Axel ✧ Unlucky Cop

"Seriously? She left?"

Jack sounded far too invested in the answer for a man who wasn't personally involved. Then again, Axel's dating life had provided the precinct with more entertainment over the years than the broken vending machine in the break room and Sergeant Harper's annual Christmas speeches combined.

Axel looked up from his paper cup of coffee and gave his friend a flat stare.

The coffee was terrible.

The date had been terrible.

The morning wasn't showing much potential either.

"Not exactly."

Jack immediately leaned forward.

"Oh, no. It always starts with 'not exactly'."

"She said she needed to go home."

"And?"

"An hour later she posted pictures from a bar."

"Maybe the bar was near her home."

"With another guy."

"Ah."

"Yeah."

For a moment, Jack looked genuinely sympathetic.

Then the moment passed.

"You know, I'm starting to notice a pattern."

"Don't."

"No, seriously. You somehow manage to find the weirdest women within a fifty-kilometer radius."

"They find me."

"That's somehow worse."

Unfortunately, Jack wasn't entirely wrong.

Some people attracted money. Some attracted success. Some attracted trouble.

Axel, apparently, attracted women who looked like they might eventually be interviewed by the police, arrested by the police, or become the reason the police were called in the first place.

The worst part?

He always found them interesting.

Normal people were fine. Stable. Predictable. Sensible.

Unfortunately, sensible people rarely came with stories that started with, "Okay, but technically it wasn't illegal until the third part."

That was probably why he was still single. Actually, no. That was definitely why he was still single.

"One day your curiosity is going to get you killed."

"Probably."

"And they'll write something embarrassing on your tombstone."

"Like what?"

Jack didn't hesitate.

"He thought it was a good idea."

"Fair."

Around them, the morning shift continued with its usual level of controlled chaos. Two officers were arguing near the coffee machine with the intensity of men debating national policy rather than coffee beans. Someone was losing a fight against the precinct printer. Judging by the noises coming from the corner, the printer was winning.

"Maybe you should try dating normal women."

"Boring."

"At least you're honest."

Before Axel could answer, another officer appeared beside their desks carrying a thin folder and the sort of grin that immediately raised concern. Police officers were not supposed to look that happy before nine in the morning. That kind of expression usually meant something ridiculous had happened and there was a very real chance it was about to become someone else's problem.

"Colt."

"What?"

"Harper wants you to look at this."

The folder landed on Axel's desk.

He looked at it. Then at the officer. Then back at the folder.

This was a bad sign.

Years of police work had taught him a universal truth: whenever somebody handed you paperwork while looking that entertained, whatever was inside was guaranteed to ruin your day.

"Why do you look like you just won the lottery?"

The grin widened.

"Just open it."

And just like that, Axel knew his peaceful morning was over.

The file looked deceptively thin.

Usually, thin files meant public intoxication, noise complaints, or somebody discovering that traffic laws were not optional suggestions. Unfortunately, there was a second category: files containing events so ridiculous they somehow transcended ordinary stupidity.

The first page looked perfectly normal. Disturbing the peace. Disorderly conduct. Resisting arrest.

Standard paperwork for someone who had mixed alcohol and bad decisions in roughly equal amounts.

"So?" Jack asked.

"So far? Nothing."

"Keep reading," the officer said.

That should have been the warning.

Axel flipped the page. Several seconds passed. Then he reread the sentence.

Then he checked the date, just in case reality had become optional overnight.

"...What the fuck."

Jack immediately sat up straighter.

"Oh, we're at the what the fuck stage already?"

Axel continued reading.

"Participation in a physical altercation with an individual wearing a hot dog costume."

Silence.

A long silence.

The kind that only happened when a sentence was too stupid for the human brain to process immediately.

Finally, Jack cleared his throat.

"Maybe the hot dog started it."

Axel slowly looked at him.

"The hot dog."

"Yes."

"The hot dog started a fight."

"I'm keeping an open mind."

The next line somehow made things worse.

"Attempted bribery of law enforcement officers."

"Classic."

"Using maple leaves."

Another pause.

"Actual leaves?"

