Warnings: mentioned smut, some swearing, alcohol use
for the themes "first impressions" and "leather" at the Fated Children LJ community.
The first time Seifer saw him, he managed to convince himself that he had been hallucinating. He stood out amongst the crowd like he didn't really belong there - with an outfit like his and a reputation that even the far reaches of the world had heard of, it was hard to go unnoticed. He seemed to be straight out of Seifer's past. A walking ghost brought back from the dead to haunt him, skirting through the gaggle of people and dancing away with an ethereal grace that only he could possess. His outfit was so much like the one that was imbedded into Seifer's memory that it sent chills down his spine, made him forget just how hellfire-hot it was in this damned place - all panther-black leather and snow-white fur and blood-red belts glittering with silver trim and crossing over his hips and wrapping around that tiny, tiny waist of his, keeping out the world, the prying glances and the digging fingers.
Seeing him here was just too ironic, too wonderful, for it to be real (since when did his dreams really come true?). So he wrote it off as a phantom produced by his own tattered subconscious. Another dream his mind had projected for him in some dire effort to bring back the past, to revive the times when he was better off and things weren't so shitty and closed-up and broken (God, what he would give to go back). It had happened before; it had happened enough times for him to contemplate seeking help, but he knew that all they'd do is pump him full of drugs and write him off as crazy and diagnose him with all of the wrong diseases (he didn't even know what diseases he had now), and his pride kept him away.
So he passed it off as nothing, and drank himself sick to chase away the nightmares, and didn't give a fuck, because there was nothing in the world to give a fuck about any more.
The second time he saw him, he knew he wasn't hallucinating. They were walking two different paths down the same street, one on each side, both with their hands crammed in their pockets, him with his glittering silver chains and sickeningly pretty face turned down, Seifer with his dark-gray, cold-as-midnight trench coat and broken sea-glass eyes focused forward, staring at nothing. They passed, didn't stop; they brushed shoulders and electricity, icy and familiar, shot through his body, numbed his senses and froze his thoughts, but he kept on going.
It took them until their third encounter to actually build up the gall to confront each other. He was icy, cold-as-Shiva silent, and Seifer was impatient, fidgety; they were sitting side by side, but they weren't looking at each other, not even out of the corners of their eyes, not even a daring little glance that they would have normally given each other. They didn't speak, just sat there, sat there and stared at the things only they could see, the angels and the demons and the truths, and basked in each other's presence, drank in the resolution without having to speak. They knew they didn't need to.
He bought the pretty little phantom in the panther-black leather and shiny, shiny silver chains a drink.
And that was all it took.
Hooked for life – once you get one taste of him, you'll never let him go.
They clung to each other because they had nothing else to cling to. That one drink triggered it, but he knew it was coming; the pretty little ghost from his mind slipped from the stool, grabbed his hand in his, dead-cold leather on fresh-blood-warmed palms. They slipped through the crowds like they were never there in the first place.
He pulled him away, leading the path. No one noticed them go, and no one paid them any attention when they walked, quick, precise, with a purpose (how long has it been?), through the crowds and disappeared. No one needed a fallen hero and a blood-splattered villain anymore. They've already used up those scapegoats.
Sometime along the road, they came to a complete stop. He heard the door shut and lock behind him more than saw it, sensed the body moving before him, staring at him and taking in all of the little differences and all of the similarities, if there were still any there at all.
They were standing in some hotel room, facing each other, and he didn't know when they got in there or who paid for the room or why he pressed up against him, hard and cold and crisp. His mind was one huge blur, but not from drowning out the world, not from alcohol, not this time.
His head was reeling, and he felt like he was going to be sick, but he wasn't going to let himself be, because it'd ruin the moment. A few hard drinks and a war ripping their lives apart and there they were, at the end of the world, faced with nothing but broken-winged angels and crumbling ground beneath them, but that's alright, alright, because there's two of them, not just one.
He wrapped his arms around that tiny, tiny waist, pulled him in close, whispered in his ear, let him know how much he fucking hates his guts, hates how he let him burn himself out, how he burnt him out, how he let everything fall apart, crumble. Told him how much he loves him, always loved him, loves how he fucking drove him crazy, drives him crazy, even in his dreams, even when he thought he could finally be away from him.
A grin greets it all, but he's still stoic, silent. A pretty, pale marble statue: impassive, immovable, icy-cold, dead.
He didn't care if he answered, preferred if he didn't, as long as he heard it all.
It moved faster than what he had ever remembered it to move between them. They were on each other, belts falling heavy and dead on the floor, glittering platinum and blood-red, trench coat tossed away somewhere in the darkness, a fluttering, dark-gray butterfly. It was heated flesh on icy-cold skin, arms around each other's necks, driving each other mad, pretty little phantom eating away at his brain and making him lose his mind, fall apart.
But he loved every single minute of it.
When it was all over, said and done and pushed aside, he was spread on his back, like a pinned-up sacrifice to a god, swathed in thin hotel blankets with nothing at his side but an empty glass bottle and a pretty little blood-red belt.