These days the buck stops nowhere, no one takes the blame, but evil is still evil in anybody's name.

[nothingsodivine]

Des is out on the streets, putting the finishing touches on some research for Project Nephilim Rescue, mostly because spending more time in the house with Cy the Naked Cat-Girl Wonder was bound to make him want to punch a wall and he most pointedly did not tell any of the other residents that there might be a naked girl making a mess of their

Comments

[nowinprint]

Dmitri has found a patch of sidewalk that no one's bothered to clear of ice and, to all appearances, is doing a little softshoe on it. This may or may not be an agility exercise prescribed by one of the local archangels. Or possibly it's just Dmitri enjoying the weather. Sometimes, it's hard to tell.

She notices Des coming out from behind a corner and takes a hop-skid almost right into him, tagging him on the elbow. "I turn into a bird," she says, because hellos and lead-ins are for the weak. "Not, like, British slang grass is something you smoke birds, but bird bird. Corvus corax, you know, the kind they have a problem with carrying off housecats in Alaska. I'm on the fence between thinking that's kinda cool actually and wondering why I have to turn into anything. Also, for all that the syrinx is a wonderful thing, saying Pretty Polly wants a carrion is not as easy as advertised."

[nothingsodivine]

Hellos and lead-ins are about as overrated to Des as they are to Dmitri, so he just grins and and shoves his hands in his pocket. "Hey, if you ever want a cat to carry off as an experiment in bird social activities or whatever, I got one come through the Rift in my house and not only does it talk, it's crazy, turns into something that might eat my face, and is currently a naked girl all over my living room."

And that's the summary of Des's week!

And then he adds, rather expertly. "And the answer to why you have to turn into anything is because the Doctor was dumb. That is all the answer anyone will ever need for most things."

He loves the Doctor. Really.

[nowinprint]

"One day maybe we'll get an answer as to why the Doctor is dumb," Dmitri says. "You know, the same day we reverse the Rift and turn the Mojave into viable cropland the likes of which would stun the Fertile Cresent. One of those days. You have crazy cat-girls in your living room?"

This sounds like a story she should hear.

[nothingsodivine]

"Thank you for not saying 'when pigs fly,'" Des mutters under his breath. He has a complex, dammit, and an irrational fear. He returns to normal speaking level and says, with something akin to a pained grimace, "Yeah, because I draw crazy like a soldier draws fire, apparently. Given all the shapeshifting going on in this damn city, it was only a matter of time before we started getting real-live sentient, talking animals too, but I would have wanted my first meeting with one of 'em to be a little less crazy and not involve them turning into naked girls. I have a feeling that Maria's going to insist we keep her as a pet, never mind that... Well, she's a sentient cat that turns into a human and that seems sketchy somehow."

And Cy might have serious protestations about that.

[nowinprint]

"Back in Chicago numero Uno, we had a pteranodon who shapeshifted into a human woman and a compsognathus," Dmitri offers. "You know Sam Tyler, right? Took to him right away. No one knew why. Kinda cute, though especially as he usually had to lure her down off bookcases and stuff with kippers. Trust me, if you have never gotten to watch the most professional man in Torchwood contend with a naked squawking redhead in the Conrad commons room... comedy gold."

Somewhere, somehow, Sam is NOT AMUSED.

[nothingsodivine]

Des snorts, because... What an image. "Well, on the plus side, Cat-Girl talks, even if what she says is half-nonsense." Granted, he's almost used to that right now. Like he said, he draws the crazy. "But I'd like to see that."

Des's sense of schadenfreude is epic. It comes from hanging out with Mathias all those years.

"So, aside from the whole turning into things, how's tricks, Dmi-belle? You itchin' for another beer run sometime?"

Because there is always time for more alcohol in Des's world.

[nowinprint]

"Oh, Deschund. When am I not up for another beer run?" Dmitri laughs. "Things are going Pretty Well, you know, got an archangel giving me martial arts training, got the Board of the Sciences deliberating over another grant to write an article on intra-Wanderer Community politics in snowy Chicago. Good times all around, really."

She... quiets. A bit.

"...well, mostly. There was this... thing, with a friend of mine. Well. We were friends back in my own universe. Didn't have a lot of time to catch up with him here. Shapeshifter. Bartender. Real sweet guy. Got in the middle of something, I hear, got shot right outside his own bar, and you know the police don't have much to do about it. That just... rankles. You know."

[nothingsodivine]

Des claps his hands together. "Excellent, because the Doctor's got something cooked up and I'm gonna be out of town, helping him with that, and I'd hate to leave town without another date with Dmitri Lang. Looks like it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas if things are looking that good around these parts." He throws an arm around her and just starts walking again, because this is an affectionate Des

[nowinprint]

Dmitri elbows him in the side at the "date" comment, though not hard enough to be more than a nudge. It's more of a reminder, really, that they both know they're joking.

