Upstairs Offices – Anti-Crime Division

[Richie]

Continued from: Station Parking Lot

He passed a couple of different divisions as he moved through the station, part of him taking note of the location of each and the rough layout of the building overall. You never knew when such information would come in handy, both for general things such as getting from point A to point B and also more exciting and far out reasons, such as having to avoid attacks.

Richie pushed open the door to his new division, stepping inside and moving through the room. He ignored the curious stares of those already there, his destination clear and his walk determined. Knocking on the door to Captain’s office, he moved inside when told to.

“Detective Richard Green, isn’t it? I’m Captain Paris.” The man behind the desk stood up and offered his hand to Richie, shaking it hard. Richie smiled and nodded back at the man, eyes gazing around the room, taking in the details, trying to learn as much as he could from the room about his new boss. A pair of shades on the edge of the desk caught his attention and he stared at them for a couple of moments before focusing his attention back on the ginger haired captain, listening carefully to everything he had to say.

[Richie]

Try as he might, Richie’s attention kept slipping back to the sunglasses. He knew LA was sunny sure, but hadn’t realised that it was bright enough to need shades. And worn inside sometimes by the look of things, if they were out inside of in a pocket somewhere. He blinked and focused by on his new captain, knowing that to appear distracted on a first face to face meeting would not go down well.

Richie smiled easily at Paris, answering his questions about New York and deflecting with practised ease any gentle digs into his recent loss. He was sure it hadn’t escaped the eagle eyed man’s notice that his gold wedding band was still on his finger where it belonged even if he was technically single.

“Well, that seems to be everything,” Paris finished at last, moving towards the door of his office. “I’ll introduce you to your new partner.” Richie nodded at that, swallowing the butterflies that rose up in his stomach at the thought. He hoped he was getting paired with someone good. Someone who wouldn’t ask too many questions. Richie didn’t want a friend. Someone he could be friendly with, yes, but not a person he wanted to make real friends with.

“Valin, come on in here,” Paris called out, beckoning one of the officers loitering in the main room.

[Richie]

The man that entered seemed perfectly normal and polite. He was quick too, arriving in the office mere moments after the captain had called him. So far, Richie had nothing but positive things about the man who seemed to be his new partner. Someone Valin… he was smartly dressed and was clearly good at what he did, to be in the anti-crime division – Richard wasn’t arrogant enough to think he was brilliant at his job but he knew that this department demanded a high level of excellence.

“Detective Valin, meet Detective Green. He’s just transferred from New York, Gang Impact team. He’s going to be your new partner,” Paris informed the newcomer, Richie nodding slightly in greeting as his name was spoken. Richie was more than glad he was being paired with a man instead of a woman – he had nothing against them as police officers, he just didn’t think he could stand being in a female’s presence for hours on end right about now.

[Richie]

He accepted the offered hand, shaking it firmly. Richie had a feeling that he was going to spend a lot of the morning shaking hands, greeting people and offering meaningless comments on the weather, the state of the city and other pointless conversation topics. He just wanted to get on duty and so something active again, it had been so long since he had been allowed out in the field.

“Thanks,” Richie replied as the hand shake ended. “Nice to meet you too.” Valin seemed like a decent guy so far, all things considered and he wondered what had happened to his pervious partner although he didn’t plan to ask. It wasn’t his business and anyway, he wanted to avoid any topics that could be considered ‘bonding’.

[Richie]

“Richie,” he answered absently, slipping into his role of a guy easy to get to know without even thinking about it. Inwardly he cursed as he heard himself speak. He had meant to introduce himself as Richard, to keep some kind of barrier between himself and friendship but it seemed as if the friendly, open side of his personality was battling to be heard over the more darker side which had emerged in recent months.

The detective bent down and began opening the drawers, seeking the promised stress ball. He had killed his last on at a rest stop somewhere between New York and LA, the stuffing inside exploding all over the startled man and his breakfast. Richie could do with another one and hopefully it would be slightly more sturdy this time.

