Danny pulled up outside the high school and took a minute to glare at it before getting out of the truck and grabbing his kit. He’d hated high school, had never fit in even with his brother’s reputation and baseball, and the odds that this case involved an outsider kid versus some jock fucks was disturbingly high.

There were a couple uniforms waiting at the corner of the huge building and Danny nodded to them in greeting. As he got closer, he noticed they were both pale and the younger guy, a rookie probably, looked like he wanted to puke.

“Hey, guys. What’s the word?”

The older cop, a decent if cynical guy named Franco, raked a hand over his face and said hoarsely, “It’s fucked back there, Messer. You better figure this one out fast ‘cause I do not wanna hit another one of these scenes.”

Danny frowned. “Where’s Flack?”

“Right here,” the man himself called out as he approached.

Don had lost a fair bit of weight in the last month or so, because of his injuries and inability to work out like he did before the explosion, but the coming of summer always drove him and Danny out to the shore and baseball games in their free time, so he had some decent colour and his eyes looked even bluer. He also hadn’t been working a lot of long hours, so he was catching up on sleep. He healing up great and didn’t look half-bad.

Usually. Right now he had a fierce, disgusted look on his face and was just as pale as the uniforms.

Danny – who was browning in the sun too but lost some weight himself and wasn’t getting nearly enough sleep, as usual – had to bite back the urge to touch Don’s arm and ask if he was alright. Over the past couple months; ever since Louie landed in the hospital and especially after what happened to Stella and Aiden, he’d gotten very protective of his best friend. He knew that Don could take care of himself, but he still got anxious whenever there was a perp to chase, or shots fired, or a particularly over aggressive suspect. Now he knew how Don felt every time Danny walked out the door.

So Danny wanted to say something that he shouldn’t be in front of the uniforms, but knew Don might sulk or bite his hand off if he did, so he just asked, “What’ve we got?”

“Guy hangin’ off a goal post. We don’know if it’s a nut-job or freak accident, but that’s what you’re here for, am I right?”

Danny smirked and nodded. “That’s what the boss-man tells me. Lead the way, pally.”

Don nodded and headed back the way he came, Danny followed half a step behind him.

“You okay, Flack?” Danny finally let himself ask when they were far out of earshot of the uni’s. Don had woken up in a good mood, even if he had been beeped three hours before his shift was supposed to start – Danny suspected that he was actually psyched to be called out off-shift, something that had happened maybe only twice since the explosion – and had left promising to grab lunch at Gray’s with Danny later. But now the man was stiff and monosyllabic.

“Fine,” Don said firmly, not looking at him but staring straight ahead to where they were going.

“Nice school, huhn?” Danny commented to change the subject. Don got touchy if conversation hinted at leading to discussion of the explosion and whether or not he was alright. Danny was just fine forgetting about it, forgetting about that whole spring. And he figured that even if the answer was a brush-off, it was better than a snap.

“Yeah, well, it is the upper east side.”

The high school was a grand, beautiful building with its own gym, pool, baseball diamond and two football fields. It was the kind of place that would have classes no bigger than twenty kids, a full budget for art supplies and tutoring programs, and an academic counsellor that was actually useful.

“Nothin’ like Yonkers.”

“Nothin’ like Yonkers,” Don agreed with a sigh that sounded proud.

They’d both grown up in Yonkers in the Bronx; Don born and raised in the mostly Irish middle-class Northeast area, Danny coming from Brooklyn when he was little to Southeast, where it was blue collar, Italian-Irish, and fairly rough. They were proud of their roots – Don nothing but a fourth generation son of a cop, and the Messer family morals and means of paying the bills questionable at best – and the former lived in Queens now, while the latter back in Brooklyn, both heading into Yonkers regularly for family.

This here was a yuppie school, and Danny for one was prepared to get defensive with anyone who questioned him because of the way he talked and his childhood address. It was what he was good at, after all, talking back.

“So anyway,” Don continued, “The janitor, Marcus Chambers, found the vic this mornin’ ‘bout an hour ago and called the principle, then us. I’ve already talked to him, but he’s inside makin’ his usual rounds if we need anythin’ else. He’s clean and I buy his story. Says he was headin’ in through the school’s side entrance, saw somethin’ on the goal post, thought it was a prank or garbage or whatever, came to check it out and lost his lunch. So mind your step. The whole field is closed off, but the principal is insistin’ on keepin’ the school open. We had words, but no real issues. Franco and that kid he calls a partner is gonna keep on eye on the students, make sure they’re kept away.”

