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Entry tags:
malama pono 'ia, H5-0, gen, PG-13
Title: malama pono 'ia
Fandom: Hawaii Five-0
Pairing: gen, Steve | Chin friendship
Rating: PG
Length: ~ 3200
Disclaimer: Not mine
Notes/Warnings: Spoilers through 1x12. In the same world as Hau’oli La Ho’omakika’i, but this stands mostly on its own (details about the house notwithstanding.)
Summary: Five-0 takes care of their own.
Also on AO3, here.
One thing Five-0 has never been about is subtlety, and Chin knows that doesn't just end when they've closed a case, taken down the bad guys. Danny wears his emotions on his sleeve; Kono has never been shy about expressing her thoughts; and Steve might not talk about things, but that's only in words, not actions, and with action, he's a force of nature.
It's Danny who gets the bomb off of Chin, and Danny who alternately shepherds and bulldozes Chin to the paramedics and then to the hospital, for CT scans and a quick line of IV saline to counteract the dehydration, but he's also the one who doesn't insist that Chin spend the night when the doctor says it's not strictly necessary.
Kono comes in while Chin and Danny are arguing about what Chin should eat--Danny insisting that Chin needs to fuel up, no matter how bad the hospital options are, and Chin equally determined that he can wait until he can get somewhere where what he's putting in his stomach won't automatically come right back up again. Danny keeps getting louder, but despite being exhausted enough to drop where he stands, Chin holds firm. Kono stands there, her hands on her hips, exchanging eye-rolls with the nurse who's taking out Chin's IV.
"Here," Kono says, digging through her backpack and holding up a sealed foil packet of Pocky sticks--chocolate almond, her favorite kind. Chin's, too. "If you swear you'll eat something later, you can have my last thing of Pocky sticks and you won't even owe me."
"I swear," Chin says, once he can speak past the memories that have rushed in to sit heavy on his chest, past the sharp gash of knowing just how close he'd cut it this time. Kono looks like she's getting hit by the same thoughts too, but she holds the packet out to him with an impatient gesture, and Chin knows better than to suggest she's feeling nostalgic.
"Do I even want to know?" Danny asks, looking back and forth between them.
"Someone," Chin says, tearing the foil open with his teeth and shaking out the first of the sticks. "A very pretty, but very spoiled little girl--"
"Hey, allegedly spoiled," Kono says, with a smile that almost looks unforced.
"Someone used to go through my backpacks when she was hungry and couldn't be bothered to go find her own snacks," Chin continues. "I kept count one year and this someone helped herself to about a case of these things."
"A little chocolate, a little sugar, a little crunch," Kono says, lightly. "What could be better?"
"Wait, let me think..." Danny strikes a pose. "Hey, I know, how about actual food?"
"Which I will eat as soon as we're finished here," Chin says, allowing himself one small wince as the nurse pulls the needle free of his arm and presses down hard with a square of gauze.
"And how long is that gonna be?" Danny asks. "Because it's not that I don't trust you, man, but, you know, I'm gonna need to see that with my own eyes, or I'm gonna worry, and I gotta tell you, in my experience, getting sprung from the hospital is a long and painful process, and if Kono's up here, that means SuperSEAL is running around here unsupervised, waiting for me so we can go figure out what he's going to say when he has that chat with the governor. You know he's probably already scared the staff, what with the Dr. Demento look he's been working the last couple of days--
"Yeah, he's kind of... tense," Kono says, and Danny sighs.
"Jeez, some poor schmuck from Security is probably getting his ass handed to him right about now."
"If you want to go deal with Steve, I promise to cram some food down this one's stubborn throat," Kono says.
"Sitting right here," Chin says, not bothering to keep the exhaustion from his voice, but Kono knows him well enough to know that doesn't really mean anything. "And still not planning on eating anything from the cafeteria."
"I've got you covered, cuz," Kono says, turning back to Chin, with a look in her eyes that's fierce and protective, one that Chin knows will only be overcome with energy that he frankly doesn't have.
"You know I love you, but you and dinner?"
"Come on, it's food--what could go wrong?"
