Petshop of Horrors, Count D/Leon, earned 1/2
Leon has this picture in his head of how it's gonna be when he finds D. It'll be after dark, somewhere in a big city. He'll shove open the pet shop doors. D will freeze in place. He'll yell at D, because he's got a lot of yelling stored up, and D will yell back at him.
He's not sure what will happen next. Maybe D will vanish again, and leave him standing in an empty store-front like they found in LA. Maybe D will feed him to the goat-tiger. The important part is that for once, even if it's only for half a second, he'll be in control and D won't, and he intends to enjoy it.
Of course it doesn't work like that. It's daylight, in a town somewhere in Brazil. Leon wouldn't even be here except that he'd heard about a group smuggling rare animals out of the country. He doesn't know what the fuck he thinks he can do about it -- sabotage their plane, maybe? -- but these days, he can't just think not my problem and walk away, the way he used to. So he hitches a ride in a puddle-jumper, and winds up in the middle of the jungle with a bag full of dirty laundry and not a fuck of a lot else. He pays the pilot, settles his bag on his shoulder, and goes looking for a washerwoman, a general store, or the smugglers, and not necessarily in that order.
He finds the general store first, and walks in. Cop instinct wakes up and screams at him, a little fucking late, as his eyes adjust to the dimness and he realizes the following:
1) He's found the smugglers. 2) Who are heavily armed, and jumpy. 3) Because D found them first.
D -- his D, mismatched eyes and brocade dress-thing and all -- stands at the back of the store, hands folded in front of him. There's another door behind him, standing open, and Leon can just barely see what looks like cages back there. If there are cages, they must be empty, because a black panther is lounging in the doorway, and a large parrot with a murderous-looking beak sits perched above D's head.
As the smugglers are turning to see what idiot just came in, the parrot says, "Hello, Detective."
A bunch of them grab for their guns, and Leon's pretty sure he sees D give the bird one of his Looks. He isn't sure, because there's a lot of guns pointing at him, which s a little distracting, and at least three different guys are babbling in Spanish too rapid for Leon to follow, something about lying and the cops.
"Of course not," D says, voice cutting through theirs like scissors through silk. He glides over to Leon. "He, too, is mine." And he kisses Leon, open-mouthed, before turning to face the smugglers again.
For a moment Leon wonders if D's kiss did something to him, transformed him, one of those freaky things like he used to half-see in the pet shop. He finds himself smiling at the guys who are pointing guns at him, and it feels like his teeth are a lot longer and sharper than usual. There's a little part of him that's muttering holy shit! but only a little part, and he isn't sure if it's the teeth, the kiss, or the guns.
There's a clatter as a kid in the back loses his grip on his gun. Another shoulders forward to face D, and says, slow enough Leon can understand, "Please -- lord, we did not --"
The panther, or jaguar, whatever the hell it is, snarls, and D says gently, "Then run. Run, and perhaps Lipoca will let you go."
They run for it. There's another guy who's protesting, We've got guns!, but then the jaguar surges up from the floor and swipes him with its claws, and a minute later there's no one left in the store except for D, Leon, the parrot, and the jaguar. The jaguar looks over its shoulder and grins at D, then vanishes out the door in pursuit of the smugglers.
The parrot flutters down to the counter, and clicks its beak at D. "Thank you," it says, and bobs its head. D inclines his in return, and the parrot hops off and walks out the back door. Leon's brain catches up him at this point, because if that's a wild parrot, how is it -- but he stops that train of thought before it's gone any farther. D's here. Even the kiss didn't mean anything, it's just part of the whole weirdness of D, that's all.