kathierif_fic (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kathierif_fic) wrote2010-05-16 01:15 am
kathierif_fic) wrote2010-05-16 01:15 am
Fic: Bridge Over Frozen Water (CSI:NY AU, FRM, Sheldon Hawkes/Don Flack), 5/7
Title: Bridge Over Frozen Water
Author: Kathie
Fandom: CSI:NY
Pairing: Sheldon Hawkes/Don Flack
Rating: FRM
Content: AU, slash
chapter 1. | chapter 2. | chapter 3. | chapter 4.
Sheldon didn't look up from the report that was on the table in front of him as Stella stepped into the office and closed the door behind herself.
"Okay," she said without hesitation. "I've watched you stare at the same page for the entire time it took me to compare the striations of the bullet Mac extracted from the ice to our database, and you haven't turned a single page and haven't moved the entire time. Spill. What's wrong, Sheldon?"
Sheldon sighed heavily and pushed the report back. Stella was right, he had to admit. All he had been doing was staring into thin air and allowing his thoughts to wander. If Mac had caught him, Sheldon would have been in a lot of trouble. He wasn't paid for dreaming, after all, and he was supposed to catch up with his paperwork.
"Is it something with the case?" Stella asked and leaned against the edge of Sheldon's desk, and Sheldon sighed again. "No," he said before shaking his head. "Yeah. I guess so."
"Do you want to talk about it?" Stella offered, and for a split second, it looked like Sheldon would refuse, but then, he ran his hands over his head again and shook his head slightly. "There's nothing to talk about," he said quietly. "I know I should have told Mac about this, but I really didn't..." He trailed off and shook his head again.
"You know Mac," Stella pointed out. "And how important the integrity of the lab is for him. Why didn't you mention that you're friends with Flack right away?"
Sheldon shrugged. "I don't think that Don has anything to do with this case," he said quietly. "I know Don. He's...he's not a murderer."
"He doesn't have an alibi," Stella argued. "And how often have you heard that from friends and families of criminals? That their friend and husband isn't a murderer?"
"Too often," Sheldon sighed. "I know. But Stella, not Don."
Stella opened her mouth to argue her point, but closed it and leaned over, to put her hand on Sheldon's shoulder and squeezing gently.
"He means a lot to you, doesn't he?" she asked, and Sheldon nodded. He didn't even bother trying to deny it, his thoughts still with Don, who, right now, should be at practice, on the ice, at the practice facility of the Rangers, and Sheldon imagined how he was sitting in the locker room, tightening the laces of his skates and laughing with his teammates, or grumbling about the fact that the CSIs had taken his lucky t-shirt, his body relaxed, but his mind quick and sharp.
He sighed. "It doesn't matter anymore, Stel."
"Why not?" Sharp eyes watched him calmly, and Sheldon lifted his head to look into her eyes.
"We...we had a fight," he admitted. "He...I..." He stopped and shook his head again. "We're not exactly speaking to each other at the moment. It doesn't matter what I feel and not."
Stella's eyes narrowed slightly, and belatedly, Sheldon realized that he might have given away too much. For a split second, fear shot through him - fear that Stella would give his secret, the secret he and Don had kept for so long, away.
It wasn't that they were ashamed of their relationship, his brain reminded him, and he knew that Stella was a good friend who wouldn't tell anyone about what Sheldon had just told her, especially not the press. They had decided to keep their relationship under wraps because of that, with regards to Don's career, but they had never denied that they had been in a relationship, not to their closest friends. Danny, for example, had known almost from the beginning - even if he'd figured it out without Don and Sheldon ever telling him.
It was just the public that didn't need to know.
And Stella, he knew, wouldn't tell anyone.
"Don't say that," Stella said and squeezed his shoulder again. "Why aren't you two talking?"
Sheldon shrugged. "I told him that I can't see him when he's the suspect in a murder case," he admitted before sighing. "And he completely overreacted. I think I made a mistake, Stel. I should’ve gone after him when he stormed out."
Stella looked at him with a small frown on her face, but Sheldon couldn’t tell if she was feeling sorry for him or if she was disgusted with him. He simply couldn’t read her right now. He was too wrapped up in his own emotions and thoughts.
“You really love him, huh?” Stella finally asked, and all he could do was nod miserably.
He definitely didn’t care about the political ramifications right now. He trusted Stella to keep this under wraps, too, but that was not at the forefront of his mind right now.
He just realized how much he missed Don. They didn’t usually talk every day – with both their schedules, it was impossible to do that – but he just missed sending him a text message, or getting one, from Don.
~*+*~
Don Flack didn’t look up from where he was checking over the laces of his skates when he heard the sudden and loud cheer that went through the dressing room. He didn’t need to. He knew exactly what it meant.
Hank was back.
He moved up to his shin pads, his fingers moving over the hard, protective plastic with the confident moves of someone who had done the same thing since early childhood and making sure they fit. He still hadn’t looked up.
