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The sound of the dragon exploding above them filled the ozone-scented air. Feinberg and Couriway stood side by side in the fountain, and a message on their communicators announced that they had finished in first place.
Fein took the chance to get a glimpse at the pleased smile on his companion’s still nether-ashy face. Green flashes danced across Couri’s eyes and glasses as he watched the experience orbs raining down around them. Couri was just starting to mirror Fein’s grin when the portal opened under them, plunging them into darkness.
It only took a second before they found themselves reunited in the deserted event hub. They had spawned in the same block, and Feinberg had to catch the smaller man with an arm around the waist to stop them from falling over. Couri stumbled into Fein with the momentum, his hands landing on Fein’s chest.
Fein's head spun with affection. Couri fit there so nicely, his small, warm and slightly soft weight familiar yet so intoxicating. Fein took the opportunity to wrap his other arm around Couri’s shoulders, effectively trapping him in an embrace. Couri’s hands found the lapels of Fein’s jacket, and he beamed up at him. Fein felt himself smiling back helplessly, his brain filled with nothing but the thrill of winning and Couri.
“Hey”, Couri said, his fingers brushing at Fein’s jacket.
As if they hadn’t just been speedrunning Minecraft together for the better part of two hours, Fein responded: “Hey.”
“We won”, Couri said. His smile grew in brightness, if that was even possible.
“We did”, Fein agreed.
Fein felt like his vision tunnelled on Couri, the rest of the world blurring into the background. Only his beautiful, perfect face, now ash-free from spawning in a new world, was in focus. Even sound, however sparse in the empty lobby, was muffled.
Couri’s hands moved to Fein’s collar. When he tugged on it, leaning up on his tiptoes, Fein went in without resistance. Their lips met in a chaste kiss. Matching persisting grins made it a little difficult for them to go further than a peck, as their teeth quickly got in the way.
Seemingly satisfied with having accomplished his mission, Couri soon let his heels fall back to the ground, ending the kiss. Feinberg ducked his head to follow him, though, leaning further down to brush their noses together.
He pulled Couri impossibly closer with the arm on his waist, spreading his hand possessively on Couri's back. Fein’s other hand moved up to run through the soft strands of hair at the back of Couri’s head, fingers finding the edge of his crown and caressing right under it.
It was still quiet in the hub, even the admins apparently rather watching the other teams complete their runs. They stood there for a while, smiles softening while their noses rubbed together gently, breaths mingling between them.
“I love you”, Fein found himself murmuring.
This wasn’t new information to either of them, Fein tried to say it every day, in fact. In this moment, however, high on adrenaline and each other, it seemed to ignite something in Couri. He slithered one of his arms free from between them, wound it around Fein’s neck and pulled him in for another kiss. It was a much better success than their previous one, both having regained enough control of their facial muscles. Their lips now collided more fully, no teeth in the way.
Fein quickly took control of the kiss, taking Couri’s bottom lip between his own and tilting his head further to the side for better access. His hand moved from Couri’s hair to cup his soft cheek, allowing Fein to guide his face into a position he liked. The other hand back slid down to the small of Couri's back. Couri’s hand fisted firmly in the front of Fein’s jacket and the smaller man made a tiny, pleased sound. It doubled in volume when Fein grazed his teeth along his lip.
Fein’s knees were feeling a bit weak when Couri finally leaned back.
“I love you, too”, Couri whispered into the still air between him and Fein, eyes sparkling with hazy joy.
Feinberg couldn’t really be blamed for not resisting the urge to lean back into Couri to reconnect their lips.
This time, though, it didn’t have time to grow very heated, as an “Ahem.” from somewhere above them cut them off. It was one of the event admins, floating in the air about ten blocks away from them. They were looking slightly off to the side from the pair, fiddling with their hands.
Fein felt his face flush and took a step away from Couri, the two of them turning seamlessly to look towards the admin. Couri’s knuckles still touched his own between them, and Fein reached with his pinky to wrap it around Couri’s.
“Congratulations on quite a dominant victory”, the admin said, finally venturing a look at them again, “I just came to report to you guys that another team is about to finish, and that you might want to get off spawn before they arrive.”
