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“You pull this tardy shit in the Army?” Danny asked as Steve slid into the booth at Wailana’s and helped himself to the dregs of Danny’s coffee. An offence for which homicide was fully justifiable in the detective’s mind, especially when the bastard drained the cup dry. Danny had spent the last four hours with thirty over-excited teenage cheerleaders: his coffee was a sacred reward, nay a necessity, for the continued good of the population of Oahu.
“Navy. It’s not hard to say. Nay-vee.”
“I’m not hearing an answer, Steve.”
“You order yet?” Steve diverted, plucking one of the large menus from the holder at the end of the table.
“No. Unlike some people, I wait until everyone has arrived to order. Because I have manners. Because it’s polite. Because if I didn’t I would have already finished my meal waiting for you.”
Steve rolled his eyes with a sigh. “I spent my entire career being punctual, you can forgive me this once.”
“So you’re what, making up for twenty years of ‘on time is thirty minutes late?’”
“Maybe.” Steve looked around for Ona. Normally she practically greeted him at the door with a stack of pancakes and a cup of coffee the size of a bucket during his and Danny’s bimonthly trips to the Coffee House, but she was glaring in her absence.
“I’m so honoured, babe. My time is worth wasting, is that right? Because that’s what I’m hearing.”
“It was two minutes, Danny.” Giving up on his search for the friendly waitress, Steve thrust his arm across the table and gestured to his watch. Danny pushed Steve’s arm out of his face, the SEAL settling back into the booth with a smug grin as though he’d proven his point, hitching one knee onto the seat and draping his right arm across the back of the booth, making himself at home like the animal he was. “You are so damn dramatic. Two measly minutes. I’m sorry I couldn’t find parking.”
“Two minutes? Two minutes? Maybe a little less practice in stripping down an M4 and a little more learning to tell the time would have been a good idea at your fancy little academy and you could actually read that expensive watch of yours. First off, you left me sitting here like a stood-up sad-sack for twenty minutes.” Danny reached across the table and tapped on the glass of Steve’s Aquatimer, the man snatching his arm away to pick up his menu once more. “Second, you wouldn’t have had to find parking if you’d come with me when I left but like a coward you hid in the ocean. And third, none of that is the point! It’s about respect! You wouldn’t pull this shit with Joe.”
Steve grinned at him over the top of his menu, impish and aggravatingly adorable as he waggled his eyebrows like the gigantic dork that he was before opening the laminated list up. “I do a lot of shit with you I wouldn’t with Joe.”
Danny’s face screwed up at the thought. “Just for that mental image, you’re paying for lunch.”
Danny started counting and didn’t even reach two before Steve looked up from where he’d been studying the menu as though he wasn’t going to order the same damn thing he always did, a look of horror etched onto his face. He began to make a show of patting down his pockets. “Huh, you’re never going to believe this, but uh, I left my wallet at home.”
“I don’t believe, you no. But lucky for you I can fix the situation.” Closing his menu with a smug smile of his own, Danny reached across the table and cupped Steve’s cheek, rubbing his thumb across the high cheekbone. Steve butted his head softly into the touch, content in Danny’s attentions; it never mattered to him where they were, any time Danny’s hands were on him, Steve turned into a gigantic cat.
“I know you’ve got forty bucks in your glove compartment from winning that bet with Tani last week.” Danny patted Steve’s cheek, grinning at him. “Off you go, go get it.”
“Danny…” Steve whined, missing the callused touch of his lover’s hand as the man sat back reaching for his coffee cup before aborting the movement with a sour expression, but the detective refused to be baited and didn’t look up. Instead, he pointed firmly at the door with his free hand before making a shooing motion.
“Off you go, Smooth Dog. Fetch.”
*
Pushing open the door for a second time ten minutes later, this time his wallet safely in his pocket having been grudgingly retrieved from the glove compartment of his truck, Steve let the relief of the AC wash over him, Oahu enduring a heatwave that felt endless. He’d barely stepped over the threshold before he stopped dead.
There was a young woman standing at their booth, leaning over so far into Danny’s space he was at dire risk of falling into her cleavage, which, if Danny’s wide smile was anything to go by, the detective would not have minded. Danny’s mouth moved, his words lost to the distance, and the young woman threw her head back with a laugh, one slender hand coming up to her throat, fingers trailing down over her breasts as she laughed.
Steve’s eyes narrowed and he felt his lip curl.
“Yo, buddy, wanna move?” Ripped from thoughts of homicide, Steve glanced over his shoulder to the trio of surfers that were trying to get past him. “You’re blocking the door, brah, c’mon.”
Stepping aside, ignoring the passive-aggressive mutterings about how he was killing the planet by letting the AC out into the street, Steve turned back to the booth but once more Danny was alone, steam curling up from both mugs on the table. A glance around the diner didn’t reveal the woman, and Steve’s hackles smoothed back down. He supposed that he couldn’t really blame her; his partner was fiendishly attractive after all and it wasn’t a rare occurrence for others to notice.
Didn’t mean that Steve had to like it.
Then Danny glanced up over the rim of his coffee cup and his face creased into the broad smile that never failed to remind Steve of sunshine, the one that was only ever aimed at him, the grin that left him helpless to do anything other than answer, more than aware that his own was goofy and ridiculous, but that was just how Danny made him feel, even after so many years. For all that Danny was the most mercurial man that Steve had ever met, he was also the steadiest, stalwart and true and once he decided he was on your side, it would take nothing short of a bomb to remove him.
Sometimes not even then.
For Steve, who had never experienced that level of devotion and loyalty, it was as intoxicating as the lust he felt for the man and while he had no idea what he’d done to earn the love of such a man, he was determined to do everything in his power to keep it.
