Chapter Text
Nahele is stretching his legs when he feels cool air gust past him. His shirt is caught and his body is tugged with the object causing the wind. He has about five seconds to get with the program before his face will eat pavement. After his feet get their own rhythm on the ground, he pulls his friend’s hand off his shirt and speeds up in his run. Makaio grins charmingly and quickens his own pace. They race each other, dodging pedestrians and lagging tourists like they do every Saturday morning.
The teenagers make it to the beach and run until the burning in their legs make them fall into the sand. Makaio goes down first, and like he had yanked Nahele into running with him early, he yanks him down to the ground with him. Nahele lands with a grunt. He stretches out his legs and arms, like he’s making a sand-angel. Makaio is panting beside him. Nahele rolls his head to the side and squints against the sun to see his best friend grinning up at the sky with his eyes closed. The sight always makes Nahele feel happier. He smiles to himself and closes his eyes as he focuses on breathing calmer.
After a few minutes, both their breathing has evened out enough that they can talk. Makaio’s arm falls outward toward him and his knuckles knock onto Nahele’s chest. The action makes Nahele flinch. He looks at his friend with one eye to find Makaio staring at the water. “Hey, I was thinking about going to prom. I know it’s too expensive for just one night and you spend more time getting ready than actually being at the dance, and Senior prom is much better, but it could be fun, don’t you think?”
To be honest, Nahele hadn’t thought about prom. Like Makaio said, it was expensive. The ticket alone was like eighty bucks. They hold prom at a fancy hotel—which is stupid because the faculty always complains about kids getting rooms and throwing parties or having sex, yet they don’t move their location somewhere else—and a nice dinner is included. Eighty bucks is actually cheap considering all that’s included. Then there’s the tux, the shoes, a tie, usually some kind of limo or car, and that’s only for him; he’d have to pay for two tickets if he had a date and he’d have to buy flowers too.
The reason he hasn’t even thought of prom, aside for the cost, is that he’s not interested in anyone to take as a date to the prom. He has a few friends in classes, but no one that really stands out; that is, besides Makaio. If Nahele was being honest, he’d want to go with his best friend. He doesn’t have fun with anyone else. He doesn’t feel like himself with anyone else. When he’s with Makaio, he’s happier. He can look over at the other boy and know that someone has his back, that someone cares about him; and then Makaio smiles or cracks a lame joke, and Nahele forgets to breathe, or how to keep his heart beating.
So he has a small crush on his best friend; so what? He tries not to think about it, because then it would become a bigger deal than it has to be.
“Oh, uh, yeah,” Nahele hears himself agreeing. He shrugs and takes a deep breath. His chest still burns from his run but that’s not why his heart is racing. He hopes Makaio can’t feel it pounding against the back of his hand.
“I guess it sounds cool.”
“And it would be really fun if you went with me,” Makaio makes a fist lightly tapping Nahele’s chest. Nahele’s eyes widen in his direction a little lost for words. The bigger of the two grins as he removes his hand and leans his weight up against his elbow. “Come on. I couldn’t image going without you. I wouldn’t have fun otherwise.”
“You…you want to go together?” Nahele struggles to sit up. He stumbles a bit in the sand before settling for leaning back with his hands on the ground behind him. “Like, actually together?”
“Yeah,” Makaio pushes at his shoulder like he’s asking if he wants to watch a football game or something. He’s surprisingly non challant, Nahele isn’t sure he’s reading this correctly. He prays he is, and that by “together” Makaio means a date. His friend reads his worry off his face and sighs, “It wouldn’t be a big deal. No one would care if we went together. Our school’s got that club now, remember? The uh…GSA club, I think.”
So he was reading it correctly. Nahele struggles not to smile too wildly. He has to look away in order to not look like a complete goof ball. He stares out towards the water, listens to the waves crash and the people play and the birds sing. Right there in that moment, with his best friend, he’s felt more peaceful than he has in years. The past year and a half has been chaotic, to put it mildly. His mother died, his father was still in prison, and he’s been in two foster families in the last eight months. Both homes were terrible so he ran off to live on his own, but he had nowhere to live, no money for food. Him stealing cars for parts turned out to be the best decision he ever made, because it brought him Steve.
