fic: Afternoon With Zippy's
title: Afternoon With Zippy's
pairing: Steve/Danny
words: 2.5k
rating: pg
summary: Grace has to watch the nature channel for school, so they go to Steve's.
a/n: mentions of non-human mpreg. This fic was written for crazykookie and shifty-gardener, with helpful information from rina9294 and beta'd by longswordho.
______
Danny woke from a sort of writhing mass of a nightmare to the sound of the phone ringing.
"Augh, Stepstan!"
He jerked completely out of his dream state and into reality. Morning light shone bright through the motel-style drapes, clean slating his living room in a joyous March morning in Hawaii. He rubbed a huge palm over his small face, and scrubbed his eyes into wakefulness.
Moments later, the ringing stopped.
Only telemarketers and Rachel would call the landline, and neither of them were pleasant to talk to first thing in the morning. Even so, he got up to check what whoever it was wanted.
"Another sunny day," he muttered to himself.
He skirted a few piles of work pants and sweaty button-downs that had collected in the center of the room, the largest part of his cheap apartment - which was, let's be honest, a kind of divey shantapartment, or edging on middle-of-the-road motel room chic if you squinted, because Hawaii was expensive - and made it to the counter just as the machine beeped, signaling a possibly scathing, definitely annoying, message.
He pressed the button, and went about making instant coffee (he didn't have a coffee pot) while he listened.
"Daniel, this is Rachel," came a too-perky voice over the speaker. "I've tried your mobile but you seem to be avoiding my calls. I'd say that was typical, but that would come off as too passive aggressive for my tastes, and we've been doing so well lately, wouldn't want to ruin a good thing. I'm phoning to remind you that you'll be watching Grace this afternoon. Give my love to Steven. Bye now."
The message beeped to an end.
Of course he remembered he was going to spend time with Grace today. She was his heart! His soul! The very reason he'd moved to this insane island in the first place! And as for the closing part of the message, well. If she'd mentioned anyone else, he would have thought Rachel was trying to manipulate his life a little more than she already had, but this was Steve she was talking about, so she hadn't meant it as a jibe; everyone, literally everyone - even the yakuza who were always on his ass - respected Steve.
Because Steve was a good sort of guy. He was honest and upfront about just about everything. He was relaxed for the most part, knew he was doing the right thing, shot the bad guys clean in the chest and saved the day every time, while whistling a fricken' tune. This fact, of course, slightly worried Danny as well, but what could you do?
When Steve needed to fume, usually as he was taking the curves at 70mph in Danny's car, or when he called Danny on a day off to rant over the phone, Danny made it a point to sit back and wait it out, giving Steve the patient ear he needed. That very thing happened a few hours later. Danny had been forced to abandon his paperwork to go in search of food, as his mini fridge was full of beer and eggs, and not much else. He'd ventured out, into the muggy heat of the day, where he'd finished off two club sandwiches.
He was just ordering from a coffee cart outside the sushi bar when his phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket, pressing it to his ear as he ordered two konas, strong and intense like his friggen' neck muscles.
The voice started without preamble - they were partners, they didn't need to say, 'hello, how are you,' every time they had something to communicate. Steve's voice was hard to hear over the background noise of the motor gunning.
Danny nodded thanks to the cashier, saying, "Calm down," into the phone.
"If these guys think they can just pull that kind of shit," Steve said. "If they think they can get away with it, they've got another thing coming. I'm going to find them. I'm gonna track them down, and arrest all of them. This goes right to the top."
"Steve-"
"I'm gonna-"
"Steve. Listen to me," Danny said. "We're going to get to the bottom of this, we're going to stay calm and we're going to trace these sons of bitches back to the headquarters, and then we're going to bring them to justice."
"Danno-"
"When have I ever been wrong? Tell me, when have I ever lied to you?"
There was a long silence on the other end, the sound of Steve collecting himself. "You're right, you're- you're absolutely right."
