for them?"
"Ask him who Agata's contact is."
"Hey, who moves the drugs from the theater to your warehouse?" Eliot asked.
"Don't know. Some low level punk named Perez, I think," the man said. "Seriously, who are you? Are you part of Five-0?"
Eliot ignored him, focusing on the voices in his ear. "You get that?"
"Loud and clear. Currently tracking down a guy named Perez. Not like a million other people have that name, but it's cool."
He jerked his arm. "You got a first name?"
The man shook his head as best he could.
"Uh oh."
"What do you mean, uh oh?" His frown sharpened into a scowl.
"Five-0 already has one Evan Perez in their custody. They snatched him off the streets an hour ago."
"Nate, I ain't bustin' into Five-0's place to grab the guy," Eliot said.
There was a moment of silence where if he listened intently, he could hear the gears turning in Nate's head.
"Maybe we don't need to."
"We were looking at the wrong gang," Steve grunted.
The elevator ride back up to the offices was taking too long for his liking. Every second that ticked by allowed the other players of the game to either plan their moves or conceal them. He didn't want to think about how long it would have taken them to finally look at the Columbians had Perez jumped from the roof.
"I want you to locate their hangouts and get what HPD has on them. We have some files stored from when Interpol came down on them and the Yakuza a couple months ago," Steve directed as the elevator pings and the doors slid open.
Cath followed in his wake. "I bet relations between the gangs aren't on very good terms after that whole fiasco."
"Makes me wonder if the Yakuza found out and were attempting to mop up whatever mess Agata had created," he said.
Cath split off from him towards her office and he went into his. He didn't recall names like Isaac Mann or Akio Ikeda or Evan Perez appearing in the reports from the massive takedown last fall. Either they hadn't turned up in connection with the investigation, or they were new faces.
Whatever the case may have been, he wanted to get out ahead of it before they had a gang war being waged on the streets of Honolulu.
He glanced up from his laptop as Kono came stalking in.
"Kono, can you ask Adam–"
"You need to talk to him."
He diverted his full attention up to her at the tone of her voice. It was dangerously low.
"Who? Adam?"
"No. Danny."
He looked at the bullpen where Danny was hunched over the smart table. Seems like he didn't take a nap like Steve had hoped he would with the precious spare minutes he'd been given.
"What'd he say now? Did he threaten to have you wash his car again?" he asked.
Kono narrowed his eyes at him. His slight amusement dissipated rapidly. She was stiff, hands on her hips, lips pulled into a flat line, brows lowered, jaw clenched. She wasn't irritated. She was pissed.
"Kono, what happened?" he asked.
"I don't tattle on my teammates. I can handle myself. But you've gotta talk to him. Something is eating at him, and he just took it out on me," she said quietly, firmly, leaving no room for him to wriggle out of it.
Steve sighed. "Okay. I'll talk to him."
He followed her to his door and didn't miss how she gave Danny a wide berth.
"Hey, Danny."
"What."
"Come into my office for a moment," he said.
Danny pushed away from the smart table and walked heavily over to him. Steve wondered if his knee was aggravating him, given that he had a slightly limp. An in pain Danny could be venomous, but he wasn't sure he'd ever seen his ire directed anywhere but at him or Rachel. It wasn't often Danny snapped at Chin or Kono.
Steve closed the door behind them, nodding to Kono. Then he faced his partner. "Take a seat."
"I'm fine," Danny said. He stayed standing with his arms snaked snugly across his chest, favoring one leg over the other.
Steve mirrored him, but kept his arms lowered at his sides. He needed to approach him like he would an approach a bomb that may or may not go off at any second.
"You okay?" he asked.
The flicker of annoyance that flashed across his partner's face wasn't promising.
"Why does everyone keep asking me if I'm okay? I'm fine, I'm fine! I got into a brawl yesterday. Of course I hurt! I'm black and blue and have stitches in my arm, but hey, what's new? It's just par for the course in this forsaken job I got shanghaied into doing," Danny said. His hands twitched at his sides, fingers curling into fists.
Steve scooched an inch back. He was wary of catching a fist to the face and wanted enough distance to be able to duck this time.
