Authorn's Note: Written as a birthday present for starscythe over on Livejournal. Inspired by a conversation, so I don't lay claim to all the ideas, since I don't remember which ones weren't mine...

I don't like character bashing, and I really don't like it when shippers turn the canon love interests into shrews or idiots for the sake of their fic. That said, I think this is pretty close to how Lanie and Jenny have been characterized on the show lately (if you read my story "Free Fall", you can see that I was pretty generous writing Jenny pre-Nikki Heat). So blame the shrewishness on the writers...

"Lane. Lanie." His attempts at being quiet while at the same time be heard turned the name into kind of a rushed hiss, which sadly failed at being either. "C'mon open the door, this has stopped being funny."

That was sugar-coating it. There was no moment where the situation had been remotely funny, even for a millisecond. Not to Javier at least. His forehead resting against the wood of the door, Javier glanced at his watch. It was past 2 am. As tired as he was the hour was actually incredibly fortunate. At that moment the watch was all he was wearing. He rapped his head against the door with a groan—softly, Christ, he couldn't afford to wake anybody up—and cursed the circumstances that had left him stranded naked in the hall outside Lanie's apartment.

Well, not so much stranded as exiled.

"Please, chica. I'm sorry. I swear I don't even know what I was thinking. Just...let me back in, okay? You can't just leave me out here like this."

Javier's heart skipped at the soft clink of the door chain rattling. He schooled his relief, and as the door opened, he flashed his most sincere, apologetic smile he had ever managed in his life. Lanie smiled at him sweetly and hope fluttered in his chest at the thought that maybe, maybehe hadn't screwed this thing up completely. Then he looked down and saw what she was holding in her hands. His smile dropped. Hers thinned.

"Baby-"

With a flourish she dropped his phone and the...sock...which she'd been holding pinched primly in her fingers on the ground at his feet. She then promptly shut the door. He let his head fall against the wood with a dull, faint noise and released a slow breath. At least she hadn't slammed it and woken up the entire floor. Looking down, he weighted the choices she'd handed him: walk of shame wearing just a sock, or call someone for help. Like it was even really a choice.

He picked up the phone and started thumbing through his contacts.

"Did I wake you up?"

The voice was oddly low, and difficult to hear over the sounds of traffic, Kevin recognized it nonetheless.

"Uh...no..." He answered with a blink, caught slightly off guard, both by the odd tone of the question and the hour. It wasn't that strange for him to get a phone call so late, but it was unusual for it to be Javier. "I'm out, actually."

"Out? What could you possibly be doing at—nevermind. Look. I need a ride. How soon can you get to Lanie's?"

Again, that tight, constrained tone, as though his partner were afraid to raise his voice above a whisper. Kevin glanced at the street sign out the window and did a little quick math in his head.

"Maybe fifteen minutes..." He answered, not bothering to hide his curiosity. "Why, Javi, did something happen?"

There was hesitation, a faint laugh, and a few indistinct sounds before his partner managed an answer.

"Uh, yeah, something."

Kevin was slightly worried. He wanted to press for more, but he heard a faint beep over the line, and he remembered with a wince.

"Crap. Look, my battery's practically dead. I'll swing past as soon as I can. Meet me outside in fifteen?"

"No! You have to come up, okay? It's—" Another hesitation, and when he continued Javier's voice dropped back into that low, careful whisper. "Come up. It's important."

"Okay, okay," Ryan said quickly, "I'll come up. See you."

He disconnected the call and tucked the phone in his pocket. He knew he should have just plugged it in to charge while he was parked earlier.

Kevin had only visited Lanie's apartment once—during what he and Javier had since dubbed "The Double-Date from Hell"—but he remembered well enough how to get there. What he didn't remember was the apartment number. He'd had a false start on the fifth floor, where he'd wandered around staring at numbers and hoping to jog his memory. When eventually he had, he realized her apartment was actually on the third floor. Two floors down, he was still aimlessly navigating, dazed by the Kubrickian maze of numbers, when he stumbled around a corner and finally found his partner.

