your cheeks are ample proof

[misheard]

Title: your cheeks are ample proof
Fandom: Fate/Grand Order
Character(s): Avicebron, Ritsuka
Pairing(s): Avicebron/Ritsuka
Genre: Fluff/Smut
Word Count: 500
Rating: R
Warnings: None
Summary: Ritsuka reads Avicebron's poetry.
Notes:

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If there is anything Avicebron can accept commendation for, it is his poetry.

Ritsuka’s praise falls freely, his lips a sieve as he reads poem after poem. Some he stops to ask Avicebron the context of, the places they would fall in the liturgy. (Avicebron is reminded just how much he wrote for the Day of Atonement, long before he truly knew what it was to need atonement, and swallows a bitter laugh.) Some he reads aloud, and some he silently mouths the words to.

“’Tell the boy whose cheeks are gently / held by the curl of his hair: / How can the gold of noon enfold / the first blush of morning?’” Ritsuka glances over with a tiny smile. “I didn’t know you liked blonds, Avi.”

“They have their charms.” Even though he knows perfectly well that his expression is hidden, Avicebron still looks away.

“It’s true. Your hair is very charming.” Ritsuka reaches out to brush his fingers against Avicebron’s long hair, and Avicebron allows it. Casual touch can only be comfortable if it’s Ritsuka. “Mine isn’t half as nice.”

“You think too highly of me, and too lowly of yourself.” It’s a conversation they’ve had before, though it’s not usually followed with, “Rather than the morning, you resemble the heavenly spheres set in the night sky.”

The blue of Uranus and Neptune, quickly being joined by the red of Mars below as Ritsuka flusters. His face is more beautiful than any star map, and closer than any celestial orbit.

The space between the stars can be measured far more easily than the distance between Ritsuka’s body and his can be defined. Ritsuka, dauntless Ritsuka who has faced what lies beyond the stars and won, closes that gap before Avicebron can even take its measure.

His touch is no longer unsure, like the first time Ritsuka reached to him, but careful. There are days when Avicebron pushes him away - no, Avicebron only nudges and Ritsuka moves the stars in their path to accommodate Avicebron’s desire. Today, however, his desire takes another shape.

Ritsuka’s touch burns through Avicebron’s clothes, a flame that stokes a deeper fire within him. Were he bare, it would sear his flesh, cauterize all injury.

(Ritsuka does not ask that Avicebron heal his body or his spirit against his will - he only sees that Avicebron doesn’t open his own wounds. He is grateful.)

Ritsuka’s mouth, too, is overwhelming. He murmurs words against Avicebron’s throat, pressed into his chest, between his parted thighs. Avicebron feels them rather than hears them, the shape of his poetry through the fabric.

“'All in red, and come from Edom, / settle down and be still-'”

“As if I can settle down like this,” Avicebron says, carefully threading one gauntlet through Ritsuka’s hair.

Ritsuka, shameless, murmurs the next line as he works the buttons of Avicebron’s clothes. “'By God, I love you well-'”

He doesn’t speak much after that. Not in words, and yet what comes from his lips is still nothing but poetry.