After meeting the commander, life just got better. With Steve’s connections to the governor of Hawaii, he was able to get Nahele into a better foster home. This family only had two other foster kids, so they actually payed attention to him. Since he’s older, they don’t mind if he stays out later or sometimes stays at Steve’s instead. In a year, he’d be 18 and he can live on his own outside of the system. After school and on the weekends, he plays football with Steve and fixes up the car he stole. Steve got him a job at the shrimp truck which Nahele loves because sometimes he gets to make his own combinations of flavors. No one really knows this, but he’s always been very interested in cooking. It might not be a proper kitchen or restaurant but the shrimp truck was kind of a dream come true.
Through it all, Makaio stood by him. They’ve been friends since Makaio moved from another island during middle school. All of Nahele’s other friends stopped talking to him after his dad got sent to prison, and they didn’t know how to act around him after his mother died. Not Makaio. Nahele would be completely lost without him.
“I don’t know,” Nahele rubs the back of his neck with his hand. Sand flakes into his shirt but he could care less. “I only make so much at the truck and…”
“‘A‘ole pilikia! Don’t you worry bout the money,” Makaio waves his hand through the air. He places his hand over his heart and smiles warmly. “I got the ticket covered; what kind of gentleman would I be if I didn’t buy my date’s ticket, huh?”
Nahele laughs, “Gentleman, eh? That’s a first, brah.”
“Come on, hoaloha—” Makaio’s voice turns soft and his hand falls down to cover Nahele’s in the sand. He turns his hand over so they’re palm to palm and squeezes his hand tight, “—I like you. Go to prom with me?”
The sentiment is enough to make Nahele feel light headed. He finds himself nodding and squeezing his friend’s hand back. Makaio’s face grows a wide, toothy smile. It’s slightly crooked to the left and he’s missing a tooth in the back top row. It always makes Nahele’s chest feel tight and warm.
“Ya?” Makaio asks to confirm. “Ya! Alright. It’ll be great! Don’t you worry bout a thing, Ipo. I’ll take care of it all. Don’t you worry. Come on, I’ll race you back.”
Before he know’s it, Nahele is being pulled up to his feet by both his hands. When he gets lifted up, Makaio’s lips peck his quickly and smoothly. It happens so fast, Nahele’s sure Makaio didn’t realize he did it; just like he probably didn’t realize he called Nahele lover. His mom used to call his dad Ipo all the time when he was growing up. Not so much towards the end, but still. Nahele stands there in shock while Makaio dashes ahead of him.
“Come on, slow poke. You’ll never beat my track record standing there!”
Nahele isn’t close to beating anyone’s track record, especially now. He can’t even feel his feet.
He shakes his head out of it and follows the sound of Makaio’s laughter. Maybe prom wouldn’t be the worst idea. It would be something to look forward to and work for. As long as he’s got Makaio, anything is worth it.
It turns out that Danno isn’t feeling too well. He spiked a fever over the night and the doctors think he might have an infection or a cold since his immune system is shotty after the surgery. As a precaution, they moved Danny to another room but kept him on recovery. Steve’s system is even more fragile and they can’t risk him getting sick either. Separating the two of them was complete hell, like they were two kids in the sandbox being told they both had to go home.
As they moved Danny out of the room, he held his hand out and lightly grabbed Nahele’s wrist. He leaned in close to whisper, “If there was a better time to talk to him, it’s now.”
Even with a 103 fever, Danny is meddling. That was over an hour ago and Nahele hasn’t moved from standing outside of Steve’s hospital room. He tries mastering up the courage to go in there, but every time he thinks he can handle it, Steve’s face cringes and he holds onto his side, or he coughs, or grumbles to himself about nothing being on tv or nothing to do. Nahele convinces himself that it’s not the right time, that it’s too soon to bring this up to the man, and that he should be focusing on getting better.
They’ll be out of the hospital by the end of the month. They can talk then.
“What’s up, dude?” a familiar voice asks behind him. Nahele looks over his shoulder to see that it’s Eric, Danny’s nephew. It’s silly—stupid even—but every time he sees him, Nahele thinks his crush grows more and more. He fights the blush that he feels burning his neck and looks into Steve’s room as a distraction.
“Uh, nothing. They moved your uncle across the hall.”
“Was their bickering getting on the nurses’ nerves? It gets on mine. I understand.”
“No,” Nahele chuckles. “Danno is sick, or something. They don’t want Steve to catch it.”
“Ah,” Eric nods. “Cooties. Got it.”
