Fic: A Date In The Life Of Danny Williams - H5O, Steve/Danny, PG-13, HS AU, Romance
A few days late here, but by my standards, totally on-time! A birthday fic for queenklu!! A Hawaii Five-O high school au wherein Danny hates Hawaii and he and Steve bicker a lot and there are fireworks. This is the first High School AU I have ever written! (it doesn't count as an au if the show I am writing about is actually set in a high school, right? - so that OTH thing doesn't count). I started a CW RPS one once but I never finished it - so this is definitely my first!
Dedication: For queenklu. Happy Birthday, BB!! I know your birthday fell in the middle of your 6 billion essays being due, so I figured you needed some happy-fun-times here. Hope this does the trick. Also, hope your birthday was a fried stick of awesome wrapped in toasted awesomeness and dribbled with some awesome-sauce. You deserve it, bb!
Summary: Danny hates Hawaii. He hates the sun and the sand and the stupid surfers. He hates pretty much everything, except Steve McGarrett. In fact, to be honest, Danny is kind of head-over-heels about Steve and he kind of hates that too. (Warning for 'underage' as the boys are 16/17 in this) 3,648 words.
Title: A Date In The Life Of Danny Williams
Author: The Artful Dodger / dodger_sister
Fandom: Hawaii Five-O
Category: AU (high school), Romance
Characters/Pairing: Steve/Danny
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Underage (16/17), Irrational (or not so irrational) Fear of Sharks.
Spoilers: None.
Summary: Danny hates Hawaii. He hates the sun and the sand and the stupid surfers. He hates pretty much everything, except Steve McGarrett. In fact, to be honest, Danny is kind of head-over-heels about Steve and he kind of hates that too.
Word Count: 3,648 words.
Date Written: April, 2012
Disclaimer: Characters and Show are not mine. They belong to ABC and some other people. Just borrowing for my amusement. I did write this story but it makes me no money.
Feedback: Bring it. dodger_sister / TheArtofDodger@comcast.net
Beta’d: Nope.
Author's Notes: So, for queenklu’s birthday, I wanted to do something special. Last year I did a picspam, so I thought I could do that again. Or maybe write her a fic, something I hadn’t done for her before - not Hawaii Five-O because I always write her Hawaii Five-O. And then this story came into my head, nearly fully formed. And I pushed it aside, tried to come up with something else. But this one kept coming back to me. Until I finally ran out of time and this was all I had, so I sat down and in 24 hours, I wrote this whole damn thing. Clearly, it wanted to be written. Very rarely do words flow out of me as easily as these ones did. Now I am glad I didn’t come up with anything else to write.
Dedication: For queenklu. Happy Birthday, BB!! I know your birthday fell in the middle of your 6 billion essays being due, so I figured you needed some happy-fun-times here. Hope this does the trick. Also, hope your birthday was a fried stick of awesome wrapped in toasted awesomeness and dribbled with some awesome-sauce. You deserve it, bb!
Danny hated Hawaii. He hated everything about it.
He hated all the sun - it couldn’t possibly be healthy. And he hated the stupid beach - sand just stuck to you like little tiny leeching grains and no matter how much you showered, it stayed stuck for days. And he hated that all anyone wanted to do here was surf - like that was even a real sport. Now baseball, that was a real sport.
Here, everybody was just walking around in their stupid board shorts, all tan and gorgeous and it’s not like Danny felt inferior just because he was little for being sixteen and hadn’t quite grown into himself yet.
And no, there was no way he was going to learn to surf just because they lived in Hawaii now and his parents should stop suggesting it. It was their fault for letting him watch “Jaws” and then moving him to a part of the world where they had sharks, okay?
Most of all, Danny hated the surf-heads. They lived and breathed surfing, made their homes on the beach no matter if they had actual beds to sleep in. They had their own secret language that Danny would never understand and they only had eyes for the water.
They never, ever had eyes for anything but the water.
Ever.
Danny knew, because despite hating everything about Hawaii and all the stupid surfers and their stupid way of life - he was kind of head-over-heels in love with one of them and there wasn’t anything he could do about it.
Which was the reason he was sitting on the beach at eight am on a Saturday morning.
Just on the off chance that Steve McGarrett might show.
Back in Jersey he had friends who would beat the crap out of him for being such a mooning moron.
Here, in Hawaii, he was sitting on the damn beach in his Van Halen tee and khaki shorts, reading his history book because if he had to be up this early, he might as well get shit done, and Steve McGarrett wasn’t even here anyways.
Just his luck.
And he kind of hated that too.
***
By the time he got caught up on all the history homework he had been slacking off on, the sun was scorching him a nice red burn.
Steve still hadn’t shown and Danny didn’t get it because Steve was always at the beach. But he was hot and sweaty and the pages of his textbook were all stuck together with those annoying little grains of sand, so Danny decided to pack it in.
He trudged along, because that’s what you do with stacks of sand under your feet, up the beach. One of Steve’s buddies was there, chatting up some woman who was totally out of his league and he gave Danny the tiniest of head-nods.
