(no subject)

[haole_cop]

"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."

Comments

[thebesteverseen]

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?"

[haole_cop]

"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?"

[thebesteverseen]

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.

[haole_cop]

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.

[thebesteverseen]

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.

[haole_cop]

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."

[thebesteverseen]

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.

[haole_cop]

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.

[thebesteverseen]

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.

[haole_cop]

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."

[thebesteverseen]

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.

[haole_cop]

"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."

[thebesteverseen]

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."

[haole_cop]

"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."

[thebesteverseen]

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.

[haole_cop]

It's, seriously, like having a hand on the gearshift of a V6, or maybe like pulling the pin on a grenade. Definitely playing with fire, tugging at his collar, which started out as an innocuous, unconscious gesture that's suddenly clarified itself into heady immediacy with the way Steve's eyes drop to that spot and stick there, sending a knife-thin line of heat along his collarbone. Looking up, with an expression that makes Danny fear for his shirt, and also sort of wonder what he's gotten himself into, feeling like a pinned bug. Twitching legs knocking unrelated words and thoughts into his head, like the fact that Steve's eyes really look almost green, in this light, and that he needs to seriously brush up on his observational skills if he has been missing looks like this for the last year, it's embarrassing, is what it is.

The sudden motion next to them snaps some singing wire in his head, startles him out of his momentary brainfreeze, while Steve is already moving, catching the arm of a girl who is -- come on, no wonder she fell over, by rights her ankles should snap just under the pressure of trying to walk in those heels, right? Never mind when one of them catches on a barstool rung, unsurprisingly sending her into an undignified dive.

"Sorry," she gasps, pushing glossy brown hair back behind one ear, staring at the ground. She's got a pretty party skirt and top to go with the pretty, party, apparently lethal, heels, and long legs with a golden tan that definitely didn't come out of a bottle and a tiny tattoo on one ankle of two cresting waves, and he can actually pinpoint the second when she goes from being embarrassed about falling into Steve to being embarrassed and also pretty damn happy about falling into Steve.

She doesn't outright say the word jackpot, but he assumes it's implied in the way her eyes, big and blue and blinking a little dazedly, widen when she looks up at him.

Shoes like that should come with lessons. Or at least some sort of test, to make sure you have the ability to move around in them without haplessly almost killing yourself and interrupting the people next to you.

"Thank you," she's saying, lifting her other hand to balance herself against Steve's shoulder as she pushes back up onto the stool, and is it hot in here? The AC must have gone out, because Danny feels suddenly like his shirt is stifling. There is no need to linger that long, right? She's upright now, she can let go.

She does. Only to tuck back a few more shining curls, eyes never leaving Steve's face, a shy smile starting.

"God, that was almost so embarrassing."

[thebesteverseen]

Steve's looking down and then up. Quick glances between the ground and her face, or the approximation of it, having slid from his chair about as fast as the first moment. When most of her weight settled into his hand and arm, and she was catching her shoe still, and his only thought aside from not letting her fall, was not dropping the pint glass in his hand, or sloshing it on the ground, himself, or her.

The heels aren't terribly well chosen, he has to admit, but you know, they aren't really chosen for walking. It's all about muscle extension and probably has far more to do with that shiny plastic coloring than he'll ever really understand in women. Appreciation he has, even for the long, slim golden legs, muscles there settling, stretching, testing weight and balance again as she gets her footing.

Understanding and caring and even attention to it, not really much in the way of either.

Nor a want to be changed to having any of them. When all he does is barely glance toward the hand pressed in on his shoulder, when he's standing straighter without straightening entirely to make her reach up, rather certain she's got herself now. "It's fine. No harm, no foul."

And no one hit the ground. He still has his beer. He actually has the wave of feeling pleased he thwarted that being anything from a solid impact with the ground to a broken wrist or ankle. Something that would have sent them both needing to help her far more than the few seconds catching her before she could fall. Which plays itself out across his expression, when he's looking down at her, head tilted, expression faintly concerned by way of simply checking.

"You good now?" Just in case she did happen to twist or pull anything. Not that it seems like it.

[haole_cop]

"Perfect," she smiles, sitting up a little straighter, shaking her hair back, and Danny notes with a strange disassociation, like the world slowing down around a crashing car, like the strange silence in his head sometimes in the middle of a firefight, that she's twisting on the stool so her knees brush against Steve's hip.

It could be accidental. She's talking to him, after all, and he's standing close enough that she would, inevitably, bump into him with that particular motion. So it could be.

Just like the sudden pounding of blood in Danny's ears could be totally unrelated.

