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There’s a private little cove not far from the boardwalk that Neve’s found she really likes to spend time in. The sound of the surf against the rocks, the gulls wheeling and crying overhead, the tidepools that positively reek of low tide no matter the time of day… it all reminds Neve a little of Docktown in a way that makes her heart ache.

It’s evening, low tide slowly rolling its way back to high tide, and Neve has a towel and a bag further up the beach that she’s left behind as she walks. She’s wearing a teal two-piece and a gauzy gold sarong that’s whipping around her legs in the wind as she paces. Sometimes, she can imagine a fish fry on a dock, down by that stretch of rocks that serve as both tide break and borderline. Sometimes, she imagines the Tevinter ships in easing their way close with whatever haul is on deck.

Sometimes, like now, she just goes there to think. She’s got a handful of smooth rocks and she’s skipping them every few steps, before the water draws the sand out from under her feet and she moves on to avoid having her metal leg tugged clean off. Enchantment or no, that would probably smart.

She skips a stone, trying to find the connection between First Darrow and Second Darrow. There are gaps all over the place, she knows, doorways leading from one to the other but not necessarily back again. But there have to be connections that stay open, surely. Otherwise, how are creatures getting through? How are people passing into Second Darrow? She’ll need to look into it, of course. Find people who have gone and come back, find out where they were when it happened, make connections. She’s gotten a few interviews so far, but it’s difficult. So many of the reports are behind the red tape of the precincts here — honestly they’re worse than Templars.

Her pacing has taken her close to the tide break, so she ducks around one of the rocks while the tide is still low enough to manage. Every now and then she tries to find a vacant shell she can bring back to her apartment so she can refresh the beachy, seasalt smell she loves so much.

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It was a quiet Tuesday night. There was about a month until school would start again, which meant Tom had two weeks actually left of his summer break (even though he'd been preparing for his classes all summer, of course). Daniel wanted him to enjoy as much of that as he could, so he'd suggested they take a little walk on the beach. There was a quiet cove that would allow them to hold hands and maybe do a little bit of canoodling without anyone being the wiser. Daniel might even roll up his trouser legs and walk in the surf with Tom.

They were still on the main beach walking and debating quietly about what shapes were in the puffy white clouds as the sun set behind them.

"That's obviously a hippo."

"A hippo?" Tom echoes with a laugh. "Are you sure about that? It looks like a... oh, what are they called... one of those water-bug-bears." One of his students last fall had written a short story about them for extra credit, and it had been fascinating and alarming in turns — probably because the story was meant to be a horror story, and they'd done a very good job of leaning into their influences.

"Water-bug-bears?" Daniel repeated. He wasn't sure what Tom was talking about in terms of the name, but he thought he'd seen a picture. "Don't they have more legs than that? I think I see four up there."

The beach was deserted, even though they weren't in the cove itself yet, and he pulled Tom in to briefly press a kiss to his steady's temple. They were getting more willing to show affection in public, but all the same, they both preferred less obvious forms of it.

"Well, clearly they just curled their other legs up, like a bird," he points out. He leans into the kiss with a grin, slinging an arm around Daniel's middle for both balance and a quick hug. "Ah, but that one," he adds, using that same arm to point up at a different cloud before instead lifting the arm not behind Daniel's body so Daniel can properly follow the path of his finger, "is clearly a seahorse." There is one that's sort of skewed, with a curl on one end and a flatter hook on the other, but even Tom has to admit it only looks tangentially like a seahorse.

Daniel followed Tom's finger and squinted a little as he tried to see the seahorse. It was maybe there, but it was also maybe a math symbol. He wasn't sure which one. Tom wouldn't be sure which one either.

"Seahorse, sure," he agreed. They were just coming into the cove now and he was glad. They'd walked on the wet sand as much as they could since it was easier on his prosthetic, but the cove was always wet and had some nice boulders.

"Whaddaya say we do some canoodling?" he asked, and made sure to wiggle his eyebrows like Groucho Marx, just to make Tom laugh.

It works, and Tom is still laughing when he kisses Daniel. "Let's at least lay down our blanket first," he says, though he leans in to kiss Daniel again, like maybe the blanket doesn't completely matter. They'd brought it mostly as a backup, in case they'd decided they didn't want to walk around much longer after getting here. The damp, compacted sand of the cove would be easier on Daniel's leg, but there's nothing wrong with having options, either.

