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Peja's Wonderful World of Makebelieve Import
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2020-11-05
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Danny's 30 Days Of Housing Problems

Summary:

Set around the time of S2E7, Danny is having nothing but problems with his housing.

Work Text:

Danny trudges up the steps to the house, legs feeling like they're filled with cement, as fat raindrops pelt his skin, making his clothes stick to his body. It's not that he's not wanted to do what he's about to do - it's that he's out of options.

After reaching the cover of the porch, he knocks on the door, then drops his hand to his side. He fidgets, kicking the duffle bag at his feet and contemplates going back to his car when the door opens, revealing a grinning Steve.

"So..." Steve says, then glances down at Danny's bag as he leans against the doorway. "Ready to pack it in?" he manages to ask around a huge grin.

"Shuddup," Danny replies. He grabs his duffle and waits for Steve to step aside before admitting defeat, walking into the house, Steve running past him a beat later, returning with a towel.

~*~*~ 30 Days Previous ~*~*~

Danny had stubbornly kept his apartment, even after he and Steve had started dating. "C'mon, Danno!" Steve had sighed. "I've got plenty of room," he said, though Danny ignored him.

Then Danny's apartment had been blown up.

It wasn't his fault; he didn't know that his apartment backed up to another apartment-cum-methlab. He just knew the people behind him were pretty quiet most of the time. It isn't until he was awakened at 3:30am by a loud popping sound, followed seconds later by an explosion and radiating heat that he realizes what's going on. He grabs his phone, gun, and a framed picture of Grace, and runs out into the night before his apartment is engulfed in flames.

Ten minutes later, with fire and rescue workers showing up and after making sure everyone was okay, Danny pushes the picture of Gracie under one arm as he raises his gun to the strung-out looking guy pacing in front of the burning complex who's muttering, "My stash... My stash..." over and over again. "Yo, Meth head," he barks. "Onna ground."

He stays that way, gun trained on the dealer (letting the few Uniforms that respond take care of the victims of the fire), until Steve shows up. He knew - though not confirmed until now - that Steve had an 'in' with HPD Dispatch, and that any call to Danny's apartment complex would automatically trigger a call to the SEAL.

Steve showing up is a comfort to Danny. It's the smirk that Danny could do without.

"What'd you do, Danny?" Steve asks as he saunters up to the man.

"Whatever, asshole," Danny says back, no heat behind his words. He explains about the newly-discovered and now destroyed methlab, and why he's holding this particular man at gunpoint. "Can you do me a favor?"

"Sure, Danno," Steve says.

"Hold this," he says as he passes his gun to Steve. "I need to find some pants."

"There's sweats in my truck," Steve says, winking at boxer-clad Danny before turning his attention back to the perp.

~*~*~

Danny stays at Steve's that night, begging off of work the next morning so he can take inventory of what he'd lost at his apartment, and to buy some clothes. Though Steve tells him he's welcome to stay as long as he'd like, Danny checks himself into a hotel the next day, carrying a small duffle bag of clothes.

It's their next case, Danny's time with Grace - the two of them trick-or-treating at the hotel - that Danny finds a new apartment. But as soon as he realizes that he'd just talked to what seemed like a living, breathing ghost, it's back to Steve's for a night.

Kamekona provides his next lead on a new place, though Danny's stay only lasts for a few days. Steve grabs Danny as soon as he walks into the office - a few hours late (not answering Steve's questions - just saying, "Later, okay?") - for lunch, surprised when they pull up to Kamekona's shrimp truck a few minutes later. "We eating here?" Steve asks.

"Nope. Just a pit-stop."

Shrugging, Steve gets out of the car and catches up to Danny as the man makes a gesture of handing over his house keys.

"What's dis?" Kamekona asks. "You don't like da place?"

"Yeah - 'bout that. Who stayed there before me, exactly?"

Furrowing his brow as he thinks, Kamekona finally responds, "Just Auntie Luana."

Rolling his hands, Danny asks, "Anybody else?"

After a beat, Kamekona's face lights up, and he adds, "Oh... And she rented a room to some guy-"

"Named Brody?"

"Yeah," Kamekona says with a nod. "Brody." After a beat, he adds, "But he didn't stay around long..."

"Could it be," Danny says, pulling out his phone and queueing up pictures for Kamekona to see, "that maybe Brody was a gun runner?" Steve grabs the phone from Danny's hand, muttering, "Jesus, Danny," a few seconds later as he scans through the photos of the stash of guns he'd found in the house.

"That explains why Auntie wanted to move out last month..."

