Title: Devils & Dust
Author: stellaluna_
Rating: NC-17 for explicit sex and language and implicit violence
Pairing: Mac/Danny
Summary: These are the things we do to survive.
Disclaimer: None of these are mine. Characters are the property of Anthony Zuiker, Jerry Bruckheimer Television, CBS, and Alliance Atlantis.
Notes: Written for the all_hallows_fic challenge (theme: skeletons in the closet). The title and chapter headings are taken from Bruce Springsteen's "Devils & Dust
***
i. dreamed of you last nightNight and rain, back in the city.
He's dreaming, not dreaming, struggling up through layers of sleep with the phantom scent of cordite in his nose and black-petaled blood-drenched roses behind his eyes.
(Roses. Right. No, not roses: not that, not those. But he thinks of roses as he drifts away from the dream, back to the city.)
The red is not a rose.
He listens to the thump of his heart, how it beats against his ears, and to the rain falling outside the bedroom, on the building, against the windows.
It rained that day, in the middle of the afternoon. Rain so thick he couldn't see two feet in front of his face.
No.
Dreaming. Not dreaming. He's awake. He's in New York City and it's past midnight, and he's listening to the rain. He's telling himself stories.
The rain was, is, everywhere, a shroud, a funeral blanket. He's feeling his heartbeat, listening to his breathing. Breathe. In and out. It's past midnight, and no one will hear.
He's safe: safe as houses. He's awake in the dark, awake in the bedroom. The rain is out there, and he's in here, and maybe he's not awake after all, but he can't tell the difference. He clutches his chest. Stares at the ceiling.
Stories.
Right.
He can do this.
Night and rain. Touch your heart. Rain in the lake.
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ii. a field of blood and stone
Autumn leaves are swirling all around him, drifting upward on currents of air caused by the kick of the gun, by the sudden movement of bodies in space; and there are more leaves beneath his feet, a carpet of them that goes past his ankles.
The gun feels strangely weightless in his hand, cold steel against his numb palm, and there's a stink of cordite and blood in the air, copper and gunpowder tangling in his nostrils. Blood is splashed across the leaves in bright Rorschach patterns. He doesn't move, doesn't lower the gun, just keeps staring straight ahead, and somewhere far away Mac is calling his name.
"Danny. Danny," and now Mac has circled around in front of him. He's holding his hands up in the air, empty palms exposed like he wants Danny to see that he hasn't drawn his own gun, or like he's saying don't shoot, like he would in a hold-up or a hostage situation. Danny wants to tell him not to worry, that he has no intention of firing again, least of all at him, but he can't make his mouth move to form the words.
"Danny, I want you to give me the gun." He blinks at Mac, and Mac watches him for a moment, then holds his hands higher. "I'm going to take it from you now. Is that all right?"
Mac steps closer to him, and Danny still doesn't move. Leaves crunch under Mac's feet. He reaches out, and Danny tries to tell him again that he isn't going to fight, that Mac can have the gun and anything else he wants, but he still can't seem to talk. Mac's fingers close around his and he pries the gun away from Danny, and the first thing he does after that is take a few steps away and put the safety on, and then pull a handkerchief out of his pocket.
"Why -- what -- " Danny finds his voice at last, but he's unable to finish the question. It doesn't matter, because another moment more and he sees what Mac is doing: he's wiping the gun clean of fingerprints.
Mac glances over at him without saying anything and finishes wiping off the gun, then pockets it. He walks away and kneels down beside where Sonny Sassone is lying in the drifts of leaves, and puts a hand to his neck. Feeling for a pulse, Danny thinks, and takes a step closer. There's something rote about the way Mac does this, almost absentminded, and now he can see why: Sonny's eyes are open but unseeing, unblinking, and his chest is soaked with blood. The pulse-taking is only a formality.
"He's dead," Danny says, aware that he's stating the obvious.
"Yes." Mac looks up at him.
"Oh, Jesus. Jesus." Danny runs his hands through his hair. He's starting to be able to think again, and his chest is tight and hot with panic. "I had to -- I had no choice. You saw that, Mac; you saw what happened."
Mac doesn't say anything.
"I guess -- I guess we should call the local fuzz. Get 'em out here. I don't know if my cell even has a signal out here. Maybe there's a phone in the cabin, I don't know. We should just go ahead and drive into town, or -- "
"Danny." There's blood on Mac's hand, smeared across the web of skin between his thumb and index finger. "I want you to do something for me."
Danny stops talking. He feels himself go very still inside. "What?"
"Go wait by the car. Just give me a few minutes."
Danny holds his ground. "What?" he says again. "Why?"
"Just do it, Danny." Mac stands up.
"Not unless you tell me -- "
"Because I need to think," Mac says, and his voice is as close to a shout as Danny's ever heard it. "Just go wait by the car. I'll let you know when..." He takes a deep breath, staring down at Sonny's body, and Danny can see now that he's shaking. "When I'm ready," he finishes at last.
"All right," Danny says, and turns toward the car. He doesn't like this, but he doesn't know what else to say. It's all he can do just to stay on his feet, to keep from dropping to his knees and screaming until his throat is raw and bleeding. The world keeps threatening to gray out around him, and he realizes, in a distant way, how close he is to fainting.
When he's halfway to the car, Mac calls his name again, and he turns back.
"Don't call anyone," Mac says, and Danny's heart gives a guilty, angry kick in his chest.
"I won't," he says. He wishes he could see Mac's face better right now, but Mac's back is to the lake and the sun, and his features are a dark blur.
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iii. fear's a dangerous thing
His heart does beat. Here in the city, where the rain falls on the river. Not on the lake, but maybe rain is falling there, too.
Maybe the water is overflowing the banks.
He never looked at the lake. Not then. Not yet.
No. That's not where it started. Go back further.
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iv. look inside your heart
Sonny's voice on the phone that day is soft and confiding. Danny doesn't even recognize it at first. His office phone rings and he picks it up and says, "Messer," without giving more than a cursory thought to who might be on the other end.
"Danny Messer?"
"Yeah." He balances the phone against his shoulder while he looks through a folder full of tox reports.
"Officer Danny Messer?"
"That's Detective Messer," he says, starting to feel impatient. "What can I do for you?"
"Probably not much, Detective. The question is what I can do for you."
He stops trying to read the tox results. "Who is this? I don't have time for games."
"Good, 'cause it's not a game. And I'm hurt, Messer. I can't believe you'd forget your old pal."
Danny doesn't say anything.
"It's Sonny. Sonny Sassone." He laughs, and Danny drops the folder on his desk. "C'mon, don't tell me you don't remember."
"No," Danny says. "I do. How are things at Rikers?"
"Oh, didn't you hear?" Sonny says. "I got paroled right after Christmas last year. Best present I ever got."
"Good for you."
"Look, clearly you don't have time to chat. I'm a busy man, you're a busy man, am I right? So let me cut to the chase. I got a present, and now I wanna give you a present."
Danny's eyes flicker to the call display. Switchboard. Shit. "I can't think of anything I need," he says.
"I kinda doubt that," Sonny says. "But if you don't really want to know what happened to Louie, okay."
Spots flash in front of Danny's eyes and he clutches the edge of the desk. The walls seem to tighten around him.
"You there, Messer?"
"I'm here," Danny says. "Just -- hang on a second. I need more privacy."
"Sure."
Danny sets the phone down and goes over and shuts the door, then comes back. By then, he thinks he's got it under control. "All right, talk," he says. "What do you know about Louie?"
