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what_we_dreamSeries: Petshop of Horrors
Pairing: Mild Leon/D or Pre-Leon/D
Rating: PG-13
Notes: Follows The Return and Simple Gifts.
Summary: "Of all possibilities, the only one he had truly never expected – now or at any other time – was to find himself working in the petshop." Leon and D struggle to find a new dynamic to provide what they need: each other.
Part one
In the end, it's not his own work at all that proves to be the locus of change, but D's own clients.
Leon's staying late again, as has become almost usual. The pets seem, if not to have warmed up to him, at least to have accepted his presence. Even T-chan only savages him occasionally. Tonight he's adding up figures for D to check; D seems to think it'll be good practice, although for what Leon has no idea. He had to work out bills in the PD sometimes, but generally that was left to the accountant and consequently Leon's not very quick at the math. He's sitting on the couch, bent low over the table with the pencil in his mouth staring at the long list of items with a lot of zeros – damn yen – when the chimes over the door ring. They usher in a group of youngish men.
The faces mean nothing to him but he recognizes the suits, the stances, and the attitudes in one glance. Puts down his pencil, but doesn't stand up, because it's never a good idea to startle thugs packing heat.
Behind him there's a rustle of cloth which must be D coming up from the back of the shop, although he can't hear the man's silent tread.
D's approach is also apparent in the men's reaction; they tense, and two of the four reach for their pockets.
"Leon, you should go into the back," says D, calmly.
"I don't think so," replies Leon stiffly.
The leader, and Leon has no trouble picking him out by the way he holds himself, barks something at D, who shrugs and answers in a flat tone which Leon recognizes well enough: I warned you. Leon wonders vaguely what he sold them, and who it ate.
More shouting. D's eyes narrow. Behind him, the usual background noise of the animals rises as if a dial's been turned. The thugs look around, searching the spreading darkness for the dangers they can hear. The low lights, usually providing ample illumination, seem suddenly to be hardly glowing at all. There are shadows creeping up the walls, full of teeth and claws. Leon tenses.
D, wisely not moving, continues in his flat tone. He's interrupted before he gets halfway through by a curt order on the part of the leader, and the jackets flip open.
Leon's already moving, has already leapt off the couch and is flying towards D. By the time the first gunshot breaks out he is tacking into the man, D's slight frame going down easily under his greater weight and momentum.
There's a hot pain in his upper arm as he falls and Leon knows he's been hit; under him D lets out his breath in a sharp gasp. Then they're slamming into the floor, a hard tackle onto unforgiving wood that drives all the air from Leon's lungs. The world blurs for a moment.
His adrenaline is already kicking in, though, and he's scrambling to his feet an instant later. Leon pulls D up with him, arms around the man's narrow waist hauling his weight up without even noticing it, and crosses the remainder of the room in a sprint to dive into the cover provided by the register's counter. It's only then, hunkering down with D held tight in his arms, that he realises the shots have stopped.
Heart pounding like a jackhammer in his chest, Leon leans out slowly to peek around the side of the register counter. And then jerks back, feeling sick.
Even in the low lights, the sheen of blood is unmistakable. Animals aren't polite about their feeding.
Leon sighs and leans his head back against the wall with a thump. And then realises through the blaring rush of adrenaline that he's holding D tight to his chest like a child with a stuffed animal. And that D isn't protesting.
This is probably because the delicate lilac cheongsam he's wearing is stained scarlet.
Leon stares dully at the blood for several heartbeats, mind unable to process what his eyes are telling him. Then the world focuses so sharply it's dizzying, and he's moving without thought to tear at D's ridiculous outfit, pressing his hands against the hole in his chest near his heart – too near, oh God, too near – "Holy fuck, D?" he chokes out, all rust and grit.
"Get away from him," says a familiar, arrogant voice. Except that most of the arrogance is gone, replaced by sharp warning. Leon looks up to see T-chan kneeling in front of him, staring at D with narrow eyes.
"What the hell're you talking about? Call a fucking ambulance," snarls Leon, shifting D to lie closer to horizontal across his lap. The Count's skin, always pale, is nearly translucent; his long lashes sweep darkly over his cheeks, ebony hair falling away from his face. His body limp and heavy in Leon's arms. It's the first time he's ever held him, the closest he's ever been to D. So close he can feel the heat of his body, smell his scent: orange blossom and musk – and blood, metallic, choking blood. Leon's stomach twists so tightly he thinks he'll be sick, throat closing up, full of broken glass.
"Get away from him right now," repeats the totestu and, when Leon shows no signs of doing so, reaches out and grabs him by the shoulders, tries to wrestle him away.
"Are you insane? Get the fuck off!" With both hands pressed hard against D's chest, he can't fight the boy – the animal – off. A moment later a pair of other boys appear behind him, one with dark scales on his face, another with cat ears and a tail. They grab Leon together and, even as he struggles and curses, drag him away from the Count.
