Pet Shop Of Horrors Fan Fiction ❯ Sadie, Sadie ❯ Chapter Four ( Chapter 4 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

For warnings, disclaimers, etc., see Chapter One.

Chapter Four

Chris wasn't sleepy. He wasn't. He was much too worried about his brother to be sleepy. Still, his big bed with all the pillows was feeling more comfortable with every passing second, and Pon-chan had fallen asleep an hour ago; her deep, even breathing was lulling Chris, too. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to go to sleep. He'd probably wake up in the morning and everything would be fine, fixed overnight by the Count, like magic. Whatever problem there was would evaporate with the sunshine. Yeah. It wouldn't be so bad...

Chris had just made up his mind, was just starting not to be able to tell if he was asleep or awake, when he heard the Count's voice speaking as clearly as if he'd been standing right next to the bed.

Arise.

Chris's eyes flew open, when he hadn't been sure he'd closed them. He wondered if he'd dreamed that voice, but a second later he knew he hadn't, because Pon-chan had sat bolt upright on the bed with a gasp.

Arise, the Count's voice repeated, although the Count himself was nowhere in sight. Let the sleeper wake, and let the alert guide his brethren forward in peace. Arise. I call you.

Pon-chan looked frantic as she pulled her night-cap off, her blonde ringlets springing free. "Come on," she said. "We have to go to the front room!"

Why? Chris was even more confused than he'd been all night. Where is he? Is there some kind of loudspeaker in here? He'd never seen one.

"The Count doesn't need a loudspeaker," Pon-chan snapped, looking upset. "Come on, get up. It's a summoning. We all have to be ready." Her bottom lip trembled. "The last time he summoned us was when the shop moved to L.A. So…maybe he's getting ready to move it again."

Move it? Chris couldn't believe her. You mean--leave? Leave Los Angeles? But... But what about him? And Leon? Would Count D take them, too? Why was the shop moving, and where would it go?

"We move every few years," Pon-chan whispered. "We've been here for two years already. Maybe it's time." She couldn't look Chris in the eye. Chris thought she might even start crying as she tugged on his hand. "Come on!"

Chris let himself be pulled out of bed, and he realized he'd never put on his pajamas as he stumbled back out to the front of the shop. The hallways were beginning to stir, people poking sleep-rumpled heads out of doors, some of them looking excited, some of them looking grumpy, but all of them looking expectant. Everybody looked like they knew what was happening way better than Chris did.

T-chan was already waiting by the door when Chris and Pon-chan arrived. They hurried up next to him. His face was grim as he looked at the closed door.

What's happening? Chris asked him. Is my brother--

But before T-chan or anybody else could answer him, the door opened, and the Count emerged, followed by Leon. Leon's clothes were rumpled, and he had circles under his eyes, and his mouth was set in the frown that meant he'd been yelling a lot. This wasn't so weird, but Count D looked awful, too, and he never looked awful. His clothes were creased and rumpled, which never happened, his lipstick was smeared, and he looked tired. Tired, and sad.

Lots more people were gathered in the corridor now, but nobody was making any noise. They were all watching the Count. Even Q-chan rested silently on the top of a nearby kid's head, never taking his eyes off Count D.

"D," Leon said, "what is -- "

Count D held up his hand for silence, but didn't look at Leon. Instead, he addressed everyone in the hallway, including Chris. "Your attention, please," he said. "I have an announcement to make. Tonight, Detective Orcot has requested my hand in marriage."

Chris's jaw dropped. Everybody around him started talking at once. Pon-chan squealed and grabbed his hand. Only T-chan and Q-chan were silent; they both kept on quietly watching the Count, their faces never changing.

"What the hell are you doing?" Leon demanded. "Why are all these animals out here? And if you think this is the right way to tell Chris -- "

"Therefore," Count D continued as if Leon hadn't spoken, "I think it is only fair that he learn the truth about this place. I am taking Detective Orcot on a tour of the shop."

Everybody fell silent again at once. Chris couldn't think of anything to say or do. This was too many surprises at once. Leon didn't like Count D, he said so all the time. But he'd asked him to marry him? And they were both men, too. And Count D didn't look anything like happy or excited about it -- just sad and remote, while Leon looked mad. And Leon was never allowed in the back of the shop, for some reason, so what was going on here?

Chris wanted to reach out, tug on the Count's sleeve, or even take his hand, like he did when he needed extra reassurance. But the Count had his hands clasped tightly in front of himself, and something about him warned Chris that he didn't want to be touched right now. Even Q-chan hadn't gone to sit on his shoulder.

"Please make way," Count D said, and the crowd parted ahead of him, clearing a path without a word.

