This chapter exclusively contains notes on my thoughts about this story, especially tropes that I used, subverted or decided against. It is not part of the story any more, but for whoever is interested, please feel free to read through the meta discussion :-)

Notes on general tropes

Right, so I thought I would say a few words about the way I wrote this fic, because there's a few things coming together in this one, mainly concerning tropes often employed. I like analysing literature, so in the interest of fair play, I'll do it with my own stuff as well. I'm not writing an academic paper though, so this compilation is pretty much me pointing out storytelling devices alongside tropes/clichés I used, subverted or abused, with the occasional longer explanation as to why I made which decision.

Please be aware, I am assuming you have read the story, so if you haven't, this survey will spoil the end for you.

Let's start off with some basic considerations from the planning stage.

1) Reunion fics as a "genre"

While it is not technically a genre, it might as well be, given the frequency, because reunion fics are, for obvious reasons, a thing in this fandom, as is Leon looking for D. While I enjoy reading them, I also see several problems with the way they often go about things. For one, Leon needs to make enough money to continue his search, pay for visas, flights and the like and while I would love to pretend it's totally doable while working random odd jobs, I travel too much myself to believe in that, not to mention that it's not as easy to come by these jobs when you haven't got the required paperwork, which can take really long to process. (That is, unless you want to go for cash-in-hand jobs, which could get Leon in a world of trouble he really doesn't need while looking for D.) And while Leon is maybe a bit rash, he's not an idiot, he would know he needs a steady source of income and a way of finding clues as to D's whereabouts. Making him an Interpol agent seemed like a pretty good solution to either problem, also because it is somewhat justifiable to have him go to different countries for work purposes, not just to look for D, which would help immensely with visas and making the most of his vacation time. (My apologies at this point to Interpol, I have taken a lot of creative licence in how I portray his job.)

Interestingly enough, assuming that Leon kept a steady job until he finally found D doesn't contradict canon. We have no idea how old Chris actually is when he refers to Leon's disappearance 20 years previously. He might well be in his late 20s or early 30s, leaving a few years between D's and Leon's respective disappearances, during which Chris still knew exactly where his brother was. (I know Chris doesn't look like it, then again, Leon doesn't look like being in his late 20s either at the end of the series, and he would be if he's 24 (or older) at the start of it.)

2) Reunion

The reunion, wherever it takes place, immediately concentrates on the both of them and the unresolved issues in their relationship, possibly followed by sex or the promise of it. However, there's such a thing as being willing and emotionally prepared for the kind of conversation they need to have. And what if neither of them is willing to face those issues just at that point in time, because despite everything, they don't feel up to that discussion? What if there are external circumstances preventing them from discussing these issues straight away? I wanted to write something where the issues are there, both know they have to talk about them, both need to talk about them, but for both of them, there are good reasons not to make it their first priority. For Leon, it's the very real worry that D is about to get in over his head, what with the recent advances of technology and him getting caught in a power struggle he wasn't aware was going on. D's reasons are a bit more complicated, and tie in with other tropes that I'll be getting on to.

3) Reunion storylines

Generally speaking, reunion fics tend to contain very little action and very few events connected to anything outside of their relationship, in short, they don't have a plot (unsurprisingly, as quite a few of them are short ficlets or long one-shots at best, and don't need one). This is not meant as criticism, that's just the way it is. Nonetheless, I wanted to experiment with having their post-canon relationship developing alongside a storyline like in the series itself and see how well I could get it to work. Blame it on my recent aversion to writing introspective and uneventful stories, but I wanted excitement, breathlessness and boiling emotions which, for a change, did not stem (solely) from a hormone surplus. And I kind of wanted to start their post-canon relationship off on what would feel like familiar territory for both of them, a safe space in the middle of their own confusion about how to deal with this unexpected reunion. Going through an adventure together, much like they have done back in LA, would provide a nice backdrop for them to slowly face up to their issues, or so I thought.

