WE'RE STILL HERE NPCS (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
helloneighbor) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
logsville2021-01-16 04:55 pm
helloneighbor) wrote in logsville2021-01-16 04:55 pm
(open) you're gonna need a heap of glue when they all catch up with you
Who: Chief of Police Dale Harding and YOU
When: January 16th — February 1st
Where: Throughout town
What: Santa Rosita's very dignified chief of police makes some very dignified appearances around town, meeting and greeting some very undignified people.
Warnings: Language, alcohol abuse, one man's poor life choices.
[Interesting fact: Approximately 25-30% of drinkers are resistant to hangover symptoms.
Dale Harding is not in that percentage.
Santa Rosita's chief of police is certainly an elusive figure. Many of you likely haven't seen him since the Christmas gala. In fact, as you go about your business today, running errands throughout Shadyside and Santa Rosita, you might even miss him altogether. But once you notice the 5'7 man with his unbuttoned sleeve cuffs and distinct lack of service jacket or hat that would mark him as an officer, save for the shiny silver badge pinned to his belt along with the holstered handgun, it's difficult to ignore him. He doesn't look like the other police officers you've seen around town with their plastic smiles and neatly pressed suits. For starters, he doesn't smile at all — and that's not likely to change no matter what he's doing and where you see him.
Harding doesn't keep morning hours, so you're more likely to spot him in the afternoon and at night. Most of the time, you'll see him slowly driving through Shadyside in his police cruiser. Occasionally, he'll be parked in front of Santa Rosita Elementary, always at lunchtime, watching the kids play at recess with his flask to his lips. Other times, you'll see him parked in Rose Garden Park, lying back in the front seat with his sunglasses on. You don't realize it yet, but this will all make sense when you get closer and notice, perhaps not inconspicuously, the string of drool trailing from his lips.
And yet, rarest of all, you'll see him on foot in North Santa Rosita. In the morning and at night, he'll go to the Blue Moon Diner, the bell over the door jingling as he walks in and takes a seat at the counter. Ordering a cheeseburger and coffee, he'll sit silently waiting for his food with his elbows on the table, his fingers laced, pressing his forehead into his hands.
Surely this is the best time to say hello!
ooc: The mods will respond to tags for Harding until February 1st. Please try to keep your interactions with him brief! He is a busy man, after all.]
When: January 16th — February 1st
Where: Throughout town
What: Santa Rosita's very dignified chief of police makes some very dignified appearances around town, meeting and greeting some very undignified people.
Warnings: Language, alcohol abuse, one man's poor life choices.
[Interesting fact: Approximately 25-30% of drinkers are resistant to hangover symptoms.
Dale Harding is not in that percentage.
Santa Rosita's chief of police is certainly an elusive figure. Many of you likely haven't seen him since the Christmas gala. In fact, as you go about your business today, running errands throughout Shadyside and Santa Rosita, you might even miss him altogether. But once you notice the 5'7 man with his unbuttoned sleeve cuffs and distinct lack of service jacket or hat that would mark him as an officer, save for the shiny silver badge pinned to his belt along with the holstered handgun, it's difficult to ignore him. He doesn't look like the other police officers you've seen around town with their plastic smiles and neatly pressed suits. For starters, he doesn't smile at all — and that's not likely to change no matter what he's doing and where you see him.
Harding doesn't keep morning hours, so you're more likely to spot him in the afternoon and at night. Most of the time, you'll see him slowly driving through Shadyside in his police cruiser. Occasionally, he'll be parked in front of Santa Rosita Elementary, always at lunchtime, watching the kids play at recess with his flask to his lips. Other times, you'll see him parked in Rose Garden Park, lying back in the front seat with his sunglasses on. You don't realize it yet, but this will all make sense when you get closer and notice, perhaps not inconspicuously, the string of drool trailing from his lips.
And yet, rarest of all, you'll see him on foot in North Santa Rosita. In the morning and at night, he'll go to the Blue Moon Diner, the bell over the door jingling as he walks in and takes a seat at the counter. Ordering a cheeseburger and coffee, he'll sit silently waiting for his food with his elbows on the table, his fingers laced, pressing his forehead into his hands.
Surely this is the best time to say hello!
ooc: The mods will respond to tags for Harding until February 1st. Please try to keep your interactions with him brief! He is a busy man, after all.]
no subject
[The answer feels like a rehearsed one, like his go-to anytime he's asked this question. He takes a sip of his coffee, followed by another longer one. His posture is noticeably less tense, but no less tired.]
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It's hard to imagine a child Dale Harding, but he has to wonder if this theoretical shrunken-down version of the man sitting beside him was the schoolyard bully. That tends to be the type of personality drawn into this, or at least those at the top of the childhood pecking order. It's easier to make people believe you have power over them when you already believe it yourself. ]
Your shifts, they are long, aren't they? Twelve hours, fourteen?
[ Residual fatigue sinks into his bones at the very thought of long shifts, the remembered exhaustion of fourteen-hour days and the vivid recollection of the way the early sunlight in the Red Square sliced into his retinas after more than half the day underground. He can, on some level, relate to the apparent exhaustion. ]
no subject
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Maybe. I am EMT with one hour before shift.
[ But at least he's not fearful, now that he's eased himself into a position in which he maintains some level of control. He's establishing himself with this guy, with the powers that are, and that's going to be critical in the coming months. The fact that this man, enemy though he may be, has been superficially more pleasant to him than any of the civilians in this shitty little microcosm of a Capitalist oligarchy doesn't hurt, either—Harding's brusque and antisocial, but the vague decency that he does show seems to be genuine. He looks too tired to pretend, and like the kind of person pretending would take enormous effort for.
Vasiliy ashes what's left of his cigarette and goes for a second, pausing when he starts to habitually return his cigarette case to the breast pocket of his button-down. ]
You smoke?
no subject
It's Vasiliy, right? [He says this in a tone that says he's asking himself, not Visily.] Look, you're a nice guy, but... Word of advice?
[He takes another drink of coffee, a bit longer than the first sip.]
Just go home. Go home and go to sleep. Or clean your bathroom. [With a flippant tilt of his chin:] Whatever you do at night.
no subject
[ But he gets the general drift. After that first drag, he removes his cigarette for a moment and takes several sips from his own coffee in rapid succession, then gets out his wallet and puts a few coins on the counter: payment for both of their drinks and a pretty decent tip for a place that doesn't require them.
The poor girls need it, working in a job like that in the United States. ]
I hope you get sleep too, Mr. Harding. You have tiring job.
no subject
But at least there's one silver lining in his shitty cloud: Vasiliy didn't ask how Harding knew his name.]