Which was strange because as far as Danny knew, none of those guys even knew who he was. It’s not like Steve had ever paid him any attention at all. He was a whole grade ahead of Danny, plus that whole thing where Danny wasn’t a surfboard so Steve couldn’t be bothered to look at him.
Sometimes, when they passed in the halls at school, Danny swore that Steve was actually looking through him. Which was impossible and Danny’s mom told him was probably just his insecurities talking. That would teach Danny to be swayed by chocolate milk and cookies into spilling his deepest secrets to his mother.
Along the street, shops were bustling with activity and Danny saw the sports store was having a sale but he walked past because he knew if he went in, he would walk back out with a new batting glove at the very least.
As he walked by The Surf Shop - which oddly was a diner, not a surfing store, and oddly didn’t sell any seafood but instead just your standard burgers and fries menu - something caught Danny’s eye.
Or rather, someone.
Steve McGarrett - sitting at the counter on one of those old twirly stools like from a 1950s diner, a French fry hanging out of his mouth, wearing his standard tank-top, board shorts and sandals.
And waving at Danny.
Which could not even be right.
But when Danny looked around, there was nobody else on the sidewalk and now Steve was beckoning him inside and Danny somehow found his feet carrying him in that direction.
Wonders would never cease.
“Williams,” Steve said when Danny came through the door, the bell over top chiming his entrance.
“McGarrett,” Danny said, pulling his voice from somewhere inside himself. It was the first time he had ever spoken to the other boy and his heart was kind of flipping in his chest.
“Sit,” Steve commanded and pointed at the stool next to him. “Sweetheart, how about another of the same for my friend here?” Steve said to the waitress and she smiled at him the way older women smile at teenage boys that remind them of someone from their own youth.
Danny dropped his backpack on the floor and sat down on the stool, tried not to be conscious of the fact that he could smell Steve - in a good way, all sweat and sand and sun.
“Missed you at the beach this morning,” Steve said and stuffed another fry in his mouth.
“I was there!” Danny cried. “I was there for like ever. I ruined my history book.” Then he turned a shade of red that might even have been visible after all the sun he had gotten from being at the aforementioned beach that morning.
“Naw, I was there early,” Steve said, like Danny hadn’t just busted in outrage at him. “Like six.”
“Who the hell gets up at six?” Danny asked petulantly. He couldn’t keep stalking Steve properly if the man insisted at getting up early enough to beat out even God himself.
Not that he was stalking Steve. Or anything.
“Saturday,” Steve said around a mouthful. “Crowds get crazy by ten. Anyways, my sister had to take the truck, so I had to get out of there early.”
“Oh,” Danny said and was grateful when the waitress plopped his food down in front of him and he could start picking at his own fries.
“So when are you going to get in the water?” Steve asked him and stole the pickle off Danny’s plate.
Danny smacked his hand but Steve ate the pickle anyways, all shit-eating grin on his face as he did.
“Water?” Steve repeated, pickle juice dripping down his chin and yeah, okay, distracting the hell out of Danny.
“Uh, never,” Danny said and took a long pull from his Coke.
“You live in Hawaii now, brah. Surf’s up.”
“I love the complete stupidity of people who get in water that they know has been occupied by sharks long before man invented surfboards.”
“Sharks?” Steve asked, his voice gruff with indignation. “Man, nobody ever gets eaten by sharks.”
“Everyone says that and then someone gets eaten by a shark and you are all like, ‘We never saw it coming’. Thank you, but no.”
“Too bad,” Steve said and that shit-eating grin was back on his face. “Wet would be a good look for you.”
The way Steve ran his gaze over Danny had the younger boy lurching backwards, nearly falling off his stool.
Steve just laughed, loud and infuriating, his stupid beautiful smile probably lighting the whole damn room.
“Eat your burger so we can get out of here,” Steve said and stole the rest of Danny’s fries.
Danny, of course, didn’t miss the implication in that statement.
Steve McGarrett wanted to hang out.
With him.
***
“So, what were your plans for the afternoon?” Steve asked as they made their way down the street.
Danny didn’t want to say because he had a feeling Steve was one of those guys who considered anyone who played any sport other than surfing - not that surfing was a sport - to be a meat-headed jock. But when he looked over, Steve looked honestly curious and Danny had the whole day now and he didn’t want to waste this chance. Plus, if he let Steve decide what they did, he would most likely end up in the hospital as a near-drowning victim and then his mother would loudly explain to his father how he had probably gotten up on that surfboard just to impress a boy, completely unaware of Steve standing in the corner of Danny’s hospital room.
“Okay, come on,” Danny said and grabbed Steve by the hand, tugged him along down a back alley.
He really loved the feeling of Steve following him.
They went the back way, behind buildings and down dirt streets and then down the slope off a large hill until they came to an old abandoned baseball field that had once been used by Little Leaguers in what had to have been a long forgotten time, if the size of the grass was anything to go by.
A dozen of the guys were there already, milling around, tossing the ball, chewing the shit about girls and sports and all things teenage-boy.
“So, you play baseball?” Steve asked with one raised eyebrow.
