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< NYC > New York Police Department - Lobby < NYC >
Great brass double doors lead into the precinct lobby, a crowded hall that teems with life under the dictatorship of the officer on duty. Long benches line the walls, ports of rest for the patient and the weary. To either side of the reception desk, hallways painted in peeling puke-green stretch back into the building proper, routing past labeled and busy offices: squad rooms, interrogation rooms, holding pens and file rooms. Ordered chaos is the name of the game; traffic and noise roil through the crowded passages, lit by electric fluorescence and dust-rich light.
It is that timeless, endless last hour between one shift's end and another shift's start, an overlap of heat and chaos as tempers fray: handoff from men reluctant to release their files, no matter their trust in the waiting pair. Leaned in the hallway between MA and Homicide, Chris Rossi cradles coffee in one scratch-crossed hand, jagging sardonic mockery at a fellow detective. "Two stories down and your head cracked open like an egg. Goddamn blonde joke, Kant. Should introduce you to him. Maybe he does better with women."
Matieau enters into the lobby from the depth of the station. Coming out looking rather beat, the usual appearence after anyone's day of work. The subject matter for his just made the exhaustion all that more apparent. He pushes back a lock of hair that had started to slip into face. A camera case hangs around his neck. A messenger bag at his side. He look weighted down with the sins of the job. He pauses, nearish to Rossi, and starts to break down his camera. Taking off the lens and carefully placing it in the bag. He glances up and offers a curt nod to the dective he recognized. "Hey," He offers before turning back to his task at hand. Getting the hell outta dodge...or at least this station.
Rossi's colleague -- Kant -- grins, a sharp edge of amusement for the thin, gamin face. A hand lifts farewell, turning her away to join her partner's long-legged departure; bereft of entertainment for a moment, at any rate, the remaining detective quizzes a glance back at Matieau. A pale glimmer of recognition marks him. "Hey. You're that new CSU guy. Mat-something."
Matieau clicks the last pieces of the camera into place and zips the bag shut. "Yea," He responds looking back over at Rossi. "Matieau, but et's probably just as well you stick with Matt-something." He chuckles to show he was kidding. He adjusts the strap around his neck a little. His eyes study Rossi for a second and then he adds. "Detective Rossi." With a nod as he finds the other man's name.
"One and only. --Except Mikey," remembers Rossi belatedly, amusement briefly warming the leaf-green eyes. "He's in the two-seven, though. Doesn't matter. How're you holding up? Good?" His weight shifts, rolling him off the wall-braced spine to the hunch of a shoulder, and the hall's lights dig shadows in response, merciful against the healing scratches of face and throat.
Matieau grins at the random rambling of the other man. He shrugs a little, his shoulders dismissing the concept of holding up. Still though he comments on it. "Yea, I suppose. 'Least as well as anyone en dis profession." He peers at the other guy's face and raises a brow at the scratches. "Get those at work?" He asks. "Or ya just have a moody cat?"
The other man splays his free hand wide, stretching the tracks across skin -- and then over, palm bared to prove them riddled as well. "Lensherr on Wednesday," Rossi drawls, laconic through the Brooklyn tangle of accent. "Dickhead threw an SUV at me. I get on his nerves." Satisfaction gleams in the baritone, and in the dark mien. White glints in a grin.
Matieau opens his eyes wide at the mention of Lensherr. "Oh." He clears his throat and nods. "Wow, en- en SUV?" He asks, smiling just slightly. It's an odd expression on his features and sort of betrays his words. "If I ever knew I was on that guys nerves I wouldn't hang around to push his buttons," He blows out a slow breath and shakes his head. "No thanks, I prefer showing up for the aftermath of stuff like that."
"Not like the guy gave me a choice. He won't be doing shit like that for a while," Rossi adds, savage pleasure surfacing for the reminder -- the same thrum of eager exultation that thrums through the entire precinct, tonight. Amends the detective, born cynic: "Unless the Feds lose him again, somehow. --How're you settling in, anyhow? Lab working out for you?"
Matieau is hanging on the guys words involving mutants. He doesn't show it though, letting the surface be a sheet of casual listening. "Oh yea, the lab's great." He nods and turns to look down at his camera case for a few seconds. He plays with the zipper on it a little before bringing his amber colored eyes back up. "So you guys think you'll actually be taking him down this time." Yea, back to Magneto.
Black, heavy brows twitch up. "Old Pezhead? SWAT took him down last night." A hand shapes a gun out of thumb and forefinger, touching the makeshift muzzle to the hollow of Rossi's temple. Macabre, black-limned humor glitters at Matieau. "Bang. -- They've got him under lock and key somewhere. Feds won't let us near it. Let them have him."
