I just can't stop myself (or, the one where Danny gets addicted to nasal spray)
Pairing: Steve McGarrett/Danny Williams
Rating: PG13
Summary: It starts with a cold.
--
Author's note: So, true story:
Once upon a time, a very stupid girl (::points to self::) got a cold and couldn't breathe out of her nose. Said girl hates not being able to breath - feels like she's suffocating, in fact - out of her nose. An Afrin commercial came on the television and she thought "Great idea!" and went out and bought it.
Three months later and she was still using it. She couldn't figure out why she still had a cold. But her wise family members told her that certain nasal sprays were addictive. (Don't let those 'No drip' ones fool you, folks! Saline is the way to go!) She didn't believe them and decided to look it up, where she learned that it is, indeed, addictive.
And the following story developed accordingly thereafter.
The moral of the story here, guys, is, just suffer through your cold. Also, this is probably 9/10 crack and written purely for my own pleasure in my oxymetazoline hydrochloride-withdrawal. I should just apologize now.
--
It starts with a cold. Danny can't breathe, and he feels like he's suffocating, he tells Steve as he writes out a post-it note full of cold medicines to get at the local drug store. "And don't forget the Afrin," he tells Steve in his congested voice, sniffling and having the nerve to look at him pathetically from the couch, nose red and dry from blowing it all morning.
Steve knows he doesn't regret the cold, not really, because he caught it from Grace, and getting it from Grace means at least they spent *time* with Grace.
He squints down at the tiny writing on the post-it. "Afrin?" he asks, "what's that?"
"Id helps be breathe," Danny congests, right before reaching into a tissue and sneezing. "Rach recommended id."
Like Steve said: it starts with a cold.
--
He has to ask a clerk at the drug store where, exactly to find Afrin, even though he's in the cold remedies aisle. The clerk leads him to a somewhat confusing little section of bottles of nasal spray, saline and ones packed in boxes labeled 'no drip,' which, according to Danny's post-it note, is exactly what he wants. Steve grabs the blue Afrin box, along with his other purchases, and gets the hell out.
He gets home and shoves the bag towards an even more miserable looking Danny. His sick-glazed eyes brighten and he opens the bag eagerly. He ignores the TheraFlu completely and goes for the Afrin, tearing it out of the box, taking the wrapping off and sticking it up his nose immediately, squirting, the bottle making a spritzzz spritzzz sound.
Danny waits tensely for two whole minutes before he inhales deeply, through his nose. "I can breathe!" he shouts, throwing his arms into the air, still gripping the nasal spray, "I can breathe!" Steve feels a little skeptical, like nasal spray shouldn’t really work that fast, or that well, at any rate, but he shrugs, because Danny is much happier, at any rate, and a happy Danny makes for a calm, relaxed Sunday, which is really all Steve wants - though he wouldn’t admit it with his dying breath.
Danny settles back down on the couch, takes a dose of his cold medicine, and promptly passes out twenty minutes later, sniffle-free. And really, Steve thinks, he’s pretty thankful for Afrin in that moment.
--
Steve hates it. Spritzzz, spritzzz, goes the nose spray in the night, Danny waking up from a dead sleep, apparently beginning to suffocate in his dreams, needing his nightly dose. Spritzzz, spritzzz, during the middle of the day, in the office, while everything else is calm, cool, and collected; Steve will have just finally gotten paperwork started and really into it, ready to finish it in the peaceful silence when Danny’s nose spray disturbs the peace.
“Danny,” he says, grinding his teeth, clenching his fists, “Your cold has got to be gone by now. It’s been two weeks!”
Danny looks up at him, eyes narrowed; one hand paused in midair towards his left nostril with the nasal spray bottle held between two fingers. “Obviously it’s not,” Danny retorts in his Steven, don’t be so dumb, voice, the one he uses at least twice a day, “Or I wouldn’t still be using this to help me breathe.”
“Right,” Steve mutters, “Or you’re addicted.”
“Steven, don’t be ridiculous, that’s impossible,” Danny says, snorting Afrin up his nose at the same time he snorts laughter.
Steve’s starting to think that it’s actually not all that impossible.
--
Steve is kissing along Danny’s jaw, down his throat, running his hands up and down Danny’s sides and thrusting lightly against him. Danny’s making all the signs that he’s into it, little sighs and gasps, moans slipping from his mouth, eyes glazed over just this side of in ecstasy. But then he’s squirming, trying to free himself from Steve’s grasp, pull away from his kisses. Steve pulls back, looks at him alarmingly, and tries to tamp down the hurt that’s bubbling up inside him.
