.fic: Biscayne - D/M 1.1
Title: Biscayne
By: HF
Email: aesc36 @gmail.com
Pairing: Danny/Martin
Rating/Warnings: PG/PG13ish. No warnings as such.
Disclaimer: Without a Trace belongs to Jerry Bruckheimer, CBS, and very likely many other people.
Advertisements: Yet another addition to the weird nameless AU that continues to defy my attempts to make it stop growing. In order to achieve full enlightenment and spiritual transcendence, you must read the following in this order: Sons, A Long Time Coming, Every Distance, Blue River, and (last but not least) Sons and Lovers.
Notes: A long-meditated companion to the second chapter of "Blue River." The impulse for this fic came from maygra, who wanted to see a bit more resolution for Danny at the end of the series. At first I wasn't sure, but upon further reflection, I realized that she's right. "Blue River" was written mostly to resolve Martin's lingering issues from "Every Distance," but there are still a few things from that and "A Long Time Coming" that have to come together for Danny. So, everyone thank/blame Maygra, as you deem appropriate :)
BISCAYNE
The last time Danny had gone down to Blue River, a fourteen-year-old cutting class for a few days, he and Rafi had stayed in one of the small, cheap hotels near the docks.
It had smelled like fish, he remembered. Old fish.
Looking back on those days as a college kid newly escaped from Florida’s social services, he’d thought it was because Rafi needed easy access to a boat for his drug-running operation, and the one time he’d seen his brother in prison - just after he’d been sentenced, and not once again in nine years - he’d asked him that. How much money did you make off that trip, Rafi?
Rafi had sworn he hadn’t done anything on that trip. Not that time we went to Blue River, Danny. I swear.
Danny hadn’t believed him at first. Almost never did, until they were in that abandoned garage, and he was wrapped around Rafi like he was going to disappear, and then he did - had to, with his brother in his arms.
So, when Martin had told him to decide where they would go for leave, Danny had known immediately where they were going. As he’d made the arrangements and teased Martin about finding out when they got there, he’d resolutely pushed his fears - that he’d somehow become fucked-up Danny Alvarez again, that he’d wake up and find nothing had changed since the day after his parents died - to the back of his mind.
That, if he was being excruciatingly honest with himself, Martin would dismiss him, this place, the one happy memory Danny’s childhood had afforded him, one without any bitterness in it now. He owed Martin more than that, he knew, because Martin hadn’t ever judged him. Not for anything - his family, his alcoholism, none of it.
And that Martin liked Blue River… Danny couldn’t quite believe it, and hated that he couldn’t. Couldn’t let himself, almost, and part of him - the sullen, suspicious kid that still lived deep down somewhere - watched, looking for the lie as Martin moved around their rented house, examining the old, tacky furniture and the antique tiller mounted on the wall, the faded-out teak and the path down to the beach with its straggly sea oats.
“This is really cool,” Martin was saying, again and again, the words not as important as what Danny ended up finding in Martin’s eyes.
He searched and searched, even when they were making out on the bed for the first time, but couldn’t find the lie, and he started to think he never would.
* * *
Crazily, even though it had been years since Danny’d been back to Florida in any meaningful sense, it was like he’d never left. The sun came early and stayed late - he’d missed that - and when he stealthily climbed out of bed to watch Martin run in the dawnlight, the endless grey mornings and evenings of New York would fade away.
He’d gotten up almost on Martin’s heels three mornings in a row, awake from the second Martin’s body left their bed. It was something that he hadn’t experienced before - nothing that touch or sound or sight could recognize, no physical sense could tell, but something that startled him from sleep nonetheless when Martin wasn’t there. And for three mornings he’d kept still, pretending slumber and listening to Martin move quietly around the room, listening to him slip out of the room.
Slight, rusty squeak of the screen door opening and closing, and Danny gave it a few more seconds before pulling his boxers on and heading out to their porch in time to catch Martin loping eastward down the beach.
It was habit that kept Martin doing this, Danny knew, and the tightly-controlled energy that thrummed in him - the energy that now, surrounded by sun and sand and no obligations, circled and snarled for another outlet. Some of it was probably left over from the case, the never-ending paperwork and bureaucratic reminders of what had happened to him, the knowledge that much of that would be waiting for him when he returned. And some of it was simply Martin. Danny wished he could calm that energy, quiet it, tell Martin it’s okay and make it okay, but the one thing AA had taught him was that there was only one person in the world who could do that for Martin, and it wasn’t Danny.
The second and third mornings, part of him wanted to grab Martin around his waist and keep him in bed - and show him how to spend energy in other, more interactive ways - but he didn’t. Kept still and quiet and listened to Martin pull on shorts and a shirt.
Got up as soon as he was sure Martin wasn’t going to turn back and followed him out.
Part of him didn’t mind Martin’s surreptitious departures, because he liked watching Martin run, liked watching Martin move when he thought no one was looking, unselfconscious and graceful, long strides eating up the sand until too soon he was a small speck far down the beach. And Danny watched until he could just make out Martin coming back on his return trip, then crept back into bed and pulled the covers up, and when he wandered out twenty minutes later it was with a sleepy yawn and a question about coffee.
