barton (awcoffee) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2019-03-30 19:47:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, clint barton (hawkeye), leon scott kennedy |
WHO: Clint Barton & Leon Kennedy
WHERE: Clint's Place
WHEN: {backdated} Feb 13-18; tethered plot
WHAT: Leon shows up in Clint's bed. It's not the strangest morning ever, but it's bordering on the awkward.
WARNINGS: Mild language?
STATUS: Complete.
Leon was aware that something wasn’t quite right even before he had completely woken up. For starters he was warm, almost too warm. Secondly he was laying down, something he wasn’t really capable of doing when sleeping in his Jeep. Part of him – the part that was still mostly asleep – wanted to ignore it and just enjoy the warmth and comfort for what it was. The other part of him – the part that was becoming more awake as the moments ticked by – was trying to remember whether or not he’d had the funds to check into a motel the night before. He didn’t think he had, he’d been trying to save what he had left until he was able to find a job. But maybe he had? Maybe sometime in the night he’d just gotten fed up and checked himself in somewhere for the night? Sure. That had to be it…
Content with that explanation for the time being, Leon settled into the pillow under his head. A moment later, however, his eyes snapped open when someone else in the bed moved.
Very rarely, if ever, did Clint take out his hearing aids before bed. It was just a recipe for disaster, and with Jacques’ men still on his ass apparently, it was doubly stupid. But never let it be said that Clint didn’t have his stupid moments. Because sometimes his head just hurt from the noise, and the best way to deal with it was to mute things, dull them to the lowest hum in the one ear that wasn’t totally wasted.
Like last night, when he’d given up trying to sleep with Lucky huffing at his side and had just flipped his hearing aids onto the night stand and passed out easily afterwards.
So waking up was slower, more drawn out. There was no noise, no barking or panting from Lucky, he couldn’t hear the cars or the next door neighbours yelling at each other, or up stairs with their television already on some god damned kids show. He couldn’t hear someone else breathing next to him.
But he could fucking sense that shit.
The slow peaceful slip from asleep to wakefulness burst in an instant and Clint was rolling out of bed with a flail as he hit the floor, hand slapping on the night stand to find his hearing aids while Lucky barely reacted to their guest except to whine at Clint’s moving and wag his tail as more of the bed was freed up for him. “Jesus, fuck.” His gun was under the bed, and he could get to it, once the bleary sleep state wore off, or else he might shoot his fucking dog.
The moment the body next to him moved, Leon did as well, rolling from the bed and reaching for his own gun, which thankfully, was still holstered at his hip One drawback of sleeping in one’s own vehicle (besides getting a bad back for the effort) was you never knew who was likely to wander up on you. That being said, the last thing Leon had expected was waking up with a complete stranger in the bed next to him, no matter how much he didn’t want to sleep in his Jeep.
What the hell was going on?! Had he been drugged at some point in the night? Kidnapped? What the hell for?! Keeping is gun aimed at the man across from him, it dawned on Leon that he looked just as confused (and alarmed) as he was, which didn’t exactly improve the situation any.
“Who are you?” Leon demanded. “Where am I?”
“Dude!” He’d managed to catch the tail end of the questions, but it wasn’t hard to work out, even as Clint managed to get to his feet, thankful for the cold floor under his bare feet. “You’re the one in my fucking apartment. Who the hell are you?”
Okay, it didn’t look like the Dreams had gifted him a buddy -which would be weird, and if it had to give him anyone, he’d expect Natasha, and she was already in Orange County so no. But he didn’t recognise this guy -from the waking world or otherwise- which left some weird options.
“Lucky, stop barking and get off the fucking bed.” Talking to Lucky rarely did the trick, but Clint snapping his fingers and pointing, rather firmly at the floor, at least had Lucky off the bed and beside him. In case this guy decided to try and strangle his far too friendly dog.
Running a hand over his face, Clint tried to wake up, properly and not just in a panic at someone else being with him. “Jesus, I need fucking coffee. I cannot deal with this without coffee.”
