Leon Orcot (under_arrest) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2015-10-30 15:40:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, !partner thread, henry townshend, leon orcot |
Who: Leon and Henry
What: Leon (accidentally) gives Henry a bloody nose
Where: Costa Mesa's new Crater Park
When: Recently.
Warnings/Status: Language, bloody noses. Low all in all.
Status: Complete | Partner Thread
One of Henry’s favorite places to go was the park. A wide open space like he’d gotten used to in Arizona, but with lush green grass and tall trees with branches full of leaves like he’d grown up with in Maine. This park had recently acquired a new and odd feature: a crater in the middle near a kiddy playground.
Henry had seen the news and at the time had been willing to accept what Anchorwoman Lois Lane had said. It had been an explosion caused by a mentally unstable woman. There had been no further news reports after that to say otherwise. Now, though, Henry wasn’t so sure. He had no idea what could have caused the explosion, but he doubted that they had heard the entire story. Not after the things he was starting to learn.
So he decided maybe he’d take a look at the crater himself. He wasn’t expecting to find anything, really. If nothing else, he’d be able to get a few interesting photos.
The chick Leon had arrested in this park kind of got under his skin. Who the hell cared enough about a pair of sparkly shoes worn that they’d keep hounding him about them? It wasn’t like it was his fault that some homeless man had stolen them from her when she was passed out (drunk, maybe?) in the park. If some raving homeless man was wandering around in his shoes, he’d probably just let the poor sap keep them. Especially with all the gross foot fungus the guy was probably sporting.
Still, he’d told her he’d keep an eye out for her shoes, and he kept his promises. If the guy frequented this park, Leon would probably see him again. In the meantime, it was a pretty good chance to practice shooting some hoops. He shot for the basket, hit the rim, and then watched in growing horror as the ball went heading toward some guy with an expensive looking camera. “Head’s up!” he cried.
Henry heard someone called out and turned just in time to get clocked right in the face. He hadn’t even had time to see what it was that had hit him, much less identify it. Now the only thing Henry was seeing was stars.
The fuck?!
He staggered backwards a couple of paces and kept a solid grip on his camera, which was, for the moment, his only anchor as the world around him was nothing but white and blue splotches. Somewhere from the back of his jostled brain a thought came to him that he shouldn’t take any more steps. Somewhere near him was a crater he didn’t want to go tumbling into.
It took a moment or two of shaking his head before the bright flashes of color faded. With the world once again as it should be, Henry put a hand to his head and glanced around for whatever it was that had hit him. A bird? A frisbee? Or maybe that basketball a few feet away in the grass. Something warm and sticky touched the top of his lips. A quick swipe at the space between his nose and mouth came away with blood on his finger tips.
“Oh, great.”
Watching people get hit in the face with balls would never not be funny, though to his credit Leon managed not to laugh. He did feel pretty damn guilty about it. “Oh shit,” he said, and ran over to the poor guy. As he got closer he realized that the guy was bleeding, and then felt even guiltier. “Are you okay?” he asked, trying to remember if he had any napkins or tissues in his car.
Henry looked up from the blood on his fingers at the man running over to him. A wave of embarrassment worked its way up towards his face. He gave the man an awkward laugh and a shrug. “Yeah, I’m fine,” he said, pressing the back of his hand to his face. He shrugged his camera bag off his shoulder. He had to have something in there to clean himself up with. Maybe? Maybe a couple of napkins. If worse came to worse, he knew he had note paper in there. That’d work in a pinch.
However, Henry found that with one hand holding his precious camera and the other trying to keep blood from running down his face, he had run out of hands to unzip his bag with. He looked up at the man who had come running over to him. “Uh, heh,” more embarrassment, “can you, uh, do me a favor and open my bag for me, please?”
“Yeah, no problem,” Leon said, and squatted down next to the bag. “It might be easier if you just handed me the camera though.” Leon didn’t really expect him too, though he thought he’d throw the suggestion out there. People who had fancy cameras like that instead of using their phone like a normal human being tended to be attached to them and some of them seemed just as hesitant to hand them over as Leon would be his gun. He opened the bag, and then looked up at the poor sap who he’d given a bloody nose. He really hoped he hadn’t broken it or something. “I’m guessing I’m looking for some tissues or something?”
The only way Henry was releasing his camera was if he lost enough blood through his nose to pass out. He’d much rather have a complete stranger rifle through his bag then hand over his prized possession. “Nah, tha’s ok. Ah gob id.” Henry told him. He had his head tilted back now, pinching his nose closed. “Shoulb be some napkins in there, Ah think. If not jus’ gib me a few pieces of paper.”
The only thing being accomplished by Henry pinching his nose closed was the lower half of his face getting messy. He could feel blood seeping through his slippery fingers and down over his chin. Grooooossss. He took a partial step back so he wouldn’t accidentally drip on his good Samaritan.
