Petshop of Horrors: Simple Gifts

[what_we_dream]

Title: Simple Gifts
Series: Petshop of Horros
Pairing: [Eventual] Leon/D
Rating: PG
Notes: Sequel to The Return and finished in The Road Not Yet Travelled part one and part two.

Summary: Leon has finally tracked D down, has even received a grudging acceptance of his presence in Tokyo. It never occured to him that that might be the easy part.

The first thing Leon realises on attempting to live in Japan is that he's certainly not going to starve, but he might overdose on fried food.

Unfortunately, his subsequent realisations are more serious.

Although Leon's travelled the world in search of D – incidentally becoming much broader-minded than it would have ever occurred to him that he could be – he's never lived anywhere but America. And, as such, he's never even contemplated the complex necessities of becoming an at least temporary resident of a foreign country. Especially when already in that country, and the spoken language is not English. Leon never made any friends in L.A.'s upper echelon, who had all been won over long ago by D's exotic charm and more exotic menagerie, but he has a few favours left to pull in with the Force. Aided by friends of friends – and their cousins and uncles and relatives-in-law – he slices through the red-tape somehow and lands himself an Alien Card, freshly laminated and with a photo as unflattering as only an official photo can be. He doesn't show it to D.

The Count, to Leon's initial surprise, keeps his nose well out of the former-detective's business. He makes no inquiries about the state of Leon's battle with the Immigration Office, and certainly offers no aid. Leon finds this infuriating since he's perfectly aware – they both are – that D could have him registered as a Japanese citizen with a flick of his purple-nailed fingers. Really, it's mostly indignant rage that forces the ex-detective to put his nose to the grindstone and somehow push the forms through. It's only later that it occurs to him D was perhaps testing his self-sufficiency, and is further incensed.

It is only much later that he wonders if it wasn't a move to forestall being forced to accept help when he didn't need it – something Leon could never accept – and he is grateful.

New Alien Card crisp and still plastic-scented in his wallet, Leon strikes out from the long-term motel he's been staying in – another secret from D – in search of an apartment.

Only to discover that the prices for a one-room hovel with a single burner to act as kitchen and a 2'x2' square tub as shower and bath are shockingly exorbitant. And that further, even if he could afford them, no one will rent to a foreigner.

He finds, a couple of days later that as far as he can tell, no one will employ one whose only Japanese comes out of a phrase-book either.

He has the permits, he has the drive, he has the need to live here. But without a home and a job to keep him, no amount of necessity will make the impossible doable.

It's all very well to think idealistically, to imagine that a man can make a life for himself by the strength of his back, that nothing is truly unattainable. Those beliefs provide beautiful pastel visions until the bank balance veers into the red and you get up one day from a hard bed to realise the cupboards are empty and you can't fill them. And so, feeling like he's had the carpet pulled out from under him and then been given a good stiff kick in the gut for extra measure and hating himself for the depths he's fallen to, he grits his teeth and goes to D.

What Leon thinks of as the store's wallpaper – the hangings, the pottery, the flowers – change with D's mercurial interests. But underneath the window dressing is an unchanging backbone which goes unnoticed by casual visitors. The scent of incense and camomile, of sandalwood and a hint of spice, remains constant. As does the sturdier furniture and a few of D's more loved possessions. More treasured things. It reassures Leon, somehow, to know that D can value single objects. That he can stand to keep the same things around him for more than a few weeks, a few months, without tiring of them.

Initially, Leon would never have guessed one possession could hold his fancy, his interest, for long. But that was too simplistic a generalization, and as he has grown to know the Count he has found it proven false. Whatever else D may be, he is far from simple. For the entirety of their L.A. acquaintance, D kept one teapot, a tarnished and slightly asymmetrical prickly Eastern affair in heavy bronze. It was the kind of thing Leon wouldn't have given a second glance in a second-hand store and would never have expected to see gracing the Count's table while the cups, plates, and even tables around it changed with the tide. Intellectually he had known the Count had left L.A. in his socks, so to speak, and certainly couldn't have had room in his bag for a bronze teapot of dubious history and value. Even so, Leon was still surprised the first time the Count poured him tea here, not from the old well-remembered pot but from a classical British tea set of white and blue china. The Count, catching the direction of his glance, had grimaced.

D's pouring tea when he slams in, delicate chimes over the door rattling with the force of his entry. The Count pauses, this week's pot held in thin hands a few inches above his cup, eyes narrowing just slightly in irritation. Leon doesn't bother with formalities, which he's never had much time for anyway; just vaults over the back of D's couch to slam down into it and says "I'm done." The couch creaks reprovingly beneath him: like everything else in the damn shop, it disapproves of him.

D puts down the teapot, a homey brown terracotta with peonies and pansies painted on in shades of red and purple, and gives him a wide-eyed look of innocent incomprehension. "I have no idea what you mean, Leon," he says.

"I have no money, no job, and no place to live. Unless one of those changes, I'm done here. If I can even afford the air fare," he adds in a low growl.

"My dear Leon," D smiles, cat-like, "that sounds very much like an ultimatum."

Why can't it just be like before? he asked, months ago.

What would you do here, in Tokyo? Would you find a job, and come by in the evenings bringing cakes, to interrogate me about my day? Do not be ridiculous. We have moved on from those days, pretty though they may have been. Our roles are no longer what they were. D, arrogant and condescending as always, with just a tiny suggestion of regret.

