Sashimi - CHAPTER ONE

Three days and nearly 65 hours of continuous work had netted them nothing in their newest murder case. They'd long since blown past the magic 48-hour period of time during which most homicides were solved. Sure the wrap up usually took weeks, sometimes months, but usually homicides that were going to get solved - did so - in the first two days. It was why they worked so hard during those first 48 hours. Both Detectives were dead on their feet and their weariness made their idiosyncrasies, tempers and habits hard to hide. Tomorrow was their day off and they both needed one.

"Let's get take out," she offered as they were headed toward what promised to be yet another all-nighter on this case. She was convinced it was slowly sucking the fun out of both their lives. They were spent physically, emotionally and the synapses in their brains were firing slow enough Dani was pretty sure she could see them spark.

By the time they'd been on it for 72 hours, with no sign of progress, it was driving both of them to distraction. Neither of them had seen the inside of their respective homes in the past two days for longer than it took to shower and change their clothes. For the first time, since she'd laid eyes on him, Charlie Crews could actually be described as "scruffy looking" and it was not a look she liked on him.

She could tolerate Tidwell's abject refusal to abide by the dress code and his almost religious objection to a razor, but Crews didn't look right when muddled. He seemed more a distraction to her at this point than the case.

Not being home in three days meant not getting laid in three days and Dani's imagination roamed in ways that would make a sailor blush. She desperately wanted to fix Crews' tie or use it to drag him into the staircase and kiss the smirk off his face. She imagined Crews' rusty stubble chaffing the sensitive skin of her throat and thighs. Impure thoughts that she shook off the minute the visual appeared. Dani wasn't stupid – she knew the man was attractive. She just didn't realize he was attractive to her - until now. Or more aptly put, until now - she'd been able to bury that impulse, that attraction in strangers; people like Kevin Tidwell who regardless of the impropriety, who were safe - because she could never fall for them.

Her pale partner with his lean looks, blue eyes and those freckles could be her undoing and she knew it. And from time to time, she'd look up and find his Zen armor slipping and want burning through those icy blue eyes, coloring his features – want of her. The fact his desire reflected hers made it worse, for both of them.

Charlie Crews, unbeknownst to his partner was suffering a similar dilemma. Something about being this close, for this long made him incredibly attuned to his partner. Shower and fresh clothes or not, he could smell her, taste her – or maybe he just wanted to. The bead of sweat that clung to the back of her neck at her hairline became like the nectar of life. He imagined the salt of her sweat on his lips as he kissed her roughly like he knew she liked. The metallic tang of her blood under his tongue, as his lips bruised her mouth...

"Crews," she snapped, "did you hear me? I said did you wanna get take out?" Her irritation at him evident in both her tone and look. Ire tinged her tone and her face was twisted in a frown he wanted to erase with bliss and serenity. He couldn't make her learn it, but he was absolutely sure he could give it to her - for about 20 minutes.

"Yeah, sure," he said softening both his tone and his eyes, hoping to penetrate her distraction. "Reese," he questioned, "how about we actually take time away and get a meal?"

Dani hadn't considered this. She cocked her head to the side and examined the stack of records on her desk and the monitor full of crime scene photos that had thus far stymied them like errant travelers seeking El Dorado. Her gaze wandered to her partner with his Pacific blue eyes, blonde lashes and was overcome by her weakness for her fair-haired partner.

"You drive," she commanded as she broke contact and stared at the floor while she grabbed the coat she didn't need - to distract herself. Little Miss Understood waited for her taller counterpart to move but when he didn't, she cast a look his way.

Oh, don't do the look he thought, don't give me that coy little girl under the long dark lashes look, he thought and his heart skipped a beat when she did. The sigh was audible, that part he couldn't control, but he covered well. "You feeling okay? You never let me drive."

"You have to drive," she said simply, sounding tired. "Your idea, so you're the only one who knows where we're going," she offered as the walked together toward the elevator. She meant for him to choose. She was giving him both control and options. The air was suddenly crackling with possibilities and he remained quiet, but nodded his understanding.

Charlie, she'd learned, when tired got really quiet. Quiet Charlie she liked more than Regular Charlie with the false smile and animated 'talking but saying nothing' conversational mask he wore on other days. He seemed more real to her when he was too tired to pretend. Or perhaps, she dared think, it was just that he no longer felt the need to pretend with her. That prospect brought a small smile to her face.

"See feel better already," he offered mistaking her smile for joy at being out of the stifling office atmosphere.

Although, she reasoned - they were better in the field, in the open, without the constraints of its desks, computers and forms. They were both best with people, broken people – like themselves. It was what made them good police detectives; they could relate to people in crisis, at their most dire and often on the worst day of their lives – it was where they both felt comfortable. Raised in the crucible of chaos, slaves to the twin gods of prison and battery; or drugs and addiction – these were known quantities and familiar companions to them both. Not their choice, just the cards they were dealt, but ones they chose to keep rather than discard.