Part 12/14 of What Danny Deserves, CSI:NY fic
Series: What Danny Deserves
Title: Withdrawn and Withdrawal
Rating: PG-13, usual angst but nothing real bad.
Summary: Danny suffers a new set of problems living in Mac’s house
Warnings: angst, mostly.
Word count: 4150 (split into two parts)
Author’s Note: The previous chapter was a respite, Danny’s even more damaged in this.
Disclaimer: Not my series, because if it was I’d make sure the time line made sense.
part one: suspicion
part two: potential crime scene
part three: witness statements
part four: modus operandi
part five: interactions
part six a: failed interventions I
part six b: failed interventions I
part seven: failed interventions II
part eight a: emergency
part eight b: emergency
part nine a: hangovers and hang-ons
part nine b: hangovers and hang-ons
part nine c: hangovers and hang-ons
part ten: breakthrough, breaking point, broken
part eleven: victim protection
part twelve a: withdrawn and withdrawal
“Hey Mac, Adam rang me to tell you he’s picked up Lucy.” Stella passes on the message. “Why’d he tell *me*?”
“Honestly?”
“No Mac, I want you to lie to me!” Stella replies sarcastically.
“In his words, ‘the children hate it when mom and dad fight’. Although Adam seems to think I’m the mom on account of, well, on account of you being the one wearing the trousers." Mac sighs "I don’t like going against you Stella, but this time I had no choice. Danny arrived at my door, needing my help. I couldn’t refuse him.”
“There’s always a choice and you chose to take a child away from her mother. You chose to harbour a mentally unstable man. You chose to hurt Lindsay.”
“She’s not hurt.” Mac scoffs. “She’s angry. I put an end to her sport. She’s upset because she doesn’t have a willing subject for her to take her anger out on. She’s upset because she doesn’t have control over him anymore.”
“She misses her baby.”
“Of course she misses her. Lucy is just fourteen months old, she depends on her mother. Lindsay craves that! She needs to be in control.”
“And that’s a bad thing?” Stella argues.
“Not necessarily, no.” Mac agrees. “But what she’ll do to get that, that’s the bad thing. She needs to be the centre of attention.”
“That’s not true.” Stella frowns. “She’s brought Lucy here a bunch of times, a baby will always be the centre of attention, Mac.”
“For the rest of the department, yeah. But think back to those times, she always made sure Danny was paying attention to her.”
“I don’t buy it.” Stella shakes her head.
“Think about it, Stella. Those demonstrations, those performances she does in the lab, she has to have a crowd.”
“You’re crazy Mac! Lindsay wouldn’t hurt a fly, and if Danny ever says otherwise then he must have done something to provoke her.”
“He’s done nothing wrong apart from loving her, God I am SICK of having this argument.”
“Well I’m not going to stop arguing because I know you’re wrong.”
“No, not with you Stella. I’m sick of having this argument with Danny.” Mac sighs, Stella is surprised. “You should talk to him some time. Have this conversation with him. I know he’d agree with you.”
“Mac, are you okay?”
“He thinks he’s a lost cause but I can’t give up. I can’t give up on him because I’ve seen how much he cares, about everything except himself. I hate feeling like I can’t trust him. I trust him with my life I just don’t trust him with his own. He’s so self-destructive, like he thinks the more he suffers, the less other people will.” Mac swallows hard, shaking slightly.
“I think I should talk to him, this is hurting you Mac and I can’t let that happen.” Stella tells him.
“He doesn’t want to hurt me. He only wants to hurt himself.”
“I’ll set him straight.” Stella is so certain of that.
“Just don’t tell Lindsay, okay. I don’t want her anywhere near him.” Stella begins to protest. “Just humor me, okay?”
“My shift is ending in an hour, I know that’s when Lindsay comes on. If you’re okay with that, I can see him tonight.” She’s curious now.
“I think he’d like that.” Mac smiles. “Try not to hurt him too much, he hurts easy nowadays.” Stella can see Mac’s concern and nods, for his sake. Stella can’t imagine Danny ever hurting easily.
*****
“Hey Danny! Open up, it’s me Stella.” Stella pounds on the door. It takes several minutes but Danny eventually opens it. She has to bite her tongue to avoid letting out a gasp. He’s in a pair of cheap black boxers, his skin so white compared to them, his ribs showing. His knee is swollen; he has bruises on his shins; scars on his thighs, a scab on his forehead which looks to be healing... wrongly; the hair on his head is growing back in patches, clearly showing the injuries he gained when he fell down the stairs and cracked his skull. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“I wasn’t asleep.” Danny lets her in. She closes the door behind her.