And despite that, he had decided to stay, without knowing how to live differently. How to change their relationship into anything other than what it had been, and just assuming that somehow the change would happen by itself. That they would merge seamlessly from cop and suspect to … something else.

He always had been too laid-back. Which was just an easier way of saying idiotically naïve.

"It's not a damn ultimatum, D, it's a fact. I can't live here. No one listens to me."

"How unusual that must be for you," says D dryly. "Have you tried listening to them?"

"Well, it would be easier if I could fucking understand them!"

"I believe that is what is called a two-way street, Leon. Even here in Tokyo, English is only a minority presence."

"Thanks," hisses Leon.

"My, you are tetchy today," replies D, and pours the cup of tea. He sets down the pot and pushes the tea cup towards Leon, nails clacking almost inaudibly against the porcelain. Leon has learned that nothing irritates the Count like wrecking his pottery, and so restrains from throwing the cup across the room. Instead he sits, sweltering and glaring, furious at the whole situation but mostly with himself for being unable to see a way out of it. D pours his own tea and takes a slow drink, cup held Asian-style in both hands despite its British origin – possibly a sign of stress – before continuing. "I am still uncertain as to why you are here, and not … oh, I don't know. Railing against whatever hapless landlords you could corner," he makes a careless wave with his hand, an I cannot even conceive of the ridiculous things you do with your free time gesture.

"And here I thought you sold hope and dreams," says Leon imprudently. Even simmering with rage, he retains enough sense not to add on D's third promise.

The Count sets down his tea cup with an expression of great surprise. "Why, Leon," he says brightly. "Are you here to purchase a pet?"

"Fuck, no," replies Leon, immediately, and knows he's screwed this up already. The Count's face darkens. Behind the draperies and stalks of bamboo Leon notices for the first time today the growling and hissing of D's pets. But he's long ago gotten used to living with their disapproval.

"I see." D's tone is cold, the familiarity he usually saves for Leon extinguished. When he speaks it's in the open, false voice he uses with clients. "You will be pleased to know your little one is doing well. Perhaps you would care to take him with you?" D raises a hand, index finger alone outstretched, and from the heady darkness comes the quiet flutter of small wings. A sparrow swoops in to land on the perch offered. It cocks a tiny head at Leon, black beady eyes watching him closely.

"I can hardly feed myself, never mind him," says Leon, glad for an excuse which is also truth. D's gifts to him have never done him harm; the plant which died in a rain of crimson petals, the loaned butterfly which fluttered silently in its cage. But third time's the charm, after all. D purses his lips but shrugs and shakes his finger gently, dislodging the sparrow. It circles once around his head before disappearing back into the shadows.

"Then I am at a loss," says D coldly, leaning back into the embrace of the elaborately upholstered couch, back straight and head high, maddeningly regal.

"Dammit D, I've crawled in here on my knees," growls Leon, but D's eyes flash and he gets no further.

"Have you?" Gold and purple sweep in disdain over Leon's tall frame hunched stiff and uncomfortable on the couch opposite D, but definitely not kneeling. "I realise you have been cursed with an absurd – indeed offensive – portion of pride, but I can tell you now you will have to learn to swallow it to get on in this life. One does not demand favours as a right." His pale, perfect face twists almost imperceptibly to take on a look of disdain. "Measure gain against pride, and if the former is greater than the latter, abandon your pride and ask for what you want."

"You fucking know what I want."

"Yes. The point here is: do you want it enough to ask me for it? That's all you have to do, Leon." Disdain disappears, replaced by D's cloying smile. The Count's eyes are shining in the shop's perpetual dusk, tone thick with dark, elicit promises.

"And you'll do it without hurting anyone? Without pushing a man-eating thing on some poor bastard?"

D's eyes narrow a fraction. "A man who begs for help does not get to choose the manner of its delivery. I do as I do for my own reasons, Leon, and sometimes there is no price attached, but I do not allow qualifications. I do not provide charity." He spits the word out as if it were sour.

It takes all of Leon's will to refrain from retorting that D damn well doesn't need to worry about ever being suspected of that.

"So what, I have to live by your methods or be abandoned here? Ask, and take the consequences, even though this is something…" he looks away without finishing, even though this is something we both want.

"Yes," says D shortly, clearly growing tired of this conversation, as he grows tired of almost everything.

"Then to hell with you," spits Leon, standing, and the only bright spot in his week is the fact that he's remained uncorrupted enough to answer without a doubt. "If I can't fly out of here I'll wait until they deport me." He slams past the low coffee table, china rattling, past the potted bamboo and elaborate screens and out the door without looking back.

His only regret is that he didn't get to see surprise on the bastard's face before he stormed out. Didn't get to see any emotion at all.

Away from D's maddening presence Leon's head cools enough for him to know that being deported is not a good option to wait around for. And eventually, that he's screwed up his life. Again.

He's living off convenience store high-sugar candy and energy drinks, three days from eviction before he finally has an idea. It takes a day's rent at the motel to put him in the shape he needs to be in for it to work.

Freshly fed, shaved, and dressed, he goes to Lau.

Like all men who own sky scrapers, Lau's office is up in the airy heights of the Neo Chinatown building. It's decorated in the sparse, austere style which somehow costs more than lavishness. The most interesting feature is Lau's desk; like all desks it defines the man who sits behind it.

