Kimmychu (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} csiny_sl) wrote,@ 2007-02-08 15:00:00 |
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| Current mood: |  productive |
| Current music: | The Thin Red Line OST - Hans Zimmer's Light |
| Entry tags: | amor_aeternus, fanfiction |
Amor Aeternus, Part 1
Okay, this is it, the super-angst-fest! :P This story is something really different from my previous ones. I think the angst in this one can literally rival that in my story, Atop the Broken Universal Clock. Yikes! There’s another content warning that might sadden some people, but I can’t actually specify it without ruining the ending. I hope you’ll understand ... Anyways, I was experimenting with another style of writing. Feel free to let me know what you think of it. :> Oh, and translations are available at the end of the story. You’ll see what I mean. Thank you for reading, and thank you for your reviews. I appreciate them! P.S. If you have The Thin Red Line OST, do listen to Hans Zimmer's Light. It's a haunting, beautiful soundtrack.
Fandom: CSI:NY
Author: Kimmychu
Rating: FRAO
Pairing: Danny/Flack
Content Warning: Angst, LOTS of angst, disturbing imagery.
Spoilers: Major spoilers up to episode 3x14, The Lying Game.
Summary: ‘I’ll find you again, somehow, his heart utters with the conviction of the cosmos, even if I must live over and over again in this world until I do.’ A Danny/Flack story.
Disclaimer: -sniff- They belong to each other, no matter where or when.
The blade bites deep into his flesh, and it leaves a razor sharp streak of agony in its wake.
He feels wet warmth pouring from his belly, a waterfall of red life that steals away with it the heat in his soul and the strength in his bones. His blood-drenched sword slips from his loosening grasp. His knees buckle against his will.
The ground is hard and grainy under his bruised cheek.
He sucks in a shuddering, painful breath. He sees the vacant, cloudy eyes of the great lion he killed lying beside him, staring back at him, laughing at him and the irony that is death.
Someone is screaming his name, in that beloved voice he knows without fail.
It’s cold. So very cold.
It has become very quiet. He finds the silence strange and engulfing. The clashes of swords and spears, and the roars of the lions and tigers and the pitiless spectators surrounding everything are gone. The death screams of the gladiators he once deemed brothers no longer deafen him. Perhaps they, too, are dying as he is.
He stares up at the bright blue sky, hoping to see a glimpse of heaven before he plunges into the fiery darkness of hell. Paradise is lost to a man such as he, he who lives by the sword, whose hands are eternally crimson, who feels no remorse for every man he slays.
His eyelids flutter. He is finding it more and more difficult to draw breath.
He can’t feel his body, but his heart remembers.
Though his eyes are shut, he sees large, blue eyes gazing down at him, smiling at him even when their owner’s lips did not. He feels his lover’s dark tresses of hair between his fingers. The curls are silky, just like the pale skin that rubs against his sweaty torso. He remembers the fire within him as he is being filled, the clenching of his hands on his lover’s strong shoulders, the ache between his thighs transforming into unchartered pleasure. Two souls becoming one. Union.
Someone is touching his face.
And he opens his eyes, and there, those beautiful blue eyes are gazing at him once more.
There is blood all over the noble visage of his friend, his brother-in-arms, his lover. The dark pink lips are cut in many places. A huge gash runs across the right temple, and down to the left eyebrow.
It will leave a terrible scar, he thinks, from afar.
He watches his lover’s lips move with no sound. Blinks as clear droplets of moisture plummet onto his cheeks and forehead. They are falling from those blue eyes.
He touches the other man’s battered face with a trembling hand. For some reason, seeing his courageous warrior shedding tears for him hurt more than his grievous wounds do, and he wipes them away, trying to smile, trying to breathe just a while more. To have just a little more time with the man who is half of him.
Then, his hand slips down to his lover’s chest. There is but a gaping hole of mutilated flesh and blood, where unbroken skin once was. He looks back into those glossy eyes. Inhales as deep as he can, even though it’s torture.
Caesar has lost, he thinks, and we have won. He will never have me, for I am always yours.
The words cannot escape. He hears only his stuttering breaths, senses the inevitable seizure of demise clamping down on his lungs and his heart, choking his final remnants of life.
His shaking hands grab at the other gladiator’s damp face and neck. A frenetic burst of energy flows through him, and he knows, it is the last time he will ever speak.
“Te valde … amo ac … semper amabo.”
His lover’s face crumples, but his own pallid face shifts into a contented shadow of a smile. His declaration has been heard, it has been heard. He touches the moving lips, not needing to hear the uttered two words to feel them reverberating inside him.
I know, I know you do, his heart says in return.
Suddenly, dark red gushes from the other man’s mouth and onto him. It soaks through the cracks of his dented armour and into his ragged garments. He pulls his friend down onto him, heedless of the weight bearing on him, holding their heads together, closing his eyes while spasms wrack the man’s expiring body.
He is also overwhelmed by a convulsion that forces his back to arch and his throat and mouth to clog up with blood.
They are both dying.
I’ll find you again, somehow, his heart utters with the conviction of the cosmos, even if I must live over and over again in this world until I do.
