Fluffy Hair and Nosy Bosses
Disclaimer: Nah. Not mine.
A/N I: Thanks to jmlane1966, db1205, GrayLady117, Crawcolady, cargumentluv, tractorlady41, tvj12, OhBuddy66, Guest, Mei2, and Dagger Queen for dropping some reviews!
A/N II: Guest M said something a while back about Danny ranting to Steve and Deeks at the same time and I said "Challenge accepted!" Today is the day my people celebrate thanksgiving, so here's my thanks to you, the readers for sticking with this journey all the way to 50 (!) chapters.
The Rant Dance
He could feel the tires lose their connection to the road. Even though this mind knew that leaning over wouldn't change this new direction, his heart pushed him to try anyway. The movement, in a way, was helpful because as momentum began to fuel itself the vehicle began to roll onto the driver's side. Glass flew as the window broke but physics wasn't done yet. His last thought as roof made contact with pavement was that Danny was going to be pissed.
Danny stared at his partner from where he sat in his chair. He could feel his blood pressure rise, his pulse beginning to race, and his jaw clenching. The words began to pile up behind his sealed lips and they fought for release. He tamped down the feeling as he knew there was no point right now, with Steve…
His phone rang and it distracted him. He looked down at the number and his eyebrows squeezed together. "Hello?"
The muscles in his back tensed as he listened to the other end of the line. Uncharacteristically, he said nothing until the end.
"What." He ground the word between his molars.
"I thought you should know." The woman's voice held a mix of compassion, irritation, and exhaustion.
"I'll take care of it."
"Thank you."
Danny ended the call, placed the phone down on the table beside him, and grabbed the pillow from the other chair. He calmly fluffed it and then smashed it against his face. A muffled explosion of frustration turned the entering nurse around and she hightailed it back to the station. The pillow went back on the chair and Danny picked up his phone. He stretched his face, wiping a hand down the side that caught on whiskers needing a trim. He found the number he was looking for, took a breath, and mashed the call button.
It didn't take long for the call to be picked up and Danny waited long enough to make sure it was the right person before releasing some of the pent-up words. "What. Were. You. Thinking."
Steve's head rolled up off the pillow. "He was getting away."
Danny's eyebrows hit his hairline. "Not you. You I will deal with later."
A cough followed by a groan answered his question on the phone. "I'm fine."
"Clearly you are not." Danny eyed his partner in the bed, Steve's head was back on the pillow and his eyes were closed. "Why aren't you in a hospital?"
"Just some bruising. Ice packs and painkillers." A grunt punctuated his statement. "Hospital was out of Jello."
"Don't move." Danny injected every bit of dad-tone he could into those two words. "And stay on the line." He fished his headphones out of the backpack he'd brought in, plugged them into his phone and jammed one earbud into his ear. He pushed himself out of the chair and stomped up to the bed.
"You."
Steve opened his eyes and shuffled himself upwards. "Am great. Pass me my pants."
Danny sucked in a deep breath through his nose and brought his hands palm to palm. "You are not going anywhere. You are staying in this bed until the doctor clears you through his OWN WILL. There will be no threatening the medical professionals that are going to cure you of your physical ailments, because we all know there's no fixing the ones in your head."
Steve, who still hadn't learned, attempted to interrupt Danny. "I'm…"
"NO ONE who is sane would ATTEMPT to leave a hospital after a vehicular accident."
Deeks' voice filtered through the earbud, "Should I be insulted?"
"Yes." Danny answered firmly.
"What?" Steve looked confused.
"You ran down a golf cart and tackled the driver, from on foot, while he was STILL DRIVING."
Steve got a bit of a grin, "Never done that before." Deeks echoed the sentiment by throwing in "He's got some talent.
"And you celebrate that accomplishment" – the sarcasm was unmistakable – "by catapulting the cart into a pond."
An eye roll met that statement. "How was I supposed to know they stretch wires across them to keep the birds out?" Steve pouted.
Danny conceded with a small smile. "Seeing that cart's hood get sliced like bread was pretty cool." He chuckled and so did Steve.
