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Insomnia.
That word had been rattling about in Steve's head since Danny had first told him during their rather insightful stakeout about the affliction, said flippantly and with little care, merely background information that would help portray a story, and that was that, nothing more. And it was easy to put the revelation aside in favour of catching their diamond thieves-turned-murderers. All in all, it was relatively easy to push aside and forget about. Maybe Steve should have been more upset at that revelation, but it didn't surprise him. What did surprise him was that after five years of working with Danny, as both partner and best friend, there were still things for him to learn.
It was like learning about Danny's claustrophobia, his vicious dislike of the water, or how his former partner- the woman his daughter was named after no less- was killed after Danny was beaten within an inch of his life on 9/11. And sure, it was always interesting to learn new things about Danny because he was such a fascinating person, but maybe Steve was foolish in his assumption that he had learnt it all by now.
There were some days when he thought that he had barely scratched the surface.
When he walked into the Palace early one morning, hot on the heels of Chin and Kono who were laughing ahead of him, he was vaguely surprised to see Danny already in his office, stuck into a pile of paperwork that they had been putting off for too long. His head was bowed, and he didn't glance up when he passed his office, even when Steve stood outside the glass like a real creep and just looked at him for a little while.
"You alright, Steve?" Kono asked as she put a hand on his arm. She and Chin came to a stop beside him, looking up at him quizzically.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Steve answered. "Just... do you know if Danny usually comes in early to do... paperwork?"
Chin shrugged. "Sometimes. If he can't sleep and hasn't got anything better to do, we'll usually come into work and see him here already with a few hours on us, but that's about it."
"Alright," Steve tried to give them a comforting smile, and it must have worked because Kono dropped her arm and Chin returned the smile. "I'll meet you guys in a minute."
On a regular day, Steve would have thought nothing more about it. Sure, everybody has trouble sleeping sometimes. Even he has trouble sleeping at times. But ever since he had heard that cursed eight-letter word, he couldn't help but think that 'restless nights' were somewhat closer to 'sleepless nights'. He couldn't help but wonder how often, over these past five years, Danny had come into work before the others had arrived and claimed an unsettled night's sleep, and as he counted all the times Danny, who hated getting up early with a passion, would beat him to the office, he realized that the number was high, higher than he'd like and definitely higher than Danny would ever admit.
Danny's head was still bowed, a hand threaded in his hair, as he read from the paperwork clad within the manila envelope on his desk, pen tapping against the solid wood. His computer was switched on and he glanced at it every now and then as if trying to remind himself of the case the report was on. Steve merely watched him for a moment, watched every displeased frown or scrunch of his nose and squint of his eyes as he peered at the bright screen so early in the morning.
He knocked on the glass door as he entered and let it swing shut silently behind him. Danny glanced up from his work, squinting a little, blinking until his face smoothed over into a welcoming grin. "Morning,"
"Morning," Steve replied. He took this moment to look at him, really look at him. He didn't look any different than he normally did, aside from the slight paleness to his skin, the way the shadows under his eyes seemed to be even darker, the way his constant frown seemed to be more pronounced or at least more questionable. Or maybe not. Maybe he just looked exactly the same as he always did and Steve was the one who was different, putting context where there really wasn't any. "You're in early."
"Yeah, couldn't sleep," Danny shrugged. He leant back in his chair and crossed his legs over the edge of his desk, rolling the pen absently between his fingers. "I thought it'd be better to come in and get through some of this never-ending paperwork than lie in bed and listen to the neighbours have rigorous sex until the sun came up, you know what I mean?"
Steve winced. Yeah, he knew exactly what he meant. "Gross."
"They're just kids having fun. I'm not gonna stop them," Danny shrugged. With one fluid movement that didn't speak to the apparent sleepless night he'd had, he stood, dropping the pen on the desk, and ran an absent hand through his hair. "So, we got something or have you just come by for a chat?"
Truthfully, it was the latter- Steve had no idea if they'd gotten a case, and had barged into Danny's office with no plan in mind. He must look like an idiot, standing there with his hands in his pockets while Danny looked at him expectantly. "Do you remember what you said to me during the stakeout?"
He shouldn't be surprised by the way Danny's eyebrows rose into his hairline, but for some reason, Steve was. "What, the homework from the psychologist, the personality types? You're not still hung up on the proteine thing, are you?'
"Uh, no, not really." It was the truth. Steve had pretty much forgotten about the humorous insult as soon as it happened. "Uh, the thing about the commercial. You know, how you have trouble sleeping at times."
Truth be told, Steve wasn't very good at this kind of thing. Heart-to-hearts, opening up, confessing emotions, chatting about their deepest and darkest secrets. Danny had always been the more emotional of the two, much to the detriment of both of them. Steve always thought that he was too sensitive, and Danny thought that he was a robot. Danny wore his heart on his sleeve, every emotion on display, whether it be fear or anger or pure, unbridled joy, and Steve... well. The Navy had buried what little of that survived his childhood.
The look on Danny's face didn't help his floundering. "Oh, the insomnia? That was just a throwaway comment, man. No big deal."
