Emily (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
iluvroadrunner6) wrote2006-11-09 12:36 am
iluvroadrunner6) wrote2006-11-09 12:36 am
Flack - Shades of Gray
is it weird that this piece makes me nervous? i mean, for all the flack writing i do, i've never written something quite like this before. so therefore, nervous.
Fandom: CSI:NY
Title: Shades of Gray
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
iluvroadrunner6
Rating: FRT
Character: Don Flack
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
alphabetasoup Prompt: F is for Fenrir
Content Warning: Spoilers for "The Fall" and "Consequences"
Summary: There were some days when he hated his job.
Author's Note: Next in "Stuff of Legends" series. Don't really know what else to say about this.
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters of CSI:NY. They're owned by CBS.
“Suspecting treachery however, he in turn asked the gods for a token of good will: one of them had to put a hand between his jaws. The gods were not overly eager to do this, knowing what they could expect. Finally, only Tyr agreed, and the gods chained the wolf with Gleipnir. No matter how hard Fenrir struggled, he could not break free from this thin ribbon. In revenge, he bit off Tyr's hand.”
- Encyclopedia Mythica
There were some days when he hated his job.
Well, there were the days when he didn’t want to get up in the morning and see what one human being had done to the other, but that was normal. No person wants to believe that human beings were the killers that they were, and who would want to go to work and see that every day. That wasn’t hate. It was—something else. Something else he could never quite find the word for, something that he wasn’t in the mood to define or give a lot of meaning to, because all it really did was let him know he was still human. Let him know he still had a heart under there. Let him know that he wasn’t becoming desensitized to all this.
No, hating his job was something different entirely. Hating his job came when he, holding himself by the oath he swore to help serve and protect, and to turn in another man who had taken that same oath and broken it. He had hated his job, really hated it, twice that he could remember. One was the day he had arrested Moran.
And the second was today, when Mac had asked him for his memo book.
At first it was implying the fact that Mac didn’t trust the fact that he had taken good notes. That he hadn’t made sure that everything was accounted for was everything that was destroyed. He knew Mac knew him better than that, but he would rather Mac attack him then jump to the conclusion that one of the guys in his raid, good guys, guys who he knew wouldn’t cross that line, had done the deed. He knew it. These guys, his guys, had told him fifty kilos and damnit, he wanted to believe them.
“Is this official business?”
“This is a request—from a friend.”
“Then I’m gonna have to think about it.”
Two years earlier that same conversation had gone a lot differently. Two years earlier, he had had to stare his TO in the face and order him to hand over his memo book. He knew Mac had seniority, and could have easily ordered Flack to give him what he wanted, but he didn’t. But Gavin was different. Flack knew when Gavin evaded the idea the way he did that there was something going on that he didn’t know about, and he knew that the only way to get the memo book was going to be a direct order.
“Give me your memo book.”
“Is that an order, Detective?”
“If you need it to be.”
He had just spat the title back at him. Flack knew he was pissed, knew he was annoyed, but that one word had hit him like a slap in the face and everything changed. It wasn’t focused on his history or his ideals, it was the case. And he was going to handle the case by the book. It wasn’t the way things were supposed to be, but the way they had to be. This time around, the slap came even harder, and there was a plexiglass wall between him and the speaker.
Fifty-three kilos.
Fifty-three.
He knew what he had to do. He knew what had to be done, but then again this wasn’t the way things were supposed to be. He was supposed to be able to trust his guys. He was supposed to trust them not to skim off the top. Not to sell some of the stuff out of their own pocket. Not to put him in this position.
He could hear it now. Cases being called into question, murderers and drug dealers clamming against the bars of their cell, wanting their fair shot in court, not wanted to be hung on the fact that they were nailed by a dirty cop. All those good arrests, legitimate arrests out the window because he swiped three kilos of black cocaine from a raid, and then shot a kid when he was trying to sell it off.
Those black hands had passed around drinks at Sullivan’s later that night and there was such a sense of brotherhood. Of trust. Because that’s what cops have to do, they have to trust each other, because without trust the force was nothing. Without trust, people were shooting blind and always looking over their shoulder. It was the way he had grown up. You know where you’re shooting, and you always have someone watching your back. Your guys don’t back you into a corner, where you’re forced to take a desperate way out.
Your guys have your back.
But things weren’t that black and white. Things didn’t work that way. Not all cops were good, and sometimes there was that area where you don’t know what’s really going on. Mistakes, people called it. Choices. One wrong move. The world wasn’t as black and white as it used to be, blending further and deeper into shades of gray, and he wished that things could just be simpler, easier. Keep things in black and white. The good guys stayed the good guys, and the bad guys stayed the bad guys.
And he also knew just how easily this could have fallen on him. If it had been anyone but Mac—if any other CSI unit had wound up with the crime scene, his word could have been held on the line for that. They could have said that he was involved as well, and he could have lost his shield. Over three kilos of coke that he didn’t even know about until about the middle of this afternoon.
“I don’t know what I’m doin,” he said, staring down at the glass in his hands, “I don’t know if I can do it any more. I keep—”
“Look, Flack,” Stella sighed, “People are going to fuck things up no matter what you do.”
“That’s not it, Stell,” Flack replied, turning to face him, “He put my name on the line. He called me into question for what? For a couple kilos of coke?”
“Think of it this way, Don,” she said placing an arm around his shoulders, “Your name is clean. You’re hands are clean. It doesn’t matter what he did. He’s gonna get what’s coming to him. You’re free and clear.”
“But part of me still keeps thinkin that if it hadn’t been Mac,” Flack began, shaking his head, “There are just days when I hate this job.”
“I think we all have those days,” Stella sighed, rubbing his back softly, “But you get up, and you come in the next day, and you move on. Because you love what you do.” She hesitated briefly, and looked at him, “You do, don’t you?”
