Who: Leon and a little Robin Doll What: Leon is hungover and gets suitabley freaked out by a surprise visit Where: Leon's apartment When: Last week Rating: Low Status: Complete!
The little doll made her way up to the apartment of her dear friend Leon Orcot. With her she was tugging along a small bag of chocolates she had procured at a shop she had stopped at along the way. The shop owner had given her such bizarre looks, the doll couldn’t understand it. But at least he had sold her the chocolates.
She also couldn’t understand why everything seemed so big the last few days. She was certain that someone must be dreaming of giants, but what struck her as especially odd was that no one else was reacting to it. Everyone went on as if giant cups of coffee and muffins the size of her head were perfectly normal. It did not dawn at her at all that she was, in fact, a little antique doll.
She peered up at the door to Leon’s apartment. She hoped that Leon was in much better spirits today than he had been the last time she had been at his apartment. It had been her pleasure to help him tidy up the place, but she was a little worried about her friend, which was why she was there that afternoon with a bag of chocolates to share.
She knocked her little hand on the door. “Hello? Leon! Are you home?”
Leon was, in fact, at home, nursing a hangover. He’d spent most of the night before drinking, but luckily it was a day off so now he could spend most of the morning sleeping. At least until he heard Robin at the door.
“Yeah,” he called, swinging his legs off the side of his bed and locating a dusty pair of blue jeans. “Give me a minute!” He pulled the jeans over his boxers, and without bothering to find a shirt to cover his scarred torso, he headed for the door. He ran a hand through his hair in an effort to flatten it and glanced at Bart, who shook his head. Apparently, he hadn’t done a very good job. But it was Robin, and he doubted she’d care if his hair was a little messy.
Bleary-eyed, he opened his apartment door and… saw absolutely nothing. “Robin?” He asked, looking down the hall with a distinctly puzzled look on his face. Was he hallucinating now?
“Good morning, Leon!” Robin’s voice exclaimed happily. The doll only came up to Leon’s mid-shin. When he did not look down at her, she opened her eyes and looked up at him. Couldn’t he see her? She reached out and tugged at his pant leg with her little hand. “I’m right here, Leon,” she told him, a slight frown in her voice. Once she had his attention, her eyes were closed again and that happy smile back in her voice. “Good morning! I brought chocolates!” She held up the bag in front of her for him to see. She opened her eyes again to take in his appearance. The doll’s head tilted to the side, “did you have a rough night?”
Leon stiffened. It took a moment, after hearing Robin’s voice and feeling the tug of her little hands on his jean, before he gathered the nerve to look down. He looked right at the doll, holding a bag of chocolates in her hand and asking him questions as if she wasn’t obviously possessed by Satan or whatever it was that possessed dolls (Leon wasn’t religious, but he couldn’t think of anything else evil enough to do something so terrible).
It was almost instantaneous, the colour leaving Leon’s face as all his blood pooled to his limbs to help him make an escape. Which was actually surprisingly easy. He just had to step back and slam the door in her face.
Well, that was unexpected! The doll stood there staring at the door not at all understanding what had just happened. Was he angry with her? A kind of panic welled up inside the poor little doll as she looked forlornly at the door. She tried to think of anything she may have done or said that would have upset her friend. Perhaps he had decided he didn’t like her ability to sprout extra appendages at will, after all.
The doll would be frowning if it had the ability to do so. Even lacking the facial muscles to express it, she was very upset and it sounded in her voice as she knocked on the door again. “Leon? Leon, what happened? Are you angry with me?” She paused gripping the bag of chocolate very tightly in her little porcelain hand. “Leon, please answer me.”
Leon stood up completely straight, back to the door and palms pressing against it, every muscle tense and ready for flight. “Leon’s not here right now,” Leon called through the door, which was followed almost immediately by a thump as he knocked his head back into it, realizing exactly how stupid that sounded as he said the words.
He had to calm down and look at this rationally. A brief thought flitted across his mind that it was a little funny that he could keep a cool head under gunfire, but some knee-high doll holding chocolates could completely make him lose his cool. He had to think things through rationally. His eyes flicked to the fire escape. He could run down there and then set fire to the building.