"You crazy bastards, he'll die! You're killing him! Get the hell off me – he'll die!" He's nearly sobbing now, between the adrenaline and the fury and the fear roaring like a tidal wave in his head, between trying to throw the animals off and draw air in through his panic-closed throat. Leon's got plenty of training in how to handle disasters, how to deal with emergencies, but he has nothing to tell him what to do when a bunch of crazy-ass animals try to keep him from helping a man who is dying in front of him and oh God –
"Look out," says T-chan quietly, with a bizarre calm. A second later, there's a blast of shadows, as if a bright light had been flicked on and off for just an instant. Except that the shadows are in the shapes of animals, crazy, nightmarish animals all fangs and talons and long twisting bodies. And they're wrapped around D like a dark blanket. Then reality reasserts itself and they're gone, and D's clothes are ripped but clean in their wake.
Lying flat on the ground behind the cash register, D stirs and opens his mismatched eyes as if waking from an afternoon nap. Leon falls right back on his ass as the animals restraining him release him and wander off, no longer interested.
"Should listen to us next time," mutters T-chan, last to leave.
Leon doesn't even acknowledge him. Just stares as D raises a hand to his chest and then sits up with the blank look of a man who's not entirely sure what's happened. He blinks, and turns to notice Leon sitting on the floor two yards away. The expression of naked surprise on his face is almost comical. Almost, except for the fact that he was nearly dead a few second ago.
"What," asks Leon, wondering whether D's actually dead and he's cracked and this is all some insane delusion, "the hell just happened?"
The adrenaline wearing off is giving him the shakes; that and the fear draining unevenly away are making him feel sick to his stomach.
"Ah," says D. "Perhaps later –"
"Perhaps now," growls Leon. Raises his hands, like a kindergartener doing finger-painting, to show D his sticky red palms. D's eyes widen again, and his face resolves into seriousness. "My people are hard to kill," says D slowly, staring at Leon's hands. "More accurately, we are much more beneficial alive than dead. There are many who are willing to lend a small portion of their strength to see that we remain so."
"I have no idea what that means," says Leon flatly. His head is spinning, his arm is aching, and he has the vague idea that he may be going into shock.
"When we are injured, the creatures we serve heal us. It's not magic, or superstition, or some secret power. It's simply the will of millions and millions of creatures bent towards one extremely specific purpose." It's the most straight-forward explanation D's ever given him, and Leon would probably wonder if there was some idea of repayment in the Count's head except he doesn't have the thoughts to spare for frivolities at the moment. Just piecing the present situation together is taking all his attention. The aftermath of fight or flight doesn't leave a lot of room for analytic arguments.
"So," says Leon, trying to reduce a mountain to a pebble, "you're still alive?"
"Yes."
"And you're not going to die in the immediate future?"
"No."
"Good," says Leon. And then looks down at his arm, and notices a substantial red stain on his sleeve. "I think," he announces, staring at it with a kind of cold fascination that feels wrong for some reason he can't identify, "that I might be going into shock."
There's a lot of hullaballoo. Bizarrely, more than there was when D was injured. Bandages and water are fetched, and D makes him lie down on the couch with his feet up while he establishes that the bullet passed straight through the muscle, which is good but painful. Then washing and bandaging while Leon stares at the ceiling and thinks that this should be the other way around. He wasn't the one mortally wounded. He's hardly even peripherally wounded. But D is ordering the pets around like he thinks Leon may expire on the spot at any minute, and then turning to Leon with a steely expression of disapproval which gives away his concern more effectively than a frank expression would.
Lying on the couch while D, wearing a torn cheongsam and with his hair all mussed, makes him drink soup out of a cup makes it almost possible to forget that four men died on the other side of the room an hour ago. That D was lying in his arms dying at the same time.
"You impressed T-chan," says D, while he drinks the soup. "He says you ordered him to call an ambulance rather than listen to him."
"I would have thought he thought I was a headstrong idiot," says Leon into the cup.
"Oh, certainly," agrees D, weaving his fingers into a platform to support his chin and smiling. "But even they usually back down in front of him."
"Yeah, well," says Leon, because it fills in just about any gap. Yeah, well, I didn't. Yeah, well, T-chan's an idiot. Yeah, well, you were dying.
D unfolds himself, takes the empty cup from him and stands. Leon's having a hard time keeping his eyelids from drooping, probably the adrenaline and the blood loss and the shock. "Hey, D?"
"Yes?"
"Let's not do that again, huh?"
D gives him a beautiful, graceful, and utterly meaningless smile. Leon supposes he should have known better than to ask.
For one day, although Leon doesn't realise it while it passes, the world hangs in limbo.
On the second, Lau struts into the store.
