Spoilers: Meh.
Disclaimer: This was supposed to be longer, but it just wasn't working. Hm.
Author's Note: I hate Australian Football. Ugh. Brutes and testosterone and arrogance and utter stupidity. Whose idea was it to make a game out of that? A bunch of tools in mini-shorts, really. Filth.
Danny preferred words.
He liked bass and rhythm, but it was the melody of the words that kept him engrossed, the poetry. Martin, though, seemed to enjoy challenging his ideals. He'd been trying, for the past hour, to tell him that words weren't important.
And Danny still didn't believe him. Didn't believe him because he was wrong. Of course words were important. Martin had a point, the instruments were indispensable, but to him, so were the words.
He was yet to hear lyricless music that he actually liked. Martin was just telling him that he never listened properly.
"Martin, any music composed without lyrics is written specifically for elevators," he argued as Martin all but glared at him.
"Come on," he prodded, and Danny could see that he was enjoying this. "Unless he had unprecedented forethought, I don't think Debussy composed for elevators."
Danny rolled his eyes. Trust Martin to make obscure classical references in the middle of a stupid argument. And he was well aware that it was a stupid argument. Normal people without stacks of paperwork and nothing better to do didn't argue about elevator music.
"Okay, so new music, then," he amended, and Martin actually narrowed his eyes. Mockingly, but Danny thought that Martin had more invested in this argument than he probably should have.
Oh well, he'd take what he could get.
"You're wrong," Martin pointed out, shrugging one shoulder before turning back to his paperwork with a mock finality. Danny snorted and moved across the office to perch himself on Martin's desk, invading his personal space like the interrogator he was.
Martin finished signing something, paused, then looked up at Martin like he were an unwanted fleck of dust on his lapel. Looked like he wanted to flick him away just as much. Deciding that Martin was waiting for him to speak, he remained silent and raised his eyebrow.
Martin sighed, like he was just realising that he was going to have to prod.
"Yes, Danny?" he asked boredly, sweetly, a smirk just beginning to form on his lips. Danny wanted to kiss it off, punish him for being so damn smug. That was his role.
He almost frowned at how horribly... straight that sounded. It was like declaring: I wear the pants in this relationship. Or lack of relationship. It was pretty obvious, though, that relationship or not, Martin wore the pants. Or liked to think he did, which was probably how most marriages worked, anyway.
Danny leaned in a little closer, trying to prove to Martin that he was not in control; would never be in control.
"Then show me," he almost purred, and making Martin blush was really much more interesting than paperwork. Despite his blush, Martin narrowed his eyes and leaned in less than an inch further.
"You're going into this with a closed mind," Martin accused. "You're personally invested in proving me wrong."
Danny rolled his eyes at the wording; they were talking about music, for God's sake. Still, Danny enjoyed flirting – especially with Martin – and he could work just fine with euphemisms.
"I'm not going to recuse myself, Martin," he declared, letting a smirk take over his face. "And you'd be surprised just how open-minded I can be when it comes to personal matters."
And apparently Martin was good with euphemisms, too, because his blush was one to behold.
The man was trying to kill him. Martin was certain of it.
There was only so much a man could take, and Danny of all sexually-versed people should know that.
He gripped the edge of the sink and looked at his reflection in the mirror. The light created a sort of halo above his hair, and wow, was that ironic.
He debated throwing cold water on his face but decided against it not seconds later. For one, it was a lot messier than movies would have one think. That, and he was sure that it wasn't his face that needed cold water right now.
That he actually contemplated going downstairs to the shower-room was a testament to just how low he'd sunk.
And it was all Danny's fault.
A few seconds later, and Martin wished he had locked the door.
Danny came all but flouncing in – looking inappropriately chipper – and grinned at Martin. The bastard didn't even have the decency to wear his usual smirk, but a shit-eating grin that told him that Danny knew far, far too much for Martin's safety.
Though, he corrected himself, if Danny knew any of what Martin was thinking, he probably wouldn't be grinning unless he was plotting some major sabotage. And not even Danny was twisted enough to play sabotage with something like attraction.
Then Danny winked at him as he left the room, and Martin wondered why on Earth Danny had come into the room in the first place. As far as he'd noticed, Danny had only walked in, winked, and walked back out again. Hell, as far as Martin knew, Danny hadn't even come in at all, and Martin had just been hallucinating. Paranoid schizophrenia, he diagnosed.
He looked in the mirror again, only a little surprised to see that his cheeks were bright red. No, he hadn't imagined Danny. He didn't blush in his own fantasies, and he certainly wouldn't have been alone in the bathroom with Danny without pulling him into the closest cubicle and tearing his clothes off.
Definitely not his imagination, then.
But damn, Danny knew something more than he'd ever told Martin. More than he probably ever would tell Martin. Though just what he knew and just what he'd use that knowledge for was a mystery.
And when it came to his personal life, he didn't like mysteries. Mysteries tended to end badly for him.
Taking a deep breath, he hit his head solidly on the mirror in front of him and headed back into the bullpen, purposefully not looking at Danny's desk.
Which was his second big mistake of the day – the first having been starting that stupid music conversation in the first place.
