Who: Leon, Liv, and Sharon When: Late October Where: Police station What: Sharon mistakes Liv for Leon's girlfriend Rating/Warning: Low/None Status: Complete
While Leon didn’t eat much in the way of doughnuts himself (he really didn’t have much of a sweet tooth), he still went and got doughnuts for the guys at the precinct on a fairly regular basis. It had been by coincidence that he’d run into Sharon, but he managed to convince her to swing by and say hello to some of her old co-workers. Leon knew she had problems with some of them, but not all of them were bad, and he had a few people ask after her often enough that he thought that her coming by wouldn’t be such a bad idea.
He hadn’t been expecting her, but he wasn’t surprised to see Liv at his desk when he walked in, box of doughnuts in hand. After all, they were working on a case together, and Liv tended to get more involved than most MEs. Probably because she tended to play a more active role in solving things than most MEs.
“Morning, Liv. Doughnut?” he offered, before remembering that Liv wasn’t likely to eat a doughnut without first slathering it in hot sauce. He frowned deeply to himself once he realized the faux pas.
Leon never seemed to be at his desk when Liv had her visions. Oh well, she’d just wait for him here. Luckily she hadn’t been waiting long when he walked in. With doughnuts no less. Not that Liv wanted one, she had just had some brains in the morgue. Plus she could only taste spice. Still Leon had done a good thing and he deserved a cheer for that.
“L-E-O-N! Who gets the best doughnuts? Leon!” she clapped happily not even noticing he had his friend with him. “I just ate,” she added in answer to his question.
Sharon didn’t hate everyone in the department. And, actually, the ‘good old guys’ she’d had problems with had all retired. Some of the guys kept asking her to come back, but she was pretty happy working with Peggy at the Agency. Visiting was nice, though. And she still worked with these guys occasionally on cases. So that was good. No bridges burned here. At least, not irreparable ones.
She followed Leon through the precinct, and paused when she saw a very pale, young woman at Leon’s desk. So… was this the girlfriend? She was not at all what Sharon had been expecting. And the… cheer? Was that a cheer? She raised an eyebrow at Leon. A cheerleader? She must be even younger than she looked.
No matter, though. Sharon didn’t judge. She offered the other woman her hand. “I’m Sharon. It’s so nice to finally meet you.”
Leon wasn’t sure whether to be embarrassed or pleased by the cheer when he walked in. On the one hand, it was nice to have the things you did acknowledged. Everyone needed a little ego boost once in awhile. On the other hand, it was just doughnuts, and really, he’d much rather have him cheer him on after he did something important like solve a murder. Both of those emotions were tinged by a faint twinge of queasiness when she mentioned that she’d just eaten. He’d known about her brain food diet for months, but it still wasn’t quite something he could bring himself to wholeheartedly support.
“Oh, right,” Leon said, putting down the box of doughnuts. “I guess you guys wouldn’t have met.” Sharon was long gone by the time that Liv had started up with the police department, and while Leon did see Liv outside of work, it was usually just for after work beers or going over a case.
Finally meet her? Liv was a little confused by that. Did Leon talk about her or something? Well she supposed she talked about him sometimes to. As the detective she worked with who failed at getting better security in the morgue. Liv brushed past the comment and went to shake the woman’s hand. “Liv,” she replied a large smile on her face. “How do you know Leon?” she knew this wasn’t Leon’s girlfriend. Liv had met her already, and really he didn’t seem the type to have a lot of friends.
“Liv!” Sharon was smiling warmly as she shook the other woman’s hand. They seemed to be getting on swimmingly already! Good thing, too, as Sharon had heard a couple of things about Leon’s Girlfriend that made her pause. (Okay, so maybe she was a little protective of Leon. He was practically her big brother, anyway.) “We worked together once upon a time. That was my desk, right over there.” She turned to point to a desk that was… surprisingly… sitting empty not too far away. “And you two lovebirds met here? No, somewhere else? I can’t remember the story, exactly.”
