Ok, I published another story entitled NYPD Glee, which is basically a future AU about Rachel and Puck as Detectives in NY. The reviews I received were positive, but all were surprised by the fact that the events of Glee did occur. Hence, I was inspired to create a completely different universe, though this one will most likely consist of one-shots of different lengths, some might be related, but I actually don't think so…
This is basically an intro-chapter, because hey, it is quarter to two here in the Netherlands and I am pretty beat, so it'll be short n sweet!
Anyways, read and review, as always
Btw., I apologize for any possible grammar or orthographical errors, I am not a native English speaker
Disclaimer: None of the Characters are mine.
When Lieutenant Will Shuester strode through the halls of the NYPD Police Plaza One, he couldn't help but look around himself and think about all the people he worked with. Over the past years, his days had taken on a sort of routine. Of course, every week there was at least one day when one of his people was involved in a car chase, some explosion or any other ridiculous nonsense that somehow only ended up in his unit. But usually, barring any strange occurrences, his day looked like this:
After entering the building through the parking garage elevators, his walk to his office took him usually first for a quick chat to Emma's office. Emma Pillsbury had started a few years ago as the department shrink, and Will had found himself taking an instant liking to the shy red-head. She had helped him through his problems at home with Terrie and the divorce, after Terrie had been discovered trying to sell drugs to one of his undercover-cops.
Over the past few weeks he had tried to work up the courage to ask Emma out, but was still waiting. It was a bit too soon, seeing as she had just broken up with Ken Tanaka, a very well-connected Defense Attorney. Will might not have been a Nobel-prize winning scientist, or even a teacher, but even he knew that you do not ask out the ex-fiancée of a guy who regularly defends the Mafia, without waiting at least a few months.
After his chat, he usually dropped of his coat and briefcase in his office and strolled back out to pick up a cup of coffee. Thanks to his best detectives' solving the murder of the owner of a wealthy coffee-company, the NYPD had been provided with new, state-of-the-art coffee machines, meaning that all of them usually drank their coffee in the bullpen.
On his trip to the break room, he would usually bump into Dr. Artie Abrams, the resident ME. Artie had fallen down the stairs when he was a teenager and was since confined to a wheelchair. It still did not stop him from doing the job he loved though. Artie was by far the most competent Doctor Will had seen so far, and he was always willing to stitch up the variety of different wounds his guys received during their job. Every morning around the same time he would venture upstairs for a nice cup of coffee, plus some actual human interaction, not centered on dead people.
Bumping into Artie usually meant bumping into either Brittany or Tina as well. Brittany Miles had been hired a few years ago as an ME's assistant and had taken to the job quite literally. Poor Dr. Abrams often had trouble to even get out of the Morgue without Brittany assisting him one way or the other. The good Doctor however was never put out or short-tempered, though, as her intentions were always more than good. Plus, she was extremely competent in her work, even though some had voiced their doubts about whether she had the capacities to work in the lab. She did, Artie himself claimed he had never had a better assistant, which pleased Brittany to no end.
The other option was to see Tina Cohen-Chang with Artie. The shy lab-tech was a forensics-genius and had quite often single-handedly solved cases where their usual methods and deductive skills had failed spectacularly. The young Asian woman had a slightly gothic look and was very shy. Recently she had begun to talk more, nonetheless was she still a mystery for many.
She and Artie seemed to have forged a tight friendship. Even though Will knew that most likely it was more than friendship, there was absolutely no way he would start questioning that issue if he didn't have to. Tina was always good for a pleasant conversation, and oddly enough always knew what was going on in the building. It took him a few months to figure out that Tina was basically the entire IT-support department for his unit and hence always heard things from everywhere.
Normally, when he left Tina and Artie to their own devices after about half an hour, the bullpen would slowly begin to fill. Will always heard the strangely synchronized chuckles of Detectives Matt Rutherford and Mike Chang. They usually sat opposite each other, but laughed at the same time. An alternative was that they had entire conversations with only half sentences, which left the untrained ear completely confused.
