"Let me go, Detective." Count D's multicolored eyes stared unflinchingly from behind the iron bars. His voice was weak.
Leon did not meet his glance. "I can't. You're a criminal, Count. I'm a cop. This is how it works." He shivered; it was particularly cold today and it was only August.
"This is not right, Leon."
"Don't say my name!" His fist struck out blindly at the wall. It hurt, but the pain was barely felt through the fog in Leon's brain, the one with a Chinese accent and which smelled of incense and candy. At least the walls were soundproof and padded. "Just stop talking and it'll be easier in the end."
A moment of silence passed between them, during which Leon could see in the corner of his eye Count D quietly adjust his cheongsam, as if it was just a particularly bothersome day at the shop. The shop was now shuttered and closed, the animals having disappeared under the cover of night by means unknown. And here he was, the Count himself, locked up like one of his pets. Leon should have been celebrating. Instead, he felt like drinking until he couldn't think straight and then drinking some more.
When Count D spoke again, his voice barely carried. Not surprising, since he hadn't eaten in four days. "Are you going to hold me here forever?"
Leon looked over to see Count D pressed against the bars, holding on with fingers so slender they looked fit for breaking at any second. "Maybe," he muttered. A headache was beginning to pound away behind the detective's temples. He needed to get out of there.
"And if Chris or Jill found out?"
"They don't need to know!"
Count D looked at him with that same piteous glance he used to give some of his clients, the ones who had failed to comply with his contracts. Leon resisted the urge to lay his fist into the other man's face.
"My dear detective," D whispered, "what do you gain by keeping me here?"
Leon tore his gaze away from D's painfully beautiful face. "Everyone's safer if you just stay locked up here, where no one can see you."
"You can still see me." The smallest of laughs fell from D's lips. "Are you no one, too?"
"I'm a detective."
"Are you really? Then why have you not yet arrested me?"
Leon struggled to answer truthfully but he did, because he had to, that D would know if he was lying. "They wouldn't understand. I've seen what you do to people who come into your shop. The law can't punish you like you should be punished."
Somehow, Count D managed to sound like his usual teasing self when he answered, "Does that mean you want to punish me yourself, Detective?"
Leon's face flushed violently. "Shut up. Don't forget who's in charge here." He pushed aside his jacket briefly to flash his gun and LAPD badge.
The Count simply tsk-tsked at Leon's show of bravado. "Those mean nothing when you don't enforce the law. Are you still a lawman or are you a renegade?"
A half second later, Leon's hand flashed out and pounded flat against the bars of D's cage, making the structure shake from the force of it. He turned and looked into the Count's face without fear. "Don't you dare doubt my allegiance to the police force, okay? You have no idea what it's like to belong to something like that." He hit the cage again, wanting to get a rise out of D. "Don't fucking tell me I'm not doing the right thing!"
Count D looked him over slowly, sadly, unshaken by Leon's furious pounding on his prison. "Are you doing the right thing?" he asked carefully, each word as precise as an arrow aimed straight for Leon's most vulnerable spot – his sense of right and wrong.
"Stop asking me." Leon looked away. "Just stop."
"Leon." He breathed out the dear detective's name with the quiet intimacy of a prayer. "Tell me."
In that moment, Leon could almost feel Count D's presence weigh into his, his voice wrapping around his brain and seeping into the crevices to become a part of him. Despite being so very, very far away from the pet shop, the smell of incense crept into his mouth and clouded his senses. It was wrong. He knew it was wrong but he couldn't stop.
But it was too much. The pounding in his head sounded like a manic drum beat as Leon ran away from the Count's cage and out the door, stumbling with heavy feet into the open air of the woods in the evening, alone and afraid. He quickly locked up the shed, the sound of the chains and locks sliding into place enough to partially soothe the beating in his brain. Thankfully, the cloying stink of that imaginary incense was fading fast from his mouth and nose.
He leaned up against the side of the shed, trying to get his breathing under control and making mental plans for the next day. Tomorrow, Leon told himself, he would bring back some food for Count D – a sandwich and some tea, or something teeth-achingly sweet from the bakery. Then maybe the Count would stop looking at him like he'd done something wrong. Maybe next time, Leon could finally give the Count an answer.
Leon walked as fast as he could out of the woodlands, jumping slightly at anything that sounded like an animal. He could never be too sure; he didn't know when Count D's pets might come and find their master.