![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
.fic: Every Distance: PG13/R D/M 3/?
Title: Every Distance
By: HF
Email: aesc36 @gmail.com
Pairing: Danny/Martin
Rating/Warnings: PG13/Rish; language, maybe some smut, violence, angst, etc.
Disclaimer: Without a Trace belongs to Jerry Bruckheimer, CBS, and very likely many other people.
Advertisements: Sequel/companion to A Long Time Coming, set during and after the events of ALTC 10.
Notes: This chapter is the one coinciding with ALTC 10. Some more Viv... and Danny, of course :)It will be posted in two parts because it's somewhat long, and the first half is ready to go. The second needs some nitpicking. So...
ETA 08.22: I've revised the first half and added the second, so this post now contains the complete third chapter.
CHAPTER THREE
The weekend passed in relative peace; he’d gone back to his apartment and hadn’t heard from his father about it, and Martin couldn’t decide how he felt about that. He didn’t know if he could take another conversation – or non-conversation, whatever they’d had over a rushed cup of coffee – but still...
He shook his head impatiently as he stepped up to the ticket counter and punched his way through the automated check-in.
What the hell was he thinking? Martin could vaguely remember talking sports with his father, back before things had gotten bad. They’d played basketball a couple times – his dad had played in college, Martin had never had the height – and Victor had made an abortive attempt at coaching Little League when Martin had been seven. But their fights in later years had overshadowed whatever joy those distant memories might have had.
Picked up his bag and trooped off to the first of several security stops, double-checking his coat for his badge. Had to declare his weapon – needed to remember that.
Just on the Sunday side of midnight, he’d awoken to nightmares and the crushing fear that had companioned him the past couple of weeks. Dwyer’s pills had been by his bedside, and with a shaking hand he’d pushed them into the drawer and slammed it shut, spent the next two hours pacing the cage of his bedroom, working out his adrenaline and frustration.
The line slowly snaked its way to the metal detectors, the automatic announcement system wending through its admonitions to take off all outer wear and remove laptops from their cases, other travelers grumbled as they pulled off jackets and checked their bags.
He’d spent part of Sunday cleaning and finishing paperwork, but mostly spent it trying not to think about New York and Danny. He’d spent Monday morning dodging Matt’s questioning looks and the concern of the rest of his team.
Fell into his seat at the gate, cup of coffee in hand. Outside the sky was overcast, and the light from the boarding ramps and the runways glinted dully along the silver skin of the planes. As he sipped his coffee, Martin’s thoughts drifted back to That Trip, the San Diego one, when he’d thought maybe Danny wasn’t such an arrogant pain in the ass anymore, and Danny’s long explication of why, exactly, assisted human flight was unnatural.
Okay, see, a plane weighs thousands of pounds, right? And it’s depending on these engines to keep it up, right? And if just one of them gives out, my friend, you’re screwed. And why the hell do they have ‘floatation devices’? Do they think people are actually going to survive a crash landing in the middle of the fucking Atlantic?
An announcement came on, informing the general public that Martin’s flight was being delayed (of course) because of weather (of course). This was met with a chorus of groans from everyone except Martin, who took the revelation stoically, and with a certain bit of relief.
I’ll call him when I get in, he decided after the PA system clicked off, and as he sat there he couldn’t figure out if he was irritated or relieved at being held up. No point in calling when I don’t know when I’m going to be there.
The rationalization calmed him a bit, though he reflected ruefully that calling Danny had become something like going to an execution – inevitable, no matter how he managed to delay it. He determinedly did not think about that for the hour it took for the airport to decide to let them get on the plane and leave, by which point he was anxious again.
Martin, you can’t keep doing this to yourself. It’s not healthy. Viv’s words echoed in his head, as clearly as though the woman were standing right next to him. And it’s driving me crazy.
His conversation with Viv that Saturday had gone as he’d expected; buried under her casual questions about the investigation – he couldn’t tell her much, and that hurt a bit, because he was withholding information he had to withhold, as opposed to information he was keeping back by choice – and comments about her current crop of students had been an unwavering scrutiny and concern. He’d eaten his salad (which had earned a raised eyebrow but Viv had pointedly refrained from comment) and parried both the questions she asked and the ones she didn’t.
“If it’s driving you crazy, then maybe you should talk to Dwyer,” he said, half-intending it as a joke.
Viv shook her head and sighed. “You remember when you shot Reyes?” He nodded automatically, surprised she’d brought this up; they’d never talked about it, the one thing that had threatened his respect of her. “There are times you need to put your emotions aside and deal with the problem, Martin... But this isn’t one of those times.”
She leaned back and crossed her arms over her chest, stared at him as though she could somehow impress the words into his skull. He poked at the few remaining lettuce leaves, and couldn’t meet her gaze.
After coffee he paid for both of them, which made her grin ruefully, and they walked outside. A few halfhearted snowflakes drifted down. She kissed him on the cheek, told him in no uncertain terms to call her if he needed anything, and left.
Finally the plane was ready to go and he trooped on to it, dumped his stuff in the overhead lockers and slithered into his seat, offered a thin, polite smile at the woman who sat down next to him. She smiled back. He looked out the window at the baggage carts hustling back and forth.
God, he was going to see Danny. He tried to work out what to say, what he’d do, tried to imagine how Danny would react upon seeing him, and came up with scenarios ranging from a heated make-out session against Danny’s front door to being decked and told in no uncertain terms to get out.
