Pet Shop Of Horrors Fan Fiction ❯ Sadie, Sadie ❯ Chapter One ( Chapter 1 )
Anime/Manga: Pet Shop Of Horrors Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance / Hentai / Comedy | Type: Songfic | Uploaded On: 10.20.2005 | Pages: 2 | Words: 5.1K | Visits: 6.5K | Status: Work In Progress
By Telanu (telanu@thirteenblackbirds.net)
Rating: R
Fandom: Pet Shop of Horrors
Summary: Once Leon Orcot gets an idea in his head, there's no stopping him.
Disclaimer: PSOH and all related characters/situations belong to Matsuri Akino, not me. The story's title is from the musical "Funny Girl." (Look it up, I swear it makes sense in the story's context. *g*) The poem "The Owl and the Pussycat" is by Edward Lear. I'm making no money from any of this.
Note: This story is set somewhere between "Desperation" and "Dynasty" in volume 9 of the original manga series, but veers seriously AU. Well, you'll see.
Jill set the paper down in front of him with a triumphant thwack. Leon jumped, and smelled newsprint. He was about to ask her what the hell, when the headline caught his eye.
ECKHART OKAYS GAY MARRIAGE IN CALIFORNIA
Leon blinked. Oh yeah, that bill had gone to the governor for signature last night. He'd heard about it on the news, but hadn't thought it was all that big a deal or anything. Jill, on the other hand, was practically glowing with glee as she looked down at him.
"So?" Leon asked.
"So it's legal now," Jill said with her biggest shit-eating grin.
"I can see that," Leon said. "So what? Good for them, but what's it to you? You got a girlfriend I don't know about?" Hmm. That conjured up an image in his mind. Wow. Hot.
Jill smacked him on the back of his head and glared, like she'd been reading his mind. Then she went back to smirking. "So, what're you gonna do about it?"
"Do about what?" Now Leon was getting irritated. He'd been smacked on the head, still had half a report to write, and Jill was being a jerk. "What the hell is wrong with you today?"
"Just wondering when you're gonna pop the question to D," Jill said, her grin getting even bigger as she finally got to her punchline. "That's all."
Leon snarled, the assholes in the next cubicle laughed, and Jill hurried away, giggling. Leon swiped the newspaper off his desk and into the trash can, hunched his shoulders, and returned to his report.
He couldn't concentrate, though.
Pop the question. Stupid fucking phrase. It even sounded kinda dirty, when you thought about it. Didn't sound romantic. Didn't even sound practical. And he'd like to thank Jill a whole lot for rubbing his face in it -- how he was still single, didn't have anybody to pop anything like "the question" to, or even to ask out on Friday night. What a pal.
He went to the pet shop after work, like always, but he was out-of-sorts. He wound up being so rude that D actually grabbed him by his ear and threw him out of the shop, shouting that he could return when he'd learned some manners and could act as a fitting example for Chris. Leon cursed and muttered all the way back to his apartment, but he remembered Chris's trembling bottom lip and D's outraged eyes, and knew they'd been right. He wasn't fit company tonight.
He just wasn't the marrying type, obviously, Leon thought, as he flung himself down on his bed after several calming beers. He wasn't rough or violent, but he had a lousy temper, and a big mouth. He never knew when to shut up. And he was a slob. No woman in her right mind would put up with him for a getaway weekend, let alone a lifetime.
Marriage. What a joke. Jill had some stupid romantic ideas, that was for sure. Leon had seen the books and magazines at her desk and in her apartment that she always tried to hide. Stuff about happy-ever-after and chicks with big tits being undressed by pirates. He'd bet a nut that everybody got hitched at the end of those books. Nice for them. But what happened after? That's what Leon always wanted to know. How the heck did you wind up tolerating another person for that long, after the warm fuzzies and good sex had worn off? How'd you make it last? His own mom had never gotten married. He didn't know how it was supposed to work.
