Never Off Duty [Tag: David Loki]

[Deleted]

"I'm sorry Davey-Boy but I'm afraid to inform you that you are completely and utterly wrong."

Madison's voice was slightly muffled as she held her keys in her mouth. Her bronze falcon key ring - the unofficial symbol of her unit back in the military - was pinched between her teeth as she headed up the stairs of her apartment block. Her and David were coming back from work but, as per usual, hadn't left work behind them.

She was moving up the stairs, her rucksack (never was she the kind of girl to have a frickin' handbag) over one shoulder, the case notes under one arm and two trays of pizza balanced on her other hand. Her keys had been in her mouth since she'd left the car.

"I don't think it's the creepy neighbour." She carried on, discussing the case they had been working on all day. Samuel Elcott was a four year old boy who had been missing for four months. Despite a neighbour of the family being a registered sex offender against children and having no secure alibi on the day of his disappearance, there hadn't been enough evidence to make the case stick. And the boy had still not been found. The case had, up until now, been handled by a different precinct. A precinct who was was due to get the case suspended until further notice in a week. Madison had heard it through the grapevine and jumped with her hands in the air. She wanted a go at finding the kid before all hope was lost.

"I think," Madison continued, balancing the pizza boxes on the banister of the stairs while she extracted the keys from between her lips and unlocked the door to her apartment. "that we need to interrogate the parents again. I swear the mother is hiding something."

Mr. and Mrs. Elcott had come into the station decked out like normal, quaint, God-fearing folk. They had been cleared of any suspicion in the case months ago but Madison had yet to be convinced. Both of them religious in a sort of obvious way, Madison had taken an instant weirding-out to them. She had no problem with faith. She'd never been raised with any and was open to everyone believing what they wanted. She had also spent enough time in the Middle East to know that no faith was to blame for war or any of the other horrendous things that happened in the world - people were. Faith was just often used as the bloody excuse.

No, it was something else that had gave her the wig about the couple. Maybe the mother's timidity? Or the husband's blank stare? She knew that grief affected everyone differently but something wasn't right there and she couldn't quite put her finger on it. So naturally, it was bugging the hell out of her.

As she got herself and her baggage through the door, Madison finally reached home, leaving the entryway open for her partner. He had been here so many times, she didn't feel the need to welcome him in or offer him guest-like hospitality.

Her apartment was mostly white with exposed wood features and had a lot of plants. Having worked out in the bloody desert where nothing grew and everything was dry as hell, Madison liked having green in the place. The green, however, did not like her. Somehow the plants were always dying, no matter what she did. At the moment, they looked bright and colorful but she knew it wouldn't be long before she was replacing a few. Unfailing hope. Wasn't that the story of her life?

Walking immediately towards the living room, Madison plonked the two pizza trays on the coffee table and then headed back to the kitchen, swinging her rucksack through the door of her bedroom as she went. The thing skidded to a halt somewhere near the neatly made bed.

Everything in Madison's home was pristine. Not because she was OCD about cleanliness or hated mess, but because she'd been training in a very specific and strict discipline all her life. Her mother had been a home-maker to her toes and insisted on the house looking nice at all times, then when she had passed, The Colonel had taken over, running the house like a military operation. By the time Madison joined the army herself, keeping things in order and being anal about cleanliness was as hardwired into her as her eye-color. The general rule of thumb with Madison was that anyone could make as much mess as they liked, but before she left for work every morning, the place was clean from top to bottom.

Reaching the kitchen, Madison opened the fridge and removed a couple of beers. She waved one at David.

"You having one or are you driving back?" She asked casually, before swinging the bottle like a hypnotic pendulum.

