Chapter Text
Danny was planning to move out-- no matter what Steve said to the contrary. He was. He would move out.
The issue was that he couldn't find affordable living. He'd gotten so close to getting an affordable apartment and then it turned out it was haunted-- not that Danny believed in ghosts; he didn't. The issue was that if they were real and an old woman was haunting the apartment complex with her also deceased pet, Danny didn't want Grace to know about it. It was a legitimate reason not to want the apartment.
And if he didn't want another apartment because of how it had poor lighting, or the first one he'd gone to see because it was a few hundred over his comfortable rent budget, or the last one because the supermarket was over a mile away-- those were also valid reasons.
Not that Steve agreed, but Danny wasn't going to shift his expectations of life for Steve. He'd already grown far too used to being shot at and nearly dying when he, once again, wasn't allowed to drive his car. One of these days Danny was going to die from a heart attack, he was sure of it. He wasn't currently injured, but due to the frequency of his hospital visits, he was given a personal doctor for routine check ups. Apparently, his blood pressure was abnormally high which put him at risk for a number of things-- none of which the team needed to know about.
He had it under control, he could be calm. Relaxed. Zen. Rachel had sent him a playlist of classical music and, well. It didn't help.
If anything, Danny figured the best way to calm his temper and stress levels was to sleep more, get a full night's rest.
Usually at the hotels-- as dingy and uncomfortable as they were-- he could turn on the TV and sleep without any real issue. He woke up sore on occasion; cheap hotel room mattresses weren't always comfortable. The worst part about the entire hotel to hotel experience was that he couldn't keep doing it without running his budget into the ground. If he wanted to afford the deposit for a new place, he needed to stop spending as much, which led him here. At Steve's.
It always led back to Steve.
Danny flipped over on the couch and groaned into his pillow. He just wanted to sleep.
The house was lovely. It would have been the perfect place to live, except--
The waves crashed against each other almost rhythmically just ten feet from the house. He'd never wanted a beach house. He was from Jersey and yes, the beaches were fine, but he didn't want to live there. It was too loud, too popular. There were too many people.
Danny found that in Hawaii, he still didn't like the beach. He supposed he didn't hate it every hour of the day. If they had the sun and Danny wasn't required to swim, the beach was fine. It wasn't something extravagant. It existed and Danny could accept that in the scope of his reality. Trees existed, the sky existed; these things were not problems.
The beach, though. At night the beach became a problem. The house was eerily silent because of Steve's 'rules' and the waves crashed and crashed and crashed like they were sentient-- like they just knew Danny couldn't sleep.
He didn't actually believe the ocean was trying to spite him-- he was just bitter that this was his life. He didn't actually hate Hawaii, but he couldn't deny that life had been easier back in Jersey when he had Grace at home with Rachel and a marriage and a place where he could pass out without the little things getting in the way.
Danny pressed his face into the cushions, settling the pillow Steve provided over his exposed ear and trying to block out all sound.
It felt like an eternity passed him by as he kept his eyes shut to no avail.
The silence wasn't helping either.
The mindless droning on of cooking shows that played at 3 A.M. would probably help, but Steve--
Steve was asleep.
Steve was upstairs and passed out and they always ended up with a case early, so… what harm would it be? It wasn't like some quiet background noise would disturb him. If it did, it would be nice if Danny got to sleep for a change.
He squinted blearily at the wooden stairs in the dark, just in case. Content with the knowledge that Steve wasn't coincidentally coming down the stairs just as Danny decided to break a house rule, Danny reached out to the coffee table, fumbling around until he found the remote.
He struggled to find the power button-- instantly regretting his choice when the TV turned on with the blaring sound of static. He panicked as he hastily lowered the volume, glancing upstairs again and grinning as he became sure that Steve wasn't coming down.
He found a channel with some sort of advertising company. It wasn't the same as the cooking show or infomercials, but the quiet explanations of different showcased jewelry products weren't too far off the mark.
At some point after listening to the sales pitch for a quartz stone necklace, he must have fallen asleep.
