An Unholy Alliance

With a groan, Leon stretched and decided to get himself a cup of coffee in the kitchen. He'd been doing paperwork for the last four hours, he deserved a break.

Glancing around the almost empty cubicles, he decided that he wasn't in the mood to talk and went to the kitchen alone, setting the old coffee machine to work. While he waited for the coffee, he lay down on the bench behind the table, quietly cursing the knotted muscles in his back.

"Fuck, wish I'd get some shifts out again," he grumbled and wriggled around, trying to relax them. Maybe he should ask D to give him a backrub this evening… perhaps the kami would be willing to…

"He's got quite the temper, Agent, you'd do better not to get too close to him."

Leon stilled his movements and listened closer. The voice was Alex', he recognised it at once and gritted his teeth. He'd had a nasty argument with his colleague the day before, and only Jill turning up had rescued the younger detective from being beaten.

"And not to the Count either," Alex continued with an eager voice. "If you ask me, it's quite suspicious! I mean, he spent two years going on about how that man's a criminal and then, suddenly, out of the blue, he has a kid with him, moves to Chinatown though everybody there hates him – I bet he's up to something!"

Leon felt the desperate need to give Alex Donovan the beating of his life.

"You should be careful to accuse your colleagues of being traitors, Mr. Donovan." Obviously Carter wasn't quite too happy about Alex, either. His voice was definitely cold. "All I wanted to know was if he ever mentioned Janet Williamson."

"No." Alex sounded disappointed. "Why? Who's she?"

"A woman who died last year," was Carter's short reply.

"Did she buy a pet? Was it one of those Pet Shop Deaths?" Alex sounded excited, but he was disappointed again.

"No, she did not. What is a Pet Shop Death?"

Leon didn't dare to move one muscle when the two men entered the kitchen and went to the coffee machine. "A Pet Shop Death is usually Orcot's speciality," Alex explained eagerly. "It means that it's a mysterious death and that the victim happened to visit Count D's Pet Shop before it died. The victim's usually pretty messed up – nasty, even for us. You wouldn't wanna see some of them!"

"I am an FBI-agent. Your petty little murders wouldn't shock me in the least. I have seen things you wouldn't even want to imagine, Donovan."

Leon would have exploded at the snotty voice. But Alex was only spurned on by it. "You really think so? Did you see the pictures of that fish we had to cut up to retrieve all body parts of Jason Gray? That was nasty, I tell you! Anyway, that Janet Williamson, what she's gotta do with the pet shop?"

"Nothing at all," Carter replied shortly. "I was merely wondering if someone happened to look into her death."

"Murder?"

"Suicide." There was a strange note in his voice. Leon would've liked to peek out, but he knew that the moment he moved, they would notice him, so he stayed where he was.

"Well, then it could be a Pet Shop Death… if often looks like suicide."

Carter snorted with disgust and left the kitchen again, Alex trailing behind him. Only when their steps had died down in the corridor did Leon move again. Absent-mindedly he went to the coffee machine and took the last half cup of coffee they had left, while his mind was racing. Okay, so Carter had found a connection between the guy that had owned the pet before Janet Williamson had stolen it – what had his name been, again?

Quickly Leon went back to his desk and looked for the file. An icy shock went through him when he opened it.

John William Carter.

He took a few deep breaths to calm himself and then opened Google. If Devon Carter was related to John William Carter, it was possible that he'd also known Janet Williamson. Then he would at least know why Carter had suddenly taken an interest in that particular case.

If.

He was still busy with that when he returned to the shop in the evening and sat on the sofa, his eyes looking into the distance. He hadn't found out if John William had really been a member of the Carter family – after all, the name was very common and he had no authority to request family registers or anything of the kind.

So he also didn't quite pay attention to what was going on in the parlour in general. It wasn't anything special anyway, Dana and Chris were just building a few bridges with the girl's Lego bricks, happily aided by Pon-chan. Tetsu was lying beside them, watching them with dutiful interest, while Ten-chan was sitting in the cradle. Whyever he was doing that.

Then the peace was disturbed by Honlon coming into the parlour. Junrei at once demanded to be involved in the game, something which Pon-chan refused quite unfriendly. In no time, they had started quarrelling. Chris was trying unsuccessfully to calm them down, but the noise didn't even reach Leon's ears. He was lost in his thoughts far too much.

He only woke when Tetsu bit down on his leg. "Hey!" he screamed and jerked up. The totetsu glared at him fiendishly. "Are you deaf or what? They're fighting back there, so be an adult for once and calm them down!"

