Fanfic, an angsty one: Chained
I shouldn’t be the one to say this, but I felt this story a lot. I wish you will enjoy reading some good, honest, Danny’s angst. Martin is there with him, because he loves Danny to pieces.
Title: Chained
Pairing: Danny/Martin
Rating: PG-13.
Warnings: angst, quite Danny-centric.
Spoilers: only the ones previous to and about Off the tracks.
Summary: it takes place some months after Off the tracks, but goes AU.
Disclaimer: Without a Trace belongs to CBS & Warner Bros. Danny and Martin belong to them, too. No, sadly they don’t belong to me.
Author’s note: I had two special friends as my betas.
redfairie19betaed my fic and she gave me precious tips as an added bonus.
leopardchic79was the other beta to the first part and was as helpful. Love you, guys! As I modified a few things trying to blend them with my two betas, all the mistakes are mine.
Written for the
new_wat_order July challenge. Mood-theme: crushed.
Chained
The suffocated and monotonous cry of a woman echoed throughout the wide empty corridor. As soon as he turned round the corner, he spotted the thin and dark figure on the opposite end. Her silhouette was dark and confused, the dim light, too feeble to detail her delicate features, her long black hair. A rosary was nervously entwined between her tiny fingers and the crucifix at the end of the long lace rope swung from side to side, creating long dancing shadows on the wall.
His footsteps were strenuous and slow. The woman’s cry passed his ears and reached him deep in his brain, penetrating inside like a thousand needles, painfully sharp, piercing his skin.
He tried to swallow but the pins and needles seemed to have moved to the inside of his throat. He cleared it, groaning in a subdued tone. He knew that he’d need to keep his voice clear and distinct and very steady when he talked to the tiny woman.
It was night. That’s why the neon lights had been turned down. Weird how he could still make his mind process on details. On his right there was an enlargement of the corridor to make space to a few scattered plastic brown chairs that hours before had probably been neatly arranged. They’d wait for the cleaner in the morning to be set in a row again. At the sides of the corridor enlargement there were two restrooms, their doors facing each other and separated by a large glass window that allowed the city lights from downtown and the moonlight above to filter inside. It contrasted the black sky - no stars tonight - heavy with a burden of mystery and dreads.
He glanced at the far lights and shivered. They didn’t belong to him now.
As he got closer, her black silhouette put on the faded colors of an afterglow in the low lights of the hospital ward.
He frowned, gazing into her wide open, rounded shaped, deep eyes. She had suddenly gotten older, showing lines and eye-bags that he could swear had never been there before. Her cheek-bones stood out more than usual now that her face had become skinnier and her cheeks were stained with tears, her whole portrait seeming to have materialized out of a 16th century Caravaggio’s painting: dark, but still vivid and pulsing, big expressive eyes sticking out of an oddly pale skin.
She held his gaze, and her look was cold and visibly drowned in her pain.
Danny stopped right before her,
“Sylvia”, a whisper.
“Hijo de puta! Te odio. Tù lo has matado!” she yelled at him.
“He will make it.”
He knew he couldn’t be sure about that, but he needed to believe in it.
“Te odio! Hijo de putaaaa!” Sylvia shouted the words with a shrill, high tone in her voice, prolonging the last vowel, unable to stop screaming, breaking down and surrendering to her fears.
She launched herself against Danny, fists crumpled raised to hit him on his chest repeatedly. Danny stood there, eyes closed, absorbing the bashes, tense muscles, - not reacting, not trying to stop her.
Danny’s clouded mind heard Spanish words that Sylvia’s brother behind her was shouting while grabbing her and taking her away from there. He apologised and dragged Sylvia with him, the two of them disappearing from Danny’s sight, stepping past him to walk along that same corridor he had come from to possibly reach a vending machine or a washroom or the exit. Danny couldn’t tell.
All he knew was that he was in front of the ICU room and didn’t want to move further. It would mean this was happening for real and no, it couldn’t be true. Not now, not now that they had found each other after so many years.
His hand reached for the doorknob, and when had he given his arm the order to move?
His eyes squinted to adjust to the dim light in the room. A nurse was checking the vital levels on a monitor. Flashing lights and the regular beating and breathing noise provided artificially informed him Rafi was still alive. She turned around and cracked a shy smile, softly reminding Danny that he was allowed five minutes in the room with Mr. Alvarez before she quietly nodded and left.