"Now when are you gonna be home?" Danny put the coffees into the cup holders and slammed the door behind him. "Grace needs to watch the nature channel for a school project, and you know what kind of tv reception I get."
"When are you gonna get some more channels?"
"I got all I need. Who watches cable these days? Anyway, mind if I bring her over?"
"I'd be disappointed if you didn't. I'll be home in twenty."
"Good, I'm bringing coffee."
"Man after my fricken' heart."
*
Cruising down the main strip in his silver stallion, he thought about the job, how it had become his life, but it was worth every second because he knew he was keeping the island safe for his Grace.
They'd really made themselves known in this city, and the sloppiness of recent murders showed that the street gangs were getting scared. Danny had seen this sort of thing before; back in Jersey he'd had ample opportunity to get inside their heads, had seen how the mind of the common criminal worked, and like he'd promised Steve, they would bring down this whole operation, brick by brick, he was certain of that.
Steve called back just as Danny reached Rachel's. The door swung open the moment he was answering, "Hey, sweetheart," and so he had to go through the motions of "oh no, not you, darling ex-wife, I was joking around with my partner." which was always exhausting and should not have been necessary in the first place. Rachel always seemed supremely unimpressed by that sort of thing.
"Grace'll be out in a minute," she said, and he nodded, then motioned to the phone again. Rachel rolled her eyes, and went back inside, leaving Danny standing around in Rachel's orchid collection on the porch in the oppressive afternoon heat, talking about pizza.
"I know a place-" Steve said.
"Of course you do."
"I know I told you that other one had the best pizza on the whole island, but how could I have forgotten about Zippy's."
"Zippy's," Danny said. "Are you for real?"
Although it was probably miles less cheesy than some of the restaurants Grace liked to go to. Somehow he was always the one who ended up in the princess hats and paper napkin creations.
"Yeah," Steve said. "Best ham and cheese this side of the volcano. It'll make you weep."
"Sounds good, but ask for half cheese. Grace won't eat anything that fancy. Oh, and none of that pineapple shit. You know how I feel about that."
"Yeah, you may have told me."
"See you soon."
He flipped the phone shut, and stood with his hands in his pockets. He squinted at the street. The mob could be anywhere.
"Daddy!" Grace ran out the door, and he swept her up into a hug, narrowly avoiding being thunked in the back by her Barbie toolkit by spinning her in the other direction at the last minute.
"She's had a lot of sugar," Rachel told him.
Steve looked at Grace. "Did you?"
"Yes!"
"Let me guess, her stepfather?"
"Don't start, Daniel."
"I'll have her home by 9," he said. Rachel was watching from the doorway, a skeptical look on her face.
"Make it 8, and Daniel?"
"What?"
"Tell Steven I say hello."
"How did you know-"
"Oh please," she said, and, after a last goodbye to Grace, she closed the door in his face.
Danny put Grace down, and instantly she was tugging on ahead. His daughter, shy around other people, was actually just a normal, hyperactive little kid.
"Whattaya say, Grace," he said. "Wanna eat pizza and watch a show about fish?
She smiled and nodded, and then ran to the car.
*
It was a twenty minute drive to Steve's, down the long boulevard that bisected the city and past a few beaches that looked like paradise to someone from the Shore. When they got to the house, Danny pushed the door open. It was unlocked or it had been broken into again, but signs pointed to Steve being back because he heard the sound of the game on the radio.
Danny followed the gentle aromas of melted-cheese-over-tomato-sauce, feeling a pre-pizza anticipation.
"Just got back," a voice said from the kitchen. Danny went to lean in the doorway, and gave Steve the platonic once-over as he unstrapped his gun belt. He put it on the top shelf of a kitchen cupboard that held only Navy Seal paraphernalia.
Grace peered around the corner and Steve waved at her. "Hiya Grace. What's this I hear about homework?"
"Grace, say hello to Steve," Danny said. "You remember Steve? From the football game? He gave you a balloon before we left."
