New York Minute 17
May. 29th, 2005 05:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bedlamsbardSo, we went to the cabin yesterday overnight; the cabin being just barely on this side of a shack and up by Snoqualmie Pass, where I managed to write just about everything under the sun except NYM. Fortunately, NYM 17 was already written, so...here you go.
Flack killed the engine as they pulled up to the precinct, and didn’t get out. He and Danny sat and stared at each other, the silence between them hanging heavy as Justice’s sword.
Flack looked at him awkwardly. For the first time since early that morning he seemed uncomfortable and out of place, unsure about what to do or what to say. “Danny –” he began, seeming to will himself not to flinch away when Danny put his hand on his arm.
“This okay?” Danny asked.
He shuudered briefly under Danny’s hand. “Yeah,” he said. “This is okay.” He leaned forward, eyes narrowing purposefully.
Danny stretched forward across the space between them and kissed Flack on the mouth.
Flack kissed him back enthusiastically, tongue curling against his, familiar yet without the frantic need Danny remembered from the night before. That hadn’t been sex so much as clawing for each others’ sanity, letting Flack fuck and fight and cry out his frustration and his terorr on Danny. There was comfort in another body, in someone kissing away your tears and your fears, in hands running down your body to help rather that hurt.
Trust me, Danny had said, and he’d meant it.
Flack put his hands on Danny’s shoulders to pull him in closer. “Trust you,” he muttered against Danny’s mouth, or maybe it was his name. He bit lightly at the corner of Danny’s mouth before pulling away.
They stared at each other, panting for air.
Danny licked at his lips, tasting the bittersweet tang of coffee and the pizza they’d had for lunch earlier. “We’re right out in front of the precinct,” he said finally, unable to keep his eyes from Flack’s swollen mouth. He looked like he’d been kissed thoroughly – and enjoyed it.
Flack’s expression was bright and slightly glazed. “Fuck the precinct,” he said.
“We’re still on-duty.”
“How ‘bout dinner, then?”
Danny put his hand on Flack’s leg, felt him start to flinch automatically away and then force himself to stillnes. “Dinner’s good,” he said.
*
“I’m thinking about strangling Mac,” Aiden said conversationally as Danny and Flack came in. She flicked a curious, gleeful eye at Flack’s glazed expression and the purpling bite mark at the edge of Danny’s jaw.
“Assaulting an officer’s a felony,” Danny said mildly, and the words twisted in his throat and kicked bile to the back of his moth at the visceral memory of all the times he’d heard them. Wrestling with his brothers and his uncles, muttered mock-serious into the thick mop of his hair. His father on the floor, spitting curses and blood at Val Constantine with his hand twitching toward his gun.
You son of a bitch. Assaulting an officer’s a felony, and kidnapping’s still a crime in New York.
Ned! Angela Messer had yelled, something like horror on her face. Danny had crouched down on the stairs, fascinated by the dull gleam of the gun in Val’s hand and the angry words Ned Messer had spat out at his wife and her brother. My brother, stay away from my brother – Her automatic reaction, and one Danny had never seen directed at him from his brothers.
Val had pushed his sister out of his way and laughed in Ned Messer’s face. I’d like to see you try and make those charges stick. Danny remembered something Vinnie Patriso had said about the Constantine Family – Fuckers have got everyone in the city of New York in their pocket, or anyone that knows anyone.
“Danny?”
He’d spat it out at Curly Sassone when Curly caught him out alone during his Patrol days. Curly’d pulled him into and alley and thrown him up against a wall, his hands tightening around Danny’s throat. Fuck you, Danny Messer.
Assaulting an officer’s a fucking crime, Curly.
“Danny!” Flack grabbed at his arm. Danny shuddered, looking up into Flack’s wide, startled blue eyes. “You all right?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. Just…just…long fucking day, ya’ know?” He spat out the lie like he had the piece of Curly’s tongue he’d bitten off the one time Curly’d been drunk enough to try and kiss him and he’d been drunk enough to fight back.