Sonny clears his throat. "I know that he disappeared, what? Three, four months ago."
"Five months," Danny says.
"That long? Time flies."
"Louie disappears all the time," Danny says. "I don't keep track of where he goes from one month to the next."
"Yeah, but this time's different, right?" Sonny says. "I know your folks filed a missing persons report."
And Louie's apartment in Canarsie had been dark and dust-filled when they'd gotten the building manager to let them in. Danny remembers the milk going sour in the refrigerator and, more troublingly, the $1,200 in cash stuffed in the bureau under a Rolex, and all the clothes still in the closet. If Louie had just decided to take off again, he'd done so very suddenly.
"Yeah, they did," he says. "They worry. So what?"
"So I heard nothing's come of it. Maybe I could help."
"Jesus." Danny closes his eyes. "Why should -- "
"Look, Messer." Sonny lowers his voice even more. "I heard some stuff. Found some stuff, too. It might help you."
"Why?"
"For old time's sake," Sonny says. "Louie was my first lieutenant back in the day."
Danny stares down at his knuckles pressed against the desk. "Quid pro quo," he says. "That's what you're after, right? You do something for me, then I gotta do something for you."
There's a pause, and then Sonny lets out a little chuckle. "Right," he says. "But we can talk about that later."
Danny takes a deep breath. "What do you know?" he says.
"Not over the phone."
He should have expected that. "When?"
"How quick can you get up to Bethel?"
"Bethel?" Danny says. "Where the hell is that?"
"In the Catskills. You probably won't remember, but my pop has a cabin up here, right outside of Bethel, actually. Me and Louie and the guys used to come up and party. I've been cleaning the place out, so I'm staying here for awhile."
"So you want me up there? No way."
"You want to talk about Louie or not?"
"Sonny, if you're fucking me around -- " Danny starts to say, and that's when Mac opens the door.
"Danny, do you have -- " He stops abruptly.
"Hold on," Danny says into the phone, then looks at him. "What do you need?"
Mac just shakes his head and mouths "Sorry," then adds, "I'll come back," and backs out the door.
Danny can feel his heart racing. He doesn't know what, if anything, Mac overheard, but he can't worry about that now. "Okay," he says. "Got interrupted. Like I was saying, if you're gonna fuck me around, forget it. Don't waste my time."
"That's your call, Messer," Sonny says.
Danny pauses. Sonny doesn't say anything, and Danny stares at the four walls of his office. He thinks about Louie, about everything that's happened between them. About how long Louie has been gone this time.
He picks up a pen and a pad of paper. "Tomorrow's my day off," he says. "Give me the directions."
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v. find the love that God wills
Danny slides into the booth across from Mac and waits. Mac folds his New York Times and sets it aside. "I haven't ordered yet," he says.
"Great," Danny says. "Sorry I'm late. DNA was backed up all the way to hell."
"Don't worry about it," Mac says. "Do you know what you want?"
They get the same thing all the time. "Yeah," Danny says, and tries not to fidget too much while the waitress takes their order. Mac had gotten called out to a homicide in Tribeca right after he'd walked in on the phone call, so this is the first time Danny has seen him since then.
"So," Danny says after the waitress is gone.
"So I heard you were talking to Sonny Sassone earlier," Mac says.
Danny lets out a breath and leans back in the booth. He feels suddenly, weirdly relieved. "Nice way of walking in at the exact right moment, Mac," he says. "I think that was the only time I called him by name in the whole conversation."
"These things happen," Mac says. "What did he want?"
Danny squints at him, trying to figure out if he's angry, and decides he mostly looks worried. "He said he'd found out some stuff," he says. "That he could give me information about Louie."
"Why would Sonny want to do that?"
"That was my first question. He said he felt bad since he and Louie used to be so tight, but I figure it's more like he wants to cut a deal." Danny twists a plastic straw between his fingers.
Mac closes his eyes. "Danny..."
"I know, I know. But I at least gotta talk to him, right? Even if -- even if Louie is dead, if we just knew, one way or the other, it would make a difference." He stares at Mac. "You get that, don't you?"
"Yeah, I do," Mac says, and something flickers in his eyes.
"I figure maybe if he's willing to provide evidence, we could work with the D.A. to reduce whatever other charges he's racked up since he got out of Rikers." Danny had thought about it all afternoon, and he's pretty sure they could work that out. "That's the kind of deal I had in mind."
The ever-present frown line between Mac's eyes deepens. "How do you know that's the kind of deal Sonny has in mind?"
"I don't," Danny says.
"All right," Mac says after a long pause. "When does he want to meet?"
"Tomorrow's my day off. I'm meeting him in Bethel. Upstate."
"Bethel?" Mac says. "Why there?"
"That's where he wants the meeting," Danny says. "His family has a cabin at the lake just outside of town, and he's renovating it or something."
"That doesn't strike you as the least bit suspicious?"
"Look, if he knows who did something to Louie, he's gonna want to lay low," Danny says. "I remember shit like this from when Louie and I were both still at home. Meetings in weird places are nothing new."
"It's dangerous," Mac says. "I don't like it."
"Whether you like it or not, I gotta do it," Danny says. "I really hope you're not gonna give me a direct order, because I'm gonna do you the courtesy right now of telling you I'm going to defy it. I'm sorry, Mac, but I am."
"You know I could suspend you."
"I know." They look at each other, and Danny thinks suddenly of Russian roulette, of a gun spinning on the table between them. 'Round and 'round she goes; winner takes all.
"I'm coming with you," Mac says.
"What?" Danny sits up straight. "What are you -- "
"Have you told anyone about this yet?"
"No, but..."
"Good, that makes it easier," Mac says. "As it happens, I'm off tomorrow, too. Stella wants to go to an estate auction on Saturday, so we traded shifts. I was going to ask you if you wanted to catch a movie, but I guess we'll go for a drive instead."
"But Sonny said -- " Danny breaks off as the waitress sets down their plates. "Sonny said I should come alone," he finishes after she leaves.
"All the more reason for me to come with you," Mac says. "You're not doing this alone, Danny. With two of us there, maybe Sonny will be more inclined to play it straight. Then we can see if we'll be able to cut any kind of official deal with him."
"Mac..." Danny says.
Mac reaches for the ketchup. "You're not going to argue with me, are you?" he says. His mouth is a firm line, but there's something warmer in his eyes that hits Danny right in the middle of his chest.
"No," he says. "No, I'm not." He wants to touch Mac, to take his hand, but instead he just nods and picks up his fork.
... ...
After they finish their dinner, they walk to the subway through the cool evening, and Danny thinks that things might be all right after all. There are a lot of things that aren't all right, whatever Sonny is going to tell him about Louie not least among them, but he told Mac the truth and the world didn't end. It didn't. He doesn't know what happens next, but he supposes they'll figure that out when they get there. For now, he feels almost content: a little detached and surreal, maybe, like the corners of the world aren't quite meeting, but calm all the same. He doesn't have to decide anything tonight; they're in a holding pattern until daylight, and he's good with that.
Back at his place, they both head right for the bedroom without talking about it, without turning on any lights. Undressing is a casual process, the two of them wandering back and forth to hang up clothes and set the alarm clock and use the bathroom, but when they finally fall into bed they turn toward each other immediately, and Danny reaches for Mac and finds him already hard, already eager.