Matieau features actually blank for a second this time. He catches himself though and pulls them back up to an appropriate expression. "I hadn't heard." He furrows his brows a little. "Last night? Where was I..." He ponders for a second and then nods. "Sleeping for once, I think." He chuckles. "I never sleep and I sleep through this." He shakes his head and sighs. "I need to get away from the microscope for more than twenty minute at a time."
"You snooze, you lose," quips Rossi easily, if without overmuch originality. He crosses his ankle over the other, leaning more heavily into the wall's support. Coffee, cooling rapidly, spins a forlorn thread of steam against the dark blue of his suit coat. "Wouldn't have missed it for the world. Guy's got it in for me, or something. Asshole almost got away, too. Blew up an ambulance, almost took out a firetruck--"
The corner of Matieau's lips curl up at the comment about the firetruck. That's real power. He nods though, his eyes still grave. He made it his job pretending to be one of them. He did it well since he was twelve, and so it's like second nature. Speaking lies. "Well, et's about damn time. That guy's been getting away with crap for way too long. Glad to see he is starting to get his come uppings." He shakes his head though and just shifts the messenger bag on his shoulder. Making it rest a touch more comfortably.
A hint of grimness shapes the set of Rossi's mouth. "Few guys in the hospital. One of the FD guys is in the hospital. His partner didn't make it. Add that to the tally. All fun and games until someone loses an eye." Mockery slices bloody across the words, directed elsewhere. The detective squints at Matieau.
Matieau looks pointedly back at Rossi, sure Matt was a much meeker man but he holds the gaze for a few seconds. "Yea, or a life." He says, the features of his face are set in a cynical expression of placidity. He shrugs though and sighs. "Gotta break some eggs to make an omlette." Oh maybe that's a touch too cynical. "Or shed some blood to end a reign of terror. Glad to see you got away with nothing but a few scrapes." He makes to move, debating heading out before this became a heated debate.
Det. Rossi's mouth crooks, twitching towards amusement again. "Reign of terror, my ass," he begins -- but distraction lies elsewhere, in the passage of colleagues. He lifts his chin in mute greeting, the warmth of it spilling into the absent-minded, "Got /these/ on Wednesday. Lensherr didn't even get close on Friday. Even-numbered dates are good for me. Odd-numbered, he tries to off me. Go figure."
Matieau nods and quietly comments, "Yea go figure," He falls silent after that, sort of testing the end of the conversation. Perhaps he didn't really want to leave yet. It just seemed like the thing to do, afterall, he had been caught on his way out. The chinese food was calling, take-out was so close.
The other man's eyes hood, lashes sweeping black and long across his gaze. Splintered, slivered, its color deepens: past paler green to darker, thoughtful color. "You one of the lucky pricks who got pulled in to work the Purity aftermath?"
Matieau looks back over, turning from his ready to leave posture. Instead a new stance takes over and he raised a curious brow. "Yea, why?" His features are curious, questioning. Alright, to be honest most of the guys in CSU had been called in for that. It was a freaking mess, you couldn't be in New York City with a badge and have slept through /that/. "That's one that's gonna stay with me for awhile."
"Lucky guy," says Rossi by way of reply, losing half the word in his coffee cup. "Heard some rumors going around, about the Friends and it being a setup for-- never mind." He breaks off, batting a hand to wave the rest of the thought away. "Feds seized all your evidence, right?"
Matieau nods to the question. "Yea, they did." He draws his eyebrows in a little and peers at Rossi. "No, go on. A set up for what?" Ok yea, that had caught his attention. He tried to keep up with stuff, hence working in a police station. "If et's just a rumor et's gonna spread anyway," He offers, smiling kindly as he tried to work it out of the detective.
Darkling humor skims across the detective's baritone. "Yeah, when it's in the newspapers, that's sort of a giveaway. That shit they're talking, about maybe the Friends setting the Brotherhood up to be at that rally. Take out mutant sympathizers, that sort of thing. You see anything in the evidence for that?"
"Evidence, is evidence." He offers rather candidly before adding. "I only collect a part of et, and wihtout all the evidence you could come to any conclusion." He shrugs and nods. "Sometimes et's better to just not ask 'What if' when you only have half the question." He sighs and shakes his head. "Wish I knew though. Et's a hell of a thing. Pulling something off like that, if they could." He pushes a bit of his hair out of his face again and ponders. "Hell of thing." He adds softly.
Rossi lifts his chin, scratching idly at the barb of injury and healing, itching skin. "Something else," he agrees, thoughtful. "That's one way to put it. Wonder if Canto--" Eyes sharpen. "--So you didn't see anything to point that way?"
