Henry Townshend is a ghost magnet (room_302) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2015-12-30 17:25:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, henry townshend, revy |
Who: Henry and Revy
what: Henry is trapped in his apartment and Revy blasts him out
Where: Henry's apartment
When: Recently
Rating/Warnings: Low - Violence against doors
Status: Complete!
At first Henry thought he was still dreaming.
He was standing just outside his kitchen, mug of coffee in hand and staring at the front door to his apartment. Just like in his dreams the door was cris-crossed with thick looking chains just like the apartment door in his dreams. “Don’t go out – Walter” was even scrawled in a red substance that Henry had always suspected to be blood under the peephole.
It took Henry a few minutes of standing there and staring before he realized he wasn’t dreaming. The coffee in his mug was too warm and his feet felt too heavy on the floor for this to be a part of his dreams.
Coffee, mug and all, fell from Henry’s hands to the floor. Not paying it any mind, even as he stepped through it barefoot, Henry pulled on the chains and found them to be as secure here as they were in his dreams.
A very frightening and uneasy feeling was starting to overcome Henry, growing from the pit of his stomach and working its way up his throat. Would anyone notice if he was gone? Would he be trapped here forever doomed to actually live out his dreams?!
Henry of this world had something the Henry of the dream world did not. A cell phone. Thank god, that unlike his Dreams, he was allowed to make a call out. All he needed now was for Revy to be awake and answer her cell.
“Revy?” Henry was fighting to keep his voice calm because he did not want to be trapped here. “Revy it’s Henry. There’s…there are chains on my door.”
Revy actually wasn’t awake. Fuck that, there wasn’t work this morning, she drank the night before and had all intentions of sleeping and eating an entire pie of pizza in bed (she lived a blessed bachelorette life), so why the hell would she be? But along with the phone’s ringing came the phone’s ungodly vibration against the surface of the nightstand. Which was somehow louder than the actual ring tone, no idea the fuck how. It woke the beast from her slumber. She even contemplated tossing it across the room.
Until she saw who it was, anyway. Henry, you little shit- “What,” was her deadpanned, groggy response.
Then there was that odd sense of alarm in his voice. It sobered her up, blinking away the mist of sleep. Chains. Right, shit, he wouldn’t call her out of the blue if it wasn’t for nothing, and she’d known enough about his dreams to know what the chains meant. He was trapped. “Guessing you tried to break the door down already?” she asked, kicking off the blankets to find the first pair of jeans strewn on her floor. “I’ll be there quick, just stay on the phone with me, got it?”
A bit of relief flooded into Henry’s voice when he heard Revy’s voice. “Yeah,” he answered, but propped his cell phone between his chin and shoulder and took hold of the door’s knob and tried to shove it open with little luck. “The chains are connected to the wall with hooks and everything, just like my dreams.” He took a step back and tried kicking his door anyway, since he hadn’t tried that, yet.
Thump! Thump! Thumb!
The chains rattled loudly, but the door held fast and didn’t even so much as budge.
Henry paused to catch his balance before he fell back, just in time to hear his neighbors in the hall. “Revy. Revy, there’s someone in the hall. Hang on, maybe they can get super or something.” Henry moved the phone from his shoulder and used his other hand to pound on his door, peering through the peephole as he did. “Hey! Hey, I’m locked in! Hello? Can you get the super?” The neighbor, a young woman, didn’t even pause as she walked past, presumably on her way to work. “Hey!” Henry shouted and pounded harder. “Hey!” But as it had been in his dreams, it was as though no one on the other side of his door could even hear him.
Henry backed away from his door. The fear was crawling back into his chest, clutching at his lungs and throat. “She can’t hear me.”
“I can hear you,” Revy reminded, pants slipped on, boots on her feet (tying them was too much of an effort right now), and she snapped open her weapon’s case. There were a couple, but this particular one had her cutlasses - pirate inspired handguns with jolly roger engravings, and she snatched those up with ammo. Keys in her hands and she was ready to go.
Out the door in less than a minute, feeting stomping down the stairs and even jumping to skip the last few. “Just stay where you are, don’t crawl into any random hole you might see in your wall, and talk to me, okay?” In the background he could probably hear the sound of her mustang, rumbling loudly to life. It was early, not a lot of traffic, but she’d pedal it fast. “I’m going to make those fucking chains my bitch.”