He couldn’t read Danny, that was the problem. Or rather, he could, but only when he wasn’t thinking about it and only when he didn’t try – like those weird three-D pattern pictures Martin could never get. Look at Danny straight on and he was blinded by the smirk and teasing comments, the lightning-swift intellect that Danny managed to hide from most people, every movement and gesture effortless. But look at him from the corner of his eye and he’d catch Danny subdued and thoughtful, deliberate almost, like when he’d woken up in that hospital and found Danny watching him, eyes tight at the corners, fear so plain there that Martin had been frightened, wondering what had scared Danny so much.
But there’d been times... he’d seen Danny, naked, laid open to him, not hiding anything and that had terrified him. He’d never had that before, someone offering up the truth of themselves.
And Danny hadn’t expected the same from him, but Martin had seen the hope that he would, and God he’d tried – oh, how he’d tried – but he knew he’d failed, and when Danny had looked at him, he had no idea what Danny had seen, and was too afraid to ask. He swallowed against the bitterness of that.
Jet engines roared around him, and the pilot’s voice came on to tell them that the weather in New York was even more miserable than it was in Washington and that they were next in line for take-off.
Press of g-force against his body, pushing him back into his seat. He could hear Danny saying, You know how they say that you have a better chance of dying in your bathroom than dying in a place crash? Total crap.
He wondered what Danny thought of him carrying that photograph around. Back after they’d had it taken, Martin had printed off a bunch of copies – wonders of the digital age – and given one to everyone. Viv had hers in her office at Quantico. He didn’t know what Sam and Jack had done with theirs, though Jack had kept his on his desk for a while.
The plane lifted into the air, landing gear grinding up, Martin’s stomach jumping a bit at the loss of contact with the ground. Rain – or melted snow, he couldn’t tell – streaked the window and glittered on the wings.
Martin hadn’t been able to keep looking at his copy, but couldn’t bring himself to stash it away among the piles of other photos he’d meant to put into albums one day and never did. Couldn’t keep looking at his arm around Danny, the both of them smiling like they didn’t know they wouldn’t really see each other again for years, so he’d folded it up and stuffed it in the inner pocket of his trenchcoat.
That morning, before going in to talk with Chris and everyone, before everything had happened, he’d pulled it out and looked at it, and ignored the silently questioning presence of his father. As he sat now in the uncomfortable airplane seat and watched the flat layer of cloud run like a grey field beneath them, he wished he could remember what he’d been thinking, looking at it.
His thoughts were lost now, in the fog of fear and adrenaline, and he’d folded the picture up, put it in his shirt pocket instead of back where it usually went, with his badge and a couple extra pens.
Had that been fate? Chance? The guys who’d abducted him had taken his coat, but hadn’t searched his shirt or trouser pockets. He closed his eyes, denied the question; it was pointless, asking.
The plane thrummed around him, vibrations sharper where he rested his forehead against the window.
* * *
Night had fallen by the time he reached New York and made his way off the plane, and now he stood on the curbside, competing with dozens of other people for taxis. He secured one eventually, having proven just a bit faster and more cunning than the overcoated businessman by his side, and fell into his seat. Familiar taxi air—stale with human sweat and dirt, patina of exhaust fumes covering every breath—surrounded him, and the driver had the heat going on full blast, a desert sirocco right in Martin’s face.
“Where to?” the driver asked.
“Uh...” He’d reserved a room in a hotel near Federal Plaza, the same place he usually ended up staying. But his cellphone was burning a hole in his pocket, the slight weight a reminder that he’d not yet called Danny as he’d sworn to do.
“Well? You want to sit here all night?”
Without thinking – and later, he would consider the possibility that he hadn’t let himself think about it – he blurted out Danny’s address. The driver grunted his assent and the taxi lurched into motion. Martin unwrapped his scarf and stuffed it in his overnight bag, unzipped his jacket and tried to get comfortable.
The ride out to Queens went with frightening swiftness, buildings and skyline blurring into a meaningless haze of lights and the sound of the engine humming. The driver, for once, didn’t try to talk, and in the silence of the cab the meter ticked like a heartbeat. Martin stared vacantly out the window, watching the condensation of his breath mist the glass and vanish again when he inhaled, and lost in the rhythm of breath he jumped when he heard the driver’s impatient grunt and realized they had stopped.
“Out of it tonight, ain’tcha?” The driver glanced at the wad of bills Martin tossed down on the passenger seat, grunted again, and pulled away just as Martin turned to shut the door.
“You’re welcome,” he muttered to himself as he picked up his bag and turned to face the façade of Danny’s apartment—whitewashed brick that managed to appear dingy in the greyness, black trim on the windows, iron bars over the glass. His eyes traveled up six floors to the window on the far right and saw the soft white glow of the light on Danny’s bedside table.
Daylight spectrum lamp, Danny had explained, good for seasonal affective disorder and people who have a hard time leaving the sunny winters of South Florida.
Mechanically he stepped off the pedestrian-choked sidewalk and up the front steps and to the intercom, stared blankly at the neatly printed “D. Taylor” in its slot, stood there for a few minutes as the cold slowly numbed his cheeks, looking at it as though studying heiroglyphics.
Don’t think, just do it.
He pressed the buzzer and jumped back, jerking his hand against his chest.
Only a few seconds passed, but the time was enough for him to think that maybe Danny wasn’t home – yeah, he was probably at work and why would Martin think that Danny kept normal hours – or else he was out for dinner, probably with friends or someone else, and he was not going to think about that. No, Danny was most likely still at the office, so he should probably –
“Yeah?” The single word was harsh and impatient through the screen of static.
Martin spoke only when he was certain his voice was going to work.
“Hey, Danny.”
“What – Martin?” And the surprise in Danny’s voice would have been amusing in any circumstance other than this.
“Yeah.” Martin coughed and leaned on the intercom button again. “Yeah, it’s me. Um... can I come up?”