They kiss and rock against each other, caressing, and Danny feels himself sinking deep into the nest of pillows and blankets as Mac presses one thumb to the hollow of his hip and licks a steady path down the arch of his throat, digging his teeth in just enough to make Danny moan in pleasure.
Mac comes right before Danny does, eyes closed and lips parted, body slick with sweat as he rubs himself against Danny's hand and thigh. He's still shuddering seconds later, when Danny gives up and gives in to the orgasm he's been fighting for the last twenty minutes, making sounds that are almost words, that might almost be Mac's name.
Danny falls asleep afterward with far less trouble than he might have imagined, and he wakes to a cool, foggy morning, with weak fall sunlight already beginning to burn through the mist.
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vi. feel a dirty wind blowing
The rain drives harder against the windows. It may be like this all over the city. He imagines windows blown out and gutters overflowing, swirls of leaves shaping themselves into whirlwinds and racing down the streets.
Night in here. Out there. The rain is only out there. Touch your chest. Dry. Hold it.
Trees dripping with rain. The paths in all the parks covered in soaked, dripping leaves.
Leaves.
Here's where it all starts to converge.
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vii. look inside my heart
They leave in the late morning. Danny had told Sonny that he would be there sometime in the afternoon, and this way they can avoid the worst of the traffic. Neither of them says very much until they're well out of the city. Danny is starting to feel jumpy now, a deep, all-encompassing case of nerves that leaves him nearly shaking in his seat, stomach rolling every time the car slows or stops.
"Danny," Mac says, when they're maybe an hour away on the interstate.
"Yeah."
"Listen, whatever news Sonny gives you about Louie, I...I want you to be prepared." He doesn't take his eyes off the road.
"You mean you want me to be ready to hear that he's dead."
Mac sighs. "Yes. I'm sorry, but..."
"I'm already there," Danny says. "Really, I am. I buried him months ago."
"All right," Mac says after a pause.
"Thanks, though," Danny says, and because they're alone, this time he does touch the back of Mac's hand. Just briefly. Just the once.
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viii. the blood began to dry
Not this next part. No please no. You already know what happens. Skip ahead. Go back to where you started.
It doesn't work that way. It never has.
It's over now. The rain can't get in. He hugs himself, trying to get warm.
It's never over. Go through it all.
No please no.
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ix. got my finger on the trigger
Sonny's directions are clear and detailed, and even though the cabin is farther away from the town than Danny had been picturing, they find it with little trouble. By mid-afternoon they're pulling into a long, unpaved driveway, and Danny studies the cabin. It doesn't look like it's much more than four wooden walls and a porch, which surprises Danny a little; he'd been expecting something a lot fancier, but apparently when Sonny said cabin, he meant it literally.
The real feature of the place is the lake. It's right there off to the side of the cabin; Danny's no good at estimating these things, but it's pretty big. Good enough for fishing, anyway, and probably swimming. There's no dock or fence. The ground just slopes down to it gradually and then opens up onto the bank of the lake; it's surrounded by trees on its three other sides, and on the far side, it looks like the trees turn into woods. Danny can hear birds singing as he rolls down the window.
Sonny meets them at the top of the drive and waves as they pull the car to a stop, but his face is dark when he bends down to the window.
"Messer," he says. "Good to see you. Thought I told you to come alone, though." His gaze shifts to Mac. "Detective Taylor. You of all people."
"Sonny," Mac says.
"That isn't how we're gonna play this, Sonny," Danny says. "If you want to negotiate anything, Mac is gonna be in on it. That's just the way it is." His voice, he thinks, sounds steadier than he feels.
"Oh, so this is official business now?" Sonny looks pissed, but there's something else in his face that Danny can't read, something that worries him worse than anger.
"Not yet," Mac says. "Not until you prove to us you have some useful information."
"I got plenty of that. Don't you worry, Detective," Sonny says. "You two go running off to the D.A. yet?"
Say yes, Danny thinks dizzily. Say yes, say we told the D.A., the brass, Flack, every damn person we could think of. "No," he says, and swallows hard. "Right now, this is between the three of us."
There's a pause. "Good," Sonny says, and straightens up.
"Great," Danny says, and opens the door. "Now let's talk."
He's already closing his door and Mac is halfway out on his side when Sonny holds up one hand. "No way," he says. "You stay here. At least for now. Me and Messer are gonna have a little private talk first."
"Whatever you say to me, you say to him," Danny says.
"You don't get to call all the shots," Sonny says. "We talk first. Taylor waits in the car. Or we don't talk at all."
Danny is starting to shake his head, but Mac closes the car door. "I'm not getting back in the car," he says. "But I'll wait here. You've got five minutes."
Sonny stares at him, and Mac meets his gaze without blinking. "All right," he says at last. "Five minutes is plenty."
"You'll time it?" Danny says to Mac.
"Don't worry."
"Let's walk down to the lake," Sonny says.
Danny glances back over his shoulder once. Mac stands by the side of the car, one hand resting on the roof. He gives Danny a quick nod, and Danny nods back.
... ...
"It must've been rough on you when Louie went missing," Sonny says.
"Yeah," Danny says. "It was worse for our parents, though. My mom's been out of her mind with worry."
He can't help watching Sonny as they walk. Danny hasn't seen him in a few years, but he hasn't changed much. Not as out of shape as when he got convicted for Bobby Manning's murder, maybe; he's shaved his hair close to his skull and he looks like he's put on some prison muscle, although it's hard to tell just how much with the baggy sweat jacket and pants he's wearing.
"But it was hard for you, too, right?" Sonny says. "I figure you'd give just about anything to know what happened to him."
"Anything within the limits of the law, Sonny," Danny says. "We're here to cut a serious deal, not to screw around." He glances back over his shoulder. Mac is still watching them.
"That why you brought Taylor along?" Sonny asks. "I gotta tell you, Messer, him being here was not part of the plan. Not at all." He comes to a halt at the bottom of the slope, off to the far right side of the lake near the line of trees. Danny stops a few feet away from him, feeling leaves crunch under his feet as he kicks at them.
"You really threw me off there for a minute," Sonny goes on. He stares up at the trees as if he's thinking something over, then shrugs. "I can work with it, though."
"Good," Danny says. "You're gonna have to." He looks over at Mac again, and then Sonny steps into his line of vision, blocking his view.
"Looks that way."
"What do you know about Louie?" Danny asks.
"Messer, you gotta understand. Louie broke my heart." Sonny shoves his hands into the pockets of his jacket. "Broke my fucking heart in two, and I mean that sincerely."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. He was my first lieutenant, just like I told you on the phone. My number-one guy, all the way back."
"Your man in Havana?" Danny says.
Sonny frowns. "What?"
"Nothing. Sorry. Go on." Sonny's hands are moving back and forth inside his jacket like he's clenching and unclenching his fists, or maybe like he's holding something. Danny starts to take a step around him so that he can check on Mac again, but Sonny turns with him, forcing Danny back to his original position.
"Anyway, he was my number-one guy. All those years, Messer. You know what it's like to have someone like that?"
"Sure," Danny says.
"No, you don't," Sonny says. "You don't know a fucking thing about it. Because if you did, then we wouldn't be here. And you wouldn't have convinced Louie to go turncoat on me."
The sun is still warm overhead, but Danny suddenly feels very cold. "What?" he says.
"Louie turned on me, Messer. And for what, for you? For his little shit-for-brains pussy brother who never gave two shits about him?" Sonny's eyes are cold with fury now, his calm tone beginning to crack.
Danny keeps his eyes on Sonny's hands as he tries to move around him again. "You don't really know where Louie is, do you, Sonny?"
