Chapter Text
Steve wakes suddenly, mind confused, filled with snatches of disjointed, violent dreams. He’s hot, drenched in sweat, tangled in his bedsheets, but that’s not what woke him.
He blinks in the semi-darkness of his bedroom, swallowing thickly with an uncomfortable, horribly nauseous moan. He frees his right hand from the sheets and rubs it over his churning stomach as he curls on his side, swallowing again.
The motion exacerbates the nausea and his stomach clenches. He presses the back of his hand against his mouth trying to it hold back from rebelling. He hiccups and belches, sour liquid flooding the back of his throat, a strong urge to retch building on its heels.
He gulps desperately as he shoves to his feet and stumbles to the bathroom but his stomach is intent on carrying through with its rebellion. He doesn’t quite make it all the way to the toilet in time, the first heave spilling onto the tiled floor of the bathroom but he doesn’t have time to care about the mess, too busy being sick again.
And again. And again.
It’s not that there's all that much to bring up; a little more water, bile, mucus and endless vile belches from the air he keeps swallowing, but it lasts and lasts and lasts, wrenching spasm that crush his stomach and gut to the point he’s afraid he’ll soil himself, till the mucus he’s bringing up turns pink with blood.
“Hey, hey, hey, now, stop this, you gotta relax, babe. You’re makin’ your throat bleed.”
It’s then he notices the gentle hand rubbing his back, the cool cloth on his neck through the wretched misery of sickness.
“Danny,” he manages to mumble, between helpless, painfully empty retches. He wants to tell Danny to go away; he’s ashamed of the mess he’s all but sitting in, of his weakness, of Danny witnessing this. He doesn’t want Danny, or anyone seeing him this vulnerable, this diminished by illness.
“Yeah babe. I’m here. I’m here,” Danny says, running his hand up and down Steve’s back, thumb brushing at the nape of his neck.
The thing is... Another part of him is... so fucking grateful, so glad Danny’s there, so grateful for the small bit of comfort he can have through this, because he feels so fucking awful, so nauseous, tired...
“F... fuck...gh.. h... hate ghuurrgh... this,” he groans on another wrenching, fruitless effort.
“I know. What can I do, huh babe? What can I do?” Danny asks and Steve hates how scared and desperate he sounds, hates he’s doing this to his friend, but he can’t help the half sob he lets escape. It hurts. He’s tired. He would give anything, anything, for all this to just stop and go away, but it won’t. He’s stuck with this, because this was the cost of saving tens of thousands of lives.
He shakes his head, bites his lip, swallows, forces back the urge to throw up long enough to speak. “Nothn’ y’ can... Urrk.. do,” he says roughly, heaving emptily again. He bites his lip harder, drags in a shuddering breath through his nose, and another, and another. Slowly, over long minutes, the nausea recedes.
He collapses back against Danny, shivering with chills, too worn out to hold himself up. He feels something thick and wet sliding under his nose, over his lip, down his chin, to drip onto his shirt. His nose is bleeding again.
“You’re okay, I got ya.” Danny reaches over him, flushes the toilet. “You okay, babe, huh? You okay?” he asks.
Steve shakes his head slowly as more blood drips slowly from his left nostril, because no, he’s not okay. He can’t even pretend he is.
The doc warned him he could have some relapses, some really awful days. So he guesses this is one of them and he just has to get through it; keep himself hydrated as best he can and rest as much as he can. It’s not unlike a stomach virus, he guesses.
He can get through this, but God...
It’s just... He figured he was through the worst of it. He sighs unevenly, muscles spasming all over. Only easy day was yesterday and all that shit. But fuck, right now, he’s not fucking okay.
“You need to go to the hospital?” Danny asks, worry still coloring his voice.
He shakes his head slowly against Danny’s shoulder, tired, dizzy., just... worn out from it all. He wants to sleep, escape the misery of the whole thing. “I’m... gonna be... okay. Just... not now.... S’just... bad day. Like when you get... stomach bug. Feel... like shit. I got... Got... some meds. Liquid... White bottle. In the... cabinet. And the, the... Pink pills,” he mumbles, trying to keep his eyes open through the overwhelming fatigue.
“Okay."
Danny gets to his feet and goes in search of the meds. He finds the sucralfate and Phenergan as Steve rests, huddled in a heap on the floor, one hand still clutching at the rim of toilet bowl, just in case. It helps to keep the room from spinning some too.
