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It’s not very often that Avery and Derek cuddle naked. In a bedroom no less. It is a pretty strange thing to do, especially considering that they aren’t even in a public bath. The fact that it was in a bedroom has some rather raunchy connotations. Especially when you consider that Avery and Derek are very, very close.
But it’s really no one's business what they were doing to lead up to this point. It’s between them and the author, you see.
“You’re beautiful,” Derek says, hands wandering the soft skin of Avery’s arms. His fingers are warm as they dance atop them. They linger on blooming patches of faint purple on them, from months ago Avery’s pretty sure, but the guilt that settles into the lines of Derek’s face make it seem like it was from yesterday.
Settling a hand on Derek’s chest, Avery comes closer. Well, closer as he could manage with an arm between them. And with Derek’s weight pinning him down to the sheets. “It’s okay now.” Derek’s firm chest deflates with a sigh, causing his chest hair to prickle Avery’s palm. Squeeze.
“Maybe I should start working out too…”
Derek hums, the vibration felt through the tips of Avery’s finger. “It would be good for your health… and it’d be fun too. I could help you out.” Long fingers run down the length of Avery’s arm that wasn’t busy with Derek’s chest. Wrapping around to hold his hand up to Derek’s mouth.
“I guess that’s true. I was just thinking about how it would make me look better though.”
“You already look good. Whatever form you take,” Derek’s lips travel from his knuckles to his wrist. Sharp teeth coming close to his skin too many times to be accidental.
Avery shifts his other hand to the plains of Derek’s back. Feeling the grooves and slight raised bumps there. He sticks his tongue out at Derek. “Only you would think that way,”
“Incorrect.” A flash of yellow in the moonlight would have had Avery shivering in fear before, now he’s just mildly flustered. Yellow’s hand detaches from his own, moving to pitter patter his forefinger against Avery’s sides and torso.
Gentle thumbs brush against the scars that line the underside of Avery’s pectorals. Touch scared to touch any harder on the faded scars as if it will reopen. Which it will not. Because it’s old and the human body doesn’t work that way.
“Did it hurt?”
“Hmm. Not really?” Avery shakes his head. Yellow narrows his eyes a bit when Avery’s hair flies out towards his face. “To be honest I just felt too tired and grumpy. So it didn’t hurt.”
Yellow keeps staring. Avery lets him, because frankly, there’s something a lot more attention grabbing about their body compared to his.
Avery sometimes found himself thinking if there were any more markers on who he was with that wasn’t the eye color and behaviour shift. And staring back at him was a rather large sigil spanning Derek’s shoulders and lower abdomen, all curling towards his solar plexus. It looks like the pattern that was on the church walls back then. It would look like a really cool tattoo if it wasn’t visibly glowing.
It doesn’t feel that different from skin, except maybe for the slight sense of wrongness that coats-not-coats his pointer finger when he touches it. It’s dry, but it leaves a feeling of something moist beneath his finger tips.
“Woah. What is that?” No, because what is that. Avery didn’t know that it glows. He just thought it was a cool-ass scar! “That wasn’t a scar?!”
An amused noise leaves Yellow’s lips. Yellow shifting into dual tones of yellow-blue. “It is a scar in a way.” A sharp nose sticks into the junction of Avery’s shoulders and neck. Sharp teeth grazing the skin above Avery’s carotid artery. It doesn’t skip at all, not like it would have months ago.
Yellow continues, “Certain modifications had to be made to our body to make it more… suitable for me. I wasn’t always this tall before, nor do I gain muscle easily.” Derek’s voice bleeds into the last sentence. It’s always a freaky thing for Avery when Yellow eyes are looking at him but the voice talking was Derek’s.
“Seriously?” Turning his head to the man shamelessly breathing into his neck, Avery stares at him. “Yellow made you guys taller?!”
They pull back from his neck. Eyes filled with mirth as they stare at him straight on. “I wouldn’t have changed anything about you though. You are perfect.” A soft smile decorates their face.
Avery squints his eyes, debating on whether or not that qualifies as a compliment. Warm fingers resume their quest on mapping out his body. Now trailing on his stomach and hips.
“We like this.” They say, and Avery has no idea how to respond to that.
So he continues his own exploration of their body too. Quietly filing away each feeling, texture, and scar he comes around to. There’s a lot of silvery-gold lining on their body, especially around his joints. They look like stretch marks. Feel like stretch marks too.
Sharp teeth latch onto the skin on the side of his hip.
“Hey!”
Their reply is muffled, but satisfaction is heard from it all the same, “Hi Schatz.”
“What is it with you and biting me?” Avery points to various parts of his body littered with suspiciously sharp teeth marks. “Are you perchance a dog?”
“Perchance?” They let go of their bite on Avery, a questioning glance sent his way. Sharp elbows move up the mattress, bringing them face-to-face. “Where did you hear that word?”
“Okay, that’s rude, but also I read it from an essay about mario. Anyways, what’s up with you and biting me?”
“You look yummy.”
“... Do you plan on eating me?”
They hide their face in the crook of his neck. A smile ghosting his skin. “Ma~ybe.”
“Okay then, cuddle’s over.” Instantly, they shoot up from his neck to look him in the eye with the saddest kicked-puppy expression they could muster. Which wasn’t much, considering that the only expressions they seem to be capable of at the moment were those of amusement. Bastard.
“No it isn’t.” They return back to their space on his neck.”You know that. We know that. You love us too much to do that.”
Avery sighs, but it betrays affection that wrecks his miffed facade. “Infinite knowledge for this?”
“Yes. Anything to make this longer.”
“Such a sap.”
“So you’ve said. Still here though.”
Avery sticks his tongue out. They take the opportunity to steal a kiss.
He should’ve seen that coming.