Emily (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
iluvroadrunner6) wrote2006-11-11 03:41 pm
iluvroadrunner6) wrote2006-11-11 03:41 pm
Flack/Stella - Can't Win
i went to check my flist last night, and when i saw the prompt for the monthly challenge at ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
fivebyfiction, the plot bunny hit me like a brick wall. now this is rather long, but i like it.
Fandom: CSI:NY
Title: Can't Win
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
iluvroadrunner6
Rating: FRT
Pairing Don Flack/Stella Bonasera
alphabetasoup Prompt: I is for Irritated
fivebyfiction Prompt: Sound
fivebyfiction Challenge Prompts: a pink haired girl, a gun, mistaken identity, a music concert, and the flu
Content Warning: N/A
Summary: It had not been Flack's day.
Author's Note: Also used the prompt Stella Bonasera / Don Flack, Jr. / nonsense. This was a lot of fun to write, and I hope reading it is just as much fun. And it's not confusing. If it is confusing, let me know.
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters of CSI:NY. They're owned by CBS.
The music had began to play softly over the crowd and Stella drummed her fingers against the table in front of her, feeling the last of her patience start to wane. He was already twenty minutes late, there was no answer on his phone and no message on her own voicemail. He stood her up. Of all people in the world, he was the last person she would have expected to stand her up. She was ready to order herself another drink when the phone started to vibrate across her table. She checked the caller ID, and then rolled her eyes when it said dispatch. She was on call tonight, but she really didn’t think they were going to actually call her in.
“Bonasera,” she sighed as she got up, getting ready to pay her tab.
***
“You’ve reached Stella Bonasera. I can’t come to the phone right now, but if you’ll leave your name and number I’ll get back to you when I can.”
“Hey, Stella, it’s me,” Don said into the phone, after getting her voicemail for what seemed like the fifth time that night, “Look, I know I said I might be a little late, but it turns out I’m not gonna make it at all, I just got called out to a scene, so I hope you enjoy the show, and I’ll see you at work, alright?”
He hung up the phone, praying that Stella had gotten the five other messages before this. Haley had contracted a nasty version of the flu, and since he had the day off he volunteered to help Maria in making sure she got better. Which intitled a lot of running around to get various cough medicines or taking her to the pediatrician, and that involved getting into Manhattan traffic, which seemed to be worst today than any other day. By the time they had actually gotten Haley home and asleep, was already not going to make it in time for the start, but he wasn’t going to show up smelling like sick little kids. However, he had also barely had enough time to shower and change before the call from dispatch came in for the homicide.
“Do you know,” Amy Wexlerman began tossing her hair over her shoulder. She had been standing off to the side, waiting for Don to finish with his phone call, but eavesdropping the whole time, “That you just totally followed a typical response for a non-preferred action?”
“No, I was not aware of that,” Don replied slowly, realizing he had caught another crazy witness.
“I mean you delayed telling her the bad news, and then once you said it you justified the action, and then you qualified it and accounted for it—” she caught the look Don was giving her, and slowed down, “—But you’re not interested in that, are you?”
“Nah,” Don shook his head, “What I am interested in is how you found the body?” She gave him a soft smile before giving him her statement, and just as she was finishing, Hawkes arrived at the crime scene.
“Sorry you got called in on your night off, man,” Hawkes said to him as he ducked under the crime scene tape, “Heard you and Stella had plans.”
“Yeah,” Flack nodded, “I left her a bunch of messages, but she never called me back. I hope she actually got ‘em, and she doesn’t show up to work tomorrow, wanting to bite my head off.”
“Something I would wish on no one, least of all you,” Hawkes replied, “Dispatch said they was gonna try and get a hold of Danny, but until he gets here, what have you got?”
“Vic is Fredrick Berman, forty-two,” Don began slowly, “He was found by Amy Wexlerman over there, who was walking her way home from kickboxing class. She says she didn’t touch anything, saw the body, called nine-one-one.”
Hawkes glanced back to the woman in question and frowned, “Flack, is her hair—”
“Pink? Yes, Hawkes. Yes it is.”
Don looked up at the sound of heels on the pavement, and Hawkes frowned when he saw the color drain from the man’s face. “I thought you said dispatch was going to call Danny.”
“I did,” Hawkes replied, before turning to see a very pissed off Stella Bonasera standing in front of them. She shot Don a death glare before turning to Hawkes, “Alright Hawkes, what have we got?”
***
“Test results came back on the gun recovered at the scene,” Stella said to Hawkes as they went into the breakroom, “It’s a match to the bullet that killed Fredrick Berman.”
