Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: This is so not bite-size anymore. I think it's getting a tad bit bigger than a cookie, but when a scene becomes a full-fledged cake, I will share, and you will congratulate me in reaching that baking stage. These scenes are not chronological. It is again un-betaed, and some of these cookies do need a look over (English is not my first language). So if you're interested, then please drop me a line.
Enjoy
Seven years. That's how long he had gone without smoking.
Seven fucking years.
He combed his hair with one hand, momentarily rubbing the back of his head before bringing the cigarette back to his lip and inhaled. He sat on the gray, slated roof top—back against a cement block and eyes wandering the skyline of New York City for something to catch him, hold him, even for a moment. He took another drag, quietly finishing the stick with a sigh, the haze of white smoke joining the night air.
He reached for his next cigarette; adamant to finish the pack and hope for the nicotine to flush, cope, or simply numb the cocktail of exhaustion and feelings in his tired body. He brought his lighter against the tip, unsuccessfully lighting the cigarette with the wind startling the fire. A hand cupped the other side of the light, opposite from his own, and he inhaled deeply, filling his lungs with smoke, before blowing them out. Montana.
He closed his eyes, feeling his glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose. The nicotine had calmed and dulled his demon of the night, but someone upstairs seems to think Danny had enough in his system to deal with another not so pleasant aspect of his life.
First lapse in seven years, might as well deal with all the shit.
He automatically took another deep drag; his weakened mind trying to figure out how to act around the woman who only yesterday, told him that their chemistry was not enough to battle the things she's dealing with.
He was about to speak, cigarette hanging loosely between his fingers, when she took the said cigarette and brought it to her lips, her eyes never leaving a spot in the distance. Danny was both surprised and turned on with the action.
Danny watched her from his peripheral vision. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. Tapping the stick with her forefinger, the ashes gently glide along with the wind before resting somewhere in the distance. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. Tap. Ashes. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. Tap. Ashes.
It was hypnotic, this rhythm she had set. And when the rhythm was broken, and he felt her eyes shifted, he thought he might suffocate.
" Louie died today," he said, trying to relieve the pressure.
Danny glanced at her for the first time, taking in her subdued eyes, feeling, or maybe hoping, that she's beside him, bending down to an old habit to try and tame some of her past.
She held his gaze for one second. Two seconds. " I'm sorry", she whispered.
He welcomed the sincerity; saddened that she seems to know how he's feeling and unsure if he's ready to know why she's an expert at it.
She took the last few millimeters of the cigarette's white, before stubbing the end. He wordlessly gave her the next one from the half empty pack, and like before, he cupped the other side of the flame as she inhaled. Her eyes already strayed away from his.
Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. Tap. Ashes.
Then she waved the cigarette towards him, and he set the rhythm again, neither one of them strong enough to say anything more.
They finished the pack in the familiar rhythm. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. Tap. Ashes.
Mac lifted the crime scene tape and pursed his lips. Checking his watch, he noted that it was well past eight o'clock. Night was quietly settling in New York City, and so were the dead bodies. Lindsay and Thomas were already dispatched to a scene when he came back from his meeting at four. Stella and Hawkes were called in to a different scene an hour later, much to Stella chagrin. Something to do with a cancelled date. But Mac only gave her a shrug, noting that it's summer time.
Mac hates summer time – humidity and the raised temperature putting a clock on the preservation of his crime scene.
He heard footsteps behind him and turned, only to raise an eyebrow as the figures approached him.
Danny only gave him a pointed look and said, "I had the night off."
"It's summer time."
" Yea, yea…I 'no."
Mac turned to the little boy hugging Danny's leg. He squatted, and caught the shy smile of Matteo Messer. "Hey there Mattie," Mac greeted the sleepy child. Matts only response was a shy, curling motion of his fingers that Mac took as a wave.
"Where's the DB Mac?" Danny asked, slowly detangling the grip of his son's arms around his leg.
Mac pointed in the direction of a darkened alley. Danny nodded before taking Matteo's hands in his large ones, enveloping them in a tight grip. He mimics Mac's stance and squatted down to be at the same height as Matteo.
"Matteo," Danny said, trying to sound like his own father when he wanted Danny to pay attention. " Wait here with Mac until mommy comes, okay?" Danny studied the brown eyes of his son, making sure that he would not run off anywhere or worse, follows Danny.
"Promise me," Danny said, moving his hands to smooth down Matteo's tousled hair.
"I pommise daddy," Matteo softly said.
Danny stood and said, " Lindsay should be here in five minutes. I called her on the way. Said that she finished processing the scene 'n swinging by to pick up Matt on the way to the lab."
Mad only nodded, and watched Danny's retreating back for a few moments before Matteo's little hand fit into his, clearly taking his promise to his father seriously.
Danny thinks that Lindsay is a woman of paradox.
She's polite and intelligent in the way that country girls seem to be, but dangerous and unknown when she pulled out the occasional knife or football facts in the middle of a crime scene.
She's sweet and generous in the way that a well-mannered lady was supposed to be when she brought homemade cookies to Flack's place for the Sunday night football game. She helped herself to a third slice of pizza and passed Danny a beer before opening one up for herself, her smile relax and unpretentious, sort of like the girl that the guys took as one of their own gender. And among the men in the room, she was. The indication that she's a woman at all was the stretch of legs under a jeans skirt shorter than Danny would've imagined Montana wearing.
Between her enthusiastic cries at the referee for a fault nobody saw but her and the bare legs that rubbed against his whenever she shifted her position on the couch, he thinks he might fall in love with her.
A/N part dos: Matteo means "Gift of God" in Italian. The first drabble may be my favorite so far. Tell me what you think. Review please.