Tom almost choked on the air itself as Doug just looked at the boy before he started laughing.
"What?" the boy asked annoyed.
"You're are new recruit…oh that's rich. Who put you up to that, kid? Some nobody down at the station who thought they'd get in a good laugh at our expense. Come on, spill." The boy simply stared at him.
"This isn't a joke." The cold edge in his voice made Doug stop laughing and gave the boy another look. He looked the boy up and down. Pale, was the one word description that described the boy. Summarized his being. Dark black hair fell across the front of his face in soft wisps making it obvious that he had no desire nor need to comb it back unless absolutely necessary. Soft features- nothing that stood out told Doug that the boy couldn't be more then 18 years old, and had yet to be received into the marvelous idea of work, just yet. He was just a little bit shorter then Hansen, and around the same build. That surprised Doug. Not saying that Hansen was a body builder or anything like that, but he was surprised that a boy so pale had that sort of physic. His T-shirt bore yet another version of the Harley-Davidson logo. A black vest rested over top of it. He wore dark black jeans that were faded and obviously much loved and worn. Not that that surprised him all that much. The black seemed to compliment the boy, and yet at the same time make him seem even paler. As weird as it seemed, he could honestly not see the boy being a fellow cop at all. He looked too much like he had just come off the street. That's when he looked in the boy's eyes.
The boy's eyes are what threw Doug for a ride. A deep, deep blue. They were deep and dark and they were filled with a number of things. Experience, knowledge, hatred, hurt. They were telling the story the boy never would. And then they blackened, as if he noticed that Doug was reading them. They darkened and Doug found himself unable to find any emotion there. Nothing. Not even a slight scrap of human feeling. He shivered and looked away. Had he have looked up, he would've seen the boy smirk. And with that smirk, the majority of the team looked away or shivered as well.
Dennis did not think the same as the others. He knew how to hide things, he knew how see things. That's how he had actually been able to talk Hansen back into talking with him. He did not look away, nor did he shiver. He knew all too well where a smile like that came from. A smile like that came from experience. From pain, from hurt, from humiliation. It was a smile made up victory, a smile made to keep away unknown people, who were too nosy for their own good. He knew that after time, that smile could also disappear if the right people got behind that mask. But like Doug, Dennis was scared of the boy's eyes. They were too dark, filled with too much pain. And then they had darkened and scared him more. That was one thing he had never been able to do. Masking his eyes was near impossible, and yet this boy did it with such ease. And it scared him.
The boy looked around, noticing how each either shivered or looked away as his gaze fell on them. All of them except for two. The one who had looked like he was going to choke on air when he had specified that he was the new recruit. Instead he looked him up and down curiously. He was used to that and it made him feel slightly weak. Not that he'd ever say that to anybody. The other one was standing right beside the other one. They had looked at each other when he had wanted to talk to Capt. Fuller. And he knew that the man was looking through his mask, his facade. He knew that the man had been where he was, or at least had a better idea where he had been then the others. The man smiled at him softly and he knew then that he had been right. He façade had not held up as well as he thought that it was going to. He hesitated before smiling back. The man stuck out his hand.
"I'm Dennis Booker." He offered, and the boy paused wondering if he had a reason to not shake his hand. Dennis could see that the boy was slightly uncomfortable with this and he couldn't help but be surprised that this boy was not all that prepared to match wits with him. He thought the boy would jump at the chance. Dennis soon found his deduction wrong.
"T.J." No mention of last name. T.J. never did. He would tell them on his own turf, on his own time. And right now was not the time. He grasped Dennis' hand and shook it, smiling at his surprise. "Which do you prefer- Dennis or Booker?" he asked, knowing that those were the only two names that he was going to tell him. Dennis smiled.
"Dennis is just fine, considering we seem to be on a first name basis." He stuck that dig in there. The boy smiled evilly.
