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It was the middle of the night, yet Seoul was alive with noise. Like New York City, Danny Williams thought. He’d never imagined going so far away from New York, from Jersey. Not to Hawaii, certainly not to South Korea. Yet, here he was. Danny snorted. He was on the other side of the world. In what way hadn’t his life changed since he’d met Steve McGarrett?
Danny and Chin helped Steve up on his dirty bare feet and pulled his sweat-soaked arms across their shoulders. Rain hammered down on them until they got under an awning. Four workers emerged with a gurney through what Danny assumed was the front door of the hospital’s ER. “There’s your taxi,” said Danny, waving at the workers with his free hand. “Let’s get you looked at.”
“Huh, wha’?” Steve shook his head. “No, the rain. Wanna be in the rain.”
Danny exchanged an eyebrows-high look with Chin. Steve had fallen asleep against Joe during the final miles to the hospital, and now he had that dazed, half-asleep but determined look of a toddler who didn’t want to go to bed even though it was late.
“Rain feels good.” Steve started to pivot but Danny and Chin held their ground.
“Buddy, you’re a wreck. I’ve seen murdered mob bosses who look healthier than you.” Danny dragged Steve forward. “You gotta see a doc, Steve.”
Steve licked his bottom lip, then made a face. From the taste of the blood and sweat, Danny figured. Steve looked down at his own body with a furrowed brow and darting eyes. Then he looked around, eyes narrow and analyzing. Then he looked at his partner, cocked his head to the side, stared with a blank expression like he hadn’t actually seen his partner yet and whispered, “Danny?”
Danny cupped Steve’s left cheek with his right hand and used his ‘dad voice.’ “Sit down, Steven.”
The closest hospital worker pointed at the gurney and spoke in Korean. Steve replied. She said something back at him and he shook his head. The conversation heated up into an argument before the worker tossed her hands up into the air and walked away. The others followed her, and along with them went the gurney.
“Whoa, hey! Where are they going?” Danny asked. He looked at Chin, who shrugged.
“I told them to piss off,” said Steve. “All I need is a shower.”
“All you need is a—what’s the matter with you?” Danny demanded. “You have two head wounds, third-degree burns, you’re limping, and—”
“I need a shower, clothes, and a good meal. Wo Fat couldn’t have gotten far.”
“He couldn’t have gotten—!” Danny paused. He took a breath and reminded himself that his partner was in a fragile state. “Steve, listen to me,” he said far softer and gentler. “You’re hurt. You’re starving. You’re dehydrated. You’re exhausted. I’m begging you, please. Please—if only for me—let a doctor fix you up. After that you can try to convince me that you should go after Wo Fat and I will yell in earnest at you because you’re an idiot.” Steve chuckled at that, and Danny struggled to keep a straight face. “Steve, please.”
Steve looked at Danny for a long moment. Then he stuck his lower lip out, nodded, and said, “Ok.”
“Ok?”
“Yeah. Ok. I’ll see a doctor.” Another long moment passed. “After a shower.” When Danny opened his mouth to start yelling at him again, Steve swung his arm off of Chin’s shoulder and held his palm up in front of Danny’s nose. Danny felt his face turn another shade redder, but he zipped it up. “Compromise. Let me take a shower—a nice long shower in peace—and then I will let the doctors do what they need to do. Ok? All right?”
Danny scowled. “Chin? Do me a favor? Head in, find this pain in my ass some clothes, some water, we’ll be in the locker room.” Danny hesitated, then said, “And a toothbrush.”
Steve raised a blood-stained eyebrow. “Bad?”
Danny shook his head. “It’s unbelievable.”
“How can it be that bad?” Steve asked as he limped into the hospital, still leaning on Danny. “It’s not like I’ve eaten anything in days.” He must have read a sign that pointed toward the locker rooms, because he turned Danny down the first hallway on the right. “Nothing rotting in there,” he said, pointing at his head.
“Except your brain,” said Danny.
They kept walking. Steve exhaled into his own hand and took a sniff. “Let me smell your breath.”
Danny scowled. “What do you mean, smell my breath, you wanna smell my breath?”
“I wanna compare how our breaths smell.”
The tile floor switched to carpet. Steve pointed to the left, and Danny turned with him.
