Title: The First Time
Author: Kimmychu
Fandom: CSI: NY
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Danny/Flack, hints of Danny/Lindsay, Flack/Canon female character
Content Warning: Angst!
Spoilers: Major ones for 1x21 (On the Job), 2x20 (Run Silent, Run Deep), 2x24 (Charge of this Post), 3x18 (Sleight Out of Hand), 3x23 (Comes Around), 3x24 (Snow Day), Flack-centric spoiler for season four.
Summary: Life is a journey of many first times, and for Danny Messer, they will eventually lead him to the one person with whom he's always been predestined.
Disclaimer: Yes. They're mine. I keep them in my attic and feed them seaweed and cream crackers. They're just fine, thanks for asking.
Author's Notes: Think of this as what canon might be like from the viewpoint of a DannyFlack shipper. And yes, I did write it in response to how the show has been since season two, as well as what the spoilers have been like for the upcoming season four so far.
Edited to add: Much thanks to Cat for the correction about the IRA issue!

***

The first time Danny met Detective Don Flack, Jr., it had taken place in the locker room of the CSI laboratories almost six years ago. He'd accidentally spilled some tea onto his dress shirt and had to change it, along with the white tank top underneath, for a black, short-sleeved top he stored in his locker in case something like this happened.

It was so dumb how clumsy he was that morning. He stubbed his toe on his bedside table after waking up and scrambling out of bed. He broke a plate during a breakfast that was two pieces of toast and hot chocolate. He tripped on some fallen red-and-yellow leaves scattered all over the pavement on his way to the train station. And then, while he was in the break room getting to know his new co-workers, he just had to go and tip over his hot cup of tea and give Stella, Hawkes and Aiden a fleeting display of his Riverdance skills.

He was so caught up in his own embarrassment and stripping off his jacket and shirt that he didn't hear the door of the locker room open, or the heavy footsteps that approached him.

"Hey, are you Messer?"

Danny was naked from the waist up, but he had no qualms about turning around to face the owner of the baritone voice. No woman had a voice that low.

"Yeah, I … am."

Maybe it was just the chilliness of the room that was making goosebumps pop up all over his bare torso and arms. Maybe it was just the dampness from the tea that had soaked through his clothes.

Or maybe, it was the force of the gaze the other man was casting upon him from such large, blue eyes.

"I'm Flack. From Homicide."

Flack was holding out his right hand.

Danny swiftly eyeballed the taller detective from head to toe and back up. Flack was over six feet tall, at least; Danny had to tilt his head back a bit just to look the guy in the eye. Flack wore a black leather jacket of evident quality, along with a white dress shirt, a striped tie and black tailored pants. The unusual leather jacket and tie combo caught Danny's attention in the beginning, but it was Flack's handsome face that arrested him to the spot, and oh, it was a very handsome face.

Flack's facial features were framed by trimmed sideburns and dark, copious hair. A wavy strand or two dangled over the man's forehead past thick eyebrows, directing Danny's sight to a straight, patrician nose and dark pink lips that were neither too thin nor too thick. They were just right. Unlike him with his goatee and light moustache, Flack was clean-shaven.

Two whole seconds passed before Danny realized he was staring straight into Flack's big eyes, in a way he never would with somebody he'd only met moments ago.

Another second, before Danny realized that Flack was staring just as hard into his eyes.

Like he was all that existed in the universe.

It was very odd how he was suddenly feeling light-headed and hot and cold at the same time.

"Hey, good to meet ya," Danny said in a rush, clasping Flack's extended hand with his own. "Gonna be workin' together on the Dillinger case, right?"

"Yeah."

Wow, Danny thought to himself, this guy's got one strong grip.

For some reason, discovering this helped him to relax taut shoulders he didn't even know were tense to start with. Didn't somebody once say that a person who held your hand tight while shaking hands was more often than not someone trustworthy?

"Taylor told me this is your first case," Flack added.

There was something about the way Flack's eyes became so unexpectedly warm and deep that did something unexplainable to the left side of his chest.

"Yeah, I just joined the team, actually," Danny replied, lips curving up in a small smile. "Second day on the job."

The grin that spread across Flack's visage was breath-taking.

"Heh, guess that makes two of us."

Danny blinked, then asked, "This is your first case too?"

"My first case as a homicide detective, yeah. It's also the first time I'm workin' with … CSIs, right?"

"Yeah. Crime scene investigators."

"Huh," Flack murmured.

Danny blinked again. Wait a minute.

Flack was still holding his hand.

So why wasn't he feeling the slightest bit awkward about it?

"Interestin'. Ya sure don't look like a CSI."

Danny couldn't help chuckling at that. No, he certainly didn't appear like the average CSI, not with his peroxide blond tints and spiky hair and, well … his muscular body. Being smart didn't mean he couldn't take care of his physical health too. Nothing wrong with maintaining both intelligence and fitness.

"Ya know, I've had quite a few people tell me that," Danny said with a smirk that wavered after he made eye contact with Flack again.

Whoa. Flack brought the staring game to a whole new level.

Did the guy have any idea how intense his eyes were?

And more importantly, why the hell wasn't he feeling uncomfortable at all about this either?

Danny was perturbed enough by the answer to the question that he blurted out, "You don't look like a homicide detective."

Flack's grin returned with full power. It was amazing how it brightened up the man's handsome mien like the sun.

"Ya know, I've had quite a few people tell me that."

Danny laughed once more. Hm, he had the hunch this Flack from the NYPD's Homicide department was somebody he was going to get along with very well.

Flack released his hand at last.

Danny didn't want to think about why he felt disappointment at the loss of that contact.

"Call me Danny. All my friends do."

Against all the odds, Flack's stare managed to strengthen tenfold.

"Danny."

It was a damn good thing Danny was only naked from the waist up, and that he was holding his jacket and stained dress shirt in front of himself with his left hand.

Nobody had uttered his name like that. Ever.

Danny couldn't do anything much except stand there and gape at the other man with wide eyes.

It was freaking crazy. It was just crazy to think Flack had said his name as if it was the finest wine in the world. He was just imagining things, yeah, that had to be it. Either that, or somebody laced his tea with some unbelievable drug.

"Call me Don."

Flack's voice dragged him back to reality.

"S'that what all yer friends call ya?" Danny murmured, one eyebrow raised in curiosity.

All Flack offered in reply was an enigmatic smile that floated around in Danny's cogitations until late into the evening. His shift was over and he was in the locker room again to pick up his tea-stained shirts and bring them back to his apartment for washing. Coincidentally, Stella showed up to get some personal items from her own locker before heading home herself.

After greeting each other, they conversed for a few minutes. Stella was a gracious and jovial woman who seemed to be on good terms with everyone at the labs, so it was no surprise she would already have chatted with Flack even though it was only Flack's first day working with them CSIs and all that.

"Oh, I've known Flack for a while," Stella clarified as she took out what looked like a stainless steel box with a padlock from the upper compartment of her locker. "An all-around good guy, takes his work seriously and gives it his best." She sent Danny a broad smile. "Handsome too, that's for sure."

Danny's brows lowered in a contemplative frown.

"Detective Flack … wait, isn't his dad … ya know -"

"The legend?" Stella said. "Yeah, his dad's the same cop who single-handedly brought down one of the biggest drug cartels in the city fifteen years ago."

Danny let out a whistle. Geez, not only was Flack attractive, diligent and reliable, he was the son of a police superstar too.

The first thought that followed that was: Well, Flack's Mr. Perfect all bundled up into one neat package, isn't he?

The second thought that immediately darted on the heels of the first one was: There's no way in hell Flack's single.

And the third, the one that rocketed out of the blue and made Danny jump, was: What kinda chance do I have with a guy like Flack?

Danny's eyes widened and he was suddenly conscious of Stella watching him with her green eyes, red lips arched up in a soft smile. Like a godmother would a child under her guardianship.

"So, uh, does he have a habit of … starin' at people?"

Both of Stella's eyebrows shot up in amusement at his hesitant query.

"Staring? No, not that I know of. I know he doesn't stare at me." Her pearly teeth showed through her grin. "Why do you ask?"

Danny shrugged, attempting to behave nonchalant. Oh, great, so that meant Flack didn't stare at everyone the same way.

So what did that mean?

"Nah, just a random question, that's all."

He fidgeted with the strap of his bag, then asked, "Has he ever told ya to call him Don?"

Stella gazed at him in silence for a moment.

"As far as I know, he's pretty touchy about people calling him by his first name. He did say at one time he wasn't fond of people he didn't know calling him anything other than Flack. Even his friends call him Flack … and no, he's never told me to do that."

Danny was grateful that Stella didn't ask him why he'd want to know something like that or pursue the issue any further. He wasn't sure if his response of it being another random question was going to cut it a second time.

It took hours for the enormity of what Stella disclosed to hit him in its entirety. He was sprawled on his bed under the covers when his eyes snapped wide open, and he stared at the ceiling of the bedroom, feeling like he was simultaneously hovering in the air and being swallowed by his mattress.

If Flack was a woman, he'd have no doubts whatsoever what their first meeting today would eventually lead to.

But Flack wasn't.

