His brother had left him a bottle but no glass, the sound of the whiskey leveling to the booth table an offer of apologetic peace between them. And the look that Trager had married between them as he'd set it down was a sympathetic agreement that no glass was necessarily needed in situations such as these. He'd nodded appreciation into blue eyes and offered a half made smile that was meant to brook a silent treaty. Accepted in the way that Trager squeezed against his shoulder before stepping out the door.
And he'd considered the unopened bottle awhile, staring it down while his heart and head rioted their own bar fight brawl.
Trager assumed that the conversation had had an end.
That that's where things fell flattened out and prettily sewn up.
Unfortunately, he didn't have an end to this situation. Not one that brokered a peace with both rational thoughts and unintended feelings.
He hadn't meant any of it to come to this.
He hadn't meant to ever want to find her anywhere.
Head said he had no options left but to drink this mess into a numbing sleep and ignore the fact that it would wake him up once more in the morning. But then the nagging that was pinching his chest up was exactly what kept him from opening the bottle. The way she'd be vastly unavailable to him if he soused every thought he had of her until unconscious. His hand was working on its own as he grabbed the bottle forward, shifting to open it and stalling as he considered the label once again.
If he passed himself out on the warmly dank piss of cheap whiskey, he couldn't find her in the middle of the night. And that was probably his best bet at surviving.
But they were all fast coming upon the point where all bets were off, all gates closed.
And he wasn't willing to let up on the one last gamble at winning something that was possibly more than a blood match. He let the brawl inside him end when he loosed the bottle across the room, all shattered glass and sound and a choice that was trickling down the wall to the scent of home.
Her spine instantly framed up in trepidation. She searched over the cocked way he'd parked the bike at the bottom of the department's front steps, taking up the walkway and, by the set of his shoulders, not giving a damn that he had. Ally shook her head slowly, eyes rolling slightly as she stared down over him and the way the sodium lights sickened the usual two tone dark and pale of him. She lifted her bag higher on her shoulder, stroking her hair back off her face as she started down the steps toward him, catching the way the other officers that were letting off duty were angling to the sides.
"You want a citation, Telford?" she asked softly, realizing he still hadn't looked up from the way he was straddling the bike. "I left my ticket book in my office. If you're here to start shit with Duly then - "
"I want," his head still didn't lift but his jaw angled her way, "to be able to sleep tonight, Althea."
"Okay." She cocked a confused glance over him but didn't reach for the downward drop of his head, "Hey? Look at me."
"I shouldn't be here." He shook his head up and back at her, eyes so dark in the sallow lighting that he looked manic. Maybe he was a little manic. And an unstable Chibs Telford was a predicament she wasn't sure she wanted to venture too far into…
He was shaking his head at her in a scattered confusion. "I shouldn't."
"Hey," She dropped the bag and stepped into the side of the bike, drawn into the way his shoulders curved farther forward than usual, her thigh laying into the bent up angle of his knee as she reached against leather. "Hi. You're already here. Stop worrying about whether you should or shouldn't be."
His glance scattered back and forth to her sides, seemingly suddenly concerned with the fact that people were passing by them at random intervals. Most of her people were intentionally pretending that they didn't notice the hunk of metal parked at the bottom of the steps and doing a piss poor job of it. She ignored their supposedly surreptitious glances, leaning her head over his as she curled her fingers around his wrist from the bottom, letting her fingertips stroke up under the leather of his glove.
"What are you doing, Chibs?"
"Losing my mind." His whisper was finally veering back toward some semblance of normalcy but his voice was scraping up dry. "Jesus, Ally."
"What are you doing?" she asked again in a lowered whisper, sincerity and concern on her face.
"Picking you up." He breathed off a dry laughing rush of breath. "Crazy, yeah?"
"It's a really bad idea." She murmured her surprised smile closer to him, digging her nails into the heel of his palm as he closed leather covered fingers against hers. "And I love it."
