Kimmychu (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} csiny_sl) wrote,@ 2007-04-17 01:48:00 |
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| Current mood: |  sleepy |
| Entry tags: | dec2006req, fanfiction, you_and_i_unselfed |
You and I Unselfed, Part 1, request by ka990
Woohoo! Finally, another fic request done! :D Yes, the following story was requested by a member of TalkCSI forums, ka990. She wanted a post-Charge of this Post story, specifically, how Danny and Flack deal with Flack’s injuries and resulting scars. Uhmm, I know I wanna say more, but my brain isn't co-operating with me at the moment, so I'll add whatever notes later. I hope you enjoy the story, and thank you for all your reviews. I appreciate them!
Fandom: CSI:NY
Author: Kimmychu
Rating: FRM
Pairing: Danny/Flack
Content Warning: ANGST.
Spoilers: Episodes 1x21 (On the Job), 2x20 (Run Silent, Run Deep), 21 (All Access), 23 (Heroes) and 24 (Charge of this Post).
Summary: In the aftermath of the bombing that almost kills Flack, Danny discovers what loss really means. Danny/Flack.
Disclaimer: No, they don’t belong to me. I shall go be all emo and write epic odes about it now.
The shadows of the Hudson river roils with ominous undulations before Danny’s throbbing eyes.
He leans with his forearms on the steel railing bordering the edge of the river and the quiet, deserted promenade of Battery Park city. His head is bowed, shoulders hunched in his jacket. He stares into the black, murky depths, wondering if there’re monsters lurking beneath the surface, watching him from the other side. The ridiculous thought of a terrifying sea beast with jagged teeth suddenly leaping out of the Hudson and eating him makes him want to laugh, except he can’t even curl his lips up in a semblance of a smile.
His lower face is sore, hurting with the tension of keeping a straight face. Some part of his mind tells him that it’s really important for him to do so, because if he doesn’t, it won’t be a pretty sight.
Nobody looks pretty when they cry.
His gaze shifts to his hands in front of him. He notices there’s a smudge of dark brown under one fingernail and realizes with a shiver that it’s a trace of Flack’s blood. A tiny sliver that’s still there, even after the multiple scrubbings of his hands that turned his skin red and raw.
Staring at it, he’s instantly teleported back in time to the morning. He is darting through the ruins of imploded walls and shattered glass and broken steel, scrambling over the final wall that blocked his path. He sees Mac gaze up at him from a distance, all covered in dust and dirt, dazed but unharmed. Mac’s bloody hands are pressing some balled-up cloth into the crimson cavern that was once Flack’s smooth abdomen.
Flack is so ashen and grey and motionless. Like he’s already dead.
Danny’s fingernails dig into his palms.
The stinging warmth in his eyes turns his vision even more hazy.
His mind begins the same litany it’s been repeating the whole day and night, the one that’s no easier to believe now than this morning when that bomb exploded and almost killed Flack, the man he lov-
“He’s alive, he’s alive, he’s alive.”
Hearing his own hoarse voice whispering the words aloud this time doesn’t make him feel any better. His fingers entwine in his brown hair, hands clenching into fists, pulling at the strands in an effort to distract himself from thinking about Flack sprawled on the ground like a corpse with his innards torn apart.
It doesn’t work.
Danny’s back there again, holding the cloth inside what’s left of Flack’s belly, uncaring of the warm blood soaking into the knees of his trousers as he kneels beside the wounded homicide detective. Touching Flack’s cold cheek, something within his chest rending when there is no response from the unconscious man, not even a flicker of eyelids. Calling Flack’s name over and over, ignoring the sharp, stunned stare Mac is aiming at him, too shocked in that moment to ruminate why the other CSI is looking at him like that.
It’s a replay of the night he rushed to the hospital just in time to watch his bloodied, comatose brother being wheeled on a stretcher into the ER. There are hands grabbing at him, towing him away from Flack. He struggles violently against the arms locked around his chest and waist, teeth gritted, arms thrashing about. Somebody’s yelling in rage and distress, and he thinks it’s himself.
“Don’s going to be alright, Danny, let them take care of him. He’s going to be alright.”
He hears Mac speaking with firm tones into his ear, and he wants to trust his boss and friend so badly, that Mac is telling him the truth, but Flack’s blood covering his hands swamps his sight and turns it red and hot.
Danny jumps forward in time, and now he’s standing with Stella outside the decimated building, watching Flack being loaded into an ambulance. He feels one of Stella’s hands squeeze his shoulder, and it gives him much needed strength to maintain what’s left of his composure. He’s thankful Mac is the only one from his team who witnessed him flying headlong into a panic attack over Flack. He doesn’t have a fucking clue where to begin explaining that to Mac alone, and he‘s sure Mac is going to talk to him about it sooner or later.
Something travels up his throat, something sour and thick and nasty. He mumbles incoherently under his breath to Stella before dashing away into a narrow alley nearby. Stumbles behind a grimy, green dumpster, and he bends over and throws up what’s left of his breakfast on the concrete near his feet. The convulsions cause his eyes to tear up, his sides to ache. Seeing the dried blood all over his hands makes him retch for a while more.
Danny’s mind fast forwards itself, and he’s in the laboratory, staring downwards at the mangled pieces of what used to be a mobile phone, pieces that were embedded deep in Flack’s stomach. He senses Lindsay shooting concerned glances his way, and he doesn’t return them. He concentrates on investigating every detail those fragments can offer him, knowing that the faster he processes them, the more work he can do to hunt down the sonofabitch who set that bomb and injured Flack. He can’t lose it, not yet.
He blinks, and he’s at the hospital, peering through the glass wall at a sedated Flack who’s lying on his back on the bed, his head turned slightly to the side. The sleeping man looks so alone in the room, with nothing more than a large digital screen that checked his vital signs above the bed to keep him company. Danny is already pondering what he’ll say to inform everyone he’s staying with Flack for the night. Then, he sees the glint in Mac’s hazel eyes while the older man glances into Flack’s room, and the words die in his mouth.
He blinks again, and now, he’s in his car with Lindsay in front of her apartment building. She’s just asked him to come up for a drink, waiting for his reply with an expectant gleam in her eyes. Half of Danny is amused at how easily Lindsay played along in his game, how easily she assumed that there’s something more to him asking her if she wanted a ride home. The other half is a little sickened at himself for using her like this, to get away from the hospital, away from the sight of Flack looking as fragile as a porcelain statue before he cracked.