He takes both meds and hopes to hell they work. His guts are still churning uncomfortably, and the fever isn't breaking, which means this isn’t over, not yet anyways. HIs body feels heavy, leaden, almost too heavy to move.
“Babe, you feel well enough to shower? You kinda missed and you’re sitting in it.”
Steve sighs dejectedly, fresh nausea curdling in his stomach, awakened by the damp feeling warmth of the vomit seeping into his sweats, the smell of it all around him.
“Fuck. Yeah. In... minute.” He coughs, belches over the toilet, still salivating profusely with renewed nausea. The meds haven’t had time to work yet. He swallows, closes his eyes and exhales carefully, forcing his body to relax.
The dreaded queasiness fades after a minute and he opens his eyes again. Slowly, he lifts a hand to wipe the blood dripping from his nose and lets his hand drop back into his lap, He’s so damn tired... Danny seems to notice the nosebleed and hands him some tissues.
“Here.”
He shakes his head, too weak to take them.
Danny clucks his tongue and holds them for him, wiping off blood, spit, snot and vomit from his lips and chin. “Okay. We'll just wait till you're ready to move, okay?”
“Mm.”
It takes him a while, but he picks himself off the floor and into the shower. He feels like a zombie. He’s slow, tired, dizzy and the nausea doesn’t abate completely. The sucralfate suspension did help with the deep sensation of burning in his esophagus, but the Phenergan didn’t cut it with the nausea.
He doesn’t realize Danny’s cleaned up the whole mess he’s made of the bathroom while he was showering till the man leads him out past the toilet.
“Danny you didn’t... You shouldn’t-” Steve can’t form words, can’t finish what he’s trying to say, suddenly overwhelmingly dizzy and hot. It’s like someone’s dropped a heavy, wet wool blanket over him and spun him around in every direction. He’s either gonna puke, pass out, or both.
“Just shut up, huh? You think this is the first time I clean up puke? I got two kids, Steven. Two. That means at least four stomach bugs a year per kid till age ten, so I’m an expert at puke clean-up.”
“Stop... stop moving,” Steve manages to mutter, shrugging off Danny’s grip to crash to his knees in front of the bowl. He releases a queasy, retching belch over the water, saliva pooling in his mouth as the nausea reaches that critical tipping point.
“Fuck,” he mumbles throatily, “not again.”
So much for the sucralfate and Phenergan helping.
“Damn it, babe,” Danny cusses gently, squeezing his shoulder. “I’m so sorry...”
There is nothing in his stomach to bring up but the meds he took and a few mouthfuls of blood-tinted spit but again, his body is intent on expelling the slightest trace of content.
It’s long minutes of loud, painful, useless dry heaves, then it’s bile and bloody spit again.
After the third round is finished, it’s like he can’t get the smell out of his sinuses or the taste out of his mouth and throat and it’s making things so much worse. He feels like crying, the tears of strain staining his cheeks notwithstanding. He’s so tired of this, so tired, period. He maybe, maybe lets a choked sob escape.
He hasn’t told anyone but he’s felt nauseous all week, barely able to eat or drink anything despite the meds.
“Outside,” he mutters against Danny’s shoulder as he’s helping him back to his bed. “I want... Outside. I wanna go... outside,” he breathes, shivering with fever and exhaustion, his legs trembling under him as he clings to Danny with every ounce of strenght he has left.
“Outside? Are you nuts? You can’t even stand on your own.”
“I need some... fresh air. Can’t stand... the smell. Makes me wanna puke again,” he confesses on a broken whisper. He's so tired of this... feeling weak, ill... He’d do anything to feel like himself again, and sitting out on the chairs with Danny by the ocean, one tiny shred of normalcy... “Danny... please,” he begs.
Danny sighs and shakes his head. “Fine. Okay,” Danny relents. “If it’ll make you feel better.”
It takes half an hour in the end. Danny has to help him get into a clean tee-shirt and sweats, and he has to sit down halfway down the stairs but he feels so much better, sitting outside in the shade, the gentle evening breeze blowing across his skin...
“I got you some more water,” Danny says, somewhere to his right.
“Thanks. Would you...” Steve sighs. He knows what he wants, what he’s craving, what make him feel just a little tiny bit better. “There’s... ginger bread ice cream sandwiches... in the freezer,” he says softly. “Aunt Deb said... She said they helped... after chemo. Because of the ginger. And that if she... If she got sick anyway, at least it didn’t taste so bad... coming up.”
