Down the rabbit hole

Is anyone reading this even? I must have lost my touch because no one is even complaining^^!

Sury

Chapter three,

When Leon showed up on his job the next day, to give in his plead for some of his free days since he needed to clear up some ends with his lawyer, his chief told him to take two weeks off instead. That an agent would soon come over and that he wanted Leon out of that ones way out of a point Leon did not get until he heard the name of the lead agent, Howell.

Outside the building, Leon stood a short while in front of his old battered car, before he sat into the drivers seat and went to the apartment building on his way home.

Once inside, he asked Doc if he had known that his friend Howell was coming here. Doc looked shocked for a moment before he shook his head thoughtfully. "No, but I think I will go and meet him while he is here, Orcrot san." He told Leon with a strange grin that had Leon arch a brow at him. Doc did all he could to look as innocent as possible back to the darn insightful cop in his living room.

Leon wasn't fooled.

"I hope you know what you are doing, Doc. Just don't go and mess up our lives here in the follow, ok?" He gave the D known as Doc a lopsided grin. Doc echoed it faintly. "Just… so you know, it isn't too late for me and go back to the office to spank his ass, you know?"

He told Doc with a warm smile. His words had the father of D laugh softly.

"Oh no, Leon san, don't you worry yourself sick with my problems. I think I found a way to handle… him. However, you should go and visit my… family after this visit of yours. I have the feeling that the young Count will need you in the eminent future." He told Leon cryptically before he shoed Leon out and turned to get his things done. Leon just hoped it wasn't that virus he had dreamed about and went with a bad feeling in his stomach in beeline to the shop.

Two hours later he stood face to face with an unpleasant forty something old, agent Howell inside of the shop. Right in front of the shocked looking D and Chris, while cussing up a wild streak at the man that did the same back at Leon. Not letting him or the others lay D in cuffs and trying to explain to the odd at Howell and Leon looking group of agent's and cops that Howell was wrong here.

The two hotheads nearly had a brawl right inside the foyer of the shop, until one of the other agents in the room with them suddenly had a message texted to him that told of another, slightly older looking man, looking like D had just been sighted on the airport. Howell made comically wide eyes when confronted with this, then slowly got it in that Leon had told him the truth and that there was another one that looked like a twin to this D.

Looking back and forth a few times between the picture of Doc on the laptop screen that showed the person on the airport and the younger Count inside the shop, the agent hastily departed while cursing madly together with his group to catch his D.

Right under the startled looks of Q-Chan, D and Chris, right behind the scowling Leon.

A short while later, Howell came back alone and incensed to interrogate D about the other look alike. Doc had seemingly vanished from the airport just a few minutes before they had arrived. Only to find out, yes, they were related and no he did not know were the other had went to. Leon had the sudden urge to send Howell to the apartment and did so. Lately his gut feelings had never proven wrong when it came down to deal with any of them all.

When the bunny and his D gave him an angry look Leon glared back.

"Just trust me this time, ok! I have the strange feeling that he should be there?" He threw his hands up in his own confusion of being so freakishly sure about that. D closed the doors and the bunny suddenly changed into the Count. Right in front of Leon who squinted first at it and then broke out into an unbelieving: "I knew it! These weird dreams really were true visions, hot damn it!"

Needless to say Leon had a lot of explaining to do in the next fife hours.

In the end, Count D called Sofu from his grandchild while looking not older as D himself and D set stunned across of a tired Leon. Chris had fallen asleep, leaned against Tetsu at Leon's feet. "I wonder why you had these future visions at all, Mr. Orcrot. Somehow this feels as if one of the fates stepped in but I don't know why one of them should have done so, to be honest." The former bunny gone Count sighed wearily. Over the last months his grandson had become deadly attached to Leon and to Chris as well. Sofu had too, to such an extent that he slowly got the feeling that it would only grow in the future.

Those two were nothing ordinary at all.

