InsaneJournal

Who: Leon and a partially possessed Wash
What: Wash temporarily breaks free of his brainpuppetry, Leon tries to arrest him
When: Early January, immediately after Carolina breaks Wash's computer
Where: Out
Warnings/Ratings: Pretty low/none. Wash is kind of a mess.
Status: Complete


There was something wrong. Wash knew it, but there was nothing he could do to stop it. His heart hadn’t stopped pounding in his chest since Carolina had shot his computer. He could see her clearly still, standing in the middle of his bedroom. What was she doing there? How did she get there?!

Clearly she had been trying to get to him. She had tried to pull him away. She had tried...tried...to…

“Save me…?” Wash murmured.

No, my loyal one. She wanted to take you. Take you away from me.

Wash shuddered. He couldn’t get his thoughts in order. It was like Epsilon all over again. Loud and confusing. But, there was no pain this time. Just...a light. And a warmth. It drew Wash in and refused to let him go. A new addiction that gripped him harder than alcohol ever could.

Wash leaned heavily against the front of his van, trying to catch his breath and get some of his thoughts together. Angel did not continuously whisper as Epsilon did, but Wash felt his presence, all around him. Constantly. Watching. Beckoning.

It had been a while since Leon had had to deal with civilian complaints. Technically, he still didn't have to, but he'd been in the area grabbing dinner when he'd heard the call over the radio. He didn't have any active cases right now, he and Liv having solved the Steele murder, so he figured instead of sending a uniform to deal with the “creepy guy on a van muttering to himself" that some woman had complained about, he'd just do it himself on the way to the precinct.

He wasn't dressed like a cop - he never really was - and today he was wearing a Judas Priest t-shirt and a pair of jeans. Still, he wore his gun in his shoulder holster and a utility belt around his hips and he carried himself like a cop.

It wasn’t hard to find the van with the matching license plate, but he wasn't expecting to have recognized the man he saw leaning on it.

“Hey, Dave,” Leon said, going to rest a hand on his shoulder. “You doing okay?”

The sudden touch made Wash jump and spin around, a hand moving to a weapon he hadn’t armed himself with. Clouded grey eyes peered at the blond man who had come up to him. At first it was that name, that goddamn name that made the rage rise again within him. “Don’t call me that!” He snapped at Leon.

Leon! The detective. ….the detective trying to solve the deaths. Oh, this was bad. This was very, very bad. Wash backed away from him. “I’m fine,” he managed to get out.

As far as Leon was concerned, he'd solved the Religious Murders and had shot the culprit. Sure, there'd been several times when Leon had halfway convinced himself that he'd got the wrong man, that for some reason Ravi had led him in the wrong direction, but Liv had helped remind him that that was just his guilty conscience.

Still, he didn't need to be looking for a killer to recognize when someone was acting suspicious as hell. “Okay, okay,” Leon said, holding up his hands. “I won’t call you Dave.”

He peered into Wash’s eyes and frowned deeply. He obviously wasn't entirely there, was jittery and jumpy… Leon was almost certain he’d seen him attempt to reach for a weapon…

“Are you on drugs?”

“What?” Wash stared at him, then shook his head. “No!” He continued to back away from Leon. Ravi had done a fantastic job of steering the detective in the wrong direction and protecting Angel so that The Plan could still go off. The Plan...The Egg of Wormwood. The End of Days. Wash had never been a religious man. Until he’d started playing that game the question of his religion had always been answered with “no, thanks.” But Angel was real. Angel had reached out for him. Had called him. Had chosen him.

But Wash was faltering. From the moment Carolina had shot the computer, there was something gnawing at him. Something deep within that was making his heart thrash and nervous stressful sweat poor down his back. Something telling him that this was all wrong.

He continued to back away, halting jittery steps. He was a soldier. It was his job to protect people. Like Leon. Leon’s job was to protect and serve. Wash’s mind raced. He ran an anxious hand through his hair. He needed to run, but his feet, clad only in the socks he’d run from the apartment in, refused to move.

