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"What can you tell me about Count D?"
The question was straight-forward, Agent Howell's eyes focused. It was not the question Leon was expecting. Of all the time he spent trying to get the rest of the department to take him seriously about D, the idea that an FBI agent would be on the case... It was almost unbelievable. Leon squinted at Howell, questioning his legitimacy, his mind running through the last time an FBI agent showed up to help the department and it got involved with the Count. Howell didn't seem like the vampiric type, at least.
But here it was, what Leon had been waiting for ever since he'd first visited the suspicious pet shop in Chinatown: the best chance of bringing in Count D that he could hope for. He thought about all the death that had surrounded him, all the times one of the Count's deals led to a life lost, all the cases D had helped him solve... all the mysterious journeys that left Leon questioning his own reality... the times he had ended up rescuing the Count's life, the times that the Count had saved him...
But what did that matter? The last few days had reminded Leon where the Count stood. Nothing in Count D had even twitched when Christ left, or even when that girl had died in that horrific plane crash. Something was wrong with that man. D was secretive, manipulative... dangerous.
As the prospect of putting D behind bars became a more realistic possibility, something in Leon ached and made him hesitate. It was the same knot in his chest that curled tighter every time he got close to pinning Count D for a crime that only loosened when the situation turned and D escaped the law (or Leon decided it wasn't worth convicting him). If Leon was honest with himself (which he wasn't very often), most of his own arrest threats were hollow. It had simply become a role he was comfortable in for the game they were playing. He wasn't going to admit that, of course- not to anyone, and most certainly not to himself. (He definitely wouldn't be pondering why he was playing a game with the pet shop owner at all in the first place.)
But here was the culmination of all his hard work, forcing him to acknowledge the destination he'd been traveling (quite circuitously) towards.
He was angry at D. It brought up a churning mass of two years of anger and frustration that Leon used to cover up any doubts or hesitations or fondness... but in that lake of hatred he could not drown the small trickle of hope that leaked through- that even with all of the evidence and investigations Leon had gathered against him this whole time, Count D had been safe from arrest, and it was very possible that this time was no different, and he would once again slip past their bars.
Leon ignored that hopeful feeling.
"Oh, let me tell you about Count D," Leon said with grave conviction and turned brusquely away to grab his files for this Agent Howell.