Chapter Text
“Leon! C’mon, I’m not waitin’ for ya, doll! Get up!” A pillow flung at mach speed jolts Leon from her ‘slumber of the fuckin’ undead’ as Sonny used to say. Cora stands over her bed, hands on her hips, eyebrow raised in defiance, hair tousled in all of its fiery-red glory. “C’mon! Up! Bill’s not firin’ us both today, I tell you what.”
Leon grumbles incoherently as she watches her roommate leave. Her roommate, or, in other words, her familiar. Though, Leon is offered none of the typical respect that a familiar should provide. Cora Vito-Poirier is Leon’s best friend on Earth. And she’s the only person who knows for sure what Leon is. Besides her ex-husband, who is no doubt languishing in some foreign lab a hundred-thousand miles away from Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A.
There are, of course, dozens of journalists and scientists back in New York City who are convinced they know the truth, but as long as it stands unconfirmed, Leon is safe. That is, of course, until Sonny gives up the goose. Which could be any day now. She checks the time on her clearly very broken alarm clock, which reads 7:45 PM. Work starts at 8:00. Shit.
Leon flings herself out of bed, doesn’t even attempt to tame her mane of curls, just throws it up into a haphazard bun and throws on her ugly pink and white uniform – far too revealing for Baltimore weather – and a long, dark coat that covers the seemingly random slices of skin that The Starship Grace mandates stay available to the public. She glances at the table she keeps by where the window should be – blacked out a year ago, when they first moved in – and grabs at a tube of lipstick that she will attempt to apply on the way.
When she finally makes it to the front door, she finds Cora, tapping her very high heel and sighing with an agenda. “Sorry!” Leon huffs, throwing on her own Starship Grace-mandated pair of stilettos and hustling out the door. “My stupid alarm, it’s– it won’t go off! I don’t know why!”
“Excuses, excuses…” Cora mutters over the click-clack click-clack of their footsteps on the freshly-defrosted concrete. “God, it’s cold as a bitch, ain’t it?”
“Uh-huh,” Leon chuckles. “You can say that again.”
From there, they lapse in to harried silence as they shuffle their way as quickly as they can to the diner, where Leon will be spending the next eight hours looking for something – someone – to eat.
They’ve figured out a pretty easy system for maintaining Leon’s somewhat exotic diet. Working night shifts at the Starship Grace provides them with no shortage of douchebags and ‘involuntary celibates’ with no personal lives to speak of for her to chow down on. It’s fairly simple. They wait for some balding middle-aged man dining alone to make a comment, cop a feel, get a little too frisky, drop him a line – usually Cora’s phone number – and boom! Fresh meal, delivered straight to their doorstep. It would be perfect if they didn’t all taste so bitter.
But Leon supposes she can’t complain. Drinking blood is a terribly arduous task, especially when it comes to the law. Which is why she really should not have been surprised when, upon approaching their esteemed place of work, they are met with a veritable cabal of police.
They have the whole place cordoned off with yellow and black tape that says “CRIME SCENE - CRIME SCENE - CRIME SCENE,” over and over and over again. Frankly, it’s a little repetitive. She exchanges a look with Cora. Wrapped in her massive fur coat, hair piled atop her head so high it would rival a British soldier’s hat, Leon has never seen her look so small.
“They’re here for us,” Cora murmurs. Leon barely hears her over the clambering of the sirens, the piercing cold wind. Leon can’t bring herself to respond. She knows it’s true. She glances over her shoulder. Do they still have time to run?
“Ladies!” Evidently not. A stout, priestly man in navy blue approaches them, waving a clipboard. “Are either of you Cora Poirier?”
Leon feels Cora shrink next to her. “Yeah, why?” She blusters, trying for cool, calm, and collected. Leon sees right through her.
“Oh! Great!” The guy seems genuinely delighted. “Ericsson, get over here!” He calls over his shoulder to another cop. Leon feels glued to the asphalt, as though her stilettos have dug themselves into the ground and taken root in the soil beneath.
