Work Text:
It wasn’t very often that there was something that Steve didn’t know how to do and over the years, when such occasions came up, Danny had to try hard not to gloat. This was one such time. Pumpkin carving for Halloween.
Sure Steve was a wizard with knives, but the simple art of carving a jack o’ lantern was almost a foreign concept to him. A couple of times Danny walked in on Steve watching youtube videos on carving the perfect jack o lantern, but when it came time to apply what he saw, the results weren’t pretty.
“Let me handle pumpkin carving with Jacob,” Danny suggested as he watched Steve clean up from his latest attempt. “Next week I’ll give you a one on one carving session.”
Steve tried to be upset at not being able to do something so simple, but liked the idea of a one on one session with Danny. “I get to pick my own pumpkin, right?”
Danny laughed. “Yes, you can pick your own pumpkin and draw the scariest face you want on it,” Danny said, “Now go. I need to get this set up for when Jacob gets home from school.”
Steve reluctantly left Danny to clean the kitchen and went to pick up Jacob from pre-school.
+=+
Danny was putting the last of the supplies on the table when he heard the familiar rumble of the Camaro’s engine shut off and two car doors slam shut. Within minutes, Jacob came running into the house.
“Danno! Danno! Are we doing the pumpkin today?” the little boy asked excitedly.
Danny smiled at Jacob as he redirected the boy to the living room where he dropped his backpack. “As soon as you take your backpack up to your room and change your clothes.”
“Okay, Danno!” Jacob said as he picked up his backpack and took the stairs as fast as his little legs could carry him, up to his room.
Steve joined Danny in the kitchen. “All he could talk about was doing the pumpkin. I promised him that I would take pictures to send to your parents.”
Danny laughed. “Just so long as there are no pumpkin food fights.”
A few minutes later, Jacob was going back down the stairs and running to the kitchen. “Are those the pumpkins we picked out last week, Danno?”
“Yes they are, Buddy,” Danny replied. “Ready to carve them up?”
Jacob rapidly nodded his head. “Ready Danno!” He looked at Steve seriously, “Don’t forget to take the pictures, Daddy!”
Steve held up his camera to show his son. “I have it right here. I won’t miss a thing.”
+=+
Three hours later, Steve had pumpkin innards stuck to his shirt and he was on kitchen clean up duty, but could hear the happy chatter from the office as Danny and Jacob went through the pictures that he wanted to send to his grandparents.
As Steve dried the last carving knife that was used to cut the pumpkin, he turned and looked at the three jack-o-lanterns sitting on the kitchen table and smiled. Each had been drawn and carved out by his son, with the help of Danny, and he couldn’t have been more proud.
Danny joined Steve in the kitchen, stopped at the refrigerator and put up a picture that he he printed out. It was of Jacob just after he put his hands inside the pumpkin and felt the squishy insides.
“Favorite picture of him,” Steve commented when Danny stepped away. “You’re a pretty good teacher with that pumpkin carving stuff.”
Danny nodded and laugh. “We’ll see how good a teacher I am next week when I try to teach you.”