These were the three main points I had in mind when I started developing the storyline for An Italian Job (of sorts), so what follows next is how I tried to incorporate them into the actual plot. I'll do so chapter by chapter, and again, please be warned that if you haven't read the story or the respective chapter yet, this is going to spoil it for you.

All things considered, reading how I put the whole thing together might ruin the story as a whole for you based on the principle that nobody wants to know how their food has been prepared XD So please proceed with caution.

Notes on tropes for Chapter 1

The main trope of Chapter 1 is, obviously, the Reunion. Most of the time, it takes place in the shop, with Leon walking in, alternately offering Chris's drawing, sweets or both to D. On rare occasions, it takes place outside the shop, but nevertheless, they tend to find themselves alone fairly quickly.

I settled for the chance encounter because, well, it's a change of pace, and additionally, for all we know from canon, so far D has always managed to elude Leon when Leon was specifically looking for D. It's a weak rationale, but I figured one can apply the same generic idea one does when one is trying to remember something that is just at the tip of one's tongue: The less you try to, the sooner you'll remember.

Would it actually work with D? I have no idea. There is nothing to contradict the assumption in canon though, because so far, Leon hasn't caught up to D. To a certain extent, I also needed to create a setting that would allow their reunion to "go wrong" from the outset. Yes, I wanted that to happen, because I wanted to explore the alternative that so far few people seem to have written about ─ the reunion where the actual reunion is not the focus of the fanfic.

To be fair, I immediately took it to the opposite extreme, and there is plenty of room in the middle between the two alternatives. How so? Well, to begin with, they are usually alone or semi-alone (sharing a table in a cafe counts as semi-alone, because it's hardly likely others will interrupt them). Here, they are in one of the most public settings imaginable. Usually, they have no other obligations and may commence speaking to each other. Here, Paolo and Ottavia have each taken one of them under their wing and expect them to follow them to other guests to be introduced. Generally, they don't need to keep it secret that they know each other. Here, they do not get the chance to even betray their surprise at the unexpected meeting, because there is little time (as is generally the case at such events). And at least Leon realises quickly that it might be more opportune to keep their acquaintance a secret, because he receives the information that D has once more come into the focus of a police investigation.

Change any of those premises, and it would have gone down very differently. Astonishingly enough, in reunion fanfictions, the premises are rarely changed. The details vary, but only on a micro-level, in terms of how the conversation goes and how the characters react. It's hardly ever the setting that gets tweaked to allow more room for maneouvering. By not really giving them the time to figure things out between themselves, and especially by having Leon receive the information about D's dead customer, the stage is set for a very different reunion taking place.

Notes on tropes for Chapter 2

1) Animosity

The first trope in this chapter is the animosity between Leon and D, which of course disappears to large degree over the course of the series. Yet in this fic, it is back in full force, resulting in two more tropes tying in with it:

2) Extensive Fighting And Yelling

3) Leon Accusing D Of Some Crime

One might almost suspect I was aiming to recreate the impression of their first encounters from the series! More specifically, the aim was to recreate it against the backdrop of the whole original series. Why? Because it's supposed to make readers question what in the world is going on here. It's no coincidence that the whole section is written from D's POV. Why would Leon attack D like that? Why would he start with the same old accusations that have proven to be of little use back in LA? More importantly, why would he care, when he has achieved his goal of finding D, which, this being a reunion fic, is par for the course?

This ties back in with the comments I made before. Most reunion fics tend to describe everything as if the meeting is happening in a vacuum. But it isn't. Four years have come and gone, four years during which they have had no personal contact. D does not know what Leon does for a living these days, and as I mentioned, he has to do something. Leon has no idea who D is associated and does business with. He is furious when he finds out, but the twist here is that he isn't furious because of D's shady dealings or him being involved in yet another death. He is furious because the original has happened, and his feelings towards D have changed.

D, on the other hand, is unable to recognise the paradigm shift at first, with their encounter so reminiscent of their original first encounters. The animosity he first suspects to be the cause for Leon's actions turns out to be something else; the yelling and fighting is a vent for a different kind of emotion than it used to be. And while Leon is accusing D of a crime, his intention is as far from arresting D as it could possibly be.

