She tossed her hair over her shoulder, and he watched it get tossed. Rupert noted the blush, and decided that Flispy was getting a dog treat as soon as they got back to the apartment.

“Canada? Interesting. I’ve always wanted to head waaaaay up north and watch the dog sled races some year.” Rupert was, without a doubt, a dog person. He watched the woman as she spoke, mentally applauding the fact that her clothes were almost as—how to put this?—almost as casual as his. Actually, those ripped jeans of hers might actually have his gray scrub pants beat. He was pretty sure his Led Zepplin shirt had hers topped, though—not that he knew the band it was advertising. Something punk, it looked like. As for her question, he gave a little half-hearted shrug. “No huge cases at the moment. I’m with Mutant and Mutant-Related Crimes division, so they keep us pretty busy, but it’s been mostly brawlers lately.” He unconsciously began massaging the stab scar on his chest, from the Sanctuary police massacre. “Just as well. Big cases usually mean body bags, when it comes to these people. I can’t for the life of me understand why some of them just can’t keep a low profile. Like those twins,” it was an ongoing investigation, but the reporters had gotten their teeth into it already: that tended to happen when you left images of yourself sculpted into Central Park fountains. Geniuses. Seriously. “Have you heard about that on the news? A brawl on a city street is bad enough, but did they have to bust that sewer main? You don’t even want to know how much it costs to fix one of those things.” He wrinkled his nose. “It wasn’t exactly a pleasure to visit that scene, believe-you-me. The businesses that got set on fire aren’t too thrilled, either, but no one managed to catch a picture of the girl that did that one, and you know how witnesses are.” Well, maybe they didn’t. In a word: unreliable. “Seriously, with all the cell phone cameras running around, you’d think—” He suddenly grinned, and held up his hands in surrender. “Sorry, sorry. Office talk again. To apologize, would you two mind if I treated you to coffee? We should probably be heading away from the scene, anyway. It’ll be very busy around here, very soon.” He looked mostly at Raina as he offered.

Maybe two treats. Good Flipsy, good.

((ooc: Mandain, do you want me to RP those diner cops, or do you have it covered? )

(( I ain't a cop person, but i wasn't really gonna attract them into the big picture, they just have a small roll, but if you like you can be them. ))

ooc: cal, you're hilarious. That was an awesome post.

ic: Raina listened again darting looks at Ali as if she was amused with the conversation, when really she was praising God he hadn't recognize her and Ali. "Yes, some mutants can be a handful..." added Raina. "But they can't all be bad. I'm sure as a cop you meet good people too." she laughed a little uneasy feeling rather awakrd in the conversation. "Where I come from, there arn't really any at all... it's strange being in New York with people walking around with spikes coming out of their skin..." She didn't mean to sound anti-mutant... but the truth was Raina was still not used to seeing all these mutants with obvious mutations. She was brought up like the rest of her tribe to fear them, until she became one. Staying at the mansion and meeting Nika with her cat ears, Ted with his doggy breath (sorry ted you know I love ya ) was a little scary for Raina... but she knew these people were good people.

She listened to Rupert and it was obvious to her that he had a bad experieince. "Mental note," she said to herself. "Rupert is not to escort me home." she giggled wishing she was a telepath thinking Ali might get a kick out of that one.

Her eyes widened a bit at the offer for a drink. "wow!" she exclaimed. "Ali and I spend so much time with teenagers it'll be a great eascape to have some coffee with another adult!" she instantly bit her tongue at the mention of all the teens. "...working in a group home for 'runaways' sure does that to a girl, er, uh, eh, Ali?" she elbowed Ali to go along with the story and linked arms with her. "I'd say, we'd be happy for a coffee!"

She hadn't noticed that Rupert possibly was directing this comment toward her, but it didn't matter. Raina didn't want to go anywhere in NY without someone she already knew, and she was looking forward to hanging out with Ali. "Where shall we go?" she asked wondering which cafes had survived their earlier trip to the city while thinking to herself that Rupert had a pretty awesome sense fof style.. er.. for a mutant-hating cop!

ooc: shall we head over to Mandain?

((ooc: "mutant-hating cop"? Ouch. Oh, poor Rupert--he thinks he's got a chance. lol And thanks for the compliment.

Sounds like a plan! Though I suppose we should let Raven Fire get a word in. *to Raven Fire:* When you post, do you want to move us along to the diner?))

ooc: dont worry, she thinks he's cute! lol yup, we'll let Ali post!

The conversation between Raina and the Detective carried on and Ali just listened. Especially when the man mentioned the twins bursting a sewer pipe and then noting the businesses that were set on fire. She did her best not to let on that she was even in the area at the time so she simply nodded her head as she continued to listen to.

