Nikolai was sitting at his desk in the dark, why he was in the dark was anyones guess. Most just found Nik strange. He was after all rather strange. Silent and brooding. Cold and distant. He didn't go out of his way to make friends. He was currently napping with his eyes open and his head leaned back against the wall. Nik had a thing about walls being behind him whenever he sat. Something no one really chose to question him over. Tease now there was a different story. Nik offered a half smile to the darkness of his corner. He could have laughed at that. It wasn't even all that dark in the place. Nik shook his head and rose slowly at the sound of a voice he recognized.

"Yah I'm here," he said darkly. He was always curt, no less so now. He leaned casually against the wall. See Nik liked walls. For some reason he always had one to his back or he found a way to have something solid there if he was gunna talk to someone. He'd lean against a wall. Cross his arms and look casual. Just as he did now, "we got a case?"

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In the darkening evening, Lance stood out behind the agency building, holding a smoldering cigarette in between his fingers. He rolled it absently back and forth between his fingers and then brought it to his mouth. Not thinking about anything at all, oddly enough, sometimes helped him think. Every once in a while, an epiphany would hit him in the middle of a smoke break, and he would know what to do next, or the solution to a problem.

Sometimes, though, a smoke break was just a smoke break. He took one last breath and sighed out smoke. Lance turned back and entered the agency again, pausing to grind out the cigarette in an ash tray and discard it. As he did so, he heard the door click and Jonathan's voice immediately after. He instinctively tensed at the door, but forced himself to relax. It was nothing. "Present," he called from the back of the building. Then he moved towards the front of the building.

He emerged in the main room as Nikolai asked his question, the same one Lance had. He said nothing, only arched his eyebrows quizzically at Jonathan. A new case would be welcome. If he went too long without some kind of task, he got too tightly wound waiting for something to focus on.

Esha Mati gazed down at her notebook, mouth clamped gently around the end of her pencil. The tangy taste of metal filled her mouth, along with the flaky constistancy of the eraser. It was a habit, picked up from her many years as a journalist. A way to concentrate her thinking, sharpen her thoughts. It was also a little bit compulsive, a habit that made her feel safe, comforted, like a child sucking on a pacifier. Thoughts swirled in her mind, ultimately distracting her from her writing task. Her casual pose in the office chair signified her unwillingness to work; elbow resting on the arm rest, legs crossed, feet planted on the desk before her. She made it obvious that she was not to be approached, and that she made her own rules. A dangerous game, in times like this, when work was scarce, and people clung to even the worst jobs like rats on a sinking ship.
Her page was filled with notes, ranging from paragraphs of text to single words in seemingly no order. Scribbled between the margins, slanted to almost fall off the cusp of the page. Despite the chaos the handwriting was neat and orderly, in small, clear print. Years of schooling in that regard had done Esha good, while she still flared her individualist spirit with her unique note placement.
She had come to Lonely Star Agency so early in the morning to perform her least favourite task; filing and paperwork. Normally a job she pawned off to other members of the Agency, such as Constance, Esha was incredibly bored and in a bit of a brittle mood. She detested the task of writing up important cases, giving them an I.D. number, and filing them away, never to be seen again. Being the one with the most well-defined writing and language skills, she was usually saddled with the job. Doing paperwork was a business policy, rarely noted among the tales of noir. It made her eyes glaze over, writing about feats she had performed days previously. She wanted to live it, not write it out. That was partially why she moved on from being a journalist. She wanted stories to be written about her for a change.
She withdrew the pencil from her mouth with a sigh, uncrossing her legs and tucking them neatly under the chair. She rolled forward, closer to her desk. She sat straight-backed, giving her some kind of aura of grandeur and elegance. The feeling was further accentuated by her deep red lips, eye-shadowed eyes, and royal blue cloche hat with a flower accent. The woman made do with what she had, and shedid it rather spectacularly.
The door to the Agency opened, causing Esha to jump slightly in surprise, but she quickly composed herself. It wasn't a good idea to appear ruffled or easily startled in front of a client. She stood up, eyes sharp and calculating, ripping the written-on page out of her notebook and discarding it into the trash, as if it had only been a pass-time, or a pretext to appear busy.
Her sense of appearance faded as she recognized Jonathan, who had just entered through the door. It startled her slightly when she heard two others react to Jonathan's summons. She had presumed she was alone. Writing often did distract her in strange ways.
"I am here," Esha pronounced clearly, the least trace of an accent in her speech, though the exotic undertone made her voice seem rich. Then, there was a sudden shift. Her exotic, elegant persona was overidden by a bubbly, brazen woman, eyes alight with passion. This was Esha Mati among friends, life of the party, as they say. "Do you have a case? Oh, how I long to journey forth and capture some evil-doers!" The way she spoke was unusual, strangely formal and outdated. A habit to use strange phrases and old idioms, the only thing left of her father. She had no possessions from her former life, no connection to the man that raised her. Only one thing remained; a small picture of her late beloved, tucked in the lowest drawer in the farthest corner of her desk. She would look at it when she was lonely, or if she even had the slightest thought of attraction towards another human being. He was the man she would have married, if things had been different. A deeply ingrained thought was in her, that she could never love anyone else, or it would be considered adultery against him.
Bright and cheerful in this moment, she slung her arm around Nikoli's broad shoulders, winking slyly. "Finally, an adventure to be had, eh?"

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