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Emizel stood in an alley, waiting for someone to come by so he could beat them up. Well, someone was a strong word. He wasn’t going to beat up just any person, he was waiting for a member of the Fangs.
He yawned. This was taking forever. It had been what, four minutes since he started waiting? He clicked his sharp nails against the wall he was leaning against, and studied the graffiti on the brick like he was an arts student. Some Demons graffiti (nice), some Fangs graffiti (stupid), and a crudely drawn penis over said Fangs graffiti (double nice).
Emizel was in the middle of humming Call Me Maybe when he heard footsteps. He clenched his fists, but remembered that punching wasn’t his best defense anymore, his claws were. They were a new addition that Emizel hadn’t quite made sense of. Whether or not he should’ve been worried about his nails didn’t matter though, because he should have been worried about the shadow approaching him. The guy was tough looking; he had a leather jacket, shaved head, and Fangs insignia on just about every article of clothing he was wearing. Emizel wasn’t fazed though– after his encounter with that weirdo who bit him, he had felt on top of the world.
Emizel only gave him a second to react as he ran and swiped at the guy’s face. Sadly, that second was just enough time for him to duck out of the way. Emizel glared at him and… growled? What? Why the hell did he just– no time to unpack whatever the FUCK that was, because the leather jacket dude ran full speed at Emizel, and punched him straight in the nose. Emizel was caught off guard and stumbled back. God, that hurt .
He gave himself two seconds to cope before running full speed at the Fangs member. He must have caught the guy off guard, and he slammed him into the wall. Emizell got ready to… well, he didn’t know what he was doing. He was getting closer, and closer, and closer, starting an action that felt like first nature. Whatever he was trying to do, it was ended by a metal pipe skimming the top of his head. The guy had a friend, and that friend had a pipe. He closed his mouth. He didn’t even remember opening it.
The leather jacket guy fell to the floor, and scrambled out of the alley.. Emizel let him leave. He turned his attention to metal-pipe-guy. He had a shit eating grin, and unkempt curly hair. He had gotten his pipe back, and was running towards Emizel at high speeds with the pipe raised over his head. He was swinging it down towards Emizel in a blow that most certainly would knock him out, but Emizel grabbed onto the pipe. The guy dangled from the pipe in midair, like a toddler on the monkeybars who couldn’t quite figure out how to move. As he kicked at Emizel like an idiot instead of jumping off, Emizel managed to slash at him with his claws. He dropped to the ground, clutching the wound as Emizel looked down. His white shirt was blooming a red colour where Emizel had hit.
It was normally at this point that Emizel would run away. He never got into fights with the intent to kill, or even hurt someone too badly. But there was something in the air that made him want to stay. A trickle of his own blood fell from his forehead where he had been hit with a goddamn metal pipe, and Emizel decided that maybe this guy deserved to stay a while as well.
He didn’t remember much of what happened after that other than his vision going red, and something tasting really, really, really good.
Emizel sat in the middle of the alley, breathing heavily, and standing in front of a body. He was covered in blood, and his first thought was to check where he had gotten stabbed. After he deduced that his only injuries were on his head and nose, he began to panic. This wasn’t his blood. The red around his mouth couldn’t have come from him– what the fuck happened? His mouth tasted of copper. It tasted good. No, no, stop. He thought to himself. He checked for a pulse on the body in front of him, and let out a sigh of relief as he felt a slight thumping.
“Emizel?” A voice asked from behind. He swiveled around, bracing for another fight, but was pleasantly surprised by who it was.
“Soda?” He choked out. He wasn’t crying, no tears came out, but whatever he was doing felt similar. He didn’t want Soda to see him like this. “Fuck, man, I-”
“Is that–”
“Blood? Yeah.” Emizel reached up to his face to try and wipe some of it off with his hands, but felt a powerful sting as he grazed his nose. “OW!” He exclaimed.
“Your nose is broken, dude!” Soda observed. No shit, Sherlock. “Let’s get you to our spot.” He dragged Emizel off the ground, despite his protests. As they started walking, Emizel was thankful he was out of that alley. He was leaning on Soda– of course, he didn’t need it; his nose was broken, not his legs– but he still appreciated the help. As he leaned on Soda, his stomach fluttered, but only for a moment, as the feeling was overshadowed by a nausea and panic that filled Emizel's entire body.
As Emizel entered the Demons’ hangout, a few heads turned. No surprise, it wasn’t everyday someone walked in covered in blood. Soda pushed him through, still doing finger guns to friends as he walked by. They reached the sink, and Soda shoved Emizel under the freezing tap without warning.
“Fuck!” Emizel shouted, feeling another weird growly sound bubbling up inside of him. What the hell was wrong with him? Despite this, it still felt better than the warm red liquid that had been coating him before.
Soda used his own hair-dye towel to wipe off the rest of the blood. “What happened, dude?”
“I got into a fight.” He said, fidgeting with his hands.
“Why are you covered in blood?”
“I don’t know !” Emizel snapped, frustrated. It wasn’t fair that Soda had to deal with his bullshit.
Soda didn’t push further. He just handed Emizel a controller and gestured to the tv. Emizel took the offer, glad to distract himself from whatever happened in that alley. Emizel got the Smash Bros match set up while Soda grabbed a can of sprite from the minifridge. He handed a bag of ice to Emizel, and when he looked at Soda confusedly, Soda gestured to his broken nose.
Emizel forgot about that. He pressed the cold plastic bag against his face, and started the game.
“Alright!” Soda exclaimed, mashing buttons wildly. He won the first game, Emizel won the second, and Soda won the third. Soda was about to gloat about how he won (pretty unfairly, Emizel had to play with only one hand on the controller while the other hand held the ice in place), when he saw a new trickle of red running down Emizel’s pale face.
