Man-Eater 4/? Pet Shop of Horrors
May. 14th, 2005 03:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yellowhordeDisclaimer: I don't own Pet Shop of Horrors and I make no money from this or any other fanfic I write.
Pairings: Leon+D
Category: Supernatural/Drama
Rating: R
Warning: Shonen Ai. Language. Violence
Title: Man-Eater
Status: In Progress
Notes: Sequel to 'Denial' and Story Two in the Arc. All of the stories in this Arc take place right before Volume 9's fourth chapter, Dynasty.
"Excuse me, Madam, but could you help me, please?"
Jill jerked up from the paperwork on her desk, startled to hear a man's soft voice coming from directly over her shoulder. Instinctively her hand flew for the firearm kept in he desk drawer. Fortunately, at the last moment she hesitated, loath to pull a weapon on anyone without knowing if there was just cause. If the stranger addressing her intended her any harm, he would be in for a bit of a surprise. She may be a woman, but she was also a detective of the L.A.P.D and she knew more than her fair share of hand-to-hand combat techniques.
Taking a deep breath, she calmly swiveled in her chair, and stood to face the man that had startled her. She was surprised to come face
to face with a young Oriental man with thick glossy hair pulled back into a ponytail at the nape of his neck. A pair of wire framed oval
glasses magnified his lovely black eyes and added a touch of bookish charm to his otherwise stark appearance. The black suit he wore was
by no means a designer outfit, but it most certainly wasn't one of those horrible off-the-rack pieces that she'd seen Leon wear on the few rare occasions where he had been required to dress up. It spoke of a man with limited means but a lot of taste.
Her first thought after checking him out was, 'How the hell did he get so close without me hearing him?' And on the tail of that, 'My God, he's a hottie.'
She smiled warmly at the stranger, pouring on the good ol' Jill Freshney charm. She extended her had towards him.
"Hello," she said with cheerful professionalism, "And how may I help you, Mr.-" she trailed off intentionally, knowing from years of detective work that this was one of the most effective ways to get a person to tell you their name.
"Sung," He said with a smile. "Jin Li Sung, at your service."
He took her offered hand and Jill was pleased to note that his palms were not baby smooth, but lightly calloused, the sign of a man who
worked for a living. His grip was firm, not too strong or too light. The grip of a man with a certain amount of confidence. She didn't know how many times she had encountered men with hands smoother than her own. Or seemed to need to compensate for this fact by attempting to crush her hands with their 'powerful' grips. It revolted her on some deep personal level that she simply couldn't really explain. Slackers, she mentally called them. Lazy, spoiled mama's boys. But she didn't get this feeling from this young man and her opinion of him rose a notch.
"Jill Freshney, L.A.P.D, homicide division. So, Mr. Sung, what can I do for you?"
"I am looking for a man."
Sung voice was smooth, his pronunciation and word selection more formal and precise than any native-born American Jill had ever heard. Judging by this and his accent she made an educated guess that he was a foreigner who had only recently arrived in the country.
"A missing person?" she asked. "Not my department, but..." She wanted to help this young man. There was something about him that set off some sort of protective instinct in her. Besides, he had come to her for help, so she would do her best to do just that. It wasn't in her nature to ignore someone in need. That was one of the reasons she had joined the force in the first place. "Do you have a name or physical description for this man?"
"No, he's not missing... exactly." Sung corrected almost sheepishly. "I was told that he was here at your precinct. His name is Count D-"
Jill chuckled a little and pushed her hair absently from her face. "I'm afraid you missed him, buddy."
Sung's smiling mouth drooped in obvious disappointment. "But when I visited his shop earlier today, a young boy told me that he would be
here-"
"Yeah, that'd be Chris. And he was here a while ago," Jill confirmed then offered an apologetic smile and shrugged, "But he's gone now."
Right before her eyes, the man's disappointment crumbled into something else. Sung bit on his lower lip. Suddenly he looked much younger than the twenty-five years she had pegged him for. It was the suit that had done it, she was sure, she just wasn't used to seeing kids in anything outside of the regular uniform of baggy jeans and over-sized tee shirts. On a closer inspection of his face, she guessed that he was no more than seventeen, eighteen at the oldest, at any rate, barely legal and far too young for her tastes. Pity.
"Please," he said, and there was a slight edge of desperation in his voice, "Could you tell me where he might be now? It is very
important that I find him."
