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.fic: Sin Dirección - D/M R (Part II)
Title: Sin Dirección (Without Direction)
By: HF
Email: aesc36 @gmail.com
Pairing: Danny/Martin
Rating/Warnings: R; angst
Spoilers: Count on pretty much everything up to and including 4.12 "Patient X."
Disclaimer: Without a Trace belongs to CBS &c. And the fangirls were sore aggrieved.
Advertisements: First fragment here.
Challenge stuff: for the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
wordclaim50 Angst #3.
Caveat: My addictions have traditionally not been of the kind that would earn me prison time or a hefty fine (except for fanfic, I suppose), so I'm not an expert when it comes to detox, withdrawal, and all of it. I'm going on two years of my psych degree and what I've read about addiction treatment procedures.
SIN DIRECCIÓN
PART TWO
He’s experienced his father’s disappointment – thirty-four years of it – and he’s survived. He’s had Jack be furious at and disappointed in him, and he’s gotten over it.
But the look in Danny’s face right now... He can’t parse everything out and knows he doesn’t want to: disappointment, betrayal, anger, something bitter and more fundamental than any of these. Danny’s so still, holding up that bottle of pills and watching him wordlessly, and Martin doesn’t know whether to apologize to him or hate him, or try to grab the bottle.
Everything’s falling apart and he can feel it, the acceleration of a slow, inexorable crumbling. He tries to keep it together.
“I...” His throat is dry, and he coughs painfully around the words. Desperation makes him inventive, a sudden burst of clarity in the chaos. “I must have gotten them mixed up with my meds... They were on the countertop in her bathroom.”
Danny’s watching him stonily, face shadowed in the dim light of the one lamp Martin has on.
“Danny, I swear to God that’s what happened.”
Still nothing, and oh God, Danny doesn’t believe him.
“Danny, c’mon, man.” He steps closer and Danny tenses. “C’mon.”
It’s a long moment before Danny moves, and when he does, it’s to tuck the bottle into his jeans pocket, and when Danny finally speaks, it’s with a terrible blankness Martin’s only ever heard Danny direct at suspects: deliberately calm, utterly without inflection, soft enough to be intimate and terrifying.
“Martin, what are you doing?”
“I told you, I got the bottles mixed – ”
“Don’t.” The word is a knife, cutting Martin off. “Don’t lie to me, Martin.”
The words are a slap, stinging, shocking Martin into silence.
Danny takes a deep, unsteady breath before speaking again, voice still controlled, the spaces between them measured out.
“You could be dismissed for this. If Jack finds out? You’re gone.”
Martin opens his mouth to say something – he doesn’t know what – but Danny rides over him.
“It’s a good thing Vincent Weaver’s dead, because if a judge ever found out what you did, we’d lose whatever conviction we’d get on him in a second, ‘cause we had a compromised agent on the scene.”
Martin tries to interrupt again, to point out that Weaver is dead. Danny keeps going. Doesn’t even raise his voice, just plows right through Martin’s attempts to speak.
“You know I’m supposed to report you. You could resign – Jack might let you, to keep the OPR away – or there’ll be an investigation. And you know what they’ll find, Martin.”
He knows, and it makes him angry. Doesn’t know why Danny would report him, because they were old pills and it wasn’t like Gina was using them and he’d been perfectly justified in taking them. But Danny’s still watching him coldly, impassive and relentlessly logical, and dammit Danny’s supposed to be the one shouting.
“So report me,” Martin says, staring straight at that immobile face, unaccountably triumphant at how steady his voice is. “Phone’s in the kitchen.”
Danny doesn’t answer, doesn’t do anything for a few seconds that stretch out like eternity.
“I’m not going to report you,” Danny tells him, sounding tired all of a sudden. He’s still steady, though, dark eyes holding Martin’s resolutely. “On one condition.”
“What’s that?” He knows full well what the condition is, but has to ask.
“You detox and get counseling. We can do it here, at a clinic, wherever.” Danny pauses. “You’re going to go either way, Martin, either willingly or by court order. And believe me, you won’t like where the courts send you.” Bitter and haunted, and Martin belatedly realizes that Danny probably had gone through alcohol detox after his arrest.
The realization that Danny’s alcoholism is the reason why Danny is overreacting does not make him more charitable.
“Thank you, Mr. Twelve-Step,” he says sarcastically.
Danny absorbs the insult without flinching or tossing one back. Instead, he repeats himself: go to detox voluntarily, or go because a judge is making you.
“I don’t have a problem.” He knows he sounds frustrated and can’t help it, wonders why Danny can’t see that he doesn’t have a problem at all. Usually Danny’s very perceptive, and Martin doesn’t quite get why he’s being so dense now.
“You do,” Danny says, with such gentleness and infinite patience that Martin almost believes him.
“I don’t,” he says again, and hopes Danny will believe him this time.
Instead, Danny shakes his head. Doesn’t look away, doesn’t do or say anything else. Just stands there and looks at Martin, dark eyes without the edge of steel and anger in them anymore, only a subdued determination that Martin finds more frightening than any amount of shouting.
“Dr. Carlyle is phasing me off my meds,” he mutters, because it’s true. “It’s just gotten a bit rough, is all.” And that’s true, too. A lot true.
“Martin, c’mon, man.” Still gentle, soft, like Danny could do this forever. “I’ve been watching you for the past few weeks, and you should have phased off them two weeks ago, at the least. Maybe three.”
“What the hell do you know about it?
“More than you think, probably.”
“Yeah?”
Danny shrugs, like it’s supremely unimportant what he knows. “I’ve been there, Martin. I’m still there, and I’ll be there every day of my life. But you? You can put this behind you, right now, or you can take it with you the rest of your life.” Skip in Danny’s voice now, desperation breaking through the surface calm. “And you don’t want that, Martin. Believe me, you don’t.”
He hasn’t realized it before, but Danny’s stepping closer, shadows from the one light changing as he moves. Part of him wants to make a grab for the drugs, but mostly he can’t tear his eyes away from Danny, who’s standing over him now and peering down at him, head tilted slightly to catch Martin’s gaze.
“You keep taking these,” Danny fishes out the pill bottle and shakes it meaningfully; Martin watches, hypnotized, “you keep taking these and none of this will ever be behind you. Every time you open this bottle” – another shake – “you’re going to remember what happened to make you open it. I swear, Martin.”
And that’s what he wants more than anything, Martin realizes. More than the drugs, even, he wants all this to be over, to be behind him where it can’t hurt him anymore, and he knows he’s long since given up hope that it ever will be.
