Title: So Many Storms Not Right Somehow
Author: stellaluna_
Rating: R
Pairing: Danny/Mac.
Summary: People come and go in the fog. Danny/Mac
Disclaimer: None of these are mine. Characters are the property of Anthony Zuiker, Jerry Bruckheimer Television, CBS, and Alliance Atlantis.
Notes: Thanks and love to scarletts_awry, who gave this story a very thorough beta read, and without whom it probably wouldn't have been written in the first place.

***

People come and go in the fog.

Mac kneels by the side of the river to process the body. It's a strange gray morning with the promise of rain hanging heavy in the air like something about to burst. He woke up to fog in Brooklyn, and it didn't dissipate as he drove into the city; it's too thick to see through, and there is nothing in the world but him and this body he's processing. The body is the result of a routine dump job, three shots to the head and then tossed into the river, and not all of his mind is on his work.

Dark figures periodically loom up in the fog and then, at the last second, resolve into familiar faces. Hawkes comes over and asks him a question; Mac answers, and then Hawkes goes away again. The fog distorts sound, and their voices are strange in the mist. Footsteps, the roll of the river, cars going by on the highway beyond him: these things are muffled and far away. Once he thinks he hears a burst of mortar fire. Once a voice says, "Quick, find them, find them," very close to his ear, but the only people near enough to be heard are two techs from the coroner's office, talking about the Series in low voices.

He wipes dampness from his forehead and goes on working, aware that close by Danny is working too, working or maybe watching him and not saying a word. Whenever Mac looks up, he finds himself staring into a constantly shifting wall of white. Finally, he finishes what he's doing, and someone comes to takes the body away, and he's left alone. He stands, looking out into the mist. It twines around him, so thick he could reach out and cup it in his hands.

Cold fingers creep along his spine, and he feels a shiver run through his body. A trick of the wind, of the damp and rolling mist. A goose walking over my grave. He hasn't heard that expression in years. He composes himself and focuses on packing up his kit.

"Never seen anything like this," someone says, somewhere in the distance, as he begins to walk back to his car, or maybe what they say is Never seen anything like him. All he can see are his hands in front of him. A horn sounds, like a ship's horn: a warning, a signal of something coming.

Go, go, go, a voice urges him, and he stares down at his feet.

Later, Mac stands in his office, looking out the window. Times Square is crowded and neon-lit, and the bright lights drive back the worst of the fog. He can see the city, and behind him, beyond the glass walls of his office, people walk the bright yellow corridors and look in at him. When he turns, just before he pulls on his jacket and shuts off the lights in his office, he thinks they're too sharp around the edges, like people caught in the glare of a strobe light, people in the eye of the storm.

He locks the door, and the windows rattle in a sudden gust of wind. The rattle sounds like something else, someone beating on the glass with clenched fists. When he looks up, no one is hovering in the air outside the window. He does not catch a shimmer of movement out of the corner of his eye as he turns away.

One of the lab techs, whose name he's forgotten, smiles at him as he moves down the hall. Her eyes are black and her teeth are too white, but he nods at her. Nobody else is anyone he knows, and he waits for the elevator with his hands clenched into fists in his jacket pockets. The ride down is silent except for the low thrum of machinery above and below him, and he keeps his eyes on his shoes, not looking at his reflection; the walls are brass and highly polished.

He takes the elevator all the way down to the first level of the parking garage and then exits through the loading area, and he stands for a time in the narrow alleyway. Here, people still come and go, many of whom he knows by sight. The fog is thick again, rolling across the ground, and he stays far back in it where no one will notice him. The wind rises again, ruffling his hair, and there's almost a word in it, a murmur that he can almost understand.

When he steps out of his corner, he sees that Danny is smoking a cigarette by the side of the stairs with one of Sid's assistants. Mac has to walk past him to leave, and Danny doesn't say a word, but takes a deep drag of his cigarette. Smoke spirals from his mouth. Mac walks away up the alley.

Later, back on the other side of the river, on a lonely street, he's not surprised when a dark figure emerges from the fog and Danny comes up beside him. Mac stops, turns; they're very close to the river, and the fog is cold, cold, twining around them. It surrounds them, sinuous and creeping, as Danny steps closer and presses his mouth to Mac's.

Danny's kiss tastes of fog, and his skin is damp from the looming mist, as damp as Mac's. His mouth is wet beneath Mac's lips; his hands are chilled and clammy when he works them under Mac's jacket. But he knows nothing more than where Mac went walking this night.

They kiss, and there's no one else on the dark street, no one they can see; they're nothing more than two figures in the gloom, and that only from a close distance. Take more than a few steps away, and they might not even be there. They're hidden, shrouded even from each other, and that's good. It's not the kiss itself that Mac needs to be a secret, not the cool arch of Danny's body against his own. That's all right. It's everything else, everything Danny might find if he were able to see better, if the corners of his mouth were to turn up in a sharp and predatory smile.

Fog fills Mac's throat and eyes; the cuffs of his pants and jacket are soaked with it. It's not quite raining even now, but the coming storm is still poised in the air. He leans back and opens his mouth, lets Danny's kiss take him deeper, lets the fog roll over and through him, lets it fill him. Mist billows from his lips, his eyes, and Mac would spread his arms wide to the sky and welcome it with his full body if only he weren't holding Danny so desperately tight to him. The fog has wanted him all day; finally he lets it take him, and finally he understands why.

The fog hides a secret. The fog is a secret. Mac is safe in the fog because no one can find him there, no one can see him, no one can look into his face and catch him off-guard, or look into his eyes and know him. This is why he needs Danny, because Danny is at home in the fog as he is; Danny will never try to look closer than Mac wants him to. And Danny's kiss is so good, he's so good with his mouth and hands. Mac sinks deeper into him, into the curve of his mouth, and it's no different than the sigh of the fog as it sinks deeper into his skin, as it curls close around him.

The fog is a wall; the fog is a house in the woods, surrounded by brambles and thorns. A house is a heart.

He can feel his heart beating, a steady rhythm behind the wall of his ribcage.

Stella knows too much, would know him too well. She would find him in the fog, and she would find his secrets even if she couldn't see him, would tease them from the wet air and then whisper them into his ear. She would make him see.

He knows himself. He's the minotaur at the heart of the maze; he's Pandora's box; he's the butterfly in the killing jar.

Mac sinks to his knees; he slides his tongue into the cup of Danny's navel and tastes rain. He lets it fill his mouth, and then he reaches for Danny's belt buckle.

Danny's hands tighten on his shoulders and Mac opens his eyes. His vision is filled with fog; they're adrift in a sea of white. Danny's skin, bared to him, is already wet, and a shudder runs through his body as Mac shoves his jeans halfway down his thighs. Thunder rumbles in the distance, and Danny grips Mac's hair with one hand and begins to push his head down.

Mac licks fog from the sharp curve of Danny's hipbone, his thigh, the length of his cock. He keeps his eyes open.

Somewhere, people come and go. Here, Danny can't find him.

***