TITLE: Developments

GENRE: Mystery/Suspense/AU(slightly)

TIME: Between the first (Dual) and second (Daycare) story of Volume 5.

MAIN CHARACTERS: Leon, D, T-Chan, Q-Chan, and Ten-Chan

SUMMARY: Murder victims are showing signs that a serial killer is in the city. The victims have three days to live from the time they're abducted by their killer. This turns the case into a race against time, because there could be a chance that a life may be hanging by a thread--right now. If that weren't bad enough, Leon's instincts are sending him messages that are driving him to a point he may not be able to handle...by himself. A lot of new things about the dear detective come to light to a special few.

A/N: I have a LiveJournal account as: stress100, and an InsaneJournal one as: allroads2coffee. I may be posting parts to this and other stories there, either before they're finished enough to post here, or too far ahead in the story. I'd also be more than happy to answer questions if you don't mind spoilers.

Latest Revisions: (06-11-2008) Chapter titled 'Phantom and Angel' has had the first 8 parts compiled, although part 9 and 10 are separate.

Disclaimer: Pet Shop of Horrors isn't mine, and I'm making no money from this fiction work.

Chapter 1 - Shortcake

Note: This first chapter is my extended ending for the first episode (Dual) in Volume 5.

"Roger Standford was in an accident?!" Leon stood in his chief's doorway, demanding confirmation of the steadily growing buzz that was traveling throughout the department.

The chief nodded solemnly. "He attempted to stop a bus load of kids and went over the cliff. All the children are unharmed. Stanford's a little banged up, but he pulled through." The elder officer explained with the underlying taint of tragedy in his voice. "His assistant, Kelly Vincent, wasn't so lucky. He was the one driving the car."

The scene of just the day before as Roger Stanford left the Count's pet shop with a trailing cloud of threats flashed though Leon's memory. "D!!" he bellowed the abbreviated name accusingly. In a rush, he was up against the front of the chief's desk. The scent of a 'smoking gun' was thick in his intuitive mind. "The Count's involved in this! I can feel it!"

"Orcot?!" The chief's unworded question as to how Leon could have made such a remarkable jump in logic came through clearly in his voice.

Leon was determined not to waste a moment and finally catch that 'smoking gun' in the pet shop caretaker's hand. "The Count couldn't even sell a gerbil without someone getting killed! –and I saw Stanford and his aide in there just the other day!" His eyes darted feverishly over the surface of the chief's desk as he tried to see in his mind what he should look for. "Somehow, Count D made the bus lose control, knowing that Stanford would try to save it." Already, he was visualizing the event in his imagination, trying to spot something in it that could be linked to the pet shop.

The chief scrutinized the face of his charge, wondering if Leon was working on some sort of grudge, or self-destructive obsession with the Count. "Do you know how ridiculous that sounds, Orcot?!" he nearly screeched at the outlandishness of Leon's idea.

"You get me a warrant, and I'll get you the evidence!" Leon insisted with the fire of relentless conviction in his eyes.

Although Leon seemed disturbingly certain that he would find something, the chief had seen this sort of thing before. With very painfully few exceptions, it almost always ended in disaster. "There's no way a judge is going to issue a warrant based on that idiotic theory." he informed Leon sourly. "We'll get laughed out of court! Christ, Orcot, you can't blame every bad thing that happens on the Count!"

Leon thrust himself away from the chief's desk, eyes still blazing. Taking a step back, he spun himself to the way he'd come in. "If you're not going to get me a warrant, I'll do it myself!" he said hotly.

The chief's eyes narrowed. "That's rich, Leon. How are you going to do that?" Skepticism was thick in his voice.

"Oh, I'll get one," Leon declared obstinately. "Even if it means asking the Mayor!" His long legs quickly propelled him beyond the sanctuary of the daily grind and off to perils unknown.