He was getting ready for practice, he told himself, trying to shut up the little nagging voice at the back of his brain that whispered ‘coward’ at him. They were supposed to work on special teams today, an area where they had had trouble in the past few games. If they wanted to win a game, they had to stop turning over the puck, and they had to play better when short-handed, especially with Hank out indefinitely with that gunshot wound.
He bent down low again and yanked at the laces of his skates again, not caring about the fact that they were tight enough already. Thinking about penalty kill and powerplay situations helped him keep his thoughts focused on work and away from Sheldon.
Sheldon, who had indirectly accused him of trying to murder Hank.
Bitter disappointment welled up in him again, and he bit his lip sharply, to bring his focus back to the present.
Their relationship hadn’t always been easy-going and smooth, but it had been without any major hiccups so far, especially considering that they had to keep it under wraps. They sometimes didn’t see each other for weeks, but Don trusted Sheldon not to start anything with a cute nurse or, as soon as he’d transferred to the field work, a witness, and Sheldon trusted Don not to sleep with one of the many puck bunnies he met day-in and day-out in his line of work. It had worked for both of them, and when they had hooked up, the sex had been that much more intense.
It was a system that had worked well for both of them, and even if they’d never said the words – not that Don could remember, after all – he knew that they had had deep feelings for each other.
At least, that was what Don had always thought, until Sheldon had made it clear that he didn’t believe in Don’s innocence, and that he couldn’t be seen with a man who was accused of attempted murder. He hadn’t believed when Don had told him he didn’t do it, not the first time and definitely not the second time, and the realization hurt him more than he’d ever thought possible.
Fabric rustled close to him, pulling him out of his thoughts, and before he could sit up and glare at whoever dared to interrupt his solitude, a warm body squeezed itself on the bench between Don and the kid next to him, and an arm was slung over his tense and aching shoulders.
He knew that this wasn’t the rookie sitting next to him. He’d intimidated the kid with his fierce scowl, and the kid had stayed as far away from him as possible. He had to apologize to him, Don thought, but he hadn’t had the chance and hadn’t been in the mood yet.
Right now, he only needed to see the shoes and the dress pants from the corner of his eye, and he knew who had come to talk to him. Slowly, he sat up, while trying to keep his face a blank mask and hide his scowl.
“Donnie.”
“Hank.” Don swallowed dryly. He could see the edge of a stark white bandage peeking out from under Henrik’s shirt sleeve, and he flinched slightly. If Henrik, undoubtedly one of their most famous and oftentimes their best player, would follow in Sheldon’s footsteps and accusing Don of trying to kill him, the best Don could hope for was a trade to the Western Conference. Maybe he should ask for one. It would get him away from New York, and away from Sheldon. “How you’re doin’?”
Henrik grimaced slightly. “I’ll live,” he said lightly. “What about you? I hear you’ve been grumpy for the past few days, while I was gone.” He grinned. “Did you miss me that much?”
“Heard from who?” Don asked and frowned. Henrik’s healthy arm was still slung comfortably around his shoulders, a warm and familiar feeling that still weighted him down as if Henrik wasn’t wearing a fine cotton dress shirt, but a lead coat.
Henrik shrugged. “Everyone. Sean called me and bitched at me to come and cheer you up.” He hesitated for a few heartbeats, and something deep in Don’s stomach clenched and left him with a queasy feeling.
“Hey, Don? Is it true?” Henrik finally asked.
“Is what true?” Don managed to ask back through clenched teeth. He felt like throwing up, his stomach a tight knot that only tightened with every second that passed.
Henrik shrugged slightly and winced. “You know,” he said. “That the cops took your lucky shirt and cut it up.”
Don thought for a long moment that he’d misunderstood Henrik; that the other man hadn’t really asked about his shirt, but about Don being suspected to be the shooter, and he could just sit there and stare at Henrik for a long moment, but finally, he managed to shake off the daze. If he was honest, he hadn’t thought of his shirt the entire time. Other things had been more important.
“Yeah, they took it,” he admitted and shook his head. “Don’t know about the cutting up part.” He forced a laugh. “I hope not.”
“That sucks,” Henrik murmured. He managed to put enough heartfelt emotion into his voice to make Don feel a wave of gratefulness about having Henrik as his friend filling his chest. It almost made him choke.
“You okay?” Henrik asked him, his voice still pitched low, to avoid being overheard by their teammates. Nobody paid attention to their conversation, put off by Don’s bad mood during the past few days, but apparently, Henrik wanted to make sure that this stayed between the two of them.
“Yeah,” Don murmured back, his head turned to the side, his lips almost brushing against Henrik’s ear. He swallowed thickly, trying to push his emotions back down, and admitted, “I almost thought you came over here to yell at me for trying to kill you, too.”
Henrik pulled back slightly. “Did you?” he asked calmly.
“Hell no!”