"You're asking me that," Chin says, laughing in spite of the day, in spite of everything, because it's Kono, and that's just how they roll. "After the unfortunate incident with the pa jun and the fire extinguisher--
"Oh, no, you swore you'd never mention that," Kono says, cutting him off indignantly. She's smiling though, and Chin can only see a tiny bit of fear still in her eyes. Chin smiles back at her, and lets the nurse tape down the gauze on his elbow. She tosses the sharp and washes her hands, telling him that the discharge nurse will be in shortly, right as Danny's phone chimes with an incoming text--from McGarrett, if the eye-roll he gives it is any indication.
"Go ahead," Chin tells him. "I appreciate everything, but--"
"Yeah, it wasn't anything," Danny says, shaking his head. He turns to Kono and adds, "Seriously. Food. In him."
"You know it," Kono answers. Danny's phone rings this time, and he heads towards the hall with a mutter, turning back halfway through the door.
"Hey, rookie," he calls to Kono. "Thanks for having my partner's back out there."
"Any time," Kono answers, steady and sure for all that she's flushing at the compliment.
"For the love of God, keep your shirt on," Danny says into the phone. "I mean that literally, and please also tell me you haven't assaulted anyone--"
The door closes behind him and it's suddenly very quiet. Danny, even when he's being rock solid support, says more in two minutes than Chin has gotten used to hearing in a day. Kono slides down the wall to sit on the floor with an exaggerated sigh.
"Let's not ever do this again," she says, putting her head down on her knees.
"Anything you want, cuz," Chin agrees. A nurse comes in with Chin's discharge paperwork in a reasonable amount of time, and Chin lets Kono shepherd him out to her car. The Medical Center is practically in his neighborhood; it only takes a few minutes before Kono's making the final turn up the hill to Chin's house. It takes Chin almost as long to gather himself and get out of the car.
Kono has keys to his house, but she waits for Chin patiently, and lets him open the door and turn on the light, like it's any other day that they're ending. She's toed off her shoes and is into the house before he can thank her for that little bit of normalcy.
"Don't lock up," Kono says. "Dinner's coming." Chin hears a car engine grinding up the hill and Kono smiles at his arched eyebrow. "C'mon, cuz, you really didn't think I was going to subject you to my cooking, did you?"
"Well," Chin says, with a sigh. "It's been a day. Who knows?"
A battered old truck pulls up in front of the house, the engine still idling as the passenger side door opens.
"Brah," Chin says, as Kamekona emerges, stepping down and holding bags and bags filled with takeout boxes. "You are a sight for sore eyes."
Kono smacks Chin on the shoulder as she goes past him to hold the door open. "Seriously," she says, "do you have to sound so relieved?"
"Got the call from the wahine," Kamekona says, coming up the steps and handing off the bags to Kono. "Figured we get a little of this, a little of that, you don't have to worry about nothin'."
"You just didn't want to get on her bad side," Chin says, but he's more than a little touched.
"For sure, for sure," Kamekona agrees, and Kono glares at both of them. "Brother," Kamekona says, serious now, holding one big hand up for Chin to grab so he can be pulled into a one-armed hug. "You cut it close this time."
"That I did," Chin says, with feeling. "Mahalo." Kamekona's hand tightens on his shoulder and Chin nods. "Mahalo," he repeats.
Kamekona turns and ambles out the door, Kono holding it open for him. "Thank you, uncle," she says softly, and Kamekona pauses for a second.
"I know you'll be having his back," Kamekona says, and Kono nods.
"You know it," Kono says. Kamekona lets her lean up and give him a kiss, and then he's gone, and Kono is unpacking the bags.
"Yukgaejang," she says, triumphantly. "With extra noodles--nothing but the best, cuz."
She hands Chin an enormous container of soup, filled with beef and taro stalks, threaded through with beaten eggs and gosari and delicate hand-rolled noodles, and Chin is suddenly ravenous, too hungry to be bothered to find a bowl or his own chopsticks. Kono grins at him, prying the top off her own container, and they barely make it to the table before they're both digging in.
