7/15/07 - Jason
---
=NYC= Homicide - New York Police Department - Upper East Side
Brass letters on the squad room's smoked glass window labels this the home of Homicide. Painted in the dingy, puke-green of the hallway, the large room is broken up by battered square pillars and detective desks pressed back to back in paired islands. Walls are covered by pictures and memos, while one is almost entirely consumed by ancient file cabinets of steel grey. Wire-grated windows, crusted by dust, look out over the alleyway beside the precinct. At the far end of the room, a door leads to the Captain's office.
The precinct is quiet, for a change; the squad room for Homicide as subdued, if for a different reason. The majority of the desks are empty, at this hour -- the line outside, grated up against the desk sergeant's desk, consists of petty demands rather than petty crimes -- and at the back of the room, hunched like a crow over the last bone-clinging scraps, Chris Rossi huddles at his station, fending off inquiring glances with red-rimmed glares of his own. His attire is not the cheap suit customary to detectives; a turtleneck of dark blue folds around his throat, concealing the most vivid signs of his encounter with Magneto. No amount of clothing can hide the rest of it, however; the cuts and bruises that grace his face bear testimony to a violent encounter in his near past.
Such a handsome face. Alas!
The last place that Jason-as-charming-dark-haired-dark-eyed freckle-person should be is Homocide. After all, he's been involved in one or three. But here he is in his disguise that looks just slightly like his real self, swinging into the squad room with an unrestrained enthusiasm. His thin briefcase even bumps into the side of the doorjamb as he enters. Should he even have slid past the line? Perhaps not.
But here he is, nonetheless, with no one to mark his presence as abnormal beyond the barest glance for inspection. A thin Asian man levels a meditative look at Jason from his lean against the coffee table, and jerks a wordless thumb towards Chris at the far desk. Go that-a-way. There is no question as to purpose or intent.
Rossi is occupied with sharpening a pencil. Mechanical sharpener. Obstinate pencil. Grrrrrrrrrr. He checks the tip, blows on it, and shoves it in again. Grrrrrrrrr. To such things are we reduced to.
Jason's eyes latch onto Rossi and secretly, cloaked, he double-takes. (Still alive? Still alive.) And then Jason strides forward, briefcase swinging light and peppy. "Hey! This Homocide?"
(Barely alive.) The face that rises from the ineffable boredom of the sharpening -- part of the grinding mills of Law, if more literal than the usual -- is battered, if not beyond recognition, certainly to a painful point. Green eyes glance askance past Jason towards the helpful guide, accusing, before swinging back up at Jason. Rossi nods. An eyebrow lifts. Whatchyawant?
"I'm," Jason keeps walking, peppy, briefcase swinging, approaching, "looking to intern here. Or something. Can I shadow you? Gee--" He pauses. "It sure looks like /you/ lead an exciting life."
For a moment, the detective simply looks blank. (Det. Christopher Rossi, says the name plaque on his desk. It is a handy way to know who he is.) Then his brow creases. "What?" His voice is a croak, a strained, raspy thread of sound that scrapes on its way out. "Intern? What is this?"
"I'd like to be a detective. Of Homocide." Jason tosses his briefcase onto the nearest desk (it lands with a skit and a skid, then proceeds to slide right off the desk altogether). "Somewhere down the line."
Rossi watches the toss of the briefcase with a bemusement that translates to a growing frown. "Right," he manages, and drops his head in his hand. The knuckles are scraped raw and scabbed over, traced with the evidence of a hard blow. His gaze glimmers at Jason through the parted fingers. "Who are you?"
"Paul Lieberman. My parents were German." Jason almost asides this and, at the same time, hops sitting backward on yet another desk, this one nearest Rossi. "Serious dedication, man. I am full of admiration-- is this a bad time?"
The fingers close, separating Rossi from Jason behind the barrier of his hand. "No," he says morosely, voice muffled. It can only improve the rattling creak of his baritone, rendered a bass by Magneto's interference. "Guess not. You want to be a cop, apply to the Academy."
"I can't know. I mean, not based on books and TV. Cop shows. Come on, the only way to know is to shadow a /cop/." At this, something similar to embarrassment crosses Jason's face. "I guess I could . . . pay you or something, I'm sorry."
And now Rossi looks appalled. "Pay me-- Christ, no." The detective sits up, too abruptly to avoid the wince of pain that stabs across his face. He exhales sharply, presses his hand to his ribs, and grimaces. "Better off following a uniform. Detective's not the same. Lieberman, you said? How old are you?"