Notes on tropes for Chapter 3

This leads over into Chapter 3, which as such does not contain any tropes that I think need to be mentioned specifically since it is mainly expanding what happened in Chapter 2 and setting the scene for Chapter 4. It does introduce a new aspect though, in the form of D's perspective on the whole matter. Now that he has realised that Leon has had a paradigm shift, and realised the extent of it, he has to consider what he is going to do about it. The chapter does play a bit with his feelings for Leon and his inability to push him away for good, but it mainly brings a thought into the discussion that I also don't see too often, namely that D is well aware that Leon's search for him is bordering on obsession, and he knows very well, maybe too well, where such obsessions can take people. He cares for Leon, therefore he doesn't want him to suffer the same fate as Howell or any of his customers with the same affliction; unfortunately, he also cares for Leon, and therefore cannot bring himself to push him away again, leaving him in quite the moral dilemma where running away is the best he can manage while hoping Leon will give up of his own accord.

If something along the lines of Leon's search for D potentially being unhealthy or dangerous is even mentioned, it is usually mitigated by something happening in the story – I'll be getting back to that later on.

Notes on tropes for Chapter 4

Potentially my favourite chapter, mainly because Leon gets to take calling D a woman to the absolute extreme by implying he can pose as a prostitute. Other tropes in this chapter are

1) Going Undercover & Pretending To Be A Couple

2) D Is Cultured, Leon Isn't

3) Leon Is A Misogynist

4) D Is In Charge

5) Having Sex While On A Mission and/or Getting Stuck In A Cupboard

Chapter 4 is in some respects a diversion from what is going on underneath, because the focus shifts from how Leon and D are dealing with their unexpected reunion to how they are working together to accomplish Spencer Donald's arrest. Therefore some of the tropes employed here aren't Pet Shop-specific, but genre-typical, especially 1) and 5).

1) Mainly it is Leon who goes undercover, but to a certain extent also D when he enters the first floor. But the actual subverted trope here is Pretending To Be A Couple, an often-employed trick to help UST between two characters along. In this case, I twisted it around, because simply using the trope by itself would have been a bit too boring. In my opinion, at least. Leon and D therefore come up with a backstory and explanation for Leon's presence. The punchline is of course that in the end nobody is interested in it, because it's just so much more convenient to make them an item ;-) Refuting these assumptions would however endanger their cover, so they keep quiet.

2) and 3) are pretty firmly rooted in canon, or, well, 2) is rooted in canon, where D makes several comments to that extent. 3) is more a matter of how canon is interpreted and contextualised, and both tropes are subverted in this chapter, though only in part. Since it is mainly D's actions and reactions in canon which help create the impression that Leon has no culture and is potentially misogynistic, naturally D also needed to be the chapter's "narrator". He has to revise some of his former assumptions about Leon over the course of the evening. Some of them may be blamed on D's direct influence and manner lessons or Leon having matured in the four years in between, but there are other aspects where D suddenly has to face the fact that he's been underestimating Leon all along.

2) While there are a number of other aspects I could've gone for, I chose ballroom dancing and formal introductions, because they made the most sense against the backdrop of Leon's cultural background. Learning ballroom dancing to score with girls can render even such an unlikely candidate as Leon willing to go to those lengths, and luckily for him, he doesn't actually have to prove his skills. Formal introductions I imagine he would have had to learn once working for Interpol. Ballroom dancing additionally had the benefit of providing me with a nice in for 3) I rather liked writing that discussion, to be honest ^^ Fanfiction tends to regard the few instances where we get a glimpse of Leon's romantic/interpersonal relationships in canon as absolute when it comes to this, so Leon is frequently portrayed as nothing short of a misogynist or, at the very least, being very superficial when it comes to relationships with women on the basis of his comments when he sees attractive women. Now, I can see where people are coming from with that, yet in my experience misogyny is more complex than somewhat juvenile, tactless and inappropriate comments about women (some of which, I shall readily confess, I make about attractive men). Misogyny, in my experience, very, very often shows itself in more subtle ways than the kind of comments Leon makes, namely in the kind of behaviour men exhibit around women they are personally acquainted with, particularly capable women. It is striking, to me, that even when Leon is dumped for another man, he does not go into an outraged rant about his ex's character and possibly questionable morals; that while he ridicules Jill's taste in novels, he never makes fun of or is seen to act condescendingly towards her where their work is concerned, but in fact takes her superior knowledge seriously; that he obviously holds his mother, who possibly raised him on her own, in great regard and is only ashamed about her having been sexually active at an advanced age (which, let's be honest, pretty much every teenager would be), or following another translation, jealous of the future sibling he'll have to share her attention with.

