Revenge Exchange

A/N: Hey guys! Here’s the fourth chapter. Here, we get to see what Max and his goons have in mind for Leon. Thanks again to those of you who review. ^_^

Warnings:

FL--Foul Language
V--Violence

Chapter 4: Trust Me

“Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return.”
--Alphonse Elric, “Fullmetal Alchemist”

D frowned. In one hand, he held a second pot of tea. In the other, something entirely different. The small bottle, he slipped into his pocket, the tea he poured into a clean cup. There was a strange feeling in his stomach. It was a bit like what one feels before vomiting. The clock continued to tick away the minutes and seconds, and they had only a limited amount of time. The plan he had formulated was going to require a calm, cool head from not only Leon, but also himself. And at the moment, neither man was very composed. D’s reason for agitation, while quite different from the detective’s, was no less disturbing. His actions in the next five minutes would change several lives, and he must be very, very careful.

On second thought, D poured a cup for himself, as well. He was going to need it. Setting both cups on a tray, he brought them over to the table. Then, he removed the little bottle from his pocket, placing it on the polished mahogany. “Leon,” he said, still unused to using the detective’s given name. It was all the man responded to, though, so he had to say it. D leaned against the table as he gained the attention he sought. “What would you be willing to do…to save Christopher?”

The haze that had settled over Leon’s eyes cleared for a moment. His jaw set, the sharp angles hardening in determination. “I’ll do whatever it takes. Anything.” The deep tones of the man’s voice took on the distinct ring of resolve, and that was all D needed.

He pointed at the bottle. “I will be putting this into your tea, then.”

“What will it—“

D fixed the blonde man with his eyes, pinning him there, and silencing him. “Do you trust me?” For a long moment, Leon looked frantic. D wondered what his answer would be. Certainly, the man thought that he had committed innumerable offenses for which he should be arrested…though he did allow his brother to stay here…and he came to him with questions at times…but did he trust?

“Jesus, D, what does this have to do with anything?” Leon’s fingers gripped the edge of the table, nails whitening.

D leaned close, fed up with the man’s refusal to answer. He pushed his face so near to Leon’s that he could make out green flecks in the man’s eyes. This sudden movement seemed to unnerve the detective, and he shied away. Placing one hand on the arm of the chair Leon sat in, and the other on the table next to the bottle, D said hurriedly, “I will only ask you once more, because we really have a very short time left. Do you trust me, Leon?” An obvious internal struggle was going on behind pale blue eyes, and Leon started biting his lip. Finally, he gave a single nod. “Say it aloud, Leon. We have to trust each other. I think you know that I trust you…but I need to know that you really have that kind of faith in me.”

--

Leon’s brain felt like it was going to explode. There were too many things going on in his skull for his taste. For one thing, he didn’t know what the hell D was talking about. They needed to go and get Chris back! They were running out of time, and here they were blabbering on about trust and faith and whether Leon had either or both of them in D.

Did he trust D? Really trust him? He let Chris stay with him. He hadn’t found that the guy did anything really illegal. Nothing. And then there was the fact that D did trust him. He’d just said it. But then again, Leon already knew that, in a way. Taking a deep breath, he tried to get his mind to calm down. Okay. What were his requirements for trust again?

For Leon Orcot, trust was a simple matter of fulfilling three key requirements. First, a person must not break the law. That was easy enough. D had never broken any law he could prove. Second, the person must not lie. While half of the shit that D told him couldn’t possibly be true, it was clear that the Chinese man really did believe it. So he didn’t lie. The third requirement was that the person was not, under any circumstances, to fuck him over. Well, that was an easy one. D had never done anything to fuck him over. He’d been through some really weird shit because of (and with) D, but nothing that he’d consider as detrimental to his own health or status as a free man.