And yet …

Danny scrunched his eyes shut, rolled over on his belly and tried very hard to not think about the throbbing between his legs.

( )

The first time Danny discovered what a good friend he had in Flack was the night he'd been ripped apart by Mac's callous words in the older CSI's office. It was bad enough that he felt sick to the stomach at the mere thought of knowing he'd played a role in getting an undercover cop killed. He really, really didn't need to know that people were talking crap about him behind his back and telling his boss he was a lowlife who couldn't be trusted and wasn't worthy of being hired by the great Mac Taylor.

He didn't remember much of the hours spent drinking his ass off at Sullivan's. What he remembered most was slinking out of Mac's office, head down, staring at the floor the whole time he shuffled towards the main entrance of the labs. Sensing distant albeit morbidly curious eyes following him as he did.

Look, it's the cop killer! He killed one of his own!

How can anyone trust a guy like him?

Cop murderer!

Tanglewood Boy wannabe!

"I'm not a fuckin' wannabe," Danny slurred under his alcohol-tinged breath. "Fuck ya, the whole lotta yuh."

Shit, the hallway leading up to his apartment was spinning like some psychedelic, insane merry-go-round. He wanted to vomit big time. How was he even walking?

"C'mon, Danny, just stick with me a few more minutes."

Somebody had an arm around his midriff, propping him up and stopping him from sliding down to the floor in an inebriated heap. His own arm was wrapped around broad, sturdy shoulders that were a little higher than his and he could feel the muscles in his right arm and flank stretch in a way that was worsening his nausea.

Or perhaps it was the awful stench of smoke and alcohol and God knows what else on his clothes that was doing that.

And how the hell did Flack know he was going to drink himself stupid tonight at Sullivan's anyway? Was the guy following him around or what?

He wasn't some helpless baby -

Danny nearly giggled at the sensation of Flack rummaging around in the pockets of his pants for his apartment key. It tickled. Felt nice.

It'd feel real nice if Flack just moved his hand a little more to the left -

There was a loud click. A short creak as the door opened.

"Danny, c'mon, don't bail on me now."

The sternness in Flack's resonant voice sliced through his lethargy and queasiness, and he made the effort to put one foot in front of the other although it increased his urge to upchuck the contents of his stomach a hundred times more.

Don't get mad at me, Don, please?

He had no clue whether he said that aloud.

"Lie down … that's it. Don't get up."

He found himself on the edge of his bed, curled on his side with his arm hanging down and his fingers grazing the floor. Then, Flack was maneuvering his limbs, positioning him onto his back with his legs straightened out, removing his shoes and socks while the guy was at it.

Something very bright was shining next to his head, and Danny peeled open eyes he didn't realize he'd shut to look at what it was.

It was a huge mistake.

The dazzling, orange light from his bedside lamp hurled him over the edge he had been teetering on since he guzzled down that twelfth shot of whisky.

"M'gonna throw up," he mumbled in a hoarse voice.

Danny heard Flack's hurried treads becoming softer as the other man left the bedroom, then grow louder again upon returning a few seconds later. He had to clamp one hand over his mouth when Flack hoisted him up to a sitting position.

Oh shit, it was coming up his throat, too late -

Thank God Flack was holding a pail or something in front of his face. The torrent of bile and unabsorbed alcohol that spewed out from his gaping mouth was disgusting. The reek triggered him into retching a few more times.

Ah, fuck, his sides were hurting.

Flack was patting his upper back. It made him feel somewhat better, and Danny had no logical explanation for that.

Flack always made him feel better.

"I gotta tell ya, Danny, I'm impressed you didn't already throw up after the five beers and seven whisky shots."

Flack was gently wiping at his lower face with a cloth.

"How ya know I drank all that?" Danny rasped. Ugh, there was a horrible taste in his mouth now. Alcohol sure didn't taste as nice going up as it did going down.

"Frankie was keepin' an eye on yer orders."

There was a thunk as Flack put away the pail on the floor out of sight, and Danny immediately took a deep breath of clear air. His tummy was still rumbling. His eyes were sore and tear-filled. His head felt like it was ten times bigger and heavier.

That's it, he was not gonna drink like that again for a long, long time.

"Lift up your arms."

It took Danny some time to figure out Flack was taking off his jacket. He wanted to tell Flack to strip off his dress shirt and tank top too, because he always slept naked, but his lips wouldn't move properly.

Somehow, Flack just knew.

Danny was only in his boxers by the time Flack was tugging the blankets up to his shoulders. He was exhausted to the marrow of his bones. He could barely keep his eyes open, and that was a bad thing. He was seeing the bloody corpse of Detective Minhaus in front of him again. Minhaus' grayed-out eyes were open. The dead man's lips were contorting.

You shot wild, Danny.

"I shot wild," Danny whispered, more to himself than Flack.

His vision abruptly turned blurry and moist and searing. His mask was gone, torn up and useless and there he was, lying on his bed with nothing except a blanket separating him from Flack who sat on the side of the bed at his hip. He had nothing to hide behind anymore, and he was utterly exposed and he was finally going to lose it and cry like he'd been fighting not to the whole fucking day.

So why was it that he didn't feel ashamed at all Flack was seeing him this way?

"S'not your fault, Danny. It was a bad situation."

A large hand was stroking his mussed hair and the side of his face. It was very soothing. He hadn't been touched like that in a very long time.

In all honesty, he couldn't recall anyone ever touching him like that.

"I've got your back … I've got ya, buddy."

Those few murmured words drove away any nightmares he might have had.

Even if he'd experienced any, they paled in comparison to the dreadful migraine that attacked him the instant he soared to awareness and opened his grimy eyes to slits. He groaned, rolling onto his side away from the bedroom windows. His curtains were doing zilch to block out the radiant morning sunlight.

"Damn," he croaked.

His head felt like it was this close to splitting into a bazillion fragments. His throat was raw. His mouth tasted like something wet and furry died in it and invited its family to die in there as well. He must have been drinking like a horse last night to feel this crappy. He hoped he didn't do or say anything ludicrous either. He already had enough shit drowning whatever was left of his rep to last a lifetime.

Over a half hour ticked by.

Then he made another endeavor to open his eyes.

Seeing the two white aspirin pills and bottle of plain water on his bedside table prompted him to blink numerous times.

Huh, that's funny. He didn't remember leaving those there. As a matter of fact, he couldn't even remember what the hell happened after the first couple of beers at Sullivan's, so who -

I've got ya, buddy.

The memory of Flack's hushed pledge woke him up quicker than twenty cups of caffeinated coffee. He jolted up. Winced at the pain that zigzagged through his skull.

Flack.

No, oh no, was it Flack who dragged him home? He went alone to Sullivan's last night, and he'd made extremely sure to not call Flack for the very reason that he knew he was going to be a total drunken ass.

So who called Flack up in the first place?

How the heck did the guy know he was going to drink himself to the ground?

More than anything else, why did Flack bother going through the hassle of hauling his ass from the pub all the way back to his apartment and undressing him and tucking him into bed?

The homicide detective had no obligation to do that. Flack wasn't responsible for him.

Flack didn't deserve to be burdened by his dilemmas.

Damnit, that was exactly why he didn't want Flack to be there at Sullivan's last night.

Danny stopped thinking and popped the aspirin into his mouth. The water in the plastic bottle was refreshing and cool and washed away some of the ickiness in his mouth.

He spent twenty more minutes bundled up in the bed covers, nuzzling his face in the pillow, wracking his aching head in the hopes of recollecting everything that happened last night. There was a flash of him sitting at the bar, smacking his hand on the counter and demanding an entire bottle of Johnnie Walker Gold from a flabbergasted Frankie. There was another flash of him, reeling on the stool he sat on and rambling about two-faced assholes in suits and tossing his gun away while he gulped down his sixth shot of whisky.

Then there was the flash of Flack's sturdy arms around his torso, bearing him up when he was far gone and nobody else had his back. Flack's voice, telling him it's time to go home. Flack's scent, so understated and yet so tangy and uniquely Flack. Flack's big blue eyes, gleaming with a light that Danny dared not name.

Ashamed was the understatement of the century to describe how Danny was feeling right now. What a fool he must have been last night. Flack had witnessed the worst of it.

Danny covered his face with his hands.

Oh God, he threw up right in front of Flack. And Flack had been holding the damn pail.

How was he ever going to look his friend in the eye again?

In due course, Danny struggled upright, sliding his legs off the bed and planting his feet onto the cold floor. A shiver traveled down his spine. Ah, geez, he forgot to buy a new pair of bedroom slippers. Now he had to walk around the apartment the whole day with frozen feet. Hopefully the heating was going to behave and not give out on him like it did last year.

He was about to drape the blanket around his body when his gaze fell on the dark blue robe laid at the foot of the bed.

What the … how did Flack -

Danny reached out and pulled the robe onto his lap, unfurling it with one flap. Yep, it was his favorite robe he kept in the cupboard. It mystified him that Flack knew precisely which one he preferred, considering the fact he had three different robes. Sure, Flack had stayed over at his place loads of times but Flack never came into his bedroom, much less know which robe he liked to wear when he was alone and chilling out.

