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[gonna_owe_me]

Steve is really good at avoiding her.

Normally, she probably wouldn't even call it "avoiding."  Normally, she would call it his usual M.O. and chalk it up to being a side effect of being halfway around the world from each other.  There are times they've gone for months with no contact, and two weeks is barely the blink of an eye, particularly when she's busy and he keeps getting high-profile, high-priority cases.

At least, that's what she hears, when she hears anything at all.

But those weeks and months of zero contact, running silent, off the grid: those days aren't exactly applicable when there are extenuating circumstances such as A. they are living on the same island and B. she knows there's something he really doesn't want to talk to her about.

Ergo, avoidance.

She's not an impatient or nosy person, though, so she lets it slide, for a little while.  He clearly needs to get used to the idea himself, and, frankly, so does she.  It's not that they haven't stumbled across a situation where one or the other of them was out of commission for their normal arrangement, but in general, those interrupting factors were not potentially career-threatening.  Not to the extent of sleeping with a subordinate.  Not to the extent of sleeping with a partner.  Not seriously.

And it is serious, whether Steve is admitting to it, or not.  It's splashed across him like someone doused him in paint and sticky sunlight, in the way he'd magnetized towards the door, the way he'd run out after Danny.  Maybe even more because he didn't bring it up until he absolutely had to.

So Steve is avoiding her, and she can sympathize, because this is not a conversation she particularly wants to sit through, either, but it still needs to happen, because, knowing Steve, he hasn't told anyone else and is shutting it back into compartments poorly designed for a situation of this magnitude and complexity.  

Which is why, when she called him on the next weekend inferred to be Danny's weekend with Grace, she's given him the benefit of both giving her the slip for two weeks and the peace offering of meeting at a place with really excellent drinks, one of which she has in hand as she sits at a table by an open window, chin in her hand, looking out at the quietly rolling ocean.  It's early evening, and she's come off a twelve hour shift, so it's nice to sit, let her thoughts unhinge, ebb and flow with the waves and mild breeze.  Wrangling an affirmative had proved to be difficult, but she'd managed it, pointing out that they might as well meet out, seeing as they're definitely going to make it to the restaurant this time.

It strips him of the home field advantage, too, but he's not the only one who knows how to keep a wall at his back and a few tricks up his sleeve.

Comments

[thebesteverseen]

He waits long enough it's pushing it. Not quite to the point where he'd stared at his phone wondering if it might ring, and something might come up. From her, or from anyone on the team. But enough that he found himself prowling back and forth in the house, getting more and more picky about what he was working on, at pictures that hadn't moved since before he was born.

Enough that there is good reason for why he's sliding the truck through traffic on the way to meet her.

It had to happen at some point, but some point kept not being any of the times a message would roll across during a case. Or when they were heavy on a case, blotting out the world. Or he'd find a short voicemail while headed home, driving or picking up yet another case of beer, already expecting company. Or in the morning, when he was headed in to work.

And he hadn't missed all of them. There were the few times he'd been able to pick up. Usually in the office, when the only reason for the odd hour had to be some kind of shift differential on her end, which just pricked the edge of the growing cloud over the entire thing, the longer it drug out, making him answer. Even if his mouth was suddenly full of reasons he was, they were, justifiably, busy.

More than justifiably. But, also, suddenly like it needed to be there, so he couldn't be anywhere else. With anyone else.

Except now it was the weekend. Now he was out of his truck and looking at a place he hasn't seen in a good handful of months, maybe verging on half a year almost, on a weekend when Danny's got Grace and the Five-0's not needed. He'd called to check in with Chin and Malia, but opted out from Kono's invitation. It had somehow turned to evening. In one of those days where every moment drug through each second like a knife on skin.

Yet somehow the whole day was a strict sort of blur, like none of it had stood still, all of it tilting until just now and just here.

Steve doesn't give the parking lot any room or time, though. He's walked head on into worse. Right? If usually loaded full bear and with the kind of mood that didn't care what else was lost in the crossfire. Which this isn't. It's Cath. Which means all that's left is really to face it. To walk in, and slide past the hostess with a comment about meeting someone, after catching sight of Cath watching the ocean.

