The Works

by firechild

Rated T

Disclaimer: I own the pizza guy. And he won't even share his tips.

Warning: This contains references to spanking. Don't like, don't read.

A/N: Marie's sandbox again. This is a portion of an idea I had just after the season finale in May. This contains spoilers for that episode.

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He'd never driven so fast in his career--in his life. Some part of his mind kept a ticker of how many traffic laws he broke as he made the eighteen-minute drive in six-and-a-half, but he couldn't bring himself to care. All of his emotional energy was tied up in fear--gut-wrenching, throat-closing fear.

As he hurtled toward his destination, his mind replayed the phone conversation that had started this mad flight. Minutes ago, he'd been tapped to take a call from someone asking for him by name; confused, as most of his friends and coworkers had his cell number, but knowing that a number of people throughout the Burroughs had his card, he'd picked up his desk phone... and been plunged into a nightmare.

The caller, a kid by the sound of his voice--and a panicky kid, no less--had identified himself as a pizza delivery guy and said that Detective Don Flack had to come quickly, that there was something 'wicked wrong.' When Flack had asked where he was and why he hadn't just called 911, the kid had said that he was outside the home of some of his regular customers and had given the detective the address. Flack had almost dropped the phone then, and he hadn't heard anything the kid had said for about the next minute or so, not even realizing that they were still connected until he'd reached his car and only had one free hand to drive. He'd put the kid on speaker and had demanded a repeat, and what he'd heard had chilled his blood.

The kid had said that he'd been delivering sausage-pepperoni-olive pizza once or twice a week to this particular house for almost a year and a half, and that the two cops who lived there had always answered the door right away, had always smiled and tipped him, that the kid had always felt... visible to them, somehow. He'd wondered if maybe they'd known that he'd been in trouble, even though they didn't know his last name or that his record had been spared, but they'd never treated him badly or even just ignored him, even when he could tell they'd had a rough day or something. They'd been alright, for cops. The guys didn't look much alike, but he'd heard the younger one call the older one Dad, and he'd thought it was kind of cool that they lived together, especially considering how he hadn't seen his own old man since he was ten. He'd even delivered for parties and stuff, and remembered that once or twice, Flack had answered the door, and had once even accidentally given him a business card with the tip. Then, about three months ago, the calls for pizza had just... stopped. He'd sort of thought he'd recognized the dad's face on the news, something about a bank robbery, and the boy had figured that the son just hadn't been able to deal with having pizza without his old man. So when, tonight, his store had gotten a call for a pizza with the works from that number, the kid had finagled his way into being the one to deliver it, just so he could see the younger cop and tell him he was sorry about his dad, but when he'd gotten there, there'd been no lights on even though the sun was setting, he hadn't heard anything like music or a tv, and no one had answered the door. He'd knocked five or six times, had waited, had called through the mail slot, had called the customer's cell phone, had tried to look in through the windows, had even stood back and shouted, but there'd been no response. He was really supposed to just leave and report the bogus call to his boss so that they would block any more deliveries as prank calls, but the kid hadn't felt right about leaving, hadn't felt right about anything since the call had first come in, so he'd dug Flack's card out from under the passenger seat and had called, hoping maybe Flack could help. By the time the kid had finished his story, Flack had been pulling on to his friends' street, and he'd told the kid to stay by his car. A few seconds later, Flack had seen the car--a beat-up yellow Mercury that was almost certainly older than its driver--and the kid, a thin, homely-looking teenager in a faded company shirt and cap.