But no matter how much he wanted to take vows with Danny, it would never happen. No matter how much Steve ached to be able to call Danny his husband instead of his boyfriend, no matter how much he wished to feel the weight of Danny’s ring on his finger, no matter how desperately Steve wanted to stand in front of their ‘ohana and vow to love Danny more with every new sunrise, Danny was and would ever be vehemently against ever marrying again.
If only he could convince Danny that it was what he wanted too; to wear Steve’s ring, to demonstrate to the world with a few grams of metal that he was very much off the market, thank you so very much, so the likes of Ms Cleavage wouldn’t think she had a shot.
Of course, there was always the other option, which was to stalk over there, haul Danny out of the booth and plant a kiss on him the likes of which the other customers had never seen. If that didn’t work, well…what transpired next would at very least be educational, even if Danny did insist on arresting them afterwards.
Stowing his thoughts away, aware that Option A was little more than a pipedream and Option B would result in a furious lover that would punch him at best and leave him at worst, Steve weaved his way through the tables and other customers. In his absence, the diner had exploded with clientele, the midday heat driving everyone off the beach to seek out cooler pastures. Sliding into the booth, Steve waved his wallet at Danny, opening it to flash the bills inside when the other man raised a disbelieving eyebrow at him.
“Waitress came. Got you coffee,” he said, like it was a reward for doing as he was asked. Steve reached for his cup and instead stole Danny’s, taking an obnoxiously loud slurp.
“You have your own, you animal!”
“Yours tastes better,” came the reply with a salacious wink.
Under the table, Danny swiftly kicked Steve in the shin. Being a grown man unlike some he could mention, he wore real shoes and not slippers so it was pretty effective. Steve jolted in his seat, coffee sloshing over the lip of the mug. It missed the table-top and splashed squarely into his lap, causing the man to jump again. He hastily put the mug down, reaching down to pinch his pants away from his skin with a scowl.
With a beatific smile, Danny nudged the napkins towards Steve.
“How’s it tasting now?”
“You know what? It’s gonna taste real sweet when I-”
“Hey, your friend is back! What can I get you fellas?” Steve looked up into the unwelcome face of Ms Cleavage and his mood instantly soured once more. This time, with her not practically in Danny’s lap, he was able to take in details. Like the apron around her trim waist, the little pad in one hand with a pencil hovering over it in the other, and the name tag pinned to her more than ample chest. The waitress was tall, beautiful and, from the way she was not remotely subtle in her interest of Danny, confident.
In other words, she was exactly Danny’s type, and from the way she was looking at the detective, he was entirely hers, and she wasn’t shy in letting him know it. For all she’d addressed them both, her gaze didn’t move from Danny, flitting between his smile and the deep vee of his shirt. It was a personal favourite of Steve’s; the light blue highlighted Danny’s tan and set off his eyes beautifully. Though not as tight as the ones he wore to work, it still strained across his chest and toned biceps, the cut showing off slim hips while emphasising the breadth of Danny’s shoulders.
From the look on the waitresses’ face, Steve wasn’t the only one that appreciated it. For the first time since they’d met, Steve wished Danny hadn’t ditched the ties and his fingers itched to reach across the table and do the buttons up to Danny’s throat, to hide the skin that he had lavished with his mouth just the night before.
Because the alternative would be a crime and carrying a woman’s body to his car in broad daylight would not go unnoticed. Not to mention Danny would never shut up about it.
This would never happen if he could convince Danny to wear a ring, his ring. A nice big chunky signal of ‘back the fuck up’. Maybe even a tattoo. Somewhere nice and prominent. Like his forehead. Nothing as tacky as ‘Property of S.J. McGarrett’, he was willing to concede that that would never happen, but something tasteful, something that let all and sundry know with a glance that Danny wasn’t available.
The man certainly would never agree to wearing a flower behind his left ear, and had laughed himself near sick when Steve had casually suggested tattooing a hibiscus behind his ear. Then he’d figured out that his partner was serious and it had set off a two hour argument that only ended because they got a call about a case.
“Hey,” Danny greeted her with a smile that was a touch too wide for Steve’s liking. “I apologise for him, I can’t take him anywhere. You got any bibs around here?”
“Bibs?” She looked with confusion between the two men, pencil dancing in her hand like she was torn about writing the request down. Even with her perfectly shaped eyebrows pulling down into a frown, the waitress was still beautiful and Steve’s jaw clenched so hard it hurt.
“Well, he just spilled his coffee down himself, so his odds of feeding himself aren’t great. He ends up wearing more than he eats, y’know?”
Steve felt his brows furrow as Ms Cleavage’s confusion morphed into amusement, her laughter at his expense a touch too loud and hearty to be real.
“I’ll see what I can rustle up. He need a high chair, too?”
“Hey!” Turning on his partner, Steve sneered at him. Danny, too absorbed with smiling up at their waitress, didn’t notice.
In a rush to get her away from his lover, Steve blurted out his order, only remembering to tack on a ‘please’ when Danny turned away from Ms Cleavage to cough meaningfully. Even when his kids weren’t with them, Danny was always quick to correct bad manners.
“The same for me, please,” Danny shot a look at Steve but the man was staring moodily out the window and didn’t appear to notice, “-but with scrambled eggs not fried. Oh, and an extra side of bacon.”
“You aiming for a heart attack?”
Danny had expected the commentary from the health-crazed side of the table.
“I spent all morning with a bunch of Beliebers. I am owed bacon. I am owed a big stack of bacon. That I will drown in maple syrup. I will put boysenberry syrup on my pancakes. And I don’t wanna hear a goddamn word outta you!”
Demonstrating an ability to read the room not hitherto displayed, the waitress tucked her notepad into her apron and backed up from the table.
“I’ll be right back, with your order!”