The drive to the Mayor's was too long and too short at the same time. Each passing minute seemed like it would lessen his grip on whatever proof he had of Count D's involvement with Stanford's 'accident'. By the end of his journey, though, he still had not been able to form a solid idea of what he was about to ask the Mayor, himself, for a warrant to search for.

"Hey!!" The Mayor's secretary nearly shouted at Leon when he didn't so much as glance at her on entrance to her office on a direct course for the door behind her. "What do you think you're doing?!" The derailed woman tried, at the least, to slow the tall, blonde trespasser that had breached her station. "Do you have an appointment?!" She demanded in an effort to regain control of her well-ordered world.

"Don't need one!!" Leon bit out contemptuously, as he twisted his body to bypass the gaping woman. "Outta my way!!" he seethed and grabbed the knob to the 'lion's den'.

"Yo, Mayor!" The young detective swung the Mayor's door open and charged through it like a land-bound kamikaze pilot. His entrance was greeted with a nerve-jarring silence.

The large leather chair behind the large oak desk was turned, mostly, to face the oversized window that was in back of it.

Leon caught sight of an arm on the rest of the extravagant office chair. Covering the arm from the wrist up was, not the crisp dull fabric of a man's suit, but something more like soft, white…satin? He slowed as he reached the expensive looking desk. "Mayor?!" He asked, suddenly unsure if he had made it to the right place.

The chair began to turn towards Leon, with a careless sort of slowness, to reveal a gut-wrenchingly familiar form. "My dear detective…" the seemingly ubiquitous pet shop owner spoke to him in the usual overly-pleasant manner. "So good to see you." There seemed to be a knowing twinkle in the Count's eyes, as though he'd anticipated Leon's very actions up to now.

"Sorry to keep you waiting, Count D!" A flustered, aging masculine voice came behind Leon from the door he'd just come in through.

Leon turned to see the Mayor in an eye hurting sharks-tooth suit. In the Mayor's arms was a small Macaroni penguin that reminded Leon of one he'd seen on a few of his 'tea-time' visits at the Chinatown pet shop.

"That's okay." Count D told the Mayor cheerfully after rising from the man's own desk and walking over to him with evident familiarity. "So how is little Peggy doing?" he asked the Mayor with an almost patronizing fondess.

"Great, great." The Mayor chuckled softly as he bounced the arctic bird in his arms like a beloved infant. "Happiest penguin in San Francisco," he added proudly.

Count D laughed politely, "I'm pretty sure she's the only penguin in San Francisco, Richard."

Hearing Count D call the Mayor by his first name chilled Leon to the core. "Uh, Sir?" he had what felt like an insane notion that if he spoke, it would break whatever spell the Count had the Mayor under.

The Mayor turned, as if to prove Leon's theory correct, with an angry look of realization. "Who the devil are you?!" he growled fiercely and drew his arms a little more tightly around his pet. "Do you have an appointment?!" he asked malevolently with narrowed eyes.

"The mayor is one of my best customers, detective." Count D informed Leon sweetly. His demeanor towards the detective seemed to disarm the mayor's ire, and the Count's customer was once again focusing on the penguin. "I assume you've seen the news?" he told Leon calmly. "Mr. Stanford is certain to be reelected now. He's a bona fide hero…risking his life to save all those children like that. We need more people like him in office. Don't you agree, Richard?"

The mayor pulled himself reluctantly out his interaction with Peggy. "Oh yes," he replied, albeit a little detached, "that boy has a future. He'll be a senator in no time…maybe even out next governor."

"I think you're being too modest, Richard." Count D smiled more intensely. "I'm fairly certain I'll have the President of the United States as a client sometime soon."

Leon was once again having that surreal sensation after listening to the count declaring his prediction about the country's future leader.

The secretary finally cleared her throat during the momentary silence, not having wanted to interrupt the mayor's guest. "I'm sorry sir, but this man simply stormed right past me, even though I tried to stop him. Should I call security?"