"Okay. I believe you," he lied. Something wasn't right. He should've followed up on his initial gut reaction to Danny punching Perez on the roof. "What did you say to Kono? I've never seen her that mad at you."
Danny twisted on his heel and shot a dirty look at Kono on the other side of the room. Steve was glad her back was turned and she didn't see his look, or she may have marched over with her sleeves rolled up. Breaking up a fight between his teammates was not on his docket today.
"Daniel. What the hell is going on?" he questioned, voice dropping to no more than a growl.
"You want to know what's going on?" Danny asked.
His tone was uncharacteristically soft. It sent chills down Steve's spine and raised goosebumps on his arms. Pale blue eyes that were usually tired, usually glinting with intelligence, usually with an ornery spark in them, turned on him and his palms went cold.
"I hate this job. I hate this island. I hate that I'm thousands of miles from my family. If it wasn't for Grace still living here, I would be gone. Back home where my family is, where my old precinct is, where my partner's buried," Danny said through gritted teeth. His hands freed themselves from under his arms. "But you know what I hate most about this place?"
Steve opened his mouth, hands raising into a halting gesture.
"You!" Danny roared.
Steve closed his mouth and his hands fell.
"I hate you so much!" Danny's hands sliced through the air, his familiar gesturing tainted with a certain lividity Steve didn't think he'd ever seen before. "I was a good cop before you, in all your stubborn, caveman, Navy SEAL glory, barged into my life without a concern for me or anyone else! All you cared about was revenge, and by god, you were going to get it no matter what. You got me shot within twenty-four hours of knowing you! And then, you yanked me from HPD and threw me onto your little Justice League along with a disgraced cop and a washed up surfer."
He'd heard this spiel before, but this time, it was so angry. So serious. So laced with hatred.
"God, Danny, where is all this coming from?" he asked.
Danny squared his shoulders, closing the distance between them. Not all the way. Just enough to invade his personal space.
"I'm not finished," he hissed.
Tactical maneuvers started to run through Steve's head to subdue him if need be. So far, he didn't see any sign of him shifting, but he was a quick shifter, and even without shifting he could put up a decent fight.
"But I couldn't go back to HPD after your little stunt, because they didn't trust someone who would work with Chin Ho Kelly and his rookie cousin. It was bad enough me being a haole from the mainland, but then when you came along? It erased everything I'd built over the last six months. And then Meka got reassigned partners because I just up and vanished to play superhero with your immunity and means squad."
"Danny–"
"And then he died!" Danny flung his arms out to the sides. "And you know what? I'm dumping that on your head, too. If you hadn't made me join your taskforce, I would've still been Meka's partner, and then he may still be alive today to raise his kid!"
"Or you might've been dead, too, Danny! Did you think of that?" Steve yelled back at him. He anchored himself where he stood, planning on not letting Danny herd him back into the corner anymore. He hadn't even realized that's what had been happening.
Danny dragged his fingers through his hair and paced away. Steve used the reprieve to get out of the corner and into the open. He could feel the others' stares on them through the glass.
"That's not all," Danny said breathlessly. He laced his fingers behind his neck and rolled his head back, chest heaving for oxygen after his tirade.
"Yes, it is," Steve said.
"You put Grace in danger."
Steve's eyes widened. "What?"
"I was always a cautious shifter. Before I met you, anyway," Danny said. His volume had lowered from wall shaking to library appropriate. "I don't care what Jayne said. Cliffs are rare, and people will hunt them down."
Steve took a deep breath in to calm his nerves.
"Hell, Marilyn almost had me," Danny continued, his gaze sweeping up to the plaques and awards and pictures on the walls and eventually up to the ceiling. "Her prize Cliff. Like I was Secretariat or some other damn racehorse or something. What if someone like that finds out about Grace? Finds out this Cliff has a daughter, even if she's not a full shifter? No. No. I'd rather be locked back in that shipping crate than anyone touch her."
Steve ran a hand over his face, desperate to make sense of where all of this was coming from. "Nightmares?"
Danny nodded and shrugged. "I don't care. I really don't. I can have nightmares all night and day. I'll live. But Grace? Not my baby girl. She's not allowed to have nightmares like that. And that's your fault."
