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Three weeks out, and Danny’s been cleared to drive.
Not cleared to work, though, which means he’s taken over as Steve’s chauffer.
Which Steve appreciates, distantly. Very fucking distantly, and why does he need all these appointments anyway? The liver’s holding. He’s taking his meds.
Taking so many fucking meds he can’t tell what a symptom and what’s a side effect anymore. And case in point—
“P’ll’ver,” he grunts. He feels Danny comply immediately; he unbuckles and tries to last another thirty seconds.
Nausea’s been a more or less constant companion since the surgery, thanks to the pain meds, but they’ve given him anti-emetics and that’s been helping. It’s been three or four days since the last time he actually puked.
Time’s up, it seems.
Not a very impressive streak, really.
Finally they reach the shoulder. Danny puts the car in park and Steve can hear him ask quietly if he’s feeling sick; he answers him by flinging the door open and projectile vomiting all over the asphalt.
“Aw, babe,” Danny murmurs. The engine turns off.
Steve pukes again, then swings himself sideways and waits for the next wave. Wishes he could at least afford the dignity of walking a few steps away and retching out of earshot, but his legs don’t feel like they could support a kitten right now, let alone a grown man. So there he stays: hanging out the passenger side door of the Camaro, entirely on display.
He gags, feels the next round coming. Leans forward a little more to let it out, and screws his eyes shut so he doesn’t have to watch as half-digested omelet coats the blacktop in grimy technicolor. A few gushes later and he knows his stomach’s empty. But for the love of god he still can’t stop, just keeps heaving and belching, bringing up drips and dregs.
If he were prone to exaggeration, he’d say it lasts for hours. As it is, he’s pretty sure it lasts a few minutes.
And just to drive it all home he’s crying. Crying. Quick little reflex tears have been dripping down his face since a few seconds in, but the longer it lasts, the faster they come, until Steve realizes that he’s actually fucking weeping. Like a little kid, like himself thirty years ago, throwing up Cheerios on the side of the road while his mom rubbed his back, more tender in these moments than in any other.
The memory does nothing to help him stop. So, because it wasn’t bad enough before, now he’s folded double in his seat on the shoulder of the highway, not only dry-heaving but kind of sobbing, too.
After a while Danny puts a hand on his back. He stops crying. Eventually he stops the rest of it too, and goes still.
He doesn’t know how long he sits on the edge of the seat, gazing through wet, unfocused eyes at his boots and his puke on the asphalt, but finally he finds the strength to swing his legs back inside and close the door. Danny doesn’t say anything, but passes him a handful of napkins. He wipes his nose and mouth then runs out of energy for anything else; he just crumples the napkins in his hand and falls back against the seat.
His whole body aches. His head is pulsing in time with the fire along his incision, and rather than alleviate the nausea, puking’s actually made it worse. The light stabs his eyes. But he’ll be sick again if he closes them— he is that sort of dizzy— and even though there’s nothing left to come up just the thought of heaving again makes the muscles of his torso cramp horribly.
He’s miserable. There’s no other way to put it. He’s miserable, and pathetic, and still a little teary, which makes it all feel that much worse. When the fuck did he get so fragile?
Danny doesn’t say anything. Instead Steve hears a phone dialing and a distant voice, followed by Danny saying:
“Yeah, this is regarding Steven McGarrett? He has an appointment at nine today. We’re gonna be late, like maybe twenty minutes, we’re having— okay. Great, thank you. Yes. Thanks for understanding. Nine forty-five, perfect, we’ll be there.”
Danny ends the call. Finally Steve finds it in him to wipe his eyes with the back of his hand and shove the pukey napkins in his pocket (saving the clean ones, because.)
“Thanks,” he grunts. Then, without really thinking about it: “sorry.”
Danny sighs. When he speaks his words come out slow. “You have owed me a lot of apologies over the years, Steven. But this is not one of them.”
“‘s gross.”
“First of all, I didn’t actually watch, thanks.”
Apparently there’s no second of all, and Steve can’t muster a reply. They lapse back into silence, which Danny finally breaks, in a voice softer than usual.
“Babe, you good to keep going? We’ll take it easy, yeah?”
If the car moves a quarter inch he’s going to start heaving again. “No,” he croaks.
“Okay,” Danny replies, lightly. “We got a few minutes.”
Jesus, Danny’s being nice to him— he must be even more pathetic right now than he’d thought.
“I don’t,” Steve huffs, then stops to swallow some snot. “I don’t know if I can do this, Danny.”
Danny doesn’t answer. He runs his fingers around the outside of steering wheel, and Steve starts to sputter, to take it back, but Danny cuts him off.
“Stop,” he orders, calmly. “Stop apologizing. Don’t think I don’t know how hard it is for you to say stuff like that. And I’m proud of you for saying it.”
Steve clicks his tongue against his teeth.
“Don’t do that thing at me— are you fourteen? I’m proud of you.”
“Proud of the guy who just puked all over the H1?” His voice sounds weaker than he thinks he’s ever heard it. It feels weak, as it leaves his chest.
“Proud of the guy who survived a fucking plane crash,” Danny corrects. “Who stopped a lot of bad people from selling a lot of poison shit all over this island. This, this now, this sucks, but you can do it. You can because, man, look at you, you are doing it. You’re surviving this, you’re healing, and listen: you’re coming at it with all you got. You’re using every weapon you got. And okay, some of ‘em, the crying, the talking about the feelings—those aren’t weapons you’re used to. But all that is, babe—all that is is improvising.”
Steve scowls, as he staunches the new flood of tears with a napkin. Fucking meds. If the urge to puke has been his closest companion for weeks now, the urge to cry hasn’t been far behind.
“Hey, hey, look at me.” Steve reluctantly lowers his hand, and Danny reaches over and thumbs a tear that escaped Steve’s efforts. “Think of where you were three weeks ago, okay? Three weeks from now it’s gonna be just as big a difference, right? You’re getting there. You really are.”
Steve sniffles. “I wanna drive,” he mumbles. “Not drivin’ makes me sick, Danno.”
“Blinking makes you sick right now, babe, which is one of the reasons that you are not driving.”
More tears try to swell, so Steve bites his tongue.
“Here’s the plan,” Danny says, and Steve has never loved him more than he does now, for those three words. “I’m gonna drive, nice and slow, and you’re gonna sit there and just keep breathin’, okay? You gotta cry, you cry; you gotta scream, you scream. You gotta puke, here’s a bag.” And sure enough, Danny hands him a plastic grocery one. “You miss, you miss; I’ll clean it up. What I’m trying to say is that the plan is you let me handle this one. And before you know it we’ll be home, and we’ll sit out by the water for a while. Okay?”
Steve nods, mutely. He has a plan, now, something he can follow; Danny’s given him that, and so much more.
He doesn’t puke anymore, though he keeps the bag open, held over his lap like a security blanket. He doesn’t scream. He doesn’t cry, though he lets a whine or two escape— mostly because Danny reaches over and touches his knee whenever he does.
But you know what? They get there. They get there and they get through the appointment, and before too long, they even get home. Steve all but collapses on the sofa. Near tears again, but of sheer relief, this time.
Danny settles beside him, gets an arm around his shoulders; Steve doesn’t even try not to curl up, right against him.
“Listen, babe,” Danny murmurs. And his voice is steady: the kind of voice you listen to. “Something, something that you do, someday, is gonna be the hardest thing you’ve ever done.”
He turns, so that his breath moves the hair at Steve’s temples.
“Honey, it is okay—if this is it.”