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1.
Hide has been doing the avatar gig for about four years now, and it’s been long enough to notice a pattern with new avatars. At first, it’s all formless possibility: the people who want a piece of it are excited about the novelty, not so much the details, because there aren’t any yet.
And there’s one client he always expects at that time, so he’s not that surprised to receive a request. It comes with a link to an artistic rendering of the public claiming of Passion’s new avatar, the Temple of Sunshine visible behind him as he stands with his head thrown back, dressed in black and limned in scarlet light.
This is all the detail that’s made it to Talay yet, but Hide admires how compelling the image is. And the client’s ideas aren’t too complicated, given the god involved, but it’s the first chance Hide has had to play an avatar of Passion—ironic, given both his occupation and his religious leanings. This is the first time Hide has heard of Passion taking on an avatar who looks like him.
It’s a fun scenario to put together, and he likes the image he makes. A sheer red veil, to mimic the likely-apocryphal red light, with glints of glitter that he’ll find in his hair for a week. Dark clothing, draped rather than severe. An artful flush across his cheekbones, long lashes, berry-red lips. A bowl of fruits that drip matching juice as he and the client share it, which the client licks off his fingers before pulling him into his lap.
This avatar is seductive and insatiable, playing hard to get only as long as it takes for the client to grow desperate, then drawing the pleasure out late into the night. Hide sees the client off with a final kiss and a coy admonishment to get home safe, and is almost too tired to scrub everything off before he takes a nap.
It’s a pleasant tiredness, though. This one’s an easy skin to wear, and he wonders if it will remain this easy. He raises his water bottle in a silent toast to the as-yet-unnamed avatar, somewhere across the stars. To the start of a profitable avatarship, he hopes, however long he lasts.
2.
There’s a nearly even split between clients who get off on the subverted power dynamic of an avatar seeing to their pleasure and the ones who want to submit, although some avatars draw more of one kind than the other. Hide isn’t finding Eight to be one of those. The earliest impression still holds true: more than anything, he fields requests for indulgence.
This client is a new one, and it takes some careful maneuvering by Hide to get him to articulate what he really wants. It must be a deeply-held fantasy, if he hasn’t been scared off the request entirely yet, despite his obvious reluctance to share detail. Hide doesn’t believe in relying on guesswork in these kinds of intimate scenarios, though.
Which is how he finds himself coaxing the client’s mouth open with nipping kisses, then letting him slide down to the floor, where there’s a cushion for his knees. The client is a little younger than Hide, but not that young, despite his obvious shyness. But as soon as they get to the crux of the fantasy, the client loses the self-consciousness and relaxes.
What the client wanted to indulge in, it turns out, is something close to worship, although not close enough that Hide can’t slot it inside the lines he’s set for himself. He also wants simpler things: Hide’s cock in his mouth, and for his hair to be pulled a little, and to be allowed to lose himself for an hour or so. Which, really, who hasn’t been there?
And for part of the session, it really is as easy as it had seemed. But then the client gets frantic, too into the fantasy, not mindful enough of what they’d outlined together beforehand. “Let me serve you” is fine; invoking the avatar’s titles, also fine; but then he starts begging Hide to accept his prayers, and Hide needs to put a stop to this.
He tries the soft touch first: kisses to quiet him, a whisper of “no prayers,” against his ear, more like a lover’s request than a scolding. Sometimes they only need a reminder. To his relief, the client flushes bright red and seems to remember himself. “Sorry,” he mutters, and nearly scrambles away.
Hide sighs, joining him on the floor. “You got carried away,” he says, holding out his hands. The client gives him a very uncertain look, but he takes the offered hands eventually, and settles near enough for touch. Hide just holds onto them for a minute or so, gently rubbing his thumbs over the insides of the client’s wrists. “Would you like to stop, or do you want to finish?” he asks, when it seems like some of the tension has eased away.
He finishes the client off with his hand, and makes sure he drinks some water and has settled back inside his own skin before they part ways. He’s not sure he’d accept a request from him again, and maybe he needs to revisit how strict he is about his rules going in—but it’s not a bad day’s work, all the same.