"Yeah, but..." Steve didn't know why he was pushing the issue. Danny obviously wasn't bothered by it, so why did it matter so much to Steve? "I told you that stupid story about the guitar. After that sob story, you can tell me anything and I won't laugh, you know?"
The way Danny looked at him, the discerning way he observed a crime scene and found those things that nobody else would consider to be suspicious, put Steve on edge. It took a little while for Danny to speak, but when he did, his voice was light and didn't belay the heaviness of his gaze. "It's not a big deal, Steve, but I appreciate it."
And then Kono stuck her head into the room, breaking the silence by announcing that they had a case, and the word insomnia temporarily faded into the background.
But though they have more pressing and urgent matters to attend to, Steve never allowed himself to fully forget. In-between rare moments of downtime, he found himself googling the condition, trying to learn anything and everything about this psychological ailment he never even knew that his best friend suffered from.
Most cases of insomnia are related to poor sleeping habits, depression, anxiety, lack of exercise, chronic illness or certain medication. That took Steve by surprise: he knew that Danny was a stressed and anxious person by nature, but he wasn't sure if it was extreme enough to be diagnosed as 'anxiety', and there was little they could do about poor sleeping habits with their particular line of work, and considering all the running around they all did, he doubted that Danny lacked exercise, despite his hatred for running for fun. Symptoms may include difficulty falling or staying asleep and not feeling well-rested. That made sense, Steve reasoned and might be the reason Danny couldn't sleep without the TV at an obnoxiously loud volume. Treatment for insomnia consists of improving sleep habits, behaviour therapy and identifying and treating underlying causes. Sleeping pills may also be used but should be monitored for side effects. Steve wasn't sure how Danny would feel about that, or even feel about Steve mentioning it in the first place. He had no idea if he was crossing into the unwelcomed territory and he had to be careful where he stepped.
He continued to read, eyeing Danny every now and then from where he was engrossed in telling a recent story about Grace, waving his fork around in a dramatic retelling, making Chin choke on his lunch.
People may experience: a lack of concentration or slowness in activity, sleeping difficulty, depression, headache, or irritability. Nothing on the list stood out to him, other than the glaringly obvious case of irritability. Danny seemed to have that in spades.
Days passed, and Steve didn't bring it up again, not until he lost what little of his patience that still remained after a long and tiresome week and decided abruptly to do something about it.
Armed with what he believed to be a well-thought-out plan of attack, Steve made his way through the darkened streets at the end of a long week until he arrived at Danny's apartment, and without bothering to knock, let himself into Danny's home with his spare key, not bothering to call ahead or announce his presence.
Danny was lounging on the couch in a ratty pair of pyjamas, his hair an absolute mess, with a colourful knitted blanket thrown over his legs. He recognised it as one his mother had knitted and sent over for Christmas a few years ago. The TV was on, as expected, too loud and too bright in the otherwise silent, still, dimness of the room. Danny glanced up when he entered, but didn't seem all that phased at the intrusion. "You didn't call to tell me you were coming."
"I thought you might enjoy the surprise," Steve said. He took great joy in the way Danny's face lit up in displeasure- he more than anyone else in the world knew how much Danny hated unplanned surprises. He nudged the bottle of beer out of the way and deposited the bag of goodies he had brought. "These are for you."
For a moment, Danny did nothing but stare at it stupidly, brows pulled together and lips slightly ajar. "Babe, you didn't have to."
"You don't even know what it is yet," Steve collapsed on the other side of the couch and fumbled for the remote to mute the TV. It was obnoxiously loud.
"Yeah, but I know you, and I know it must have taken a lot for you to willingly spend money on something for another person," Danny was only teasing, but he was still staring at Steve suspiciously.
Steve had never been able to understand why he did this- whenever Steve brought him a gift, Danny was immediately distrustful and acted as if Steve had packaged and hand-delivered him a bomb as some sort of SEAL-related gag. "Just open it. It's not going to bite you, I promise."
While Danny finally, blessedly reached for it, he merely rested it in his lap, still stubbornly refusing to open the bag. He eyed Steve with suspicion, head tilted away from the gift in his lap. "Is it a special occasion? Birthday? Mothers Day? Something I should know?"
Exasperated to high hell, Steve reached out and yanked the bag out of Danny's hands, and instead reached inside and began handing him single objects instead. "Camomile tea," he explained, letting a small yellow box fall into Danny's lap. "Melatonin gummies, a mix-tape that the lady at the store told me was very calming, a hypnosis guide-book, essential oils and a vapouriser, military relaxation techniques-"
He cut himself off when he finally caught the look on Danny's face, when most of the contents of the bag had been dumped onto his lap. Danny looked to be a mixture between perplexed and fond, his brow furrowed but his lips pressed into a strained smile as if he were trying to stop a grin from spreading across his face. "Babe, did you really go through all this because I made a throw-away comment about having insomnia?"
"Listen," Steve held up a hand before Danny could continue. "You listened to my sob story about getting stage fright, and in return, you brought me a guitar. Those things are expensive, even second hand, and I know that you aren't exactly loaded."
