Archive of Our Own ^beta

One of the major problems with knowing sixteen different ways to kill a man using only the contents of the average glove compartment was that it made it almost impossible for Steve to lull himself into complacency. Other people, it seemed, could look at the clock and see that their co-worker was an hour late to work in the morning--no phone call, no text--and assume he'd simply overslept. Or gotten stuck in traffic, or been called to take his daughter to school, or any number of other ordinary, harmless scenarios that involved his phone having a dead battery.

Other people might not worry even if said co-worker was turning out to be somebody he maybe wanted to share his life with, rather than just an office, but it was clear to Steve that even in the context of the HPD and Five-O he was definitely not other people. The fact was that Danny was over an hour late with no notice, and Steve couldn't stop running through his mental list of possible enemies on the island, which segued into the thought of enemies who could have followed Danny from the mainland or followed Steve from too many places to name. He had his phone in his hand, checking once again for messages, when he thought about Catherine. He came close to calling her and talking her into pulling up the satellite feed for Danny's apartment. Was the Camaro parked out front? Was there anybody moving around inside? But he grabbed his truck keys instead and left with a mumbled excuse to Chin and Kono.

On the way to Danny’s apartment, he did his best to talk himself down into the bubble of safe speeding. He told himself he'd probably find Danny fast asleep on his crappy sofa bed, alarm clock turned off, or that Danny would get into the office any minute and call him from the landline. But as he got closer to Danny's apartment, still no call, his foot grew heavier on the pedal. If Danny was in there asleep Steve was going to give him a rude goddamn awakening, no question about it.

When Steve pulled up in front of the block of apartments, the Camaro was parked in Danny's usual spot, and from the outside everything looked normal. The door to the apartment was locked, and there were no marks on the frame or the lock to indicate that anybody had broken in. A quick recon around the side showed Steve that the windows were all unbroken, and a light was on in the bedroom, but he couldn't discern any movement through the blinds. Back at the front door, Steve pulled out his copy of Danny's key but paused and decided to knock. After three sharp raps, he put his ear to the door to listen.

"In here!" The response was faint, filtered through the flimsy walls, but clearly Danny. And clearly distressed.

"Danny!" Steve jammed his key into the lock and twisted it open, shouldering through with his weapon raised and his finger next to the trigger. "Danny!"

"I'm in the bathroom!" His voice sounded strained, but not weak, and Steve couldn't hear any other movement that would help him figure out what the threat was. "And you can put your gun back in your pants!"

Steve moved his finger to cover the trigger and walked further into the apartment. He checked in the kitchen--clear--and then stepped silently up to the bathroom door, which was closed most of the way but not latched. He heard a slap of skin against tile and then a loud sigh.

"Steven, Jesus, would you get in here?"

Steve nudged the door open with his foot then swept his gaze over the room--nobody present other than Danny in the empty bathtub (naked in the bathtub, Steve's lizard brain insisted), no blood, no signs of a struggle other than shampoo and conditioner bottles strewn on the floor near the door.

"Did I not tell you to put your goddamn gun away? There's nobody to shoot, and I really don't want to lose my security deposit due to bullet holes in the walls."

Steve nodded and flicked the safety on before tucking the gun back in his waistband. "What the hell's going on? Are you hurt?"

"Well, you know, I thought I might just skip work today and spend the day in the bathtub. Because I'm just that kind of guy." Danny ran his right hand through his damp hair and pressed his lips together in a straight line as he shifted minutely in the tub. Steve was trying to look politely away from Danny's lower body, but he caught a flash of blue out of the corner of his eye and realized that Danny was only 95% naked. A damp washcloth was draped over his crotch, not that it did much good. "I slipped on the fucking soap, okay? Can you get your yayas out of the way and help me out of here?"

"I know you're not stuck in there, so why don't you tell me what the situation is?" Steve took the two steps that brought him to the side of the tub and bent down to perch on the rounded edge, his back turned away from the exposed expanse of his partner's body. Danny's face was a couple shades paler than normal, but his eyes looked clear, his pupils even. Still... "Did you hit your head?" Steve reached out to cup his hand around the back of Danny's neck and moved his fingers gently through the thick hair at the back of his head.

