CSI:NY (Flack/Lindsay); Prompt #8: Phobia
Fandom: CSI:NY
Title: Ever The Same
Characters: Don Flack, Lindsay Monroe
Prompt: #8, Phobia
Word Count: 1,231
Warnings: Vague allusions to relationship violence.
Disclaimer: The names of all characters contained herein are the property of Anthony Zuiker, Jerry Bruckheimer Television, CBS and Alliance Atlantis. No infringements of these copyrights are intended, and are used here without permission.
A/N: Minor crossover with Law and Order:SVU. Okay, so I love Dean Winters. Sue me. Crossposted; csi_ny_fic and flack_monroe, written for psych_30.
“Just let me hold you while you're falling apart
Just let me hold you and we'll both fall down”
-Rob Thomas
Lindsay’s first boyfriend was a boy who worked on her daddy’s ranch. His name was Jack and he had nice hands, and she thought (used to think, oh god used to) that nice hands were good hands. He was a good boy and he treated her right, buying her flowers and walking her home after school. Her daddy approved of Jack and that was good enough for Lindsay. But while Jack’s hands, some nights when her daddy was away, used to work wonders on her flesh, there were other hands in her life that did not work wonders.
She remembers Sam, the varsity track runner at college who asked her out on a date when he heard her cheering during the 50K run. He said all the right things (something that Lindsay has learned, over the years, that all the bad boys do) and then when the night was out he treated her badly. With bad boys it’s always take take take, and they never ask first, Lindsay wonders if bad boys ever had a mother to teach them how to treat girls right or a good father to tell them not to hit.
And the last boyfriend she remembers having - the last one worth remembering, at least - is a detective with the NYPD. She never told the CSI team about him, not even (especially not) Flack. Her boyfriend’s name was Brian Cassidy and he worked the Special Victims Unit, and she guessed all he was looking for was someone to love because his job is so goddamn hard. She held him at night and he would whisper how grateful he was; one night grateful transmuted into ‘I love you so much, Lindsay’ and she knew Cassidy didn’t mean it because hell, Lindsay Monroe is not Olivia Benson.
Now Lindsay works late in the lab because she has no one to go home to and she fears that’s the way it will always be. In Montana she had Jack and Sam, and her family. But here in the city she only has Cassidy (who says he loves her but he only ever saw Olivia when they slept together) and the CSIs. The team and Flack, that’s all she has. Sometimes she stays over Stella’s place because Stella has the same fear but it’s not the same as having someone hold you in the night.
Sometimes Flack stays late with her even though his shift ended hours ago and he should, by all rights, be home asleep. She can’t even comprehend why he’s staying here because she’s used to the solitude and yet she loves his company. He doesn’t talk often (he just watches, really) but sometimes he inserts random asides about policework or his life and that’s okay. One night it turns from randomosity into a two and a half hour conversation that has Lindsay forgetting good boys and bad boys and DNA; right now she’s focusing on Flack.
That night is the first night she calls him Don.
He brings her up to her apartment and as she’s bidding him goodnight it slips out. Not ‘Flack’ or even ‘detective,’ but ‘Don.’ And he grins at her, brushes a stray piece of hair behind her ear, and tells her he’ll see her tomorrow. But as he’s leaving, Flack turns around and tells her that he likes it when she calls him that, so from then on that’s what she calls him.
Three months later Danny’s convinced that Flack is in love with her but Lindsay will hear none of it, even when Hawkes seconds the view. She and Flack have gotten close; he takes her out to dinner after shift or they hang out after work at either one of their apartments. They see movies or whatever normal people do, people who don’t pick up the mess of chaos. But when Stella tells her, cautiously, that she sees what Danny and Hawkes are saying and maybe just maybe, Flack is in love with her, a seed of doubt is planted in her mind.
There is no longer something innocent in the way he always opens the door for her, in the way she’ll let him and no one else call her ‘Linds.’ She remembers the day Flack sent her flowers for no reason at all (she was so happy) and back then she didn’t wonder why but now she does. Lindsay finds herself examining everything that Flack does for her and every little thing points to one conclusion so one night after watching some movie she probably won’t remember in a week she tells him about good boys and bad boys.
