femmejosephine | All the cops in the coffee shops

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russell

All the cops in the coffee shops

It was a really slow afternoon, slow enough that she'd sent her one afternoon shift waitress home already to study for an exam at Barton University. She herself was sitting behind the register, which had the dual benefit of giving her a look over the whole place and being near the money in case someone got a stupid idea. It hadn't happened yet, but she was prepared if it did. There was a baseball bat behind the counter. Low-tech, maybe, but no one had to register baseball bats.

The sticky notes for delayed coffees and pastries had been getting a bit ruffled as people ran their hands over them, so she was taking this opportunity to transfer some into the notebook she used to keep them organized. Some of them she left out because they were decorated or had a nice message on them, but a lot of them she could just grab off the page when it was time to redeem them.

The bell over the door dinged and she glanced up with a customer smile on her face.

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"Nah, not that I know of," Russell says, shaking his head. He'd been keeping an eye out for awhile, but after a few months, he'd gotten bogged down in other work and they'd sort of slipped off his radar. "Idiots like that, though, you figure they gotta get picked up for somethin'. Another precinct might've gotten them at some point."

Or they'd just slipped by him. That's entirely possible. Russell knows he can't keep track of every single person that goes through the system. Back home it was possible, but not here. There's just too many people.

"Yeah, maybe," she agreed, and paused for a moment. What could she say? Russell had earned her trust to some degree, in some ways. Maybe she could tell him a bit about her past as long as she edited it even more heavily as usual.

"I'm just glad it didn't turn out to be a pattern. When I lived in Paris there was a dirtbag that killed something like eight women. His last attempted victim was me. Didn't work out well for him, but I don't tend to be a fan of that kind of thing all the same."

It hadn't worked out well for anyone, actually, other than the women Crane wasn't going to victimize in the future. O'Brien had ended up in Section when he really was just a good cop while she'd had to kill Crane and frame O'Brien.

"Yeah, there, uh... there was a guy kinda like that here, too," he says, his voice gone a little more serious. "I'm sorry that's shit you've had to deal with."

He still remembers how Molly had looked when he'd gone into her hospital room to get her statement, how much he'd hated himself and hated being a cop in that moment. She had requested him specifically, she'd wanted to give her statement to him and only him, but it had been so damn hard all the same.

"I'm glad it went up shit's creek for him and worked out... well, as well as somethin' like that can work out for you."

Russell was looking solemn, so she thought she'd better clarify. She'd had a few attempted assaults in her life, unfortunately, but she'd always come out of them okay. She learned very early on to defend herself through whatever means necessary. Section had just made her better at it.

"He didn't really hurt me, so it didn't work out too badly for me. But you could certainly say it all went up shit creek for him," she agreed, although that wasn't a phrase she thought she'd ever used. "From what I heard, they found him dead. Drug deal went south or something like that. I didn't hear much about it beyond that since it wasn't going to trial. Doesn't really matter, all things considered. He's not around to continue attacking women. You get the guy doing that kind of stuff here or did he have a similar end?"

"Someone else got him the same night he kidnapped a friend of his and his girlfriend," Russell answers and he knows there could have been more done to bring the other woman in for what she'd done, but there was no way in hell he was going to be the one pushing for it. Not when she had saved Molly's life. And he knew Molly and Andrea weren't going to turn her in, so he just didn't bother to pursue it.

Bateman deserved what happened to him. He deserved worse.

"He's dead anyway. The last two women he tried to kill are okay. I dunno if you were here when it happened, it was in the news a bunch," he says. "He was the same guy who killed Tiffany Charlotte, so that got a lot of attention."

Someone sounded like a person she'd like, if they were eliminating threats like that. Not that she'd ever say that, but she could understand the vigilante tendency in that case.

"Ah, yeah, I came in a bit after that," she explained. "Missed all the excitement. But it's alright. Now we have vampires to make life interesting, yeah?"

"Shit, if you can call it that," Russell says with a huff of laughter. He's not really on any of those cases and he sort of prefers it that way, if only because he understands the way Darrow works is pretty complicated. There are vampires here who are causing problems, absolutely, but there are others who are just living their lives and it worries him a little, that some people don't make the distinction.

