Title: Dreams Like Coins into the Water
Author: stellaluna_
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Danny/Mac.
Summary: After it's all over, Danny has some questions. Post-ep for "The Thing About Heroes...". Danny/Mac
Disclaimer: None of these are mine. Characters are the property of Anthony Zuiker, Jerry Bruckheimer Television, CBS, and Alliance Atlantis.
Notes: Spoilers through "The Thing About Heroes...".

***

"Mac," Danny says. "Mac," and he reaches out for him, reaches and gets a handful of Mac's shirt and jacket, and uses that to haul him in closer. Mac comes without a fight, lets himself be reeled in and pulled against Danny's body. Danny puts out his other hand and gets another fistful of clothes. Cotton and wool crumple between his fingers, and he looks into Mac's eyes. "Where've you been?" he asks.

"Chicago," Mac says. "You know that."

"That's not what I mean." Danny licks his lips, and Mac watches the movement of his mouth. Danny can see him watching.

"I know." Mac leans in closer, like he's begging to be kissed, but Danny doesn't acknowledge it, and Mac's hands still dangle slack at his sides.

"Where've you been," Danny says again, "all this time?"

Mac's gaze flickers nervously, eyes darting back and forth. "How much do you know?"

"Just what got said at the precinct. The basics. I know..." Danny lets go of Mac's shirt and jacket and starts to smooth out the wrinkles. "I know that Drew Bedford did all this because he blames you for what happened to his brother. To his family. I know that it all happened a long time ago, when you were a kid. What I don't know is how you got there in the first place, or what happened next."

"Sure you do," Mac says. "We didn't talk about it, and we went on with our lives. Tried to, anyway."

"No." Danny picks a piece of lint off Mac's shoulder, then gives him a little pat. "What really happened?"

Mac stares at him, and Danny meets his gaze. He feels a little dizzy, though that may be only the tension of the last few days finally catching up to him.

After a few seconds, Mac turns away and goes to the window. "I did what I promised," he says. "I never talked about it. I tried to forget it had happened." He braces his hands against the window and leans his forehead on the glass. "After a while, I didn't think about it as much. Except in the middle of the night. One of those things you can't stop yourself from going over again and again when you wake up at three a.m."

"Yeah, I know about those," Danny says.

Mac nods. "And bad dreams." He keeps his eyes on the window as he talks, though Danny doubts he can see anything but his own reflection. "Dreams where it turned out differently. Worse, if that's possible. Have you ever died in a dream?"

"No," Danny says. "Don't they say if you die in a dream, you die for real, too?"

Mac shakes his head. "I've never had the chance to test the theory. I always wake up in time. But that's what happened after Will was murdered. My life went on. I didn't talk about it, so aside from the bad nights, it was just my life. I don't know what changed because of that night, not really."

He falls silent. "And how'd you get there?" Danny asks.

"I don't know that, either," Mac says. He closes his eyes for a second, not lifting his head from the glass. "Will used to split the money with us when we went with him on his errands, but I didn't care about that. I didn't need it."

That's the difference between you and me, Danny wants to say. That right there. But he keeps his mouth shut, and Mac goes on talking.

"Jimmy wanted me to go. When he told me, I knew it was a big thing, a big secret, not like he went and told everyone what Will did after school. He was only telling me. Errands, quick errands and it's easy money. Maybe you and me can save up and go to some Cubs games this summer." Mac isn't doing an imitation, Danny thinks, not exactly, but his voice has changed, risen, and in it Danny can hear a fourteen-year-old boy in Chicago, thirty years ago.

"Did you know it was drugs?" Danny asks.

"I don't know," Mac says. "I can't tell what I'm remembering and what I figured out later. I knew we weren't supposed to talk about it, that's all. That's why I knew it was a big deal that Jimmy chose me to tell."

"And that's why you went along," Danny says.

