(no subject)
OOC: Backdated to September 9, 2005
New York Police Department - Lobby
Upon stepping through the large, brass double doors that leads into the NYPD building, you find yourself immediately faced with a large reception desk. The officer on duty waits to greet you; to register your complaint, direct you to a specific department, or assist another officer in booking you on whatever charges that might have been laid. (If you're escorted into the building in handcuffs, it's a good guess that you'll get treatment number three.)
Several benches have been set out against the neighboring walls, there for people waiting for their turn at the desk. There's always an interesting assortment of characters gathered here in the lobby; prostitutes there to pick up friends, parents there to pick up wayward kids, and more often than not, real penitentiary officials there to pick up true criminals on their way to the slammer.
Behind the reception desk comes the sound of a high-traffic organization; phones ringing, people shouting, doors being slammed shut Stuff you're likely to hear in any office, let alone a police department. The only difference between this location and another building, is that this place really does have people 'tied' to a desk - specifically those individuals waiting to be booked or tossed into a holding cell.
[Exits : [M]utant [A]ffairs, [I]nterogation [R]oom, [H]olding [C]ell, and [O]ut ]
Early afternoon on a Friday: the last span of hours before the weekend, when those who have delayed through the week surrender at last to the urge of law. People stream in and out of the precinct, uniformed and not; inside the station itself, chaos reigns over the clatter of phones and shouting, urgent voices. Amidst cacophony, Homicide is a haven of relative peace. Murderers bide their time until evening. Until then, Chris Rossi rocks back in his chair, tie loosened, suit coat divested, exchanging stories with his partner.
And into that chaos pushes one teenaged girl, head down and sunglasses on as she makes her way through the doors to the station. Box of cookies clutched in slightly nervous hands, Alyssa stops just inside the doors, jumping forward a bit as one of them bumps into her on its closing swing. "Oh!" is yelped quietly, and she strides forward into the fray, trying her best not to look overwhelmed and slightly intimidated. "Um," is directed at the nearest passing officer, with a tug at blue-sleeved arm, "where would I find Detective Rossi?"
A thumb gestures down the hall, where a pitched battle rages between detectives. "Where it says 'Homicide' on the door," the cop instructs in a native's accent. Blue eyes, a match to the NYPD uniform, focus on Alyssa for a moment's inspection. "Ain't you a little young for him, kid? He robbing grade schools now?"
Alyssa stands on toes to peer down the hall, then reaches to sweep her hair off her forehead and eye the officer. "I'm not as young as I look. 'Sides, I'm just friends with'm. Brought cookies." She lifts up the box, grinning up and over, "Thank you for your help."
The uniform grins back in a moment's quick fellowship, then moves on to the shouted summons of his partner. The foyer is clogged with the arrested and their guardians, coiling in a ragged, vaguely ordered line before the judiciary of the desk sergeant. At the end of the hall, voices lift in fury and are cut off by a slam of doors; tempers blaze in the heated, stale air of the precinct. Not Chris's. For a change. "--a foot, sawed off right here. Still wearing panty hose and a shoe."
Alyssa clutches the box closer to her as she makes her way through the foyer, murmured apologies given out each and every time she encounters another moving body rather than air. Doors' slam elicits a jump, and she makes it close to the door marked 'Homicide' just a tad bit faster than originally intended. Anxiety stomped and stomped and stomped upon, green eyes barely betray her, though glasses' mask stays in place just in case. She stops. Queries, attempting to be heard over the din, and the arguement, "Detective Rossi?"
A passing detective within runs a glance over Alyssa, dismisses her as a visitor, and jerks his head towards the back of the room before stalking past. There he is, the target of her search: leaned back in his chair to risk life and limb, a foot planted on the edge of his desk. "This glass eye, just /sitting/ there," he tells the Asian man leaned against Beston's side, playing chess with the older detective. "So me and Beston are just looking at it, and this guy walks by, sees it, puts it in his mouth and swallows the damn thing without a word."
Arriving just in time to catch the last of Rossi's words, Alyssa hesitates a moment. "Er," blink, "Wouldn't that be hard to swallow? I mean, an eye's," box is shuffled to one hand, the other held up with thumb and forefinger curled into a circle of approximage eye-size, "sorta big, isn't it? Wouldn't that be hard to swallow?" A grin, and the hand is dropped, "Hi, Chris."
"Asshole choked on it," finishes Chris, dropping his feet with a grin for the girl. At the other table, the two detectives both turn interested regards to Alyssa, solemnly speculative. "Beston ended up saving his life. Then we arrested him. How's it going, kid? --Ken Yamaguchi, John Beston. Alyssa." One hand waves indeterminately between the three in minimalist introduction.
Alyssa flashes a smile at the other detectives, raising the box-free hand to wiggle fingers at theme in a suitable wave. "Detectives," is acknowledged with an extra twinkle for Beston, who gets a nod and, "You're Chris' partner, then?" And to Yamaguchi, "He hasn't told me about you. Sorry." The box raised in offering to all three, she grins again, "I brought cookies."
Yamaguchi makes a dismissive gesture that turns into an offered hand: shake, doggy. Beston, more expressive, draws a twinkling smile into the hound dog face, Irish in charm. Deep-voiced in bass, he rumbles a friendly, "Heard about you, kid. Chris says you want to be a cop. Cookies're a good start. He's got you set up to do ridealongs with Horschack, right?"
