First Impressions [John + Everyone]

[Britton Sinclair]

 Britton was having his own spectacular day. He'd 100% lied to Tanith when he said he was running late due to traffic so he couldn't meet she and London for coffee - he was actually dropping his son off at school. Brandon was getting up early and feeding Laurel some bullshit about extra-credit projects that he had to be in early for. They'd enjoyed about fifteen minutes of quality time, which consisted mostly of Brandon trying to explain why exactly he was grounded - again.

By the time he got to the office, he was super over drama, which was perfect timing because Blair nearly ran him over on her way down the hall. "Whoa, girl, where you thundering off to?" he asked, dodging her only because of his celerity.

"Not now," she snapped, which was uncharacteristic of her.

She kept going and didn't look back, which made Britton wonder what he'd missed. He headed on, nodding to various people until he got to his desk, noticing Felicia was talking to John. And then, it all made sense. He didn't, as a rule, read minds, but that didn't mean he didn't pick up on certain things. The tension in the room when you put Davis and Valentine together was thick enough to cut with a knife. He was curious to know why exactly, but the chaotic energy that encompassed both of them told him enough to know that he may not want to know the details.

Felicia brushed past him to greet Zeke, someone he was familiar with but had never spoken with for more than a few minutes at a time. "Hey man," he said, nodding to John. "I get the feeling your day has gotten off to a winning start," he said sarcastically. They had similar attitudes about a lot of things, despite being from obviously different backgrounds. Of course, Britton's business preceded him; his transfer was facilitated after his suspension ended. Things like that got around - especially because Zeke's brother Zack worked with him in Ramsa.

"What's on our plate today?" He assumed since Brandy was gone, she was working on something with someone else. John didn't really have a partner, nor did Brandy or Britton or Gabriel, come to think of it. O'Donovan just stuck them with eachother in random groups when she needed to, but generally speaking there was nothing solid. However, Sullivan was gone already as well, so Britton naturally assumed it was the two of them.

[John Valentine]

If John knew that William was an anubi, or what that entailed, he would have both felt sorry for William being unable to have full control over who he could fall in love with, and told Brandy to cut and run.  He most definitely wouldn't stand by and let her make the choice that would keep her with William, and that was without knowing exactly what the future had in store.  If he'd known, he would have actively worked against the damn jackal, especially since he saw Brandy more often than the boyfriend did.  As it was, he was mostly content being a pretty decent friend, and that was nobody's business except theirs, so Felicia was smart to let it drop.  She obviously still had her suspicions, which there was nothing he could say to discourage, but he wasn't even going to try.  This wasn't high school.

"Well, thanks for having faith in my taste, I guess," he told her, and he meant it.  He knew he shouldn't be, but he was just a little surprised that she thought highly enough of his standards to know that if he gave a shit about Brandy, she had to be something special.  He wasn't egotistical enough, however much he might pretend sometimes, that he didn't sometimes forget that he didn't choose friends lightly and that he probably used the psychological training he had to pick good people.  "Don't worry about Blair, though.  I'm sure talking to her isn't going to do shit, and there's no need to stir up more drama by getting anyone else involved."

He meant that, if only for the sake of drama.  He hated it more than anything else in the world, and that was actually one of the reasons he couldn't stand Blair, on top of everything else.  She was the kind of girl that he could imagine was surrounded with drama all the time; who she slept with, who she wanted to sleep with, who she was flirting with, who she wouldn't give the time of day, who wanted to be like her, who was jealous of her...the list went on, and that was too much for John.  He wanted to come in, do his job, and go home.  Maybe he'd get a beer with someone from the station after work.  That was all he needed, and another reason he was glad to be away from his family.  They were all about the drama and the social status, all of the craziness that he couldn't handle.  He didn't need Felicia, however well-meaning she was, to build it up further with Blair, and he certainly didn't want Blair telling Felicia anything about him.

"Later, Wright," he called, watching her go to meet her husband, who probably needed the kind of wrangling she was up to.  Those SWAT guys were a bunch of morons sometimes.

Next on the long list of people to enter his space this early in the morning was Britton, who wasn't really an unwelcome visitor.  After Blair, he'd take almost anyone.  The fact that the man offered his sarcasm as a greeting only made him more comfortable with his presence, and John didn't really give a shit about vampires, so it was okay with him.  He even smirked a little, body language looking naturally relaxed instead of forcibly so for the first time since Stevie wandered off.  

"Yeah, I'm off to a great start.  She set a new record for how early in the work day I have to sanitize my desk," he told the other man, who would know exactly what he was talking about.  Blair had been seen all over London's desk before, and he had been known to blatantly ignore her if he wasn't in the mood to deal, which had to be worse for her because she wasn't getting any kind of reaction.  Of course, London also flirted back if he was in a decent mood, but that hadn't happened since his wife had died.  Big surprise.

"What's up with you?" he asked in turn, leaning forward only because the vampire asked what was on their plate and John hadn't actually bothered to look just yet.  He had some files that he was apparently supposed to deal with, and when he actually looked at them, he saw the note saying that he should take Britt with him.  That was probably why Brandy and Sullivan were already busy and Britton was here wondering what they were going to do.  "Here, take a look.  Most of it's pretty standard, I'm thinking, but we might find something interesting."

[Britton Sinclair]

 Britton said nothing but shook his head a little, reaching for the file instead of choosing to make a disparaging remark about Blair. He was still newish, and he didn't need any more trouble than he already had. He leaned against the edge of Brandy's desk, flipping through a few and making various faces. He paused when he ran over a MP flag, and glanced up at John.

