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“How much did it hurt?”
Felix lays between Dimitri's legs, tracing the blossom on his left inner thigh with a casual curiosity that takes Dimitri's breath away.
“Quite a bit.” Dimitri remembers laying back, shorts pulled up high on his leg, watching the tattoo machine sketch the outline of a dog rose and gritting his teeth through the burning. The flower language book from the local library said pain and pleasure, which felt appropriate for a place once dedicated solely to harming himself, but he felt the pain far more than the pleasure. He’s pretty sure that the tattoo on the other thigh didn’t make him feel like his skin was burning off, but he was numb to quite a lot back when he got it.
Felix frowns, but it's considering, not disapproving. “And you like that it hurts.”
“Yes,” Dimitri admits. “Though not for the reasons you think.”
“You don't know what I'm thinking.” Felix scowls. His hair is still a mess from when Dimitri had his hands in it. It takes away a lot of his intimidation factor. He turns his head and presses a kiss to the tangled mess of thorns on the other thigh, and a pulse of interest goes through both Dimitri’s heart and his groin. He swallows thickly. He’s not sure he could go another round, but if Felix keeps on like this, they might just find out.
“You think it’s punishment,” Dimitri guesses, unashamed of how rough his voice sounds. “Or masochism.”
Felix rolls his eyes and bites the thorns, taking enough flesh between his teeth that it’s a dull hurt, rather than sharp. “Liking pain is masochism. That’s literally what it means.” He pauses, glaring at the spot he just bit. “I think.”
Dimitri laughs helplessly. “Alright, I’ll cede that point. But it’s not just the pain. It feels good, but not…oh, I don’t know the right way to explain it.”
Felix pushes himself up, rearranging so his head is near Dimitri’s shoulder and their legs are loosely tangled together. “What if, instead of giving yourself a headache, you just ask me what I’m thinking.”
Dimitri leans over to press a kiss on top of Felix’s head, fond beyond words. “What are you thinking, Felix?”
There’s a reciprocal brush of lips against his shoulder, and then Felix returns to tracing the lines of ink on Dimitri’s body. His arms are almost completely covered, and his torso is filling out nicely. Felix runs a finger over the stylized falcon flying below his collarbone, and Dimitri makes a mental note to call El this week.
“I think you don’t know how not to be in pain,” Felix says. “And you like that this time, the pain leads to something better.”
Even though Dimitri knows not to expect delicacy from Felix, the words still land like a blow. “Ah.”
Felix glares at him, though he also takes Dimitri’s arm, holding it gently. “You asked.”
“I did.” Dimitri nods. “And I would not want you to be any less than wholly honest with me.”
“There you are, then.” Felix examines the chain circling Dimitri’s wrist. It’s his oldest piece, with a second part added years later.
Dimitri remembers the steadiness in the artist's hand while they wiped off excess ink and slowly revealed a thing of beauty where he'd once only known hurt. After his life had changed enough to feel almost unrecognizable, he’d gone back and asked for another length of chain, this time with broken links. They’d smiled at him like they understood exactly what he meant. Maybe they did.
The next breath he takes feels fuller, like his lungs are eager to welcome the air. “Here I am.”
Dimitri allows Felix to move him as he wishes, twisting at the elbow so Felix can see the words taking up half of his inner arm. They’re surrounded by spiky vines that he’s slowly adding to, not to cover the words entirely, but hopefully to make them less immediately noticeable. Usually he doesn’t mind talking about his tattoos, but the questions about that one are almost always awkward for both parties.
Felix’s mouth twitches up, but he doesn’t say anything. It’s Sylvain who teases Dimitri the most about getting song lyrics on his arm, especially after he got a flash tattoo on his bicep of a little skeleton that looks almost exactly like the one on the album cover. Perhaps unsurprisingly, that artist recognized the lyrics on sight and grinned through the entire process.
Sylvain’s favorite joke is, I guess ‘awake and unafraid’ is better than ‘asleep or dead.’ The fact that Sylvain sings along whenever Dimitri or Felix put on MCR while driving makes Dimitri feel less like he’s being laughed at, but it doesn’t really bother him either way. He’s learned that one of the consequences of self-improvement and generally being in a better place is your friends telling you what they were thinking while you were unwell. He’s content to be teased if it means that the people he loves trust him not to fall apart.