If he didn’t know better, he would have sworn that the voice belonged to Robin. It made him uncomfortable to hear her sounding so upset at the other side of the door.
“Why aren’t you letting Robin in, Leon?” Bart asked, settling onto a countertop in the kitchen, just a few feet from the door.
“It’s not her,” Leon snapped, not bothering to keep his voice down as he spoke to his butterfly. “I don’t know why it sounds like her, but this is that goddamn Henry’s fault.” Leon knew he should have burned his damn dream doll when he had the chance. Now it looked like a creepy porcelain Robin and was sitting outside of his door.
“What did you do to Robin?” he called through the door.
Well, now he was just being silly! The doll put her hands on her hips and tapped her little foot in its tiny faux patent leather shoe. “I just saw you!” She exclaimed loud enough to be heard through the door. She tilted her head to the side. Perhaps some new kind of dream bleed over had happened to him again. Oh! Perhaps something terrible was in his apartment - maybe one of those fascinating - and deadly - animals from D’s shop had shown up and he didn’t want to put her in danger! That was very nice of him, but he didn’t have to worry. She could easily trap whatever the terrible thing was in a hold like she had seen herself do in her Dreams.
It had not occurred to the doll yet that while in this artificial little body, she was unable to use the Hana Hana no Mi. She had not exactly tried (which was surprising considered how she had to juggle carrying a coffee cup and muffins the other day from Mellarky). But if a friend was in danger, well, she would do whatever she could to help them!
“Are you alright in there?” She raised her hand to knock again when she heard Leon ask her what she had done with Robin.
Well, that was a strange question. She laughed. “Oh, Leon. It’s me!”
Leon was definitely not okay in there. He wondered if he should leave the door to get his gun for safety’s sake, but while the doll wasn’t trying to break down the door, Leon had the ridiculous feeling that the second his back left the wood, somehow the doll would break down the door and let itself in. It was ridiculous, he had to tell himself, so he took a cautious step away from the door, and then another before turning to face it. It didn’t seem like the doll was going to chainsaw it open or something.
“No you’re not,” Leon called back. And then he frowned. Would people being turned into dolls really be the strangest thing that happened in this county? The most horrifying, maybe, but not the most farfetched. “If you’re really Robin tell me something only she’d know.” Unless this evil doll had somehow… taken her essence and her memories. That was a thing that happened sometimes, wasn’t it?
Why was Leon acting so strangely? Something surely must have happened in his Dreams to make him act so suspicious of her. Ooooo! If she ever met this Count D in person, she would surely let him have it!
“Yes I am!” She called back. However it was clear to her that no matter how hard she insisted, he was not going to believe her. She was simply going to have to do what he asked and prove she was who she said she was. She tapped her little hand against her chin thoughtfully. “Well let me think a moment,” she said. “Oh! Before I met you I did not know who Judas Priest was,” she reminded him. “You had me listen to...oh, what was the name of the song? The one about the vampires? And then you became cross with me when I told you it was about vampires. After that you had me listen to another one of their songs and I found that I really liked them. It’s fantastic traveling music!”
She tilted her head and looked at the door sadly. “Please, Leon. I promise it’s me.”
Well, all of that was true enough. He hesitated, and turned to Bart. “What do you think?” Leon mouthed to him? There was a point in time when asking a butterfly for advice would seem ridiculous to Leon, but that time was before one had become a roommate that Leon could actually converse with on the regular.
Bart shrugged, clearly not very concerned about what it was that Leon decided to do.
“Some help you are,” Leon muttered. Louder, he called to the door “Alright, give me a minute.” Then he ran to his bedroom to get his gun from his bedroom, slipping it into the back of his jeans to hold it in place, and then tossing on a t-shirt he found on the living room floor on his way back to the door. He hesitantly opened the door, glaring down at the little doll. “Alright, spill. How the hell did you get turned into the Bride of Chucky?”
Why did Leon look so angry? The doll looked up at him, though her porcelain face showed no signs of expression, she was confused and it showed in her voice. “What? I don’t understand what you’re talking about. Who is Chucky? I don’t know any Chucky.”