As more blood flows from his parted lips, he stares up at the sky for one final time. There are giant birds flying high above in circles, hungry and cold-blooded scavengers biding their time.
“Amor … aeternus.”
He isn’t sure at all if he said it aloud.
He can’t move or breathe anymore.
His other half is very still.
The sun shines brilliantly in his vision. Its sacred light beckons him, inviting him to depart from this place of suffering and heartache and mortality.
He exhales.
And fades away.
He has never seen such extraordinary, large eyes as the ones he is staring into right now. They are hypnotic, casting a spell on him, making him forget how to move or talk.
“Danny, this is Detective Flack, from Homicide,” Mac, his new boss, says. “He’ll be working with you on the Irwing case.”
The tall man standing before him offers his hand, an amiable smile etched on his handsome face. It takes him some time to realize he hasn’t held out his own hand so they can shake hands, and he quickly does so, his face flushed when Flack’s smile changes into an amused grin.
“Hey, I’m Danny Messer. How ya doin’?”
He hopes his voice isn’t as high as he thinks it is.
“I’m good, I’m good.” Flack’s face is crinkled in his mirth. “How you doin’?”
Danny smiles, baring baby fangs. He doesn’t have a clue why, but he already likes this guy a lot.
“Well, I’m all set if you are.”
Flack nods, and Mac leaves them to their work, a satisfied glint in his hazel eyes. The two detectives stride down the hallway of the labs towards the elevator, side by side. Danny is grateful that he’s carrying his metallic CSI kit with him. The handles give him something to curl his fingers around, to keep his mind off how gorgeous the taller man walking next to him is.
A leather jacket, incredibly handsome looks and a striking smile is a combination he didn’t expect to find on a homicide detective. Especially, the very handsome face. He is astounded that Flack, with a mien like his, would want to work as a police officer instead of some classy job like a model or an actor. Then, he recalls the gossip Stella, his CSI co-worker, had imparted on him a few days ago about the homicide detective. Flack’s father is a legend in the NYPD, something about having rescued many child hostages and confronted two armed men on his own in a major school takeover decades ago. It makes sense that his son would follow in his father’s footsteps.
“So this is yer first day on the job?” Flack asks while the elevator goes down to the ground floor.
Danny glances at the other man, fingers tightening around his silver case’s handles. Not only does Flack possess a fine-looking face, he also has a spine-tingling, deep voice that causes Danny’s insides to quiver.
It’s been a long time since Danny has ever felt this way, if ever.
He clears his throat.
“Nope, already worked on another case with Mac and Stella a couple a’ days ago. The pizza parlor one in Brooklyn.”
“They’re both true professionals at what they do. You’re in a really good hands, Messer, trust me,” Flack replies. The respect is evident in his facial countenance. “Mac might seem like a hard person to talk to, but when ya get to know him, he’s a good man. A really good man … And Stella, oh, you’ll love her. She’s got a heart big enough for the whole city.”
Then, Flack chuckles. “Betcha haven’t eaten pizza since that case, huh? I heard from Vicaro the vic didn’t look too pretty. Then again, I dunno anybody who can look pretty after gettin’ cooked in the oven.”
Danny swallows visibly. There is something about the way Flack smiles at him that makes his breath catch. Somehow, he’s certain the man doesn’t ever smile that way at anyone else. He doesn’t know how he knows, he just does.
“Actually, I’m dyin’ to eat some right now.” The CSI smirks. “A big pepperoni pizza with extra cheese on top.”
This time, Flack outright laughs. His pearly teeth gleam beneath the lights.
“Now that’s a damn coincidence. Pepperoni pizza’s my favorite.”
For some reason, this tiny fact pleases Danny beyond words.
He feels as if he’s floating, all the way from the elevator and out the building to Flack’s car parked by the sidewalk a block away. He doesn’t check out the people around him like he habitually does, to ascertain whether there are old ghosts from his past haunting him still. It’s insane, it’s illogical for him to think that this homicide detective he only met minutes ago is safe or trustworthy.
Hell, he can’t even trust members of his own family.
So … what is it that makes this blue-eyed man different?
Danny ponders over this throughout the drive to their first location on Flack‘s interview list, a shop selling musical instruments in downtown Manhattan. There, he quietly observes Flack questioning the suspect, the owner of the store, a blonde woman who has no qualms about flaunting her cleavage at the man. He notices how resolute Flack is, the way he maintains his concentration on the job and doesn’t even blink an eye at the woman asking him out for a date.
He smiles to himself, feeling immensely delighted that Flack turns down the offer pronto. He always appreciates professionalism in the people with whom he works.
He ignores his brain mocking him that it’s hardly the true reason he’s happy.
Something sharp and cold prickles him within as the interview ends, and the suspect attempts another time to ask Flack out. She’s an attractive woman, someone he won’t mind going out with on a date, and he waits for Flack’s reaction to the repeated request.
The iciness inside him grows more and more at the hesitation before the homicide detective declines with a polite tone. His trembling hands turn the simple task of removing the q-tip from its plastic casing into a frustrating one.
