Who: Dan and Liv What: The couple drops their murder investigation When: Mid September Where: Their place Rating/Warnings: Low Status: Complete!
It had been an eventful day at work. Not so much with work itself but with Leon. He had seen the sketch Liv had gotten done of the man that killed the guy that took the fall for shooting Leon. Part of her knew he wouldn’t be happy that she was looking into it. But it wasn’t like she suspected him. She just wanted to know what was going on. Because the whole situation was fishy. However, even though she knew Leon wasn’t going to be thrilled at the idea, she hadn’t expected all the yelling.
When Liv arrived home from work it was clear something was off. She didn’t greet her boyfriend with a kiss, hell she didn’t even smile. “Hey,” was all she said as she made her way to the freezer, ready for a dose of brains.
Now that Dan was living with Liv, he took advantage of the part-timer he’d hired earlier in the year to tend his bar a few nights a week so that he and Liv could spend their evenings together. He still went in regularly in order to process payroll, pay bills, make bank deposits, re-order kegs, stock and re-stock the hard stuff, and everything else that a bar required to stay operational. However, he tried to get as much of that done during the day while Liv was at work.
That evening, he’d only beaten Liv home by roughly 30 minutes, just enough time for him to take a quick shower and rinse the acrid smell of cigarette smoke off his skin and hair. He was in the bedroom getting dressed when he heard Liv come in. He barely heard her subdued greeting.
A frown touched the corners of Dan’s mouth as he finished pulling on a loose pair of flannel pajama bottoms. He then ventured out of the bedroom. Not finding Liv in the living room, he peered into the kitchen and found her in front of the freezer. “I almost didn’t hear ya come in, Darlin’.” He said as he came up beside her. His frown deepened slightly seeing her pulling the container of brains out of the fridge. “Rough day?” He asked gently.
Liv was about to take a bite of brain when Dan approached. Usually she tried to make her food look someone human. Cook it into a taco, a pasta, put it on top of a pizza. But not today. She just wanted to have someone else’s feelings inside her head instead of her own. However, that could wait until she at least answered her boyfriend.
“Leon saw the sketch,” Liv replied. “He was no happy about it. Wants me to drop the whole thing.”
Dan’s brows furrowed together causing a deep furrow in his brow. That was not the reaction he would have expected. Not from Leon. “He...what?” But Dan had heard Liv just fine. It was just difficult for him to wrap his head around it. “Why?” But even as he said it, Dan thought he knew the answer. He shook his head. “We’re not lookin’ to land Alex in prison. We know Alex didn’t shoot him. But…” That didn’t mean that the IPD didn’t.
Dan sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, Liv.” He motioned to the kitchen table. “Sit with me a bit?” He asked. “We can talk about this. Figure out what we should do.”
“He didn’t say,” Liv replied. She still was upset with how much Leon had yelled at her. Of course she didn’t want Alex back in jail, but the fact that the guy that ‘shot’ Leon turned up dead? It didn’t sit right with Liv. And she couldn’t just let that go. It was just who he was.
However she took a seat at the kitchen table. “I guess we have to just drop it,” she told her boyfriend with another frown.
Dan’s brows furrowed together tightly, making deep grooves in his forehead. The corners of his mouth pulled deeper still in a frown. Not an angry frown, but a confused and thoughtful frown. He was trying to fathom the reason why Leon would have reacted so badly. Dan would have thought he would’ve appreciated the help. Then again…
Dan took in a deep breath through his nose. He still didn’t think Leon would have taken matters into his own hands. No matter how much he was in love with Alex, Dan couldn’t see Leon shooting another person in cold blood to clear his name, or even hiring another person to do it. Leon was a good cop and Dan still believed that. But it was becoming clear to the bar tender that Leon knew more about this murder than he was letting on. Dan didn’t like that it had put Liv in such a position that she would have to choose between her friendship with Leon and her sense of justice. Justice was important to Liv. The fact that Leon was taking that away from her pissed Dan off.
It made the police officer part of him – the part that he had thought was long dead – balk in a way he had not felt since his days in Detroit when he himself had constantly bashed against a wall while trying to find justice for his father. He had half a mind to call up Leon right then and there and demand an explanation and threaten to ban him from the Double Tap until he offered one.
