angelgazing (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
angelgazing) wrote2005-06-24 12:02 am
angelgazing) wrote2005-06-24 12:02 am
fic: heroes and villains and fools - csi: ny - danny/mac
title: Heroes and Villains and Fools
rating: um. PG-13 (for language)
fandom: CSI: NY
summary: Danny's over it. Mostly. He's trying.
words: 5,588
notes: Thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
restless_jedi for the beta. Title comes from 'Imagine a Man' by The Who, because that's the kind of thing that amuses me, I guess. Written about a month ago and lost to the abyss of my hard drive since.
Danny wears four layers to the crime scene. Coat, shirt, undershirt and regret. He doesn't laugh or smile, even though it's the black, sad sort of funny that he's always liked the most. That he's always understood the most.
It's too hot for that many layers anyway.
Mac looks just to the left of his shoulder and doesn't say anything more than is strictly necessary to Danny. Which, actually, isn't much different than it's always been, so he doesn't know why he worries.
"I'm gonna follow the body, pick up any trace, see if she's got something to tell us," Mac says to the room at large, even though Danny's the only one in it. Aiden's fingerprinting the entrances and Stella's got a hit and run almost out of their jurisdiction.
Danny nods and when he's alone he collects the evidence until he feels like his fingers could bleed.
---
"Danny," Stella says, and looks like a very beautiful, very armed woman who's had a very hard day and just found a target to take it out on.
"Get over it," she says, and he cringes.
He looks at the floor, at her shoes. It's sort of a wonder she isn't more ready to kill, really, walking around all day in those things. Can't be comfortable.
"Get over it, Danny," Stella snaps, because she's the type of woman who hates to have to repeat herself.
Danny scratches at the back of his neck with blunt nails and nods at his reflection in her shoes. He wonders how he could tell her—"I'm trying."
"God," she groans and walks off muttering in Greek.
---
It's possible that he drinks more coffee than is strictly healthy.
He likes it black, hot enough to burn his tongue and strong enough to walk over to him. He was never a fan of bitter before, but it's taken him in lately like a comfort.
Besides, his mattress is lumpy and his sheets need washed and he needs something to wake him up in the morning like he needs something to put him to sleep at night.
---
Claire is the name of the second victim. It's not an uncommon name or anything, but Stella gets twitchy when Mac's working a case with a vic named Claire like she's just waiting for the bomb to drop.
When Flack said the name they all cringed, a little.
Mac clenches his fist and nods, he gives short orders and snaps more than usual.
He takes it more personally.
Danny wonders, sometimes, but he doesn't want to know, he just wonders. That probably makes him bad at his job, to ever not want the answers but. But.
Mac's still wearing his wedding ring and it's been four years so Danny doesn't have to wonder too much to be pretty damn sure he got it wrong all along.
---
He wears more color now.
It's an odd thing to notice and mostly Danny doesn't.
But when he goes home at night he kicks off his shoes and has a beer and listens to whoever's on CNN drone on just so he doesn't have to listen to the silence.
He falls asleep face-first in his pillow and dreams in flashes of red and green and blue and want.
Mac wears more color now and it messes with Danny's head a little when he's trying to get over it.
---
"DNA says all the blood in the apartment was the vic's," Danny says, and keeps his eyes on the folder in his hands.
Mac is three feet away from him and it sort of feels like three inches and it might as well be three miles. And there's that thing again, that black, sad humor of a thing that makes Danny's lungs ache.
He's getting over it though. He is. Over it already. He says, "But there was a spot on the vic's sleeve that's unknown." And he's just a guy who's nervous because he's reporting to his boss who's been disappointed by him.
"Gotta be the attacker," he adds, "but CODIS was a bust."
Danny likes his job. He's good at his job. He doesn’t worry that maybe he's going a little overboard trying to prove that, because he just keeps coming up empty. He keeps his eyes on the file in his hands—because he's looking for the answers, looking for a clue—but he knows Mac nods.
"Okay, keep me informed." Mac says, and leaves Danny behind again.
---
He'd spent two weeks staring just over Mac's shoulder. And then suddenly he noticed, by accident, when Mac reached over to take a file from Stella who was beside him.
Danny wondered if he'd spend another two weeks staring at Mac's hand.
He's pretty sure he shouldn't miss the flash of gold.
---
"Hello, Emily," Mac says and smiles.
Danny watches his profile against the cold gray sky outside the small hospital window. He thought it'd be easier now, when he was almost back to where he was supposed to be.
Emily is a college student majoring in political science and pre-law just shy of her nineteenth birthday. She's got brown eyes, dark hair and type A blood. Danny knows more about her than he knows about half of the people he works with.
She's victim number three.
She's the first one to get away.
Her hands are still on her stomach, and Mac's smile starts to fade. "I'm Mac Taylor," he says in the voice he only uses for victims who are young enough to be his daughters, "we've meet before. That's Danny Messer, he's another CSI on my team. We just need to see if we missed anything."
Danny has to fight to not turn his head when Mac takes her hand.
---
The fourth victim is Annabeth Grey.
She's luckier than Emily, she doesn't spend a week hooked up to machines in ICU because her parents can't bring themselves to face facts.
Danny wants to believe he isn't a horrible person for thinking that, but he's pretty sure it's not as true as he'd like it to be.
"It was over quick for this one," Hawkes says, like he thinks it's a blessing too. Not as many broken bones, not as much blood at the scene, her picture is recognizable to her parents. They didn't have to get the ID from DNA, at least.
---
Aiden drags him out Friday night.
Danny sits shoulder to shoulder with Flack and swirls warm beer in his glass. It's funny, really, but he's almost lost the taste for it. It settles uncomfortably warm and heavy in his stomach.
Everything feels that way lately though.
"Why you sulking, man?" Flack asks, and laughs and slides the bowl of peanuts from in front of him. "You have a hotter date than Burns and me or something?"
"It's been a long week," Danny answers, and kicks the leg of the table like he used to when he was five and really, truly pouting and he hates it but he can't stop it. He's really, really sure he hates why he's here for another reason completely.
Flack and Aiden exchange a look like What're-We-Gonna-Do-With-This-Kid and Danny wants to shout that no one has to do anything. He's getting his job done just fine, thanks.
"Bad break up?"
"Go to hell."
"Ah," Flack says, and raises his eyebrows like he's Sherlock fucking Holmes stumbling over a clue in the dark corner of a dark bar.
Danny feels he's well within his rights to hope they both fucking choke on it. Aiden's got a smile like she's trying to decide if it's cute or amusing or if he's really just this childish and as it turns out he is so he doesn't care that much and he'd tell her so except that wouldn't lead to any place good.