Leon was glaring at her so hard that she was starting to become a little scared. Still clutching the bag containing the chocolates she backed away from the door a few steps. She thought quickly about what he’d asked. Chucky. She honestly did not know any Chuckies or Charleses or even any Charlies. How would she become engaged to someone she didn’t even know?
Hold on...there was a movie….it had come out in the 80’s, hadn’t it? Oh, what was the name of it? About the Doll that came to life and killed a bunch of people. Wasn’t the doll in that movie named Chucky? The little porcelain doll standing in front of Leon was certain she had seen Halloween costumes of the gruesome creature, all cut up and covered with fake wounds and blood.
What a hurtful thing to call her! Bride of Chucky indeed! Now it was her turn to turn a glare up at Leon. Well, glare as well as a doll could glare. There was anger in her lively little glass eyes, however, and hurt in her voice. “You think I’m the monster from that movie?! Leon Orcot, what a terrible thing for you to say! I know I look a little different than usual, but that isn’t any reason to say such mean hurtful things to me!”
“You’re a fucking doll, Robin,” Leon exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air in exasperation. It suddenly occurred to him that with his outburst, he might start attracting curiosity from his neighbours, and the last thing he needed was for them to walk out and see him conversing with a goddamn toy. He stepped to the side. “Get inside before people start talking.”
The doll just stared up at him for a moment. She knew Leon had an aversion to dolls, but that was no reason for him to be so rude! With a small annoyed “hmpf” she marched herself inside the apartment and came to stand in the middle of his living room. “Hello, Bart,” she greeted the butterfly amicably enough. Then she turned around to face Leon, her little hands going on her little doll hips. “What on Earth are you talking about?”
At her greeting, Bart fluttered over and sat on her head. It was so ridiculous, this fully grown man who looked just like his childhood friend but with butterfly wings and antennae, sitting cross legged on the head of a doll who looked adorably (not that Leon would ever, ever describe it like that. He was thinking more along the lines of ‘deceivingly’) disgruntled, that Leon would have laughed if he wasn’t so freaked out about the fact that there was a walking, talking doll in his apartment. He wondered briefly if it had looked like that to D, when Leon would be sitting on the couch sipping tea and one of his damn birds would come and perch in Leon’s hair. Maybe that accounted for the mysterious smile that was always plastered on D’s face.
Since he was still freaked out, his heart hammering in his chest like a woodpecker, he worried instead that this Robin doll might reach up and squish him just by virtue of being evil, and he nodded at Bart as a signal to take off. Bart gave Leon a condescending look that stated he clearly thought Leon was overreacting, but he still took flight and flew off to Leon’s room.
“Do I need to get you a damn mirror?” Leon asked, relaxing slightly now that Bart was out of harm’s way. “You’re barely tall enough to gnaw on my ankles and you’re made of porcelain!”
Robin had always liked Bart the Butterfly. She had always thought it super sweet - if a little weird - for Leon to have such a pet in his apartment. The doll did not seem to mind one iota that the butterfly had landed on her head like a brightly colored bow. In fact, its presence seemed to calm her anger. She was disappointed when it lighted off her head and fluttered into the bedroom.
She watched Bart go before turning her eyes back to Leon. She really did not understand what he was talking about. Oh, sure, everything had grown seemingly over night, people included, but the doll had just accounted that to an Orange County event. She had thought it a bit strange that no one was talking about it, however. Perhaps it had only affected a small handful of people this time. Somehow she either didn’t hear him say she was made of porcelain, or the words simply would not penetrate her ears.
“It's just a dream bleed over, Leon,” she told him. She made her way over to his coffee table to deposit the chocolates. “And I’d say we are lucky this time around. No more weird weather.”
“Dream bleedover?” Leon asked, raising an eyebrow. Well, he supposed there were probably weirder things that had crossed over from the dreams. He relaxed a little, more willing to accept that it actually was Robin inside the small, artificial body, though he was still very much aware of the gun that was pressed up against the small of his back.
“I don’t know if I’d say lucky,” he said. “Do you want any tea or coffee?” He paused. “Can you drink tea or coffee, for that matter?”