Another long pause, and he heard the intercom go dead – a moment of fear that Danny was dismissing him, and the guilty knowledge that he deserved it before he heard the click of the lock disengaging.
So relieved his hand shook, he pushed the door open, picked up his bag, and stepped inside.
* * *
“Hey, Danny,” he said again, lost for anything more original.
“Martin.”
Danny looked exhausted, confused, shirt unbuttoned and his hair even more disorganized than usual. Paper towel wrapped around one finger, and Martin could see the faint stain of blood seeping through it. Exhausted, confused, lost, like he was trying to figure all of this out – doing what Martin was trying to do, and Martin hoped Danny found some answers soon, because he didn’t have a clue.
They stood for a moment like that.
“My flight was delayed,” Martin heard himself say, mouth weirdly disengaged from his brain, moving on autopilot. “I tried to call a bit ago, but the line was busy.” He shifted, uneasy as Danny continued to stare at him, confusion and maybe a bit of impatience flickering like fire in those dark eyes. “I wanted to see if you’d like to go for dinner or something.” He hefted his suitcase. “I came right here, didn’t check in or anything.”
Danny stared at him a moment longer before stepping aside and waving him into his apartment with a demand to know why he got a hotel and that he get inside. The gruffness was oddly reassuring, and Martin obediently trooped into the living room, looking around as he set down his bag. The attack futon slumbered under the afghan that Danny had told him his grandmother had crocheted, the photographs and various odds-and-ends on the wall unit jumbled together, the vaguest hint of chaos under the sleek, stylish decoration. He turned around and looked at Danny, saw that Danny was still looking at him, and frowned a bit to cover the skip of fear and uncertainty in his breath.
“I didn’t... I didn’t want to ask,” Martin explained as Danny continued to look at him, and he wished desperately that Danny would stop. “In case you were, y’know, sick of having me around or anything.”
“You want a drink?” The question was abrupt, edge of anger in it, a substitute for something else.
“What?” Martin watched in near-mute amazement as Danny stamped into the kitchen, shoulders squared. “Water, please. Didn’t you hear what I said?”
“I heard, I just don’t believe it.” Danny glared at him through the galley window and slammed the faucet off, stalked back out to the living room “I told you to come back any time you wanted. Why the hell would you think I’d be sick of having you around? You were only here for five days.”
Martin shrugged, automatically accepted the glass Danny handed to him. “I don’t...” He shook his head, trying to keep the question back, but two weeks of being alone and being afraid, so fucking afraid and out of his depth, out of his head, very nearly, made him ask the question that had chased him through his days and nights since he’d gone back home.
“What are we, Danny?”
In the sudden silence Danny stared at him, and they looked at each other across the living room.
Martin’s heart thundered painfully against his chest, and he wished he could call it back. Danny’s face was shuttered and his eyes thoughtful, slight crease between them that Danny got when he was really thinking. For a wild moment, Martin wondered if Danny had heard what lay hidden under the desperate question.
I don’t know what I’m doing.
“We’re Martin and Danny,” Danny said after a moment.
Carefully, Martin turned to set his glass down on the coffee table, terrified that he would drop it, and that he’d spill water and break glass and Danny –
We’re Martin and Danny, and when he turned back he saw Danny grinning foolishly at him, bright and irresistible, an invitation to smile and laugh, and it was so easy, accepting it.
“I... yeah,” Martin said vaguely, and Danny laughed.
“C’mon, help me out. I’m starving.” And turned back to the kitchen.
Martin filled Danny in on the details of the investigation – keeping some things back, in part because some things he couldn’t say because of confidentiality, and in part because some things he didn’t know if he could ever tell Danny. Didn’t know if he could admit them to himself, even though he’d heard the words with his own ears and knew they were true.
“How’s that case going?” he asked as they sat down. “The one that... you know.” He swallowed and glancing away briefly before making himself look back at Danny. Couldn’t keep the concern or remembered fear out of his voice, and he saw it register.
He didn’t learn what had happened until later in the afternoon, too tied up with interviewing Pete and the other members of the New York team, too preoccupied with wanting to get in to see Silverman himself. Matt hadn’t even called him – he’d called Victor first, because that had been the arrangement, and his father approached him when Martin had stepped out of the interview room.
“Martin,” his father said, and Martin knew. He knew in that instant that something had happened.
“Now that the father’s dead, custody goes to Mark’s aunt.” The tone was neutral, but didn’t even begin to disguise the concern and anger in Danny’s voice. “I hope he’ll be okay, but I... Shit, Martin.” Bitter smile now, and Martin hated that – it didn’t look right, sitting there on Danny’s lips. “I just don’t know.”
“He’ll be okay,” Martin said as he traced the rim of his water glass. “He’s got you on his side.” Couldn’t stop himself from a wry grin, one that Danny met with a raised eyebrow. “You looked after me,” he said, shrugging a bit, “and I know I’m not the easiest person to deal with.”
“You got that right,” Danny told him, smirking a bit, but there was no teasing in his eyes that Martin could see as he stood and began to clean up.
Martin trailed him into the kitchen, bottle of salad dressing clutched in one hand, watched as Danny dropped their plates and silverware into the sink, reached for a sponge and turned the faucet on. Unexpectedly domestic and warmth stole through him at the possibility of doing this every day – wild and improbable, he knew, but he wanted it.
He hadn’t lied to Sam all those years ago, when he’d said that he wanted a family one day. Only the form of it didn’t matter, and he’d never told her that – just what he had always imagined must be what he was feeling now – this contentment, belonging to another person, wanting nothing more beyond the moment except that it would continue.
Impulsively, he set the dressing on the counter behind him and stepped closer, into the warmth of Danny, wanting to soak that up after two weeks of running. And Danny turned – smart remark at the ready, by the light in his eyes – but it faded as Martin moved against him, vanished altogether as his eyes fell shut and Martin’s mouth pressed into his.
