Chapter Text
Chin sat wearily on the skylight frame next to Aulani. Everything ached and he wasn’t sure he trusted his legs to carry him down the stairs just yet.
Even with the danger over, he found himself watching over the two Kaneko women. Aulani looked as exhausted as Chin felt, but she held herself proudly. Nalani had withdrawn into a casting circle with the confession-compelling fetish. She labored over the glyphs she was chalking on to the rough carving under the watchful and weary eye of her great-grandmother.
The statue—already desiccated and warped from the battle—began to break into large chunks. Nalani crumbled the pieces between her fingers, letting the rough ash sprinkle into the bowl of ingredients she’d already assembled. She sang as she worked, thanking the bees for their gifts and love. The song was low and gentle.
Nalani poured oil over the bowl and mixed it in with her fingertips, working the pulp into a fine paste. Her song changed, picking up the rising rhythm of an incantation. She scooped up some paste on her first two fingers and traced over the glyphs she had drawn on the ground.
As she finished the chant and released the spell, Chin felt a warm wave of well-being wash over him. He was still tired, but buoyed by a peculiar sensation of weightlessness. The magic that rolled outward from Nalani tasted bright and sweet.
Aulani was watching him with a knowing look. “Truth sharing isn’t easy. The magic provides a balm for the sting it inflicts.” She lifted her face skyward and closed her eyes enjoying the peaceful sensation, a gentle smile curved over her usually stern lips.
Nalani dismissed her circle and the anchoring spell parted like a shimmering mist. She stood up and brushed the dirt from her knees. “The magic will also blur most of what people remember about today.”
“How can they not remember,” Chin asked,
She arched an eyebrow at him.
Chin tested her assertion. He found that if he tried to recall conversations from earlier in the day, everything after his return to HQ with Nalani and Aulani had taken on a blurred quality. He could remember his movements throughout the entire day quite clearly, but the afternoon’s words were muted. “Why?”
“The spell doesn’t force you to share your secrets, just your truth. People should have a sense of whether or not they can trust the people that they spoke with; but the details will be fuzzy.” A sleek black bee with a bold yellow face alighted in the hair near Nalani’s ear, smoothing the fine strands with its forelegs.
“Huh,” he said. “That’s going to make for some awkward conversations tonight.”
Aulani cackled. “Maybe some conversations that need having.”
Nalani rolled her eyes at her great-grandmother. “Hush, tutu. The spell was meant to be between two people who already have a level of trust.” Chin noticed three more bees had joined the first one in her hair, and the air on the rooftop was starting to fill with a gentle buzz.
“You know that people confessed to crimes,” he said, thinking of the chaotic scene Danny had described at booking.
Nalani shrugged. “Hope they took good notes?”
Chin groaned. “The Prosecuting Attorney’s office is going to love that.” He had visions of trying to explain the day’s events in court for the next year and shuddered. “We still have to document the scene, and we’ll need statements from you both but we’ll get you on your way home as quickly as we can. Today would have gone differently without your help—both of you.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Aulani said with more warmth than Chin had heard from her so far in their brief acquaintance. “For my sister and for my Speaker, thank you. You have a friend in the Kaneko family should you ever be in need.”
Nalani put her hand on his shoulder and leaned in to kiss his cheek. “Your family is wrong,” she told him as she stepped back. “I would speak for you, if you would like.”
Chin bowed his head formally, indicating that he understood what she offered. “Thank you, Speaker, but I have chosen this path—I will see it through.”
It was near dark by the time Danny caught up with Steve as the SEAL leaned against the bumper of the truck that had so helpfully caught Danny during his altercation with Utor. Steve was leaning against the vehicle, mutely watching HPD wind down the crime scene; too tired even to speculate how much fallout there was going to be from the governor for this afternoon’s work.
Danny slouched next to Steve, crowding into his space without actually looking at him. At some point, he had changed out of his ruined tactical vest and shirt; his hair was still a mess, but he’d done his best to wash the worst of the mud from his skin. He was beautiful as far as Steve was concerned.
“You kissed me,” Danny said it matter-of-factly, but the way he kept his eyes on the still smoking scenery betrayed his tension.
“I did,” Steve answered, carefully matching Danny’s tone.
“On purpose?” Danny asked, watching Steve from the corner of his eye.
“How many times have you been kissed by accident?” Steve asked, turning to study his partner.
Danny snorted. “You’d be surprised. Newark Pride Festival gets pretty lively.”
“I’m not so sure those were accidents,” Steve said, grinning at him.
Danny shrugged, but Steve could see that his neutral expression was finally starting to crack. “I’m just saying, it didn’t feel like an accident.”
“Well you’re the expert in stealth kissing,” Steve teased.
“There was nothing remotely stealthy about that, Steven,” Danny chided, the effect somewhat undermined by the dazzling smile he leveled at Steve. Steve wanted to taste that smile. So he did.
Danny still tasted of mud and exhaustion, but instead of teeth, Steve got the warm surrender of Danny’s mouth beneath his own. He let himself drown in it, chasing Danny’s lips with soft nips.
Strong hands slid up to cradle the back of Steve’s neck, thumbs caressing a line down his jaw—coaxing Steve to let Danny take control of the kiss. Steve moaned; the sound obscene and full of promises. He felt his ears burn.
Danny chuckled, breathy puffs of air that tingled on Steve’s skin. “Crime scene,” he murmured against the corner of Steve’s mouth.