Ericsson – a taller, reed-thin officer with a gaunt demeanour – approaches with handcuffs. Wordlessly, he rounds on Cora, trying to stuff them onto her wrists.
“Woah, woah, woah!” Cora ducks out of the way. “Hold on, shithead, what the hell are the cuffs about?”
“She’s not cooperating,” Ericsson says to the stout man, toneless. “Should I shoot her?”
“Hey– woah, c’mon, Ericsson, it’s Ericsson, right? She just wants to know why the– y’know, why the cuffs? She’s just– she works here! We both work here!” Leon tries to defuse the situation.
“Yeah but the rules say you gotta cooperate, y’know?” Ericsson shrugs. “I’m just doing my job.”
“Okay, no, there’s no need for– Ted, can I talk to you over here?” The stout man tugs at Ericsson’s sleeve, pulling him back in toward the cabal, who seem to have noticed their presence, if the fact that they’re completely surrounded is anything to go off of.
“Hey, what the hell is going on here!” Leon shouts after them. Wordlessly, a large, burly officer pushing 6’5 comes up behind them. He grabs Cora by the wrists and slams a pair of cuffs down on them. She calls out, in pain. Leon sees red. “What the hell’re you doin’? Don’t fuckin’ touch her!” Leon shoves him. He rolls his eyes, produces another pair of cuffs, and Leon is being arrested too.
“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to talk to a lawyer for advice before we ask you any questions. You have the right to have a lawyer with you during questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be appointed for you before any questioning if you wish. If you decide to answer questions now without a lawyer present, you have the right to stop answering at any time.”
They find themselves sitting in a holding cell barely ten minutes later.
“You’re a fuckin’ idiot, girlie,” Cora murmurs, leaning against Leon’s side. “A real fuckin’ idiot.”
“Yeah,” Leon sighs, rubbing warmth into her best friend’s shoulder. “I know.”
The bench they’re sitting on reminds Leon of the soot-covered smoking spot outside the Starship Grace they like to call “heaven.” Just blocked enough that the people inside think they’re invisible, but just visible enough that the cooks can see them making out from the kitchen. Cora’s boytoy, Johnny, let them in on that little tidbit over a year ago. The name probably stemmed from a seven minutes in heaven joke.
“Leon,” Cora’s voice cracks. Leon hazards a glance down to see she’s shaking like a leaf. She’s never seen Cora so scared. “What do we do?”
“I dunno.” Leon shakes her head. “We gotta… I guess, just keep calm and act innocent?”
Cora snorts a laugh into Leon’s shoulder. “Right. Y’know my sister’s married to a lawyer?”
“Yeah, but isn’t he a terrible lawyer?”
“Well, yeah, but he’s better than nothin’!” It isn’t as funny as it should be to warrant how hard Leon laughs.
“Glad you two are having fun.” Leon jumps. The door all but slams behind the officer who says it, creaking like it’s not been oiled in centuries. He’s got a face like a pug.
“You’re the one who’s got us– y’know, cooped up like this, I think we’re well within our rights to laugh about it,” Leon sniffs indignantly. Normally, it would be Cora standing up for the two of them, but for maybe the first time in the course of their entire friendship, it’s been made clear that Cora is the one in danger here. So there’s a bit of a Cora-shaped void to fill.
“Look, do you know why we’ve got you here?” Mr. Pug-face asks.
“Do you know–” Leon begins to insult him, but Mr. Pug-face cuts her off.
“I’m talking to her.” He gestures to Cora.
Leon bites her tongue and looks to Cora. Cora shakes her head, brows furrowed. It doesn’t look like she wants to talk. Pug-face waits anyway. They enter a good old-fashioned Old West Stand-off. Who will speak first? Leon tries not to be amused.
“You’re not helping your case here,” Mr. Pug-face says, smug and annoyed all at once.
“I want a lawyer.” Cora glares at him with all the vitriol in her soul. Which is a lot. She’s a very vitriolic person.
Pug-face puts his hands up in the air. Ironic. “Alright, lady. That’ll be another three hours, you down for that?”
