A/N: Re-uploaded because I finally figured out that somehow screwed it up. Gah.
Warnings: Swearing and angst feed off this fic like parasites. I cannot make comparisons for the life of me. There are some light, light hints to slash.
Disclaimer: Didn't write/draw/market it.
He never stays in one place anymore. There really isn't any need to. He cut the ties with his last friends years ago, and Chris knows that his brother can take care of himself. It's easier this way, too. Living out of hotels and earning money doing odd, crappy jobs that no one else will take... It's easier to forget this way.
He'll hear stories in every town that he goes to, weird stories. He'll be sitting in some bar, and he'll hear some kid too young to be there mention this Chinese man with the exotic animals who can solve all your problems. He'll go up to him, buy him a drink, 'say, do you know where I could find this guy?' Drunken laughter; 'sorry, man, you just missed 'em. I hear he skipped town about a week ago.' He hates D a little bit more every time he hears that. Damn son of a bitch is taunting him.
It's not like he's looking for the count, though. He just doesn't want to be tied down in one place now, that's all. And if he does a little asking around, just out of curiosity... Well, no one ever got sued for asking, did they? And if he happened to hear about D somewhere, well, of course he would go and visit him, wouldn't he? Renew old friendships, and all that. But he's never seen D, in the thirteen years since that night. And he always leaves town after about a month. There's no point.
Sometimes he'll be walking through a crowd, listlessly thinking about finding another job, when he sees something that makes him remember: a head of black hair, a flowered kimono in a sea of gray work-suits, the faint scent of honey and roses... He doesn't think during these moments. It's like he's younger again, and he's just caught up to the man he's been chasing for weeks. He runs up, spins the guy around, grinning, resisting the urge to laugh, shouting 'D, you bastard-'
And it's never him. Some Asian man he's never met staring up at him, demanding to know what the hell is going on, why are you shouting like that, freak? He shoves his hands in his pockets, staring at the ground, muttering a sullen apology, slinking back into the crowd, which swallows him. He always leaves town the next day.
He hasn't slept normally in three years. His dreams are haunted by the sickly scent of sugar and flowers, and always, somewhere in the jungles that he inexplicably finds himself wandering, that low, seductive chuckle that he hates so much. He's tried going to a doctor, but they always want to examine his head after he tells them about D. He's not crazy, damnit. He just... needs his time. Just to get back on his feet.
He lives in cheap motels, spending his days wandering the streets trying to scrape a living, and his evenings sprawled in bed with his pizza or pork rinds, the curtains drawn and the lights off, watching Pay-Per-View or porn or whatever the hell he feels like, it doesn't really matter to him. Beer is his constant companion, the cheap, shitty kind that D used to hate. That's probably why he drinks it. He knows that he has a problem, or will soon if he keeps it up (depression? He's not suicidal, god, no. Shit, he doesn't have a mental issue. That kind of stuff doesn't happen to people like him.). But right now he can't really be bothered to care. Oh, he'll change, really! Just... not right now. In a while. In a little bit.
He lies awake at night, thinking about where he is right now. Searching for a wisp, a memory, the belief that he had something once, but lost it... He knows somewhere in his heart that he can't get it back, but his brain refuses to believe it. He holds on to that memory, the one happy moment in his life, sitting laughing on that couch, with the sweet scent floating around him, those animals oddly quiet, the count smiling slightly at nothing, and a sense of peace that he never experienced before, and never will again. He holds on to that memory, and prays to no one that it will come again.
And sometimes, in the middle of the night, with the sound of cars rushing down the freeway and the shouting of the couple in the room next door, he will wonder, in that three-in-the-morning daze of his, if he would be here, half dead, half insane, all his hope lost, in some godforsaken hotel in some godforsaken town, searching for someone he's not even sure is real, if he had just not accepted that first case. If he had just minded his own damn business, and stayed away from Chinatown like everyone had told him to. If he hadn't climbed onto the boat. If he had been stronger.
But he did, and he wasn't, and now Leon Orcot has fallen, and he just can't seem to get back up.