Leon Orcot (under_arrest) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2019-05-10 10:55:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, dan smith, leon orcot |
Who: Leon Orcot and Dan Smith
What: Leon needs a drink
When: March 1st, right after Leon runs into Alex again
Where: The Double Tap
Warning/Rating: Low/none
Status: Complete
Seeing Alex was the last thing that Leon had expected. For all he knew, Alex had left this hellhole. He’d gone up North to go school, happy to wipe his hands of the place that had put him through so much hell.
So when Leon had seen Alex buying groceries, well… Leon still wasn’t sure what to think. He was reeling when he’d left his groceries in the cart, in the middle of the cereal aisle, and had driven straight to The Double Tap.
“Man, am I glad it’s you here today,” Leon said, taking his spot at his usual stool and lighting up the third cigarette he’d smoked since leaving the grocery store. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Sara - he actually liked her quite a lot - but she wasn’t Dan.
Dan raised a brow at Leon. He was used to seeing the other man in his bar, Leon had become a regular, a fixture really, but he usually didn’t appear until the sun had gone down and it was a more respectable hour to drink. One look at the man’s face, however, and Dan knew something unpleasant had happened.
So he bit back the light-hearted barb about Leon taking up day drinking as a profession and instead slid an ashtray over to him. “Sara’s got the night off,” he said. “So ye got me all evenin’.” He gave Leon a critical look. “Ye look like someone’s punched ye in the gut, Leon. What’s happened?”
“It feels like the did,” Leon admitted. “Beer and a whiskey. Alex is back. Ran into him at the grocery store.”
The news surprised Dan. It wasn’t unusual for people to leave Orange County. Hell, it wasn’t even all that unusual for people to come back, either. But after what had happened, Dan had figured they’d never see Alex again. And apparently, the man hadn’t told Leon was back either.
Dan poured Leon his whiskey and handed it to him first before he drew him a glass off the tap. He wasn’t sure what he should say. What did you say to your best friend when his lover just apparated out of the blue? “I’m sorry, Leon,” was all Dan could think of right off the cuff. “Did you talk to him?” He kind of hoped he hadn’t. Somehow Dan figured that would be better.
“Yeah, we talked,” Leon grumbled, knocking back the entirety of his whiskey before sliding it back to Dan for a refill. Then he sighed, and ran a hand through his hair. “Well,” he amended, “I guess I more yelled at him. I was caught off guard.” And Leon, when caught off guard, usually tended to resort to raising his voice.
Dan winced. Given the circumstances, though, he wasn’t surprised. When Liv had “stood” him up on their first date, he’d done the same thing. He’d even gone over to her house to do it. Not his finest moment, to be sure.
He refilled Leon’s glass – it may have been a bit early in the day, but Dan would hardly deny him the alcohol. A couple of stiff shots were probably what Leon needed to get his head around this. “What did you say?” He asked.
“I don’t even know,” Leon admitted, his shoulders sagging. He hadn’t known what he was going to say until the words were out of his mouth, and now everything just seemed like a blur of emotion. “I accused him of lying about going up north just so he could dump me,” he said after a moment.
Dan was quite a moment, a slight frown on his face. He didn’t like this at all – seeing Leon this way, but he wasn’t sure what he should do. He didn’t really know Alex, not well anyway. Maybe he had lied about going up north. Maybe he hadn’t. Orange County was not an easy place to live.
Regardless if Alex had or hadn’t lied about where he was going, what was clear was that Leon was not in a great place after having seen him. As much as he would have liked, Dan couldn’t reach over the bar top and just yank him out of it. The best he could do for the moment was simply refill the other man’s drink.
He was quiet a moment after setting the bottle down again. He didn’t really want to pry into the privacy of Leon’s love life, but he had to say something. He couldn’t just let his friend sit there and wallow.
“Ya have the right t’ be upset, Leon,” he started carefully. “I can’t say that I would’ve reacted any different. Also can’t say that I’m especially thrilled at the idea of him comin’ back inta yer life like this.” He paused and reached out to drag an ashtray over to put between them before pulling out his own pack of cigarettes. He selected one and then placed the pack next to the ashtray before leaning his elbows against the bartop. “Whaddya gonna do now?”
“Right now? Right now, I’m gonna drink,” Leon said, taking another large gulp from his drink. Too his credit, he didn’t actually finish the drink in one go this time. “I guess I’ll think about what to do later.” Maybe apologize for yelling, at least.
Dan watched Leon down the next shot and then poured him the beer. “That’s an option,” he said, placing the glass in front of his friend. “And then after that? You can’t stay in my bar and drink forever.”
“I don’t fucking know, Dan,” Leon snapped, and then forced himself to take a breath. It wasn’t Dan’s fault that Alex had appeared out of nowhere, and he shouldn’t take his frustrations out on him. “I can do that for right now, can’t I?”
Dan wasn’t phased by the outburst. Plenty of people had yelled at him over the years and plenty more probably would. He gave Leon a sympathetic look before lighting his cigarette and taking a drag. “’Course you kin stay fer now. Stay fer the rest of the afternoon, if you like.” Though Dan had plans of cutting Leon off at some point to save the poor man’s liver, if nothing else. The apartment upstairs was still livable, should Leon need to sleep some of what he drank off. “Give yerself a chance to calm down, think about stuff. Talk t’ me if you wanna.” He shrugged, “not like I’m going anywhere. Not with you like this, anyway.” He gave Leon a grin.
Leon managed something that almost resembled a smile. He finished his pint, and put the empty glass on the counter, confident that Dan would refill it without him needing to make some sort of gesture. “Thanks man. I don’t know what I’d do without ya.”