[gonna_owe_me]

Part of her actually sort of expected him to just not show up.

It wouldn't be entirely out of character, though it would give her ammunition for years, and far too much opportunity to mock him for cowardice in the face of a discussion about a relationship when he's the last person she knows who would run from a fight.

But this isn't a fight: there's no one here he can hit or shoot or arrest to make it better; the problem isn't going to go away just because he looks it in the eye and doesn't flinch. Regulations exist for a reason. They're bigger than her, bigger than him, bigger than ambition or personal preference. You put on the uniform, carry the badge, you're expected to follow the rules. And Steve -- well, he excels at breaking or bending plenty of the rules that exist seemingly just to get in his way, but this is one that'll hit back, if he tries.

So she's actually mildly surprised when she looks up and finds him, half a head taller than anyone else currently standing, pulling a pleased smile across her mouth that warms her eyes just like it always has.

She might be concerned. She might disapprove, of the rule-breaking, if not the person said breaking is being done for. But it's still good to see him, to be on the same rock as him, however long it lasts, and that doesn't change, no matter what else between the two of them does.

"I almost thought you were going to stand me up," she says, turning her face up to him with a cheeky glint in her eye, stirring the ice in her glass and the brilliantly blue liquid there, too, with the umbrella that came propped up in the drink. "Relax, Steve. I left the firing squad back at base."

[thebesteverseen]

It's too rare, the times they actually see each other.

That's the thought that sticks first, like gum he didn't expect to step on, when she looks up and smiles. She always looks like a breath of fresh air. Always feels like the moment you fold up the world and tuck it away for a few minutes. If he has any idea what a vacation is, it's tripped up in this feeling. Simple and welcoming, the kind of uncomplicated easy, that hangs right on the curve of her lips and the light in her eyes.

Teasing and comfortable from the first. Nothing like the shock or the awkwardness from almost two weeks ago now.

He can focus on pulling out and dropping down into chair with something of a tug to the edge of his mouth, when he's picking up a drink and appetizer flip-style menu from the far end of the table. "Probably for the best. This place wouldn't like having its tables used for target practice, and I'm pretty sure I don't have another nice shirt in the truck."

Not that he actually would have. Stood her up. Not for anything less than a case, or an emergency. He wouldn't have actually agreed only to leave her sitting here. He'd done enough of that the first weekend hadn't he? When she was entirely willing and he only stopped her just short of kissing him, and he'd let her ask all those questions, with the barest of answers.

[gonna_owe_me]

"I didn't know you even had this one."

Old habits, they die hard. She can't help the way she watches him, the fabric of his shirt shifting and catching against his shoulders, his chest. He looks good. He always looks good. Familiar, like the deck of the Enterprise, streamlined and sturdy. Built to take a beating and dish one right back out, with ruthless precision and absolute determination. Blue eyes are bright against tan skin, even if they're still watching her a little warily, like he thinks she's going to start reading him the riot act right away.

Maybe she should. Maybe she should just get right into it, but she doesn't, just sips at her drink and studies him, sitting there across the table, in a spot she's imagined a hundred times, in a situation that just never seemed to actually come to fruition before.

It's a novelty, and she sort of wants to enjoy it for a second. Dinner with Steve McGarrett. "I'm learning all kinds of new things about you."

With a pointed eyebrow lift, as she leans back, relaxed. The breeze comes through the open window, toys with a long loose lock before she pushes it back behind her ear. "I have to say, it's nice to actually make it to the table for once."

[thebesteverseen]

This part is easy to pick up, like old hat. To look up from flipping pages on the small menu, going through offerings. Figuring out what he wants to eat vs. what he considers edible vs. what actually could be slid toward and worked off harder tomorrow. Look up from that and cast her a dubious expression of suspicion laced with something like a hurt that couldn't even be skin deep sparking up at a simmer under it.

As warm and teasing, as just a little roughly correcting. "Hey. Are you saying my dining room table doesn't count?"

He's certain they'd sat down at it a handful of time. Times when other things hadn't been done to or with it.

Just because of the whole chairs and solid object for setting things on convenience.

