Disclaimer: I don’t own Petshop of Horrors, nor its characters.

Case 3: Taste

The streets were brimming with people, shouting at each other and throwing random insults inbetween sushi bites. Cluttered as the streets were with loud colours and banners, there was one building which was deadly quiet.

Inside the petshop Chinatown had become so familiar with, all was eerily quiet, save for a few hissing voices doing their best to keep quiet, lest the animals would be aggravated.

“What the fuck are you talking about? I don’t want anything to do with your business, and you know it damned well!” The blond detective hissed as he leaned over the Count’s slight frame, his face hovering slightly too close to be considered platonically threatening.

When Leon realised this, he quickly pulled away. Count D smirked, one leg crossing over the other. “But Detective…”

“Call me Leon, dammit!”

“Detective, would you like me to kick you out, or can I finish?” The Count showed the first signs of his patience cracking, his nails clawing into the armrests of his sofa. Leon stared at the man in front of him, trying to make him disappear with a glare. Unfortunately, in their staring matches, he had found his match.

He’d never won before.

Leon bristled and tossed himself back into his seat, hoping to damage it at least slightly. He could pretend it had been an excuse; he’d tried with the teacups, and D hadn’t bought it. Leon had paid for it with his entire month’s pay check. Goddamn smug bastard.

“You tricked me in here from the first moment you saw me, goddamn you. You probably made damn sure the boss sent me to this godforsaken shop with all of your little contacts around the town.”

“And why would I do that, mister detective? Surely I have no benefits that come with a rude boar of a detective coming to upset my poor pets? If there are benefits, please tell me, as I’d love to sample them.” D was very pleased with the direction this conversation was going.

“Of course, because you are a damn crossdressing homosexual! What the Hell, don’t you think I don’t notice your stares at me? It creeps me out, you freak.” The second Leon realised what he’d said, he regretted the words, if only for his own health.

D looked miffed for a second, but before Leon could comment on the loss of posture, the look had vanished from his sight. D got up, and very calmly tossed a cup of hot tea in the detective’s lap. He easily sat back down, smiling as Leon tried to cool down his pants without actually taking them off. “Careful now, mister detective… you wouldn’t want to entice me even further.”

Leon looked up, his right eyelid still twitching from the screams of pain he suppressed. “I’m already leaving, you bastard.” Leon was not amused that his voice sounded scratchy. Count D appeared to find it entire too amusing. “Just don’t get me involved in your business of homicidal pets or slaves or whatever the fuck you’re about.”

With a few long strides, Leon left the room, Toutetsu chasing after him angrily. On the way home he bumped into people, shoving them aside angrily.

--

“You have passed my test, mister detective.”

“What the fuck? What kind of test?” Leon yelled. He was, according to himself rightfully, pissed. D’s smirk was taunting him, and Leon wondered offhandedly whether a smile could recharge over a period of time and return with a vengeance.

Maybe only Chinese people could do that. Leon was ready to believe anything the Count told him. His detective instinct, normally very accurate, told him simply that the Count made no sense.

“The kind of test does not matter, mister detective.” Count D was simply very happy to see the detective reunited with his little brother, and Toutetsu satisfied with Leon’s leg.

“Of course it matters, you moron!” He took a brief pause to put the bonbons on D’s coffee table, before continuing his tirade. Really, could the Count just not be toying with his nerves, for once? He was relieved when Chris took the not so subtle yelling as a hint and took the hands of a raccoon as they walked into the next room.

Before Leon could sit down to have his disgusting tea – which he was sore to admit he was getting used to – Count D got up, took one of the confectionaries, and bit the tip off. He smiled, obviously pleased with the taste, and nodded, staring at Leon in a way that made the detective uncomfortable.

“Will you follow me to the appropriate room, please? I will see you to your heart’s desire, as you have paid the appropriate price.”

“…The fuck?” Leon doubted he could find a more appropriate answer if he tried.

Suddenly, Toutetsu was behind him, growling at him and hovering his teeth a little too close to Leon’s leg for the detective’s comfort. Unwilling to be scared of a stupid goat…thing, he took the first stubborn step in following the Count’s agile walk.

He missed the satisfied smirk that appeared on D’s lips when his footsteps joined D’s.

It was then that he realised that he’d been trapped long before he actually knew what was going on.

“Of course, there are some rules you will have to follow if you wish to obtain your wildest fantasy.”

--

The kiss tasted wonderful. It was excruciatingly sweet, most likely noxious to his teeth, and D’s mouth was cooler than he’d imagined it. It was a frenzied mixing of saliva, and Leon loved every second of it. Damn, but he’d missed some action in a big way, if he got this exited over a simple kiss. It wasn’t hard to ignore that he was kissing a man, as the body in his arms was small, and slender, and fucking clothed in a dress.

Leon found himself more than willing to warm up D’s mouth, and found D not a very unwilling participant. When D’s tongue probed his mouth, tracing his lips, he eagerly parted them.

Leon decided that next time, he should get better-tasting sweets. Then he thought no more.

--

Later that night, Leon rolled over in his own bed, with its own scent, and was reminded that he had to clean the sheets sometime this week, or D wouldn’t let him see Chris anymore.

And since when was he so goddamn whipped. Goddamn, it had just been some stupid hormone-deal anyhow.

He rolled over again, stubbornly refusing to stare at the moon and make idiotic romantic comparisons, the kind of sissies those seventeenth-century poets did.

The money he’d reserved for the Count’s extravagant chocolate cake was practically glaring at him.

Damn.

Count D stared at the same moon Leon was trying to avoid, and smirked. He almost didn’t mind the cracked nail. Almost.

“Yes, my dearest detective… you passed with flying colours indeed.”