"I popped it," she said, eyes solemn.
"That's alright. I hear you get to watch tv for homework. I wish I'd gotten to do that."
Grace grinned, showing about three gaps where she used to have teeth. Danny experienced a quick pang of regret that he hadn't been there when she'd lost them, but then quashed it. He was here now, he was doing the best he could, and it wasn't his fault that he wasn't able to see her more often.
Danny gestured to the pizza boxes on the counter, with a look that said, yes I am just that awesome.
Twenty minutes later they had the 30-inch LCD screen turned on to a montage of colorful fish and corals, a veritable rainbow of life, cut every few minutes by waves of bubbles in the blue-turquoise sea. Danny found Steve's laptop and flipped it open.
"You working on-"
"I told you, I'm not gonna let this slide," Danny said. "We've got a string of victims and a few tentative leads, and that's enough to go on. And besides, you know I only use the computer at the office, so today it was either yours or Grace's, and I know that if you saw me using a pink laptop with a picture of Hello Kitty on the front, you would never let me live it down."
"That's for sure," Steve said.
There was a brief pause, during which the narrator said something about life in the reef being as busy as a bustling metropolis.
"And Steve?" Danny said.
"What?"
"We will find out who's behind all this."
He squinted at Steve, and after a moment of intense eye contact, Steve nodded once, and then turned to watch the Sea Life special. Danny opened up the police database and set to work.
He started checking the facts once again, flicking through murder records he'd near memorized by now. He and Steve were the heroes of this story. Failure was not an option.
And so the afternoon passed.
"One of the amazing things about Hippocampus, family: Syngnathidae," Steve was telling Grace when Danny finally looked away from the screen. "Is that the males of the species can lay eggs as well."
"Really?" Grace said, wide-eyed, although Danny knew she was more impressed with Steve himself than what he was telling her.
"Yes," Steve said, sagely.
"I like how you're watching TV, but you've got the volume turned down," Danny pointed out.
Steve gestured to the screen. "Oh please, I know just as much as these guys do."
Danny shrugged and took another slice of ham and jalapeno from the greasy, glorious boxful, and looked over the current police report, careful not to get grease on the keys.
"Why are they called horses if they're so small?" Grace asked. She was ripping her small slice of cheese pizza into smaller pieces, and shoving them in her mouth, looking wide-eyed from the sea horses on screen to Danny.
"Now that," Steve said. "Is something I don't know. You like riding horses?"
She nodded.
"I'll tell you what," Danny said. "How bout we take you to go ride one on your birthday?"
"Yes!" she said. By God, Danny would find her a pony.
"Now, clown fish," Steve began. "Those little orange guys..."
"Finding Nemo!"
"Yes, those. There are a few things that movie didn't tell you..."
*
After the program had ended, and Steve had discussed diorama ideas with Grace, the nature channel aired part two of a panda documentary, and Grace dropped off five minutes into it.
"Not a fan of bears?" Steve asked.
"The kid grew up on cartoons of talking fish," Danny shrugged. "Besides, pandas aren't that interesting." Because really, if Grace didn't like them, then why should he care about them?
"Beer?" Steve offered.
Danny looked at his watch. It was almost eight.
"Yeah, we can stay for another hour."
They headed outside into the balmy night and settled into deck chairs. It was a late Tuesday evening on Honolulu. The backyard was dark, and the loud hip hop music from some surf-side bars echoed all the way out here. Steve handed him a beer, which completed the scene.
Yeah, they were just a couple of dudes hanging out on the lanai, post-pizza and sipping at frosty bottles of Blue Moon, a plate of mango slices between them, watching the stars.
"You know, back home in the normal world, people drink this with orange slices." He tipped his beer to Steve, a half-toast. "If I told the guys back home I was sucking on chunks of mango, they would laugh."
"You know how much oranges cost here?" Steve said. "I'm not gonna buy some imported shit when I could get something better, local."