“Nice.”

“Chambers also brought out a ladder for us. Which prompted the principle to inform me that if we damage the pitch, we’re paying for it. Which won’t be the case.”

Danny smirked. “Nope. After we clear and open the scene, that’ll be their problem.”

They were headed for one of the football fields and sure enough, Danny could see a body hanging off the far goal post and a couple more uni’s holding the scene. He’d assumed that ‘hanging off’ meant the guy had been hung, like with a rope or something, but apparently it meant getting impaled on the right fork post. As they got closer, Don’s stride slowed and almost seemed to falter, and Danny realized the full extent of the gore.

“Ew, oh God, that’s disgusting.”

“Yeah, no kiddin’,” Don muttered, glancing away from the scene, then back again.

The body had been impaled through the left side, below the ribs, and the post had pushed through on the far side of the bellybutton. The man looked to be almost two hundred pounds, which must have been just a little too much, because the exit wound had stretched and torn, leaving his internal organs exposed and his body hanging by a thread. The force of something so big and blunt punching through the abdomen had forced the guts to spill out. What looked like intestines were hanging down and swaying in the breeze, reminding Danny morbidly of Christmas tinsel. Blood was still dripping from the man’s mouth, open wounds, and probably his anus, seeing as how the seat of his pants were wet with dark blood too. The smell was awful too. It’d been terribly humid for the past week, and last night the temperature hadn’t dropped to below eighty degrees. Even now, at only eight in the morning, the sun was hot and the air moist. The body was rotting already.

“Okay,” Danny said to Don, and himself, “Breathe through your ears.”

“Gotcha. At least I’m pretty sure it ain’t a student.”

The vic was at least forty, unshaven and filthy, his clothes suggesting either very low-rent or homeless rather than prep school student or teacher.

“Christ, lookit that.” Danny heard one of the uni’s say. He glanced at them, but they were talking amongst themselves and he didn’t know either of them.

“I know. Fuck, he’s all over the place,” the first guy’s pal said loudly. “God, I think that’s his kidney.”

“Nah, it’s his liver.”

“How th’fuck would you know?”

“The butcher’s, man!”

“Jeez, whatever it is, it looks like the dog’s dinner.”

Danny was rather proud of his cast iron stomach – when it came to both messy crime scenes and that sketchy Chinese food place down the street from Don’s apartment – but the way the uni’s were talking was getting even to him.

He looked at Don in order to share an eye roll, and winced. Don was staring blankly at the ground, his eyes wide as saucers and jaw tight. His normally straight back and shoulders were hunched and he had one hand pressed firmly onto his abdomen, to the left of his bellybutton. He wasn’t pale with nausea anymore; he was fucking translucent.

Danny knew Don hated being asked if he was okay more than once or in a non-offhand manner, but right now he looked like he was about to pass out. “Flack. Flack, you okay? Don!”

Don jumped slightly, glanced at the body again, then looked at Danny, his eyes still wide but seeing now. Danny could see a sheen of sweat one his forehead and upper lip that hadn’t been there a moment ago and wasn’t from the humidity or sun. Danny broke a sweat every time he thought about running down a suspect – insanely fit or not – and he spent the day fighting against his glasses sliding down, but Don was usually like a desert lizard. He could wear a full suit with his collar done up on the hottest day of summer and still stay powder dry. Other then shooting hoops and rambunctious sex; only bad nerves got him sweating, which usually happened never.

“What? What is it?” Don asked jerkily, sounding breathless.

Danny felt the familiar rush of anger speed through his body like adrenaline and he turned to glare at the two uni’s who still hadn’t shut up about guts and butchers and how fucked the scene was.

“Man, you see that movie Alien, where that thing pops outta the guy’s chest?”

“Yeah, but this is way messier. Like a goddamn Tarantino movie.”

“Fuck yeah, and that stink. God, it’s like…rotting meat and fresh shit.”

“’Cause that’s exactly what it is, you dumb fucks! What, you think talk like that’s really helpin’ us here?” Danny demanded furiously. He strode up to them, grabbed them both by their uniform shirt sleeves and turned and shoved them away from the body. “Do me a favour and shut the fuck up, why don’t ya? This ain’t a debutante party, so quit the gossip and do your jobs for Christ’s sake. Go walk the fields, look for evidence.”

The two uni’s glared at him, but obeyed and started wandering down the edge of the pitch.