"No, I did not hit my head," Danny snapped, awkwardly pushing him with his right arm. "I broke the fall with the rest of my body. So please, for the love of God, a hand? Or, you know, both of your arms would probably be helpful if you think you can spare them for a minute. I want out of this slippery goddamn tub, I want some clothes, and then I want an emergency room wait that doesn't top three hours, but the last is probably too much to ask. So out? Clothes?"

"Emergency room?" All Steve could think was spinal trauma and internal bleeding, and suddenly Danny's modesty and his own entirely inappropriate desire to look were unimportant. He swept his hands downward from Danny's head, checking what he could without risking moving him, and the first problem he found was the left shoulder--far warmer than the cool of the surrounding skin, swelling--dislocated.

"Steve." Steve ignored his partner's voice and moved his examination down to his (really nice--stop, stop) chest before laying a palm flat over his (taut, muscular--concentrate) abdomen, checking for swelling that would indicate something dangerous going on. "Steve." He moved his hands down to Danny's (slim, smooth) hips to check for injury, but the pelvis felt stable. "STEVEN!"

Steve looked up at Danny's face then and saw his cheeks flushed, his jaw clenched tight. "I just need to make sure--"

"You need to stop with the aneurism face and the molestation and get me out of here. If you'd given me a minute to tell you, I would've said, 'Hey, Steve, the embarrassing fucking fact is that I slipped in the shower and dislocated my shoulder, plus the whole slipping and falling shenanigans didn't make my knee at all happy. So, you know, I could use some pain pills, but I think I'd know if I had caused myself some dire damage, and I think I would tell you because dying? From falling in the tub? Is not the way I want my daughter to remember me." He punched at the tile wall next to him with his bad arm and then his face scrunched up in pain, and he muttered, "Fuck," under his breath.

"Hey. Hey, Danno." Steve put his hand on his partner's bad knee, feeling for himself that it was slightly swollen but probably not too badly re-injured. Danny opened his eyes, and even though they were slightly damp his expression still dared Steve to say the wrong thing. "Let's get out of here, okay?" Steve stood up and then bent over, wrapping his arms around Danny's back and trapping Danny's left arm between their chests. "Let me do the work, just brace yourself with your good leg when you can."

"Just do it," Danny said, his breath warm against Steve's hair.

Steve levered them both up until Danny was standing in the tub, half his weight on his good leg, the rest of it leaning against Steve's chest. It was a good weight, a weight he didn't mind holding, but Danny needed medical attention a lot more than he needed a hug. Getting Danny the rest of the way out of the tub was awkward, but as soon as he was standing on the bathmat, Danny reached out and grabbed the towel he'd left on the back of the toilet tank and wrapped it around his hips.

"I'm, uh, just gonna sit here." Danny gestured at the closed toilet seat and then dropped to sit on it, his left elbow held tight against his chest by his right hand. "You mind getting me some clothes that aren't made of terry cloth?"

"Seriously, you live by yourself and keep the toilet seat down? Are you actually a woman, Danno?"

"I think you've gotten enough of an eyeful to know that's a lie." Danny smirked, even though his face was still tight with pain, and Steve felt his own cheeks warm. "No, Rachel and Grace beat me into submission. Rach was convinced the cat would get in there and drown if I left it up, and you think I wanted to look into my daughter's face and tell her it was my fault the cat drowned itself in Ty-D-Bol?"

"Yeah, I guess not. Okay, clothes. Be right back."

Steve found clothes laid out on the bed, grabbed the underwear, socks, pants and button-down, left the undershirt since there was no way they were getting it over Danny's shoulder. Left the tie, found some shoes. Back down the hall, he stopped just outside the open bathroom door; Danny was sitting with his torso folded in halfway to his thighs and rocking slightly, his eyes squeezed shut, breathing audibly in slow, controlled hisses through his teeth. He'd been masking this pain with casual words and snappish humor, and Steve felt like an asshole for not getting there sooner, for not taking care of things more efficiently. All he could do was pick up the pace from there on out.

