Moth to the Flame
Dane Soar
Rating: K+
Summery: Chris comes back to Chinatown years later, and to his surprise the pet-shop isn't empty. Agent Chris, meet the youngest Count D.
Characters/Pairings: Youngest D, Chris, mentions of Leon, Tetsu, Pon-chan, and the D we all know and love.
Comments: This story goes on a lot of educated guesses, like the youngest D's personality, his eye color, and what he would call Chris as "my dear detective" wouldn't be quite correct. I also presumed that a reborn D would always calls the next oldest his 'father', as they seem to in the manga.
Spoilers: The end of book 10 and the foreshadowing on the last two pages.
Theme: Over again, back to the same place, old memories.
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Inhaling deeply, Chris Orcot smiled. Chinatown smelled the same, flowers and fish, and faintly the scent of something frying from far away. There had always been the sweet smell in the air of something or other being baked, he remembered.
Chris knew this was probably more than a little crazy —well, he laughed to himself, it was definitely crazy— but he had felt for years the urge to go back to the pet-shop. Though he knew it was empty, maybe just standing by the shop in the familiar streets would help make some sense of the insaneness on his memories.
Animals and weird humans and even weirder Chinese men…
He remembered the streets of Chinatown so clearly from when he was a kid that now he could find his way to the place where the shop had been even with his eyes closed.
Though the years in FBI training had changed some of the ways he saw a few things, he hadn't seen crime before. Lucky back then he had Tetsu-chan to take care of him and the clever Pon-chan to keep an eye out, both more than willing to look after a kid who had a knack for in getting in trouble.
The lingering sadness of the last time he left had stuck around for a long time, much longer than he would have thought. Not being able to see T-chan and the rest of them had been miserable. Going back to a normal life had been hard, but somehow he'd managed it.
And now, here he was, years later, Agent Orcot and back in Chinatown.
Yep, he was probably crazy.
Right around the next corner, if he remembered right, should be the place where the shop had been. This was the hard part, if there was some other shop where D's had been or even if it was there but all run down, it would be hard to look at it.
But he had to get some sort of closure. The way Chris had left all that time ago hadn't exactly been the way he'd have wanted to if he'd chosen. Actually if he had gotten a choice he'd still be mute, running around the shop, and listening to his older brother and the Count bickering.
Chris shifted the box containing the cake from one hand to the other. Why he had even bothered to bring a gift he didn't know. It wasn't like the Count was there.
Oh yeah, he was crazy. Off the deep end and everything.
He turned the final corner.
At once his eyes went to the place where the pet-shop had once been, though he knew he was as good as setting himself up for disappointment. His first week as an agent and here he was already in Chinatown. Maybe he was more like Leon than he'd thought.
Then Chris realized the pet-shop was still there!
Frowning, he approached the shop, surprised that the stairs, and the door, hell, even the sign, looked exactly the same. It was all clean and neat, well taken care of.
"Odd," Chris muttered aloud.
The other residents of Chinatown respected the Count a lot, maybe they'd looked after the place, thinking he'd come back some day.
He snorted, somehow that seemed unlikely.
If that was at all probable, his older brother would have stayed around instead of leaving in search of the mysterious Chinaman.
Of course Leon had visited, only a few times, but the letters where much more regular. The letters had explained a lot about Count D.
And what he was, who he was, explaining away all the little oddities and quirks Chris had noticed while he stayed in the pet-shop.
Some days he believed all that stuff about Chinese clans, ageless Asian Counts, Q-chan, grandfathers, a little insane fathers, and floating boats in the sky where humans were not yet welcome.
Then again there where days he thought that Leon was crazy. Maybe he was too.
Reaching out a hand for the door, Chris paused. Perhaps he should knock. Somewhat hesitantly he rapped his knuckles on the wood frame of the door, the paper trembling slightly with each knock.
"Yes?" inquired a voice from within.
A startled sound came from Chris before he cleared his throat. "…Count… D?"