[David Loki]

Loki listened to Madison as she told him that he was wrong, but he knew it wasn't personal and didn't take it as such. That was the good thing about their partnership, they could disagree and voice their opinions in an open and civil discussion without it descending into an argument...well the vast majority of the time anyway.    He wasn't convinced that he was right, but he did not agree that he was totally and utterly wrong, "I'm not saying he's the guy, I'm saying we need to consider all possibilities.  Let's not cross anybody off out list." Loki replied as he walked up the stairs behind Madison carrying two office boxes, one stacked on top of the other and both full of folders and photos and everything else pertaining to the case and the investigation so far. He waited as she balanced the pizzas and opened the door and he listened as she voiced her suspicions about the mother. Once she went inside he naturally followed in behind her without the need for an invitation, wiping his boots on the mat as he entered. He set the boxes down by the coffee table and began removing his coat, keeping the conversation going without skipping a beat, "I have no reason to disagree." He said before hanging his coat up neatly. Loki had been over enough for him to be able to make himself at home without invitation, but he was still a guest in her home and  always showed respect for the tidiness of the place.  "We can go and talk to them tomorrow." He said, looking to Madison in the kitchen as he walked back to the sofa. He thought for a moment as he looked at the chilled beer in her hand, he wanted to say yes to it but he knew he would not be staying, though he would need something to wash down all the pizza they had, "I'm gonna drive back." He replied before sitting down. He always drove back, the only question was would he be their long enough for one beer to clear his system enough? As much as Loki had been over her place he had never once spent the entire night there, he had on occasion stayed to two, three or even four in the morning but he had never slept over for the night. Not that there would have been anything in it if he had ever stayed on the couch for the night because the pair were just close partners and friends and nothing more, but it was a line he didn't want to cross. And even though he probably couldn't explain it, it had to do with boundaries and it came out of a place of respect.   Loki lifted one of the office boxes onto the coffee table and removed the lid, taking out the first folder and making a start on reading through everything the previous precinct had given them. He knew they needed to start at the beginning and look for anything the others might have missed or overlooked. Sometimes it was just a case of needing fresh eyes to come in and look at things from another perspective and Loki just hoped that there was still a chance of finding this boy alive after all these weeks. Tag: @zen2 ~*~

[Deleted]

Madison nodded and put the beer away back in the fridge. Maybe she'd have that later or he'd have it another time. Instead, she pulled out a can of soda (luckily the two of them shared the same taste in drink, even if not in pizza) and took it and a glass to the coffee table for him.

"Okay, I get you." She answered understandingly. "I won't count anything out."

She and David had always been a good team. She went with gut instinct - it had kept her alive more often than not so, over the years she had learnt to trust it - and he went with cool objectivity. In respect for him, she tried to keep her mind open to all possibilities even if she was, at any one time, gunning for a particular likelihood. And out of respect for her... He um...

She thought about it for a second... put up with her?

In reality, Madison knew that David was the better cop. He was cool, he was calm, he looked at all sides of a situation, letting the evidence tell him what had happened, not the other way around.

Madison had been better in the military. Where you had to be decisive, pro-active and jump on a decision immediately even if it later turned out to be wrong.

She had always felt like being a cop wasn't her true calling. That it had been a path similar to the one she actually wanted and had been banned from taking. But over the last six months she had learnt to enjoy a few things. She had learnt that it's nice to come home at the end of a day - to have a home in fact. To see the faces of the people you spend all day helping, rather than just being told it's for the good of your country a million miles away. So now, she was gradually fighting harder for her role, wanting it more - wanting to be the best cop she could be. She wanted to be like David. And, if she was honest, she knew that she would have gradually become disillusioned with the army. So much suffering, so much death. And were they making any headway? Apparently not, according to the news.

Speaking off...

As was her habit, Madison grabbed the remote from where it had been left on the couch beside David and flicked the TV on. It was already on the news channel and she quickly flicked it to mute. The headlines running along the bottom of the screen and the images on display gave her enough information about each news report. And, if she was really interested, she could always read the reporters lips. Having the broadcast on permanently was a habit she had formed when she had first come back to the states, desperate to know as much as a civilian was allowed to, about what was happening with her unit overseas.

Right now, the news was reporting some nonsense about elevators being secret killers and the rising death toll in those who use lifts instead of the stairs.