“Yeah, awesome, thanks. Uh, awesome event, by the way!” Couri had to yell after them, as they’d already fled from them, still looking embarrassed.
Couri rubbed the back of his head awkwardly and turned back to Fein. "I said 'awesome' twice!" he bemoaned. Fein could only wonder how long the admin been waiting for him and Couri to stop, the poor person.
Fein chuckled. “I'm sure they appreciate the effort nonetheless. Okay, let's move, maybe go sit on that bench over there?” Fein decided, grabbing Couri’s hand and nodding to a dark wooden bench that sat under a lush cherry tree maybe 30 blocks away.
Couri nodded and followed without protest, tucking himself under Fein’s proffered arm once they reached the bench. Couri took off his crown and closed his eyes with a contented sigh while leaning some of his weight on Fein. The lobby was peaceful. A little boring, too, in Fein’s opinion.
Fein had just started wondering which team had been about to finish and what was taking them so long, when both of their communicators lit up with a message.
fruitberries and Purpled have finished the challenge in 2nd place
“Well, it would be them, wouldn’t it?”
“Yeah, no huge surprise there”, Couri agreed. He threaded his fingers with the hand Fein had hanging over his shoulder and leaned his head on Fein’s shoulder and neck.
A second later Purpled stood at the hub’s spawn, his arrival shortly followed by Fruit’s. Unlike Couri with Fein, Purpled made it out of Fruit’s way in time, though.
“Ah, there they are”, Fruit said to Purpled, pointing at Fein and Couri’s bench, “Actually sickening, just look at them! Fucking power couple…”
Fein gave them a shit-eating grin and a wave with his free hand. Purpled snickered as Fruit’s face grew fond and let himself be led towards the pair by his teammate. So much for Fruit’s apparent distaste for them.
“GG’s guys, but could you please stop taking part so the rest of us could have a chance too?” Fruit said with mock annoyance.
“No”, Couri deadpanned without opening an eye. Fein couldn’t help giving him a probably helplessly smitten look.
“Nice job, you guys cooked us big time”, agreed Purpled.
“How’d you guys route the last nether? We couldn’t find a bastion to save our fucking lives”, Fruit asked.
“Yeah, neither did we. I ran the fort while Couri farmed a Warped. He also managed to find a couple piglins in the Wastes where our enter was. Got a single trade from them, too.”
The conversation stayed largely on the game as other teams gradually trickled in after finishing their runs. Most people gathered around their bench, the admins even procuring some extra chairs around them to stop everyone from having to stand around or sit in the grass.
A few eyebrows were raised, and a few snickers let out at the day’s champions’ rather shameless canoodling, but it was mostly left without comment. At some point Fein felt Couri’s grip on his hand loosen and his body relax further, almost slipping down along Fein’s body. He might've slid right onto the ground if it hadn’t been for Fein moving his arm downwards and tightening it to keep his partner upright while he drifted well past halfway into dreamland.
Once all the teams had finished and sufficient game retellings and discussions been had, the event admins came out with an official leaderboard, Couriway and Feinberg naturally at the top.
Almost everyone dispersed from around them to go look at the board, and Fein gave his partner a soft bump with his shoulder to wake him up. “Hey!” he whispered, earning a groan and Couri turning his face into his neck in protest.
“C’mon, let’s go bask in the limelight.”
Couri’s arms wound around Fein’s neck, and he pulled himself practically half in his lap. Instinctually, Fein’s other arm came up to steady Couri in his precarious position. His face was still hiding in Fein’s neck, but a muffled “I don’t care” could just be heard.
Fein knew it was true, Couri had never been one for glory or pride. Still, courtesy required they make an appearance and thank the event organisers as well as their fellow competitors. Despite his sleepy displeasure Couri knew this too, so with Fein’s promise of “it won’t be long. Then we can go home”, he let himself be pulled to his feet. Fein placed his crown back, too, straightening it and taking a moment to smooth out Couri’s soft, brown hair.
