Fandom: Petshop of Horrors
Character/s: Jill, the Chief
Words: 532
Notes: For fifteen minute ficlets, and for the characters everyone always seems to forget. Jill is more than a fangirl, dammit!
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Jill can only watch as the Chief strides back and forth across the length of their tiny office, large hands fisted tightly, arms cross behind his back. He looks, she thinks, like a vulture impatiently waiting for a fresh carcass to pick at. Jill doesn't want a fresh carcass; she misses the old one.
"What the hell is he thinking?" the Chief growls, turning to her all of a sudden, face creased with worry and fury just as hers had been when she'd dropped by Orcot's apartment and found that all his stuff was gone. He's asked her at least a dozen times and she can't answer now any more than she could the first time.
"He doesn't think," she mutters, uncrossing her legs, and recrossing them seconds later, uncomfortable. "He trusts his gut, remember? His stupid gut." She laughs, and there are tears in her voice, so she chokes the sound off abruptly and crosses her arms over her chest to keep the hurt in. The Chief hunches his shoulders like the Papa Bear that finds Goldilocks hovering over his oatmeal, and doesn't reply.
"You're right about that," he says gruffly in response. "God..."
Jill bites her lip and scowls ferociously at the carpet as the phone rings, and stops ringing, in another department. The place feels dead without Orcot here, ear-deep in paperwork and cursing under his breath about D's latest escapades, or his newest case - or, more often, both at once. The whole damn building up and died with one hastily penned letter of resignation.
Jill remembers slamming her fist onto her desk, upsetting her glass of water. "Can't even read his damn signature!" She remembers saying that.
But somewhere in her mind she knows that soon they'll have a new recruit to fill in Orcot's position and she'll look at him and have the words on the tip of her tongue, how's the Count? But there won't be a Count, and the new recruit wouldn't care if there was. Only Leon had cared, only Leon had brought the man into everything he could.
Only Orcot would throw his job and his apartment into the dirt to follow up on some ridiculous, unprecedented hunch.
"He's not dead, Jill."
"Orcot, I know - I know it's hard but you have to--"
She'll always remember that strange expression in his eyes, that strange light that had reminded her very suddenly of Count D, of the omniscience he had seemed to exude. I know something you don't know. Orcot had never looked like that in his whole damn life, she'd be willing to bet. But he had, then, and when he'd said, "Jill. He's not dead."
Jill is surprised to find her hands over her face and tears streaming down her cheeks, and the Chief patting her somewhat heavily on the shoulder. She looks up at him, grimacing terribly.
"I think I need the day off, Chief."
He nods, and she sees the redness of his eyes.
"Might be an idea you've got, there. Time off. Do us good. Do us all good."
They smile and walk away, pretending, but they both know Leon's never coming back.
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