She even tells him about Brian Cassidy from the NYPD and Flack’s eyes narrow at that; she can tell he’s thinking “If there’s something wrong with him I’m gonna find it” and “If he hurt her I’ll kill him” and even “Wonder what he has that I don’t?”
Lindsay doesn’t bother to tell Flack that there’s nothing wrong with Cassidy except for the fact that he’s in love with someone he can never have, and that he never hurt her, and that Cassidy could never outdo Flack. It’s really none of his business, even though it’s sort of nice to think that Flack is comparing himself to Cassidy and wondering.
When she tells about Sam she sees his hands clench and Lindsay can tell Flack wishes he knew where the kid was now, because God willing, he’d kill him. When she tells him about Jack it’s okay and Flack loosens up a little because hey, that’s how girls are supposed to be treated and Jack did it right.
Flack says something, something like “I need to tell you something’, Linds” and she’s shaking her head and moving away from him on the couch. She’s still afraid (of good and bad boys, of those inbetween, of being alone and other things too) and she doesn’t want this time to be ruined because of a silly thing like love. Which, by the way, is yet another thing she’s afraid of.
But now Flack has pulled her to him with a degree of force that would terrify another human being, yet with Lindsay she just blinks a few times and knows he only wants her to listen.
“I love you, you know. I really do love you. I think I understand now, at least a little bit, why you’re so afraid. But you need to know, Linds, that I’ll always be here.”
Lindsay bites her lower lip, a habit of hers that Flack finds endearing and on several occasions has made it a point to prase.
“But-”
He rests his forehead against hers, his hands tracing lazy circles on her back. After a few moments Lindsay relaxes and leans closer to him, her brown eyes meeting his own blue ones. After a few moments when his hands stop their tracing and rest firmly on the small of her back, and Flack says softly, “Love can be gentle, Lindsay.”
And Lindsay gasps softly because if anything she hadn’t been expecting him to be so sincere, so real.
Love can be good, love can be bad. Love can be full of unquestioned answers or unanswered questions. Love can be you and me. Love can be-
When the name came, it was a sigh, whispered with such reverence it was almost like a prayer.
“Don.”
Title: Ever The Same
Characters: Don Flack, Lindsay Monroe
Prompt: #8, Phobia
Word Count: 1,231
Warnings: Vague allusions to relationship violence.
Disclaimer: The names of all characters contained herein are the property of Anthony Zuiker, Jerry Bruckheimer Television, CBS and Alliance Atlantis. No infringements of these copyrights are intended, and are used here without permission.
A/N: Minor crossover with Law and Order:SVU. Okay, so I love Dean Winters. Sue me. Crossposted; csi_ny_fic and flack_monroe, written for psych_30.
“Just let me hold you while you're falling apart
Just let me hold you and we'll both fall down”
-Rob Thomas
Lindsay’s first boyfriend was a boy who worked on her daddy’s ranch. His name was Jack and he had nice hands, and she thought (used to think, oh god used to) that nice hands were good hands. He was a good boy and he treated her right, buying her flowers and walking her home after school. Her daddy approved of Jack and that was good enough for Lindsay. But while Jack’s hands, some nights when her daddy was away, used to work wonders on her flesh, there were other hands in her life that did not work wonders.
She remembers Sam, the varsity track runner at college who asked her out on a date when he heard her cheering during the 50K run. He said all the right things (something that Lindsay has learned, over the years, that all the bad boys do) and then when the night was out he treated her badly. With bad boys it’s always take take take, and they never ask first, Lindsay wonders if bad boys ever had a mother to teach them how to treat girls right or a good father to tell them not to hit.
And the last boyfriend she remembers having - the last one worth remembering, at least - is a detective with the NYPD. She never told the CSI team about him, not even (especially not) Flack. Her boyfriend’s name was Brian Cassidy and he worked the Special Victims Unit, and she guessed all he was looking for was someone to love because his job is so goddamn hard. She held him at night and he would whisper how grateful he was; one night grateful transmuted into ‘I love you so much, Lindsay’ and she knew Cassidy didn’t mean it because hell, Lindsay Monroe is not Olivia Benson.