“That’s what I thought,” Henrik said before shaking his head. “Cops said the shooter was somewhere in the stands.”
“Yeah, I know.” He hadn’t needed the cops to tell him that. Word had gone around the locker room pretty quickly about where the shot had come from.
Henrik shook his head slightly. “I know you, man,” he said. “I’ve seen you limping around after that last game. There’s no way you could’ve gotten up all those stairs, shoot at me, get back down, and to the trainer’s room. Not with your knee. Not in that time. Besides, why would you want to injure me? You need me to get into the playoffs.”
Almost despite himself, Don had to laugh at the goalie’s simple logic. “Thank you,” he said gratefully. “Now, could you tell that to the cops?”
~*+*~
“Hey.” Stella let the door fall closed behind herself and gave Mac the hint of a smile. “Anything new?”
Mac, who was leaning with both hands on the table, careful not to touch the evidence spread out on it, shook his head, but he didn’t turn his head to acknowledge Stella.
“Nothing,” he replied. “Besides finding Hawkes’ prints and DNA all over Flack’s equipment…”
“Yeah, about that.” Stella grimaced slightly. “I think I know where these came from.”
“Hawkes told me they’re friends, that he spends the night at Flack’s place sometimes,” Mac continued as if he hadn’t heard Stella. “But still, it doesn’t explain how his DNA ends up on the inside of Flack’s shirt.”
“About that,” Stella said again. “I think they’re more than just friends.”
Mac finally turned his head to face her, his forehead furrowed in a confused frown. “What do you mean?”
Stella shrugged slightly and folded her hands on the edge of the table. “I talked to him, just now,” she said hesitantly. She didn’t know how much she could tell Mac without breaking the trust Sheldon had in her. It was obvious to her, without Sheldon ever having said anything, that the information he had given her was sensitive and could be harmful to Don Flack’s career, if the press caught wind of it.
“So?” Mac asked, his full attention focused on her now.
Stella rolled her eyes slightly. “What’s your theory?” she asked him. “How did Sheldon’s DNA end up on the inside of Don Flack’s clothes?”
Mac seemed amused by her little outburst, she noted, and a frown started to appear on her forehead.
“I don’t know,” Mac said. “By wearing them?”
He made it sound like a suggestion, but Stella was sure that Mac had come to the conclusion, that Hawkes and Flack were sharing clothes, a while ago and was just indulging her.
“Yeah, and whose clothes do you wear? Besides your own,” she asked.
“Not a friend’s,” Mac mused. “Not without washing them after wearing them.”
“Exactly.” Stella moved her shoulders slightly. She was not betraying Sheldon’s trust if Mac figured it out himself, she told herself.
“So what you’re saying is…” Mac trailed off expectantly, and Stella brushed a curl of her hair behind her ear. “…they’re in a romantic relations hip.”
Stella didn’t reply. She didn’t need to.
“So far, there is no evidence that confirms our theory that Flack is, in fact, the shooter,” Mac added. “But there’s no other suspect. There’s no trace, no prints…” He shook his head. “It couldn’t be that easy,” he added, a hint of humor in his voice.
“You know what that means,” Stella said. “Back to the scene.”
“Back to the scene,” Mac agreed before sighing. “Were you serious about Sheldon and Flack?”
Stella just shrugged.
“Great,” Mac sighed. “As if the case wasn’t already political enough.” He shook his head. “Let’s get back to what we know.”
~*+*~
“Man, what happened to you?” Danny shook his head and squinted at his friend. “Either you got run over by a Zamboni there or…”
“Yeah, yeah, Messer. Really funny. Ha, ha.” Don ran a hand through his short hair as he interrupted Danny’s outburst.
“No, seriously! What happened to you?” Danny asked and slipped into the booth next to Don. “You look like hell.”
“You’re Prince Charming today, you know that?” Don replied, but it sounded weak even to his own ears, and he didn’t need Danny – or a mirror – to know what he looked like: he had deep shadows under his eyes, stubble covering his cheeks, stitches in his forehead from the fight in the game last night, and his shoulders were hunched and tense. He felt like hell, and he probably looked even worse.
Danny shook his head again. He was wearing his glasses today, Don thought randomly, and he was pushing them up his nose constantly, even more than usual. He’d always been a good observer, picking up small clues and piercing them together, and it was one of the things that made him such a good teammate and friend. He just knew when something was wrong with the people around him.
“What happened to your glasses?” he asked, just to distract Danny and to bring his focus away from Don’s appearance.
Danny snorted. “Suspect tried to get clever with me,” he replied and chuckled. There was no humor whatsoever in his face or his words as he described briefly how a suspect had tried to punch him, to escape from getting arrested. Only when he told Don how Lindsay had tackled the fleeing suspect to the ground, he allowed his voice to display some of the affection he felt for his wife.
