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“Yeah, this isn’t going to work for me,” Steve grumbled as he tried to shift around in the ridiculously small passenger seat. As if to prove his point, he awkwardly tucked his legs up onto the chair, his knees up around his shoulders and his shoes resting on the soft black leather.
Not failing to notice the car dealer’s displeased expression, Danny immediately smacked Steve on the thigh. “Get your feet off the upholstery, what are you, an animal? And by the way, I could not be less concerned about whether or not this works for you. I let you come with me on the proviso that you would not utter a single word. And what are you doing?”
Steve feigned a thoughtful look. “Uttering?”
Danny nodded. “That is right, you are uttering. You are uttering, and that is not allowed.”
“But-”
“No!”
“But-”
“Ssshh!
Two sets of stubborn eyes met across the gear-stick. Silence reigned. Satisfied that he’d won, Danny began to inspect the electronic interface, but he was interrupted from his thoughts by quiet mumbling.
“Stupid toy car,” Steve muttered to himself. “Built for children, no leg-room, who could possibly fit into one of these things?”
He glanced over at Danny’s legs, which rested comfortably on the chair, and noticed that his feet fell perfectly to where the pedals were.
He smirked, and that was all it took.
“Out, out, out!” Danny exclaimed. “Uttering and comments about my height!? I cannot bear to be in this car with you a minute longer.”
A slow grin spread across Steve’s face. “So…I win.”
Uncharacteristically, Danny chose to remain quiet. He merely exited the car, and rolled his eyes as Steve theatrically unfolded himself from the depths of the passenger compartment.
The car dealer coughed awkwardly. “Uh, if you’re looking for something with more room to move, we have a few really nice family sedans in the next lot?”
Two pairs of eyebrows rose in indignation.
----
Steve looked at the Dodge Charger approvingly. “Can we take it for a test drive?”
The salesman nodded at Steve and went to hand him the keys. “Sure thing, brah.”
“Excuse me?!”
Both Steve and the salesman turned to Danny, as if only just remembering that he was actually there. “I am the one buying a car. He? Is purely ornamental.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Steve instructed the salesman with a wise wave of his hand.
Danny scrunched up his face. “What uh, what are you doing? Some kind of Ninja-Jedi-Navy SEAL mind trick? What, are these not the droids you are looking for?”
The salesman looked torn.
Danny, for his part, leaned against the car door and settled in for a rant. “Let me tell you something about this guy, okay?”
Steve sighed. The wild gesticulation had begun.
“This guy,” Danny continued with a violent pointing of fingers, “is the reason I am here in the first place. This guy? Killed my Camaro. My beautiful Camaro. Do you want to know how he killed my Camaro?”
Slightly alarmed, the salesman nodded nervously.
“He decided to drive it off a fourth storey roof. Onto another roof. A second storey roof. With me in it, I should point out! Took years off my life. And it’s my own fault, you know?”
The salesman calculated the distance to the security alarm.
“It’s my own fault, because I let him watch True Lies the other week, and he got all inspired by Arnie on the horse. He killed my car, ergo – yes, I said it, suck it up princess – he has no say in the buying process.”
The salesman nodded in understanding, and handed him the keys.
Danny jangled them at Steve victoriously. “One all.”
----
“It figures, doesn’t it?”
Steve tore his eyes away from the beautiful form of the sleek black car, to look at his partner. “What does?”
“It figures that the first car we can agree on, is a ’67 Chevy Impala.” Danny ran his hand over the smooth metal of the hood in appraisal.
“So?”
“So… do you really think that what you and I need the most in this world, is to emulate Sam and Dean Winchester? Fighting evil and saving innocents, Impala-style. We already get enough comments as it is.”
Steve took a moment to think, before nodding in agreement. “Let’s keep looking.”
----
The dealer was at the end of his tether. As was every dealer on the island, for that matter. He’d contemplated calling in sick for fear that they’d hit his store today. Never mind gangsters and thieves, the bickering detectives had earned themselves a fearsome reputation.
Until someone had come up with a brilliant idea, and a mass email was circulated amongst the salesmen of O‘ahu. Competition be damned, this was for the good of the many.
“Just so you know,” he began innocently, leaning over to talk through the open window of the driver’s side. “This car comes with something called Electronic Seat Adjustment Memory. So you can program in up to five seat positions. No more of that annoying sliding back and forth until you find the right spot, you can both adjust the seat to suit your heights.”
The dealer watched them exit the car and round to the front. The taller one looked down at the shorter one. The shorter one looked up at the taller.
They both turned to him.
“We’ll take it.”
----
Steve had almost made it to his car to head home for the night when he realized that he didn’t have his keys. After checking his pockets with what he knew was doomed hope that they’d suddenly appear, he turned back towards the building. Taking the stairs three at a time, he bounded into the dark and empty office - the team was all tucked away for the night .
With a sigh, he crossed the bull-pen and pressed on the glass door to his office. Scanning the room, his eyes fell to a small red box resting innocently on his desk. The military man in him was deeply suspicious of any unannounced parcels, but the red wrapping paper that covered the box was the same as what his birthday gift from Danny had been wrapped in.
A quick glance over at his partner’s office found it innocently silent and still.
Curiously, he inched forward and picked up the box. After a few seconds of thought, he unwrapped it, and pried the lid off. Inside were his previously misplaced keys – his car key, his house key, the keys to his team’s houses, and a few keys that led to various safe-deposit boxes and storage lockers that he had scattered around the country in case of…emergency.
He noticed a new addition, still wrapped in clear factory-standard plastic. He separated it from its brothers and sisters for inspection and smiled as he took in the Camaro logo that rested above the lock and unlock buttons.
Danny had given him his own key.