Post 3.01 - The McGarrett Family Home

[gonna_owe_me]

It doesn't come as any kind of surprise to her that she hasn't been able to stop thinking about Steve.

Neither does the fact that those thoughts come with a hefty side-helping of guilt. She should have known those trees were too close to the window. She should have been faster, more alert. Maybe they could have caught him, if she'd been doing the damn job Steve told her to do, if she'd done it the way he thought she could.

No surprise there: like she told him, she's not a bodyguard. She's a long way from basic, or doing anything that isn't in a gym or in front of a computer, and he doesn't blame her, but in some ways that just makes it worse.

So she puts in her request for leave right away, requests the weekend, and it's granted without too many hoops to jump through, but she's got to give up her Friday night and part of Saturday morning, which is fine, too. All she needs is to change, find a pair of shorts and a breezy, teal-colored top that hangs loose off her shoulders. Slides a pair of sandals on, brushes out her hair, washes her face, puts on a little makeup. She skips the gym, but throws running shoes, shorts, and a sports bra into the little bag she packs, along with a swimsuit, before slinging it over a shoulder and hitting the pavement.

The sun is high and hot, and she stops at a food truck, first, grabs two cardboard boxes, steaming with a scent that makes her stomach rumble and curl in on itself, before hailing a cab and sliding into the too-warm, hot polyester scented backseat, and giving the address.

It's been a while since she's been here. Cab rolling off in a faint crunch of gravel, leaving her with the tote over her arm, the food in her hand, looking up at the house with eyes squinting in the sun.

Doris left last night. Right? That gives Steve last evening, all night, and this morning to do his thing, be alone, brood if he wants to, deal with the admittedly ridiculous hand he's been given, and she'd have respected that, even if she didn't have to work, which is why she didn't call or text, just let him be, but it's daylight now, and it's gorgeous out, and there's only so much alone time Steve can really take. No matter what he might think.

Leading her up the path to the door, to knock, adjusting the slippery straps of her shirt, brushing hair out of her eyes as she waits. Rearranging her expression just like she does her makeup, or her clothes, so that when the door opens, she's got nothing there but a smile and the usual pleased light at seeing him.

Comments

[thebesteverseen]

Breaths grow shorter and steps almost grow longer, when he's beginning to fight the adrenaline. That warmth evening out, longing to push harder, go faster, go more. And he does give her maybe, four or five more minutes, at this pace. Weaving around people. Watching her footing to make sure that she's not doing anything that's going to be aimed for a crushing landing anytime soon.

Not that he expects that she will, or would, given the past. But he would hate to not hit the top, again.

When they aren't even that far into yet. Which is why he tosses her the equivalent a challenge. Glancing at her, and waiting until he's caught her eye, and then jumping forward. Throwing more force and speed into it and seeing if she'll follow for the moment. Especially since they'll only have until they hit the bridge for this before it'll have to be a break. Even he wouldn't take that at a run.

Not that it isn't tempting. But he's not actually into the idea of breaking himself, or either of his own ankles, on the eighty year old railroad track, that could have all it's own troublesome spots, already. Besides, it would be in front of them in less than five minutes as it was. And it was worth taking the sprint for it, and seeing if he could get her to play along, since she'd seemed to be enjoying it so far.

[gonna_owe_me]

There it is, the next gear. Steve shifts into it, like a car pushing forward, and she meets his glance, before finding it, setting it. Steps coming faster now, as they keep moving onward, upward, bloodflow a flood, now, beating like a drum in her ears. Starting to feel rough in her chest.

Nothing ragged, not the coppery taste of pushing too hard for too long, but this is pushing it, for sure, especially considering she's been on a deck for the last few months, close to half a year and is mostly there, anyway. Living on the water, on flat surfaces, enclosed surfaces, cramped quarters. She's hardly had the chance to stretch, let alone climb an incline, and she's feeling it. Will feel it all over, tomorrow, no matter how muster-ready she keeps herself. There's just nothing like it, no matter what incline you punch into the treadmill. Some combination of gravity, and balance, and keeping her footing on the narrow path.

Up, up. Following Steve's new pace, and feeling good about it, even as her breath shortens further, and everything compacts into motion, action, reaction. Rhythm. It's all about rhythm. Just continually putting one foot in front of the other. Good for life, good for a run.

