Title: Challenge of the Grossest
Author: Kimmychu
Fandom: CSI: NY
Rating: FRT/PG-13
Pairing: Danny/Flack, although it's not the focus of the story
Content Warning: Hmm, it'll depend on your tolerance of TMI, but as long as your humor bone is working, you should be fine.
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: Danny, Flack and Aiden learn a thing or two about one another during a lunch break. Gross things. Some Danny/Flack.
Disclaimer: They belong to the Spaghetti Monster. It's true. I saw them on vacation together the other day and Danny and Flack sure had some fine meatballs.
Author's Notes: This story is set in season one, for obvious reasons. If you are easily grossed out, my suggestion is to not eat or drink anything while reading this story. *lol* And if you're curious to know whether certain events told by Danny, Flack and Aiden are based on true stories - yes, they are. Bwahahaha!

***

"What's the grossest thing you've ever done?"

Flack and Danny straightened up in their seats and stroked their chins in unison upon hearing Aiden's profound question.

"The grossest thing, huh?" Danny said, glancing at Aiden through half-lidded eyes.

And simultaneously, Danny and Flack let out a low, contemplative, "Hmmmmmm," while continuing to stroke their chins, displaying mock countenances of sagacity.

The three of them were the only occupants of the labs' break room. They sat facing each other around the room's one table, their individual lunches set on its smooth, black surface. In front of Danny, who was dressed in his usual tank top, jacket and low jeans, was a partially eaten subway sandwich. Aiden, wearing a low-cut, dark red top and black trousers, was twirling some fried lo mien around her plastic fork out of a Chinese food takeaway carton. Flack, immaculate as always in his suit and fashion-challenging tie, had already chowed down two hotdogs and was on his third and last one.

Aiden was smirking.

"Which of you boys are gonna go first?" she asked. One eyebrow arched up in a silent taunt.

"Oh, lemme, lemme!" Danny raised a hand the way an overly enthusiastic schoolboy during a class quiz would. "I got somethin' gross to share!"

Aiden's smirk widened. "Okay, big boy, go for it."

Flack crossed his arms over his chest, a smug no-way-is-his-story-better-than-mine expression etched on his handsome visage. Danny pointedly ignored him, which merely served to amuse Flack even more.

Danny held one fist to his lips, coughed once to clear his throat, then said in a serious tone, "One time, one a' my cousins was havin' a birthday party. His Ma, Aunt Penelope, ordered this huge birthday cake for him, and it had neon blue icin' all over it."

Danny gesticulated with his hands to demonstrate just how large the cake had been.

"So, after the party, I was stickin' 'round the kitchen 'cause my Ma was talkin' to Aunt Penelope, and the whole time, I was starin' at what was left of the cake, a whole ton of blue icin', a heap of it left on a plate on the kitchen table 'cause my aunt had scraped off a lot of it before servin' the cake to everybody at the party. She didn't like how the icin' had turned out, see? She thought it was gonna poison everybody or somethin'."

Danny held up his hands at a distance from his face, palms facing forward.

"So there they were, talkin' to each other in one corner a' the kitchen and here I was, sittin' at the kitchen table, starin' at this giant heap of neon blue icin'. So I figured, hell, why not? If somebody thought it was fine to make neon blue icin' for a kid's birthday cake, it couldn't possibly be that bad."

Danny paused for a second, then quickly carried on with his narrative when he saw the blasé looks Aiden and Flack had.

"So yeah, I ate it, the whole damn heap a' neon blue icin'." He fidgeted in his seat, twitched his lips and glanced at anything except Flack and Aiden's faces. "And I had brilliant blue-green poop for two weeks."

The silence in the break room was as thick as Danny's cousin's neon blue birthday cake had been.

"Blue-green poop," Aiden eventually muttered. "The grossest thing you've ever done was to shit brilliant blue-green poop. For two weeks."

She was not impressed. If Flack's reaction was anything to go by, the homicide detective wasn't either. Flack had sucked his entire lower lip into his mouth. The man's face was red with exertion from his attempt to not laugh.

"What! It was gross!" Danny exclaimed in outrage. His lower lip protruded in a sulk. "You try crappin' blue-green poop for weeks!"

"And how old were you when this happened?" Aiden asked.

Danny squirmed. A few seconds later, he mumbled, "Fifteen."

