Grind To A Halt
Title: Grind To A Halt
Author: Miss Capitaine/deliciouslycrzy
Rating: T
Genre: Angst/Hurt/Comfort
Pairings: Ross/Nichols, mentions of Ross/Rodgers
Summary: He could still smell the blood.
Warnings: There's a 50/50 chance that you'll need tissues( my beta and I disagree on this), and Drunk Zach is disorienting.
Spoilers: Revolution
Note: This was supposed to be a short, fluffy happy scene between Zach and Danny at the request of sipman , but it quickly spiraled down a darker path. Hey, bright side; no major character death. Drunk Zach is really, really hard to write, by the way. Also, not to give too much away, but a certain memory of Zach's was inspired by some off-hand mentions in Broad Channel, and if I ever get around to finishing my Zach/Danny partners fic, you'll get the whole story. Italics are memories and are in the present tense. One day this may have a companion piece in which all of this is resolved, but at the moment...
-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-
Zach could still smell the blood.
A day and three showers later, Zach could still smell the blood.
It was a cloying smell, one that seemed to stick to him and his clothes no matter how many times he tried to wash it out.
He had been so close. A few more seconds and he would have been able to save her. Get that tilt switch from around her neck, save her, save the hostages all at the same time. The tick of the bomb had rung in his ears and a strange, macabre sense of deja-vu had gone over him. A few seconds.
But he hadn't had a few seconds. A trigger had been pulled, and instead of a living, breathing girl standing in front of him, there was a dead one in his arms. He could still smell the blood, so when Eames offered to buy him a drink after they had finished paperwork, he had jumped on the chance to dull his senses. The smell... The smell stuck to him, reminded him of an eerily familiar situation with a slightly better outcome. The two separate events seemed to twine in his memory, and he had to force himself to remember only one was dead. Not the other.
He listened to Eames talk, mostly about inconsequential things; she was trying to take his mind off if it, but she was grieving too, for Birgit, and it wasn't long before one drink turned into seven, and before Zach knew it he was watching Eames basically getting carried out of the bar by her big bear of a partner.
“You... You should probably call him.” Goren had said, in that stuttering, perceptive way of his, and for a moment Zach had to think about what the detective could have possibly been talking about.
He then realized that his cell-phone was sitting on the table in front of him, open to his contact list, the little select bar flashing on a name. “Danny”.
An explosion, shattered glass, blood, blood everywhere, Zach is coated in it but it’s not his, and it’s all he can do to keep Danny up, keep his heart elevated because that's the only thing he can remember from when he was in med school. Danny is mumbling something, Zach can't understand him and that scares the hell out of him, but he hides it as he calls in for assistance on the radio. He doesn't want to upset Danny. The smell of blood fills his nose.
Zach closed his eyes, massaging his forehead with a shaky hand; with his other, he picked up his cell-phone and clicked dial.
-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-
Blood, glass, smoke fills his lungs and he welcomes it, anything to dull the copper tang that is overwhelming. Danny's gasping for air and Zach can hear sirens, they pierce the fog that seemed to surround him, he should feel relieved but he's not sure it'll be enough because there is so much blood, on his hands, soaking through his shirt and it’s not his. It’s not his, and Danny's having a harder time breathing.
The liquor only seemed to make the memories more vivid, but Zach was ever the optimist and by the time Danny showed up (It felt like hours to his bedraggled mind, but a glance at the clock showed only twenty minutes had passed), he was on his ninth glass, and he had to keep rubbing his eyes and pinching himself to dull the thoughts that wanted to overtake his senses.
As it was, he was not aware of Danny's presence at first. An alcohol induced fog had fallen over him, and it was taking all of his brain cells to concentrate on lifting the glass of whiskey to his lips and swallowing. He felt the cold liquid trickle down his throat, but the burn was gone. He was numb.
The glass was tugged out of his hand; He blinked and his eyes strained to examine his now empty fingers. He felt suddenly sad at the loss of the liquor. “Hey... hey.”
“Hey Zach.” A familiar voice wafted into the haze, and Zach cocked his head in confusion.
“Danny?” There was a smell in the air, one that made Zach want to salivate and vomit at the same time. He shook his head, trying to focus, and then suddenly, there it was.
Coffee.
A tall, dark, refreshingly hot balm for his fried brain... holding a cup of coffee to sober him up. Fuck. Zach shifted uncomfortably in his seat as he accepted the hot beverage from his former partner; Danny didn't notice, or at least pretended not to.
Blood, gas, explosions fade, replaced by a thick smell of liquor, sweat and sex. New York Summers are tough, but Danny and Zach keep busy in the only way-cold water pounds down Zach's bare back as he sits in the shower in his apartment, a beer in one hand and his other hand on Danny's-
Zach took a large gulp of coffee; the liquid burned his tongue, and the memory receded, leaving only an increased constrictive feeling in the area of his pants. The first time in months, years, even, he'd had such a reaction to Danny's presence. Fuck. “I am drunk.” He announced, and he could heard the slur in his words, the slightly higher pitch to his voice, and he snorted.
“I had no idea.” The sarcasm was heavy in Danny's voice, and Zach smiled in spite of the fact that he was being mocked. He took another sip of coffee, and the haze around his mind cleared a bit more. His eyesight blurred back into focus, and he saw Danny, sitting in the booth opposite him, holding his own cup of coffee. He looked tired, he always looked tired these days, and Zach felt something painfully similar to guilt begin to eat at him.