Until they come to the bridge of narrow wooden steps, and she glances to him for example, breathing heavy and hard, because Steve might love a challenge, but she's pretty sure he wouldn't love tripping and breaking something on this next part of the path.

[thebesteverseen]

Steve stops just short, breath coming fast, but not in a heavy fashion. It's almost economical. How much air comes in his nose and goes out it, before he switches to having his mouth open when he stops. If it can be called stopping. When he's not really stop so much as pausing. Gesturing to the side that doesn't have people on it, until around halfway.

Clustered groups of people crossing carefully. Rung to rung on foot and some scooting on their knees or bottoms.

"Watch your footing," which is all laid out flat, when he's striking for it. Careful steps already going from the first three lines. Wooden beams of a bridge, flat and high, instead of just as steps in dug into the mountain side. Where he's calling over his shoulder, looking back at her more than it. "Sometimes the boards get a little loose toward the middles."

It's almost like be careful, but it isn't. Because he doesn't need to tell her that. She's already gotten it by the first time she looked to him for instruction, and because she sensibly trained, like all of them. Not to run head long into disaster. But to survey the situation and take it as best possible, with instruction if it is available. Which is pretty much just that.

Keep your balance. Don't fall. And watch your footing for the loose boards. Especially after a good heavy rain.

[gonna_owe_me]

She nods, waits to watch him start across, and then steps onto the bridge herself. Wooden beams feeling strange and fragile after the steps cut into dirt and volcanic rock.

It's really a matter of preparation and keeping your head -- and balance. Everything she's been trained to do, to pay attention to, and it's just crossing a bridge, but that doesn't mean that training doesn't come in handy, anyway. Step by careful step. No taking stupid risks, just to show off, and that's another thing about Steve, that people don't always get: he doesn't do the stuff he does to show off, and he always knows the risks. He does them because he knows he can do them, which is more than crossing a bridge and climbing a mountain.

It's why he's the best.

So she puts her feet where he does, each step considered, placed carefully, if not with the same timidity other people are showing.

It's not such a bad thing to catch her breath, either. Let her racing heart slow, a little, let her breath even out. Check the pull and tension in her muscles for any sign that they might give out, or hurt more than the usual soreness of trying something new. Nothing, but she'll be feeling it before the end of the day, definitely. Especially with this last run to the top.

[thebesteverseen]

Smaller steps, but not as quick, because he can't let himself rely so heavily on the fact each step will come down stationary. Which, somehow, doesn't actually keep him from speeding up, when the first third of them are barely flexing. Designed to hold train loads, even in the worst weather, you could put a person every foot of railing and they wouldn't cumulatively reach the weight of a train laden with cargo.

Which lets him start pushing the odds, bearing down at the carefulness like it's a rule to break. Especially when he starts factoring watching the feet of the people in front of him, while he's weaving around groups that are in different sides and center of it crossing themselves. Each of them doing their best to get across in their own way, which he simply begins maneuvering around.

He's probably six feet from the end, when he hedges the question back to her. Not because he hasn't shot a glance toward her during it, or because he can't make out her steps following him. The sound of her breathing, even mixed with the conversations of people almost slipping or laughing, pausing for breaks, in clustered spots along the short walk.

"Haven't fallen off, back there, have you?" His feet are touching the hard-packed ground again, when he's looking to her.

[gonna_owe_me]

As soon as Steve's got his bearings, his pace picks up, and hers does, too, like matching his breathing when he falls asleep. He won't outrun her, isn't making this a race, although the last hundred yards to the top will probably be a different story. Still, she's grateful for it, even if she wouldn't care if he did, wouldn't mind if he sprinted on ahead, pushed her further, faster. She might not be as fast as him, but she can keep up, can go toe to toe as far as she can.

It's no insult that Steve is faster or stronger than her. She doesn't expect to be better than him. What she expects is to be the best of herself, and the best of herself can at least give him someone at his back, who can come with him. Even up a mountain. Even if it's hard. It's not impossible.

Which makes her shoot a curving, distracted smile at him, as she navigates the last few steps, sweat a sheen across her skin, the ends of her ponytail damp from hitting slick shoulders, sticking to her neck. Sweat trickling into her eyes from her hairline.

And still, she smiles. Breathless and feeling brilliant with it all: the heat and the pain and the complaints from her body and the altitude lifting all around them.

"I thought you said this was going to be hard."