Sonny blocks him. "Sure I do, Messer. I know exactly where he is. And I'm gonna show you exactly where he is, too."
Danny comes to a standstill. He doesn't want to get Mac's attention anymore; he doesn't want Mac to be involved in this at all. "Louie really is dead, isn't he?"
"Don't be stupid, junior," Sonny says. "Did you think he wasn't?"
"No," Danny says, shaking his head. "No, I didn't think that. Only thing that makes me stupid is that I didn't figure out until just now who murdered him."
Sonny smiles at him. Danny stares into that smile without blinking. "Very good, little Messer," Sonny says. "Guess there's a reason they let you be a detective after all."
"Where is he?" Danny says. "Buried in the woods? Or did you just dump him in the lake?"
"Now that's where you got it all wrong," Sonny says. "He's nowhere near here."
"He's not?" Danny keeps his eyes fixed on Sonny.
"No." Sonny shakes his head. "Rule number one: You never dump all the bodies in the same place."
"What is this, then?" Danny asks. Keep him talking. "Is this a conspiracy? You got the rest of Tanglewood waiting for us in the cabin?"
Something flashes in Sonny's face then, in his eyes. Something that's there and gone so quickly that Danny barely has time to register it, but it's real. It might be something he can use.
Because, Christ, there's nothing else. Nothing. He didn't bring his gun because he didn't think he was going to need it, because this wasn't official business. Stupid. Stupid. Too late now. Too late to shout for Mac without bringing him deeper into it. Without getting him killed, too, Danny thinks, because of his own shortsightedness.
"Never mind about that," Sonny says.
"Are they there or not?" Danny asks. "Code of honor, right, Sonny? You don't ambush a person, otherwise it's not a fair fight."
"No," Sonny says at last, and that emotion shudders in his eyes again. "That's not how we do things. There's no one else here. Matter of fact, no one else knows about this."
"Oh, really?" Danny says.
"Some people have forgotten their place lately," Sonny says, and he sounds abstracted now, like he's not really talking to Danny at all anymore. "They got a little ahead of themselves while I was locked up in Rikers."
"So, what?" Danny moves an inch or two closer. Steadily. Slowly. "You figure if you can bring Tanglewood another Messer trophy, they'll stop questioning you?"
"They got no call to question me," Sonny says, fast, and his voice spirals another notch out of control. "None at all."
"Is that right?"
"Yeah," Sonny says. "Yeah, that's right. You're gonna be a nice surprise for everyone."
His hand twitches in his pocket. He's fast, but Danny has been anticipating this. Before he can stop to think about it -- he's dead if he does that -- he lunges at Sonny and grabs his arm. Sonny reacts just a fraction of a second too late, and when he tries to move back, Danny goes with him. Sonny still has his hand on the gun he was going for, but he doesn't have enough room to get it out of the jacket pocket, and Danny grabs at it, trying to pry his fingers away.
"What the fuck?" Sonny punches him hard in the side of the head with his free hand, and Danny sees stars, but refuses to let go. Behind him, he hears Mac shout in alarm.
"Stay back!" he yells, and doesn't let go of Sonny. Mac doesn't need to be in the middle of this, no way he needs to be; Mac needs to get in the car and drive away as fast as he can go, Danny thinks crazily, and he shoves Sonny again, trying to throw him off-balance enough so that he can get control of the gun.
Should've known, should've known it would end like this, Danny thinks, and Sonny shoves his thumb hard against Danny's Adam's apple. Danny gags and Sonny's fingers close around his throat, and suddenly it's hard to breathe. He can still hear Mac shouting, and now he thinks Mac is running toward them, but he knows that Mac is never going to get there in time.
The world is starting to go gray and soft around the edges when suddenly there's a loud bang, and then the pressure on his throat eases all at once. For one long moment everything is frozen. Danny hears himself gasping for breath. He and Sonny look into each other's eyes, and then Sonny's hand falls away from the gun and he staggers back a few steps. Danny grabs at the gun again as he does and then it's in his hand, and Sonny is standing still, staring down at the blood pouring from his stomach.
"Stand down!" Danny shouts. "Put your hands -- "
"You son of a bitch," Sonny says, and dives at him.
Danny fires three times. All three shots hit Sonny dead-center perfect in the chest, and then he goes down. He falls into the leaves, silently and softly, and he doesn't move again. Danny stares down at him.
The birds have fallen silent, but after a few seconds Danny hears one let out a soft chirp, and then another one answers it, and within moments the air is filled again with birdsong.
Danny doesn't move. He doesn't lower the gun. Autumn leaves are swirling all around him.
"Danny," Mac says. "Danny."
***
x. a field of mud and boneMac kneels in the middle of the leaves. It feels like he's been there for at least an hour, but when Danny looks at his watch, he sees that only four minutes have gone by. Four minutes. Almost as much time as it took for him to have that conversation with Sonny, and for everything to go wrong in ways that even he had never dreamed about. He paces by the side of the car, staring down at Mac and Sonny and the lake. Some of the initial shock is beginning to lift now; the world has begun to snap back into focus.
He killed Sonny. It was self-defense, and he realizes that even through the panicked tangle of his thoughts, but the idea is still unreal. He feels sick, like his heart is going to burst right through his chest, and he can't bring himself to think beyond the next step. He's only living moment to moment right now.
But there's a process that needs to happen here; he recognizes that much, and knows they need to set this process in motion. And he can't understand why Mac hasn't done this yet.
As Danny watches, Mac stands up and walks the length of the body twice, then turns to look out over the lake. Danny closes his eyes and counts the beats of his heart. When he opens them again, Mac is walking up the slope towards him.
Danny stands his ground. He clenches his hands into fists so they won't shake, and he keeps his eyes on Mac. If only he could see his face, but it's still draped in shadows.
"You finish thinking?" Danny says, when Mac reaches him.
"Yeah," Mac says. "I have."
"And?"
"I need to ask you a question. You might not know the answer."
"What's that?" Danny says.
"Was there anyone else involved in this besides Sonny?"
Danny shakes his head. "No. He said he was doing it on his own. I'm pretty sure that was the truth. He seemed...he was upset. I think he lost some of his control over Tanglewood while he was locked up. Me and Louie were part of his bid to get it back. I was gonna be a surprise." Bile rises in his throat.
"Good," Mac says.
"Good?" Danny says. "How the fuck is that good?"
"Don't worry, Danny," Mac says, and his voice is much too calm. "It's going to be all right."
"Mac. Mac, listen to me," Danny says. "It was self-defense, I swear it. Maybe I was stupid to trust Sonny; you were right about that. But I never for a second -- I didn't want to shoot him."
"I know that," Mac says.
"Do you?"
"I saw enough of it. I also heard you tell him to stand down." Mac takes out the car keys. "There's no doubt in my mind."
"Okay," Danny says. "Okay, thank you. So I guess -- I guess we go into town now? Unless you want to try to get a signal first. Maybe we can, who knows." He walks around to the passenger side as he talks, but when he looks up, Mac has gone to the back of the car and is opening the trunk instead of the doors.
"Mac?"
Mac takes out his field kit and sets it down on the grass, then closes the trunk.
"Mac?" Danny says again. "You know this isn't our scene, right? We can't process it ourselves."
"I know that." Mac kneels and opens the kit, then starts to sort through it. Gloves. Tweezers. Tissue. Scalpel.
Scalpel.
