Name: Snow Day Blues

Fandom: CSI:New York.

Pairing: Adam Ross/Don Flack

Rating: M

Warnings: Slash, mention of past rape.

Summary: Adam Ross is consoled by his lover Don Flack after the events of Snow Day, and their relationship finally becomes known to their colleagues - with unexpected consequences.

Disclaimer: All characters within this story do not belong to me, they are owned by CBS Paramount Television and writers.

Don Flack stares in shock at Adam Ross, totally amazed at the sight of his soul-mate standing there in front of the two police officers who are gagged and dressed as terrorists. Even though armed patrolmen are about to start shooting, the lab technician continues to shield the helpless pair from harm, giving absolutely no thought for his own safety. Don's chest swells with pride at just how brave and sexy his lover looks at that moment, all angry and protective of the two cops.

Don then looks at his beloved more closely, sees the scarred hands, the blood, the bruising, the look of pain and fear in those soulful eyes. His heart melts, his breath catches in his throat and he crosses the distance between them in an instant.

Don grabs Adam firmly by his blood-stained shirt collar, and then pulls his traumatized partner to a secluded location in the death-scented room. Don pushes Adam against a damp wall and then kisses him slowly and softly, stroking Adam's heaving chest gently with both hands. He feels Adam respond to his tender caresses with a soft but heartfelt moan. Don takes Adam's damaged hands into his own and glances at those angry-looking burns. Don quickly suppresses the pity that wells up within him, as he knows that Adam does not handle that particular emotion well. Don runs urgent but gentle hands all over his lover's body, checking for broken bones and serious injuries, but apart from the cuts and bruises, the obvious signs of dehydration and those hands, oh god those sweet hands, finds no major physical trauma.

Adam starts to tremble as the adrenaline wears off and shock finally begins to kick in. Don peers at him, sees the agony and suffering in those twin windows into the younger man's soul and pulls Adam into a firm but tender embrace that seems to last for an eternity.

Finally, Don trusts himself to speak calmly. "I'm so proud of you for saving those two cops from being killed, my big brave hero. I want to revive and then kill again the motherfuckers that did this to you, then I really want to smack Mac around for leaving you here with not enough backup or protection in the first place."

"Don," Adam whispers. Flack gently places a finger on his beloved's lips. "Hospital now, declarations of undying love and extremely messy and passionate sex later."

Adam smiles involuntarily at his lover. "You always know what to say to make a boy feel special."

"You can add a lengthy session of spanking to that scenario," grins a deeply relieved Flack. He recognizes that if Adam is able to make a joke even in the depths of his pain and misery, then Don can help him work through this traumatic experience with some good old-fashioned tender loving care.

"Hey bitch, it's my turn to do the spanking this week," Adam whines in complaint.

Don kisses his life partner more firmly, crushes those dry damaged lips against his own moist ones, and tries to restore Adam's depleted life energy by actively willing him some of his own. Adam carefully runs his damaged hands through Don's luxuriant dark hair that the lab technician can just never leave alone. The two of them are then brought back to harsh reality by a stunned gasp.

They look up to see CSI Danny Messer and his girlfriend CSI Lindsay Monroe staring at them, looks of total shock upon their faces. Another unreadable expression then distorts the features of a deeply confused Danny.

Don suddenly feels dizzy and releases his lover, leaving Adam to sink slowly to the ground in a state of total exhaustion and despair.

"How long," says Lindsay in a far too quiet voice, "has this sick perversion been going on?"

"Six months," Don replies, equally subdued in tone and also wary of a nearby Danny's notoriously explosive temper.

Danny blinks in surprise, and then breaks his silence at last. "Do you love each other?" he asks with some anxiety, really not sure whether he wants to hear the answer to that question.

Adam finally finds the strength to speak. "This isn't some sordid fling, Messer. We have exchanged vows that we will never wake up apart from each other ever again, will never look for love elsewhere."

Don's hand gently squeezes Adam's shoulder. "We're life partners, soul-mates, long-term lovers, whatever big words you want to use, but we're a couple, and nothing and nobody will ever come between us."

"We can talk about this later," Lindsay almost spits out. "Adam and Danny need to go to the hospital to get checked out and you need to get to the lab and rescue the rest of our team."

Adam quietly explains to Don about the stolen lab pass and entry codes, and a worried look comes over the older man's face.

"Go," a fatigued Adam whispers. "These gorgeous muscled paramedics can take good care of me, and then you can spend hours staring into my lovely eyes later."

"Make that two spanking sessions," Don smirks at his lover, secretly thrilled by what he is hearing. He now knows for certain that Adam will be absolutely fine. Their relationship with Don's oldest and closest friend and his outraged girlfriend, well, that is possibly damaged beyond repair. Don pulls Adam into his arms for a brief chaste hug and then runs out the door.

"Superman to the rescue," Adam quips, "although Don would look so much better in some figure-hugging blue spandex."

The weak joke is met by a stony silence. "We need to get going," Lindsay whispers, her face cold and emotionless.