When she realizes his hesitation is an answer in itself, her face becomes shuttered. He gives her the usual excuse of having to go home and wash up and rest: It’s been a long day, there’s a lot of work to be done tomorrow, I’m really tired, the man who owns my soul almost died today and so did I.
Of course, he doesn’t say the last one.
The disappointment emanates from her in tangible waves. She’s good, though, good at hiding it from her facial expression. For all his teasing of her being a girl from the countryside, he can tell there’s a darkness inside her that she doesn’t want anyone to see, a secret so big it’ll bring her world crashing down should it be exposed.
He knows exactly how it feels.
It is why he’s where he is right now, a solitary figure by the river, with nowhere to go, no one to turn to, nobody who won’t judge him for harboring a forbidden love for a man who’s become as important as the air he breathes.
Danny sucks in a shaky breath, and thinks about his brother Louie instead. He reminisces on their childhood days when they fished here with their dad. It seems like it was just yesterday, and he can’t comprehend how he and Louie went from being such close-knit siblings to complete strangers in less than a heartbeat. For a moment, he considers heading to Mount Sinai where Louie is being cared for then changes his mind. Seeing Louie in a deep coma, at death’s door because of him, will merely serve to exacerbate his anguish.
He raises his head to gaze at the bright pinpricks of lights that delineate the buildings and skyscrapers on the opposite side of the river. For some reason, they remind him of Aiden. His brain dredges up an old albeit fond memory of her wearing a pair of gigantic, glittery ear rings to work one day. Flack is there in the break room with him, and the moment she walks in, Flack becomes the goofy detective and slaps hands over his eyes and hollers, “Ahhh, I’m blind! Somebody save me from the Ear Rings of Doom!”
Aiden proceeds to slap Flack on the arms and even his head after she manages to yank it down by twisting one of his ears with her fingers. It’s a hilarious sight, Flack being manhandled like a doll by a feisty woman over a head shorter than him. He laughs along with them, slapping hands on the table in glee while Aiden attempts to clip on her ear rings onto Flack’s earlobes in sweet revenge.
Danny swallows visibly.
The sleeved top she wore that day was of the same color as the cloth that’d been spread across the lid of her coffin.
Danny feels bile rising up his throat and all of a sudden, he’s on the verge of vomiting once more. He unconsciously shifts a hand up to the base of his neck, wrapping his fingers around it. It doesn’t really lessen his nausea although the motion itself steadies him a little.
His eyes flutter shut. He can still hear Flack and Aiden laughing together, their happy miens alit with amusement and affection. Aiden is stunning beneath the radiant sunlight cascading in through the windows, and Flack’s blue eyes shine like sapphires. Those eyes are upon him, gazing at him with all the love in the universe.
And for the first time since he saw the shredded carnage that was Flack’s torso, he reflects on an existence where he would never see those eyes looking at him ever again.
Something wet rolls down one of his cheeks, and then down the other.
Then, he senses more droplets of water falling on his head and shoulders and arms. Soon, they transform into a cold drizzle that swiftly drenches his shorn hair and jacket. Keeping his eyes shut, he lifts his head up high, letting the downpour sluice him, not bothered to search for shelter in his car parked close by. He welcomes it, in fact.
It’s easy now. So easy, to lie to himself that the wetness streaming down his face is only the rain.
Flack’s large eyes are glacial.
Cold and hard.
“Do ya want some coffee?” Danny asks in a hesitant manner, holding out the dark blue mug that belongs to Flack.
It seems like eons before the homicide detective, seated on the black couch, mutters a stilted, “No.” The sound of his voice, along with his body posture, is jarringly unnatural. He’s sitting ramrod straight, his legs bent at the knees, hands in loose fists on his thighs. Staring at the television set as if nothing else existed.
As if Danny isn’t there at all.
For the fifth time that evening, Danny suppresses the urge to smash something to pieces. No, Flack got out of the hospital just days ago, he thinks to himself, stop it.
“Fine.”
The word flies out of Danny’s mouth with razor sharpness. It bounces off Flack like a tiny rubber band would off a gigantic rock.
Unfelt. Insignificant.
And the indifference cuts another deep gash inside Danny’s chest, joining a multitude of others that have been there since the recuperating homicide detective was discharged. Flack has always been notorious for his sharp tongue.
Who knew that his silence is equally lethal?
Danny strides into the kitchen, his fingers clamped tight around the mug. It’s a good thing that it’s made of sturdy ceramic, for had it been glass, it would have shattered in his grasp long ago. He knows he’s letting his temper get the better of him again as he slams the mug on the kitchen’s counter top. He knows he shouldn’t get mad at Flack for behaving the way he is, he knows his friend and lover’s going through a rough period but fuck it, he’s getting tired of being treated like nothing more than dirt.
In a corner of the kitchen, furthest away from the entrance and concealed from Flack‘s sight, he slumps back against the unyielding door of the refrigerator, removing his spectacles with one hand and rubbing at his weary, blue eyes with the other. The black tank top he wears does little to warm him from the cool surface of the fridge. It doesn’t matter.
He hasn’t felt warm for a long time.
Not since Flack flung up this immense wall between them, this unclimable mountain of harsh glares and slicing silences and averted faces.
There is no sound in the whole apartment apart from the noises emanating from Flack’s television. A comedy show, probably; Danny can hear the raucous sound of an invisible audience laughing at some clichéd funny moment or another.
Flack isn’t laughing along.
Danny lets his head fall back, hearing more than feeling the thud of the back of his head on the freezer door. His neck is bared, arched in a pose of capitulation. He closes his eyes, and if he reminisces fervently enough, he can feel the ghostly flutters of Flack’s lips upon the skin there, kissing and nipping their way down to his heaving chest. Sense Flack’s large hands caress his lower back and abdomen, playing him like a guitar in a master’s hands, making his flushed body writhe and undulate against the refridgerator, making him cry out as a hot mouth envelops him whole -
A boisterous, gravelly laugh jolts him out of his daydream, and he’s back in Flack’s kitchen. Alone. Hiding from the man he loves but no longer knows.
