A/N I surely do fully appreciate the beauty that is Alex O'Loughlin but my weakness is for his partner – I'm a Danny fan. While I do love the Danny angst I also think the H5-0 writers missed an opportunity to give the character a pretty unique twist – I mean, how many cops in successful shows are portrayed as family men. That's sexy too, right? And it doesn't have to mean an end to the other stuff we like. So, anyway, this oneshot is therefore slightly AU and also later (weirdly for me!) kinda fluffy...after the action, of course...Enjoy...
Disclaimer: Don't own them – just playing.
Firsts
Being pulled backwards into a world bright with pain and noise was not how Steve had thought this would go. When he went down he had thought it was for good. Now, heaved from a comforting, protective darkness into the shock of heat and hurt, it was like being re-born. Sunny side up. The flash of that disturbing recognition came at the same instant as a nearby blast sent out a pulse of scorching air that hit like a slap. He heaved in a gulp of it and yelled his anger at the world.
"Danny!"
It didn't come out right.
Struggling to look around, head wobbling and baby weak arms flailing, he found he couldn't fight the rapid reverse momentum across the floor and his boots scrabbled for purchase on the passing concrete. His upper body was jolted and contorted by the swaddling pressure of the kevlar vest, wrenched high up on his chest as he was dragged headfirst past flames eight feet high.
The last time he'd experienced anything like it was in Kuwait when a desert wind, a sluggish parachute release and a burning oilfield had scorched a similar image into his memory.
From his angle now all he could see in his wake was a wall of fire. Boxes burning, packing materials burning, the walls burning. Yellow and red tongues licking up the building, eating up the air. Behind him, in bounced glimpses, he caught the smoke blurred presence of his partner, bent low, left arm hauling, right arm held poised and ready with his weapon as he cast about in all directions.
"Danny!"
What Steve had intended as a cry for his attention came out only as a croaked whisper, strangled by the choking greyness that enshrouded them.
His right pant leg snagged and Danny was brought up short, jerked to a halt, to look back briefly at his dragged burden.
"D-Danny...sto...wha...?"
"Shut up and lay back – we're nearly out..."
"Wha...?
Steve's question got no further than his attempt to right himself, as he raised his hands back awkwardly to grip at Danny's wrist. He lost the hold as soon as they set off again, Danny huffing and coughing and trying to protect his face from the smoke and heat with the crook of an elbow.
It was forced down Steve's throat too, reaching into lungs that felt as though they were stuffed with cotton wool. Tendrils tickled and irritated and he spluttered and choked for air. The action sent a violent firework starburst of bright white pain straight to his head and the hands that had been feebly reaching for Danny fell to his temple instead, until a ninety degree right turn had his body pivoting sharply on his ass and coming to a juddering halt behind a wall of stacked pallets.
"Man...you weigh a tonne," Danny wheezed as he knelt down at his partner's side. "Hey, Steve...you with me? Hey!"
Steve felt a hand on his face and squinted up.
Danny's concerned eyes were scanning him, the smoke smudged, watering gaze drawn to the site of the pounding beat of agony that was driving in his right temple.
"Wha...?"
Steve was having real trouble forming thoughts let alone coherent sentences. Danny couldn't wait.
"Got shot, Babe – but it bounced right off that thick skull of yours." Steve felt the firm pad of Danny's thumb wipe away a trickle of blood from his eye socket. His sight cleared a little, still blurred and swooping in and out of focus, but better. Enough to see Danny glancing around left and right and, somewhere through the buzz saw drilling in his head, Steve registered his partner's Sig was still leading his movements.
"Whe...?"
"Still in the factory," Danny looked back at the flames and up to the roof, ducking slightly at the screaming sound of slipping metal. "Don't know how long it's gonna last, though." Steve's eyes tried to follow where Danny was looking but they wouldn't track and his vision dimmed again at the edges with the movement.
"C'mon, you big lug, let's take a look here..." Danny gripped the front of Steve's vest and lifted him into a sitting position. The change in elevation brought a wave of nausea and he gulped and swallowed convulsively, trying desperately to force it back.