Up and over the box, Alyssa manages the handshake with another grin, and a semi-conspiratorial, "It's probably a good thing. Chris is an ass, you know." Releasing Ken's hand, she nods back to Beston, "Yeah, that's me. I, um. Did you, Chris?" Cookie box set on the desk to free her hands, she gestures, indicating that they're welcome to the tasty treats. "He hasn't /told/ me anything."
"You have no idea," says Beston, amusement coasting warm and flannel over his rough baritone. Across the desk, Chris leans forward to investigate the cookie box, offering his own, brief, "Yeah. Horschack. Sorry. Meant to call you, but I just got busy. She says she'll let you ride along with her and her partner, Pinner. Good cop. Most of her partners end up detectives, after she's through with training them."
"Oh? Oh!" Pleased, most certainly, Alyssa nods, still grinning. "Okay, then yeah. I'm all set up to do that. Do I need to talk to her or something, or do you have days and stuff set up for me already?" She wiggles, puppy-like, for a moment. "If I need to set stuff up, I will. That's cool."
Chris speeds a quick glance to his watch, considering, then admits, "I have no idea where she is, actually. Might be on shift, or not. Hold on and I'll find out. --My phone rings, Yamaguchi, grab it, would you? Waiting for the MUDs on the Tessler thing." Rossi launches out of his chair, striding on long legs for the door; in his wake, Ken drops gravely into place behind the desk, thumbs twiddling in comical inconsequence. Beston is more interested in the cookies. And Alyssa. "So how do you know Chris?"
Alyssa watches Rossi's exit with anticipation, bouncing up onto the balls of her feet to watch him go. "So, does this mean that if she's on, I'll get to go or something?" is directed vaguely at the two remaining detectives, before she pauses and twirls back to Beston. "He's my friend Leah's neighbor. Ran into him while I was trying to build myself up to telling her something. We talked. Then he got shot." Mouth turns down in remembrance, "So I visited him at the hospital and stuff. That's when I decided I wanted to be a cop."
"You wanted to get shot, too?" wonders Yamaguchi, in a lazy, laconic baritone overlaid with Chicago's accent. Like Beston's, if lighter; the older of the pair, Chris's partner, wheels idly in his chair and regards Alyssa with paternal amusement.
"Thought it looked romantic? --If Horschack's around, you can meet her at least and set up some times with her to figure out when you'll do the ridealong. She's a good cop. Been in uniform almost as long as I have. She can show you the ropes."
"No," Alyssa directs toward Yamaguchi, though her glance sketches back to include Beston's question in the answer. "It had something to do with what he'd said to me the first time we met. It just didn't really make sense until then." She shrugs, reaching up to scratch at her ear. "And some stuff he said when he was doped up at the hospital. I've got stuff I need to work on, you know? Not be so," a waves in slight agitation, brows drawing down in a momentary frown, "I dunno."
Yamaguchi blinks, almond-eyed and grave as a melon. "Short?"
"What'd he say in the hospital?" asks Beston, a smile couched in his smoky voice. "He was pretty doped up for a while there. -- Think you missed all that, Ken. Was right before you started."
Alyssa eyes Yamaguchi with a healthy dose of indignation, then shifts her attention over to Beston. Shoulder hunches slightly, and she angles herself so her back is slightly more toward the asian detective -- Beston's the one being nice to her, after all. "Baby chicken. He explained it to me later, and he's kinda right. He's also right that if you guys put me in a uniform right now, I'd be dead in a week." Rossi's words on Alyssa's lips, which turn down again in misplaced cynicism.
'Chicken,' Yamaguchi mouths with distant fascination, his gaze drifting down towards Alyssa's hindquarters as though to investigate the presence of cocks and burrs and feathers all akilter.
Beston chuckles quietly. "He's got a way with words, our Chris," he concedes. "Baby chicken. I think I remember him mumbling something about that in the hospital. So you're her? Don't worry about it, kid. Chris is more cynical than most. I'm sure you'll do fine, if you want to be a cop. Nothing to it. You wander around, pretend you know what you're doing. Anyone thinks different, you arrest 'im."
Yamaguchi is ignored to the best of Aly's ability, though one hand reaches down to brush at the back of her skirt. Nothing /there/, thank you. "Yeah, I'm her," she admits, though she brightens somewhat over the rest of Beston's words. "Thank you, Detective Beston. Everybody else I talk to about it," and here a glance, indicating the absent Rossi, "Thinks it's a stupid idea." Disappointment definitely colors her voice, at that.
"Why's that?" wonders Beston, rocking back in his chair with a good-natured grin lighting the homely, blunt-featured face. "It's tough work, it's true. --Don't let Chris bother you," he advises, following the hand's gesture back to the occupied chair and interpreting, correctly, its indication. "He's got a white knight thing going. Protect the women and children, and all that. Poor goof."
In the other seat, Yamaguchi grins. It is funny. He is amused.
"He's the only cop I actually /know/, though. And am, like, friends with. Kinda" Alyssa keeps attention focused on Beston, grinning, "Well, I know you guys now, but we're not /friends/. And I guess they don't think I'm cut out for it. I tend to think the best of people, you know?"
