The Wedding Pt 1

Lieutenant Commander Steven J. McGarrett
and
Detective Daniel Williams
Request the honor of your presence at our wedding.
Despite what everyone believes, we were never married. Until now.

The exchange of vows will occur on the beach behind the
Williams-McGarrett House.
Barring explosions, fire fights, and unexpected terrorist activity,
the nuptials will be held at 6:23 of the evening.

Please plan to join us after the ceremony for the reception
Catered by Kamekona and family.
Spam will be available but not the only meat-like substance served.

In lieu of gifts, we are requesting that you make a donation to the Honolulu Police Department Survivors and Orphans Fund, or the Naval Memorial Scholarship Fund.
If it goes against everything you believe is holy and right to attend a wedding empty handed, Steve is registered at all local Guns, Ammo and Artillery Depots. Danny is registered at several local pharmacies. Under X for Xanax.

RSVPs would be lovely so Kamekona will know how many pounds of Spam to order.
His cousins will get him a discount, we feel sure.

T minus 12 hours and counting: Danny was leaning against the kitchen cabinet drinking his second cup of coffee. Ordinarily he would drink it while sitting in one of the chairs at the table. But they currently found themselves with neither chairs nor a table. It was his fault, really, although he was loathe to admit it even to himself. He and Steve had found a new dining set they knew would be perfect and had purchased it after receiving the promise from the store manager that it would be delivered yesterday in plenty of time for the wedding. But because the universe hates Danny Williams so very very much, the truck bringing their brand new sparkling chairs and table had been caught in a rare but not unheard of flash flood and had tumbled down the side of one of the mountains of which Hawaii was justifiably proud. The good news was that the driver and his assistant delivery guy had been pulled unharmed from the ravine into which they had plummeted. The bad news was that the promised table and chairs could not be rescued nor salvaged and replacements could not be obtained until Tuesday of next week at the earliest. The store manager was apologetic to an embarrassing degree but that did nothing to supply Steve and Danny a table and chairs to replace the ones Danny had insisted needed to be hauled to the dump before the new ones were scheduled to be delivered. Steve had been surprisingly willing to let go of the old ones, making no reference to whether or not his mother had picked it out nor to the hours that may have been spent there doing homework or eating freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. Maybe he had never had after-school chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven with a huge glass of ice cold milk. Danny wasn’t about to ask and Steve certainly did not volunteer that information.

Ordinarily, Steve would also have been in the kitchen drinking coffee at 6:23, after having finished his swim of epic proportions. But since he had gotten home and into bed only three hours ago, no way was Danny going to wake him. Again, the universe was plotting against them. Or at the very least the kidnappers of the daughter of one of the Governor’s oldest friends were not respectful of their wedding plans. They had gotten that particular news in the middle of their rehearsal dinner, delivered in person at the restaurant by a member of HPD. Steve had frowned, Danny had frowned more; Steve, Danny, Kono, and Chin had left the dinner with profuse apologies to their friends and family, all of whom said naturally they understood, no apology necessary, you go and find her and make sure she’s safe and we’ll make sure everything that hasn’t been done yet for the wedding is taken care of, don’t you worry. Danny had entrusted The List to his mother, bless her heart, and between the saint that she was, his three sisters, and help even from Mary who appeared to be clean and sober to the surprise of anyone who had ever met her, they finished all of the last minute details. Because Steve was a SEAL and almost no details would be left to the last minute. This was one of the few times Danny had to thank the Naval gods for making his soon-to-be-husband the OCD over-organized pain the ass that he was. 

The members of 5-0 worked 36 hours straight trying to find Layla Nishi when they finally caught a break yesterday evening around 4:30. It meant a stake-out, a quick helicopter trip to Molokaʻi, a trek across six miles of that island, and a flight back with Layla safely on board. None of which had involved Danny because Steve insisted that he, Chin, and Kono could handle it and Danny should go home so that at least one of the grooms was awake for the wedding and/or the preparations thereof. Danny had naturally tried to argue with him about being left behind, again with treating him like the wife, but Chin and Kono had sided with the Boss and had talked Danny into going home. Which he had. At midnight. Because someone had to stay at headquarters to give the Governor continually updates.

Midnight was still preferable to 3:30 when Steve had finally tumbled into bed with a grunt. He barely moved when Danny got up long enough to tug off his mud-coated Army boots. The mud-covered cargo pants and polo shirt were allowed to stay in the bed which meant the sheets they had been sleeping on would have to be thrown out as there was no salvaging them. When Danny had woken up at 5:53 a.m., Steve was inexplicably naked but still mud covered. That Danny found this fact surprising was in itself surprising because after all this time he didn’t know why he would have expected to find anything laying in bed beside him other than a naked Steve covered head to toe in mud.

