WHO: Danny Lynch, Xo Valdez Munroe, & lil Olly. WHEN: Backdated to somewhere in the first few months of Danny's return to town. So like 4/5 months ago? WHERE: The side of the road. SUMMARY: Danny does a good deed. Danny's good deeds always seem to involve broken down cars. This one involves a small child, too! Extra cool, Danny. WARNINGS: Mild cursing.
“No, no, noooo.” Xo whined at her car from under the hood. Not that she even knew what she was looking at, Elliot always did this stuff for her. But something was smoking an nothing out start.
“Mommy?” came Olly's voice from his spot in the car.
“It's fine Olly-bear!” Xo straightened up and immediately hit her head against the hood. “Shit!”
“Mommy that's a bad word.”
“Yes, it's a not nice word.” Xo gritted through her teeth.
“You shouldn't say bad words.”
“No, I shouldn't.” Xo answered as she rubbed the back of her head. Pulling out her phone this time she swore in her head instead of aloud. No signal. Fuck.
Danny bit back the urge to laugh when Xo whacked the back of her head on the hood of her car but he couldn’t help the smirk. “Good words ain’t much help in a bad situation,” he remarked, having overheard the conversation as he approached the vehicle. Once, just once, Danny wished he could come upon a broken down vehicle when he wasn’t on his way to work. Mac was going to start thinking he was full of shit.
“Fuck!” Xo jumped at the sudden voice, hands on the edge of the car as she tried to ground herself.
A gasp came from in the car with a conspiratorial, “That’s a super bad word.”
But it wasn’t, well, it was Danny. At least Xo was pretty sure. Word was he was around again and there weren’t that many people that tall. Not that it mattered, everyone was tall to Xo as she craned her head up. “Hi there.”
“Hi,” his mouth twitched at the corners in what was meant to be a smile. “Xo and co, huh?” he glanced at Olly. Kid was a little older than he expected. “That one ain’t too new,” Danny astutely observed, turning his attention back to Xo, “Damn, been a while. You, uh.” There was a pause. He was going to ask her what she’d been up to, how she was doing, but it had been a long time. With that book, with this movie...well, he had no way of knowing how exactly she felt about him these days.
“How ‘bout you just tell me what brings you to the side of the road and we’ll see about getting you on your way?” he asked instead, undoing the buttons at the wrists of his jacket. Danny rolled the sleeves to his elbows, ready to get to it and get on his way himself.
“Mommy whos that?” Olly called out from inside the car.
“Just a minute.” Xo answered before she stepped aside from the car and motioning to the engine. Her arms folded against her chest as she watched. If he was stopping by to help, well, she wasn't really in a position to turn that down. “It's been. Yeah. A while. But. It just sort of shut off. When I stopped. Which usually isn't good. What with the not turning back on.”
“Could be anything,” he frowned, overlooking the engine. He always preferred older vehicles for ease of diagnostics. There wasn’t much you could tell by just looking at these newer ones. Early nineties and down, a once-over could’ve been all he needed but that was not the case here. “Been having battery troubles lately? Not starting right off?” Danny cast a critical eye to the battery terminals, looking for any sign of corrosion.
“It'd been working fine the past few months.” The car was old but it usually worked. And it was paid off which meant money for other bills. “Elliot fixed it last time something was wrong. Some transmission thing I think.”.
“Busted tranny wouldn’t shut your car off, you’d be sittin’ here revving,” he explained, sounding a bit distracted as he drew the oil dipstick from the motor, “A car don’t start when it ain’t got one or more of three things - fuel, spark, air.” Danny glanced over, “Grab me a napkin or somethin’ you don’t mind ruining?”
“Sure. Those are things.” Xo answered as she ducked back to the car to look. She opened the passenger door to grab a napkin from the center console.
“Mommy.” Olly peeked over from his car seat. “Is that a giant leprechaun?”
“Olly.” Xo chided as she pulled the napkin free. “His name is Danny and no he's not that's not nice.”
“I was just asking.” Olly sighed as he kicked his feet.
Ignoring that Xo shut the door again and came back out to hand over the napkin. “I also have babywipes if those would be better.”
At that, Danny laughed. He took the napkin and gave the dipstick a quick swipe to clear it of oil, “Nah, this is good. Just needed to get an accurate read.” He slid the dipstick back in and then promptly pulled it back out, giving the far end a look. “Oil’s fine,” he put the dipstick back, “Low, not too low. Just for kicks, he pulled the transmission dipstick out while he was at it, “Low, not too low.” Danny swiped the transmission dipstick clean with the other side of the napkin and he checked that, too. “Got all the transmission fluid you could want.”
Tucking the napkin into his pocket, he braced his hands against the hood and thoughtfully considered the workings of Xo’s car for a moment before he turned away and shut the hood.
“Listen, it probably ain’t nothing serious. Looks like you been keeping on top of shit alright. Thing is there ain’t no way I’m fitting under this thing without a lift. Lucky for you I was just headed somewhere with one of those. I got a chain in the truck, let me go ahead and hook you up. Skip the tow, it’ll take us five minutes. We got what, three miles to Mac’s?”
“Ok.” Xo breathed as she thought through this. Getting to the garage made sense. And Danny's truck looked fine though it obviously wasn't a tow truck. She looked through the window at Olly in the back seat. “It doesn't sound super safe? With a kid in the car. I mean, is it safe?”
“We’ll go slow. You just gotta brake when I tell you to and not fight me with your steering,” he scratched at his beard, considering, “If it makes you feel better he can ride up in the truck. Your car couldn’t hurt my bumper if we attached rotating saw blades. Old American steel versus fiberglass ain’t no contest.” Danny was sure the kid would be fine in either vehicle but if it settled the issue, it settled the issue.
She looked up over at the truck. It could probably fit the car seat okay. Taking a deep breath to reach her decision she nodded. At the very least if something went wrong the truck would be a lot sturdier than her car. “Ok. Let me grab Olly.”
Going to the back seat she started to unbuckle him. “Ok, so you're going to go sit with Mr. Danny in his car. It's just going to be for a few minutes. And mommy's going to be right behind you.”.
“Does he have a rainbow in there?” Olly asked as she set him down on the ground as she started on the car seat.
“No, Olly, he's not a leprechaun.” She picked up the car seat and started towards the truck. Her son walked beside her, watching Danny and stopping as they passed him.
“How many vegables did you eat to get so big?” He asked with a tilt of his head.
Danny looked at Xo as if she might answer on his behalf but she had moved ahead with the carseat. He was on his own.
He turned his eyes back to Olly. Well, shit. He couldn’t even recall the last time he talked to a kid. It felt awkward, like he was talking to a sock or something equally as strange for one to exchange words with. “None,” he answered brusquely, “You gotta eat grass and tadpoles. Good luck, chief.”
He didn’t stick around for questions. Immediately, he extracted himself from the conversation by walking briskly to the bed of his truck to fetch the chain.
Mac definitely wouldn’t be able to call bullshit on Danny’s excuse for being late today.