Unknown

Series: Pet shop of horrors

Pairing: Count D & Leon

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters or series.


"The hell was that for, Leon?!"

Jill was glaring at him with enough venom to put him six feet under, and he supposed he couldn't blame her. The coffee they'd just bought was creating a damp stain on her jacket's sleeve, and he was really lucky it was a cold brew or his partner might just throw him to the wolves in their next raid, but it couldn't be helped, because there was no doubt in his mind that the girl currently being harassed by a bunch of assholes was her.

The pet shop's owner's assistant, Kagome.

She'd been the first one he met, glaring at him when he accused the pet shop of hiding dangerous poisonous animals and only reluctantly guiding him to D after he showed his badge.

Kagome was…unique, in a similar but different way to the man she worked with. There was a certain air, to her, to the way her eyes stood out with that vivid blue, shining with way too many secrets and that gentle smile that could turn sharp in an instant. In that way, the mystery that hovered over her was the same as the one he could feel from the Chinese man whenever he tried to get any info on the weird cases that were always related to the darn pet shop. That said, she was far more reasonable than her male counterpart, not speaking with a hundred riddles all the damn time, and showing a bit more empathy towards people…for the most part.

Anyway, he'd gotten to know the woman enough in the last few months for there to be no doubt in his mind that she was the one backing away from the four men attempting to surround her.

It felt wrong, Kagome was a tiny thing, but she was feisty.

He'd seen her force jerks to leave the shop, and she certainly never cowered in front of anyone, no matter how scary-looking the entitled bastards trying to cross boundaries were. This fragility on her…he hated it.

So he didn't bother to answer Jill's demanding question, jumping off the patrol and storming to the group.

"Hey!" He was already taking off his badge, scowl in place. "Stop harassing people and scram!"

"Who the…"

"Detective Orcot." Her voice brought the gangsters to a stop.

"Let's get outta here."

The group fled in a hurry, those guys definitely had way more to hide than just their nasty attitude right now.

Rolling his eyes, Leon turned towards the woman.

He supposed he could see why those assholes had surrounded her. Even inside China town her features weren't exactly common, but out in the normal streets of LA she was bound to attract attention, especially when the traditional Asian clothes those two seem to prefer were of higher quality and way more elaborate than what most street performers could afford. She was bound to attract attention. Unfortunately right now, the air of mystery that made her feel untouchable inside the shop was gone, so she they probably thought she'd be easy prey. Apparently, that wasn't entirely wrong.

"I…thanks for the help, Leon. I'll just go back to the shop." She seemed calmer now, her breathing back to normal, though she was still a little fidgety.

"Wait," Leon rushed to get the word out, not really knowing what he wanted to say next, floundering for a follow up. "I'll drive you."

"Aren't you in the middle of your work day?" She was smiling again, a bit of her playfulness returning as she glanced at the car hastily parked on the street.

"I was planning to swing by anyway." That was a lie, there weren't any odd cases to work on, and he'd been planning on enjoying a full day free of the eccentricities filling the pet shop. "Might as well save myself the trip."

"Sure you were," she laughed.

Faking offense, the detective was relieved when she followed her to the car, and blatantly ignored Jill's side eye glance after he half-mentioned, half-begged her to drive them to China town. She'd been badgering him about his constant visits for months now, and he was not in the mood to hear it again, not with Kagome in the back seat.

In only a few minutes, the young woman was back to the kind and somewhat mysterious assistant that could easily keep up with the banter his partner threw at her on the way back.

He'd have to buy her more than a coffee to make up for it, because his head just refused to focus on the conversation, too busy trying to figure out how the hell Kagome's confidence completely vanished when she'd dealt with those types of assholes before. The sass she could come up with was one of the things he genuinely liked about her, and it was always waiting under the surface for the right time to come out, so what changed?

Going through his memories, Leon kept coming up with nothing, this really made no sense, everything was the…wait…had he ever seen her outside on her own?

Of course she went out within China town, he'd seen her coming and going through other shops, and she'd dragged him around once or twice. Less often, he'd seen those two venture out their familiar streets, he'd also dragged them both out when the cases he was working on went out of hand. Whenever she was outside though, she was never alone…

D was going to have to explain this.