Aiden gave him a worried look. “You wanna go sit down, Danny?” she asked. “I’m sure Stella would volunteer her wheelchair.”
“No, no, I’m good, it’s just – wheelchair? Stella has a wheelchair? Stella’s all right? Fuck all that, Stella’s awake? Since when?” Some part of his mind gave out a little scream of joy at the word “wheelchair” while the rest of his brain choked it down, beat it to a pulp, and put it in a holding cell for further investigation. Stella. Awake. He gave a great sigh of relief he hoped wasn’t too obvious.
“Since about noon yesterday,” Aiden said. She looked frustrated again. “Mac – get this – ‘forgot’ to tell us. Anyway, she’s here.” She waved a hand behind her. “In her office, looking at case files the LAPD and the SFPD sent over about the museum robberies.”
“Where’d the wheelchair come from?” Flack asked, his expression stuck somewhere between “thank god, not another dead cop” and “holy fuck, wheelchair? how bad’s she hurt?”.
“Fractured leg, broken collarbone, don’t go well together –” Aiden began.
“Stella can speak for herself, thanks,” Stella said from behind them.
“Hey, Stella!” Flack said gleefully. “You’re alive – awake! In one piece! …more or less.”
“All in one piece,” Stella grinned. “Some pieces are in more pieces than they’re supposed to be, but I’m all in one piece.”
Danny leaned down to hug her. He kissed her on the cheek, a sloppy impulsive gesture of friendship that made Stella giggle. “Hey, it’s great to see you –”
“– out of bed?” she finished. “Yeah, I’m pretty happy on that part too. I hate being on my back being useless.”
Flack gave her a hopeful puppydog grin. “How long’re you gonna be in the wheelchair?” he asked.
She shrugged. “I’m out of it in a month, tops. I don’t care how fucking hard it is to manage on crutches, I’m doing it.”
“It’s not that hard,” Flack said helpfully. “I mean, yeah, it hurts, but you get used to the pain after about a week.”
Stella turned to glare at him. “What? You mean it’s possible to – oh, I am going to kill Mac.”
*
“You mean we got another dead end?” Aiden said disbelievingly. “Oh, come off’a it.”
“I’m serious,” Danny protested. “These chicks have got so many fake names it’s unbelievable, and not one’a them has their prints on file. Not one. The only thing we got that might be a real name is the shooter – Akers called her Ashley, which would probably be her real name.”
“That narrows it down to what, half the females in New York?” She shook her head. “Jesus Christ.”
“I think there was someone else from that team in Starbucks too,” Danny added.
Aiden squinted at him. “Besides Shannon and this Ashley chick? Why d’ya think that?”
“Cody Polk has the blueprints for the Met, right?” Danny poked a finger down at the table.
“Right,” Aiden said warily.
“He has them out on the table in Starbucks. Shannon Akers comes by, Ashley comes in, Akers puts her coffee down on the table. Ashley shoots up the place, hits Akers and Polk, among others. Ashley runs out, so does Polk. She couldn’t get to the prints, and Polk said he didn’t have ‘em. Someone else grabbed them and got outta there before EMS arrived. Or they stayed, hid the blueprints somehow – we weren’t lookin’ for blueprints or anythin’ when we got there – acted like innocents and got outta there first chance we got.”
“Haveta be one hell of a liar,” Aiden said. She tilted her head to one side consideringly. “That sounds pretty good, Danny. Problem is, there were forty people packed into that place. One of ‘em’s dead, six of ‘em are injured and under surveillance. That leaves some thirty-some people that could be working with the perp.”
“We got prints from any of them?”
“Whaddaya think? No. No reason to ask for ‘em.”
“Fuck.” Danny ran his hand over his hair. “Christ, I’m startin’ hate this case.”
“That’s what you said this morning.”
“Fine, I’m continuing to hate this case. Where’d Flack go?”
“Mac called him in,” Aiden said, her tone as neutral as she could make it.
Danny’s eyebrows arched upward in sudden disbelief. “The fuck for?”
“Dunno. He didn’t look happy though.”