"What the hell are you doing?" Danny says. "What the hell -- "
Mac looks up. "Danny, I need you to stay by the car for just a little while longer." The calm in his voice scares Danny worse than anything.
"No," Danny says, and shakes his head as if that will change anything. "Hell, no. You don't -- talk to me. What are you thinking?"
"What do you think, Danny?"
"You're gonna..." Once he says it, he can't take it back. "You want to dump the body."
"I've weighed the options," Mac says. "I'm doing what I think is best."
"No." Danny kneels down and slams the kit shut, forcing Mac to pull his hand away. "You can't do that. No way. How can you even suggest -- "
"Danny, think," Mac says. "What's going to happen when Tanglewood finds out you murdered Sonny Sassone? You think they'll forgive you and let it go just because you didn't instigate this?"
"No," Danny says. He'll be a marked man. This is much worse than Louie sending Sonny to jail. Even if Sonny had been caught up in a power struggle, he'll have his loyalists, and they won't let a police badge stop them from coming after Danny. It'll only be a matter of time.
"And they will find out, once we call it in," Mac says. "That's what will happen."
"I know."
"So you understand?" Mac says in a soft voice.
"I get where you're coming from, but...but..."
"But what?" Mac asks. "If you have a better solution, Danny, now is the time to tell me."
"I don't. It's just..." Danny stares down at the kit. "We're supposed to be the good guys. How do you just turn around and make that decision? You're...you're not like this. You don't go around dumping bodies and covering things up. I can't believe -- I shot Sonny not an hour ago, and now you're sitting here cool as ice telling me we're gonna dump him."
Mac is quiet for a minute. "It's like being at war," he says at last. "Sometimes you have to make choices that would be wrong under any other circumstances. I did things in the Marines that I never would have if I'd had another option. I'm not proud of those things, but I did what I had to do."
"And if you had to go back and make those choices again?" Danny asks.
"Given the same parameters, I'd do the same thing," Mac says. "And I'd still hate it."
"Yeah," Danny says. "I get that. I do."
Mac takes a deep breath. "You're right," he says. "If you tell me that you want to go to the cops, I'll put my kit away and we'll go right now. And I'll do what I can to protect you."
"Whatever you do will never be enough."
"I don't think it will, no."
Danny's knees are starting to ache. "It was self-defense, Mac," he says. "It was."
"I know," Mac says. "If I thought anything else, we wouldn't be having this conversation."
Danny looks into his eyes. A muscle flutters in Mac's cheek.
"If we do this, we do it together," Danny says at last. "None of this me waiting by the car shit. Whatever happens, I'm gonna be there."
"All right." Mac nods. "You know we can't tell anyone, ever."
"No," Danny says. "Just the two of us."
"We'll need to trust each other."
"I will," Danny says. "I mean, I do." He holds out his hand to Mac, and after a moment, Mac takes it.
"All right," he says.
"Come on." Danny lets go of his hand. "Let's get this over with."
Mac snaps open the case. "Don't touch anything without gloves."
"Same as always," Danny says.
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xi. the smell began to rise
One thing you know how to do is hide the bodies. No one will ever know except you.
And him.
No one's ever found Sonny. No one will, at least not for years. Not a trace left.
Not even roses.
Not even blood, or viscera.
Blood roars in his veins. Red neon splashes across the ceiling.
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xii. when I look into your eyes
It takes much less time than Danny would have thought. When they're done, there's no longer even a ripple on the surface of the lake.
Sonny had filed the serial numbers off the gun, which surprises neither of them, and after Mac unloads it and wipes it down over and over again, he throws that into the lake, too. The rest of the bullets go into a plastic bag, along with the ones they dug out of Sonny's body, and their gloves.
"Burn it," Danny says.
"I will," Mac says. "Back in the city."
"Did we get everything?" Danny turns in a slow circle, looking at the ground. Every leaf they saw with blood on it went into the water.
"I think so," Mac says. "I just wish...I hate outdoor scenes. If we were indoors, we could be more certain."
"I'll keep that in mind for next time," Danny says, and Mac gives him a look. "Sorry."
"It's all right." Mac sounds weary. "Let's go."
They've just finished loading up the car and Danny has slammed the trunk shut when Mac suddenly comes to a halt and stares up at the sky.
"What?" Danny says, when a full minute has gone by and Mac still hasn't moved. "What is it, what's wrong?"
Mac turns to him. "I think it's going to rain," he says, and smiles.
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xiii. tonight faith just ain't enough
Leaves. The last thing he saw.
Leaves on the surface of the water. Hundreds of them, and more falling all the time.
Leaves were the funeral blanket.
After that, he didn't look back.
Hold. Breathe.
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xiv. we're a long, long way from home
It does start to rain as they're leaving, just a sprinkle at first, and then it turns into a downpour by the time they reach the main road. Mac is driving much too fast, faster than he ever normally does, but Danny doesn't say a word. He watches as storm clouds gather and break over the Catskills until it's coming down so hard that he can't see anything but rain, the car surrounded on all sides by unrelenting sheets of water.
There's nearly no other traffic on the little two-lane rural highway. Suddenly Danny feels the wheels go out of control and the car begins to spin off-course, and then he's blinded by headlights and deafened by the blast of a horn as a pick-up truck looms into reality just inches from the front bumper. Danny watches this with a kind of blank curiosity, aware that he should be doing something, but unable to react.
Mac mutters, "Fuck," and jerks the wheel hard, and manages to get them back to the right side of the road just in time. He sits there, breathing hard, knuckles white on the steering wheel, then says, "That's it," and pulls over to the shoulder.
Danny flinches, like a delayed reaction, and his heart starts to race. "What are you doing?" he says. "Why'd you stop?"
"Because I can't see to drive," Mac says. "Neither can anyone else. We need to wait out the storm."
"Great, just great." Danny realizes that Mac's right and that they almost had a serious accident, but he just wants to get going. He wants to be away from here. Anywhere else, so long as it's not upstate. He's damned if he's going to go north of the Bronx ever again.
He looks over at Mac, but Mac is staring out the window, apparently lost in his own thoughts. It's beginning to get stuffy in the car; Danny can feel sweat gathering in his armpits and the small of his back. He rolls down the window and tilts his face toward the breeze and the cold rain.
"Do you mind?" Mac says. "Everything's going to get soaked."
"I don't care," Danny says. "I just need some air, okay? I'll close it in a minute. In a minute."
"Fine," Mac says, and turns his face away.
The rain feels good, but soon it's not enough. Danny needs more, needs to feel more. Needs to be somewhere other than the confined car. Without thinking about it, he pushes the door open and steps out into the downpour.
He's soaked to the skin instantly, frozen and shivering, but the rain is like a balm as it pounds against his body. He turns his face up to the sky, lets the rain run into his eyes and mouth and nose.
The car door opens and then closes again. "Danny, come on," Mac says. He has to shout to make himself heard. "Get back in the car."
Danny holds out his hands and catches rainwater, then turns his palms upside-down and lets the water run from his fingertips.
"Don't you want to dry off?" Even though Mac is still shouting, he sounds the way he did when he asked Danny to give him the gun.
The gun. Jesus Christ. Danny shakes his head and starts to take a step forward, and then a wave of dizziness hits him and he staggers. He manages to catch himself against the car, and braces his hands on the hood and stands there, shaking, his breath coming in short, painful hitches.
"Okay," Mac says into his ear, and he presses his palm to the back of Danny's neck. Danny shudders. "Just breathe through it. It's over. You're all right."