Danny did have a text on his phone from the Governor solemnly promising that whatever emergency arose today would be handled by other members of law enforcement and that the Governor would still be able to officiate at their wedding because they had done their usual exemplary job and saved his friend’s daughter for which he was extremely grateful although there was the small matter of a helicopter that may not have been officially signed out to any member of 5-0 and that one did not usually ‘borrow’ a helicopter without the express permission of the owner of said helicopter. Danny thought that sounded more like a technicality than an actual problem because according to Steve it was returned unscratched and completely unharmed albeit with an empty fuel tank. Danny couldn’t comprehend anything else Steve may have said about the helicopter because he was trying to absorb the fact that Steve had actually used the word albeit in a sentence. Who talks like that?

Danny sighed and drank more coffee, deciding there wasn’t enough caffeine in the Danny-hating universe to wake him up. Well, he’d done more on less sleep. He’d make it through his (second) wedding day with a smile on his face and a spring in his step even if he had to install actual springs in his shoes. He wondered what he should be doing that made him get up at the ass-crack of dawn but as his mother had neglected to return The List, he had no idea what had compelled him to get out of his mud covered bed. Maybe his job was to stand in his tableless kitchen drinking coffee and frowning at the universe on general principle. Because he felt sure he had that part handled even if it had never made it on The List.

He mentally reviewed the items that he couldn’t remember taking care of, certain his mother and her entourage had handled them. Because if they hadn’t, there was no way he could deal with them now. It was a little less than 12 hours to the wedding and less than 3 hours before the house would be engulfed in pandemonium. Deciding that worrying was a useless waste of what little energy he had to spare, he wandered out to the beach and sat on the sand since the Adirondack chairs had been carted off to who-knows-where in anticipation of the arrival of the tidy rows of white straight back chairs they had rented from one of Kamekona's cousins. They took it on faith that this particular cousin had purchased the rental chairs in question and not stolen them because who would steal 75 straight back white chairs?

He’d finished his coffee and was brooding about straight back chairs and mud-covered sheets when the reason for his preservations appeared at the back door. Danny felt Steve watching him and turned to smile at him. “Hey,” Danny said from where he still sat in the sand. “What are you doing up?” Danny was relieved that Steve no longer appeared mud-colored. That combined with the fact that his hair was wet meant he had taken a shower before appearing although that left the small matter of now having a mud-covered shower stall. Danny should have dragged him outside and hosed him off last night instead of letting him into their bed, honest to God why couldn’t be manage to do his job without bringing half of nature indoors with him?

Steve shrugged and crossed over to him, tugging on a tee shirt to go with the shorts he wore. “Once you left the bed, I couldn’t sleep,” Steve said, sitting behind Danny and wrapping him in arms and legs that seemed to go on forever.

“I’m sorry, Babe. I wasn’t sleeping and I didn’t want to disturb you by thinking too loud,” Danny said. “You aren’t swimming are you? Because I will not save your SEAL ass if you go down due to sleep deprivation and for the love of God do not tell me you are trained to swim in your sleep and you’ll be fine, Danno, don’t worry about it.”

Steve smiled against the back of Danny’s neck before kissing him. “Okay. I won’t.”

“I got a text from the Governor,” Danny said, showing it to Steve. “Apparently you should have asked permission before taking the helicopter?”

“Huh,” Steve said. “Who knew?”

“Maybe he will buy you one after this,” Danny suggested. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Your very own helicopter. Which I know you would never let me drive.”

“I’d let you drive it but you’d have to take lessons first,” Steve said far too smugly. “Oh wait. You may not be tall enough to qualify.”

“Oh. That. You. I’m not marrying you. You can explain when everyone gets here,” Danny said, his tone barely changing as he tried to rail at Steve.

“Okay,” Steve said, shrugging against Danny’s back. “Will you come back to bed for a little while?”

“Will you change the sheets so I don’t feel like I’m out on one of your extra top-secret, ultra-classified, need-to-know maneuvers behind enemy lines?”

“Already done.”

“Then I will go back to bed with you,” Danny agreed, turning in the circle of Steve’s arms and legs to kiss him. “I may even marry you if you apologize for disparaging my height.”

“Disparaging? Really? And you made fun of me for saying albeit?”

“Far more people use disparaging than use albeit. Disparaging as a perfectly good word and just because you aren’t entirely sure what it means does not mean that I deserve your mockery for using it.”