"Important? How so?" She hadn't meant to sound rude, but here was a total stranger looking for someone she knew, someone she respected, and she didn't know the first thing about him. Curiosity was a major part of her job, one of best assets as a detective, and so these words slipped out without much thought or effort on her part. She wasn't picking up any negative vibes from this young man, but D was such a mysterious character and here was a person who knew him. So she allowed her professional curiosity get the best of her.
Sung hesitated from just a moment then sighed heavily. "It's a personal matter of great importance, Detective. My father gave me strict orders to relay a very important message to Count D as quickly as possible."
"What sort of message?"
Again Sung nibbled fretfully at his lower lip. "A private one, Detective," he murmured softly, but there was a subtle sharpness in his voice, an impatience. "Concerning a matter that is, as I have already stated, very important."
Jill's gaze sharped at this evasion. It was his sidestepping of the question more than his tone that set off the misgivings within her heart. It wasn't that she felt he was lying to her exactly, but, as a detective, she had come to expect a direct answer to a direct question. Maybe he isn't lying, she thought, but he's certainly avoiding the truth. I don't like that, not at all.' Without meaning to, she slipped into detective mode, her mind racing, trying to find the truth of the matter.
"If the message is so important, why couldn't your father come to America and relay it to D in person?"
Sung's head swung towards her sharply and Jill was taken back by a sheen of tears forming in the young man's eyes. He blinked them away and adverted his face from her quickly, and inhaled a shuddering breath. Then another. When he finally answered, his voice was low, his words coming in slow measured tones.
"My father was very old, Detective," he said softly. "He wanted to come himself - I begged him to come with me - but personal matters demanded that he stay home. And so the message was entrusted to me. I tried to contact him upon arriving in your country to let him know I had landed safely. He never his telephone so I called our neighbor, a close friend of his. My father had died shortly after I had left..."
The young man's voice choked and his words drifted off. He turned back to Jill, his black eyes over bright and red-rimmed. There was pain in those eyes, she saw, and undeniable guilt, but not a guilt associated with any sort of crime. His hands were balled into fists at his side and his throat made tiny clicking sounds as he tried to swallow back his emotions.
"I'm so sorry for your loss," Jill murmured.
"Thank you," he whispered then turned his sorrowful eyes to Jill. "But, please... What I have to tell Count D is really very important, Detective. And now that he is no longer with us, it is even more important that I find him and relay to him my father's last message."
Now it was Jill's turn to bite her lip. She sensed honest sincerity in this stranger and she wanted to help him, but there were certain policies that were strictly enforced and one of them was that you never gave out personal information about your fellow police officers
to anyone. It was a rule that made perfect sense to her. Cops made enemies working the beat, it was as simple as that. And how were you to know that the person asking for information was on the up and up? It was something no police officer was willing to risk. Hell, most of them had families and the unpleasant fact of the matter was that the bad guys didn't really care who they targeted for revenge when they were angry and out for blood. They were called bad guys for a reason.
Jill crossed her arms nibbled on the ball of her thumb for a moment. "Tell, you what," she said, reaching into the drawer of her desk for a yellow legal note pad. "I can't give you the phone number or exact address to where he is because it's a private residence of one of our police officers, but I can give you the general directions to the building."
As she talked she plucked up an expensive looking fountain pen with a navy case and brass trimming, one part of the writing set that adorned the top of her desk - a gift from her father upon graduating from the Academy, and scrawled the directions onto the paper. She
hesitated for a moment, trying to remember the exact directions Leon had given her once when she had needed to pick him up because his
beat-up wreck of a car was in the shop. Then she began writing. Her handwriting flowed smoothly along the paper and the pen made tiny
scratching sounds as she formed the loops and curves of the letters. When she was finished she set down the fountain pen, pursed her rouged lips, and blew lightly along the surface of the paper to make sure it was dry.
"There we go," she smiled as she handed the paper to the young man. "These are the directions to the building. It's in a bit of a rough section of town so I suggest you watch yourself. I don't want to be getting a call over the police radio telling me that a handsome man from Shanghai was mugged for his shoes."
Sung's dark eyes widened in surprise. "How did you know I was from Shanghai, Detective?"
"L.A has a large Chinese population, Mr. Sung," Jill answered with a smile, "when you work Chinatown as often as I do, you get to know the people, what part of China they're from, what they did before coming to America. I'm a people person and I just pick up on these things after awhile. It's a knack, I guess."
"You must be a most amazing detective," Sung smiled and carefully folded the paper and tucked it into the inner pocket of his suit jacket.
"But I'm an even more amazing woman," She paused then asked, "You have a cell phone?"