“And show some fuckin’ respect, you assholes! There’s a goddamn dead body here!”

Danny heard them grumble what could have been either an apology or cursing out, but didn’t really care. He turned and eyed Don carefully, who was staring back at him.

“What’d you do that for?” He still looked pale and sweaty, but he didn’t look like he’s about to puke or pass out anymore.

Danny looked over his shoulder at the departing uni’s and bared what Don called his ‘fangs’ at them. “They need some friggin’ discipline. What if the victim’s family or any civilian heard that shit? I mean, what if Mac had heard that? He’d’ve gone ape shit on ‘em too.”

To his surprise, he heard Don chuckle. He turned back and grinned sharply at his friend, making Don laugh harder.

“Dan, did you just suggest that someone else needed some discipline? Ain’t you kinda the poster boy for anti-discipline?”

“Hey, I got discipline! I just don’t utilize it all the fuckin’ time. Those guys had big mouths and needed to shut up.”

“Again. Hypocritical?”

“Yeah, easy. Where’s that damn coroner?”

Don told him, his voice raspier than usual but steady now, “Pino’s on his way. Should be ‘bout ten minutes or so. But d’you really need him to declare the guy dead?”

“Nah, but I’d like to get the hell outta here right quick.”

“Yeah, no kiddin’,” Don said again.

Danny sighed and looked over at the extendable metal ladder lying at the side of the pitch. “Well, shit. Guess I better get up there.”

“Hop to it, Messer.”

Danny gave him a ‘so not amused’ look and set up the ladder.

He thought about asking Don again if he was okay, but decided against it. Stella was mothering Don enough these days – although her you couldn’t really snap at without getting a verbal bitch-slap back, so you just took it – and Don looked better now already anyway.

He took his camera out of his kit, hung it around his neck and put one foot on the bottom rung before stopping. He ducked his head and swore under his breathe, prompting Don to ask, “Whatsa matter?”

“…Heights.”

Don raised his eyebrows. “S’not that high.”

“Oh yeah, s’not that high. It’ll still suck when I fall and break my damn neck though.”

Don smirked, glanced at the uni’s who halfway down the field by now with their backs to the detectives and their heads down, and stepped up behind Danny. He got close enough that they were chest to back and reached his arms around the smaller man, bracing the ladder firmly.

“I’ll hold it for you,” he said in a low voice.

Danny’s body was warm already from the sun, but his temperature shot up even more at Don’s closeness. He shuddered when Don spoke right into his ear, his breath against his neck, and his grip tightened on the rungs.

“Watch it, Flack,” he warned, trying to ignore the heat and smell of soap coming off the taller man in palpable waves.

“C’mon, Dan, hurry it up. I’d rather do this somewhere other than under a DB. Preferably where no uni’s can see us,” Don returned coolly, his voice deepening with amusement and something else.

Danny scowled and started climbing up. He’d never admit it out loud, but he did feel infinitely better knowing that Don was bracing the ladder. Danny was just fine in skyscrapers if he could avoid the windows, on the hydraulic platform, with climbing trees and fire escapes – as long as there was something to grip, something to grab on the way down – but ladders really got to him.

As he snapped his photos and gathered his samples, all the while trying to hold his breath and not actually touch the body, he wondered if this dizzy, numb feeling he got when he was up a ladder or leaning over some ledge was the same one Don got when he thought about the explosion too much. It was rather akin to the feeling he’d for months after the Minhas shooting whenever he had to pull his gun and he hated it.

After a few minutes of concentrating on his job, he felt the ladder give a small lurch. Just a little one, but it was enough to make Danny yelp, squeeze his eyes shut and grab onto the crossbar of the goalpost.

“You’re fine!” he heard Don call up reassuringly.

“Yeah, sorry, my fault!”

Danny opened his eyes and looked down to see Doctor Marty Pino standing at the base of the ladder too now, helping Don brace it from the underside. Pino’s assistant was standing to the side, looking ill and waiting at the ready with a gurney and body bag.

Letting out his breath slowly, he nodded and checked his camera, which he had dropped and bounced off the ladder’s top rung when he got startled. Feeling as if he had all he could get, Danny made his way slowly and carefully down the ladder. He expected Don to move away before he reached the bottom like Pino did, but he didn’t. Instead the man took a brief second to let Danny brush against his chest before he grabbed the ladder and carried it away from the immediate crime scene. It was platonic enough, and Danny wished he’d thought of a way to do the same kind of thing when Don had been freaked out by the uni’s talk earlier.