Matieau raised his head to listen as the man started to speak. He blinks though when the train of thought changes so abruptly. "No, I mean- no I don't think so. Et's impossible to say but no." He studies the dectective, what a strange line of questioning. It made Matieau a little curious. "Why es that one of your theories, Detective?"
"What, that it's all a big plot by the Friends?" Eyebrows hike again, bemused, and Rossi snorts. "I don't need theories. Not my case. I wasn't there. I was busy bleeding all over Central Park."
Matieau nods, "Right, of course." He shakes his, dismissing in his notion as he spoke them. "And hey, every thing es just one big conspiracy depending on who you ask. So I guess it really doesn't matter. The feds are the only ones who are gonna know what's going on with that evidence." He smiles and it's a touch sly. "Until they decide to share with the rest of the general population. And I would advise we don't hold our breaths." Cynical chuckle.
The detective's mouth quirks, even as it flattens, thinning over the automatic territorial hostility of the cop against the G. "Yeah, well. Pigs'll fly when that day comes." The last of the coffee tosses back down the throat, and Rossi straightens, mug dangling loose from the crook of fingers. "You headed out?"
Matieau chuckles and refrains from making the comment that he thought the city got cops new helicopters a few years ago. He grins though and nods at the door. "Yea, that was the plan. I am apt to get a little side tracked. You going too?" He nods at the door, and fixes his bags on his shoulders. Getting ready to leave, again.
The black head jerks back: to the squadrooms, to Mutant Affairs. "Got more paperwork. Feds," Rossi elaborates with mordant appreciation. He straightens, starfishing a hand to scrub at his hair. "Have fun going through the media circus outside. They might be gone now."
Matieau takes in a slow breath as he looks back over at the door. It's a tired face and he nods. "Right." He shakes his head and gestures towards the door. "I'm out then, if they don't eat me alive I'll see ya around." And with that, he turned on his heel and headed stream-line for the door of the station. Pulling it open and disappearing into the night.
As for Chris Rossi, he is for work again. Mug in one hand, temper reined in another, he stalks the short passageway to Mutant Affairs, and enters on the drawl of dry, wry baritone. "--Agent Cody Banks! You miss me, pumpkin cheeks?" The best-laid plans of mutants and men....
[Log ends]
< NYC > New York Police Department - Lobby < NYC >
Great brass double doors lead into the precinct lobby, a crowded hall that teems with life under the dictatorship of the officer on duty. Long benches line the walls, ports of rest for the patient and the weary. To either side of the reception desk, hallways painted in peeling puke-green stretch back into the building proper, routing past labeled and busy offices: squad rooms, interrogation rooms, holding pens and file rooms. Ordered chaos is the name of the game; traffic and noise roil through the crowded passages, lit by electric fluorescence and dust-rich light.
It is that timeless, endless last hour between one shift's end and another shift's start, an overlap of heat and chaos as tempers fray: handoff from men reluctant to release their files, no matter their trust in the waiting pair. Leaned in the hallway between MA and Homicide, Chris Rossi cradles coffee in one scratch-crossed hand, jagging sardonic mockery at a fellow detective. "Two stories down and your head cracked open like an egg. Goddamn blonde joke, Kant. Should introduce you to him. Maybe he does better with women."
Matieau enters into the lobby from the depth of the station. Coming out looking rather beat, the usual appearence after anyone's day of work. The subject matter for his just made the exhaustion all that more apparent. He pushes back a lock of hair that had started to slip into face. A camera case hangs around his neck. A messenger bag at his side. He look weighted down with the sins of the job. He pauses, nearish to Rossi, and starts to break down his camera. Taking off the lens and carefully placing it in the bag. He glances up and offers a curt nod to the dective he recognized. "Hey," He offers before turning back to his task at hand. Getting the hell outta dodge...or at least this station.
Rossi's colleague -- Kant -- grins, a sharp edge of amusement for the thin, gamin face. A hand lifts farewell, turning her away to join her partner's long-legged departure; bereft of entertainment for a moment, at any rate, the remaining detective quizzes a glance back at Matieau. A pale glimmer of recognition marks him. "Hey. You're that new CSU guy. Mat-something."
Matieau clicks the last pieces of the camera into place and zips the bag shut. "Yea," He responds looking back over at Rossi. "Matieau, but et's probably just as well you stick with Matt-something." He chuckles to show he was kidding. He adjusts the strap around his neck a little. His eyes study Rossi for a second and then he adds. "Detective Rossi." With a nod as he finds the other man's name.