It's late afternoon, and Leon's cleaning an elaborately carved cherry-wood screen with his good hand for something to do. He doesn't startle when the bells jingle, because a cop learns to get over the jumpiness that follows a firefight pretty damn quick or drops off the Force, but he does look up. And feels his face close into an expression of blankness to disguise all the more telling emotions vying for attention.
"Ah, Taishi. It's been a while since your last visit." D sets the language of conversation as English, sailing forward in bright white and lavender silks. He seems to shine like a gull against a stormy sky, the shop dimly-lit as always. Leon tenses, and tells himself his anxiety is irrational.
Irrational or not, the anxiety is supported on the firm pillars of his dislike for the man. Dislike for what he represents: everything about himself that Leon has come to recognize and hate in the three years he's been chasing D. The wilful arrogance, the sense of entitlement, the spiteful pride. Leon puts down his cloth and stands, waits silently in the background to see what shots the man intends to fire off at D today.
Lau ignores D's greeting, dark eyes flashing to Leon, and Leon sees the corner of his mouth twitch for an instant before he can quash his smile. "I had heard you had a new employee," he says pleasantly to D, as if Leon hadn't been here for weeks. "Such a surprise; I thought you always worked alone."
D makes a careless deprecating gesture.
"At least, that was what Mr. Orcot told me," Lau continues, and Leon knows in that one second exactly where this conversation is going, like a fortune-teller reading disaster in his cards. He feels it like a bullet to the chest. "That and a good many things beside. An interesting choice for your first employee, D – a man willing to spill everything he knows about you. I'd have chosen a more loyal one myself. But maybe that comes with experience."
Leon's across the room in a flash, and only the restraint he's learned over hard years of searching keeps him from punching the bastard in the face. He grabs his collar instead, shakes him hard. "You scheming son of a bitch –" he knows anger isn't the right way to deal with this, knows flying off the handle will just lose him this battle faster, but he can't help it. Trying to push down his anger's like trying to push down a sea of boiling oil with his hands – an impossible effort that's doing nothing but burning him. Because this bastard isn't doing it to hurt him. Isn't trying to get D to send him packing out of any sort of revenge against Leon, or even because he gives a flying fuck about Leon – he doesn't. He's doing it solely and entirely to screw with D. He's trying to take five years of Leon's life and shred them, to ruin the future Leon staked everything he had on, and it's not even about him.
He's burning all Leon's effort to scorch the one thing Leon wants.
"Leon," says D in a tone cold as a glacial tundra, and Leon doesn't turn because he doesn't want to see the expression on his face. He shouts into Lau's instead.
"You fucking explain what happened – don't you dare pretend this is what it sounds like –"
Lau shrugs, entirely undeterred by the hands fisted in his expensively tailored suit.
"Certainly. In order to profit himself, Mr. Orcot freely and of his own will came to me – without my suggesting it – and volunteered to tell me everything he knew about you – everything," Lau pauses, savouring the word, "so that I would procure benefits for him."
"You bastard," snarls Leon, and pulls back to punch him.
"Leon," says D again, and Leon can hear the ice in his tone breaking. Can hear the fury splitting it from below.
"It's not what it sounds like, D – this son of a bitch's twisting it all."
"Let Mr. Lau go." There is no room for disagreement in D's tone. Leon does, barely managing to force his fists open, knuckles cracking. "I would like you to leave, Mr. Lau." None of that Taishi crap, at least. Nothing but politeness as brittle as ashes, ready to crumble at the tiniest provocation.
Lau does smile now, making Leon's clenched fists ache. "Of course. But I will return later, and I will not be alone. I have heard some disturbing rumours of some … missing clients."
D says nothing, but whatever Lau reads in his face it's apparently to his satisfaction; he turns and leaves with the smile still on his lips. They neither of them move until the last notes of the door chimes have faded, both trapped in a still tableau. Leon's anger is bleeding out of him, and the cold fog that's flowing in to replace it is weak and ill-defined. Feels like fear, and shame.
Turning around is the hardest thing Leon's done in a long time. Harder than rounding a corner into gunfire, harder than turning in his badge, harder than stepping into the Tokyo shop six months ago.
D looks like a statue, like something carved from stone with long, sharp strokes. His robes fall from angular shoulders in straight lines, separating him severely from the dim background, marking vivid reality from something less defined. His mismatched eyes, so unusual, so unique, are bright with rage. Leon's not sure he's ever looked so beautiful, but he knows he's never looked so furious.
"I would like you to leave," he says, staring straight through Leon, gaze flashing sharp as a spear. The same exact phrase as he used with Lau, but holding infinitely more anger.
"D, look – it was just – it wasn't at all –"
"You have violated my trust," continues D, slicing through his words. "You will leave." He's at his most haughty, using a cut-glass tone that brings back a forgotten memory of an old case: Don't touch me, peasant. A declaration of royalty, although only for a minute. And even then he hadn't looked at Leon as he is now, like he's nothing. No. Worse than nothing. Like he's something dirty, defiled, disgusting.
