Would the Real Steve McGarrett Please Stand Up by lantean_drift
Title: Would the Real Steve McGarrett Please Stand Up
Author: lantean_drift
Pairing: Steve/Danno
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 5000 plus change.
Summary: Written for the After Holidays Prompt Fest. The prompt - ‘A furious (and armed) man runs into the 5-0 headquarters and demands to know who Steve McGarrett is. Danny immediately answers ‘Me’.’
Betas: The wonderful bluespirit_star. Thank you, as always, Hummingbird.
Disclaimer: Not mine. So totally not mine. *weeps*
Danny swiped his hand over his face and pushed open the door to Steve’s office. Steve raised his head and threw his pen on the desk, leaning back in his chair as Danny walked towards him. He loved that - he really loved the way Steve uncurled from his paperwork and opened up for him, his whole body carelessly on display. Today, he looked tired. ‘Weary’ was a good word for the way Steve McGarrett was looking right now. Hell, all of them, the whole team had had a heavy week but it was Steve that had been hit the hardest. Three homicides and a kid determined that the only acceptable resolution to his situation was Suicide By Cop. Kidnapping, drug smuggling and murder - that ‘kid’ had been a nasty piece of work, sure, but Danny knew that didn’t always count for much when it was your bullet that put him down and the dead eyes of a twenty four year old stared sightlessly up at you.
And Steve looked wrecked.
Danny stepped into the space between Steve’s knees and leaned back against the edge of his desk. “So, on a scale of one to ten, how tired are you right now?”
Steve sat up a little straighter. “I’m good. Do we have another job?”
“No, we do not. I was merely going to suggest you take off and I’ll wait for Chin and Kono to get back and then meet you at home.” It was testament to just how tired Steve was when he allowed himself to look tempted.
“I can’t. I’m expecting a call from the Governor - and I should be here when Kono and Chin get in.”
Danny sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Would you just come here?” He pulled at Steve’s shoulder and Steve obligingly rolled his chair close enough that he could get his arms around Danny’s waist. Danny wrapped one arm across Steve’s shoulders and used his other hand to tug on Steve’s hair, guiding his head to rest against Danny’s chest. He curled around him, deliberately creating a barrier between his very own Navy SEAL and the rest of the world.
“Danno.”
“Take your call and then go home, okay? I’ll buzz you when they get in so you can satisfy your inner mother hen and count heads from the comfort of your own home. You’ll have an hour, maybe two, before I come home and do filthy, filthy, things to you, until you forget everything but my name and the word ‘more’.” Danny pressed a kiss to Steve’s hair and idly stroked his ear with his thumb.
Steve huffed a very tired laugh. “That sounds...perfect, actually.”
Steve lifted his head and Danny bent down further to kiss him softly. “Okay, so you need to stay and grovel for the amount of destruction and mayhem we’ve caused this week, let the Governor kick your ass but then you go home, okay? And when I get in I will kiss said beautiful ass better.”
Steve laughed and stood up, pulling Danny into his arms and kissing him properly. “Why, Detective Williams, I never knew you cared - ”
“I do care, I care a great deal about that ass - and every other part of you too.”
Steve kissed him again. “Thanks. Uh, you too.”
Danny ran his thumb along Steve’s jaw and sighed theatrically. “You’re so emotionally stunted.”
“What? I am not! I just said I care about you too, how is that ‘emotionally stunted’?”
“What you said was ‘uh, you too’ - ”
“You are the biggest pain in my ass,” Steve said frankly. “Of course, I care about you, Danno. I care about you so much it fucking terrifies me even on a good day.”
“Whoa, babe. Back it up, I know that, okay? I know you do. I was messing with you, that’s all.”
“Fuck. I know. Sorry - long day. Long week,” Steve sighed.
Danny caught Steve’s face in his cupped hand and pulled him in for another kiss. “I get it.”
The phone rang and Steve glared at it accusingly.
“Take it, then go home,” Danny said, swiping a quick kiss over Steve’s mouth before he stepped back.
“Could you - ?” Steve nodded at the window and Danny got it. Close the blinds so he could have his privacy as he grovelled.
Danny grinned. “You got it. Find me before you go,” he added quickly as he drew the blinds and moved to the door.
“I will,” Steve promised. “Thanks, Danno. Five-Oh, McGarrett speaking. Yes, good afternoon, Governor.”
Danny slipped out with a wave and pulled the door closed behind him.
~*~
Danny sighed as he pushed the cooler for another paper cone of water. Hell of a week. Job done though. Kono and Chin were down at the morgue with Max tying up the last of the paperwork on the three unfortunate victims that crossed the Bad Guy de Jour and wound up very dead. Steve was in his office, no doubt multi-tasking between listening to the Governor and piling his paperwork into neat little bundles that he would then dump on Danny’s desk and marvel at the way it always magically returned to his office completed and ready for him to sign.
Danny grinned and glanced over his shoulder to the office at the far end of the corridor; door was still closed. Definitely still on the phone. The Governor was probably explaining that ‘Full immunity and means’ didn’t actually mean ‘free to blow shit up when you feel like it’. Except to Steve McGarrett it did - and it always would.
A shout from the lobby rudely interrupted his thoughts. Male voice, clearly distressed. Danny dumped his water in the trash and fought the urge to sigh as he pushed through the glass doors and into the hallway that lead to the open foyer. He swiped a hand over his face; not even Friday evenings were sacred any more - and he’d been so close to getting Steve home.
A guy pushed through the doors, bringing him into the same corridor as Danny. He was agitated, moving quickly, his face lined with sweat and his one hand was tugging on his unkempt hair. In the other hand he had a gun.
“Hey,” Danny called, calm but unyielding as he mentally cursed himself for unclipping his own gun and locking it in his office when they wrapped up this evening. “Put the gun down. You can’t come in here armed; put it down on the floor.”
“Fuck you,” the guy shouted. “I’ll come in here armed if I damn well please. I’m looking for a Steven McGarrett. I got some business with him. Where is he? You know him? Who’s Steven McGarrett?”
Danny swallowed, this guy was barely tracking, his eyes were glazed with fury and who the fuck knew what else. There was a look of total desperation that Danny had seen before - desperation like this had an infinite variety of depth and scope but this was one of the truly dangerous ones. It was one of those looks that said ‘I’ll jump before I let you take me’ or ‘the bitch had it coming’ or, Danny’s most prominent and recurring nightmare footage, ‘my kids will die with me before I let them go with you’. Desperate, dangerous and armed; worst combination out there.
