Work Text:
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As he speaks, he waves around a pair of black and white checkered Vans. Alika is expertly tucked in his other arm, secured close to his broad chest - the baby's little blue eyes are wide, drifting between both of his fathers and the pair of shoes that is now being shaken under Steve’s nose.
Steve only bought the shoes a few hours prior, sneakily inserting them into Danny’s side of the closet next to several pairs of sedate patent leather loafers. He’d been expecting Danny to put up a fuss, so he simply lets his partner’s words wash over him, even as the shoes are shoved at his chest until he takes them.
Though every day has brought something new and exciting, dedicated eye to eye contact is one of his favorite developments. He catches Alika’s gaze, smiling conspiratorially, as if to say, don’t worry, you learn to live with him. That being said, so far nothing has topped Alika learning to respond to a smile with a toothless little grin of his own.
Sure enough, slightly slobbery lips stretch wide, revealing a pink and gummy mouth that shouldn’t really be cute, and yet still is. Steve knows, realistically, that Alika is simply copying expressions, his infant brain hoovering up stimuli and filing it away for future use – but there’s a part of him that thinks that Alika’s just so damn pleased to be around the people he loves.
Faced with an eyeful of irresistibly wiggly and giggling baby, Steve can’t help but stand there and drink in the sight of him.
“Oi!” Danny suddenly protests, breaking father and son’s brief staring competition. He shifts Alika to his other side, tucking him under his chin. “Do not try to win the baby over, you scoundrel. Anyway. The point, Steven, is that whilst you might think that matching shoes are harmless, you have no idea the kind of ruin that it can lead to.”
Danny’s free hand waves around as he speaks, fingers gripping empty air when he emphasizes a word, palm rolling over as he flicks his wrist, thumb absently scratching an itch on his forefinger.
Long gone is the concern at seeing Danny hold Alika one-handed, Steve himself finally having moved on from that fuck fuck fuck, I’m going to drop him, come on, concentrate stage.
“I’m talking color-coordinated berets,” Danny continues, full steam ahead. “Socks with insignias. Two-part knitted Christmas cardigans where the felt reindeer starts on my chest and ends on your back. We are not those kinds of fathers, Steve. We are not those kinds of men.”
“They’re just shoes, Danno. Don’t you think you’re being a bit dramatic?”
“Read my lips, Steven. It is not happening.” As though physically forcing himself to relax, he hitches Alika up, pressing a few little kisses into the fuzzy scruff that the baby calls hair.
Screw it, Steve thinks, the SEAL inside rising to the challenge. Because the truth of it is? He is that kind of father. Not the kind with reindeer cardigans, no, but he’s comfortable enough in his masculinity to admit that the Vans are cute.
The piece de resistance, of course, is the tiny matching set that he’d bought for Alika. (Gracie has a pair also – she’d come shopping with him, and had proceeded to shred the salesman to pieces when he’d asked her if she’d like a girlier version. She’d explained to Steve that yes, she did want a pink pair, please, but it was rude of people to assume. He’s just stared at her, slightly in awe).
Alika’s Vans are now tucked inside Danny’s, tiny left in big left and tiny right in big right. Sure, Alika can’t walk yet, and thus has no real need for stylin’ sneakers, but it’s the thought that counts.
Going in for the kill, he sidles into Danny’s space, nose in Danny’s hair and Alika comfortably smushed between them. “You go back to work tomorrow.”
Danny pulls away just far enough to scowl up at him, as though he resents the reminder. They’ve spent the first six months of Alika’s life at home, Chin heading the task-force in Steve’s absence, two appropriately crazy loaned HPD Officers filling out the team.
It’s been six months of happiness, tiredness, and the entire Kelly/Kalakaua clan camped out in their living room at all hours of the day and night: “take this, ku`uipo,” Kono’s mother had insisted, towering over Danny and shoving a battered home-made recipe book at his chest, Kono hovering at her elbow as though worried that something embarrassing was just about to happen. “Kono loved lots of these when she was a keiki, great grinds.”
Then there had been the ancient Kelly aunts, determined to pass along Chin’s old crib on the proviso that it was returned when Alika outgrew it, “yes, yes, it belonged to Chin’s kupunakane, and his makuakane, it goes to family, take it, take it, take, take.” It was seconds away from total collapse, but not even Steve possessed the guts to turn it down.
On top of all of that, the six months has also been an adventure in insanity, the pace of life without drug-dealers and gunfire slowly grating at their nerves.
Danny would never admit it, but Steve has caught him staring longingly at his badge more than once. For all that Danny eschews madness on the job, he’s also not really built for peace and quiet. Steve has slowly learned, first with Gracie and now with Alika also, that having a kid in your life doesn’t suddenly mean you don’t want to do anything for yourself.