Danny slapped a few mosquitoes that had landed on his giant arm, cursing. Steve laughed and took a gulp of his beer.
"Hey, I know you could probably catch them with chopsticks, but us mortal folk don't like magically repel bugs."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever man. We should get you one of those high-tech mosquito zappers online."
Danny gestured widely. "People don't do that, Steve. You don't buy stuff like that online!"
"Do you know how many times you've told me not to buy things online, and yet - "
"Ever get those car parts?"
"That was a one time thing."
"This isn't the military, Steve."
Steve laughed and looked out over the darkened street. "Don't I know it."
Danny peeled idly at the beer wrapper and kind of basked in the pedestrian quality of the conversation.
"When I was a kid, my dad shipped me off," Steve told him. "I never looked back. When my father-"
Danny watched him collect himself.
"When my father died, I made this my life."
Dogs barked in the near distance. Another mosquito bit him on the neck, Danny could feel it.
Steve shrugged in the half-dark. "You can't go back, is all I'm saying."
"Yeah, I know."
After they'd finished their beers, after they'd recapped the Superbowl, which, by the way, they'd watched together, so it was all redundant, the arguments had before and sentiments re-expressed in the spring night, they entered the house again. It was finally time to head out.
"Man, I'm late, Rachel's gonna kill me." Danny closed the glass door quietly, even though he would need to wake up his daughter just then anyway. "She sends her love, by the way."
"Oh yeah?" Steve looked over from where he was clinking the empty bottles into the recycling, far too pleased.
"I told her you didn't want it."
"You did not."
When they got to the living room, Grace was still passed out on the couch.
"Come on, Monkey." Danny lugged her to her feet and she trailed along behind him as he picked up her Barbies and put them back in their carrying case.
Steve showed them to the door, even though he didn't strictly have to; Danny came and went like the house was his anyway.
"See you tomorrow," Danny said. "Bright and early."
"So long, Danno."
"And Steve," he said before they left. "We'll get 'em, you'll see. Don't you worry about a thing."
And at that moment, the phone rang.
pairing: Steve/Danny
words: 2.5k
rating: pg
summary: Grace has to watch the nature channel for school, so they go to Steve's.
a/n: mentions of non-human mpreg. This fic was written for crazykookie and shifty-gardener, with helpful information from rina9294 and beta'd by longswordho.
______
Danny woke from a sort of writhing mass of a nightmare to the sound of the phone ringing.
"Augh, Stepstan!"
He jerked completely out of his dream state and into reality. Morning light shone bright through the motel-style drapes, clean slating his living room in a joyous March morning in Hawaii. He rubbed a huge palm over his small face, and scrubbed his eyes into wakefulness.
Moments later, the ringing stopped.
Only telemarketers and Rachel would call the landline, and neither of them were pleasant to talk to first thing in the morning. Even so, he got up to check what whoever it was wanted.
"Another sunny day," he muttered to himself.
He skirted a few piles of work pants and sweaty button-downs that had collected in the center of the room, the largest part of his cheap apartment - which was, let's be honest, a kind of divey shantapartment, or edging on middle-of-the-road motel room chic if you squinted, because Hawaii was expensive - and made it to the counter just as the machine beeped, signaling a possibly scathing, definitely annoying, message.
He pressed the button, and went about making instant coffee (he didn't have a coffee pot) while he listened.
"Daniel, this is Rachel," came a too-perky voice over the speaker. "I've tried your mobile but you seem to be avoiding my calls. I'd say that was typical, but that would come off as too passive aggressive for my tastes, and we've been doing so well lately, wouldn't want to ruin a good thing. I'm phoning to remind you that you'll be watching Grace this afternoon. Give my love to Steven. Bye now."
The message beeped to an end.
Of course he remembered he was going to spend time with Grace today. She was his heart! His soul! The very reason he'd moved to this insane island in the first place! And as for the closing part of the message, well. If she'd mentioned anyone else, he would have thought Rachel was trying to manipulate his life a little more than she already had, but this was Steve she was talking about, so she hadn't meant it as a jibe; everyone, literally everyone - even the yakuza who were always on his ass - respected Steve.
