@polarspaz this is the first thing I've written for one of your AU's that Ive felt like sharing on here. Hope you like it and that its ok!! Losing that pendant is NOT fun!
Also I wrote this at work on my phone so sorry if the format is funny at all!
Leon woke up dazed. He stayed in bed, eyes closed, letting consciousness fall over him. He didn't know how long he'd slept.
He took a moment to figure out how bad any aches and pains were from the mission. He'd, of course, been thrown around a bit.
He tried to pinpoint the primary spots where he had assumed he would hurt. Nothing seemed where he was expecting it.
The more awake he started to feel, the more confused he became. He opened his eyes and was greeted by his own blue scales.
Shit.
He didn't have his pendant on.
He tried to retrace his steps last night in his mind before he panicked.
He'd gotten home, taken off his work clothes, and climbed into bed. No where in that did he remember removing his necklace.
A quick glance around his room yielded nothing. There was his pile of clothes on the floor, but with no sign of the light blue stone.
He felt dread pooling in the pit of his stomach.
Leon had only misplaced the pendant one time, and it was during the short stretch of time where they were figuring out what exactly had happened to him.
It had taken 3 days, Luis, Ashley, and a handful of researchers tearing apart the lab to find the pendant, tucked somehow behind one of their cabinets.
That time, he'd barely learned what the pendant actually did. He had been human again for the first time since he'd picked up the cursed thing in Spain. He had taken it off so that Luis could try and figure out how some of his dragony things worked. When he went to grab it off the table, it was gone.
He had gotten better at moving carefully like this, but still bumped the nightstand with his back, knocking off the alarm clock.
He started with his bed. He pulled off the blanket, checking between it and the loose sheet. He pulled that off next, and then the mattress pad.
Nothing.
He shook out the fabric, holding it as high as he could, hoping the damned thing would fall out of it. It didn't. Instead, Leon had just poked some serious holes in his bedspread.
He tossed his clothes around, checking in every pocket. He found a couple pieces of trash from the ride back, along with his keys, but no pendant. He threw the dirty clothes on top of his blankets.
He pulled open the drawer of his nightstand and found it mostly empty, like normal. It wasn't there.
He took a breath. “It's here somewhere, you were human when you got home,” he assured himself.
He wasn't going to be able to get an angle to look under the nightstand, so he pushed it over instead. Nothing. He looked at his claws, attached to shoulders too many feet from his head.
Shit.
That pool of dread hardened into adrenaline-filled panic. It seeped into his bones. The very idea that he had lost it, the one thing that was making this whole curse manageable whispered in the back of his mind.
Leon tore his room apart, throwing things from one side to the other until it looked like a tornado had ravaged the small space. His mattress and box spring propped up against the wall, all of his clothes strewn about outside of the closet, the lamp and nightstand knocked onto the floor.
He didn't care how his claws caught in the carpet, pulling little strands loose with each step. His security deposit didn't matter now.
So it wasn't in the bedroom. He opened the door and moved to his living room. He hadn't been in here long, just enough to toss his jacket over the back of the sofa.
He snatched it and dug through the pockets as he had his other garments. As he had been both expecting and fearing, the pendant wasn't there.
He snaked around to the front side of the sofa and started pulling at cushions.
He spent a good amount of time with the living room, then moved to the kitchen. He opened every cabinet, every drawer. He even checked down the garbage disposal.
He hadn't even come into the kitchen last night.
He retraced his steps as best as he could between what he could remember and the fact that he was currently a 40ft long dragon.
He got home, came up the stairs into the apartment building. He unlocked his door, came inside, shut it. Hung his keys up on the hook by the door.
He walked back to the bedroom and guided himself through how he thought he had gone from there. Taken his work clothes off, climbed onto his bed, fallen asleep. There was atill nothing.
His panic-addled brain was out of ideas.
He took that energy and started putting his bedroom back together. Kind of. He pulled the bed back into a usable position, and put all of his clothes in one big pile. He stood back up the other furniture, but didnt bother to straighten it out.
He slunk back out to the living room with the intention of doing the same, but instead just collapsed on the pile of couch cushions. He curled in on himself, his own breath hot on the scales of his body.
So much had gone wrong in Spain, starting with him and Ashley getting infected. Then he just had to steal the baubles to pay the Merchant. If he hadn't done that, he wouldn't be sitting in his apartment as a 40 foot long wet noodle.
Now he had to contemplate what would happen if he couldn't find the pendant. He would be stuck. Until he died.
It was easier to deal with in Spain, the idea that this wasn't reversible. It was easier to push it aside, to focus on his mission. To use the little advantages he had been given to save Ashley and Luis.
Now that he was used to being human again, and in his own apartment for God's sake, it felt like the world was ending for him.
His phone dinged from the charger. He wouldn't be able to open it like this. He didn't have quite that much dexterity. He ignored it.
**
He woke some time later to his front door opening.
“Sancho?” Luis called as the door shut again. It didn't take the man long to find Leon, curled up on his mess of couch cushions, sulking as he contemplated the rest of his life.
Leon huffed at Luis.
“What's wrong?” The Spaniard asked. “And what happened in here?”
Leon kept his gaze on Luis's shoes. “I lost my pendant. I looked everywhere.” His voice shook as he spoke, just enough for Luis to notice.
Luis knelt down and placed a hand on Leon's shoulder. “Where was the last place you had it?”
Leon turned his head away. “I already tried that.” He explained how the morning had gone.
“Well, let's look again. I'll help you.” He rose back up to his feet and motioned for Leon to follow.
Leon uncoiled and stood as he watched Luis look around.
The man chuckled. “You searched everywhere?”
Leon nodded.
Luis laughed again and walked to the front door. He grabbed what seemed to be Leon's keys from the hook on the wall. When he turned back around, Leon could see his necklace dangling from Luis's hand.
“What?”
“You must have taken it off and hung it up instead of your keys,” Luis guessed. He held out the pendant to Leon. “Now, let's find your keys before you tear this place apart again.”
The memory of tossing his keys aside this morning flickered into his mind. He'd left them in his pocket.
The man-turned-dragon laughed to himself. “Leon, you dumb shit.”
