sealie

Piikoi Street -- home sweet home. The day had been long and boringly stressful. Despite Danny whining about bombs and high speed chasing, dull days could be strangely worse.

Steve waited until the car came to a complete stop before clambering out of the vehicle. The kittens had been pronounced as healthy as could be expected, developing well, and that their care had been top notch. Steve had preened. They were off the antibiotics; any possible infections and complications from their hard start in life had been nipped in the bud.

Vel woofed enthusiastically as Steve entered their home. Her tail wagged so hard her entire body joined in chorus.

“Hey. Hey.” Hands filled with the boxed kittens, Steve could only sidestep her greeting.

“Got them.” Danny eeled around Steve and plucked the crate from his guide’s hand. “Say hi to Vel.”

Steve dropped to his butt and got a lapful of happy puppy.

Danny set down the kittens on the coffee table. Vel was full of beans. When they knew that they likely had a boring office day, they left her with Mrs. Donavan so she got to spend the day outside and running off energy with her kids. There was nothing destroyed in the living room since she had been dropped off, so she’d had some exercise. Clearly more wouldn’t go amiss. Also the human equivalent of a Border collie in their relationship would benefit from a jog.

“Babe,” Danny said, “why don’t you and Vel go for a run?”

Steve lit up like a firecracker, then immediately damped down. “The kittens need to be fed.”

“I can feed the kittens.” Danny rocked back on one foot, hip shod. “I have been helping you for the last few days.”

“Yeah, I know, but--”

“But nothing. I’ll even weigh them and fill in your notebook.”

Steve regarded him, expression flat and incomprehensible.

“What?” Danny shrugged at him. “Go run. Get sweaty. Bring back takeout,”

Steve’s eyes narrowed, and he knew that expression.

“Okay. I’ll start the grill,” Danny relented, “and we’ll have a healthy salad.”

Steve jumped to his feet with a frankly awful display of energy after a long day at work. Where did he get his energy from? It boggled the mind.

“Come on, Vel.” Steve stripped as he ran to the garage to get his stinky runners and probably to grabs some worn-once shorts and t-shirt from the washing machine. Danny never went in the garage if he could help it -- he was a sentinel; his sense of smell was outstanding. He eyed the trail of clothes on the floor; Steve could pick them up when he returned from his run.

“So you and me, you strange mutant cat things.” That was sort of unfair, they definitely were looking like kittens now, and not unfinished lumps of fluff that could die at any moment. Dr. Gayle said that they were doing well.

The white kitten blinked up at him, blue eyes staring. Her ears were still a twitch flopped at the tips.

“Milk?” Danny offered, running a blunt finger along her fragile feeling spine. She mewed lightly -- a new, more concrete sound than the mewls of distress when they had been smaller (a whole three days earlier). “As Her Majesty commands.”

Whitey flopped onto her side, following the path of his tickling. She clamped paws with diamond sharp pinpricks on either side of his forefinger and gnawed on his nail.

“Definitely in need of the feed, as Grace would say. Mock-mommy-milk coming up.” Danny freed his undamaged finger from her grasp. Her talons felt sharp to his senses, yet under his scrutiny he couldn’t even see a scratch.

Heating the milk was old hat. Each kitten had their own bottle. Before they’d gone into the office, Steve had set the bottles that they had used for the morning feed to sterilise. Danny placed them on the counter. The garage door slammed shut and the echoes of Steve’s running feet ebbed away. Danny figured he had an hour or so.

As the milk warmed, he pulled the steaks from the fridge and set them in the centre of the kitchen table, so that they would be at room temperature when cooked. He could prepare the salad after feeding the ravening horde. Danny ran a quick check on his world. The Donavan house was resoundingly empty. He vaguely remembered that it was Mr. Donavan’s father’s birthday so he guessed that they had gone out en masse to a celebration. Sebastian was home and listening to his awful music. Their neighbour’s taste in music, generally what sounded like tribal-based heartbeat music, could only ever be tuned out. Luckily, he was a sentinel with superb control.

Moku mewed sadly. A definite, disconsolate mew of abject abandonment and hurt.

“Geez.” Danny trotted quickly back into the living room. The box wasn’t toppled onto the floor. Safe and secure it sat on the middle of the coffee table. He peered over the edge. “You okay?”

Moku sat in the centre of the box wailing, wailing, wailing his distress. The sound reverberated through Danny’s nerves like a chainsaw.