"Good thing for me you're such a gentleman," she's saying now, eyes on Steve's face like he's the only goddam person in this bar, faint pink high on her cheeks.

"Yeah, well, those bar stools," he hears himself saying, hand tight around his beer bottle, "they can be tricky to navigate. You never know when one is gonna try to toss you off. Fortunately for you, no necks broken, day is salvaged, well done, Good Samaritan."

And that's it. Right?

Wasn't she going somewhere? She's looking a whole lot more comfortable now, glancing at Danny with some bemusement before turning her full attention back on Steve, smile breaking back into flirtatious apology.

"I'm happy to get you another drink, if that one was a casualty," she offers, which. Come on. Did she not get the message? Danny's hand is sore against the bottle, muscles aching, but it's that, or toss the thing between them, just to see if shattering glass will get her attention away from Steve.

It doesn't look likely.

[thebesteverseen]

It's not like he misses it, okay. It's not like it's hard to see a neon light flashing in your eyes. Especially when the divides between his world for over a decade were jagged and vastly apart. The same distance between endless weeks of back and mind breaking work in lesser able people, and the one of this world. With normal people and bars and the obvious reason they come here. That still related in his more to the novelties of bars in ports, crawling with 'juices.'

The reason Steve isn't missing it, almost like you can count it off. The way her hair gets flounced, or her shiny white teeth press into her bottom lip hopefully, as she looks up at him. When the hand that was at his shoulder is dropped, only to be replaced by her bumping her knees into his hip, calves and feet, bouncing just enough against the jeans and his own thigh, knee. Almost like an invitation to step even closer, without the words.

There's the smallest part of him, nearly tempted for a beat in time, beyond thought or action or choice, like it's easier to handle people that way. Be someone else. What they'd recognize and respond to. Smile bright and a little more expected than felt. That way lies the same as he's ever been, flirted with, or received the smile of a pretty face. And she is pretty. Her make-up isn't overly done, so the way she flushes actually highlights straight through it.

Except -- and this is the important part;

Except standing less than two feet off to one side is the first person he hasn't had to pretend anything for. For over a month.

Over a week ago he would have told you he'd never pretended or hid or faked anything where it came to his partner. But he'd always know. Somewhere in the back of his mind. Cold and sharp and vicious, it was at least one percent a lie out a hundred. Because he'd always been pretending this wasn't here, hiding it if he could even from himself, faking his way through those hours that flayed him bare before everyone except Danny because of Danny.

This is because of him, too. In a whole new way.

When the urge rises, more safe habit than considered option, and he doesn't want it.

He doesn't want to fake smiling or talking about his life or laughing about inconsequential things right now if he doesn't feel like it, or pull out a line in the space of time that is this minute, wholly divested from the one nearly two minutes ago. When the flash of heat, just from looking at him, watching Danny's eyes widen in recognition of it, seared through his skin faster than any words. Before this happened.

When it's really pale. Everything in front of him. Lovely hair, lovely face, tiny, well-bought outfit and insensible, but whatever, heels, and a body that means she either eats well or works out, or both. And he feels. Nothing. Nothing beyond a very programmed, even ignorable, appeal that does nothing but brush the skin of habit, or expectation, and slid away. Bare and bland in comparison to this other thing. This one he can't defined or name or forget for even one second.

"All in a day's work," Steve said, easily conversational but not inviting, sticking his one free hand back in his pocket and lifting the pint glass that was more than half full. "And, thanks, but it seems to have survived fine, so we're both in luck this time."

[haole_cop]

She does not seem inclined to agree that it's lucky, and her legs are still not moving, while Danny feels a little like his bottle is about to shatter in his hand. Not great -- sliced ligaments and tendons and muscles, blood and glass everywhere, but it would almost definitely get rid of her.

With her shiny hair, and promising smile, and those knees that will not stop brushing against Steve's jeans, a tiny nudge that he feels like a backhoe shoving into his stomach.

"Maybe the next one, then," she says, agreeably, and that should be the end of it, right, her friends should show up or her tab could come -- Danny would even take the bartender over her, right at this second -- but they don't, and she keeps sitting there, and then his head explodes in a sudden fury of heat that dissolves into a red haze through which he can barely see her tapping the edge of Steve's tattoo, just under the edge of his short sleeve hem, with the pad of one finger, a light and teasing touch that makes him want to break her hand right off her wrist.

"That seems like a hell of a piece," she's saying, he thinks, but he can't really tell through the fog clogging up his head, the blaring sirens and flashing lights and the sudden outraged instinct of no, that's wrong, she isn't allowed, no one is allowed to touch Steve like that, that's his.