"You gonna puke? Do not puke on me. I mean it, do not puke on me, man." Amidst the rushing hiss that was filling his head, Danny's voice sounded distant and irritated but Steve could still feel his hand on the side of his neck, warm and reassuring and not going anywhere even with the prospect of imminent vomit assault. Steve vaguely remembered just how Danny felt about vomit and did his best to turn his head to the side when his gut roiled again and he spewed breakfast and bile.
"Sor..."
A stutter of gunfire spat up splinters and rattled against the wood behind them. Steve felt and saw every hit in the form of white flashes piercing his brain. Danny's shape moved quickly away from his side and the answering familiar retort of his weapon left Steve gasping in pain and clutching at the side of his head.
The gunfire triggered recollection.
Meth lab. Violent gang. "Oh yeah, looks like we've found the place...Er, Steve, you want to wait?..." Guns. No time, no cover. Gun. Then nothing until this.
Have to move...have to... Steve forced his legs under himself and, using the pallets as support, pushed back and upwards. He thought he was doing well, even though his arms were flailing wildly for purchase, for a weapon, for strength, but then he was tilting and falling and all progress was lost.
Danny spun around from the crouched position he'd adopted at the side of their cover to peer into the billowing smoke and hellish backdrop. His crazy partner was doing a good impression of the little rubber man Gracie had once played with. She'd throw it at the wall to watch it stick, splayed, then drop arm over arm, head over heels in the weirdest of contortions. Tumbling wall crawler, that was it. Similarly, Steve was twisting his long limbs to reach for purchase but he was coming unstuck.
"Woah!" Danny was in his face, his body pressed against his, forearm across his chest and his strength the only thing holding Steve up.
"I c'n do th's..."
"No, you can't."
Steve tried to straighten his legs, they seemed to be holding but then maybe it was something to do with the compact presence in front of him. He swung an uncooperative arm out to force Danny away.
"I gotta..."
"No, we've gotta... And right fucking now." Steve felt Danny's breath on his face and pulled his focus to the blue eyes that were right there.
"I c'n..."
"Really? ...Really, Steve?" Even amidst the fug in Steve's head, Danny sounded testy. He hacked harshly against Steve's front. "You really think you can?" Steve wasn't sure what he meant but was certain he had to move. His barely roused awareness of their situation, of the blaze crackling around them with the added accompaniment of barking gunshots, the tension he could feel oozing from his friend, all nagged at his training to just do something.
He pushed off from the wall, pushed into Danny, who immediately pushed him right back.
"I c'n..."
"Jeez ..." Danny had no time for this. Peering past Steve's shoulder he could see figures darting towards them through the smoke, fleeing the flames but bringing their own threat. Danny's curse turned into another cough. Steve was obstinate at the best of times, with a head injury he was becoming downright combative and they were running out of time.
"Okay, buddy...just you try it...g'ahead."
Danny was a man who enjoyed proving a point. Whether it was in outlining the superiority of New Jersey over Hawaii with the detailed listing of dozens of pizza restaurants and their exact addresses, or the repeated reminders of correct procedure with a triumphant finger point at the relevant sub-section in the police manual, he always knew when he was right and liked to be recognized as such. Now, to that end, he quickly stepped back slightly and released the hold he had on his friend. Without his strength, Steve's legs turned to liquid and he was going down.
"I don't think so..." Danny hoisted him up again, tucked himself into his armpit and hauled his partner's arm over his shoulder, supporting him with a jutted hip and a tight hold on his belt. "C'mon..."
He headed towards the brightness of an open door at the front of the building. Steve tried hard to move his legs, tried to walk, but they couldn't keep up with the pace and dragged sluggishly. His head lolled down and amidst the murmuring he could hear Danny's wheezing as the thickening clouds swirled around them.
