Chapter Text
There is, as these things go, a good-natured scuffle preceding anything remotely romantic. Violet has his way of being insufferably needy every second of the day’s opportunity allows him, and so requires at least a little protest so as not to act as a borderline literal black hole that sucks up all his time and thensome; meanwhile, Pavel has his way of being approximately as weak as one needs to be to, even years later, still fall for the exact same puppy dog eyes routine and whining that worked well enough on him at the start to even put him in this position in the first place. His lack of evolution in this regard is what continuously puts him in the excessively vulnerable position of trending towards acquiescing his little butterfly's every need, lest he feel honestly bad that he hasn’t done the emotional equivalent of emptying his fucking vault of gold for him.
Though he’s got his guard down and protest banners resting at his sides on this particular occasion. Clear skies, white sands, loud crashing of near-crystalline blue waves against a willing shore; it’s a summer seaside trip away from obligations and terrible facts of life such as work, decency and sick kittens. Which is itself perhaps why it had worked so well when Pavel had rolled out of the ocean after a swim with a gasp while running his fingers through his hair, already drying from the overhead heat, only to suddenly find himself being tugged by the wrist straight to his side.
He’s kicking sand up as he splutters in confusion, and the next thing he knows there’s a flash of purple before he’s being pinned by his back to the nearest fence that offers some spot of privacy between them and the other beach goers still frolicking.
Two hands on either side of his head, and a very grumpy face framed by brilliant purple hair staring at him. His cheeks are somewhat rounded in a deep pout, and it makes him look like an incredibly disgruntled squirrel. “I was wondering where you’d gone,” Pavel murmurs. “You disappeared after I dipped my head underwater.”
“I was feeling faint,” Violet replies, inching his face closer. “I’ve been doing real good, you know? Keeping myself together even though you look so good.”
“You want praise for not jumping on me in public?”
Violet cocks his head thoughtfully, cringing like he’s a cat who licked shaved ice and gave himself brain freeze. “A bit, yeah. Do you have anything nice for me? Maybe just the one?”
He flushes right down his neck, past the damp of his collar. “You look pretty decent yourself,” Pavel tells him, doing that thing where he turns his head damn near right around because he’s almost as bad a liar as a dog trying to sadly gesture to a pill bug dragging itself across the floor as the true culprit of why the houseplants have been knocked over.
The corners of Violet’s lips raise. “Is that so? What do you like most about me right now, hm?”
“You only said one.”
“I want another one,” he demands, shamelessly.
“Fine,” says Pavel, frowning at him, entirely without heat. “It’s predictable, but you look good with sunglasses.”
He tips them down with a jerk of his fingers down to his eyes, grinning lopsided at him. “They’re handy, too. Could look right at the sun if I wanted to. Stylish and functional, just how you like it.”
They do look pretty cool, but Pavel reaches over to pull them back up on his head anyway, giving him a small look. "Are you just lonely? I know we didn't come alone, but..."
“Of course not, I’m not a child. Have a whole day with ‘em if that’s what you want, I’m fine with it,” Violet says. Something touches the insides of his thighs and Pavel jumps; it’s Violet’s leg, tucking itself right at home where it belongs. At the tension in his body suddenly mounting, Violet angles his head downward to pout right into his face. He continues on barely a mumble: “But how’m I supposed to feel when you say you’re going for a swim and then start stretching right in front of me?”
“You’re insatiable,” Pavel mutters, entirely without grace. When Violet dips his head closer, he angles his face away out of sheer primal need to put up a semblance of a fight, not necessarily because he wants to. “I dunno. How do you think I feel when you start doing your warm up stretches before training?”
“Horny?”
He frowns at him immediately, making Violet snort. “I do not feel horny,” he objects, far too quickly.
“Liar.” Violet grins at him. “I suppose it’s just coincidence you stare after me specifically whenever I’m getting ready with the other sword fighters?”
He groans, wriggling, though not out of rejecting what he's saying. He’s more just annoyed he could ever be caught out like that, though even he knows he’s a creature of unbreakable habits and routine enjoyment.