God, Martin’d missed this, the warmth and weight of Danny’s mouth on his own, tease of lips and tongue, encouragement that Martin didn’t need. And he wanted this, he thought hazily, enough to put aside fear and hesitation and take it, to pull Danny more tightly against him, to feel that hard, angled, wonderful body – hip, abdomen, pectorals, line of thigh – fit into his. They were pressed uncomfortably against the side of the kitchen counter, the faucet hissing behind them, silly and undignified, Martin moving helplessly against Danny in slow undulations, Danny replying in counterpoint.
Danny’s fingers roamed over his face when Martin broke away to tell him about his test results, a scrap of good news in the bleakness of the past fourteen days. He wondered what Danny would say if he told him he’d always had a weakness for those hands – quick and elegant, with a vocabulary of their own, dancing across his cheeks and jaw, dipping to tease the sensitive skin behind his ear.
He murmured soft reassurances against Danny’s mouth when Danny pulled him back, hands roaming down under his shirt. Martin shivered and tried to make his own hands cooperate enough to start working at Danny’s buttons, but they stuttered and slipped, Martin cursing softly and emphatically at them, Danny’s laughter a vibration against Martin’s chest and lips when Martin bent his head to Danny’s neck.
Salt-sweet skin and he wanted more, knew he could never get enough, even as he made himself be coordinated enough to finish unbuttoning Danny’s shirt and raise his own arms so Danny could pull his t-shirt off. Hot skin everywhere, and Danny’s mouth was on his again, warmwetsweet and Martin could hear himself groaning into the kiss, couldn’t help it and didn’t want to.
Danny pushed him backward, guiding him to the bedroom with his body and demanding kisses that forced him back, back until his knees hit the edge of Danny’s bed. He fell into the comforter, laughing softly, struck by the expression on Danny’s face as he lowered himself atop Martin, a solid presence that comforted even as it aroused, face half-blanketed by shadows.
God how Danny looked at him, like he knew exactly what Martin was thinking – and he probably did – and everything was right there in those dark eyes, fear and lust and contentment and warmth, love, God help him.
And then he knew.
He had to tell Danny what was supposed to have happened to him. Talk about wrecking the mood, he thought to himself, but he couldn’t go on like this, not telling Danny anything.
Danny, sensing Martin’s sudden tenseness, pulled back a bit and looked at him inquiringly.
“When we were talking in the hospital...” Fucking say it, Fitzgerald. “You know, when I visited you?”
“Yeah?” Danny’s tone was a mixture of wariness and bemusement.
“I didn’t tell you... We’d been talking to Silverman, and he said – he said it wasn’t supposed to be a kidnapping.” He tried to steady his voice; it didn’t work. “It was supposed to be a hit.”
Danny was silent, utterly still in Martin’s arms.
“Silverman said that Benson and the others had panicked... They didn’t want to kill the Deputy Director’s kid, not when there was a possibility of getting caught.” Had to keep touching Danny, to reassure himself Danny was still there. “I’ve never been so grateful to be a Fitzgerald in my life.”
He heard the soft, disbelieving exhalation and it hurt, feeling the pain in that word. Felt the soft shush of Danny’s hair against his neck, and Danny’s breath on his skin, unsteady and almost hysterical. He wanted to murmur comfort, but his voice had locked, tied up in a knot like it always got, and all he could do was pull Danny close into the circle of his arms, press the two of them together until he couldn’t find space between them anymore.
I’m not going anywhere, Fitz. Danny had told him that, and he hadn’t vanished into the smoke of memory. He was here, alive and with Martin, and they were breathing each other’s air, Martin’s fingers tangled in the soft hair at the nape of Danny’s neck, soothing down the pliant skin of his shoulder.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Martin whispered.
And that at last was his own truth.
* * *
He’d slept through the night for the first time in two weeks.
And his reward, Martin thought darkly, was being woken up by the cellphone ringing in his ear. His phone.
He fumbled for his cell, hand scrabbling around the contents of Danny’s bedside table – alarm clock, watch, knocked the condom packet to the floor – smiling a bit as Danny muttered and shifted unhappily at the racket.
The phone rang for the fifth time and fell silent.
“Y’missed it,” Danny observed sleepily. “Good.”
“Probably work,” Martin said, setting the phone back down. “They’ll call back if it’s important.”
“Jinxed it,” Danny told him. He closed his eyes and burrowed back down into the pillows, sighing as he did. Martin grinned and followed him, in too good a mood to let a sleepy, disoriented Danny go, despite the phone call and a glance at the clock that told him he’d have to get a move on soon.
“What d’you –”
The phone went off again, shrill and insistent.
“Told you so.” Danny’s voice drifted up, muffled by the pillow Martin had smacked over his head. Rolling his eyes as smothered sounds of protest issued from beneath the pillow and comforter, Martin flipped his phone open.
“Fitzgerald.”
“Martin?”
He sat up straight against the pillows, half-feeling Danny’s arm sliding down his abdomen, tightening a bit when it reached his navel. Danny shifted against him and sighed, murmured something incoherent.
“Matt? What is it?” Danny must have caught the urgency in Martin’s tone; he shifted and went tense, moving into wakefulness, and in the corner of his eye Martin saw dark, worried eyes open.
“There’s been a... Shit, Martin.” He could hear Matt struggling for control, voice tight with the strain of it, feel Danny sitting up and moving closer to him. “Silverman’s wife and kids were killed twenty minutes ago. Car bomb.”
He almost didn’t hear Matt saying the New York office needed him down there right away, could only stare into the confused, inchoate shadows of the bedroom, and the only substantial thing in the world was Danny, and Martin found himself leaning into him.
