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"Only seven more days, only seven more days..." Danny mutters to himself, thumping his head against the door a couple times before opening it.
Steve's standing on the other side, rain splattering down just behind him. There's raindrops in his eyelashes. Danny's life is ridiculous.
"Oh, what fresh hell are you," Danny sighs, leaning against the doorframe. He honest-to-Jesus doesn't have energy for anything else. Nana and Gracie are in the middle of a going-on-five-hour-long game of Monopoly, and he's rapidly losing the will to live.
Steve's got his mouth open like he's about to say something, then he frowns and says instead, "You look like you got run over by a truck."
"I look that good, huh?" Danny says.
"What happened? You look like crap and all your stuff is--" Steve leans over Danny's shoulder, peering into the living room. "Organized. Did you get a visit from the menehune since you moved in?"
"I don't know what that means," Danny says. Part of him should object to the way Steve's basically pushed past him to examine the new place, but that part's outvoted by the huge part that's too tired to put of a fight and the small (very small) part that thinks Steve smells nice.
"They're kind of like brownies. Do nice things for people. Like clean up their--"
Steve gets interrupted by a shrieking, victorious noise coming from Gracie's room. "Park Place! Fiiiiiive hundred bucks, Na-nana!"
"This game is teaching you all the wrong things," Nana grumbles, and Danny rubs his face as he tries to come to grips with the fact that his grandmother and his daughter and the walking, talking human disaster that is his partner are now all under the same roof.
"Do you have--" There's a certain amusement factor in watching Steve try and discard several terms before settling on, "Company?"
"I do indeed," Danny replies. "And hey, I'd like to thank you, personally, for making said company possible. If you hadn't gotten yourself thrown in the slammer and I hadn't gotten promoted as a result, and you hadn't insisted I keep the pay raise after you came back and arm-wrestled me into working for you again--"
"You said you wanted to!" Steve protests, and since he's still got water in his eyelashes it's really not fair that he's pulling that look right now.
"-- thus allowing me to get a better apartment," Danny continues, because he might as well just ignore the fucker, "And thus prompting my grandmother to decide that it was high time she come and see if I'm eating right and getting enough fresh air. So thank you, Steven, thanks from the bottom of my heart."
"Who are you talking to out there?" Nana shouts, and Danny realizes there's been an ominous silence for the past couple of minutes. He closes his eyes and prays for a freak lightning strike to take them all out right now.
"Nobody, Nana," he tries, but Gracie's got worlds better hearing than Nana and she squeals, "It's Steve!" and the next thing Danny knows Grace is tearing out into the living room and launching herself like a grenade at Steve, who laughs and catches her. She latches her arms around his neck as he straightens up, telling him about the zoo they went to this weekend and the poi she made for Danny and Nana tonight.
"It tasted like snotty potatoes," Nana declares from the doorway of Grace's room, and Jesus, this is really going to happen. With Danny's luck Nana's going to take the same kind of shine to Steve that she took to Rachel, and Danny will spend the entire week trying to prevent World War Three.
Steve puts Grace down gently and comes forward, extending his hand. "It's an honor, ma'am. I'm Commander Steve McGarrett, I work with your grandson."
Nana peers at his hand for a moment. "Commander, like that's supposed to impress me?"
"Oh my God," Danny sighs, and Grace tugs at his arm.
"I can get you a beer," she says solemnly. "I figured out how to open the bottles at camp."
"You learned -- you know what, no, I'm not touching that. A beer would be great, honey," Danny says, and she dashes into the kitchen.
"I -- no?" Steve tries. He's still got his hand out, but Nana brushes by him and collapses on the sofa the overdramatic way she's been doing since Danny can remember. It's like she doesn't so much sit down as deflate enough to bend at the joints.
"Good, mission accomplished. And you have your daughter bring you a beer but don't ask your guests if they would like any refreshment, Daniel? What kind of manners is that?"
Of course she picked up on that. Deaf as a post, Danny's ass. "Sorry, Nana. Would you like something to drink?"
"A gin and tonic. Not too much ice, you know I hate how it hits my dentures."