He couldn't promise he was certain they'd made it through a meal only sitting across it. But then when left to their own devices in the house, with no plans for a weekend, clothing was so less than necessary that a bathing suit, or even one of his own shirts, especially the latter, there were always reasons then to forget sitting anywhere longer than catching up, or refueling.

Which makes her other words go down a little rough, like he swallowed something more than air. Because they are going to get to that sooner or later. To Danny. Into the conversation he stonewalled entirely with Cath, and in some ways, even with Danny, himself. But he couldn't get out of this one, either.

[gonna_owe_me]

She scrunches up her face in thought, holding her glass above the tabletop a few inches while she pretends to give it some consideration. "You know, that really isn't my strongest memory of your dining room table."

It was fun, though. He was fun. They were fun, and she's not going to lie, she's a big girl, and she's sort of unhappy that it's in the past now, slipped away without her even realizing it was going anywhere. She's been sad. There's no shame in admitting it. They had a good run, and a good time, and she wishes it weren't gone, but there it is. Or, there it was, written across Steve in letters she couldn't help but read and understand.

He's never looked like that before, talking about someone.

She's never seen him the way he was when Danny opened that door and made everything crystal clear in a matter of seconds.

It's still there, she thinks, if she studies him closely enough. It isn't obvious, and it's probably under layers of wary caution and a serious dislike of being here at all, called in like a squid about to get chewed out, but she thinks there's something that looks a little different about him, too.

Or maybe she's just paying closer attention, now.

The waitress who brought her drink comes back with the small plate of ahi she'd ordered as an appetizer, and she thanks her, pulling a napkin off the table onto her lap.

[thebesteverseen]

The smile is irreverent and arrogant, maybe just this side of shamelessly victorious. Especially if she can't remember it to compare any more than him, and is in a swirl of the memories he is. When he's got the retort about if she can't remember, then doesn't count yet. Because there's no actual proof she's right and he's not, especially because the whole point never was tables.

Except when it was.

When he can do good enough to simply leave it at a smile, with the waitress dropping off a plate before turning to him expectantly. Flipping pages back toward the beginning and pointing to the picture as he said, "A Longboard and the Shrimp Ono Nui."

Before sitting back in his chair, and stretching his shoulders back and in, along with the muscles in along his spine since it pushes in his shoulder blades. Before he settles, against the chair a little more easily, if not rough or solid. "How's Pearl?"

And how was being on land, what was it, almost three weeks now? With the circulation of the decommission without any word of being commissioned elsewhere in sight yet. Plus. There were only so many topics that could or maybe, especially, should be covered, elsewise, and if they were going through, why not just keep pushing through then, right?

[gonna_owe_me]

"It's not a boat."

The simplest, shortest, truest answer. She can feel her foot wanting to bob up and down where it's hanging, one leg crossed neatly over the other, just at the thought of being landlocked for long, eyes drifting to the horizon she can see out the window. The ocean is right there, surrounding her, touchable every day, but it's not the same. The island doesn't move, isn't singularly defensible. She's stuck here, and the novelty is starting to wear off.

If she's been on shore long enough to get her land legs back, she's been on shore too long, but deployment's going to have to wait. The thought of the Enterprise getting scrapped is too depressing, and she's happy not to see it happen, will honor the old girl in her own way, with whatever comes next, but there's nothing there on that horizon yet.

Leaving her to shrug, and turn her attention back to Steve. "You know how it is. I'm finally used to a floor again, instead of a deck. But they keep me busy."

Lifting her drink, she arches her eyebrows at him, lips pursing for a sip from a straw. "Your turn. How's the boyfriend?"

Watching over the edge of her glass as she calmly sips, before putting it back down, head tipping slightly to the side, eyes keen. "Or, I'm sorry. Was I supposed to start with work, too?"

[thebesteverseen]

It hits rather like a sledgehammer.

Because it was a worthy question. He even felt some sympathy for her response. He understands. Every time he came back, even this last time it was like that. The last one hadn't been a boat. But it'd been a singularly determined mission, calling on other national groups, hopping across countries and oceans. It felt more normal that he was even allowed to admit.

He got it. The whole idea. Still felt it now, even a just over a month after getting back, again.