He sighed up at the ceiling, wishing he'd gotten a bigger buzz from the beer. He knew what he thought marriage ought to be like. He didn't think about it a lot, or anything, but he'd seen enough relationships on the rocks (and sometimes, in his department, ending in murder) that he'd come to a few conclusions on his own. Maybe it didn't have to be all about the passion and the sex and the I-want-to-die-when-you-die crap. Maybe it was just about having somebody there. Somebody who'd watch your back. Somebody to put up with you, even when you were a dick, or they were.
Leon sighed again, and crossed his arms behind his head. Yeah, that was it. Who said anything about romance? Romance was for pussies with big dreams and no brains. It'd take a lot more than romance to keep him shackled to somebody for a lifetime, that was for damn sure. It'd have to be somebody interesting, for one thing, or you'd get bored. That ruled out most of the women he'd dated already. They'd bored him, and he'd bored them, and once they got out of bed, there was nothing left.
So, yeah, somebody interesting. Somebody he could spend a lot of time with, without it feeling like an obligation, or without even noticing, maybe. Somebody he could get used to real easily, and could like having around all the time, so it felt natural. But somebody he didn't have to be nice to all the time, either, because he fucking sucked at that. Somebody he could have a good yell at, but without ruining everything, and somebody who wouldn't take too much shit, because he sure as hell didn't wanna be anybody's boss. Somebody who could give as good as they got, in all kinds of ways.
That was a good start, Leon decided. Not somebody you yearned for from a distance. A friend. A person who knew your bad points, but liked you anyway, so they'd know what they were getting into. But even that wasn't enough, because so far, everything he'd thought could apply to Jill, for Christ's sake. And why not? She was hot, smart, a good pal, knew him inside and out, not like the women he dated. And she was the closest thing he had to a sister, so, gross. So there had to be something else in the equation too, something that he wasn't thinking of.
Watching each others' backs. That had to be part of it, too. You had to have somebody who was on your side, when the shit hit the fan. And that had to work both ways. They had to watch out for you, and you had to watch out for them, and Jill had made it more than clear that she didn't need or want anybody to watch out for her, ever. She left that for the women in her books. But that was just part of Leon's makeup, the need to protect people he cared about, and the person he married had better be ready to put up with it. To appreciate the urge, instead of telling him it was chauvinist, or some crap like that. To understand where it came from, and why it was important.
Yeah, that too. Understanding. Somebody who got him. Somebody it was easy to talk to. Leon hated talking to people, but every once in a while, when something bad happened, hell, he needed to unload like everybody else. Like that godawful night when Harry and Max had died. He would have exploded if he hadn't gone to D's. Or…it didn't have to be that kind of earth-shaking, cataclysmic stuff, even. It would be great just being able to talk about an ordinary day, and how it had or hadn't sucked. Sitting down when it was all over, just hanging out and having a meal, talking about whatever, just the two of them, and maybe a kid or two, eventually…
Leon's eyes were drifting closed. Good. Time to put the crappy night behind him. Might as well drift off to pleasant thoughts. Yeah, if you could find the right person, marriage wouldn't be so bad. Might even be great. Somebody to stand by you and share the good stuff and endure the bad stuff and pour you a cup of tea at the end of a long day and send Chris off to bed with a gentle smile…
Leon's eyes opened again, and got really big, while his body froze. His defenses were down. He was tired, and lonely, and he'd had four beers, and the smart part of his brain wasn't speaking up to protect him. All he could think about was the realization that, somewhere during his musings, he'd started thinking about Count D as the "somebody," which was so fucking wrong that it bordered on being unfair, and it was also all Jill's fault. Her and her little joke today, which was how this mess had started in the first place.
Just wondering when you're gonna pop the question to D.
Proposing to D. Marrying D. Hilarious. Ha, ha, ha. To have and to hold, forsaking all others, with Count Motherfucking D.
Just because D was --
And just because Leon could --
He'd judged wrong. He did have a buzz. More than that. He was obviously drunk out of his fucking mind. Leon closed his eyes shut and willed himself to fall asleep instantly. It didn't work.
