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AvalonReeseFanFics

A/N: Hey there my wonderful readers. Thank you for being so patient, luckily this chapter is only a day late! We're gonna have some fun stuff happen in the next couple chapters. Lots of chaos. Also, as a heads up, I've reached the point where I'm going to be changing up the episodes quite a bit as I've made plot changes that need to be reflected. We have some time until then, so I'll warn you when I get there, just know that, when we get there, it's purposeful. As always don't forget to review, or fav or follow and I'll see you guys next week!

Chapter 417

Rowan came back and like a day later he couldn't remember why he missed her. No, that wasn't true, he remembered why he missed her, he just didn't like her fucking mood swings. He couldn't remember her being this moody and off the charts crazy with him before she left.

It was like she was to LA and became a prissy, entitled drama queen that was going to throw temper tantrums to get her way. Really, all she did, though, was argue with Steven. About EVERYTHING.

It was actually torture.

Because in between arguing Rowan would jump him.

He went from barely any sex to her demanding it. At random. Out of nowhere. Just "fuck me right now, or not ever," and while he loved having sex with his wife, he hated that she'd argue with him, give him the silent treatment, demand sex and then go back to the silent treatment.

Like.

If this was how she was going to behave when she got a bit of a taste of a red carpet, he was never going to let her go to one of those events ever again. LA had clearly changed her and he wanted his wife back.

It didn't help that she was stressed. The second she came back the governor was on her back about not telling her that they had Hawaiian celebrity that she didn't know about. That she should have told them about her premiere and that they could have done it here instead of Hollywood.

And that since Rowan didn't tell her now there would have to be a second one, and she was going to help her set up.

Yeah. That hadn't been good because, while Rowan looked fine on the red carpet, and like she was enjoying herself, she had absolutely hated it. She hated all the questions and all the cameras and all the attention and she didn't want to do it again.

She only agreed because the Governor said, case or not, Steve was allowed time off to be her date, otherwise Rowan was going to skip the whole event.

So that day, with Rowan having to be in the Governor's office for this red-carpet event planning and Steve having the day off, he had chosen to go shopping. The original plan was to go with Rowan, but she was driving him crazy with her mood swings so, the second she was busy he decided that was the moment he needed to go shopping. But he wanted to go with someone, so he took Lou with him to the restaurant appliance store for some bonding time.

He would have taken Danny, but Danny was on the mainland for some family functions.

He was looking at a specific oven, a used industrial oven that was actually ridiculously expensive, but this model, used and all, was cheaper. And considering they were already having money issues, cheaper was the better option.

Steve was not going to get a better deal than this.

And he wanted someone to agree with him and seeing as Rowan and Danny both would not have supported this purchase he was looking at Lou to be the voice of reason. So that when he made this purchase he could throw it in Danny's face.

See, Lou thought it was a good idea too!

When he had first found it he had asked Rowan's opinion on whether or not he should buy it but she said that this was his venture and she didn't want to get involved. Oh she'd help out, but not on the important stuff, apparently. And she was definitely not going to get in the middle of what would most likely be an argument between him and Danny.

So that was how Steve ended up out there with Lou, hoping to get some back up and getting none.

Lou had looked over the oven Steve had found and not been impressed. He wanted to know why it had black shit inside, left over ash, but Steve could clean it. Steve had told him all the selling points, how good this oven was, and how cheap it was, and how they would never get another deal like this ever again. That should have been enough, but Lou countered with what Danny would think if he knew this.

Steve had tried to wave off that Danny would be fine, that he and Danny had complete confidence in each other's decision making abilities, but telling Lou that made him laugh.

That right there had been the tipping point, he knew right then and there that Steve was lying. He even went as far as to actually attempt to call Danny to ask about it.

Steve had to physically make him hang up the phone before Danny picked up.

Then, and only then, did he admit that Danny didn't know about this purchase. That he couldn't know about it, because the man was going crazy about everything being brand new and having a warranty. He was driving Steve crazy, cause everything was ridiculously expensive.

This was the Cadillac of industrial ovens, there was no way they'd get one of these for 10 grand. But he knew if he bought it, Danny would get mad, and sure it wasn't in pristine conditions but with a little elbow grease it would be great.

It was basically indestructible, it was a foolproof buy.