The older of the two cops chuckles huskily, leaning in his seat to prop his elbow on a padded arm. "Nothing wrong with thinking good about people," he says with easy charity. "Hey, you're young. It's what young people do. I still think the best of people. It's why I've been married three times."
"Divorced three times," reminds Yamaguchi from behind the desk, drolly.
"Potato, potahtoe. Point is, takes all kinds."
Alyssa follows the exchange with bemusement -- it's harder to ignore Yamaguchi if Beston isn't -- eventually turning wide and innocent eyes back on Beston. "I'm trying to work harder on not automatically trusting everyone so long's they're nice to me. Have you really been married three times?"
Brown eyes crinkle at the corners, deepening smile lines already permanently etched by time and use. "What can I say?" asks Beston, ruefully rhetorical. "I'm a sucker for women. -- There's Chris. They in?"
Hair lifted by the wind of his own speedy passage, Rossi stalks long-legged and hasty back into the room. "Just left. --Hey, kid. Horschack was just leaving, but if you're game, she can pick you up tomorrow at the precinct to ride with her for a few hours. How's that sound?"
Alyssa returns Beston's grin with one of her own, nose wrinkling up somewhat. "I dunno if that's really sweet, or kinda sad. I think I'll go with sweet, though." Rossi's arrival captures her attention, and she flashes him another smile, as well. "That sounds great. What time do I need to be here?"
"Noon," suggests Rossi with an unnecessary glance for the clock. Yamaguchi, still ensconced in Chris's chair, looks on with interest while the former routes his path through tables and traffic to come up once more against the harbor of their desks. "Give or take. Just c'mon back and dispatch can tell them you're in. They'll head back, pick you up, and you'll be set."
"Noon," Alyssa echoes, committing the time to memory. "I really appreciate this, Chris." And, because they're there, she reaches for a cookie.
Beston chuckles again, stalking and bringing down his own cookie before unraveling himself from the chair's creaky support. "C'mon, Ken. We've got some people to hunt down. --Later, kid," he bids, straightening for a hand's work over a button. At the opposite desk, Yamaguchi spins in his seat and unfolds as well, mutely settling into a sloop-shouldered amble. "Good luck. -- Be nice to the kid, Chris."
"Yeah," says Rossi, succinct in both acknowledgment and farewell. A hand waves them on their way, feeding them through the door, and Chris slouches into his recovered chair with a solemn, hair-spliced stare for Alyssa. "...So."
Alyssa waves to Beston with cookie in hand, favoring him a smile to go along with her, "Goodbye!" Attention turns back to Rossi, and she nibbles absently at the cookie before making note, "Beston's really nice." Pause. "I think Yamaguchi was kinda making fun of me, though."
The regard wavers, touched by exasperation -- and a certain grudging amusement, too. "Yeah. He does that. You should've seen what he--" Chris breaks off, plants a foot on the edge of his desk, and returns a faint grin to Alyssa. "He's from Chicago," he informs, as though the other man's origins explain all. "Then again, so's Beston. So you got Doc Grey's go-ahead."
"Seen what he what?" Alyssa inquires with a grin, edging over so she can hitch one hip up agaisnt the desk, and lean with arms folded, cookie held in one dangling hand. "Yeah. I got Dr. Grey's go-ahead. We had a good talk."
"He's got a sense of humor," finishes Chris, dismissing the subject of Yamaguchi with a shake of the head. He rocks back in his chair, propelled by that foot; the ancient chair squeaks shrilly, protesting with springs and unoiled hinges. "A good talk, huh? She told me to go ahead and take you to some ... places. You should see them if you really want to go down this road. So what'd she say?"
Alyssa acknowledges with a dip of head, though the subject of Yamagachi's humor is similarly dismissed. "She said that it'll take me at least three years before I'm even able to apply fo rthe Academy, for one thing. I guess she's kinda waiting to see if I stay interested in it or not. But that if it's what i want to do, go for it."
Chris grants the lapse of time with another creak, a faint shadow hitching between his brows. "Yeah. College first. Try some stuff out before you decide. Met a teacher at your school named Cassidy. Sean Cassidy. You know him?" Green scythes up from its drift (cookies!) into a concentrated frown. "Used to be NYPD."
"I'm going to be in one of his classes this year," Alyssa supplies, "and he came around to see me. Helped me take down some stuff I had that still reminds me of John." She eyes Chris sideways, and sighs. "He's proud of me, I think. But he did talk about some of the," voice drops, "prejudice out there." Pause. "In here."
"He'd know," says Rossi, fisting his chin on a knee-caught arm, brow pressing its fold into the crimp of lips. "Can't help you there, kid. Don't know anything about it. I'm old school blue; they roll out the welcome mat for our type in the Academy. You should talk to him more. Find out what he's willing to share."
"Damn you and your family connections, Chris Rossi." Head shakes, shaggy wisps of hair escaping their capturning ponytail. "I'm definitely going to be talking to him more often." Alyssa cants her head to the side, still looking over at Chris. Fiddles with the cookie, but doesn't take the bite.