Danny makes his way to the kitchen, snagging Steve along the way. Grace is still in the kitchen, struggling with a beer bottle and what looks like the can opener.
"Babe, I don't think--" Danny stops, because really, how much does he never want Grace to know how to open a beer anyway. "Why don't you go entertain Na-nana out there while Steve and I get some drinks?"
She puts the beer on the kitchen table (he's got a kitchen table, it's great, it's from a garage sale last weekend but who cares) and runs out, calling, "So does this mean I win, Na-nana?"
Danny hands Steve the beer and yanks open the fridge. "I bought tonic the minute I found out she was coming, but naturally, it wasn't the right kind, I went to the store three times before she was satisfied. Do you know how much I like Foodland? Not much, any more."
"When did..." Steve waves the bottle toward the living room. "I didn't even know you had a grandma."
"Most people come with two, Steve, although I'm more than willing to believe you were genetically grown in some kind of a--" Danny sketches the shape of a cryogenics chamber with his hand.
"Thanks," Steve says heavily, and twists the beer cap off. Danny turns to get the gin and also to not stare at the line of Steve's neck when he tips the bottle and drains half of it in one go. Things have been -- weird, heavy, too-important, since Steve and Kono have gotten out. Kono is jumpy, watching shadows that aren't there and she's got scars on her hands that she doesn't talk about; she's quiet in a way she never was before, like she's holding everything in. Steve, on the other hand, is so aggressively normal that it makes everything even more unsettling; it's like he's checking off well-being markers in his head, and so he takes the team out for drinks and goes surfing on the weekends and winds Danny up for the fun of it. And Danny lets him, but at some point he's going to have to dig up those numbers of therapists for real and get Steve some quality head-shrinking.
Maybe some for himself, too, because another thing Steve's been doing lately is the looking. Not watching or staring, but he looks at Danny, like he's trying to send him some kind of psychic message, and Danny's just not ready to understand it. Especially not at seven-thirty on a Sunday night, with his daughter and his grandmother arguing over railroads in the next room.
"So what's the occasion for your little visit? Not that seeing you on one of my two days off isn't a joy and a pleasure."
Steve shrugs, bracing a hand behind him on the countertop. "Just in the neighborhood. And hey, your new neighborhood isn't a shithole, so I--"
"Language," Danny says mildly. He wishes he could say it's for Grace's sake.
"I just wanted to see if your boxes were actually unpacked this time."
Danny's about to make some comment about how boxes were the only organizational tools he'd had in the old place, but then he catches the look on Steve's face and this isn't about inadequate shelving. "I'm signed to a two-year lease," he says as casually as he can manage. "Not going anywhere for a while, babe."
Steve nods, still staring a hole into the kitchen table. "Okay, well, I should probably -- you want to spend time with your family."
"You did meet her, right?" Danny says, getting ice out of the ice-machine. "How much time do you think I want to spend with her?"
"She's, uh. Spry." Steve grins and finishes off his beer.
"She's evil, is what she is. If you ever loved me, you will not leave me alone with that woman." Danny doesn't quite realize what he's said until Steve blinks at him, eyes big and blue.
"Danny," Steve says, and Grace chooses now of all moments to come hurtling in with demands to play Scrabble.
So Danny sits through an hour of Scrabble, while Nana makes sour comments about Steve hogging all the triple-word-score tiles (and it figures, of course Steve is a competitive asshole, but Grace is still kicking his ass and Danny's never been prouder as a father) and, when that doesn't work, starts in on Danny's marital status.
"I'm just saying, Rachel was never right for you. You'd never gotten married to her, we'd all be back home right now, not in this -- what kind of place is eighty degrees in October?"
"If I hadn't married Rachel, we'd never have had Gracie, and you've told me about a hundred times that Grace's your favorite," Danny feels obliged to point out, because it's true; Grace was the first of the great-grandchildren, and although there've been a few since then she's still the only girl.
Nana glowers over her third G&T. "How many months after you were married did Rachel have Grace?"
"Seven more days," Steve murmurs, then, louder, "W-I-T-C-H, twenty-six points, triple letter and double-word."
