"Hands in the Dark" - X/1999, Seishirou/Subaru, alleyway
The darkness blanketing the alleyway is tangible, thick. Subaru tastes the staleness of it at the back of his tongue, feels it press against his neck. He reaches in his pocket for a cigarette, the sound of his breathing heavy in the air. His breath comes in fits and starts now; the smoking’s killing his lungs, rotting them away cell by cell. He feels it. He still doesn’t stop. His lighter sparks, flares in the void and casts deep shadows across his knuckles, makes them look old and sunken and worn.
The tongue of flame flickers, gutters. He gropes around for the wall, but his fingers meet only sluggish currents of air struggling to push through the gloom before another hand closes around his wrist. Jerks his arm back and pins it behind him and twists until the old fracture flares up and sends red needles lancing through his vision. There’s—another weight at his back now, tall and strong and solid; he heard no footsteps, felt nothing move, but he wouldn’t have if—
He tries to speak but only an unvoiced h escapes his lips. He can’t say it, he cannot break the silence and the spell, not even when rough fingers (hardened and stiffened by blood) caress his neck, travel up until they close around his chin and he tilts his head back without them nudging, leans into the breath searing the nape of his neck, the shell of his ear.
And then the hand closes around his throat and clamps down, crushes—he’s lifted into the air, his arms hanging slack at his sides, his hands too—his hands won’t curl into fists, won’t stir themselves. He’s spun around until his back slams into brick, and the fingers dig in deeper and gouge his neck until he gags, tries to gulp down the thick air. Pinpricks of color flicker behind his eyes, but the roughness, the solidness of the brick keeps him from spinning, holds him steady. He feels the grime start to stick to his hair, his skin. He shivers and his lips form words but make no sound and do not stop moving until they are stopped. By other lips, other lips crushing against his.
Seishirou’s mouth tastes like stale smoke and withered sakura petals. He draws Subaru’s breath from him and takes it as his own and Subaru’s lips part wider when he realizes what he’s doing and Seishirou’s teeth scrape the inside of his mouth, draw forth a trickle of blood. He tries to swallow it down but Seishirou licks the cut clean and Subaru—his head collides with the wall. Seishirou’s fingers keep his neck in place.
His vision clouds over with red as Seishirou moves his mouth away from Subaru’s to bite, fasten his teeth around Subaru’s collarbone. He shivers again, or perhaps he spasms; the crimson and the black swirl together and block his vision and he thinks how easy it would be for Seishirou to bite down and crunch his collarbone, crush it between his teeth if he wanted.
Seishirou’s grip around his throat slackens, and Subaru sags to the ground, slides down the wall and sinks to one knee at Seishirou’s feet. Dampness soaks through the knee of his pants—a grimy puddle, he can feel it oozing on his skin. One of his hands clings to the wall. His nails scrabble against the grout, digging in and gripping tight. He tries to breathe. He tries, and Seishirou lets him struggle for a few gulps of air before Subaru’s hauled to his feet again, Seishirou’s hands fisted in his jacket and Seishirou close, so close.
“Do you remember what the absence of suffering feels like?” he asks. “The absence of pain? Or is this what you tell yourself you want?” His hands wrap around Subaru’s throat again, squeeze until the wind finally roars through Subaru’s ears and Subaru searches for the malice in his grasp, anything at all other than the force, inexorable, tightening…
“This,” he gasps, high and thin, “always this.”
The pressure around his neck lessens. One of Seishirou’s hands inches down his chest, slips inside his waistband, wraps around—wraps around him, and he rocks between Seishirou’s hand on his throat and his hand there and waits for the world to go red again.