Tom's mouth said one thing about when they should or should not canoodle ... and then his mouth said something totally different and Daniel leaned into the second kiss. He'd heard plenty of people talk about the end of the honeymoon period, but so far as he could tell, that still hadn't happened. Of course they were settled and they fit together even better these days, but he definitely still wanted Tom and wanted to spend time with him.

He pulled Tom in close, or as close as they could get with a blanket between them. They probably shouldn't get too involved in this, anyway, so the blanket might be a good thing.

"The blanket agrees," he murmured against Tom's jaw, since he'd moved his mouth there to give himself a chance to actually breathe.

Tom chuckles, and it's hard to want to stop long enough to lay down the blanket. Kissing Daniel is, after all, one of his favorite pastimes. But he manages to pull away after another kiss (or two), and he unfolds the blanket and spreads it, letting the breeze catch it so it lays flat on the sand. As he does, he notices a bag weighing down a blanket further along the beach, higher up than they are now and far enough away that he can't identify who it might belong to.

He nods towards it, pointing it out to Daniel.

"Looks like we aren't the only ones who had this idea," he notes. He and Daniel had come here for privacy, yes, and they certainly weren't going to get up to more than just 'canoodling,' but the realization that they'd started kissing, likely in plain view of whomever else is here, doesn't put him as ill-at-ease as it used to.

He squinted a little to see the bag and felt a by-now familiar moment of concern that whoever was looking for some privacy might not like two men walking together as close as they were.

“Then I guess they’re pretty smart,” he agreed. Now that he knew they weren’t alone, he’d keep his hands mostly to himself, but he did settle down on the blanket carefully. Getting up and down from the ground was always more complicated than it had been, but he wasn’t going to give up doing things because it was difficult.

Tom chuckles. "Still feel up for that canoodling you offered?" he asks. He waits until Daniel is settled before sitting down beside him, and he reaches to take Daniel's hand. He glances around to try to spot the owner or owners of the bag; a woman in a bikini is stepping around a large rock further down the beach, but Tom doesn't think she's noticed them yet.

Tom always let Daniel settle himself into a car, a chair, or anywhere else. He never assumed Daniel needed help but Daniel knew it was there if he needed it or wanted it — and sometimes he did.

He also looked around and noticed Neve immediately. Her leg was hard to miss. He’d never seen her in anything less than a very considered outfit, either. He didn’t know much about women’s fashion, but he could tell when someone had put a lot of work into it.

“Honestly, I don’t think she’d care,” Daniel replied. “That’s Neve Gallus. Remember I mentioned her style?”

Neve rounds the rock and continues toward them, and the sounds of their voices carry on the breeze. She just catches the words "...bikinis in the 40s?" as she draws nearer, and she chuckles.

"Daniel. And you must be Daniel's 'someone.' I'd introduce myself, but it seems you've heard of me."

Daniel's 'someone' doesn't blush, but he looks like he wants to, giving her a rueful smile.

"Ah, Tom Hauser," he offers, and he makes to stand but Neve holds a hand up to stop him, so he settles back into place.

Neve's prosthetic sheath had just a little bit of lace on the top, because of course it did. That was all the noticing of her skivvies that he was going to be doing for a few different reasons, though.

"Only good things," he replied truthfully, although he didn't think Neve was actually worried about that. She didn't care much what people thought of her, as her leg showed. She was who she was.

"That's sweet," Neve says with a smile that suggests she doesn't entirely believe it, even though she knows Daniel isn't lying. "I see I'm not the only one that likes this little cove. You were smart, though: brought a blanket to sit on."

"Well, we were planning on, ah," Tom starts, and Neve chuckles.

"Right. You thought you'd have more privacy than this. I just came for a walk. Don't let me interrupt, I was just leaving." She gestures back towards her things. "Just thought I'd say 'hi' beforehand."

"Oh, I don't mean to chase you off," Tom says, immediately apologetic, and she just chuckles again.

"Relax. Tom, was it? It's a lot harder to hurt my feelings than you think." She winks at him.

Neve was being charming, for her definition of charming, and Tom seemed like he didn't know what to do with that. Daniel barely did, and he'd interacted with Neve several more times. It was like someone had taken a Stark, given him a little more wisdom, and then put him in a whole other world -- as a woman with a prosthetic snake for a leg.

"Thanks, Neve," he said, when she said she was leaving. "We'll clear out soon, in case you want to walk again today."

