Trooper Station; Monday [01/20].

[died8yearsago]

Well. Rosa's whole entire theory about the troopers not actually ever eating or consuming anything was being thrown right out the window, and in a completely baffling way, because it was pretty hard to ignore the fact that Calvin was sitting at his desk across the station, helmet slightly lifted, to allow him to take slow, steady, methodical bites out of a stick of butter.

Eventually, though, Rosa broke. "Are you seriously just sitting there eating butter like a popsicle, Ralph?"

Ralph looked over from where he was going over some reports with another trooper, confused for a moment, but Calvin didn't bother correcting Rosa (they never did, and then wondered how she could never tell them apart!), and just sighed around another bite, "Yeah, I know. I'm spoiling myself, but I'm depressed! Or have you forgotten that James, my best friend, is in prison?"

"I have never heard you mention the name James before ever," Rosa pointed out. "Wait. Hold on. Yes, I have. Do you mean James...the racooon?"

A long-suffering sigh slipped out of Calvin and then he gestured toward the holding cell with the stick of butter, where there was, in fact, another one of their felonious racoon friends, greeting Rosa with an obscene gesture and a lot of chittering.

Rosa looked at the racoon, looked back at Calvin, and then shook her head before looking studiously back to her reports.

"This is why you don't ask questions, Diaz," she reminded herself dilgently.

[[because some days you just need to go and bastardize a cold open to fit fandom. Open station is open! ]]

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[my_own_advocate]

"Does any crime happen in this town?"

From other people, that might have been snark. ... From other people, it might also not have been the opening line they'd use, walking into a police station for the first time.

But there Lucifer was, strolling in, speaking.

[died8yearsago]

Which was a funny question, coming from the one person who'd made the most recent non-invasion, non-animal-caused reporting of a crime in this town.

Rosa glanced over, blinking back into reality after being sucked into the oddly mesermerising, undeniably disgusting butter-eating, and snorted. Faintly.

"Sure," she said, "but it's mostly animal-related."

Or not worth the time and energy to bother wtih it.

"Why? Were you planning on doing some?"

Which was going to put her in a bad mood, because telling her that meant she'd have to do something about it, and she just was not in the mood today.

[my_own_advocate]

Had Lucifer been involved in any crimes recently? Well, they'd have to have been victimless.

"No," he said, pulling a face. "I consult for the police in Los Angeles. I was just curious whether there was any point in offering my help here."

Apparently not. Ugh. Animals.

[died8yearsago]

Rosa took a moment, to send a few pointed glances around the station, at the scattering of clones in white armor milling around, clearly attempting to look busy, one of which was literally just sitting there eating butter.

"Oh, thank goodness you're here," she said. "We're just swamped.

"Seriously, though," she amended, adding just a drop of water to that dryness, "if you're looking to help out, you'll want to talk to Kincaid, he's the sheriff, I'm sure he can find something for you to do. But around here, it's usually just long stretches of...this," she cast a narrow-eyed, head-shaking look of pure disappointment at the troopers who were mostly just used to it by now, "with bursts of activity when Fandom gets all...Fandom. Trust me, if you're looking to satiate whatever itch you got scratched helping out in L.A., you're only going to wind up making it worse around here."

She, for one, counted each and every week she didn't just stab her eyes out from it all a success.

[my_own_advocate]

"I was afraid so," Lucifer sighed. "This island does seem to elevate boring to a whole new level. Well, I'm sorry for wasting your time--"

... was that a box of doughnuts?

Yeah, that was a box of doughnuts landing on Rosa's desk.

"And I appreciate your taking on the burden of suffering through this vast ocean of nothingburger on our behalf."

[died8yearsago]

Rosa looked at the box, then looked back up at Lucifer.

And braced herself for the tide of troopers she could already feel surging toward her desk.

"Doughnuts?" she asked. "Seriously?"

Even without the blatant stereotype to consider, dropping that box on her desk was like dropping chum on her while swimming in shark-infested water. Good thing she kept plenty of blunt objects close at hand and that they knew she was not afraid to use them.

[my_own_advocate]

"I know it's a cliché," Lucifer said, grinning broadly as he stepped out of the way of incoming troopers, "And yet, it somehow always manages to be accurate."

[died8yearsago]

Rosa grunted faintly, an expression of her inability to really argue against a solid, proven fact like that.

While also sending a firm, steel-eyed warning across the station to remind the troopers that she also had plenty of things on her desk that were good for throwing, if any of them decided to take even one not-so-subtle shift toward her, and to remind them that she had very good aim, too.

Then she chanced looking back at Lucifer, already expecting movement in her peripheral as she did.

"Yup," she agreed, with just a minute, faint sigh. "Somehow..."

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer gave her the thumbs up.

"But I'll try for something less predictable if I ever return here again," he said, strolling towards the exit. "Maybe a large ham..."

[died8yearsago]

You weren't fooling anyone with that oh-so-casual, whistling stroll toward the nearest filing cabinet, Michael.

Rosa, meanwhile, was just trying not to have to grip her sides from clearly laughing so hard.

"Butcher's shop is just a few doors down," she offered, helpfully, a fact that she knew all too well because a certain blacksmith in between still thought it was hilarious to mention it.

But most of her attention was on the rest of the room rather than the exiting doughnut dropper. After all, Calvin had set down his butter. Shit was about to get real.