* * *
He wishes Martin had chosen to stay at a clinic. There are several in the city and many just outside, all of them discreet and highly confidential – no names, just patient numbers – with drugs and therapy to help ease Martin through the worst of it. The Fitzgerald name could probably have gotten him into the fancy ones, the ones reserved for movie stars and spoiled heiresses, but the problem with that is... well, it’s the Fitzgerald name, and that’s as good as going public.
If Victor finds out... Danny can’t think about that, and so he won’t. There’s too much to worry about now.
As it is, he’s persuaded Martin into going to an emergency detox center, after swearing on his soul it will be completely confidential, and they’re there bright and early Sunday morning. Martin had insisted on kicking this himself, but Danny knows what cold turkey is like and knows it doesn’t work. He’s helped other friends through the first few days of withdrawal, and those seem like they’re the worst, when the body tries to hold on to what’s made it feel so good, the balance that really isn’t balance but the illusion of it.
He remembers his own in a vague, hallucinatory sort of way, the nausea, his entire body shaking, his own voice begging the nurses please, God, just let me have a bit. A little, I swear, that’s all I need. Back then he’d been too broke, and his school insurance too cheap, to afford rapid detox, the kind that keeps you under until they’ve gotten everything out of your system. And it’s the memory of that, as much as realizing how much he’d screwed his life up, that keeps him sober. He can’t go back to that.
The hell of it is, you think it’s the worst, but it’s only the first hard step in a series of hard steps. The years after, trying not to count days and failing, those are the worst. Because the drug might be gone but the need is still there and it seems like it’ll be forever until that need goes away. It’s why so many people relapse, why he’s teetered on the edge of the wagon and almost fallen off. He’s still sometimes puzzled as to how he’s managed to stay sober for almost nine years, though he knows that he hates the stupid law student he’d been enough to keep him straight. Seeing Rafi’s addiction make hell out of his and Danny’s lives only firmed his resolve.
Right now, Martin looks like anyone in the first stages of withdrawal: terrible, unshaven, dark shadows under red and gritty eyes. His hand shakes in his lap as he sits in the passenger seat of his car, and despite the cold there’s a trickle of sweat working its way down his temple. He only seems to get worse as Danny drags him into the clinic and they sit together in the white, sterile office and wait for the doctor to appear.
Martin’s fidgeting now, head swinging this way and that, gaze bouncing from the door to the chart on The Physical Effects of Heroin Addiction to the locked cabinets and back again.
“Danny,” Martin says, “I want to go home.”
“We’re not,” Danny says. Martin subsides with a sigh.
At last the doctor comes, does some tests, looks Martin over, Martin who’s on the verge of rebellion as he answers her questions – I’ve been taking them for the past six months, no I don’t have a problem, my only problem is that I just need to take my goddamn pills and I’m out, okay? – and submits to a blood test and EKG. The doctor nods imperturbably at all of Martin’s sharp, annoyed comments and makes notes in her charts; Danny know’s she’s heard all this before, and maybe worse.
“You can detox at home,” she tells Martin after returning with his results, “if someone can stay with you. Do you have a friend or family member who – ”
“I’ll do it.”
Martin looks over at him in surprise. “Danny, you’ve got work...”
“God invented personal days for a reason.”
“But Jack – ”
“I’ll take care of him.”
Dr. Cavanaugh smiles briefly at Danny, then turns to address Martin again. “I’ll have a nurse get the drugs you need, and I’ll explain the dosages and procedures.” She outlines what exactly is going to happen, and Martin looks like he wants to bolt and would, if he had the energy. Danny knows it’s not pretty: extended sedation to mute the worst of it, drugs to counteract other side effects, therapy after that to gently encourage the brain away from its addiction.
The doctor leaves to round up what she needs and Danny turns to Martin, who’s pulling his shirt to rights, hand hovering unsteadily around the collar.
“You okay?”
“No, I’m not,” Martin snaps, fingers fumbling at the zipper of his jacket. “Fucking hell, Danny.”
Danny shrugs and Martin frowns at him, fierce and stubborn and unexpectedly Martin, and even though Martin’s preparing to fight him on this, Danny thinks absurdly that it will be okay.
* * *
It’s late in the afternoon by the time they get back to Martin’s place and get him set up: electrolytes and water for dehydration, extra blankets, drugs ranged neatly on the kitchen counter, Frosted Flakes because those are Martin’s favorite and he’ll probably need the sugar.
Danny gives Martin the first of the sedative and the drugs that’ll block his body’s absorption of the Percocet, and Martin takes them with obvious reluctance. He stares at the capsules for a long moment before swallowing them and half the glass of water Danny hands him.
“You need me, I’ll be here,” Danny tells him.
Martin offers him a thin smile, but there’s gratitude in it.
“I know.”
Danny watches to make sure Martin swallows and keeps watching until Martin shivers once and falls asleep. And he keeps watching from the chair by Martin’s bedside, unable to look away, watching the unsteady rise and fall of Martin’s chest, hearing the series of breaths that mean shallow, uncertain sleep. He remembers this part from before, the long hours of waiting, and he doubts it’s going to be any easier this time around.
He waits until Martin’s well and truly out before taking a quick shower and then calling Jack at home. There’s going to be no way to explain this gracefully, to keep Martin’s secret – which is why Danny’s waited – but he knows enough to know he can rely on Jack to keep it quiet. Or hopes he can, anyway.
“Sunday afternoon?” Jack asks crankily when he picks up. “This had better be an emergency.” A pause. “Actually, it had better not be.”
“Big date?” Danny asks, because he has to. He’s seen Anne Cassidy around a lot lately.
“Something like that,” Jack grunts, unwilling to give Danny anything else to use against him. “What d’you want?”
“Personal days. For me and Martin.”
He can almost hear Jack’s eyebrows rising.
“Martin needs to take some time off,” Danny explains quickly. “The Hill case really shook him up. Worse than he thought, I guess.”
“I’ve given him Monday and Tuesday already,” Jack tells him, and Danny knows that, “but he’ll have more if he needs it. What I want to know is why you need personal time. At the same time, I’m guessing.”
They’ve come to it, and Danny forces himself to calmness.
“I’m taking care of Martin for a few days.”
A heavy, telling silence on the other end of the line.
“We’ve managed with four agents before, I think we can do it again,” Jack says at last, voice absolutely blank, casual like he’s used to having two agents take off for an unspecified period of time. “Let me know if you need anything else, okay?”
“Yeah,” Danny says, almost dizzy with relief. “Thanks, Jack.”
“Don’t thank me yet. First opportunity, we’re going to talk about this.”
“Yeah,” Danny says again.