Yeah, Steve didn’t doubt that for a moment.
“She’s cute,” Danny remarked as he took Steve’s menu from his lax hand and placing it along with his own back into the holder. He switched their mugs and spent some time doctoring the coffee to his liking, sitting back with a sigh when he’d perfected the ratio of milk and sugar.
“I guess. If you like that sort of thing.”
“Don’t act like you don’t. Haven’t seen her here before.” The pair had becoming coming the diner at least twice a month since before they’d gotten involved. “Must be a new hire.”
“Probably a college student earning extra cash.” She had seemed young and Steve was desperate to plant the seeds that she was far too young for Danny to be interested in.
“Yeah, maybe. Can you believe that Grace is nearly old enough for college?”
Steve, always happy to talk about his favourite girl, leapt on the topic change. It blew his mind every day that Grace was no longer the tiny eight year old girl he’d met, and was instead hurtling towards adulthood at an astonishing rate. That she’d be moving away, perhaps even as far as the mainland, in only a year was a terrifying prospect, for all he was proud of her academic accomplishments. But if he were unable to compute the notion, he couldn’t imagine what it was like for Danny. Though one look at the torn expression on Danny’s face, a mix of pride, apprehension, and genuine terror, he thought he had a pretty good idea of what was going through the man’s mind.
“She’s going to be amazing, Danny. Gonna change the world.”
“That goes without saying. Of course she will.” Pride won out on Danny’s face for a moment, but then fear replaced it. “You know she’s talking about Ivy League? Ivy League! How am I gonna manage that?”
“It’s okay, Danno.” Steve soothed. “We’ve got savings-”
“Savings? Savings! Who’s talking about the money? There’s not an Ivy League college on this island, Steven! California will be the closest. My baby will be a plane ride away. How can I look after her like that?”
Heart twisting at the fear and pain in his lover’s voice, Steve reached across the table and took his hand, rubbing his thumb across his knuckles.
“The same way you always have, babe. By teaching her how to be strong and confident and take care of herself.” Danny’s screwed up in annoyance the way it did when Steve was being the reasonable one, but Steve figured the man was owed not to be reasonable about his children, especially given what they’d endured in their lives. Grace and Charlie were Danny’s heart outside his body, just walking around all day long and so Steve set to putting his lover’s mind at ease.
*
“Here you go.” The waitress, long forgotten as Steve had warmed to his theme of teaching Grace a variety of martial arts ‘just in case’ reappeared at their table, plates in hand. Steve’s order was placed in front of him, steam still rising from the pancakes, the bacon and eggs cooked to perfection as always. A little dish of butter, already melting from proximity to the hot food, was precariously perched on the edge.
“Thank you.” Steve immediately set to work buttering his pancakes only to be distracted when the waitress put down Danny’s meal.
“And here you go.” The plate that was set in front of Danny had Steve agog. It was barely possible to see that Danny had ordered any eggs, so buried were they under strips of thick bacon.
“I snuck you a few extra rashers,” Ms Cleavage stated unnecessarily. “You sounded like you earned it.”
“You didn’t need to do that,” Danny replied, smacking away Steve’s questing hand as the man tried to steal a few strips. “But I really appreciate it.”
“Oh, and this.” Out of the pocket of her apron, the waitress plucked out a bottle of purple syrup.
“Boysenberry.” She leaned forward, to place it, unnecessarily given how there was more than enough room elsewhere on the table, on the far side of Danny’s plate, conveniently placing her cleavage into Danny’s eye-line.
“Don’t encourage him,” groused Steve, jabbing at the glass bottle with the end of his fork like it was contagious and instead nudging the haupia closer, only for Danny to snatch up the fruit syrup.
“It’s my favourite, too,” Ms Cleavage offered. “Fruit just belongs on pancakes, y’know? Your friend doesn’t know what he’s missing.
“Yes. Yes, it does.” Danny managed to tear himself away from staring at her to turn to Steve and flash him a smug grin and Steve was just about to correct her continued assumption that they were no more than friends, lay his claim no matter how much it would annoy Danny if he did so when his partner continued. “See, she agrees with me. Finally, someone on this island who isn’t pro-coconut all the time!”
A call from another table, one that might find their meal comp’ed by the grateful head of Five-Oh, called for the waitress’ attention, her expression darkening at being called away.
“Well, enjoy!”
“I’m sure we will,” Danny replied when Steve didn’t answer.
“You don’t know what you’re missing.” With maple syrup in one hand and the rejected haupia in the other, Steve was focused on steadfastly ignoring the scene in front of him by merrily drowning his pancakes in the mixed syrup. More of the maple with drizzled over his bacon, and he briefly entertained the thought of completely smothering his dish in the stuff to deny Danny any for his mountain of bacon but that would only get him a lecture about being selfish.
“Aiming for diabetes over there?”
“More treatable than the heart disease you’re risking. Besides, I exercise.”
“As do I.”
“I keep telling you, babe, running at the mouth isn’t exercise.”
“What was what we did last night?”
Steve felt a blush heat his cheeks as images of their enthusiastic bout the night before flashed through his mind. He didn’t know what had gotten into Danny the night before but their lovemaking had been both prolonged and energetic, leaving them both sweaty, sated, and sore.
“Exactly,” Danny said, taking in Steve’s blush and knowing precisely what he was thinking, feeling heat pool in his gut at the flashes of memory. If he were being honest, he wasn’t surprised Steve had declined the invite to come chaperone the cheer-meet; the man was lucky to be able to sit at all let alone on the hard bleachers of a football field. That the man had insisted on going out for his daily swim at the ass-crack of dawn after only a few hours’ sleep was only testament to his masochism, in Danny eyes, no matter how much Steve might drone on about discipline and training.
