Note: I wrote this thing back on April 15th and put it on AO3, and by a couple of minutes missed being the first English Kekkai Sensen fic ever published. I take slight comfort in knowing that it's still the longest fic in the fandom. Gonna upload all of the chapters here shortly.

Leo is my new son. Anyone familiar with my work knows I absolutely delight in the "coworkers gradually becoming family" trope, so I expect I'll want to pack this dumb series of one-shots full of sappy bullshit. You're all welcome.

Well, Leo felt like shit.

More than usual, too. Today had sucked phenomenally from the onset, with that asshole Zapp stealing from him left and right. Then he'd seen a really fucked up… what did Zapp say it looked like? A dry cleaning van? Whatever. That. And then like an idiot he'd stared for too long, gotten noticed, gotten hunted down, had his company scooter smashed into bits (and if his boss decided to take it out of his paychecks, Leo would be zero percent surprised), been kidnapped, and then threatened with dissection and all other sorts of fun crap. Joy. Rapture. Why had he thought that crashing the stupid van was a good idea? Some thought of dubious source whispering that things couldn't really get all that much worse, could they? Then why not crash the fucking van? Genius. That 4.15 GPA sure liked to show itself at the weirdest times. Not.

While his captors were thankfully thrown far away from Leo, he had been thrown about a bit himself. Leo took stock as quickly as he could. The left side of his head had smashed up against something (probably one of the weird column things lining the sides of the internal compartment) and it felt like blood was covering the entire left side of his face as a result. He was dimly aware of a headache, but it was distant and numbed. He wished he could say the same for his ribcage. Or his shoulders. His wrists luckily were no longer bound, but before the bonds (felt like packing tape) had snapped, his shoulders had been wrenched damn near out of their sockets. His wrists were raw from where he'd struggled. Something sliding around had smashed into his right knee and now he was pretty sure he wasn't going to be able to walk on that leg easily. Bruises were absolutely everywhere, and cuts and scrapes lined every exposed scrap of skin he had. He was going to be such pretty colors in the morning.

But hey – the van was stopped, and the bad guys were gone.

Wait, gone?

Leo vaguely remembered seeing the back doors get thrown open from the centripetal force of the vehicle spinning out of control, and watching the taller criminal guy get thrown through them. All the same, aliens generally had tougher constitutions than humans did. Surely he would have been able to get up and back into the van by now. Leo was a sitting duck, and yet no one had come to kick his ass into next week.

Sounded like fighting outside. Subsequent car wrecks? Christ. Leo hadn't really thought about what might happen to other drivers on the road. If he'd managed to hurt innocents by accident, he would never forgive himself.

"Sonic?" he croaked. Wow, his voice was shot. Maybe all the screaming once the van tipped over? Had he been screaming? He couldn't remember.

The little monkey popped out from behind one of the hanging… people. Things. Eurgh. All the same, since they were all hanging affixed from the ceiling, there had been far less to smash into, so Sonic hadn't had eighteen trillion boxes of whatever smash into him. That was a relief. A decent-sized sneaker could probably have knocked the animal for ten. Sonic chittered and scurried over to Leo, looking distressed. His little hands yanked on Leo's shirtsleeve, hopping up and down.

"I'd get up if I could, smartass. Just… could you be lookout? Let me know what's going on out there?" It was stupid. Sonic couldn't speak. Leo must've hit his head harder than he thought.

It turned out the gesture was unnecessary.

"Leonardo? Are you in there?" a deep voice said.

"…Mr. Klaus?" Leo said.

"Thank heaven. Do you need medical assistance?"

Leo glanced down at at least one broken rib and a growing bloodstain from the injury on his forehead. "I'm gonna go with yes."

"Understood. I will call an ambulance."

"No need. They're already on their way," said someone else. A head popped into view. "Hell of a way for us to get together, but it's awful nice to finally meet you all the same, Leo! I'm Steven Starphase. Call me Steven."

Leo coughed miserably. "Charmed."

Steven started laughing. Leo decided he didn't like him much. Not so much an active loathing as a recreational dislike. An idle hatred. But seriously, he was lying there bleeding and this fucker thought it prime comedy material. What a douche.

"Welcome again to Libra, you beautiful fucking disaster!"

"Thanks. That ambulance –"

"It's on its way," Klaus said. "Just a moment." The large man clambered in through the back doors as best he could. "Do you have any broken bones?"

"Probably. Doubt I can check, though. If I had to place bets they'd be on my shoulder and ribs."

Klaus tried to move such that more light reached Leo, and gently went about tapping various parts of Leo's chest and shoulders. Leo hissed here and there, trying his best not to whimper like a kicked puppy. At last he finished. "Most of it is bruising, although you might have a hairline fracture on your fourth rib. We'll need x-rays to be certain. But your right shoulder is most definitely dislocated. Would you like me to relocate it now, or would you prefer to wait for the paramedics?"

Holy shit that sounded painful. Wow. "Uh – let's… let's wait, okay? Thanks."

"You are most welcome," Klaus said. "I'm going to get you out of here now."

He was being as gentle as he possibly could, scooping his massive arms under Leo's back and knees, and Leo knew that, but it still hurt. Thankfully, it went a bit easier once they were out of the van and he wasn't being jostled so much. For what felt like the first time since that morning, he let himself relax a little. He might've heard a siren in the distance. God, he was so tired. He could do with a nap.

Chain's soft voice was inquiring about the situation. Steven was giving directions for investigating the van thoroughly. Klaus's chest was nice and warm and the weather was oddly nice out.

And like that, bleeding heavily, finally coming off the adrenaline high, Leo fell dead asleep.