"One and only. --Except Mikey," remembers Rossi belatedly, amusement briefly warming the leaf-green eyes. "He's in the two-seven, though. Doesn't matter. How're you holding up? Good?" His weight shifts, rolling him off the wall-braced spine to the hunch of a shoulder, and the hall's lights dig shadows in response, merciful against the healing scratches of face and throat.
Matieau grins at the random rambling of the other man. He shrugs a little, his shoulders dismissing the concept of holding up. Still though he comments on it. "Yea, I suppose. 'Least as well as anyone en dis profession." He peers at the other guy's face and raises a brow at the scratches. "Get those at work?" He asks. "Or ya just have a moody cat?"
The other man splays his free hand wide, stretching the tracks across skin -- and then over, palm bared to prove them riddled as well. "Lensherr on Wednesday," Rossi drawls, laconic through the Brooklyn tangle of accent. "Dickhead threw an SUV at me. I get on his nerves." Satisfaction gleams in the baritone, and in the dark mien. White glints in a grin.
Matieau opens his eyes wide at the mention of Lensherr. "Oh." He clears his throat and nods. "Wow, en- en SUV?" He asks, smiling just slightly. It's an odd expression on his features and sort of betrays his words. "If I ever knew I was on that guys nerves I wouldn't hang around to push his buttons," He blows out a slow breath and shakes his head. "No thanks, I prefer showing up for the aftermath of stuff like that."
"Not like the guy gave me a choice. He won't be doing shit like that for a while," Rossi adds, savage pleasure surfacing for the reminder -- the same thrum of eager exultation that thrums through the entire precinct, tonight. Amends the detective, born cynic: "Unless the Feds lose him again, somehow. --How're you settling in, anyhow? Lab working out for you?"
Matieau is hanging on the guys words involving mutants. He doesn't show it though, letting the surface be a sheet of casual listening. "Oh yea, the lab's great." He nods and turns to look down at his camera case for a few seconds. He plays with the zipper on it a little before bringing his amber colored eyes back up. "So you guys think you'll actually be taking him down this time." Yea, back to Magneto.
Black, heavy brows twitch up. "Old Pezhead? SWAT took him down last night." A hand shapes a gun out of thumb and forefinger, touching the makeshift muzzle to the hollow of Rossi's temple. Macabre, black-limned humor glitters at Matieau. "Bang. -- They've got him under lock and key somewhere. Feds won't let us near it. Let them have him."
Matieau features actually blank for a second this time. He catches himself though and pulls them back up to an appropriate expression. "I hadn't heard." He furrows his brows a little. "Last night? Where was I..." He ponders for a second and then nods. "Sleeping for once, I think." He chuckles. "I never sleep and I sleep through this." He shakes his head and sighs. "I need to get away from the microscope for more than twenty minute at a time."
"You snooze, you lose," quips Rossi easily, if without overmuch originality. He crosses his ankle over the other, leaning more heavily into the wall's support. Coffee, cooling rapidly, spins a forlorn thread of steam against the dark blue of his suit coat. "Wouldn't have missed it for the world. Guy's got it in for me, or something. Asshole almost got away, too. Blew up an ambulance, almost took out a firetruck--"
The corner of Matieau's lips curl up at the comment about the firetruck. That's real power. He nods though, his eyes still grave. He made it his job pretending to be one of them. He did it well since he was twelve, and so it's like second nature. Speaking lies. "Well, et's about damn time. That guy's been getting away with crap for way too long. Glad to see he is starting to get his come uppings." He shakes his head though and just shifts the messenger bag on his shoulder. Making it rest a touch more comfortably.
A hint of grimness shapes the set of Rossi's mouth. "Few guys in the hospital. One of the FD guys is in the hospital. His partner didn't make it. Add that to the tally. All fun and games until someone loses an eye." Mockery slices bloody across the words, directed elsewhere. The detective squints at Matieau.
Matieau looks pointedly back at Rossi, sure Matt was a much meeker man but he holds the gaze for a few seconds. "Yea, or a life." He says, the features of his face are set in a cynical expression of placidity. He shrugs though and sighs. "Gotta break some eggs to make an omlette." Oh maybe that's a touch too cynical. "Or shed some blood to end a reign of terror. Glad to see you got away with nothing but a few scrapes." He makes to move, debating heading out before this became a heated debate.
Det. Rossi's mouth crooks, twitching towards amusement again. "Reign of terror, my ass," he begins -- but distraction lies elsewhere, in the passage of colleagues. He lifts his chin in mute greeting, the warmth of it spilling into the absent-minded, "Got /these/ on Wednesday. Lensherr didn't even get close on Friday. Even-numbered dates are good for me. Odd-numbered, he tries to off me. Go figure."
