Bottled Poetry, a CSI: New York fanfic

A/N: This could be a sequel to 'Silence is Golden' or it could just stand alone. So...uh, whatever floats your boat. XD

Disclaimer: Story mine, character and tv show not mine.

Here's to the corkscrew - a useful key to unlock the storehouse of wit, the treasury of laughter, the front door of fellowship, and the gate of pleasant folly.

Time flew by, providing opportunities and experiences. To Lindsay, life in New York was like a bottle of wine; the longer you keep, the better it tastes. She had made a few friends in the lab and from her apartment block, which she now considered home. She preferred to think she had two homes now, since Montana was where everything she once knew was. One queer thing about that bottle of wine though, Lindsay reminded herself, expose it to air for too long and it’d go sour.

After Danny and she had declared themselves friends, Lindsay found the lab increasingly welcoming. It was like she had passed some initiation test to a fraternity. Of course, she knew the ‘test’ only applied to Danny; no one else in the lab had been as affected when Aiden was fired.

“Good morning!” Danny drawled as Lindsay stepped into the locker room. She smiled and greeted him back, pulling the strap of her bag over her head. “Mac says we have a case.”

“We?” She asked, just to clarify, as she spun the combination to her locker.

Danny grinned and slammed his locker shut. “Yep. Me and you, got a problem?”

She laughed, deposited her belongings and faced him. “Not yet. What’s the case about?” They left the room side by side, Danny explaining what was needed of them.

It was two in the morning and both of them were making no move to return to their apartments. They were dedicated CSIs, c’est la vie. Until they got a lead or deciphered a clue, both wouldn’t leave their jobs undone in favor of a warm bed.

Danny looked up from the file he was staring at. A headache was fast approaching, probably due to the hour long mental cursing episode from not being able to crack the case that had just taken a brief intermission. He looked at Lindsay who was sitting across him at the table. She was chewing on a pen, brow furrowed and body tensed. Hair was falling into her face and messy from being pulled in a ponytail for too long. Danny resisted the urge to reach forward and tuck the hair obscuring her face behind her ear.

Lindsay groaned in frustration. The evidence contradicted in a dozen different ways. Feeling Danny’s eyes on her, she looked up, “What?”

“Nothin’”

“This is worse than a gigantic 10000 piece jigsaw.” She muttered and rested her forehead against the table with a thud.

He didn’t know where it came from but he felt like bending over to smell her hair. There was a faint scent of flowers, and he wanted to know which mixture of flowers it was. Damn pheromones, he cursed and stood up, trying to get his mind off those thoughts. He did NOT have a fetish for hair. “Wanna go to the break room for some coffee?”

Raking a hand through her hair and pulling the hair tie off, Lindsay pushed herself out of the chair and agreed, “I guess we could use a break.”

He opened the door for her and she, noticing the gesture, looked at him and smiled tiredly.

Seeing that there was practically no one in the lab, Danny and Lindsay decided to discuss the case on the break room couch with steaming mugs of coffee. Lindsay sat next to Danny, removing her shoes and crossing her legs beneath her. She was aware of the warmth of his body and the scent of his skin, plus his constant staring was giving her tiny butterflies in her stomach. She distanced her emotions and bent down to work. It was the only way she was going to function. Lindsay had let him flirt and tease, but only responded with friendly banter. There had been rumors that found their way to her ears ten minutes after she first entered the building a few months ago.

Oh? You’re working with Danny Messer. He’s a player, you can’t trust him.

After spending so much time with him, Lindsay felt otherwise. True, he flirted incessantly and excessively, but Danny wasn’t superficial and untrustworthy. In fact, she found he guarded secrets very well. Still, she kept her wall up, succeeding in convincing others (and herself) that Danny Messer did not affect her. Besides, he just broke up with Cindy; she was not going to be an alternative channel for whatever pent up sexual desire he had.

Chewing on her lip, Lindsay opened the case file and read through the contents for the hundredth time.