Danny thought of Steve, sitting in his office, phone pressed to one ear, shattered and distracted and unprepared for this guy’s madness. Danny took a breath; his only concern now was stopping this situation as quickly as possible.
“Me. I am,” he said.
~*~
“You’re McGarrett?”
“Yep. Uh, how can I help?” Danny winced. Not his smoothest move.
“You were a Navy SEAL?”
“Huh, you know about me, do you? Yep. SEALS, baby. 5th Division.” That probably wasn’t strictly accurate. ‘5th Division’ was the name of the Little League team he’d played in as a kid. The name apparently had something to with the number of times their coaches had collectively pleaded the Fifth between them and, for god’s sake, focus Daniel. The guy with the gun wants to shoot you in the face because he thinks you’re your partner - hardly the time for reminiscing.
“You now head this Five-Oh task force I’m hearing all about?”
“Yeah, sure. Can I help you with something? Why is it you’re looking for me - uh, me specifically?”
Danny winced. So, definitely not Smooth Dog then.
“M’ gonna kill you.”
No kidding. “See, I just knew you were going to say that - could you tell me why? Maybe we could work something out.” Danny glanced back over his shoulder, a couple of glass doors between him and Steve. Not a lot else. Fuck. Not certain whether he wanted Steve to stay put and stay quiet or come out here guns blazing. Danny tried to stall a little more. “How about you tell me your name?”
“Sudi. My name is Christopher Sudi.”
“What did...uh, I ever do to you, Christopher Sudi?” Danny asked quietly.
“What did you do to me? What did you do? I’ll tell you what you did, you son of a bitch - you killed my cousin. He was my cousin and my friend and you shot him with your little task force buddies and now I’m going to repay the favour.” Sudi waved the gun in Danny’s face. He pushed the sweaty hair from his eyes and Danny could see the sheer anger and deranged passion that was making Sudi tremble.
“H’okay, okay. I don’t - your cousin, he have a name?”
“Vin - Vincent.”
“Vincent Carz?” Danny asked, knowing the answer but dreading it anyway.
“Yeah. You remember now, do you? He was my family, man. My only family, you fucker.”
“You know, without wanting to antagonise you any further, I gotta tell you, your cousin wasn’t the greatest of guys, okay? I’m sorry that we had to do what we did, I truly am, but your cousin killed three guys and he turned his weapon on us. We gave him the opportunity to give himself up and come with us - he wouldn’t take it.”
Sudi’s face twisted in fury and he stalked closer, the gun pressed with shaky, unstable force to Danny’s forehead.
“You bastard, of course he wasn’t going to come with you, he wasn’t crazy, brah,” he hissed.
Danny didn’t waste another second. He grabbed Sudi’s wrist and tried to twist. Sudi kicked out, a lucky shot that impacted with Danny’s knee and he went down with a sudden sharp flare of pain. Then Sudi brought the gun down, belting it against Danny’s temple and splitting the skin.
“Fuck.” Danny dropped to his hands and tried to breathe as the world spun and blackness threatened.
“Is that him?” Sudi whispered, his nose pressed to the glass door. He was looking through to their Situation Room where Chin’s shiny screens were still displaying pictures from the case - including images of one Vincent Carz going about his shady business. The picture on the far left was the morgue mug shot that Max had sent over not an hour ago.
“Is it? Is that my cousin? Get up.” Vincent reached down and grabbed Danny by his shirt collar.
Danny couldn’t get his feet under him, he was dizzy and disorientated; pain like a fucking hot spark was jagging through his head and there was blood in his eye. He stumbled and tried to move as Sudi dragged him, choking, through two sets of glass doors and dumped him on the floor in the Sit-Room.
Oh man, this was not his best day ever. Danny tried to breathe slow, regular breaths designed to quell the nausea. Or they would be if they worked at all, damn it. He risked a glance at the window that separated this room from Steve’s office and saw the blinds were still closed. There was no way that Steve hadn’t heard Sudi - unless the Governor still hadn’t given up. Okay, so Sudi hadn’t really been shouting, but he wasn’t exactly quiet while trying to smash Danny’s head in.
As if answering Danny’s thoughts, the door between Steve’s office and the Sit-Room swung open and Steve wandered out.
“Danno? What’s all the noise - what the hell? What’s going on here?” Steve took in the gun, the crazy eyes, the fury and the shaking and put his hands out in the universal gesture for ‘relax, we mean you no harm’. He tried to take a step towards Danny but Sudi shook the gun at him, his sweaty hands loose and slippery on the trigger.
“I will shoot you. I will shoot you if you move, man.”
Steve stopped and nodded. “Okay, I get that, I hear you - no moving - but that’s my partner see, I need to know how badly he’s hurt. Danno?”
“Who is Danno?” Sudi asked, his head tilted and his face twitching, betraying how out of control he truly was right now.
“I am,” Danny said, fighting the way his stomach lurched sickeningly. “Nickname.”
“No, no, no. No nicknames. No nicknames!” Sudi shouted, the gun swinging around as he desperately aimed it at Steve and back again to Danny. Steve started moving carefully, obviously intent on getting between Danny and the gun. The fucking idiot.
“Okay,” Steve agreed. “No nicknames, okay.” Another step towards Danny. “He’s Daniel. Daniel. No nicknames.”
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck, Danny was a dead man.
“Daniel? He’s not - don’t move. I said stay where you are!” Sudi pointed the gun at Steve. There was sweat pouring down his face. He squeezed his eyes shut, blinking as if to try and clear them, and Danny saw Steve tense, his whole body coiling ready to leap. Sudi opened his eyes again and looked at Steve coolly. He tilted his head one way and then the other before twitching his chin up. His eyes narrowed and he pinned Steve with an unsettling glare. “His name is Daniel?” The glare followed the gun as he focused back on Danny. “You lied - you fucking lied to me, man?”
And damn it, there was no way this could end well. Danny couldn’t think, couldn’t get his brain to focus on anything other than the throbbing in his temple, the slightly sticky warmth of the blood that was seeping down the side of his eye and over his cheekbone. That and the fact that Steve had just come in and blown the whole damn thing, of course. Now they were going to be shot by some poor bastard who’d been handed one shit card after another until life had finally broken him down.
“All right,” Steve was saying. “All right. Calm down. Why don’t you tell me why you’re here and what you need - come on, tell me. Maybe I can help. You got a name?”
