Leon Orcot (under_arrest) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2017-10-15 18:35:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, agent york, leon orcot |
Who: Leon, York and NPC!Chris
When: Early August
Where: Police Department
What: Leon has to bring Chris to work, York finds him.
Rating/Warnings: Low/None
Status: Complete when posted
York was busy at work. There’d been some crazy stuff that’d happened lately with his buddy, Wash, and York didn’t like thinking about it. It was hard to look away, though. He couldn’t leave his friend in the lurch, either. So York was trying to be the best friend he could be. The only problem was… he didn’t know what that was supposed to be at the moment. If Wash was slipping backward, how was York supposed to help?
Thankfully, the one-eyed man had work to keep him distracted. He was in the front room of the police station, installing the new printer. His job as IT guy meant that all the upgrades the police department put in were his responsibility. So he was under the desk connecting wires, thinking about how he had to take a run to the tech recycling this afternoon.
Leon had waited until he was nearly late for work before he called the babysitter, and the phone had gone straight to voicemail. He had left a very irate message on her voicemail system, followed by a number of texts, before he packed Chris up and brought him to work.
Really, the precinct wasn’t a great place for a kid. There was a small play area for kids who were either being questioned or whose parents were being questioned, but the toys were sparse and they hardly made up for the parade of criminals who walked through the halls in cuffs or his co-workers making gallows humour jokes. Still, it was probably better than leaving him alone in the apartment for the entire work day. And since it was Leon’s first day back at work after his trip to New York, where he’d collected Chris, he had a lot of paperwork to catch up on. If there wasn’t a murder that day, he’d likely be able to spend his whole day behind his desk where he could keep an eye on Chris.
Not that he was keeping Chris in his sights at all times. He now had his head buried the case file for a man who’d been found a few months back. He knew he was missing something about it, but he couldn’t figure out what. So he didn’t notice when Chris hopped down from his chair and started wandering the area, finally stopping next to a man who had his head under the desk and watching him while he worked.
York felt more than saw the kid hovering over his shoulder. He wasn’t sure what that meant, as he wasn’t sure there were supposed to be kids back behind the desk in the front office… but York was a friendly guy. As soon as he finished connecting the cables, he climbed out from under the desk to take a look at the kid.
“Aren’t you a little young to be a police officer?” York asked, raising his good eyebrow.
Chris didn’t recoil when he saw York’s face, but his eyes did widen and he stared silently at the milky white eye surrounded by the angry scar. After a moment, he nodded his head, his eyes not moving from where they were staring. Yes, he was too young to be a police officer.
York was used to that reaction. It didn’t surprise him at all that the kid was freaked out by the sight of his face. These were times when York took a moment to seriously reconsider his decision not to try and get his face fixed, or to cover it with an eyepatch or something.
“Hey, it’s okay.” York said, his face falling into a kinder, less grinning expression. He crouched down a bit so he was on the kid’s level. “Are you lost?”
Chris did take a step back, but the man’s tone was friendly and, aside from the scary looking eye, he seemed nice enough. Besides, he was in the police station and obviously working, which meant that he had to be one of the good guys. Chris wanted to ask him about what happened to his eye, and tell him that he wasn’t lost, he had come into work today with his brother who was a police officer. A detective even.
But he couldn’t say any of that, so he just shook his head and pointed toward Leon, who was sitting at his desk angrily gnawing on the end of his pen. The family resemblance between the two was striking - their eyes were the same shape and shade of blue, though Leon’s currently had deep furrows between his brows, and their hair was the same shade of blonde.
“Oh, I see,” York said, nodding. He stood up straight again. “C’mon. I’ll walk you back over there.” There wasn’t much kid-friendly stuff around the front desk, and the last thing York would want was for the kid to hear or see something he shouldn’t. Something no kid should hear or see at such a young age. Police Stations were full of that kind of thing.
“Hey,” York said to the detective. “I think I found something of yours.”
Leon looked up from his paperwork, and his eyes widened a little when he saw York there with Chris. “Chris, I thought I told you not to go too far,” he scolded lightly, before turning back to York. “Sorry about that,” he said sheepishly. “My sitter bailed last minute so I had to bring him in with me.” A huge inconvenience he knew, but he’d hoped that they could at least go the day without Chris bringing too much attention to himself. The captain had said it was okay only so long as Chris didn’t get in anyone’s way. “He wasn’t getting into trouble, was he?”