The man grins lazily, eyelids drooping to conceal the glitter of eyes. "Can't choose your family," he quips, opening his spare hand to coax a cookie from Alyssa. One for him, please! "You can choose your friends. Beston says Cassidy's a good cop, and he doesn't say that about many people. Horschack, maybe. The Captain. Couple of others. Cassidy got any advice for you, listen to him."
Alyssa regards the coaxing hand blandly, then unfolds her arms, and retrieves and passes over a cookie. They /were/ brought for him, after all. "I'm trying to choose good friends. He ever say that about you?" Humor, again, though wry. "I'll definitely be paying attention. He's a really sweet guy. I'm looking forward to his class, and having him to talk to." A shoulder lifts. "Apparently, he's okay to hug."
"Damned if I know," admits Rossi, adding dryly atop that, "He's never tried to dump me as a partner or shoot me, so I figure that's a good sign. --Okay to hug? What, you got a chart?" Doubt inspects Alyssa over the moon of his acquisition and Chris pauses, pastry poised.
"I'll ask him, the next time I see him. Beston, I mean." Suddenly, Alyssa's cookie is the most interesting thing in the world. Oh, look! A cookie. "I, uh. No. Not exactly." Fidget.
"Whose list is this?" asks Chris. And, even more warily, "Am /I/ on that list?"
"There isn't a /list/," Alyssa notes, "Just that I'm supposed to, you know, like. Count, or something, if I want to hug someone. It's not my fault I like people." There's a touch of defensiveness in her voice. Just a touch.
Pale eyes blink. "Count to ten?" asks Rossi, matching defensiveness with his own incredulity. Which, a second later, is replaced by speculation. "Not a bad idea, actually. Considering. Whose idea was that?"
"For most people, yeah." A shoulder lifts, and Alyssa sheeishly admits, "Professor Summers. But at least he didn't lock me up in the school."
"Summers." Amusement. Approval. And respect. Rossi bites into his cookie, contemplates its flavor for a long, interested moment, then swallows to puzzle, "Lock you up in the school?"
"Summers." Consternation. "He. Yes. Because of the baby chicken thing." Alyssa contemplates ehr cookie. takes a bite.
Chris flashes a swift, glittering smile. "Wouldn't blame him."
Alyssa sticks her tongue out at Chris, immaturity briefly rearing its head. "I'm trying to work on it."
Rossi chuckles at that tongue, smothering its tail with another bite (crumbs on the tie, O Woe--) and drops his feet to solid earth and his chair's complaint. "That's a start, anyway. So Cassidy's okay to hug. Good to know. Normal school, teachers and students don't touch. Then again, yours is a little different, isn't it?" Is it? An eyebrow cocks, inquisitive.
Alyssa nods, "It's school, and everything. But at the same time, it's kinda like having mentors. More than just teachers." She shifts on the desk, finally going in for that bite of cookie. Must contemplate cookie for a moment. "It's five seconds for them. And friends. Otherwise, it's ten." Or twenty. Logan is Just that Special.
In so many, many ways. "You could do worse than Cassidy and Summers and the doc," supposes Rossi, lips turning for a moment's bitterness, old and tattered. It passes swiftly enough; in its aftermath, amusement recalls, "You don't like Summers much, I forgot. Well, Cassidy and Jean, then. Ride a few times with Horschack, and I can take you with me when I visit VA over the weekend. How's that sound?"
"Yeah, I don't ... really like him. But, he is also my Auto Shop teacher. So maybe it will get better." A grin, from the Aly. "The other two, though." Eyes twinkle, and she pushes away from the desk, shaking her yead ever so slightly from side to side. "Anyway. Yeah, that sounds like a plan." Again with the smile.
"I'll give you a call then," promises Chris, a reflection of that same smile skimming behind his gaze. "I have--" an interruption. The phone trills its sharp-voiced ring, demanding, urgent, as peremptory as any shrew. Rossi tosses it a wrinkle of exasperation. "--Crap."
"Um. Shit." Alyssa eyes the phone for a moment, then hitches shoulders up in a shrug. "I should probably go anyway. You get that?" A nod to the jangling phone, then "D'you need my number? I don't remember if I've given it to you...."
A distracted hand reaps through the mess of Rossi's desk, shuffling through papers and files; the other, groping, claims the phone's handset. "Homicide, Rossi. Hold on just a sec." /That/ for the phone. For Alyssa: a pad and a pen. "Don't think you did. Here. Write it down. --Yeah, yeah. Sorry. Tucci! Goddammit, you asshat. /Yes/. Got the warrant. Mendez is heading over there now."
Alyssa quickly scrawls her name and number, returning the pad and pen with a smile's flash and a hand's wave. "There. Later, Chris. I can find my way out." And she will refrain from offering a hug goodbye, instead glancing with unsubtle concern at the phone. "I'll let you deal with whatever this is." And so, she wiggles her fingers goodbye again, and turns to head out the way she came in, sans cookies.
A hand waves from behind a wall of inflammatory sentiment, hurled with companionable annoyance through the medium of Ma Bell. Until later. For now, Christopher, patron saint of travellers, runs in place for the NYPD over a river of crap. Joy to the believers; sing hosannah and praise the Lord.
[Log ends]
Alyssa brings Rossi the promised cookies, meets his partner Beston, and is finally hooked up to go on ride-alongs with a uniform.