Giving the sleeping Chris a look he begun to tell Leon a story that was so unbelievingly that it stunned Leon wordless for once. About an ass of an emperor and his quest to marry a being that wasn't what he thought it to be in his greed for gaining immortality for himself as well as their powers to his command. He told Leon of the murdering of an species and of the pledge of the survivor to protect the animals and to deal out justice to the human kind for them.

To Sofu's utter confusion Leon thought long before he answered uniquely as usual for him.

"Uhh, no offence, Sofu san, but what exactly has that shit to do with Chris and me?" Both creatures, that Leon now knew to be Deities, gave him a strange look. "Pardon?" That came from the younger D.

"I mean D, as I have understood my strange dreams, it is your duty to deal out punishment only to those who deserve it, am I correct here?" At the nods of both Counts Leon went on, mostly musing loudly to himself in a way that Leon used when trying to figure something important out. "So tell me then Count D, do either, Chris or I really deserve such punishments too? Honest answer please, D."Leon was kind of fishing here and he knew that he gambled literally with both of their lives right now but somehow he just knew that this was going to be alright. So he took the leap and believed into his gut feeling.

The two deities looked a bit taken aback at each other, then around in the shop at the suddenly silent animals, then Sofu suddenly stood and walked over to Leon to then look the man into his eyes for a very long while.

After what seemed to be an eternity the old Count walked slowly back to his eat like an old man and sat heavily down again, clearly a bit stunned. It mystified D and Leon equally seeing him somewhat space out right in front of both. "Uhh… is he ok, D?" The aforementioned shrugged helplessly at the question, not exactly knowing either and suddenly stood up to himself have also look at Leon in the end.

Leon in the meanwhile, had for the second time this day the weird feeling of some kind of alien presence sorting through his mind and soul. Again he did nothing to fight it out, having the strong believe that he had done nothing wrong in his live so badly that it deserved a punishment like those he had seen in his dreams. In the end his D suddenly went to his knees and hugged the flabbergasted Leon with a sob.

"Hey! Huh? Eh, D?! Someone here wants to tell me what's the fuck going on? I can't have done something that bad to have you cry on me now… or did I? Why are you crying, D? Come on, this is not funny! Damn!" D just went on to hang to Leon while he cried like a lunatic into the helplessly him holding arms of Leon. The count finally found his voice back to answer Leon's questions all in one.

His face and voice betrayed his surprise clearly to the concerned and stalk white faced Leon.

"To answer your formerly brazen question about deserving punishment or not, Mr. Orcrot: No, you actually do not, what is a wonder in itself. Chris, I knew already to be a good child and soul. He never did something wrong in his life before nor do I think that he ever will, to be honest."

He gave Leon a intense look out of his golden eyes. One that had Leon suddenly want to hide in some hole away from the old being in fright. Strangely enough as that was.

"You, detective, are something so unlike anything that I have ever meet in my very long existence as one human can manage it to be. A human being that never went and killed without a reason, only when you needed it, you did and always only to protect others but never only yourself.

You also never went and have pettily judged others, as weird as that is for someone in your line of duty.

You do not judge, you do not go and destroy others or other beings in general, you do not steal, lye or envy even others for what they have that you have not. Instead you try to protect the weak with your own life put on the line even, if needed. You help out the ones that have otherwise no one, go and protect others from themselves if needed and if that is nearly killing you, you care not as long you did manage to help them. And that all, without ever asking for something in return, wanting to be rewarded or anything else of that line. Just happy with it that you did something what you call the right thing to do, in your little mind.

You, Leon are a human like no other that I have seen since a few Millennia and that is confusing me greatly because I thought such as you and your brother to be extinct!

That your race has lost such innocence like Chris still has it and such pious people like you on their way to dominate every other species on this planet. You have not even an ounce of thirst for power in you! I don't know how you managed to stay like this in this world, but it gives me something to mull over for a while, detective. Something that I thought I would never have to do since I really believed until now that humans like you are a myth!" He gave Leon's bewildered look a laugh and rubbed his face wearily.

"What do you mean by that, Sofu san? What's is so strange about me just being a good cop or thinking like that?"

