Disclaimer: The characters of CSI: NY do not belong to me however this story is my own and should only be used after permission has been asked and given – not that anyone would want to steal this story anyway. No copyright infringement intended and no profit is being made.
Summary: Lindsay gripped on to the railing and waited for her head to stop spinning. A chuckle sounded behind her, "havin' trouble handlin' ya booze, Montana?" DL, set between 'Live and Let Die' and 'Super Men'
Notes: A oneshot which will hopefully be a little humorous for us all. Nothing particularly fancy, just something that I felt like getting down. This is set in season 2 between 'Live and Let Die' and 'Super Men'; you may spot why the latter is important as you read on although it is only tiny so you may have to squint :) Although I've proof-read this more times than I can count, it's still gone un-Beta'd so any mistakes are my own.
The Gift of a Friend
by Izzi Creo
"Every gift from a friend is a wish for your happiness"
Richard Bach
"So this is your office, huh? Snazzy," a bright voice cut through the silence which had otherwise been broken by the tapping of two keyboards. Both occupants of the office looked up in surprised synch and Detective Lindsay Monroe's face split into a grin.
"What're you doing here?" she asked as she stood, rounded her desk and crossed the short distance to her office door. Lindsay nodded her approval to the uniformed officer who'd escorted her roommate up to the crime lab.
"Thought I'd surprise you."
"Well you certainly did that," Lindsay replied with a chuckle. A small cough from behind broke through the two women's talk and Lindsay turned around to face her partner. All paperwork seemed forgotten as Danny Messer sat back in his desk chair casually, a bemused smile adorning his face as he watched the pair.
"Sorry, I suppose I should introduce you," Lindsay said sheepishly, a blush forming as she inwardly scolded herself for forgetting her manners. Danny's grin widened as his partner's face grew more heated, the pink stain falling across both cheeks and then down her neck, disappearing below the line of her favourite green sweater.
"Danny Messer, Sasha Carmichael. Sasha's my roommate who took me in after sleeping on Uncle Freddy's couch began driving me insane." Lindsay's introduction caused the woman behind her to give a light chuckle.
"It's nice to meet you," Sasha extended a heavily beaded, mocha coloured hand for Danny to shake which he did, firmly. She was a head and shoulders taller than Lindsay although she wore comfortable sandals with a long, blue dress which accentuated the tone of her skin as well as complimenting the jade green eyes. When she smiled it was wide and showed off a row of brilliant white teeth; it reminded Danny of Lindsay's smile however it lacked the Big Sky Country effect.
Sasha's essence seemed alive with excitement and even mischief which left him feeling a lot lighter than half an hour ago when he and Lindsay had been groaning about the amount of paperwork which unfortunately came with the job. He noticed that even Lindsay seemed to have eased into a cool sense of self-calm which he approved of.
"So, any chance I can steal you away for a birthday lunch?" Sasha asked easily.
"Oh I don't know," Lindsay admittedly worriedly, chewing on her bottom lip as her eyes darted towards the stack of paperwork she was still yet to finish. "Mac's given us a lot of paperwork to do before we get off tonight. I'm not sure if he'll be happy with me disappearing for a while."
"How many times have I gotta tell ya Montana, Mac understands if ya need an hour or two away from this place to grab somethin' to eat. He ain't gonna rip your head off for havin' lunch, especially not if it's your birthday."
The emphasis on birthday caused Lindsay to wince, she'd hoped he hadn't picked up on what Sasha had said but clearly his investigative skills were as attuned as ever.
"Exactly," Sasha beamed obliviously. "It's not every day our country girl turns the big 2, 5."
"Big 2, 5," Lindsay scoffed. She knew it wasn't thirty… yet.
"Twenty-five today and ya didn't even tell us?" Danny asked incredulously. "I know it's not exactly huge but I still thought that after twenty-one the five year marks were somethin' worth mentionin'."
"She didn't tell you it was her birthday today?" Sasha asked.
"Nope, not a thing."
"That's so like her," Sasha tutted and rolled her eyes. "She has issues with birthdays for some reason."