In many ways, everything he does could be read as dedication to Passion. But he’s not comfortable being used as an intermediary for genuine religious feeling. He’s aware that may be part of what drives some of his clients, but as long as it’s internal that doesn’t matter.
Just as long as he isn’t claiming something that isn’t his. His clients don’t have to remember that he’s only human, but he does.
3.
For some clients, the fantasy doesn’t actually include sex, which Hide typically respects. However, this one is throwing Hide for a loop.
Hide knows, of course, all about the theories. That this Eight is about the right age to be the Eight; that he speaks like somebody from Planet 916, though as many a commentator has argued, that proves nothing, since Eight is such a common name back home. He’s watched the debate spark up and die down multiple times in the group chat with his childhood friends.
He hadn’t been able to classify his feelings when a casual friend brought it up, explaining it like Hide knew nothing about Planet 916.
But now here someone is, wanting to know if he can pretend to be a rube straight off the farm, because she wants to introduce Eight to the pleasures of fine food and wine, luxuries he’ll never have seen. He knows she sees it as a win-win: he’s the one who gets to taste the food and wine, which would strain his budget normally but not be totally out of the realm of what he can afford.
He takes longer to answer than he means to. He puts away his communicator and walks to Bank and Phueng’s place with an offering of food in hand, and lets himself be drawn into a couple of games. Then, with his head in Bank’s lap, he finally brings up the request.
Bank is good to talk to about these things, because he gets it. He and Hide met through work originally, though Bank has since moved onto other things. He pats Hide’s chest and says, “Is it the privilege thing or the 916 thing?”
“Both,” Hide admits. He shed that life like a snakeskin—in fact, has shed several versions of himself since he came here. But he can still remember his first sight of Talay, the overwhelming variety of things on offer and later the grim knowledge, when he blew up the relationship that brought him here, that he could easily fall into the cracks and out of the small measure of privilege he’d earned.
All of his knowledge of good wine is hard-earned and most of it secondhand, another mask he slips on when needed. He’s changed even his voice here, because the provincial accent he came with just wasn’t marketable. “And now it is,” he tells Bank.
“You don’t have to use it,” Bank points out. “They don’t usually make you do accents, do they?”
“Yeah, but it’ll sell,” Hide says.
And while he is comfortable now, has the kind of niche he’s unlikely to have competitors in, he won’t deny that this kind of edge doesn’t come around often. And there’s a kind of professional pride involved. He can make this really immersive, he just has to not fuck up his own heart doing it.
“It still won’t be me, no matter how I sound,” he says.
Bank shifts, and Hide starts to sit up. Bank isn’t so good a pillow once he gets fidgety. “What is it?” he asks, amused.
“You could practice on me,” Bank says. “Like a game. I’ll do my best high-society lady, and you’ll think it’s too dumb to take it totally seriously, and then it won’t feel so weird when you do Eight. And we can laugh about it after you let that client wine and dine you.”
And so they do, and Hide does laugh, and laughs some more when Phueng joins in, making herself a mustache out of a sticky note and playing the lady’s owlish and clueless husband. They spin a stupid farce of a ménage à trois that only Bank’s calculating lady really knows about, and Hide smiles remembering it when he lets the client know he’s both amenable and working on a 916 Eight persona.
4.
Here’s the thing. Danger is sexy.
What Hide offers is carefully controlled danger, something negotiated ahead of time, which will end either when the scenario is done or when one of them taps out. And there’s a few clients who are really, really into it. Usually the avatar of choice for these is Siam, because in a place as wet as Talay, the legends are just as potent as they are on dry, rain-reliant 916, but less urgent for survival. Not to mention that the blood-drinking thing has a lot of easily-exploitable erotic elements.
But with all the Eight theories come the whispers about the assassination attempt.
