(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

[haole_cop]

He's got enough time to snag his beer from the bar before Steve's pushing at his shoulder again, and it is really alarming how much easier it is to breathe when they're a few steps away and the girl is still sitting, looking a little bewildered at the sudden change of weather, at the bar.

Except there seems to be something wrong with Steve, some bizarre lightness to his step and the look on his face when Danny glances over, shoulders set, all ready to get into it, whatever Steve decides to toss at his head, because Steve can never let anything go and he loves getting under Danny's skin. With that one word, colored strangely amused as much as it might be annoyed, making Danny burrow deeper into his own stubbornness. Look, he's not proud of himself, but what else can he do? These are things he should have realized before coming out here: that Steve is an exceptionally attractive man and that most people go to bars to get picked up or to do the picking themselves.

Stupid, stupid. Pissed at himself for not thinking it might happen, even more for letting it get to him, what does he care, he's seen Steve get hit on a thousand times before, right?

It's just that he doesn't want anybody else doing it now, is that it? Doesn't want other fingers tracing over his skin, doesn't want that stupid heavy lidded quirk of a smile to shine for some random barfly. It's pathetic, and he knows it, which just makes him even more annoyed at Steve, the girl at the bar, and the world at large.

"What?" Almost growled, sharply defensive, as he's crossing to the other side of the table to take a cue and find the chalk. Noticeable. Of course it was. Of course he was, and he doesn't want to talk about it, okay, he'd rather just forget it even happened, though the relaxed air he'd been enjoying at the beginning of the night has pretty much packed its bags and left, leaving behind a sore sense of misuse and the knowledge that he'd almost definitely been out of line.

"Shut up and rack, huh?"

[thebesteverseen]

Yeah. That only makes it that much more impossible. Not smiling.

Grabbing the triangle and dragging it toward the center-top, placed exactly on the faded dot there. He snorted at Danny's sharp, belligerent order slash denial of that being anything. When his cheeks might hurt, even when he's sarcastically adding to Danny. "Grab me the tallest cue you can find."

This night is totally going to be worth it. Already is.

Even a game with a stick that definitely won't be long enough and will inhibit a perfect game, not that it'll stop him from being good, because of his height and reach. When he usually cares and half the time avoids it without his own because of it. But even that is the smallest of inconsequentials in comparison to the show Danny is putting on over there.

When he's rounding the table checking a second pocket, before catching a hand on the bumper and leaning over to check the side of the table. Not even considering, smirk still hanging on his mouth like its been burned into his muscles. Brightening up his eyes terribly, when he pulls back up. "Hey, it needs three quarters."

Obviously this is Danny's job, too. If nothing else than to continue to snap about.

[haole_cop]

It's infuriating, that smirk, and Danny's jaw sets further at the sight of it, because, what, Steve thinks he's being funny? He's braced for some other comment, something from Steve to let him know that he's on notice to get his head back in the game, but there's nothing; just an enigmatic smile and a comment about the table, which just makes Danny's eyes narrow, suspicious. Steve never drops anything, okay, Lieutenant Commander Single Track Mind is entirely incapable of letting things slide. He has resorted to interrogation techniques more than once to get something out of Danny, and he never rests until every last secret has been pried loose.

So it's a little unsettling, to say the least, that Steve just smiles and doesn't say, do, or threaten anything, making Danny twist his mouth, exasperated, as he tosses a cue over. "What, you can't pony up seventy-five cents?"

He could probably get the house to pick up a game for him, too, but Danny's sure as hell not going to put that option on the table. "Would it kill you to pay for something yourself? Do you even carry money? Because I am seriously starting to consider the very real chance that you just never have your wallet on you, in which case, you also need to stop driving my car, before I arrest you for driving without a license."

Ignoring that stupid smirk, and the even more stupid chain of reactions in his chest, beginning with a sudden sideways jerk of his heart and flopping into warm waves lapping around his ribs as they grow tight, while something skitters relentlessly under his skin. Steve's not helping, leaning all loose and languid over the edge of the table, drawing the cotton of his shirt snug along the curve of his back, making Danny's stomach curl tight, knotting in his throat.

He takes a deep drink, and considers the possibility that he should take a long hard look at the ridiculous state of his life, that this is even happening to him, and Jesus, look at that smile, Danny needs sunglasses just to look at it dead on.

"Quit hanging around, the sooner you accept the fact that you are about to get schooled, the easier it'll be."

[thebesteverseen]

Steve just stares at him through the rant at his wallet, face pulling long and far more fakely-blank, patiently exasperated, with the need to listen, or for Danny not to just be following his direction already, than anything really going on beneath the surface. It's actually such old hat now. Tossing Danny a bone. He's got a card. No ID, but a card. In one of his many pockets. But there's no point in going quiet and doing whatever, not with Danny.

Not when he's huffing and snapping at a boil. Not when Steve can keep tossing him things to rail and rage against. Both because it continues to be the thing dragging floods of warmth up through him, and because there is too much that honestly cannot make it's way to falling out of Danny's more. No matter how much he deserves a right to say. He doesn't have it here, and Steve is precarious of that line. Even more reason to throw things in Danny's way.

When he tilts his head, raises his eyebrows like he's considering and holds out his hand for the money,"'Pparently not."

Beat. "Where's my pool cue? How are you going to accomplish anything if you can't even collect the correct pieces to start?"

The disappointment doesn't reach his eyes, but he lets his voice get sardonic and a little sharp. Easy to play along, easy to keep up, and press a little harder. Distract and demand. To try and convince himself he isn't simply because his smile won't stop, even when it's pressed smaller. Because he just wants to watch it. Even more. Tossing gasoline on an unstable, unpredictable, fire.

When he's so caught. Like there's a damn hook sunk somewhere right about the middle of his chest, with all those waves of light and heat. Watching the way Danny moves too fast, the ways the muscles in his face keep tensing and the words fly like draggers. How he keeps looking around and then settling on Steve, who isn't really looking anywhere. (And could with a very small margin for error, still point out where the five nearest people are and how little effort it would be to knock them out between the triangle and the table.)