The expression upon Sasha's face clearly said she thought this was a crazy motion and Danny laughed, throwing his head back as he did so.
"Hey! I'm still right here, y'know," Lindsay cut in forcefully. She tore her gaze away from the line of Danny's throat and his rippling Adam's apple, focusing instead upon her friend. Her tone took on a hint of exasperation, "are we going to lunch or what?"
"Sure, sure," Sasha nodded. She turned to Danny and smiled, "hey if you're free later then why don't you swing by ours. We're having a get together, nothing big, just a small party to celebrate Linds' birthday. BYOB, of course."
Danny grinned openly at Lindsay who was stunned into silence by her friend's forwardness.
"Gee thanks, I'll see what I can do," he smirked.
"Great, Linds'll give you the address later if you don't already know it. C'mon, let's go." Without another word, Sasha pulled Lindsay out of the office to Danny's amusement. He watched them walk down the corridor together, Sasha gliding gracefully whilst Lindsay blindly followed. Still grinning, Danny turned back towards his paperwork however his mind was wandering down the corridor behind the two women.
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"Hold it, that's the jerk who relentlessly teased you when you first started working?" Sasha seethed as she and Lindsay ate in the Italian restaurant they often frequented. "Why didn't you say? I sure as hell wouldn't have invited him to our place tonight."
"Well firstly I didn't think referring to Danny as a jerk when he was sat right there would have gone down well. Secondly I didn't want you to say anything unnecessarily untoward about him and thirdly, I happen to like him now." Lindsay gave a shrug as she stabbed at a piece of chicken and placed it into her mouth, chewing thoughtfully. "I judged him wrong; his comments weren't spiteful but rather banter and he's actually become a good friend of mine now."
"That doesn't mean to say he's changed my opinion of him," Sasha said darkly.
"Oh c'mon Sash, it'd mean a lot to me if you could get along with him."
"Well I 'spose I'll have to seeing as he's coming around to our place later tonight," Sasha shrugged.
"Yeah, thanks for that, by the way." Lindsay rolled her eyes and Sasha chuckled.
"What, I thought you just said he was a good friend of yours now?"
"He is but that doesn't mean I wanted people from work to show up tonight, especially if there'll be alcohol involved. I need to appear somewhat professional, remember?" Lindsay said, shuddering at the thought of her colleagues witnessing her drunk.
"Oh lighten up, Linds. You're a hoot when drunk," Sasha grinned to which Lindsay groaned.
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Lindsay glanced at her desk clock, the numerals glowing omnisciently as she supressed the groan which was forcing itself up her throat. She stretched, her muscles aching in protests as her back cracked loudly before carrying on with the paperwork which was still nowhere near finished. If she was lucky she'd make it home before midnight let alone within the next half an hour when her own birthday party was supposed to start. A voice inside her head told her that maybe she should feel guiltier about that; it wasn't like she didn't feel bad for bailing on her own party which Sasha had tirelessly organised but spending the night surrounded by a group of Sasha's friends wasn't too appealing.
"Shouldn't you be gettin' a move on?" Danny asked from behind his computer screen. He pushed his glasses further up the brink of his nose and rubbed at his eyes, tiredly.
Lindsay shrugged with a sigh. "No, I still have all of this to do."
She motioned to the still prominent stack of papers on her desk and Danny let out a low whistle. Lindsay eyed them distastefully and began wishing she hadn't taken that forty five minute lunch break with Sasha. Danny had chuckled when she'd returned to their office and told her she could have taken longer but she'd smiled and told him that crime didn't wait – even if it was a boring stack of paperwork. The biggest crime of all, she'd joked.
Her computer screen went blank and Lindsay nearly cursed in horror, thinking the system had crashed. Instead Danny's hand was pressing down on the monitor's off button and she realised that during her musings he'd crossed around to her desk, snaked his arm around her and shut the monitor down.
She looked up at him, her brow crinkled in confusion and he smiled crookedly back.
"Leave," he told her soft but firmly. She opened her mouth to protest but he cut over her. "No… no buts; go and have fun on your birthday. I've just finished my paperwork so I'll stay and finish this for you, 'kay?"
