Title: Until You're Not
Summary: Danny won't watch Flack fall. Danny/Flack friendship post 'Pay Up'.
Rating: Strong language.
AN: So I had this story saved on my computer for weeks now, except it was a different one in which Danny is at the bar after the shooting with little Stevie and Flack comes and talks to him. Following Pay Up I decided it would work better as Danny coming to talk to Flack. I hope you like it. I know it's not fantastic but I wanted to contribute to all the great one shots coming out of 'Pay Up', lol. Reviews are most appreciated as always. Oh I should note that this doesn't mention the shooting at the end of the episode, which you can take however you want. You can pretend it didn't happen or that nobody was fatally hurt.
Disclaimer: I'm not making any money off them, they don't belong to me.
Detective Danny Messer stepped into the dimly lit bar and was immediately greeted by familiar faces. He offered a few nods of recognition but kept his attention focused on finding one person in particular. He scanned the bar and spotted the tell tale broad shoulders and raven head of hair of Detective Don Flack. When Danny approached the sullen detective made no move to acknowledge his presence.
Sullivan's was a cop bar, located almost too conveniently right between the 75th precinct and the crime lab, the kind of place where most patrons wore a badge or had come with someone who did. The walls were decorated with fifteen years worth of NYPD memorabilia that hung heavy. All the patrons knew the owner and bartender, Frankie Sullivan well. Frankie had been a patrol cop many moons before but had shattered his left leg when his patrol car was hit and flipped during a pursuit. Told he would never run again, would always drag his leg with a limp; he'd been given the option of early retirement or life driving a desk. He'd gone for the first option and opened the bar, desperate to stay connected to the police world. Needless to say, Sullivan's was the kind of place where nobody prodded about your shitty day. It was the kind of place where nobody judged you when you had a few too many trying to drown nightmarish images out of your head. The kind of place where there was always a friend, a brother, to hail you a cab or throw you in his backseat and drive you home without every mentioning it again.
The taller Detective was stoic and slouched, staring tiredly at the bar, sliding his beer back and forth and aimlessly disrupting the watermark left behind by his bottle each time. His suit jacket had been draped over the back of the chair, his green tie removed and shoved messily into the pocket. Danny didn't need to say anything to Frankie; his regular brew was simply retrieved and placed down in front of the empty stool beside Flack with a knowing glance from the bartender.
Danny stayed quiet as he slid into his seat, just nodded thanks in Frankie's direction, sipped his beer and squinted up at the Yankee's highlights playing on the TV over the bar.
"I guess you heard what happened," Flack finally spoke, his voice low and hoarse.
"If you're talking about you threatenin' to punch the LT in the face, then yea, I heard," Danny replied simply.
"He uh," Flack began unsteadily, blinking up at the ceiling for a second, "he was havin' em clean out her desk," Flack's eyes fell to the mirror behind the bar, "I lost it a little."
Danny suddenly realized his friend's placement at the bar was intentional. The front cover of the Ledger had been cut out neatly and pinned to the mirror since it had been published three weeks before. From Don's stool he was directly across from the inky copy of Jess's academy photo; as he took long sips from his beer his own tired face was reflected perfectly beside her.
"Yea well, at least he didn't stick you on suspension or drivin' a desk for the foreseeable future," Danny reasoned hesitantly, "He knows what you're going through."
"Yea?" Flack laughed, tight and sardonic, "He knows what I'm goin' through?"
Danny let his head drop and sighed.
"That's not what I mean. I mean he knows you're hurtin', how much you cared about her, we all do."
"I loved her," Don corrected with a tired heave, "I found the love of my life and I didn't even get a year with her. And now I have to go through the rest of this stupid life without her. I only had her long enough to make me know what I'm missin' now," his eyebrows met at an angry peak as he finally turned to look Danny in the eye, "I have to wake up every morning and it hurts, it hurts to put on my badge and tie my fucking tie and somehow find it in me to put one foot in front of the other and give a shit whether some asshole junkie blasted his dealer," he trailed off, his words breaking as tears became choked up in his throat.
"But you do," Danny reminded, a hand reaching out to quickly squeeze his friend's shoulder, "You wake up and you find a way, no matter how bad it hurts. Which is what she would want for you, for you to keep on being the guy she loved. The guy that saw something redeemable in the world despite all the shit."
Don turned away from him again, blinking at himself in the mirror.
"You should be home with your family," he suggested flatly, his Queens accent thick with the after effects of the five empties on the bar in front of him.
"Sounds good," Danny agreed in his own Staten Island inflection, "Why don't ya come back to the apartment wit me? Lindsay had the day off, she's makin' supper. She'd love to see ya."
"I'm good," the other man dismissed quietly, staring into the dark abyss of the mouth of his longneck bottle, "No offense Danno but the last thing I really wanna see right now is you and your shiny new family. All those things you've got comin' to you now, wedding anniversaries and first steps…that was all gone for me before I even realized I wanted it," he shrugged, staring down into his beer, "Just go home to them Dan."
"I'm good," Danny mimicked simply and let the conversation fall silent once again.
"What're ya doing Danny?" the taller man inquired tiredly, frustrated with his friend's stubborn refusal to simply leave him alone with his grief, "Why are you here? You should be home with your wife and baby."
Danny responded with a shrug and small grunt.
"Cause you're here. And if you wanna talk to me, then I'm gonna listen to you. If you wanna take a swing at me, I'm not gonna take it personal. If you wanna get shitfaced then I'm gonna let you and then drive you home, maybe get shitfaced with you and we can take a cab. I don't know, I just know that I'm gonna be here until you're not here."
"Why?" Don repeated again, a hoarse whisper.
"Cause you're my friend, basically my brother," Danny answered matter of factly, "And for a long time I made it a habit of toeing the line of every edge I came across and almost falling off," he pointed his bottle in Don's direction, "but you never let me. You were always there to listen to me or tell me to get my head outta my ass or to get drunk with me when I needed it. And everything I have now? My shiny new family? You had a lot to do with makin' sure I got this far," he sipped his beer, "You never let me fall Flack. And I'll be damned if I'm gonna let you."
"I just miss her," Don whispered brokenly, "And I'm pretty scared of the rest of my life without her."
"One day at a time," Danny reminded with a phantom of a smile, "We'll all take it one day at a time together."
They sat in silence for a long while before Don let his hand fall from it's vice like grip on his beer and he sat back in his chair.
"Supper huh?" he inquired and forced the closest thing he could to a smile, "Lindsay a good cook?"
"Actually, yea she's getting there," Danny chuckled, "You interested?"
"Yea," he answered, "Just uh, just a few more minutes okay?"
"Sure" Danny answered and made work of finishing his beer.
Flack looked back to the newspaper photograph and traced the lines of her smile with his eyes. Then he blinked at his own reflection, noting for the first time the bags under his eyes and the gray, dull tone his skin had taken. And then for the first time since his friend had sat down next to him he noticed Danny's patient face reflected beside his own.