Steve awoke in the middle of the night with a start, chest heaving as he gasped for breath. After a few seconds he remembered where he was, plucking his stuffed cat toy from where it had gotten wedged between his pillow and the wall and holding it tight to his chest. Repeats of his nightmare flooded his brain and Steve closed his eyes in an attempt to block them out.

"Danno…" Steve whimpered as he curled onto his side, weakly kicking the covers off as they felt constricting. Images of himself being kidnapped with his hands and feet cuffed to a chair plagued him and he buried his face in the toy's soft, white fur. After a few minutes the visions seemed to have stopped, and Steve breathed a sigh of relief as he relaxed and tried to go back to sleep.

The strange woman was pumping his veins full of some mystery, dark liquid, and he was powerless to do anything about it with his hands and feet clamped to the chair. He was shirtless, and with his head hanging down he could see that his chest and arms were covered in sweat and dirt.

Steve's eyes shot open at the sudden reoccurrence of the nightmare. It feels so real, as if he was actually there in that dingy room with the dripping pipes. He was scared, so scared, and he knew the one thing that would make him feel better.

Slowly he sat on the edge of the bed, the soft glow of his nightlight illuminating the room enough for him to see as he pulled himself upright and over to open the door, shuffling down the hallway still clutching his cat to his chest in his right hand. Steve paused at the bottom of the stairs and bit his lip, before bracing his free hand on the banister and slowly, very slowly as he could feel his leg getting tired, he began to scale the stairs. Danny didn't like it when he climbed the stairs on his own, but Steve needed him. All of a sudden his vision returned, but something was different.

A man came towards him out of the darkness and prodded him in the chest with what looked like a stick, like the ones that grew on the trees outside his house. But this one was bad, and when it touched him he screamed and flung his head back in pain as shocks ran through his body.

Steve lurched forward as the images flooded his vision, unable to tell the difference between them and reality. Fortunately he'd managed to get to the landing halfway up the stairs and scrambled at the wall with both hands, not even noticing his stuffed cat slip from his grasp as hallucinations of the man jabbing him with the bad stick again and again and again swam in his eyes. Tears streamed down his face as his leg finally gave way and he slid down the wall and onto the hard wooden floor, his bad leg underneath him. Steve screamed in pain, both from the fall and from the man in his visions shocking him with the stick. Suddenly everything changed.

Now he was fighting the woman who had poisoned him, only partially cuffed to the chair now. He used anything he could to battle for his life, from taking her by surprise with a headbutt to the pole that still had the bags of dark fluid hanging from it. He could feel his heart racing while his arms legs squeezed the life out of one of his captors as he lay on the floor, and his head went back to rest on the wet surface.

Steve looked up from where he lay on his wooden floor and could just about make out the door to Danny's room, lit up by moonlight that was coming in through an open window at the end of the hallway. One shaky hand came up to grasp at a stair-ledge in an attempt to pull himself up, but he barely managed to drag himself a couple of inches.

Then his vision flashed to him breaking a pipe on the ceiling and water poured out and onto the floor and the woman. He was then sitting back in the chair with his head bowed, the woman's body on another stool in front of him. Her head was propped up with the broken-off end of a broom handle. Then the man from earlier came back in, and noticed something was wrong and drew his guns.

Steve lifted his bare feet up and touched the bad stick to the wet ground, sending shockwaves over to the other man who fell to the floor, and he breathed a sigh of relief. But then the man got up again and came towards him…

Steve began to panic, feeling like something was clawing at his chest and he couldn't breath. He screwed his face up as the tears kept flowing down his cheeks, and shouted the first word that came to his mind.

"Danno!"

Danny awoke to the sound of his name being called. Silence followed, so he put it down to a figment of his imagination and closed his eyes again, pulling the covers back over him from where they'd fallen down in the night.

But then he heard his name again, and this time there was no mistaking the faint sobs that followed. Danny sat up and frowned, listening carefully as he tried to figure out what was going on. Grace was at her mother's so it wasn't her making the noise, plus she knew to come to his room if she had a nightmare. Danny's face paled as he realised that only left one person who could be calling his name.

Danny jumped out of bed as he heard Steve now screaming his name, and ran out his door and down the hall. The sight that greeted him as he flicked the light on almost made his heart stop.

Steve was lying halfway up the stairs, bad leg underneath him and arms stretched out in front of him, one hand still gripping the stair-ledge. He cried out for Danny as soon as he saw him, and the blonde practically flew down the short flight of stairs, gently placing one hand on Steve's shoulder and the other on the side of his face.

"Steve, what the hell happened?! Are you okay? Why aren't you in bed?" Danny knew that firing too many questions at him wouldn't help, but he was panicking. Steve flinched at the hands on his body, but soon realised that this man wouldn't hurt him.

"Wanted Danno... Bad dream." Steve gasped out through his sobs. "Bad lady and man hurt Steve with a stick..."

Danny crouched by the taller man, not wanting to risk moving him until he knew if Steve was hurt anywhere, the hand on his shoulder squeezing reassuringly.

"Oh, babe... it was just a bad dream, it's all over now, Danno's here."

"No, Danno... kept seeing them when I up stairs. Steve..." Steve took a deep breath. "Steve hurt the lady back."

Danny's breath caught in his throat as he slowly realised what Steve had been seeing in his dreams and on his way up the stairs. Wo Fat and his accomplice torturing him in the basement of the launderette... "Babe, are you hurt anywhere? Your back or your head?"

