Quid Pro Quo

Prompt #13 - 'excessive chain' over at the 30kisses LJ comm. Hope you like, boys aren't mine. Quid pro quo is a latin phrase meaning 'something for something'. Enjoy!

This is not a good day. Days beginning with kidnappings and torture never are, it seems.

You see, about a week ago, Perry and I took a case. Big surprise there, right? Well, it seemed normal enough. Distressed husband thinks his wife is up to no good when she's out all hours of the night. Boring stakeouts, pictures, blah blah blah, the whole nine yards.

Point is, boring cases are good – and typically do not, I repeat do not lead situations like this. This is no longer a boring case. Much to my dismay.

Well, the wife – who was cheating, by the way – was not only being unfaithful. In fact, she was also planning a huge kidnap/ransom deal thing in downtown LA. They'd planned to grab some rich heiress to some fortune after her regular morning jog in the park. They had her limo driver in on it and everything. So, Perry and I contacted the police and tipped them off. The girl was put under a protective watch and several of the people involved were locked up. Easy, right? The end. No. Nothing in LA is ever, ever that fucking easy. And, this would be a really boring story.

You see, the cops didn't quite get everybody. Seems we missed someone. Like… oh, the husband. Who wanted to take over the operation without his two-timing wife in the way. So, what did he do? Yeah, he called us.

This brings us back to now. We messed up the plan a bit too much. He wants the girl – or his money, really, he isn't picky. I would like to escape from this without losing any more fingers, and preferably do so with a pulse.

"Don't you think the chains are a bit… excessive?" I asked, glaring at the two guards providing further assurance that any escape attempts would end with a bullet to the head. I squirmed in the chains, I mean, really. Why chains? I can't break out of chains!

The guards remained silent while their leader, the husband, approached me. His name was Jake Kent, and he looked hardly patient. "You're going to do exactly as we tell you. Otherwise, you are of no use to us. Got it?"

I nodded.

"Fantastic. Now, we're going to call up your buddy Perry and you are going to tell him that you'll be out for the rest of the day. Don't care how you do it. Just make sure he doesn't come looking for you." Kent explained, pulling my confiscated cell phone from his pocket.

"Okay." I agreed, having no other options here. He hit the send button, and turned it on speaker, motioning for his goons to stay quiet.

"Harry, where the fuck have you been? I called you in three hours ago!" Yeah, he was not surprisingly pissed. Had I really been gone that long? They'd bopped me over the head with something when I ran out to the store this morning. Next thing I knew I was here.

The gun pressed to the back of my skull dug deeper, reminding me not to give anything away. "Hey, there, Per. I'm just off at the chiropractor. Man, they sure work some magic here, don't they? It's refreshing. Electrifying, even." Kent had told me to tell Perry anything to keep him away. He didn't need 

to know I was using codeword's we'd made up. We both got ourselves into tricky situations so often that we felt it was a necessary precaution.

"Oh, I thought that appointment was last week. Wasn't it, Chief?" Perry asked, using yet another codeword.

"Yeah, it was. But the guy had to make a trip to Baltimore for a few days." I covered, answering his coded question. "I'll be home… pretty late, okay? I have some things to do."

I heard Perry sigh. "Okay. See you then." And then he hung up.

"Good boy." Kent smirked, ushering his guards out and leaving me alone.

Well, since we have some time to kill before anything eventful happens, I suppose I should tell you what that conversation actually meant. 'Magic' is the code for 'in trouble'- which I most certainly am in. 'Electrifying', named after the unforgettable Christmas Incident of 2005, meant 'injured'. When Perry called me 'Chief', he was asking if whoever had me was armed. 'Baltimore' meant the docks. Based on the sounds I could hear from outside of wherever I was, that seemed to be the right idea.

A good while passed before the guys came back. When they did, the guards had doubled.

"I figured you'd tip him off somehow." Kent said, looking far too cocky as he stepped aside just as the door at the other end of the room opened, producing two more guards with Perry between them. They shoved him away, and the guards exited the room, presumably to watch the door.

"Put the gun down! Now!" Perry shouted, his own brand new Vektor aimed and poised to fire at the leader of the men surrounding me.

The group paid him no mind, though; convinced their odds - as well as their hostage would sufficiently keep the irate Detective under their control.

Clearly, they didn't know Perry Van Shrike that well.

"Hey," Kent snapped, that blasted gun once again digging into my skull. "Let's get one thing straight. This is not a negotiation thing. This is a do-what-I-want-or-he-dies thing." The gun cocked. "Are we clear?"

"Perry, get out of here!" I shouted, which I regretted about five fucking seconds later when one of the guards hit me over the head with the butt of his .45 and my head started swimming.

"Shut up." He said. "Bargaining chips shouldn't talk." Another strike of the gun. Blood was running down the side of my face now.

"Fuck!"

"Stop hitting him." I heard Perry demand, over my outburst. "If you kill him, I'm not helping. And he doesn't need to lose anymore brain cells."