Because Steve was a good sort of guy. He was honest and upfront about just about everything. He was relaxed for the most part, knew he was doing the right thing, shot the bad guys clean in the chest and saved the day every time, while whistling a fricken' tune. This fact, of course, slightly worried Danny as well, but what could you do?
When Steve needed to fume, usually as he was taking the curves at 70mph in Danny's car, or when he called Danny on a day off to rant over the phone, Danny made it a point to sit back and wait it out, giving Steve the patient ear he needed. That very thing happened a few hours later. Danny had been forced to abandon his paperwork to go in search of food, as his mini fridge was full of beer and eggs, and not much else. He'd ventured out, into the muggy heat of the day, where he'd finished off two club sandwiches.
He was just ordering from a coffee cart outside the sushi bar when his phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket, pressing it to his ear as he ordered two konas, strong and intense like his friggen' neck muscles.
The voice started without preamble - they were partners, they didn't need to say, 'hello, how are you,' every time they had something to communicate. Steve's voice was hard to hear over the background noise of the motor gunning.
Danny nodded thanks to the cashier, saying, "Calm down," into the phone.
"If these guys think they can just pull that kind of shit," Steve said. "If they think they can get away with it, they've got another thing coming. I'm going to find them. I'm gonna track them down, and arrest all of them. This goes right to the top."
"Steve-"
"I'm gonna-"
"Steve. Listen to me," Danny said. "We're going to get to the bottom of this, we're going to stay calm and we're going to trace these sons of bitches back to the headquarters, and then we're going to bring them to justice."
"Danno-"
"When have I ever been wrong? Tell me, when have I ever lied to you?"
There was a long silence on the other end, the sound of Steve collecting himself. "You're right, you're- you're absolutely right."
"Now when are you gonna be home?" Danny put the coffees into the cup holders and slammed the door behind him. "Grace needs to watch the nature channel for a school project, and you know what kind of tv reception I get."
"When are you gonna get some more channels?"
"I got all I need. Who watches cable these days? Anyway, mind if I bring her over?"
"I'd be disappointed if you didn't. I'll be home in twenty."
"Good, I'm bringing coffee."
"Man after my fricken' heart."
*
Cruising down the main strip in his silver stallion, he thought about the job, how it had become his life, but it was worth every second because he knew he was keeping the island safe for his Grace.
They'd really made themselves known in this city, and the sloppiness of recent murders showed that the street gangs were getting scared. Danny had seen this sort of thing before; back in Jersey he'd had ample opportunity to get inside their heads, had seen how the mind of the common criminal worked, and like he'd promised Steve, they would bring down this whole operation, brick by brick, he was certain of that.
Steve called back just as Danny reached Rachel's. The door swung open the moment he was answering, "Hey, sweetheart," and so he had to go through the motions of "oh no, not you, darling ex-wife, I was joking around with my partner." which was always exhausting and should not have been necessary in the first place. Rachel always seemed supremely unimpressed by that sort of thing.
"Grace'll be out in a minute," she said, and he nodded, then motioned to the phone again. Rachel rolled her eyes, and went back inside, leaving Danny standing around in Rachel's orchid collection on the porch in the oppressive afternoon heat, talking about pizza.
"I know a place-" Steve said.
"Of course you do."
"I know I told you that other one had the best pizza on the whole island, but how could I have forgotten about Zippy's."
"Zippy's," Danny said. "Are you for real?"
Although it was probably miles less cheesy than some of the restaurants Grace liked to go to. Somehow he was always the one who ended up in the princess hats and paper napkin creations.
"Yeah," Steve said. "Best ham and cheese this side of the volcano. It'll make you weep."
"Sounds good, but ask for half cheese. Grace won't eat anything that fancy. Oh, and none of that pineapple shit. You know how I feel about that."
