26-July-2002
Pet Shop of Horrors: Earthsong
by bonnejeanne and cassiopeia
Title: Earthsong
Author: bonnejeanne (bonnejeanne@yahoo.com) and Cassiopeia (cassiopeia@gundamwing.net)
Archive: http://www.no-assumptions.com/gundamwing/
Category: yaoi, AU
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: Series
WARNINGS: Lemon/Limey stuff, AU
Disclaimer: Pet Shop of Horrors characters and universe are the property of the copyright owners. Our stuff is ours. No money being made here. As with all our fics, while our goal is to stay as in character as possible, any discrepancies are our mistakes.
Feedback: Any and all comments welcome, be they short or long.
NOTES: This is a sequel to our first fic, "Blood". See Part One for full Notes.
Earthsong: Part Seven
It didn't take very long for Leon to figure out they were going down the same hallway he'd been down the night, or morning, before. The door that the Count stopped in front of was familiar as well. He hadn't paid a lot of attention to it the last time, but it really was a very large door. Beautiful, ornate, like many things in the pet shop, like many things in Chinatown in fact, but it gave the impression of being more than simply a facade. And it was ajar by a few inches.
That aroma he'd noticed before was there again as well. D reached up with his free hand and pulled the door open a bit wider. It was cleverly hung and balanced and moved easily with hardly a whisper of sound.
Beyond, light from a number of lamps illuminated a room that was very large, an open space in the middle surrounded by columns that looked like marble or some semi-precious stone. Beyond the columns the room stretched out into shadowy enclosures. It would have been easy to imagine it as some kind of throne room from one of the fantastical tales he'd read as a small child. But aside from the beauty of the vast room itself, there was little in it to break up the space. Off to one side a soft sound hinted at a fountain in one of the alcoves. In the middle of the room, just slightly off center, was a slight depression in the floor. Its purpose was impossible to guess, but it was being used now to hold a small pile of objects. From their place by the door, Leon could see the lamplight glitter on the collection. It was haphazard, like a child's toy box, but the 'toys' were pieces of jewelry, a few ornamented weapons in sheathes, small gem-encrusted statuettes, single pieces of what might have been decorated armor of some kind, even coins, larger and older-looking than modern pocket change.
Chris sat on the floor at one side of the pile, a rope of beads looped around one wrist, looking at a small, beautifully-crafted statue of a Chinese warrior on a horse. Sprawled atop the small pile, on his stomach, facing Chris, Ti-lung pointed out something about the statue in a low voice.
Leon had trouble believing that something so large, cavernous, could exist within the confines of the space allotted to D's shop. His disbelief over that fact did not last long, however, his attention drawn by the much more pressing issue of the stash of goods in the middle of the floor.
His eyes widened, watching the boy lying casually in the middle of everything, as if he were resting on a stack of pillows. Then the blue dominating his face decreased, his eyes narrowed, and he turned them on D. "Tell me none of this is stolen," he said, unconsciously checking to make sure his wrist watch was still on his arm.
"Not recently," D said, watching the two in the large room. "What do you see?"
Shaking his head at the first comment, Leon's face went blank with the question. He thought very hard about the scene, because he could feel that it was important for him to do so. After a moment, he answered calmly, "I see a large room, two kids, and a pile of suspect merchandise. I see four walls, a ceiling, a floor. You and me. What am I supposed to see?" The last he asked with a small frown, or smile, depending upon how you looked at it.
"It is harder to go backwards, especially depending on where you are," D said quietly. Lifting a hand to his face, palm flat, he gently blew a puff of breath towards Leon's face. It could barely be felt, but the lamps in the room seemed to flicker. Leon found his next inhaled breath tasted a little fresher, the scent of incense he'd become accustomed to lifting slightly. Before his eyes, the two figures seemed to waver slightly. Chris seemed solid, but the other figure... it reminded him of something he'd seen before. In the basement room of Chin's house, when the door had burst open and he'd seen, for a moment, the figure of a wild, red-haired boy before the little lizard had streaked towards D. His eyes seemed to water. Blinking, he focused again, and saw his brother sitting on the floor, placing the small statuette down on the edge of the pile to reach tentative fingers towards the small, odd looking reptile who lay atop the pile of 'loot'. It seemed just slightly bigger than he remembered, but still no more than a double armful for D.
