Cargument 1: Getting Divorced

"You just had to go and do it, didn't you."

Steve shot a look across the car at Danny. A look he wasn't sure how Danny would interpret, but which he meant to say, and very sheepishly, Um, maybe, depending on which 'it' you're talking about.

Sighing dramatically and cupping his own face with his hand, Danny ran it all the way from his forehead down to his chin until it bottomed out and flapped up into the air like a wayward seagull. Steve found that immediately snort-worthy, but quickly forced his face into a frown when Danny's stink-eye made itself quite known.

Well, shit. Your hand flapping like a seagull is funny, Danno.

"You simply had no other choice at eight o'clock last night when we were tucking my precious, innocent little girl into my admittedly shitty fold-out bed, that you along with her father who works extremely hard to make sure her innocence is not prematurely lost by letting her know a single, solitary detail of what I do day in and day out...that is the little girl you really, really felt needed to know that you blew up an entire house Friday and...I mean, Steven, here's the big and part coming up...and you had to smile while you were telling her this."

Steve flicked his eyes across the suddenly too-small space between them again. "Bedtime story?" he tried, though he knew that sounded pitifully lame.

"B-?" Danny spluttered, shaking his head and shaking it some more and flapping his hands around and whoop, down and up, there went the seagull again.

Steve managed not to snort this time.

"Bedtime story, he says, that's great, it really is, thank you, Steven J. McGarrett, for also telling my innocent little bundle of purity and goodness that is one Grace Williams, that not only did you happily blow up a house with a very big smile on your face the whole time, but that her father was the one who made the suggestion which, I would like to make a point here, my friend, is hardly accurate."

Now it was Steve's turn to splutter. "Hardly accurate? Are you serious?"

"No, Steve. I am not serious. I am simply blowing smoke up your ass because I like to hear myself talk."

"Well, at least you finally admitted it," Steve muttered. Oh, shit, that was my inside voice gone outside, wasn't it?

Danny's jaw dropped, and if it hadn't looked so comical that Steve wanted to bust a nut laughing right then and there, he might've been just a bit worried at the way his partner ever-so-slowly turned his head until it allowed his eyes to shoot him a glare that, truth be told, might have taken Superman himself down.

"Are you telling me," Danny said, in a very uncharacteristically quiet and calm voice, "that you think I go off on tangents simply to hear myself talk, rather than to actually talk some sense into you?"

This time Steve couldn't help biting his lip. Yeah, that hadn't been the brightest thing to let slip, especially not right now when Danny was already accusing him of deflowering Grace's purity and innocence where her father's job was concerned. "No," he said with a lot more confidence than he felt. "I just meant...look, Danny, I wasn't trying to, you know, mess with your daughter's preconceived notions of her father, okay?"

"Just with her father."

Okay, Steve could go with that. "Yes."

"Yes, he says."

Steve nodded. "Yes."

"You know what this means, don't you?"

Looking across at his partner's face in profile did nothing to help him understand where his head was at right now, and so he just quietly said, "No, but I'm sure you'll tell me."

"I will, at that," Danny said. "If you're telling me that I'm just talking to hear myself talk, and that tells me right there that you're no longer listening to a single word I say, that, my friend, and trust me on this because been there, done that, bought the ever-lovin' tee shirt...that means that you and I are going to be divorced within a month."

Now would not be the time to bring up the fact that we're not married. That we're nothing more than 5-0 partners. Right?

That thought firmly in place, Steve deflected down to the next best thing. "Danny, I haven't listened to what you've said since the day I met you."

"Oh," Danny said, relaxing back into the seat and giving a half-hearted flap of his hand in Steve's general direction. He closed his eyes and sighed happily. "Well, in that case, I'm not even on your radar yet, which means we haven't even gotten to the part where we've met, so we're good for at least another three years."

Steve shot him another glance and recognized peace on his partner's face at last. He couldn't help but grin as they neared headquarters. "Good to know, Danno," he said, slotting the Camaro into its reserved parking spot. "Good to know."