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]

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.

[gonna_owe_me]

How's she supposed to look at that as anything other than a challenge? The glance over his shoulder, the camera-flash of a smile, catching the sun like it's glinting off a mirror, doing nothing but adding gasoline to the fire. Her legs feel rubbery, muscles past strain and into the perfect clarity of performance and perseverance as she leans into the final sprint downhill. Dirt and volcanic dust spitting from where her shoes hit, arms engaged and held at easy ninety degree angles, tucked tight unless she needs them for balance.

Accepting the challenge. Like always. Except it's not about Steve, or the day, or the week, or leave. It's about the tension and spring in her knees, the sweat-sheen on her skin, her heavy ponytail, the delirious haze of breath and sunshine and breeze.

And freedom in every step, every further push for speed, each buckle she loosens until she's in a dead sprint and all thoughts of a twisted ankle or a face full of rock and gravel or a broken wrist from catching herself on the stairs are gone, evaporated in the hum of heat and the pattern of her pace. Aiming like an arrow at the parking lot that's rapidly growing, the land that's flattening back out. The lift and fall of each step, like she could fly right off the mountainside, every thud of pulse and ricochet of breath sending her spinning off into the blue like a bird, chasing Steve's footfalls to the tapering edge of the mountain.

[thebesteverseen]

There are still scattering people, but they're much faster at the bottom of this all. Still new into the first two to five minutes of Koko Head, still caught up in looking up like children whose stomachs are finally catching up with their eyes. when they're not busting out the end of it.

The bottom that is getting closer by two and three foot gaps every few seconds. He can see it racing at him, rather than like it's him racing at it. The glorious burn that is somewhere in the back burner of his thought addictive and sparking, making him almost want to suggest they do it again. He would. Maybe once or twice more. Depending on what his goal was for a day.

Or hit the park and fan out. But doing flat and level is so much less of a challenge after all of that.

Like now when it's leveling out and he's catching himself up, drastic release of speed or space, place to burn out. Because burning out is not one of those thinks about either. Catching himself, even when no one's given the news to his heart. Pounding loud and fast like a drum, against his ribs, through his hear, ears.

Making the whole world feel strange at nearly still. Like all of it is still moving around him, when he's looking back to find
the only other thing that needs to be, from here at the ground. Cath not all that far behind him. Moving fast and sharp, light on her feet, probably not even aware how determined and happy she looks all at once. With the world thrown against a backdrop behind her, all green and blue against her.

[gonna_owe_me]

Not even coming off a wave or coming about has the kind of rush that hitting the bottom of the mountain has; it's too forceful, the momentum all forward, nothing lifting underneath her shoes, nothing slippery like water. The only thing moving is her, but it feels like the mountain shrugged her right off its shoulder, flicked her off like a fly.

She hits the ground running, which is her preferred method, and hard, the soles of her running shoes absorbing impact that strikes up her calf and shin to knee, quads, hamstrings, all wound with exertion and buzzing with adrenaline and endorphins. The sudden lack of freefall makes her feel like she's skidding across the blacktop, heart beating a tattoo in her ears so briskly she could swear she's about to hear trumpets.

It's a few more steps to reach Steve, before she slows, feeling like she needs to lean back against the pull, after being tugged down for so long, some shortening string between her and the level ground. Sweat is sticking and ticking everywhere; her arms are flushed, cheeks feel red, hair mussed from wind and exercise, and every breath goes deep, right down to her toes, as she comes up to him, smiling wide and triumphant.

"Not bad. Think I could requisition one of these to cart around on the Enterprise? I kind of like it better than the treadmills."

[thebesteverseen]

Steve gave a wave of his hand that was previously busy rubbing at the shirt currently trying to stick to him more like super glue than wet cloth. "They have that thing."

You know, that thing. Like his body was having that thing about wanting air. Rather insistently, and some water. So that he's aborting the first gesture to motion about following him to the car. Feeling every step still like small shocks of warmth. That don't hurt, don't make him long to rest. Lean against the truck, down sixteen ounces of water.