For fuck’s sake, this was worse than dream injuries - this was outright creepy, considering the horror-movie nature of Henry’s dreams. She was either going to shoot the chains off or shoot the door and break it down; and she did have enough muscle to do it. Revy was the farthest thing from a lanky delicate flower. Thunder thighs, calves of steel, and her arms didn’t look like they were on steroids but they were all lean muscle and tougher than diamonds. Brute physical force and firepower was the way she’d handle it.
In Henry’s dreams, the hole hadn’t appeared until he’d been trapped in his apartment for a week, but he was still anxiously looking around in case one did happen to spontaneously appear. And he did not dare look in his bathroom, because if one was going to show up he was sure that where it would choose to be. And it would whisper to him, beckon him, draw him to it until he had no choice but to crawl inside like an idiot just to see where it went. And who knew what was waiting for him on the other side? Ghosts, sniffer dogs and death, that’s what.
Henry shuddered and clutched his phone tightly. He shook his head as if to shake off the hole and turned away from the door and its chains so he wouldn’t have to look at them. “Right,” he breathed. “No holes. I won’t go crawling into any holes. I promise.” He was bolstered by the unmistakable sound of a muscle car’s engine in the background on Revy’s end of the line. She really was coming to get him.
Of course she was. That’s what friends did for each other. If Revy had been trapped inside her apartment, of course Henry would come to her rescue. He didn’t have the firepower she did, but he’d throw everything he could at the door until it let her go.
“I owe you all the beer and rum in the world,” Henry was babbling now since Revy had ordered him to keep talking to her. “I’ll wear the Rock Shirt every fucking day until I die, I promise.”
Shit like this was usually returned with some form of compensation, wasn’t it? Money, favors, whatever other shit the person desired - but Revy wanted none of that. It was what friends did, right? Henry was sort of the closest one she had, she was doing this because she wanted to make sure the fucking idiot was okay. “Nice sentiment,” she chuckled huskily, swerving into the less regulated backroads that gave her the freedom to break the speed limit excessively without the interruption of a cop. Worse case scenario she’d suck up to Leon for a favor. “But just stay out of fucking trouble and sit the fuck still.”
With the way she drove it didn’t take long for her to get there, didn’t take long to find the door (all normal looking) that belonged to him. Guns tucked into her jeans, she kept the phone from her ear (didn’t hang up yet) and pounded on the door with a vengeance.
“Hey! Dickcheese! I’m here!”
Henry did as Revy said and perched himself on his coffee table. He didn’t want to look at his door, but at the same time he had to. His eyes moved over the chains, thick and menacing without having to do or be anything other than chains. He knew Revy was coming. She said she was and Henry could hear her car’s engine, the occasional squeal of tire and blaring of horn. Still, there was this nagging feeling of being unable in Henry’s stomach that he couldn’t get rid of, that he simply couldn’t talk himself out of, no mater how much he continued to babble about the ways he was going to make this debt up to her. He was trapped.
When he heard Revy’s on the other side of the door, Henry was on his feet again. “Revy!” He shouted as he rushed the door. His voice, stricken with desperation to just get out of here, was carried through his phone, but couldn’t seem to penetrate the door itself. “Revy! Get me out! Please, get me out!”
Huh. Well, shit, good thing she hadn’t hung up - he was on the phone but it sounded like he wasn’t on the other side of the door. His shouting wouldn’t reach the neighbors, but what she was about to do would. “Listen to me - back away from the door, go to another room if you have to. I’m going to shoot this fucking thing and break it down, and unless you want to get shot, get out of the way.”
Squeezing the mobile between her ear and shoulder, Revy reached for her cutlasses (she didn’t think to bring a silencer, fuck) and with a metallic click, loaded them. This wouldn’t be quiet, this wouldn’t be clean, he’d lose whatever deposit and then some he forked out to even get this place but he’d be out. “Let me know when you’re away from the door. Once you hear it, cover your ears. It’ll be like fucking fireworks.”
Revy could completely obliterate the door and Henry honestly wouldn’t have cared. His security deposit was the last thing on his mind. Hell, he’d be breaking the lease and moving out of this place as soon as fucking possible. After Revy destroyed the door, he was probably going to be evicted anyway. However, Henry had no desire to stay in a place that had trapped him, regardless if it was Orange County magic or not.