He hangs up and connects his cell to its charger, watching his hand quivering slightly as he tries to plug the phone in. Jack knows, or at least has a pretty damn good idea; Danny wonders if Viv’s told him anything, or if Jack’s worked everything out for himself, and he can’t help but guess what Jack’s going to do. Tell Victor? Danny doubts it, because Jack dislikes Victor enough to make sure he keeps all team difficulties private. Tell Van Doren? That would be the same thing as telling Victor, Danny supposes. Tell the rest of the team? Danny fervently hopes not. He knows Sam will keep quiet, because she and Martin have something like friendship – completely platonic, for which Danny is profoundly relieved and grateful – and she wouldn’t jeopardize that, but Elena? He frowns and shakes his head.
Martin will have to explain himself once he gets back, and Danny’s going to have to offer some explanations of his own, but those are worries that’ll have to keep for later.
Restless, he pokes around Martin’s apartment for something to do. A ton of books – science fiction, American history, tax law for God’s sake, musty old Latin texts from Martin’s college days with annotations scribbled in the margins – and a collection of DVDs. He pulls out a book at random, something on the history of the American West, and settles down on the couch to read.
Can’t concentrate, though, and he strains to hear Martin’s breathing just down the hall. After a few minutes he gives up and moves into the bedroom, tucks the forgotten book under his arm as he sits in the chair he’d left not fifteen minutes before, and watches Martin try to sleep.
* * *
His first lucid thought that isn’t Please, God, give me something to make it stop is that it’s sort of crazy Danny’s here doing this.
Sam had appointed herself Martin’s caretaker after he’d gotten home from the hospital – and even before then – making sure he had food, that he got to his weekend therapy appointments, spending time with him on her days off. He’d found it suffocating and more than a little grating at first, this not-so-oblique apology for their break-up, like the two of them not being together anymore had somehow made Dornvald shoot him.
They’d argued about it once, one day when Martin had been sore from a physical therapy session and Sam had just finished a hard case. He’d told you don’t have to do this, she’d said I want to do this and what’s your problem anyway, and he’d said you don’t need to feel guilty so just ease up and give me some space.
“Martin, look... I know we’re not together anymore, and I’m fine with that.” Sam had smiled ruefully, the kind of smile he liked on her. “But I told you I’d be here for you, and... I really want us to be friends, if we can.”
“Anyone who buys me Ben & Jerry’s is a friend,” he’d told her, and she’d laughed at that.
And they’d been okay from then on, and really, being friends with Sam is pretty cool. Easier to be honest with her and be a friend than lie to himself about what he wants out of life.
But that’s not the crazy thing. The crazy thing is that she’s not here, but Danny is. Danny, who’s stayed away from him for the past six months, who’s been so awkward around him, and despite that, it’s Danny who’s somehow moved into Martin’s apartment and back into Martin’s life again. Signs of his presence everywhere, his weird hair gel in Martin’s bathroom and his clothes liberally distributed around the office-cum-guest bedroom, and if circumstances weren’t what they are Martin could imagine Danny’s more or less moved in.
As it is, right now Danny’s making soup and making Martin drink a ton of juice, telling him his body needs the vitamins after what it’s been through. Martin has vague memories of the past three days, fever and the sedatives smearing memory into incoherence, broken sometimes by Danny giving him water or something else to swallow. He tries to ignore the prickle of anxiety, focuses instead on Danny moving around his kitchen, the never-ending stream of chatter – stories, jokes, sly apropos-of-nothing observations – and the fact that, whatever it is Danny’s cooking smells really good.
He’s hungry, and Martin can’t quite believe that. It’s nice, in a strange sort of way, to want something normal like soup and crackers.
Danny deposits a steaming bowl and a plate of crackers in front of him and orders him to eat up.
Martin says thanks.
“No problem,” Danny says, and there’s that smile, unexpectedly soft and genuine. “Now eat.”
Danny fixes a bowl for himself and sits down across from Martin, their knees almost touching under the table. They’re close enough together that Martin can see the flesh of Danny’s throat move as he swallows, curve of his lips around the bowl of his spoon.
Very carefully, Martin looks away and down at his bowl. A Cuban variation on chicken soup, spicy but not enough to upset his stomach. He swallows a spoonful, is relieved when Danny starts talking again.
Absently he nods whenever it feels appropriate and continues to eat his soup, appreciating it at first, but then the taste abruptly fades and it’s like he’s swallowing saltwater. He wonders where Danny’s stashed Gina’s – his – pills, if they’re in Danny’s overnight bag or somewhere else. Danny’s confiscated pretty much everything in Martin’s medicine cabinet except for his deodorant, and Martin doesn’t know where Danny’s hidden the detox stuff.
It occurs to him that he’s going to have to find some way to get around Danny’s constant vigilance, some way to get a hold of what he needs. Start out easy, maybe find another doctor for a second opinion, one who’s not going to call Carlyle and ask what’s going on.
And if that doesn’t work, there’s the evidence lockers for narcotics. He knows one of the guys who works down there, and it’d be easy. He could go down one day when everyone’s busy, out in the field or on the phone, just say I’m going to take a quick break and then head downstairs. Talk his way in past Will and then –
He stands so swiftly he almost knocks his chair over; the unsteady hand he extends to save it finishes the job, and the chair topples with a crash. Danny’s staring at him in concern, ready to say something, ready to get up. Martin mutters a desperate excuse – feel kinda sick, and it’s true, because he really is sick in so many ways – and pushes past Danny to his bathroom.
Slams the door in Danny’s questioning face and stares at his own frantic one in the mirror.
What the hell am I doing?
He knows what he’s doing. For the first time in maybe forever – for the first time in the past couple of months, at least – he knows exactly what he’s doing.
And he doesn’t know where this came from, the thought that he needs to find some way to get those goddamn pills, the series of plans that all involve doing things he never would have done seven months ago, things he’d thought he’d never do, because he’s Martin Fitzgerald and he doesn’t do things like that.
It takes him a couple tries to turn the faucet on. He splashes water on his face, which doesn’t do much to steady him; now he’s upset and wet, the collar of his t-shirt soaked, water dripping down his forearms. Crazily, he remembers standing in Gina Hill’s bathroom – a lot like this, actually, staring blindly into the mirror – only this time there aren’t any pills for him to take away.
He tries to shake off the clinging wish that there were some pills, the soft, insidious voice that tells him Danny can’t baby-sit him forever, because Danny has a real job and he’s going to have to leave eventually and when he does you can –
No. He closes his eyes against the flood of suggestion.
It’s a maze, Martin thinks, addiction; he’s lost in it, and keeps stumbling back to the same thoughts: how he felt on the Percocet, how he wishes he has some now, how he can get it in the future. Or maybe it’s like mind control, and at that thought he brings himself up short.