Cora groans. “I don’t even know why I’m down here. Aren’t you supposed to tell me that? Why I’m down here?”
“Guess you’ll have to wait for a lawyer to find out.” And with that, Pug-face is gone.
Cora whines, stuffing her face into her hands. Leon rubs at her back, sympathetic. “Hey, maybe we’ll get a good lawyer!”
“A good public defender? Yeah, maybe.” Cora flops down onto Leon’s lap. “And fuck knows how long it’ll take for them to suspect you, too!”
“They’re not gonna suspect me, Sweetheart, they’re not.” Leon shakes her head, projecting as much confidence into her voice as she can muster. It’s not much. She tries not to picture her fate in prison. Or worse, in a lab.
They wait there, curled up together on their shitty substitute for heaven, for those aforementioned three hours. Then another three. And another three. Eventually, Leon goes to bang on the door.
“HEY!” She calls out. “Are you gonna feed us, or what?!” She isn’t really thinking of herself, though she’s incredibly hungry. She hasn’t fed in a few days. Cora, though, is looking a bit pale. She bangs on the door one more time. Just as her fist makes contact with the metallic surface, it swings open, and she’s met with the sight of what most certainly cannot be a police officer.
Standing in front of Leon is a man who can’t be taller than 5’7, very out of breath, wearing a soft green three-piece suit, the thickest reading glasses she’s ever seen around his neck, and carrying a briefcase that she can only assume to be full of legal documents. He is also very, very attractive.
He extends a hand. “Hello, I’m Arthur Kirkland, are you Cora Vito-Poirier?”
“Wh– uh.” Leon is too hungry to think. She can feel his heartbeat from where she stands, the gentle thumping of blood filling the chambers of heart, the extremities of his veins, pulsing in his throat. “Yeah… I mean, no, that’s Cora, I’m Leon.” She shakes her head, taking his hand. It makes everything worse. She can feel his pulse point beneath her fingers, subconsciously extended to his wrist.
“Are you my lawyer?” Cora materialises behind her, bumping her out of the way.
“Maybe,” Arthur answers, cryptically. He presses past her into the room. “What I want to know, before we get started, is what you know, whether you did it, and then we can go from there.” He pulls the glasses up from where they hang around his neck, and Leon catches sight of a flash of gold around his wrist. A medical bracelet. Unclear whether it’s for style purposes or medical ones. If it’s for style, she’s just met a douchebag. He’d be okay to kill, but he’s defending Cora. Lame.
“I don’t even know what I’m in for, Arthur,” Cora hisses. “They won’t tell me.”
Arthur stops what he’s doing. “Ah.” He pulls the glasses off of his face. “I was misinformed. Okay. We’ll have to wait for Officer Higgs, then.”
“Oh, is that Pug-face?” Leon says without thinking. Arthur barks a laugh. A pretty smile breaks across his face, like the rising of the sun. Which, of course, she hasn’t seen in a very, very long time.
“He does look a bit like a pug, yeah,” He grins. “I didn’t know you’d be in here – Leon, right? – There’s no warrant for you in here,” he gestures to his briefcase.
“If you’ve got my warrant, you know what I’m in for,” Cora interjects.
“I know the, ah… Contours,” Arthur shakes his head, tentative. “I don’t think I’m supposed to say, but as I understand it, you’re wanted for murder.”
“Murder?!” Cora shouts. Kudos to her, it’s very believable. “Fucking, murder on who?!”
“A… well, a few people.”
“A FEW PEOPLE?!” Cora looks truly incensed. She should have considered a career in the performing arts. “What do you mean, a FEW PEOPLE?!”
“Look, this is just what I’ve been told. I really shouldn’t have–,”
Arthur is interrupted by the squeal of the door, rust rubbing rust on its ungreased hinges. Officer Pug-face has returned.
“You alright in here?” He asks, stern.
“Look, sir, I don’t know what it is you think I’ve done exactly, but I’m a waitress! I’m just a fucking waitress!” Cora waves her hands in the air, pointing at Pug-face like he’s the one being questioned for murder.
