Who: Leon Orcot and Count D What: Leon tries getting information out of D with the use of cake When: Today Where: Count D's Petshop Ratings/Warnings: Low/none Status: Complete
After leaving D’s shop, Leon had a day or two trying to google the best cakes in the city. He’d spent a little more time trying to search for unexplained or unusual animal related deaths, but most of what he looked for was cakes. Cake was the way that he’d get D to show him what he wanted to see.
He’d woken up long before the sun did, and got his sleepy brother out of bed before carting him off to the swanky looking bakery. He had to carry Chris, who hadn’t wanted to wake up for any longer than it took him to get dressed, as he waited for the shop to open, but on the bright side, he was the first person in the line that had formed behind him, and was therefore the first person of the day to buy the $50 fruit and custard cake, muttering darkly to himself the whole time. He dropped it back off at home - there was no way he was leaving something like that at the fridge at work; it wouldn’t survive until the end of the day - dropped Chris off with the babysitter, and then managed to make it to work only 10 minutes late. Which was more than the punctual detective normally was late, but still not too bad.
The day seemed to drag on, and he caught himself staring at the clock more than once, waiting for the minutes to count down, but it was finally quitting time, and he was out of the station before anyone could so much as tell him goodbye. It didn’t take him much longer to grab the cake, and if he sped a little to get to D’s shop, well, who could fault him? Lives were at stake.
He walked into the shop, feeling pretty proud of himself, and called out “Hey Count, you here?”
Count D, as it were, was there, making tea. Despite Officer Orcot having frightened animals on his first visit, D had expected him. If nothing else, he liked to hold people to their word and it seemed that Officer Orcot was good on his, for which D was pleased.
Without looking up from his tea making, D said, “Hello, Officer.”
Yes, he had gone onto the internet and used Google to find out more about the man who’d scared a rabbit and hedgehog. He’d found out a great deal about him, in fact. Officer Orcot didn’t keep the most low profile. “To what do I owe the pleasure of today’s tea time interruption?” D reached for an extra cup. Rat-Chan was atop his head, content in a bed of raven locks.
Leon and Q-chan had never exactly gotten along, but seeing the rat in D’s hair almost made him miss the annoying flying rat. “The same reason I came last time,” Leon said, and then stopped when what D said sunk in. He flushed a little. “Hey, who says I’m a police officer?” he asked defensively.
“I will not repeat myself, Officer,” D insisted as he poured steaming tea for the two of them. He brought the tray over to the seating area, Rat-Chan moving to his shoulder to perch. At Officer Orcot’s question, D’s smile returned to his face, but he did not answer. If the detective was good at his work, he could figure it out.
The smile faded when he saw the box near the detective. His eyes went wide and he suddenly appeared younger. “Is that-” he started, his index and middle fingers coming to his own lips in stunned recognition.
Leon grinned, willing to let the officer comment go. He had D now. He held the box out toward D, prepared to snatch it away and out of his reach as soon as D made a move for it. “It is,” Leon said. “A fruit tart from Madame Cecelia’s shop. Bet you can never wake up early enough to get your hands on one of these, but this one’s all yours if you show me what I want to see.”
“Oh-” Even Rat-Chan moved, hopping to the nearby sofa. D’s fingers caressed the box longingly. He thought it was Officer Orcot’s, that the detective had better taste than D had thought, until it was announced that the tart was for him.
D’s eyes welled up with tears and he gasped. “If I-?” he tried, confused. “My Dear Detective…” Officer Orcot was fooling him, taking advantage, and for what? D moved to the larger man, his hands on the detective’s chest pleadingly. He was even salivating. It was all so...so unbecoming. “What is it you want to see?” he asked. “I can show you exotic poisonous frogs, but they are at the zoo. I tell you again, I do not sell dangerous merchandise here.” Did he have some illegal merchandise hidden away? Oh yes. But dangerous? Well, that all depended on how one would handle the animal.
But D’s heart was breaking, you see. He would surely see a man dead for that tart.
Leon had intended to gloat for a while, to revel in the power he had over D in this instance - or really, in any instance when Leon had a cake in his hands - but his win was short lived. Because unexpectedly (though, maybe it shouldn’t have been), D’s hands were on his chest, and he was staring up at Leon with those eyes, and saying that he didn’t sell that kind of thing there.
Could Leon have been wrong? Not about D in general, because a leopard didn’t change its stripes or however the expression went, but about this D in particular. Was it only the ones in his dreams that sicced his bizarro creatures on people? It was true that Leon hadn’t been able to find much in the way of weird animal attacks, but that didn’t mean that D was innocent.
