Liv Moore is an alabaster badass (livmoore) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2018-03-01 17:21:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, leon orcot, olivia moore |
Who: Leon and Liv
What: Liv cleans Leon's apartment
When: Late February
Where: Leon's place
Ratings/Warning: Low
Status: Complete!
The past few days had been a roller coaster. Hell the entire moth. Between her break up with Dan, Dan dying, Dan coming back to life, and then them getting back together. It was a lot. Since his resurrection and the pair’s reunion Liv hadn’t spent much time away from Dan. Even calling in sick to work and having Leon help cover for her. But it was time to get back to real life. As much as she wanted to watch Dan’s every move and make sure he didn’t die again she knew she had to get back to reality. That started with thanking Leon.
Liv knew better than to show up at his apartment empty handed. Especially when she was thanking him. So she picked up a six pack on her way over. Six pack in hand she knocked on the door to his apartment, a permanent smile on her face.
When Alex had been staying with Leon, it had been kind of nice. Not just having Alex with him, but also the fact that Alex apparently liked to keep things relatively tidy. Leon had no such needs. He was way too busy with work and with Chris to bother doing things like picking clothes off the floor or throwing out empties on a daily basis, and so things had piled up. He hung his and Chris’s relatively clean, still wearable pants from the ceiling fan, empty beer and Coke cans littered the tables, counters, and any other available surface.
Even now as he waited for Liv, Leon was going through case files for his most recent case, a half-empty bottle of beer nearby. Chris sat on the couch, watching Bear Grylls: Survival School.
When Liv knocked on the door, Leon rubbed his eyes from staring at the computer screen, closed his laptop, and went to get the door. “Hey,” he said, brightening at the sight of Liv and her beer.
“Hey,” Liv replied already handing over the beer. Leon knew exactly what it was for. But then the smile disappeared from her face, replaced with a look of both shock and disgust when she looked past him and saw the state of his apartment. “Leon!” Liv exclaimed. It wasn’t like she had never been to Leon’s apartment before. She knew he was a messy guy. But she never realized he was this much of a slob. “What the hell happened to your apartment?!”
Leon looked behind him at the state of his apartment. The corners of his lips tugged down, and he rubbed the side of his head. “I guess I haven’t had much time to clean,” he said, taking in the jeans on the overhead fan. “It’s not that bad though. Alex was taking care of all this up until a few weeks ago.”
Alex? Right that friend Leon had mentioned a few times. Why he had anything to do with Leon’s apartment being clean or looking like a tornado hit it, Liv had no idea. However she couldn’t spare much thought on it right now. The state of his apartment was too damn distracting. “Get out,” Liv told Leon basically ordering out of his own apartment. “Take Chris for ice cream or to the park or something. I’ll get this cleaned up for you.”
“You’re joking, right?” Leon asked. “This is my apartment, and if you think I’m going to just let you -”
Chris had perked up from where he was sitting on the couch at the mention of ice cream. Please? Can we go for ice cream? he asked Leon silently, through the connection the two of them had shared since December.
Leon glanced over at Chris and sighed. “Alright,” he said, scratching the side of his head. “But if we’re going for ice cream, we’re going to play in the park first. Come on,” he said, and Chris hopped off the couch, full of energy. Leon went to the coat closet, and first handed Chris his football, then his catcher’s mitt and baseball. After a moment’s consideration he put back the baseball bat, and grabbed the basketball instead.
“When do you want us back?” he asked Liv.
Liv glanced around the apartment, fully taking in the mess before answering Leon. This was definitely going to take some time. It was good they were going to the park first before ice cream. “Give me a few hours,” Liv replied before the two left.
As soon as they shut the door Liv got to work. She started by gathering all the clothes that were spewed about his apartment. Even his boxers and the socks in the sink. Really, Leon? Separating them out she started the first load of laundry downstairs. Then back to Leon’s apartment.
With all the clothes out of the way, she got started on the trash, throwing away all the empty beer bottles, pizza boxes, etc. Then it was time for the actual cleaning. Liv scrubbed the kitchen and bathroom until they shined, vacuumed the bedroom and living area. She reorganized his kitchen cupboards, the fridge, putting the bottle of whiskey by his bed in one of the cupboards. She dusted the table, the coffee table, the bedside table, the photo of him and his mom. Or at least who she assumed was his mom. Finally she made the bed. Liv was just putting his last load of laundry away when they returned. “Welcome home!” Liv beamed proud of her work.
Leon and Chris had had a pretty good impromptu day at the park. Leon had helped work on Chris’s pitching skills, tossed the football around, and had even taught Chris how to shoot a proper basket. Then they’d gone for Ice Cream - Chris had gotten his disgusting bubblegum ice cream again, and Leon had gone for strawberry. And after all of that, Chris was obviously tuckered out. Leon had needed to carry him for the last half of the walk home, and when he walked into the apartment, Chris was asleep in his arms. Chris’s arms were draped on either side of Leon’s neck, and his head rested on his older brother’s shoulders.
He stopped when he crossed the threshold and stared. Honestly, when Liv mentioned cleaning the place, Leon had thought that she meant something like throwing his clothes in a hamper and maybe throwing out his empty cans and pizza boxes. But the apartment looked nicer than it had since he’d moved in.
“Jesus, Liv,” he exclaimed, and in his arms, Chris stirred. “The hell happened in here?”