A minute ticks by before Danny realizes the laugh came from the television, that Flack is as quiet as ever and this unnerves him to the point he’s sliding down to sit on the floor, enervated. He feels disoriented, as if he’s on a small boat in the middle of some massive ocean, with no paddles and seeing nothing except blue everywhere. Licking at dry lips, he draws up his knees and wraps his arms around his shins, one hand holding his glasses. He fights the compulsion to rock back and forth.
It doesn’t make sense, he thinks with an unhappy scowl. Things should have gotten better once Flack came home from the hospital. His best friend, his lover had survived. Flack made it through. Alive. They should be embracing and kissing and smiling and saying how much they loved one another. How lucky they are to have another chance to stay together, no matter how fucked up the world may be.
Not … this.
Danny rests his forehead on his knees, releasing a soft, resigned sigh. Sure, he expected Flack to be fatigued and grouchy and in need of a lot more convalescence before he returns to work, but not this silent treatment bullcrap. Not this I-don’t-need-you-around-Messer-so-fuck-o
He hasn’t been able to touch Flack at all since the day the homicide detective awakened from his light coma.
And even then, Flack had pulled away from him.
That had hurt terribly, more than the time he shattered his right wrist and forever lost his dream of becoming a baseball player in the leagues.
It still does.
He grits his teeth.
Did he do something wrong? What did he do to make Flack … hate him so much like this?
He sits upright, propping himself on the fridge door again. His brain reruns that instant Flack had opened his eyes. The recuperating homicide detective was sound asleep with Mac sitting beside the bed when he entered the room. Mac, who’d remained with the man throughout the night, went back to his apartment to freshen up since Danny was now there to keep Flack company. So, he’d been alone with Flack in the hospital room when Flack opened his eyes, he remembers that much. No one had been anywhere near them, not even a nurse. Which is why he doesn’t get it, why Flack had been so happy to see him and grabbed his hand and then … cringed from him with all that anger in those blue eyes.
Maybe Flack’s upset with him for not having been there when the explosion occurred. No, no, that wasn’t like his lover at all. Knowing how protective Flack is - or was - of him, Flack would have gone on a murderous rampage across the city hunting down the maniac who planted the bomb, should it had been him who was injured instead. Hell, even if Flack had been wounded too, the guy would have run amok anyway.
He doesn’t get it.
Danny finally gave in to the urge to rock his body and did so, appearing very much like a little boy whose guiding light has vanished.
God, what did he do?
He has to know, he has to fucking know so he can fix this thing between them or he’s going to tumble over the edge of that cliff in his mind that he swore he’d never go again and stay totally crazy for the rest of his life.
He forms a scornful sound aimed at himself.
Without Flack, he has no life.
“Eat my shorts, suckers!”
For the second time that night, he’s jerked out of his perturbed cogitations by the television. He glances up and through the window above the sink to his right of the kitchen. It’s gone dark, the night never really night for New York city is the city of lights, the city that never sleeps. He’s feeling really chilly now, goosebumps popping up all over his arms and his toes curling inward in his shoes. He pushes himself up onto his feet with the lassitude of a man decades older, then places his spectacles back onto his face and ears.
He loves Flack, he always will but there’s only so much he can take and he’s tired.
He shuffles into the living room to the couch where Flack is sitting while he still has his nerves. The taller man hasn’t moved at all, sitting there like he’s carved out of granite, unmovable and frozen.
Danny’s hands clench painfully.
It’s now or never, he tells himself.
He stretches out a hand towards Flack’s shoulder, a slow movement that’s well within the man’s sight.
Flack’s eyes don’t glance away from the television. His mouth doesn’t open to utter anything.
His evident recoil from Danny’s hand, however, says a thousand words.
And Danny feels every single one like a punch to his chest.
“Ya know what? If ya don’t want me to stick ‘round, all ya had to do was say somethin’,” Danny grinds out, eyes burning. “Ya hear me, huh, Don?”
Flack is silent. The guy doesn’t even blink.
Something cracks and splinters within Danny.
“Fuck this,” he says in a voice he hopes doesn’t sound broken. “Fuck all this, I got better things to do than this.”
He spins around and storms up to coffee table nearby and snatches his jacket off the back of one of the chairs there. It’s a damn good thing he knows Flack’s apartment so well, because for some reason, his glasses decided to go all blurry on him and now he can’t see a fucking thing.
His heavy, furious treads reverberate in the air and in the floor under him. His breaths sound harsh in his own ears. Even as he’s wrenching the front door open and stomping out into the hallway, there’s a voice in his head shouting at him that he’s making a huge mistake, that he should turn around before it’s too late.
He doesn’t listen, and he keeps going down the corridor to the elevator, taking out his despair with fists on the elevator buttons and the wall around it.
He doesn’t listen, but if he had, he would have seen Flack reaching out for him with both hands, pallid visage contorted in fear and anguish and pain for hurting the one who loves him still.
Stella is wearing a low-cut, light magenta top.
That’s all Danny’s brain registers before he hears her say, “Danny. Take a deep breath.”
He blinks at her, eyes wide behind his black-framed spectacles. Huh?
“Danny, you look like you’re about to keel over. Breathe.”
He blinks again, then lets out a breath he hadn’t even known he was holding all this time. After inhaling deeply as Stella requested, he does feel less light-headed.
Stella’s gazing at him with that perceptive look of hers, and he glances down at the black pen in his right hand, its pointed tip hovering over a notepad on the table in front of him.
The white paper of the notepad is blank.
Just like him.
“Is everything alright?” Stella asks softly.
He sucks in his lower lip. Damnit, she’s using that maternal-like tone, which means she suspects something’s up with him.
“Yeah, ‘course everythin’s fine,” he answers in a flippant tone. He straightens up in his seat and shrugs his shoulders, scarcely able to cover his wince from the aches in his tense shoulders and the shooting pain that travels up his neck into his skull. Great, his stupid headache is back. Where the hell’s aspirin when he needs it?
Stella doesn’t reply.
In his books, that’s a bad thing because it indicates she knows he’s bullshitting her.
Which is true.
Danny chuckles mirthlessly. The sound is odd even to himself.
“Look, I’m fine. Really.”