It may be the biggest desk Leon's ever seen, easily long enough for Orcot to have stretched out on top of without head or toes coming near the ends, and Leon's predictable enough to immediately think compensating for something? He doesn't know much about wood, but he's rarely seen any of this shade before, almost the colour of an overripe plum, but with a bright red tint to it when the sunlight streaming in through the massive windows behind it strikes its perfect surface. The sides are just slightly rounded, only enough that it confuses the eye searching for a perfect square. The feet peeking out from beneath its bulk are wide and stately. There is not a scrap of paper on it.

Behind his wooden fortress, Lau gives a predatory smile and folds well-manicured hands. "You have something to tell me about D?" he says, doing a good job of not looking too eager. In the well-lit office, his teeth gleam. Leon can't help but notice that they're all unnaturally square. He's reminded of something cold and slimy, trying to slither its way somewhere it's not wanted. Face carefully neutral, he shrugs.

"Yeah. Everything." Leon smiles, darkly. "But in return, I need a favour."

Lau, unlike D, does not have to resort to any under-the-table means. He simply has to snap his fingers. And then snigger himself sick as soon as Leon's out of the room.

Leon's only condition of employment was nothing in the food industry, and Lau kept his word there. But when the former detective shows up at a shop two blocks over from Neo Chinatown with Lau's letter in his hands and sees the kittens playing in one window and puppies in the other, he wonders how long the man kept a straight face after his exit.

The petshop – and how many times has he thought that without thinking the petshop – is at least run on principals of decency, and he has seen enough Tokyo petshops thanks to his previous trolling to know. The cages are smaller than they would be in America, but there's a pen in the back for the larger animals to stretch their legs in, and the others have adequate space. The food is reputable and if not plentiful at least sufficient, water changed regularly, the bedding clean. There is no stench of cruelty here.

It's a reluctant family business. The father, who introduces himself in an incomprehensible blur of syllables but who Lau's letter gives as Hayashi Kenta, is a quiet old man with only two words of English (sorry, no). There is no wife Leon sees, the rest of the family being a pair of university-age sons who he can't tell apart and seem uniquely ambivalent towards their father, the shop, and life in general. He can't tell whether they're pleased or irritated to have had him wished upon them, and doubts what little English seven years of school managed to sink into them is up to telling him in any case.

The old man – Hayashi senior – who Leon judges to be anywhere between 50 and 70, lives above the store. Leon has no idea where the colourless sons live, just another drop in his ocean of ignorance regarding them. Hayashi senior is in the store at 6:30am tending to the animals, to open at 9. One or both of the Hayashi juniors shows up around 4 to mind it until closing at 6 and remain to see to the continued care of the animals until 10pm.

Leon, a stranger with no Japanese, does not expect to be trusted with anything, and isn't. He spends his midday shift, 10-6, cleaning, feeding, watering, and rotating the animals in the large pen. Although the Hayashis might begrudge the pay, Leon's presence means less work for all as they no longer have to exercise the animals before or after hours. He has no idea whether they think it's worth it.

It's a mindless job, except for the heart-pounding moments when someone attempts to talk to him, and although the intense relief of employment outweighs his boredom for a while, eventually the scales tip. Leon was born to lead a life fuelled by adrenaline, and making sure kittens and puppies remain accustomed to human contact doesn't really qualify. And, however dirty working for the Force was, he learns soon enough that it has nothing on cleaning out 40 cages of bird and rodent shit a day. He wonders how he even imagined D did it, back in the old days. Back before he believed.

He hates D for making him sound like a born-again Christian. But then he hates D for a lot of things. It's easier that way.

He spends his first two weeks petting, feeding, grooming and cleaning; working with the sole motive of earning enough to buy a ticket back to sanity. He spends the next two wondering if he really threw away everything he had just to give up on his mission now. It seems impossible that he forgot, somewhere in those long two years of searching, working backbreaking jobs for the money to live and striking up relationships with stewardesses to get him to the next city, just how frustrating D can be. Just how infuriating he can be, likes to be. It was one thing living with that because he had to, because it was his job and people were dying on his watch. Inflicting it on himself for no reason other than his own curiosity seems a lot like masochism. He can't help but wonder whether he's really philanthropic enough to try to crack D entirely on his own for no reward.

He can't help but wondering, when he sits thinking about it while drinking what passes for cheap beer here sitting on the hard bed in his motel room, whether he's here to try to understand D at all. Whether he's not here for another reason entirely, one that he can't get near without shying away from as soon as he senses it coming on the horizon. One that even from a far-off distance feels horribly, disturbingly, like intense desire. It's not the first time the idea's been suggested, hell, D offered to take him into his bed – probably silk-sheeted, the bastard – as if he'd ever be desperate enough to whore himself out. But even through the angry haze D's refusal to give any kind of decent, humane, help inspired, he knows that's not entirely fair. Knows that wasn't the spirit D's offer was made in, and knows despite himself that that wasn't the spirit he turned it down in. Somehow D's gotten under his skin, has sashayed into his life stealthily – like a goddamn addiction – and Leon can't seem to move on and leave him behind. Like a lush oasis in the middle of a barren desert, D stands out from everything else in his life. Excites thirsts he's never known so strongly, a thirst for knowledge, a thirst for possession, a thirst to beat the living daylights out of the man. D's given a colour and flavour to his life that Leon never knew, and he can't tear himself away from it. Can't stop sticking his hand in the fire.

So he continues petting, feeding, grooming and cleaning with gritted teeth while staying the hell away from Neo Chinatown, and tries to know how to resolve D's extremely elastic morals with his own.