Eric is so much like Danny—though the Detective denies it—with his humor and his big, bleeding heart. It’s endearing seeing qualities of the man Nahele has grown fond; sometimes it can be weird, but Eric has a lot of good qualities of his own. Like his face; especially his face.
“Is Steve contagious too?”
“Nah, bruddah. He’s good,” Nahele shakes his head. Eric frowns deeply at him. He looks into Steve’s room and sees him flipping through channels aggressively. The man in the bed groans at the TV as he pounds his finger into the buttons on the control. Eric tilts his head with growing curiosity towards Nahele.
“Then why are you out here, man? You’ve been stuck to McGarrett’s side like gum on a gym shoe,” taking it upon himself, Eric grabs a hold of Nahele’s shoulders and steers him in front of him before giving his back a shove. Stupid Williams’ and meddling. “I think i’ll pay good ol’ Uncle D a visit. Later, buddy.”
Steve tears his eyes away from the TV when the teenager stumbles into the room. His eyes light up with amusement at the boy’s awkward entrance. “You okay there, pal?”
He wants to blame it on Eric, wants to make light of it and play it off. He wants to lay on Danny’s empty bed and watch Steve go through every single tv station eight times. He wants to order bland hospital food and listen to stories about Steve’s favorite cases or missions. Instead, he just watches. He watches the way Steve’s eyes sparkle with mischief like when Danno says something bizarre or Kono does something totally badass. He watches how his face is full of love and acceptance. He watches until the smile on Steve’s face falls into a frown of concern. He watches until his eyes start to sting with tears.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Steve switches off the tv and slowly sits up in his bed. He adjusts his blankets over his lap and pats the spot on the mattress beside him, “What’s goin’ on? Come here.”
Nahele lunges forward but sits down closer to Steve’s feet. He plays with the scratchy blue blanket and refuses to look up at the man who has taken him in in so many ways. Danny had been supportive when he brought up how he was going to go to prom with Makaio. He was supportive about the whole maybe liking guys thing. Okay, not maybe. But Nahele didn’t go into too much detail about it all. Danny just wanted him to tell Steve.
Maybe if he pretends it’s Danny; if he doesn’t look up and he pretends that it’s Danny he’s talking to again. That could work. Nahele’s heart doesn’t race as much when he thinks that. His palms still feel sweaty but he can breathe enough to speak. With one hand gripping the blanket, he rubs the back of his neck with the other.
“The reason I didn’t want to go to prom is because I never wanted to go in the first place. It’s too expensive and I couldn’t afford it on the money I make from the food truck, and I didn’t want to ask you or my foster parents for it because that’s a burden. But then Makaio told me he wanted to go…go with me, and that he’d pay for my ticket so I could go. But paying wasn’t the point. The point is that I only wanted to go with him; and then he…he died and it all seemed so stupid to me. I-I’ve only had him as a friend for so long and I liked him…a lot, you know? So I was happy. Happy that he wanted to go. But then he died. And I would have told you about it, I think; but then the accident happened and I didn’t want to stress you out anymore than you already are. I-prom was the last thing I wanted to do, but you seemed so happy about me going, I didn’t want to let you down. But once I got there, I heard these kids talking about Makaio and his funeral and I felt all light headed and sick and I didn’t have any of the punch, I swear. I didn’t touch the stuff but I…”
“Whoa, whoa,” Steve’s hands came into Nahele’s vision. One of them brushed over his hand holding the sheets. “Slow down, kid. Breathe. Take it one thing at a time. You…you like Makaio? Is that it?”
Unable to meet Steve’s eyes, he just nodded. He heard Steve take a deep breath.
“Okay. Alright, that’s ok. That’s perfectly fine. Why did you think you couldn’t tell me that?”
“I-I don’t know,” Nahele shrugs. “I guess, since it was like a date, I thought you’d freak out. Or be mad. Or something. I don’t really know.”
“Hey,” Steve’s knee underneath the blanket knocks into Nehele’s side. “You don’t have to be scared to tell me anything. I will be here for you always; no matter what. You-you hit someone with your car, I’ll still be there. I think I’d draw the line with murder, but I think that’s understandable, right?”