A second after he says that, the room abruptly spins around him like some insane joyride in a horror flick. It’s bad enough that he scrunches his eyes shut and stops breathing and clings to the table edge with desperate hands.
Oh. So that’s why he’s been holding his breath over and over the whole afternoon.
“Danny?”
The worry in Stella’s voice prompts him to open his eyes. It seems to take all his energy to relax and let go of the table and just not throw up in front of his fellow CSI.
He looks into Stella’s concerned eyes, and he wants to tell her how brilliant and green they are. Then, he blinks a few more times. Strange. There are two Stellas standing in front of him now.
“Danny. When was the last time you slept?”
The twin Stellas return to being one person.
He stares at her, and ties the figurative rope around his own neck with a subdued, “Slept?”
There‘s a pause, then Stella asks, “Have you eaten anything at all today?”
Without warning, ire flares up inside him. His eyebrows lower in an intense frown and he glares at Stella, unaware that the heated look is completely mitigated by the perceptible trembling of his hands. What the hell’s she asking all these questions for? Is he some little kid who doesn’t know how to take care of himself -
Any other thought that passes through his mind goes up in a puff of smoke when an excruciating zigzag of agony rips his brain.
This time, there’s no way he’s able to veil the wince that twists his features.
Fuck. That hurt.
A whole eon passes, and his eyes eventually flutter open to see Stella with a glass of water. She’s closing the door to the laboratory and locking it, and his brows furrow in bafflement. That’s funny, he doesn’t remember her leaving the room. Then again, he doesn’t remember how he ended up with his head resting askew on his arms on the table top either.
“C’mon, nice and slow.”
Slender albeit strong arms go around his torso, helping him up to a sitting position. He keeps his eyes slitted. The room’s spinning around and around and around again, and he really feels like upchucking the contents of his stomach.
Well, if there’s actually anything inside to throw up in the first place.
Little round pills fall onto the palm of his hand.
“Aspirin.”
Thank you, Stella, you’re a lifesaver.
The nausea prevents him from speaking, so he shows his gratitude with a simple nod and pops the pills into his mouth, swallowing them down with water from the glass Stella hands him.
When he’s finished the water, his gaze is trained on the empty glass in his grasp. He doesn’t have to look up to know Stella’s staring at him now, with her no-more-lies-young-man stare. He bites his lower lip.
There’s a slight creak as she sits on a chair next to his.
“When was the last time you ate something?”
Oh God, it’s not her stern voice. It’s her kind one, the compassionate one that makes his legs wobbly and his throat choke up like an enormous sob is obstructing it.
“Dunno,” he mutters.
He continues to stare downwards at the glass, seeing himself mirrored in the transparent, shiny object. He looks like crap, even in a tiny, warped reflection. His hair’s a matted mess of spikes. He’s wan and there are bags under his eyes and his lips are downturned in a livid, inverted U. His entire face is a mass of miserable lines that are begging to be erased.
No wonder Stella doesn’t dare to touch him.
No wonder Flack doesn’t want to touch him anymore.
“Tell me you’ve eaten something in the last forty-eight hours.”
He feels like weeping at the imploring tone of Stella’s voice. It’s not her who should be pleading, not by a long shot.
He attempts to lie, just this once, by nodding but his damn head won’t cooperate with him.
It moves sharply from side to side once. Like an angry snap.
He won’t look at Stella. He just knows she’s not happy at all with his reply. The blockage in his throat’s a lot bigger now.
“Danny.”
She takes the glass out of his hands, and the mere touch of her fingers is enough to send him teetering on that edge between maintaining his calm façade and losing it big time with tears and an achy chest.
“Tell me what’s wrong … I’m always here to listen, you know that.”
Her words are like shoves on his back, pushing him forward the last few steps onto the brink.
But it is her hands, enveloping and holding his with such gentleness and care that hurls him down, and breaks him.
It’s only when his head is tucked beneath Stella’s chin, when his face is nestled into the warmth of her neck, when he senses hot wetness trailing down his cheeks that it dawns on him just how far he’s fallen. It’s weird how detached he feels from himself right now. Half of him is berating himself for crying like a pathetic baby in front of Stella, and at work too. The other half quietly reminds him of the time he’d broken down and wept in front of Mac, after his brother had been hospitalized. Mac had simply taken him into a benevolent embrace, sustaining him when he couldn’t stand on his own yet. He’d been worried sick that getting so emotional in front of Mac, his boss, like that had somehow compromised Mac’s opinion of him.
He was wrong. Mac never respected him any less for it, nor treated him as less of a man.
Neither will Stella.
With that revelation in his thoughts, Danny allows the walls surrounding him to crumble to dust at last, opening himself to Stella’s mercy.
She’s stroking his hair, an arm snug and comforting around his shaking shoulders while she murmurs small words of solace. Her touch is a welcomed balm to his sorrow. It soothes him quickly, and it takes an enormous effort to not think about another detective holding him the same way, a man who rushed into a decimated building and came out an utterly different person.
Who are you, he wishes to ask the man who now bears Flack’s visage, where’s the man I know, the man I knew?
He wonders, as his sobs recede and his worn-out body becomes motionless, whether Stella has the answer to that question.
“I feel like such a jerk,” Danny croaks, lips curled up in a joyless smile. His sore, wet eyes are half-lidded, staring in a daze at his glasses that have been left on the table at an arm’s length. He doesn’t recall taking them off.
He senses Stella’s warm lips on his temple, moving into a kind smile as she says, “For what? For being human?”
For the first time in a long while, Danny huffs out a genuine cackle. It sounds gravelly and a lot less vigorous than it usually is, but it’s a laugh nonetheless.
He sighs, breathing in her pleasant scent, taking rare pleasure from her relaxing caresses. Oh, how he’d missed such touches of affection. From anyone.
“It’s okay to cry,” Stella murmurs in a voice that sounds suspiciously as hoarse as his. “We’re all just human … we’re not meant to contain so much pain inside us.”
She squeezes his shoulders.
“It’s okay to cry, Danny. You’ve been through a lot in the past few months, it’s okay.”
He remains silent. He’s very appreciative that Stella doesn’t elaborate on precisely what he’s gone through. He has his guilt and nightmares that will never him forget, day and night. As much as he fights it, uninvited memories are summoned to the forefront of his mind.