He shouldn't. But it mesmerizing. What the hell is he supposed to make of it.

Danny going off like a junk yard dog because some girl nearly tripped and landed in his lap, and decided to do with that what people do in bars. When Steve couldn't care less for the girl, who is somewhere behind them, maybe even pulling the same stunt again, because he can't even look away from this. Feeling the warmth and cold, such vastly different wants and actually realities colliding all under his skin.

[haole_cop]

"Christ, you're hopeless."

It's digging in between his shoulderblades the same way he's digging in a pocket for a couple of quarters: two from the last beer he bought, one more found in an aggravating medley of pocket lint, receipts, and a movie theatre ticket from the last time he had Grace. Three, altogether, that get slapped into Steve's waiting hand, that smile still knowing and aggravating as hell, blackening the storm cloud hanging over Danny's head a little further. "Here, you cheapskate, let me ask you, who pays for things when I'm not around, huh? Do you just shake people down like a kid running a lunch money racket?"

Or maybe helpful, hopeful women pay for him, who knows, Danny doesn't, and that's fine. Just fine. As he gives the line of cues a frown, grabs the longest one they've got, shoves the blunt end Steve's direction.

It's a little easier. Now that they're away from the bartender, and that girl, who is -- Danny glances at the bar while Steve is busy with the table -- looking equal parts disappointed and confused, but whatever. Looks like that, a fair amount of bravado, she'll get plenty of attention tonight, if that's what she's looking for.

Just not from this corner, alright? Is that too much to ask, after the month they've had?

Throwing an unimpressed glance in Steve's general direction, as he pushes the cue towards his chest.

"I had no idea you weren't able to find the cues yourself, genius. In the future, they're --" he gestures toward them, hand drawing a line horizontally along the wall, showing them off like a game show host, "-- right here. This game was your idea, you'd think you would actually be even half ready to play."

[thebesteverseen]

He waits till Danny is thrusting the coins at him, through the insults and questions the rain down, pelting like the kind of tiny, sharp hail that Hawaii almost never sees, except under almost miraculously circumstances. Waits, unimpressed and letting his eyes roll, until there are Danny's fingers grazing his palm, metal touching his palm, skin-hot, making him think all too quickly of it getting that way pressed against Danny's thigh for a long go.

When he has to reign in the way that thought makes his throat tighten, easily having to short circuit the fast comparison to his own hand warm against Danny's skin there occasionally on waking, and just shove it all, a little madcap manically, into beaming. Arrogantly. Like he's won something because Danny just surrendered without anything more than a volley of words, and to cave to his demands.

Danny grabs a cue, busying himself only moments before thrusting it toward Steve. Steve, who could not miss the propellant of any objects that could be used as a weapon getting shoved at him. Not even if he tried. When it's an actual effort, almost lock-stiff-jerky in his back, to try and not let all the muscles between his shoulders and down sieze like it's a threat. Because it isn't. And Danny would never.

And?

Because he's busy. Ignoring Danny's trying to force it into his hands, flat and outright. Crouching, one hand wrapped around the wood and bumpers again. Eyes, and hands focused on dropping in the coins. Slamming it with a metal crunch, that releases the balls. When he grants Danny a still successfully smug look and stands up and still ignores the outstretched pool cue.

"Oh, I'm ready. It's all up here," Steve says, gesturing to his head. Totally looking like he's not even paying attention to what he's obviously missing, hanging out in the open air, except for the wide turn to his mouth. As he's going between leaning and grabbing the balls from the opening on the side and racking them in a proper arrangement in the triangle, placing the one early and still looking for the five.

[haole_cop]

"Oh, you mean that," with a not entirely complimentary gesture towards Steve's head, "isn't just all full of sand and too many ways to kill a person using your bare hands and a pen cap?"

Aggravated, all too aware that Steve is leaving him hanging on purpose and probably will continue to do so, just to piss him off further, while Danny tries to count to ten and makes it as far as three before just shoving the cue onto the table itself. It rolls a little dejectedly against the bumpers, comes to a gentle halt somewhere near Steve's hip.

Who looks like he is enjoying himself a whole lot more, suddenly, and Danny guesses that attention from two pretty women in a row, less than ten minutes from each other, would have that effect. Which is fine. Totally fine. Understandable, even. Who doesn't like to feel wanted, right?

But it is seriously like standing on a pit of coals, searing steam up into his head and blotting out everything but his own bad mood.

Which he should let go of. It's not the point of tonight, letting things get to him, totally normal things, like barflies hitting on Steve the way they always do and that he has just maybe not really noticed as much, before. It feels like the planes of muscle on his back have soldered into a solid plate, though, and he flexes it, a little, testing, butt of his cue on the ground, leaning on it as he watches Steve rack the balls, all deliberate efficiency, now that he's had his own way.

Seriously, he's worse than Grace.

"Is your gambit for me to die of old age before you finish setting up? Because I have to say, that might work."

[thebesteverseen]

He wouldn't actually disagree. With what Danny is blatantly implying -- though, really? A pen cap? Not that even that would be impossible, but so last resort compared to all the other options -- but it's not like he ever chooses to agrees either. Well. not often, and never in circumstances such as these, when it's all barbs and quips flashing across a space.

He just gives Danny a withering look, as he's bringing up the last two balls. "Physics and geometry, Danny."
Beat. Severely unruffled and obviously pressing him. "And the pleasure of watching you get your ass handed to you."

Along with far too many hours and limited resources for entertainment that were spent in his twenties on a boat or submarine in communal berthing compartments. Gyroscopically controlled tables would always been more fascinating than an ordinary table. Also, far mor challenging. When there's a smug firm fold in at the creases of his mouth, because the ground isn't going to move. Hasn't in years.

Find the five, drop it in the opposite corner. Find the eight, drop it one back from the tip.

Shift around the center so the stripes and solids are evenly mixed inside them.

Looking up for the combine toss of his cue and the words that Danny throws out next. Aggravation lining the edges, when neither of them are in any harm of actually cutting him, as he lifts the triangle from the balls and tosses it toward Danny, saying, "Just for that, I get to break, too."