“Why would you want to compare how our breaths smell? Is this a competition? I don’t remember signing up for a ‘who’s got the worst breath’ competition! What’s wrong with you?”
Steve chuckled deep in his gut. “What’s wrong with me? YOU, you knucklehead. You, with no experience, no idea what you were doing, just strolled into North Korea with little more than luck, breaking how many laws—North Korea, Danny!” Steve shook his head. “What’s wrong with ME, ha…” He pointed at a door. “There.” Danny kicked the door open, and they entered a pristine, white-walled, high-ceilinged room. There were lockers in the center, showers against one wall, toilets against another, sinks against the third, and benches alongside everything. Danny grabbed some soap and towels from a table while Steve led them to a shower stall in the far back corner.
Steve kept talking as he ducked out from under Danny’s arm, pulled back the shower curtain, turned the water pressure on high, then stepped back out and started removing his destroyed clothes. “And you know what, Danny? I’m the one who’s going to start yelling at YOU! What the hell were you thinking? You’re probably going to prison, you realize that, right? Why did you do this? How could you do this to Grace, huh?” Steve balled up his shirt and threw it at the space between Danny’s eyes. Danny blocked it, effortlessly. “This isn’t Hawaii. You had no backup, no resources, no knowledge about the local culture or language. How many bullets do you have left, huh? You could’ve been killed!”
Danny’s lips parted. Blood was dripping from Steve’s nostril. Steve didn’t notice. He also didn’t seem to realize that he was swaying on his feet.
Danny held his hands out. “Steve.”
“Do you know what they did to me back there?” Steve’s eyes were wider than Danny had ever seen them. “What they would’ve done to you?”
“Steve, come sit down. I need you to sit down, Steve.” Danny gestured at the bench behind him.
“I’ve been trained to withstand torture, Danny. Have you? I’ve been trained to pick locks with—with fucking medical hardware, Danny. Have you?”
Danny grabbed Steve’s left bicep and squeezed it. “Sit on the bench, Steve!”
Blood dripped onto the locker room floor from several places. “Do you think I could stand watching them torture you? Huh? HUH?” Steve ripped off his wide black belt and frisbee-ed it aside. His weakening body wasn’t strong enough for the sudden movement, and he teetered. He would’ve landed on the floor if Danny hadn’t caught him around the waist and back. Before Steve completely collapsed, Danny steered him toward the bench and sat him on his butt. Then he knelt on one knee in front of Steve, hands on his partner’s shaking thighs. To his astonishment, Steve was talking, in mid-sentence, like nothing happened.
“…listening to you scream, for hours? Leaving behind a daughter who would never, ever know what happened to you? Do you know how close you came to dying with me in some hellhole? Tortured until you—” Steve shut his eyes, held them tight for a second, and then opened them again. “Was I… When did I sit down?”
Danny felt every wrinkle in his face crease as he frowned at his partner. So very softly he said, “Can you take a deep breath for me?” Steve’s face was all confusion, but he obeyed. “Good. That’s good! How about another, huh? Two or three more? There ya go. That’s my boy.” Danny waited patiently while Steve breathed. Steve’s confused eyes never left his partner’s. Danny noticed the heat of Steve’s skin, then. And at that close of a distance, he saw the rope and chain burns around Steve’s neck and wrists, the less-obvious burns, the swelling and bumps and bruises and cuts and… Danny gulped down the bile rising in his throat.
“Feel… Feel weird…” Steve said, enunciating the words with too much effort. Danny squeezed his friend’s kneecaps. He blinked slowly. “Tired…”
Danny nodded. “Do you still want to take a shower?” Steve, expressionless and trembling, nodded. “Think you can undress without fainting?”
Steve rolled his eyes. “First of all, yes. Second of all, we’re men. If I pass out, call it ‘passing out,’ all right? Can you do me that small favor? Can you, please?”
Danny sensed his best friend tensing up again, probably to yell more. “Shhh,” Danny soothed, a sound he would make if Grace had a nightmare. To his surprise, Steve instantly shut up. “Take some breaths again, all right? We’ll breathe together, ok? In… Out…”
Steve breathed along with Danny, but also started swaying where he sat. His jaw went slack. His hands gripped the bench, knuckles white. “Think I…” Steve and shook his head like there was water in his ears. “Think I need to put my head down.”