The solid splat of rounds hitting the door frame ahead of them forced Danny to duck down but his left hand kept its vice like grip on Steve as he turned back to fire at three men running towards them. Four rounds and they were backing out and Steve felt himself pushed up against the outside wall. He sensed the sun and the freshness of the air and tipped his face upwards to take a clean breath but, like a newborn, he had no strength and his head fell backwards to hit the brick work with a thud that resounded like a wrecking ball inside his brain.
With a hand planted firmly on his partner's chest to stop him going anywhere Danny's attention was momentarily distracted by the bullet that whipped past his face when he heard Steve's gasp and suddenly all one hundred and eighty pounds of him was falling forwards. Bowing under it, Danny growled and took the weight onto his shoulders.
Bent under the sprawling, boneless mass of his partner, he peered out at the open ground ahead of them. Behind them the building was ablaze, the gunmen were only seconds away and the only cover was a row of parked cars fifty meters away.
"Gah!"
He angled himself better, ducked lower and allowed Steve to flop further over, until he was wearing him like a stole.
"Lift with your legs..." he gritted, and pushed up.
Steve groaned but Danny just shrugged him higher.
"Do not puke on me," he ground out as he took the strain.
Now his partner's butt obliterated his view back but Danny swapped his Sig to his left hand, curled his right arm between the scissor of those long legs, and anchored his hold on Steve's arm as it flopped loosely against his chest. His dad had been a fireman and Danny had known this lift all his life but that didn't make it any easier.
Steve knew it too but had never before experienced it like this. His world was thrown upside down. The white flashes of pain inside his head flipped, then melted into one another and became swirls that rotated faster and faster. From the depths of the vortex, the nausea built and returned in a wave and he registered a dull drone of language about as foul as what immediately heaved out of him.
Squinting his eyes open he could only make out a gray blur passing in front of them. Passing beneath them.
"Wha...?"
He struggled to right himself, gripping with his free hand onto the hardness he was pressed against to force himself upright, but his hold was shaken off by the bumpiness of his ride. He found it again and tightened his grip, managing to lift himself up a little.
"D-D-Danny?" he stuttered as jerking movements pressed into his abdomen and forced his breath out in gasps. "Y-y-you ...c-c-carrying m-me...?...D-Danny?"
Danny huffed under his burden and pressed on at a staggering jog. Steve was muttering and moving, sending him further off balance and he winced as his partner grabbed onto his bicep and squeezed, trying to claw himself towards concussed understanding...Dammit, that hurt!...
"Only way, B-babe," he gasped. "And l-let me tell you... you could lose a few pounds...Got to get t-to c-cover...place i-is gonna blow..."
With head hanging down, Steve looked back where they'd come from and hazily registered three figures emerging from the smoke that enveloped the building. They were spluttering and gasping, doubled over at first and whooping in air. Between the sliding landscape and the mosaic flashes of pain and pressure Steve saw them straighten and look straight at him, raising their guns and taking aim.
"D-Danny!"
Even above the thumping of his heart and the gasping of his own heaving breaths, Danny heard the urgency of Steve's warning and cut sharp left then right, zig-zagging towards the vehicles ahead. Bent over with Steve's weight he saw the tiny plumes of dust thrown up at his feet even as he heard the gunshots.
Ten more meters and they'd be there. He pushed on.
A side window shattered ahead of him and a round punched a neat gray circle into the passenger door of the Chevrolet parked closest. His momentum carried him into it too and he slid along its side with more rounds smacking his progress like a diagram.
He rolled around the trunk and dropped to his knees, leaning forward to lower Steve down. With no time to check on his partner, he left him slumped on his side, before pivoting around and raising up to take aim at the gunmen following.
Sound, light and heat hit him in the same instant and he was thrown backwards with the power of the explosion. He didn't see the three figures that were lifted up and scattered by the force, all he saw was the afterimage of a fire ball seared onto his retina.
For a long moment Danny lay stunned and winded by the blast. Fighting to control his breathing, he felt the clamminess of his shirt sticking to his body and then gradually became aware of movement at his side. As debris rained down, he rolled over stiffly and came face to face with Steve McGarrett's bleary dark blue gaze. Pain lined and bloody, his face was a picture of confusion and concern.
