To DD or Not to DD
Fandom: CSI:NY
Author: Kimmychu
Rating: FRM (it may go up later)
Pairing: Danny/Flack, Danny/Mac
Content Warning: Cracktasticness, odd body changes, language. Did I mention cracktasticness?
Spoilers: Set after 'Necrophilia Americana', so spoilers for any episode previous to that
Summary: After a freak laboratory accident at CSI headquarters, Danny is cursed (or blessed, depending on how you see things) with very unusual ... add-ons. Inspired by a forum comment: "Danny is the show's DD breasts."
Disclaimer: Nope, none of the characters belong to me. What a shame. I would treat them oh so well. They have no idea what they're missing.
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Author's Notes: Okies. People who cry easily over angst … I think you may need to get the tissue papers ready. I've never written angst like this before, so, uh, I dunno if this is too much. I've tried my best to incorporate canon info into Danny's history. For all the DannyFlack fans. It's DF from here on out! Oh, and thank you for the reviews! It's great to see people are enjoying the story. Yay!
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Chapter 23
The wacky, yellow sponge thingy was dancing across the television screen again, singing about ice cream and prancing about like a poof with its pet snail called Gary.
Flack glowered with angry brows at the screen, arms folded on his chest and slumped until he was almost reclining on the couch at Mac's hideout apartment. He was really itching to squash the hell out of the talking yellow sponge with its blue eyes into a pail and stomp on it until it was flatter than a piece of paper.
Why the hell did he insist on dragging the television out from the bedroom? Oh, that's right. He'd be fucking bored to death if he didn't. And he was not going to stay in that bedroom where Mac had been in before. Not for a second.
Stupid sponge. Stupid ice cream. Stupid snail.
Stupid Mac.
Like being all gracious and driving him back eventhough Flack could have taken a cab like he did to get to Nobu in the first place was going to win his good graces.
The unwanted picture of Mac kissing Danny and fondling him materialized in his mind.
He felt a stabbing ache in his chest. Flack's snarl rumbled deep in his throat.
"Flack … uh, I've heated up some of the food from last night. You wanna eat?"
A pair of lean legs in long, khaki-colored track pants emerged into view.
"It's creamy and spicy crab. We can have the chocolate soufflé later, how 'bout that?"
Flack didn't budge an inch from his position. His eyes continued to stare forward at the television, the luminescence from it lightening the irises of his blue eyes until they were nearly clear. "Whatever."
He felt rather than heard Danny sigh in frustration. A descending weight close beside him made the couch sink a little. From the corner of his eye, he observed Danny fiddling with the wrinkles in his trousers. The only sounds reverberating in the living area was the background soundtrack of the cartoon and the pink starfish yelling for a couple of minutes.
"Are you mad at me?" Danny asked in a tiny voice.
Flack didn't reply.
They sat side by side on the couch, just like they did when Flack came to see him after he was suspended by Hillborne at his precinct. But this time, whatever closeness they had was gone. It was as if a chasm the size of the Grand Canyon had come between them. Danny toyed with the creased cloth over his knees some more.
Then, he flew off the handle.
"It's not my FAULT!" Danny was so used to saying it, it was like a second nature. Only here in this moment, he really meant every single word.
"Yeah?" Flack kept his attention determinedly on the television. There was no way in hell he was going to look at Danny. Those blue eyes of his would melt his defenses in an instant. "Seems to me like you were enjoyin' yerself a whole lot there."
Danny shot off the sofa and marched around the room in front of Flack, muttering furiously.
"I knew it, I knew it, I knew you were mad 'bout that!"
Flack flew off his handle too and lunged to his feet, hands tightened till the knuckles turned white.
"Well, no fucking SHIT! How the hell d'you expect me to react to MAC kissing ya!"
Danny stamped right up to him and shoved him hard on the chest. "He was doin' it to convince Hillborne of my ROLE, okay!"