Pug-face lets out a long-suffering sigh and gestures with his head towards the door. “Alright. Come with me.”
There’s some disagreement about whether Leon should be allowed in the room, but after some quiet discussion – something about Leon being “implicated,” – she’s heard enough of that for one lifetime – she’s given her own interview.
They take Cora in first, and she’s gone for about an hour. When she comes out, she looks pissed off and tired. Arthur squeezes her shoulder silently, and motions for Leon to come with him.
They get underway this time with very little preamble, much more formal now they’ve acquired a legal representative.
“What do you know about Thomas Geordan, aged 55?” Pug-face sets down a photo of a man Leon knows they both recognise – their exact M.O. ugly, mean eyes, unloved. This guy grabbed Cora’s tits a month ago, a disgusting, oily laugh burbling in his throat. He’d tasted like grease and fish-head.
“I mean, he could have been a customer at the Grace? I mean, I– I dunno, I don’t recognise every lonely loser who walks in, do I?” She tries to hide the waver in her voice.
“Do you?” Pug-face asks. She tries to meet his eyes. She’s a worse liar than Cora. You’d think just over a hundred years of life would provide her with some skills. As it turns out, besides some handy mechanic-type abilities, she remains just as useless as she was in the 1890s.
“I don’t!” She furrows her brow. “But he looks familiar.” Arthur nods, and takes a note. She bites the inside of her cheek, tastes the tang of week-old blood.
Pug-face pulls out photo after photo – Tom Hegel, Darcy Flint, Daniel Mayweather – men she’s met, faces she knows, blood she’s tasted. She learns they haven’t found a single body. They’re following leads from customers who saw Cora give all four of them her number. They’re lucky it’s only four, to be honest.
When the interview is over, Leon thinks she’s got a fifty-fifty chance of being found out. Arthur escorts her and Cora toward the exit. “Here…. Is my number, if you need anything – if the cops come sniffing around your house, you call me, I’ll be right out.” He hands Cora a slip of paper with some digits scribbled on it, borderline illegibly. “I’ve gotta have a meeting with both of you, individually. When’re you free?”
The closer they get to the door, the higher in Leon’s chest the dread builds. The sun is almost up. It’s barely cresting the buildings surrounding the precinct, and soon, it will be too dangerous for her to go out. Cora seems to notice too.
“Uh, hey, how about I call you later? We gotta get home, our uh– our cat is probably pretty hungry!” Cora lies through her teeth.
She grabs Leon by the shoulders and steers her out of the building, away from the questioning soft, brown eyes of their lawyer. Once they’re down the block, they start to run. They book it down the street, in the direction of their apartment, and Leon starts to laugh.
“Our cat is hungry?” She cackles. Cora groans, knocking into her side.
“Come on, it’s all I could think of!”
“You could’ve said we were hungry!”
“He would’ve offered to buy us breakfast!” They both start laughing at that. Their clueless lawyer.
“He seems like a sweetheart,” Leon offers.
“Yeah, I’m sure,” Cora teases, knocking into her again. By now they’ve slowed down to a speedwalk, stamina dwindling. You’d think immortality would supply Leon with energy. You’d think a lot of things.
“What’s that mean?” She balks.
“You wanted him soooo badddd,” Cora sings, cackling in her ear.
“I did not!” Leon smacks at Cora’s arm. They’ve arrived at the apartment just in time for the sun to crest over the shortest buildings in the distance.
“Yes you did!” Cora fumbles for the keys, panic growing between them. Leon huddles against her side, inching away from the edge of the shadows.
“I did not!” She barely knows what she’s arguing for anymore. The key slides into the lock, and they tumble into the landing in a pile.
Relief courses through their veins like heroin as they both take in gasping gulps of air, as though they’d forgotten to breathe outside. They hold each other on the welcome mat they keep inside – it says “Shut Up and Fuck Off” – and laugh until they can’t anymore.
“...You know we have to get a cat now, right?” Cora giggles.
“Oh, fuck you!”