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The bar Legundo found himself in was far nicer than his usual fare. The lights were low and warm, casting the space in velvet shadows and pools of flickering gold which glinted off brass fittings, polished wood counters, and deep burgundy upholstery. In the corner, a band was set, their instruments sounding a swinging tune that had the patrons stamping and singing. Legundo was hunched at the bar, his back to the merriment. The music was wasted on him—nothing more than a blur in his ears—as he stared into the bottom of his glass. The ice hadn’t had a chance to melt, but already the dark liquor was nothing more than a mere tint. He took a final sip with a sharp swig, then pushed it toward the barman.
He focused on the burn as it went down rather than the churning in his head and stomach.
Another was set in front of him. He couldn’t tell if the thanks he’d meant to give made it from his clumsy tongue or choked throat. An attempt was made to nurse this one slower as he cast his eye over the bar, skimming along the labels on the rows of bottles and glazing over faces. At the very least, he supposed he’d chosen a nice place to drown his sorrows. Better than the usual. Most nights when he left the hospital ward and found himself unable to forget the sticky heat of blood on his hands or drive the sight of frail and pale bodies from behind his eyes, he’d stumble into whatever open establishment was closest, no matter how dingy. This time, he’d made it halfway home before he’d broken. Before his hands had started shaking too much to grip the wheel of his car, before bodies in the neat sterile hospital turned to bodies on a muddy bloody field, before the rumbling sputter of the engine started to sound too much like that of distant gunfire.
Legundo took another swig, gritting his teeth through the burn. The alcohol was slowly producing a fuzzy, swirling feeling in his head, washing away the memories which lurked behind his eyelids. The fact that he was working tomorrow was enough to discourage him from drowning them completely, but a few were enough. A balm. A medicine in careful dosage, only a poison if he overindulged. Legundo wasn’t fool enough to actually believe that flimsy justification, but by the time he’d had the first couple of drinks, he felt pleasantly buzzed enough to ignore his own doubt. As long as he could still do his job come morning, he hardly cared what it would do to his own body. It had weathered worse and probably deserved even worse still.
Sometimes, only when he was teetering on drunken legs and the knife’s edge of his own self-hatred, he’d wonder if oblivion would be better for everyone involved. Legundo never clarified to himself whether oblivion meant blackout drunkenness or death.
With a sigh, he sat back from his hunch, just barely avoiding teetering on the tall barstool. The glass was groundingly cold in his hand as he downed the rest in a final swig, the fire in his throat and the icy condensation gathering in his palm enough to force back the past. There was only the present, the now, the dulled pain and dubiously pleasant buzz of the booze. He twisted, getting halfway out of his seat before something made him stiffen.
A burst of red, there, in his periphery. Violent and vivid in the dim.
His head snapped to it on reflex. The colour of blood was such a regular sight in both his daily life and memory that it was almost mundane. Almost. Regardless of how many gallons he’d seen, the tang of iron and that fresh almost syrupy red never failed to snare his attention, like a moth to a flame or a fish on a baited hook. A short instinctual inhale followed, as though trying to pick up a scent, but the air was, of course, empty. There was no sudden blood spill, rather, his eye found a figure amidst the crowd.
Amongst the nice suits and glittering dresses, the warm bustle of bodies, the clumsy twirls and twists, a pale form—a snow flurry to the space’s friendly flames—danced across the floor. His skin was the white of a corpse in winter, hair just as stark. But what caught Legundo’s eye was the stranger's dress; glinting red and dripping with bloody beads that sprayed out with every turn, like a bomb blowing open a body. In his brief moments of standstill, they rolled over his stockinged thighs and clung to the smooth lines of his hips. A headband of gold links and little rubies crowned him like some king of old; weightier and colder compared to the feathers and beads the ladies favoured. It took only a glance at the stranger—only an echo of his sharp cold laugh through the clamour, only one look at his glinting ruby eyes creased by his smile—to know he was drenched in blood.
Leg’s couldn’t explain his own certainty, nor the violent twist that set a scowl upon his face at the sight, but his revulsion was immediate and much too personal. Perhaps he had drunk too much. He shook his head, trying to clear it or draw his eye away from the dancing stranger, but they were dragged back with magnetic surety.
He moved with fluid ease across the floor, whirling himself between partners with winks and laughs and seemingly revelling in the stares which found themselves affixed to him. Legundo wanted to scoff at all the people he caught eying him with evident want, like he was some forbidden bottle of top-shelf liquor to quench their thirst with. One that would, undoubtedly in Legundo’s mind, leave them reeling and sick come morning. Admittedly, also one that looked pretty, expensive, and sweet enough to be worth it. He elected not to view the judgment as hypocritical. His stare seemed to stem from a very different desire. Though he couldn’t have given anyone a reasonable explanation, the doctor felt something else awaken in the back of his head at the sight. Something ready, and hungry, and desperately efficient.