“That’s just from the pipe.” Emizel shrugged.
“The pipe? The hell happened, dude?”
“Some dude hit me with a pipe, and I beat his ass.” Emizel shrugged. He didn’t know why Soda was so worked up; he got into fights all the time.
“Are you like- concussed or something?” Soda asked bluntly.
“Fuck you! I’m not stupid, I-” Emizel said defensively.
“No, you got hit in the head with a pipe, man. You probably got a concussion!” Oh right. That. Now that he mentioned it, Emizel's head was throbbing and bleeding profusely as head injuries usually do.
Soda inspected Emizel's head for any detrimental blows, but his thick hair made it extremely difficult to see anything. Soda looked at Emizel. He wasn’t going to like this.
“Dude, you have to go bald.” Soda laughed, but he wasn’t joking, at least not fully.
“What?” Emizel snapped, very confused.
Soda gestured next to the sink, where the hair clippers sat very ominously. “I can’t see your head!”
“Dude, you don’t need to shave my head! I’m fine !”
“You’re probably gonna die or something if we don’t fix whatever cut is on your head! It’s bleeding a lot .”
“No! You are not doing this.” Emizel pushed Soda away, but felt more blood gush from his wound, and felt a dull ache above his temple. “Can you just shave a patch?” He said quietly.
“Do you want a bald patch, or a buzzcut?” Soda asked, moving over to the sink to get the clippers.
Emizel sighed. A chunk of missing hair wouldn’t look very good. “Buzz.” He said, finally.
Soda approached Emizel with the clippers in hand, and the bloody towel in the other. He told Emizel to sit on the towel, which he did, and he turned on the buzzers. Emizel watched clumps of his hair fall unceremoniously on the towel, and cringed when an especially large lock fell in front of him.
Finally, Soda turned the clippers off. Emizel used his phone camera to examine his new haircut. It wasn’t half bad, he decided. Of course, his looks weren’t the main problem. It was the steady stream of blood that was dying Emizel’s blond hair red.
“Shit.” Soda muttered while searching for a clean cloth. “It’s pressure, right? That’s what you do to a head wound?” He asked, unsure.
“I think so.” Emizel responded. He had nursed several head wounds in his time with The Demons.
Soda returned with a cloth, and pressed it against Emizel's head. He had Googled it, and it said to hold it there for ten minutes or longer. Neither of the boys were very patient. Emizel sat there restlessly, flicking through tv channels for something to watch. He turned the tv off after a while of searching, and the two waited in bored silence.
“So what do you wanna do after this?” Soda asked, checking the timer. Seven more minutes.
“I dunno.” Emizel clicked his nails on the floor.
“We could break shit.” Soda offered. That was always fun.
“We could.” Emizel responded absentmindedly, looking up at Soda. His eyes were a pretty brown colour, and his orangey-red hair fell down over them in strands. He told his brain to shut up. It was the injury talking, probably.
They went quiet again. Emizel could hear Soda breathing softly, but didn’t feel himself breathing as well. He realized that he didn’t need Soda to hold the cloth against his wound, he could do that himself easily. So why was Soda doing it for him? He thought about asking Soda, but worried that might cause him to stop.
He caught Soda staring at him a few minutes later, when he stopped being caught up in his own thoughts. He felt a strange feeling in his stomach, and swallowed awkwardly. If his heart was still beating, it would be going a hundred miles an hour. He fidgeted with his hands, unsure of what to say.
“Uh…” He started, with no real plan on words. Normally he just said things without thinking, but this time he felt the need to put a lot of thought in. “What’s the timer at?”
“A minute.” Soda responded, looking at his phone to check, then looking straight back at Emizel. The eye contact was long, but not entirely awkward.
“Just a minute, then I can move again?”
Soda nodded. “Then you can move again.”
The two went quiet, frozen in place. Well, semi in place, both of them were fidgeting like their lives depended on it. Emizel glanced back down at his hands. God, this was a long minute.
“Why aren’t you moving?” He asked, just trying to break the silence.
“Just… waiting.” He responded.
Emizel didn’t ask what he was waiting for. He looked back at Soda, who gave a stupid smile at him, trying to end the awkwardness. The alarm went off.
Soda removed his hand from Emizel's head, and set down the rag. The Demons hangout was empty, and was so quiet you might mistake it for a library. Emizel heard Soda inhale, and noticed that he was getting a bit closer to Emizel.
“So…” Soda started, his eyes looking anywhere but Emizel.
Emizel stood stock-still, despite no longer having to stay in place.
Soda breathed in again, and braced himself as he asked: “Do you uh… do you want to kiss?”
Emizel was a bit surprised and confused, but decided that he wasn’t going to let that ruin this opportunity. “Fuck yeah.”
Soda leaned in, making sure not to hit Emizel’s broken nose. Emizel’s lips almost tasted like blood, but Soda didn’t care.
Soda's pressed against Emizel, warming his cold-as-a-corpse body. Emizel grasped at Soda's jacket collar, and Soda held a little above Emizel's neck, feeling his bristly just-shaved head on the palm of his hand.
They kissed for a while, and Emizel eventually pulled away, eyes wide. He smiled, and Soda did too. Soda's phone rang in his pocket, and he reluctantly picked it up. Emizel sat on the floor in awe as Soda had a quick conversation with who Emizel presumed to be his mother.
“I’ve uh… got to go.”
Emizel nodded. “Seeya soon, dude.”
“Seeya!” Soda rushed out the door.
Emizel watched as Soda left, still sitting down. He looked down at the bloody towel in front of him. He kind of forgot about that. The feeling of anxiety and panic started to rise in him, but he pushed it down. Questions about morality would have to wait; Emizel had just kissed his best friend, and it was fucking amazing.