A few minutes ago, Leon had been certain that D had been pulling his leg, or speaking in some kind of code. Now he had to wonder if maybe the asshole really was crazy, after all.

Either that, or Leon was. It seemed insane to talk to animals like they were people, and expect them to understand what you were saying. But then…D had said, "Please make way," as if he was talking to a roomful of humans, and the animals had moved out of his way like all of them spoke perfect English. And D had always been kind of unusual around animals. Leon had never met anyone else who had his touch with them. Maybe -- maybe they really could understand --

Leon closed his eyes and shook his head rapidly. It had been a long night, he was exhausted and disheartened, and only sticking around because he couldn't make himself let go of that last, tiny shred of hope that D might change his mind. Now was not the time to go thinking about complicated, impossible things. If D thought a tour of the damn shop was going to make a difference, fine, he'd take the tour.

He started to follow D down the hallway, when somebody tugged at his hand. Chris. Poor kid looked like he'd never gone to bed, although he looked sleepy, and scared to death. B-big bro? Even though Chris wasn't speaking out loud at all, he still sounded like he was whispering. And that…that was something else, of course, something else Leon didn't let himself think about too much. How he could hear Chris as clear as day, when Chris never said a word out loud, sometimes didn't even move his mouth. Who was to say D hadn't learned to hear animals like that?

Complicated. Impossible. Leave it alone.

He squeezed Chris's hand and pulled him down the hallway. Chris held that raccoon tightly by the paw with his other hand. The stupid goat-tiger-thing trotted along at his side. "It's okay, Chris," Leon said, because that's just what you were supposed to say to kids, no matter what.

Did you really ask the Count to…?

"Yeah. I really did." Leon felt his mouth set in a grim line as he glared at the back of D's head. D didn't turn around, or even act like he heard what they were saying as he glided down the hall, Q-chan flapping around his head without coming to rest on him.

Y-you're going to marry the Count?!

"Dunno," Leon said harshly, over the lump in his throat. Why the hell had D had to say it like that? If he was going to turn Leon down, and it looked like he was sure going to try, why break it to Chris that way? "Hope so," he added, because he knew D could hear them. "We'll have to see what he says after the tour."

But you're always fighting with him!

Leon fell back on, "You'll understand when you're older." Which Chris probably wouldn't because, God willing, Chris would be normal.

He'd hoped it would shut the kid up, because they were approaching some stairs that led further down, deep into the shop. How much farther down could they go? The shop was already in a basement. And how far back did this corridor extend? Shouldn't they have already hit the end of the shop by now? But Chris interrupted his thoughts by saying, Bro? Why'd you call all the people animals?

Leon stopped in his tracks and frowned down at Chris. "What?"

Chris waved at the animals that surrounded him, that had stopped when they'd stopped and now looked up at Leon with something that seemed unnervingly like sentience. They're people, Chris said impatiently. Don't call them animals. They're people! he added, when Leon stared at him.

Leon turned on his heel to regard D, who had stopped a few feet ahead of them, and was watching them with an inscrutable look on his face. "D, what the hell is my little brother talking about?" he asked.

D's lips twitched into a smile, then, but it was the saddest smile Leon had ever seen. "Two brothers," he murmured, "each of whom sees only one side of the truth. You are both correct, Chris. The people are animals. The animals are people."

Chris and Leon both stared at each other, and then back at D, looking at him like he was crazy. It would be so easy for Leon to say he was crazy, except that his little brother was insisting that animals were people and Leon could hear him talking without words, and all the damn animals were listening in as if they understood every single thing that was going on around them, and something had always, always been a little bit weird about this shop. He couldn't see any end to the corridor.

"D," he said, his voice coming out a lot fainter than he wanted, "what's going on here?"

"You are about to find out," D said blandly. "Don't you want to, Detective?" Leon thought about that for a minute, aware that his whole body was tensed up, as if he was about to grab Chris and go running out the door, away from something he couldn't face. But he didn't know what that something was, and D's eyes were anchoring him here, grounding him, reminding him why he couldn't leave.

Leon nodded, and D gave a creepy, humorless smile. He drew up to a nearby door, and then smiled down at Chris, too. "Chris," he said, "I think it is time for your brother to meet Phillippe."

O…okay, Chris said, looking apprehensively up at Leon. Leon had heard Chris talking about Phillippe. D had explained it was one of Chris's favorite animal pals. Did Chris think Phillippe was a person?

D swung the door open, and Leon followed Chris inside. Once he was in, he would have turned around and marched right back out again, except that he'd frozen to the spot.