He doesn't care. That it's a ploy to gain conversation, that it would be considered totally acceptable, if a little pushy, flirtation. That it has probably happened to Steve a thousand times.

He just can't. Watch that surfer boy smile replace the brilliancy of the actual one. Watch Steve's eyes go lazy-lidded and considering. Watch her touch him, like she has any idea who she's reaching out to, who she is so casually laying a finger on, like she sees anything past his blue eyes and easy smile and the shoulders and lean line of flat stomach. Like she's got the first fucking clue.

He puts his beer down, too hard, hard enough that it foams irately, spills over the mouth and down along brown glass to his hand, which he ignores, taking a step closer, around, more to Steve's front than side, aware that he's barging in, totally fine with the faintly flat look she gives him, a little bemused, like she thinks he ought to be playing along. Right, wingman.

Yeah, no. "Oh, so, you seem like some kind of connoisseur, right?"

He's gesturing to the tiny wavelets on her ankle, the Diet Coke of tattoos, compared to Steve's, which, seriously, if she touches them again, he is going to drag her barstool to the other end of the room. He's grinning, but there's something tight about it, as she blinks, trying to decide whether she wants to include him in the conversation.

She who hesitates is lost, and he goes on, pushing his way in, stubbornly, like always. "Are you waiting for someone? Because you seem, you know," he gestures to her outfit, "you look very nice, like you might be meeting someone, and we wouldn't want to interrupt your evening."

[thebesteverseen]

It says something that he doesn't reach up and catch her arm by the wrist before the first pad of a small finger is pressing against his skin. Tracing the bottom line of his tattoo with the edge of a nail, before pushing at the cloth at the bottom of his sleeve. When it is small, and he has to remember how very breakable the human wrist is. Especially the smaller bones in a women's wrist. Especially one who really can't seem to take the hint he handed out nicely first.

When he's reminding himself at least she's so far in the category of politely pushy and not jettisoned over the line.

Enough that, just maybe, the slamming sound behind him, whatever it was. Wood and glass and sloshing beer. Snaps some of the tension from the muscles between his shoulder blades, when they nearly quiver with the strength of holding still instead of reaching out. When he's surveying her pushing her luck, thinking about commenting with either the which term of service he got it in, which won't help, or, perhaps, the number of sessions and hours it took to complete.

Because he's down to a slightly narrow eyed, staring pause, but he's not going to rudely about face away from a bar fly.

But that's a decision that is very suddenly, very verbosely, taken right out of his hands and his mouth.

When Danny rounds from behind him. Close, but not touching. Close enough this a triangle, where Danny is foisting himself half between them, her stool and the little space he was already standing between his and hers to catch her originally. Shooting off words, sharp and fast and not nearly tinted enough they aren't almsot outrightly insulting first and then bare in the way of disturbingly obvious invitation for her to get up and vanish instantly. As instantly as possibly.

Leaving Steve giving a sharp, bewildered look at Danny, Danny who looked tense and annoyed straight through that smile suddenly, more than at the girl who was touching him. When the search for earlier words, is utterly replaced without a need, by the necessity of handling whatever the hell that was. Is. Something.

When it's for her benefit, but he might as well be saying those words to Danny, when he's looking at Danny more than her while speaking. "You're going to have to excuse my friend here. He's had a long day."

The last words are almost seriously solid. Like a question about what the hell Danny was suddenly doing there, snapping at her like the woman had insulted his daughter or the air he was breathing. Sure, she had bad planning in wardrobe or awareness and she was being invasive, and it's not even that Steve wants her to stay. But he wouldn't have chunked her out the window like a soulless, renegade pin-pulled grenade.

[haole_cop]

To his horror, she laughs.

No. He's not trying to be funny, this is not a bit, this is the very real danger of his blood pressure blowing the top of his head clean off if she does not stop touching Steve. But there it is, she grins, like she's got no idea what's going on, like she's just deciding to take his words at face value, like he's actually helping her along instead of debating the best ways to get her to leave, immediately.

"Oh, no," she's saying, waving off Steve's apology, which, that's another thing, why is Steve apologizing for him? He meets that questioning look with a faint raise of his eyebrows, like he's got no idea what Steve might possibly mean, as she goes on. "There's nothing to interrupt, you're fine. Besides, everybody needs to unwind after a long day, right?"

That's not what he'd meant, but he's hamstrung by the way she's playing along, and caught in a net of possible rejoinders when she turns back to Steve, shrugging slim shoulders elegantly. "Not a connoisseur, but...do you mind?"