"So what, then?"
Martin's head snapped up to see Danny perched again on the edge of his desk. He forced his face into his usual I'm-dealing-with-Danny smirk and rolled his eyes.
It wasn't really that hard to fall back into banter and smiles after near breakdown in the men's bathroom. That was one of the perks of lusting after someone like Danny: it wasn't too hard to ignore the lust if one couldn't smell, taste or touch him at any given moment. Not that Martin had ever had the pleasure of tasting any part of Danny.
He added bipolar disorder and unhealthy fixations to his list of Danny-induced mental problems.
"What do you mean, 'so what'?" he asked, taking his seat and trying to ignore the proximity of Danny's crotch.
"So aren't you going to try and prove me wrong?" Danny baited. And Martin knew it was baiting, because that's how Danny got off. He wouldn't bother flirting with Martin if he weren't getting some sort of sick satisfaction out of it, himself.
Still, knowing didn't stop him from taking the bait. If it meant that Danny would stay here longer, then he was perfectly happy to humour Danny and his twisted games.
There really was something wrong with them both.
"And what could I do to prove you wrong, Taylor?" he asked, knowing that Danny would probably take the surname as a challenge. Danny smirked appropriately.
"That, my friend, is up to you."
Danny wandered back to his desk, tossing a little extra saunter into his walk. He knew that Martin probably saw nothing more in his walk than overt cockiness, but that he noticed anything was enough for Danny.
He was starting to get the feeling, though, that Martin noticed a lot more than he let on. Well, a lot more than he thought he let on, because Danny was picking up some serious vibes that Martin didn't even seem aware he was emitting.
Or maybe he did. That would explain the sudden trip to the men's room.
But the look he had given Danny on the way there was just... Danny wasn't sure whether it had been a glare or a leer. So, naturally, he'd followed him to find out. As it turned out – much to Danny's disappointment – it had most definitely been a glare. So he'd thrown the wink in just to rile Martin up.
Or to punish him for not dragging him into the closest stall and tearing his clothes off.
By the time Martin had stormed out of the men's room, Danny had been making a mental list of the best ways to break him. By the time he returned to his own desk, he knew that he was pretty darn close; Martin didn't back down from a challenge, after all.
He would give Martin until the end of the day to make up his mind. He had to know by now that Danny had… intentions. He snickered at how old-fashioned that sounded. Like he wanted to abscond with Martin and make him his bride without the sanctions of his father, and that just put a whole lot of funny thoughts in his mind. Everything from Martin in a wedding dress – which, really, was just wrong, because Danny had never really liked weddings – to asking Victor's permission to debauch his son.
That would go down well.
Besides, Martin would probably kill him before he got the chance to do much debauching, and that would be a damned shame.
Recalling himself back to reality, he cursed paperwork for being so boring. Really, if Martin decided to take the hint – finally – and then disregard Danny totally, it was all the paperwork's fault, anyway. He only ever saw Martin at work, and what little leisure time they had was usually quelled – or simply obliterated – by the pressure of a case.
But not today. Oh, no, today he was stuck in the office with Martin, while Vivian, Elena and Samantha were out chasing down a case involving a missing accountant – and, conveniently enough, his very stupid, very blond secretary – that could probably solve itself in less time than it took the three of them to interview his wife.
Still, though, Danny had all but pleaded with Jack to let him go with them. He'd stooped to the level of reminding Jack that none of the girls could legally frisk any male suspects. Jack had replied with something that included the phrase sit your ass down and wandered back into his office, not to be seen since.
So now, Danny and Martin were, effectively, alone.
Which tended not to bode too well for Danny's self-control.
Or his sanity. Which, concerning Martin, were essentially the same thing.
He actually wanted to break Martin, though that wasn't really all that strange. He'd wanted to break Martin since the day he joined the team – though for a while it had been a slightly more vicious kind of breaking. But now, he wasn't only wanting to break Martin, he was trying to break Martin. Which had the potential to be a good thing, but he had a horrible feeling it was actually going to work.
Which was, as far as getting into Martin's pants was concerned, a good thing. But as far as just about everything else was concerned, it was bound end rather unfavourably.
That didn't mean, though, that when Martin finally made it to Danny's desk about an hour later, he didn't do everything in his power to make the man squirm.
Martin's mouth was dry.
Not in the thirsty way – which was just as well, because he had a feeling that his fluttering stomach wouldn't hold much down anyway – but in the way that was just enough to make him wish he had a piece of chewing gum. For which he damned Danny, because he loathed chewing gum, and under any normal circumstances would shun it in lieu of just about anything.
The operative word being "normal", because today… today was not normal. Martin would probably believe someone – instantly, without hesitation – if they told him that he was hallucinating. Because things like this did not happen to Martin Fitzgerald. Martin Fitzgerald did not get shamelessly hit-on by anyone; Martin Fitzgerald did not flirt with co-workers – he'd since decided that Sam didn't count as he'd hardly really flirted with her at all, anyway; and Martin Fitzgerald most certainly did not ask aforementioned co-workers on dates.