“What’s the matter?” Danny demanded. “I get that you’re hungry. You’re always hungry. I’m warming the milk.”

Moku blinked up at him. The white kitten matched his wail. The grey observed his sibs for a moment before joining in the chorus. Danny’s teeth vibrated in sympathy. Tutting under his breath, Danny scooped up the box and dropped onto his spot on the sofa in one smooth move.

“What’s the matter?” He picked up the black kitten, turning him over in his hands. Moku continued to mew. The white one mewed in tandem. “What are you doing? You’ll wake the dead—Oh for!”

He held Moku up so that they could see each other eye to eye.

“That’s your ‘I want Mommy Steve’ cry isn’t it?” Danny grinned. “Hah. Hilarious. You’ve got me, Babe.”

Danny picked up the toothbrush that they used in lieu of licking the kittens with a raspy tongue, which neither Danny nor Steve possessed, and set to grooming the miserable, abandoned bag of mewing.

“You know, I do get it. You’re all ridiculously cute. But we’re a busy pair of guys with two kids, a dog, a job which is twenty four-seven, and three kittens might tip us over into insanity.” He brushed against the grain, fluffing up Moku. Danny heaved out a sigh. “Poor thing.”

Danny shared the love, brushing the white kitten along her back.

“I’m kind of surprised that Steve hasn’t started a plan of attack to wear me down so that we keep you guys.”

The grey rolled clumsily onto his back so Danny could get to his tummy with the brush.

“Or maybe he thinks that he can’t have you?”

A hiss, which wasn’t the kittens, scraped along his ear drums. The caramel scent of scorching milk tickled his nostrils.

Oh damn, the milk!

   ~*~

Danny smelled Steve before he heard him. He sat his spatula down on the side table by the barbeque. Bizarrely, it was rank. Steve’s runners were relegated to the garage for good reasons, but the miasma approaching was stupefying.

“Geez.” Danny was already pointing at the outdoor shower as Steve and Vel barrelled around the side of the house, a sweaty, smelly pair of hairy fiends.

“Hi, Danny!” Steve said joyfully. Steve and exercise was a unique combination.

“What the Hell?”

“They were muck spraying the fields out by Kalua as we ran by.” Steve grinned.

“The Stench!” Danny juddered. If they didn’t do something about the smell, it was going to contaminate their dinner and the entire house. His gorge rose.

“Uhm.” Belatedly, Steve realised that Danny’s distress was real. “Vel, come on.”

Steve bolted down the beach, Vel in pursuit. The daft dog actually liked frolicking in the waves. It was past dusk, and only the lights of the lanai illuminated the white surf. The ocean was black as night beyond the sphere of light.

Steve whooped as he dove into the water, Velvet in hot pursuit.

“Are you sure that you really want him?” Danny asked the sleeping kittens, snug on the heated pad in their box.

He flipped the steaks over on the grill as Steve wrestled with Vel in the shallows. Salt water might do something about the stench. And it was better that he got the majority off away from the house. Steve, finally, came out of the water. He kicked out of his runners and stripped off his t-shirt and shorts down by the strandline. Naked, he strode up the beach, Vel dancing at his heels.

“Shameless.” Danny shook his head. Off to his left, he heard a quiet snort of laughter as their next door neighbour spotted Steve through the less dense bushes edging the beach. There was a click of an old door latch closing as Sebastian went inside the Abernathy house.

“Better?” Steve stretched his arms out wide.

“Moderately.” Danny gestured with the spatula at the outside shower at the edge of the lanai.

Steve ducked under the shower, yanking the string pulley. He shuddered under the sheet of water, but didn’t complain. He corralled Vel with his feet as he grabbed the bar of soap balanced on the shower head.

A rainbow of colour glistened on Steve’s wet skin from the fairy lights strung around the lanai. Danny licked his lips.

Vel escaped Steve’s grasp, shook herself vigorously, and loped off into the stand of trees that separated their backyard from Sebastian’s. It was pretty warm, so Danny wasn’t worried that she would take a chill. He’d just make sure to grab her with a towel before they settled down for the night.

Steve came wandering across the lanai, a speculative gleam in his eye.

“Hmmm?” Danny idly waved his spatula back and forth. “And what’s on your mind, partner?”

“Am I clean enough?” Steve set his hands on his hips.