Which he probably would have claimed anyway. Most likely. Letting Danny continue to be covered and exploding with prickling annoyance and impossible, jealousy, that he kept nearly trying to slide from being true until each new sharp shard fell from Danny's mouth, is not the reason to let him have the advantage. If anything, just acknowledging it, feeling it skitter under his skin, wild and white hot and god he wants to touch it, feel it, see it, again, already, and that feels like Danny has too much of the advantage already.

Steve walks across to the right spot, looking at the balls, and only glancing up once more at Danny, before he's leaning down.

Eyes focusing in on the balls, coasting the pool cue over the web of skin between his thumb and forefinger and, yeah, he does hate pool cues that are designed for people at least half a foot to a foot shorter than he is, but he barely takes more than a second and half's pause, reconfiguring for those variances, too, before it snaps forward. Definitive and sends the cue ball on a fast, hard collision with the set above, landing a loud crack that sends them sliding in every direction.

[haole_cop]

"Oh, please."

He gestures, open-palmed, to the table, sarcasm dripping off his words like honey gone bad and bitter. "I didn't even realize there was an option that I might be able to take it. Knock yourself out."

Of course Steve breaks, because Steve is a control freak who needs to leech every possible advantage out of whatever hands dealt to him -- no matter that Danny usually feels like he's playing Go Fish while Steve is thinking out strategies for Texas Hold 'Em.

Whatever. Steve can break if he wants; Danny will just stand here, hand wrapped around his own cue, and watch, even though he thinks, as Steve bends to focus on the perfectly aligned triangle, that might be a mistake.

It's certainly distracting. Watching as Steve's shirt snugs tight against his back and shoulders. Catching his eye as he glances up, with the kind of come on, dare me blase blue that makes Danny's stomach drop and knot, painful. It's unfair, when just a look is enough to set Danny on fire, like he'd just dumped a gallon of gasoline on his head and Steve was kind enough to toss a lit match his way.

Hell, he's almost grateful when Steve sinks the six ball in a corner pocket, because at least he'll have a second to try and hoist his attention back to the game. "Nice. Solids."

[thebesteverseen]

He could focus on the game, you know. He could. Or he could focus on the way Danny's lips shift for a second there, like he was swallowing. Not ever out of the edge of Steve's vision. Something he's been watching for so long it's into years. When he always felt like he was watching from the outside, and he isn't somehow. When Danny's standing there, holding his cue, waiting and nearly fidgeting from What? just watching him?

Even now, when he's all burs, nicks, sarcastic aggravation that doesn't make Steve any less prone not to throw him to the wolves? How horrible is it that it just flares somewhere in his veins, hot and heady, with the flick of a glance toward Danny. Danny. Danny, who wants him. Even here, in a bar, not doing anything remotely worthwhile. Who has added, possible exploding at civillians to the list of new reactions no one planned for in all this.

When he's contemplating the length of a game. A few games. And the quality of sanity stretch slow, like a rubberband in the back of his head. When he's smirking as he stands, watching the balls flying across the table. Slamming agains the bumper, clattering at the plastic. Sinking one to the corner, which makes it easy to walk around the, edge, find the chalk for the first time, and dust the tip, while calling, "Two, side pocket."

Toss it down, brush his fingers off on his pants, and lay the stick across his skin again. Breathe out. Shoot, and watch a very easy shot sink next. Having to consider the table, angles, before deciding on a longshot. "Five, right corner." But he hits this one too much to one side, and it spins enough he knows in the first second it's going to slam the bumper and do just what it does, bounce around, moving the other balls.

[haole_cop]

Pool is something he understands.

Maybe he doesn't get his own snapping aggravation, maybe he can't control who looks at Steve or who talks to him, who decides he's worth a few good lines, a few flirtatious smiles, but he can at least control his half of this game, and it'll be a good one. It's not like Steve is accidentally good with a gun, or a football: anything of the aiming and shooting variety comes to him like breathing, a natural talent trained into precision and lethal skill.

And it's impressive to watch. Steve, all his laser focus trained on the cue ball, shifting his mass into a long lean, static energy held until he finds the right angle, the correct amount of force, and he's good. Of course he is. Steve McGarrett only knows the word excel. Naturally he'd take something as ubiquitous as pool and actually be great at it.

But Danny's not too shabby, himself. Back in Jersey, where it actually gets cold and miserable for months on end, sleet clogging up the car windows and tires, indoor activities were the only way to wind down the hours after a bad week, bad day. Or to celebrate the good ones. He can't count the times he'd had a pitcher of Yuengling with the boys, with Grace, shooting the shit and playing pool until closing -- or at least until Rachel called him home.

So he's not overly concerned, even when Steve makes his first call and sinks it, easy, while Danny watches, chalking the tip of his cue idly until Steve misses, sending the five knocking gently into the group that's left.

His turn. Good. Something to focus on, that isn't the slope of Steve's back or the way the muscles in his arm flex and relax as he shoots. It's a good break, and he's got a couple shots he should be able to clear out before things start getting really complicated. "Twelve, left corner," he says, after considering his options, and settles into the shot, eyes on the cue ball, cue resting against the webbing of his left hand, fingers splayed open. Leaning into the shot, pleased but surprised to make it, the twelve spinning a little drunkenly into the hole, cue bouncing lightly off the bumper.

One more easy one, "fourteen, side pocket," that he nudges in, before contemplating the clustered grouping in the middle of the table. When "eleven, left corner," misses the mark and rolls cheerfully along the bumper, getting a shrug as he straightens, slings the cue over his shoulders, hands loose at either end.

"You're up."

[thebesteverseen]

He knows it's not gone. The way he knows Danny, and that Danny hardly lets anything go that fast. Not unless he's gotten to yell so fast and loud and pointed it begs to echo in the car. Which he hasn't. It's somewhere in check. It's in the set do his shoulders and the way he holds his jaw, while Steve is stepping back to one of the side tables, picking up his pint and drinking while he's watching his partner.