All of him.

"Um..."

Javier turned...kind of. Just his head. He was pressed tightly into what could loosely be called a "corner" of the shallow doorway, attempting to conceal as much of himself as possible—which really wasn't much at all. For a few seconds he could only stare, shocked, before Javier's eyes narrowed and he called over in a low, urgent hiss.

"Kev, get your ass over here and give me your coat."

"Huh? Ohright."

Kevin snapped out of it and did as he was told. Unfortunately, in his rush to remove the coat he'd forgotten about the cup of coffee held in his hand. It kind of got in the way of removing his left sleeve... At least most of the coffee spilled landed on his t-shirt and the rug and not the coat he sheepishly handed over to his partner.

"Coffee at 3 am, Kev?" Javier asked as he took the coat. He started to put it on before he realized it just really wasn't going to be long enough. Clenching his teeth around a swear, he tied it around his waist sideways by the sleeves. It looked ridiculous, but the coverage was much better.

"I got tired on the way home." He defended as he brushed the droplets off his front.

"As long as you know you're going to be up the rest of the night and crash tomorrow." Javier warned, placing his phone and...a sock into a coat pocket. "I'm not peeling you off your desk so you can save face with Beckett."

Kevin made a face, but it was an eventuality they both knew was impossible to argue.

"Lets get the hell out of here."

As they made their way down to the car, Kevin fought the urge to ask what had happened with Lanie. Whatever it was obviously hadn't been good. Still, he had a feeling this was the sort of topic best broached once his partner had cleared the other side of a good night's sleep—and possibly more than a little liquor. Still, curiosity—and enforced proximity to a very annoyed and very naked Javier—made the short trip to the lobby one of the most awkward elevator rides in Kevin's memory.

On their walk out, the halls had remained blessedly empty, and Javier had to endure very few stares along the way. Once they were in the car, and his dignity restored about as much as it was going to be any time soon, Javier couldn't help but ask.

"Okay, I gotta know. What in hell were you doing out at ass-o'clock in the morning?"

"Jenn's got that thing in Baltimore, remember?" Javier vaguely remembered some mention of some business something. If it had to do with Jenny, odds were he hadn't really been listening that hard. "She won't be back until tomorrow night, and I got kind of bored, so I went out to catch a late night movie."

"That weird place with the trannie running the ticket box was showing Goonies again, weren't they?"

Kevin was nothing if not occasionally predictable.

"Dude, Jeanette is not a transvestite."

"She is too. She's also not really French."

The argument was so familiar that Javier managed to forget that he was still practically naked until he caught a small group of tipsy women staring at him and giggling at the next light. Javier leaned the seat back as far as it would go, staring at the roof of Kevin's car and wishing to God he was just home and this ridiculous night could be over... And that's when it dawned on him.

"Son of a bitch."

"What?"

"Lanie's still got my keys."

Kevin winced.

"Call her?" he suggested uncertainly.

"Right. Because it just didn't occur to me to try that while I was sitting naked in front of her door ready to beg for mercy? She wouldn't answer my freaking calls."

"Well, you could try mine, but I'm pretty sure it's totally dead by now." He let out a slow breath, thinking. "Okay, how 'bout this. We head to my place. You can call her from there. If she won't listen to reason you can crash there."

Javier thought about it.

"Dude, I am not sleeping on that couch."

"Why not? You slept on it perfectly fine before-" He shook his head. "You know what, forget it. You can take my bed. As you already pointed out, I'm not going to get to sleep tonight anyway."

As might have been expected from his current run of luck, things with Lanie hadn't worked out in his favor. She'd picked up the phone, but as soon as he said her name he was pleading his case to the dial tone. By now it was plain that the situation wasn't going to solve itself before morning. Hell, it practically was morning. He was so tired...