"Yes, I do."
To her amusement the young man actually blushed. It made him look even younger. Jill smiled again. It was nice to know she still had that effect on men. "Good. Now listen, if you get lost, or run into any trouble, give me a call, alright?" She produced a small cream business card and held it out to him. "That's my work number there," she said, pointing to the number directly under her work address. "Call if you have any problems, okay?."
Sung smiled and it was a smile she had seen on a thousand faces before, mostly young men who weren't quite taking her serious. It was their, 'Lady, please, I'm a big boy and I know how to take care of myself' smile. Usually their smugness irritated her, but those guys were from around here and thought they knew it all. This poor kid didn't have a clue what he could be getting himself into.
"Mr. Sung, I'm serious," All the light playfulness was gone from Jill's voice. "I don't mean to intimidate you or anything, but that neighborhood has a lot of gang activity. It's not as bad as it was a few years ago, but it's still bad enough. If you go in there looking lost, looking like a tourist, they'll be all over you like white on rice."
For a long moment, Sung merely stared at the card being offered to him. His young brow was creased in thought. But just as Jill thought he would brush her and her warning off, he accepted the card with both hands, nodding. He pointed to the number on the card, smiling politely. "Your work number is here, correct?"
"Yeah, that's right." Jill sighed and returned his smile as a wave of relief engulfed her. Until that moment she had known she had been concerned about this young man who was about to enter what was often referred to by fellow police officers as 'enemy territory' but she hadn't realized just how concerned. "Just in case you get lost or run into any trouble."
Sung bowed to her, bending at the waist. An oddly formal gesture, but she had seen it done often enough so that it didn't bother her. "Thank you, Detective Freshney. You are truly a wonderful police officer."
"It's in the job description," Jill squeezed his shoulder reassuringly. "You know, to protect and serve. Now get on out of here before you miss him at Leon's as well."
"Oh," Jill said, just as the young man was reaching the door, "And when you see D, you may want to bring him by so he can pick up his tea set."
Sung looked more than a little perplexed but nodded agreeably. "I'll be sure to do that, Detective. And thanks again."
"Sure, don't mention it."
Then he gone and the door closed quietly behind him.
TO BE CONTINUED...
I'm going to send this through Mircosoft Word when I'm at work Monday. I know it's only a short chapter, but I desperately need to finish my writing assignment. So a short one will have to do for now.
Pairings: Leon+D
Category: Supernatural/Drama
Rating: R
Warning: Shonen Ai. Language. Violence
Title: Man-Eater
Status: In Progress
Notes: Sequel to 'Denial' and Story Two in the Arc. All of the stories in this Arc take place right before Volume 9's fourth chapter, Dynasty.
"Excuse me, Madam, but could you help me, please?"
Jill jerked up from the paperwork on her desk, startled to hear a man's soft voice coming from directly over her shoulder. Instinctively her hand flew for the firearm kept in he desk drawer. Fortunately, at the last moment she hesitated, loath to pull a weapon on anyone without knowing if there was just cause. If the stranger addressing her intended her any harm, he would be in for a bit of a surprise. She may be a woman, but she was also a detective of the L.A.P.D and she knew more than her fair share of hand-to-hand combat techniques.
Taking a deep breath, she calmly swiveled in her chair, and stood to face the man that had startled her. She was surprised to come face
to face with a young Oriental man with thick glossy hair pulled back into a ponytail at the nape of his neck. A pair of wire framed oval
glasses magnified his lovely black eyes and added a touch of bookish charm to his otherwise stark appearance. The black suit he wore was
by no means a designer outfit, but it most certainly wasn't one of those horrible off-the-rack pieces that she'd seen Leon wear on the few rare occasions where he had been required to dress up. It spoke of a man with limited means but a lot of taste.
Her first thought after checking him out was, 'How the hell did he get so close without me hearing him?' And on the tail of that, 'My God, he's a hottie.'
She smiled warmly at the stranger, pouring on the good ol' Jill Freshney charm. She extended her had towards him.
"Hello," she said with cheerful professionalism, "And how may I help you, Mr.-" she trailed off intentionally, knowing from years of detective work that this was one of the most effective ways to get a person to tell you their name.
"Sung," He said with a smile. "Jin Li Sung, at your service."