"D-Danny...?"
"S'okay," Danny croaked back. "S'okay, Steve...hang on, man..."
Steve's head was pounding and his vision was a blurry red haze but he could sense his partner's presence, feel his firm grip on his hand and hear his familiar confidence and that was all he needed. Wisps of smoke drifted over the ground and twisted their way around the pair as the sounds of sirens penetrated the dull roar of the inferno. It was the accompaniment to Steve's descent into welcome unconsciousness.
5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0
Hearing was the first sense to return.
"How is he?"
The concerned voice floated into Steve's growing awareness but he didn't hear an answer and hung onto the soft darkness a little longer.
"Should we get the doctor?"
Still no answer but Steve recognized his partner's voice now and he had a tone. Danny was worried. Time to show him he could relax, time to show him that despite the mother of all headaches, he was okay.
"Well, try stripping him off and singing to him...It always works for me..."
Steve's eyes flew open at that. In the gloom of the hospital room Danny stood at the window, silhouetted against the paleness of the drawn blinds, his back to Steve and his head tilted to his cell.
Turning as he spoke, his eyes met those of his partner and his face split into a broad smile.
"Ah, Sleeping Beauty awakes..." he was addressing his caller and Steve at the same time. "Gotta go Baby, I'll be there when I can. Give him a kiss for me will you..." Danny grinned at whatever response that got, then closed up his phone to step over to Steve's bedside.
"Joe causing trouble?" Steve asked but his voice was muffled by the oxygen mask over his mouth. Only now registering its presence, he raised a hand to push it off but Danny was quicker and pressed his arm back down.
"Yeah, and now you." He pointed an accusatory finger. "That's got to stay put, man ...smoke inhalation's not good for you, you know."
Steve looked his partner over. He was still in the grime stained clothes from earlier. His face was smeared with black streaks, broken in places by cleaner trails where tears and sweat had dripped along creases and laughter lines and through his blond stubble. The blueness of his eyes was emphasized by their still smoke reddened rims. When he stepped back, his right hand rose to clasp at his left arm and Steve saw the darkness of blood there.
Injured?..."You get hit?" he asked through the mask, his eyes indicating the large blackening patch.
Danny dropped his hand quickly and shook his head. "Nah...nah...s'nothin'..."
Steve sat up a little straighter against the pillows on the raised bed and immediately regretted the movement when his vision blurred and his stomach lurched.
"Ooh no...if you're doing that again, I'm out of here." Danny noted the pinched look on Steve's whitening face and quickly grabbed for a basin to hold it at arms length towards him.
His partner closed his eyes to steady himself. "Oh, thank goodness..." When he opened them again he noted the reason for Danny's relief. A pretty nurse was beside him now holding the basin near his face. He raised a hand to wave her away as the nausea slowly subsided.
"Man, I've had enough of this. You and my son have some sort of puke promise going on, or something? Not only do I have to put up with baby sick on my clothes every day, you have to go and add to it with your own Jackson Pollock. Look at this..." Danny pointed indignantly to a nasty brown stain down the back of what was once a pale blue shirt. The marks extended down his pant leg too.
"See, that there's another good reason to keep that mask on ...Thanks to you, I stink."
Steve cut his glance to the young nurse who was smiling and wrinkling her nose in agreement.
The trip to the hospital seemed like a vague dream of movement and pain, flashes of medics' faces, red and blue lights and needles. And Danny, always Danny. Glancing down at himself he saw he was wearing a standard hospital robe and besides the face mask he had a catheter stuck in his arm. He fingered lightly at the gauze taped onto the right side of his brow and wondered briefly if they'd had to shave any hair to get it to stick. He remembered now what had brought him here, who had brought him here, and turned again to Danny, this time managing to pull down his mask so he could speak.
"You okay?" he rasped.