Danny smiles, one of those regretful sad, sad smiles. He nods quietly. “I’ll go get us a couple.”
He comes back with the sandwiches and a blanket. He hands Steve his unwrapped ice cream sandwich and wolfs down his own.
Steve nibbles slowly at his, as it melts in his hands, dripping on his shirt. It soothes his burning throat and it settles in his stomach so he drinks the bottle of water next, in small, measured sips.
He rests his head against the slats on wood of the chair’s back and closes his eyes, the fatigue winning out. He feels the blanket being spread over his body and he smiles a little, as sleep overtakes him.
Danny watches as Steve succumbs to sleep, head lolling to what has to be an uncomfortable angle but other than spread a thin blanket over him, he doesn’t dare disturb him.
He looks... hell, he looks half dead already and Danny doesn’t know what to do with that.
Steve’s ghost pale and it’s clear he’s lost weight in the last couple weeks, since he’s copped out to being sick, to having fucking radiation poisoning. He doesn’t know how often Steve actually gets sick, but he knows it’s been happening a lot since he’s found out about the radiation poisoning, a lot more than Steve lets on.
Steve told him the meds would knock this thing out but... this doesn’t look like it’s working at all.
There’s only one thing Danny can do at the moment and that’s be there to watch over his friend so that’s what he’ll do. He doesn’t care about cleaning vomit, about dragging Steve inside or out if that’s what makes him feel better but... god, he can’t help but think he’s already dying.
For now, the only thing he can realistically do, is wait and watch over Steve while he sleeps. So, Danny pulls out his phone, opens his favourite game and settles in to wait as his partner drools away.
It’s been about an hour when Steve starts to shift in his sleep, head jerking from side to side, moaning softly.
“Babe?” Danny calls out, but Steve doesn’t respond. He seems caught in a nightmare so Danny stands and runs a hand over Steve’s hair, down his cheek, meaning to soothe, but he’s shocked at the heat of the skin underneath his fingers. Steve's fever isn't breaking; it's going up.
“Hey, hey, wake up, buddy,” he says, when Steve frowns and groans, still asleep, still apparently caught in the throes of that nightmare.
Steve doesn’t wake but Danny hears a thick, liquid gurgle coming from his throat and his partner jerks a little.
“Oh fuck!” Danny cusses as watery, bilious vomit suddenly floods out of Steve’s mouth and spills down his chin and down his shirt front and blanket in a wide, dark stain.
Danny slips a hand under Steve’s neck and tilts his head forward, cursing again as more vomit drips out of Steve’s mouth, to run down his chin, the blanket slipping of his lap to the ground. God, the smell is horrendous.
“Steve! Wake up!” he calls out, louder, putting his other arm around Steve’s chest and leaning him further forward so he doesn’t choke if he gets sick again. He does his best to hold Steve’s head up against his chest with his other arm in an awkward hug with the chair in the way and he grimaces as his skin presses against the warm wetness soaking Steve’s shirtfront.
Steve groans raggedly and hot liquid gushes over Danny’s arm but he feels Steve head move against him, like he’s finally waking up.
“Hey, you with me? Babe? Steve? You awake? Steve!”
Steve doesn’t answer him, shuddering against him with another retching groan.
“It’s okay,” Danny says, trying not to let his disgust show as more vomit showers his arm. He can feel the muscles in Steve’s abdomen spasming and contracting harshly under his forearm and he bites out another curse. “Shit, babe, hang in there.”
“Mmgh... D... Danny...” Steve coughs against him, sounding weak and wretched and awful. He might be awake but he’s barely conscious, too out of it to make any real effort not to puke all over himself. Danny’s afraid if he lets him go, he’ll just fall forward out of the chair.
He just keeps holding Steve up through another five minutes of miserable throwing up, talking to him quietly, reassuringly, trying not to freak out. His partner’s still mostly out of it, weak, burning with fever, shaking with chills. When this is over, he’s taking him to the hospital. He’s past caring what Steve wants or says about not needing a doctor. This needs to stop.
Danny can’t imagine how humiliated Steve must feel, covered in sick, drooling and belching bile over Danny’s arm, sounding so wretched and vulnerable, so unlike the man he knows...
Steve is breathing unevenly, shaking and shivering against him but the bout of sickness seems to have passed for now.
