Concise? What is this Concise you speak of?

[splinteredstar]

diluted_thought requested a drabble! I obviously failed at making it short enough to fit into the comment box! So here it is!


Fandoms: Kuroshitsuji and YGO

Sebastian and Dimitri are working at a food stall at a park. Dimitri is still a flirt and still an OC. Sebastian's still kind of a pedobear. I'm probably going to get eaten by a BEWD, and I cannot be arsed to do a proper introduction at the moment.

Nevertheless, this was fun to write. Onward!

The sun beat down on the tiny little hotdog stand, but the two young men working it didn't seem to notice. Not a single drop of sweat tracked down their far-too-beautiful faces, and though the younger made a show of wearing as little of the uniform as he could get away with and of splattering water on himself, to drip down his face like jewels in the blazing sunlight, he did so only in front of customers - the young, pretty ones, whose eyes already lingered over-long on his eyes and his slim, skilled fingers. His elder coworker - taller, more elegant, with a sense of poise that shone through even through the red-and-white striped vest and stupid hat - merely rolled his eyes at his coworker's antics in between offering hot dogs or cotton candy to amazed customers, who always had to check that they were not, in fact, eating at a fine restaurant.

 

The two men made - quite accidentally, they would assure - it the most popular stand in the park.

 

It was the first time a stand had a fan club.

 

~

 

"Bro, check 'em out."

 

The words weren't spoken, but registered in the mind of the elder regardless. His red-pink eyes flicked in the direction of his coworker's attention - past the current line of adoring young women and men trying to pretend that trying to pretend that buying a hot dog from a man much more attractive than them wasn't a gay thing at all. His eyes focused on two people - a teenaged boy, and a younger one tagging at the elder's heels like a badly-groomed puppy. (Or, he considered as he stared at child's long and messy black hair, possibly an enthusiastic pony.)

 

"Brothers." The thought hovered in the air between them, passing from one mind to the other without bothering with sound. The thought bore with it an image - two children, close in age though one clearly older and clearly bored, the younger bouncing along behind with hand gestures that nearly hit the other as he explains some deeply interesting thing to his apathetic sibling.

 

The image may just have carried with it the impression of a smirk.

 

"...never happened, bro."

 

The elder had an expression that couldn't be called a smirk, it was far too polite... but his coworker could see one hiding underneath the smile anyway, and huffed as he turned to adjust the temperature on the hotdog grill.

 

Still, there was something interesting... The elder watched the two boys slowly weave closer to the stand, though his hands never faltered in their movements and his Customer Service Smile never slipped. Eventually he could pick out their voices in the din over the whispered, "When do you get off work?" and "Is your coworker single?" and the shouts and blur of conversation that filled the park.

 

"Niisama, niisama, you said you'd eat lunch with me..." The pony-puppy-child whined, dragging his brother - Niisama? interesting nickname... - in the general direction of hotdogs. There was something familiar about them, perhaps the crystal-blue glow of both souls that made them easy to follow in the crowd of dull and boring mortals, the metal and diamond that constructed their selves, the power that thrummed in them like a star about to explode and made them feel like *want* -

 

"Well, yeah, that." His coworker thought at him, clearly understandable through the din of the crowd. "But not just. Look at the *face* for once, bro, and not just the soul." The thought tasted like amusement and mockery and too-sweet-chocolate over wax fruit, and the elder's perfect Customer Service smile flickered like a candle in a brief gust of wind before being plastered on again.

 

The two boys reached the stand finally, though the elder was visibly - to the attendants, at least - uncomfortable with the  stares of the young women around him, even if their attention was split by the critical mass of attractive men in the vicinity. The elder stepped up to the stand - and this close both attendants could see the blue-steel eyes, the metal wiring his spine straight and his jaw tight, and the tiny silver pin on his jacket that was simply "KC."

 

"Recognize him yet, bro?" The younger attendant asked in thought, giving the customer a smirk that implied a very different kind of "service". "Hello, my name's Dimitri, how can I help you today sir?" He all but purred to the man, eyes glancing up and down the trench-coated body like a lover's caress or a brush of cool wind. "I can get you any kind of hot meat," the purr slid down, closer to a sultry growl, and then back again, "Or if you want something sweeter then just talk to my brother Sebastian there and he'll set you up with some Cotton candy."

 

Sebastian flipped through memories and images, trying to find one that fit this steel-and-crystal young man with a soul like a supernova. He remembered a poster he passed on the way into work, about some gaming competition - *oh*.

 

Dimitri did always go for the celebrities.

 

"Pick out something you want for desert, Mokuba." The elder - Kaiba, if Sebastian's infallible memory served - growled while glaring at Dimitri. "Two hotdogs," he growled to Dimitri, which didn't change Dimitri's smirk at all, "one with ketchup and mustard, and one without."

 

Dimitri smiled, and began fixing the 'dogs, taking the payment with one hand. He squeezed condiments like they were something obscene, licking his lips and taking entirely too much time shooting half-lidded looks at Kaiba, who only seemed to get more and more annoyed at each glance.

