[John Thornton] The door to the Family BBQ restaurant opens, and a man enters, closing it behind him gently, saving the patrons and workers alike from the chill, damp haze that was steadily rising without the establishment. The man turns, removing his gloves and unbuttoning his coat.
His hair was a mop of chestnut brown, disheveled with the frequent passage of weary fingers. His eyes, an indistinct hazel, seemed more gray than anything in the restaurant lighting, ringed by a dark circle of almost bruised looking flesh. His expression was an unassuming deadpan, untelling in nature, carefully cultivated for exactly that purpose.
As the trench coat opens, a shoulder holster becomes visible over the gray dress shirt, a wicked looking .45 pistol bunching the shirt slightly in places with the heavy metal’s weight. A navy tie bounced merrily as he moved toward an empty table, loosened and askew, it hung from an unbuttoned shirt collar.
With each step, a five pointed star that serves as the badge of the Chicago P.D. flashes in and out of view from its spot on his belt, near his hip. As he moves, his eyes seem to devour the world about him voraciously, as though they were searching for something… Something to draw his interest… Something incongruous with the rest of what his eyes beheld… Something to tell him where the dream ended and reality began.
It had been a rough day…
[Maija] The door opens and closes, letting in another customer, and in the back, there’s a cursed groan. It doesn’t come from the skinny ass blond, but her co-worker, as Maija turns her head to see who’s come in. There’s a pause, as her fellow waitress bitches about anothr late night customer and wanting to go home, before Maija just shakes her head. “G’on home, Linda. I got this one.”
Linda starts to protest, but looks at Maija, and something clicks after she studies her for a moment, then the detective. The entire vibe changes, as Linda whispers something to the bus boy, and Maija snaps her with her towel. “Stoppit. He’s a friend. I got this – go home.”
Behind the counter in the kitchen, Big Bob snorts, but it’s with genuine affection for Maija. He’s overprotective, for sure – and if she’ likes the man with the badge, then John will have the best BBQ he’s ever tasted, just for making Maija almost smile like that.
As for the skinny gnawer’s part, she grabs a coffee cup and the pot, and winds her way through the tables, checking in with the patrons finishing their meal. Eventually she ends up at John’s side, a few moments after he takes a seat. She sets the coffee cup in front of him, and pours it. She doesn’t bother grabbing the cream and sugar – she pays attention, and knows he doesn’t use it.
“Rough night, Detective?” There’s concern there, under the words, though he’d likely be the only one to notice the difference.
[John Thornton] John takes a sigh, the hazel eyes moving to Maija. As she looks closer, the darkened flesh around his sockets seems just a bit darker today, his expression just a bit more tired…
As though he hadn’t slept very much at all the previous night.
“You could say that…”
He scarcely waits for the coffee to cool before beginning to drink from the cup.
“Thanks…”
[Maija] She’s never been one for PDAs, not with him. She maintains a careful front for now – at least until he chooses otherwise. Oddly enough, she leaves most of those decisions for him, coming fully alive, confident only behind closed doors. He agrees that he’s had long day, and she can see the exhaustion write deep in his eyes. She reaches up a hand, and slides it through his hair. “Looks like someone kept ya up all night. Should have a talk with her.”
The tease is delivered with a slight smirk, even as she looks up and nods to Big Bob in the back. “Boss’s got a plate being worked up for ya already.”
[John Thornton] As Maija runs her hand through his hair, she finds it clean, if out of sorts… He had washed it when showering earlier that day. John just shakes his head, that wan not-a-smile showing up…
It held a somewhat sad overtone this night.
“She isn’t the reason for my trepidation…
I got a phone call earlier this morning… Someone showed up at a hospital od’ed on meth. After they woke up, I stopped by the hospital to pay her a visit.
She and some friends had been running their own meth lab in the basement of their home. Apparently, there were three of them. They’d found this one wandering the streets, and she passed out in a Taco Bell down the road.
After getting her address, I had the glorious chore of telling her that the house exploded sometime after she’d been taken to the hospital. There were bodies inside, that had been identified as her friends.
We had to use dental records…”
He stops there; there was more, but those were the grisly details. It was hard to forget the woman, tears running down her face, the scabs on her arms where she’d been scratching from the meth breaking open in places from her movements.
She had sobbed and pleaded, just as so many others tend to. Begged for an outcome other than the one that was real.
It had struck a chord in John, so recently clear of the bottle’s soothing grasp. It had dug up emotions he was more content to leave buried.
“Thanks… For the food, I mean.”
[Maija] He starts to talk, and she doesn’t pull away, she just lets her hand rest along the side of his neck, her fingertips cool, almost cold, as always. She listens, in a way that few do, letting him go without interruption as she tells of his day on the job. The other tables are forgotten, or waved away as they call for their check, and Bob takes one look at the two of them and handles it himself. He’s never seen Maija this way – so connected – at least that’s what he’ll tell his wife when he crawls into bed tonight. They worry over her, like parents she never had, trying to figure if they need to really worry because of the age difference, if they should talk to her, if she’s going to be ok because she’s been hurt so badly before.
Maija’s blind to all the talk that rises about her. She just nods, slightly, as her fingers slide over his jaw. She could say she’s sorry about his day, but it wouldn’t make it better. She could say she understands, but he knows she does already, else he wouldn’t have come here to find her. So she says, simply… “Jus’ relax a bit. I’ll be right back.”
She moves away, winding through the tables with the confidence of one who has every inch memorized, knows all the traps of oddly placed chairs and bumps in the floor. Once she’s at the back, she discovers two plates, not one, and just looks at Big Bob. She shakes her head, but doesn’t turn it down, grabbing them both, and a glass of water for herself, and making her way back to the table again.
