"So what are we saying? Six o'clock, Enzo's, me, you and a nice bottle of wine?" Hopper smiled as he leant across the chief's desk. It had turned out that your pestering and hints had finally gotten through to the otherwise clueless man and he had finally asked you out on a date.

"Well, we can, I'm not entirely against it." You had never really been one for fine dining and expensive... overpriced wine, which was one of the things that had attracted you to Jim in the first place, he was a humble person just like yourself who yearned for a simple, easy and happy life.

"No what am I thinking, I mean I've got all these cases and missing children I've been ignoring. You know, it's so easy to procrastinate in this line of work and when you think about it, it's not really an important job." He said with a forced smile, his dry humour was normally a bit of a put off for the rest of the team but it did mostly tickle you and you knew his sarcasm was a mere defence mechanism.

"I think you've misunderstood me, I would love to go on a date with you Jim, I'm just not so sure about the whole fine dining experience. I'm more sit at home with a few cheep bottles of beer, maybe a decent bottle of scotch if it's been a good month for me and watch some crappy television and eat some takeout." You watched as Jim's normally motionless face curled ever so slightly into a pure smile and his eyes slowly lit.

"That sounds a whole lot better than paying for overpriced Italian crap, have you seen those portion sizes? You pay a small fortune for some pasta and I hardly get enough to satisfy my left leg." He scoffed with a great enthusiasm. "It's ridiculous, we should have shut down that place and arrested Enzo a long time ago for highway robbery." You both shared a light chuckle. "I finish in... well would you look at that, I'm the Chief of Police, I can finish early. How about you hop in the car with me, we can grab some Chinese food on the way back and we can just... have a good time at mine?"

"Sounds good." You smiled softly as Jim clambered the paper scraps and case files into what he considered to be a neat stack.

"But I will warn you, try and sit in my recliner, and you will face the consequences."

~*~

Written by Aaron.