“Can’t breathe,” Danny says, reaching over towards the bed stand, grabbing his bottle of Afrin.
And, wow, major turnoff, watching your boyfriend stick a bottle of nasal spray up his nostril and snort it. Steve is unusually, rapidly turned off, not even close to hard anymore, like he’s just spent ten minutes repeating fucking baseball stats under his breath or something, and he groans, flopping facedown into the pillows, scrubbing at his face. “What?” Danny says from somewhere behind him, apparently finished, setting the bottle back down, “What’s wrong? What’s the matter? You lose the mood, babe?” He asks, concerned, soothingly rubbing a hand up and down Steve’s back, and Steve resists the urge to throw the pillow at Danny’s head while simultaneously grabbing his nose spray and shooting it.
“Yeah,” he says into the pillow, “Yeah, Danno, I lost the mood.”
There’s the shift of Danny’s shoulders shrugging, and a press of his lips to Steve’s shoulder, “Happens to everyone,” he says, and goes back to lay next to Steve - sniffle free.
Four hours later, Steve awakes to the spritzzz spritzzzz, and almost loses his mind.
--
It’s downhill from there.
“Stop, I gotta stop,” Danny says, already pulling the little white bottle out from his bulletproof vest.
“Where did you even find room to put that?” Steve shouts, throwing his hands up into the air, panting from running, and then taking down his perp.
Danny squints his eyes at him and cocks his head to the side. “Steve, if you can find room for grenades in your Kevlar vest, I can certainly pocket a bottle of Afrin in mine,” he says matter-of-factly, and Steve wants to strangle him.
“Hang on, babe,” and spritzzz, spritzzz, while Steve stands by, jaw clenched, eyes narrowed. They’re in the grocery store of all the godforsaken places in the world. Not that it matters, because last week, Danny found it necessary to stop in the middle of a takedown and shoot some nasal spray up his nostrils before continuing, Chin, Kono, and Steve all standing there looking at him in complete and total shocked silence, guns at the ready. Steve almost turned his on Danny to get him to turn the nose spray over.
“While we’re here, I need more -“
“No!” Steve shouts, blocking him from the cold medicine aisle with his body and the shopping cart. Danny bumps into the cart and then stops, blinking, and looks up at Steve, confused.
“Excuse me?” he asks.
“No more Afrin, no more nasal spray!” Steve says loudly, and people are starting to look at them.
“Steve, I have a cold, I can’t breathe without it, and I hate feeling like I’m suffocating, okay?” Danny says, eyes narrowed, hands on his hips, “Don’t tell me what I can and can’t get.”
“Danno, you are addicted,” Steve says adamantly, shaking his head, “I can’t take it anymore! You use it way too much!”
Danny looks at him for a long moment before he breaks out into a smile, “I see what’s happening here,” he says, reaching up and patting Steve’s cheek, “Someone’s a little jealous that the nose spray takes better care of me during a cold than he can. Don’t worry, okay, you still take good care of me, Steve,” Danny says, and then shoves the cart away and makes a beeline for the nose spray section. Steve groans.
He doesn’t know what to do.
--
He walks into Danny’s office right in the middle of a spritzzz and slaps a freshly printed piece of paper down, then crosses his arms, putting his most stern face on.
“What?” Danny says, bottle of nasal spray still up one nostril, eyeing Steve warily, “If this is a requisition form for a rocket launcher again, you can forget it. If the last governor didn’t go for it, I’ll be damned if Governor Denning goes for it.”
“Read it,” Steve says in his most no-nonsense voice, and Danny sits up straighter, setting the nasal spray bottle down. He cautiously slides the paper towards himself, scanning it.
“Steve, what is this?” he demands, catching the health website label.
“Read it, Danny,” Steve says, still just as firm. Danny sighs, and starts reading, but Steve grows impatient, finally saying, “Are you reading? It is addictive, Danny, you’re addicted to nose spray. It shrinks the membranes in your nose so you can’t breathe without shooting it up there to help you breathe again, causing you to rely completely on nasal spray to help you breathe. You haven’t had a cold for the last two months, you’ve just been addicted to Afrin! And you’re driving everybody insane!” Steve shouts, finally, throwing his arms up into the air.
