Petshop of Horrors: Drabbles
Title: Summer Gold
Warning: I'm still not sure what I imbibed that caused this to trickle out my skull
Word Count: 500
Summary: His first year of running the shop, Father tests him and D passes but one wonders how this will influence the future
D frowned down into his cup and then sighed; waiting for the incense to grow heavy in the shop as night fell and the doors began to shift. Already defying reality in some ways the shop spread out its tentacles across reality like a night blooming flower spreads its petals and with a heavy eyed look of satisfaction D stepped through a door outside onto a winding pale rock road that wound its serpentine way through endless fields of gold wheat while the sky above had not a single cloud to give shelter from the baking heat of the full summer sun above. Here and there trees made an attempt to keep their jewel-like blossoms but they were distinctly bedraggled and lost amongst the rich emerald and jade of fresh new leaves.
Like his ancestors D did not normally allow second chances however if it were not for his father this contract he sought to heal would never have been stretched. Now testing him in his first year of running the shop alone, Father taught the creature how to slip through a loop hole and leave the flesh body that Grandfather had crafted, the most cunning cage in all creation, which captured the essence of summer, a non-living ideal that had rested in the heart of the sun drenched woman, as barren as she was golden, who desired a child to match the summer glow in her and bind her equally tawny lover to her side.
The summer child idled on the path, a thing of long limbs and gold skin, hair gold mixed with sandstone, sunshine and wheat offsetting sky mirror eyes, walking along the path with no destination, free for the first time, curious for the first time, cognitive of self for the first time and innocent, innocent enough for D to gently coax to his arms and carry back to his rooms.
He lay the summer child out, long limbs, salty skin, the blue of its eye unmatched by any sapphire and ran fingers through the hair that spread across his sheets and pillows as his hips began to slowly rock. He worshiped with his mouth the shape shifting figure writhing under him, one moment his sloe eyed youth, the next a ripe intoxicating woman like a peach left on the branch, then a warrior with muscles harder than sunbaked earth. Peleus’ writhing with Thetis was never this pleasurable and D easily held on till their bodies were entwined in exhaustion and the spirit was unable to fight against the bindings calling it back to the hospitalised child’s body. D licked his lips afterwards of the taste of mead and found a single golden hair on his bed, longer then he was tall which he later traded away for a pair of songbirds.
And now he sits and sips his tea and wonders why sometimes in the lull of conversation the Detective’s eyes will flash with loathing, need and betrayal without the rest of the face following.
Title: The AntiClimax
Warning: ANGST LIKE WHOA
Word Count: 384
Summary: this is how the world ends, not with a bang but with a whimper
“Good morning Doctor…”
“Good morning Leon”
Only this is not his doctor but D has given up correcting Leon now and instead reaches out, takes one frail papery hand and traces with a long nail the raised veins, skin cringing in horror as he looks at the splattering of liver spots.
“How is your wife Doctor?”
“She is fine Leon…”
Diverging from this routine had reduced Leon to a screaming confused wreck, a wailing child in an old man’s body.
“I had a dream again Doctor…”
“Did you Leon?”
His hair totally surpassed turning grey and went from solid gold to pure white, and is thick and shaggy, down around his elbows when some kind nurse has not gently brushed it back into a pony tail. When that happens it gives Leon a dignified look at odds with how undignified his situation is. The nurses tried to cut it once and the resulting screaming made several other residents of the hospice join in.
“There was a boat Doctor…”
“Oh?”
“It was beautiful…. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen Doctor…”
A hint of a smile on lips that have remained flat but D doesn’t hold onto any hope that Leon is remembering anything. This person before him, the bone structure is the same, the aging is how he imagined Leon might age, a half a century ago when Leon’s shoulders were broad and straight, not slumped beneath a blue dressing gown. But the person is not Leon, it is mockery of the man that infuriated D beyond measure and provided him with friendship like the other had never experienced before.
“The captain was odd though Doctor, he looked a lot like you…and there were animals everywhere… and the cabin looked like a Chinese new year float…”
A shambling ghoul wearing a beloved face, mocking him. Still, D wants to weep in relief that Leon does not remember what happened after the boat, even as the shrunk figure on the bed taunts him, a better reminder then anything his grandfather said that he is not a human, that he should not get involved.
D withdraws a syringe from his graceful sleeve and finds the spot in the IV where he can inject the contents.