"Yeah," Danny insisted as he passed him a cup of water, holding the straw so Steve could take a long sip. The coldness felt heavenly against the burnt dryness of his throat. "The meth-heads didn't fare so well – whole lot went up, you remember?"
"You got me out." Steve looked hard into his partner's face and they exchanged a moment of silent acknowledgment, before Danny nodded sharply with a grin.
"Carried your ass out of a burning building, man," he gestured broadly towards his own chest, and raised his brows to the nurse. "Can't get much more heroic than that, right." Bringing his hands to the small of his back he arched backwards in an exaggerated display. "'Course I'm paying for it now...and I've lost another couple of inches thanks to you, ya elephant."
Steve's huffed response was stopped in his throat by a cough that rose up and took hold. Squeezing his eyes together against the pain it caused in his head he felt Danny move to him and lay a hand on his rounded heaving shoulder. The nurse quickly stepped forwards too to place the mask back over his face but not before Steve got a distressing whiff of his partner.
"You're right," he gasped through the plastic. "You reek, man."
"All you, Brah...that's all you," Danny muttered, patting Steve reassuringly.
The door opened to reveal a young male doctor and a white-dressed orderly.
"Ah, Commander McGarrett, glad to see you with us again," the doctor greeted. He made his introductions while prizing Steve's eyelids open and shining a bright torch into each eye. The light cut back into Steve's brain and he hissed at the intrusion.
"...you were lucky it just creased your scalp ...pretty nasty concussion...you're going to need to stay in overnight for observation...taking you down soon for another CT scan..." The words blurred along with his vision but came back into sharp focus when the doctor's attention apparently switched to his partner.
"Now shall we go see to that arm of yours, Detective?" Steve saw Danny nod briefly before leaning over him to get into his narrowed field of vision.
"Okay, so I'm gonna go have this ...looked at," he gestured vaguely at his bloody sleeve then down at himself. "Then I better go clean up...nobody queuing up to wash me down here, unlike the unseemly female scrum that gathered around you in the ER." He raised his brows and quirked a knowing smile at the young nurse who blushed and turned away to fiddle with equipment that seemed to be working just fine.
"After your scan, they want you to rest up. They've got you on the good stuff, so, much as I'd love to sit and watch you sleep whilst you snore like a buffalo, I guess I'll forego the entertainment and head back to see the other Dude in my life who might just give me a nervous breakdown with his antics." He raised a hand in farewell. "Kono and Chin will be in later once they've finished processing what's left of the factory. I'll come back tomorrow, okay?"
He waited for a sleepy nod from Steve and with that, Danny turned and followed the doctor out, once more gripping at the dark stain on his bicep.
The nurse murmured something about a top up of painkillers and Steve felt himself drifting off while still wondering about how badly his partner was really hurt and what had caused the blood on his sleeve when the material of his blue work shirt wasn't even broken.
5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0
"Uncle Steve!"
Grace flew at him from the top step of the wooden verandah at the front of Danny's home. He caught her and would have swung her as normal but for the nagging reminder of dull pain in his head. Instead, he leaned over her to envelop her in a hug that was returned with a tight squeeze around his waist. He straightened slowly and tweaked her braids, nodding at her white lei and bright red floral sun dress.
"Going somewhere special?"
"I'm going to a party."
"Well, you look beautiful, Gracie." She beamed up at him, eyes bright and dimples wide. "Hey, your dad in?"
"In back," she nodded. "Looking after Joey."
She escorted him up the steps and inside. Steve took a moment to breath in the welcoming atmosphere. Since Rachel had come back into his partner's life, since their second baby was born, they'd been living in the rented, single story wood frame house. It was a step down in luxury for Rachel, several steps up for Danny, and perfect for their restored family.
Rachel was moving about quickly, gathering up a towel, car keys and a brightly wrapped gift. Tucking back the long strands of hair that had fallen from a loosely tied knot she smiled at him, and Steve was reminded again why Danny had always been so utterly smitten. He breathed in her warm scent when she stepped up to greet him with a kiss.