“Christopher. Christopher Sudi.”
“Yeah, Christopher. Okay. Wanna tell me why you’re here, Christopher? Because that’s my partner you’ve taken hostage and left bleeding on the floor so things aren’t looking too good for you right now. Maybe if you tell me what’s going on we can figure out a way to end this without the situation escalating any further.”
Danny groaned. He knew what Sudi was going to ask next and the whole thing was going to go to hell when he did - because Steve would answer and then they’d both be bleeding on the floor. “No,”
Danny moaned.
Steve stepped towards him and even through the fug of pain and god damn dizziness, Danny could tell the move had been pure instinct.
“Don’t fucking move!”
“I’ve got to check on my partner. He has a head wound and he’s losing blood. He’s a cop; you know how hard they come down on guys who injure cops? Let me go to him. The better we look after him now, the better it’ll be for you in the long run. Let me just - ”
“I said stay where you are, jackass. He’s a fucking liar and it won’t make any difference to me because I have no ‘long run’. I don’t care if he bleeds out and dies.”
“I do,” Steve said quietly. “He’s my partner.”
“I don’t care if he’s your damn mother - just don’t move or I’ll shoot you both, starting with him.”
“Okay, okay, you’re in charge. Just tell me what you want,” Steve said calmly, backing up a step.
“What I want?” Sudi’s voice was shaking as badly as his hands and Danny could see the crazy building behind his eyes; hear the fury building in his voice. “What I want is Steven - fucking - McGarrett. Who is Steven McGarrett?”
Danny tried so hard to tell Steve not to open his dumb mouth for once, to please god just let it go, just this one damn time. Steve’s eyes found his and though the rest of the office was blurred, hell, the rest of the world was out of focus; Danny had no problem reading the look on Steve’s face. The look that clearly said, ‘Danno - what did you do?’
Steve took a step forward, planted himself firmly between Sudi and Danny’s slumped position on the floor and looked him square in the eye. “Me. I am.”
“That’s exactly what he said.” Sudi waved the gun in Steve’s face but made a fatal mistake in taking his eyes off him to glare at Danny. Steve grabbed the gun and tried to push it out of Sudi’s hand. The wiry little bastard managed to get an elbow into Steve’s sternum and a good punch under his chin and Steve stumbled backwards.
“He’s fucking strong, right?” Danny felt the urge to point out. He wasn’t convinced the words had actually formed a coherent sentence though and was trying to puzzle it out when the incomprehensible happened - Steve went down.
“Fuck,” Steve rolled and tried to get back to his feet but the mere seconds it took were enough for Sudi to get the gun retrained on him.
“Stay there.”
Steve sagged back onto his knees and glared at Sudi. “What are you on? Huh? You take something? You’re jazzed on some damn thing.”
“Why? Because I took you down? Because I put your ass on the floor? You’re not all that, man? You’re not the hero you think you are, are you? You’re just a weak-ass bastard. I’m actually disappointed.” Sudi gave a wheezing hiss of a laugh and pressed the gun to Steve’s forehead.
Danny pushed himself up onto his knees. His head spun like a tilt-a-whirl and he was pretty sure he was either going to puke on his shoes or get shot by a mad man. Either way this probably wouldn’t end well. That didn’t stop him from pushing to his feet and stumbling forward. “Stop it, man. Just put the gun down, we can figure this out.”
“Jeezus, Danno. Sit down before you fall over,” Steve muttered.
“Can it, babe - or do you want those to be your last words? ‘Cause I gotta tell you, as last words go, those suck, my friend.”
“Danny! Would you please just - ”
“No, I won’t ‘just,’ Steven - ”
“Shut the fuck up, both of you.” Sudi swung the gun backwards and forwards between the two of them.
“I need you to put that down,” Danny said, in what he hoped was a calm and measured tone. His head was killing him and, quite frankly, he wasn’t entirely sure what was going on anymore. “You could take someone’s eye out the way you’re waving it around.”
“That’s funny,” Sudi grinned. He laughed. Paused for a second then laughed again - and screw Celine Dion on a big boat, that laugh was now number one on the list of Fucking Scary Things that Danny Never Wanted to Hear Again. Ever.
“You’re lucky I like you, Dan-iel,” Sudi grinned, stringing the name out like a taunt. Danny counted it as a win when Sudi stepped back to keep them both in his sights. It was less of a win when his knee gave out and his legs trembled. His head gave a violent lurch forward without the rest of his body and he was vaguely aware that the audible panting for breath was coming from him.
“Danny?” Steve’s voice. Worried - and god, Danny couldn’t resist that voice. He decided the best course of action was to join his partner on the floor and managed one stumbling step before he was falling.
Instead of the explosion of pain he was expecting Danny was caught by gentle hands that took most of the impact and lowered him to the floor. “You’re a prince,” he told Steve as he curled in on himself.
“Let me look at your head,” Steve said, quietly.
“Get off me, it’s fine,” Danny argued and tried to knock Steve’s hands away from his face. “Quit groping me when we’re being held hostage - what have I told you about that?”
“Shh.” Steve was wriggling and sliding his arms out of his shirt.
“Can’t you stay dressed for five minutes?” At least he had a tee shirt on underneath this time.
“Shut up, Danno. Here.” He pressed the balled up cotton to Danny’s temple and held it in place, his other hand slipped into his hair and caressed the back of Danny’s head with gentle fingers.
Danny swallowed against the lump in his throat. “I think I’m gonna be sick.”
“Do not throw up in this office. Chin will never forgive you if his equipment smells like puke.”
Danny groaned. “Please stop talking now, Steven.”
Steve grinned but the movement of his fingers took a smoother, more soothing path.
“Both of you need to stop talking now,” Sudi shouted. “Stand the fuck up,” he demanded, waving the gun at Steve. “Stand up, stand up.”
“Hold this,” Steve said calmly, taking Danny’s hand and pressing it firmly to the shirt to keep it in place. “You gonna be okay?” he asked quietly.
“I’m good,” Danny croaked. “Go do your Super-SEAL gig, babe.”
Steve ran his fingers across Danny’s neck one last time and then stood up.
“You’re Steven McGarrett?” Sudi asked, like he was some kind of official executioner.
“You know it,” Steve answered.
“You shot and killed Vincent Carz?”
Steve rubbed his thumb across his brow. “Oh man, he was, what? Your friend? Brother?”
Danny didn’t think it was just his head injury that made Steve sound genuinely sorry.
