EDANITH > Tynova

Harvester of Eyes [Neph!]

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Lion:
”DANIELS! GET YOU ASS IN MY OFFICE! NOW!”

Glover had been sleeping in the bunk room when he heard that familiar roar. He jerked his eyes open and the real chill of fear shivered down his spine. He’d know the note of sheer displeasure from his Captain at any moment. He wasn’t late. In fact he’d been sleeping in the bunk room for that exact reason.

Sure, it was also a place where he could get a hot shower since he’d forgot about paying for water the previous month and there were always donuts in the breakroom. It was food!  And that bill could be paid when he got around to getting paid himself. In the meantime, he could make it look like he was working hard while hardly working.

”DANIELS!!! ASS! OFFICE! OR MY FOOT IS GOING IN IT!”

That was the cue to roll off the top bunk and he landed with a stumble at the base of the bunk and yanked his brown jacket off the hook. A ruddy old thing that was nearly coming apart in some corners of it. But he loved that jacket. It had a hidden pocket on it that he could put a small stash of pills.

“What the hell do you want now, Captain,” he murmured and half groaned so that when he squinted he didn’t have to look at his boss square in the face though. The captain was a balding bastard with a flat pale ugly mug and dark bags under his eyes. The hard lines of his face, wrinkles on his brow, and the ashen quality to his teeth when he opened his mouth to speak was proper evidence that the job aged him 20 years more than he was.

“Shut up. And sit down, asswipe! You look like shit!” the Captain growled at the detective standing in front of him. Glover’s shirt was wrinkled from lying down in it, and half untucked from his pants. Blonde waves were all down in his face. Glover hadn’t shaved in 3 days, and the stubble coming in made him look like a bum.

Glover pushed his hair away from his face and tucked in the bottom of his shirt, hiking the collar of his jacket up when he finally did take that seat in that wobbly wooden chair in front of that metal office desk.

“Good fucking gods above Glover, how on earth can you call yourself a detective? You’ve slept here the past few nights and you haven’t changed your clothes! You’re a fucking transient and I should kick you off the force just by your state of dress alone. You’re grouchy, you’re late, and you always pretend like you’re about to fall asleep - LIKE RIGHT FUCKING NOW. YOU KEEP THOSE EYES OPEN, ASSHOLE!”

Glover twitched and scowled, narrowing his eyes, and choked back the mock snore he was about to make. “Just get to the poooint--”

“What the hell did I just say? Shut the fuck up. Now just listen! Yeah you’re a slob. Yeah you’re a piece of garbage that’d be better use picking up cans off the street and stacking them in your shopping cart, but you’ve got something half the shitheads in here don’t. You’re a mage, even a bloodmage at that. And since you didn’t come equipped with a suitable handler when you graduated, I was tasked with finding someone that might temper that shitty attitude you have. So, Daniels, congratulations. You’re getting a partner.”

Glover’s eyes shot open, but he didn’t move. He rubbed at the temple where his port was, and breathed in slowly. “You’re setting me up with some Mordecai dickwad? What fresh outta the box? Well who the shit is it!?”

“Well, you’re in luck, they’re just getting in now.”

nephero:
Your first day in Tynova, you'd feel like you were on top of the world. It took quite a bit to work at the heart of Edanith's capital city, and a special placement was certainly nothing to shake a stick at. It required nerve, integrity, patience, and most of all, a work ethic to make the gods themselves weep.

And oh, Wil had all that in spades. They hadn't busted their ass seven ways to Sunday just to get some cushy job as a professional babysitter. It would have been easy, so damn easy, to just take the first assignment they could and escort some spoiled mage brat around for the rest of their life. But that had never been what Wil wanted. They were a Mordecai, sure, and they had a duty as such, sure. But that didn't mean they couldn't still help people, couldn't still do good in the world, couldn't still make Edanith a better place to live, one day at a time.

It had been a bit... unorthodox, to choose the career path they did. But in the end, all their hard work, all their efforts, all the extra miles they'd run, all the extra hours of study they'd put in at the academy, all the years of preparation busting their ass in the smaller districts in the outlying cities climbing up from recruit to cop to detective, all of it had come down to this! Their shining moment!

The moment when they got here, to Tynova, to their new precinct, and to their new partner. The mage who had taken a look at their choices and gone for the hard one. The high road. The beautiful, noble promise of justice served, when all the world could have been theirs for the taking. The mage who felt the same way that Wil did. A partner in profession, and a partner in ideals.

