CSI:NY fic: "The Lion's Den"
Dec. 17th, 2006 09:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bedlamsbardTitle: The Lion's Den
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bedlamsbard
Fandom: CSI:NY
Rating: PG
Summary: Mac has heard the rumors murmured among the uniforms, and even among the detectives.
Notes: Forstellaluna_, who asked for "AU, Mac and Stella, sins of the past." Old school characters and lab.
On his good days, Danny is almost lucid, and can pass as normal as long as no one looks too closely at him. On his better days, he weaves slightly as he walks, and his eyes are distant and turned inward, but he can still function as a CSI, although Mac hesitates to trust him around chemicals and witnesses.
On his bad days, Danny stays in the dark corners of his basement office, arms wrapped around himself as he rocks, tears streaming down his face as he babbles in a dozen languages he never learned to speak, mind torn between timelines.
Mac has heard the rumors murmured among the uniforms, and even among the detectives. They say that CSU has gone mad, that the brass don’t realize what they’re doing, keeping Mac Taylor and his team employed by the city. What they don’t know is that the CSU detectives have the highest solve rate in the city, and that the brass are too scared to let them all go at once, or even one by one. CSU isn’t what it used to be.
-
-
Today is one of Danny’s good days. Mac notices that Stella is driving when they arrive in one of the CSU SUVs and approves; Danny has let his license lapse ever since his…episodes…started, but Mac and Stella have spoken about it, and both agree that Danny can’t be trusted behind the wheel of a car. Usually he drives with Flack, but Flack is at the scene already, grouchy and interviewing witnesses and other cops.
For a heartbeat as Danny gets out of the car, Flack going to meet them, Danny is fine – easy on his feet, joking with Stella, dressed in some approximation of professionalism – but as he steps out of the car, he stumbles and drops to one knee on the curve. His mouth moves; Mac can’t hear from where he is, two floors up watching from a window, but Flack has caught him, arms wrapped around Danny’s shoulders, pulling him carefully back from the edge. Danny’s head jerks back suddenly, catching the bridge of Flack’s nose, and Mac can’t hear it break but he can see the spray of bright blood on Flack’s face. Flack doesn’t flinch, just gathers Danny carefully into his arms and helps him back into the SUV. It’s only after he’s fastened Danny’s seat belt and closed the door that he turns back to Stella, ducking his head for what little privacy they can have out on the street with uniforms hovering at the edges of the crime scene tape. When he turns away he doesn’t look back, and neither does Stella; both go about their business in opposite directions.
-
-
Mac has turned away from the window by the time Stella makes it to the apartment, his gloved hands moving lightly over the couch where Sarah Lewis died. “How is Danny?” he asks when Stella has closed the door behind her.
Her lips press together. “He’s been better,” she says, opening her kit. “Flack is with him.”
Mac dusts a brush over the wall behind the couch. He thinks there might be a handprint there, but it’s hard to tell. He tilts his head, considering. “Did he say anything?”
“Of course.” Stella takes the entertainment center – small and spare, but there are marks in the dust on the television. “He said he was sorry.”
“Sorry?”
“For not being fast enough.”
-
-
Flack wears gloves whenever he’s at a scene. He tries to wear them all the time – easier in winter than summer – but he’s careful never to touch anything with his bare hands unless Mac asks him – only as a last resort, of course; he can’t testify about what he’s seen with his hands. Mac has noticed that he only touches Danny with his bare hands.
He has black leather on his hands when he meets Mac in his office, face composed. “He’s been good,” he says before Mac can say anything. “He’s been real good. It’ll pass – it always passes.”
“He was in public, Don,” Mac says.
Flack stiffens. He works his fingers over each other, the leather drawing tight on the knuckles, and says, “It ain’t his fault. He can’t control it.”
“I understand that.” Mac picks the evidence bag up his desk and flips up the slit seal. “I didn’t call you here to talk about Danny.”
Flack blinks. “You didn’t?”
“No,” Mac says, and offers up something that may be a shadow of a smile. “I need you to touch something.”
“Oh,” Flack says, and strips one glove off. His hands are pale in the artificial light of Mac’s office, laced with a faint tracery of scars from the explosion. “Give it here, then.”
Mac puts the evidence packet in his hand and thinks about falling.