 

Meanwhile, Mokuba ignored them completely, instead investigating the displays of cotton candy. Sebastian peered at the child's soul - not as powerful as his brother, without the force of nuclear fission powering the creation of new majesties and wonders in his core... And yet where there was less power there was more skill, sharpness instead of strength, a subtlety that his brother lacked. Where the elder was explosion and fire, this one was poison, sweet and cloying and more dangerous for the candy-colored disguise.

 

As much as he taunted Dimitri's tastes, Sebastian wanted to touch, wanted to take the boy and pull him into his lap, whisper dreams of power and glory and all the pretty things the boy could ever want, as long as he was allowed to have a taste of the sweet poison dripping through those storm-blue eyes...

 

But he probed a little deeper, pressed his mind a little closer to the swirling core of light - and underneath the poison was steel, and underneath the steel was nothing but a love so pure and strong that it *burned*. Sebastian winced back, and forced a neutral smile onto his face as he asked the child how many pieces of cotton candy he'd like. If the boy noticed, he didn't mention. Perhaps he was used to it. The requested two were handed over and paid for, and Sebastian found himself wanting to shrink away from the burn of love both boys carried in them.

 

He could break that love, shatter it and tear it into something dark and delicious and broken, but not in an afternoon. It would take time and effort and it would be a beautiful challenge, a masterpiece of damnation and betrayal. But tasting the swirl of guilt-love-hurt-loyalty, Sebastian had to wonder if he would be re-breaking a healing wound.

 

"Hey, I get off work in a couple of hours..." Dimitri purred to Kaiba over hotdogs, his eyes sparkling and his teeth gleaming in the sun. The air around them seemed to dim, condense with the scent of sex and lust swimming in a fog capable of tempting almost any human to the sweetest kinds of sin.

 

"I'm busy. Go buy a date, if you can afford one." And with that, Kaiba led his younger brother away from the stall and into the crowd.

 

"Rejected." The thought hung in the air from both of them, annoyance and amusement twisting.

 

"Oh well." Dimitri thought at his brother, his smirk returning as he stretched his arms above his head, just in time for a beautiful young woman to catch sight of a sliver of his stomach and begin blushing bright red. "I'll keep my eye on him. I've got time."

 

Sebastian looked at the retreating backs of the two boys, thought about poison and steel and a love torn apart, and smiled. "We have time."

 

Comments

[diluted-thought.livejournal.com]

Sebastian wearing a stupid hat paints a beautiful image.

D'aww, Mokuba. Enthusiastic pony. It cannot be unseen.

Kaiba and his effortless swag.

Dimitri is such a whore, I cannot even.

Proper comment coming soon!

[starsplinter.livejournal.com]

They are so much fucking fun to write, you know? Dimitri is so natural it's kind of worrying.

[diluted-thought.livejournal.com]

Oh, hey, yeah, let me properly comment before Michael Kovak locks me in a confessional booth with only my laptop and my charger.

...trying to find one that fit this steel-and-crystal young man with a soul like a supernova.

I'm not entirely sure why, but that was my favorite line from this fic. The imagery it carries with it is powerful, and you know how much I absolutely love good imagery. Bravo. And while on the subject, Kaiba is as rigid and awkward as I expected him to be, and his dismissal of Dimitri was terse and offhand and I could feel the coldness in the dialogue. Perfect.

...even if their attention was split by the critical mass of attractive men in the vicinity.

Pahahaha, attractive men indeed. Well done.

Mokuba was written well. I can't say much about whether or not he was in character because the majority of this was you channeling Sebastian's pedophiliac ways, but he rang through nicely, as adorable as always. And the way you described him had me giggling. I liked the contrast between how innocent he looks on the outside, and his inner strength. People tend to forget that while, yes, Mokuba is very cute and chipper and all that, he happens to be a Kaiba.

There's not much to say about Dimitri. You already know what I thought about him.

Sebastian was intriguing. Being in his head is a weird place, so I applaud you for taking that challenge on. He felt a little awkward to me at the beginning, but even as I reread, I cannot precisely tell you what struck me as being slightly off. (It's probably what happened with you and my take on Agni in my fic; we probably filled our fanons differently, since there is only so much canon to go off concerning Sebastian.) It does nothing to ruin the integrity of this piece, so don't worry about it. By the end you seemed to have gotten more comfortable with him, and it flowed smoothly from there. His analysis of Mokuba was spot-on. The ending was solid; I couldn't have asked for a better one.

Thank you for this. ♥

[starsplinter.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the supernova metaphor was strangely appropriate for Kaiba - I'm not sure where it came from, but I'm glad that it did. And yes, the whole "buy a date if you can afford one" line made several people laugh.

They had to get mops for all the nosebleeds that occurred when Dimitri gave That Look to Kaiba.

Mokuba is fucking badass. And he'd have that mixture of steel and charm that would make Sebastian take notice - fluff and poison and power.

....writing Sebastian was indeed strange. It is more than anything diverging fanons - but that's inevitable with him. (Fucking ambiguous bastard.) I'm pretty sure I gave the Kaibas a stalker or two with that ending, honestly...

You are wonderfully welcome.