KIDS… WHO'D HAVE THEM…?
Written by Ann Rivers ann.rivers@virgin.net
Completed 25 October 2001
Summary : Steve agrees to give Jesse some lessons in self defence and…
well, he really should have known better…!!
Disclaimers : Diagnosis Murder and its characters belong to CBS and Viacom.
No infringement of copyright is intended and no profit is being made from their use here
He'd faced some tough challenges in his time. Everything from deranged bombers and stalkers to insurance fraud and abduction by aliens.
But this… well, this was proving to be one of the greatest yet.
If he didn't allow himself to laugh soon, he was going to give himself a hernia.
If he did, though… well, that would pretty much scupper the fatherly authority bit.
So, what else was new…?
Face now more or less straight, Mark Sloan finally turned away from his treatment trolley and regarded his two latest customers with a patient, faintly exasperated smile.
"So, boys…" he said at last, making an exaggerated show of snapping on his gloves. "Who'd like to go first…?"
Perched on the treatment table, Steve and Jesse traded slightly nervous glances.
"You go…" Jesse said at last with a bright, beaming smile.
Having thought over such a generous and noble offer for all of two seconds,
Steve slowly turned his head to regard his best friend, fellow crime fighter and surrogate kid brother in polite disbelief.
"Why me…?" he asked, his voice deceptively pleasant.
"Because you're the eldest, that's why…" Jesse explained patiently, rolling his eyes –
as gleefully smug as Steve had been dryly sarcastic.
Ignoring the vainly stifled splutter of laughter from the other side of the room,
Steve cast his now sweetly smiling friend a glare of promised revenge before facing his father with a martyred sigh and shrug of his shoulders.
"Well, you see, dad, it was just one of those chance in a million accidents that…"
"Follow you two around like bees to a honey jar…" Mark finished for him –
silencing a now helplessly giggling Jesse with a look that would have made a charging grizzly bear sit still and behave, let alone a five foot six inch doctor.
Said giggling instantly stopped, to be replaced by a sudden fascination with the floor.
Order more or less restored, Mark then turned his attention back to his son –
just in time to see a gleeful smirk wisely vanish from his face.
"I'm waiting…" he went on, snapping his gloves again as an extra incentive.
When a meaningful glare to his left failed, unsurprisingly, to prompt any response, Steve sighed and, with obvious reluctance, resigned himself to his Fate.
"Well, you know how Jesse's forever pestering me to teach him self defence to…
well, you know, just in case Susan gets a little too frisky…"
"Yeah, that's… hey…!" came the inevitable, highly indignant response as Jesse glared furiously up at him. "Now that was downright mean…!"
"Aw, come on, Jess… you're forever saying I'm the big brother you never had…"
Now it was Steve's turn to look insufferably smug as he shrugged his shoulders.
"Look on my being mean to you as being a big brother privilege…"
"Oh yeah…? And how would you like to look on the business end of an endoscope ?
With no anaesthetic…?" Jesse hissed furiously back at him.
With two pillows nearby, the result was inevitable. Feathers, literally, flew.
While thoroughly enjoying the entertainment, Mark knew it would have to end soon, or he'd have one hell of a hernia.
"Okay, boys, that's enough…" he said at last, clapping his hands to get their attention.
When that had no effect whatsoever, he sighed and tried good old plan B instead.
"Will you two kids be QUIET…!"
Startled by that final bellow, Steve and Jesse broke off from their spell of pillow warfare and stared at him with twinned looks of puzzled innocence.
"Aw, dad, we're just kidding around…" Steve replied, in more or less genuine penitence.
"Yeah, Mark, think of your blood pressure…" Jesse agreed, somewhat less so – finding it suddenly necessary to resume that study of the treatment room floor.
"You were saying, Steve…?" Mark went on, fighting to keep his face straight as
Jesse raised his head just enough to risk a tentative smile from under his fringe.
Few people, least of all himself, were entirely immune to that melting, little boy look.
