Pet Shop Of Horrors Fan Fiction ❯ Sadie, Sadie ❯ Chapter Three ( Chapter 3 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

For warnings, disclaimers, etc., see Chapter One.

Chapter Three

Q-chan sat on Chris's shoulder while everybody else milled around him. They all had their ears pressed to the door, behind which Count D sat trying to find out what was wrong with Leon. Pon-chan kept Chris's hand gripped tightly in her own.

The Count and Leon were talking, but their voices were too low for Chris to be able to make out what they were saying. This had to be some kind of record: they'd been talking for ten whole minutes and nobody had shouted. And then, all of a sudden, everything got completely, totally silent.

Chris decided to think that was a good sign. Maybe the Count's special incense had worked. Maybe --

"ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?!"

The Count's shriek reverberated through the door, causing a ripple and a jump to go through Chris and all the other people, actually knocking Q-chan off Chris's shoulder. The shouting carried on, but it wasn't like any shouting Chris had heard before, not even from Count D when he was super-mad at Leon. "Have you completely lost your -- what can you possibly be -- "

And then the air shimmered and shivered, and they couldn't hear anything at all. Not a single peep, although Chris was sure that the shouting was still going on back there. It was like some kind of bubble had grown up between Chris and the pets, and the door to the room.

Chris turned to T-chan and Pon-chan for an explanation, his heart thumping wildly in his chest. They looked as shocked and worried as he did.

"I guess he really does want it to be private," T-chan muttered, after a moment. "C'mon, let's get out of here. There's no telling how long this is gonna take."

Leon was thinking that his eye-of-the-storm metaphor from earlier had been pretty good, all things considered. Because right now, he was sitting smack in the middle of Hurricane D. Could be worse. He'd been prepared for the yelling, since that's just what they did with each other, and when he didn't yell back, D stopped. He'd jumped up from the sofa like his ass was on fire, and now he was standing with his back against the nearest wall, staring at Leon like he'd never seen him before.

"I see," he finally said, through gritted teeth, his eyes burning with anger. "I see. You 'got me,' Detective, I admit it. No doubt my reaction amused you. Well done. A very fine joke."

"I ain't joking," Leon said, still holding the box. He'd been afraid D would dash it from his hand, for a second there, but he hadn't.

"Then -- then what is this?" The outrage wasn't gone from D's eyes, not by a long shot, but it was also joining up with confusion. If it had been anyone else, about anything else, Leon might have felt sorry for him. Had to be a hell of a shock. But he had no room for pity, not now, when all his focus had to be on persuasion. "Is this…there is no woman?"

"You're the woman," Leon said without thinking, and then, really quickly, "I mean, no, that's not what I mean. I mean, there is no woman. Just you."

"But…" D brought a hand up to his face to brush the hair out of his eyes. His body was trembling with shock and anger. It wasn't exactly what Leon had hoped for, but he wasn't all that surprised, either. "But…I don't understand. You're ill. You must be ill. At least I know I haven't bewitched you…"

Leon blinked. "You fishing for compliments or something?" It was a lousy time for jokes, which he realized when D's eyes went from really wide to really narrow.

"You are either mad," he said in a low, dangerous voice, "or unutterably foolish. Or I could certainly be persuaded that you are both."

"Just give me a chance," Leon said, feeling really impressed with himself that he hadn't joined in on the yelling. Yet. "I don't care if you think I'm crazy. Just listen."

"Listen to what?" D exploded, pushing away from the wall to stalk around the room. "The ravings of a madman?"

"I know it sounds crazy. I know it is crazy. That doesn't have to matter, 'cause it can still work," Leon said. He carefully set the ring box down on the coffee table, noting that D's eyes followed it for a second. "Look. It sprang up kind of fast on me, too. I'll tell you what happened."

"I wait with bated breath!"

"Jill made this stupid joke, about me marrying you, a couple days ago. It pissed me off, and I got mad, but then I got to thinking about it, and I figured out it was a good idea. A really good idea, D. The best idea."