-
-
When he meets Stella and Hawkes down in the morgue later, Hawkes is cordoned off in his own corner of the morgue. He lifts Sarah Lewis’s skull and turns it around while he speaks, the entire time pointing out the abnormalities on X-ray while the skull revolves in front of Mac and Stella; they have the option of looking at the pictures or at the real thing.
“Her skull exploded outward,” Hawkes finally concludes, and the carefully pieced together shards of bone fly apart, hanging in midair before they slowly segue back together. He reaches over to cradle it gently in his hands, lowering it to lie in its usual place before Sarah Lewis’s severed neck.
“So the cause of death was natural, then,” Stella says, and looks to Hawkes for confirmation.
“No,” Hawkes says. “She had no natural condition that would explain her death – I’ve been over her body extensively. There’s no normal reason for her to have died, especially this way.” He smiles at Mac and Stella. “That’s your job, I’m afraid.”
-
-
“It could be someone like Hawkes,” Stella says, sitting cross-legged in Mac’s apartment with the case files in her lap and a glass half-full of whisky in her hand.
“A surgeon, you mean?” Mac says dubiously, glancing down from his vantage point on the couch.
Stella shakes her head. “No. Someone – like Hawkes. Or Flack. Danny.”
“Ah,” Mac says, and looks unhappy. “It might be hard to prove. Especially to a jury.”
“We might get a confession,” Stella says.
“We need a suspect first,” Mac reminds her.
-
-
Aiden reads the case file with one hand on the report and one on the autopsy results, talking to Stella as she absorbs the information.
“I’ll ask around,” she says, shuffling the file folders back together and handing them over to Stella. “I know there are a couple of telekinetics in the city, but I don’t now any personally. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Anything you can come up with is going to help,” Stella says earnestly. “Thanks, Aiden.”
“Any names I get I’ll send to you,” Aiden continues.
“Be careful,” Stella warns, her hand on the glass door to Aiden’s small office.
Aiden smiles. “Always am, Stel.”
-
-
Danny is sitting on Flack’s lap when Stella walks into their office, Flack’s hands splayed on his back, one on either side of his spine. Danny looks up at Stella’s entrance. “When the time comes,” he says, voice clear, “kill him, even if he still looks like the man you knew.”
Stella blinks at that. “Hello, Danny,” she says.
Danny ignores her. “I thought we hadn’t happened yet,” he says to Flack.
Flack blinks too. “Let me talk to Stella, Danny,” he says, letting Danny slide off his lap. The rules that apply to the Crime Lab aren’t the ones that apply to the rest of the world.
“Be careful,” Danny tells Flack solemnly. “It’s going on right under your nose.”
“I’m always careful,” Flack says, stepping toward Stella. As they move into the hall, he shuts the door behind him.
-
-
Flack puts his bare hand on the door handle. Images, emotions – impressions, really, some combination of the two of them – flash through his mind. “We’re at the right place,” he says, slipping his gloves back on and pulling out his gun.
Stella and Mac nod at each other, and the two uniforms they’ve brought with them brace themselves. Mac knocks on the door. “NYPD. Open up!”
“Wh-what?” someone says from inside the room, and then something breaks. None of the locks snap open, though.
Flack shrugs and kicks the door open. The man inside shrieks and skitters backward.
“Not so brave when it ain’t a scared girl, are you?” Flack snaps.
“Get away from me!” Luke Kopczynski flicks a hand out toward the detectives. One of the bookshelves flies at them, books falling away and joining it in midair. Stella ducks; Flack and Mac both jump aside. The bookcase shatters when it hits the doorway, but one of the uniforms cries out when the shards fly into the hallways.
“This is why we should start bringing Hawkes,” Flack says casually, next to Kopczynski. Kopczynski jumps, and Flack kicks him in the face. “You’re under arrest,” he adds, kneeling down to cuff him.
-
-
Danny is waiting outside the station on Mulberry Street when they bring Kopczynski in, arms crossed in front of him. His eyes are bright behind his glasses as Stella and Flack march Kopczynski past him into the building.
“How are you?” Mac asks, pausing by him.
Danny smiles. “Aces,” he says and looks straight at Mac. “Sometimes,” he says, “you just gotta trust people.”
Author:
bedlamsbardFandom: CSI:NY
Rating: PG
Summary: Mac has heard the rumors murmured among the uniforms, and even among the detectives.