Danny moved cautiously forward and took a seat on a chair by Rafi’s bed. His eyes watched the man lying with a tube in his throat and the pallor of his face evident even in the grey dark of the room, but his mind couldn’t see any of this. No, this had to be just a black and white nightmare Danny was trapped in, and all he had to do was wait patiently for the sunrise to light the morning and shove him from his heavy slumber till he would finally wake up.
First thing tomorrow he’d be phoning Rafi in prison and reassuring him that he’d find a way and Rafi just needed to hold on a little longer and then it would be all over and fine, and he would get out of there and hold his baby girl in his strong, loving arms for the first time and hug Nicky and Sylvia and tell them he wouldn’t leave them anymore.
Danny started to cuddle Rafi’s hand in his while whispering to him what he’d do in the morning, except he wasn’t talking at all, his mouth still tightly shut, and only then Danny noticed all the tubes connecting Rafi to the machines and that huge plastic tube rising from his mouth.
He raised his eyes to Rafi’s chest as it moved in time with the hiss coming from the machine. Regular like a metronome, the unreal rhythm reminded him of the unrelenting flow of time. The heart monitor beeped rhythmically, and Danny was positive that Rafi’s heart was pumping blood to his brain and to his feet, in the miracle of life.
All was in black and white. The room, the bed. The only gliding light was filtering from the corridor with the complicity of the half-shut door.
Danny leaned his head to kiss Rafi’s hand in a sudden motion of love and regret.
He wasn’t lingering in his recent memories. No, he was not thinking of Rafi in jail, and him visiting him, getting in touch with a good lawyer, going to the hospital when Sylvia had their beautiful baby girl, and Rafi wanted to call her Consuelo, nicknamed Chelo, after their mother.
He wasn’t thinking of when he had started to lessen the number and the frequency of his visits and his help, ditching a hearing because of a weary missing person’s case that had taken him to North Carolina, ignoring Rafi’s symptoms about the use of drugs, telling himself that, one year from then, Rafi would be out on parole and he would take care to take him to a detox center.
No, his mind was not wandering across those recent memories.
He was feeling the warmth in Rafi’s hand, he was still holding it, and it reminded him the warmth of their mom, her smile, her hugs, her voice, sweeter and musical any year that passed since the last time he had actually heard it.
His mind was lingering into the far memories of Rafi and him at home, the smell and the taste of the hand-made Cuban specialties and Mama calling them loudly and asking them to set the table because “la comida es lista” * . (*dinner’s ready)
He tried to pull down the memories of his father, his booze, mama’s tears, their fights.
Danny tried not to chuckle under his breath while intent to stare at their hands, as his eyes deceived him, telling him that their blood was flowing from one to the other through their veins, connected through their entwined fingers.
Two brothers who had shared the burden of growing up in a poor Cuban family where love and violence, pride and addiction, poverty and dignity were all blended together. A place in his memory where Danny had tried his first English words, at first grade, where he had stopped calling someone ‘Mama’ at the age of 11. A family of two, then, where Danny had never considered Rafi as another victim, but as the big brother who had never taken care of him, who had always preferred heroin, and sports cars - possibly stolen - and luxury to his little brother.
Danny stared with his eyes getting moist at Rafi’s quiet expression.
Earlier in the evening his cell had started to ring insistently.
“Rafi had a heart-attack. They said his heart stopped beating for three minutes, then they managed to restart it. They say it’s the drugs. He had gone back to heroin. He was depressed, Danny. He was so depressed.”
Sylvia’s desperate phone call had reached him while he was doing some paperwork at the office. Martin wasn’t there. He was driving back to Federal Plaza with Jack after they had taken the missing woman back to her house and family. Danny had tried to reassure Sylvia, asked her at which hospital Rafi was and then, before rushing out of the office, he had left a note to Martin:
Rafi at the Flushing Hospital Medical Center, 43-40 Parsons Blvd, Flushing. Stroke. Going there. Don’t know when I’m home.
Danny knew that he had written a cry for help. Informing Martin of what had happened and where he was comforted him a little. He could feel Martin’s worry and support even from that far and his subconscious, well, no, he was actually very aware of it, wished that Martin would reach him and be on his side.
He smiled. Strange enough, in this moment, seated by his brother and breathing at his rhythm, he was feeling peaceful.
He started to rub Rafi’s hand with his thumb.
One day, Martin and him had brushed their arms and looked in each other’s eyes, in a way they had never allowed themselves to do before, Danny had thought there was hope for him to be happy in this life.