Leon looked straight to the count, fully expecting the man to watch with deep amusement while he got dragged out by security and possibly even fired on the spot. A chill swept down his spine as the count began moving towards him with an unnervingly pleased smile.

"This is the detective who saved me from Wong, Richard," the Count introduced him graciously. "I believe he's here in regards to a man who came into my shop recently. When I wouldn't sell the man what he wanted, he claimed to have influential connections and would have my shop shut down. Isn't that correct, detective?"

"Uh, yeah," Leon managed to get out despite his state of shock.

Although still caught up in the urgency to be a good host to the count, the mayor was a bit embarrassed about someone under him discovering such bits about his personal life. He turned to Leon and nearly growled, "Well, if you're one of my men, your hair length is a disgrace! Get it cut IMEDIATELY!"

Leon was just beginning to recover from the surprise of Count D saving his career with the smoothness of a magician's hand when the mayor's order sank in. At the same time, though, he was also noticing the Count's sudden loss of self-assuredness. "Yes, SIR!" He replied crisply.

The pet shop owner's eyes had widened in slight panic. "Oh-no! Richard! You can't mean that!" he exclaimed in obvious distress.

Deep confusion became clearly evident on the mayor's face. "What's wrong, Count?" he asked a bit reluctantly.

The balance of things seemed to shift. Leon relaxed and planted his hand on his hip before lifting his chin in triumph, " –your own damn fault, D! An' t'think you were upset the last time I got it trimmed!" the detective remarked wryly. "That was just an inch!," his chin dropped and he gave the count a look of almost wicked glee. His voice softened to an almost sing-song precursor of immanent doom, "When he says 'get it cut'," he thrust a pointing thumb in the mayor's direction, "we're talking THIS short," the thumb traveled to a position in front of his eyes and the index finger of the same hand came to it's side about two inches from it, "including the back!" One corner of his mouth arced upward in a smirk.

Count D's head began occilating in denial, "Oh--no…it was just starting…" His eyes flitted around the detective's head as if just discovering the loss of some valuable possession.

Leon flung the hand that was on his hip into the air above his head, then let it drop to his side in exasperation. "Well, now, see! If ya'd told me about your little 'open line of communication' with the mayor here, it'd still be growin after t'day like you wanted. Y'got yerself alone t'blame this time, so don't even try makin me suffer for it bein hacked off!"

The mayor and his secretary were looking at each other with silent questions plainly on their faces. The conversation unfolding before them was beginning to paint quite an interesting picture.

"Richard…I only recently managed to convince the detective to allow his hair to grow." Count D told the mayor in a slightly pleading tone. He moved close enough to Leon to reach the the top of the detective's head and comb though the protruding blonde strands with the fingers of one graceful hand. "I wanted to see if we could find a way for it to be manageable at a longer length…" a soft smile formed on his lips as his eyes seemed to gaze upon a sight in the somewhat distant future of what Leon's hair would look like if allowed to grow.

"I'm gonna be completely bald if y'don't keep those razors of yours away from my SCALP!" Leon growled in annoyance and leaned his head away from the count's reach. His expression resembled that of someone who'd tried to drink orange juice right after the morning teeth-brushing.

Certain that Leon was trying to come up with a reasonable excuse to avoid being touched so personally in front of others, Count D raised an eyebrow. His eyes gleamed with private admiration for the detective's impromptu theatrical abilities. "Oh! You're exaggerating again. They're not that sharp." He drew his hand away in veiled deference to the detective's feelings, and pretended to casually examine his personal manicure up keeping.

Leon's eyes narrowed, and he crooned sarcastically, "They're sharp enough t'cut through a cotton dress shirt, the undershirt beneath it—AND draw blood! I know that as a fact from, excuse the expression, first-hand experience!"

The mayor seemed to flinch, concern at the hint that one of his men had been assaulted in some manner. He became more seriously attentive, and seemed to be debating with himself whether or not to start his own inquiry on the matter.