The man introduced himself as Rupert and then introduced his dog as well. "You can call me Ali which I'm sure you already gathered from Raina here." Ali shot Raina a playful look. Rupert went on to talk about some of his feelings about mutants. It was a statement that got Raina to look at Ali with a concerned look. In response Ali nodded slightly in agreement with the other woman's facial expression. Ali can't read minds but she knows gestures pretty well.

Rupert cut himself off with his story and asked if he could treat the ladies to coffee. Raina expressed her joy when she hooked Ali's arm and practically spoke for her. "Coffee sounds good."

"Yes, some mutants can be a handful... But they can't all be bad. I'm sure as a cop you meet good people too." Raina laughed, but it sounded rather uncomfortable. Rupert could sympathize: for the general public, mutants tended to be a taboo topic for first meetings.

With another officer, Rupert would have given a cynical laugh and left it at that: the officer would have understood. For Raina, he gave a little half-shrug. “I’m in the wrong line of work to meet good mutants, I’m afraid. It would be a nice change to meet one that wasn’t trying to kill me or run from me.” The cynical laugh managed to escape, after all, showing just what he thought the odds of that happening were.

He laughed much more honestly when Raina latched onto her friend. Coffee it was, then. “There’s an excellent little diner just up a block. Ever been there? They allow dogs, too.” He gave Flipsy a little tug—she’d been trying to dance after an unsuspecting jogger—and motioned to the women to follow him. “So you two work at a group home?” He asked, making small talk as they walked. Though honestly, he was rather impressed, and it showed in his voice. “You probably hear this all the time, but really: I think that’s admirable. I hope you can do well by them. Kids like that need an adult in their life who’s there for them.”

((ooc: Aaaand fast-forward so Mandain can join us again... hope you two don’t mind! We can always continue the small talk over that coffee. )

Rupert held the door to the diner open for the woman. As soon as he followed them inside, he really wished he wasn’t a gentleman; at the least, he should have bothered to glance through the glass door first. Two drawn guns and a mutant weren’t something he should have let anyone walk into. He hurried to correct that, stepping in front of them. “McKenzie, Black. Care to fill me in?” He levelly asked the two officers. He recognized their target. Apparently Yellow Eyes was a trouble maker, after all.

He saw Officer Black’s eyes flick over to him quickly, then back to the mutie just as fast. “We’ve got a suspected mutant threatening a waitress, Kelley.”

Rupert motioned to Raina and Ali to stay back, and took a few careful steps forward so he could join the little party. He kept himself out of the beat officers’ line of sight. He looked to the mutant; Yellow Eyes seemed like he wasn’t having the best day. It didn’t look like the guy had actually hurt anyone yet. Rupert decided to give him a chance to explain himself—it was better than trying to arrest the guy. Not without a clue as to what his abilities were. “Fancy meeting you again, Sir. Care to tell me what’s going on here?” His expressionless delivery was ruined by Flipsy; the little dog was sitting at the mutant’s feet, wagging her tail like she’d just been reunited with a long-lost friend. She was a friendly dog, not a dog with good taste.

As Mandain had 2 guns and a shotgun pointed at him, he really wasn't having a great first day in a new country. As he looked to wards the officer's, he could see they were pretty frightened, yellow eye's could have that affect, giving away that he was a mutant, and in his case, could do a lot of damage. Mandain was lucky he wasn't the freak out in bad situation type, so he stayed calm, but tried to look confused as he had problems. That idea of him looking confused ended when an old friend walked in.

“McKenzie, Black. Care to fill me in?”

It was detective Rupert, he already had stepped in the line of fire, of those 2 cops that were about to fire when Mandain made a move.

“We’ve got a suspected mutant threatening a waitress, Kelley.”

"Fancy meeting you again, Sir. Care to tell me what’s going on here?”

Mandain started thinking of what he was about to say, but all he could think of was standing right outside the dinner. Mandain looked once, and knew this was a bad situation for him, and his flirting days.

"Darn, why did they come with him" Mandain said it in whisper tone and bit on his lips.

" Well hello Detective Rupert, as you may see, it just isn't my day, what happened was, I'm still a bit shocked by the big accident and i didn't notice the waitress was coming over to me, so i scared and naturally I had her with my hand on her stomach, so you know, i can do my thing"
Mandain said it a bit scared so hopefully he could escape from prison or any kind of punishment.

Mandain was telling the truth, although he thought his sacredness wasn't believable for Rupert. When he first met the detective he was calm, sitting on a bench when there was total chaos, and now scared by this?

