Am I on time? No, I am definitely 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
Wildlife
Danny jumped. One wing flapped out and smacked a still snoozing Steve upside the head. Steve was immediately tense and looking around.
"What's going on?" he questioned.
Danny pulled himself out of the cubby hole and promptly flopped on the ground outside the shelter. Pins and needles tingled through his legs from his once again awkward sleeping position. Every joint felt like an old bike chain that had rusted after a rainy winter outside while every muscle burned and protested at the abrupt movement.
"It was that freaking mouse again!" Danny yelled.
Steve glared at him and got up, stretching as he slunk out of the shelter.
"Well excuse me, but some of us don't like sharing a bed with rodents," Danny said and gathered his feet under him. His legs shook with the effort.
He glanced at Steve when he received no answer. Steve had his head inclined upward. Danny followed his line of sight up to the trees that surrounded their shelter.
Birds bounced through the branches, singing their melodic songs. Sunlight streamed through the canopy, warm and pure and golden with the rising of the sun. Mist rose from the dewy boughs.
Danny sat. His wings inched open of their own accord to collect every drop of sunlight they could. It had been raining on their miserable island since they had become stranded. To see and feel sunlight on their second morning after a lousy dinner and another uncomfortable night was uplifting. The only thing that would make it better would be a helicopter landing nearby to whisk them away.
"We should go find that malasada bush this morning," Danny said.
"Sorry, bud. Gonna have to live with hot water this morning," Steve said.
Danny sighed and lit the fire while Steve poured water into the pot. If only he had a pinch of coffee to add to it.
Chin tossed his third coffee cup into a recycling bin. It had been a late night and an early morning. Their efforts to track down their missing leader and co-leader had proved to be more difficult than they had first anticipated, and what would have taken him half an hour tops back on Oahu took the three of them several hours.
He was getting too comfortable with the technology Five-0 had been provided, courtesy of the Governor. When he had started out in HPD they had forensics and cyber crimes, but a lot of man hunts were on foot and meant walking the streets, talking to people, seizing CCTV footage from businesses, things that had almost become unnecessary with the smart table and the systems he could access. Traffic cams, ATM cams, weather cams, they even had GPS on their cells and cars.
In Vancouver he didn't have the luxury of all of that. He didn't even have the authority to request CCTV footage if they got a lead. Immunity and means may have flown back home where the Governor could shield them from backlash. It wasn't much of an option here in a city where they knew no one. The most he could do was ping their phones.
A misting rain had covered the city that morning. At the moment he was sheltered under an awning looking at the map on his phone. Kono's face flashed on his screen.
"You get anything, cuz?" he asked.
"Besides soaked?"
"Maybe Danny was onto something with his rain jackets and umbrellas," Chin said and shivered. Vancouver rain was not Hawaiian rain.
"We're back at the conference center. Trying to ask around and see if anyone knows who they left with. What about you?"
Chin put her on speaker and went back to his map. "Their phones pinged at a location here downtown. Looks like maybe it's a bar."
There was an uncomfortable silence.
"I hope you find them passed out on the bathroom floor there."
Compared to the alternatives that had been running through Chin's head, finding them in a drunken stupor on a dirty floor was one of the better outcomes.
"I'll let you know once I'm there. Keep me updated," he said.
He hiked his collar up and dashed out into the drizzling rain. According to his map, the place he was looking for was just around the corner. It wasn't a scummy part of town, in fact it was barely two miles away from where the law enforcement conference had been held. There were lots of restaurants and bars up and down these streets, strategically placed for when events were held.
He turned a corner and looked up at the sign on the building.
The Tipsy Moose
The bar was deserted when he walked in. Chairs were up on tables and a lone man was sweeping the floor in the back.
"Sorry buddy, we're closed. Don't open until five this evening," the sweeping man said.
Chin put on a grin and walked back towards him. "Actually, I think two of my friends were here last night and left their phones."
The man sighed and leaned his broom against the wall. He went behind the bar counter and tugged a box out from one of the shelves underneath.
"Can you describe their phones? Cases, lock screens?" the man asked.
"One's black, one's silver. Black one has one of the preinstalled lock screens, a color swirl, and the other has a man and a little girl on the lock screen," Chin said.
"We've got a winner," the man said and slid the two phones across the counter to him.
Chin checked the phones just to make sure. The emergency information on the black one matched Steve's and the man on the lockscreen of the other one was definitely Danny with Grace.
"Hey, brah," he said before the man went back to sweeping. "Did you see if they were with anyone?"
The man shrugged and grunted.
"Hey, brah."
"Look, I don't know who your friends were partying with, okay?"
The man sagged when he realized Chin was tapping his badge on the counter.
"Do you remember now?" Chin asked.
The man returned to his spot behind the counter. "We had a ton of people in here last night. Who are these guys? They criminals?"
"Missing cops."
"Oh." The man swiped a hand over his mouth. He jerked his thumb to the back. "We've got some security footage if you want to check it out. But this place was crawling with cops last night. Bunch of them are in town for the conference thing."