Picking up on what Leon's superior must have been thinking, the Count steered daringly into other territory. Intentionally making it appear as though he were trying to conceal any kind of flirtation, he stepped into Leon's personal space on a blatantly intimate level, and traced the imaginary line of a scare lying hidden by a t-shirt with a fingertip. "I did my best to make up for that, if you recall." He gazed up at the detective with brazenly sultry eyes.

So that's going to be his game, is it? Leon thought to himself.

Not missing a beat of the dance the Count had chosen to start, Leon tilted his head and looked sideways into the past. "Hmm, let's see… I recall being sure I saw fireworks, no matter what you say." He looked up to read the expression on the Count's face and got a raised brow over intensly sparkling eyes as a response. He looked away from the Count again, and pulled another rabbit of inuendo out of his hat. "I recall everything in the shop bein awake--and a just little bit skittish way before sunrise..." Again, he directed his attention to the Count's face, and thought he detected the faintest signs of a struggle to repress the onslaught of laughter." His own mouth twitched in a smile of growing satisfaction. "I also recall you being more awake and chipper than you had any business bein...since you got even less sleep than I did..." And finally, he admitted airily, "but, no, I don't recall exactly what you did t'try and make up for it."

The Count moved gracefully to stand almost right against Leon's side, and rested a hand on the detective's upper arm. "Then you'll have to return with me to the shop...so that I can refresh your memory."

Leon gingerly took hold of Count D's wrist and pulled it away from himself. "I have t'go-get-a-haircut…" He took a step back, turned on his heal and aimed for the door.

Count D's hand shot out like a bolt of white-silk lightning to grab a hold of his tee-shirt."No!" He cried out in sudden desperation.

Leon turned and wrapped his hand around the Count's wrist to pull him off, but the Count wasn't going to relinquish his hold this time. "D! Let go--your gonna tear another one of my shirts!" his demand almost sounded as though he were on the verge of whining.

The mayor looked at his secretary for a clue as to what to do. Her face tightened, and she made an impatient noise somewhere between a grunt and a cat's mewling. He nodded in unspoken agreement and then cleared his throat to get the other two's attention. "Disregard that last order, detective." He interjected urgently, "It isn't necessary just right now."

Count D's face brightened imediately, and he relaxed, releasing his hostage carefully."Thank you, Richard." Once again, though, he reached to lift a strand of Leon's hair as if to see any change in the last few seconds.

Leon forced himself still, suspecting that if he managed to be patient enough, the Count would be satisfied with the outcome of the situation and find interest in something or someone else. "Have we learned anything from this, Mr. Likes To Be Mysterious?" He couldn't help himself but to gloat just a little.

"Yes." The Count answered just a moment after the question sank in. "You need to eat more. You've lost weight again." He ran a hand down Leon's bared upper arm.

Leon yanked his arm away in instant agitation. "Aw, now, that's IT! If nothing else, I'm gonna prove t'the world that you're some kinda werebird!"

It took a moment for the Count to process the latest 'threat' Leon was making. Of all things, why... "A…werebird, detective?" His eyes had widened in amused surprise.

The mayor and his secretary looked at each other in renewed, and rather concerned confusion.

"Yeah." Leon nodded curtly. "Y'look perfectly human t'everyone until y'single out a victim, then y'sprout feathers n'a beak and mother-hen 'em t'death!"

The secretary covered her mouth to cover a partially escaped laugh. The mayor began bouncing Peggy again, chuckling quietly through his nose.

Count D was positively thunderstruck. "Leon Orcot!" He suddenly sounded as an outraged mother might at finding that her son had been using her expensive silk stockings to make a butterfly net with.

Leon feigned surprise. "Did you just say 'cluckcluckcluckcluck?"

"Detectiiiiiiive—" Count D said warningly.

"B-raaaaaaaaw—" Leon mimicked in chickenese.