He minds. Danny minds. Danny minds very much the way she lightly pushes at the sleeve of Steve's shirt, to expose a little more of that tattoo, while he is suddenly flooded with a crystal-clear memory of that ink under his fingers, traced, gripped, covered and curved around while he drifted off to sleep, and it's like an explosion hits, soundless, against his skull. It's impossible to look away, like she's yanking on a cord attached to his ribs, tugging on it with every half-second she doesn't move her goddam hand.

Seething anger whites out his head for a second, but it's no better once the fog clears, because, what, really, are his options? He can't actually snatch her hand away. He can't tell her to leave. He might be able to fake a call from Chin, but that seems desperate, even for him.

He sort of wishes someone in here would open fire.

But he's caught, like a fish on a hook, by the way her finger traces lines of green, aqua, blue. Stomach hoisted somewhere out of his body. Her finger, where his had been, not so long ago. Like she's got any right. Like Steve might, he doesn't know, want it? The touch. The attention?

She fits the bill. Right? Not Cath (which is still complicated in the extreme to think about, so he bypasses it for the moment), but pretty, flirtatious, looking for a night of fun and not much else. He's seen it before, he'd be stupid not to recognize it now, or forget how many times and how this has all played out for Steve in the past.

He doesn't want to look at Steve's face and see any evidence that might be true, so he drags his eyes away from that finger, to look at her, feeling like his jaw might shatter from tension, a spiking pain starting in the small of his back, shoving a hand in his pocket so he doesn't do anything impolite, like strangle her.

"I don't know," he says, just to keep himself in the game, knowing he's being abrasive and not giving a single shit about it, "you want crazy tattoos, this place is pretty good, but not as bizarre as L.A. I saw a guy there with a tattoo of a face on his face, very odd, possibly some sort of metaphor for multiple selves? Anyway, like he said, it's been a long day. You know how it is, you want a couple quiet drinks, unwind."

Which is the opposite of what's happening inside his chest right now, sharp coils cutting into every breath. "This place is getting pretty busy, though."

[thebesteverseen]

Danny blew off his quick cover-up like it was nothing, the raise of his eyebrows, and a stubborn set that looked nothing at all like Danny didn't know what he was doing. Just like he was stubbornly refusing to acknowledge he was doing it as he was doing it. Far less obvious and graceful was at least the laughter and polite brush off from her. Even if she had not let go of her bare grip, fingertips pressing in against his bicep.

Tracing against skin, pushing his sleeve higher, over the raise of the lotus petals as she pressed for a completely different question and action combination when he hadn't ever answered the first one. Due to Danny stepping into it and then having to be cleaned up after. Who seriously seemed to be taking anytime she opened her mouth like it was an invitation to snap at her. Like she'd done something.

Like he'd been insulted, or interrupted, had some reason to feel slighted, or be jealous, like he'd been with Bull Frog or Kai--


Something in Steve's head went to a skittering halt, as his free hand, pint glass included, raised toward other his arm. Pressing on the cloth of the shirt, even if it meant brushing where her fingers were just then. When he was trying to question too many things. The irritable snapping, and the slam of sound behind him that must have been, when his eyes dropped briefly, a fast flick, and yeah Danny's beer bottle is gone now.

When he's juggling, but he'd always been good at that. Even when something sharp and fast, and nearly hot, is shoving under his skin with a confusing suddenness, as he looked back at her. Her, still with no name, leaning into his space as much was just barely into provoking, with her hand on him, and all of Danny's whip-sharp insinuations that might as well have been screaming for her to go away now.

When Steve's brow furrows a little first, distracted apologetic this time. "Actually they're personal." Beat. "From when I was in the service." Which is true. That much just sort of slips out, when really he's trying to compare Danny and his coffee cup from weeks and weeks ago, to Danny now. Not even looking at him and shoulders suddenly tight wound. Like it couldn't possibly be.

And yet. It was. Wasn't it? When all Steve could remember was something he'd nearly forgotten in everything else. When he wanted to be sure, back, back right at the beginning, when the ground split open and Danny hated him, admitted he hated being near Steve, because it was too much with everything he was feeling. When can't get you off my mind, and I should not, should really, really not, be feeling the way I am, but I am was so much more important than what came before it, I can't even handle watching some random girl come flirt with you, how sick is that?

And even after he pressed not seeming to understand hearing it, where Danny was admitting it made him want to punch himself in the face.