“You finished, babe? You feel better?” Danny asks softly, quietly, like he would Charlie. “We’ll let you rest a bit then we gotta go inside and get you cleaned up and changed, and I think we need to get you to a hospital, all right? I think you need maybe something stronger than what you got to stop this, okay? You can’t go on like this.”
Steve doesn’t answer, his breath stuttering strangely. Danny’s about to ask what’s wrong when the weight against him surges and sags suddenly, all of Steve’s muscles going slack.
He’s passed out, Danny realises with a shock.
He swears vociferously as he struggles to hold Steve’s dead weight, heedless of the mess of puke everywhere. He somehow manages to slip him off the chair and lay him on the grass as gently as he can, cursing all the while. He makes sure to place him on his side to protect his airway before pulling out his cell and calling for an ambulance.
Steve can go to hell if he disagrees but to do that, he has to wake up.
So far, he hasn’t even twitched. Fuck. Danny’s the one about to have a heart attack he’s so worried.
He stays by Steve’s side, fingers on his pulse point, trying not to freak at how fast and thready the beat feels under them. He tries not to worry more when Steve doesn’t stir in the twelve minutes it takes the EMTs to show up. He looks gray, almost like on that pl- ... NO. No. He's not going there. Steve isn’t bleeding out. Being sick can drop your blood pressure, he knows that but hell, Steve’s been out for over fifteen minutes by now.
The paramedics start an IV pretty much as soon as they get there, as they listen to Danny’s story about Steve’s illness, the radiation poisoning, the liver transplant... It paints a pretty scary picture.
They load up his partner into the ambulance fast but the guy he sits with in the back is reassuring. He seems to think Steve’s just badly dehydrated, which dropped his blood pressure too low and made him pass out. Not to say it’s entirely harmless but it doesn’t seem quite so bad, only... Steve won’t wake up.
His partner sort of comes to in the ambulance but he’s not all there, not tracking and not responding to questions, which freaks Danny out to no end.
Once they reach the hospital and the docs get a hold of Steve, and after he cleans up Danny’s suddenly got nothing but time and worry on his hands while they treat him.
He has no choice but to let the team know now, and he can’t help but be pissed about Steve leaving him holding the bag on that one.
It doesn’t take long for Chin, Grover and Jerry to show up with plenty of questions, most he doesn’t have the answers to.
It takes over an hour for the doc treating Steve to come and see him with news.
“Severe dehydration and electrolyte imbalances due to excessive and protracted vomiting and exhaustion. He’s managed to pick up what looks like a rotavirus on top of the radiation sickness. Now, it’s mostly benign in adults but with Commander McGarrett’s compromised immune system and already weakened state...”
“It floored him,” Danny summarizes.
“Pretty much. We’ve started an aggressive rehydration protocol, put him on some strong antiemetics to help with the nausea and we’re giving him the potassium and sodium he needs through IV as well, which will stabilize his heart rate and also help with the mental confusion he’s been experiencing. All in all, he should be perfectly fine in a few days, but we’ll definitely be keeping him for the next 24 to 48 hours. He’s being moved to a room as we speak.”
“Mental confusion? Is he awake?”
“He’s been in and out. He hasn’t really come around yet but we expect him to within the next couple of hours. I’m sure a friendly face would be welcome.”
Steve’s been set up in a private room, as per Five-0's usual hospitalization package. He’s been stripped of his soiled clothing and re-dressed in an ubiquitous blue-on-blue patterned hospital gown, tied loosely around his neck.
They have him lying on his side, arms folded at 90 degrees in front of his face, top leg folded over at the knee, pillows at his back, to make sure he stays on his side. There’s no pillow under his head and the bed is completely flat. There’s one of those plastic-backed absorbent pads under Steve’s upper body, in case he gets sick again, Danny imagines, which is why they have him on his side.
There’s an oxygen cannula hooked under his nose and an IV line attached to each of his arms, snaking up to two different bags each, one holding bright yellow liquid and one of his fingers has a pulse oximeter clip attached. The blood pressure cuff around his bicep is covering the lotus flower tattoo and the latest reading is still low from what Danny can tell.
Steve still looks as white as the bedsheets he’s lying on, the skin under his eyes looking bruised by fatigue. He looks plainly asleep instead of unconscious and Danny hates that he can tell the difference. At least, Steve looks to be sleeping peacefully, even if he doesn't look well.
