[DM] Snow

He really was getting too old for this.

A full grown man, let alone a NYPD homicide detective, should not be crouching down in the snow in Central Park, hiding from a bunch of twelve year-olds with snow balls. Twelve year-olds should not be antagonizing homicide detectives, and homicide detectives should know better than to actually fight back against said twelve year-olds, yet here he and Danny were, hiding behind a rather large tree. Occasionally one of them would peek around the side of the tree, but immediately duck back around again, and hear the splatter of snow against the trunk.

“Well—this is definitely one of our more brilliant ideas,” Danny nodded slowly.

“Definitely,” Flack nodded.

“You realize the logic behind this is kinda ridiculous,” Danny started again, “I mean, they’re twelve. We’re supposedly bigger, smarter, and stronger than them, and we’re hiding from them behind a tree.”

“You do remember that they started it, right?” Flack replied, giving him a look. Danny and Flack had been making their way out of the precinct, and unbeknownst to them, this particular set of stairs had had some water thrown on it by a group of neighborhood kids, the water had iced over, and the stairs had turned into a walking death trap.

Normally they wouldn’t have thought much of it. However, they also happened to be the first victims of the ice patch of death, walking out of the door and both simultaneously having their feet slip out from under them and landing on their backs—hard. If that wasn’t enough, the little devils stuck around to see what would happen, and laughed when the cold fate befell their victims. And to top it all off, Flack now had coffee all down the front of his brand new suit.

To hell with being the mature adult. This was war.

“Yes—yes, I do remember that,” Danny nodded, “But you are also aware that no one else is going to be on our side?”

“That’s not our problem, Messer,” Flack replied, starting to glance around the tree again, and then ducking back as snowballs splattered against the tree.

“There has to be an easier way to do this.”

“Well, you’re the scientist. You tell me.”

374 words

[DM] Link

It often amazed him how he could draw out family trees with the legal system. This con was married to this woman before he went in, and he fathered this child, who grew up to knock over a convenience store on Fifty-fourth and Holland or become addicted to crack, and then goes and tries to blame his father for all the mistakes in his life just because he wasn’t there to be a good dad. He claims he followed in his father’s footsteps because his father wasn’t there to show him the way. And frankly—Flack thought that kind of excuse was bullshit. There were plenty of people who had shaky pasts with shady parents who managed to pull themselves together and do something with their lives, regardless of what their parents had or hadn’t done for them. He didn’t pity the suspect who went bad because a father figure wasn’t there to keep him on the path of the straight and narrow.

Danny had told him once that he might want to rethink that philosophy a bit. That he didn’t really understand how hard it was to go straight after growing up in a life that wasn’t. And Flack knows that that might be the case. But in his mind, Danny was a prime example of someone who had managed to pull himself out of that hole and become a damn good police detective. He has his hot headed moments, and can get himself into trouble, but generally speaking—Danny’s a good guy. Danny isn’t out with the Tanglewood boys bashing in skulls with baseball bats for no apparent reason other than the fact that his family situation made him a bad seed.

Flack has also never been the kind of guy to let people blame their actions, the choices they decided to make on the sins of their fathers—or mothers, as the case may be. Their parent didn’t put the gun in their hand and order them to do what they did. If his lawyer wanted to argue some kind of emotional trauma because of their parents’ actions, that was fine by him, but he didn’t want to hear it. He was just the guy following the evidence—or at least following the CSIs following the evidence. He was the one who told the DA’s office whether they did it or not. It was up to a jury to decide if the guy was guilty.

So when the kid of a con knocks over a convenience store and shoots the clerk, the case gets kicked over to homicide when the clerk dies on the way to the hospital, and the kid is sitting in front of him weaving some sob story about how his father was locked up in Riker’s, never there for him when he needed him, Flack doesn’t exactly sympathize. All he does is tilt his head slightly and say with a smirk.

“So what are you saying here? Daddy made ya do it?”

502 words

[DM] Future

His chest burned. He doubled over on the side of the path, hands on his knees, breathing hard. He knew his physical therapist said not to push himself, but he had barely gone a half a football field before he was winded. That was not pushing himself. That used to be nothing.

“You alright?”

He looked up at Cassavelli, who was bouncing up and down next to him, jogging in place. But from this view, it was starting to make him dizzy.

“Please—stop bouncing,” he panted heavily looking back down at the ground again. So instead of jogging in place, she started pacing. Once she passed him again he grabbed her arm, “Stop—stop moving.”

He felt her stop, and then she reached for his shoulder, “You don’t look so hot. Wanna sit?”

“No,” he shook his head, starting straighten slightly, “No, I’m fine.”

Cassavelli took him by the shoulder and placed her fingers against his neck, searching for a pulse. When she found it, her eyes widened and she started pulling him forward, “C’mon, start walking.”

He started to move with her, but his legs felt like lead. “I can’t,” he shook his head.

( *** )

1117 words