There was a tiny smile on his face as he ambled from the bedroom to the bathroom to brush his teeth and splash his face with water. It stayed on even as he continued onwards to the kitchen to check what he had left in the refridgerator for breakfast. It was a smile he wasn't quite aware was there, and it grew wider in both surprise and appreciation at the sight of his newly restocked fridge. There was fresh milk. A full loaf of bread. A tray of eggs. A pack of sausages and salami. There was even a bottle of orange juice. His favorite brand, too.

His fridge was nearly empty yesterday morning.

This could only mean one thing.

"Don, you nut," Danny said with exuberance that was atypical for a man who was supposed to be suffering from one nasty hangover.

He poured himself a cup of orange juice, cooked up two pieces of toast and fried eggs, and noted that it was a little over half past nine. On any other weekday, he'd be at the laboratories by now or on the streets interviewing a suspect or two. Today, however, he had the day off. He had no wish to remember why. Mac's angry face wasn't very conducive to his recovery.

Sitting at the dining table, he suddenly spotted a small, rectangular paper partially wedged under the base of the flower vase that was set in the center of the table.

"What's this?"

Danny chewed on some egg yolk, picking up the piece of paper and reading out loud what was written on it.

"'You're welcome.'"

The two words, written in Flack's elegant and rounded handwriting, did wonders for what remained of his headache and lassitude.

"You nut," Danny said for the second time that morning, still oblivious to the affectionate smile that crinkled his features.

Vivid rays of light were cascading into his apartment via the windows. It was a gorgeous, cloudless morning, and feeling miles better, Danny spent it shopping for new bedroom slippers and a thank you present for Flack that consisted of some untraumatizing ties. And in the afternoon, while he lounged in the living room thinking about a certain homicide detective, Danny had to continuously convince himself the warmth suffusing his whole being was just the sunshine.

Just the sunshine, that's all.

( )

The first time Danny realized Flack was in love with him, it'd been the night his brother Louie was almost beaten to death by Sonny Sassone and the other Tanglewood Boys. It was an atrocious night. The kind of night a person would deem the worst night of their lives whenever they looked back on it, or the kind of night they wouldn't wish to ever summon up in their mind.

Fifteen years was a long time to tell his only brother he loved him. Fifteen years was an even longer time to realize that one and a half decades wasted on pointless estrangement were gone forever, that he'd never get them back or relive them, no matter how much he paid or what he did.

It was his fault he and his brother were on such complicated terms, because he pushed Louie away every time Louie wanted to patch things up between them.

It was his fault Louie was lying on the hospital bed with those bruises and cuts and those plastic tubes sprouting out of him. Looking like death had already paid him a visit and taken him away on a ride to the afterlife.

It was his fault, and he made certain Flack knew it.

"Danny, listen to me."

Flack was speaking into his disheveled hair. Flack's arm around his shoulders kept him grounded to the real world. Flack's warm hand cupping his cheek stopped him from falling apart at the seams.

"It's not your fault, ya hear me? It's not your fault."

Danny didn't say a thing. Guessed Flack was as stubborn as he was.

And the guy was a lousy liar.

"They beat him up real bad, Don," Danny heard somebody whisper in a broken voice. "They beat him up real bad."

The six words seemed to do something terrible to his face and chest. Bands of steel were crushing his lungs, and there was hot wetness burning trails down his cheeks. His fingers scraped at the folds of his shirt and jacket, at his collar, at his neck, and he was overwhelmed by the rapid and sinister compulsion to scratch and shred his flesh.

He could feel it beneath his skin. He couldn't endure it anymore. He had to get the pain out, get it out, getitoutgetitoutGETITOUT -

Large, powerful hands clutched his flailing wrists. He thrashed weakly against a broad chest and unyielding arms, trying his damnest to shove himself away, to be alone where people wouldn't feed him any more lies and tell him he's innocent and it's not his fault.

It's his fault. It's always his fault.

"Stop it, Danny. Please."

Flack sounded as if he was choking up and unable to breathe properly. Danny could relate to that very well right now.

Part of Danny yearned to fight back more than ever, to claw at Flack's flawless face, to dig his way into Flack's body and hole up inside his friend, the best friend he ever had. Another part, the much greater part, could merely whisper over and over in a small child's voice how sorry he was. Sorry he was such a failure, sorry he was so self-righteous in his ignorance. Sorry for everything.

I'm so sorry, Louie.

As he lay twisted on his side on the couch in Flack's embrace, he listened to the voices in his head and had to agree with the one that spoke the mildest. It was right; saying sorry will never be enough for his atonement.

Flack was running long fingers through his hair now. It was a calming sensation. It reminded him of happier, simpler days when he was just a kid and his brother was his hero and Louie would ruffle his hair every time he did something good. Something that made Louie proud of him.

Louie smiled and laughed a lot more then. So did he.

He stared at the grayish-white smoothness of his living room ceiling with glazed, bloodshot eyes, wondering how long it'll be before Flack got tired of holding him like this and get up and leave him on his own in his apartment. Nobody ever cared for him like this, not without a catch, without a disgusting, fat price tag that he could never afford.

Except Flack.

Only Flack.

Knowing this, really knowing this for the first time, floored him. It weakened him and strengthened him all at once. The cage around his chest loosened, and slowly but surely, the iceberg that had been ravaging his insides began to melt. The heat of Flack's being always did have its way of thawing all the walls he built around himself, no matter how frozen and solid and monumental they seemed.

Somebody was talking now, in a gravelly, faint voice about a boy from Brooklyn who had a big brother he loved very much. The little boy who had to wear glasses grew up to be a very smart young man who not only wanted his brother's love, but his brother's respect as well. The problem was, the little boy who became a smart young man was still far from being a wise, experienced person who would understand the sorrow of bad choices and the destructive nature of pride. In his pursuit of his brother's admiration, what he received in return instead was his brother's scorn and his own shame, and fifteen years of discomfited conversations, cold shoulders and unspoken apologies.

Danny thought it was such a coincidence the person's story was exactly like his.

What a coincidence too, that the croaky voice sounded exactly like his.

"You embarrass me in front of my boys? Gedoutta here, you're a DISGRACE!"

Danny shook his head, or at least he tried to, seeing as it was tucked under Flack's chin and the right side of his damp face was pressed against Flack's neck.

I never meant to do that, Louie. I'm so sorry.

"What happened in Rutherford stadium that night … you didn't know what was gonna happen, Danny," Flack was rasping. "Yer brother knew. He knew what was goin' down was gonna be bad. He was protectin' you, do you understand?"

Danny's lips didn't move, nor did any sound emit from between them. Flack was telling him sugar-coated falsehoods again. The man was only doing it to make him feel better, he knew that.

"If you'd been there and you saw Sassone kill that guy … God knows where you'd be today. You woulda been a witness to a murder, or worse. Who knows what the hell Sassone woulda done to you if your brother hadn't kept ya outta the gang."

He quietly considered what Flack's reaction would be to him replying that, perhaps, he was better off dead like the poor bastard the Tanglewood Boys kidnapped and shot and buried in the stadium. Executed just for the sake of showing off. Maybe his mommy wouldn't be crying her eyes out right now, and maybe his Pop wouldn't be unhappy and pissed off with him because it's his fault Louie was in a deep coma now and the Messer firstborn son was never going to wake up.

Maybe if he closed his eyes and pretended he was dead, it might become a reality too.

All of a sudden, he was struck by the need to ask Flack the one question to which he'd been dying to know the answer.

"Why do you put up with me?"

He anticipated some sort of cynical comeback. Flack was notorious for his sharp tongue, after all.

What he didn't expect was an inscrutable enigma murmured with such tenderness.

"If I had to tell you, Dan … then I can't tell you."

Upon hearing those words, Danny was devastated within all over again.

Flack didn't have to tell him. Not anymore.

His friend's arms around him and the compassion in that vast, noble heart and the tears in that low voice declared everything.

Danny's eyelids fluttered shut over stinging eyes.

He kept as motionless as possible, not letting a single finger twitch, leaving his face nestled in the crook between Flack's neck and shoulder. He was so weary. He wanted to fall asleep and wake up in the morning and hear Flack tell him everything that occurred today was just a nightmare. Just a silly dream, nothing more.

His head slid back to rest on Flack's shoulder.

His breaths slowed and deepened.

A millennia passed.

Then, he sensed Flack's blue eyes on his visage.

"I wish I could tell you, I do," Flack whispered.

Danny felt the other man's fingertips trace four parallel lines down his left cheek.

"It's just - I just don't know what to say or do, not without … without knowin' you won't hate me. You're not ready for it yet."

Flack's feathery touch scorched him to the core.

"But I can wait … I always have."

And Flack branded him on the forehead with a single kiss that halted the earth on its axis.

It took everything Danny had inside himself to not react to it. He'd spent his whole life avoiding what Flack was offering. Over a year ago, during that case where that bride had dropped dead in a church from formaldehyde poisoning, he had been more than happy to let Mac know how foolish it was for a guy like him to believe in that emotion that supposedly conquered all things.

To encounter it?

That was unthinkable. Unbelievable. Too good to be true.

Too good for somebody like him.