[thebesteverseen]

It's harder on her, harder just off being on a ship for months and months. He remembers that. Which only means the way she smiles, and the determined set to her shoulders when they aren't shifting with her weight or for a breath, kicks up even high in the glow of the workout shoving itself wide and warm through all of his skin. The flush running, like a glow, under her skin, shiny in the sun from moisture.

The way her smile doesn't waver, and she throws his bare level of concern back at his head, like he's babying her.

Something he really might consider doing with anyone else, but it's not something that comes to mind with Cath. At least not in this kind of situation. Or much of any, seeing as he called on her days ago, to do a job, not in ranking and she did it perfectly. For him. Which is far from any kind of consideration right now. The things he wouldn't call on her for. Far away. When she's breathless, beautiful and smacking at the bar.

And all he can do is laugh and grin, like there's nothing better in the whole world. Than the rush of his own blood, the tug to go faster, rung harder, push into that place where it feels like he's pushing hard enough until it feels like something might snap from exertion. When he's gesturing to his chest with one hand and pushing his eyebrows upward, "Oh, you don't feel challenged enough, Rollins?"

"Let's go," is louder, almost followed by double time, when he's not going to give her longer than the maybe four-five seconds since she got to the end after those words. Taking off for the path beyond the railway bridge. Flat for only a short while before it's going to start climbing straight up again. When he's definitely putting more into it. Both the run it self, that goes straight from stand still, and makes an effort to stay ahead of her a bit now.

Attacking the first stairs like they might be actual springboards, taking the momentum from each one to shave half seconds.

[gonna_owe_me]

"Right behind you, Commander."

She calls it back, as clear as she can, when her lungs are starting to feel thick and the oxygen levels are thinner now than she's used to. It's not that Hawaii is all that high above sea level -- it's not, and getting lower every day, every year, as the sea eats away at the islands -- but it's nowhere near the same as being aboard ship.

And yet, they hup to it, feet hitting faster, back on solid ground that she trusts more than she did that bridge, and she's all warmed up, now, can slip into the next gear. Faster, along the flat, and launching up the incline. Barely letting her feet hit the steps before she's onto the next one, because it's the only way, like running a stadium. Can't let gravity catch her, can't let the mind get caught. Just one foot in front of the other, up, up, up. Bouncing off the balls of her feet. Breathing hard, but steady.

Never allowing it to get out of rhythm. Fall out, and it's over. Just keep going. The top in view, muscles burning, lungs burning, adrenaline pumping into every vein and breath. Making the sun brighter, hotter, the stairs faster.

Up, up. Consoling herself with images of payback for him, when they're back off the mountain and she can breathe again.

[thebesteverseen]

The ground is solid, even if they are kicking up the top layer of loose dirt and old volcanic rock.

Dashing to the sides of those stopping to wipe a brow, or hand children water bottles. Both which he just passed, with a single callout from being on their right, stepping off the steps, onto hard, rolling ground to get past them, without slowing down. Not giving her the pleasure of the few seconds of delay that would have added. Even when he isn't tossing everything out and barreling at it like it was life or death to get there as fast as possible, shortest route as possible.

Put it together, push it through. Keep his eyes open and the feet hitting the ground at the same pace and places when he can. Keep his eyes on the steps in front of him, and the people in the closest group. But not the top. Keep pushing his muscles. Feeling the burn of muscles in his leg, stretch and catching, stretch and catch, along with the continually solid smack of the ground.

Getting caught up in the weight rush that is half of it, too, between one step and the next, continuing to throw himself further forward.

Compact, arms at ninety degree angles and compact, fast but tight movements of even them, when he's leaning into it. It can't even be half left now. He does allow himself to look over his shoulder, and to check in on her, judging steps and keeping himself ready for the steps as he's tossing glances that way. Making sure he isn't leaving her too far behind.

[gonna_owe_me]

This is part of it, too. Your eyes on the next step, and the one after that, and the one after that, but not further. A glance at the top, maybe, before forgetting it for the current stairs. The top will come when it comes, and not before. Like the end of a half hour, the end of a shift.

All she can do is try to get there faster.

It's hard, and getting harder. Breath scraping, now, panting against the pull of gravity. Keep going. Hard. Fast. Harder, faster. Up and up and up. Following the swing of Steve's shirt and shorts. Feeling her legs burn, the muscles wanting to give in and stumble.