"Yeah. I know. And I'd like to check out that footage," Chin said.
The man nodded and waved him to the back office. He texted Kono that he'd found their phones at the bar. At least they were taking a step in the right direction.
The water was cold. Cold like Kamekona's shaved ice. Danny's scales clamped down all along his hide. He held his wings above the waves. They were nowhere near as rough and tall as they had been previously, but they were still decent sized.
His hind feet stepped on the rocks at the bottom of the cove, slipping and sliding on the algae and kelp. He was pretty sure that a crab had scuttled over his foot at one point. Every time he'd get to a steady position, a wave would push him sideways through the water. The fact that he hadn't eaten breakfast and was feeling puny didn't help.
"How's this, Steve?" he called across the water.
Steve had already anchored his side of the recycled net into the rocks and tied it off onto a low hanging tree branch for good measure.
"Looks good, Danno. Just make sure you get it anchored deep enough," Steve said.
"What'd you think I was gonna do, huh?" he asked.
He drove the long piece of wood down into rocks, finding a narrow crease to wedge it in. If the waves picked up again, they would push this over like it was no more than a plastic bag. He grabbed onto the length of rope and sloshed through the water to the shore, Steve mirroring his movements on the other side.
A squirrel chittered angrily in the tree above his head.
Danny eyed it as it flicked its tail and jumped between branches, all the while yelling at him for being too close. Never before in his life had he wondered what squirrels taste like.
Steve took the rope from him and tied it off to the tree.
"Should work," Steve said with a satisfied nod.
Danny would save his satisfied nods for when they actually had some fish. He wasn't looking forward to more kelp for lunch. Kelp and snails.
He shot the squirrel another glare as they walked away.
"Hey, if we don't get any fish by this evening, I'm seriously considering trying my hand at roasting a squirrel and some mice," he said.
Steve looked up into the trees where more squirrels chittered in alarm.
"We could set some deadfalls," Steve said. "Cover all our bases."
Danny huffed. "Can't believe I'm stooping low enough to consider squirrels fine dining."
"Too bad there aren't any scorpions," Steve said.
"Sure, because I need to worry about getting stung as well as starving to death."
"Pretty tasty when they're roasted," Steve said with a confidence that suggested he'd eaten his share of roasted scorpions.
"Great. Next you're going to tell me we should start digging for grubs," Danny said. When Steve didn't answer he looked at him in disgust. "No! No way. We are not Timon and Pumbaa, and I am not eating slugs, grubs, or things with more than two sets of legs."
"You eat crabs."
"Crabs don't count."
"They're like sea spiders."
Danny stopped and glared at Steve's backside as he continued walking back towards camp.
"Thank you for ruining crabs for me, Steven!"
Danny weighed the rock in his forefoot. The squirrel in the tree was still an annoying putz well into the afternoon. He had never been a slingshot kid, but he had been a baseball player and could throw a mean fastball.
"Come on," Steve said.
Danny blinked and stared after him. "Huh? Where are you going?"
"To go check the net."
Danny glared at the squirrel one more time and dropped the rock. He got to his feet and followed Steve down the dirt track they were starting to wear between their camp and the shore. The sunlight streamed down between the needly boughs of the trees. It felt like liquid gold dropping onto each and every scale on his back.
"What do you think the others are doing right now?" Danny asked.
Steve shrugged. "Probably what they do best."
"Hacking security systems, kicking down doors, hanging people off of skyscrapers, drinking too much bad coffee," Danny listed off. "You've taught them so well."
"I've seen you kick down a door or two," Steve said.
"Necessary force. As an appropriate action," he said. "You are very much a shoot first, ask questions later kind of guy."
"And me shooting first has saved you several times," Steve said.
"It's also gotten the Governor to chew us out several times," he added.
The rest of the walk down to the shore was spent bickering. It was something to keep his mind off his rumbling stomach. He'd had some kelp after they had come back from the shore that morning, but he couldn't bring himself to eat much of it. The dandelion greens at least had been something. Grace would be so proud. He was eating salad. If they didn't get rescued soon, he may wind up going vegetarian, or worse, turn into an insectivore.
Needles rained down on him.
The squirrels were in the trees following them.
Forget being a vegetarian or insectivore, he was going to turn into a squirrelivore.
"Tide's out," Steve said once they at last came close to the shore.
Danny nodded. The water had receded quite a bit. He could see the top of the net sticking out of the water.
His heart pounded.
He cursed.
"I see a fish."
Steve's kilowatt grin matched his.
"I see several fish."
To be continued…
Next week on "Dragons", the net was a victory. But that didn't mean it was turning up aces for them permanently.
I am so sorry for the delay, guys. I wound up helping some family of mine (nothing bad) and did a lot of cooking and driving around, and had barely any time to write. I'm hoping that the next chapter goes up in a more timely manner, but we'll see.
Thank you so much for sticking around with me and leaving your kind reviews! I'm sorry if I haven't replied like usual. I'll try to be better this week. :)