Who: Max and Dylan What: Dinner, Drinking, Kissing (2/3) Where: Canaletto → Max's place When: Just before hopping the Mexico flight Warnings/Rating: Nope
He nodded along with her speculation on his methods for retrieving highly guarded information, footsie flirting was a serious skill to employ in the field. It wasn't to be taken lightly. His smile slipped back into the ghost cover of something a little more serious, and his dark eyes were steady as they mutually sampled the boozed up wine. "I'd tell you all about it, but then I'd have to kill you," he swore gravely. The sangria was berry sweet on the tongue, and armed with a warmth that lingered long after he'd swallowed it down. The brandy was an afterthought in the glass, but it was the one thing that stayed behind to sear in memory.
When she mentioned that her strategy for footsie usually involved going a whole lot higher than the foot, Dylan tilted his head with a brief, cursory glance beneath the table where her bare toes scaled all of the way to his knee before thankfully(or not, he was suddenly confused about that) vanishing back to her side of the table. An eyebrow twitched a little higher, and he glanced back at Max with a mixed expression that was mostly amused. He could have sworn she'd been nervous a few minutes ago when he'd first seen her. To him, it seemed that her confidence was undeniably breezy by now, and he wondered if it had to do with the flowers or the sangria. Probably a little of both, but he wasn't complaining. Dylan took another sip before her sudden question had him straightening.
"If you think its illegal, I'm positive you're abusing authority by asking me.. but I don't think you're asking me as my boss." He ran his fingers over the edge of the tablecloth, trying to imagine what it could have possibly been that she wanted him to hack into. Dylan somehow doubted that she was asking him to break into a file cabinet in the dead of night with a tiny flashlight in his teeth, that was somewhat more up her alley. He wasn't sure if it had cost her something to bring this up, and if she was doing it just because date-talk made her nervous.. but either way, he was already nodding in agreement to help her. "Tell me."
The gravity of his statement left her grinning. "You'd try to kill me," she teased back. This was easy, this she could do, sitting there and bantering with him. Bantering was like a blanket, warm and protective. Safe, physical interest and no emotions or declarations in it. Bantering was her bread and butter, and it made her feel as confident as the firearm strapped to her thigh did. The flowers, at her elbow now, weren't staring at her and making her feel as unsteady. And the brandy, heavy in the sweet wine and three glasses in, helped. She didn't find interest in that cursory look of his beneath the table, but she had the advantage of no longer expecting McKendrick to act like other men. The eyebrow twitch made her smile, and she wouldn't have found comfort in that a few months earlier. It would have been all rejection at his lack of reaction to her foot against the inside of his knee. But, now, the mostly amused expression didn't feel like he was laughing at her. And so, without even thinking, she gave him a soft, warm smile in return; the smile wasn't one in her normal bantering repertoire.
"I'm not asking as your boss, or as your colleague," she agreed. She didn't know what she was asking as, but it wasn't either of those things. Even she had to admit that friend seemed inadequate for what she felt, but she wouldn't make that same call for McKendrick, so she left it at that. She watched his fingers on the tablecloth, brandy and pre-gaming making the movement much more interesting than it would normally be, and then she looked back up him. She leaned closer across the table, and her voice lowered, and when her foot came to rest against the inside of his, it wasn't because she was trying to flirt with him. "I need to know where the General- my father- was twenty nine years ago, during a three month window. I already checked our records, bills, anything that might have given me something, but there's nothing there. All paper records have been transferred to digital database, but he was with the Army then, Sergeant with two stars, and I can't get in there, not without being noticed. The last two people who went poking around in this ended up targets."
She cleared her throat when the waiter came, plates in hand, and she sat back, hands off the tablecloth and foot no longer making contact with his.
Twenty-nine years was a long time, long enough that Max had to know the information she was looking for might not have been there. Paper was still the primary carrier for important documents, and those kinds of things tended to get shredded when questions got raised, especially in their line of work. He didn't know what she was looking for, but he knew that Max's father was a man of secrets. Men with power always were. It had to have been related to his military career, which didn't deter Dylan, but he did have a slight frown that overshadowed the unstoppable intrigue shining like celebratory sparklers in his eyes. Hearing the underlying danger that came with such an intricate search was a flawless approach for Max, really. All Dylan had to know was that somebody else had failed, and it was as functional a lure as ambrosia to fallen deities. And two people had failed? And they'd ended up targets. What should have surely been a warning, had Dylan half slumping against the table's edge as if he'd just heard the meaning of life itself. How could he say no?