That distracts Nana sufficiently for Danny to escape to the bathroom and get himself some Advil. By the time he's gotten back, Nana and Steve are about ten seconds from arm-wrestling over their impugned honor and Grace is half-asleep.
"So we should definitely do this again sometime," Danny says, clapping his hands. "Steve, I will see you tomorrow at work, say goodnight to--"
"What, you're going to work tomorrow? I don't see you for two years, I get one weekend with you?" Nana demands. "Bad enough Rachel wouldn't even give Grace the rest of the week, I'm supposed to, what, hobble around this leprosy capital of the world by myself?"
Steve bites his lips. "I'm learning a lot about you right now," he says to Danny, then says, "If you'd like, Mrs. Williams--"
"Giordano," Danny interrupts, far, far too late, and they stand there through a five-minute lecture about how her little baby girl went and threw it all away on some Jewish-Irish mug named Williams who was circumcised, who does that to a little baby barely a week old--
"Jesus, Nana," Danny groans.
"And you're telling me with your partner, right here in front of you, that you can't, what, ask for the day off?" Nana says, switching just as jarringly as she ever did from one topic to another.
Steve's shoulders are shaking, what an asshole. "I completely agree," Steve says, "And you know what, we don't have a case right now, so we'll just give the team a little break." And just when Danny's about to explode, he turns to him and adds, "I'd be happy to take you both around the island. There's hardly any lepers here anymore, I think you'd enjoy it."
"You're not going to make us hike up mountains to look at rocks, right?" Danny says.
"Promise," Steve says, serious and fond.
***
The next day is -- objectively, without any hyperbole whatsoever -- pure unmitigated hell.
Jenna responds to Steve's email with something about visiting the local museum to look at pictures of whales; Kono just sends a terse "Up at Pipeline," and a few minutes later Danny gets an email from Chin, for his eyes only: "Ditto, make sure yours doesn't start a gang war." The fact that Chin and Danny have divided their responsibilities like this shows a lot more about the co-dependent clusterfuck of this team than is probably good. Danny remembers one night he and Chin and Jenna spent during the hellish few weeks when they were three-fifths of a team, where Jenna put forth the theory that Steve and Danny were Bob Saget and that other guy who dated Alanis Morrisette, and Chin was Uncle Jesse.
"Oh my God," Danny'd groaned.
"Damn straight I'm Uncle Jesse," Chin had replied. "So wait, does this mean you're one of the Olsen twins?" he'd asked Jenna.
"No way, I'm totally D.J.," Jenna had replied dismissively. "She was rad."
"No, no, you're the," Danny snapped his fingers, trying to remember the name, "You're the obnoxious best friend with the scrunchy."
"Shut up!"
But whatever terrible sitcom they were living, they have their assignments and so when Steve shows up on his doorstep at eight in the morning with malasadas and a hopeful look on his face, Danny just sighs heavily.
"Dating you in high school must've been hell," Danny says, before he can stop himself.
Steve grins, broad and bright like one of those waves he likes risking his life riding. "I never got any complaints," he says, stepping forward like Danny's just going to give way for him, and for a second Danny wonders what would happen if he stayed put, if he let Steve get in his space the way he's gotten under his skin.
That second is rapidly followed by Nana yelling from the kitchen, "We air condition the whole island, now?"
So Danny steps back and closes the door after Steve, who's frowning at him. "You're not wearing a tie," he says.
"I wasn't wearing a tie yesterday," Danny points out, but now he feels more than a little off-balance; Steve's still got that expression, like Danny's collarbone is some kind of riddle he's got to solve.
"Yeah, but," Steve makes this little huffing noise. "It's Monday."
"Would you like me to go put on a tie?"
"No. No, that's, no, it's fine." Steve clears his throat and thrusts the bag at him. "I brought malasadas."
"Good thing," Danny says. "Nana hates my eggs."
"That's because they're awful."
"My eggs are perfection."
"Your eggs, Daniel, would make St. Theresa spit them out," Nana says briskly, wiping her hands on her apron and making a gesture for the bag. "Are these those doughnuts you bought this weekend? Give it here, I'm starving."