The journey to the nearest hospital goes by in a blur. Fortunately for Adam, they travel in separate ambulances and he doesn't have to face the hostility of his colleagues in his weakened state.

An exhausted and drugged Adam vaguely senses that he is being gently laid down upon a soft welcoming surface, and then he feels himself being prodded and examined. He registers the sharp prick of needles being stuck into various parts of his body. He winces at the sting of the antiseptic, but this is soon alleviated by the soothing and cooling dampness of salve on his burns. The removal of his acute pain lulls him into a peaceful sleep. When Adam regains consciousness, he sees that darkness has fallen, and that an extremely welcome and familiar large hand is stroking his arm.

He looks up and sees Don, exhaustion evident on his rugged masculine face, touching his lover in the only place that feels good right now.

Adam clears his throat, which is still a little dry, even after hours of rehydration. He is aware of the drip in his other arm, but apart from that Adam feels comfortably numb.

"So what happened?" Adam asks his lover.

Don jumps in surprise, lost in his own thoughts. He softly tells Adam everything that has occurred at the lab.

"Mac did WHAT?" Adam gasps.

"You heard me," grins a highly amused Don, "and it means you get a few weeks off until the rebuilding is complete."

"What will I find to do with all that free time?"Adam ponders in mock seriousness, secretly hoping for one particular answer from his beloved.

Don, as ever, knows exactly the right thing to say to his lover."I'll find many fun and wicked things to do to keep you busy," he leers, raising his eyebrows suggestively.

Adam shivers in pleasure and anticipation, but then frowns as he considers their current situation. "What about our other problem?" he asks, a worried tone apparent in his voice.

"Baby," Don whispers softly and passionately, and Adam's pulse quickens as usual at the term of endearment, "they were bound to find out about us sooner or later. I could never be ashamed of the love we have for each other. If they cannot accept us for who we are then there are other cities and other crime labs."

"But this is our home," Adam gasps, "we both belong here."

"My home is wherever you are, be it Miami or New York or Los Angeles. Without you laying there safe in my arms every night, there would be nothing there for me," Don vehemently iterates.

"I love you so much it hurts," breathes a overawed Adam, "but you are a New Yorker to the core, you would hate living anywhere else."

"Then we need to sort things out with the team," Don reasons. "Mac is away right now, but when he gets back we can all sit down and discuss this rationally."

Adam looks far from convinced. "I'm smelling those flying pigs even from this hospital bed," he chuckles.

"That young and handsome doctor tells me that you're well enough, so I could start the spanking now," Don growls.

"Has the rest of the team been in yet?" Adam tries to keep his voice calm, not wanting to show just how excited he is at the thought of Don doing THAT to him.

"They're processing the lab right now, but they'll be in first thing in the morning," Don reassures him.

"When can we go home?" Adam begs his lover.

"Tomorrow, baby," Don breathes softly in his ear.

"Then what are you doing sitting out there still?" Adam pouts. "Get in here right now and give a boy some emotional support."

Don doesn't need asking twice. He removes his jacket and shoes and climbs under the covers, pulling his fragile lover against him. Don wraps his warm body around Adam, wanting to keep the world and its problems away from his reason for living for at least a few hours.

Adam moans contentedly, leans his head against Don's broad welcoming shoulder and almost immediately falls asleep. Don looks at his sleeping lover, astonished at how lucky he is to have such a beautiful and kind person in his life, loving Adam totally and unconditionally for not possessing the arrogance to even once remind him of it.

Don thinks back to that fateful day two months ago when he had taken a bullet in the shoulder during an attempted robbery. Adam had been the one to hold him tightly in a bed identical to this one on that occasion, and Don marvelled at the utter pleasure in having someone you trusted implicitly take charge and do all the thinking for you. Lulled by his beloved's soft breathing, Don soon loses consciousness as well.

A curly-haired woman with a kind and compassionate face sticks her head round the door, takes one look at the sleeping pair and grins broadly before quietly leaving. CSI Stella Bonasera smiles at the confirmation of what she has suspected for months now, smirks at the thought that her world-famous intuition that has solved hundreds of cases is not in fact faulty, and sighs softly as she realizes that two of the men she loves most in the world will have a tough time ahead of them. She knows that they can take comfort in having her at least to watch their backs.

Don is woken by daylight streaming through a nearby window, and looks down at his sleeping beauty.

His thoughts turned to the day over six months ago when they had become a single entity, the day that seemed like a lifetime away.

He had heard the rumours about Adam and his abusive father in the lab, but had ignored them, as he never placed any faith in idle gossip. He was therefore absolutely stunned to see Adam Ross sitting in the front row of the Survivors of Familial Abuse Support Group.

Don's pushy sister Samantha had forced him to go there because the memories of the violence frequently inflicted upon a younger Don by his permanently drunk and now deceased father haunted him. The man had been a hero to the outside world, but not to his own family. When Samantha had suggested going to this group, Don had been appalled at the thought of airing his family's dirty laundry in public. But Don was totally unable to let anybody else get emotionally close to him, and he had silently acknowledged that being as he wasn't going to waste money on a fancy shrink, this was his only option.