New York Police Department - Lobby
Upon stepping through the large, brass double doors that leads into the NYPD building, you find yourself immediately faced with a large reception desk. The officer on duty waits to greet you; to register your complaint, direct you to a specific department, or assist another officer in booking you on whatever charges that might have been laid. (If you're escorted into the building in handcuffs, it's a good guess that you'll get treatment number three.)
Several benches have been set out against the neighboring walls, there for people waiting for their turn at the desk. There's always an interesting assortment of characters gathered here in the lobby; prostitutes there to pick up friends, parents there to pick up wayward kids, and more often than not, real penitentiary officials there to pick up true criminals on their way to the slammer.
Behind the reception desk comes the sound of a high-traffic organization; phones ringing, people shouting, doors being slammed shut Stuff you're likely to hear in any office, let alone a police department. The only difference between this location and another building, is that this place really does have people 'tied' to a desk - specifically those individuals waiting to be booked or tossed into a holding cell.
[Exits : [M]utant [A]ffairs, [I]nterogation [R]oom, [H]olding [C]ell, and [O]ut ]
Early afternoon on a Friday: the last span of hours before the weekend, when those who have delayed through the week surrender at last to the urge of law. People stream in and out of the precinct, uniformed and not; inside the station itself, chaos reigns over the clatter of phones and shouting, urgent voices. Amidst cacophony, Homicide is a haven of relative peace. Murderers bide their time until evening. Until then, Chris Rossi rocks back in his chair, tie loosened, suit coat divested, exchanging stories with his partner.
And into that chaos pushes one teenaged girl, head down and sunglasses on as she makes her way through the doors to the station. Box of cookies clutched in slightly nervous hands, Alyssa stops just inside the doors, jumping forward a bit as one of them bumps into her on its closing swing. "Oh!" is yelped quietly, and she strides forward into the fray, trying her best not to look overwhelmed and slightly intimidated. "Um," is directed at the nearest passing officer, with a tug at blue-sleeved arm, "where would I find Detective Rossi?"
A thumb gestures down the hall, where a pitched battle rages between detectives. "Where it says 'Homicide' on the door," the cop instructs in a native's accent. Blue eyes, a match to the NYPD uniform, focus on Alyssa for a moment's inspection. "Ain't you a little young for him, kid? He robbing grade schools now?"
Alyssa stands on toes to peer down the hall, then reaches to sweep her hair off her forehead and eye the officer. "I'm not as young as I look. 'Sides, I'm just friends with'm. Brought cookies." She lifts up the box, grinning up and over, "Thank you for your help."
The uniform grins back in a moment's quick fellowship, then moves on to the shouted summons of his partner. The foyer is clogged with the arrested and their guardians, coiling in a ragged, vaguely ordered line before the judiciary of the desk sergeant. At the end of the hall, voices lift in fury and are cut off by a slam of doors; tempers blaze in the heated, stale air of the precinct. Not Chris's. For a change. "--a foot, sawed off right here. Still wearing panty hose and a shoe."
Alyssa clutches the box closer to her as she makes her way through the foyer, murmured apologies given out each and every time she encounters another moving body rather than air. Doors' slam elicits a jump, and she makes it close to the door marked 'Homicide' just a tad bit faster than originally intended. Anxiety stomped and stomped and stomped upon, green eyes barely betray her, though glasses' mask stays in place just in case. She stops. Queries, attempting to be heard over the din, and the arguement, "Detective Rossi?"
A passing detective within runs a glance over Alyssa, dismisses her as a visitor, and jerks his head towards the back of the room before stalking past. There he is, the target of her search: leaned back in his chair to risk life and limb, a foot planted on the edge of his desk. "This glass eye, just /sitting/ there," he tells the Asian man leaned against Beston's side, playing chess with the older detective. "So me and Beston are just looking at it, and this guy walks by, sees it, puts it in his mouth and swallows the damn thing without a word."
Arriving just in time to catch the last of Rossi's words, Alyssa hesitates a moment. "Er," blink, "Wouldn't that be hard to swallow? I mean, an eye's," box is shuffled to one hand, the other held up with thumb and forefinger curled into a circle of approximage eye-size, "sorta big, isn't it? Wouldn't that be hard to swallow?" A grin, and the hand is dropped, "Hi, Chris."
"Asshole choked on it," finishes Chris, dropping his feet with a grin for the girl. At the other table, the two detectives both turn interested regards to Alyssa, solemnly speculative. "Beston ended up saving his life. Then we arrested him. How's it going, kid? --Ken Yamaguchi, John Beston. Alyssa." One hand waves indeterminately between the three in minimalist introduction.
Alyssa flashes a smile at the other detectives, raising the box-free hand to wiggle fingers at theme in a suitable wave. "Detectives," is acknowledged with an extra twinkle for Beston, who gets a nod and, "You're Chris' partner, then?" And to Yamaguchi, "He hasn't told me about you. Sorry." The box raised in offering to all three, she grins again, "I brought cookies."
Yamaguchi makes a dismissive gesture that turns into an offered hand: shake, doggy. Beston, more expressive, draws a twinkling smile into the hound dog face, Irish in charm. Deep-voiced in bass, he rumbles a friendly, "Heard about you, kid. Chris says you want to be a cop. Cookies're a good start. He's got you set up to do ridealongs with Horschack, right?"
