Chapter Text
“Fuck!”
This was so goddamn irritating, dude.
Why was his skin so fucking itchy today?
Boto clawed at the red patch currently gracing the front side of his neck.
The part where the scales that covered the rest of his body gave way to softer, more tender skin.
“Dude! Agh…”
Skin that was, unfortunately for him, prone to flaring up in bouts of inexplicable irritation.
“… oh my moons, this fucking sucks.”
As far as he could tell, Boto did just about everything right.
Bathed daily.
Moisturised more than daily.
Applied all the cleansers and creams and medicines he could find.
Avoided strenuous exercise that could induce sweating, avoided the wrong fabrics for his towels and sheets, avoided all the foods that were potential triggers.
Got enough sunlight (but not too much sunlight), slept in all the right positions, shaved the edges of his claws, drank more water than he even felt like he could hold.
All of it.
And yet, he still found himself suffering exactly the same dermatological issues as he always had.
“God fucking dammit…”
Boto resignedly went to his room and applied his already half-empty corticosteroid cream for what was probably the dozenth time that week.
He honestly hated having to do this — after all, he’d heard the stories online about dragons whose skin got addicted to the stuff.
Withdrawal, they called it, since that was exactly what happened the moment you stopped constantly applying the cream.
Akin to an addict trying to go cold turkey, you’d basically just end up flaring up even worse than before, with not nearly as much possibility for treatment outside of certain intensive options.
Boto was genuinely quite scared of this outcome for himself, given all the horror stories he’d seen and heard online about the condition.
But he also felt quite hopeless as to what, exactly, he was meant to do about his dermatitis as it stood.
Boto applied a thin layer of the steroid to his neck, sucking a bit of air through his teeth at the burning sensation it induced.
All he could really do, he supposed, was just suffer through as much as he could.
Keep building that pain tolerance, whose foundations had been laid barely after he’d even hatched.
Boto heaved a sigh as the familiarly thick, somewhat grainy texture of the cream caked itself onto his skin.
Hopefully it would get better by tomorrow.
At that moment, the lock to their dorm’s door began to turn with a click.
Boto gasped slightly at the noise.
He subconsciously held the breath in for just as long as it took for his brain to fully process the sensory signals that someone was entering the common room.
Internally, a quick prayer to the moons that it was who he hoped it’d be.
The door swung open in a mundanely dramatic reveal.
“Hey, hon.”
A dusky orange dragon strolled into the Silver Winglet’s second sleeping cave.
“Oh. Hey, Thrush.”
Internally, a sigh of relief.
He’d been in a shitty mood for the last couple weeks ‘cause of his eczema, but his boyfriend's presence always managed to cheer him up to at least a socially acceptable baseline.
The handsome, masculine form of Thrush leaned his bag in its usual spot against the couch as he continued the conversation.
“Whatcha doin’?”
Boto simply shrugged.
“Just, uh, applying my cream,” he said with an utterly adolescent nonchalance. “Nothin’ special.”
Maybe a couple months ago, Thrush most likely would’ve responded in kind.
Kept up that air of casual male friendship.
Given a low-effort “sure, bro” or “alright, I guess,” and stalked off to do whatever it was he usually did in his own room.
Now, though?
“Your cream? Are you flaring up again, Boto?”
Now, Thrush immediately changed whatever course of action he’d been mentally preparing himself to take and instead started to approach his RainWing clawmate.
The SkyWing’s eyes seemed filled to the brim with a pure, earnest concern.
Worry, usually being an emotion thoroughly foreign to his snout, now splayed itself bare on his expressions’ every vertex.
Boto got slightly flustered as he watched in surprise just how quickly his boyfriend reacted to his one simple sentence.
“Uh… no, yeah, I-I am,” he said somewhat diffidently. “I-it’s, like, fine, though. I’m fine, I just…”
Thrush stooped down a bit as he reached where Boto was sitting on the couch.
He usually had to do so to talk to Boto anyway, due to their height difference.
Now, though, it only made him seem all the more surprisingly tender, as he gazed intently into the RainWing’s eyes.
“Do you need me to get you something?” he asked with the kind of attention a retainer afforded their queen. “Like, a cold compress, maybe?”
“Um…”
Boto could feel his brain frying as he struggled for what to say.