Great. He was gonna lie here all night, wide awake. He could tell.
Just wondering when…
He woke up the next day without a hangover, which pissed him off, because he knew he had to have been drunker than that. He also woke up still thinking about marrying D, which was worse. And when he arrived at the station, Jill took one look at his face and told everybody else to leave him alone. At least she could do something right.
If he'd been no fit company for D and Chris yesterday, he wasn't fit for any human being at all today, and possibly no animals, either. That led to a couple of satisfying sessions in the interrogation room, where he actually got one suspect to wet his pants before confessing. Excellent. Score another one for Orcot. Now that he'd stopped trying to pin every damned crime in the city on D, his arrest record was --
Shit. It'd be great if he could stop thinking about that asshole every two seconds. Especially since D probably was still guilty of some stuff, for sure, even though Leon couldn't manage to connect him to this particular dealer. But whatever. D needed a damned keeper. Somebody to keep an eye on him, keep him out of trouble. And nobody was up for the job but Leon. How much did wedding rings cost, anyway? Shit. Therapy. That's what he needed. Therapy, and lots of it. Except that he couldn't talk to a therapist, because the only person he liked to talk to about personal stuff was D.
Leon dug his hands into his hair so hard that he scratched his scalp and went out on patrol alone.
By the end of his shift, he'd talked some sense into himself. Therapy wouldn't do any good, but seeing D would. Yeah. Sitting down with D, and remembering that D was a guy (sort of), and more importantly, that he irritated the ever-loving shit out of Leon on a daily basis. Two seconds in D's company, and these cracked-out thoughts of marriage would be gone for good. Especially since D was still going to be pissed off about yesterday, guaranteed. Leon sighed. Once, that wouldn't have been a big deal, but now there were Chris's feelings to consider. He handled the usual blow-ups without blinking an eye, but he got upset if they fought for more than two days in a row.
Hell, forget a lifetime commitment. He and D couldn't even go for an afternoon without yelling about something. Time to kiss and make -- time to put the latest squabble behind them, for Chris's sake. It'd be up to him, as usual. Leon stopped by a shop and looked at the expensive gourmet candies behind the cool glass counter, before deciding he really ought to be saving his money, and got two chocolate milkshakes to go, instead.
D answered the door with a cold glare, matched by the batbunny on his shoulder. Leon ignored Q-chan and thrust the shakes at D. "For you and Chris," he muttered, watching the pout around D's mouth starting to wobble. "The lady called 'em Death By Chocolate."
D let him in, gave one of the shakes to Chris, and took a resentful sip from his own straw. Then his eyes fogged over in bliss, he sagged down to sit on the sofa, and Leon knew he was home free. He sat down in his usual chair and grinned at Chris. "How's it goin', squirt?"
Good, Chris replied, sipping at his own shake. How about you? Did you arrest anybody?
"I made one guy pee," Leon said triumphantly, then glanced quickly over at D, who was still too deep in chocolate heaven to notice anything else. He had his eyes closed, long lashes fanning over his cheeks, and he was sucking on the straw like it was --
Gross! Chris was delighted. Leon dragged his attention back to him. What'd he do?
"Just a low-level dealer. Nobody important."
Gross, Chris repeated, still grinning. I'm gonna go play with Pon-chan now.
Leon ruffled his hair and watched him run off, before returning his attention to D, who had just reached the bottom of the styrofoam cup. After another few all-absorbing seconds, D managed to put the cup down on a jade coaster on the table, with a shivering sigh of delight. Leon gulped. Q-chan finally darted off D's shoulder and began playing with the lipstick-marked straw.
"How do you do this evening, Mr. Detective?" D asked after another moment, his voice breathy for the first words he'd spoken to Leon yet.
"Pretty good," Leon said. He couldn't take his eyes off him. Okay, the shake had been a bad idea. Watching D with sweet treats tended to mess up his thinking. "Sorry about last night."
