When things go bad here, they go bad in fic world too, so this story reflects a real life event. Terrible as it seems, the dialog is taken almost word for word from an actual event (just so nobody tells me that it would never happen that way). Summary: Flack and Danny fought, both feel guilty, neither wants it to end. Can Flack make it up to his love. Pre-established Slashyness. Rated higher for graphic violence. This story is written for my mother, who got out of an abusive relationship a about five years ago. It's a scary thing, and I hope I caught that. And a person's readiness to forgive easily those who have hurt them. I don't believe Danny would ever solve anything with violence, but it fits here. Don Flack was avoiding the Crime Lab that day. Instead of visiting his friends he sat in the precinct doing paper work. Danny’s dog tags stared up at him from the corner of his desk. He’d pulled them off in a fight they’d had the night before, when Danny had hit him, fairly hard, giving him a black eye. Flack had grabbed Danny's wrists to stop another swing, but Danny had fought back and pushed him. Flack’s hand had grabbed the first thing it could find; the chain around Danny’s neck. The clasp had snapped and Flack had fallen. He and Danny hadn’t spoken since and he was probably going to be sleeping on someone’s couch, maybe his mom’s. Flack thought about the broken medicine cabinet that had hit the floor when Danny had fallen into it. They’d never been physically violent to each other before, but the carnage of their apartment would probably resemble a crime scene to an outsider. Flack had slept in his car, and was still wearing yesterday’s suit. His eyes wandered from the file he was filling out to the silver chain with the light engravings. He touched them gently, his finger prints smudging the shiny surface. They were the things that were literally closest to Danny’s heart. The tags were always around the young man’s neck, dangling against his chest; warmed by his skin, and today was the first day the CSI would not be wearing them. And it was his fault. Why had he yelled? Because he was jealous, of every single person who threatened to steal Danny’s heart from him. It had started out as just an argument, which grew loud and heated quickly. Flack had gotten in Danny’s face about the fling with Lindsay, and Danny had pushed him. “It’s none of your business!” “I love you; that makes it my business!” Danny had thrown the first punch. So used to seeing his own father solve arguments that way, he’d done it without thinking. His fist collided with Flack’s face, bruising the detective’s face, blackening his eye. He’d threatened to throw another, but Flack had grabbed his wrists hard enough to bruise them. Danny pushed him instead, using the force of his own body and the connection between them to send Flack towards the floor. Flack had grabbed the chain on his way down, snapping the clasp. Flack had pulled himself to his feet and when Danny came towards him, he fought back, hitting his lover in the face; a hard back hand against his cheek. The two had never fought before, and now they were physically hurting each other; their anger pushing them on. The final act had been Flack pushing Danny into the bathroom, where the CSI had collided with the medicine cabinet, grabbing it to steady himself, and instead bringing it crashing with him to the floor. It had been loose before, but now it fell, with Danny, to the floor, its contents spilling around him. “Get out! Get the hell out of my house and stay the hell away from me!” Danny screamed from the floor. His back was red, sore and possibly bleeding from where he’d collided with the cabinet, and his lip was cut and swollen by Flack’s hand. “Gladly!” shouted Flack and he’d stormed out. The dog tags lay on the floor of the kitchen; Flack picked them up and shoved them in his pocket. Why? Out of anger, and the subconscious need to keep a part of his lover with him. Today he felt all too guilty about what he’d done. His actions could’ve easily ended Danny Messer’s life. He picked the dog tags up off his desk and put them in his pocket, and left quickly. His first stop was a jeweller who fixed the clasp of the broken chain. It took half and hour, and while he was there he picked out a silver band with a thick chain pattern and a flat plate to have something engraved on it. He placed the order and left. His next stop was to the Starbucks just down from the street where he ordered two coffees and forced a smile for the barista behind the counter. He tried not to look as scared as he felt when he entered the Lab, walking through the lonely halls. Danny was in the Trace Lab, glasses resting on his head as he looked through the microscope. Flack put the coffee on the counter and watched Danny for a second without speaking. “I know you’re there; you don’t have to pretend otherwise,” said Danny without looking up. Flack smiled; at least Danny hadn’t yelled. “I brought coffee,” he said and Danny turned, putting his glasses back on. “I thought I told you to stay out of my life.” Danny’s voice was cold; his anger straining to stay in check and prevent another outburst like the night before. “Actually you told me to stay the hell out of your life. I just…I had to come.” “Why?” “I want to apologise for last night. I shouldn’t have yelled, we shouldn’t have fought. I love you too much to hurt you like that. I screwed up, please forgive me.” “You mean, don’t press charges?” snapped the young CSI. “You threw the first punch,” said Flack flatly. Danny walked towards him, intending to push past and out of the lab, but Flack pulled the jewellery box out of his pocket and held it towards Danny. “What’s this?” asked Danny; taking the box in the same manner he might handle evidence, his voice unemotional, and his face full of suspicion. “Just open it.” Danny pulled the box open and saw his tags there. He touched the place around his neck where they should’ve been, running his hand across the red laceration on the back of his neck. His lip was still swollen, a nasty cut tracing down the side. “You…” “I got them fixed. I’m so sorry, Danny. I screwed up. I’m so sorry.” Danny looked into Flack’s rich blue eyes. One was swollen and bruised from where his hand had made contact. He couldn’t believe he had done something so brutal to the man that had stolen his heart. He hardly remembered why he did it. He reached out and gently touched the wound, causing Flack to flinch even from the ghostly contact. “I’m sorry too. This is all my fault.” “No! I screwed up. I over reacted, I yelled, I hurt you.” “I threw you out.” “You had every right to. Forgive me?” “I…I think so.” How could forgiveness be so easy? Danny didn’t know, didn’t want to think about it. Both men knew that when forgiveness was easily given, that more fights could come of it, but neither wanted to believe that it could end. Flack loved Danny, and that was all he needed to know; or all he wanted to know. Seeing the violence, it scared him, but he didn’t want to lose his lover again. Danny loved Flack, the way the detective protected him, stood up for him, comforted him and loved him unconditionally. He had been so angry, so ready to push the other man from his life, now he wanted nothing more than to show the world how much Don meant to him. “I love you,” he whispered, and Flack smiled softly. “I love you too, more than anything.” Despite everything they’d been through, the angry words from the night before, and the brutal markings from their first fight, both men silently vowed to make it work from then on. Danny didn’t check to make sure the coast was clear, in reality he didn’t care at that point. He leaned in and kissed Flack gently on the lips. “Never again,” he promised himself silently. “I will not become my father. Never again will I hurt this man before me.” Pushed in the back of his head was the unmistakeable voice of self doubt that whispered through Danny’s mind. “We’ll see about that.” --- What do you think?