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Velimir rolled his neck nervously while his hip perched on a shitty makeshift breakfast-bar the drifter set up in their cluttered room, he clad a tank top that barely covered his metallic body, clashing with last night’s dirty briefs. “So, ah, we’re dating now then I take it?”
He pushed over a cup of instant coffee to the drifter whom took to wrapping their lithe body in a sheet. Out of comfort, only their leg prosthesis screwed onto their body for now, earning a warm protective tear in Velimir’s heart every time his bleary eyes caught the lack of a second limb on their torso.
“If you’d like, yes,” they replied vaguely and graciously accept the caffeine, drinking it greedily despite the temperature.
“Ah, gods, would it kill you to not be so non-committal for once?” Velimir dragged a tired hand over his face.
“Would it kill you to not speak in double negatives,” they snarked back, simpering behind his cup.
“Listen, lil’ buddy,” Velimir replied with a dry and unamused laugh, “I’m not really the casual type, Y’know? Not in romance.”
Stumped, Drifter frowned and placed their mug down. An almost-pout took hold on their face as their broken little brain processed the information.
“I mean, I’ve already talked to Minerva about it, before coming here really. Eh, us getting other partners,” Velimir sighed and scratched his sweaty bare neck, “so I’d appreciate some closure here? About how serious the two of us are getting?”
They shifted in his seat, last night’s toilings pounding in their head like a nagging specter. Lost in and out of the void for so many years created a schism in their ability to maintain relationships, much preferring to stick to their cephalon friends. Sex, in particular, a foreign experience to them barring their fumblings as a teenager in their dormitory beds. Their pragmatic mind wished to chalk their physical attraction to Velimir as their only interest in the man, but they would be lying through their teeth to say other attributes didn’t allure him. Polar opposite did attract and in this case the attraction did happen to be quite “polar.”
“Dating, yes. That sounds correct. It feels strange to say out loud,” they’ breathed, their unnatural void-licked eyes rolled to gaze into Velimir’s uneasy ones. “But I believe we could. Can’t say I ever would have imagined you to be the type whom fancied my gender when we first met. Well, you were mostly yelling at me.”
“Yeah, I gotta admit it feels kinda,” he scratched his stubbly beard with his broken fingernails, “embarrassing to think of me as your boyfriend. Fucks sake, I’m fifty-six, I ain’t exactly a ‘boy’ anymore. Hell - you’re thirty something aren’t you? Hardly young anymore, either.”
“We’re putting labels on it?”
“Well-” the older man stammered and covered the creeping blush blooming across his face. “Yeah, that’s the point.”
Apparently wishing to push their luck, the drifter balanced their palm upon the table and leaned forward. “Well. Would you like to be my boyfriend, Velimir?” Giddy teemed behind their words, but in their proper brooding persona they portrayed an air of unearned confidence.
A timidness not often found in the older man breached into his expression, Drifter studied every twitch in Velimir’s face. Slowly, the man removed the hand wrapped around his burning red nose and rosy cheeks, unable to break the eye contact. Liquor from the night before and a permanent stench of cigar smoke swirled from Velimir’s icy breath, stinging the drifter’s nostrils in a way that made their heart flutter.
Broken down by Drifter’s intense atmosphere, Velimir leaned in for a shy kiss, turning his head and hovering just before making contact. “You drive me fucken crazy, kid,” Velimir spoke against their lips.
The hairs from his twisted mustache and untrimmed beard scratched the drifter’s skin. They wished to live in this pedestal moment forever - hopefully a good things would no longer be fleeting in their life. Their fingers clenched involuntarily. They wanted to grab Velimir and his body that crept further and further into a disfigured metal cradle tightly, never, ever letting go.