"I'd like to shadow both. Since they are-- you okay?" The glitter in Jason's eye indicates he is trying to be sympathetic instead of just rawly, terrifyingly enthusiastic. "I'm 23. Just graduated."
The detective sinks back in his chair, a dangerous proposition if the rickety thing's squeals are any indication. "Fine," Rossi says, his face strained. His fingers trace cautiously across the ribs under thin blue cotton. "Had a bad run-in. Happens. -- Why do you want to be a cop? You nuts?" Not One PP's publicist of choice, is Det. Rossi.
"Sorry." Jason's bright eyes flick rib-wards. Full sympathy, truly. "Well. Look, I'm an accountant. Or I would be. But I've just found it out. I can't do a desk job. I go crazy. I mean, I've got an analytical mind, right? I'm a crack shot. Spend all that time in the range. Why /not/ be a cop."
Det. Rossi looks -- well, appalled. "Right," he says. And then says rudely, "There's a psych portion to the entrance exam. Got forensic accountants," he adds as an afterthought, a little more peaceably. A flinch tugs across his face again; he tips his head carefully towards the nearby water cooler and pushes back, carefully levering himself up to stand. "Mind?"
One's analytical mind makes a careful note: if /actually/ decide to be cop, choose different psychological profile. Mind also takes careful stock of how Rossi moves. But Jason's outside merely looks mildly bemused. "Isn't forensics just lab work-- and be my guest. It's your water."
He moves stiffly, guardedly, with the caution of a man injured and aged beyond his years. Rossi has little to say until he reaches the cooler, only a few steps away; the stoop to pour water into his empty mug has a quality of bloody-minded endurance about it. "Desk work," he acknowledges, straightening. The first sip softens the grate of his voice somewhat, if only by a fraction. "Not the best guy to talk to. My life's not normal cop. --Benefits are good, though," he adds gloomily.
Beyond the act, beyond the man sitting so excitedly on the desk, Jason himself slips invisibly toward Rossi-at-the-cooler, examining scars and stiffness and the set of the face at close range. Uncomfortably close, if Rossi knew he was there. Meanwhile, Paul seems to lose some of his glittery edge. "You do seem to . . . have it pretty rough. Why? Why different for you?"
Inspection, even if unseen, still tickles some instinct deep-seated in a veteran cop. Rossi shifts his shoulders uneasily, brushes at his face as though waving away some invisible fly, and takes refuge in his water. Days later, the burst vessel in his eye has long since healed, but there is still the swelling of one cheek that still remains, and the slice over one brow bound together by strips of tape. And then there is the marks of fingers on his throat, just visible between jaw and turtleneck collar. "Just lucky," he tells Paul, and offers the rictus of a grin over the edge of his mug. "Work in MA. High turnover. Weird shit happens. Not usual for cops."
"MA? Ma-ture adults?" Paul asks with worried cluelessness as Jason takes his step backward, whistling inaubily. "You look like hell," he informs Rossi without informing him, his not-there voice not without empathy. Much use as it is. Paul moves beyond cluelessness. "Oh! Mutant Affairs. I'd-- think that'd be interesting. You ever met Magneto?"
Rossi's expression is sour. Met Magneto. Hah. Haha. "He's got his boot permanently tattooed on my backside," he says without any semblance of embarrassment in the admission. Another careful turn at the spigot refills his mug, and he begins his clumsy way back to his desk. "He's put me in the hospital -- four times? Maybe five. I lose count. Asshole." That last, at least, is heartfelt. As is: "Don't do MA. Try something easier. Like SWAT."
"But he hasn't killed you?" Paul asks in that way of his, Jason trails Rossi tightly, perhaps just slightly tempted to check on that tattoo (he doesn't). "All that, and you just get hurt? Uh, constantly?"
"Not yet." This is not, it appears, a cause for celebration. Engaged by a, for once, sympathetic ear, Rossi lowers himself back to his seat and hunches once more over his desk, water clasped possessively in both hands. He regards the false Paul with a weary eye. "He likes me, apparently. Ever see a dog with a chew toy? Just call me fucking Squeakers. Only a matter of time." He has an Italian's fatalistic streak. It cheers him marginally. "He'll sneeze and squash me with an SUV."
"Maybe, deep down, he respects the badge." Paul could not possibly be more solemn. Jason experiments, carefully, decreasing soreness. If, without a true-telepath's precision and range of receptive data, he can't manage much more than an overlay of quiet near-numbness just aft of normalcy. Range of other sensations he could evoke, but one is being Careful and Conservative. "If he wanted to kill you, why wouldn't he?"