He’s aware he is being rough with the suspect, poking at the side of the inside of her mouth with the q-tip and disregarding her nasty looks and muffled squeaks. He feels Flack’s scrutinizing gaze upon him, and he tries his hardest to not make eye contact as he packs up and stomps out the store, back to Flack’s car. Standing by the vehicle, he unconsciously presses his right palm over the left side of his chest, closing his eyes.
He doesn’t understand why he’s behaving this way, like a madman who‘s lost control of his very being, and it scares him.
And it takes a lot to frighten Danny Messer.
By the time Flack exits the music store and approaches his car, Danny is more calm and collected, straight faced. Danny shoots a swift glance at Flack, and sees that Flack is expressionless, those handsome features revealing nothing to interpretation.
Those eyes, however, hold more fire and heat than the deepest volcanoes of the earth.
In the passenger seat of the car, Danny sneaks more glances at the other man, worried that he’s already ruined a friendship before it ever had a chance to bloom. On the fourth glance, Flack locks gazes with him. Try as he might, Danny is unable to tear his eyes away. He is helpless. Paralyzed by the fierceness of those baby blues.
“You okay, Danny?”
Hearing Flack say his name, his name, snaps him out of his trance. He bites his lower lip.
“Y-yeah. Just …” He looks away, at a sudden loss for words.
There is an edgy silence.
Then, the engine rumbles with a twist of the key in the ignition.
It seems as though Flack has nothing more to say. Danny slumps in his seat, tugging absent-mindedly at his brown jacket and the collar of his white dress shirt. He stares past the windscreen, waiting for the car to move onto the road.
A tense minute passes.
He risks another sideways glance at Flack, and his breath hitches.
Flack is still staring at him.
“What?” Danny rasps, his blue eyes wide in bafflement and the tiniest hint of apprehension. He has the strangest hunch that Flack never stares at anyone else like he is staring at him at that moment either.
He doesn’t know how he knows that. He just does.
“You -” Flack attempts to speak, and falters into silence.
Danny swallows again. His hand is on his left thigh, so close to Flack’s right hand on the gear shift. His fingers twitch. He watches Flack’s tongue flit out. His own tongue automatically darts out too, running across his lower lip, moistening it.
He senses more than sees or hears Flack’s hand slide off the gear shift towards his thigh, towards his tremulous hand.
His breaths quicken.
On its own accord, his left hand lifts off his thigh and moves to the side.
Their fingertips brush.
Danny’s eyes widen to the point the whites are visible around the irises. Something rushes into him from the other man, something indescribable, a powerful surge that jolts his taut body right to the very core.
He gasps.
He is no longer in the car, and instead, is sitting on a vast, green field of white and yellow flowers. Beside him, Flack is on his knees, except the man isn’t dressed in his leather jacket, tie, dress shirt and trousers. Flack’s dark curls are longer, wavier, drifting in the cool breeze, and all that adorns his sinewy, long-limbed body is a loose, black tunic that flows down to the ankles.
The taller man is gazing down at him, lips curved up in a fond smile, but those large eyes are forlorn.
Danny feels a tender touch to his cheek.
“Damnant quod non intellegunt,” Flack in the black tunic says to him.
Danny frowns. Blinks.
And the field of flowers is gone.
“Danny?”
He blinks a second time.
The homicide detective’s brows are low in concern. The man’s dark hair is short once more, and the red tie around his neck is vivid in the morning sunlight. The saturated color reminds Danny of blood.
Their fingers are still touching.
Danny yanks his hand back, unconsciously drawing away from Flack, closer to the passenger door. He begins to shiver. He pulls his suit jacket tighter around his torso. He keeps his expression blank, his lips pursed, his hands fisted in order to stop himself from wrenching open the car door and running away.
He has to.
He hasn’t been so afraid in his life.
Flack reaches out for him again, the concern in those eyes transforming into apparent worry.
“Dan-”
A loud, clanging noise outside the car makes Flack jump in his seat. Flack twists away to search for the source of the unexpected sound, and Danny breathes a heavy sigh of relief. It is his respite from the other man’s mesmerizing stare.
A teenage girl wearing a beanie cap pops up out of nowhere on the other side of the driver’s door. She appears dazed, but fine. Flack glances past the girl, then pivots his head towards Danny and says with a smirk, “Ah, she just ran into a trash bin, that’s all. Kids these days, they don’t ever look where they’re goin’.”
The girl gives them a shy smile, and quickly glides away down the pavement on a pair of stylish rollerblades.
Danny goes limp in his seat. Part of him is glad that the weirdness he was experiencing has vanished. Another part of him is mysteriously disconsolate that he isn’t touching Flack anymore, and he doesn’t dare to consider why.
Whatever happened moments before, it is gone now.
“I … I think we oughta get movin’.”
He wisely stares ahead. Even so, he knows the homicide detective is examining his visage again.
“Sure. Okay.”
The car maneuvers onto the road, and Danny shuts his eyes.
The fingertips of his left hand are burning.
Danny glowers at the shattered remains of his television remote control on the floor of his living area.
He’s sat there on his couch for the last half hour, wearing nothing apart from his dark blue boxers, hunching forward with elbows on knees. The furious shrieks of his girlfriend - no, ex-girlfriend - continue to ring in his ears long after her call has disconnected.