-tbc.-
By: HF
Email: aesc36 @gmail.com
Pairing: Danny/Martin
Rating/Warnings: PG13/Rish; language, maybe some smut, violence, angst, etc.
Disclaimer: Without a Trace belongs to Jerry Bruckheimer, CBS, and very likely many other people.
Advertisements: Sequel/companion to A Long Time Coming, set during and after the events of ALTC 10.
Notes: This chapter is the one coinciding with ALTC 10. Some more Viv... and Danny, of course :)
ETA 08.22: I've revised the first half and added the second, so this post now contains the complete third chapter.
CHAPTER THREE
The weekend passed in relative peace; he’d gone back to his apartment and hadn’t heard from his father about it, and Martin couldn’t decide how he felt about that. He didn’t know if he could take another conversation – or non-conversation, whatever they’d had over a rushed cup of coffee – but still...
He shook his head impatiently as he stepped up to the ticket counter and punched his way through the automated check-in.
What the hell was he thinking? Martin could vaguely remember talking sports with his father, back before things had gotten bad. They’d played basketball a couple times – his dad had played in college, Martin had never had the height – and Victor had made an abortive attempt at coaching Little League when Martin had been seven. But their fights in later years had overshadowed whatever joy those distant memories might have had.
Picked up his bag and trooped off to the first of several security stops, double-checking his coat for his badge. Had to declare his weapon – needed to remember that.
Just on the Sunday side of midnight, he’d awoken to nightmares and the crushing fear that had companioned him the past couple of weeks. Dwyer’s pills had been by his bedside, and with a shaking hand he’d pushed them into the drawer and slammed it shut, spent the next two hours pacing the cage of his bedroom, working out his adrenaline and frustration.
The line slowly snaked its way to the metal detectors, the automatic announcement system wending through its admonitions to take off all outer wear and remove laptops from their cases, other travelers grumbled as they pulled off jackets and checked their bags.
He’d spent part of Sunday cleaning and finishing paperwork, but mostly spent it trying not to think about New York and Danny. He’d spent Monday morning dodging Matt’s questioning looks and the concern of the rest of his team.
Fell into his seat at the gate, cup of coffee in hand. Outside the sky was overcast, and the light from the boarding ramps and the runways glinted dully along the silver skin of the planes. As he sipped his coffee, Martin’s thoughts drifted back to That Trip, the San Diego one, when he’d thought maybe Danny wasn’t such an arrogant pain in the ass anymore, and Danny’s long explication of why, exactly, assisted human flight was unnatural.
Okay, see, a plane weighs thousands of pounds, right? And it’s depending on these engines to keep it up, right? And if just one of them gives out, my friend, you’re screwed. And why the hell do they have ‘floatation devices’? Do they think people are actually going to survive a crash landing in the middle of the fucking Atlantic?
An announcement came on, informing the general public that Martin’s flight was being delayed (of course) because of weather (of course). This was met with a chorus of groans from everyone except Martin, who took the revelation stoically, and with a certain bit of relief.
I’ll call him when I get in, he decided after the PA system clicked off, and as he sat there he couldn’t figure out if he was irritated or relieved at being held up. No point in calling when I don’t know when I’m going to be there.
The rationalization calmed him a bit, though he reflected ruefully that calling Danny had become something like going to an execution – inevitable, no matter how he managed to delay it. He determinedly did not think about that for the hour it took for the airport to decide to let them get on the plane and leave, by which point he was anxious again.
Martin, you can’t keep doing this to yourself. It’s not healthy. Viv’s words echoed in his head, as clearly as though the woman were standing right next to him. And it’s driving me crazy.
His conversation with Viv that Saturday had gone as he’d expected; buried under her casual questions about the investigation – he couldn’t tell her much, and that hurt a bit, because he was withholding information he had to withhold, as opposed to information he was keeping back by choice – and comments about her current crop of students had been an unwavering scrutiny and concern. He’d eaten his salad (which had earned a raised eyebrow but Viv had pointedly refrained from comment) and parried both the questions she asked and the ones she didn’t.
“If it’s driving you crazy, then maybe you should talk to Dwyer,” he said, half-intending it as a joke.
Viv shook her head and sighed. “You remember when you shot Reyes?” He nodded automatically, surprised she’d brought this up; they’d never talked about it, the one thing that had threatened his respect of her. “There are times you need to put your emotions aside and deal with the problem, Martin... But this isn’t one of those times.”
She leaned back and crossed her arms over her chest, stared at him as though she could somehow impress the words into his skull. He poked at the few remaining lettuce leaves, and couldn’t meet her gaze.
After coffee he paid for both of them, which made her grin ruefully, and they walked outside. A few halfhearted snowflakes drifted down. She kissed him on the cheek, told him in no uncertain terms to call her if he needed anything, and left.
Finally the plane was ready to go and he trooped on to it, dumped his stuff in the overhead lockers and slithered into his seat, offered a thin, polite smile at the woman who sat down next to him. She smiled back. He looked out the window at the baggage carts hustling back and forth.
God, he was going to see Danny. He tried to work out what to say, what he’d do, tried to imagine how Danny would react upon seeing him, and came up with scenarios ranging from a heated make-out session against Danny’s front door to being decked and told in no uncertain terms to get out.
He couldn’t read Danny, that was the problem. Or rather, he could, but only when he wasn’t thinking about it and only when he didn’t try – like those weird three-D pattern pictures Martin could never get. Look at Danny straight on and he was blinded by the smirk and teasing comments, the lightning-swift intellect that Danny managed to hide from most people, every movement and gesture effortless. But look at him from the corner of his eye and he’d catch Danny subdued and thoughtful, deliberate almost, like when he’d woken up in that hospital and found Danny watching him, eyes tight at the corners, fear so plain there that Martin had been frightened, wondering what had scared Danny so much.
