WHAT: Revy calls Leon after escaping from cultists WHERE: Crossed Quills -> Leon's apartment WHEN: Tonight! WARNINGS: Some blood and references to past violence, language STATUS: Complete
Revy’s been through weirder shit. Or at least had memories of being through weirder shit but it could be the same goddamn thing, whatever. When a conspicuous, cloaked character approached her on a night out and said, “I know of a way to get Outlanders back home–come with me,” she had–of course–said hell yeah. Sold, motherfucker.
Had she expected to spend weeks trapped in a deep, deep cave with underground tunnels? Fuck that, no. Her phone had died and had no way of charging it, and three hours in she realized she was with a cult but if they could actually get her home, who gave a shit? They had her do these dumb errands and lift heavy things, then rewarded her with booze and that was fantastic.
Too bad it was laced with roofies or whatever.
Turns out, Revy had gotten herself captured by some human sacrificing nutjobs that were just really bad at what they did. The circumstances had to be perfect - stars and moons had to align, the temperature had to be just right for the ritual, and she told them several times she wasn’t a virgin but they didn’t believe her. Revy could bide her time.
They fed her chicken nuggets a lot, that was cool.
Then when the day came, and they released her from her prison and thought they could wrangle - she proved them wrong. Had he succumbed to murder? No, because she thought about Leon and how he complained about paperwork and even though he probably wouldn’t be filing any paperwork about this, it still stuck. Did she commit acts of brutal violence?
Bet your sweet ass she did. They were alive by the time she made it out. She was mostly sure of it. Revy didn’t come out unscathed, though - her nose had to be reset and it was a macabre fountain dripping down her face, and she had cuts and bruises with some dirt rubbed on it. Nothing like getting stabbed in the knee with a sword, so. Thumbs up. It was a fucking success.
Some wandering brought her to a tavern, and the barkeep looked at her with utter horror. “Do you need a–”
“--phone charger? Fuck yeah I do.” Revy sat with a wince, and the poor patrons around her had to witness the sickening crack of her resetting her nose. “Need that, a drink, and cigarettes. Got rum?”
He had all three. Lucky night.
Once her phone lit up to life, she lazily scrolled through her phones–noticed some missed calls and texts–but didn’t have it in her to really dig through it. Her coordinates were dropped to Leon, and she shot him a quick ‘bring cash, gotta pay the bartender’ and lit a cigarette.
If anyone had asked Leon how he was doing since Revy’s disappearance, he would have said that he was fine. He wasn’t overworking – though some might have argued that he was overdrinking, and he might not have been able to argue with them entirely guilt free. He was staying groomed – he shaved, showered, and brushed his teeth every day, and always made sure he was wearing a clean shirt and clean underwear. He wasn’t avoiding his friends, though he wasn’t exactly making an effort to see many of them outside of those times when he had to, like at work, or when Yelena barged into his apartment with an armload of Christmas decorations and insisted they were decorating, even though Leon hadn’t decorated for Christmas since he was 17. He tried not to think of all the new memories he’d gotten after Revy left, of their years together, both in Orange County and New York, and what a fucking shitshow all of that was. He tried not to think of much of anything at all. That was what the liquor was for.
When he got the text from Revy’s number, he stared at it for a long time, and even as he was bundling up in a hoodie and his leather jacket, he texted it back: Who the fuck is this?
Because it wasn’t Revy. It couldn’t be. Revy was gone. Revy had disappeared a month ago, and had gone back to the waiting arms of her Leon.
But you never got a disappearance notification.
Who the fuck cared? That didn’t mean anything. David hadn’t gotten a disappearance notification. Qrow hadn’t gotten a disappearance notification. And neither of them were hiding out in the woods someplace. He was pretty sure David would rather eat broken glass than live out in the woods someplace.
But your gut’s been saying that she never left.
And that didn’t matter jack shit either, because his gut had been wrong before, and he didn’t just blindly listen to it like he had when he was younger.
