Rose makes a stifled sound of fascination. The chair creaks, and his back is bent, vertebrae sticking out of his back like ugly discs on a hunched cat, hair messy and as damp as the air around him. He has been breathing the same air for hours. The noise he makes is a mixture of pleasure, pleasure at the sight of something, and of pain, the pain that a lack of tangibility and presence brings to him, the pain of his cock stirring in his trousers, the pain of his nails scratching through his hair and digging into his scalp without him meaning to- it is Izuru's job, not his.

They're beautiful, as expected of Izuru, as expected of his body, as pale and as weak and as strong as it is, and it makes Rose sigh fondly, and it makes him stare for hours on end. Hours which, as he is unaware of when he has sunken so deeply into his own mind, pass quickly, hours that make the room grow darker and darker and the air thicker and thicker, but he does not reach into his pants, and he does not touch himself.

Is he unworthy? Yes, but even Izuru himself is unworthy of his body when it is so beautiful and grotesque.

He keeps them, as he is sure Izuru is aware of, in his drawer next to the bed, and when Izuru sleeps he pulls them out and he just stares until his eyes grow heavy and they ache. He shows them to Izuru, who is not ashamed, because they agreed and made them together, but Izuru does not feel the same predilection that Rose does for the shape of his body, grown too familiar with the edges and the knobs of his knees and the ugly truth of what kind of a life he has lead.

You're beautiful, Rose croons when Izuru nestles, bony and sharp, into the crook of his arm, half under the blanket and half in the freezing cold that's killed so many houseplants. No, Izuru says, quiet and tired, and he lays his head against Rose's chest so he can hear his heart beat. I'm not, but it's okay.