OK, prepare for a long spamming of flists people, I have a lot of backlog, so I'm getting it out of the way, although I'll be posting one a day, so try and spread em apart.
Title: Photograph
Fandom: CSI New York
Chars: Flack
Rating: G
Disclaimer: I own nothing, not even Flack -sigh-
Sleeves rolled up, Flack was on his hands and knees under the bed, scooping out handfuls of ancient knick-knacks, old t-shirts, pens, bits of paper, forgotten souvenirs. His hand falling on a photo, he pulled it out, coughing and sputtering at the dust. Brushing it off, he looked at the photo.
It was a photo of him, as a kid, with friends. He looked so clean, unmarked by the dirty side of being a New York cop, unscarred by the bomb two years ago.
It must be fifteen years old, but he could remember that day as clearly as if it was yesterday. Looking at his friends, he ran gun-calloused fingers over their faces. Joey, Kim, a much younger Danny, himself and Mikey, who wasn’t in the picture, but holding the camera. He could hear laughter in the streets below, so much like their laughter, then, letting himself sink into the memory, he was transported back to queens, 1993, his old haunt.
-_-
CRASH! Donnie jumped aside as Joey flew past on his brother’s old skateboard, hitting a pile of old boxes with a surprisingly loud noise, but then, it was Joey. Joey, who had ADHD, was about as quiet as a bear playing the piano. The were where they always were, behind the old arcade, Joey with his skateboard, Kim, quiet but her eyes sparkling with laughter at Joeys antics, Danny, mad as a box of frogs, but with a wickedly dark sense of humour, portrayed in the drawings he did, his sketch book either hidden in his pocket or open on his knee, sketching anything he found amusing, Mikey, always with his camera but never in the picture and Donnie, daring, always willing to do things other people wouldn’t. it was because of that that in the past seven years he had broken twenty three different bones, some of them more than once.
Donnie jumped to one side again as Joey, having recovered from his previous accident with the boxes, hurtled past again, somewhat wonkily, his skateboard always suffering more than him.
Feeling a cool hand in his, he glanced sideways at Kim, former best friend turned girlfriend. She grinned up at him. Even back then he’d been tall, towering over his friends and parent. Suddenly he was blinded by a flash. Mikey was smiling widely at them, pulling the Polaroid from the camera and shaking it, waiting for the picture to develop. A black and white image appeared on the card of Kim and Donnie, looking up and down respectively at each other, hands clasped tight.
Danny, who until then had been sketching silently in his pad started walking towards them, grabbing Joey on the way past. He called to them in his strong New York accent, ‘Come on guys, group mug shot!’ stowing his glasses deep in his pockets. Donnie knew he hated wearing them, but a car crash when he was four left him without a mother and failing eyesight.
The four of them started beaming at Mikey. Joey had found a paper hat God knows where, made out of folded newspaper, and it was currently perched on his head at a jaunty angle. Danny slung his arm around Donnie’s shoulders, who had his other arm wrapped around Kim’s waist. Mikey quickly switched to a colour cartridge and took the picture.
‘Don’t move!’ he said. ‘I want us all to have a copy of this.’ He removed the photo and snapped four more. When they developed, three had a serious case of red-eye. Danny snickered at Joey’s creative new headgear, before looking at his watch.
‘Uh-oh, gotta go guys, Dad’ll flip if I’m late again.’ He grabbed a picture from the stack and ran off, digging out his glasses.
‘I’d better get going too; I gotta pick up my little brother up.’ Donnie kissed Kim and took a picture. Unfortunately he got a red-eye, but that didn’t matter to him. He picked up his brother and headed home.
In his room that night, he looked again at the picture and smiled. What the hell was on Joey’s head? Turning over the picture, he wrote something on the back, before propping it up on a self.
-_-
Flack looked at the back of the photo. There, in block capitals were the words:
ME, DANNY, KIM AND JOEY
AT THE ARCADE, ‘93.
MIKEY HIDING BEHIND THE CAMERA.
Smiling again, he opened a photo album and slotted it in, before carefully placing it in a half full box on the floor next to him. Danny was the only he kept in touch with, with first Mikey, Joey and then Kim gradually fading into the background.
He wondered what they were doing now.