But Lou wasn't convinced and somehow, with everyone against him, it solidified his decision to buy it. To prove everyone wrong. He knew what he was doing, his ideas were valid.

The only reason he didn't get around to it was because he had received a call. From Toast.

Surprising because the man thought he was above them now. He created a popular app and all of sudden he was better than them and didn't return calls and texts to see how he was doing.

At first Steve had thought it was a butt dial, but then it turned into something more sinister. He heard Toast crying out, he heard hits landing, Toast was in trouble.

Lou immediately called it in, and Steve took that call out of the busy store and out into the parking lot so he could hear what was happening better.

And all he heard was the gunshot.

Jerry had pinged the phone, Duke had sent people to his location. But they were all too late.

Toast's body was found in an alleyway downtown. He wasn't just executed, he had been beaten, mangled actually. They had made him suffer before they ended him.

Steve was absolutely distraught.

He should have been there. He should have been able to stop this.

But then, he also hadn't heard from Rowan. Rowan who was supposed to get visions about this.

So when he started investigating Toast's murder the first person he called was her. But Rowan hadn't been aware, and she just sounded so worn out by the Governor's red carpet event that he didn't want to stress her out even more.

He hadn't told her who had been murdered, and now he was grateful. Because now he could tell her that it was fine. He didn't need her to look at the strings, he was just looking for a quick fix for a case so he could get home early.

She said that was sweet of him, but they both knew that he was more than smart and capable enough to solve it on his own. Which, honestly, cheered him up a bit. She then said if she finished things up with the Governor and he still hadn't cracked the case she'd check the strings for him.

Steve had thanked her and then immediately called the brother he had on the island. Now that she was back Con had gone back to work. He wasn't sure what he was doing because the man wouldn't tell him, said Steve couldn't know cause he was a cop, which was fair.

If Con was up to something illegal it would be better if Steve pretended he had no idea cause then he'd have to get involved.

The first thing he asked was if he knew anything about this and Con had said that he did not. That he was dealing with a different problem.

Well that was ominous, but since he had promised not to ask his brothers-in-law about the illegal things they got up to, he asked if Con would be alright to keep his ears open for any chatter.

Con had sounded terribly annoyed but did agree to the request so that was nice.

Then Steve went to good old fashion detective work.

And that was not fun.

They had thought it had something to do with the different people Toast had helped them put away but it was so much worse than that.

With some digging Jerry managed to confirm that their list of CIs had leaked. And then it became scrambling to get their friends to safety before they ended up like Toast.

In the meantime they needed a hacker, and they only knew of one who had recently gotten through their defenses, they just didn't really want to work with him. And they knew he wouldn't want to work with them either.

Still Steve went to Halawa to see Wright and offer him the job. Figure out who hacked their system and was targeting their CIs and then back to prison he would go.

As Steve thought, he didn't want to go for it though, and if he did he wanted to be transferred out of this prison to a different one where they wouldn't know that he helped out Five-0. And he wanted to be put up in a fancy hotel suite, with 24 hour room service, in rom spa treatments, truffles on the pillow the whole nine-yards. Steve hadn't wanted to agree, but aside from asking Wo Fat for help he had no idea how to do this.

And he really, really needed to stop leaning on his criminal brothers-in-law when it came to these situation, cause sooner or later he wouldn't have them anymore and then what?

That and he didn't want to stress Rowan out.

So Steve agreed.

But not before he made a call, you know, to ask for a favour from one of those pesky brothers-in-law he was trying not to over use.

By the afternoon they had Aaron out of Halawa and in the hotel of their choosing. Aaron was led in and he looked around clearly very excited to be there, which was exactly when he noticed the very unimpressed Tani standing there in her full gear.

Aaron looked her up and down and then asked: "Why is the masseuse wearing Kevlar? Actually she looks familiar to me. Have we met?"

"Yeah, I saved your ass when you were tied up and covered in gasoline, you know, crying and begging for your life."

"Oh yeah." Aaron paused only to laugh. "Not my proudest moment."

The door to the bedroom opened up and there was Con, having gotten off of his other job to help Steve out as requested. He wasn't wearing his mask, or his jacket. Just the white tee-shirt and black jeans and combat boots. His under arm holsters were on and sporting two pistols and he could tell by the strap that he had his machete on his back too.

