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Mapic stood above Zam, intensely staring at each of Zam’s nails attached to his finger that he tightly gripped. He clipped each nail short and even with perfection, careful of clipping them as close to the skin as possible without blood beading at the edges underneath the nail.
The click of the nail clipper echoed off the confined space of the bathroom walls, it was the only other coherent sound other than the water flowing through the pipes.
Mapic hummed once the last nail clipping flew off, he paused before running his hands over the collection of stinging red lines along Zam’s forearm. Glancing and grimacing at the ones on his other forearm. He felt Zam attempt to pull away, if he hadn’t been focusing on all of his movements he doubted he’d have noticed. It was so slight, a bare effort from him.
“These sting, I can tell.” Mapic brought his attention from the long red lines to Zam’s face, Zam barely reacted to his words other than forming his mouth into a thin line.
“I’m running them under tap water, it’ll be cold. So, be prepared.” Zam gave him a quick questioning look before his arm was tugged in violent succession underneath the tap, only given a moment to react.
“Mape, I think I’m —“ Mapic ignored whatever the yellow freak had to say in favour of pushing the handle backwards to cold and pulling it outward into it flicking on.
Zam yelped, letting out a shouted swear word and tugged harder this time away from Mapic’s hold. “I told you to prepare yourself,” Mapic shrugged. He earned a glare from Zam, and a muttered ‘ asshole’ in response. He pulled Zam's other arm under the water, earning a less dramatic response. Mapic let his grip on Zam go and pulled the handle to shut the tap off, reaching for the towel that had its place on the marble counter a few feet away.
He quickly tapped Zam’s arms dry from water, Mapic was gentle enough not to hurt any of the irritated lines along his arms. He threw the towel back onto the counter, Zam gripping the counter and pulling himself up. “Fuck, my legs are asleep .. help me up Mapic,” he grabbed onto his hoodie and pulled his downward, Mapic struggled to hold his balance. He pulled himself back up, pulling Zam to his feet too.
Mapic blankly stared at him, Zam responded with an eye-roll. Mapic sighed, pulling the bathroom door open, assuming Zam would follow him down the hallway to his bedroom. His assumption was correct, Zam was quick to follow behind him. (Sometimes Mapic wondered how far he could push his need to follow, see how far he could push or pull and Zam would still tag along.)
Zam was quick to enter the room shortly after Mapic, he was in the midst of searching through his dresser, grabbing a shirt of his and tossing it at Zam. He fumbled to catch it, dropping it on the floor. Picking it up, he caught Mapic’s eye and quirked his eyebrow. “Your arms ,” Mapic spoke and gave him a pointed look. He half rolled his eyes at Zam. “Do you really want the fabric of that hoodie, rubbing against your sensitive ass arms?”
Zam stared down at the hoodie he was wearing, he gave a small nod, yeah fair point. He hummed in agreement before shrugging the hoodie off in replacement of Mapic’s worn t-shirt he’d been thrown. It had some sort of saying on the front and a logo on the back that was unreadable and unrecognizable at this point from the probably years of wear it experienced.
Mapic pulled his hoodie over his head, carefully over his horns to avoid tugging. Mapic started searching again through his dresser for another t-shirt, eventually finding one that he was satisfied to sleep in. He pulled the current shirt over his head, Zam stared at the back of his bare torso, taking a moment to examine his appearance, the scars littering his body. A moment of vulnerability between them was quickly gone once a new shirt was pulled over his head. (Although tonight seemed like it was stocked full of vulnerabilities, mainly at Zam’s expense.)
His tail flicked, almost a nervous reaction to Zam’s eyes on him, but he had his doubts. Mapic tugged his pants off, Zam silently taking this as a cue to follow his lead. A moment later, Zam tossed his pants in the corner of the room before Mapic shut the lights off. He gently grabbed Zam’s wrist in the dark and pulled them towards his bed. Mapic let go of his wrist, pulling back the covers and tucking himself beneath them. He waited for the added weight of Zam beside him, a moment later the covers were pulled back again and there was another body in the bed.
He closed his eyes, he could feel Zam’s eyes on him in the dark. Sighing, he turned over and faced Zam. “ C’mere ..” He mumbled, opening his arms for Zam to make a space for himself. Zam pushed himself into Mapic’s chest tucking his head underneath his chin, an arm wrapped around his torso.
“Now sleep and quit thinking, I swear it keeps me up.” Mainly impatience in Mapic’s voice, but underneath worry and care existed. Forty minutes later a quietly snoring Zam slept tucked into Mapic’s chest, and a silent knocked out Mapic held him tight against himself.