"If he wanted to kill me, he would kill me." That much is certain. In the catalog of hurts that Rossi currently sports, pain is a constant background hum that sucks at his vitality. Numbness is, by comparison, a godsend; he reacts to it unconsciously, his head lifting, his face easing, his back straightening to a greater ease of posture that does not register on his awareness. A little life injects itself in his voice. "He says he respects the work cops do. Wouldn't go relying on that for much, though. He'll still squash us like beetles. Did I mention he's an asshole?"
"Yeah, but he leaves you alive. Uh. Has he killed any cops that aren't you? Deliberately?" Paul sounds as if he's casing out his potential job security, here. Jason keeps up the illusory comfort, such as it is. Wan as it is. But he's pleased by the effects. Look. No stiff-necked suspicion, no screaming. Powers CAN be used for GOOD.
Indeed they can! Cling to that thought. "Yeah," Rossi says, the single word stark enough without the attendant rasping quality. His face hardens; his gaze shifts, dropping under a frown to the concentric ripples in his mug. "Purity was barely the half of it. Not often cops run into Magneto, though," he adds, by way of token consolation. He blinks, touches his throat, then works his jaw. Less pain. "Huh."
Paul seems to notice Rossi's blink, Rossi's huh. An attendant flicker of embarrassment crosses Paul's face. Again. His long hands touch each other, finger pad to finger pad, nervous. He looks down. (Jason maintains the numb, increases it just slightly.) "Do you think you could-- it'd be possible to take Magneto down?"
Rossi works his hand absent-mindedly, the scabs pulling and stretching at the skin across his knuckles. Someone got punched! Someone not Rossi! Yay! "Most things're /possible/," he says, distracted by this miraculous cessation of pain. He frowns into his mug, turns a vaguely suspicious glance to Paul, then shakes his head. "Yeah. Sure. We got him before. We can do it again. That'd be nice, wouldn't it?" He sounds wistful. Big bad cop, yo.
"But you can't keep him." Paul also sounds wistful. "Sure be nice if you could just-- step out onto the street and either make peace with the mutants or just take down what needs taking down, or, uh, hey, why stop at mutants? All the bad--" The voice trails off. Paul's downward look intensifies in its downness. "Uh. Can you keep a secret?"
Rossi, in the act of taking another sip, hastily lowers his mug. The bandaged head drops into his palm; once more he regards Paul through the splay of fingers, one green eye bared, the other hidden. It regards the young man with resignation. "Sure," he says after a moment. "I keep lots of secrets. You don't dress up like one of those -- uh, poke-- pokemon things and women's underwear for fun, do you?"
The room casually warms in the gentlest of gusts. Somewhere, someone has opened a window into summer. "No, no. I just have to ask." Paul takes a deep breath. "Does Mutant Affairs really, uh, have any mutant detectives? Or do they just /fight/ mutants?" Jason, meanwhile, has just now taken to taking notes. Even some quick illustrative sketches. Helpful to have a notepad on hand.
The detective regards Paul with deadpan solemnity. "The NYPD doesn't have a policy on mutants in the Force," he says gravely. One PP would be so proud. More naturally, he adds, "Used to be a guy in the squad who got outed. Sean Cassidy. He's private sector now. Teaches out in Westchester." His fingers curl, unveiling the rest of his face again. "Anyway, we don't /fight/ mutants. MA works -- mutant cases, not mutant perps."
"So if you're a mutant. -- Possibly. Don't tell anyone." Paul dares to look up, his eyes narrowed almost closed with strain. Jason scribbles, and Jason plays, increasing Rossi's numbness to just-short of Novacaine levels. The breeze idles. "It's best not to be outed. But it isn't about fighting mutants, just helping them."
Numb. Happy numb. Really numb. Rossi attempts to close his fingers around his mug, and frowns a bit fuzzily when his senses refuse to validate what he can see right in front of him. No fingers. No mug. Hm. He splays his hand wide and considers that raw, scar-hatched member. "It's about--" Is he slurring his words? Uh. He pauses to regroup. "It's special training to deal with cases where mutants may be involved, as victim, perp, or witness." There. That's better. For good measure, he tells his pencil cup, "If a cop were a mutant -- not to say that any are, but if any /were/ -- they'd be better off keeping that under their hat."
