Work Text:
The smoke he breathes in feels much heavier today. The burning is worse, it makes him want to cough, especially when he wakes up on random mornings and finds himself like this, but he can't wake up the person next to him. It's better to breathe in and out until the itch in his throat goes away.
It's not uncommon for him to find himself naked, in bed with a stranger while they hog all of the bedsheets leaving him cold and tired. A little warm touch up here and down there does the body good, keeps the mind sane and the heart slightly less empty. It temporarily extinguishes the flames he sees when his mind drifts elsewhere. He's never quite sure how this happens. Short-term memory loss is a stone cold bitch, but so are the random people he lets get into his pants.
Meeting people is easy when you have his charm, or so he says. With enough smooth talk it's easy enough to get just about anybody to let him lay on their sheets, or bury his face in their mattress. He never feels guilty when he feigns innocence after asking to come over to their house, and never flinches when he feels their hands drift a bit too far up his leg when they're watching movies together.
He can control himself easily. He hates to give a reaction to people if they don't earn it, he never even lets his breath hitch audibly if the person he sleeps with that night doesn't satisfy him. He hates how his voice sounds when it grows out of his control. No person deserves to see him in such a raw state.
There was someone he used to imagine himself with-- someone who was... well.
He always left Figaro feeling defenseless and never afraid. It was unlike anything he had ever imagined. It was the light & airy feeling they spoke of only in fairy tales, he thought.
There is no feeling in this world like the freedom of something almost, dare he say, comparable to love. Faust treated him and his body with a more caring warmth than the others ever had. The two of them knew that the other was not meant to be used and thrown away. They would wake in the morning, Faust would offer to soothe the pain in Figaro's back if he had slept on the wrong side of the bed, Figaro would soothe Faust's nerves if he felt like the world was going to collapse beneath him. By night they would drink: Figaro's whiskey of choice, while Faust preferred to have his several glasses of wine. They would lace their hands together and dance in a slow waltz, spinning each other in a drunken haze whilst listening to whatever music the two of them had chosen for that night. There was nothing like it... the dim lighting of their bedroom they would stay in together, swaying with Figaro practically draping himself over Faust as he held him in his arms, secretly, before returning to their regular lives for the rest of the weekdays to come. It was Figaro's eternal summer vacation, his call to Earth, his hill he sometimes wished he would burn on, his cherry-flavored love that he so foolishly thought would last forever.
He was not the type to feel guilty. He was always shameless, he wore that title with pride even if it burned him a little bit on quieter nights. And yet, he had never felt more guilty than those times where he would have another person's hands on his thighs, between his legs, on him, in places he couldn't care less about anymore. When he would be touched so eagerly by somebody, while he laid there practically spacing out from thinking about somebody he wished were there with him instead.
If only it were Faust. If only Figaro had listened, if only he could have seen the future, if only he hadn't left, if only he hadn't made the mistakes he made, if only his actions weren't irreversible, if only time for young lovers didn't feel so finite, if only he could have saved him and stayed with him and said 'I'm sorry.'
His gut twisted any time he pictured Faust. The feelings he had, the desire he had just to rest under his light for just a moment longer, it was selfish, he was selfish, he was despicable and he was unloved. Even the sheets he soiled were more loved than he was.
He would wake, and find someone beside him, and it wasn't his Faust. Not anymore, it hadn't been for a long time. He assumed he would have moved on by this point.
'...Shit.' he thought, just as he did every time he found himself wound up, in that same position. He stared at the stranger's cheap ceiling whilst taking a last drag of the cigarette he'd been excessively smoking. He got a bit carried away in thinking about the past again, didn't realize how much he was putting in his lungs. Perhaps today shouldn't be the day he dies from organ failure.
He put it out in the nightstand's ashtray, sitting up to get himself dressed. He left the stranger's house quietly. He almost felt bad for them.
He met with the Eastern wizards just outside the Valley of Storms. It sounded like they needed to consult with him about some kind of magical beast they encountered that they hadn't seen before. And he was there. Naturally...
"You're a sight for sore eyes, Figaro."
He tried not to stare too much. It would be unfair of him to burn holes into Faust's soul with his eyes after they had only just met... again.
"I'm sorry, have we met before?" he joked.
"Just as much of a clown as ever, I see..."
The students and Nero stood together in awkward silence. "I'm guessin' you two have some kind of history?" Nero asked.
"...Something like that." Figaro said.
"I suppose you could say that." Faust joined at the same time.
"Master Faust seems really close with him." Shino whispered to Heathcliff.
"Lower your voice, Shino..."
The two teachers clicked their tongues in annoyance, with Faust quickly looking away from Figaro's gaze.
Figaro smiled and feigned cluelessness. "My past relations are none of your guys' business, respectfully. I was told you needed me for something?" he said, diverting the situation and allowing for their party to head into a forest.
Faust didn't step away when Figaro walked next to him, yet his warmth did not welcome him the way it used to, either. But Figaro felt that maybe he was lucky Faust was even giving him the time of day.