It's more than a month before he visits the petshop again. He does it because he doesn't have another choice, still unable to reconcile himself to all of D's actions, all his views. Or rather, to the one which manifests itself in countless ways: that humans are essentially worthless. In all his life, Leon doesn't think he'll ever forget the Count's coy smile on the airport's observation deck backlit by the red glow of a burning plane, the fire that killed hundreds of passengers, among them a girl D knew. Leon can't stand people most of the time, but even he can't accept that monstrous hatred. Not with the consequences. And yet … as much as it sticks in his craw to admit, D's done good as well, although rarely. In many ways, things would be so much easier if he hadn't. If he were a simple murdering psychopath, and Leon could put a bullet between his eyes as easily as he would shoot down a rabid dog. But nothing in life is ever simple, especially not D.

He wonders whether it's a softening of his previously rigid views on all this that's led him here this evening, carrier-case hanging from one hand. It certainly never would have happened before.

In the late afternoon while he was near the back of the shop cleaning fish tank windows until they were sparklingly transparent, a woman dressed in furs and extremely overdone jewellery showed up hauling a carrying case along with her, smiling like a child who thinks she has done something clever. In the case was a rather arthritic dog which she pulled out to show one of the interchangeable Hayashi juniors. To Leon's uneducated eyes it was just a medium-sized long-haired animal, fur well kept but beginning to grey, posture slightly drooping. And possessing, he saw as it turned its short muzzle to look at him, a pair of very human eyes. Leon swallowed, and dropped the sponge in the tank. It became apparent that the woman was trying to sell the dog to Hayashi junior, her ecstatic temper quickly turning foul as Hayashi displayed no interest in the animal. Leon fished out his sponge and moved closer to the front of the shop, ostensibly cleaning as he went. Fuming at Hayashi's disinterest, the woman snatched up the dog roughly and pushed it towards the young man, insisting something. Hayashi shrugged and shook his head, unmoved. The dog twisted to look at Leon again. Cursing, he dropped the sponge in his current tank, on purpose this time, and walked over.

"I'll buy it," he said, motioning at the dog. The conversation stopped immediately, both participants turning to stare at him, the woman glaring, Hayashi's expression taking on only a slight interest.

"You buy, Leon?" Apart from very occasional greetings, it was the most English Leon had heard from the boy.

"Yes."

"No good dog. Bad."

"How much? Ikura?" He pulled out his wallet to emphasize the question. The woman lit up immediately, but the boy cut in before she could speak.

"Niman en." 200 dollars. The store sold puppies for more.

This prompted another furious debate, but eventually the woman shoved the dog at the boy and took the bills Leon handed her, his money for the next two weeks. The boy, shaking his head, put the dog into Leon's arms and then handed him the carrier. "Bad dog," he repeated, but the vague interest in Leon had vanished and he returned to his place behind the counter without another glance at him. Leon took the dog into the back, pointedly not looking at it, and left it in the pen.

And so he comes to D's shop with a pet in hand once more, feeling nearly as uncertain as the last time, but in a much darker mood. Feeling that he's not at all ready for this meeting.

There are a couple of children fooling around with a group of puppies on the floor when Leon walks in, their mother watching complacently from nearby. D is nowhere in sight. Eventually the mother steps forward, saying something in a low voice, and the children tear themselves away from the romping animals to follow her out the door. The chimes sing sweetly as the closing door brushes against them, and in the sudden silence that is left they seem louder than when Leon entered.

He's about to call D when the man finally appears from behind the curtain which leads to the back rooms, looking slightly frazzled. He doesn't spot Leon immediately, eyes going to the pups still rolling about on the wine-coloured carpet, face unusually open. Stripped of its usual mask of omniscience and disdain, D's face shows only a kind of paternal affection. Leon, watching closely from his relatively shadowed position near the door and standing as still as he can, can count the times he's seen the Count off-guard on one hand. He watches D click his tongue at the small furballs, kneeling down to hold out one long hand to them. He doesn't scratch them, doesn't even pet them, just lets them brush tiny wet noses up against his fingers and sniffle quietly. Greeting them less like a human and more like … what? An equal?

In the cage at his side the dog shifts, throwing Leon's weight off, and he tips to the side. D turns to face him in a flash, bright eyes shining out from under his dark hair with a fierce intensity that startles Leon. They shade over upon recognising him, a sheet thrown over a light. He stands stiffly, pups yipping in disappointment and tumbling around his slippered feet.

"I was under the impression you were … how did you put it? Getting the hell out of here?"

Leon, who can't remember, shrugs. "'Deported' doesn't look too good on your résumé. Saving up for a flight takes time," he says, not altogether truthfully.

"I see," responds D with the cold politeness that means he's seething. "Would you care for some tea?"

"I just came to drop something off." Leon puts the carrier case down and opens the door. The dog pads out immediately, walking over to D without hesitation. The Count's eyes widen a fraction and he bends to present the same hand the puppies had been nosing. The pups roll away to clear a path for the older dog, who walks between them with his head raised regally as a king in court. He presses his nose against D, who says nothing but watches him with intent eyes. After a minute the exchange appears to be over and the dog cuts around D and slips away into the back of the shop, disappearing into the shadows. You could at least say thank you, thinks Leon. He almost says it, before he realises how ridiculous it would be. Probably.