"Thought y'might." His mouth lifted against hers in a quick and chaste kiss that he had even intended, his eyes dragging hers in a questioning. "It's a damned crazy notion and you've no compass for bad ideas, love."
"What happened?" she shook her head slowly, voice treading lightly into the way his eyes were roving over her lips.
"I'm tired. I just…" The words were an understated underscore to the disgusted exhaustion in his tone, his jaw angling before the rest of his head dipped into a back and forth battle of stuttered up confusion. "I just want rest."
The strong pulling of his accent was proof of his words and it tugged on something in her gut, making her swing closer.
"And?" she asked in softness.
She leaned back from the way he cocked her a wry glance and pressed up on a booted balance, her hand caging his hip as he leaned a leg off the bike and drew up taller, broader than she was. So suddenly sturdy and straight and sure in the way he was pressing over her, a clarity finally reaching his eyes that eased the tensed wiring of her shoulder blades. Her hand curled the hem of his cut, regardless of who could see the movement.
"And what, Telford?" she pulled taunting against it, palm viced on the leather ridged edging. "What else?"
"Lemme take you home." There was a brightness to his eyes a moment, the words sounding awfully almost familiar as he gifted a half smile over her. "Give you a ride?"
Ally snorted off the break of gutter humor, head turning away from the smirking he was giving her, knowing she was getting all the emotion he would loosen. He'd trapped back up on her, locking it down. She leaned into the feeling of his knuckles brushing against her stomach before he tugged on her belt, tucking her tighter forward to draw her attention back to his face.
"It's a bad idea." She told him softly as she met dark eyes, still seeing a slight bit of unbalance on him.
He flicked a judging wince over her face, "It's a one time offer, darlin'."
"Bullshit." She countered with a glance just as thinned as his.
"Y'sure?" he cocked over her, tone biting harshly. "I'm bending here, Althea. And it's killin' me."
Her flinched look was bred by both sadness and sympathy and he shook his head to keep it from engraving any deeper on her features, "But here I am."
"I see that." Ally caught against his fingers and tugged them from her, squeezing against the leather that layered his hand before stepping back to grab her bag. "My whole damn department can see that."
"The point, I suppose." His face was slackened blank, any possible emotions intentionally tampened down with the bite of his flinching jaw.
"Putting your money where your mouth is, VP?" she asked as she tossed the bag in his direction, smiling broadly into the way he grunted as he caught it into his chest.
A true grin delved his dimples into his scars, head cocked slightly, "Thought I already had been."
"Crass." She pointed over him, enjoying the boyish and mischievous laugh he allowed off his lips as he stowed her bag.
"You've ridden before?" He tossed it up along with his jaw as he pulled his helmet up from the bike and on.
The dryly sardonic glance she gave him brought a chuckle up his throat as he caught against the extra helmet he'd snagged from the garage and handed it over.
"Yeh, sure." He straddled the bike and lifted a gloved hand, catching into the way she reached for his fingers, his arm angling back as she slid behind him so that he could squeeze light against her leg. "That's what I thought, Lieutenant."
Her chest against his back was a flushing wealth of pressing warmth he hadn't felt laid up against him in awhile. Sure, the odd moment when he'd doubled out of necessity, or given one of the girls a ride. He hadn't been all that heavy into taking many of the girls out for a long while before she'd given him the eye, though. Too many rushed minutes and too many rough roads. Too many long days that leaned into longer nights wherein he just ended by wanting a blur of whiskey and smoke to welcome him into a mimicry of sleep. Her hands sloping around him wrapped better than the curling of smoke and her straightened spine laying the pressure of her breasts on him had a better heat than the whiskey.
"How fast can you really get this thing going, Scotty?"
"No goddamn compass for bad ideas." He shied back the repetition as her chin rubbed into his shoulder and her palms spanned against him, his hand rubbing the back of hers before he started the bike.
"That explains you." The rove of her voice on his ear had just enough presence to carry over the rumble and he let himself laugh as she leaned even tighter into him.