Thanks to KQ for the beta and IC for the lovely comments.
This is a short, slightly supernatural story. It's nearly Halloween after all! Warnings- swearing, Danny whump and peril and the like.
Chapter 1
He was sinking.
Shocked eyes open wide, he watched, helpless, paralysed, as the rippling surface of the ocean rose high above him, far out of reach. As the shifting beams of sunlight cast deep into liquid green-blue faded towards darkness. He held his breath, fighting the urge to inhale even as his body screamed for air.
Suddenly he could move again and he struck out, reaching upwards, legs kicking desperately.
Nothing happened. Something was holding him fast, stopping him. He looked down. Seaweed had tangled around his legs. Shadowed, but glistening in the half-light, it was sliding up his body like a living thing, hell-bent on capturing him and drawing him down. Its slippery tendrils wrapped around his waist, his chest, his neck, his flailing arms. It pulled him deeper and deeper.
He fought it, frantic, because he didn't want this. He hated the ocean, he didn't want to die like this. He didn't want to die here, alone, like Billy had all those years ago. But he couldn't break free. He was weakening now, life slipping away from him. Desperate, he tried to shout out. He watched the chain of silvery bubbles that poured from his open mouth- the last breath he had taken- twist and turn upwards without him.
A hand closed on his ankle. He looked down in shock.
Billy. It was him. Billy Selway. Face blue, eyes milky white, he pulled Danny down towards him, into the weed, into the black depths. Billy's cold, cold dead arm wrapped around his neck, pulled Danny closer until thin lips were pressed to his ear.
Whispered words were repeated, over and over and over again, as Danny was drawn down to certain death. Words that meant nothing to him, nothing at all.
"Semper simul. Semper simul. Semper simul."
The weight on his chest was unbearable, the pain in his head inescapable. He felt those cold hands hold him tight as the words were repeated again and again. He was done. He had nothing left to fight with and he stilled.
He breathed in.
Danny jerked awake with a scream on his lips, his heart pounding in terror. For a second he could still feel it all. The seaweed, Billy, the sensation of drowning. His lungs felt like wet sponges and Jesus, he couldn't breathe!
He fought the panic, lunging for the light-switch with shaking fingers as he forced himself to slow down. Reminded himself the air was right there, all around him. He was okay. He sat there, shaking, then drew up his legs and wrapped his arms tight around his knees.
Fuck. Not again.
…...
"Okay, spill. What's wrong?"
Danny started at Steve's soft question because he'd been miles away, zoned out, exhaustion and the clinging hold of his persistent nightmare still refusing to leave him alone. "What?"
"What's wrong? You're quiet. You aren't being annoying. That's just not normal."
He turned his head to shoot something resembling a glare at Steve, but then shrugged resignedly. He sagged back against the headrest. "M'just tired. Not been sleeping so good."
There was a silence for a few moments. Danny watched the landscape streak by at the usual ridiculous speed, idly imagining the varied angles for a response that might be going through Steve's head. His partner would be concerned but loathe to be too obvious about that, emotionally constipated freak that he was.
"Insomnia again, Danno? Infomercials too interesting, keeping you awake?"
The chosen reply was comfortably predictable and Danny smiled to himself. "You're a funny guy, Steven. Did I ever tell you you're a funny guy?"
"I'm funnier than you anyway," came the caustic reply. Then the SEAL's tone softened again. "Danny c'mon, spill. You can talk to me, you know that. What's on your mind?"
Danny sighed deeply, too beat to bother putting up a fight. "Okay. You asked for it," he said with a nod, one finger pointing in Steve's general direction before the hand flopped down to join the other in his lap. "When I manage to sleep I've been having this dream, okay? It's been on freaking repeat for days now."
"Not the good kind of dream I guess," Steve hazarded.
"No, not the good kind," Danny acknowledged ruefully, letting his eyes fall shut. "So yeah. That's it. Not sleepin'. Bad dreams. Thank you for your concern but I'm sure it'll pass. I just need to drink another bucket of coffee and I'll be good."
"Okay. So tell me about it."
Danny opened one eye, cocked his head to look at his partner. "The dream? Seriously? Why? It's just a nightmare. What's the point? Anyway, maybe I don't feel comfortable talking about it. You're just gonna ridicule me, I can feel it."