At least he had been until Cath's cool question, slender triplicate of words, slammed a wrecking ball into his chest. Making him glad that the whole idea of not breathing was one he'd been train, long ago, out of panicking in the face of. Making him glad that beer wasn't in his hand, he wasn't trying to swallow anything. Because the thing slams into his ribs, crushing bones, and lodging.

While she's cleverly making some joke, like it wasn't actually asked with any sincerity but diversionary tactic, an insinuation that it was to keep her from this question. When he doesn't do it the favor of giving it any more actually shock than he'd given a sudden explosion. Brows furrowing and pushing inward, pinching the skin between them. Unimpressed under the thinnest shade of flat dismissive. "He isn't my boyfriend."

The word comes out even when it burns. Even when it feels like it's scraping the nerves from his spine and the feeling from his lungs. Because he isn't, and that's probably the least likely of the places he thought she'd start. Because they aren't. They work together during the day, and then.

And then just keeps happening. One or the other them makes a comment. Something small. A question about seeing the other person later. Beers, or dinners, once there was a game replay, and something else about case rehashing. That really just all ends up the same. With laughing, and hands everywhere, and the sound of Danny breathing filling up his room, his ears, some over warm part of his skin.

But it wasn't that. None of this was. Nothing that Danny has said even implied he'd wanted it to be.

It was complicated enough, just beneath impossible already, without even considering throw things like that at it.

[gonna_owe_me]

"I thought you might say that."

That, or something like it, and she shifts in her chair, amusement draining away to something cynical, mouth pressing into acceptance that her eyes and the barely there tensing of her shoulders and jaw labels an act. "Somehow, they never are, are they?"

Never boyfriends. Never girlfriends. They had a thing, and now he and Danny have a thing, and she's struck by a sudden sense of sympathy for Danny, and a faint hope that if he's just stepped into whatever limbo of an arrangement she's been shifted out of, that it doesn't get dragged out for years unless that's something he wants and can handle.

Judging by his reaction to seeing her there two weeks ago, and going on what little else she knows of the man, she doubts it.

But that's neither here nor there: she's not sitting at this table to cast judgment on whatever it is they are or aren't calling it, no matter how much of a blind eye Steve might be putting towards it. She crosses her forearms on the tabletop, leans forward over them, all humor put aside, like turning a card face down.

"He might not be your boyfriend, but he is your partner. Not to mention your employee. What are you thinking, Steve?"

[thebesteverseen]

It doesn't lack in any sting. When, yeah, okay, he's aware. He's never chased anything this far against the rules with another guy. They were different rules, with civilians, but there were lines he towed. Unwritten rules he didn't buck. In The Navy, and among HPD. He cared about his job, and his appearance, and everything that went with that.

In the service, and in the Reserved, with Five-0. He was careful, and discreet. Enough Danny never knew.

Not happening enough in any time period for him to think about it as a habit. Or even constant. Most not lasting more than a night, when it ever did, none of them last more than a handful of weeks. Frequently because he got caught up in his job, in his work, in missions, in the mystery surrounding his father, everything now. It got in the way, it made it easier not to look back, not to remember until too much time had passed.

It's fair. Low. Aggravating. But fair. Different because of that; Danny was there daily.
Under his feet. In his way. Backing him up as much as keeping him in check. Following him home.

"You think any of that's actually slipped my notice?" It's more terse, but it's also quieter when he leans in. Elbows ending up on the table, leaning toward her. Not even carrying on at a normal volume. That he could be any less aware of this whole situation when he walked into his own office every morning.

Or maybe while he was still signing off on Danny's paperwork, okaying the day's for him to be gone to court with Rachel, sending in the manifests of hours his people put in every month. The differentials for hazard pay periods. Seeing to him after a case. Having decidedly wrong reactions while he was on them.

He knows which exactly lines in which books it is at this point even. How could he not.

[gonna_owe_me]

It's an old trick. The oldest, maybe. If you want to know something, put pressure on a different area, and see what reacts and how.

Maybe she should feel bad, resorting to interrogation methods with Steve, but the walls he'd thrown up even before she knew who he's involved with defined his position pretty clearly: that he doesn't want to talk about it, doesn't want to give details, and anything she wants to hear is going to have to be dragged out of him inch by reluctant inch.