"Okay." Paul's eyes unnarrow. The numbness recedes. Tada. Jason takes notes a bit more rapidly, whilst watching Rossi's reaction in his peripheral vision. Such as he can. (Nice effect. Slurs and everything!) "So they're more like neutral bodies. They just know how to deal with a mutant as opposed to a non-mutant. I can see where, uh, a mutant cop might look . . . biased. Yeah."
Perverse Rossi. Having established understanding in the other party, he promptly looks dissatisfied, though to be sure, his gestures are more unencumbered, less fettered by discomfort; he is practically his old self, barring the carrion bird's caw that is his voice. "No more than a non-mutant cop," he points out, leaning forward on his elbows to prop his chin on his fingers. "You figure a mutant cop probably's got more insight into the mutant community."
"True." Paul looks all thoughtful again. Hopeful, even. He segues after taking a deep, nervous-skittered breath. "I-- really want to make a difference." Isn't it sweet. Even Jason, puppetteer, makes a face. A cautious face. A not altogether-un-self-conscious face. "And you get down and dirty with the mutants. In a way that politicians and even, you know, humanitarians /can't/."
Rossi blinks at Paul. There is a fleeting shadow of cynicism in his face: then it is gone. He shrugs cautiously. "Yeah," he grants, managing to sound wary even with the harshness of his voice. "I guess. Down and dirty is one way of looking at it."
"Could I-- please shadow you. Just for one day." If Paul put his hands together and pleaded, he could hardly sound more hopeful and fearful-of-rejection at once. He just barely keeps his dignity. "I just need to see it."
The detective looks momentarily harassed, and glances around his desk as though in a haphazard search for some excuse to deny him. None is immediately forthcoming. On the other hand-- "I'm out of commission for a while," he remembers, bowing his shoulders over the mug again. "Sick leave. Just in to do some paperwork. You want a ridealong, I can arrange something with Tucci. He rides Homicide."
"If it's all the same," comes dejected, a little, as Paul picks himself up, slants himself down to retreive the briefcase, "maybe I'll just come back when you're better."
Rossi eyes Paul askance. "You want to ride with me, specifically? Or with someone in MA? I can arrange the MA thing if you want--" He trails off, a little puzzled. "Maybe Lazzaro."
Paul tries not to be too particular. "Maybe Lazzaro will be okay." Look! He's retrieved his briefcase! "I'll, uh, be back later?" and he heads for the door at a clip. Jason? Does not.
He will, will he? "Mmf," Rossi says, and lifts a hand after Paul. He is friendly, see? See? Except that after the boy is gone, the detective drops his face in his hands again, reacting to the pressure of a pain that should be there, but is not.
Across the squad room, the Asian from before peels himself away from a quiet conversation with colleagues and ambles towards Rossi. "Here he comes to save the day," the man quotes in a drowsy, lazy Midwestern drawl. "What was that about? Was he selling girl scout cookies? Did you get me some?"
"You know what would be awesome?" Jason again inaudibly confides in Rossi as he finishes some block of notes or the other. "If I killed him," a jerk of an invisible chin toward the Asian, "and took his place at the desk tomorrow. But don't worry. I've changed." He tucks the notebook in his front pocket. "Turned over a new leaf." Summer gusts into the room again, with a little more strength.
A shiny new leaf. Rossi's head lifts at his colleague's approach, just enough to reward him with a baleful glare and a finger -- /the/ finger -- before he leans back into the cradle of one hand and takes up his mug with the other. "The painkillers are messing with me," he informs. "It smells like Ororo, and I don't feel like popping your head off like a bottlecap. Bite me." He extends himself with care, still wary of aches and pains that still refuse to announce themselves. Their absence brighten his countenance while Ken watches with interest. "Christ, I love painkillers."
Notebook withdrawn, hasty note on the back. Ororo. Then it's slid back in and Jason stands. "Don't we all love painkillers. Hang in there, buddy-pal." Jason slaps Rossi's back heartily (unfelt), tosses a nasty unsteadiness under Ken's feet, and makes his way out himself. Alas, the numbing must withdraw with him.
Well -- shit. It is a sentiment echoed aloud by Rossi, a scant second after Ken slips on thin air and comes down hard on the other man's desk. Bitter recriminations rise, tossed in a mixed salad with the other detective's milder expostulations. Jackass. No, I won't play chess with you. Get the fuck out of-- /ow/.
Peace and quiet in the NYPD. All in a day.
[Log ends]
A little wannabe policeman comes to visit Rossi in the squad room. Fresh meat. So cute. Jason would make such a splendid cop.