Danny inhaled dramatically, and, thankfully, only got Steve: top-notes of crisp ozone, lemon, salt, and an underlying hint of comforting cinnamon. Threading through that familiarity that was Steve was a warming lushness -- blood-hot and enticing.

“Oh, it’s like that, is it, Babe?”

Steve bobbed both eyebrows, and grinned. Another portion of his anatomy bobbed.

“Hey, Danny.” Steve slid in, all wet and encompassing long limbs.

Danny turned in his hold, letting Steve dry off on him.

“You’re the worst person in the world.” Danny stretched up and kissed his goof. “You enjoyed your run, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” Steve chortled against Danny’s lips.

Danny figured that they were probably going to have well-done steaks.

   ~*~

The hammock gently swayed back and forth. Danny lay back in Steve’s arms, his butt sitting stickily in Steve’s lap. He was well wrung out. Steve’s orangutan arms were folded over Danny’s chest holding him close. His chin nestled comfortingly on Danny’s shoulder.

“Hey,” Danny said softly.

“Hey.” Steve brushed a kiss on Danny’s cheek.

“Unfortunately, we will have to move, or give the steaks to Vel.”

Steve -- Danny could tell -- seriously considered letting the steaks char to a crisp.

“We can’t really eat on the hammock, can we,” Steve said.

“I’ll get indigestion.” Danny unpeeled from Steve, ignoring the grumbling. “And we still have to physically get up and move to the grill and get the food. We don’t have a slave.”

Steve rose behind him as if tethered. Looping an arm over Danny’s shoulders he stayed close, and they sort of three-legged-walked to the grill. Danny scratched his balls as he contemplated their dinner.

“Not really gonna work, is it.” Steve observed in the face of the charred lumps.

“Nah,” Danny said sadly, as he poked them to the edge of the grill away from the still glowing coals. They had smelled like perfect steaks.

“Vel will like them after we cut off the burnt edges.”

“Lucky Vel.” Danny slumped, glum.

“It’s okay, Danny.” Steve nuzzled a kiss up Danny’s jaw making him shiver. “There’s prawns in the fridge, we can make kebabs.”

“Steak,” Danny could only say.

Steve towed him through the dining room-office and around to the kitchen.

“It will be quick and healthy.” Steve moved to the fridge.

“Hey.” Danny caught his paw, stopping him. “At least wash your hands first.”

Steve sniggered, actually sniggered, as he looked down at his groin. “You’re probably right.”

They vied for dominance over the tap, washing their hands together. Steve stole a kiss and then dried his hands on a dish towel.

“We have hand towels,” Danny pointed out.

“It’s going in the laundry anyway.”

Danny grabbed it off him, and used it to wipe his butt.

Steve leered.

“Goof.” Danny curled a hand around Steve’s neck and hauled him down for a sloppy kiss.

Steve bracketed Danny against the sink and kissed hard. Neither of them were getting it up any time soon, but the kiss still curled his toes.

“Love you,” Steve mumbled, as his lips grazed Danny’s jaw.

“Love you,” Danny returned.

“Gonna make you the best kebabs.” Steve’s tummy grumbled in response. “No pineapple.”

“You better not.”

Steve released him. Danny admired his toned, bare butt as he squatted down to assess the ingredients in the salad drawer. Deciding to help, Danny unearthed the metal skewers from the cupboard. The kebabs, judging by what Steve tossed on the kitchen island, were going to consist of: fat, juicy prawns; cherry tomatoes; yellow peppers, chunks of red onion, and mushrooms (which Steve wasn’t that fond of and Danny loved).

“We got any sauces?” Danny pondered.

Steve scrunched his nose, pondering. “Do we have any peanut butter?”

“Loads.” The kids liked peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. A nutritious, delicious and cheap combination.

Steve tossed a red chilli and a clove of garlic onto the table with the other ingredients.

“Satay sauce,” Danny decoded.

“Spicy or not too spicy?” Steve asked.

“Mmmmm.” Danny waggled his hand from side to side, knowing that Steve would interpret that as ‘mild-moderate, please.’

“Are we really doing this naked?” Danny asked.

“Why not?” Steve jiggled a little on the spot, and leered again.

Why not indeed. They were both adults, it was their own home, and no visitors were expected.

