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jake,
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It's been a strange week.

A tough one, really, if John's honest, and at least half of that is due to the amount of paperwork he's had to do. There's been an increase in activity since New Year's Eve, since people have had their power swapped, for lack of a better explanation, and it's not that everyone who has found themselves with new powers is bad, it's just that many of them are confused. And most of them don't seem to know what to do with themselves.

Even if they're not purposely committing crimes, it makes for a few more reports than there might have otherwise been, which means more paperwork for John and that's hardly his favourite thing to do in the first place. He's already had to fill out two separate incident reports for people who had accidentally smashed windows in stores without understand their newfound strength. No charges have been laid and both times the person had offered to pay for the shattered window, but it still needs to be written up among many other things.

It's a far cry from where he's come from, that's for certain.

When John leaves the precinct that night, he's weary, more tired than he'd like to admit, but he still takes the long way home, patrolling darkened alleys and the seedier parts of Darrow. It's probably a bad idea, probably one Karen would give him hell for, but he can't just leave it all alone, no matter how tired he is.

It's when he's heading back toward home, passing by a secluded bit of trees that he hears rustling and growling. It gives him pause and he stands there, not far away, his hand on the butt of his service weapon. Then out of the trees pads the largest wolf John has ever seen and he's so stunned, so taken aback by the sheer size of the thing that he doesn't even think to draw his gun.

Which is a good thing, it seems, because within moments the wolf begins to shift into a decidedly human shape.

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"Dutch," John answers. "He's a Belgian Malinois and in my world, at least, there's only one man who trains them for military service. When I first met Bear, he was in the possession of Aryan Nationalist who wanted to kill me, but had no idea what sort of dog he had."

It's a good memory and John smiles fondly, rubbing a hand over Bear's head. The dog had behaved so well for him that first day and every day since.

"I've seen some strange things, but this entire city really seems to take the cake," he agrees. "There are no werewolves where I'm from either." If there had been, he's sure the Machine would have found them.

"I think your dog's had more action than I have," Jake joked though he might have been serious. He'd been just a rookie when he'd ended up in Darrow, barely having gotten his feet wet in the Brighton PD and though he'd been with the Darrow PD longer, the crime here was very different. It existed but not in the same form or with the same frequency as it did in Brighton.

"Most I saw of werewolves back home were the movies on the telly and when kiddies dressed up like them at Halloween," Jake told him, shaking his head. "Costumes were mostly shite but they were cute anyway. Nothing like me when I'm...well, you know."

They didn't end up bare arsed naked afterward either. Thank fuck because that would have been a lawsuit in waiting.

"Bear's done a lot more than most people realize," John agrees, giving the dog's ears another gentle stroke before he nods toward the bed in the corner of the living room. Bear gives Jake's fingers another friendly nose before he circles the room to look for his toy, then goes to lie down with it, chewing contently on the corner of the bone.

Taking a seat on the couch, John sets his beer bottle on the table and gives a soft laugh. "It's a very different world than this one. There are things I'd seen at home that most people wouldn't believe, but nothing like this. Sometimes I feel like this place brought me here as a mistake."

He doesn't know any vampires, he's never been to another planet. For all his training, John still mostly considers himself a normal man and he thinks Jake probably feels the same. They're regular men in a world filled with supernatural creatures and superheroes and he'd like to think they're both still doing their best, but it's hardly easy.

"Well, I definitely think it brought me here mistakenly," Jake said, taking a seat after John and blowing out a breath. "I am not an exciting bloke and I've really got nothing to offer this place other than..."

Well, he was a decent cop but he was still learning. Was that enough? Jake didn't really think so though that didn't stop him from trying his damnedest to live up to the standards his father had set back home.

"I can make a few arrests and keep a few of the bars in business but compared to what other people can do? This was a mistake. Probably should have taken my partner or my dad if they wanted someone important. I'm really not anybody worth giving a chance like this to. If this is a chance. Maybe it's a curse. I've got no bloody idea."

John's quiet for a moment, taking in Jake's words and then he shakes his head. Whether it's a chance or a curse, he has no idea, but if it is a chance, which is sometimes feels like to him, he doesn't think it's true that Jake shouldn't be here, that he's not someone worth giving such a chance to.

"I don't know your partner or your father, but I know you," he says. "And I'm glad you're here. I'm not a man prone to... easy friendships, but it's never been work to be around you."

That might not sound like a compliment to some, but it is coming from John. The list of people he trusts in Darrow is limited to Karen and Dutch, but the list of people he finds it easy to be around isn't much longer than that. He likes Jake, though. He thinks he could come to trust him. Carter would be proud.

"That's because you're not a solicitor, mate," Jake said, making a joke of the situation. He liked compliments, liked praise but it had been hard to get from people around him for awhile. Having it presented so easily was...strange. He still smiled to let John know he appreciated the words though.

"And you also haven't let me take you out for a night of drinks and debauchery," Jake added, smirking. "Might change your tune when I keep you out all night and bring you back to your girl smelling of the ocean and probably garlic."