Unofficial as it may have been, he was pretty sure he had just asked Danny out.
And he was also pretty sure that Danny had said yes.
He battered his ego back a little. This was ridiculous. For one thing, the date had pretty much been Danny's idea in the first place; at the very least it had been he who had suggested that Martin prove him wrong. And really, what better way was there to prove Danny wrong than to take him to a jazz club? It had been a perfectly logical leap.
And it was either that or play the piano for him, and Martin most certainly was not going to do that. He'd had enough humiliation for one day as it was – of that Danny had made certain.
It was also ridiculous because this wasn't a date.
Despite the fact that Danny had spent half the morning needling and teasing, invading Martin's personal space, making sexual innuendo out of just about everything and generally being an unfairly persistent flirt, Martin was sure that Danny hadn't agreed to go with him under the context of anything remotely romantic.
Because that would be too easy and because, dammit, things like this didn't happen to Martin Fitzgerald.
He turned around, in what he thought was an impressively surreptitious manner, and risked a glance at Danny, realising quickly that he needn't have bothered being subtle at all.
Danny was staring straight at him, eyes considering – a flash of curiosity, gone before Martin could even name it – before giving Martin the most meaningful and provocative smirk he was sure he'd ever seen.
It spoke almost solely of knowing; like he knew everything Martin was thinking, everything he was feeling, every layer of subtext that Martin had pulled from their earlier conversation.
More than that, though, it was just sinful.
Partially because Martin was certain that it had been a specifically engineered move on Danny's part to drive him insane, and partially because in the few seconds before Martin averted his eyes guiltily, he could have sworn he saw every single detail of just what Danny wanted.
What Danny wanted to do to him, and Martin was definitely losing it because Danny was neither telepathic nor, as far as he knew, expecting any of the things that flashed through Martin's mind.
Hell, Martin probably wouldn't ever have expected those things, and it was beyond him how on earth they ended up in his head in the first place.
As the images flashed through Martin's head again, he pulled his chair further under his desk, glad, for the first time today, to be stuck on desk-duty.
He didn't talk to Martin for the rest of the day.
Shot him looks at just about every opportunity – of which there were few because Martin was hardly looking at him and he wondered briefly if he'd misjudged Martin's proposal – to which Martin mostly just blushed and stared anywhere but at Danny.
Which was both comforting and nerve racking. Comforting because Martin's blush spoke more of sheepishness than of actual embarrassment – not to mention being indecently adorable – and nerve racking because it made Martin look so innocent that Danny had no choice but to question his motives.
Maybe Martin had simply been rising to Danny's challenge. He was competitive enough that it wouldn't have been a long-shot at all.
But then, he reasoned, Martin had seemed to understand exactly what Danny had been silently willing him to with that smirk. And he knew – knew – that it had driven Martin a little bit insane, because the thoughts behind it had done the same thing to him.
The odd thing was, though, that Danny actually felt a little nervous. And Danny did not do nervous.
By five o'clock, he was still feeling aptly cocky – after all, Martin had just asked him out, albeit in a round-about way – but the air between himself and Martin had shifted. He heard Martin stand and fiddle with a few things, and did the same. He grabbed his jacket and the stack of files to give to Jack and finally turned around only to find Martin watching him with a sort of subdued curiosity.
He smiled – like a normal person this time, not someone who lived solely for sex – and Martin's answering smile was somewhat surprising. He had been expecting him to blush, or talk, or move, or something, not just stand twenty-odd feet away and smile back at him. Not that he was complaining – the man had dimples which were beyond adorable – but it was strange because he was certain that he had never seen that smile before.
Strange, and rather terrifying.
Sure, he wanted to tear Martin's clothes off, but right now he had an even stronger urge to just curl up with him and fall asleep.
He blamed fatigue for that thought – told himself that it wasn't Martin so much as sleeping that sounded tempting right now – but didn't bother to actually convince himself of it. Instead, he grinned, heading towards the doors.
"You ready to try and prove me wrong, Fitzie?" he asked wickedly, knowing that it was too easy to fall back on friendly teasing but not really caring. Fortunately, Martin seemed to need the respite, too, and followed him, grinning.
"Try?" he scoffed, raising his eyebrows as they reached the door of Jack's office. "Your stubborn ego is going to be shattered, my friend."
Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Jack motion them in. They both handed him their completed paperwork.
"Have a nice weekend, boys," he said distractedly, more a dismissal than anything. Danny returned the greeting, smirking at the blush now covering Martin's cheeks.
Apparently Danny wasn't the only one with intentions.
"Don't think you're going to change my mind, Martin," Danny protested as they waited for the elevator. Martin just glanced wickedly at him, and who knew Martin could flirt like that? Certainly not Danny.
"Just keep it open," he said almost absently as they stepped onto the elevator. Even as he said it, Martin reddened slightly.
Danny wondered vaguely just how much of their conversation had actually been about music. Judging by the way Martin grinned at him, very little. At least, not since Martin had gone into that bathroom.
He glanced over at Martin to find the other man staring at him, a slightly amused expression in his eyes that seemed to answer all of Danny's questions at once.
Maybe words weren't so important, after all.