The other laughed wearily again, then he gave Leon a honest smile that made Leon's mind reel. Somehow he had passed a test and had not realized it, Leon analyzed and shuddered slightly. Whatever it had been about, he had passed and he wasn't so sure that it had been a good thing but he would life with the consequences as long he could keep his strange rag-tag family with him.

Standing the Count gave Leon another bittersweet smile that made Leon want to cry out of the blue.

"Nothing, child, absolutely nothing is wrong with being a good, cop and person, as you call it. What you actually are in more ways as you do realize yourself. I have to go and talk with a certain lady about disrupting the fates, even thought this time, she was right to do so before something bad would have taken place." He patted D on the head while he was still crying relieved in Leon's arms about it that Leon had passed an almost impossible judgment so easily. Then the older Count suddenly took hold on Leon's amulet string to take it out of his shirt to look at it.

After a while he handed it back to Leon.

"What are the odds for such a thing occurring?" He mused to himself and then left the perplexed looking Leon in his wake.

"He still didn't tell me what the heck he meant with this all, damnit!"

In his lap D just laughed weekly at Leon's outburst before he went back to hiccup and cry softly at Leon's sudden outburst. Much to Leon's mortification and slight worry. In the end Leon had to stay overnight since D was suddenly adamant to not let go on him and Chris for the night. Whatever was going on, the cop thought scowling up at the canopy of his lavish bed in the shop, he had no clue of it and the others weren't telling him either.

Finally he turned around with an annoyed huff and went to sleep.

The next week flew by with D acting almost eerily bizarre around him until Saturday came and with it D's father. He walked into the shop with an befuddled looking Howell in tow, who seemed not to know why he was following the one he called Doc around. At Leon's questioningly raised eyebrow the father shrugged dismissingly.

"Told you I would talk with him, didn't I?"

Leon deigned no to comment that. He had the feeling that Doc had done something to the poor man behind him, that currently glared holes into Doc's skull in his obvious anger. Then he suddenly stalked over to Leon who sat on the couch while D stood to talk to his father in the kitchen. "Did you know all the time that they are these Kami or whatever, things?!" He groused down at Leon who was unperturbed continuing with drinking his coffee. D for once had made him some, seeing how tired Leon was and having felt pity enough to have Tetsu make some.

Leon shrugged.

"Yeah, that Uhh. Well, a bit? Always thought that they weren't normal from the beginning, why?" Howell cursed profoundly and sat opposite to Leon down to take a cup of coffee for himself from the table. "I thought I would go insane with him before, but that was Nothing, compared to what I feel right now! I hoped that Doc was kidding me until he went and used his damnable powers to make me follow him around these last days, nonstop!" He gave the still calm at him looking Leon a weird gaze.

"You take this all calmer than I, son."

Leon nodded shortly, seeing suddenly Tetsu walk between the table and him. The gruffy Tao Tie sat down there and looked angrily at the agent. Leon wisely chose to scratch Tetsu behind the ears as he had seen D do, to suffuse the anger of the foul tempered man-eater before he went ballistic on the unsuspecting Howell.

"You are petting a young boy, or what looks to me like a teenager now since Doc did something to me to see animals as humans!" He told the still eerily unperturbed Leon.

He too saw Tetsu and some of the other animals lately in their other forms, sometimes had even weird conversations with them. He slowly had gotten used to that. Obviously, Howell had not. "Oh, that, Uhh… I think I got used to it. After a while. Yeah, I see them too since a while but actually care a shit to be honest. I had already before the feeling that there was something weird going on?" Howell nodded shortly.

"They did something to you too."

Leon cracked a grin at his defeated sounding quip. "Naah, I just don't see the problem, you know? It is actually rather nice at times to talk with them. And he here can actually cook like a pro, trust me in that! As long he does not try to cook something forbidden in my line of thoughts that is… ah never mind." He gave Tetsu a grin that was echoed from the bemused Totetsu that still tried to bite him each time he saw an opening, much to D's wry amusement.