Danny stuck his fork into his stack of pancakes with the enthusiasm of a man that hadn’t eaten in a month. Around a mouthful of half-masticated flapjack, he opined, “These are the best, man.”
“Yours are better,” Steve offered sincerely. They were, too. While Wailana’s were hands down the best pancakes money could buy, Danny’s were the best Steve had ever tasted and he considered himself a connoisseur having sampled breakfast foods on every continent and found more than one hole in the wall diner well worth the ten hour plane journey. The less said about the food in general in McMurdo the better, however. How the man managed it, he’d never know. He’d watched his lover like a hawk through every step of the process, had even had Danny coach him through it, and while he’d made some damn fine pancakes, they were nothing on Danny’s.
Even if he then did drown them in clearly inferior syrup choices.
Conversation was stilted as both men attacked their meals with enthusiasm, even Steve focusing on chewing, sometimes even with his mouth closed, rather than spraying half of his pancake across the booth as he shared about his day. But slowly, as stomachs filled, they slowed and Danny began to regale Steve with every aspect of the meet that he’d missed. Steve had always found it fascinating that Danny, overprotective and sometimes controlling Danny, appeared to be fine with Grace wearing a skimpy outfit and kicking her legs over her head in front of a large crowd, but then the man was a mess of contradictions at the best of time.
He tried to lose himself in his lover’s stories, often including witty and cutting asides about the opposing teams or parents, but instead he became increasingly annoyed by their waitress’ presence. If she wasn’t ‘just checking in’ that they were enjoying their meal, she was topping off coffee that Danny had only taken a single sip of – though Steve would actively have to request a refill multiple times – or was dropping off more butter or condiments ‘in case you fancy a little something extra’.
His lover didn’t appear to notice her attentions but Steve’s pancakes, once so buttery and delicious, turned to ash in his mouth. Every time she stopped by their table on some pretext, Danny would smile up at her, thank her, laugh at her terrible joke and she lapped it up. In contrast, Steve’s stomach twisted into knots. Eventually, unable to stomach anymore – food or flirting – he pushed his plate away unfinished.
“I’m gonna go up and pay,” Steve said balling up his napkin and dropping it on the table, wanting to get out of the diner, and Danny away from the waitress as quickly as possible.
“I’m not done!” Danny protested, using his knife to point at the bacon and pancake still left on his plate. “And neither are you.” Half of Steve’s bacon and most of his eggs still sat on his plate, and Danny frowned. He’d never known Steve not to finish a meal. Not even the over-salted attempt at lasagne that Grace had made as her first attempt at unsupervised cooking.
“What’s the rush, babe?”
“No rush,” Steve sagged in his seat and glowered down at his hands, missing the way that Danny was staring at him in confusion. “Just didn’t wanna waste the day away here when we have so much to do.” With Grace and Charlie spending an increasing amount of time at Steve’s place during Danny’s weekends due to their relationship, he had wanted to renovate his old childhood bedroom downstairs to be a more welcoming space for the kids. Grace had lived up to her name and been remarkably amiable about sharing a room with her six year old brother a few nights a week, and had dived into the task with gusto, making multiple requests for her side of the room, many of which Danny had denied in favour of more practical ones though she accepted the desk at which to do her homework without complaint, so long as she was allowed to decorate it the way she want which had involved a deep dive into the world of stencils and custom paint colours, not to mention Steve having to set up a Pinterest account for them both. He still wasn’t entirely sure what that was Charlie had just wanted another car bed, preferably in blue, but he’d always been a simple soul with simple pleasures.
For which Steve was deeply grateful; a number of Grace’s Pins were, he was sure, deceptively simple.
With it being a weekend without the kids, minus Danny stepping in at the last moment to help chaperone when Rachel had been called away, Steve had wanted to get the painting done, giving the room time to air out before young lungs were housed in there. Thankfully, Grace had largely outgrown her pink everything phase and hadn’t, unlike her brother, kicked up a fuss about the cream colour scheme, instead plotting all the throw cushions she was gonna get to ‘add a pop of colour’.
Steve, the easy mark that he was, had already purchased most of the ones she’d pointed out or had Pinned and stashed them away under the stairs, fully aware Danny would give him another lecture about not spoiling the kids or giving them everything they asked for. The Williams children were, by and large, phenomenally well-behaved and well-adjusted, especially for all they’d been through in their young lives, and Steve thought that deserved the occasional treat, even when it landed him in hot water.
But as much as he wanted to get started on building a more permanent space for Danny’s kids within his own home, a step towards finally getting the stubborn man to move in with him, which Danny had been resisting for reasons unknown as though he didn’t spend five nights out of every seven at Steve’s, Steve mostly just wanted to hustle Danny away from the waitress.
“Good. Because I don’t often get a meal bought for me with your money, and I wanna luxuriate, y’know? Take my time. Maybe order something else.” Danny tapped the menu that rested off to the side. “Butter Grilled Banana sounds good. Whatdya think?”
“I think you’d really die of that heart attack.”
“Better than getting riddled with bullets.”
Eyeing the way the waitress was loitering only a table away, an empty table no less, Steve had to disagree. Noticing his attention, she made her way over and Steve wanted to kick himself.
“Can I get you boys anything else?” She asked, cocking out one hip.
“Nah, we’re good,” Steve jumped in before Danny could answer. Her smile faltered for a moment before she rallied and pulled out her notepad, missing the way Steve glowered at her. Flipping through the pages she ripped one out and dropped it onto the table.
“Here you go, then. But if you change your mind, don’t tell. It’ll be on me.” She winked at Danny and Steve saw red.
“We won’t.” He bit out. “I was gonna come up and pay,” Steve said, intercepting the bill and getting out the cash which she took from him before he could even finish his sentence.