The fourth morning he woke as soon as Martin got up, slow, soft footsteps - one, two, three around the corner of the bed - and then a pause. Danny stayed where he was, face turned into the pillow, not daring to move, until he felt the bed dip, and then Martin’s warmth, welcome and unexpected, pressed close against his back.
* * *
They were on the beach later one day (their fifth, Danny thought but he’d started to lose track) and Martin, having abandoned the safety of the shade of their umbrella, had fallen asleep next to Danny, face turned into his towel, tiniest hint of a smile lingering on his lips - barely there, just in the corners of his mouth, remnant of laughter. There was sand in his hair and some splattered up his legs, from where he’d tackled Danny into the shallows earlier, specks of shell decorating his calf.
I told you to stop reading over my shoulder, Taylor. Like he didn’t know that, ever since that first morning, Danny had been reading over his shoulder on purpose.
He knew it was stupid to think Martin could be like this when they got back to real life, because this was vacation, not the real world, even though he wished it were. Back in Real Life Martin was practical and efficient, independent to the point of pain - past it, even, far past it. When they’d worked together, Martin had never volunteered much about himself - Danny had, mostly to shock some of Martin’s white-bread illusions out of him - and even when he’d been wounded in the Adisa shooting, God even then, he’d dragged himself to work for weeks on end, not breathing a word about the pain and fear, telling no one. Not Sam, not even Vivian, not Danny, and that still hurt, thinking about it.
Danny never knew, not until it was almost too late. Like he never knew that his leaving had hurt Martin the way it did, at least until he’d seen that beat-up picture of them that Martin had been carrying around for two years. That was like Martin, not saying anything about his own pain, out of fear or habit or lack of trust, Danny couldn’t say. Maybe all three.
I’m not used to other people wanting to help me, without expecting something else. But that wasn’t a good enough reason not to trust you... and I’m sorry.
But Danny knew so much about Martin now, what he was like when it was the two of them together with no one watching - how Martin liked to tease and play, and that the only time he made a sound during sex was to laugh or whisper Danny’s name in a way Danny couldn’t identify. And he knew what Martin hid and how to find it, knew his desperation and his fear - and his determination, and paradoxically, his fearlessness. And not many people would think it to look at him, young-looking face and old eyes, unassuming in his bad suits and ties, but Danny saw and knew these things, saw the trust Martin had needed to reveal them to him.
And Martin knew him - knew him, knew Danny. Knew Danny Alvarez the son of immigrant parents and Danny Alvarez the street kid, Danny Alvarez the brother of an ex-con and Danny Alvarez the alcoholic. Knew Danny Taylor the FBI agent and Danny Taylor the attorney and Danny Taylor the Mets fan, and everything that’s Danny that wasn’t covered by any of those names.
Weird, he mused, turning the thought over lazily as he sifted his fingers through fine Florida sand. In their years together he’d told Martin more of himself than he’d told anyone, except maybe Jack or Viv, and Martin had still figured out the things he hadn’t said.
It was hard to hold on to seriousness, with the soft breeze and the endless hush-hush of the surf washing thought away. The sun was warm but gentle still, not as harsh as it would be in a few months when summer came, and Danny smiled a bit, thinking that not too long ago he and Martin had been back up in the cold and the possibility of warmth, of coming here hadn’t even existed.
A chill rippled through him at that, discordant, how the few days before Derek Harris’s capture had been in some ways worse than when Martin had been taken.
Even being a civilian, he’d at least been able to help Martin then. Able to take him home and keep him safe for a few days, to help him work through the case and the despair and confusion of finding a fellow agent guilty of conspiracy and corruption. He’d thought he’d won then, that night after they’d put Silverman away, and when Martin had come back to him, finally, and told him he wasn’t leaving.
But Danny hadn’t won, and even now he couldn’t think of those days - that day, really, that terrible and endless day - without thinking that he couldn’t do anything, that he’d lost, that Martin was beyond saving. Beyond him, despite everything he’d done or tried to do.
Their first morning in the Bureau offices, when Martin had woken up, when he’d watched Martin slipping from him, refusing Danny’s help, backing away from him, Danny had remembered the words of his sponsor, way back when he’d been trying to climb on the wagon and kept slipping off the sides of it. He’d shouted at Rob once, hung over and furious: Aren’t you supposed to save me? Why the fuck aren’t you doing your job?
And Rob had said, I can’t save you, Danny; only you can do that.
And at the last, with what they’d forged between them about to fall apart, Danny had realized that the only way he could save Martin was to step away.
Do what you have to do. And when you’re done, come back.
Offering that, the choice for Martin to turn and leave for good, no strings, to make himself step away… He could still feel the sudden twist of fear deep in his stomach, drawing breath tight in anticipation of a blow. And those hours by himself, steeling himself against the possibility - the very real possibility - that Martin would go back to work, to his life, but not to him.
He had come back, and even now, after weeks of being together, of having Martin in his bed and in his life, it still came like a shock, realizing it all over again. And after everything had been said and done, with Derek Harris captured and the entire New York office celebrating, Martin had gone to him, and Danny could still remember Martin looking for him, pushing his way through a crowd of agents, scanning the room restlessly until their eyes locked.