Fortunately for both Henry and Leon, there was a fistful of napkins from a local fast food venue tucked in one of the bag’s inside pockets, possibly acquired on Henry’s way home from the last time he’d been at a park taking pictures.
Leon wasn’t uncomfortable with digging through a stranger’s bag. He’d doneLeon wasn't uncomfortable with digging through a stranger's bag. He'd done it more times than he could count for his job, and so there was no hesitation as he dug through Henry's bag, though there was a carefulness to his digging around, not blindly reaching into pockets so that he didn’t stab himself on any hidden needles or blades. It didn’t take long for him to find the napkins, and he pulled them out with a “aha!”
“Here,” he said, holding out the napkins. “Leaning forward a bit’s better for a nose bleed than tilting your head back, by the way.”
There was a swiss army knife in one of the pockets, something Henry kept with him for Just In Case scenarios, but had never actually used. Other than that, the most dangerous thing Leon was apt to find in Henry’s bag was a roll of film.
“Yeah,” Henry answered as He took a few of the napkins from Leon. “Tryin’ not to bleed all ober eberything.” Everything being his shirt and Leon. He used the napkins to pinch his nose closed and now with something there to absorb the blood, Henry leaned forward. Fortunately, by this point the bleeding was starting to lesson to the point where Henry only had dab at his nose. “Thanks for your help.” He offered the other man a sheepish kind of smile, “I should really pay more attention, though, right? I was gonna take a couple of pictures of that,” he pointed towards the crater.
Ugh! His hands were disgusting! Henry looked around hoping to find something he could wash his hands in.
Leon knew that bloody noses were rarely as bad as they looked, but with the blood running down his face and over his hands he looked like he had lost a fight with Hoppy the Kangaroo. “There’s a public bathroom just over on the other side of the park,” Leon said. “I’ll walk you there. Why on earth would you want to take a picture of a giant hole?”
Napkins still pressed to his nose, Henry looked at Leon oddly. “Why not?” he asked. “It’s not everyday that there are random explosions in the middle of the park in broad daylight.” He did not say that he thought there was more to the hole (or what had caused it) than met the eye. It was one thing for Henry to accept that the people from the network weren’t as crazy as he had first thought they were. It was another thing altogether to be considered crazy along with them. “I’m a photographer,” he said instead with a shrug. “It’s kind of what I do.”
He looked at Leon a little more carefully. It took a moment or two before Henry recognized him. “You’re the cop that was here when it happened, right?” He blurted before he had a chance to stop himself.
“You’d be surprised,” Leon muttered to himself, though loud enough for Henry to hear him. Maybe people didn’t explode parks on a daily basis, but with the Network around it really wasn’t as rare as someone might think. He began to walk toward the public bathroom.
He scowled when Henry recognized him, but at least it wasn’t the instant recognition he got when the video was still popular. There went the undercover career Leon had never actually considered. With a sigh, he realized that he was just going to have to accept that people were going to recognize him for a while, and he ran his hand through his hair. “Yeah, that’s me. Name’s Leon.”
One usually gave their name in response when someone introduced themselves, but Henry was looking at Leon strangely, his brows furrowed together under shaggy light brown hair. “What do you mean?” He asked, and then followed that up with: “what do you mean ‘you’d be surprised’?” He’d stopped walking at this point, the blood on his hands temporarily forgotten in his own curiosity. He narrowed his eyes carefully at this guy, Leon.
“Do you know what happened here?” Henry asked carefully. “Do you know what goes on here?” And why? No. Henry shook his head. He wasn’t ready to know why just yet. Just knowing that weird shit happens at random was enough for the time being.
“There’s a lot of things that go on in this county that most people don’t know about,” Leon said. He wasn’t sure if he wanted Henry to ask more about the subject. On one hand, Leon didn’t believe that only people on the Network deserved to know about these things, but on the other hand, he had no idea how to say ‘there’s a bunch of people with magical powers running around but all the information is being repressed by top secret government agency that no one knows about’ without sounding like a grade-a nutjob.
“As for what happened here, a woman blew up the park and got off scot free. More or less what the news said.”
“Like…” Henry started slowly. He felt as though he were a part of some kind of secret club, only without any kind of secret handshake or password that he could use to identify other members. He hesitated just a moment before going on very carefully. “Things like...girls turning into spiders and scaling tall buildings?”
I’m not crazy, I swear. Please don’t arrest me.
Leon looked over at Henry, eyebrows raised a little in surprise. It wasn’t like the Network was huge, it didn’t make any sense that he kept running into people from the Network. Maybe that was another part of the Orange County’s strangeness. “Yeah, like that,” he said after a moment. “You on Valar?”
Oh, thank god!
Henry relaxed a little and nodded his head. “Yeah, I am. Joined about a month ago,” shit, had it only been a month? “At first I didn’t want to believe all this weird shit about dreams and whatever,” a poignant look towards the crater. Then back to Leon. “But when you get shown certain things, it kind of becomes hard to ignore.” Like a wedding aboard a literal spaceship in literal space, for example.
