The unlucky cop

[Jordanna]

With the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up to obscure his scaled face, Daron Shaw sat on the steps of a fire escape and watched the neon-lit portal of Ardie's Bar. People came and went, laughing and chattering. Ordinary humans, free of care, having a good time.

Poison hated the sight of them.

At last, one man emerged who did not look so cheerful. The slim, dark-haired man had a grim set to his face that was only offset by the alcoholic bleariness in his eyes. As he emerged onto the sidewalk, he stumbled drunkenly and bumped into a neon-clad young woman, who merely giggled at his mumbled apology.

His nearly lipless mouth twisting in a smirk, Poison uncoiled from his perch and strolled across the street. As he moved in the general direction of the bar entrance, he angled toward Sergeant Arborgast, adroitly engineering a collision with the policeman's shoulder.

"Hey, watch--" Arborgast began, but his admonishment trailed off when he caught a glimpse of the mutant's reptilian face. Smiling savagely, he reached out to catch Poison's wrist, as with his other hand he produced his badge. "Hold it, pal."

"I ain't done nothin'," Poison snarled, attempting to jerk his shoulder away from Arborgast's grip.

"Yeah, I'll just bet you ain't. C'mere..." Arborgast twisted Poison's arm behind his back, pushing him toward the alley around the corner. Poison put up only a token struggle as he and the policemen disappeared into the dark.

If Arborgast ever cried out, the sound was lost in the waves of thumping techno music and conversation that poured forth through the doors of the bar.

When his body was found the next morning in his own bed, his death would eventually be ruled accidental, due to a cocktail of alcohol and amphetamines. It was a shocking and scandalous end for a policeman--but many who knew Sergeant Arborgast were not entirely surprised.

Only a few had cause to wonder...

[skybright]

The night after Jim Arborgast was found dead, David Bell sat in Ardie's Bar and stared at the bubbles in a glass of cheap beer.

He'd tried. He had. He just hadn't been in time: Arborgast had already been long gone by the time he'd reached Ardie's last night.

It wasn't his fault, right?

"Right," Bell muttered, and downed half of the lukewarm beer.

He wasn't Dawson. Heck, he wasn't even a 'real' cop. So he hadn't been in time. So what?

"Slow night." A familiar voice muttered over the bar's too-loud music. Art Simpson slid onto the barstool next to Bell and waved vaguely at the bartender, who responded with a diffident look and a draft beer. Simpson downed most of the drink at a single go before glancing over at Bell.

"You OK?" The big Detective Sergeant squinted at the smaller man, who shrugged.

"Kind of shook up. About Arborgast."

Simpson growled low in his throat. "Wan't no azzident."

The slur in the big man's words made Bell look closely at him for the first time. Simpson had a bleary, dissipated look that indicated this wasn't the first bar he'd visited tonight.

As the big man finished the rest of his drink and waved for a refill, Bell shot a stern glance at the bartender. "No more."

The bartender glanced briefly at Simpson's huge bulk, gave Bell an I-may-be-dumb-but-I'm-not-suicidal stare, and set another beer in front of Simpson before scurrying away.

Bell sighed as Simpson knocked back another huge swallow of beer. "Art, don't do this to yourself."

"Heh." Simpson wiped the back of his hand sloppily across his mouth and gestured at Bell's own drink. "Like y'aint here t'do the sh-same."

Bell sighed. "Fair enough." He finished off his own drink and added quietly "It could be . . . ."

"Wasn't." Simpson shook his big pale head adamantly. "Wann't any overdoshe. Th' alleycat'sh gon' be sorry."

"Whoa." Bell put his hand firmly on Simpson's wrist and said, with all the conviction he could put into it, "Dawson didn't have a thing to do with . . . with that, Art. She tried to warn you guys, remember?"

"Don' make no shenshe." Simpson replied somewhat blearily, "Musta busted at least two a' th' alleycat'sh ribs. Why 'ud she try an' warn us?"

Bell sighed -- and couldn't help chuckling wryly. "Art, nothin' Dawson's ever done makes any sense to me." He sobered. "But believe me, it wasn't her that was responsible. It was . . ." Bell couldn't quite bring himself to utter the industrialist's name, but Simpson did it for him.

"Tiernan." The big cop scowled and raised his glass, seeming to accept the alternative target for his anger. "I'll get 'im f'r thish." He drained the rest of the beer and lowered the glass in a too-rapid, too-forceful motion that caused it to shatter.

