Work Text:
When Dennis hears the front door open, he expects it to be his dad home from work, expects him to call out like he usually does - after all, it's not like he can miss Dennis's truck in the driveway. No such sound appears and Dennis frowns, stands up from his desk - and he's in the middle of a trig problem he can't work out so at least something good will come out of it - and heads towards the living room.
"Dad?" he calls as he walks but the person he sees when he gets there isn't his dad. "Oh, hey, Noelani."
He's still getting used to his dad's girlfriend having the run of the place - she doesn't live here and it's not like she's here all the time, but since Dad gave her a key a couple of months back, she's definitely been a more frequent presence. Dennis doesn't mind it in the slightest. Noelani's pretty awesome, she makes his dad happy and what's even better is that Dad has taken some of his attention off Dennis to focus on Noelani instead. If the trade-off for a little teenage freedom is that he has to watch his dad making googly-eyes at someone, Dennis is perfectly fine with that.
Except that Noelani doesn't look awesome right now. Her face is pale and drawn, dark shadows under her eyes which are way more pink than they usually are. Her shoulders are slumped and she looks like she's about ten seconds away from total collapse. It's actually kind of alarming. "Hey, are you okay?"
A wan smile appears on Noelani's lips. If possible, it makes her look even worse. "Been a long couple of days," is all she says. Something wriggles free at the back of Dennis's mind, something Dad said at breakfast this morning, or dinner yesterday, about Noelani working with the Five-0 task force on a big case. Something in the way he'd mentioned it, the pinch of his lips, the deeper than usual lines on his forehead, had told Dennis it was a bad one, but he hadn't asked for details, knowing he wouldn't be told any anyway. "Sorry if I scared you."
"Don't worry about it." Dennis looks around him, spots the clock on the mantel and realises the time. "I was just about to start dinner." It's a total lie, but he's pretty sure she hasn't eaten much in the last couple of days. "Why don't you go have a shower, freshen up? Dad should be home soon."
She lifts an eyebrow and there's a spark of the usual Noelani there. "Are you trying to tell me I smell?" Dennis just grins but doesn't say anything, certainly not that she looks like someone who's got nothing left to give, no gas in the tank. Thankfully, she sees the funny side of it, shakes her head. “Okay… I’ll see you in a bit.”
Dennis heads into the kitchen and opens the refrigerator, eyes up the ingredients and comes up with a dinner plan pretty quickly - he is Gordon Katsumoto’s son after all. He hears the shower click on and then off as he works but Noelani doesn’t come back out. Dad arrives home about twenty minutes after Dennis hears the shower cut off and he’s frowning as he looks around. “Is Noelani here?” Dad asks and Dennis nods.
“She was having a shower a few minutes ago.” Dad looks like he’s trying to figure out how to ask a question and Dennis decides to spare him the trouble. “I think she was ready to fall asleep standing up.”
Dad’s lips quirk in an almost smile. “It wouldn’t surprise me,” he murmurs. He wanders into the kitchen, looks over Dennis’s shoulder and makes a noise of approval. There might be a little bit of surprise in there too. Dennis tries not to be offended. “I’ll just go check on her,” Dad says and Dennis barely pays any attention to him going, concentrating as he is on not screwing up dinner and hearing a lecture from Dad.
He’s so engrossed in his cooking that he doesn’t realise how much time has passed until dinner is ready and there’s still no sign of Dad or Noelani. He bites his lip for a second, then decides to bite the bullet, heading down the hall towards Dad’s bedroom, sighing with relief when the door is ajar. Not for all the money in the world would he knock on that door if it had’ve been closed.
Peeking his head in, he finds himself grinning. Seeing Noelani asleep is not a surprise. But Dad is lying on his back on the bed too, still fully dressed in the clothes he’d gone to work in, Noelani tucked into his side, his arms around her waist and his chin resting on top of her head. They’re both sound asleep and Dennis backs carefully out, tiptoeing his way back down the hall towards the kitchen where he plates up his dinner.
“More for me,” he says to himself and digs in.