For being as freaked as he obviously was, the boy had been maintaining pretty well, and Flack made a mental note to find out more about him, but he couldn't do that while he was picturing Danny, alone, in that house, having finally collapsed from exhaustion and malnutrition, maybe having fallen in the shower or down the stairs, or of something less accidental. Flack had tried, he really had, he'd tried to take care of his younger 'brother,' had tried to make sure that Danny ate and slept and occasionally did something besides blind himself rereading the reports from Mac's disappearance. The whole team knew that their ex-pitcher was unhealthily obsessed with finding Mac; heck, they'd all been close to obsessed for the first few weeks, poring over every last detail and scrap of evidence, and when the case had been relegated to the bottom of the stacks, when the brass had declared that no one was helping Mac by ignoring the people Mac had fought to protect and serve, Danny had packed up the box with the file and the evidence and had taken it home with him, and when the team had learned that Danny was spending all of his off-time trying to figure out where they'd gone wrong or what they'd missed, they'd crashed the one-man party and had pulled an all-nighter with him. Problem was, they hadn't made any mistakes, they hadn't missed anything; the answer to finding and saving Detective Mac Taylor simply wasn't there. They'd all had a hard time accepting that, and while none of them would ever give up entirely, they'd all struggled with letting go of the search for their boss, their friend, their brother. But Danny... It would almost have been simpler, it would almost have been easier if Danny had been pitching fits and being petulant and childish about the case, about work, about eating and sleeping and doing all of the stuff that went into surviving; then, at least, Flack would have known what to do, would have had an answer--he could have played the big brother card and put the kid over his knee and provided the consistency and the predictability and the pain that Danny needed to deal with his grief, he could have been the anchor. Trouble was, Danny wasn't acting like a child. He'd been remarkably adult, in fact, showing up early for work and doing his job relentlessly and usually not leaving until well after sundown, helping to close cases with none of the passion but all of the responsibility he'd always brought to the job. He wasn't refusing to eat properly, it wasn't a control issue with him--he simply forgot most of the time. Flack had regularly taken him out, had brought food to him at the lab (they all had,) had even brought food to the house several times, and though he believed Danny's assertion that the younger man couldn't taste anything, Don had watched his brother obediently chew and swallow. Since Mac had vanished, nothing had seemed sure for Don, either, but he had a pretty good idea that when the team wasn't forcing him to eat, Danny was subsisting on granola bars and Coke. Don wasn't even sure that Danny's oh-so-obvious lack of sleep was a willful behavior; for all he knew, the forensic tech was simply forgetting to sleep regularly and only remembered when his overtaxed body crashed forcefully every three or four days. There was no petulance, no recalcitrance, no attitude--of any kind--in the boy's eyes or voice these days, and Flack missed that almost as much as he missed Mac. Wherever his dad was, Danny had gone with him, and what he'd left in his place was about as alive as a robovac.

Flack knew one thing as he told the kid to stay put and went to pound uselessly on the front door: the pizza boy was right--Danny Messer would never order a pizza and then not take it when it came, even if it was a 'works' pizza with a bunch of stuff that Danny would never eat. Don didn't even knock again, terrified that too much time had passed already. He waved the kid into the delivery car with an order to leave immediately, he called for backup using a code blue, he pulled his gun, and he kicked in the front door. Not waiting for backup and working faster than he probably should, he cleared the first floor in seconds, finding Danny's cell phone open on the kitchen table, then started up the stairs, still unable to shake the mental image of his young friend's body lying broken at the foot. He took the second floor clockwise, starting from his left, clearing the guest room and the bathroom and Danny's room and the linen closet, then made his way to the master bedroom. This door was open just a crack, which struck him as odd, and he carefully nudged it back, leading in with his gun at full guard. He cleared the bathroom and closet, which were both open, from the bedroom doorway, then turned his attention to the room itself. What he saw stopped his heart.

There, on the master bed, lay Detective Danny Messer, curled up, on his side, eyes closed, so still he could have been made of stone. Flack had to watch carefully to see that his little brother was, in fact, breathing. Danny looked so pale and wiped out, but even if he'd been conscious, he wouldn't have been able to move--he was a captive, held down by a scarred, roughened arm. The arm belonged to another man laying close behind Danny, his light blue scrubs a jarring contrast against his marred skin and the long, shaggy black hair, thick beard, and full mustache he sported.