"Who said that that's my first name?" he asked his eyes boring deeply into Dennis' own. Dennis felt uncomfortable for the first time in a long time. It was almost as if, this T.J. could read his mind, knew what he was thinking. He lost the eye contact looking at the floor instead of at T.J. T.J. smiled again. T.J.-1, Booker-0. Tom inhaled deeply and stuck out his hand.
"I'm Tom Hansen." The boy didn't even pause before grasping his hand strongly. T.J. smiled his first true smile of the night.
"My pleasure." With that the rest of the team cooled down a little bit and they each introduced themselves. Fuller exited his office, looking around to find his officers sitting and standing together in a circle, a boy he didn't recognize in the middle. He wondered if maybe that was the new recruit. He advanced.
"T.J.?" he asked calmly. The boy spun around and looked at him. Fuller gazed him up and down. Considering that there was snow on the ground, he was somewhat surprised that the boy was not wearing a coat or a long-sleeved shirt at least but wearing a regular T-shirt. All in all, he could find nothing specific that he didn't like about the boy.
"Are you Capt. Fuller?" the boy asked. Fuller reached out his hand and the boy grasped it and shook it. "Nice to meet you, sir." Fuller smiled.
"Just call me coach, everybody else does." The boy just nodded realizing his hand and moving it back into his jean pocket. "So, gang I guess you've already found out that we have a new recruit." Hansen snickered softly and Fuller gave him a look. "Department wants us to be nice to T.J. here. So T.J." the boy looked up at him "tell us a little bit about yourself, your age, your life, you know, little things like that." The boy hesitated. He didn't usually share that kind of info after knowing someone for such a short length of time.
"Well, my name's T.J. - which is a short form by the way. My real name starts with an A and ends with an O. I'm going to be 17 years old in about 2 months, give or take a few days. I finished high school when I was 12 and I finished the academy in 6 months. I lived here for 2 years when I was really young, then my parents split, and I moved with my father to NY and I moved back here a year ago." He completely the summery of his life calmly in monotone. Why anyone would care about something as trivial as where he came from was totally beyond him, but that was beside the point. It was a question that everybody always asked and he had gotten used to using the shortest form possible to say it. The team froze as he spoke, surprise at the coldness in his tone. Booker almost groaned, this was going to be one long ride.
An awkward silence fell over the group and Tom found himself thinking about what had been said. Why had T.J. left with his father? 9 out of 10 times, the custody battle went to the mother, not the father. So what had she done so wrong that a jury or judge thought of her as an incapable mother? Was she abusive or just plain nasty and uncaring? Maybe she was a junkie or an alcoholic. For the case to go to the father, he wouldn't be surprised if she was a mixture of all four. And if T.J. grew up in NY, well that kind of explained where that uncertain toughness had come from. He somewhat doubted that someone rich would work as a cop unless they wanted to. And to Tom, T.J. looked like someone who had come from the streets and had stayed on the streets for his entire life. Until now. Fuller broke the awkward silence.
"Well, we've got a new case and I want you Booker, and T.J. on it." He got a silent nod from both of them. "Good. The two of you are troubled youths with a record and a bad attitude."
"T.J. should have no problem with that," Doug muttered under his breath. T.J. rounded and faced him.
"Maybe you had better phone your uncle and ask him to come pick poor baby Doggie up. Even if I'm young and you don't think that I look like a cop, you look more like a jock that's gotten hit in the head a few too many times." T.J. turned back towards Fuller and smiled as Doug looked at him dumb-founded, finding he was unable to find out where it was possible that this boy had found out about his uncle. He knew that Tom was the only partner that he'd ever told, and Tom hadn't told anybody. The boy's comeback hit home. And Doug forced his throat to swallow. The boy was new, as too which he was going to give the boy a break.
"Anyways, as I was saying you two are going in there to see if the rumors that this high school his filled to the breaches with coke is true or not. So you'll be looking to do some dealing. Got it?" The boy nodded, as did Dennis. "Good then get to work. You start tomorrow." Dennis turned towards the boy.
"So you want to…"
"See you tomorrow, Dennis." T.J. said, leaving Dennis standing in the middle of the chapel, looking very, very confused.