Work Text:
As soon as Charlie asks for her by name, as soon as he says the word date, Danny perks up from behind his little red glasses.
He approaches with his elbows quirked and his hands on his hips in a way that makes him look really square — square like lame, but also like the shape because he’s about as tall as his wingspan.
“You’re here for Mindy?”
Charlie puts his hands on his hips too, but he does it to keep the breast of his jacket open, to show off the silver badge pinned to his shirt pocket, which is basically a slightly more mature version of flexing.
It’s too much like watching a pair of boys face off in a schoolyard after one of them stole the other’s snack, and Mindy is not a pepperoni lunchable to be dueled over... even if the duel part isn't exactly unappealing.
Charlie sticks one hand out and says, “Charlie Lang. NYPD.”
“Daniel Castellano, MD.” Danny clasps the proffered hand too firmly judging by the way the skin goes white.
Their handshake lasts too long, like their eye contact.
Danny’s fists are clenched when he leads the way to her office but, because she can’t spare anymore energy on trying to understand why this man is the way he is, Mindy pretends not to notice.
And if Charlie has his arm slung a little too low on her waist when they leave, she doesn’t notice that either.
…
She’s in the bath later, recovering from what was not a stellar date — but she hasn’t decided if that’s Charlie’s fault or hers, or someone else’s altogether — when she hears the pounding.
Her hair is still dripping, and she leaves a trail of water from the bathroom to the front door, where she hopes maybe to find a delivery guy from her favorite Thai food place even though she hasn’t ordered anything.
“Danny?”
He’s leaned against her doorjamb, still in his work clothes but his sleeves are rolled up, and his head is down so he’s looking up at her through his lashes.
“So, this is you giving up guys, huh?”
Mindy shakes her head a little. “What are you talking about?”
“‘Not dating anymore.’ That’s what you said.”
“Danny why are you here?”
He smiles, the smile where the corners of his mouth go down instead of up, and shrugs. “Are you gonna let me in?”
No would be the smart answer. It’s a little after ten, she’s in a robe and they both work in the morning. And she knows, she knows he wants to start something.
“Fine, take your shoes off.”
He shuts the door behind him and slips out of his loafers.
“Why are you here?” she asks again, arms folded, and she waits right by the door for her answer, so he doesn’t think he’s allowed to get comfortable.
“What goes through your mind when these assholes ask you out?”
She blinks, twice, and shakes her head incredulously. “Really? That’s why you’re here?”
“Yeah, I’m curious. Do you convince yourself he’s not a complete loser, or do you convince yourself to say yes anyway?”
“Go home, Danny.”
He’s moving closer and she has to take a step back. He’s never been very good at personal space.
“Or have you dated so many losers you don’t even know the difference anymore?”
“You tell me,” she spits.
He looks away and steps back, finally, just a step. “You don’t — it’s not the same, you know it’s not.” He sounds desperate, and does he really need her to tell him he’s not as bad as the rest?
“Okay, Danny,” she says, though it’s not, because maybe if he would leave her alone it could be, eventually.
But he doesn’t leave. Instead, he reclaims the foot of space he surrendered and looks her in the face.
“He’s a jackass.”
“He is not.”
“He’s an animal! He had his hands all over you!”
“That’s — you’re exaggerating.”
“I don’t get it, Mindy. That guy?” He looks genuinely confused. “I mean… Why are you doing this? Huh? Is it to get out of a parking ticket? I swear to god, that you ever got a driver’s license is a disgrace to the Motor Vehicle Department of—”
“No!” She smacks his chest. “I’m dating Charlie because I like him, okay? He’s a good guy. He’s good for me, he—” He makes me better, she almost says, but it catches. “He wants to teach me to change the fluorescents, so I can stop paying my super to do it for me.”
Danny scoffs. “Oh please. Do you see the way he looks at you? There’s a lotta things he wants to do to you Mindy and teaching you to change a bulb isn’t on the list!”
“Danny!”
He lets out a breath and some of his purpose goes with it. His shoulders sag a little. “I could teach you.”
Her eyes are wet already. He wants her to be his, but he doesn’t want to be hers, and that feels worse than not being wanted at all. “I think you should go.”
He lifts two fingers to the tie holding her robe together. He tugs gently at the loop of the bow and gets closer until the toes of his socks are touching her bare feet.
Her breaths stop coming. She can feel the warmth of his fingers through the thin silk, and when his breath falls, hot and damp, on her cheek, she closes her eyes and all of the reasons she shouldn’t just lean up and kiss him suddenly feel arbitrary.