"So who was it?" she asks and Danny glares. "Someone we know?"
Danny laughs and it sort of hurts, but he ran four miles last night because he couldn't sleep so it hurts to breathe. "Go to hell," he says again, and grins crookedly like has always worked when he's lying.
"You think Hawkes is gonna take your place out on the field?"
"Well I wasn't," he answers dryly.
"It's alright, Danny," she grins just a little bit evilly, "you're both pretty."
He throws a peanut at her head and misses. He misses a lot of things.
---
Victim number five is Heather Jacobs. She's twenty-two with a four year old boy that spent the night with her parents. She's the first one that didn't live alone.
There's blood splatter on the kid's toys.
And a shoeprint on a finger painting like every kid does. This is my house, this is me, this is my mom, this is my grandma, this is my grandpa and this is the sun and the flowers.
It's the first real clue they've got.
---
"Size eleven Nike's," Danny says, and Mac and Stella and Aiden all deflate a little.
Danny wants to throw things. He misses baseball, misses it being simple. Throw the ball, hit the ball, catch the ball, run. It was easy. No fucking guessing games. He knew all there was to know.
"Size eleven Nike's," Stella repeats, and pushes the file out from in front of her, "Type O blood. It's like there's nothing special about this guy. Nothing for us to latch onto so we can get some kind of lead."
"There's always something," Mac sighs.
Danny shrugs, and looks at the computer screen across the room. The table edge is digging into his hip, just enough to keep him awake and in the room enough to not scream. "Not always," he says in the general direction of everything.
---
"You went against his orders, Danny, of course he's going to be mad. But he's Mac, he's gone to the bat for all of us again and again no matter how badly we fuck it up. You need to get over it. He can't fix it if you—"
"I'm thinking," Danny says, very, very calmly, and very, very quietly, "of applying for a transfer. Another precinct. Another state, maybe. I hear Vegas has a great lab."
Stella looks more surprised than she's ever looked, and a little bit like he just hit her or something. She's paused with her water bottle halfway to her mouth, like she's afraid to move, but that's stupid, of course. Stella is never afraid.
He smiles at her, half-hearted though it may be. "I just—"
"Really?" she asks, and sets down her water and well, now she's Stella again. Her curls vibrate when she's really pissed off. "That's funny, I never would've pegged you for a coward, Danny."
"Come on, Stella, there's a lot of things you never would've pegged me for."
"You can't run away just because—"
"I'm not," Danny says, and lowers his eyes again. The refrigerator hums loudly in the quiet. More loud than it's got any right to be. "Not just because of—"
"Oh, God," Stella says, sighs almost and Danny looks up just in time to watch her close her eyes. "Oh, God, Danny, the bad break-up that Aiden's been going on about? You weren't. I mean, come on, I know… I know."
"I was. Maybe. A little bit. I am." He laughs. It's not as freeing as he'd've hoped. "I really am. I don't know. I mean—it's stupid, right."
"Mac's—"
"Yeah." Danny rubs his eyes with his fingertips, it's one-thirty in the morning and he's afraid he's beginning to forget what it's like to sleep in his own bed for eight hours straight. "You don't gotta tell that to me, Stella."
Stella sighs, for real this time, and puts her hand on his arm. "I'd say I'm sorry but I don't think it's my pity you want."
"I'd be happier if you'd just stop yelling at me." He scuffs the toe of his shoe on the tile and doesn't care that he's acting like a child. "I'm trying. He just won't—"
She shifts, just a little, and pats his arm and then pulls her hand away. She shifts her stance just an inch or a half an inch or something and suddenly he's fifteen and she's the cop that caught him in the alley with his hand up Maria Vega's skirt. "Danny, come on, he never—I mean, he never."
"Once or twice," Danny says, like he's still not remembering that she and Mac are a team. Are brother and sister or something. He wonders about that too, sometimes. "More than, really, want an exact number? Want dates and times?"
"No," she answers. "Christ," she adds, for good measure, and grabs her water and walks out to leave him standing there listening to the hum of the refrigerator.
---
They go over every inch of everything and then they do it again.
Victim number two had cat hairs on her sweater, but the cat belonged to her neighbor. She caught it when it streaked out through the cracked door when Mr. Agoraphobia had his groceries delivered.
Three had his skin under her fingernails and his blood on her sleeve. There were fibers in her hair from a brown rug, but they matched the one in her bedroom.
Four had his skin in her teeth from biting down hard. Made him mad enough to hit her wrong, and she died quicker than he wanted.
None of them lived in a building with security cameras, no one had a neighbor that noticed anything, but number five lived where the only way in was with a key or to be buzzed. Still, no one saw anything. It was useless until they had a suspect.
They go over it again, and still come up with everything and none of it leads anywhere.
---
"Are you in love with Mac?" Danny asks, and it's the first time Stella's looked at him in days. He's mostly just glad he can still get a reaction from someone.
"What? No. What kind of question is that?"
"A fair one, I think. Could've asked you something really different."
---
Mac shuffles the papers on his desk. From this stack to that and back again. He does paperwork to dull his mind enough to think sometimes, so there're three stacks. Bored, boring and mind numbing.
Once a few months ago Danny snuck into his office and left a post-it note with the label for each. Mac told him he'd gotten 'em all wrong, but he smiled when he said it and Danny smiled too and bought him a beer.
He stands in the doorway of Mac's very glass office and watches him shuffle papers from stack to stack because he's too chicken shit to knock.
"Danny," Mac says anyway, like a sigh of oh God, what now? "Something I can do for you?" he asks, and doesn't meet Danny's eyes any more than Danny meets his, really.
"I'm thinking," Danny says, and stops to clear his throat. "I'm thinking that maybe I should—"
Mac smiles, sort of. It's a smile for Mac, at least. It's as close to a smile as anything Mac'll give a person, anyway. Danny's never really wondered if it was because he wasn't happy or because he didn't know how to let himself go, but it's clear he should've. Lots of things he should've, when you get down to it. Mountains of things.
"You should go home," Mac says, looking at his watch. "It's late. You should get some rest."
"Ah, nah," Danny grins and shakes his head a little. "I've given up sleep. Quit cold turkey."
"Yeah? How's that going?"
"I'm considering buying stock in Folgers."
"Danny—"
"I was thinking about heading out to the place down the block. Coffee's bad there but bad's better than none at all, right? I could bring you back a cup, help you with your paperwork if you wanted."