He was standing on a beach, with a bright half-moon shining overhead. The stars shone clear and pure over a cove of lapping, dark salt water. Under the stars and the moon, the sand looked as soft and white as snow. The leaves on the palm trees swayed gently in a cool, tender breeze. It was no L.A. beach. There was no smog, no light pollution blocking the stars, no trash littering the shore. No junkies or stoned teenagers or tourists, or anybody at all. It was like something off a postcard. It was in the basement of a pet shop in Chinatown.

Complicated. Impossible. And he couldn't look away from it this time.

Leon felt Chris's hand slip out of his own, but he was too frozen, too numb to do anything about it. He felt something rub his eyes, and realized that it was his other hand, come to check if he was dreaming. He looked around for D, who stood shimmering and still in the moonlight a few feet away, watching Chris hurry across the shore. Look, Leon! Here's Phillippe!

Leon heard the unmistakable "akka-akka!" cry of a dolphin, and sure enough, when he strained to look, he saw a sleek, silvery form with a bottle-nose leap out of the cove to greet Chris like an old pal. Leon stumbled forward a few steps to get a better look.

A dolphin. A beach. Stars. Goddamn palm trees. In Count D's basement.

"What?" he asked D, unable to come up with anything else to say. It came out as a breathless, disbelieving whisper. He wasn't even sure D had heard him, until D turned to look at him, still wearing that smile. Sometime in the last few minutes, Leon had no idea how, his clothes had started looking pressed and perfect again, and his lipstick had slid right back into place. The moonlight brought out the shifting shadows in his eyes, made his pale skin glow, and Leon's breath caught in spite of himself.

Maybe he was dreaming. Maybe he was on drugs. Maybe he'd finally lost his mind. But this was the same: this feeling of getting bowled over by D, overwhelmed by him, and needing to find out the truth, no matter what it took. He walked towards D, who didn't move, didn't even change the still, calm look on his face.

"When Chris looks at that dolphin," Leon asked, hearing his voice shake and hating it, "what's he see?"

D raised an eyebrow, glancing over at Chris, who was talking earnestly to Phillippe and shooting them both worried looks. "A young boy in scuba gear, I believe," he said.

"And you? What about you?"

"I see the truth," D said. "I see Phillippe as he really is." Before Leon could yell and shake him and ask him what the hell that even meant, D called out, "Christopher!" Chris looked up, and immediately began trotting back across the sand. "It is time to move on. There are many more rooms to show your brother."

"How many rooms?" Leon demanded. "How many rooms like this? Has Chris seen them all? What is this place?"

"Mr. Detective," D said, smiling again, "it is a pet shop. As it always has been. Nothing more."

"Will you cut the bullshit, you -- "

Phillippe says he's glad you came, Chris said, reaching them. He says he's always wondered what you looked like. He says he was jealous of the way everybody else got to see you.

Leon looked up, saw the dolphin peering out of the water, and gave it a weak wave, feeling like an idiot. The dolphin barked happily, and disappeared under the waves again.

Count, Chris asked, sounding almost scared, what's happening? Are you going to move the shop?

Leon blinked. "Move the shop?" He looked over at D, who was watching the lap of the waves on the white shore.

Pon-chan said the shop moves every few years, Chris whispered, still looking up at D pleadingly. That you've been here long enough and might be ready to go now. Count, please don't leave! I'll be good…just stay a little bit longer, I don't want you to go…

"Leave?" Leon heard his voice drop down into its lowest, most dangerous register. "Move the shop and leave? D, what's he talking about?"

D looked at Leon then, and his expression hadn't been that remote since the day they'd met. Only this was worse, because Leon knew D was hiding feelings behind that mask. He had to be. He'd given too much of himself away, in the front room, to take it back now.

"He is telling the truth, Detective," D said, his voice low and calm. "This shop has never stayed in one location for as long as it has remained in Los Angeles. I should have left months ago. A mistake that I think I must remedy soon. It seems only fair to tell you that."

"Fair?" Leon sputtered. "Fair? What do you -- where would you go?"

"I don't know. Anywhere," D said quietly. "Another Chinatown, perhaps. They exist all over the world, Detective."

Leon forgot about Chris and Phillippe and magic corridors and palm trees. He grabbed D by his shoulders as hard as he could, as if he thought D was going to turn into vapor any second, and the rest of the shop with him. "You'll what? Just leave? And you think that's fucking fair?" He shook D, hard, red hazing the edges of his vision. "You can't. You can't do that!"

"I'm afraid I can, and I must," D said. His voice was cool and level, but Leon could feel slight tremors running through his body. "With some regret, of course. It is never pleasant to leave friends behind. But it must be done, for the sake of the animals."