He blinked up when Max started peeling back in nonchalance as their waiter approached, as if they were two schoolchildren just caught cheating on a pop quiz. Dylan found the move to be inexplicably attractive. He wondered if it was momentarily unfeasible to her that they could simply be leaning in close for whispers on date-related things, but he supposed it was only polite to sit back so the waiter could distribute plates on the table while explaining the finer nuances of of cold pressed olive oil and preserved lemons that permeated one of the dishes, although Dylan wasn't entirely sure which because he still had the attention span of a broken cuckoo clock, especially when hungry.
He further distracted himself with a long drink from his glass of brandied wine. The waiter inquired about second pitcher of sangria, and Dylan nodded, setting aside his glass when the man turned and vanished. He tucked an elbow against the table's edge and leaned closer to ask, "Do I get to know why you want me to find this?" There was nothing in Dylan's voice that signaled the question was related to if he could find it, because he was going to.
Max didn't recognize the calamari as anything but fried, which made her feel immediately at home. The antipasto? Not so much, but cold cuts weren't terrifying, and another too-tall glass of the sweet red helped the unrecognizable roasted peppers on the plate stop feeling so foreign. She plucked up a piece of calamari, and she tucked it between her lips as she watched his face. She had never been particularly good at surveillance that she had to interpret herself, but she was curious enough to try it in order to see what he thought about her request. That this was personal was undoubtable, especially given the way she leaned forward again as soon as the waiter cleared the table, promising ten more minutes on their entrees.
She was testing out a piece of prosciutto when the waiter was far enough away for her to feel safe, and she'd decided his expression didn't indicate that he was about to turn her in for suggesting he hack into Army records and poke all over the place for something, anything to link her father to a geographic location almost thirty years earlier. She grinned when he posed his question, because there wasn't an if anywhere in sight, and she knew he was going to help. And, god help her, she trusted him to pull it off, and she trusted him with the information. He hadn't been off base when he'd pointed out that she'd called him after the incident with Kellan - not Daniels, not Corvus, not Brandon - him.
She didn't immediately mention the fact that she'd be the one who was assigned to dealing with him if he got caught. She'd get there. "He sent me after two people who pulled records, CPS and a private adoption agency, from that many years back. They were dirty, but not dirty enough for him to care. There was no threat to national security. It was a case for the FBI, not for us, so why did he get me special clearance for two clean ups?" she asked, and it bothered her. There was more to it now, and she sighed and looked at him, trying to decide just how far she trusted him. "I pulled phone records for the CPS worker, and they mentioned the General's name, which got me thinking." She took another long sip of the red wine, and she turned a piece of calamari over between her fingers. "I found a woman who gave up her son for adoption around that time, but I don't have any connects. I need to know if my father was there, or if I'm on the wrong track."
Dylan picked his way through the antipasto in a piece by piece experimentation, unravelling coils of provolone and spearing cured olives in every color to try and discern what kind of difference was held between purple-black and weird-green. It was good, but he was more focused on what Max was telling him. Breaking through government safeguards was just a little more interesting than fried squid tentacles, although he did like that Max seemed pleased by the stuff. In Dylan's experience, people with a taste for beer and chicken rings were rather secure in what they liked and what they didn't like, rarely venturing out of that safe zone. Calamari was one of those foods that seemed a whole lot more normal than it was, by American taste palettes. Dylan, meanwhile, would eat just about anything. Daniel could have sent them to a restaurant that served bean sprout tacos and fermented cabbage and Dylan probably still would have stuffed his face.
"Sounds to me like you at least have a hunch that he was there.." Max wasn't the type to waste him time with digging around in files that could get him permanently fired unless she had a good reason. He watched her a moment, only beginning to see why the secrecy was bothering her. "What do you think went on?" Max was a perfect agent except for all of the ways that she didn't go by the book, but Dylan wasn't naive, he knew even that had its merits. She was good at putting the pieces together, and there were only so many reasons that a man got involved with hidden adoption records.
It was a good thing Max didn't know what the little fried circles were, and proscuitto was just ham, and the wine had warned her through enough to make her forget about the marigolds at her elbow. Or, rather, to forget to worry about what they stood for. She stole an speared olive from between his fingers, because olives reminded her of martinis, all long tan arm and the gold necklace she wore tinkling against her wine glass when she leaned. She'd had martinis aplenty during Brandon's society dinners, back when she was trying to play a part that she wasn't suited for. But even Brandon wasn't a concern just then, when her mind was pleasantly swimming and making it easier to talk without worrying about giving too much of herself away in the sentences.