Now Lindsay works late in the lab because she has no one to go home to and she fears that’s the way it will always be. In Montana she had Jack and Sam, and her family. But here in the city she only has Cassidy (who says he loves her but he only ever saw Olivia when they slept together) and the CSIs. The team and Flack, that’s all she has. Sometimes she stays over Stella’s place because Stella has the same fear but it’s not the same as having someone hold you in the night.
Sometimes Flack stays late with her even though his shift ended hours ago and he should, by all rights, be home asleep. She can’t even comprehend why he’s staying here because she’s used to the solitude and yet she loves his company. He doesn’t talk often (he just watches, really) but sometimes he inserts random asides about policework or his life and that’s okay. One night it turns from randomosity into a two and a half hour conversation that has Lindsay forgetting good boys and bad boys and DNA; right now she’s focusing on Flack.
That night is the first night she calls him Don.
He brings her up to her apartment and as she’s bidding him goodnight it slips out. Not ‘Flack’ or even ‘detective,’ but ‘Don.’ And he grins at her, brushes a stray piece of hair behind her ear, and tells her he’ll see her tomorrow. But as he’s leaving, Flack turns around and tells her that he likes it when she calls him that, so from then on that’s what she calls him.
Three months later Danny’s convinced that Flack is in love with her but Lindsay will hear none of it, even when Hawkes seconds the view. She and Flack have gotten close; he takes her out to dinner after shift or they hang out after work at either one of their apartments. They see movies or whatever normal people do, people who don’t pick up the mess of chaos. But when Stella tells her, cautiously, that she sees what Danny and Hawkes are saying and maybe just maybe, Flack is in love with her, a seed of doubt is planted in her mind.
There is no longer something innocent in the way he always opens the door for her, in the way she’ll let him and no one else call her ‘Linds.’ She remembers the day Flack sent her flowers for no reason at all (she was so happy) and back then she didn’t wonder why but now she does. Lindsay finds herself examining everything that Flack does for her and every little thing points to one conclusion so one night after watching some movie she probably won’t remember in a week she tells him about good boys and bad boys.
She even tells him about Brian Cassidy from the NYPD and Flack’s eyes narrow at that; she can tell he’s thinking “If there’s something wrong with him I’m gonna find it” and “If he hurt her I’ll kill him” and even “Wonder what he has that I don’t?”
Lindsay doesn’t bother to tell Flack that there’s nothing wrong with Cassidy except for the fact that he’s in love with someone he can never have, and that he never hurt her, and that Cassidy could never outdo Flack. It’s really none of his business, even though it’s sort of nice to think that Flack is comparing himself to Cassidy and wondering.
When she tells about Sam she sees his hands clench and Lindsay can tell Flack wishes he knew where the kid was now, because God willing, he’d kill him. When she tells him about Jack it’s okay and Flack loosens up a little because hey, that’s how girls are supposed to be treated and Jack did it right.
Flack says something, something like “I need to tell you something’, Linds” and she’s shaking her head and moving away from him on the couch. She’s still afraid (of good and bad boys, of those inbetween, of being alone and other things too) and she doesn’t want this time to be ruined because of a silly thing like love. Which, by the way, is yet another thing she’s afraid of.
But now Flack has pulled her to him with a degree of force that would terrify another human being, yet with Lindsay she just blinks a few times and knows he only wants her to listen.
“I love you, you know. I really do love you. I think I understand now, at least a little bit, why you’re so afraid. But you need to know, Linds, that I’ll always be here.”
Lindsay bites her lower lip, a habit of hers that Flack finds endearing and on several occasions has made it a point to prase.
“But-”
He rests his forehead against hers, his hands tracing lazy circles on her back. After a few moments Lindsay relaxes and leans closer to him, her brown eyes meeting his own blue ones. After a few moments when his hands stop their tracing and rest firmly on the small of her back, and Flack says softly, “Love can be gentle, Lindsay.”
And Lindsay gasps softly because if anything she hadn’t been expecting him to be so sincere, so real.
Love can be good, love can be bad. Love can be full of unquestioned answers or unanswered questions. Love can be you and me. Love can be-
When the name came, it was a sigh, whispered with such reverence it was almost like a prayer.
“Don.”