He didn't deserve it.

He didn't deserve Flack's love.

Danny wasn't certain when Flack carried him from the living room to his bedroom. He must have actually dozed off at some point. By the time he was somewhat cognizant of his surroundings again, he was tucked into bed with the blanket up to his chin. Flack had one hand resting on the middle of his chest. Palm down, fingers spread.

Flack's hand became the center of his universe. It was all that was important to Danny there and then, this tenuous connection to the other man he was being gifted through a mere touch.

It was a marvel how safe he felt.

It was even more of a marvel how right it felt.

Danny nearly opened his eyes after Flack took away his hand from his chest, severing their bond, separating them. He began to squirm under the bedcovers, his eyes still shut. No, he didn't want Flack to leave, he needed Flack to stay, to keep the shrieking wolves of his past at bay, before they caught up with him and -

Flack's hand was upon his cheek.

"I'm here."

Astounding, how two simple words brought him peace and dreamless slumber that lasted long into the morning.

As soon as Danny opened his eyes and gazed at the sunlight darting in shape-shifting shards across the ceiling of his bedroom, he forgot who he was for a while. He was half-expecting his mother to call out his name any time now. Time to get out of bed and eat breakfast and get ready to go to school. He couldn't be late like the last time or his English teacher, Mrs. Hutchinson, was going to send him to detention for sure.

It was Louie's fault each time he arrived late at school. His brother always had to pick a fight with Pop about everything.

Louie.

Danny squeezed his eyes close, but the sunlight continued to dance behind his eyelids, taunting him with its far-away luminosity in his maroon darkness. The anguish that stabbed him in the chest was soul-rending.

He would give anything to be a child once more, if it meant Louie never joined the Tanglewood Boys and he never lost his brother to violence.

The muffled noise of footsteps somewhere beyond his bedroom completely awakened him.

There was somebody else in his apartment.

It had to be … Flack.

Danny jumped out of bed and rushed into the living area. His heart was thundering way too much for its own sake this early in the day. The floor under his soles felt cold even through his socks. The collar of his jacket was biting into the side of his neck. His eyes were gritty and he was quite sure his hair's a freaking mess. It took him a full two minutes to work out that he was still dressed in his clothes from last night, and Flack was also in the same clothes he wore yesterday.

He stared wide-eyed at the taller man who stood near the dark brown sofa and was smoothing out whatever crinkles there were in his gray-colored jacket with both hands. There was absolutely nothing else about Flack's appearance that betrayed the impression the guy had stayed overnight, much less crashed on the couch.

It was mind-boggling, the way Flack constantly looked his most pristine regardless of where he was or what he was doing.

"Hey," Flack greeted him softly.

A kind glimmering in his friend's eyes warmed him up in a manner the sun itself never could.

"Hey," Danny replied. He battled the impulse to straighten out his clothes or run fingers through his hair.

Flack was standing in front of him now.

"You goin' in to work today?"

Danny's eyes honed on those dark pink lips that were so near.

He could still feel them brushing his forehead.

"No … no, Mac gave me some time off," Danny mumbled, forcing himself to lift his head and look Flack in the eye. "Gonna go back to the hospital."

"Okay."

Flack was staring at him again, like he was all that counted in the world.

Danny didn't flinch or rear back in any way. He mirrored the concentrated gaze, hoping that Flack was going to unearth whatever he was seeking within him.

"I'll see you there later?"

Danny was incapable of rationalizing the utter relief that flooded him at hearing Flack's tacit request.

Can I be there, for you?

"Yes."

Danny bit his lower lip in order to not attach always at the end of that solitary word.

He watched Flack blink, then send him a small, almost tentative smile.

"Okay."

Danny's sight descended with a definite inevitability to Flack's lips once more.

Flack kissed him. And he knew it.

Should he say something about it? Let Flack know that he … that he had heard and felt the secret of his friend's heart?

Was Flack right, beyond doubt, that he wasn't ready for it yet?

Danny opened his mouth in the beginnings of an answer to so many things.

"Don, I …"

"It's okay. It's gonna be alright."

Flack had a hand on his left shoulder, squeezing it in encouragement.

Danny felt it all the way to his heart.

"It's gonna be alright, Danny."

Hearing it from Flack, he could believe it. For a while.

He nodded in reply. With a man like Flack, there were times when no words were necessary. Flack was an astute man who had the capacity to read a thousand words in a single motion.

Danny sensed Flack's hand on his shoulder and Flack's lips on his forehead even as he sat by his brother's bedside late in the afternoon, accompanied by the hissing and sighing of the ventilator pumping air into Louie's lungs and the beeping of the monitors checking the unconscious man's vital signs. He gripped Louie's bruised hand in his, careful to not press on the contusions but also afraid of letting go, afraid that Louie will depart and never come back if he let go.

Louie's hands were much bigger in the past. They were big and calloused and steadfast. They shielded him, and then, they shoved him away.

"He was protectin' you, do you understand?"

Danny's hand tightened, and he shut his eyes, thinking of another hand that had laid upon his chest, protecting him from his own damnation.

( )

The first time Danny realized he was in love with Flack, he was on his knees in his friend's blood, staring into the infinity of the crimson carnage that was Flack's mangled abdomen. There was a rolled up ball of cloth in its center, soaking up more and more of Flack's life. There was a shoe lace knotted around an artery, an alien white thing that was possibly all that averted Flack from death.

It was the shoelace that granted Danny the means to go on. It stuck in his mind, the foreignness of its presence in Flack's torso so enormous that its image ate at him. It consumed his thoughts, distracting him enough to wash away Flack's blood on his hands and arms and knees without exploding like the bomb that hurt Flack. To stare at the shattered pieces of a cell phone once embedded in Flack's skin and flesh under a microscope. To travel to the hospital and stare at another loved one who almost died in some unfathomable brutal event.

Was this a punishment for something he committed in a past life?

Was it his punishment to see his comatose brother everyday, to tell Louie again and again that he loved him, only for it to fall on deaf ears? For it to be too late?

Was it his fair reward that one of his closest friends perished in a flaming wreck of a car, her last seconds of life expended to grapple with a cold-blooded rapist freed twice?

If so, was it the ultimate retribution of Fate then, that he would comprehend just how much he loved Flack at the same moment he understood just how easy it was to lose Flack?

Eternal loss, in the blink of an eye. In a flash, and the love that he's craved his entire life, that would complete him, would be no more.

Truly, the knowledge of all this was the utmost cruelty to Danny.

And apparently, it showed clear as Flack's insides had on his haggard mien.

"Are you okay?"

Lindsay's brow was furrowed.

Danny was clueless as to what to say.

They were standing in front of Lindsay's apartment door, side by side with the distance of a planet between them. The door was an olive green color. It was immensely different from scarlet red, for which Danny was grateful.

He would have screamed his own guts out if he had to come into contact with anything the color of Flack's blood one more time.

"Danny -"

"I - I gotta go. Back to the hospital," Danny said in a hurry.

His brain was telling him he'd just driven from the hospital twenty minutes ago and had the best excuse right there standing next to him, the easiest excuse to get the hell out of Flack's hospital room before he cracked like a twig. His brain was also telling him that Flack was okay now, Flack was being cared for by a professional medical staff now and Mac was there as well.

His heart, though, simply whispered a word.

Go.

"But, Mac and Stella are there …"

Lindsay suddenly trailed off into silence. She was looking at his face with wide eyes.

Frightened eyes.

Danny discovered his face had become set like stone, in an expression he'd probably be taken aback at himself, should he see it in a mirror.

"I gotta go back to the hospital," Danny said again. The statement fired off his tongue with the pointedness of a spear.

"Okay, sure." Lindsay was no longer gazing at his visage. "Thanks for the ride."

The cheerless droop to her lips caused him to feel something akin to guilt. With some effort, he relaxed his stance and countenance, pasting on a blank slate of a face. It wasn't reasonable of him to take out his frustration on her. And she did have a point about Mac being there with Flack.

It made no difference. He was going back, one way or another.

"No problem," he replied in a placid voice. It belied the anxiety within him.

"I'll see you tomorrow then."

He nodded at her, the final soundless remark of their brief conversation.

Lindsay was looking at him again, with an intent that hadn't been present before. Danny blinked, and saw, for the first time, the gleam of interest in her eyes. It was similar to what he always saw in Flack's blue eyes, but there was something … missing. No, similar wasn't the right description for it. It was more like a parody of what he saw in Flack's eyes. Something that seemed like the real thing, except it wasn't.

However, Danny noted it down in his head, and ruminated about it with a slight scowl as he drove aimlessly around the city that never slept. Every time he verged on the corner that would lead him to the hospital, his hands would take on a life of their own, rotating the steering wheel and guiding him somewhere else. His heart ached to go. His brain had other ideas.

Hours passed in wordless frustration and perturbed deliberations before he was striding down the hospital hallway to Flack's room for the third time in the gloomy, early hours of morning.

Mac was slumped in the chair next to Flack's bed, fast asleep. Even in slumber, slouched as the man was, Mac had a dominant air about him. Mac was a dangerous man, awake or sleeping.

Danny touched the older CSI on the shoulder.