=NYC= Homicide - New York Police Department - Upper East Side
Brass letters on the squad room's smoked glass window labels this the home of Homicide. Painted in the dingy, puke-green of the hallway, the large room is broken up by battered square pillars and detective desks pressed back to back in paired islands. Walls are covered by pictures and memos, while one is almost entirely consumed by ancient file cabinets of steel grey. Wire-grated windows, crusted by dust, look out over the alleyway beside the precinct. At the far end of the room, a door leads to the Captain's office.
The precinct is quiet, for a change; the squad room for Homicide as subdued, if for a different reason. The majority of the desks are empty, at this hour -- the line outside, grated up against the desk sergeant's desk, consists of petty demands rather than petty crimes -- and at the back of the room, hunched like a crow over the last bone-clinging scraps, Chris Rossi huddles at his station, fending off inquiring glances with red-rimmed glares of his own. His attire is not the cheap suit customary to detectives; a turtleneck of dark blue folds around his throat, concealing the most vivid signs of his encounter with Magneto. No amount of clothing can hide the rest of it, however; the cuts and bruises that grace his face bear testimony to a violent encounter in his near past.
Such a handsome face. Alas!
The last place that Jason-as-charming-dark-haired-dark-eyed freckle-person should be is Homocide. After all, he's been involved in one or three. But here he is in his disguise that looks just slightly like his real self, swinging into the squad room with an unrestrained enthusiasm. His thin briefcase even bumps into the side of the doorjamb as he enters. Should he even have slid past the line? Perhaps not.
But here he is, nonetheless, with no one to mark his presence as abnormal beyond the barest glance for inspection. A thin Asian man levels a meditative look at Jason from his lean against the coffee table, and jerks a wordless thumb towards Chris at the far desk. Go that-a-way. There is no question as to purpose or intent.
Rossi is occupied with sharpening a pencil. Mechanical sharpener. Obstinate pencil. Grrrrrrrrrr. He checks the tip, blows on it, and shoves it in again. Grrrrrrrrr. To such things are we reduced to.
Jason's eyes latch onto Rossi and secretly, cloaked, he double-takes. (Still alive? Still alive.) And then Jason strides forward, briefcase swinging light and peppy. "Hey! This Homocide?"
(Barely alive.) The face that rises from the ineffable boredom of the sharpening -- part of the grinding mills of Law, if more literal than the usual -- is battered, if not beyond recognition, certainly to a painful point. Green eyes glance askance past Jason towards the helpful guide, accusing, before swinging back up at Jason. Rossi nods. An eyebrow lifts. Whatchyawant?
"I'm," Jason keeps walking, peppy, briefcase swinging, approaching, "looking to intern here. Or something. Can I shadow you? Gee--" He pauses. "It sure looks like /you/ lead an exciting life."
For a moment, the detective simply looks blank. (Det. Christopher Rossi, says the name plaque on his desk. It is a handy way to know who he is.) Then his brow creases. "What?" His voice is a croak, a strained, raspy thread of sound that scrapes on its way out. "Intern? What is this?"
"I'd like to be a detective. Of Homocide." Jason tosses his briefcase onto the nearest desk (it lands with a skit and a skid, then proceeds to slide right off the desk altogether). "Somewhere down the line."
Rossi watches the toss of the briefcase with a bemusement that translates to a growing frown. "Right," he manages, and drops his head in his hand. The knuckles are scraped raw and scabbed over, traced with the evidence of a hard blow. His gaze glimmers at Jason through the parted fingers. "Who are you?"
"Paul Lieberman. My parents were German." Jason almost asides this and, at the same time, hops sitting backward on yet another desk, this one nearest Rossi. "Serious dedication, man. I am full of admiration-- is this a bad time?"
The fingers close, separating Rossi from Jason behind the barrier of his hand. "No," he says morosely, voice muffled. It can only improve the rattling creak of his baritone, rendered a bass by Magneto's interference. "Guess not. You want to be a cop, apply to the Academy."
"I can't know. I mean, not based on books and TV. Cop shows. Come on, the only way to know is to shadow a /cop/." At this, something similar to embarrassment crosses Jason's face. "I guess I could . . . pay you or something, I'm sorry."
And now Rossi looks appalled. "Pay me-- Christ, no." The detective sits up, too abruptly to avoid the wince of pain that stabs across his face. He exhales sharply, presses his hand to his ribs, and grimaces. "Better off following a uniform. Detective's not the same. Lieberman, you said? How old are you?"