Kent grinned. "So, then you'll cooperate?"

"What do you want?" Perry asked, with gritted teeth. The man was not happy.

"What do I want? I want my money!" The man roared, brandishing his gun violently yet again. "You two did a little too well getting my wife locked up. I can't pull the operation now and I need that cash. I want you to grab that girl for me. They won't think anything of you showing up." Another grin. "And, since I have what you want, I figure we can trade. A little quid pro quo, sound good?"

And this will be the end. Perry would never do something that blatantly illegal just for me, his moronic side--

"Yes. Okay, I'll… I'll do whatever you want." Perry said, with only a moment of hesitation.

I stand corrected, err… sit corrected. Whatever. Point is, that bash to the skull must've messed something vital up because I cannot believe what I'm hearing. "Perry, don't do—"

"Shut up, Harry." He practically growled at me. If only that were a code word, I definitely needed one about now.

"No!" I shouted back. "You're not doing this."

The gun fell back into place at the back of my neck. "Oh, yes. He is."

"I want to talk to Harry alone, first."

Kent shook his head. "I told you. This is not a negotiation."

Perry dropped his gun, kicked it across the room. And, okay, what the fuck is he thinking? Now we're both unarmed and at gunpoint. "You have him chained to the wall; I can't do anything without a key or a blowtorch. Give me five minutes. Alone. Then I'll go."

The guards looked to their boss for confirmation. "Alright. Five minutes." And they walked out.

As soon as they were gone, Perry was by my side. "Quiet." He demanded, and I, for once, listened. "I'm going to kiss you to distract them."

Now, as some of you may know, this will not be the first time this has happened. It seems Perry's favorite method of distraction is kissing me. Thing is, this one was different, real, even.

And, ugh, wow. He can kiss. I really hope he has some sort of plan to get us out of this because I'd really like to do this again, which is kind of hard when one or both of us is dead, or in jail, or dead. Those seem like the expected outcomes if he doesn't have some devious escape plan here.

One of his hands is tangled in my hair – which kind of hurts because of the whole gun thing, but I'm ignoring it – and the other, the one on the side not facing the goons, is working at the Masterlock holding the chains together with a lock-pick.

"Don't move." He mumbled against my mouth, and I don't, not even when I hear the click of the lock opening. His hand disappeared into his pocket for a moment, and then he was fiddling with his cell phone. "When I say so, get up and run. Spin if you have to, just get them off and run."

I nodded, and then he was kissing me again, hand working to subtly loosen the chains. Chancing a glance toward my captors, I noticed that they'd all looked away now. Clearly, they didn't seem interested in Gay Make-Out sessions 101.

Perry seemed to notice them, too. "Now." He whispered, standing up. He pulled a second gun from the small of his back and prepared to fire as I worked at untangling myself.

Having been a thief for more than half of my life, I do know something about stealth, but chains are not typically involved in situations that require it. So, I was understandably obvious in my escape attempts.

"Quiet, Moron." Perry barked, as we still hadn't been noticed. Somehow.

Until I fell, anyway. That made some noise. Something like an elephant falling down a flight of stairs perhaps. What can I say? It echoes in empty warehouses.

"Fuck." Perry growled, grabbing my arm and hauling me to my feet. I was still entangled in the chains, so I didn't get far before he had to let go. "Spin, damn it." He said, covering me while I did so.

He shot one of the guards, and then a second, but the ones from outside had come bursting in then.

I had a few more spins to go when I heard him fall.

I could have gotten out, probably, but I didn't. I just stared.

"We just can't keep you down, can we?" I asked, a huge grin on my face. I mean, yeah, I'm not complaining, but the guys been shot in the chest twice now, because of me. And he's still breathing.

Perry rolled his eyes from where he sat in his hospital bed. "My police guy said Kent was DOA."

"Not surprising. The cops gave him more holes than Swiss cheese."

He laughed at that. Which probably hurt, but he didn't show it. "How's your head?"

I sat down on the edge of the bed. "Same as always."

"Oh, empty?"

"You know, it's really not fair that you can still be so witty when you're pumped full of Vicodin." I frowned.

Oh, how did we get out, sorry. Yeah, um, Perry fiddling with his phone, remember that? He called the police. Who would have thought of that?

They came bursting in when Perry took yet another bullet meant for me.

"Well, it's made me loopy enough for one thing."

"And… what might that be?" I asked, though I had some idea.

He pulled me closer, and I was careful not to touch his chest, but then his lips were on mine again and WOW. If the kiss outside of the hotel had been nothing compared to the one in the warehouse, this one was a thousand times better.

"New codeword, okay?" He said, when we broke apart, far sooner than either of us would have liked because of his chest. "Chains. For use in situations like this to tell me to stop, because I don't like seeing you in them. Got it?"

I grinned. "Okay, chains. A word to delete from my vocabulary."

I don't think I'll ever get tired of kissing him.