Title: Don’t Ever Change
Fandom: Hawaii Five-O (2010)
Author: JoJo
Pairing: Steve/Danny
Characters: Chin Ho Kelly, Steve McGarrett, Danny Williams, Adam Noshimuri, Junior Reigns, Tani Rey, Quinn Liu, Lou Grover, Eddie the Dog
Rating: G
Wordcount: 784
Author note: Mild spoilers for eps 8.10 and 10.2. Mention of Kono although she’s not in the fic. Suggested Steve/Chin, or not, as you like.

Summary: Chin’s checked out of Five-O but he can never leave.

In October of the year Jerry quit, Chin came home on a visit.

Casually Californian these days he was, sharp from the job, and a little shy from long absence.

What he mainly hoped was that this visit would be better than either of the last two.

He’d first come back to O'ahu from San Francisco two years ago, after Abby had left him. Most of the team were in quarantine at the time, and Steve had shaved his head. It shouldn’t have been a great way to meet the newbies Junior and Tani, but it kind of was, and such a relief to eat dinner with Lou and Renee, feel the relaxation of settled friendship. However, the main event had been when the already crappy situation in the hospital went spectacularly sideways, leaving Danny hanging to life by a thread.  Quite a tenacious thread as it turned out, but a thread nonetheless. Chin had stayed longer on the island than he’d planned, sucked into the terror of the team. It was briefly as if he’d never left.

The second visit was just after Joe White died.

That time.

Chin, even after taking on board all of Danny’s frustrated warnings, had somehow managed to make a worryingly stoic Steve tear up, heartbreakingly, out of nowhere. The jury remained undecided on whether this had been a good thing or a bad thing. He’d left a day early.

Now Chin was back again.

At first he thought the main change this go around was that Steve, less stoic, had more chairs.

“That’s your takeaway?” Danny was outraged. “That McGarrett went to The Home Depot since you were last here?”

Chin had been calm. “I know there’ll be other things, brah,” he said. “I just need time to notice them.” There was Danny's hair, of course.

“Hey, these beauties came in way under $100 for the pair.” McGarrett was pleased with himself and his thrift.

“From the used and display models section,” Danny pointed out. “This man is too cheap to purchase new chairs for his guests.”

Said guests made a show of looking closely at their second-hand chairs. Junior, concussed only a few days before, was slightly slower on the uptake, and the latest waif and stray that McGarrett had co-opted, Quinn Liu, was clearly unsure of the protocol on blatantly disrespecting one’s boss.

It was a peerless, blue, afternoon. Chin knew many similar in California, but cloudless Sundays out back of McGarrett’s were special. They were everything, always had been. Steve, of course, presided at the grill, while Danny carped contentedly from the sidelines. The single steak reserved for Eddie made Chin, standing a little apart, laugh very hard. Danny’s disgust about it was delicious in that edgy, hilarious, way Chin cherished. There were cold beers on tap and the not-quite-new adirondacks came into their own.

Adam was there, too, and Chin didn’t really know what to make of that.

Of course, Adam was ohana, to him as much as to any of them. But he was something other, too. Part of the tricky ins and outs of Clan Kelly-Kalakaua for a start. They’d have Adam’s back here, of course they would. But Chin would always have Kono’s first.

Chin missed Kono badly. He missed her on this lanai.

He felt a burst of resentment all of a sudden. That anyone was here other than the four of them, as they’d been from the miraculous moment McGarrett had shucked his Navy uniform and dragged Five-O, kicking and screaming, into being. Just for a moment none of it was familiar and Chin was weary down to his bones. His gaze drifted away from the scene, out into the ocean, not sure why he was here.

“Hey.” Steve eased a shoulder against his. Kept it there, always solid, always a comfort, drew him back. With a light flourish of his grilling tongs, Steve, in that way of his, re-directed Chin’s focus.  The conductor conducting. “Know what I mean?” he said.

Steve meant Adam, of course, and Kono just as much. He meant Lou and his bad knees. He meant Tani and Junior, stupidly sweet on each other. Jerry who couldn’t come out to play today, oldest of Chin’s old friends. Of course he meant Danny, love of his life. And Eddie, tail athump, positively grinning with doggy joy. He even meant Quinn, who Chin didn’t know and had hardly spoken to.

He meant it was OK.

Things changed, things were always the same. Chin was part of it. They didn’t even need to say so.

Chin stayed standing there for a moment more, savoring the feel of him. Then he moved away, towards the beer Adam was holding out, eyes alight with welcome.


- ends -