"I'd like to shadow both. Since they are-- you okay?" The glitter in Jason's eye indicates he is trying to be sympathetic instead of just rawly, terrifyingly enthusiastic. "I'm 23. Just graduated."
The detective sinks back in his chair, a dangerous proposition if the rickety thing's squeals are any indication. "Fine," Rossi says, his face strained. His fingers trace cautiously across the ribs under thin blue cotton. "Had a bad run-in. Happens. -- Why do you want to be a cop? You nuts?" Not One PP's publicist of choice, is Det. Rossi.
"Sorry." Jason's bright eyes flick rib-wards. Full sympathy, truly. "Well. Look, I'm an accountant. Or I would be. But I've just found it out. I can't do a desk job. I go crazy. I mean, I've got an analytical mind, right? I'm a crack shot. Spend all that time in the range. Why /not/ be a cop."
Det. Rossi looks -- well, appalled. "Right," he says. And then says rudely, "There's a psych portion to the entrance exam. Got forensic accountants," he adds as an afterthought, a little more peaceably. A flinch tugs across his face again; he tips his head carefully towards the nearby water cooler and pushes back, carefully levering himself up to stand. "Mind?"
One's analytical mind makes a careful note: if /actually/ decide to be cop, choose different psychological profile. Mind also takes careful stock of how Rossi moves. But Jason's outside merely looks mildly bemused. "Isn't forensics just lab work-- and be my guest. It's your water."
He moves stiffly, guardedly, with the caution of a man injured and aged beyond his years. Rossi has little to say until he reaches the cooler, only a few steps away; the stoop to pour water into his empty mug has a quality of bloody-minded endurance about it. "Desk work," he acknowledges, straightening. The first sip softens the grate of his voice somewhat, if only by a fraction. "Not the best guy to talk to. My life's not normal cop. --Benefits are good, though," he adds gloomily.
Beyond the act, beyond the man sitting so excitedly on the desk, Jason himself slips invisibly toward Rossi-at-the-cooler, examining scars and stiffness and the set of the face at close range. Uncomfortably close, if Rossi knew he was there. Meanwhile, Paul seems to lose some of his glittery edge. "You do seem to . . . have it pretty rough. Why? Why different for you?"
Inspection, even if unseen, still tickles some instinct deep-seated in a veteran cop. Rossi shifts his shoulders uneasily, brushes at his face as though waving away some invisible fly, and takes refuge in his water. Days later, the burst vessel in his eye has long since healed, but there is still the swelling of one cheek that still remains, and the slice over one brow bound together by strips of tape. And then there is the marks of fingers on his throat, just visible between jaw and turtleneck collar. "Just lucky," he tells Paul, and offers the rictus of a grin over the edge of his mug. "Work in MA. High turnover. Weird shit happens. Not usual for cops."
"MA? Ma-ture adults?" Paul asks with worried cluelessness as Jason takes his step backward, whistling inaubily. "You look like hell," he informs Rossi without informing him, his not-there voice not without empathy. Much use as it is. Paul moves beyond cluelessness. "Oh! Mutant Affairs. I'd-- think that'd be interesting. You ever met Magneto?"
Rossi's expression is sour. Met Magneto. Hah. Haha. "He's got his boot permanently tattooed on my backside," he says without any semblance of embarrassment in the admission. Another careful turn at the spigot refills his mug, and he begins his clumsy way back to his desk. "He's put me in the hospital -- four times? Maybe five. I lose count. Asshole." That last, at least, is heartfelt. As is: "Don't do MA. Try something easier. Like SWAT."
"But he hasn't killed you?" Paul asks in that way of his, Jason trails Rossi tightly, perhaps just slightly tempted to check on that tattoo (he doesn't). "All that, and you just get hurt? Uh, constantly?"
"Not yet." This is not, it appears, a cause for celebration. Engaged by a, for once, sympathetic ear, Rossi lowers himself back to his seat and hunches once more over his desk, water clasped possessively in both hands. He regards the false Paul with a weary eye. "He likes me, apparently. Ever see a dog with a chew toy? Just call me fucking Squeakers. Only a matter of time." He has an Italian's fatalistic streak. It cheers him marginally. "He'll sneeze and squash me with an SUV."
"Maybe, deep down, he respects the badge." Paul could not possibly be more solemn. Jason experiments, carefully, decreasing soreness. If, without a true-telepath's precision and range of receptive data, he can't manage much more than an overlay of quiet near-numbness just aft of normalcy. Range of other sensations he could evoke, but one is being Careful and Conservative. "If he wanted to kill you, why wouldn't he?"