Because the drugs are control. They control the world, make it slow down, make it stop scaring and pissing the hell out of him, make it fade away. The two – or four, or six – capsules every few hours have become his clock, his time, somehow more important than food or sleep, than work, and it occurs to him that one day soon he might really blow a case because of it.
And that’s not him, it’s never been him to be so careless, but at some point he’d held onto his control so tightly it had slipped through his fingers, or maybe splintered in his grip, like glass. Or maybe he’d never really had it.
He wonders when he’d fallen so far away from himself.
It’s lying, that’s what he’s doing, a betrayal – of himself, Jack, Viv. Sam, even, because she’d tried to help him.
And Danny, which is worse than all the rest of it, and he knows he can’t ever live with that.
* * *
He can’t hear retching through the bathroom door, only a moment of the faucet running, Martin coughing once, and then the creak of the water going off.
Danny gives Martin a few minutes to collect himself, partly because he knows first-hand that Martin has far too much pride to let anyone see him like this, and partly because he remembers his own first days, spent pushing nurses out of the bathroom and slamming doors in faces. Breaking down in private had at least managed to preserve some illusion of having dignity, even though they’d all seen him eventually, red-eyed and an utter wreck.
Eventually, though, he tries the door. It isn’t locked, and he opens it enough to look through and see Martin standing at the sink, hands braced on the counter, and staring fixedly at nothing.
“Did the soup suck that much?” he asks. “’Cause if it did, don’t say so. That was my mom’s recipe.”
This earns a half-hearted smile; he can see it in Martin’s profile and in his reflection in the mirror. He figures this is invitation enough – at least Martin’s not frowning or shouting at him – and slips inside. Martin’s bathroom, like most New York apartment bathrooms, is small, had probably been a storage closet in a former life.
“I’m pretty fucked up, Danny,” Martin tells him, so uncharacteristically rueful that Danny almost wants to laugh.
“We all are,” he says instead, because it’s true. He knows he hasn’t got his own head on straight.
Martin shakes his head, turns around so his back is to the mirror and he can look at Danny more fully. Or maybe so he doesn’t have to look at himself. Danny doesn’t know.
“I was... While we were eating, I was thinking about how I could get more pills,” Martin says, voice tight and despairing. “I mean, after what I went through” – he gestures with his right hand, indicating the past three days – “I’m thinking about, like, I’m actually planning how to get more. And I can’t stop.” Martin’s talking faster now, the words tumbling like a rockslide, harsh and headlong and violent. “Every other thought is where I can get some, how, what I have to do. And I can’t fucking stop it, Danny. It won’t go away.”
“Yeah, Fitz, I know.” Danny hoists himself up on the counter, not that there’s really any room for anyone to sit on it, his hip pressed against Martin’s wrist.
“Does it ever stop?”
“It hasn’t for me,” Danny says truthfully. Martin’s shoulders hitch in startled disbelief and Danny quickly adds, “But I was pretty screwed up for a long time. I grew up with drinking... It’s how I saw a lot of the world, I guess. Hard to change that sort of thing, if you ever can. But you’re not me, Martin; the same isn’t going to be true.”
Martin nods, though Danny can see Martin doesn’t really believe him, and it’s then that he realizes he’s rubbing Martin’s shoulder, slow, absent circles over muscle and the ridge of Martin’s collar bone. He thinks about stopping for a moment, but Martin doesn’t seem to mind – even seems to like it, his body subtly leaning into Danny’s.
“Nobody makes it alone,” he tells Martin, and it’s a relief to say the words, finally. “And I’m here, Martin. I’m here.”
“I know,” Martin says, and when he looks up, Danny knows he really does.
-end-
Post-fic notes: This most likely will feel kind of incomplete, but I think I'll add to it as the season progresses. Or simply continue it indefinitely as a series of related fics, kind of like ALTC &c. I like that approach (it's worked well with my LotR stuff)... it appeals to my wandering mind, I guess.
By: HF
Email: aesc36 @gmail.com
Pairing: Danny/Martin
Rating/Warnings: R; angst
Spoilers: Count on pretty much everything up to and including 4.12 "Patient X."
Disclaimer: Without a Trace belongs to CBS &c. And the fangirls were sore aggrieved.
Advertisements: First fragment here.
Challenge stuff: for the
wordclaim50 Angst #3.Caveat: My addictions have traditionally not been of the kind that would earn me prison time or a hefty fine (except for fanfic, I suppose), so I'm not an expert when it comes to detox, withdrawal, and all of it. I'm going on two years of my psych degree and what I've read about addiction treatment procedures.
SIN DIRECCIÓN
PART TWO
He’s experienced his father’s disappointment – thirty-four years of it – and he’s survived. He’s had Jack be furious at and disappointed in him, and he’s gotten over it.
But the look in Danny’s face right now... He can’t parse everything out and knows he doesn’t want to: disappointment, betrayal, anger, something bitter and more fundamental than any of these. Danny’s so still, holding up that bottle of pills and watching him wordlessly, and Martin doesn’t know whether to apologize to him or hate him, or try to grab the bottle.
Everything’s falling apart and he can feel it, the acceleration of a slow, inexorable crumbling. He tries to keep it together.
“I...” His throat is dry, and he coughs painfully around the words. Desperation makes him inventive, a sudden burst of clarity in the chaos. “I must have gotten them mixed up with my meds... They were on the countertop in her bathroom.”
Danny’s watching him stonily, face shadowed in the dim light of the one lamp Martin has on.
“Danny, I swear to God that’s what happened.”
Still nothing, and oh God, Danny doesn’t believe him.
“Danny, c’mon, man.” He steps closer and Danny tenses. “C’mon.”
It’s a long moment before Danny moves, and when he does, it’s to tuck the bottle into his jeans pocket, and when Danny finally speaks, it’s with a terrible blankness Martin’s only ever heard Danny direct at suspects: deliberately calm, utterly without inflection, soft enough to be intimate and terrifying.
“Martin, what are you doing?”
“I told you, I got the bottles mixed – ”
“Don’t.” The word is a knife, cutting Martin off. “Don’t lie to me, Martin.”
The words are a slap, stinging, shocking Martin into silence.
Danny takes a deep, unsteady breath before speaking again, voice still controlled, the spaces between them measured out.
“You could be dismissed for this. If Jack finds out? You’re gone.”
Martin opens his mouth to say something – he doesn’t know what – but Danny rides over him.
“It’s a good thing Vincent Weaver’s dead, because if a judge ever found out what you did, we’d lose whatever conviction we’d get on him in a second, ‘cause we had a compromised agent on the scene.”
Martin tries to interrupt again, to point out that Weaver is dead. Danny keeps going. Doesn’t even raise his voice, just plows right through Martin’s attempts to speak.
