no one likes a hero

Who: Danny and Rachel
Where: One More Round
When: late

Rachel looked at her watch again, sighing a bit as another half hour ticked by her. She was meant to be meeting a friend at the Round that evening and they had yet to show up. They probably weren’t, Rachel figured, given that it had been an hour and it wasn’t like there was much going on that could hold someone up.

And this is why she didn’t date random men whom she met on the street.

It wasn’t a date date and she wasn’t particularly dressed up. It was the Round after all and she didn’t particular stand out in her navy skirt and matching blouse. She didn’t stand out like some beacon. She lacked much make-up besides her red lipstick and as she ran a hand through her hair and sipped her drink, she figured another twenty minutes. I’ll give him another twenty minutes.

Most women didn’t go to the Round, let alone on their own but the rowdy crowd didn’t bother her and she in fact found entertainment in the seedier clientele of the dive. Any warnings given she didn’t heed. She wasn’t one to do that.

Danny didn’t look around the room as he walked in. There was no need too. They only barely tolerated him, being a cop and showing up, but in the end he always paid well and helped out more than once in the event of a bar fight. Tonight, all he did was cross the room and settle himself in his usual booth, facing the door and wait until someone showed up to get him a beer. Hopefully it would be Elle, but he didn’t need another night of thinking about another blond that could have been that dead girl on the street from the day before. It had him panic stricken it was Rachel at first, but it wasn’t and he hated himself for thinking that, that she was so capable of getting herself killed. Mauled really.

Tugging at his tie he pulled it loser and un did the top button of his shirt. They were nothing on the case either. He’d read the autopsy report and it was nothing. Just frustration. Sighing he leaned back against the booth, closing his eyes for a moment.

Rachel didn’t say a word as the man she met the other night with whom she had a particularly interesting encounter with sat down across from her in the dimly lit booth. He didn’t even notice her, his eyes somewhere else and his mind even farther away. Putting her drink down she settled back against the worn wood and pinned him with an amused look. “Do you usually sit in occupied booths uninvited?” she asked.

Danny opened his eyes surprised, looking at her shocked then looking around. That was not her was it? Well it had to be. “Um. No. The booth isn’t usually occupied,” he said with a bit of a scowl. “What are you doing here?”

She chuckled and shook her head, blonde hair loose and straight around her shoulders and she shifted to look at him better. “You keep scowling like that it’s gonna stay on your face,” she warned, waving a finger at him. “I had a date. I’m giving him twenty more minutes before I call it a bust and I’m sorry, I didn’t realize your name was on this thing which brings up the question of what a cop is doing wandering into this place.” Cops did not go into the Round. Not many ‘respectable’ people did if they could help it.

“It’s already stuck this way,” Danny said, continuing to hold his scowl. It helped him ignore the voice in the back of his mind that was happy to see her, amused that she was there, lecturing him and well. “How long has he left you waiting already? And why are you dating someone who would bring you here?” She seemed above that. “It should have my name on it. As for why they let me in, I’ve helped out once or twice and mostly keep to myself. If I don’t try to arrest anyone, for the most part the let me drink.”

Another glance at her watch. “About an hour.” She smiled in amusement at his assurance that he never smiled. “We’re not really dating. It’s supposed to be a first date. I helped him out, he’s supposed to pay me back by buying me a few drinks and seeing where the night goes.” She held up her tall mug half filled, foam long gone. “What’s wrong with here? It has character and I happen to like character.”

"Gonna go out on a limb and assume he stood you up." Which was a moronic move on the man's part. How or why anyone would stand her up was beyond him. He was under the impression that men would actually pay just to talk to her. Clearing his throat slightly nodded at the bartender who started pouring him a drink for a waitress to bring over. "Where would a night like that normally go?" he asked while he wasn't looking at her, hating again that he was curious. "It doesn't have character," he corrected. "It has characters as in shady characters."