"Hey, we didn't know you were coming over. I'm just about to drop Grace off, then I'll be back and we can have some lunch. How's the head...you didn't drive did you?"
"Took a cab," he assured her quickly. "I just wanted to call by and check on Danny...you know, his arm..." It sounded a little weak to him now that he was here.
Steve wasn't sure what to tell Rachel about the worry that had nagged at him for the past week, despite Danny's absolute denial that anything was wrong with him. He'd caught tiny snippets of conversations with nurses about damage and infection and seen the way his friend still held himself somewhat carefully.
"His arm?" Distracted, Rachel first looked puzzled and then smiled again. "Oh..." She was ushering her fidgeting daughter out but nodded towards the yard. "Just follow the sound of screaming."
Their new baby suffered from colic, which meant they all suffered with him. Danny regaled his colleagues with the nightly misery and they all sympathized as the dark circles under his eyes got more pronounced. But he didn't complain. Apart from the lack of sleep, Steve had never seen his partner so happy as he had been in the past eight months, he positively glowed with it.
Sure enough, the sound of Joe's crying could be heard as soon as he stepped out and for a moment Steve wondered if his distantly aching head would actually be able to stand being any nearer, but it sounded as though maybe it was petering out a little. As the cries lessened the sound of Danny singing could be heard between the quietening hiccups.
At the bottom of the grass, under the shade of tall fronded bamboo and gum trees, Danny was pacing and bopping with his son held tight up against him, a tiny vision in a NJ Jackals team shirt. Danny himself was barefoot and dressed in board shorts and a sleeveless white NJPD gym shirt, he looked tanned and fit.
Steve paused to watch the pair for a moment and as Danny turned, his eye was drawn to his left arm, held protectively around Joe while he drummed a steady beat with his fingers on his back. Steve broke into a smile and moved forwards just as his partner finished his own rendition of The River.
"Kinda depressing isn't it, not exactly a lullaby?"
Danny peered down at the baby's head, trying to judge if the crying was really done. A couple more gentle jiggles and he turned a satisfied smile towards his partner.
"Hey, it works, don't knock it...They don't call him The Boss for nothing y'know." He waited for Steve to comment further but the former SEAL was just standing grinning at him. "What?"
"Did I imagine it, or just a month or so ago, did you, or did you not, launch into some attack on me for wearing a wife beater?" Steve nodded to Danny's own cut-away shirt. "And yet here you are..."
"It wasn't the shirt...it was never the shirt. It was the name...what you called it." He shifted the baby who's quiet grizzles were turning to gurgles now. "I mean who in their right mind would want to wear a shirt called a wife beater...What's wrong with vest?...A vest.. Nothing about knocking women about, right...I mean, when I was a kid my dad wore these, I wore these, and they were called vests...nothing unsavory in that..."
Steve held up his hand to stop a repeat of the previous long and loud rant over trailer trash trends that he'd endured in the cramped conditions of the Camaro. "If memory serves me right...you said they were the perfect fashion representation of the mental limitations of the terminally tattooed ..."
Steve stared down pointedly at Danny's left bicep. The baby's tiny hand was groping at his father's muscled arm, opening and closing, clasping against the newly painted decoration there.
Danny's gaze followed Steve's and he froze in silence before slowly raising his eyes again with the look of a boy caught out by his dad. Steve couldn't help the loud triumphant laugh that came out, and the baby started at the noise.
Scowling briefly at his friend, Danny swapped his hold to the other side of his chest, then turned his arm towards Steve, nodding ruefully.
"Y'got me!"
Steve stepped up for a closer look and nodded appreciatively. Clearly freshly done, it was about the size of his palm - a strikingly beautiful symmetrical design of Ti leaves, two separate semi-circular arching strands on either side, their delicately curving ends and branching offshoots of buds framing a more solid contemporary representation blooming at the center. Broad, full leaves curled upwards as dark greens blended to lighter and, amidst the twining detail, small but intricate lettering was interwoven to spell out the word Keko in the exact orange and red shades of hawaiian sunsets.
