“So you finally spent the night with D, did you? Well, you’d better not disappear the way some guys do after--mmph!”
“Will you keep your voice down, Jill!” Leon hissed, clamping his hand over Jill’s mouth. “Let’s not tell the whole department about this! Besides, I never said I slept with him!” Jill could be so infuriating, especially when she was right! Leon had been planning to avoid the pet shop for a few days while he thought things over.
“You didn’t have to,” Jill smirked. “With the way you two were looking at each other last night...” Suddenly she laughed. “Actually, I was just guessing! But you just confirmed it with your reaction! Do you know you’re cute when you blush?”
“I SAID I didn’t--”
“Didn’t you ever study Shakespeare in school, Leon? ‘The lady doth protest too much’--that’s from Hamlet.”
“Grrrrr...!”
“Anyway, I’m just trying to help. Believe me, you don’t want the Count mad at you. And he will be if you don’t show up tonight.”
“You think so?” Suddenly Leon remembered that D had seemed a bit miffed that morning. Oh shit, thought Leon, I didn’t even thank him for breakfast! He had been so embarrassed, and in such a hurry to leave... Oh man! For all that D was slender and slight, he could be scary when he was angry--Leon could almost swear that the Count grew fangs when he was mad! Sometimes D would shout at Leon, but when he was REALLY mad, he became icily polite, which was even worse. If he didn’t make it up to D somehow, the atmosphere at the pet shop would be about as pleasant as a winter day at the North Pole...
Jill smiled as she watched an expression of dismay cross Leon’s face. Really, the boy was an open book! “Stop by, even if it’s just for a short visit. And bring him a gift, flowers or candy or something.”
“Keiji-san?” D said, snapping Leon back to the present. “Good evening.” He was dressed in some kind of blue robe that looked more like a Japanese kimono than the Chinese cheong-whatsits he usually wore. Not that Leon was any expert. They all looked like dresses to him, although it annoyed D to no end to hear him say that. He remembered the first time he had said that...
“Hey D, is that a new dress?” Leon asked. D was wearing some sort of crimson gown, emblazoned with a gold phoenix, and slit up the side to his waist. Leon sneaked a quick sidelong glance. D was wearing some sort of close-fitting black trousers under the dress.
The Count glared at Leon. “It is called a cheongsam, Detective, NOT a dress,” he said in a tone so cold it could freeze boiling water. “While usually worn by women today, it was originally a long shirt worn by men in China back in--”
“OK, OK! Enough with the history lesson!” Count D turned and stalked off in a huff, his red and gold cheongsam (dress!) swirling around him. Leon had to stand in line for two hours the next morning at Hotel de Marseilles to buy D’s favorite cake before the Count deigned to forgive him, with the air of a benevolent master forgiving a puppy who had just made a mess on the living room carpet.
“Well, I suppose I can’t expect you to know any better, Keiji-san,” D sighed. “You may as well sit down and have some tea.”
Still, he had to admit, D looked pretty good. The robe was sky-blue, patterned with white birds, and the edges were bordered with a darker blue. The robe was wrapped loosely around D, and belted with a wide, dark blue sash. It left his neck and throat uncovered, unlike the high-collared Chinese gowns. Leon remembered kissing the hollow of that throat last night...
“Keiji-san?” D repeated. “Are you all right?”
“Uh, yes, of course!” For once, Leon was glad for the dim light of the pet shop. He didn’t want the Count to see him blush! “Um...here, these are for you.” He handed D the bouquet he had been hiding behind his back. Oh, real smooth, Orcot! Couldn’t you come up with anything better than, “um, here”? The charm he used on women seemed to desert him when D was around.
“Flowers? For me? Ah, kirei! How pretty!” D lifted the roses to his face to smell them, then looked up in surprise. “Chocolate?!”
Leon grinned, suddenly feeling rather pleased with himself. “Yes, they’re from that gourmet candy store. The petals are made of chocolate.”