“This is what we consider a sport back in Jersey.”
“Surfing is a sport!” Steve cried, chest puffed out in anger.
“It’s not a sport if you don’t wear a uniform.”
“That’s such bullshit. Anyways, we play baseball here.”
“Yeah and you have all year with beautiful weather to practice in. Back in Jersey, we do it hardcore by practicing in below freezing weather in the street aside three feet of snow.”
“Yeah, cuz Jersey-ians are clearly brain-dead.”
“Whatever. Hawaii doesn’t even have a major league team.”
“Neither does Jersey!”
Anger looked really, really good on Steve. Danny made a mental note.
“We borrow The Yankees,” he said as casually as he could with Steve smoldering next to him and moving farther and farther into his personal space.
“So you steal from someone else. I see - that’s how you roll in Jersey…as thieves. Besides, you’re clearly brain-dead if you go for The Yankees.”
“The Yankees are the best team in the league.”
“They are pampered pretty boys. Everybody knows the hardcore team with the drive is The Mets.”
“That’s what I keep telling him,” someone said and the boys broke apart from their very up-close conversation to see Kalika standing a few feet away. “The Yankees are the safe bet. And playing it safe is boring.”
“Heathens,” Danny muttered.
Kalika just smiled. “So, you ladies gonna stand there making eyes at each other all day or you gonna play some ball?”
“Fine, but I’m not playing on the same team as you deviants,” Danny told them, then tugged on Steve’s arm. “Come on, let’s go rustle you up a glove.”
Steve followed him once more.
***
“I’m hot,” Danny complained when Steve asked him what he was doing next.
“Wanna catch a movie?”
Danny faltered a little because it was casual and Steve didn’t even sound nervous saying it, but it was kind of, sort of like he had just asked Danny on a date.
Almost.
“There is this old movie theater where they play like retro movies for real cheap but it is air conditioned, so…”
Steve kind of trailed off and it took Danny a minute to remember he was suppose to answer.
“Yeah, sure. I guess. I mean, what’s playing?” Which was an utterly stupid question because who the hell cares what was playing - Steve McGarrett just asked him to the movies.
“Actually, I think ‘The Lost Boys’ is playing this week. Now, I know how you have a fear of things that might eat you…”
“Not things! Sharks. Sharks are real. Vampires are not. How can you not grasp this?”
“You say vampires aren’t real but how do you know for sure?”
“Fine,” Danny said begrudgingly, “but even so, they’d have to be the stupidest vampires in the world to make Hawaii their home, what with all the damn sunshine.”
“You know, most people like the sunshine.”
“It’s unhealthy.”
“So, lots of vampires in Jersey then?”
“Shut up,” Danny muttered because it was all he had.
Steve laughed again, less infuriating than the last time and said, “You know where vampires should live? Alaska. That’d be the premiere destination for all blood-guzzlers.”
“They already made that movie,” Danny told him. “It had Josh Hartnett in it,” and he couldn’t help the way one corner of his mouth curled up at the thought.
Steve smirked in a way that made Danny kind of want to knock it off his face. Or kiss it off his face. Whichever.
“I see you have a type,” Steve said and leaned in closer, let his voice drop, breath ghosting across Danny’s cheek. “Tall, lean and gorgeous. Good to know.”
Danny couldn’t find words for a long time then, so instead he just followed Steve to the theater in silence. In fact, he didn’t speak again until they were seated in the theater and even then, it was less words and more a noise of anger mixed with arousal, when Steve leaned over and whispered in his ear, “You can hold my hand if you get scared, Danny.”
He tried not to think about it, how Steve was sitting right there and if he turned around Danny was sure there were other teenagers making out in the back rows, all heat and tongues and hormones.
He really did try not to think about it but it got harder when Steve brushed his arm against Danny, taking up half the arm-rest and all Danny could feel was the warmth radiating off the other boy, the way his skin stuck with drying sweat to Danny’s arm - and he should really find that more disgusting than he did.
By the time Steve reached over and curled their fingers together, palms pressed against one another, Danny was half-hard and pretty sure this was a date.
He was on a date.
With Steve McGarrett.
And that was the last thing his brain could think until the credits rolled.
***
Danny was pretty much starving by the time the movie was over but he didn’t have enough money to buy dinner for both of them and it was just plain rude to make someone else pay on a date.
Though technically, Steve was the one who had started the whole date-thing.
Danny wondered if Steve even thought it was a date, but how do you ask someone if you are on a date with them?
When he looked over to see if it was a date - though how he thought he’d be able to tell that by looking at Steve - the other boy was rubbing a hand across his belly.
“Shit, I’m starving,” he said and looked over at Danny. “Wanna eat? I know this great hotel restaurant.”
Danny opened his mouth to say he couldn’t afford to eat at a place like that when Steve took his hand again.
Right out in the open. Like, on the street. Where other teenagers were standing about.
Danny had never held hands with another boy in public before - only in the confines of the stairwell at his old apartment complex back home.
Steve was looking at him then with creased brows and a drawn mouth and Danny suddenly realized he was shaking.
