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Published:
2017-10-09
Completed:
2018-05-28
Words:
50,747
Chapters:
25/25
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818
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Summary:

One story that goes throughout Season 8.

Notes:

Finally! I believe I've mentioned that I need my head examined for this, but I can't NOT do it. So here I am. I think smudgegirl needs some alcohol for not wanting to shoot me for writing another series, too - you should all send her some. She's gonna need it.

I cannot promise to be prompt with these, because I already know what the next 9 months look like in my life, even without unexpected surprises, but I can promise to be as prompt as I can. Thanks to everyone who commented and kudoed in previous ones, and in the two stories I've posted since. You had a hand in encouraging me to do this again, and I do love doing it, even if it's stressful at times. So thanks for pushing me. :)

Here we go folks....

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

Danny sat down on a plastic bucket, looking around at the interior of the restaurant. It was a crazy idea. The place was on the market because it had gone out of business three months ago. And it had been on the market this long because no one else wanted to take a chance on a location that had failed three times in six years.

Apparently it was possible for Chinatown to have too many Chinese restaurants to sustain.

But they'd all tried to horn in on the market that already existed. An Italian restaurant, a real, old-world one with great food, though, that might actually work. Especially one that looked like this. It was reminiscent of John's Pizzeria in Time's Square. Which was kitschy and full of tourists, yeah, but Hawaii was full of tourists, and if they could balance the tourist crowds who'd had their fill of island food with locals looking for something new or ex-patriated mainlanders looking to get a taste of home, then they might have something.

'They.' The one roadblock Danny kept coming back to, the missing link that was the real reason he hadn't snapped this place up yet, was that somewhere along the way—probably about ten seconds after Steve had said 'radiation poisoning'—Danny had stopped thinking of the restaurant as his, and started thinking of it as theirs.

He wasn't sure exactly how his retirement dream had shoehorned Steve in, or what that said about his sanity, but there was no escaping it. He'd sat here four times in the last two weeks, trying to picture this without Steve, and he hadn't been able to manage it.

He'd thought it was the job that made him reluctant to retire, and he wasn't entirely wrong. That sense of satisfaction of making people safe, of bring criminals down had been part of his life for so long he wasn't sure how he'd fare without it.

But he already knew how he'd fare without Steve, without that partnership, the feeling of working together, of knowing exactly what Steve was going to do and that he'd be there no matter what to make things work, however dire things got. If anyone could make their restaurant succeed through sheer force of will, could keep Danny from failing, it was Steve.

And if there was one thing on Earth, after his kids, that Danny didn't want to leave, it was Steve.

It wasn't getting shot at—that he could live without, just as he could having to roll out of bed some mornings, more to avoid the muscle strain of putting his feet down and standing up than from any sense of excitement. He could absolutely live without that.

But Steve...that was another story.

Danny's partner in Jersey, Chris, had been great. They'd been good friends, in each other's pockets 14 hours a day or more at times. And when Danny had left, they'd vowed to stay in touch.

They hadn't even spoken in over two years.

He'd like to think that Steve would never let it go that long. Suspected, in fact, that Steve would commandeer a satellite and track Danny down if he didn't hear from him for a week. But it still wouldn't be the same.

If Danny retired, Steve would have a new partner. He'd be out there without Danny to watch his back and attempt to keep him from doing the craziest of his crazy shit. And one way or another, the likelihood that Danny would lose him was high.

Very high.

So the only solution was for Steve to come with him. It was logical—neither of them was getting any younger, and Steve, however much he liked to ignore it, had very real medical reasons to at least consider the idea of backing off field work. At the very least.

This was a good option for them both. They could still work together, build something together, and without getting shot at.

Or at least shot at much, given how many times they'd been to Chinatown for crimes.

Maybe Danny should lead with that when he approached the idea with Steve. Maybe if he could use the excuse of being embedded in Chinatown to help lower the crime rate, Steve could be more accepting.

Or maybe Danny was fighting a battle that had been lost before he'd ever even met Steve.

Only one way to find out.

***

"I think you're a little bit crazy," Danny said, giving Tani a smile to show he was joking. Mostly. "But I'm glad you decided to come work with us."

"It's not like a better offer is knocking down my door," Tani said.

Danny looked around. "Well, you could wait for the eight-year-olds to show up here and harass you, but...."

"Yeah, yeah," she said, pushing up off the porch. Danny admired the ease with which she got to her feet. He'd taken a lot of Advil just to get moving this morning. "Careful, or I might change my mind."

"That's my cue," Danny said, taking a few steps backwards toward the car. "See you in the morning."

"See you," Tani said.

