haole_cop | (no subject)

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"All I'm saying is, if we'd stayed on land last week, the chances of us getting boat-jacked and left to die out in the middle of the ocean in a sinking boat -- I'm sorry, dinghy," his hand drops from where it had lifted, preemptively, to stop Steve from arguing, "dinghy, I know, I know -- would have been much more slim. I'd say that there would easily have been a zero percent chance of that happening. Mainly because one does not use boats -- or dinghies -- on land. Don't get me wrong, I fully accept the possibility of something else horrible happening. It always seems to, every time we leave civilization."

Which is why they are here. At a bar. Having a few drinks, while Danny eyes the pool table and the TV with equal amounts of casual interest, catching a few glimpses of the previous week's games and keeping an eye out for the Jets.

More to the point, as great as it is that Steve wants to show him his favorite hiking trails or mountainous drives or fishing spots from when he was a kid, the guy is already surrounded by memories of a life that, all of a sudden, turned out not have been necessary at all. The thought of Doris McGarrett, hiding out somewhere on the island, unapologetic for doing what she'd called necessary and what Danny counters was cruelty, makes rage spark low in his stomach and burn up through his chest, so they're out of the house that she'd left so miserable and broken twenty years ago and planted solidly in the present.

There are worse ways to wrap up a week. Actually being around other people, instead of opting for Steve's lanai or living room or kitchen. When, somehow, miraculously, Danny is still wanted there. Around. And they've fallen into something almost like normality.

He hasn't thought about it too hard. That's how you jinx a good thing, and this is good, a bright light shining somewhere in the cave of bullshit that collapsed around them the day Fryer was murdered and Shelburne turned out to be Steve's not-nearly-as-dead-as-she-had-previously-appeared-to-be mother. Add it all to the firestorm of a custody battle from hell, and, look, all he wants is a decent night out at a bar before, hopefully, going back tipsy to Steve's house and enjoying the comfort of his couch or bed.

Is that really so much to ask?

"Best to just resist the impulse to tempt fate, my friend."

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It's not as good as it could be, but it is good. Good enough somewhere in the center of the tension it's not as thigh as always.

Melting the quirk of an annoyed smile, that isn't, into the pint glass of his beer, while Danny just keeps sawing away at his point. A point Steve has not stopped hearing about since the moment the dingy got hijacked -- far be it for Danny to actually wait for safety before that storm started. Today's at least is laced in fondness and that I'm right, you know i'm right tone that has Danny smiling and pushing, insistant but warm.

So maybe, yeah, Steve just lets him go on. Even if it does grate into the graze of that day, with Danny under the sun, surrounded by the sea, the equally memorable moments of sun all over his skin as hearing him yelling at the fish he caught, before the day was ruined. Which slights even the memory of those now. Pricking it with the tip of a blade every time Danny goes at it. But, you know, he's had worse, they've had worse, and this smile.

This ribbing, pushing, cajoling amusement that has nothing at all on the panic, warbling in the center of the ocean.

"It wasn't that bad, Danny," Steve counter, reminding him with a part-shake of his head, part roll of his eyes, like all the words were ludicrous, licking at his upper lip and rubbing his mouth with back of his hand, above his thumb, from finishing the beer in his hand through most of Danny's ramble. Eyebrows raised, amused dismissal along most of it.

Uncertain if he's saying it because it honestly wasn't, or because saying it really will just spur Danny to keep telling him how it was.

"No? You don't think so?"

He turns a little, leaning one side against the bar, elbow cocked lazily on it, gesturing with his beer in the other hand, weight shifted over one hip and planted against the glossy wood. Lets the sounds of the bar wash over him, nightlife pushing into full swing somewhere outside, under stars and brilliant specks of white Christmas lights, strung along palm trees like a trail of fireflies. He can hear music, and laughter, and the muted sounds of conversation, and it's all good, but not as good as glancing at Steve's shoulders and back and seeing them a little less tense than they have been, lately.