His heart was hammering in his chest, his face turning more red with each passing second, and for a minute, just a minute, he thought he could win this and that D would cave. But it was getting very warm in the pet shop, and Leon couldn’t take it anymore. He stepped back, away from D’s hands. “Whatever, just take it,” he said, glaring off to the side and thrusting the box at D.
The box was taken reverently. “My Dear Detective,” D practically melted and slowly, savoringly, opened the box. Inside was the sweetest, most beautiful tart. “You are a good person,,” he told the officer.
Silently, he glided to a surface to cut a piece for himself. Then one for the detective. Each was set on small plates that were fit for such a thing. He served them with fine silver forks. “Walk with me,” he gently demanded, his fingertips brushing against the backs of Officer Orcot’s knuckles as he pulled away and began to walk and eat with soft moans. He walked toward the back of the shop and unlocked a door. For a second, he paused and looked over his shoulder.
“Don’t touch that,” he warned Rat-Chan who’d gone to inspect the rest of the tart. Back to business, D pulled open the door.
Leon still didn’t enjoy sweets over much, but he’d paid a lot for that cake and he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to at least take a slice of it. He took a bite of it. It was good, he had to admit, but probably not good enough to explain those noises coming from D. Were those entirely necessary? He thought briefly of Alex, and all his comments about D, and then quickly shoved them to the back of his mind where he would never, ever think of them again.
It took him a moment to realize that they were going to a back room, and Leon brightened. Could this be it? Was this where D was going to show him what kind of weird, freakish animals he had hidden back here? He couldn’t help the wide grin that was spreading across his face.
Detective Orcot would be correct to assume that D wasn’t entirely innocent. He had a job, he had a duty, and above all, he had a love for giving the customer just what he desired. That he could not fulfill the detective’s desire troubled him, giving a slightly sour tang to the delicious tart.
The back room was not large, no bigger than a small bedroom. It did, in fact, house a bed, where a few cats lounged. Servals, to be exact. Upon seeing Count D, they perked up their ears and purred.
“You like cats,” D said, finishing off this piece of tart. He placed his plate down and held a hand with his palm facing down, just above where the cats lounged. Each took a turn in bumping their large heads against it and nearly slithering their lythe bodies along it, their purrs growing louder.
D looked over his shoulder, back at the detective. “What is it you desire, Dear Detective?” he inquired, for his was a business of love and dreams.
This… was not what Leon had expected when D had taken him to the back room. What he had expected, he couldn’t really be sure. Maybe a mermaid or a … a dragon or something. Not a bunch of cats, even if they were bigger than any cat he’d seen outside of a zoo and had giant ears.
As for what Leon desired, it was to lock D up once and for all and then throw away the key. But he was seriously beginning to suspect that D hadn’t actually done anything overtly illegal. Nothing that would get him more than a fine and a couple months in jail, at least. “These are the most dangerous animals in your shop?” he asked, a little dismayed. He probably shouldn’t have been so disappointed that D wasn’t killing people.
“It is as I say, Officer, I do not sell dangerous pets.” They only became what they instinctively were when people did not follow the rules. For this reason, D had customers sign a contract so that the shop would be released from legal liability any time something...unfortunate did happen.
The servals almost seemed to pout when D stopped petting them and led the way from their makeshift habitat, closing the door behind them. “I trust you are satisfied now?”
"Not really," Leon said, a little petulantly, mirroring the servals in his pout. "You don't sell drugs or people either," there was almost a question in there, a bit of hope, but Leon could already feel it in his gut; D wasn't doing anything especially wrong. Maybe he'd look into how legal the serval trade was - he'd already figured out the hedgehog he'd seen the other day had been illegal - but there wasn't any real satisfaction in arresting D for that. And if he wasn't trying to arrest D, well, what was the point of coming by the shop? He might have liked animals more than he liked most people, but that wasn't saying much - he still found them annoying and smelly, and he definitely didn't like D or his company. His shoulders slumped.
Poor detective. If only D were responsible for anything he could easily get out of. D’s smirk returned, self satisfied with Leon’s lack of satisfactory. Placing his hands together, D walked back out toward the shop where the chatty birds sang their songs. Rat-Chan jumped back onto his shoulder, as if from nowhere. D always thought it possible that Rat-Chan should be able to fly.
“I have something you may enjoy,” he stated, leading the slump shouldered detective past the birds and toward the reptiles where an assortment of flora was kept. He chose one pot that contained a cactus looking plant and gingerly lifted it and presented it to Officer Orcot with a pleased look on his face.