Leon feels like he's been shot in the gut, like he's sprawling bloody and uncomprehending in front of D, trying to make sense of what's just happened through a thick filter of pain and astonishment.
"D –" The single syllable tumbles out without thought, the sole voice of his shock, smothering him thick and heavy as molasses.
"Go!" D's eyes blaze, and for a single instant his face twists into such an expression of rage and pain that Leon actually takes a step back. Then his face smoothes as his emotions are forcefully crushed, only his eyes still smouldering. In five years, Leon's never seen so much anger in D. He's seen the man deal with the ugliest buried dregs of society, with pimps and drug-dealers and murderers, and that which always hurt him more deeply: dead pets. He's never seen this burning fury, so harsh he can feel it clawing into his skin and muscle and bone, tearing down past that and straight through his heart.
A single thought stands out, bright and clear as a star against the twisted roiling chaos of his thoughts: D has never cared enough for anyone to be betrayed by them. Until now.
Behind him, the deep shadows of the shop are entirely, intensely silent.
"Go," whispers D, low and desperate, hidden hands shaking against his sleeves, shoulders tense and pained. Eyes filled with hate.
Leon goes.
There's no room to think in the city. Everything is pressing and crowded, buildings packed tightly in, roads narrow, sidewalks jammed with people. His room is no better, four walls pressing in on him, tiny and suffocating.
Leon stumbles through the dirty backstreets of Shinjuku, all vending machines and neon signs, pimps and their prostitutes, and the mingled smells of cigarette smoke, kitchen exhaust and air pollution.
Unable to think, to process what's just happened because that will mean processing his situation – processing what he's lost – he lets the crowd carry him. Flows with the tide, and finds himself in Shinjuku station staring up at the railway maps as if looking for guidance. He's been here long enough to recognize most of the names displayed, but for some reason one sticks out from the others: Ueno.
I want to show you something, D had said half a year ago. He has only a vague memory of the trip, of his anger swaddling him in a hot blanket, of that bastard Lau shadowing them like a crook out of a bad '40s film.
He's already walking, fingers sliding change into the machine and picking out the necessary fare, then through the turn stalls and up to the platform for the circle line. Following the sole clear thought in his head.
Leon feels like he should be angry. Should be fucking furious at that scheming rat-faced asshole Lau, at goddamn D and his refusal to just listen, at himself for being stupid enough to tumble into a trap he could so easily have disarmed.
He isn't. He just feels blank. Like all his rage and righteousness and frustration is on hold. He can feel it humming above him like some huge, dark thundercloud looming over his head, about to burst and fry him. Leon doesn't hold his own self-protective instincts in high enough esteem – no L.A. cop does – to imagine he's holding it off to protect himself. He doesn't have enough invested in their relationship – doesn't have a relationship – for it to be denial. It just feels like shock. Like a complete and absolute inability to deal with the fact that his life has just taken a nose-dive off a cliff and now that he can see the ground coming up fast below there's no recovering.
Outside the window, Tokyo is passing by. Leon stares unseeing at the mix of buildings, at the high rises and low rises and two or three storey dumps. At the crowded streets, teeming with millions of people who know nothing about him and don't care either. At the grey sky above, the heavy clouds threatening rain.
By the time the train reaches Ueno, right on the other side of the city, Leon is starting to feel again. Not outrage, as he had expected, not anger as he had hoped. A kind of cold, close emptiness, like the bottom of the ocean where the dark and chill are so strong they can crush. In his head, clichés run in circles like some kind of ridiculous mantra: You only know what you have when you lose it. You only know what you want when you can't have it. You can only admit to your feelings when there's no chance of them being returned.
D, painted lips taut, skin flushed, eyes bright; I want you to stay.
Leon clenches his teeth, hand fisted around the support pole so tight he can feel sweat beginning to form.
"Ueno, Ueno," announces the recorded voice as the train slows, breaking into his thoughts harsh as a bullhorn. Leon lets go, allows the crowd to carry him out of the stifling closeness.
Ueno is much quieter than Shinjuku, even with the afternoon crowds out to visit the park and museums and zoo. Leon follows the thinner current up the hill towards the Park. He doesn't remember now the site D took him to before – it doesn't matter. He just wants space. Wants cool air on his face and the green smell of the outdoors. Somehow he feels that if he's less restricted it will be easier to think, to work things out.
As if that were possible. D's more minor emotions may be capricious, but he's never wavered in his stronger ones. Never repented in his hatred, never spared anyone he singled out for punishment. Like some kind of old god sitting on his high throne, staring down at the people below and deciding on the strength of what he sees at a glance whether to spare or smite.
Leon shakes his head, tries to clear it. He's doing it again. Building D up on a pedestal, making him into something bigger than he is, into something supernatural and unknowable. D may not be entirely human, but he's still just a man. A man with very strong likes and dislikes, who has just added Leon to the latter category. And people in that category tend to have very short life spans.