Steve got to play with hot oil, to sauté onions and chilli, while naked. Danny dropped the towel on a stool and sat. He set to work skewering prawns and veggies -- heavy on the prawns -- onto the skewer.

Danny was sensible.

   ~*~

In the hammock, spooned together, naked was a good place to be. Sue him, Danny didn’t really like clothes. He wore them because well, that’s what you did in civilised society and he was a civilised being. There was something quite satisfying about being able to wander around in your birthday suit. In New Jersey, being naked wasn’t really practical, but -- Danny would only admit it over hot coals - in tropical Hawaii, he could easily indulge.

Mostly fabric and textures didn’t bother him, he just liked being skin free. Once in a blue moon, he would happily rip his skin off with his fingernails.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Steve’s words rumbled through Danny, making the hairs on his forearms lift.

“One of the weirdest sentinel things is when your skin doesn’t fit, you know?”

“No?” Steve’s arm tightened around Danny. “Like how?”

“It’s not that it’s tight. It not that it’s loose. It’s not crawling… crawling in a bad way. No, it crawls but fractionally. You can’t measure it -- it’s inside but it is the skin that crawls.”

“Doesn’t sound… good?” Steve said unsure.

“It’s not bad. It’s not good. It just is.” Danny turned in Steve’s hold, scraping his jaw across Steve’s nipple.

“Stop it.” Steve shivered. His nipples were very sensitive.

“Was that good or bad?”

“Can be either,” Steve said astutely.

“See?”

“Pain can be good or bad, but it’s a relief when it stops.” Steve squeezed a little tighter. He sighed. “What are you working up to, Danny?”

Danny craned his head a little more, deliberately drawing his bristly chin over Steve’s nipple, so he could see Steve eye to eye.

“Tell me what you feel,” Danny ordered.

Steve pursed his lips. “I don’t get what you mean. You don’t mean just what I’m feeling at the moment. You don’t mean what I’m picking up from the vicinity.”

“How?”

“Because, I know you.” Steve huffed out a sigh. He wiggled the fingers of his hand, the one that wasn’t scooped around Danny’s shoulder, at his temple. “It’s not guiding stuff.”

“And if you use your abilities?”

“Danny,” Steve said quellingly.

“We are brilliant at avoiding things.” Danny sat up, making the hammock swing alarmingly, but Steve had constructed it sturdily. They could probably fit Velvet and the box of kittens along with them since Steve had made the hammock so wide.

“I’m not avoiding anything.” Steve dabbled his fingers up Danny’s torso, and spreading his fingers, raked them through his chest hair.

Meep. Moku poked his head over the edge of the box sitting on the table. Meep. Mom? Mom?

“Hey, they’re getting better at walking around.” Steve grinned at his kittens. “They develop so fast. You blink and there’s another milestone.”

Hmmmm, Danny growled. He untangled himself from Steve’s grip.

“Where are you going?” Steve protested.

“Not far.” Four steps, actually. Danny scooped up the kitten box and returned to the hammock. He planted the box on Steve’s lap and clambered back into position.

“Hi, babies.” Steve cradled Moku in his large hands. The kitten meowed rapidly, telling Steve some kind of involved story. He was very intense. Birds of a feather -- cats of fluff -- stick together.

“Let me have Diamond.” Danny plucked the white kitten from the box. The grey rocked back on his heels, and protested loudly at being abandoned.

“Diamond?”

“Yeah.” Danny held the girl up. She felt as light as cotton wool. “Diamond sharp claws. And look at these blue eyes, like blue diamonds.”

“Or Sapphires.”

“I prefer Diamond. Diamonds are precious.”

“And what about the grey?” Steve proffered said fluffy grey kitten to Danny.

He was a cutie -- a smoky grey colour that if you looked at in the right light had an almost violet tint -- at least to Danny. The three kittens, white, grey and black, were like when the ink cartridge on your printer slowly ran out. Identical apart from the differences in their fur.

“Gandalf?” Danny offered. “Gandalf the Grey?”

Steve stared. “Really?”

Danny shrugged. The name wasn’t that imaginative, but heh, Grace would be over the moon. Steve was also a not-so-closet geek.

“Gandalf?” Steve turned the name over on his tongue. “Why not? Moku, Diamond and Gandalf. Different.”

“We’ve named them now,” Danny said seriously.

“Yes.”