“I don’t believe I engaged in mock-making,” Steve claimed.

“Yes. Yes you were. Mock-making about both my height and the word I used to describe said mockery.”

“Okay.” Steve stood up, reaching down a hand to help Danny up, keeping his hold tight as they returned to the house and went upstairs to tumble together in the freshly made bed, minus any trace of the wilds of Molokaʻi.

~o0o~

T minus 9 hours 30 minutes and counting: “Steve. Danny,” Mary’s voice called as she came up the steps. “You better not being doing the dirty.”

Steve groaned and rolled away from Danny who had also been doing nothing more than sleeping until her voice sounded the alarm. “Come in, Mary. We’re decent and not doing anything but sleeping.”

“Fine,” she said, throwing open the door. “You know I still think it’s way too creepy that you have sex in the bed where we were conceived.”

“Not nearly as creepy as you talking about it.” Steve was frowning at her as he slid up the bed to sit against the headboard. “What do you need?”

She pointed at Danny who was ineffectually trying his very best to disappear into the covers and not be discovered. Ever. “Danny.”

“What?” he asked mostly into the pillow he was clinging to like it was the last life raft on a sinking ship. Which come to that, it might have been.

“The chairs are here. Shamu is here with a bunch of whale spawn. Why is he so freakin’ early? Hello. The wedding isn’t until 6:30. Gawd.”

“Are you 13?” Danny asked her. Or the pillow which he was still addressing with his eyes closed and the covers up over his head.

“Are you getting up? Because if you don’t I will send Shamu and all of his cousins up here to find you. Don’t think I won’t.” With that, she left the bedroom leaving the door wide open because really why should Steve and Danny have any illusions of privacy today of all days.

“Please tell me either you or Mary were adopted,” Danny requested.

“Not as far as I know. We were both conceived right here in this bed.” Steve was laughing as he said it, making Danny to very much want to punch him except that would require more energy and planning and effort than he really cared to put into it.

“I dare say we aren’t the first to have sex here after your much heralded conception,” Danny told him.

“I may have used it for that purpose,” Steve said. “But they didn’t mean anything. Only you, baby. You are the only one for me. Oh yeah yeah yeah.”

“Did you eat stupid for breakfast? Because I swear to God if you don’t shut up right now I will kill you. I have a gun. I have a permit for the gun. I will use it on you. And not even bother to hide the body because no jury in the world would convict me when I tell them what you said.”

“Get up,” Steve said, yanking the covers down and kissing Danny’s freckled back. One day he will kiss each freckle individually even if they had to stay in bed the entire day so he could. He was pretty sure Danny would agree to that plan or he wouldn’t tell him in advance just hold him down with one of his freaky ninja moves that left Danny breathless and aroused. Yeah. That.

“I am getting up. Not because you told me to but because I know with an alarming degree of certainty that your addlepated sister will send Komekona upstairs to find me if I don’t although I still cannot understand what part of I am not the wife in this relationship you and your co-conspirators fail to comprehend when I thought I had spelled it out succinctly with flow charts and visual aids.”

“Addlepated?”

“Addlepated,” Danny repeated as he forced himself out of bed. He stood next to it to frown at Steve who looked back with utter innocence. He may have even batted his eyelashes at Danny but Danny was too busy ignoring him and Steve would not admit it under any circumstances. Ever.

“I think I hear Komekona on the steps,” Steve said, laughing. “You better put on your frilly apron and go see what he wants, honey.”

“Don’t you honey me. Or the only honey you’ll have anything to do with is the kind I use to coat your body before staking you on top of a fire ant mound.”

“Hawaii doesn’t have fire ants,” Steve informed him.

“Maybe not. But I bet I can order them from the internet,” Danny said as he finally pulled on his jeans and his black ‘I am not the bride’ tee shirt Kono had given to him at their totally not bridal shower.

“Can’t transport dangerous insects across state lines.”

“Shut up,” Danny said as he tied his sneakers. “Are you getting up? Or are you lounging up here all day like his royal highness pain in the ass?”

“Was that one question or two?”

“What does that matter? Get up. If I have to deal with the madness of marrying you, you are not exempt from it.”

“Okay, honey. I’m coming,” Steve said, proving it by leaving his side of the bed and pulling on his jeans. His black tee shirt said ‘Do I look I’m the bride?’ which Chin had been good enough to provide him at the same absolutely not bridal shower.