"Where did your grandmother find an apron?" Steve whispers as they follow her back into the kitchen.
"Are you kidding? She brought it with her."
After a breakfast of malasadas (for Danny and Nana), coffee (for Steve and Danny), and eggs (for Danny, because they were perfection), Steve pulls out a notepad and starts ticking off places to go: the International Marketplace, Iolani Palace, the Dole pineapple factory--
"You think we want to sit around in a factory?" Nana demands. "This is supposed to be my vacation, I don't want to spend it staring at machines."
Steve shrugs elaborately. "I just thought you might want to try an unprocessed pineapple," he says, casual. "They give you a pineapple and a straw, it's probably one of the best things in the world. Your grandson's not a fan of pineapple, but I thought your palate might be a little more refined."
Nana narrows her eyes like she knows he's pulling a fast one on her but can't quite figure out how. "Well," she allows grudgingly, "I've always liked pineapple on my pizza."
"Oh, God, what?" Danny says. "My own grandmother--"
"What, are you the arbiter of pizza, Daniel? I didn't know pizza's had to pass your tests before --"
"So great! We'll do that, and maybe stop somewhere for loco moco."
"What's that?" Nana demands.
"If you like pineapple pizza, I think you'll like this," Danny says. "God help us all."
Which is how they basically go on a culinary tour of the island for the next twelve hours. Pineapple turns into loco moco turns into shave ice, which gives Nana enough strength to try lau lau and some cocoa puffs, with Nana and Steve locked in some Battle of the Stomachs that Danny stays far, far away from. Besides, he's got enough on his plate, so to speak; ever single minute that Nana doesn't have something in her mouth, she's saying stuff like, "I don't think you need to eat all that, Daniel, you're not exactly running all over the place like your partner here is," or "All I'm saying is, you really have to have your shirt unbuttoned like that? You're not a woman, Daniel, nobody needs to see your cleavage, all right?"
"I have two buttons undone, Nana," Danny points out. "I'm not posing for Playgirl, here."
Steve, crammed in the backseat (and yes, that's a beautiful feeling, a gorgeous feeling, watching Steve fold himself in pretty improbably shapes to fit himself back there) makes a choking noise and tells Danny to turn left. "The shrimp farm is just a couple miles down this way."
So Danny gets to watch Steve and Nana eat about four plates each of shrimp while he gets the Fisheye Of Judgement when he goes for seconds.
"What?" he demands, and Nana just purses her lips and takes a drink of water. "Look, I'll have you know, I run around just as much as Captain America over here, all right?"
"Commander America," Steve corrects him.
"Quiet, you," Danny commands.
"Manners," Nana reproves.
"I would like to state for the record that we could be at work, catching bad guys, right now," Danny says. "I'm just pointing that out, okay?"
"Sure," Steve says. "Oh, hey, I got us tickets for a luau later tonight. It's where they roast this gigantic boar on a spit and--"
"Say no more," Nana says firmly. "We'd love to come, wouldn't we, Daniel?"
"Of course we would," Danny says.
***
"You probably should've mentioned the nudity," Danny hisses at Steve. They're sitting at one of the back tables but that really doesn't matter.
"I told you it was a traditional luau," Steve says.
"Look at my face and tell me how much I know about traditional luaus," Danny tells him.
Steve purses his lips. "Not much?"
"You get a prize," Danny mutters.
"I just don't think that can be healthy," Nana says, peering up at the stage where about a dozen guys are doing some highly suggestive... wriggling... wearing what looks like glorified thongs. "It's gotten so chilly, they'll catch their deaths. And what does that do to their knees?"
Danny, who's been successfully shielding his gaze, looks up to see what exactly they're doing to their knees and immediately shuts his eyes. "This is -- just not family friendly," he says.
"It's the procreation chant," Steve says, "So really, it's very family friendly."
"I really hate you."
"No you don't."
"Why can't they wear their little skirts and things with a nice sweater?" Nana says.
Danny stares bleakly at his grandmother. "You should suggest that," he says. "After the pig slaughter."