It's not fair, he knows. He told Danny it wouldn't be. Fair. Easy. Uncomplicated. Or said something near enough, while Danny blew him off saying he got this. Like he got anything about it. Like anything with Rachel or Gabby or the long line of tiny, dark haired women who led him around ever existed in a fashion where he couldn't step in, couldn't say a handful of definitive, unmistakable words.

He doesn't know what he would do if he could do them, or if he'd do anything at all. He doesn't always. You can trust Danny to blow over, like a volcano, too. Half the time he lets things fizzle themselves out around cases, too. At least about most subjects and flash reactions to things especially done by Steve that he newly hates each day. Things that aren't Grace. Still it sticks under his skin, like a teetering balance, watching him now, pretending he doesn't want it back.

That blade sharp, disregard of another person because it's so clear on him. That would be insane.

He makes his gaze follow the table. The cue ball. The stripes. Take stock of how Danny plays. Where he shifts his weight. How he shoots. It's not an excuse. To let his eyes glide along the length of his knock, fluttering pulse and shadowed skin, from shoulders that settle before each of those shots. Focusing through whatever all is going on in his head. That Steve would pay so much for a single glance at.

He's not bad, honestly.

When he's definitely not vetoing billards lighting from the places Danny's hair looks best (which is still unrivaled, about an hour past sunrise, disastrously rumpled by the pillow and still fast asleep, golden with sunlight, like rest of him, so that he looks entirely unreal, painfully impossible, utterly undeserved), and watching the table. Of course. The table. When he doesn't get his third anymore than Steve.

"Not bad." Which is still less complimentary than it could. An amused smirk like somehow Danny was displaying he knew how to do something surprising the whole rest if the world got. "Where'd you say you learned do this?"

The pint went back down and Steve walked back toward the table. He looked across the scattered ones every which way, comparing distances and complicated shots, before nodding. It's another not too bad one. The one lined up off a bumper, that should shoot straight toward the hole if he could hit the outside of it hard enough, but not so hard it would roll into the bumper first.

"One, corner left." Closer to the end he hadn't been earlier. When its not that hard to do this one. Angle it correctly, tap the side and listen to it slam in. But leaving the cue ball at the end of the table without much there still. So he was considering the other part of the table. Shot from here, free fingers brushing his chin, before he pointed.

"Seven, left side pocket, off the bumper." Two to be precise. The right side and the top. When he's giving Danny a pleased sort of smirk that slips fast into a determined set, before he's leaning. Readjusting for the cue stick again, along free of his side, focusing out all but most of the noise on the white. Lulling back and forward, once, twice, before it snaps the ball.

Which flies forward. Hits the first bumper across from him. Riding the angle for the top center. Slams it and keeps going. Rolling, rolling. Impacting the seven and sending it at a medium gait directly into the pocket.



Getting a bright, blown, whistle from not enough far away.

[haole_cop]

"You know, amazingly enough, we had pool tables in Jersey."

Lots of them. Populated by a loyal subset of bar-goers, who couldn't get excited about the prospect of darts. "I used to play on the boardwalk, back in the day. Arcades in Wildwood, bars after hours. No Navy SEAL deathmatches, but it's a hell of a lot less of a hassle than hockey. Not to mention easier to play while drinking." Said with a lift of his bottle, one hand leaving the cue across his shoulders, before he takes a sip, watching Steve eye the table while he thinks back.

Those boardwalk arcades. Full of tilted, rickety tables, the velvet all but rubbed off, cue balls weighted to a sluggish roll so they'd be heavy enough to drop back out if someone scratched. Dinging games pressing immediacy from the sounds of the boardwalk, laughing children, calling gulls, the ever-present shush of waves on sand. Scent of salt water, taffy, kettle corn, pizza drifting in; easy summer days that felt like they stretched for weeks.

And it's almost enough to relax, nostalgia creeping in, along with the faint warmth of being a beer and a half in, a mix of vaguely impressed and vaguely exasperated with Steve and how he just can't stop being a show-off, ever, but it's not so bad, could be worse; at least it's just the two of them ragging on each other like usual, and he's even eased into the beginnings of a grin, a compliment edged in an insult ticking its way out of his mouth, when the bubble is shattered by a piercing whistle.

Getting a blink, and a crane of his neck as he looks to see who it was, where it was directed, because if this is another woman hitting on Steve, so help him, he will...

Continue to stand here, gritting enamel off his teeth, feeling like he could spit bullets, because there is not a single other option to take. Here. In public.

Perfect.

[thebesteverseen]

Steve gives it a glance, mostly because it's a noise. Also. Because of the way it lines up in his head.

His eyes raise as much for the sound, as from the whip of movement of Danny moving to look. His gaze settles on the woman about ten feet off, behind him, them, at the same time as the grip of Danny's hand on his pool cue is evident in front of him. It shouldn't. He shouldn't. But his mouth twitches, half a smile tucking into the corner of his mouth uncontrollably.

When there is. Of course. A woman. This time with jeans that might as well have been painted on under that hand settling on her hip, half in her pocket. Impressed look framed by wealth of black curls, a pair of overly big blue sunglasses pushed up to hold the first back and a pool cue in her other hand. "Nice shot."

Steve gaze didn't flicker much, and there's. It was so hard to justify exactly why. But there was a desperate want, creeping, lightning fast through his skin to want to be able to see Danny's face. Everything. When the sudden scald of it made him look back at the table, between her and it, as though considering his next shot. When even that isn't stopping it.

When he's smug even as he declines the compliment like that isn't worth it, yet, with, "It's been a while. Give it half an hour."

He's done better. This isn't a cut throat game, with stakes, rules, and bets riding on it though. The kind that boredom weeks out from land only make tighter, tenser, and higher with each round. Especially when you're just twiddling your thumbs waiting for anything more to happen that the wind to blow and the waves to rock.

He pointed with the pool cue, just enough. "Three. Corner pocket."

Walk toward the right spot, and start lining it up, paying, it's not even funny, far less attention a pool table than he ever has.

[haole_cop]

It says something for the durability of this cue that it doesn't snap in half, right across the back of his neck, with the sudden pressure exerted on it.