Flack laughed joylessly, throwing his arms out in disbelief. "Ohhh, oooooooohhh, I see, is that what you've telling' yerself since last night?"
"Fuck it, Don, it's not what you THINK!" Danny's face was livid. His blue eyes were like scorching hot flames. "There's NOTHING goin' on between Mac and me!"
"Well, do you want there to be somethin'? HUH? DO YA?"
"NO!" Danny's eyes glimmered wetly in the sunlight cascading through the shut windows of the living area.
Flack ran his hands wildly through his shorn hair, eyes wide with mistrust and distress.
"You're drivin' me nuts, Dan," he uttered in a hoarse voice. "I-I dunno what ta think anymore. I keep thinkin' maybe I'm just goin' fucking crazy, maybe-maybe I'm just imaginin' things, ya know?" He started to pace around while Danny watched him, standing still as a statue.
"I tell myself, 'Hey, ya stare long enough at him, he's gonna figure it out sooner or later, right?' and 'Hey, ya stick by him when things get bad, he'll know how ya really feel sooner or later, right, right?'" Flack crossed his arms over in front of him, still pacing in a rabid manner.
"So I do it and I do it and I do it, and nothin' happens. Everybody else gets to have ya. Everybody. And they don't even give a shit 'bout ya." Flack shook his head frenetically from side to side. "You can't see me. I'm right here and ya can't see me."
Danny's mien slowly crumpled. Danny soundlessly mouthed the word no as he reached out to Flack with both hands.
"Don't TOUCH me!"
Danny recoiled at Flack's violent shout, withdrawing his hands. His face crumpled a little more.
"I don't-" - Flack swallowed visibly - "I don't think I can take this anymore, Danny. Everybody wants a piece of ya and it hurts like fuck to see you with anybody else. Even findin' out Lindsay's a friggin' lesbian hasn't made me feel better. You're fuckin' hot and you don't even know it." Flack rubbed at his face with his hands. "Maybe Hillborne suspending me was a good thing. Maybe … Maybe I oughta transfer somewhere else."
Danny gasped piercingly.
"'Cos if I don't, I'm gonna fuckin' die." Almost mechanically, Flack picked up a translucent glass vase from one of the side tables beside the sofa and threw it straight at the closest wall. It shattered into a million pieces, the small shards and pebbles of glass glittering like diamonds in the sunlight on the carpet.
"Or I'll end up killin' somebody for real."
Flack sat down on the sofa again, switching off the television set and viciously tossing the control onto the floor. Now, the only sounds heard was Flack's ragged breathing and Danny's occasional uneven and moist inhalation of air.
Unexpectedly, all the rage drained out of Flack, leaving him fatigued like a thousand years old man whose time was long overdue. Goosebumps rose all over his body. He shivered with a pall that was settling deep within his bones. He remembered when he'd felt like this before. It was when his father had forced him to choose between two paths in his life; become a police officer or be disowned.
Flack tried to not think about whether he'd made a mistake back then too.
"I'm tired, Danny. I just … I don't know how to trust anyone. I don't know who I can trust." Flack closed his eyes. They were heavy with tears. "And I don't wanna be alone anymore."
The silence stretched out for so long Flack believed Danny had left him on his own.
Well. Nothing new there for Don Flack, Jr.
He made up his mind to get up and leave the apartment before he keeled over and cried his eyes out.
Then he felt a warm hand stroking over his, shorter fingers entwining with his long ones.
Flack's eyes snapped open. Danny's shoulder and thigh were literally molded to his. The heat from Danny's arm warmed him even through his long-sleeved dress shirt. Their forearms were linked together too, their hands lying on top of their thighs. Flack turned his head. He was near enough that he could nuzzle Danny's cheek if he wanted.
Danny's body was right there next to him, but the spectacled CSI's mind was somewhere far, far away.
Suddenly, Flack saw himself standing before a soaring cliff, mere inches away from the serrated edge. All he saw far below was a frothing, blue-green ocean, where shadowy, ominous beasts lurked beneath the churning surface. Nevertheless, beyond them, he saw the faint glimmer of a glorious treasure at the bed of the sea. Was it a treasure worth risking everything for?