“Get anything, prints, fibers?” he asked, and she shook her head.
“Nothing, gun was clean. I’m running it through IBIS now, see if we get a hit.” They both looked up when they heard the breakroom door open, and Stella’s jaw set when she saw Flack walk in. Hawkes took the file from her hand, and backed away from her slowly.
“I’ll give you two some privacy,” he said softly before disappearing out the door.
“I take it by you giving me the cold shoulder that you didn’t get my messages,” Flack began slowly, but his voice was having about the same effect on her frayed nerves that it had had at the crime scene, where everything coming out of his mouth had be nonsensical and irrelevant, at least to her.
“No, Flack, I didn’t,” she said, “My phone didn’t even ring.”
“Well it would have if the damn thing had been on,” he growled, starting to get pissed himself, but slightly stung that she had used his surname and they were alone.
“My phone was on all night.”
“Then you must have been on the phone ever time I called, because my calls always went straight to voicemail.”
“I was in a concert, you really think I was on the phone?”
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you, Stella, because I called you and got your voicemail. Maybe your phone’s having problems, I don’t know.”
“Oh, you’re blaming it on the phone now,” Stella shook her head, “Damnit, Don, just own up for the fact that you screwed up already.” With that she stormed out of the breakroom and into the hallway of the lab, leaving Don staring at the space she had formerly occupied before rubbing his eyes from both lack of sleep and irritation.
Stella continued her path down the hallway before she heard a voice call out from behind her.
“Stella Bonasera, just the detective I wanted to see.” She turned and saw Danny coming out of the trace lab, a cell phone in hand, “This belongs to you.”
“What are you talking about?” she shook her head, “I have my phone.”
“No,” Danny shook his head. “That phone is mine.”
“No, Danny, it’s—” she was cut off as the phone at her side started to ring. She pulled it out, and was slight baffled when she saw her own number on the caller ID. Danny then switched the phones in their hands as he spoke.
“There were a lot messages from Flack for you. First they were saying he was going to be late because of something with Haley, and then that he wasn’t coming at all because he was called to a scene.” He started to walk away before he stopped and turned back to her, “My mother didn’t call, did she?” Stella was still in semi-shock, so he answered the question himself. “Of course not. You didn’t know I had your phone. See you later, Stella.”
She slowly came out of her stupor, and checked her voicemail. She listened as message after message played, and her face started to drop more and more, “Oh, no.” She headed back to the break room and found only Lindsay there.
“Lindsay, have you seen Flack?”
“He just left with Hawkes to run down a suspect,” she replied, “Why?”
“Nothing,” Stella shook her head, “I’ll just grab him when he gets back.”
***
Flack collapsed on the couch in the breakroom, desperate to try and allieviate the headache that was growing between his eyes. He had Hawkes had just spent the last hour in a sea of neon pink hair searching for their first witness, who actually turned out to be the suspect for their case, and somehow wound up with her twin sister before they actually found her All the bright colors had made the headache worse, and after a quick interrogation where she folded just as easily as they expected her to, he was ready to just go home and collapse, and then face Stella again in the morning, after having had a bit more sleep and some time to let them both cool off.
When her heard the door of the breakroom swing open and the sound of a familiar set of heels head into the room, he groaned knowing that he wasn’t going to be given that chance.
“Look, Stell, if you’re going to yell at me again, can it wait until tomorrow?” he sighed, “I’m really not—”
“I’m not going to yell at you,” she said softly, and he looked up in surprise. There was actually a slightly embarrassed look on her face and he was surprised. This was new.
“I owe you an apology,” she sighed, “The reason why I didn’t get any of your messages was because I didn’t have my phone. Danny and I somehow switched phones during the day yesterday, and he had the phone off all night, so obviously—you definitely called, just…I didn’t answer. So—I’m sorry for biting your head off like that. You didn’t deserve it.”
“It’s OK,” he said with a smile, before getting up and walking over to her, “It never happened. Deal?”
“Deal,” she sighed, before he leaned in and gave her a brief kiss. She pulled back with a smile, and then something dawned on her.
“Didn’t you say that you just spent the entire day with a kid with the flu?” she asked, looking up at him, and he froze before answering.
“—no?” He winced as the irritated look returned to Stella’s face.
“Thanks, Don. Thanks a lot.” She walked out of the room, and he looked upward towards the ceiling.