He got up and almost left the room when he saw Adam sitting there, but the fact that everybody else there seemed to know and like Adam was if anything a comfort.

Don sat down at the back next to the door. He knew that he had to go through with this, or else Samantha would soon be wearing an unique pair of earrings made from his favourite body parts.

One by one the group members stood up, told their stories, got an encouraging round of applause and then sat down again. Soon it was Adam's turn, and the young man got to his feet, looked calmly at his large audience, and then recited the long and shocking tale of his early life growing up in Phoenix.

Don Flack was absolutely hypnotized by Adam's skilled performance. This Adam was totally devoid of any shyness, was so different from the almost invisible young man he knew from the lab. Adam recounted his story in a clear voice until he spotted the familiar face in the back row. He suddenly paused for a few seconds, and a look of panic appeared on his face. Adam then pulled himself together, finished his tale of horror and then sat down to a rapturous round of applause.

Don was stunned by what he had heard, a tragic story of years of rape, incest and other forms of physical and mental abuse. He resisted an irrational urge to kill a man he'd never even met, and then looked at Adam with utter respect and admiration. Adam was a strong and brave young man who had overcome a long and painful ordeal to become one of the best lab technicians in the country.

Don had experienced the stirring of a desire that had remained dormant in him for years. The bedding of a constant stream of lovely young women had been fun, but Don had never really let any of them get close to him. The girls were there one night and gone the next, and it had meant nothing to him. Donald Flack Senior had come home early from work one night and had caught a teenaged Don in bed with his one and only boyfriend. The older man had beaten seven shades of crap out of his son, and any desire for his own sex that Don may have felt was violently suppressed.

When Don had looked at Adam, those long forgotten feelings came flooding back, and he had felt lost and totally bewildered by this unwelcome renaissance.

Finally, it was his own turn to humiliate himself in public, and Don managed to sheepishly rise to his feet. Don quietly mumbled his story to the room, and then sank back down into his seat, blushing with embarrassment during the earnest round of applause he had received.

Don went into a world of his own during the half-hour discussion that ended the session. His thoughts were initially confused and incoherent. He couldn't possibly desire Adam, could he? Don suddenly experienced a rare moment of total clarity of thought. He realized that it was more than possible, and for several good reasons. Here was a man who would completely understand about his warped family, who would never judge him, and more to the point seemed to be staring straight at him with a hungry look that he was almost positive was mirrored on his own face.

Don came out of his daze, noticed that they were the only two left in the room, and stood up suddenly. Adam rose to his feet and looked at him with a quizzical expression on his face. Don surged forward before he had time to change his mind, took Adam by the arm, and wordlessly led him out of the door, straight into the sports bar across the street. They really needed to talk.

They ordered beers, and stared at the floor, at the TV screens, anywhere but into each others eyes, until Don found the courage to speak.

"Why that meeting?" he asked his young colleague.

"It's far enough from my apartment to make sure that I don't run into anybody I know," replied a suddenly bashful Adam. "What made you come here?" he tentatively asked Don.

"My sister threatened to castrate or kill me if I didn't," replied an equally reticent Flack.

Adam nodded in tacit understanding, and the awkward silence returned, stretching out for what seemed like forever until Adam suddenly uttered the words that Don was longing to hear in a voice so quiet that Don had to strain to understand it.

"I want you, you know. I've fancied the ass off you since the moment Danny introduced us. I've had dreams, erotic fantasies about you taking me in your arms and then just taking me. I keep it under control in the lab, make the odd joke and try to get through the day by staying quiet and invisible. I have plenty of practice of doing that with my charming family. Outside the lab I can be myself, be more confident, go for what I really want."

"And you want me?" whispered a stunned Don.

"Hell yes, it always has been you, but I wasn't sure you felt the same way," breathed an anxious Adam.

Don grabbed Adam's hand, pulled it under the table and rubbed it against his obvious and urgent desire. He was virtually bursting out of his pants just at the thought of making passionate love to the young man sitting opposite him, and stared with a deep longing into the eyes of the extremely attractive lab technician.

It took them ten minutes to make their way back to Flack's nearby apartment, roughly another fifteen minutes for the initial sating of those burning desires, and about three weeks before Adam gave up his fleapit of an apartment to share his lover's more pristine residence.

Six months have passed since that first night, and it feels like they have always been together. They have an amazing level of unspoken mutual understanding, and feel a physical emptiness inside when they're not together. Don is not soppy by nature, but goes weak at the knees every time Adam gives him that almost hypnotic look, and would do anything, even kill, to make his baby happy.

Adam in turn is the most confident that he has ever been, is even starting to become less invisible in the lab, and seems unable to ever stop smiling. He feels complete for the first time in his life.

And then Danny and Lindsay catch them in the act, and things become a lot more complicated.