Ender sighed, his eyes fluttering closed for a moment. "That did once plug straight into my nervous system," he mumbled.

Ender slid his fingers along Ben's jaw, kissing him back. "You'd better," he said. "Aren't you happy you ceased flailing?"

"I'm not unhappy with your performance to date, Skywalker," Ender said with a little laugh. "And one day you'll remember that, too."

"No rush."

Ender reached out and gently combed the hair away from Ben's face.

"I don't mind reminding you."

"I'm suddenly getting the feeling we're talking about two very different things," Ender said, leaning over to kiss him on the temple.

Hush. He looked adorable.

"You were pretty out of it," Ender said. "So... that worked."

"So much for using that information for good," Ender said, agreeing with the narrative.

He reached for the box of tissues on their nightstand.

Ender could have shot him a look, or smacked him, but that wouldn't leave much of an impact.

He got a stupidly terrible random idea instead. Stupid because it might not work, and also stupid because it was going to taste terrible, but if it did work it would really help make his point.

So he was going to drop those tissues and use his mouth to clean up Ben instead.

Ender's response was to nip at his stomach.

Okay, it could taste worse.

"You could try that," Ender said, flicking his eyes back up to Ben's face. "But I'd get you back."

"Depends on the timing," Ender told him vaguely.

That should probably scare you, Ben.

This was... kind of flying straight past his original intentions, but Ender was just going to improvise.

Like by biting Ben's stomach again. Harder.

Ender grunted in response as little sparks of pain shot up his back.

He ran his tongue over the mark he'd just left. Sucked on the skin a little.

Okay, he'd definitely gotten distracted again, but he didn't really mind.