"Mine?" he asked. He didn't think he'd been accused of so many things all at once. And out of all the things he'd been accused of thus far, being accused of being the cause of Grace's suffering hurt the most.
"Wo Fat is your enemy. Not mine," Danny said. He lowered his eyes to lock onto him. "If I had never met you, she never would have been kidnapped by him. She should be worried about cheer practice and, lord help me, crushes on boys. Not whether or not a monster is going to kill me or you and then come for her."
His heart thudded unevenly in his chest. "Danny, I'm sor–"
Danny held up a hand. "I don't want to hear it. You don't know how many times in my life I've heard 'I'm sorry'. I heard it at my partner's funeral. I heard it when Rachel and I got divorced. I heard it when I had to move. I heard it when Meka died. I heard it with Matty. I don't want to hear it anymore."
Steve nodded slowly.
"I'm just waiting for the day when I hear it because of you."
He refrained from asking why him again.
"I started shifting more because of you," Danny said. He pointed at him. "I let my walls down because of you. I was fine having no friends. Everyone leaves me, anyway, including my own brother. It's easier to not have any attachments."
Steve watched with a sinking feeling as Danny unclipped the badge from his belt.
"But then this stubborn ass came into my life and insisted I be a part of his ridiculous little ohana, and all the sudden I was attached again," Danny said. He tossed the badge onto his desk.
Steve couldn't tell if the look in his eyes when they raised back up to him was anger or sadness.
"But this time…this time I'm not waiting to hear 'I'm sorry' because of you, or Chin, or Kono, or Catherine, or anybody else," he said.
Steve stayed rooted to the spot as Danny walked out of his office. It took him a full thirty seconds to kick into gear and tear through his door. The others stood there waiting for him.
"What happened?" Kono asked, her anger with Danny forgotten.
Steve looked at the badge in his hand, the one he'd grabbed off the desk and was still warm from sitting on his partner's hip. "I don't know."
"He's running on fumes, brah," Chin said evenly.
"We all are," Cath agreed.
"This was different," Steve said. He gripped the badge.
Chin put a hand on his chest. "Let him cool off. Remember when Meka died? He essentially quit and walked out the door. I found him nursing a beer later and got on even ground with him."
"I'm almost sorry I said something," Kono muttered.
Steve shook his head. "No, you were right to come to me. He needed to get something off his chest, and I'd rather him explode at me than intermittently snap at you guys."
They stood in silence for a while. The waves of uncertainty and worry lapped around their ankles like the eerie calm when the eye of a hurricane passed overhead. The wind didn't blow. The rain didn't pound down. All was quiet.
"I think I found the Columbians' stash house," Cath finally broke the silence.
Needing something else to focus on, Steve took the file from her. "Chin, call SWAT. We're kicking down some doors."
Eliot pulled Sophie out the back exit into the alleyway. He pushed her ahead of him, shielding her in case someone came after them with an itchy trigger finger. He could see their rented Lucille down the street.
"Move, move! This place is gonna be crawlin' with cops in a minute," he said.
"So bloody glad I don't have heels on," Sophie said.
She lunged into the open back doors just as an armored SWAT truck pulled up at the other end of the alley. Eliot yanked them shut, slamming against them when the van leapt away from the curb like a scalded rabbit.
"They got here quick," Parker commented.
They melted into normal traffic and watched the cops blaze by with the other civilians. No punches had been pulled with this raid. Someone must have been paranoid. Or mad.
"Frickin' Five-0 drives at warp speed," Hardison said under his breath from his computer station.
Nate cast a glance at them over his shoulder. "You get what we needed?"
"They didn't seem too happy to see us," Sophie said. She made her way up to the front of the van and crouched behind the passenger seat. "I managed to convince them we were dirty Interpol agents who could help them with their current situation."
"Your glitchy ID almost got me shot," Eliot growled at Hardison.
He raised his hands. "My bad! Nate went over a pothole the size of a small country and I pushed the wrong number."
"Did you find out what Agata was bringing in for them?" Nate asked.
"Ecstasy," Eliot said. "Some weird, experimental type from Japan. Might be cut with tainted stuff."
