Five Things Meme, part the fourth (for limmenel)

[bedlamsbard]

Five moments between Val and Danny.

1. The Rolls rolls to a stop in front of the lamppost and Danny drops his cigarette when Val throws open the passenger door and barrels out, grabbing Danny by the arm. "What the hell are you doing?" he demands as Carmine starts out of the car.

Curly starts toward him. "Hey, man, who the hell --"

Vinnie grabs his arm. "That's Don Valentine Constantine, bro," he hisses, and Danny grits his teeth against Val's too tight grip and doesn't protest as Val drags him into the car.

2. "Thanks," Danny says awkwardly, sitting in the back of Val's Rolls with Carmine in the front seat and Val next to him, scowling fit to break something. "For, uh -- my dad's not really --"

"I wouldn't leave a dog alone in that house with him, let alone my nephew, not if he doesn't want to be there," Val said. He mutters something that Danny doesn't have enough Italian to understand, but Carmine snorts and runs a red light.

3. "What the hell is this?" Danny demands, holding the check up to the light like it's got a secret message written in lemon juice on the back. The movement pulls at his bad arm, but it's his good one he's holding up.

"It's forty thousand dollars," Val says.

"It's not made out to me," Danny points out. "It's made out to NYU -- what the hell?"

"There's another hundred grand sitting in my vault waiting for you to finish up your freshman year," Val says. "Unless you want to come work for me."

Danny shakes his head. "No. I'll take the money. When the hell did I get into NYU?"

4. "Congratulations," Val says, sliding into Mallory's recently vacated seat.

Danny does a double-take. "What the hell are you doing here?" he hisses. "This bar is full of cops!"

"It's good to see you too, Danny," Val says very dryly and turns to the bartender. "Whiskey on the rocks." Back to Danny, "I've never been arrested," he adds, sounding hurt.

"You're the head of a multi-million dollar Mob family!" Danny says. "And Mallory's going to kill you if she comes back and you're in her seat."

Val twists around with interest. "Is that the blonde?" he says, and, "No one's going to know if you don't stop shouting it."

5. "I went up on the stand and they asked about you," Danny hisses into his cell phone, watching people flow around him in the mess of the courthouse hallway.

"I thought you didn't work Cosa Nostra cases anymore," Val says curiously. There's a hum in the background that makes Danny think he's in a car somewhere, the radio set to classic rock because Val is a freak.

"I don't," Danny points out. "I'll consult at a pinch, but if I wanna keep my job I don't go near anything that even looks like it might have something to do with the Mob. The defense is trying to say that I can't be trusted and seriously, Val, if that gets IAB to try and go after my ass --"

"What did you say?"

"The prosecuter nearly had a heart attack and the judge called it off," Danny says, "but I swear to God, Val --"

"Danny, I have to go," Val says, patient. "I'm in Las Vegas. I have a meeting." He hangs up and Danny swears.

Comments

[limmenel.livejournal.com]

OH OH OH *collapses in hysterics* These are fantastic.

"No one's going to know if you don't stop shouting it."

Hee :D

Okay, I'm trying to place each of these on the timeline. The first two are obvious enough, and I love the third one... Danny's confusion, When the hell did I get into NYU? Oh, Danny, silly boy. When does the fourth one take place? Poor Danny, he's not worried about being seen with a Mob boss, he's worried that his girlfriend's gonna kill his uncle for taking her seat :D.

The fifth one I totally can't place. When Danny's working CSI, but after Omerta? Also, classic rock? Man, Val is is a freak ;). And I thought, with omerta, that Danny wouldn't talk about the Mafia to anyone?

Whee, Bardverse, my evening is suddenly so much brighter.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Timeline: the first one takes place when Danny starts running with Tanglewood. The second one is when he goes to live with Val. Third one is after he broke his wrist and is going to college back in the city. Fourth one is immediately following his graduation from the Police Academy (BTW, Mallory is a character from Carol O'Connell's mystery novels, an NYPD detective who is so awesomely kickass and psychotic. I figure she's roughly the same age as Danny, so what the heck. Also, Danny would probably kill himself before going out with her). Fifth one takes place after Omerta but before Bloody Sunday.

Danny's not talking about the Mafia. If Mac or one of the other CSIs asks him to qualify something, he'll probably answer it, but that doesn't mean he'll go up on the stand about it. Danny won't talk about Constantine; he doesn't have that problem regarding the rest of the Families.

This was fun!

[limmenel.livejournal.com]

Ah, okay, timeline's cleared up now, awesome.

I've never heard of Carol O'Connell or her books... but I rarely read mysteries, anyways.

Poor Danny, torn between two worlds. That's why I like the AU for the Bardverse that you've poked at a couple of times... at least then, Danny's made his decision and isn't torn anymore. But here? I mean, he can talk about the Mafia to Mac, and Mac seems to sort-of accept his family ties as long as Danny stays away from related cases or whatever, but he's so hanging between two worlds.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Carol O'Connell is awesome. She's one of the two authors who really writes setting the same way she writes character, so it's like actually being in New York, the personality of the city -- and her characters are awesome, too. The plots are a little complicated, but that's ignorable because of the characters and setting.