“Apparently, they think ya need me more then they do for th’moment.” She’s almost amused, as she sets his plate in front of him, then takes a seat at the table herself, next to him. “Ya picked th’right time to come in.”
[John Thornton] John smiles that wan not-a-smile and nods as she approaches with the plates.
“So it would seem…”
Hazel eyes move to the kitchen, from which Maija had brought the food.
“They care for you… very much.”
He takes a swig of the coffee, as hazel eyes turn to Maija once again.
“I noticed the cook watching me as I entered.”
[Maija] .
to Maija
[Maija] She hooks her foot on the seat, her knee between her chest and the table, as she takes a sip of her water, and glances back to catch Big Bob trying not to be caught watching. She turns back to John, and shakes her head, slightly, though it’s clear she’s amused. “He reminds me of Mama J back home. Th’first t’wrap ya knuckles if ya fuck up, but ya can’t find a better place t’turn to if ya have need.”
She reaches and peels apart her piece of bread, taking a small bite, before admitting. “They live upstairs here, so’s they seen ya come by my place. Been grillin me all day today.” She doesn’t seem to really mind. “They’s jus’ worried you’ll break m’heart or some shit.”
[John Thornton] “Mmm… That’s very nice of them. I’m glad you have somebody looking out for you here…
That can make a big difference, when things go wrong.”
He takes a fork in hand, and after placing a napkin on his lap, digs into the barbecue. He pauses as his teeth close on the first bite… His expression curious as he chews, before nodding slightly.
“This is quite good…
If they have been grilling you… Dare I ask what you’ve told them about me?”
[Maija] She shakes her head, briefly, her voice soft. “They ain’t like us… so ain’t gonna be able t’tell them if things go way wrong, ya know? Was all I could do t’convince them I was jus’ stabbed.” instead of near torn in two by Spiral claws. He digs in, finally, and complements the food, and she turns back to the kitchen and yells “Stop hoverin’! He likes it!” And is rewarded with a muttered curse, and laughter.
Here, she wears a mask of a different sort. Withdrawn, surly waitresses don’t have jobs long. She’s learned to cope, to act, to be what the costumers and boss need her to be. She’s good at her job, and maybe it explains how withdrawn she often is at other times – to fake it is exhausting. To be herself, isn’t near as welcoming, except for with a few.
“Jus’ that yer a Detective, an’ a friend. They say friends ain’t spend th’night like you do, an’ sneak out in the morning. I said jus’ -good- friends do.”
[John Thornton] “Do you think they disapprove of me visiting you?”
John takes another bite of the barbecue, washing it down with another swig of quickly cooling coffee. The hazel eyes, however, remain on her…
A brow raised curiously, as ever seems to be the case with this man who asks too many questions.
“I gather they fret after your well-being…”
[Maija] Does she think they disapprove? “Ya think I give two shits if they did?” The reply comes quick, and with that same thread of amusement underneath.
“Nah, They jus’ worry. They’s good folks, an’ look after me like I was they own. I ain’t think they disapprove, so much as jus’ worry. It’d be that way no matter who it was – they asked a load a’questions when Wahya was stayin with me too, an’ that wasn’t th’same.”
Not exactly. Not even close, really. She lifts a hand to tuck her hair behind her ear, her brow creasing briefly in worry. She hasn’t heard from him since he stumbled in shocked and thrilled to find she lived. Then he disappeared. She forces the thoughts away, and lifts a skinny shoulder in a shrug. “They figure I gotta good head on m’shoulders ta made it this long – but ain’t gonna stop they frettin.”
[John Thornton] “I understand that parents have a similar malady.”
He smiles that wan not-a-smile, before continuing.
“Perhaps it’s genetic.”
He takes another bite of food, considering quietly as he chews. Then, upon finishing, the hazel eyes consider her again.
“How was your day?”
[Maija] “I wouldn’t know.” she says, softly. Then shakes it off. He’s knows a bit of her past, and that she’d never understand exactly what having parents is like. Perhaps it is like Big Bob and his wife, but she’s in completely new territory when it comes to that. If it makes her nervous, she doesn’t really say, but there will always be a part of her that waits for the other shoe to drop, the other hand to fall.
She watches him as he eats, her gaze direct in a way it wouldn’t have been months ago, and there’s that brief hint of a smile once more. “Busy as hell till bout an hour afore ya got here. Gotta say, I think it turned for th’better when ya did.”
She studies him a moment, two, before. “Ya stayin t’night? I’m of a mind t’try an’ get ya so exhausted ya get some well needed sleep.”
[John Thornton] John smiles… Perhaps a little bit more genuinely than was typical. The edges of the not-a-smile seem almost to move upward, ever so slightly before he answers.
“That sounds heavenly.”
He takes another bite of the barbecue, and nods, his hazel-eyed gaze meeting hers directly.
“As long as your de facto guardians aren’t offended, that is. I dare not do anything detrimental to your relationship with them.”
[Maija] He almost smiles, and she almost does so in return. They’re quite the pair, when it comes to that. When he worries about offending her guardians, she even exhales a quick laugh. Then she drops her foot to the floor and leans forward, her voice dropping to a murmur.
“They ain’t gonna be offended – better my place, then gettin caught in their bathroom, hm?”
And with that, she sits back, and meets his gaze evenly, her own dark eyes shimmering with a touch of well hidden mirth. And after dinner, after she cleans up and gets shoo’d out for the night, she does exactly as she promised.
This night, Detective John Thornton will get a full nights sleep – even if she has to exhaust him several times to insure it.