“I just can’t stop myself!” Danny shouts, standing up and flinging the paper towards Steve, where it flutters towards the ground, “I hate feeling like I can’t breathe!”
Steve sighs, taking a deep breath, “I know,” he says, calmer now, “But that is what happens when on gets a cold. They can’t breathe. They suffer through it for a week or so, and then they are fine. And look,” he brandishes a bottle of saline nasal spray, “I’ve even come offering you a solution, Danny.” Danny gestures for him to go on, blowing out a sigh. “The website said that if you quite Afrin and switch to saline nose spray, it won’t work as well, but it’ll still help you breathe a little better, and in about a week, your nose will be back to normal - you won’t need any nose spray,” Steve says hopefully, praying silently that Danny goes for it.
Danny looks longingly at his bottle of Afrin for a minute, chewing on his lip, before he picks it up and hands it to Steve. “Just don’t let me see it,” he tells Steve.
He obviously isn’t aware of the fact that Steve is planning on throwing every bottle of Afrin that Danny has purchased and currently has stored in the house away, in the dumpster outside of HQ, so he has no chance of ever seeing it, because for as long at Steve lives, he never wants to hear that annoying spritzzz spritzzz again.
He’s already tested the saline spray to make sure it doesn’t do that.
Steve grins, takes the bottle from Danny, and kisses his cheek, “See?” he says, “I knew you could do it. You’ll be breathing better in no time, Danno.”
“You better hope so,” Danny grumbles.
--
Steve suffers through a week of a fitfully sleeping Danny, unable to breathe very well, his nose returning back to normal, before he finally seems to be able to breathe right again. He deems it worth it not to have to see that stupid little white bottle peeking out of Danny’s pocket, ruining their sex lives, or slowing them down on the job.
Danny doesn’t even bother with the saline spray.
And the next time Danny gets a cold and writes Afrin on the little post-it note, Steve studiously ignores it, and dutifully works through the most miserable Sunday he’s had in a while, but it’s worth it not to hear spritzzz, spritzzz, he thinks.
The best part is telling everyone how Danny got addicted to nose spray, a fact that Danny himself does not find all that funny. Most people don’t believe them, but the few that do, always laugh and tease him endlessly, Steve joining in.
His Danno’s a geek.
Rating: PG13
Summary: It starts with a cold.
--
Author's note: So, true story:
Once upon a time, a very stupid girl (::points to self::) got a cold and couldn't breathe out of her nose. Said girl hates not being able to breath - feels like she's suffocating, in fact - out of her nose. An Afrin commercial came on the television and she thought "Great idea!" and went out and bought it.
Three months later and she was still using it. She couldn't figure out why she still had a cold. But her wise family members told her that certain nasal sprays were addictive. (Don't let those 'No drip' ones fool you, folks! Saline is the way to go!) She didn't believe them and decided to look it up, where she learned that it is, indeed, addictive.
And the following story developed accordingly thereafter.
The moral of the story here, guys, is, just suffer through your cold. Also, this is probably 9/10 crack and written purely for my own pleasure in my oxymetazoline hydrochloride-withdrawal. I should just apologize now.
--
It starts with a cold. Danny can't breathe, and he feels like he's suffocating, he tells Steve as he writes out a post-it note full of cold medicines to get at the local drug store. "And don't forget the Afrin," he tells Steve in his congested voice, sniffling and having the nerve to look at him pathetically from the couch, nose red and dry from blowing it all morning.
Steve knows he doesn't regret the cold, not really, because he caught it from Grace, and getting it from Grace means at least they spent *time* with Grace.
He squints down at the tiny writing on the post-it. "Afrin?" he asks, "what's that?"
"Id helps be breathe," Danny congests, right before reaching into a tissue and sneezing. "Rach recommended id."
Like Steve said: it starts with a cold.
--
He has to ask a clerk at the drug store where, exactly to find Afrin, even though he's in the cold remedies aisle. The clerk leads him to a somewhat confusing little section of bottles of nasal spray, saline and ones packed in boxes labeled 'no drip,' which, according to Danny's post-it note, is exactly what he wants. Steve grabs the blue Afrin box, along with his other purchases, and gets the hell out.
He gets home and shoves the bag towards an even more miserable looking Danny. His sick-glazed eyes brighten and he opens the bag eagerly. He ignores the TheraFlu completely and goes for the Afrin, tearing it out of the box, taking the wrapping off and sticking it up his nose immediately, squirting, the bottle making a spritzzz spritzzz sound.