“Which he?”
“Both of ‘em.”
“Fuck,” Danny spat.
*
“I received a call from Lieutenant Markowitz over in Bronx Homicide this morning,” Mac said, folding his hands on top of a file folder.
Flack’s eyes flicked toward it, hard and fast, seeing his name typed neatly in thick black ink. “My pop’s old partner? What for?”
“He’s requesting you as a transfer to his unit,” Mac said.
Flack’s fists clenched hard at his sides. “No,” he said.
“It wasn’t a request.”
“The answer’s still no.” Flack spat out the words, “Jesus fucking Christ, this hasta do with my pop, doesn’t it? He thinks working CSU’s too easy, not prestigious enough for a Flack, that I’m not gonna make a goddamned name for myself, that it’s not cop work. Well, ya’ know what? Fuck him. Fuck him, and fuck Bronx Homicide, and Markowitz too. I’m not fuckin’ transferring.” His eyes went to Mac’s face. “’less you got a problem with that, Mac.”
“CSU’s gone through three Homicide detectives in eight years,” Mac said neutrally, busying himself with the perfectly stacked files on his desk. “The first two weren’t any good.”
Flack’s mouth quirked a little, though out of humor or anger he wasn’t quite sure. “And what about me?”
“Sometimes I have to remind myself you’re not a CSI.” His voice was perfectly honest.
Flack relaxed slightly, letting his fists unclench and lie flat against his thighs, fingers drumming some obscure cadence out against the fabric of his slacks. “That a good thing?”
“A very good thing. Homicide and CSU are –” He paused a moment, as if searching for the perfect words. “They’re not the same. We deal with evidence, they deal with people. You wouldn’t be working with a team of detectives, you’d be working with one or two others most of the time, sometimes flying solo. It would be a step up, I won’t deny that. It would be a good experience for you, Don. You’d have a better chance of a promotion than you do working as liason to the Crime Lab.”
“You want me gone?”
Mac’s hands went flat against the table. “No. You’re a good detective, one of the best I’ve worked with, even if your methods are a bit – extreme – at times. You understand about evidence and the preservation of such, about not contaminating the scene or the bodies. You know when to step back and let us take over, and you know when to let the uniforms do their job, let us do ours, and let yourself do yours. You’re good with suspects.”
“If you really feel that way, Mac,” he gave him a wary glare, “then you’ll call Markowitz back and tell him no, I ain’t transferrin’. I know my job, and I aim to keep it. If he’s got a problem with that, he can keep it to himself, because it’s not mine. I know my place.”
Mac smiled. Surprisingly, it seemed genuine. Flack squinted at him and wondered if he’d gotten into Stella’s pain meds. “I’m glad to hear you say that, Don.” He pushed a brochure he produced from nowhere across the desk. “If you’ve got the time, I’d like you to take a few classes.”
Flack picked up the brochure. “Forensics classes,” he said disbelievingly. “You want me to take fucking forensics classes? What, you don’t think I don’t know about preservation of evidence and DNA and all that crap?”
“I believe I just said that,” Mac said mildly. “These aren’t entry-level classes. They’re advanced criminalistics and forensics classes. I think you’re ready for them, even without experience in the lab.”
“You guys are the CSIs, not me.”
“Look at it this way,” Mac said, “if you qualify as a CSI, then I can hire you as one.”
“But I like working homicide.”
“Crime scene investigators make more money than the average detective,” Mac said, looking as if the concept of money was a little foreign to him. Of course it was, Flack thought. He made ninety-five grand a year.
Flack frowned, looked down at the brochure then back up at Mac. “Will I get one of the cool CSI jackets?”
“If you really want one.”
“I’m not transferrin’ out, Mac,” Flack grinned. “Make sure Markowitz knows that.”
*facepalm* There are a couple things I wanted to mention about "What You See Is What You See", but I can only remember one of them, dammit.
