Everett Jennings is a sharp blade: cold, hard, restrained, and spotless. In the division's files, his name always sits next to the highest clearance rate, and the cold numbers sketch an almost perfect cop. But the people who know him can't help sighing to themselves: behind all that flawless chill, something seems to be missing. A little human warmth.

Everything about him looks cast from a military mold: posture straight as a pine, bearing without a single flaw, even his stride keeping a precise rhythm. Whatever the occasion, his expression stays calm to the point of seeming inorganic, as if the sky could fall and not move him an inch. People say Everett Jennings doesn't seem to have a private life. No flirtations, no almost-somethings. His life holds exactly two things: work, and finishing work.

But he isn't without feeling. It's just buried deep, where no one can reach. His feelings run like an undercurrent: never loud, but careful and lasting. His quiet, attentive tenderness flows slow and steady, and little by little it melts the hard edges away.