"Yeah, you may have told me."
"See you soon."
He flipped the phone shut, and stood with his hands in his pockets. He squinted at the street. The mob could be anywhere.
"Daddy!" Grace ran out the door, and he swept her up into a hug, narrowly avoiding being thunked in the back by her Barbie toolkit by spinning her in the other direction at the last minute.
"She's had a lot of sugar," Rachel told him.
Steve looked at Grace. "Did you?"
"Yes!"
"Let me guess, her stepfather?"
"Don't start, Daniel."
"I'll have her home by 9," he said. Rachel was watching from the doorway, a skeptical look on her face.
"Make it 8, and Daniel?"
"What?"
"Tell Steven I say hello."
"How did you know-"
"Oh please," she said, and, after a last goodbye to Grace, she closed the door in his face.
Danny put Grace down, and instantly she was tugging on ahead. His daughter, shy around other people, was actually just a normal, hyperactive little kid.
"Whattaya say, Grace," he said. "Wanna eat pizza and watch a show about fish?
She smiled and nodded, and then ran to the car.
*
It was a twenty minute drive to Steve's, down the long boulevard that bisected the city and past a few beaches that looked like paradise to someone from the Shore. When they got to the house, Danny pushed the door open. It was unlocked or it had been broken into again, but signs pointed to Steve being back because he heard the sound of the game on the radio.
Danny followed the gentle aromas of melted-cheese-over-tomato-sauce, feeling a pre-pizza anticipation.
"Just got back," a voice said from the kitchen. Danny went to lean in the doorway, and gave Steve the platonic once-over as he unstrapped his gun belt. He put it on the top shelf of a kitchen cupboard that held only Navy Seal paraphernalia.
Grace peered around the corner and Steve waved at her. "Hiya Grace. What's this I hear about homework?"
"Grace, say hello to Steve," Danny said. "You remember Steve? From the football game? He gave you a balloon before we left."
"I popped it," she said, eyes solemn.
"That's alright. I hear you get to watch tv for homework. I wish I'd gotten to do that."
Grace grinned, showing about three gaps where she used to have teeth. Danny experienced a quick pang of regret that he hadn't been there when she'd lost them, but then quashed it. He was here now, he was doing the best he could, and it wasn't his fault that he wasn't able to see her more often.
Danny gestured to the pizza boxes on the counter, with a look that said, yes I am just that awesome.
Twenty minutes later they had the 30-inch LCD screen turned on to a montage of colorful fish and corals, a veritable rainbow of life, cut every few minutes by waves of bubbles in the blue-turquoise sea. Danny found Steve's laptop and flipped it open.
"You working on-"
"I told you, I'm not gonna let this slide," Danny said. "We've got a string of victims and a few tentative leads, and that's enough to go on. And besides, you know I only use the computer at the office, so today it was either yours or Grace's, and I know that if you saw me using a pink laptop with a picture of Hello Kitty on the front, you would never let me live it down."
"That's for sure," Steve said.
There was a brief pause, during which the narrator said something about life in the reef being as busy as a bustling metropolis.
"And Steve?" Danny said.
"What?"
"We will find out who's behind all this."
He squinted at Steve, and after a moment of intense eye contact, Steve nodded once, and then turned to watch the Sea Life special. Danny opened up the police database and set to work.
He started checking the facts once again, flicking through murder records he'd near memorized by now. He and Steve were the heroes of this story. Failure was not an option.
And so the afternoon passed.
"One of the amazing things about Hippocampus, family: Syngnathidae," Steve was telling Grace when Danny finally looked away from the screen. "Is that the males of the species can lay eggs as well."
"Really?" Grace said, wide-eyed, although Danny knew she was more impressed with Steve himself than what he was telling her.
"Yes," Steve said, sagely.
"I like how you're watching TV, but you've got the volume turned down," Danny pointed out.
Steve gestured to the screen. "Oh please, I know just as much as these guys do."