“Okay,” Danny said, regaining his confidence and attitude now that he had both feet planted firmly on the ground and was standing between two friends. “There he is, Pino. Do what you gotta do.”

Pino grinned and nodded. “Sure,” he said in his oddly soft voice, “Y’know, Messer, maybe if you paid a little more attention to the Giants, you’d be more comfortable on a pitch.”

Danny scoffed. “Whatever. Hey, didja here ‘bout the Yankees kickin’ Boston’s ass two games in a row? I mean, it was a killin’.” He gave the ME a you-should-know-better look. “Football good, but baseball is king.”

“Oh blasphemy, man. That’s hurts, y’know.”

At the same time, both men looked to Don for support. Don raised his hands in defence and said, “Look, guys, I’m Rangers all the way. Go ask for a tie-breaker over your pissin’ contest elsewhere.”

Danny smirked and shrugged at Pino. “Pal, you wanna talk to someone ‘bout football, go find Monroe.”

Pino actually looked thoughtfully at that. “Really…”

Don huffed and gestured at the DB. “Can we please get outta here? The smells gettin’ to me.”

Normally Pino and Danny would have mocked Don horribly for being a wuss, even if they were fighting to gag reflex too, but coroner was too gentle a guy to make fun of him so soon after his trauma and Danny was still fuming over the uni’s and a little shaken from being up the ladder. They both just nodded in agreement and set to work getting the body down.

It involved the assistant laying down tarp and Pino going up the ladder, strapping the body to a harness, making a clean, documented cut at the bit of flesh holding it to the post, and lowering it down carefully. They would have used the hydraulic platform, but Stella was apparently using it on a body found on a billboard catwalk in the Bowery.

Danny thought that Don really was going to pass out when they had the body down and Don had to go through the DB’s pockets for ID and almost offered to do it for him, but Don just set his game face and did it quickly and silently. Danny noticed his friend refused to look at the wound on the abdomen. You’d have to be a real tool not to get what was upsetting him. Don stepped back about six feet more than was necessary and shook his head.

“No ID.”

“Shit,” Danny sighed, then did a double take at Pino. “Whatsa matter with you?”

Pino was frowning pensively at the body and shook his head slowly at the question. “I dunno. This guy looks really familiar. Not like I know him, just like I’ve seen him somewhere. Anyway, you want to go over this here or at the morgue?”

“Morgue. AC, man.”

“Good call. Gimme a couple hours, I’ll have ‘em ready.”

When the body was safely packaged and on the gurney, Pino turned to Danny and Don and smiled pleasantly. “Eight inches to the right and it would have put points on the board.”

Don visibly swallowed. “Eight inches is a lot when it’s through a body.”

“Touché. Later, Flack, Messer.” He and his assistant started pushing the gurney back towards the school, where they’d have a cooled van waiting.

“See ya, Marty.” Danny glanced at Don and sighed, feeling drained already, even though it was only nine in the morning. He really wanted to go home, grab a cool shower, and watch Yankees reruns with nothing but BVDs, a wife-beater and the fan on. Or maybe just grab a cool shower and get naked with Don. But he’d toughed out worse days; he could handle this. He just hoped his friend could too. “C’mon, Flack, I don’know ‘bout you, but I am so done here. Let’s go find a cold drink.”

Don nodded, gave the bloody but now empty football post one last look and said tightly, “Yeah. Cold drink. Sounds good.”

They left the uni’s who’d pissed them off in the sun to hold the scene, bid farewell to Franco and his rookie partner, and left in search of a bodega.

They ended up heading to the one just a block from the labs. They stood outside it, leaning against the brick wall under the awning for shade, nursing Cokes and people watching. Don had decided to act like a sane human being and left his suit jacket and tie in the car and rolled up his dress shirt sleeves. Danny was wearing his favourite blue button-up shirt which was nice and light, jeans and his black boots, but was still seriously considering stripping to his wife-beater. It was barely mid-morning and already a scorcher.

“Ten bucks says that guy’s a serial killer.”

Danny craned his neck and found the guy Don was not-so-discreetly pointing at. “Totally. He makes ashtrays outta people’s skulls for sure.”

Don snickered and took a sip of his cold drink. He felt better now that he had something cold in his stomach and was away from the sight, smell and noise of that crime scene. They rarely got to him, even after the explosion, but this one did for sure. Danny getting scared on the ladder hadn’t helped. It was good distraction from his own near panic attack, but when his cocky, high-strung best friend tensed up, so did Don. He couldn’t help it.