He feels deadened. No loss. No regrets.
She’s the same. Like all the others before her.
And like them, she never really cared for him. He is certain of that. After all, he never really cared for her either. Or the others.
He kicks at the broken pieces of plastic on the floor.
He’s tired of never meeting the right one. He’s tired of meeting all the wrong ones.
Danny flings himself backwards onto his couch, sliding down to lie on his side, arms held to his chest and legs half-hanging off the edge.
He’s tired of meeting people who don’t understand him or care to do so.
He’s tired of them, all of them.
They’re not Flack.
He sighs, his lips downturned, eyes glistening.
He doesn’t even recall what his former girlfriend looks like anymore as his hand skims down his flat belly, under the waistband of his boxers. All he thinks about are beautiful blue eyes, staring at him with unveiled affection and trust. His hand starts to move up and down his hardening erection, and he releases a soft moan. His eyes flutter close.
He’s been fantasizing about Flack since the day he met the homicide detective over two years ago. Jerking himself off in the dimness of his hollow apartment when his thoughts about Flack overpowers him. He’s been doing it almost every night since that morning in Flack’s car, with their fingers touching, and something, something so much greater coming to precious life within him.
The imagery of Flack, attired in a long, black tunic, kneeling in a field of flowers flashes in his mind, like it has whenever his heart is frozen and he has nowhere else to go.
Danny’s hand pumps faster. His fast exhalations and moans echo in the space of his living room.
Flack is stretching out a hand towards him. The man’s luxuriant hair undulates in the strong, spring gust.
The CSI’s head tosses on the cushions beneath him. His body tightens in readiness for physical release.
Flack is stroking his face now, a comforting figure above him. A small, white flower is caught in the man’s dark curls. Danny feels a finger pressing gently on his lips, and he sees Flack’s lips part.
“Te amo, amator.”
Flack’s striking mien splits into a radiant smile, a smile that is his and his alone.
With a harsh cry, Danny’s back arches, and he comes.
The shiny, waxed floor of the basketball court is chilly. Goosebumps erupt all over his body, although he is sweating profusely, his white tank top clammy and sticking to his back and chest.
Danny stares up at Flack, into the other man’s blue eyes mere inches away. Flack is lying on him. Heavy. Reassuring. Dominant.
“Whoa,” Flack murmurs, blinking in slight bewilderment.
Danny is too mortified to say anything in reply. It has only been in his dreams that the homicide detective, his best friend, has ever been in such close proximity to him, never mind that they have their clothes on.
The floor must have been waxed too much, and Flack tripped or something. That is the sole explanation Danny’s brain deduces to help him comprehend how Flack ended up flat on top of him, in the middle of the public basketball court they’ve played at every weekend for the past three years since they met each other.
Flack isn’t moving off.
Their groins are pushed together, and he can feel his friend’s form through their track pants. Against his will, he begins to harden. He stays absolutely motionless, terrified that Flack will soon realize what is happening. Danny bites his lower lip. He can hardly take in a full breath, what with Flack’s weight upon him.
Flack is still lying on top of him.
Staring at him.
Danny attempts to slither out from under Flack, but the instant their lower bodies rub hard against each other, he freezes once more. His eyes widen in shock.
He isn’t the only man who’s aroused.
“Don -”
His words cut off at the sudden pressure around his wrists. Flack is clutching them with his big hands. Restraining him.
Immediately, Danny struggles with all his might. Him being shorter doesn’t mean he is weaker as well. He tries his hardest to throw Flack off, using his legs to kick at the floor, his knees to push at Flack’s thighs. His eyes scrunch shut as he hollers in outrage.
And then, he opens his eyes and collapses onto the floor, panting in both weariness and shock.
The stark lights on the basketball court’s ceiling have disappeared. All he sees beyond the homicide detective’s head is a stone ceiling, faintly lit by orange candlelight. And Flack’s hair is long again. His wiry body is bare to Danny’s touch. A variety of scars, long and short, wide and thin, mar the man’s otherwise supple skin.
Danny’s wrists remain pinned down, except he doesn’t feel any fear, not anymore. He is naked too, his legs spread to accommodate his lover between them. Flack is laughing, and he laughs along. He playfully thrashes about in an endeavor to escape Flack’s grip.
“Magister mundi sum!” Flack exclaims with a grin.
Danny returns a grin of his own, and his eyelids flicker.
The bright lights of the basketball courts blind him.
Flack is gazing at him, a stunned countenance setting his handsome features.
Terror unlike any Danny has ever felt before seizes him.
He yells a wordless cry for freedom. With an abrupt burst of strength, he hurls the homicide detective off his body and scuttles away on his hands and legs till he is at a safe distance from the other man. He pants. Quavers non stop from head to toe.
Flack is sprawled on the floor, his face hidden in the crook of his bent arm. Danny watches him sit up, moving like an aging man, shoulders drooping, head bowed.
“How long we gonna play this game, Danny?”
Flack’s whispered question is as loud as a gunshot in Danny’s ears.
He swallows perceptibly. His throat is as dry as the Sahara desert.
“How long is this gonna go on, Dan? Tell me.”
Flack’s blue eyes are old and heartbreaking.