Henry backed away from his door to complete other side of his apartment. He could have ducked into the bedroom door next to him, but he wanted to watch. He had to watch to be sure the door, and more importantly the chains, be destroyed just to be sure that it actually worked.
Henry swallowed hard in anticipation. “I’m away from the door,” he reported through his phone. “G-go ahead.”
As she warned, fireworks. The sounds mostly; explosive bangs that made the eardrums throb (she was used to it), no patterns of colorful lights but just the sight of wood splintering - through the hinges to loosen the door, bullets scraping against metallic chains to cause a spark. Revy had been firing both guns at once, shells hitting the ground and surrounding neighbors had stirred and screamed hearing all of that.
It wasn’t until the door was littered in jagged holes and she could see a good bit of the inside that she put away the guns, then resorted to finish it off by strength alone. Backing up a step or two back, she used the power of her legs to kick. And kick. And kick, bashing as much as she could in - and then used her body as a human body ram to throw herself into the goddamn thing. One final push to rip through the doorframe.
Revy had warned that things were going to get loud, but nothing could have prepared Henry for the noise. He threw his hands over his ears at the first round of Bang! Bang! Bang! and ducked behind his couch as his apartment door splintered apart. And there he stayed, hands over his ears and eyes squeezed tightly shut, holding his breath and just listening to the noise of rapid firepower tear through his apartment.
He didn’t dare move or even breathe until the shooting stopped and even then he was motionless for what seemed like forever, but couldn’t have been a fraction of a second before he peered over the top of his couch.
At the other end of the living room his apartment door was absolutely riddled. Large holes, splintered and jagged, gave glimpses into the outside world. The door, what was left of it had already started listing lazily, kept up only by the chains still attached to it and the wall, if just barely. The chains themselves had been pulled loose from the rings that had fastened them to the door itself. It was all a great mess, but Henry could not give any fucks.
In mere moments Revy had forced her way inside the apartment, coming through like some kind of bright shining hero and Henry could breathe again. He was on his feet and across the living room in a shot, pulling her to him in a hug as though to confirm she was real, that she was really there and that he could leave.
“Thank you.”
Bright and shining hero, hah. If he voiced that she’d cackle - later, anyway, when the rush of this bullshit fizzled and Revy was sure the fucktard was actually okay. The phone was dropped somewhere along the action, guns sloppily put away and when Henry practically barrelled into her in some kind of desperate form of comfort, it was instinct to wrap his arms around him too. Tight.
“Hey,” she breathed a sigh of relief. “You - let me fucking look at you.” Revy’s hands clasped his shoulders and she pulled away to give him a good glance over for any damage. Not that he mentioned any but she wanted to make sure, and in the distance they could hear police sirens. Whispers of people outside that have stepped out to view the mess. “You okay? Anything else that’s in this shithole I need to fucking shoot?”
Other than looking pale and deeply shaken, Henry was physically unscathed. He had dropped his phone as well, somewhere behind the couch, during the rapid fire assault on his front door. But neither his phone or hers was even remotely on his mind. He shook his head. “No,” he breathed. “I just want to get out of here.” He stepped away from Revy and quickly grabbed his camera bag - he couldn’t care less about anything else in his apartment. His TV? Sure, his neighbors could fucking help themselves to that or anything else.
A few of those neighbors had already gathered in the hall, one or two peering through the now open doorway, just staring in disbelief and whispering to one another questions and speculation about the quiet neighbor who just had his apartment shot to hell. Shortly the police would arrive and have even more questions and Henry didn’t have the wherewithal or the desire to hang around and answer them.
His livelihood over his shoulder he turned back to Revy. “Can I come with you? I don’t care where you take me, you can dump me at the studio if you want, but I have to get out of here.”
Getting the fuck outta dodge was an astounding plan, especially before the men in in blue barged in and started questioning them. Considering the door was littered in goddamn bullet holes, it’d be a process - but hell, contacting Leon for a favor might not be a bad idea, just to help make sure Henry wasn’t getting tracked down and interrogated for something that wasn’t his fault, with his name being on the lease and all.