So, Leon said with renewed certainty, “I trust you, D.” That was when the man nearly sagged where he stood. Strange. It was as if he had been sure Leon wouldn’t answer that way…

D nodded, and picked up the little bottle. It was made of opaque black glass, and stopped with a cork. Leon watched curiously as slender fingers worked the cork out of the bottle’s mouth carefully, and set the little stopper down. There was something red on the cork, which looked like a dye of some sort. Frowning at the liquid, Leon did not see when D emptied the bottle’s contents into the cup from which he had been drinking. The cup was handed back to him, and he looked at the dark tea. It smelled normal.

Leon swallowed hard as he watched D’s face. He had a feeling…it was an ominous kind of sensation, like something really important was going on, but he didn’t know what it was. There was no clue on D’s face at all, as it only looked distressed. “Drink it, Leon,” D’s voice sounded as if it had taken on a desperate edge. In fact, the set of D’s red-painted lips suggested that he was almost frantic. “Drink…” Leon watched the way those lips moved, as if they did so in slow motion, and he nodded, with equal slowness.

Drinking so quickly that he could not taste what was sliding down his throat, Leon polished off the tea and whatever that red liquid was in less than two seconds. He set down his cup like a shot-glass, and looked at D. He felt a little sick. It was kind of like when the guys in the police academy had decided that it would be a clever idea to take the new recruits out and get them plastered just to see how much they could puke. This brought a thought to his mind that was less disturbed than it was curious. What if this was just some kind of initiation, and he’d drank colored water? Was it supposed to be a placebo thing? Leon frowned to himself, asking the obvious question. “What now?”

“Now,” came a voice from behind his chair, “I follow Tot-chan’s scent, and we go get your brother back.” Leon frowned, and turned around, peeking around the chair back. There was a young man standing there, silvery white hair tousled around his face, with a long braid thrown over his shoulder. He had not been there a moment ago. This boy wore a long robe of green silk, and a very sly smile. He appeared to be no more than eighteen. His eyes…they were gold. And then, something else caught his eye. There was a slender young woman standing in the doorway to the parlor, her bright green eyes blinking at him in curiosity. She had bright red hair, which she had pulled back with a blue ribbon.

Leon, stupefied, goggled at the new arrivals. D, on the other hand, came forward to pat the young man’s shoulder. He said, “Now, Ten-chan, you must be quick. We know where they will be, but Tot-chan will have made good work of hiding himself.” Leon’s brain stuttered like a car running out of gas. He looked from the kid (who was smirking at him in a way that made him rather uncomfortable) to D, trying to figure out if he was being tricked. Those strangely colored eyes looking at him from D’s porcelain face were guileless, and he cursed under his breath. No. D was shitting him. He had to be. This went way beyond suspension of disbelief…

“Whoa, wait just a damned minute!” Leon jumped up from his chair, backing away from the lot of them. Pointing at the young man with the golden eyes, he asked loudly, “Who the hell is this kid? Where did he come from? Isn’t Ten-chan that fox’s name? What the hell is going on here?” D said nothing, deigning not to answer any of his questions. The boy, however, walked toward him and stood very, very close. His face approached Leon’s, breath warm as it puffed against his skin. The boy rubbed his face against Leon’s neck, a light purring sound coming from his throat, and after a moment, the detective felt a warm, moist tongue lick his cheek. His eyes widened. “Jesus…” he breathed, unable to process what was happening.

Actually, his mind had realized it already, but he didn’t want to accept it. The guy that had just licked his face, and was still nuzzling his neck as if he were a cat that wanted to be petted…that guy was actually the fox? If Leon were any lesser man, he would have passed out. But lucky for everyone concerned, he had a stronger constitution than that. Instead, he pushed the boy away, scrubbing at the side of his face with the back of his hand and staring in horror at the offender. D was frowning, and he cleared his throat. Crossing his arms over his narrow chest, D’s voice sounded irritated as he said, “Ten-chan, what did I tell you about causing trouble?”

