Chapter Text
The little things were beginning to get to Dan.
A/V Technician for the Miami-Dade crime lab had been a dream job to start with. Aside from the unfortunate resemblance between CSI Eric Delko and Jesse Ramirez which had Dan convinced he was going to be discovered for the whole first week, it had all been suspiciously normal. Running the A/V suite wasn't something he could cheat at, which made his part in catching crooks all the sweeter. And it was sweet, that was the surprising thing; Dan — Michael — had been the one constantly in trouble with the police as a kid, resentful that they had never done anything about his foster father Hank even though he had worked hard to hide all the bad stuff. Putting that right however distantly had been huge. Most of the video he had to analyse was for big stuff, murders and armed robberies and so on, but every now and then he would see something that screamed 'abused kid' at him and he could take it to the CSIs and expect something to happen.
The only problem he had in those early days was that he had no one to share it all with. Maria was reinventing herself in New York, and Dan didn't dare call her too often. Anyone else might have socialised with his co-workers, but Dan had never been the sociable sort. All of the people he had been even vaguely friendly with as a teenager he'd known through Max and Isabel. Maria teased that he didn't know how to make friends, which was a lot truer than he wanted to admit.
It didn't help that the guy he replaced had been quietly popular. He had even had a tragic story, quitting after his boyfriend, a much-loved CSI, had been shot in the line of duty. Truth to tell, Dan was getting a little tired of hearing stories about trusty Tyler Jensen and the Blessed Tim Speedle. The way people talked, he was honestly surprised no one was petitioning the pope to canonise the guy.
So yeah, maybe Dan was a little pricklier with his colleagues than was strictly necessary, but he did good work. The CSIs seemed to think so anyway, apart from Delko who had never warmed to him after their disastrous first meeting, and who cared if he didn't get invited out to drinks after work? Given his metabolism's reaction to alcohol, that was probably a good thing anyway.
Lately, though, people seemed to have taken to hazing him in a variety of annoying ways. Dan had lost count of the number of coffee cups he had knocked to the floor, and of course he couldn't risk mending them at work. Paperwork was forever going astray, the cleaners unplugged his PC every now and then, and someone had even managed to put a big dent in his locker. It was worse than he'd ever put up with in high school, though of course most people had been scared of how he would react back then.
This had never been his sort of thing, dealing with people without pissing them off, and he didn't know what to do. Was he supposed to report it, or would that just rile everyone? Lt Caine, the shift supervisor, wasn't exactly the cuddly and approachable type, and might well not be any help. On the other hand, trying to tough it out was no fun, and the more frustrated Dan got the more likely it was he'd slip with his powers and have to run again.
So yeah, maybe his life wasn't completely ideal. Still, it was a hell of a lot better than he had any right to expect, all things considered. That was why he didn't think anything of it when Horatio Caine walked into his office.
"Hey," Dan said affably. He gestured at the security video now paused on his monitor. "I haven't got anything on the Mansfield case yet. You want me to page you when something comes up?"
"I'm afraid that will have to wait, Mr Cooper." Lt Caine was giving nothing away, but Dan got a sinking feeling. He schooled his face, trying not to look like he was expecting the worst. "I need to ask you some questions about Tim Speedle."
Dan's surprise was entirely unfeigned. "Uh, ask away," he said. "I don't know how much help I can be though. I never met the guy."
"Were you aware that your locker is next to the one that was allocated to Speed?"
"No," Dan said bemusedly "I guess someone mentioned I inherited it from the previous A/V tech, but that's it." He searched his memory for a moment. "Oh, I've seen Alvarez from Accounts use the locker left of mine. I guess that must mean Speedle's was the one on the right." Since Alvarez had been with the crime lab for years, and people didn't usually change lockers.
Lt Caine nodded sagely. "So you weren't aware that it hadn't been cleared out since his death?"
"Uh, no?" If he'd thought about it at all, he would have assumed it had been cleared out straight away. On the other hand, keeping a shrine to the Blessed Tim was just what he ought to have expected around here. What was it with these people?
"Then can you explain how this came to be in your locker?" Lt Caine tossed an evidence bag in front of Dan that contained a credit card. A card labelled "T SPEEDLE". What the hell?
"Have you seen my locker?" Dan said once he got over his surprise. "Anyone could have slipped anything into it, it's so beat up."
"Very true, Mr Cooper." Lt Caine almost smiled. Almost. "So you haven't seen this card before?"
"No," Dan confirmed. "It appeared in my locker?"
"It did. After a number of purchases were made using it online, to be delivered to your home address."
"What?!"
"Exactly, Mr Cooper. What indeed."
It took Dan way too long to stop gaping and start thinking again. Lt Caine waited patiently, and it belatedly occurred to Dan that maybe the lieutenant didn't think he was that stupid. Once he thought that, it was obvious what he needed to do next.
Dan pushed his chair away from his desk, keeping his hands in full view the whole time. "You should check my browser history," he said. "It's probably been cleared, but maybe there are some logs somewhere..."
His computer made a horrible grinding noise and died suddenly. Smoke began pouring out of the case. Dan didn't even think, he just lunged forward, grabbed the cable and yanked the power out. The spark nearly blinded him, and he was abruptly very glad that his fingers had been nowhere near the socket. His powers would have saved him, but there was no way someone like Lt Caine would not have noticed.
"Mr Cooper. Dan." Lt Caine raised his voice when Dan didn't react immediately.
"I'm OK," he said, "surprised, not shocked." He took a calming breath. "Please tell me someone already pulled the server logs."
"I'm more concerned with your health," Lt Caine said smoothly. "Get yourself checked out."
"I said I'm fine," Dan insisted. No good could come from medics poking him. "I've never seen a computer do that before."
"Nor have I, Mr Cooper, nor have I." Lt Caine looked consideringly at the mess that used to be Dan's computer, then stepped into the corridor and flagged down a passing officer. "Eric will be here soon to take charge of the evidence," he told Dan once he was done. "In the mean time, is there anything else that you can think of that might be relevant?"
Dan thought for a moment and decided to come clean. About this, at least. "I've had little things going wrong for a while now," he admitted. "Lost paperwork, my computer being unplugged overnight when I'd left it running enhancements, that sort of thing. I'd assumed it was some kind of hazing, but this? It's kind of extreme."
"That it is," Lt Caine agreed. "For your information, this department does not tolerate any behaviour that puts an investigation at risk." He pushed a pad of paper over to Dan. "I want you to write down every incident you can remember," he said, "no matter how small. Anything that might help us figure out who is doing this and why."
Dan nodded and pulled out a pen. He paused; "Do we have internal security footage around the labs?" he asked.
"We do indeed, Mr Cooper," Lt Caine said, "however you cannot touch it." Because he was one of the people being investigated, Dan filled in for himself. Any evidence he went near would be considered tainted.
"I can't work on any cases right now, can I?" he said. "Not even with a new computer."
Lt Caine nodded. "I'm going to have to call in a favour."