Just a sign to focus more, further. Clear her mind of everything except one step after another, levering up, light as she can, as fatigue starts setting in and her feet start feeling heavy. Hair soaking in sweat, glad for the lack of a shirt sticking to her back or stomach, casting out breathless excuse me's to people they pass.

And tilting a smile at Steve when he looks back, cheeks flushed, eyes bright, breath hard, glowing under sweat and sun, and meeting that glance with one of her own. Not left behind yet, Steve, and not planning on it.

[thebesteverseen]

This is where he feels comfortable. Somewhere right at the top of his game. When the strain numbs out of awareness partially, because the endorphins make everything sharper, clearer, more in focus, taking his body half out of the equation. It's another thing to use, to push through hoops, that will object. Passing number markers half without reading them, as he just takes the mountain for itself.

Taking Cath at her determined smile, even when he can see where it's wearing at the edges. Enough to question, but not act, because she's has sharper, harder, more determined edges for the wear. And, God, but he's missed this. People who can push through, who get off on flagging as much as he does. How much it makes you, drives you, hauls you up by your boots and shoves you hard, faster, tougher at whatever is.

He's missed having someone to do this with. He's missed being home to even get to do this, himself.

The top is getting closer, crowning toward them, which just makes his foot work even lighter, except for push up. Makes his breaths shorter, choosing to take in air now and then, rather than get caught up in trying to take in more thinner air. He by passes the whole thing. Relying on breathing less, and not so much holding his breath as just slowly letting it, pushing toward a focal point, like swimming far down.

Letting that focus take everything that's in him. Each step, each blink, each shift of his arms when his weight does. Ignoring the the sweat coating his skin, and sticking his shirt to his back and his sides, his shorts against his legs. There's only the top, and the way it's a step closer every two seconds. Coming into view faster and faster, closer and closer, now.

[gonna_owe_me]

They're getting to the end.

She can feel it. It's in their pace, in the shortening steps, in the thinning, cooling air. In the wind that whips and sends her ponytail skewing to the side. In the stitch that's making itself known, pulse by pulse, by her ribs. She can see clouds marching across the sky out of the corner of her eye, floating high and puffy above the breeze, glinting white and pristine. Oahu is rolling itself out underneath them, but she doesn't look down, doesn't look to the sides, gives Steve a tight smile when he looks back, keeps her head down, and keeps going.

Breath by measured breath. Coming in puffs, now, lungs straining, muscles screaming. Feet feeling like they're encased in cement, instead of light running shoes. Cement on fire. Up, up.

It's good. Kicking that wave of endorphins, and riding right into it. Knowing she can, because she will, and that the way back down will be easier and harder, too, with gravity doing it's best to bring her down too fast, make her turn an ankle.

Things she can't think about yet, when she glances up, and it's there. The top. Flattening out into a shortened horizon, and making her smile, huffing a hard breath, and dig deeper, scrape the bottom of that barrel, and propel upwards, because she might not be able to beat Steve, but she's willing to bet she can catch him if she tries.

[thebesteverseen]

Forward, forward, forward. Skirt the next group of people, with an announcement he's coming through. Forward, forward, forward. Remember to take a breath. Step. Another step. Another step. All of them mantra's that are falling over and over and over like splashing water. Clearing everything out. Winnowing everything else down. Shutting it down and out, when it's all the rush.

Even if it is still very much not the top. Well, the top of the mountain, almost. The top of what he could do, anywhere near his fastest time running things, no. But he didn't entirely come out here for himself. He decided against leaving and running this morning, for convenience, for the things he still had to after it. For, if he's admitting it, thin air and thinner walls, melting at the seams of strain, that suffocating house, even.

That thought still there, when Cath's footsteps, the only other running set near him, as speeding into a last ditch spring to reach him. Or the top. Propelling him to actually dig into this run suddenly. Throwing her a look that's surprised question as much as it is delighted challenge and absolutely no cent of give, if she's going to try. He'll actually start trying to push himself into the zone where this is wearing.

Where he could lose everything. Outrace everything but the gusty wind. Slam every foot thinking only of the step two or three a head of this one. No single thought for where his weight came from, for the last steps or the people behind, or the run back down. Throwing everything toward this last forty, thirty, twenty feet. The metal grating top leveling out before his eyes.

[gonna_owe_me]

There it is.

The second Steve decides to actually push, and she lets out a little laugh that's all delight and the barest allowance of breath she can give up, before she's leaning into it. Digging. Going hard, feet pounding. Excusing herself around this last block of people, and chasing him all the way to the top. The last fifteen feet. Ten. Five.

