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Lacey gets the first round of beers. When he puts them down on the table that Dwight conquered – well, sat down at just when four college kids were leaving, but same diff – he does it with such feeling that some of the contents slosh over the sides of the glasses. Dwight twists in his seat to get his knee out of the way, so the beer drips harmlessly through the wooden slats of the table and into the white, extremely soft sand that covers the rough boards like the beach itself is invading the seaside bar’s terrace.
Dwight knows the sand is that soft because the first thing he did when he came to Hawaii was take off his shoes and bury his feet in it. He’s in love.
Lacey plonks down in the chair next to his and seems to be thinking much the same thing, because he takes one of the beers, gazes out over the ocean (or, knowing him, maybe just the beach in front of it with its wide array of scantily-clad women) and lets out a deep, satisfied sigh that sounds like it comes all the way from his toes. “McGarrett had the right idea, man, don’t you think?”
“I’m sorry, am I even in the right place here? Because that sounds suspiciously like I just heard you appreciate my genius.”
Dwight whips his head around. His only solace is that Lacey seems startled, too. McGarrett snuck up on them from inland while they were both watching the curves of the ocean and the women on the other side.
Within the next second, they’re both up and yelling “Smooth Dog!” a lot and pounding McGarrett on the back while he gives as good as he gets. It’s obnoxious, but that’s what makes it fun – they’re here as tourists, for once, not for any kind of mission, so there’s no CO to look at them askance when he hears stories about rowdy Navy guys at a local bar.
By the time they’ve all gotten rid of enough loudness and manly excitement to sit down, Dwight has had more than enough time to take measure of McGarrett. “You look good, man,” he says. It’s true – he’s older than when Dwight last saw him, but that must have been almost half a decade ago by now, when they shared beers when Dwight had a layover in Hawaii. Since then, McGarrett’s hair has started to grey, though it unfairly doesn’t seem to be thinning. Still, for a guy who’s basically a civilian nowadays he still looks fit as fuck and he hasn’t stopped grinning since he startled them.
Which might have something to do with McGarrett’s good mood, to be real, but Dwight’s charitably overlooking that.
“I should,” McGarrett says, taking the beer that Lacey hands him and tapping it to both of theirs before he takes the first gulp. “I am good.”
Lacey guffaws. “Is that bragging I hear? Bragging about your gloriously sunny Hawaiian life?”
“Is that jealousy I hear, huh?” McGarrett shoots right back. This is what Dwight loves about catching up with old teammates – there’s a kind of connection there that binds you for life which you never lose, even if you don’t see each other for years at a time. It’s always easy to pick that thread back up.
Speaking of being bound for life, there’s more gold around than just the sun-kissed skin and bouncy curls of women passing them by. “Fuuuck,” Lacey says. It’s Dwight’s turn to snort, because that’s a very Lacey way of letting the world know he caught on, too. “Smooth Dog, you got married? The old ball and chain?”
McGarrett doesn’t start laughing and complaining about his nagging wife, which the question kind of invites him to, but he’s still grinning when he inclines his head. “Something like that. A lot’s happened since I last talked to either of you.”
“I bet,” Lacey says. “So what’s the lucky lady’s name?”
It’s a perfectly okay question, especially coming from Lacey with his well-documented lack of tact, but McGarrett’s grin does something strange. It gets an edge. It’s enough to cause Dwight to tense up instinctively and make him realize that he’d probably have to get rid of his flipflops if it came to a fight, because wiggling his toes in the free air makes him feel like the most relaxed, stress-free man on earth, but that probably won’t hold when he tries to kick someone’s shin and ends up launching a flipflop across the patio instead. It’s the first real drawback he’s found to life in Hawaii, but it’s comforting to know there are any at all.
“His name’s Danny,” McGarrett says, which cuts Dwight’s mental tangent about shoe wear short rather abruptly. “And you probably shouldn’t call him a lucky lady where he can hear you.”
To say that silence reigns for a few seconds would be to ignore the ocean, the people everywhere and the seagull yapping in the distance. Besides, it’d be admitting defeat to something completely incorporeal, which they can’t do, as three SEALs at one table.
So Dwight breaks it. “You got a picture?”
Lacey shoots him a look and he shrugs. It’s not like he has a clue what he’s doing – the whole not asking, not telling thing has been struck from the books for years by this point, but that doesn’t mean every gay Navy member has suddenly been jumping out of closets and yelling from the rooftops who they like to get freaky with. Dwight’s little niece announced she had a girlfriend last year at Thanksgiving, but he’s never been in any situation like this. When in doubt, he tends to try to stick to protocol, and the protocol for “oh yeah, by the way, I got married” has always been “wow cool, is she hot?”
The thought of phrasing it that way makes him a little jittery, but he can work around it.
McGarrett is grinning again, or maybe still. He was always pretty good at poker, as Dwight recalls, so he has no clue how genuine it is, but McGarrett is still here, so he can’t have made up his mind about them being assholes already, because that wouldn’t make logical sense.
