Note: This is not my best work but it's all I have right now...

Lost in the Fog

Chapter One: She Couldn't Change Me

"Have you ever had a girlfriend?" Martin asked before popping a French fry into his mouth.

"Once," answered Danny, a sly smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Her name was Sheri and she had hair the color of strawberries. We used to spend a lot of time together."

"So what happened to her?" he asked.

Danny shrugged. "It wasn't the kind of relationship that I wanted. Actually, I take that back, it was but at the same time it wasn't. The commitment was nice but the person was all wrong."

Martin couldn't help but smile. He loved when Danny would point at the faults of his past relationships because it always made him feel more important, more loved by the other man. For the past year he'd been seeing Danny but no one knew about it. He kept his relationship with the lawyer a closely guarded secret. Not because he thought that his friends wouldn't understand but because he knew for a fact that his father wouldn't. For the longest time he'd known that women weren't exactly his cup of tea. However every one of the relationships that he had with men fell apart. He was beginning to think that he'd spend the rest of his life going from one one-night stand to another. That's when he met Danny Taylor.

It had been after a particularly bad case. For a week they had been trying to find a missing child, presumed kidnapped by her father. Everything was beginning to look bad when they were able to locate the father registered in a hotel out on Staten Island. They figured that they would find the father and his daughter there. Instead they found a bloody room and a body. Someone had shot the father in the head but only after beating him. There was no sign of the little girl. Despite all the leads they got from that one room and the people in and around the hotel they'd been unable to find the missing child. After a week of getting nowhere he couldn't take it anymore. The case file never left Jack's office, and even after a year it remained there, a constant reminder of the case they could not solve. The little girl haunted his dreams. He saw her face all the time and that was why he found himself at that bar all those months ago. Little did he know that everything in his life was about to change.

He'd taken a seat next to a man in a suit who looked to be having as bad a time as him. When he offered to buy the guy a drink he was politely turned down, the guy saying that he was only drinking club soda and nothing else. That prompted Martin to mention how weird it was for someone to go to a bar and not drink. That had been his first meeting with Danny, a former alcoholic. The lawyer explained that sometimes he liked to stop by a bar and sit for a while to remind himself why he'd given up drinking a few years back. He took the opportunity to look back on his life and see what he could have been instead of what he was now; a lawyer that helped those that couldn't afford the prices of most other lawyers.

After that one night they ran into each other almost constantly at the same bar. It was only after a month that Martin realized he kept going to the bar for the simple chance of running into the lawyer. Amazingly that same day he'd run into Danny on the street buying a hot dog from a vendor. They'd gotten into talking about their work, walking the busy New York sidewalks, quickly losing track of time. Neither one of them was sure whether or not that was the day they truly realized that there was something more between them. They took things slow, having lunch here, catching a movie there. Before long they were spending all their free time together and Martin would often find himself helping Danny with his work, offering suggestions to the cases he worked. He had fallen head over heals in love with Danny and knew that for the first time in his life the feeling was mutual.

"I think the last time I was with a girl was back in middle school," Martin mused, trying to recall the name of his last girlfriend. He'd had a slight crush on the principle's daughter but his father had frowned about the idea. Something about her not being good enough for his son. "My relationships never worked out until I met you, you know that?"

Danny smiled, a twinkle in his eye. "What can I say? I love you, Fitzy. There's something about you…something I can't quite put my finger on but even one day away from you makes my heart ache. I have to hear your voice, feel you next to me, inhale the scent that is uniquely you."

Martin could feel himself blushing but he attempted to steer the conversation back to their past relationships. "Did your family care for Sheri or…?"

"My brother thought that maybe I'd make him an uncle finally. What I didn't want to tell him was that even if Sheri and I did have a kid he wouldn't be meeting it because he'd be in jail," answered Danny with a smirk. "I liked Sheri, a lot…but she just…." He shrugged. "She wasn't my type and try as she might she couldn't change me. I love guys."

"And how does your brother feel about that?"

"I haven't exactly told him," Danny admitted. "How about you? Do your friends and family approve of us?"

"They don't know about us," he said. He looked at Danny, studying his reaction to the news. "My father would disown me and I could care less what my friends say." He reached across the table and took Danny's hand in his own. "The only person that I care about is you."

Danny looked as though he was going to say something in reply but his words were cut-off by the trill of a cell phone. A dark cloud passed over his eyes as he fished the phone out of his jacket pocket. He checked the caller ID and swore under his breath. "I have to take this, Fitzy."

No sooner did he say that than Martin's phone began to ring. He smiled. "See you at the apartment tonight?"

Danny leaned across the table and kissed him on the lips, a passing promise of what would come later that night. "I wouldn't miss it for the world. Nothing could keep me away from you."