Flack continued to gaze at his friend's face in profile. If he stayed and listened to what Danny was going to say to him, he was going to leap over that cliff's edge and dive into that ocean of peril, with no way of turning back. If he stood up and left right now, he'd be escaping from the edge to safety.
But if he walked away … it was an absolute guarantee he would never earn the right to truly call that treasure his own, much less hold it in his arms.
Danny's mouth opened.
And Flack's hand closed tightly over Danny's so that, in their clasp, they were one.
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"When I was a kid, my old man used to bring me fishin' and to baseball games, ya know?"
Danny's eyes were unfocused, his thoughts traveling back decades to a time when his father was still alive, and his brothers were still his brothers. A time when he was too young to understand what mortality really entailed.
"Was always just the two of us … my mum never liked either activity. I was fine with that anyway. Just me and Pop. That was what made it special." Danny felt Flack stroking his fingers with a thumb.
"Sometimes, we'd go to Battery Park to fish. Never ate any of the fish though… I mean, I wouldn't even eat a fish outta the Hudson if ya paid me." Flack smiled diminutively at that. "Sometimes, we'd tour the country attendin' as many baseball games as possible, during my school holidays." Danny smiled wistfully. "He used to say I was goin' to be an amazing' pro baseball player, and how he was gonna be cheerin' me on from the top."
His smile faltered. He was quiet for a few minutes. The hurt never lessened no matter how many times he thought or spoke about his father.
"But most times … most times, he was never there. Always said he was busy. Had important work to do. Said he had to work hard to put me and my brothers Louie and Anthony through college. Wanted us to have a better future than he did." Danny closed his eyes. "I used to laugh at him, ya know? 'Specially after he told me what his occupation was after I made him say it. I was young and ignorant."
Danny's eyelids lifted. He bit his lower lip.
"It took me a long time to figure out what a cleaner really did."
Flack glanced sharply at him. Danny didn't return his look.
"What an irony, huh, Don? My old man spent his life cleanin' up after gangsters and their murders … and his youngest son grew up to do 'xactly the same thing. 'Cept I do it to apprehend them, not protect them."
Danny's lips downturned into an aggrieved scowl. "When I found out, I was - I was so pissed off at him. I couldn't believe that he spent more of his time washing up murder scenes and getting rid of corpses for his employers than he did with mum and all of us. Sometimes, I couldn't stand him touching me. Sometimes, it - it sickened me. Was like I could see the blood all over him even when he was all clean and … and normal."
Danny squirmed in his seat. Flack's grasp around his hand kept him together. "I started gettin' nightmares. Started dreaming 'bout gettin' killed by the mob and then seein' my dad comin' in and cleanin' us out like we were just trash. It got to the point I couldn't sleep at all. I was so afraid it would come true. I was so angry at him for not stoppin'. But he was my dad, ya know? … I still loved him."
Danny's voice broke. He coughed.
"He kept sayin' it paid good. Said it'd help pay for my education fees and jumpstart my baseball career. I couldn't … I couldn't stand knowin' my future was goin' to be paid with the blood of murdered people, good or bad. My dad and I began growin' apart. He knew he was losin' me. And I knew I'd lost him already long ago."
Flack's hand squeezed his.
"My oldest brother Anthony … Tony, Tony used to say, when ya live by the gun, you die by the gun. I admit it. I wasn't mad at my old man for doin' what he did because it was against the law, as much as it was because I knew, if he stuck with the mob long enough … it never ended well."
Danny released a shuddering sigh.
"It didn't."
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"Danny … c'mon, son, talk ta yer Pop."
A young, fourteen-year-old Danny doggedly faced away from his father, an intense frown making him look older than his tender years. They sat on a bench next to the street, two immobile figures within a constantly shifting crowd of people.
