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Danny paced aimlessly around the hotel room while he waited for Steve to come back out of the bathroom, picking things up and putting them back down without any real curiosity. He shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it on the arm of the couch.
The bathroom door creaked open and the lights clicked off. Steve walked out and Danny’s eyes flicked over him quickly, trying to assess the current priority of needs. Steve’s broad shoulders were hunched as he turned his back to Danny and rifled through his small bag with his good arm, searching for something.
Danny waited.
Steve blew out a breath in frustration, then turned to Danny, exhaustion and annoyance carving deep lines beside his eyes. Danny silently padded over and pulled a fresh bandage out of the bag.
“Sit, Steven.”
Steve sank down into a chair and tipped his head to the side to give Danny access to the wound on his neck. He set about cleaning the area and replacing the bandage, swallowing the angry but meaningless rant that wanted to bubble up his throat.
Here, sitting in front of him, was a dangerous man. He was under no illusions about that. Not that he’d ever admit it, but Danny had seen all six feet and 180 pounds of Steve in front of him, in full Rambo-mode with war paint and wrath in his eyes and he was very glad that they worked the same side.
But he also knew the secret stupid gooey insides of this dangerous man. And he knew that those insides had been badly damaged by the events of the last few months. Hell, since the moment he found out his mother hadn’t died in that car bomb. And it was only a matter of time until the shell cracked, and Danny intended to be here to glue him back together again.
As he finished with the bandage and tugged Steve’s shirt back into place, he realized that, against all odds, Steve appeared to have fallen asleep upright in the chair during Danny’s ministrations. His face was slack, easing some of the pain lines that have been present since Danny arrived. Danny took a second to scrub a hand over his face and felt the rough scratch of his beard. He stepped back quietly and found his own chair, grabbing whatever magazine was on the table to flip through while Steve rested.
Any number of minutes may have passed as Danny stared uncomprehendingly at the glossy pages when he felt his phone buzzing in the pocket of his jeans. Shit. Danny stretched a leg out and dug in his pocket for his cell as Steve’s eyes flew open and he startled halfway out of his chair.
“Easy, babe, easy. Just my phone. It’s Gracie,” he said, flipping the screen around to show Steve his daughter’s smiling face. “Forgot to check in with her when I got to the hotel. You want me to call her back later?”
Steve was already shaking his head. “Answer it,” he said, voice rough from sleep. Danny watched him rub a hand over his own face and beard just like Danny had earlier as he swiped the phone to answer his daughter.
“Hey, monkey. Yeah, I’m here at the hotel.” He chatted quietly with his daughter for a few minutes about the flight and her weekend, pacing over to the window to look down at the street below.
“Danno, tell Uncle Steve we love him,” Grace said quietly at the end of their conversation. Danny closed his eyes.
“I will, kiddo.”
“Charlie wants to say hi. Love you, Danno.”
“Danno loves you, monkey. Be home soon.”
During the brief squabble that it took to switch the phone to his son, Danny turned to check on Steve. He was still sitting in the chair where Danny had left him, fiddling absently with the wrappings of his bandage with his good hand. Huge, miserable, silent tears were streaming down his face. Danny’s heart cracked cleanly in half.
“Babe. Steve. You with me?”
Steve’s wet eyes focused on him. “Hmm?”
Danny gestured to his own face. “You’re, uh..”
Steve reached up and touched his cheek, looking faintly surprised when his fingers came away damp. “Oh. I… sorry.” He wiped his face roughly with his sleeve.
“Danno!” Danny heard Charlie’s voice pipe into his ear. “I went to the aquarium today!” Danny was beside Steve in a few short strides, gripping his good shoulder tightly. “You did? That’s great, squirt. Tell me all about it. They didn’t try to keep you and put you in with the jellyfish?”
Charlie chattered on about everything and nothing, then finally asked, “Can I say hi to Uncle Steve?”
“You know what, kiddo, I don’t—”
Steve, having heard Charlie’s question, was shaking his head and reaching for the phone. Danny handed it over. Steve gripped the phone for a second and swallowed roughly, then held the phone to his ear.
“Hey, buddy.”
When he heard Charlie’s voice, Steve closed his eyes and tears started to roll down his cheeks again. Danny moved his hand from Steve’s shoulder to the back of his neck, gripping the knotted muscles steadily. Luckily, all Steve really had to do was listen and make a sound of acknowledgement now and again to keep Charlie going. Danny heard a pause in the conversation after a few moments and his little boy’s voice say faintly, “I’m sorry your Mom died, Uncle Steve.”
Steve took the phone away from his ear for a moment and dropped his head as if to curl around the wound deep in his chest, a horrible gasping noise breaking free from his iron control. Danny dug his thumb into the coiled muscle at the base of his skull, trying to soothe as Steve silently shook to pieces beneath his touch. Steve swallowed, throat working painfully, and put the phone back to his ear.
“Thank you, Charlie. Love you.” The last bit came out almost as a whisper, and Danny deftly scooped the phone out of his partner’s unsteady hand, pride and grief warring for first place in his chest.
“Charlie, I’ll call when I’m on my way home, okay? I love you, buddy. Take care of your sister and your mom for me.”
He hung up the phone and Steve’s hand curled over his shoulder to grip Danny’s hand on his neck, still bent almost in half.
“You didn’t have to do that, Steve. Give yourself space.”
A few breaths later, Steve uncoiled and looked up at Danny, face streaked with Mexican dirt and the tears he hadn’t even felt fall. The corners of his eyes crinkled just the tiniest bit. “Space, Danno? Since when is that part of your vocabulary?”
Danny huffed at him, wildly dizzy with relief at the half-hearted attempt at bickering. “Since never, babe.”
He took a few steps away, rubbing his hands together and taking a deep breath. “Now. Food. Shower. Get rid of the horrible beard. Sleep. In that order.”
“Okay, Danno.” Steve levered himself out of the chair, and Danny noticed absently that his feet were bare. Danny grabbed the room service menu from the nightstand and was reading through it when he realized that Steve was still watching him. He arched a questioning eyebrow at his partner.
“You’re staying, right?” Steve asked, aiming for casual and not quite hitting the mark. Danny heard the real question.
“Not leaving you, babe. Don’t think you’d let me if I tried,” he said in a way he hoped was joking but probably just sounded true.
Steve nodded. “We’ll go home tomorrow.”