"Mac?"

In an instant, Mac was sitting upright, hazel eyes open and alert.

"Danny," Mac said with mild surprise.

"Hey, Mac." Danny took a step backwards to give Mac some space. His left thigh was touching the side of Flack's bed now.

Mac appeared almost endearing as the guy rubbed at his eyes.

"What time is it?"

Danny glanced at his watch.

"About … five minutes past three."

Mac made a low sound, a cross between a long sigh and a hum. Danny could tell that Mac was worn out. The other man's eye bags were more noticeable than ever, darker, heavier. It looked as if there were more lines around Mac's mouth, or maybe it was just the stark, white illumination of the hospital lights that was accentuating all of Mac's facial contours.

"He's been sedated," Mac said, slowly getting to his feet. "The doctors want him to get as much rest as possible. I think he's really sleeping now, but he could hear me when I spoke to him earlier on."

Mac's lips curved up in a tiny, pleased smile.

"He squeezed my hand."

Danny echoed the smile, feeling a colossal weight vanish from his shoulders.

The doctors were telling the truth. Flack was going to be alright.

"S'okay, Mac, I can stay here with Flack," Danny murmured a couple of minutes later, gazing at the unconscious homicide detective swathed in blankets on the bed.

Flack looked like he was just snoozing off a long day. If it wasn't for the dark circles around Flack's closed eyes, the nasal cannula snaking under Flack's nose and around the ears as well as the rectangular bandage on the left cheek, Danny would swear Flack was fine and dandy.

Thank God for hospital gowns and bandages and advanced restorative surgery.

Mac's eyes were boring holes into the side of his face.

"Are you sure? You don't have to -"

"It's okay, Mac," Danny asserted, displaying a reassuring smile. "Really. I'll stay. You go home and get some rest."

He knew he was right about Mac being fatigued when Mac didn't put up much of a protest to his proposition. Mac's hand had squeezed his shoulder in consolation just like Flack's did weeks ago, and he was damn glad to be alone with Flack after that. It wouldn't do at all for anyone to see the glistening of his eyes, or the way he grasped Flack's limp hand, stroking it like he stroked his brother's, fervently seeking some sign of life.

"Don."

Danny received no response apart from the monotonous bleep of the monitor above Flack's bed on the wall and Flack's unhurried, steady breaths.

Flack's eyes remained shut, oblivious to the storm that raged inside Danny's chest.

"Don … it's me," Danny whispered.

The noises outside the room faded into nothingness.

Danny swallowed visibly, once.

The world held its breath for five long seconds.

Then, one by one, Flack's fingers curled inwards, enclosing themselves around Danny's hand.

And the world exhaled in unison with Danny in relief and inaudible joy.

Flack heard him.

Flack was alive.

Danny couldn't stop himself from smiling, nor could he halt the rush of elation that would, unfortunately, endure for only a few hours.

In his memory, Flack was standing before him, gazing at him with those big, blue eyes, declaring with a look what words couldn't say. This time, rather than merely squeezing his shoulder, Flack crossed the distance between them and planted a tender kiss on his forehead.

And the instant he reached out to hold Flack in his arms and tell his friend that he's ready, he's ready … Flack wasn't there.

Flack was stretched out in a pool of blood, and his soul was nowhere to be found.

At dawn, as Flack roused to full consciousness and asked the nurse for some water, Danny was halfway across the city, leaning against the railing that bordered the Hudson river, his heart as heavy as the sludge that bogged the waters. The sunlight reflecting off the undulating waves was stinging his narrowed eyes. There was water, water everywhere. Now, there was water in his eyes too, there because of an agonizing decision made, a coward's escape from the greatest thing he'll ever be bestowed.

Staring at nothing, feeling empty and close to bursting, Danny contemplated the senselessness of the heart, and questioned how long it would be till Flack's burning kiss was washed away by his weakness.

( )

The first time Danny knew he was losing Flack occurred to him four days after he returned to New York city from Montana.

The trip had been something very unforeseen. In the days previous to it, he hardly thought of Lindsay. Then, he got home and was standing near the front door of his apartment, gazing blankly at some letters that he hadn't opened up and read yet. If anyone from the CSI team had seen him at that moment, they would have assumed he was very troubled by something, perhaps by Lindsay's absence.

In a sense, they would have been right.

He'd heard gossip here and there at the labs that Lindsay had to fly back to Montana to attend a court trial, something to do with a tragedy in her past and a killer who was only now being charged for his crime. Never heard a thing from Lindsay herself, which was why he had done a double take at seeing Mac and Stella hugging her goodbye in Mac's office, as if she was leaving and never coming back.

It was a notion that joggled around in his brain, a notion that made him uneasy and less than impressed by her leaving him a card rather than speaking to him in person or even giving him a quick phone call, for crying out loud.

She couldn't leave. She was part of the plan, part of the game and he'd played the game this long.

He couldn't afford to back out of it now.

Not without blowing his cover and exposing the true contents of his heart.

He couldn't afford that.

Definitely not at the cost of revealing to everyone the person he was really in love with was a blue-eyed, handsome homicide detective who was in love with him too.

So, he'd gone with his instincts and taken the next flight to Montana. He was there in the courtroom as Lindsay testified and helped to put Daniel Katums, the man who murdered her friends so many years ago, behind bars. He was there as she laid her head on his shoulder, and then tried to kiss him before getting interrupted by reporters showing up out of the blue.

He was there in the flesh, but his heart never left New York.

So four days after setting foot in the Big Apple again, he was in his apartment on his bed, unable to sleep or read or watch television or do anything that would sidetrack him from his moping.

Perhaps the flight back had journeyed into an alternate reality, and this was another New York he was in, another city in another universe where Flack didn't like him much and they were nothing more than professional peers who had to work together.

Because the Flack he saw after coming back from Montana wasn't the Flack he knew at all.

It was Flack's habit to call him up almost every day, and this new Flack didn't call him once while he was away. This new Flack didn't smile much, nor looked at him the way the homicide detective often did. Oh, this new Flack joked with him now and then, half-heartedly teasing him about shaky landings and grading his one-line jokes on a scale. Acted like he was the same old Flack everybody knew, but Danny was wiser. This other Flack was somebody else wearing Flack's face. That, or the real Flack was now hiding behind a disguise he couldn't see through.

That unsettled him. Badly.

Flack never blocked him out like this. He'd always been capable of reading Flack, anytime, anywhere. Until now. It appeared Flack built his walls like he did everything else; with every ounce of his strength and dedication. Impenetrable, rock-hard walls that defied Danny's own inner barriers.

Flack was cutting him out of his life.

And that hurt like nothing he'd ever experienced.

Danny had his mobile phone in hand, and he stared at the LCD screen, at Flack's name and phone number displayed there. One press of a button, and Danny was hearing the rhythmic sound of the call being connected.

It took ten whole seconds for Flack to pick up. Ten seconds longer than the guy normally took.

Disconcerting, that Flack didn't say a word in salutation. Flack always said hello or stated his name in that cheerful manner he'd come to miss.

It was dawning on Danny he was missing a lot of things about his friend.

"Hey, Don, it's me."

This was the part where Flack would greet him like they hadn't spoken to each other in years and banter about them testifying at court today and what a smartass he'd been to that lawyer who requested him to read that report.

Tonight, all Danny got was a tense silence that caused his belly to clench.

"What are ya up to?" Danny asked in what he hoped was a casual manner.

It was very quiet on Flack's end of the line, and then, Flack simply said, "Just got back."

Danny pushed himself up with his feet and legs against the headboard of his bed, trailing fingers through his hair in an agitation that shortened his breaths. This was the first time since his trip to Montana that he'd chatted with Flack outside of a work environment.

It was not a positive sign that Flack's longest sentence so far contained just three words.

"You, uh, ya feel like goin' to Sullivan's? Have a drink? Play pool, maybe?"

When Flack didn't say anything, Danny hastily added with a wavering chuckle, "We haven't hung out for a long time, ya know? Heh, if I didn't know any better, I woulda thought you were avoidin' me or somethin'."

Danny unconsciously rubbed at the left side of his chest.

With each passing moment of no verbal answer from the other man, the tightness he sensed there grew worse and worse.

It shouldn't hurt. It shouldn't hurt this much.

"I -" Danny had to swallow past an obstruction in his throat. "It … it really has been a long time since we got together for a drink."

He waited for a moment or two, to grant Flack the opportunity to say something, anything.

Danny suddenly felt like flinging his bedside lamp at the wall, but the compulsion expired as swift as it came. No, no, it wasn't Flack's fault. Flack was the one who opened up to him and rendered himself defenseless before him, every time.

It wasn't Flack's fault, it was his.

Flack cutting him off like this was merely the consequence of his own choices and actions.

You reap what you sow.

And it was fucking time he stopped being such a pussy and behaved like a man.

"C'mon, Don, let's hang out. Just you and me at Sullivan's, havin' a whisky and a Guinness, and we'll talk and play some pool, whaddaya say? I can't even remember the last time we did all that."

He didn't insert like the good old times because, damnit, those times weren't gone forever. Not if he could help it.