An intake of breath sounded over the phone line. "Did you get a video?"
"Silence!" Danny yelled. "Regardless. You are not moving from this spot for a medically approved amount of time."
"You're not the boss of me!" was growled at him from Hawaii and sulked from LA. Deeks ended the call on Danny and he pulled out the earphone with a growl. He glared at Steve until he was certain he would heed his directive at least for a few minutes. He stalked out of the room and headed directly to the nurse's station.
"If I could get your attention please?" He schooled his face into a more pleasant look than he was feeling when one of the nurses looked at him and gasped. He tried for a smile but was pretty sure he got to a mild grimace. "Thank you. I would like to request you treat that man" he gestured back towards Steve's room "as a hostile patient."
One of the braver nurses snorted. "Sir, we don't have that kind of power here."
A genuine grin grew across Danny's face. "I guess you're right. But he is a suspect in a case of destruction of property and is therefore remanded into your care until the doctor deems him healthy enough to relocate to the precinct."
The nurse smiled. "That'll work."
Danny walked back with a spring in his step. One problem taken care of, one to go.
Deeks looked over at his phone's display and didn't even bother to press the 'ignore' button. Danny was persistent but Deeks was stubborn. Kensi was pretty steamed with him chasing the suspect without her and Hetty wasn't thrilled by the destruction of one of her cars. Sam and Callen were handling the clean-up so Deeks was left to his own devices. He chose to spend his free time trying to sort out plot lines in daytime soaps and not breathing too deeply. Nell had called to check up on him once and may have been trying again but Danny was hogging his incoming line.
That may have been the reason why, in his painkiller-fogged mind, when he didn't see Danny's name on the phone, he picked up the call.
Big mistake.
"Marty here." Deeks sighed out.
"I can't believe you signed yourself out of the hospital. How can you be so rude to doctors who've spent a decade in school and nurses whose purpose is to care for people? To think you'd be better off on your own. It's maddeningly stupid."
"Mrs. Williams?" Deeks placed the voice almost immediately. "Really, I'm…"
"Of course, when Danny called and told me what had happened, I couldn't believe they just let you go." Deeks was starting to realize where Danny inherited his lung capacity from. "I don't think you should go back to that hospital. I'm going to check with the Mackenzie's – one their daughters is out in California working as a cardiac surgeon. You should get a recommendation from her for a better facility. Better yet, while you're there, get a stress test done. It's never too early to think about the health of your heart."
"…okay, it's just…" Deeks worked in a few words while he listened to Danny's mom scratch out a note.
"I'm going to dig through the freezer. I think there's still some chicken soup in there from the last time Danny was in the hospital. It'll mail just fine, but you'd better keep an eye out for it, especially with the heat you get. I remember when Danny was little and falling out of trees and playing sports. Some days I just didn't know where to stick the ice packs first. His little league football team singlehandedly kept the frozen pea industry in business. Where was I?"
"…a little sore."
"Take care of yourself! I worry about Danny out in Hawaii all by himself with no one but Grace, do you want me to be worrying about you too?"
"No…" Deeks gave a little sigh. "I promise I'll look out for the soup."
"And you won't cut any corners for your recovery?"
"I'll go to all my follow-up appointments."
Danny's mom gave a snort that sounded familiar. "Promises." She sighed. "I have to go. My grandson's trying to climb the light pole again."
Deeks lowered the phone from his ear and stared at it in confusion. Then he got annoyed. He decided to take it out on the source of his annoyance
"You called YOUR MOM?!"
Danny smirked. "Sure, now you want to talk." A bit of steadying breathing came over the line and Danny gave himself a mental pat on the back. Deeks was ignoring his calls so he had enacted Plan B.
"I'm fine, you know. I don't know who called you but I can totally sleep this off tonight and be good to go tomorrow."
Danny's face scrunched up in anger. "Don't even think about it or I. Will. Call. Your. Mother."
A loud gasp followed by a coughing fit bounced over the line. Then, "You wouldn't."
"Bet she doesn't even know." Danny felt a bit better, he'd found Deeks' weak point.