Leon had simply taken to watch out more and often showed the teenager something else as his hide into the mouth instead.

One time it was a lamp staff another time a cake. The latter had D in a fit in under ten seconds since it was ruined afterwards. The two got thrown out that day for a few hours. Much to their mutual chagrin. It had become a new game between him and Tetsu in of late.

One, that the other animals in the shop watched with great amusement from the safe sidelines. One time Tetsu was winning, other times did Leon. Tetsu had become friendlier to Leon after what the oldest Count had told to Leon. The animals milling around him had become more in exchange. They now had taken to rather pester the poor cop when he was inside the shop.

Right now, Leon tried not to think about it that he felt and saw a rattle snake crawl inside of his pats leg to suck up his warmth better that way and watched instead the scowling agent drink his coffee.

On his left shoulder perched daintily a like a strangely clothed looking young man, that was a lesser bird of paradise in truth. He had squinted at each of the persons he lately spoke to before he did open his mouth. Not wanting to look odd to Jill or the others in the end. More then once he had caught himself just barely to speak to a animal in front of other humans.

D had become a rather strange kind of an lovely pest in the last days too.

His friend had lately turned out to be rather clingy in Leon's opinion but he did not really mind D much. Actually Leon enjoyed himself quite a big deal too. Especially when he saw D scowl at the woman that lately suddenly seemed to loiter around the confused Leon outside the shop. He did not really get it why they suddenly seem to want to do that now and not in the past. He ignored them nonchalantly all the same at any given time for D now. The latter had noted that and had smiled rather pleased when seeing this, what had Leon's stomach every time make odd loops when he saw that secretive smile play around D's lips.

Leon felt often the urge to kiss D in the late and one of these day's he knew he would lose it and damned do so.

That moment both Kami's chose to come back and Howell was dragged out with Doc again before he knew what had hit him. Leon just watched while he felt the bird leave him and D lean instead against him. "What an odd pair if you ask me, D." He told his companion while he stared after the weird couple. D just nodded and leaned into Leon more.

"Yes, I agree. They truly make an odd duo as you put it, Leon san. At least the two now have stopped to fight with each other, a wonder if you ask me. You need to go to the lawyer later?" Leon shook his head. "No. I did that already yesterday, remember? I wanted to take Chris out to the baseball game this evening. Wanna come too?" D shook his head with a sad smile.

"No, regretfully I have an appointment with a customer that I need to take care of."

He smiled at Leon who smiled back and watched D go to a new customer that had entered. He watched the woman silently. She made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up in disgust, out of a point that Leon could not get. The snake currently tried to strangle his leg and Tetsu growled softly at her from his spot between his feet.

*Of course, why not! It had already to be one of those customers that flies into the shop on this sunny morning at this early hour, wonderful this will go on for the entire damn day! Mark my words.*

He groused right into Leon's mind. Leon had lately found out that he had seemingly developed a kind of instinct that concerned people that were potential contract breakers of D's contracts when they came inside. He grimaced and put his cup down.

He had also lately begun to hear the animals talk to his mind like Chris, who had been overjoyed to have Leon now hear them this way too.

Ever since then, his life had become a bit easier around them. The beasts could now talk freely without to have to watch themselves all the time around Leon. Sure, that too meant that he now had to listen to their teasing him all the time too, especially to those jokes of that three times cursed fox boy, but Leon slowly learned to deal with that.

Tetsu mostly was good company now, the two found out one day that Leon and he often thought eerily the same, concerning others. It had amused them both seriously when finally finding that one out.

"Yeah I noticed too." Leon softly spoke back to the beast. The hang on talking via mind only still eluded Leon somewhat. He stood carefully not to spook D's customer away and went like a ghost into the kitchen behind the shops entrance rooms. There he put down his coffee again and sat on a chair to drink it in silence and peace.

Tetsu watched the cop doing so, Chris was out to a check out his new school with a woman from the children's care bureau and would not be back before two in the afternoon.