His smiles come a little later, and they tend towards the slight, these days, rather than the sudden full-body flash of warmth that lights everyone in a ten-block radius, but what can he expect? The world just shoved Steve's whole life into the "DID NOT NEED" box, and set it on fire.

He's really not sure if he'll ever be able to forgive Doris McGarrett for what she did, but it is so far from being his call, and that is not the point of tonight.

"You know, I expect the occasional threat to my person, working with you, chasing down hardened criminals, but I have to say, I really did not see a relaxing day going fishing turning out like it did. I think we're jinxed."

It hadn't started out bad. It had even been pretty good, for a while, despite the lack of shade on the boat, the water everywhere, and his own misgivings about heading far out enough that they could no longer see land.

Not terrible. Sure. But it really went spectacularly downhill from there.

This is probably the best part of his days. It's a toss up, between these moments and the ones when on a case. Because during either all this thoughts melt to the edge. Like right now, when Danny is honestly taking up most of his full focus. The rest generally on people passing, the sound of the door opening and closing, and too many voices to really follow their actual conversations but certain words, specific ones, still catch.

But not enough to deter him, to make him glance anywhere long. Not certainly in this second. When Danny leans against the bar against the bar, tempting him to do what he shouldn't. At least not here. To let his gaze drag down, slow and steady and focused, across this newest perfectly too tight, buttoned up shirt, caught with his weight and pulling to where he's leaning on the bar. Follow the folds in the fabric, down across the lines of his body.

That doing so will only make him want to reach out and touch it. The lazy, pleased relaxation that's suffusing postured ease.

Except it won't stop. If he does, he won't want to. He never does. When it almost burns, but he keeps his eyes on Danny's face, contents himself with glancing away only long enough to reach out and set his glass far enough into the bar that it'll be a signal of it being empty. When he gets the vague excuse to look across his arm resting there, his shoulder, almsot the dip where his shirt isn't going to end up buttoned ever again, it seems, before he's looking at Danny's face.

Mouth quirking amusedly, poking that word back, "Jinxed."

Edited 2012-11-22 01:10 (UTC)

"Yes, jinxed."

He's nodding, glancing idly out across the bar before taking a sip of his beer and setting it on the bartop in order to gesture a little more fully, hand spread wide, fingers relaxed. Shirt tugging at his shoulders in a way that's a lot more comfortable in the cool of the evening than in the heated middle of the day, or under Kevlar.

Index finger straightening, while the others curl. One. "Have we ever had a day off where something did not go catastrophically wrong? You broke your arm hiking, there was that fake tsunami debacle, and now, boat-jackings." His arm gets thrown wide, ramping up to this, his favorite point, if he were playing favorites, which he's not, because it's absurd to think that he might enjoy arguing this that much.

Admittedly, it is an excellent distraction from -- well, everything.

"In the middle of the ocean! It's absurd. You would think, of all the places violent crime would not find us, the middle of the freakin' ocean would be right at the top of that list."

Another sip of beer, one finger uncurling from the bottle to point at Steve. "Jinxed. I'm telling you."

Steve, honestly, can't think of a place in the world where a violent crime isn't possible. Maybe a coffin. But that thought aces itself a tendril of cold snapping down into his chest. Like it's a well burned path, splashed with that face and that voice, never forgotten enough to not be what it was. Even when he shoves against it. Thinking that, no, there really isn't any location he can come up with at the second. Especially this second.

When he just tips his head, and pushes through it the same way he pushes through a good punch or one the Governors phone calls. Lets his mouth stay crooked, dry amused at Danny's examples. Even if they aren't woefully incorrect. He knows. He knows everything Danny is saying. How rarely he offers something out. Something like this. Especially now. Everything about it is a little tinged.

That one was his father's. His. That was something Danny hadn't done. And, then, all of that happened on top of it, them.

"That wouldn't be why we have a whole branch of the government devoted to it," Steve pointed out, wryly sardonic all at once. Playing a completely different side to the point. With the different points Danny was making at it. As he caught the eye of the new bartender all the way down, and tipped his head, with the raise of a hand.

When Steve is humoring the floor to even say, "And, let me guess, you know a place where that doesn't happen at all."