She chucked the remote back down where it had been before - it had a cosy little home between the couch cushions - and then finally began to make herself at home.

"Okay, take me through Samuel's day, from his point of view. What happened to him?" She asked, removing her slim leather jacket. Beneath it, she wore a white tank top. She always wore jeans or cargo pants - detective or no detective she was not wearing a shirt and blazer. Jesus.

Swooping her hair up, and heading for the bedroom where she would find a tie for it, she revealed the tattoo on the back of her neck. A small set of wings - the stencil kind that made up part of the us army logo - with some numbers centered beneath it. The number 407 next to three lines in a tally.

When she strode back into the room, her hair was tied up in a hazardous bun on the top of her head, she scooped up her beer from the table, and took a swig as she plopped down into the armchair beside the couch. She leaned forwards the open the first pizza box.

The top one turned out to be hers - cheese and tomato with so much extra of each that it had ceased being a pizza and become more of a soup served on dough. She would still eat it with her hands though. By this point, she was a pro at not getting any down her front.

Lifting the box so she could get to the other one she handed the second over to her partner.

"This one's yours, by the way." She told him, placing the box on the couch next to him. "It has icky, colorful stuff on it."

How many times had they had pizza together? And she always maintained that the simpler, the better.

David Loki ,

[David Loki]

Loki read through the initial report that had been written at the start if the case, taking in the details while Madison was getting herself settled in and making herself more comfortable. He was still reading when Madison took her seat and separated the pizzas, "I think the word you're looking for is toppings." He teased lightly in a flat tone as he carried on reading, finishing of the rest of the last page. "Samuel was up at 6, the day started with breakfast and kids shows. Mrs Elcott dropped him off at Mr and Mrs Bennett's house for a play date around 10 and picked him up around noon. She took him to the mall and bought him some new shoes." He said, leisurely lifting a page of the report up and down as he talked, "They went home and Samuel was playing in the back yard, Mrs Elcott kept an eye on him from the kitchen window while she prepared some vegetables. She went to speak to her husband in the living room and when she came back she couldn't see Samuel from the window, so she went outside to look and he was gone." He finished, gently tossing the report onto the coffee table and looking over to his partner, his eyes giving a couple of hard blinks. "So I think you're right. We should definitely go back to the parents and talk to them again. Get fresh statement and see if we can find anything the other detectives might have missed." He said, twisting his pinky ring around on his finger  as he leaned forwards with his elbows on his knees. "And see if your suspicions about the Mother go anywhere." he finished. Loki was methodical in the way that he worked and he liked to have all his duck in a row. To him everyone was a suspect and he let the evidence lead him. But he did also trust Madison's gut instincts and if she thought something was off with the Mother then as her partner he was going to take that on board.  He opened the soda can and poured some into his glass and took a sip, being careful to use a coaster when he had done so. He opened another report and put it on the table before grabbing a slice of pizza and reading as he ate. There was a lot for the pair to look over and this was gonna take a while. Tag:@zen2. ~*~

[Deleted]

"Yeah, exactly. Icky stuff. What I say?" Madison teased back in the same deadpan tone. God, if anyone in the office heard them on a regular basis they would think the two of them did nothing but argue, their tones were so serious. Internally, Madison found it hilarious.

After carefully polishing off her first slice of pizza and taking a swig of beer, Madison noticed Loki being careful to use a coaster and smiled behind her bottle. She loved that momma-raised-right orderly behaviour of his. Though sadly she also knew that it had nothing to do with his momma. Madison felt her heart squeeze but she didn't let herself go down pity road for him. She knew that would be the last thing he would want her thinking about.

As was their habit, Madison took the files that David discarded after reading. It was always good for both detectives to be clued up on a case down to each individual word. Plus, sometimes different people picked up on different ques - even from paperwork.

They sat that way in silence for a few hours, pouring over the information in front of them. Half a pizza later and the beer drained and Madison was shaking her head.