Leon blinked, pulled put of his temporary depression, when D presented him with a cactus. He already had a cactus from D, Gattollotto that he'd been taking care of diligently since it had appeared on his window sill after he'd been shot, but he couldn't exactly say that.
He quickly stuffed his mouth full of the rest of his fruit tart and put the plate down on the shelf before taking the pot in his hands. "What's this for?" he asked, mouth still full.
Gattollotto, as it was, was exactly who Officer Orcot had in his hands.
“For the cake,” D answered with an easy smirk on his lips. “You are here for things I do not do, you do not want a pet, you have frightened animals, and she may just help to brighten that disposition of yours, much as I enjoy the company.”
Thin fingers touched the pot, as if to say God’s speed. “Water her every few days and give her sunlight and she will reward you. Her name is Gattollotto.”
Leon looked askance at the plant, and then at D, wondering if there'd be some sort of weird consequences of putting the same plant from two different worlds next to one another. Well, if there was, someone probably would have mentioned it on the Network by now, and maybe his Gattolotto could use a friend.
More importantly, what did it mean that D was giving him the same plant from the dreams? Despite the fact that the D in front of him wasn't elbow deep in all sorts of illegal activities, they were obviously the same person. Maybe if D started dreaming, he would follow his dream counterpart into a life of murder, and human and drug trafficking. It was definitely better if Leon came to check up on him regularly to make sure that didn't happen.
"Thanks," Leon said after a moment, already feeling better about the whole situation. "You're not going to give me a damn plant every time I bring you a cake, are you?"
“Does that mean you’ll be bringing more cake?” If a man could have hearts in his eyes, D would have them now. His fingers were locked together at his chest in a hopeful, light grip. It was difficult to say whether the Count loved animals or sweets more.
Leon could feel the heat rise to his face. “Not likely,” he snapped. Sure, he brought his fair share of pastries to D in the dreams, but that was mostly when he needed information out of him. “But it might happen, and I don’t need to turn my apartment into a fucking jungle.”
Such temper. D’s hopefulness faded and he closed his eyes, raising a finger toward the detective. “You’ll give yourself hypertension like that,” he said calmly and pointedly, but the hopefulness returned when the tall detective mentioned that it might, might happen. That was as good as certain to the Count.
The secret smirk-smile returned to his face. “Why would I turn your apartment into a jungle, Orcot-chan?” he asked innocently enough.
A shiver ran down Leon’s back when D tacked his name onto the end of that highly suspicious sentence. God, that was creepy. “Don’t call me that,” Leon snapped. It was bad enough to have D using Leon’s actual name, but to add some cutesy suffix to it was too much. “And I meant that hyperbolically, but just for safe measure, I don’t need you turning my apartment into an actual jungle either.”
The detective didn’t seem to know what to do. D had to wonder just where Officer Orcot had heard of him and why. Was it his dealings with a mob boss? Was it the death one had suffered from a fish they did not understand? The maiming of someone from a racoon? What did the detective want? Whatever he wanted, he wasn’t finding it and it almost felt...sad. The Count softened a little and was about to ask if the officer was alright when he heard the shop bell chime.
“Excuse me, Detective,” he said, a little more formal on the name this time. Then he turned and walked out to welcome his new customer, complete with a bearded dragon shimmying after him and Rat-Chan.
Leon sighed, relieved that D was back to calling him Detective. There was something to be said about familiarity. He could have taken the opportunity to take his Gattolotto Jr. (it would obviously need a new name. Maybe… Leafy. Or something) and leave, but this seemed like an opportunity to see how D operated in this reality. And so, he tucked the pot under his arm, and went to hover near the doorway to watch D work.
It would have been quite unprofessional for D to roll his eyes in front of a new customer, especially has he was giving the initial spiel, and so D kept his expression cool and did not let on to the fact that the detective wasn’t doing a very good job of being inconspicuous.
“....What does the customer desire?” the Count asked.
A curious boy around ten peered out from behind a tall American man who looked defeated. The man sighed. “I guess we’re here to see about a hamster,” he said.
“Ah, a good pet for anyone,” D responded. “But you look more like a dog person to me.”
The man snarled. “A hamster will do just fine,” he insisted.
“Very well,” D said calmly. “Come with me, I think I might have what it is you seek.”
The man and boy followed the Count, past the dogs. The boy looked longingly at them. Along the way, D lit a stick of incense that filtered into their noses and seemed to agitate the man more.
“Go pick a damn hamster,” the man said. “And I mean a hamster.”