He had not confessed Rafi he was gay, yet, so he had resisted the temptation to run to Rikers to shout out loud that Martin and him were staying together, that they had professed their reciprocated love and that life was wonderful.
He had tried eventually, but the pain and frustration surging in him whenever he witnessed Rafi’s fall towards hell had held his enthusiasm.
When Rafi would get out of jail on parole, he told himself, they would celebrate and Danny would officially invite Martin as his boyfriend and Rafi would be happy for him.
“I promise I’ll be by your side. I won’t let you be alone to face this. You were never alone, but I’m sorry if you felt that way.
Can you feel my hand? Can you feel your little brother, Rafi?
I’m scared. Please, stay. Don’t leave me. I need you.”
Was he really saying this loud? He couldn’t hear his own voice, he couldn’t tell if his lips had ever moved.
A swish of the door and the nurse kindly invited him out. He nodded, eyes glued on Rafi’s pale face. He grasped Rafi’s hand, bended over and kissed him on his forehead, inhaling his brother’s smell, that talked of hospital and medicines, jail and drugs, in a disturbing mixture of different feelings crowding Danny’s mind and revolting his stomach.
The nurse’s soft, but solid voice pulled Danny back to the reality of a hospital room and a man pended between life and death, a junky con whose fate nobody would bother to worry about.
Danny needed to gather all of his strength and concentration to command his legs to stand and walk towards the door. As his hand rest on the doorknob he turned around,
“Sleep well”
This time he was certain that his lips were locked shut, his bottom lip almost swallowed by his top lip.
“Hey,”
Softly, reassuring. A voice he knows. A hand posed sweetly on his shoulder, pressing just enough to be felt, but strong enough to witness care and closeness.
Danny slowly closed the door, still looking inside, and only when the door clicked shut he turned to look at Martin in the eyes. Martin’s expression was uptight and concerned scanning his face like a x-ray machine, and it wasn’t hard to guess that Martin was possibly reading his infinite sadness, his deep will to cry, but Danny made a point he wouldn’t, his sense of hopeless loneliness.
Sylvia wasn’t there. Martin explained that she and her brother had gone home to take care of the children, left for some hours at a neighbour’s. She had to go home to check in with them and breastfeed Chelo.
Danny heard everything in an absent mood and only when he registered Martin’s frowning in doubt, he nodded in acknowledgement.
He let Martin leading him to a seat by the pressing of a hand behind his back.
… … … …
As soon as Danny was put to sit down, Martin started to quietly brushing a hand up and down his back. Danny was unfocusedly staring at the far wall, his expression blank in its sadness. Martin was watching him attentively, careful to catch any variation in his features, a sigh, a slight opening of his mouth.
He knew was going on. He knew Danny better than Danny himself could state.
To get into the Danny’s-way-of-thinking and Danny’s-way-of-feeling had become Martin’s main hobby, maybe even obsession, from the moment he had fallen for Danny, a long time ago.
When they had gotten together, Martin believed he’d already discovered all the beauty inside of Danny, but he was wrong. To start dating him had been a blast, and the build of their relationship a blessed struggle, as it was hard to gain Danny’s trust even then.
Any time Martin would conquer little pieces of his heart and his mind and Danny would smile at him in trust and affection it was as precious as the blossom of a new, tender and delicate flower. Martin was proud to think that their complicity was an established matter and that Danny had finally started to relax and to rely on their love.
Martin could read Danny and anticipate his thoughts so well that he knew that, besides being devastated, Danny was feeling guilty.
Martin and Danny had talked about telling Rafi the truth about them, and any time Danny had postponed it. Martin had respected Danny’s hesitation, trying to understand his perspective, but had then witnessed his slow but consistent decline of attention towards his brother and his issues.
Too scared of confronting Rafi, not wanting to lie to him Danny waned his contacts with him. Thirsty for affection, devouring to enjoy his cherish moments, Danny had chosen not to interact with him, not to see, not to know.
It was as if old, resentful, scared Danny won over Danny’s recently rediscovered mercy and love for Rafi again. It had been a down slope, and, though Martin rationally knew that he should bring the matter up and gently push back Danny to take care of Rafi and his family, it’d be really hard to bring Danny to talk and discuss about it without putting him in a defensive mode in the blink of an eye.
The weeks had passed by and Rafi’s freefall to hell had only come to his end when his heart had stopped beating painfully in his chest. He was in the limbo between life and death and no doubt Danny was feeling miserable.