“Henry,” he finally introduced himself going to shake Leon’s hand, but quickly thought better of it when he remembered he was still kind of covered in blood.
“So, uh...the lady that blew up in that hole,” he pointed back the way they’d just come. “How’d she do it?”
Leon had to laugh a little. “I didn’t either, actually,” Leon said. “Not at first. Not until I dreamed of being gifted a cactus and then getting shot and I woke up with both the cactus and the bulletholes.” He still had the scars, though he’d yet to actually be shot while he was awake.
Leon turned back toward the hole as they walked and scowled. “I don’t have any fucking idea,” Leon said. “She had no explosives on her or anything, but she is on the Network so… magic?” He’d tried to come off as sarcastic with that, but it was probably more true than he’d like to admit. The word left a bad taste in his mouth.
Knowing that he wasn’t the first to completely disbelieve what the network was about was something of a comfort, but Henry failed to see what the connection was between being shot and a cactus. Dream gifts were weird. “Why a cactus?”
He stopped walking and looked back towards the crater with a stuffy sniffle. “Magic,” he repeated. It was the first time he’d heard anything about magic associated with Valar, however the realization that magic was somehow involved seemed to make sense. It kind of explained a lot of things. kind of.
“Is that what happens here?” He asked next, turning back towards Leon. “Is it all magic?”
Leon shrugged. “Don’t know. D - that’s this guy in my dreams - gave it to me when I broke up with my girlfriend,” they may have only gone on a couple of dates but Leon was heartbroken nevertheless, “a couple of weeks before I got shot. I don’t understand why these dreams do the things they do though.”
He scowled at the idea that everything was magic, though the scowl ended up leaving his face shortly after. “Who knows,” he said. “I’ve been trying to figure it out, but it doesn’t seem like that high of a priority to some folks.” Like the Agency, apparently. “I’m not sure if it’s all magic, but you hear people boasting about their magic powers now and then. Magic and fucking vampires.” Ugh.
Henry wasn’t all that versed on dating etiquette or the appropriate response to having a buddy be dumped by a girl, but he was pretty sure a cactus wasn’t the best gift to give. Then again, the dude apparently went by a letter of the alphabet, so maybe he was one of those New Age hippie types who knew some kind of symbolism associated with cacti and broken hearts or something like that.
Henry hadn’t really given the situation much thought until Leon had mentioned it, but it really didn’t seem as though the reason behind the dreams was a priority for anyone on the network. They all seemed to just accept it for what it was. Even Revy.
“So no one knows why these dreams happen?” Henry asked. he’d started walking with Leon again, a little anxious to get his hands clean. “Hasn’t anyone tried to...I don’t know...figure it out?”
“If they have, they're keeping tight lipped on the matter.” Which Leon couldn't decide was better or worse than no one trying to figure it out at all. “I’m just a detective, I don't know how all this fucking hocus-pocus mumbo-jumbo works, but I'll do my best to figure it out. You hear anything, you come to me.”
They'd made it to the park bathrooms, and Leon held the door open for Henry so the guy didn't get blood all over the handle.
Henry didn’t enter the bathroom right away. Why would they do that, Henry wondered. If someone knew, why wouldn’t they say? The only reason Henry could think of was because they were responsible for it. That certainly gave him a moment of pause. Henry did not like the idea of someone on the network being responsible and perhaps getting some kind of enjoyment out of watching them all. He thought of the people he’d met from the network: Revy and her guns; Cindy and Garrus and their spaceship and now Leon and his cactus and bullet wounds.
Was this a game for someone? Why would they do this?!
Henry was just a photographer, he probably knew less than Leon did. However, if he could help, he certainly would. He noddd his head emphatically, brown hair falling into amber eyes. “Yeah, of course I will. You got a card or...you rather I contact you on the network?”
Leon’s thoughts had run in the same vein. Whoever was responsible was likely on the Network, gleefully watching the chaos he’d wrought, probably sitting with steepled fingers in a swivel chair with a white Persian cat on his lap, laughing maniacally into the night.
“Yeah, here,” Leon said, propping open the door with his foot as fished his wallet out from his back pocket. He pulled one of his cards out, Leon Orcot, Irvine PD, Homicide Detective, and handed it over. “You can call me at work or contact me on the Network, I’m not too picky. I’m sorry again about the nose.”
Henry took the card carefully, pinching it between the knuckles of his ring and little fingers which had somehow managed to stay somewhat clean. “Yeah, sure,” he said again as he looked at the card. Homicide detective. The network seemed to attract all types it seemed.
He glanced up at Leon again. “What? Oh, right. The basketball. Don’t worry about it. I’ll hang on to this,” Henry indicated the card between his fingers, “and if I see or hear anything, I’ll let you know.”