“But they’re red!”
“They coat the outside with some kind of coloring so they look real.” Leon had not known what to get D. He’d have brought a woman flowers, but D wasn’t a woman, and he didn’t know if D would like that sort of thing. And of course D liked sweets, but he always brought D pastries. He’d wanted to get something special... Then he’d seen the candy roses, which seemed perfect.
D delicately peeled off a petal and popped it into his mouth. “Oh...mmm!” He closed his eyes and tilted his head back, an ecstatic expression on his face. For a brief moment, Leon felt jealous. He couldn’t remember D looking like that when they were in bed last night...! Oh this is ridiculous, Leon thought. I can’t believe I’m jealous of a piece of candy! Then D smiled radiantly, and Leon forgot his irritation...along with any other rational thought that might have been in his head. “This is wonderful, Keiji-san! Thank you!”
“Ah, no problem.” Damn! How come I can’t think straight when I’m around the Count? As D left the room to look for a vase, Leon realized they had gone back to calling each other “Keiji-san” and “Count” instead of “Leon” and “D.” Last night he had been annoyed that D never called him by his name, but now...somehow it seemed safer to fall back on their usual “Detective” and “Pet Shop Owner” roles.
D returned with a white porcelain vase. It was round-bodied, tapering to a thin neck, and decorated with an intricate design of birds perching on branches bearing pink and red blossoms. It looked very old and valuable.
“So, is that a Ming vase, Count?” Leon joked.
“Oh no, Keiji-san. My Ming vase is blue, and would clash with the red roses,” replied D. Leon shook his head. He never knew whether the Count was putting him on or not. D set the vase on the coffee table and arranged the flowers in them. “There! That looks nice. Have you had dinner yet, Keiji-san?”
“Uh, no, but it’s a little late--haven’t you eaten already?”
“Well, I was just about to have some tea...”
Leon laughed. “It’s always tea time with you, Count!” The Count left, no doubt to conjure up some magnificent feast. Leon heard a little squeak, and turned to see Q-chan hovering in the air, trying to pull a rose out of the vase.
“Hey, Q-chan, those are for your master!” Count D returned, pushing a cart laden with Chinese food: noodles, spring rolls, meat buns...plus tea and some sort of cake covered with strawberries and whipped cream.
“You may have one rose, Q-chan, but don’t eat them all--or you won’t get any dessert.”
“Q!” The strange little animal plucked one rose from the vase, and flew up to his perch in an ornate iron birdcage hanging from the ceiling. The door was apparently left open so Q-chan could come and go as he pleased.
“How come you always have so much food on hand? How can you possibly eat so much and never gain any weight?” asked Leon as he made himself a plate.
“I don’t eat it all myself...there is this police detective who’s always showing up at mealtimes...”
“Hmmph!”
“So, how was your day at work? They didn’t give you any trouble over the shooting, did they?”
“No, it was pretty clear it was self-defense. We’ve been rounding up the rest of Liu Tai Wei’s men. The Chief is having the patrol cars swing by regularly for a few days to keep an eye on the shop, but I don’t think you’ll be having anymore problems. Rumour has it that some sort of monstrous beast tore up the men who attacked you last night. All the gang members seem terrified of you now. One guy said he heard that you’re not even human--that you’re some sort of sorceror or demon.” Leon rolled his eyes. “Can you believe that?”
The Count smiled. “How silly.”
“Arf!”
Leon looked down to see the puppy from the night before sitting at his feet, wagging his tail. “Hey fella,” he said, patting the dog, who barked happily. “I can’t believe it! One of your pets actually likes me!”
The Count heard giggling from the doorway. He saw several beautiful women with cat-like ears and eyes. All Leon saw and heard were a bunch of cats mewing.
“Oh, I like him very much!”
“Me too!”
“He’s sooo handsome! Bad-tempered, though.”
“With a bod like that, who cares?”
“Do you think it will really work out with him and the master?”