Relief and exhaustion, no little amount of pain... Martin had let him see those things, had leaned against him - I’m pretty tired, Danny, actually. - and even though Danny had known he’d won, there hadn’t been any sense of victory. Only shared relief, and in that instant, holding Martin against him, Danny had thought This is it, that moment when he’d committed himself irrevocably to the idea of the two of them. Because in all the fear of the past few weeks, that day had been the worst, watching Martin walk away and then come back only to leave again, and Danny understood - had understood even then, even though he hated it - why Martin had had to go after Harris himself.
Being left behind, pacing the office, trying to stay out of Nick’s way. God. He shut his eyes against the memory, turned away from it and into the warmth of the sun, tried to focus on the second he’d caught sight of Martin across the gulf of the office. And, alone with Martin in those few silent moments, touching him, trying to reassure himself that this was Martin, whole and unharmed, he’d realized that, whatever fear he’d had of Martin accepting him was nothing next to the fear of not having him, a small and inconsequential thing next to the enormity of loss.
A birdcall broke into his thoughts and he looked up, watched a lone osprey wheeling through the sky, circling over the waves. The cry startled Martin awake, twitch of muscle and gasp of sudden alertness. Danny propped himself up on his elbows and grinned down at him as he shifted over on his back, peering up at the sun.
“How long have I been out?”
“Twenty minutes or so,” Danny answered. Martin nodded and sat up, drawing his legs in and resting his arms atop his knees. “You’re looking a little red... Are you sure you put on enough of the SPF 2000 or whatever it was you brought with you?”
“Not funny, and for your information, SPF 15 is really as high as you need to go; anything past that isn’t going to do much.”
“I can’t believe you know something like that,” Danny said, shaking his head in disbelief, not bothering to hide his smirk. “I mean... the physics of sunblock, Fitz.”
“What?” The indignation in Martin’s tone was wholly feigned, underpainted with laughter. “It’s common knowledge.”
“If you say so.”
“I do say so.”
“Well, good.”
They lapsed into a comfortable silence, Martin apparently content to let Danny have the last word, and watched the osprey as it circled around in search of prey. After a minute more, the osprey folded its wings and dove, plunging arrow-straight into the waves, and emerged with a fish in its talons, spray of water and foam as it flew off.
“I should shave,” Martin commented absently, watching the osprey fly away, touching a stubble-rough cheek.
“I kind of like you scruffy,” Danny said, had to grin as Martin swiveled to look at him. Even with them hidden behind sunglasses, Danny knew that Martin’s eyes were wide, and a startled blush competed with incipient sunburn. “What? I’m serious.”
“Shut up,” Martin told him, voice stern, but there was pleasure at the edges of it, there in the slightest tilt of his lips.
And Danny had to taste that laughter, salt and sand mixed in with it.
* * *
Martin didn’t shave that evening, which of course meant that when they were in bed Danny had to tease him about beard burn, which flustered Martin for a moment before he regained himself and deliberately rubbed his cheek along the inside of Danny’s thigh, hard enough to burn along sensitive flesh. Then it was Danny’s turn to be surprised, and he couldn’t keep back a gasp of shock and pleasure even as he encouraged Martin to do it again, which Martin did obligingly, and his laughter was hot against Danny’s skin.
* * *
The one thought that the waves and wind weren’t able to smooth away was what they were going to do when they got back home. For the past few weeks Martin had stayed at his place from Thursday nights to Sunday mornings, working on the Silverman case, but Danny didn’t know if he could keep on like this. The four days a week he’d had to go without Martin seemed endless, worse than detox had ever been - restless and unable to sleep properly, not so much with worrying about Martin (even though Martin still needed someone to worry about him, and remind him he wasn’t superhuman) as wanting Martin there.
It was stupid and clingy, and he would be ashamed of himself if he hadn’t opened his apartment door on those few Thursday nights to see Martin there, tired and rumpled from his flight, warmth and relief in his eyes. If he hadn’t tasted the echo of his own restlessness and worry in Martin’s kiss, a bit too desperate and awkward, making up for lost time.
And it was because of that that he’d started turning over the possibility of relocating to D.C., had been for a week or so now. The thought of leaving New York hurt; it had sheltered him, given him almost all of what he had in his life, a career and friends, a baseball team, Martin in a way. He knew it better than he knew Hialeah - and driving back to his family’s old apartment he’d felt hopelessly a foreigner, despite the familiarity of the city - and like he told Jack once, New York was his city.
He hadn’t brought it up with Martin yet, because it had taken him this long to reconcile himself to the pain of leaving, and the knowledge that if Martin asked him, he would do it, and never mind how much it would hurt. Also stupid, because New York was just a place, like Hialeah and Seattle and Washington were just places, and New York had millions of other people to keep her busy. He’d easily find work in D.C. - what big city doesn’t need lawyers, after all? - and although Camelio, Barrett, and Brown had a branch there, he could change track, maybe work for an advocacy or human rights organization.
As their vacation drew to a close, he knew he needed to resolve this, somehow. Martin had been chewing something over in private, and Danny would have been angry with him if he weren’t keeping secrets of his own. He took out his anxiety on the dinner ingredients, pounding slices of chicken breast with such force that Martin, from his perch on the kitchen counter, reminded him that they’d bought the chicken already dead, but the joke did little to reassure him. Throughout dinner, he covered uncertainty with stories and questions about the chicken - which Martin insisted was fine, in a tone that said he was thinking about something else entirely - until he wasn’t able avoid it anymore and made himself say the words he hadn’t wanted to say for weeks now.