“It’s okay to admit I’m attractive,” Violet says, sounding equally as consoling as he does teasing. “I think so. I think I’m very attractive. I also happen to think you’re very attractive too, so sue me for wanting to make out with you when you’re wearing a damn bodycon swimsuit.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Pavel says, as Violet practically bumps into him to plaster a thoroughly-unattractive smooch on his cheek. “You’re hot, I’m hot, our relationship is nothing more than an attempt to lessen the collective happiness of the world’s citizens by taking ourselves out of the dating pool.”
Violet laughs into where he’d kissed - a wonderful baritone that could carry a whole orchestra’s symphony on its own, or maybe he’s just too deep in this - and Pavel tries not to shudder as he hears it in the pit of his stomach before it reaches his ears. It's the exact magical frequency that could make flowers start growing out of his bones, he thinks idly. “Here and back,” Violet mumbles, sounding very pleased with himself as Pavel gives up and drops his gaze, looking like the picture of hedon at the sharp of Violet’s collarbone. “Before the drinks even remember they're supposed to melt in this heat.”
Pavel groans at the idea of a watery cocktail waiting diligently to cool him down after this. Like a soldier who’s working so hard to guard but he’s gone and fallen asleep and let the thief in through the front door! “You’re doing this when we have drinks waiting?”
“External motivation,” he says simply. “We simply make it quick, no?”
“That says more about your stamina than it does anything.”
“Sure, but can you blame me?” says Violet breathlessly, his eyes glittering.
Clear skies, white sands, loud crashing of near-crystalline blue waves against a willing shore, and Violet’s gaze hotter than the summer sun as it, thoroughly indulgent and utterly starving as though he were wearing the ravenous eyes of a dog that hasn’t eaten in days, drags across his bare skin; idling on the scarring he’s let sun in his summer ensemble; the ridging of his hips that his swimsuit hangs delectably off. That’s where Violet sees fit to rest his palms first, catching him by the hips and drawing them closer to his as Pavel flushes deeper and doesn’t put up much of a fight at all.
“You go into the water and then there’s water dibbling right along your abs,” Violet whispers into his ear. Pavel shivers, feels the heat finally break his skin and catch his veins to shake them silly. “My fingers could have been there. They want to be there, you know. Do they get to be, love?”
“You're jealous of water now?”
“No, no,” Violet says with an easy laugh, and then more seriously he says, “well, maybe,” and then he goes back to pouting as he says, “can I touch you or not?”
“You already are,” Pavel mumbles, bringing his lips to his cheek and brushing it with them before he continues past to speak sotto voce into his ear: “And you’re never one to leave things half-way, are you?”
Maybe unsurprisingly, Violet’s warm to the touch, but Pavel’s far from uncomfortable basking in it despite the summer heat - rather, it feels the more comfortable of the temperatures. He’s never been very good with summer, but he’s always been great with Violet.
So close as he is, he feels the smile come upon Violet and doesn’t hesitate to angle his own towards them, bringing them together sweet as strawberries swimming in vodka; Violet hums as he leans in and lets his fingers loose across him, as happy in their lechery as he is.
He elects straight up first, drawing his fingers past the bump of his hips with an eager flourish to find his sculpted abdominal muscles. When they find them Violet makes a happy noise, bird-like in its cadence, and lingers there. Lets them go flat and comfortable against how firm they are, and then finding shapes he wants to trace into them with the eagerness and subsequent awful execution of a three year old attempting a dodecahedron after practising nothing but straight lines.
Though it’s precious in its own way. He’s so busy kissing him he keeps forgetting he’s in the middle of trying to touch him, and when he briefly finds himself in the haze of affection and need tinged with pettiness his fingers practically shake as they try and get their bearings in order. He bumps into his rib cage, accidentally finds his belly button. He pokes his stomach not simply once or twice. It’s borderline unattractive how he stumbles, and maybe it wouldn’t be at all if it weren’t for the way he kisses him like he’s drinking, gentle gulps of breath and sweet flickers of his tongue against his lips.
“Excited,” Pavel points out as they break for breath, half-teasing.