Notes: For
stellaluna_, who asked for "AU, Mac and Stella, sins of the past." Old school characters and lab.On his good days, Danny is almost lucid, and can pass as normal as long as no one looks too closely at him. On his better days, he weaves slightly as he walks, and his eyes are distant and turned inward, but he can still function as a CSI, although Mac hesitates to trust him around chemicals and witnesses.
On his bad days, Danny stays in the dark corners of his basement office, arms wrapped around himself as he rocks, tears streaming down his face as he babbles in a dozen languages he never learned to speak, mind torn between timelines.
Mac has heard the rumors murmured among the uniforms, and even among the detectives. They say that CSU has gone mad, that the brass don’t realize what they’re doing, keeping Mac Taylor and his team employed by the city. What they don’t know is that the CSU detectives have the highest solve rate in the city, and that the brass are too scared to let them all go at once, or even one by one. CSU isn’t what it used to be.
-
-
Today is one of Danny’s good days. Mac notices that Stella is driving when they arrive in one of the CSU SUVs and approves; Danny has let his license lapse ever since his…episodes…started, but Mac and Stella have spoken about it, and both agree that Danny can’t be trusted behind the wheel of a car. Usually he drives with Flack, but Flack is at the scene already, grouchy and interviewing witnesses and other cops.
For a heartbeat as Danny gets out of the car, Flack going to meet them, Danny is fine – easy on his feet, joking with Stella, dressed in some approximation of professionalism – but as he steps out of the car, he stumbles and drops to one knee on the curve. His mouth moves; Mac can’t hear from where he is, two floors up watching from a window, but Flack has caught him, arms wrapped around Danny’s shoulders, pulling him carefully back from the edge. Danny’s head jerks back suddenly, catching the bridge of Flack’s nose, and Mac can’t hear it break but he can see the spray of bright blood on Flack’s face. Flack doesn’t flinch, just gathers Danny carefully into his arms and helps him back into the SUV. It’s only after he’s fastened Danny’s seat belt and closed the door that he turns back to Stella, ducking his head for what little privacy they can have out on the street with uniforms hovering at the edges of the crime scene tape. When he turns away he doesn’t look back, and neither does Stella; both go about their business in opposite directions.
-
-
Mac has turned away from the window by the time Stella makes it to the apartment, his gloved hands moving lightly over the couch where Sarah Lewis died. “How is Danny?” he asks when Stella has closed the door behind her.
Her lips press together. “He’s been better,” she says, opening her kit. “Flack is with him.”
Mac dusts a brush over the wall behind the couch. He thinks there might be a handprint there, but it’s hard to tell. He tilts his head, considering. “Did he say anything?”
“Of course.” Stella takes the entertainment center – small and spare, but there are marks in the dust on the television. “He said he was sorry.”
“Sorry?”
“For not being fast enough.”
-
-
Flack wears gloves whenever he’s at a scene. He tries to wear them all the time – easier in winter than summer – but he’s careful never to touch anything with his bare hands unless Mac asks him – only as a last resort, of course; he can’t testify about what he’s seen with his hands. Mac has noticed that he only touches Danny with his bare hands.
He has black leather on his hands when he meets Mac in his office, face composed. “He’s been good,” he says before Mac can say anything. “He’s been real good. It’ll pass – it always passes.”
“He was in public, Don,” Mac says.
Flack stiffens. He works his fingers over each other, the leather drawing tight on the knuckles, and says, “It ain’t his fault. He can’t control it.”
“I understand that.” Mac picks the evidence bag up his desk and flips up the slit seal. “I didn’t call you here to talk about Danny.”
Flack blinks. “You didn’t?”
“No,” Mac says, and offers up something that may be a shadow of a smile. “I need you to touch something.”
“Oh,” Flack says, and strips one glove off. His hands are pale in the artificial light of Mac’s office, laced with a faint tracery of scars from the explosion. “Give it here, then.”
Mac puts the evidence packet in his hand and thinks about falling.
-
-
When he meets Stella and Hawkes down in the morgue later, Hawkes is cordoned off in his own corner of the morgue. He lifts Sarah Lewis’s skull and turns it around while he speaks, the entire time pointing out the abnormalities on X-ray while the skull revolves in front of Mac and Stella; they have the option of looking at the pictures or at the real thing.