Wil was, and they weren't ashamed to admit it, excited. They'd only run temporary assignments before; it wasn't often that you got a mage in law enforcement, and more often than not Wil'd simply been used as a countermeasure to nullify rogues. It wasn't like that had been unpleasant, but it wasn't quite the same sensation as now. Right now it felt like... like everything was finally coming together. Like they'd finally arrived at the point in their life when it all started making sense. When they'd get to settle and build a life, a proud life, a life that went beyond being a Mordecai, went beyond how others tended to perceive them, went beyond the pettiness that had dogged every last step they'd taken.

Today was their day, finally, finally.

They had spent what had probably been an inordinate amount of time that morning getting ready. Not that they'd really been able to get much sleep, but even with the exhaustingly early wake up, it had taken them nearly down to the wire to finalize every last detail. Makeup firmly in place, dark high-necked shirt, holster over that, and leather jacket over that. Hair brushed again and again and again to an emerald sheen. Perfect. Clean. Crisp.

Professional.

Rather than waiting the last few minutes pacing around their apartment, Wil had instead opted to arrive early. It was only by about ten minutes, nothing too brown-nosy, but definitely displaying just how serious they were prepared to take their newfound position. Tags and chain and blank "key" glittering over their heart, it took very real effort for them to keep from looking too pleased with themself as they headed towards the Captain's office.

There was already someone in there with him, and judging by the Captain's face, this was not a pleasant sort of meeting. And no wonder; this guy looked like he'd rolled down here in a garbage bin, and the garbage bin had been the cleanest thing about him. And that was absolutely saying something. It didn't take much to notice that this was not the first time the blonde man had worn those clothes, and in no way had they been washed between uses. Gross, unkempt, unshaven, Wil could have very easily pegged him for the local troublemaking drug slinger, but for one teensy, tiny ever so important little detail...

This man had a mage port in his temple.

Hesitating just for the barest hint of a moment in the open doorway, Wil reached to the side to rap their knuckles against the frame, elation leaking out of them like a submarine with a screen hatch and dread pooling equally as quickly in their belly. Please. Please, please, no.

"Sir," they said, carefully avoiding looking at the blonde seated in the office's spare chair. Because maybe if they didn't acknowledge him it would turn out all right, and this wouldn't be... this couldn't be... "Lambert, sir. I'm, ah, here for my assignment."

Unable to help themself, Wil looked to the side, and out of the corner of their eyes, met rosy-hued ones. Or, at least, Wil thought they looked rosy. It was hard to tell, what with this jackass' eyes being nearly closed. And did he... did he just yawn?

Lion:
Nobody wanted a babysitter and that's just what the Captain was trying to do with this set up, wasn't he!? Glover didn't need a translator to know the undercurrent message that he was sending out just with those few choice words. "Partner." "Didn't come equipped with a suitable handler." What the hell else did that mean other than the fact that they were going to leash him up and have a Mordecai walk him along like a dog.

At another time he might have found the prospect of being on a leash a bit exciting, as it were, he was hungry and out of sleep. Glover groaned loudly and pressed his thumbs deeper into those mage ports.

He was getting a handler; deep down he knew there wa sno way around that. Every mage had one, a Mordecai to watch over them, help them, guide them, protect them from themselves, protect them from everyone else. And a mage could not use their ability without their Mordecai. And Glover couldn't remember the last time he used it. Or maybe he was just that goddamned dazed.

There was no avoiding it, and unless he wanted to spend the money he didn't have on a shuttle taking him out to the frontier, he couldn't avoid it. He was a detective, he worked just as hard as anyone else. And if he was going to have to learn to deal with it, they were just going to learn how to live with what they got in turn.

"Lambert, sir. I'm, ah, here for my assignment."

Glover didn't need to look up to know it was a candyass. The fresh in a new squadroom kind of mushy bubbliness that was going to get popped right quick and put in their notice of resignation within two weeks.  He didn't need to look up, yet something in that voice compelled him and he kept his half-lidded glare going full throttle.

Rose gold eyes met to deep rich browns. The glance was ephemeral at best, and something something the Captain said about standing up and shaking their hand and making nice. Yawwwwwwn! Glover looked away and then to the Captain, kind of wishing the daggers he was giving him would fly straight out and into his chest.

So he wanted him to make nice? Okay, he could make nice.