“Your...apartment?” Leon wasn’t buying that. Not for one damn second. He wasn’t in the habit of falling asleep in strange people’s apartments. Well, ok, that wasn’t entirely true. But in those instances the “strangers” he was with were women he’d met at bars and that one time he got stuck in Dulles Airport due to bad weather. He’d never had no memory of going home with someone before, much less some strange man...who seemed to be taking the invasion of his privacy way too well.
But at least the guy didn’t seem to want to attack him, which was good and allowed Leon a quick glance around the room. It didn’t take Leon long to realize that the room he was in did actually look like someone’s bedroom. Someone who’d been living there for some time too. Confusion was starting to replace the initial panic.
“What the fuck?” He muttered to himself, slowly lowering his gun. What was he doing here? He wasn’t tied up or restrained and he wasn’t feeling any after effects of being drugged, so he had to be here of his own volition. Right? Right?! The only way that Leon could make this make any sense was the amount of stress he was under. He’d been kicked out of the ATF, accused of being on the take, was finding it impossible to find work and sleeping in his car. The stress of it all. It made him sleep walk or something. That had to be it. He wasn’t losing his damn mind and suffering blackouts. Jesus Christ, he was lucky this guy didn’t call the cops on him.
Watching this guy, who clearly didn’t break in given the fact that he clearly wasn’t aware of where he was and Clint would’ve at least felt that, Clint almost felt sorry for the idiot. Oh, he was definitely getting a crash course in how the OC worked, and it looked like it was his first rodeo. “Dude, if you’re gonna have a panic attack, can you do it in the bathroom?” And Clint was good enough to point it out to him too.
“I need to put on a pot of coffee to deal with this. Just… do your thing man and try not break shit.” Not that Clint had a lot of shit, at least not good shit. He had his stuff, sure, but nothing was overly breakable due to the fact that Clint was accident prone as all hell and usually broke his own stuff, even just by looking at it sometimes.
“You want some coffee? Looks like you need it.”
Leon was not going to have a panic attack. Not in some strange guy’s apartment after waking up in his bed. Nope. Not going to happen. Leon wasn’t even going to think about the implications if it turned out he did sleepwalk his ass into this guy’s place. He did glance towards the bathroom and debate the merits of splashing some cold water on his face and hopefully discover all of this was some kind of weird ass dream.
The guy said something about coffee?
“Huh? Yeah.” Coffee sounded pretty damn good, actually. Normal at least.
Okay, coffee. They could have some coffee, they could forget this guys appearance in his room and they could go on their merry ways.
Clint was mostly annoyed at the time of day it was -fucking early, that’s when it was- and Lucky was bounding around the living room as Clint ambled out of the bedroom to the kitchen joined to the main room, ignoring the mess around him -listen, he didn’t have time for any of that bullshit cleaning stuff, okay. Lucky was a law unto himself and mess just happened.
The coffee pot was gargling to life as Clint hunted for some mugs, clean ones preferably, which were thankfully hanging out on the drying rack by the sink because occasionally Clint did clean. “How’d you take it?” Hopefully not fancy or any shit like that. And Clint was suddenly aware that he hadn’t bothered getting his new house guests name.
Did that matter? Should he ask? Did he care?
The answer, mostly, was meh.
Leon was still attempting to wrap his head around what was going on. The more he thought about it (which he probably shouldn’t be doing) the less sense it made. Even if he had been sleep walking, how had he gotten in here? Why would he have come here in the first place? He didn’t even know where here was! Never mind the fact that he didn’t have a history of sleep walking – that he was aware of anyway.
He supposed he was pretty lucky that this guy wasn’t flipping out on him, beating the ever loving shit out of him, or calling the cops and having him arrested. In fact, he was handling the whole situation a hell of a lot better than Leon was, offering coffee as if finding someone in his room early in the morning was an everyday occurrence. Hell, maybe it was. Or maybe Leon was just losing his mind. He needed to get out of there.
