Title: Mammal to mammal communication

Summary: Steve has to ask Danny for a favour.

Disclaimer: I don't own 5-0. Obviously. Or the characters.

A/N: First 5-0 fic. I apologize for the lack of a plot, or purpose at all... and for any OOCness. But I figured, since it's written, it may as well be posted. Unbetaed, so all errors belong to me.

Update: This is now a series of unrelated one-shots, which are short conversations between Steve and Danny. Not necessarily going to be in any sort of order, other than the order in which they get written.

It was late when Detective Danny Williams looked up from his desk into the now empty main room of the 5-0 offices. The fading evening light was the only source of light beyond his office, and he knew both Kono and Chin had left some time ago. He hadn't seen McGarrett leave, but his office was also now dark. Rolling his head, he tried to work out the kink that was developing in his neck. A couple more minutes and he would be done his own paper work and on his way for the night too.

He sighed as he looked down at the last of the reports in front of him. He should have known that being part of a 'prestigious' newly invented task force would generate mountains of paper work. Particularly as said task force was run by a certain Navy SEAL with a penchant for blowing stuff up.

Not that he had really been given much choice in his recruitment to the task force, he thought with a wry smile. It had certainly been an interesting couple of months since the formation of 5-0. He still could not say he was entirely certain how he felt about it sometimes. Particularly in terms of his no-regards-for-procedure Neanderthal partner, although in the privacy of his own head, he did have to admit that the man, even in all his insanity, was growing on him.

Clearly the Hawaiian heat was frying his brain.

Glancing back around the office again he concluded there were at least definite perks to his new position. The high tech computer sitting in the main room for one – that was most certainly not standard police issue. Hell, two months in and he was still trying to get used to the fact that he had his own office. With walls, and a door. It would have taken years and some serious promotions before he could have ever expected that back when he worked in Newark or with the HPD.

And the cases themselves were certainly high profile. Though, that tended to contribute to the fact that he was now sitting here, well past quitting time wading through an enormous stack of paper work. Which he supposed would only get done if he actually did it. So after a moment he turned his attention back to the papers before him.

Only to glance up again, less than a minute later as a figure appeared in his door way.

"Thought you'd left?" Danny asked when McGarrett didn't immediately say anything.

The other man just shrugged and fidgeted with the file folder in his hand. He actually fidgeted. Danny looked more closely at him, and his keen eye noted that the man actually looked uncomfortable. There was an oddly hesitant look to his usually composed face; one that in the short time Danny had known him seemed wholly out of place.

"You uh, you got a minute?" McGarrett asked, the hesitance Danny thought he had read in his expression even clearer in his tone.

"Sure. What's up?" Danny asked putting his pen down and turning all his focus to the man in his doorway. "Case file?" he asked with a nod to the file McGarrett held.

"Huh?" McGarrett replied as he stepped fully into the office and let the door close behind him, even though there was clearly no one else left in the office. Then looking down, as though just noticing the file he was holding McGarrett shook his head, "No."

"Okay," Danny replied slowly, really not sure where this conversation was going. If anywhere. Getting this man to learn normal human communication was really going to take forever. If such a thing was even possible. When McGarrett didn't offer any further explanation Danny sighed, "How's your head?" he finally asked, wondering if perhaps the hit to the head that McGarrett had taken the previous day could explain his partner's off-kilter behaviour. Not that McGarrett's behaviour wasn't always off-kilter, but this was off in a whole new way.

"It's fine," McGarrett replied twisting the file in his hand again. "I was hoping I could ask you a favour."

Still really not knowing where this was going, Danny just nodded.

"I uh, had to update my files, and was wondering if I could list you as my next-of-kin," McGarrett finally blurted, looking anywhere but at Danny.

Danny stared at the man in front of him blankly for a moment. The man he had known for all of two months. Whatever he had been expecting McGarrett to ask him it wasn't that. "Uh what?" he finally asked.

McGarrett looked at him a moment, his face once again unreadable "No, it's fine, never mind." He said quickly. And that was when the full meaning of his request filtered into Danny's mind. I had to update my files. Which was apparently McGarrett-speak for the fact that he'd had to remove his dead father's name as his next-of-kin contact.

"McGarrett," Danny called and then sighed "Steve," he added, stopping him before the man could turn and make the hasty exit he looked like he was planning, "Sure, that's uh, fine," he offered.

McGarrett blinked at him for a moment, and then nodded slowly. "Thanks," he said sounding oddly relieved.

"Yeah, no problem," Danny said with a wave of his hand, as if to say 'no big deal, people who barely know me ask me to be their emergency contact all the time'. "Don't you have a sister though?" he couldn't help asking. He was sure he had read that during the investigation into John McGarrett's murder. Just as he now remembered noting that John's wife had been killed in an accident when Steve would have been still a teen.

McGarrett shrugged, "Yeah, Mary. She lives on the mainland." He said as though that explained everything. "I don't want them calling her anytime something happens. Besides she's uh… we aren't close." he trailed off with another shrug, although to the detective in Danny it was clear that was not what he was originally going to say.

McGarrett didn't say anything further, but Danny could read the unspoken 'And I don't have anyone else' painfully clear in the other man's tense posture.

~Fin~