"If he wanted to kill me, he would kill me." That much is certain. In the catalog of hurts that Rossi currently sports, pain is a constant background hum that sucks at his vitality. Numbness is, by comparison, a godsend; he reacts to it unconsciously, his head lifting, his face easing, his back straightening to a greater ease of posture that does not register on his awareness. A little life injects itself in his voice. "He says he respects the work cops do. Wouldn't go relying on that for much, though. He'll still squash us like beetles. Did I mention he's an asshole?"
"Yeah, but he leaves you alive. Uh. Has he killed any cops that aren't you? Deliberately?" Paul sounds as if he's casing out his potential job security, here. Jason keeps up the illusory comfort, such as it is. Wan as it is. But he's pleased by the effects. Look. No stiff-necked suspicion, no screaming. Powers CAN be used for GOOD.
Indeed they can! Cling to that thought. "Yeah," Rossi says, the single word stark enough without the attendant rasping quality. His face hardens; his gaze shifts, dropping under a frown to the concentric ripples in his mug. "Purity was barely the half of it. Not often cops run into Magneto, though," he adds, by way of token consolation. He blinks, touches his throat, then works his jaw. Less pain. "Huh."
Paul seems to notice Rossi's blink, Rossi's huh. An attendant flicker of embarrassment crosses Paul's face. Again. His long hands touch each other, finger pad to finger pad, nervous. He looks down. (Jason maintains the numb, increases it just slightly.) "Do you think you could-- it'd be possible to take Magneto down?"
Rossi works his hand absent-mindedly, the scabs pulling and stretching at the skin across his knuckles. Someone got punched! Someone not Rossi! Yay! "Most things're /possible/," he says, distracted by this miraculous cessation of pain. He frowns into his mug, turns a vaguely suspicious glance to Paul, then shakes his head. "Yeah. Sure. We got him before. We can do it again. That'd be nice, wouldn't it?" He sounds wistful. Big bad cop, yo.
"But you can't keep him." Paul also sounds wistful. "Sure be nice if you could just-- step out onto the street and either make peace with the mutants or just take down what needs taking down, or, uh, hey, why stop at mutants? All the bad--" The voice trails off. Paul's downward look intensifies in its downness. "Uh. Can you keep a secret?"
Rossi, in the act of taking another sip, hastily lowers his mug. The bandaged head drops into his palm; once more he regards Paul through the splay of fingers, one green eye bared, the other hidden. It regards the young man with resignation. "Sure," he says after a moment. "I keep lots of secrets. You don't dress up like one of those -- uh, poke-- pokemon things and women's underwear for fun, do you?"
The room casually warms in the gentlest of gusts. Somewhere, someone has opened a window into summer. "No, no. I just have to ask." Paul takes a deep breath. "Does Mutant Affairs really, uh, have any mutant detectives? Or do they just /fight/ mutants?" Jason, meanwhile, has just now taken to taking notes. Even some quick illustrative sketches. Helpful to have a notepad on hand.
The detective regards Paul with deadpan solemnity. "The NYPD doesn't have a policy on mutants in the Force," he says gravely. One PP would be so proud. More naturally, he adds, "Used to be a guy in the squad who got outed. Sean Cassidy. He's private sector now. Teaches out in Westchester." His fingers curl, unveiling the rest of his face again. "Anyway, we don't /fight/ mutants. MA works -- mutant cases, not mutant perps."
"So if you're a mutant. -- Possibly. Don't tell anyone." Paul dares to look up, his eyes narrowed almost closed with strain. Jason scribbles, and Jason plays, increasing Rossi's numbness to just-short of Novacaine levels. The breeze idles. "It's best not to be outed. But it isn't about fighting mutants, just helping them."
Numb. Happy numb. Really numb. Rossi attempts to close his fingers around his mug, and frowns a bit fuzzily when his senses refuse to validate what he can see right in front of him. No fingers. No mug. Hm. He splays his hand wide and considers that raw, scar-hatched member. "It's about--" Is he slurring his words? Uh. He pauses to regroup. "It's special training to deal with cases where mutants may be involved, as victim, perp, or witness." There. That's better. For good measure, he tells his pencil cup, "If a cop were a mutant -- not to say that any are, but if any /were/ -- they'd be better off keeping that under their hat."