“Yes, that’s right,” the doll nodded her head, a near full body movement as her neck wasn’t capable of bending. She was pleased that Leon seemed much more relaxed now that they were in his apartment and not ot in the hall. Perhaps it was just the time of day that had made him so cranky. It was a bit early for house calls. “And I’d say compared to the blood rain we had back in February, that things growing a bit is much better. It’ll pass,” she said with a wave of her hand. “They always do.”
She contemplated his offer of tea or coffee. “Oh, yes, a coffee would be marvelous, thank you.”
“Robin, everything didn’t grow. You shrunk.” Hadn’t he literally just explained to her that she was a child’s plaything? A potentially homicidal child’s plaything? She didn’t seem to get it, and Leon started to get a weird feeling about this.
He frowned when she said she wanted to have a coffee, but he put on a pot for the two of them anyway. He was a little curious about where exactly the coffee would go. Would it just slosh around in any empty torso? Was there a hole where it would come right back out again? Did she have a tiny porcelain intestine and a mini stomach? The last thought send chills through him and he shook his head to get it out of there.
“Did I?” The doll asked. She put her little hand to her chin in thought. “Oh, well, I suppose that does make more sense, doesn’t it? I did wonder why no one else was talking about how everything had suddenly gotten so much larger, or that they themselves were larger. Shrinking makes a bit more sense, doesn’t it?”
With great effort, she climbed up onto his couch to wait for the pot to boil. “How are you, Leon?” She asked. “You look as though you’ve had a terrible night. Is everything alright?”
“As much sense as anything else here,” he muttered to himself.
As he waited for the coffee to percolate, he made his way over to the couch and sat down on the edge of the seat so as to not jostle the gun there. “I’m just hungover,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose, and he glanced over at Robin. “And I’m not going to lie. You’re kind of fucking freaking me out right now. What the hell are you even dreaming about?”
The little doll turned her head to look at Leon when he joined her on the couch. Those little glass eyes seemed to take on a look of concern. “I’m sorry you’re not feeling well,” she said with genuine friendly concern in her voice. “Have you tried eating anything yet? I’ve heard some people do well with a hangover by having a greasy breakfast. I’m not sure how true that is, I tend to sleep through my hangovers. Have you taken any ibuprofin or Tylenol yet? I certainly didn’t mean to scare you and I’m sorry that I did. I had no idea that my current state would alarm you so much. I should have called first, I’m sorry.” Not that the doll had access to a phone, but she didn’t seem to realize that.
“What have I been dreaming about? Well, the usual, I suppose. We’re back out at sea, my crew and I, aboard our new ship. We got the shipwright from Water 7 to join us.” She laughed lightly at the thought of how Luffy had offered the position to Franky. It had been a bit mean, but really, the man couldn’t continue to stay at Water 7 with a bounty on his head! He’d already avoided being executed once, it would have been terrible if he was captured again! Franky’s friends had been so desperate for him to leave and be safe with the Straw Hat Pirates. And perhaps Robin had been a little...forceful...when she had helped Luffy persuade the man, but really, there were times that the only way you could get through to someone was to literally grab them by the balls.
She decided not to tell Leon that part. The poor detective was frazzled enough. Perhaps later when he was in a better mood to laugh.
“I think you would like Franky,” she went on. “He’s a little flamboyant...I mean showy, not light in the loafers, if you understand. And he’s very intelligent and talented when it comes to building. He built our new ship, The Thousand Sunny, in a single week and, oh, Leon, I wish you could see her. She is amazing! There is grass on the upper deck and an aquarium where we can keep the fish we catch before eating them and there is an absolutely magnificent library. Franky even created a way for the ship to fly over short distances using what he calls a coup de burst.” If only there was a way for her to show Leon what the ship looked like. It was so happy and cheery, she was sure it’d lift his spirits right up.
