roy kent effect

eddie raises an eyebrow, even as he feels heat rushing up his neck, sleep melting away in the face of the familiar childlike urge to banter with his best friend in the whole wide world. "i remember that, buck." he says, in the fond staccato that he uses when buck is being particularly inconscient.

buck presses his fingers down, and eddie's voice faces into a hiss, body jerking a little, weak and wanting. "i mean, eddie," he says, pressing a kiss over the path of his finger tips, dragging warm and wet and loving over eddie's too-warm skin. "that i marked you up a lot here, and it kind of...it kind of looks like a heart."

eddie's face flops back into his pillow as he shakes with laughter, joy a kaleidoscope of butterflies spreading from his heart. what an idiot, how could eddie possibly love him more.

"i'm being serious!" buck's voice trembles with his own giggles, pressed like a promise against eddie's back. "see? look-- i'll just--"

eddie oomph's as buck flops over the entirety of his back, the sweaty, sticky span of his skin pressed unpleasantly over eddie's back. it is uncomfortable as hell. hell could break loose before eddie lets anybody pry buck away from his cold, dead hands.

little noises of concentration. shifts of muscle that makes different parts of eddie's body light up in futile interest, like a little kid way past their bedtime begging for one more story before sleep. buck makes a little cheer as he grabs something from his bedside, wiggling back into place where he's only a little stuck to eddie. disappointing.

he fiddles for a few more moments, and eddie doesn't bother to look at him, anticipating from the excited vibrations of his energy that sooner or later he'll--

"see?"

-- show eddie what he's doing.

eddie turns his head just enough to look at the phone buck is proudly brandishing in his face, squinting against the bright screen against the dim light of their bedroom. after a moment, his eyes adjust. his breath hitches audibly.

there, on the screen, is a picture of his back. it's a good picture, well-framed, properly centered, taken in the manner that pictures occur when the picture taker feels deep fondness for their subject. in it, eddie's back is stark against the dark navy of their sheets, draped in the soft afternoon light that has not quite been filtered through their curtains.

in those stripes of light, eddie can see the marks, violet and plum and mauve, a swatch-book of purples and reds and blues, each a variation on a theme: the sweet, oval rows of buck's teeth.

"oh."

"see?" buck beams at him like his best friend, instead of the man who carved love into eddie with his touch and evidently his teeth. eddie's pulse thuds, blood rushes through his body. he wonders, faintly, if buck can see the bite marks - his bite marks - flushing deeper as blood brings them closer to the surface. as it tries to seep through eddie's skin to find its way to buck.

"i don't...i didn't remember. all of that." he says.

buck's smile tilts a little smug. "you were a little out of it," he says, with the confidence of somebody who knows exactly how out of it eddie was. "but-- see? a heart!"

"it's kind of wonky," eddie says, just to have something to say, just to buy time as he resists the urge to reach back and press on each sacred mark. the urge to blurt out i wish you'd bitten deep enough to scar.

"are you calling my art wonky?" buck gasps. "are you calling my love wonky?"

"you're wonky, buckley."

buck sniffs, rolling over to put his phone back on the bedside table. eddie mourns a little at the loss of warmth, eyes tracking the shift of buck's muscle, the glimpse of the image on his phone: eddie's back, buck's teeth, preserved into pixel and memory.

when buck is done, he flops to his back, pouting in that specific way that makes eddie want to tease him until he breaks or soothe the pink swell of his lips with his thumb. either or.

"see if i ever bite any fun shapes onto you again," buck grumbles, all talk.

still, eddie's not taking the risk. buck makes a surprised huff as eddie swings a leg over his hips, tugging him in by his thick waist until he's close enough for eddie to tug himself over the bulk of his body. here, blanketing buck, nose to nose, their soft cocks smearing together in a way that makes both of them huff, a fission of possibility tempered by warm familiarity.

"don't you dare, buckley," he says, bringing a hand up to buck's jaw, pressing his thumb into buck's chin until his lips fall open, breath a line of warmth that eddie inhales. he reaches in with the tip of his fingers, tracing over smooth calcium, blunt, powerful edges.