"There's not enough detail in these reports." She said, getting annoyed at whoever the original detective had been. She checked the name in the corner. Someone she didn't recognise from another precinct. "What did the kid have for breakfast? Why did he need new trainers? It's like they don't realise that everything is important. There's no thousand words for the picture here." She sighed and checked the address of the victim, then Google mapped it on her phone. "Okay the yard backs out onto an alley - high fence and all - but on the other side is a convenience store." She checked the report again. "Says here that the convenience store's camera is busted they only got the footage from the back of the butchers next door to the Elcott's home. The camera was facing the wrong way and didn't see anything. No vehicle with a kid went passed in the time Samuel went missing." She frowned at her phone, zooming in on the street view she had up. "I'm gonna go over the surveillance footage tomorrow if that's okay? Looking at the layout of this alley, I think I could get more out of it than slacker-precinct managed."

She fell into silence again as she carried on reading the files. She then noticed David twiddling that pinkie ring he wore again and she tilted her head in consideration.

"I've never asked you this but I'm curious..." She started, looking up from the paperwork. "What's with the pinkie ring? It's very Godfather." She said with a smile.

There were a good half a dozen questions Madison had for Loki about his appearance. His tattoos were of interest to her, the fact that he wore high collar shirts and hid them was of even more interest. But things like tattoos, scars and birthmarks could be very personal. She figured she'd find out if he ever told her. The ring seemed a less obtrusive question, so Madison let her natural curiosity go a little. At least she could give her instinctive nosiness that much.

David Loki

[David Loki]

Loki didn't look up from what he was reading even a little bit when Madison made her retort about the toppings, but he cracked a smirk on one side of his mouth. It was tinny but it was there. There were times where anyone on the outside would have trouble recognizing that the pair were actually joking and bantering with each other, but inside their close circle of two they both found it rather amusing. After a few hours of reading Loki tossed the report he had down on the coffee table and rand both hands back over his hair in controlled frustration. The reports had the basics of everything but they were not thorough enough at all for his liking. He shook his head lightly as Madison voiced the same sentiment, and he listened as she said about going over the surveillance footage in the morning, "I agree." He said as he leafed through a few random pages. If they hadn't been thorough with the reports then chances were they might not have been thorough enough with the surveillance footage either, "I think we should talk to people again, take fresh statements. Work from the ground up." If they had half of the details missing then they needed to start again if they were going to have any chance of finding Samuel alive. Though after months those chances had diminished significantly, but it wasn't over until it was over. Oh it annoyed Loki, a little boy's life was on the line here and the reports wasn't up to scratch at all. If a little more effort had been put into the investigation them maybe the boy would have been found by now, instead precious time had been ticking by and now it could be too late. A thought that cut at him deep inside though he didn't let it show.   He tossed the few pages he had back onto the coffee table and exhaled tiredly before leaning forwards again and absentmindedly twiddling with his pinkie ring as he read a couple of pages that were spread on the table. "I've never asked you this but I'm curious..."        Hearing her voice Loki lifted his eyes and looked at her with a casual 'oh yeah, what?' expression. "What's with the pinkie ring? It's very Godfather." He grinned and let out a chuckle at the comment, before looking down at his hand, "Um..yeah." He said, a slight smile still on his face. It was a long story. The smile faded and his look turned more serious, but not too serious, "It was a gift." He answered looking back up at her. Yeah, he should probably elaborate a little more than that, "The Sheriff gave it to me." He began. He had shared with Madison once that he had done a stint in juvie when he was younger, but he hadn't told her how long for or what the details surrounding it had been, but he had told her how a sheriff helped him to turn things around and was the reason he had become a cop in the first place. Though Madison was the only one who knew about any of that, apart from his bosses who had access to his records...and his girlfriend of course. "He gave it to me the day I graduated out of the academy and got my badge. It's kind of hard to explain but that day was kind of like a re-birth for me, and he gave me this ring as a symbol. It's a reminder that I'm not alone, that I have a family and that support is there whenever I need it." He finished, smiling lightly and giving a light shrug after opening like that. Well for him that was opening up anyway. Even though he hadn't gone into great depth. Tag: @zen2. ~*~

[Deleted]

Madison was nodding in agreement with David's assessment of the situation.

