T-Chan let his mind drift aimlessly. With his eyes closed, his ears filled with sounds that had not too long ago ingited a sense of triumph and anticipation.

The faint tapping and scraping of a high-quality silver fork against a china plate, and the soft grunts and hums of pleasure were the equivalent to the sharp tug on an experienced fisherman's line. There was a difference this time, or maybe many differences tied together.

Leon didn't know that it was T-Chan who had specially made the breakfast dish that he was obviously enjoying, yet Leon wanted to do something with him that he thought T-Chan would enjoy. T-Chan hadn't needed to bait and lure this human with his culinary skills to get time alone with him. He couldn't eat him, either…not that he really wanted to now.

Leon was going to give back at least some access to the world that he had yanked away from him. And Leon had started calling him T-dude, rather than "the freaky goat thing", or "Goatzilla".

T-dude. Leon somehow managed to reinstate a hunter-quality to his renaming…or nicknaming.

T-dude…

"Prrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr—" The sound of satisfaction came out of T-Chan without conscious intent.

Leon stopped eating, leaned back in his chair and peered down at his living lap-warmer. "You sure y'don't want some of this b'fore I kill it off completely?" He speared another large chunk of the sirloin and offered it to T-Chan.

T-Chan responded with a rather mischievous look in his eyes and slipped his nose under Leon's hand which he gave an upward nudge. He sealed his wordless message by slipping his head gracefully down to the arm that Leon was "holding" him with and began dragging his rough tongue along the inside length of it in slow repetition.

Leon chuckled through his nose, his blue eyes sparkling warmly with amusement. "I'll take that as a: 'shut-up-and-finish-eating'". He guided the piece of sirloin into his own mouth while still looking down at T-Chan with a grin.

"Y'know, T-dude," Leon mused out loud after actually waiting to swallow his food, "I REALLY don't get why the hell D was pay'n Wong t'cook for'im! Seems t'me like he can cook just as damn-good as that uber-psycho did."

T-Chan simply answered by closing his eyes and continuing his 'work' with a renewed sense of pride. "Prrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr—"

For Leon Orcot, breakfast was usually coffee and donuts, coffee and toasted frozen waffles, coffee and toaster pastries, coffee and fast-food bacon or sausage flavored salt sandwiches, and sometimes, cola and left-over pizza. For Leon Orcot, those were the "good" breakfasts.

Now, the dectective's body was settling into a state of near-euphoria from the high-quality protein and complex carbohydrates. His fork lightly clattered to a rest on the empty plate, and he eased back against the chair with his full weight and brought his newly-freed hand to the back of T-Chan's neck. He let out a hum-mixed sigh of satisfaction and gave the totetsu's neck a few careful rubs.

T-Chan was actually surprised when Leon stood up and set him back on the warmed seat of the chair.

"Gonna take care of the dishes before goin back t'bed," Leon announced pleasantly as he picked up his plate and reached for Pon-Chan's empty bowl. "I'll take that as a BIG compliment from you, babe." He grinned down at the little tanookie as she watched his movements with a rather satisfied look of her own. With his free hand, he picked up the empty bowl which Pon-Chan's left-over water was in and nested it inside the empty identical bowl her rice had been in.

Pon-Chan screeched indignantly when Leon turned his back to her to head for the sink, "Wait for me!"

Leon turn his head to see what was wrong and saw Pon-Chan looking over the side of the table as if trying to gauge her distance from the floor.

With a slight feeling of panic, Leon quickly came up with the idea to pull the nearest chair out by snagging one of its legs with his foot. "There ya go, baby. That help?"

Pon-Chan broke out in a bubbly giggle of enthusiasm and let herself down to the seat of the chair and from there to the floor. "Thank you," she said as she looked up at him with dancing brown eyes.

"Well, let's get to it, then," Leon twitched his head towards the sink and then started in that direction again.

Q-Chan had been dozing on top of the counter by the stove, soaking in the warmth given off by the pot of rice sitting on the back burner. The little sounds of Leon at the sink motivated him to pull his eyes open to see what was happening.

Leon dumped the water out of Pon-Chan's bowl in a swish and then set all of the dishes on the counter next to the sink. He quickly spotted the natural sponge resting by the water tap handles, but didn't see any familiar dish-soap bottles, even in the cupboard under the sink. After a moment of feeling quite perplexed, the idea finally came to him to smell the sponge in his hand. He needed to look for something that smelled lemon-y. Of course. "Got any idea where the dish soap is, baby?" Leon looked down at Pon-Chan a bit embarrassed.

Pon-Chan pulled open one of the cupboard doors below the sink and pointed to a ceramic sugar bowl which Leon had dismissed in his mind as being there because there was no room for it anywhere else. Leon lifted the lid to find a syrupy liquid that had a small ceramic ladle sitting in it which matched the bowl.

"Bet it's organic," he said with a smirk. As he closed the cupboard door and set the sugar bowl near the water tap, he looked around the kitchen for something he hadn't thought to look for until now: anything with plastic. "Shoulda guessed," he said to himself when his brief search didn't turn up even one item that even had plastic on it. Even the catch-tray under the wooden dish-draining rack to the right of the sink was molded glass.

The detective let out a soft laugh and then quickly washed the two bowls, plate, teacup, fork, and spoon, then put the dish cleaning liquid back where he'd found it after setting them in the drainer. His face pulled into to a new perplexed frown when the pot of rice on the stove drew his attention. "Should I put the rice in the fridge?" The idea visibly bothered him, because he knew the pot was still fairly hot.

"Kyu-kyu-kyu," Q-Chan waved a tiny, dismissive paw and shook his head serenely.

Leon looked at him skeptically, "Okay, then. But if D bitches about it, you better have my back," he warned teasingly.

A/N: Apologies for taking so long with postings to this and my other stories.