She sighed and nodded. “Probably, yeah.” She was amused that he wouldn’t look at her with that question. “Oh, it could go all sorts of places. Stay here and get kicked out at two am, go to the Boardwalk and he could win me a teddy bear. Or we go back to his place. It’s one of those ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ deals and I happen to like shady characters. They’re more interesting. People who aren’t so easy at first glance.” She liked layers and the Round was full of layers that wasn’t dirt and grime and dried blood. Danny had layers but, she suspected, he probably liked to think that he didn’t.

Right that eventually went back right to where he thought it was going. The man was an idiot for not showing up. "Well he missed out it seems. Why don't you go home?" he suggested. "And you shouldn't like the idea of shady characters. Shady characters are what get nice girls like you killed. No matter how capable you are of handling your own." His beer arrived and he took a long pull on it, watching her over the glass. "The people here aren't that complicated. They're a damn mess. That's all you need to know."

“Well he still has twenty minutes. He might make it. And what am I going to do at home? Sit and knit and gossip on the phone? No thanks. The night is young! It’s for the taking.” She took a gulp of her own beer and met his stare unflinchingly. He was quite adorable in his worry that he was trying to hide. “Messes tend to be complicated and layered,” she said mildly. “And you have an awfully concrete idea of what kind of girl I am, don’t you?”

“He doesn’t deserve the twenty minutes,” Danny said just as unflinching as she was. “I don’t have a concrete idea at all, but I think there’s plenty of types of girls you could be, and none of them I recommend. Cop remember?” It was frustrating that she was just so cavalier about things, that nothing seemed to be concern, there was no reason to be worried that poor girls with no names were just turning up dead on the streets.

She smiled at him this time, no hints of smirking. It was just another thing that she discovered about him just by studying his mannerisms and the way he talked to her. The whole white knight thing. “I think our last conversation ended with me informing you that you never asked me any questions, so you really can’t judge what kind of girl I am. You’re a pretty bad cop if you have ‘plenty of types’ that I could be and not maybe one or two. At least that’s what I take from the last cop I went out with.” Well, he hadn’t been a cop per say. More one that had been kicked off the force and was trying to find his way. He was operating a rather nice private eye business over in borders of the Sprawl now.

The smile was disarming and had Danny looking away, taking a long pull on his beer. “I didn’t have a reason for interrogating you, so I didn’t bother. And as for plenty of types, they all wind up the same way, dead, which is why I opted not to narrow it down too much.” He rubbed at his chin, end of day stubble there making him look slightly more rugged than he was.

“You keep doing that. Looking away. And asking questions isn’t interrogating. It’s being polite and getting to know someone. Making conversation.” She raised an eyebrow at him and leaned back, crossing her arms over her chest as she settled. He looked tired and drawn out. In desperate need of some rest and relaxation that wasn’t sitting in a bar drinking beer after beer. “And for the record? I have self control. No matter how cute you are, I’m not going to suddenly crawl across this table and have my way with you. So you can stop being afraid of me.” She didn’t see a point in not addressing the clear fact that while he was clearly curious about her, he did not want to be talking about her. Which just led to more assumptions and check box ticking about him.

“Is there a point in making conversation?” Danny asked. “Are you that interested?” Her final statement though, that had him looking back at her, steeling his nerves some and sitting up just the tiniest bit straighter. “And you’re certain that’s where my concerns were, you climbing over the table at me? It hadn’t even registered.” Though now it was that the idea was there and she’d called him cute. He wanted to hold her gaze, but the thoughts were swarming, something that rarely ever happened. He was married and while his marriage had issues he loved his wife. He’d stuck with her through the worst, there was no need to deviate from that. “I’m not afraid of you,” he added glancing at her slightly and gulping at his beer.

She watched him and the smile on her face and it took on an unamused look. It wasn’t that it was an ego blow, it was just that he was being rather rude and while she was used to dealing with down right horrible people? It didn’t mean she liked it. “Look, sweetie,” she said, her voice low and firm. “I was sitting here first. You just dropped in from outta nowhere and decided to stay so to me? That tells me you’re interested in conversation or my presence or whatever the hell it is you realize or don’t realize you want from me. You’re not looking at me for more than a blink of an eye so to me? In past experience? Means that you’re afraid. I’m just trying to be nice, Danny-boy. If you want to keep me company for the next... fifteen minutes? I suggest you do the same before I get one of my buddies to clock you or I do it myself ‘cause I’m not moving.”