Don grinned at Danny’s description, but deep inside, he felt a stab of pain and a pang of regret. Listening to other people talk about their significant others only served to remind him of Sheldon, and Sheldon’s last words to him. He’d replayed that conversation so many times in his mind since that day, again and again, and it still made him hurt more than the most bone crushing check could.
But at the same time, he couldn’t help himself. Every time he closed his eyes, he could see Sheldon’s face in his mind; his expression when he’d said those words…it was a vicious circle in his brain, spinning on and on and on without stopping or slowing down, and he was caught in it.
Danny nudged him gently. “You wanna talk or something?” he offered somewhat hesitantly. “You know, sometimes it helps.”
“What, talking?” Don asked tiredly.
Danny shrugged, but nodded. “Talking to someone who isn’t involved,” he elaborated.
Don rubbed a hand over his face, feeling the scratch of stubble against his palm. “You are involved,” he said hollowly. “You’re friends with Shel, too.”
“So that’s what this is all about?” Danny asked quietly. “Your fight with Hawkes?”
Don didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. He’d already said enough, maybe he’d even said too much. He didn’t know and he didn’t care anymore.
He was just so tired of all of this.
“Maybe you should call him,” Danny was saying next to him, his voice running together with the background noise, and Don sighed heavily and forced himself to pay attention to their conversation.
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “He made it clear that he can’t talk to me while I’m the fucking suspect in a fucking murder investigation.”
Danny rolled his eyes slightly. “Are you sure he said that?” he demanded to know.
“Yeah I’m sure!”
“And are you sure that he meant that? You know Hawkes. For being such a smart guy, he’s pretty stupid very now and then.” Danny wrapped his fingers around Don’s wrist, and they felt cool and smooth against Don’s overheated skin. The touch pulled Don’s attention to the pleading look in Danny’s eyes that was only accentuated by the glasses the other man was wearing.
Cool and smooth.
Like ice.
A glance at the silver watch on his wrist confirmed that he should get going, unless he wanted to be late for practice, and he didn’t feel like messing up another aspect of his life.
Don shook his head again. “No, Danny,” he said, suddenly calm – cool, smooth, like ice. “He’s the one who messed up here, isn’t he? Not me. I’m not apologizing for something I didn’t even do.”
“Nobody said that you should apologize,” Danny huffed. “Just give him a call. It can’t hurt, right?”
Don reached into his pocket and dropped a few bills on the table. “You know Shel,” he pointed out. “In his eyes, he did nothing wrong, Danny. He’s not going to apologize either, not for being himself and taking his job seriously, and that’s what he’s gonna tell you this is about. I don’t see that happening. Ever.”
“You might be surprised,” Danny muttered, but Don didn’t seem to hear him as he stood and pulled on the brown leather jacket.
“We still on for Saturday?” he asked, in the same quiet voice, and when Danny nodded, dumbfounded by the sudden change in Don’s attitude and his businesslike demeanor, Don clapped him on the shoulder and left without another word.
“Stubborn idiot,” Danny muttered under his breath as he watched his friend leave. Don obviously couldn’t see that he was throwing away the damn best thing in his life, hurting not only himself, but Doc Hawkes in the process too.
Danny shook his head and pushed his glasses back up his nose with an irritated gesture.
If the prophet wouldn’t come to the mountain, he thought, he would have to kick the mountain’s ass a little bit.
The problem was, of course, that Sheldon Hawkes was as hopelessly stubborn and proud as Don Flack was, and Don had been right when he’d said that Sheldon wouldn’t apologize for what he’d said.
Not under these circumstances.
They had to find the real culprit soon, Danny thought, fresh determination filling him and making him bounce to his feet, and he had to talk to Hawkes, make it clear to him what effect his careless words had had on Don. Don wasn’t a cop, after all. He didn’t deal with all the things they faced every day. Sheldon had to get that knocked into his thick skull.
Danny was sure about one thing. No matter what Sheldon had said, meeting and hooking up with Don had been the best thing that could have happened to him. Don had been there for the past few years, as Hawkes had moved from the morgue to the field and through the stressful months of his exams and throughout every horrible case Hawkes had to deal with. Don’s more laid-back attitude in some aspects, combined with his fierce sense of determination and his strong belief in what he considered to be right and just were all things that Sheldon respected and needed to balance his own attitude toward life sometimes, especially after dealing with bad cases.
If Don wanted to accomplish something, he usually succeeded, and Sheldon once had confessed to Danny that he found the other man inspiring.
And now, Sheldon was willing to let that inspiration slip through his fingers and get away just because of a few words, said in a tense situation; a few words Danny was sure he hadn’t even meant as the insult Don had perceived them to be.
Danny couldn’t let that happen. He knew from first-hand experience what damage words could do, and he would do anything to prevent his two friends to make a horrible mistake.
Don Flack was determined – Danny would just have to be even more determined, to make them see reason.
Sheldon Hawkes was stubborn – Danny would just have to be even more stubborn.
He would get them at least to talk, Danny decided, to clear up this misunderstanding – because it was just that, a misunderstanding – and get them back to being the people he knew and loved.