"Danny," Mac sighs, "when was the last time you went home?"
"You've done longer marathons," he answers, and prides himself on how very easily he didn't answer. On how he Not Answered with his answer. It's the little victories.
Mac sets his pen down on the boring stack, and laces his fingers together over bored. "I won't tell you that you don't have anything to prove, Danny, but this isn't the way to do it. You're of no use to me half-dead from lack of sleep."
"Yeah," Danny says, and smiles again and looks away. "Didn't figure, but I thought it was worth asking." He leans against the doorway all mock casual-like and Mac sees through it and he knows Mac sees through it because it's Mac and he tends to see through absolutely anything he wants and Danny could be wearing lead and it wouldn't change that. "You talk to Stella?"
"Did she tell you to go home?"
"She told me to get over it. If I said I wanted a transfer would you give it to me?"
"Do you?" Mac asks, like it's never been less surprised by anything. Just goes to show and all that, Danny thinks, because once upon a time he used to be able to surprise people. So really, really, maybe he just needs a change.
Something's gotta change.
Danny shrugs.
---
"Are you?" Stella asks, and he knows what she means.
Danny wants to shrug. Wants to kick his feet and wants to scream. He wants to not have this problem, because frankly, it's bullshit. It's a stupid fucking problem to have. He knew better going in, he knew better when he saw the damn doorway. He really wishes he could just take it all back, do over, and this time not fuck everything up so bad.
But that's not gonna happen and the problem with Danny is the same as it's always been.
He wants a lot of things.
---
"FBI wants the case," Mac tells them, and looks disappointed and resigned and just as blank as Mac has always looked.
"Stall them," Stella says with a shrug. "We'll get it."
"We're not getting anywhere," Danny says, and it's as much a shock to him as it is to everyone else in the room. "We haven't gotten anywhere on this case. So maybe they'll see something we don't."
"Danny, if none of us have seen it then it isn't there to see."
"So what, we just gotta let the guy keep killing girls until he fucks up and leaves a print in blood at the scene? Think if he does he'll even be in the system? Five girls in a little over month, Stella, and we're nowhere. He's not gonna slow down so we can catch up, either. It's gonna be another girl and another and another. How many more parents do you want to have to try and talk out of seeing at their baby girl looking like ground beef laying on the slab from the beating they took?"
"Danny," Mac snaps. "That's enough. We've got the case until victim number six is in the morgue. Let's try and figure this out before then."
"There's no sign of forced entry," Aiden says suddenly, since everyone else is just glaring. She's perceptive like that, knows when to bring the focus back. "Not at any of the scenes. Maybe we should start looking at it like we did before it became serial, like maybe the girls knew him."
"Not likely," Stella sighs. "The way the scene looked at number five? He was surprised by the kid. He wasn't expecting that."
"Neither were we," Danny says, and clenches his jaw and watches the steam rise from his coffee. They've always got the AC turned up too high in here. It's fucking freezing. "It was a break in the pattern. Four young girls that everyone says are unattached and then one with a four-year-old? It had to've been a surprise."
"So he didn't know them well, doesn't mean he didn't see them around."
Mac shakes his head. "We've been all over the state tracking their movements, people they know, no two of them frequented the same place. They all have different jobs, apartment buildings miles apart. We've got a student, a stripper, a waitress at a pizza place, a bank teller—"
"I got the tape from any security camera on the same block as any of the vic's buildings," Danny sighs and scowls a little bit, his eyebrows furrowing and he can feel the wrinkles forming. "If the street could be seen at all I got the tape, but so far nothing's showed up. Don't see the same car or person twice."
"There has to be something they have in common. There has to be some way that he latched onto them." Stella opens the file in front of her again. Jennifer Harlon, victim number one. "There has to be something."
"Thought you said if there was then we'd've seen it," Danny mutters, and doesn't—does not—look even a little bit ashamed when he can feel Mac glare at him.
---
He gives into the urge at twelve after midnight.
"Danny," Mac says from behind him, because of course Mac would be standing in the doorway behind him when he decides to throw a temper tantrum and toss folders and files and stacks of paper all over his cramped office. Of course.
"Sorry," he says shortly, and mostly even means it. "I'm sorry."
"You feel better now?"
Danny laughs and puts his hands on his hips and—"Yeah," he nods. "Little bit."
"You can't keep doing this, Danny."
"I know. I'm sorry."
"I know there are a lot of—"
"Mac, please, can we not do this right now? I'm sorry, I am. But I'm not in the mood for another round of What's Wrong With Danny Now. I'm just not. Please."
Mac stood up straight in the door, like he was afraid to come in. Which, alright, that made sense considering there was no telling what kind of important paper he'd step on if he did but. That was just Mac, really. Still had his tie on tight and the top button of his blue shirt done up like was only proper. "I know there are a lot of," he repeats and stops, like he doesn't know. Cuts back a sigh in his throat like maybe he doesn't wanna.
"What's her name?" Danny asks, and actually almost accidentally looks Mac in the eye.
"I'm sorry?"
"Took off your ring for her, Mac, she must be special."
"Danny," Mac says, and Danny's name is almost always a warning when he says it, which seems very, very unfair to Danny all of a sudden.
"Just asking," he says and shrugs. "Seems like someone else should get asked the personal questions once in a while. No fair that it's always gotta be me."
Mostly Mac looks the same as he always does. As blank as he always does. But for just a second Danny imagines that he looks as sick as Danny feels. Just for a second, then it's gone, so it had to've just been in his imagination. "I'm sorry," Mac says, and really, it almost sounds like he means it.
"Don't be." Danny shrugs again and pushes up his glasses to rub at his eyes tiredly. "I'm the one that's sorry. I'm the one that's got a reason to be."
---
When he looks up Mac is gone.
It's back to the black humor again, he thinks and grins like he can see how it'd be funny as he bends down to pick up the papers he scattered.
---
"Jennifer Harlon, Annabeth Grey and Claire Cullum all wrote checks to the same company last month."
Mac looks up from mind numbing when Danny says it. When Danny sort of crashes into his office, anyway. It's two thirty-four in the morning and Mac might be surprised to see him but he's not surprised Danny's still there and Danny isn't surprised he is.
"All three've written checks to the same company every month for the past year. Turns out all five vics lived in a building owned by the same man."
"All five?"
"Emily Jamenson's parents paid her rent so she could concentrate on school. Heather Jacobs was behind on her bills."
Danny grins widely and Mac nods. "Go home and get some sleep, Danny, it's not going to be easy getting an interview with the guy."
"Yeah," Danny sighs. "Okay."