“I’m interested in my beer,” Danny told her, hating that he was interested in her as well. “But no, I’m not afraid of you, I’m just trying to maintain a level of appropriateness. Or something. But if you’d rather, I can ask questions all you want. You can tell me just who you were meeting that would bring you here instead of somewhere nice. Or you can explain to me why it is you seem to like messes when the last I’m busy looking into messes for the reason why a blond girl just like you was dead in a gutter yesterday.” Not exactly friendly, but there was nothing about him that came off as sweet or friendly.

He was just so angry and it fascinated her. Angry tended to do that to her. Grab her interest and hold it tight and that’s what Danny was doing. It reminded her of someone she once knew, angry at the world and angry at himself and he just couldn’t figure out why. Danny was like that and she could see him splitting at the seams and her heart went out to him despite her annoyances. “Appropriate doesn’t mean not having any kind of conversation,” she said lightly and she went over his questions in her head. “His name is Brian. I met him here after he got into a bar fight. He had a drug problem, I helped him find help. He’s doing well or at least I thought he was until he decided that he wasn’t showing up.” She took a dainty sip of her beer and licked her lips as she considered the second question. “It’s not so much the mess itself that I like. I like helping people find their way but people who are messes tend to be more interesting. They provide exciting new adventures and opportunity to learn things that I might never have before.” She smirked at him over her glass. “They like to make conversation.”

He had his beer up, staring at her for a moment. “A drug addict,” he said, voice toneless. Perhaps he’d stood her up because he’d been arrested, but Danny kept that to himself. “If you like helping people find their way, there are better ways of doing it than meeting characters in shady bars after bar fights.”

“What, like church or something?” She knew that the cathedral tried to do a lot of public assistance. “No, not really my scene. They’d frown at me. No, I like my projects. I like meeting people who cross my path. I don’t go out seeking them. If you go out seeking then you only end up finding something expected. Never anything you might not have been looking for.” She tossed her hair back and drained the rest of her mug and gestured for another refill before looking at him calmly. Like him.

That she was ordering another drink had Danny thinking she was settling in for the long haul. “There’s other places. I know one of the girls here works down at a clinic. Mostly a decent place and they do good work.” It was better than her picking up strangers here. “What happens when you find the wrong project?”

“That would work if I was the volunteering type,” she pointed out and grinned broadly at her new mug being set down. She took a sip, getting foam on her upper lips and licked it away, not caring about manners at the moment. Her skin at this point had started to flush and her body relaxed as the alcohol set in. “What do you mean? Like if they turn into a stalker or something? Don’t know. Hasn’t really happened yet.” She ticked her eyes over at him and gave him a coquettish look. “I’m sure that if anything bad ever happened to me, you Detective, would be right on the case. Stalkers beware.”

He was trying to keep his eyes on her, to prove that he wasn’t afraid, but the way she licked her lips, the way that action happened, had him looking back down at the table top instead. “Stalker, killer, rapist. There’s plenty of evil in this city, and it does tend to target young women.” He glanced up at her again, gulping at his beer to do something with his hands. “I don’t want to be on your case. You don’t want me on your case. I work in homicide.”

“Like I don’t already know. I’ve been on my own for quite some time. Nothing’s gotten little old me yet. So I take it if I ever did get in trouble, I couldn’t call in a favor?” She raised an eyebrow and gave him a pout. He was downright friendly when he was talking. Sure it was in that gruff, annoyed way but it was kind of sexy with the stubble and the loosened tie.

“Depends on the favor,” Danny said. Parking tickets he’d ignore, but if someone was hassling her he couldn’t even lie to himself to say he wouldn’t step in and help out. Especially not if she pouted like that and looked at him expectantly. “Just because something hasn’t yet doesn’t mean something might. You’re what, twenty-two?”

“It’s not polite to ask a lady her age, but I appreciate it. It’s not like I do dangerous things on a daily basis or anything. It shouldn’t come up.” It wasn’t like she wandered around back alleys on a daily basis and she knew stranger danger. She meant it when she said she’d lasted this long and it was for a reason. “Besides, the other thing that happens when you help out messes is that they get attached and help out when you need it. I’m a complainer, what can I say?”