Did it count as sleep if his partner woke him up within twenty minutes? The jewelry sales were off now. He hadn't even slept an hour, it didn't even qualify as a nap.
"I was watching that," he muttered. He hadn't been, not really, but it had been helping.
"Through the blanket." Steve always did this, that thing with his voice that drove Danny insane. That little drop in his volume that meant he didn't believe him. Sarcasm without it really being sarcasm, since he was simply stating facts and making them seem like bigger problems than they were. Making mountains out of molehills.
Danny pushed the blanket down, sighing a little. He was so, so tired. He didn't bother opening his eyes, there was really no point to it. "Oh well," he began, "I was listening anyway."
It was background noise.
"Yeah, I mean, because there's nothing more soothing than the sound of someone trying to sell you gold coins. Right?"
Had it been gold coins? Danny didn't even know. Steve clearly didn't understand the concept of background noise.
"You know, I needed something to block out the sound of the ocean because the waves keep crashing over and over and over again." He could feel his words getting slower, pronunciation just a little off as he struggled not to yawn. "Steven."
"Some would say it's a relaxing sound, Danny."
Steve sounded like he was trying to be accommodating and failing. He wasn't used to guests, probably. The ocean certainly wasn't relaxing. Not to Danny.
It devolved into a rather petty argument. Danny hadn't really expected anything else, but he was irritated that Steve chose this moment to pick at him again. He was exhausted. He'd been here for two weeks.
When he lied and told Steve that there's been a black mold infestation at his hotel, he thought living here for a while would be easier. It felt like it was backfiring anyway, since Steve had left his history uncleared when Danny asked to use his internet since his cell was running low on battery on a case. He'd seen the previous search on black mold infestations in the area and knew perfectly well Steve knew. Why Steve wasn't bringing his claim to his attention was a mystery Danny didn't want to look at. They fought enough already.
In any case, Danny was grateful when Steve bought him a headset later on. Not that it worked.
It was a sweet gesture, something Danny couldn't really turn down because it showed Steve was trying to meet him halfway. He did sleep better with them, he managed to get an average of five hours of sleep as opposed to the brief lapses in consciousness every half hour he used to manage.
He always felt exhausted though.
The core of the issue was that he didn't have a familiar sound to latch onto. The waves so close by were never going to be a sound he could get used to.
He couldn't just plug in his headset into the TV, they didn't reach that far and Steve would notice him scooting the TV stand closer to the couch. Danny tried playing music as well, but nothing really worked.
Which led to… another problem.
It had been a simple coincidence. Probably.
Sleep deprivation finally caught up to him and he'd passed out tucked under Steve's arm, head on Steve's shoulder… and then his chest. He had woken up when the soft thudding beat by his ear was no longer audible and the movement beneath his shoulder startled him.
Steve didn't seem to notice he was awake; he laid Danny down and brought him a new blanket and his usual pillow.
Movie night. It had been movie night.
He-- he didn't exactly remember when Steve had started doing the whole 'arm around his shoulder' thing, and he wasn't sure when he started allowing it. He couldn't remember ever protesting, but he also couldn't pinpoint when it began, so it seemed ridiculous to make a big deal out of it after so many movie nights with Steve's arm around him. It was comfortable, they were friends, and if Steve didn't feel any embarrassment over it, Danny felt no need to.
Until he accidentally fell asleep on Steve and woke up because he couldn't hear his heartbeat.
It was just a coincidence. Sleep deprivation! It was a real thing!
Another week of misery passed and Danny was getting a little more desperate. He lived with Steve now, it would be a little difficult to get to a doctor and get sleeping pills without him finding out.
Exhausted and halfway out of his mind, Danny inched his way upstairs, attempting not to trip on each step he took.
It was an experiment. That was all.
It was probably just a coincidence, nothing more. He would lay there for a couple minutes, fail to fall asleep, and then just go back downstairs and resign himself to the muffled pressure of his gift headphones.
There was a light pattern of snores emanating from Steve's room and Danny squinted at him. It didn't matter, did it? Snoring was as good a background noise as any. Hopefully. Or not. This was supposed to fail, after all.
