Who: Leon Orcot and Laurel Lance What: Laurel and Leon respond to a bank robbery; it goes badly When: Right meow Where: Near a bank in downtown Irvine Ratings/Warning: Rated high for shootings/serious injuries, blood, and an NPC suicide Status: Partner Thread | Complete
The call had come in the middle of lunch, but that didn’t bother Leon. Needing to miss a couple meals, or eat a cold burger from the back seat was just part of the job, and one he’d grown used to over the last eight years.
He wasn’t very happy about the call in general, but it was hard to enjoy hearing that there were a suspected four dead following a bank robbery, and that the suspects hadn’t been apprehended yet. He’d driven as fast as he could, Laurel in the passenger seat, and skidded to a stop outside of the police barricade.
“Get your sidearm out,” he told Laurel, pulling his own gun from his shoulder holster. Maybe the warning was unnecessary, but right now he was uncomfortably aware of the fact that Laurel was still relatively new to this job, despite how competent she was at it, and he had to pay extra attention to her six now that there were armed bank robbers who’d already proven they had no qualms with killing running around on the streets.
Leon though her partner, was superior to Laurel, so she nodded her head and pulled out her gun as she followed him through the barricade. She had her gun lowered down as they passed a few plain clothes officers and was looking around at the chaos of the scene. .Some people would get lost in it, but when you have a toddler who sinks baby shark at 5am, Laurel learned to turn down the volume in her head.
As everyone was talking, Laurel as she listened looked around for a moment, thinking of where she would run off to if she had just rub a bank and things went a little wrong. “Leon,” she nodded her head to the corner of the street with a sidestreet,. “What’s down that way?” she asked him, though she did grow up in the area, she had left for some time and businesses changed a lot so she wasn’t sure, “isn’t there an alleyway with a connecting alley?”
“Hey!” she called out to one of the offices, “did you blocked down there?” Her eyes looked over at Leon, “It would be the perfect place, right?” Needing to make sure she was right her eyes moved back to the office to look at him and he yelled back, “Not the other side yet, no.”
Leon frowned, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. It had just been a dream, he knew. But it had also been a Dream. They weren’t prophetic, maybe, but that didn’t make them less real, and he glanced over Laurel from the side of his eye. In his dreams, Max had been nearly married, but Laurel was a mom. He swallowed.
“I’ll go check it out,” Leon said, already headed toward the alleyway. “You go see if anyone’s seen anything suspicious. Get these uniforms doing something useful.”
Laurel shot him a look asking if he was crazy, but he was already walking away. She arched a brow, then shook her head no, In her mom voice, she pointed at offereices, giving them orders of taken statements, sweep the ends of alleyways and than she took off running to where Leon went, he shouldn’t have gone alone.
As she moved to the alleyway, her gun was still out, safety was off, she looked around, her eyes scouting doors and up in windows, “Leon!” she called out.
Leon was hoping that he wouldn’t find anything, he really was. And, in fact, when Laurel called his name, he was almost relieved that he hadn’t. At least, until he caught sight of a man, wearing a blue bomber jacket and a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. In his hands, he was holding a duffle bag, “Hey! You! Wait just a minute!” Leon called.
The man glanced over his shoulder, and then took off into a run. “Oh for fuck’s-” Leon started, and then bellowed “Stop!” taking off at a run after the man. The man ducked into a turn in the alley, and Leon almost grinned to himself. He knew that alley, and it lead to a dead end. He had the bastard now.
Except he froze at the lip of the alley, because the man had stopped and had a sawed off shotgun leveled at him now. More than that, he could make out the man’s face now, and while his weapon came up, more out of instinct than anything else, his brain froze. At least, it did until he noticed Laurel running toward them. The man, Harry, Leon’s childhood best friend and his first love, turned the weapon toward the newcomer. It was like his dreams all over again, and he was powerless to stop it. Even knowing what was coming, Leon just couldn’t bring himself to pull his trigger on Harry.
“Harry, wait!” Leon cried, and even as Harry’s eyes swung over to Leon, his finger squeezed the trigger and there was a deafening bang.
She wasn’t far behind him, knowing he was in a chase, she didn’t say anything but to follow, gun out as she moved behind him, basically chasing him, chasing the guy, but Leon needed back up and she was going to be there for him, it was what partners do.
As she rounded the corner, “Freeze,” she yelled out, but then the criminal turned the gun on her. Laurel stood dead in her tracks, she had gun up, she went to tell him to drop his gun, but before she could even say anything Leon yelled and suddenly there was a bang, Laurel went flying back from the contact of the bullet. She closed her eyes, focusing on her breathing, but it hurt, it hurts so bad. Laurel blacked out from the pan.
Leon’s stomach lurched as he heard Laurel drop behind him, and he felt the bile rising up the back of his throat. He could have saved her, he should have saved her. He should have just pulled the trigger, and ended this before it happened. He’d known that it was going to happen, he’d Dreamed it. And now his partner was dead, and Harry was looking at him with those sad eyes.
“Harry, you don’t have to do this,” Leon said, holstering his gun, because maybe he could at least save one of them. “I don’t want to hurt you, just put down your-”
“Sorry, Leon. For everything,” Harry said, and he raised the gun again. Again, Leon knew what was coming, but even still, he couldn’t look away.
“Harry, don-” he started, but the rest of his exclamation was drowned out by the thundering gun shot, and only then could he turn his gaze. There was no saving either of them. He’d had a second chance, and he’d blown it. He’d killed two people and…
For the first time since she went down, Leon looked at Laurel and saw her chest rise. There was a pool of blood around her, but still she breathed.
“I’ve got an officer down,” Leon cried into his radio, tearing the knees of his jeans as he dove down beside her, not waiting to put on his gloves before he put his hands over her wound to try to help slow the flow of blood. “I need an ambulance, stat. Hurry!”