I was thinking, maybe, if you thought it was a good idea, I’d move...
In the same moment that he opened his mouth to speak, Martin broke in with a question of his own, and they fumbled for a few moments, stumbling and hesitant, until Martin told Danny to go ahead.
“Well.” Danny took a breath, feeling the anxiety and adrenaline already pulsing in him, making his heart race and his breath come short, tingling along his arms and legs. He wanted to move, to pace across the kitchen, to run before confronting the reality of what he was about to ask. But he made himself be still and, after a few more nervous moments, say what he’d been rehearsing for the day.
“I was thinking that we should… Well, it’d be a great idea if we moved in together, and I’ve been looking at some Washington firms - ”
“Wait. You’ve been doing what?” Martin said incredulously, tone sharp enough to cut.
“Look, Martin, we don’t have to, I’m just saying it’s - ”
“No! I didn’t mean - ” Martin glanced away and drew a breath before meeting Danny’s eyes again, and yeah, Danny had expected this, had expected and ignored that expectation, violation of the old cardinal rule. Leaving, it all came down to that for him, and with that thought the fear left him - fear, anticipation, hope, everything.
“I didn’t mean we shouldn’t move in together,” Martin almost shouted, the desperation in his voice like cold water, shocking Danny out of stasis.
“You remember when we went to the Bureau, the day we had dinner with my folks?” Martin asked, voice even again, but Danny could hear the panic straining against Martin’s control.
“No, Martin, I don’t. Geez.” He didn’t even try to keep the sarcasm from the words, saw Martin flinch, and couldn’t decide whether or not to feel guilty about that.
Martin forged on: “When I went to talk to Ed… I was - ” he paused on a breath, “ - I was going to sign my transfer papers for the New York office.”
“What?” Danny couldn’t help it, surprise and disbelief jarring the question out of him.
“Nick has to re-organize Chris’s team,” Martin continued, almost falling over his own words in uncharacteristic haste, “and they need a senior agent there now, with him gone. I applied… and I got it.
“I didn’t want to tell you in case it didn’t work out,” he continued, words coming more slowly, his eyes riveted on Danny, “But even if I hadn’t gotten the transfer, I would have moved anyway.”
Danny sat there, frozen, helpless to do anything but look at Martin looking at him, the terrible, desperate openness on Martin’s face, his habitual, calm mask stripped away. And he’d planned for so long, had reconciled himself to leaving New York to hear the hope offered for something else... it had him, Danny Taylor, wordless.
“There’s no way you could leave New York,” Martin said quietly, but in a way that suggested he wouldn’t let Danny leave, even if he wanted to.
“I...” Still no words, and there was probably a joke in that, but Martin was watching him, warmth in his eyes, where Danny knew where to look for it.
“It’s not a sacrifice, Danny,” Martin told him, voice bare and honest, fear there and Danny could understand that because he was frightened too. “I want to do this.”
Nothing to say to that, either - actually, all the thanks in the world, words and words that Danny couldn’t grasp, not in that moment or in any moment after. And Danny was still wordless that night, not knowing what to say or even how to say it, so he wrote gratitude over Martin’s body with his fingers, breathed it into his mouth, hoped it was enough and knew it was.
* * *
One year later, they had too much stuff crammed into too little space, and they’d probably have to move soon, or find a separate apartment for all of Martin’s books. Danny didn’t want to give up rent control - who in their right mind would? - but it was looking like either the books or them... or Martin’s frightening computer, which Danny never touched and had taken over one corner of their living room.
Their room, their apartment, even though it was Danny’s name on the lease. Comforting and exciting, still terrifying a little, whenever he thought of it - them, Danny and Martin, in the plural.
At times he found himself worrying over the future - pointless, he knew, but the teenaged kid who’d had the few good things in his life taken away from him refused to let him rest easy sometimes. Wondered how long Martin would stay, what it would take to make him leave, wondered over the possibility of making Martin go, so Danny could at least say that here was another person who’d left him, or been taken.
But the voice was a small thing, and growing smaller, drowned out by the steady, quiet force of Martin’s presence, how he was always there, solid and real in the corner of Danny’s thoughts, memory of Martin’s promise to him stronger, clearer than any doubt.
I’m not going anywhere, and even now he could still hear the ferocity in Martin’s voice, the resolution and honesty of it, and he knew - oh, how he knew - the strength of will that lay behind the words.
He’d made that same promise too, one day not so very long ago, and that was the extent of their agreement, holding as it did the truth of the two of them.
-end-
Post-fic notes: That was much longer than it was supposed to be, and will be longer still... the problem with Danny is that, once he starts talking, he will not stop. *sigh* I'm also contemplating a fic with Danny's side of the family, seeing as the Fitzgeralds have had lots of air time.
In other news: new icons! Some EM, D/M, Martin, Danny, Anne Taintor, and one Rodney McKay because he's cool. I am very happy because they're the first products of experimentation with layers and exclusion and other such things that I'm just now learning about.