He gave her a smirk at the insecure remark before he nodded, “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
Fandom: CSI:NY
Title: Shades of Gray
Author:
iluvroadrunner6Rating: FRT
Character: Don Flack
alphabetasoup Prompt: F is for FenrirContent Warning: Spoilers for "The Fall" and "Consequences"
Summary: There were some days when he hated his job.
Author's Note: Next in "Stuff of Legends" series. Don't really know what else to say about this.
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters of CSI:NY. They're owned by CBS.
“Suspecting treachery however, he in turn asked the gods for a token of good will: one of them had to put a hand between his jaws. The gods were not overly eager to do this, knowing what they could expect. Finally, only Tyr agreed, and the gods chained the wolf with Gleipnir. No matter how hard Fenrir struggled, he could not break free from this thin ribbon. In revenge, he bit off Tyr's hand.”
- Encyclopedia Mythica
There were some days when he hated his job.
Well, there were the days when he didn’t want to get up in the morning and see what one human being had done to the other, but that was normal. No person wants to believe that human beings were the killers that they were, and who would want to go to work and see that every day. That wasn’t hate. It was—something else. Something else he could never quite find the word for, something that he wasn’t in the mood to define or give a lot of meaning to, because all it really did was let him know he was still human. Let him know he still had a heart under there. Let him know that he wasn’t becoming desensitized to all this.
No, hating his job was something different entirely. Hating his job came when he, holding himself by the oath he swore to help serve and protect, and to turn in another man who had taken that same oath and broken it. He had hated his job, really hated it, twice that he could remember. One was the day he had arrested Moran.
And the second was today, when Mac had asked him for his memo book.
At first it was implying the fact that Mac didn’t trust the fact that he had taken good notes. That he hadn’t made sure that everything was accounted for was everything that was destroyed. He knew Mac knew him better than that, but he would rather Mac attack him then jump to the conclusion that one of the guys in his raid, good guys, guys who he knew wouldn’t cross that line, had done the deed. He knew it. These guys, his guys, had told him fifty kilos and damnit, he wanted to believe them.
“Is this official business?”
“This is a request—from a friend.”
“Then I’m gonna have to think about it.”
Two years earlier that same conversation had gone a lot differently. Two years earlier, he had had to stare his TO in the face and order him to hand over his memo book. He knew Mac had seniority, and could have easily ordered Flack to give him what he wanted, but he didn’t. But Gavin was different. Flack knew when Gavin evaded the idea the way he did that there was something going on that he didn’t know about, and he knew that the only way to get the memo book was going to be a direct order.
“Give me your memo book.”
“Is that an order, Detective?”
“If you need it to be.”
He had just spat the title back at him. Flack knew he was pissed, knew he was annoyed, but that one word had hit him like a slap in the face and everything changed. It wasn’t focused on his history or his ideals, it was the case. And he was going to handle the case by the book. It wasn’t the way things were supposed to be, but the way they had to be. This time around, the slap came even harder, and there was a plexiglass wall between him and the speaker.
Fifty-three kilos.
Fifty-three.
He knew what he had to do. He knew what had to be done, but then again this wasn’t the way things were supposed to be. He was supposed to be able to trust his guys. He was supposed to trust them not to skim off the top. Not to sell some of the stuff out of their own pocket. Not to put him in this position.
He could hear it now. Cases being called into question, murderers and drug dealers clamming against the bars of their cell, wanting their fair shot in court, not wanted to be hung on the fact that they were nailed by a dirty cop. All those good arrests, legitimate arrests out the window because he swiped three kilos of black cocaine from a raid, and then shot a kid when he was trying to sell it off.
Those black hands had passed around drinks at Sullivan’s later that night and there was such a sense of brotherhood. Of trust. Because that’s what cops have to do, they have to trust each other, because without trust the force was nothing. Without trust, people were shooting blind and always looking over their shoulder. It was the way he had grown up. You know where you’re shooting, and you always have someone watching your back. Your guys don’t back you into a corner, where you’re forced to take a desperate way out.
Your guys have your back.
But things weren’t that black and white. Things didn’t work that way. Not all cops were good, and sometimes there was that area where you don’t know what’s really going on. Mistakes, people called it. Choices. One wrong move. The world wasn’t as black and white as it used to be, blending further and deeper into shades of gray, and he wished that things could just be simpler, easier. Keep things in black and white. The good guys stayed the good guys, and the bad guys stayed the bad guys.
And he also knew just how easily this could have fallen on him. If it had been anyone but Mac—if any other CSI unit had wound up with the crime scene, his word could have been held on the line for that. They could have said that he was involved as well, and he could have lost his shield. Over three kilos of coke that he didn’t even know about until about the middle of this afternoon.
“I don’t know what I’m doin,” he said, staring down at the glass in his hands, “I don’t know if I can do it any more. I keep—”
“Look, Flack,” Stella sighed, “People are going to fuck things up no matter what you do.”
“That’s not it, Stell,” Flack replied, turning to face him, “He put my name on the line. He called me into question for what? For a couple kilos of coke?”
“Think of it this way, Don,” she said placing an arm around his shoulders, “Your name is clean. You’re hands are clean. It doesn’t matter what he did. He’s gonna get what’s coming to him. You’re free and clear.”
“But part of me still keeps thinkin that if it hadn’t been Mac,” Flack began, shaking his head, “There are just days when I hate this job.”
“I think we all have those days,” Stella sighed, rubbing his back softly, “But you get up, and you come in the next day, and you move on. Because you love what you do.” She hesitated briefly, and looked at him, “You do, don’t you?”
He gave her a smirk at the insecure remark before he nodded, “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”