She reached into her clutch, and she pulled out her phone. A few slides of her fingertips against the screen, and she handed it over to him. The picture of Lin Alesi was standard, high-school yearbook issue, but the resemblance was uncanny. "I found his mother. Doing the math, she would have been a very young teenager at the time. Young enough that there was no chance of the General not knowing, or thinking she was above the age of consent." She danced around it enough to make it clear that young meant young, and she sat back in her chair, sobered by the conversation. She'd had a week to deal with this, and it didn't make it any easier. "The General, his career is the most important thing in the world to him. If this got out-" She didn't finish her sentence. Her father was in his sixties now, but he was still a presence, and she knew he'd swallow his gun before dealing with the consequences if her hunch was true. "I want to be sure, before I even worry about what to do with the information," she added, willing him to understand.
Dylan took the phone from her discreetly, all of their prior joking and flirting lost on him for a moment as his brain began to whir. Or, at least, it tried to whir while simultaneously navigating the three brandy-heavy glasses of sangria he'd lost track of and mindlessly gulped down somewhere between footsie and calamari. With his tongue tucked between his teeth, Dylan examined the photograph. There was that familiar, codebreaking and puzzle-driven spike in his blood pressure that made him want to know things for the sole sake of knowing them. Part of him was amused, thinking that Max had a hell of a talent for springing things on him when he least expected it. Mexico was just around the corner.
"Do you want me to look into this tonight?" It was a sincere question because although they had some pretty big things to worry about come Mexico, he also knew that Max was not entirely convinced they were going to make it back. Settling all of this business before she left might have been what she'd had in mind, although even that option was limited. Even if Dylan pulled all of the files, and even if some of the facts were there, it might not be completely cut and dry or flawlessly put together. Family secrets had a distinct tendency to be infinitely more complicated than any war games.
Dylan sent the photo to his own phone, and from there it forwarded to a couple of hard drives back in his hotel room. He handed the phone back to her just as the waiter was bringing more food. Dylan sat back, getting a refill of mineral water before the man turned to leave. And then he had to ask, because this was one thing he didn't understand. "What would you do with the information?" He didn't imagine she'd set out to do anything that might jeopardize her father's sterling career legacy. She was too much of a good little soldier for that. Certainly not for some kid she didn't even know.. but maybe he was wrong. Did she just want to know? Really know? Then keep it buried like so many other secrets? It wasn't healthy, but he wasn't sure what was.
She watched him as he looked at the photograph, and she smiled a little at that familiar way that he tucked his tongue between his teeth while he was thinking. She was midway through a fresh glass of sangria when he asked his question, and she shook her head immediately. "No, not tonight." There was a smirk there, just for a second, before she continued. "After Mexico. I'm not doing anything about it until we're home." If, but there wasn't any point in actually clarifying that, not when he knew how abysmal their success rating was for this particular job.
She tucked the phone into her purse as the waiter set out the entree, and she took a forkful of fish, a sound of pleasure at the taste. She might have been a ribs and wings kind of woman, but life with Brandon had taught her to appreciate good food in a way she never had before. And the fish? Was fantastic. "That's really good," she said fingers to her lips and a moment of not thinking about Mexico or possible siblings.
She wasn't actually expecting his question about what she intended to do with the information, and she looked up at him, fork halfway to her lips. "I don't know," she admitted. "I don't want it to get back to my mother or to the General. If he knows that the secret's out, he might try to clean it up more than he already has. I don't want an assignment to take care of this kid, and I don't want an assignment to take care of you." She didn't put it beyond her father, and the last thing she wanted to do was choose between McKendrick and a direct order from the man she'd spent her entire life trying (and failing) to be good enough for. "I can't tell Ella. I don't trust her to keep a secret, and I don't think I trust this kid, either. He talks a lot, about everything." Which left her precisely where he thought she was going to be; keeping the secret for the rest of her life. But at least she'd know.
She finished the bite of her fish, and she washed it down with the rest of the sangria in her glass, and her gaze was starting to get comfortably unfocused now. She leaned forward, against the table, arms crossed on the white and no concern for the amount of skin the top of her dress was showing. "Has a woman ever gotten you as excited as a mystery, McKendrick?"