“You know I’m supposed to report you. You could resign – Jack might let you, to keep the OPR away – or there’ll be an investigation. And you know what they’ll find, Martin.”
He knows, and it makes him angry. Doesn’t know why Danny would report him, because they were old pills and it wasn’t like Gina was using them and he’d been perfectly justified in taking them. But Danny’s still watching him coldly, impassive and relentlessly logical, and dammit Danny’s supposed to be the one shouting.
“So report me,” Martin says, staring straight at that immobile face, unaccountably triumphant at how steady his voice is. “Phone’s in the kitchen.”
Danny doesn’t answer, doesn’t do anything for a few seconds that stretch out like eternity.
“I’m not going to report you,” Danny tells him, sounding tired all of a sudden. He’s still steady, though, dark eyes holding Martin’s resolutely. “On one condition.”
“What’s that?” He knows full well what the condition is, but has to ask.
“You detox and get counseling. We can do it here, at a clinic, wherever.” Danny pauses. “You’re going to go either way, Martin, either willingly or by court order. And believe me, you won’t like where the courts send you.” Bitter and haunted, and Martin belatedly realizes that Danny probably had gone through alcohol detox after his arrest.
The realization that Danny’s alcoholism is the reason why Danny is overreacting does not make him more charitable.
“Thank you, Mr. Twelve-Step,” he says sarcastically.
Danny absorbs the insult without flinching or tossing one back. Instead, he repeats himself: go to detox voluntarily, or go because a judge is making you.
“I don’t have a problem.” He knows he sounds frustrated and can’t help it, wonders why Danny can’t see that he doesn’t have a problem at all. Usually Danny’s very perceptive, and Martin doesn’t quite get why he’s being so dense now.
“You do,” Danny says, with such gentleness and infinite patience that Martin almost believes him.
“I don’t,” he says again, and hopes Danny will believe him this time.
Instead, Danny shakes his head. Doesn’t look away, doesn’t do or say anything else. Just stands there and looks at Martin, dark eyes without the edge of steel and anger in them anymore, only a subdued determination that Martin finds more frightening than any amount of shouting.
“Dr. Carlyle is phasing me off my meds,” he mutters, because it’s true. “It’s just gotten a bit rough, is all.” And that’s true, too. A lot true.
“Martin, c’mon, man.” Still gentle, soft, like Danny could do this forever. “I’ve been watching you for the past few weeks, and you should have phased off them two weeks ago, at the least. Maybe three.”
“What the hell do you know about it?
“More than you think, probably.”
“Yeah?”
Danny shrugs, like it’s supremely unimportant what he knows. “I’ve been there, Martin. I’m still there, and I’ll be there every day of my life. But you? You can put this behind you, right now, or you can take it with you the rest of your life.” Skip in Danny’s voice now, desperation breaking through the surface calm. “And you don’t want that, Martin. Believe me, you don’t.”
He hasn’t realized it before, but Danny’s stepping closer, shadows from the one light changing as he moves. Part of him wants to make a grab for the drugs, but mostly he can’t tear his eyes away from Danny, who’s standing over him now and peering down at him, head tilted slightly to catch Martin’s gaze.
“You keep taking these,” Danny fishes out the pill bottle and shakes it meaningfully; Martin watches, hypnotized, “you keep taking these and none of this will ever be behind you. Every time you open this bottle” – another shake – “you’re going to remember what happened to make you open it. I swear, Martin.”
And that’s what he wants more than anything, Martin realizes. More than the drugs, even, he wants all this to be over, to be behind him where it can’t hurt him anymore, and he knows he’s long since given up hope that it ever will be.
He wishes Martin had chosen to stay at a clinic. There are several in the city and many just outside, all of them discreet and highly confidential – no names, just patient numbers – with drugs and therapy to help ease Martin through the worst of it. The Fitzgerald name could probably have gotten him into the fancy ones, the ones reserved for movie stars and spoiled heiresses, but the problem with that is... well, it’s the Fitzgerald name, and that’s as good as going public.
If Victor finds out... Danny can’t think about that, and so he won’t. There’s too much to worry about now.
As it is, he’s persuaded Martin into going to an emergency detox center, after swearing on his soul it will be completely confidential, and they’re there bright and early Sunday morning. Martin had insisted on kicking this himself, but Danny knows what cold turkey is like and knows it doesn’t work. He’s helped other friends through the first few days of withdrawal, and those seem like they’re the worst, when the body tries to hold on to what’s made it feel so good, the balance that really isn’t balance but the illusion of it.
He remembers his own in a vague, hallucinatory sort of way, the nausea, his entire body shaking, his own voice begging the nurses please, God, just let me have a bit. A little, I swear, that’s all I need. Back then he’d been too broke, and his school insurance too cheap, to afford rapid detox, the kind that keeps you under until they’ve gotten everything out of your system. And it’s the memory of that, as much as realizing how much he’d screwed his life up, that keeps him sober. He can’t go back to that.
The hell of it is, you think it’s the worst, but it’s only the first hard step in a series of hard steps. The years after, trying not to count days and failing, those are the worst. Because the drug might be gone but the need is still there and it seems like it’ll be forever until that need goes away. It’s why so many people relapse, why he’s teetered on the edge of the wagon and almost fallen off. He’s still sometimes puzzled as to how he’s managed to stay sober for almost nine years, though he knows that he hates the stupid law student he’d been enough to keep him straight. Seeing Rafi’s addiction make hell out of his and Danny’s lives only firmed his resolve.
Right now, Martin looks like anyone in the first stages of withdrawal: terrible, unshaven, dark shadows under red and gritty eyes. His hand shakes in his lap as he sits in the passenger seat of his car, and despite the cold there’s a trickle of sweat working its way down his temple. He only seems to get worse as Danny drags him into the clinic and they sit together in the white, sterile office and wait for the doctor to appear.
Martin’s fidgeting now, head swinging this way and that, gaze bouncing from the door to the chart on The Physical Effects of Heroin Addiction to the locked cabinets and back again.
“Danny,” Martin says, “I want to go home.”
“We’re not,” Danny says. Martin subsides with a sigh.
At last the doctor comes, does some tests, looks Martin over, Martin who’s on the verge of rebellion as he answers her questions – I’ve been taking them for the past six months, no I don’t have a problem, my only problem is that I just need to take my goddamn pills and I’m out, okay? – and submits to a blood test and EKG. The doctor nods imperturbably at all of Martin’s sharp, annoyed comments and makes notes in her charts; Danny know’s she’s heard all this before, and maybe worse.
“You can detox at home,” she tells Martin after returning with his results, “if someone can stay with you. Do you have a friend or family member who – ”
“I’ll do it.”