He stumbled forward in the darkness, absently thinking about how if this didn't work he would have to double down on the search for a new apartment or go insane-- maybe he'd already crossed that line.
There was a beating thrum of paranoia just under his skin, growing with each step he took. His footsteps had never seemed louder than they were at that moment.
Reaching the side of the bed, Danny swallowed down on his own saliva. Steve wouldn't wake up. It wasn't like he had the TV on or anything, the house was still quiet-- the rustling of bed sheets as Danny inched his way over to him wouldn't startle him. It was just a test; it wouldn't work and he could go shut his eyes miserably on the couch afterwards.
Logically, he knew it had only been a couple minutes since he entered the room. It felt like it had been hours . He finally set his head over Steve's chest, sucking in a startled breath when an arm automatically wrapped around his shoulders to bring him closer.
This… this was not good.
He tried to wriggle out of the unexpected hold, turning as subtly as he possibly could-- he stopped. His movements only made Steve grumble and wrap both arms around him, shoving his face into Steve's chest.
He had the brief insane thought that Catherine couldn't have liked this, but then again, Catherine and Steve's relationship seemed nebulous and hard to put his finger on. Neither of them confirmed what they were, so it was hard to understand. Maybe she didn't sleep over after whatever they did. Or maybe she didn't mind being roughly tugged against Steve in the middle of the night, with the sound of a slow rhythm against her ear.
Danny stopped struggling. He wanted Steve to relax enough to let him go, but he soon became distracted by how softly his heart was beating. Steve was already relaxed. He was… naturally… grabby then.
Touchy.
Comfortable.
Warm.
He woke up alone in Steve's bed with a set of rumpled sheets over his legs and sounds echoing up the stairs from the kitchen.
He could explain himself--
The sun was bright. Light was coming in from the window and it was extremely bright and Danny had a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach because when he looked at the digital clock on the bedside table it read 11:17.
He… had been asleep for nine hours.
"Sleep deprivation," he muttered to himself again, voice groggy and quiet.
Still. Nine hours.
Somehow, he still felt more tired than the night before. His limbs felt heavy and sore for no reason and it was the most he'd slept in weeks , but it wasn't enough.
He tried not to dwell on it. He was too on edge, tense for the rest of the day as he tried to focus.
They had a case; they always had a case. The issue was that Steve wasn't saying anything. He played music in the car, the worst music, but Danny let it go because the silence was safer than conversation. There was no way Steve hadn't noticed a grown man in his bed, on his chest, passed out. At least it seemed like Steve didn't want to talk about it-- for once, the universe was looking out for him.
He almost thought the coast was clear, the sun was shining, everything was lovely.
He caught Steve looking at him. Steve didn't even have the decency to look away; he just smiled and held his stare until Danny felt like his own skin was too warm and broke eye contact.
It happened five times -- at the crime scene, twice in the morgue, at headquarters, in the middle of questioning a suspect -- it had been so distracting that Danny failed to get any real information out of the girl they had in holding and Steve had to take the lead.
Frustration was building up pressure inside of his chest and Danny tried breathing exercises outside by the car as he waited for Steve to wrap it all up. His blood pressure. It was important. Breathing and being calm when he could was important. He wanted to see Grace graduate, walk her down the aisle, get to spend time with-- okay, no maybe he didn't want to think about grandchildren just yet. Even the idea of Grace getting married was giving him anxiety.
Breathing.
He kept his arms at his sides when he saw Steve approaching the car and heading straight to the driver's side. Unsurprising.
Not that Danny wanted to fight over that today; he didn't have any leverage. Steve would bring it up and that would be embarrassing. Was there a delicate way of saying, 'Hey, I can't sleep without the TV, the ocean isn't helping, but your heartbeat? That thing does the trick. Knocks me right out; like a baby.'
And it probably wasn't even the case. Sleep deprivation, again. Maybe it wasn't even the beat, maybe it was having a warm body next to his-- no, no, no. The heartbeat was a safer thought. A far safer thought.