Aiden lifted both hands into view and turned them thumbs down.

"Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame."

Her drawn-out proclamation was what caused Flack to lose it.

"Hahahahaha! Blue-green poop … Ahahaahhah!"

Flack couldn't stop laughing even after Aiden smacked him on the head.

"Hey, you shut up, pretty boy! You haven't told your story yet!"

Flack cackled a while more. Then, he quietened, trying his very best to settle down so he could take his turn at grossing out his fellow detectives. Flack was the one doing the pointed ignoring now; Danny was glowering at him and had those muscular arms of his folded on his chest.

Uh oh.

Flack privately hoped Danny wasn't going to punish him by making him sleep on the couch again tonight.

"Right." Flack sniffed. "So, my family and I were at the Grand Canyon for a vacation, a little while after I graduated from high school. We took this, uh, Grand Canyon mule ride tour, I think. Yeah, it was a mule ride tour 'cause I remember bein' weighed and my height hadta be measured too. It was a seven-hour trip on this Bright Angel Trail and I tell ya, after the first half hour, I was already bored outta my mind. It took almost two-and-a-half hours just to reach the first stop, some place called Indian Garden or somethin'."

Flack sniffed again, then shifted forward to lean his elbows on the table top.

"It was durin' the stop that things got interestin'. We weren't allowed to dismount from the mules the whole time, ya know? My brothers and I were just …" - Flack waved his hands around - "We were goin' nuts from seein' nothin' but scenery, ya know what I mean? We wanted some fun."

"What, bein' spread legged with a big, dumb animal between yer legs isn't fun, Flack?" Aiden drawled, her smirk returning in full force.

Danny snickered.

"Well … I think that's Danny's specialty."

To Danny's credit, Danny didn't take the bait and sent Flack a haughty look, wrinkling that prominent nose of his while he was at it.

"Yeah, well, least I'm smart 'nough to make that big, dumb animal do whatever I want it to do, right?"

Flack's blue eyes narrowed and his lips curved up in tacit appreciation. Ooooh, somebody's been learning the Art of Snark from him, alright.

Aiden was laughing hard at them but it didn't bother them one bit. Neither Flack or Danny held back their bantering in her presence, no matter how salacious it became. She was, after all, the one who prodded them into admitting their feelings for each other, a couple of nights after Danny ran into trouble over the ill-fated death of that undercover cop.

"So anyway," Flack said, "We had our lunch at the Indian Garden. My parents and the guide wanted to sit 'round a bit and relax 'fore gettin' back on the mules, so my brothers and I decided to check out the place. The guide called it an oasis, and I guess it was 'cause there was a ton a' cottonwood trees and cactuses and all kindsa other vegetation. But oasis or not, there was only so much green plants we cared to look at."

"That's it? The grossest thing ya ever did was go frolickin' among the trees and cactuses?" Aiden calculatingly cut in.

Danny let out a snort of amusement.

Flack immediately crossed his arms over his chest and stared at Aiden with tapered eyes, tapping the fingertips of his right hand against his left upper arm.

"Will you please stop interruptin' me?"

Aiden shrugged and said, "Hey, you just stopped there so I assumed your story was done!"

Flack didn't believe her expression of outward innocence, not one bit.

He stayed silent, tapping his fingertips on his upper arm for a few more seconds then said, "Aaaaaanywaaaaaay, as I was sayin' 'fore Ms. Burn here interrupted me, my brothers and I went explorin' 'round the Indian Garden, and then … there it was! This gigantic vertical cliffside beyond the trees behind the place!"

Flack reared backwards on his seat with dramatic flair, as if the cliffside was right there in front of him in the break room.

Aiden responded to this by propping her chin up with one hand and presenting an apathetic face that indicated she was just as unimpressed so far with Flack's story as she'd been with Danny's. Danny, in contrast, gazed at Flack with eyes full of affection and a soft smile on his lips.

Flack, unaffected by Aiden's ostensible disinterest but motivated by Danny's smile, resumed his storytelling with zest.

"Out of pure boredom, I faced that cliffside and yelled as loud as I could and man, the instant it hit us anythin' we yelled out echoed for ages, we were at it like a buncha monkeys, shoutin' all kindsa stupid random things to tease each other."

Flack angled his head.