D was staring at him, his lips parting again. "You're serious," he said, after a moment. "You're actually -- "

"I just said I was," Leon snapped, and then winced. Be nice. "I mean -- "

"Are you insane?" That was sure as hell turning into tonight's song and dance, wasn't it? "Detective, when have I ever given you cause to think I would entertain -- how could you possibly be so stupid as to think -- marry me? You don't even know me!"

"I know enough," Leon snapped, leaning forward on the couch, trying not to leap off, rush forward, and grab D by the front of his dress. That probably wouldn't help. Yet. "If I'm so crazy, and this is such a fucking bad idea and you'd never even think twice about it, why are you getting mad?"

D froze mid-pace.

"Why aren't you laughing at me?" Leon pressed. "'Oh, Mr. Detective, you're so funny,' all that shit you always pull? How come I ain't already going home, feeling like I'm two feet tall? See, I know that much about you, don't I?"

D went white and his hands started to tremble. Leon knew better than to take this as a sign of victory. It was more a sign that D was about to start pitching everything breakable in the room at Leon's head. He put his weight on his toes, just in case he had to jump out of the way, and added, "You think I don't wanna get to know you? Why the hell else would I be asking you this? I want to have the rest of my life to get to know you." Because Christ knew it was going to take at least that long.

D's hands stopped trembling a little. Leon still didn't dare take his eyes off him for a second.

Then D smiled. His coy, fake little smile. Leon tried not to roll his eyes. Did D actually think that would work backwards? "Mr. Detective," he said sweetly, "you are indeed observant. However, even your keen eye can miss certain fine details. There are a few, subtle things about me you seem to have overlooked."

Leon tensed. "Like what? Your criminal stuff? Don't think I missed that, because I haven't -- "

"For example: I am a man," D continued, still all fake-sweet. "Now, Mr. Detective must not feel bad for missing this little detail, because his razor-sharp mind must be terribly busy concentrating on other, more important things. Like china patterns, or engraved invitations."

God, he could be the biggest bitch Leon had ever met. "I know you're a guy," Leon said through his teeth. "Anyway, that doesn't matter anymore. It's legal now. Don't you read?"

D stared at him.

"It was all over the papers," Leon added.

D covered his face with his hands for a second. "You are the greatest buffoon I have ever encountered."

"Great," Leon snapped. "So fix me up. A whole lifetime of harping on my table manners and calling me stupid? You know you want it."

"A lifetime would not be nearly long enough!"

"Exactly!" Leon held his hands out in appeal. "That's my fucking point! Jesus, D, you think I don't get it? I know you're a guy. I know I don't like guys. I don't care. Or I don't care enough, anyway, 'cause it doesn't matter, it's you, I want you."

"You -- you want -- " Well, whatever else happened tonight, Leon could at least congratulate himself on being the only person on earth to render Count D speechless like, ten times in a row. "You want me."

Leon turned red, hearing D say it out loud. "Yeah," he muttered.

"You want me."

"Quit it," Leon snapped before he could stop himself.

But D had the momentary advantage, and he pushed it for all it was worth, tilting his head to the side with a coy little smirk. "Good heavens," he cooed, reaching up to toy with the fastenings of his collar, and making Leon's face catch fire. "I had no idea." He even fluttered his eyelashes.

"I said quit it," Leon repeated, hearing his voice come out like a growl. His stomach felt hot and churning, but not like nausea, like something else -- anticipation, maybe, and that was enough in itself to scare him shitless. But he always felt this way, when D teased him with his eyes and his smile. How had he never noticed? Had D ever noticed?

If he had, he wasn't letting on. D just let out the most ringing, mocking laugh Leon had ever heard. "'Quit it'? Hark the man! You come in here, offering me a ring, and then squirm with panic as soon as reality is thrust into your face. Want me! Detective Orcot, you couldn't even kiss me without emasculating yourself. Or perhaps it was a chaste union of souls you had in mind? A platonic partnership?" D sneered.