Both had graduated from the Academy together, but Rutherford had been transferred to Baltimore to a Gang Unit, while Chang had been sent to LA. A few years later, Rutherford had nearly been killed when his cover had been blown and Chang had managed to nearly cause an international incident with Mexico. Needless to say, both needed to get out.
Will had at that point been urgently looking for a new detective, as Rhyerson had been fired for Gross Misconduct and his resulting promotion had left him one man short. Both had applied, and by shifting around some money, Will had been able to take on both.
The first day they came in to find themselves partnered with each other had been the last day Will had had no grey hairs whatsoever. Together they had almost started two gang-wars, offended seven dignitaries and incurred an incredible amount of damages in forms of cars, motor bikes, really, any type of transportation. Still, they also held the third-highest solving rate of the city. If there was anything going on in the gang-scene, these two would know about it.
After chuckling at their antics, Will would usually retire to his office to do some paperwork. Even though he still went out from time to time, more often than not he was actually filling out forms and writing letters. After a few hours of solid work, he would venture out again to refill his coffee cup.
Usually around this time, Matt and Mike had left to work on whatever case they were working on and Will would be left with preparing to fill out damage-claim and expense-forms.
On the way back, he would usually enjoy a few minutes of observing two of his other detectives.
Finn Hudson and Kurt Hummel made by far the oddest pair of detectives he had ever seen, yet somehow, both brought a sort of quality with them that made them incredibly successful. Finn was, apart from being a good detective, incredibly tall. If a suspect ever got too rough, giving them a look at his hulking figure would usually be enough to calm the person down. The fact that Finn was too nice to actually ever hit a suspect without provocation was a fact wisely kept between the police officers. His simple, sweet persona and adorable smile just made witnesses want to tell Finn the truth, just to not disappoint him. By the time they realized they were confessing to a cop, it was often too late.
Will himself couldn't quite remember what it was that made him partner Finn Hudson's two meters of pure goodness with Kurt Hummel's 1,60 of bitchiness. He had tried to find a more PC-version, but there simply was no other word to describe Kurt. He could be very sweet, of course, nice too, to the right people, and he was loyal to a fault. But if the guy couldn't get his hands on hand-lotion at all times of the day, or someone criticized his T-Zone, it was a small nuclear explosion.
Kurt was very intelligent, countering some of Finn's naivety, and possessed a rapier-sharp wit. At times, Will had pitied some suspects, as Hummel calmly tore them down and ripped their self-confidence to shreds. He was sort of the Secret weapon when it came to Upper East-side trophy wives. Ten minutes with Kurt, and the wanton hussies (Emma's description, not his), were actually wishing for a small, dirty apartment somewhere in the Bronx, just to get out of the room.
Still, they worked. So far, they had cracked pretty much every case given to them. Plus, through Kurt's best friend Mercedes Jones, they had pretty good eyes and ears, as she did a lot of pro-bono work and could somehow charm any of her clients into giving up the infos they wanted.
In addition, Will enjoyed talking to Finn when it came to matters of the heart. Finn had been dating Quinn Fabray for some time now, it had only gotten more serious when the young lawyer had switched sides and left Sylvester, Tanaka and Ben-Israel to get away from her father and become Assistant DA for New York.
Will was still not quite sure what to make of her, she seemed very nice, but sometimes she was a bit too ruthless for his taste. Still, Finn seemed to like her, he had even heard the P-word mentioned a few times over the last few months.
After chatting with Kurt and Finn for a few minutes to get updates on their cases, his normal pattern foresaw him returning to his paperwork until around 2 p.m. At that point, Emma would come over and regale him with a few amusing stories from her consults, everything kept unanimously, of course. He would trade her a few stories from when he was still a young green officer, running around the city.
Even though they normally only planned one-hour lunches, invariably it would all end at 2:30 pm, when Satan in the form of Sue Sylvester would burst into his office, usually shouting offensive remarks and insulting him, his hair, his people and every possible minority and majority that existed on the planet.
After about 15 minutes of loud arguing, it would boil down to Sue claiming a client of hers had been submitted to Police Brutality, usually by Puckerman or Hudson, and him arguing the opposite. After one more insult, she would storm back out and could just feel the stress headache in his head building and building.
