Protectorate
Rating: PG-13/T
Genre: Angst/Drama
Summary: For the angst_bingo challenge, prompt "Roofied". In which Henry is badass, and a stranger realizes one of the many dangers of slipping drugs to a girl.
Author's Note: SOMETHING TO KEEP IN MIND: I have not read the books. Any of them. I'm waiting for my dad to finish the first one, and I have another coming in the mail. That being said, all of Henry and Cady's characterization comes from what I've seen on the show.
Disclaimer: I don't own Longmire. It belongs to Craig Johnson and A&E.
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On that note, THANK YOU taragel FOR HELPING WITH MY QUESTIONS ON HENRY'S CHARACTERIZATION. :D
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When Cady came stumbling back into the Red Pony a little less than half an hour after she'd left, Henry knew something was wrong.
The man she'd been with was a stranger. When she had come to the bar to grab their drinks, Henry had enquired about him and only gotten a sly grin in return. All he'd done was roll his eyes and debate about whether or not he should tease Walt with this information.
Cady had turned twenty-one four months beforehand, but Henry had already seen her drunk a few times; Given that she was generally one of the better-behaved kids in town, it was probably the only thing she did that even remotely approached risky behavior. He had assumed that she was drunk when she had left the restaurant earlier (with the same man) from the way she was walking and slurring her words a bit. But now that she was back, something in the way she was moving was setting alarm-bells off in his head.
"Henry-" Cady tried to speak, and the alarms got louder when he saw that she looked reasonably distressed.
He had closed up for the night (Business was unusually slow, and Cady and the man had been the last to leave) and so he was the only one watching as Cady stumbled to the bar, almost collapsing against it and narrowly catching herself against the counter. Henry quickly moved out from behind the counter and steadied her. "Cady, what is wrong? Are you all right?"
"I-" Every time she tried to speak, her mouth seemed to fail on her. She stumbled over her words until she came to the only one that Henry could clearly make out: "No."
He glanced towards the door and saw that Cady's date was nowhere to be seen. Now, if Cady was so distressed and clearly not moving very well on her own, why would he not have accompanied her back to the bar? Was he maybe in a similar state as she?
Cady looked drunk when she left. That man did not. In fact, I did not see so much as a wobble in his step.
The dots connected quickly, and Henry realized that Cady was not drunk, that there was a reason why she appeared to be so distressed and incoherent, which was also why her male friend had not accompanied her back into the bar. Cady, Cady, did I not teach you to never leave your drink unattended? He thought, recalling the conversation he had had with her a few nights after her twenty-first birthday and she was having her first drink at the Red Pony.
"Come on," Henry wrapped an arm around Cady's waist and helped her along towards his office. "Come on. You can lie down in my office, and I will call your father."
Cady made a little noise that might have been a groan. It was possible she was simply feeling unwell from whatever she had been given, but if she was still lucid enough to understand what Henry had just said, she undoubtedly knew how Walt was going to react to this. Walt was hardly a belligerent man, but let you lay a hand on his daughter and he'd rip you in half.
Henry led her into his office and over to the couch, which she half-sat, half-collapsed onto. After a moment of trying to situate herself against the cushions, Cady must have decided that it would be easier to lie down. Henry pulled a pillow over from the arm and slid it under her head, and then pulled a blanket draped over the back (Martha had given it to him for Christmas) and laid it over her.
He observed Cady for a moment longer. Henry had known Cady from the day she was born; he'd played with her as a child, been the indulgent uncle that let her get away with things her parents never would (which have never been a problem, since she was just a damn good kid). He had accepted her adulthood far faster than Walt had- in fact, whether or not Walt truly accepted that Cady was no longer a child was still up in the air- but at this moment had a stark recollection of the little girl he'd been roped into playing positively humiliating childhood games with.
And then Henry wondered if that man she was with was still in the area.
I would very much like to have a talk with the man who did this to her.
That was the mild way of putting it.
After a quick, final glance to make sure that she was comfortable, Henry left his office and then the bar, entering the parking lot and looking around. His car was at the edge of the lot. A quick scan found Cady's at the other end. The lot came around to the side of the building as well, and when Henry took a peak, luck favored him: There was one car left, and the man standing beside it was definitely the one that had been with Cady earlier on.
Then came the question of what to do. This man could be dangerous, after all. Oh, he didn't look like much, but Henry would not put it past a man who was willing to drug a woman to have some kind of weapon on him. On the other hand, he had to do something: Get a name, a license plate maybe, because if the man was from out of town he could easily disappear. This might be Henry's only opportunity to make sure that he got what he had coming to him.
Cady's distressed expression jumped to the front of his mind again, and it was decided. Henry walked towards the man, hands by his sides, trying not to look too intimidating lest the man try to bolt. When the stranger saw him, though, he didn't move. Henry stopped maybe two feet from him.
"Were you the man that was here with Cady Longmire?"
The man twitched nervously, and something like panic flashed through his eyes: The panic of someone who had done something wrong and knew that they had been found out. If there had ever been any shadow of a doubt as to what he had done and intended to do, it was gone. "Yeah, so?"
Three things went through Henry's mind in the next minute:
This man has drugged Cady.
This man has drugged Cady in my bar.
This man has drugged Cady, in my bar, with the likely intention of taking her somewhere, raping her and, for all I know, killing her.
Henry punched him in the face.
It had been a long, long time since he'd had to throw a punch at someone. It had been an even longer time since he'd wanted to throw a punch at someone. But he wasn't about to let this guy just walk away, not when he could find Cady later or prey on some other unsuspecting young woman in her stead. And he seriously doubted that the man would be content to just wait until Walt got there.
All it took was the one, and the stranger was down for the count. Not unconscious, but his nose was bleeding and he seemed sufficiently dazed. Henry hesitated, just to make sure that he wasn't being lulled into a false sense of security. Once he was satisfied that the man wasn't going to be jumping up and taking a swing at him, Henry grabbed him by the collar of his jacket and proceeded to drag him back into the bar.
There wasn't so much as a peep when he stepped inside, indicating that Cady had probably fallen asleep (Passed out, because she has been drugged). Henry laid the culprit out on one of the tables (He briefly considered just leaving him on the floor, but did not want to have to worry about tripping over him), observing for a moment before nodding, no, he wouldn't roll off and hurt himself. But then, if he did, would Henry care?
This man put something in Cady's drink so that he could violate her or worse. If she had not come back to the bar, right now she would probably be…
No, no he would not care if the bastard hurt himself. In this case, human decency went out the window, and all he needed to keep in mind was liability issues.
Henry went back to his office. As he'd suspected, Cady was dead to the world, back rising and falling slowly. It occurred to him that once Walt got there, they might need to bring her to a doctor to get checked out. For now, though, she seemed to be fine, and he wasn't leaving that stranger alone in his bar.
Henry picked up the phone and dialed the Longmire home. As it rang, he began to think about how he was going to break this to Walt, or wondering if maybe he might be better off calling someone who would be less likely to kill the culprit. No, no, Cady was Walt's daughter and Henry's friend, he deserved to know first. In fact, Henry would pay for it later if Walt was not the first to know.
When Walt picked up, he sounded like he'd just been woken out of a sound sleep (it was three in the morning). "Hello?"
"Walt? You need to come to the Red Pony. We have a problem."
-End
…First Longmire fic, so be gentle. (:3
And I feel I should mention that I chose the title not on the traditional definition of the word 'Protectorate', but rather after the trope. As, you know, Cady is not actually a country.