Louie. His sole brother, lying in a hospital bed with tubes stuck in him everywhere. Beaten to a bloody pulp by the Tanglewood Boys because he betrayed his fellow gang members to spare Danny a life in prison. His only brother, who never stopped loving him, hanging by a thread because of him.
Aiden. One of the best friends he ever had. Beautiful, fierce Aiden. He’d loved her dearly though he told her that more often in playful, snarky action than in words. He keeps a photograph of her in his bedside table, in the upper drawer where he can easily reach for it. The portrait helps him to remember what she looked like, before a serial rapist killed her and burned her into an unrecognizable skeleton.
And … Flack.
The one who hurts him the most.
“Do you want to talk?” Stella says. She’s rubbing circles across his back, and he quietly enjoys the contact before he gives her a diminutive shake of his head in a negative.
In truth, he wants to talk, he aches to, except … how does he tell Stella about his intimate relationship with Flack? How does he tell her how much he loves the man, and how frightened he is that Flack might have truly died in the bomb explosion, that this other Flack who came back from the hospital is a complete stranger to him?
How does he tell her about Flack flinging his dinner at the kitchen wall, smashing plate and tile, screaming in rage and scaring Danny in a way no armed gunman could? How does he explain that the mere thought of food now makes him queasy thanks to that incident?
How does he tell her that this Flack he does not know treats him as if he doesn’t exist?
And how does he tell her, how much that tears him apart?
Sometimes, there are no words for such torment.
“Don’t like shrinks, huh?”
With much reluctance, Danny shifts up and out of Stella’s hug so he can look her in the eyes, and sees a twinkle in them. However, he’s also conscious of the somber edge to her inquiry. She’s inferring to him not having kept any of his appointments with the department psychiatrist, appointments he‘s put off long before the bomb explosion transpired. Dr. Bayles must be harping like crazy on Mac now for Stella to prod him about it.
Yep, everybody knows he hates seeing the shrink. Who doesn’t hate that?
“No point in seeing the shrink,” he says, his voice guttural. “She just asks dumb questions and thinks she already know all the answers. And she doesn’t.”
All of a sudden, Danny freezes.
Shit. What happens if Stella decides to tell Mac about his breakdown today? What if Dr. Bayles finds out about it?
Shitshitshit.
“Danny.” She’s gripping his hands again. “Whatever you want to tell me, it’ll stay between us, in this room. Okay?”
He gives her a piercing look, studying her face.
There’s something in her expression, something -
Oh God.
His breath hitches.
Oh God, she knows.
“It stays between us. I promise.”
His throat’s all clogged up again, and he coughs to unblock it. He hangs his head low in defeat.
In a rough whisper, he says, “You know about - you know … don’t you?”
He prepares for the inevitable lashing, the mockery and the disdain. Head still bowed and his hands clamped together, taut with tension. At worst, Stella will think him disgusting now, an abhorrence who has no place in the CSI laboratory or the police force. At best, Stella will accept him regardless, and carry on being his co-worker and friend.
The thing is, Danny’s really pessimistic today and he convinces himself, yeah, life’s gonna yank the carpet from under him again, so what’s new?
He waits for Stella to tug away her hands.
And she doesn’t.
“Mac told me what happened when you found him and Flack after the bombing.”
Danny closes his eyes. Fuck. Mac is so going to confront him sooner or later about his freak out over Flack. Just thinking about it sends shivers up his spine.
“He’s worried about you, Danny, and so am I.” She falls silent for a second. “He has his suspicions, but he isn‘t sure.”
Not like you are now, Stella, he thinks morosely.
Triple fuck.
He stares down at their entwined hands, at the glossiness of Stella’s painted nails and the faint, bluish veins beneath fine skin. There are tiny scars all over and around her fingers, a lighter color than her skin and tricky to detect unless he squinted. Scars, like little cuts made with a razor.
After some time, he mumbles, “Are ya gonna tell him?”
“It’s not my choice, Danny, and even if it was, I’d still leave it up to you whether to tell him or not,” Stella replies tenderly. “You think he’ll fire you over this, don’t you?”
He lifted his head, and finds it so difficult to believe the benevolence he sees in her eyes and mien. All hope is not lost, after all.
“Why wouldn‘t he, Stell? Relationships between co-workers’ already ‘gainst the rules. Whaddaya think he’s gonna do when he finds out I’m in a relationship with another guy?”
Stella’s gorgeous face crinkles in a understated smile. “If you think that’s the case, you don’t know Mac as well as you think you do.”
Please, Stella, don’t bring my hopes up like this.
“So he - he doesn’t know, right?” Danny says.
“If he does, he’s hiding it really well.” She pats his hands twice. “It’s been a month since the explosion now. Think about it. Do you really think Mac would take this long to fire you? Over a personal relationship that has nothing to do with the labs?”
His blue eyes widen. He never thought about the situation from that particular angle.
“But … it’s Flack.”
He only half-expected the world to end with his verbal acknowledgement of his relationship with the homicide detective, and feels shocked nonetheless when it doesn’t.
Stella doesn’t bat an eyelid.
“And?” she replies with an amused smirk.
All at once, he feels absurdly silly for being so worried and apprehensive about everything.
It’s unbelievable. Stella’s okay with his relationship with Flack.
He’s stunned speechless.
“Listen to me,” Stella says with warm, accepting eyes. “I can’t speak for the others, but I can tell you this: it doesn’t matter to me or disturb me that you’re both men in a relationship. There are a hell lot more things out there to be worried about, Danny, you and I know that. What’s important to me is that everything’s alright between you two, that you‘re okay working together while being in a relationship.” She shrugs. “What you guys do outside of work is your own business, and rightfully so.”
Her honest admission does something astounding to his heart.
“Thank you,” he rasps in her direction. It’s hard to say it to her face. He can barely distinguish her as more than a colorful blob through watery eyes as it is.
He feels her stroking the side of his face.
“This has really been eating at you, hasn’t it?”
He merely nods, takes a deep breath then blinks numerous times to clear his vision. Describing how he feels as being eaten from the inside out by fear of rejection is one damn understatement. Losing his job is the least of his worries if his secret ever becomes public knowledge.
There’s a sudden solemnity to her countenance that causes him to scrutinize her features.