In day-to-day life, Hide has very mixed feelings about this part of the legend of either Eight. He still hasn’t found a way to reconcile the picture-perfect political spouse with the traitor, and he thinks he’ll never know what exactly happened behind closed doors. But in his professional life, Hide has a request from one of his semi-regular Siam clients and he thinks, yeah, I can make that work.
He keeps coming back to red and black with this avatar. In this case, though, he’s sleek and severe in a tailored black outfit, with a spot of red from a handkerchief in his pocket. Red shadow around his eyes, sharp black eyeliner, contouring making the line of his jaw look more angular. It’s funny because this was never how Eight looked on Zero’s arm; the image he’d cultivated was soft, sometimes even feminine. But what the client really wants is a secret assassin.
So much time spent on costuming, when the clothes are just going to end up on the floor, but for these clients, Hide is charging for an experience as much as for sex.
It starts with a sweet wine, toasts to victory. Hide barely has a taste; he won’t actually drink tonight. He and the client dance, and then kiss, and then it turns biting. Then Hide pulls out the prop knife, totally harmless, but likely just as cold as the real thing through the thin material of the client’s shirt. What happens next—a dance, a fight, a makeout session all in one—ends on the bed, with Hide on top.
“Take off your clothes,” he says, his voice low and growling.
The client’s throat bobs, and Hide watches them carefully. Nothing telling him to stop, and when he presses his knee between their legs, he finds them hot and wanting. He flicks the knife under the bottom button of the shirt, then rips it open with his hands. He does not mourn the waste of a perfectly good shirt, but mostly because he’s focused on the character; the client had stipulated this move in advance.
Afterwards, the client laughs, stunned and relieved and sated. They always get giggly after, and Hide rubs their shoulders and shares some sliced fruit with them. “This is a good one,” the client says on their way out. “I’m going to remember this.”
Hide counts the generous tip later, bemused. While he can be good at catering to this fantasy, it’s not one he enjoys himself. Then again, what he’s drawn to in his own sex life is rarely as polished as the version of himself he offers his clients. The things he finds sexy are often much more simple than that.
1.
Living with Eight has gone from a necessity that is not as bad as it could have been to a daily adventure. It started with the outings, and with Eight peeling back layers of himself, but Hide can’t pinpoint the part where he started just having fun.
But here he is now: choking on a startled laugh as Eight spreads today’s courting gift out on the coffee table. “I know what some of these are, obviously,” he’s saying, not meeting Hide’s eyes. “But, uh…are the rest of these…safe?”
What Eight knows, Hide is sure, are the foods, innocent on their own, but obvious in their intent all put together. And he’s smart enough to guess what the rest are, though it’s clear it has never occurred to him that they existed.
Hide could take pity. But setting everything out like this is an invitation and a request for information all in one, and who is Hide to turn either down?
He smiles wickedly. “Quite safe, as I can tell you from experience.”
This startles Eight badly enough he looks straight at Hide, his face flaming. “You used these?”
Hide glances at Eight and decides maybe sitting on the couch with him is pushing it a bit too far. Besides, he wants to see his face. He kneels in front of the table and snags one of the pill bottles, checking the label to be sure. “Stamina. This one will keep you going all night, if you need to.”
“Literally all night?” Eight sounds somewhere between pained and skeptical.
Hide just shrugs and sets it aside, reaching for something more fun. It’s a pointed vial, stylized, with a little loop like it’s meant to be worn on a necklace. The liquid inside is bright pink and almost opalescent. “I wouldn’t recommend the stamina one to you unless you want something very specific, but this one would be nice for anyone. You should keep it.”
He reaches out, holding it out until Eight offers his palm. His hand is warm and a little sweaty under Hide’s, and he doesn’t linger. Eight looks down at the vial. “What does it do?”
“It makes you warm. Relaxed. Not out of your head, just…nice-feeling, and maybe kind of giggly. I’ve used it with friends, when we just wanted to, you know, dance and cuddle and feel good.”