Tomorrow, though, sees Danny return to work. The plan is to alternate fortnights on the job - it’s the kind of system that only a self-governing and aggressively pushy unit could get away with. Fourteen days from now, Steve will be feeling the same as Danny is now – relieved to be hurtling around the island once more, but also a little sad at not being able to scoop Alika up at a moment’s notice.
“Your point, Steven?” Danny tuts, even going so far as to stomp his foot twice in quick succession.
There’s no advantage to lying, Danny will see right through him – he decides to go for the truth, honoring their pact to present the facts and hold the bullshit.
“My point, is that I’m preying on your….” he casts around for the right words, landing upon them with a triumphant snap of his fingers. “Your emotional vulnerabilities.”
Danny’s eyebrows wiggle incredulously, and Alika performs a series of bizarre facial expressions, as though trying to mirror his father. “My emotional vulnerabilities, you say?”
“Yes, your emotional vulnerabilities. You go back to work tomorrow, and I’m going to have Alika all to myself, and we might be so busy having fun that we forget to call you.”
It’s a low blow, Steve knows – as evidence by the way Danny curls Alika closer in to his chest - and he immediately feels guilty. He reaches out, brushes his fingertips through the fuzz atop Alika’s head, then shuffles in closer to press a “sorry” to Danny’s lips.
“No squashing the baby,” Danny instructs, even though his words are half breath and half kiss, (and, possibly, even a little bit of a nibble on Steve’s bottom lip).
“No squashing the baby, sir yes sir.”
Between them, Alika gurgles, then kicks his feet when he begins to sense that he’s not the center of attention.
- - - -
There’s an odd kind of shuffling noise coming from outside the bedroom, and Steve absently thumbs his glasses back along the bridge of his nose as he looks up from his book. It’s a thriller, something Danny shoved at him when he was, (apparently) being annoying one monsoonal afternoon – Danny is a surprisingly voracious reader, with no organization in sight, and Steve sometimes feels like he spends half of his life picking up paperbacks and buying secondhand bookshelves. His most recent purchase, constructed out of chopped up bits of surfboard, was designed to aggravate Danny until his hair poked up from being repeatedly mussed.
Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle. It sounds like feet sliding over the floor, an unusual gait transporting its owner closer. Suddenly, Danny appears in the doorframe, hunched over with his hands underneath Alika’s armpits, fingers curled around his tiny naked chest. He’s holding the baby up between his legs, scooting him along the ground.
Steve takes a second to admire Alika’s neck control, the way he’s slowly perfected the art of keeping his head up all on his own. His attention, however, is quickly grabbed by the shoes that both Danny and Alika are wearing, and he can feel his whole face arrange itself into a stupid grin. “You put them on.”
Danny looks up at him, throwing him a smile that increases in intensity when faced with Steve’s bogglingly delighted expression. “Yes, you goof, you win. I’m not made of stone.” He gently jiggles Alika from left to right, the baby giggling as he enjoys the ride. “They’re freaking adorable, how could I resist.”
Scooping his phone up from the side-table, Steve hops swiftly out of bed, shifting forward and motioning for Danny to crouch down. Danny does so – though only after a raised eyebrow – and Steve selects the camera function, tilting the phone to the side.
He focuses in on them, Danny crouched down with Alika tucked between his knees, chubby little baby legs not yet strong enough to hold himself up on his own steam. Plump ankles disappear into the checkered shoes, unbearably tiny next to the much larger, (and far hairier) ankles of his father.
With a snap, the photo is taken, and Steve rocks forward onto his knees so that he can wave the screen at Danny.
-
He gets the text from Kono the next day. It’s barely 10 in the morning, and he’s just finished Alika’s bath. Over the last few weeks, he’s been slowly guiding Alika’s little arms through various swim-strokes, developing muscle strength and feeding Alika’s delight when in the water. (”No combat side-stroke, Steven, he’s not a baby SEAL. I swear I will shave off all your hair in the middle of the night.” - “I’d like to see you try, Daniel.”
Abandoning their lesson for the moment, he scoops Alika out of the infant-tub, drying a hand off on his jeans and prodding at his phone.
He’s been back at work for two and a half hours. Spent two of those hours shouting at the table, trying to get it to print that picture. Plan to let him stew for another 45, then I’ll help him out. Want a copy?
Before he can reply, another text appears, this time from Chin. Those Vans are da kine, brah!
Steve begins to tap out a reply, holding a wet and sleepy Alika securely in the crook of his arm – it’s hot, his shirt will dry in no time, and he’s comfortable with the whole ‘carrying one-handed’ thing by now.
Fourteen days later, it’s a lot easier to return to work with little checkered photo tucked carefully into the bill-fold of his wallet.