Cursing, Leon pushed the goat-tiger to the side and went over to Pon-chan and Junrei, who were pulling at each other's hair. Chris was hopping around them in obvious distress and Ten-chan had Dana on his arms. "Junrei, Pon-chan, stop, please!" the boy pleaded and tugged at Honlon's dress. "Please, we can all play together, can't we?"

Leon made short work of them, grabbed both girls at the scruffs of their necks and parted them. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" he ranted. "If you wanna fight, do it somewhere else! D's gonna have a heart attack if you wreak havoc here!"

Protest from every side followed, but Tetsu managed to be heard over the others. "What kind of reasoning is that, you dumbhead? The Count wouldn't want them to fight anywhere!"

"You shut up, you freak!" Leon hissed. "Go and munch on someone else!"

"I would, unfortunately I'm not allowed to, thanks to you, idiot!" Tetsu replied and off they went.

Junrei and Pon-chan, of course, were happy to join in and continued to fight, too, until the noise in the parlour reached an almost ear-splitting level.

Which was why D stopped dead in his tracks and merely stared at the mess, having been drawn to it from the back of the shop where he had tended to some pets. He had hoped to have a nice, quiet cup of tea, now that Leon was back home, and perhaps ask the human if he would be willing to give him a backrub – but under this circumstances…

Shuko eyed him with interest and came closer. "Didn't you want to have him in the shop?" she asked, a mocking glitter in her eyes. "You knew that Leon would mean trouble… but you still wanted to keep him near you, didn't you?"

"Not if he's behaving like this!" D protested and put a hand to the doorframe. Shuko shook with silent laughter. "Well, Count, nevertheless I would advise you to keep him close during the coming weeks – I think you will rather need his presence."

D looked at her, confused, but was then distracted by Tetsu jumping onto Leon and biting the human in the shoulder. "TETSU! LEON!" he thundered and stepped right into the chaos, forcing Pon-chan and Junrei apart almost unconsciously. "Stop at once! What has gotten into you?"

Both opponents glared at each other while Leon righted his T-shirt. "That freak bit me! Twice!" he accused the totetsu who immediately defended himself. "Just because he didn't care about Junrei and Pon-chan trying to rip each other's hair out! I mean, really, what kind of father is he, not noticing that they're fighting?"

D turned to Ten-chan who was laughing quietly and shrugged at his glance. "Well, Pon-chan didn't want to play with Junrei, so Junrei and Kanan got angry and started to fight with her, and Leon was in la-la-land, so Tetsu went and bit him. And then they started to fight."

D's eyes narrowed. "And you didn't think that maybe you should put a stop to all this, Ten-chan?"

"Why would I?" the nine-tailed fox countered. "I was busy protecting Dana-chan. Anyways, I don't know what all the uproar is about. They didn't even shatter anything."

D sighed, sent both Pon-chan and Honlon to their rooms and then turned to Leon and Tetsu. The totetsu glared at the human, rose from the floor and stomped off without noticing D's soothing gesture. "I swear, one day I'm gonna cook and eat him! Just you wait!"

The kami turned to the rest, but Ten-chan had already gripped Chris's hand and was leading both children to the back so that he was left alone with the human. Wordlessly they looked at each other before D sat down in his chair, heaving a deep sigh.

"Why oh why did I ever consent to you living in this shop?" he asked the ceiling. Leon grumbled. With a nasty sound the sleeve of his T-shirt came off and he held it out to D, accusation on his face. "Just look what he did! That beast should be locked up, and the bigger the cage, the better!"

D didn't bother to answer. He felt tired. Leon continued to rant for a few moments, then he sat down, his face taking on a pensive expression. "D, what exactly is Tetsu? I mean, why does he threaten to eat me every damn time we quarrel? It's kind of stupid, I mean – he isn't even big enough to seriously harm me."

A smile flitted over the kami's face. "You should take his word for that, Leon. T-chan is not as harmless as he looks, and if you anger him too much, he will certainly hold his promise. And I personally doubt you would like to end up as one of his feasts. I recall you being not too happy about Mr. Wong."

"Who in his right mind would've been happy about that psycho?" Leon countered. Then his brow wrinkled. "Wait a moment... Tetsu? Tetsu is Wong?"

A/N: Sorry for not updating sooner. I decided to instead visit the hospital. Tell you, I'd have preferred updating...