They went down the steps utterly (not at all) surprised to find the house engulfed in chaos. Mary seemed to be screaming at Kamekona which was completely unheard because who would ever yell at him? Not only would he kill you by sitting on you if you dared to sass him - he was Kamekona for God’s sake and what could he have done to deserve the level of screeching Mary was resorting to?

“What?” Danny demanded. He held his hand up in front of Mary, his other hand on Kamekona’s huge chest.

“Spam, Danny. He wants to serve Spam,” Mary spit out.

“You said it was okay wif you, brah,” Kamekona reminded Danny. The big guy glanced over at Steve who was wisely staying out of the discussion. He looked like he was about to use one of his top secret stealth maneuvers and quietly disappear into the wall of the living room but Danny’s glare stopped him in his tracks.

“We said you could serve Spam, yes,” Danny said. “As long as there were counterbalancing real meats as well. You know – chicken. Beef. Even kangaroo.”

“Kangaroo?” Steve said. “Are you expecting someone from Australia to come to the wedding?”

“Not helping, babe,” Danny informed him. “Tell me you aren’t serving only Spam.”

“Chicken and beef are in the Spam,” Kamekona said like that explained everything anyone needed to know.

“That’s true,” Steve offered.

“Not the point. We have my family here. From New Jersey. Where they do not now nor will they ever eat Spam. I know it’s the official state food stuff of Hawaii. I am not disrespecting that sacred tradition. But we told you that you could not limit your menu selection to Spam and Spam only.” Danny was glaring equally at Kamekona and Steve when he finally wound down, Kamekona frowning at him in something akin to disbelief.

“I have chicken, brah,” Kamekona finally said. That there was an edge of doubt in his voice did nothing to mollify Danny and his fears that his family would be going hungry at the reception. “And shrimp.”

“Where? Where is this supposed chicken and shrimp?” Mary demanded. Danny wondered when she had decided to be on his side but he was not about to look the proverbial gift horse in the mouth.

“Danny, dear.” Danny’s mother decided that this was the opportune moment to appear out of nowhere. She was wearing jeans and a black tee shirt that proclaimed ‘I am not the mother of the bride’ also courtesy of Chin Ho Kelly who had a wicked sense of humor that was carefully hidden under that sense of calm he projected to everyone who didn’t really know him.

“Yes Mom,” Danny responded, not taking his eyes off either of his opponents.

“The truck with the chairs is here. Can you come show them where to put them?” she asked, all reasonable and charming like he wasn’t ready to pull his hair out.

“Steve will do that,” Danny informed them both.

“Of course,” Sylvia agreed as though she had just realized that Steve was standing there although how anyone could overlook his presence was a mystery to Danny. Except Kamekona blocked out the sun and could have managed to render Steve invisible as well.

“I’ll deal with the meat issue, Danno,” Steve said. “You take the chairs.”

“That’s fine,” Danny said. “They both better survive because we don’t have enough granola to serve everyone coming to the wedding.”

“I got this,” Steve told him, adding a kiss on the top of his head both to annoy him and placate him. “Go supervise the chair placement.”

Danny nodded, stepping back so that Steve could take his place as referee. Steve watched Danny leave the living room before looking from Kamekona to Mary and back. “Now. Tell me the truth.”

Kamekona shrugged. Mary glared.

“Kamekona,” Steve said in his ‘don’t make me start a countdown on your ass’ tone.

“I may have told little sis that I only brought Spam. She spazzed out.”

“I do not spazz out, Shamu.”

“Yeah, Mary, you kinda do,” Steve said.

“Thanks for your support. Good to know I can count on my own brother,” Mary snarked at him.

“Did you or did you not bring all of the food that we requested?” Steve was in interrogation mode and Kamekona had sense enough to come clean.

“Yes. I followed your instructions exactly. No worries.”

“See. No drama,” Steve said.

“I hate you. I hate you so so much right now,” Mary told Kamekona before turning and leaving the living room in a huge, loud huff.

“Stop inciting her,” Steve told the big man when they were temporarily the only ones in the room. “We have enough to deal with without you yanking her chain.”

“You’re right,” Kamekona said. “Now tell me where I’m supposed to prepare the foods for your wedding when there is no table in the kitchen.”

“Yeah about that,” Steve said, leading the way into the kitchen to study it. “Didn’t your cousins bring tables as well as chairs?”

“They did.”

“We can bring one of those in here. That will help you out, right?”

“Sure, brah. We can do that,” Kamekona agreed, leaving the house to yell at several of his cousins to bring two of those rental tables into the house and make sure they were the nice tables none of those ratty ones they tried to pawn off on the tourists who didn’t know any better.

