Chapter 15: Hun-Unlikely Friendship
Minus nine years
He saw him sprawled out on the floor of the cell, fingers bloody from tearing at the cement ground below him, ragged sobs tearing from his throat.
Leonardo or more accurately known by the Foot and Purple Dragons as "The Blue Demon".
An anguished scream tore from his throat, as he slammed a fist into the ground.
"Well, that's not something I ever thought I'd see," Hun commented softly.
A ragged cry tore from his throat as spun up and around, jerking back and against the wall.
"Hun," came out the frantic gasp, all garbled and choked up sounding.
"Yes?" the massive man offered.
Leonardo didn't seem to know how to respond.
"I…I…hate her…" was the only thing that came out after a few struggled minutes.
Hun nodded, understanding instantly.
"She got you then? Sorry to hear it freak," Hun sighed.
Leon flinched at the word "freak" but kept his composure otherwise.
He was trembling, though, whole frame shaking.
"She made me…" he mumbled, "took my honor from me."
Hun nodded, sitting on his own bunk, it creaked in protest.
"How do you think I ended up in here?" Hun muttered, "set me up to get me out of the way on the streets."
Leo glanced towards him.
"What? No threats to my life? No string of slanderous things to say?" Leo mumbled.
"So you changed your name?" Hun asked, ignoring Leo's questions.
"She made me," Leo replied.
"Leh-on," Hun mumbled phonetically, "interesting."
"Yeah," Leo mumbled, he suddenly jumped as the guard passed by.
Hun followed the exchange with his eyes and waited until the guard was out of ear shot noticing that Leo had gone slightly pale.
Hun frowned.
"What happened before they threw you in here?" Hun asked.
Leo looked at him.
"I…" he managed, shivering, "killed…a…a…family…all…"
He stopped, choking for breath, he was on the verge of having a panic attack, this would make three today.
Hun moved fast, grabbing the turtle's arm, instantly recognizing the signs instantly.
"Easy," Hun ordered.
Over the next few minutes Hun talked him through the panic attack, managing to keep Leo from succumbing to the fear, ignoring the tight grip the turtle had on his forearm.
After what seemed like hours, the turtle sagged and started sniffing softly.
"I can't…I just can't…I'm not the same," he choked out.
There wasn't much of a chance for any other talk as the guards called "lights out". Leo tensed, eyes snapping around him nervously and then, to Hun's shock as soon as the lights went out a high pitched shriek ripped through the air and he heard a crash as Leo flung himself backward tearing himself free of Hun's grip.
Hun fumbled in the dark, searching for the banshee. Hun found him and managed to get a hold of him.
Guards were running, the lights flicked on and Leo froze, eyes snapping back and forth.
"Get back!" a guard ordered.
Hun moved back, hands in the air, allowing the guards to move in on Leo's huddled frame. Leo twitched and flinched, whole body taunt.
Hun frowned as one of the higher ranking guards, roughly jerked Leo to his feet by the collar of his jumpsuit.
"What happened?" the guard demanded.
Leo cringed, trembling.
Hun frowned when he saw the guard's smug expression.
"Stupid freak, keep your mouth shut so the real people can sleep or I'll have you beaten," he growled out.
"He's a prisoner not your dog," Hun said sharply.
The guard looked at Hun, still gripping the front of Leo's jumpsuit.
"This, is a freak. Some people think they're smart, well…I think they're just dumb animals. So sorry to offend. Technically he's not a prisoner, he's just here. The government doesn't know what to do with it." the guard replied.
Leo remained limp in the guard's grip, unresponsive.
Hun's frown deepened and despite his history with the turtle he couldn't help but pity him. Well perhaps not pity him, but feel sorrow for how far he'd fallen at least, and at the same time Hun could not deny the fact that the guard had no reason to treat him as he was. Leo was in a world that wasn't what he was used to, and now, quite obviously, he'd been viciously beaten because of his appearance.
"Just saying looks a little like racism to me," Hun said firmly, rising to his feet and squaring his shoulders.
The guard scowled, but dropped Leo, who curled tightly upon hitting the floor.
The guard's walkie squawked and he was forced to respond after walking out and closing the door of the cell.
Leo remained a curled heap on the floor long after the guards left, Hun sat back down and stared at him.
"You going to be alright?" Hun asked offhandedly.
Leo shivered on the floor but managed a shaky nod.
Hun stayed up that night, unable to rest mostly due to Leo's distressed sleep, or lack there of but also because he wasn't sure he trusted that guard not to come back in the dark and harass Leo.
They would talk over the next few weeks, only briefly, but enough that Hun knew Leo was hovering on the edge of a psychotic break. He recognized the signs.
Harassment on Leo's part was unavoidable, he was a mutant that was more an outcast here than even outside the prison walls. It wouldn't be though, until after Hun walked into the showers to find Leo unconscious on the floor, covered in blood, that he would find out how bad the harassment was.