That makes John laugh, harder than most things do, and he lifts his bottle to take a sip of beer, then looks over at Jake.

"Why garlic?" he asks. He has to, it simply begs the question.

When it comes to nights of drinks and debauchery, John honestly can't remember the last time he's done something like that. There had been missions with Finch that certainly looked as if they'd gone that way, he still very clearly remembers showing up at a bachelorette party and having the attendees assume he was their stripper. He'd nearly been ready to kill Finch himself over that one.

Before that, it might have been during his time in the military. A party with his team that had just gone unchecked. Or maybe even before that. He doesn't think drinking himself to the point of passing out on the streets of New York can possibly count.

"Because mate, garlic is delicious, and we'd have to eat something fattening and greasy to go along with the night of drinking," Jake said like it made perfect sense. He was partial to things like sandwiches and onion rings but when he was drunk and maybe even a little high, he'd eat just about anything that was fried and cheap.

"Who wants to drink and dance and sit down to a salad?" Jake asked, making a face. "Not me. I don't want to wash down a good beer with lettuce. Don't get me wrong, I like salads but not on nights out. It's not a night out food. It's...a break food, a lunch food, a diet food."

"I didn't realize the only options were salad or garlic," John says with another laugh. He has to admit, even if only to himself, that it sounds kind of nice. Carter would be proud of him, he thinks, having a girlfriend, having people he considers friends. It's true his social circle isn't especially big, but at least it's not also limited to those he works with.

That might be a first for John, since before he entered the military. Even in New York, when he'd been closer to a few people than he'd managed in a long time, they'd all been people he'd met because of the Machine.

"I don't know if I agreed to dancing, though," he adds a second later. "Drinking and food are both things I'm happy with, but dancing might be a step too far for me. I'm not much of a dancer."

"You've got two legs, mate," Jake said, nodding down at the legs in question. "Anyone with legs can be a dancer. If I gotta teach you, I will, but I do a bit of dirty dancing here and there and you've got a lady that might take offense."

Jake waggled his eyebrows at John but ended up laughing because he truly wasn't someone that would get into the middle of someone's relationship and wreck it. He would absolutely like to teach John to dance, though.

"I'm sure you've been in more high pressure situations than dancing too," Jake noted. "I saw you nearly blow up a street block and you kept your cool. You can dance."

"How about you teach me to dance and we don't tell Karen and then I can surprise her when I know how?" John asks with another laugh. This isn't the conversation he expected to be having at all, never mind after having found out Jake is, hopefully temporarily, a werewolf.

"I was once sent into a mission where the women I was surveying thought I was their... dancer," he says with a twist of a smile that's partly a grimace. "I managed to get out of that without actually having to take off my clothes and I think that's the closest I've come to dancing that wasn't just swaying back and forth in a very long time."

He knows using the word mission is a touch more information than he's given Jake in the past, but he'd seen the rocket launcher. At this point he must know John hasn't always been a regular cop.

"That's actually not a bad idea, mate," Jake told him, nodding thoughtfully. "I can teach you, yeah. You just have to not be afraid to look a fool for the first few times, you know? It's not easy to learn but I'm sure there's rhythm somewhere in your body."

He was lean and toned, probably had years of police work under his belt so he knew how to move quick. That could be worked with when it came to dancing.

"Now, I don't know if I could teach you the type of dancing a male stripper requires but maybe I can learn if that's what you want to show your lady," Jake joked, smirking. "I'm sure there's some stuff online that I can read up on and then pass onto you."

"No, I think I'll leave that sort of dancing to the mission," John says with a shake of his head and a laugh. "I'm not sure Karen would be all that impressed by that anyway."

And if she is, he thinks he would just rather not know about it, because then he would have an excuse to never had to engage in it. John's just not really a cancer, simply because he's never been all that fun. Even as a child he had been serious and then after his father had died, he'd become withdrawn and angry, not exactly the sort to go out and have fun at a party. Then there had been the military and the CIA and he'd learned how to dance properly, how to fit in at a gala when he and Kara were undercover, but that was different and she doesn't want to bring memories of Kara into his life with Karen now.

"So, we'll just stick to regular dancing and if that turns into something that you strip your clothes off for, more the better for your and your lady," Jake decided. Jake knew that even the simplest, easiest of dances had the ability to turn into something more if the person you were dancing with was right, the situation was right, and you were looking for that sort of thing.

"No need to tell me if that happens either," Jake said, laughing. "I'll take it as a victory if I can get you to be confident about moving your feet and not falling over. If you get creative, you don't have to thank me. I'll be fine with not knowing, mate."

"I'll be sure to keep it to myself," he promises with another laugh. "I'm not sure Karen would be all that happy if I started sharing details with everyone."

And John has always been good at keeping secrets. It's not that he wants to hide Karen or their relationship, but he just has a tendency to think certain things are meant to be just between the people they involve. There are so many things he's never told anyone, secrets even now he knows people will never find out. He's been tortured and still never admitted to the sorts of things people have wanted to hear from him.

Not that he thinks Jake would ever have a need to torture information out of him.

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