Who: Leon and Joe When: Purge Tower day of the Great Destroyers Plot (September 29th) Where: Out and about What: Meeting during the mercenary invasion while they're both under the Purge Tower's influence Ratings/Warning: Swearing, fighting, blood. Status: Complete
Leon wasn’t entirely sure what was going on, but he was almost beginning to accept that there was more to the county that he’d grown up in than he ever realized. And it wasn’t just the weirdos in the strange armour that were invading. It was the skeletons the month before, and the guy who’d magically teleported into his apartment.
Leon didn’t really get what was going on, but he knew that he had to do something. It was his job to protect people, and that was exactly what he was going to do. He’d been guiding people toward a shelter, when he saw someone who seemed to be more on their own, not far from a pack of the invaders. It only took him a moment to recognize Joe, and he rushed over. “Hey man, what are you doing? You should get inside,” he said.
Joe Hardy was quite literally on his last nerve. Orange County’s new event of Dream stupidity may have started out interesting, what with new towers appearing every day to loom over some random city and cause all kinds of confusion. And fighting the nameless legions of mercenaries had been a good way to get out some aggression. But Joe’d had his fill when he’d literally been sucked into one of the temples and made to believe that his brother had been murdered right in front of him only to find out later that he was being tested by…something and spat back out into the county sporting a brand new injury to his shoulder, which had been given to him by…Joe didn’t even know. A fabrication? A figment of his own imagination?
The injury was real enough, though -- a stab wound straight through his shoulder. And it hurt like hell. But Joe was in no mood to go to the hospital. He hadn’t even given the injury itself any thought this morning. Right now all he wanted to do was punch things. Punch them until they didn’t stand up anymore. Punch them until they ceased to exist.
“What am I doing?” Joe snapped before his mind had processed the blond man in front of him as Leon Orcot of the Irvine Police Department. “The fuck does it look like?” He brandished the purple alien gun he’d found a few days earlier. Complete with green spikes coming out of the top and it shot green energy blasts or something. Joe neither knew or cared. “I’m standing my ground! What are you doing?!”
“It looks like you’re about to get yourself killed,” Leon snapped back. He’d had it up to here with this week. First he’d kissed Veronica for god knows what reason, then he’d accidentally shot Alecto because she was dumb enough to appear in a police station with something that sounded suspiciously like a gun shot, and now here he was. Arguing with a mechanic with a death wish. “Listen, I’m getting all the civilians off the street so we can do our job. You can go join them now, or I can arrest you and stick you in a cell until all this blows over. Your choice.”
“You’re gonna arrest me?” Joe demanded. “For what?! I’m not in your way. If anything I’m helping you!” With that said, he leveled his new found alien weapon over Leon’s shoulder and shot the mercenary that had been running up from behind right in the stupid black helmet. The green blast went right buy Leon, perhaps a little closer than was necessary to get the shot, but wouldn’t have actually hit Leon. The blast connected with its target with enough force to send it sprawling backwards with a ”Hurk! Blagh!” If it wasn’t for the fact that these were manifestations of someone’s really fucked up intense Dreams, Joe might have felt bad. Might have.
The recoil of the gun made him wince when it wrenched his injured shoulder, but he wasn’t going to let it stop him. The pain motivated him, kept his mind on what was going on around and in front of him and not on what he’d experienced the day before.
Joe’s eyes moved from the dead mercenary back to Leon. “If you’re gonna arrest me, go ahead and try. Otherwise leave me alone.”
Leon’s eyes narrowed, ignoring the ‘Hurk! Blargh!’ behind him. “You asked for it,” Leon growled, stepping forward at the same time as he pulled his handcuffs from his duty rig. It was for Joe’s own good - if the idiot couldn’t see that he was going to get himself killed out here then that was his own fault. Besides, it sure would feel good to arrest Joe after he pulled that move on him. For a moment, Leon really had been worried that Joe was going to shoot him with his fucking laser gun.
Joe would have laughed if it wasn’t for the fact that Leon had actually pulled out his handcuffs. The fuck?!
