This Thing of Ours (It Needs a Better Name)

Fanfiction
Title:	This Thing of Ours (It Needs a Better Name)
Author(s):	leupagus
Date(s):	16 February 2011
Length:	35,922 words
Genre:	slash fanfiction, AU
Fandom:	Hawaii Five-0
External Links:	This Thing of Ours (It Needs a Better Name) (AO3)
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This Thing of Ours (It Needs a Better Name) is a Steve/Danny Gangster AU by leupagus (35,922 words).

Summary: Cosa Nostra: (kō'sə nō'strə) etym: Italian n. The branch of the Mafia operating in the United States. Literally, "our thing" or "this thing of ours."

Recs and Reviews

"Shift canon slightly to the left and you get mafioso!Danny and it is glorious. Brilliant characterisation all around (I love Danny & Rachel especially), Steve's & Danny's flirtation/pushing each other's buttons is just fantastic, fast paced and nicely plotted. I couldn't put it down. New favourite H50 fic no question about it."

Holy cow! What an awesome, awesome, awesome fic! Danny as a mob boss? Well, I didn't think that that would work but it did. Oh boy, did it work. Maybe it helped that Scott Caan (at least, I think it's been Scott) said in the DVD extras of Season 1 that he plays Danny as someone who could have been one of the bad guys but life made him one of the good guys. With that in the back of my mind? It worked so well. Then there is badass!Rachel, humor, action, weaving from canon to AU to canon. The characterisation is so spot on. ♥ The plot is enthralling and I couldn't stop reading.

Why we love it: This is one of the most well-thought-out AUs we’ve ever read. It ‘s both very heavily AU and very true to canon in ways you don’t necessarily expect. Danny’s a mob boss, and Steve is... Steve, and somehow, it works like magic.

Why You Should Read This: Because Danny makes one sexy Mob Boss, Rachel is scary, Stan is not-useless and Grace has one hell of a crash tackle. Steve doesn’t know what’s going on or why this criminal keeps winking at him and breaking into his house, and I’m pretty sure Mary and Kono are getting it on. Hot, funny, awesome.

Explicit, 35,000+ words, Mafia AU. Organized crime, sassiness, Rachel and Stan being fabulous, the team being awesome, forbidden love, and, ya know, all the good stuff.

"And by the way, we never had that talk about how you were using police investigations to sexually harass me."

"You can't harass the willing," Danny dismisses. he takes the other end of the cuff and pulls it slowly toward the bedpost, watching Steve watch him. The snap sounds very loud.

"Still got the other hand free," Steve says, not trying to hide how turned on he is anymore as his gaze flicks down to Danny's tie.

"See, we're learning all sorts of things about each other tonight," Danny says, and tugs at the knot, getting it just loose enough to slip over his head. "Our favorite weaponry, our dirty little kinks. Maybe later we'll talk about our favorite food, what kind of music we like--"

"You've got an unhealthy obsession with coco puffs," Steve interrupts, threading his left hand through the loop and swallowing loudly when Danny tightens it around his wrist. "You like Bon Jovi's early stuff, Springsteen's later stuff, and any time Nina Simone ever opened her mouth."

Danny tries to focus on tying the ends of his tie to the other bedpost, but he has to kiss Steve for that, get his hands on Steve's hip and shoulder and press him down into the bed. It shouldn't be such a turn-on--he's had people on his tail before who knew more about his life than he did. Mostly it was creepy, not to mention a little discouraging. he does his job and he's good at it, but he knows how ugly he is under the microscope.

But Steve has a file somewhere, thick with scribbled notes and observations, witness statements. he knows the things Danny's done and he's still here, licking into Danny's mouth, groaning like just this is good enough for him, and jesus, it's good enough for Danny, too.

In this AU Danny is a mafia boss who moves from Jersey to Hawaii to be with Grace, his activities watched with interest by the 5-0 team. A Steve determined to get Danny out of Hawaii is instead caught up in his charm offensive, and their relationship develops with Steve merely along for the ride, swept along by Danny's charisma. Though this is a mafia AU I definitely wouldn't describe it as angsty; it could even be called fluff. There's no question that Danny is involved in illegal activities that you would expect from the mafia, but his charm and laid back attitude see Steve falling in love against his better judgement.

I love the dark humour in this fic; for example Danny and Rachel talking amiably about that time she put a hit on him, and Danny's blasé attitude towards the violent reality of his lifestlye. You can't help but get caught up by Danny's sheer likeability, just like Steve, forgiving him any immorality. If you're looking for a serious and realistic mafia fic this is not the one to read. But if you're a fan of dark humour and characters with shades of grey, this is the perfect fic.

I promise not all of these are Leupagus recs, just the first three and that’s ‘cause they are really awesome and I really enjoy their writing. This Thing Of Ours (It Needs a Better Name) is a longer, plottier, AU fic in which Danny is the head of the Hawai’ian branch of the Cosa Nostra and Steve is, well Steve is pretty much what he is in the show. Oddly (or maybe not), the relationship between Danno and Steve, while being pretty much the whole point of the whole fic, was less fun for me than the actual crime boss parts of things. Also, Rachel in this fic is hilarious and fantastic. She would ROCK as one of the heads of a crime syndicate.

Danny as a sort-of mafia boss while Steve is still our leader of Five-0 shouldn’t work, but it does. It works so well. It’s unexpected, it’s fun, and it was impossible to put down because the plot and the emotional arc were so brilliantly done. Most importantly, there are no easy answers, and I adored that.

If you follow the show and were as traumatized by the finale as many of us were, now is the right moment to have a nice soothing moment of floating away from canon into AU. Yes, H5O has them! And like everything in this fandom, they're awesome!

This one's taking Danny's New Jersey roots and giving them the best kind of twist. Danny the Mafia Don flirting and fighting with Steve "The Law" McGarrett is one long blissful read sure to remind you why you loved the show in the first place despite messing with the fundamental premise. The fic is that awesome.

(Also, it had Danny trying to get the hang of Angry Birds before he tried to do the exact same thing in canon, and it should be mentioned! )