Raising a hand to run through his hair, Leon feels the first drops of rain. Looks up into the dark clouds, and gets another right in the eye. He curses and rubs at it, stumbling forward as he does so. The rain begins to fall in earnest with a quiet pattering, turning the gravel path dark and bending blades of grass, and the air begins to smell of it.
Leon has nowhere to go, and is beyond caring about getting wet. Around him umbrellas are going up and people are hurrying to find shelter, although not as many as is usual for Tokyo where rain is generally avoided as if it's toxic. Leon glances around, absently taking in the number of people playing on the grass or the thin trees that act as a barrier between the park and the road, dressed in the kind of bizarre outfits he would more expect to see in Harajuku. Maybe, he thinks, they've begun to move to Ueno. He's hardly an expert on the culture of Tokyo. He draws some comfort from the fact that doubtless, D wouldn't know either. He was always entirely clueless about the different cultural districts of L.A., about everything in the city apart from its pastries stores, really.
He keeps walking. He has no destination, but it's easier not to think if he's moving, easier to pay attention to the here-and-now. He avoids the museums – too dark, too stuffy – and heads for the lake. Passes the kid's amusement park, mostly empty, all lights and bright primary colours and creepy-ass roundabouts, and hits the stairs leading down the built-up hill of Ueno park to the lake beyond. Although there aren't any kids in the amusement part, there seem to be a bunch of them playing in the trees on either side of the staircase. Some are running around on the ground, chasing each other or playing in the fallen leaves, others skylarking in the trees themselves while rain drops fall fat and heavy around them from leaves and branches.
The lake is covered in large-leafed water plants so prolific Leon can hardly see the water's surface. Away to his right there's a bridge out across the pond, empty right now in the rain. Also in that direction is the Ueno Zoo, divided from him by large white gates. He heads that way anyway.
There's a small island in the lake further down the shore, he sees as he walks closer. It's within the bounds of the zoo, but not apparently part of it. Its only features are a few big trees, and a large messy bird's nest. A couple of young men are doing something on it, zoo-keepers maybe. Although their clothes aren't anything like a uniform, are skimpy and sprigged here and there with what look like feathers. Some punks, maybe, screwing around.
Leon stops when he gets to the Zoo gates. The rain's still falling, but it's already lightened to a near-mist. Leon's shoulders are soaked but the rest of his clothes are only damp. He turns to look out across the over-grown lake, arms limp by his sides.
He doesn't know what to do. D may calm down in time, but Leon doubts the man will listen to anything he has to say without heavy bias. Doubts he will believe anything Leon has to say, or at least not entirely.
Normal people accept mistakes and misunderstandings, but D's hardly a normal person and for all his attitude of absolute certainty he has almost no experience with real relationships. With trusting people. He has no way to know that a hairline fracture's not at all the same as a nasty break, and no way to distinguish the two.
Leon sighs and runs his hands through his wet hair. Maybe he could write, slip the letter under the door. Or call, if he could find D's number. Assuming D hasn't already sent one of the less approving pets after him.
On the lake, water's gathering in little puddles on the top of the large green leaves. Strange, to see water on the lake rather than in it.
Leon turns to go back, glancing through the bars of the Zoo entrance as he does. There are a few large cages down here, thin but quite tall with perches in them. Bird cages, he recognizes absently. And then pauses, eyes narrowing. Inside there are people. His first thought is again employees, cleaning out the cages. But they aren't wearing uniforms, and several of them –
Leon stiffens, and rakes his gaze through all the cages.
There are no birds in them. Only men and women. Some on the sawdust-covered floor, some sitting gracefully on the perches. They are all wearing feathers here and there about them. His eyes flash back to the small island – again, two boys with long and slender limbs decorated with feathers. They aren't people, they're animals.
In front of him, two girls run by laughing, both holding umbrellas against the drizzle. And Leon remembers the crowd in the park without them, running around in scanty clothes. Playing in the trees, on the grass.
He runs back, sprints up the stairs and reaches the top with his lungs burning – he hasn't exercised properly in months. The same people are still in the trees, still running and lounging about on the grass in the drizzle. All the while a thinner crowd of more traditionally dressed visitors walk past them without paying their more active peers any attention, sheltered by their umbrellas.
Animals. They're all animals. And, they're all people.
Every single one of them.
Leon stands in the middle of the path while the rain falls on his already-soaked head and shoulders, staring in shock at the two children romping around on the wet grass. Here and there brown feathers flash, or a strip of grey fur and pointed ears, or a hint of yellow scales.
Lives are being taken, taken by the thousands, taken every single day. D's voice echoes in his ears, unasked for, unwanted. Who is the murderer here?
And he had objected. They weren't people. Weren't equals, weren't on the same level. Their
deaths wasn't the same thing, didn't matter so much. And D had given him that false, empty smile: If only you knew how wrong you are.