***
Steve sits in his truck on the street outside Chin's house, the deepening twilight broken only by the lights spilling out of windows in the houses around him. There's no sign of Chin's bike, but Kono's car is parked in the small driveway, and there are lights on inside the house, so Steve's fairly sure Chin's home. He could just call, of course, but he's been in what Danny's taken to calling "a state". When Danny says it, there are sarcastic air quotes and jabbing fingers and deep sighs, which would be... excessive, if it wasn't also true.
Steve doesn't really have a choice--he needs to talk to Chin, and maybe he should be doing it officially, at Five-0, with all the trappings of police work around them, but he doesn't think it should wait overnight. Chin deserves at least that much.
Kono comes to the door when Steve knocks, her face tired, but finally calm, the strain that had been etched deeper and deeper through the day smoothed and relaxed.
"Hey, boss," she says, holding open the door. "You look like shit."
"Good to see you, too," Steve says. "Danny tell you to say that?"
"I've got eyes, Steve," Kono answers, which doesn't exactly answer his question but he guesses it doesn't matter. She gestures to a pile of take-out boxes. "You want something to eat?"
"Nah, I'm good," Steve says. "For a month," he can't help adding, in a mutter, and Kono's grin turns wicked.
"Danny getting his mother-hen on?"
"Who knew nice Jersey boys could fuss like that?"
"He's a good guy," Kono says.
"For values of nice that include incredibly annoying," Steve mutters, but he can't really complain. "Speaking of Danny, I'm supposed to make sure you're going home and getting some sleep."
"I'm fine, boss," Kono says, neatly sidestepping the issue. "Besides, what about you?"
"I'm fine, boss," Steve echoes. Kono gives him one of her looks, and he shrugs. "I'll tell you what I told Danny, and that's that I'm not liable to sleep for a while."
"Boss," Kono sighs.
"Yeah, don't bother. I've heard it all. You know Danny--he was very detailed. I'm a freak who's going to take two days to come down from all this, so the rest of you should be taking advantage of it."
"Danny does have a way with words," Chin says, walking into the living room, hair still wet from the shower. "But he also has a point." He's looking at Kono, and there's a second conversation going on wordlessly, one that Kono finally concedes.
"Yeah, fine," she says, pulling her keys out of her pocket. "I'll go."
"Take your time coming in tomorrow," Steve tells her. "The paperwork will still be there."
"Isn't that the truth," Chin says with a half-smile. Kono shakes her head and brushes a kiss across Chin's cheek on her way out the door. Steve knows it's just him, but the click of the latch sounds abnormally loud in the small room. Chin doesn't seem to notice, only continuing across the living room to open a cabinet in the small dining area.
"Probably not what the doctor might order," Chin says, gently setting a tall, slender bottle on the table. The glass is dark enough that Steve can't see what's in it, but he's not surprised when Chin reaches up to take down two small sake cups. "But it seems appropriate."
"No argument here," Steve says, accepting one of the cups. His eyebrows go up at the first sip--he's had some good stuff on leave in Tokyo and Kyoto, but this is head and shoulders above anything he's ever tasted. "Nobody needs to know this even exists, much less that it's available for consumption."
Chin half-smiles at him, but doesn't say anything, only closing his eyes and breathing, as though he's willing himself to relax. Steve takes the opportunity to study him more closely; Danny had spent an hour patiently--for Danny, which meant there'd been a fair amount of shouting going on--assuring him that Chin had come through the whole fucked-up ordeal with nothing more than a minor concussion and assorted aches and pains, but it's always good to judge for himself. Steve keeps it quick, though; from everything he knows about Chin Ho Kelly, he doesn't take kindly to anyone hovering over him. Kono might get a little bit of a pass, but Steve McGarrett probably doesn't qualify for one yet.
"Well," Chin says, without opening his eyes. "You should get some compensation for baby-sitting me." His voice is calm--a lot calmer than Steve would be if he thought he was being watched over--but there's the smallest hint of an edge to it.
"No," Steve says quickly. He's a little louder than he needs to be; Chin opens his eyes and arches one brow in what passes for screaming disbelief for him. On Danny, it'd be nothing more than a blip on the radar, but for Chin... yeah, it's complete and total I-call-BS. "That's not... I'm not here for that."