Up and over the box, Alyssa manages the handshake with another grin, and a semi-conspiratorial, "It's probably a good thing. Chris is an ass, you know." Releasing Ken's hand, she nods back to Beston, "Yeah, that's me. I, um. Did you, Chris?" Cookie box set on the desk to free her hands, she gestures, indicating that they're welcome to the tasty treats. "He hasn't /told/ me anything."
"You have no idea," says Beston, amusement coasting warm and flannel over his rough baritone. Across the desk, Chris leans forward to investigate the cookie box, offering his own, brief, "Yeah. Horschack. Sorry. Meant to call you, but I just got busy. She says she'll let you ride along with her and her partner, Pinner. Good cop. Most of her partners end up detectives, after she's through with training them."
"Oh? Oh!" Pleased, most certainly, Alyssa nods, still grinning. "Okay, then yeah. I'm all set up to do that. Do I need to talk to her or something, or do you have days and stuff set up for me already?" She wiggles, puppy-like, for a moment. "If I need to set stuff up, I will. That's cool."
Chris speeds a quick glance to his watch, considering, then admits, "I have no idea where she is, actually. Might be on shift, or not. Hold on and I'll find out. --My phone rings, Yamaguchi, grab it, would you? Waiting for the MUDs on the Tessler thing." Rossi launches out of his chair, striding on long legs for the door; in his wake, Ken drops gravely into place behind the desk, thumbs twiddling in comical inconsequence. Beston is more interested in the cookies. And Alyssa. "So how do you know Chris?"
Alyssa watches Rossi's exit with anticipation, bouncing up onto the balls of her feet to watch him go. "So, does this mean that if she's on, I'll get to go or something?" is directed vaguely at the two remaining detectives, before she pauses and twirls back to Beston. "He's my friend Leah's neighbor. Ran into him while I was trying to build myself up to telling her something. We talked. Then he got shot." Mouth turns down in remembrance, "So I visited him at the hospital and stuff. That's when I decided I wanted to be a cop."
"You wanted to get shot, too?" wonders Yamaguchi, in a lazy, laconic baritone overlaid with Chicago's accent. Like Beston's, if lighter; the older of the pair, Chris's partner, wheels idly in his chair and regards Alyssa with paternal amusement.
"Thought it looked romantic? --If Horschack's around, you can meet her at least and set up some times with her to figure out when you'll do the ridealong. She's a good cop. Been in uniform almost as long as I have. She can show you the ropes."
"No," Alyssa directs toward Yamaguchi, though her glance sketches back to include Beston's question in the answer. "It had something to do with what he'd said to me the first time we met. It just didn't really make sense until then." She shrugs, reaching up to scratch at her ear. "And some stuff he said when he was doped up at the hospital. I've got stuff I need to work on, you know? Not be so," a waves in slight agitation, brows drawing down in a momentary frown, "I dunno."
Yamaguchi blinks, almond-eyed and grave as a melon. "Short?"
"What'd he say in the hospital?" asks Beston, a smile couched in his smoky voice. "He was pretty doped up for a while there. -- Think you missed all that, Ken. Was right before you started."
Alyssa eyes Yamaguchi with a healthy dose of indignation, then shifts her attention over to Beston. Shoulder hunches slightly, and she angles herself so her back is slightly more toward the asian detective -- Beston's the one being nice to her, after all. "Baby chicken. He explained it to me later, and he's kinda right. He's also right that if you guys put me in a uniform right now, I'd be dead in a week." Rossi's words on Alyssa's lips, which turn down again in misplaced cynicism.
'Chicken,' Yamaguchi mouths with distant fascination, his gaze drifting down towards Alyssa's hindquarters as though to investigate the presence of cocks and burrs and feathers all akilter.
Beston chuckles quietly. "He's got a way with words, our Chris," he concedes. "Baby chicken. I think I remember him mumbling something about that in the hospital. So you're her? Don't worry about it, kid. Chris is more cynical than most. I'm sure you'll do fine, if you want to be a cop. Nothing to it. You wander around, pretend you know what you're doing. Anyone thinks different, you arrest 'im."
Yamaguchi is ignored to the best of Aly's ability, though one hand reaches down to brush at the back of her skirt. Nothing /there/, thank you. "Yeah, I'm her," she admits, though she brightens somewhat over the rest of Beston's words. "Thank you, Detective Beston. Everybody else I talk to about it," and here a glance, indicating the absent Rossi, "Thinks it's a stupid idea." Disappointment definitely colors her voice, at that.
"Why's that?" wonders Beston, rocking back in his chair with a good-natured grin lighting the homely, blunt-featured face. "It's tough work, it's true. --Don't let Chris bother you," he advises, following the hand's gesture back to the occupied chair and interpreting, correctly, its indication. "He's got a white knight thing going. Protect the women and children, and all that. Poor goof."
In the other seat, Yamaguchi grins. It is funny. He is amused.
"He's the only cop I actually /know/, though. And am, like, friends with. Kinda" Alyssa keeps attention focused on Beston, grinning, "Well, I know you guys now, but we're not /friends/. And I guess they don't think I'm cut out for it. I tend to think the best of people, you know?"