Leon did not move, though he wanted to take a step backwards. D had done something... a trick with mirrors, a magician's lie. An hallucination, drug-induced or otherwise. Something...
But even as the thoughts occurred to him, he knew they were not true. Leon knew that D would not. The man had said that he would not lie to him, before, and the words had stayed securely in his mind. What he was seeing, with his own eyes, was true.
His voice was not very loud as he asked, "Is this what I wasn't seeing?" One of Leon's hands drifted upwards, and he pointed at the lizard, at Ti-lung.
"This is what most people can see. You were seeing more," D said just as softly. The scent of the incense returned as the effect of the Count's action faded. Once again the figure before his eyes seemed to fade, as Ti-lung handed another piece from the pile to Chris for examination. Once again a red-haired boy, he kicked his feet in the air over his back. Suddenly he looked up, focusing on the two in the doorway. Then he turned back to Chris, his voice audible as he appeared to answer a question, but Leon had not heard Chris speak the question.
"Why?" Leon asked, realizing that he really knew the answer himself, but hoping that it might make more sense coming from someone else. He almost wished that D was not the one he had to ask these things, as the Count was the last person in the world to give straight, or even partially unbent, answers. But he would not be having this conversation with anyone else, he realized with an inaudible sigh, and let his thoughts continue to run in circles as he watched each of the two boys alternately.
"That is not easy to answer," D said. "Mister Chang saw the boy because he was intended to. And because his mind is open to such things. And because he was born on the same soil. Or perhaps it was none of those things." He shrugged one shoulder elegantly.
A strange feeling began to well up inside Leon. Part of him was disturbed by what he was seeing and hearing, part of him still did not fully believe any of it. But somewhere, something was saying, 'Yes'.
Somewhere, he was racing ahead. Somewhere, he was vindicated. He could see now, what the Count saw. He could no longer be kept out. He'd been given a new tool with which to examine the world. And while he had no doubt it would probably be bothersome and annoying at times, like the computer at work, he also knew that it could be very useful, like the computers at work.
"Chang told me that they were the same. I didn't believe him." Leon smiled as he spoke, always glad to give the boy a hard time. Leon had the strong feeling that Chang deserved it.
Once again, Ti-lung's voice was heard, answering a question that hadn't been audible.
Tugging at Leon's hand, the Count led him out of the room, closing the door back to the slight opening from before.
There was a pricking at the back of Leon's mind, an almost sad responsibility, and though he did not turn back towards the door, he asked, "Are they... okay?"
The hand in his tightened slightly. "Ti-lung will not hurt your brother."
Leon frowned at the words even as he returned the tight grip. "I wasn't worried about that. I've just never seen two kids... play so quietly. Shouldn't they be running around, breaking stuff? Playing ball or something?" He quit talking for a minute, his mind drawn inward, towards his own days of 'breaking stuff', then went on, the frown a little less prevalent on his face. "It's weird. I don't understand him."
D listened, glancing once at Leon's face. "Do you want to?"
Leon's head flew to the side, his eyes latching on to D's. He did not know how to answer, his mind did not provide one, and his mouth and eyes all turned downward in contemplation. The pause was long before he finally spoke. "I wonder if I can. I don't even know him. He was less than a year old when I..." Got the hell out of there, his mind filled in, but he did not say. "Left. And he won't say anything, either." A thought crossed his mind, and he added, "To me." It was getting difficult to swallow, and Leon did not want to continue along this line of conversation. He began to look for a way to stop himself.
D took a turn that was not the way they had come, and Leon found himself walking by the bathing pool and then into the bedroom. "Just you?"
Leon didn't bat an eye at the direction change, quite used to the maze-like quality of the pet shop. "Not sure," he admitted, then turned his mouth in a half-grin. "Could be just me. I wouldn't know his voice if I heard it." No, this was not good. He did not want to go down this road right now. With a slight lift of his eyebrows, Leon sought to change the subject. "Do you have any relatives nearby?" The next question was a little more for himself than D. "Do you have any relatives at all?"
D favored him with a slight smile. "Yes."
"Any brothers?" Leon asked, not quite able to completely change the subject after all. Leon noticed, finally, that they had stopped in the bedroom. "What are we doing here?" His question was devoid of anything other than curiosity, though his eyes did drift about the room, settling on the large bed.
"Not exactly," the Count said. He turned to face Leon, slipping his arms around Leon's neck. "We are talking, My Detective."