Taking his phone back, Danny adds, "Yeah, well, Brody's customers haven't figured out he's moved on. I picked up a scumbag that skipped parole - one of my last cases with the HPD before you started Five-0," he adds with a nod to Steve. "Guy skipped, then busted up a liquor store; killed the clerk." Sighing, Danny says, "Showed up on my doorstep this morning at 4am. Seems he needed some new hardware. After HPD hauled his ass off to jail, I went searching and found Brody's stash."

"Aah," Steve says.

"Yeah, that's where I been this morning."

Tsking, Kamekona adds, "You know, I got a cousin that-"

"No!" Danny responds, cutting off Kamekona before he can even suggest another bad housing idea; Danny's not having anything but bad luck, and doesn't want it to continue. "I'll find somethin' on my own..."

Turning back to the Camaro, Steve throws his arm around Danny and says, "You know..."

Danny sighs. "Yeah, Steve. I know..."

"Anytime," Steve says as they separate, then duck into the car to go searching for lunch.

~*~*~

Danny's next find - a "quaint, quiet bungalow in the jungle" - ends up being a shack on the outskirts of Wahiawa, illegally built on the edge of Ewa Forest Reserve. It was so "quaint" that it had open holes instead of windows. He doesn't even get out of his car; just shakes his head and turns around, heading back to the Hilton for the night.

He thinks his luck has turned around when he finds a small house just outside of Waipahu, hidden away atop a hill and surrounded by palm trees. The two weeks anniversary of his stay also marks the tenth day of torrential rains, and he pulls into the driveway to find his new house - missing - only a small amount of the foundation left.

Getting out of the Camaro, Danny walks up to what used to be his front door and peers down the hill, finding where his house is now resting. He's glad he keeps a duffle bag full of clothes in his trunk now, so there's not as much to replace this time. But there's still one thing he wants, so he trudges down into the mud. Daring his way into the tumbled structure, Danny darts the beam of his flashlight around until he finds where his bedroom now sits. It takes him a few minutes to find his treasure, then he carefully makes his way out of the shell of his former home.

Danny takes one last look at the house, then heads back to his car, gently placing his find on the passenger seat. He stumbles out of his muddy pants and shoes, tossing them to where his front door once stood, then shimmies into a pair of sweatpants and sneakers before driving back to Steves.

~*~*~ Back To The Present ~*~*~

"So you wanna explain?" Steve asks as he takes in the disheveled mess that is his partner. "Power go out up there?" he adds, helping Danny out of his shirt and sweatpants, folding them inside an extra towel to keep the moisture away from the furniture.

"More like my house went out up there," Danny replies, running a towel through his hair. At Steve's look, Danny automatically adds, "Don't ask."

Danny shivers slightly in the dampness, so Steve offers, "Why don't you go upstairs and get a shower?" He leans in, gently kissing Danny before aiming the man at the staircase.

"Oh wait, wait," Danny protests. He turns to the door, saying, "I left a thing-"

"I'll get it," Steve says. "You go get in the shower."

Danny just nods, then turns to head upstairs. He finishes stripping once he reaches the bathroom, then steps under the hot water, feeling the stress of the last 30 days wash off of him.

Danny's momentarily startled with Steve steps into the shower with him, strong arms enveloping him a moment later. Danny leans back into Steve, appreciating the comfort his partner gives him. He feels a kiss on his shoulder and sighs, releasing as much tension and frustration as he's able.

"You wanna talk about it?" Steve asks.

Turning, Danny pulls Steve's face down to his, kissing him thoroughly. "Not even a little bit," he says. He steps out of the shower, letting Steve rinse, and finishes toweling off before going back into Steve's bedroom, where he's stopped momentarily at the sight.

While Danny was showering, Steve had retrieved Danny's rescued picture of Grace from the passenger seat of the Camaro and cleaned the mud off of the frame, placing it on the bedside stand on Danny's side of the bed. When he looks to Steve's side, he sees a smiling picture of himself, Grace hanging off his arm. It was a picture Steve had snapped the year previous, on one of their first trips to the beach with Grace as a couple.

Danny hears Steve turn off the water, then get out of the shower behind him. He turns, then walks up to Steve, pulling the man down into a lip-bruising kiss; a kiss that he hopes can convey words like, "I'm sorry," and "Thank you," with a little bit of "I'm scared, but I'm finally ready to do this," - because it's not something he thinks he'll be able to manage anytime soon.

"What was that for?" Steve asks as he puts his towel back on the rack.

"Nothin'," Danny says. Glancing back at the picture on Steve's bedside table, he says, "Just... I might be staying here a while."

Steve just smiles, then grabs another kiss before heading over to the bed. "That's okay, Danno," he says as he gets under the covers.

"Yeah, okay," Danny says. With one last glance at the pictures on the beside tables, he turns off the lights, then climbs into the bed with Steve, letting the warm feeling of 'home' engulf him before snuggling up to Steve, and giving himself over to sleep.