A few minutes of peaceful silence passes, and Danny waits patiently, realizing that Stella is mustering her thoughts in preparation to divulge something close to heart.
“You know, when Frankie broke into my apartment and held me hostage, I couldn’t believe it was happening to me,” she begins.
It’s Danny’s turn to squeeze her hands in encouragement. This is the first time she’s ever spoken to him about her harrowing experience involving her lunatic ex-boyfriend who very nearly murdered her in her own home.
“It was - it was like a dream. A nightmare. The man I thought I loved, the man I thought who loved me was going to kill me. I couldn’t believe it … not even after I cut my hands bloody to free myself from the ropes he’d tied me with. Not even after I shot him dead with my own gun.”
She’s gazing into the distance, back in a place where there’d been no angels to save her.
“And it was all over so fast, as if it never happened. When all the questioning was done and I was discharged from the hospital and I returned to my apartment, I thought everything would be fine again. Back to work, business as usual.”
She shakes her head, her green eyes cheerless.
“I was wrong. I thought, with my - my work experience and training that it would be easy to leave it all behind but I was wrong. Much as I wanted to deny it, what he did to me … changed me. I felt … lost. Like something was taken away from me, something vital.”
Stella purses her lips.
“He made me fear again.”
Danny has no idea what to say, and stays quiet, giving her all the time she needs. The mention of Frankie jogs his memory of Flack coming over to his apartment the night the homicide detective had interviewed Stella at the hospital. Flack had been so infuriated that night, infuriated at Frankie who was dead and couldn’t be killed a second time, infuriated that someone he cared about had been hurt in one of the worst possible ways.
Infuriated, and hugging Danny so tight and whispering gratitude that it wasn’t Danny who’d been made to suffer like that.
“I thought if I didn’t think about it, didn’t talk about it, then it would be like none of it ever happened. Then things would go back to the way they used to be … then I’d go back to the person I used to be. The problem was, no matter where I went, everything reminded me about what happened. If I was in the labs, I met people who knew what happened to me, and made me remember just by looking at me with sympathy. And if I was at home … sometimes I’d jump at the tiniest of noises. Sometimes, I can still remember the exact position of his body on the floor after I shot him.”
A heavy sigh leaves her in a rush.
“It angered me, and it also frightened me, knowing that it wouldn’t let me go, that I couldn’t let it go and when I was at the end of my ropes, I seeked help. It took a while but I succeeded in overcoming it, with a lot of patience and understanding … especially on Mac’s behalf.” She smiles a smile that’s both melancholic and relieved. “I don’t know what I would have done without him.”
As he listens to Stella, it dawns upon Danny what she’s been trying to tell him, really tell him.
“Ya think Flack’s goin’ through the same thing,” he says.
“Well, I visited him a few days ago, and his behavior reminded me a lot of myself while I was still recovering from the attack. Angry. Vulnerable. Frustrated … I can only imagine how such serious injury to his abdomen, including the scarring, will affect him in the long run.”
Danny’s visage darkens in a scowl.
Stella isn’t the only one who has to imagine what Flack’s scars are like. He can barely get near the guy, much less see Flack naked from the waist up to view the aftermath of the explosion upon his lover’s body.
He sure knows what it’s like to be the one who’s distrusted now.
“It takes time, Danny,” Stella murmurs. “Right now, he might be acting like the biggest asshole in the world and it’s like he’s become somebody else but, this is the time when he needs you the most. It‘ll be okay. Things will get better.”
Her face unexpectedly flushes.
“Feel free to let me know if I’m assuming too much about you and Flack, okay?”
Danny’s pearly teeth show through a sideways smile.
“Nah, I think you’re assumin’ too little.”
“Like … I’m thinking you two are on second base, and you’re already on the tenth one?”
“Stella, there’s no such thing as tenth base,” he replies with a chuckle.
“I know.” She grins. “And I didn’t hear about a CSI getting together with a homicide detective, okay?”
He gazes at her striking facial features, and for a short while, he feels envious of the lucky bastard who’ll become her significant half someday. It’s rare, very rare, to come across someone who’s beautiful on the outside and on the inside.
His lips bow up in a soft smile.
“Okay.”
And once more, her arms move around his shoulders in a heartening embrace, a powerful conduit that gifts him with the strength and courage he’ll need to tackle the challenging days ahead.
It’s a sunny, late afternoon a couple of days later when Mac saunters up to him and asks, “Would you like a ride back? I’m free to drive you home, if you like.”
Danny’s stumped by this unforeseen offer from the older, hazel-eyed detective. Mac has never asked Danny to hitch a ride with him, except whenever they’re partnered up to work on the same case and have to travel together during their investigations.
He stares at Mac for a moment, then comprehends that Mac isn’t asking so much as requesting him to permit Mac to drive him back to his apartment.
Ah.
It was just a matter of time until the Talk with Mac came to be.
Mac’s SUV is nice, big car, a black, fourth-generation Ford Explorer with camel-colored interiors and ample leg room. Despite his misgivings about the inevitable discussion with Mac, he loosens up while sitting in the front passenger seat, setting his bag on his lap. It’s a pleasant change to be driven home for once. The hassle of going home via the trains and walking does irritate him now and then.
They’re already heading down towards Queens in the typical city traffic as Mac says, “You did good work on the Callahan case, Danny.”
For the second time that afternoon, he’s taken aback.
Huh, the last time Mac said anything along the same line was … he can’t recall.
“Thanks.”
Danny’s uncertain of what else to say. He has the hunch Mac’s simply using that as a preface to a much more grave conversation. It feels good to hear the compliment coming from Mac, at any rate.
The car halts at a traffic light, and he swivels his head to look at the other man. Mac is straight-faced, revealing no clue at all what he’s thinking or feeling. Mac’s clutching the steering wheel with one hand, but the hand is lax. That’s a good sign to Danny. Mac might own the ultimate poker face, but Danny’s known him long enough to discern the man’s mood by examining his hands.
Whenever Mac’s mad about something, his hands are always clenched, knuckles white like he wants to punch something.
Right now, Mac’s hands are relaxed, and that lets Danny relax too.
“You’ve always done good work,” Mac adds, moving the car forward once the traffic light has changed to green. “Did I ever mention to you that I picked you out of over a thousand prospective graduates?”