"It doesn't specify."

"It should."

"I agree."

Somewhere in Canada, a law professor was probably experiencing sudden unexplained chest pain.

The report continued.

Against all odds, it got worse.

After officers refused to accept her proposed organic payment method, the detainee allegedly climbed into a public fountain and began collecting coins in order to pay what she believed would be an inevitable fine.

"Okay, technically—"

"No."

"Technically that's problem-solving."

"No."

"That's initiative."

"That's a fountain."

"Still initiative."

Unfortunately, there was a certain twisted logic to it.

The report then mentioned an attempted escape, a brief chase, and somehow a decorative dolphin statue. Axel wasn't entirely sure how the dolphin had become involved. The report didn't seem sure either. The dolphin simply appeared halfway through the story like a recurring sitcom character.

By the next paragraph, Axel had completely abandoned any hope of understanding what had happened.

"Public speech regarding the state of democracy," he read aloud.

Jack blinked.

"What?"

"Speech contained excessive profanity."

"Okay."

"Approximately seven minutes in length."

Jack slowly lowered his coffee.

"Seven minutes?"

"Seven minutes."

"That's impressive."

"That's concerning."

"No, seriously. Seven uninterrupted minutes of political anger requires cardio."

At this point, the report felt less like official police documentation and more like the result of somebody feeding random words into an AI and demanding a criminal record.

The fact that all five appeared in the same report should have been illegal.

Then Axel reached the final page.

And froze.

Jack immediately noticed.

"Oh no."

"Oh yes."

"What?"

Axel turned the file around. A previous arrest record.

The same name. The same face. The same person.

Jack stared.

"No fucking way."

"The road sign."

"The road sign?"

"The DEAD END sign."

For nearly a week, the entire precinct had been discussing a woman who had somehow stolen a DEAD END road sign for reasons nobody had ever successfully explained.

"You mean the hot dog incident and the road sign incident are the same person?"

"That's exactly what I'm telling you."

"Jesus Christ."

"Yeah."

As if summoned by administrative suffering itself, Sergeant Harper appeared beside their desks.

"You've read it."

"We've read it."

Harper rubbed his forehead.

"Good. Colt, cell block duty is yours today."

"Of course it is."

"She's in holding cell three."

"Of course she is."

"And if she somehow ends up in another fountain, I want to hear about it before social media does."

The fact that he sounded completely sincere was somehow the most concerning part.

---

Twenty minutes later, Axel was standing outside holding cell three with the folder tucked beneath his arm.

By now he'd answered two phone calls, listened to a complaint about a stolen sandwich, and been reminded about the fountain situation three separate times.

At this point, he was beginning to suspect Harper genuinely believed this woman possessed some supernatural ability to materialize near public water features.

Honestly?

Based on the report, that theory wasn't entirely unreasonable.

Slowing to a stop, Axel pulled the file out one last time. Part of him still expected the contents to magically rearrange themselves into something sensible.

Maybe the hot dog would become a regular person. Maybe the maple leaves would become actual money. Maybe the dolphin would finally leave the story. Unfortunately, reality refused to cooperate.

The report still described exactly the same disaster.

With a sigh, Axel closed the folder and finally looked up.

For a moment, he simply compared the person in front of him to the chaos documented across several pages of official police paperwork.

The comparison wasn't helping.

Nothing about the situation became more logical.

If anything, it became less logical.

Because sitting in front of him was a real person. An actual human being. Not an urban legend. Not a drunken hallucination.

A real person who had somehow transformed an ordinary evening into a chain of events involving a hot dog, maple leaves, a fountain, a dolphin, and a seven-minute speech about democracy.

Frankly, that required commitment.

Tucking the folder back beneath his arm, Axel leaned casually against the bars.

For a second, he said nothing.

Mostly because he was trying to decide where exactly one was supposed to begin.

The hot dog? The leaves? The dolphin?

There were simply too many options. Eventually, he exhaled.

"Alright."

A brief pause.

"Before we get started, there's one thing I need to know."

The corner of his mouth twitched upward.

"What exactly did the hot dog do?"