“Hey,” Steve said, soft and sure, “It’s okay. Come on.”
“I know,” Danny said, trying to act affronted, even though a tremor was still running through his body.
Steve tilted his head at Danny, looked right at him and Danny finally understood. For the first time he understood - all those moments in the hall at school when Danny had been so sure Steve was looking through him, he had never realized that Steve was looking at him - really and truly looking at him.
“They have killer peppered salmon,” he said and Danny found himself being led along.
And okay, maybe it wasn’t so bad to be led along by Steve.
***
The hotel was fancy - way too fancy for Danny and his sweaty rock tee and khaki shorts and sure as hell too fancy for Steve and his surf-wear. But Steve took them in through the service entrance, past crates of food and empty cartons. An older man in a baseball cap and a hotel polo shirt waved at them and then pointed at Danny.
Danny self-consciously tugged his hand away from Steve but the hotel worker just gave them the thumbs-up sign and a rather inappropriate leer, while Steve flipped the man off and motioned Danny into the kitchen entrance.
The commotion in the kitchen was insane, all hot plates and rushing people, orders being shouted and steam rising off grills.
“Akoni!” Steve hollered over the noise and touched the shoulder of a tall skinny man in his late 20s.
“Steve,” the man said without turning around, “I told you, not on Saturdays. We are swamped.”
Steve leaned in, hand on Akoni’s shoulder, face up against him, whispering in the man’s ear and it was really, really stupid that Danny felt all heated with jealously right then.
Akoni looked over his shoulder, let his gaze rake over Danny in a way that made him a little uncomfortable and then shook his head, the slightest of smiles creeping across his face.
“You’re gonna get me fired, McGarrett,” he said but waved them through nonetheless.
Steve took him to a side door and a minute later Akoni came over and handed Steve two boxes for take-home food. “Stay,” he commanded and came back a second later with two glasses filled with soda and handed them to Danny.
“You better be worth it, little sprout,” Akoni said to him and Danny stood up straighter to voice his protest at that - because who the hell did this guy think he was - but before he could even open his mouth, Akoni was waving them off towards the service elevator.
“You tell your dad I said ‘hey’,” he told Steve.
Steve just rolled his eyes. “I tend not to tell my father that I spend time with you. You are a con-man and petty thief, after all.”
“You’re welcome,” Akoni replied and shoved them into the elevator, sliding the door shut behind them.
Steve took him to the roof and then stood there awkwardly and said, “I usually come up here alone. I don’t have a blanket or anything.”
Danny just smiled and set down their drinks. “Then let me rescue you,” he said and rummaged around in his backpack until he pulled out the towel he had been sitting on at the beach that morning, all those hours ago when he had been waiting for just a chance of Steve McGarrett passing him by.
They settled then and Danny’s worries that he wouldn’t have any conversation to make with Steve now that they weren’t engaged in an activity were put to rest when Steve opened the food boxes.
Peppered salmon and thin crispy slice of potatoes. Honey broccoli mixed with lemon-glazed carrots. Danny heard his stomach growl in anticipation.
For a long while they just ate, little orgasmic noises occasionally slipping out and Danny would have been embarrassed by it, but every time it happened Steve would still in his eating just to stare at him and it felt powerful to have that affect on the boy who had been gracing Danny’s dreams for weeks now.
When they finished, Steve lay back on the towel, folded his arms under his head for support. The motion made his shirt rise up and Danny could see the smooth planes of his stomach. It made him want to touch, but instead he lay back too, mirrored Steve’s pose.
“So, do you still hate Hawaii?” Steve asked him, eyes casting up towards the stars overhead.
“Mostly. There are some things I like,” Danny replied softly and turned his head so he could look at Steve.
The other boy was looking back at him, his brilliant smile in place, both dimples full and present. “Yeah?” Steve asked, his voice also going soft. “Think I’ll ever get you on that surfboard?”
“Not a chance in hell,” Danny replied with ease.
“Sharks?
“Sharks. And people pee in the water.”
“What?” Steve cried. “That’s ridiculous. It’s not a community pool. It’s the freaking ocean.”
“People drown in the ocean! They drown and their bodies get eaten by sharks. Okay, fine, I have unreasonable fears. Shut up. But it’s too sunny here and I think I’m getting Vitamin D overdose and nobody here even knows what proper footwear looks like and…”
But then Steve was kissing him.
Just…kissing him.
Propped up on one arm, leaning slightly over Danny’s body, lips pressing against Danny’s own, opening and closing until Danny mirrored his motions and moved his lips against Steve, let him push his tongue inside and fill him with it.
Kissing him.
When Steve pulled away, Danny could only remember three things about his life.
His name was Danny Williams.
He lived in Hawaii.
And he had just kissed Steve McGarrett.
“It’s the only way to get you to shut up,” Steve said.
“Maybe if you weren’t so infuriating and all like…you,” Danny muttered and picked at the towel beneath them.
“Yeah,” Steve answered and stretched onto his back again. “But you’re kind of crazy about me anyways.”