Holstering his sidearm, Leon made his way out of the bedroom. “Look, I’m really sorry about all of this,” he said entered the living room, where he was greeted by the very friendly bouncing over to greet him with a wagging tail. “I don’t want to put you out, or make this any weirder than it already is, so, I’m just…” he motioned awkwardly to the door. “I’m gonna go.”
The man’s dog, who was oh so very excited to have company that morning, made it a little difficult to actually get to the door and then it took a couple of moments to make sure the dog stayed inside the apartment. Once Leon was outside a wave of relief washed over him and confusion soon gave way to embarrassment. That seriously had just happened. Well, it was over now. With any luck, Leon would never see that guy again and he could just pretend waking up in his bed had never actually happened.
He took a breath and rubbed his eyes. At this point all he wanted to do was find his Jeep and maybe some breakfast. Not necessarily in that order. However, he’d gotten only a few steps away from the apartment door Leon felt the sensation of something suddenly yanking on him. The next thing Leon was aware of was being hurtled backwards and slamming against the apartment door with an audible thud.
There was some muffled noise as the guy was talking, then Lucky barking over him, but he caught the end, clearly the mild discomfort (Clint really needed to work out why his boundaries for weird were so broad). As the door shut, Clint just shrugged, pulling some biscuits out of the cupboard to toss for Lucky and pouring his own mug of coffee.
And then there was a bang at the door.
“The fuck…” The guy literally just left, and then there’s banging? Leaving his kitchen, Clint pulled open the just closed and banged door, with a mild glare. “Look, if you wanna go maybe don’t make such a damn racket on the way out?” This guy was just confusing, beyond just appearing now making a scene leaving? God, his neighbours were gonna get the wrong idea.
The combination of surprise and the actual impact with the apartment door was enough to temporarily knock the wind out of Leon. He sank to the floor, where he was left trying to figure out what the fuck just happened. When the door was then suddenly opened, it was all he could do to keep from tumbling backwards into the apartment again. Fortunately, the dog was right there with affectionate Happy-To-See-You-Again face licks just aggressive enough to push Leon back into the hall.
“I didn’t!” He exclaimed as he scrambled to his feet. “I was walking away when…I don’t know…something shoved me back into the door!” No…not shoved. It was as though Leon had been yanked backwards, like he’d reached the end of a bungie cord or a leash and had been rudely snapped back to where he belonged.
He looked at the other man helplessly, realizing just how crazy he sounded, but he had no other explanation. “Look, I know how that sounds, but I swear that’s what happened.”
Clint honestly wasn’t surprised at Lucky’s joy at their guest appearing again, the dog was terrible as a guard dog, far too friendly with absolutely everyone. Clearly something was going on though, and it sounded like this guy was new to the chaos that was Orange County. Sighing, Clint snapped his fingers to get Lucky into the living room, so that the guy could get back in.
“You wanna try again, or you wanna sit down?” Clint didn’t exactly want to try and explain that sometimes Orange County just fucked with people. “Seriously dude, have a coffee and then you can try and go. The most that’ll happen is that Lucky tries to lick you again.” And it was big of Clint to offer to share coffee.
“I’m Clint, by the way.” He really didn’t need his neighbours thinking he was kicking a one night stand out first thing.
Leon’s eyes followed the Lucky the Dog as he trotted back into the living room. Lucky sat down facing the door, tail swishing over the floor, as though he fully expected their guest to come inside and visit for a while. Leon then glanced down the hall. Something told him that a second try to leave was only going to yield the same result. He didn’t know how he knew that, but he decided he really didn’t want to be slammed into any more doors this morning. At least not before he’d had breakfast. And seriously, this guy -- Clint -- was being more than gracious about the whole thing.
Shoulders sagging in resignation of his situation, Leon sighed. “Yeah, I guess I’ll have that coffee, after all.” It didn’t seem as though he had a choice. “Thanks. I’m Leon.”
Shaking his head, wondering how this shit just happened, Clint grabbed another mug out. “Okay, Leon, how do you take it?” He was just pouring it out, hoping Leon didn’t need shit in it other than maybe a splash or creamer. Clint probably had sugar somewhere, at the least Simone upstairs would have it, but he didn’t know if this ‘trying to leave’ thing was apartment related or not.