"Then my brother David suddenly said to me, 'Hey, Donnie, wouldn't it be funny hearin' a fart echoin' 'round the Grand Canyon?'"

"You didn't."

Now there was a wide grin spread across Aiden's mien.

Danny's eyebrows had shot up.

"Oh, I did," Flack replied Aiden. "I didn't just do it, I turned to my brothers and said to them, 'Echoin' fart? I'll show you guys an echoin' fart!' And I pulled down my pants and underwear, stuck my butt out towards that cliffside and let one super burrito-fueled fart rip like an A-bomb."

Aiden burst out laughing, even more so when she noticed Danny was shielding his eyes and shaking his head from side to side.

"Wasn't one a' those teeny, squeaky ones either. It was one a' those orchestra trumpet-soundin', elephant-like farts." Flack pursed his lips into a small 'o' shape. "Brrhhrrhrhfffffppppttt!"

The only sound reigning in the break room for minutes was Aiden's irrepressible laughter as well as her smacking the table top in her glee. Danny made no noise at all. He simply stared at Flack with a countenance that seemed to say, "Oh my God. I am in love with a guy who makes elephant-like farting noises in public and thinks farting in the Grand Canyon is cool."

"Okay, okay, so it's funny but we're talkin' about the grossest thing here," Aiden said once she'd gotten herself under control. "So ya farted in the Grand Canyon. No big deal 'cause only your brothers saw ya do th-"

Flack swiftly lifted one hand to shush Aiden's complaints. "Waaaaaaait, let me finiiiish."

He flicked the tip of his nose with his thumb.

"We didn't realize we were actually standin' on a hill, see, or that there was a camp site downwind of us till we heard someone screamin'."

"Screamin'," Danny repeated.

"Yeah, screamin'," Flack said. "It was a man and he was hollerin' somethin' along the lines of, 'What the fuckin' fuck is that horrible steeeeeench?'"

This time, even Danny laughed out loud, hunched forward in his seat, eyes scrunched shut due to his enormous smile.

"Yeah, me and my brothers rushed forward to see what was happenin' and when we looked downhill, a buncha hikers were runnin' all over the place, and some a' them were even coverin' their noses and mouths with their hands. And the guy who was screamin', he was the closest to us so I guess my fart musta hit him like a ton a' bricks." Flack broke into a high-pitched chuckle tinged with embarrassment. "He was bent over and gaggin' and sounded like somebody was stranglin' him or somethin'!"

Aiden laughed so much her face was scarlet.

"Holy shit, Don! Your farts smell that bad?"

Danny, who had removed his spectacles and was rubbing at eyes brimming with tears of jollity, said, "Oh yeah, they are. They get worse when he eats those street vendor hotdogs." Danny made sure to look daggers at the hotdog on the table in front of Flack before adding, "I keep tellin' him, don't eat them, Don, 'cause they're bad for you but noooo, he doesn't listen 'cause he loves them and then he eats half a dozen a' them and 'fore ya know it, he's complainin' 'bout gas and who's the one who's gotta suffer the consequences of this gas?" Danny wrinkled his nose in melodramatic distaste. "Me."

Flack pouted, widening his blue eyes as big as they could go for maximum persuasion.

"Whaaaaaat? They taste nice! I like 'em! That time, it was 'cause I tried a different vendor! His hotdogs weren't good, that's all." Flack plucked at the white paper wrapped around his beloved hotdog. "I got my vices and you got your vices. Everybody's got vices."

"'Least I know better than to eat street vendor hotdogs!" Danny replied. If Flack had glanced up right there and then, he would have seen the immense fondness in Danny's eyes.

"Says the guy who bakes cookies and brownies on the weekends in a rainbow apron and flowery bakin' gloves!"

Danny was not about to let Flack have the last word.

"Ah, and that was said by the guy who gulps down those very cookies and brownies and tells me they're the best damn things he's ever eaten in his life. Does that sound familiar, Don? Hmmmm?"

The homicide detective's response was to glance around the break room as if Danny hadn't said a word, his visage utterly blank. And no, it really didn't help Aiden or Danny calm down that Flack was moving his head the way a curious ostrich would before pecking at something that's caught its eye.