Revy was gone. This was some sick prank from someone who’d gotten her number. Or something.
He still grabbed a second jacket and made sure he had lots of cash on him when he dashed out the apartment and into his car.
He didn’t have time to check his phone again, between the time he reached the Waypoint in the lobby of Morningside and when he ended up in front of the Crossed Quills, but he braced himself for the sight of some asshole pulling a prank on him.
He saw instead Revy, and for a long moment he just stared at her, sitting at the bar, blood on her face, cigarette in her mouth, and rum in her hand, which was… well, a way of seeing her that he was very familiar with.
And then, once he was certain he’d managed to swallow his heart again so that it was somewhere in his chest instead of behind his teeth, he walked up to her, gestured to the bartender in a way that he thought indicated that he’d have what she was having, and said, “Wow, Revy, you look like shit.”
“Fuck you too,” Revy greeted breezily, tiredly. Her muscles were sore. Bones ached. She looked weirdly at peace, though, like she was meant to exist bathed in someone’s blood. Henry was next on her hit list to contact but she’d get to that in a minute. Maybe after a shower, which she really needed once they got the hell out of here. “Haven’t seen your ass in two weeks, what did I miss?”
Two weeks sounds about right. She hadn’t technically checked the date on her phone but she couldn’t be too far off.
Two weeks. Leon attempted to swallow his annoyance with the glass of rum the bartender put in front of him, and didn’t quite succeed. He gestured for another one.
“Try a month, Revy,” Leon said, the annoyance clear in his voice, and then, because he started talking and now he apparently couldn’t stop, he continued, voice rising as he went. “Where the fuck have you been, Revy? I looked fucking everywhere for you; I was convinced by the end of it that you got what you wanted and that Vallo had spit you back out again.” Even he could hear the bitterness in his voice at that, though that didn’t stop him from continuing. “I was worried sick and you were off, what, getting drunk and picking fights?”
That… wasn’t entirely fair, and even he knew that Revy wasn’t likely to just disappear without a single word on a month long bender. Not without inviting him along, at least. Or, maybe, not without inviting her Leon along.
“Hah. What.” Revy blinked. That had to be a joke, but with how pissed Leon was looking–and she knew that look–it wasn’t. She put out the cigarette onto the ashtray and snatched her phone, squinting at the brightness of the screen as she finally found the date.
Today’s date.
Wasn’t it–October? That’s what she remembered, except her phone was telling her it was December. “What the,” she scowled, forcing herself up to sit straight instead of slouching. “What the fuck, no. That’s too…” Revy scrubbed a hand down her face, winced when she hit her nose, and all she did was smear the last bits of moist blood on her face. “Some shitheads told me they could get me back home if I followed them into a cave, okay?!”
Fuck her, that sounded dumb. It was dumb. “I got scammed, obviously, and they held me prisoner so they could sacrifice me to some ‘demon’ or something.” Revy used air quotes, and then flagged the bartender down for another drink. “I left them unconscious–hey, can you make that like a triple shot? Thanks. Anyway–I left them unconscious… somewhere. I didn’t kill anybody for the record so eat my whole fucking ass, Orcot.”
Leon stared. And then stared some more. And then, he started laughing.
It was dumb. It was so dumb. And Leon couldn’t hold it against her. Not at all. Because it was familiar.
“Me too, please,” he said to the bartender, and then shot Revy a wry smile. “You know, when I first got here, I was so desperate to go home I thought I could strike a deal with Vorerra to send back. Long story short, they got into my head – literally. Mind control – and had me shoot James.”
It wasn’t a story he talked about. Catra and Adora, James and his sister, they were the only people in Vallo who knew it. But compounded with Revy’s story… well, “What a fine pair of suckers we make,” he said, holding up his glass for a cheers. He studied Revy a little closer. “Are you alright?”