Martin looks over at him in surprise. “Danny, you’ve got work...”
“God invented personal days for a reason.”
“But Jack – ”
“I’ll take care of him.”
Dr. Cavanaugh smiles briefly at Danny, then turns to address Martin again. “I’ll have a nurse get the drugs you need, and I’ll explain the dosages and procedures.” She outlines what exactly is going to happen, and Martin looks like he wants to bolt and would, if he had the energy. Danny knows it’s not pretty: extended sedation to mute the worst of it, drugs to counteract other side effects, therapy after that to gently encourage the brain away from its addiction.
The doctor leaves to round up what she needs and Danny turns to Martin, who’s pulling his shirt to rights, hand hovering unsteadily around the collar.
“You okay?”
“No, I’m not,” Martin snaps, fingers fumbling at the zipper of his jacket. “Fucking hell, Danny.”
Danny shrugs and Martin frowns at him, fierce and stubborn and unexpectedly Martin, and even though Martin’s preparing to fight him on this, Danny thinks absurdly that it will be okay.
It’s late in the afternoon by the time they get back to Martin’s place and get him set up: electrolytes and water for dehydration, extra blankets, drugs ranged neatly on the kitchen counter, Frosted Flakes because those are Martin’s favorite and he’ll probably need the sugar.
Danny gives Martin the first of the sedative and the drugs that’ll block his body’s absorption of the Percocet, and Martin takes them with obvious reluctance. He stares at the capsules for a long moment before swallowing them and half the glass of water Danny hands him.
“You need me, I’ll be here,” Danny tells him.
Martin offers him a thin smile, but there’s gratitude in it.
“I know.”
Danny watches to make sure Martin swallows and keeps watching until Martin shivers once and falls asleep. And he keeps watching from the chair by Martin’s bedside, unable to look away, watching the unsteady rise and fall of Martin’s chest, hearing the series of breaths that mean shallow, uncertain sleep. He remembers this part from before, the long hours of waiting, and he doubts it’s going to be any easier this time around.
He waits until Martin’s well and truly out before taking a quick shower and then calling Jack at home. There’s going to be no way to explain this gracefully, to keep Martin’s secret – which is why Danny’s waited – but he knows enough to know he can rely on Jack to keep it quiet. Or hopes he can, anyway.
“Sunday afternoon?” Jack asks crankily when he picks up. “This had better be an emergency.” A pause. “Actually, it had better not be.”
“Big date?” Danny asks, because he has to. He’s seen Anne Cassidy around a lot lately.
“Something like that,” Jack grunts, unwilling to give Danny anything else to use against him. “What d’you want?”
“Personal days. For me and Martin.”
He can almost hear Jack’s eyebrows rising.
“Martin needs to take some time off,” Danny explains quickly. “The Hill case really shook him up. Worse than he thought, I guess.”
“I’ve given him Monday and Tuesday already,” Jack tells him, and Danny knows that, “but he’ll have more if he needs it. What I want to know is why you need personal time. At the same time, I’m guessing.”
They’ve come to it, and Danny forces himself to calmness.
“I’m taking care of Martin for a few days.”
A heavy, telling silence on the other end of the line.
“We’ve managed with four agents before, I think we can do it again,” Jack says at last, voice absolutely blank, casual like he’s used to having two agents take off for an unspecified period of time. “Let me know if you need anything else, okay?”
“Yeah,” Danny says, almost dizzy with relief. “Thanks, Jack.”
“Don’t thank me yet. First opportunity, we’re going to talk about this.”
“Yeah,” Danny says again.
He hangs up and connects his cell to its charger, watching his hand quivering slightly as he tries to plug the phone in. Jack knows, or at least has a pretty damn good idea; Danny wonders if Viv’s told him anything, or if Jack’s worked everything out for himself, and he can’t help but guess what Jack’s going to do. Tell Victor? Danny doubts it, because Jack dislikes Victor enough to make sure he keeps all team difficulties private. Tell Van Doren? That would be the same thing as telling Victor, Danny supposes. Tell the rest of the team? Danny fervently hopes not. He knows Sam will keep quiet, because she and Martin have something like friendship – completely platonic, for which Danny is profoundly relieved and grateful – and she wouldn’t jeopardize that, but Elena? He frowns and shakes his head.
Martin will have to explain himself once he gets back, and Danny’s going to have to offer some explanations of his own, but those are worries that’ll have to keep for later.
Restless, he pokes around Martin’s apartment for something to do. A ton of books – science fiction, American history, tax law for God’s sake, musty old Latin texts from Martin’s college days with annotations scribbled in the margins – and a collection of DVDs. He pulls out a book at random, something on the history of the American West, and settles down on the couch to read.
Can’t concentrate, though, and he strains to hear Martin’s breathing just down the hall. After a few minutes he gives up and moves into the bedroom, tucks the forgotten book under his arm as he sits in the chair he’d left not fifteen minutes before, and watches Martin try to sleep.
His first lucid thought that isn’t Please, God, give me something to make it stop is that it’s sort of crazy Danny’s here doing this.
Sam had appointed herself Martin’s caretaker after he’d gotten home from the hospital – and even before then – making sure he had food, that he got to his weekend therapy appointments, spending time with him on her days off. He’d found it suffocating and more than a little grating at first, this not-so-oblique apology for their break-up, like the two of them not being together anymore had somehow made Dornvald shoot him.
They’d argued about it once, one day when Martin had been sore from a physical therapy session and Sam had just finished a hard case. He’d told you don’t have to do this, she’d said I want to do this and what’s your problem anyway, and he’d said you don’t need to feel guilty so just ease up and give me some space.
“Martin, look... I know we’re not together anymore, and I’m fine with that.” Sam had smiled ruefully, the kind of smile he liked on her. “But I told you I’d be here for you, and... I really want us to be friends, if we can.”
“Anyone who buys me Ben & Jerry’s is a friend,” he’d told her, and she’d laughed at that.
And they’d been okay from then on, and really, being friends with Sam is pretty cool. Easier to be honest with her and be a friend than lie to himself about what he wants out of life.
But that’s not the crazy thing. The crazy thing is that she’s not here, but Danny is. Danny, who’s stayed away from him for the past six months, who’s been so awkward around him, and despite that, it’s Danny who’s somehow moved into Martin’s apartment and back into Martin’s life again. Signs of his presence everywhere, his weird hair gel in Martin’s bathroom and his clothes liberally distributed around the office-cum-guest bedroom, and if circumstances weren’t what they are Martin could imagine Danny’s more or less moved in.