Leon had taken that very inopportune time to take a sip of the tea he’d brought, and it got caught in his throat as Sharon spoke. He choked, spluttering, and turned to Sharon with widened eyes. “What? No. Liv and I, we’re not…” How Sharon could ever get Revy and Liv mixed up was…
Calming slightly, he thought back to their previous interactions where he’d mentioned Revy, but he couldn’t actually think of a single time that he’d really talked in any real detail about her. Had he even told Sharon her name? It seemed ludicrous that he hadn’t. “Liv’s just my ME,” Leon finished lamely, as if that wasn’t a bizarre statement in and of itself. Cops didn’t usually have their own personal Medical Examiners, after all.
Lovebirds? What. The. Fuck.
If Liv had been drinking at that moment she probably would have spit it out at the comment. Thankfully Leon reacted first and cleared things up. But then Liv was distracted by Leon’s description of her. First of all she wasn’t technically his ME. She worked with other detectives, just with Leon the most. And he was her favorite. But she also wasn’t just his ME either. They were friends too. At least Liv thought so.
“I’m not just his ME,” Liv clarified. “But I’m definitely not dating him either.” She had met Leon’s girlfriend. Liv liked her. Leon needed someone to talk some sense into him after all. And Liv, well she had Lowell. The thought of dating Leon had never even entered her mind. Even when she was giving him that lap dance. “I’m totes his bestie too.”
Sharon was a bit startled by Leon’s coughing and spluttering. She raised both eyebrows, and then realized her mistake. “Oh, sorry, I guess I just thought…” But there really wasn’t much reason for her to think it, was there? Just further proof of what assuming does to both one and the person to whom one was speaking. She gave a little laugh, then apologised to both of them. “Sorry. Sorry, I didn’t mean to assume. It’s still nice to meet, you, Liv, even if you’re not who I mistook you for.”
Leon sighed, rubbing the side of his head. It suddenly occurred to him that he should probably introduce Revy to his other friends at some point. Out of all of them, Revy had only ever met Liv, and he had the impression that Revy had wanted to meet Liv for the brain-eating of it all more than anything else. It was some comfort to realize that, apart from Henry, he hadn’t really met many of Revy’s friends either.
Though that brought up the question of how everyone would like her. She could be grating sometimes - it had taken Leon a while to get a point where he didn’t frown every time he saw her - but she’d been less violent lately, so that had to count for something.
“Maybe sometime I ought to invite everyone over for some poker so you can get to know Revy,” Leon said, mostly to Sharon though he included Liv in the invitation. He knew he had mentioned Revy to Sharon once, after she and he had ended up pointing guns at one another at the end of their first date over a year ago, but he was kind of hoping she’d forgotten all about that.
“I’ll pass on the poker night,” Liv replied to Leon. “Unless you know something changes.” Hopefully Leon got the hint. With the brain she was on right now poker didn’t sound at all appealing to her and she already knew Revy so she was good on that front.
Liv turned her attention back to Sharon. “It’s super nice to meet you too. I didn’t even know Leon had other friends.” Wasn’t his life just work and drinking? It’s what she had always thought at least.
“Poker sounds like fun. I’m in.” Sharon had attended her fair share of poker nights, complete with scotch and cigars. Mostly when she was undercover, but she could absolutely jump into a game or two. She had an excellent poker face. It probably came with the territory. She’d been trained for deception both in the real world and in her Dreams. That wasn’t to say she always won, though. Sometimes losing was just as powerful as winning in the right circumstances.
“There’s a couple of us, I think,” Sharon grinned over at Leon, then back to Liv. It was a relief to know that the department was changing--it wasn’t the Good Ole’ Boys Club anymore. And that Leon had people to watch his back. “We try to keep him sane when the world goes crazy. I’m glad he’s got friends in the force, too--people he can see at work to do the same.”
Leon did get the hint, and he made a note to make it after Liv got off the delusional brains she was currently on. He had to admire her dedication to literally making herself crazy for the job.
“Of course I have other friends,” Leon grumbled, and ran a hand through his hair. Keeping his work life and his personal life separate had always been something he’d been very good at, but it seemed lately like that line had become blurred. He wondered if that was entirely a good thing, especially when he was involved with an ex-con. “But great. Poker. I’ll figure out when’s good and I’ll set something up. And then Liv here can see that I’m a popular kind of guy.”