Liv beamed proud of the work she had gotten done. “I know. It looks amazing right?” Okay maybe amazing was a bit of a stretch. It was clean at least. Not quite up to Liv’s new standards. But it was a hell of a lot better than when they left.
“I’ll say,” Leon said, looking around. He headed into Chris’s room to put the boy in his race car bed, a little surprised that Liv had cleaned up all of the boy’s toys. And apparently changed his bedding. He tucked Chris in, ruffled his hair a little before he stood again, and headed back out to meet Liv. “You really went all out, didn’t you? You didn’t have to do all this.”
Oh, Liv did have to do all this. At least with the current brain she was on. There was no way she could come across such a mess and not clean it up. “Don’t worry about it,” Liv replied still smiling. She wasn’t going to get into why she had gone to all the trouble. At least not the real reason. Leon still seemed to have trouble grasping the whole brain thing. “It’s the least I could do after you helped cover for me.”
“That was nothing,” Leon said, grabbing a couple of beer from his fridge. He offered one of them to Liv. “Though, thanks for the heads up about the Resurrecting Barman.” He hadn’t been sure what to think when he’d received a text message from Dan’s number, but it had turned out to be real enough. Still, the only way he could wrap his head around Dan resurrecting is if he forced himself to not think about it at all.
Liv accepted the beer popping off the top and taking a sip. “Sorry,” Liv apologized truly meaning it. She had been pretty distracted since Dan came back from the dead. Mostly making sure he didn’t die again. “Next time my boyfriend comes back to life I’ll be sure to text you first thing.” She paused for a moment. “On second thought, I’d rather not go through that again.”
Leon grinned a little. “So, boyfriend, huh? That mean you and Dan patched things up?” Leon was glad to hear it. Leon liked Dan, and he hadn’t been terribly happy at not being able to hang out with him once he and Liv had called things off. Not that that had stopped Leon from taking Dan out when he rose from the dead.
“Yup!” Liv beamed. And the whole already being dead thing prevented him from becoming a zombie too. Even though he said he was willing to risk it. But Liv kept that detail to herself. Leon didn’t need to hear about her sex life. “So what’s the deal with Alex?” Liv had been too caught up in everything with Dan to really ask Leon what was going on.
Leon grinned. “Good,” Leon said. “Just FYI, next time you guys break up, I’m still gonna go to the Double Tap.” Though ideally, there wouldn’t be a next time. Leon flopped down on the couch and took a couple of large gulps from his can. A sheepish smile crossed his face when Liv asked him about Alex, and he rubbed his nose. “I uh, guess we’re doing the whole dating thing,” he said, feeling weirdly self-conscious about the whole thing.
“Pretty sure there won’t be a next time.” At least Liv sure as hell hoped not. All their issues were out of the way now. There was nothing stopping them from being together. But anyway enough of her love life. She was much more interested to hear about Leon’s. “Congrats!” Liv said genuinely happy for her friend. The times he had mentioned Alex it did seem like there was a little bit more there, but Liv never questioned him on it. It wasn’t her place. Besides as far as she knew Leon only dated women. In fact. “Wait, what happened to that model?”
Leon had only dated woman, though Alex wasn’t the first man Leon had had feelings for. There’d only been one other: Harry, his best friend in middle school up until their senior year of high school when he’d moved across country. Until he’d met Alex, Harry had been the only person Leon had had strong feelings for, but he’d never been able to work up the courage to tell him how he’d felt.
He frowned into his can of beer at Liv’s question, embarrassed. “She dumped me,” he said, and then after a moment, he decided that he may as well continue. “On Valentine’s Day, for another guy. He picked her up from our date.” He could still hear the laughter of the teenagers sitting behind him in his ears. Definitely the worst break-up he’d ever had, and he’d once been dumped with the line “it’s not me, it’s you.”
“Damn,” Liv replied. “That’s harsh. But hey, looks like it all worked out for the best.” Even though Liv had never seen either person, Alex seemed like a better fit to her. Probably because of the way Leon had talked about him, and the way he had smiled just moments ago when he mentioned that they were dating.
“I’ll say. For the both of us, from the sounds of it,” Leon said. At the time he thought he’d been head over heels for Tiffany, but looking back now he wasn’t so sure that had been the case. She could’ve keyed his car too if it had meant him and Alex getting together. He cleared his throat, wiping the dumb goofy grin that had crossed his face again from his face. Liv didn’t need to hear any of that, especially since he still wasn’t entirely convinced that Alex wouldn’t just dump him in a couple of months anyway.
“Anyway,” he looked around his apartment again, still surprised at how spotless it was. “Did you do all this because of that brain you ate?”
“Yeah,” Liv confirmed. “If you think this is nice you should see my apartment. Definitely one of the better brains.” At least ‘side effect’ wise if you considered things she did based on her current personality side effects.
Leon frowned thoughtfully. He still wasn’t entirely sold on this ‘eating people’ thing, but at least there were some benefits sometimes. “Maybe you should save this one,” he said, a hint of a joke in his voice. “You know, maybe you should save some of this one,” he said. “And then come over like, once a month.”
“I’m not going to be your own personal maid,” she teased right back. But there was a huge part of her that was relieved with Leon’s joking about what she ate. He seemed to be accepting what she was finally.
“Well that’s a shame,” Leon laughed. “You’d be a good one.” But, well, it probably was too much to expect to have his own personal, free maid. He’d just have to settle for his own personal, vision seeing medical examiner.