"I confess myself somewhat confused, Leon." D nearly stumbles over his name, still not used to his lack of title. Leon's still not entirely used to it himself, and he's been living with it every day for the past two years. "I just sold Ya-san earlier this afternoon."

"And then the lady you sold him to came and tried to make a killing by reselling him to us, probably with some insane mark up."

"Us?" asks D, and Leon remembers wearily why he never wins arguments with D.

"Yeah, me myself and I."

"You, yourself, you and the pet store you've been working at, I suppose," says D, bending to shoo the pups in the direction of the back rooms. They crowd excitedly around his hand for several seconds before he manages to convince him to go. Leon stands, dumbstruck, until D looks up and raises one perfect eyebrow. "I'm wrong?"

"How – the dog?" The dog told you is a phrase he is still not prepared to utter.

"There was no need for that; one cannot work in a common pet store for more than a week without acquiring a lingering scent of wood shavings, dry food and fur, amongst other things." D's nose crinkles to indicate that while he may be too delicate to mention other things he's not too delicate to smell them.

"Well, excuse me for smelling like shit," says Leon, earning himself a slanted look of disapproval.

"May I ask what prompted you to bring Ya-san here? Or, for that matter, how you ended up in possession of him in the first place?"

"I bought him, obviously. I might be crass, but I don't go around stealing peoples' pets. I brought him here because…" here Leon runs out of steam somewhat, and then continues more carefully, "he looked like one of yours. You know, prim and prissy."

D gives that some consideration, not immediately blowing up as Leon had predicted. "Perhaps you would care for some tea," he offers in a distracted tone.

"You said that already," points out Leon.

D's attention draws back to the moment. "And I don't recall you answering," he snaps back in a tone of petty annoyance.

Leon realises with something like surprise that he wants to stay. That bickering with D has provided the first spot of colour in his life in more than a month.

He is suddenly very, very tired; of his job, of his motel room, of his empty life.

For the first time in what seems like forever, what may genuinely be ever, Leon looks at D without any thought of antagonizing him. Without the heavily tinted lenses of assumptions and memories and emotions he usually looks at the Count through. And, with eyes cleared by fatigue, he sees a regular man. Odd clothes, odd eyes, odd nails perhaps, but setting those aside D is simply a very slight and unassuming man. Whatever else he may be, that remains fundamentally true, and Leon wonders how he became such a huge towering presence in his thoughts. How he became someone Leon would have to psyche himself up for days before approaching, someone it was exhausting to just think about.

"Fuck, D, I'm tired," he says, passing a hand over his eyes, feeling for the first time the toll his lifestyle has taken on him. When he opens them again, D is watching him with something bizarrely like concern.

"Then sit, and have some tea," he says, motioning to the couch before turning to go do something presumably tea-related. Leon settles himself on the couch, slumping back against the stiff side and wonders if D keeps his furniture uncomfortable to dissuade long conversations or simply out of some aesthetic preference. He leans his head back against the wooden frame and closes his eyes, head full of the thick scent of the shop.

Something light and warm settles itself next to his leg and he opens his eyes, freezing reflexively. But when he glances down it's to see a small boy in brown curled up beside him, thatch-coloured hair spread out over his work slacks. "Huh," says Leon, but does nothing to disturb the kid. Closes his eyes.

Leon wakes in a muddle, cop's fear of not knowing where he is causing him to roll off the couch. He lands on the carpet with a thud, and a distressed chirping lets him know where he is. He looks up to see D watching him with wide eyes from the opposite couch, lap covered in papers and a pen in his hand.

"The hell?" says Leon, clambering to his feet, and turns to see a sparrow sitting on the back of the couch he tumbled off of. It tilts its head at him and gives a short series of chirrups before flying back into the darkness of the back of the shop. "I fell asleep?"

D opens his mouth and pauses just long enough for Leon to suspect him of censoring a sarcastic comment, answers "Yes. For several hours."

Leon makes to glance outside, but the pet shop's windows are blocked off by screens and in any case it opens out into the mall. He reaches for his wrist, and then remembers he has come from work where he can't wear a watch. "What time is it?"

D looks towards a mahogany side-table and Leon follows his lead to a small but elaborately carved clock. It reads 10:30.

"Fuck," says Leon. "I've gotta go."

"Perhaps you should stay the night?" suggests D, raising an eyebrow.

"I've got work tomorrow." Leon, to his credit, says it before he wonders what the hell kind of creepy-ass bed D would give him. And whether he would be sleeping in it alone.

"You look rather gray, Leon." D's tone is perfectly straight-forward, but Leon can see a flicker of concern in the man's face, which makes him pause for a second before smiling carelessly.

"Worried about me? I'm fine; just tired from lugging that damn dog over." As if carrying a dog three blocks could exhaust him. He still feels half asleep; probably the heat, maybe even the incense. He crushes the budding desire to stay. "See you around."

D stands, papers fluttering to the ground around him; he glares at them before looking back to Leon, already by the door. "What do I owe you for Ya-chan?" he asks.

"Nothing; I didn't buy him from you."

"Then I will give you a finder's fee. He cannot have come so cheaply."

"Don't flatter him, D. I've seen puppies go for more."

D walks over to the mahogany sideboard and rifles through the drawers, then returns with a couple of notes. He hands them out to Leon, newly-minted bills still crisp and bright. 200 dollars. Somehow the transaction feels dirty; seeing D handling money, offering money is illogically ugly.