“Oh, no, it’s totally okay.” York said, feeling a little bad that he may have gotten the small child into trouble. He waved a hand. “No big deal at all. He was just exploring the place. I just figured I’d return him so he wouldn’t get into any… uh… more trouble.” York motioned for the kid--Chris?--to head back over to Leon’s desk. “...I uh… didn’t realize you were…” What? Dad? Older brother? Cousin? Caregiver? York had no idea.
“Thanks man. I appreciate it.” Leon sighed. He knew that it must have been boring as all hell for the kid to sit at the desk while Leon worked, but he really didn’t know what else he could do with him right now. He’d have to think up some way to reward him for being good at the end of the day. At least he wasn’t tearing around the place like most kids Chris’s age would.
“Taking care of a kid?” Leon asked, raising an eyebrow. “Yeah, it’s a pretty new development. Though if I had to be stuck with any kid, I’m glad it’s Chris.” He shot his brother a smile. “You keep being good and I’ll take you out for ice cream when I’m done work. Maybe I’ll even splurge and buy an ice cream cake or something.” Chris’s face lit up at the prospect, or maybe it was the compliment.
Taking care of a kid. At work. In the Police Department. York totally would have raised an eyebrow, though his was sort of covered in scar. His good one, anyway. The other one didn’t raise the way he liked.
“Ice cream sounds pretty great.” York said, giving the young boy a smile. “Hey, if you’re looking for something for him to do? I’ve got a Chromebook in the IT department that’s not being used. We could probably set up some… I dunno, something educational. Does Sesame Street have a website?”
“Really? That would be-” Leon started. There was a pause as he looked at Chris, who seemed happy enough with the idea. “Great.” He folded up his files, and locked them in his desk drawer. “I can come in and help him get settled. Is Sesame Street even still a thing?” he asked. He wasn’t exactly familiar with kids programming these days.
“C’mon, I’m sure we can find something.” York gave the kid one more smile, then turned to lead the way to the IT department. It was a room about the same size as the smaller conference room, and was mostly filled with storage. Though, York had a desk, and the other IT guys did, too. There were modems and wires everywhere, and spare computer bits and bobbles.
York moved over to an empty cubicle, and cleared away some space at the desk. Then he pulled up a rolley chair. “Here you go, kid.” He found a laptop (way better than a Chromebook) and booted it up. “Maybe PBS? Do they have a website?”
Chris nodded and slid into the seat at the desk. He typed pbskids.org into the search bar, and Leon had to forcefully remind himself that of course his six-year-old brother knew how to navigate the internet. The world had changed, and just because Leon didn’t know how to use the internet very well at that age didn’t mean that Chris shouldn’t.
“You don’t mind him hanging out here for a while?” Leon asked. He didn’t want to impose his kid brother on his colleagues, but even he had to admit that tucked away back here on a computer watching Curious George or whatever he was going to watch was a better solution than the kid wandering bored around a building filled with criminals.
At the sight of the kid typing on the laptop, York gave a little chuckle. Kids these days, man. When York was six, he didn’t even know what a computer was let alone how to get to PBS.org. He turned to look at Leon.
“Sure! I mean, it’s no problem.” Then he realized that Leon was probably talking to the kid and not to him. He cleared his throat. “Uh… the kid and I will be okay, right, Kid? Though, I should probably figure out your name if we’re gonna become best friends.”
Leon was talking to York, since Chris seemed happy enough now that he has a computer in front of him. Even still, Chris nodded at York's question.
“His name’s Chris,” Leon said. “He doesn't really speak, but he listens pretty good. If you need him to move or do something else, he'll listen. Won't you Chris?” Chris turned from the computer and gave his brother a somber nod.
York nodded. “All right. Chris. You got it… bro.” He said, then frowned a little at himself. He didn’t often talk to kids who were older than his toddler-aged-nephew. So this was a new thing for him. “Anyway,” he turned his attention back to Leon. “Just come on by and grab him whenever. We’ll be fine here, so you can get back to work.”
That was a relief. Leon could feel some of the tension release from his shoulders, though that didn’t translate to much in the long scheme of things, given that he still had a lot of tension up there. Still, one less thing to worry about. “Thanks,” he said again. “I really owe you one. Remind me to take you out for beers after work someday.” Obviously not today, since he was stuck with Chris all day, but sometime.
“Sounds great.” York said. Really, it was his pleasure. He liked kids. This would be good practice for when he had to watch Roger someday. He gave Leon a little wave, then got back to work himself, keeping an eye on Chris all the while.