The door opened revealing a slim Chinese man, well dressed in silk, his short dark hair slicked back, his eyes purple and mysterious. "I'm sorry, I was just closing up."
"Count?" Chris was amazed. "You…you cut your hair."
The man, would couldn't have been much past his later twenties, blinked. He stared at Chris for a moment, the blood draining from his face; he looked like he'd seen a ghost. Then he appeared to gather himself, resting a graceful hand on the ornate doorframe. "I-I beg your pardon? I don't think we've met before."
"What are you talking about, Count? Don't you remember? Well, I guess I'm bigger now than I was then, but it wasn't too many years ago."
An expression on understanding flickered across D's face. "Ah, I'm sorry, you must have mistaken me for my father, he is often called Count D. But my great-grandfather is the actual Count D."
Chris noticed that the eyes were not the gold and the purple he was used to. This wasn't the Count D he knew, he realized suddenly. "Oh, then… who are you?"
The man smiled a thin enigmatic smile that was strangely familiar to Chris, he had the feeling he'd seen it on another face. "You may also call me D."
"Is your…father in right now?" Chris asked, he was starting to feel more than a bit foolish for coming. He had no idea the Count had children or that he'd even been married.
Though if Leon could be believed…
Well, if was the key word.
The Count, it was easy to think of this shorthaired man as 'the Count' too, clasped slender hands in front on him. "My father is away, he is running a branch of our pet-shop in another city."
"How about your great-grandfather?"
"He is also away," replied the Count. "traveling to purchase new animals for our shop."
"That's a shame, I uh," Chris held up the box. "I brought a cake in hopes your father would be here."
Count D eyed the box, as if he was tempted.
"It's yellow cake."
D smiled. "Why don't you come in?" Some things stayed the same. Exactly the same in the case of D's family.
"Weren't you closing up?" he asked, wagering on the enormous sweet tooth being genetic.
"Yes," D reached out and hung the closed sign on the outside of the door, before taking the cake box from him. "but you aren't exactly here to buy a pet, unless I'm much mistaken. Come in." he turned, disappearing into the depth of the shop, melting into the shadows like he'd been created from one.
Following, Chris closed the door. As he went to follow the Count, he was struck by the familiarity of the place.
He inhaled. Yep, the shop smelled exactly the same. It was so familiar. That thick incense, which Leon had always claimed was only there to cover up the smell of animals, the faint clinking from the next room as the Count made tea, that and a thousand little other things that he'd missed for a long time. For several long minutes he stood, remembering happier days.
After a bit he took off his uncomfortable coat before sitting and was in the process of laying it on the ornate couch next to him as the Count came back in, carrying a tray which he sent on the table between the. He left and returned with the cake on a plate. "Would you mind slicing this cake for me, my dear Detective?"
"Why do you say Detective?"
The Count nodded at the gun-belt, which was plain sight since he'd taken off his coat. "You could call it an… educated guess."
"Oh, actually it's agent, not detective." He took the knife from the plate, beginning to cut the cake. "Is the table over there new? I don't remember it."
"Yes, I replaced it when Ten-chan and Fu-chan here broke the old one some months ago." D rested an elegant hand on the head of a leopard that Chris hadn't noticed was sitting there before.
Remembering the many tailed fox that he'd seen as Ten-chan's true form, a form he hadn't seen until right before he left, Chris grinned. "Ten-chan, eh? Is Pon-chan around, or even Tetsu?"
Pouring the tea, D asked, "Milk or sugar, Agent?"
"It's Chris actually, Chris Orcot. No milk, but I guess I'll take some sugar."
The Count add cubes of sugar to the amber tea. "And by Tetsu do you mean the totetsu?"
"Yeah, though I didn't know it at first."
"I'm afraid that my father took the animals that were closest to him with him when he left. Ten-chan that a parrot over there." He indicated a brightly colored bird on a perch in the corner.