Eight seems just as flustered by this, which makes Hide wonder if he’s taken some of that as euphemism. Or maybe he’s still thinking about its intended use. He can’t always tell where Eight will take something. He points out another. “This one’s actually topical; it’s a wild sensation if you’re not used to it. I would not recommend getting any inside your mouth.”
Obviously torn between two questions, Eight manages, “Topical?” and looks like he regrets his choice.
“I'm not a scientist, so I have no idea how it works, but if you put it on…” He pauses, looking for a delicate phrasing, but Eight just makes a speed-up kind of gesture so he assumes he gets it. “It tingles, that’s the best way I can describe it. It makes every touch more intense. Which, you know, if you want to seem a little superhuman in bed…”
He watches the shoe drop, and then Eight actually drops the vial. Hide laughs at him, and keeps laughing. None of Eight’s dismay seems to be actual distress, just acute curiosity and interest mixed with discomfort with discussing any of this openly. It’s adorable in an avatar of Passion.
There are plenty of times Hide has talked frankly about sex and not thought the word adorable. He’s also not usually so intent on flustering the people he’s talking with more, just to see them squirm and blush, and then steel themselves to keep gamely asking and listening anyway. It’s like a game of chicken: will Hide run out of ammunition first? Or will Eight lose his last shred of composure?
Eight breaks first, fleeing for the bathroom. When Hide can finally stop laughing, his stomach hurts and he feels warm all over. You were flirting, he admonishes himself. It’s not the first time, but he’s going to have to figure out soon if he means any of it, because he’s starting to think Eight doesn’t flirt just for sport.
There are a lot of eggs in this basket—his living situation, protection from other gods, and the blooming friendship—and he doesn’t want to upset it. But he thinks of Eight’s eyes screwed up with laughter, his flushed face, how easy he is to shock, and he doesn't want to stop.
2.
Hide is a morning person, a habit he’s never shaken, despite the many other ways in which he was not suited to farm life. He’s just never been able to sleep too long past dawn; even on the space station, with its artificial light cycles, his body finds its rhythm and sticks to it.
Eight, not so much.
Most of the time, living together, this hasn’t been a problem. Hide can move around the living areas quietly, and with Eight’s door shut, it didn’t seem to bother him. However, since the advent of the kittens, Eight has been leaving his door open in a spirit of fairness, and the kittens have accordingly been waking him up with pleas and an urgent need for playtime at increasingly unreasonable hours.
Hide is already up getting the morning feeding taken care of, but two of the kittens have gone to bother Eight. He waits for the sound of a mealtime to draw them out, but no luck. He’s just about to poke his head into the bedroom when Eight bursts through the door, a kitten in either hand and his hair sticking straight up at the back.
“You are my beautiful children, and I love you, but you are also hellspawn,” Eight says, all in a sugary voice so the kittens don’t know he’s being mean. He plops them down in front of food, which they immediately attack with a will. Still crouched on the ground, Eight puts his head in his hands and goes still, as if he’s used up all his will to move.
Hide laughs, and Eight looks up, glaring. “It’s too early,” he says.
“Go back to bed, then.”
Eight tips his head back, seeking out a clock, then makes a disconsolate noise. “No, I might as well be up.”
Hide makes a vaguely sympathetic noise and starts brewing coffee. Eight eventually retreats to the sofa, where he ends up slouched back with a few of the now-sated kittens perched on and around him, listlessly trying to keep another busy with one of the toys.
Brewing coffee doesn’t actually require Hide to stay at the counter, but he does, trying to watch Eight subtly. Usually, he doesn’t see Eight without the lace collar and cuffs he wears even inside the apartment, but the kittens have interrupted his usual routines and he seems to have forgotten he isn’t wearing them. Hide can’t help looking at the bare skin of his throat, his strangely vulnerable wrists. It’s Eight undone, as he so rarely is, for all his apparent disdain for styling.
He can see why Eight avoids removing the cuffs, though, even if they weren’t a sign of his devotion: they hide scars on his wrists, visible even from where he’s standing. They make it hard to doubt he was the escaped prisoner Eight. It almost feels invasive to look at them without Eight intentionally showing him.