Flack identified himself as NYPD and ordered the man to back away with his hands over his head, but the stranger didn't so much as twitch. Don moved closer, anger and fear warring to subvert his self-control as he noticed that the guy hadn't even opened his eyes. A second after Flack realized that the stranger was also unconscious, it struck him that there was something very familiar about this man. He filed through old cases and APBs and BOLOs and interdepartmental faxes in his mind, trying to remember if he'd actually arrested this guy himself or if he'd just seen his picture, but none of that felt right.

And then, out of the corner of his eye, one of the stranger's bare feet caught Flack's notice, and he backed up a step to investigate without lowering his guard on the stranger. Both of the men lay on their left sides, backs to Flack, and both were barefoot, but the stranger's right foot looked different somehow. On the edge, facing the ceiling, there was one scar older than the rest, glossy white and about three inches long. It wasn't a perfectly straight line, but curved abruptly at one end, almost like a raised talon near the smallest toe.

He'd claimed that it was a bayonet accident, a souvenir from a buddy in Basic, but would never elaborate. When Don had asked if that had gotten him out of PT for a couple of weeks, he's just snorted, grinned, and said, "Where do you think I learned to do everything on one foot?" After much teasing, he had eventually revealed that he'd been nicknamed 'Talon' after that but had always just hoped that everyone would think the name had something to do with his skill because the truth just wasn't Marine enough.

Don dropped his arms, releasing a breath and months' worth of tension.

The gun started back up when he heard a whisper from behind him. "Flack, what's going on? Is Danny okay?"

He spun to see Stella in the doorway, her own weapon at the ready, her eyes widening as she saw the man on the bed behind Danny.

"Oh, somethin' tells me Messer's okay, maybe better than okay."

Stella looked at Don like he was out of his mind, and he supposed he must be, at least a little, because he hadn't heard her enter the house, hadn't heard the sirens coming from every direction, hadn't seen the flashing of cruiser light racks playing on the walls as the street undoubtedly filled with cops coming to the rescue of one of their own. She stepped toward the man on the bed, and Don stopped her. "Don't. Let's just... leave them alone for awhile." He steered her out of the room, ignoring her questions until they reached the top of the stairs. When he told her who the scarred, shaggy man was, she moved to go back and see for herself, and when he stopped her again, he had to explain that he didn't think she'd wake their friends, but he didn't want to risk it, and that they had some calls to make. Not fully understanding why, Flack asked Stella to keep Mac's presence on the downlow for now, and as she thought about the media circus and the departmental grilling that would come with the news, she agreed. Don was opening his mouth to ask her to call Hawkes just to come over when the man himself appeared at the foot of the stairs, jogging up as he said that he'd heard the call from across town and fired off questions about Danny. Flack stopped him in the hallway, quietly broke the news to him, and said that they needed to notify the rest of the team--and only the team--while Mac and Danny rested, and that Flack would personally ensure that both detectives wound up at Hawkes's mercy as soon as they rejoined the land of the living. Sheldon insisted on at least looking in on them, and when he emerged a minute later, he was quiet, but there was something akin to triumph in his eyes. Flack went downstairs to tell one of the uniforms to put out the all-clear and to thank everyone for showing up, assuring them that Messer would be fine after some R&R and the attentions of his personal physician. While Stella called Adam and Lindsay, and Sheldon called Syd, both being careful to say only that the team was meeting at Danny's house, Don helped send the other officers on their way and then knocked on the driver's door of the old Mercury. He told the pizza boy, who'd stuck around even among a sea of cops with itchy trigger fingers, that they'd take the pizza and he'd pay for it, and that if his boss gave him any grief, the boss could call Flack directly for a reality check. Flack traded some cash for the pizza, and without even looking at the money in his hand, the boy met Flack's eyes.

"Don't worry 'bout a tip," he said sincerely. "I'm just glad the dude's not, like, dead, or nothin'."