“Shut up,” Danny said and grabbed a hold of the front of Steve’s tank-top, pulled the other boy towards him. “Just shut up,” and then they were kissing again and somewhere on the island fireworks lit the sky and Danny thought that maybe, just maybe, Hawaii was not so bad after all.
The End
Dedication: For queenklu. Happy Birthday, BB!! I know your birthday fell in the middle of your 6 billion essays being due, so I figured you needed some happy-fun-times here. Hope this does the trick. Also, hope your birthday was a fried stick of awesome wrapped in toasted awesomeness and dribbled with some awesome-sauce. You deserve it, bb!
Summary: Danny hates Hawaii. He hates the sun and the sand and the stupid surfers. He hates pretty much everything, except Steve McGarrett. In fact, to be honest, Danny is kind of head-over-heels about Steve and he kind of hates that too. (Warning for 'underage' as the boys are 16/17 in this) 3,648 words.
Title: A Date In The Life Of Danny Williams
Author: The Artful Dodger / dodger_sister
Fandom: Hawaii Five-O
Category: AU (high school), Romance
Characters/Pairing: Steve/Danny
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Underage (16/17), Irrational (or not so irrational) Fear of Sharks.
Spoilers: None.
Summary: Danny hates Hawaii. He hates the sun and the sand and the stupid surfers. He hates pretty much everything, except Steve McGarrett. In fact, to be honest, Danny is kind of head-over-heels about Steve and he kind of hates that too.
Word Count: 3,648 words.
Date Written: April, 2012
Disclaimer: Characters and Show are not mine. They belong to ABC and some other people. Just borrowing for my amusement. I did write this story but it makes me no money.
Feedback: Bring it. dodger_sister / TheArtofDodger@comcast.net
Beta’d: Nope.
Author's Notes: So, for queenklu’s birthday, I wanted to do something special. Last year I did a picspam, so I thought I could do that again. Or maybe write her a fic, something I hadn’t done for her before - not Hawaii Five-O because I always write her Hawaii Five-O. And then this story came into my head, nearly fully formed. And I pushed it aside, tried to come up with something else. But this one kept coming back to me. Until I finally ran out of time and this was all I had, so I sat down and in 24 hours, I wrote this whole damn thing. Clearly, it wanted to be written. Very rarely do words flow out of me as easily as these ones did. Now I am glad I didn’t come up with anything else to write.
Dedication: For queenklu. Happy Birthday, BB!! I know your birthday fell in the middle of your 6 billion essays being due, so I figured you needed some happy-fun-times here. Hope this does the trick. Also, hope your birthday was a fried stick of awesome wrapped in toasted awesomeness and dribbled with some awesome-sauce. You deserve it, bb!
Danny hated Hawaii. He hated everything about it.
He hated all the sun - it couldn’t possibly be healthy. And he hated the stupid beach - sand just stuck to you like little tiny leeching grains and no matter how much you showered, it stayed stuck for days. And he hated that all anyone wanted to do here was surf - like that was even a real sport. Now baseball, that was a real sport.
Here, everybody was just walking around in their stupid board shorts, all tan and gorgeous and it’s not like Danny felt inferior just because he was little for being sixteen and hadn’t quite grown into himself yet.
And no, there was no way he was going to learn to surf just because they lived in Hawaii now and his parents should stop suggesting it. It was their fault for letting him watch “Jaws” and then moving him to a part of the world where they had sharks, okay?
Most of all, Danny hated the surf-heads. They lived and breathed surfing, made their homes on the beach no matter if they had actual beds to sleep in. They had their own secret language that Danny would never understand and they only had eyes for the water.
They never, ever had eyes for anything but the water.
Ever.
Danny knew, because despite hating everything about Hawaii and all the stupid surfers and their stupid way of life - he was kind of head-over-heels in love with one of them and there wasn’t anything he could do about it.
Which was the reason he was sitting on the beach at eight am on a Saturday morning.
Just on the off chance that Steve McGarrett might show.
Back in Jersey he had friends who would beat the crap out of him for being such a mooning moron.
Here, in Hawaii, he was sitting on the damn beach in his Van Halen tee and khaki shorts, reading his history book because if he had to be up this early, he might as well get shit done, and Steve McGarrett wasn’t even here anyways.
Just his luck.
And he kind of hated that too.
***
By the time he got caught up on all the history homework he had been slacking off on, the sun was scorching him a nice red burn.
Steve still hadn’t shown and Danny didn’t get it because Steve was always at the beach. But he was hot and sweaty and the pages of his textbook were all stuck together with those annoying little grains of sand, so Danny decided to pack it in.
He trudged along, because that’s what you do with stacks of sand under your feet, up the beach. One of Steve’s buddies was there, chatting up some woman who was totally out of his league and he gave Danny the tiniest of head-nods.
Which was strange because as far as Danny knew, none of those guys even knew who he was. It’s not like Steve had ever paid him any attention at all. He was a whole grade ahead of Danny, plus that whole thing where Danny wasn’t a surfboard so Steve couldn’t be bothered to look at him.