As it is, right now Danny’s making soup and making Martin drink a ton of juice, telling him his body needs the vitamins after what it’s been through. Martin has vague memories of the past three days, fever and the sedatives smearing memory into incoherence, broken sometimes by Danny giving him water or something else to swallow. He tries to ignore the prickle of anxiety, focuses instead on Danny moving around his kitchen, the never-ending stream of chatter – stories, jokes, sly apropos-of-nothing observations – and the fact that, whatever it is Danny’s cooking smells really good.
He’s hungry, and Martin can’t quite believe that. It’s nice, in a strange sort of way, to want something normal like soup and crackers.
Danny deposits a steaming bowl and a plate of crackers in front of him and orders him to eat up.
Martin says thanks.
“No problem,” Danny says, and there’s that smile, unexpectedly soft and genuine. “Now eat.”
Danny fixes a bowl for himself and sits down across from Martin, their knees almost touching under the table. They’re close enough together that Martin can see the flesh of Danny’s throat move as he swallows, curve of his lips around the bowl of his spoon.
Very carefully, Martin looks away and down at his bowl. A Cuban variation on chicken soup, spicy but not enough to upset his stomach. He swallows a spoonful, is relieved when Danny starts talking again.
Absently he nods whenever it feels appropriate and continues to eat his soup, appreciating it at first, but then the taste abruptly fades and it’s like he’s swallowing saltwater. He wonders where Danny’s stashed Gina’s – his – pills, if they’re in Danny’s overnight bag or somewhere else. Danny’s confiscated pretty much everything in Martin’s medicine cabinet except for his deodorant, and Martin doesn’t know where Danny’s hidden the detox stuff.
It occurs to him that he’s going to have to find some way to get around Danny’s constant vigilance, some way to get a hold of what he needs. Start out easy, maybe find another doctor for a second opinion, one who’s not going to call Carlyle and ask what’s going on.
And if that doesn’t work, there’s the evidence lockers for narcotics. He knows one of the guys who works down there, and it’d be easy. He could go down one day when everyone’s busy, out in the field or on the phone, just say I’m going to take a quick break and then head downstairs. Talk his way in past Will and then –
He stands so swiftly he almost knocks his chair over; the unsteady hand he extends to save it finishes the job, and the chair topples with a crash. Danny’s staring at him in concern, ready to say something, ready to get up. Martin mutters a desperate excuse – feel kinda sick, and it’s true, because he really is sick in so many ways – and pushes past Danny to his bathroom.
Slams the door in Danny’s questioning face and stares at his own frantic one in the mirror.
What the hell am I doing?
He knows what he’s doing. For the first time in maybe forever – for the first time in the past couple of months, at least – he knows exactly what he’s doing.
And he doesn’t know where this came from, the thought that he needs to find some way to get those goddamn pills, the series of plans that all involve doing things he never would have done seven months ago, things he’d thought he’d never do, because he’s Martin Fitzgerald and he doesn’t do things like that.
It takes him a couple tries to turn the faucet on. He splashes water on his face, which doesn’t do much to steady him; now he’s upset and wet, the collar of his t-shirt soaked, water dripping down his forearms. Crazily, he remembers standing in Gina Hill’s bathroom – a lot like this, actually, staring blindly into the mirror – only this time there aren’t any pills for him to take away.
He tries to shake off the clinging wish that there were some pills, the soft, insidious voice that tells him Danny can’t baby-sit him forever, because Danny has a real job and he’s going to have to leave eventually and when he does you can –
No. He closes his eyes against the flood of suggestion.
It’s a maze, Martin thinks, addiction; he’s lost in it, and keeps stumbling back to the same thoughts: how he felt on the Percocet, how he wishes he has some now, how he can get it in the future. Or maybe it’s like mind control, and at that thought he brings himself up short.
Because the drugs are control. They control the world, make it slow down, make it stop scaring and pissing the hell out of him, make it fade away. The two – or four, or six – capsules every few hours have become his clock, his time, somehow more important than food or sleep, than work, and it occurs to him that one day soon he might really blow a case because of it.
And that’s not him, it’s never been him to be so careless, but at some point he’d held onto his control so tightly it had slipped through his fingers, or maybe splintered in his grip, like glass. Or maybe he’d never really had it.
He wonders when he’d fallen so far away from himself.
It’s lying, that’s what he’s doing, a betrayal – of himself, Jack, Viv. Sam, even, because she’d tried to help him.
And Danny, which is worse than all the rest of it, and he knows he can’t ever live with that.
He can’t hear retching through the bathroom door, only a moment of the faucet running, Martin coughing once, and then the creak of the water going off.
Danny gives Martin a few minutes to collect himself, partly because he knows first-hand that Martin has far too much pride to let anyone see him like this, and partly because he remembers his own first days, spent pushing nurses out of the bathroom and slamming doors in faces. Breaking down in private had at least managed to preserve some illusion of having dignity, even though they’d all seen him eventually, red-eyed and an utter wreck.
Eventually, though, he tries the door. It isn’t locked, and he opens it enough to look through and see Martin standing at the sink, hands braced on the counter, and staring fixedly at nothing.
“Did the soup suck that much?” he asks. “’Cause if it did, don’t say so. That was my mom’s recipe.”
This earns a half-hearted smile; he can see it in Martin’s profile and in his reflection in the mirror. He figures this is invitation enough – at least Martin’s not frowning or shouting at him – and slips inside. Martin’s bathroom, like most New York apartment bathrooms, is small, had probably been a storage closet in a former life.
“I’m pretty fucked up, Danny,” Martin tells him, so uncharacteristically rueful that Danny almost wants to laugh.
“We all are,” he says instead, because it’s true. He knows he hasn’t got his own head on straight.
Martin shakes his head, turns around so his back is to the mirror and he can look at Danny more fully. Or maybe so he doesn’t have to look at himself. Danny doesn’t know.
“I was... While we were eating, I was thinking about how I could get more pills,” Martin says, voice tight and despairing. “I mean, after what I went through” – he gestures with his right hand, indicating the past three days – “I’m thinking about, like, I’m actually planning how to get more. And I can’t stop.” Martin’s talking faster now, the words tumbling like a rockslide, harsh and headlong and violent. “Every other thought is where I can get some, how, what I have to do. And I can’t fucking stop it, Danny. It won’t go away.”
“Yeah, Fitz, I know.” Danny hoists himself up on the counter, not that there’s really any room for anyone to sit on it, his hip pressed against Martin’s wrist.
“Does it ever stop?”
“It hasn’t for me,” Danny says truthfully. Martin’s shoulders hitch in startled disbelief and Danny quickly adds, “But I was pretty screwed up for a long time. I grew up with drinking... It’s how I saw a lot of the world, I guess. Hard to change that sort of thing, if you ever can. But you’re not me, Martin; the same isn’t going to be true.”