The man took this all silently and eerily calmly. He understood that the dragon lady had something to do with it and didn't question his Lord's luck in this. All knew that Leon was off limits for them. D had made that clear right away and hey, he couldn't even blame his Kami in this for once. D deserved a good mate, Tetsu sighed. Even if it had to be the bloody idiot brother of Chris in the end. Hopefully the moron would not run out at the first signs and do something foolish.

The most humans had trouble with such relationships between seemingly fully Male/Male beings.

Although, Leon was surprisingly enduring to the slowly growing signs of affection from his god. Tetsu mulled about that for a few minutes before he shrugged it off. Not his concern he figured, as long Leon did not run out on the Count. He took another chair and slouched into it with a scowl. He hated it in the late when such humans as that woman came into the shop. Why did all else beside this moron had to be bad humans?

Tetsu simply failed to get it.

Ten too, from what he was told. The spirit fox sat often in his rooms now and tried to figure that riddle presented to him out. No avail until now, Tetsu knew, and most likely not into the near future to come either. Next to him Leon took to pet the irritated Totetsu again. Soon Tetsu was loosing his trail of thoughts and simply napped right with his head on the table while Leon grinned softly above him. It always amused him anew how fast Tetsu could be calmed down with a good scratching and petting.

D who chose to look into the kitchen in his search for Leon, laughed softly at the presenting picture.

The two arch rivals were silent for once and not fighting at all. Rather Leon seem to genially care for Tetsu for once, while the other slept peacefully and content, half in Leon's lap half onto the chair and table. Slipping inside, D helped to place the Tao Tie so that he could rest more comfortably before he too took a seat.

"She is gone." He told Leon with a soft smile directed at Tetsu who had suddenly snuggled up to Leon in his sleep. Both watched the beast amused. "Figures he was right then, eh?" The Kami nodded calmly. "Yes, actually quite right. I fear this will be another one of your investigations in no time, my dear Leon." The man across of him thought over that for a while before he shrugged.

"Do I want to know beforehand what she took home with her?" He asked D as hushed as the other talked to him too.

There was no need to wake the resting Tetsu unnecessary up. He had been busy the last nights, making food for several beasts in awaiting the birth of their young. Most of them got hunger pangs in the middle of the night and Tetsu often chose to make food for them then. A task the most in here seem to respect him for.

Leon eyed a horn tip that snuggled up too near to his stomach for his taste and carefully moved Tetsu's horn away from him.

"I think it is this time better for you if you do, yes. An as extinct labeled kind of the feline category, I think your researchers call them saber tooth." Leon gave D a sharp look that had the Kami gulp. "Please tell me it is not one of the cubs!" He furiously whispered, suddenly feeling incensed. D hurried to ease his worries. "No! She is one of the bigger family but not a real saber tooth, rather an under species that we still had safely in the shop and an adult. I know you would not like the twins to be sold to someone, rest assured, me neither!"

The two shortly glared each other down then both blushed and looked away.

*Why don't you two already go and kiss each other senseless and spare us all the darn trouble all the time, darn it! You two pussyfoot around each other now since you have meet, honestly! The pheromones that you two give off all the time are a death give away to everyone else besides you two oafs, you know?" Between them, Tetsu suddenly groused that up to D and Leon. Then he stood and went to his room, rubbing his tired eyes.

The two chastised persons in the kitchen blushed furiously the meanwhile.

Suddenly Leon had enough and leaned in before D could flee and he could think it over again. The kiss was sweet and simply mind-blowing addictive. So D leaned in after they separated for air to kiss Leon this time around. That went on for a while until both heard the giggles behind them. In the doorway stood half of the ships occupants piled onto each other and peeped into the kitchen at the now tomato red blushing couple.

Including Tetsu who wryly scratched his head seeing them kiss.

*Didn't know that would do the trick. Hell, had I known that before, I would have told that to you two hopeless fools a while ago already to do!" He muttered to himself when he crawled over the slowly vanishing pile of animals turned people in the door to the kitchen. Leon and D shared a look before both broke out in rancorous laughter.

That beast was sometimes too good to be true!

Suryallee