"I didn't mean ta ferget our outin' today. Things just-"
"What, ya had to go to work again?"
Alessandro Messer sighed. He scratched at the back of his head, his dark brown and silver hair thin but well-combed. His youngest boy was a handful to deal with at times, just like his old man.
"Danny, ya know what it's like. These are people ya don't piss off ever."
Danny's blue eyes were huge and beseeching. "I don't want ya to work for them anymore, Pop! There're other ways to earn a livin'!"
Danny's father wrapped one stalwart arm around his son's thin shoulders. He had to get the boy to eat more, if the little thing wanted to play in the major leagues someday.
"I … I ain't smart like ya, kiddo. I never even finished high school. I ain't good at anythin' else. That's why I'm stuck doin' the dirty work. And that's why I'm doin' it to get you and yer brothers outta this kinda life."
Alessandro gently shook Danny's frame with his hand. "I-I know it's a bad thing I gotta do to earn money for the family, but it's gonna be worth it, you'll see." His dad grinned like a cat, and got Danny to look him in the eye. "Don'tcha wanna play in the big leagues, ah? Be the star player, ah? Ya know you've got what it takes."
Danny's sneakers scuffed the pavement. "Yeah."
Alessandro waved one hand dramatically through the air, staring up in wonder at a mind-blowing scene only he could see.
"I can see it already … Danny Messer, SUPERSTAR!"
Danny smiled minutely.
"And you're gonna be there on the field, standing there with yer lucky bat and the people are gonna go, 'HEY! That's Messer there! The superstar!' And the ball comes flyin' at ya, and WHACK! Theeeeeeere it goes high into the sky and you're runnin' over all the bases and the people scream, 'HOOOOOME RUUUUUUUUN!'"
Alessandro cackled, rubbing his son's tummy affectionately and hugging his son tightly to his hulking body. The man's heart ached terribly for his youngest child. He'd already lost his older sons to the evil that stalked the streets of New York, although Danny and his wife still didn't know it. He couldn't bear the thought of his innocent Danny ending up in the gangs too.
"Pop." Danny's small hands grasped his arms with a strength that belied his size. "Promise me you won't do it anymore."
Alessandro was torn up inside. His little boy had his mother's beautiful eyes. He could never prevail against them.
"Son, ya know I … I can't-"
"Promise me!"
Danny's father wavered. "I can't, Danny … I-I still have another job to do. After that one, okay? Just one more."
Danny stared at his dad with extremely wide eyes. Then, the young face scrunched up as two large tears trailed their way down Danny's cheeks.
"You always say that," Danny sobbed. "You ALWAYS say that!"
"Danny, I-"
"You're a liar, you're a LIAR. I hate you." Danny punched at his father's chest and shoulders with his fists, wailing in misery. "I HATE YOU!" He broke out of his father's embrace and ran as fast as he could away from his dad.
"Danny, no, come back!"
The tears in his eyes blurred his vision severely. The fact that his vision had been deteriorating made it even more difficult for him to dash forward without bumping into people. His dad would have simply been disappointed in him if Danny told him about it anyway.
Danny barely caught himself from crashing face first into a lamp post.
The ear-splitting report of a gun echoed in the air.
Danny screamed, shutting his ears with his hands. People all around him panicked, shrieking in terror and stampeding in all directions away from the source of the gunshot. He clung to the lamp post, scared stiff by the turmoil, the people knocking into him and the irrational fear that the next bullet was going to kill him.
Where was his dad, where was his dad!
"DAAAAD!"
Thin arms around the lamp post, he quickly surveyed his surroundings, frantically searching for any signs of his dad coming to look for him. Staring hard through the throng of fleeing civilians, he caught sight of the bench where he and father had sat.
His dad was sprawled on the pavement. He wasn't moving.
All of a sudden, Danny could no longer hear anything except for the rapid beating of his heart and the blood rushing in his ears. His breaths became harsher and harsher while he sprinted back to his father, fresh tears trickling down his face.