Danny sighed loudly and threw his head back, resting his neck against the beck of the couch. He caught sight of the numbers on his watch before closing his eyes, welcoming the darkness. 04:23. He wondered how Lindsay could keep awake for so long without whining at all. She had elbowed him when he started complaining that his whole body was suffering.

“My head hurts.”

“Go take an aspirin.”

“My back hurts.”

“Stand up and stretch.”

“My neck hurts.”

“So does mine. Crick it.”

“My sinuses hurt.”

“Damn it, Danny! I’m trying to think here. Suck it up, okay?”

Listening to her pen scratching on a piece of paper, Danny dozed off, feeling oddly comfortable with his co-worker’s proximity.

Squeezing herself deeper into the corner of the couch, Lindsay let out a small sigh, careful not to wake Danny, who thankfully was not snoring. It was cold and she wanted to lean into him, but they were colleagues, and snuggling was off limits. She pulled the piece of paper she had been scribbling possible theories on and turned to the side, using the arm rest as a surface to write on, eye lids drooping uncontrollably.

It was a little past five when Lindsay finally succumbed to sleep and buried her head in the arm rest, pen dangling off her fingers and falling to the floor.

Stella entered the break room the next morning and had to grin at the sight. Danny was asleep with his head thrown back and legs splayed open inelegantly, Lindsay was curled into a ball in the other corner, case file still on her lap. A mischievous grin gracing her face, Stella walked to the back of the couch and flicked Danny’s head with her finger.

She stifled a laugh when Danny jerked his head up and snapped open his eyes before wincing.

“Wakey, wakey.”

“Ugh, Stella.” He rubbed his eyes and turned to his left. Lindsay’s back was facing him and her head was rested on one arm, the other draped haphazardly on the arm rest.

“You better wake her up before Mac comes in.” Stella started the coffee maker and left the room, smirking to herself.

Danny bent over to pull the hair our of Lindsay’s face. Watching her sleep made a smile tug at the corner of his lips. As much as he wanted to stay like that for some time more, Danny knew that soon the place would be buzzing with lab techs and CSIs, there was no choice but to end her nap.

He squeezed her shoulder gently, “Montana.”

She whimpered slightly and rolled over, stretching her legs. She opened her eyes in confusion when her feet came into contact with Danny’s thighs.

“It’s day time.” He muttered and smiled at her, licking his lips. He found her beautiful with her hair all mussed up and eyes half-opened. Danny could count her eyelashes from where he was.

Lindsay looked into his eyes for a second before reluctantly pulling her feet away from him and sitting up. She shuddered slightly at the huskiness of his voice and the heat transferring off his hand onto her shoulder. Raising a hand to her head, she pressed her hair down. “I still wanna sleep.” She grumbled and using his thigh as leverage, pushed herself off the couch.

Feeling her palm on his thigh enveloped him with an earthy sensation of attraction. The warmth lingered a while and left his skin when she removed her hand. She bent down to pick up the pen lying on the floor. Danny checked her out without thinking and averted his eyes when he realized what he was doing. “What do you say we go somewhere and eat a big breakfast?”

“Hmm, I’m hungry. Okay.” Lindsay straightened up and nodded her head. She laughed as Danny dragged her out of the break room by the arm.

It was a game they played. The teasing turned both of them on, but because they were co-workers, as they reminded themselves repeatedly, neither were going to address any of those feelings. Being in close proximity to each other day after day did nothing to quell the budding desire. Danny, with a pinch of guilt, picked up girls from just about anywhere, hoping that these escapades would rid his blatant attraction for Lindsay. She, on the other hand, tried her best to be professional and be nothing more than friendly, ignoring the fact that her heart beat faster whenever they spoke.

Even though they consciously address each other as ‘just friends’, they had already opened the bottle of wine and tasted its sweetness, felt its fire. The most inevitable thing, however, was that the sliver of fragrant liquor dancing in their throats was addictive. Lindsay hoped to hell it wasn’t about to go sour.

-Wine is bottled poetry. -

R&R. I wanna know what you think. :)

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