"That's really nice, man." Steve knew from his own body artwork that it would have taken many painful hours to achieve such a beautiful result. He recognized the skill of an expert. "Really nice."
"It's for Grace," Danny explained unnecessarily. "Keko...that's monkey..."
"Yeah, I know..."
"And Ti is supposed to bring good luck..."
"And spiritual power..."Steve finished for him. "You work all that out for yourself?"
"Actually, Gracie helped me – part of her school project on local natural history. But yeah, I did my research...I mean, I'm gonna have to live with it the rest of my life, right?...now that I've joined the the peacock brigade." Joe squeaked and squirmed in his arms, twisting his dark head from side to side as if to get a look at Steve. His eyes were the same blue as Danny's who shushed him quietly and nodded at the wooden loungers. They both sat before he continued.
"Having a new baby in the house, can be tough on the eldest," he explained. "I just wanted to do something for Gracie, to show her how special it is to be the first...how special she is, y'know?"
Steve loved the fact that Danny was never embarrassed to talk about his feelings for his family. The team teased him about it and he always responded with details of every accomplishment and development, his pride there for everyone to see. He grinned to himself at the realization that now he literally wore his heart on his sleeve.
"So I guess dragging me about, then carrying me out of that building didn't do it much good, huh? Took the scabbing off?" He knew plenty about the complications of caring for new ink, and Danny's skin was still reddened and a little raised after its added trauma.
"Man, I thought I was gonna have to have a freaking skin graft after having you grabbing hold of it like that," Danny laughed. "But it's fine. I've had it checked out. It's not finished yet, actually. I'm gonna go back for some deeper color, maybe some blue...I mean, we're in Hawaii, right?...And there's room to add this little slugger on there too later...if Gracie doesn't mind."
Joe was blowing raspberries against his skin now and his dad laughed down at him, unselfconsciously burying his nose in the soft wisps of dark hair and mouthing at the grabbing fingers.
"Well, all the more reason to thank you again for what you did, man." Steve kept his voice light but he was deadly serious in his appreciation of how his partner's actions had saved his life. "Saving me, at the risk of losing your first tat ...I mean, that's really something."
"Yeah, well, Rachel would call it stupid ...so she's not gonna ever know about the whole shoot-out, running for our lives thing, okay?...Just remember, as far as she's concerned, you fell over those ridiculous big booted feet of yours and we just got a little bit too close to a fire, okay?"
Steve nodded his understanding of the delicate handling needed. Being married to a cop, especially one involved with a squad like Five-0, especially one where he was his partner, was not easy. He dropped back against the cushioned chair but Danny was leaning forward now and before he could protest he was passing him his son.
Steve had had little experience with infants before, none at all before Danny's second child was born and he was happy enough to leave it that way. Something so small and vulnerable felt wrong in his hands and he felt a quick tightening of unexpected panic. "Er...n-no...Danny..wait..." It was like handling a grenade that was about to explode.
"Here you go, now you can have a turn carrying something precious around...Oh, and hey, just so you know... That rescue? Me saving you?" He grinned and shook his head as Steve struggled to settle his new charge against him. He reached out to adjust his hold, pressing the little diapered body, so light and warm, closer into the crook of his partner's rigid arms. "You don't remember, but that head wound of yours... You got it when you pushed me out the way."
Steve tore his eyes away from the baby in his arms and looked up to find Danny smiling down at him, clearly enjoying his discomfort.
"I'll go get us a beer."
Joe's rosy mouth pursed as though he was seriously considering his next move, then turned down as he began to grizzle his instinctive uncertainty. Steve jiggled him a little, then again with a touch of desperation, as the grumbling became louder.
"Try singing to him," Danny called back as he strode towards the house. He smiled to himself and resisted turning back when he heard Steve channeling Dr Hook with the first lines of his own tentative version of Sexy Eyes.
"Whatever works, Babe...whatever works..."
End
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