It is, of course, also quite interesting that when openly propositioned by a woman (even if she's a plant), he insists on exchanging some basic courtesies like their names and occupations.

The pin-ups on his walls are a bit more difficult. To some extent they can however be explained by a culture that disproportionally focuses on female bodies, in combination with a wish on Leon's part to appear very masculine – which would not surprise me if he grew up with a single mother, as there seems to be a tendency amongst some people to assume that boys raised by a single mother must be either overly feminine or gay. There is also the problem of which point of view someone takes on pornography, since it is by no means undisputed that pornography on the whole is misogynistic. I won't go into that debate here, though, that is way beyond the scope.

There is something else that makes me wonder why he would even have those posters, though, and that is the fact that the only time he shows any real interest in them is when D tears them down. As a matter of fact, once given a plant, his focus clearly shifts from not being home (instead going for a drink with colleagues) to sitting at home and talking to the plant. The posters cannot be all that interesting if a plant manages to completely distract his attention from them …

4) Usually it's D who is in charge of everything they do, even when Leon is supposed to be (terrorists kidnapping D? Leon to the rescue? Not so much …). But at this fundraiser, it's actually Leon who gets to direct D's every move, based on his superior experience with the kind of mission they're on, letting D see yet another side of him that he never got to see in LA.

5) Again, the cupboard/cramped space to hide in is a favourite device employed to get two characters to confessing their feelings and/or having sex. It's convenient, and it's so overused it should, in my opinion, really be retired already. This one got included because I have a weird sense of humour, and I could not quite resist the temptation to try and fool my readers for at least a few seconds into believing that they were going to have that much-needed talk right then and there.

It would have been an easy way out, and so I didn't take it.

Notes on tropes for Chapter 5

In part because for the general vain in which this fanfiction is written, it worked better to have a

1) Revealing Confrontation

to help them sort out some of their issues. Again, this is a popular way to force characters into revealing what they are really thinking, or let them have it out. There is little tweaking to be done here; it had to happen at some point during the story, because this is, after all, a reunion fic, and it would be too easy to pretend all of the issues that were present already in LA have mysteriously disappeared in the meantime. Now they have a whole bunch of new ones to add to the old pile! ;-) Amongst them

2) Leon Is Hurt By D Leaving The Way He Did

I didn't see much point in turning this one upside down either, but I decided on a different take to what I often see, mainly because I wanted to explore how Leon dealt with the (emotional) fallout from the tower incident. We see him in canon walking with his crutch and obviously accepting everything that has happened before as reality. But we don't see him arriving at that point. Now, back at the hospital, when he opens the suitcase and sees the picture, he already seems pretty accepting of everything, but then again he's likely high as a kite on meds, not to mention has literally just woken up from most likely a coma. Once he enters normal life again, sticking to this kind of acceptance is going to be more complicated, because it is difficult to hold on to what one knows as the truth if everyone around keeps telling you it isn't/cannot be. Leon has had a long time to get used to the thought of D being something else, so now that he knows for sure, he's stubborn enough to not let go. That doesn't mean that this new knowledge doesn't hurt him, because suddenly he's in a similar position to the one D was always in with him, with most people around him just plainly disbelieving him. Leon is a grown man with a job that depends on people not questioning his sanity, so he has nobody to talk to in order to help him rearrange his worldview around the new knowledge he has, and the one single person who could has left. Which, yes, does piss him off quite a bit, and provides the other half of the explanation for why this reunion isn't working out quite the way it does in other fics. Taken each for itself, D's involvement with Spencer Donald and the fact that he never contacted Leon again after the tower incident, but instead kept on avoiding him even when he started looking, would probably still have got Leon's back up to some extent. In conjunction, he is livid, leading to their confrontations being as explosive as they are.