Chin waits for a few seconds, but since Steve still hasn't figured out how to say what he needs to say, the silence stretches out. Before it can get too awkward, Chin turns toward the French doors out to the deck.
"C'mon," he says, nodding toward the bottle. "Bring that along; I'm only having one, thanks to that crack across my head, but there's no reason you can't get a refill when you want."
Contrary to popular belief, Steve is capable of taking direction, especially when it means he can put off what he needs to say for a little while longer. Chin juggles the door handle and his sake, but is outside by the time Steve gets there, gesturing him toward the second chair on the deck. There's no table; Steve tucks the bottle carefully next to the chair as he sinks down into it, his eyes already on the view spread out in front of them. It's just past dusk; Honolulu is lit up for the night, but the ocean and mountains are still visible as something other than the black silhouettes they'll become in full night.
Enough light spills out from the living room that Steve can see Chin in profile, his head tipped back to lean against the chair, as though it's too heavy for Chin to hold up. Steve pushes away the memory of Chin on his knees in front of Iolani Palace, forces it neatly into the little black box of fuck-ups not to forget for later contemplation. He can indulge in the luxury of self-recrimination later, once he's alone. Chin might be letting the chair take the weight of his head, but his eyes are open and they're watching Steve.
"I"m not here to baby-sit," Steve says, softly this time, his eyes back on the city lights. "I came... I came to apologize."
"Steve--" Chin starts, but this is why Steve's here, and it needs to be said.
"No," Steve insists. "This is--I saw Victor Hesse and I... went a little crazy." Somewhere, Danny is cackling, but without any humor, and Steve can almost hear his "Ya think?" loud as day. "I'm sorry--I went off the rails there and started asking for shit I had no right--"
"McGarrett," Chin barks, as unyielding as as Steve's ever heard him, and it shuts Steve up like flipping a switch. Nobody says anything for a long few seconds. "Steve," Chin says, more calmly, more like his usual imperturbable self. "John... He was your father, but he was also my partner." He hesitates, and there's a world of unspoken emotion in the silence, grief and fury and loss. Steve knows it well. "He was my partner," Chin repeats. "Everything I know about being a cop, I learned from him. He never turned his back on me, not once, no matter how bad everything looked, and trust me, Steve, it looked bad."
"Yeah," Steve acknowledges, thinking about the set of blueprints in the hidey-hole in Chin's bedroom, blueprints that do nothing but add to the weight of circumstantial evidence against Chin. He thinks about where those blueprints led him earlier and shoves that mess into the box for dealing with later. No regrets on that, not at all.
"I wanted Hesse, too," Chin is saying, low and intense. "I wanted that son of a bitch, wanted to put a bullet in his head just like he---" Chin breaks off abruptly, and breathes in sharply. When he speaks again, his voice is soft and a little rueful. "Let's just say you're not the only one who's been a little off the rails these last few days. No apologies necessary."
Steve would argue the point, but it's late and the adrenaline that's been carrying him through the last few days is long gone, leaving not much in its wake. Chin takes his silence for agreement, or maybe just accepts that he's made his point even if Steve can't help but think it's too easy of an out. Either way, when Steve finishes his sake, Chin nods at the bottle in a clear invitation to pour again.
"You sure you don't want me out of here?" Steve asks. "Let you hit the rack, get a little sleep?"
"Oh, I don't think there's much sleep in my future," Chin says, hesitating a moment before adding, "Every time I blink, I'm back at the palace in full Technicolor glory. Sleep just sounds like an opportunity for endless replays. Maybe tomorrow. If you've got any place you need to be or you're ready to call it a night..."
"No," Steve answers, with a laugh that doesn't sound nearly as forced as he thought it might. "I think I'm in the same place as you, sleep-wise. I'm not seeing much in my future either."
"All right, brah," Chin says, nudging the sake toward Steve. Steve pours himself a refill and they settle back to watch the sky deepen into night.
***
***
My battered old phrasebook tells me my title means 'well-cared for, lovingly cared for' but it has been a long, long time since I've actually had any practice at this and I was never fluent to begin with, so if there's a better way to say that, I'm all ears.