Violet makes an annoyed little noise in the back of his throat. “You’ll make me shy if you point it out.”
“You? Shy? Not likely.”
“I suppose it is a hard sell,” Violet snickers. “But it’s true! Better at it now - for obvious enough reasons - I could barely get a word out around you sometimes way back when.”
That’s so sickeningly cute, Pavel thinks, and absolutely resolves to take the thought with him to at least just before he gets lowered into his grave.
“Even now,” he continues. “I struggle to know what to say. Driving even me to speechlessness! Me!”
“The genius of talking and wordsmithery that you are,” says Pavel, sarcasm on par as telling someone they did a really excellent job when they drove a carriage straight into a tree and somehow cause some non-flammable element of this equation to, despite all odds, burst into flames anyway.
“Modern day improvisational poet!” He pauses, frowning down between them. “Though I suppose they’re not modern day if they still exist. Not like poets are a thing of history.”
Pavel snorts, bringing his own fingers up to Violet’s chest, partially to fiddle with the gold (obviously, catching him in silver implies someone else is walking in his likeliness) necklace he’s got on - something to do with his fingers, better than just having them there limply at his side while he gets fondled. “Maybe it’s not a bad thing you talk less sometimes.”
“Maybe,” Violet murmurs. “Sometimes I'm a little busy doing other things with my mouth.”
“Such as?” Pavel asks, grinning in interest.
“Such as,” Violet replies, and then leans in again.
Fingers like turning over each rock by the lakeside in turn; not a single bit of his bare abs are unexplored, leaving trails of warmth and tingling energy as Violet delightedly mimics the way the ocean’s water would have followed the billows of his muscles as he came out from under it.
He’s picturing it, Pavel thinks idly, judging from the way he follows along his body - the way Pavel had risen up from wetting his head, an arc of water following from its tips and then down him in a similar fashion as honeysuckle grows down bricks. Trailing the harsh fall of his cheeks, his nose, the outline of his chin. Dribbling and dropping down his neck to pool at his chiselled collarbone and then down even further across his chest’s valleys…
Like water following the keep of a lake, a comfortable tracing of skin and its indents make Pavel’s blood hum in satisfaction as they flow through his webbing veins underneath pampered skin. Violet’s more gentle in his exploration now that the initial heatwave has passed, somewhat happier to take his time to sweep his fingers across and enjoy what he’s finding, rather than actively searching for something. He hums a song-like note, focusing on a particularly rough bump where a scar rests along him and ends just below his muscles. Presses the tips of his fingers to its edge and rubs like he’s sanding something down, and then Pavel feels him follow it along to its peak. It’s not a bad feeling, much as he’s quick to voice his complaints - actually, the sensation of being travelled upon is nice, sends his body into an excited flurry of heartbeats and trilling skin that reddens if Violet so much as grazes it with his nail.
Soon he’s content with this location, and Pavel can tell with the way he pauses in his ministrations, splays his fingers flat to their palm across him before he breaks their kiss. “Can I go higher?” Violet mumbles. Wordlessly Pavel nods, already out of breath - he brings himself back to him, hoping to steal some of his air from his mouth.
He’s quick to find the rounding of his pectorals, and brings his fingers to them for a cheeky grope. The suddenness is electrifying; Pavel squeaks, breaking away from him as he jerks hard enough to send them toppling if the fence he were resting his weight on was less securely staked into the sand - that only makes Violet chuckle like a singing bell into him as he brings his hands back down to a more neutral position.
“You’ve seen my chest before; this isn’t new to you,” Pavel manages between one kiss, two kiss, three.
“And it drove me crazy then, too. You underestimate yourself,” Violet says with an earnest little sulk, complete with very grumpy brows.
“And your ability to find anything attractive, clearly,” Pavel grouses, his stomach jumping when Violet’s fingers sweep a sensitive part of his waist.
“Not just anything,” he tells him. “If it’s you, though, I’ll find it attractive, to the very highest hair on your scalp right to the bottom of your toes.”