Then McGarrett reaches for his wallet, and for a moment Dwight is convinced he’s going to throw a couple bills down so he doesn’t owe anyone anything and then stalk off. It wouldn’t be like the guy he remembers at all, but then again, up until a few seconds ago Dwight didn’t think that marrying a man was something McGarrett would ever do, either.
But McGarrett doesn’t pay – he folds the wallet open and flips it, holding it out to them. “That’s Danno.”
Dwight and Lacey almost smack their heads together as they both lean forward and in to get a better look. They narrowly avoid that fate only because Dwight dodges, so he feels pretty justified grabbing McGarrett’s wrist afterwards to pull the picture closer to him so he can get the look he deserves, because A) he asked first and B) he saved Lacey’s last few remaining braincells.
He almost yanks his hand back when he realizes that he’s now touching a guy who probably regularly has some kind of wildly athletic sex with another guy, but he also realizes just in time that that would be stupid and justify his fears about McGarrett thinking of him as an asshole.
The picture itself is both a shock and kind of reaffirming. It shows a blond guy seated in a beach chair, wearing shorts and a blue T-shirt, and there’s nothing very stereotypical about him. His hair is slicked back, he’s wearing sunglasses perched on the very tip of his nose, and his eyes are smiling over top of them at the camera. He looks kind of short, but he’s built well and could almost definitely hold his own in a fight. There’s a happy-looking yellow lab at his feet, one paw overlapping the guy’s right foot, like it doesn’t want him to leave.
It’s oddly sweet, but also makes Dwight want to yell for a bit. McGarrett is married to a man and carries a picture of his husband in his wallet and they have a goddamn yellow dog together. Holy fuck.
He doesn’t yell, because he’s aware enough that probably wouldn’t be according to etiquette, or something. Or maybe he just doesn’t because in all honesty he’s way too stunned.
“Nice,” he says, because he’s acutely aware he has to say something.
Lacey is probably thinking the same thing, but as always, he lacks any sort of finesse about it. “You’re gay?”
“Bi,” McGarrett corrects.
“Since when?”
“Since forever.”
“Huh,” Lacey says, and across the table McGarrett almost imperceptibly tenses, so Dwight instinctively does the same. He toes off his flipflops under his chair, just in case, to make him feel better. Lacey isn’t actually stupid, so he has to know what’s happening around him, but he just kind of toasts his beer and says, amiably, “Hey, at least you don’t have to be scared you’re getting anyone preggers, right? Lucky man, you.”
McGarrett’s muscles uncoil. He smiles. “Yeah, the house really wouldn’t be big enough.”
Dwight laughs a little, but McGarrett isn’t done yet.
He unfolds the wallet again and flicks his husband’s picture. It folds down to reveal another photo, this one of a young Hawaiian guy, maybe just about nineteen. He has a mop of black curls and is sporting a grin, has a basketball tucked under one arm, and is wearing some kind of sports club logo. Dwight can’t help but like him. “This is Nahele,” McGarrett says.
Dwight’s first thought is nephew. Then he remembers McGarrett only has a younger sister as far as he’s aware, and the ages probably wouldn’t match up, so his mind goes to godkid, or maybe family of Danny’s, somehow.
That doesn’t fully track either, though, leaving only one other option, as Lacey points out, with eyes wide enough that they might just pop out of his head. “Wait, you have a kid?”
McGarrett looks proud. McGarrett, quite frankly, looks the way Dwight always wishes his dad would have looked at him, ever, in the dude’s whole miserable life. “Yeah,” McGarrett says, as if just his expression wasn’t enough of a dead (dad?) giveaway. “Officially adopted him a few years ago.”
Dwight wants to open his mouth to say that’s kind of cool, because it really is, but again, McGarrett just keeps going. He shakes the wallet some more and Nahele’s picture folds away too. And then it unfolds, and unfolds, and unfolds, until a strip of pictures long enough to hit the ground is dangling from the wallet.
What the fuck.
“Uh,” Dwight says, with no fucking clue what’s happening now – are they about to get a whole photoshoot of the blond guy and the teen? Holiday pictures?
McGarrett slings the pictures on top of the table. He points at the two they’ve already seen. “So here’s Danny, my husband, and that’s Nahele, the eldest living with us. Then there’s Grace-” He points at a picture of a white, brown-haired girl who seems to be in her late teens, but would probably be a little younger than Nahele, yeah. She’s in a bathing suit, holding a surfboard like she knows what to do with it. “She’s Danny’s daughter with his ex-wife. She was eight when they moved here and I met her, but it feels like I’ve known her her whole life. This here is Charlie.” McGarrett moves his finger down to the next picture, of a small blond boy in boardshorts, flashing the camera a gap-toothed smile while pointing both arms at a slightly lopsided sandcastle by his feet. “Danny’s second kid with his ex. We weren’t together yet back then, but I saw Charlie at the hospital when he was born. There were a few difficult years after that before we even knew he was really Danny’s, but it’s all good now.”