The next trope stretches from Chapter 5 into Chapter 6 and even further, so I am quickly going to say something about the second half of the chapter before I get to that. It features a terrible, terrible trope that can be termed "Convenient Coincidence", and it is a difficult one to handle, because the convenient coincidence in this case is what warranted the implied rape/non-con tag for this story. I am fully aware that to some of you, it may appear callous to use a character's near-death to drive the plot forward, even a character who hasn't even been given a name. While I don't talk about it specifically, I do hope I managed to convey via Leon's and D's reactions in Chapter 5 and 6 that both of them realise in retrospect that they were so caught up in themselves and their own problems that they have, yet again, managed to ignore what was going on around them. And once more, the world outside the shop, that does not revolve around them, breaks into their vacuum and reminds them that as much as they might wish this to be between the two of them, they cannot escape it completely.

As a final note on that particular storytelling device, it is by no means uncommon to use similar cases of convenient coincidences to drive plots forward. What I personally find more worrying about it is that frequently the characters do not seem much bothered by what is implied (or described) to have happened. While there are certainly characters who might not be, Leon is definitely not one of them, and therefore he reacts.

The last trope, as I said, stretches from Chapter 5 into Chapter 6, starting in the first half of Chapter 5 and continuing with Leon's farewell in Chapter 6. It provides the premise for quite a few things that are happening in the final few chapters of the fic, so this one is really rather important.

3) Leon Becomes D's Dream Human To Make This Work

I mentioned at the beginning that many reunion fics assume as a baseline that Leon has given up his old life as a consequence of his experiences, looking for D for answers and whatever else he may be looking for in any given story. Suffice to say that I follow it only to the extent of Leon getting a new job better suited to looking for D. There is frequently yet another dimension to Leon's travels, because often, the journey he makes is taken to be a process of transformation for him, culminating with him becoming someone D can accept by his side (or, as the case may be, welcome into the shop) and only then finding him. That can take any form; Leon may or may not become immortal, turn from human into another creature, or may simply gain a broader horizon and better understanding of the world he lives in, thus allowing him to accept D for who he is.

People hardly ever seem to ask the question whether D would want him to.

Now, why am I asking it?

Well, what has me a bit doubtful of that particular trope is that D has already accepted Leon by his side in canon. Probably by the end of volume 2, if we are to be honest, and while he rages on about all of Leon's flaws and failings, he never makes an attempt to leave. There are two volumes between Destruction and Day Nursery, during which he could have up and left at any point in time. But he doesn't.

Of course, that begs the question of why he still pushes him away in D, and frequently it appears to be interpreted as Leon not yet ticking all of the required boxes, hence the turning immortal/becoming something else but human. I always feel kinda sorry for him when that happens, and I also cannot help but wonder if D would actually be happy if Leon started ticking these boxes. In this fic, it turns out he's not.

So he kicks him out in Chapter 6.

For good.

Or so he thinks.

Notes on tropes for Chapter 6

I was actually very tempted to simply end the story there and leave you guys to ponder D's reasons for acting as he does. Just because it would have been a nice change of pace as well. There was another possible road I could have gone down by focusing on Leon's reaction once D has so openly rejected him. Maybe I will, one day. It's tempting.