Like the moon. Or somewhere in his head, far distant from every inch of this island and the ocean and the mainland.

"I do know a place where I don't get boat-jacked," he says, shoulders pushing back, leaning against his elbow and the arm on the bar, eyebrows lifting high as his head cocks to one side. Purposefully ignoring the rest of Steve's point, because who's running this show, anyway? "It's called dry land."

Which, okay. He wouldn't have agreed to go at all if he really hadn't wanted to, and he didn't just go because Steve was so obviously excited about it, with his goofy hat and purple sleeveless shirt, spinning a story about catching tuna with John out on the open water, and he'd been so lit up by the idea that it's not like Danny could actually refuse.

Who could? When the things that make Steve happy are so few and far between right now, and this was the perfect chance to get his mind off...things.

And it seemed like a good idea at the time. Hell, it even seemed like a good idea right up until they got hijacked. Boats are okay. They're not great, and he doesn't trust them, but he's okay with them. Besides, what could possibly have gone wrong that a Navy SEAL wouldn't be able to deal with the problem, right?

Wrong.

He shrugs, turns back to the bar, taps his own bottle against the bartop and pushes it in the direction of the bartender who's come to give Steve a new drink.

"Admittedly, the fish was pretty tasty."

He can allow that. At least. But it's a stretch, Steve. A reluctant admittance that there may have been something, one good thing, to come of the whole mess.

"It was amazing," Steve said, far more heavy handedly, mouth curving wider. Begging him to deny that part.

Because Danny had been actually really happy with his fish, out at Kamekona's surrounded by everyone, looking a little surprised when Steve toasted to Billy. The day, and surviving it all, and acknowledging things past and present, all tangled up in this. This end of a day, where they still managed to solve the case that fell in their lap.

It's not one he gets to answer though, because the next second is filled with another set of hands slapping the bar on the other side.

A woman with long blonde hair, falling halfway to her elbows, dark eyes and an already wide smile, who seemed to have appeared somewhere between their first round and now. She had a low circle necked shirt, revealing the strings of a swim suit, framing a triple set of silver necklaces with small Hawaiian charms shivering with her movement above it.

"Two refills?"

Edited 2012-11-22 02:38 (UTC)

He flicks a glance over the bar at the woman leaning there, pushes his bottle towards her. "Yeah, thanks."

Before turning his attention back to Steve, who is finally smiling a little more, relaxing, slightly. Which is good. Something to aim for, to keep up, which Danny can do, alright, he can keep a conversation going for hours, no sweat, avoiding all the heavy stuff and hitting the good times, or his favorite rants.

Anything, to push a little more curve into that smile. To lighten his expression a little more. "Yeah, okay," he relents, like it's such a chore to do, like the last thing he wants to do is agree, but he will, for Steve, even though the fish was delicious. Honestly, seriously, some of the best he's ever had.

"I definitely wouldn't send it back."

Maybe it wasn't even the fish, so much, as everything else. Sunset light. All his friends, his teammates, there. Steve, nearby, watching him over the top of his beer bottle, enough that every time Danny looked over, there he was, with that odd, difficult to define smile, the one that pulls Danny's heart into a spinning confusion.

Not a terrible way to end the day, after all. Sure. He'll give him that.

The glass and the bottle were grabbed, with the wash of a smile, along with a lingering look between them, before she was gone.

While Steve was resisting the urge to roll his eyes at Danny and his barely, agreeing.

Words that agreed while looking at him, like he had to weigh this. Like he hadn't been smiling bright and broad, almost like all the words in the small raft hadn't happened that day. Joking about who and how it would be paid for while Kamekona put the finishing touches on patching up a day Steve hadn't planned to go that way at all.

"You wouldn't what?" Steve raised a hand waving it, just enough.

A gesture with the turn of his wrist. Small, but still more. When he's painting broad strokes, even if they might be more estimated overblown details rather than honest to god facts now. "If it wasn't for Shamu having two platters, the rest of us might not have gotten any of it at that first taste."