Revy didn’t even spare of ‘mind your own fucking business’ bark to the bystanders. Narrowed eyes doing a final sweep around the hellhole - like she was waiting for one of the monsters to crawl out from under his couch, or where the fuck ever - she kept her hand pressed against his back to lead him out. Quick. Into the shitty, banged up mustang so they could speed the hell off. “My place,” she instructed. “You can bum on my couch. I’d like to see chains try and show up on my fucking door.”
She’d gotten her phone on the way out, flipping through her contacts. “I got a friend in the force; he might be able to help keep this on the down low, you good with me contacting him?”
If Leon felt generous enough to help, though she know how much of a hardass he could be with laws and shit. Revy hoped it being an ‘extenuating circumstance because dreams were some serious bullshit’ would convince him to help get the hounds off their ass.
Henry let Revy guide him out of the apartment. He didn’t even so much as look at his neighbors as he passed them let alone attempt to offer them any kind of explanation for what had just happened. Why bother, they wouldn’t have believed it anyway. Besides, Henry would not be returning to the apartment. There was no way his landlord would tolerate having his building shot up. Henry fully expected by this time tomorrow there would be an eviction notice waiting for him. He was going to have to find a new place to live.
But that would be a worry for tomorrow. Henry climbed into the passenger seat of Revy’s mustang and set his camera bag on the floor between his feet. He gave Revy a thankful and relieved look. He couldn’t stay at her place for long, he knew. Eventually there would be more dream bleed-over, more “gifts” left for him and Henry didn’t want to involve Revy too much in his horror story if he could help it. For now, though, Henry knew would be safe at her place.
“You have a friend on the police force?” He asked. That seemed unlike Revy to have, or even want a friend involved in law enforcement. But whatever, having a cop in your pocket probably came in handy from time to time. Especially in a place like this when weird fucking shit could happen at the drop of a goddamn hat. And speaking of which…,
“I know a guy too,” Henry said. “I don’t know if he’d be any help but…” he reached down and pulled Detective Leon Orcot’s card out of one of the front pockets. “I met him while photographing that huge crater at the park last month. He sounded pretty familiar with what goes on around here. Maybe if your guy can’t help, Detective Orcot can take some of the pressure off.”
Most cops weren’t her friends, and she had typically been their worst fucking nightmare back in Chinatown - though there’d been a couple here and there, that were a bit rotten on the side but knew how to play the game and picked their battles. Those fuckers, yeah, she was alright with, especially when they turned the blind eye. That was years ago, and this was a new place and Chang wasn’t around often for that pull he had to get her out of a mess (he had employed her, it was his fucking job).
Leon sort of...well, he sort of fell into her lap and remained a consistent pain in the ass, albeit sometimes tolerable. There was a camaraderie there even if they didn’t see eye to eye often. So when Henry uttered Detective Orcot...
“Of course you know the fucker,” Revy smirked, causing the engine to ruuuuuuuumble to life. The compact vehicle rattled, she switched the gears and vroomed off to the direction of the backway to her place. It’d take longer but it’d keep them off main roads, and there were less traffic lights to go through. “That’s the asshole I was referring to. We sometimes get along.”
A favor would be the official test of whatever friendship they had. And if Leon knew both of them, he’d be more inclined to pull a couple strings.
Henry blinked. Wow, what were the odds? Then again this was Orange County, why shouldn’t he and Revy know the same cop familiar with this shit?
He hoped that Detective Orcot could help them out. He really didn’t want Revy to get into trouble for busting him out of his own apartment. He’d gladly take all responsibility if it came down to it, do whatever jail time, pay whatever fine or damages to the landlord. He didn’t care. Seeing those chains on his apartment door had literally taken the breath right out of his chest. It may have been irrational and anyone on the outside looking in would have thought him to be making a big deal out of nothing, but it was what those chains represented that scared him: complete and total isolation - the ability to see the outside world, but be utterly cut off from it. It was something Henry had struggled with his entire life. But Revy had shown him in a show of sheer firepower that she wasn’t about to let that happen. He wasn’t about to let anything happen to her because of it.
That’s what friends did.
“Thanks again, Revy,” Henry said after a moment or so of listening to the Mustang rumble along. “Really, I mean it.” He looked towards her with a tired, but rueful kind of smile.