Since we all know i love to torture Danny, this is yet another fanfic where Danny has, just, the worst possible time.
A little info for you, the title and indeed the Insomnia Danny suffers are based on my own life, as are some of his fears about taking a sleeping pills, his reluctance to do so.
The plot is; The events of season 2, Louie, Aiden, Flack, all that bad stuff, has been getting to Danny, worsening the insomnia he has been living with most of his life. Danny is emotionally and physically exhausted but is unable to sleep, so spends his nights either working around his apartment, or more often, staring out of his window at the sleeping world he can never join.. One night he see's a pair of girls on the street, one of whom is his newest case. Danny finds himself struggling to seperate his personal and work life as he is pulled into the world of insomniacs and the mysterious Dr Constantine Guide.
Ratings for content, eventually its going to be for language and violence and stuff. I dont onw any CSI characters, just my own OC's of whom there will be a couple, mainly a stand in detective for Flack as this is set after the season finale, more or less now. Erm, there are one or two character things, some about Mac taking sleeping pills that are purely out of my head and are there for the story, they're not errors or anything.I'm flirting with making this into a series after this main story so feedback...
Please Read and Review.
Dedicated to The Sleepless.
Danny Messer was sitting on the small window seat in his bedroom, leaning back against the wall, his legs crossed in front of him.
His bedroom behind him was dark, but in the amber coloured light, it was possible to see the tangled sheets covering the mattress, evidence of a restless night. It had been so, and it was not the first. Danny hadn't gotten more than couple of hours of sleep a night for almost 3 weeks. He closed his eyes, laying his head back against the wall, sitting still in place, hoping the tugging sensation of sleep would begin to pull at him, drawing him into a doze.
There was nothing, just the sensation that he was sitting with his eyes closed, which with his window open, him so obviously exposed, made him nervous.
He opened his eyes again, staring out at the street.
At this time of the morning it was understandably empty. Every now and then, a late night/early morning dog walker would pass by, still dressed in pyjamas or sweats or some other such outfit that signified they had been roused from the sleep which was lost to Danny. There had been a few groups or couples or single people who had seemed to be returning from nights out, no surprise given it was Friday night. Or Saturday morning really. There had been a crack of thunder earlier and it had begun to rain almost torrentially, but the air was still humid and warm and Danny was watching the world through the near solid wall of rain that was soaking the city.
Even over the rain Danny would periodically hear the distant shriek of police, ambulance or fire truck sirens, and every time he did Danny would turn to stare at the pager laying on his bedside table, simultaneously willing it to beep to life, giving him an excuse not to be asleep as he was called back to work, and dreading the things screen lighting up with the message to call in, dreading the possibility of having to be called to a scene, to the sight of a dead body, a prematurely shortened life, another example of the awful things human beings seemed to almost relish doing to one another. He loved his job, loved putting the criminals in prison, but part of Danny withered a little each time he saw another innocent life stolen away.
He glanced at his useless bed briefly. Danny had been an insomniac since he was younger, but he had been able to work around it, had gotten used to living on only three or four hours of sleep a night. But lately, it had been different. The sleep he did get was too light to do him any real good, and he was scared to take sleeping pills, always had been, in case he made a mistake and took too many, or missed a page or his alarm because he was drugged.
Nix, the slender black cat he had brought home almost 3 year ago was laying in his lap, her paws resting on his knee, her head atop her paws. He was idly scratching the top of her head between her ears, listening as she purred rhythmically, her tail curling over his arm.
There was a tiny tabby kitten crawling up Danny's worn old t-shirt, using the ragged material to pull itself up.
"Sox that hurts" Danny muttered, picking up the kitten with his free hand and pulling it away from his chest.
He had found the kitten on the subway of all places, and had taken it to a vet, bringing it home almost two weeks ago.
Nix had greeted the new arrival with a blank, cat look that Danny had decided was unimpressed but in the weeks since, had taken shine to having Sox around.