"I don't want your money," he says ungracefully.

"But do you need it?" D, unusually, ignores the slight for the second time that night. "Can you accept a gift, with no strings attached?" Those uneven eyes are dark, now, lips upturned.

"Why does everything with you have to be a test?"

D's expression softens slightly. "We cannot all of us afford to be trusting, Leon."

There is a pause, in which he tries to read the future in D's eyes. He isn't sure he sees success, but he doesn't see failure either.

Finally, Leon glances at the bills. "I thought you didn't do charity," he says, with a faint grin.

"I don't. However, I have been known to give for my own reasons," replies D, and hands Leon the money. Leon opens the door, chimes ringing faintly. "Take care, Leon," says D in his usual insidious tone. But there's no menace in his eyes tonight. Leon nods, and slips out of the shop, cash in hand.

With the ice broken, Leon finds himself stopping in the petshop every now and then, although nowhere near as often as he used to in what he's thought of for the past two years as the "good old days." He doesn't stay very long – with no legitimate reason for him to be there, even cooler-headed as he is these days he and D are still so much at odds that he fears each pointless meeting risks inevitable disaster. Fears to shatter the fragile peace that has somehow been created. Once, he steps out of the door and right into Lau, who gives him a kind of superior pitying smile which Leon has no trouble reading: just can't stay away, can you?

He avoids the petshop for nearly a month after that.

But Leon realised some time ago that he threw away stability with L.A. and that's nowhere as obvious as with his work situation. No doubt Lau never intended for it to last, and after four months he's more than had his fill. It's paying the bills – barely – but the stagnation is killing him. He's working all day at a job he hates for the sake of very nebulous goals which he shows no sign of approaching.

He spends his time with D trying not to piss him off rather than learning more about him, and he's discovered that although beer is damn expensive hard spirits are relatively cheap, and is beginning to run a serious risk there. And with cheap cigarettes sold in vending machines at every corner his smoking's up 200% since he arrived. Even he knows that things aren't good.

Leon struggles on, and wonders where his spontaneity went.

His stops at the petshop are often precipitated by events outside his control. He sometimes wishes he could blame them on D.

Today's was prompted by a letter.

With his tumbleweed lifestyle, Leon's rarely had an address he was confident he would still be at the next day, and as such he hasn't received much mail in the past two and a half years. But since taking the job his place at the motel was confirmed and he once again had a postal address. Not that he has many people to write to. He is consequently shocked when he receives the letter from Chris, and even more shocked when it turns out to contain a second letter addressed to D "When you find him."

Feeling somewhat betrayed by his brother, but mollified by his apparent supreme faith in Leon's detective abilities, he carries the letter with him on another unplanned visit to D.

"This is for you," is how he begins the conversation when they're seated and D is pouring the ubiquitous tea from a Japanese-style pot with a protruding stalk acting as a handle. He digs the crumpled paper out of his coat pocket and hands it over, scowling at D's dainty two-fingered reception. "It was like that when I got it," he says defensively.

D peels away the tape sealing the ends of the single piece of paper together with his long nails and scans it once. Then again.

"What, no comment on his writing? The failings of the American education system?" asks Leon, thrown off-balance by D's unusual silence and tumbling straight into his old self-defensive ways.

"Of course," says D absently. After a third reading he folds the crinkled paper up and tucks it away in the gaping sleeves of today's dress, a phoenix-patterned extravaganza in loose silk. Now that they are in the Orient Leon doesn't bother wondering where he gets his clothes from.

"I'm sorry, Leon, what were you saying?" Even his best you are not important enough for me to listen to voice doesn't quite manage to disguise the fact that he's been thrown for a loop. Leon regrets not steaming the letter open, and then wonders if that works with tape anyway.

"Chris was damn upset when you left, you know," he says conversationally. "Had a soft spot for you. Of course, he was one big soft spot anyway, but still…"

"Why, Leon. Growing sentimental in your old age?" D's eyes are suddenly narrowed with his own old antagonism, and Leon stiffens.

"You should know you can only bait an animal so many times before it stops rising, D."

"And how many times would that be in your case? I've quite lost count." The casual maliciousness that Leon still remembers so well has returned, D striking out first rather than defending against Leon's careless conversational blunders.

"Something in the letter hit home?" he asks, refraining from snarking with great effort.

"Perhaps so much time spent with you has simply finally begun to lower me to your standards, alarming idea though it is."

Their conversations often degenerate into spars – although less so recently – often enough that Leon can sense the difference here. It's been a long time since D went hunting for a fight. He can see the instability in D, uncertainty causing him to lash out. He's in a mood to do nothing but fight, and Leon knows better than to stick around. Fears what he might provoke.

"Sorry for contaminating you," he says, rising. D's mismatched eyes widen, but he doesn't protest.

In the early hours he calls Chris to ask what he told D, wetting his throat with a glass of vodka and trying not to think of the cost of the call. As soon as he hangs up, he curses his little brother in earnest for the first time in his life.

Ask him yourself.

Leon's elbow-deep in one of the stocking-tanks in the back when one of the Hayashi brothers appears in the doorway, calling him and gesturing to what he's come to think of as the showroom. He pulls his arm out of the tank, shakes off what water he can, and glances at the clock hanging in a dark corner. 5:55.

Leon walks into the showroom expecting a lost tourist or at most a foreigner suddenly overtaken by the unappeasable need to buy a guinea-pig. Instead, standing by the sole iguana tank, he sees D.