The floor is covered with squeaky toys, DVDs with purple dinosaurs are thrown in with action movies, nursery rhymes mixed in with Rock CDs. A laptop is open on the kitchen table. The fridge is decorated with pages of Lucy’s handprints and smiley faces. There’s an electric guitar in the corner of the living room. On the couch there’s a cushion and a blanket.
“You look like you’ve made yourself at home.” Stella remarks. Danny doesn’t answer. “Danny, are you okay?”
“Jeez Stella, why d’ya have to ask that?” Danny asks, tears rapidly forming in his eyes, bringing his forearm up to cover them. “I’m fine.”
“You’re crying.”
“It’s nothing, I’ve been doing that a lot lately. I’m sorry.”
“Why are you apologising to me?” Stella asks, “You’re the one crying.”
“Yeah, I know, I’m sorry, I just hate how uncomfortable I make people feel when I do this. It upsets them and that’s last thing I want to do, I really don’t, it’s just-“
“Well don’t worry about that with me.” Stella assures him. “I’m not in love with you like they all are.” Danny chuckles before biting his tongue. “What, you’re not allowed to laugh now?” Danny shakes his head.
“It’d be easier if they didn’t care.” Danny whispers.
“Easier to what?” Stella turns serious, suddenly understanding. “Easier to kill yourself?” Danny doesn’t respond but she can see it in his eyes. “I thought Mac was over-reacting.”
“He is!” Danny says, before withdrawing once again. “Take a look around Stella. What do you see?”
“I see you sleeping on the couch and wearing no clothes, that’s what I see.” Stella replies sharply.
“He’s spent so much money Stella, and I don’t deserve any of it.” Danny argues.
“I don’t get it Danny.” Stella admits. “Why did you turn up at Mac’s doorstep if it wasn’t for this?”
“I wanted him to take Lucy, to help Lucy, to protect Lucy.” Danny explains. “I wanted to go back to Lindsay. I *want* to go back to Lindsay.” Danny cries, “I know I’ve hurt her, I know I’ve upset her, but I can change. I want to make her happy, I want her to love me. But then there’s Mac and after all he’s done for me, I don’t want to hurt him. I don’t know what to do Stella.” Stella swallows, resisting the urge to comfort him.
“You can start by putting on some clothes.” She orders.
“I came here with nothing, I don’t have any clothes.” Danny shakes his head, blinking as it makes him a little dizzy. Stella sighs, searching Mac’s apartment. She finds Lucy’s room, opens the closet door, the one with a knight on, to find an assortment of sweaters and t-shirts, vests and jeans of various shades and cuts. Stella knows clothes and Mac has spent a small fortune on this wardrobe, and that’s before the baby stuff. “I want to be grateful,” Danny says tearfully, Stella can see he’s torn, “but there are better things he could have spent the money on.”
“It’s Mac’s money. He can spend it however he likes.” Stella reminds him. “I just didn’t realise he had such good taste, you’d look really good in these clothes.”
“It’d be a lie Stella.” Danny sighs. “Look at me. This is what I deserve: as scarred and broken on the outside as I am inside. People should get to see that, to see I’m a lost cause.”
“The world doesn’t work like that Danny.” Stella tells him. “I don’t work like that, so put these on.” She throws him some clothes and he gets dressed. “Better?”
“I look almost human.”
“You are human, Danny.”
“I’m a screw-up, Stella.”
“Yeah, well that’s what being human is! And you’re not a screw-up.”
“I must be for Lindsay to... she’s the most perfect woman I know and I made her... and I’m a lousy father to Lucy, I can’t be alone with her. She cries whenever I cry, or there are times when I can hear her crying and I want to help, I do, but I can’t move, so I just listen to her, trying to move, trying to help, but I can’t, and she’s just crying, and inside I’m screaming, but I haven’t made a sound. I wanna run to her, but I can’t move, for minutes whilst she’s crying, it feels like hours, and I can’t neglect her like that. I ain’t fit to be her dad.”
“Danny, I’m an orphan.” Stella reminds him. “Don’t talk to me about neglect. You’re just exhausted, that’s all. When’s the last time you slept?” Danny shakes his head.
“I try not to do that. I have to be awake, if someone needs help, they can talk to me, I need to help.”
“I know. I know you want to help.” Stella understands. “But you’ve got to be well before you can help.”
“That’s never gonna happen.”
“Not if you don’t sleep, no.” She admits.
