[6. “I’m sorry” kiss for rad bouquet, prompted by @ellegamgee! thank you, this one sprung fully formed into my brain and it was too cute to resist.]
~
Damien holds Arum’s hand as they laze in the late evening sun, his poetry set aside for the moment so he can examine Arum’s claws in the hopes of finding a proper simile for his latest piece. Damien presses his thumb into Arum’s palm, slides his fingers slowly out until he can slip them between Arum’s, and then he presses, flexing and curling his clawed hand in a way that must be rather soothing, judging by the low purr that starts to rumble Arum’s chest.
The lizard slits his eyes open, just enough that Damien can see the thinnest sliver of violet, cut through the middle with a shard of liquid black, but Arum doesn’t say anything, doesn’t move to stop the poet as he continues his slow, gentle examination of Arum’s hand. Damien slips the pads of his fingers over his scaled knuckles, turning his hand and fascinating in the fragile mechanism of his wrist, in the gentle, cool texture of his scales. He skates his fingers further up, along his leanly muscled forearm, light as lace, until he reaches the scar.
The scar: it is smaller in fact than it is in the landscape of Damien’s mind, evidence of a deliberate harm that Damien once inflicted on someone he now holds dear in the deepest depths of his heart. It interrupts the beautiful, rippled surface of Arum’s scales in a short line above the crook of his elbow, well-healed but still present, and Damien has to take a steadying sort of breath and focus on the feeling of Arum’s living body beside his own to keep the overwhelming weight of his mistakes from screaming through his mind.
Instead of succumbing to regret, Damien brushes his thumb gently over the ridged line once, twice, and then he leans down and presses his lips to the scar, hoping to pour out the emotion swelling within him through the gentleness of the kiss.
Arum’s eyes are fully open, now, and he stares at Damien with something in his eyes that Damien cannot entirely place.
Then, with as much care as if he were moving the thinnest spun glass, Arum lifts Damien’s arm and echoes Damien’s kiss. He nuzzles along the line of Damien’s matching scar, then flicks his tongue across it, as if with his kiss alone he could soothe the old wound away.
~
[send me a number and a pairing from the prompt list here, and I’ll do a short (100-300 words max) description of the kiss!] [all kiss ficlets here!]