The one I do remember is Mac's reaction to seeing Whatshisface, the guy he was talking to about the shooter from the coffee shop, kiss his wife. The other one has fled my mind. It's not how hot Flack looked with the motorcycles, not at all. I'm pretty sure it was something about either Danny or Flack, though.
Flack killed the engine as they pulled up to the precinct, and didn’t get out. He and Danny sat and stared at each other, the silence between them hanging heavy as Justice’s sword.
Flack looked at him awkwardly. For the first time since early that morning he seemed uncomfortable and out of place, unsure about what to do or what to say. “Danny –” he began, seeming to will himself not to flinch away when Danny put his hand on his arm.
“This okay?” Danny asked.
He shuudered briefly under Danny’s hand. “Yeah,” he said. “This is okay.” He leaned forward, eyes narrowing purposefully.
Danny stretched forward across the space between them and kissed Flack on the mouth.
Flack kissed him back enthusiastically, tongue curling against his, familiar yet without the frantic need Danny remembered from the night before. That hadn’t been sex so much as clawing for each others’ sanity, letting Flack fuck and fight and cry out his frustration and his terorr on Danny. There was comfort in another body, in someone kissing away your tears and your fears, in hands running down your body to help rather that hurt.
Trust me, Danny had said, and he’d meant it.
Flack put his hands on Danny’s shoulders to pull him in closer. “Trust you,” he muttered against Danny’s mouth, or maybe it was his name. He bit lightly at the corner of Danny’s mouth before pulling away.
They stared at each other, panting for air.
Danny licked at his lips, tasting the bittersweet tang of coffee and the pizza they’d had for lunch earlier. “We’re right out in front of the precinct,” he said finally, unable to keep his eyes from Flack’s swollen mouth. He looked like he’d been kissed thoroughly – and enjoyed it.
Flack’s expression was bright and slightly glazed. “Fuck the precinct,” he said.
“We’re still on-duty.”
“How ‘bout dinner, then?”
Danny put his hand on Flack’s leg, felt him start to flinch automatically away and then force himself to stillnes. “Dinner’s good,” he said.
*
“I’m thinking about strangling Mac,” Aiden said conversationally as Danny and Flack came in. She flicked a curious, gleeful eye at Flack’s glazed expression and the purpling bite mark at the edge of Danny’s jaw.
“Assaulting an officer’s a felony,” Danny said mildly, and the words twisted in his throat and kicked bile to the back of his moth at the visceral memory of all the times he’d heard them. Wrestling with his brothers and his uncles, muttered mock-serious into the thick mop of his hair. His father on the floor, spitting curses and blood at Val Constantine with his hand twitching toward his gun.
You son of a bitch. Assaulting an officer’s a felony, and kidnapping’s still a crime in New York.
Ned! Angela Messer had yelled, something like horror on her face. Danny had crouched down on the stairs, fascinated by the dull gleam of the gun in Val’s hand and the angry words Ned Messer had spat out at his wife and her brother. My brother, stay away from my brother – Her automatic reaction, and one Danny had never seen directed at him from his brothers.
Val had pushed his sister out of his way and laughed in Ned Messer’s face. I’d like to see you try and make those charges stick. Danny remembered something Vinnie Patriso had said about the Constantine Family – Fuckers have got everyone in the city of New York in their pocket, or anyone that knows anyone.
“Danny?”
He’d spat it out at Curly Sassone when Curly caught him out alone during his Patrol days. Curly’d pulled him into and alley and thrown him up against a wall, his hands tightening around Danny’s throat. Fuck you, Danny Messer.
Assaulting an officer’s a fucking crime, Curly.
“Danny!” Flack grabbed at his arm. Danny shuddered, looking up into Flack’s wide, startled blue eyes. “You all right?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. Just…just…long fucking day, ya’ know?” He spat out the lie like he had the piece of Curly’s tongue he’d bitten off the one time Curly’d been drunk enough to try and kiss him and he’d been drunk enough to fight back.
Aiden gave him a worried look. “You wanna go sit down, Danny?” she asked. “I’m sure Stella would volunteer her wheelchair.”