“That’s,” Pavel breathes, in vague wonder, total affection, heart close enough to leaping out of his chest has to briefly press his palm to it as if he needs to catch it before it leaps over to dip him low and swallow him into a hug before asphyxiating him with a kiss it would refuse to break, absent of stern vulnerabilities and difficult wordings. “Kind of weird, if I’m being honest.”
“Aw.” Violet cocks his head, smiling sadly at him. “Nothing weird about it to me when it’s all perfect.”
His knee isn’t doing much, but its presence tucked between his legs is providing enough anticipation to them regardless. Pavel tries not to grind, he really does, but there’s only so much he can do when Violet’s energy is bouncy and, worse, infectious, and catches him by the throat to dangle him like a mouse who thought the cheese looked good and failed to apply the dubious descriptor of ‘suspiciously’ to it.
“Excited.” Violet doesn’t miss the opportunity to be smug at him.
He glowers at him in turn, and finally finds a use for his hands - he raises them to grab his cheeks and tug on them, an appropriate punishment for his sin of being a shithead. He gets a very dissatisfied moan and promptly releases him, rubbing on his somehow-yet reddening cheeks; laughing at the childish way Violet frowns at him, pulling a long face as if he'd been pulled out of sorts like dough.
He shakes Pavel off, closes their distance again; proceeds to dodge his lips, finding his neck.
As if he was expecting it he’s laughing when Pavel groans, squeezing his eyes shut, the sharp rasp of his teeth sending what feels like salt across his earth. But it quickly melts, accepting the slight twinge of pain into something that sets his veins rushing in mild tension and total apprehension. As Violet takes the thin of his neck between his teeth to nibble on it Pavel moans quietly, pinpricks of pleasure meeting that running blood and being shot across the entirety of his body like a bullet.
Chests meeting and legs entangling he presses up against him needily; Pavel wraps his arms around his neck, letting him in in totality. The warmth trapped between them is a blossom of midsummer heat under the fanning of the beach palm trees, and it has its way of making him feel as though they’re melting into each other. Violet's fingers lost in his skin, up and down in wide motions like a sweeping brush across pavement, audible delight in the back of his wide throat; Pavel’s in his hair, split across the back of his neck as he whimpers and gasps between each of Violet’s savours of him.
He bites small, delicately, motions like demurely enjoying a meal; the bottom of his lips lags behind as if purposeful, keeping the dutifully bit skin never absent of his pressure. Smooth skin against Pavel’s to follow up after the sharp of his teeth. It feels like an apologetic pat on the head, hastily done after knocking into someone. I just can’t help myself, he hears in Violet’s voice, deep and husky, an affected expression of desire halving his eyes tinged with earnest appreciation, drawing his brows into a pained and desperate furrow. Another bite, a kiss to his whining skin; Pavel whimpers under his breath, on instinct angling his face away again so Violet has more skin to sink his teeth into, and as a reward for his conscientiousness he hears Violet moan softly into his skin. A lick of his tongue, he draws his mouth up to let his lips smear it; and then he bites again a little higher, painting his lustful picture.
Pavel gasps and tightens his hands around the base of his neck. “Violet…” he moans, hazy, as if he’d gone and evaporated in the heat alongside the water that lined his body.
Violet mumbles something into his skin and doesn’t stop; reintroduces a knife to his meal, fingers to cut his body up with heatlines, perfect red slices across his chest. A swish upwards before they rest, their tips pressing into Pavel. In his wake his body shouts out like blasted fields no longer happy just being singed; wanting to be set on fire, burned to the ground. Satisfaction sublimating to his own hunger. He wants to be touched more, felt more, kissed more.
He dips his head into the curls of Violet’s hair, meeting the shell of his ear. His breath coming to pieces and making sure Violet can hear it as he pants and groans at every bite and kiss. Stray strays of his hair out of their usual chaotic order lashing this way and that; them moving his sunglasses have disturbed them, and they tickle his nose as Pavel breathes as deep as he can to stop himself from feeling dizzy between his mouthfuls, his fiddling with his body. He smells of sun cream - peaches, because Violet doesn’t like the scent of cucumbers in his skincare products - and the tangy spray of sweat mixed with sea salt breeze.