“So I’m right.” Felix moves back to his chest, kissing the bellflower near his sternum, between his surgery scars. He gives it attention any time Dimitri’s shirt is off, after Dimitri admitted that reading unwavering love; a constant heart had reminded him so strongly of Felix that he’d made his next tattoo appointment the very same day.
Dedue’s snowdrop (hope; friendship in adversity) is just to the left of it, and Dimitri suspects that the positive association is part of why Felix has been making an effort with Dedue. He’s not planning to ask, lest it cause Felix to become bristly and irritable with Dedue for reasons Dimitri would prefer not to explain.
“You aren’t wrong.” Dimitri says. “I do appreciate that this pain directly results in beauty, and that my skin has become a canvas for art rather than cruelty. It is also…well, I worry that you might not like to hear this part.”
“Then you should definitely tell me.” Felix blinks up at him, running a nail over his bellflower. Mine, the touch says. This is mine. Dimitri agrees wholeheartedly. “No secrets.”
Felix, gripping his forearms with white knuckles, eyes wide and pleading. “If this is going to work, there can be no more secrets. From either of us.”
“No secrets.” Dimitri agrees, just as firmly as he did back then. Felix rolls his eyes, but Dimitri knows he takes it just as seriously. “Sometimes it feels like a way to let go of my regrets. Or if I cannot let them go entirely, it is a way to keep them close without having to think about them all the time.”
Felix looks at him for a long moment, and Dimitri can’t read his expression. That doesn’t happen often these days, but it also does not frighten him anymore. He trusts Felix, not just to be honest, but also to keep loving him.
What a remarkable thing it is to love and be loved. He doesn’t say that out loud, because he knows Felix will turn red and bite him again, and he’s not sure he wants to turn this moment into something sexual.
“Okay.” Felix says, like all of his thoughts really boil down to something so simple.
Dimitri lifts his head incredulously. “That’s it? Just okay?”
“Do you want an argument?” Felix rolls onto his back and brings Dimitri’s hand with him, tilting it to get a better look at the stars dancing from his thumb to his index finger.
Dimitri sighs. “No, of course not. To be entirely honest, I was expecting you to accuse me of turning my skin into a graveyard.”
“Maybe I would have, once.” Felix allows. “But I trust you now. If you say it helps, then I believe you. Besides, I think I understand, at least a little.”
Dimitri’s gaze drifts to the curve of Felix’s shoulder, where the foam of a wave’s edge curls over from his back. He’s never asked what exactly it means. Maybe Felix just likes the look of it. That’s a perfectly good reason to get a tattoo.
Still, Dimitri is not the only person in Felix’s life who knows what it is to drown. It could be comforting to have movement etched onto his skin. It could also be a statement. Felix himself has never been content to merely tread water or go with the current.
Dimitri considers the blank space on his own upper back. Another bird might be nice. One that lives by the sea. A skua, perhaps. Not an albatross. Felix would never let him hear the end of it.
“If you keep touching me, we’re liable to end up back where we started.” Dimitri's tired enough not to mind if the embers of arousal fade off, but he's also confident that he's currently wet from more than just their previous activity.
Outside of the periods where his sex drive is utterly dormant, Felix’s hands on any part of his body are impossible to ignore. Maybe the intensity is because of the gaps, and he’s being awakened all over again. Maybe it’s rediscovering the sensation of being loved in such a physical manner. Maybe it’s just Felix.
Felix shrugs and flips back onto his stomach. “That’s fine. My jaw’s plenty rested.”
He’s back between Dimitri’s thighs in a blink, pushing them further apart with a fluid ease that makes Dimitri’s spine feel liquid. Felix kisses the dogwood rose, trailing his mouth down to suck a mark beneath it. Dimitri twines his fingers back into Felix’s hair and relaxes into the pure sensation.
He lays back and lets Felix turn him into a canvas all on his own.