Decision made, he hurried back toward the lab.
He had work to do.
TBC in chapter 6.
Author: Kathie
Fandom: CSI:NY
Pairing: Sheldon Hawkes/Don Flack
Rating: FRM
Content: AU, slash
chapter 1. | chapter 2. | chapter 3. | chapter 4.
Sheldon didn't look up from the report that was on the table in front of him as Stella stepped into the office and closed the door behind herself.
"Okay," she said without hesitation. "I've watched you stare at the same page for the entire time it took me to compare the striations of the bullet Mac extracted from the ice to our database, and you haven't turned a single page and haven't moved the entire time. Spill. What's wrong, Sheldon?"
Sheldon sighed heavily and pushed the report back. Stella was right, he had to admit. All he had been doing was staring into thin air and allowing his thoughts to wander. If Mac had caught him, Sheldon would have been in a lot of trouble. He wasn't paid for dreaming, after all, and he was supposed to catch up with his paperwork.
"Is it something with the case?" Stella asked and leaned against the edge of Sheldon's desk, and Sheldon sighed again. "No," he said before shaking his head. "Yeah. I guess so."
"Do you want to talk about it?" Stella offered, and for a split second, it looked like Sheldon would refuse, but then, he ran his hands over his head again and shook his head slightly. "There's nothing to talk about," he said quietly. "I know I should have told Mac about this, but I really didn't..." He trailed off and shook his head again.
"You know Mac," Stella pointed out. "And how important the integrity of the lab is for him. Why didn't you mention that you're friends with Flack right away?"
Sheldon shrugged. "I don't think that Don has anything to do with this case," he said quietly. "I know Don. He's...he's not a murderer."
"He doesn't have an alibi," Stella argued. "And how often have you heard that from friends and families of criminals? That their friend and husband isn't a murderer?"
"Too often," Sheldon sighed. "I know. But Stella, not Don."
Stella opened her mouth to argue her point, but closed it and leaned over, to put her hand on Sheldon's shoulder and squeezing gently.
"He means a lot to you, doesn't he?" she asked, and Sheldon nodded. He didn't even bother trying to deny it, his thoughts still with Don, who, right now, should be at practice, on the ice, at the practice facility of the Rangers, and Sheldon imagined how he was sitting in the locker room, tightening the laces of his skates and laughing with his teammates, or grumbling about the fact that the CSIs had taken his lucky t-shirt, his body relaxed, but his mind quick and sharp.
He sighed. "It doesn't matter anymore, Stel."
"Why not?" Sharp eyes watched him calmly, and Sheldon lifted his head to look into her eyes.
"We...we had a fight," he admitted. "He...I..." He stopped and shook his head again. "We're not exactly speaking to each other at the moment. It doesn't matter what I feel and not."
Stella's eyes narrowed slightly, and belatedly, Sheldon realized that he might have given away too much. For a split second, fear shot through him - fear that Stella would give his secret, the secret he and Don had kept for so long, away.
It wasn't that they were ashamed of their relationship, his brain reminded him, and he knew that Stella was a good friend who wouldn't tell anyone about what Sheldon had just told her, especially not the press. They had decided to keep their relationship under wraps because of that, with regards to Don's career, but they had never denied that they had been in a relationship, not to their closest friends. Danny, for example, had known almost from the beginning - even if he'd figured it out without Don and Sheldon ever telling him.
It was just the public that didn't need to know.
And Stella, he knew, wouldn't tell anyone.
"Don't say that," Stella said and squeezed his shoulder again. "Why aren't you two talking?"
Sheldon shrugged. "I told him that I can't see him when he's the suspect in a murder case," he admitted before sighing. "And he completely overreacted. I think I made a mistake, Stel. I should’ve gone after him when he stormed out."
Stella looked at him with a small frown on her face, but Sheldon couldn’t tell if she was feeling sorry for him or if she was disgusted with him. He simply couldn’t read her right now. He was too wrapped up in his own emotions and thoughts.
“You really love him, huh?” Stella finally asked, and all he could do was nod miserably.
He definitely didn’t care about the political ramifications right now. He trusted Stella to keep this under wraps, too, but that was not at the forefront of his mind right now.
He just realized how much he missed Don. They didn’t usually talk every day – with both their schedules, it was impossible to do that – but he just missed sending him a text message, or getting one, from Don.
~*+*~
Don Flack didn’t look up from where he was checking over the laces of his skates when he heard the sudden and loud cheer that went through the dressing room. He didn’t need to. He knew exactly what it meant.
Hank was back.
He moved up to his shin pads, his fingers moving over the hard, protective plastic with the confident moves of someone who had done the same thing since early childhood and making sure they fit. He still hadn’t looked up.
