~Officer Sohmers~ (Alleys)

"...and you can't do that, you understand?" Ryan was in the middle of delivering an even-toned response to the other, holding the man's gaze with fixed, dark brown eyes and an expression of patience that was perhaps a little wearied.

The other man, shorter than the officer, with a tangled mess of thin, wispy gray and red hair, nodded. But he didn't hold the cop's gaze long, and instead shuffled his arms across one another in front of his chest while wrinkling his nose as if trying to rid himself of a tickle. "I wasn't hurt nobody."

"I know." Ryan had repeated this phrase several times by now, each time delivering those two words with an inflection of belief, despite how very tiring this circular discussion was going. "But you were bothering them, Daniel. Or else they wouldn't have called me out here, right?"

The shorter man, standing in a slight hunch, looked past Mr. Sohmers as he spotted the kid heading their way. Catching the shift in attention, Ryan paused the speech he'd been ready to try from a different angle, and began to turn. To his surprise, a familiar face met his seeking eyes. He'd only seen it once, but for a man with the kind of laser focus and sharp memory Ryan possessed, there was no mistaking who this audacious young kid was.

The teen from the bay.

Had an adult offered him a fist bump, following the kind of encounter they'd had last week, Ryan wouldn't have been so inclined to reciprocate. Even as it was, there were immediate red flags springing up in his mind as the balled-fingered hand hovered before him in invitation. Was this boy taunting him? Was Lanny hiding somewhere nearby, snickering? Or was he just testing the waters? The hesitation lasted half a second before Ryan reached out to bump knuckles with the teen, though his expression was one of blatant surprise.

"Javier." He answered back at length, now knowing the kid's full name. He didn't have the boy's entire story, but being on good terms with many of the city's social workers had gotten the officer caught up on the most pertinent of details. A troubled teen with ties to an outside gang, and a sketchy school record, for starts.

Ryan looked past the boy, briefly scanning the street behind him. Seeing no broncos in sight, Javier was back on his radar as he shifted a foot, tilting his stance so that he could easily see Daniel and Javier both, "No, no one's being arrested." The look of surprise had gone, and something more curious to its place. And as much as Ryan wanted to pinch his brows into a mild frown at the kid's latter question, he maintained his cool with a deflecting query of his own, and one dark brow inched upwards, "Daniel and I are just having a chat. What brings you over this way?"