D waved his hand graciously. "I am glad to see you are in better spirits today. I'm sure your job was very trying," he added, but Leon knew it was just the chocolate that made him so generous. He wondered how far candy could go, in making D nicer than usual. How far it could really, really go in persuading him to… to do or to consider stuff that was…
This was stupid. This was insane. He was acting crazy, thinking crazy thoughts. Therapy was looking more necessary by the second. Jill made one dumb joke, and Leon was sitting here thinking about -- about the criteria he'd set up last night. Sure, D met them all, but Jill had met almost all of them too, and he sure wasn't thinking about marrying Jill, so why D? What on earth made him think he could put up with D for the rest of his life, why couldn't he get this thought of his head? Because he and D would kill each other, for sure. They couldn't go forty-eight hours without some kind of shouting match. They enjoyed them. They -- that was another one of the criteria, wasn't it? Fuck.
Leon obviously hadn't thought his standards through. Okay, so friendship was good, yelling was good, all that stuff, yadda yadda, but maybe there had to be a little of the romance bullshit, right in the beginning. There ought to be a spark. Something that'd keep them both coming back for more, that wouldn't let them keep away from each other. And of course there wasn't one. He could look at D and think, coolly, rationally --
What would it be like if I never saw this guy again?
-- and feel like he'd gotten stabbed in the chest.
"Mr. Detective?"
Leon snapped out of it, stared at D, really seeing him. D's eyes were wide, and he looked concerned. "Are you all right?" Leon realized that his own eyes were pretty wide too, and that he'd been staring off into space. Q-chan chirped curiously from his spot on the table, where he'd begun shredding the plastic straw.
"I'm fine," he said numbly. Never see him again. He couldn't even imagine it. He couldn't believe that he couldn't imagine it; he couldn't imagine walking down this street and not stopping by the shop, he couldn't imagine waking up to a day that wouldn't have the possibility of D in it. At some point, he'd started taking all of this for granted -- D being here, with his pets, with Chris, ready to fight or listen or taunt or smirk or whatever it was they felt like that day. He'd known D for almost two years now. He'd seen him almost every day for all that time. They'd taken a damn vacation together last month, with Chris, like a real family, and even if Leon couldn't remember it, that had to mean something important. Two years and never a dull moment. He couldn't imagine never coming back here. He couldn't imagine losing this. He couldn't stand to lose this.
He could keep doing this for the rest of his life and have no problem with it at all.
Leon swallowed hard. He knew he must look weird; D was still staring at him, and starting to look worried. Then D stood up from the sofa, a graceful slide of movement that practically looked liquid, and he moved over to the tea caddy. "Why don't I make some tea?" he said, too casually. "You look as if you could use some."
"Yeah," Leon croaked. This was like some kind of crazy dream, he knew it was -- but he still felt like he'd just woken up. Then he heard his voice saying something without his leave, in the same kind of overly-casual tone D had just used. "Hey, D," it said. "You ever thought about getting married?"
D's hand paused for the briefest of seconds, and then carried on reaching for a tea canister, without turning to look at Leon. "No," he said. "Never."
Leon's mouth was getting drier by the second. "Oh? How come?"
D shrugged as he opened the canister lid. "I cannot imagine how it would suit me. Would you like -- "
"You never know," Leon said, still hearing himself talk without meaning to talk. "I mean, I used to say that, and now I'm thinking about it."
D still didn't turn around, but kept on preparing the tea. "Well," he said, "that's only natural. You are young and healthy -- of course you are right to consider becoming a husband, a father, someday…"
"No," Leon said. "I mean…I mean I got somebody in mind. Right now. Somebody specific."
He watched D's movements freeze, and told himself to shut the goddamn hell up, right now. This was beyond hypothetical. This was getting beyond explanations, too, unless he wanted to say he'd just been joking and look like an ass.