“That sounds like a beautiful dream Leon.”
Warning: I'm still not sure what I imbibed that caused this to trickle out my skull
Word Count: 500
Summary: His first year of running the shop, Father tests him and D passes but one wonders how this will influence the future
D frowned down into his cup and then sighed; waiting for the incense to grow heavy in the shop as night fell and the doors began to shift. Already defying reality in some ways the shop spread out its tentacles across reality like a night blooming flower spreads its petals and with a heavy eyed look of satisfaction D stepped through a door outside onto a winding pale rock road that wound its serpentine way through endless fields of gold wheat while the sky above had not a single cloud to give shelter from the baking heat of the full summer sun above. Here and there trees made an attempt to keep their jewel-like blossoms but they were distinctly bedraggled and lost amongst the rich emerald and jade of fresh new leaves.
Like his ancestors D did not normally allow second chances however if it were not for his father this contract he sought to heal would never have been stretched. Now testing him in his first year of running the shop alone, Father taught the creature how to slip through a loop hole and leave the flesh body that Grandfather had crafted, the most cunning cage in all creation, which captured the essence of summer, a non-living ideal that had rested in the heart of the sun drenched woman, as barren as she was golden, who desired a child to match the summer glow in her and bind her equally tawny lover to her side.
The summer child idled on the path, a thing of long limbs and gold skin, hair gold mixed with sandstone, sunshine and wheat offsetting sky mirror eyes, walking along the path with no destination, free for the first time, curious for the first time, cognitive of self for the first time and innocent, innocent enough for D to gently coax to his arms and carry back to his rooms.
He lay the summer child out, long limbs, salty skin, the blue of its eye unmatched by any sapphire and ran fingers through the hair that spread across his sheets and pillows as his hips began to slowly rock. He worshiped with his mouth the shape shifting figure writhing under him, one moment his sloe eyed youth, the next a ripe intoxicating woman like a peach left on the branch, then a warrior with muscles harder than sunbaked earth. Peleus’ writhing with Thetis was never this pleasurable and D easily held on till their bodies were entwined in exhaustion and the spirit was unable to fight against the bindings calling it back to the hospitalised child’s body. D licked his lips afterwards of the taste of mead and found a single golden hair on his bed, longer then he was tall which he later traded away for a pair of songbirds.
And now he sits and sips his tea and wonders why sometimes in the lull of conversation the Detective’s eyes will flash with loathing, need and betrayal without the rest of the face following.
Title: The AntiClimax
Warning: ANGST LIKE WHOA
Word Count: 384
Summary: this is how the world ends, not with a bang but with a whimper
“Good morning Doctor…”
“Good morning Leon”
Only this is not his doctor but D has given up correcting Leon now and instead reaches out, takes one frail papery hand and traces with a long nail the raised veins, skin cringing in horror as he looks at the splattering of liver spots.
“How is your wife Doctor?”
“She is fine Leon…”
Diverging from this routine had reduced Leon to a screaming confused wreck, a wailing child in an old man’s body.
“I had a dream again Doctor…”
“Did you Leon?”
His hair totally surpassed turning grey and went from solid gold to pure white, and is thick and shaggy, down around his elbows when some kind nurse has not gently brushed it back into a pony tail. When that happens it gives Leon a dignified look at odds with how undignified his situation is. The nurses tried to cut it once and the resulting screaming made several other residents of the hospice join in.
“There was a boat Doctor…”
“Oh?”
“It was beautiful…. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen Doctor…”
A hint of a smile on lips that have remained flat but D doesn’t hold onto any hope that Leon is remembering anything. This person before him, the bone structure is the same, the aging is how he imagined Leon might age, a half a century ago when Leon’s shoulders were broad and straight, not slumped beneath a blue dressing gown. But the person is not Leon, it is mockery of the man that infuriated D beyond measure and provided him with friendship like the other had never experienced before.
“The captain was odd though Doctor, he looked a lot like you…and there were animals everywhere… and the cabin looked like a Chinese new year float…”
A shambling ghoul wearing a beloved face, mocking him. Still, D wants to weep in relief that Leon does not remember what happened after the boat, even as the shrunk figure on the bed taunts him, a better reminder then anything his grandfather said that he is not a human, that he should not get involved.
D withdraws a syringe from his graceful sleeve and finds the spot in the IV where he can inject the contents.
“That sounds like a beautiful dream Leon.”