"Leon STOP it!" Count D was now fighting hard to keep from bursting into laughter.

"BuckbuckBUCKbuck!" Leon tagged to the end of the Count's sentance. He broke helplessly into a dazzling grin, which he noted seemed to soften the Count rather effectively.

The Count smiled back at him fondly, then very carefully spoke in a tone that he hoped wouldn't tempt his nemesis. "Seriously, detective, I'd be more than happy to have a nice dinner made for you, if you'd like to come to the shop after work."

After trying to keep from bursting into laughter themselves, the mayor and his secretary seemed to make themselves as unnoticeable as possible, obviously touched (to anyone who'd been paying attention).

Leon seemed to ponder the idea for a couple of seconds, and then his face contorted as if remembering something distasteful. "Did y'find a new way t'fix eggs yet?" He said with a dubious look.

Count D blinked in bewilderment. He'd only given Leon eggs once. Why would he be thinking dinner would have anything with "E--?" He started, and then caught the wince in Leon's face as the man just barely hicoughed back a snicker. His eyes became good-naturedly fierce."Oo--!" He shook his head rapidly, "Y--!" He couldn't believe Leon had pulled such a thing. "Ugh!" He thrust his arms across his chest in indignation and glared at Leon with a badly restrained smirk.

Leon leaned against the mayors desk in a devil-could-care stance, and purred. "Are you always this articulate?"

The Count shook his head slowly. "…honestly…" He finally relented and let out a soft laugh.

Not feeling the most comfortable with prolonged eye contact with the Count, Leon glanced around briefly, then saw the plaque that commemorated the day the Mayor had taken office. It made him realize where he stood in comparison to the people that Count D seemed to move among so easily. "Wouldn't someone like Alexander Van Whatsizface be more compatible company for you?" He asked in a bit more sobered mood now.

"It's not Alexander's company I'm interested in." Count D's head tilted slightly, as he studied Leon's face a bit more carefully, wondering what exactly it was that had just brought such a question to the detective's mind.

Leon seemed to have to examine and re-examine the Coun't reply. "Well, thanks…I think."

The Count felt the urge to give Leon more reason to feel the matter was settled. "Pon Chan will be very happy to see you again. She's been asking about you."

There was an instant impulse to smile at the memory of the friendly racoon, and Leon was determined to fight it. He cringed slightly as he admonished,"Pon Chan needs t'be playin with raccoons her own age."

Count D's chin lowered. He looked practically scandalized at such a suggestion"Detective, do you have any idea what more than one raccoon can do to a place?" There was a stronge jesting lilt in his statement, however.

"Uh—a lot less than I've done t'my apartment. 'least, that's watcha said when I was in the hospital." Leon teased back. He seemed to grow uncomfortable again, though. "Anyway, you said Pon Chan was picking up some of my bad habbits." His attention dropped with his spirits to the floor, and he shrugged a little dejectedly. "If I'm not around 'er, I can't do anymore damage, then, can I?"

The Count let out a long, regretful sigh, and wondered how just a few words meant in teasing could bother the seemingly 'tough' detective so."Oh. She was simply addressing me as 'Yo Count," he reasured Leon. "She got tired of it quickly enough, though."

"Well, ya'd think y'caught 'er smoking, the way you went on." Leon scoweled at him. "On top of that, as well as a bunch of things before then, you reveal the greater depths of your wisdom by asking me t'stay with you—forever! Now there's a Pulitzer Prize winning 'Darwin Awards' story just waitin t'be written!"

The Count wasn't sure where this was going, or for that matter, why it was going whereever it was. He tried a more direct approach. "Are you trying to get across that your answer to my invitation is 'no'?"

For a moment, it seemed as though Leon was struggling to decide how to answer, but then he managed to come to a decision. He leaned his hip against the mayor's desk, and there was the sound of a plastic bag crackling from within the pocket of his jacket."I wouldn't be able t'get over there 'til about eight."