A stinging hotness blurs his vision, blurs Flack to an unrecognizable blob of pale orange and green and black. His chest constricts in a sob he contains inside himself with everything he has. He doesn’t stick around to see what Flack will do next. Something wet trails down his face as he scrambles to his feet and dashes for the steel exit doors, leaving behind a hunched over Flack who appears as if he’s been stabbed in the heart.
He doesn’t hear Flack calling him to come back.
For the first time in his life, Danny Messer flees.
Tonight is a bitter, lonely night.
Danny thinks this to himself while he stares at a spot on the wall of his bedroom, his sore eyes half-lidded and bloodshot. The sticky vestiges of his unsatisfying release slowly dries on his stomach. It is simply another reminder of how far he has fallen, and how far away the light in his bleak existence is from him now.
There is an ache between his legs, the bad kind that makes him speculate whether he’d been too rough with himself, whether he’d used too many fingers in a go, whether he should have used more lubricant. The fingers of his right hand jerk.
Perhaps, he wanted it to hurt.
He buries his face into his pillow, completely failing to not contemplate about the homicide detective who preoccupies his thoughts and his heart every day. It cleaves something within him to accept the fact that there is a gulf between them now. That he is the one who placed it there with his rejection.
His fingers claws into the pillow. He compels his mind to conjure up images of Flack, of the handsome, upstanding man who smiled at him without asking for anything in return, the friend who stood by him no matter the circumstances. It takes a long time for something to materialize in his imagination.
The anguish, and later, the indifference, in Flack’s blue eyes is as excruciating to see in his thoughts as it is to see in reality.
The cloth his face is nestled in gradually becomes sodden.
And he spends the night lying to himself that this is what he wants, that it is for the best.
Everyone he loves always leaves him, in the end.
The dreams start a few weeks after his brother Louie awakens from his coma at the hospital.
At first, Danny assumes they are the by-product of all the stress and emotional difficulty he has had lately. A man doesn’t walk away the same person after he has seen his only brother beaten to a bloody pulp, clinging to life by a thread. He doesn’t complain about the dreams, seeing as they are about the only things keeping his inner demons and his loneliness at bay.
They are filled with blissful moments of Flack smiling at him, laughing with him, gazing at him with tender eyes. The ones he favors most are those where they make love. They are so real, he often wakes up with his underwear sopping and his throat scratchy from groaning and shouting.
In these particular dreams, Flack always has longer hair. Thick, vibrant hair that cascade past his extensive shoulders and glow in the sunlight. And the scars, Danny remembers each and every one of them by now, scars that appear to be made by sharp blades like swords and spears. The disfigurements have prompted him to ruminate the possibility this Flack in his dreams is a fighter of some sort. The fact that Flack speaks to him in Latin brings him to the intriguing conclusion the man is probably a warrior from an ancient Roman era. (He also has to admit it amuses him that he’s become so caught up in his own dreams he is literally researching their fine details.)
He isn’t surprised at all that the dreams revolve around the homicide detective, or rather, this nameless man who resembles Flack to a tee, this man who loves him when no one else does. The dreams are so remarkable and clear that Danny sometimes questions his sanity upon awakening.
Is it this life that is the dream, and the life in his dream that is real?
He doesn’t know.
A vast portion of his soul yearns for the answer to be yes.
It being true will mean that there is someone out there who loves him.
He presses his hands over his ears to muffle the voices telling him that it’s too soon to give up, that it isn’t over yet as long as he gets up and tries again. He’s made the mistake of listening to them too many times. He is burnt raw from the flames, and he’s not certain if his soul will survive another inferno.
It doesn’t matter that Flack had been there at the hospital with him while Louie was in surgery, watching over him like a corporeal guardian angel. He knows Flack was only there because Mac ordered him to do so. It has to be the only reason.
It hurts too much for him to consider the chance that Flack was there because the man never stopped caring for him, even after his callous rebuff.
It hurts too much to consider the smallest hope that Flack might still love him too.
Danny falls asleep in a fetal position on his bed, already soaring into another idyllic dream, watching the man who looks like Flack donning heavy armor and securing an angular-shaped helmet around his head. The helmet, metal breastplate, arm and leg guards glimmer in the sunlight streaming down from the open hatch above them. Two magnificent swords are strapped to Flack’s back.
His sturdy warrior is an awe-inspiring, intimidating sight to behold.
He saunters up to the silent man, smiling as Flack caresses his cheek, the man’s blue eyes sparkling with exhilaration and an emotion that removes the ground beneath his feet.
Danny tautens his hold around the hilt of his own sword, and turns his head to kiss the palm of his other half.
“Stella … do ya believe in reincarnation?”
Her raised eyebrow is already an answer in itself to Danny‘s outwardly nonchalant inquiry.
“Reincarnation? As in, a soul being reborn in a different body?”
Danny shrugs one shoulder. “Yeah, I guess.”
His Greek colleague angles her head in reflection, her brow furrowed in her concentration.
“Well … interestingly enough, my tailor does.” One end of her red lips curve up. “However, I don’t. Not really.”
“Oh.” Danny scratches the side of his neck.
“What’s with the sudden interest in it?” Stella asks with a friendly smile.