His annoyance at her insinuation doesn't pan out, though. He doesn't defend himself, or argue, doesn't suggest that Danny might be different, in anyway, and she can't help feeling a slight, aggravated sense of disappointment. At least if he's going to be screwing the rules six ways to Sunday, she'd hope he's doing it for more than a fling. "No, I don't."

Her voice is pitched low and intent, too, though she sits back a little, glances up at the waitress when she comes by and deposits Steve's beer on the table, along with a napkin to catch the condensation on the bottle before it leaves a ring on the wood, waits until the girl is gone before leaning in again.

"I don't think any of it's managed to escape your notice. You know every single rule you're breaking, and you're doing it anyway. Just like you know how badly this could screw things for you and him, if the wrong people found out."

Or the right people. Depending how you look at it.

She wets her lip, presses her mouth into a line, and tackles it head on. "Does anyone else know?"

[thebesteverseen]

He sets back, even if his forearms don't leave the table, while the waitress is setting down a napkin, and his beer. Manages a very martialed, "Thanks," for the service. Even if he might feel like he's looking through more than looking at the woman serving them.

Feeling that thing climbing the rungs of his spine that has been more and more the last few hours. With its many sharp claws and legs. Coiling right behind his neck, vicious and warring. Threatening to pierce into his skin. Sliding like slime and oil, yet still catching and holding everywhere, no risk of falling off him.

Those rules can screw themselves. Danny said. In his bed. Against his skin. As they banged straight through the conversation that should have ended everything. But put them back on his bed, back on the path to destruction, holding on tighter, breathing less, needing to touch every part of each other like somehow the world was trying to shake them apart.

And Steve can still feel it. The way it made his blood boil. Just those words.

Danny with all his neat clothes and hard, fast, Right Rules, burning through his skin with those words.
When he can't justify it, doesn't deserve to defend it, and yet-- Danny picked him. Over The Rules. Everything.

How was he ever supposed to turn his head and look away then? Now? In any capacity, even sitting here, while Cath was looking at him, like he'd taken his own gun and shot himself in the foot with it. He picked up his beer, with an even raised of his eyebrows at the insane next question. He was insane, this was all insane, but nobody here was actively suicidal.

"No." His gaze shifted from her to his beer, when he didn't even shake his head once. "Of course not."

It's the furthest thing from his head. Telling anyone. Anything. That she wouldn't have known left to him. Probably.

[gonna_owe_me]

Well, that's something. Not that she thought, given how uncontrolled that situation was the other night, that telling anybody was actually on the docket.

Steve wouldn't even have told her, she's sure. For this exact reason.

"I'm not going to be the only one who finds out," she warns. "You might think you're covering your tracks, but I'd have picked up on it even if Danny hadn't bolted right back out the door the other night. If it keeps going, someone's going to catch a clue eventually. And then what? How's he going to win his court case if he gets fired for fraternizing with a superior? What will happen to your task force if the Governor catches wind that you're sleeping with one of your team members? Tell me you've at least thought some of this through."

She's not hugely optimistic, even tossing examples at him that she knows, with absolute confidence, he's already considered. Steve is a strategic thinker: he may seem like a force of chaos, but every move he makes is considered, plotted out, discarded for something that will more efficiently garner him the result he wants, or implemented with no further delay.

Of course he's thought of these things. He knows the same rules she knows. Has lived them for years.

But she nails them onto a fucking billboard anyway, because if this is still going on, it's obvious that he hasn't wanted to look at them directly.

Or that he has, and he's decided to buck them, anyway. Either way, she's testing the waters, wants to see where he stands so she can figure out where she's throwing her support, where it's needed, even if it isn't wanted.

[thebesteverseen]

That is nearly insulting. Of course, he's thought about it. Like any eventuality. Like it doesn't scream in his head all time. Especially after what happened the night he sent Kono and Danny undercover for the K&R case. Of course, he thinks about. Of course, he's aware, he almost blew everything, broke everything open. Right on Danny's head and didn't give a fucking damn.

When the rest of the time he can't stop himself from giving a damn about every single possible fall apart.

"Of course, I have." Comes out sharper and faster this time. More angry that she could think there was a way he wasn't. And, god, it shoots out brutal and a little fuck it all, if they're going to to play this game. The rest of it. Words he has never said to Danny. Barely lets himself think to himself.