Moons, Thrush was hot.
Hot in a way that rewired all your neurons’ established circuits.
Hot in a way that made you tremble every time he got close.
Hot in a way that made you question how you ever before looked at him without imagining him pinning you against the wall.
“… I’m fine, thanks.”
“Well, alright, then.”
And just like that, Thrush got up and made his way towards the sink.
Presumably to take his daily iron supplements.
Boto watched him go as he wondered to himself how Thrush did it.
How could his boyfriend just be so goddamn casual about all this?
Acting like everything was fine and normal.
Like things had always been like this between them.
Like Boto had never cried himself to sleep, imagining Thrush going out with some nice SkyWing girl.
Imagining their years-long friendship being ruined by something as stupid as romantic infatuation.
How fucking idiotic of him, right?
Thrush shook out his orange pills with some plasticky clacks.
He accidentally made two of them land in the container lid by mistake, and clicked his tongue quietly as he shook the other one back into the bottle.
Then, routine as clockwork, he filled his cup for about a second with the tap, popped the pill into his mouth, and gulped it all down together.
Late-afternoon sunlight from the window right above the sink streamed into the room, glowing warmly along his horizon-worthy scales.
The SkyWing looked like a figure straight out of a historical painting.
Pose casual and relaxed against the counter, golden eyes staring pensively out at the scenery of the mountain slopes below.
Poised, graceful, composed, with a veneer of coolness that almost always managed to mask the true creature that Boto knew lay inside.
A sight to see, indeed.
“Whatcha lookin’ at?”
Boto jumped slightly, as those eyes he’d been so fixated on suddenly fixated on him.
“Uh… n-nothing. Sorry.”
“Why are you apologising, bro? You didn’t do anything.”
Thrush didn’t wait for Boto to answer his question before continuing on to whatever the next topic of discussion would happen to be.
“Oh, and by the way,” he began, filing his pill bottle back into its usual spot in the cabinet, “I had something I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Oh. Uh, alright.”
Boto scratched idly at his neck as he waited for a few seconds for Thrush to finish washing the rim of the cup.
He usually liked to do that before leaving it to dry on the tabletop dishrack again.
Even though he was about the only one who even used those cups in the first place.
Boto supposed it was good practice, though.
Especially given that he did kinda live with one other dragon who’d prefer not to share spit with him.
It had formerly been two, but, well…
As Thrush sat down in the other seat on the couch, he leaned in and landed a quick peck on Boto’s cheek, before the latter even had time to react.
Seemed like it was that SkyWing agility that his tribe were all so famous for.
Boto, being the humble RainWing he was, was left reflexively bringing his claw to his cheek where Thrush had just left his kiss.
His boyfriend, meanwhile, chuckled to himself a bit in amusement.
Making a face that looked like he’d just been given a winning lottery ticket, or something.
“What was that for?” Boto asked, with maybe more genuine-sounding indignance than he wanted to project.
“What?” Thrush asked back, in that deep, annoyingly-but-also-attractively husky voice. “You didn’t like it?”
“I…”
They both knew the answer to that question.
Obviously, Boto was internally a pretty patent fan of Thrush kissing him whenever possible.
But he also wanted to maintain at least some sense of his own dignity.
“… I was just… surprised, is all.”
Thrush kept on laughing with that million-dollar face of his.
Boto couldn’t help but give him a somewhat exasperated look.
“You know, you’ve changed, Thrush,” the RainWing said. “You were never like this to me before we started… you know.”
“Before we started… what?” his boyfriend replied, once again with a back-question. “Dating or fucking?”
Boto made an indignant noise at that comment.
“Wha- you see? This is exactly what I mean!” he stressed the stressed syllables in his sentence even more than normal. “You never would’ve said something even to that effect before we…”
“… before we… what?”
“Oh, shut up.”
Thrush laughed even louder this time, and Boto genuinely couldn’t bring himself to get mad at his boyfriend’s goofy self.
It didn’t help that the SkyWing’s laugh sounded like a recording of someone laughing being played in reverse.
Nothing this guy ever did was serious, huh?
Boto had to stifle a smile of his own to even keep up this act of distant annoyance, instead deciding to continue what he’d been saying before.
“… no, but for real, dude. When we’re alone together, it’s like you’re a brand new animal, or something. Whole-ass personality makeover.”