Danny waits tensely for two whole minutes before he inhales deeply, through his nose. "I can breathe!" he shouts, throwing his arms into the air, still gripping the nasal spray, "I can breathe!" Steve feels a little skeptical, like nasal spray shouldn’t really work that fast, or that well, at any rate, but he shrugs, because Danny is much happier, at any rate, and a happy Danny makes for a calm, relaxed Sunday, which is really all Steve wants - though he wouldn’t admit it with his dying breath.
Danny settles back down on the couch, takes a dose of his cold medicine, and promptly passes out twenty minutes later, sniffle-free. And really, Steve thinks, he’s pretty thankful for Afrin in that moment.
--
Steve hates it. Spritzzz, spritzzz, goes the nose spray in the night, Danny waking up from a dead sleep, apparently beginning to suffocate in his dreams, needing his nightly dose. Spritzzz, spritzzz, during the middle of the day, in the office, while everything else is calm, cool, and collected; Steve will have just finally gotten paperwork started and really into it, ready to finish it in the peaceful silence when Danny’s nose spray disturbs the peace.
“Danny,” he says, grinding his teeth, clenching his fists, “Your cold has got to be gone by now. It’s been two weeks!”
Danny looks up at him, eyes narrowed; one hand paused in midair towards his left nostril with the nasal spray bottle held between two fingers. “Obviously it’s not,” Danny retorts in his Steven, don’t be so dumb, voice, the one he uses at least twice a day, “Or I wouldn’t still be using this to help me breathe.”
“Right,” Steve mutters, “Or you’re addicted.”
“Steven, don’t be ridiculous, that’s impossible,” Danny says, snorting Afrin up his nose at the same time he snorts laughter.
Steve’s starting to think that it’s actually not all that impossible.
--
Steve is kissing along Danny’s jaw, down his throat, running his hands up and down Danny’s sides and thrusting lightly against him. Danny’s making all the signs that he’s into it, little sighs and gasps, moans slipping from his mouth, eyes glazed over just this side of in ecstasy. But then he’s squirming, trying to free himself from Steve’s grasp, pull away from his kisses. Steve pulls back, looks at him alarmingly, and tries to tamp down the hurt that’s bubbling up inside him.
“Can’t breathe,” Danny says, reaching over towards the bed stand, grabbing his bottle of Afrin.
And, wow, major turnoff, watching your boyfriend stick a bottle of nasal spray up his nostril and snort it. Steve is unusually, rapidly turned off, not even close to hard anymore, like he’s just spent ten minutes repeating fucking baseball stats under his breath or something, and he groans, flopping facedown into the pillows, scrubbing at his face. “What?” Danny says from somewhere behind him, apparently finished, setting the bottle back down, “What’s wrong? What’s the matter? You lose the mood, babe?” He asks, concerned, soothingly rubbing a hand up and down Steve’s back, and Steve resists the urge to throw the pillow at Danny’s head while simultaneously grabbing his nose spray and shooting it.
“Yeah,” he says into the pillow, “Yeah, Danno, I lost the mood.”
There’s the shift of Danny’s shoulders shrugging, and a press of his lips to Steve’s shoulder, “Happens to everyone,” he says, and goes back to lay next to Steve - sniffle free.
Four hours later, Steve awakes to the spritzzz spritzzzz, and almost loses his mind.
--
It’s downhill from there.
“Stop, I gotta stop,” Danny says, already pulling the little white bottle out from his bulletproof vest.
“Where did you even find room to put that?” Steve shouts, throwing his hands up into the air, panting from running, and then taking down his perp.
Danny squints his eyes at him and cocks his head to the side. “Steve, if you can find room for grenades in your Kevlar vest, I can certainly pocket a bottle of Afrin in mine,” he says matter-of-factly, and Steve wants to strangle him.
“Hang on, babe,” and spritzzz, spritzzz, while Steve stands by, jaw clenched, eyes narrowed. They’re in the grocery store of all the godforsaken places in the world. Not that it matters, because last week, Danny found it necessary to stop in the middle of a takedown and shoot some nasal spray up his nostrils before continuing, Chin, Kono, and Steve all standing there looking at him in complete and total shocked silence, guns at the ready. Steve almost turned his on Danny to get him to turn the nose spray over.