"No… leg hurts." Steve shook his head, and Danny sighed.

He carefully got Steve sitting against the wall and handed him his beloved stuffed cat when he pointed to where it lay on the floor. Danny slowly helped him to stand up, putting both of his arms around him for support. Together they slowly climbed the rest of the stairs and made their way to Danny's bedroom, where the blonde carefully sat Steve down on the bed. Danny ran to the adjoining bathroom as soon as he was sure that Steve wouldn't move, and came back with a damp washcloth and a dry towel.

"Steve, I'm just gonna give your face a little wash, okay babe?" Danny sat next to him and brought the cloth up to his face. Then Steve's eyes went wide.

The woman was still alive, and she was holding a dirty cloth over his face. Then he heard someone – the man, he guessed – come towards him, and then freezing cold water was being thrown over his face. He could feel it coming through the cloth – it was stuck to his face and he couldn't breath – and trickling down his throat. His fists clenched on the arms of the chair as his head was forced back so that more water could invade his body.

Danny felt helpless as he watched Steve scramble away from him with a panicked look on his face, only stopping when his back hit the wooden headboard. "Please, no more water…" He pleaded, hands still gripping his toy.

Danny looked down at the cloth in his hand, and then up at Steve as his brain clicked into place. They water boarded him, you idiot. And he's reliving it all.

"Steve, babe I won't hurt you. It's just a cloth and a towel, no water. It's warm, too, see?" Danny slowly moved closer to Steve until he was sitting next to him, and gently took his hand and placed it on the cloth. Steve's breath hitched at first, and Danny worried that he'd made a mistake, but then another tear slipped down his face as he nodded.

"Okay, Danno."

Danny smiled at him and took hold of his hand as he soothingly wiped the tears from his face. He reached back for the towel and patted his face dry, pressing a soft kiss to Steve's forehead when he was done.

"Do you want some pain medicine, babe?" Danny whispered.

Steve nodded, and let go of his hand and watched as Danny got the bottle that he kept for emergencies out of the drawer, drew some of the liquid into a syringe, and eagerly swallowed it down when Danny gave it to him.

"Okay buddy, let's try and get some sleep, yeah?" Steve went willingly as Danny got them under the covers, burrowing into his arms with a sigh and closing his eyes again.

The man was coming towards him with guns. He jumped up and used the dead woman's body as a shield, throwing her into the man. The man dropped his guns, and Steve fought him for his life, his body already weakened from the water, shocks and the drugs. But he wasn't giving up as he threw the other man around, against the walls and even up into a ceiling light. The fight carried on and both men ended up on the floor, bloody and bruised. Steve saw a gun within his reach, but so did the other man and they raced to beat the other.

Both men drew their weapons against the other. His hands were shaking as he tried to hold it steady. The other man said something to him, and he took a breath as he pulled the trigger.

Steve was sobbing and shaking in his arms, and Danny felt powerless to help him. He could only imagine what Steve was seeing if he was remembering his ordeal at the hands of Wo Fat, and prayed that it ended soon.

"Steve? It's just a bad dream, baby, Danno's here now. You need to wake up, buddy." Danny gently shook him, and was relieved to see his green eyes slowly appear underneath long lashes.

"D-Danno?" Steve whispered, his fingers twisted in the blonde's shirt.

"Yeah babe, it's me. Danno's got you now, you're alright." Danny repeated his soothing words, rubbing a hand up and down Steve's back.

"Steve hurt the bad man, Danno… Shot him." Steve cried into his chest. Danny bowed his head to rest their foreheads together, holding him tight against his chest.

"He was hurting you too, though, babe… and he was a very bad man. You had to." Danny said, reaching down to link their fingers together, glad when the other man squeezed back.

Steve lay curled into his chest, his sobs having finally died down, and Danny thought he'd gone back to sleep until his quiet voice spoke up.

"Danno came for Steve after."

Danny realised that he was talking about when Five-0 had stormed the place and rescued Steve, and Danny had knelt in front of him, rubbing his neck and telling him everything was over now. He also told Steve that his dad had died, but fortunately he didn't seem to remember that part right now.

"That's right babe, I did. And I'll always come for you if you're in trouble." Danny promised as he rolled onto his back and bringing Steve with him, the taller man wrapping himself around Danny and burying his face in the crook of his neck. Danny felt something dig into his side, and let out a small laugh when he saw a familiar lump of white fur wedged in between the two men. "Danno loves you very much, Steve, okay? Try and get some sleep now, babe."

"Steve school 'morrow, Danno?"

"Nope, no school, buddy. It's been a long night and we're both tired. And no work for Danno either, I'm gonna spend the day at home with you tomorrow - whatever you want to do, we'll do." Danny explained, running the fingers of one hand through his hair. Looking down he could see a faint smile creep onto Steve's face as he processed what Danny had said.

"Danno swim with Steve?"

"Sure, if that's what you wanna do." Steve nodded into his chest. "Anything else?"

"No. Just be with Danno." Steve yawned.

Danny had to blink back tears, realising that Steve just wanted to spend time with him and didn't care what they did. He thought back to when they first met, and Steve gave him tickets to take Grace to swim with dolphins. That gave him an idea. Tomorrow morning he'd phone up the hotel that Grace and he went to and see if they could do him a favour…

"Okay. We'll have fun tomorrow, just me and you." Danny kissed Steve's forehead. "Love you, babe."

"Steve loves Danno, too." Steve fell asleep in seconds, safe in Danny's arms, and neither man woke up until the next morning.