AN: I actually had the mental image for this in my head waaaaay back in the summer, before I watched episode 7x23 again a few weeks ago, where Steve builds Charlie's race car bed after saving Danny's life. What moved me most about it was the fact Makino's case going cold is what led Danny to meet Steve, and without it he probably never would have. Exploring the emotions of that was a lot more tender than expected and bam - this was born.

(It requires some next level mental gymnastics to imagine a scenario where said race car bed holds two grown men and a child, but hey. This is fanfiction. The laws of physics don't apply.)

Stay well, lovely people!


There's gyprock in his hair, is the first thing he notices.

He gently closes the front door and takes off his shoes, then stops in the bathroom to brush his teeth. The gums throb along with his neck, where the fake nurse tried to strangle him. Probably thanks to some oxygen deprivation and high blood pressure. He's going to have muscle pain for days, he can tell after years at this job.

The joys of cold cases come to life.

Everything feels tired, fifty pounds heavier than it should. From his dragging feet to the ache in his shoulders. Springs of tension coil in his belly with the rusty scrape of adrenaline spiralling from his system. Killing three people and executing a high speed chase—all while being shot at—can do that to a person.

As he rinses off the day's toil, he looks in the mirror and catches a streak of porcelain white mixed with the gold near his temple. Gyprock. It makes his hair look a shade grayer, appropriate for the old man way his muscles tremble with too much exertion.

Danny braces both hands on the sink. He feels bad that he didn't stop to wash or brush out the dirt, from where Steve oh so gracefully bashed in the entire front wall of the house, before thanking Tanaka. He's just glad he got the chance to apologize to Makino, a man who deserved better.

"Not your fault, Williams," he whispers to himself. It'll take a while to sink in.

He's so tired that he debates just leaving the gyprock powder until morning, but he doesn't want Charlie to see any evidence of the day's violence, on the off chance he's awake. Danny finger-rinses his hair, saving the real shower for tomorrow. Droplets pool along his eyelashes and crests of his pale ears.

There. Good enough.

Charlie should be asleep anyway.

Danny pads down the hall on sock feet and notes again that Steve's truck sits in the driveway…but Steve himself is scarce. He's not in the living room, feet up, game on TV. Quiet blankets the whole house, the humming of the fridge the loudest sound.

This mystery is solved when Danny knuckles open Charlie's door—

And there, like a newborn giraffe, is Steve. Sprawled across the brand new race car bed.

Well. Half sprawled. His upper body lays facing Charlie, his shins waterfalling down to the floor, which isn't that big of a lip. Still, Danny winces in sympathy for how the side must dig into Steve's hip. He certainly looks comfortable enough.

Charlie's got a hand bunched in Steve's T-shirt. They both sleep like a nursery book illustration, angelic and still.

Tension puddles out of Danny in one great exodus. His shoulder sags against the door frame, eyes misty. He breathes low and long until a smile ticks up one side of his face. The room looks immaculate, now filled with Charlie's impressive stuffed animal collection.

You're a wonder, Steve.

Danny Williams on a normal day would poke at Steve's back until he wakes. Badger Steve into the living room so they can watch that game. Maybe give a lecture about how this sets a bad precedent and he doesn't want Charlie getting used to someone there when he can't sleep.

Today is not a normal day.

Not to mention Danny isn't a normal kind of tired; it burrows deeper than physical exertion to something in his heart, at the remembrance of seven years ago. At blood on the wall of a childhood home.

Danny doesn't even bother to fight with himself—he rounds the other side of the bed, closest to the window, and burrows into the meager space between Charlie's back and the sideboard.

"You kiddin'?" Steve slurs, just above a breath's volume. His eyes aren't even open. "'S gonna break."

The bed does not, in fact, break, which is some kind of miracle unto itself considering the frame consists of pine planks and some screws.

They shouldn't be able to fit, the three of them, but somehow they do. Charlie stays asleep for Danny's ungainly shimmy on top of the comforter, one arm now around his son. Steve too lays on top, though he's loosened the covers so their combined weight won't squish Charlie. Danny's legs are just the right length to fit if he curls them. Steve's feet disappear somewhere past the end of the bed.

The boy takes a particularly ballooning breath. It inflates against Danny's chest and he closes his eyes for a moment. His muscles are soup. They sink into the mattress, as if he's got steel rods for bones underneath. His pulse thumps against the pillow where it meets his jaw.

Charlie takes three breaths for each of Steve's and Danny's pace is somewhere in the middle. He listens to the trio of inhales for a while, not counting the minutes. He doesn't care how long he lays there or how his own bed is more conducive for real rest.

After a few heartbeats, calloused fingers travel up his arm. They end at Danny's elbow, thumb in a shuffle across the tender skin of his inner bicep. Windshield wiper style, back and forth.

"He okay?" Danny whispers.

"Woke up and cried for a bit." Steve's eyes open this time, twin hazel moons in the dim light. They blink at Danny over the blond head. "Nightmare, I think. He was worried about you."