“I woke you up.” He muttered, and then tried to stand up; he could hail his own cab. “Sorry, to, uh- Sorry, Captain.” He stumbled, his hands scrambling at the table for support, and he fell back into the booth with an 'oompth.’
Danny gave him a concerned look, but ignored the obvious transition to 'Captain' territory. “No you didn't.” He replied finally, standing up. He came around to Zach and held a hand out, an inscrutable look in his pale eyes. “Time to go home.”
Zach's eyebrows knitted together sluggishly. “Didn't?” He frowned, and looked down at his cup of coffee, ignoring the hand in front of him, as if he hadn't heard the second part of what Danny had said. “Interrupted 'Lizzie-time'?” He guessed again, and then raised a drunken eyebrow as he felt Danny's arm around his waist. “Hey, no dinner first? I'm not easy.” Zach couldn't control his mouth; he just kept on talking, the words flowing from his tongue freely, and he began to remember why he usually stayed away from alcohol.
To his credit, Danny just shook his head and tugged him up on his feet. “I was still at work.” He began to lead Zach out of the bar, and Zach found himself laughing, at what, he didn't know, but something.
Maybe it was the fact that Danny's body was so warm against the cold that seemed to seep into his very bones, or that nine shots of whiskey seemed to mess with his mind in more ways than one. Whatever it was, his former partner’s arm being wrapped around his waist felt really good. Which is bad.
They made it into a cab, and Zach sort of slumped against Danny, as if he had suddenly lost all control over his muscles. His head was resting on Danny's shoulder, and he looked up at him, his best innocent smile plastered on his face. “You're warm.” Zach could see that Danny didn't know what to say to that; he could see the look in Danny's eyes now, one of sympathy, and Zach knew that he didn't know what was really going on. He frowned and straightened up, leaning against the closed door of the cab for support instead.
“Hey, where to?” The voice of the cabbie was gruff, and Zach started at the sound of it.
Danny looked at Zach, who frowned. “Uh... Closest hotel. It's uh... Sun something.”
“Days Inn?”
“Yeah.” And that was the last thing Zach remembered for awhile. His eyelids drifted closed, to the sound of Danny speaking softly to the cab driver.
Blood pounding in his ears, Zach shoves Danny up against the shower wall, groans as he grinds their hips together hard, the water pours down both of them and Zach can taste it on Danny's skin as he licks and bites at the skin beneath his earlobe, a low groan in his ear- blood, blood everywhere, Zach's hands are covered in it as he tries to hold close the worst of the wounds, holding Danny up at the same time, leaned against a wall to keep his heart elevated.
-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-
Zach woke up on a very lumpy couch.
His first thought was, Where the hell am I? It didn't look like his hotel room, had a much bigger TV than the one in his hotel, the carpet wasn't carpet, it was wood floors, and his hotel most certainly didn't have Danny Ross asleep on a reclining chair.
Zach frowned, wondering briefly on how he had gotten here, before a more urgent thought crossed his mind. Fuck. A wave of nausea hit him suddenly, at which first Zach was surprised but then he remembered that he'd had nearly ten shots of whiskey so the surprise disappeared, replaced with an overwhelming need to- Zach leaned forward and grabbed or the bucket that someone, Obviously Danny, had thoughtfully placed on the coffee table.
He wiped at his mouth, his nose wrinkling slightly at the sour taste on his tongue. He put the bucket back on the coffee table, just in case, and leaned back against the couch, one head on his stomach and the other on his forehead as he tried to figure the situation out.
He was still drunk. It was almost gone, the drunken haze, but he could still feel its remnants, tugging at him, trying to get him to fall back into that lovely place of numbness where the nausea didn't exist and there were no silly things such as common sense. A lot of time had passed since what he could last remember, but he had the sense that he hadn't been asleep the entire time. He was still clothed, and Danny was asleep on an entirely different piece of furniture, so Zach was pretty sure that there had been no drunken, messy, friendship and maybe career ruining sex. Which wasn't something he particularly cared about, but he wouldn't...
Wouldn't do that to Danny.
He still didn't like the fact that he couldn't remember anything, however.
-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-
He was drinking coffee at Danny's kitchen table ten minutes later when the memory began to trickle back to him.
He's so drunk, so very drunk, but he knows what he wants to say, so he tries, his speech slurring as they both walk into Danny's living room. He doesn't know why they're there, but it doesn't matter.
“I love you.”
Danny freezes for only a second, then rolls his eyes and responds, “I love you too Zach,” in the tone that means he thinks it’s only the alcohol talking, voicing mutual feelings of now-platonic love.
Zach shakes his head, hazy annoyance drifting into his thoughts, and he stumbles and catches himself on the edge of the couch. “No, I mean…” He drifts off as Danny lightly pushes him down onto the couch. He opens his mouth to speak again, but Danny's walking away, towards the kitchen, and Zach frowns and crosses his arms childishly. “Danny... I'm serious.” He's stumbling over his words, he can't keep them from falling from his lips, and he hopes that Danny can at least get the meaning behind his gibberish. “I love you, and I know you don't... You're with Lizzie, love Lizzie, and don't-don't love me like that anymore and that's... okay. It's okay, can deal with it, wouldn't even be telling you, but today... today was... reminded me of... you, being blown up and-” He hears that his voice is beginning to crack, and he hates it, but he finishes what he was saying anyway.“Rough day.”
-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-
When Danny woke up a few hours later, he found a note on his coffee table, one that simply read:
Captain Ross,
Taking some time off. Sorry.
~Nichols
Danny rubbed the bridge of his nose, trying to stave off an already forming migraine.
“Fuck.”