He made some noise as he walked into the room, and Danny stilled his body, relaxed his face. He opened his eyes and looked at Steve. "Just aches a little."

"Yeah, uh-huh." Steve moved in close to Danny's left side and carefully held his bad arm as he threaded the shirt onto it. Danny pulled it around his back and pushed his good arm inside, and then Steve buttoned it up before grabbing a clean towel from the small pile on the shelf by the sink. "I'm just going to work this under your arm here, make a sling."

"I'd like pants."

"Sling, then pants." Steve shook the towel out then folded it lengthwise and worked it around Danny's arm then looped it back behind his neck and tied it off. He let his hand rest lightly on Danny's shoulder, feeling the tense muscles under the swelling. "let your arm relax into the sling. It'll help, trust me." He smoothed his hand down over Danny's cotton-covered bicep then pulled away, suddenly embarrassed by the tenderness.

"Yeah, relax, right." Still, Steve watched as the arm sagged more heavily into the towel sling, and Danny's mouth became fractionally less tense.

"Okay, just let me get you dressed. It'll be faster and less painful, okay?" He knelt down at Danny's feet and started pulling on his socks.

"I'll pretend you're my manservant."

"If that's the kind of fantasy you like, go ahead babe."

"The kind of fantasy I really like is the kind in which you drive like a normal human being who understands laws, but of course that's completely unrealistic."

Steve finished with the socks and then pulled Danny's underwear and pants up around his calves. "I understand laws. I just don't always agree with them. Okay, time to stand up." He stood and wrapped his arms around Danny again, pulling him up to balance on his good leg, then yanked up his underwear and pants together and did up the button and zipper, tossing the towel aside.

Danny held onto Steve while he stepped into his shoes. "I just need my wallet. Then, you know, onward to the land of medical professionals."

"You got it."

Getting out of the house was an exercise in pain, for Danny, and frustration, for Steve. There was no good way for Steve to help Danny walk without hurting his arm, but they made it work, a shambling shuffle that was nowhere near as efficient as Steve would have liked. Eventually, they made it into the living room, where Steve stuffed Danny's wallet into his own pocket. He grabbed Danny's car keys, since getting him up into the truck wasn't something he wanted to think about, and then they maneuvered outside to the car.

Danny fell into the Camaro's low seat with a grunt, and his eyes were closed before Steve shut the door and hurried around to the driver's side. "You doing okay, Danno?"

"I'll live. Just drive, Manservant. You can even speed a little, as long as you avoid pedestrians."

"What about people on bikes?"

"Steven," Danny groaned.

"Driving, sir."

Thankfully, traffic was reasonable, no major congestion. Steve was glad not to spend too many minutes sitting at traffic lights, looking at Danny bite his lip and hold his arm and breathe in metered doses. At the ER, he got Danny into a wheelchair and into the hands of somebody in scrubs before driving the Camaro into the hospital parking deck. He jogged back to the ER, only to find Danny hunched over in a plastic chair in the waiting room, his bad leg stretched out in front of him, a clipboard on his lap.

"What the hell?"

Danny looked up, his pale face set in the fake-okay expression Steve was starting to hate. "Well, I'm not exactly bleeding to death, you know."

Steve didn't even justify that with an answer. He stalked over the front desk and tried on a smile for the woman sitting behind the counter. "I'd like to speak to a doctor."

"What is your emergency, sir?"

Steve saw a young guy in a white doctor's jacket walk into the area behind the desk and pick up a chart. "Hey, excuse me, doctor? My partner needs to be seen right now."

"I'm sure we'll get him back here as soon as possible."

"Look, I'm Commander Steve McGarrett. My partner, Danny Williams, he's a detective with the HPD. He saves people's lives, and he's in pain. He's got a dislocated shoulder that he hurt at least two hours ago and a knee injury that's been aggravated." The doctor held up a hand and opened his mouth to talk, but Steve kept going. "His shoulder needs to be put back in now, and if you don't take care of it I'm going to do it myself. And then, after he screams and passes out, then do you think you might take him back to a room and give him some pain meds?"