"Danny," Mac says, when he's turned around and is walking away. "Good job."
"Thanks." Danny grins again.
---
"I talked to the parents of the third victim," Stella tells him, the second he comes through the door and nearly spills his coffee all over him. "Seems that they and Emily had to go through a review board to get into that building. The mother said that one thing she found odd was that they wanted photographs."
"But the main guy, he's not on the review board."
"No, but I think he gets final say."
Danny wrinkles his nose and starts walking beside Stella when she takes off again. "You'd think that a place that hard to get into would've had better security, wouldn't you? Makes me think it can't be just anybody. That can't all be by chance."
"We don't have enough for a warrant, so Aiden got the bright idea to just Google the company. Turns out about a year back a girl filed suit against them for falling down the stairs because the light was out and she couldn't get them to replace it. Seemed innocent enough, all they'd have to do is settle for what would be pocket change to them until she brings up four other cases of things happening because of shoddy maintenance in and around the building. The others decided to join the suit instead of just testify and about a week before the first attack the jury awarded them an undisclosed amount."
"Sounds like motive to me."
"Sounds like grounds enough for a warrant to me."
Danny nods, and smiles over at her. "So, you gonna stomp me for the thing in the meeting?"
"I didn't wear the right shoes for stomping," Stella says and smiles softly back. "So I guess you're off the hook this time."
"I'm really— I'm sorry."
"I know, Danny. Everybody knows you're sorry." She sighs and stops outside his office and shifts her weight from one foot to the other. From business to personal. "Thing is, the shoot out is only going to get to be your reasoning for so long. You can't keep this up forever. Eventually you've gotta move on."
---
Sometimes Danny feels like the latex gloves he wears are melting into his skin. Are becoming part of him, a brand new skin, maybe. One that's thicker.
But the last part is probably just wishful thinking.
---
What Aiden found was barely enough for Mac to get a warrant from a judge who owed him a favor. But it did the trick.
They got the financial records they needed. Got the interview they needed.
The company couldn't pay the settlement. The owner, James Montgomery, put everything he owned into the company. If they went bankrupt so did he and that was motive.
Flack wrinkled his nose and got the coffee cup from Starbucks when he threw it out.
DNA was a match and Danny watched with a grin as Mac took delight in photographing the wounds Montgomery'd gotten from the girls.
It was nice, sometimes, when everything was wrapped up all nice and neat with a little bow. But it didn't happen often enough. Not nearly, really.
Danny feels like he's waking up and not liking the morning he sees outside.
---
Aiden isn't a girl who likes change too much, when you get right down to it. It's the one thing Danny knows about her that she doesn't know about herself. It's a nice change to be the one knowing something, but he doesn't try and get used to it or anything.
She decides that wrapping this case means too much beer and she's a scary drunk. All flirty with the leaning and strange men leer at her and Flack gets protective like he's forgotten she can take care of herself and it's amusing until he starts flashing his badge and she starts dancing on a table. That's when it gets scary.
"Aiden," Danny says, with his hand over his eyes and his beer in his lap and he wonders why the world never opens up to swallow you whole when you want it to most, "please get down off of the table."
Stella laughs and pats his back and Flack is totally looking, but since she's all but begging for it Danny isn't going to be the one to snitch. Course, he's got his eyes covered and he still knows that Flack is looking so chances are it's not gonna take him being the tattletale. Everyone in the bar knows they're cops now anyway, so naturally everyone in the bar is looking and watching and snickering.
He's not too drunk to care yet, but he's almost willing to pretend. He gives Stella a dollar bill when she asks, even signs it without question and he knows but. But. He laughs when she tucks it into Aiden's waistband.
"She's gonna kick your ass for that in the morning," Mac says, coming over to the table with a beer in his hand and his tie still tight around his neck. All nice and straight. Figures, really, and he's always late to the party.
"I can take her," Stella laughs and raises her eyebrows at Danny. She's a clumsy drunk. "Don't you think I can take her?"
"I do, yes. But since it's not your name on the bill I doubt it's your ass she'll be kicking."
Stella wraps her arm around Danny's and laughs. "Well," she says, "you need your ass kicked anyway. You're due for it. And aren't you supposed to be hiding your poor virgin eyes from the girly parts on the table?"
It was sort of worth it to have Mac laugh. Sort of.
His beer still feels uncomfortably heavy in his stomach though, and he really, really wishes it would stop that.
---
His sheets are soft and cool, his apartment smells like an apartment that no one has stepped foot in for entirely too long and there was nothing in his fridge when he dared to look inside. Which, actually, was probably for the better.
The TV is on in the living room and outside there's the rush of cars, the shriek of tires when someone slams on their brakes. There's the siren of a cop car a couple of blocks over and it's going the other way.
The alarm on his nightstand glows with red numbers he can't read without his glasses. It's sort of, almost, kind of a blessing, and he's very, very drunk so the room feels like it's spinning and he can't catch up.
Danny presses his face into his pillow and still can't sleep.
---
Getting ready in the morning is like going through the motions of a habit he'd dropped. He turns off the alarm and brushes his teeth and gets in the shower and nearly slips and kills himself because it's early.
It's like sometimes—when things get really tough—he still reaches for the cigarettes he gave up years ago.
You can break habits and you can fall out of them, but you don't forget them. He could bum a cigarette from Flack and not choke on it the way he chokes on everything else.
---
At noon it's hot out on the balcony of anywhere in New York City when you're just on the very edge of July.
The sun is hot and the back of Danny's neck prickles with the heat of it. He can feel the sweat beading there as he bends over to dust the railing. The latex gloves feel like they're melting into his hands.
"You still want that transfer?" Mac asks, all casual like it's a nothing question. Like he's asking, lovely weather, don't you think? Like it's nothing to him what Danny answers.
"I don't know," Danny sighs. "I just… I don't know."
Mac's taking pictures of the prints that show up all across the rail as Danny dusts it. There's dozens of them, so this is probably not going to get them anywhere either, but it's procedure. It's one of the things you've gotta do. "I like the team I've got, Danny," he says, like he's talking to the camera. "You want the transfer I'll write you a recommendation, but I'm not looking forward to finding someone to replace you."
Danny swallows hard and gets the tape out of his kit. "I hate moving anyway, all the boxes and the putting the stuff into the boxes and then getting it out of them. It's just not my idea of a fun weekend."
"Okay," Mac says, and laughs a little. "Just as well, you'd never have made it in Vegas, they'd consider this a mild day."