They had come here with the somewhat intentional plan of canoodling, that was true, but Daniel was definitely not in a canoodling mood right now. It was enough to just sit and talk to Tom, though.

She waves a hand back towards them, but Tom isn't sure if she's dismissing them or simply acknowledging the assurance. When she's far enough away, up by the pile of things they'd noticed when they'd first laid out their blanket, and Tom is reasonably sure she can't hear them, he says, "She... seems very forthright."

"That's a good word for it," Daniel agreed, and settled back on the blanket. "You remember she just showed up and told the desk sergeant she had an appointment with me? She didn't have an appointment, but she knew I'd be curious about why she was there, and I was. She's good at what she does."

He put his hands behind his head as he lay there, looking up at the slowly darkening sky. He could feel that it made his shirt ride up a little above the belt line of his trousers, but he also knew Tom wouldn't mind seeing a little skin.

Tom doesn't, of course, and he even debates sliding his fingers along that strip of skin, dancing the whorls of his fingerprints through the fine hairs leading into Daniel's trousers. He stops himself, though, not least because Neve is already on her way back. Despite the sand and her golden leg, she seems to have no problems navigating the beach. Or perhaps it's that she moves with a certain businesslike brusqueness that Tom can respect. She's made her decision and she's sticking by it.

Once she's close enough to talk, Neve opens her mouth — only to be interrupted by her cell phone ringing from the depths of her bag. She fishes for it and tugs it out.

"Gallus," she greets. Even from their spot on their towel, Tom and Daniel can hear a voice coming through Neve's phone, loud and tinny and sounding distressed. Neve frowns as she listens. "Shelley, I hear you," she says. "I know. Listen, give me three minutes, I'll be right there. And I won't be alone." She points at Daniel with her free hand and then thumbs the end-call button. "Daniel. Sorry to interrupt, but your services are required."

For a second, it looked like Tom might get to canoodling, but then he glanced back up the beach. Daniel craned his neck to see that Neve was on her way back towards them and she was very much walking with a purpose. He sat up immediately and was about to ask her what she needed when her phone rang.

Whoever she was talking to was loud and not happy, and he wasn't particularly surprised when she said she'd see someone soon or when she pointed at him.

"I'm off duty," he replied, but it was just a tease. Neve knew very well that he wasn't ever really off the clock if he was needed, and that he was comfortable with that. He glanced at his steady a little apologetically since work looked like it was about to interrupt another one of their evenings, but maybe not.

"Is this going to be a short discussion or should Tom head home?"

Neve gives Tom what Tom can only call a discerning look; he can practically feel her measuring him up, and her expression is inscrutable enough that he can't decide what it means when she finally nods.

"I can't say how long it'll take," she hedges. "But Shelley's Shake Shack has been vandalized. Again."

"Is she okay?" Tom asks, frowning, and Neve smiles nearly imperceptibly.

"She's unharmed," she says. "But shaken. No pun intended," she adds with a playful wince.

Daniel frowned when Neve said “again”. A string of vandalisms was something he would want to see a report about, even if it wasn’t in his precinct, and he didn’t remember hearing anything like that. On the other hand, this might be the second time, so he would be making the report, potentially.

“I’m glad to hear she’s alright, but I’d sure like to know why someone might be targeting her,” he agreed.

He turned to Tom. He would have kissed his steady if they were alone, but they weren’t, so he wouldn’t. Neve probably wouldn’t care either way, but that wasn’t something Daniel tended to do.

“I’ll let you know when I’m done here and we’ll figure out dinner, alright?"

Edited 2025-09-12 16:24 (UTC)

Tom nods, a little smile on his face. "Go serve and protect," he encourages, and Neve figures it must mean something, either where they're from or to them in particular. Either way, he says it fondly, without resentment, and Neve makes a note of that.

Neve steps away then, giving them privacy or leading the way — she'll let them decide — and she pulls her journal out of her bag to start her first notes about the shake shack.

“I’ll do my best,” Daniel replied equally fondly. He got to his feet with no apologies about the little bit of extra work it was and the extra time it took. The two people in this place who understood the most what he was dealing with were standing right in front of him.

Neve had turned pointedly away, so Daniel kissed Tom’s cheek swiftly and squeezed his hand before he stepped to where Neve was.

“Alright, what do we know?”

“This is the third time in two weeks that Shelley's found something disturbed on her shop's property,” Neve answers as they walk.

She flips her notebook to the first page of the case, denoted only by a scrap of leaf she'd picked up when she'd first talked to Shelley about it.