He guesses that's a design point: a barroom pool cue really needs to be able to withstand some heavy handling and bad tempers, but he's got to admit, it would be a satisfying release. Wouldn't it? When Steve glances back, actually almost smiling, with that brush-off that isn't really a brush-off, telling her to stick around and wait for something worth complimenting, which is basically the point where Danny's brain mists into a miserable fog of hatred.

Of everything. He's not picky. The bartender, the brunette with the stupid shoes, this girl and her inviting smile, the bar, the week, the game, and Steve. Maybe especially Steve. Who is lapping this up like some rangy tomcat that just found a dish full of cream.

Shunting Danny's tone straight back into an aggravated snap, that he can't help, like the wind catching a loose sheet and tossing it up into a tree branch.

"What makes you think this is even gonna last half an hour, huh?"

Steve's really? shunting through his head, but he can't stop himself, swings the cue down from his shoulders because he is seriously going to snap it like a twig if he's not careful, braces the butt against the floor and leans on it, doing his best to ignore the way his fingers clench.

There is nothing worse than not being able to do anything, aside from fume. Helpless. Bricked in by too many factors, steam screaming in his ears and impossible to release. Feeling like a catch broken wide open, a door slamming against hinges. "Of course, you might take half an hour just to line up your shot, so what do I know?"

[thebesteverseen]

It's like a stupid damn of warmth shattering any door or wall that was before it.

When he can nearly see the way she shifts, uncertainly as Danny snaps suddenly, throws words at him. Like they are going to stick. Like they might be solid objects. Like Danny could lob it at his head, like the cue he's setting down with far more focus than Steve can ever hope to miss every second of. When that smile, yeah, it's spreading across the rest of his mouth.

"What?" Steve tossed back easily. Warm, sardonic and far too dark-honey-toned pleased for the cold shards of Danny's. "Are you admitting defeat before the end of this one already? I mean, if it was going to be that easy, I should have at least bet you twenty bucks on this thing."

When he doesn't really care that she laughs, except that he does. Christ. He cares because he knows it's going to fall on Danny like a rain of glass shards. Even when he's slams the cue forward, and sends the cue ball flying at the three harder than is necessary. Hard enough it sinks the three and the cue ball. And he really can't even give a damn that he's scratched on getting to have more, when he's standing back up, tall and leisurely straight, looking at the two of them.

[haole_cop]

Great. Danny wants to rip his own face off, and Steve is having the time of his life, checking in with this newest girl to see whether she gets his joke or not (she does, except Danny'd bet ten to one she'd laugh at literally anything that came out of Steve's mouth right now), and it is seriously like needles sticking into every inch of his skin, that laugh.

Totally innocuous, lightly flirtatious, like a knife in his back.

And he can't even be pleased that Steve scratched, because that just means the attention is getting to him, making him more expansive, making him show off, like he needs to do any more of that, right, like Steve's default setting is not already straining at zero restraint.

"Keep scratching like that and it'll be over before you know it," he says, feeling the slow approach of the black-haired girl like stitches tugging loose, one popping with each step.

Jesus. He's got to focus. Plucks the cue ball from the shunt, does his best not to dent the velvet when he puts it down again, surveying the table for his best shot, mouth a square line, a muscle leaping at his jaw.

There. The right side pocket, an easy nudge from here, if he can keep his shoulders from locking up as he leans down, if he can keep his eyes stubbornly on the ball, and not on the way barfly number three comes sashaying slowly up in a way that makes him think her eyes are more on Steve than the game.

He calls it, shoots, and knows it's not looking good when the thirteen wobbles against the lip of the hole before falling in, instead of taking a smooth, straight line there. Too easy a shot to totally miss, but he's in it now, ends up bouncing the ten off the bumper and sending it on a lackadaisical spin, clacking into the others that are left.

At least he didn't scratch, right. Or dig a tear into the pool table velvet. Even if he thinks he'll wear the edges right off his molars by the end of the night.

[thebesteverseen]

"Yeah, you keep telling yourself that," Steve shot back.

If it was in Danny to twitch, Steve's pretty sure he'd be doing it now. Now, when Steve finds it impossible not to smile. Licking his top lip, through nearly bitting into his bottom lip, before he claims his pint glass, because it's horribly outlandish. He shouldn't enjoy this. He shouldn't be catching the way Danny's going to fuck up his shot long before he's shooting even.

The hold of his shoulders, and how tense his arms are. The way he's nearly glowering a hole into the table. While that girl is sidling up not too far away, as Danny's setting up. Setting out, when he's barely cast a glance her direction, and more for the edging into his space than anything else. "I don't think I've seen you two around here before."

Leaving Steve at the impasse of bluffing out now, for the sake of Danny's GP or at least the rant about his GP that will be forthcoming he's sure, later, or just. He could. He could pretend not to notice. Or. He could push it a little ways. Nothing big. As nothing before had been. Nothing that wasn't about as polite as he was to the last girl.

Or he was really to any civilian who stepped in his way and asked a question.

Steve shrugged and took a drink. "Seemed like a good night for it."

Which really did not point whether they'd been here before or planned to be here again. Or that it was on a list of places they came now and again, whenever they felt like it. He was busy mouth tensing a little at the rough shot Danny took, even though it did end up in. The shot was clean. Easy clean. The kind he's aware Danny should have been able to make without much practice even.

Especially with how well he can aim a firearm in one direction at a target right in front of him.

"Oh, man, almost," She breathes, like the game is the point. Not the way she's twisting her cue in her fingers, and adds, listing into his space the half step. "I'm here off and on week nights. It's Ahulani, but you can call me Lani."

There's the faintest shift Steve gives maybe. The consideration that if it were any other night, any other month, he totally knows the words that would have fallen out of his mouth. Made his eyebrows raise. When that's the whole point of the game. The whole point of mentioning her name.

"Oh, you speak Hawaiian?" It's a breath of amused triumph from her, as Danny's second ball goes clack into.

When Steve doesn't feel compelled to toss the line. Easy line about heavenly places, sanctuaries, and shrines, any of them. While Danny is losing control shots that are pathetically easy, with that tense line across his jaw, that is ground against the hold of his teeth, both on some kind of direct circuit line with the muscles in his own cheeks. When he can't stop. Not even for want of trying.