Leon stood up and took two steps forward before he let himself think about it. D stopped talking, stopped sneering, and got a spooked look on his face again. "What are you doing?"

"I'm gonna kiss you," Leon said, deciding that had been his plan all along. Because, even if he was being a monster asshole about it, D had a point. Romance might not be the biggest thing about marriage, but you ought to at least be able to do that stuff, so he damn well better start adapting. And fuck if he was gonna let D get away with saying that "emasculating" thing.

"You most certainly are not!" D snapped, and when Leon kept coming forward anyway, he darted behind a waist-high curio cabinet, keeping it between them like a shield. When Leon took another step forward, he grabbed a little blue vase from the top of the cabinet and brandished it over his head. "I am warning you, Orcot!"

Leon gaped at him. "Jesus Christ, D!" he finally yelled, the words bursting out of him in a roar that felt so good, he didn't even know how to describe it. To hell and back with being a nice guy. D didn't deserve a nice guy. "Do you have any idea how fucking ridiculous you look? Put that damn thing down!"

D didn't move, but held still, holding the vase over his head, his arm trembling. And a second later, Leon's ire dissolved, and he bent over at the waist with laughter. "Oh my fucking God. If you could see yourself." D's eyes flared with rage, and Leon quickly held up a hand, though he couldn't stop grinning. "Is that an original?"

D froze again, and then lowered the vase back to the cabinet with slow, careful deliberation. "You are correct," he said, striving for calm that didn't seem to be there, "I should not waste such a valuable antique on something as worthless as your head. My teacup collection has suffered enough."

"Damn straight it has," Leon said, still grinning. "Come on, D, look at this. Nobody else'd have us." D didn't look amused -- just sort of confused, angry, and hurt on top of it all. Leon made himself sober up fast.

He held out his hands in supplication. "Listen," he said. "You can stay back there if you have to. Just listen to what I've got to say."

D looked at him, steady-on, fighting some kind of battle inside his head.

"Speak, you fool," he whispered after a moment.

It was after nine o'clock. Chris sat up as T-chan came into his bedroom. Pon-chan eagerly raised her head from the pillow, and the kids all piled on the foot of the bed scrambled to attention. What's going on? Chris asked. Are Leon and the Count done yet?

"The shield of silence is still up," T-chan said. "Q-chan's been flying around out there for an hour, trying to find a crack in it. No good. I had to give him a bowl of strawberries to calm him down."

Chris kneaded the silky blanket in his hands. What are they talking about? he finally burst out.

"How am I supposed to know?" T-chan snapped. "Wasn't I listening at the door with you, dummy?"

"Tetsu, be nice," Pon-chan scolded. "Chris is worried about Leon."

T-chan scowled and put his hands on his hips, but he didn't look Chris in the eye, which meant he was sorry. "Damn," he muttered. "I never thought I'd say it, but at this point? I'm worried about that idiot."

And that was the most frightening thing Chris had heard all night.

Leon didn't think he'd ever talked so much in his life. He'd lost all track of time. He just knew his throat was raw as hell and that D had finally come out from behind the curio cabinet, and was sitting on the sofa again, pressed against one of its arms with his hands tightly folded in his lap.

They'd been following a pattern. Leon would come up with what he thought was a rock-solid point, D would say something venomous to try and shatter it, and then began the yelling, until Leon got sick of it and brought up another point, sticking to his guns. Lather, rinse, repeat.

But the hell of it was, Leon had more hope now than he'd had all night. D was perfectly capable of physically ousting him from the shop. Or mocking him mercilessly. Or doing anything other than what he was doing, which was at least listening, in between shouting, calling Leon crazy, and digging out ten-dollar-words that were all some variation of "stupid."

Which meant that maybe D wanted to be persuaded. What Leon had to figure out was why the idiot wouldn't let himself be.

