Eight-
Xenosaga, Jin/chaos
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Jin considered him for a moment, tapping the butt end of his brush thoughtfully against his lower lip. "Turn over," he finally suggested.

chaos smiled and rolled lazily over, shoulders first, hips following. "There," Jin said as chaos' left hip presented itself. chaos obligingly stopped, curled about himself on the futon, the back of his left thigh a perfect straight swath from the hollow at the back of his knee all the way up to the slight fold of his waist.

Jin considered his canvas for a moment, then struck with the brush, dashing three quick lines down chaos' unmoving thigh. chaos didn't move, not even a ripple, and the result pleased Jin moderately; the poem was amusing if not brilliant, his brushwork was sound, and the black ink was pleasant against chaos' tan skin.

"Read it to me?" chaos asked, still not moving.

Jin cleared his throat. "'I asked the bees to mold me a lover of honey; now, stung, I cannot take my eyes from the comb in your hair.'"

chaos smiled. "I like it," he said. "But I'm not wearing a comb."

"In the end, I chose to sacrifice realism in the service of art," Jin said, rolling his brush against the inkstone until it regained its conical shape. "Or, at least, in the service of low puns."

"A noble goal," chaos said thoughtfully. "Is it dry?"

"It should be," said Jin.

chaos nodded and rolled back over, stretching his arms up over his head. "One there, too," he suggested. Jin, ready now, smiled and struck at the hollow of chaos' belly with his brush, adding a second set of lines.

"'The bowl of your navel is of mahogany; let me gaze deeply into the water that pools there and I will soon scry our future,'" Jin read, without being prompted. Then he frowned. "I'm not as pleased with that one. A bit... trite."

"I like it," chaos protested, still smiling. "But we can blot it out, if you want." And he put his hand on Jin's thigh.

Jin put down the brush.

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Afterwards, although chaos was glossed with sweat, the futon was still as innocent of ink as it had ever been. The kanji of the acceptable poem on the back of his thigh had smeared and run, been transformed into something strange and beautiful (if grammatically horrendous) about innocence and, for some reason, curry; a rivulet of Jin's own come struck diagonally across chaos' belly, adding lines to the kanji there, transforming mahogany into ashes and future into past.

"You're a better poet than I," Jin said, brushing his fingertips across scry and dyeing them black.

"Collaboration," chaos suggested. "Serendipity. ...chaos theory."

Jin laughed, surprising himself, and used his blackened fingertips to write rough, fat kanji across chaos' collarbones. "'A butterfly flaps its wings,'" he read as he wrote, "'and a universe away, you perspire.'"