The young man’s (fox’s?) golden eyes, which were still locked on Leon’s face, narrowed a bit in mirth as Ten-chan grinned. He stepped toward Leon again, tracing his jaw line with one slim fingertip, those golden eyes holding him paralyzed. “But he’s so pretty, D…and he didn’t mind cuddling with me earlier. I thought we might have a moment or two before we set out to look for the little one.” Leon’s eyes widened sharply at the suggestiveness of Ten-chan’s words, and he could feel his face becoming rather red. The purring quality of Ten-chan’s voice grew more pronounced, and the boy slid a hand down Leon’s chest. There was a note of sadistic amusement in that purr, Leon thought, but he might have been imagining it. “Hmm…he blushes…and here I thought he was just another shameless American…”

“That’s enough, Ten-chan,” D snapped, his eyebrows drawing down. Leon agreed…they didn’t have time for this.

The boy pouted, but drew away from Leon. “You are no fun at all, D.”

“Go to the front of the shop, Ten-chan. I must speak to the Detective.” D’s voice was tense, as were his shoulders. This tension only grew when the blonde boy disappeared into the front, throwing a mumbled ‘selfish’ over his shoulder at the shopkeeper. “Leon,” D began, “I know that this will seem…difficult to swallow. But you are not hallucinating.” Leon snorted. He had figured that he wasn’t, the second he felt that kid’s tongue on his face. God, how he wished he were hallucinating, though. “I gave you something to open your eyes a bit.

“As you have more likely than not realized, this is not a normal pet shop.” Again, Leon made a noise that was a less than articulate way of expressing how much of an understatement that was. “And I…am not a ‘normal’ person. But that is neither here nor there, at the moment. Suffice it to say; you can now see the true form of any animal, which is an ability that not many possess. Your brother, for instance…is one.” Leon frowned. That made sense, he supposed, since the kid was talking to the fox earlier, and the thing answered. D was not finished. “The animals will be helping to get your brother back, Leon.”

His eyes closed, and he tried to take it all in. It didn’t do much good to be in shock. D looked like he had a plan, and since that was better than nothing, he figured he should go with it, and deal with all the weird shit later. “Fine.” The Chinese man’s shoulders slumped in relief. Leon did not understand him. Why did it seem as if he needed his approval? Yeah, it was his brother that was kidnapped, and all, but D was holding a few cards he wasn’t showing, and Leon thought it would be a good idea to stick by him.

“Excuse me…” a soft voice from the door said, and both D and Leon turned to see the girl with the red hair, shifting her feet and looking uncertain. “I can help,” she said quietly, fidgeting with her fingers. D nodded for her to continue. “I used to live by the docks…I was born there. If there is any way I can help, please let me.”

D’s mouth curled into a smile. “There might be a way, at that, Cordelia.”

--

Leon contemplated…how had he gotten himself into this mess? The floor pressed into his face, dirt grinding into the cuts on his cheek, and his eyes blinked slowly. It looked like D’s plan wasn’t as good at the shopkeeper had thought. At least D and the others didn’t get caught. This was a small comfort, though, because the foot in the small of his back ground a heel in, causing sharp pain to shoot through his left kidney. “So how does it feel, Orcot?” Turnbull’s gravelly voice grated from across the room, and Leon grunted. “Does it hurt?”

“Fuck you, Max.”

The laugh that echoed in the warehouse was less than pleasant. “No, I believe that I had enough of that the last eighteen months. Why don’t you get him ready, Mike?”

Hands the size of small hams grabbed the collar of Leon’s now filthy sweater, hauling him upright, even though he knew his legs wouldn’t support his weight. The big man, Mike, had probably broken both of them with that extendable club he’d bent out of shape on Leon’s thighs. There wasn’t much feeling below mid-thigh, though Leon supposed he should be grateful for that. If he could feel it, then it would probably make him want to scream. Pain was not his favorite sensation, and he was feeling it enough of it already.