"Why else?" Mac says, sounding weary, and maybe it's not so different after all, Danny thinks. He'd needed the money and Mac hadn't, but he'd gone along because Louie was his brother, and Mac had gone along because Jimmy was the closest thing he'd had. Danny can't fault him for that.

"Yeah, why else?" is all he says, and he stands still where he is, watching Mac as he stares out the window. He still feels dizzy and a little lightheaded, like he's floating above his body.

"You know what I wonder?" Mac says after a while.

"What?" Danny asks.

Mac lifts his head, but doesn't turn around. He presses one hand to the glass. "How it would have gone if I'd been able to pull the trigger."

"Worse, maybe," Danny says. Self-defense or no, killing someone at fourteen would have fucked Mac up in worse ways than he is now. It would have had to. Assuming he survived. Assuming nothing else went wrong. "Like in your dreams."

"Worse for me. Maybe better for everyone else."

"You can't know that." Just like he can't know what would have happened if he'd chosen differently that night he was supposed to go to Atlantic City. Danny's mouth feels dry.

"No, I guess I can't." Mac rests his forehead against the glass again and closes his eyes, and Danny stares at the exposed back of his neck. "That's what happened," Mac says. "That's all of it."

Danny steps forward and puts one hand on Mac's waist. Mac jumps a little, like he wasn't expecting it, but he doesn't try to pull away. Danny moves closer. He puts his other hand on Mac's waist, too, then slides them both around until he's got Mac in his arms and they're pressed together, chest to back.

Mac's body is warm against his; Danny imagines that he can feel the pulse of blood in his veins. He leans in and lets his lips brush the back of Mac's neck. Mac sighs and then straightens up. He leans back until his head is resting against Danny's, but he doesn't lift his hands from the glass.

Danny tightens his arms around Mac's waist. "I know what it's like, you know," he says. "I've been where you are." He looks at Mac's face where it's reflected in the window, and Mac's eyes are still closed.

"I know you have," he says.

Yet here they are, Danny thinks. Mac knows just as much about wrong place, wrong time as he does, more than Danny ever would have guessed, but here they both are. He looks out the window at the lights and keeps his attention on the heavy warmth of Mac's body against his, on the steady rise and fall of his chest. Here they are, in this city, this apartment; and the city is never completely silent -- Danny can pick out half a dozen different small noises without even trying -- but right now it seems very quiet and still. The world feels very small, condensed to just this room, to the two of them.

With these revelations about Mac's past, everything that's happened since they've known each other has changed, or at least has to be looked at in a new light. Danny isn't ready to do that. He doesn't even know if he's angry at Mac all over again, or more grateful than ever for the way Mac believed him during the thing with Tanglewood and Louie. He doesn't know which emotion he's supposed to feel.

Mac opens his eyes and for a moment their gazes meet in the glass, and Danny is sure that he doesn't want to be thinking about this now. Anger is too close; he can sense it, and he's not ready for it.

He turns his head and kisses the side of Mac's jaw, high up near his ear. Mac sighs again and twists in Danny's arms, and their mouths meet, an openmouthed kiss that right away has Danny wanting more. He'd known all along that this was how the night would end, and he steps back and pulls Mac with him, turns him so they can face each other.

Mac's hands leave ghostly palmprints on the glass as he pulls him away, and Danny stops long enough to watch them fade before he returns his attention to Mac, before he pulls him against his body and kisses his mouth again, and Mac raises one hand, trembling, to the side of Danny's face. Danny kisses him harder.

Mac is pliant in the bedroom; Danny stretches him out on the bed and then bends over him, kneeling between his spread legs and leaning down so their chests press together, so he can feel Mac's racing heart. He's already stripped him of his shirt and jacket and undershirt, and Mac's skin is warm under his mouth as he kisses the side of his neck, begins to work his way down his chest.