He just wants to turn right around. He wants to blast his way back up. He wants to go faster and harder. He wants the people out of his way. He wants to break out his watch and actually time himself. And make it even better the third time. Push and push and push until the only thought is forward, the only feeling is movement. Until every muscles is being stretched as far its able to go.

Into that tense, rubbery glow right at the edge of feeling like he might fall apart, go flying apart in every direction.

"Ship shape and spit polish didn't mix so well with that much dirt the last time I was out at sea."

He might have been smirking through the throbbing finding ways to localize, across the back of his right shoulder, across that rib and into others close to it, brand across his stomach and parts of of his chest. "And that's after you find a way to keep from sinking first."

[gonna_owe_me]

"Oh, right. I guess that would make it sort of hard, yeah."

Her chest and shoulders are heaving, and it's like no matter how deep she breathes, it's not deep enough. Cells crying out for oxygen, blood a dizzy spin of endorphins, pumping recklessly along her veins and slamming into temples, ears, eyes. There's a stitch pulling at her side, and she stretches against it, pulling it into painful submission, while keeping her eyes on Steve. And she can't help smiling. He glances back at the mountain like he wants to go again, like this is nothing, even when his hair is sticking up weirdly, damp with sweat, and his shirt is plastered to his chest and back.

Not her. That was more incline than she's seen in four, five, six months. Maybe longer, definitely not shorter, and she's feeling it, already. A tight sharp pain in her calves and hamstrings that's going to be a long noisy ache by this time tomorrow, if not by the time she sleeps tonight. So now she stretches, now that her muscles are warm and not likely to be hurt, making her way to the truck and leaning against it, hissing at hot metal under her palms and fingers as she bends one knee, straightens the other to stretch her Achilles. Left, then right. Then lifting a foot to grab an ankle behind her to stretch her quads, feeling the pull and give of loose, warm muscle.

"Treadmills it is, then. I'll just pin up a postcard of the view in front of the machine."

[thebesteverseen]

Steve was dragging keys out, beeping the truck and digging into the back of the cab for the ripped open case of water bottle and the duffle that stayed back there. Leaving the bag right by the door, and grabbing two bottles as he caught the sharp hiss. Stepping back out and leaving the doors open. Which, really, is the first sign.

It goes with the second one, eyebrows raised slightly, and the easy, sliding smile, that quirks and tucks into his cheek at one side, far more teasing than it could ever be considered near serious, as he's holding out a bottle of water. "So, you're not going to be up for Round Two, then?"

Steve wouldn't throw her at Koko Head, again. Not on the first time she's done it. Not on the first few days of being off. Certainly, not the way his blood is beating, strong thrum almost like begging, inside his skin. Because he feels anything but near worn out. He feels ready. Like that was the warm-up, and now he could take it and do whatever he wanted with what left.

He waits for her to take the bottle, before setting his on the truck, and pulling at the bottom hem of his stuck shirt and dragging it up toward his face. Wiping off the dust and sweat with the cloth under his fingers, deciding not to change it even if he wants to. Because that'll just be a third piece he'll need to wash before, or after, he gets a shower in.

[gonna_owe_me]

Her lips press into a smile as she takes the bottle, unscrews the cap. "Depends on what Round Two entails."

Not going back up the mountain, but she can think of better uses for all the energy flooding her system right now, that's only a little sidetracked by the way he jerks his shirt up to wipe sweat and grime off his face. She pulls a little grimace at it, though -- like this is a locker room, and she's one of the guys, which she patently isn't, and the sweat-soaked shirt that comes back down isn't what she'd call a hundred percent attractive, either.

Really, it's sort of gross, and she wonders, idly, how hard her past self would smack her present self for thinking of Steve McGarrett, in any stage of undress, as gross, but there it is. Maybe it's been too many years, but she has officially reached the 'too-comfortable' point with him if that's the case. Except she really can't complain, and the pros far outweigh the cons, so in the end, who cares?