Don eyed the scrapper up and down. "Yeah, well, I got a tip for you, kid: ya got guts, stickin' around, and it takes more than guts to do that for a stranger when anything could happen, but we gotta work on this problem of not following orders--pull that at the Academy, and your instructors'll do more'n just threaten to tan your skinny butt if you do it again. And I will, kid--I've had some practice." He sent the bewildered teenager away with a strong clap on the back... and the fifty bucks he'd handed him for a 14 pizza.

Flack stuck the pie in the oven to reheat, thinking that the one kind of pizza he'd never liked actually smelled pretty good--that everything smelled pretty good right now, that scents and colors were a little bit sharper than they had been in a long time--and Hawkes put his surgeon's hands to work on the salad stuff that Lindsay had just brought in (ah, the advantages of Stella's call having caught her at the grocery store.) Flack opened the fridge, shook his head--it was worse than he'd thought, just power bars and several cans of Red Bull--and closed the door. He thought about cleaning it out, trying to save his friend some grief, but then he decided that Mac needed to understand the reality and that Danny probably needed the lecture he'd get from Mac about his eating habits, needed to actually hear his father figure scold him, though it probably wouldn't amount to more than a look and a stern word or two. Syd arrived with a package of dollar-store sandwich cookies, apologizing for not having time to find something better, and Adam straggled in last, bearing a six-pack of Sam Adams. Flack grinned and shook his head, wondering at how they'd all come to have their own sort of duties; the first time they'd met as a team outside of the police complex, it had been here, at Mac's house (because they couldn't all agree on one restaurant) and Mac, ever the Marine, had delegated potluck to them, asking each to bring a specific item. They'd never spoken of it again, but ever since then, each of them had remembered his or her job, and no matter what form or amount or brand showed up, they'd always managed to make it work. Don knew that he wouldn't be leaving to go get the bread this time, and he suspected that no side dish or paper plates would drag Stella or Hawkes from this house tonight, but he figured that since he'd paid for the pizza, which had both vegetables and bread, while she'd been calling in the troops and Sheldon had been worrying over his patients, they could call it even this time.

Adam was pulling down dishes, Lindsay was loading plates with pizza and passing them to Syd for salad, and Stella and Flack and Hawkes were hearing water running upstairs and trading looks and wondering how they were going to reveal the news to the others, when Danny appeared in the kitchen doorway eyes bleary, blond hair comically mussed, and left side covered with pillow lines. He blinked owlishly for a minute at the lights and activity before Don came up to him, gently squeezing his shoulder and asking him how he was holding up. Danny shrugged the other shoulder and yawned so widely that his jaw popped, then asked what was going on. Don told him that he'd intercepted the pizza and thought good things should be shared, and he was watching Danny for signs that the younger man had caught his raised eyebrow and double meaning when Adam turned, blushing.

"Awww, man, Messer, I'm sorry. I only brought a six-pack; you can have my beer."

Danny opened his mouth to respond, but whatever he was planning to say was stopped in its tracks.

"That's okay, Adam; he doesn't need any alcohol tonight, and neither do I. That is, assuming I'm invited to the party."

Activity in the kitchen stopped dead; Lindsay dropped a plate as she turned, and no one flinched when it shattered. For several seconds, no one even breathed. Then...

"Thanks, Mac, 'cause I couldn't've decided that for myself."

A room full of jaws dropped even more, this time joined by the three who'd known that Mac was there; they'd all hoped, they hadn't truly given up, but no one had really thought that they'd ever hear Danny snark at Mac again. Or at anyone, for that matter.

Don could hear the moment when everyone started breathing again--it was the same moment when half of the gang realized that not only was Mac standing there with them, but Danny wasn't exactly in shock about it. Flack started to open his mouth to say something--what, he didn't know yet--but didn't get that far before everyone heard a distinctive smack, and Danny jumped. The young detective turned to glare over his shoulder at his now-clean-shaven dad, and though Mac was still clearly as wrung out as his son and some of his injuries were more visible now that his thick dark hair framed his pale face, the raised eyebrow and stern eyes were all Mac. "You and I are already down for one discussion; is this really a button you want to push?"

