Ehehehehe between Sue2552 and Those-Elusive-Words, I finally got inspired for this chapter.
Feel free to listen to creepy music, though I don't think it's all that creepy this time around. More like...foreboding...
Fact #169: It watches.
Season: 5th Season
The gold in his scales glinted in the yellow-orange light of the moon.
Danny hated Halloween. Despised it. As a kid he loved it. As an adult and a seasoned cop, he dreaded it. The reports said the crime rate didn't go up during the holiday, but the weirdos certainly peeled out of the woodwork in Jersey. The island was no different. Except for the weather. It was the end of October and it was in the eighties.
"You know, back home all the leaves would be orange and falling off the trees. We might even get our first snow on Halloween," he said, retracting his scales as he pointed at the still very lush foliage in the backyard.
Steve simply nodded.
Grace, in her youthful playfulness, had tossed a toy scorpion at Steve when they had entered the McGarrett house. Little did she or Danny know, Steve had a beef with scorpions and had shifted out glittering teal scales faster than Danny had ever seen him shift. He played it off for Grace's sake, but wasn't the same.
"Alright. Give it up. Spill. What's up with you and scorpions, huh? I've seen you handle armed gunmen better than you did that toy."
"I don't like them."
Danny rolled his eyes and gestured with his water bottle. "I gathered that. But why?"
Steve continued staring out at the ocean, the autumn moon reflecting in winding bands of light on the waves. Danny sighed and looked out at the waves, too. The sun had set several hours ago and left the night in the care of the moon and sticky humidity. He craved an ice cold beer, but knew better. They always got called out. Always.
Body parts at a heiau and someone throwing rocks through his windshields. The Wyvern melting people into the asphalt. A creature snatching people up in the woods. Who knew what was in store for them this year. With the cousins of the Black Dragon Eels still missing from the aquarium, he didn't even want to know. Another round with them was hard enough when he was at full strength, never mind still recovering from their deserted island adventure.
Though the weight and muscle was returning to a more normal looking state, he still felt tired. Not a good thing for a cop to feel. Definitely not a good thing for a member of Five-0 to feel.
"They were all over when I was deployed. Got stung by them a couple of times."
He glanced up at Steve. "So that's what the whole kerfuffle earlier was about?"
"You don't get it," Steve said. He sat heavily in one of the adirondack chairs. Danny took the other. "You would hear them. At night. Skittering in your tent. See their shadows on the canvas. They would drop on you off of the ceiling. They were everywhere."
He grimaced. "This is why Jersey is the best. We don't get scorpions or centipedes big enough to give you a heart attack in the middle of the night."
"No. You just have cockroaches as big as your hand."
"Hey! So does Hawaii. Everything tries to come in the house here. And the spiders! Have you seen the banana spiders? What kind of bug infested hell is this place?"
Steve snorted.
They sat for a while in silence in the backyard. The others were manning the front of the house and taking care of the whole candy scene. Steve was too unsettled to interact with people currently and Danny had elected to deal with him. With Cath planning to go on a several month mission in a couple weeks, and now with the Amazonian River Eels at large, he was more on edge than usual.
"You hear anything back from forensics yet?" Danny asked, though he knew the answer.
Steve shook his head.
"You know, I'm just not going to eat any malasadas until we find those things and ship them back to where they came from. Why were they even here in the first place, huh?" He waved a hand around wildly.
"Research."
"Really? Research? Didn't they hear about the curious cat?"
Steve shrugged. "We wouldn't have cures to diseases if they didn't work with dangerous bacteria and viruses."
"But what would they be researching with things related to Black Dragon Eels? Because the toxin in them that makes dragons shift also happens to kill humans."
Steve raised a brow at him.
"What? I've been doing research, too. I'm educating myself, that way when something finally kills me, at least I'll know what it was."
Steve shook his head, a fond smirk twitching his lips for a moment. Danny considered it a success. They watched the waves a while longer, listening to kids laughing as they traipsed up and down the streets. Birds chattered in the trees, bouncing from branch to branch in the light breeze that picked at the green leaves.
A frown wrinkled Steve's forehead. "Do you remember last year?"
Danny nodded and his hand fluttered out. "Well, I'm not quite that senile. I remember most of last year. And the year before that. But the year before that? A little foggy."
"I meant when we were tracking that mutated dragon through the trees."
"Oh, you mean do I vividly recall every moment of a time I wish I would forget?"
Steve pursed his lips. "Remember that feeling?"
"That feeling? That feeling of horror when we found those bodies? Or when I got snapped up in its mouth?"
"That feeling of being watched in the dark."
The hairs on Danny's arms stood up. The breeze had died down and they were left in an eerie lull, only the crunching leaf litter on the ground under their feet creating any sound. Steve's pace had slowed. There weren't any bugs. There weren't any birds. Just a suffocating silence.
Like now.
The breeze lessened to barely a hushed whisper. The birds had quieted. Even the kids on the street seemed distant and far away.
Suddenly the ocean seemed much blacker. Much darker. Much more menacing. It yawned before them, merging with the velvety night sky, the ribbons of moonlight and pinpricks of stars intermingling in the rolling blanket of water. It tumbled in an endless void, consuming the light and zeroing in on the sound of his heartbeat. Erased all sound. Drowned it.
Danny held his breath until the breeze picked up again and another group of children laughing broke the spell. As quickly as the uncomfortable silence had settled in, it was gone, replaced with a normal night in the backyard.
Except, as he stared at the water, it seemed more ominous than usual. It lapped at the shoreline. Inky and speckled with froth. Bleeding and drooling and showing white fangs all at the same time. The maw of a beast.
He gripped the water bottle in his hand. Longed for something stronger.
"I hate Halloween."
"Yeah."
Next time on "Dragons", the team gets a taste of Chimera Labs.
Yes, yes, I know. Not much plot. Only build up. But I hope it pays off! It may take me a little while to write it, but I'm wrapping up a massive art project here in November, so maybe I'll have more time/motivation to work on this beast.
Those-Elusive-Words really got me pumped up for writing again. Seriously, go check out their Superhero AU fic they just started posting. I have a feeling it's going to be awesome.
Thank you for your patience, for reading and reviewing whenever I post! It means a lot that y'all have stuck with me through the years.