Fandom: Petshop of Horrors
Character/s: Chris, D/Leon in spirit
Words: 652
Notes: For 15 minute ficlets, word 45.
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At some point in his life, he had realised they'd loved each other. The Count, and his brother. At some point in his life, that had occurred to him as absolute truth. The constant arguments, the ugly words - the way the harshness passed almost as soon as it had begun, sometimes so fast that he missed their fights entirely, and was left wondering why Tetsu was scowling, why Pon-chan was teary-eyed, and why yet another of Count D's fine bone-china cups was lying shattered against the far wall.
He'd used to think that it was terrible. He'd used to think, when they argued over him, that he'd done something wrong, and he'd be sorry, so sorry, until Tetsu would chuck him under the chin (like he was just another one of the cats, Chris remembered with a haunted chuckle) and say something callous and brash, and lead him off to play with Phillipe, or the puppies, or to help with lunch.
They'd made him take psychology before they let him into the Bureau. They'd taught him about misdirected rage, about passions of one sort being transmuted into passions of another sort entirely. They'd taught him that when they were telling him about serial killers, but Chris had only heard the first ten minutes of that lecture before he wound up staring at the projector screen, unsure of whether to be horrified or not.
He can still remember Leon's letters, telling him that he shouldn't forget the petshop, that he shouldn't just let his aunt and uncle (mom and dad) wash those memories away, because they were real, they were real, his brother would insist, and the already messy writing would deteriorate even further with his vehemence. Sometimes, the pen would change colour after that, or there would be a big hole in the piece of paper, like Leon had pushed the nib too hard and it had stabbed through into the surface beneath.
He can still remember Leon telling him what he thought of as the truth; he can still remember his brother's fractured account of incense and a museum, and killing a sabertooth tiger just to protect 'that asshole', and when he got home from that psych lecture he ripped out all the contents of the drawer that held Leon's letters - all of them. There weren't many - Leon didn't write much, didn't remember, or didn't have the time - but Chris was pretty sure he'd had more stamps than keen philatelists did before he was twenty.
He'd ripped out the contents of that drawer and he'd read them again, every last one, and as he sat there on the floor of his dorm room, he'd felt such a keen sense of loss, with a sharpness and a heaviness that, for once, was not for him, was not for the friends and memories he'd lost, but was for Leon. Leon, whom he hadn't heard from in six months, whose last letter had been from - according to his sardonic 'return to sender' address - "Middle of the Fucking Nowhere Desert, Australia".
And he'd realised with a weird lifting of his heart, he wasn't as hurt as he thought that he'd been when D had disappeared along with Pon-chan and Tetsu, wasn't as damaged, wasn't as broken. That was why he was studying, that was why he wasn't tearing around the globe working a week or so for food or board or travel, wasn't on some misnamed suicide quest.
The crazy shit was Leon's job. Chris had always been more sensible; D had always said so.
Chris was going to wait until he could find D, safely, assuredly, without risking life and limb in those strange, out-of-the-way places that Leon's letters had always complained about.
But Chris was going to find him, if it was the last thing he would ever do.
Detective work was in the blood, after all.
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