“I told you to eat my fucking ass,” Revy spat, irate, and she guessed that his commiserating story could help soothe her wounded pride but she knew she’d done something stupid when she had Leon to compare stories with. The mess she had gotten herself into was something she clearly was able to get herself out of, but…
The reason why she got herself in it was because she had missed him.
Back to square one, where being in this Leon’s presence was a comfort and an ache. So she drank, knocking back the rum and slamming the glass back down with a sigh. “Was better than actual prison,” she mumbled. “No cavity searches. They brought me chicken nuggets. Thought I was a virgin. Who the fuck is Vorerra and should I actually kill them instead?”
Leon’s smile slipped from his face at Revy’s question. “No, Revy, you should leave them alone,” he said, serious. “It’s water under the bridge now anyway. That was…” He thought about it, frowned. “Shit, that was over a year ago now.”
He tilted his head at her, then grinned. “Honestly, these guys sounded like idiots. Thanks for not killing them, even if they probably deserved it. They feed you anything other than chicken nuggets this last month?”
Fuuuuuck. Revy scrubbed her face again with both hands. A whole month, wasted. Not like she’d be doing much that could be considered productive but it kept cementing the fact that she was stuck here, over and over and over. She snapped her fingers for another drink. Might as well get messed up tonight, pass out and shower tomorrow. Does she still have an apartment??
“Pedialyte, mountain dew,” she rattled on, plopping her arms over the bartop to rest her head on. “One of them made me peanut butter jelly once, even cut off the crusts because who gives shit about the crust. Told you–better than prison.”
The third drink was slid over, and Revy poked it with a grouchy sense of defeat.
“I need a job.”
Leon resisted the urge to reach out to hold her. “You need a proper meal,” Leon said. He tried to think if he had any groceries at home. He was pretty sure he didn’t. The last month, he’d mostly been subsisting off of take-out and liquor. “I’ll pick us up something to eat while you get cleaned up.” Maybe something clean for Revy to change into once she got out of the shower so she wasn’t wandering around in a towel. He had the sneaking suspicion he wasn’t going to be able to deal with it if she was wandering around his apartment in just a towel. Maybe some fuzzy pyjamas or something. “You can worry about getting a job later.”
Revy blinked over at him and slowly, slowly, narrowed her eyes.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked, frowning deeply. Leon wasn’t always a total dick to her but this was a little too nice–especially since she was fine. Could probably douse herself in a tub of disinfectant to clean the cuts, but fine. “You’re being fucking weird. Did you–get laid while I was gone?”
Stupid question to ask, why the fuck did she asked that, she didn’t care.
Leon had not gotten laid, but the way his face turned red at the question might have, reasonably, convinced anyone watching that he had, because he could certainly remember getting laid. Revy had mentioned how much the other Leon had liked motorboats, and Leon could imagine it back then. He didn’t need to rely on his imagination anymore.
“No, I didn’t get laid,” he said, and took a gulp of his rum as if he could hide behind the lowball glass. “I was worried about you, jackass. I’m glad you’re alright, alright?”
The face Revy made almost looked like she was offended by Leon having the audacity of worrying about her. Or maybe she didn’t trust it, and she didn’t completely buy that there wasn’t something weird about him. “Whatever you say,” she replied, suspicious and scrutinizing but ultimately let it go.
She looked back to her drink. The frown deepened. This was a shit feeling. She almost didn’t even want to finish it.
“I’ll take that actual meal,” she scowled, annoyed at how pliant she was being but she didn’t have the energy to put up a fight. Revy wasn’t being tossed back anytime soon and she had to fucking deal. She knocked back the third drink, shoved the empty glass away from her. Tonight, she was done.
He should tell her. He knew he should tell her. But Leon wasn’t really sure how she’d react to him suddenly having all the memories of every time they fought and every time they kissed and made-up, and frankly, it sounded like she’d been through hell this last few month. The fact that she wasn’t fighting him about getting dinner over drinks seemed like sign enough of that.