Danny sighed and glanced at the clock on his bedside. It was 3:14 AM, and counting the previous nights lack of sleep, Danny was nearing four days on something like two and a half hours of sleep.
He licked his bottom lip, wondering what else he could do. His apartment was cleaner than it had ever been, every surface polished and cleaned, every drawer neatly and formally organised. Unable to sleep, Danny had come up with a new lay out for his closet that kept his casual and formal clothes separate, he had finally dug out four years worth of accumulated bric-a-brac from under his bed, realising with a delighted smile that the old t-shirt he had been given by his brother when Louie moved out, a t-shirt Danny had thought lost, was stuffed behind an old box full of even older photo's.
Danny wore the t-shirt now as he sat in the window.
He had washed the shirt hundreds of times since Louie had given it to him, but some how, despite that, it still retained the familiar smell Danny associated with his big brother; cigarettes and bubble gum and aftershave.
Louie had considered the shirt his luckiest item of clothing, his most treasured possession, for what reasons, Danny had never known, never felt right asking.
When Louie had left home, he and Danny hadn't been on good terms. They hadn't since that night at the Giants Stadium when Louie had seemed to out and out reject his brother after Danny made it clear he wasn't comfortable taking part in the beating of Bobby Manning, a young man Sonny Sassone, leader of the Tangleoods, had brought to the stadium, had murdered at the stadium.
From that day, Danny had never felt the same way about Louie, and since Louie had been distant since that night, the brothers had never had a chance to resolve the issue. The day Louie moved out Danny had stood watching Louie pack, chewing his nail. Louie had been taking some clothes, throwing older items aside to be packed into a box and put in storage. When he had come to the old, dark green t-shirt, the lettering Danny had never quite been able to read faded almost completely, Louie had nodded to his little brother, tossing him the shirt.
'You want that? I don't hardly wear it any way but its still got some wear left in it, no point putting it away'
Louie had turned his back on Danny who stood holding the t-shirt, making out like it wasn't a big deal. Danny had nodded, tossing the shirt over his shoulder and quietly thanked his brother, watching as he went through his other belongings, setting some aside, keeping others.
When he was done, Louie had walked past Danny, hugging him quickly, both of them a little uncomfortable with it.
He had told him to stay out of trouble, then after saying good bye to their parents, he had left. Danny had seen him again, plenty of times, but that rift had always, always been there, that tension whenever they met, that awareness, or so Danny had thought, that Louie was disappointed in his little brother, that Danny had in some way failed.
It had taken Danny being accused with murder, his reputation and potentially, though no one had ever really mentioned it, his life, at risk, to heal the rift.
Danny had discovered that the night at Giants stadium had been intentional on Louie's part. Louie had know that Sonny's methods of beating on unarmed men, his darker criminal activities, never sat right with Danny. The night at the stadium had been a test, to see if Danny would reject the Tanglewood way of life or embrace it. Louie had intentionally pushed Danny away after that night, to keep him safe.
Danny had discovered this at the cost, potentially, of Louie's life. To get a confession out of Sonny, to save Danny, Louie had gone to Sonny, talked him into confessing on a hidden tape but Sonny and his boys had worked Louie over, beating him so badly they had put him in a coma. That had been over a month ago and Louie was still hospitalised, still comatose. His condition had remained unchanged since the beating, he was still hooked up to more machines than Danny like to think about.
Louie's state was not the only blow Danny had taken in recent months, he thought as he watched a yellow cab crawl slowly along the street, it's driver glancing up at Danny's third floor window, spotting Danny, nodding in greeting.
Danny nodded back. As the cab crawled out of sight, Danny thought about Aidan Burn, his friend Aidan. The words Aidan and Dead still didn't fit together in Danny's mind, even thinking them was uncomfortable. She had been murdered. She may have been raped before she died. Knowing that, Danny wanted to kill some one. He wanted to kill DJ Pratt, her killer. He wanted to beat Pratt to death, slowly, with a good old Louisville slugger.
He had a picture of Aidan, one her father had given him after the funeral, when he had been helping him pack up Aidan's belongings.