Danny rubs at the back of his neck with the inside of his wrist. The edge of his glove sticks and pulls his skin. "Don't we all," he says dryly, and laughs because it's stupid and hurtful and true.
rating: um. PG-13 (for language)
fandom: CSI: NY
summary: Danny's over it. Mostly. He's trying.
words: 5,588
notes: Thanks to
restless_jedi for the beta. Title comes from 'Imagine a Man' by The Who, because that's the kind of thing that amuses me, I guess. Written about a month ago and lost to the abyss of my hard drive since.Danny wears four layers to the crime scene. Coat, shirt, undershirt and regret. He doesn't laugh or smile, even though it's the black, sad sort of funny that he's always liked the most. That he's always understood the most.
It's too hot for that many layers anyway.
Mac looks just to the left of his shoulder and doesn't say anything more than is strictly necessary to Danny. Which, actually, isn't much different than it's always been, so he doesn't know why he worries.
"I'm gonna follow the body, pick up any trace, see if she's got something to tell us," Mac says to the room at large, even though Danny's the only one in it. Aiden's fingerprinting the entrances and Stella's got a hit and run almost out of their jurisdiction.
Danny nods and when he's alone he collects the evidence until he feels like his fingers could bleed.
---
"Danny," Stella says, and looks like a very beautiful, very armed woman who's had a very hard day and just found a target to take it out on.
"Get over it," she says, and he cringes.
He looks at the floor, at her shoes. It's sort of a wonder she isn't more ready to kill, really, walking around all day in those things. Can't be comfortable.
"Get over it, Danny," Stella snaps, because she's the type of woman who hates to have to repeat herself.
Danny scratches at the back of his neck with blunt nails and nods at his reflection in her shoes. He wonders how he could tell her—"I'm trying."
"God," she groans and walks off muttering in Greek.
---
It's possible that he drinks more coffee than is strictly healthy.
He likes it black, hot enough to burn his tongue and strong enough to walk over to him. He was never a fan of bitter before, but it's taken him in lately like a comfort.
Besides, his mattress is lumpy and his sheets need washed and he needs something to wake him up in the morning like he needs something to put him to sleep at night.
---
Claire is the name of the second victim. It's not an uncommon name or anything, but Stella gets twitchy when Mac's working a case with a vic named Claire like she's just waiting for the bomb to drop.
When Flack said the name they all cringed, a little.
Mac clenches his fist and nods, he gives short orders and snaps more than usual.
He takes it more personally.
Danny wonders, sometimes, but he doesn't want to know, he just wonders. That probably makes him bad at his job, to ever not want the answers but. But.
Mac's still wearing his wedding ring and it's been four years so Danny doesn't have to wonder too much to be pretty damn sure he got it wrong all along.
---
He wears more color now.
It's an odd thing to notice and mostly Danny doesn't.
But when he goes home at night he kicks off his shoes and has a beer and listens to whoever's on CNN drone on just so he doesn't have to listen to the silence.
He falls asleep face-first in his pillow and dreams in flashes of red and green and blue and want.
Mac wears more color now and it messes with Danny's head a little when he's trying to get over it.
---
"DNA says all the blood in the apartment was the vic's," Danny says, and keeps his eyes on the folder in his hands.
Mac is three feet away from him and it sort of feels like three inches and it might as well be three miles. And there's that thing again, that black, sad humor of a thing that makes Danny's lungs ache.
He's getting over it though. He is. Over it already. He says, "But there was a spot on the vic's sleeve that's unknown." And he's just a guy who's nervous because he's reporting to his boss who's been disappointed by him.
"Gotta be the attacker," he adds, "but CODIS was a bust."
Danny likes his job. He's good at his job. He doesn’t worry that maybe he's going a little overboard trying to prove that, because he just keeps coming up empty. He keeps his eyes on the file in his hands—because he's looking for the answers, looking for a clue—but he knows Mac nods.
"Okay, keep me informed." Mac says, and leaves Danny behind again.
---
He'd spent two weeks staring just over Mac's shoulder. And then suddenly he noticed, by accident, when Mac reached over to take a file from Stella who was beside him.
Danny wondered if he'd spend another two weeks staring at Mac's hand.
He's pretty sure he shouldn't miss the flash of gold.
---
"Hello, Emily," Mac says and smiles.
Danny watches his profile against the cold gray sky outside the small hospital window. He thought it'd be easier now, when he was almost back to where he was supposed to be.
Emily is a college student majoring in political science and pre-law just shy of her nineteenth birthday. She's got brown eyes, dark hair and type A blood. Danny knows more about her than he knows about half of the people he works with.
She's victim number three.
She's the first one to get away.
Her hands are still on her stomach, and Mac's smile starts to fade. "I'm Mac Taylor," he says in the voice he only uses for victims who are young enough to be his daughters, "we've meet before. That's Danny Messer, he's another CSI on my team. We just need to see if we missed anything."
Danny has to fight to not turn his head when Mac takes her hand.
---
The fourth victim is Annabeth Grey.
She's luckier than Emily, she doesn't spend a week hooked up to machines in ICU because her parents can't bring themselves to face facts.
Danny wants to believe he isn't a horrible person for thinking that, but he's pretty sure it's not as true as he'd like it to be.
"It was over quick for this one," Hawkes says, like he thinks it's a blessing too. Not as many broken bones, not as much blood at the scene, her picture is recognizable to her parents. They didn't have to get the ID from DNA, at least.
---
Aiden drags him out Friday night.
Danny sits shoulder to shoulder with Flack and swirls warm beer in his glass. It's funny, really, but he's almost lost the taste for it. It settles uncomfortably warm and heavy in his stomach.
Everything feels that way lately though.
"Why you sulking, man?" Flack asks, and laughs and slides the bowl of peanuts from in front of him. "You have a hotter date than Burns and me or something?"
"It's been a long week," Danny answers, and kicks the leg of the table like he used to when he was five and really, truly pouting and he hates it but he can't stop it. He's really, really sure he hates why he's here for another reason completely.
Flack and Aiden exchange a look like What're-We-Gonna-Do-With-This-Kid and Danny wants to shout that no one has to do anything. He's getting his job done just fine, thanks.
"Bad break up?"
"Go to hell."
"Ah," Flack says, and raises his eyebrows like he's Sherlock fucking Holmes stumbling over a clue in the dark corner of a dark bar.
Danny feels he's well within his rights to hope they both fucking choke on it. Aiden's got a smile like she's trying to decide if it's cute or amusing or if he's really just this childish and as it turns out he is so he doesn't care that much and he'd tell her so except that wouldn't lead to any place good.