D, who eats no meat, who wears no leather, and who speaks to every animal he sees as if it can and will understand him.
Leon looks down at his leather shoes and cowhide belt and then back to the children frolicking bare-foot. For one single heartbeat, Leon can actually feel himself holding onto his past by the tips of his fingers, trying desperately to unsee what's right in front of him. And then his grip slips, mind chalking in the lines of the equation against his desire, and he falls into the inevitable reality yawning wide and hopeless him.
A thin, high-pitched whine thrums in his ears; he only realises after it's died away that it came from his own throat. Light-headed, world spinning, Leon rubs at his eyes. Opens them, and sees just what he saw before. Children playing on the grass, ignored by the better-dressed passers by. Couples perched in trees, sitting close and quiet as thick drops fall from the protective leaves above them. Old men and women resting against sheltering tree trunks. People just like those who have been slaughtered thoughtlessly to feed and clothe him for years. Who have been slaughtered thoughtlessly to feed and clothe his people for millennia.
He feels cold and sick. Worse, feels cold and sick and utterly stranded. All alone in a world he's just realised he has fundamentally misunderstood for his whole life. He's the only man in the world who has taken off his rose-coloured glasses, and he can never put them back on again. It feels very much like being dropped in the middle of a violent sea miles and miles from land, and realising that he will never, ever be able to swim to shore. That he will drown in his solitude.
Leon has no idea how long he stands there, mind twisting and turning and slowly strangling itself in the horror, like a rabbit in a snare. He can't imagine what D sees in cattle ranches, in barns crammed full of hens in tiny cages, in pens of lambs being sold for meat. In tanner's sheds and furrier's storehouses and the huge mechanised slaughter houses creaking with hooks and saws and grinders and –
He later thinks he would actually have gone out of his mind right then and there in the middle of Ueno Park, would have cracked up into complete horrified insanity, if T-chan hadn't shown up. As it is, the boy appears out of nowhere to grab his shoulder from behind, startling Leon harshly out of his gruesome thoughts.
"The hell're you doing, you moron?" demands the totestu, and Leon swivels to see that the boy's eyes are wide and beneath his usual irritation there's a trace of fear, "You stink of terror."
Ten minutes ago – five minutes ago – he would have worried about D's having sent the goat-tiger after Leon to see the perceived treachery revenged far enough from the store that it wouldn't stain the expensive floors. Now –
Leon stares for a moment, and then laughs. Laughs, high and broken, while his head swims. The boy, without any apparent thought, punches him hard in the jaw. The sudden pain and the threat of further violence in the totestu's eyes trigger Leon's shallowly buried cop's instincts, and they surge to the fore. Eyes narrowed, adrenaline pumping and mind flowing into the state of heightened reaction dangerous street chases have taught him, there's no room for moral quandaries. No room for the appalled shock crushing him like a slab of lead.
"T-chan?" he grits out, shoulders tense, hands fisted. The boy relaxes slightly, lithe form straightening.
"You might've just been stabbed in the gut," says T-chan, indicating Leon's haggard face with a lazy gesture.
Leon, still too close to cracking to be able to deal with the reason behind that, ignores it. "What're you doing here?" And then, head clearing far enough to remembering the fight, "Did D send you?"
The totestu's face freezes for just an instant, which tells Leon the answer before he hears it. He crosses his arms nonchalantly over his chest and shrugs.
"Nope; I came on my own. You looked like a man about to walk under a train."
"And you prefer your food neat," replies Leon, cuttingly, before he can stop himself.
"I'd prefer not to have to put up with four years of D finding a replacement for you," replies the totestu sharply. And then, reluctantly but not entirely unkindly, "He could do worse."
You impressed T-chan, D had said. More than Leon realised, apparently. He slowly unfists his hands, adrenaline draining away and leaving him even colder than before, and shaking slightly. He rubs his arms, bullet wound aching dully, and looks around. The park is nearly empty of humans now. But not of people.
"I never realised," he whispers. "God help me – God help us all."
Beside him, T-chan's eyes widen and he looks up at Leon. "You see them now?"
Leon doesn't have to nod. He can feel the truth written across his grey face.
There's a long moment of silence, and then T-chan's expression flattens and he shakes his head, as if shocked by Leon's stupidity.
"What?" Leon asks, a prick of irritation slipping through the cold blanket of his shock.
"Only you would manage to take so long to figure it out. And manage to do it right after getting yourself kicked out by D." He snorts.
"I damn well didn't chose to figure it out now," replies Leon, with a hint of heat.
"You're a headstrong idiot. Anyone else would have realised it years ago." T-chan begins to head towards the exit of the park.
"Anyone else wouldn't have realised it at all, you red-haired excuse for a sheep!" Leon follows him, muttering weakly, trying to find the heart for it.