Sometimes, when they passed in the halls at school, Danny swore that Steve was actually looking through him. Which was impossible and Danny’s mom told him was probably just his insecurities talking. That would teach Danny to be swayed by chocolate milk and cookies into spilling his deepest secrets to his mother.
Along the street, shops were bustling with activity and Danny saw the sports store was having a sale but he walked past because he knew if he went in, he would walk back out with a new batting glove at the very least.
As he walked by The Surf Shop - which oddly was a diner, not a surfing store, and oddly didn’t sell any seafood but instead just your standard burgers and fries menu - something caught Danny’s eye.
Or rather, someone.
Steve McGarrett - sitting at the counter on one of those old twirly stools like from a 1950s diner, a French fry hanging out of his mouth, wearing his standard tank-top, board shorts and sandals.
And waving at Danny.
Which could not even be right.
But when Danny looked around, there was nobody else on the sidewalk and now Steve was beckoning him inside and Danny somehow found his feet carrying him in that direction.
Wonders would never cease.
“Williams,” Steve said when Danny came through the door, the bell over top chiming his entrance.
“McGarrett,” Danny said, pulling his voice from somewhere inside himself. It was the first time he had ever spoken to the other boy and his heart was kind of flipping in his chest.
“Sit,” Steve commanded and pointed at the stool next to him. “Sweetheart, how about another of the same for my friend here?” Steve said to the waitress and she smiled at him the way older women smile at teenage boys that remind them of someone from their own youth.
Danny dropped his backpack on the floor and sat down on the stool, tried not to be conscious of the fact that he could smell Steve - in a good way, all sweat and sand and sun.
“Missed you at the beach this morning,” Steve said and stuffed another fry in his mouth.
“I was there!” Danny cried. “I was there for like ever. I ruined my history book.” Then he turned a shade of red that might even have been visible after all the sun he had gotten from being at the aforementioned beach that morning.
“Naw, I was there early,” Steve said, like Danny hadn’t just busted in outrage at him. “Like six.”
“Who the hell gets up at six?” Danny asked petulantly. He couldn’t keep stalking Steve properly if the man insisted at getting up early enough to beat out even God himself.
Not that he was stalking Steve. Or anything.
“Saturday,” Steve said around a mouthful. “Crowds get crazy by ten. Anyways, my sister had to take the truck, so I had to get out of there early.”
“Oh,” Danny said and was grateful when the waitress plopped his food down in front of him and he could start picking at his own fries.
“So when are you going to get in the water?” Steve asked him and stole the pickle off Danny’s plate.
Danny smacked his hand but Steve ate the pickle anyways, all shit-eating grin on his face as he did.
“Water?” Steve repeated, pickle juice dripping down his chin and yeah, okay, distracting the hell out of Danny.
“Uh, never,” Danny said and took a long pull from his Coke.
“You live in Hawaii now, brah. Surf’s up.”
“I love the complete stupidity of people who get in water that they know has been occupied by sharks long before man invented surfboards.”
“Sharks?” Steve asked, his voice gruff with indignation. “Man, nobody ever gets eaten by sharks.”
“Everyone says that and then someone gets eaten by a shark and you are all like, ‘We never saw it coming’. Thank you, but no.”
“Too bad,” Steve said and that shit-eating grin was back on his face. “Wet would be a good look for you.”
The way Steve ran his gaze over Danny had the younger boy lurching backwards, nearly falling off his stool.
Steve just laughed, loud and infuriating, his stupid beautiful smile probably lighting the whole damn room.
“Eat your burger so we can get out of here,” Steve said and stole the rest of Danny’s fries.
Danny, of course, didn’t miss the implication in that statement.
Steve McGarrett wanted to hang out.
With him.
***
“So, what were your plans for the afternoon?” Steve asked as they made their way down the street.
Danny didn’t want to say because he had a feeling Steve was one of those guys who considered anyone who played any sport other than surfing - not that surfing was a sport - to be a meat-headed jock. But when he looked over, Steve looked honestly curious and Danny had the whole day now and he didn’t want to waste this chance. Plus, if he let Steve decide what they did, he would most likely end up in the hospital as a near-drowning victim and then his mother would loudly explain to his father how he had probably gotten up on that surfboard just to impress a boy, completely unaware of Steve standing in the corner of Danny’s hospital room.
“Okay, come on,” Danny said and grabbed Steve by the hand, tugged him along down a back alley.
He really loved the feeling of Steve following him.
They went the back way, behind buildings and down dirt streets and then down the slope off a large hill until they came to an old abandoned baseball field that had once been used by Little Leaguers in what had to have been a long forgotten time, if the size of the grass was anything to go by.
A dozen of the guys were there already, milling around, tossing the ball, chewing the shit about girls and sports and all things teenage-boy.
“So, you play baseball?” Steve asked with one raised eyebrow.
“This is what we consider a sport back in Jersey.”
“Surfing is a sport!” Steve cried, chest puffed out in anger.
“It’s not a sport if you don’t wear a uniform.”
“That’s such bullshit. Anyways, we play baseball here.”