“No, no, I’m good, it’s just – wheelchair? Stella has a wheelchair? Stella’s all right? Fuck all that, Stella’s awake? Since when?” Some part of his mind gave out a little scream of joy at the word “wheelchair” while the rest of his brain choked it down, beat it to a pulp, and put it in a holding cell for further investigation. Stella. Awake. He gave a great sigh of relief he hoped wasn’t too obvious.
“Since about noon yesterday,” Aiden said. She looked frustrated again. “Mac – get this – ‘forgot’ to tell us. Anyway, she’s here.” She waved a hand behind her. “In her office, looking at case files the LAPD and the SFPD sent over about the museum robberies.”
“Where’d the wheelchair come from?” Flack asked, his expression stuck somewhere between “thank god, not another dead cop” and “holy fuck, wheelchair? how bad’s she hurt?”.
“Fractured leg, broken collarbone, don’t go well together –” Aiden began.
“Stella can speak for herself, thanks,” Stella said from behind them.
“Hey, Stella!” Flack said gleefully. “You’re alive – awake! In one piece! …more or less.”
“All in one piece,” Stella grinned. “Some pieces are in more pieces than they’re supposed to be, but I’m all in one piece.”
Danny leaned down to hug her. He kissed her on the cheek, a sloppy impulsive gesture of friendship that made Stella giggle. “Hey, it’s great to see you –”
“– out of bed?” she finished. “Yeah, I’m pretty happy on that part too. I hate being on my back being useless.”
Flack gave her a hopeful puppydog grin. “How long’re you gonna be in the wheelchair?” he asked.
She shrugged. “I’m out of it in a month, tops. I don’t care how fucking hard it is to manage on crutches, I’m doing it.”
“It’s not that hard,” Flack said helpfully. “I mean, yeah, it hurts, but you get used to the pain after about a week.”
Stella turned to glare at him. “What? You mean it’s possible to – oh, I am going to kill Mac.”
*
“You mean we got another dead end?” Aiden said disbelievingly. “Oh, come off’a it.”
“I’m serious,” Danny protested. “These chicks have got so many fake names it’s unbelievable, and not one’a them has their prints on file. Not one. The only thing we got that might be a real name is the shooter – Akers called her Ashley, which would probably be her real name.”
“That narrows it down to what, half the females in New York?” She shook her head. “Jesus Christ.”
“I think there was someone else from that team in Starbucks too,” Danny added.
Aiden squinted at him. “Besides Shannon and this Ashley chick? Why d’ya think that?”
“Cody Polk has the blueprints for the Met, right?” Danny poked a finger down at the table.
“Right,” Aiden said warily.
“He has them out on the table in Starbucks. Shannon Akers comes by, Ashley comes in, Akers puts her coffee down on the table. Ashley shoots up the place, hits Akers and Polk, among others. Ashley runs out, so does Polk. She couldn’t get to the prints, and Polk said he didn’t have ‘em. Someone else grabbed them and got outta there before EMS arrived. Or they stayed, hid the blueprints somehow – we weren’t lookin’ for blueprints or anythin’ when we got there – acted like innocents and got outta there first chance we got.”
“Haveta be one hell of a liar,” Aiden said. She tilted her head to one side consideringly. “That sounds pretty good, Danny. Problem is, there were forty people packed into that place. One of ‘em’s dead, six of ‘em are injured and under surveillance. That leaves some thirty-some people that could be working with the perp.”
“We got prints from any of them?”
“Whaddaya think? No. No reason to ask for ‘em.”
“Fuck.” Danny ran his hand over his hair. “Christ, I’m startin’ hate this case.”
“That’s what you said this morning.”
“Fine, I’m continuing to hate this case. Where’d Flack go?”
“Mac called him in,” Aiden said, her tone as neutral as she could make it.
Danny’s eyebrows arched upward in sudden disbelief. “The fuck for?”
“Dunno. He didn’t look happy though.”
“Which he?”
“Both of ‘em.”
“Fuck,” Danny spat.
