Chapter Text
One thing Scarab had to notice, during those moments, was that Prismo was…
A hand brushing his own as they walked down the hallway towards the kitchen, sending a wave of fluttery electricity through his body.
Just a little…
A guiding hand at his waist, somehow too low and too high on his body, pushing him out of the room as he had gotten too overwhelmed at a party. He didn’t have the sense to tell Prismo that just that touch alone was enough to snap him back to himself, enough to drown out the sound of the music and the buzz of the lights.
Really, just a tiny bit…
Fingertips slipping up his wrist, tracing the line of the carapace there, testing the spaces between the faces of them. He never knew he was sensitive there but—
Touchy. Grabby. Clingy.
Moreso than anyone Scarab had ever met.
Scarab didn’t meet a lot of people who wanted to touch him, really. He had gotten used to it. Glob forbid that the most ruthless and calculated God-Auditor in the business wasn’t a particularly cuddly guy. He had carapaces and mandibles. He was not particularly squishy.
But to Prismo… It was just different for some reason. Prismo was constantly looking for excuses to touch him.
“Scrabby,” he called from the other side of the time room. “Can you come over here for a second? I’m trying to work on this story, but I think you’ve got more of an eye for the dramatic stuff than I do.”
“Hmm,” Scarab squinted at him, full of smug satisfaction, even despite the nickname he always insisted Prismo drop. “About time you began recognizing my talents. What seems to be the problem?”
Scarab crossed the room, leaning over the laptop and glaring down at it.
“Well, I’ve got these two characters, right? And I want there to be conflict between them, really push that tension, cuz I’m going for a whole enemies to lovers thing. But it’s, like, really hard to find something for them to fight about that feels justified from both sides, yknow? Like, I don’t want one of them to seem like a big asshole who’s totally in the wrong here,” Prismo tapped at the edges of the screen with a frown.
“Hmm…” Scarab tilted his head thoughtfully. He sat down, pulling his legs up to his chest. Even now, he kept a healthy distance between himself and the Wishmaster, not wanting to get too close. It felt… presumptuous. Dangerous.
Regardless. Scarab tapped his claws against the wall. “The trick is to make it so that their goals don’t align. Let’s say one of them wants to… I don’t know… explore a cave his parents hid a treasure in. The other one really doesn’t want that, because their parents booby trapped it, but they don’t want the first one to know. That way, there’s tension on both sides.”
“Mmm,” Prismo nodded. “Unstoppable force meets immovable object. You’re a really good writer, Scrabby.”
Scarab did not feel a flush of fluttery excitement in his chest over those words. “You—“ he coughed. “You… have skill. It takes a lot to create an entire fleshed out universe from scratch.”
Prismo made no attempt to hide how those words flustered him, cheeks going dark pink as he grinned bashfully. “D’awwwh,” he waved his hand. “You’re just saying that… it— it’s mostly just that I had an idea to build off of to begin with, yknow?”
He elbowed Scarab playfully, lingering just a bit longer in his space than strictly necessary. There was that feeling again. That warm, buzzy sensation, permeating Scarab’s senses. It made him feel dizzy and warm, made him want to just…
Ah.
“Oh. Hey there,” Prismo laughed. “You good, little buddy?”
Scarab was leaning on Prismo now, resting his head on his shoulder.
“I’m… fine,” Scarab bit out. He did not acknowledge the position they were in, with Scarab at an awkward angle. It hurt his neck. But he was terrified that moving at all would somehow break his one chance to do this, that it might draw attention further and make Prismo mock him or something.
But Prismo didn’t do that.
Instead, Prismo’s long, narrow arm draped itself along Scarab’s body like a warm, buzzing scarf. Good gracious, his flesh was soft…
And then Prismo began idly rubbing his back, the barely-there touch somehow making him feel deeply comforted and safe, a fluttering in his chest like the incessant beating of insect wings .
Scarab totally didn’t let out a deep, exhausted sigh at the touch.
“I like your idea a lot,” Prismo murmured to him. “It’s— I think the characters should both be vying for the same promotion within their village. But one is doing it cuz she’s poor and needs the money and the other is doing it cuz her family will freak out if the poor girl outranks her. Classic class struggle, you know?”
Scarab certainly could have known a lot more, but he was a bit distracted by the deft cosmic fingertips tracing along each carapace on the back of his neck. Each touch drew another shuddering breath from him. He was beyond thankful for his mask hiding how much he was blushing.
“I—“Scarab started, but his voice fizzled out as Prismo accidentally grazed his fingers against a particularly sensitive part of his flesh. Instead of words, a high chirring sound filled the room, clicky and distinctly insectoid.
He prayed Prismo wouldn’t comment on it. He would go as far as wishing , wishing that Prismo would say nothing and just continue without a word.
“Oh. What does that sound mean?”
But wishmasters don’t get wishes of their own. Ever. He should know that by now.
But Prismo’s hand didn’t move. In fact, it persisted, tracing little patterns just beneath his jawline…
“It’s… nothing. Don’t worry about it,” Scarab forced out. His voice was clearly shaking, breathy and nervous.
“Oh,” Prismo looked closely at his roommate. His hand went still against Scarab’s spine, the smaller man letting out a sigh somewhere between relief and hunger. “Welllll… okay then,” he shrugged. He didn’t move his hand, though, keeping Scarab all but pinned beneath his touch.
Fitting, for the insect.