"Oh sheezz what have I gotten my self into"

If Rupert was to make the wrong decision he had to try to get that shotgun out of his back and paralyze that detective or somebody else in the room to start a chaos. It was now all in the hands of Rupert, the detective off duty.

ooc: Mandain, play along

ic:

"Oh wait!" cried Raina "I recognize you!" she elbowed Ali to play along as well. "We've been waiting for you, I'm so sorry you've had such a rough experieince!" with ease and poise Raina pushed past the other police officers and as calmly as she could possibly muster, stood between them and the new mutant. "Detective Rupert, this young man is supposed to be working at our group home-" she Gave the mutant a look that said: If you want to get out of this, play along." I'm a little embaressed I didn't recognize you, and I'm afraid I've forgotten your name, afterall someone from our center was supposed to meet you at the airport tomorrow, it sounds like we got the dates mixed up!"

She really hoped Rupert was buying this. And she hoped her mutant friend here understood that she was trying to give him a way out. "I'm Raina! I'm fairly new to the -er center myself." she extended a hand. "You're our specialist in 'youth agression' right? We sure could use you, we've got a lot of violent runaways who need to learn to control their po- er energy!" she stuffed a brochure for the mansion that contained a map into the mutants hands and made eye contact long enough to strongly suggest he put this away and play along. Then with the ease of a lady Raina spun on her heels and flashed a beaming beautiful smile at the police that could melt mountains.
"We're an equal opprotunity employment- one of the first in NY. As you can imagine, we get all sorts of runaways!" she hoped that Rupert bought this- after all it was very believable, and would explain her akwardness at the topic of mutants without giving away that she was actually one.
Her brown eyes flashed "Oh I'm just so embaressed, Ali, you don't have any idea who was supposed to pick up our friend here? Been in NY only a day and already been in an explosion! Our manager is going to have our hides!"

"Well hello Detective Rupert, as you may see, it just isn't my day, what happened was, I'm still a bit shocked by the big accident and I didn't notice the waitress was coming over to me, so I scared and naturally I had her with my hand on her stomach, so you know, I can do my thing."

…It wasn’t the best explanation Rupert had ever heard. The mutie had as good as admitted his intention to use his powers to harm the waitress; he’d obviously decided against it, since the girl looked shaken but otherwise fine, but Rupert did not like the idea of a jumpy mutant wielding his powers on any poor sap who snuck up behind him. At least he knew now that the guy preferred to have physical contact before he did his “thing”. Oddly enough, he was a little reassured to see that the man’s near-miss back at the explosions was finally affecting him. He knew from personal experience that events like that could have a time-delay until they hit a guy, but seeing the mutie so calm back in the park had made him wonder if these creatures even had emotions.

All Rupert did as Raina stepped into things was raise an eyebrow, and listen. She wasn’t the best actress he’d ever meet. “po- er energy”, was it? He was willing to buy that this guy was going to work at the youth home. From where he was standing, it didn’t make sense for Raina to step between an edgy mutant and two officers with guns for any other reason; if she’d been some sort of bleeding-heart mutant supporter in disguise, she probably would have slapped him and stormed off back at the park. "As you can imagine, we get all sorts of runaways!" Ah. He could imagine.

Anyone well versed in cop body language would have been treated to a full conversation in the next few seconds. Rupert looked at the beat officers. Black glanced at him, met his gaze, and nudged McKenzie before training his gaze back on the mutie. McKenzie looked over and met Rupert’s gaze, and raised an eyebrow as he jerked his head slightly to the mutant. Rupert gave a barely noticeable shrug, and relaxed his shoulders. McKenzie raised his other eyebrow, and nudged Black. Black looked back at Rupert. Rupert stuck his hands in his pockets, and gave another shrug for Black. Black and McKenzie looked at each other. Then they holstered their guns.

“If you need us, Rup...” Black trailed off, giving another shrug as McKenzie and he carefully walked around Raina and the mutie, giving Yellow Eyes a wide berth.

“I’ve got Delores on speed dial,” Rupert confirmed, giving a quick nod to both of them. McKenzie went up and paid their bill by putting three twenties on the counter; the partners made their way through the door without another word, but with returned nods at Rupert. The distressed waitress was looking at the three twenties in a way that made Rupert think it was a pretty good tip, and the idea of it was helping her to recover significantly.

He turned to the mutant. “A word of advice: invest in sunglasses,” he said levelly. Then he looked from Raina to Ali and back again with an apologetic smile. “Sorry; more police stuff. Would dessert make it up to you?” He flashed a quick grin. “Of course, dessert isn’t dessert if you haven’t eaten yet. Can we get three menus over here?” He pointed down at Flipsy. “And a bowl of water, please.”

((ooc: Would one of you ladies care to invite Mandain to sit with us? I can’t seem to force the words past Rupert’s mouth... lol))

"I feel so terrible about this..." started Raina trying to pour on the charm as best as she could with a bat of the eyelashes. "Why don't you sit with us sir?" she asked Mandain. "I'm so embaressed about mixing up your flight, I just have to get you something to eat. I wont take no for an answer!" she motioned to a bigger table and purposfuly flipped her hair back in that oh so female pheremone filled movement that made men melt. A little time around Fiona had taught Raina a thing or two. She knew she had do to anything she could to destract these two men- though, it wasn't like she wasn't doing it willingly just to steal a little more time with rupert.

ooc: sort of a filler post, I think we should all give Ali a chance.