“Oh, I don’t mind,” she said, still staring at Danny, “we’re not too busy right now.” Steve frowned and looked out at the bustling lunch crowd that filled almost every table in direct contradiction of her claim.
“Besides,” she continued with a pop of her gum, drawing attention to her mouth and Steve couldn’t help but notice she’d applied a slick of glossy red lipstick since she’d last been at their table, highlighting her full lips, “-I like to give my special customers a little something extra, if you know what I mean.” Throwing another wink Danny’s way, she walked away, completely missing the way that Steve’s hands clenched so tight on the edge of the table that his knuckles went white and the Formica was at risk of splintering beneath his enraged grasp.
Steve took a deep breath, consciously uncurling his fingers from around the edge of the table.
“Huh.”
“What?” If Danny noticed the word was little more than a hiss from behind gritted teeth, he didn’t give any indication.
“This place is packed,” He remarked instead, gesturing out at the bustling business the diner was doing. “It’s nice to be appreciated.”
‘I just bet I know what she was appreciating, too.’
“Five-Oh does a lot of good work for the island.”
“Yeah. Five-oh. Sure.”
If Steve caught Danny’s teasing tone it wasn’t apparent, the man gazing out over the sea of other diners like they held the answers to all life’s mysteries and he resisted Danny’s attempts to draw hi into further conversation. Unable to find what was so magnetically holding Steve’s attention, and unwilling to compete for it, Danny set himself to finishing off his breakfast, fortifying himself for a long day of decorating, sure that whatever was bothering Steve would come to a head eventually. It always did. He was just biting down into his last rasher of bacon when a pop of gum heralded the return of their waitress.
As she had done with the check, and despite Steve having been the one to pay, she placed the receipt and change in front of Danny. “You come back and see me again soon,” she said, leaning into Daniel’s space one last time, one red manicured finger sliding the receipt over to his hand before tapping his wrist. “I’ll look after you real well.” With a grin and a wink, she walked away with, if Steve were any judge, an unnecessary sway to her hips.
“Surprised she didn’t just mount you and have done with it,” he muttered under his breath darkly, shoving his phone into his pocket and shifting to rise out of the booth, barely bothering to bite back a curse when he slammed his knee into the underside of the table in his hurry.
Frowning as the jolt to the table caused what was left of his coffee to spill out of his mug, Danny ripped a few napkins from the holder and cleared up the mess before digging his hand into his own pocket, and counting out a few extra bills to add to the change to leave for a tip, glancing at the receipt to work out the minimum he wanted to leave.
“Huh.” He picked the piece of paper up and examined it for a moment before handing it across the table to Steve. Dropping the bills onto the change still sitting on the table, Danny lifted his sunglasses from where they were hanging from the neck of his shirt and pushed them on.
“Let’s go, time’s awasting.” Without a backwards glance, he made his way out of the diner.
At the table, Steve read over the note on the receipt, a simple ‘Call me’ along with the waitress’ number, with a grim frown. After a moment’s hesitation and with a flare of shame, he plucked a couple ones off the tip and shoved them into his pocket.
Donning his own shades, Steve took the receipt as he weaved around a family of four that were crowding up to the now available booth, eyeing it like the rare commodity that it was. Seeing the waitress standing by the counter near the entrance ignoring a row of abandoned plates, likely taking a break now the object of her affections had left, he diverted towards her. Crumpling the receipt up in his fist, Steve took vicious delight in dropping it into the puddled mess of maple syrup and ketchup on one of the plates, using his forefinger to smear it around until the ink ran.
“He’s not interested.”
Not waiting to see her response, Steve stepped back out into the blistering heat, spotting Danny waiting for him at the corner to head up Ena to the parking structure where Steve usually parked for Wailana’s.
“Home Depot?” He asked when Steve walked up to him, not looking up from his phone where he was clumsily tapping out a message, likely to Grace about paint choices. Steve blew past him with barely a grunt, striding up the sidewalk like a man possessed. He missed the way that Danny looked up with a frown, finishing his message before dropping the phone into his pocket and studying his lover.
Steve had always been astonishingly easy for Danny to read. From their first case together it was as though Steve telegraphed his every thought and mood. It wasn’t just his expressions or his tone either, it was body.
As evidenced by how when he was angry, his strides not only lengthened, but quickened, and what with the majority of their height difference being in the length of their legs, it often left Danny having to nearly jog to keep up. Watching for a couple more seconds Danny studied Steve walking away: he took in the set of the broad shoulders; the way his biceps, as revealed by his tank in deference to the heat, bunched and flexed as though Steve was imagining punching something; the way he kept balling his hands into fists before relaxing them, only to curl his fingers back in again a moment later. Sensible pedestrians were giving him a wide berth, some going so far as to step into the street to go around him.
Whatever had set Steve off, it was bad and Danny wasn’t eager for it to ruin their day as he jogged to catch up. He’d been looking forward to an afternoon of ribbing Steve about his home décor choices and then maybe slowly stripping the man from clothing he fully intended to ensure got plenty paint splattered and ‘helping’ him wash it off.
Instead, it looked like he was once again keeping Oahu save from a rampaging McGarrett. Honestly, he deserved a medal or a pay bump for the number of times he’d talked Steve out of taking his bad mood out on a five mile radius. Likely with some form of incendiary device.
“Hey, McGruff, wait up a second.” Danny grabbed at Steve’s shirt and hauled him to a stop just as they neared the entrance to the parking lot.
“What’s the hell is the matter with you?”
“Nothing.” It was little more than a growl and Danny stepped around Steve to face him. His lover’s expression was closed off, brows pulled low over his eyes, mouth a thin line as his jaw worked. Sparing a moment’s prayer for Steve’s dentist, Danny thought over the last hour.