"Danny…" she sighed guiltily and he shook his head.
"Do it Miss Monroe or I'll have to sling you over my shoulder and carry you outta the lab myself," he threatened good naturedly. "I'll save and shut down your computer then do the rest of these reports on mine, a'ight? When you come in tomorrow you'll just have this one to finish."
She smiled at him softly, admitting defeat. "I don't know how to thank you."
"I'm sure you'll think of somethin'," he winked.
Lindsay straightened out her desk quickly before she rose to her feet and began walking out of their office. At the door she paused and turned back to Danny as he reawakened her monitor screen and did as promised.
"You'll come later, right?"
Danny eyed the stack of Lindsay's paperwork before giving her a brief smile. "I'll see what I can do."
Lindsay turned away again, this time walking to the locker room. She gave her hips a subtle sashay; all the while knowing that a pair of ice blue eyes was watching her retreat.
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The party was heaving with guests gyrating clumsily in their drunken stupor, pressed tightly against people they could barely recognise through their alcohol-addled brains. Taking refuge on the fire exit turned balcony, Lindsay gripped on to the railing and waited for her head to stop spinning.
This was not her party. This was Sasha's party with Sasha's friends who enjoyed their alcohol too much. Lindsay's own friends had been coerced, encouraged or bullied into drinking more alcohol than planned hours ago and even Lindsay had drunk more than she'd wanted to.
Giles, a work colleague of Sasha's, had been pouring her flutes of champagne all evening until they'd ended up fumbling in her bedroom. If she squinted Lindsay could pretend that the brown haired, green eyed and horn-rimmed glasses wearing man in front of her was actually blonde, blue eyed and wearing a stylish pair of spectacles. That, however, had only lasted for all of sixty seconds before she'd pushed Giles off of her and made her hasty retreat to the fire exit.
A chuckle sounded from behind her and Lindsay groaned, hoping it wasn't Giles again looking for more action.
"Havin' trouble handlin' ya booze, Montana?"
Lindsay spun around, her face cracking into a wide smile of relief. "You actually came."
"I said I would," he replied. Danny ducked through the open window and joined her on the fire exit. "Nice place you got here."
"Shame about the company," Lindsay muttered.
"Somethin' told me this wasn't really your crowd," Danny admitted to which Lindsay sighed.
"Sasha's great, don't get me wrong, it's just her friends… aren't. The stupid thing is I actually believed her when she said it'd be 'a small get together'." Lindsay rolled her eyes as she used air quotation marks. "These are mostly her friends; mine are the ones being forced to drink 'til they puke."
"Nice," Danny nodded. "What about you? Feelin' nauseous or light headed?"
"My head's spinning but other than that I'm fine," she replied. She released a sigh. "I'm glad you're here."
"I'm glad I'm here too." Upon impulse, Danny wrapped his arm around Lindsay's waist so they were side by side and placed a kiss on the top of her head. She was wearing a particularly tight pair of jeans with boots and a tank top which hugged her around the breasts but flowed underneath. Licking his lips, Danny smirked as he appreciated the way her body curved in ways he hadn't been able to see before whilst she was wearing her more formal, work clothes.
"I kissed someone," Lindsay groaned as she leaned into him.
Danny grinned at the idea of her kissing a stranger. "What was it like?"
"Awful." Lindsay shuddered as she remembered the feel of Giles' cracked lips against her own. "He had to get me hammered on champagne first."
"What happened?" Danny's voice was soft and Lindsay found herself slipping into his comforting concern.
"We ended up in my bedroom," Lindsay breathed. Danny's arm around her waist stiffened but Lindsay ignored it and leaned further into his body. "I could barely think straight but I knew I didn't particularly like this guy, he didn't look or feel right. He was kissing my neck and I tried to convince myself that I was okay with what was happening but… I just wasn't."
"Linds, did he hurt you?" Danny asked, his voice gentle but his eyes flashing blue fire.
"Oh God no," Lindsay laughed. "Do you really think he would've survived trying to hurt me? No, he started to undo my jeans but I pushed him away and told him to stop. He had to take care of his little problem," her eye roll explained just how little Giles' problem was. "So I got outta there and came out here instead."