But there’d been times... he’d seen Danny, naked, laid open to him, not hiding anything and that had terrified him. He’d never had that before, someone offering up the truth of themselves.
And Danny hadn’t expected the same from him, but Martin had seen the hope that he would, and God he’d tried – oh, how he’d tried – but he knew he’d failed, and when Danny had looked at him, he had no idea what Danny had seen, and was too afraid to ask. He swallowed against the bitterness of that.
Jet engines roared around him, and the pilot’s voice came on to tell them that the weather in New York was even more miserable than it was in Washington and that they were next in line for take-off.
Press of g-force against his body, pushing him back into his seat. He could hear Danny saying, You know how they say that you have a better chance of dying in your bathroom than dying in a place crash? Total crap.
He wondered what Danny thought of him carrying that photograph around. Back after they’d had it taken, Martin had printed off a bunch of copies – wonders of the digital age – and given one to everyone. Viv had hers in her office at Quantico. He didn’t know what Sam and Jack had done with theirs, though Jack had kept his on his desk for a while.
The plane lifted into the air, landing gear grinding up, Martin’s stomach jumping a bit at the loss of contact with the ground. Rain – or melted snow, he couldn’t tell – streaked the window and glittered on the wings.
Martin hadn’t been able to keep looking at his copy, but couldn’t bring himself to stash it away among the piles of other photos he’d meant to put into albums one day and never did. Couldn’t keep looking at his arm around Danny, the both of them smiling like they didn’t know they wouldn’t really see each other again for years, so he’d folded it up and stuffed it in the inner pocket of his trenchcoat.
That morning, before going in to talk with Chris and everyone, before everything had happened, he’d pulled it out and looked at it, and ignored the silently questioning presence of his father. As he sat now in the uncomfortable airplane seat and watched the flat layer of cloud run like a grey field beneath them, he wished he could remember what he’d been thinking, looking at it.
His thoughts were lost now, in the fog of fear and adrenaline, and he’d folded the picture up, put it in his shirt pocket instead of back where it usually went, with his badge and a couple extra pens.
Had that been fate? Chance? The guys who’d abducted him had taken his coat, but hadn’t searched his shirt or trouser pockets. He closed his eyes, denied the question; it was pointless, asking.
The plane thrummed around him, vibrations sharper where he rested his forehead against the window.
Night had fallen by the time he reached New York and made his way off the plane, and now he stood on the curbside, competing with dozens of other people for taxis. He secured one eventually, having proven just a bit faster and more cunning than the overcoated businessman by his side, and fell into his seat. Familiar taxi air—stale with human sweat and dirt, patina of exhaust fumes covering every breath—surrounded him, and the driver had the heat going on full blast, a desert sirocco right in Martin’s face.
“Where to?” the driver asked.
“Uh...” He’d reserved a room in a hotel near Federal Plaza, the same place he usually ended up staying. But his cellphone was burning a hole in his pocket, the slight weight a reminder that he’d not yet called Danny as he’d sworn to do.
“Well? You want to sit here all night?”
Without thinking – and later, he would consider the possibility that he hadn’t let himself think about it – he blurted out Danny’s address. The driver grunted his assent and the taxi lurched into motion. Martin unwrapped his scarf and stuffed it in his overnight bag, unzipped his jacket and tried to get comfortable.
The ride out to Queens went with frightening swiftness, buildings and skyline blurring into a meaningless haze of lights and the sound of the engine humming. The driver, for once, didn’t try to talk, and in the silence of the cab the meter ticked like a heartbeat. Martin stared vacantly out the window, watching the condensation of his breath mist the glass and vanish again when he inhaled, and lost in the rhythm of breath he jumped when he heard the driver’s impatient grunt and realized they had stopped.
“Out of it tonight, ain’tcha?” The driver glanced at the wad of bills Martin tossed down on the passenger seat, grunted again, and pulled away just as Martin turned to shut the door.
“You’re welcome,” he muttered to himself as he picked up his bag and turned to face the façade of Danny’s apartment—whitewashed brick that managed to appear dingy in the greyness, black trim on the windows, iron bars over the glass. His eyes traveled up six floors to the window on the far right and saw the soft white glow of the light on Danny’s bedside table.
Daylight spectrum lamp, Danny had explained, good for seasonal affective disorder and people who have a hard time leaving the sunny winters of South Florida.
Mechanically he stepped off the pedestrian-choked sidewalk and up the front steps and to the intercom, stared blankly at the neatly printed “D. Taylor” in its slot, stood there for a few minutes as the cold slowly numbed his cheeks, looking at it as though studying heiroglyphics.
Don’t think, just do it.
He pressed the buzzer and jumped back, jerking his hand against his chest.
Only a few seconds passed, but the time was enough for him to think that maybe Danny wasn’t home – yeah, he was probably at work and why would Martin think that Danny kept normal hours – or else he was out for dinner, probably with friends or someone else, and he was not going to think about that. No, Danny was most likely still at the office, so he should probably –
“Yeah?” The single word was harsh and impatient through the screen of static.
Martin spoke only when he was certain his voice was going to work.
“Hey, Danny.”
“What – Martin?” And the surprise in Danny’s voice would have been amusing in any circumstance other than this.
“Yeah.” Martin coughed and leaned on the intercom button again. “Yeah, it’s me. Um... can I come up?”
Another long pause, and he heard the intercom go dead – a moment of fear that Danny was dismissing him, and the guilty knowledge that he deserved it before he heard the click of the lock disengaging.