They’d cleared their latest case the day before having successfully collared their man, and Steve had been relaxed and happy all the night before, content in the knowledge of a job well done. Their sex had been enthusiastic and free in a way that it wasn’t when Steve was lost inside his own head. Danny had left the house ridiculously early while Steve was still splashing around in the ocean and calling it exercise. He’d spent the morning at one of Grace’s many cheerleading events stuffing Kleenex in his ears to drown out what passed for music these days, before one of the other chaperoning parents had dropped him at the diner to meet Steve, and so he was missing a good six hours of Steve’s day but when the other man had arrived everything had seemed fine.
Then Steve had left to fetch the money and everything had changed; he’d been on edge, increasingly difficult to draw into conversation, even about his favourite subjects – the kids. He’d even been borderline rude to their waitress, and no matter how much he might tease the other man about his manners, they were always flawless towards wait-staff. What could have possibly happened in the ten minutes that Steve was absent that he wouldn’t have mentioned when he got back to the tab-.
Oh.
‘Oh, Steve.’
He definitely deserved a pay bump.
“Am I doing something wrong?” Danny asked, hooking his fingers into a belt loop and tugging Steve close, nuzzling into his throat before drawing back to look at Steve’s face.
“What?”
“Well, uh, y’know, uh, communication wasn’t great in my past relationships and maybe, maybe, that time with the therapist, y’know, wasn’t a total waste. A lot of it was stupid, but I’m saying maybe she had a point about communication, okay. It’s important, is what I’m trying to say and so I gotta ask again, am I doing something wrong?’”
“Are you having a stroke?”
“’Cos see, there is nobody, nobody, on this Earth I love more than you other than my kids. I have never loved anyone the way I love you. You get that? I love you.”
“I love you, too.” The frown didn’t ease from Steve’s features but his eyes glowed with the truth of his words, confused though his tone was.
“But see, uh, I must be doin’ a shitty job of showing it, right? Because we’re here, meant to be having a nice lunch with you once more being real unsubtle in your attempts to get me to move in while I pretend I don’t know about the mountain of throw pillows you’ve stashed under the stairs, and instead you’re getting all bent outta shape about a waitress whose name I don’t even remember.”
“But-”
“But what, Steven? I didn’t ask for her number. I didn’t want it. I left it behind.”
“You noticed she was cute. You commented on it.”
“Clearly you noticed, too. So what?”
“Well-”
“I’m in love with you, but that doesn’t make me blind. She’s was a pretty girl. I noticed. Practically impossible not to.”
“She wanted you!”
“So what? I didn’t want her. I was polite. Did I flirt? Did I lead her on? Did I fuck her over the table? No, I didn’t. I ate my pancakes and tried to get my idiot of a boyfriend to talk to me instead of growling at the service staff. I like that place, I didn’t want us to get banned!”
It wouldn’t be the first time members of Five-O were banned from an establishment, and while most of the time it was due to their work following them and opening fire, it wasn’t the only reason. As evidenced only a month prior when Steve and Tani’s drunken ‘dart-off’ had seen them ejected from the bar with a hefty bill for damages and the entirety of Five-O no longer welcome.
That bar had had the best wings, and Lou still hadn’t forgiven Steve for it, especially as he’d been home tucked into bed with Renee at the time and didn’t consider it fair he be punished too, fine upstanding citizen that he was.
“Was it flattering to be noticed? Sure, but it didn’t mean anything. Besides,” Danny raised a brow and waved a hand between them, “welcome to my fucking life.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“C’mon! Don’t act like you don’t know.”
“Don’t know what?”
“We can’t talk to a witness without someone hitting on you! That case last week that doctor wanted to examine your tonsils and I’m not talking about in a professional manner!” Danny was warming to his theme. He knew he was a decent looking-guy, and he worked hard to ensure his body was not only in peak condition for his job but also looked damned good, but Steve was in another league and the good people of Hawaii responded as such. Tall, dark, handsome and with muscle definition that would put a super hero to shame. Put the man in boardies and he looked like he’d walked off the cover of Men’s Fitness, and fully decked out in his tac gear?
It was practically obscene.
If Steve’s thigh holsters had found their way into their bedroom on more than a handful occasions, well, that was between them and God.
“You can’t be serious,” scoffed Steve.
“Can’t be serious? I’m serious as a fucking heart attack. It’s all the goddamn time! Fucking perps hit on you! There are people staring at you right now!” Danny span around and pointed at the pedestrians that were glancing their way, a cluster of people at the bus-stop not even trying to hide their interest. Steve scowled at the group and when they weren’t appropriately cowed, he pulled his badge out of his pocket and flashed it at them, glowering until they retreated into the stop’s shelter.
Danny fully expected to have to deal with a call from dispatch about a domestic disturbance anyway and could only hope Duke intercepted it. If anyone was deserving of a medal…
“They’re staring because you’re causing a scene!” Steve grabbed at Danny’s arm and dragged him further into the lot, away from the prying eyes and towards the truck. “Even if you’re right, so what?”
“So what? ‘So what?’ he asks me. It’s okay if they’re flirting with you, but someone takes interest in me and you get all,” Danny gestured at Steve’s face with wild movements of his hands, “SulkySEAL.”
“I’m not interested in any of those people, I only want you.”
“Ditto, babe. Ditto.” Danny wasn’t surprised to see the reference fly right over Steve’s head and made a mental note to mention to Grace that her Uncle Steve wanted to watch it next movie night; if he had to suffer through every rom-com his teenage daughter wanted to watch, then it wasn’t going to be alone.