But it was only half a mind. Ease yourself, Dannyboy. Don’t forget what happened to you just a few months ago. You got off easy on that. Liv and Carolina too.
That breath was released slowly through his mouth. “Aye,” he murmured. He looked at Liv across the table. “I hate the position this has put ye in. If Leon were here, I’d let him have it for puttin’ you in such a place.” And he still intended to tell Leon something. “It ain’t fair to you. But we gotta remember that Orange County…sometimes things don’t work out they way they aughtta. When I died—“ he hated having to bring this up, he himself still hadn’t quite come to terms what had happened to him and he could only imagine what Liv still felt when she thought about it, “—there was a very real possibility that Carolina would’ve ended up in a similar place as Alex, especially considerin’ we were in the midst of getting a divorce. They may have even turned their attention on you given the circumstances between us at the time.”
He reached across the table to take Liv’s hands. “I can’t say that I know fer sure what I woulda done if somethin’ like that had happened to you.” His hands tightened lovingly around hers. “The Dreams are unpredictable and cruel and we all hafta adapt and deal the best ways we know how. Because of that, the truth ye may find, ye may not want to find. And once you know it, ye can’t unknow it. If ye still want to chase this, I’ll chase it with ye. That I can promise.”
Liv’s frown deepened. She hated thinking about when Dan had died. That had been the worst few hours of her life. But if he was forcing her to think about it… “If I had been arrested for that, I wouldn’t have let someone innocent be murdered to clear my name.” Even if it meant she turned into a full on zombie forever. She would never allow anyone to be killed for her. “If Carolina had, I would have figured out another way to get her out.” Liv would have done the same for Alex too. She had more connections than Leon knew about. Or even Dan for that matter. There was an Agency that dealt with dream issues. Liv had been brought on as a consultant. She could have gone to them to free Alex if Leon had given her the chance to.
“No,” Liv replied after thinking about it for a moment. “I don’t want to chase it anymore. There is no getting justice without hurting Leon in the process,” she sighed. “Even if he wasn’t directly involved he knows something. As unhappy as I am with him right now, he’s done a lot for me in the past. He got you out of jail,” Liv reminded both herself and Dan. “I don’t want to do anything that could hurt him.” Even if it meant letting a killer go free.
Dan wanted to believe that Liv would have clung to her morals had the local police turned their investigation into his death towards either her or Carolina. It wasn’t as though he didn’t trust Liv. Of course he did. But he himself had once believed in his own steadfastness to uphold the law, only to turn vigilante when the judicial system failed him. But he held his tongue. Liv knew his past, knew the reasons behind the choices he had made and he prayed to God that she would never, ever be placed in the same situation. The place she was in now was bad enough.
“Aye, Darlin’,” he said softly. “I know ye wouldn’tve. I’m sorry fer even mentionin’ it.” His heart twisted when she sighed. It twisted hard and painfully and crept up his throat. Even with the risks Leon had taken on their behalf, he could not abide what Leon was doing to Liv: making her choose between her sense of justice and their friendship. His blood boiled and his body itched to get the sonofabitch on the phone and let him have it. Didn’t he trust them? After everything they’d been through?
Ah, but why should he? As far as Dan knew, all he was to Leon was his bartender. It wasn’t as though Dan himself had been exactly forthcoming with Leon about his own history, if for nothing else than for the fact that Leon was a cop. Maybe if he had, they wouldn’t be in this rock-and-a-hard-place situation now.
Dan let out another breath. Slow and through his nose, forcing much of the anger out with the air. He squeezed her hands to assure her. “Alright, Darlin’,” he said. He rose up out of his chair so he could lean over the table to kiss her softly. “We’ll put this behind us, then.” He leaned his forehead against hers. “How ‘bout I make dinner fer us t’night. Some comfort food ye can put those brains on, aye? Then the two of us can sit in front o’ the TV and watch somethin’ mindless an’ funny.”
Comfort food. Liv could use some of that. Along with a drink. “Like mac-n-brains?” she paused thinking about it for a second. “And cheese too.” Because even with the brains mac still needed some cheese. “That sounds perfect,” she replied giving him another kiss. A night of comfort food and sitcoms with her amazing boyfriend sounded like the perfect way to erase how horrible her day had been. Maybe some drinks too. And fortunately for her that amazing boyfriend was also an amazing bartender. Sometimes she didn’t know how she got so lucky.