"I'm afraid, my meerkat friend, that we are going to have to start this case all over again." She dumped the reports that she still held, on the table. "Which means these are less than useless until we have some of our own to cross-reference against." She blew our her cheeks in frustration.

She didn't mind working hard - in fact she thrived on it. Loved to throw herself into a case and dig through all the evidence, piecing together the jigsaw puzzle that they needed to solve. What she didn't like was having to do it all four months after the fact - which meant they would never get it as detailed as the first detectives had the opportunity to - just because someone wanted to get off early one a Friday, or whatever. Damn waste of their time. Damn waste of Samuel Elcott's precious little time.

In all reality, the chances were that the kid was long dead by now. Facts and experience told them that it was very unlikely he was alive somewhere. It wasn't going to stop Madison working her fingers to the bone over the next week to find him, anyway - alive or dead. It was worth the effort just for that sliver of a chance.

Then David answered her question about the ring and Madison smiled as she watched him open up a little about his past. She knew a few things about him already. Knew he'd had it pretty shit through the foster system - though that was more from inference of his tone than from actual facts, she didn't know the details. She knew that his family had been apart a lot in the past and only recently been on speaking terms again. His mom had been ill - mental issues of some kind which she hadn't pushed to know about. Mental illness was still a stigmata like topic for a lot of people. Again, she didn't know the full details of him being taken into care but she knew from his tone that, deep down he loved his mom. So, he couldn't have been placed in the foster system because she dumped him or anything - it had been solely based on her health. She'd also heard mention of an older sister - and two little nieces (which Madison found heart-breakingly sweet but she had so far restrained herself from referring to him as Uncle David). No other siblings. She had assumed his tattoos came from his juvie past, which she knew a little about, and had never pried further.

But after all that, it was nice to know that he had a memento that he could look on happily. Her smile lit up her eyes.

"That's nice." She said, her smile freezing a little in place. "Know what The Colonel got me when I signed up?" She asked in a casual tone as she got up to dump her empty pizza box and beer bottle in the kitchen. "An annual subscription to a local storage unit for my stuff." She chuckled with little cheer. It had been his way of telling her he wasn't keeping the house while she was away. Nice.

She shrugged off the melancholy and took a soda from the fridge this time. She wasn't about to drown her sorrows. She was a big girl and while she knew she had a chip on her shoulder the size of the grand canyon where her father was concerned, she wasn't about to let it overshadow her life. She had just felt the need to share in reciprocation for David's memory.

Her partner knew a fair amount about her already - mostly the same as she knew about him... the facts and figures but not much of the detail. He knew that he had more experience in the police force than her because she had gone into the military first. He knew that her mom was dead (it wasn't exactly a secret, so she didn't mind people knowing the woman had died in a car accident - it was why Madison was stringent about seat belts) and that she had a more than difficult relationship with The Colonel. He knew that she had left the military on an honorable discharge and with the Silver Star for valor. What he didn't know were the details regarding the extremist group she had had to deal with before returning to the States. Only the therapist she had seen for the first six months after getting back knew everything about that. She'd also never mentioned Doug. Now that she thought about it, she didn't know why. Probably because she had been hiding his location from her father for the last seven years and never saw him in person. She was just used to protecting him in secret.

Besides, David knew everything that mattered. He knew what she was like as a person and as a detective. He didn't have to know about her ordeal in Afghanistan. He didn't need to know about Doug. And he certainly didn't need to know that she liked his tattoos or that she could tell how emotional he was by how frequent his hard blinks were. Those were tidbits she was keeping firmly to herself. Not to mention, hoping that they would go away!

The last thing she needed was to fall for someone she worked with. Someone who had to trust her with his life. And she was determined that that wasn't going to happen. Not again.