"You found her?" Steve's eyelids open halfway. "I looked everywhere." His eyelids slid closed again.
"You don't understand. She'd…hover." Deeks sounded aghast at Danny's plan. Perfect.
Steve's eyes opened all the way and he shifted in his bed. "Why am I handcuffed to the frame?"
Danny moved the phone away from his mouth. "You're considered a flight risk." He popped the phone back up again "As are you!"
"Y'know who's a flight risk, that guy we were chasing. Better have him cuffed to a solid object." Steve groused.
"We will." Danny flinched.
"Will?" Steve pushed himself off the pillow. "What do you mean 'will'?" He tried to air quote, but with only one hand mobile it looked more like he was trying to do a shadow show.
Danny pushed his fingertips against his forehead. "We had him until we had to rescue you from the goose that was attacking you."
"I drove into a pond to catch him!" Steve's features started to rearrange into his patented aneurysm face.
"Would you rather we let the goose peck you to pieces?" Danny shouted. "Of all the ungrateful…"
A chuckle came over the phone line. "Pleeease tell me you have this on video." Deeks varied between chortling and gasping.
"This is not funny. Do you think it is?" Danny ground out.
Simultaneous "no's" sounded. Danny could see Steve rolling his eyes with his answer and could hear Deeks' rotating as well.
"No more perilous driving especially when there are other options available such as cops in other cars or blocking off escape routes, correct?"
Deeks sighed, "Fine" while Steve responded with, "Agreed".
"Good. Now the only thing that you will do now is rest and recover. No trying to cut the healing process short or circumventing me or medical personnel."
"Okay." Deeks huffed and then said goodbye and hung up. Danny glared at Steve until he begrudgingly agreed.
Danny growled and was about to say something when his computer pinged at him from the other chair. He grabbed it and opened the email from Hetty.
Dear Detective Williams,
I have been attempting to give you a call, but your phone line seems to be exceptionally busy. I know Nell alerted you to Mr. Deeks' accident and subsequent fleeing from the hospital. He will be notified soon that he will not be returning to work under any circumstances until I am satisfied that he has fully recovered. I assure you that he will not evade me.
Please focus on your partner's recovery and know that your friend is being looked after.
Yours sincerely,
Henrietta Lange
Danny narrowed his eyes at the message. He was happy that Hetty was on the whole Deeks problem, but he was also creeped out that she knew about Steve. He rolled his shoulders and tried to shake off the distinct feeling that he was being watched. A light snore came from the bed and Danny looked up to see that Steve had drifted off. The painkillers had done their job. Satisfied that the two patients were going to behave, Danny stepped out to the hall, took a deep breath and called his mom. When he didn't get an answer on the house line, he dialed her cell phone.
"Hi Danny." She sounded tired.
"Hey mom, just wanted to let you know that Steve and Deeks are going to be okay. Steve's handcuffed to the bed until the doctor clears him and Hetty has Deeks under lockdown. Thanks for getting through."
She let out a sigh. "You boys. You know I worry about you. I'm just glad everyone will be okay. Including your nephew."
Danny scrolled back through their conversations and remembered that she was babysitting his sister's kids. "What happened?"
"He gave up climbing the light pole and then fell off the fence and probably broke his arm. Dr. Matlow says hi and requests that you stop telling stories about your childhood when you come and visit."
"Yes mom."
"Because you know, you think that these escapades are funny now, but it wasn't funny back then. You coming into the house with blood pouring out of your nose trying to explain that you gave your helmet to the next door kid so he could play football with you. I don't know how you did that calculation that he needed one and you didn't. I can't believe how much money we have invested in crutches between you and your brother. I could start a medical supply company."
"Mom…"
"Anyway, they're doing some x-rays right now and he's doing okay. Your sister is going to throw a fit. She was so looking forward to warmer weather so the kids could go outside and now this happens. I don't know what…oh, Danny, I have to go. Stay safe."
"Bye." Danny slipped it in as the call ended. He smiled at the phone and loped down the hall to find a coffee. It was going to be one of those nights.