"Okay." Paul's eyes unnarrow. The numbness recedes. Tada. Jason takes notes a bit more rapidly, whilst watching Rossi's reaction in his peripheral vision. Such as he can. (Nice effect. Slurs and everything!) "So they're more like neutral bodies. They just know how to deal with a mutant as opposed to a non-mutant. I can see where, uh, a mutant cop might look . . . biased. Yeah."
Perverse Rossi. Having established understanding in the other party, he promptly looks dissatisfied, though to be sure, his gestures are more unencumbered, less fettered by discomfort; he is practically his old self, barring the carrion bird's caw that is his voice. "No more than a non-mutant cop," he points out, leaning forward on his elbows to prop his chin on his fingers. "You figure a mutant cop probably's got more insight into the mutant community."
"True." Paul looks all thoughtful again. Hopeful, even. He segues after taking a deep, nervous-skittered breath. "I-- really want to make a difference." Isn't it sweet. Even Jason, puppetteer, makes a face. A cautious face. A not altogether-un-self-conscious face. "And you get down and dirty with the mutants. In a way that politicians and even, you know, humanitarians /can't/."
Rossi blinks at Paul. There is a fleeting shadow of cynicism in his face: then it is gone. He shrugs cautiously. "Yeah," he grants, managing to sound wary even with the harshness of his voice. "I guess. Down and dirty is one way of looking at it."
"Could I-- please shadow you. Just for one day." If Paul put his hands together and pleaded, he could hardly sound more hopeful and fearful-of-rejection at once. He just barely keeps his dignity. "I just need to see it."
The detective looks momentarily harassed, and glances around his desk as though in a haphazard search for some excuse to deny him. None is immediately forthcoming. On the other hand-- "I'm out of commission for a while," he remembers, bowing his shoulders over the mug again. "Sick leave. Just in to do some paperwork. You want a ridealong, I can arrange something with Tucci. He rides Homicide."
"If it's all the same," comes dejected, a little, as Paul picks himself up, slants himself down to retreive the briefcase, "maybe I'll just come back when you're better."
Rossi eyes Paul askance. "You want to ride with me, specifically? Or with someone in MA? I can arrange the MA thing if you want--" He trails off, a little puzzled. "Maybe Lazzaro."
Paul tries not to be too particular. "Maybe Lazzaro will be okay." Look! He's retrieved his briefcase! "I'll, uh, be back later?" and he heads for the door at a clip. Jason? Does not.
He will, will he? "Mmf," Rossi says, and lifts a hand after Paul. He is friendly, see? See? Except that after the boy is gone, the detective drops his face in his hands again, reacting to the pressure of a pain that should be there, but is not.
Across the squad room, the Asian from before peels himself away from a quiet conversation with colleagues and ambles towards Rossi. "Here he comes to save the day," the man quotes in a drowsy, lazy Midwestern drawl. "What was that about? Was he selling girl scout cookies? Did you get me some?"
"You know what would be awesome?" Jason again inaudibly confides in Rossi as he finishes some block of notes or the other. "If I killed him," a jerk of an invisible chin toward the Asian, "and took his place at the desk tomorrow. But don't worry. I've changed." He tucks the notebook in his front pocket. "Turned over a new leaf." Summer gusts into the room again, with a little more strength.
A shiny new leaf. Rossi's head lifts at his colleague's approach, just enough to reward him with a baleful glare and a finger -- /the/ finger -- before he leans back into the cradle of one hand and takes up his mug with the other. "The painkillers are messing with me," he informs. "It smells like Ororo, and I don't feel like popping your head off like a bottlecap. Bite me." He extends himself with care, still wary of aches and pains that still refuse to announce themselves. Their absence brighten his countenance while Ken watches with interest. "Christ, I love painkillers."
Notebook withdrawn, hasty note on the back. Ororo. Then it's slid back in and Jason stands. "Don't we all love painkillers. Hang in there, buddy-pal." Jason slaps Rossi's back heartily (unfelt), tosses a nasty unsteadiness under Ken's feet, and makes his way out himself. Alas, the numbing must withdraw with him.
Well -- shit. It is a sentiment echoed aloud by Rossi, a scant second after Ken slips on thin air and comes down hard on the other man's desk. Bitter recriminations rise, tossed in a mixed salad with the other detective's milder expostulations. Jackass. No, I won't play chess with you. Get the fuck out of-- /ow/.
Peace and quiet in the NYPD. All in a day.
[Log ends]
A little wannabe policeman comes to visit Rossi in the squad room. Fresh meat. So cute. Jason would make such a splendid cop.