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“You look real fierce with that war paint on, you know,” Danny says folding his arms and smirking. “The little heart there, it’s wonky, but I think it’s a lovely touch.”
Steve just looks away a moment and says, smugly, like the smug bastard he really is, “Your daughter is quite the artist.”
“Shut up,” Danny scowls, and Steve grins wide, stretches back in the uncomfortable plastic seating.
“Besides, Danno,” Steve goes on, “we don’t really need to be fierce. How many years in a row have we won now? Four? Five? - “
“I hate you so much,” says Danny, “so much, you have no idea how much. First, you take me right in the middle of enemy territory where I am likely to be killed at any moment by a crowd of neanderthals, you convert my daughter over to the dark side, and to top it all off, there are no chips, no pies, no overpriced beer. They, down there in the better seats? See them? They have chips and pies and overpriced beer, but not us.”
“Are you done?” Steve is laughing now, which always makes Danny’s anger fizzle out, dammit, and here he was planning on being spiky a while longer, “soon as Kono comes back with Gracie I’ll go get you your damn chips. Can’t leave you unprotected in the middle of enemy territory.”
Danny grumbles some more, but relaxes a little more in his seat, stretching out so that Steve is a long, warm line beside him - although Danny, having stoically maintained that Queensland doesn’t get cold, take a teaspoon of cement in your tea and harden the fuck up, Steve will never admit to it being just chilly enough that subtly cuddling up to the living, breathing, oversized hot water bottle next to him is more of a sensible move than an affectionate one.
“There’s my favourite traitor!” Danny says when Grace and Kono make it back through the crowd, Chin coming up behind them. “Hey man, what took you so long? You were right behind us.”
“I had to pay my respects to the King,’ Chin says sombrely.
“What? Why?” Danny never really got Chin’s thing with the statue out front, though he did give himself a stitch laughing the year those guys painted it blue, “It’s just a statue.”
“Wally Lewis,” Chin says seriously, like he says all things, because he’s actually some sort of scary robot person and only has one mode, and that mode is serious, “is one of the seven immortals. He is the KING of these hallowed grounds and deserves our utmost respect. It’s tradition.”
“It’s only hallowed because it used to be a cemetery - “ Danny starts, but Steve cuts him off.
“Do you want chips, or do you want to be left to the mercy of all these mighty mighty maroons?” he threatens, and Danny raises his hands in surrender.
“Fine!” he calls to Steve’s retreating back, “but no gravy!”
The game went...as expected, really. New South Wales hadn’t been strong for a while, and even with Lockyer retired now (and hadn’t Danny had a good laugh at Steve’s ‘Trying Not To Cry #3’ face that day), they’re still not really a match for the Queensland team. It’s not an embarrassing loss (except for how all losses are inherently embarrassing to some degree), but it’s not close enough to give Danny all that much hope for the next round - though he’d never let Steve know it.
Steve, however, is unbearably smug. Gracie is practically asleep, sitting way up there on Steve’s shoulders, and Steve is managing to simultaneously weave his way through the heavy crowd of post-game revellers and be horribly condescending to Danny at the same time.
“I’m sure you’ll win the next one,” Steve says, and Danny just sighs the heaviest sigh he can muster. “I mean, okay, no, actually I’m sure you won’t, but since it doesn’t matter, because we’ll win the third regardless and therefore the trophy again, I don’t want you to give up hope and be all depressed and mopey for the next few months. You’re an incredibly sore loser, you know.”
Danny sighs again. “Whatever, you love me anyway. Look, can we just go home? Gracie needs to be in bed.”
“‘m not sleepy” Gracie mutters into Steve’s hair, which is probably going to have red face paint smushed off her cheek in it, Danny hopes, for a long time, because running around looking like the derelicts in the Queen Street Mall did his hair is just the sort of punishment Steve deserves for his team winning tonight.