Danny’s unable to tear his gaze away from the other CSI’s face.
What the … Mac praised him twice. In one day.
Has he tripped into the Twilight Zone or something?
“N-no, you didn’t,” Danny replies with a muted voice. “I didn’t know that.”
Mac abruptly sighs, and his brows crease in a way Danny’s very familiar with.
“After the Minhaus case, when you were in my office … I shouldn’t have said the things I did,” Mac says.
Danny’s belly contracts upon hearing the name of the undercover detective who’d died in a subway shooting in which he was implicated. The few days following the event had been some of the worst of his life. Had him feeling like he’d been fed to the wolves, feeling like the whole freaking world was out to bring him down, feeling like nobody gave a shit about him.
Except he had Flack.
He had Flack, when he couldn’t turn to anyone else. He had Flack, who bore his frustrations and alarm with enduring patience and depth. He had Flack, who’d dragged him out of Sullivan’s before he made an utter fool out of himself. Dragged him home and let him shout and roar and destroy things till he collapsed, face and heart crushed at the fact that he was right, he was right all along that Mac would regret giving him a chance one day, that Mac would be disappointed in him, that he never wanted to fail Mac and he did it anyway.
And now, here’s Mac, apologizing to him for words he‘d said more than a year ago.
“It’s true that there had been people who’d discouraged me from hiring you, but you didn‘t deserve to have that thrown into your face, especially given the circumstances then. I was out of line, and I’m sorry about that.”
Whoa is all Danny’s joggled mind can scour up. Listening to Mac saying sorry to him in his head is one thing. Listening to Mac saying sorry to him in reality is something else, seriously something else.
“S’okay, Mac, really,” Danny answers after he’s snapped out of his shock. “Put it behind me ages ago.”
A small, astute smile that seems almost sad appears on Mac’s mien, one that compels Danny to finally look away and forward through the windscreen instead.
It’s tough to bullshit somebody who’s spent decades of his life unearthing the lies and deceit of criminals of all ages and gender.
Mac dumbfounds him yet again by veering into a different topic with, “I won’t strangle you for asking me for a few days off, you know.”
Danny blinks.
“While I appreciate you putting so much time and effort into your work, working eighteen-hour shifts for consecutive weeks is seriously overzealous, even for me,” Mac explains, a tiny smirk on his lips. “I think you’ve already maxed out your overtime months ago.”
Danny shrugs.
“Work keeps me sharp,” he murmurs, eyes downcast.
Geez, Mac’d have to be deaf to not hear the fib.
“Not if you work yourself to death, Danny. You used to complain whenever you had to take on long shifts.”
Oh yeah, he knew what the older detective was hinting at.
He fidgets in his seat, pulling his bag closer to his torso.
“Thought you’d be happy at the idea of more work being done at the labs, cases gettin’ solved faster and all that.”
“I am happy when everyone’s doing their best. On the other hand, I’m not happy when I know that someone under my charge is … having problems.”
Danny’s fingers dig into the pliable material of his bag.
Oh shit, here it comes -
“Danny, what happened that day -”
“Look, I was in shock, okay?” Danny cuts in swift, his voice unintentionally a little too harsh. “I just freaked out after I saw all that - that blood. That’s it.”
If Mac had overlooked his first and second lie, the man doesn’t do the same for this one.
“Is it really?”
The gentle tone, so unanticipated, forces something to fracture like glass within Danny. His exasperation triumphs over him.
“If ya got somethin’ to say ‘bout it, Mac, just say it. Right now,” he articulates very clearly.
He continues to look out the windscreen in front of his face, for he has no inclination to see Mac’s face once the guy says what he’s going to say about him and Flack.
He senses Mac casting a long, hard albeit benign stare upon him.
His throat ripples in a nervous swallow.
Damnit, five years of working for the man, and he’s still reduced to sweaty palms and quivering innards from a stare.
“One, if I were to object to your relationship with him, I’d be a hypocrite,” Mac says quietly after what seems like a millennia.
Danny pivots his head sideways so quick, his neck emits an audible crack.
And his blue eyes widen at the sight of Mac’s smile, a smile that‘s amused and … understanding.
Holy shit, Danny thinks, holy shit, is Mac implying what he thinks he is?
Mac doesn’t comment on his sagging lower jaw, which is a positive thing since he‘s probably looking like an idiot with his mouth all wide open like that and his eyes about to drop out.
“Two, who you’re seeing outside of work is nobody’s business but yours. The only time it will become my business is when it affects your work performance.” Mac’s lips thin in a concerned line. “Like it has for the past few weeks.”
Danny’s automatic instinct is to contradict Mac’s statement, that he’s fine and that he can deal with things.
All it takes is one eloquent look from Mac for that impulse to shrivel.
He’d be a dumbass to lie to Mac’s face now.
He closes his eyes and turns his head towards the passenger side window, staring out through half-lidded eyes. Startles a bit as he notices they’re already parked outside his apartment building. Well, that’d been one speedy ride.
“I dunno what ya want me to say, Mac,” he murmurs in a small voice.
The hush that follows is neither wracked with tension or easy and comfortable. It’s one of those silences where both parties are wavering on the verge between a stalemate and a checkmate. One man has all the power in his hands but isn’t using it, and the other, a man who judges himself with nothing left to lose, awaits those same hands to yank the handle on the guillotine that’ll cut off his head.
Danny waits, and has to stop himself from jumping off his seat when Mac asks, “Would you like to hear a story?”
He returns his gaze to Mac’s visage, seeing no displeasure or anything similar to that in the other man’s expression. Huh, Mac sure is full of surprises today. He gives the older detective a nod. Whatever the guy’s desiring to tell him, it has to be important one way or another.
Without hesitation, Mac says, “A long time ago in ancient China, a great war had broken out. It was a war that spanned for many years and claimed the lives of many, many soldiers, and the wife of one soldier was dearly missing her husband who’d gone away to fight in this war. Unlike all the men who perished, her husband was fortunate enough to survive and once the war was over, he returned home.”
“She was overjoyed that the man she loved was back at her side again, although, as the days passed, she discovered that her husband was no longer the man she knew before. He was filled with terrible fury and flew into a rage at the smallest of things. He wouldn’t talk to her or let her touch him, and many a time, she would find him sitting alone, staring out the window with dismal eyes.”
