Whether Cail can count as a villain or not - at least we have Nascour for back-up villainy. And he's most definitely at it again. Enjoy!
Same face, same voice, both smooth like silk and perfectly pleasant. But something was different about Nascour, and it made Cail nervous. His demeanor, the way he kept asking about Wes.
I didn't even know he knew him.
Nascour stopped talking suddenly and smiled.
"What's the matter, Cail? You seem… afraid."
"I…" Cail hesitated, feeling colder and colder with each passing second. "I was just wondering… nothing's changed, right? With us, I mean? Just friends, casually chatting and all?"
"Of course nothing has changed."
Nascour's smile stayed. Cail shivered.
"It's just us, you and me, talking like we used to."
Had this one on the backlogs for a while now. CW for noncon drugging, guns & murder. [Help me pay my medical bills]
Leon's mind is racing as he holds Wes in his arms, huddling in some corner of the Wild Area. It's been several hours since they fled Spikemuth, a few hours since they'd left Leon's penthouse after he'd changed, and about an hour since his boyfriend fell asleep in his lap.
They are in one of Wes's secret bases. It's filled with gifts from Leon: blankets and pillows made a makeshift bed as sweaters and scarves hang from a repurposed car axle. Among the nest of pillows are stuffed animals, and one of the stupid balls with his face on it. He thought he'd gotten rid of the damn thing.
The important part is that Wes's breathing is even and his pulse is steady. Neither of them know what had been slipped in his drink earlier, so Leon keeps Sparky's pokeball in his hand in case they need to make a beeline to the hospital.
Espeon is curled up next to the two of them; he is normally the one Wes clung too, so instead the mon burrowed his way into his boyfriend's curled up form. Umbreon sits at the edge of the nest, sitting with Skarmory as they watch the entrance, on high alert. Furret and Absol are also curled up in the nest, although they are content with being nearby Wes.
Leon wonders if Furret can smell her previous trainer on him.
Neither of them had seen Cail slip whatever drug into Wes's drink, but Leon had certainly noticed how his boyfriend became more and more sluggish and out of it. Leon had just intended on quietly slipping away, but Cail had cornered them in that alley-
He remembered how Wes dug his fingers into his shirt, utterly vulnerable with his back to Cail. He remembered how Cail taunted Wes, calling him weak, lying about how obviously Wes loved him. He remembered Cail pulling out a knife and a pokeball, threatening to hurt Leon if Wes didn't go with him.
"You love me, don't you, baby doll? Oh, you say you hate me, but you've never pulled the trigger. And you never will, because you always come back to me."
What caused Leon to move wasn't Cail's obvious lies, or even the threats against his life. It was the little whimper Wes made under his breath: because Cail’s words didn't hurt Leon but they tore into his beloved.
"Don't."
There's a reason Wes was the one drugged; even without a weapon, he's an incredibly dangerous foe. And whenever they have a date in public or when Wes accompanies Leon to press events as his bodyguard, he is armed to the teeth.
It only took a second for Leon to find the gun at Wes's hip, pull it from its holster, and pull the trigger.
By the time he registered the loud bang and the pain that shot through his shoulder, Cail was on the ground. Leon stood there, watching as Cail twitched for a minute before going still.
At some point, Wes had grabbed his hands and shakily, clumsily guided him through holstering the gun back at his hip. Afterwards was a blur, Leon obeying Wes's commands as they fled the dingy alley and got rid of the evidence of what Leon had done.
At least after the shower and change of clothes, Leon no longer smells like gunpowder. Even though he knows that, he still thinks he can smell the faintest traces of it.
He knows what he should be feeling after he just murdered someone in cold blood: horror, disgust, guilt, sorrow, regret. But all he feels is a cool calmness, like all the anger he'd been feeling had been burned away and he is left with nothing but ashes. He had wanted to do it, ever since Wes confided in him about what Cail had done to him.
That burning hot coal of rage that had been sitting in his chest, screaming to do something, make them disappear permanently so his love didn't have to be afraid anymore- it is gone. There are still embers, still people he wants to kill for Wes's sake, but the act of pulling the trigger has abated that need for blood.
He pictures again the way Cail twitched and spasmed before the light left his eyes. Instead of any emotions, he felt nothing. He was a little scared of the absence of regret or disgust or even anger. There is no joy, no sick pleasure, no satisfaction either: just nothing.
Leon has become a cold blooded killer. But as he looks down at Wes's sleeping face, how some of the tension normally in his shoulders is gone, how peacefully he's sleeping- he can't bring himself to regret anything.