"So Montana's a horny drunk," Danny grinned to which she elbowed him in the ribs non-too-lightly.
"I'm not a horny drunk I just… do stupid things sometimes."
"Well it's a'ight 'cause you got me here now," he told her with a grin. "And I've actually got somethin' for you."
He sat her down on the step which led up to the fire exit landing of the flat above before squeezing down next to her. During their conversation, the arm which hadn't been wrapped around her waist had been holding a gift-wrapped box which Lindsay hadn't noticed. Now that her vision was beginning to clear and her head had stopped spinning, she could see that it was a birthday present.
"Oh Danny, you shouldn't have-"
"I wanted to," he shrugged nonchalantly. "Besides, it's nothin' particularly special but I thought you might like it."
"You forgot a card," Lindsay teased as he placed the box on to her lap.
"Just open it."
Lindsay carefully pulled the lid off and set it beside her, revealing the tissue paper wrapped garment beneath. Biting back a smile and deciding that Danny definitely hadn't taken the time and effort to personally wrap this gift, Lindsay parted the tissue paper and pulled his present out to her.
"I thought that seein' as you like your green sweater so much; you may like this one too. The lady in the shop said that it's a bestseller and she helped me to guess ya size," he told her. He blushed nervously, remembering his conversation with the sales assistant whose eyebrows seemed to have been rising the more he stumbled with his words.
"Well she's curvy… but not fat. Like petite, ya know? I'm sorry, I don't usually do this. Her breasts ain't huge, but then they're not tiny neither. They're perfect size actually, like round and plump then her waist is small and er… well she's kinda like that lady over there, only her ass ain't quite so big."
Horrified with what had spewed out of his mouth, Danny had clapped a hand over it as the sales assistant laughed and the woman he'd insulted flounced out of the shop. Eventually he and the sales assistant had guessed a size which he'd gladly taken and now sat waiting with baited breath.
Lindsay smiled up into his face before releasing a soft chuckle and pressing her palm against his stubbled cheek. "Relax; it's perfect. I love it, thank you."
The garment within her hands was a maroon colored, button up sweater which was similar to the green sweater she often wore to work.
"I picked the color myself, I thought it might highlight the blonde in ya hair," he told her. Lindsay bit on her bottom lip touched that Danny had clearly put more thought into her present that he wanted to be accredited for. Danny looked down to find Lindsay fiddling with the hem of the sweater, her eyes filled with tears. He frowned worriedly, thinking that perhaps he'd let her down with the present after all. "What's up, Linds?"
She sniffed and smiled sadly through her tear filled eyes. "Sorry, I'm being silly. It's just… you're the first guy to get me a present which wasn't something stupid like crotchless panties."
"Well then all the other guys were jerks who didn't know you very well," he told her gently.
"I feel like I should be sixty years old," Lindsay sighed. "Most girls would rather have the panties than a sweater."
"You're not like most girls, Montana. You're a hell of a lot better than any of them." They both looked up and into the still open window to watch the couples grinding in Lindsay's living room.
Lindsay sighed. "I don't want to go back in there."
"Don't then," Danny said decisively. "Go in quick and pack an overnight bag then we'll slip down the fire escape and you can stay at mine for the night."
"Is this where you really give me a pair of crotchless panties?" Lindsay teased cheekily.
"Well I may have some left over from the last birthday present I gave out," Danny smirked. Lindsay smacked his arms once and he laughed, catching her wrist and holding her in place against him.
"You're a good friend, Danny."
She smiled up at him contently, her eyes flicking once from his eyes to his slightly parted mouth. Deciding she could blame it on the champagne in the morning, even if she now did feel sober whilst wrapped in Danny's arms, Lindsay lent up and brushed her lips softly against Danny's. The kiss was gentle and decidedly PG with minimal tongue action on either part but it left them feeling contented and light.
When they parted, Danny grinned down at Lindsay with twinkling eyes.
"Happy birthday, Montana."
A/N: so there you have it, my first ever CSI: NY fanfiction. I hope it wasn't too painful! :)