Separated by the top of Charlie's hair, they're maybe ten inches apart. Their eyes are unhurried and warm where they rest on each other. They don't really do this, this being sharing a child's bed while recapping the day for each other and maintaining prolonged eye contact, but it doesn't feel weird.

Danny takes that one step further and indulges in a minute of just watching Steve. He snaps a mental photograph to memorize the moment. The salt and pepper stubble. His long lashes. The way he's got one hand wrapped around Charlie's tiny one in his shirt.

How far he's come from that first meeting, the wild, hurt eyes of a man who'd lost everything. Danny will never forget the first time he patted Steve's back in that first month of working with him, during a stressful case, how it felt like granite under his fingertips. Walls were thrown up in each other's faces, both physical and emotional.

"Steve…thank you for today."

"Truck's in tact, if you can believe it. Just a ding or two."

Danny shakes his head. Their arms rise and fall with each of Charlie's breaths. "I mean how you picked him up from school so I could go to the hospital, finished this bed, this room…" Danny's too exhausted for overwhelming emotion but he has to swallow before he can continue. "You changed my life."

Steve's grin is dopey and amused. "It's just a bedroom, Danny."

"No, I mean…"

Danny doesn't know how to say what he means, though he just said it to Makino an hour ago. Even though the realization that his disappearance is what led Danny to meet Steve won't stop playing on a loop in Danny's head.

Even though Steve continues those strokes on Danny's arm.

Steve's eyes sharpen a little. "You okay?"

Their hushed words, raspy and close like kids at camp when they're supposed to be asleep, curlicue into the air. Drowsy, soft, written with the ink of casual affection and love.

Steve's fingers flit briefly over developing bruises on Danny's neck. A divot forms between the lowered brows and anger flares in his eyes. Flared nostrils complete the murderous expression, one Danny sees every so often, and even rarer still on his behalf. It flushes warmth down to his toes. He loops his wrist so it can grip Steve's forearm and plays with a patch of hair. It's got gyprock in it too.

"I am now."

The vigilant eyes loosen from their guard, crinkle with relief. Steve shuffles his cheek on a patch of pillow not occupied by Charlie. He pecks the boy's forehead—right before his lids droop a beat too long.

"Sorry for how HPD treated you back then, Danno. They didn't deserve you."

"It's fine. I've got this manic animal for a partner now." Danny smooths his index along a scar hidden under the arm hair. "You hurting, babe? The bed railing's got to pinch."

"I'm good for a bit."

Steve seems to need this more than his own bed, and honestly so does Danny. If he slips his foot below Charlie's bent one, he can wriggle it between Steve's ribs and the mattress. Steve lifts his torso to let Danny get cozy and then rests on top. Warming the toes. Danny can already feel them going numb from the pressure but his smile grows.

"Sleep," Danny prompts. He punctuates the word with a squeeze of Steve's arm. "I'll make us pancakes in the morning."

"Work?" Steve sighs it out. Danny's not sure he's actually awake at this point.

"Nah, I called and cancelled us for tomorrow."

Steve's fingers go lax. The thumb stops. "We need that."

"Clearly." Danny smirks into the pillow. "Thanks for drafting me, Steve, way back when."

"Wouldn'ta st…stayed on the islands without you, let alone started the…the…"

"The task force."

"Yeah." Steve's octopus arm shifts in tandem with him smacking his lips. Danny feels his right shoulder grasped in grabby fingers. The touch is dulcet, so open compared to that earlier memory. "Stayed 'cause I met you."

An odd sense of peace shivers through Danny's spirit, considering the day he's had. Near death experiences, old cases riddled with guilt, refreshed images of the McGarrett house covered in brain spatter and bullet holes…

Not the most uplifting eight hours.

Yet he's toasty and loved and dozing in the silence of a moonless night. A big hand perches on his shoulder. His son is safe and so is he. If this is the prize at the end of all that pain, the finish line for both of them, Danny thinks it's better than what he imagined. Far better.

He kisses the back of Charlie's head and pats Steve's ribs, where his hand comes to rest.

"G'night, babe."

Steve doesn't answer save a jaw-wide yawn.

And that, well. That's the best advice Danny's had all day.

~OL~

Sunrise reveals the biggest miracle of all—

Steve is still here.

Danny wakes around seven the next morning at the sensation of an elbow under his head and a weight on his chest. His partner somehow weaseled all the way up on the bed during the night, wrapped around both he and Charlie, the boy now in a tight little ball on Danny's torso. Not a nightmare between the three of them.

To fit, Steve's legs are clamped around Danny's where Danny himself is half on his back and half propped on the sideboard. Leg hair tickles his toes. Steve's arm rests on Danny's where he holds Charlie to his chest. Charlie has a fist full of each man's shirt, breaths hot and calm on his father's sternum.

Danny's eyes shut to follow majority vote.

Pancakes for lunch it is.