He can't help the way his smile brightens, broadens, crinkles at the corners of his eyes, because it's true: he'd dug into that fish like it was his mother's lasagna.

"Hey," he says, keeping it up, even though it's all a pretense, a chuckle in his voice and that smile impossible to push away, "you're all lucky I decided to share. It's the last time I bring Kamekona anything, that's for sure. You know, I think I basically put down the down payment for that truck of his, considering I'm the one he always charges. What happened to doing us a favor after we got his truck back, huh? That's what I want to know."

His hand smacks, light, against the bartop, a mimicry of actual annoyance.

It's better. A little better with every catch and tossing back of words and jokes and teasing. Steve looking a little lighter, a little looser. Unwinding by a hair.

"Okay, fine." He lifts his hand in surrender. "You got me, I admit it, the fishing part was not entirely awful."

Neither was being alone on the boat for hours with Steve, having some beers, watching him soak up the sun and salt air, tan skin and stupid hat and a lightheartedness missing all too often these days.

And everything else. Everything still new, still miraculous, even after weeks, now. Which he still can't believe, isn't sure he trusts, but is damn sure going to make the most of while and when he can.

Danny never lights up by parts. He goes all at once, like someone remembered suddenly to turn the sun back on. The way he starts smiling, crinkling up his eyes, pulling the lines at the edges of his mouth tight and broad. But nothing, nothing beats the way his eyes light up. Okay. Well, there are certain things that are still new enough they really, really do, but he savors this.

The way Danny's laugh bursts free of his mouth, while he's trying to play it off, but he looks so pleased. The kind of pleased that almost edges toward embarrassment before it is so true ad deep, with no bottom edge or realistic wall, maybe more than admission in words can contain. The kind of second that looks perfect on him. Laughing, joking, where if they were at his place, Steve would let his fingers find Danny's hair and steal all of this right off his lips.

His fingers itched, with nothing but the slick waxed bartop beneath, needing something more to busy them with, glancing toward the drinks almost to them before Danny, arrogant success mapping across his features, and dragging it back to teh beginning, "So, you'll go, again, sometime."

Which really happens seconds before there's another pint and another bottle of beer being placed before them. On new bright napkins, not yet ringed with water stains. The woman, her name badge pinned to her jeans pocket instead of her shirt reading Megan, was wiping her hands on her pants, smile still wide and a little edged now, gaze flitting to the side only barely, but still more than once.

Looking directly at Danny only, as she said, "That'll be three-fifty. Cash, or do you have tab?"

"I never said that," he's saying, leveling a finger at Steve and Steve's stupid smug expression, like butter would not melt in his mouth. Which is honestly one of Danny's favorite expressions, if also aggravating in the extreme. When everything softens a little, in Steve's face, and he's got that look, triumph mixed with something warm and fond, that gentles his usually razor-sharp arrogance and makes Danny's heart do stupid, jumpy things in his chest.

So he's still grinning, when his new drink arrives, and it takes him a second, as he's going for his wallet, tugging some dollar bills out, to notice the odd thing about this interaction. Eyes sliding from the bartender, to the drinks, to Steve, and back again, grin slimming down to an amused, bemused tuck of his lips.

"What, is there some kind of notice out that I'm the one paying for things? I wouldn't put it past Kamekona, but it might be nice of him to let me know. Or did you just forget about him?"

A little more casual than the prickling at the back of his neck might imply, as he tips his head towards Steve.

Not enough to be anything, yet. But it's a little odd. And he's wired tight these days, even as he hands the bills over, studying her from behind an easy half-smile. "Three fifty, each?"

Megan reached out to take four bills from the handful Danny was holding out. Not paying all that much attention.

No. That. That was the most apparent part. When her smile slid a little sharper and brighter. "Nah. He's--" And her glance flicks over, starting somewhere that could blatantly be lied and said is the counter and Steve drink, but it's really somewhere about the center of his chest.

Sliding up in the same second, about as solid and well-meaning as if she might have been considering far more than reaching out and dragging a finger up the way her eyes went. Getting to his face, and her head tilting, pleased, in a way that may her hair ruffle against her shoulders. Even for all that it was barely the pass of whole second "--good." That last word popping out slow and lazy, and far more reaching than money.