His stomach twisted at the way he found himself sizing the stranger up, not as a patient like he would most people, but as a threat. Something for the soldier to deal with.
He might have hated that more than he did the stranger.
He was jolted back to awareness as something cold brushed his knuckles. Yanking his eye away, he found another full glass by his hand, courtesy of the bartender. It took a moment to register that, in his distraction, he’d sat down again and leaned into the bar with an undoubtedly strange stare directed at the finest person in the room; the clear body language of someone staying to keep drowning their sorrows. With a grimace, he picked up the glass, taking a long, slow sip. Perhaps the bartender had the right idea. Watching the stranger spin, seeing the beads spray around his body as though every artery had burst, like a shrapnel blast of viscera, had unlodged far less pleasant pictures in his head. He gripped the glass tighter at the notion that he’d somehow made the violence look pretty. Gorgeous, if the ever growing crowd of admirers was to go by. Unreasonably so, as some kind of heat stirred in him as the red flowed about the stranger’s waist and the pearls around his neck highlighted the delicate line of his throat.
The doctor took a deep breath, listening to the ever slow beat of his heart and chanting his oath in time with it. Do no harm. No matter how much he inexplicably longed to make the blood dripping from the stranger’s body real, he was to do no harm.
It was the only thing that stopped him from immediately jamming his elbow into the stranger’s jugular as a syrupy voice purred beside his ear.
“My my, you’re certainly not the admirer I was expecting, though you do seem to be doing your best to eat me alive with nothing but a stare. Word of advice, Doctor, teeth work better.”
He whipped around, meeting a set of red eyes. If he were more charitable, he might have compared them to cherries—dark burgundy at the edges and sweetly fresh around the pit of his iris—or maybe a garnet—intense and glittering with little inclusions of gold. But he wasn’t. They were red like blood. Like burst veins bruising beneath skin or organs spilling mangled and wet over the snow of his face. The stranger was leaning over his shoulder, white toothed grin like splintered bone peaking from behind his painted lips. Every muscle in Legundo’s body tensed as he felt his chilly presence at his back. There was a scowl on his face before he could school it.
“I wouldn’t be taking it as a compliment,” he gritted out, shifting away as the man moved around him to perch on the next barstool over.
“Well, you wouldn’t of course, I know that.” He grinned, revealing more teeth and a flash of gold, drawing Legundo’s attention to the two gilded canines he sported, shaped into long fangs. “But I find the attention flattering, regardless of the form.”
“Right.” He turned away, resolutely facing the bar in a clear gesture of ignoring the man next to him, though he still lurked in the periphery of his good eye.
He let out a huff that was half amused and half exasperated. “Oh don’t play like that, Doctor, nothing so serious. Let’s at least get through the introduction before acting like petulant children.”
Legundo had to fight off a smile as he caught the annoyed tinge which dampened his smooth purr. He hid it behind a sip of his drink and didn’t turn to face the stranger. For all he instinctually wanted to recoil from him, curiosity tugged insistently in his chest. “You first.”
The reaction was immediate as the stranger’s posture rose before returning to his languid lean against the bar, the smile he still wore colouring his words with coppery sweetness. “Scott Goldsmith. The pleasure is all yours.”
He was quite certain the only one deriving any pleasure from the situation was Scott, but still, he bit out a response because, for all the anger burning inside, he genuinely had no logical reason for his loathing. “Dr Legundo. And it really isn’t.”
“Aw, pity, but I suppose not everyone can have fine taste. No first name for me, though?” His pout was audible, and even without looking at him, Legundo could envision the mockingly upset expression on Scott’s face with easy clarity.
“Not for you to know, Goldsmith.” He set down his glass, maybe with too much force if the few eyes that shifted from Scott to himself were to go by, before rounding on the man. He looked him up and down in the quick, methodical manner he was trained to spot threats with, all the while Scott preened under the examination. “Why are you here?”
He wasn’t sure why he asked the question, why he felt so certain that the bloody and beautifully dressed stranger had some ulterior motive for schmoozing his way through the bar, but something told him there were real teeth hiding behind those gilded fangs. There was a threat here. There had to be.
Scott raised a brow. “Indulging, clearly. Having a fine time, dancing, socialising, the like. Looking for company, if I find anything that suits,” he said with a wink that was lost on the doctor. “What are you doing here, however? Drowning your sorrows with mediocre liquor or something?”