David Loki

[David Loki]

That was another reason why their little circle of two worked so well, Madison was more than just his partner she was his friend. And it was a friendship Loki valued deeply. She was about the only person other than his girlfriend and more recently his sister that Loki allowed himself to open up to, because he knew he could. Madison didn't tent to pry or push things, and so far she hadn't judged him or looked down on him for anything she knew about his past or the things he had confided in her about his adolescent mistakes, mistakes he was far from proud of. So when he saw his parter actually smiling after telling her about the ring it felt nice in a way he wasn't that used to, it felt nice being accepted...though Madison didn't know the support he said the ring symbolized was a symbol of support regarding his sobriety after he had kicked a moderate drug habbit a few years before getting his badge. A former habit he was now totally and utterly ashamed of. A part of him wondered if Madison would still be so accepting of him if she ever knew, and deep down he knew the answer would be yes. The pair could talk about anything whether it was just chit-chat or the deeper stuff, and one day he would tell her, but not tonight.   He saw the smile freeze in place for a moment and he could detect it was because of one of her less fonder memories, "Nice." He sympathized when she reciprocated the memory as he looking over at her from the couch he had now leaned back into. Maddy obviously had a strained relationship with the Colonel. The fact that she referred to him as 'the Colonel' and not 'Dad' or 'my father' was an indicator of that. And that was something Loki could sure relate to, his relationship with his own father was somewhat strained after they had been estranged for so many years, though it was slowly developing and improving for the better. Loki raised a casual eyebrow and gave a light shrug, "At least he got you a storage unit and didn't just dumped your stuff on the street." He offered. It was little consultation, but it was true.  And it was better than being abandoned for a life of alcohol and gambling. After the pair had finished talking Loki looked at the empty glass in his hand and exhaled, it was getting late. No it WAS late and he knew he should probably go. They had been reading for hours and as Madison had said most of it was useless until they made their own reports to compare it to, so he knew it was better for him to go so they could both get some sleep and make a start on everything they had to do in the morning, "I should go." He said before standing up and getting his coat, "I'll see you at the office in the morning." Tag: @zen2   ~*~

[Deleted]

Madison snorted through her nose at Loki's suggestion that at least he didn't throw her things into the street. She recycled her trash and then headed back to her seat to shuffle together the papers she had been handling. She knew it would drive David nuts if they weren't neatly back how they had been, despite the uselessness of the information they contained.

"Yeah, I know he's not an asshole." She commented. "He's never been a bad person, just a bad parent." She qualified. Somehow however, she thought, that made it all the worse. Like, you knew you weren't going to get love and affection from someone who chose drugs or alcohol over you, or was a piece of scum. But when your father was an honorable, courageous and respectable man who was capable of great love and loyalty to his country - and his long dead wife - there was just too much reason to hope for Madison to let her life-long dream die. She would be so much happily in her own self esteem if she could just let go of her daddy issues. But there was just too much hope that he might actually turn around and show her some affection one day, for her to let it go.

God, if he knew what was going on in her head David must think she's such a whiner. He'd had a scumbag of a father, he'd had to go through the care system and then get himself off the shit path it had set him off on and had now made something of himself.

She had been raised in a household where money was no option, she and her brother had had expensive educations and she had a father who was regularly rewarded and honored on television. And she was moping that she didn't get enough hugs.

Pull yourself together, soldier.

"No problem." She agreed when David said he needed to go. "I want to get a real early start in the morning, if that's cool with you. I can feel our week deadline breathing down the back of my neck as it is. You can leave all the stuff. I'll bring it in on my way to the station tomorrow." There was no sense carting it all about to his only to then take it to the office again.

David Loki

OOC: This is quite short so I'm gonna now start a new one at the station for the two of them. Feel free to reply to this if you still want to to finish things off but as we're changing locations soon I thought I'd do the second half of mine in the other board.

NEW THREAD: The Disappearance of Samuel Elcott