He was getting ready for practice, he told himself, trying to shut up the little nagging voice at the back of his brain that whispered ‘coward’ at him. They were supposed to work on special teams today, an area where they had had trouble in the past few games. If they wanted to win a game, they had to stop turning over the puck, and they had to play better when short-handed, especially with Hank out indefinitely with that gunshot wound.
He bent down low again and yanked at the laces of his skates again, not caring about the fact that they were tight enough already. Thinking about penalty kill and powerplay situations helped him keep his thoughts focused on work and away from Sheldon.
Sheldon, who had indirectly accused him of trying to murder Hank.
Bitter disappointment welled up in him again, and he bit his lip sharply, to bring his focus back to the present.
Their relationship hadn’t always been easy-going and smooth, but it had been without any major hiccups so far, especially considering that they had to keep it under wraps. They sometimes didn’t see each other for weeks, but Don trusted Sheldon not to start anything with a cute nurse or, as soon as he’d transferred to the field work, a witness, and Sheldon trusted Don not to sleep with one of the many puck bunnies he met day-in and day-out in his line of work. It had worked for both of them, and when they had hooked up, the sex had been that much more intense.
It was a system that had worked well for both of them, and even if they’d never said the words – not that Don could remember, after all – he knew that they had had deep feelings for each other.
At least, that was what Don had always thought, until Sheldon had made it clear that he didn’t believe in Don’s innocence, and that he couldn’t be seen with a man who was accused of attempted murder. He hadn’t believed when Don had told him he didn’t do it, not the first time and definitely not the second time, and the realization hurt him more than he’d ever thought possible.
Fabric rustled close to him, pulling him out of his thoughts, and before he could sit up and glare at whoever dared to interrupt his solitude, a warm body squeezed itself on the bench between Don and the kid next to him, and an arm was slung over his tense and aching shoulders.
He knew that this wasn’t the rookie sitting next to him. He’d intimidated the kid with his fierce scowl, and the kid had stayed as far away from him as possible. He had to apologize to him, Don thought, but he hadn’t had the chance and hadn’t been in the mood yet.
Right now, he only needed to see the shoes and the dress pants from the corner of his eye, and he knew who had come to talk to him. Slowly, he sat up, while trying to keep his face a blank mask and hide his scowl.
“Donnie.”
“Hank.” Don swallowed dryly. He could see the edge of a stark white bandage peeking out from under Henrik’s shirt sleeve, and he flinched slightly. If Henrik, undoubtedly one of their most famous and oftentimes their best player, would follow in Sheldon’s footsteps and accusing Don of trying to kill him, the best Don could hope for was a trade to the Western Conference. Maybe he should ask for one. It would get him away from New York, and away from Sheldon. “How you’re doin’?”
Henrik grimaced slightly. “I’ll live,” he said lightly. “What about you? I hear you’ve been grumpy for the past few days, while I was gone.” He grinned. “Did you miss me that much?”
“Heard from who?” Don asked and frowned. Henrik’s healthy arm was still slung comfortably around his shoulders, a warm and familiar feeling that still weighted him down as if Henrik wasn’t wearing a fine cotton dress shirt, but a lead coat.
Henrik shrugged. “Everyone. Sean called me and bitched at me to come and cheer you up.” He hesitated for a few heartbeats, and something deep in Don’s stomach clenched and left him with a queasy feeling.
“Hey, Don? Is it true?” Henrik finally asked.
“Is what true?” Don managed to ask back through clenched teeth. He felt like throwing up, his stomach a tight knot that only tightened with every second that passed.
Henrik shrugged slightly and winced. “You know,” he said. “That the cops took your lucky shirt and cut it up.”
Don thought for a long moment that he’d misunderstood Henrik; that the other man hadn’t really asked about his shirt, but about Don being suspected to be the shooter, and he could just sit there and stare at Henrik for a long moment, but finally, he managed to shake off the daze. If he was honest, he hadn’t thought of his shirt the entire time. Other things had been more important.
“Yeah, they took it,” he admitted and shook his head. “Don’t know about the cutting up part.” He forced a laugh. “I hope not.”
“That sucks,” Henrik murmured. He managed to put enough heartfelt emotion into his voice to make Don feel a wave of gratefulness about having Henrik as his friend filling his chest. It almost made him choke.
“You okay?” Henrik asked him, his voice still pitched low, to avoid being overheard by their teammates. Nobody paid attention to their conversation, put off by Don’s bad mood during the past few days, but apparently, Henrik wanted to make sure that this stayed between the two of them.
“Yeah,” Don murmured back, his head turned to the side, his lips almost brushing against Henrik’s ear. He swallowed thickly, trying to push his emotions back down, and admitted, “I almost thought you came over here to yell at me for trying to kill you, too.”
Henrik pulled back slightly. “Did you?” he asked calmly.
“Hell no!”
“That’s what I thought,” Henrik said before shaking his head. “Cops said the shooter was somewhere in the stands.”
“Yeah, I know.” He hadn’t needed the cops to tell him that. Word had gone around the locker room pretty quickly about where the shot had come from.
