Archive of Our Own

“One is all you’ve got? Huh?”

Pavia doesn’t know when to stop—doesn’t know how. Like a wolf with its snout tipped vertically in the air waiting to catch a whiff of rabbit blood, he only knows his instincts.

That’s why he’s always pushing too hard until he’s certain he’s hit a wall, throttling headfirst, or in this case heart-first—weighing down Zima’s shoulder with his palm, the other on his chest, knee slotted between his thighs to immobilise him. (Pushing too hard on his luck until it folds in on itself.)

“Y-yes.” Always so honest. Zima’s complexion is pallid, even more so than usual. He gnaws on his lip and Pavia’s eyes can’t help but follow the motion. “I—lost, Pavia.”

“Nonsense. You were not even trying!” Pavia glares like he’s genuinely offended.

“I was. You just—” He looks away. “You’re just too good.”

Pavia knows Zima doesn’t mind when he teases him for his soft voice, jitteriness, and the funny way he avoids eye contact when he doesn’t want to speak. But he struggles, squirms, shudders when their skin touches. Like now—like how Pavia can feel the pathetic pattering of Zima’s dove heart through layers of wool and cotton, and from it begins to hesitate on whether to sink his teeth right in or tuck tail and run. Before something regrettable happens.

It’s the most curious thing.

“You just need to lose the clothes,” Pavia simpers, dragging a fingernail up the fabric until it snags on the frayed parts, savouring the hitch in Zima’s breath. “It’s not that cold.”

By ‘clothes’, he really means the long-sleeve sweater, but Zima’s expression is so comical, pupils blown so wide Pavia can make out his own reflection, that he’s glad he forgot the word in the moment.

“It’s—that’s—” A sharp intake of air. Zima’s shoulders flex as he attempts to claim a shred of control over the situation. When he gives up, inevitably, head slumping back onto the gym mat, his eyes are squeezed shut and a sulky look passes over his face. “Don’t want to.”

Pavia snorts. “Scared?”

“N-no!” The reply practically shoots out his mouth. “Nothing like that. Just—” (If his hands were free to move, Pavia’s almost certain that Zima would be kneading his knuckles together by now, twiddling his fingers like a kid. And Pavia’d take them in his hands, slotting his own inbetween.) “—‘s embarrassing.”

“I’ll tell you what’s embarrassing,” Pavia whines, cracks his knuckles, and adjusts his weight so it bears lighter on the body underneath, “You weren’t even fighting at your full strength.”

“I was. Promise.” And then Zima is curling his fingers into the collar of Pavia’s shirt, barely tugging. “C-can we take a break?”

“Of course,” he purrs, but makes no effort to get off, “if you can make our positions switch. Once.”

He really doesn’t know when to stop, does he?

Honestly, even a kick would suffice—it’s for that reason Pavia didn’t aim to pin his legs first, wanted to at least leave an opening for his sweet companion—or even a modest butting of foreheads (he always wanted to know which of them had the harder head) but Zima, Zima who always defies his expectations, who turns his instincts inside out, does none of those things.

He brings his open palm to Pavia’s neck and pushes. Hard.

“Oh, f—” His stance is toppled on its axis. Pavia feels his world flipping, his heart too—does a little somersault in his chest like it’s on fucking drugs—the force of the impact putting a dull ache in his shoulder as he lands on his side and then flat on his back.

He doesn't even try to suppress the hearty chuckle as he rubs a palm against his neck, the ghost of a handprint blooming like fire. “I knew you had it in you, little minx!”

“You let your guard down.” Zima’s right isn’t he? But it's so simple and easy. It’s practically rain to a field, when Pavia caves and blunts his fangs to him—lets him cage his arms over his shoulders and hover over him like a halo.

“No, I was going easy from the start. Can’t have you getting hurt or Little Girl will beat my ass,” and Pavia’s shamelessly preening, ignoring the flares spreading throughout his body like little flames nibbling at wolfskin. “So, break?”

Zima must be, as he is too, hyperfocusing on the less-than-an-inch distance between their jaws now. Finally a pop of colour blankets Zima’s cheeks. It looks like rose petals on snow, like if he touched it it’d be as soft and tender as white powder—shit, now Pavia’s the one getting poetic.

Just before he can furrow his brows at the odd feeling of how he’s not the slightest bit disturbed at that, a heavy weight plops onto his chest, right above his heart.

“What? New move?” Pavia snickers. “Or you need my help to get up?”

Zima grumbles his name in mock annoyance, the syllables fuzzy and muffled against his shirt. “I’m the one who won,” he reminds.

Always cheeky. But, only when Pavia expects it the least. It’s only when he gets too comfortable with control that Zima loves to catch fire on his tail, let it ignite—

“I want a prize.”

—and burn up, filling his head with dizziness and his stomach with an appetite for spun sugar instead of warm blood.

“Didn’t even pin my arms but—fine.” Pavia drinks in defeat like it’s aged wine, smirk riding high on his face, same as always. “Tell me—what you want. I will fulfill it.” (It wouldn’t take a win against him to say that, but that’s something that Zima doesn’t have to know.)

Zima’s head lifts, and the gulp beading as a visible lump in his throat causes pinpricks to tickle the back of Pavia’s neck. Anticipation. Prickling like electricity, like a live wire. Closer. He needs—he needs them to be closer.

Zima leans in as if he just knows, exhaling to fan warmth on Pavia’s mouth before retracting, lips slotted against his jawline, a mousy breath, a smile, depositing a kiss that blanches the latter’s brain.

“Just this,” he murmurs, fingertip skating over one of the tattoos on Pavia’s wrist, “a break.”

“Mm.” Pavia’s eyes glaze over. His tongue finds a vein in Zima’s neck, laps at it like it bleeds honey, tasting the salty-sweet of his perspiration. “No objections from me.”

//

extra:

The broomstick girl is delirious, gaping, undeniably drunk off her ass when she comes into the room she’s booked for a training session that evening, and spots the two of them: arms tangled, legs thrown over each other, Pavia’s subdued breathing tickling a strand of Zima’s hair as they slumber like a pair of foxes twined up in winter.

She curses under her breath and carefully closes the door, slinking off to find another vacant room. “Stupid idiots. This the No-sleep Club?”