The coffee machine beeps, and Hide starts and turns away, pushing down the feeling churning in the pit of his stomach. It’s only the newness of seeing him like this.
Eight sits up when Hide sets a mug in front of him. “Thanks,” he says, and proceeds to commune silently with it for the next minute or so.
The kittens distract him, so Hide misses when Eight starts communing with Passion instead of the coffee. He notices when Eight says something in a much harsher tone than usual. When he’s tired, his accent is even thicker, and it’s very noticeable now: “—know her, you can’t win against her by engaging. We should just keep ignoring it.”
Ah, this is about Jet. Or, more precisely, the interview she gave when she returned to 916, talking about the invitation she’d made and hinting that Passion’s Avatar was considering it. Placing the ball very squarely and publicly in Eight’s court had been a dick move, in Hide’s estimation, and he’s not sure what will come of it besides more stress for Eight.
Passion and Eight bicker, the latter only in half-sentences that seem to be necessary to vent his feelings, and Hide tries to be invisible and let him have space for that.
Jet is clearly someone who knew Eight in a past life, and she just as clearly doesn’t appreciate the person underneath the media construction. More and more, Hide is losing his grip on that image of Eight. He’s fascinated by the reality Eight is revealing piece by piece, a man with bedhead and early-morning snappishness, dry humor, and the kind of anxiety that can be a minefield on a bad day.
One of the kittens bites his finger when he doesn’t let go of a toy soon enough, and Hide refocuses on the white ball of fluff at hand. It really is hard to idolize a man who names a cat Boo as a pun on Ghost, he thinks fondly.
3.
When Eight had first come back with the supplies to make the durian paper, Hide hadn’t known what to do with the trust being placed in him. Now, the awe is gone—the last of it went when Eight managed to smear goop on his collar with malice aforethought—but this last delicate stage of folding it into a shape is proving a challenge.
The first time it tears he chalks it up to a learning curve, but at a certain point his frustration takes a turn. They’ve spent all this time making the damn paper, and if Hide ruins too much of it, he’s not sure what he’ll do.
Relax, he tries to tell himself, stopping to test folds on the first ruined sheet, remembering what Eight had told him about it in Passion’s temple. Struggling not to tear it is part of the process, even if you know what you’re doing.
Too late, he sees how stiff and brittle the paper is in one section, and it parts as he folds it.
Hide almost throws his hands up in the air but stops himself. He takes a breath. Eight being fine with all this has been the real gift, and Hide would ruin the gesture just as thoroughly by openly having a bad time as by tearing all of the paper.
Instead, he plays it up a little, accusing Eight of lying about it being possible. He can feel the laugh Eight muffles against his shoulder, and it tingles down his spine. He relaxes.
And then, so naturally Hide doesn’t quite understand what’s happening until it already is, Eight begins guiding his hands. He loses a few moments of instruction dwelling on the press of Eight’s fingers against the inside of his wrist, but then their hands are on a new sheet of paper and he refocuses.
Twined together like some kind of four-armed beast, he and Eight work together, Eight showing him exactly what to look for, what kind of pressure to use, until they have one beautiful, crisp fold. The breath Hide releases is so full of jubilation he’s surprised it isn’t a laugh. He turns his head, smiling, and their eyes meet.
“See? Delicate,” Eight says, and withdraws his hand, the last brush of his fingers against Hide’s arm burning like a brand.
Heat flushes through Hide’s entire body, and he has to look away, though he doesn’t dare touch the paper again just yet. Involuntarily, he imagines Eight guiding him with the same care and confidence in very different circumstances, ones with much fewer clothes involved, like the paper is some kind of metaphor for Eight’s body.
Eight is still warm and very close to his side, and it takes an effort of will to remember his circumstances and concentrate on folding instead. A part of him thinks it’s absurd to tie up all of these emotions in paper, but when Hide sets his origami swan next to Eight’s, it does feel momentous. Even if his lists a little to one side.