They walked hand in hand to the crowd, accepting high-fives and thanking their opponents. They never strayed more than a few blocks away from each other, almost as if in orbit. Couri’s grumpy demeanour seemed to vanish as soon as they reached the others again, replaced by bright smiles and gracious enthusiasm at coming out on top.
“Great event as always”, Couri told one of the admins once the pair had made it through the crowd of players, “Thanks for letting us play.” He’d always been the more sociable of the two, and Fein was happy to stand proudly half a step behind Couri like an overly attached bodyguard as he worked his magic and did the talking now that the subject was something other than the game. “We’ll be off now, if that’s okay. We’ll be in touch about the prize details.”
The admin nodded, “Thanks for playing.”
Couri led Fein by the hand he was holding to the hub’s portal. Someone wolf-whistled at their early departure, but Fulham’s indignant “Shut up, Sapnap!” made Fein decide not to react.
The portal dropped them right into the bed in their shared house on their home world. Now that the crowd was gone and silence surrounded them, Couri’s sleepiness seemed to return almost instantly. Fein himself felt the pull of the perfectly firm mattress and a warm body next to his own, as well.
Couri had already kicked off his boots and was pulling back the duvet when Fein came to his senses, rounding the bed and catching him by the arm.
“O-kay, we’ll definitely go for a nap right now, but let’s get you out of those speedrunning clothes first, yeah?”
Couri nodded and sighed in defeat. “Smart, as always.”
Fein took off Couri’s crown, going to place it in its spot on a shelf while Couri fiddled with the clasp of his cape. It was a bit tricky to open, especially when you couldn’t see it properly when it was under your chin.
So, when Fein turned back to check on Couri only to find him still struggling with the cape, he sat down on the edge of the bed, beckoning him over. “C’mere.” He spread his legs to allow Couri to stand between them, reaching for the clasp. Couri flushed a little but obliged, stepping into the bracket of Fein’s thighs. The clasp opened with a click, and Fein let the cape fall to the floor.
It was pleasantly intimate, and Fein was enjoying looking up at Couri’s flushed face. Couri went to turn away with a soft “Thanks”, but before he could make a move, Fein had grabbed the top button of his waistcoat to open it. Couri’s flush deepened, but he stopped in his tracks and let Fein do as he pleased.
Soon the waistcoat followed the cape onto the floor, and Fein moved onto Couri’s tie. It was in some fancy knot Fein definitely wouldn’t know how to tie, but undoing it was easy enough.
He let his fingers caress at Couri’s neck when he unwound the cloth from around it. Couri shivered at the contact.
Next were the golden cufflinks of his purple dress-shirt. Fein took the opportunity to press a kiss to the side of Couri’s palm as he held it up for easier access. The cufflinks Fein stored in Couri’s nightstand drawer.
“Your outfit is the most inconvenient thing in existence”, Fein commented fondly while unbuttoning Couri’s button-up. Part of Couri’s bottom lip was sucked into his mouth uncertainly. “It’s perfect on you”, Fein smiled.
His palms ran along Couri’s chest to his lean shoulders and arms as Fein relieved him of his shirt, revealing more creamy skin underneath. With both of his hands splaying on Couri’s back for a few indulgent seconds and a soft kiss on his chest, Fein got up.
He plucked Couri’s glasses off his nose and dropped a peck on his brow. “There.” He left Couri to finish undressing, pleased with the bashful look he'd left Couri’s visage.
Fein moved back to his side of the bed, and unceremoniously dropped his own colourful ensemble onto the floor. The clothes would be future Fein’s problem. His pink glasses were tucked into his nightstand, and the dark blue shirt he wore underneath it all was relegated to the ground as well.
Left in nothing but his underwear, Fein quickly slipped under their duvet to join Couri, who rolled into his side before he could beckon him over. Fein wrapped an arm around him, pulling him even closer so he could lie partially on top of him, Couri’s head tucked under Fein’s chin.
Couri let out a pleased hum, and Fein himself couldn’t help smiling at the ceiling as his fingers traced Couri’s back muscles, warm, steady breaths hitting his skin.