"Any reason why O'Donovan put this in here? This isn't even our department. Missing Persons.. this girl's been gone for a few months now. She's gone." He threw the file down on John's desk, face up. The 3x5 picture attached to the top of it was of a frowning girl with large gem-like eyes and plush lips; she was pretty, but she looked like trouble. "Mya Shadow," he said. "I know her sister. She must have some pull with the PD. This case won't leave me alone."

He frowned and pulled out a chair, sitting down and taking a long sip of his coffee. "I don't want to investigate this. She's not dead. I know where she is. I don't know why her sister's pushing this. I guess she wants proof, but I'll be damned if I'm going to bring it to her." He rubbed his eyes to try and wake himself up, which was funny considering as a vampire he didn't really get tired like humans did, but that didn't mean he'd forgotten his mannerisms.

"We can either do this or the call girl strangling. It's for NYElite, though, which means we're going to spend all day chasing down the owner."

[John Valentine]

The fact that Britton didn't comment about Blair didn't bother John in the least, and was probably best for the situation at large; John wasn't looking for sympathy, he didn't care whether Britt liked or hated Blair, and he certainly wasn't looking to exacerbate the situation.  It all worked out and let the two of them go over the files in some attempt at planning their day, which wasn't looking too good, by the way.

"I don't know, why don't you ask her?" he returned, glancing over the file a little more closely after Britt rejected it.  He didn't know her sister the way Britton did, but he knew the date she went missing (all police in the area did, whether they knew the real cause, or not), and he certainly knew she was never coming back.  Talk about a nightmare.

He nodded his agreement with the vampire's assessment of the case, not wanting to do it and knowing where she was.  John didn't want to get the sister proof anymore than Britton did, but the other man was oh so kind as to point out the alternative case for the day.  "Ooookay, so we either investigate the blackhole that 90% of our missing persons fall into for proof that the pretty girl in the picture isn't coming home, or we go chase the local madam down to ask her if any of her customers are into erotic asphyxiation when she's probably already had tall, dark and creepy kill the guy and hide the body Hoffa-style?  Either way, the day is fucked, so I say we flip a coin."

He shrugged, giving Britton one of his more open 'I-really-don't-give-a-fuck-I'm-over-today' kind of looks, complete with raised eyebrows and a patient ease about him that only descended every now and then.  He'd delivered his evaluation of the cases so matter-of-factly that it was possible that he really didn't care, especially since he was right; they weren't going to get much of anything done on either case. 

Maybe they'd end up having a really good lunch.  That might help make up for the rest.

[Britton Sinclair]

Britton sighed. He could feel the length this day had already, and it was only just now the early morning. "No need to flip a coin. I'll - I'll talk to Chandra later." He'd met Mya. The days before she'd been taken, Chandra had said she'd had a far away look in her eyes, like she knew it was all going to happen before it did. It couldn't be possible, but people took Mya's beauty for granted. They forgot that she was a Phasi, and Phasi by nature were scary smart - beyond that, she was Chandra's sister, and no Shadow female was an idiot.

"Let's go talk to Morgaine and Sir Mordred. God, even though I'm sure I could take him he still freaks me out. He's got those yellow eyes," he said, making a face where his lips curled and he bared his teeth. "Like Scutt Farkus from A Christmas Story," he added. He threw his empty coffee cup away and nodded. "Let's get out of here before someone tries to make us do something even worse than what we're already up against."

As they walked through the parking garage to the car, Britton's phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket and grimaced at the number. "Oh, nooo," he said, hitting silent on the ringer. "It's my son's school. Absolutely not, they can call Laurel," he snarled. "Those fuckers always call me when he's done something bad. I made the mistake of going down there one time. I heard it so bad from his mother I thought she'd tell my old Captain to ban me from going within 500 feet of a school like some Chester!" he exclaimed.

He climbed into the passenger side of the car, making the decision to let John drive. If his day was already bad, trying to fight for control of the vehicle would make it worse. Besides, if he wrecked, Britton could teleport to safety. "Don't ever get married, bro. Ever."

[John Valentine]

When Britton made up his mind about the case they were going to cover, opting to talk to Chandra Shadow at a later point (John might offer to go with him out of some nagging feeling of sympathy, if Britton was smart about how he went about things), John gave him a brief glance and the opportunity to change his mind before shrugging in a way that suggested that he hadn't been kidding when he said that he didn't care which case they followed. 

"You really think so?" he asked once Britt mentioned the character from A Christmas Story, giving his partner for the day an almost disbelieving look and then shaking his head.  "Maybe it's just me, but I think Richardson from SWAT looks like that kid.  I hear he has a whole pile of brothers, couldn't you see him with a shit-ton of freckles and giving some other red-haired kid that kind of squinty look?"

That Drew was also a bigger, potentially nastier ('potentially' only because John was pretty sure there was a screw or two loose in Mordred's head) cat didn't hurt the comparison and the 'yellow eyes' bit, but whatever.  He certainly didn't disagree with making tracks before they got to go looking into any of the many, many murders that Midnight had left for them to try to make sense of. 

He also wasn't opening his trap about the school thing, or Britton's marriage.  You didn't have to work in the station long to have heard a thing or two about that mess, and to know not to touch it.  Given John's family problems and desire to keep a lid on them, he wasn't getting into someone else's private life.

LOL, get married?  That was one of his reasons for leaving home, imagine that.

"Preaching to the choir, man.  You couldn't get me to do it shotgun style," he agreed, hopping into the driver's seat without comment.  He didn't mind driving, though Britton had better teleport them both to safety if they wrecked, the bastard.