“What d’you think the odds of that shell game ‘cross the street bein’ legit are?”

Danny smirked. “I dunno. I was just wonderin’ to myself ‘bout whether or not I could maybe hustle the hustler.”

“Aw, later, man. S’too hot today.”

And so on.

But finally, Don couldn’t help asking in a casual voice, “So…did it bother you bein’ at a crime scene like that? Dead body at a football pitch?”

Danny tore his gaze from a couple of cute college girls sashaying on by and frowned at Don. “What, ‘cause it was so gross?”

“No, I mean…’cause it was a dead body. At a football pitch.”

“Whaddaya…oh.” Danny’s forehead scrunched up and he suddenly got really interested in fiddling with his Coke can. “Didn’t even…never crossed my mind. I was just thinkin’ ‘bout how it coulda happened.”

Don shook his head and gently elbowed the other man in the side. “Hey, sorry. Never mind. I assumed you’d think of it. I didn’t mean to bring 'em up.”

“S’okay,” Danny muttered. “Forgeddabout it. I’d’ve thought of 'em sooner or later.”

Don nodded and fell silent for a minute. He’d assumed Danny would have immediately thought of Louie, but apparently he was wrong. Anxious about it now, but refusing to show it, he wondered if Danny was starting to get over his brother’s near fatal beating or was just pushing it away and living in denial. The CSI certainly talked about his brother a lot more since the incident, but only with Don and Mac, and only about good stuff like going to Coney and Beastie Boys’ concerts before they were famous.

“Dan…”

“No. Seriously, I’m fine. I just…miss ‘em, is all. Don’ worry ‘bout it.” Danny looked up at Don, his grey-blue eyes piercing and searching, and asked, “Whaddabout you, Donnie? You okay?”

Before Don could answer with something that would appease Danny’s tenacious and suspicious concern, his mobile rang.

Danny sighed and looked back at the people on the sidewalk, quietly finishing his Coke while Don conversed.

“Flack…Hey, Mac…Yeah, just twenty minutes ago, I was gonna – okay…Sure, it’s fine…Mulberry, right…Is that really necessary…? No, I get it…Yeah, I’ll tell ‘em…Sure. Bye, Mac.” He hung up and glanced at Danny, who by all appearances hadn’t paid attention to a word of the one-sided conversation, but Don knew better. The young CSI was sharp, very sharp.

“Another mob case he don’t want me workin’?”

Don wasn’t at all surprised by the deduction. “Yeah. It’s not that he don’t trust you, Danny, it’s just…with all that shit with Louie…”

“…Anybody I know?”

“Johnny Morello? Young guy, Mac says into drugs.”

The corners of Danny’s mouth turned down in a ‘got me’ expression and he shook his head. He’d grown up with a lot of guys who’d be getting their stripes and soldier status by now, in both the Tanglewoods and actual Families, and had ‘uncles’ who’d made some pretty big names for themselves, and he kept tabs on a lot of that business, but he didn’t know any Morellos. Personally or professionally.

“He found dead behind a Lucchese owned restaurant,” Don said carefully. “Pretty obvious that it’s a mafia job, but the kid’s so low on food chain that nobody’s worried.”

Danny shrugged indifferently and handed over the keys to his issued truck. Lucchese Family was the big boy sect of Tanglewood, but Danny wasn't going to let himself worry about that. His father and brother were out, that was what mattered. “Whatever. Just…”

“I’ll give you a call if your old man or Louie even get mentioned.”

Danny pushed off the wall and tossed his empty can in the nearby trash. “Thanks. I better go get started on that DB. See you later?”

“Sure, I’ll come get follow-up for that. I dunno ‘bout lunch now though…”

“Forget it. You comin’ over tonight? Yankees and Oakland at seven.”

“You have workin’ AC and I don’t. Of course I am.” Don grinned broadly and Danny almost bought it for being entirely honest rather than just mostly.

It was enough though and prompted Danny to lean over and kiss Don swiftly on the cheek, onlookers be damned. “Later then,” he affirmed over his shoulder as he walked away. He glanced back once when he was far enough down the sidewalk to avoid looking like a total dork, and was just in time to see Don pull into traffic and out of sight.

Sighing, he headed back to the lab to work on his friend, Mr Impaled on a Goalpost. He hoped he could concentrate without bringing the wrath of Stella or Mac down on himself. Way too many issues today…

to be continued.