Leon smiled at that. "Just talking, huh?" he said, his arms going around D's waist to pull the other man closer. "Might as well make it a whole conversation," he added before bringing their mouths together, his tongue pressing forward and into the other. As he closed his eyes, Leon felt heat shoot down every passageway of his body, and he moved one hand higher, into D's hair, and the other lower, gliding down the small of D's back.
The Count melted against him, his arms tightening around Leon's neck, fingers slipping through the hair that was gathered together at the back of his neck. He responded just as hungrily to the warm tongue in his mouth, sucking it deeper and twining his own around it. It was as much a reassurance for him as it was for Leon, easing his tension, inciting his own passion, which seemed to stay near the surface now. It would be Leon who drew back first, if either of them did.
The farthest thing from Leon's mind was drawing back, though he did have the small, nagging thought that the two kids were awfully nearby. It didn't trouble him for more than a beat or two, and he figured that most kids weren't as nosy and inquisitive as he had been anyway, least of all those two. Well, one of them, anyway.
Eventually, they had to separate so Leon could breathe, but his mouth did not lose contact with D's body, going to his neck, taking great inhalations as he kissed the soft white flesh. He wasn't sure if they were moving or not - they might have been - but he hoped if they were, it was towards the bed. There was no room in his mouth to make words, nor did he feel that he had to, though something burned to come out.
The whole thing was so fragile. Too intense to just break if dropped, but like something that would shatter, fly away into pieces so small they could never be brought back together. And he had almost dropped the cup earlier. It had slipped in his hands before he had even realized he was holding it.
Leon began to remove the Count's silken garments, never taking his lips away from the other's neck, and as he exposed new flesh, he moved his mouth there, as if welcoming it to his attention.
He found when slipping the cheongsam off one of the Count's shoulders that he'd again taken to wearing the silk camisole. One strap fell off a curved shoulder, as if offering the skin it abandoned.
As he found the spot, his hands pulling the outer garment down the other arm, a jarring and completely incongruous sound broke the warm silence like a splash of cold water. Leon's cellphone.
Leon did not move his face away from D's skin immediately, though his hands sought the small phone without delay. With a deep breath, the Detective closed his eyes and he answered, his voice tightly held. "Hello, Detective Orcot."
"Leon," it was Jill's voice, purposefully held low. "You might want to come down here..."
Immediately going on alert in reaction to the tone of Jill's voice, Leon's eyes flew open and his grip on the cellphone tightened. "What is it?" he asked, already heading out of the room and towards the front of the shop.
D stood for a moment, watching him go, his clothes disarrayed, like a doll some child had forgotten to put away. The slow smile was barely visible, and there was no one to see it anyway.
"The Chief has some people in his office. They came in just a little while ago, and shortly after that he started yelling for reports. Yours. As best I can tell, they seem to be from the Chinese government," Jill answered in Leon's ear.
Leon winced a little at the mention of reports, but at the same time, almost sighed in relief. If that's all it was...
He found himself at the shop's front door, about to head out to the car, when it hit him that he'd just walked off and left D. He thought of walking back and telling the man what was going on, then decided not. Instead, he paused at the open door and turned his head towards the direction he'd come from and called, not only sure in his voice's ability to carry but also in the Count's more than likely excellent hearing, "I'll be home. Later." With that, he left.
Most of the day shift at the precinct had gone, but it was clear the Chief was still in his office. The door was closed but it was easy to see that he had three other people in there with him, shadows on the frosted glass.
Jill was laying low next to the filing cabinets.
With his eyes fixed securely on the shadowy figures behind the glass, Leon approached the only person, much less the only woman, in the office would could tolerate him. "Jill," he said, grabbing her attention, "What's going on?"
"They've been in there for a while," she answered, covering her voice with a file. "The Chief wanted the report on Chin's death, and your report on the incident at the pet shop, and then he wanted a report from you on your visit to the shop with that young guy, um, Chang?" She shook her head. "You didn't write one, did you? I couldn't find it if you did."
Leon almost shuddered at the mention of all those reports. "No, nothing on paper yet," he said, a little disgust in his voice over the fact that he had to bother with this kind of thing in the first place. "I can tell him what happened," he added, as much for Jill as for himself, though his voice indicated that he was sure that it would not be completely satisfactory.