The older of the two cops chuckles huskily, leaning in his seat to prop his elbow on a padded arm. "Nothing wrong with thinking good about people," he says with easy charity. "Hey, you're young. It's what young people do. I still think the best of people. It's why I've been married three times."
"Divorced three times," reminds Yamaguchi from behind the desk, drolly.
"Potato, potahtoe. Point is, takes all kinds."
Alyssa follows the exchange with bemusement -- it's harder to ignore Yamaguchi if Beston isn't -- eventually turning wide and innocent eyes back on Beston. "I'm trying to work harder on not automatically trusting everyone so long's they're nice to me. Have you really been married three times?"
Brown eyes crinkle at the corners, deepening smile lines already permanently etched by time and use. "What can I say?" asks Beston, ruefully rhetorical. "I'm a sucker for women. -- There's Chris. They in?"
Hair lifted by the wind of his own speedy passage, Rossi stalks long-legged and hasty back into the room. "Just left. --Hey, kid. Horschack was just leaving, but if you're game, she can pick you up tomorrow at the precinct to ride with her for a few hours. How's that sound?"
Alyssa returns Beston's grin with one of her own, nose wrinkling up somewhat. "I dunno if that's really sweet, or kinda sad. I think I'll go with sweet, though." Rossi's arrival captures her attention, and she flashes him another smile, as well. "That sounds great. What time do I need to be here?"
"Noon," suggests Rossi with an unnecessary glance for the clock. Yamaguchi, still ensconced in Chris's chair, looks on with interest while the former routes his path through tables and traffic to come up once more against the harbor of their desks. "Give or take. Just c'mon back and dispatch can tell them you're in. They'll head back, pick you up, and you'll be set."
"Noon," Alyssa echoes, committing the time to memory. "I really appreciate this, Chris." And, because they're there, she reaches for a cookie.
Beston chuckles again, stalking and bringing down his own cookie before unraveling himself from the chair's creaky support. "C'mon, Ken. We've got some people to hunt down. --Later, kid," he bids, straightening for a hand's work over a button. At the opposite desk, Yamaguchi spins in his seat and unfolds as well, mutely settling into a sloop-shouldered amble. "Good luck. -- Be nice to the kid, Chris."
"Yeah," says Rossi, succinct in both acknowledgment and farewell. A hand waves them on their way, feeding them through the door, and Chris slouches into his recovered chair with a solemn, hair-spliced stare for Alyssa. "...So."
Alyssa waves to Beston with cookie in hand, favoring him a smile to go along with her, "Goodbye!" Attention turns back to Rossi, and she nibbles absently at the cookie before making note, "Beston's really nice." Pause. "I think Yamaguchi was kinda making fun of me, though."
The regard wavers, touched by exasperation -- and a certain grudging amusement, too. "Yeah. He does that. You should've seen what he--" Chris breaks off, plants a foot on the edge of his desk, and returns a faint grin to Alyssa. "He's from Chicago," he informs, as though the other man's origins explain all. "Then again, so's Beston. So you got Doc Grey's go-ahead."
"Seen what he what?" Alyssa inquires with a grin, edging over so she can hitch one hip up agaisnt the desk, and lean with arms folded, cookie held in one dangling hand. "Yeah. I got Dr. Grey's go-ahead. We had a good talk."
"He's got a sense of humor," finishes Chris, dismissing the subject of Yamaguchi with a shake of the head. He rocks back in his chair, propelled by that foot; the ancient chair squeaks shrilly, protesting with springs and unoiled hinges. "A good talk, huh? She told me to go ahead and take you to some ... places. You should see them if you really want to go down this road. So what'd she say?"
Alyssa acknowledges with a dip of head, though the subject of Yamagachi's humor is similarly dismissed. "She said that it'll take me at least three years before I'm even able to apply fo rthe Academy, for one thing. I guess she's kinda waiting to see if I stay interested in it or not. But that if it's what i want to do, go for it."
Chris grants the lapse of time with another creak, a faint shadow hitching between his brows. "Yeah. College first. Try some stuff out before you decide. Met a teacher at your school named Cassidy. Sean Cassidy. You know him?" Green scythes up from its drift (cookies!) into a concentrated frown. "Used to be NYPD."
"I'm going to be in one of his classes this year," Alyssa supplies, "and he came around to see me. Helped me take down some stuff I had that still reminds me of John." She eyes Chris sideways, and sighs. "He's proud of me, I think. But he did talk about some of the," voice drops, "prejudice out there." Pause. "In here."
"He'd know," says Rossi, fisting his chin on a knee-caught arm, brow pressing its fold into the crimp of lips. "Can't help you there, kid. Don't know anything about it. I'm old school blue; they roll out the welcome mat for our type in the Academy. You should talk to him more. Find out what he's willing to share."
"Damn you and your family connections, Chris Rossi." Head shakes, shaggy wisps of hair escaping their capturning ponytail. "I'm definitely going to be talking to him more often." Alyssa cants her head to the side, still looking over at Chris. Fiddles with the cookie, but doesn't take the bite.