“Cousin,” Sudi spat. “Whole family. You take mine, I take yours.”
Danny had just enough time to think of Grace as the gun swung towards him and he was certain he was a dead man.
“No!” Steve was moving, barrelling into Sudi as a shot rang out and the glass shattered in the window of Steve’s office. Danny was still miraculously bullet hole free and pushed himself to his feet just as Steve kicked the gun out of Sudi’s hand.
Sudi howled and aimed a punch that knocked Steve’s head back, followed by a kick to the ribs that took his breath. Danny’s brain finally engaged and he managed to step up and land a punch that knocked Sudi to the floor and gave Steve time to round on him. When Sudi came up the gun was back in his hand.
Two shots fired within a second of each other and Danny’s world shrank to the sight of Steve McGarrett hitting the ground.
~*~
Danny looked up, a second window had blown out behind Sudi and Chin and Kono were standing there in the corridor, like a couple of beautiful guardian angels - angels with a huge fuck-off rifle in Chin’s case.
“Steve.” Danny turned, barely aware of Kono coming into the room and pushing past him to secure Sudi’s weapon. “Steve.”
Danny dropped to his knees next to his partner and reached out, running his hands over his chest and neck and head, frantically searching for the hole the blood was coming from. Blood. Blood? There was no blood.
“Steve? Are you even fucking hit, you stupid bastard? Steven?”
Steve’s eyes popped open and he whistled. “That was a close one.”
“Nothing ‘close’ about it,” Danny growled. “I’m about to finish you off myself. You think this is funny? I thought he’d shot you, you inconsiderate - I have a head wound, it’s bleeding! My head hurts so much I can’t fucking see and you think it’s funny to tumble to the floor and make me think you’re dead. What the hell, man?”
“Danny. Danny.” Steve grabbed his flailing hands and held them together between his own. “Do you see me laughing? I just ducked, partner. I hit the deck because otherwise he’d have shot me. I just...ducked.”
“You fucker, I saw you go down,” Danny whispered and let Steve sit up. Steve rolled up onto his knees and shuffled forward. When he had Danny’s face in his hands, he steadied them both with one foot on the floor and took the gauze pad that Kono was holding out to him. He pressed it to Danny’s temple and pulled him gently in until his head was against the warmth of Steve’s shoulder.
“This one’s going to be just fine in time for his trial,” Chin said, holding another gauze pad, with much less tenderness, to Sudi’s shoulder.
“EMTs are on their way,” Kono said.
“Good shot,” Steve said, nodding at Sudi. “Thanks - both of you.”
“No worries, brah.” Chin shrugged. He hauled Sudi up and walked him to the door. “I’ll take this dick outside and send someone in to you when they get here.”
“Thanks,” Steve said again. Chin waved him off and dragged a whimpering and pathetic Sudi out of the door.
“Who was he?” Kono asked.
“Christopher Sudi,” Danny answered from against Steve’s neck. “He was Vincent Carz’ cousin. Came in to settle the score.”
“Which reminds me,” Steve said, his voice seriously pissy all of a sudden. “You do anything that stupid again, Danno, and I’ll have you shipped back to the Mainland.”
“You promise?”
“I’m fucking serious.” Steve tugged Danny tighter against him and the only reason, the only reason Danny didn’t roll his eyes was because it would have hurt too damn much.
“I know you are, babe.” Danny patted Steve’s arm consolingly. He gave himself a moment to revel in the feel of soft lips pressing gently against his skin, his hair, before he grinned. “You do realise you’re kissing my head right now don’t you?”
Steve paused for a second but didn’t actually stop. Ah, he hadn’t realised then.
“I don’t mind, of course, but perhaps you should check you’re not making Kono uncomfortable?”
Kono looked at them and shrugged. “Doesn’t bother me in the slightest; carry on.” She smiled and, holy fuck, the whole sunny state of Hawaii had nothing on that smile. Danny grinned back and winced when it made his head hurt.
Steve took it as permission to lean down and catch Danny’s mouth in a gentle kiss. “Now where the hell are those EMTs?”
Danny groaned. “Oh, play nice, Steven.”
“I’ll go and check,” Kono offered quickly. She’d clearly learned her subtlety skills at the feet of Commander McGarrett - in that she had none. She gave Danny a wink as she passed and hopped through the empty frame of their once-window with a muttered ‘cool’.
“You’re a bad influence on her,” Danny complained, once she’d cleared the corridor and wouldn’t be able to hear him.
“Whatever,” Steve snorted.
Danny straightened up a bit, pulling away from Steve’s shoulder and twisting to face him.
“You should keep this on - here - ” Steve followed his movements with the gauze pad.
Danny got his hand between them and reached up to run his fingers through Steve’s hair and down the side of his face. He leaned in and kissed him, soft and undemanding, and about all he was capable of right now. When they were done, he pressed their foreheads together; Steve still awkwardly holding the pad against Danny’s temple with his customary stubbornness.
“This was not a good end to the week,” Danny said on a drawn out sigh.
“No,” Steve agreed. “But it could have been a lot worse.”
“Yes, it could.” Danny let his fingers toy with the hair just above Steve’s ear. He didn’t resist when he was pulled into another kiss.
“We should get up,” Danny said finally. “At least try and pretend we’re not a couple of unprofessional goofballs when this place starts swarming with more emergency services.”
“Okay,” Steve agreed and kissed him again. “Okay. Come on. You know the worst part about all of this?”
“What would that be?” Danny asked, mostly concentrating on getting to his feet in the least painful way possible.
“I’m going to have to requisition two new windows after the Governor just spent an hour chewing me out about not having the proper care and respect for Government property.”
“That’s the worst part?” Danny asked, incredulous as Steve nodded solemnly back. “That? Not - say - my bloody, broken head? Or the fact that tonight, I’m booting your ass onto the couch for that?”
“Aw, you wouldn’t,” Steve said, having the audacity to look wounded.
“Watch me, jackass.”
“But I was going to spend all night making you feel better - and I can’t do that from the couch.”
Danny sniffed and slowly softened his glare. “I supposed I could be convinced to let you do that.” He lifted the gauze from his head to check the blood flow. Steve covered Danny’s fingers with his own and pushed it back into place. Danny was filled with such a burning tenderness that it made him dizzy all over again. “My head hurts,” he pointed out.
“I know,” Steve said, his hands as soft as his voice.
“So I’m going to need you to get down here and kiss me.”
“I can do that,” Steve said, so close that his lips gently caught and tugged Danny’s mouth with each word.