"Agent Reid, d'you know him? He's been workin' on that sorta stuff more than me," he says. "Gotta be messed up, trying to weed on which ones are crazy killing machines and which ones can be trusted. It seems harder than people somehow, maybe 'cause they don't need any additional weapons."

"Yeah, he comes in for coffee sometimes," she replied casually, which left out everything about her being something resembling a CI for him. Reid kept her name out of the information she provided and she wasn't going to change that by blabbing to Russell about it.

"I don't ask him about his work like I don't ask you about yours, but it does seem to be what you might call a challenge. He likes those, I think. Puzzles and all that are good for him. Otherwise he'd be bored and start, I dunno, trying to profile his waitress."

Since his waitress was her half the time, she really wanted to avoid that.

"I dunno. He never much struck me as the kinda guy who does that on just anyone, but maybe I'm just too boring to profile," Russell says with a laugh, wondering what anyone would even determine if they tried to do that to him. He's just a guy from a small town, not much interesting about him at all one way or the other.

"Besides, he seems like he's got a, uh... an active social life," he says, not knowing what to call that bookstore guy.

Judging by that comment, Russell probably didn't know what Luke was other than a bookstore owner, and again, she wasn't going to be explaining that. It was Reid's tale to tell if he wanted to.

"Yeah, I think you could probably say that," she chuckled instead. "I like Luke's bookstore. You never know what you're gonna find there."

She was pretty sure she was the only one that was going to find a criminal record there, but the point stood.

"Hey, I say active social life and you say the bookstore guy, so I figure I'm not too far off on that," Russell says, looking oddly cheerful. He'd grown up in a small town, the kind of place that still used slurs to describe anyone who was a little out of the ordinary and Russell isn't proud of that, but it does mean he's not sure how to ask Reid if he's got a boyfriend.

Not that it's any of his business, really, but he's kind of curious. Especially since the bookstore guy doesn't seem to like him much.

"Luke? That's his name? I don't think he likes me."

She realized from his reaction that she had just accidentally outed Reid, but she was hopeful that Russell, despite sounding like a redneck, wasn't a prejudiced redneck. He really didn't seem to be, especially since he looked cheerful instead of shocked or disapproving or disgusted or anything like that.

"Yeah, they're involved, and if you're planning to say something about that to me or to Reid, I'd advise you to reconsider," she said. She said it mildly, but her expression was a little more firm. It wasn't even close to her most scary expression, the one that had actually made someone leave a coffee shop she'd been in here, but it was firm.

"Man, what the hell kinda prick do you think I am?" Russell asks, though he's not really offended and his voice isn't hard or angry. He's from a small town, he knows the kind of idea that carries with it, and it's not like it's entirely wrong. He'd never give someone a hard time over being gay, but it does mean he doesn't really know how to talk about it.

"I don't care, as long as he's happy," he says, waving his hand. "I was just never sure if it was okay to ask him somethin' like that. I mean, I kinda figured it out awhile back when I picked Reid up for somethin' and the big guy was starin' at me like he wanted to take my head off."

"I'm just making sure we're clear on that," Nikita replied mildly, with a classic hands-up gesture. Then she refilled his coffee to solidify the impression.

"He's sort of a private guy, I think, but only if you don't get him started on something he's interested in. Then he'll talk for hours. You probably noticed. Dunno why Luke doesn't like you, though. You'd have to talk to him about that."

She guessed it was something to do with Russell being a cop, but she could be completely wrong about that too.

"Yeah, I dunno. Maybe I'll just keep out of his way," Russell says with a snort of laughter. He doesn't know Luke at all and he can't imagine Reid getting involved with someone who wasn't kind, but there's just something about him. Something that seems a little off. In a city like Darrow, that could mean just about anything, but so long as Reid is happy, Russell doesn't see any reason why he needs to figure out Luke's tendency to glare daggers in his direction.

"We don't need to be friends or nothin'," he says. "Though I guess if they're together and I invite Reid to the wedding, he's probably gonna want to bring him."

"Good chance of it," she agreed. "Unless you specify that his invitation doesn't include a guest, but people like to bring their somethings to weddings. There was a thirty-minute argument in that booth there yesterday about it. Something about the cost of the buffet. Thought they were gonna throw their toast at each other at one point. The waitresses were taking bets on it."