“Ok, all right, well, let’s—” Danny froze, shocked, when instead of lying on his side to put his head down, Steve suddenly folded forward and put his forehead on Danny’s shoulder. Immediately, one of Danny’s hands went to the back of Steve’s neck and the other gripped his shoulder. “Easy, buddy. It’s all right. Just… We’ll just take a break now. There ya go…” Danny massaged Steve’s shoulder and the back of his neck, gently, making small circles with his thumbs. He leaned a left until their ears touched. Steve let go of the bench, but only after another few minutes. His arms hung limp, relaxed. The blood still dripping from his nose felt warm on Danny’s skin. The water running in the shower acted like white noise that drowned out the world.
Danny waited another couple of minutes before he said his partner’s name. Steve grunted a response that Danny interpreted as an invitation to keep talking. “What’s with the shower, huh? Why are you fighting so hard for a stupid shower?”
“I smell like piss, Danny.”
“No kidding.” Danny rolled his eyes. “I just don’t get it. I mean, buddy, I don’t HAVE to get it. That’s not a requirement. But I’d like a decent shot.”
Steve sighed. He slowly lifted his head, but neither his back nor his neck straightened all the way. Danny’s heart winced when Steve made eye contact. His eyes had that haunted look, and water was rising in them. “Wo Fat wore cologne. You smell it?” Danny shook his head. “I smell it. It’s like he’s sitting next to me. I want him off me, Danny. Get rid of it.”
Danny’s throat briefly closed. Now his partner was making sense. “Ok. I get it. Ok.” Danny stood up slowly, ignoring the soreness in his bad knee. “Can you stand?”
“I think so, but…” Steve held up his hands. His hands, arms, and legs were trembling even harder—like he was naked in a blizzard. Steve flexed his fingers, then tried and failed to make fists.
“Ok, just… Ok. I prefer a date before this part but, ok, just—hold still.” Danny unbuttoned Steve’s pants. He looped his forefingers over the top of the underwear, then told Steve to lift his butt an inch or two. Steve had to do it twice before Danny was fast enough to move the clothes out from under him. Pants and underwear tossed aside, eyes locked on Steve’s eyes to respect his privacy, Danny held his palms out and wiggled his fingers. “Stand up, and I’ll toss you into the shower.”
Steve made a face Danny had never seen before. “I, uh, I don’t think I can, uh…” The ex-SEAL cleared his throat. “I don’t think I can stand long enough, Danny. I don’t…” Steve sighed, and Danny wondered if he’d ever asked the next question before in his life. “Can you help me?”
Danny didn’t answer verbally. Instead, he unwrapped the bar of soap and put it in his pants pocket, kicked his boots and socks off, took off his shirt, and held his hands out again. Steve took the offer and after Danny counted to three, he stood up. At least he tried to. After he failed three attempts, Steve finally stayed up and limped with Danny into the shower. “YO!” Danny hollered, accidentally in Steve’s ear, when the water touched him. “It’s freezing, Steve! I thought it’d be warmed up by now!”
“Want it s’cold,” Steve slurred.
“Lunatic,” said Danny, allowing a little bit of affection in his voice. “Here, just, yeah—stand under the water, there you go. I’m right here, I’m not letting go, just—” Steve half-fell forward against Danny, face against his partner’s neck. His feet held firm, but it was like all of the strength in his body was in his toes. Danny sighed, took a moment to gather himself, then inched forward until Steve was completely under the water, which meant that he was under the water, too. “You’re all right,” Danny said in Steve’s ear. “I’ve got you. Just, relax. I’ll handle everything.”
The dirt on Steve’s body quickly turned into a mudslide. Danny slowly rotated him until the water washed away all of the blood, dirt, grass, spit, piss, and who knew what else off of the back and sides of Steve’s body. Then Danny gave him a little shake and told him to lift his head up. Eyes closed, Steve lifted his face toward the water and held still while it washed his cheeks, neck, chest, shoulders arms and stomach down to his feet. When Danny said he could, Steve leaned forward again and half-collapsed against Danny’s shoulder.
