Just a minor warning: This chapter is why this fic is rated M. Uh, yeah.
Snippets
1.) Who We Were and Are
Sometimes he dreamed about the past, about sewing cloth together, about drawing up plans for amazing things, about his hands filled with sparkling coins, about I'm so proud of you son and you're so smart Mr. Once-ler and trees falling at a time when it was okay to not care.
Not that those dreams ever lasted. They might not have been the times when he saw plants screaming like they were alive or axes swinging at his limbs or a seed being lost to the wind, but his counterpart always shook him awake like they were nightmares anyway. Startled, his eyes would snap open and he'd instantly forget the dream, but he never refused to let the other pull him close the same.
It took him a while to notice that those were the only times he'd seen a genuinely fearful expression on the young man's face, though he never mentioned it. Likewise, his other self never mentioned that those dreams were the only times he'd seen the Once-ler smile.
2.) Real Enough
It was an hour before the Once-ler noticed the purple mark on his counterpart's right cheek, two days before he had the decency to feel guilty about it, and a week before he gently touched his thumb to it and apologized. As expected, he got that same sleepy smile and an acceptance in response, but sometimes, he almost wished he hadn't.
What he didn't notice was that the young man had spent the entire time poking at it, making it hurt, enamored and happy and scared that he could feel pain in the first place.
3.) Fall Down in Black Together
They didn't kiss often, but when they did, it was only on bad days.
Which was another way of saying "about once every seventy-two hours", but the Once-ler didn't like to think that was timing it or anything, that they were falling into a meaningless routine like they had with everything else. It made guilt burn in his stomach to think about it, but when he was rich, at least there'd been a sense of passion to what he was doing. And he'd fought for it until the very end.
Now? Well, the young man always reached out to him first.
The Once-ler had made a sort of art out of forgetting and ignoring things, these days, so half the time the reason why he was crying or screaming at nothing or sitting in bed with his head buried in his hands slipped his mind the moment the young man touched him. Smiling, always smiling, the delusion would tug on his arm, or hug him, or just grasp his shoulder and God, did the Once-ler really used to be like that? He couldn't even remember.
But it didn't matter. Nothing really mattered, save for that certain tightness in his chest and throat that only the younger him could bring on.
The other's movements were always so tender that it ached, like it was for the both of them instead of just for the Once-ler. The young man would clutch the back of his neck with those too-long fingers, cradle his face, press their foreheads together. Small, innocent things that never were the... main point of certain dreams on certain nights that left the Once-ler sweating and sticky, but he managed. This was enough.
Until it wasn't, one bad day, four years after he'd ruined a whole world and that world still wouldn't let him fix it. His counterpart had him pressed up against the far wall of his bedroom, the world UNLESS scratched into the wood right above him. They were kissing, just kissing, when the Once-ler felt the other's fingers brush his neck, working below his shirt collar.
At once, he frowned and jerked away a little, an instinctive reaction to that fragile line being crossed, but the young man just made a breathy little noise in his throat and pressed closer. His thumb trailed over the Once-ler's chest, rubbed his right nipple through his shirt.
And that did it, made him snap, alighted the passion to turn this into something it shouldn't have been. It was sick, more than crazy, to find yourself attracted to... yourself, but maybe that's what made it so easy to grab the young man's hips and nibble his neck and reach down to press between his legs, feeling him plump and swell.
Finally, something new, a dark little secret they had all to themselves. Maybe that's why they both stayed quiet like someone could hear them all the way through, and every escaped gasp or groan was cut off by a kiss or the press of a hand.
Still, they couldn't help the way their clothes shuffled, or the way the Once-ler's back thumped against the wall, or the soft, wet sounds between their hips as the young man timidly worked their arousals together.
And admittedly, every now and then, the Once-ler would swipe his fingers over their tips and pull them back dripping, if only so he could swallow his counterpart's whimpers like they were delicious. Just for the hell of it, since this was about as close as he would come to reclaiming a greed so familiar it made him grit his teeth and shake. And when the young man was the first to tense up and his lesser self moved to hold him through his completion, it was the thought of this boy being his that made the Once-ler come so hard he saw stars of green and gold.
They slid to the floor together, breathless and spent. After a moment, the young man pulled away so he could peer at him sleepily, tilting his head.
"You were smiling, just now," he pointed out, and the Once-ler automatically knew it was nothing to celebrate. But before he could think, or move, or shame could start brewing in his gut, his counterpart (sex partner) leaned towards him, pillowing his head on the other's shoulder. His right hand, quivering and slick, rested uselessly on the floor.
Eventually, the man in gray fell asleep, tucked up against his companion's body, unaware that his older self wouldn't do the same for hours. Instead, with one arm thrown over the young man's shoulder and his free hand absently smoothing his hair, the Once-ler sat and breathed, occasionally twisting around to stare at the UNLESS right over his head.