“There’s a rule.” Danny set both kittens on his chest. They ecstatically kneaded his hair with pin-point sharp claws. He dialled down his sense of touch until they only tickled him. If they tried to nurse he was putting them back in the box.

“A rule?”

“If you name them you have to keep them.”

Steve considered that, before saying, “You’re not a cat person.”

“True.” Danny stroked his fingertip along Gandalf’s back as he rooted. “But you are.”

Steve bit his bottom lip.

“I don’t get it. You’re normally so gung-ho,” Danny said. “You go after what you want. Yeah, we’ve been looking after the kittens, but you’ve not even started wearing me down. It isn’t even a camel’s nose sort of thing.”

“Camel’s nose?” Steve tucked Moku into the crook of his neck, where he meeped ecstatically.

“You know, get them in through the front door, and make them at home. Tell me that we need to look after them. Responsible. Steadfast. But you haven’t.”

“We’ve got Gracie, George, and we’ve got Vel. We’ve got a sprawling ‘ohana. We’ve got full time jobs, dangerous jobs. We have Sentinel Central focused on us. This--” Steve flung his hand out encompassing the cosy lanai and their entire life, “--could be taken from us in an instant.”

“Steve.” Careful of the kittens, Danny shifted around. “You’ve fought your entire life for this. When you were serving, you were working to protect this kind of life. This is pretty new to you. One moment, you’re in the Navy doing all kinds of dangerous and wacked out stuff, then you’re dumped into the civilian life. You -- I don’t know how to phrase it -- inherited my kids, you definitely inherited this house. You grabbed Chin on the spur of the moment, and gave him absolution. You picked up Kono because her cousin recommended her. My dad bought you Vel.”

“Dannnny,” Steve whined.

“You’re dedicated to looking after your ‘ohana. You’ll pick up any stray you find -- and that includes me.”

Steve laughed inadvertently.

“You never asked me if I wanted to join you on your insane mission,” Danny said. “You dragged me along.”

“I did ask you!” Steve protested.

“Eventually, sort of, but not really.”

“You joined 5O,” Steve pointed out.

“Yes, I did. But how long did it take you to admit to yourself that you had your ‘ohana?”

“Oh, pot, kettle, black! I can never get you to admit you love Hawaii -- that this is your life.”

“We’re not talking about me,” Danny said just a little weakly.

“What do you want me to do, Danny, ‘cos I admit, I’m getting confused.”

“I want you to tell me that you want to keep Moku and Diamond and Gandalf for purely selfish reasons. Not because they need protecting. Not because there’s no one else to look after them. Not because George thinks that they’re better than his toy rabbit. Not because you think that they’re your responsibility. But because you, Lieutenant Commander Steven McGarrett, want them.”

“I want them,” Steve rapped out and closed his mouth tightly on the words.

“Okay, we’ll make it happen.” Danny nodded decisively. “Mrs. Donavan and her kids look after Vel, when she’s not coming into the office. Cats are much more independent.”

“Little ninjas.”

“What? Never mind. Do you get it, though?” He studied Steve. “Babe?”

“No,” Steve said, prodded into honesty.

“Well, that’s okay,” Danny said sagely. He tapped Steve’s forehead right between his eyes. “You might not get it here--”

“Danny,”

“But you get it here.” He patted Steve’s chest, over his beating heart.

“Explain it to me.” Steve set his hand over Danny’s.

“It’s about smelling the roses.”

“You talk utter nonsense,” Steve said fondly. Moku meowed in agreement.

“We made a decision after the tsunami to stay on O’ahu,” Danny said, “to not grab everyone and run to the Free States of Scandinavia. We’re standing our ground. Demonstrating that a sentinel and guide can be partners. Rational.”

“What’s that gotta do with kittens?” Steve asked, with an edge of plaintive.

“Stop interrupting.” Danny scraped his thumbnail over Steve’s nipple. He shivered. “The kittens are a metaphor for you choosing to set down roots instead of accepting… rolling with the blows and always having to come up fighting.”

Steve leaned into Danny’s space and kissed him lightly on the lips.

“I think you’re over thinking,” Steve said fondly, “but you spend a lot of time thinking, Detective Freud.”

“Dr. Freud, please.”

“I’m not entirely sure that your medical credentials are kosher.”

“I am an intelligent, trained detective. I observe things and I make informed inferences.”

“Did you read that on a card?”

“At least I can read.” Danny dug his finger into Steve’s side, tickling.

The end