Leo had been beaten within an inch of his life and left for dead. Hun's quick reaction was the only thing that saved him.
Months later after Leo returned Hun watched him carefully and those around him, this time they would be leaving in a stretcher not Leo at least…they'd be going out first.
Hun moved with the dignified determination of an alpha, no one on these cell blocks dared cross him. Known for his street thug past, he was an unofficial "king" of the prison and no one messed with him.
As he made his way towards the showers he spotted what appeared to be a look out darting inside the shower rooms, the guards were blatantly ignoring this. Hun frowned as he walked in and snarled in rage at the sight of Leo's still healing frame, stripped of his jumpsuit and laying bloody on the floor with a towel over his face, two men holding his arms and another with a bucket of water in hand. Leo was shaking, muttering incomprehensibly.
"What the hell are you doing?" Hun snapped sharply.
"Scaring a freak," the man with the bucket chuckled, not catching the warning in Hun's tone. He threw the bucket of water at Leo's covered face, causing the turtle to jerk and struggle his babbling increasing in volume.
"Let go of the mutant….now," Hun warned.
The men looked at him in confusion.
"What? You got a soft spot for this freak?" one of the guys asked, sharply kicking the turtle in the ribs.
Leo yelped weakly, trembling violently as his mutterings increased in volume and became frantic, though jumbled, words. He began to convulse violently, head smacking the cement wall behind him with sickening cracks.
"No, I simply don't take kindly to people harassing others unnecessarily," Hun replied and then he moved.
Years of training with the Foot made him more agile than he should be, they didn't stand a chance.
Weeks later Leo found himself trailing behind Hun like a lost puppy as his fragmenting mind continued to split apart. Hun watched his former enemy with careful eyes, when Leo finally did suffer the break, Hun was there to help him through the first episode of delusions.
It wasn't until the second episode that Leo was assigned a psychologist and was moved into a mental ward. It was the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back, Leo vanished into a catatonic state that lasted six solid months.
Hun was released from prison on parole during that time but visited the ward every Sunday during visiting hours to attempt to play a game of chess that Leo had mentioned in ramblings as a favorite game.
Most of the time Leo simply sat and watched him, off in some other world, buried in his mind.
Hun jumped as a hand rested on his shoulder.
Leo's psychologist, Samantha Keller stood over him.
"Thank you Hun…for visiting him…it seems to help some," she whispered.
Hun nodded.
"I knew him back when he was confident…a leader…" Hun sighed, "we were enemies then…guess I can't stand seeing him fall this far…alone…respect him too much. Or at least respect what he was. No one should have to fall this far alone."
Samantha nodded.
"Having a friend, or family be here as often as possible helps. It shows that there's someone who at least cares," Samantha whispered.
The next time Hun visited Leo was lucid, he watched Hun walk over to him and managed a nervous smile.
"Weird how we can start out as sworn enemies and end up friends," Leo said weeks later, moving a chess piece.
Hun chuckled softly.
Leo's diagnosis was simply put as psychosis, a disorder of the brain that lead to delusions, hallucinations, as well as depression, confusion, and a few others. They came in waves, sometimes he'd be fine, others he'd struggle with the concept of whether or not reality was reality.
But he made progress towards a recovery, slowly, but still.
It wouldn't be until a shocking turn of events that Leo would sink horrifically deep into depression and his delusions.
The court ruled that Leo was responsible, in full, as a US citizen, for the deaths of the Hernandez family and so was sentenced to lethal injection.
Hun protested frantically as Leo was dragged off, the court had rejected the plea of insanity Samantha had issued.
Leo's terrified ramblings were the last words Hun heard as Leo was taken away, that and the terrified gaze of a young man desperate for hope and forgiveness. It would haunt Hun for the rest of his life, that look.
Leo was in the chair and the needle pressed to his skin three months later when evidence turned up that suggested that Leo was fully responsible for the crime. Being so he was returned to the mental facility and left there under the care of strangers. Abuse on an emotional level was frequent and Leo was unable to pull out of his hallucinations. Then quite suddenly Leo was released from his mental facility/prison and left curled in the dead of winter without shoes at the bus stop. He stayed there for three days, shivering, broke, and unable to contact anyone for help.
Hun pulled up and found him on the fourth morning and rushed him to a hospital. Samantha was alerted and she arrived and suggested the antipsychotic that had been helping Leo in the past.
When Leo was finally released from the mental ward in the hospital six months later, stable, but still prone to episodes of confusion, Hun took him home and helped him get something together before taking him to New York and dropping him off at April and Casey's apartment complex, pressing $500 into the young mutant's hands as he wept in thanks.
It would be the last time they would see each other for a long time.
A/N: so I totally suck at getting any typing done lately sorry guys!