There's a faintly resigned cast to her eyebrows, distinctly unimpressed, though she notes with a half-shade of attention the fading bruises briefly visible on his torso.

"Didn't you bring a towel for that?"

She could use one, too, if only so she doesn't sweat all over his upholstery.

[thebesteverseen]

Steve doesn't, even for looking up and pulling the shirt down, look at all ruffled by the way her face is wrinkling up. If anything it makes him seem even more amused. The idea of her being squeamish at anything. Her. Cath. A sailor. One of the women surrounded so often more with men in uniforms, and everything that came with keeping up with them. One the very few people who goes out of their way to try and keep up with him.

Cross-hatched with the idea that this isn't actually anything compared to the wider assortments of almost too many things he can name without trying that he's been through. Messier, dirtier, bloodier, sweatier, grittier, less able to get away from it field problems of decades. Which just makes him give her a roll of his eyes, smile widening with a shake of his head, like she's the one who's adorable and exasperating for it.

"Actually, I know you know I didn't bring anything with me--" Is a sticking point, but the way his voice is running. Warm, smooth, sparking joke, pointed ribbing with that loose curve of his mouth that's already rippling out without yet having fallen. "--but if you--" Which is where the ripening pressure on words begin, blue eyes wide and delighted, with her, with himself, with this sudden insult, suggestion, toss back. "--need one, I'm sure I've got one on hand."

Because he's always got everything he needs on hand. He's never less than prepared for most anything he goes into.

Even when prepared to him might be far less, and far more, involved, depending on subject than anyone around him ever got.

[gonna_owe_me]

"No thanks."

Accompanied by an airy wave of one hand. "I'll just sweat all over the seat. That'll dry me off fine."

As if he cares. As if she does. As if they both haven't seen so much worse and so much messier, but that's hardly the point, when they aren't working, when the grime is just from clean sweat and exercise and not from gunpowder and blood.

In some ways, she thinks she's got a better handle on civilian life than Steve does, the comparisons that do and don't matter, or make sense, but then, she hasn't done the things he's done, no matter how she might work at keeping up with him.

Half the bottle is downed before she caps it again, considers pouring the remaining water over her head, sure it might evaporate in a cloud of steam before even hitting her skin. Heat's wavering off her body and off the parking lot, and all she really wants to do is get out of it, dive into the cool fresh water she can see in the distance, indulge in a shower. "It can wait for a shower or a swim."

Half ready to find some water right now. She never feels more like she's half-dolphin than when she's been on land for more than twenty-four hours, and part of her is edgy, wanting the ocean, the calm blue bowl and the sensation of weightlessness.

Steve's beach will do nicely, but she's about ready to get back to it, so she heads to the passenger side, cracking the door.

[thebesteverseen]

He'd opened his bottle and started drinking while she was. Drinking and talking, the creases in his cheeks from his smile staying even as he tipped his head and kept drinking. Eyes merry over it when he pulled it away, pausing for some air and the way she shifted, like a car, easy between gears, jumping from girl to snappy bravado in seconds.

It's always been one of the things they can both do a lot with each other.
Slip and slide through the completely different faces and facets that are all theirs.

Enough that it keeps the smile at his mouth, watching her push off the truck and walk around the front corner. Shaking his head, as he drank more of the water, turning to the open doors still smiling. Pulling the zipper down from the duffle still there and tossing the medium green towel across the center console to her seat, just as she was getting to the door.

Smooth, smug smile, like somehow it wasn't giving in at all. For either of them.

He, usually, gave her what she wanted. Eventually.

Steve grabbed a second bottle of water, working on downing the very last of the first. Head still throbbing, body still thrumming, even as his heart rate was working itself down. He capped the empty one and tossed it into a trash can not too many feet off. Opening the he second bottle, as he levered up into the drivers seat, dragging out his phone first to see if anyone had called while he was running.