Danny kissed him. Hard.
.xx.
Author: lantean_drift
Pairing: Steve/Danno
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 5000 plus change.
Summary: Written for the After Holidays Prompt Fest. The prompt - ‘A furious (and armed) man runs into the 5-0 headquarters and demands to know who Steve McGarrett is. Danny immediately answers ‘Me’.’
Betas: The wonderful bluespirit_star. Thank you, as always, Hummingbird.
Disclaimer: Not mine. So totally not mine. *weeps*
Danny swiped his hand over his face and pushed open the door to Steve’s office. Steve raised his head and threw his pen on the desk, leaning back in his chair as Danny walked towards him. He loved that - he really loved the way Steve uncurled from his paperwork and opened up for him, his whole body carelessly on display. Today, he looked tired. ‘Weary’ was a good word for the way Steve McGarrett was looking right now. Hell, all of them, the whole team had had a heavy week but it was Steve that had been hit the hardest. Three homicides and a kid determined that the only acceptable resolution to his situation was Suicide By Cop. Kidnapping, drug smuggling and murder - that ‘kid’ had been a nasty piece of work, sure, but Danny knew that didn’t always count for much when it was your bullet that put him down and the dead eyes of a twenty four year old stared sightlessly up at you.
And Steve looked wrecked.
Danny stepped into the space between Steve’s knees and leaned back against the edge of his desk. “So, on a scale of one to ten, how tired are you right now?”
Steve sat up a little straighter. “I’m good. Do we have another job?”
“No, we do not. I was merely going to suggest you take off and I’ll wait for Chin and Kono to get back and then meet you at home.” It was testament to just how tired Steve was when he allowed himself to look tempted.
“I can’t. I’m expecting a call from the Governor - and I should be here when Kono and Chin get in.”
Danny sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Would you just come here?” He pulled at Steve’s shoulder and Steve obligingly rolled his chair close enough that he could get his arms around Danny’s waist. Danny wrapped one arm across Steve’s shoulders and used his other hand to tug on Steve’s hair, guiding his head to rest against Danny’s chest. He curled around him, deliberately creating a barrier between his very own Navy SEAL and the rest of the world.
“Danno.”
“Take your call and then go home, okay? I’ll buzz you when they get in so you can satisfy your inner mother hen and count heads from the comfort of your own home. You’ll have an hour, maybe two, before I come home and do filthy, filthy, things to you, until you forget everything but my name and the word ‘more’.” Danny pressed a kiss to Steve’s hair and idly stroked his ear with his thumb.
Steve huffed a very tired laugh. “That sounds...perfect, actually.”
Steve lifted his head and Danny bent down further to kiss him softly. “Okay, so you need to stay and grovel for the amount of destruction and mayhem we’ve caused this week, let the Governor kick your ass but then you go home, okay? And when I get in I will kiss said beautiful ass better.”
Steve laughed and stood up, pulling Danny into his arms and kissing him properly. “Why, Detective Williams, I never knew you cared - ”
“I do care, I care a great deal about that ass - and every other part of you too.”
Steve kissed him again. “Thanks. Uh, you too.”
Danny ran his thumb along Steve’s jaw and sighed theatrically. “You’re so emotionally stunted.”
“What? I am not! I just said I care about you too, how is that ‘emotionally stunted’?”
“What you said was ‘uh, you too’ - ”
“You are the biggest pain in my ass,” Steve said frankly. “Of course, I care about you, Danno. I care about you so much it fucking terrifies me even on a good day.”
“Whoa, babe. Back it up, I know that, okay? I know you do. I was messing with you, that’s all.”
“Fuck. I know. Sorry - long day. Long week,” Steve sighed.
Danny caught Steve’s face in his cupped hand and pulled him in for another kiss. “I get it.”
The phone rang and Steve glared at it accusingly.
“Take it, then go home,” Danny said, swiping a quick kiss over Steve’s mouth before he stepped back.
“Could you - ?” Steve nodded at the window and Danny got it. Close the blinds so he could have his privacy as he grovelled.
Danny grinned. “You got it. Find me before you go,” he added quickly as he drew the blinds and moved to the door.
“I will,” Steve promised. “Thanks, Danno. Five-Oh, McGarrett speaking. Yes, good afternoon, Governor.”
Danny slipped out with a wave and pulled the door closed behind him.
~*~
Danny sighed as he pushed the cooler for another paper cone of water. Hell of a week. Job done though. Kono and Chin were down at the morgue with Max tying up the last of the paperwork on the three unfortunate victims that crossed the Bad Guy de Jour and wound up very dead. Steve was in his office, no doubt multi-tasking between listening to the Governor and piling his paperwork into neat little bundles that he would then dump on Danny’s desk and marvel at the way it always magically returned to his office completed and ready for him to sign.
Danny grinned and glanced over his shoulder to the office at the far end of the corridor; door was still closed. Definitely still on the phone. The Governor was probably explaining that ‘Full immunity and means’ didn’t actually mean ‘free to blow shit up when you feel like it’. Except to Steve McGarrett it did - and it always would.
A shout from the lobby rudely interrupted his thoughts. Male voice, clearly distressed. Danny dumped his water in the trash and fought the urge to sigh as he pushed through the glass doors and into the hallway that lead to the open foyer. He swiped a hand over his face; not even Friday evenings were sacred any more - and he’d been so close to getting Steve home.
A guy pushed through the doors, bringing him into the same corridor as Danny. He was agitated, moving quickly, his face lined with sweat and his one hand was tugging on his unkempt hair. In the other hand he had a gun.
“Hey,” Danny called, calm but unyielding as he mentally cursed himself for unclipping his own gun and locking it in his office when they wrapped up this evening. “Put the gun down. You can’t come in here armed; put it down on the floor.”
“Fuck you,” the guy shouted. “I’ll come in here armed if I damn well please. I’m looking for a Steven McGarrett. I got some business with him. Where is he? You know him? Who’s Steven McGarrett?”
Danny swallowed, this guy was barely tracking, his eyes were glazed with fury and who the fuck knew what else. There was a look of total desperation that Danny had seen before - desperation like this had an infinite variety of depth and scope but this was one of the truly dangerous ones. It was one of those looks that said ‘I’ll jump before I let you take me’ or ‘the bitch had it coming’ or, Danny’s most prominent and recurring nightmare footage, ‘my kids will die with me before I let them go with you’. Desperate, dangerous and armed; worst combination out there.