“Her skull exploded outward,” Hawkes finally concludes, and the carefully pieced together shards of bone fly apart, hanging in midair before they slowly segue back together. He reaches over to cradle it gently in his hands, lowering it to lie in its usual place before Sarah Lewis’s severed neck.
“So the cause of death was natural, then,” Stella says, and looks to Hawkes for confirmation.
“No,” Hawkes says. “She had no natural condition that would explain her death – I’ve been over her body extensively. There’s no normal reason for her to have died, especially this way.” He smiles at Mac and Stella. “That’s your job, I’m afraid.”
-
-
“It could be someone like Hawkes,” Stella says, sitting cross-legged in Mac’s apartment with the case files in her lap and a glass half-full of whisky in her hand.
“A surgeon, you mean?” Mac says dubiously, glancing down from his vantage point on the couch.
Stella shakes her head. “No. Someone – like Hawkes. Or Flack. Danny.”
“Ah,” Mac says, and looks unhappy. “It might be hard to prove. Especially to a jury.”
“We might get a confession,” Stella says.
“We need a suspect first,” Mac reminds her.
-
-
Aiden reads the case file with one hand on the report and one on the autopsy results, talking to Stella as she absorbs the information.
“I’ll ask around,” she says, shuffling the file folders back together and handing them over to Stella. “I know there are a couple of telekinetics in the city, but I don’t now any personally. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Anything you can come up with is going to help,” Stella says earnestly. “Thanks, Aiden.”
“Any names I get I’ll send to you,” Aiden continues.
“Be careful,” Stella warns, her hand on the glass door to Aiden’s small office.
Aiden smiles. “Always am, Stel.”
-
-
Danny is sitting on Flack’s lap when Stella walks into their office, Flack’s hands splayed on his back, one on either side of his spine. Danny looks up at Stella’s entrance. “When the time comes,” he says, voice clear, “kill him, even if he still looks like the man you knew.”
Stella blinks at that. “Hello, Danny,” she says.
Danny ignores her. “I thought we hadn’t happened yet,” he says to Flack.
Flack blinks too. “Let me talk to Stella, Danny,” he says, letting Danny slide off his lap. The rules that apply to the Crime Lab aren’t the ones that apply to the rest of the world.
“Be careful,” Danny tells Flack solemnly. “It’s going on right under your nose.”
“I’m always careful,” Flack says, stepping toward Stella. As they move into the hall, he shuts the door behind him.
-
-
Flack puts his bare hand on the door handle. Images, emotions – impressions, really, some combination of the two of them – flash through his mind. “We’re at the right place,” he says, slipping his gloves back on and pulling out his gun.
Stella and Mac nod at each other, and the two uniforms they’ve brought with them brace themselves. Mac knocks on the door. “NYPD. Open up!”
“Wh-what?” someone says from inside the room, and then something breaks. None of the locks snap open, though.
Flack shrugs and kicks the door open. The man inside shrieks and skitters backward.
“Not so brave when it ain’t a scared girl, are you?” Flack snaps.
“Get away from me!” Luke Kopczynski flicks a hand out toward the detectives. One of the bookshelves flies at them, books falling away and joining it in midair. Stella ducks; Flack and Mac both jump aside. The bookcase shatters when it hits the doorway, but one of the uniforms cries out when the shards fly into the hallways.
“This is why we should start bringing Hawkes,” Flack says casually, next to Kopczynski. Kopczynski jumps, and Flack kicks him in the face. “You’re under arrest,” he adds, kneeling down to cuff him.
-
-
Danny is waiting outside the station on Mulberry Street when they bring Kopczynski in, arms crossed in front of him. His eyes are bright behind his glasses as Stella and Flack march Kopczynski past him into the building.
“How are you?” Mac asks, pausing by him.
Danny smiles. “Aces,” he says and looks straight at Mac. “Sometimes,” he says, “you just gotta trust people.”
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-19 01:53 am (UTC)I love how Danny says "Aces", I don't really know why, but it just feels so right for him. And the whole Danny/Flack relationship is great. Also great? Aiden! Yay! I'm glad you used the old-school lab... I don't hate Lindsay, but Aiden is just so much more wonderful.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-19 02:15 am (UTC)My preference is writing with the old school characters, especially since I tend to write grittier stuff better suited to season one than seasons two and three, and I'm not really sure how to deal with some of the new revelations that have come up. Plus, they were pretty much totally cooler. Also, Aiden!