Henrik shook his head slightly. “I know you, man,” he said. “I’ve seen you limping around after that last game. There’s no way you could’ve gotten up all those stairs, shoot at me, get back down, and to the trainer’s room. Not with your knee. Not in that time. Besides, why would you want to injure me? You need me to get into the playoffs.”
Almost despite himself, Don had to laugh at the goalie’s simple logic. “Thank you,” he said gratefully. “Now, could you tell that to the cops?”
~*+*~
“Hey.” Stella let the door fall closed behind herself and gave Mac the hint of a smile. “Anything new?”
Mac, who was leaning with both hands on the table, careful not to touch the evidence spread out on it, shook his head, but he didn’t turn his head to acknowledge Stella.
“Nothing,” he replied. “Besides finding Hawkes’ prints and DNA all over Flack’s equipment…”
“Yeah, about that.” Stella grimaced slightly. “I think I know where these came from.”
“Hawkes told me they’re friends, that he spends the night at Flack’s place sometimes,” Mac continued as if he hadn’t heard Stella. “But still, it doesn’t explain how his DNA ends up on the inside of Flack’s shirt.”
“About that,” Stella said again. “I think they’re more than just friends.”
Mac finally turned his head to face her, his forehead furrowed in a confused frown. “What do you mean?”
Stella shrugged slightly and folded her hands on the edge of the table. “I talked to him, just now,” she said hesitantly. She didn’t know how much she could tell Mac without breaking the trust Sheldon had in her. It was obvious to her, without Sheldon ever having said anything, that the information he had given her was sensitive and could be harmful to Don Flack’s career, if the press caught wind of it.
“So?” Mac asked, his full attention focused on her now.
Stella rolled her eyes slightly. “What’s your theory?” she asked him. “How did Sheldon’s DNA end up on the inside of Don Flack’s clothes?”
Mac seemed amused by her little outburst, she noted, and a frown started to appear on her forehead.
“I don’t know,” Mac said. “By wearing them?”
He made it sound like a suggestion, but Stella was sure that Mac had come to the conclusion, that Hawkes and Flack were sharing clothes, a while ago and was just indulging her.
“Yeah, and whose clothes do you wear? Besides your own,” she asked.
“Not a friend’s,” Mac mused. “Not without washing them after wearing them.”
“Exactly.” Stella moved her shoulders slightly. She was not betraying Sheldon’s trust if Mac figured it out himself, she told herself.
“So what you’re saying is…” Mac trailed off expectantly, and Stella brushed a curl of her hair behind her ear. “…they’re in a romantic relations hip.”
Stella didn’t reply. She didn’t need to.
“So far, there is no evidence that confirms our theory that Flack is, in fact, the shooter,” Mac added. “But there’s no other suspect. There’s no trace, no prints…” He shook his head. “It couldn’t be that easy,” he added, a hint of humor in his voice.
“You know what that means,” Stella said. “Back to the scene.”
“Back to the scene,” Mac agreed before sighing. “Were you serious about Sheldon and Flack?”
Stella just shrugged.
“Great,” Mac sighed. “As if the case wasn’t already political enough.” He shook his head. “Let’s get back to what we know.”
~*+*~
“Man, what happened to you?” Danny shook his head and squinted at his friend. “Either you got run over by a Zamboni there or…”
“Yeah, yeah, Messer. Really funny. Ha, ha.” Don ran a hand through his short hair as he interrupted Danny’s outburst.
“No, seriously! What happened to you?” Danny asked and slipped into the booth next to Don. “You look like hell.”
“You’re Prince Charming today, you know that?” Don replied, but it sounded weak even to his own ears, and he didn’t need Danny – or a mirror – to know what he looked like: he had deep shadows under his eyes, stubble covering his cheeks, stitches in his forehead from the fight in the game last night, and his shoulders were hunched and tense. He felt like hell, and he probably looked even worse.
Danny shook his head again. He was wearing his glasses today, Don thought randomly, and he was pushing them up his nose constantly, even more than usual. He’d always been a good observer, picking up small clues and piercing them together, and it was one of the things that made him such a good teammate and friend. He just knew when something was wrong with the people around him.
“What happened to your glasses?” he asked, just to distract Danny and to bring his focus away from Don’s appearance.
Danny snorted. “Suspect tried to get clever with me,” he replied and chuckled. There was no humor whatsoever in his face or his words as he described briefly how a suspect had tried to punch him, to escape from getting arrested. Only when he told Don how Lindsay had tackled the fleeing suspect to the ground, he allowed his voice to display some of the affection he felt for his wife.
Don grinned at Danny’s description, but deep inside, he felt a stab of pain and a pang of regret. Listening to other people talk about their significant others only served to remind him of Sheldon, and Sheldon’s last words to him. He’d replayed that conversation so many times in his mind since that day, again and again, and it still made him hurt more than the most bone crushing check could.