Leon couldn't let up. This was the fight of his life, and he knew that if he relented for an instant, he'd lose it. But his voice was turning into an empty croak of its former self, and he was exhausted. This beat any stakeout he'd ever been on, for sure, in terms of stress and aggravation. Even D looked a little rumpled, which meant they'd definitely hit Ground Zero and shot past it by now.

"…and Mellow. Don't tell me you don't remember the Mellow case," Leon was saying. He'd been amazed to discover that, as the fight wore on, he'd been able to come up with more and more examples and reasons of how and why he and D could be great together. In fact, the more he talked, the less sure he was of why they hadn't hooked up ages ago, legal gay marriage or not. "We worked together on that one. We were a team. We…" He stopped to cough, his dry throat rasping. "Sorry. We -- " He coughed again.

D rose slowly, gracefully to his feet. "Stop," he murmured, holding out his hand. "I propose we call a halt for the moment. I desperately need a cup of tea."

Leon's head dropped towards his chest at the mere thought of liquid refreshment, hot or not. Then he collapsed into an armchair. "Me too," he said. Then, sharply, "No funny stuff." He wouldn't put it past D for a second to drug up the tea so Leon woke up hours later in the gutter with the rest of the trash.

"Detective, we'll be drinking from the same pot," D said, sounding weary. Leon still watched him like a hawk as he scooped the leaves into the pot and set the kettle on the boil. Those looked like the same tea leaves he always used. When D handed him his cup, Leon sniffed it suspiciously before taking a cautious sip. Smelled fine. Tasted normal. Felt real good going down his throat.

D seated himself daintily back down on the sofa, looking a lot more collected now that he had his tea. He added three sugar cubes, and then said lightly, just as lightly as if they hadn't been yelling their heads off for hours, "Mr. Detective, have you ever heard the saying 'Marry in haste, repent at leisure'?"

"No," Leon growled, closing his eyes and sipping again. He knew where D was going with that. "Sounds like good advice, though." He glanced over at D who looked surprised, right on cue. "For most people."

D's hands tightened on the little china cup. "I see," he said, trying to sound patient and calm again. "And why not for u--for you?"

"Because most people aren't sure," Leon said, trying to keep his voice low too. His throat still hurt. "I'm sure. What the hell else have I been talking about all night?"

"A great deal of nonsense," D muttered into his tea, just loud enough to be audible.

Leon gritted his teeth and held back a really rude reply. A truce, they'd called a truce. Maybe it was time to rethink his strategy. He'd pulled examples out of their mutual history, thin air, and his own ass, and while D hadn't thrown him out of the shop yet, he still hadn't said anything like yes. Leon was most comfortable with finding evidence. That was his job. But maybe now it was time to stop gathering the evidence, and start using it to prove the case.

Shit. He was going to have to talk about feelings. This was going to get ugly.

"D," he said, deciding that attack was better than defense, "tell me something. How'd you feel when you thought I was gonna marry somebody else?"

D's face didn't lose its serene expression, but his body twitched a little. Good as a signed confession, coming from him. "Naturally I was concerned," he said. "I thought you had undertaken a momentous decision without proper consideration. How fortunate that I was mistaken."

"You were pissed."

"I was not," D said, though his pleasant tone was strained. "I was concerned, as I said."

Okay, Leon could work with that. "Yeah? Why were you concerned?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" D demanded, finally dropping the act and glaring at him. "You have obviously lost your mind!"

"No shit," Leon said, thinking any man would have to be crazy to put up with hours of this. And that he, personally, was even crazier than that, because he felt ten times more alive sitting here and fighting with D than he ever had making small talk with some woman across a dinner table. "Admit it, asshole. You were 'concerned' because you like me. At least a little."

"So charming." D's voice could have frozen hot water.

"You do. Jesus, that thing you were sewing -- " Leon gestured to the Chinese banner, which had long since been cast to the floor as an afterthought during their argument. " -- that luck thing. Best outcome. Whatever. You made that for me, right? How long did that take you?"