"If it happened-" And he hopes it won't, but he won't even let himself cling to the idea it won't. He shook his head, teeth clenching. "I'd do anything to make sure it falls on them as little as possible. I'd offer to stand down, and all that comes with it." Even though the entire idea of show throat to Dennings is like swallowing acid.

The idea of walking away from Danny, even for Danny, is unbearable.
But he'd do it. He'd get down on the ground to protect them, to protect Danny.

"It's not like the have other options." Which is thick, and maybe even sadistic-touched.
He could still go back. Yeah. It might actually end up on his record there, if someone found out.

But they were unrelated. Mostly. In how they weren't. It would stick to his character. But he wasn't working full time for the Navy now. And he could still go back. None of the them had a back to go to. That they wanted or could love doing given enough force of will.Danny definitely didn't. He needed this job a little under how much he couldn't live without Grace.

[gonna_owe_me]

"Don't you snap at me," she says, unfazed by his sudden flare of temper, the sharpness of his tone, cutting words like it should be obvious. She fixes him with a flat, unimpressed look, eyebrows arching skeptically. "If it were of course, it shouldn't have happened at all. I'm just trying to figure out how many feet of shit you've dug yourself into, here, so as much as you hate these questions, you're just going to have to suck it up and swallow them."

Flying blind is her least favorite thing. This is like firebombing a hundred square miles just to hit one hut, when the target might actually be another thousand away. She's got no idea when it started, how serious it is, or how Steve feels about it. Aside from the it's really good he'd admitted right before everything went to hell two weeks ago, he's barely said anything at all.

For now, she shakes her head after watching him for another few seconds, and draws her drink back towards herself. "Then I hope it's up to you, if that happens."

She could tell him not to be stupid, not to be reckless, not to throw himself in the fire to try and save Danny in what would probably be a pointless waste of both their careers, but he's got that iron set to his jaw and the steady glint in his eye that means he's not going to be argued out of this, which leaves her with that, and a faint sigh that's more just like a soft exhale and her eyes dropping to the tabletop and the ahi she hasn't had the desire to eat yet.

Before looking up.

"Is it worth it?"

Another sounding questions, but an important one. She's still got the riot act, rolled up and ready to unfurl across the table, but depending on this answer, it might at least be edited.

[thebesteverseen]

"Why?" It's not even a question. Not the way it comes out his mouth, solid and flat against her sense. Hands settled in a circle around the sweating beer he hasn't even thought about aside from ordering. "So, you can point out it can't be? Or shouldn't be? I've already been there, Cath. I don't need someone else to point that out."

He didn't need anyone for that. He got it in the mirror. He'd said it over and over and over again for a year.

He got it in these sudden moments that came out of nowhere, when he was walking along and suddenly stepped off the fucking cliff. Because he knows he's shitting on nearly everything that mattered. Has gotten fucked, literally and figuratively, so far over the line he's going to need far more than a flash light to get back. That nothing may be enough to do it.

Because at the end of the day, and in the morning when he wakes up, it's wrong, but it doesn't feel wrong.
God. It doesn't. Whether Danny is there, or just the faintest smell of him on a pillow. It's everything he wants.

Everything. Even when it's in conflict with every single bit of who he is, and who he swore to be, and what he should do.

[gonna_owe_me]

"Well, that, and because if you two are willing to possibly ruin your careers, I would hope it's for something better than a fling."

Her shoulders, tense as they are, lift impatiently. "You don't need to defend it to me. My opinion on this whole snafu really comes down to meaning absolutely nothing. But yeah, I want to know, because you might not need someone to point it out, but you're still doing it, and I admit I'm curious as to why. I don't want to see you lose everything you've worked for, Steve. And I still care."

Which is what it boils down to. She cares. If she didn't, she wouldn't have brought him out here, wouldn't have brought it up, wouldn't be trying to make sense of the whole mess, to figure out where she is or might be needed.

She sides with Steve. That part isn't debatable. But it's harder to know where to stand, when Steve is doing something potentially damaging to himself and there's no one else to blame.