Thrush gazed at him indecipherably for just a moment.
Almost as if to tell him something he couldn’t communicate using words alone.
A feeling that can only be understood through mutual exposure, indescribable without a unification of paradigms of lived experience.
After maybe a split second more, though, Thrush looked away again.
Back at the TV standing in front of the couch, that they kinda never used because it was just easier to use someone’s laptop to watch stuff.
Before Boto could ask him about that look, the moment passed, and Thrush started giving whatever more surface-level Thrush-like response he’d just mentally conjured up.
“Well, I think it’s just ‘cause you’re more important to me now,” the SkyWing’s voice went low and heart-quickeningly soft. “I can just, like, do shit, and I know our relationship can take it. It always will.”
Boto was actually quite surprised at the certainty with which his boyfriend spoke.
As far as he could tell, this guy lowkey had no unshakeable convictions in his life — social, intellectual, personal, political.
Hell, his fundamental political beliefs were among the things that changed the most.
And he was a political science major!
But here, Thrush was speaking with a kind of certainty Boto had honestly never really seen from him before.
A whole new side of this man he could only pretend to himself that he truly knew.
“I’m not afraid to be myself around you,” Thrush continued. “Especially around you. Only around you.”
But that was what dating was for, right?
The concept still seemed rather foreign in Boto’s mind.
Him, and his clawmate-slash-best-friend he’d known ever since moving into this godforsaken place.
Dating.
“I mean, it also helps that usually, the thing that I want to do most is kiss you.”
That line actually got an audible gasp out of Boto.
“I- d-dude!”
“What! It’s the truth!”
Boto could feel his scales shifting pink as he demurely averted his gaze.
“I know it’s the truth. I’m just, like… not accustomed to you being flirty like that. I’m not accustomed to any of this, in fact.”
“Well, what is ‘this?’”
Boto took a silent moment to respond to that question.
“Just… everything, I guess. The new year, the new classes, the new winglet. You and me. And Changbai, too.”
The last item in that list tumbled out of the RainWing’s mouth before he could even realise what he was saying.
If he’d been more careful about it, he wouldn’t have let the name of that damned IceWing ruin the moment he and his boyfriend were having.
As he said their third clawmate’s name, however, Thrush actually physically jolted slightly, as if he’d seemingly remembered something important.
“Oh, shit, that’s right! I wanted to talk to you about Changbai,” he said. “I completely forgot.”
At that, Boto only rolled his eyes.
“Oh my moons, Thrush, no. We’re not doing this today.”
“Bro, come on. We can’t just keep things like this forever. I don’t-”
“Thrush, I was just recounting to you how everything else in our lives is changing,” Boto emphasised. “Everything is different from how it was before. The moment I think I get used to the state of things, I’m forced to adjust for whatever fuckin’ new thing comes next. It’s just tiring.”
Thrush seemed sympathetic to his boyfriend’s struggle, making that troubled face he always did whenever he noticed Boto in some kind of pain.
He knew he had to keep on persisting with this conversation, however.
For Changbai’s sake.
“Okay, but do you really want ‘the state of things’ to be us ghosting Changbai every chance we get?” the SkyWing threw his arms up into the air, as he usually tended to do in arguments. “What did he even do to deserve that?”
“Oh, Thrush, you know,” Boto sighed. “You’re a polisci major, for moons’ sake.”
“Wha- what does that even have to do with this?”
“Girl. Isn’t this, like, exactly the kind of thing you learn in whatever sociology classes?” Boto asked his boyfriend. “Like, discrimination and shit?”
Thrush clicked his tongue in slight frustration, drumming his talons anxiously on the table next to the armrest of his side of the couch.
“Man, I know I agreed with you on this before, but… are we really sure that’s the explanation we’re going with?” he seemed genuinely conflicted. “I mean, it wasn’t like he ever showed signs of being like that before. I don’t-”
“His sheer refusal to acknowledge our relationship is sign enough,” Boto insisted. “Honestly, I’d never pinned him to be the homophobic type, either, but when he was ignoring that many implicit indications that we were together, it’s clear as to where his sentiments truly lie.”
Thrush, however, still didn’t seem convinced.
“But what if he just really didn’t know? What if he just… I dunno, missed the fuckin’ memo as to what we were telling him?”