"Is that a real question?" Dylan had to laugh because in that moment he was forced to wonder just what Max saw when she looked at him. He certainly didn't feel as much like a robotic workaholic puzzle junkie as he was likely perceived. Perhaps he was a bit unconventional in that when he was working, his thoughts were focused on just that, work. He'd certainly crossed paths with plenty of agents that made it a mystery as to just how they'd secured their job in the first place. Guys in Secret Service detail picking up hookers for the hotel and detectives drinking on the job. Dylan never dated while there was an ongoing case(which was more often than not), and in fact, he rarely left whatever housing he was positioned in unless it was to set up some surveillance for said case... but that didn't mean he had complete blinders on, right?
He took a long swig from his glass, knocking back what remained of the sangria within.
"... I've dated before." Because he wasn't entirely sure what she was asking him, and maybe that made Dylan kind of an idiot.. but there was a reason he'd never gotten married or even serious. There was a saying built around men like him, and a deep part of him knew it, married to the job. It would always come first, and Dylan was pretty sure that it must have been the same for Max before she'd had Amanda. Most of Dylan's dating had transpired during college and cop years, and while he was still appreciative of women, his time with the bureau was a little too hectic to ever bother with trying to pursue something serious. Although if he was being completely honest with himself, he'd never pursued anything serious prior to the bureau either. He couldn't really say when the thought had come to him, but by now it was so conditioned and ingrained that it kind of felt like the only thing that made sense; Relationships were for retirement.
He consciously stabbed his fork into the side of the piece, pulling off a bite and testing it out in order to try and escape the sudden level of self consciousness he felt when Max stared at him like that, like she was beginning to figure him out. No hacker really liked being figured out, especially when they hadn't quite figured out themselves.
"I know I'm buzzed, McKendrick, but I'm not drunk enough to ask fake questions," she told him. Her voice was warmer, husky slurred, and she poked at the fish with her fork, without taking another bite. Instead, she took another swallow when he did, her attention settled on him with a directness that hadn't been possible before the booze, when she was still nervous about flowers and the pale blue of her dress.
"When?" she asked, once he admitted that he'd dated before. She didn't actually think he hadn't. The thought hadn't actually occurred to her at all until just then. She assumed he dated good, wholesome women. Or, possibly, nerd girls who spent all their time sitting beside him on the couch with a game controller in their hands. His question made her wonder, though, and a grin spread on her face, understanding and something like an upperhand in the way her lips twitched. "You work too much to date, don't you?" she asked, as if she'd just found the key piece of intel on a mission that had a single-digit success rate. She considered the possibility that he had women online, and she regarded him as she considered it, taking the last bit of sangria and pouring it into her glass, before asking the waiter for something stronger. Martinis? Did they do martinis? No, no women online, she decided as the waiter left, and she hoped she remembered her deductions once she was sober again. But, then, they might be too frightening to really think about then. Catch-22.
And, for some reason, his discomfort made her back off. She stopped staring, and she thanked the waiter when he returned with the martinis. "I meant what I asked," she finally clarified, after a sip of burning alcohol that left her pressing her lips together. "Have you found any of the women you dated as interesting as your work?" And there was some self-preservation in the question, a vulnerability that showed through the confident spook demeanor for a moment. She was more than buzzed, now that the martini was kicking in, and she was always more talkative, easier to get to know when she was drunk. It was the reason she tried to keep her drunken nights to loud bars where no one wanted to talk.
Dylan paused with a forkful of pasta when she asked about when. "When I was a cop," which sounded like a lot longer ago than it actually was. His beat days were only a few years ago. Those years were less profitable and less exciting, but brought a lot more freedom than anything he could recently remember. There'd been dating then, there'd been time for it, and he'd been young enough to pursue it constantly. Today, in another field, he might have still been pursuing it constantly.. but there was something about getting constantly shot at that made a person shut off. For Dylan, it wasnt even his own safety that made him reclusive. He was constantly viewing the reports, and deaths were up these days.
"And a little afterwards," although his tone denoted a less serious approach with the things that followed. Dylan probably didn't perceive the situation like a lot of people would have, but he also had to acknowledge that most of the agents he knew were married, and if they weren't married, they didn't date at all. It was a weird line to walk, and he didn't judge the way so many of them fell into the bottle or the barrel of their own gun at the end.