He finished off his drink too, then dug out enough cash to cover their bill. “You can sleep with me tonight,” he said, and then flushed. “I mean, on my couch. Not like, with me. Or I can sleep on the couch, if you wanted to take the bed. Whatever.” He tried not to flush, he didn’t exactly succeed.
Or they could check with management, and see if she still had her apartment, or if they could give them a new one. But he didn’t bring that up. He wanted to keep her close, at least tonight.
“I got what you meant,” Revy grumbled. “Stop being twitchy, you’re weirding me the fuck out.” She always took the couch—and maybe that needed to stop. If she was stuck here for the long haul, she should probably to do that thing people did. Fuck, what was it?
Set borders? No. Boundaries. She had to set boundaries. Hanging around Leon had been a guilty pleasure that did more good than harm when she thought Vallo would kick her to the curb in a few weeks, letting her go back to her brand of a normal life.
Being around him now might actually suck a lot of dick.
Revy unplugged her phone and stood up, swallowing what would have been a grunt of discomfort. “Let’s go. I’ll… pay you back.”
Leon made his way to the waypoint on the second story. “You don’t gotta pay me back,” he said, waving a hand. “It’s fine. Once you get a job, you can just take me out for drinks sometime.”
Revy seemed… kind of down, and it was weirding him out. He wasn’t really sure what he should do in this situation. His first priority was making sure that she got cleaned up and ate some actual food, but after that, what? Take her out to the shooting range so she could indiscriminately shoot inanimate objects? Take her to the Underground so she could punch things for a while? There was a room where people just broke things, wasn’t there? He thought he’d heard Adora talk about it before.
“Hey, maybe Steve’ll be there when we get back to the apartment. He’s not really, you know, the same Steve; he’s a Vallo native. But he’s a pain in my ass, so you’d probably like him.”
Revy traveled through the Waypoint in a daze. Steve–had she told Leon about her Steve? Some details she kept close to her chest, but she honestly couldn’t come up with a clear memory of that conversation. That meant the obvious: she was shitfaced during that story, duh.
“Yeah,” was her answer, offhandedly and not all that attentive. Morningside was miles better than the stone prison she’d been kept in, but… she wasn’t happy to see it. It cemented the dread in her gut. It was another reminder that she was stuck here, and fuck did she hate it more now.
Before they made it to his apartment, body having been moving on auto-pilot mode for most of it, Revy turned to look at him. “Listen–uh, I’ll look into what happened to my apartment tomorrow,” she told him, looking eerily calm but also eerily annoyed. “I should probably take it easy with the drinking for the next few days.”
What she didn’t say was I should probably take it easy drinking for the next few days with you, and that’s what she really meant.
Leon was trying not to be unnerved, but he wasn’t entirely succeeding. There was something wrong, and he wasn’t sure if it was just that Revy hadn’t managed to go home, or if those creeps who’d kidnapped her had done something to her.
“Yeah, I was thinking I should dry out a little too,” he said. He’d done a bit of tidying up when Yelena had come over and insisted he decorate for Christmas – and he’d given in eventually, despite the fact that he hadn’t really done the whole Christmas decorating thing unless Chris was spending it with him, in either world – but the amount of empties littering the surfaces of his apartment probably attested to why.
He leaned in close to get a subtle (it was not) look at her pupils.
“Take a shower,” he said once he was sure that her eyes looked normal; he didn’t think she was concussed. “Or a bath. Whatever. Take your time, use up all the hot water if you want. I’ll go get us something to eat. Steak?”
Revy wasn’t sure what the fuck he was even checking for. Her face was a bloody mess and would be bruised as hell tomorrow but other than that–what gives. Leon was lucky she didn’t deck him.
(She wouldn’t. She was tired. She liked him. But she also hated him right now.)