"So who was it?" she asks and Danny glares. "Someone we know?"
Danny laughs and it sort of hurts, but he ran four miles last night because he couldn't sleep so it hurts to breathe. "Go to hell," he says again, and grins crookedly like has always worked when he's lying.
"You think Hawkes is gonna take your place out on the field?"
"Well I wasn't," he answers dryly.
"It's alright, Danny," she grins just a little bit evilly, "you're both pretty."
He throws a peanut at her head and misses. He misses a lot of things.
---
Victim number five is Heather Jacobs. She's twenty-two with a four year old boy that spent the night with her parents. She's the first one that didn't live alone.
There's blood splatter on the kid's toys.
And a shoeprint on a finger painting like every kid does. This is my house, this is me, this is my mom, this is my grandma, this is my grandpa and this is the sun and the flowers.
It's the first real clue they've got.
---
"Size eleven Nike's," Danny says, and Mac and Stella and Aiden all deflate a little.
Danny wants to throw things. He misses baseball, misses it being simple. Throw the ball, hit the ball, catch the ball, run. It was easy. No fucking guessing games. He knew all there was to know.
"Size eleven Nike's," Stella repeats, and pushes the file out from in front of her, "Type O blood. It's like there's nothing special about this guy. Nothing for us to latch onto so we can get some kind of lead."
"There's always something," Mac sighs.
Danny shrugs, and looks at the computer screen across the room. The table edge is digging into his hip, just enough to keep him awake and in the room enough to not scream. "Not always," he says in the general direction of everything.
---
"You went against his orders, Danny, of course he's going to be mad. But he's Mac, he's gone to the bat for all of us again and again no matter how badly we fuck it up. You need to get over it. He can't fix it if you—"
"I'm thinking," Danny says, very, very calmly, and very, very quietly, "of applying for a transfer. Another precinct. Another state, maybe. I hear Vegas has a great lab."
Stella looks more surprised than she's ever looked, and a little bit like he just hit her or something. She's paused with her water bottle halfway to her mouth, like she's afraid to move, but that's stupid, of course. Stella is never afraid.
He smiles at her, half-hearted though it may be. "I just—"
"Really?" she asks, and sets down her water and well, now she's Stella again. Her curls vibrate when she's really pissed off. "That's funny, I never would've pegged you for a coward, Danny."
"Come on, Stella, there's a lot of things you never would've pegged me for."
"You can't run away just because—"
"I'm not," Danny says, and lowers his eyes again. The refrigerator hums loudly in the quiet. More loud than it's got any right to be. "Not just because of—"
"Oh, God," Stella says, sighs almost and Danny looks up just in time to watch her close her eyes. "Oh, God, Danny, the bad break-up that Aiden's been going on about? You weren't. I mean, come on, I know… I know."
"I was. Maybe. A little bit. I am." He laughs. It's not as freeing as he'd've hoped. "I really am. I don't know. I mean—it's stupid, right."
"Mac's—"
"Yeah." Danny rubs his eyes with his fingertips, it's one-thirty in the morning and he's afraid he's beginning to forget what it's like to sleep in his own bed for eight hours straight. "You don't gotta tell that to me, Stella."
Stella sighs, for real this time, and puts her hand on his arm. "I'd say I'm sorry but I don't think it's my pity you want."
"I'd be happier if you'd just stop yelling at me." He scuffs the toe of his shoe on the tile and doesn't care that he's acting like a child. "I'm trying. He just won't—"
She shifts, just a little, and pats his arm and then pulls her hand away. She shifts her stance just an inch or a half an inch or something and suddenly he's fifteen and she's the cop that caught him in the alley with his hand up Maria Vega's skirt. "Danny, come on, he never—I mean, he never."
"Once or twice," Danny says, like he's still not remembering that she and Mac are a team. Are brother and sister or something. He wonders about that too, sometimes. "More than, really, want an exact number? Want dates and times?"
"No," she answers. "Christ," she adds, for good measure, and grabs her water and walks out to leave him standing there listening to the hum of the refrigerator.
---
They go over every inch of everything and then they do it again.
Victim number two had cat hairs on her sweater, but the cat belonged to her neighbor. She caught it when it streaked out through the cracked door when Mr. Agoraphobia had his groceries delivered.
Three had his skin under her fingernails and his blood on her sleeve. There were fibers in her hair from a brown rug, but they matched the one in her bedroom.
Four had his skin in her teeth from biting down hard. Made him mad enough to hit her wrong, and she died quicker than he wanted.
None of them lived in a building with security cameras, no one had a neighbor that noticed anything, but number five lived where the only way in was with a key or to be buzzed. Still, no one saw anything. It was useless until they had a suspect.
They go over it again, and still come up with everything and none of it leads anywhere.
---
"Are you in love with Mac?" Danny asks, and it's the first time Stella's looked at him in days. He's mostly just glad he can still get a reaction from someone.
"What? No. What kind of question is that?"
"A fair one, I think. Could've asked you something really different."
---
Mac shuffles the papers on his desk. From this stack to that and back again. He does paperwork to dull his mind enough to think sometimes, so there're three stacks. Bored, boring and mind numbing.
Once a few months ago Danny snuck into his office and left a post-it note with the label for each. Mac told him he'd gotten 'em all wrong, but he smiled when he said it and Danny smiled too and bought him a beer.
He stands in the doorway of Mac's very glass office and watches him shuffle papers from stack to stack because he's too chicken shit to knock.
"Danny," Mac says anyway, like a sigh of oh God, what now? "Something I can do for you?" he asks, and doesn't meet Danny's eyes any more than Danny meets his, really.
"I'm thinking," Danny says, and stops to clear his throat. "I'm thinking that maybe I should—"
Mac smiles, sort of. It's a smile for Mac, at least. It's as close to a smile as anything Mac'll give a person, anyway. Danny's never really wondered if it was because he wasn't happy or because he didn't know how to let himself go, but it's clear he should've. Lots of things he should've, when you get down to it. Mountains of things.
"You should go home," Mac says, looking at his watch. "It's late. You should get some rest."
"Ah, nah," Danny grins and shakes his head a little. "I've given up sleep. Quit cold turkey."
"Yeah? How's that going?"
"I'm considering buying stock in Folgers."
"Danny—"
"I was thinking about heading out to the place down the block. Coffee's bad there but bad's better than none at all, right? I could bring you back a cup, help you with your paperwork if you wanted."
"Danny," Mac sighs, "when was the last time you went home?"
"You've done longer marathons," he answers, and prides himself on how very easily he didn't answer. On how he Not Answered with his answer. It's the little victories.