(OOC: Sheesh you guys. Don't leave me behind. lol)

When they got inside the diner there was a bit of a scene happening, but Raina was a quick thinker and jumped right into the mix. Her nudge to Ali got her in the ribs a little and kinda surprised Ali. She got the hint though and played along as well.

"Well, didn't you look at your calendar Raina? You poor guy. I hope you aren't wanting to go back home because we really could use you at the center."

The group moved over to a bigger table and Ali sat down. "Raina are you buying my lunch too?" Ali giggled playfully. She then turned her attention to Mr. yellow eyes. He seemed a bit nervous earlier at the park when he eaved to her so she gave him a warming smile in hopes that he would feel more comfortable.

Rupert sat down, making a point of sitting next to the mutant. If the guy’s power was touch-related, than he wasn’t about to let Raina and Ali sit within easy reach. Not even an entrancing flip of Raina’s hair could remove all of the tenseness Rupert’s shoulders had for this situation. But he decided to try and be civil. Mostly because this was a guy Raina was going to work with, and walking out of the diner because of him meant walking out on Raina. It was extremely hard to set up a real date with a woman when you stormed out on their colleagues in disgust; go figure. He took in a deep breath, and let it out slowly—the anger management trick was also good as a catch-all calming device.

"Raina are you buying my lunch too?" Ali joked.

He eased a smile onto his face. “Hey, didn’t I say this was my treat, ladies?” He looked to the mutant, trying to keep his smile from looking as strained as it really was. “I don’t think I caught your name.” He normally would have offered his hand at this point; his sense of self-preservation vetoed that idea. “Not exactly off to a great start to your life in New York, are you? Order whatever you want,” he kept speaking to Yellow Eyes, but he tried to meet Raina’s eyes. “Don’t worry; I’ve got the tab.” Rupert was not above making nice with a mutant in order to score a date.

When Rupert spoke up to remind the women taht he was treating Ali looked to him and smiled.

"Oh I know but since she offered...She owes me one anyways but we'll let you be the gentleman." Ali winked at the man before looking back to Raina and Mr. yellow eyes. "My name is Ali it's nice to meet you."

As those gun wielding cops holstered their gun, the owner put down his shotgun, Mandain was back to himself, no more drama in this diner. Mandain easily let go of the waitress who ran to wards the kitchen doors. Mandain looked around the diner, there was nobody else here anymore, just him, the detective and those 2 girls from the park. Not knowing why they helped him he played along. Not that Mandain was a violent person, but he was always in bad places that forced him to become more violent. He thought back of the huge accident that occurred when he was 17. He wend out, trying to have a great time in clubs, dancing with other girls, and some friends of his. Mandain couldn't remember good what happened after, but for some reason he freaked out, and the whole center of the city was laying on the ground, they couldn't move, they weren't dead, they were all paralyzed. For some reason unknown he had shot a lot of beams around the club, but it didn't and there, he ran outside and continued shooting his beams. This was his first encounter with his powers, and he didn't like it. Mandain's thought were come to an end when one of the lady's asked something to him

"Why don't you sit with us sir?"
"I'm so embarrassed about mixing up your flight, I just have to get you something to eat. I wont take no for an answer!"

Mandain smiled but didn't say a word and gave a nod to the lady.
The lady now motioned to a bigger table and purposefully flipped her hair back in that oh so female pheromone filled movement that made men melt.

"Damn" of course Mandain didn't say this out loud, bit he thought it.

"Well, didn't you look at your calendar Raina? You poor guy. I hope you aren't wanting to go back home because we really could use you at the center."

Hearing the word home wasn't good for Mandain, home was pain. He kept on smiling and staring at the two ladies.

"Raina are you buying my lunch too?"

“Hey, didn’t I say this was my treat, ladies?” the Detective looked at Mandain with a smile, but Mandain knew better, his smile was as fake as the smile Mandain was wearing.

I don’t think I caught your name.”
“Not exactly off to a great start to your life in New York, are you? Order whatever you want,”

Mandain wasn't hungry anymore so politely said:

"I'm Mandain," he didn't say it with much of enthusiasm " Thanks for the offer but I'm fine"

Oh I know but since she offered...She owes me one anyways but we'll let you be the gentleman." "My name is Ali it's nice to meet you."

Mandain looked at the lady that called herself Ali, " Nice to meet you too, I"m glad that I am in your program, as you could see, i can use the help."

Mandain wasn't really interested in going with them to the program if there was any, all he wanted was a soft bed, to forget his great start in America.