Danny shrugged and took another slice of ham and jalapeno from the greasy, glorious boxful, and looked over the current police report, careful not to get grease on the keys.
"Why are they called horses if they're so small?" Grace asked. She was ripping her small slice of cheese pizza into smaller pieces, and shoving them in her mouth, looking wide-eyed from the sea horses on screen to Danny.
"Now that," Steve said. "Is something I don't know. You like riding horses?"
She nodded.
"I'll tell you what," Danny said. "How bout we take you to go ride one on your birthday?"
"Yes!" she said. By God, Danny would find her a pony.
"Now, clown fish," Steve began. "Those little orange guys..."
"Finding Nemo!"
"Yes, those. There are a few things that movie didn't tell you..."
*
After the program had ended, and Steve had discussed diorama ideas with Grace, the nature channel aired part two of a panda documentary, and Grace dropped off five minutes into it.
"Not a fan of bears?" Steve asked.
"The kid grew up on cartoons of talking fish," Danny shrugged. "Besides, pandas aren't that interesting." Because really, if Grace didn't like them, then why should he care about them?
"Beer?" Steve offered.
Danny looked at his watch. It was almost eight.
"Yeah, we can stay for another hour."
They headed outside into the balmy night and settled into deck chairs. It was a late Tuesday evening on Honolulu. The backyard was dark, and the loud hip hop music from some surf-side bars echoed all the way out here. Steve handed him a beer, which completed the scene.
Yeah, they were just a couple of dudes hanging out on the lanai, post-pizza and sipping at frosty bottles of Blue Moon, a plate of mango slices between them, watching the stars.
"You know, back home in the normal world, people drink this with orange slices." He tipped his beer to Steve, a half-toast. "If I told the guys back home I was sucking on chunks of mango, they would laugh."
"You know how much oranges cost here?" Steve said. "I'm not gonna buy some imported shit when I could get something better, local."
Danny slapped a few mosquitoes that had landed on his giant arm, cursing. Steve laughed and took a gulp of his beer.
"Hey, I know you could probably catch them with chopsticks, but us mortal folk don't like magically repel bugs."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever man. We should get you one of those high-tech mosquito zappers online."
Danny gestured widely. "People don't do that, Steve. You don't buy stuff like that online!"
"Do you know how many times you've told me not to buy things online, and yet - "
"Ever get those car parts?"
"That was a one time thing."
"This isn't the military, Steve."
Steve laughed and looked out over the darkened street. "Don't I know it."
Danny peeled idly at the beer wrapper and kind of basked in the pedestrian quality of the conversation.
"When I was a kid, my dad shipped me off," Steve told him. "I never looked back. When my father-"
Danny watched him collect himself.
"When my father died, I made this my life."
Dogs barked in the near distance. Another mosquito bit him on the neck, Danny could feel it.
Steve shrugged in the half-dark. "You can't go back, is all I'm saying."
"Yeah, I know."
After they'd finished their beers, after they'd recapped the Superbowl, which, by the way, they'd watched together, so it was all redundant, the arguments had before and sentiments re-expressed in the spring night, they entered the house again. It was finally time to head out.
"Man, I'm late, Rachel's gonna kill me." Danny closed the glass door quietly, even though he would need to wake up his daughter just then anyway. "She sends her love, by the way."
"Oh yeah?" Steve looked over from where he was clinking the empty bottles into the recycling, far too pleased.
"I told her you didn't want it."
"You did not."
When they got to the living room, Grace was still passed out on the couch.
"Come on, Monkey." Danny lugged her to her feet and she trailed along behind him as he picked up her Barbies and put them back in their carrying case.
Steve showed them to the door, even though he didn't strictly have to; Danny came and went like the house was his anyway.
"See you tomorrow," Danny said. "Bright and early."
"So long, Danno."
"And Steve," he said before they left. "We'll get 'em, you'll see. Don't you worry about a thing."
And at that moment, the phone rang.
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