He glanced at Steve from the corner of his eye and felt his irritation spiking as he noticed Steve was already looking at him. Again. He was driving, for fuck's sake! Eyes on the road!
"What?" he snapped. "What are you lookin' at me for? Do I have something on my face? Am I some kind of eye candy to you--"
It was the wrong thing to say. It was definitely the wrong thing to say.
"Maybe." Steve was wearing that smirk. That stupid goddamn smirk he had when he was sure he was right except he'd said maybe and that implied he found Danny attractive. But that was ridiculous. He was goading him like a childish, selfish, ridiculous excuse of a partner. "Or maybe I'm eye candy to you, who knows. You're the one who was in my bed last night."
And with that, Danny's stomach dropped into his intestines. He had hoped he was safe. In the clear. So close. He put on his best poker face, but he'd never been one for gambling. He could handle a fun game between friends, but this wasn't fun.
"That was different." It was. "It was a matter of life and death." In a way. If he squinted.
"Life and death." It wasn't a question.
"Yeah," Danny bit out, looking at Steve. "Life and death. Now can you focus on the road for more than two seconds at a time? Please? Can you do that? I don't know about you, but I have this goal, a very special goal, of reaching the age of forty-five--"
"Just forty-five?" Steve interrupted him. Steve always interrupted him. He was smiling, though, one of those amused half smiles that wasn't at his expense and Danny felt the pressure ease off of his fraying nerves.
"Fifty," Danny shot back, a hand gesturing at the road. "If I'm lucky. With your driving skills, I think forty-five is actually generous of me. Optimistic. Hopeful and naive."
Maybe it was that Danny was uncomfortable, maybe Steve could tell-- he wasn't sure. They lapsed into silence as Steve focused on the road and Danny felt off-kilter. Steve was supposed to argue with him. Steve was supposed to say something about statistics or defend his driving skills or say Danny was overly negative. Instead, he had silence and the grating sound of waves crashing on the beach throughout the day.
They solved the case.
Steve still kept looking at him in a way that wasn't quite as smug as it was concerned and that was worse. It felt like pity, or motherly fussing. Danny was uncomfortable with both.
Sometime after booking their arrest and getting back into the car to head home, Danny let his head rest against the window and closed his eyes.
"You can't sleep." Steve's voice wasn't grating. It should have been. It used to be. He was just stating a simple fact, but it sounded like a quiet realization and Danny huffed a small laugh.
"I can't sleep," he confirmed. He didn't open his eyes. He was tired. It was quiet but for the hum of his car on the road and it was nice.
"You're taking the bed tonight."
That was clearly not going to happen.
"No," Danny mumbled. He was going to relax right here and then sleep on the couch and get used to it like an adult until he could find another place. The bed wouldn't make a difference. He knew it wouldn't make a difference. "'M not taking your bed."
"The guest bed--"
"Not Mary's either. I'm fine," he bit out. There were still traces of exhaustion in his voice, but now the relaxed feeling was gone. "I'm an adult--"
"Who hasn't actually asked to drive his own car in two weeks. You're using the commute to take naps, Danno. You're not hiding it as well as you think you are." Great. Just great. So he'd already been found out and had to dig the hole deeper.
He wanted to be angry, but Steve noticed and he sounded so frustrated. Not quite angry, but close. Worried. Steve got angry when he was worried.
"I'm not taking your bed," he repeated.
He didn't remember what Steve said after that, but it sounded annoyed. It made him smile a little. That was sort of normal for them.
He didn't remember replying either.
He woke up in Steve's bed, tucked under his blankets, alone and listening to the obnoxious sound of the waves crashing again.
He was stumbling over to Mary's room before he really thought it through, prepared to yell at Steve for putting him in his bed, and almost yelled at the air because Steve wasn't in there.
There were several moments where he stood in palpable confusion, muddled thoughts failing to provide an explanation, and then he realized what the absence of Steve upstairs meant.
He was downstairs, sleeping on his own couch because he thought the bed would make Danny more comfortable and he also didn't want to take Mary's room. Danny sighed heavily and rested his forehead on the wall, trying to reign in his annoyance. Steve was being a good friend. Steve had made a very nice gesture-- several nice gestures-- for him, and Danny didn't have the energy to pick a fight at… whatever time it was.