Although her reformulation of that earlier question had him smiling, and there was a shake of the head paired with his shrug that said he didn't quite know how to answer aside from utter honesty. "Women are always more interesting than my work." He swallowed some of that pasta and reached for his sangria with a fresh grin. "Always." His smirk was a little too much teeth this time, warped by the alcohol and showing a bit of the boyish attitude that pervaded every man's demeanor after a couple of drinks. "I'm going to be honest.. I think we're going to have to take a cab back," Dylan muttered as he drank down the rest of his fourth glass.
She didn't assume that his cop days were years off, because she assumed he had gone to college and done the academic thing. She felt ancient in her career, but that was because she'd been in since ROTC, and officially in since the day she turned eighteen. Twelve years at the end of a firearm was a long time, and she felt more senior than some agents twice her age. But she didn't see that in him. She figured he didn't even join the job market until twenty-two, and she envied him those imagined five years. But she couldn't imagine him walking a beat, and that was what surprised her about his response. "You walked a beat?" she asked him, a smile that was drunkenly open and interested in why he'd made that choice. She assumed he would have gone straight to detective, with his brains and GPA.
"Anyone serious?" she asked, ignoring the food in favor of running her fingertip along the rim of the martini glass and sucking away the biting liquid that remained there, then sucking the juice from the olive on the pointy stick. She grinned when he said women were always more interesting than his work, and she shook her head slowly, entertained. "Liar. Always implies all women, and you aren't that easy, McKendrick." After all, she should know. She regarded him, intense and unfocused all at once, as if she was trying to figure if he had a type other than girl gamers. She was insecure enough - and willing to admit it after so many drinks - not to assume she was it. "In a crowd, what kind of woman draws your attention?" she asked, the slur in her voice thicker now, more softness around the hard edges as she stopped worrying so much about what she was saying.
As for taking a cab home, that just made her quirk a brow. "Scared, McKendrick?" she asked, all challenge in the warmth of her brown eyes. "Dylan," she amended warmly. The waiter came and asked if they needed anything else, desert, the bill, more drinks, and Max just refrained from asking for another martini. All of this was going to go to her head just as soon as she stood up, and the last thing she wanted to do was fall on her ass in a dress. "I think he's in a hurry to get home to Dishonored, but thanks," she teased.
"I did," he confirmed with a smile that was all teeth and just this side of proud for the fact that she obviously hadn't expected that of him. "I went into the police academy just out of high school, and my parents were naturally pissed. They bribed me into an education, and immediately after college, I worked as a cop for a couple of years until all of my Bureau paperwork and applications were processed. And that was.." He took a moment to reflect on the timeline before blanching with a momentary cringe that said the facts took him by surprise, "Jeeze, five years ago." Feeling sufficiently old, Dylan crunched some ice between his teeth, jostling it out of the bottom of his sangria-less glass.
Max might be surprised to learn that Dylan had never actually dated a girl gamer. He was rather uncertain about the concept, too. If she was able to kick his ass in Super Smash Brothers, that would either be the biggest turn on ever or a complete deal-breaker. He had his pride to look after. "I was serious about my girlfriend in college, we were together for three years.. but she went off to medical school, and I went back to the academy." He gave Max a knowing look that said it was old news and not something that bothered him any longer, "Doctors don't marry cops." Besides, he'd eventually had to accept that things between them couldn't have been that serious if they both turned away in favor of pursuing their respective careers.
Dylan took a deep breath when she asked what kind of woman drew his attention, and maybe he just wasn't drunk enough for this conversation because he was actually feeling nervous. Blunt fingers dug into the back of his shoulder, and he palmed the back of his neck while considering how to answer. "Whenever I've bought a woman a drink in the past couple of years, its been because I can tell she's a tourist. I don't date because I don't need anybody knowing what I do or wondering about me while I'm on an assignment. My family doesn't even know what I do.. so I don't know what I look for honestly, because I make a point not to."
His shrug was broken when she asked if he was scared, and that playfulness helped him stop thinking about his dysfunctional approach to women and dating. "I'll be honest, you intimidate the hell out of me. If I hadn't been feeling still a little high after the hotel, I don't know if I ever would have manned up to ask you out to dinner," he told her, truthfulness brought on by the alcohol. He was smiling though, so he was definitely glad that he finally did.
Fishing some cash out of his back pocket, because credit cards were for people who didn't mind having a paper trail, Dylan gave the waiter a serious look. "I've already beaten Dishonored." The waiter, appropriately confused, placed the bill before Dylan on the table before wandering off. Dylan slapped the money down and stretched in preparation to brave the streets.
