I do not own Hawaii Five-0 or any characters. No copyright infringement intended.

Notes: I've decided to try and participate in Whumptober2020 and add the stories to the Word of the Day Bromance since it seems to make sense.

1. Day One "Shackled" - Let's Hang Out Sometime - waking up restrained, shackled, hanging: Prompted a short missing scene on Steve's thoughts after seeing Danny shackled and hanging at Daiyu Mei's hands. This tended to fall towards McDanno.

Based on: Episode "Aloha" Season 10, Episode 22

H5O* H5O* H5O* H5O* H5O

I have the person that you care about most in the world.

No truer words could have been spoken. Daiyu Mei's voice echoes menacingly inside his head, repeating them over and over again only shifting aside for another thought: how he's going to kill her.

On the way to the meet to hand-off the cipher - a shit gift from Doris because he needs to think of her as Doris and not his mother that day - Steve's brain churns through what he's been shown so far. He still feels sick inside after being shown his partner and best friend suspended from a rough industrial ceiling. Danny is the only macabre spot of color shackled and left hanging in a stark space of pale concrete, gray pipe and dulled, pitted metal.

He wants to be sick by what he then hears in the background. A low, barely heard moan of pain. A soft murmur of sound just under Daiyu Mei's voice, but Steve has no time for himself. He can't make a mistake or take a single mis-step or he loses everything he holds dear.

Daiyu Mei has skillfully used every input which she's permitted Steve to hear and see plainly to achieve a singular, visceral effect. And though it's distinctly overkill, what she's doing has worked very well. And yet, Steve's baffled by all of what she's managed to manipulate though, through the timing of daily schedules to when she could be sure he'd answer a call from a number he didn't recognize on this cell phone.

All for a piece of paper which means nothing to him.

It means even less now.

Doris's sins are still alive and now they've completely redefined themselves. They've grown and morphed away from any good intention which his mother may have wished for him. They've now manifested into a hateful legacy of even bigger lies and senseless suffering. Thumbing the space between his eyes until it aches from the pressure, Steve shakes his head in disbelief and even dismay.

He simply can't manage the deceptions and the depth of this far-reaching hate anymore.

He's utterly incapable of compartmentalizing this ongoing pain and the sheer insanity of his life. As Steve drives, he winds up hating Doris and despising a piece of paper. He's terrified of losing a loved one ... the person that he cares about most in the world.

As he drives towards the meet, accelerating now down an obscure dirt road because he's so close, Steve briefly loses control of his truck. The big vehicle falls into a sloppy fishtail, spitting dirt and rocks. He's not even thinking about the close call though as he autocorrects and adjusts his course by rote, tires grabbing traction. Steve's thoughts are both far away and close at the same time as he helplessly tumbles back into that last mental picture which he has of Danny.

He's inhaled every detail and burned those images into his brain.

The pain on Danny's face. Bloodied skin from a methodical beating. Hung like an animal to worsen the mind-numbing strain on muscles, tendons and ligaments. By now Danny's muscles are screaming, his tendons frayed. His heavily shackled wrists, torn.

Then, that one groan fraught with pain had done more to undo Steve's emotions than any one single thing which Wo Fat's wife could ever have orchestrated.

The person that he cares about most in the world ... is in pain and has to come home ... alive.

A million things go through his mind as he replays those images. But Steve settles on one thing alone as her SUV finally comes into sight ...

… all the ways in which he's going to kill Daiyu Mei.

END.