The detective laughed. “They’re sure talkative tonight.”
“You have no idea.” The Count shot an icy glare at the cat-girls. The cats stared back insolently, then slowly walked away, with a saucy twitch of their tails.
Tora-chan, curled up on a pillow in the corner of the room, regarded the other cats with contempt. <Brainless kits! Don’t they realize that the feline form is far superior to the human form?>
Leon fed the puppy a morsel from his plate. “What’s his name?”
“Lupin.”
“Lupin? Why does that sound familiar?”
The Count smiled. “Just a little inside joke. It’s French for ‘wolf.’ “
“You’re a little small for a wolf, “ said Leon, scratching the dog behind its ears. Lupin’s mouth fell open in a canine grin.
<I like this one, Pack-leader. Is he going to be your mate?>
“That’s none of your business.”
“Huh?”
“Not you, I was talking to the wolf.”
“Whatever.” Leon was starting to feel a little more at ease. This was familiar ground, eating and arguing with the Count. Somehow the pet shop had started to feel like home, despite the fact that he still had toothmarks on his ankle from the last time Tetsu-chan bit him! When had the Count stopped being a suspect, and started becoming a friend?
“I’m glad you stopped by. I wasn’t sure I would see you tonight.”
Leon choked on his tea. Damn it, why was Jill always right?! “Uh, I don’t know what you mean.”
Count D smiled in his annoyingly superior way. “I was afraid I had scared you off.”
“Q, Q!” chimed in Q-chan from above.
“Of course not!” said Leon defiantly.
The Count leaned back on the couch in a most enticing way. “You puzzle me sometimes, Leon-Keiji. You face armed men without flinching, yet a mere shop owner like myself makes you uneasy...”
“That’s not true!” snapped Leon as he set down his plate with a clatter. Lupin whined softly.
The Count leaned forward, suddenly serious, his luminous eyes half-hidden behind a veil of black hair. “Do you regret what happened last night?”
Leon opened his mouth but nothing came out. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Dammit, D, what do you want me to say?”
<“No” would be nice> said Lupin.
“The truth,” said D. “I hold no creature here, man or animal, against its will.”
Leon stared at the Count. It was impossible to read the expression on his face. Those strange eyes, deep purple and clear yellow, seemed utterly alien, not human at all. For a brief moment he could understand the superstitious fear of Liu’s men.
“Well,” said Leon defensively, trying to stall for time, “do you regret it?”
“I asked you first,” replied D petulantly, sounding like a spoiled child, and the strange spell was broken. Leon hid a smile despite his discomfort.
“Look, D,” he sighed. “This isn’t easy for me, you know. I’ve never, well, had feelings for a guy before.”
“And you are of course a red-blooded American male in a most, ah, ‘macho,’ profession.”
“Yeah, yeah, I imagine life would be tough for an openly gay cop, but that’s not what I was talking about. What I meant was...well, I always liked girls--”
“How nice for them,” said D sarcastically.
“Will you shut up and let me finish? Like you said, I was a red-blooded American boy, OK? I dated a lot of women, had a lot of fun, but I figured one day I’d meet the right girl, and settle down and get married and have kids. Not right now, but someday. Have a happy life, give my parents a few grandkids--that’s what people expect. That’s what a normal life is like.”
“Oh? I would have thought a policeman would have a more cynical view of life.”
“Yeah, OK, I know life is not like a 50’s sitcom! But that’s the idealized version most of us have. I thought I knew who I was and what I wanted--now I feel like my whole world’s been turned upside down! I’m not sure who I am anymore. And that’s well...scary. OK, I admit it, are you happy now?”
“Fear is nothing to be ashamed of. It is a defense mechanism; it helps keep us alive. Any animal knows that. Fear is only bad when you let it overwhelm you so much that you are afraid to live your life.”