Nate lifted his shoulders in a shrug. "Well, at least they won't get a chance to sell it. Not with that many cops descending on them."
"They were jumpy, Nate," Sophie said. "I overheard two of them talking about the Yakuza knowing about Agata and them now."
"Hold on," Hardison said. He leaned back from his computer. "With Agata in custody and with Five-0 shutting down the Columbians as we speak, won't they just leave it be? They won't have anything left to take care of."
"You forgot the oldest motivation in the book, Hardison," Nate said, looking at him in the rearview mirror.
"What's that?"
"Revenge."
Steve dropped his phone to his desk and leaned back in his chair, cupping his hands over his face. He released a long and deep sigh that drained the air clear to the bottoms of his lungs.
"Steve?"
He glanced over at Cath in the doorway.
"You get an answer from the college?" she asked.
"No. And Max's tests came back inconclusive again," he said.
Ikeda's toxicology report they'd received that morning from the ME's office had been rather vague. The autopsy itself hadn't been conclusive, either. Max had explained that it looked like a heart attack, but the heart itself appeared healthy as did the victim as a whole.
"Anyone talking yet?" he asked.
They'd cherry picked a few of the Columbians they'd captured during the raid for interrogation. Chin and Kono were grilling one while they let the others stew.
Cath shook her head. "No one knows Mann or Ikeda. From what we've heard so far, they only know Agata and Perez. You think the other two could've just been collateral damage?"
"Maybe." He leaned forward and rested his forearms on his desk. "We still don't know who killed Mann and Ikeda, or if their deaths were actually homicides. There weren't any defensive wounds on Mann and now Max's random heart attack theory is appearing more sound with the feedback I'm getting from him, the lab, and the college on the toxicology report."
"You think Mann decided to hang himself on the same night Ikeda had a heart attack and Agata made a run for it?"
"No. But we don't have anything to suggest otherwise. With the cameras having been down, Malone's alibi checking out, our only two witnesses dead, and Agata not talking, I don't have anything else to go on. Not until we get something to leverage Agata with," Steve said. He slammed the heel of his hand against his desk.
Cath watched him with a soft eye. "You hear from Danny yet?"
He snorted, but shot a glance at his phone. "No."
"Two hours might have been enough time for him to cool off," Cath said.
"Or enough time for him to find something else to accuse me of," he said. He looked up at her, brows pinched together and mouth drawn down. "Do you think he'd really quit?"
"Honestly? No. He's too stubborn to just walk out on his job," Cath said. She tilted her head to the other side and perked a brow at him. "But, he's dramatic enough to quit in the heat of the moment."
It made him feel better to hear that someone else thought the same as he did. To him, it had always seemed like Danny loved his job. He was born to be a cop. He appreciated justice. He liked helping people, no matter how much he grumbled about it. He was too compassionate just to sit by and do nothing. He'd taught him the finer points of being an officer of the law, like how to book a suspect.
Steve felt a bit sick wondering if he had read him wrong all these years. Had the job been that much of a burden on him?
"I'm going to go ruffle some feathers. You want to come with me?" Cath asked.
He slowly took his phone into his hand. "I'm going to finish up here, then I'll meet you down there."
Cath nodded knowingly and left.
His thumb hovered hesitantly over Danny's name in his favorites.
I hate this job. I hate this island. I hate you so much.
He didn't think Danny had ever told him he hated him. Hated his methods, sometimes, but not him. Hated the thought he might leave Grace fatherless because of this job. Hated that there was no snow in the winter and it rained when the sun was out on the island.
Wo Fat is your enemy. Not mine. You put Grace in danger.
His fingers curled away from the screen. His nails bit into his palm as he clenched his hand into a tight fist.
If I had never met you, she never would have been kidnapped by him. You put Grace in danger. I hate you so much.
He went from his favorites to his contacts, selected the name he wanted, and held the phone up to his ear. That didn't sound like Danny talking. That sounded like…
"Hello? Steve?"
"Rachel," he greeted.
"What's wrong?"
"Has something happened recently?"
"How do you mean? Is everything alright?"