Alas, I did not, because I had an end in mind, so instead of me changing my mind, D needed to change his mind. So here comes

1) Moving Countries For Love, delivered via The Mind-Changing Conversation

A very, very common trope, not only in fiction, but unfortunately in real life, although in my experience, it's more often applied to women, because obviously, a woman in a foreign country must have moved there for love. I have to admit, it gave me no small amount of satisfaction to have Gina apply it to Leon :-) At the same time, I harbour something of a dislike for what could be termed The Stern Talking-To or maybe The Mind-Changing Conversation. It's such an overused device, one character having an epiphany while talking to another character. Then again, it's well-used for a reason, because haven't we all had those moments? It took me four attempts and at least two hours on the phone to write something that I could live with, which may be taken as an indication of my level of dislike.

That being said, the general consensus appears to be that it is terribly romantic to give up one's whole life in one country to move to another for love. All I can say is, my husband and I have the misfortune to hold passports from different countries and don't even speak the same native language to begin with. So, from personal experience, moving countries for love is great romance as long as you only do it in theory. It's not so much fun when you have to up and leave everyone you've been friends with for many years and then suddenly there's a lot of water and hours of travel (not to mention significant amounts of money) between you and them and your family. Now, I'm not going to pretend it's a recipe for disaster, although I have certainly seen it happen. Personally, I enjoy settling in a new country, and lord knows I've done it a few times. But it's not easy. It's never been easy. It will never be easy, and it only gets more difficult as I grow older, because everyone around me has not moved, and isn't as interested in making new friends as I am. They all have their social circles figured out. There's no space for newcomers, and one needs to put a lot of work into establishing a new network. Even so, you will be missing several years of shared experiences. It doesn't matter how close you may have been to people back home; shared experiences tie people together, even if they'll never be intimate friends. Suddenly, all of that will be gone, and you'll have to rebuild it from scratch with new people.

And that doesn't even take into account the language barrier. Love may conquer all, but love is of precious little help when you're struggling to understand what people around you are saying.

Hence D's meltdown when he realises the enormity of what Leon has done. It does not hit him at first, because D has likely moved a lot during his life and he doesn't appear to have developed lasting ties in any of the places he's been to before (although we don't really know that either, seeing as the series doesn't exactly detail his former life). So for him, leaving everything behind is probably not that much of a problem, especially because he gets to take everything that really matters with him in the shop (excepting Leon and Chris).

For Leon, it's somewhat different, and to be moving to France as an American … No offence meant, but for an English native speaker to move to France and live there on a day-to-day basis, it's … interesting. It's especially worrying for D since he knows for a fact that Leon was very happy living in the States, and has never shown any inclination to move countries (or even towns, for that matter), nor seems to have had much of a concept of handling cultural differences carefully (as D himself liked to point out). Which doesn't help the situation.

Now, some of you may think that is not as momentous a decision as giving up his life to travel the world is.

On the basis of "been there, done that", I disagree. Travelling the world (or countries, as it may be) is in some respects way easier than moving and settling somewhere, because you are perfectly fine only forming passing acquaintances. Settling requires a level of dedication that is quite a different kettle of fish – especially when you are, as Leon is, a young single male who isn't a student, a father or in a line of work that will ease the process of developing new social bonds.

2) Last-minute Airport Reunions

Another trope that I think should be retired, hence my take on it. For as cute, fluffy and heartwarming as it may be, I cannot see Leon and D doing the Hollywood-reunion-hugging in full view of an airport full of people. And besides, I did say I wanted a story filled with breathlessness, excitement and emotions, and not following it through to the end seemed to be a fairly safe way of ensuring that the excitement lasted a bit longer yet.

This trope, as one of my beta-readers pointed out, does of course have two possible endings: 1) they are reunited at the airport and live happily ever after, 2) they are reunited after the one who went to the airport returns to the significant location, despondent, only to find that the other one has never boarded the plane and is waiting for them there. Commence happily ever after.

Neither appealed to me.