"He can have this one on this house." She raised her first two fingers gesturing between herself and Steve, pushing a second while she had it. "We can talk about the next one when you've gotten through with this." Though given the way this went about like good, it was pretty clear she might or might not have meant the pint of beer at all either.

Edited 2012-11-22 05:27 (UTC)

It's like she threw a brick through a plate-glass picture window, the way something in Danny's head shatters, loud, brilliantly flashing. Spotlights chasing this feeling as it scrabbles up from the back of his neck into his skull, down across his chest, burrowing in at just about the same spot where she is looking at Steve.

No. Not looking. Practially leering. Like she's got x-ray vision, or something, and can see right through his shirt. All but licking her lip, dark eyes all lit up and warm, heavy-lidded.

Somewhere, vaguely, he realizes he's crushed that last dollar bill as his fingers clenched. It's hard to tell, when he's suddenly seeing everything through a haze of splintered red, confused jealousy ice-picking under his sternum. "Well, that's thoughtful," he says, sliding the bill back into his wallet, taking far more care than necessary, as his head swirls with the sudden pounding uncertainty of his reaction.

Steve is attractive. He knows it. He knows everyone who sees the guy knows it. He has had plenty of opportunity to study his body and features without any distance between them at all, over the last few weeks, and it has been a hugely pleasant study.

So of course Steve is going to get hit on by the girl tending bar. Right. It's only natural. She can look. She's got a right to look. Everyone has a right to look. Danny cannot control where people decide to put their eyes, and so, this is a side effect, of Steve being attractive and people aside from Danny noticing that.

Right?

He struggles with the kneejerk reaction to upend his bottle over the bar, just to get her to look somewhere else, shifts a little towards Steve, to try and get in the line of sight. "Then I guess we'll let you know when we're done with these."

Which they aren't. So she can go, now. Anytime.

Steve takes it in stride, with enough habit that it raises his eyebrows like a surprise he doesn't quite truly feel, nothing more really than is gained for the completely unmixed travail right up his shirt. When there's a war of momentary reactions, each one about as in check as the next. When it would be easy to smile brighter and just roll it off. It's a bar, it happens, and hey, you know a free drink from a cute girl is a free drink from a cute girl. Who turns that down?

Even if she isn't going to get anything else out of it, and he isn't going to be following up on a second free drink.

Especially given the small blast of annoyance coming from his side. When he shoots Danny an impatiently quizzical look, clearing his throat before looking back at the bartender. He raised the glass, with about only the faintest diminish to his smile, lips pressing more than spreading, flat and curved more than warm, like a toast, poster boy for gratitude, with an easy breezy, "Mahola."

It's a free drink he can drink, and a free opinion he can discard without caring about. It seems good enough she shrugs, smiles big and bright again, before saying, "Not a problem," and heading off to other people calling after her and her services.

He watches her go, notes the little extra sway she's putting into her step that is definitely not for his benefit, but that sting is pretty well dulled -- it's not like he's here to flirt with cute bartenders. Or for anyone but Steve. Whose improving mood seems to have hit a faintly flat note, when Danny looks back towards him. The easy, vaguely plastic surfer-boy smile, that doesn't actually reach his eyes. Mahalo, and brushing it off. Like he doesn't care at all. Barely even noticed.

While Danny is unnerved by the strength of his own reaction, the sharp immediacy of it, leaving him feeling a little shaken and ashamed of himself now that she's gone, headed to the other end of the bar, checking IDs and taking orders.

(Still. He glances her way, once or twice, just to see, just to check, if she's looking back here at all.)

And Steve is just sitting there, having his free beer, like it wasn't entirely clear that what she really wanted was to run her hand up along the path her eyes took. Danny's checking in flicked looks, like maybe there's something on Steve's shirt he hadn't noticed before, but there isn't. Just a plain shirt, hanging neatly on broad shoulders. Filled out solidly.

