Who: Leon and Danny What: Leon meets the twin he's never had When: Recentlyish Where: The Drunk Tank Rating/Warning: Low/noneish. Status: Complete
“Hey, Leon, you never told me you have a brother.”
Leon grimaced. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Andrews, the man he’d been partnered with the last couple of months but…
Well, yes, it was that he didn’t like Andews. He especially didn’t like Andrews when he interrupted Leon just as he was about to bite into the bacon cheeseburger he’d just unwrapped.
“Yes, I have,” Leon grumbled, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. He didn’t keep Chris a secret from anyone - hell, he’d brought his kid brother to a number of precinct family events, and had used him on a few occasions to get out of going for drinks with Andrews after their shift.
“Oh, right, Chris is your brother,” Andrews muttered, as if he had forgotten, and Leon swore to god if Andrews followed that up with ‘I thought he was your son,’ he was going to punch him in the face. Even if they were surrounded by cops. Luckily, Andrews said no such thing. “I meant a brother closer to your own age.”
Leon frowned, staring at Andrews as if he had grown a second head. “I don’t.”
“If you’re telling me the guy in the drunk tank right now isn’t your brother, I’ll eat my boot,” Andrews said.
Leon sighed and stood up. If nothing else, he was going to enjoy proving Andrews wrong. After a second’s consideration, he picked up his burger too, and headed toward he drunk tank, munching as he went. He peered through the bars.
“You mean that blond guy?” Leon asked, frowning, his mouth full of burger. “He looks nothing like me.”
Being drunk in public was humiliating enough, but being picked up for it was even worse. To add to the humiliation, Danny wasn’t drunk enough to stop them from coming. They were in the cells, outside the cells, laughing and calling to him and the only way he could tell the difference between them and the living was when the living ignored them or when they walked through a wall.
Danny wasn’t staring at any of the dead, though. He was staring at an older man in the holding cell who was falling asleep on the cold bench. The man had flies all over his face, the mark of someone who would die soon. Heart attack. Liver failure. Maybe both. Danny swallowed and resisted the urge to yell at the cops to let him out.
With his hands behind his back, he couldn’t cover his eyes, so he did the next best thing and turned away, effectively facing the cops who were lingering all around, his brows coming to a knot in the middle of his forehead when he saw a tall man who had what could only be described as his own face. Cleaner and slightly more sober, but that was Danny’s face. Was it another trick?
“You’re joking, right?” Andrews said. “He looks exactly like you.”
Leon frowned, just not seeing it. For one, Leon actually knew how to work a shower, and for another, he was half convinced from the wild look in the guys eyes that he was some kind of tweaker. He couldn’t imagine any other reason he’d be that nervous.
“Hey, Meyer, that guy could be Orcot’s brother, right?” Andrews called over his shoulder to another cop who was passing by.
Meyer glanced into the cell and nodded. “Yeah, you sure your mom didn’t have a secret love child?” Meyers asked, a shit-eating grin plastered across his face.
“Talk about my mom again and I’ll kick your ass,” Leon growled, taking half a step toward Meyer, who quickened his pace as he passed. Andrews laughed, clapped Leon on his shoulder in a way that was probably supposed to be friendly but made Leon grit his teeth, and followed after him.
Finally, Danny stood up, having had enough of this. The other guy might be his twin and might have looked more sober, but what was he doing and why?
“Hey!” Danny called, approaching the bars, his fingers wrapping around them. “That guy in the corner there is gonna die if you don’t do something about him right now!” It would at least get their attention.
Of course as soon as everyone else wandered off, this guy would start talking to him. He grimaced, feeling a little uncomfortable looking at him - it was a little disorienting, despite the fact that Leon refused to believe the looked at all similar.
“He’s just sleeping it off,” Leon muttered, glancing over at the guy on the cot. He didn’t exactly look healthy, but it wasn’t as if everyone who was hauled into the drunk tank was running triathlons in their free time. Besides, if the guy really was about the kick the bucket, someone probably would have noticed before they brought him in here. Wouldn’t they?
“So when he dies in here, what do I tell the press?” Danny threatened, undeterred. It wouldn’t look good to have a cop saying that and ignore someone’s dear old drunken grandfather. Never mind that Danny was staring down his own future and not just the flies he could see that no one else could.
“You can tell the press whatever you want, he’ll be fine,” Leon muttered, but even still, he found himself heading to the desk, threatening the officer behind the counter that he would face swift and merciless punishment if he ate Leon’s burger, and then returned shortly after with the keys.
“Alright, go stand in that corner,” Leon said, gesturing to the corner furthest from the cell door and on the opposite side of the cot.
So they weren’t even going to address the whole twin thing, it looked like. That was fine by Danny. He did as he was told to do, no argument; this wasn’t his first rodeo. The only difference was now...could the officer…
Shine?
The question was only asked to himself, but he tried like hell to see if the officer could hear him. Absurd, maybe, but who cared?
Leon glanced over his shoulder to make sure the blond man was staying put, and then knelt down next to the man on the cot, none the wiser that someone was trying to communicate with him in his head. There was exactly one person whose thoughts he could hear, and it was his little brother, Chris, who hadn’t spoken a word aloud since he’d come to live with Leon two-and-a-half years ago.
“Hey, old man, rise and shine,” Leon said, giving the man’s shoulder a gentle shake. The man’s chest was rising, but he could have been dead for all he was reacting. He shook the man a little rougher, and frowned. He wasn’t seeing the other signs of alcohol poisoning - the man’s breathing was steady, if not shallow, and he didn’t look especially blue in the face - but the fact that he wasn’t even reacting to Leon was a little worrying. “What makes you think this man is dying?” he asked, turning to look at him.
Danny didn’t know whether to be disappointed or frustrated. There was a huge elephant in the room, standing there as pink as could be, dancing with an umbrella wrapped in its trunk and neither of them were saying anything about it.
“Look, just trust me,” Danny said. “Or take a chance,” he added with a shrug as he sat back down. “Your choice.” He wasn’t trying to escape, he just wanted to see the cop up close and now that he’d seen him, his only comment was, “No wonder that doctor looked at me the way he did.”
Leon’s shoulders tensed. He didn’t want to ask, but, well, he really didn’t have a choice anymore. “What doctor?” he asked.
Danny took no real pleasure in saying anything about the doctor, but here they were and he’d already said it so there was no backing out.
“Dr. Alex something,” he said with a laugh. “I’m not even sure he has a last name or I just don’t remember it. He helps my patients when they fall or swallow something and we have to bring them in. He’s told me I look like someone he knows. I’m guessing that’s you.”
Leon didn’t think his shoulders could get any tenser than they already were, and yet here he was. “I guess so,” he said, his voice taut. “You a doctor yourself?” he asked. After all, the man had mentioned something about patients.
“Sometimes they call me Dr. Sleep,” Dan answered, rubbing the back of his neck as his attention went toward the man in the bunk. What good would it do now to try to save him? He’d probably end up dead in the hospital, but at least Dan’s enormously tall twin wouldn’t have to deal with it.
“But I’m just a tech,” he went on. “Still, I have a BLS and I’m telling you he don’t look so good. Alcohol poisoning, maybe, but I think he’s been sick for a while now. I’m not trying to escape, officer, but I’d rather not be in a cell with a dead man.” There were enough of those around here.
“Dr. Sleep, huh?” Leon asked, frowning. Sounded like some sort of creepy name they’d give someone in a horror movie. Still, it was more medical training that Leon had, and even Leon could tell that something didn’t quite look right with this guy. He stood up from where he was kneeling next to the man. “I’ll call it in and get him a transport.”