[Richie]

The stress ball – with a face on it as predicted – was duly found and Richie began to absently bounce it up and down on the back of his hand, testing his agility by moving it up and down his arm as best he could, while still doing other things. The fact that a stress ball was designed for squeezing and not playing a game where the whole aim seemed to be making sure it didn’t hit the floor.

“So, you always worked in Anti-Crime?” Richie asked Quinn, settling himself on his desk chair and increasing the complexity of his game, now passing the ball from one arm to another, his whole attention apparently focused on that, although he was listening intently for the answer. Just because he didn’t want to be friends didn’t mean it wasn’t good sense to know a decent amount about the other man, even if only career wise.

[Richie]

As more and more time went on and the little stress ball hadn’t hit the ground, Richie began to get more and more confident. He added yet more tricks, hitting it with the back of his arm and then twisting so that when it fell down he bounced it back into the air with the side of his elbow. The city and the division may be different, but when it came to finding entertainment and being hard at work, things stayed the same.

“A hostage negotiator eh? I wouldn’t have the patience to do that, my best bet would be to try and annoy the guy enough so that he would come outside in the aim of shooting me,” Richie replied. He had realised as Quinn was speaking that as the two were going to spending most of the day together, day after day after day, point blank ignoring or putting clear distance between them just wasn’t going to work. Even with all his anger, Richie was still a chatty guy. So he had fallen back on his tried and tested formula of being chatty but using his words to keep a distance of sorts. He had been know to spend a week with someone and at the end the man had declared Richie one of his closest friends – but on closer reflection realised he knew nothing substantial about him, although Richie knew details of his life.

[Richie]

Richie’s sureness with the little stress ball faltered at Quinn’s question, the ball bouncing off his hand in a random trajectory and then missing his next attempt, hitting the ground instead with a dull thud. He shrugged slowly and reached inside his pocket, pulling out one of the many lollypops he carried around with him. “Saw a lot of things yeah. By the end of it, I didn’t think there is anything about the underside of human’s that can surprise me.” Richie bit down on the sweet, letting some of it crunch under his teeth in an effort to calm himself. He had surprised himself when he had picked the Anti-Crime unit, the division dealing first and foremost with gangs – the very thing he had run away from. Richie supposed he couldn’t completely abandon what he believed was needed to be done, despite everything.

“Not a good time for me really. Now the bomb squad, the bomb squad was fun.” His somewhat down mood vanished instantly, lolly artfully moved so that he could talk clearly around it. “Nothing like disarming a bomb to get your heart going.”

“Sounds like somebody is having a party,” Richie remarked dryly, tilting his head to the side as gales of laughter erupted from one of the upstairs offices, interrupting his bomb thoughts.

[Richie]

He shrugged again and scooped the stress ball back up from the ground, replacing it in the draw. Richie was privately impressed with the ball so far, but the real test would come when he was very angry and the only thing between someone getting punched repeatedly was the stress ball. Richie settled himself down in his seat, leaning back in it to scan the rest of the room, taking in the other people there.

“The thing about the bomb squad is you’ve got to have a sense of humour,” Richie explained around his lollipop in his mouth, already looking as if he had been part of the division for years instead of minutes. “You approach everything seriously, as if its life and death and well, you’re going to snap. Bit of humour in-between the danger is what is needed. Plus, bombs are fun. I like things which explode.”

[Richie]

“At least it’s a fast way. Boom! And then there is just lots of little pieces for your co-workers to pick up… okay, it might be a bit of a disgusting way to go but at least it’s a talking point. You’ll be remembered, that’s for sure.” Richie grinned for a moment before crunching down on the last part of his sweet and pulling the stick from his mouth. He rolled it in his fingers for a moment as if it was a cigarette before tossing the little white stick into the bin.