“Are you old enough to be considered the type of lady who’s age I can’t ask? My wife I wouldn’t ask but given the right light you barely look out of school,” Danny corrected.

She laughed, a throaty sound from all the drinking she’d been doing and shook her head. “My mother always said after eighteen is when you’re too old to be asked,” she said and winked at him. She was feeling more flirtatious this time around now that she could see how much he was nervous around her. It was just fun. “I’m legal.”

Danny gave her a look and drained his beer. “That wasn’t what I was asking and you know it.” It was good to know, especially since she had moments where she looked younger than her mid twenties.

She rolled her eyes and shrugged in concession. “Twenty-three then, Mister Scowly.”

“Don’t call me names,” Danny said waving over another beer for himself. “And alright, twenty-three, I was off by a year, but you’re still young, still susceptible to trouble and especially looking like that.” He nodded towards her, shaking his head a little afterward. She was too young for him as well.

“Anyone is susceptible to trouble,” she pointed out knowledgeably. “You know better than I do that it really doesn’t matter, does it. Who you are and such. But I’m not that young and I’m not naive and I’m not taken in by lines. You really should try give me a little credit, you know. And to take a joke.”

“I thought we’d already established that I wasn’t a funny guy,” Danny said only letting his eyes leave hers as his beer got there.”And no, it doesn’t matter but that doesn’t mean it’s okay to go courting dangerous types like it’s some sort of a game. Shouldn’t you be looking for some nice guy, some banker or lawyer who you can settle down with?”

“That’s working on the assumption that I want to settle down,” she pointed out. “That’s if I’m like any other girl who wants the three children and a husband whom I never see on a block full of other women in the exact same predicament. Sitting at home being a bored housewife gossiping about the lady across the street.” Rachel shook her head, serious about something for once. “I want to see things and do things and live. How else am I supposed to appreciate all my good fortune? I’m never bored, rarely too unhappy. Besides, men are rarely faithful, at least in my experience. Kind of ruins the whole marriage and kids picture if you ask me.” Then again she probably hadn’t met that person and maybe he was out there but for now, Rachel wasn’t counting on it.

“Marriage isn’t that awful,” he told her, though he didn’t have kids and sometimes he wondered if Janey was as miserable as she described. “And not all men a like that. Some are faithful.” Himself included though he knew the truth just as well as she did. He’d seen more than one cop cover for himself with the job while stepping out on his wife.

“Seems like to me. Why would men step out on their wives if they didn’t have anything missing?” she asked. It was a question that she’d asked her mother once, when she was old enough to figure out what was going on. “And you know what’s missing from most marriages I see? Life. Just because a guy steps out on his wife doesn’t make him a bad guy, I’m not saying that. Just stating a fact that most men, again this is in my experience, do.” The whole mistress thing was normal to her and she figured it was just a way of life for most people but maybe it wasn’t. Maybe there were people out there that didn’t.

“I wouldn’t know since I don’t,” Danny said shaking his head. “We aren’t all creeps in that regard.” Though he guessed most were. It had him wondering what this “experience” was that she talked about so expertly. “You can’t even explain this ‘life’ of yours anyway.”

“Stepping out on your wife doesn’t make you a creep. It just makes the whole marriage thing a sham. Besides, life is... life! It’s living! It’s feeling your heart pound, kissing someone in the rain, getting chased out of a movie theater, doing something crazy!” Rachel was very adamant about that, perhaps more so given her slightly inebriated state. “It’s doing something different instead of the same old thing every day. It’s being able to do something that doesn’t make you want to blow your brains out from repetition.” She spread her hands out to illustrate... something. “Life.”

“Marriage isn’t a sham!” Danny said shaking his head. “Saying that is a nice way of saying you can’t commit to something.” Her list of things about living it was all ridiculous. Kids things that Danny had been too old for when he was eighteen. “Stability and consistency, not repetition.”

