Izuru leaves countless marks, mere droplets into lakes, as many lakes as there are bites, as many droplets as there are teeth - and there are many - on Rose's back, and his arms, his fingers and his legs, stomach, and anywhere his mouth can reach him. Like a hungry dog, playing a cold bone like an instrument, one evening after another, like when Rose bends forward and cups his face in his long, gnarled hands and slides his thumb over Izuru's mouth. Izuru's lips split, a thin line accentuated by whiter squares, and he slips the finger inside and the other fingers feel his jaw tense when Izuru bites down.
It doesn't hurt. Or if it does, Rose doesn't show it. Izuru isn't sure he'd care, even if it started bleeding- and it has, in the past, and it will in the future; dark, almost black little beads bubbling from narrow dents in his skin that look more like bruises than anything, dotting his arms and his neck when Izuru feels so alive that he might never stop, when Rose begs that he never stops, when Rose drags his fingers through Izuru's scalp and nurses him like a babe from birth. Izuru sucks on the ugly welts, the one that go red and wet immediately, and Rose smiles.
And when Rose smiles, he shows his teeth.