Fandom: Hawaii Five-0
Pairing: gen, Steve | Chin friendship
Rating: PG
Length: ~ 3200
Disclaimer: Not mine
Notes/Warnings: Spoilers through 1x12. In the same world as Hau’oli La Ho’omakika’i, but this stands mostly on its own (details about the house notwithstanding.)
Summary: Five-0 takes care of their own.
Also on AO3, here.
One thing Five-0 has never been about is subtlety, and Chin knows that doesn't just end when they've closed a case, taken down the bad guys. Danny wears his emotions on his sleeve; Kono has never been shy about expressing her thoughts; and Steve might not talk about things, but that's only in words, not actions, and with action, he's a force of nature.
It's Danny who gets the bomb off of Chin, and Danny who alternately shepherds and bulldozes Chin to the paramedics and then to the hospital, for CT scans and a quick line of IV saline to counteract the dehydration, but he's also the one who doesn't insist that Chin spend the night when the doctor says it's not strictly necessary.
Kono comes in while Chin and Danny are arguing about what Chin should eat--Danny insisting that Chin needs to fuel up, no matter how bad the hospital options are, and Chin equally determined that he can wait until he can get somewhere where what he's putting in his stomach won't automatically come right back up again. Danny keeps getting louder, but despite being exhausted enough to drop where he stands, Chin holds firm. Kono stands there, her hands on her hips, exchanging eye-rolls with the nurse who's taking out Chin's IV.
"Here," Kono says, digging through her backpack and holding up a sealed foil packet of Pocky sticks--chocolate almond, her favorite kind. Chin's, too. "If you swear you'll eat something later, you can have my last thing of Pocky sticks and you won't even owe me."
"I swear," Chin says, once he can speak past the memories that have rushed in to sit heavy on his chest, past the sharp gash of knowing just how close he'd cut it this time. Kono looks like she's getting hit by the same thoughts too, but she holds the packet out to him with an impatient gesture, and Chin knows better than to suggest she's feeling nostalgic.
"Do I even want to know?" Danny asks, looking back and forth between them.
"Someone," Chin says, tearing the foil open with his teeth and shaking out the first of the sticks. "A very pretty, but very spoiled little girl--"
"Hey, allegedly spoiled," Kono says, with a smile that almost looks unforced.
"Someone used to go through my backpacks when she was hungry and couldn't be bothered to go find her own snacks," Chin continues. "I kept count one year and this someone helped herself to about a case of these things."
"A little chocolate, a little sugar, a little crunch," Kono says, lightly. "What could be better?"
"Wait, let me think..." Danny strikes a pose. "Hey, I know, how about actual food?"
"Which I will eat as soon as we're finished here," Chin says, allowing himself one small wince as the nurse pulls the needle free of his arm and presses down hard with a square of gauze.
"And how long is that gonna be?" Danny asks. "Because it's not that I don't trust you, man, but, you know, I'm gonna need to see that with my own eyes, or I'm gonna worry, and I gotta tell you, in my experience, getting sprung from the hospital is a long and painful process, and if Kono's up here, that means SuperSEAL is running around here unsupervised, waiting for me so we can go figure out what he's going to say when he has that chat with the governor. You know he's probably already scared the staff, what with the Dr. Demento look he's been working the last couple of days--
"Yeah, he's kind of... tense," Kono says, and Danny sighs.
"Jeez, some poor schmuck from Security is probably getting his ass handed to him right about now."
"If you want to go deal with Steve, I promise to cram some food down this one's stubborn throat," Kono says.
"Sitting right here," Chin says, not bothering to keep the exhaustion from his voice, but Kono knows him well enough to know that doesn't really mean anything. "And still not planning on eating anything from the cafeteria."
"I've got you covered, cuz," Kono says, turning back to Chin, with a look in her eyes that's fierce and protective, one that Chin knows will only be overcome with energy that he frankly doesn't have.
"You know I love you, but you and dinner?"
"Come on, it's food--what could go wrong?"