"You didn't serve Danny with more papers, did you?" he asked bluntly.
"What on earth are you talking about? I haven't done anything to Daniel."
That was up for debate, but Steve could sense the honest confusion in her voice. His theory on her having riled Danny up started to take on water. "Have you heard from him recently?"
"Last night after Grace and I left the theater. And I received a voicemail from him this afternoon."
He sat up straighter. "Why?"
She made a huff on the other end. "I should have known something wasn't right. I thought it was because you were working a big case."
"What did he say?"
"He canceled Grace staying with him this weekend. Hold on, let me listen to the voicemail again."
It was only Tuesday. For him to preemptively cancel on having Grace this upcoming weekend didn't make sense. Chances were, they'd have this case closed or close to wrapping up by that time. He didn't think Danny would bail completely on being with his daughter, even if he was working and had to make some time to see her. He'd still see her.
"Steve?"
"Yes?"
"He sounded agitated. He didn't really give a reason why she couldn't go over, he only said he needed some time alone."
He stood up from his desk and grabbed his truck keys. His initial reaction on the roof had been that something wasn't right, but the blow up in his office had derailed that thought. Hearing this, though, put him back on that track. Something wasn't right with his partner and he needed to find him.
"Something's gone wrong, hasn't it? Is he going to be okay?"
"So long as I have something to say about it. Gotta go, Rachel. Let me know if you hear from him again," he said.
He rushed out of his office over to the smart table. Bringing up the GPS service, he tapped Danny's phone. They had shortcuts to locating their phones just in case one of them was kidnapped and the kidnapper forgot to toss their phone.
"Damn it," he muttered. His phone must have been off.
He brought up the Camaro's GPS instead. It was still on. He forwarded the information to his phone and bolted from the bullpen. He nearly bowled Chin over as he stepped off the elevator.
"Steve?" Chin questioned.
"I'm going to go find Danny. Call me if the Camaro moves, got it?"
"What's going on?"
"I don't know."
Steve despised those words. He really did. 'I don't know' was a horrible thing to hear and a horrible thing to say. Not knowing drove him nuts. Not knowing who had been behind his father's death, not knowing how he was going to get out of prison after being framed, not knowing his mother was still alive, not knowing what was going on with Danny at this very moment. It was frustrating.
He let off the gas.
This was roughly the area where the Camaro's GPS said it should be.
He rolled the window down. The heat had lessened a little with the oncoming storm moving in, the gray rainclouds clotting in the blue sky and choking out the sun. The humidity was something else, though. It was stifling, and he was a native. And part Amphibian.
Checking his phone to make sure he was in the right place, he frowned as he looked back out the window.
It was an odd neighborhood for Danny to have wound up in. It wasn't even much of a neighborhood. It was one of the many roads that twisted away up into the mountains. Driveways shot off the main road and led down to houses hidden in the lush greenery. They weren't big houses. Most of them were trailers.
He spotted the black tail end of the Camaro up ahead.
It was pulled to the side of a driveway and two men were standing around it talking and scratching their heads.
Steve set his hand on his holstered gun as he rolled to a stop beside them.
"What's going on here?" he asked.
One of the men gestured at the Camaro. "Dunno. Some lolo parked here and disappeared. Probably some tourist taking a hike down to the stream. They do this all the time, man. Blocking my driveway. That's why I finally put a sign up."
"Didn't do ya much good," the other man said.
"Where's the stream?" Steve asked.
"Hey, you can't park here, too," the man said.
Steve flashed his badge.
The man grunted and threw a hand up. "Guess I don't gotta go to town until tomorrow."
He killed the engine and stepped out. "You guys see who was driving this vehicle?"
"Sorry, brah. It was here when I came down to get the mail," the man said.
"So where's this stream?"
The man pointed further up the road where Steve could barely make out a trail starting off the road and heading downhill through the ferns.
"Not many people know about it, but some tourists manage to find it anyway," the man said. He eyed the badge and gun on Steve's hip. "Is this guy a criminal?"
"Let's just say he can be a dangerous man, so I suggest you head back inside," Steve said.