"Yeah," Danny says. "Yeah." He watches rain run down the backs of his knuckles. The rain is falling on the lake now, too. It's going to wash everything away.
Danny turns and pulls Mac against him, and kisses him hard. Water runs into his open mouth as he forces his tongue between Mac's lips. Mac kisses him back and slides his hands down to Danny's waist, pushing his shirt and jacket up. The rain beats against his skin, but it hardly matters now. They're both soaked, clothes plastered to their bodies. Mac's face rubs against his as they kiss, wet and grinding into each other. Danny groans, want rolling over him like a flood, and the friction makes him hiss when Mac palms his cock through his jeans.
Danny reaches down, lets his fingers close around Mac's erection and squeezes. Mac doesn't make a sound, but his tongue starts to move faster and he presses his palm more firmly against Danny. Danny moves his hand lower and cups Mac's balls, then squeezes harder, hard enough to hurt him. Hard enough to make Mac tear his mouth away from Danny's and arch his head back, moaning into the rain. Tendons stand out on his neck and he trembles, and Danny watches his face.
"Inside," Mac says finally. "Get in the car." Danny fumbles at the door and manages to get it open, and Mac pushes him to his hands and knees in the backseat.
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xv. home's a long, long way from us
He pushed you against the car window in the rain, miles away from the interstate, and then pushed his mouth against yours, guided you down and got your pants around your ankles. You wanted it to hurt. You did.
We have to leave, we have to go, now now now.
He holds himself tighter. Holds his breath as long as he can.
All the way back to the city --
You opened the window so you were gasping into the rain, into the downpour, and it was all gray in the fog and you left long scratches down his arms.
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xvi. the things you love
Danny says, "Fuck me," when Mac moves against him, but he thinks that maybe what he really means is hurt me, and he's glad when Mac doesn't work him with his fingers first and doesn't give him time to relax into it. Mac is inside him and he doesn't have to think at all, caught in the tide of Mac's hands and mouth, vaguely aware of the rain on his face from the open window and Mac's skin yielding beneath his nails, and the high keening noises Mac makes as he thrusts into him all the way.
Then it's over; Mac hand tightens around his cock and his orgasm takes him before he's more than half-aware of it, and he's left gasping. He closes his eyes and presses his face into the leather seat, trying to breathe. Mac's breath is hot and shaky against the back of his neck. "Danny," he says in a low voice, and his lips touch Danny's skin.
Danny doesn't move. He just keeps breathing. After awhile, Mac pulls out of him and sits up, and neither of them moves until the rain begins to slow.
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xvii. the faith that He commands
It's night by the time they get back to the city. The streets are slick and shining under the lights, and the air is cool and damp, but the rain seems to be over for now. Danny stares out the window as Mac drives, and as they get closer to Queens, he begins to wonder what they're going to say to each other when they get to his building. He needs to say something to Mac, he thinks, but thank you seems both inadequate and inappropriate.
Mac pulls into a parking space and kills the engine, and Danny looks up in surprise.
"I need to come up for awhile," Mac says.
"Sure," Danny says. "You know you're always welcome."
They walk upstairs and Danny lets them into the apartment, and he can't help breathing a sigh of relief as he flips on the light in the living room. Everything looks the same as it did when they left this morning, and even though he hadn't expected anything else, it's a relief all the same. He's back home, and maybe now he can start the process of working through everything that happened today and then letting it go. This is the beginning of the end.
"Don't know about you, but I could use a beer," he calls to Mac, who has gone up the hall to the bathroom. Danny goes to the kitchen and opens the refrigerator. "I got Rolling Rock and I got that fancy Japanese shit that you like. What do you want? ...Mac?"
There's no answer, and after a few seconds, he says, "Mac?" again, a little louder this time.
Up the hall, he hears the shower go on.
When Danny walks into the bathroom, Mac is standing next to the tub with his hand under the spray.
"I know it's been a long day," Danny says, "but do you have to take a shower right this second?"
"Yeah, I do," Mac says, and shakes the water off his hand. "So do you. Get your clothes off." He starts to pull his shirt over his head.
Danny tries to smile. "I appreciate the offer," he says. "I do. But I think I've had enough of getting wet for one day. What do you say we -- "
"It's not an offer, Danny." His voice is sharp, and this time Danny looks at him -- really looks at him. Mac's eyes are like ice. He kicks off his shoes and socks, then starts to unzip his pants. "I told you, we're going to do this right."
It hits Danny then. "You want to wash away any trace we may have overlooked."
"What do you think?"
"How much good is that gonna do after we sat in the car for hours and then walked upstairs here, and through the apartment?" Danny asks. And after they'd fucked in the car, and after they'd been out in the rain.
"I know that," Mac says. "I know it's not perfect. But we need to cover as many angles as we can."
Okay, fine, if it'll make you feel better, Danny is about to say. He figures Mac is just as freaked out as he is, and if this is how he needs to deal with that, it won't hurt to go along with him.
Before he can get a word out, Mac says, "Are you going to undress, or do I have to do it for you?"
Danny flinches. "Mac."
Mac stares at him.
Danny turns away with a sigh and starts to undress. As he does, he catches sight of himself in the mirror over the sink. His hair has dried in clumps and his clothes are a wrinkled mess, and his eyes look dark and hollowed out. He look away and tries to focus on unbuttoning his shirt.
"Make sure you put your clothes on the mat, on top of mine," Mac says.
The two of them scrubbing clean and trying to avoid each other in the narrow tub is one of the strangest parts of the whole day. Danny has been naked in front of Mac more times than he can count; he's had Mac's hands and mouth everywhere on his body. And he's never felt more exposed and vulnerable than he does right now. He can barely even bring himself to look at Mac, and finally he just closes his eyes and tries to let the roar of the water drown out everything else.
When they're done, Mac wraps a towel around his waist. "I'm going to need to borrow something," he says.
"Sure."
Mac leaves, and Danny leans against the sink as he listens to him move around. He comes back a couple of minutes later wearing a pair of Danny's sweats and a t-shirt, with a plastic garbage bag in his hand.
"Now what?" Danny says, wondering if his voice sounds as weary as he feels.
"I hope you weren't too attached to those clothes," Mac says, and starts to collect everything. He fishes Danny's wallet and cell and keys out of the jeans and sets them aside on the sink, along with his own, but the rest of it goes into the bag.
How he deals with it, Danny thinks, and he repeats that over and over to himself as he stands there and watches.
"All right," Mac says, and drops his shirt and the bathmat into the bag. As he straightens up, he's eyeing Danny. "You should give me that, too," he says, nodding at him, and after a second Danny realizes that Mac is talking about his necklace.
"Oh, no," Danny says, and closes his fingers around it. "No fucking way. You're not taking this."
"It's not safe, Danny," Mac says, and takes a step toward him. His eyes are even colder than before, and Danny can feel panic rising in his chest, a blackbird beating heavy wings behind his ribcage.
"No," he says again, aware that his voice is rising to a shout. "You want this, you're gonna have to take it off me yourself." He's not so sure Mac won't try to do just that, but he's going to have a fight on his hands if he does.
They stare at each other. Danny tries not to blink. "Fine," Mac says at last. "Fine, keep it, but scrub it. Scrub it until it shines. You have silver polish?"
"No." Danny doesn't let go of the necklace.
"Get some. Soak it for a few hours." Mac ties a knot in the garbage bag. "I'm going to go now."