Rounding onto the top with a final burst, pushing into the ground and shoving herself over, until the path flattens and the world spins and she realizes, hey.

They're here.

At the top, the island flows down from the headland, and crashes into the sea, and it drags her to a halt as she reaches it, hands going to her hips, chest heaving. Strands of hair sticking to her forehead and neck, and there's nothing to say but -- "Wow."

Breathless, pulling it from somewhere beyond the harsh sandpaper feel of her lungs right now, but it's amazing up here, the air perfect and clear, the island set like a jewel. Water lapping at white beaches far below, and stretching out, away, far to the horizon that's the first and best limit she knows. The infinite sweep of sea she'll never tire of seeing.

"What a view."

[thebesteverseen]

Her laugh is probably just as much an achievement as is hitting the top. Green endless mountains falling away, to nestled buildings on one side, in the valley of open space and the other side where the ocean goes on forever beneath a huge blue sky. The way it always pours into him, blotting out the world. The green. The land and the beach before it. Endless teeming, waves rolling endlessly into each other.

When he can almost move with the dizzying wash of adrenaline and endorphins, making a mess of his chest, and the epileptic center of his heart doing jumping jacks against the bracket of his ribs. The muscles over it, where that one spot is still very set on complaining up a storm, whenever he focuses on it.

Which is only for this second, before he's not. It'll heal, even if it is going to take four or five more weeks.

Four or five more weeks he's not about to slow down during the time for, either. So not point in giving it attention.

When he's grinning, wide and pleased at Cath, sliding steps over toward her side. Still and finally going back to breathing normal, while his lungs are adjusting more here and now. To both more air and how much thinner it is, in concurrent breaths, instead of ones almost a minute to a minute and half apart, while tunneling straight through.

Warmth coursing all throughout him, focused down on her smile. The understanding fondness that tinges her whole face, beyond the glow of exertion toward that shared love. Which makes it impossible not to end up right next to her, looking between it and her.

Pleased even when it's tipping itself everywhere in bright eyes, focused solely on her, that already know the answer, to every single version and level of the question that rolls out. "Worth the challenge, right?"

[gonna_owe_me]

"I think maybe it is."

From here, she can see birds wheeling, and the island's green roots reaching toward the ocean, time-frozen lava flows that make it look like Oahu is melting back into the sea in a river of green and cerulean. Sunlight sparkling off the water in shifting sheets, making her squint, as one hand lifts, wiping damp hair off her forehead.

And Steve next to her. Shoulders lifting and falling, heavy with each breath, skin flushed enough that his tattoos barely stand out at all, not the crisp ink she remembers, tracing with her fingers or mouth.

Turning to him with a hand going to his chest, resting flat and familiar. "Thanks for letting me tag along." With the smile she gives him brilliant in the sunshine, just this side of winsome. Adrenaline and endorphins spinning through her system, heart catapulting into her ribcage, making everything brighter, better. Flirting like it's the only possible way to talk, because it is, right now. When the best thing that could possibly come after this would be to wrap her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist and get carried, laughing into his skin, up the much less intrusive stairs in his house, to the low-lit bedroom. "It's amazing."

[thebesteverseen]

The whole world is flooding up a notch in color as the wave upon wave in his system is breaking without something to push it too. The cinescope colors of the world around him, that everyone else in the world thinks is too bright to be real flushing across everything. Including Cath with her bright, winning smile and her enthusiasm.

Fingers resting on his skin, like maybe she could scale him as well as the rest of the mountain, without pause.

Rippling across the thundering wash of his heart beat, and the rapid breaths still cooling themselves down.

Which is the last thing he's actually going to let them do. Peter out, heart beat, breath, the wave of his body far past warmd up, so he has to wind right back up, again, into this space. When, instead, he let his mouth curve mischievous and warm, when he says, "Good. Because you're only halfway now."

Even if he agrees about all the amazing part. He loves this land. He's always loved it. And he loves getting to share it.

[gonna_owe_me]

She's glad he mentions it, because as amazing as the view is -- and it is, it's spectacular -- she's seen amazing views before and will see this one again, and they need to get moving before her muscles catch on to the idea of rest and seize up on her.

"Let me guess, that was the easy part."