“The first time it was tipped over trash bins,” she says, tapping the note saying as such — though it's in her own unique shorthand so she could get everything down quickly as Shelley had talked to her. “Nothing too nefarious, and she chalked it up to raccoons or gulls so she didn't call anyone. I didn't learn that until the second time, mind you, when she found a broken window. That felt more intentional, she said. And now, her door's been broken. The latch is completely splintered, she's beside herself.”

Neve's tone is tense with sympathy and frustration on Shelley's behalf, and she's glad Daniel hasn't put up much of a fight in her volunteering him.

Daniel walked beside her and listened carefully. He didn't comment on the scrap of leaf, either. Whatever she wanted to use to mark her place was up to her as long as she could find her notes again quickly. He didn't get out his own notebook just yet, but he was mentally deciding what would go in the notebook if and when he did.

"Yeah, that seems like a very distinct escalation in a very short period of time," he agreed. "Trash cans could be accidental. Even a broken window could be someone on the beach having a throw go wrong. It's hard to accidentally break a door in."

"Damn hard," she agrees. She snaps her notebook closed and tucks it into her bag. "I know there are proper channels you'll want to follow, but I'll be talking to her, too. Listen to what she has to say, take a look around, that sort of thing. We can work together on this; if this is something, you'll have access to resources I don't." Not until she gets a connection in the precinct that will bend or break rules in a way that Daniel has proven unwilling to up to now, at least. She likes Daniel, but sometimes he's too good for his own good.

“That’s fine with me,” Daniel agreed. “I have resources you don’t, but you have resources I don’t. Some people don’t want to talk to cops, and I can’t honestly blame them.”

He tried to be an honest cop, but he knew very well there were dirty ones out there and reasons for people to be wary of the police.

“She called you first, so you can take the lead on this one. I’ll just be there to listen in case I catch a detail you don’t or she mentions something I might want to look into.”

Neve nods, giving Daniel a wan smile of appreciation. "Thanks, Daniel," she says. She'd hoped he was the right man for the job. It's not often Neve hopes for anything from people.

They round the exit to the little cove and Shelley's Shake Shack comes into view. It's a quaint little thing, with a pier that extends over the water for people to sit on while they drink their shakes. Their are buoys and nets stretched along the side of the building, and Neve can see the broken window, covered over with cardboard and tape to keep out the sea air and anything else that might try to come through it.

"Here we are," she says, and leads the way to the front door. There are three large trash bins beside the door, and they've got chains wrapped through their handles, looping them not only together, but to the side of the shack as well.

Poor Shelley.

Daniel didn't think he'd ever been down this way when he'd visited the boardwalk, but he liked the look of the place. It was quaint, and he didn't mean that in a "real estate metaphor for run down" kind of way. It was genuinely quaint, and it was clear that someone had put a lot of work into it. But he also saw that Shelley had now chained her trash cans to her wall and that didn't look like cheap chain. Small businesses were almost always right on the edge even without extra costs like chains and locks and replacement windows.

"This is your show," he repeated, and made sure to stay back as she walked them up and through the door.

Neve checks the splintered wood around the latch; it looks like a hard kick had done it in, and Neve wonders if the construction to start was already shoddy. Whoever had done it hadn't bothered with the glass panes in the door itself. They'd gone right to kicking between the knob and the jamb.

She doesn't linger, though. Shelley comes out from behind the counter, hugging herself. Her blonde and gray hair is wild, like she's been shoving her fingers into it over and over, and given what she'd walked into today, Neve can't blame her.

"Neve!" she says, reaching for Neve's arms like they're old friends. "I don't see any other problems, nothing's been stolen, I—" She pauses, looking at Daniel and giving him a once-over that turns appreciative the longer it lasts. "Who's this?"

“Senior Detective Daniel Sousa of Darrow PD, ma’am,” Daniel said immediately. “Off-duty, obviously. Ms. Gallus is a friend and happened to mention the troubles you’ve been having. Would you be willing to talk to me about it as well as Ms. Gallus?”

Shelley was giving him a once-over he was going to ignore, but also one that he was sure Neve was going to give him grief about later.

Her attitude changes slightly, shifting away from the nearly flirty appraisal and into something more worried. "Oh, police?" she says, looking from Daniel to Neve and back again. "I'm not sure we really need to involve... I mean, there hasn't exactly been a crime."