"Commander? You done?"

Steve shrugged and looked back at Danny, who was awkwardly trying to fill out the forms with the clipboard unstable on his lap.

"I don't have a room to put Detective Williams in right this minute, but I'd really rather avoid unlicensed medical treatment going on in the waiting room. How about we bring him back; we'll have to put him in the hallway, but we can get some drugs in him and reduce the shoulder at least. How does that sound?"

"Fine. Let's do it."

"Okay, give me two minutes, and I'll be out to get your partner."

"Two minutes." Steve made a show of looking at his watch and then turned to go sit next to Danny. He took the teetering clipboard off his lap and snatched the pen from his fingers. "I'll do the forms. They're coming to get you in a minute."

Danny looked over and rolled his eyes. "You had way too much fun intimidating that guy."

"It's not fun for me that you're in pain."

Danny just heaved a mighty sigh and then murmured, "Oh, thank God," when the young doctor came toward them with a wheelchair.

The doctor seemed to think that Steve should stay in the waiting room, but that really wasn't happening. He followed Danny and the doctor through the swinging doors, helped the doctor get Danny up onto the gurney in the hallway, and then stood with his back against the wall, filling out the rest of Danny's forms. He watched out of the corner of his eye as the staff got an IV going in Danny's arm. He knew they'd give him pain meds and muscle relaxants, and sure enough he heard Danny sigh quietly. He looked over to see Danny slumped against the raised back of the gurney, his eyes closed but no longer squeezed tight. The medical staff were all elsewhere, no doubt dealing with other patients while they waited for the meds to kick in.

"You doing okay there, Danno?"

"Oooh, yeah." His voice was loose and lighter, drugged. "Yeah, toootally better."

"I'm glad to hear that, Detective." The doctor walked back up to the gurney. "Okay Commander, we're going to take care of your partner, but you need to go back out to the waiting room now. Please give the forms to Kelly at the front desk."

Steve put down the clipboard and crossed his arms over his chest. "I'll stay here."

"The longer we argue about this, the more his shoulder swells. Do us all a favor please, and go sit in a chair. Call somebody. Play Angry Birds. Plan world domination. Whatever, just, do it elsewhere."

Steve took a breath to argue and then decided that a strategic retreat was probably the best course of action. He wrapped his hand around the calf of Danny uninjured leg and squeezed lightly. "I'll be out there."

"Mmmkay." Danny bobbed his head in an exaggerated nod.

Steve sighed and walked back out to the waiting room. He handed the paperwork to a woman whose ID badge said Kelly. He called headquarters to apprise Kono and Chin of the situation, he checked his e-mail and texts, and he did not play Angry Birds. Over an hour later, an even younger doctor came to get him, and he followed her back to find Danny in his own curtained-off cubical, apparently asleep in a hospital gown with a real sling on his arm and a brace on his knee, a flat cold-pack draped over it.

"Does he have to stay overnight?" Steve thought about potential injuries that could have been hidden, things that would be worse than a couple of abused joints.

"No, he's ready to be released. He'll need to get in to see his orthopedist within the next few days and get going on some PT, and he'll be out of work for at least a week, then light duty I think. He's got a couple of prescriptions," she handed them over to Steve, "and it would be best if there's somebody who can help him out at home for the next couple days."

"He can stay with me. So, he can get dressed and get out of here now?"

"If you want to help him get dressed, I'll go get his discharge papers. Or I can get a nurse in to help him."

He looked over at Danny, vulnerable in the thin cotton gown. "No, I'll take care of it."

"Okay, then. Be back in ten."

"Hey, Danno." Steve lightly jostled Danny's good shoulder. "Time to wake up."

Danny crinkled his forehead and pursed his lips, and Steve had to stifle any and all thoughts about how cute it was. "Mmm. Yeah?"