"It wasn't a sob story," Danny couldn't help himself from interrupting. "And it was a tuba, if you remember correctly."
Steve continued as if he hadn't spoken. "Though it was only a 'throwaway comment', you shared something personal with me, and I want to return the favour."
The silence stretched on passed what Steve was comfortable with, and he stared at Danny for a long while. Danny glanced between Steve and the objects in his lap with an unreadable expression. "Steve," he said slowly, measuredly, like he was afraid of making Steve upset. Steve waited for the blow to come. "This is... wow. This might be the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me, outside of my parents and my daughter. You know that, right?"
"It's not a big deal," Steve shrugged.
"It very much is a big deal. This is a huge deal," Danny fiddled with the canary yellow box of tea. "You really went through all of this effort, unprompted, for me, just because you heard me mention that I sometimes have insomnia?"
"No?" Steve tried, and then winced. "Yes? It's more than that. It's that, yes, absolutely. But I also realized that even though we've been working together for five years now, there's still so much about you that I've got to learn. Like that you love your mother's lasagna, and you're actually a pretty great cook when you're not trying to burn the house down, and that you don't like the water because of a traumatic experience and not because you're a hard-ass, and that you lost your first partner on 9/11, and you're claustrophobic, and so many other things that I've got no control over. But I thought this... I don't know. I guess I just thought maybe this was something that I could help with."
Again, Danny was quiet, but Steve had the feeling that this time it was more contemplative than judgmental. Without looking at Steve, he took a breath and said, "I've had trouble sleeping all my life, you know? I would just stare up at the bottom of Matty's bunk and listen to him snoring, and sometimes I'd look out the window and realize that it was daylight already. Then when I got older, I became a cop, and a cop's sleeping schedule, especially a beat cop at the start of their career, is all over the place. I'd get home at odd hours, maybe I wouldn't get home at all and I'd sleep at the station, and then sometimes I'd be too wired to sleep at all, or I'd be so exhausted over a combination of things that I'd pass right out before my head had even hit the pillow. It's never impacted my work. I've never allowed it to interfere with my duty, and I've found ways over the years to keep it in check somewhat."
"Oh yeah?" Steve leant back against the couch, arm slung over the back, and tried not to let his surprise show on his stupidly readable face. "Like what?"
Now Danny's eyes had fallen on the muted TV and the bright, flashy advertising for a kitchen utensil. "The weekends I have Grace are probably the best ones. I know that she's safe and within close reach. Otherwise, it's mostly just... I don't know. Eating at a reasonable time so I don't feel the urge to get up, not drinking so often so late, having lights on, falling asleep to sound. I can trick myself into thinking that somebody is here with me. I guess it never really used to bother me because I wasn't ever really alone, you know? I'd always have Matty or Rachel or the hubbub of the station or something. Now I live here alone, and I've just had to adapt, to trick my mind, I guess. Does that make sense?"
"Yeah," Steve said softly. "It makes sense."
Scoffing, Danny ran a heavy hand down his face. "Who's the one spewing the sob story now, huh?"
But Steve was shaking his head even before Danny had finished speaking. "No, it's- I appreciate you telling me," he felt the conversation veering into more emotional territory, a place he wasn't sure either man would be willing to face at this time of night after such a stressful few days, so he changed track. "By the way, you fall asleep during car rides, too. When we're not chasing assholes through the streets at break-neck speeds, that is."
Danny offered him a rueful smile. "Yeah, I used to do that a lot when I was younger too. Dunno why. Bridget did it too. Maybe it's just a Williams thing."
"Nah," Steve shook his head and slowly began gathering up the objects on Danny's lap to shove them unceremoniously back into the bag. "I used to fall asleep on my dad's boat all the time. It's the rocking."
"A boat?" Danny scrunched up his face in displeasure. "You mean, a boat, in the middle of the ocean? Filled with sharks and danger and countless things that want to kill you?"
"Not everyone hates the water, Danno," Steve rolled his eyes. "Some people, like me, find the water quite soothing."
"I literally cannot think of anything that would be any less soothing."
"Well, maybe it's you who's the weird one." Steve huffed as he flopped back against the couch. "What kind of guy doesn't like the ocean?"
They spent the night speaking about nothing and everything in particular, just enjoying each other's company, and to be totally honest, it was peaceful. Steve stole half of the blanket off of Danny's legs and pulled it over himself, and did most of the talking. When Danny's eyes began to flutter shut, and his responses barely became hums of acknowledgment, Steve contemplated his next moves. Usually, Steve would take that as his queue to leave, to break off the conversation and excuse himself. But instead, he just continued to speak, drowning out the silence with his voice, and eventually, Danny's breathing slowed and he began to snore as he fell asleep.
Steve watched him for a moment, slightly proud of himself. He didn't move or detangle Danny's legs from around his own. He reached for the remote and swapped the channel to a re-run from the last game, turning it to the lowest volume setting it could go, and settled in for a quiet night sharing the couch with his best friend.
Insomnia. Maybe that eight letter word wasn't so scary after all.