After his third strike on the phone, Kevin had gone to salvage some clothes for him to sleep in from his own closet. Which was apparently easier said than done, since "the thing in Baltimore" meant Jenny wasn't around to remind him to do his laundry. He'd already divested himself of his stained t-shirt and was rummaging through the few clean articles he had left for something suitable. Javier hovered uncertainly, weight resting against the doorjamb, which was about all that was keeping him up-right by that point. Kevin looked up over his shoulder and waved over to the bed.

"Go ahead," he said. "The sheets at least are clean."

Any other time he might have been skeptical. Right now, though, Javier couldn't bring himself to give enough of a damn. The noise he made as he lay his head on the pillow was almost dirty, and definitely inappropriate to any situation where he was naked under another dude's sheets. He'd already managed to drift off a little when voices dragged him out of his hard won sleep.

"Jenny. Listen. Listen- Would you listen?"

The answer to that was apparently "no". Kevin and Jenny both stood in the doorway to the bedroom. His searching must have still been fruitless, because he still wasn't wearing a shirt. Javier sat up and tried to wake up enough to make sense of what she was saying. Somehow that managed to stop the stream of verbal outrage, as she threw her hand toward him, an outraged and disgusted sound choking in her throat, jaw clenching unprettily as she glared back at Kevin.

"That is it, Kevin. I swear to God this is the last time I put up with this."

"Nothing happened. I know how this looks, but-" Kevin stopped hands coming up to grip his hair before they fell. "You never listen. You never believe me. Why? Why on Earth would I cheat on you, Jenn?"

"Well apparently I'm just not what you need."

And... Oh. Oh.

"This isn't what it looks like," Javier managed stupidly, tired brain way behind on the argument.

Jenny turned her attention on him with narrowed eyes. She grabbed something off the dresser by the door and drew her hand back. Kevin, thankfully, caught her wrist in time. Which was fortunate. Now that he got a look at it in his partner's hands, the metal picture frame looked like it could have done some serious damage.

"Look, Jenn. Go back to your place. Cool off. We can talk about this reasonably in the morning."

"I'm throughbeing reasonable." She said, turning her back on both of them.

The sound of the door slamming echoed through the entire apartment. Kevin let out a long, longbreath, dragging a hand through his hair. It left him looking almost wilted.

"Bro," Javier managed slowly, uncertain what to say in a situation like this. What could he say? "Kev, man, I'm sorry..."

"Don't be."

He walked to the hamper and pulled out a shirt, giving it a quick smell test before he pulled it on. From the dresser he grabbed a pair of pants and tossed them to Javier. They were white and, looking at the pattern, he realized they the were the very worn bottoms to a set of flannel pajamas. Why Kevin would everas a grown man own a pair of Pink Panther pajamas, Javier didn't know, but he could easily see why they'd been a last resort. All things considered, he didn't consider himself in a position to be picky.

"I need some..." Kevin gestured loosely over his shoulder toward the rest of his apartment. "Coffee. I'm going to grab some coffee."

Javier sat for a while after his partner wandered out. At least from noises coming from the kitchen, he guessed Kevin really wasmaking coffee. With a breath, Javier pulled on the pants and stuck his head out of the bedroom. Kevin was sitting on the couch with his elbows on his knees, fingers pressed against his eyelids. Javier came up behind the couch and Kevin looked up with a weary smile.

"Don't apologize," he said. "If anyone should be sorry, it's me."

Javier didn't agree with the assessment, but he didn't bother to deny he'd been about to.

"This is the second time she's accused you of cheating on her," Javier observed as he came around the end of the couch to sit down next to him.

"Uh, it's the third, actually" Kevin admitted, sounding embarrassed—which would totally not be Javier's emotion if their roles were reverse, but whatever. "Don't worry. She just needs to cool off."

Denial was sometimes known to answer to the alias "Kevin Ryan". Before Javier could say anything else on the subject Kevin sad back on the couch and looked at him.

"So what'd you do to piss off Lanie?"

Javier groaned, running a hand over his face.

"Look, man, I really don't want to talk about it..."

"C'mon," Kevin said, "whatever it was it couldn't possiblybe more embarrassing than being kicked out in the altogether."

