( @preludeinz here and VERY OUT OF PRACTICE WITH PROMPTS.)

He has two uniforms, and he’d be hard pressed to say which one he prefers.

Technically they’re distinguished as Class A and Class B uniforms, the former being slightly dressier, slightly more professional, and the latter being geared more towards the more tactical side of things, comfort and freedom of movement and the accomdoation of all his gear. The former makes him look like a police officer. The latter makes him look like a cop.

And some days he wants to be a police officer. Some days he enjoys the formality of it, the staunch correctness of the uniform, with its creased pants and its shiny shoes and its air of consumate togetherness, symbolic of an officer of the law as a servant of the public. The day he’d graduated from the Academy had also been the first day his brothers had seen him in full parade gear, and there’d been some not-unjustified snickering—but there’d also been a certain sense of respect, admiration. Pride. He’d been as proud of himself as they’d been of him, the day he’d finally become a police officer.

But he’s been a police officer for a couple of years now, and it’s been long enough to know that there are days when he definitely wants to be a cop. Days when he wants the Class B uniform—the one he only wears when it’s going to be a day of serving warrants, checking on parolees, or working the beat in a rough part of town—with its heavier canvas pants, its polyester shirt, built to be layered beneath a tactical vest. He wants boots, heavy and durable and comfortable. He wants a hundred pockets for the entire suite of gear he carries, and he wants to feel like a member of the police force within the community, even if this means he sets himself apart, makes himself look like an adversary of the community at large.

Scott’s been on the force long enough that he associates the Class A uniform with funerals, with twenty-one gun salutes, and putting colleagues in the ground. The Class B uniform he associates with raids, with being shot at, with the bitter taste of adrenaline and with the gut wrenching twist of fear that still goes along with the scariest parts of this job. He loves this job, both the A and the B sides of it, but there’s darkness that colours each aspect.