Across his chest, fingers spreading like wings; taking off, going south to trace his midriff, leaving his skin shy from pressure as he drags them across like he’s loathe to leave even a cell behind as he advances; around to his waist, where they wave like a heartbeat to unfurl in turn over him. Finding the ridge of his hips, returning home. A happy hum from Violet, right into the skin of his throat, a shortcut down into Pavel’s lungs where he breathes it in and feels it dissolve into every crevice of his body. Pavel shuts his eyes, lets his head fall back against the fence; he sighs as Violet nibbles, gently pets his hip’s chine back and forth, back and forth.
Against his chin he feels a movement from Violet; moving his head upwards, sees his eyes glittering. More shine than the ocean that chants behind them. Iridescent yellow glimmers of summer sun taken in by them, never to be released, not as long as Pavel bares the material joy of him in his arms. His fingers moving; his mouth releasing Pavel’s skin, to lick his own bruising lips.
He gets closer, closer, bringing his face up to Pavel’s as Pavel tries and fails to control his breathing; looking at him somehow inflames him; the deep flush of his clear skin providing a satisfying gradient to saturation down his neck to his nose; his fringe, normally controlled by mornings of careful brushing and dabs here and there of gel, ruffled from his enthusiasm into Pavel’s neck, somewhat swayed from their course. His other eye is visible, peeking anxiously out from the scatter of his bangs. Lips only apart to breathe; lungs burning, hotter than summer; a suggestion of parting, but a reality of reuniting. He angles his face more comfortably as their noses brush; Pavel doesn’t stop him, simply shuts his eyes.
Violet’s fingers stop playing with his hips. He moves them down, down, further down. Pavel feels his breath on his cheeks. His fingers dipping lower, finding the hem of his swimsuit. Clumsily fiddling with the tight waistband, his index nail chafing against his pelvis. Pavel’s skin jolting, gasping against Violet. A huff of laughter, warm enough to make his head spin. His index finally breaking past, dragging with agonising conceit downwards and Pavel shivers at his fingertips touching him there and-
“Hey! Helloooooo? Geez, where are you two?”
Luluca’s voice, appropriately as loud as a warning siren, from just around the corner.
“Come on, Luluca,” come’s Cerise’s, worriedly, and just a little awkwardly, too. Maybe a little knowing, considering her brilliance. “If they’re off on their own, we shouldn’t disturb them. It’s their holiday, too.”
The tension deflates between them instantly; in unison like it's a practised show, their shoulders go lax, and Violet relinquishes his leg from between Pavel’s. Pavel laments and weakly falls against the fence again, thinking his exhale is deep enough that he could deflate like the saddest balloon this side of the universe.
“Hey, we dipped for these drinks, too!” Luluca says. The pout is audible in her voice, and they don’t really have to see her physically to know she’s got her hands on her hips and tapping her feet. “We were having a perfectly lovely time snuggling and relaxing under the beach umbrella, and he comes and kicks sand in my face and says he’s buying drinks and to get up.”
Pavel looks at him in vague disapproval. “Oh, come off it,” Violet pouts. “Like you wouldn’t do the same to her.”
“Yeah, but you two are actually friends.”
“Hence, I have a certain sand kicking privilege,” he sniffs, patting his chest. “Besides, I wasn’t actually aiming for her face. I just aimed wrong. I can’t say I make a habit of kicking sand to know exactly how it works and how it’ll fly.”
“Then he doesn’t show up!” Luluca continues in fury. “He’s like, ten minutes late! What’s his problem? I’m a minute late to anything and he gives me an earful.”
“Maybe they’re doing couple things and ran over a bit,” they hear Cerise point out.
“Then he shouldn’t have kicked sand in my face!”
“It did get in my hair a bit,” says Cerise a little sadly.
This time, Pavel looks at him in total scandal, mouth open. “Yeah,” Violet says with an uncomfortable grimace. “I, uh, really aimed wrong.”
“Listen,” says Cerise. The sound of sand crunching follows, and she lowers her voice to continue. “If they’re not back in a few minutes we take the drinks and just go sit back down where we were. No big deal, okay? It’s annoying, but you know what Violet’s like.”