"And you worked as a fucking detective for years."
"No civilian could have figured it out. It takes someone used to the kind of crap that goes on in this world to be able to work out something so completely ridiculous."
"Excuses, excuses." T-chan snorts.
"Listen, you big-horned goat-smelling housecat, I'd like to see you solve a triple homicide with no forensic evidence and a three-day head-start for the killer!"
"I'd like to see you solve it! Your blonde partner probably did all the work."
Bickering all the way, they return to Shinjuku.
By the time they get there, Leon almost thinks he will be able to feel something other than this cold horror again.
"We're back," says T-chan simply, opening the door and striding in. Leon steps in more cautiously, aware of all the eyes watching him, even if he can't actually see them. The only pair he is really concerned about, though, is the mismatched pair in front of him. D stands so quickly the silk of his white-and-lavender robe swishes with the sound of a sword slicing air. His eyes narrow, pale skin flushing, as he stares haughtily at the former detective.
"Leon –" he begins, voice low and dangerous as a tiger's growl.
"I've got two things to say, then you can throw me out," says Leon, not allowing him to get underway. "First, everything I told that bastard Lau was public information – the same crap I put in my files. He could have gotten it himself eventually, if he wanted to. I sold it for a hell of a lot more than it was worth – for the chance to stay here. To stay with you," he adds thickly, forcing himself to say it. It's worth the flicker of emotion he sees in D's eyes. It's gone too quickly for him to categorize it, but D doesn't bother to hide contempt.
"And the second thing?" The Count asks coldly, with one of his fancy gestures, the kind that make Leon think he must own a stack of Victorian etiquette guides.
Leon takes a slow breath. Glances into the dark of the shop and sees only human-shaped shadows there. "I can see them. I can see every goddamn one of them, D." And then, throat tight and words so choked they're barely understandable, "You were right."
The three words represent the shattering of more than five years of rage and incomprehension and denial. Represent Leon's world coming apart at the seams. Represent the swollen black sea, coming up to swallow him. He can feel it in his chest, drowning him from the inside.
"You were right," he says again, looking up to meet D's shocked eyes, "and I don't have a goddamn clue what to do."
For a moment D stands, too nonplussed to have any idea what to do. It's the first time Leon's ever seen such prolonged shock in D, although he's too shattered himself to appreciate it. He just stands, breathing heavily and dripping slightly on the clean floor, looking like a complete wreck. On any other occasion, D would already have thrown Leon out and insisted on his getting cleaned up before returning.
The Count recovers himself with a visible effort, wiping the surprise from his face and replacing it with what looks oddly like sympathy. "T-chan, we're closed," he says sharply, eyes darting to the totestu at Leon's side. The boy nods, and opens the door to flip the "Open" sign to "Closed."
"Leon, sit down. Everyone else, out," continues the man sharply, and follows them out with T-chan at his heels. Leon does as he's told, shuffles over to the nearer of the two couches and slumps down on its hard cushions. He leans his head back against the wooden frame and closes his eyes.
He's hardly had time to slow his breathing before he hears the swish of silk and opens his eyes to see D re-enter with a tea tray in his slender hands. Of course.
D sits down gracefully, back straight as if tied to a board, and pours the tea with his usual flawless style. As he hands the cup to Leon, his painted nails brush against Leon's fingers, making the American shake. Some of the tea slips out into the saucer, but D doesn't reprimand him. Merely pours his own tea serenely, adds the sugar, and sits back to take a sip. Leon does as well – even without the initial cold of shock, his wet clothes are chilly enough.
"This is what you meant, isn't it," says Leon at last, when he's drunk nearly half of it. "When you left L.A. and said humans don't have the right to board that ship." His brow wrinkles, "Although, you let me on it," he adds, puzzled.
D doesn't exactly smile, but his face lightens. "You're correct; I should not have taken you, even to save your life. It was an unpardonable weakness. But even then, I thought you might one day gain that right. No other human has. It is not simply a matter of sympathy, or of good deeds, or even of understanding. You must know the truth. Therein lies the right to passage."
"And now I know," says Leon, tiredly. "I wish to God I didn't." Killing to survive, killing in passion and the heat of the moment is one thing. The knowledge that not just he, but his entire species, are cold-blooded, vicious murderers thousands, millions of times over for such tiny selfish gains, is too much. Too heavy a burden for his shoulders. No wonder D's so screwed up. He thinks it's only his cop's cynicism that's allowed him to carry it this far. Here to D's door, to seek sanctuary.
"Yes," agrees D, quietly. "Now you know. You may choose to ignore it, or to deny it, but you will never forget it."
"And you? You use this shop to deal with it? Kill as many as you can?" For the first time, he thinks he can understand why D smiled at the sight of that burning plane. It's sickening, but he can understand it. Understand that what D feels may not be hate, but rather the overwhelming exhausting knowledge that he can never ever even make a dent in a species that kills so disproportionately.