“After we left Water 7, we sailed for a bit and somehow ended up in the Florian Triangle, which is a little bit like the Bermuda Triangle here. Ships disappear in it all the time. A very heavy and thick fog surrounded us. Eventually we came across what we thought was a ghost ship! There was humming coming from onboard and, I do not mind telling you that it was very creepy. Of course Luffy wanted to investigate and he, Nami and Sanji went to have a look. What they found was truly amazing! A living skeleton! A very gentlemanly living skeleton! You see he ate the Yomi Yomi no Mi while he was alive. When he died the Yomi Yomi no Mi brought his soul back to his body, only he got lost and by the time he reached his body he was only a skeleton, the poor man.”
“No, I haven’t eaten yet,” Leon snapped. “You woke me up.” Logically he knew there was no way she’d assumed she’d woken him, especially since he normally woke up at the crack of dawn every morning, but he was still annoyed.
“That does sound like a nice ship,” Leon said. He thought of D’s flying ship. No grass on deck, but he wouldn’t be surprised if inside consisted of aquariums and rolling grassy plains, though he had no idea how D managed it.
But her story didn’t really explain the whole turning into a doll aspect of things. The idea of a living skeleton sent a rather violent shiver through Leon. He was glad as fuck he didn’t have to deal with talking undead skeletons, no matter how gentlemanly they were. Especially since the gentlemanly skeleton seemed like the most obvious choice for having turned Robin into a living doll.
Hearing Robin yammering on about her dreams did do more for helping Leon relax though, and he got up to pour them both some coffee once it was finished brewing. It didn’t seem likely that someone so chatty could really be looking to murder him in his sleep. “That doesn’t really explain all of this,” Leon said, returning to the couch with two mugs of steaming hot coffee. “Do you know if there’s a way to get you back to normal?”
“Perhaps the bleed over is not from my dream, then,” the doll said simply. “I’m sure someone somewhere is dreaming of shrinking.” She tilted her head in that very classic Robin way when she was thinking. “To be honest, I hadn’t really thought about finding a way to go back to normal. These things usually have a way of sorting themselves out, don’t they? I’ll probably be back to my own height soon enough.” The doll laughed lightly. “Though, I have to admit, it’s taken some getting used to, being this height. I’ve met a few magic users on the network, perhaps they would know?”
There was something … off, Leon thought as he placed one of the cups of coffee in front of Robin and cradled the other between his hands, eyeing her. He couldn’t place his finger on it, not at first, but his gut was telling him that something was wrong. Oh sure, he mannerisms were similar - the way she tilted her head to the side, her cheerful countenance, her memories. But Robin had never seemed obtuse enough to think that someone’s dreams would turn her - and only her - into a fancy children’s toy. And she didn’t seem concerned at all about becoming flesh and blood again. The big events, the ones that affected most people on the Network - they seemed to only last a couple of days. But he knew that some people had gone through physical changes on the Network and still had yet to return to normal.
“Yeah, maybe they would,” Leon said, his earlier hatred of magic disappearing along with the pain in his leg. “And you haven’t tried calling them yet? To come… get a load of whatever this is?” He reached for the chocolates that Robin had brought him, opening the bag and popping one of the treats into his mouth. He didn’t have much of a sweet tooth and was much fonder of eggs, hashbrowns, and a pile of bacon for breakfast, but he was hungry and hungover and really just wanted something in his stomach without all the fuss of cooking it.
The little doll reached for the coffee mug set in front of her. It seemed to take a great deal of concentration for her to lift it with her stiff little porcelain hands, but she managed and brought the mug up for a sip. When she placed it down, however, it didn’t seem as though she’d drank any at all. Just as a doll at a tea party wouldn’t have actually been able to drink.
“Oh, no,” the doll shook her head. “I didn’t think it was necessary. These things tend to work themselves out over time.” She looked up at Leon then tilted her head slightly in thought. “It has been a little while, though,” she admitted. “Perhaps I will notify someone to come and look. Perhaps this particular bleed through requires magic to be reversed. I’ll give it some thought.”
Leon looked at the cup of coffee, then at Robin, a little confused and feeling a little unnerved again. Deciding this was really the kind of thing that needed alcohol to go down, he reached to the side of the couch and grabbed the whiskey bottle he kept there, adding a generous helping to his mug. “Yeah, you should probably do that,” Leon said. In the meantime, there wasn’t much more anyone could do about the situation. “Thanks for the chocolate.”