Notes on tropes for Chapter 7

1) Kidnapping A Character

For everyone who has read this story on , you will have encountered this trope in the previous chapter already, because other than the AO3-version, on Leon's kidnapping actually gets its own scene. I wanted to see whether people's reactions differed based on whether that piece of information was included. Sorry, and please feel free to go to /AO3 and read the alternative version if you want ^^

Like I said, I'm not a fan of Last-Minute Airport Reunions, for several reasons, and I chose a variation that doesn't crop up too frequently by making Leon miss his plane for reasons not of his own choosing. The main reason for including/excluding the scene where he is actually kidnapped was that the arc of suspense changes quite notably with only this little scene being left out or in. Either way, though, doing it like this beautifully served the purpose of keeping up the pace (breathlessness, excitement and boiling emotions, remember?) while being a further means of deconstructing Last-minute Airport Reunions. It also serves as another reminder that regardless of how Leon and D may feel about it, their reunion isn't happening in a vacuum, but in a very tense kind of situation involving some really dangerous people.

As for the trope itself, generally putting one character in peril serves to have another character live through an epiphany that finally clarifies their feelings for the one in danger. It's quite a common way of starting off a romantic relationship between characters, and pretty much a staple tool of storytelling. However, D isn't exactly unaware of his feelings for Leon, or Leon's feelings for him, for that matter. So instead of epiphanies, what they get is a repeat performance of …

2) D To The Rescue

Potentially the closest to canon tropes I have come in this fic, but then, I wasn't going to let Leon die by Spencer Donald's hand (well, the Russian bouncer's hands). And of course, things have to come to a head here, because extreme situations, especially situations where someone's life is in danger, usually serve as a catalyst for whatever emotions have remained hidden so far. Again, I couldn't use it towards that end, because it would have been very unconvincing if D suddenly had a change of heart here. Please do remember, he initially follows Leon intending to erase his memories of D. While he does not follow through with that, jumping from "I'll make sure he stops following me by making him forget me" to "he's mortally wounded, I'll tell him I love him" is not what I would call consistent characterisation. It's actually something that tends to annoy me when I read it (or something similar) in fiction. Yes, near-death situations can bring out formerly hidden truths, no doubt about that. That does neither mean that these revelations need to be of any lasting character nor that they have to directly contradict a character's previously made statements or their already known intentions. Additionally, and sorry if I come across as being a bit of a spoilsport here, but declarations made in the face of imminent death – well, how seriously can you really take them, or, for that matter, how much will they impact on daily life when the situation is not life-threatening any more? It's a bit like New Year's resolutions, only with a lot more stress and adrenaline thrown in. It's not that I think people consciously lie when they say what they say, not by a long shot. They probably mean every word at that point in time. However, these situations are extreme, and extreme means also fraught with extreme emotions, so it would hardly be surprising if the words chosen were a lot stronger than the ones which would have been used in a situation where stress levels and emotions are less sky-high.

Besides, neither Leon nor D are great at big words aimed at one another.

So all of that leaves us not with revelations and declarations of love, but with … a repeat performance of the end of volume 10.

3) Giving Canon A New Spin

It's not a trope proper, of course, but yes, I was indeed aiming for producing something as close to the end of vol. 10 as was possible without practically copying it. The ingredients that Akino used are all there, though: Leon is injured, potentially fatally so, and telling D what he thinks D should be doing, while D is unwilling to listen to what he is saying and has to make a choice between ensuring Leon's survival and his own safety. It's only in the details that the two scenes are different, the essence is more or less the same. And again, the choices both of them are making are the same that they have made before, although they have been through all of this already. Yet, since there are different premises underlying the whole scene, they are made for different reasons. Leon is, once more, accepting that these could be his final moments alive, but this time asking D to stay with him while he dies, which will also ensure that the police will never know D is responsible for the state of the other men in the room (funny how Leon only mentions three badly injured men, when in fact, there are four); D once again makes the choice of keeping Leon alive at whichever cost to Leon personally, but knows that to achieve it this time around, he will have to reveal himself to the human police to ensure Leon is found, and he decides to run the risk, show himself and put Leon above his own safety.

What it boils down to is basically "circumstances have changed, Leon and D have, too, but they react similar to before because both changes have taken place".