The man's standing with his back to Leon, presumably inspecting the creature behind the glass, but Leon has no trouble recognising him. He's wearing an unusually short over-layer today – only thigh length – in pale yellow with some kind of red and orange pattern at the cuffs and hems. His pants are flame red. But even without the outrageous clothes, Leon thinks he would recognise the lines of his back, the slim shoulders and narrow hips, and the barest crescent of pale nape showing where his hair has fallen forwards as he bends over the tank.

He only just has time to think this before D's turning; perhaps he saw the movement in the glass.

"Ah, Leon," he says, as if he had just happened upon him in the grocery store.

"What, did you scour all the pet shops in Tokyo looking for me?" His shock has made him even more defensive than usual, which is off-putting enough. D's face flashes dark for an instant, and Leon wonders if they've reached the point where a civil conversation is impossible. Wonders if it's his fault if they have. Realises his heart is pounding. But then the darkness vanishes to be replaced by a meaningless smile.

"No, I heard from a mutual friend of ours." Leon's thoughts flash immediately to Lau, but although D would doubtless call the man friend without a second thought, Leon is sure the Count wouldn't hold a conversation about him with the guy. It's the beginning of a slow realisation, which he cannot grasp hold of at the moment.

"Ya-chan," he says, with something like resignation. D's smile widens. Leon sighs. "I finish in five minutes."

"Then with Mr. Hayashi's permission I will wait," D says, glancing at the boy, who smiles nervously. Leon doesn't bother to wonder how he knows his name. He simply goes to the back to clean up his mess, and is not too surprised when the kid comes back to let him go early, for the first time ever. D has no trouble charming potential clients, but it seems that even in Japan no one wants to be his rival. Even here it's apparently widely known that they have such a tragic habit of ending up in pieces.

And yet, he is still here.

With a thoughtful expression, he finishes what he's doing and walks out to join D.

It's only the second time he's seen D outside in Tokyo, and somewhat to his surprise the man doesn't seem to fit in any better here than he did on the streets of L.A. It's not, Leon thinks, the clothes or even the eyes. Somehow, he just stands out; a shark in a school of fish, a lion in a herd of gazelle, and it doesn't pass unnoticed that in all his metaphors D is the predator. But despite this, no one gives the man a second glance.

Boy, have our instincts dulled, Leon thinks, and then is shocked with himself.

D leads him through the bright streets and dark alleys of Shinjuku without a pause; past restaurants smelling of smoke and miso, past clubs being swept out for the night, past shadowed doorways flanked by pimps in cheap suits calling to the men passing by. Finally they come to a dirty brick building with a massive wooden door in bad repair and a sign Leon can't read. He considers pausing, just to see D fight with the door, but decides against it. He regrets it when D nips in before him while he's still pulling it open. In the poor light his smile seems seems damn smug. But then they're in a well-lit little café and Leon sees nothing but D's ridiculous love for sweets pasted across his face.

He lets the Count order and chooses a table himself – one over by the brick wall. It's mounted with pictures printed on poster-board – mostly arty photographs in black and white – and lit by a bizarre and modern frame of coloured halogen lamps. The overall affect is of a college dorm lounge, but he doesn't say anything.

The place is empty except for a couple dressed in plaid sitting in the opposite corner and an old woman with unkempt hair near the counter. D returns almost immediately carrying a tray with two porcelain cups and several plates of pastries.

"Isn't it a little early for dessert? I haven't even eaten dinner yet."

"It's never too early for such delectables. Besides, I am sure you will find the room to cram your dinner in somehow." D stirs his coffee with a spoon held in the tips of his long fingers, watching Leon through the rising steam. Leon sees calculation there, and keen interest, something D's never been much of a hand at disguising however well he masks his other emotions.

"Did you bring me here just to taunt me some more? Because I could be doing something else." Like drinking, his thirsting throat suggests. Or smoking, his itching fingers say.

"Grown tired of my company already, Leon?" asks D, with a crooked smile.

"Have you?" throws back Leon, and regrets it immediately. There's a horrible, transparent neediness in his tone that even a child could read, and he can see in D's mismatched eyes that the Count has had no trouble deciphering it.

"Why, Leon. How low an opinion you must have of yourself. Rest assured, had I grown tired of you, you would be well aware of it."

"That's something to look forward to," spits out Leon, grabbing his coffee and swallowing a steaming mouthful without a cringe.

D cocks his head to the side, bird-like. "I do not tire of everything, you know," he says, plucking out the heart of the matter with precision.

"Yeah, your damn pets'll always be around to keep you company."

"That is so. There will always be the pets, and the shop. And myself, the three of us bound together."

"And nothing else? That's all that matters?" Leon puts down his coffee with heavy hands, slops some over the side into the saucer.

"It's certainly all that matters," replies D slowly, eyes on the trickle of black liquid flowing across the pristine white of Leon's rather chipped saucer. After a moment he raises his eyes only, staring up at Leon from under dark lashes, long bangs partially concealing the shining gold and violet orbs. "However, it may be that it is not all that I need." The glimpse of unshielded self disappears; D looks down to his coffee and gives it a stir. "You may have noticed that my people are not the most … stable, of individuals."

Leon has had no trouble at all noticing that; remembers vividly D's father in all his supreme righteous madness striking out for the button to end humanity, remembers his grandfather living in a devilish bat's form for some crazy reason of his own.