“No, it’s saying I don’t want to settle down into the life of some bored housewife. I want to do things. If I’m married, I can’t do them, now can I?” she said, sounding a bit annoyed. “Like, I can’t just get up one day and buy a train ticket to New York City or Chicago or wherever my heart desires because I wake up in the morning and feel like it. Stability and consistency doesn’t have to be only applicable to that. But to me, married life sounds boring and repetitious.”

He found it interesting that she was annoyed, that the idea of marriage and settling down would upset her so. “So what do you do now? When you’re not running off to New York and Chicago on a whim?” Danny doubted it was anything that required being an adult.

Rachel gave him a narrow-eyed look over her beer, not entirely amused by him seemingly patronizing her. “I’m a showgirl at the Kitten,” she said seriously, wondering if he’d believe her.

Danny gave her a look, studying her for a moment. “Night off?” he asked instead, sitting back a little. Maybe she wasn’t very good. She had the figure for it, but perhaps she didn’t quite fit the bill.

"I don't know if I should feel insulted or not," she laughed and shook her head. "I'm not a dancer. I have self respect. I'm an escort at Eris Stocksrd's agency. Men pay me to be their date at nice functions. Not a bad gig." she didn't think so anyway.

Danny thought about that for a moment, the name sounding familiar but for different reasons. “Pay to be their date,” he repeated, thinking about that. “Just a date?” Since other things weren’t exactly legal...

Rachel’s look turned icy and she glared at him. “Yes, just their date. I’m not a whore. I’ve been desperate at times but never that desperate, thanks.”

That actually got a smile out of Danny, which it probably shouldn’t have but he couldn’t help it. “I was merely checking. Cop and all,” he pointed out before taking another pull on his beer. “Seems like an interesting line of work to get in.”

She eyed him despite the smile on his face and it took her aback. She didn’t actually think he’d smile, let alone at her being annoyed with him. “The agency pays for all my pretty clothes and I get to go to fancy dinner parties and galas and all sorts of fun things.” The corner of her mouth tugged up and it was finally her turn to look away from him, drumming her fingers on the table. “My mom was a mistress to a lot of wealthy men growing up. I didn’t want to do that. This seemed like something good that I could do.” Being a mistress started out with prostituting herself. Rachel enjoyed sex and things that went along with it, but she didn’t want to do that.

He kept his face passive, putting on the cop face even if he wanted to reach across the table and shake her. “Sounds like a good gig,” he said, not thinking that really. It sounded like she was some sort of kept woman which didn’t make sense to him at all. Or it made sense, but it seemed a little ridiculous. And like it would do nothing but put her in trouble, over and over again.

The little smile however remained on her face as she met his passive look and she shrugged a shoulder and sipped her beer, feeling warmth spread across her body. “Liar.” She glanced away at the group of men sitting at a table nearby who were immersed in a discussion they were having to even notice her. “You think I should be married or dating some nice boy whose up and up at some law firm or in secretary school. You don’t have have a very nice opinion of me, do you?” Rachel gave him a look. “I should be offended. Then again, I think a lot of things you’ve said to me tonight should have offended me.”

“I don’t have a poor opinion of you. I just don’t understand you. I think you’re making up excuses for what you want because you’re determined not to want what people think you should want.” Danny shrugged and took another drink of his beer. “I think you shouldn’t discount what else is out there just because it might seem boring. Not everyone would do it if it was boring.”

“I just don’t see why everyone wants it when there is so much more out there than growing up, getting married, and having babies. I have no interest in that. Mark my words we’ll get to a point in time where hardly anyone will get married because it’s just so much easier not to. This way you’re not tied down to someone when you get sick of them. Someone is perfectly capable of living a perfectly decent life without doing the traditional thing. I don’t understand why that’s so hard to understand.” Reaching out she took his left hand and examined his wedding ring. Her hands were soft and warm from her drinking and she turned the band curiously. “I really don’t think you’re much of an authority, considering I’m pretty sure you’ve been in a terrible holding pattern for what? The past ten years?”

“I doubt marriage will become obsolete,” Danny said shaking his head. He had another answer, but then she had his hand, his ring and he felt his back go rigid like she might hurt him when that was ridiculous. “It’s not terrible. Not like you’re thinking.”