"Were you bored?" she asked of him walking a beat. It was a recurring theme, it seemed, her expecting him to be bored by anything that wasn't extremely intellectual in nature. And Max didn't perceive anything intellectually stimulating about being a beat cop. "What did they bribe you with?" she asked of his capitulation when it came to higher education. He hadn't actually struck her as stubborn until that moment. Well, with the exception of not letting her sleep with him. His crunching on the ice drew her attention back, and she was all curiosity when he mentioned a serious girlfriend in college. "What was she like?" she asked of the girl was interesting, but apparently not interesting enough. It was possible that some insecurity showed its face in the question, but she asked it casually, like the response didn't matter. After all, she wasn't some college girl. She'd never been some college girl. When other girls were joining sororities and getting drunk for the first time, she'd been killing people in South Africa.
She liked his hands, and she followed their movement as they dug against his shoulder and, then, as they palmed the back of his neck. It was cool in the open restaurant, but the booze made her feel warm, and she shifted in her chair and leaned forward with interest, his tells of discomfort letting her know that whatever he was about to say was, somehow, significant. In the end, it was a non-answer, if a very telling one. "Since Brandon, I hook up with guys in bars or other agents. Not the same as tourists, but the same principle." With one glaring difference. She preferred to sleep with other people who had no interest in getting to know her. He preferred to sleep with people he had no chance to get to know. It made her smile into her woefully empty martini glass. "Are you sorry you ended up in this life yet?" she asked, because she didn't see a lifer when she looked at him. Just the opposite, actually.
After that, she wasn't expecting his honesty about being intimidated by her. Sober, she would have made some quip about what he said. Drunk, it didn't even cross her mind to agree. "I'm not actually that intimidating, McKendrick. It's just the guns that are intimidating." She laughed a light, fingers lighting on the leaves of the marigold. "You scare the fuck out of me, so we're even," she admitted, and she looked up when the money came out. She almost laughed at the waiter's confusion, and she looked at the flowers as she stood. It was hard enough to keep the bottom of her cane flat, since the booze went right to her head as she stood. One hand reached out to grip his upper arm for a second, leverage and the sturdier press of her hand on the cane. "You get to carry the flowers," she told him, something vulnerable in the fact that she didn't want them to end up on the floor.
"Bored?" Dylan considered that for a moment, reflecting on those traffic tickets and late shifts spent as overnight security. Of course there had been boring times, but that was the case with everything. "I guess, but I get bored with the FBI too." Which explained why he was regularly on loan to other factions of the government and its allies. If he had to stay in the same city doing the same keystrokes on repeat, he'd have quit a long time ago. "That's just what happens.." Although the statement lifted at the tail like an inquiry. Didn't Max ever get tired of the routine? Their jobs were as much about paperwork and protocol as guns and ammo.
When Max asked about the college girlfriend, Dylan gave her a discerning glance as if he was trying to figure out why she was asking. He certainly didn't ask her about Thomas Brandon, although he would have if he wasn't already convinced the guy was a complete dick. "Whitney was.." He took a breath and straightened a few degrees as he considered how to answer. He finally settled on, "She was smart, you know? She went off to med school and became a spinal surgeon." The fact that Dylan knew that meant that he must have checked up on her at least once over the past few years. Honestly, he was a little relieved when the conversation progressed to people they'd slept with somewhat recently rather than what had transpired a decade ago.
"I like what I do now, Max. I'm not throwing in the towel yet, you get to have me on retainer for a little while," he promised. Dylan took the flowers for her as she steadied herself with the joint effort of that cane and his offered arm. He was even on his feet despite the drinks, but that didn't mean he was willing to drive home. Alcohol didn't completely wash the morality away, and despite there being absolutely no chance of him getting a DUI from some local PD, he wasn't about to get behind the wheel. Being on the right side of the law for Dylan meant exactly that, and he didn't believe in shades of gray, not even when they were convenient. So he asked the hostess to send a cab around to the side lot where he'd parked. They could have stood at the entrance and waited for the taxi there, but there were a couple of items that Dylan wanted to get out of his car since he would be leaving it parked overnight.
The lot might have been private, but he wasn't going to leave a loaded gun in the glove box. Once beside his car, he extended the marigolds back to Max so that he could pop the lock on his Charger and get to excavating a flashdrive that was hidden beneath the drivers' seat, as well as that firearm. Safety on, he tucked it into the back of his slacks just as the taxi was pulling up with headlights as gold as the paint it was wearing. The Charger's doors locked automatically with the push of a button on the keys, and he stepped over to the cab with a smile. Opening the door for her, Dylan held out his free hand to take the flowers back if she liked. "After you, Main."