Grinning also, for pretty much the same reason, Steve took up the story yet again.
"Well, I figured the best thing to do would be to start with the basics…" he explained,
casting his friend a fondly rueful glance before he went on, "But Jesse being Jesse…
well, needless to say, he wanted to get right down to the nitty gritty…"
"Aw, come on, Steve, that was kids stuff you were showing me…" Jesse complained,
plaintively defensive as he looked up at his friend. "Besides, being flung around like a sack of wheat wasn't nearly as much fun for me as it seemed to be for you…"
Now it was Steve's turn to roll his eyes despairingly heavenward while his father, unable to contain it any longer, was now almost crying with laughter.
"Jesse…" he said at last, placing a brotherly hand on the young doctor's shoulder,
"The whole idea of being flung round like a sack of wheat, as you so eloquently put it, was to teach you how to fall without hurting yourself…"
"Oh, really…?" Jesse retorted, clearly far from convinced as he muttered peevishly,
"And the fact you were laughing yourself silly at the time had nothing to do with it…"
"Absolutely nothing…" Steve agreed, with a smoothness politicians would die for.
The smugness soon faded, however, as Jesse suddenly grinned sweetly up at him.
"So who's laughing now, hoppy…?" he asked, cheekily wiggling his eyebrows.
"Yes, Steve…" Mark agreed, with that same overstated innocence as he added mildly,
"Just how did you end up with a shin displaying all the colours of the rainbow and…"
"A minor lateral sprain of the right ankle's lower transcural ligament…" Jesse cut in, all bright eyed dedication to his craft.
Steve, however, was rather less impressed with such an astute diagnosis.
"You're, um, sure that explanation was detailed enough, Jess…?" he asked mildly –
a patiently indulging smile ridding the jibe of any real offence.
Jesse glared at him. Or, at least, tried to. It was, after all, pretty tricky to be miffed at someone when you were enjoying the same joke.
Mark was enjoying it too, fondly shaking his head as he examined his son's ankle.
"Detailed or otherwise, Jesse, that's a perfect diagnosis…" he said at last,
allowing Jesse his moment of glory before pursuing his so far unanswered question.
"Now, for an extra Brownie point, will you please tell me what happened…?"
Again the exchange of slightly awkward glances between the two combatants –
and boy, was that floor ever being studied…
"Well, I guess… um… well, I guess I kinda got carried away…" Jesse admitted,
totally serious now as he cast his friend a sheepish, genuinely apologetic smile.
As Steve winked back at him to show there were no hard feelings, Mark just stared.
"You, Jess…?" he finally asked, careful not to let Jesse mistake his surprise for anger. All joking aside, Steve and Jesse were remarkably close – more so than most brothers. Hurting Steve, however unintentionally, would have upset Jesse enough as it was, without him making it worse.
As so often happened, Steve Sloan's thoughts were following those of his father –
all earlier bickering cast aside as he slipped a reassuring arm around Jesse's shoulders.
"I think our Jesse may have overdone the Cheerios this morning…" he said dryly – winking at his just as amused father as Jesse's face turned several shades of scarlet.
"Either that, or he's been watching way too much Buffy…" his father chuckled –
relieved to see Jesse's earlier unease finally give way to a sheepishly rueful smile.
"She could slay me anytime…" he sighed, lost in a wistful daydream of slayage
and so oblivious to the broad grins that were being exchanged over his head.
"Join the queue, buddy…" Steve retorted, unable to resist teasing his lovesick friend.
"Though after today, you could probably join the cast as a stunt advisor…"
"Yes, we still haven't got around to that…" Mark agreed with a meaningful smile.
With Jesse now too embarrassed to reply, it was left to Steve to do so instead.
"Well, it was really my fault, dad…" he said at last, shrugging his shoulders.
"I told Jesse to give me his best shot, so he… well, he just kinda did…"
"Really…?" Mark stared at him, intrigued, before turning his attention to Jesse –
still not entirely sure how his strapping, six foot plus son had come out second best against the much slighter young doctor.