Clearly though, Steve wasn’t understanding Danny’s position and he groped around for words, small and easily understood ones, that would drive his feelings through Steve’s thick skull. “Everyone else,” Danny waved a hand back in the direction of the people still staring at the bus-stop. “They’re all just in black and white. Right?” Turning back to Steve, he formed a frame with forefinger and thumb of both hands around his lover’s face before drawing back to encompass his whole body. “But you? You’re in HD, full colour, surround sound. Fucking IMAX! Can you get that through your thick skull?” Danny jabbed a finger against Steve’s forehead.
“I only want you. I love you.”
“If you love me so much, why won’t you marry me?!” It wasn’t what Steve had meant to yell, and from the shocked expression on his face it wasn’t what Danny had expected to hear, but once it was out there was no taking it back.
Nor, Steve discovered to his surprise, did he want to. He needed Danny to know that he wanted to stand up in front of their friends and vow to be Danny’s forever and wear his ring. For Danny to wear his. It wasn’t just something he wanted, he found it was something that he needed, and it was imperative to him that Danny know that.
Maybe there was something to the whole communication thing. Even if he didn’t necessarily like the answer that he received.
If he felt shocked at blurting out the question, it was nothing on the expression that his lover wore, the blond reeling back a couple of feet, either due to the volume of Steve’s yell or the question itself. Silence descended between the pair,
Then a smile, slow to start and then widening, creasing the edges of Danny’s eyes the way Steve loved, lit up the blonde’s face. Danny stepped back in close to Steve.
“You do know you haven’t asked me, right?”
“What?”
“What, what? You’ve never actually asked me, Steve. You’ve spent the last year on at me to move in with you, but not a goddamn peep about waltzing me down the aisle.”
“You said!” Steve spluttered. “You said, and I quote, that you’d ‘rather be kicked in the face with a golf shoe’ than marry again. Why would I ask only to get shot down?” No matter what Danny might claim, Steve wasn’t entirely masochistic.
“That was five years ago, we weren’t even together, and how did you even hear that, you were on the phone!” Danny ticked his counter-arguments off on his fingers.
“I’m a multi-tasker.”
“Multi-tool, more like.”
In fairness, Danny couldn’t blame Steve. Not entirely. Once upon a time, he’d truly believed what he’d said that day in the back of the Camaro. Not because he hadn’t enjoyed being married, but because of the opposite. Danny had loved being married; the weight of the ring on his finger that let others know that he was loved, getting to introduce Rachel as his wife, knowing that she would be there when he got home, and that for the rest of his life he would have someone by and on his side.
When the fighting had started, when more nights than not he’d return home to an empty house, when Rachel had stopped attending events with him, that vision of a shared future had begun to fade. By the time Rachel had announced, calmly at the dinner table while Grace did homework in the other room, that she wanted a divorce it had vanished entirely.
The divorce had been prolonged, painful and soul-destroying. It would have killed him, Danny was sure, were it not for Grace. Out of spite, or true hatred, Rachel had gone after everything and gotten it, leaving Danny with no daughter, no home and no love. Apart from losing his time with Grace, that had hurt the most. He couldn’t understand what had changed so much that Rachel could hate him so fiercely, want to hurt him so deeply that she’d use her own daughter to do it.
Years later, when he’d gotten tired of waiting for Steve to make his move and he’d grabbed the overgrown putz and kissed him, he’d almost been relieved. He’d fallen in love with a man that seemingly had no interest in marriage and so the issue would never come up. He couldn’t bear for Steve to come to hate him like that. But their relationship, both as friends and as lovers, had lasted longer than his with Rachel, and weathered far worse than his marriage could have imagined, and never once had his vision of them growing old together faded.
Instead, it had grown, their lives becoming ever more entwined and his feelings had begun to change. He’d found himself rubbing his thumb over his left ring finger the way he had used to when he was married, missing the feel of the metal. When Steve had picked him up to take him to the Governor’s Ball wearing a tux, he’d had a flash of a thought that he hoped Steve wore it for their wedding. Even if he had drowned that thought out with tequila the rest of the night.
He’d been working himself to this moment.
To marrying Steve. To marrying the love of his life. To letting himself be happy for once, without being convinced it was all going to go to shit before it had even started.
Danny stepped forward hands sliding on the sweaty skin of those gorgeous tattoos, pressing the other man back against the truck, plastering them together along the length of their fronts. He’d swear he could feel Steve’s heart race against his own skin.
“Ask me,” he ordered. “Ask me.”
Steve looked around at their surroundings; In the idle fantasies he had entertained when he’d let himself imagine asking Danny to marry him, the proposal would have taken place at the house after a meal he’d cooked with his own hands. Something about making a meal that pleased Danny stirred something primal in Steve, the primitive part of his brain thrilling at providing for the one he loved. Content and full, he’d lead Danny out to their chairs and propose under the stars. All in all, he’d imagined a lot more candlelight and the scent of night-blooming jasmine and much less blazing sun and exhaust fumes. A parking lot was not what he’d had in mind, no matter how many people might falsely accuse him of not possessing a single romantic notion in his life.
However, looking down into Danny’s eyes, taking in the happiness in the other man’s eyes, his blatant desire for Steve to say the words, he could do no less. He took Danny’s hands, unable to determine if it was his own or Danny’s that trembled.
“Marry me?”
Danny ducked aside when Steve leaned down to kiss him as though it were a done deal, tugging his hands from Steve’s and stepping back. He shot the man an unimpressed look.
“You call that a proposal?” He critiqued, shaking his head in dismay. “Ask me properly.”
“My apologies.” Steve cleared his throat. “Lord Daniel of Jersey, wouldst thou-”
“Steven. This is the only time I’m going to be proposed to.”
“Damn right,” Steve muttered fiercely.
“Right. So I want it done properly.” Danny gestured towards the ground with a meaningful jut of his chin.