But at the same time, he couldn’t help himself. Every time he closed his eyes, he could see Sheldon’s face in his mind; his expression when he’d said those words…it was a vicious circle in his brain, spinning on and on and on without stopping or slowing down, and he was caught in it.
Danny nudged him gently. “You wanna talk or something?” he offered somewhat hesitantly. “You know, sometimes it helps.”
“What, talking?” Don asked tiredly.
Danny shrugged, but nodded. “Talking to someone who isn’t involved,” he elaborated.
Don rubbed a hand over his face, feeling the scratch of stubble against his palm. “You are involved,” he said hollowly. “You’re friends with Shel, too.”
“So that’s what this is all about?” Danny asked quietly. “Your fight with Hawkes?”
Don didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. He’d already said enough, maybe he’d even said too much. He didn’t know and he didn’t care anymore.
He was just so tired of all of this.
“Maybe you should call him,” Danny was saying next to him, his voice running together with the background noise, and Don sighed heavily and forced himself to pay attention to their conversation.
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “He made it clear that he can’t talk to me while I’m the fucking suspect in a fucking murder investigation.”
Danny rolled his eyes slightly. “Are you sure he said that?” he demanded to know.
“Yeah I’m sure!”
“And are you sure that he meant that? You know Hawkes. For being such a smart guy, he’s pretty stupid very now and then.” Danny wrapped his fingers around Don’s wrist, and they felt cool and smooth against Don’s overheated skin. The touch pulled Don’s attention to the pleading look in Danny’s eyes that was only accentuated by the glasses the other man was wearing.
Cool and smooth.
Like ice.
A glance at the silver watch on his wrist confirmed that he should get going, unless he wanted to be late for practice, and he didn’t feel like messing up another aspect of his life.
Don shook his head again. “No, Danny,” he said, suddenly calm – cool, smooth, like ice. “He’s the one who messed up here, isn’t he? Not me. I’m not apologizing for something I didn’t even do.”
“Nobody said that you should apologize,” Danny huffed. “Just give him a call. It can’t hurt, right?”
Don reached into his pocket and dropped a few bills on the table. “You know Shel,” he pointed out. “In his eyes, he did nothing wrong, Danny. He’s not going to apologize either, not for being himself and taking his job seriously, and that’s what he’s gonna tell you this is about. I don’t see that happening. Ever.”
“You might be surprised,” Danny muttered, but Don didn’t seem to hear him as he stood and pulled on the brown leather jacket.
“We still on for Saturday?” he asked, in the same quiet voice, and when Danny nodded, dumbfounded by the sudden change in Don’s attitude and his businesslike demeanor, Don clapped him on the shoulder and left without another word.
“Stubborn idiot,” Danny muttered under his breath as he watched his friend leave. Don obviously couldn’t see that he was throwing away the damn best thing in his life, hurting not only himself, but Doc Hawkes in the process too.
Danny shook his head and pushed his glasses back up his nose with an irritated gesture.
If the prophet wouldn’t come to the mountain, he thought, he would have to kick the mountain’s ass a little bit.
The problem was, of course, that Sheldon Hawkes was as hopelessly stubborn and proud as Don Flack was, and Don had been right when he’d said that Sheldon wouldn’t apologize for what he’d said.
Not under these circumstances.
They had to find the real culprit soon, Danny thought, fresh determination filling him and making him bounce to his feet, and he had to talk to Hawkes, make it clear to him what effect his careless words had had on Don. Don wasn’t a cop, after all. He didn’t deal with all the things they faced every day. Sheldon had to get that knocked into his thick skull.
Danny was sure about one thing. No matter what Sheldon had said, meeting and hooking up with Don had been the best thing that could have happened to him. Don had been there for the past few years, as Hawkes had moved from the morgue to the field and through the stressful months of his exams and throughout every horrible case Hawkes had to deal with. Don’s more laid-back attitude in some aspects, combined with his fierce sense of determination and his strong belief in what he considered to be right and just were all things that Sheldon respected and needed to balance his own attitude toward life sometimes, especially after dealing with bad cases.
If Don wanted to accomplish something, he usually succeeded, and Sheldon once had confessed to Danny that he found the other man inspiring.
And now, Sheldon was willing to let that inspiration slip through his fingers and get away just because of a few words, said in a tense situation; a few words Danny was sure he hadn’t even meant as the insult Don had perceived them to be.
Danny couldn’t let that happen. He knew from first-hand experience what damage words could do, and he would do anything to prevent his two friends to make a horrible mistake.
Don Flack was determined – Danny would just have to be even more determined, to make them see reason.
Sheldon Hawkes was stubborn – Danny would just have to be even more stubborn.
He would get them at least to talk, Danny decided, to clear up this misunderstanding – because it was just that, a misunderstanding – and get them back to being the people he knew and loved.
Decision made, he hurried back toward the lab.
He had work to do.
TBC in chapter 6.