Danny didn't say anything, but his indignant glare faded, and he leaned slightly toward Mac. The older man obviously read him well, closing the foot of space between them and snaking his left arm around his son's torso. Danny closed his eyes for just a moment but didn't actually put any of his weight on Mac, and when he opened his eyes, he squeezed his dad's hand and suggested that Mac go sit down in the living room "to get out of the way of the great invasion."

Flack could tell by Mac's expression that he didn't want to give in, but the older man was obviously not at full strength, so Don sidestepped, and he and Danny gently herded Mac to the couch, and then Flack turned to go back to the kitchen--and found himself walking alone. He turned a little and found that Mac hadn't let go of Danny's hand, and the two were involved in a very gentle and good-humored tug-of-war, which Mac predictably won fairly quickly, Danny swinging around to flop on the couch next to his dad and then slipping an arm around the older man, touching him gingerly and not so much leaning on Mac as encouraging Mac to lean on him. Don decided that the highly-trained team of forensic analysts could handle a two-dish meal, so he perched on the arm of the couch, his head buzzing with a thousand questions, his heart knowing that none of them mattered. The three of them were content to just sit for a couple of minutes... and then Danny's cell rang from the kitchen. Mac asked if Danny was going to answer, and the young man muttered that everyone who mattered was already there. When the trilling stopped and then started again, Danny groaned and hauled himself up, struggling more than he should have had to and finally accepting Don's offer of a hand. When his little brother had left the room, Flack looked at Mac, one eyebrow cocked.

"'Down for one discussion'?" He knew that technically it wasn't his business, but it was the safest question he could ask right now. He knew that Mac would tell them what he wanted them to know when he was ready to tell them.

Mac met his raised eyebrow in kind. "I opened the refrigerator." His eyes held Flack's, carrying a challenge.

"Ah. Yeah. Saw that today." Don tried not to squirm. "I tried, Mac. We all tried. We've all been keeping an eye on him, trying to make sure that he takes care of himself. I don't know what happened--I brought him groceries at least once a week."

"So did I." They looked up as Stella led the motley march into the living room, everyone carrying at least two things. She started setting up on the coffee table as she looked up at Mac. "I took him out, I brought him stuff at work, I dropped off food. What's going on?"

"Yeah, what's going on? I was gonna bring over some groceries before Stella called." Lindsay was confused.

"Power bars and Red Bull." Don gave her a knowing look.

"What?!" Stella straightened. "What happened to all the stuff I brought in? You can't tell me he ate it all!"

"Yeah, that's a really good question. What did happen to all that food?" Flack turned his deceptively casual gaze on Danny, who was just coming back.

The young man seemed to miss the looks he was getting from... well, from everyone in the room, actually. He shrugged a little. "It went bad. It was starting to smell, so I threw it out. Sorry." He did look contrite, but his soft apology was obviously for wasting food. Everyone there was upset with him now, and he didn't know why.

"You are so lucky he is here, kid," Don said, low and firm. Danny's head snapped up, his brow knit in confusion. Mac got it, and though he knew that Flack was serious and he happened to agree with him, the head CSI chuckled, the sound rough and weak but more than welcome to all but Danny.

Uncomfortable and wanting to break up the tension for the moment, Syd piped up with, "Uh, folks, hate to break up the war, but the pizza's getting cold--again. Danny, any of the toppings you don't want, you can give to me. I know you don't like most of this stuff." He picked up a plate loaded with two slices (the other plates each had one) and a pile of salad with ranch dressing. "I hope you're hungry, bud."

Danny took the pizza, covered with stuff he hated; he glanced around at a room full of people who all looked very unhappy with him. And then he turned his head and looked down into the battered, scarred face of the man who looked downright furious with him and who had a distressingly consistent habit of turning his fury with Danny into a very painful session over his knee.

"Yeah." He smiled drowsily. "Yeah, I am." And, grinning, he sat down in the circle of his dad's arm and took a very large bite.

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