She didn't mind as long as they bet each other things like taking a shift for someone else. Besides, it really had seemed like it was going to get physical.

"Huh," Russell says, then shakes his head. "I don't think me and Katie are gonna have to worry about anything like that. It's gonna be pretty small." Katie's a hell of a lot more popular than he is and he's pretty sure she still wants to keep the guest list to a minimum. Besides Reid and Nikita, Russell's list of friends is pretty much limited to Will, Jennifer and Molly, and since Molly's going to be standing up at his witness, that sort of takes her off the guest list and throws her into the bridal party.

Or whatever the hell it's called for the guy.

"I've only got about four friends to invite, so even if they all bring a date, that's still only eight people," he says with a grin. "I think we can afford that."

"Yeah, probably so. Can probably even afford them have salad and vegetables, if you're doing a full meal. Maybe even a choice of terrible-tasting wedding cake flavors." Her face was overly solemn again. The few times she'd been to a wedding, which she was pretty sure had always been for Section, the cake had been awful despite the huge amount of money that was always being spent on the wedding and the security and the everything else.

Yeah, that was right. She'd never been to a wedding for herself and as herself. That was another little detail she couldn't ever share with anyone, since it'd mean too many questions. She was old enough that she should have had some friends getting married by now.

"Maybe we'll just have cookies or somethin'," he says with a laugh, shaking his head. "Jamie's gonna be a part of it, so we wanna make sure it'll all be somethin' he enjoys, too. It's gonna be pretty relaxed, pretty... non-traditional, I think, in the sense of all that stuff."

It seems a little silly that there should be traditions regarding what kind of food they eat and what kind of cake they serve, but Russell's never been big on following the rest of the crowd anyway. It's Katie's second wedding and even though it's his first, he still think they're on the same page.

"I don't know anyone that turns down cookies," she agreed. "Well, I do, and they come in every day, but they worry me."

She smiled when he explained that the little boy was going to be part of it too. That was probably going to be adorable, and she'd probably have a hard time not thinking of Casey. She hoped Section had let Casey go live with her grandmother or something. Gray she knew Section would have to have disposed of, but Casey was so little. Casey couldn't have told anyone anything if she'd tried. Maybe she'd been spared. Probably not, though.

"The only people who have to be happy with your choices are you three. Everyone else can go have their own wedding if they think they can do it better."

"Yeah, that's kinda what I'm thinkin'," Russell agrees, grinning down at his coffee before he takes a sip. "I mean, if our parents were around maybe it'd be different, tryin' to make them happy and everyone else in the family, but it's not the same here. Everyone from home, parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles, all the people who'd expect to be invited and who'd want their opinions to be taken into consideration, they don't exist here."

They still exist -- though maybe not in Russell's case -- but it's not like they'll make it in time for the wedding. They won't be able to just fly in.

"Which is good and bad," she agreed. "There are some really screwed-up families out there and being free of them isn't a bad thing. But I think it might be tough to raise a kid without family. Guess you have to make your own, yeah?"

That sounded like a greeting card, but it was what everyone in Darrow did. They made their own family.

Maybe it's partly due to the fact that he hadn't been there when Jamie had been an infant, but Russell doesn't think raising him has been particularly hard without there being grandparents around. He would love if his parents could be here to meet Jamie and he's sure Katie feels the same, but he thinks they're doing okay without them.

"It'd be nice to see my parents again," he admits. "But I'm pretty sure they're dead." Along with everyone else in Ogden Marsh.

The couple in the corner disentangled themselves and came up to the register to pay, so she took a moment to ring them up and make polite customer service noises. Once they were gone, she came back to Russell. She'd had a chance to think about how she could respond to that and had decided it might be safe to say something.

"Mine might be. Dunno, really," she admitted. "Never knew my dad and my mum and I haven't really talked for awhile."

"Guess bein' here does make it kinda difficult," he says, even though he doesn't think that's what she means at all. It leaves her the opening to correct him if she wants, if she decides it's okay to talk about, but it also means she can just go with it if it's not something she particularly wants to share.

"My whole town, the place I'm from, they're all gone," he admits. "Wiped off the map, probably in a pretty damn literal sense."

All the cops in the coffee shops

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