By: HF
Email: aesc36 @gmail.com
Pairing: Danny/Martin
Rating/Warnings: PG/PG13ish. No warnings as such.
Disclaimer: Without a Trace belongs to Jerry Bruckheimer, CBS, and very likely many other people.
Advertisements: Yet another addition to the weird nameless AU that continues to defy my attempts to make it stop growing. In order to achieve full enlightenment and spiritual transcendence, you must read the following in this order: Sons, A Long Time Coming, Every Distance, Blue River, and (last but not least) Sons and Lovers.
Notes: A long-meditated companion to the second chapter of "Blue River." The impulse for this fic came from maygra, who wanted to see a bit more resolution for Danny at the end of the series. At first I wasn't sure, but upon further reflection, I realized that she's right. "Blue River" was written mostly to resolve Martin's lingering issues from "Every Distance," but there are still a few things from that and "A Long Time Coming" that have to come together for Danny. So, everyone thank/blame Maygra, as you deem appropriate :)
BISCAYNE
The last time Danny had gone down to Blue River, a fourteen-year-old cutting class for a few days, he and Rafi had stayed in one of the small, cheap hotels near the docks.
It had smelled like fish, he remembered. Old fish.
Looking back on those days as a college kid newly escaped from Florida’s social services, he’d thought it was because Rafi needed easy access to a boat for his drug-running operation, and the one time he’d seen his brother in prison - just after he’d been sentenced, and not once again in nine years - he’d asked him that. How much money did you make off that trip, Rafi?
Rafi had sworn he hadn’t done anything on that trip. Not that time we went to Blue River, Danny. I swear.
Danny hadn’t believed him at first. Almost never did, until they were in that abandoned garage, and he was wrapped around Rafi like he was going to disappear, and then he did - had to, with his brother in his arms.
So, when Martin had told him to decide where they would go for leave, Danny had known immediately where they were going. As he’d made the arrangements and teased Martin about finding out when they got there, he’d resolutely pushed his fears - that he’d somehow become fucked-up Danny Alvarez again, that he’d wake up and find nothing had changed since the day after his parents died - to the back of his mind.
That, if he was being excruciatingly honest with himself, Martin would dismiss him, this place, the one happy memory Danny’s childhood had afforded him, one without any bitterness in it now. He owed Martin more than that, he knew, because Martin hadn’t ever judged him. Not for anything - his family, his alcoholism, none of it.
And that Martin liked Blue River… Danny couldn’t quite believe it, and hated that he couldn’t. Couldn’t let himself, almost, and part of him - the sullen, suspicious kid that still lived deep down somewhere - watched, looking for the lie as Martin moved around their rented house, examining the old, tacky furniture and the antique tiller mounted on the wall, the faded-out teak and the path down to the beach with its straggly sea oats.
“This is really cool,” Martin was saying, again and again, the words not as important as what Danny ended up finding in Martin’s eyes.
He searched and searched, even when they were making out on the bed for the first time, but couldn’t find the lie, and he started to think he never would.
* * *
Crazily, even though it had been years since Danny’d been back to Florida in any meaningful sense, it was like he’d never left. The sun came early and stayed late - he’d missed that - and when he stealthily climbed out of bed to watch Martin run in the dawnlight, the endless grey mornings and evenings of New York would fade away.
He’d gotten up almost on Martin’s heels three mornings in a row, awake from the second Martin’s body left their bed. It was something that he hadn’t experienced before - nothing that touch or sound or sight could recognize, no physical sense could tell, but something that startled him from sleep nonetheless when Martin wasn’t there. And for three mornings he’d kept still, pretending slumber and listening to Martin move quietly around the room, listening to him slip out of the room.
Slight, rusty squeak of the screen door opening and closing, and Danny gave it a few more seconds before pulling his boxers on and heading out to their porch in time to catch Martin loping eastward down the beach.
It was habit that kept Martin doing this, Danny knew, and the tightly-controlled energy that thrummed in him - the energy that now, surrounded by sun and sand and no obligations, circled and snarled for another outlet. Some of it was probably left over from the case, the never-ending paperwork and bureaucratic reminders of what had happened to him, the knowledge that much of that would be waiting for him when he returned. And some of it was simply Martin. Danny wished he could calm that energy, quiet it, tell Martin it’s okay and make it okay, but the one thing AA had taught him was that there was only one person in the world who could do that for Martin, and it wasn’t Danny.
The second and third mornings, part of him wanted to grab Martin around his waist and keep him in bed - and show him how to spend energy in other, more interactive ways - but he didn’t. Kept still and quiet and listened to Martin pull on shorts and a shirt.
Got up as soon as he was sure Martin wasn’t going to turn back and followed him out.
Part of him didn’t mind Martin’s surreptitious departures, because he liked watching Martin run, liked watching Martin move when he thought no one was looking, unselfconscious and graceful, long strides eating up the sand until too soon he was a small speck far down the beach. And Danny watched until he could just make out Martin coming back on his return trip, then crept back into bed and pulled the covers up, and when he wandered out twenty minutes later it was with a sleepy yawn and a question about coffee.