"For the sake of the animals?" Leon roared. "The animals? What the hell do the animals care where they are? Cut the crap, D! This is about you, not them!" He'd been half-certain, ever since entering this room, that he was dreaming. Now he was praying that he was. This was a scene straight out of nightmare -- worse, straight out of that revelation he'd had yesterday, sitting in the front room. Now a life without D stretched out before him, his worst fears all getting ready to come true.

And freaky rooms or not -- marriage or not -- life without D --

"Yes, it is," D said with surprising sharpness. "It is about me, as well." He twitched his body, and all of a sudden Leon let go, his fingers going nerveless and numb, as if he had no control over them. "Detective, over the past two years, you have seen more of my magic, of my family's magic, than any human being has ever been privy to. It is not a testament to your skills as a detective that you have learned nothing from it, have observed nothing from it, have put none of the pieces together. But even you cannot overlook this. Do you think I can stay, now that I have shown you the truth? Do you really think you want me to stay?" D tossed his head back, looking proud and disdainful, but his mouth was trembling at the corners. "You have so much invested in your limited, blinkered view of the world, Officer Orcot. It will be a simple matter for you to return to that when I am gone."

'When I am gone.' It was like a jail sentence. A death knell. Leon had said he couldn't live without D. He hadn't been kidding. Words trembled on his tongue: I'll find you. You can't run away from me because we can't be apart. No matter where you go I'll hunt you down and…

He didn't like those words. They were creepy and scary and wrong. They were a stalker's words, the kind of words some asshole came up with when he was trying to explain why he'd killed his ex-girlfriend's pets and followed her around everywhere she went. Leon had always hated those pathetic fuckers and known he wasn't one of them, would never be one of them, because he was decent.

He didn't feel decent now. He felt crazed, lost, desperate in a way that none of those loser guys could possibly have known, because something horrible was about to happen--D, out of his life--and he was about to lose something that made his life worth living.

But he could say all that to D, every word of it, and none of it would make a difference. He'd tried it already. Shaking and threats and shouting wouldn't work, not now. Instead he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and made the greatest effort of his life, reaching for calm. Then, he also reached out towards D -- this time, taking both his hands, in a gentle grip.

He opened his eyes. "You gotta leave now, because I know the shop's…magic?" he asked. D looked away and nodded. "Why?" Leon asked, trying to sound reasonable with the very last functioning part of his brain. Everything might depend on what he said and did, right now. "'Cause you think I'm gonna squeal? Who could I tell? I'd sound like a lunatic." D glanced at him, looking wary. Leon tugged a little, drew him closer. "Everybody at the precinct already thinks I'm nuts, the way I've gone after you. Telling them the shop is magic and you got a beach in your closet…that'd be all they needed to lock me up and throw out the key."

"Nevertheless," D said, his voice a little unsteady again, "no human can be fully prepared for -- "

"Besides Chris?" Leon interrupted.

Then they both remembered Chris was there, and looked down at him. He was holding Pon-chan tight against him, watching them both from a few feet away, with tears running down his face. Poor little -- but as bad as Leon felt for Chris, he couldn't afford to focus on him right now.

Leon felt D tense and shiver. "Chris is…exceptional," he whispered.

"So let me be the exception too." Leon tugged again, until D was standing right in front of him, so close that they were almost pressed together. Almost. "Fuck, D, I admitted I had my head under a rock, didn't I. You think a magic beach is enough to drive me crazy? I've been putting up with you for two years!"

"Detective," D said, "this is only the first room on the tour. To paraphrase the popular saying, you haven't seen anything yet." He sounded cool, almost flippant--but Leon saw something in his eyes that looked like a really tiny spark of uncertainty. Leon kept looking at him, and dared to lean forward until their foreheads were pressing together. He kept firm hold of D's hands.

Complicated. Impossible. Just like D. Just like everything else in Leon's life these past two years, and if he had to go insane to keep it, maybe it'd be worth his while. Besides, what were his options? He'd already seen this room. He couldn't just forget about that, no matter what D said. It was going to drive him worse than crazy if he didn't see the rest, now.

"Show me," he said, painfully, knowing he wasn't ready for it and never would be. "Show me all of it, and see if I run before you do."

D took a step back, looking stunned, looking pale. He nodded, once, and led Leon and Chris out of the beach room, back into the incense-scented corridor, where everybody else was hanging around, waiting to see what was going to happen. Leon stared as he passed by them, trying to see what Chris saw, trying to see if any of them looked like people, but they didn't. So he gave up and kept on following D, with Chris right on his heels.

They were almost to the next room by the time he realized D was still holding onto one of his hands.