Steve picked up Danny's shirt from the chair where his clothes sat folded and laid it on the side of the gurney. "I'm going to get your shirt on, just let me do the work."

"Kay." It was unnatural, Danny's words being so slow and few, but as Steve eased his arm out of the sling and hospital gown and into the sleeves of the shirt he thought that it wasn't entirely negative--he enjoyed the calm quiet and Danny's body warm and relaxed in his hands. He buttoned up the shirt, replaced the sling and then got Danny's pants pulled up over his boxers and the knee brace. Danny was awake enough to lift his hips when asked, and by the time Steve had his socks and shoes on his eyes were open, if still bleary.

"Time t'go?"

"Soon as they bring in the papers and the wheelchair."

"Naaa, carry me home. Manserve, uh, servant."

Steve tried and failed to suppress his grin. "Should just be a minute or two; I think we'll wait. You think you can sit up?"

"Mmhmm." Danny started to awkwardly pull himself up, and Steve got an arm behind his back, which turned out to be a good thing when Danny swayed in the seated position and leaned into Steve's chest.

"You gonna be sick?"

Danny shook his head his nose drawing a short line back and forth against Steve's sternum. "Love you," he mumbled.

Steve took a sharp breath and held it, his hands still on Danny's back. Then Danny sat up straight, his eyes wide open if still not entirely awake. "Shit. Oh, shit. I didn't--" He started to shift over the side of the bed like he was going to bolt, but given the state of his knee and the unsteadiness of his relationship to gravity Steve knew that was going to be a disaster.

Steve held onto him more tightly, keeping him on the gurney. "Danny, relax. Relax."

"I'm--I'm drugged. Dunno what I'm saying." But his eyes were still wide open, his breathing fast enough that it had to be jerking at his injured shoulder.

"Danno." Steve kept one hand on Danny's good shoulder and put the other one on his cheek. "I--" He felt his heart beating hard in his chest, loud in his ears, but he pushed on through. "I love you, too."

Danny shook his head against Steve's hand. "Shouldn't make fun of the drugged guy," he slurred.

Steve met Danny's eyes, which were clearer than they had been, the IV drugs wearing off. "Do I look like I'm making fun of you?"

Danny just looked at him until it started to feel like a really weird staring contest, then he sighed and closed his eyes, his body relaxing against Steve's hands once more. "Oh."

Steve leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Danny's forehead just as the curtain shook and the doctor walked inside. "Okay then. Um, here are the aftercare instructions. I just need Mr. Williams to sign this, and we've got an orderly waiting for transport."

"Thanks." Steve nodded at her and nudged Danny until he scrawled his signature on the discharge form. He waited until Danny was safe in the wheelchair and then jogged back to the parking deck to get the Camaro. He met Danny and the orderly at the exit, and a minute later they were on the way home.

Of course, home for both of them was going to be Steve's house, at least for the next couple days. He made quiet phone calls while Danny dozed in the passenger seat, and made sure Kono would meet them at the house to go pick up Danny's prescriptions. He thought about how he'd lend Danny some of his sweats and tees for the next couple days until they could get back to Danny's apartment for more clothes and made a mental note to call and get Danny's orthopedist to give him a quick appointment, make sure that he got going on therapy. Steve was going to make sure that Danny didn't half-ass it and hurt himself again before he recovered; that had to change.

Stuck in afternoon traffic, Steve looked over at Danny where he slept with his head tipped against the window, his hair uncharacteristically mussed, his face lax and pale. He thought about Danny in his house, in his clothes, in his bed. He imagined the things Danny would say in bed, and he imagined the ways he could hush those words. He thought about that talented mouth on him and Danny's sturdy arms around him.

Change had never been Steve's best friend. Change meant the loss of his mother and then his whole family, everybody he knew, scattered away from him. Change meant new assignments, new dangers, new things he couldn't be prepared for. But maybe this new change was something he could walk toward with his eyes open, something he could embrace the way he'd held Danny in his arms. This change might be the one that made everything else worthwhile.

The traffic cleared in front of Steve and he pulled into the left-hand lane, speeding off toward home.