"You have," D said, after a second. His voice was as calm and even as always, but he was still standing with the lid off the tea canister, making no move to actually put the leaves in the pot. "I was -- unaware of this."
"Uh…"
"You never mentioned seeing anybody."
"I didn't know how," Leon said, feeling lightheaded, like he was trying to tiptoe around the edge of a volcano and was two seconds away from making exactly the wrong step. "It was sorta sudden."
"It must have been." D suddenly seemed to remember the tea, and quickly began scooping the leaves into the pot. He seemed to put more in than usual, but Leon wasn't really a good judge of that stuff. "And…and you are already considering marriage?"
There totally wasn't enough air in the room. "Yeah," Leon said. "I, uh -- I can't stop thinking about it. I feel like I'm going sorta crazy. That's why I was in such a bad mood last night," he added, inspired. It was even true, kind of.
"I see," D said, after a long, long moment. He still hadn't turned around to look at Leon, but seemed fascinated with watching the kettle. "And…and Chris? Does he…have you told him?"
"No."
"Have you told anyone?"
"Jill knows," Leon said, telling himself that it almost wasn't a lie.
"Oh," D said faintly. "Well, I -- I don't know what to say." Then the kettle screeched, white steam hissing from the spout, and he actually jumped. "Oh! Oh. Ah." He cleared his throat. "How silly. You have obviously startled me." He reached out to the kettle with a steady hand, poured the boiling water into the teapot.
Leon waited for him to ask questions -- who he had in mind, how he'd met her, what she was like, all the normal stuff that any normal person would have asked. But instead, D turned to face him with a bright, brittle smile. "You never cease to surprise me, Mr. Detective," he said. "Forgive me for asking, but are you quite sure you have thought this through?"
That was more like it, Leon guessed. "No. I ain't thought it through at all," he said, never taking his eyes off D's odd, beautiful ones. Yeah, they were beautiful. It was okay to think that, if he was planning to marry the guy. "It's my gut talking. You've got faith in my gut -- right?"
"Of…of course," D said, still smiling, but looking as if he thought Leon might be a little bit crazy. Well, Leon sure as hell couldn't blame him for that. "But, still…no creature's instincts are foolproof, and for such a momentous decision, surely a little more time -- "
"Nope," Leon heard himself say, still looking deep in D's eyes, like he thought he could fall into them. Maybe he could. Looking at those eyes for the rest of his life? He could do that, too. "I figured it out. Sometimes, when you get something right, you know it." And the craziest thing of all was, he was telling the truth. He was getting more and more sure of himself with every word. It made more sense out loud, instead of less. "I think talking to you actually helped," he added. Well, that was true, too.
"It did," D said.
"Yeah." Leon wondered if it was mean, or a bad idea, to be talking to D like this -- teasing him, really, as if they were discussing some woman who really existed. But he couldn't just tell D the truth right now. He was pretty sure D would be big on having the whole thing done properly, not as something Leon had just figured out five seconds ago. He'd want a ring and a question, at least. Besides…D could always ask who it really was, and he hadn't, yet. As if he didn't want to know.
"Well," D said faintly, looking a little pale. Leon decided that this could be encouraging. "May I…I shall be the first to congratulate you, then. She -- she must be a remarkable woman."
"Totally remarkable," Leon agreed firmly. "Trust me on this one. I'm as surprised as you are."
"I…yes," D said, still holding the teapot, making no move to pour. "Well, I…this is a surprise, no question. But…" Suddenly he smiled, as if he realized he ought to, and it didn't look convincing at all. "Well. My goodness. It will certainly be interesting, watching Mr. Detective plan a wedding."
"I don't know if there'll be one," Leon said. "I haven't popped the question yet."
"Oh!" D's body swayed for a second, before he straightened up in a hurry. "Oh. Excuse me. I thought matters were all arranged."
D hadn't been this polite to him since the first week they'd met. "Nope. I think it's gonna come as a surprise, to be honest."