He's got some misgivings about the whole thing, but he should let it go. Brush it off. One drink is one drink, and it's one more he didn't have to pay for, anyway, which is better than how it usually works out for him when Steve drinks for free.

Sure.

Tamping that stupid reaction down like a stubborn coal that won't go out, trying to pick up the lost threads of his thoughts and their conversation, without much in the way of success.

"Okay," he says, rolling his eyes, mouth twitching almost amused. "Enough with the surfer boy charm, huh? Very smooth."

If Steve's not going to complain, or care really either, it seems like Danny will pick up that slack for him.

Which isn't too surprising. Danny can pick up on anything happening near him, regardless of whether it's actually happening to him. But his mild exasperation makes something in Steve's smile tug, threatening to put an authentic hint in the falling away politeness.

"Apparently, it was," Steve pushed a little, the tug pushing into his cheek, turning it back a wide, slightly warmer, bragging. Free drinks weren't much, but you know, he didn't mind taking the plus. When Danny is shifting around over there, not touching his bottled, making Steve tip his glass to Danny's bottle and Danny with, "Drink up."

Which Steve does just as he leans on the bar, side and back on the wood, to the entire bar back area entirely and looks across the room. Other people milling in and out, sitting and drinking, talking, playing pool, watching whatever game is playing on the tv's scattered through out the corners. Not exactly casing the place. But it doesn't mean he doesn't casually think about the comparable defensibility and density of everything that could be barricaded.

Edited 2012-11-22 14:28 (UTC)

Maybe it's at his expense, but he's alright with it, when Steve's smile turns a little less hang-loose-breezy and a little more actually amused, deepening a shaded dimple for a second before he leans over and nudges Danny's attention back to his drink.

"Hey, I'm getting to it," he protests, taking up the bottle, and taking a long sip to settle himself back into the groove of bar, light conversation, hanging out at the end of a long week with Steve. Just where he wants to be.

Steve's watching the crowd, and Danny watches him, before his eyes move to the TV overhead, stubbornly refusing to go back to the long slope of Steve's shoulder and side, ubiquitous t-shirt hanging easily against him. It helps when they replay a sack that makes him wince. Post-season stats slide along a black bar at the bottom of the screen, making him think of Steve saying he'd never been to a professional baseball game.

Well, it's not likely he's ever going to, here, but it's a shame. Missing out on the stadium, crowd excitement caught high in the air.

Baseball would probably be too slow for him, though. "I'm in no rush. A night off should be savored."

How many chances do they get, seriously, to just unwind a little? The job colors everything, and he wouldn't have it any other way, but it's nice to take a little break.

Danny protests, but complies all the same, making Steve mouth curve up a tiny bit more.

Even if that gets lost in the lip of his pint glass, taking a drink himself. Not really catching the eyes of anyone as he's looking over people, the high early night swing in flush, that's still calmer than anything else that's been happening on the job. Ever is. The slow-coiling tension when they wait for the next call and that snap of relief when the case breaks, the job is done.

"Oh?" Steve's looked at him, amused, gesturing with his drink in a small circle, meaning the whole place, but doing his best not to spill his beer at the sametime. "And this is savoring a few hours?"

He pressed on Danny's new word there. Thinking, warm and mocking, that he could think of a handful of other things that might count far better toward that concept than sitting in a bar, full of people creating walls that couldn't be breached. He can see the appeal. A low key bar, less formal for than even a meal, somewhere they can slide closer to anonymity and further from work.

Have some drinks, some laughs, he still might convince Danny to play a game of pool if he gets too restless sitting here.

He grins at that, against the mouth of his bottle. Not quite an insinuation, or a suggestion, but it's not like he can't hear that hint of a question and not think about the other ways these hours could be spent. Brand new ways that haven't lost their shine of fascination, because he's still more than a little disbelieving that its happening at all.

This. Them. Still barely talked about, undefined, aside from that one comment, that he'd been pushed to answering in a confusion. That is none of Doris McGarrett's business. But that he is seeing someone. That they're taking it slow. Putting forward the only slightly definitive statement about the thing that's happening between them. Needled into it, the sudden need to...what, stake some kind of claim? When Steve hadn't been paying attention, and Danny's chest had been aching at the lost, barely there look on his face. The vagueness of his tone.