Danny took the soap out of his pocket. He got it wet, then scrubbed the crown of Steve’s head. Steve yelped in pain, startling them both. Danny put weight right on one of his head wounds. “So sorry, partner,” Danny whispered. He held the soap between the water and Steve’s head, then angled the bar so that soap water soaked into Steve’s hair. Danny worked gently. He had to scrub, but he did it as lightly as the dirt and blood would allow. It was a chore balancing Steve’s weight while washing him. It was an extra chore for Steve who Danny insisted wash his own privates. But other than that, Danny didn’t complain, and Steve didn’t speak. Those toes remained firm. Even when Danny bent over to get all of the skin on Steve’s legs, ankles, and feet, Steve still didn’t fall over. When the job was all done except for the part where Steve had to stand there while the water washed the soap off of his back, Danny wrapped his arms around his partner’s body and pulled him closer.
“Just another minute, buddy. Then we’ll get you dried off.” Danny rubbed Steve’s slippery back. He didn’t even feel the cold anymore. In that moment all he felt was the heat radiating off of his partner’s skin.
“Danny?”
“Yeah?” Danny double-checked that all of the soap was off, then turned off the water. “Yeah, Steve?”
Steve exhaled a long, shivering breath against Danny’s neck. “I tried,” he mumbled. “Sorry…”
“Sorry for wh—whoa!”
Steve had held on as long as he could, Danny knew. But right then his knees gave out on him, and his ankles rolled. Lifeless arms and hands did nothing. His eyes were closed.
Danny nearly lost his grip on Steve. His taller and larger partner’s full weight crashed down on him. In that moment, the floor was slippery enough and Danny was tired enough that he couldn’t handle catching Steve and carrying him out. So, he did the second-best thing. Danny threw himself down faster than Steve was falling and cushioned him. It took a minute, but after some gentle pushing, pulling, and prodding, Danny settled down with Steve’s head cushioned against the inside of his left elbow and Steve’s face against his pillow of a chest.
“Hey,” Danny whispered. He hugged Steve’s chest and head. His cold fingers massaged Steve’s shoulder and scalp. “Hey, buddy. Buddy. Can you look at me? Atta boy.”
Steve frowned. With what looked like tremendous effort, he raised his hand and tapped his fingers against Danny’s bare chest. “Calm down, Danny.”
“Huh? I’m fine. I’m calm.”
“Heartbeat… Goin’ mile a minute…” Steve’s hand dropped, but Danny caught it and interlaced their fingers.
“Ok, so, maybe at this moment I’m a bit… Distressed,” Danny admitted.
Steve’s upper body bounced with a mute laugh. “Distressed?”
“Distressed, distraught, disturbed, di-anxious. My best friend was kidnapped and tortured, and now he just about passed out in my arms!”
“Thanks for not saying ‘faint’.” Steve sighed. “Sorry… Cause you a lot of di-anxiety as your partner, don’t I?”
Danny nodded, then shook his head, then nodded again. “Yeah, well, you’re worth it… Sometimes.”
Steve suddenly squeezed his eyes shut and groaned. Danny sat up straighter and asked, “What’s up—how are you feeling—what are you feeling, so I can tell the doctor in a second.”
Steve’s Adam’s apple bounced. His eyes stared at something beyond Danny. “Head hurts… Ribs… Tired…” Steve’s eyelashes fluttered. “Gonna pass out, Danny… Head bad…”
Danny felt his chest clench like a fist. “Ok. All right. Listen, the docs—they’ll patch you up. When you wake up, you’ll feel all better. Good as new—better than new.”
“You’ll be there?” Steve mumbled.
“I’ll be there.” Danny held his partner a little closer. “Do you smell that cologne anymore?”
Steve shook his head slightly. He managed a small smile. “Water,” he croaked. “I smell the water.”
“Yeah? And unwashed New Jersey armpit, huh?”
“Water smells like…” Steve’s eyes closed. “…Safe.”
“You are safe, partner.” Danny heard Chin calling their names then. He’d found the locker room. Danny lightly touched his forehead to Steve’s. “We found you. You’re going home.”
Steve’s lips barely moved, but Danny still heard what he said. “Thanks, Danno… Everything…”
“Like I said, partner,” Danny whispered, “you’re worth it.”
The End
(Comments are always welcome!)