As much as she might want to, she's not sure she can blame Danny. Falling for Steve is like walking into a sudden sinkhole: impossible to avoid and possibly life-threatening. She's not sure it'd be possible not to.

But she's not talking to Danny; she's talking to Steve. "What does he think about it all?"

[thebesteverseen]

What's worse? That he can't say it's not going to be a fling. Even when he argued Cath against the first word she used. And he hasn't brooked Danny against his panicked rant, more than once, about how he can't do casual. And how Danny might, honestly, vanish entirely from Hawaii in a few months.

Meaning just as much as their jobs, that it can't be casual, but it's nowhere near being able to be serious.

"Nothing helpfully smart?" That's a dig, but he doesn't even mean it. Even when he does.
Even when he can't force his voice to sound nearly as mad or derisive as it should.

It creases up the space between his eyebrows, when he's finally lifting his drink.
Because he keeps expecting Danny to wise up sometime soon, and he's not.
He can't rely on Danny to drag, shove, push him out of this one.

When he knows he can't shove that responsibility on to him. Doesn't want him to, either.

Because they avoided talking about this, and then they did. Because every time they hit anything like light, like they should stop, they don't. They plow straight through it like a wrecking ball with the gears jammed, fritzing, the whole thing on fire, rolling down hill, picking up speed.

The whole CIA involvement. Cath. The case. Every time something said they should step back, they just held on even tighter. They just couldn't walk that tiny bit more. The way he knows in his skin if Danny wasn't with Grace he'd probably be somewhere nearby. In Steve's space, under his skin. Or when, or how soon until. How predictable it's getting towards being.

That even when that seems claustrophobic. It's something he needs to breathe just as much.

[gonna_owe_me]

She frowns at the dig, pushing ice further into her glass with the straw. "Really? Danny had nothing to say?"

She hardly knows the guy, but she's been around him often enough now to have felt the full force of his complete inability to keep his mouth shut. It's sort of charming, in a mind-boggling sort of way, and something she would have expected Steve to hate.

Except Steve just stands there with this strangely smug, affection smile on his face half the time, and just as Danny slows down, there's Steve to roll a pebble and start another avalanche. She'd chalked it up to his desire to tease winning out over his desire for some peace and quiet, but now?

She's not so sure.

What she is sure of is that Steve's deflection is starting to get on her nerves. This may be his private business, but she's the only one outside the two of them who knows, and whether he likes it or not, it's important to get these things out of his head and into the real world, where he can't box them away and pretend they aren't there.

"So let me recap, just to be sure I've got this clear." She pauses, thinks back, finger tapping on the tabletop. "You know you shouldn't be sleeping with your partner, you have a contingency plan in place in case things go south, and you two haven't stopped yet, which at least answers one question that you didn't. Does that about sum things up? Or am I missing anything else obvious?"

The last a little slice back, because it's not like she thinks he hasn't considered any of this before. But 'considered' and 'acknowledged' can be too very different things.

[thebesteverseen]

There's an annoyed shift of his head, and narrow of his eyes, at her first set of words. He didn't say Danny said nothing. Danny saying nothing, would be like a day in Hawaii without the ocean on all sides. He said the man hadn't said anything helpful or smart toward her whole point. Toward the point of getting Steve to about face and get the hell out of dodge.

With all his still possible's and good, because I only want you's striking matches in Steve's head.

He's actually taking a drink of the beer as she starts sounding off the list, each one landing something like a dart. The thing creepy along his spine, digging those razor sharp claws in against his skin, with each set of words, another push in. Pressing into his skin, threatening to break it the more stiff his muscles go.

"Yeah. Sure." Too rough, too sharp, too still. An answer almost like for an order, even with a beer in his hands, even when he's looking down at her. When this is more than half the reason he didn't want it out, either. Because it isn't defensible. It's just desperate and necessary, and in deeper than any half heart addiction or interest already.

"I never said it was smart. I know that." It's, no, not even that simple. "We both know that."

They had to. Especially after last week. Danny might be throwing it at him like he was just more crazy. But they knew.

[gonna_owe_me]

"Even smart people do stupid things."

They see it all the time. Both of them. They see it in people who make stupid decisions because they can't see the whole picture, they see it in people who don't want to, who are so focused on what's in front of them that they refuse to look around.

