Cargument 10: Tagged

"I really do not think there is any more to say."

"But Danny—"

"Nope. No." Danny watched Steve try to open his mouth three more times. "No—nope—uh-uh. Not happening."

"Why is it you get to talk ad nauseum about everything but I can't even defend myself? I didn't cause the goddamn explosion!" Steve yelled, tenderly touching the bruised ribs on the right side of his body.

"Because there is no defense for you! At all! Like…none!"

Steve licked his teeth and pursed his lips and straightened the arm that was hanging onto the Camaro's steering wheel just by the wrist and sucked his lower lip in through his teeth and narrowed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"None," Danny said, sending the air whooshing from Steve's lungs.

Suddenly Steve jerked the car to the shoulder, what little of it there was, and cut the engine. He took the keys out of the ignition and held them out to Danny. Danny, for his part, registered complete surprise for about thirty seconds before he grabbed the keys from McGarrett's hand. His face turned to a mask of stone, like he was a statue with two bright blue, glittering eyes shooting daggers at his partner.

"Now you give me my keys."

Steve shrugged, and his face made it look like he could care less what happened next.

"What?" Danny asked.

"You won't let me say anything."

"Now he chooses to listen to me," Danny muttered. "Fine. Speak."

"Not your dog."

"Only when you get that goofy grin on your face. Then you remind me of this black lab we had once."

Steve scowled.

"Fine, I'm sorry, okay? I am just so sick and tired of having to scrape pieces of you off the goddamn concrete! Okay? Christ!"

"Pieces of me?" Steve asked, cocking his eye at his partner.

"Yes, pieces of you," Danny said and reached deep into his right-hand pants pocket. He fished around for a moment, then pulled something up. A flash of silver hanging down from Danny's hand caught Steve's eye and his own hand went instinctively to his throat as Danny opened his hand to reveal none other than Steve's dog tags, the broken chain spilling off the side of his palm.

Their eyes met, and the next two minutes probably constituted the most loaded…and yet most silent…cargument they had ever had.

Silently Danny reached out all the way after the two minutes was over, and allowed the tags to spill with a clink into McGarrett's upturned left palm. Quickly Steve pulled one of the tags off the broken chain. He grasped it in his right hand as he nimbly tied the two loose ends of the metal chain together. He lifted it over his head and tucked the lone remaining tag and chain down under his shirt. Then he looked up at Danny.

Danny, who for all their referrals to dogs earlier, somewhat resembled the RCA dog at the moment with his head cocked at Steve like he couldn't figure out where the crazy was coming from this time. Steve gave him a small smile, then reached out, grabbed Danny's wrist and turned his hand so the palm faced up. He placed the second dog tag into that palm and closed Danny's fingers around it.

Not entirely certain of himself, now, Steve just shrugged and smiled sheepishly before turning back to face the front of the car. He heard Danny's keys jingle and watched as Danny leaned forward and left and put them into the ignition, then turned it so the car purred to life.

Steve shot an' Are we okay?' look across at his partner, only to find that Danny was studying the engraved words on Steve's tag. It occurred to him maybe he needed to explain his logic to Danny, but he wasn't sure if he could make his voice work well enough to do it. So he just pulled back onto the road and continued the drive to HQ.

When Danny went by Steve's the next morning to pick him up for work, he was already in the passenger seat before McGarrett made it out of the house. When Steve slid into the driver's seat, he found something draped over the steering wheel. Shutting the door with his left hand, he picked up the long silver chain with his right. From it hung the dog tag he'd given Danny. Steve inspected it for a moment, then turned to look at his partner.

"It's titanium," Danny explained, his voice low and gravelly. "It won't break."

"But I wanted you to keep this one," Steve said, flicking the tag with his finger.

"I thought sailors had to keep their tags on at all times," Danny said. "You have to wear both."

"They wouldn't let you back with me at the hospital," Steve said quietly, thumbing the black soft rubber the dog tag was encased in. "That's why you were so angry yesterday when you picked me up from the hospital, because of that."

"I guess Five-O doesn't mean jack shit when the Administrator's got his panties in a twist," Danny scoffed. "Bastard."

"Well, if you've got this," Steve said, holding the titanium chain and its tag up in the air, "and you show it to them, they'll let you back from now on, even if we're not in Hawaii." Steve shrugged a little. "I changed my Next of Kin notice online after you dropped me off last night. It says my closest family is whoever has one of my dog tags." He chuckled. "I had to get on the phone with them and explain."

"I don't understand," Danny frowned. "Why would you want to give me the same entitlement as fam—"

Danny blushed and Steve ducked his head and chuckled. "Here, take it," he said, handing the whole thing back to Danny. "Just tell me where you got the chain and I'll get one for mine."

Clearing his throat a few times, Danny nodded once, lifted the chain and put it slowly over his head. He then undid his tie and unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt. He flinched a little when the coolness of the chain and tag settled amongst the hair on his chest, and the flushed skin of his neck. He buttoned his shirt, tightened the knot in his tie, and looked over to find Steve staring at every move he made.

And it was all feeling just a little too much like exchanging letter jackets or class rings in high school, truth be told. So Danny did the only thing he could.

"Are you telling me," he said, and the blush stayed in place in spite of the voice that was rapidly rising to rant levels, "that not only do I have to traipse around this godforsaken volcanically heated hellhole sweating like I've been in a sauna for twenty hours solid, but now I have to endure the added torture of metal grating around my tender neck, all because you know you're going to nearly get yourself killed, like, every day from here on out and you want to make sure I can come back to watch you die?"

Steve thought about it for a moment and decided playing along was the best option.

"Well…yeah," Steve said with a nod.

"You are such a prick."

The right side of Steve's mouth arched into a smile as he pulled out of his driveway. Danny just harrumphed. Several times. Loudly.

Steve's smile widened, and stayed that way all the way to HQ.

And if Danny had a huge grin on his face when they got out of the car? Well, Steve wasn't going to be the one to tell anyone why.

Author's Note: I have no clue if you can do what Steve did but I figure since this is fan fiction, I could do whatever I wanted, even if not realistic!