Don’t care,” Steve answered. He wrapped his arms around Danny and pulled him close, intent on showing Danny how little the venue mattered. Danny’s pained hiss was like a shock of cold water.
“You’re hurt?” he asked.
“Just bruises, babe, I promise.”
Steve stepped back far enough that he could smooth his hands over Danny’s chest. The memory of Utor’s claws raking through the tac vest was frighteningly clear. “Let me see.”
“I’m not undressing at the crime scene.” Danny grumbled.
“You should see a medic.” Steve gestured to the broken windows and dented door panels of the truck. “You didn’t see how hard you hit.”
“No, I was too busy doing the hitting.”
“I’m serious, Danny. You should get checked out. I can make it an order.”
Danny looked away and then back at Steve with a disbelieving laugh. “You haven’t even gotten into my bed yet and you already want to sleep on the couch? Steve, if we do this, you are not the boss. I mean, any more than your usual caveman tendencies.”
“When it comes to your safety I am,” Steve snapped. He scowled, intending to make Danny see reason. But, Danny looked pale, his eyes dull with weariness. Steve’s shoulders slumped. “Okay, I know I’m not, but—a demon, Danny—you didn’t see. I thought—“
“Hey, hey,” Danny soothed. “This is a ‘partners’ thing, Steven. We look out for each other, right? If I thought it was anything, I’d take care of it.”
Steve nodded tightly. “We’re almost done here anyway. You should go pick up Grace and…“ He hesitated, not certain he had the right to ask for what he wanted yet. “Umm … you could come over?”
“Steve—“
He could read the gentle refusal in Danny’s eyes and hastened to add, “Nothing like that. Just … today could have been bad.”
Danny was quiet for a long beat, eyes scanning Steve’s face. Steve didn’t know what he saw, but eventually Danny made up his mind with a firm nod. “Okay. Grace and I will come for dinner and a slumber party, of the G-rated variety.”
Steve beamed at him and held up his hand in the three-fingered scouting salute. “I promise. Nothing that will make you blush tonight.” He leaned over and murmured against the curve of Danny’s ear, “I can’t say the same for tomorrow.”
The shuddering breath that ran through Danny kept Steve grinning all the way home.
An hour and a half later Steve was at his front door paying for two large pizzas: one pepperoni (in deference to Danny’s easily offended sensibilities) and one Hawaiian. Steve took not-so-secret delight in his ongoing corruption of Grace’s pizza preferences.
When he shut the door and turned back to the living room, Danny was sprawled sideways across the couch dead asleep and Grace was tucking a blanket around her father with intense concentration. Steve watched her work with a fond smile. Once her father was thoroughly swaddled from the neck down, she beamed up at Steve. “Danno needed a nap,” she informed him.
“Yeah,” Steve agreed. He nodded toward the dining table. “We’ll save him some pizza for when he wakes up.”
Grace climbed up into a chair and leveled a steady, measuring stare at Steve. “Today at school was strange,” she said with the same accusatory tone he frequently heard from her father.
“Was it?” Steve asked, setting out plates and flipping open the Hawaiian pizza box.
“Yes,” Grace said firmly. “It was strange and nobody remembers.”
The way she said it tugged at Steve’s ear. “Do you remember, Gracie?”
Grace chewed her lip and regarded Steve critically. “Yes,” she finally admitted, “but I don’t think I should say so.”
Steve nodded thoughtfully. “I think that’s a good idea. We’ll talk about it with Danno when he wakes up.”
Having settled that for now, Grace happily tucked in to her slice of pizza.
Steve puzzled at Grace’s revelation while they ate. He figured that Danny had been immune to that piece of the spell the same as he had been to the rest of it, but he couldn’t figure where Grace fit.
Grace broke off her exhaustive explanation of the school yard politics surrounding birthday party invitations—Steve had tracked just enough of the monologue to conclude that not even the diplomatic corps could untangle the snarled web of reciprocity that ruled the playground—and gave a huge, stretching yawn.
“Bedtime, kiddo,” he said.
“Okay, Uncle Steve,” she agreed around a second, smaller yawn and left to fetch her overnight bag from the living room.
While Grace brushed her teeth and changed into pajamas, Steve washed their plates and left them on the rack to dry. He spooned fresh coffee grounds into the French press and marveled at the warm life that filled his home—the soft thumps of Grace’s steps as she climbed the stairs to Mary’s old room; the solid, anchoring weight of Danny’s presence in the living room; even his own movements in the kitchen cast a spell of alluring domesticity over the quiet night. It was a world away from the mausoleum he’d come home to.
As Steve crossed the living room, he debated waking Danny and sending him up to bed in the guestroom. His partner was drawing the deep, even breaths of the utterly exhausted—Steve watched the steady rise and fall of Danny’s chest for a long moment and didn’t have the heart to disturb him. He reached out, gently twitching the blanket a little higher on Danny's shoulder.
“Night, Danno,” he whispered softly.
On his way past the front door, Steve pressed a hand to the smooth wood and let the house’s magic run across his fingertips like water from a spring. The threshold was still fragile—decades of history couldn’t be replaced in a handful of months—but its core was vibrant and growing strong on the warmth of the people who filled his home with noise and life. A family by choice and by chance—his ohana.
He charged the night-watch wards and turned off the lights, and then went up to bed.