Legundo stiffened, glancing down at his fourth or fifth half-empty glass.
“Oh,” Scott’s eyes lit up, smile sharpening, “You are.”
“It’s none of your business. Go back to your party, Goldsmith, you won’t get what you’re looking for from me,” he said, voice a little rough from the afterburn of the liquor, which he soothed with another sip.
Scott laughed, dry and cold like a witch’s cackle sans the mania. “Yes, that’s quite obvious, but if you want to drown your sorrows, Doctor, then maybe I can give you what you’re after.”
A chill curled around his hand, and he glanced down to find thin fingers slipping between his own and a soft palm pressing against his scarred knuckles. Scott pried his grip from the glass. He didn’t let go, his hand cold and heavy as marble as it lay over his in some kind of offer. The tension in his body built as the sensation set something simmering in his blood, flight or fight falling to the freeze reaction as he stared at the point of contact. Scott had neat hands, clearly unaccustomed to work given the lack of calluses, skin barren of any scars like the combat ones Legs bore, with long nails filed to red painted points that were wholly impractical.
As a whole, Scott was undeniably attractive. It was the kind of objective fact he was forced to admit, even if the perfect symmetry of the man's face spurred a violent need to disfigure it. If it were anyone else, someone who didn’t fill him with violent urges that might have been more alarming if his rational mind wasn’t floundering in booze, he might have given into the offer. He might have noted the implication of the heavy lidded gaze, the firm press of his fingers, and the proximity of the stranger. Despite the societal norms about such relationships, his predilection for men was one of the few aspects of himself he did not feel ashamed of. It was tempting, in the same way a devil’s bargain was. Temporary pleasure with hellish consequence, he had no doubt.
As if sensing his train of thought, Scott scoffed, not removing his hand but leaning back to give the doctor space to breathe. “Oh, nothing so untoward, relax. I’d like dinner first, maybe flowers, or at the very least a drink.” Legs didn’t know what to make of the weight he poured into the word—like it meant something more—but he knew he didn’t like it. “I’m offering a good time, but not that kind of good time. Just a dance, Doctor. Whirl away all those thoughts on the floor. You know you want to.”
Leg’s wondered how Scott would react if he understood what he was actually thinking of doing, but something about the drawling tone and easy smirk made it seem like he already knew. He knew, and he wanted it. Wanted whatever twitchy violence he’d uncovered from the depths of the doctor’s mind. That was a situation he was certainly not equipped to deal with.
So instead, in an act he’d blame firmly on the alcohol and not on how the skin crawling and cooling presence of the stranger was so consuming it overpowered all the things he’d come to forget with a refreshing form of horror, he let himself be dragged from his seat.
“I’m not much of a dancer,” he muttered as Scott dragged him toward the floor, the throng of bodies parting for him.
Scott rolled his eyes but didn’t stop. “Unsurprising, but surely you’ve danced before, yes?”
That was true. Back when he was a young boy with his friends they’d snuck into a shady bar to party the night away, back when his mother taught him to slow dance with lectures on being a proper gentleman, back when it was early days in the army and he’d politely spin around girls who batted their lashes at the soldier boy. Before those friends met bullets and the wrong end of bayonets, before he came home to find his mother had died while he was away, before those little villages were torn up by bombs and left blooming with poppies. He hadn’t danced in a long, long time.
Instead of saying such, he shrugged.
“We’ll make do,” Scott sighed. “Not like this is a grand ballroom.”
It was about the last thing Legundo could make out from him as he was swept into the fray, and the beating brass and swinging song deafened him to the phantom shellfire in his head. He was stumbling, his head was spinning, and his thoughts didn’t drown so much as they blurred into one glittering, blasting mass as he found his footing in a sort of dance. It wasn’t any one thing, merely a mix of spins and steps that followed in the wake of Scott’s whims. There were pale corpse hands on him and he kept grasping at the stranger’s bloody dress. He found himself glad the man ran cold. The combination of red and warmth might have been too familiar to ignore, but the blood was far from fresh.
He wasn’t sure how long they danced, but it was enough for the band to cycle through a few songs and settle on something a little slower. His breaths came as pants and his head was fuzzy from alcohol and exertion. Scott was laughing; a breathless, smug sound. He settled them into a more gradual swing, keeping his fingers linked with the doctor’s and a hand on his chest to push or pull him along. The spark of spite which still burned despite the blur drove Legs to occasionally move against it, using the hand he had tangled in the beads of Scott’s dress to throw the man off balance. He stopped after one instance where he dragged him forward mid-turn and had nearly taken them both down. Scott’s back had thudded into his chest, the surprised yelp he earned for it momentarily satisfying before he’d felt a huff of breath against his jaw. His partner twisted enough to lock eyes with him, a teasing smirk playing along his lips.