Martin nods, though Danny can see Martin doesn’t really believe him, and it’s then that he realizes he’s rubbing Martin’s shoulder, slow, absent circles over muscle and the ridge of Martin’s collar bone. He thinks about stopping for a moment, but Martin doesn’t seem to mind – even seems to like it, his body subtly leaning into Danny’s.
“Nobody makes it alone,” he tells Martin, and it’s a relief to say the words, finally. “And I’m here, Martin. I’m here.”
“I know,” Martin says, and when he looks up, Danny knows he really does.
-end-
Post-fic notes: This most likely will feel kind of incomplete, but I think I'll add to it as the season progresses. Or simply continue it indefinitely as a series of related fics, kind of like ALTC &c. I like that approach (it's worked well with my LotR stuff)... it appeals to my wandering mind, I guess.
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This was really exceptionally well done. I don't know if there is any other way to describe it. You've obviously done your research, because Martin's addiction (even Danny's memories of his own recovery) rang so true. It's bleak and never quite over and that came across brilliantly in this.
Shit, there is just so much I want to touch on, but I find my mind is rather clouded --too many thoughts, too many voices to make sense of it all-- so instead I'm just going to applaud and say, well done. Well done indeed.
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You've obviously done your research, because Martin's addiction (even Danny's memories of his own recovery) rang so true.
Yay unfinished psych. degree :) Thanks again!
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Very realistic, with just a little bit of hope at the end.
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Oh, yes. I'm happy that came through... because what's happening to Martin is terrible, and I think (based on my own personality) it really sucks to feel that you can't reach out to people or ask for help. And that Martin's willing to trust Danny and let him be there... eee. I get incoherent and hopeful thinking about it.
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Smiles, Emmy
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On another note, I've been reading a lot (okay, all) of your Danny/Martin fanfic over the last few days. I've watched the show for ages, but I'm new to the online fandom, and I've gotta say that between your stuff and a few others, I'm really kicking myself for not seeking out the fic sooner.
Hope you're having a good week thus far. :)
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(If you haven't yet, check out Matilda's "Broken" at Pretty FBI Boys. It's the story that got me hooked into the fandom, and it's absolutely wonderful.)
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... and you posted this. Sometimes, just knowing someone is there is enough, and you know things will turn out well. That's sort of how this works for me-- Danny will be there for Martin, and I believe in him just as much as Martin does.
Lovely. Absolutely lovely.
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That's sort of how this works for me-- Danny will be there for Martin, and I believe in him just as much as Martin does.
*is delighted* Oh that's it... that's it exactly.
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I loved it.
Missy
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Thanks so much for sharing this with us :D
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*pets the boys* They've been so cooperative the past few days. :)
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This is so perfect- so perfect. It's all-encompassing, but so detailed, and so well crafted. Every sentence, every word- it just fits, and it feels deliberate, like this is *exactly* how you wanted it.
I-yeah. Inarticulate with admiration here, but this is definitely the best thing I've read in a very long time.
*wibble*
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like this is *exactly* how you wanted it.
It's sort of odd because the fic was very recalcitrant for weeks on end, but "Patient X" brought everything into focus. After the episode, the fic pretty much wrote itself... I love it when that happens.
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You described the concept of addiction so well by letting us see some of Martin's thoughts and inner voices.
It ended at the right moment. Hopefully TPTB have enough common sense to handle Martin's addiction as good as you did.
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Hopefully TPTB have enough common sense to handle Martin's addiction as good as you did.
*blush* The writers will probably have a ton of other stuff going on, but so long as Danny's the one who's helping Martin, I'll be happy. Because darn it, anything else would be wrongwrongwrong.
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And I don't think there are words to tell how well you made everything come together, because really, Danny and Martin speak through your words.
There is so much that touched me, Danny being firm but gentle, because he loves Martin and he can't help himself. Marin turning a point when he looks at himself in the mirror and sees who he's risking to become.
I loved this, and I liked that it ended with the boys being all right, if not well. Still, the idea of you playing in it more is intriguing.
Much love!
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Danny being firm but gentle, because he loves Martin and he can't help himself.
*meebles happily* Oh, that's it exactly. And I think he knows that shouting at Martin would be counterproductive--it would only make Martin more determined to do what he wants.
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This is just an example of what I'm going to say.
I knew you were a Martin lover, mainly, who writes D/M fanfics, so when I read this fic, apart from the heartbreaking well-written story, I was stunned on how well you depicted Danny.
I think i fell in love with you!
I do heart this story, all included!
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And I just love the way he talks whenever he's really angry (like in "Off the Tracks," talking to the guy who screwed Rafael over)... it's quiet and calm and definitely scary.
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*sob* This was just awesome, I really can't come up with enough adjectives to describe just how much I enjoyed this. So hard to read, but OMG poor Martin and Danny, still struggling so much himself. He's nothing if not honest to Martin.
God, I'm in bits after reading this, I can't really be coherent and give you any sensible feedback, sorry.
I understand why you've ended it here, but I'm so selfish that I want more. I do hope this goes like ALTC and we get more as and when you feel it's needed.
*sniff* I wish you were in Dr Who fandom, it so needs writers of your talent and calibre and I can only begin to imagine what you could do with such an angst ridden Doctor as the Ninth one was.
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I've been really pissed off with the show
I've sort of (sort of) reconciled myself to the fact that, unless I'm actually on the writing staff and have the other writers in total submission, the show won't be written the way I want, and something will be guaranteed to annoy me. So, if I want something written--like Danny and Martin having a serious conversation about what Martin's doing--I'm going to have to write it myself.
I wish you were in Dr Who fandom,
No. More. Fandoms! :D
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I continue to be impressed with how deeply you get into the thoughts and motivations of each character. I was engrossed the whole way through (and, btw, charmed with the little section on Sam taking care of Martin--the Ben & Jerry's line in particular).
It doesn't feel incomplete to me. For some reason, I really like how you ended it, with Danny finally getting to say what he's wanted to for so long, signalling that their connection is being rebuilt. That said, I look forward to reading more in this universe. (Hell, yeah.)
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I very, very desperately want this to happen. Not that it will, because my fantasies and reality rarely align, but just the thought of Danny being there when Martin really needs him... Well, it renders me helpless and ridiculous and mushy.
charmed with the little section on Sam taking care of Martin--the Ben & Jerry's line in particular
I do very much like the idea of them as friends, and I'm sure Sam would recognize the need for comfort food in the form of ice cream :)
That said, I look forward to reading more in this universe.
Hee! :) There's a couple related fics, though nothing that's definitely linked.
And thank you for such lovely feedback :) *hearts*