He carefully made his way down the steps, intent on switching places and carrying Steve upstairs.
He was an idiot. He was too tired to even try to lift Steve up, there was no manner of picking him up without waking him, and Danny… Danny could feel sleep lingering in the edges of his sight.
A nap.
A nap would be fine. It-- Steve hadn't been angry or uncomfortable. At least, he hadn't said anything to indicate it. What harm would a nap cause?
If anything, he had fallen asleep earlier, so he would probably wake up before Steve and go back upstairs and everything would be fine. Like he never did it.
He lifted Steve's blanket carefully, climbing into the limited space with him and gently settling himself against his side, head on his chest, the warmth and steady beat of his heart giving him something to focus on. It didn't quite drown out the ocean-- nothing did-- but it was soft. It was steady… it was… familiar.
Waking up with warmth beneath him, surrounding him and boxing him in, was incredible. He could hear the delicate rhythm against his ear and he frowned. It was faster, it was--
Oh no.
Oh no.
He froze, stopped all movement suddenly because there was nothing else he could do to prepare him for this situation. There was a chance, however slim, that Steve was asleep and just having a very active dream. Danny was too tense to look up. Instead, he tried-- as discreetly as he could-- to wiggle out of the goddamn bear hug he was trapped in.
"Where do you think you're going, Danno?"
Never, in the history of mankind, had anyone sounded as smug and insufferable as Steve McGarrett. Never. Danny could hear the smile in his voice.
He tried to keep his own voice level, to come up with an explanation, but he barely managed to stumble through the words: "I-- this is just-- I must have sleep-walked here."
"Right. 'Cause you do that." Sarcasm. Danny started wriggling angrily, trying to break the hold around his back to no avail.
"Yeah, as a matter of fact, I do," he grunted, shoving his shoulders against Steve's biceps. He would have to let him up eventually. Danny would resort to desperate measures if he didn't.
"Never done that before," Steve countered. He was laughing at Danny's struggle, the absolute bastard.
"Maybe I'm picking up habits because I got used to sleeping on the couch, alright?" What was a little white lie to spare his dignity? Not that he had much left of it, but that just made the final shreds precious. Shreds he couldn't keep in this position. "Let me go."
"So you couldn't sleep on the couch before, but I come down here and suddenly it's your favorite place to sleep?"
He was still laughing-- extremely amused. Danny could feel it in the way his shoulders shook. Once he registered what Steve was saying, Danny sucked in a breath and vehemently refused to accept that Steve was right. He was right, clearly, but he didn't have to know he was. The lack of confirmation to stroke his ego was key.
"Don't say it like that." It sounds like you think it's about more than what it really is. He didn't want to bring that particular topic to the surface, though. They heard enough jokes about being a married couple as it was. Danny couldn't handle it if even Steve jumped on the 'let's make Danny uncomfortable' bandwagon. "You make it seem like it's weird."
Weird was a safe word. Vague. Good enough. Insignificant.
"A little."
And just like that it became very significant and meaningful enough to poke at his calm.
"Well if it was weird ," he pointed out testily, "Then you can go ahead and let me go."
He redoubled his efforts at escaping the body hold, twisting irritably this way and that, trying to regain some space.
"I don't want to. I'm comfortable, are you comfortable?"
Steve was choosing this moment to play games with him. Asshole.
"No," he replied. He was not comfortable.
"You seemed comfortable two minutes ago." He had been; he wasn't now.
"I was asleep two minutes ago," he growled, poking Steve's sides and snorting when Steve jolted because of it. "Now I'm not. Ergo, not comfortable."
He kept up the poking until Steve finally let him free with a sarcastic and out of breath, "Whatever you say."
He briefly felt cold, an inexplicable hesitation weighing down his limbs as he sluggishly pulled away and got off of his partner-- only to see that stupid smug smirk on Steve's mouth again.
He stomped away.
A doctor. Sleeping pills.
Clearly, sleeping pills were the way to go.