So relieved his hand shook, he pushed the door open, picked up his bag, and stepped inside.
“Hey, Danny,” he said again, lost for anything more original.
“Martin.”
Danny looked exhausted, confused, shirt unbuttoned and his hair even more disorganized than usual. Paper towel wrapped around one finger, and Martin could see the faint stain of blood seeping through it. Exhausted, confused, lost, like he was trying to figure all of this out – doing what Martin was trying to do, and Martin hoped Danny found some answers soon, because he didn’t have a clue.
They stood for a moment like that.
“My flight was delayed,” Martin heard himself say, mouth weirdly disengaged from his brain, moving on autopilot. “I tried to call a bit ago, but the line was busy.” He shifted, uneasy as Danny continued to stare at him, confusion and maybe a bit of impatience flickering like fire in those dark eyes. “I wanted to see if you’d like to go for dinner or something.” He hefted his suitcase. “I came right here, didn’t check in or anything.”
Danny stared at him a moment longer before stepping aside and waving him into his apartment with a demand to know why he got a hotel and that he get inside. The gruffness was oddly reassuring, and Martin obediently trooped into the living room, looking around as he set down his bag. The attack futon slumbered under the afghan that Danny had told him his grandmother had crocheted, the photographs and various odds-and-ends on the wall unit jumbled together, the vaguest hint of chaos under the sleek, stylish decoration. He turned around and looked at Danny, saw that Danny was still looking at him, and frowned a bit to cover the skip of fear and uncertainty in his breath.
“I didn’t... I didn’t want to ask,” Martin explained as Danny continued to look at him, and he wished desperately that Danny would stop. “In case you were, y’know, sick of having me around or anything.”
“You want a drink?” The question was abrupt, edge of anger in it, a substitute for something else.
“What?” Martin watched in near-mute amazement as Danny stamped into the kitchen, shoulders squared. “Water, please. Didn’t you hear what I said?”
“I heard, I just don’t believe it.” Danny glared at him through the galley window and slammed the faucet off, stalked back out to the living room “I told you to come back any time you wanted. Why the hell would you think I’d be sick of having you around? You were only here for five days.”
Martin shrugged, automatically accepted the glass Danny handed to him. “I don’t...” He shook his head, trying to keep the question back, but two weeks of being alone and being afraid, so fucking afraid and out of his depth, out of his head, very nearly, made him ask the question that had chased him through his days and nights since he’d gone back home.
“What are we, Danny?”
In the sudden silence Danny stared at him, and they looked at each other across the living room.
Martin’s heart thundered painfully against his chest, and he wished he could call it back. Danny’s face was shuttered and his eyes thoughtful, slight crease between them that Danny got when he was really thinking. For a wild moment, Martin wondered if Danny had heard what lay hidden under the desperate question.
I don’t know what I’m doing.
“We’re Martin and Danny,” Danny said after a moment.
Carefully, Martin turned to set his glass down on the coffee table, terrified that he would drop it, and that he’d spill water and break glass and Danny –
We’re Martin and Danny, and when he turned back he saw Danny grinning foolishly at him, bright and irresistible, an invitation to smile and laugh, and it was so easy, accepting it.
“I... yeah,” Martin said vaguely, and Danny laughed.
“C’mon, help me out. I’m starving.” And turned back to the kitchen.
Martin filled Danny in on the details of the investigation – keeping some things back, in part because some things he couldn’t say because of confidentiality, and in part because some things he didn’t know if he could ever tell Danny. Didn’t know if he could admit them to himself, even though he’d heard the words with his own ears and knew they were true.
“How’s that case going?” he asked as they sat down. “The one that... you know.” He swallowed and glancing away briefly before making himself look back at Danny. Couldn’t keep the concern or remembered fear out of his voice, and he saw it register.
He didn’t learn what had happened until later in the afternoon, too tied up with interviewing Pete and the other members of the New York team, too preoccupied with wanting to get in to see Silverman himself. Matt hadn’t even called him – he’d called Victor first, because that had been the arrangement, and his father approached him when Martin had stepped out of the interview room.
“Martin,” his father said, and Martin knew. He knew in that instant that something had happened.
“Now that the father’s dead, custody goes to Mark’s aunt.” The tone was neutral, but didn’t even begin to disguise the concern and anger in Danny’s voice. “I hope he’ll be okay, but I... Shit, Martin.” Bitter smile now, and Martin hated that – it didn’t look right, sitting there on Danny’s lips. “I just don’t know.”
“He’ll be okay,” Martin said as he traced the rim of his water glass. “He’s got you on his side.” Couldn’t stop himself from a wry grin, one that Danny met with a raised eyebrow. “You looked after me,” he said, shrugging a bit, “and I know I’m not the easiest person to deal with.”
“You got that right,” Danny told him, smirking a bit, but there was no teasing in his eyes that Martin could see as he stood and began to clean up.
Martin trailed him into the kitchen, bottle of salad dressing clutched in one hand, watched as Danny dropped their plates and silverware into the sink, reached for a sponge and turned the faucet on. Unexpectedly domestic and warmth stole through him at the possibility of doing this every day – wild and improbable, he knew, but he wanted it.
He hadn’t lied to Sam all those years ago, when he’d said that he wanted a family one day. Only the form of it didn’t matter, and he’d never told her that – just what he had always imagined must be what he was feeling now – this contentment, belonging to another person, wanting nothing more beyond the moment except that it would continue.
Impulsively, he set the dressing on the counter behind him and stepped closer, into the warmth of Danny, wanting to soak that up after two weeks of running. And Danny turned – smart remark at the ready, by the light in his eyes – but it faded as Martin moved against him, vanished altogether as his eyes fell shut and Martin’s mouth pressed into his.
