VINCE'S POV
The bright flashes of light blinded him and left brightly coloured after-images tattooed against his retinas. He used to live for this; the adoration of strangers who all wanted a piece of him; the crowds clustering around him for a photograph, a signature, a smile. But now, it frightened him looking at those slavering creatures with cameras screaming his name, and feelings of claustrophobia and helplessness pressed in on him. He needed to escape. He ran.
The crowd saw his flight and roared in disbelief and anger. His long feathered cape swept and fluttered behind him in the wind, and for a moment he was a songbird fleeing its gilded cage. He threw open the door of the nearest taxi, scooped up his trailing creation of haute couture in one arm and leaped inside.
"Drive!" he said breathlessly and turned to see the face of the man that would change his life forever, though he had no way of knowing that yet.
In a bizarre way, he did know, from that first moment when he locked eyes with the haphazardly dressed man in the cab, staring at him in bewilderment. For a split second time stood still and he could feel his heart beating in his throat and the surprised intake of breath from the other man.
Neither of them said anything for what could have been seconds or decades. The stranger broke the silence first.
"Who are you?" he asked in astonishment.
"I'm yours," Vince replied, and as he said it, he knew it to be true.
*~*~*
He didn't believe in love at first sight, too many strangers had claimed to love him upon seeing him for him to believe in it. Those people loved his image, his quirky sense of humour in interviews, his androgynous beauty. They didn't know him, he existed only as a 3D representation of a picture in a glossy magazine to these people. A concatenation of a dream, an angel, a sprite and a thousand memorised video clips and photos and quotes.
How could they love him? They thought they knew him already, and so, they didn't want him to do anything to shatter the illusion. How many times had he played the game? Taken a beautiful young person, almost as pretty as him, and played the role of the person that they thought he was for a night, slipping away before they woke the next morning, leaving no trace that he'd ever been there.
Not like this. His mouth was dry and the adrenaline rush of his escape was still thundering through his body. He could have gotten into anyone's cab; some spoiled teenagers on a shopping holiday, a Jewish grandmother, a drunken college student. New York had all of these and more in spades, but it had been this cab, this man, at this moment, and he didn't think that there could be any other explanation than fate.
The man in the cab was nothing like the kind of people he would usually deign to sleep with; svelte, feminine party goers of indiscriminate gender with skinny hips and shiny hair, plucked from the teaming masses of admirers. They all clamoured to get invited to an event that he was rumoured to be appearing at, praying that they would be chosen.
*~*~*
"Vince Noir, is there any chance of a romance of the horizon? You were seen with actress Judy Monroe earlier this month, what is the truth behind the rumours that the two of you have been meeting secretly?"
"Oh dear... this is why I shouldn't sleep with famous people. You charming journalistic types have us halfway to the alter by the time the knickers hit the floor."
"So, you're still not ready to settle down?"
"Barring a complete brain transplant, I'll never be ready to 'settle down'. Why would I, when there are still so many deserving young persons waiting patiently for their turn?"
*~*~*
This man was nothing like that. He was sexily dishevelled, in a way that suggested actual dishevelment rather than several hours spent carefully rumpling hair and selecting an outfit that looked like it was thrown together carelessly at the last minute. He was clutching a small hardback notebook one of his large squarish hands.
Everything about him was masculine and hinted at a quietly reserved strength. His brown eyes were small and close set, but they were the warmest and kindest eyes Vince had ever seen. He was handsome in a more homespun and traditional way than was fashionable at the moment. He was the most beautiful thing in the whole world.
*~*~*
HOWARD'S POV
He shouldn't have been taking a cab, not when he'd just learnt how badly his latest book of poetry was selling. For the next few months he would have to live on the barest of essentials and the occasional left over dinners that the woman next door would give him now and then. She was a single mother whose husband had been one of the firefighters killed in the attacks on the World Trade Centre.
He felt guilty accepting food from her when she was working three minimum wage jobs to feed her two children and he was just a poncey artiste who refused to pack it in and get a real job. She would insist and say that if he didn't eat it it would just be going to waste anyway and press the plates into his hands. He couldn't bring himself to refuse her generosity.
*~*~*
There was some kind of media circus going on outside his window. A premier, or a fashion show, or any one of the million star-studded events that infested this city. The main focus of the photographers' attention was a ridiculously beautiful man (or was it a woman?) who was trying to get to the door unharassed, with little luck. Howard almost pitied him, which was absurd because he was going to be eating canned food every meal for the next month, what place had he to pity some poor little rich boy?
Suddenly, the strange fashionista turned and ran away from the crowd onto the New York streets. Straight towards his cab. The door flew open and the vision deposited himself (definitely a man; at this distance he could see the faint stubble underneath the makeup) onto the seat next to Howard and called to the cab driver urgently. Howard stared at this unearthly beauty that had flung himself into his life. The man stared back at him with wide blue eyes.
"Who are you?" he asked him in wonderment.
"I'm yours," was the reply the apparition breathlessly gave him.
After that there was no going back. He'd tumbled helplessly past the point of no return in a whirlwind of pale feathers and ladies perfume.
*~*~*
He didn't understand the concept of "fate" or "destiny" or any of that crap. Or the appeal of it, for that matter. Why did so many people want to be the helpless pawn of some cosmic chess game they had no control over? That everything they did was inevitable. He was terrified by such an idea. He'd worked so hard all his life to be a writer, but if it wasn't his "fate" to be successful, nothing would ever come of it? Why then, did it feel like his whole life had been leading up to this one moment? Sitting across from an escaped beauty wearing half a herd of ostriches in a cab with suspicious stains on the seat cushions.
Years of disappointment and failures, a move across the ocean to a new continent, new failures, new disappointments. The sum total of his life's work, a shabby apartment whose only redeeming feature was an unparalleled view from the roof, and a collection of poetry that less than twenty people had read. But without all that, he wouldn't be here right now. If he hadn't gone to America, if he hadn't taken a cab, if the driver hadn't taken that long circuitous route....
*~*~*
The man was too beautiful to be real. Real people didn't look like that. He was like a cross between a Renaissance angel and a supermodel. He was afraid that if he blinked or looked away, he would disappear, leaving behind only the smell of his perfume.
Howard reached out to touch him on his cheek, to confirm he was a flesh and blood creature and not a faery out for a night on the town. The cheek was warm and soft, and he leant into Howard's gentle caress. He let his fingers brush down to cup the man's neck and push him gently forward. Their lips met softly at first, and then with growing urgency.
He didn't do things like this. Kissing strangers whose last names he didn't know (or first name in this case) was something that happened to other people. It would take him weeks before he was even comfortable enough with someone to allow them to touch him.
His last boyfriend had known him for eight months before they'd held hands, and Jessica, who'd come before him, had been his friend for two years before they'd started going out. The thought of some stranger's lips on his should disgust him and make him want to scrub his mouth out with soap and water, but instead it was perfect.
*~*~*