Ahhhh, this chapter's fact title definitely reflects some of my own cravings.
Shout out to Phoebe Miller for beta reading!
Fact #163: Sometimes normalcy is all we crave.
Season: 5th Season
The clouds had descended and encased him in a soft, warm embrace. They wrapped around him with gentle folds, caressing his skin with a delicate touch. The air outside the clouds was brisk, but he didn't mind. He liked it cold as long as he could curl up under a pile of clouds.
Then his whole body jerked and his eyes popped open.
He shoved the blankets down from his face.
He had been in and out of sleep for the better part of the early morning, since at least three. His mind kept blurring his days stranded on the island with Steve with his present life. Apparently, those memories didn't fade in a week's time. He doubted they ever would.
Danny mentally shoved his latest adventure's memories into the filing cabinet labeled 'Mishaps Since I Moved to Hawaii' in his brain. It was overflowing with files. Some were on the floor around the cabinet. One of the drawers was bulging and he was afraid to open it.
It made him wonder how Steve's brain worked, and whether or not he had filing cabinets, or he had boxes. Or maybe bottles. Steve was bad at bottling things up.
Danny rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms and sat up. He glanced at his phone.
It was about time for him to get up and get ready, anyway.
He slid out of his mountain of covers and shuffled off towards the bathroom.
Once upon a time, he had loved showers. Now? The sight of his gaunt body in the mirror made him shudder. Granted, he wasn't emaciated and his days on the island had helped him shed those extra pounds he had struggled with for a while. It was more of his muscle mass. The lack of fat in his diet and the irregular exercise had thinned out his arms, his legs, his core. His face definitely looked a bit thinner.
And he swore he had more gray hairs in his scruffy stubble than he'd had a few weeks ago.
The various scars all over didn't help his appearance. Man, if he ever started dating again, what would he say to the girl?
Nothing. He would brush it off as the consequences of being a police officer. It was one area in his life that he would say few words on to a stranger. Even to someone who had known him for years. Not even his own mother knew where most of the scars came from.
Kono probably knew more about every scar than his own sisters did. Probably more so than even Rachel had.
And of course, a lot of them were Steve's fault.
Except for the ones he'd gathered working with HPD for six months before Steve arrived on the island with a bang and shanghaied him into working with him on the Governor's taskforce.
Those weren't nearly as big or numerous as the post-Steve scars, though, and not many people knew the stories behind them.
He washed his hair and shaved on automatic under the cascade of hot water. At some point, he zoned back in and noticed that he had managed to fix his hair into its usual style and he was dressed in a nice pair of tan slacks and a sky blue collared shirt. He gave his reflection a small grin. Maybe he'd wear a tie today, just to egg Steve on.
The sun peeked into his living room from behind the closed shades, giving his house a warm ambient light. He tugged them open and walked into the kitchen. Coffee pot on. Cereal bowl out. Milk out.
He frowned.
Coffee pot off.
His stomach had been touchy since they'd come off the island. Some foods that he'd had no problem with before now took up issue with his digestive track. Coffee was one of them. He was slowly building back up to it, because he couldn't live without his coffee. He couldn't work without his coffee. He'd have to retire early without his coffee.
He blinked.
He sounded like a junkie.
Maybe a brief reprieve from coffee was a good thing.
"Grace, you better be up and almost ready!" he shouted down the hallway.
There was a muffled response from the bathroom at that end of the house.
He took that as an affirmative that she would be ready to go when they needed to leave. While he waited, he gathered his wallet, keys, badge, gun, and phone, then peered into his fridge to see if he had anything that could replace his morning coffee.
"Water it is," he mumbled and grabbed a bottle.
The telltale clinking of cereal going into a bowl told him Grace was behind him.
"How'd you sleep, Monkey?"
"Okay. I've got a lot of stuff going on today at school and cheer practice is supposed to be a long one this afternoon," she said.
Danny watched her in amusement as she shoveled cereal into her mouth like a train engineer shoveling coal into an engine. She was definitely his daughter. Rachel was too proper to eat like that. That was how he ate when he was a teen and late for school. His mom would always get after him to actually chew his food.
She tossed her bowl haphazardly into the sink and grabbed her backpack. "Alright, I'm done. Let's go, let's go!"
"What's going on here, huh? I thought I was the one who had to rush you out of the house most mornings," he said.
He armed the security system and locked the front door on the way out. She was bouncing up and down by the Camaro waiting for him to unlock it.
"I forgot to turn in something yesterday and Ms. Vaughn said if I turned it in before first hour today she would still give me full credit," Grace explained.
"Isn't she your sixth hour teacher?" Danny asked and hit the button on the key fob.
Grace leapt into the passenger seat and was already buckled up by the time he climbed in. He dreaded the day she learned to drive. The first lesson would be 'better late and alive than early and dead'.
Pulling out of the driveway and cruising down the street to the road that headed towards her school seemed so normal, like he hadn't missed a beat. Even Grace trying to give him the whole backstory of why her assignment hadn't been turned in when it should have been felt normal.
He had barely pulled into the drop off line before she was opening her door.
"Hey, hey!"
She looked at him. "What? I gotta go."
"You don't got a hug for your old man?" he asked.
She gave him a quick hug and a peck on the cheek, then she was bolting out the door and down the sidewalk.
"This is for you."
Danny peeled his eyes away from the report he was busy filling out. Kono had set a white paper cup down on the edge of his desk.
"Sorry, babe, trying to stay away from coffee for the moment. My body decided it needs to do a total colon cleanse when I drink it," he said and went back to typing.
"It's not coffee, and that was too much information," Kono said and nudged the cup towards him.
He eyed it then lifted it to his nose. "Tea?"
"Green tea with honey and ginger. Good for the stomach, but still has caffeine in it." She stared at him expectantly.
He took a sip, expecting the bitterness or grassiness he had come to associate with green tea. Instead, the heat from the ginger punched him square in the mouth and the honey came along after it to soothe the wound.
He smacked his lips. "Not bad. Kinda spicy."
"Brah, you should taste it when Chin makes it. It's so hot," she said. She motioned for him to follow her. "We also got a case."
"Ah, and you think I'm gonna need caffeine to function on said case, huh?" he asked.
Her lack of answer was an answer in and of itself.
Steve and Chin stood at the smart table. Danny could already see the files spread out on the various monitors. A report from Max confirmed they already had a dead body. A second report from a coroner on the Big Island confirmed that they already had a second dead body and that the case appeared to have jumped islands.
He looked down at his green tea.
"What's wrong, bud?" Steve asked.
"I'm gonna need a lot more tea," he said and downed the rest of the cup.
Besides the lack of coffee, even that interaction felt normal. Standing around discussing a new case felt normal. It all felt normal.
And Danny was okay with that.
Next time on "Dragons", their new case is definitely not normal.
I am so sorry for the delay, guys! My mom tested positive for COVID and it's been really stressful. She didn't get super sick, more like a flu, but we've had to quarantine in separate ends of the house. I've barely seen her over the last week. I can't do my dog walking job, I had to go get tested, and just people in general have been very unhelpful. Doesn't help that my mom has been in a foul mood during most of it.
So, I'm hoping since she's on the mend and our quarantine days are halfway up, that I'll be able to get back to writing more regularly. You'd think that since I had already barely been going anywhere and then I had barely been leaving my bedroom that I would've gotten more things written…
Thank you guys for your patience and your love!