The photo had stood on a shelf near Aidan's front door. It showed her wearing jeans, a tight white wife beater, leaning against the guardrail near the docks, the river, her hair dark hair tousled by some breeze. She was looking off to the side, as if something had caught her attention while she posed for the picture. Which it had.
Danny had taken the photo of Aidan after they had spent a day together. They had simultaneously had a day off from work, both having resolved to use the time to do all the little errands and tasks that everyone had to do that built up over time. They had both finished much earlier than expected and Aidan had called Danny a split second before he could call her, professing her boredom, explaining about her sudden abundance of completely empty hours. They had met up for a late breakfast, giggling over the menu's, ordering massive platters of pancakes each.
They had no plan of how to kill the day, so had simply spent it wandering around the city, doing what ever they felt like doing, when ever they felt like doing it.
For any life long city dweller, their home city is treasure trove of markets, stores, activities, ways to fill and kill time, to live life in your city, your home. Danny and Aidan where born and bred New Yorkers and they had found ways to entertain themselves.
They had stumbled on a flea market near the Park, a small short term carnival setting up within the Park itself. Their lunch had been hotdogs, eaten while having a staring contest, which Aidan won by telling Danny to take off his glasses at it gave him an advantage. She had been right, of course. They had asked each other to show one another something they could do, some talent they had that no one knew about. Danny had found a trampoline set up in the Park and showed Aidan his gymnastic abilities, back flipping on the springy mesh with ease.
Aidan had tried to top him by walking on her hands but Danny could match that, so she had found a group of busking musicians and taught Danny how to tango, something she excelled at.
Danny had bought Aidan a classic style old rag doll from the flea market, she had found him, knowing he was interested in music, a manuscript book, for his own compositions. It had been a fantastic day, never going beyond a couple of friends spending time together. They had ended up simply wandering around, finding them selves at the docks just as the sun was beginning to set. Danny, who always carried some kind of camera with him, had told Aidan to pose, laughing as she threw herself into it, pouting sexily at the camera, giving the lens a look Danny would have thought could have melted the glass.
As Danny was pressing the button, a guy had yelled and Aidan had instinctively glanced over. Danny had more pictures from that day but he had given that one to Aidan.
'You don't want it?' she had asked him as he looked through the other photos.
'Well you say that you aint photogenic but that picture disproves that, so you have to keep it as evidence you take damn good pictures' Danny had stated.
'But you love pictures like this, random lookin ones' Aidan had frowned, pointing at some of the other pictures he had taken, many of which where candid shots of Aidan, people, a few oddly angled ones he had clearly taken of himself and her.
He had shrugged 'Besides, its so New York' he had smiled.
'How do you mean?' Aidan had smirked.
'You, the way you look anyway, sorta exotic, but with that…that attitude, that tough, on alert attitude…then you got how you're standing, all sexy like, you got the back ground, where you are…it all, I don't know, it sorta seems like everything New York is about' Danny had shrugged again 'Look you gotta have it, it's yours' he had made a cutting gesture with his hands 'end of'
She had taken it, kept it. He looked at it when ever he went over to her apartment, smiling at the memories of the day. The photo had taken on new significance for him now that Aidan was dead. It didn't just remind of the great day he had had with her, for him it symbolised Aidan's whole personality, her character. As well as how she looked in it, there was also the fact that she had looked away at the sound of the man's shout, her sexy pout switching immediately to the suspicious half frown at the possibility that something was wrong. That was Aidan all over, always ready, always wanting to help, to get the bad guy.
Danny blinked slowly, drawing himself back to the present day. He had other pictures of him and Aidan together, with the other CSI's , their other friends. He had two favourites of just him and Aidan.
The first he had taken after he and Aidan had worked an eighteen hour shift on an arson case. They where riding the subway together, Danny having lost a bet as to how the killer would react when they arrested him and so having to buy dinner for Aidan and Don Flack. Flack had gone ahead to get a table in the Italian restaurant they had chosen and Aidan and Danny where on their way to meet him. They both had spotted a pair of sullen faced teens, a boy and a girl, holding hands and looking miserable about it. Danny had taken his digital camera from his bag and held it up, nudging Aidan and nodding toward the teens, silently communicating that they should mimic them.