The fourth morning he woke as soon as Martin got up, slow, soft footsteps - one, two, three around the corner of the bed - and then a pause. Danny stayed where he was, face turned into the pillow, not daring to move, until he felt the bed dip, and then Martin’s warmth, welcome and unexpected, pressed close against his back.
* * *
They were on the beach later one day (their fifth, Danny thought but he’d started to lose track) and Martin, having abandoned the safety of the shade of their umbrella, had fallen asleep next to Danny, face turned into his towel, tiniest hint of a smile lingering on his lips - barely there, just in the corners of his mouth, remnant of laughter. There was sand in his hair and some splattered up his legs, from where he’d tackled Danny into the shallows earlier, specks of shell decorating his calf.
I told you to stop reading over my shoulder, Taylor. Like he didn’t know that, ever since that first morning, Danny had been reading over his shoulder on purpose.
He knew it was stupid to think Martin could be like this when they got back to real life, because this was vacation, not the real world, even though he wished it were. Back in Real Life Martin was practical and efficient, independent to the point of pain - past it, even, far past it. When they’d worked together, Martin had never volunteered much about himself - Danny had, mostly to shock some of Martin’s white-bread illusions out of him - and even when he’d been wounded in the Adisa shooting, God even then, he’d dragged himself to work for weeks on end, not breathing a word about the pain and fear, telling no one. Not Sam, not even Vivian, not Danny, and that still hurt, thinking about it.
Danny never knew, not until it was almost too late. Like he never knew that his leaving had hurt Martin the way it did, at least until he’d seen that beat-up picture of them that Martin had been carrying around for two years. That was like Martin, not saying anything about his own pain, out of fear or habit or lack of trust, Danny couldn’t say. Maybe all three.
I’m not used to other people wanting to help me, without expecting something else. But that wasn’t a good enough reason not to trust you... and I’m sorry.
But Danny knew so much about Martin now, what he was like when it was the two of them together with no one watching - how Martin liked to tease and play, and that the only time he made a sound during sex was to laugh or whisper Danny’s name in a way Danny couldn’t identify. And he knew what Martin hid and how to find it, knew his desperation and his fear - and his determination, and paradoxically, his fearlessness. And not many people would think it to look at him, young-looking face and old eyes, unassuming in his bad suits and ties, but Danny saw and knew these things, saw the trust Martin had needed to reveal them to him.
And Martin knew him - knew him, knew Danny. Knew Danny Alvarez the son of immigrant parents and Danny Alvarez the street kid, Danny Alvarez the brother of an ex-con and Danny Alvarez the alcoholic. Knew Danny Taylor the FBI agent and Danny Taylor the attorney and Danny Taylor the Mets fan, and everything that’s Danny that wasn’t covered by any of those names.
Weird, he mused, turning the thought over lazily as he sifted his fingers through fine Florida sand. In their years together he’d told Martin more of himself than he’d told anyone, except maybe Jack or Viv, and Martin had still figured out the things he hadn’t said.
It was hard to hold on to seriousness, with the soft breeze and the endless hush-hush of the surf washing thought away. The sun was warm but gentle still, not as harsh as it would be in a few months when summer came, and Danny smiled a bit, thinking that not too long ago he and Martin had been back up in the cold and the possibility of warmth, of coming here hadn’t even existed.
A chill rippled through him at that, discordant, how the few days before Derek Harris’s capture had been in some ways worse than when Martin had been taken.
Even being a civilian, he’d at least been able to help Martin then. Able to take him home and keep him safe for a few days, to help him work through the case and the despair and confusion of finding a fellow agent guilty of conspiracy and corruption. He’d thought he’d won then, that night after they’d put Silverman away, and when Martin had come back to him, finally, and told him he wasn’t leaving.
But Danny hadn’t won, and even now he couldn’t think of those days - that day, really, that terrible and endless day - without thinking that he couldn’t do anything, that he’d lost, that Martin was beyond saving. Beyond him, despite everything he’d done or tried to do.
Their first morning in the Bureau offices, when Martin had woken up, when he’d watched Martin slipping from him, refusing Danny’s help, backing away from him, Danny had remembered the words of his sponsor, way back when he’d been trying to climb on the wagon and kept slipping off the sides of it. He’d shouted at Rob once, hung over and furious: Aren’t you supposed to save me? Why the fuck aren’t you doing your job?
And Rob had said, I can’t save you, Danny; only you can do that.
And at the last, with what they’d forged between them about to fall apart, Danny had realized that the only way he could save Martin was to step away.
Do what you have to do. And when you’re done, come back.
Offering that, the choice for Martin to turn and leave for good, no strings, to make himself step away… He could still feel the sudden twist of fear deep in his stomach, drawing breath tight in anticipation of a blow. And those hours by himself, steeling himself against the possibility - the very real possibility - that Martin would go back to work, to his life, but not to him.
He had come back, and even now, after weeks of being together, of having Martin in his bed and in his life, it still came like a shock, realizing it all over again. And after everything had been said and done, with Derek Harris captured and the entire New York office celebrating, Martin had gone to him, and Danny could still remember Martin looking for him, pushing his way through a crowd of agents, scanning the room restlessly until their eyes locked.