Except he doesn't want to. Try. To Stop. Not when he's giving simply, without answering the question or taking up the bait, beyond the enigmatic smile, "Steve." He's even steps in more than he should, nearly jostling Danny's shoulder and grinning when he passes him. "And this is Danny."

When he's surveying the last two of his own before the eight ball, listening to her tell him, or Danny, It's nice to meet you both, somewhere in the background of all the other things going on with the table. And Danny. Or the table. Or Danny. He calls it, and even though there's two different stripes balls in the way, for across from him, and a third of the table space.

Enough force to send each of the first two into the other, but not have them follow through with the third. When he's bright against the simplicity, against the inability to look up and catch Danny, still rigid and as uninviting as a subzero winter, making him smile even harder as he connects. First to the second. Second to third. Third in. And the second rolls slow toward the pocket, stopping maybe an inch and half out.

He's given Danny a shot, but if he can pull it together fast it won't actually matter.

Not now that he's down to his last before the eight. Not now he's pretty sure he's winning even if he doesn't.

[haole_cop]

He could clear the rest of this table, and it wouldn't help a damn thing. Wouldn't get rid of Little Miss Oh You Speak Hawaiian? and her shining smile, her painted-on jeans, and the way her eyes follow Steve around the table, while Steve introduces them and Danny wishes he wouldn't.

It's so much harder to get rid of people once they know your name.

"Hey," he says, when she looks to him, directing a comment his way before her eyes invariably slide back to Steve, and, for fuck's sake, maybe he should just get out of here and give her the space she so clearly wants and that Steve hardly seems like he'd mind. "Did you say Lanie?"

Worse than ever in his most grating Jersey accent. He even wishes he had the tie, just to prove that he is as non-Hawaiian as they come, while she gives him a look that he knows means she's thinking the word haole even if she isn't saying it, and trying to figure out what the hell a native would be doing, playing pool with a guy like him.

Playing pool, and giving him shots, which earns Steve a dirty look, like he's cheating instead of going easy, which Danny would prefer, alright, he does not need Steve giving him handouts, he just needs to get his head back in the game and play some damn pool without letting the Beach Goddess get under his skin.

Where she already is. Itching like the sand that gets everywhere has managed to get there, too, snagging just deep enough that it can't be scratched, maddening as poison oak or a sunburn.

"That's cute," he says, in regards to the stripe left just a hair outside the pocket. "You do that on purpose?"

Of course he did. Look at that grin, shining out of his face, gleeful, like he can't keep it in, and it sucks, alright? It sucks that Steve is smiling more for this random girl than he has for any of his friends, for Danny, in a month or more. It sucks that he's ramping up to show off, and it sucks that he's enjoying it so much, and it sucks that Danny hates everything almost enough to not appreciate the fact that that smile is even in existence.

Almost.

But it goes deeper than the Lani-sand under his skin, deep into his chest, below the squeezing turmoil that is his last nerve snapping apart. Someplace that still warms, wants that smile. That is helpless in front of it.

Which just makes him hate everything even more. "What is this, a pity play? Go on, clear it out." He takes a sip, vaguely aware that his beer is now a thin scrim over the bottom of the bottle, and that's great, too.

[thebesteverseen]

It's amazing he's managing to martial any control to look at the table. The green felt flattened by over constant use and likely several washing for occasional beer and food spray. The balls, that are laid out all across the area, more stripes than solids, figuring the shortest locations. Between his last ball and each of the closest two pockets. Like it's not running up the underside of his skin.

Hot steel and a want so sharp it feels like his lungs are going to snap his ribcage, like somehow each of those bones is made of twine and connected on a fast coiling reeling between where he's standing and the place where Danny is almost vibrating with annoyance. The way it coats his voice, clear and clean, no two ways about when he mangles her name in the worst possible way he can.

Danny can be horrible at Hawaiian, even worse at getting annoyed when the team uses it, but he's actually good at that part. But not at any of this. Not at the way he's literally snapping at a woman whose only sins are having done nothing more than give her name, compliment their game, stand there a little long enough that she's getting comfortable with the place she's standing, pool cue she's holding.

Maybe being inconveniently in the wrong place at the wrong time, convenient to his purposes that she definitely did sign up for.

Except now, when she's giving Danny an insulted look. The kind he deserves, for mangling what is a nice name, and instead to make it sound like it went through an American Trash compactor. Without the slight edge of authentic concern riding Danny's rephrased question of it. While Steve is trying to get his mouth under any control. Managing just enough to not need to tuck in toward his shoulder before Danny's snapping out a question.

"Why would I be nice to you?" Steve threw back easily. "I'm here to win, not to help you. It got my ball in, didn't it?"

But there, actually, isn't a good shot for the five at the moment, not without sinking one of Danny's balls. Which isn't worth the sacrifice of a step. Instead he shoots the cue ball across the table, aimed for the pile of stripes and and an ending location that isn't actually anywhere near the ball that ended up near the pocket.

"Harsh," Lani says, but she's smiling in his direction still. Eyes nowhere near his face, when he's standing, until a few seconds too late. Before she's asking, "Play the winner?"

[haole_cop]

Yeah, that much is obvious. When the hell has Steve ever decided to make Danny's life easier, exactly? Definitely not tonight, when he'd all but invited Hawaiian Resort Barbie over to hang out for their game, and Danny seriously has to wonder just what the hell, exactly, is going through his head, and considers the actual possibility that he might, for once, get to drive his own car tonight.

Which is about the last thing he wants. Which is sick.

"Thanks, buddy," he says, and he thinks it comes off as passably casual, despite the waves beating against his temples and the low-grade burn of pain lancing up his back from the way his muscles aren't loosening, even a little. "Glad to know you've got my back."

Stupid. It's so stupid. The way he can't focus as he leans to take this shot that Steve has made so annoyingly convoluted for him, how it actually takes him a few seconds to try and find any sort of quiet spot in his mind.