"Danny, I'm hardly going to ridicule you," Steve began, "you know in ancient times, Hawaiian people-"
Danny rolled his eyes.
"- believed their ancestral guardians communicated with them through dreams. Interpreting dreams was considered very important- their content was taken very seriously. In fact, there are still people about who stand by those beliefs today- I know a few personally."
Danny pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers. "Well… thanks for that insight. That's… really informative. And no disrespect, but I'm not one of those people, okay? So this isn't that. It's just a freaking nightmare. It isn't freaking Great Aunt Edna sending a message from the other realm or whatever."
"Are you sure, Danno?" responded Steve, managing to sound like he was being perfectly reasonable. "There was a time you didn't believe in ghosts either, remember that?"
"I don't believe in ghosts!" exclaimed Danny, indignant.
Steve threw him an incredulous look framed by a raised eyebrow. "Buddy, you have a selective memory, you know that?"
"Shut up, huh," Danny whined back eloquently. He had no desire at any point to recall anything whatsoever to do with haunted apartments or gardening apparitions, and would happily deny anything and everything to do with both until the day he died.
"C'mon, tell me," Steve needled. "It's clearly got you spooked so I want to hear about it. I promise not to mock, okay?"
Danny sighed deeply, already resigned to telling before he found the words to actually do it. "Okay, okay. I'm just… I'm under the water, okay? The ocean, I mean. There's something wrong cause I can't swim, not at all. I'm just sinking. Then I'm all tangled up in seaweed and shit and it's dark and… I'm drowning. Then…" he hesitated, glanced at Steve. "Okay, I know this is predictable as hell, but Billy's there."
"Billy…?" Steve's face wrinkled up, then realization dawned and Danny could virtually see his partner's concern crank up a couple of notches. "Billy Selway? Your friend who drowned back when you were a kid?"
"Yeah." Danny leaned back again, shaking his head slowly from side to side. He felt stupid, saying all this out loud.
Steve didn't comment. He nodded once. "Okay. What's he doing? He try to save you?"
"No! No. The freaking opposite. He's just… he's pulling me down. And the seaweed's pulling me down and… Jesus, it's like the sea wants me in there with him. Like Billy wants me in there with him. And he's talking, he's saying something. I can't tell what at first. And I just can't get back up and I can't breathe."
Danny closed his eyes, and he could feel the pull of those cold, dead hands again. The wet, slippery seaweed wrapping around him and drawing him down, his lungs screaming for air. He grabbed at the seat beneath him, white-knuckled.
He looked up at the surface of the water, rippling high above his head, seeing the sunlight dull as he was pulled deeper and deeper. He tried to hold his breath until he just couldn't any longer and he lost the fight, drawing in that first deadly lungful of salt water.
"Danny?! Danny! Hey. Easy! You okay?!"
Jesus! Danny snapped back to reality with a jolt, breathing hard, sweat pouring down his face. He drew in a gulping breath, then another, then another, until the panic started to recede to more manageable levels.
What the hell had happened there? Was he freaking dreaming when he was awake now?! He looked around, mortified.
Steve had pulled over to the side of the road. He was right in Danny's face, wearing that look of wide-eyed concern that left creases right down the center of his forehead. One big hand was clamped on Danny's arm.
"Yeah, yeah," Danny panted. "Shit. Just a stupid dream, right?" He closed his eyes, taking deep, shuddering breaths as he got himself back under control.
After a few beats he felt Steve release him, felt the car moving again and he was fucking grateful for that. Grateful that Steve was giving him a bit of mental space to get his shit together and wasn't just sitting there staring at him anymore.
A good five minutes passed before Steve spoke again. "What did he say?"
Danny frowned in confusion. "Wh-what?"
"Billy. You said you couldn't make out what he was saying at first."
Danny blinked a few times, "Wh-why, y-you think it meant something?" he said, following up with a high-pitched giggle. He meant it to sound sarcastic and mocking, because no way would either of them believe in that dead-people-communicating thing. But it came out all wrong, like a straight question.
Steve didn't reply, giving nothing away.