Matieau nods and quietly comments, "Yea go figure," He falls silent after that, sort of testing the end of the conversation. Perhaps he didn't really want to leave yet. It just seemed like the thing to do, afterall, he had been caught on his way out. The chinese food was calling, take-out was so close.
The other man's eyes hood, lashes sweeping black and long across his gaze. Splintered, slivered, its color deepens: past paler green to darker, thoughtful color. "You one of the lucky pricks who got pulled in to work the Purity aftermath?"
Matieau looks back over, turning from his ready to leave posture. Instead a new stance takes over and he raised a curious brow. "Yea, why?" His features are curious, questioning. Alright, to be honest most of the guys in CSU had been called in for that. It was a freaking mess, you couldn't be in New York City with a badge and have slept through /that/. "That's one that's gonna stay with me for awhile."
"Lucky guy," says Rossi by way of reply, losing half the word in his coffee cup. "Heard some rumors going around, about the Friends and it being a setup for-- never mind." He breaks off, batting a hand to wave the rest of the thought away. "Feds seized all your evidence, right?"
Matieau nods to the question. "Yea, they did." He draws his eyebrows in a little and peers at Rossi. "No, go on. A set up for what?" Ok yea, that had caught his attention. He tried to keep up with stuff, hence working in a police station. "If et's just a rumor et's gonna spread anyway," He offers, smiling kindly as he tried to work it out of the detective.
Darkling humor skims across the detective's baritone. "Yeah, when it's in the newspapers, that's sort of a giveaway. That shit they're talking, about maybe the Friends setting the Brotherhood up to be at that rally. Take out mutant sympathizers, that sort of thing. You see anything in the evidence for that?"
"Evidence, is evidence." He offers rather candidly before adding. "I only collect a part of et, and wihtout all the evidence you could come to any conclusion." He shrugs and nods. "Sometimes et's better to just not ask 'What if' when you only have half the question." He sighs and shakes his head. "Wish I knew though. Et's a hell of a thing. Pulling something off like that, if they could." He pushes a bit of his hair out of his face again and ponders. "Hell of thing." He adds softly.
Rossi lifts his chin, scratching idly at the barb of injury and healing, itching skin. "Something else," he agrees, thoughtful. "That's one way to put it. Wonder if Canto--" Eyes sharpen. "--So you didn't see anything to point that way?"
Matieau raised his head to listen as the man started to speak. He blinks though when the train of thought changes so abruptly. "No, I mean- no I don't think so. Et's impossible to say but no." He studies the dectective, what a strange line of questioning. It made Matieau a little curious. "Why es that one of your theories, Detective?"
"What, that it's all a big plot by the Friends?" Eyebrows hike again, bemused, and Rossi snorts. "I don't need theories. Not my case. I wasn't there. I was busy bleeding all over Central Park."
Matieau nods, "Right, of course." He shakes his, dismissing in his notion as he spoke them. "And hey, every thing es just one big conspiracy depending on who you ask. So I guess it really doesn't matter. The feds are the only ones who are gonna know what's going on with that evidence." He smiles and it's a touch sly. "Until they decide to share with the rest of the general population. And I would advise we don't hold our breaths." Cynical chuckle.
The detective's mouth quirks, even as it flattens, thinning over the automatic territorial hostility of the cop against the G. "Yeah, well. Pigs'll fly when that day comes." The last of the coffee tosses back down the throat, and Rossi straightens, mug dangling loose from the crook of fingers. "You headed out?"
Matieau chuckles and refrains from making the comment that he thought the city got cops new helicopters a few years ago. He grins though and nods at the door. "Yea, that was the plan. I am apt to get a little side tracked. You going too?" He nods at the door, and fixes his bags on his shoulders. Getting ready to leave, again.
The black head jerks back: to the squadrooms, to Mutant Affairs. "Got more paperwork. Feds," Rossi elaborates with mordant appreciation. He straightens, starfishing a hand to scrub at his hair. "Have fun going through the media circus outside. They might be gone now."
Matieau takes in a slow breath as he looks back over at the door. It's a tired face and he nods. "Right." He shakes his head and gestures towards the door. "I'm out then, if they don't eat me alive I'll see ya around." And with that, he turned on his heel and headed stream-line for the door of the station. Pulling it open and disappearing into the night.
As for Chris Rossi, he is for work again. Mug in one hand, temper reined in another, he stalks the short passageway to Mutant Affairs, and enters on the drawl of dry, wry baritone. "--Agent Cody Banks! You miss me, pumpkin cheeks?" The best-laid plans of mutants and men....
[Log ends]