Not even close, but everything's easy once you're past it. When the next challenge is the only one that counts, and she gives his stomach a fond smack before turning to the path, looking down.

"Let's get a move on, then. Let me guess: try not to trip and take that fast way down, right?"

If anything, that will be the hardest part. Even aside from the sudden jarring interruptions to her knees and ankles, the faster pace encouraged by gravity, she's got to be even more careful now, picking her way down, mindful that a trip could send her sprawling headfirst down the stairs instead of just across them. The tiny glints of color re-introducing themselves as the cars in the parking lot, Steve's truck there, too.

Back to the mindset. Back to the run. One-two-three-four, quick as she can.

[thebesteverseen]

He doesn't even dodge her hand. Lets it hit and rebound, not even phasing him more than a roll of his eyes. The ones that are still light and luminous, when he's turning to where she's looking, wiping at the sweat on his forehead, down across the back of his cheek and side of his neck, sliding into the short closed-clipped hair at the back of his neck.

It, actually, turns into a laugh when she takes off with that alone, and follows right after her. Not needing an invitation. Eyes on the stairs, and the closest group coming up toward them, how many more steps down that is by he different muscles in his calves and thighs that twinge with surprise at a different kind of beating starting.

When he's calling out to her, while catching up, not even winded for the effort.

"Yeah, that'd be best. I don't think Tripler's food has improved any."

Even if it was head and shoulders above mess food and mission food -- or lack of food -- sometimes.

But getting laid up for anything other than getting laid out was worthy of getting ribbed by the good men and women doing the hard jobs they came from for a reason. There was no glory in getting stuck between white walls. That was for civilians or casualties, and very little in between.

[gonna_owe_me]

"I'll watch my step, then."

Which is about the last thing she has the time or ability to call out, before her focus really is stolen by the stairs they're running down, and the sure knowledge that eating it out here would result in something a hell of a lot worse than a skinned knee or elbow.

Steps coming almost too fast to take, her speed determined this time as much by gravity as it is by her own agency. Going downhill is as much about putting the brakes on as it is about going faster; it's more cautious, more picky. Greater speeds meaning the greater chance of injury. Mean a thinner line between control and catastrophe. Which means a different sort of strain on her muscles: this time, holding back, control, instead of pushing forward.

Taking each one as it comes, ponytail flapping, the back of her sports bra drenched with sweat, unable to look up at the land rushing back into close contact without risking stumbling and faceplanting.

And still, looking for faster. Lighter. Down, weaving a little like she's skiing, to give herself a little more control. Avoiding groups of tourists, apologizing as she gets in the way of one camera lens and the view it's trying to capture.

Breath huffing in and out, feet flashing down and down.

[thebesteverseen]

If the top is his favorite, this pulls in a quick a second. Gravity and the crush of air, the way both take all his weight and propel him even harder forward. When Cath's care toward her steps has him distancing from her quickly. Going with gravity. Going with his weight.

Focusing only on where his feet land. How far into dirt or on what part of the wood paneling. The way everything is fast narrowing. Slamming each extra momentum and free fall seconds in to something he can use. Keep bouncing in, though, with. Hard step down, keep going. Fast, quick movements of knees, ankles, his hips. Keeping himself close and tight across his core.

Even the thought of falling is at the edges. Like falling from roof tops. It's not about slamming the ground. It's not about pain. It's not about falling. All that is far behind, if it was there at all even at the beginning. It's only plan. Roll, catch a step with a hand, knee, elbow. Dive or roll in the opposite directions of any groups if people, which could mean taking the mountain itself, instead of the stairs, over collateral damage.

It's about planning. Control. Inevitably. Intent.

He isn't going to fall. He never has. But he knows what he'll do if.

And that is enough to banish the consideration, focus, until its needed here.

Keep the slap of his shoes constant. Give into that reckless smile curving his mouth the faster he gets going, the more its about planting a landing and letting go into the next step. Letting gravity and weight control his movements, his descent, while only reigning in where and how long. Using it to his benefit, not holding back from it's uses.

[gonna_owe_me]

There's no way she's going to catch him, and that's fine; to anyone else on this path, her pace probably looks reckless, and this is the first time she's done this. Steve, though -- Steve has probably been up and down this mountain more times than she would care to count. High enough, hard enough for a good workout, with that knockout of a view at the top, laying Hawaii and the ocean out to be surveyed.