And it should be easy. Clear. Like shooting Peterson in the leg. You aim, pull the trigger. Exist in a second of clarity, while the world screams from outside walls of bulletproof glass. And he can do it. If he can do it on the job, furious and sick with worry and holding back just enough to not put that bullet in someone's head, he can finish a goddamn game of pool, and make this shot.

Almost there. Just about to make his move, when Lani's voice comes from somewhere nearby, and he glances up just in time to trace her line of sight from the middle of Steve's chest back up to his face, and he actually feels gutted. Like a fish, innards spilling everywhere while he flops around, helpless, paralyzed, nerves sliced apart. Followed by a quick glance to Steve, before he's staring at those two stripes by the far pocket again, stubborn, like focusing on the game will mean he won't hear whatever it is Steve has to say, because, come on, it's not like it's his opinion she wants.

Steve, who is almost definitely going to win, even when Danny manages to haul himself back from the brink and make the shot, cue trundling along the green field to bump one into the other, sending them both tipping neatly into the pocket and leaving him with a terrible shot, the cueball nudged right up to the bumper.

Which means it's just about it for him, since it wrecks his chances at getting a decent shot, and that means Steve will win, and Lani will stick around to play him, and Danny will, who knows, go back to the bar and see how many shots it takes to make this feeling float away.

Or stay here and be a dick about it, but whatever, he's not much of a planner, he thinks on the fly, and right now, as the cue ball spins away from the bumper and taps another stripe without sinking it, he'd rather not think about it.

[thebesteverseen]

The last word of Danny's actually lands more to mark than Danny probably intended it, or maybe it smarts right where Danny actually did intend for it to, making Steve try to side step the giddy swing he can't, to focus on Danny's face. Fuming and tense, wondering where exactly it. That place. Somewhere between getting to tap on the glass of this new, glorious, utterly impossible thing -- Danny shoved overboard by an innocuous person, or, well, a few. Whatever.

Like there's any chance. Like he has anything to be concerned about. Like Steve gives a single care about anyone here. (In a way not related to the well being of their ability to continue taking on average seventy-two breaths a minute and sleeping in their beds, live their lives, in a state of relative fearlessness.)

Danny. Sparking like the center of a wildly malfunctioning firework. Because of her. Over him. Not looking at him.

And the point where he might, seriously, turn and rail at Steve. Angry and honest in the center of this place.

When Steve waits a few seconds to see if Danny is going to say anything to her question, deny for him, stake his ground, especially given that he'd been answering every single question fired Steve's way while at the bar, but he doesn't. He's just leaned over the table. That fitted shirt stretching tight across the span of his shoulders, as he focuses on the striped balls, and sinks two more in the same shot. Like he hasn't heard the question at all. Or doesn't care.

Neither of which Steve believes, but he looks back at her, shrugs, nonchalantly as if she asked about the weather. "Sure."

It'll only cost them, what? Ten-fifteen minutes of their night, and he'll win more like than not, and Danny will move back in the same way she is now midway though, and she might deserve something for being the point with which he's testing this insane theory against Danny, right? When he doesn't miss the small movement of Danny looking to her, but he's not sure what the expression on Danny's face is when he looks over here, again, finally.

For a moment, before it's gone. Danny's looking away, again. Steve doesn't know what it's supposed to be, edges pricking warmth.
It's entirely insane, isn't it? That somehow any of this matter at all? That on one level it'll make everything look more normal.

It's only ten or fifteen minutes. They've had dozens od stakeouts and undercover's that went days longer than that.

Steve finished his pint and dropped it back on the table, before walking back to the table, looking at the layout. Called his last ball and shot it from pretty much across the while table. Needing to hit only one side of it, hard enough to make is ricochet along a bumper and clatter into the dark insides of the table. Eyed the table, turned his attention toward the nine. Called it for one of the side pockets, and leaned down.

He connected with the cue ball and it went across hard, aimed easily for the center.

[haole_cop]

There are a lot of responses he could make. Hand out. Ranging from the mildly dismissive to the outright rude, verging on an avalanche of words, all of which he could toss like darts at her head. Or, more likely, Steve's. Who accepts her challenge like he accepts every challenge ever laid across his path -- without question or much in the way of hesitation and, fine. They're at a bar, it's not unheard of, might even be the most normal way for this night to go, right?

What's one game of pool?

One game of pool that could easily turn into two, and drinks, and talking, and -- he is thinking way too hard about this, should just have cut her off like he did before, except that really? is sticking in his gullet like the scraping edge of a popcorn shell, and, fine, he might have been out of line before. It doesn't stop him wanting to shove his way back out there, again, when Lani is smiling at Steve's agreement and her eyes travel lazily over the flat line of his back as he leans to take his shot, and, really, couldn't she have some priors, a DUI, shoplifting, something little that he can call Chin and have him check?

"Your funeral," he tells her, the closest to conversational that he can drag, reluctant, cat claws catching the words along his ribs, and it comes out both flat and sharp, which he can't even feel guilty about, though he probably should. Manners, Daniel, says that voice in his head that still sounds like Rachel after all these years, which only makes him want to be even worse, because of all people to scold him, she has got the least possible amount of leg to stand on, and, Christ, he needs to get some air, or something, because this is all starting to spiral into something he really can't deal with, once Rachel comes into the mix.

"Knock yourself out," he adds, to the table at large, and sets his own cue against the rack, shaking his empty bottle. "I'm getting a refill."

He knows what he's doing. Knows the polite thing would be to point to Lani and ask what she's drinking, grab one for her, too, but he bypasses it, because she's already here, hell if he's giving her a reason to stick around further than the ones Steve is offering, which. It's not like he's exactly inviting, per se. He's not picking up what she's laying down, but he's definitely not pushing it off, either, and it's true. Maybe Danny should be paying more attention. Right? In the spirit of friendly competition, if nothing else, vying for the attention of a pretty girl, which he, seriously, could not care less about. He was never good at this part, anyway: too tongue-tied by the women who whacked him over the head at first glance, too impatient with the game to play it with anyone who didn't.

It would be natural. Acceptable. If he were to bring something back for her and throw himself into the mix. She's probably expecting it, even, it being the normal way of things. Obviously she's got her sights set on Steve, but it's part of the play, isn't it?