Danny closed his eyes, then murmured in all sincerity, "I miss it."

I miss you.

He heard nothing except Flack's soft breaths.

Getting harder to breathe now -

"Okay."

It was bizarre and astonishing, how one word had such power to restore stability to his very universe, how it could be immersed in so much emotion. How one word from Flack's lips could fill him with more happiness than he ever felt during his trip to Montana, those few days alone with Lindsay.

Just like that.

In half an hour, Danny was seated on a tall chair at the bar in Sullivan's, biding his time by doodling on a napkin with a pen. He was fresh and clean from a speedy shower, and in some mysterious fashion, that shower seemed to have cleaned him inside and out. His mind was uncluttered and serene. His heart felt lighter than it had in months. Even his mien and lips had recovered their energy to shift into a genuine arrangement of a smile.

Flack turning up in record time improved his pleasant mood tenfold.

It was especially fantastic that this Flack was the Flack he always knew, the one who drank pitch-black Guinness and smirked like a pro and somehow managed to walk higher than the ground because he was too good a man for the tarnished earth. This was the Flack who smiled at him and joked with him and made him feel like a million bucks with a mere look.

This was the Flack who was in love with him.

The one he truly desired.

The one who desired him.

The evening raced by too fast for Danny's fondness, like all enjoyable, fun times did. Flack had removed his jacket part way through their second round of pool, and Danny would be lying to himself if he claimed he wasn't appreciating the lean musculature of Flack's forearms, or the broadness of Flack's shoulders and grins as the guy spoke of perseverance and responsibility and why they did what they did.

He'd be lying, if he said that organ in the left side of his chest didn't skip a beat each time Flack aimed that vulnerable expression of wide eyes and pouting lips at him.

Can't you see me, Danny? I'm here.

Oh God, he could. He could. He saw Flack like no one else ever would, like no one else would ever be privileged to, and that was precisely why he had to look away, before he became rooted to the spot. Before he lost the ability to flee from what was living in Flack's heart.

He didn't deserve it.

He didn't deserve Flack's love.

It was a concept that Danny had to persistently remind himself, more than ever while he stood with Flack outside Sullivan's, in the middle of the night after every other patron had gone home and Frankie and his staff were cleaning up inside.

He trembled under Flack's palpable stare.

He'd missed that the most.

"Thanks for comin' out tonight," he said, gazing into Flack's eyes, in awe at how blue and fathomless they were.

"S'was my pleasure," Flack replied. There was a soft smile arching Flack's lips.

No, Danny was wrong; he had missed that smile of Flack's most of all.

That smile that promised him all the things his soul longed for.

Danny's eyes shut for a second. His hands tautened into fists in the side pockets of his coat.

He loved that he was a part of Flack's life, that he had this honor so few others had. God, he loved being in Flack's presence, he loved being around the handsome man who called him friend and wanted to call him more than that. He wanted Flack to call him more than that.

But it was too terrifying. Too perilous.

He was too much of a recreant to accept what Flack sought to give him.

Thus, Danny pressed the button that brought Flack's barricades roaring back up with, "Wanna meet up this weekend? Maybe we can ask the others to join us … Lindsay mentioned that she wanted to play pool with us sometime."

Flack's visage immediately became shuttered.

"I dunno 'bout this weekend. Think I've got some function to go to," Flack said in a deceivingly cool tone. His eyes were ice cold. "I'm sure she'd be happier just playin' you."

Danny sent the other man a sharp look.

There was no chance Flack's choice of words was an accident.

"Don -"

"I'll see ya later, Messer."

Flack was already twisting away, turning his back on him in a chillingly irrevocable farewell.

"Don, wait -"

Wait, I'm ready, I'm ready -

Danny reached out with his hand, only to seize wintry air.

The street was empty and mute and lifeless, and Flack was nowhere to be found.

( )

The first time Danny experienced the real meaning of pain, it wasn't the time his hand was crushed to a battered pulp beneath the butt of an AK-47 rifle.

He'd broken his wrist before, years and years ago when he was a younger man and he dreamt of becoming a top baseball player in the major leagues, a naïve man who believed all dreams came true. Then his big, stupid mouth got the better of him, and his dreams were destroyed forever with a swing of a baseball bat by a drunk bastard whose own dreams were ruined by some other dispirited bastard.

His big, smartass mouth had gotten the better of him again. And this time, the sonsofbitches who were beating the shit out of him were no drunk jerks who were new and raw at what they were doing.

You didn't fuck with an IRA splinter group without losing a few teeth, breaking a few bones, getting your face pummeled like butchered meat and wishing you were dead.

But no, the first time Danny experienced the real meaning of pain wasn't even while the Irish mobsters were cracking his ribs and making bright blood flow from his nose and his torn lips. The first time he did was long after those same mobsters escaped from the warehouse where he, Adam and two other police officers had been taken captive.

He was standing on wobbly legs with his broken fingers held near to his chest, this close to keeling over in a faint on the concrete floor. Lindsay was placing one of his arms around her shoulders, propping him up.

Flack was there with them too, gazing at him with concerned eyes that uttered a million words.

"Hey -"

He knew what Flack was going to say. He knew what Flack was saying with his eyes.

And he knew that Flack wasn't seeing him as some weakling who got the crap kicked out of him at all, even now.

It gave him a certain strength that wasn't of his own creation, a strength he needed so bad to maintain his façade around Flack. Flack read him so well. One long look into his eyes right now, and Flack would be privy to every secret inscribed on the pages of his heart.

"I'm good," he mumbled in Flack's direction before the homicide detective could say anything else.

Don't worry about me, Don. Please. I'm not strong enough to lie to your face, not now.

Lindsay had an arm around his waist. His brows lowered in a bemused frown when she began to lead him away. Wait, he didn't want to walk, he wanted to sit down -

"You don't look good," he heard Flack reply behind him.

A moment later, Flack was calling out to the police officers who were standing guard at the main doors of the warehouse.

"Let's get EMS over here -"

"I'll take him."

It was an indication of how out of it Danny was that he spent ages trying to understand what Lindsay had said to Flack and how. That she was dragging him along towards the entrance of the warehouse to the ambulance outside, and Danny didn't get that. It would have been nice to sit down somewhere and rest and let the EMS come to him instead -

They were abruptly at a standstill, halfway between the open, massive doors and where they'd been with Flack deeper inside the warehouse.

"I'm sorry."

Danny looked hard at Lindsay. What the hell? What was she going on about?

"Wha? What are you sorry 'bout?"

"You weren't supposed to be here. You took my shift."

Lindsay was caressing his chest, and smiling at him.

It took an era for the extent of her statements to dig in, and when it did, he gaped at her, unable to account for the very unpredicted, rapid rage coursing through him. He was all the more shocked at the knee-jerk reaction his brain produced, one thought that froze his insides like a bitter, murderous New York winter:

It IS your fault I ended up like this.

Shocked, because it was the truth in many ways.

She was staring at him, that odd, almost calculative smile still there on her lips, a detached caricature of gratefulness that disturbed him on a fundamental level. She was expecting some sort of response from him, that much he could guess.

Whatever it was, he doubted she was going to get it.

Danny sensed his visage contorting into an intense frown. His lips pursed into a thin line, and before he knew it, he had turned his head away from her and was glancing back.

At Flack.

Flack hadn't budged an inch from where he was standing, in front of that vacant truck container where all the violence had gone down in splashed acid and fired weapons.

Flack was looking at them.

At him.

They stared at each other for a meager fraction of a second, but in that period, it was as if time itself had grinded into cessation. Like a water droplet dangling on the tip of a leaf, torn between clinging onto its green haven and plunging downwards into a murky, watery unknown.

The despair and resignation he saw marring Flack's countenance stunned him to the core.

Flack knew.

Flack knew what he'd done with Lindsay.

There was no turning back for him now.

I'm so sorry, Don. So sorry.

Once Lindsay resumed leading him to the main doors of the warehouse, all he could do was ignore the cacophony of voices in his head, particularly that mild albeit firm one that always spoke the truth.

Saying sorry would never be enough for his redemption.

The first time Danny experienced the real meaning of pain wasn't when his wrist was shattered by a baseball bat, nor was it the time he saw his blood-drenched brother being wheeled into the ER. It wasn't even when he saw Flack with his stomach blown apart to a bloody, gory mess, horrified beyond belief of the likelihood of Flack having been killed by the bomb explosion.

No, the first time Danny learned what pain really meant was in that tiny proportion of a second, when he was seeing the warmth in Flack's eyes die, seeing Flack turn away from him.

Knowing that today was the last time he would see Flack gazing at him with love ever again.

( )

The first time Danny was swamped by uncontrollable jealousy was the afternoon Flack's girlfriend put in an appearance at the labs.

It was just the irony of all fucking ironies that he was the one whom she approached to inquire whether Flack was there or not. Of course, when she came up to him, he didn't know who the heck she was. Based on the way she mentioned Flack's name, he'd assumed she was some lab tech who had evidence for Flack's case or something, or she was some cop who worked at Flack's precinct and was at least acquainted with him.

Then he noticed the Chanel dress she wore, in addition to the Louis Vuitton bag she carried and the Jimmy Choo shoes she had on her dainty feet.