Danny thought of Steve, sitting in his office, phone pressed to one ear, shattered and distracted and unprepared for this guy’s madness. Danny took a breath; his only concern now was stopping this situation as quickly as possible.
“Me. I am,” he said.
~*~
“You’re McGarrett?”
“Yep. Uh, how can I help?” Danny winced. Not his smoothest move.
“You were a Navy SEAL?”
“Huh, you know about me, do you? Yep. SEALS, baby. 5th Division.” That probably wasn’t strictly accurate. ‘5th Division’ was the name of the Little League team he’d played in as a kid. The name apparently had something to with the number of times their coaches had collectively pleaded the Fifth between them and, for god’s sake, focus Daniel. The guy with the gun wants to shoot you in the face because he thinks you’re your partner - hardly the time for reminiscing.
“You now head this Five-Oh task force I’m hearing all about?”
“Yeah, sure. Can I help you with something? Why is it you’re looking for me - uh, me specifically?”
Danny winced. So, definitely not Smooth Dog then.
“M’ gonna kill you.”
No kidding. “See, I just knew you were going to say that - could you tell me why? Maybe we could work something out.” Danny glanced back over his shoulder, a couple of glass doors between him and Steve. Not a lot else. Fuck. Not certain whether he wanted Steve to stay put and stay quiet or come out here guns blazing. Danny tried to stall a little more. “How about you tell me your name?”
“Sudi. My name is Christopher Sudi.”
“What did...uh, I ever do to you, Christopher Sudi?” Danny asked quietly.
“What did you do to me? What did you do? I’ll tell you what you did, you son of a bitch - you killed my cousin. He was my cousin and my friend and you shot him with your little task force buddies and now I’m going to repay the favour.” Sudi waved the gun in Danny’s face. He pushed the sweaty hair from his eyes and Danny could see the sheer anger and deranged passion that was making Sudi tremble.
“H’okay, okay. I don’t - your cousin, he have a name?”
“Vin - Vincent.”
“Vincent Carz?” Danny asked, knowing the answer but dreading it anyway.
“Yeah. You remember now, do you? He was my family, man. My only family, you fucker.”
“You know, without wanting to antagonise you any further, I gotta tell you, your cousin wasn’t the greatest of guys, okay? I’m sorry that we had to do what we did, I truly am, but your cousin killed three guys and he turned his weapon on us. We gave him the opportunity to give himself up and come with us - he wouldn’t take it.”
Sudi’s face twisted in fury and he stalked closer, the gun pressed with shaky, unstable force to Danny’s forehead.
“You bastard, of course he wasn’t going to come with you, he wasn’t crazy, brah,” he hissed.
Danny didn’t waste another second. He grabbed Sudi’s wrist and tried to twist. Sudi kicked out, a lucky shot that impacted with Danny’s knee and he went down with a sudden sharp flare of pain. Then Sudi brought the gun down, belting it against Danny’s temple and splitting the skin.
“Fuck.” Danny dropped to his hands and tried to breathe as the world spun and blackness threatened.
“Is that him?” Sudi whispered, his nose pressed to the glass door. He was looking through to their Situation Room where Chin’s shiny screens were still displaying pictures from the case - including images of one Vincent Carz going about his shady business. The picture on the far left was the morgue mug shot that Max had sent over not an hour ago.
“Is it? Is that my cousin? Get up.” Vincent reached down and grabbed Danny by his shirt collar.
Danny couldn’t get his feet under him, he was dizzy and disorientated; pain like a fucking hot spark was jagging through his head and there was blood in his eye. He stumbled and tried to move as Sudi dragged him, choking, through two sets of glass doors and dumped him on the floor in the Sit-Room.
Oh man, this was not his best day ever. Danny tried to breathe slow, regular breaths designed to quell the nausea. Or they would be if they worked at all, damn it. He risked a glance at the window that separated this room from Steve’s office and saw the blinds were still closed. There was no way that Steve hadn’t heard Sudi - unless the Governor still hadn’t given up. Okay, so Sudi hadn’t really been shouting, but he wasn’t exactly quiet while trying to smash Danny’s head in.
As if answering Danny’s thoughts, the door between Steve’s office and the Sit-Room swung open and Steve wandered out.
“Danno? What’s all the noise - what the hell? What’s going on here?” Steve took in the gun, the crazy eyes, the fury and the shaking and put his hands out in the universal gesture for ‘relax, we mean you no harm’. He tried to take a step towards Danny but Sudi shook the gun at him, his sweaty hands loose and slippery on the trigger.
“I will shoot you. I will shoot you if you move, man.”
Steve stopped and nodded. “Okay, I get that, I hear you - no moving - but that’s my partner see, I need to know how badly he’s hurt. Danno?”
“Who is Danno?” Sudi asked, his head tilted and his face twitching, betraying how out of control he truly was right now.
“I am,” Danny said, fighting the way his stomach lurched sickeningly. “Nickname.”
“No, no, no. No nicknames. No nicknames!” Sudi shouted, the gun swinging around as he desperately aimed it at Steve and back again to Danny. Steve started moving carefully, obviously intent on getting between Danny and the gun. The fucking idiot.
“Okay,” Steve agreed. “No nicknames, okay.” Another step towards Danny. “He’s Daniel. Daniel. No nicknames.”
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck, Danny was a dead man.
“Daniel? He’s not - don’t move. I said stay where you are!” Sudi pointed the gun at Steve. There was sweat pouring down his face. He squeezed his eyes shut, blinking as if to try and clear them, and Danny saw Steve tense, his whole body coiling ready to leap. Sudi opened his eyes again and looked at Steve coolly. He tilted his head one way and then the other before twitching his chin up. His eyes narrowed and he pinned Steve with an unsettling glare. “His name is Daniel?” The glare followed the gun as he focused back on Danny. “You lied - you fucking lied to me, man?”
And damn it, there was no way this could end well. Danny couldn’t think, couldn’t get his brain to focus on anything other than the throbbing in his temple, the slightly sticky warmth of the blood that was seeping down the side of his eye and over his cheekbone. That and the fact that Steve had just come in and blown the whole damn thing, of course. Now they were going to be shot by some poor bastard who’d been handed one shit card after another until life had finally broken him down.
“All right,” Steve was saying. “All right. Calm down. Why don’t you tell me why you’re here and what you need - come on, tell me. Maybe I can help. You got a name?”
“Christopher. Christopher Sudi.”
