FicWad

The shop always smelled of incense and cake, never animals. Gentle scents. THAT never changed.

D always smelled of perfume, sweets and incense. Light, delicate scents that faded like dreams. THAT never changed.

Leon always smelled human. Cheap shampoo, cheaper aftershave, covering the sweat and indescribable reek of humanity.

But that DID change.

Occasionally, Leon would come in smelling of a better quality product. Sometimes he would leave with incense lingering around him in an invisible cloud.

And sometimes, he would smell of nature. In summer, he would smell of the grass he's been sprawled across in the park with Chris, or sea-salt that he'd been splashed with at the beach. In autumn and winter, he would smell of rain, and complain bitterly about it all the while.

D always smiled when Leon came in like that, and after he left, D would sit where he'd been until it faded, and the wonderful combination had seeped into his own clothing.

D had a handful of outfits that smelled like that, sealed away in the back of his wardrobe, never to be worn again.