He teases for a long time before he finally takes Mac's pants off, rubbing his face and mouth against his erection through layers of cloth until Mac is gasping and arching himself into Danny's touch, tugging at his hair as he lets out helpless-sounding little noises. Danny just smiles to himself and keeps going, holding back giving Mac what he knows he wants, holding himself back from doing what he really wants, which is to strip them both naked and kiss Mac until neither of them can breathe, then fuck him into the mattress until he sees stars. He holds his breath, instead, and holds still until Mac curses under his breath and pushes himself against Danny's mouth, then he runs his mouth the length of his cock one last time before he moves up and starts to undo Mac's zipper at last.

Danny doesn't touch him or suck him off after he gets him naked. Instead, he kneels above him again and strokes himself instead, pulling his jeans down until they're around his thighs and he can get a hand on his hard-on. He caresses himself, moving his hand slowly along his cock and balls and giving himself a nice little tug every now and then, and looking into Mac's face while he does it. Mac's eyes are dark, the pupils dilated all to hell, and his mouth is hanging open, breath coming in little gasps. But he presses his hands back against the pillows and doesn't try to touch Danny. He just watches, and Danny squeezes himself tight, feeling the pressure mount deep inside his body, then reaches down and runs his fingers over Mac's lips, slipping them inside his mouth and biting back a groan when Mac licks at him eagerly.

He could do anything to Mac right now, ask Mac to do anything to him. He could. He knows it. Seconds tick by as they look at each other, and Danny keeps stroking himself with one hand as he pushes the fingers of the other deeper into Mac's mouth.

He could.

But he doesn't. He sits back, instead, and pulls his jeans off the rest of the way, then stretches out over Mac again and kisses him on the mouth. Softly, slowly, and he gives Mac just a quick little flicker of tongue, then whispers, "Get on your knees."

Mac reaches up to him and starts to say something, then stops. He doesn't move, either. "Wait," he says.

Danny looks at him.

"I want -- I want..." He stops again.

"What do you want?" Danny asks. When Mac doesn't answer right away, Danny leans down and gives his lower lip a sharp little bite. "Tell me."

Mac looks up at him, and something in his eyes is so wide-open, so unguarded, that Danny feels a nervous shudder run through his body. "I want to be able to see you," he says at last.

Danny nods and runs a hand down his chest. "Like this, then?"

"Like this." Mac braces his feet against the bed and spreads his knees, and sinks lower.

"I can manage that." Danny slides down and runs his tongue across Mac's stomach, nuzzles at him while he eases one hand between his legs and starts to work him with his fingers. When he thinks he's ready, he pushes his legs back and rolls on top of him, and thrusts inside. Mac lets out a gasp and his eyelids flutter, and Danny balances himself on the palms of his hands, then starts to move. It's so good, so much heat and pressure, and he watches Mac's face while he fucks him. He kisses him, deep, and Mac moans, then reaches down to stroke himself.

Danny moves faster, rougher, and then Mac groans into his mouth as he comes. Danny thrusts a few more times and then he comes, too, in a sharp burst that shakes his entire body. He gasps and sinks down on Mac's chest, then cups his face between his hands and kisses him. Mac kisses him back, clutching at Danny's shoulders, and his eyes are still so wide, so dark. He doesn't say anything.

Danny waits until he's sure Mac is asleep, then gets out of bed in the dark and goes to the living room. He doesn't turn on any lights. The floor is cool beneath his bare feet as he walks across the room. He could have done anything, he thinks, anything, and he suspects that he still can. He knows so much more about Mac than he did just a few days ago.

The window, when he touches it, is even cooler than the floor, and he runs his fingers across the glass. If he stands back a little and lets the streetlights hit it at the right angle, he thinks he can still see faint smudges of fingerprints where Mac laid his hands on the glass. He rests his own hands in what he thinks is the right spot, remembering the ghosts of handprints that he watched fade to nothing earlier.

Danny looks down at the city and presses his palms to the glass. The prints, when he lifts his hands, take a long time to fade.

***