Danny is quiet for a moment before replying.
“Just curious.”
Stella studies his face from the other side of the laboratory table, her green eyes discerning and astute. The knowing gleam in them makes him fidget on the lab stool he’s sitting on.
“Maybe you should ask Hawkes. Walking encyclopedia that he is, I bet he’ll have a lot to say about the topic.”
Danny chuckles. “Yeah, he knows everythin’.”
He turns his head towards Stella when he realizes she hasn’t glanced away from his face yet. They peer at each other for a short time, and then she asks, “Are things alright with you, Danny?”
He isn’t sure what to say.
“You’ve been pretty quiet lately.” Stella stands beside him, an arm resting on his shoulders.
He avoids looking into her eyes.
“I’m okay, really.”
Even he can hear the blatant falsehood in his words.
Stella doesn’t point it out, and neither does she display any negative reaction.
“Flack’s been asking about you.”
Danny’s head twists so fast, his neck emits a cracking sound.
“What?” His voice is gravelly. “What did he ask ‘bout?”
“I think he’s just concerned about you. Everyone knows how chummy you two are.” Stella sends him a delicate smile. “And hey, he’s not the only one who‘s worried, you know. The labs’ plain boring without its resident drama queen.”
Danny is taken aback at her first statement, and almost chokes on a laugh of disbelief. Chummy? Obviously everyone is blind to the increasing distance between him and the homicide detective, that Flack no longer wants anything to do with him outside of work anymore.
He blinks hard.
Or is it he who is blind?
What if it isn’t everybody else who is blind at all? What if it’s he who has become unable to see what has always been there between him and Flack?
He’s never thought of the situation that way before.
He coughs to clear his throat, his awareness at an abruptly heightened level.
“I’m alright, Stella.” Danny gives his fellow CSI a reassuring smile. “I am, really. Just haven’t been sleepin’ well, that’s all.”
Stella’s lovely visage softens in a maternal expression. “Okay. But you know you can talk to me anytime, right?”
It takes Danny a little while to reply. He swallows past an obstruction in his throat.
“‘Course I do.”
“Good.”
He feels her hand stroking the back of his head, and he thinks to himself, maybe, he’s not as alone as he believes after all. His smile this time is much more genuine. It seems to please Stella, who moves away from him and returns to studying a set of photographs laid out on the table top.
Later, he’s in the break room with Hawkes, who’s eating fried noodles out of a white and red carton from a Chinese take-out. He tries not to smile in amusement at the other CSI’s surprised expression upon hearing his question.
“Reincarnation? Wow, I sure didn’t expect that.”
Hawkes scratches at his chin while chewing on a mouthful of food. The man cogitates on the matter, brown eyes bright and sharp.
“Personally, I don’t believe in it,” Hawkes begins. “But it is a very interesting subject … Reincarnation literally means, to be made flesh again. It’s the belief that some elemental part of a living being, like the soul, survives death and is reborn in a new body.”
The former ME puts down his food carton on the table surface.
“Usually, a new personality is developed with each different life in the physical world. Each consecutive life you’re reborn into is based on your integrated past experiences along with the newly acquired ones, but … some part of the person is constantly present throughout these successive lives too.”
“So, no matter how many lives the person goes through, there’s always a part of him that remains?” Danny asks.
“Yes, exactly. Many religions in the world believe in reincarnation, even today. Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism.” Hawkes points to a finger with each named religion. “It’s in Gnosticism and Christianity, and you can find it in Native American traditions and Norse mythology as well. Even modern Pagans and some New Age movements believe in it.”
Danny crosses his arms over his chest, leaning back in his seat.
“What ‘bout … the ancient Romans?”
Hawkes blinks.
“Hmmm.” Hawkes puckers his lips. His forehead wrinkles in deliberation. “I’m not sure. What I do recall reading is that the ancient Romans didn’t believe in reincarnation, not in the Eastern sense anyway. However, many of them believed in a spiritual existence after death, a life that transcends the physical realm.”
Danny senses Hawkes’ kind gaze on him.
“Do you believe in reincarnation, Danny?”
One of his hands clenches into a fist on his thigh, under the table and out of sight.
“I’m not sure.”
“Hmm.”
A heavy silence reigns in the room for a couple of minutes.
Hawkes picks up his chopsticks and carton of noodles, and takes another mouthful of his lunch.
“One of my biggest objections to reincarnation is that an identity, a personal and individual identity, depends on there being memories … and the thing is, most times, people don’t remember any of their previous incarnations.”
Hawkes makes a skeptical face.
“Which makes the concept of reincarnation rather meaningless to me. What‘s the point of living again and again in the world if you don‘t remember what your previous life was, and therefore, cannot learn from the mistakes you made then?”
Danny nibbles on his lower lip. He pinches the cloth of his khaki trousers.
“But … what if you do have memories?”
Hawkes gives him a penetrating look.
After a moment’s pause, the former ME says, “Well, okay, if there are memories … is there any way they can be validated?”
It’s Danny’s turn to look sharply at the other CSI.