"Mac." Danny follows him into the living room. "Mac, wait. You can't -- just like that?" He swallows hard. "What are we -- I mean, what do we do? How do we -- "
"We do whatever we would normally do," Mac says. "We go to work. We stick to our routines."
"But how -- " To his shame, Danny can feel hot tears behind his eyes, rising in his throat. "How do we know -- "
"Hey." Mac steps closer to him. "I told you," he says quietly, "it's going to be all right. I'm going to do everything I can."
Danny nods, not trusting himself to speak. Mac's eyes soften, and he presses the palm of his hand to Danny's face, cupping it and stroking his thumb across his cheek. "I promise," he says, and Danny nods again. Mac kisses him on the mouth and then moves away.
Danny lies awake all night. He keeps thinking that he can see shapes moving in the dark.
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xviii. we're just trying to survive
The next day at work, Mac pages him midway through the afternoon, and Danny meets him down in the parking garage.
Mac leans close to him in a dark corner. "I don't think we should see each other outside of work for awhile," he says. "It'll be safer. Just until this blows over."
"When will that be?" Danny asks.
"Not long. I'll let you know." Mac gives him a little pat on the shoulder as he leaves.
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xix. we've got God on our side
It doesn't get any easier with time. As the weeks go by, Danny finds that he's able to put it out of his mind for an hour or even an afternoon at a time, but the memory is never far from him. He's always waiting for a hand to fall on his shoulder or a knock at the door, or to hear the sound of a gun being cocked some night as he walks along a dark street. But he doesn't say a word to Mac except for when they have to talk to each other about work.
After five weeks almost to the day, Mac pages him again, and this time they meet in a stairwell.
"No one's watching us," Mac says. "What's more, doesn't seem like anyone is too interested in finding Sonny, either. No one has filed a missing persons report on him."
"Really?" Danny says.
"Really. Looks like he was telling the truth about coming up with that little scheme on his own." Mac leans against the wall. "Word is the Tanglewood boys are busy in-fighting about who should take over in his absence."
Danny feels like all the breath has been sucked out of his body. "And our clothes?"
"I dumped them in an incinerator after I left your place that night," Mac says. "Along with everything that we bagged at the scene. There's nothing to tie us to Sonny."
Danny shuts his eyes. "God. Thank God."
"I told you it would be all right."
"Yeah, you did. So you want to go out and celebrate?" Danny reaches for him, but Mac moves away from his hand, so smoothly that it might be only an accident.
"I have a lot of work to do, Danny," he says. "I just thought you'd want to know."
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xx. what you do to survive
Shadows turn and crawl on the ceiling as the building shakes under the force of the wind.
Touch your heart in the hours past midnight. Skin too cold and rain still beading your chest, sinking into your bones, but the heart keeps beating.
This thing between you.
We can't talk about this ever ever ever.
Hold your breath.
Almost there. Almost there. Just a little longer.
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xxi. but I don't know who to trust
In spite of everything, Danny still holds some small hope, deep down, that after this things will start to get better. Mac doesn't make any kind of move to nudge their relationship back to a place where they can find some normalcy, but then, neither does Danny. Maybe, he thinks, it's one of those Catch-22 situations, with both of them waiting on each other to make the first move, waiting to see if it will be all right.
Danny holds his peace until one night when they're working late in Mac's office. It's a perfect opportunity: midnight has come and gone, and they're the only ones left in the building. Even so, he lets an hour or two go by before he finally works up the nerve to say anything. He sets down his pen and the stack of reports he's been going through, and watches Mac arrange a set of slides on the light board. He remembers what Mac did. He hasn't forgotten.
"Hey, Mac?" he says.
"Yeah."
"You got a minute?"
Mac turns away from the board. "Sure," he says. "What's on your mind?"
"Look," Danny says. "I know we shouldn't talk about this a lot. Maybe ever, maybe we should just try to put it behind us. But before we do that, I really need to say thank you."
Mac frowns. "Thank you?"
"For what you did for me," Danny says. "You really went above and beyond, and you did it for me. I know that thank you probably isn't adequate, but it's all I got. I understand how rough this has been."
Mac is quiet for a long minute. When he finally starts to talk, he looks up at the light board again. "For you," he says, and to Danny's surprise he lets out a little laugh. "Danny, I'm sorry, but you're laboring under a misapprehension here if you think you have something to thank me for."
"What?" Danny says. "I don't get it. I mean, sure I got something to thank you for."
Mac squeezes his eyes shut for a second, like maybe the light is hurting them. "Danny," he says. "I didn't want to...I didn't do it for you."
"I don't get it."
Mac sighs. "No. I -- I did it for the lab."
"What?" Danny stares at him. The words make no sense. "What are you talking about?"
"The lab, Danny," Mac says, and he's talking faster now. "Think. Do you know what the news of Sonny's murder would have done to the lab's reputation? We never would have been able to present unchallenged evidence again, and that's assuming the brass wouldn't have decided to do a little housekeeping along the way."
"But it was self-defense." This can't be happening. It can't. "You said that yourself, you saw it."
"That wouldn't have mattered." Mac turns to face him. "You have a personal connection to Sonny Sassone. You know this department's history of controversy. Even if you were cleared, do you really think they would have just left us alone after that? Do you think they would have just let it go?"
"Maybe not, but -- "
"No, they wouldn't have," Mac says. "We probably all would have ended up under internal investigation, and after that...Do you think I would let that happen to my lab? Do you?"
"But you said -- you told me it was because of Tanglewood," Danny says. "You said you'd protect me."
There's no expression in Mac's eyes at all. He looks at something over Danny's shoulder. "I said what I had to in order to get you to cooperate."
"No. No." Danny's face feels hot, and a sudden flare of pain makes him look down; he's digging his nails into the palms of his hands. "That's not -- "
"You need to know the truth, Danny."
Danny slams his hands flat against the desk, and the shockwave goes all the way up his arms. "You put us through all this for that?"
"If you can't discuss this calmly, we're through here," Mac says. "I don't have time for this." He shuts off the board with a quick, angry gesture, then grabs his jacket.
"You'd better make time." Danny stands up and tries to get in his way, but Mac shoves him aside.
"Goodnight, Danny."
Danny stands where he is for a moment after Mac leaves, his body shaking with anger and betrayal. As the seconds tick by, he realizes that something isn't right here. Something...he tries to slow down, tries to breathe. Tries to think.
Something in what Mac said, or didn't say. Something in the way he wouldn't look at Danny. It's like trying to see through fog, or like trying to find a word on the tip of his tongue. Danny struggles with it, and he can't quite get to it, but maybe it's enough to know that it's there.
They aren't through here, not at all.
Danny runs after Mac.
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xxii. turn your heart black you can trust
He catches up with Mac in the parking garage. "Mac. Hey, Mac," he calls, and runs toward him, listening to the hollow echo of his shoes against the concrete.
Mac stops by the side of the car. It would be easy for him to just get in and drive away, Danny thinks. It really would. But he doesn't do that. He stops where he is and turns around. Slowly and reluctantly, but he does turn around.
"What do you want, Danny?" he asks.
"You think you just get to call the shots all the time?" Danny asks. "You think that we're through just because you say? That's not how it works."
"I don't know what more we have to say on the subject," Mac says.
"See, that's the thing," Danny says. "I figure we have plenty to say. After all, you're in it just as deep as I am, isn't that right?"
"Are you threatening me?"