She made an acknowledging sound when he spoke of his boredom with the FBI. And she almost lost that uptick at the end of his sentence, too caught up wondering if that boredom extended to everything. "Hmmm," she said, her thoughts catching up booze-slow. "I don't have a routine, so I don't get bored," she said of her work, but that wasn't true, and she had to backtrack. She ran every single morning, at the exact same time. She started working at the same time every day, even when she didn't have to punch a clock. She set her keys in the exact same place when she got home, and she walked the-
She forced her thoughts to stop, and she quirked her head and regarded him, as if he'd just made her realize something about herself - which he had. "When I had Manda, life was messy. Whoever said kids followed schedules obviously didn't have one. But, now, I guess I have a set routine. I don't think it bothers me," she admitted, slur-honest, though her expression said she wasn't sure. "But work, work isn't like that. I'm an adrenaline junkie, McKendrick, and that's all that matters. Even when I'm working a long case, I never know what I'm going to have to do. Sometimes I go UC, and I play dress up. Other days, it's guns and break-ins. Somedays, it's tracking down digital footprints, or questioning people, or paperwork." She shrugged her shoulders. "Being a soldier, that was repetitive. Risking my life? That gives me a rush." Which was more honesty than she'd intended at the beginning of her monologue. She blamed the booze.
Whitney. The name brought to mind blonde women that smiled a lot, and Max stifled a groan. Her parents had never been more accurately cruel than when they named her, Max thought, because there was nothing blonde or smiling about someone named Maxine. But she could imagine him with someone smart, and the smile that wistfully crossed her lips would have never made it there had she been sober. She didn't say anything, though, and she just chuckled when he told her that she'd still have him on retainer for a while yet. When he offered his arm, she took it without the regular show of pride, and she was warm and relaxed against his side, all hips and elbows and a sway that said she was drunkenly confident in her body, if nothing else. The cane was loose in her hand by then, and she had no problem with the walk to his car, not with the assistance of his body.
She didn't ask what he'd fished out of his car, knowing full well what she would have needed to fish out of hers, had the situation been reversed. She just slid into the cab, and then she reached for the flowers and slid across to the opposite side, so that he could sit. She gave the driver directions to the villa, and she closed her eyes for a moment, hoping it would make the world quit spinning. She turned her head to look at him, once the cab was moving, and she gave him a drunk-warm smile. "Are you going to let me make you coffee?" she asked, invitation in the question, and then her grin turned wider, teasing. "Are you the type of man that walks a woman to the door, Dylan?" She tapped her bare knee against the outside of his cloth-clad one.
He'd known she was an adrenaline junkie from day one. That fact read like invisible bold between the actual typeface lines in her personnel file. It wasn't a surprise, that was the case with soldiers. The military was a shit job if one didn't derive some kind of thrill out of gunfire and C-4. Dylan somehow doubted that it was a strong desire to follow orders that had led her into the field, and she was too fond of chicken wings and domestic beer to crave exotic travel.. so adrenaline it was. That was decided well before he'd actually gotten to know Max, and before he'd truly been able to factor in her undeniable daddy issues and uncompromised nerves of steel.
"Have you thought about what you're going to do when you retire?" Because she'd have to retire from the field someday, and that gap in time was ever-narrowing with her latest injury. Even if things went perfectly, and even if she was fortunate enough to not sustain another serious injury.. it was only a matter of time before cartilage began to disappear forever instead of rebuilding itself. It wasn't uncommon for a recurring and worsening disability to put an agent out of the field by thirty-five. Those that made it beyond that were lucky, and nothing more. He briefly wondered if it was the wrong thing to ask her, if she would be sensitive to the idea.. but the alcohol made him not care for the moment. It was something she needed to think about, especially considering that she had a kid who was getting older every day.
He grinned at the prospect of coffee, and the expression was just a little crooked. "Why? Do I look drunk?" In the backseat of the dark cab with the bright lights of Vegas peeling by in a carousel flash, he was certainly beginning to feel tipsy. Dylan blinked slowly to right his vision, and laughed when she asked about the front door. Before dinner and drinks, he'd have been nervous about the idea. He might have even grimaced with some uncertainty as to what he was supposed to do, but now he just beamed wide and equally teasing at the idea. "Well, I already pulled your chair out and brought flowers.. it'd be a shame to ruin this whole gentlemanly thing I've got going by not making sure you get inside okay." He paused, then laughed again. "Although I might have more of a civic duty to protect the idiot that would try to burgle you, I've heard you aim for the kneecaps."