“So what about you Quinn? You don’t like bombs, what do you like?” Richie figured it was best to work out the quirks of his partner as quickly as he could, to help keep a semi relaxed and calming work attitude. And to just make everything… smoother. Smooth meant no bumps and hopefully peace.

[Richie]

“Want to be remembered for something. Instead of just; ‘oh do you remember Bob? Bob used to do that thing in the stuff…? No? Never mind then.’ See? Badness,” Richie explained, making air quotes with his fingers as he mimicked out the conversation to do with ‘Bob’. If asked, he had a whole life story around Bob Walker, his example whenever one was required. Recently Bob had been used in a bitter, sarcastic manner, Richie hitting out at those closet to him with his fictional idiot, but for the first time in a long time, he had spoken in a light hearted manner about it.

“I’ve got a sixty-nine green Buick Riviera which I love. No comments about the similarities to a seventy-one used in a cop show will be tolerated. My car is better than that one and that show.” Richie reached into his pocket, pulling out another lollypop as he spoke, a faint smile on his lips showing he wasn’t too serious about the non-tolerance issue. “What else about me? The Force is my life… I like to talk. I’m good at talking.”

[Richie]

There had been a time, not too long ago when there had been more to Richie's life than simply catching the bad guy of the moment. When he had worked to protect the city and keep the streets clean because that was something worth fighting for, because people and humanity as a whole was worth fighting for and protecting. Those times were gone and now Richie would be hard pressed to admit he believed in such things as an innocent bystander and all he cared about now was making the guilty pay.

He shrugged his shoulders and sucked on the sweet in his mouth for a few moments, not sure how to answer Quinn's comment. It seemed to indicate that he was close to his father at least and to Richie's dismay he realised he was making notes on his new partner, storing information that could be used at a later date. It was vexing to think that he appeared to care to some degree about his partner.

[Richie]

In a way, Richie envied those people like Quinn, people who could still believe in humanity and the inherent goodness in the world at large. It took a strong person, he knew to be able to see all the darkness and depravity within the human soul and forgive. It took a stronger person than he was and sometimes in the night as he sat alone, Richie honestly believed that should he ever find himself face to face with the person who had ruined his life he could kill in cold blood.

Those thoughts as rare as they were, scared Richie more than he cared to admit. He nodded at Quinn's comment about the force being a family business, knowing that for many policing did indeed seem to run in the blood and those that had such family in the business too were nearly always proud of the fact. “Neither of my parents were in the force. I used to follow the police around as a kid, begging to be allowed to ride in the car and just watch them. Never any doubt in my mind what I wanted to be.” Richie had wanted to change the world and the world had changed – just not in the way he had so naively planned.

[Richie]

“I agree with you on that one,” Richie muttered, a slightly dark smile on his face. “One person can make a difference, sometimes a huge one, and sometimes the only thing we can hope to do is make some kind of difference. I guess the real thing you have to think about is if you make the change for better or for the worse. Can you resist the lure of the Dark Side?” The last question was fired rapidly, Richie straightening up from his relaxed position and pointing a finger towards Quinn in a somewhat accusing manner.

“The Dark Side is seductive... tempting... of course if you use Vader as a role model it kinda negates that effect as he's all mouldy and melting inside that black suit.” Richie leaned back in his seat, thoughtful and happily deep in what was not only completely off topic but one of his favourite divisions.

[Richie]

“I think I'm going to call you Darth... at least until I can work out if you're a Jedi or a Sith,” Richie mused, his eyes narrowed as he eyed Quinn critically. The lack of Star Wars comments from the other man had not gone unnoticed and he was starting to get that sinking feeling. That maybe he'd been partnered with someone who needed to learn the wonder of the Force. (Original trilogy, not the new trilogy, as far as Richie was concerned those three films were a completely different franchise.)

It wasn't that Richie was obsessed with the movies – he had better things to brood over than some imaginary scifi western – but rather that he found them amusing things to entertain and engage. That and the fact that Darth Vader had one of the coolest theme tunes in the Imperial March.