delicatale | I sat beside you and became myself; ~800 words

I let my Muse take the reins this morning, and this is what came of it. Steve and Danny, through Grace's eyes and through the years. Contains Future!Grace and unsubtle boys.

Grace walks into her father’s kitchen one morning to find him with flour on his cheek and sugar on his lips, Steve with his arms crossed next to him, smirking and blushing at the same time. She’s thirteen, and not stupid, but she doesn’t say anything, just smiles and pushes through them to access her cereal, earning herself two kisses on her forehead and temple, sugar sticking to her skin. She kisses them both too, and wonders if they really think they’re subtle.

;;

They move her dad into Steve’s house a rainy Sunday, with Kono and Chin and Kame and an army of cousins that make the whole ordeal quicker than it really ought to be - Grace remembers living in boxes for ages after moving to Hawai’i. She’s just turned fifteen, they had this huge party in Steve’s backyard and Grace tasted Champagne for the first time. She’d watched her dad and Steve grin at each other at the barbecue pit, and wondered for a moment if she’d ever have that, before yelping when a group of her friends jumped her and threw her into the ocean.

;;

She yells at her dad, harsh words that she doesn’t mean, and he yells back, his eyes icy and angry, disappointed. That’s the part that hurts most, in this whole thing. It was stupid, she’s not proud of herself, but every one’s trying pot around her; that’s what you get for hanging out with surfers, she guesses. She’s only sixteen, bound to make mistakes, bound to disappoint her father again, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting when she does. She yells back at him because she’s scared she’s lost him forever. In the end they both deflate and she tells him she’s sorry, and he hugs her. Steve doesn’t reappear before that.

;;

It’s Steve that comes to pick her up when she calls the house, in tears and heartbroken. She’s sitting on the kerb and waiting for the truck, cursing Jimmy and all his pretty words and how stupid was she to believe him? Her dad told her not to believe boys, he told her every day, and yet. Steve pulls her over the seat when she climbs into the cab of the truck, like she doesn’t weigh anything, and he holds her until she stops crying, sniffling in the crook of his neck, his hand large and reassuring over the side of her head. She feels much younger than her seventeen years but it feels good, to let go for a while, allow herself to be taken care of by her step-father. When she asks why Danno didn’t come, back in the passenger seat and feeling a little more human, Steve smiles sadly, his hands gripping the wheel so tight his knuckles are white, and tells her that he’d have gone in Jimmy’s house and killed him. Grace believes her dad would have, too.

;;

Grace dances around the beach with Kono when the Bon Jovi song starts, singing along and laughing a little breathlessly. It has to have been Steve’s idea to play this song, right as they get the cake out for her father to cut. She’s had a few beers and her dad didn’t even blink, maybe because he’s had more than a few himself - she won’t blame him, not on his birthday. Grace’s nineteen, she’s got flowers in her hair and she’s barefoot - just like Steve, even though her dad grumbled and moaned about proper footwear and guests when he saw it. They’ve planned it all in secret, Steve and Grace and her mom and Chin and Kono, so her dad can’t really begrudge them anything, he’s too pleased. Later, she dances with him and he kisses her brow, thanks her with soft words, and Grace feels like the most important person in the whole world.

;;

She wakes up one night to the cracking of fire and soft voices drifting through her window. She’s twenty-two and visiting during spring break - there are enough parties here, she doesn’t really see the point in going to Mexico once again. She slips downstairs wearing one of Steve’s old Navy shirts and shorts, padding as quietly as she can through the study and out, stopping there to look at the two figures on the beach, huddled close near the fire. They had a fight before she arrived, she recognized the signs and the tension on the set of their shoulders, but she’d said nothing about it. Now, though, it seems they’ve made up, or are in the process, Steve’s lips pressed to her dad’s forehead, his eyes closed as her father says something she doesn’t catch. Whatever he says, it makes Steve chuckle, and Grace turns away before she feels more like an intruder, but she climbs back to her bedroom with a smile on her lips.