There was no way in the seven levels of hell she was a lab tech or a cop.

And then, it socked him in the head that this was Flack's girlfriend, the one Stella gossiped about in the locker room a few weeks ago. The filthy rich, beautiful socialite who'd, without a doubt, never tasted hunger or poverty or knew what it was like to not be waited hand and foot. The kind of woman who had cash to blow on anything and anyone she wanted, the kind of woman who had everything handed to her on a silver platter.

The kind of woman Danny disliked with the force of a hundred supernovas.

The kind of woman Flack would never go for, not in a billion lifetimes.

So why was the guy with someone like her?

It was a riddle that perplexed Danny in a very bad way, the bad way that made him grit his teeth hard, made his chest ache and caused his skull to feel like it was going to burst.

It didn't help much that he had a full view of Flack and his socialite girlfriend from where he was in a laboratory nearby. Who the fuck thought of glass walls for the whole place, anyway?

She was much shorter than he was, even with her stiletto heels. She had to tilt her head back to look the homicide detective in the eye, and Flack was standing so close to her that her breasts were grazing his jacket lapels and she was gripping tight onto one of Flack's arms. Flack sure appeared to have no complaint about that. The man was smiling like a loon.

The sight of it made Danny's stomach churn.

That was the smile Flack used to direct at him.

Bitch.

"Danny, can you pass me the beaker now?"

Lindsay's query sounded very far away.

Danny kept on staring through the glass wall of the lab at Flack and his girlfriend in the hallway, his jaw clenched so rigid there was a muscle tic in his right cheek. Flack was brushing the long, straight hair from his girlfriend's forehead now, saying something to her that prompted her to giggle.

Flack still had that smile arcing up his lips.

The same lips that had touched Danny's forehead on a forlorn night of little hope and even less self-forgiveness.

Nearly two years, and Danny had yet to stop feeling them upon his skin.

He felt Lindsay draw closer to him, peering over his shoulder.

"So that's Flack's girlfriend," he heard her comment. "She's pretty."

Then he felt her eyes on him. He didn't respond and neither did he turn his head to look at her. He'd be damned if he had to come up right now with some lame one-liner about how she was prettier than any other woman he's ever known. She was constantly expecting stuff like that. In the beginning, he actually thought it was sort of cute but now … it just irked him. There was only so much romantic crap he could be bothered to make up for so long.

Flack was giving his girlfriend a hug now, a goodbye hug that was longer than anticipated seeing as Ms. Socialite was reluctant to release Flack's arm.

Flack didn't look like he was annoyed or anything like that.

In fact, the guy looked damn happy.

There was the sudden noise of something breaking, the crackling of Perspex splintering under pressure. It reverberated in the laboratory.

"Oh my God, Danny!"

At last, Danny tore his gaze away from the lovebirds and glowered at Lindsay who had a hand to her mouth. What the hell was wrong now?

He followed her line of sight down to the table top, where his hand was.

The plastic beaker he'd been grasping was now a broken, jagged cluster in his constricting fist. Vibrant blood trickled out between his fingers and along his palm and wrist, dripping onto the white surface of the table. He stared at the shards slicing his flesh, at the sanguine rivulets with impassiveness. He should be feeling pain, lots of it and yet, he felt nothing.

It was no big deal.

He hadn't felt anything in a long time.

"I'm going to get some bandages from the break room," Lindsay was saying urgently to him. "Danny, stop squeezing your hand …"

Danny had half a mind to tell her to stop ordering him around.

All of a sudden, the hair on the back of his neck was rising on end. He swiveled his head and glanced through the transparent wall of the lab.

It was Flack. Flack was by himself. Flack was looking at him.

But those big, blue eyes were glacial. They were unfeeling and misleadingly vacant.

There was no warmth in them.

There was none, because Danny slaughtered it.

"I'll be right back, just keep your arm elevated -"

The first sliver of agony blazed through his left hand and up his forearm straight into his brain. Danny didn't hear whatever else Lindsay said to him. He winced when more bolts of pain erupted along his curled fingers and slashed palm. Fuck, it was hurting bad now.

Danny watched Lindsay in her white lab coat run to the door and leave the room in a hurry. It was almost funny how panicked she was while he was just standing there with his wounded hand awash in hot red. Not giving a shit that he might have possibly done serious damage to his hand, a hand he'll need to do his job well.

Not giving a shit about anything.

When he turned to look out into the corridor outside the lab, he saw that no one was there.

Flack was gone.

And Danny was alone again. Naturally.

( )

The first time Danny understood the sheer vastness of fear, it was raining.

It was raining cats and dogs, and Danny was thinking how amusing it would be if that was literal. The whole world would be swarmed by them furry, four-legged animals of all shapes and sizes and colors. Fur collectors would go berserk. Pet lovers would become even more nuts than the fur collectors. Asthma sufferers would reckon the earth was a chunk of choking, suffocating hell now.

He identified himself with the last group very much at the moment.

He was having a difficult time breathing. Maybe it was because the rain was like a deluge of ice-cold needles stabbing him everywhere his long coat didn't cover. Maybe it was because his coat wasn't waterproof in the first place, and he was soaked to the bones in rain water and he was quivering as if he had a high fever.

Or maybe, maybe he was just imagining himself trudging along a sidewalk in lower Manhattan at two in the morning, heading for an apartment building that he'd been to before.

Maybe.

He wasn't sure.

He couldn't see a damn thing without his glasses.

Everyone was holding up an umbrella, protecting themselves from the tears of the sky, acting wise and avoiding getting wet and falling sick with a cold or something.

Why didn't he take an umbrella out with him?

Oh yeah. He and Lindsay had a fight and she slapped him and he stormed out of her apartment. He tried not to think about why things degenerated to that point, and failed miserably.

She didn't like it when he said nice things about other women. She didn't like it when he looked at other women. And she sure as hell didn't like it when he said that he felt as if he was bending over all the time to please her, that their relationship was too one-sided for his liking and he thought he deserved better.

His left cheek felt swollen. Lindsay could hit hard when she wanted to.

He was in an elevator now, pushing a button with the number seven on it. He'd been inside this elevator before, and he'd pressed that exact button before. He just couldn't quite remember when.

A ding and slide of metal doors, and then he was plodding down a warmly lit hallway towards a pale beige door that appeared very, very familiar to him.

He stood in front of it, squinting at it. Rapped his knuckles on its smooth exterior before he could control himself. Well, whoever owned the place was about to entertain a startling visit from an exhausted, drowned rat of a CSI.

A few seconds ticked by.

Then, he heard heavy, self-assured footsteps coming closer and closer to the door on the other side. He had to restrain himself from going, "Boo!" as the door opened.

"Danny?"

Danny stared helplessly into wakeful, blue eyes set in a very handsome, recognizable face.

Flack.

He was at Flack's apartment.

What the hell was he doing here?

"I …"

Danny became at a loss for words. Flack was attired in a plain, black t-shirt and dark gray track pants, and God, how could a man look so good at this time of the morning?

Perhaps … it was because she was here. Right now.

Shit. How could he have been so stupid?

"I'm - I'm sorry, I dunno what I'm doin'. Sorry," Danny mumbled. He couldn't bear to look Flack in the eye any longer. He quickly turned on his heels and started striding towards the elevator, his face burning with shame.

Shitshitshit. He must be looking a total wretched fool now -

"Danny."

He skidded to a stop not six steps away from Flack's door.

It took all the courage he had to spin around to glance at the other man.

What he saw in Flack's eyes did something extraordinary to his sapped mind and body.

"Dan," Flack merely said.

The front door of Flack's apartment was still open. Wide open. Flack was leaning against it, sending Danny a silent invitation to enter his abode via his eyes.

His warm, gentle blue eyes.

Danny blinked, and all at once, he was standing in the middle of the homicide detective's living room, his waterlogged coat a soggy mound on the floor. He didn't recall walking inside Flack's apartment.

All he saw in his mind was the soothing heat that was residing in Flack's large eyes.

The warmth he believed he'd never have again.

Danny crossed his arms over his chest, a bleak attempt at diminishing the chill causing goosebumps to pop all over his body. His white tank top was sticking to his torso. His jeans were damp and sagging off his hips. Hell, even his damn boots were wet.

He heard the click of the apartment door being closed and locked, then a clinking sound of the chain lock getting secured.

Flack was quiet. Way too quiet.

Danny was extremely tempted to ask the guy what the girlfriend's opinion was of him barging in like this at such an inappropriate time, but for once, his big mouth remained shut. He was too occupied with scanning every inch of Flack's living area.

Hunting for the smallest hints of change since he last stepped into this place Flack called home.

The furniture was the same color and style and shape, located in the same positions. The Monet painting of an extensive field of flowers was still suspended above the medium-sized television set. The bookshelves were still where they were, packed with books of various colors and thickness and a framed photograph here and there. It was still the same old analog clock hanging on the wall next to the kitchen entrance. The drawn curtains of the living room windows were still the same color and length.

Danny blinked a second time.

Nothing had changed.

She hadn't changed anything.

And it'd been an entire year since he was here.