God, Martin’d missed this, the warmth and weight of Danny’s mouth on his own, tease of lips and tongue, encouragement that Martin didn’t need. And he wanted this, he thought hazily, enough to put aside fear and hesitation and take it, to pull Danny more tightly against him, to feel that hard, angled, wonderful body – hip, abdomen, pectorals, line of thigh – fit into his. They were pressed uncomfortably against the side of the kitchen counter, the faucet hissing behind them, silly and undignified, Martin moving helplessly against Danny in slow undulations, Danny replying in counterpoint.
Danny’s fingers roamed over his face when Martin broke away to tell him about his test results, a scrap of good news in the bleakness of the past fourteen days. He wondered what Danny would say if he told him he’d always had a weakness for those hands – quick and elegant, with a vocabulary of their own, dancing across his cheeks and jaw, dipping to tease the sensitive skin behind his ear.
He murmured soft reassurances against Danny’s mouth when Danny pulled him back, hands roaming down under his shirt. Martin shivered and tried to make his own hands cooperate enough to start working at Danny’s buttons, but they stuttered and slipped, Martin cursing softly and emphatically at them, Danny’s laughter a vibration against Martin’s chest and lips when Martin bent his head to Danny’s neck.
Salt-sweet skin and he wanted more, knew he could never get enough, even as he made himself be coordinated enough to finish unbuttoning Danny’s shirt and raise his own arms so Danny could pull his t-shirt off. Hot skin everywhere, and Danny’s mouth was on his again, warmwetsweet and Martin could hear himself groaning into the kiss, couldn’t help it and didn’t want to.
Danny pushed him backward, guiding him to the bedroom with his body and demanding kisses that forced him back, back until his knees hit the edge of Danny’s bed. He fell into the comforter, laughing softly, struck by the expression on Danny’s face as he lowered himself atop Martin, a solid presence that comforted even as it aroused, face half-blanketed by shadows.
God how Danny looked at him, like he knew exactly what Martin was thinking – and he probably did – and everything was right there in those dark eyes, fear and lust and contentment and warmth, love, God help him.
And then he knew.
He had to tell Danny what was supposed to have happened to him. Talk about wrecking the mood, he thought to himself, but he couldn’t go on like this, not telling Danny anything.
Danny, sensing Martin’s sudden tenseness, pulled back a bit and looked at him inquiringly.
“When we were talking in the hospital...” Fucking say it, Fitzgerald. “You know, when I visited you?”
“Yeah?” Danny’s tone was a mixture of wariness and bemusement.
“I didn’t tell you... We’d been talking to Silverman, and he said – he said it wasn’t supposed to be a kidnapping.” He tried to steady his voice; it didn’t work. “It was supposed to be a hit.”
Danny was silent, utterly still in Martin’s arms.
“Silverman said that Benson and the others had panicked... They didn’t want to kill the Deputy Director’s kid, not when there was a possibility of getting caught.” Had to keep touching Danny, to reassure himself Danny was still there. “I’ve never been so grateful to be a Fitzgerald in my life.”
He heard the soft, disbelieving exhalation and it hurt, feeling the pain in that word. Felt the soft shush of Danny’s hair against his neck, and Danny’s breath on his skin, unsteady and almost hysterical. He wanted to murmur comfort, but his voice had locked, tied up in a knot like it always got, and all he could do was pull Danny close into the circle of his arms, press the two of them together until he couldn’t find space between them anymore.
I’m not going anywhere, Fitz. Danny had told him that, and he hadn’t vanished into the smoke of memory. He was here, alive and with Martin, and they were breathing each other’s air, Martin’s fingers tangled in the soft hair at the nape of Danny’s neck, soothing down the pliant skin of his shoulder.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Martin whispered.
And that at last was his own truth.
He’d slept through the night for the first time in two weeks.
And his reward, Martin thought darkly, was being woken up by the cellphone ringing in his ear. His phone.
He fumbled for his cell, hand scrabbling around the contents of Danny’s bedside table – alarm clock, watch, knocked the condom packet to the floor – smiling a bit as Danny muttered and shifted unhappily at the racket.
The phone rang for the fifth time and fell silent.
“Y’missed it,” Danny observed sleepily. “Good.”
“Probably work,” Martin said, setting the phone back down. “They’ll call back if it’s important.”
“Jinxed it,” Danny told him. He closed his eyes and burrowed back down into the pillows, sighing as he did. Martin grinned and followed him, in too good a mood to let a sleepy, disoriented Danny go, despite the phone call and a glance at the clock that told him he’d have to get a move on soon.
“What d’you –”
The phone went off again, shrill and insistent.
“Told you so.” Danny’s voice drifted up, muffled by the pillow Martin had smacked over his head. Rolling his eyes as smothered sounds of protest issued from beneath the pillow and comforter, Martin flipped his phone open.
“Fitzgerald.”
“Martin?”
He sat up straight against the pillows, half-feeling Danny’s arm sliding down his abdomen, tightening a bit when it reached his navel. Danny shifted against him and sighed, murmured something incoherent.
“Matt? What is it?” Danny must have caught the urgency in Martin’s tone; he shifted and went tense, moving into wakefulness, and in the corner of his eye Martin saw dark, worried eyes open.
“There’s been a... Shit, Martin.” He could hear Matt struggling for control, voice tight with the strain of it, feel Danny sitting up and moving closer to him. “Silverman’s wife and kids were killed twenty minutes ago. Car bomb.”
He almost didn’t hear Matt saying the New York office needed him down there right away, could only stare into the confused, inchoate shadows of the bedroom, and the only substantial thing in the world was Danny, and Martin found himself leaning into him.
-tbc.-