People's demeanor didn't just change at the flick of a switch for no reason at all. And while he could ignore the absolute void their pasts apparently were when they were just the weird couple manning the creepy pet shop, turning a blind eye at the fear in the woman's gaze wasn't something he could do. Last time he tried to do some digging he'd found nothing, and the duo had brushed him aside with riddles and overly sweet cakes, but this time, he could not accept vague words for answers.

"Leon?" Jill's knuckles tapped against his head. "Thought you were going to get out here?"

With a huff, the detective opened the door, not bothering to glance his snickering partner's gaze when throwing it shut, too busy ignoring the questioning look on the foreign woman's blue eyes.

Loud steps feigned his lack of concern as he entered the pet shop ahead of her. Habit had him scanning the cages full of perfectly normal and innocent-looking pets, no matter how he looked at the place it felt way too small for the sort of rooms that'd be needed to house all of these animals, plus the two humans who lived here. Really, everything about this shop was suspicious, for once, however, that wasn't what his mind was focusing on.

"Welco…Kagome-chan!"

In an instant, the pleasantly fabricated business smile fell from the man's face, wasting no time to cross the room, placing his hands on her shoulders and scanning the young woman's form after subtly glaring at Leon. Really, he was mildly offended at the obvious implication that Kagome could've gotten hurt when she was with him.

"I'm back," she said, leaning into the man's palm when he went to caress her cheek. "Leon gave me a ride on the way back."

"Humm, I suppose thanks are in order, then." D's voice was still reluctant as he moved to hug the woman.

"Just saving myself a trip," Rolling his eyes, the detective crossed his arms before looking at Kagome. "What were you doing there anyway?"

"Clearly, your observational skills are top notch, detective. As I told Jill, I was doing a house call, Momo decided she could jump off a balcony and land with no issues," she laughed a little.

"Oh dear, so reckless that one." There it was, that concern that only ever showed in the Chinese man's face when it was an animal in danger instead of a human. "It was nothing severe I hope?"

"Nothing a month of rest won't heal, but it looked pretty bad."

As usual, those two got lost in their conversation, completely forgetting he was in the damn room. Coughing out loud was rude, but the detective didn't care at all, catching the man's glare who gave up with a sigh and let go of her. At least it looked like D understood what he wanted, and didn't that carry some implications he didn't quite like. Because if just a look was enough for him to know what this was about, it meant it was likely worse than he initially thought.

"Well, that's a relief then." The man clapped, smile ever present. "Now, why not take a tea break, we do have that cake from the other day, well paired with the right tea, it should be enough as a show of gratitude."

"Oh, you mean that one?"

"Yes," D smiled. "No better time to try it out."

Nodding, Kagome grinned in response and left into the hallway that led to far more rooms than it had a right to. Right, while the not-count was obsessed with sweets, the young woman had a fascination for tea, and there was always a new brew with a weird name that Leon struggled to differentiate from the last one waiting for him.

Waiting for a second for the girl to be further away, the detective followed D to the usual waiting room, and considered just standing up for the rest of the conversation before letting himself fall on his regular chair with a huff. There was no point trying to put on a front when it'd make Kagome suspicious if she found him with his arms crossed and interrogating her boss, and for once, he really didn't want a full confrontation to blow out. Leon wasn't exactly known for his tact or empathy, he preferred to be direct and go straight to the point, but even he didn't want to press the young woman.

"So?"

"So…what exactly, detective?" The man questioned back as he sat down.

"What the hell was that about?" He wasn't in the mood to play with words. "She was cowering and couldn't say a peep just because a few punks were cornering her. She looked terrified."

"That's what happened…I don't suppose you'll just let this go?"

"Fat chance."

With a tired sigh, D shook his head before turning to look down at the fox that often trailed after the young woman. Wait, when did it get in?

"Could you bring that in, Shippo-san?" The fox whined, and Leon could swear it glared at him before D spoke again. "I know, but he won't give it up and he might actually be useful this time around."

"What is going on here?" His voice was low and firm, there was no dodging this.

"That's what I'd like to know too, detective." Before Leon could try to interrupt, the Chinese man continued. "I don't know what happened to Kagome before she found her way to the pet shop.