"Shelley, someone's kicked your door in," Neve reminds. Her tone is a bit gentler than it usually is when she talks to Daniel or most anyone else. "That's a crime in any world."

Shelley looks anxious. She bites her lip, combing her fingers into her hair again and sort of scratching at her scalp — which only furthers the slightly wild look it's been developing. Then she sighs.

"I mean... alright. If you think the police will help, Neve, then..."

Neve smiles at her, nodding. "I think Detective Sousa can help," she affirms.

"I'll do my best, ma'am," Daniel replied. It was second nature for him to call people ma'am or sir, which some of the younger cops gave him flak for, but he wasn't likely to stop the habit of a lifetime now.

"And Ms. Gallus is right. That's property damage. If this was the first time, I could say it was maybe kids who didn't know better, but you've had some trouble before, haven't you?"

Shelley nods, looking frustrated as well as anxious now. She explains to Daniel what she'd told Neve: that she'd written off the trash cans as raccoons or overzealous seagulls; that the window hadn't seemed connected at all.

"Anyone can throw a rock," she points out. "I figured it was kids trying to break the fishing floats, as a prank, y'know? I figured they missed and got my window."

Neve wrinkles her nose, but she makes a note in her journal to check the fishing floats outside for signs of tampering.

Daniel didn't take notes, since this was Neve's case, but that didn't mean he wasn't paying attention. He was looking around and noticing little indications of what might have been just normal wear and tear or might have been subtle signs of repairs after deliberate damage.

"How long have you been here, Shelley? Any disputes with your neighbors or your landlord, if you have one?"

That was always the place to start if someone was potentially being driven out of their business.

"Disputes?" Shelley echoes, her tone suggesting the idea is absurd. "I've been here for decades, who could possibly have a dispute with me?"

Decades. That's not true, of course. Everything concrete Neve's found and heard has indicated that Darrow has only existed for one decade, at best. Anything else, anything made from Darrow itself, can't be trusted as a reliable source, and she knows Daniel knows that. But Shelley certainly seems to believe she's been here for decades, and her shop certainly looks like it could have been built more than twenty years ago.

Maybe that's all that matters, in the grand scheme of things. It just muddies the work a little.

Neve sees where Daniel's going, though, and says, "You've got a good location here, Shelley. Has anyone ever suggested they'd like to buy you out?"

He’d worked with Neve a few times and he was always impressed at the way she was able to talk to people about anything. Some of the younger officers at DPD really could learn from her, if they were willing to listen. Maybe he should suggest that they hire her to give a consulting seminar, if she’d be willing to take the job. If she wasn’t, he’d keep working with her off the books.

He waited patiently for Shelley to consider and answer Neve’s question. Shelley was agitated, but he didn’t see any signs of deception. She was just worried and maybe a little scared.

Shelley frowns, hand going back to her hair. "Well... I, I mean, people comment on my shop all the time. How nice it is, the good view, all sorts of things." She looks momentarily proud of that, but then she frowns again, thinking harder.

Neve wanders over to the front window, looking out along the pier that stretches away from them. It is a nice view. The kind of view that probably draws a crowd. Shelley probably gets good business thanks to that view. Neve turns back when Shelley speaks again.

"I guess a few of the other shop owners have asked if I ever thought of moving. Nothing, like, overt, but... Well, if I really think about it, Bert from Bert's Beads asked if I was going to retire soon, but, hell, everyone asks a gal my age that, right?"

Daniel made a non-committal noise. It was true that Shelley could potentially be retirement age, but there was a way to ask that question and a way not to, just like there was a way to ask about his leg and a way not to.

"I guess it depends on how the question is asked, ma'am. Did it seem a little pushy or just friendly? You know Bert, so I'm sure you know the difference."

Shelley hesitates again, like she's looking for the right words. "Bert's always pushy," she says at last, and Neve glances at Daniel with a lifted eyebrow.

"Anyone besides Bert who's asked?" Neve asks, because it doesn't hurt to get multiple angles. "Anyone who might be 'always pushy'?" Shelley gives her three more names, and she dutifully writes them down.

"I don't understand, are you two saying that one of them is trying to... to what? Scare me off?"

"We're not saying anything in particular," Daniel replied calmly. "But it's worth looking into it. Darrow's a friendly place in general. If someone's trying to be unfriendly to you, they could be unfriendly to other people, and that's something I'd want to keep an eye on."

He remembered the way the Five Families forced people out or made them pay for protection. He didn't want any of that in Darrow.

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