“Do you really hate me that much? I mean really, c’mon. What did I do? Can’t I ever win just once?”
fivebyfiction, the plot bunny hit me like a brick wall. now this is rather long, but i like it.Fandom: CSI:NY
Title: Can't Win
Author:
iluvroadrunner6Rating: FRT
Pairing Don Flack/Stella Bonasera
alphabetasoup Prompt: I is for Irritated fivebyfiction Prompt: Soundfivebyfiction Challenge Prompts: a pink haired girl, a gun, mistaken identity, a music concert, and the fluContent Warning: N/A
Summary: It had not been Flack's day.
Author's Note: Also used the prompt Stella Bonasera / Don Flack, Jr. / nonsense. This was a lot of fun to write, and I hope reading it is just as much fun. And it's not confusing. If it is confusing, let me know.
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters of CSI:NY. They're owned by CBS.
The music had began to play softly over the crowd and Stella drummed her fingers against the table in front of her, feeling the last of her patience start to wane. He was already twenty minutes late, there was no answer on his phone and no message on her own voicemail. He stood her up. Of all people in the world, he was the last person she would have expected to stand her up. She was ready to order herself another drink when the phone started to vibrate across her table. She checked the caller ID, and then rolled her eyes when it said dispatch. She was on call tonight, but she really didn’t think they were going to actually call her in.
“Bonasera,” she sighed as she got up, getting ready to pay her tab.
***
“You’ve reached Stella Bonasera. I can’t come to the phone right now, but if you’ll leave your name and number I’ll get back to you when I can.”
“Hey, Stella, it’s me,” Don said into the phone, after getting her voicemail for what seemed like the fifth time that night, “Look, I know I said I might be a little late, but it turns out I’m not gonna make it at all, I just got called out to a scene, so I hope you enjoy the show, and I’ll see you at work, alright?”
He hung up the phone, praying that Stella had gotten the five other messages before this. Haley had contracted a nasty version of the flu, and since he had the day off he volunteered to help Maria in making sure she got better. Which intitled a lot of running around to get various cough medicines or taking her to the pediatrician, and that involved getting into Manhattan traffic, which seemed to be worst today than any other day. By the time they had actually gotten Haley home and asleep, was already not going to make it in time for the start, but he wasn’t going to show up smelling like sick little kids. However, he had also barely had enough time to shower and change before the call from dispatch came in for the homicide.
“Do you know,” Amy Wexlerman began tossing her hair over her shoulder. She had been standing off to the side, waiting for Don to finish with his phone call, but eavesdropping the whole time, “That you just totally followed a typical response for a non-preferred action?”
“No, I was not aware of that,” Don replied slowly, realizing he had caught another crazy witness.
“I mean you delayed telling her the bad news, and then once you said it you justified the action, and then you qualified it and accounted for it—” she caught the look Don was giving her, and slowed down, “—But you’re not interested in that, are you?”
“Nah,” Don shook his head, “What I am interested in is how you found the body?” She gave him a soft smile before giving him her statement, and just as she was finishing, Hawkes arrived at the crime scene.
“Sorry you got called in on your night off, man,” Hawkes said to him as he ducked under the crime scene tape, “Heard you and Stella had plans.”
“Yeah,” Flack nodded, “I left her a bunch of messages, but she never called me back. I hope she actually got ‘em, and she doesn’t show up to work tomorrow, wanting to bite my head off.”
“Something I would wish on no one, least of all you,” Hawkes replied, “Dispatch said they was gonna try and get a hold of Danny, but until he gets here, what have you got?”
“Vic is Fredrick Berman, forty-two,” Don began slowly, “He was found by Amy Wexlerman over there, who was walking her way home from kickboxing class. She says she didn’t touch anything, saw the body, called nine-one-one.”
Hawkes glanced back to the woman in question and frowned, “Flack, is her hair—”
“Pink? Yes, Hawkes. Yes it is.”
Don looked up at the sound of heels on the pavement, and Hawkes frowned when he saw the color drain from the man’s face. “I thought you said dispatch was going to call Danny.”
“I did,” Hawkes replied, before turning to see a very pissed off Stella Bonasera standing in front of them. She shot Don a death glare before turning to Hawkes, “Alright Hawkes, what have we got?”
***
“Test results came back on the gun recovered at the scene,” Stella said to Hawkes as they went into the breakroom, “It’s a match to the bullet that killed Fredrick Berman.”
“Get anything, prints, fibers?” he asked, and she shook her head.
“Nothing, gun was clean. I’m running it through IBIS now, see if we get a hit.” They both looked up when they heard the breakroom door open, and Stella’s jaw set when she saw Flack walk in. Hawkes took the file from her hand, and backed away from her slowly.