"No. Not at all." Danny walks up close and smiles into his face. "I'm just saying. I was thinking about it, with what you said, and that's the part that just keeps not making sense. You're implicated in this too, which would do a lot more damage to the reputation of your precious lab than anything that I could have done, even with all the history. I mean, some punk detective versus the head of the whole crime lab? No contest."
"I don't see what doesn't make sense," Mac says. "You just answered your own question. I would be implicated, which is why I had to act to protect the lab."
"No." Danny shakes his head and keeps on smiling. "See, that's where you're wrong. You wouldn't be implicated if you hadn't covered up what happened to Sonny. And you might wanna keep in mind that was your idea, not mine. Up until then..."
Danny backs off a few steps and starts pacing. The real shape of this is becoming clearer and clearer to him as he talks, but it's a struggle. Mac watches him as he paces and doesn't say a word, doesn't move away from the side of the car. Danny still can't read the expression in his eyes. "Up until then," he goes on, "you were pretty much in the clear, the way I figure it. The worst anyone could say of you is that you made a bad judgment call, but that you acted in good faith. Maybe you'd get your wrist slapped for not following department procedure, 'cause God knows you got a history of that, but that's about it."
"This is a fascinating analysis, Danny," Mac says, "but I'm afraid I don't quite see your point."
"Oh, I think you do," Danny says. "You didn't dump Sonny's body for the sake of your precious lab. You couldn't have. That wasn't even an issue until after he went into the lake. So what was your real motivation? What was going through your head?"
Mac stares at him in silence. Danny stops pacing and moves up close to him again, gets into his face and keeps smiling. "Come on, you can tell me," he says. "It'll be just between the two of us, right?"
Mac's jaw tightens, and Danny can practically feel tension coming off him in waves. Suddenly everything spins and Danny is slammed hard against the side of the car, and Mac has his arm pinned behind his back.
"You think this is funny?" Mac asks. "You think this is some kind of game?"
"Considering I shot the guy?" Danny says. "No, I really don't. Just -- " He gasps a little as Mac's fingers sink into his arm. "Just trying to get some answers here."
"I told you the truth."
"No, you didn't." Danny struggles a little. "Not today, anyway."
"What gives you the right to make that call?" Mac asks. His voice is thick with anger. "What makes you think you know so much?"
Danny keeps silent.
"I told you," Mac says. "That day, at the lake. It's like when I was in the Marines. Sometimes you have to make hard choices, choices you're not proud of. I did it back then and I did it that day with Sonny. That's what you when your back is to the wall, or when someone on your team -- " He stops suddenly.
"When someone on your team what?" Danny asks.
"When someone on your team is in bad trouble," Mac says, and his voice is much softer. Not the silky softness that Danny has heard a few times since this all started, but soft and tentative-sounding. Like he's just now saying something for the first time. "When someone on your team gets himself into a situation where..." He suddenly lets go of Danny's arm and takes a step away. When Danny turns around, Mac is staring at the ceiling of the parking garage.
"What kind of situation?" Danny asks, and his voice is just as soft as Mac's.
"A situation where he could die," Mac says, and blinks hard.
"So it really was about me," Danny says.
Mac looks at him. "What do you think?" he says. "It was never about anything else. Now the lab is part of it, too, but..." He shakes his head. "Even if we had managed to keep Tanglewood away, it would have ruined your career. I wouldn't have been able to stop that, either."
"So why all of this?" Danny asks. "Why all that bullshit about doing this for the lab?"
"I don't know how to..." Mac stops, and stares off into the distance for a moment, and then starts to talk again. "Only two people know about what happened that day, Danny. You and me. We're the only two who can ever know."
"Right," Danny says. "That's what we agreed. That's -- that's the only way it can be, Mac."
"Have you thought about what that means?"
Danny has, but he asks the question anyway, because maybe Mac is coming at this from a different angle, or maybe he's seen a way around the difficulty that Danny hasn't yet figured out. "What are you talking about?"
"We can't tell anyone. Not for our entire lives. And I..." He blinks hard, and looks away again. When he looks back, the sorrow in his eyes pierces Danny right to the heart. "I can't tell Stella, Danny."
"I hadn't thought of that," Danny says. He hadn't. He's realized a lot of other things about this situation that they're in, but this is something that hadn't occurred to him.
"Every time we talk now, I look at her and I think..." Mac shakes his head. "She has no idea that I'm keeping something from her. That's always going to be there. You and I know, but..."
And I never even found out what happened to Louie, Danny thinks. All that, all that they've both gone through, and he had never even gotten what he'd gone for in the first place. He knows for sure now that Louie is dead, but he'd pretty much figured that out anyway, and he suspects that the body will turn up sometime around the same time that Sonny's does, which, God willing, will be after Danny himself is long dead.
"How do I know I can still trust you?" Danny asks.
"I could ask you the same question," Mac says, and Danny nods.
"We can't change anything," he says. "And it's like -- it's like you said about making hard choices back in the Marines. Doesn't matter if you regret it, you'd probably still have to do the same thing all over again."
"Probably," Mac says. He steps closer to Danny. "We're in this together."
"Looks that way," Danny says. For the rest of their lives, they're in this together. He realizes that he's digging his nails into his palms again.
Mac's mouth shakes against Danny's as they kiss, but his hands are firm on his body when he backs him up against the car. Danny gasps and rakes his nails down Mac's chest, pulling him close as he fumbles with his belt buckle. He gets it open and yanks the zipper down, then shoves his hand inside his pants and wraps his fist around Mac's cock.
Mac groans and bites Danny's lower lip, then reaches for him. He opens up his pants and rubs his thumb across the head of Danny's cock and the sensitive spot just beneath it, and Danny moans out loud, not even trying to bite it back, shameless now. He strokes Mac harder, tightening his fingers around the shaft, and they keep kissing. Their teeth bang together as they caress each other. Danny can feel the heat of Mac's cock against his hip, can feel sweet friction as he rubs his erection into Mac's hand and the rough wool of his pants.
Mac cries out into Danny's mouth when he finally arches and comes across Danny's fingers, and Danny gives up only seconds later. He thrusts hard into Mac's loosely-closed fist until everything explodes inside him and his knees turn to rubber, and it's only the car at his back and Mac's body against his that keep him from collapsing entirely.
He kisses Mac again after he gets his breath back, very gently this time. When he breaks the kiss, blood is smeared on Mac's face. Danny touches his lip and wipes a thin trickle of blood away from the corner of his mouth.
That day, he and Mac had knelt together on the bank of the lake to wash the blood off their hands, and Danny had watched the thin red ribbons twist and fall to pieces in the cold water. They'd washed all of it away, even what was caught under their nails.
Danny rubs his fingers together until the blood is gone, aware that Mac is watching him.
-
-
-
xxiii. take your God-filled soul, fill it with devils and dust
The only two left now: these two. Alive in the bedroom. It all comes down to this moment, this final moment.
Danny eases his hand away from his chest. Next to him, Mac sleeps on his back. Danny moves closer to him and puts a hand over his heart.
Never ever, not a word. Not to anyone.
Don't whisper the name, don't even think it.
Mac stirs in his sleep, and his hands move dreamily over Danny's shoulders, the back of his head. Danny kisses the hollow of his throat. He presses his face to Mac's neck, to his pulse point, counting their heartbeats.
Rain glances off the river, and lights reflect on black water while things drift and drown far below the surface. The bedroom windows are old. If the wind keeps up like this, they're going to crack right in two.
Danny kisses Mac again and holds him close. He doesn't let go.
***
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