He didn’t move away and Rachel found that interesting so she kept examining his band. Sure, he was tense, but he wasn’t moving away. She wondered if she should ask him what she was thinking. If then what was so bad about his marriage that had him in a bar after work instead of at home at his wife. “So why are you here with me?” she asked him softly, looking at him across the table, shadows playing across her face from the opening door. She looked older and younger at the same time, a lock of hair falling across her cheek, ruby red lips moving from a half smirk to thoughtful.

Danny watched her for only a moment before he pulled his hand away from her grip, wrapping it around the glass of his beer instead. “You were in my booth,” he said.

Unbothered by him pulling away. Rachel pulled back herself. “Your name isn’t on it,” she reminded him. “And you could’ve sat somewhere else.”

“I’m a creature of boring repetition,” Danny told her, looking down at his beer before polishing it off with an impressive gulp. “Now I’m invested in waiting for you to get in a cab and go home.”

Rachel gave him a narrowed eye look. She was clearly unamused by his need to shoo her out of every place she frequented. “I was here first, I still have time to wait. I’m an adult, thank you very much. I can be where I please.” It really was annoying, the way he seemed to think she was some little girl that didn’t belong in bars. A little girl who should be tucked up home in bed.

“Of course you can, but you’re also a target for everything awful out there. Can you blame me for rathering you’d be somewhere with less shady clientele, not meeting with drug addicts?” Danny asked, not sounding gentle about it. Not like he could have done gentle if he wanted to anyway.

She rolled her eyes and took a healthy swig of her own beer, still having most of it left. “If that’s your criteria then nowhere in this city is a safe place. Like I’ve said: I can more than take care of myself if it comes down to it and I haven’t had any trouble so far. I know you’re hero boy and all that, coming to a lady’s rescue and it’s kind of hot... when the occasion calls for it. Right now you’re just sounding like a total ass.”

“Just because you haven’t run into trouble yet doesn’t mean you won’t,” Danny said. “Doesn’t mean that one day you could be my case, just like the other dead blonde girl that got found in a gutter mutilated.” And he’d thought it was her. For a good long moment he’d almost been sick thinking the girl was her.

Rachel watched him for awhile after he said that, contemplating the meaning behind it. He could’ve said mutilated girl. Dead girl. The blonde was descriptive and given the lecturing quality he was taking on, she was drawing her own conclusions. “You thought that was me, didn’t you?” she asked. Perhaps it was arrogant that her flirtation didn’t go unforgotten with mister Unhappy in his marriage and she’d seen the way he stared at her after she gave him that handkerchief. She didn’t think he’d answer her. Wasn’t even counting on it. She just wanted to point it out.

Yes. The word was there on the tip of his tongue, but instead of saying something he just took a sip of his beer, enough to finish it off and leave him with an empty glass. Telling her was telling too much, admitting to her being on his mind enough that he went to her and not to Elle or any other number of blond women he knew.

The fact that he didn’t say anything was telling enough to her and Rachel looked at her watch again. At this point is was ridiculous to even think that he was going to show up. “I tend to do that to people,” she said before grabbing her purse from the bench beside her. “Are you going to flip out if I leave by myself?”

He guessed she meant get stuck in their heads and never go away but Danny didn’t comment. “Are you planning on walking home?” he asked tone sounding annoyed even if he wasn’t.

“Yes. It’s a nice night.” She raised an eyebrow at him and she wasn’t trying to goad him or bait him. To be honest, she hadn’t even planned on going home by herself or even paying her own cab fare. “I don’t live far.”

Danny gave her a look. “It’s always ‘not too far’ and then you don’t make it home,” he grumbled getting up and dropping cash on the table. “Fine, walk,” he said waving her towards the door.

Shaking her head in annoyance, she shoved her mostly full glass of beer across the table at him before getting up. “Enjoy,” she said with a saccharine smile before leaving. He was insufferable with a branch up his ass and a stupid gray cloud over his head that wouldn't stop raining. Rachel was annoyed alright, annoyed with him, being stood up. Annoyed by the fact that despite the stick up the ass he was broken and she had a desperate urge to fix something about him.