“I’ll give you two some privacy,” he said softly before disappearing out the door.
“I take it by you giving me the cold shoulder that you didn’t get my messages,” Flack began slowly, but his voice was having about the same effect on her frayed nerves that it had had at the crime scene, where everything coming out of his mouth had be nonsensical and irrelevant, at least to her.
“No, Flack, I didn’t,” she said, “My phone didn’t even ring.”
“Well it would have if the damn thing had been on,” he growled, starting to get pissed himself, but slightly stung that she had used his surname and they were alone.
“My phone was on all night.”
“Then you must have been on the phone ever time I called, because my calls always went straight to voicemail.”
“I was in a concert, you really think I was on the phone?”
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you, Stella, because I called you and got your voicemail. Maybe your phone’s having problems, I don’t know.”
“Oh, you’re blaming it on the phone now,” Stella shook her head, “Damnit, Don, just own up for the fact that you screwed up already.” With that she stormed out of the breakroom and into the hallway of the lab, leaving Don staring at the space she had formerly occupied before rubbing his eyes from both lack of sleep and irritation.
Stella continued her path down the hallway before she heard a voice call out from behind her.
“Stella Bonasera, just the detective I wanted to see.” She turned and saw Danny coming out of the trace lab, a cell phone in hand, “This belongs to you.”
“What are you talking about?” she shook her head, “I have my phone.”
“No,” Danny shook his head. “That phone is mine.”
“No, Danny, it’s—” she was cut off as the phone at her side started to ring. She pulled it out, and was slight baffled when she saw her own number on the caller ID. Danny then switched the phones in their hands as he spoke.
“There were a lot messages from Flack for you. First they were saying he was going to be late because of something with Haley, and then that he wasn’t coming at all because he was called to a scene.” He started to walk away before he stopped and turned back to her, “My mother didn’t call, did she?” Stella was still in semi-shock, so he answered the question himself. “Of course not. You didn’t know I had your phone. See you later, Stella.”
She slowly came out of her stupor, and checked her voicemail. She listened as message after message played, and her face started to drop more and more, “Oh, no.” She headed back to the break room and found only Lindsay there.
“Lindsay, have you seen Flack?”
“He just left with Hawkes to run down a suspect,” she replied, “Why?”
“Nothing,” Stella shook her head, “I’ll just grab him when he gets back.”
***
Flack collapsed on the couch in the breakroom, desperate to try and allieviate the headache that was growing between his eyes. He had Hawkes had just spent the last hour in a sea of neon pink hair searching for their first witness, who actually turned out to be the suspect for their case, and somehow wound up with her twin sister before they actually found her All the bright colors had made the headache worse, and after a quick interrogation where she folded just as easily as they expected her to, he was ready to just go home and collapse, and then face Stella again in the morning, after having had a bit more sleep and some time to let them both cool off.
When her heard the door of the breakroom swing open and the sound of a familiar set of heels head into the room, he groaned knowing that he wasn’t going to be given that chance.
“Look, Stell, if you’re going to yell at me again, can it wait until tomorrow?” he sighed, “I’m really not—”
“I’m not going to yell at you,” she said softly, and he looked up in surprise. There was actually a slightly embarrassed look on her face and he was surprised. This was new.
“I owe you an apology,” she sighed, “The reason why I didn’t get any of your messages was because I didn’t have my phone. Danny and I somehow switched phones during the day yesterday, and he had the phone off all night, so obviously—you definitely called, just…I didn’t answer. So—I’m sorry for biting your head off like that. You didn’t deserve it.”
“It’s OK,” he said with a smile, before getting up and walking over to her, “It never happened. Deal?”
“Deal,” she sighed, before he leaned in and gave her a brief kiss. She pulled back with a smile, and then something dawned on her.
“Didn’t you say that you just spent the entire day with a kid with the flu?” she asked, looking up at him, and he froze before answering.
“—no?” He winced as the irritated look returned to Stella’s face.
“Thanks, Don. Thanks a lot.” She walked out of the room, and he looked upward towards the ceiling.
“Do you really hate me that much? I mean really, c’mon. What did I do? Can’t I ever win just once?”
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Very much enjoyed. Perhaps Stella can give him some tlc. :)
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i'm glad you enjoyed it.
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And the scary part is I can just imagine him saying that, too. Great job.
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i'm glad you liked it.
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Flack's really not having a good time at the moment, is he?
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and i can see danny's mother being a bit of a mother hen. i haven't gotten around to writing mama messer yet, but it's something i've been trying to find a way to.