He turns his head. There’s a soft smile on Eight’s face, and more complicated emotion in his eyes. “Thank you,” Hide says quietly, and the look in Eight’s eyes softens into something more familiar. Before he can respond, one of the kittens snakes a little paw up onto the surface of the table.
Hide dives under the table to intercept, and Eight sweeps the swans up to put them somewhere safe from inquisitive kittens. By the time Eight returns from the bedroom, Hide is trying to convince Ratana to bite at the toy he’s dangling in front of her instead of going for his fingers, and the mood is thoroughly broken.
He doesn’t let himself think of that brief flash until much later, with Eight safely in the next room and the apartment dark and drowsy around them.
The flirting has been fun, and Eight and Hide are both tactile people, so he’s gotten used to a certain level of intimacy. Eight also has a history that Hide has to tread carefully around just in his capacity as a roommate who knows just enough to be dangerous.
All of that to say: part of Hide has been holding back from thinking too hard about anything other than the flirting, because Eight’s relationship to romantic and sexual intimacy are giant unknowns. Is the paper a metaphor? he asks himself.
All he knows is that he really wants it to be.
4.
Hide has made a lot of shirts at this point—he’s not sure whether to call it professional pride in his appearance or a hobby—so the real delay on making a shirt from the fabric he bought Eight was wanting it to be right.
He consulted Eight on cut and style first thing, since the whole point is making something he will want to wear, and settled on a design when he’d finally pried a few vague preferences out of Eight. And he could make a lot of progress without actually requiring prolonged contact with Eight’s body; his own body makes a perfectly good template. Still, he wants to check how it hangs on Eight’s body, with its subtle differences in shape and posture, before he commits to anything.
“Eight, do you have time for a fitting?” Hide calls.
Eight emerges from his room, raising his eyebrows quizzically, and Hide gestures at the fabric laid out on the coffee table. He’s got the body of the shirt done, basted together with temporary stitches. Eight hesitates minutely. “Oh, sure,” he says. “What do I—” He gestures at his chest. “Do I wear an undershirt or something?”
Hide suddenly understands the hesitation. Outside of that one kitten-interrupted morning, Eight stays fairly well covered, collar, cuffs, and all. “We’re going for a pretty forgiving fit, so that would work,” he says.
Eight studies him a moment, not completely readable, although he looks a little flushed. Whatever thoughts he’s thinking, he seems to come to a decision and goes back into his room. The pace is deliberate, though, as if he wants Hide to know he isn’t fleeing.
When he emerges again, it’s in a tight-fitting ribbed top—as black as most of the rest of his wardrobe—the straps leaving his arms, shoulders, and sternum exposed. He joins Hide, then lets him maneuver him into a clear space next to the coffee table. “Arms out,” Hide says, helps Eight put on the half-made shirt, first one arm, then the other. For a moment, it sags absurdly, like a deflated balloon.
“Um,” Eight says. “Not that I don’t trust you—”
Hide laughs. “Give me a minute. Remember, it’s a wrap shirt; it will be better when it’s closed.”
He keeps his hands businesslike as he accomplishes that, tucking and clamping so that the shirt falls how it’s supposed to. He straightens out a shoulder seam and notes that he’s made the whole piece just a little wider than he needs to—Eight has a little less muscle in the shoulders, a little less fat in the belly. Easily fixed, though.
The problem of pinning it until it fits the way it’s supposed to consumes him until Eight shifts from one foot to the other and Hide realizes he’s got his face practically in Eight’s armpit, smoothing the fingers of one hand over his chest as he considers the fit of the armhole. He huffs out a laugh and glances up. “Sorry. I promise my intentions are pure, I just want to make sure the sleeve fits comfortably.”
From the look of Eight’s eyes, possibly his intentions aren’t entirely pure. Hide swallows, very aware now of his hand against Eight’s chest, the closeness and heat of his body, the shape of it far from theoretical. He glances down. Right. Armholes.
He’s fitted clothes for others before. Until now, he would have said it was a deeply unsexy activity.