It does nothing to soothe Danny’s anger.
How the hell could Steve let things get this bad? Why hadn’t he said anything?
“Hey.”
He whirls around, startled out of his thoughts. “Lou, hey.”
Grover steps into the room quietly, gazing at Steve. “Man, he looks awful. I mean, I’d noticed he looked kinda tired lately but...”
Danny huffs out a frustrated breath. “Yeah well if he’d been taken proper care of himself and told us sooner, let us help, or I dunno, taken some time off to rest, we wouldn’t be here at all,” he growls, voice pitched low, not to wake Steve.
“Now, Danny, you really think he did this on purpose?”
“Maybe not on purpose, but... he never takes anything about his health seriously and I’m sick of it. Mr. Indestructible Navy SEAL my ass.”
“It’s in the SEAL mindset, you know that.”
“It’s an excuse, is what it is.”
“You know it’s not. It’s how he is. It’s his mentality and it’s hard to change a lifetime of habit.”
“Yeah well he’s been out of the SEALs for almost eight years and he can’t afford not to take care of himself now. Not... not after the transplant. He’s vulnerable now.”
“Danny, don’t... That’s not your fault man. You saved his life, giving him your liver! You know that!”
“Yeah well it had consequences and I seem to be the only one aware of them. He’s certainly not being careful...”
“What do you want him to do, Danny? Stop living?”
“No! I just... I just wish he’d take better care of himself!”
“You heard the doc. He caught a virus. You think he did that on purpose? And you said so yourself; when he started having these spells, he went to the doctor, got checked out, and he got meds so it sounds to me like he’s taking care of himself. What more do you want him to do, turn back time? One of you had to take the Uranium out of that bomb. He did. If he hadn’t it’d be you in that bed right now.”
Danny heaves out another long, frustrated breath. Lou’s right. “I’m just... worried, is all, and... Can’t it be on someone else, for a change? Hasn’t he gone through enough?”
Lou nods, and claps his big, warm hand on his shoulder. “Yeah, man, I feel ya. He has. Our boy deserves a year’s worth of breaks and vacations and good stuff. But right now, he needs your support, not your pissed-offness.”
“What do you think I was doing when he was busy puking all over himself and me?”
“So keep doing it.”
Danny shakes his head, defeated. “Yeah, yeah.”
“All right. You want me to stick around?”
“Nah. I’ll stay with him. You said it. S’my job to watch his back, right?”
“You know it,” Lou says with too much cheer, clapping his back. “I’ll be back with some clean clothes for the both of you in a few hours, all right?”
“Yeah, thanks buddy.”
He comes awake slowly, by increments, his senses registering one by one. His body hurts; aches like he’s been sleeping in the wrong position too long.
The smell in his nose is clean but too sharp and there’s something painful digging into his arm... into both his arms and there’s something itching under his nose.
The mattress feels wrong too; hard, plastic, too warm. He twitches, tries to move but the only thing he manages to do is groan weakly as the muscles in his chest and abdomen burn with soreness. His throat’s dry and aching too and his mouth feels gross, thick and pasty, vaguely tasting of vomit.
There are a bunch of distant noises he doesn’t recognize but they feel... familiar somehow.
“Steve? You awake?”
Danny. He tries to speak, but he can’t get the word to form. Instead, he groans again as his whole body throbs, most notably his head and his stomach.
“You’re all right. Can you open your eyes for me?”
It takes some effort but he manages to pry his lids apart. The light hurts his eyes and everything is blurred for a few seconds. It takes him a while to understand what he’s seeing; his arms, folded in front of his face and beyond them, plastic bedrails.
A hospital bed.
He’s in a hospital bed.
It takes some effort but he manages to shift his gaze and find Danny, just on the other side of the bed rails. It’s then he realizes his head feels fuzzy, slow, full of drugs, and that he has no clue what he’s doing here.
“W’happened?” he asks Danny, his voice gravelly and broken from disuse.
“You don’t remember?”
He blinks and shakes his head minutely. “Nno. V’rything’s... fuzzy. Why m’I drugged? S’wrong w’me?”
“You’re sick. Nothing bad. Just.... you got really dehydrated. That’s why you’re a bit out of it, plus the anti-nausea meds can make you sleepy so don’t worry, okay? Just, get some rest.”
He frowns. Danny looks worried, tired. Scared almost. “Y... You ‘kay, Danno?”