But what Steve was looking at was the plate he had in his hand and the half a burger he had in the other hand.

"Is that a burger?" Steve asked. "The room service is for him, not you."

Con finished his burger in one big bite. Then while he was chewing he threw the plate to the coffee table with a loud clatter, so he could go into his pocket for his wallet. He dug out two twenties and then tossed them at Steve.

The bills hit Steve's just and fluttered to the ground.

"There you go. Stop your bitching. You know I'm good for it. You're the cheap one, not me."

Steve shook his head, he didn't have time for this and he wasn't going to pick up those bills, he was going to make Con do it. "You, come here," he said to Wright.

He grabbed the man, dragged him over to the desk they had brought in with the laptop sitting in front of it, and then cuffed him to the table and shoved him into the computer chair.

They had been nice enough to get him an ergonomically one. They didn't have to do that.

But Aaron did seem to care about that. He looked at his handcuffed hand and then back up to Steve. "Hey! How am I supposed to use the Japanese toilet?"

Tani came over with the ice bucket. "You're familiar with the steel bowl, right?"

"Ew!" Con cried "I mean, poetic justice but man that's cold." They all stared at him waiting to see if he had anything to add but the man was just staring at Aaron, and the boy was starting to shift. After a while he tore his eyes away from him and then waved Steve over to him. "You and I, let's chat."

God this was going to be about the room service. He was going to have to explain that it wasn't for him, it was Aaron and while, yes, Steve agreed he didn't deserve it, that was who he was approved for, and he wasn't going to get the Governor to agree to pay for Con too.

But when they got two steps away and he turned around sand said: "Hi, yeah, why the hell am I here? And why couldn't I tell my mami you needed me for this?"

Steve didn't want her knowing because she was dealing with a lot, her mood swings were a lot, and he didn't want to add the death of a friend, no matter how little she saw Toast in real life, to her stress.

So Steve changed the topic.

"You know I don't like it when you call her that," Steve said. "I swear, she's not even here, you're doing it just to annoy me."

"Okay, how about I call her baby girl?"

"Fuck right off with that shit."

Con tsked at him. "You let Wo do it!"

"Yeah, cause he doesn't make it sexual. Why do you gotta make everything with her sexual? She's your fucking sister."

"Wooo, you got some Sweet Home Alabama vibes going on," Wright cried. Having apparently been listening in, or they were arguing that loud, they weren't really that far away. Luxurious or not, it was still a small space they were in. When Con turned to him he just smiled. "Hey, I don't judge… okay maybe I judge a little. Fucking your sister is a pretty sick. And not in the cool way."

Con took in that comment and Steve swore he could feel the air shift around him. He moved away from Steve and towards Aaron, this strange sort of smile on his face that Steve didn't trust. "You're talking a lot of shit for someone with two perfectly good eyeballs. Each priced at about 762 bucks on the black market."

Steve, who had been just about to get Con's attention again froze on the spot. Tani seemed shocked by the comment as well. They both just turned to Con who had gone back to just staring at Wright in that uncomfortable way, waiting to see if he was joking or not.

Aaron seemed to think that he was joking.

He smiled, as if playing along, and then turned his eyes up to Con, saw the seriousness on his face and that smiled faltered.

"You're not serious…" he started and then turned to Steve who was still just staring at Con in complete disbelief. As soon as he realized that this wasn't a joke he frowned at Steve. "Is he fucking serious?"

"No he's not… actually… I'm not sure… I mean… he could be," Steve said and then turned his attention back to Con, and tapped his shoulder to get his gaze off of Wright. "You. Hey. Yeah. You can't possible know… I mean… do you? How do you know how much a pair of eyes would go on the… you know what? I don't want to know! Just leave him alone, and no, you are not going to be taking his eyes."

Con cocked an eyebrow at Steve, glanced first to Tani and then back to Wright before settling in on Steve.

"If you must know, I've obviously dabbled with organ retrieval every now and then. You know, double up the money I get for disappearing a body. Might as well make use of it instead of it going to waste," he said with a shrug and then looked thoughtfully down at Wright. "His eyes are light blue, that's rare. Bet I could bargain up to 900 bucks for each of em."

"Oh my god, please don't leave me alone with this guy!" Wright cried, his shooting to both Steve and Tani as if they were going to save him. Well, they'd have to, but they wouldn't want to.

