Author: Velvetine

Rating: T

Pairing: Danny/Flack

Content Warning: not for homophobes, contains swearing

Spoilers: none

Disclaimer: I own nothing. But I really should coz these two deserve to be together!

It's the biggest mistake rookies make:

He had known Danny for almost six years now. He knew when he needed to be pushed or left alone. He knew his moods and tantrums and all about his character. When it came to his short friend, Don was pretty sure he was a pro.

One day she had waltzed in, carried by slender, over-exposed legs. Her long wheat-coloured hair swaying as she walked up to the receptionist, a small smile on her pink, glossy lips.

"Umm, I'm looking for Danny. Danny Messer." Her voice was high pitched and Don recognised the distinctive Long Island accent.

"Yes, and who shall I say it is?" The redhead receptionist asked dryly, in an almost automatic manner.

"His girlfriend." The receptionist gave a blank and expectant look. "Uh, Emily McKinnon." Don smirked slightly as her remembered a joke about blondes whose bra sizes ranked higher than their IQs.

Just as the redhead picked up the receiver, Don conveniently stepped out of the break room and walked towards her desk. "Don't worry about it, Gladys. I'll take her up." The receptionist gave him a grateful smile before he turned to the blonde. "I'm detective Don Flack. I'll take ya to Danny. Follow me."

The blonde took his extended hand and shook it before following him to the elevators. "I'm Emily, Danny's girlfriend." She said the last part with added zest and Don had to fight back the urge to tell her he already knew, and didn't like it. "So, d'you work with Danny?"

Flack took a second before answering. "Yeah, kinda. I'm a homicide detective and sometimes we're on cases together." Not often enough.

"Oh, I work at an antiques store in Midtown.. I like jobs where I get to talk to people, y'know? The other day this lady came in..."

Don, being the gentleman he was, decided not to let out a long sigh and listened quietly to her story. The lady who had walked into the store had a broken-hearted daughter who was threatening to go lesbian because her ex-fiancé had broken her heart. Apparently, she'd walked into her apartment only to see him doing the horizontal tango with one of her roommates, on her new divan. Emily stressed the point it had been a pre-wedding gift.

Don was starting to wonder why the story was important or if it had any moral value when the Long Island accent increased in volume. "And y'know, that divan was by THE BOMBAY FURNITURE COMPANY!" She was practically screaming now, not to mention she had started tackling the subject of furniture.

Don, however, had aptly placed her voice in the 'Background noise' part of his brain. He would gladly have asked her to shut up (by now he was seeing that manners got him nowhere), but he knew it would have been a futile endeavour to get a word in edgeways.

How can Danny stand her! Don admitted he was a little jealous of Emily. Okay, a lot. He didn't need a girlfriend, though. His cause for envy lay elsewhere; he needed her boyfriend. It hadn't taken him as long as he thought it would have to just accept he had it bad for his best friend/ co-worker who just happened to be a guy. Okay, so the last part had been somewhat harder to swallow and stopped him from outright flirting with the guy, or going to his devout Catholic mom for advice.

That left him with three options. He could talk to his dad, his buddies from the precinct and lab or his older sister. As far as he could see, there was only one real choice. His dad would bury him alive and his precinct buddies would laugh until they noticed he wasn't joking, at which point the direction of the conversation would change and they'd pretend to never have heard him. The guys at the lab were too close to Danny for Don to even consider talking to them about his...thing for a certain member of the team.

So he'd stuck with his sister. After a nice, scalding shower of fresh coffee and a long hearty laugh, his sister noticed he wasn't smiling and deduced that he was, in fact, serious. Seriously gay.

"I'm not gay!" Don had defended himself. "Danny's juss..." her eyebrows had risen expectantly, "...different." Don had finished, for lack of better vocabulary. He had proceeded to explain as best he could and she had given him her advice.

"Find out if he's interested, and take it from there." Her mellow tone made had made it seem all so simple and her little wink made Don turn a bright shade of pink.

Don looked Emily up and down. What did she have that he didn't? Long legs? Mine're longer. Nice eyes? Ain't like mine've never been complimented. Large breasts? Aaah fuck! Danny loved tits and ass, the guy was a 100 pedigree heterosexual and he'd heard enough stories about Danny's conquests to know that he was hot property. I don't even have a chance...

DING! The high pitched noise wrenched a startled Don back to reality. As he walked out ahead of her he noticed her lips were still moving at an incredible speed. The elevator ride had seemed to stretch for hours and Don was having trouble understanding how she still hadn't stopped to breathe or run out of things to say. Emily seemed hell-bent on teaching him the dos and don'ts of interior decoration and everything to do with furniture.

Don almost started believing in God againwhen almost a minute passed, as they walked to the 35th floor trace lab, without a single word from Emily. The glass walls enabled them to see Danny leaning intently over some evidence, brow furrowed in concentration.

As soon as he opened the door, it hit Don like a tsunami. His 6th sense, the Danny sense that people around the CSI in question often acquired, was giving him a code red. Danny was in a worse mood than normal. He turned his head and considered informing Emily on the situation, before deciding to do what pros do best; let the rookie learn the hard way.