Steve clasped Danny by the shoulders and gently pushed him back a step. Slithering down his body in a move far more appropriate for their bedroom than a public street in broad daylight, Steve took a knee as he trailed his hands down Danny’s arms and laced their fingers together. Drawing their joined hands to his lips, he dropped a kiss against Danny’s left hand, just where he wanted his ring too sit.
He looked up with such hope, such earnest joy. “Danny,” his voice was tremulous but for once he didn’t care, “will you marry me?” Steve swallowed hard, fingers clenching around Danny’s. “Will you do me the honour of allowing me to be your husband?”
“Why am I not surprised that this is what my life has led to, being proposed to in a carpark with you kneeling in an oil leak puddle?”
“Danny,” Steve chided, desperate. “Will you?”
“I’d tell you, but then I’d have to marry you.”
“Danny, c’mon…” Steve’s eyes widened and his face split into the goofy, happy smile that was Danny’s favourite, all gums and teeth. “Is that a yes? Does that mean yes?”
“Oh god, how is this my life?” Danny asked the heavens before smiling down at Steve. “It’s a yes. Of course it’s a yes.”
Wrapping his arms around Danny’s waist, Steve surged to his feet with a loud whoop of joy, hefting Danny high into his arms as he span around to press Danny’s back against the truck. It was burning hot, the dark vehicle having sat in the sun for over an hour but he was too busy wrapping his arms around Steve’s neck to care. Or to grouse about being lifted like he normally would.
It was a special day, after all. He could forgive a few things.
Steve leaned forward until their foreheads rested together, sharing his breath, his happiness, his utter delight with Danny.
“I love you,” Steve whispered against Danny’s lips. “I love you so much.” Then he was desperately kissing Danny, so hard he knocked his head back against the metal with a thud. Without breaking their connection, Steve pressed his body closer, using his weight to hold Danny against the truck to free up one hand to tenderly cradle the back of Danny’s head, fingers smoothing through Danny’s hair, soothing the hurt.
Danny could do nothing but try and reciprocate, parting his lips for Steve’s questing tongue, sinking into the familiar kisses he so adored.
He’d get to kiss this man for the rest of his life. Which is why he absolutely didn’t whine when Steve pulled out of the kiss to pepper kisses all over Danny’s face until he laughed.
“I’m gonna marry the shit outta you, Danny Williams-McGarrett.”
“Like hell am I changing my name!”
“We’ll see.”
“No, we won’t. I’m a thoroughly modern groom and will keep my own name after marriage.”
“Holy shit,” Steve whispered, awed, “we’re getting married.”
“Yeah, you goof,” Danny answered softly with a smile. “Yeah, we are.” Danny’s heart was pounding at the thought, but he wasn’t freaking out the way he always thought he would at the idea of marrying again. He sank his hands into Steve’s hair and pulled him in for another kiss, slow and deep.
Steve returned it happily before moving his mouth down Danny’s neck, sucking desperate marks into his skin, the detective gasping at the sting of teeth as Steve claimed him.
“Gonna mark me like this until the wedding?” he growled into Steve’s ear. He wasn’t unaware of Steve’s possessiveness, especially after the whole tattoo debacle. Despite his complaint, Danny’s back arched into Steve as he began to rock into him, Danny’s thighs splayed apart where they wrapped around slim hips. The rub of Steve’s hardening cock against his own was delicious, the seam of his jeans being rubbed against his hole with every grinding thrust intoxicating.
“God…”
He grabbed Steve’s head and pulled him up, back into another kiss, biting at his lips as he tightened his thighs, encouraging the rolling of his lover’s hips.
“I knew you Navy guys weren’t all talk.” Turning at the sound of the familiar voice, Steve smiled at Ona, the waitress making her way from her own car. From the apron draped over her shoulder, she was heading to work. The smile she wore, however, was one he’d never seen before – sly and impish – but no doubt she’d argue that the blush that pinked her cheeks was due to the sun and only the sun.
“I’m getting married,” Steve informed her smugly, his hold on Danny only tightening when his fiancé - his fiancé! - squirmed in his arms, trying to get his feet back on the ground now they had an audience. After a few fruitless seconds of struggle, Danny gave up, instead hitching closer to Steve to hook his head over the man’s shoulder, waving a hand at Ona. He tried his damndest to ignore the heat he was sure flamed from his cheeks. He was not a teenager, he would not blush at getting caught making out. Not after getting engaged.
“So I, and the rest of Honolulu heard.” Ona pointed toward the crowd at the bus stop, and when the couple turned their heads towards them, the group broke out into cheers and the odd wolf-whistle. Danny chose not to see the guy thrusting obscenely against the side of the shelter in mimicry of their earlier actions against the truck. Which he thought was pretty magnanimous of him, really.
“Congratulations. Who knew the way to fair detective’s heart was to yell romantic intentions?” Ona’s own smile was wide, her amusement at their antics clear. A beep from Ona’s phone caught her attention and with a wave over her shoulder, she departed in the direction of the diner, but not before calling out, “Your next brunch is on me.”
When Steve turned back to Danny, the detective would swear that his smile at the promise of free food was broader than the one he’d worn at Danny’s ‘yes’.
“We are not having the reception at Wailana’s.” Danny was going to nip that idea in the bud right away. He wasn’t naïve enough to believe he wasn’t going to end up with Kamekona cooking for their wedding, no doubt at a ‘generous’ 5% ‘ohana discount but he drew the line at a diner reception.
He had to hold on to some standards, even if he was marrying the world’s biggest idiot.
Steve looked thoughtful. That had hadn’t even occurred to him, but if it meant he got to show off Danny and his new for-life jewellery to the young waitress…
“We’ll see.”
Steve wondered just how challenging it would be to convince Danny that their honeymoon needed to be a whistle-stop tour of the best pancakes in the world.