They had both pulled over dramatically sombre faces but cracked at the last minute, Aidan instead winking at the camera while Danny pulled a shocked face. The picture, in black and white, stood in a frame on the shelves over Danny's computer.
The other was taken after a similar situation. Another long haul case, this one involving a battered to death teen, had ended with the two of them, Flack, Stella Bonasera and Mac Taylor in Mcginty's the pub down the road from the lab.
Danny and Aidan, exhausted, had piled into a booth with the others, sipping beers, laughing and joking. At some point, the weary pair had simply dozed off. Danny had thrown his arm across the top of the booth at some point and when he fell asleep, his arm dropped casually to Aidan's shoulder. She in turn had leaned against his shoulder and chest, while he had lowered his head to rest atop hers. There was, again, nothing more in it that the closeness of true friends. Some one had taken the picture and emailed it to Danny and Aidan both days later. He knew she'd had a copy in her apartment, which her father had given to Stella.
Danny thumped his head against the wall again, his eyes feeling hot and prickly as he remembered. A million and one images flashed through his head, of Aidan, smiling that cocky smile, asking him if he was okay. His friend.
His other friend, Don Flack, lay even now in a hospital bed. A bomber, a schizophrenic with a Marine's fetish had put him there. Flack had been in the bombed building, had needed massive surgery to remove bomb degree from his chest. It had been touch and go for a while, still could be even though Flack seemed be growing stronger every day. They had come too close to losing him, too soon after losing Aidan.
Danny chewed his lip again and thought about Flack, about how the detective was one of few people Danny could truly call a friend. Flack had always been there for Danny, been around to make sure Danny was okay if the situation got tough. When Danny had been suspected of shooting and killing a fellow officer two years past, Flack was the only one Danny had felt had had Danny's back, other than Aidan.
Flack, Danny felt some times, was like a surrogate brother, he was always there to look out for Danny, sometimes in ways Louie had never been, always ready to fight for Danny, the way Danny was with him, with any of his friends.
Danny considered Aidan and Flack to be his two closest friends. Now one of them was dead, the other was fighting to keep from joining her in the ground. Danny's brother was comatose…Danny began to suspect why he wasn't sleeping.
His right arm twinged as it did sometimes, an echo of the old injury that had ended a potential baseball career. That had been another occasion when Danny had seen Louie in the wrong light.
Danny had been near inconsolable after the announcement that his arm such as it was, would keep him from being a pro. Louie had taken Danny out for a few beers, told him shit happens, then changed the subject. Danny loved his brother but that had hurt him, cut him deep.
He rolled his head to the side, feeling the wall behind him. With a long, weary sigh, Danny gazed down at the street.
A young woman rounded the corner across the street, walking slowly, swinging her arms in that distracted way some people had.
She wore a tight black t-shirt with a hood, which she had pulled up over her black hair, and long sleeves which half covered her hands, the hood and sleeves making her pale skin seeming preternaturally bright in the darkness. Her pants where dark and loose, hanging off her narrow hips, and her baseball shoes scuffed the floor as she walked along.
She looked, from what Danny could see of her, bored. She had no protection from the rain, other than the thin hood, but she didn't seem that bothered.
A young woman followed the first girl, carrying an umbrella which obscured most of her face. This girl wore a sleeveless t-shirt and a long skirt with sandals. The skirt was black, and she wore a lot of silver jewellery.
The first girl was smaller than her companion, both in height and weight. Not umbrella girl, as Danny labelled her was particularly heavy, she just had a little more height, a few more curves than her pixieish companion.
The smaller girl glanced up and saw Danny in his window and even though she was across the street, he saw something in her face, her dark eyes that told him she was in the same boat as him, an insomniac and a night person. He was close enough to see the small smile she gave him, a nod which seemed almost fraternal, like some sort of acknowledgment that they both where the same.