Danny got into the car and started it up, waving as he drove off. He saw the message light blinking on his phone, tapped the screen to see it was from Steve, and hit play.

"Hey, Danny." The stereo speakers of the car amplified the raspy quality to Steve's voice, how soft and scratchy it was from all the smoke he'd inhaled. His lungs probably hated him as much as Danny's liver—the part of it that was hanging out in Steve's body—did on a bad day.

Because for all his handicaps—not that Danny would ever call them that to Steve's face—Steve still got the job done. He still ran out into danger ahead of everyone and insisted on being the one to take on the craziest of the jobs they had to do. And he was still always right there when they needed him, even if he nearly gave Danny a heart attack in the process.

"I've got something for you," Steve said in the voicemail, pausing to clear his throat. "Meet me at the restaurant?"

Well if he was calling it the restaurant then maybe he'd changed his mind? Then again, he hadn't said 'our restaurant.' So maybe not.

It was crazy to want to start a restaurant with a guy that attracted danger like dogs attracted fleas anyway. But then again, it was crazy not to want to open a restaurant with a guy who was always there every single time Danny really needed him.

Like it or not, Danny was convinced it was a job for both of them. Now he just had to convince Steve.

***

"Man, where did you learn to use chopsticks?" Steve asked, looking mildly offended—not the easiest thing to do sitting on the floor of a dusty, empty restaurant, slouched against a pillar. The whole posture was too relaxed to be offended, but Steve was a freak of nature.

"I'm sorry," Danny said, around a bite of Kung Pao Chicken. "Is there some special Hawaiian way to eat with chopsticks that I have missed before now? Is there a reason you never mentioned that until today?"

Steve shook his head. "Just always wondered," he said, taking advantage of Danny's distraction to snatch a piece of chicken out of Danny's box.

"For your information," Danny said, "I learned at Mr. Chen's House of Asian Delight in Hoboken." At Steve's laugh, Danny rolled his eyes, snatching a piece of shrimp from Steve's box. "What?"

"Nothing," Steve said, holding up his hands, the gesture somehow more conciliatory with a Chinese food box in one and chopsticks in the other. "I'm just glad to know that it's not only Hawaiian culture you don't mind abusing."

Danny shook his head, but his mood was too good to be pulled too far into any argument that wasn't just their normal surface banter. "Once we get this place going," he said, waving chopsticks around the room, "we can eat real Italian instead. Every night."

"I've been doing that a lot anyway, the way you're always testing recipes on me," Steve said. He stood his chopsticks in his box and raised his shirt, patting his perfectly flat stomach. "And it shows."

Never let it be said Danny gave up an open invitation to freely study Steve's body. He let his eyes travel leisurely down Steve's chest to his abdomen, admiring the muscles even as he swallowed in automatic reaction to the large scar down the middle.

He'd come that close to losing Steve.

But he had no intention of getting that close again, not if he could help it. "Yeah," Danny said, clearing his throat, "I can see where you're going to have to start swimming three times as much. Maybe we should install a swimming pool in the basement of this place, just to make sure you don't lose your girlish figure."

Steve laughed as he shoveled some shrimp and rice into his mouth—and maybe his method of using chopsticks was better than Danny's. Not that Danny would ever admit it out loud. Steve might offer to teach him.

Which led to thoughts that Danny quickly pushed away for later. Much later. Like, never.

"It's going to be a lot of work," Steve said, not for the first time. "But I think we're up to the challenge."

The light in his eyes, sitting on the floor eating Chinese—the whole thing was familiar, but not with Steve and not in Hawaii. Danny couldn't help remembering a similar scene, the first night he and Rachel spent in their apartment in Weehawken. They hadn't even bought furniture yet, so they'd sat on the floor and shared boxes of Chinese food as they discussed their plans for decorating.

"Danny?"

Danny blinked at Steve. "Sorry, what?"

Steve licked his lips, taking a deep breath before he asked, "Everything okay?"

"Yeah," Danny said, ignoring the way Steve's voice had already made it clear he knew it was a lie before Danny said it. "Why?"

Another deep breath, then Steve relaxed again, shrugging with an attempt at bonelessness that didn't quite work. "Nothing," he said, also a lie. "Just...you looked miles away there for a few seconds."

Miles and years. But the past was the past, and if there was one thing Steve had going for him, he wasn't Rachel. He was honest, he was faithful, and he was never, ever going to leave Danny. At least not willingly.

As for the unwilling part, given everything they'd been through, he seemed to be fairly good at managing to avoid that so far, too. Radiation poisoning and any lingering side effects had nothing on Steve McGarrett's will of steel.

Danny would just keep reminding himself of that fact until it stuck.

***