Mac sets his pen down on the boring stack, and laces his fingers together over bored. "I won't tell you that you don't have anything to prove, Danny, but this isn't the way to do it. You're of no use to me half-dead from lack of sleep."
"Yeah," Danny says, and smiles again and looks away. "Didn't figure, but I thought it was worth asking." He leans against the doorway all mock casual-like and Mac sees through it and he knows Mac sees through it because it's Mac and he tends to see through absolutely anything he wants and Danny could be wearing lead and it wouldn't change that. "You talk to Stella?"
"Did she tell you to go home?"
"She told me to get over it. If I said I wanted a transfer would you give it to me?"
"Do you?" Mac asks, like it's never been less surprised by anything. Just goes to show and all that, Danny thinks, because once upon a time he used to be able to surprise people. So really, really, maybe he just needs a change.
Something's gotta change.
Danny shrugs.
---
"Are you?" Stella asks, and he knows what she means.
Danny wants to shrug. Wants to kick his feet and wants to scream. He wants to not have this problem, because frankly, it's bullshit. It's a stupid fucking problem to have. He knew better going in, he knew better when he saw the damn doorway. He really wishes he could just take it all back, do over, and this time not fuck everything up so bad.
But that's not gonna happen and the problem with Danny is the same as it's always been.
He wants a lot of things.
---
"FBI wants the case," Mac tells them, and looks disappointed and resigned and just as blank as Mac has always looked.
"Stall them," Stella says with a shrug. "We'll get it."
"We're not getting anywhere," Danny says, and it's as much a shock to him as it is to everyone else in the room. "We haven't gotten anywhere on this case. So maybe they'll see something we don't."
"Danny, if none of us have seen it then it isn't there to see."
"So what, we just gotta let the guy keep killing girls until he fucks up and leaves a print in blood at the scene? Think if he does he'll even be in the system? Five girls in a little over month, Stella, and we're nowhere. He's not gonna slow down so we can catch up, either. It's gonna be another girl and another and another. How many more parents do you want to have to try and talk out of seeing at their baby girl looking like ground beef laying on the slab from the beating they took?"
"Danny," Mac snaps. "That's enough. We've got the case until victim number six is in the morgue. Let's try and figure this out before then."
"There's no sign of forced entry," Aiden says suddenly, since everyone else is just glaring. She's perceptive like that, knows when to bring the focus back. "Not at any of the scenes. Maybe we should start looking at it like we did before it became serial, like maybe the girls knew him."
"Not likely," Stella sighs. "The way the scene looked at number five? He was surprised by the kid. He wasn't expecting that."
"Neither were we," Danny says, and clenches his jaw and watches the steam rise from his coffee. They've always got the AC turned up too high in here. It's fucking freezing. "It was a break in the pattern. Four young girls that everyone says are unattached and then one with a four-year-old? It had to've been a surprise."
"So he didn't know them well, doesn't mean he didn't see them around."
Mac shakes his head. "We've been all over the state tracking their movements, people they know, no two of them frequented the same place. They all have different jobs, apartment buildings miles apart. We've got a student, a stripper, a waitress at a pizza place, a bank teller—"
"I got the tape from any security camera on the same block as any of the vic's buildings," Danny sighs and scowls a little bit, his eyebrows furrowing and he can feel the wrinkles forming. "If the street could be seen at all I got the tape, but so far nothing's showed up. Don't see the same car or person twice."
"There has to be something they have in common. There has to be some way that he latched onto them." Stella opens the file in front of her again. Jennifer Harlon, victim number one. "There has to be something."
"Thought you said if there was then we'd've seen it," Danny mutters, and doesn't—does not—look even a little bit ashamed when he can feel Mac glare at him.
---
He gives into the urge at twelve after midnight.
"Danny," Mac says from behind him, because of course Mac would be standing in the doorway behind him when he decides to throw a temper tantrum and toss folders and files and stacks of paper all over his cramped office. Of course.
"Sorry," he says shortly, and mostly even means it. "I'm sorry."
"You feel better now?"
Danny laughs and puts his hands on his hips and—"Yeah," he nods. "Little bit."
"You can't keep doing this, Danny."
"I know. I'm sorry."
"I know there are a lot of—"
"Mac, please, can we not do this right now? I'm sorry, I am. But I'm not in the mood for another round of What's Wrong With Danny Now. I'm just not. Please."
Mac stood up straight in the door, like he was afraid to come in. Which, alright, that made sense considering there was no telling what kind of important paper he'd step on if he did but. That was just Mac, really. Still had his tie on tight and the top button of his blue shirt done up like was only proper. "I know there are a lot of," he repeats and stops, like he doesn't know. Cuts back a sigh in his throat like maybe he doesn't wanna.
"What's her name?" Danny asks, and actually almost accidentally looks Mac in the eye.
"I'm sorry?"
"Took off your ring for her, Mac, she must be special."
"Danny," Mac says, and Danny's name is almost always a warning when he says it, which seems very, very unfair to Danny all of a sudden.
"Just asking," he says and shrugs. "Seems like someone else should get asked the personal questions once in a while. No fair that it's always gotta be me."
Mostly Mac looks the same as he always does. As blank as he always does. But for just a second Danny imagines that he looks as sick as Danny feels. Just for a second, then it's gone, so it had to've just been in his imagination. "I'm sorry," Mac says, and really, it almost sounds like he means it.
"Don't be." Danny shrugs again and pushes up his glasses to rub at his eyes tiredly. "I'm the one that's sorry. I'm the one that's got a reason to be."
---
When he looks up Mac is gone.
It's back to the black humor again, he thinks and grins like he can see how it'd be funny as he bends down to pick up the papers he scattered.
---
"Jennifer Harlon, Annabeth Grey and Claire Cullum all wrote checks to the same company last month."
Mac looks up from mind numbing when Danny says it. When Danny sort of crashes into his office, anyway. It's two thirty-four in the morning and Mac might be surprised to see him but he's not surprised Danny's still there and Danny isn't surprised he is.
"All three've written checks to the same company every month for the past year. Turns out all five vics lived in a building owned by the same man."
"All five?"
"Emily Jamenson's parents paid her rent so she could concentrate on school. Heather Jacobs was behind on her bills."
Danny grins widely and Mac nods. "Go home and get some sleep, Danny, it's not going to be easy getting an interview with the guy."
"Yeah," Danny sighs. "Okay."
"Danny," Mac says, when he's turned around and is walking away. "Good job."
"Thanks." Danny grins again.