“Yeah and you have all year with beautiful weather to practice in. Back in Jersey, we do it hardcore by practicing in below freezing weather in the street aside three feet of snow.”
“Yeah, cuz Jersey-ians are clearly brain-dead.”
“Whatever. Hawaii doesn’t even have a major league team.”
“Neither does Jersey!”
Anger looked really, really good on Steve. Danny made a mental note.
“We borrow The Yankees,” he said as casually as he could with Steve smoldering next to him and moving farther and farther into his personal space.
“So you steal from someone else. I see - that’s how you roll in Jersey…as thieves. Besides, you’re clearly brain-dead if you go for The Yankees.”
“The Yankees are the best team in the league.”
“They are pampered pretty boys. Everybody knows the hardcore team with the drive is The Mets.”
“That’s what I keep telling him,” someone said and the boys broke apart from their very up-close conversation to see Kalika standing a few feet away. “The Yankees are the safe bet. And playing it safe is boring.”
“Heathens,” Danny muttered.
Kalika just smiled. “So, you ladies gonna stand there making eyes at each other all day or you gonna play some ball?”
“Fine, but I’m not playing on the same team as you deviants,” Danny told them, then tugged on Steve’s arm. “Come on, let’s go rustle you up a glove.”
Steve followed him once more.
***
“I’m hot,” Danny complained when Steve asked him what he was doing next.
“Wanna catch a movie?”
Danny faltered a little because it was casual and Steve didn’t even sound nervous saying it, but it was kind of, sort of like he had just asked Danny on a date.
Almost.
“There is this old movie theater where they play like retro movies for real cheap but it is air conditioned, so…”
Steve kind of trailed off and it took Danny a minute to remember he was suppose to answer.
“Yeah, sure. I guess. I mean, what’s playing?” Which was an utterly stupid question because who the hell cares what was playing - Steve McGarrett just asked him to the movies.
“Actually, I think ‘The Lost Boys’ is playing this week. Now, I know how you have a fear of things that might eat you…”
“Not things! Sharks. Sharks are real. Vampires are not. How can you not grasp this?”
“You say vampires aren’t real but how do you know for sure?”
“Fine,” Danny said begrudgingly, “but even so, they’d have to be the stupidest vampires in the world to make Hawaii their home, what with all the damn sunshine.”
“You know, most people like the sunshine.”
“It’s unhealthy.”
“So, lots of vampires in Jersey then?”
“Shut up,” Danny muttered because it was all he had.
Steve laughed again, less infuriating than the last time and said, “You know where vampires should live? Alaska. That’d be the premiere destination for all blood-guzzlers.”
“They already made that movie,” Danny told him. “It had Josh Hartnett in it,” and he couldn’t help the way one corner of his mouth curled up at the thought.
Steve smirked in a way that made Danny kind of want to knock it off his face. Or kiss it off his face. Whichever.
“I see you have a type,” Steve said and leaned in closer, let his voice drop, breath ghosting across Danny’s cheek. “Tall, lean and gorgeous. Good to know.”
Danny couldn’t find words for a long time then, so instead he just followed Steve to the theater in silence. In fact, he didn’t speak again until they were seated in the theater and even then, it was less words and more a noise of anger mixed with arousal, when Steve leaned over and whispered in his ear, “You can hold my hand if you get scared, Danny.”
He tried not to think about it, how Steve was sitting right there and if he turned around Danny was sure there were other teenagers making out in the back rows, all heat and tongues and hormones.
He really did try not to think about it but it got harder when Steve brushed his arm against Danny, taking up half the arm-rest and all Danny could feel was the warmth radiating off the other boy, the way his skin stuck with drying sweat to Danny’s arm - and he should really find that more disgusting than he did.
By the time Steve reached over and curled their fingers together, palms pressed against one another, Danny was half-hard and pretty sure this was a date.
He was on a date.
With Steve McGarrett.
And that was the last thing his brain could think until the credits rolled.
***
Danny was pretty much starving by the time the movie was over but he didn’t have enough money to buy dinner for both of them and it was just plain rude to make someone else pay on a date.
Though technically, Steve was the one who had started the whole date-thing.
Danny wondered if Steve even thought it was a date, but how do you ask someone if you are on a date with them?
When he looked over to see if it was a date - though how he thought he’d be able to tell that by looking at Steve - the other boy was rubbing a hand across his belly.
“Shit, I’m starving,” he said and looked over at Danny. “Wanna eat? I know this great hotel restaurant.”
Danny opened his mouth to say he couldn’t afford to eat at a place like that when Steve took his hand again.
Right out in the open. Like, on the street. Where other teenagers were standing about.
Danny had never held hands with another boy in public before - only in the confines of the stairwell at his old apartment complex back home.
Steve was looking at him then with creased brows and a drawn mouth and Danny suddenly realized he was shaking.
“Hey,” Steve said, soft and sure, “It’s okay. Come on.”
“I know,” Danny said, trying to act affronted, even though a tremor was still running through his body.