"Whether this is due to our nature, or the burden we have taken upon ourselves I am not sure. But it remains true regardless. Alone, my family has tended towards … oddness."

"Madness would be closer to the fucking mark, D."

D looks up, raising his chin this time as well to stare at Leon full-on in unreadable splendour. "Perhaps," the Count says with utter ambiguity, but certainly without the squawking that means Leon's said the wrong thing.

"Look, when I said I wanted to know more about you, joining you in your crusade against humanity was not what I meant. I'm sure as hell not going to help you hurt people."

"I have never attempted to drive a species to its death; it is my express purpose to prevent that."

"So what, just wipe out enough of us that the civilization falls and we're ruled by the animal kingdom? You think I'd be any more willing to sign onto that? Dammit, D, I'm no murderer."

"Was it not you who said kill or be killed? Lives are being taken, taken by the thousands, taken every single day. Who is the murderer here?" D finally lays down his spoon, resting sharp nails on the cheap wooden table. His fingers are tense, causing the sharp tips to dig into the already scarred surface.

"Killing to protect yourself is different than wilfully murdering innocent people!"

"Even if it is for the sake of these so-called innocent people that other lives are lost?"

Leon knows what's at issue here. Knows where the fundamental disagreement lies. Four years ago, he wouldn't even have bothered to state it, probably just would have thrown a punch. Two years ago, he would have laid it out on the table with righteous indignation. But now, somehow it sticks in his throat. Somehow, he can't quite force out the words humans are worth more than animals, D. There's no comparison. It's true. He knows it's true. But if it is… how the hell can they stare at him with those eyes?

"It's not the same," he says weakly, and knows that somehow for the first time ever D has won, because he can't argue back. Can't say what he thinks. Because he's just not sure anymore.

There's a silence, in which D fails to gloat, and Leon is too distracted to notice. Eventually he takes another swig of the coffee. "I thought you brought me here to apologize," he says, trying to escape the subject, to forget his failure, his uncertainty.

"Did I?" asks the man with feigned wide-eyed surprise. His expression settles into a serious one again almost instantly. "Would you like one?"

"Would it mean anything?"

"Words are meaningless, Leon. They are only a prideful, self-praising crowing. Actions alone matter."

Leon pins down the niggling realisation from before, something he's long known in abstract but without any concrete definition, finally able to give it form. To D, words are meaningless toys without affiliation or importance. He may seem to take offense at them, but he would never show any hesitation at using whichever were necessary. He has no notion of words holding any real power, any ability to redeem or disgrace. To D, thoughts and intentions can be conveyed only through actions.

"That doesn't say a lot for human society."

"No," agrees D blandly. "It doesn't."

"And that's what you brought me here to tell me?" I knew it already, he thinks, hears it carried in his tone.

"No," says D, pauses. "I brought you here to ask you what happened to your courage." The Count says it in a flat, unremarkable tone, watching Leon without even apparent curiosity.

Leon sputters, opens his mouth, and finds abruptly that he doesn't know what to say. What the hell d'you mean is on the tip of his tongue, easy as following an ingrained route, but it's the answer he would have given two years ago. Not the one he feels today. Today, when he knows exactly what D means, has known for months while he sulked and avoided and found excuses.

"I can't chase you for another two years," he says, finally, drops heavy arms on the table and feels his shoulders slouching under the weight of that pursuit. It's an admission to himself as much, maybe even more, than it is to D and it comes spilling out of him like poison. "Not now that I know what catching you costs. I can't even imagine having the energy I had then, the drive; it seems like it was someone else, like watching a goddamn movie. Like a dream. I'm barely surviving here; every day's like an uphill march through knee-deep muck. The only connection I've got in this crappy life is you, and if I screw that up again I'll damn well – be out of options." He cuts himself off before he gets completely out of hand, because dammit this is supposed to be an explanation. Not a plea for help – I'll drink myself into the grave. Not an accusation – you've broken me. Just a calm, rational explanation. As fucking if. He's made the whip and handed it to D, and now all that's left is to wait for the man to flay him with it.

But he doesn't. Instead, pointedly not looking at Leon, he reaches out and dips a finger into the spill of coffee in Leon's saucer, brings it to his lips and grimaces slightly. "Really, I cannot understand how you drink black coffee," he says, showing his teeth in distaste. He picks up a packet of sugar from the tray, tears it open and tips it into Leon's coffee. "Not everything has to be so difficult," he says, using his own spoon to stir it with the quiet chinking of metal against porcelain.

"Life isn't coffee, D."

D replaces the spoon on his own saucer delicately, and finally meets Leon's eyes. There is no deceit there, no pride, no secrecy. Leon recognizes the quiet openness he saw in D with the pups, the openness he has always imagined only solitude could bring out in the Count.

"Do you remember what I told you before, Leon?" He makes no reference to when, but Leon doesn't interrupt, waits patiently without even having to suppress the urge to barge into the conversation. D's lips twist, too slightly to be a smile, just a tiny hint of approval. His voice holds no ties, no tricks. No tests. "If you need help," he says gently, with the simplicity of a parent to a child, "all you have to do is ask."

It's the kindness that does it. It snaps his already waning strength, the fortitude and perseverance that has kept him going for nearly half a year in a life he hates, like a knife through a taut cord. It's not about trust in D and his ethics, not about the belief in some kind of inherent good in the man. It's simply about need.

"Fuck it, D," he says. "I need help."