"Not long," D said, but Leon, who knew jack-shit about sewing, could tell he was lying. There were a lot of stitches there, tiny and neat. You couldn't just knock something like that out in twenty minutes, he was sure.

A banner for the most "propitious circumstances." Meaning that things would turn out for the best, he supposed, even if it's not the way you wanted them to. He hoped, for a second, that the banner was on his side and not D's, and then got pissed at himself for being superstitious.

He wondered what would happen if he just pinned D down to the couch and jammed the ring on his finger before he could do anything about it.

"I like you too," he said, deciding that D would run in circles forever if Leon kept trying to drag a confession out of him. D blinked, startled, and then -- unmistakably -- got two tiny pink spots in his cheeks before he looked back down into his teacup. Oh, score. "Come on, D," he said. "We gotta cut the crap, here. I've had my damn head under a rock, but at least I can admit it."

"You speak in riddles, Mr. Detective," D said to his teacup, his voice just about steady. "I'm sure I don't know what you…"

"What do you want? A great big speech?" Leon demanded. "Jesus, I'm not gonna lie to you and say I can't live without you. I could. We both know I could. I did, for years." D looked at him quickly, a mixture of puzzlement and ready-to-be-offended on his face. "But I don't want to, you get it? Because it'd be boring and it'd suck. I'd be missing something important, like an arm or a leg. You can do without 'em, but fuck if you want to, right?" Hey, that sounded pretty good. He was impressed with himself for that one. Even better than the hurricane metaphor.

"Sheer poetry," D managed, but Leon could see him wavering. He got to his feet, walked over to the sofa. D shrank back against the arm, but didn't jump up and try to get away. Leon sat down next to him, never breaking eye-contact.

"We're supposed to be together," he said. "It's right, D. I don't get it any better than you do, but I don't have to. I just know it's true. C'mon, you got good instincts, too. Great ones. What's your gut telling you?"

D looked away again, his breathing getting very fast. "I don't know."

"You're lying." Leon scooted closer, feeling his heart rate speeding up again, gearing up for Round Two, which -- he could already tell -- was gonna play out way differently than Round One had.

"I'm not." D didn't get mad about the lying remark, which meant he had to be rattled as hell, and his cheeks were turning pink again as Leon got closer. "I am -- please stop this, Detective! You confuse me. I need a moment to think…"

Leon was sitting so close that his thigh was bumping D's, and he could feel the warmth of D's body, and smell the faintest trace of scent. D wore perfume? It figured. Whatever it was, the smell got right up in Leon's brain and made him feel dizzy and reckless. He reached up and took the teacup out of D's hands, and set it down on the table, next to the ring box. "Don't think too hard, D," he said, keeping his voice low again. "Don't talk yourself out of it." He took hold of one of D's hands. He slid his other arm behind D's back on the sofa.

D looked like a deer in the headlights, staring into Leon's face with bigger eyes than he'd had even when Leon had proposed. He was panting a little, and blushing a little, and right now his mouth looked so goddamn good. "Why didn't I know," Leon muttered, staring at it, talking without meaning to, again. "You do things to me."

"I…" D swallowed, hard, his throat working. That flawless white throat. His voice was barely audible. "I…what are you doing…?"

"Gonna kiss you now," Leon whispered, hooking his arm around D's shoulder and pulling him in. D looked as scared as if Leon had said he was going to shoot him. More scared. But he didn't pull away. He looked as if he couldn't move.

Leon leaned in and went for it.

The kids had started taking bets on what was happening in the front room.

"They're probably just drinking tea," Pon-chan said, holding Chris's hand and trying to be comforting.

"No way!" said Rashaad, a boy with bright green hair and yellow eyes. "Why would we be locked out if that's all that's going on?"

"Maybe your brother has a demon," suggested another kid Chris hadn't met before. "Maybe the Count is trying to cast it out."

"Can he do that?" a little girl asked, her eyes wide.

"The Count can do anything, stupid!"

"Don't call me stupid, you egg-eater!"