Javier snorted. "You realize how ridiculous it sounds for a grown-ass man to say 'in the altogether'?"

Though it became harder to apply that definition to his partner with every second that passed while he was stuck wearing those ridiculous pants...

"Don't change the subject." Kevin said, which was just hypocritical on somany levels. "Tell me or I'm repossessing my pants."

Kevin leaned over and slipped a finger under the waist band of the pajama bottoms and gave it a light tug. Javier was so startled by the action that he actually found himself blurting out the answer.

"Isaidyournameinbed." The sentence, if you could call it that, slipped out as a squeak Javier would not have previously thought himself capable of making.

Kevin pulled his hand back as though he'd been burned.

"After, not...during or anything," Javier corrected quickly. Uselessly. As though mumbling his partner's name amidst his post-coital glow was somehow any better.

For a long moment, neither of them spoke. Or breathed. Hell, Javier could have sworn his heart had stalled entirely. Kevin's expression was difficult to read, kind of helpless, as though he were caught between too many reactions to actually pick one.

"Um...oh." He finally managed. "I didn't... I didn't know you were..."

"I'm not," Javier said quickly, "I mean, look, I don't even know what I was thinking."

Which was a lie at the same time that it wasn't. Because seriously, he never had been... Only that didn't seem to have stopped him from sometimes, maybe thinking about Kevin's smile. Or about dragging him out of those vests he wore in a context notrelated to them being totally ridiculous. And it hadn't stopped Lanie from commenting on his glances and their closeness jokingly. And then later perhaps not so jokingly... The more he thought back on it, the more Javier realized that what happened that night hadn't been as out of nowhere as he liked to think it was. That for Lanie maybe it had just been the last straw.

And now he had to worry about what he'd just revealed; whether it would wind up hurting their friendship. Kevin was sitting a little stiffly, but he hadn't yet moved away. That had to be a goodsign, right?

"You know," Kevin offered, his voice painfully small, "the second time she thought I was cheating...she thought it was with you. She thinks we spend too much time together."

Javier felt this wasn't the right time or place to give his opinion on Jenny's management of Kevin's life or how unhealthy he thought it was.

"Lanie says the same thing. She didn't used to..."

Javier sighed. It was probably useless to try and pinpoint exactly when that had changed.

"I think tonight was just the last straw for her," he admitted, echoing his earlier thoughts.

He rubbed both hands over his face. Now that things had settled down his tiredness was coming back.

"We'll deal with them tomorrow," he finished, levering himself off the couch. He took a step before he paused and looked back at his partner questioningly.

"Bed offer still open?"

Kevin blinked, as though he'd been lost in thought.

"Huh? Oh. Yeah. Go ahead."

If it hadn't been true before, Javier was certain Kevin wasn't going to sleep tonight.

Javier slipped back under the sheets. This time, sleep didn't come so easily. Though his body was still tired, his mind was having difficulty putting any of the night's events away for safe keeping. Peace eluded him. It was only half an hour later when his sleepless rest was disturbed by a dip in the mattress. Looking over his shoulder he saw Kevin crawling into bed beside him.

"What...?"

The feel of Kevin's lips on the back of his neck stilled the question.

"Maybe..." Kevin whispered, his voice hesitant, "If we're both going to be in trouble anyway, maybe I'd like to do something worth getting in trouble for."

Javier let the thought run through his mind.

He wanted to, he realized. God did he want to. But not like this. Kevin wasn't that guy, and Javier couldn't let him be. Though, the fact he was willing to becomethat guy said that maybe there had been a last straw for him tonight, too.

"Maybe." Javier allowed, hedging the suggestion. "Maybe tomorrow morning, when you're not as mad at her. Or when Lanie's not as mad at me. We'll see if..."

He trailed off as Kevin's arms curled around his waist.

"Tomorrow?" Kevin asked, softly.

"Tomorrow," Javier agreed.

Though with Kevin folded up around him, it didn't feel like he was avoiding the idea anymore.

It felt like a promise.