Deciding to quit standing out in the hall, gossiping like some schoolgirl, Leon left Jill and moved into the Chief's office, a little more unobtrusively than he normally did. He waited to be noticed before he said anything.
He was noticed immediately, one of the three visitors turning sharply at the movement of the door, and then quietly whispering something to the one who seemed to be in charge of the small group. They were all Chinese, the one in the middle looked to be about forty, the other two a couple of years younger. They were all conservatively dressed in western suits. They gave off an air not unlike Chin's, when Leon had first seen him in the precinct. Perhaps a tad less military, but still with a reserve that reminded Leon of Chinese FBI.
The leader's face broke into an exaggerated smile as he turned to the door.
"Ah! The famous Detective Orcot! A brave man! True American hero!" The expression was just to the edge of, but not quite blatantly sarcastic. As if the man's intent was to fool his listeners into accepting his sincerity by sheer energy.
"There you are," the Chief growled.
Leon was not sure at all what the Chinese man was talking about, nor what he meant by any of it, but he frowned a bit at the tone, true as all of the statements were.
At his Chief's voice, Leon turned his head, his eyes never lowering once from their level plane. "You look busy. Should I come back?" he asked, no inflection in his voice, and it was clear he was not joking.
"You should get your... self in here and shut the damn door," the Chief barked. "For once you have good timing. Thought you were gone for the day. We have a little... problem here. These men," he gestured, "Are from a department of the Chinese government. They were sent to settle Su Chin's estate."
Leon shut the door. "Problem?" he asked, his eyes going to examine each of the three men immediately. "I thought..." he stopped. He had thought that was Chang's job. He decided to save the information, and repeated, "Problem," taking his gaze from the Chinese men and directing it back to the Chief.
"I know what you thought, I thought the same. But Yat Siu Lui here says that the, em, family member who showed up the other day was not authorized by the government. Since Su Chin was a government official, retired, they say they have the authority to take possession of his estate." The Chief's expression was anything but happy. "I've had two calls from the State dept. confirming their take on things. On top of that, they tell me the 'family' member may be some kind of Triad boss back in HK."
"A dangerous man," the leader, Yat Siu Lui said, his expression almost melodramatic. "Since the Re-unification, we have had a lot of work to do in cleaning up the criminal underground that flourished in that province. They are deeply entrenched there. Now this shameless thug is trying to claim whatever he can get to enrich his illegitimate activities, and perhaps expand his organization to your city as well."
Leon had to stop himself from advancing on the Chinese man. His opinion of the other had gone from uncertainty, to dislike, to honest hatred in the matter of a few moments. He knew the things his chief had said made good sense, and that these three men did most likely have the authority that had been mentioned. This appealed to his sense of justice, and the rightness of establishment and government. They appealed to his intellect.
However, his instincts, which were more trustworthy and consistent than anything else he had to work with, were telling him something was not right. For starters, he did not trust people who traveled in groups. He wondered at the need for three officials to settle one man's affairs. The accusations the one man, Yat Siu Lui, threw at Chang did not help, either.
Certainly the boy was a punk. Leon had known that from the first moment he'd seen him. But a Triad boss? Leon honestly didn't think the kid had it in him.
For a moment, the detective stared with unfriendly eyes at Yat Siu Lui. As he was about to voice, loudly, some of his protests, when his face went blank, and a scene played through his head, stealing his attention. He watched Chang slipping down the street, after leaving his car, and then back up, towards the group of 'questionable' young men. Leon watched the scene replay a few times, all in a matter of seconds, and he could not help imagining a smug smile appearing on Chang's face, as if he were...
Suddenly, Leon let out a curse that was not quite as under his breath as he'd wanted. That son of a bitch...
In the next moment, he was unmindful of the other men's presence, and he repeated the thought aloud, looking for a piece of furniture that enough resembled the Chinese boy to take his anger out on. By the time he realized there wasn't much in the way of furniture in the Chief's office, he had let loose with a string of curses he seldom found such an appropriate use for.
Before anyone could have guessed that he was about to do it, Leon flung open the office door, his voice booming throughout the precinct as he charged off, in search of the boy he had almost started to trust. "I'll take care of Chang."
He did not hear any of the protests he knew must be going on behind him, he did not see anyone who may have gotten in the path of his exit. Leon's only focus was Chang. He could not believe that he'd helped the boy, let the boy anywhere near D. But most of all, Leon could not believe that he had let himself be fooled. Never again.
TBC