"Keep talking like that and you can watch me eat your first clutch of eggs, you -- "

"Shut up," T-chan growled, and they all did. He and Pon-chan were flanking Chris on the bed protectively. Chris had always thought it was neat how the other kids obeyed T-chan without question, but right now he was much too worried to be grateful.

"Maybe the Count's eating him," somebody piped up a second into the silence. Chris and Pon-chan gasped.

The Count doesn't eat people! Chris yelled.

"The Count doesn't even eat meat," T-chan pointed out with a snarl. "He'd never sully his mouth with something as disgusting as that detective."

"You eat people," Rashaad pointed out.

"You want me to start with you, algae-hair? Now shut up and stop freakin' out the kid! Go to bed! Go to sleep! Nobody's eating anybody around here, and that's final!"

The kiss had started off gentle and kind of scared, with Leon just barely touching their mouths together like he didn't know what was going to happen. He hadn't known. He sure wouldn't have predicted it'd wind up like this, thirty seconds later, with D crushed against the arm of the sofa and Leon's tongue down his throat, Leon's arms pinning him hard.

Somewhere in the back of his head, Leon was telling himself that this was too rough, too much, and too soon, but he couldn't stop. Maybe D had put something funny in the tea, after all, because he felt like he'd been drugged, like he wasn't in control. D didn't seem all that in control, either. He'd gone rigid at the first touch of lips, gasped, and then melted at the exact same moment Leon did, like he couldn't help it. Now his hands were carding through Leon's hair, his body shivering and pliant, and he held on for dear life as they kissed, making soft, whimpering noises through his nose.

Leon was hard as a rock after thirty seconds of kissing. He couldn't believe it. So was D, and feeling it against his leg wasn't freaking Leon out. Was turning him on even worse. He couldn't believe that either.

Perfect. It was perfect. It had never been, could never be like this with anybody else. D had to see that. He had to, or…

Leon pulled away, not wanting to breathe, but needing to. In thirty seconds, it seemed like the room had gone upside-down. So had his argument. And the rest of the world. D gasped when he broke the kiss, his hands still in Leon's hair as he looked up at him, eyes hazy and unfocused and brilliant. Leon still couldn't believe the colors in those eyes. D's lips were swollen and pink, and his lipstick had smudged. Oh…God.

D tried to say something, but all that came out was a breathless noise. Leon bent back down, kissed him again, long and deep. Felt D's body arch against him in helpless reaction. Oh, God, he had to do something or they were going to go all the way right here on the couch. And it would be great, Leon had no doubts about that, it couldn't be otherwise when they were both so hot for it, but now his gut was telling him a different story -- it wasn't the right time, not yet. Not now.

He pulled his mouth away again, and thought he was gonna die for sure when D gave a bereft little moan. He couldn't go far, couldn't break contact, so he hid his face in the curve of D's throat, where it joined his shoulder. Pressed his nose against the warm, soft silk and breathed in. D had dabbed the perfume in a little spot behind his ear. Leon groaned, and kissed the soft skin of D's jaw before he could stop himself. D shuddered, still cradling Leon's head against him, his fingers trembling.

Leon pulled back just enough to look down into D's eyes again. D's expression probably mirrored his own: shocked disbelief, and desire. "I was wrong," Leon heard himself rasp. "I got it wrong." D's brow puckered. "I take it back. I can't live without you. It's worse than a leg. D." He grabbed D's shoulders brutally hard, and put every ounce of his heart into his next words. "You can't say no."

"Leon," D panted, looking like he wanted to say something but didn't know what. At the sound of his name, Leon kissed him again, hard.

