H50: (We Get Along) Like a House on Fire

[waldos_writings]

Title: (We Get Along) Like a House on Fire
Rating: PG
Pairing: Steve/Danny, established relationship
Length: 1308
Written for:   Yuletide 2010
Summary: "I’m used to you getting the crap beat out of you at work. I’m used to you getting the crap beat out of me at work. But you did not have that mummy’s boy look going on when I saw you last, yesterday.”

Danny was getting a cup of coffee when Steve came into the office. Steve looked like sixteen miles of bad road and there was white gauze wrapped haphazardly around his palm and fingers, making his left hand pretty useless. “What happened to you?”

Steve held up his hand and scowled at it, “This? Nothing.”

“Nothing? I’m used to you getting the crap beat out of you at work. I’m used to you getting the crap beat out of me at work. But you did not have that mummy’s boy look going on when I saw you last, yesterday,” Danny pressed.

“I had a little fire at home last night.”

“I assume this fire was not in a fire place?”

“Danny, seriously? Have you seen a fire place anywhere in this entire state?” Steve found that the simple act of separating one paper cup from the stack was more challenging than he’d thought it would be. He smiled a sheepish thanks at Danny when his partner finally took pity on him and pulled the two cups that were stuck together apart, putting one back on the stack and the other on the counter in front of him.

“So this fire was…?” Danny asked.

“In the oven, the broiler thing on the bottom,” Steve said. “I was trying to make dinner and, I don’t know, something boiled over and spilled and caught fire, so I threw water on it.” Steve tried to hold the empty cup still with his left forearm and pour the coffee without the cup moving across the counter.

“Oh my god, gimme that,” Danny said taking the cup and the carafe and pouring Steve a cup of coffee and putting it in his good right hand. “Let me guess, it was a grease fire?” Danny asked as they moved to Danny’s office.

“Yeah, so it got worse, and I was trying to save my dinner, so I grabbed the edge of the rack thing, of course it was hot…” Steve tried not to look as abashed as he felt. He’d felt incredibly stupid the night before watching as something as basic and mundane as making his own dinner spiraled out of his control; and trying to explain it to Danny and still keep a modicum of dignity was like fighting a second losing battle in less than a day.

Danny just raised an eyebrow, so Steve felt compelled to keep talking, “The truth is I’m better at causing fires than fighting them, okay?” He fell onto Danny’s sofa as Danny sat behind his desk. “By the time I’d gotten the fire extinguisher and put out the fire my dinner was under three feet of foam, my hand was burned in a tick-tac-toe pattern, and I’m probably going to have to paint the kitchen ceiling to cover the smoke stains and smell. It was a crap night, is that what you wanted to hear?”

Danny made a face. Last night had been his night with Grace and he wasn’t sure that either of them were ready for him to start bringing her over to Steve’s yet. Not all night. “I just wanted to know what happened,” he said quietly. Part of him wanted to double over laughing or run out to tell Kono and Chin Ho that their invincible boss had been soundly whipped by a common kitchen appliance, but the look on Steve’s face told him that he was the only one in the room that thought this was at all funny.

Steve set his coffee on the floor and flipped around to lie on Danny’s couch, his bandaged hand across his eyes. “Cooking was never a skill I needed to master. I mean, I can grill on an open fire pretty damn well, but…”

“But actually making regular food in a kitchen, not so much?” Danny finished.

“Not so much,” Steve echoed.

Danny sat sipping his coffee silently for a few seconds. “So, someone’s always been there to cook for you? I mean at some point everyone– “

“No Danny, no point. I was at home until I graduated high school then I went to Annapolis, and then I had my Navy bases and ships, all of which had mess halls. I can manage MREs over a campfire, I can grill meat when I needed to, but even I know that doesn’t qualify as regular cooking.”

Danny blinked a couple times. “Wow. You-“ he stopped to consider his words. “You’ve never actually lived on your own?”

Steve sighed. “No. And honestly, I don’t like it. When you aren’t there I end up sleeping with the radio or t.v. on because it’s so damn quiet. I’m used to having a rackmate or three and the sound of the ship’s engine and… whatever.”

Danny wheeled his chair over to where Steve was lying. “You could have called,” he said quietly. This was all so very unexpected. Steve was admitting to being lonely in his dad’s house, admitting that he’d missed Danny even if he was being somewhat circumspect.

“You had Grace.”

“You had a fire. I could have either brought her with or taken her back to Rachel’s. Hell, you could have come to my place.”

They looked at each other and then anywhere but at each other.

“Look,” Steve finally broke the awkward silence, “If you’ve been waiting for me to say it, Grace is welcome to stay over any time. Even if Mary’s home, there’s a guest room. If you wanted to get her a Barbie bedspread or whatever…”

Danny raised his eyebrows. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“When I see her on Saturday I’ll ask her what she thinks.” Danny looked as shocked at the invitation as Steve had felt making it. “But, yeah… maybe it’d be good to not have to chose between the two of you, you know?”

Steve smiled, pleased at the idea that Danny may have been implying that he liked spending time with Steve as much as he did his daughter. He wouldn’t have thought he’d ever rank that high with his partner. At least not nearly so soon.

“You, uh… you bandage that yourself?” Danny cut into Steve’s thoughts.

Steve looked at the gauze, where it had loosened at his wrist and become ragged near his fingers. “It’s fine.”

“Not what I asked.”

“Yes, Danny, I bandaged it myself, I thought we covered that I was the only one in the house.”

Danny reached down and handed him his coffee. “This is now a to-go cup. Come on.”

“Where? Danny –“ and even through his protest, he got up and followed Danny to the door.

“The governor pays good money to make sure we have health insurance. You’re going to the E.R. to have that looked at.” He took Steve’s hand carefully in his own and turned it so they could both see the palm. “I can see the burns because the bandages are coming off. I can see the blisters which indicate second degree burns, now that I’m looking. Let’s go get this hand rebandaged by someone who not only knows what they’re doing, but has two hands to do it with.”

Steve started to object again, but Danny cut him off. “If it was Kono or Chin or me you’d be throwing us over your shoulder and dragging us to the hospital by our hair or something. Now go get in the damn car. And I’m driving this time; so don’t even think about it.” Danny gave him a shove between the shoulderblades. “I’m taking Iron Chef here to the hospital to have his burned hand looked at,” Danny hollered through the halls as he steered Steve out to the parking lot. They both ignored the shocked looks Chin and Kono sent them and Kono’s high pitch, “His what? How’d that happen?”

They could explain when they got back.