“Dude, come on. Changbai isn’t that dumb. Nobody is.”
Boto watched as his boyfriend seemingly continued to mull quite gravely over this issue.
The SkyWing bit his lip hard, as if he was filming some sort of ZipZap thirst trap.
He could honestly pull it off, in Boto’s opinion.
Attract at least 30k-something likes at a minimum, with a face like that.
Though he was also maybe just a little biassed in his assessment.
But anyway.
“… okay, sure. Fine. We’ll say for now that Changbai knew about us from the start,” Thrush conceded. “But still, I don’t think that warrants us, I dunno, cutting him out like this. It just doesn’t seem fair.”
“Well, I think it’s perfectly justified,” Boto replied without missing a beat. “I mean, given some of the things he’s said about IceWing ‘traditional culture’ and ‘family values,’ it makes sense that he’d not want to have to prove his tolerance of us as queer dragons — that being, tolerance he doesn’t have. Prejudices of all types go hand-in-hand, don’t they?”
“We can’t really assume that, though. What has Changbai even done to show that he’s some conservative bigot, like you seem to think?”
“Oh, please. Have you heard the way his mom talks about other tribes?” Boto’s tone rose and fell with according incredulity. “Not even just NightWings, either — she’ll call all RainWings lazy pieces of garbage like it’s nothing. And have you ever heard Changbai even try to refute the shit she’s spouting?”
Thrush didn’t have an answer to that question.
“As I’ve always said, it’s typical supremacist bullshit, and exactly the kind of narratives kids tend to get socialised into by their parents. I know Changbai might not be as bad as his mom, but it’s clear he’s not exactly a paragon of progress, either.”
“I mean, even then, though,” Thrush’s tone was clearly still one of dissatisfaction. “How is it fair for us to act on what we think he believes?”
“I’m not gonna bother taking chances, Thrush. I don’t-”
“This isn’t taking a chance, Boto — he’s been our friend for years!”
“I know that,” Boto’s tone was cutting, “but it’s not like he was perfect all that time. I just can’t make space in my life for someone who’s so demonstrably regressive.”
“Oh, come on. Literally how has he ‘demonstrated’ anything? How likely even is it that Changbai’s been some closet homophobe all this time, versus, I dunno… just not very observant? It’s not like-”
“My fucking moons, Thrush, seriously?! How much longer are we gonna keep arguing about this!!”
Thrush instantly stopped talking as Boto’s biting cadence rose to a frustrated yell.
He seemed genuinely really upset, and only then did the SkyWing start to realise how tired his eyes looked.
“You know how many other things I have to deal with on the daily, and you’re, what, trying to get me to renege on the one thing I thought I’d made up my mind on?” Boto shouted. “What’s your deal?”
Thrush seemed taken aback by this.
“Wha- dude! I’m not trying to get you to do anything, Boto, I just thought-”
“Can I not make just one decision without having to question whether or not it was the right thing to do? Am I not even afforded that luxury?”
“Ah, dude, I-I didn’t mean it that way!” Thrush began. “I was just trying to-”
“Please, Thrush, can we just drop this for now?” Boto’s tone became strained as the worse of his emotions began to surface. “I don’t want to think about this right now. I don’t want to deal with- FUCK!”
The RainWing jolted as an agonisingly itchy sensation suddenly arose on his skin.
Boto once again began to scratch fervently at the irritated patch, sucking in a sharp breath as the split-second feeling of relief from his claws only gave instantaneous way to that familiar burn.
He thought he felt some sort of liquid as he scratched, and couldn’t tell whether it was the weeping of blisters or just blood.
Moons, he fucking hoped it wasn’t blood.
Thrush gazed at him with that pained expression of his, eyes betraying a clear wish for the dragon he loved not to suffer like this.
“Okay, okay. I’m sorry, hon, I’m sorry…”
The SkyWing wanted to wrap his boyfriend in a big, long, wing-spanning hug, but knew Boto usually didn’t like to be touched whenever he was flaring up.
Instead, all he could do was plant a quick kiss on his forehead as the RainWing inspected his claws for any traces of red.
“I’m sorry. I’ll get you a cold compress.”
Boto could only nod weakly in response.
“Just wait here for a second, okay?”