PSOH 'This is the last time', a pet shop of horrors fanfic

DRABBLE inspired by Blaqk Audio

Pairing: Leon X Count D

Rated: G

Warnings: X-treme Angst, of the self-provoked kind.

PSOH 'This is the Last Time'

Would you save my life
If you knew why this is the last time?

Claws dug into his hand, so hard was it held. He felt his skin split under the driving pressure and winced, the whistling wind dragging the water from his eyes as cold unwilling tears. But the trickles of blood that seeped into the cracks of his knuckles were next to nothing compared the copious amounts he'd already lost.

He'd already lost.

It was surely over this time – life…love, hope, and dreams – he knew for certain it was all going to be over as soon as he slammed into the ground. But, if he would not survive this last time, then at least he had leapt into the abyss with his one and only.

Walk with me, my one and only
Find, with me, the end.

The pressure was gone, suddenly, and his hand spread open, leaking blood and lonely in the chill noisy rush. Leon's eyes closed that same moment, the darkness encroaching. He had wanted…wanted something, and it was gone now, nowhere to be found in the hurtling onrush of death.

When he opened them again he was afloat on a creamsickle cloud, one that felt oddly like cotton wool when it should have only been a cold damp mist. He bounced a few times to test it, making sure it would take his weight.

"Asshole!"

He'd been dumped again, damn it. Left to spend eternity on some fucking cloud. Any minute his goddamned halo would appear.

But it was a masted schooner, not a flock of mincing cherubs, which hove over the horizon on the swells of the cloud-sea. And there, there, damn it, was the asshole, standing tall and regal at the prow.

Nobody helped climb him aboard, but he didn't expect it. Didn't need it, anyway – he was fit as a fiddle.

"Leon!"

"T-chan? That's you?"

"Where we going, Count?"

This wasn't so bad, not at all. He could get used this, real damn quick. The view was fucking beautiful and he had friends here…well, kinda. It sure as shit beat dying.

D was here.

Couldn't be all that terrible, spending life aboard a ship. He'd get to see lots of places that had only been names in novels, and D would be with him, so it wasn't really dying – more like moving away, or taking an extended trip.

"We travel without regard to man's boundaries."

What? Why had D's face changed like that? What was this air of expectancy that had the animal-people lifting heads to scent the wind?

"Humankind has not earned the right to be on this ship, Leon. Not yet."

Leon wasn't breathing when he was pushed – he'd been so caught up in what was going on with D's face that he didn't register the pressure of the perfectly manicured hand that cast him out until it was much too late.

So he had no air in his lungs for calling out, as he was falling yet again. No power to shout out the name of his enemy, his betrayer, his…..

Leon was crying by the time D had disappeared from view, the huge, helpless racking sobs of a battered child, and it was only the cruel wind that ripped the bitter tears from his crumpled, startled face. He would have given anything he had left to feel the desperate strength of that slim hand grasp his once again.

When he woke up to see Jill and Chris, the Chief and whole bunch of startled staring nurses, there were still tears drying on his face. He felt their tracks for months after, an invisible acid eating away at him, as if they had never actually dried.

Can you tell me what stops the pain?
Self medication?
Science, saviors, tragedy?

It was a question Leon was unable to answer; until he left, that is, and knew the truth.

888

If you knew...
Would you save me?

D could not, in the end, let Leon go. There was no one there to watch him or comment nastily when he hauled that beaten, bruised and bleeding man up the staircase. The dying are far heavier than those in good health.

Walk with me, my one and only
Find, with me, the end.

It was an enormous effort to get to the point where it was possible to reach that specific spiral in a complex space/time – the one that would allow his Leon continued life. The Count used every iota of his great strength to get there, half-dragging his chosen precious burden of amazing weight and value. And then to leap blindly, faithfully, into the plane of possibility, holding onto Leon in desperation and with all his might. Falling, he stared the specter of Leon's fear in the face and smiled, bearing his even white teeth.

It was utter relief to see his Shop sail into view.

He laid the recumbent Leon down on the cloud nearest his Shop and surveyed him carefully for damage. Lacquered fingertips touched a chest smooth and unscarred with gashes, patted the worn denim over what had been a badly damaged leg and hopelessly torn artery. Leon was well now, or well enough, to go on. If he left him here, sleeping, his dear detective would sink back to the earth below unharmed, waking as if from a dream.

But it hardly startled the Count when Leon climbed over the ebony rail. It just made it all that much more difficult than it already was.

May I lead the way into temptation?
Sirens screaming just for me
And the void remains.It was but for a moment that D considered keeping Leon aboard the ship. Perhaps if the man had come of his own volition, willingly and fully cognizant of what he would lose.

It was a moment too long for a responsible kami in charge of the Shop. The Count cast the idea away forcefully…Leon did not deserve this. There was still hope.

It was nothing to press a forceful hand against the dear bare chest. It was nothing to tell Leon he could not stay in a realm of mythical half-forgotten beasts. But there was nothing the Count could do to prevent tears from the pain of parting, except be glad that they fell fortunately only from his one – hidden - golden eye.

How deep must we cut to reach sensation?
Find it. Bring it back to me
Where the void remains.

If D had a heart, it went with Leon, into freefall, sinking helplessly back to Earth. He bid it goodbye without sorrow – it would do him no good to feel that way ever again.

It was only that Leon was crying, his face stricken and lost in the growing distance. That look on his confident, clear-eyed detective was the detective's ultimate weapon – the one action that could rake the Count's regret wide open and let it spill. Maybe this wasn't the only way to end it. Perhaps they should meet again, in some far distant future.

But…

This is the last time.
I'm leaving without you - in silence.

The Count was positive he would not be able to do this a third time. He would not have the heart to walk away again. If Leon came after him, then let him bring it – the Count would have found the right answer by then.

END

BLAQK AUDIO LYRICS; Blaqk Audio

"Bitter For Sweet"

Can you tell me what stopped the rain?
Where is salvation?
Science, saviors, tragedy?
May I lead the way into temptation?
Sirens screaming just for me
And the void remains.

Would you save my life
If you knew why this is the last time?
I'm leaving without you in silence.
Could you save my life
Had the boy that you knew not died?
This is the last time.
I'm leaving with out you in silence.

Can you tell me what stops the pain?
Self medication?
Science, saviors, tragedy?
How deep must we cut to reach sensation?
Find it. Bring it back to me
Where the void remains.

Walk with me my one and only
Find with me the end.
Walk with me my one and only silence.

Could you save my life?
This is the last time.
I'm leaving with out you in silence.

If you knew...
Would you save me?
Can you tell me what stopped the rain?
Can you tell me what stopped it?
If you knew...
Would you save me?