“Oh my, if you wanted me closer you could have just— ack!” Legs shoved him away, though Scott quickly turned the momentum into a spin, using their interlocked hands to draw them both into another lilting set of steps. Instead of complaining, he just threw his head back and laughed.
His throat was pale, bare except for the collar of pearls that then looped to hang over his chest. The skin there was thin enough to see veins, their pale blue lines like lace adorning the oh so breakable curve. His jaw clenched as he imagined the sensation of Scott’s flesh tearing and the sweet cherry red which would well from the wound and paint his lips as he choked on his own blood. He blinked and the image was gone, the spike of hungry violence fading beneath the beat of the jazz. He shook his head to clear it, blinking hard. Seemingly none-the-wiser to the violent imaginings of his dance partner, Scott continued untiringly even as the doctor’s legs began to ache as his bad knee sent violent flares up to his hip. With a grunt, he pulled them both to the edge of the floor, slowing to simple mundane steps.
Scott whined as he was dragged away. “Oh, no fun, the night is young yet, and you are… Well, not a good dancer, but an entertaining one. I don’t mind the manhandling as much as you think I do.”
He was sent another pointless wink as he pulled himself away from Scott’s cold hands. They were nice in the same way the chilled glass of liquor was nice. Grounding, but a symptom of nothing good except oblivion. The image of tearing the stranger’s throat open with his own teeth was more like an injection of liquid nitrogen straight to the veins. Agonising in the clarity it brought and forcing a hard reset as he tried to scramble away from the violence his own mind had conjured. He began moving to the door where he’d left his bag and cane, ignoring the man following insistently in his wake. Why he’d been chosen as the focus of Scott’s attention when every second patron was making eyes at him was a mystery. Why he persisted still was downright baffling.
Maybe he just had atrocious taste in men.
“Places to be. Work in the morning. Some people have more important things to do than getting drunk and dancing,” he said, words clipped as he snagged his coat, cane and bag from the coat check. The relief of being able to lean on something was immediate as he eased the weight of his bad leg.
Scott clicked his tongue, disapproval thick in his tone. “You weren’t complaining a minute ago, and seemed quite content to keep drinking on your lonesome. Why the sudden change, Doctor?”
There was a note in the uptick at the end of his question where the permanent purr gave way to something smooth. Clinical and curious, like a cat who’d gone from playing to fixed and morbid focus. Scott cocked his head, gliding over, the click of each heeled step cutting through the clamour.
“Remember something?” he asked, tilting further as he drew close. His stride had turned into a stalk, the red paint on his lips curling as a faux friendly smile settled on what ought to have been a bloody maw if the sudden jittering of Legundo’s flight response was to go by.
He straightened, using what little bit of height he had on Scott to gain some semblance of control over the situation. Hefting his bag and cane, he turned to the door with a final glance at the strange man. “That I need to go home so I’m able to get to my job come morning, yes. But nothing that concerns you. Go back to your party, Goldsmith. Try not to drain the place dry.”
Legs wasn’t sure what he meant by the sentiment; maybe it was literal or metaphorical. Either way, there was something sapping about merely being close to the man. Maybe it was just the exhaustion brought by the confusing intensity of his emotions. Regardless, Scott seemed the type who could and would drink every drop of alcohol in the place or play his soul sucking charms on the patrons until they dropped dead from the whirlwind he whipped them into. Scott seemed to find something amusing in the statement, though, as his curious irritation broke into a laugh.
“You still know me well, but I already made that promise, silly. I had hoped something clearer might spark in your mind, but you’re either too drunk or dense for that.” He sighed, but eased off with an uncaring shrug as he angled back toward the still lively crowd. “Good night then, Doctor. No doubt I’ll see you around.”
“You won’t,” he replied, ignoring the amused scoff from the stranger and his slightly nonsensical words. He had no intention of coming back here.
He left without any look back, though he swore he could feel the prickle of eyes on him until he stepped past the bar’s windows. It was dark on the street, the music muffled, with only the cold breeze and a few evidently drunk patrons to provide any noise of movement in the dead still and silent night.
It was while trudging to his car on aching unsteady legs, that it occurred to him to wonder how Scott had known his profession. Doctor, he’d said, with almost mocking surety. Like he knew exactly how much of a lie it was to call himself that. Like he could see all the blood on his hands with but a glance, as Legundo could see it on his. Like recognises like. He shook the thought from his head, hands twitching in his coat pockets as he itched for another drink to drown out the notion.
He kept walking. He’d find a different bar.