Glover twisted in his chair, giving the most shit-eating-est grin he could muster and scoffed. "Okay, Laaaaaambchop. Hello, I'm your assignment, welcome to the Force."

"Daniels!"

Glover rolled his eyes and reached out to take their hand into his. He didn't really give them a choice to protest before he shook it vigorously between his grimy paws and promptly let it go. "Detective Daniels. Glover Daniels."  Glover smirked, looking them over. Make up, dark turtlenecked shirt, leather jacket, a rather delicate form than what he was expecting... Fuck if they weren't pretty, and something flipped in his gut. Too bad the candyass would probably be putting in their resignation after two weeks.

"So you're the best Mordecai they could cough up for the task, huh?' he snorted.

nephero:
Lambchop.

This was... a joke. An absolute joke. All their talents, and the higher ups had seen fit to put Wil here, with this trainwreck of a man, and it was an absolute joke.

Of course.

Wil's lips parted, about to voice a polite variation of 'don't fucking touch me,' but never got the chance. Their skin crawled, mind awash with all the terrible things those grubby hands could have been in, all the sleaze pouring off Daniels in odious waves to where it took very real effort not to physically recoil.

Thankfully, Wil was not made to suffer long, as Daniels dropped their hand almost as soon as he'd taken it. The sudden contact and subsequent parting, however, was all the kick in the pants Wil needed.

This was a joke.

Of course it was.

It didn't matter that they'd worked so hard in the academy. It didn't matter that they'd excelled in every local assignment they'd gotten (despite having been transferred several times). It didn't matter that no one could write that they'd ever given anything less than 120% since their feet hit the ground.

They were and always would be the joke-- little Wil-or-are-you-Mina? Well, fine. The higher ups wanted to play rough? Wil could play rough. They'd turn this man, Daniels, inside out and snap his neck on backwards if that's what it took for some respectability. They pulled their lips tight, forced a smile that never reached the same latitude as their eyes, and stared into Daniels' obscenely pretty ones without skipping a beat.

If this was just another attempt to get Wil to quit, the bastards had another thing coming.

"Lucky you. I'm the best Mordecai, period." Wil winked like a headman's axe fell, and slid their hands into jacket pockets to keep them safe from more cross contamination.

"Just in time, too, I'd heard the underworld bum rings were out of hand, but not this bad. I'm really looking forward to working with someone of your astounding dedication."

Lion:
Amazing.

Glover never smiled so quickly or so thoroughly amused in all his life. The moment Wil Lambert opened his (her? he couldn't be sure yet) mouth, and that zinger that followed, made the grungey detective's lips thin out, widen, split into the amused expression he'd had in forever.

With a wit like that, oh maybe this candyass wasn't going to be so bad after all. He laughed, just short of throwing his head back and cackling, and stared eye to eye with that Mordecai. Ahem, the best Mordecai. Period. Oh, was that so?

They were going to be a fun one.

Glover almost didn't hear the Captain slamming his hands down on the desk. "Goddammit Daniels! All right, the both of you have a seat! Glover, wipe that grin right off your face before I wipe it off for you!"  The Captain huffed and rummaged around for a file he had on his desk.

"Okay, Lambert, Daniels. Because you're going to be partners, I expect the pair of you are going to get along famously. Neither of you are on salary to sit on your asses, got it? Now, I get the pleasure of giving the pair of you your first assignment."  He pulled out a folder from his desk and flicked it to them.

Glover took his seat, opening up the folder and examining the tacked on photographs that came with the report. He read it quietly, quickly and slid it across for the newbie to review.  He made sure his and was all over it, and that one of them was a smudged fingerprint from some ink he'd been messing with earlier that day.

"Had some reports of a few break-ins in the lowereast Krayside Neighborhood. I want you two to take a squad car, head down there and interview the witnesses listed in the report. Make notes and report back. Should be easy enough. Even for the likes of you Daniels. And don't you fucking say something smart. You're still on my shit list. Now go on, get out of here. i don't wanna see either of you until that report is ready."

Glover didn't argue, biting his tongue unceremoniously and rolled on out of that chair, standing up and waiting for Wil to stand. Once they were beside him, Glover slid an arm over their shoulder and hugged them in real close like, making sure they got a good whiff of his arm pits.

"Come on, Cop Buddy! Let's go get some donuts! Scout out some bad guys," he grinned ear to ear. "We're gonna get along just fine.  You like to drive right? Of course you do."

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