The boy left his father’s side and went to the hamster display. D remained still and silent, though his smile suggested something else. A puppy began to bark and bound around playfully. “Excuse me,” said the Count. “Please enjoy our display while I am gone. We have many varieties of animals, from hamsters to lizards-”
“Yeah, yeah, I heard you the first time,” the man said and D’s smile seemed to broaden even without moving. For now, he made himself scarce and watched from behind the smoke of incense as the boy moved from the hamster display to the excited puppy.
This was it. This was exactly the kind of customer that would leave with a hamster and show up a week later dead. And Leon knew that smile. Nothing good ever happened after D smiled like that. Despite the fact that Leon’s gut was telling him D wasn’t a killer like he was in the dreams, this was still his chance to gather evidence if something unfortunate and hamster related happened to this family.
He sidled up to D, noting, somewhere in the back of his mind, that the incense felt weirdly nostalgic. He hadn’t noticed he’d missed it until now, even though it was his first time actually smelling it in real life. “So, you’re going to sell them a hamster, huh?” Leon asked, pulling out his phone. “Hope you don’t mind,” he said, not really caring if D minded or not as he started snapping photos.
“Oh,” D feigned surprise. “Hello again, Detective. I thought you’d left.”
The boy had already imprinted on the puppy. The puppy would be going home today, it was simply a matter of convincing the father to -
“Will you stop that?” the Count hissed, noticing the officer snapping photos. “These are customers, not criminals.” Detective Orcot was going to scare the man away before D even had the chance. Before that could happen, D went forward before he wanted to and knelt down beside the boy.
“Do you like him?” D asked.
The boy nodded.
“We’re not getting a puppy!” the man bellowed. “We re getting a hamster!”
“Of course,” D said calmly. “I understand, but do allow me to bring him out. I see he’s quite excited at the moment.” The Count reached down into the pin and lifted the pup from it. He petted the animal’s fur. “This is a German Shepherd-”
“I know what it is,” the man insisted as the boy reached up to pet the pup.
“They are very loyal,” the Count went on, ignoring the man. “They attach to one person, and when they have selected that person, they are friends for life.”
The Count didn’t seem at all surprised that the father was now touching the puppy and even allowing the puppy to sniff him and lick his knuckles a little. Ten minutes later, the man declared they could use a good watch dog and the boy was carrying a wagging tailed puppy home, but not before they both signed a contract.
As they left, D stood with his hands together, next to the Detective, silently pleased with himself.
Leon scowled at D, knowing full well that D had never thought he left and was just poking fun at him somehow. He took two more photos out of spite when D asked him to stop, and then pocketed his phone and watched… whatever it was that was just happening.
Once the customers were left, he turned to D. "How did you do that?" He asked suspiciously. "I thought there was no way that guy was going to change his mind."
There was a warning at the end of it, to take good care of their new pet. They would, D knew that they would, or it would tear father and son apart for good. Quite literally for the father if D knew anything. It could go either way and D would not be surprised by either outcome.
“Do what, Detective?” D asked, seemingly genuine in his innocence. “I simply made a business transaction. I sold them a pet, that is what I do here.”
Nothing more. Nothing less.
"You know what I meant," Leon grumbled. "How did you change that guy's mind. I mean, don't get me wrong, a dog beats the hell out of hamster any day of the week if you ask me, but he seemed pretty against the whole idea from the get go."
“I didn’t change his mind,” was D’s simple answer.
People changed their minds all the time. The boy wanted a dog, the father wanted something smaller and easier, but the truth was, they could both use the dog. D wasn’t always right, but when he was, he was downright smug about it.
“Is there anything else I can do for you today, Officer Orcot?” he asked.
Leon opened his mouth to say that he hadn't gotten his tea yet even though he'd brought D a damn cake, but his conversation with Alex on the Network came over him and he snapped his mouth shut. All he wanted to do was arrest D, or, at the very least, keep an eye on him to make sure he didn't start murdering people with kittens. There was no reason he should stick around for tea. And even less of a reason to be disappointed by the lack of it. Maybe Alex would be free or something.
"No, that's all," Leon said, lifting a hand in goodbye and heading toward the door.
“Thank you for stopping by, Detective,” D watched him go and a strange pang eased into his belly. It was unfamiliar, neither pleasant nor unpleasant, not yet. “I look forward to your next visit,” he added, his gaze casting downward, not quite to the ground. Would there be another visit? The pang grew a little thicker. “I will be sure to have tea made.” Of course, D had tea made, but both the detective and a customer had interrupted. Now it all felt so...wrong.
Leon didn’t exactly smile, though the corner of his lip twitched upward slightly. He was glad that his back was to D. “I’ll see you soon, Count,” he said, and headed out for the street.