A moment later, Danny and Flack were smiling at each other, and Aiden was pretty sure they were playing footsie under the table. The sideways smile that flashed across her visage was that of much amusement and a speck of mild frustration. Yeesh, without her, these two lugheads would probably have been caught red-handed messing around in the labs ages ago!

She kicked and sure enough, her right foot collided with two other feet of different sizes which were very evidently rubbing against each other. When she shot them a warning look, both men immediately blushed, Danny scratching at his lower jaw and Flack twiddling his thumbs.

Aiden shook her head. What would they do without her?

"Not bad, Don, not bad."

It was the perfect thing to say for dispelling whatever embarrassment there was in the air.

"Whaddaya mean, not bad?" Flack had puffed up his chest, his blue eyes wide in affront. It would have been easy to mistake his upset as genuine if it wasn't for the protrusion of his lower lip. "I win, simple as that."

Aiden snorted. "I mean, not bad in that yours is a liiiiiiittle better than Danny's."

Flack's eyes grew even wider.

"Wha? Mine had witnesses!" Flack gestured at Danny, waving his hand in the direction of Danny's bottom. "Unlike Mr. Neon Blue Poop here!"

Danny was straight-faced. He slowly turned his head towards Flack and said in a very calm voice, "I cook our breakfast and dinner, ya know."

Flack wasn't just good-looking. He was also a smart man.

"I'll be good," Flack answered, bowing his head in child-like remorse.

Yet again, Aiden was chuckling. The two men sitting at the table with her were an endless source of entertainment. No one could ever blame her for thinking herself to be one lucky woman to have friends like them.

"If that's the best you guys've got, there's no doubt who's the winner here."

Aiden brushed at her shoulder, flicking off imaginary dust.

"Oh, is that right, Ms. Not Bad?" Flack said. His arms were folded across his broad chest for the third time.

Aiden was not daunted.

"Uh hmm, I'm so right, I guarantee by the time I'm done, you two will be wishin' ya never heard my story at all."

"Oh yeah?" Danny leaned forward, forearms on the table, his eyes twinkling. "Bring it on."

"Yeah, what he said," Flack added with a sniff.

"Okay, ya asked for it."

Aiden cracked her knuckles and gazed hard first at Danny, then at Flack.

She raised one eyebrow and asked, "Ya remember that press conference we had? The one for the Botelli case?"

"Yeah," Danny said. "We were sittin' together on the front row while Mac and Stella were talkin' 'bout the case at the podium."

"Oh, that. You were sittin' 'tween us, right, Aid?"

"Uh hmmmm." Aiden replied Flack.

She took her sweet time munching on a mouthful of lo mien. Then, after she noticed with inward amusement that Flack had begun drumming his fingers on the table, she said, "See, I had this fish-and-cabbage taco that really didn't agree with me -"

In a flash, Flack was waving his arms about and shaking his head in protest.

"Psh! A fart story? I already did one!" Flack glanced at Danny and he pointed a finger at himself. "I am so gonna win this, babe."

Aiden slammed her fork onto the table top, taking a deep breath then placing her fists on her hips. As Will Smith would put it, oh hell no.

"You shaddup, Flack! I'm not done yet!"

Flack, the arrogant bastard, just shut his eyes and turned his nose up at her, smiling like he owned the whole damn world.

"C'mon, Don," Danny said. He was smiling too, his blue eyes crinkled. "If you're so sure your story's bound to win, can't hurt to let her tell hers, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, you got a point there." Flack ran his hands down the lapels of his jacket, smoothing them out, puffing out his chest. "I'm a decent guy. I'll be nice and give my competitor a shot, futile a quest as it may be."

Danny's response was to chuckle and roll his tongue.

Aiden's response was to give Flack the finger, which just made Flack laugh and declare with genuine warmth, "Yeah, I love you too, Burn."

"So like I was sayin'," she resumed, "I had this fish-and-cabbage taco that really didn't agree with me, and I was sittin' between you guys and there you two were, Don crackin' jokes 'bout Stella's boobs hangin' outta her shirt -"

"Whaaaaaat? What's the big deal? It's true! Haven't you guys noticed? It's like, they're there. In your face! Sometimes I wanna chuck a hotdog 'tween them to see if it'll stick."

Danny laid his head on his forearms on the table, but his shoulders evidently shook from mirth.

Aiden didn't think twice about punching Flack on the arm.

"You. Are such. A pig!"