“It’s okay,” Eight says finally.
The next bit of trouble comes at the collar. He’s trying to be careful as he resettles it, making sure it will fall nicely across Eight’s chest and show the lace collar off well, but his fingernail snags in the lace and knocks it a little askew. Eight makes a squeaking sound. “I’m sorry,” Hide says, reaching to adjust it, then hesitating. He’s not sure if he’s even supposed to touch it.
Eight reaches up to touch the collar, then looks at Hide from under his eyelashes. In a practiced movement, he reaches up, unfastening the collar and letting it slide off his neck. “Is this easier?” he asks. His voice is steady, but the nervous speed with which he rolls the collar up into a neat bundle gives him away.
You don’t have to, Hide almost says, but if Eight didn’t want to, he wouldn’t. Or at least, he wouldn’t have done it like this. He works efficiently to wrap things up, but he is very aware of the skin of Eight’s throat, bare and a little sweaty. When he finally steps back to assess his work, his eyes rise and lock involuntarily on something he’s never noticed before.
Over Eight’s collarbone, there is a tattoo. Four zeroes and an eight, stark black against the warm brown sheen of his skin.
Eight opens his lips, but no sound comes out. It draws Hide’s attention to his face, though. He looks frozen. Not quite afraid, but certainly nervous, working hard to stay still. Hide turns to set his box of pins down, giving Eight plenty of time to move away or put the collar back on if he wants to.
Eight does neither. When Hide straightens, Eight is still frozen in place, but his shoulders have come down from around his ears and his gaze is determined. “It’s…” Eight makes an aborted movement with his hand, as deciding at the last moment not to touch the tattoo. “I didn’t choose it.”
Eight leaves it there for Hide to make the connection, his voice dry and bitter, and Hide thinks he understands. They still haven’t spoken outright about the treason allegations, or about the imprisonment of the convicted assassin Eight, but the number on his skin has the uncomfortable look of a serial number. Some people might choose something like that because it looked cool, but Eight didn’t choose this.
Hide puts a hand on his shoulder, only meaning to offer comfort, but the shock of a sliver of bare skin against his thumb changes the tenor of the familiar gesture. Hide looks at Eight’s face again—doesn’t know what to do with the complicated look there, too warm and too fierce—and then again at the tattoo. Deliberately, he smudges his thumb over it, waiting for Eight to flinch.
Eight’s breath catches, just a tiny hitch, but Hide hears it. And Eight goes on standing steady.
Something hollows in the pit of Hide’s stomach. Anger at the mark left on Eight, almost lost under a surge of desire. He wants to put his lips to the tattoo, to the curve of Eight’s throat, let his teeth scrape against the soft skin. The urge is so overwhelming it takes his breath away, and the longer Eight stands there letting Hide touch this tattoo he’s kept hidden and obviously hates, the less he feels able to resist.
So Hide takes his hand away and steps back, finally really looking at the picture Eight makes in the shirt he’s sewing. It does little to quell his feelings, only changes the tone. Eight looks good, the brightness of the fabric bringing out color in his cheeks and softening him. With the pins in place, he can see the way the shirt should suggest the shape of Eight’s body and emphasize his waist, for all the fit will be loose.
“Go take a look,” he says. “Let me know what you think.”
Eight bites his lip, then nods, making a beeline for his bedroom. He’s quiet in there for a minute or three, enough to make Hide’s nerves jangle. But then Eight comes to lean in the doorway, his hands smoothing over the front of the shirt and a shy smile lighting his face.
“Yeah?” Hide says.
“Yeah,” Eight says. “Yes. I like—it’s nice.”
The smile grows a little as he meets Hide’s eyes, and that’s it, right there—exactly what Hide hoped for when he started all this, but so much more dangerous now he knows Eight better. Unexpected pleasure, the shy enjoyment of a beautiful thing he isn’t sure about allowing himself. Imagine all the other ways you could make him look like that, Hide thinks. And he knows he’s going to try.
This is just the start.