Instead, he whispers, pleadingly, into her ear, “Don’t go out with him again.”
…
Charlie is hot, and funny in a grumpy way. The first date wasn’t great, but — and not just because he had a Glock tucked into his waistband — Mindy didn’t say no to a second. By the third she thinks she could get used to it.
It’s not love by any stretch of the imagination, but love hasn’t done her any favors anyway. He’s straightforward in a way that some people would call being an asshole, but she thinks he just really values honesty. It’s nice, and it’s familiar, and she ignores that because everything doesn’t have to mean something.
Danny is sullen these days, and takes it out on her, and so she retaliates with distance and a clumsy sort of reserve she’s never had to practice before.
How greatly she feels the loss is a testament, really, to how intricately Danny was woven into every aspect of her life, and how little she realized it. Charlie can’t fill every void, but he tries, and most of the time he’s a lot better than nothing.
Of course, there are only so many ways to avoid a man who works fifty feet from you and lives closer than that.
Charlie is fixing her TV not for the first time, and she’s working hard to pretend like she’s listening as he walks her through the steps so maybe next time she won’t have to call him at all.
If it was Danny, she would only have to break out a pout and he would let her curl up on the couch with a glass of wine while he went at the thing with a wrench. Her pouts don’t work on Charlie, which is probably a sign that he likes her a little less, but she doesn’t mind because she likes him a lot less.
In Danny’s defense, the scene — Charlie holding a hammer, even if it’s only to force the stubborn plastic panel off the back of her TV, and Mindy with a glass of wine she’s being a little too careless with as she aggressively articulates her boredom to him — is incriminating. But when he uses his key instead of knocking in the middle of the day, and shouts “HEY!” immediately upon entering, he can’t be wholly surprised that the next minute he’s being smooshed face-first against the door.
“Charlie let him go!” Mindy shrieks, a knee-jerk reaction to what looks like a very painful contortion of Danny’s left arm.
“What the hell are you doing here? You stalking Mindy now? I knew you were obsessed! Are you armed?”
Danny shouts something that’s muffled against the door and Charlie loosens his hold a little.
“What the hell am I doing here? What the hell am I doing here?” Danny sputters. He’s slowly using the advantage of his small stature to wiggle out of Charlie’s hold, and it’s very unattractive so Mindy decides to jump in.
“Okay, let him go! He’s not a stalker.” She takes a deep breath. “Danny what are you doing here?”
He wrenches his arm away from Charlie, who he fixes with a glare before turning to Mindy and throwing his arms up like you too? “Unbelievable. It’s my place, I get to — you can’t just have some gigolo in here, tearing up the place in the middle of the day! It’s not in the lease Mindy!”
Charlie is still holding the hammer in one hand, somewhat menacingly.
“He was just fixing my TV! The sound went out again!”
Danny’s face changes into something marginally softer and he sighs heavily. “What did you do this time, spill Merlot all over the cables? I told you, you can’t drink while you’re worked up!” He takes the glass from her and sets it on the coffee table, then shoves an accusatory finger in her face. “This is why I got you the Wow Cup, but do you use it? No!”
“Excuse me Danny, if I don’t want to drink wine out of a sippy cup! Excuse me!”
Neither of them notices Charlie watching from his place still near the door, and when he gets his coat off the rack neither of them notices that either.
“Well don’t call me when you get yourself electrocuted, don’t call me then!” Danny spouts, red in the face.
“I didn’t call you!” Mindy is nearly screaming now. “I called —”
They both look over at the door, but Charlie is gone.
“Damn it.”
...
“There’s a lot of history between you two.” It isn’t a question, so Mindy doesn’t answer. “Look, you’re a nice girl. But I don’t want to get in the middle of all that.”
“No, no, no. Charlie listen — it’s over. We’re totally over.”
Charlie cocks a dubious eyebrow. “You’re living at his apartment.”
She bites her lip. “Yes, that, well. It’s just until I can find another place! Actually… maybe, since you have that nice big house all to yourself…”
“No.”
Her shoulders fall. “Look, Danny was a big part of my past. But that’s the past, and I want to focus on my future.” She tiptoes her fingertips up his arm and rests her palm on his shoulder. “And I want you to be a part of it.”
He sighs, still with the dubious eyebrows and a frown in his features that she’s not sure isn’t permanently etched in at this point, but maybe his eyes have softened. “Alright.”