When he does. Want to shove his way in, stake a claim, plant his feet stubbornly and refuse to move -- but from the other side. Making it hard enough to peel away and head to the bar, fingers drumming on the slick surface as he waits for the 'tender to come by (without Steve around, she seems to be taking her sweet time), and then again for two more beers. Glancing around to see if Steve's cleared the table yet, before heading back that way, ending up somewhere between Steve and Lani, though she's around the corner from him. Putting Steve's fresh pint -- what? He can drink it or not, whatever, it's not like Danny wasn't going to be paying for his next drink anyway, regardless of what other offers might come in -- down within easy reach, and regarding the table and the two of them with a feeling of heading, once more, into the breach.

Fine. He can deal with this, dammit, but he's not going to make it easy. "So are you going to be a gentleman and let her break, or what? And, for the love of God," he puts his hands together, bottle in the way, but whatever, shakes them, almost close enough to let his fingertips brush Steve's arm.

"Do not make this unfortunate girl cough up seventy-five cents. I know you have at least that in you, right, Steven?"

Hypocritical, after he didn't get her a drink, or offer, or really do anything but reference her, but it's not like he's going to just be a non-entity in all this.

[thebesteverseen]

Claws, sharp and long, scuttle up the back of his neck, not digging in, but dragging, hard and heavy up the nerve and muscles along his spine, when Danny announces he's going back to the bar. When that was never part of it. Danny walking away. Danny being anywhere away from him. Not even after or with his continued line of normal enough, annoyed snappy notes.

When he's casting a glance up as Danny is walking by. The words an announcement not a request, and he's really ending up catch a glance of his back when he'd wanted to see his face. When he has to hold it still, that confusing complaining jolt in his chest, just let his eyebrows rise and fall with a shrug of his shoulders, glancing toward the woman he's been left with, before be starts hitting Danny's balls.

Clear the table. Clean up the excess. Steady the nerves jangling like before any black mission's go mark.

"So, Steve," it comes after the clack of one, while he's already moving to get into the next sot for lining up another. Two left. "What do you do?"

He's sizing up the last one, to cast off bumpers. When he should just sink it and get on. When he wants these minutes to be over, even when his movement are clean. Tight coil of his arm. Wants to look over at Danny. Snap release of his shoulder, elbow wrist. Voice even and pretty lacking in arrogance. Straight forward, ho. "Head up the governor's HPD Task Force."

Not that Denning's got much say in how he ran his ship. Even now.

He doesn't need to look up to catch the surprise. To count the moment before there's a whistle like the one that announced her. When she's re-categorizing him in her head most likely. "Impressive."

Steve is almost tempted to give her a more stern blank look, for the word. It is. Not in the way her voice makes it sound. Like it's something flashy and amazing. It's back breaking hard important and it costs his team a lot in a lot of different ways, especially lately. But Danny appearing at his side completely derails that thought or any words to it. As does the pint that gets dropped not too far away, while Danny's voice runs over everything else. Needles and expression that begs him to complain about that drink or any of his insults.

When Steve is digging in his pocket, looking for the rack, sniping right back with a smirk breaking out, like it never left, like he couldn't for the life of him find any of those words to be holding the insults thrown at him. Not when he can nearly feel the electric charge in the few inches between them. "Don't be a sore loser, Danny. It's not pretty. If you're nicer I might even wipe the table with you, again, next."

He does. Actually. Have five quarters. Even if he's checked three pockets by the time he's gotten to three. Smug toward Danny, when he's plopping them in and starting to rack up. Looking up when he's raising it, saying "Ladies first," before stepping toward the side. Where his newly beading pint glass is. And Danny.

[haole_cop]

"You know, as appealing as that sounds, I sincerely hope she beats you. That would be beautiful."

The dangling promise of a second game doesn't help his mood much, beyond a sullen snap of electricity against thunderous black clouds. He's wishing he'd never thought to come here to begin with; in retrospect, it seems like a terrible idea. Who wants to be surrounded by people, loud music, irritating conversation. Who needs the aggravation?

It doesn't help that Steve is apparently enjoying the hell out of it all, cracking jokes and needling Danny like always, as Lani toys with her cue and tucks a satisfied little smile away at the corner of her mouth, and great. Third wheel is pretty much exactly the place he least wants to be, isn't it bad enough that Cath is still around, seemingly on endless R&R, and keeps popping up when he least expects it? Leading them into awkward standstills of conversation, where he doesn't know what to do or think, and ends up just bypassing it altogether in impatience, citing work as an excuse.

Lani leans in to break, and she's not bad. It's a clean crack, scattering the balls haphazard across the green felt, but though a few bounce off the bumpers, none sink, and she shrugs as she straightens, leaning back on her cue, while Danny struggles with the alternate feelings of being grateful that she's not good enough to be of much note, and annoyed that, if she were better, the game might take less time.

"So," she says, and it takes him a second to realize she's talking to him, which, okay, whatever. Not ignoring him is probably a good tactic, considering the fact he hasn't abandoned Steve to her yet and is thus far part of a package deal, "are you a cop, too?"

Like a hammer hitting his knee. "He's not a cop." Reflexive. Argued over hundreds of times. Steve's not. The whole idea is laughable. Getting better at procedure, yeah. Decent detective, absolutely. But Steve is a sailor, soldier, SEAL. Military through and through.

And because it hits a little sourly, mentioning work. Which chases them everywhere, even out to sea, and that is not the point of tonight, so he doesn't expand on it like he could, like he's tempted to, because, seriously, is one night off too much to ask?

Before he's half-turned towards Steve, gritting through the annoyance of having been made disposable, pasting a grin from somewhere across his face that doesn't feel too strained -- she might not even notice. "Me, definitely. What, isn't it obvious? How many times have people asked if I'm a cop? Too many, and usually the wrong people wanting to know. I'm starting to think it's something in my face. Or maybe I'm just the only person in Hawaii who doesn't dress like they're on vacation and people find that bizarrely suspicious. What are you waiting for?"

To Steve, along with an expansive wave of his hand, that almost feels correct. Weighted a little strangely.

"Shoot."