"Okay, stop, stop," Steve said. "Get away from him. And you," he said to Wright. "Get to work."

He needed Con away from the poor boy, he was never going to get any work any done with Con terrorizing him in that way. So he grabbed him and dragged him away again.

"Jesus, you know, I thought you said psychological torture was a thing only Wo did," he hissed and Con just blinked his eyes at him.

If he reminded him that Ro did it too, Steve might just slap him.

"Uh… I wasn't torturing him… that was a threat. One that I will 100 percent follow through on, by the way."

Yeah that was worse.

He had also said the last sentence as loud as he could so Wright could hear him. The poor boy actually stopped typing and just froze, deer in the headlights wide eyed horror all pointed in Con's direction.

"Don't listen to him, get back to work," Steve ordered. Then turned to Con. "Look, one of our CIs died today. His name was Toast…"

"Okay, and Toast, this guy was a friend… of Ro's?"

"Yeah."

"And does she know?"

"I haven't told her yet, no," he said. "She's dealing with the Governor and the next red-carpet event and she's stressed so I didn't want to add to it. That's why I didn't want you to mention it to her."

Con nodded and then Steve heard him mutter: "She's got strings. She knows."

"Right, well, someone hacked our system and got access to our CI list, and we need this guy to figure out who did it."

"This guy? Why this guy? I feel like they were other options."

Steve had literally just explained this to him, but he did it again. "Because Toast was our hacker, and he's dead…"

"Okay…" Con cried interrupting him completely. "But why does that mean you need this guy?

"Cause I don't have a hacker, Con."

"So… ask Kong?"

"He's in DC securing his new team."

"Sandy?"

"She's not running. Your brother took her down."

"Ah, yeah. Rest in Peace, Sandy," he said signing the cross and then throwing a kiss up to the sky. Steve shook his head at him. Well, maybe he'd get it now.

"Yeah, so this is all we got."

Con's eyes narrowed. "Kay. Well I don't like his face. So if he doesn't fucking fix it I just might fix it for him… again."

Wright paused and turned back to him. "I'm not doing anything."

"Oh, that's just your regular fucking face?" Con asked pointing at him an amused smirk on his face. When Wright just stared up at him he laughed. "Yeah, we're gonna have a problem ese."

Steve stepped in between them right away. "You don't need to fix his face. You've already done that, thank you. Look see, he still has the bruising…"

At that Aaron seemed to really perk up. "Wait?! You're rabbit mask guy?!"

"Yeah and that sister you were so fucking worried about, yeah, she's back on the fucking island," he snapped. "Let's see how brave you are now."

"Whoa, like Pierce, the Pierce the Destroyer is back on the island?" Wright whistled at him and then promptly broke out in a condescending chuckle. "Yeah cause I'm so scared of the little girl who bosses two big criminal around." He then shot a smirk at Con. "She doesn't have my balls in a vice grip so why the hell should I care about her?"

Con turned back to Steve. "Do you want to kill him, or can I?"

"No one's killing anyone, you're gonna sit here and make sure he doesn't escape."

At that Con smiled. "So if he tries to escape I can kill him."

Steve knew right away that if he said yes, Con would manufacture a situation where the kid was "escaping" and he'd get to kill him.

"No Con!"

Con deflated and then immediately got angry with him. "Then why the fuck am I here? Seriously? I'm missing a big pay cheque, I'm not allowed to use the services, so this is clearly not worth it. So, what's stopping me from walking right out that door? Huh? Tell me? What?"

Steve hated that Con was questioning him in front of Tani and Aaron Wright, didn't make him look like a big fearless leader if Con was fighting him like this. He also didn't have a good answer.

All he had was: "Because you owe me!" And that was exactly what he said.

"Aww, you son of a bitch," Con snapped. "You couldn't just let me have it? Naw you just hadta pull in a favour. You an asshole."

Yeah Steve didn't need to hear that. Con knew exactly why he owed Steve favours. He wouldn't have been indebted to him if he had just told Rowan that Wo Fat was lying about everything going on in Hawaii.

"Just shut up. Stop scaring him, and let him work."

With his last warning hurled at him, he stormed off, knowing that the next thing he'd have to do was tell Danny what had happened.

And he wasn't looking forward to that either.