Then again, he thought wryly, Goliath had no doubt felt the same way about David – and look what happened to him…
Jesse, too, seemed able to read his thoughts (what a terrifying prospect that was…)
as he now met the elder doctor's quizzical eyes with his familiar quirky grin.
"Steve was teaching me how to get out of a head-lock…" he explained at last, thinking for a moment before shrugging his shoulders. "So I kicked him in the shins, waited for him to reach down to rub it, then grabbed his hand and flipped him…"
"And very effectively too…" Steve cut in, casting Jesse a ruefully admiring wink.
"Apparently so…" his father agreed, frowning as he finished strapping Steve's ankle.
"And Jess flipped you hard enough to do that…?"
Evidently not, if his son's sudden fascination with the flooring was anything to go by.
Fortunately for Steve, he knew he had the ever resourceful Jesse to…
"Oh no, that happened when Steve tripped out of the car…"
…make his embarrassment complete.
"Thanks, bud…" he sighed, pointedly ignoring his father's roar of helpless laughter –
finding it impossible not to do the same as Jesse realised his little faux pas and grinned contritely back at him.
"Well, however it happened, there's no serious harm done…" Mark said at last,
still laughing at the expression on Jesse's face as he helped his son to his feet.
"Now I suggest you let Jesse drive you home and…"
"Rice…" Jesse cut in, all eagerness to please as he jumped down to stand beside him.
"Rice…" Steve echoed, casting his friend a look normally used for insane criminals.
"I've got an ankle the size of a football and you want to go for a takeout…?"
"No, Steve, I mean R-I-C-E…" Jesse spelt out, trading a wry grin with Sloan senior.
"Rest, ice, compression and elevation… that's how you treat a sprained ankle…"
As Steve continued to stare at him in deep suspicion, the grin impishly widened.
"Though now you mention it, I am kinda peckish…"
"So what else is new…?" Steve shot back, smiling though as he watched Jesse
drop to his heels to give his friend's ankle his own typically thorough check over.
His ankle was feeling a lot easier now, certainly enough for him to walk unaided.
But if Jesse was that anxious to help him, then… well, who was he to object…?
So when Jesse stood upright again, Steve took full advantage of it.
Draping a companionable arm around his happily ignorant friend's shoulders,
he then winked cheerily at his makeshift crutch and nodded towards the door.
"You're buying…" he declared, a raised eyebrow leaving little room for argument.
Knowing when he was beaten, not to mention being well and truly hoodwinked,
Jesse simply rolled his eyes.
"So what else is new…?" he sighed, neatly copying Steve's earlier insult.
To Mark's enjoyment, those insults continued as patient and doctor moved away.
"And no taking corners on two wheels, like you did coming in…"
"Oh yeah, so says the rally freak… and there is nothing wrong with my driving…"
"Yeah, nothing that some decent lessons wouldn't cure…"
"Is that an offer to teach me…?"
"After today's little fiasco…? Read my lips, Jesse… N-O…"
"Look, I said I was sorry…"
"Yeah, in between laughing your head off…"
"Yeah, don't you just hate it when that happens…? And quit leaning so hard…!"
"Sorry, buddy… or should I say Buffy…?"
"Yeah, bite me…" A pause, then, "That's a figure of speech, Steve, not an invite…"
They were still at it when Amanda appeared – her confusion only increasing when, instead of seeing the concern she'd expected, she saw Mark helpless with laughter.
"Mark, wasn't that…? I mean, did I just see Steve limp by with Jesse…?" she asked, adding before he could reply, "What happened, is he alright…?"
"He's fine, Amanda – and I'll tell you all about it over coffee…" Mark assured her –
allowing himself one last chuckle as he watched his 'boys' bicker their way outside.
"Kids…" he sighed, fondly shaking his head as he followed Amanda to the lounge.
"Kids… who'd have them…?"