And yeah, Joe had technically asked for it, but seriously?! “Are you out of your goddamn mind?!” Joe demanded. “Get off!” He jerked his arm away from Leon. His shoulder screamed in pain which made Joe wince and reach for the wound. He seethed through his teeth willing the sharpness of the pain dull back into a more manageable throb.
He didn’t have any business being out there with an injury like this. He really didn’t. He knew that. The knowledge, however, was buried so deep under layers of complex violent anger and guilt that as things stood now it would never see the light of day. “In case you haven’t noticed, Orcot,” Joe growled back, “the county’s been overrun by these assholes in black,” he made a vague gesture to the dead mercenary behind Leon. “I think you guys need all the help you can fucking get.”
Leon hadn’t even noticed Joe’s injured shoulder until he brought attention to it. That settled it. This fucking idiot was getting off the street before he went and got himself killed. No doubt Leon would somehow end up taking the blame if he did do that.
“Yeah, you can help me by coming quietly,” he said, reaching for Joe’s injured arm again. Giving it a good wrench would no doubt show Joe that, not only was Leon in charge here, but that Joe should get his ass off the street. For his own good.
“Are you even listening to me?!” Joe cried. He gestured around them, “Leon, this place is falling apart. I’m trying help-“
It was then that Leon grabbed him by his injured arm and wrenched it behind his back cutting Joe off mid thought. The sudden pain made him cry out and nearly drop to his knees. He felt the tape and gauze he’d used to bandage his shoulder tear away and the freshly closed wound reopen.
Under normal circumstances that would have been enough for him to reconsider his actions. Instead though, red hazed his vision and all he wanted to do was punch Leon right in the face. He tried to wrench himself free and throw Leon off him so he could do just that.
No, Leon wasn’t listening. He wasn’t in the habit of listening to lawbreakers who didn’t listen to him. Or, really, even the ones who did listen to him. But, he hadn’t expected Joe to resist, and he was thrown off balance when Joe pulled away from him. He managed to get a forearm up to protect his face just before Joe connected, but his thoughts of throwing a punch back were disturbed when he saw one of the mercenaries level their laser gun at Joe’s back. Leon threw himself to tackle Joe around the middle, and if used a little more force than was necessary to get Joe out of harm’s way, well, who could blame him?
Joe hit the ground with a thud and another pain filled cry with Leon around his middle. His head was knocked back just enough to see the mercenary that had come up from behind fire a blast that had been meant for him. Now Joe’s anger was transferred from Leon to the black suited son of a bitch who had just tried to kill him. The asshole, seeing that his target had been knocked out of harm’s way, was rushing up to them aiming his rifle at both of them hoping to kill two birds with one figurative stone.
Oh, no you don’t!
Joe managed to wrench his arm free from under Leon and fire his newly acquired weapon on the thug coming up on them. No headshot this time, but he hit the guy square in the chest. Joe watched the man go down, twitch and be still.
Blood was seeping through Joe’s shirt and pain, more so than anger, now dominated his attention. He dropped his gun to grasp at his injured shoulder and attempted to roll out from under Leon.
Leon let out a sigh of relief when Joe managed to shoot the guy. Leon pulled himself to his feet, and then reached down with the intention of hauling Joe to his feet as well. He was still pissed, but the sight of blood seeping through Joe’s shirt helped remind him that he was still a police officer and even if he wanted to throttle Joe, he couldn’t. “You’re a goddamn mess man,” Leon said, glaring distastefully at the blood seeping through his clothes. “Are you going to come with me quietly, or are you going to keep trying to get my mechanic killed?”
With Leon no longer on top of him, Joe could roll on to his non-injured side and clutch his shoulder, in a half-craddling like position. God damn, this fucking hurt! Fortunately for Leon (and Joe) the pain was more powerful than the rage that had dominated Joe a few moments earlier. However, there was still a bit of that anger remaining in Joe’s eyes when he looked up at Leon standing over him. “I can’t fight anymore like this,” he muttered. “If you’re gonna arrest me, just do it already.”
“That’s what I was trying to say from the beginning,” Leon grumbled, and then added as an aside, “Fucking people can’t fucking listen.” This really was the week from hell. “Come on then. I’m taking you in.”