Martin had never judged him. Danny was a brave agent, but when it came to his private life and his affections, he was like the same scared kid whose alcoholic father would yell and punish his sons only according to the percentage of alcohol currently flooding in his blood. Danny didn’t really know what was right and what was wrong and why he should feel love and not rage for the entire world.
While his hand was still moving along Danny’s back, Martin started to murmur soothing words. Danny didn’t respond, frozen like a fragile crystal vase that can’t be moved without the risk to shatter in one thousand pieces.
Martin waited.
The sound of subdued Spanish voices approaching alerted Martin to the presence of Sylvia and her brother back to the ICU. Unless they spoke English, which was unlikely to happen, given their anxious state, Martin would have to interact with them in their language. He could understand about half of a normal Spanish conversation and he usually asked Danny to translate the remaining 50 %, but this time the weight would be entirely on him.
Surprisingly, though, Sylvia’s brother talked in English. He stopped in front of Danny and cleared his throat,
“Danny, my sister and I talked. We know it’s not on you if Rafi took back to use drugs. He just… sort of never stopped since the repair shop issue.”
In a cracking voice, Sylvia interrupted her brother,
“Danny, please, help me doing something for Rafi. Don’t leave us alone one more time.”
“I’m sorry.”
Danny’s head bowed to his chest, the words only a whispered sound, but Martin’s heart skipped a beat when he heard them. It was the first time that Danny had uttered something since he had reached him at the hospital.
Martin met Sylvia’s curious look. Either she was wondering what a whitebread co-worker of her brother-in-law was doing there or she had guessed the truth. Martin hoped for the second. It was high time that things were clear.
Martin stood up and took a few steps away to give them more privacy, something obviously having happened when Danny and Sylvia had previously met. He could hear some broken words in Spanish now, and hoped Danny would finally break, but he could only see him standing and stretching out his arms to receive Sylvia in a hug, the tiny woman almost swallowed by Danny’s broad shoulders and long back, as if he was trying and protect her against fate.
As they parted, a physician appeared from the ICU opposite entrance. He was attentively reading some report in a patient’s folder while stepping forward until he met Sylvia’s eyes and stopped to enquire her and the other present people,
“Are you Rafael Alvarez’ wife? Are you gentlemen related to him?”
A general nod allowed him to go on speaking and Martin to step closer.
“Rafael is steady and we’re hopeful to get him through the night. There’s no need for you to be here at the moment and I’d strongly suggest you to go home and get some sleep. If anything happens, either the patient is waking up or his conditions shall become more critical, a nurse will contact you immediately.”
As he finished with the talking, the doctor left, a fake reassuring smile firmly in place as he passed past his anxious little audience.
…………
“It is for the best”.
Martin had had his hard time in driving Danny out if that dull corridor and have him seated in the passenger seat of his car. Not that Danny had said more than a barely audible word at a time, but it was damn clear that he wasn’t willing to leave. Neither was Sylvia.
Her brother and Martin had to take the lead of the situation and agreed to make shifts. The first night shift would be Sylvia and her brother’s. Danny would replace them in the morning. He absolutely needed some sleep. Their latest case had drained both Martin and him to exhaustion.
Danny had mumbled something and flamed Martin with a hurt gaze, but Martin had boldly managed to ignore it and physically drag Danny away. As crushed as he was, Danny couldn’t resist much longer and Martin wanted him to feel comfortable enough to let go. A hospital corridor with plastic chairs and two needy relatives seeking for his help weren’t exactly what Martin had in mind.
He brought Danny home.
Their apartment.
Martin had moved in a couple of months ago. He knew that Danny was proud of himself. He had let somebody get into his life. Martin could recall those early moments one by one. Danny’s nervousness, his quick movements when helping Martin unpacking and his few words of wonder and excitement about how natural it was to have him around. Danny couldn’t believe he had had issues with strong bonds and he was staring at Martin as if he was the wizard who had made the magic to him.
Danny had teased Martin to death about how to share his bathroom closet to Martin’s shaving and bathing soaps had added spice to his hygiene routine habits and to let him hang those idle ties and corny suits in his closet was a punch in the stomach any time he looked inside. His bed was big enough for both and it was nice for him to wake up and needle Martin to have morning sex. Danny had claimed the kitchen as his reign, to Martin’s total agreement, so almost everything had been set up happily. Some of his books and CDs were still lying stacked in their packing boxes, tossed somewhere in the living-room, but he and Danny were -slowly- working on it.