“The war had changed her husband, she understood that much, but she had no idea how to reach out to him or help him. One day, she heard about a wise, old hermit who lived on a hill, and went to see him in the hopes of solving her dilemma. After she told him her troubles, he simply said, ‘Go, bring me a whisker from a living, wild tiger, and I will give you the answer you are searching for.’”
Danny’s mouth opens in an ‘O’ shape.
“A live tiger?”
“Uh hmm,” Mac replies, eyes twinkling. “She probably looked just like you do now … And indeed, she was shocked at the wise, old man’s demand. How was she going to accomplish such a deed? She was no soldier like her husband. She had no experience whatsoever in defending herself with weapons, much less approach a very lethal, wild animal that could kill her with a single swipe of a paw.”
“But, despite the risk …” - Mac held up one finger to emphasize the point - “She knew that she had to do it because she loved her husband, that it hurt her to see him suffer the way he was. Throughout that night, she devised a plan to do what the wise hermit wanted of her, and in the morning, she immediately headed into the forest to hunt a tiger.”
“After many hours, she came upon one, an enormous tiger with sleek fur and round, topaz eyes. She made sure that she was far away enough that she could flee should the tiger attack her, but also close enough that the tiger could see her. When the tiger did see her, she knelt on the ground to make herself appear unthreatening, and spoke to the animal with kind words and a gentle voice.”
“She did this everyday, earning the tiger’s trust little by little, and in time, the tiger became accustomed to her presence. The next time she went to see it, she brought along food to feed it. She would leave the food at a distance and watch the tiger eat it, all the while speaking to it with kindness and tenderness, showing the tiger love and care, that she wished no harm upon it at all.”
“Then, one morning, she gathered the courage to leave food right in front of her so that the tiger will come close enough for her to take a whisker from it. Sure enough, when the tiger saw her, it came up to her and consumed its meal, paying no heed to her nor menacing her in any way. And as the tiger ate and she spoke gently to it like she always did …”
Mac made a controlled, slicing motion with his right hand in a fist.
“She took out a small knife and cut off a single whisker.”
“The instant the tiger left, she ran all the way back to the wise, old hermit,” Mac resumes, “And brandishing the whisker, she shouted in delight, ‘Look! Here is your tiger whisker!’ She handed it to the old man, who was cooking some rice over a burning fire, and said, “Now, please, tell me how I can help my husband.’”
The hazel-eyed CSI pauses for a moment.
“The wise hermit took the whisker from her … and threw it into the flames.”
Danny’s eyebrows shoot up. Whoa, okay, he hadn’t anticipated that.
“She was horrified at what he’d done.” Mac’s eyes enlarge in mock dismay, and he raised and waved his hands in an enactment of the woman’s distress. “‘Why did you do that!’ she shrieked, ‘It took me so long to get the whisker for you!’ The old man was completely unperturbed by her panic, and simply asked, ‘Tell me, how did you obtain the whisker from the tiger?’”
“The question calmed her down and made her think, and she replied, ‘I approached the tiger each day and spoke gently to it and treated it with kindness and love, and I did it everyday to earn its trust, to show the tiger that I cared for it and that I would never hurt it.’ The wise, old man sat there stroking his beard, then said to her, ‘If you could earn the trust of a wild animal as dangerous as a tiger with nothing more than love and kindness … how much easier it will be, for you to reclaim the trust and affection of your husband, the man whom you love.’”
“And understanding the wisdom in the old hermit’s words, she returned home, knowing now what to do to lead her husband out of his despair and regain the heart of her other half,” Mac concludes, appearing very much like a wise, mature man himself.
Danny is unable to utter a word. It’s a bizarre sensation, his chest close to bursting and yet, feeling like it’s throttled by overwhelming emotion. He likes this Mac very much, this Mac who’s compassionate and forgiving and so much like a father he never really had.
There’s no way in hell now that he can deny Mac is certain about his relationship with Flack. Still, confessing to Mac was worth it, if only to know at least two of his friends have given him their blessings and support for a love he’s had to cover up for so long.
It feels good. Liberating. Like a candle lit in what was once pure darkness.
And he comprehends the message within the message Mac has imparted to him.
“Thanks, Mac,” Danny eventually says with warm eyes. “Kinda an irony to think of Flack as a tiger, though, since he’s allergic to cats.”
Mac snickers, his face crinkled in mirth. “Actually, I was thinking that he was the soldier, but whatever floats your boat.”
Danny joins in the laughter. Yeah, he sure walked right into that one.
“Thanks for the ride. I appreciate it.”
Mac nods. “I’ll see you at work next week.”
That immobilizes him in the mid-action of tugging on the car door handle, and he whips his head around and exclaims, “Next week? Whaddaya mean, next week?”
“Effective tomorrow, you’re off for six days.”
Mac’s tone brooks no defiance.
Before Danny can sputter out a word, the older detective goes on to add, “No buts. It’s about damn time you used some of your off days, and if I see you at the labs tomorrow, I’ll suspend you.”
For a second, Danny actually believes the warning, then detects the humorous gleam in those hazel eyes. Geez, Mac, way to scare a guy.
And six days off?
Hey, that didn’t sound bad at all.
“Awright, next week,” Danny grumbles outwardly. “But don’t get all envious when I come back with a nice tan and lotsa stories a’ how much fun I had while you guys had to toil, ‘kay?”
Mac really does come across as twenty years younger when he smiles. “Have a good night, Danny.” The smile softened. “And good luck.”
Danny nods in response and bids Mac farewell before sliding out of the car, shouldering his bag as he does. He ambles down the sidewalk a short distance to the entrance to his apartment building, and there’s a spring to his step that lends him an air of confidence.
Something is blooming within him again, something he hasn’t felt in a long while that seems a lot like hope.
As he opens the entrance door and goes inside, he contemplates on what Stella and Mac have conveyed to him in their dialogues and smiles to himself.
It’s Stella who has lead him to the looming gates of Flack’s heart.
But it’s Mac, who has bestowed him with the keys to unlock them.
On the evening of the day Mac had driven him home, Danny stands in front of his bathroom sink and mirror, wearing just his boxers.
