#i am so unwell about impdubs

[tunastime]

ok on behalf of fellow impdubs enthusiast i offer 14 on the prompt list for them <333

14. bruised / kissed (x) (744 words)

Bdubs lies in the grass outside. His heels clip the murky black beyond the cast of light from the lanterns propped up on the sills of the house. It’s quiet—a moment of respite for the first time in a long time since the game started.

The good thing is that the earth and grass under him haven’t had the chance to cool off nearly long enough for dew to form, so he lays in the dry grass and breathes in the smell of rain that shifts gently on the horizon. It’ll rain, at least one day, and the earth will be soaked and the ravine will fill up. The world here will get all washed out with a flash flood—or something, he thinks, that’s what flood myths are about, aren’t they?

Bdubs opens his eyes. There are stars tonight. Ones he knows and ones he can’t remember. Constellations Etho told him, ones Cleo showed him, ones he learned himself, ones he pointed out to Impulse. They line up in sparkling little patterns, so that if he takes his hands and funnels out the light he might be able to see them better. He cups his hands around his eyes and stares into the sky. The grass tickles his ankles, poking up under his socks.

“Bdubs?”

He tilts his head back, hands falling slack back into the grass behind him. Impulse’s shape blocks out the light from inside, cutting a dark line through the warm orange light. He smiles, more on instinct than anything else. It’s reflexive. It’s Impulse.

“Hey, you,” he says, scrunching his nose. Impulse laughs a little.

“What’re you doin’ out here in the grass?”

“Stargazing,” Bdubs says simply. He reaches out, patting the spot next to him. “C’mon, grass is dry.”

Impulse shakes his head, but he shuffles over anyway. He sinks to the ground next to Bdubs and lies back. Their elbows knock together. Bdubs doesn’t move his arm, so they’re shoulder to shoulder, forearm touching forearm. Impulse manages to catch three of his fingers, which he holds onto. His hands are warm and dry, like the grass. 

“Find any new ones?” Impulse says.

Bdubs frowns.

“Stars?”

Impulse smiles, inclining his head in Bdubs’ direction.

“Sure,” he jokes, giggling a little.

Bdubs rolls his eyes, shuffling so that they’re really side to side now, with their hands resting on Bdubs’ hip.

“Of course there aren’t,” he snorts, voice dropping a few levels to account for how close he’s gotten himself. It’s a perfect angle for him to rest his cheek on Impulse’s shoulder. Which was the goal. If it hadn’t been obvious to Impulse. “Dork.”

Impulse scoffs.

“You’re one to talk,” he retorts, but he leans in to rest his head against Bdubs’ and Bdubs feels him sigh into his hair.

Bdubs points with his free hand.

“There,” he says, tracing the shape of a V in the sky. “Those make a circle...” he frowns. “Circle-ish.”

Impulse follows his hand with his own, tracing out the shape in the air. He closes it, though, drawing an oval against the stars. He hums softly.

“Like a wheel,” he says.

“Sorta, yeah.”

“Wheels keep turning,” Impulse says, with a note of seriousness that nearly makes Bdubs shiver. Then he snorts, and he laughs. 

“You’re too philosophical to go stargazing with,” he complains into his shoulder, still bubbling with laughter.

Impulse laughs too, leaning hard into him.

“You love it!”

At some point he leans close enough so that his nose brushes Impulse’s cheek and that makes him turn, and now they’re only a few microns apart and really, really, he couldn’t be told off for just leaning in and kissing him. He couldn’t be blamed for it. It was Impulse. Of course he couldn’t.

It seems like every time he kisses him it feels like the first time, even if it’s one of a handful, one of tens, one of fifties. Impulse kisses him as gently as Bdubs does enthusiastically, hand sliding up to cradle his face, smoothing lines with his thumb against his jaw. Bdubs laughs against him, until they’re smiling more than they are kissing and laughing more than kissing too. Impulse lets his hands ruffle Bdubs’ hair and Bdubs presses his cheek against his face. He keeps laughing. 

They both do, lying together in the dry brush on a warm night in the middle of the worlds worst death game. He does love it. They both do.