"Damn." Chris said, putting the cake knife to the side as he finished slicing. "I ran around here for a year or so when I was a kid. My brother was a good friend of your father's." Or at least, friend was the easiest way to explain it. Leon and D had spent so much time bickering with each other and complaining about each other it would be hard to explain why Leon could possibly leave everything to hunt down the elusive Count. Wherever that Count was.
"That would explain," Count D nodded at the cake. "but I regret to tell you that I don't know where the other pet-shop is."
Not that that's strange at all, thought Chris. "Oh, shame, I would've like to seen Count D…your father, again."
The Chinaman rose, going gracefully to a table in a rustle of silk. He took a picture frame from the surface and regarded it for a moment. "I suppose that explains quiet a bit." He handed the picture to Chris.
It was of three people, the smallest a blonde boy who was smiling widely, Chris when he was younger, a thin Asian man with shoulder length hair standing behind him, the Count he'd known growing up, and next to him was his older brother Leon, looking annoyed, resting his hand on the Count's shoulder.
Of course he remembered when this picture was taken, the day before a would-be thief had broken into the pet-shop. The man had practically run into the Count as he came in, and startled had fired his gun at random.
Seeing D fall, the thief had frozen.
That was when both Orcots had dashed in, Leon hearing the shot, came through the front door and Chris from the depths of the shop, where he'd heard the shot's echoes.
They'd found the Count bleeding on the floor. Tetsu had taken one look at him and gone for the thief.
The carnivorous animal had no mercy for anyone who laid a finger on D.
Leon ignored the screams from the thief, kneeling by the Count. "Oh damn, Chris, grab me the phone!"
They'd been surprised as hell when D had been perfectly fine. There was plenty of blood yes, but no wound.
This picture had been taken the very next day, which was why Leon had a hand on D's shoulder, his older brother had been convinced that with all that blood on the floor, D had to be lying.
"You can understand why I was surprised to see you." That same Count's son tapped a finger on Leon in the picture, his nail making a sharp click on the glass.
Chris chuckled, people sometimes did confuse him with his brother. "No, that's Leon, my older brother. That's me." He pointed at the blonde boy. "I take after my brother a lot."
"I can see that." D reclaimed the picture and put it back on the table. "Did you know my father well?"
"Yeah, like I said before, my brother was friends with him. Don't you… know him?"
"No, I was raised by my great-grandfather. I have only met my father once. He is something of an… oddity in our family." D sat on the opposite couch, the leopard nuzzling his leg affectionately as a monkey climbed up to sit next to him.
A sensation of movement near his leg made Chris look down, a snake was twining around his leg. He padded it nervously, hoping it wasn't hungry. "Shame, he was an interesting person."
"Really?" D raised an eyebrow. "Cake?" he offered a slice on a plate.
"Sure." Taking it, Chris wondered how many cavities he was going to get because of today. "I, umm, remember some interesting things that happened around here. Would you like to…?"
"I would like to hear of him," the enigmatic smile touched Count D's lips. "I would like that quite a bit."
Relaxing back into his seat, Chris ate his cake, drank his tea, petted the snake in his lap, and told stories about his time in the shop.
Here he was, back in the pet-shop after all this time, talking to a Count D as mysterious and unfathomable as his predecessor.
Maybe he was crazy.
But somehow he knew he'd probably be back soon with more sweets and more stories. Hell, there was that man who had been killed by his newly bought pet not too long ago, maybe he should look into it, see if the pet was bought here.
Perhaps he could haul the Count into jail for getting his clients killed!
…this was way too familiar.
Maybe he was more like Leon that he thought.
"Would you like more tea, Agent?"
"Sure, why not? Just not so much sugar this time, I don't want all my teeth to fall out."
"Of course, Agent,"
Yep, very like Leon.
It was like the pet shop was a bright flame and he was an unwitting moth, drawn toward it.
Moth to a flame, he was going to get burned for sure in the end.
But maybe that wasn't a bad thing.
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END