So she's not surprised to see him attack the path with his full weight, with zero regard for caution. It's not how he operates. Caution has never been Steve's strong point; that's for the people on his team, and the ones he protects. He's the one who throws himself off the building, down the mountain, into the water.

So he'll hit the bottom before her, so what? She's not doing so badly herself, taking steps quick and neat, giving at the knees, trusting her muscles to keep springing back, and not give in.

Down, down. To the bridge that's rapidly reappearing, faster now with gravity on their side than when they were climbing up to meet it.

[thebesteverseen]

He keeps go. Momentum and motion owning itself, finite direction and dedication. Avoid the groups of people, call out early enough they'll be able to look up, maybe take half a step before realizing he's already darting to one or the other side of them, like he said, and keep going. It's definitely easier to do this run at the very early hours of morning or late hours of evening, when the path is far more clear.

You have to be more clear about watching against the time of day and shadows, but there were Saturday families and weekend work-outs going on in his way. It didn't make it worse. Oddly enough, it just hit in both ways at once. A minute annoyance that at the same time, shifted gears easily, into being a new level so obstacle course to him.

Everything is something you can use to your advantage. Everything a new kind of challenge that can be overcome.

So long as you could reclassify it and find a way around or straight through the problem.


The bridge is closer and closer, and he knows he can't take it at a sprint. Well. That's a lie. If he had to, he'd try. Skipping between two and three boards each time, do anything to match the phantom assailant, caught in the spangle brilliance of wobbly hot air. But this is not life or death. It's Saturday and nothing is there. So he slows. It's still faster than anyone else is going.

But he's paying more attention. Going between boards, skipping one and seeing how well he can keep up half of that momentum.

[gonna_owe_me]

Steve takes the bridge at what any reasonable person would probably call "unreasonably fast" and what he almost definitely thinks of as "not fast enough," dodging groups with the kind of artful weaving anyone would consider impossible from a guy his size. Half of her expects to see tourists getting pushed to either side, parting like the wake of a boat, but he just sidesteps them and keeps going, skipping boards and crossing in what seems like no time at all.

She opts for a more careful route, takes the bridge at a jog, breathless notifications to passersby as she picks a path through them. Not as reckless as Steve, but fast enough that she catches more than one called careful! after she passes.

It makes other people nervous, she knows. Especially when Steve is catapulting down the slope like a landslide, barely hitting the ground with each shoe before he's moving on, on the edge of losing his balance and tumbling head over ass down the rest of the stairs.

Except he's not on that edge. The lack of control is an illusion; all it means is that he has such precise conviction in his body that he can allow it to just work, trusts his reaction time and reflexes to save him from a stumble.

And she does, too. Once over the bridge, she bends into it, gives up control into gravity, into steps that stop short, jarring every inch of muscle and bone before it's another and another. The world falling away, wind whistling as speed picks up. It's easy, letting it happen. Just running, loose hips and pumping arms, the precarious, persistent balance needed, almost losing it, gaining it again and shoving it forward, down the hill like a rock come loose and rumbling to the sea.

[thebesteverseen]

It's too easy to bust straight into a sprint once his feet hit hard packed ground, thankfully with a group of people already holding themselves and three kids in varying higher heights out of the way of the man bulldozing straight over the bridge like its a cakewalk.

Which it isn't. Skipping even a single board means having to be perfectly sure. Going even that fast means having to control it perfectly. Where on his foot he hits. That he has land and take off of each step balanced, so he does hook a toe between in landing, or before in take off. Tightens shoulders, drags out awhile new level of requisitioned focus.

Funnel off every sound and distraction away from any part that isn't planning and foot work.

Making it slam like a flood of water or avast gust of wind when his shoes slap the ground this time. A broad flush of success that allows him to realize he didn't. Again. For the first time in months. But still. Take that swoop of victory and shove it and himself right back into fast, fiercer steps.

Glancing back to catch Cath at a jog, doing her best to keep up. Even here. There. The bridge. The people staring at them in wide eyed gamut, from awe to shocked annoyance, as she followed off of it. Getting faster herself. Which get her a flash of a smile, wide and victory bright, before he's forcing himself to get his head back in the game. Steps. Gravity. The bounce and slam of the ball of his foot.

The way the ground is coming at them, leveling out, fast.

But not fast enough. Heart pounding because right here, all he wants is more.

Faster. Higher. Harder. To keep going, like it could never end, never all come back.