She prefers to be the eye in the sky, the one with all the intel.

And Steve -- well, maybe there's a third type of stupid. The kind that has all the information, and bulls right ahead, anyway.

Tap, tap. Ice being pushed down, floating back up, an electric blue drink that seemed like a good idea at the time, that tastes like Blue Raspberry Icee and isn't nearly strong enough for this conversation. "We've established that it's not smart. But is it still good?"

And maybe she shouldn't, because it can only end in a way that's going to be terrible for both of them, even without emotions involved, but, hell. Like she said. She still cares, and she wants him to be happy. Happy like he was when Danny walked through the door, before everything fell apart. Happy like she's not sure she's ever seen him before.

[thebesteverseen]

Isn't that question even more pointless than the last pointed one.

Is it worth it. Is it still good.

When he's not certain what tactic she's trying to take her, and it leaves him staring across the table at her, trying to figure out which way it goes and how that will help her. What next part of it could be turn on it's head and pointed at with a laser to for sensible tearing apart then.

He should say something, but he's already done all of this. Changing the words, won't change the the point. He knows. What it is. How it feels. Where he should be. Where he isn't. What he shouldn't wake up, thinking about first thing. Before Wo Fat and Doris break in, and he can't think straight anymore at all, until he's exhausted his head and his skin and his lungs all to the point they feel like they are going to burst blood cells.

And then half the time, Danny is still waiting with coffee, watching him with that wary, unpleased sympathy that he hides away under bluster and pulling Steve in close. Trying to wipe off whatever is left of the morning, and all his sudden rock sharp edges showing in his face and the way he holds himself. That Danny doesn't run, that he's still there, then. Even then.

When everything is so bare, angry, edged. Still wants him. Still works him over until Steve finds himself laughing and shoving Danny against things, burying himself in something completely other than the people who are alive and shouldn't be, for vastly different reasons.

[gonna_owe_me]

He just stares at her, the muscles of his jaw bunching, eyes flat and hard in a way she hasn't seen aimed at her in...

Ever. Maybe. They never fight, because there's never enough time, and the times they've argued have been few and far between. What's the point of arguing something when it's only going to be gone in a few days, anyway?

So she rolls her eyes at his reticence, adds in a slight tip of her chin upwards, like this should be a barked order instead of a soft question.

"It's not actually a trick question, Steve. Despite what you might think..."

Her eyes go to the hands he's got wrapped around his beer bottle, and on impulse, she reaches out to touch one, curving her fingers over the back of it, protectively. Hers, slim, small, fair; his hand half again as large, if not bigger, and dark from sun, but still familiar under her fingers. "I want to see you happy. I'm worried about you."

[thebesteverseen]

His lips end up pressed looking down at her fingers resting against his. Pale peach-pink, and nowhere near the soft, vague tan Danny has. It's the color of so much time spent in door, surrounded by computers. That color that stretches cool and smooth, solidly, all across her. Not Hawaiian, of Hawaii, in the slightest. So very much, just her, just Cath.

There's a rough breath that presses out of his lips, as he shook his head, shoulders loosening the way boulders break.

"Cath." Is heavy, if straight through a winded sound, too. "It's just --" He doesn't even have words. It's everything. Everything is. Everything it shouldn't be. Tripping up his face, and even more his chest, anytime he tries to pull it apart. To get anywhere past acknowledgement it's fleeting, and it will flee. Because everything does, and the deck is stacked entirely against it.

"It is what it is." He can't change it. He can't make it go away. He tried. He tried every conceivable thing for a year.
And now, now, Danny. Wasn't just this figment. Just this awkward, slapped, cement wall feeling of reading too much.

Danny just looked at him, brushed by his shoulder in the middle of a case, or bumped into him trying to get things in the office kitchen, and anything, everything, that happened once they weren't at work. Danny, with the taste of his lips and his skin. With the way his hair felt through Steve's fingers. The way his hands got everywhere even as he slept, and he sounded like an angry bear every time Steve wasn't quite enough leaving to swim.

The things he kept saying. The way it made Steve want to, willingly, walk off the damn cliff. Even if it killed him.