“While we’re here, I need more -“
“No!” Steve shouts, blocking him from the cold medicine aisle with his body and the shopping cart. Danny bumps into the cart and then stops, blinking, and looks up at Steve, confused.
“Excuse me?” he asks.
“No more Afrin, no more nasal spray!” Steve says loudly, and people are starting to look at them.
“Steve, I have a cold, I can’t breathe without it, and I hate feeling like I’m suffocating, okay?” Danny says, eyes narrowed, hands on his hips, “Don’t tell me what I can and can’t get.”
“Danno, you are addicted,” Steve says adamantly, shaking his head, “I can’t take it anymore! You use it way too much!”
Danny looks at him for a long moment before he breaks out into a smile, “I see what’s happening here,” he says, reaching up and patting Steve’s cheek, “Someone’s a little jealous that the nose spray takes better care of me during a cold than he can. Don’t worry, okay, you still take good care of me, Steve,” Danny says, and then shoves the cart away and makes a beeline for the nose spray section. Steve groans.
He doesn’t know what to do.
--
He walks into Danny’s office right in the middle of a spritzzz and slaps a freshly printed piece of paper down, then crosses his arms, putting his most stern face on.
“What?” Danny says, bottle of nasal spray still up one nostril, eyeing Steve warily, “If this is a requisition form for a rocket launcher again, you can forget it. If the last governor didn’t go for it, I’ll be damned if Governor Denning goes for it.”
“Read it,” Steve says in his most no-nonsense voice, and Danny sits up straighter, setting the nasal spray bottle down. He cautiously slides the paper towards himself, scanning it.
“Steve, what is this?” he demands, catching the health website label.
“Read it, Danny,” Steve says, still just as firm. Danny sighs, and starts reading, but Steve grows impatient, finally saying, “Are you reading? It is addictive, Danny, you’re addicted to nose spray. It shrinks the membranes in your nose so you can’t breathe without shooting it up there to help you breathe again, causing you to rely completely on nasal spray to help you breathe. You haven’t had a cold for the last two months, you’ve just been addicted to Afrin! And you’re driving everybody insane!” Steve shouts, finally, throwing his arms up into the air.
“I just can’t stop myself!” Danny shouts, standing up and flinging the paper towards Steve, where it flutters towards the ground, “I hate feeling like I can’t breathe!”
Steve sighs, taking a deep breath, “I know,” he says, calmer now, “But that is what happens when on gets a cold. They can’t breathe. They suffer through it for a week or so, and then they are fine. And look,” he brandishes a bottle of saline nasal spray, “I’ve even come offering you a solution, Danny.” Danny gestures for him to go on, blowing out a sigh. “The website said that if you quite Afrin and switch to saline nose spray, it won’t work as well, but it’ll still help you breathe a little better, and in about a week, your nose will be back to normal - you won’t need any nose spray,” Steve says hopefully, praying silently that Danny goes for it.
Danny looks longingly at his bottle of Afrin for a minute, chewing on his lip, before he picks it up and hands it to Steve. “Just don’t let me see it,” he tells Steve.
He obviously isn’t aware of the fact that Steve is planning on throwing every bottle of Afrin that Danny has purchased and currently has stored in the house away, in the dumpster outside of HQ, so he has no chance of ever seeing it, because for as long at Steve lives, he never wants to hear that annoying spritzzz spritzzz again.
He’s already tested the saline spray to make sure it doesn’t do that.
Steve grins, takes the bottle from Danny, and kisses his cheek, “See?” he says, “I knew you could do it. You’ll be breathing better in no time, Danno.”
“You better hope so,” Danny grumbles.
--
Steve suffers through a week of a fitfully sleeping Danny, unable to breathe very well, his nose returning back to normal, before he finally seems to be able to breathe right again. He deems it worth it not to have to see that stupid little white bottle peeking out of Danny’s pocket, ruining their sex lives, or slowing them down on the job.
Danny doesn’t even bother with the saline spray.
And the next time Danny gets a cold and writes Afrin on the little post-it note, Steve studiously ignores it, and dutifully works through the most miserable Sunday he’s had in a while, but it’s worth it not to hear spritzzz, spritzzz, he thinks.
The best part is telling everyone how Danny got addicted to nose spray, a fact that Danny himself does not find all that funny. Most people don’t believe them, but the few that do, always laugh and tease him endlessly, Steve joining in.
His Danno’s a geek.