………
He felt Martins’ hands on his waist taking control of his body movements and leading him to their bedroom. He found himself sitting on the edge of the bed while Martin was helping him to undress. He felt his jacket’s sleeves roll off his arms and the soft noise of the heavy linen touching with his bed, tossed away by the strong, caring, perfect hands that were dancing before his eyes.
His mind couldn’t think anymore. somehow he was still sitting by Rafi’s bed of sorrow. Somehow his eyes were fluttering and somehow he started to mutter something, except that the words he wanted to let out wouldn’t come, stuck in his throat, like a sticky chewing-gum glued to the bottom of his mouth, forbidding him to breathe and to swallow, and giving him a sickening sensation of choking.
In the effort to speak, Danny started to feel his stomach heavy, willing to get rid of the content inside, and retched.
…………
Martin moved aside, Danny stood up and rushed to the bathroom. He followed as fast, and when he got there Danny was already on his knees, throwing up bent upon the toilet.
Martin took a cloth from the closet and wet it from under the tap to soothe Danny’s neck and face, violently flushed red for the effort. He was debating in himself between being very concerned or relieved, because in some way Danny had started to react and release. He leaned beside Danny and caressed his neck with the cool cloth, while flushing the toilet with the other hand.
When he was done, he helped Danny up and felt his grip on his arm, strong and desperate. Danny washed his mouth up, attempting to sustaining himself with his hands clutched on the sink, but little by little his knees gave away and he bended. His face’s expression shifted to a grimace as he landed on the floor, his face hidden in his hands as his body shook. His back leaned against the tab’s outer side, his sobs subtle in the beginning, but increasingly intense and desperate.
Martin slid to the floor next to Danny and pulled him tight to his chest. He could feel Danny sobbing, hands still suffocating his face when he leaned his own to dig with his nose into Danny’s hair, Danny curling his face in Martin’s nook, an instinctual need for comfort and relief. Martin’s eyes closed as he started to rock Danny slightly, still wrapping him into his firm, but loving embrace. Danny started to babble some broken words between his sobs,
“I don’t know what to do, I… don’t know what love is…”
“Yes, you do.”
“No, I… can’t…”
“Yes, babe. You can. You can love.”
Martin’s voice had never been this soft and smooth.
He squeezed his eyes, feeling his own tears starting to wet them. He had to hold. This wasn’t about him, now. He needed to be the strong one. The body, flesh, bones and muscles, that he was holding and cuddling, belonged to the man who had made the world worth living in and Martin’s days be perfect, even in the toughness and the misery of the human condition thrown on his face on a regular basis at work.
Now Danny needed he could hang on to him.
He lifted Danny’s shoulders just a little bit to be able to dig his face and touch with his right cheek Danny’s. He let his cheek get wet with Danny’s tears, and Danny’s body heat invading him, making him sweat.
All of Martin’s blood seemed to be pumping into his heart, as if it was his only working organ, swollen and shattered altogether.
After a few seconds, Danny tried to pull apart, but Martin kept him from moving of an inch. Danny apologised,
“Sorry… I… I’m soaking you.”
Moved, Martin swallowed,
“Your tears are my tears.”
Their voices whispering in each other’s ear, as if they feared to be heard by some stranger intruding in their exclusive reciprocated unique relationship.
At the sound of his last words Martin felt Danny squeezing his back to pull him tighter. Silent, sitting on the bathroom’s cold floor, a blinding fluorescent light over them, and their embrace is the world.
If only Rafi was safe, Martin’s mind lingered to the reason of Danny’s deep distress. The doctor’s words echoed in his mind. They’d have some hours sleep and then back to the hospital unless there were news of some sort.
He softly eased Danny to get up and headed with him to bed. As soon as they got silently dressed for the night, Danny climbed on their bed, curling in a corner, face hidden between the sheet.
Martin shook his head and smiled, his eyes getting watering and his stomach gripping tight. He wouldn’t let him sleep alone. He reached, making Danny turn around, and adjusted him to sleep on his chest. No more words. He wrapped Danny in his arms and kissed his hair softly.
In the dark of the night and the warmth of their blanket and their entwined bodies, exhausted, they got into the oblivion of sleep in a heartbeat.
There still was the dim public light filtering across the curtains and the cold black of the night all around when, at 4, the telephone rang.
Martin felt Danny wincing in his arms, shivering. He stretched to reach the phone when Danny’s hand squeezed his and stopped him from lifting the receiver.
“He’s my brother.”
Danny took the phone in his hand and answered.
Fin