“Will you stop being nice,” she growled out, painfully yanking her hair free from her knotted ponytail. “I’m fucking fine. I can handle morons and their shitty schemes, I don’t need you trying to–” Take care of me. Leon was trying to take care of her. The thought made her blood boil. “Just get whatever. I don’t care.”
Revy stormed into the bathroom, vaguely taking note of the gaudy-as-shit festive decor, the drained bottles (what, did he get a new drinking buddy while she was gone)--and then slammed the door shut so hard she could have taken it off its hinges.
She had hijacked his shower before. It wasn’t the first time. It needed to be the last time. So she stripped her clothes and bundled them up into a ball that needed to be eventually tossed, and went to work on getting all the grime off her.
It wasn’t until after she was done–she had taken awhile, soaking in the hot steam and water–that it occurred to her that she needed clothes. Revy grabbed a towel and cursed her luck. She stepped out, sighing with controlled rage, and loudly called out into the apartment: “Can I jack some clothes??”
“There’s some pyjamas hanging on the door,” Leon said at Revy’s call.
He’d gone out, run to Cafe Tropical, which was just down the street from the apartments and had ordered them a couple of burgers and milkshakes, and while they’d been getting his order ready he’d run to another store nearby to grab the pyjamas. Revy had told him to stop being so nice, and so he’d been tempted to get her something pink and fuzzy, with a kitten wearing a bow on it, but since he liked his balls exactly where they were, he’d decided on something a little more plain, though also comfortable – loose cotton pants and a blank tanktop.
When he’d got home, he’d grabbed a beer from the fridge and his hand had been halfway to cracking it open before he’d thought better of it and put it away – Revy said she wasn’t interested in drinking more, and he wasn’t about to try to convince her otherwise.
And so instead he’d sat down on the couch, laid out the burgers and fries in their take out containers, and flipped through the television channels, and no sooner had he landed on a rerun of Lethal Weapon then Revy’s shower was done.
He waited until she was dressed before he asked, “So, what are you thinking for work?”
On the–the fuck? Revy blinked up at it with a scrutinizing eye. These looked like chick clothes. New chick clothes. Did he–nevermind, she wasn’t going to think hard about where the hell he got these. Changing into them was done swiftly despite the ache in her bones, and she brushed the knots out of her hair before finally joining him on the couch.
“Stripping,” she deadpanned, though she wasn’t the least bit serious. Revy chose the corner farthest from Leon, grabbed her drink (still cold with ice cubes), and held it to her face. It was going to be one massive bruise in the morning. “Don’t know, Leon, but I’ll figure it out.”
“You’ve got the ass for it,” Leon said, taking a large bite of his burger. He chewed, thinking, and, for a wonder, he actually swallowed before he spoke again. This probably wasn’t the kind of conversation to have with a mouth full of meat. “I remember, Rev. All of it.”
He hoped she wouldn’t run out of here. Or throw her burger at him, though he’d take the burger to the face over her storming out.
Revy didn’t know what that meant. She didn’t think too hard on it either. Leon was talking a lot tonight, and she was half-tempted to just phase him out until sleep hit her like a freight train but that was also a dick move. She wasn’t above dick moves when it came to him, but—
“That’s cool,” she shrugged, making the effort to at least reply to him (but she was obviously just distracted, staring mostly at the television). Can’t exactly cold shoulder the fucked that got her a meal and was letting her crash on the couch. She reached over to grab her burger, unwrapping the tinfoil and making a face when she realized it had a condiment she wasn’t in the mood for. “Want my pickles?”
Leon blinked at her. And then blinked again. Revy was… taking this better than Leon had expected her to. He’d been half expecting her to punch him. Or… shoot him in the ass. Or literally anything other than give him her pickles.
But sure, this was fine too.
“Yeah, sure. Thanks.”
And this, Leon could do. Snacking on burgers, watching Lethal Weapon in companionable silence, with Revy by his side (or, well, on the other side of the living room, whatever)? This beat the hell out of just about anything.