“Yeah, Christopher. Okay. Wanna tell me why you’re here, Christopher? Because that’s my partner you’ve taken hostage and left bleeding on the floor so things aren’t looking too good for you right now. Maybe if you tell me what’s going on we can figure out a way to end this without the situation escalating any further.”
Danny groaned. He knew what Sudi was going to ask next and the whole thing was going to go to hell when he did - because Steve would answer and then they’d both be bleeding on the floor. “No,”
Danny moaned.
Steve stepped towards him and even through the fug of pain and god damn dizziness, Danny could tell the move had been pure instinct.
“Don’t fucking move!”
“I’ve got to check on my partner. He has a head wound and he’s losing blood. He’s a cop; you know how hard they come down on guys who injure cops? Let me go to him. The better we look after him now, the better it’ll be for you in the long run. Let me just - ”
“I said stay where you are, jackass. He’s a fucking liar and it won’t make any difference to me because I have no ‘long run’. I don’t care if he bleeds out and dies.”
“I do,” Steve said quietly. “He’s my partner.”
“I don’t care if he’s your damn mother - just don’t move or I’ll shoot you both, starting with him.”
“Okay, okay, you’re in charge. Just tell me what you want,” Steve said calmly, backing up a step.
“What I want?” Sudi’s voice was shaking as badly as his hands and Danny could see the crazy building behind his eyes; hear the fury building in his voice. “What I want is Steven - fucking - McGarrett. Who is Steven McGarrett?”
Danny tried so hard to tell Steve not to open his dumb mouth for once, to please god just let it go, just this one damn time. Steve’s eyes found his and though the rest of the office was blurred, hell, the rest of the world was out of focus; Danny had no problem reading the look on Steve’s face. The look that clearly said, ‘Danno - what did you do?’
Steve took a step forward, planted himself firmly between Sudi and Danny’s slumped position on the floor and looked him square in the eye. “Me. I am.”
“That’s exactly what he said.” Sudi waved the gun in Steve’s face but made a fatal mistake in taking his eyes off him to glare at Danny. Steve grabbed the gun and tried to push it out of Sudi’s hand. The wiry little bastard managed to get an elbow into Steve’s sternum and a good punch under his chin and Steve stumbled backwards.
“He’s fucking strong, right?” Danny felt the urge to point out. He wasn’t convinced the words had actually formed a coherent sentence though and was trying to puzzle it out when the incomprehensible happened - Steve went down.
“Fuck,” Steve rolled and tried to get back to his feet but the mere seconds it took were enough for Sudi to get the gun retrained on him.
“Stay there.”
Steve sagged back onto his knees and glared at Sudi. “What are you on? Huh? You take something? You’re jazzed on some damn thing.”
“Why? Because I took you down? Because I put your ass on the floor? You’re not all that, man? You’re not the hero you think you are, are you? You’re just a weak-ass bastard. I’m actually disappointed.” Sudi gave a wheezing hiss of a laugh and pressed the gun to Steve’s forehead.
Danny pushed himself up onto his knees. His head spun like a tilt-a-whirl and he was pretty sure he was either going to puke on his shoes or get shot by a mad man. Either way this probably wouldn’t end well. That didn’t stop him from pushing to his feet and stumbling forward. “Stop it, man. Just put the gun down, we can figure this out.”
“Jeezus, Danno. Sit down before you fall over,” Steve muttered.
“Can it, babe - or do you want those to be your last words? ‘Cause I gotta tell you, as last words go, those suck, my friend.”
“Danny! Would you please just - ”
“No, I won’t ‘just,’ Steven - ”
“Shut the fuck up, both of you.” Sudi swung the gun backwards and forwards between the two of them.
“I need you to put that down,” Danny said, in what he hoped was a calm and measured tone. His head was killing him and, quite frankly, he wasn’t entirely sure what was going on anymore. “You could take someone’s eye out the way you’re waving it around.”
“That’s funny,” Sudi grinned. He laughed. Paused for a second then laughed again - and screw Celine Dion on a big boat, that laugh was now number one on the list of Fucking Scary Things that Danny Never Wanted to Hear Again. Ever.
“You’re lucky I like you, Dan-iel,” Sudi grinned, stringing the name out like a taunt. Danny counted it as a win when Sudi stepped back to keep them both in his sights. It was less of a win when his knee gave out and his legs trembled. His head gave a violent lurch forward without the rest of his body and he was vaguely aware that the audible panting for breath was coming from him.
“Danny?” Steve’s voice. Worried - and god, Danny couldn’t resist that voice. He decided the best course of action was to join his partner on the floor and managed one stumbling step before he was falling.
Instead of the explosion of pain he was expecting Danny was caught by gentle hands that took most of the impact and lowered him to the floor. “You’re a prince,” he told Steve as he curled in on himself.
“Let me look at your head,” Steve said, quietly.
“Get off me, it’s fine,” Danny argued and tried to knock Steve’s hands away from his face. “Quit groping me when we’re being held hostage - what have I told you about that?”
“Shh.” Steve was wriggling and sliding his arms out of his shirt.
“Can’t you stay dressed for five minutes?” At least he had a tee shirt on underneath this time.
“Shut up, Danno. Here.” He pressed the balled up cotton to Danny’s temple and held it in place, his other hand slipped into his hair and caressed the back of Danny’s head with gentle fingers.
Danny swallowed against the lump in his throat. “I think I’m gonna be sick.”
“Do not throw up in this office. Chin will never forgive you if his equipment smells like puke.”
Danny groaned. “Please stop talking now, Steven.”
Steve grinned but the movement of his fingers took a smoother, more soothing path.
“Both of you need to stop talking now,” Sudi shouted. “Stand the fuck up,” he demanded, waving the gun at Steve. “Stand up, stand up.”
“Hold this,” Steve said calmly, taking Danny’s hand and pressing it firmly to the shirt to keep it in place. “You gonna be okay?” he asked quietly.
“I’m good,” Danny croaked. “Go do your Super-SEAL gig, babe.”
Steve ran his fingers across Danny’s neck one last time and then stood up.
“You’re Steven McGarrett?” Sudi asked, like he was some kind of official executioner.
“You know it,” Steve answered.
“You shot and killed Vincent Carz?”
Steve rubbed his thumb across his brow. “Oh man, he was, what? Your friend? Brother?”
Danny didn’t think it was just his head injury that made Steve sound genuinely sorry.
“Cousin,” Sudi spat. “Whole family. You take mine, I take yours.”