Bell watched numbly as a large fragment of the tumbler sliced across Simpson's hand -- and blood that was unmistakably arterial started flowing rapidly across the bar.

Simpson just stared dumbly at the wound, but Bell grabbed the larger man's hand in his own and snapped "Towel!" at the bartender.

While the bartender scrambled to find a towel, Bell stared at the scarlet liquid that was welling through his and Simpson's fingers. The bigger man was going to bleed to death while the stupid bartender was looking . . .

Bell cast a terrified, frantic glance at his immediate surroundings before squeezing his eyes shut and reaching out for the deeply-buried fragment of himself that he had tried so hard to ignore . . .

It was hard to explain in words what he did next; he could just feel the motion of the liquid, the ways it would naturally go if left on its own -- as well as the undefinable something that Bell would have to do to make it go somewhere else.

Bell did that something, trying hard to push down his fear and focus on willing Simpson's blood back where it belonged, flowing in instead of out. It was a clumsy job, and only partially successful: but it worked long enough for the bartender to return, frantic, with a clean bar-rag. Bell wrapped Simpson's hand tightly and guided the bigger man unsteadily to his feet.

"C'mon, Simpson." He muttered, mindful of the baffled look the larger cop was giving him, "Let's get out of here. You're gonna need some more stitches."

Once they were out in the less-crowded atmosphere of the street, Simpson squinted down at Bell and said uncertainly "Ya . . . did somethin', dincha."

Bell flinched. He'd thought he was safe, now, with Arborgast dead; but apparently . . . "Yeah, Simpson. I did something." He swallowed the lump in his throat and added "Jim was right about me, Simpson. I'm . . . that. Y'know."

Simpson paused in his shambling, uncertain walk for a moment, staring at Bell with an indescribable look on his face. Then the big man let out a short, baffled sigh like a horse's snort. "Hunh." He glanced at the bloodied towel around his hand, then back at Bell. "Hunh."

After another moment he once again took up his shuffling, wavering walk. Bell took the bigger man's elbow, trying to keep him from tumbling into the gutter. There was a long silence between them; then, finally, Simpson shook his head.

"I got some thinkin' to do."

There didn't seem to be anything Bell could say in response to that; instead, he concentrated on guiding the larger man down the sidewalk in the direction of the nearest hospital.

[skybright]

After the ER nurse had stitched up Simpson's hand and given him a pint of replacement blood (grumbling as he did so about drunks and the things they did to nearly-kill themselves), Bell hailed a taxi and gave the driver the address of Art Simpson's apartment.

Simpson had been mostly-silent since Bell's confession (except for a few short and unprintable suggestions about what the ER nurse could do in his off hours). He stared quietly out the window of the taxi, occasionally sneaking an indescribable glance sideways at Bell.

Bell, for his part, had fallen into a fit of vicious self-recrimination. It was one thing, after all, to use his talent when it was unavoidable; it was an entirely different matter to actually confess himself to an established mutie-hater like Simpson.

You're a moron, Dave. He chided himself sharply as the taxi pulled up in front of Simpson's apartment building. Bell paid the driver, and the two men climbed out and stood facing each other on the sidewalk, still awkwardly silent.

After a long moment Simpson fished a cigarette out of his pocket, lit it, and blew smoke into the early dawn. He peered tiredly at Bell. "You ain't no freak."

Bell could find no answer to that.

Simpson scratched his chin and continued, in the slow tone of a man who has put much more thought than usual into his words. "You're just a guy. Ain't no difference 'tween you 'n' me." He glanced at his newly-bandaged hand and added "An' that thing ya did . . . guess it saved my life."

Bell swallowed convulsively and nodded. "Guess so."

Simpson nodded in ponderous satisfaction and flicked the cigarette into the gutter. "You tell th' alleycat I owe 'er one." He said gruffly. Then he turned and shambled up the steps to his building, adding "See ya on Monday, Dave."

"See ya." Bell stared after Simpson until the big man disappeared into the building; then he glanced around with a bewildered look and -- feeling as if he'd somehow missed something -- turned his steps for home.

At least he didn't seem to be in imminent danger of being exposed for a mutant. That was comforting, anyway.

But it was still going to be a long time before David Bell wanted to see or hear from Regina Dawson.