Dwight doesn’t even ask. He exchanges a wide-eyed look with Lacey that tells him he won’t, either, because whatever ‘a few difficult years’ means in terms of paternity and ex-wives, it can’t be good. What kind of soap did McGarrett end up in?
Well – Full House, apparently.
McGarrett’s index finger is at the picture under Charlie’s now. It’s two boys, roughly Nahele’s age, posing for the camera in what looks like someone’s backyard. There’s a smoking barbecue in the background. “These are Jake and Travis. We met them on a case that involved the murder of both their parents, which later turned out to have been orchestrated by their mother so they would get the insurance payout, which they refused when they learned the truth. They don’t live with us, but they know they can always come over. They never miss Sunday dinners. They’re good kids.”
“I bet,” Lacey murmurs. He never murmurs. His personality is way too loud for that. Dwight wonders if he feels as knocked over the head as Dwight does.
McGarrett pays them no heed and moves on. The next photo shows a blond girl. It’s another teen, grinning at the camera like crazy. She’s wearing a shirt with a polar bear on it that says I’m not cool with global warming and there’s a small rainbow-colored badge pinned to her chest. “That’s Annie. She’s emancipated from her parents, but she lives with us. This was taken just before she and Grace went to their first climate change protest together.” McGarrett chuckles to himself. “Took some time until they managed to sweettalk Danny into letting them go. And here, the last one-”
Dwight feels a shock at that and makes sure not to let his mind wander too far off into whatthefuckwhatthefuck territory. Last one!
This picture is of a toddler who can’t be older than two. She’s sitting on the floor of a living room, blueish-green eyes big and curious, and her bright orange shirt proclaims I am small and cute. It’s not wrong. “That’s Lucky, our youngest. She’ll be two next month and I still don’t know where the time went.”
Dwight looks from the picture to McGarrett and back, and there’s no denying one thing. “She’s got your eyes.” Which is a little puzzling, considering McGarrett and his husband presumably don’t have all the parts needed for baby-making between them.
But McGarrett just beams wider than ever before, which Dwight would have sworn to be impossible a second ago. “She does, doesn’t she? She’s biologically mine. We had her through a surrogate.”
“Oh,” Dwight says. He nods a little.
The need to come up with anything more intelligent is lifted by stammering next to him. “There’s- That’s, uh-” Lacey has been holding up a finger for each new picture McGarrett puts a name to, but he’s stuck at five and there were definitely more than that.
“It’s a lot of kids,” Dwight supplies, vaguely panicked about it, even though none of those kids have anything to do with him. The sheer number is mind-boggling.
“Seven,” McGarrett supplies, sounding cool as a cucumber about it.
Seven, Jesus Christ. Dwight has half a mind to ask if they’re being pranked.
“Why seven?” Lacey asks, which is an unexpectedly intelligent question.
McGarrett flashes a grin. “Danny said eight was the max, but Eddie counts as one.”
“And Eddie is…” Dwight braces himself, fully expecting McGarrett to pull some more crazy out of his non-existent hat, like Eddie is a murdered enemy’s half-brother’s neighbor’s kid, who was tragically orphaned when an octopus ate his parents.
McGarrett is clearly enjoying the chaos he’s bringing down upon them by dropping these bombs. He drags his answer out by taking a sip of his beer first. “The dog,” he reveals.
Dwight sags in his chair from relief. He’s not sure how much more of this he could have taken. “Man, how are you doing all of this? I don’t even know how to keep a houseplant alive.”
“Kids are a lot easier. They usually let you know if they need to be watered.”
Lacey barks a laugh. It cuts off very abruptly, like halfway through he’s not so sure anymore if that was a joke. “I’m so confused, Smooth Dog.” The set of Lacey’s mouth is perturbed, and for a few seconds, they all – except McGarrett, probably – stew in that. Then Lacey squares his shoulders and grabs his half empty beer from the table. “Gotta say, this is not the promiscuous surfing life filled with hot babes that we thought you’d be leading here.”
McGarrett gives a serene shrug. “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but a smooth dog will learn.”
“My God,” Dwight says, because if there’s ever been a time to turn religious, it might be now. He’s watching the results of a miracle, right in front of his eyes. “I’ll drink to that.”
So will Lacey and McGarrett, because they all toast to it. All three of their beers are near done after, so McGarrett flags down a waitress and orders three more. Dwight didn’t even know they had table service in this place.
He’s still watching, unaccountably impressed, when McGarrett turns back to him and Lacey. “So,” he says, genially, with the air of a guy who could happily go on talking about his family, but knows he should let someone else have a turn now. “How’ve your lives been?”
“Oh, you know,” Dwight says. He thinks about the last few years that he spent dismantling an international terrorist network in the Middle East, step by careful step, with the occasional sniper assignment, kidnapping or full-on bare-knuckled brawl in the middle, and some bomb threats and actual explosions here and there on the side. Then he thinks about McGarrett and his husband and seven kids and dog, and it’s not often he’s this sure that the man sitting across the table from him is braver than he is.
McGarrett is looking at him expectantly, still waiting for an answer.
Dwight grins. “Pretty quiet, to tell you the truth.”