Leon Orcot (under_arrest) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2015-04-28 20:04:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !complete, leon orcot |
Who: Chris (NPC) and Leon Orcot
What: Leon talks about their mother.
When: Backdated to mid-April
Where: Leon's apartment
Warnings: Talk about a deseased parent, otherwise none.
Status: Complete
Leon had not had an easy day at work. It was his first day back after he had taken a week off of work to help Chris move in, and he had had to draw his weapon on a suspect. Luckily, no one had been harmed, but Leon always got pretty stressed out with that aspect of his job. And so, he had come on, turned on the game, and was trying to relax with a nice, cold beer. Chris was in Leon’s bedroom, where Chris had been sleeping for the last week (Leon had been sleeping on the couch. Maybe he should invest in a hide-a-bed and repossess his bedroom), drawing or something.
It was a little hard to concentrate on the game, but he didn’t notice how lost in thought he had been until something touched his elbow. He jerked his arm away violently, and turned to Chris, who looked mortified. Before he could say anything, Chris ran away from Leon, and slammed the bedroom door behind him. For a minute, he sat on the couch and slumped over, elbows on his knees, cradling his head. How was he supposed to do this? Go to work, pull a gun on a guy who might have had kids himself, and then come home to take care of his little brother. It didn’t seem possible. Still, Orcot’s weren’t quitters. They were stubborn, and didn’t back down until they got what the wanted. And what right now what Leon wanted was to be a good older brother and guardian to Christopher. He took a deep breath.
“Chris?” he called, setting down his beer and getting up. He walked over to the bedroom door, and tried the handle. Of course Chris had locked it behind him. “Chris? What’s the matter? Open the door.”
The last thing he had expected were the next words out of Chris’ mouth.
“I knew it. You hate me. You hate me for killing Mom.”
It felt like punched Leon in the gut, and he could feel an icy sort of queasiness settle in the bottom of his stomach. “What? That’s the dumbest thing I’ve heard all day. Open the door.” He hadn’t intended to sound as angry as he did, but the words were already out, so there was nothing he could do about it now. When Chris didn’t open the door, Leon rolled his eyes. “Open the door, Chris. I’m a cop; I can break it down if I want to.” He didn’t want to. Doors were probably expensive, and he’d likely lose his damage deposit.
There was a moment that seemed to drag on before Leon heard the lock on the door click, and Chris opened it. The kid was still crying, and that made Leon feel pretty bad about losing his temper.
“Chris. Buddy,” he said in a softer tone of voice. He walked into his bedroom and sat on his bed. “Come here. Of course I don’t hate you. What would ever make you say that?”
“Sam said that everyone hated me. She said that I was evil, and that I killed Mom.”
“Well, Sam doesn’t know what the fuck she’s talking about,” Leon snapped. Maybe Leon shouldn’t be this angry at his twelve-year-old cousin. Puberty was kind of a bitch. He had known that she and Chris had gotten into an argument, and that she had told him that he had killed his mother and was adopted, but he hadn’t known the other mean things she had said to him. “You’re my little brother, and I love you. Come ‘ere.” He pulled Chris into a hug. After a moment, Chris returned the hug.
He let them continue hugging for a few moments, before he release Chris, and stood up. He had a photo of himself at seventeen and their mother on the top of his dresser. It was too high up for Chris to have seen it himself, so he pulled down the picture frame and handed it to Chris.
“That’s our mother,” he said. “Listen, bud, I was pretty angry when she died." He had been angry when she had found out she was pregnant. He had been used to being the only one. And he had been angry when she had left him. "But I was never angry at you, and I’m not angry about it now.
“Mom had had health problems for a while before she became pregnant with you. And she was over fifty years old. She knew there would be complications if she went through with the pregnancy, and she knew that there was a chance that she might die. But she didn’t care. A lot of us tried to talk her out of it, but she wouldn’t. More than anything else, she wanted you to live.”
Chris hadn’t taken his eyes off the photograph. He wondered if he was even listening. “You understand?”
At the question, Chris turned toward Leon, looking like he was about to cry again. “So you see, you didn’t kill her. She just… wasn’t healthy. But she made her choice, and her choice was to give birth to you. So don’t you listen to your stupid sister.”
Chris burst into tears again, but Leon thought he saw a look of relief in his brother’s face. He pulled the kid into him, one arm wrapped around the boy’s shoulders, and let Chris cry into his chest for a while. How the hell had he ended up with such a cry baby as his little brother?