Christ. He really can't help it. Somewhere, something far too big was trying to explode the inside confines of his ribs, unaware there was only too little space to put anything. With all those organs and muscles, his lungs. But it didn't care. At all. It was trying, bubbling up, pushing into all the spaces, shoving outward, looking between them. Aware he shouldn't, he shouldn't be staring at Danny, but unable to keep from looking between them, from looking at him, too, suddenly.

[haole_cop]

He really thinks he might actually prefer getting shot, to this. At least grazed. Punched. Kicked. Anything but the way her face lights up, like she thinks she's found an in, eyes widening with what has got to be overly exaggerated curiosity.

"Oh, wow, you were in the service? What branch?"

Her fingers spread a little wider, palm resting against Steve's shoulder briefly, before she pulls them away, yanking Danny's guts right along with that touch, incoherent fury bubbling into a high-pitched shriek in his head, the wail of a teapot boiling over. Unable to keep from focusing on her hand, a laser sight graphing every second her fingers are on Steve's skin.

His free hand lifts, scrubs at his mouth, and it's like trying to lift a tank with a fishing line, but he manages to drag his eyes away from her, to glance at Steve, only to shift away again almost instantly, because Steve is looking at him with this...face, and he doesn't know what face that is, just yet, it's a new one, but it doesn't look unhappy. Which is just great, it's great, just perfect, and Danny wishes he hadn't put his beer down.

At least her hand is off his arm, now, so he's a little less likely to want to rip his own hair out, but she's leaning forward, all interest, clearly considering she's gotten past the possible conversational rejection, and he would love to clarify for her just how inaccurate that thought is, except Steve is not doing anything to push her off.

He's not really being inviting -- Danny can see that, even if she can't -- but he's not pulling away, either, seems fine with her sticking around, and that is just, you know. He bites down on the inside of his bottom lip to keep from saying anything too blunt, anything outright rude, but she is seriously trying his willpower, and Steve is not helping. Which, okay. Fine. Maybe he's actually okay with this. Being flirted with. The attention.

And it's childish. This need to shove his way into the conversation, between them, the sudden desire to take a fistful of Steve's shirt and drag him out of touching range. When his fingers itch to wrap around his wrist, his arm. Cover up the lower edge of that tattoo with his hand.

Which he can't do. Here. In public.

And he should really stop considering getting her name just to see if she has any unpaid parking tickets he can bust her on.

"The Army," he says, just to be a dick, and feels like a jerk for saying it, but it's an old joke and he can't help himself, even if it's feeling a little more bitter than amusing right now.

[thebesteverseen]

She's lights and Steve doesn't grimace but does have to place why, when her words fill it in right as he recalls the last ones he said while he was busy with far more important thoughts. The same kind that can't stop his mouth from twitching at the edges, threatening to tug them upward. When Danny's eyes are glued across them, and Danny snaps out the answer that makes him frown in time worn insult and annoyance.

He is. When the annoyance of the tested, long known, long harried points on that one still sticks hard each time. In his pride. In his past and present, a large part of who he is. He's started to see how Danny is forcing himself right in between, standing near to them, almost between, answering each one of the questions or statements she tossed at Steve before he would be allowed to answer them himself.

Like somehow this nameless girl need to what? Be chases off before, god forbid, she had what? Some chance at actually gaining his attention? The reaction to glower at Danny masticating his service again is slamming a wealth of warmth start to splash wild and faster through his chest. Amazement slamming headlong with ludicrous amusement. When he wants to start marking this all down in his head. Danny's tone, each of the words, the way he's holding himself, demanding every minute.

When Steve's vaguely annoyed he can't reach out and do too many things.

To lean over and let his mouth, brush far too close to Danny's ear, right against the shell where it makes him shiver, and tell him to breathe. To pull him, and his too loud, too sassy, too sharp, obvious worried to the point of angry biting attacks, mouth over and claim it. Shove Danny into silence and some understanding. That this is nothing. That even in comparison to some of the situations he'd been foisted into it in the past its even more nothing.

When he hasn't a clue really how it plays out on his face, when he shakes his head, recanting those words with doing what little he can. Reaching out with his left hand and rapping those knuckles, from the fingers wrapped around the glass, against the side of Danny's the corner of Danny's shoulder, with what could easily look like an easy reprimand.

Correcting from somewhere in that mix of everything, even if it was still a little sharp toward him and more polite toward the end for her. "Special Forces for the Navy." When he glances somewhere over Danny's head and across, and it strikes him pretty much as he spots it. Mostly because he's probably saving the bar from Danny's sudden rant at every word headed in the direction of Steve.

When he opts, like it's casual. Just a followup. "Hey, Danno. One of the pool tables is open now, if you still wanted a game."