"You're asking me that," Chin says, laughing in spite of the day, in spite of everything, because it's Kono, and that's just how they roll. "After the unfortunate incident with the pa jun and the fire extinguisher--
"Oh, no, you swore you'd never mention that," Kono says, cutting him off indignantly. She's smiling though, and Chin can only see a tiny bit of fear still in her eyes. Chin smiles back at her, and lets the nurse tape down the gauze on his elbow. She tosses the sharp and washes her hands, telling him that the discharge nurse will be in shortly, right as Danny's phone chimes with an incoming text--from McGarrett, if the eye-roll he gives it is any indication.
"Go ahead," Chin tells him. "I appreciate everything, but--"
"Yeah, it wasn't anything," Danny says, shaking his head. He turns to Kono and adds, "Seriously. Food. In him."
"You know it," Kono answers. Danny's phone rings this time, and he heads towards the hall with a mutter, turning back halfway through the door.
"Hey, rookie," he calls to Kono. "Thanks for having my partner's back out there."
"Any time," Kono answers, steady and sure for all that she's flushing at the compliment.
"For the love of God, keep your shirt on," Danny says into the phone. "I mean that literally, and please also tell me you haven't assaulted anyone--"
The door closes behind him and it's suddenly very quiet. Danny, even when he's being rock solid support, says more in two minutes than Chin has gotten used to hearing in a day. Kono slides down the wall to sit on the floor with an exaggerated sigh.
"Let's not ever do this again," she says, putting her head down on her knees.
"Anything you want, cuz," Chin agrees. A nurse comes in with Chin's discharge paperwork in a reasonable amount of time, and Chin lets Kono shepherd him out to her car. The Medical Center is practically in his neighborhood; it only takes a few minutes before Kono's making the final turn up the hill to Chin's house. It takes Chin almost as long to gather himself and get out of the car.
Kono has keys to his house, but she waits for Chin patiently, and lets him open the door and turn on the light, like it's any other day that they're ending. She's toed off her shoes and is into the house before he can thank her for that little bit of normalcy.
"Don't lock up," Kono says. "Dinner's coming." Chin hears a car engine grinding up the hill and Kono smiles at his arched eyebrow. "C'mon, cuz, you really didn't think I was going to subject you to my cooking, did you?"
"Well," Chin says, with a sigh. "It's been a day. Who knows?"
A battered old truck pulls up in front of the house, the engine still idling as the passenger side door opens.
"Brah," Chin says, as Kamekona emerges, stepping down and holding bags and bags filled with takeout boxes. "You are a sight for sore eyes."
Kono smacks Chin on the shoulder as she goes past him to hold the door open. "Seriously," she says, "do you have to sound so relieved?"
"Got the call from the wahine," Kamekona says, coming up the steps and handing off the bags to Kono. "Figured we get a little of this, a little of that, you don't have to worry about nothin'."
"You just didn't want to get on her bad side," Chin says, but he's more than a little touched.
"For sure, for sure," Kamekona agrees, and Kono glares at both of them. "Brother," Kamekona says, serious now, holding one big hand up for Chin to grab so he can be pulled into a one-armed hug. "You cut it close this time."
"That I did," Chin says, with feeling. "Mahalo." Kamekona's hand tightens on his shoulder and Chin nods. "Mahalo," he repeats.
Kamekona turns and ambles out the door, Kono holding it open for him. "Thank you, uncle," she says softly, and Kamekona pauses for a second.
"I know you'll be having his back," Kamekona says, and Kono nods.
"You know it," Kono says. Kamekona lets her lean up and give him a kiss, and then he's gone, and Kono is unpacking the bags.
"Yukgaejang," she says, triumphantly. "With extra noodles--nothing but the best, cuz."
She hands Chin an enormous container of soup, filled with beef and taro stalks, threaded through with beaten eggs and gosari and delicate hand-rolled noodles, and Chin is suddenly ravenous, too hungry to be bothered to find a bowl or his own chopsticks. Kono grins at him, prying the top off her own container, and they barely make it to the table before they're both digging in.