He took her offered hand and Jill was pleased to note that his palms were not baby smooth, but lightly calloused, the sign of a man who
worked for a living. His grip was firm, not too strong or too light. The grip of a man with a certain amount of confidence. She didn't know how many times she had encountered men with hands smoother than her own. Or seemed to need to compensate for this fact by attempting to crush her hands with their 'powerful' grips. It revolted her on some deep personal level that she simply couldn't really explain. Slackers, she mentally called them. Lazy, spoiled mama's boys. But she didn't get this feeling from this young man and her opinion of him rose a notch.
"Jill Freshney, L.A.P.D, homicide division. So, Mr. Sung, what can I do for you?"
"I am looking for a man."
Sung voice was smooth, his pronunciation and word selection more formal and precise than any native-born American Jill had ever heard. Judging by this and his accent she made an educated guess that he was a foreigner who had only recently arrived in the country.
"A missing person?" she asked. "Not my department, but..." She wanted to help this young man. There was something about him that set off some sort of protective instinct in her. Besides, he had come to her for help, so she would do her best to do just that. It wasn't in her nature to ignore someone in need. That was one of the reasons she had joined the force in the first place. "Do you have a name or physical description for this man?"
"No, he's not missing... exactly." Sung corrected almost sheepishly. "I was told that he was here at your precinct. His name is Count D-"
Jill chuckled a little and pushed her hair absently from her face. "I'm afraid you missed him, buddy."
Sung's smiling mouth drooped in obvious disappointment. "But when I visited his shop earlier today, a young boy told me that he would be
here-"
"Yeah, that'd be Chris. And he was here a while ago," Jill confirmed then offered an apologetic smile and shrugged, "But he's gone now."
Right before her eyes, the man's disappointment crumbled into something else. Sung bit on his lower lip. Suddenly he looked much younger than the twenty-five years she had pegged him for. It was the suit that had done it, she was sure, she just wasn't used to seeing kids in anything outside of the regular uniform of baggy jeans and over-sized tee shirts. On a closer inspection of his face, she guessed that he was no more than seventeen, eighteen at the oldest, at any rate, barely legal and far too young for her tastes. Pity.
"Please," he said, and there was a slight edge of desperation in his voice, "Could you tell me where he might be now? It is very
important that I find him."
"Important? How so?" She hadn't meant to sound rude, but here was a total stranger looking for someone she knew, someone she respected, and she didn't know the first thing about him. Curiosity was a major part of her job, one of best assets as a detective, and so these words slipped out without much thought or effort on her part. She wasn't picking up any negative vibes from this young man, but D was such a mysterious character and here was a person who knew him. So she allowed her professional curiosity get the best of her.
Sung hesitated from just a moment then sighed heavily. "It's a personal matter of great importance, Detective. My father gave me strict orders to relay a very important message to Count D as quickly as possible."
"What sort of message?"
Again Sung nibbled fretfully at his lower lip. "A private one, Detective," he murmured softly, but there was a subtle sharpness in his voice, an impatience. "Concerning a matter that is, as I have already stated, very important."
Jill's gaze sharped at this evasion. It was his sidestepping of the question more than his tone that set off the misgivings within her heart. It wasn't that she felt he was lying to her exactly, but, as a detective, she had come to expect a direct answer to a direct question. Maybe he isn't lying, she thought, but he's certainly avoiding the truth. I don't like that, not at all.' Without meaning to, she slipped into detective mode, her mind racing, trying to find the truth of the matter.
"If the message is so important, why couldn't your father come to America and relay it to D in person?"
Sung's head swung towards her sharply and Jill was taken back by a sheen of tears forming in the young man's eyes. He blinked them away and adverted his face from her quickly, and inhaled a shuddering breath. Then another. When he finally answered, his voice was low, his words coming in slow measured tones.
"My father was very old, Detective," he said softly. "He wanted to come himself - I begged him to come with me - but personal matters demanded that he stay home. And so the message was entrusted to me. I tried to contact him upon arriving in your country to let him know I had landed safely. He never his telephone so I called our neighbor, a close friend of his. My father had died shortly after I had left..."
The young man's voice choked and his words drifted off. He turned back to Jill, his black eyes over bright and red-rimmed. There was pain in those eyes, she saw, and undeniable guilt, but not a guilt associated with any sort of crime. His hands were balled into fists at his side and his throat made tiny clicking sounds as he tried to swallow back his emotions.
"I'm so sorry for your loss," Jill murmured.
"Thank you," he whispered then turned his sorrowful eyes to Jill. "But, please... What I have to tell Count D is really very important, Detective. And now that he is no longer with us, it is even more important that I find him and relay to him my father's last message."