"About a two year or three ago, I came back from buying some cake at the end of a shift to find the front door was open and hiding in the back of one of the shelves was an unconscious and injured woman. This is the only thing she was wearing." D leaned down, retrieving a clear bag from the fox and passed it to him. Wary and careful, the detective opened it to find a white lab coat, splashed with brown stains that could only be blood. He knew this would be bad. "When she woke up, she was scared, disoriented, and the only thing she remembered was the name Kagome."

"And you didn't go to the police?"

"Memories or no, it was clear she was being hunted." Freezing cold seeped into the man's voice. "Of course, I did what I could to find who she was, asked around China town, both about her and about the night we met, but all I got were a couple of people who heard gunshots around the time she would've been running away. She was nervous about getting out of the shop for the first few months, but she completely froze when going out to your streets.

"Whoever hurt her came from the outside, and though I looked for missing person's reports there was nothing to be found, and you think I should've called for your people?" D's eyes narrowed, a challenge on its own…and Leon's words died in his throat.

"Still…"

"You can take it if you want, do your tests, I'd love to know where to stay away from." The man waved his hand in an elegant flourish. "Now, let's have that cake, shall we?"

Rushed motions shoved the bag inside his jacket, turning around just in time to see the girl enter, tray in hands, mystical smile back in place. He'd known her for months now, talked to her on the regular and was used to some of her responses, yet never for a minute did he think she'd been dealing with something like amnesia or the paranoia of knowing she'd been hunted.

And that was the only reason his eyes were glued to the young woman.

Her movements were graceful as she poured brown liquid on three too-small cups and went to sit on her boss' lap, letting D feed her small portions of the cake as the man himself ate from the same cake slice. Somehow, his motions were every bit as elegant. Just as always, they were entangled with one another without getting tied up, moving in a rhythm that made him want to look away even while their very sight kept his gaze chained to their forms.

Leon didn't even taste the cake, barely even feeling the burn in his tongue as he threw back the cup of burning liquid, a litany of excuses leaving him as he rushed out the door.

It's not that he was running away, he just had things to do.

For once, D had given him straight answers, and if the implications of what he said were true, then he couldn't ignore it, he had to find out what had happened to the young woman. There was no time to waste. It didn't matter that this happened at least two years ago, or that he didn't even have a solid timeline to work with. He had things to work with.

That was it. That was all.

It had nothing to do with those recent' and damned persistent dreams featuring the mysterious couple.

He had a type. Blonde, tall, curvy. That's the sort of women he liked, the ones he tried to woo. Women only. It had been that way all of his life, and he'd been perfectly happy about it.

So of course there was no way the scenes from those dreams were sticking in his mind, that he kept seeing slender bodies intertwined, waves of pure black cascading down pale skin, long nails tracing figures on a delicate back, amused laughter shining in bright a blue gaze, predatory hunger hiding in mismatched eyes. It wasn't tempting. He hadn't been waking up in the middle of the night, gasping and covered in sweat and needing to go take ice cold showers.

Putting the bastards who hurt the Japanese woman behind bars was just him doing his duty as a detective. He wasn't particularly invested because it was Kagome and he knew she was perhaps the only person D genuinely worried about. The fact that the mere image of her shot and bleeding out was enough to sent him in a rage wasn't what was fueling his determination.


"That human is buzzing around you again, it seems."

"Don't be mean, Sesshoumaru," Kagome laughed, shaking her head. "He helped me out today."

The Inu daiyoukai hummed, clearly unimpressed.

Rolling her eyes, the woman kept passing the comb through the long strands of silver hair. The action was as soothing for her as it was for him, though it might be because even with the black void that took the place of her memories, his presence was familiar, so this nightly habit of helping out with his grooming helped her keep calm. It didn't hurt that the room that had to be one of the most luxurious one within the shop was styled in a traditional Japanese aesthetic that felt somewhat nostalgic.

"Humans are hardly worth any attention," the demon lord said, as if he was talking about an ant.

"You know, I'm pretty sure I'm still a human." At least she felt human, even knowing how…unusual her existence was. "And he's not that bad."

"Next time the fox and the mutt are busy, this Sesshoumaru shall escort you."

"…didn't want to bother you." A scoff was her answer, and she didn't need him to speak to know what it meant. "Fine, I promise it won't happen again."

A large hand stopped hers, taking the comb from her hand and pushing back a lock of midnight hair behind her ear, golden eyes clearly looking for injuries, despite the impossibility of it. "It looks like your taste still has issues to be worked on. At least, one of them is competent, go back to him and rest, Miko."