“Me? Of course I’m okay you goof, just worried about you. Sleep, babe. I’ll be right here when you wake up okay?”
“S’kay. M’wake.”
Danny chuckles. “Yeah, sure you are.”
“I need to... get out o’ here...”
“Right. No, the nurse wanted to know when you woke up but I don’t think it was to let you out.”
Danny moves closer to the bed and... Oh. The call button. Right. He needs a nurse to get... untangled, yeah. He’s got... IVs. Oxygen. Monitor. Blood pressure cuff... he blinks a few times, tries to wake up more.
“Danny, what... happened?” he asks again, when he can’t recall how he got here.
“You remember when we went to interview Alani Kahini? After? On the way back? You had a spell. And then... Things got worse. You had a few more. Then... you passed out. Turns out you had a virus on top of it. You got... pretty badly dehydrated. That ring a bell?”
Steve thinks back. Alani... Kahini... in... Pearl City... On the way back... Right. The... Spell. Danny driving him home after. Then... the other spells. He remembers Danny’s gentle, caring hand on his back as he was huddled on the floor of his bathroom, feeling utterly miserable. He remembers Danny cleaning up his mess, supporting him, helping him get clothes on, like, like some helpless child.
He remembers falling asleep outside but only half-recalls waking again, mouth full of bile, almost choking. What he remembers clearly is a jumble of sensations, a mixture of harsh, violent waves of nausea and warm, solid, comforting hands and soothing words.
He remembers Danny’s arm across his chest, holding him up and he remembers puking all over himself, all over Danny.
He closes his eyes tightly, shame and humiliation burning through him, hot and bright.
“Hey. No. Don’t. Steve, don’t do that.”
“I don’t... I’m... sorry. I...”
“Hey.” Danny exhales. “Don’t.”
“Da-
“Don’t,” Danny cuts in. “I know how you hate feeling vulnerable. I know because you told me. But I’ve also been there after Wo Fat, and I’ve seen you beat, tortured, drugged out of your mind, hurt so bad you said to me you were gonna die, Steve. I’ve seen you vulnerable, babe. You think this is any different?”
“S’ not about that,” Steve argues, because it isn’t, except deep down, maybe it is and he knows it and it’s probably why he’s arguing. He feels bad enough physically. He doesn’t need the emotional burr making him feel even more uncomfortable.
“No? Then what is it about?”
“M’... fine on my own. I don’t... need... rescuing this time... I don’t... need... I can do this on my own,” Steve says, careful of enunciating each word clearly. Because he can. He doesn’t need Danny’s hand on his back while he’s busy puking his guts up. He doesn’t need Danny wiping the puke and drool off his chin, Danny holding him up. Doesn’t matter how much better it feels to have someone there. He doesn’t need anyone.
“That’s true,” Danny replies. “But that’s not why I’m here, and that’s not why I stayed with you through well, yesterday now. I’m not here because you need me. I’m here because I can help someone I care about. Not to witness your humiliation or your weakness, which I know is what’s bothering you. You think I care about that? You think there’s anything in my head other than taking care of you, making sure you’re okay? You think there’s anything inside my head other than that? You think I care about anything else? Huh? And before you answer, let me help: the right answer’s no. I don’t care about anything other than making sure my friend’s okay. Not cleaning up the mess, not you puking all over me, not having to call an ambulance, nothing. None of it. How many times I gotta say it before it sinks in? Huh? I’m just worried about you and I just care about you. My best friend forever. My brother from another mother. Clear enough for you? So stop with the stoic embarrassed routine.”
Steve doesn’t know what to say to that. “I just...”
“Hey. Tell me exactly what’s wrong about someone giving you care and comfort when you need it, huh?”
“That’s just it, Danny, I don’t need it.” I don’t need anyone, stays unsaid.