The thing about Sue is, as much as he would just tell her to get lost; he can't because, well, she is pretty much the most influential woman in this town. He is pretty scared when he thinks about the things Sue must know about her clients. She defends everything, Mafia Bosses from two opposing clans on the same day, international spies, serial killers, fraud, everything.
But her lack of both moral standards and public decency are not the worst thing about her, no, the worst thing is Sue is pretty much like a low-pressure weather phenomenon. When she comes in, the mood drops rapidly, when she leaves it rises. Only problem, she always leaves something behind, most often one of her two partners, Ken Tanaka or Jacob Ben-Israel.
A few months ago, Ken could be found hovering outside Emma's office, chatting politely with her. Back then, the guy was tolerable. Since Emma broke it off, he has gone from tolerable to biggest jerk on the planet. Four times he had to be escorted out by Uniforms, because he refused to leave when both Emma and Will told him to. Lately it has become more and more drastic.
Tanaka, for all his tenacious flirting with Emma, is only the lesser of two evils. The bigger one comes in form of Jacob Ben-Israel. Jacob was in College together with one of his best detectives, Rachel Berry. Somehow, when Rachel ended up going on a blind date with him, he did not understand that when she left disgusted, throwing her drink in his face after only fifteen minutes, did not mean she thought he was the love of her life.
Since then he had doggedly pursued her to the point of stalking. Rachel had filed more than one restraining order against him, but the powerful firm that is Tanaka, Sylvester and Ben-Israel (his father), somehow manages to make the paperwork disappear on the court dates.
Now, Will knew that Rachel could take care of herself, fairly well in fact. Over the last few months she had been working out with Puckerman regularly, and just last week she had easily flipped Finn, who was easily two feet taller than her. So, the danger of Ben-Israel was not so much the fact that he was bordering on obsessed with his detective, he knew she could handle herself.
The problem lay with the fact that her partner, while most certainly knowing that, tended to forget it in the heat of the moment. If Ben-Israel made lewd comments Noah would usually be standing right behind him in a second, sending him a glare that frightened even hardened Mob-hit men. His impressive physique were certainly also very helpful. Sadly enough, Ben – Israel seemed to take a thrill out of how far he could push Noah. Quite often he would move as if to touch Rachel, to which Noah would lose all reason and prepare to tear the smaller, smarmy man to pieces.
So, nearly every second or third day, he would be forced to go outside at 4 pm and bellow "PUCKERMAN! BERRY! MY OFFICE!" at the top of his lungs, just to make sure he didn't lose one half of his best team to an assault-charge. Strangely enough, even though Jacob's visits occurred only every few days, he still had to shout every day.
The answer to that phenomenon was fairly simple. Even though Berry and Puckerman were his best team, they were also the ones most responsible for his constant dreams of Caribbean Islands and early retirement.
Both had excellent qualities. Berry had graduated as Valedictorian from Harvard Law and had joined the Academy straight after. She was polite and well-spoken, yet more than able to hold herself in a debate on any issue, without losing her cool. When it came to the upper-class elite of New York, those who fancied themselves above the mere mortals, nobody was more suited to investigate than Rachel Berry.
Still, she was also by far the most stubborn individual he had ever met. Rachel had once nearly caused a war, by continuously investigating a high-powered Washington-Official until she had enough to convict him of espionage for the Chinese. Only intervention from the DOD had stopped the situation from leading to an international crisis.
As a "reward", she had been transferred to New York, a decidedly less politically charged environment. In addition, she was a stickler for the rule-book, which, while making it easier for him with regards to paperwork, was also a source of tension between her and her partner.
Puckerman, in contrast, was her complete opposite. Having grown up in the Bronx, he had learned early that he had to pick sides. Luckily for Will, he chose to become a cop, after his Dad had been killed by local Gangsters.
Through hard work he had put himself through College, before attending the Academy on a Scholarship. Berry and he had been in the same class and had both graduated with top marks, with exactly the same grades (she still claimed he cheated from time to time).