"What do you want, Danny?"

Flack's mellifluously uttered inquiry seemed to resonate within him like the rumble of distant thunder.

Danny turned around after a long moment, feeling colder than ever. He was shivering now, shivering beneath Flack's open, questioning stare, shivering from the apprehension that adhered to him as much as his sodden clothes did.

What did he want?

Danny stared at Flack, who hadn't moved from the closed door of the apartment, with wide, terrified eyes.

What did he want?

Flack was walking towards him, slow, cautious steps that drew the man nearer and nearer. The caution wasn't that of a man who was afraid of something. It was the caution of a man who was being careful about approaching a frightened animal, a man who wanted to prove he was harmless.

Flack wasn't harmless.

Right now, Flack was the most terrifying man on earth.

Flack was seeing him without his masks, his armor. Flack had the means to conquer him with a single word or a single blow, because he had no wish to raise arms against this noble homicide detective. This faithful, gorgeous man who once called him friend and wanted to call him more than that.

Danny craved for that, even now.

There was barely a foot of distance between them. Danny had to tip his head back to look Flack in the eye, and it struck him that it was just the fucking irony of ironies he had to do precisely what Flack's girlfriend did too.

Slant his head back. Grip Flack on the arm.

Wait for Flack to brush his drying hair away from his high forehead.

Or shove him away.

"What do you want, Danny?"

This time, Flack was whispering.

This time, Danny knew the answer, at last.

He parted his lips to let the words glide off his tongue, but they wouldn't emerge. They were trapped, bound to the confines of his soul where nobody could ever use them against him, use them to hurt him.

And so, Danny showed Flack his answer instead.

Without a sound, Danny crossed the small space between them, and laid his head upon Flack's broad chest.

He felt Flack's gasp against his bristly cheek more than he heard it.

His right hand was still clasping Flack's upper arm. He squeezed it once, feeling the firm muscles bunching in his grasp. It was the first time he had ever touched Flack this way, as it was also the first time Flack was touching his left, bandaged hand the way the man was.

With such gentleness and care that belied the size and calluses of those large, dependable hands.

Flack lifted up his left forearm, then held onto his wrist while using a thumb to stroke the colorless bandages wrapped tight around his left hand and fingers.

"It hurts," Danny murmured.

They both knew Danny wasn't referring to his injured hand.

Many centuries passed in a peaceful hush, with him resting against Flack's tall, sinewy being and Flack holding his left hand and massaging the back of his neck with the other. Flack was so warm, like the sun. Flack was composed, like the eye of the storm even as chaos howled all around him.

Flack was his suit of armor, when he had no defenses left.

Flack was his fortress, when he had nowhere else to go.

Flack was home.

It was a revelation that astounded Danny, a sliding of a key into a lock that was created just for it, just like his lips seemed to be created only for Flack's. A perfect fit of two halves finding each other for the first time, two halves finally becoming one.

Every sexual encounter he ever had was dust in comparison to kissing Flack for the first time.

Their mouths were open wide, their lips molded to each other's and he could feel Flack's tongue grazing his, feel Flack's hand on his lower back, a hand on his shoulder.

Pushing him away -

"No, Dan-"

The abrupt disconnection made Danny reel with excessive doses of confusion and disappointment. His breaths came in short, shallow pants.

"Wha …"

Flack had both hands on his shoulders now, imposing a half dozen inches of breathing space between their faces. The expression contorting Flack's features was an amalgam of great reluctance and sadness and a bit of obstinacy.

Flack swallowed noticeably.

"I don't play this way, Danny."

A very edgy silence befell.

Danny frowned in bewilderment, his head feebly shaking side to side as he gazed at Flack's mien.

Play? What did he mea-

Danny's eyes widened till the whites was visible around the blue irises.

Flack was talking about his girlfriend. About him not cheating on her.

With him.

The iciness flooded back into his body with a fury. A second later, it was thawed to oblivion by the boiling wrath born from Flack pushing him aside now, stopping what they both had yearned for so very long. Over some rich socialite who couldn't possibly understand Flack and who he was.

She wasn't even here, and yet, here she was, standing between him and - yes, damnit - the man with whom he was in love.

"It's not her. It's not her you love," Danny ground out, his hands angry fists.

He could see the vehemence brewing in Flack too.

"How would ya know that? Huh?" The other man's eyes were narrowed in indignation, lips disappearing above and below bared, pearly teeth. "How would you know that?"

Another overwrought silence reigned over them.

Flack's eyes were heated, but his hands on Danny's shoulders weren't clamping down or clawing themselves in. They stayed slack, merely there on either side of Danny's neck. Touching him.

Unwilling to let him go.

The vexation within Danny began to bleed away with the understanding that Flack wasn't waiting for him to justify his declaration. Flack wasn't waiting for him to explicate how and why their friendship had deteriorated to the point they scarcely knew one another anymore.

No, Flack was waiting for him.

Not some of him. Not half of him. Not even three quarters of him.

Flack was waiting for all of him, to be his.

Danny slowly raised his hands and enfolded his right hand around Flack's left wrist while he placed his bandaged left hand on Flack's right forearm.

"Are you still waitin' for me?"

The way Flack reacted to his question, it was as if he'd just whipped out his gun and shot the man. He never knew how big Flack's eyes could become, or how child-like they appeared when they were brimming with complete astonishment. Danny stared deep into them, and knew that Flack was also reminiscing that dark, desolate night that was brightened by a single kiss to the forehead.

He remembered, and so did Flack.

Now, Flack knew as well that he was aware of what the man had whispered to him that night. That he'd known all this time, and was still here, standing before Flack with his heart in his hands.

He watched the multiplicity of emotions flitting across Flack's handsome visage. Shock. Comprehension. Disbelief. Doubt.

Hope.

"I always have," Flack rasped at long last. His eyes seemed to be glistening beneath the living room lights. "I still am."

Danny had to shut his eyes.

It was too good to be true. After everything that happened, after his deception and proud imprudence … here was his opportunity to make everything right again.

It was too good to be true, but life was stranger than fiction.

Sometimes, it was generous enough to give second chances to those who didn't deserve it.

Danny opened his eyes and said in an even voice, "I'm ready, Don. I'm ready."

It was Flack's turn to be rendered absolutely speechless. Danny empathized with the other man; it was a truly remarkable thing to find out that the person you've always been in love with has always been in love with you too.

Something moist and hot stung Danny's eyes at the sight of the trepidation, the hesitation upon Flack's face. Those were feelings that weren't worthy of gracing Flack's fine features.

"Do you remember the first time we met?" Danny murmured, caressing Flack's cheek.

It seemed that the healing touch worked both ways.

Flack blinked a few times, then replied with a tender smile, "Yes … You were in the locker room, changin' shirts 'cause ya accidentally spilled some tea onto yourself. Stella told me that. You were standin' there in front of your locker, and you were mutterin' to yerself 'bout what a clumsy klutz you were. You were so into it that you didn't even realize I was there, watchin' you."

The smile grew wider.

"Your hair was shinin', ya know. Like gold. And when ya noticed me and I saw your face for the first time, all I could think of was, 'I wanna see that smile when I wake up every mornin' for the rest of my life.'"

Flack's smile faltered, although the affection in his blue eyes didn't.

"And I knew I'd never be the same again."

There was simply one thing that Danny could say to such a heartfelt confession.

"Since then, Don," he whispered, his heart as free as the wind that blew outside between the skyscrapers of the city that never slept. "Since then … it's always been you."

Later, once their eyes were dry once more and Danny stripped himself of his sopping clothes and was bundled up in one of Flack's comfy robes, they lay together on Flack's bed, hushed and unmoving. Danny was on his side, his head upon Flack's chest and his left arm lying on top of the homicide detective's rising and falling belly. One of Flack's arms rested on his shoulders while the other was at the man's side, loose and relaxed.

Danny could hear Flack's stable heartbeat through the man's black t-shirt. It was a potent sound, a calming sound.

It was the sound of the future.

"We're not together anymore," Flack said into his hair. "She was a nice girl, but we came from worlds too different. I didn't have the means to support her lavish life, and well … she was in love with the idea of having a middle-class cop for a boyfriend, not with me."

Danny shifted higher up Flack's chest, up to his shoulder where he could nestle his face in Flack's neck.

"I'm sorry," he said in all honesty.

"Don't be. I wasn't in love with her either."

Danny lifted his head to look at Flack. The glimmer in Flack's eyes still succeeded in inviting the sun to glow in his chest.

"Kinda hard to be with someone when you're in love with somebody else, ya know?" Flack added.

"Yeah, I do."

"What are you going to tell her?"

Danny knew who Flack was alluding to, and it shouted volumes to him that he hadn't thought of her at all until now.

Danny laid back down on Flack's chest.

"The truth," he replied softly. "Finally."

He closed his eyes, and smiled into the folds of Flack's shirt as Flack spoke of breakfast in the morning, how much he was going to enjoy the food of this new diner just a few blocks away, and how long Flack had dreamed of this moment, this night where he could finally proclaim that dreams do come true, after all.

And for the first time, the very first time, Danny truly knew what it meant to love and be loved.

Fin.

 

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