Now it was Jill's turn to bite her lip. She sensed honest sincerity in this stranger and she wanted to help him, but there were certain policies that were strictly enforced and one of them was that you never gave out personal information about your fellow police officers
to anyone. It was a rule that made perfect sense to her. Cops made enemies working the beat, it was as simple as that. And how were you to know that the person asking for information was on the up and up? It was something no police officer was willing to risk. Hell, most of them had families and the unpleasant fact of the matter was that the bad guys didn't really care who they targeted for revenge when they were angry and out for blood. They were called bad guys for a reason.
Jill crossed her arms nibbled on the ball of her thumb for a moment. "Tell, you what," she said, reaching into the drawer of her desk for a yellow legal note pad. "I can't give you the phone number or exact address to where he is because it's a private residence of one of our police officers, but I can give you the general directions to the building."
As she talked she plucked up an expensive looking fountain pen with a navy case and brass trimming, one part of the writing set that adorned the top of her desk - a gift from her father upon graduating from the Academy, and scrawled the directions onto the paper. She
hesitated for a moment, trying to remember the exact directions Leon had given her once when she had needed to pick him up because his
beat-up wreck of a car was in the shop. Then she began writing. Her handwriting flowed smoothly along the paper and the pen made tiny
scratching sounds as she formed the loops and curves of the letters. When she was finished she set down the fountain pen, pursed her rouged lips, and blew lightly along the surface of the paper to make sure it was dry.
"There we go," she smiled as she handed the paper to the young man. "These are the directions to the building. It's in a bit of a rough section of town so I suggest you watch yourself. I don't want to be getting a call over the police radio telling me that a handsome man from Shanghai was mugged for his shoes."
Sung's dark eyes widened in surprise. "How did you know I was from Shanghai, Detective?"
"L.A has a large Chinese population, Mr. Sung," Jill answered with a smile, "when you work Chinatown as often as I do, you get to know the people, what part of China they're from, what they did before coming to America. I'm a people person and I just pick up on these things after awhile. It's a knack, I guess."
"You must be a most amazing detective," Sung smiled and carefully folded the paper and tucked it into the inner pocket of his suit jacket.
"But I'm an even more amazing woman," She paused then asked, "You have a cell phone?"
"Yes, I do."
To her amusement the young man actually blushed. It made him look even younger. Jill smiled again. It was nice to know she still had that effect on men. "Good. Now listen, if you get lost, or run into any trouble, give me a call, alright?" She produced a small cream business card and held it out to him. "That's my work number there," she said, pointing to the number directly under her work address. "Call if you have any problems, okay?."
Sung smiled and it was a smile she had seen on a thousand faces before, mostly young men who weren't quite taking her serious. It was their, 'Lady, please, I'm a big boy and I know how to take care of myself' smile. Usually their smugness irritated her, but those guys were from around here and thought they knew it all. This poor kid didn't have a clue what he could be getting himself into.
"Mr. Sung, I'm serious," All the light playfulness was gone from Jill's voice. "I don't mean to intimidate you or anything, but that neighborhood has a lot of gang activity. It's not as bad as it was a few years ago, but it's still bad enough. If you go in there looking lost, looking like a tourist, they'll be all over you like white on rice."
For a long moment, Sung merely stared at the card being offered to him. His young brow was creased in thought. But just as Jill thought he would brush her and her warning off, he accepted the card with both hands, nodding. He pointed to the number on the card, smiling politely. "Your work number is here, correct?"
"Yeah, that's right." Jill sighed and returned his smile as a wave of relief engulfed her. Until that moment she had known she had been concerned about this young man who was about to enter what was often referred to by fellow police officers as 'enemy territory' but she hadn't realized just how concerned. "Just in case you get lost or run into any trouble."
Sung bowed to her, bending at the waist. An oddly formal gesture, but she had seen it done often enough so that it didn't bother her. "Thank you, Detective Freshney. You are truly a wonderful police officer."
"It's in the job description," Jill squeezed his shoulder reassuringly. "You know, to protect and serve. Now get on out of here before you miss him at Leon's as well."
"Oh," Jill said, just as the young man was reaching the door, "And when you see D, you may want to bring him by so he can pick up his tea set."
Sung looked more than a little perplexed but nodded agreeably. "I'll be sure to do that, Detective. And thanks again."
"Sure, don't mention it."
Then he gone and the door closed quietly behind him.
TO BE CONTINUED...
I'm going to send this through Mircosoft Word when I'm at work Monday. I know it's only a short chapter, but I desperately need to finish my writing assignment. So a short one will have to do for now.