None of her business. But still, something. A few words that don't translate the fact that this is still, miraculously, happening. He just keeps coming back, and so does Steve, and so far no one's backed off. Or changed their mind. Like maybe if he doesn't look at it too hard, push it, even breathe on it, it'll keep going. Sharing nights. Winding it around work and his hours with Grace. So far.

But he shrugs. Nudges back against the bar, that prickly feeling at the base of his skull smoothing away again. "As a matter of fact, I do. This is what people do, on occasion. Go a place that is not work, or home. Every now and again, just for a change of scenery."

Steve watched the reaction. The smile, smothered in glass, lip wrapped against dark glass, thinking that it was both a marvel he wasn't thinking worse of the second. Well. Before this second. When it slips barely, translucent and hazy memories. But the small smile might be worth far more than his own passing reaction. Private and personal, very nearly smothered in glass, like Danny was trying to keep it to himself.

Which splashes warmth, watery and unrushed, up across the insides of his chest, like gently crowning waves.

He doesn't really mind either. Some place that isn't his office or his house. The office is too public, with too many people who don't know things. But as much as there are seconds he feels the sting of frustrated patience with glass walls here, there's a part of him that is relieved not to be in that house. That house that had always screamed its history, with so little changed in nearly two decades.

And now it did even more. The lives of three people shattered and scattered over a murder that never happened, cased in ice there. Everything has always reminded him, but now it does, again. Trips him up in wholly new, different ways. Simple things like a cup, or furniture in a room. Everything and all the memories he lived with and in and through suddenly all that much clearer, louder and more demanding again.

Like the desk his father sat working late into nights after, before separating and shipping off he and Mary, working so diligently to keep them safe from an event that never took place. Like a punishment that either had no crime to lay its feet, or a deeper one than Steve wanted to keep facing. When there was no escaping it no matter which way he looked, room he chose, place he came or went there.

Which he didn't have to, here. Sitting with Danny, somewhere completely innocuous, with obvious boundaries but still Danny's smile.

When Steve can easily, wrap back to where they were, digging into Danny's smile and his words in both. Letting his gaze narrow in plain, and very bland, speculative cynicism. With just the hint of blankness laid out over all of it, like perhaps, he couldn't be sure at all: of the answer to the question or the likelihood. Like it wasn't the other of his jobs. Land and Sea. "Because it's not just as likely you'll get held at gun point or hijacked at a bar in a busy city?"

Though not as many people were found dead with cut motors at bars, admittedly either.

Edited 2012-11-22 23:15 (UTC)

"Well, there would be a lot of witnesses."

He gestures, expansive and loose, towards the people around them, clustered into groups of two or three or four, a few individuals wandering through the crowd. Girls in brightly colored tops and jeans, guys in loud shirts. Everybody talking, relaxing on barstools or standing easily.

"Not exactly your major crime waiting to happen."

True. They've seen better situations go far worse, and he's been on the job long enough to know that just about any place, no matter how innocuous, can devolve into sudden panic and violence.

He's not really getting that vibe right now, though, which is nice, considering he doesn't have his gun on him, firearms being generally frowned upon in bars and them being off duty. Inasmuch as Five-0 ever is.

The angle away from Steve doesn't last long, though; he finds himself tipping back that way, beer bottle lifting and dropping with the motion of his hand, moving in easy circles. "Dark, empty parking lots are a much better bet for that sort of thing. Don't get me wrong, I'm pretty sure that there is not a single place on this planet that I -- or we, which would probably be the case, all things considered -- could not get held at gun point or hijacked. It is an inevitability, apparently."

Steve doesn't really think the number in here would contest much, given places they both had guns or very dead bodies appear before. In far higher numbers of people and far classier situations, both. If considering the odds, if was still nice. Relaxing, chilling back against the bar, a beer in his hand, Danny's voice running along different scales of amused, even when it was argumentative or pointed.