Danny shook his head at himself, at both of them. He frowned hard, trying to remember the exact words Billy had used. "It never really made sense at all," he said. "I didn't understand it. Semper sim.. something. Is that Latin? See I have no idea and no freaking way would Billy speak to me in Latin from beyond the grave. If he ever got the chance, it wouldn't be Latin, it would be…."
He stopped. It would be what? 'Why me not you?' or 'It's your fault I'm dead'? Fuck.
No, he shook his head. He was projecting. Those were his own sentiments, not his childhood best friend's. Billy wouldn't blame him. Would he?
"Semper simul? Was it semper simul?" Steve's tone was abrupt and that made Danny frown.
"Th-that sounds right. Don't tell me you speak Latin too?" He laughed again, searching for a more normal gear to engage in his head. "Let me guess, the SEALs had a freaking secret time machine and you got sent to fight the Romans? Or back the Romans up? Which side would we have been on anyway? I'm a bit fuzzy on the whole politics of the Roman invasion thing, you know. I'm assuming they were the bad guys but I saw this documentary once and it said they brought roads and central heating and concrete and wine and things like that with them, so those things had to be good, huh?"
Steve was blatantly ignoring his rambling thing. He didn't answer at all for long enough that the hair started to stick up on the back of Danny's neck. "What, what does it mean? Steve?"
He watched as Steve licked his lips, a sure tell he felt nervous. "It would roughly translate as 'always together'".
Danny laughed as a reflex, because seriously? What the hell did that mean? Billy wouldn't want that, would he? Would he want Danny to drown too so they could be together? They had been best friends. That was crazy. And, wait, he was dreaming in Latin that actually made sense? That was even crazier! For a second he felt that cold hand close on his ankle again, pulling him downwards. He shuddered.
"Well that's… creepy," he cleared his throat.
Steve exhaled audibly, then shrugged. "It's not an unusual phrase really. It's used for... I guess mottoes, that kind of thing. I suppose you saw it somewhere. Or heard it in a movie. Or something."
Danny stared at him doubtfully, then started to wrack his brain, trying to come up with an occasion he might have heard the phrase before. He drew a blank.
Steve was glancing at him repeatedly again. "Look, D, forget about the dream thing, I'm sure it's nothing. But if you're not sleeping… we've had a lot of shit thrown at us over the last few years. You thought of seeing anyone about it?"
"Seeing anyone..? Sure, I see you on a daily basis."
"You know what I mean. Talk it out with a professional. After everything with Matty. And the plane crash. And… well you know the list. When you're stressed it's not uncommon for old stuff to rear its head again, you know? I mean if you're not okay… it's okay to admit it, right?"
"Thanks for that, Doctor Freud!" Danny snarked out of habit, and yeah, he was maybe feeling a little exposed and vulnerable right then. "Anyway, I could say exactly the same thing to you, you total hypocrite! You spend most of your time trying to think up new ways of getting yourself killed. That's not normal, Steven! Most people who've had a liver transplant kick back and take it easy, but not you, oh no!"
Steve had to be worried because he didn't snark right back at the blatant defensive bluster. "It's not me who hasn't been sleeping," he said, so soft Danny barely heard it. "Listen, you want to take off early, try to catch up on some sleep?"
Danny deflated. He shook his head wearily. "No. Seriously there's no point. Unless I take a pill and I hate that. I hate not being able to wake up just in case, you know? No, we gotta get this freak Campbell before he kills another unsuspecting tourist."
"I know, buddy. I know," Steve replied, nodding slowly. "Okay, how about this. Once we get the case wrapped up you wanna go the other way? Stay up late, catch a movie? I'd say grab a couple of beers, but, well, you know. Liver thing. You can crash on the couch if you feel like sleeping."
Danny snorted and opened his mouth to say 'no', but stopped. If he was brutally honest with himself, right then he couldn't think of anything he'd like more than having a cantankerous but unendingly reliable SEAL in the vicinity to help him stave off sleep when his head was hell-bent on playing stupid tricks on him. "Yeah. Yeah why not. Thanks."
"Anytime, partner. You know that."
Danny shot him a grateful smile. Yeah. He did know that.
TBC