At first, she'd fought the idea of the military with everything she had. She'd intentionally failed entrance exams, and she'd intentionally botched psych evals. But, somehow, the General had managed to pull all the right strings. The exam to go into special ops was something she hadn't even needed to try to fuck up, but she'd still ended up there, just after her eighteenth birthday, with a bunch of pissed off soldiers that had actually fought their way into covert and a life away from general infantry. Somewhere, between there and Seattle, she'd learned to love the risk. She'd given up wanting the John Hughes movie, because that just wasn't in the cards, and she'd fallen back on the one thing that made her feel alive in a place that she didn't want to be. Eventually, after Amanda, doing something to help keep her safe had eclipsed the daddy issues, and she'd made the choice to leave the Army and transfer over to the CIA. It had been a good call, though she'd never been the type of field agent that could handle a handler barking orders in her ear.
In the comfortable confines of the cab, the question about retiring seemed huge and looming. She knew she wouldn't make it to thirty-five. She'd get through this job, but she'd already accepted the reality that she wouldn't see many more like it. She could make do in Mexico without a cane - and she would - but she'd pay the price for it once she was home. And she had no idea what she was going to do then. She couldn't stay on desk at the CIA, not with Reed and the shit at the office, but she had no idea what came next. She wasn't cut out for a life as a handler, and she knew that as well as anyone. And being Davis' right hand wasn't working these days, not when it was unofficial, and she didn't hold hands comfortingly enough to be in that kind of position anyway. She took a deep breath, and she smiled at him, a worried thing of a smile. "I have no fucking idea," she admitted about retirement. "I never thought I'd make it that far." Which was a practical, spook response to the prospect of retiring.
"You look a little drunk," she admitted, all slur and warmth, and she chuckled at his insistence that he keep the gentlemanly act up. She wanted to ask him what his last date - one with a random tourist - had been like, but she decided she didn't actually want to know just then. "Didn't I tell you to stay out of my file?" she asked, when he made the comment about kneecaps, and she opened the door when the cab stopped, assuming he'd want to pay, since he seemed to be following some date rulebook for the evening. The walk to the front door of the villa was a short one, and she managed it with the cane and the flowers, though she needed to hand the flowers off to fish her key from the clutch. She slid the key into the lock, and she looked at him. "Coming in?" she asked. She looked at him for a second, door into the utilitarian space ajar, and then she slid the flat of her gun calloused palm along the front of his dress shirt. Even through the dress, she was all hips and lean muscle as she leaned against him, and she brushed her lips beneath his ear to whisper. "Are we following the rule where you have to kiss me, agent? Or am I allowed to break protocol?"
It seemed like bad form to outline all of the reasons that Max needed to start thinking about retirement, and he really wasn't sober enough to drop the kind of sly and subtle hints that would make it seem like her idea. Honestly, he might not have been that crafty even when he was fully capable... but wait, what was he saying, of course he was. It's not like he was going to suggest she open a daycare or anything, but he also understood that Max viewed any form of desk job within the government as an equally insulting jab to her skillset. He could only roll his eyes when she said that she'd never truly thought she'd make it to retirement age. Dylan knew she was serious, and his aloof response of pure, dedicated silence was his way of saying don't say that, without actually having to say it. Wasn't there power in words? He hoped to god that Max wasn't one of those people who placed everything on the flip of a coin, pure luck mitigating every circumstance small and large. Sometimes the mantra was accurate as hell, sure, but that kind of thinking didn't belong anywhere in the field.
Dylan hadn't really thought out whether he was going inside or not, his feet just seemed to carry him to her door without him having bothered to tell the taxi to wait for him. It drove off while she was still digging for her key, and he wasn't worried about the prospect of having to hail another one, this was Vegas after all. New York might have thought that it never slept, but Las Vegas was in a full-tilt manic episode twenty-four/seven. When she smoothed her hand over his shirt, Dylan didn't back away out of nerves or chivalrous respect for the amount of booze they'd had at dinner. He simply grinned when she leaned in for a covert whisper. "If you start breaking protocol now, I'm going to have to report you." It was a fair warning, with just a hint of his intentions in the moment before he took Max by the arms and drew her away from that prime whispering spot. Just enough distance between them for him to have to lean in and capture her mouth warmly, grin still in place.