“I’m just saying...I don’t exactly regret last night. I certainly don’t regret saving your life! But you can’t just expect me to suddenly decide that I’m uh, well, uh...” Shit, thought Leon, I can’t even bring myself to say the word out loud! “Don’t expect me to start wearing any ‘Gay Pride’ t-shirts!”
D laughed. “No, Keiji-san, I do not expect that.”
“I...I...I care about you, all right? But I’m not sure what’s going to happen with us. I’m not sure what I want. Hell, I’m not sure what YOU want! I’m not sure of anything anymore! My life was a hell of a lot simpler before I met you!” D gave him a faintly hurt look. Leon sighed and relented. “But I don’t regret meeting you.”
The Count smiled and laid a hand over Leon’s. “I don’t expect you to marry me, you know.”
Leon faked an indignant look. “Why not? Aren’t I irresistible?”
Oh well, then, in that case, why don’t we--” D laughed at Leon’s suddenly panicked expression. “I was only joking, Keiji-san.”
Leon sighed. Life with the Count would be infinitely complicated, though never dull. He shifted his hand slightly so that his fingers entwined with the Count’s. Although Leon was fair-skinned himself, the Count’s hand looked pale, almost ghostly beside his own, the long, elegant fingers tipped with perfectly manicured blood-red nails. Being with D meant giving up other things, like the “normal” life he’d mentioned, and the peace of mind that came with it. The easy cameraderie he had with his fellow cops. (Although Jill would certainly approve!) The chance to have children, and to be the kind of son his parents wanted. Perhaps all that was only an illusion, but it was an illusion that was surprisingly hard to give up...
The Count waited patiently while Leon thought. When the detective finally looked up, he saw an amused, but surprisingly sympathetic smile on D’s face. “You don’t need to decide your whole life’s future tonight, you know. I told you we could take things slowly. For example, we could merely sit here, drinking tea and discussing the latest gossip in Chinatown.” The Count removed his hand from Leon’s to pick up his tea cup. Leon felt strangely bereft. “Your tea is getting cold.”
Count D was such a strange man--capricious and moody one moment, cool and distant the next. Yet he had saved Leon’s life in the past, as Leon had saved his last night. Leon wasn’t sure he could give up his “normal” life, yet he wasn’t sure he could give up the Count either. Leon sipped his tea without tasting it. Give up their long conversations over tea, and the look of delight on the Count’s face when presented with a box of pastry? Nights spent running all over town to haul the Count’s ass out of danger, only to find that the Count already had things perfectly under control? Give up the Count, who could comfort him with one word, and send him ballistic with another? What was an illusion worth, weighed against a friend, however irritating he might be at times? A cop had to be able to make life-and-death decisions in a split-second, so why was he unable to make up his mind about D? He’d never wanted anyone--man or woman--as much as he wanted the Count, but just thinking about that made him twitch with discomfort.
“Would you like some cake, Keiji-san?”
“Huh? Uh, sure.”
“ Q Q Q!!”
“Yes, and a slice for you, too, Q-chan.” Leon picked at his cake, only half-listening as D talked about what had happened in Chinatown recently, and Lupin stared at him, eyes pleading soulfully. Finally he set the plate down on the floor, and the pup gobbled up the half-eaten dessert.
“Hey, D, you’ve got some whipped cream on your face.”
“Oh?” The Count raised a hand to his face.
“No, not there--here!” Leon impulsively leaned over and kissed the corner of D’s mouth, tasting strawberries and cream.
“Oh!” D looked startled for a moment, then laughed. “You never cease to surprise me, Keiji-san.” His eyes narrowed with amusement. “You have some cake on your face, too, Detective,” he said, giving Leon a long, slow kiss that left him breathless.
“We can take things slowly?” Leon asked softly, when he was able to speak again.
“One day at a time,” said the Count.
“I think I can handle that,” said Leon as he brushed the Count’s hair away from his face with one hand. It felt wonderful, smooth and silky to the touch. “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered.
“I know,” D whispered back. Leon burst out laughing, worries gone, at least for now, and kissed D again.
END.