It makes him laugh, which Nahele knows is why Steve said it. He runs his fingers through his hair and finally meets Steve’s eyes. They’re nothing but open and understanding. Relief washes over him like a cool bath, but then something heavy settles in his stomach. It’s deep and hard and it makes his chest ache feeling it. He’s never had someone be this unconditionally loving towards him before; not since his mom and even then, he wasn’t old enough to have these big conversations with her. It may be a bit misplaced, but talking with Steve is kind of how Nahele pictured talking to his mom. Suddenly, he starts to cry through his smile and he leans all his weight towards Steve. The man catches him before he could hit his head on the bed railing and cradles his head to his chest by the crock of his arm.
Steve hushes him and hugs him around the shoulders as best as he can from this angle. The arm wrapped around him squeezes his upper arm tightly and is being rubbed by his thumb. Nahele cries into Steve’s shoulder, letting everything out. He’s cried since Makaio died, and since the plane crash. It’s felt like he hasn’t stopped crying since. But this was different. This felt, cleansing. Like everything toxic and bad was coming out of him. Steve took it all in stride, holding on and whispering good things in his ear.
After what felt like hours but was probably only minutes, Nahele felt like there was nothing left. He sits up slowly, dislodging Steve’s arms from around him, and wipes his face with the back of his hands. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Steve shakes his head, “Don’t ever be sorry for that. You’ve got a lot on your plate, lately. I get it. I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you about it sooner.”
“You were in a plane crash,” Nahele laughs despite his stuffy nose and wet cheeks. Steve shrugs with a small smile.
“Nahele, it doesn’t matter to me who you like or what you like doing. As long as it makes you happy and you’re safe. That’s all that matters to me. And when something is bothering you, you have to come to me about it. You can’t bottle it all in; don’t take on other people’s stress and carry it as your own. It’s not your job to protect me. It’s my job to protect you. You’re the kid; your job is to have fun and figure out who you are and to live life to its fullest. Go to prom; have boyfriends, or girlfriends, or don’t date anyone at all, I don’t care. Just be happy about it. Okay?”
That alone made fresh tears start start to well up. Steve took complete ownership over Nahele, as if there was no foster system, no pseudo parents. The nurses calling them a family, him being able to call Danny ‘Danno,’ Grace teasing him like a little sister, Charlie looking at him like a hero and a big brother…and that was only the Williams’. Steve has opened his doors to Nahele in more ways than one; he got him job, puts food on the table when he needs to, gives him money for lunch if he thinks Nahele needs it. He teaches him how to throw a football properly, and how to breathe underwater for longer when swimming. He took him clothes shopping and bought him school supplies. The only thing stopping Steve from being his foster dad is a piece of paper that really none of them need. Still, Nahele doesn’t want to go that far into thinking about it. He doesn’t want to push ideas into Steve’s head that he may not agree with or want.
Nahele sniffs. “So body tattoos, nose ring, motorcycle, all that’s cool?”
“One thing at a time, Bubba, alright?” Steve slaps his arm with a smile. For a second, Steve’s eyes dim and his smile flickers away. He licks his lips and looks towards his window for a moment before meeting Nahele’s eyes. “Hey, I uh, I think since you were so honest about your friend, I should tell you about mine.”
“Danno?” he half teases. Steve’s eyes don’t light up like they should. Nahele sits up straight; if Steve gave his undivided attention and unconditional understanding, he can too.
“No,” Steve shakes his head sadly. “I had this friend when I was training to be a SEAL. His name was Freddie…”
The nurses wheel Danny into the hospital room the next morning. Steve has been up for hours, all night even, thinking things over. When Danny enters the room, he smiles brightly.
“What’s got you all excited for?” Danny asks as he slips into his old bed. He gets the covers over his legs and lets the nurses attach the wires and monitors that he doesn’t really feel are necessary. Once they’re done and leave the room, he looks over at his partner and can’t help but smile back. It’s a goofy grin, wide and confident and happy. It’s a look Danny has missed seeing on Steve’s face. He chuckles when Steve won’t break eye contact with him.
“What?”
Steve takes in a deep breath and lets out heavily. He nods to himself before meeting Danny’s eyes again, “I decided what I want to do.”
“Oh, yeah?” Danny plays along, “And what’s that?”
Steve shrugs his shoulder, “I’m going to adopt Nahele.”
Danny’s heart monitor jumps a beat. He stares at it with shock before looking back at his best friend, who is unwavered. Steve is dead serious about this; as one should be if saying these things. It takes a minute to digest. Danny licks his lips and thinks it over. After a minute, he nods and tosses his hand back and forth, like he’s weighing the pros and cons.
“Yeah. Yeah, that seems about right.”