And if it was, things were going to be awkward with Lucky. “Have one, wake up, and then you can maybe see about trying to not wake the world on the way out again.” Maybe the OC was just trying to make people get to know each other, or someone was dreaming random pair up shit, either way, he’d hope it wore off after an hour or so, because Clint wanted to get to the store before all the fucking hearts and candy showed up and suffocated him.
“Black is fine,” Leon said. He didn’t need anything fancy, just the caffeine. He followed Clint back into the apartment and for a moment just stood awkwardly in the living room. He felt as though he was invading the man’s privacy. Then again the fact that they’d woken up in the same bed, the whole privacy issue may have ceased to be a thing. Finally with a sigh, Leon took a seat, careful to move some of Clint’s things out of the way first.
He glanced towards the door again and again he was struck with the idea that an attempt to leave was not going to work in his favor. “This is going to sound weird,” he said carefully. “But I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to leave.” He should have been more upset about that, but for some reason he wasn’t. That in itself was concerning, but it was like something was telling Leon that everything would work out. He didn’t have much choice but to accept that. For now anyway.
“So, uh, Clint,” he started. “It’s just you and Lucky?” Leon hoped so anyway. Otherwise this may get even more awkward.
Given the wake up and the whole morning, Clint wasn’t too worried about ‘weird’ right then. If Leon couldn’t leave they’d just have another mouth for pizza for a night (or whatever) and they’d work around it. In the scheme of things happening in Clint’s life, waking up with a stranger was fairly low on the list.
Depositing a coffee for Leon on the table and taking his own to sprawl on the couch, Clint took things in stride -there was little else to do. “Well whenever then, not like we’re too fussed.” Lucky had one of his bones to chew and seemed content that their guest was staying for a while, so Clint figured the dog was just taking it all in -he was an attention seeker.
“Yeah, just us.” And Clint would probably just not go out for company while Leon was stuck with them. “We don’t do too much either, y’know. We’re homebodies.” A few walks, some stops at the store, the odd time Clint took a job, the usual. “What about you? Y’got a girl to call about your impromptu relocating? Or a guy. Whatever?”
Leon reached for the coffee on the table. It was dark and strong and just what Leon needed. Something normal to balance out everything else that was going on.
In response to Clint’s question if there was someone Leon needed to call, he shook his head. “No, I don’t have anyone,” he said. “I just moved to the area a couple of months ago. I haven’t even found a place to live yet.”
In some ways that sort of worked out then, didn’t it. Clint didn’t have many commitments outside of Lucky and Leon wasn’t exactly held to a schedule. “Well, it works out for now,” all in all at least, since at the least Leon could live somewhere until he figured that out, “you can look for somewhere while you’re stuck here.” However long Orange County decided to be fucking weird.
That…wasn’t a bad idea, actually and probably something Leon should have been doing long before now. He couldn’t exactly just live out of his Jeep for the rest of his life. That was less than appealing. He’d need a job too in order to pay for living space.
This was all contingent on the idea that eventually Leon would be able to get more than a few dozen steps away from Clint’s apartment. He took a drink of the coffee and raised a brow looking down into the cup. Clint had some great taste when it came to coffee.
“I guess the only thing to do is make the best outta this,” he said. “This beats sleeping in my car or a motel.” He looked up at Clint. “You wouldn’t happen to know where I’d be able to find a cheap apartment, would you?”
Making the best out of things was pretty much all that could be done in Orange County, from what Clint had managed to do. And it was reasonable enough, he wasn’t worried that Leon was going to stab him in his sleep at least.
“How about we finish these, I’ll get dressed and we can take Lucky out,” and possibly have to get some actual food for the place since Clint was going to have a guest for an undetermined length of time, “and then we can get some apartment hunting done.”
It gave them some time to get outta the apartment oo, since Leon might need some air to deal with the fun of being trapped somewhere.