That's the problem with the bardverse. It's all about balance, or the lack thereof -- Danny, balancing the Mafia and the NYPD, Flack, balancing the Crime Lab and Homicide, Mac, who only has the Crime Lab and nothing to balance out. *waves hand* Or something like that. Here Danny's used for his information; Mac doesn't seem to accept that the Mafia is his family, and he probably wouldn't understand the concept anyway, so he runs at Danny like he would a suspect. Which, you know, Danny so doesn't appreciate. As is pointed out in Bloody Sunday, Mac's waiting for Danny to fall because he knows it's going to happen.

[limmenel.livejournal.com]

Mac's waiting for Danny to fall because he knows it's going to happen.

Because there's no other choice, really! Mac has almost pushed Danny into it, intentionally or not, he's been pushing Danny further and further into it, which is why he knew Danny was going to fall. And Danny was already torn between a job he likes and a family he loves, and being made to choose between his loyalties to the two.

No one in the Bardverse seems to be able to balance, though they all seem to try. Danny's clearly not doing well at it, Flack wants to balance but finds himself more of a CSU Detective than a Homicide one, and Mac needs something to balance with because he's too much into the CSU and that's not healthy.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

You could half-start thinking that Mac wanted Danny to fall, because, really, Mac's not good with blurred lines and gray areas. As he is now, Danny's not understandable. Put him in one box or another and his choice is made clear, and he can't ever go back into the straight NYPD box, not with what Mac knows now. Therefore, in Mac's reasoning, he has to go into the Mafia box; it's the only one that makes sense.

(Seriously, the only way the mainstream bardverse works out is with the inclusion of the mirrorverse, I think, because it lets Mac in to shades of gray. Otherwise the only logical ending is the AU where Danny finally falls.)

Exactly. And Mac pushes away anything that might help him balance -- Stella, even though she's CSU, was a lot more balanced until he pushes her away in Bloody Sunday. And the stable ones are falling too: Stella, with the realization of her father and sister; Aiden's probably the best off because she doesn't have anything horrible going on, but you could argue that it's there, just not at the high level visible with the others: I mean, she was nearly murdered by a fellow cop in NYM, I think, and she's in the lab, she can feel the tension there. Plus the tampering with evidence thing, which I think didn't go down in the Bardverse, but it was a near thing. But only because the bastard got whacked before Aiden felt like she had to tamper with evidence to get a conviction. (...thank you, Danny. Maybe?)

[limmenel.livejournal.com]

Mac and his lack of Shades of Gray is going to really hurt him in the long run. And yeah, I see what you mean, because Danny slipped from his neat NYPD Cop area, just a bit, but Mac sees that as a betrayal of the highest kind, because he sees Danny as having chose family over work, and that's not acceptable.

Yeah, maybe that's one reason I like the AU so much, because it didn't force Mac to change for Danny, Danny changed instead, for himself, because he was pushed into it by Mac's unchanging ideals.

Everyone is hanging in balance, yeah, but Mac is different because he chooses not to have somethign to balance him out, he would rather be off-balance and push away the things that would help him.

(...thank you, Danny. Maybe?)

Every time you mention Danny's vigilante justice, it makes me grin in dorky joy, because I love the idea of him using his Mafia connections to make sure justice is served when the legal system fails.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Mac and his lack of Shades of Gray is going to really hurt him in the long run.

What, like in canon right now? *sheepish grin*

And it's not even something Mac could, theoretically, understand, like a "real" family emergency, because Danny's family is anything but normal. It's the Mafia, so it's worse, because Danny's choosing the crminals over the lab. For Mac, the blue line is immutable; it's one thing or another. For Danny it's always shifting and blurring.

it didn't force Mac to change for Danny, Danny changed instead, for himself, because he was pushed into it by Mac's unchanging ideals.

Exactly! Oooh, I like that.

And it's going to fuck Mac over one of these days, seriously, because one of these days he'll need the help, really and truly, and no one's going to be there to want to -- not even his team.

Of course, Danny's vigilante justice is a very bad thing, because it means he's already fallen. At the very least, he'd be up for conspiracy if he got caught; at the worst it'd be a couple counts of outright murder.

[limmenel.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, definitely in present canon. Man, Mac's screwed. Danny is also from a different background, even in canon, one where he's lived in a world surrounded by the good and the bad, so his ethics are totally different from straight-laced Mac who went to the Marines and probably comes from a very upper-middle-class family with Only Good Values.

One day, Mac's going to have a breakdown, because he never lets anything out, and that's not a good thing. He tries to be a fortress, but he can't keep his walls up forever, and without having anyone there to help him and balance him out, he's going to crash and burn.