Danny returned her nod and watched her and her friend.
The umbrella girl was talking rapidly, Danny could just make out the sound of her voice over the rain, sounding to Danny like she was either high or incredibly happy about something.
The smaller girl seemed content to let her friend ramble, nodding slightly as the other girl burbled on. On the taller girls bare arms, Danny could see the dark lines of several, intricate looking tattoo's, and he imagined she would have a lot of pierrcings too.
Danny picked up the camera that lay beside him and snapped off a few shots of the pair as they walked along the street, focusing on a tattoo on the taller girls back, visible under her top; it showed a Grim Reaper like figure, cowled, clutching a scythe in one skeletal hand. Danny zoomed on the tattoo and got a few shots, then pulled back and watched the girls who wandered along the side walk before finally disappearing around the corner.
Danny sighed again. They had been interesting, something to distract him from his current situation. And now they where gone.
Danny lay his head back, feeling the weight of Sox on his stomach as the kitten fell asleep. He sat at the window until the sky began to lighten and the world beyond Danny's window began to stir and waken and the unceasing rain promised it would be a difficult day for all. Danny's alarm clock began to chirp, startling the cats.
Danny waited while Nix uncurled herself from his lap and trotted out of his room, followed shortly by Sox.
Danny stretched his legs, rising from his seat and standing staring around the bedroom. Wordlessly he shut off his alarm, made his bed, and headed for the shower, preparing himself for yet another day of the worst horrors humanity had to offer.
She lay on her side, almost looking as if she where sleeping, if not for the waxy pallor of her skin, the sense to her that something was missing, some essential thing, some spark of life.
Her hair, dyed a shade of dark blue was fanned out around her head almost as if some one had arranged it that way and her face was creased into a gentle frown. There was a bruise over her nose and mouth where the killer had smothered her, and a long cut across her throat, not deep enough to be fatal, not by a long shot but enough to bleed.
She had a silver ring in her nose, a stud over her lip and two loops in her eye brow.
The rain drummed rhythmically on the ceiling panes of the green house and the whole building was too warm.
Danny focused the camera on a bruise on the girls forearm, faint but still significant, showing she may have fought her killer.
He panned down her body, taking in the darkly coloured tattoo's that decorated her skin. She wore several silver necklaces, rings, bracelets, and Danny photographed them too, making sure to show how on her right wrist, some of the bracelets seemed to be covering cuts across the skin, faint thin lines, like the one at her throat, not deep enough to be fatal but to bleed.
Her skirt had ridden up or been pushed up, it was hard to tell as it lay in such a way that it could have been arranged, like Danny suspected her hair was, or it simply could have happened in the struggle, assuming that this was where she had died.Her legs where curled slightly as if she where simply laying in bed asleep, the paly skin covered with torn fishnets, and more tattoos.
Danny stood over her to focus the camera on a mark on her neck, just behind her ear, almost hidden by her hair.
It was a small, ragged cut, similar to something you would get catching yourself on a nail or jagged shard of glass or metal. Danny zoomed the lens in tight to show the small but visible flakes of rust inside the wound.
He took a step backward to photograph her from behind, and froze.
"Danny?" Mac Taylor, Danny's superior was crouching near the girls feet, taking a swabbing of the dirt on her sandals "What's wrong?" the older man asked in that deceptively calm, soft voice of his.
The girl had another tattoo, on her back, an image of a Grim Reaper, cowl and scythe and all. Danny looked down at her legs and saw that they where long, that she had curves, not heavy, just defined. She would have been tall standing up, carrying that umbrella alongside her impish companion.
"Danny?" Mac repeated, concern in his voice.
He was worried, very worried, about the younger CSI, who he knew had taken the previous months various blows very badly.
He wasn't sure entirely how Danny was dealing with all the emotions Mac knew he must be feeling, but he suspected he actually wasn't, choosing to ignore them instead.