Steve sits in his truck on the street outside Chin's house, the deepening twilight broken only by the lights spilling out of windows in the houses around him. There's no sign of Chin's bike, but Kono's car is parked in the small driveway, and there are lights on inside the house, so Steve's fairly sure Chin's home. He could just call, of course, but he's been in what Danny's taken to calling "a state". When Danny says it, there are sarcastic air quotes and jabbing fingers and deep sighs, which would be... excessive, if it wasn't also true.
Steve doesn't really have a choice--he needs to talk to Chin, and maybe he should be doing it officially, at Five-0, with all the trappings of police work around them, but he doesn't think it should wait overnight. Chin deserves at least that much.
Kono comes to the door when Steve knocks, her face tired, but finally calm, the strain that had been etched deeper and deeper through the day smoothed and relaxed.
"Hey, boss," she says, holding open the door. "You look like shit."
"Good to see you, too," Steve says. "Danny tell you to say that?"
"I've got eyes, Steve," Kono answers, which doesn't exactly answer his question but he guesses it doesn't matter. She gestures to a pile of take-out boxes. "You want something to eat?"
"Nah, I'm good," Steve says. "For a month," he can't help adding, in a mutter, and Kono's grin turns wicked.
"Danny getting his mother-hen on?"
"Who knew nice Jersey boys could fuss like that?"
"He's a good guy," Kono says.
"For values of nice that include incredibly annoying," Steve mutters, but he can't really complain. "Speaking of Danny, I'm supposed to make sure you're going home and getting some sleep."
"I'm fine, boss," Kono says, neatly sidestepping the issue. "Besides, what about you?"
"I'm fine, boss," Steve echoes. Kono gives him one of her looks, and he shrugs. "I'll tell you what I told Danny, and that's that I'm not liable to sleep for a while."
"Boss," Kono sighs.
"Yeah, don't bother. I've heard it all. You know Danny--he was very detailed. I'm a freak who's going to take two days to come down from all this, so the rest of you should be taking advantage of it."
"Danny does have a way with words," Chin says, walking into the living room, hair still wet from the shower. "But he also has a point." He's looking at Kono, and there's a second conversation going on wordlessly, one that Kono finally concedes.
"Yeah, fine," she says, pulling her keys out of her pocket. "I'll go."
"Take your time coming in tomorrow," Steve tells her. "The paperwork will still be there."
"Isn't that the truth," Chin says with a half-smile. Kono shakes her head and brushes a kiss across Chin's cheek on her way out the door. Steve knows it's just him, but the click of the latch sounds abnormally loud in the small room. Chin doesn't seem to notice, only continuing across the living room to open a cabinet in the small dining area.
"Probably not what the doctor might order," Chin says, gently setting a tall, slender bottle on the table. The glass is dark enough that Steve can't see what's in it, but he's not surprised when Chin reaches up to take down two small sake cups. "But it seems appropriate."
"No argument here," Steve says, accepting one of the cups. His eyebrows go up at the first sip--he's had some good stuff on leave in Tokyo and Kyoto, but this is head and shoulders above anything he's ever tasted. "Nobody needs to know this even exists, much less that it's available for consumption."
Chin half-smiles at him, but doesn't say anything, only closing his eyes and breathing, as though he's willing himself to relax. Steve takes the opportunity to study him more closely; Danny had spent an hour patiently--for Danny, which meant there'd been a fair amount of shouting going on--assuring him that Chin had come through the whole fucked-up ordeal with nothing more than a minor concussion and assorted aches and pains, but it's always good to judge for himself. Steve keeps it quick, though; from everything he knows about Chin Ho Kelly, he doesn't take kindly to anyone hovering over him. Kono might get a little bit of a pass, but Steve McGarrett probably doesn't qualify for one yet.
"Well," Chin says, without opening his eyes. "You should get some compensation for baby-sitting me." His voice is calm--a lot calmer than Steve would be if he thought he was being watched over--but there's the smallest hint of an edge to it.
"No," Steve says quickly. He's a little louder than he needs to be; Chin opens his eyes and arches one brow in what passes for screaming disbelief for him. On Danny, it'd be nothing more than a blip on the radar, but for Chin... yeah, it's complete and total I-call-BS. "That's not... I'm not here for that."