Since then, he had worked his way up the ranks, mostly in Narcotics and Organized Crime, until joining Homicide a few years ago. Puckerman's four big problems however, had stopped him from climbing the ranks as quickly as he could.
First, He was even more stubborn than Rachel, which inevitably led to legendary arguments, often leading to them not speaking for a few days (the last one had only ended after Rachel had gotten shot and Puck had spent three days straight next to her bed until she woke up).
Second was his issue with authority. Will had learned easily, pushing Noah was like pushing a thorn-bush. Pointless, painful, and in the end, entirely ineffective. The best way to get him to comply with an order, was to simply tell Rachel what to do. Despite their fights, somehow these two seemed to be the only ones who could make the other do something against their will.
Noah had stopped Rachel from getting herself killed by forbidding her from going after the Russian Mob against explicit orders. She had prevented him from getting fired countless of times by talking him down and had therefore saved a lot of lives of criminals (sometimes she joked she should just let him go, it would make her job so much easier).
Somehow, they balanced each other out. While Rachel stuck to the rule-book, Noah pretty much ripped it apart within two minutes of beginning an investigation. The two together were both, scarily effective, yet somehow still always within the margin of legality.
Third, Noah Puckerman was to women what catnip is to cats. His effect on women could certainly be useful, for instance if he wanted some sort of legal documentation. Somehow, Quinn's colleague Santana Lopez was always available in the middle of the night when Puck called.
However, it also led to trouble. More than once a random woman would show up and start ranting and raving about how he broke her heart. More often than not, they would find him remarkably absent (he had a knack for being exactly not where he should be), and more often than not they would then begin throwing office supplies, and, sadly, more often than not it would be Will of Finn who would have duck them, as Finn often stupidly tried to defend his best friend, or Will tried to kick the women out, as respectfully as possible.
In addition, countless of times he had to hear Rachel pretending to be Puck's girlfriend/wife/significant other on the phone. The first time that happened, he had been drinking coffee and had nearly choked to death, when Rachel calmly answered with "Hello, this is Rachel Puckerman, my husband Noah can't come to his phone right now…" Now, it barely fazed him anymore. Lately though, he had noticed that the calls had become less and less. Noah had seemed to mellow out, he was less aggressive, and he even seemed to become a sort-of nice guy. Again, Will did not want to rock the boat by starting to look deeper at the connection between the two partners, for now he was just content to let them take care of each other and take one load off his shoulders.
Usually, by the time he was done chewing out Rachel and Noah for whatever asinine thing Noah had pulled them into (he also always seemed to be able to pull them back out, somehow), it was nearing five o'clock, and he would prepare to go home, after another hour of paperwork. Lately though, he had taken to staying longer, as home was largely nothing but empty nowadays.
And hence, every evening, first Finn and Kurt would say bye, Finn to go home to Quinn, Kurt to meet Mercedes and/or some hot new guy for Cosmos, after that Matt and Mike would shout out various forms of sleep well, Brittany would say goodnight next, followed by Tina and Artie (so ignoring that one) and lastly Rachel and Puck, who he would hear arguing all the way to the elevator (lately it had dimmed down to a gentle bickering). Then, sometime around eight, he would lean back, pour himself a glass of scotch, and Emma would appear in his doorway, convincing him to come out for a bite to eat before dropping him off at home.
No, all in all Will Shuester loved his normal routine days. They provided him with a certain sense of stability, which he certainly needed after his messy divorce last year.
He was just thinking about which restaurant to take Emma to on their daily non-date (soon that would be official), when he heard a half-yell from outside.
"Noah Puckerman, I will not give in to your ridiculous demands and I will most certainly not declare you to be the most badass detective in New York City!" Rachel's sarcasm was hard to overhear. Will smiled to himself. Just a regular day. However, the next sentence pretty much blew that to hell.
"Noah Puckerman! Uncuff me this instant!" Briefly shaking his head, Will stood up.
The fourth problem of Noah Puckerman? He had a penchant for practical jokes.
"PUCKERMAN!!!"
Love it, hate it? I don't know, I kinda like it =) It's right now just the template, as I said. Any prompts for oneshots? PB