“I keep having nightmares.” Danny whispers, sounding like a small frightened boy. “There was one where the bed swallowed me up, and the cot ate Lucy, and I woke up and she started crying, I scared her. I’m sick of being scared Stella but it’s the only thing I know and the rest of the time I feel so numb, I feel like I’m drowning and I don’t care but there are hands trying to drag me up and I want to tell them not to bother but they can’t hear me.”
“You are not going to kill yourself Danny.” Stella tells him, making Danny give her a half-hearted watery smile.
“No, I’m not. That’d make the pain and the fear go away. I deserve to suffer for what I’ve done.”
“Have you thought about talking to someone about this, a doctor?” Stella tentatively suggests.
“I’m not gonna pay some therapist $200 dollars an hour, just to drag up memories that emphasise how much of a screw-up I am. I don’t have that kind of money, I gave everything to Lindsay, it’s all in her name. And I’m not gonna ask Mac for that: his money could be better spent.”
“Yeah, well, you know what they say, ‘friendship is like therapy, for poor people.’”
“I’m not much of a friend at the moment.”
“Well, let your friends be the judge of that.” Stella smiles. “And that’s step one of your therapy lesson: stop beating yourself up, if you need beating up you can rely on me to do it. As a friend.”
“Well, I’m a bad host at least.” Danny realises. “What would you like, something to drink, something to eat? There’s plenty of food in the fridge, Mac knows a restaurant owner who insists on giving us all the leftovers. It’s nice but it’s never gonna get eaten. Pick out what you fancy.” Danny offers. Stella picks out a simple pasta dish, with a cheese sauce and some broccoli. It’s in a microwavable container and she’s a scientist so she pops it in Mac’s microwave and figures the settings. “Please can I ask you a favour?”
“You can always ask,” Stella tells him.
“I was kinda hoping to take all this stuff to the homeless shelter but I don’t want to go alone, and I don’t want to bother Mac after all he’s done-“
“I’ll drive you after we’ve eaten.”
“Thank you.” Danny mutters. “Wait, ‘we’?”
“I don’t like eating alone,” Stella shrugs innocently. Danny nods as the microwave beeps, so he dishes the food out onto two plates, giving himself the smallest portion. He hands her a fork.
It takes him five minutes to eat four pieces of pasta and one piece of broccoli. He seems better for it though, talking a little more animatedly, before realising and withdrawing.
“Danny, you’re a New Yorker, you need an attitude to survive, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“I’m not ashamed.” Danny answers defensively. “I just wish I could control it more.”
“Maybe it helps if you’re not sleep-deprived.” Stella suggests.
“I doubt it, it never helped before.” Danny realises he’s done it again, he’s contradicted her. The look on his face as he figures out how to react makes Stella burst into laughter. Mac walks in.
“Well, this is nice to come home to.” He smiles. “Didn’t you make any for me?” Mac’s mouth waters upon smelling Ravi’s cuisine.
“You can have mine.” Danny tells him. Mac looks at him.
“Yeah, he’s had two mouthfuls. He’s full.” Stella remarks a little sarcastically.
“That’s bad, isn’t it?” Danny realises.
“No, it just means we’ll have to try again later. What made you change your mind?” Mac asks, around a forkful of pasta.
“I just wasn’t hungry before but Stella made me realise I might not be so useless if I started eating.”
“And sleeping.” Stella adds.
“That too.” Danny admits, his stomach digesting the food loudly and painfully. “It’s just not so easy.”
“You still up for the homeless shelter?” Stella asks.
“Are you sure you’re okay with driving me?” Danny answers with a question.
“Danny, stop being so polite, it bugs me.”
“Sorry.”
“Wait-“ Mac interrupts. “What’s this about the homeless shelter?”
“Danny wants to take some of the spare food there, before it goes bad.” Stella replies.
“Give me a couple of minutes to eat this and I’ll drive you.” Mac concludes. “You could text Melanie, let her know we’re coming.” Danny nods and gets on it. “You met Melanie yet?” Mac asks Stella.
“She’s real? I thought you were all making her up. She sounds way too good to be true.” Stella remarks.
“She’s as real as Danny is.” Mac grins. It may be wrong of him, but he was glad to find out that before she met Danny, she was in an abusive relationship and in a deep depression, thinking everything was her fault. It gives him hope.
“I’ve texted Melanie saying we’re on our way. Are you sure you want to drive and are you sure you still want to come?” Danny asks. Stella just glares, Mac laughs softly.
“Yeah, I want to drive. I’ll pick up Lucy on the way back.” Mac explains. “Lucy doesn’t always fall asleep in the car, but Danny’s so sleep-deprived he usually does.” Mac whispers to Stella, with a smile on his face. Stella smiles back.
TBC
part thirteen a: hostage situation
part thirteen b: hostage situation