When they stopped, D appeared to be scrambling for his wits, trying to speak normally. He couldn't, quite. "If," he managed, "if it is desire you feel…if this…is what you want…" His fingers reached down to stroke across Leon's cheek, and Leon lost all the air in his lungs. D's voice got really, really small. Almost timid. "Perhaps we could…it might be enough…"

Leon closed his eyes, and felt the touch of the fingers drop down to his shoulder. He knew what D was offering: a night with no strings. And he wanted so bad, right now, he was almost tempted to say yes -- to say anything that would let him make D his. He shook his head fast, before he could do or say something he'd regret later, and opened his eyes again. "Wouldn't be enough," he croaked. "You know it wouldn't be. It's gotta be all or nothing." And it couldn't be nothing. That wasn't an option. D closed his eyes and trembled. "D, I'll, I'll be good to you," Leon pressed on, hearing his voice start to crack with desperation. "I know I suck sometimes, but I'd be good at this, I wouldn't cheat, I'd be solid, I'd be there…"

D turned his head aside, eyes still closed, quaking harder than ever. He moved his hands from Leon's shoulders to his chest, as if getting ready to push him away. Leon fisted his hand into the silky folds of D's robe, just barely resisting the impulse to shake him. "No! D! You can't -- "

"That's right," D said, opening his eyes at last, his voice flat, almost dead. "I can't." He looked at Leon then, a bleak expression in his eyes. "I cannot, Detective."

"Why?" Leon tried to sound calm, but it came out more like a roar, painful and raw.

D pressed so gently against his chest, made such a subtle, pathetic motion to get away, that Leon couldn't help but let him. He sat up, feeling like he had a hole in his chest, and gave D room to breathe.

"You know so little about me," D managed. "And what you do not know could lead you into danger. Grave danger. I cannot, I will not allow that. Because, as it happens…" He took a deep shaking breath. "I do…like you."

"What do you mean," Leon said, "danger." He wanted to say it didn't matter, that he could take care of himself, but with D, you never knew. And if D was gonna lay all his cards on the table, at last, Leon sure as hell wanted to see them, even now, when he hurt so bad he could hardly see straight. It was high time he knew what he was really dealing with. "You finally tellin' me you really are a criminal?"

D laughed, a breathless, humorless sound. "And if I was?"

"Are you?"

"It is not that simple." D reached up to push the dark hair out of his eyes. "Detective. I can now accept that you are sincere in your desire to marry me. But I repeat: you know so little about me…you are proposing, I say, to a stranger, no matter how strenuously you protest. And if you knew the truth…" D's voice almost got shaky on the last word, "I believe wholeheartedly that you would withdraw your request."

"So tell me the truth," Leon said flatly. "Tell me why you won't marry me and why you wanna screw up the rest of our lives. And it better be good."

D looked nonplussed, which meant that what he said next came out sounding not-so-convincing. "I sell drugs and run a slave-trading ring."

"You do not," Leon said, feeling the dregs of his patience start to evaporate.

"I do not," D admitted, "but you would have found that far more palatable."

"Oh yeah? What could be less palatable than that?" Leon asked, aware that he probably didn't want the answer.

D tilted his head to the side, and regarded Leon for a long, incredibly unsettling moment. Something weird happened to his face. It took Leon a second to realize that, after hours of seeing D off-balance, the old mask had just slid back on, almost flawlessly.

"That I am not human, and the shop is run by magic."

Leon almost scoffed, until he realized that this time, D was being entirely serious. So he gaped, instead.

"Come now," D said. "Is that not the sound of insanity? Surely you cannot wish to marry a madman." But his eyes weren't hazy with confusion and desire and regret. Not anymore. Now they were cold, sharp, and anything but crazy.

"You're not a madman," Leon said carefully, watching D's face. This was some kind of test. He knew it was. But he didn't know what the rules were, or what he had to do to pass. "But I don't…" Nope. He couldn't bluff his way out of this one. "Okay, I don't get it. What are you talking about?"

D watched him for another second or two, still with that eerie look on his face. Then he slid away from Leon even further, and rose to his feet. Leon remained crouching on the sofa, until D held out a slender hand to him, offering to help him up.

"Very well," he said, his voice low, and thrumming with something Leon had never heard before. "It has come to this at last. Get up, Mr. Detective. Get up, and I shall show you what I mean."