Relief and exhaustion, no little amount of pain... Martin had let him see those things, had leaned against him - I’m pretty tired, Danny, actually. - and even though Danny had known he’d won, there hadn’t been any sense of victory. Only shared relief, and in that instant, holding Martin against him, Danny had thought This is it, that moment when he’d committed himself irrevocably to the idea of the two of them. Because in all the fear of the past few weeks, that day had been the worst, watching Martin walk away and then come back only to leave again, and Danny understood - had understood even then, even though he hated it - why Martin had had to go after Harris himself.
Being left behind, pacing the office, trying to stay out of Nick’s way. God. He shut his eyes against the memory, turned away from it and into the warmth of the sun, tried to focus on the second he’d caught sight of Martin across the gulf of the office. And, alone with Martin in those few silent moments, touching him, trying to reassure himself that this was Martin, whole and unharmed, he’d realized that, whatever fear he’d had of Martin accepting him was nothing next to the fear of not having him, a small and inconsequential thing next to the enormity of loss.
A birdcall broke into his thoughts and he looked up, watched a lone osprey wheeling through the sky, circling over the waves. The cry startled Martin awake, twitch of muscle and gasp of sudden alertness. Danny propped himself up on his elbows and grinned down at him as he shifted over on his back, peering up at the sun.
“How long have I been out?”
“Twenty minutes or so,” Danny answered. Martin nodded and sat up, drawing his legs in and resting his arms atop his knees. “You’re looking a little red... Are you sure you put on enough of the SPF 2000 or whatever it was you brought with you?”
“Not funny, and for your information, SPF 15 is really as high as you need to go; anything past that isn’t going to do much.”
“I can’t believe you know something like that,” Danny said, shaking his head in disbelief, not bothering to hide his smirk. “I mean... the physics of sunblock, Fitz.”
“What?” The indignation in Martin’s tone was wholly feigned, underpainted with laughter. “It’s common knowledge.”
“If you say so.”
“I do say so.”
“Well, good.”
They lapsed into a comfortable silence, Martin apparently content to let Danny have the last word, and watched the osprey as it circled around in search of prey. After a minute more, the osprey folded its wings and dove, plunging arrow-straight into the waves, and emerged with a fish in its talons, spray of water and foam as it flew off.
“I should shave,” Martin commented absently, watching the osprey fly away, touching a stubble-rough cheek.
“I kind of like you scruffy,” Danny said, had to grin as Martin swiveled to look at him. Even with them hidden behind sunglasses, Danny knew that Martin’s eyes were wide, and a startled blush competed with incipient sunburn. “What? I’m serious.”
“Shut up,” Martin told him, voice stern, but there was pleasure at the edges of it, there in the slightest tilt of his lips.
And Danny had to taste that laughter, salt and sand mixed in with it.
* * *
Martin didn’t shave that evening, which of course meant that when they were in bed Danny had to tease him about beard burn, which flustered Martin for a moment before he regained himself and deliberately rubbed his cheek along the inside of Danny’s thigh, hard enough to burn along sensitive flesh. Then it was Danny’s turn to be surprised, and he couldn’t keep back a gasp of shock and pleasure even as he encouraged Martin to do it again, which Martin did obligingly, and his laughter was hot against Danny’s skin.
* * *
The one thought that the waves and wind weren’t able to smooth away was what they were going to do when they got back home. For the past few weeks Martin had stayed at his place from Thursday nights to Sunday mornings, working on the Silverman case, but Danny didn’t know if he could keep on like this. The four days a week he’d had to go without Martin seemed endless, worse than detox had ever been - restless and unable to sleep properly, not so much with worrying about Martin (even though Martin still needed someone to worry about him, and remind him he wasn’t superhuman) as wanting Martin there.
It was stupid and clingy, and he would be ashamed of himself if he hadn’t opened his apartment door on those few Thursday nights to see Martin there, tired and rumpled from his flight, warmth and relief in his eyes. If he hadn’t tasted the echo of his own restlessness and worry in Martin’s kiss, a bit too desperate and awkward, making up for lost time.
And it was because of that that he’d started turning over the possibility of relocating to D.C., had been for a week or so now. The thought of leaving New York hurt; it had sheltered him, given him almost all of what he had in his life, a career and friends, a baseball team, Martin in a way. He knew it better than he knew Hialeah - and driving back to his family’s old apartment he’d felt hopelessly a foreigner, despite the familiarity of the city - and like he told Jack once, New York was his city.
He hadn’t brought it up with Martin yet, because it had taken him this long to reconcile himself to the pain of leaving, and the knowledge that if Martin asked him, he would do it, and never mind how much it would hurt. Also stupid, because New York was just a place, like Hialeah and Seattle and Washington were just places, and New York had millions of other people to keep her busy. He’d easily find work in D.C. - what big city doesn’t need lawyers, after all? - and although Camelio, Barrett, and Brown had a branch there, he could change track, maybe work for an advocacy or human rights organization.
As their vacation drew to a close, he knew he needed to resolve this, somehow. Martin had been chewing something over in private, and Danny would have been angry with him if he weren’t keeping secrets of his own. He took out his anxiety on the dinner ingredients, pounding slices of chicken breast with such force that Martin, from his perch on the kitchen counter, reminded him that they’d bought the chicken already dead, but the joke did little to reassure him. Throughout dinner, he covered uncertainty with stories and questions about the chicken - which Martin insisted was fine, in a tone that said he was thinking about something else entirely - until he wasn’t able avoid it anymore and made himself say the words he hadn’t wanted to say for weeks now.