"Coup'la steps, really," she says. "Didn't go through the trouble of getting police credentials to sit around twiddling my thumbs. Once you get to a certain place, though, things just stop and get buried under classifications I don't think exist. I don't think it's paranormal, I think it's either people being more incompetent than I want to believe or dropping the investigation for... I don't know." She sighs. "I'm not a policeman. I don't know the ins and outs."

[nothingsodivine]

Des sighs and stares up at the overcast sky. "You get it a lot in big cities and the crime rate in this Chicago isn't a dance in Dixie either, what with the locos we got running around here. I get the impression that if it looks like it reeked of people like me and you, they won't touch it with a ten foot pole."

That's just his observation, of course. Hell if he understands policemen. He just avoids the whole lot of them altogether and does things his own way. It works out. Usually.

"Not that they have any way of telling it was one of us just by looking at it, unless they know something I don't. I don't know, sunshine. It's a problem."

[nowinprint]

"Yeah. Damn city corruption. Almost makes you want to go form a vigilante group of Wanderers, if you were, you know, totally incapable of learning from mistakes. I dunno. The last time I went poking my nose into dangerous business didn't end so well."

In that she's now down two wings and up a few concussions on her medical records. And - you know what, she doesn't need to think about this now. She shakes her head, looking back up at Des.

"La Fin du Monde," she says. "As beers go it's not actually that stellar, but it comes in a bottle you could probably end someone with and what's more quintessentially Chicagoan than a beer whose name translates to End of the World? Okay, technically it was named for explorers who thought they'd reached the end-as-in-farthest-part of the world when they hit America, and it's brewed in Quebec, but you find a joke and go with it." She hits his arm. "If I find a place that reliably stocks it, I'll get you a few bottles to take home to the Doctor. I'm sure he'll enjoy that."

[nothingsodivine]

Des makes a sound in the back of his throat that's almost like a half-strangled nervous laugh. Des has... A collection of various cases that he took and kept up with even when everyone around him knew he was going to wind up regretting it. He wouldn't stop pushing and people tended to get killed and while the Rift's left him without all the know-how he had that made him the only person who could really fix things, the fact that every now and then he wants to still exists.

He doesn't say anything to that though, because he knows that people tend to get killed when he starts going off on vigilante tangents.

He snorts at the mention of the beer, glad of the subject change, and pulls her in a little closer when she hits his arm. "Oh he'd get a kick out of that. Don't know that he'll drink it. I haven't seen him drink much more than a banana daiquiri in all this time that I've known him, but Martha and I will probably drink enough for him. Hell, next time Chicago decides to explode, Martha and I will just drink the stuff while the city

[nowinprint]

Dmitri snorts. "Dizzy, if I find you drinking while the city burns, I'm going to beat you senseless with my fiddle. How to get it back from Chicago Primo will, I'm sure, be the least of my worries."

She pauses for a moment.

"...you know, I can't decide whether getting the Doctor drunk would be hilarious of terrifying, go figure. He'd either fall all over himself or build a doomsday device in the shape of a spinning top or something."

[nothingsodivine]

Des flashes a toothy smile. "Oh a fiddle? That's delicious irony there. You could buy a fiddle for just that purpose. I would, if I wasn't broke. Detective agency hasn't gotten started up yet- keep getting distracted by sewers, but this is apparently what comes of hanging out with the Doctor. He breeds disaster when life gets too dull."

Granted, this is a much more pleasant disaster. Sewers and Nephilim kids, he can handle. Kidnapping, murdering psychopaths are so not his idea of a good time.

He considers this. He considers this very hard. "We could find out," he drawls in a tone that is mildly devious.

[nowinprint]

Dmitri responds with perhaps too much of a grin. "We could," she says. "Between you, me, and Donna, we should be able to keep him from burning down too much of the city." She nods decisively. "Besides, it's For Science!"

Getting the Doctor drunk is always for science.

Something else occurs to her. "...do I want to ask about the sewers?"

[nothingsodivine]

"Have I mentioned lately that I'm very much in love with your brain," Des responds with even more of a devious grin. "I say we spike his punch at the Christmas party... Not that there is a Christmas party, but, hypothetically, if there was one, we could spike the punch." He pauses, considering other options. "I'd consider making him Irish Coffee with a bit too much 'Irish' in, but somehow I think a drunk and overcaffeinated Doctor would cause the city to implode no matter what we do."

And at that question, Des just throws his head back and laughs. "My building's basement opens up into the sewers where a friendly community of Rift-displaced creatures were having their mushroom crops compromised by run-off from some factory in Gary, Indiana. The Doctor and I went down there to fix it. I wound up stuck down there for, like, a month."

While Psychopath McBastard of the Jackass Infantry ran amok. He's still very sore about that.

"The Weevils make good tea though," he adds to avoid thinking about Thane and anything related to him.