Chin waits for a few seconds, but since Steve still hasn't figured out how to say what he needs to say, the silence stretches out. Before it can get too awkward, Chin turns toward the French doors out to the deck.
"C'mon," he says, nodding toward the bottle. "Bring that along; I'm only having one, thanks to that crack across my head, but there's no reason you can't get a refill when you want."
Contrary to popular belief, Steve is capable of taking direction, especially when it means he can put off what he needs to say for a little while longer. Chin juggles the door handle and his sake, but is outside by the time Steve gets there, gesturing him toward the second chair on the deck. There's no table; Steve tucks the bottle carefully next to the chair as he sinks down into it, his eyes already on the view spread out in front of them. It's just past dusk; Honolulu is lit up for the night, but the ocean and mountains are still visible as something other than the black silhouettes they'll become in full night.
Enough light spills out from the living room that Steve can see Chin in profile, his head tipped back to lean against the chair, as though it's too heavy for Chin to hold up. Steve pushes away the memory of Chin on his knees in front of Iolani Palace, forces it neatly into the little black box of fuck-ups not to forget for later contemplation. He can indulge in the luxury of self-recrimination later, once he's alone. Chin might be letting the chair take the weight of his head, but his eyes are open and they're watching Steve.
"I"m not here to baby-sit," Steve says, softly this time, his eyes back on the city lights. "I came... I came to apologize."
"Steve--" Chin starts, but this is why Steve's here, and it needs to be said.
"No," Steve insists. "This is--I saw Victor Hesse and I... went a little crazy." Somewhere, Danny is cackling, but without any humor, and Steve can almost hear his "Ya think?" loud as day. "I'm sorry--I went off the rails there and started asking for shit I had no right--"
"McGarrett," Chin barks, as unyielding as as Steve's ever heard him, and it shuts Steve up like flipping a switch. Nobody says anything for a long few seconds. "Steve," Chin says, more calmly, more like his usual imperturbable self. "John... He was your father, but he was also my partner." He hesitates, and there's a world of unspoken emotion in the silence, grief and fury and loss. Steve knows it well. "He was my partner," Chin repeats. "Everything I know about being a cop, I learned from him. He never turned his back on me, not once, no matter how bad everything looked, and trust me, Steve, it looked bad."
"Yeah," Steve acknowledges, thinking about the set of blueprints in the hidey-hole in Chin's bedroom, blueprints that do nothing but add to the weight of circumstantial evidence against Chin. He thinks about where those blueprints led him earlier and shoves that mess into the box for dealing with later. No regrets on that, not at all.
"I wanted Hesse, too," Chin is saying, low and intense. "I wanted that son of a bitch, wanted to put a bullet in his head just like he---" Chin breaks off abruptly, and breathes in sharply. When he speaks again, his voice is soft and a little rueful. "Let's just say you're not the only one who's been a little off the rails these last few days. No apologies necessary."
Steve would argue the point, but it's late and the adrenaline that's been carrying him through the last few days is long gone, leaving not much in its wake. Chin takes his silence for agreement, or maybe just accepts that he's made his point even if Steve can't help but think it's too easy of an out. Either way, when Steve finishes his sake, Chin nods at the bottle in a clear invitation to pour again.
"You sure you don't want me out of here?" Steve asks. "Let you hit the rack, get a little sleep?"
"Oh, I don't think there's much sleep in my future," Chin says, hesitating a moment before adding, "Every time I blink, I'm back at the palace in full Technicolor glory. Sleep just sounds like an opportunity for endless replays. Maybe tomorrow. If you've got any place you need to be or you're ready to call it a night..."
"No," Steve answers, with a laugh that doesn't sound nearly as forced as he thought it might. "I think I'm in the same place as you, sleep-wise. I'm not seeing much in my future either."
"All right, brah," Chin says, nudging the sake toward Steve. Steve pours himself a refill and they settle back to watch the sky deepen into night.
***
My battered old phrasebook tells me my title means 'well-cared for, lovingly cared for' but it has been a long, long time since I've actually had any practice at this and I was never fluent to begin with, so if there's a better way to say that, I'm all ears.