---
"I talked to the parents of the third victim," Stella tells him, the second he comes through the door and nearly spills his coffee all over him. "Seems that they and Emily had to go through a review board to get into that building. The mother said that one thing she found odd was that they wanted photographs."
"But the main guy, he's not on the review board."
"No, but I think he gets final say."
Danny wrinkles his nose and starts walking beside Stella when she takes off again. "You'd think that a place that hard to get into would've had better security, wouldn't you? Makes me think it can't be just anybody. That can't all be by chance."
"We don't have enough for a warrant, so Aiden got the bright idea to just Google the company. Turns out about a year back a girl filed suit against them for falling down the stairs because the light was out and she couldn't get them to replace it. Seemed innocent enough, all they'd have to do is settle for what would be pocket change to them until she brings up four other cases of things happening because of shoddy maintenance in and around the building. The others decided to join the suit instead of just testify and about a week before the first attack the jury awarded them an undisclosed amount."
"Sounds like motive to me."
"Sounds like grounds enough for a warrant to me."
Danny nods, and smiles over at her. "So, you gonna stomp me for the thing in the meeting?"
"I didn't wear the right shoes for stomping," Stella says and smiles softly back. "So I guess you're off the hook this time."
"I'm really— I'm sorry."
"I know, Danny. Everybody knows you're sorry." She sighs and stops outside his office and shifts her weight from one foot to the other. From business to personal. "Thing is, the shoot out is only going to get to be your reasoning for so long. You can't keep this up forever. Eventually you've gotta move on."
---
Sometimes Danny feels like the latex gloves he wears are melting into his skin. Are becoming part of him, a brand new skin, maybe. One that's thicker.
But the last part is probably just wishful thinking.
---
What Aiden found was barely enough for Mac to get a warrant from a judge who owed him a favor. But it did the trick.
They got the financial records they needed. Got the interview they needed.
The company couldn't pay the settlement. The owner, James Montgomery, put everything he owned into the company. If they went bankrupt so did he and that was motive.
Flack wrinkled his nose and got the coffee cup from Starbucks when he threw it out.
DNA was a match and Danny watched with a grin as Mac took delight in photographing the wounds Montgomery'd gotten from the girls.
It was nice, sometimes, when everything was wrapped up all nice and neat with a little bow. But it didn't happen often enough. Not nearly, really.
Danny feels like he's waking up and not liking the morning he sees outside.
---
Aiden isn't a girl who likes change too much, when you get right down to it. It's the one thing Danny knows about her that she doesn't know about herself. It's a nice change to be the one knowing something, but he doesn't try and get used to it or anything.
She decides that wrapping this case means too much beer and she's a scary drunk. All flirty with the leaning and strange men leer at her and Flack gets protective like he's forgotten she can take care of herself and it's amusing until he starts flashing his badge and she starts dancing on a table. That's when it gets scary.
"Aiden," Danny says, with his hand over his eyes and his beer in his lap and he wonders why the world never opens up to swallow you whole when you want it to most, "please get down off of the table."
Stella laughs and pats his back and Flack is totally looking, but since she's all but begging for it Danny isn't going to be the one to snitch. Course, he's got his eyes covered and he still knows that Flack is looking so chances are it's not gonna take him being the tattletale. Everyone in the bar knows they're cops now anyway, so naturally everyone in the bar is looking and watching and snickering.
He's not too drunk to care yet, but he's almost willing to pretend. He gives Stella a dollar bill when she asks, even signs it without question and he knows but. But. He laughs when she tucks it into Aiden's waistband.
"She's gonna kick your ass for that in the morning," Mac says, coming over to the table with a beer in his hand and his tie still tight around his neck. All nice and straight. Figures, really, and he's always late to the party.
"I can take her," Stella laughs and raises her eyebrows at Danny. She's a clumsy drunk. "Don't you think I can take her?"
"I do, yes. But since it's not your name on the bill I doubt it's your ass she'll be kicking."
Stella wraps her arm around Danny's and laughs. "Well," she says, "you need your ass kicked anyway. You're due for it. And aren't you supposed to be hiding your poor virgin eyes from the girly parts on the table?"
It was sort of worth it to have Mac laugh. Sort of.
His beer still feels uncomfortably heavy in his stomach though, and he really, really wishes it would stop that.
---
His sheets are soft and cool, his apartment smells like an apartment that no one has stepped foot in for entirely too long and there was nothing in his fridge when he dared to look inside. Which, actually, was probably for the better.
The TV is on in the living room and outside there's the rush of cars, the shriek of tires when someone slams on their brakes. There's the siren of a cop car a couple of blocks over and it's going the other way.
The alarm on his nightstand glows with red numbers he can't read without his glasses. It's sort of, almost, kind of a blessing, and he's very, very drunk so the room feels like it's spinning and he can't catch up.
Danny presses his face into his pillow and still can't sleep.
---
Getting ready in the morning is like going through the motions of a habit he'd dropped. He turns off the alarm and brushes his teeth and gets in the shower and nearly slips and kills himself because it's early.
It's like sometimes—when things get really tough—he still reaches for the cigarettes he gave up years ago.
You can break habits and you can fall out of them, but you don't forget them. He could bum a cigarette from Flack and not choke on it the way he chokes on everything else.
---
At noon it's hot out on the balcony of anywhere in New York City when you're just on the very edge of July.
The sun is hot and the back of Danny's neck prickles with the heat of it. He can feel the sweat beading there as he bends over to dust the railing. The latex gloves feel like they're melting into his hands.
"You still want that transfer?" Mac asks, all casual like it's a nothing question. Like he's asking, lovely weather, don't you think? Like it's nothing to him what Danny answers.
"I don't know," Danny sighs. "I just… I don't know."
Mac's taking pictures of the prints that show up all across the rail as Danny dusts it. There's dozens of them, so this is probably not going to get them anywhere either, but it's procedure. It's one of the things you've gotta do. "I like the team I've got, Danny," he says, like he's talking to the camera. "You want the transfer I'll write you a recommendation, but I'm not looking forward to finding someone to replace you."
Danny swallows hard and gets the tape out of his kit. "I hate moving anyway, all the boxes and the putting the stuff into the boxes and then getting it out of them. It's just not my idea of a fun weekend."
"Okay," Mac says, and laughs a little. "Just as well, you'd never have made it in Vegas, they'd consider this a mild day."
Danny rubs at the back of his neck with the inside of his wrist. The edge of his glove sticks and pulls his skin. "Don't we all," he says dryly, and laughs because it's stupid and hurtful and true.