Peggy's attention suddenly rivitted to the crackling sound and squirmed to be let down.

At a loss, the mayor let Peggy down on the top of the desk, and she made a beeline for Leon's pocket.

Count D smiled at him gently. "That's fine." A thought seemed to occur to him imediately after saying that.. "Perhaps I should bring you dinner at the station, so you don't have to wait so long to eat."

"Shortcake, I know y'aren't tryin t'get t'my shrimp snacks without askin your dad first," Leon suddenly directed his attention on Peggy.

Everyone in the room was now looking at Leon.

"Why do you keep calling her Shortcake?" the Count finally remembered to ask.

"Pon-Chan accidently knocked over a dish of strawberry topping off of the table--right onto her head," Leon answered while in the process of pulling a noisy bag of dehydrated shrimp out of his pocket.

The Count seemed to remember something that might of been connected to what Leon had just told him. "Is that why--" his eyes flared with accusation.

Leon cut him off at the pass, "Which would you rather deal with? Wiping strawberry residue from the sides of the bathtub...or getting dried strawberry goop out of the head feathers of an upset baby macaroni penguin?"

Count D's lips parted in preparation for some sort of retort, but wisdom allowed only, "Tub" before convincing them to shut again.

Handing over the bag to the mayor, Leon lifted a brow with hit-and-run glance at the Count. "Fancy that."

The mayor looked puzzled, and turned to Count D for council.

"It's alright, Richard. Leon's given them to her before at the shop. Just make sure she drinks plenty of water afterwards."

The mayor nodded and then looked at his desk in distress, "Uh--"

"Here," Leon reached for the bag, which the mayor handed over without question. He took the empty coffee cup which had been sitting at the corner off of it's saucer, and put it in the middle of the desktop. He then set the saucer on top of it and poured the shrimp in a small pile in it's center. "There y'go, Shortcake."

Peggy waddled over to the makeshift table that Leon had made for her, then looked around, and went over to where a napkin was lying. She picked up the napkin in her beak, dropping the spoon that had been on it, and headed for Leon, where she stopped and seemed to wait for him to do something.

"Uh--" Leon looked down at Peggy and felt his face start to turn red. "We're not at the pet shop now, Shortcake. There's no goop."

Peggy simply dropped the napkin in front of him, turned around, stuck her beak in the air and rubbed the top of her head against Leon's stomach while making an obvious pleading sound in her throat.

Reddening in the face fully, Leon mashed his lips together, refused to look at anyone over two feet tall in the room and picked up the napkin. "Okay..." The redness suddenly faded when he came up with an idea to redirect everyone elses thoughts. "Actually, D, if you've got time to bring me dinner at the station, maybe you should use it for some one-on-one with T-Chan." He unfolded the napkin with a deft snap of his wrist. His brow wrinkled inward for a moment as he visiually searched the desk, then he reached for the black dome pen holder that had a small well in it and snatched a paperclip out of it which he stuck between his lips. Holding two corners of the napkin with his fingers, he brought it around Peggy's neck into a bib, "oou've beng 'aving sho ma-y nyew wi-erzh bein- borm ofer dere watewy," he grabbed the paperclip again and fixed the sides together with it. "...the little guy looked like he was trapped in some kinda Wild Kingdom old fashioned popcorn machine from hell. There y'go, Shortcake. All fixed up!"

Peggy brought her beak back down, quickly turned around to face Leon, quickly pressed her outstretched flippers against his stomach and made a happy penguin noise as she rubbed the side of her head against him appreciatively, then she quickly whirled around and attacked the shrimp snacks.

"Yeah-yeah, you're welcome, pipsqueek." He looked up at Count D, "And if you tell'im I said that, I'll totally deny it."

ATTENTION READERS: I'd love to know what it is you like and don't like and want to read more of as I write this story. My LJ username is: stress100