"DAAAAAAAAAAADDY!"
Danny halted in his tracks at the malevolent presence of the stranger in black looming over his dad's fallen body. The grinning man was wearing a thick, shin-length coat with a dark grey scarf around his neck. He had a high-priced, black suit on under the coat. The man's dark, slicked back hair and cold, malicious eyes reminded Danny of a poisonous viper. Smoke curled upwards from the barrel of the pistol he held in one gloved hand. The man's grin broadened when he saw Danny.
"Hope ya said goodbye to your old man, runt."
Danny flung himself on his dad, furiously shaking his still and soundless father. Danny's hands, arms and shirt were drenched in red in a matter of moments.
"Pop, wakeupwakeupWAKEUUUUUUUP!"
Alessandro Messer stared up with glazed, dim eyes. A quarter of the right side of his skull was missing. Pinkish-red matter leaked from the cavernous wound onto the pavement. A giant pool of blood was growing steadily around the decimated head. Danny could feel the warm blood soaking his jeans.
"Ya see, yer old man's dead 'cos he fucked up a job and got one of my top guys captured by the cops. If he'd cleaned up better, those fuckin' CSIs wouldn't have found the evidence to get 'im. But it doesn't matter now. Yer old man's paid up for his mistake, boyo."
The assassin bent down to stare Danny in the eyes, still grinning. "Nobody leaves the Tanglewood Boys."
The man donned a fedora hat, tipping it at Danny in a mocking gesture. "Tell yer mother Lucio Sassone said hi. Maybe you can come over and play with my son Sonny sometime, ah?"
Sassone laughed callously, strolling up to a rubbish bin and chucking the pistol into it before getting into a large, black car and escaping the murder scene.
Danny kneeled helplessly on the rough pavement, seeking anyone who would help his dad, but no one was near by. And where was the police?! Where were they when he needed them! He screamed at the top of his voice, pleading for anyone to help him.
"HEEEEEEEEELP MEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
No one dared to approach the gory site, or the bloodied, howling boy who was utterly alone in his suffering.
"Daddy …" Danny twisted his bloody hands in his father's shirt, gaping at the streaks of blood flowing down his father's slack and pallid face. "I didn't mean it, I don't hate you. Daddy, wake up." Danny began crying in earnest once more, laying his head onto his father's immobile chest.
In Danny's broken heart, the oncoming blaring of sirens resembled the death screech of vultures.
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"I didn't mean it … I don't hate you."
Flack hugged the weeping man in his arms with all his might. He rocked them both back and forth, placing a heartfelt kiss on the top of Danny's head. He made no move to wipe away the wet trails on his own face.
"Shh … it's over, it's over."
Danny's sobs were still harsh and shook the shorter man's body sporadically, but he was no longer exclaiming those two damning sentences repetitively. Flack tried his best to warm the other man's suddenly icy cold hands and feet. In fact, he felt chilly all over. Flack felt Danny start to shudder violently and continuously. His friend was going into shock.
Flack made a grab for his jacket on the back of the sofa, swiftly shrouding Danny with it and then closing his arms around his friend again. Danny was trembling so severely Flack was half-afraid he was actually having a mild seizure.
"Shhsshhh, it's okay. It's okay."
Flack resumed his gentle rocking again, sensing Danny's tears coursing down his neck and dampening the collar of his shirt. Danny kept his face buried in Flack's neck, sitting on Flack's lap and silent except for the diminishing sobs that still racked him. Flack thanked God that the endless tremors running through Danny's body were diminishing too.
They stayed that way for a very, very long time. It might have been minutes. It might have been hours. All that really mattered to Flack was that he'd chosen to jump over that cliff in his mind into that sea of monsters to claim his treasure.
And he'd made the right decision.
"The police came only two minutes after Sassone left."
Danny's voice was very husky and muffled. His eyes were swollen red and watery. At least, no more tears streamed from them. Danny's prominent nose was slightly red too. He had shifted lower onto Flack's chest, so he could hear Flack's soothing heartbeat.