"It's already slaughtered," Steve says.
"So we don't see it get killed?" Nana sounds disappointed. Danny is zero percent surprised. "Oh, goodness, here come the girls. Oh now these girls definitely need some sweaters."
Steve bites his lip, then turns to Danny. "So what's my prize?" he asks.
Danny's so busy trying to figure out a way to cover Nana's eyes that he doesn't register what Steve's talking about at first. "You're -- what?"
"You said I got a prize," Steve says, softly.
"Uh," Danny replies, cleverly.
"Oh look," Nana says brightly. "It's like batons from when I was in school."
Danny manages to tear his gaze away from Steve and focus on the performers, who are -- "Oh, Christ Almighty," he mutters. "Really? Flaming batons. That's what they figured was missing from the magic of the evening?"
"They never did that at Jefferson Memorial, I'll tell you that for free," Nana says, looking torn between being disapproving and being impressed.
Steve laughs and leans back in his chair, his knee knocking against Danny's. "You just don't appreciate all that Hawai'i has to offer," he says, mournful and mocking, and Danny can practically see the apostrophe lurking in there.
"I appreciate it just fine. Hawaii's the best, okay? Never met a better island chain, even if it does ignore police procedure more often than I'd like."
"You like it that much, huh?" Steve asks him, while Nana is saying something about this whole thing not being up to fire code.
"Yeah, I do."
Steve seems to think about this for a while. "And how long is your grandma going to be here?"
"I could always put her up in a hotel," Danny says, giddy and on the knife-edge of laughter, because he'd thought, when he'd let himself think about it, he'd thought that it would come with gunshot wounds and deathbed confessions (followed, hopefully, by miraculous recovery and bed-breaking sex) and the kind of big stupid gestures that make him roll his eyes when he sits through a romantic comedy. But instead it's here, at the Hilton Hawaiian Village on a Monday night with his mother's mother sitting two feet away, still muttering to herself about safety measures. And it's better, somehow, like this. Danny takes a deep breath and grins at the way Steve's gaze flickers to his chest.
"We--" Steve stops, his voice rough and low and it makes Danny shiver -- makes him want to hand Nana the keys to the Camaro and tell her he'll see her tomorrow. Or Wednesday. "We might want to take tomorrow off, too."
Danny's not much for undying declarations of love, but he leans forward and says, "Tell you what, you go back to your place and I'll see you in an hour, you got that?" and when Steve grins and nods and leaves the luau like his cargo pants are on fire, Danny's too busy figuring out all the ways he's going to make his feelings understood to be annoyed when Nana insists on getting one of the Executive Suites.
"If you're throwing your own grandmother out on the streets, you're going to treat her with the respect she deserves," Nana huffs, looking around the suite with a disapproving eye. "And you bring me my things before you and your young man do anything tonight, do you hear me?"
Danny's pretty sure he just hallucinated that. "What?"
Nana grabs him by the chin, the way she used to do when he was a kid (and the reason he's got the jawline that he does). "Daniel Webster Williams," she says seriously, "I have seen you in love more than once. There was Peggy Shin in fourth grade, there was Brian Butler in high school, and there was Rachel Mullins ten years ago. And every time you were so busy trying to get their attention that you never once realized they were already hooked. You stop making that mistake, okay?" She pats his cheek, hard. "And you button that button, Daniel, you're not some jiggly-loo."
Danny high-tails it out of there and grabs her suitcase from his apartment (which she'd never really unpacked, sniffing about all the germs she didn't know where they might be lurking in Danny's dresser drawers) and drops it off at the front desk, because he's grateful for her blessing but he's got a feeling she's going to have a lot more to say if he goes back up there tonight. He may or may not break a few speed limits on his way to Steve's place.
"Fifty-seven minutes," Steve says, a dim shape on the dark porch. "I'm impressed--"
"Steven Joseph McGarrett," Danny says, climbing the steps, "You get in that house and out of your pants in the next five seconds or so help me."
Steve just laughs, and pulls him close, and murmurs, "Just six more days," before kissing him.