The man grins lazily, eyelids drooping to conceal the glitter of eyes. "Can't choose your family," he quips, opening his spare hand to coax a cookie from Alyssa. One for him, please! "You can choose your friends. Beston says Cassidy's a good cop, and he doesn't say that about many people. Horschack, maybe. The Captain. Couple of others. Cassidy got any advice for you, listen to him."
Alyssa regards the coaxing hand blandly, then unfolds her arms, and retrieves and passes over a cookie. They /were/ brought for him, after all. "I'm trying to choose good friends. He ever say that about you?" Humor, again, though wry. "I'll definitely be paying attention. He's a really sweet guy. I'm looking forward to his class, and having him to talk to." A shoulder lifts. "Apparently, he's okay to hug."
"Damned if I know," admits Rossi, adding dryly atop that, "He's never tried to dump me as a partner or shoot me, so I figure that's a good sign. --Okay to hug? What, you got a chart?" Doubt inspects Alyssa over the moon of his acquisition and Chris pauses, pastry poised.
"I'll ask him, the next time I see him. Beston, I mean." Suddenly, Alyssa's cookie is the most interesting thing in the world. Oh, look! A cookie. "I, uh. No. Not exactly." Fidget.
"Whose list is this?" asks Chris. And, even more warily, "Am /I/ on that list?"
"There isn't a /list/," Alyssa notes, "Just that I'm supposed to, you know, like. Count, or something, if I want to hug someone. It's not my fault I like people." There's a touch of defensiveness in her voice. Just a touch.
Pale eyes blink. "Count to ten?" asks Rossi, matching defensiveness with his own incredulity. Which, a second later, is replaced by speculation. "Not a bad idea, actually. Considering. Whose idea was that?"
"For most people, yeah." A shoulder lifts, and Alyssa sheeishly admits, "Professor Summers. But at least he didn't lock me up in the school."
"Summers." Amusement. Approval. And respect. Rossi bites into his cookie, contemplates its flavor for a long, interested moment, then swallows to puzzle, "Lock you up in the school?"
"Summers." Consternation. "He. Yes. Because of the baby chicken thing." Alyssa contemplates ehr cookie. takes a bite.
Chris flashes a swift, glittering smile. "Wouldn't blame him."
Alyssa sticks her tongue out at Chris, immaturity briefly rearing its head. "I'm trying to work on it."
Rossi chuckles at that tongue, smothering its tail with another bite (crumbs on the tie, O Woe--) and drops his feet to solid earth and his chair's complaint. "That's a start, anyway. So Cassidy's okay to hug. Good to know. Normal school, teachers and students don't touch. Then again, yours is a little different, isn't it?" Is it? An eyebrow cocks, inquisitive.
Alyssa nods, "It's school, and everything. But at the same time, it's kinda like having mentors. More than just teachers." She shifts on the desk, finally going in for that bite of cookie. Must contemplate cookie for a moment. "It's five seconds for them. And friends. Otherwise, it's ten." Or twenty. Logan is Just that Special.
In so many, many ways. "You could do worse than Cassidy and Summers and the doc," supposes Rossi, lips turning for a moment's bitterness, old and tattered. It passes swiftly enough; in its aftermath, amusement recalls, "You don't like Summers much, I forgot. Well, Cassidy and Jean, then. Ride a few times with Horschack, and I can take you with me when I visit VA over the weekend. How's that sound?"
"Yeah, I don't ... really like him. But, he is also my Auto Shop teacher. So maybe it will get better." A grin, from the Aly. "The other two, though." Eyes twinkle, and she pushes away from the desk, shaking her yead ever so slightly from side to side. "Anyway. Yeah, that sounds like a plan." Again with the smile.
"I'll give you a call then," promises Chris, a reflection of that same smile skimming behind his gaze. "I have--" an interruption. The phone trills its sharp-voiced ring, demanding, urgent, as peremptory as any shrew. Rossi tosses it a wrinkle of exasperation. "--Crap."
"Um. Shit." Alyssa eyes the phone for a moment, then hitches shoulders up in a shrug. "I should probably go anyway. You get that?" A nod to the jangling phone, then "D'you need my number? I don't remember if I've given it to you...."
A distracted hand reaps through the mess of Rossi's desk, shuffling through papers and files; the other, groping, claims the phone's handset. "Homicide, Rossi. Hold on just a sec." /That/ for the phone. For Alyssa: a pad and a pen. "Don't think you did. Here. Write it down. --Yeah, yeah. Sorry. Tucci! Goddammit, you asshat. /Yes/. Got the warrant. Mendez is heading over there now."
Alyssa quickly scrawls her name and number, returning the pad and pen with a smile's flash and a hand's wave. "There. Later, Chris. I can find my way out." And she will refrain from offering a hug goodbye, instead glancing with unsubtle concern at the phone. "I'll let you deal with whatever this is." And so, she wiggles her fingers goodbye again, and turns to head out the way she came in, sans cookies.
A hand waves from behind a wall of inflammatory sentiment, hurled with companionable annoyance through the medium of Ma Bell. Until later. For now, Christopher, patron saint of travellers, runs in place for the NYPD over a river of crap. Joy to the believers; sing hosannah and praise the Lord.
[Log ends]
Alyssa brings Rossi the promised cookies, meets his partner Beston, and is finally hooked up to go on ride-alongs with a uniform.