"Sure, sure, love you too," Kagome smiled at his affronted look as she turned to leave. "Goodnight."

Guilt pooled in the pit of her stomach, even as she walked through the winding hallways of the shop. For the past three years, Kagome had fallen in love with this place and the beings it sheltered, she couldn't say she regretted ending up finding her way here.

But it still felt unfair.

Living here with no memories of her past had been a little scary, but she'd mostly felt grateful towards D and the others. A part of her had accepted the fact that she might never recover them. Only a few months in though, a ginger kitsune found his way to the shop, shortly followed by the inu daiyoukai and a couple of very guilty looking wolfs. They'd spent years looking for her and had finally managed to catch her scent in the jungle that was LA.

Whether they admitted it or not, all of them had lost her.

The person they met and grew to love, the one they spent around five hundred years with was gone. It didn't matter that they'd all agreed it was better for her not to try to remember if all she got out of trying were painful headaches and panic attacks. After all, they knew what had to have happened to her.

During a walk while she searched for new accommodations, Kouga had gotten distracted, not noticing the miko jumping into the middle of traffic to try and save a kid. Her body was too broken and the wolf failed to shake off the cops that had been unhelpfully quick in responding to the emergency. By the time they managed to follow her scent to an emergency hospital, all traces of her had been wiped, and her trail was lost between a confusing popurrí of disinfectant, death and drugs. They didn't need confirmation as to what happened next. Whatever facility trapped her must've gotten careless after a few years, giving her a chance to escape, though evidently, she failed to keep whoever her impatient hunter had been from hitting at her head. The combination of the injury and years of trauma enough to seal her memories and leave her a blank slate.

It wasn't her fault, helping others was what she did, or so they told her. Besides, they got her back…it was something Kagome couldn't quite accept yet.

Slender fingers hesitated a little before opening the door of what technically was D's bedroom but might as well be hers by now. The male was waiting for her, playing with a brush of his own. And the miko could feel herself relax a bit more.

"Is our esteemed lordship pleased with today's menu?" He asked as the girl crossed the wide room to seat in front of the vanity, glancing at her for a second before lighting an incense pouch.

"He's happy with the food." Kagome leaned back, letting him take as long as he wanted toying with her hair. "Less enthused about our uninvited guest."

"Can't say I'm too happy myself," D sniffed but didn't look away from her reflection.

"Oh?" She smiled. "You two seemed to be having a very interesting conversation."

"If that's the one thing he can do, he might as well do it." His words lacked venom.

"Come on, D, you know he has his moments." Honestly, Kagome liked him, he was rude and brash, but he stuck to his principles. "There are other ways to get your hands on those cakes."

"Perhaps he is less objectionable than others, but he is hardly the most exemplary subject that species has to offer…in any case, I suppose Sesshoumaru-sama already went through new safety protocols?"

Long fingers left the brush aside in favor of tracing her neck, looking for the golden thread that held together the collar of her Qi Pao with intricate knots. Closing her eyes, Kagome took a deep breath, allowing the sweet aroma of the incense to take away the last of her tension.

"Yes, no going outside on my own from now on."

"Hmm, no surprises then," the male hummed against her neck, his hands never stopping their work, helping the silk slide down her body. "I can truly say I wasn't expecting to be given the honor of caring for you like this."

Kagome hummed, she couldn't say she agreed that the honor was his. After reuniting with the others, it became clear how much they cared for her. The only reason they'd managed to accompany her for all this time was because the four youkais traveling with her were one of the strongest there had been, but even they couldn't hold off time forever. At some point, they'd leave her behind. But in this pet shop, in this arc, she would be safe. D may not share her same brand of immortality, but he was untouchable in many similar ways. He'd share in her eternity.

He'd share in her pleasure as well.

And though he kept feigning his dislike, Kagome couldn't help but wonder if they'd end up sharing something more with the ever persistent detective that was sure to stop by tomorrow, trying to get the details he was too in a rush to gather today.

A/N: I know this was not what I was supposed to update but I was feeling under the weather this week and just couldn't finish the chapter in time. Going through the doc where I save these shorter stories I realized there were more I never uploaded though, so at least I have something here, a bit obscure as this one might be.

As always, thank you guys so much for reading and any and all criticism are greatly appreciated.