"Oh," D said again. A little smile tugged at the corners of his mouth again--it looked more genuine, this time, and a lot more mean. "Oh, well, then. May I wish you luck in your endeavor."
"I was sort of hoping you would," Leon said.
"Naturally," D said, still struggling to keep the smirk off his face, like he thought Leon wouldn't notice it. "When were you planning to propose?"
"Pretty soon," Leon said. "Gotta get my hands on a ring. I was gonna do that tonight, actually. Wanna help me pick it out?" he added, on another burst of inspiration.
"Alas," D said flatly, "I'm terribly busy."
Yeah, that'd been too much to hope for. Leon scratched the back of his neck, trying to look subtle. "Gotcha," he said. "Any suggestions?"
"I really couldn't say," D said, his tone going frosty. "I'm sure it would depend on the lady."
"It's one classy broad," Leon said, because he couldn't resist.
"And so lucky, too," D said. The sweetness in his voice almost masked the poison. "I do hope I'll receive an invitation."
"Trust me," Leon said, rising from his seat and thrusting his hands in his pockets. "I'm counting on you to be there."
"You are going?" D asked, his malicious smile turning into a frown of confusion. "Don't you want to -- to tell Christopher as well?"
"Not yet," Leon said. "I mean, I don't know for sure, do I? No reason to get the kid all worked up. But," he added, before D could say anything else, "I think I'll get a yes. Eventually. I mean, you're always saying that what has to happen is gonna happen, right? All that Zen stuff." D opened his mouth again, but Leon cut him off, looking him dead in the eye. "So I'll get a yes."
D opened and closed his mouth again, but this time, could seem to find nothing to say. After a few moments, he shrugged helplessly, and made a feeble gesture in the air with his hands, managing another weak smile. Apparently even Count D was speechless in the face of completely crazy people. The hell of it was, he wasn't wrong. Leon knew he'd lost his mind. But some of the best ideas he'd ever had came out of crazy gut feelings like this -- feelings that came out of nowhere, that had no explanation, but that stuck around until he acted on them and always wound up being right on the money. And right now, these feelings were telling him that he couldn't go wrong if he figured out a way to keep D by his side until they both got old and croaked.
"So, yeah," Leon said. "I'll see you tomorrow. Night."
D waved again, apparently still unable to speak. Leon headed out the door at a brisk pace. The shops would close in a couple of hours, and he didn't want to buy the first ring he laid eyes on. Not that he could afford anything fancier than a plain gold band, and those all looked alike anyway, but he wasn't gonna get ripped off.
Crazy, yeah. On top of that, D had just said he wasn't even the marrying kind. But twenty-four hours ago, Leon would've said the same thing about himself. He just had to help D come to the same conclusion he had: that, in spite of everything, they could be good together, really good. D'd be good for Leon, and Leon thought he'd be good for D, too. That crazy Chinese sonofabitch needed a guy on the straight and narrow, someone who didn't kiss his ass like everybody else did, but who could do right by him anyway. And Leon didn't know anybody else, personally, who could put up with D near as good as Leon could--not once they really got to know him, anyway, past the polite smirk and the pretty table manners, to the temper and the snobbery underneath. In fact, as far as Leon knew, he was the only person who ever saw that side of D, period. Another sign that he was right. The clues were starting to add up, to match what his gut had told him. Just like they always did.
Leon gritted his teeth and gripped the steering wheel, heading for the nearest shopping center. It'd all add up, in the end. God, it had to, or he didn't know what he'd do. This was definitely make-or-break territory, here. He didn't know why this all felt so urgent, like it was something he had to take care of right now, as soon as it had occurred to him, when he and D had been comfortably fighting and keeping company with each other for two years. But that was part of the gut feeling, too. Like he'd just figured out something really important, just in time, even if he didn't know what the deadline was for.
As it happened, he did wind up buying the first gold ring he set eyes on, because he liked it. And when the shoplady asked him, to his surprise, he was able to recall the exact dimensions of D's hand.