He was getting bad déjà vu of tracking a drugged Danny up into the jungle only to have him shift and attempt to maul him to death. He didn't want any civilians to get caught in the middle of another possible brawl. And with Danny's words still ringing in his ears, he didn't want to risk exposing his partner to any unwanted attention.
The men complied and headed back down the driveway at a quick pace.
Steve set his jaw and began to walk up the road.
Thunder rumbled distantly. The jungle had fallen into shade. A breeze rustled the ferns and the leaves in the canopy. All sounds of civilization had been left behind, replaced with the sound of nature breathing. A deep breath in and out, cool and smelling of rain. A drop landed on his arm.
He cast a glance down to the driveway to make sure the men weren't lingering. Seeing no one, he crouched and flickered out his tongue. He pressed the partially shifted tongue to the roof of his mouth. He'd know that scent anywhere.
Danny had come through here.
Ferns came up to his knees and occasionally his waist as he traversed the trail down the hill. More drops plopped on the back of his neck. The fronds bounced and shuddered with the dual disturbance of the breeze and the starting rain shower.
He kept a wary eye out for any sign his partner had veered off the trail. He also kept a keen ear listening for something bigger than a man, but the rain began to come down heavier as the trees swallowed him up. The constant thrum of the storm made it difficult to hear smaller sounds.
Here under the canopy where not as much sun could get through, the ferns were sparser and not packed as densely together. Breaks in the trees let droplets through. His shoulders steadily became soaked as did his hair.
He finally caved. "Danny?"
The rain pitter-pattered on the leaves, thumping on the ground all around him. Somewhere up ahead he could hear the stream gurgling. It was probably swelling from rain in the higher mountains.
He couldn't see him. Couldn't hear him. There was nothing.
Forcing his brain to not panic and to focus, he looked down at the trail. Someone had traveled on it recently. The shoe prints didn't belong to hiking boots or tennis shoes. They were loafers. Fresh. An overturned rock told him Danny had stumbled a little, but kept moving forward.
"What're you doing out here, bud?" he asked under his breath.
It was a strange place. He didn't even know this little trail and stream existed, so he doubted Danny knew about it. Which led him to wonder how he came to be here, and why. His tirade, his headache, his actions, something was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. And Steve berated himself for not acting sooner.
"Danny?" he called again.
He came up to the stream. It wasn't anything super impressive. Shallow on a day without rain, only ten feet wide. It was extremely peaceful. Birds chittered on the other side where he couldn't see the trail picking up anywhere.
He shivered. The rain wasn't cold. It soaked his shirt and ran down the middle of his back, but it wasn't cold.
As he turned on his heel to start searching the banks, he saw him.
"Danny!"
Steve ran to him and dropped to his knees on the wet ground beside him. He was propped up against a tree, looking out at the stream. One leg was bent and his arm rested on his knee, the other lay on the ground next to him. For all intents and purposes, he was relaxed. Content.
Except, it didn't seem right.
"Danny?" Steve gripped his shoulder. When he got no response he shook him. "Hey, man, are you with me?"
Danny's eyes slowly tracked up to Steve.
Steve almost leapt back in fear when he was greeted with a jarring sight.
His eyes were clouded over like a corpse.
"Oh my god, Danny!"
Steve grabbed his partner's wrist and his phone at the same time. There was still a pulse, he was still breathing, but he was burning up.
"This is Commander McGarrett, I need EMS to my location immediately," he barked into his phone, eyes never leaving Danny's face. Had it not been for the slight movements and twitches, he would've thought him dead.
He tossed his phone down, scrambling to catch Danny as he pitched sideways into him, suddenly rigid. He started to convulse.
Steve didn't even want to know how fast his heart was beating right now. He laid Danny on his side and leaned over him, blocking the rain from falling on his face. The convulsion died down to unsettling stillness. Shakily, he felt for a pulse again.
Still there.
"Hold on, Danno. Please hold on," he whispered. "I can't hear 'I'm sorry' because of you, either."
To be continued...
Next week on "Dragons", reality isn't always as straightforward as it first seems.
Mwahahahahahaha! I told some of you I was slowly building up to some whump, and here it is. ;)
Please, do shower me with your complaints of me leaving it on a cliffhanger.