Danny's only in trouble if he gets caught! And he's doing what he thinks is right (as learned from the above crazy ethics). Because he's seen enough to know that the Good Side is flawed, and that sometimes you have to cross that Blue Line to do real justice.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Who's up for Mac having a breakdown this season? *raises hand* I'm still up for one of the CSIs actually committing murder, but what are the chances we'll have that happen? Next to none.

Do you know how much it's screwing with my head to think of mirrorverse bardverse and mafia Danny bardverse right now? Very, very much. And because the Mafia Danny 'verse is more logical, I think we'll go with that for Bardverse canon.

But is it really right? Shouldn't he go through the proper channels? He's gone over the blue line; he can't go back.

[limmenel.livejournal.com]

Mac is TOTALLY gonna have a breakdown this season. I mean, he's got the higher-ups trying to get him fired, he's on trial for murder, basically, and he's just so not going to come through this unscathed.

I would love for someone to commit murder, but the show is too black-and-white for that, even though it does occasionally delve into the lighter shades of gray.

And because the Mafia Danny 'verse is more logical, I think we'll go with that for Bardverse canon.

GLEE GLEE, for once I am happy that logic has won the battle!

Why is it screwing with your head? Because there are so many branches and plots intertwining together?

Sometimes, justice isn't what's right. They've shown that before on episodes of CSI, where someone did what was right, but was still punished for it in the eyes of the law, specifically with Danny in teh Minhas case, and Greg in Vegas with the TOTALLY JUSTIFIABLE killing earlier in the season. But in both cases, they were punished for doing what's right.

So no, sometimes you can't go through the proper channels, and I think it's totally okay for Danny to do what he's doing. I mean, getting rid of DJ Pratt? Can't be seen as a bad thing. Vigilante justice is really controversial, and it's illegal in real life, but that doesn't make it entirely wrong sometimes. And Danny's got the Mafia connections to make sure it's done right, and he's not so perfectly Blue that the option isn't open to him. He sees what has to be done, and there's enough Red in him to go and do it.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

I just gave in to sense and sensibility and started writing a snippet of a couple of New York cops, one of which was a serial killer, but gave it up for the force. It's interesting!

See, if the show was to make me happy, it would have Mac or Flack step over the line and Danny go undercover, but hey, it does not exist to do so. *sad*

Well, plus, it sticks with the lack of the supernatural. And I love the weirdness, but I'm thinking it makes much more sense.

Yeah, that and how many freaking characters there are, and I just recently realized my character lists aren't as good as I thought they were, because I don't have a list of the Tanglewood Boys I've established in the bardverse. Gah.

Ah, the shades of gray. Huh, I don't remember if I ever posted that bit about "My Danny" -- you know, that one meme, where you go off on what defines your character, but there's a couple bits where Danny reflects on vengeance. One of which is this one:

...[My Danny] will swear to anyone the truth about the one thing every law enforcement officer wants -- not to break the law and get away with it, but to be the law.

and this bit:

...has always considered Spider-man his favorite superhero, but sympathizes more with Daredevil.

...Our Danny is a bad, bad boy. Oh well!

[limmenel.livejournal.com]

It's like Dexter, a serial killer and forensic expert. Only he didn't have to choose, he did both, killing (though his was a vigilante serial murdering) and then working the forensics of his own cases.

The supernatural and weird is awesome, because AUs win, and logic is utterly unnecessary in fic :D. But I like when things make sense, too!

I never saw that "My Danny" thing. Danny is totally about being the law when the law fails to do what it's supposed to do. I'd love to see THAT in the show, where Danny at least ponders the idea of killing someone who escaped justice, even if he doesn't actually go through with it.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, I've heard about Dexter. *pokes at story* This is fun! Now I have a rookie detective partner, an ex-partner from the New Orleans PD, a past, a charge of murder that he didn't actually do, an internal affairs investigation, and six suspects killed in the line of duty over the past two year span. And I actually like the rookie detective partner; she has spunk.

90% of the stuff I write involves the supernatural, so there's a good reason why a very long period of time writing straight mystery finally got to me.

I'm pretty sure I posted it. *goes to look* Oh, hey, here's (http://bedlamsbard.livejournal.com/84138.html#cutid1) the story with the Inhumans in NYC. And a lot of my old fic that I haven't reread in ages. But not the My Danny thing; I'll repost it.

*waves hand* I'd be down with that.

[limmenel.livejournal.com]

You should definitely watch Dexter. Man, genius stuff, right there.

When you say that 90% of your writing is supernatural, do you consider sci-fi in that, too?

Sweet, I'll read the Inhumans in NYC story tonight :)


*laughs* I have no doubt that you would!

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

I've heard good things about it.

My urban sci fi, yes (the stuff that takes place in the same 'verse as nearly all my other stuff). The other eight percent is spaceforce, and the remaining two percent is CSI:NY fic, and thus not supernatural or sci fi.