ifeelbetter

Dom shrugged and made a show of giving up (which never ended in him giving up, it just diffused the disagreement over a period of intense nagging and not-so-subtle hints and Arthur wondering why he put up with this horrible little man. And then Arthur inevitably gave up and Dom didn't rub his nose in it so much which was a little nice. Sort of).

That night--in the dingy living room restaurant with somebody's grandmother's alcohol shelf propped on cardboard box--Arthur realized he sort of liked the whole bar-tending routine. He'd always liked alcohol in a passive way--there was that whole period in his teenage-years when he'd tried to dress like Sammy Davis Jr. with very limited success and you don't love Sammy Davis Jr. the way he did without seriously digging a nice cocktail--but there was something even better about the production end of the drink. He liked the way people waited patiently (or, you know, impatiently) for him to slide a perfect little glass of something beautiful, something perfect and delicate, across to them. And Mal kept them supplied in French chanteuses on vinyl for the right ambiance and Dom had unplumbed depths when it came to interior decorating--how he made the lights cast that rosy-amber glow was a trick of genius as far as Arthur was concerned, especially since it seemed to make even the dingy backroom look elegant--and it all made the night fantastic.

"You were in a science lab," she said, like she was explaining it to a five-year old, "and you were partnered with--"

She didn't get to finish the thought, though. Not when the person in question was bursting into the room so exuberantly that the door nearly fell of its hinges. And Steve McGarrett--the student who no one had wanted to sit next to and Danny, the new kid, had been forced to partner with, the kid who had unexpectedly grinned a sort of Cheshire-cat grin and said "bet you don't know what would happen if I put this in here" and then had ignored the obvious double entendre in favor of pouring something pink and powdery into something blue and liquidy and then, no, Danny wouldn't have predicted the ensuing explosion--had proof of his complicity all over his face. In the form of ash. He was covered in the stuff except for around the eyes, where his goggles had been.

"You can't expel Danno!" McGarrett said. "It was entirely my fault!" The goggles were hanging around his neck--also covered in the thick ash--and he'd left a hand print right in the middle of the principal's door, covering her nameplate.