“He’s annoying,” grumbles Luluca.
“He is,” says Cerise, amused.
“You are,” Pavel says. All Violet can do is wordlessly pout, making Pavel chuckle under his breath. Even he knows that three is more than one and that he’s got no one batting in his corner of protests.
A rough sigh floats from the side. “Alright,” says Luluca. “C’mon, then. I’d rather they be the only ones drinking watery drinks.”
There’s a pause - “Think they’re kissing? I bet they’re kissing,” Violet mumbles, wriggling his head to see if he can look past the fence to catch sight of them, so Pavel has to grab him to stop him from blowing their cover - and then they start walking away, chatting about evening plans.
“I was the one who said we should be quick and all,” says Violet, barely able to hold back a laugh. “Ah, well.”
“Forget them,” Pavel grumbles, and then feels - remarkably, considering the summer sun is peaked right atop their heads, staved off only by the palm tree’s leaves - a coolness replace where Violet’s body had just been pressed up against him.
His expression must be truly put out, flushed face and incredulous eyes, because Violet gives up trying not to laugh at him as soon as he sees him. “But I spent good money on them. I know you hate your drinks being diluted, so we better get there before the ice gets to them. I don’t want to waste them.”
“You’re a nobleman, you are the icon of excess,” Pavel points out. “What’s a couple of drinks?”
“Your enthusiasm is really melting my heart,” Violet says with a snort. “But seriously, I want those drinks. Plus, if we don’t arrive for them, they’ll-”
“-Just go back to relaxing on the beach on their own, like they said?”
“For now,” says Violet. A frown comes across his face and he shakes his head. “But then the second we meet up for dinner, she’ll use her magic on me all annoyed and trying to make me pay - ignoring that I quite literally already paid, what with being the one who bought the drinks and all - and get me all wet and soaked, and then they’ll probably kick us out for making a ruckus at the diner. You want that? You want me all wet and hungry?”
He thinks about Violet being excessively wet, shirt sticking to his skin and making implications of his muscles and body underneath in the same way giving a bouquet of flowers to someone is making implications that you rather fancy them. His hair framing his face like petals do to a bulb, him running his fingers through his fringe and briefly pulling his hair back to get the water out of his face giving the rare visage of both his eyes at once, arms over his head as he sighs crudely and the water tracing every rise and fall of his body borderline perversely as it rushes to the floor…
“Eh,” he concludes, dismissive of the fact that then they would have to go foraging elsewhere for food, because he’s rather preoccupied with the sudden recognition that holy shit, he gets it. He gets being jealous of water, somehow.
Snickering, maybe knowing, Violet draws closer, bumping their foreheads together lightly. “Please? I was really excited for them. And I made sure to pick out a drink you’d like! Put so much thought into it and everything…”
He’s doing that thing where he pleads with his puppy dog eyes, and Pavel’s doing that thing where he falls for it. Even being entirely aware of it does not benefit him in resisting it. “Fine,” he mutters. “Not like we still have the vibe going…”
Violet nods sagely. “Exactly.”
“And I’d hate to waste you thinking for once.”
"Exactly." Violet nods intelligently again, before looking scandalised when he registers what he said. “Hey!”
He’s chuckling as he pushes himself off the fence to leave, only for Violet to suddenly say, “wait, wait, your neck,” before he turns the corner, back into the realm of visibility.
Pavel glances back, and sees that Violet’s pulled out a red plaster from a pocket in his swim trunks. He’s gotten into the habit of carrying first aid items around with him, just as Pavel’s gotten into the habit of putting moisturising cream on before he goes to sleep.
“Just the one?” Pavel asks, lifting a hand to touch where he’d been biting. It’s still a bit slick and his thumb rubs across it a little too easily, which winds up bringing his flush back a bit to dust the bridge of his nose pink. “Didn’t you bite more?”
“I know we’re in public; I didn’t do much,” Violet says, tearing the plaster’s adhesive free. Then he smirks as he holds it up and says, “why - did you think I was eating you?”