With that crisis solved, Steve went out to stand on the back porch, finding Danny’s father there looking at the swarm of cousins following the combined and sometimes competing orders of Danny and his mother.

“Steve,” Burt said with a nod.

“How’s it going out here?” Steve asked, unconsciously mimicking Burt’s posture by putting his hands in the pockets of his jeans and leaning against the railing of the porch. He could easily see over Burt’s head as he was only an inch or two taller than Danny. Apparently the height limits for fire fighters were less stringent in Jersey than Hawaii because Steve was certain Burt would never have qualified for an island department. How did he stop the hose from blowing him backward? Being Chief helped now but he had come up through the ranks.

“I’ve seen riots better organized,” Burt said. “You should have eloped.”

“We considered it,” Steve told him. “Gracie’s the main reason we didn’t. Grace and your family.”

“Yeah,” Burt had to agree. Burt could feel Steve brace himself as Danny marched up the porch to glare up at them both.

“Would you please make yourself useful as well as decorative?” Danny demanded.

“Me?” Burt asked, knowing just how to push his son’s buttons. Steve thought he could take lessons from his soon-to-be father-in-law except he pretty much already knew where those buttons were and how to push them himself.

“Sure, Pop. I meant you.” Danny was still glaring at Steve who felt guilty although he had no idea of what he had done. Or more likely had not done to deserve Danny’s current state of dismay.

“Yes, honey?” Steve finally said purely to piss him off more.

“The flowers, Steven. The flowers are not here. The florist said they would be delivered half an hour ago. And yet there are no flowers here. None.”

“Island time, Danno.”

“Do not ‘island time’ me. You need to call and make sure they are coming. My sisters will not be able to arrange said flowers in a lovely and decorative manner befitting this auspicious occasion if they do not arrive in short order.”

“It’s barely 9:30. There’s still plenty of time,” Steve reminded him.

“He’s right,” Burt said. That seemed to calm Danny who stopped glaring at Steve with deadly intent.

“When did you start taking his side?” Danny wanted to know. At least he wasn’t yelling. Or glaring.

“He’s right,” Burt repeated as though that’s all that needed to be said.

Steve had the temerity to arch an eyebrow in response to Burt’s answer, Danny giving him the death glare in exchange.

“Please call them to make sure they haven’t forgotten or that in island time they think it’s tomorrow,” Danny requested in a much more reasonable tone.

“Yes honey,” Steve conceded, taking out his phone to go to the florist’s number that had been mysteriously programmed into his ‘wedding contacts.’ As he speed-dialed them, he traded looks with Burt as Danny returned to the yard to provide a new set of instructions to the chair and table movers. Burt’s look said ‘welcome to my own version of hell’ while Steve’s answering expression pleaded for a diversion so he could re-borrow the helicopter for the next six or so hours.

When Steve concluded his phone conversation, he wandered down to the beach where Danny and Sylvia were arguing about the proper placement of the chairs and how close to the water’s edge was too close.

“It’s going to be high tide in four hours, Mom,” Danny was saying in a tone that implied it was the third or fourth or sixteenth time he’d said it already. “They will float away if we put them here.”

“The tide doesn’t come this far up,” Sylvia said, looking at the ocean in challenge and letting it be known that it was not, in fact, allowed to come this far ashore and ruin her son’s wedding.

“It does, Sylvia,” Steve said in the soothing tone he often had to resort to when Danny was on an especially prolonged rant.

Sylvia shook her head but backed up five long steps, five for her being two of Steve’s normal strides what with his unnaturally freakishly long legs. That Steve was an entire foot taller than Sylvia also accounted for much of the difference. “Here?”

“Three more steps,” Steve instructed. She did it, Steve nodding in confirmation. When she had the actual line drawn in the actual sand, Steve assured Danny that the florists would arrive in the next 10 minutes.

“Real 10 minutes? Or island 10?” Danny asked, squinting up at Steve.

“Real. They are less than a mile away.”

“Okay. Good.”

“You need to come in the house with me,” Steve said, the hand resting on Danny’s shoulder warming him through the tee shirt.

“Why? What’s wrong? Kamekona destroy the stove?”

“No. You haven’t eaten breakfast. And you are being snappish. You shouldn’t snap at your mom when she’s trying to help. Let her take care of the tables and chairs.”

“Snappish? I’ll show you snappish,” Danny warned him as he automatically followed Steve up the yard and into the house because as much as he would refuse to ever admit it he knew Steve was right and once he had some eggs and toast in him things would be much clearer and less urgent.