The evocative imagery of his dreams waft to the forefront of his thoughts. Flack, with his long, wavy hair, reclining on the grass in the summer. Flack, striding down a flight of stone steps, dressed in leather leggings, a sword hanging at his side. Flack in his silver armour, brandishing his twin swords, howling at the sky, the blood of slain warriors drenching him.
Flack, looming over him, whispering low love notes in Latin as they move in tandem to a dance older than time.
Danny dips his head, a mirthless smile on his lips. “I doubt it, Doc.”
Hawkes is grinning broadly. It is a sincere one without any mockery. “Danny … are you telling me you’re … having dreams of a past life?”
Danny feels his face warming. “I dunno. Maybe.”
When Danny says nothing else, Hawkes asserts in excitement, “Well, come on, share with me! You can’t lead me all the way here and then just keep quiet about it!”
Danny laughs.
“Okay, okay.” His expression becomes solemn. “Promise ya won’t tell anybody?”
“Of course, Danny.”
He smiles. Hawkes is a good man, someone he can trust, someone who doesn‘t judge him.
“I’ve been dreamin’ ’bout bein’ … a gladiator.”
Hawkes’ jaw sags. “You’re kidding.”
Danny cackles once more. He feels as if he is being alleviated of an intolerable weight on his heart. The words spill out of his mouth in an animated torrent.
“No, really … I keep dreamin’ that I’m this gladiator in ancient Rome or somethin’. And I’m not just one a’ the average ones, I’m one of the best ones.” Danny swings his right arm around like he’s slashing with a sword. “Yeah, and I’m mowin’ down everythin’ in sight, lions and tigers and horses and other gladiators in this huge arena … and the crowd’s cheerin’ for me, and man, as violent and gory as it is, it feels great.”
Hawkes chuckles. “So this is why you were interested in reincarnation from the viewpoint of the ancient Romans.”
“Yeah, but ya said they didn’t believe in it, right?”
Hawkes shakes his head.
“Well. Guess that means either I’m crazy, or I’m crazy,” Danny says in a blasé tone.
The other CSI snickers. “I’m just going to go with the theory you’ve been watching too many movies with gladiators in them.”
They laugh together, and Danny feels a lot better than he has in many months. He decides to watch some television while Hawkes finishes up his lunch and prepares to jump back into more evidence processing. He presumes his friend no longer has any interest in discussing the issue, so Hawkes’ parting, insightful words came out of the blue to him.
“I may not believe in reincarnation, but that doesn’t mean it doesn‘t ever happen,” Hawkes says, placing a hand on his shoulder. “With God, all things are possible.”
He mulls over this long into the night, lying in his bed on his back with a thin blanket swathing his body up to the chin. Although he’s reminded himself day after day to not bring his hopes up in regards to a certain homicide detective, he’s doing it anyway in light of his discussion with Hawkes. He finds it both bizarre and heartening that such little things like a few words could have such immense force over the state of a man’s soul.
It’ll be worth it, a soft but firm voice says in his heart. Flack is worth it.
He sighs, thinking back to that night at the basketball court. He wonders how things would be now, had he said something, anything, in reply to Flack’s heartwrenching question.
Eventually, he falls into a deep slumber, travelling yet again into the safe haven of his lover’s arms in his dreams. The man who looks like Flack draws him close, smiling at him, murmuring in that baritone voice and those sweet Latin sentences.
“Who are you? Please, tell me your name,” Danny pleads.
The handsome man who looks like Flack merely touches his face, and guides him to a bed of furs, dispelling his questions with skilled caresses and kisses.
Lindsay is staring at him.
He’s staring forward instead, at the parked car in front of his, and seeing absolutely nothing except Flack’s ashen face, pale as the hospital pillow and bed sheets. Seeing the cavernous, bloody hole that was once the homicide detective’s unblemished abdomen.
His fingers tighten around the steering wheel until his knuckles become white.
Lindsay, sitting in the passenger seat next to him, coughs faintly to break the uneasy hush in the car.
“Do you … would you like to come up for a drink?”
A whole minute ticks by before Danny mumbles, “Nah, I got somewhere else I gotta be.”
He doesn’t have to look at Lindsay’s face to know she’s disappointed. Some part of him is ranting at him to take advantage of the situation now, to accept her proposition and go up to her apartment and use her to forget Flack, forget that the man he loves nearly died today and he nearly lost his chance to tell Flack the truth -
“I got somewhere else I hafta be,” Danny repeats in a gruff voice.
An iceberg is crushing everything inside him.
His vision is getting hazy.
Lindsay revolves her head to the side, glancing outside through the passenger window at the front door of her apartment building. Then, she looks back at him.
“Okay.”
Danny feels a hand on his forearm. It is a gentle touch, a touch of concern for a friend.
“Drive safely, okay, Danny?”
He’s gritting his teeth so hard, he is unable to verbally respond. He nods his head.
Lindsay pats him a second time, and reluctantly opens the car door to let herself out. He senses her worried gaze on him long after he’s driven away, roaming the streets of the sleepless city for hours, not knowing where he is going and not giving a fuck. He just about runs over a few pedestrians crossing the road, and still, he doesn’t give a fuck.
The memory of Flack’s blood sluicing everywhere onto the dusty cement floor, onto his hands and CSI coat, taints his vision red.