Leon’s throat felt it when the enormous man started dragging him away from where Turnbull was cutting the end off of a fresh cigar. His legs dangled limply, and there was now very little doubt that they were broken. Mike tossed him to the floor in a corner, where he crumpled like a rag-doll. The feelings he experienced were vague, as if he merely witnessed them happening to someone else. He didn’t really feel the cold bite of metal into his wrists when cuffs were tightened around them, or when his body was hoisted off of the ground by chains that were attached to the manacles.

His toes didn’t touch the floor, and he swung back and forth when Mike smacked his rump the way a cowboy does a horse. “You know,” Turnbull said as he approached, his blunt face pushing close until Leon could smell stale cigars and gin, “I think you’d have been real popular in the joint, Orcot…pretty kid like you…” Leon felt distantly disgusted by the insinuation, but it didn’t really show on his face, which just looked blankly at the man. The head of a match scraped rapidly over his jaw, the smell of sulfur erupting in his nose, and then Turnbull was lighting up his cigar, puffing away and blowing the smoke until it made Leon’s dazed blue eyes water.

--

Ten-chan looked through the grate. Leon Orcot was chained in a nearby corner. He looked as if he were out of his wits. D crouched beside him, eyes trained on the detective’s nearly limp form. Those long-fingered hands were twitching, trying not to reach out for the ventilation grate and push. They were in a crawlspace, right now. Cordelia had found it, and this allowed them to get to within ten feet of the injured man.

Recalling how the man had been captured, Ten-chan wondered how the rest of them had been missed. D had been hiding behind one set of crates with Cordelia and Ten-chan, while Leon and Tot-chan were behind another. And they were supposed to go from shadow to shadow, until they got to the area where the one guard was keeping Chris. It should have been easy. Well, relatively so, if one thought about dealing with hardened criminals. The reality of the situation turned out to be that Leon tripped, falling headlong into the open, and several people came out of nowhere. That was something that D had not foreseen.

And now here they were, Chris still in the hands of the dastardly villains, and Leon was out of commission. “D,” Ten-chan whispered, “what are we going to do?” The man shook his head, not taking his eyes from the detective. The huge thug that had been dragging Leon around slid on a pair of brass knuckles, proceeding to pummel the detective’s stomach and chest. D’s hands reached for the grate when the blonde man cried out in pain. “You know that they’re just going to torture him until he’s dead, don’t you?” Red-painted lips fell open, and D’s jaw worked open and shut helplessly as he turned to face Ten-chan.

Ten-chan felt a small pain in the vicinity of his heart. The anguished look in the shopkeeper’s eyes was almost too much. It was clear that he wanted to save the man, but no ideas presented themselves. “I…” D began, but quieted when they heard a scraping sound coming from the left of the grate in the main area of the warehouse.

“Sit there, brat. And if you move again, I’ll break your scrawny neck.” A rough voice growled before footsteps stomped away to join the rest of the thugs nearby where the police officer dangled a foot off of the floor. D and Ten-chan shifted to the right, and were then able to see that a crate had been pulled next to the grate, and Chris sat on it. There was a large bruise on the side of his face, but he was not crying.

Very quietly, Ten-chan said, “Chris…can you hear me?”

The boy tensed slightly. “Ten-chan?” To his credit, Chris did not move toward the grate.

“Yes…” he said slowly, “…listen carefully, Chris. Your brother is in danger,” Ten-chan rolled his eyes at his own words. That much was obvious. “We have to find a way to deal with these people.” The boy nodded almost imperceptibly. “If we don’t, your brother will die, and we don’t want that.” The corners of the boy’s mouth drew down, and he licked his lips. Ten-chan suddenly felt D’s hand on his arm. He made a questioning sound, and D said that he had an idea.

--

A/N: Well…what do you think? Next time, there will be even more violence. I’m sorry for hurting Leon, you guys. I love him, really. ^_^