I was thinking, maybe, if you thought it was a good idea, I’d move...
In the same moment that he opened his mouth to speak, Martin broke in with a question of his own, and they fumbled for a few moments, stumbling and hesitant, until Martin told Danny to go ahead.
“Well.” Danny took a breath, feeling the anxiety and adrenaline already pulsing in him, making his heart race and his breath come short, tingling along his arms and legs. He wanted to move, to pace across the kitchen, to run before confronting the reality of what he was about to ask. But he made himself be still and, after a few more nervous moments, say what he’d been rehearsing for the day.
“I was thinking that we should… Well, it’d be a great idea if we moved in together, and I’ve been looking at some Washington firms - ”
“Wait. You’ve been doing what?” Martin said incredulously, tone sharp enough to cut.
“Look, Martin, we don’t have to, I’m just saying it’s - ”
“No! I didn’t mean - ” Martin glanced away and drew a breath before meeting Danny’s eyes again, and yeah, Danny had expected this, had expected and ignored that expectation, violation of the old cardinal rule. Leaving, it all came down to that for him, and with that thought the fear left him - fear, anticipation, hope, everything.
“I didn’t mean we shouldn’t move in together,” Martin almost shouted, the desperation in his voice like cold water, shocking Danny out of stasis.
“You remember when we went to the Bureau, the day we had dinner with my folks?” Martin asked, voice even again, but Danny could hear the panic straining against Martin’s control.
“No, Martin, I don’t. Geez.” He didn’t even try to keep the sarcasm from the words, saw Martin flinch, and couldn’t decide whether or not to feel guilty about that.
Martin forged on: “When I went to talk to Ed… I was - ” he paused on a breath, “ - I was going to sign my transfer papers for the New York office.”
“What?” Danny couldn’t help it, surprise and disbelief jarring the question out of him.
“Nick has to re-organize Chris’s team,” Martin continued, almost falling over his own words in uncharacteristic haste, “and they need a senior agent there now, with him gone. I applied… and I got it.
“I didn’t want to tell you in case it didn’t work out,” he continued, words coming more slowly, his eyes riveted on Danny, “But even if I hadn’t gotten the transfer, I would have moved anyway.”
Danny sat there, frozen, helpless to do anything but look at Martin looking at him, the terrible, desperate openness on Martin’s face, his habitual, calm mask stripped away. And he’d planned for so long, had reconciled himself to leaving New York to hear the hope offered for something else... it had him, Danny Taylor, wordless.
“There’s no way you could leave New York,” Martin said quietly, but in a way that suggested he wouldn’t let Danny leave, even if he wanted to.
“I...” Still no words, and there was probably a joke in that, but Martin was watching him, warmth in his eyes, where Danny knew where to look for it.
“It’s not a sacrifice, Danny,” Martin told him, voice bare and honest, fear there and Danny could understand that because he was frightened too. “I want to do this.”
Nothing to say to that, either - actually, all the thanks in the world, words and words that Danny couldn’t grasp, not in that moment or in any moment after. And Danny was still wordless that night, not knowing what to say or even how to say it, so he wrote gratitude over Martin’s body with his fingers, breathed it into his mouth, hoped it was enough and knew it was.
* * *
One year later, they had too much stuff crammed into too little space, and they’d probably have to move soon, or find a separate apartment for all of Martin’s books. Danny didn’t want to give up rent control - who in their right mind would? - but it was looking like either the books or them... or Martin’s frightening computer, which Danny never touched and had taken over one corner of their living room.
Their room, their apartment, even though it was Danny’s name on the lease. Comforting and exciting, still terrifying a little, whenever he thought of it - them, Danny and Martin, in the plural.
At times he found himself worrying over the future - pointless, he knew, but the teenaged kid who’d had the few good things in his life taken away from him refused to let him rest easy sometimes. Wondered how long Martin would stay, what it would take to make him leave, wondered over the possibility of making Martin go, so Danny could at least say that here was another person who’d left him, or been taken.
But the voice was a small thing, and growing smaller, drowned out by the steady, quiet force of Martin’s presence, how he was always there, solid and real in the corner of Danny’s thoughts, memory of Martin’s promise to him stronger, clearer than any doubt.
I’m not going anywhere, and even now he could still hear the ferocity in Martin’s voice, the resolution and honesty of it, and he knew - oh, how he knew - the strength of will that lay behind the words.
He’d made that same promise too, one day not so very long ago, and that was the extent of their agreement, holding as it did the truth of the two of them.
-end-
Post-fic notes: That was much longer than it was supposed to be, and will be longer still... the problem with Danny is that, once he starts talking, he will not stop. *sigh* I'm also contemplating a fic with Danny's side of the family, seeing as the Fitzgeralds have had lots of air time.
In other news: new icons! Some EM, D/M, Martin, Danny, Anne Taintor, and one Rodney McKay because he's cool. I am very happy because they're the first products of experimentation with layers and exclusion and other such things that I'm just now learning about.