Steve tilted his head at Danny, looked right at him and Danny finally understood. For the first time he understood - all those moments in the hall at school when Danny had been so sure Steve was looking through him, he had never realized that Steve was looking at him - really and truly looking at him.
“They have killer peppered salmon,” he said and Danny found himself being led along.
And okay, maybe it wasn’t so bad to be led along by Steve.
***
The hotel was fancy - way too fancy for Danny and his sweaty rock tee and khaki shorts and sure as hell too fancy for Steve and his surf-wear. But Steve took them in through the service entrance, past crates of food and empty cartons. An older man in a baseball cap and a hotel polo shirt waved at them and then pointed at Danny.
Danny self-consciously tugged his hand away from Steve but the hotel worker just gave them the thumbs-up sign and a rather inappropriate leer, while Steve flipped the man off and motioned Danny into the kitchen entrance.
The commotion in the kitchen was insane, all hot plates and rushing people, orders being shouted and steam rising off grills.
“Akoni!” Steve hollered over the noise and touched the shoulder of a tall skinny man in his late 20s.
“Steve,” the man said without turning around, “I told you, not on Saturdays. We are swamped.”
Steve leaned in, hand on Akoni’s shoulder, face up against him, whispering in the man’s ear and it was really, really stupid that Danny felt all heated with jealously right then.
Akoni looked over his shoulder, let his gaze rake over Danny in a way that made him a little uncomfortable and then shook his head, the slightest of smiles creeping across his face.
“You’re gonna get me fired, McGarrett,” he said but waved them through nonetheless.
Steve took him to a side door and a minute later Akoni came over and handed Steve two boxes for take-home food. “Stay,” he commanded and came back a second later with two glasses filled with soda and handed them to Danny.
“You better be worth it, little sprout,” Akoni said to him and Danny stood up straighter to voice his protest at that - because who the hell did this guy think he was - but before he could even open his mouth, Akoni was waving them off towards the service elevator.
“You tell your dad I said ‘hey’,” he told Steve.
Steve just rolled his eyes. “I tend not to tell my father that I spend time with you. You are a con-man and petty thief, after all.”
“You’re welcome,” Akoni replied and shoved them into the elevator, sliding the door shut behind them.
Steve took him to the roof and then stood there awkwardly and said, “I usually come up here alone. I don’t have a blanket or anything.”
Danny just smiled and set down their drinks. “Then let me rescue you,” he said and rummaged around in his backpack until he pulled out the towel he had been sitting on at the beach that morning, all those hours ago when he had been waiting for just a chance of Steve McGarrett passing him by.
They settled then and Danny’s worries that he wouldn’t have any conversation to make with Steve now that they weren’t engaged in an activity were put to rest when Steve opened the food boxes.
Peppered salmon and thin crispy slice of potatoes. Honey broccoli mixed with lemon-glazed carrots. Danny heard his stomach growl in anticipation.
For a long while they just ate, little orgasmic noises occasionally slipping out and Danny would have been embarrassed by it, but every time it happened Steve would still in his eating just to stare at him and it felt powerful to have that affect on the boy who had been gracing Danny’s dreams for weeks now.
When they finished, Steve lay back on the towel, folded his arms under his head for support. The motion made his shirt rise up and Danny could see the smooth planes of his stomach. It made him want to touch, but instead he lay back too, mirrored Steve’s pose.
“So, do you still hate Hawaii?” Steve asked him, eyes casting up towards the stars overhead.
“Mostly. There are some things I like,” Danny replied softly and turned his head so he could look at Steve.
The other boy was looking back at him, his brilliant smile in place, both dimples full and present. “Yeah?” Steve asked, his voice also going soft. “Think I’ll ever get you on that surfboard?”
“Not a chance in hell,” Danny replied with ease.
“Sharks?
“Sharks. And people pee in the water.”
“What?” Steve cried. “That’s ridiculous. It’s not a community pool. It’s the freaking ocean.”
“People drown in the ocean! They drown and their bodies get eaten by sharks. Okay, fine, I have unreasonable fears. Shut up. But it’s too sunny here and I think I’m getting Vitamin D overdose and nobody here even knows what proper footwear looks like and…”
But then Steve was kissing him.
Just…kissing him.
Propped up on one arm, leaning slightly over Danny’s body, lips pressing against Danny’s own, opening and closing until Danny mirrored his motions and moved his lips against Steve, let him push his tongue inside and fill him with it.
Kissing him.
When Steve pulled away, Danny could only remember three things about his life.
His name was Danny Williams.
He lived in Hawaii.
And he had just kissed Steve McGarrett.
“It’s the only way to get you to shut up,” Steve said.
“Maybe if you weren’t so infuriating and all like…you,” Danny muttered and picked at the towel beneath them.
“Yeah,” Steve answered and stretched onto his back again. “But you’re kind of crazy about me anyways.”
“Shut up,” Danny said and grabbed a hold of the front of Steve’s tank-top, pulled the other boy towards him. “Just shut up,” and then they were kissing again and somewhere on the island fireworks lit the sky and Danny thought that maybe, just maybe, Hawaii was not so bad after all.
The End