Flack half-heartedly warded off her other punches, snickering, a little red-faced.

"I'm a man, ya know, nothin' wrong with me appreciatin' the aesthetic beauty of the female form."

"Well, that's funny," Aiden rebutted. "I thought you were more into the appreciation of the male aesthetic beauty these days."

"Oh, I am, I am," Flack replied, "But I also have an open mind that grasps the importance and significance of acknowledgin' and valuin' the many varieties of, how shall I put it, exquisiteness around me because for my inner self to grow, I must appreciate all kindsa things."

"In other words, he doesn't know what the hell he's talkin' 'bout," Danny said, and the three of them laughed together, connected by something much deeper and greater than mutual wit and mere friendship.

"Soooooooo, as I was sayin', I ate what had to be one bad fish-and-cabbage taco. My tummy rumbled the whole time we were sittin' there and yeah, I had the farts."

"So you were fa- breakin' wind the whole time you sat 'tween us?"

Danny's facial expression was priceless.

Flack's comments were even more priceless.

"Wait. I don't remember smellin' anythin' stinky at the time. I woulda remembered if there was some stink. What, your farts got no stink, Aid?"

She couldn't help cackling at Flack's frown of perplexity. The guy was a total riot sometimes.

"I'm gettin' to it, a'right?" She exhaled loudly, then said, "Don was talkin' 'bout Stella's boobs. You..." she tapped Danny on the tip of his nose - "You were so enamored by said boobs and Flack's fancy talk of them that you two had no idea I was right there squirmin' in my seat with these farts poppin' outta me."

"You're bluffin'," Flack interjected. "Girls don't fart."

Aiden smirked inwardly. If she didn't know any better, she'd swear Flack was trying his best to sabotage her story. Heh, wait till he hears what she's going to say next...

"Oh, girls fart. I know I do. That day, my farts were comin' out so fast and my pants were so tight, they had nowhere to go but down my buttcrack and ripple up my vagina. You shoulda heard the sound they made every time they went up. And it tickled too, like bubbles going off in little bursts. Pop, pop, pop!"

Neither man at the table uttered a single word.

"The best one was this huuuge one that came out while Mac was talkin' 'bout the ballistics evidence. It was so huge, I could feel it spread my buttcheeks. And you know … I think that one smelled the most like mayo and fish. The rest kinda smelled like the rank coffee I had that mornin'. Either that or farts just smell worse once they're mixed with vag juices. Who knows."

Danny was covering his mouth with his right hand, his eyes enormous with what Aiden could only describe as the sort of horror that would make a grown man wail for his mommy.

Flack appeared as if his heart had seized up, leapt out of his chest and scurried away into the corner of the room and he still hadn't figured that out yet.

An entire minute of hush ticked by before Flack, staring at her with eyes so wide they seemed as big as saucers, mumbled, "Hey, Danny. How many of yer fantasies 'bout women did she just destroy?"

Aiden took that as a sign of sweet, sweet victory.

"Uh hm. I win."

There was no objection whatsoever from Flack or Danny.

"If I'd made a bet with you guys over this, I woulda won myself some biiiiiiig money." Aiden started to sway from side to side, snapping her fingers and humming under her breath. "Uh hm, oh yeah, I am the woman..."

Suddenly, she froze.

"Oops, there goes another."

She tilted her head to the side, displaying a humorous face.

"And uuuuuup it goes!"

Without a word, Danny promptly stood up and carried his chair over to where Flack sat, sitting as close as he could to Flack to the point of hiding behind the taller detective. It cracked up Aiden so bad that she deliberately raised half her bottom off her seat, pursed her lips and said in a shrill voice, "Poooooooot!"

When Mac entered the break room minutes later, he skidded to a halt two steps in. Flack was literally bouncing up and down on his chair laughing his ass off, Danny was cowering behind the homicide detective, muttering, "Gimme brain bleach, please, brain bleach, anybody," and Aiden looked incredibly satisfied with herself. One of Mac's eyebrows arched up in wary curiosity.

"Do I want to know what's going on?" he asked, a slight smile of amusement on his lips.

Flack's laughter subsided long enough for the man to say, "I dunno, Mac, I think you'll be wishin' ya never asked that."

And indeed, after all was explained and done, Mac wished he never, ever heard Aiden's story either.

Fin.