*
“I received a call from Lieutenant Markowitz over in Bronx Homicide this morning,” Mac said, folding his hands on top of a file folder.
Flack’s eyes flicked toward it, hard and fast, seeing his name typed neatly in thick black ink. “My pop’s old partner? What for?”
“He’s requesting you as a transfer to his unit,” Mac said.
Flack’s fists clenched hard at his sides. “No,” he said.
“It wasn’t a request.”
“The answer’s still no.” Flack spat out the words, “Jesus fucking Christ, this hasta do with my pop, doesn’t it? He thinks working CSU’s too easy, not prestigious enough for a Flack, that I’m not gonna make a goddamned name for myself, that it’s not cop work. Well, ya’ know what? Fuck him. Fuck him, and fuck Bronx Homicide, and Markowitz too. I’m not fuckin’ transferring.” His eyes went to Mac’s face. “’less you got a problem with that, Mac.”
“CSU’s gone through three Homicide detectives in eight years,” Mac said neutrally, busying himself with the perfectly stacked files on his desk. “The first two weren’t any good.”
Flack’s mouth quirked a little, though out of humor or anger he wasn’t quite sure. “And what about me?”
“Sometimes I have to remind myself you’re not a CSI.” His voice was perfectly honest.
Flack relaxed slightly, letting his fists unclench and lie flat against his thighs, fingers drumming some obscure cadence out against the fabric of his slacks. “That a good thing?”
“A very good thing. Homicide and CSU are –” He paused a moment, as if searching for the perfect words. “They’re not the same. We deal with evidence, they deal with people. You wouldn’t be working with a team of detectives, you’d be working with one or two others most of the time, sometimes flying solo. It would be a step up, I won’t deny that. It would be a good experience for you, Don. You’d have a better chance of a promotion than you do working as liason to the Crime Lab.”
“You want me gone?”
Mac’s hands went flat against the table. “No. You’re a good detective, one of the best I’ve worked with, even if your methods are a bit – extreme – at times. You understand about evidence and the preservation of such, about not contaminating the scene or the bodies. You know when to step back and let us take over, and you know when to let the uniforms do their job, let us do ours, and let yourself do yours. You’re good with suspects.”
“If you really feel that way, Mac,” he gave him a wary glare, “then you’ll call Markowitz back and tell him no, I ain’t transferrin’. I know my job, and I aim to keep it. If he’s got a problem with that, he can keep it to himself, because it’s not mine. I know my place.”
Mac smiled. Surprisingly, it seemed genuine. Flack squinted at him and wondered if he’d gotten into Stella’s pain meds. “I’m glad to hear you say that, Don.” He pushed a brochure he produced from nowhere across the desk. “If you’ve got the time, I’d like you to take a few classes.”
Flack picked up the brochure. “Forensics classes,” he said disbelievingly. “You want me to take fucking forensics classes? What, you don’t think I don’t know about preservation of evidence and DNA and all that crap?”
“I believe I just said that,” Mac said mildly. “These aren’t entry-level classes. They’re advanced criminalistics and forensics classes. I think you’re ready for them, even without experience in the lab.”
“You guys are the CSIs, not me.”
“Look at it this way,” Mac said, “if you qualify as a CSI, then I can hire you as one.”
“But I like working homicide.”
“Crime scene investigators make more money than the average detective,” Mac said, looking as if the concept of money was a little foreign to him. Of course it was, Flack thought. He made ninety-five grand a year.
Flack frowned, looked down at the brochure then back up at Mac. “Will I get one of the cool CSI jackets?”
“If you really want one.”
“I’m not transferrin’ out, Mac,” Flack grinned. “Make sure Markowitz knows that.”
*facepalm* There are a couple things I wanted to mention about "What You See Is What You See", but I can only remember one of them, dammit.
The one I do remember is Mac's reaction to seeing Whatshisface, the guy he was talking to about the shooter from the coffee shop, kiss his wife. The other one has fled my mind. It's not how hot Flack looked with the motorcycles, not at all. I'm pretty sure it was something about either Danny or Flack, though.