Somehow, he ends up at the promenade of Battery Park City, leaning on the steel railing, eyes down towards the murky Hudson river. At this time of the night, there is hardly anyone else there, and he’s thankful for that. Being there makes him reminiscent of his childhood days when his father used to bring him fishing at the Hudson. He smiles to himself, remembering how his father joked about eating free fish straight from the river and how his mother slapped his dad on the arm in good humor for thinking such a gross thing.
Those were happier days. Unperturbed days when his worst fear was doing homework, when his brother still loved him more than his gangster buddies, when he didn’t know what evil was and how much of it existed in the world. He misses those days.
It’s a very long time before he allows himself to acknowledge the tears rolling down his cheeks. His sobs are soundless albeit vehement, causing his chest to compress painfully with each one. He rests his head on his arms on the dark grey railing, and he wipes his face on the sleeve of his jacket.
His face swiftly becomes wet again.
He thought that there was nothing more unbearable than discovering his brother at door’s death, but he is wrong, so very wrong.
He should be there at the hospital, sitting at Flack’s bedside. He knows this, and yet, he isn’t there. He’s rooted to the spot, like a wilting tree out in the middle of a forsaken wasteland. He knows Mac is there with the injured homicide detective, and his boss’ presence is just one deterrent of many keeping him from going back.
Nobody knows how he feels about Flack. Nobody could ever know, not unless he’s willing to gamble and ruin both of their careers and futures. He can never commit such an act towards Flack. And even if they are permitted to retain their jobs, they are as good as done for anyway. People will constantly talk behind their backs, he’s sure of it, talk about them with narrowed, disgusted eyes and sneers. Mac, Stella, Hawkes, Lindsay, none of them will never look at him the same way again.
He’s all alone. Far, far away from the man he’s madly in love with, the man he almost lost to a bomb and he can’t tell a single soul about the all-encompassing torment shredding him apart.
Flack almost died today, and Danny can’t even hold his hand.
A wail rips its way out of his raw throat. It journeys far across the hushed river, a tragic sound that seems to stop time itself for a moment. He doesn’t give a shit if anyone close by hears him.
The one person whom he wants to hear him is on the other side of the city, in a deep sleep on a hospital bed, deaf to his sorrow.
The months trudge along at a sluggish, soul-burdening pace.
Danny has forgotten what it feels like to smile.
It is even more difficult to recollect what it feels like to laugh.
His only solace of the night has been replaced by nightmares, terrifying visions of Flack coated in blood, with a fatal, yawning wound in his chest. A severe cut runs along the man’s forehead and down to his left eyebrow, and his lips are torn and bleeding. His warrior is dying. He sees the encroaching end in Flack’s glassy blue eyes.
The crimson gore doesn’t frighten Danny as much as the tears that flow down Flack’s face. Flack is dying, and still, he cries for someone else. Danny grabs at the other man’s face and neck, and he notices that his shaking hands are steeped in blood too. Flack is saying something to him, but he can’t hear the words. He’s saying something himself and he can’t hear what he’s saying either.
He cries as blood spurts out of Flack’s wide open mouth. It is dark red, the color of life and Flack’s face becomes more pale as more of it spews out onto Danny’s chest, soaking his clothes. He drags Flack down onto him, hugging him close, keening in grief and wrath when Flack’s body is devastated by death throes and then becomes immobile.
The nightmare doesn’t halt once he wakes up. In fact, it simply becomes worse in reality, for he awakens each and every time to an empty bed, with nothing to assuage him apart from the hammering of his heart and his raucous sobs. He sustains his sanity by reciting to himself that Flack is alive and recovering and not dead, squeezing a pillow against his tremorous body. The nightmares don’t stop even after Flack is discharged from the hospital and returns to full-time work a few weeks after that. Guilt plagues Danny; for the duration of the homicide detective’s stay at the hospital, he had only visited Flack twice, with Stella or Mac, too rattled to face Flack alone.
He does his best to conceal his misery whenever he is at the labs or out on the field. His talent of exhibiting a poker face proves to be invaluable now, and over time, it saps him of both physical and emotional stamina. It is bad enough that Stella is troubled by whatever changes she’s noticed in him, but to have Mac also worry about him is nearly too much for him.
And it hurts, it hurts so bad every time Flack crosses his path at work. Flack’s blue eyes are large and yet shuttered. Glacial. Closed to him. It is so true, his heart realizes with a resonant pang, that a man never appreciates what he has … until it is gone.
He stares helplessly at the taller man during each brief encounter, desiring so much to embrace Flack and kiss him and lie with him on velvet pelts, like they would in his early dreams. He stares, memorizing every feature of that gorgeous visage, every wrinkle, every curve, every divine detail.
Now, it’s all he has left to counter the darkness inside him.
And he fears the day when it will not be enough anymore.
Danny lives in a perpetual, numb dream.
Translations for the Latin phrases:
Te valde amo ac semper amabo - I love you very much, and always will forever
Amor aeternus - Love forever
Damnant quod non intellegunt - They condemn what they do not understand
Te amo, amator - I love you, my love
Magister mundi sum! - I am the master of the universe!