Danny wasn't sleeping well, Mac could say that much at least, he could tell just by looking. Danny's already fair complexion was almost pearlescent, his blue eyes ringed with dark, deep purplish bags. Mac himself knew from not sleeping, but he was trained as a Marine, he could go longer than most on little sleep, he had been trained to reserve his energy. Besides, while he didn't realise it, he had one up on Danny as he was willing, if he got desperate to resort herbal remedies, teas or in a pinch, half of a sleeping pill, to push himself into a sleep.
Danny had been quiet of late, barely even qualifying as monosyllabic, speaking only when absolutely necessary. It was obvious his mind was more or less constantly on other things, not that his work had suffered at all, but Mac wasn't sure of what he could do or say to help his young friend.
"I saw her" Danny said quietly "Last night-this morning I guess, some time around 3am"
"What? Where?" Mac frowned.
"She was walking along my street with a friend, I didn't see exactly where they came from, or exactly where they went…didn't see anyone following em either" Danny stated.
"What where you doing staring out your window at that hour?" Mac asked pointedly.
"Couldn't sleep" Danny shrugged as if it wasn't important.
"Are you sure it's the same girl?" Mac gritted his teeth but this wasn't the right time to get into a discussion about Danny's lack of sleep.
"Yeah, I took photo's of em as they passed me and I focused on that tattoo for a few of em" Danny nodded to the girls pale back.
"Any idea who she is?" Mac asked.
"Not a one. Just some kid who couldn't sleep I guess, ran into the wrong person" Danny looked over at Mac, meeting his eyes for the first time that day.
Mac saw some thing in Danny's, a weariness that seemed to go beyond the physical. It was more than just a cops cynicism too, it was something deeper and it scared Mac. Danny was too young to be so tired of the bad things in the world, to be so resigned to it. He prayed it was only temporary, like a bad mood brought on by a consistently bad day. He hoped that once Louie and Flack began to recover, if Louie was going go recover at all, once things started to get back to normal, that weariness would fade.
"The MO is familiar" Mac stated as Danny looked away again, seeming oddly unwilling to maintain eye contact for too long, Mac suspected because he knew how well Mac would read him.
"The Vampire girl ten weeks ago, made the head lines cos her dad was some big Wall Street heavyweight…and of I remember correctly eight weeks before her, the Goth Drag Queen" Danny correctly noted.
"There are others" Mac nodded "Going back about 18 months, five or six in total, that I could find, same MO, mostly the same type of kid, Goths" Mac frowned deeply.
"Mostly?" Danny asked.
"There where a few who wheren't Goths, one was a choreographer specialising in hip hop, one was in a sorority that had a 'pink' rule, another guy was a dad who wouldn't even let his kids watch horror movies, but all of em died the same way" Mac had a policy of keeping the files for open and unsolved cases on his desk, working on them in his spare time, memorising details lest they crop up in a new case that could be related.
"Does this count as a serial?" Danny asked curiously, some tiny semblance of his old self seeming to emerge as he became intrigued by the possibility of a serial killer.
"Could be, I mean the time patterns are pretty much regular, the victims are mostly very similar, there's the ritual aspect with the slit throat…." Mac shrugged "Most serial killers escalate, more killings in a shorter space of time but even if that's not what this guy does, cant deny the 'serial killing' aspects we're seeing"
"You want to call the feds in?" Danny gave a dubious frown that made Mac smile internally as it was completely the Old Danny, not wanting to pass the case off to people he though unable to handle it.
"I think if they haven't come sniffing already it says they either haven't heard about it or don't think it's a serial" Mac shrugged "Either way, no reason we should do their job for em right?" he gave Danny a small smirk.
Danny returned it, fleetingly, but his face grew sombre as he turned back to look at the girl's body "Shit…her friend was a lot smaller than she was Mac, same age I think but smaller…this girls tall, she's strong lookin…if she couldn't fight off the killer there might be a second victim some where" he said.
"Well we'll just have to find this guy before it comes to that" Mac stated, trying to reassure Danny.
The younger man gave a slow nod, but went on staring at the body with those weary eyes.