"What happens next?" Dempsey loops his arm around her shoulder. He thinks he can get away with that now; she's not carrying a weapon.
Harry rang him up and suggested a walk. Several weeks ago, the term 'going for a walk' meant a menacing stride down the meaner streets of London with a few arrests. Today, he has left his gun in the safe and he is dressed in a thick coat and smart boots like a guy on a weekend afternoon walk with his woman.
She is nestled into his side, dressed in a long wool coat and mittens. "Today or in the next few weeks? I assume you mean us?"
"Nothing else on my mind," he pauses. "I mean, both I guess."
"I suppose I should know your intentions and don't say dishonourable, I know you." Harry prods his chest and he's not sure if that's a compliment.
"So I'm clear, do you want to have a romantic relationship with me?" He goes with honesty, it's what she asked. "That's what I'm aiming for here, in case of any doubt."
She looks up, her cheek brushing his shoulder, "Yes, I do."
He can't hold back a wide grin, "That being the case, huh… does that mean a sexual relationship, I mean not right now, at some point in the future, y'know."
Harry looks at him like he's grown two heads. "Do you think I'm a nun? Worse, I don't have sex with romantic partners?"
Thank God, though he can't stand the thought of her ever having had sex with another man. "After all that bullshit with Richard, I'm just asking…"
"Yes, Dempsey, I would want to have sex with you," Harry clears her throat and blushes. "I cannot believe you asked me that."
He wonders if he's looking like a character on a cartoon with their heart throbbing, red and dangerous, outside their chest. He acts as cool as he can. "That's..huh..good to know. Yeah. Hmmm..."
"I assume you do with me?" Harry bumps into the side of his body and small earthquakes happen in his soul.
Oh, she's good. His body hums with anticipation and he bounces on the balls of his feet. "I am..yeah"
"Of course you do, Dempsey; the answer is written all over your face," she looks smug.
"You wanna make out in the park?" Dempsey looks at her with sly ambition.
"I have no idea what you did in Central Park, but it's London and it's bloody freezing." Harry admonishes him, her voice stern but fond.
"Fine," he grunts steering them down a pathway. "My consultation prize is hot chocolate."
DMDMDM
He fails not to look as Harry licks the cream from her chocolate off her top lip. "There's a walk this way."
It's small and quiet park, with cherry trees trying to come into blossom, beyond are views of London.
"I don't think we should give anyone upstairs any more ammunition," she says, threading her arm through his.
"Business as usual," Dempsey concurs.
"There aren't any rules about male and female partners but that's because there aren't any. Well, there was me and Tom which wasn't the same," Harry says, "They could create some."
He likes that she checked. "Harry, if you're suggesting we sneak about, that's sexy."
"Sexy is staying employed," she retorts and licks her finger, with a knowing smile.
"I can think of other things."
"I'm sure you can."
"I can show you sometime," Dempsey suggests.
"And you think I won't show you first?" Harry drops her cup into the bin with his. "I think you should kiss me now."
She will kill him, Dempsey concedes as he steps into her space. He doesn't place great value on his peacemaking skills but he's a good kisser. Briefly he wishes he could control time and slow down what is about to happen.
Her eyes close and there's nothing else left but her mouth; so cool and sweet. He thinks he could drown here, pulled by the tide of her; his hold on her body keeping him vertical.
"That," Harry says in a daze, "that's a spark."
He's lost. There isn't a cocky response. Just one, but he's vowed to be patient.
"Come here, we need to do more of this," she says.
DMDMDM
Dempsey wakes the next morning with his face crammed into the pillows of his bed. He wonders if he ought to buy a new one with a decent mattress and nice bedding. Start afresh.
His neck has a crick where he fell face down and clearly hasn't moved for a while. It is forgotten as he thinks of yesterday and the pleasure of being loved. He's no idea what happens next, but he's willing to go with it.
Shit, he's late.
"Morning Harry."
He arrives just before her, freshly showered and decently dressed; looking up from the notes he made before he'd kissed her. That guy, what did he know?
"Morning Dempsey," she replies placing her bag on her desk and taking out a few lunch items.
"I had a good time last night," he says quietly even though it's just them for the moment.
Harry nods, paying attention to her bag.
"You okay?" Dempsey feels a frost settling on his body. He tries not to second guess her with his worries that seem to multiple by the millisecond.
"I'm not having second thoughts," she replies quietly.
"That don't make me feel any better." He chews on a pencil, wondering he deals with the butterflies that have moved into his stomach.
"It's not meant to, but it's the truth," Harry puts an apple on his desk and squeezes his hand.
They are alright, it tells him; a loaded paragraph of unsaid words in one gesture as ever. He offers her a tentative smile that she returns. It's enough, for now.
They go through his notes on the case that's currently preoccupying them. A series of attacks that seem to be following the pattern of a much older case that predates their time. Chas fills in the background detail and ambles away in search of coffee.
"I think we should check it out," Dempsey suggests. "Whaddya think?"
Harry frowns, "Not really, but if I say no, you'll take Fry and I'll have to search for you in a warehouse near Liverpool Street and save you like Lassie."
"There's a dirty joke in there." He picks up his apple with a grin.
"And this is not the time to find it," Harry pull on her jacket, fishing her car keys from the pocket.
"Lemme know when, and I'll clear my diary," He follows her out the door.
Dempsey hums a tune as he drives. Harry is reading the file and there's something about the domesticity of taking the wheel of her vehicle. It feels intimate. He's kissed her a lot too.
"Nothing gets you going like a murder," Harry comments. "What are you hoping to find?"
"No idea. This city ain't so familiar to me, so maybe I'll find something different," he shrugs. "It can't hurt to look."
"I didn't mean to rattle you this morning," Harry tells him as if pointing out a road turning which she does next. "It happened. Last night. I was there too."
"I just wanted to make sure you were okay," he indicates, turns the car down an alleyway and pulls up.
Harry sighs and he braces himself for a painful rejection that he was fearing. This is why love hurts.
"I told you yesterday that I have had months of hiding how I felt about you. Shortly after you said you told me you loved me in a letter. This morning you looked like you always do, but I felt different. It was like two people in one place. Dempsey my partner, and Dempsey my lover." Harry says quietly over the tick of the indicator.
Lover. He gets a buzz. "Am I your lover, Harry?"
"You are on the way to being so, yes." She's pink-cheeked, but matter of fact.
"I guess that makes you my lover too?" Dempsey muses. "It does feel different."
"Not bad different, we need more practice."
"A lotta practice," he grins.
Harry shakes her head with a smile. "Drive, Cassnova, drive."
DMDMDM
Five hours later, two warehouses and a possible suspect identified, they are parking in SI10. A cricket ball, somehow important to Dempsey's theory sits in the cupholder. He's trying to explain why.
"Dempsey, my feet are sore and I'm tired. I don't care," Harry yawns. "I've spent all day in places I didn't want to be and all I have to show is.. well…balls. A ball."
He grins, "What else do you want?"
"Take me out on a date," she stretches and gathers her things. "We never do anything without a body in the road."
"That narrows it down. What do you want to do?" Dempsey jokes.
"Let me know before hand what you've got," Harry eyes him with a coy smile. "So I know what to wear."
She will kill him. "It's a date then."