It's something about that. All the things that slide in and out from his thoughts, like waves gentle and peaceful for once. Even in the subject aren't all. That makes some of this easier to sink into. Toward. It might not be relaxing per say. But it was better than feeling like he was sitting in quick sand, counting the sand and the time passing while it slowly drug him into itself again.

"You could pre-empt it and wear the tac gear every time you aren't sleeping." Yeah. He's nowhere near serious, but he was tipping his head, eyes canted to be glancing toward the ceiling like he might be considering it. Seriously considering it. Up there with the grenades that loitered frequently in the glovebox because even the trunk was too far away for them.

Which isn't really a consideration. Steve would spend too much of his time having to get Danny out of it. Not that he was against the notion itself. But Steve would be hard pressed not to miss the way his shirts clung. Something he'd had an appreciation for before, but lately it seemed to be something that stuck out. How far they pushed up, where they strained at the sides when he turned to look at someone.

The lines of muscles he could picture perfectly sculpting themselves in cloth. Which he's not going to look over at.

He's going to take a drink of his beer, and add, smartly flip. "Maybe they have one you can put a clip on tie, too, somewhere."

"I'm beginning to think that's something I should have been doing all along." A quick quip back, while Steve is glancing idly up, like the ceiling is giving him suggestions on how to further being a smartass. Back and forth. Words aimed like the cue ball on the pool table, breaking each comment into a dozen different paths, all more or less aimed at perfecting Steve's ability to aggravate Danny.

Which he's not really doing, though the momentarily bared line of his throat as his head tips as enough to make something not unlike aggravation skitter under Danny's skin, thin legs pricking and stinging. "Utilitarian. Efficient. A little paranoid, maybe, but an excellent conversation starter. 'Why are you wearing body armor?' they'd ask, and it would be a very long story that would end with me explaining how people shoot at me on a near daily basis and also that you keep incendiaries in my car, so I like to keep my own person as safe as possible at pretty much all time, just in case of random shrapnel."

One hand lifts to his collar, where it lies, cool and unbuttoned, against his throat, and he tugs at it, eyebrows lifting into a skeptical arch that pushes deep ridges over the bridge of his nose.

"Oh, you want the tie back, now? You run out of other things to criticize, or are you just hitting all your favorites? Clip-ons, come on, this is not a bar mitzvah, I'll have you know, I never owned a single clip-on tie. They are an affront to the whole idea."

Steve's mouth lifted, smiling regardless of intent or thought to it, as Danny took it and ran with it. All those words pouring out, painting a picture Danny would certainly consider. Painting it into broader strokes he hadn't even considered, other people seeing Danny in this hilarious state at all time. Other people who, Steve was certain, would shake their head with him.

Though Kono would rag on him in a memorable fashion Steve would stand back and watch with unmitigated pleasure and no game plan on stopping her in the slightest. She would have done remarkably well in basic, in that respect. Kono could hold her own with just about anything when it came to that so far.

"If one of them blew up the car-" And he says, with the severity of being completely serious, without it touching the brightness of his eyes or the way this is still very much a part of this whole riff. "-the vest wouldn't help you."

There is a momentary very, very slight stiffen and swallow when Danny is gesturing to his throat, yanking at his collar, pulling the cloth tighter on his shoulders, accenting the space where the shirt is already unbutton, golden hair there at the edges. When Steve was rolling his eyes, but mostly martial his will to make it look simple, easy and blatantly, exasperatedly, amused when he's having to look the hell away from Danny's hand, throat, chest.

It really might not be working, though, when his eyes linger, against the skin flickering the beat of Danny's heart causing his own heart to pound harder in his chest, or was that his throat, before his eyes raised to Danny's. Words formed in his throat like stuck ice cubes, he was going to push out. Any second now. Barely enough time to catch the sudden tumble of fast movement to his other side.

The way he moved before quite catching what it was and snapped out an arm, catching his hand on the arm and side of what appeared to be the patron on the closest bar stool to him trying to come off of hers in the least likely way meant to do anything but accidentally face plant the ground.

Edited 2012-11-24 22:24 (UTC)