“Okay, maybe you don’t. Or, maybe you do, or maybe you could use some. Maybe it makes that whole radiation poisoning shit a little more bearable to have someone there with you even in the crappiest moments. It’s not about what you need, babe. It’s about what you deserve. You deserve comfort, Steve. You deserve someone there to care for you, to take care of you, to comfort you when you feel your absolute worst just because you’re sick. Just because you’re a human, and you deserve comfort,” Danny repeats. “More so because you got sick while saving thousands of lives, including mine and my children’s. So you deserve comfort for that, too. You don’t have to need it, babe. You may think you don’t, you do and that’s a whole other story, but you deserve it, you’re entitled to it, you don’t have to feel guilty about it, or embarrassed or anything. You’d be there if it was me, I’m there because it’s you, end of story. What you’re going through sucks. I can make it suck less by distracting you, bringing you water, cleaning up a mess, holding your hand, holding your hair back, wiping your face, I don’t care. I am there for you. I’m not gonna abandon you, get that through your head, huh? Okay? So accept it, take it for what it is, and --”
“Thank you, Danny,” Steve cuts in, because if Danny doesn’t stop, he’s gonna embarrass himself even more by crying, because he can feel tears prickling at his eyes, because damn it, Danny Williams has done it again, he broke him down and made him feel things, made him feel loved like he hasn’t felt in decades. He’s tired, drugged up, worn down and fuck, there’s a damn tear rolling down his left cheek.
He wipes it up almost angrily but Danny smiles and gives him a tissue.
“See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“S’pretty hard, for me, to... so...Thank you for making it... suck a little less.”
“You’re welcome, babe. Now, get some rest, okay? I’ll be right here if you need anything.”
“Okay. Danny?”
“Yeah babe?”
“Could I... maybe I have some water?” Steve asks, because, because he wants water, because his mouth tastes gross, and maybe, maybe, maybe, he doesn’t have to feel guilty for wanting a little bit of comfort. Maybe it is okay if it makes him feel better. Maybe he still wishes his dad had been this caring, when he was sick and not so little. So maybe he’ll take what Danny’s offering.
“Yeah. I’ll get you some water,” Danny says with a fond smile.
The nurse comes in the door at the same moment Danny gets him some water.
The nurse checks his vitals and his IV, and asks how he’s feeling. In truth, he’s exhausted despite spending hours asleep or unconscious, his abdomen and throat are still sore from all the vomiting, and despite the meds, he still feels vaguely queasy.
The nurse nods and adds something to his IV, helps him turn over and she settles him with some pillows now that he’s awake and coherent. She also makes sure to leave a couple of basins on the tray table, just in case, she says, but Steve has a feeling it’s more for the inevitable.
Danny waits patiently in a corner of the room, leaning against the wall, for the nurse to leave before handing him a cup, filled to the brim with crushed ice and water.
“Here. Small sips. You can chew on the crushed ice too. It’ll help soothe your throat.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Steve nods, taking the cup with a slightly shaky hand. He takes a few careful sips and chews on a couple pieces of ice before setting the cup down onto the table by his side. He leans back onto his pillow and closes his eyes, giving into the overwhelming fatigue that’s clawing at him.
“Y’don’t have t’ stay, Danny. Y’ go home, get sm’ rest too.” he mumbles sleepily. “M’safe here.”
“Yeah, what did we just talk about huh? I’m staying right here.”
He can’t help the small smile tugging at his lips as he falls asleep.
In the end, it takes another three days for him to get better. He spends the majority of the first two sick as a dog, but he’s got Danny by his side most of the time.
However, he’s made the conscious decision to accept his partner’s presence and the offered comfort that comes with it. He gives himself permission to tell Danny how much he hates feeling like this, how powerless he feels against this and all it implies in the present, and for the future.
How scared he is.
Danny nods, squeezes his shoulder and wipes his chin, again. “I know. I’m scared too. But you’re not alone. You won’t ever be. Not through this. Whatever happens. Okay, babe?”
“Okay.”
Maybe Danny’s right. Maybe accepting comfort isn’t so bad, or so hard after all. Maybe it’s not about being weak, or vulnerable, or afraid. It’s not about radiation poisoning or liver transplants or gunshot wounds, torture or kidnappings.
Maybe it’s about what matters most, about the only thing that matters in the end; family.
Ohana.
That’s not blood. That’s heart. Maybe Danny just had to remind him that’s more important than anything, because now that he’s let himself accept Danny’s help, Danny’s comfort, now that he’s let himself feel worthy of it, the burden of illness doesn’t feel quite so heavy. He doesn’t feel quite so weak anymore. He doesn’t know if it’s because he’s finally turned that corner and he’s getting better or if maybe, just maybe sharing his burden made it feel just a little bit lighter.
The answer doesn’t really matter. He’s not intending to find out which option is true because he likes things just as they are now.
No matter what’s waiting around the next corner, he’ll face it with Danny at his side.
FIN