PSOH "Meteor"
In the mountains, the sky was so much closer. If you reached up, you could catch one of the sparkly jewels and tuck it in your pocket to take home. Leon lay back in the long summer grass and framed one particular twinkling light between forefinger and thumb. He was just about to grab it when a pale hand reached out and clutched his wrist, stopping his motion. Leon winced at the passing bite of long lacquered nails.
"What?" Leon turned his head to look at the man reclining next to him in the August meadow.
"You don't want that one, Detective. Choose another."
D shook his head at his companion, odd eyes wise and sad, black silk hair bleeding blue into the shadows of the wind ruffled grasses. Leon stared at him. What was there to be so serious about? He'd played this game as a child; it was nothing more than wishing – pretty harmless, if you asked him.
"OK, I'll bite. Why don't I want that one, D?"
"It was a world once, Detective, and it gave life to many creatures, large and small…" The Count sounded meditative, as if he were slowly recalling a memory so old as to be worn thin and tattered.
"And?" Leon prompted, catching sight of another twinkling gleaming out of the corner of his eye. Maybe that one, instead?
"A few of the more foolish creatures believed they could harness their sun, my dear detective, and drain it of its energy for their own uses. They sent great flaming missiles, strong enough to withstand any force, even the dense heat of their star, and they pierced it through."
"How? How could anyone possibly do that, D? Come on; you're pulling my chain here, damn it! Don't go around making up shit like that! You'll scare the bejeezus out of Chris!"
The Count continued as if he hadn't even heard Leon's outburst.
"Their sun collapsed, Detective, and took them with it, enveloping them in flame and sending their world spinning away, a barren rock. That is that one meteor, Leon, right there – "
D pointed to the star Leon wanted.
"-the wish you nearly took. You mustn't."
"Shit. OK, fine. Pick one for me, alright? Since you know them all so well."
Leon bit the request out, snorting, angry at himself for believing even for one second in the Count's cockamamie story of people killing stars with missiles. But D calmly ignored his companion's agitation and slid long cool fingers around Leon's half-curled ones, raising their mingled digits up together to frame the sky.
"There, Detective! Do you see?"
A greenish-blue diamond pulsed in the very center of the cat's-cradle that was their entwined fingers.
"Oh, yeah, D! Now that's a nice one!" Leon exclaimed, settling back again into the folds and humps of the sweet-smelling meadow and forgetting all about his previous pissiness for the pleasure of finding an even better, brighter falling star. He didn't even mind the way his arm was going numb.
"It's a Leonid, Detective," D murmured, his rich voice sounding but a scant inch from Leon's ear. "Perfect for you. Wait but a moment and it will fly."
D smiled in the darkness, delighted to discover such an excellent omen for his favorite detective. Leon, darting a glance across the tiny distance between them, caught the pleased tilt of red lips out of the corner of one eye and grinned right along with his companion. This was fun, after all!
Together, with one mind, they positioned their fingers just so, ready to capture the prize that danced before them, its sizzle and spark nearly audible, when suddenly it zigzagged left, then right, and then cascaded grandly through the palette of the summer sky, a brilliant streak of burning gas.
As one, they reached together and spread wide their searching fingertips, almost losing it to the thinning steely blue of the atmosphere - and then, with a jerky swoop and a delighted "Wheee—hooo! Gotcha, sucker!" Leon snagged it and instantly made as if he were tucking away his own personal Leonid—his falling star—oh, so carefully into the soft crease of the Count's palm for safekeeping, curling D's pale fingers down around it to secure it.
"Why…thank you, Detective. You're very kind."
The detective looked away immediately afterwards, of course, red-faced and likely feeling idiotic at his own flight of fancy, but it seemed the Count quite expected that reaction. He said not another word about it; but only smiled quietly at his own tightly clenched fist, where a faint bluish-green light could be seen flickering, its ethereal glow only barely leaking through.