What do I mean by that? Well, even at the end of vol. 10 I can't quite yet see Leon telling D to not call for help for Leon, just so D won't end up in a potentially dangerous situation. Equally, Jill's answer to Leon's question about D seems to imply that he is presumed dead, so it's fair to assume that D, after pushing Leon back into the human world, was not the one alerting the paramedics to his unconscious and injured body presumably lying around somewhere in the proximity of the tower. They have both been pushed further in terms of character development, both by the events of D and the events in this story, so the ends they are willing to go to are different this time around.

The question is, have they been pushed far enough for D to stay?

4) Cliffhanger!

Breaking the whole chapter off there is of course simply yet another ploy to keep readers guessing, and therefore a typical cliffhanger. You may have noticed that I used those to some extent in no less than three out of eight chapters. It would not have been necessary, as some of those chapters could have been combined into one (even if they would have made very long chapters in that case), so it is purely reader manipulation that I was aiming for, because of course, making use of cliffhangers, even if the chapter itself did not contain a lot of action, will generally (and hopefully) result in the reader's pulse picking up again at the end of it. Excitement without having to write action sequences!

Which gave me the opportunity to do a repeat performance of the end of volume 10 … with a variation ^^

Notes on tropes for Chapter 8

1) Moping Introspection

Not my favourite trope either, but useful in some cases. After all, the cliffhanger from the previous chapter needed to be resolved, and it needed to be resolved in a way that would lead readers to not suspect the twist of the last few paragraphs (although I'm willing to bet quite a few people were expecting it simply on the premise that a reunion fic cannot end with them not being reunited! ^^ Well, it could have. And as I said previously, I was very tempted to do just that). So Leon gets to be a bit mopey and ponder everything that has happened as well as his future actions, while at the same time conveniently providing readers with all the information they need to tie up some loose ends (what happened to Spencer Donald, did he get arrested, did D manage to get away, and so on and so forth).

I'm about as fond of this trope/story device as I am of the Mind-Changing Conversation, although I like how this one turned out well enough, I guess. I've certainly written worse. Plus, I got to introduce Yang Wen and the wonderful Madame Maréchal, which was definitely nice ^^

However, the whole thing is only there for one single purpose, and that is the

2) Ultimate Reunion!

Yes, finally, after all the fuss, the injuries and the emotional upheaval, they get their ultimate reunion! In Lyon instead of Rome, and it's D who's followed Leon to where he lives now, and Leon hasn't got to give up anything, and Interpol still has a file on D, but hey, they get around to it eventually. And, well, Chris's drawing is still waiting to be returned, because apparently Leon hasn't got it in his office either – still, let me ask you this: Does it still matter as much as before at this point?

Taken in combination with the first trope, this chapter is one of the better final chapters I have written so far, I think, for it provides a great place to kick off in case I decide to write a sequel, but also works as a concluding chapter if I never get around to it. That is because most of the questions pertaining to the actual plot of the story are answered, but as far as the aspects hidden in the preceding chapters are concerned – questions concerning D's refusal to even consider letting Leon back into his life, what exactly he is afraid of, what Leon's life has looked like since D left, and a few more –, they remain unanswered. Which means they provide a good basis for a sequel – which is kinda important if one isn't just gonna write episodic fic, by which I mean fiction where the story starts and concludes within the same story instead of following an overarching plot or at least train of thought.

And now that there's finally no more excitement left to squeeze out of the story, it ends. No, there are no more chapters forthcoming. No, there will be no description of the first shared tea-time in the Lyon shop, because here ends the task I set myself when I started writing An Italian Job (of sorts). And yes, part of that task was producing a variation on the series' original ending. This scene was actually one of the very first I wrote, along with the chronologically first scene. I knew from the start that I wanted to play around with not only tropes I often see in reunion fics, but also with reader expectations of how it should be going. You are the judges of whether I succeeded; for my part, it was great fun to write it, and thank you for reading, commenting and leaving kudos ^^