"No. I remove the cruel and the stupid. But the pets long for love and acceptance, even if their owners don't know what damage they do simply by living. Despite all the pain man inflicts, the pets still crave an owner's love and affection, and I cannot ignore that. I help as many as I hurt, and I protect those species that I can."
"The dragon," remembers Leon. Remembers it for the first time without the astounded terror he has always looked back on that night with.
D nods. "And many others. I cannot stop the thoughtless cruelty of humans. But I can stop the purposeful killing, and I can help those who mean no harm. I am no hanging judge, Leon." The words, the topic, trigger another memory. One against which a dragon seems harmless.
"Like your father? Have you ever thought – have you ever wondered…" Even now, knowing what he knows, Leon can't bring himself to say it.
"If he was right?" D slowly puts down his cup, bright eyes shadowed as he looks down. "I am many things, Leon. Cruel, vicious, merciless, cunning; I can be them all in turns as required. But it is my weakness, my impurity that even being all those things, I still retain some sliver of sympathy. My father felt no guilt, no pain in the prospect of destroying an entire race, even to save countless others. I am not so lucky."
Leon reads not just pain in D's pale face, but real shame, and it makes his temper flare hot and wild for the first time since Lau left the shop earlier this afternoon. For the first time, the coldness disappears, dwarfed by another emotion. He slams his cup down so hard it rattles and in a moment of rage, not at D but at the father who taught him such complete and utter crap, reaches across the table and grabs his shoulder. D startles and looks up at him, mismatched eyes wide beneath raven brows.
"Sympathy's not a goddamn curse, D. Having it doesn't make you a monster." D watches him with uncertainty bordering on incomprehension. "An executioner who feels nothing when he kills is a monster. One who feels compassion is a man. You're a hell of a lot better than your father. If there's one attitude I could respect in someone carrying this goddamn curse, it's that."
Suddenly realising he's still holding D's shoulder – thin and warm under the light silk – he lets go and leans back as nonchalantly as he can, aware of the flush on his face.
There's a momentary pause, and then, "You are becoming an orator, Leon, for all that you know nothing of your subject," says D, smiling one of his rare honest smiles.
"Dammit, D, most people just accept compliments," returns Leon wearily, anger fading.
"I find they rarely come without strings."
"Sure; neither did this one." He only knows it as he speaks, builds himself a bridge out over a chasm even as he is crawling across it. In the face of what he knows now – in the face of this new, appalling world, his previous reservations are trivial. Are nothing more than mosquito bites when before they seemed like gunshots.
D's eyes narrow, smile disappearing and face closing in caution. "Oh?"
"I want to come back. No." Leon stands, steps over the table in one stride, and sits back down next to D. "I want to stay. Here. With you." He stays there, damp and awkward on the expensive chintz couch, staring D straight in the eye.
D blinks, looking young and innocent for a fraction of a second before his usual comportment returns – although Leon finds that he can still see it, still see the youth and uncertainty, and knows now what he could never see before. D isn't so very different than him. He has just shouldered this burden for so much longer. And shouldered it alone.
Slowly, carefully enough that Leon could move if he chose, D reaches out to press his warm palm against Leon's forehead. Frowns in mock seriousness: "Hm. No fever."
"D!"
Mocking expression fading, D shifts his hand to trace the curve of Leon's face. Runs the tips of his long nails through Leon's hairline, sending shivers down his back. "You want to stay?" he asks, canting his head to one side like a curious sparrow.
"Honestly? I think I'd crack up if I didn't, D," answers Leon. And then, more quietly, with a flash of his old self, "I can't believe I just said that."
D ignores his aside. Traces the outside of Leon's ear with the soft pads of his fingers and then runs them down below the line of his jaw to rest on the pulse-point hidden there. It's the most bizarre caress Leon has ever known. But then he supposes D doesn't have a lot of experience. "And you will not be lonely? You were pining terribly when you first arrived here in Tokyo," he says, as though Leon were a creature for him to take care of.
Leon reaches up, and, without looking, deliberately puts his own hand over D's. "I think I'll manage."
D blinks again. And then a slow, coy smile spreads across his face. His voice, when he speaks, is throaty and equally coy. It sends a second, lower shiver down Leon's spine.
"Will you?"
"Yeah," says Leon, throwing his past, his ties, his way of life to the wind, and tightening his fingers around D's hand. Takes the first step on an untravelled path, with the certain knowledge that this is the right decision. "I will."
When Lau returns a day later with a warrant and a team of Tokyo Metro officers, he finds the petshop empty. Cold and uninhabited, the stark three rooms are nowhere near the size he remembered.
The Tokyo Docks' records paint an equally sparse picture.
Time: 7:42 a.m.
Chinese National: 1
American National: 1
Luggage: two suitcases
Final destination: Unknown
END
