Am I on time? No. No I am not.
Shout out to Phoebe Miller for beta reading!
Fact #162: Survival can be summed up in three words – never give up.
-Bear Grylls
Season: 5th Season
Food
There had been cases where Danny had eaten very little and gotten even less sleep for several days at a time, but usually there was at least coffee and some trail mix or a malasada or an apple or a decade old twinkie from a gas station involved. Yesterday was still a bit of a fog before he had woken up to a nightmarish scene of a storm tossed ocean and a sinking boat, so he might have eaten before then. Since then? Not so much.
The boiled water was at least something, but it wasn't food. He knew for a fact he hadn't eaten in at least twenty-four hours, and after a long afternoon of floating in the ocean and hiking through the woods, an even longer night of stoking and trying to keep warm, and a jaunt up to a hill and back down that morning, he was shaking. His wings trembled at his sides and a pit of nausea settled in his gut.
So when Steve snapped at him for completely missing a crab that scurried in front of his claws and into the water on their pebbly beach, it didn't go over well.
"And what the hell have you caught, Rambo? Huh? I don't see you bringing in the lobster and the butter, and you're the one with the training!" Danny yelled.
"You're the one that's complaining about being hungry!" Steve growled back.
It was a good thing they were far enough apart from each other combing the beach in opposite directions searching for crabs and mussels, because Danny was seriously tempted to smack him upside the head with his wing. Steve would be just as hungry as Danny, maybe more so after that grueling swim to shore yesterday, and yet he was pegging Danny as the issue. Unless he had learned to photosynthesize, Danny was sure Steve was just as starved as he was, but was hiding it better.
"Well excuse me for being a living creature who burned my calorie reserves trying to keep your shivering hide warm last night. I'll let you try and keep yourself warm tonight," Danny said.
A cold chill swept through him like the water lapping at his claws. He had really thought they would have found civilization and help today and would be in a warm bed tonight.
Steve snarled and turned back to the water.
Danny glared, knowing he was probably biting back a scathing reply. But Steve was a man of action. He either bottled up his anger or blew it off on some poor suspect. He didn't offload all his frustrations in a tidal wave of words like Danny did.
Danny lowered his head again and continued searching his side of the beach.
There had been a time decades ago when his family had gone digging for clams on a beach a few hours from his Uncle Rob's farm in Maine. There had been more critters in the sand and in the tidepools than Danny had expected to find. He'd already seen several decent sized crabs scuttling around the rocks here and would guess there were fish in the water.
A glance at the choppy waves battering the cove didn't give him much hope for fishing with line or one of the nets they'd found. He wasn't a fan of getting pummeled by walls of cold water, either, so that took wading out there off the list.
He overturned a rock with his claws, grimacing at the squirming worm looking creatures burying into the mud underneath it.
He could be in his car going through a drive through at home. The Hawaiian sunshine could filter in through the window while he waited in line. It would be too warm and humid, sure, but after a long day, sitting in the sun in his car with the AC on would be relaxing. Then he could take home his greasy cheeseburger and hot fries with his chocolate milkshake and sit on his couch in his boxers and watch the games he had recorded throughout the week.
The rain started to pelt down harder.
The Hawaiian sunshine and fast food melted away and left him on the cold rainy beach. He shook out his wings like tarps. Water streamed off them. He would never admit it aloud, but he missed the warm sun and tropical heat, and he was thoroughly fed up with this weather already.
After nearly two hours of prowling the beach, the pair of them didn't have much to show for it. If Danny had spent two hours in the supermarket, he'd have enough food to cook for the Queen of England. He'd also have a giant hole in his bank account, but he wouldn't be hungry.
When the storm thickened and the light began to fail, they turned and headed back up to their hopefully temporary camp.
"Ah. Home sweet cubby hole," Danny commented dryly.
Steve had made a few modifications. They had a dry area for the fire at least. Steve had stacked evergreen boughs on top of the logs to help slough off the rain. He had also stuffed a generous helping of boughs and grass into the cubby hole to sort of keep them up off the ground tonight.
Danny tucked himself into the shelter of the logs and started to make a teepee of sticks in the firepit among the ashes of the burnt out fire. Steve emptied the contents of their search into the cast iron pot with a grim expression. Danny was sure that expression was for his sake. He knew the SEAL would eat pretty much anything he had to in order to stay alive.
"What's on the menu tonight, Ratatouille?" he asked. He puffed a breath clouded with glowing embers into the delicate kindling at the base of the teepee. The dry moss caught almost instantly.