"Nobody believed me when I pointed him out as the killer. He was such a recognized social figure, so the police assumed I was just tryin' to cause trouble for him to get money."
Flack bowed his head and leaned his chin on top of Danny's head, closing his eyes in despair. Now Flack truly understood Danny's acute distrust of the system.
"My mum forced me to drop the charges 'gainst him." Danny paused, then continued, answering Flack's unasked question. "She had an affair with him. When he'd taken what he wanted from her, he chucked her and left her with nothing."
Flack said nothing.
"My brother Louie was already in the Tanglewood Boys long before my Pop was murdered. I didn't find out until I caught him in his room a few days after Pop died and saw the tattoo on his back." Danny blinked. He nuzzled closer into Flack's firm chest. "He ended up becomin' their lackey and a morphine junkie. His addiction got so bad, mum kicked him outta the house for good. Even the Tanglewood Boys kicked him out eventually." Danny sighed. "He's been askin' me for money from the second I got a job and earned a livin' for myself. I stopped givin' him any when I realized he'd never stop usin' it to buy his drugs. Then I stopped talkin' to him too. "
Flack ran his fingers through Danny's hair in a monotonous, relaxing manner. "What 'bout Anthony?"
Danny was quiet for a minute or two. "He's worse," Danny answered cryptically.
Flack didn't push his friend. He'd already confided more in Flack than Flack ever believed he would in an entire life span.
"I've never told anyone."
Flack stilled. "'Bout what?"
Danny turned his face up so he could look at Flack. "My father's murder."
"But … you had to have told the cops so they'd know about Lucio Sassone."
Danny smiled sorrowfully. It was a smile Flack hoped he'd never see on Danny again. "I couldn't speak for two months after the incident, Don. I was so traumatized by it I literally became mute. I had to write down the guy's name on paper for the cops."
Flack attempted at some humor. He sorely wanted to see Danny smile again, and in a happy way. "Well, I guess oughta go lookin' for that guy, 'cos ya sure can run on and on like a motor when ya wanna."
Flack waited apprehensively for a reaction.
The genuine smile he got from Danny was even more radiant than the sun itself.
"Fuck you."
Flack grinned widely. Oh hell yes, this was the Danny he knew.
"And like I said before, Messer. In. Your. Dreams."
Danny sat upright, the jacket slipping from his shoulders. Danny was only wearing a black tank top. Flack was suddenly very aware of the breasts pressed against his chest. Danny gazed fervently at him from beneath sultry, half-lidded eyes.
"That's funny. In my dreams … it's always the other way around."
Flack inhaled sharply. Danny blushed bright red and glanced away.
Ohhh no, you're not getting away anymore.
Flack gripped Danny's chin and tenderly pulled until Danny was face to face with him again.
"Do you mean that, or are you just jerking my chain here?"
Danny's visage was still red and warm, but his eyes were filled with an emotion Flack zealously hoped was the desire and love he felt within himself.
"There's somethin' I wanna jerk, but it ain't a chain." Danny's blush darkened. Flack was secretly pleased Danny maintained eye contact this time.
Apparently, a certain part of his anatomy down below was very please as well.
Flack's hand slid up to cup Danny's neck, relishing the smooth flesh. Flack leaned his head down so his forehead was touching Danny's. Flack felt Danny's hand on his own neck, hot as fire. He could smell the peppermint in Danny's breath. They both breathed together as one for a minute, hanging precariously on the brink.
There was only one kiss they could call their first. Flack had no intentions of fucking this one up.
Flack slipped his moist lips over Danny's.
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Author's Notes (again): Ahh, if anyone's interested in the other brother, Anthony, he's not canon. He is a character I created for an upcoming CSINY story of mine, heheheh. It has no title yet, but it's a Flack-centric one with loads of angst. And of course, loads of Danny. Think of this chapter as my first testing grounds for … uh, angst.