The flush comes back with the force of a cat running into a window, all across his cheeks. “Of course not, you prick.”
“I could have, you know. Maybe I still will,” Violet says, voice low, licking his lips. His heart skips a beat and he glances away, hearing Violet snort before he gets in his personal space to put the plaster on.
In an excessively adorable fashion, the tip of his tongue is poking out in focus as he carefully hovers it, finding the best place and angle to stick it to hide the hickey. Soon he finds it and applies it, making sure it holds onto his skin by pressing it down on either end. There must be something truly wrong with him, Pavel thinks distantly, because somehow the way Violet touches him as he sorts this out feels borderline as intimate to him as it did when he was touching him earlier.
“Thanks,” says Pavel, trying not to get too distracted by the nature of object permanence decreeing that he still smells of peaches even a couple minutes later.
“No problem,” Violet replies, sounding a little absent as he focuses. He pats at it one more time, and then draws his hands away, holding them up with his palms open. “I am nothing if not a man of intrepid responsibility and all. There! It’s like you just got a cut there or something when you went diving. Can’t see a thing.”
“I keep telling you, white’s fine with these,” says Pavel, rubbing at it instinctively. “Colour just draws more attention to it.”
“And I'm telling you that you have to think of them as accessories too, not just something that fulfils a function. Everything adds up,” Violet tells him with a waggle of his finger. Then pulls his sunglasses back down, complete with a coy pose of tucking his fingers under his chin. “It’d be like painting your nails blue when your entire ensemble is green and red. It’d clash.”
“Right,” Pavel replies, unable to stop the fond smile from creeping onto his face. “Alright, sure. You know more about this than I do.”
“Plus,” Violet continues with an almost girlish shyness about him, cupping his cheeks with a dreamy expression across his face. “You just look so cool when you’ve got red on you. Forgive me for preferring the cool aesthetic to plain white.”
“I’ll find it in my heart to not curse you to hell for your odd little desires to make me look nicer.”
“I get that same feeling when I see you’ve got blood on you from hunting, I’ll confess,” Violet keeps going, that edge of need coming over him again as his eyes go lidded. “Very cool. So cool. Effortlessly so…”
As if thinking about it and trapped in a daze, he trails off, even though he sounds like he meant to keep going. “I get it,” Pavel laughs. “Drinks, Violet.”
That snaps him out of it, and Violet claps his hands together. “Drinks, indeed! I’m very excited for you to try what I picked out.”
“Does it come with a slice of fruit?” Pavel asks with incredible solemness.
“Want more, damn it!” Violet fusses, pecking him on the cheek. “It comes with a slice of pineapple and dried cherries and rose petals. You’ll love it, I’m sure.”
Pavel decides to use his one sentimental and overly cheesy thought of the week at this particular moment and lets himself think, it’s hard not to like it if it’s got anything to do with him.
Just as they’re about to pass from the shade back into the sun, Violet presses himself up against his arm to bring his lips right up to his ear. “Don’t worry,” he whispers, last second. “There won’t be any drinks tonight to interrupt us.”
And then he’s off with an easy-going pat on Pavel’s back, turning the corner with a silent wink that makes his earrings jingle and catch the sun.
He stares after him briefly, hands limp at his side and blinking with the energy of a startled doe. When the blush comes across his cheeks in response to his lewd mumbles excitedly landing in the spot of his heart reserved single-handedly and resolutely for such decadence, it doesn’t settle down slowly like an invited friend making sure to kiss every member of the family in turn; instead, it kicks the door straight off his hinges and trundles right into the living room already half-drunk before the sun's down, muddy shoes still on to begin a dance number complete with a disco ball and record player.
“All over a swimsuit,” he mumbles to himself, as an oblivious little crab totters just a bit too close past him and leaves him be, clearly thinking he’s nothing more than a particularly oddly-shaped tree in how still and unobtrusive he is.
The red plaster on his neck feels as though it starts fussing, so as if in a dream he raises a hand to cup it before following after him on a mild stumble. Far from the stability the fence had on this sand, he thinks.