"Seafood," Steve said.
"Huh. Thought we were going to have Chinese," Danny grumbled. He added a few larger sticks and chunks to the growing fire.
Steve poured some water from one of the jugs into the pot. "If you can find some soy sauce, I'll throw it in."
"Yeah, sure, let me just run down to the store here real quick. Oh wait!" Danny palmed his forehead with a forefoot. "I can't! Because we're stuck on a freaking island somewhere off the coast of northwestern America!"
"We could be stuck at sea," Steve said. He swirled the pot around and picked a few undesirable bits out.
Danny shivered. "Fine. I guess as far as being stranded goes, I'd rather be stranded with solid ground beneath my feet than floating in open water. Again."
"We were only out there for a few hours," Steve said. "And we found the yacht and got a ride back to shore."
"Yeah, after the Coast Guard arrested us," Danny said. He sighed, tasting the pungent smoke from sappy pine wood at the back of his mouth. He flicked his claws out. "Do you remember why we were on that boat?"
Steve's hard features answered before he did. "No."
"It's kinda fuzzy in my head." Danny gestured and scraped at the ground with one long claw. "I feel like I remember us being at the conference the day before? And then we made plans with the other guys to go out and eat or something, then it's just snippets, you know? Brief flashes. Caught an Uber. Drinking at a bar. Another car ride. Waking up on the boat. Almost drowning."
Steve's head snapped up towards him. "You almost drown?"
"I thought I was going to, why do you think I was clinging to that life preserver like a wet cat?" he asked.
"Because you hate the water?" Steve asked.
"I've amended my statement. I hate the water when you're around. Fishing trip? Boat jacked. Waking up on a mysterious boat? It's sinking."
Steve shook his head.
Danny added more wood to the fire when Steve set the pot on one of the flat rocks on the edge of it. He peered into the pot and wondered how long he could go without eating.
"Three weeks."
He looked up at Steve. "Huh?"
"That's how long you can go without eating."
"Oh great. He reads minds."
"No, I can read your face."
"And what, pray tell, does my face say?"
"That you're considering holding out on food until help arrives," Steve said. He nodded to the pot. "But you've gotta eat, bud. You don't want to see what starvation does to a man."
"I'm almost afraid to see what eating this does to a man," Danny said and plucked a shell out of the poor man's soup. "Is this a snail?"
"A periwinkle."
Danny dug around the pot some more. "Kelp, kelp, snail, kelp, tiny crab, snail, snail, snail, kelp, kelp. Guess we're getting our greens, huh?"
"You know they consider snails a delicacy in France," Steve said.
Danny eyed the numerous brown shells tangled amongst the broad flat leaves of the kelp. "We're not in France."
Thunder rolled overhead again. It was becoming persistent as the day wore on, just like his hunger. It had gone from a nauseous, cramping feeling to just shaking. And a little bit of a headache. He'd just eat the crabs and the kelp. It was like sushi, right?
"Maybe tomorrow we'll find a malasada bush."
"And a coffee tree?"
"Yeah, now you're talking."
Kono pushed her plate aside and folded her arms on the table. Chin looked as pensive as she felt.
The restaurant should have been a fun experience, not one weighed down by dark thoughts. Beautiful views of the lush mountains, delicious food, and good company shouldn't have been tainted by their current problem.
Kono glanced up at Catherine as she slid back into her chair and set her phone on the table.
"Still no answer, and I can't get a ping on his cell," she said.
Kono dropped her head with a groan and dug her fingers through her hair. "Same with Danny. The boys have gone completely off grid. You and Steve don't have any friends here that they would go off partying with, do you?"
Catherine shook her head. "No. What about Danny?"
"As far as I know, he's never been to Vancouver," Kono said. She looked over at Chin. "What're you thinking, cuz?"
"I don't see them just up and leaving without letting one of us know," Chin said.
Kono sat back and braced her hands on the table. "Okay. Let me be the downer here. You think any enemies would have taken them?"
Catherine rubbed her hands over her face. "I don't know. It's a long list."
Chin leaned forward with a steady, stony expression. The girls leaned in, as well.
"We work it like a case. Start with where we last saw them."
"And if I find them passed out in a hotel room downtown, I'm going to kill them," Catherine said.
Kono cracked a grin. "Get in line, sista."
To be continued…
Next week on "Dragons", even big bad dragons have a hard time dealing with the local wildlife.
Sorry this is late guys! I'm just a mess, plain and simple, and I really appreciate y'all's patience with me. So thank you for reading, reviewing, faving, and following!