“Uh huh,” Leon said, clearly not believing a word of it, and he gave Wash a pointed once over that said more than words could exactly how the other man looked. “How about you come with me and we’ll take a ride downtown?” Wash was probably better off in a cell than on the streets anyway, at least until whatever he was on left his system.

“I, uh, I’d rather not,” Wash shook his head. His mind was still racing at breakneck speed. Too fast for him to keep up. Through the whirlwind and the chaos there was something reaching out for him with long fingers. Wash took another few steps back as if attempting to avoid those fingers.

Then suddenly, as if propelled by some kind of outside force, Wash closed the distance between himself and Leon. “It’s the game, Leon!” He exclaimed, grasping at the front of Leon’s shirt. “You have to understand. It’s the game!”

Well, this encounter went from zero to sixty faster than Leon was expecting. He stepped back, breaking Wash’s hold, and turning his body so that Wash would have to reach across Leon’s chest if he wanted to get a hold of his firearm.

“Step off, Dave,” Leon barked, reaching for the handcuffs on his belt. As much as he’d hoped that Wash would come quietly, he had to admit that he always got a bit of a prideful rush whenever he cuffed someone.

Wash had no interest in Leon’s sidearm. All he was concerned about was telling Leon what had happened, what was going to happen. Angel was going to kill them all! If Wash could just tell somebody, maybe Angel could be stopped. Leon was smart. He was a detective. His job was saving people. He had to listen. If Wash could just gain control of his own thoughts long enough to explain.

Then Leon called him Dave again. Dave. Davie. Wash wasn’t able to quell all the rage and pain associated with that name. Pathetic. Useless. Unwanted. Unloved. Bastard.

”Don’t call me that!” Wash screamed back. “Listen to me! The game. The game Angel Sanctuary. It’s possessing people. Turning them into puppets for Angel. He wants to bring the apocalypse. He’s going to kill us all!”

If Wash had been able to think even just a little more clearly, he would have understood just how crazy that sounded. Even if Leon was accepting of things that happened associated with the Network, he still would have probably thought Wash had completely lost is mind. If Wash had understood that, he would have thought of a better way to explain, to show Leon what was happening.

Unfortunately, Wash was not able to do any of that.

He can’t believe you, David. His eyes are closed.

Wash pulled back again. “Leon, please.” he begged. “Please listen to me.”


“Alright, alright,” Leon said, trying to keep his voice pacifying. God, he hated dealing with junkies. Sure, he was a little more open to the idea The Weird that was the OC. Dream crossovers or whatever the fuck it was. But that didn’t mean that he was going to believe every word that came out of every barefooted, high-strung man he came across on the streets. “I’m listening, okay. I’ll listen a whole lot better once I take you downtown.” He unclasped his cuffs from his belt. “Just turn around and we’ll get this over with nice and easy.”

Grey eyes darted down to the cuffs that had appeared in Leon’s hands. He knew what those meant. It wasn’t so much the idea of being arrested that set him off as it was the idea of being restrained while it happened. Eyes fixated on the cuffs Wash backed away another half step, slowly shaking his head. Angel was still calling and the more Wash tried to resist the more tangled up in Angel’s grasp he seemed to become.

His back hit the front end of his van. He wasn’t exactly trapped, but those cuffs were telling him otherwise. Angel was telling him otherwise. All Wash wanted to do now was run. His fingers twitched once and his mind made a snap decision. Before either he or Leon understood what was happening, Wash had punched the detective right across the jaw. It wasn’t hard enough to break bone, but hard enough for Leon to see stars, which was all Wash needed in order to dart around the driver’s side door of his van and escape.

One minute, Leon was getting ready to slap a pair of cuffs on Wash, and the next, he was sitting on the cement, his jaw smarting and the taste of copper in his mouth. It took him a moment to realize that Wash had hit him. “Hey!” Leon yelled at Wash, the word painful, but Wash was already in the van. Briefly, Leon thought about running to his car and chasing after him, but by the time he got there and got it started, Wash would likely be out of sight. All Leon could do really do was remember his license plate number and put out a call to be on the look out for a suspected impaired driver.

He raised his hand to his aching jaw, rubbing it tenderly and realizing that Wash had likely managed to split his lip. Fuck this. Leon needed a drink.