Danny had just enough time to think of Grace as the gun swung towards him and he was certain he was a dead man.
“No!” Steve was moving, barrelling into Sudi as a shot rang out and the glass shattered in the window of Steve’s office. Danny was still miraculously bullet hole free and pushed himself to his feet just as Steve kicked the gun out of Sudi’s hand.
Sudi howled and aimed a punch that knocked Steve’s head back, followed by a kick to the ribs that took his breath. Danny’s brain finally engaged and he managed to step up and land a punch that knocked Sudi to the floor and gave Steve time to round on him. When Sudi came up the gun was back in his hand.
Two shots fired within a second of each other and Danny’s world shrank to the sight of Steve McGarrett hitting the ground.
~*~
Danny looked up, a second window had blown out behind Sudi and Chin and Kono were standing there in the corridor, like a couple of beautiful guardian angels - angels with a huge fuck-off rifle in Chin’s case.
“Steve.” Danny turned, barely aware of Kono coming into the room and pushing past him to secure Sudi’s weapon. “Steve.”
Danny dropped to his knees next to his partner and reached out, running his hands over his chest and neck and head, frantically searching for the hole the blood was coming from. Blood. Blood? There was no blood.
“Steve? Are you even fucking hit, you stupid bastard? Steven?”
Steve’s eyes popped open and he whistled. “That was a close one.”
“Nothing ‘close’ about it,” Danny growled. “I’m about to finish you off myself. You think this is funny? I thought he’d shot you, you inconsiderate - I have a head wound, it’s bleeding! My head hurts so much I can’t fucking see and you think it’s funny to tumble to the floor and make me think you’re dead. What the hell, man?”
“Danny. Danny.” Steve grabbed his flailing hands and held them together between his own. “Do you see me laughing? I just ducked, partner. I hit the deck because otherwise he’d have shot me. I just...ducked.”
“You fucker, I saw you go down,” Danny whispered and let Steve sit up. Steve rolled up onto his knees and shuffled forward. When he had Danny’s face in his hands, he steadied them both with one foot on the floor and took the gauze pad that Kono was holding out to him. He pressed it to Danny’s temple and pulled him gently in until his head was against the warmth of Steve’s shoulder.
“This one’s going to be just fine in time for his trial,” Chin said, holding another gauze pad, with much less tenderness, to Sudi’s shoulder.
“EMTs are on their way,” Kono said.
“Good shot,” Steve said, nodding at Sudi. “Thanks - both of you.”
“No worries, brah.” Chin shrugged. He hauled Sudi up and walked him to the door. “I’ll take this dick outside and send someone in to you when they get here.”
“Thanks,” Steve said again. Chin waved him off and dragged a whimpering and pathetic Sudi out of the door.
“Who was he?” Kono asked.
“Christopher Sudi,” Danny answered from against Steve’s neck. “He was Vincent Carz’ cousin. Came in to settle the score.”
“Which reminds me,” Steve said, his voice seriously pissy all of a sudden. “You do anything that stupid again, Danno, and I’ll have you shipped back to the Mainland.”
“You promise?”
“I’m fucking serious.” Steve tugged Danny tighter against him and the only reason, the only reason Danny didn’t roll his eyes was because it would have hurt too damn much.
“I know you are, babe.” Danny patted Steve’s arm consolingly. He gave himself a moment to revel in the feel of soft lips pressing gently against his skin, his hair, before he grinned. “You do realise you’re kissing my head right now don’t you?”
Steve paused for a second but didn’t actually stop. Ah, he hadn’t realised then.
“I don’t mind, of course, but perhaps you should check you’re not making Kono uncomfortable?”
Kono looked at them and shrugged. “Doesn’t bother me in the slightest; carry on.” She smiled and, holy fuck, the whole sunny state of Hawaii had nothing on that smile. Danny grinned back and winced when it made his head hurt.
Steve took it as permission to lean down and catch Danny’s mouth in a gentle kiss. “Now where the hell are those EMTs?”
Danny groaned. “Oh, play nice, Steven.”
“I’ll go and check,” Kono offered quickly. She’d clearly learned her subtlety skills at the feet of Commander McGarrett - in that she had none. She gave Danny a wink as she passed and hopped through the empty frame of their once-window with a muttered ‘cool’.
“You’re a bad influence on her,” Danny complained, once she’d cleared the corridor and wouldn’t be able to hear him.
“Whatever,” Steve snorted.
Danny straightened up a bit, pulling away from Steve’s shoulder and twisting to face him.
“You should keep this on - here - ” Steve followed his movements with the gauze pad.
Danny got his hand between them and reached up to run his fingers through Steve’s hair and down the side of his face. He leaned in and kissed him, soft and undemanding, and about all he was capable of right now. When they were done, he pressed their foreheads together; Steve still awkwardly holding the pad against Danny’s temple with his customary stubbornness.
“This was not a good end to the week,” Danny said on a drawn out sigh.
“No,” Steve agreed. “But it could have been a lot worse.”
“Yes, it could.” Danny let his fingers toy with the hair just above Steve’s ear. He didn’t resist when he was pulled into another kiss.
“We should get up,” Danny said finally. “At least try and pretend we’re not a couple of unprofessional goofballs when this place starts swarming with more emergency services.”
“Okay,” Steve agreed and kissed him again. “Okay. Come on. You know the worst part about all of this?”
“What would that be?” Danny asked, mostly concentrating on getting to his feet in the least painful way possible.
“I’m going to have to requisition two new windows after the Governor just spent an hour chewing me out about not having the proper care and respect for Government property.”
“That’s the worst part?” Danny asked, incredulous as Steve nodded solemnly back. “That? Not - say - my bloody, broken head? Or the fact that tonight, I’m booting your ass onto the couch for that?”
“Aw, you wouldn’t,” Steve said, having the audacity to look wounded.
“Watch me, jackass.”
“But I was going to spend all night making you feel better - and I can’t do that from the couch.”
Danny sniffed and slowly softened his glare. “I supposed I could be convinced to let you do that.” He lifted the gauze from his head to check the blood flow. Steve covered Danny’s fingers with his own and pushed it back into place. Danny was filled with such a burning tenderness that it made him dizzy all over again. “My head hurts,” he pointed out.
“I know,” Steve said, his hands as soft as his voice.
“So I’m going to need you to get down here and kiss me.”
“I can do that,” Steve said, so close that his lips gently caught and tugged Danny’s mouth with each word.
Danny kissed him. Hard.
.xx.