Disclaimer: All "Petshop of Horrors"characters and plot belong to the esteemed Akino Matsuri. No monetary gain out of it, just my own selfish pleasure.
His luck has run short. This time he's really going to die, no miracles in sight.
He clings to life, fiercely, desperately, but his consciousness is fading despite his efforts. The frantic noises around him are starting to sound like some crazy music.
Howell's shots fall like heavy chords, D's small slippers play a drum beat on the staircase, and his desperate, plaintive voice creates a broken melody, offset by a syncopal rhythm of the madman's taunts and laughs, and this insane composition speeds faster and faster, until the thundering chords are replaced by dry clicks of the empty gun, and Leon can bear it no more. Against blurriness in his eyes and weak trembling of his hands, he manages to line a shot and fire his last bullet straight into the middle of a perfect white forehead.
All noises die.
Silence.
A cloaked figure turns to look at him, eyes invisible under the hood, but he can feel their glance burning through him. Howell gasps at his side. And there has to be a voice. A cry, a call to the one who has fallen.
There's none. Silence.
Somehow it feels so wrong that he finds the strength to get up and limp towards the staircase. Climbs the steps, hissing in pain. Stops at the top, looking at the lying figure in dark – dark! – clothes.
No. This cannot be.
He limps closer, to make sure, to ascertain that what he sees is absolutely not what it looks like.
It is.
Dark clothes. Chin length hair, spread in a half-circle. Mismatched eyes, clouded with pain.
"D..." he lets out in a broken whisper, and falls to his knees.
He doesn't question how D, his D (cannot be, shouldn't be) is still alive with a bullet through his brain. He just reaches for one thin, warm hand, looks into those impossible, bright, hurt eyes and waits for something. Tears. Blame. Final words. Anything.
None is coming.
Mismatched eyes close. A soft sigh escapes paled lips. A thin hand in Leon's grasp feels slightly heavier, falling absolutely limp.
Shouldn't... cannot...
A shadow falls over Leon. Long silky strands caress his shoulder. And a soft, mocking voice says above his ear:
"There's one thing humans are good at. It's killing."
The shadow moves. Leon's vision stays dark.
Soft, uneven steps sound on the staircase.
Leon doesn't know why he turns to look.
A thin figure – bloodstained-white silk of clothes, black silk of hair, – staggers towards Howell, leaving a crimson trail on the floor. Close enough, a couple of steps away. In a splash of wide sleeves and long hair – white silk, black silk – the figure is falling down.
Howell closes the distance in one leap, lands on his knees, calls the name.
The same name…
The figure explodes. Tendrils and leaves, thorns and flowers, horns and tails, screech and roars, and Howell simply disappears, almost before any part of natural chaos makes contact with him. The figure is gone as well. There's a nest of flowered vines on the floor, a pale echo of the living blast.
The cloaked one vanished somewhere along the way. There's just the two of them, Leon and D. And D lies calm and still, so...
Leon braces himself for a fate similar to Howell's, but nothing happens. Fire is roaring around them, walls are crumbling, and D lies calm and still. Dead.
Leon is left alone. Broken down, bleeding, and alone.
The last survivor.
He throws his head back, letting out a primal howl of pain. There's nothing human in his voice.
He wakes with a gasp of horror. Within seconds, he is clothed and opening the door, before he realizes there's nowhere for him to run to. No, he can't barge into the petshop doors, grab D by the collar and shout some amount of ridiculous accusations to mask his worry and relief at seeing the little bastard alive. He can't even look at D from afar, because the infuriating supernatural Chinese disappeared to hell knows where on his bloody flying ship. Which could very well have been a figment of Leon's confused subconsciousness.
Every time, shaking the nightmare off becomes this much harder.
But Leon lived. He hadn't bled out over D's lifeless body, hadn't suffocated and burnt in the crumbling building. Which means that D dragged him out somehow. Flying ships notwithstanding, the part where both of them got out of the building had to be true.
Which means that D is out there somewhere. Alive.
And, damn his soul, Leon's going to find him.
Just you wait.