Flesh Wounds

Written in response to hc_bingo prompt: knife wounds/lacerations. Characters not mine, please enjoy! Comments are awesome.

"I swear to God, Steven, if you do not sit your ass down on this chair right now..." Danny starts, though his threat dies off because he's too angry and frustrated with his dumbass of a partner to think of something that suitably conveys all of his feelings on the matter.

When Steve doesn't immediately return, he adds a louder, sharper, "Stop bleeding on my carpets!" that has the other man returning to the chair with a barely smothered laugh (because technically it's Steve's carpet. Just because Danny's staying with him doesn't automatically make it his, too, except that it does, because he's pretty sure he's not letting Danny leave anytime this century).

"It's nothing, Danno," Steve assures him, trying to brush off his partner's unfounded attempts at first aid in the wake of his latest work-related injury.

"Nothing? 'Nothing,' he says," Danny echoes, throwing his hands up in exasperation because "Really? Nothing, there is a trail of blood from the car to where you are presently standing, despite that unsterile laughingstock you call a bandage and it's nothing?"

Steve seems to grasp that apparently it is not nothing and that he should probably stop protesting before Danny explodes all over his kitchen and rains little Danny-bits all over the place. Steve is pretty sure he'll get blamed for that, too, so yeah.

"If you could just wait for back-up, just once, you would lengthen my life expectancy by full orders of magnitude, you know. Or at least, you know, you'd stop reducing it by full orders of magnitude. Which I would greatly appreciate because I would really prefer to see my daughter grow up and have a life." Danny's still ranting at him, even though Steve has complied with his request and is presently sitting still and silent in the chair as requested, his gashed out arm held within Danny's reach. "And really, do you want to have to explain to Grace why there is blood all over the living room floor when she comes over tomorrow because I do not want to do that, Steven, and if we can't get this cleaned up in time, I will not be the one doing that, okay? So if you-"

"Danny. Danny!" Steve cuts in, talking over the continuation of this rant, "Are you intending to patch up my arm using only the sheer force of your words, or were you going to try the first-aid kit?" Steve smirks.

Danny stops mid-sentence when Steve's words register and he is clearly not amused. "Very funny, Steven," he says, but he sits down next to him and catches Steve's hand, pulling at him until he rests his arm across the table between them. "Hold still, alright?"

Steve can see the switch. From the ranting, angry Danny to the Danny who patches up Grace's cuts and scrapes. This is a little more intense than any playground injury, what with the knife-wielding lunatic Steve had barged in on, but it's not exactly hospital-levels of bad, either (even though Steve would've dragged Danny there had the roles been reversed) so he gives in and prepares to watch his partner work.

The gash runs down the side of his left forearm, where he held it up to block an attack aimed at his chest. It's long, stretching from his elbow up to his wrist, but it's not deep. The only reason it's still bleeding is because it's hard to not move the entirety of his arm and so he kept reopening the wound on the ride over, especially the end near his elbow. "It looks worse than it is," he warns Danny as he pulls the bit of shredded t-shirt away from it. "Really. I swear."

"I'll be the judge of that," Danny declares, poking at the smooth edges of the wound. "Do not move. Not even a muscle, Super Seal."

Steve suspects that Danny takes some sort of wicked pleasure out of cleaning the cut. The peroxide he pours over it seems like an exorbitant amount even in comparison to the size of the injury and he's muttering curses under his breath when it starts to burn like cold fire. The corner of Danny's mouth quirks up just a little bit, and yeah. He's totally enjoying Steve's pain.

"Serves you right," Danny grumbles at him, his gaze fixed on his arm. "For running into that house alone when we knew he was off his meds. Like that was going to end well."

"I will wait for you next time, I promise."

"I'd rather you wait with me while we wait for back-up, but I supposed pigs would fly and hell would freeze over and yada yada yada before that happens. So make that 'all the time' and not 'next time' and maybe I'll let you have one of Grace's Angry Birds bandages. You know, for over the gigantic bandage I'm going to have to find to cover all of this."

Steve takes the deal with a grin (he generally prefers not to have Danny mad at him, even if he might secretly enjoy the ranting) and grabs a roll of gauze from the depths of the kit with his free hand, tossing it to his partner who catches it easily. "Just wrap it in that and call it a day."

"Not so fast," Danny chides him, taking time to carefully rinse and dry the wound. The bleeding has slowed now, but the ends of it are undoubtedly going to continue to be annoyingly troublesome. He then slathers Steve's arm in antibiotic cream and only then does he put the gauze to use. "I'm sure you'll get this wet, bloody, dirty or otherwise destroyed before you go to bed tonight, but I'm going to wrap it in flex wrap anyway," he says, pulling out another roll from the first-aid kit. "And I'm going to have to restock this thing soon, apparently."

"You sound surprised," Steve teases, because it's not like this is the first time Danny's patched him up. He lifts his arm once it is released, to see how the bandage holds up to movement. It stays taught against his skin, even at the joints when he bends it, but then Steve hasn't been let down by his partner's first-aid work yet, so he's not really surprised. "Don't forget the Angry Birds one you promised me."

"I'll let Grace give you that one tomorrow," Danny responds, with a laugh that echoes Steve's. "Feel okay?"

"Yeah, fine," he answers. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Just checking," Danny grins, and now Steve is rightly suspicious as to his partner's motives. "'Cause that means that you get to help me clean up."

Steve frowns, but stands, following Danny out of the room and back out to the car, where the blood-trail begins. It's not as bad as Danny's exaggerations had made it sound. It's not like he was bleeding out all over the place, it's just a few drops here and there where the blood was dripping off of his elbow. It'll still be a pain to get up, but at least it won't be a huge job, so he doesn't feel awful when he offers up a suggestion: "I'll make you dinner if you handle this?" Danny looks pleased with his proposal, which isn't all that surprising given that this case has had them on take-out food all week and one of the perks of staying with Steve is definitely the cooking.

"Deal," Danny agrees, giving him a shove back toward the kitchen. "Just don't mess up your bandage. And also you might want to change your shirt since it's covered in blood."

Steve shrugs and tugs it over his head without any hesitation as he walks away, leaving Danny to glare after him.

"Barbarian," he mumbles, as he heads outside intent on getting the hose to spray off the sidewalk and porch before he heads inside. Steve must hear him, though, because he gets a shouted response of 'You know you like!' thrown back at him. "Yeah, yeah, you giant goof, so what if I do?"