Skin once smooth and flushed a rosy color lost its textureand leveled out into a neutral, slightly sandy tan before thousands of tiny scales appeared in a top-down cascade, falling over each other like a rush of dominoes.
Broad shoulders narrowed.
His thick frame turned slender.
A second set of arms emerged, fingers stretched all the way out and palms bared as they pushed their way into the world.
Titan’s face was not exempt from the change.
His bone structure sharpened, his chin becoming pointed and his cheeks more defined.
In place of hair, a cleft formed above his brow line, and when he wet his lower lip, his tongue was deft and thin.
Reptilian.
He was undeniably a marvel to look at—a thing of absolute unworldly beauty—but what held Ezra’s attention most fervently were the markings on Titan’s torso.
Ezra had known they would be there in some form—one of the earliest things he’d learned about Darvrokians was that they all had unique markings with varied significance—but he got a thrill out of seeing the ones specific to Titan, even if he didn’t know what they meant.
Three vertical taupe stripes lined Titan’s chest like claw marks, beginning across his pecs and stopping just short of the bottom of his rib cage. Similar, smaller stripes marked his sides. They were dignified, powerful, and orderly, giving the impression of a warrior who wore his battle wounds like jewelry.
“Leadership,” Titan said before Ezra had a chance to voice any of the thoughts racing through his mind.
“Sorry?”
“The markings,” he explained. “I observed you observing them and deduced that you would have desire to know what meaning they hold. And that meaning is what I previously stated: leadership.”
It didn’t escape Ezra’s notice that his voice held a hint of bitterness.
He cocked his head in question, and Titan sighed.
“Banal, is it not? Leadership. It is just another vague expectation put upon me, and one that has greatly shaped my life. As soon as I emerged from my shell, its meaning was thrust upon me, and I have not escaped it since. It is said that those with markings such as mine are fated for success and destined for great things, but I have learned much since coming to your home planet of Earth, and I do not have certainty of this anymore. I am a great and impressive being, but I have come to understand that being great does not make you great, for greatness is not something you are—it is something you must earn.”
“Well, that’s the cool thing about them, isn’t it? They’re open to interpretation. Like, yeah, it sucks that people think you’re supposed to conform to their definitions of leadership and success and greatness or whatever, but it seems to me like your markings are saying you have the ability to be a leader in whatever matters to you. Maybe that means leading some multi-gazillion-dollar company. Maybe it’s leading a cult. Hell, maybe it’s the universe’s way of saying you’ll be a great leader to your children, and your ‘destiny,’ if you put stock in that kind of thing, is fatherhood.”
“You truly believe that the definition of my markings could have such varied meaning?” Titan sounded genuinely surprised, and Ezra nodded enthusiastically.
“Hell yeah, man. The world’s your oyster.”
Titan blinked. “My world is not a marine mollusk that resides in various Earth bodies of wa?—”
“Never mind, not important. There are only two things that matter here, okay? The first is that I prefer to think that, regardless of where we’re from, we’ve all got enough free will that some fancy birthmarks don’t get to predict an entire future.”
“I suppose this is wise, and admittedly a more pleasant interpretation. What is the second thing that matters in this instance?”
“The second thing is that you look so fucking hot right now, but for some reason instead of making out about it, we’re splitting hairs over definitions, and I think we should probably rectify that situation post-fucking-haste.”
Even though his face was entirely different, to the point that it wasn’t even human anymore, Ezra still thought that he would be able to recognize Titan’s smile anywhere. His lips bloomed upward in that cocky, full-of-himself way that made Ezra want to fuck him as much as fight him, but today—and maybe every day for the rest of his life—fucking took the lead.
Titan approached the bed with an infuriatingly asshole-ish swagger to his step that made Ezra roll his eyes, but that didn’t stop him from reaching out to stroke Titan’s markings the moment he was within range. He’d meant to do it as a sexy little “come hither” gesture, but unexpectedly, a hollow feeling welled up inside of him upon contact that brought tears to his eyes.
“Why is this your reaction, my love?” Titan asked softly, and Ezra realized that he may as well have been broadcasting his emotions live with how easily Titan could feel them through their skin-to-skin contact.
“I’m not sure,” he admitted, brow furrowed in thought. “I think maybe… It sounds stupid—and before you say it, I totally get the irony of saying this after my whole spiel about interpretation and free will, so you don’t have to point it out—but I think I’m in my head a bit because a defining feature of Darvrokians are these marks, and I’m supposedly one of you, but I don’t have any.”
Titan hummed in a strange mix of contemplation and dissatisfaction, as though this was an issue he could fix if only he gave it a little thought. But it wasn’t that easy. No one—not even literal aliens from outer space—could willy-nilly blast pigmentation onto a human body, and it wasn’t like Ezra had a lot of preexisting material to work with even if they could. The closest thing he had to a Darvrokian symbol was that weird birthmark he’d been all too happy to see finally get covered by chest hair when puberty hit, so he didn’t have to be self-conscious at swimming pools anymore. It was just such a weird color, and an even weirder shape, and?—
“Oh shit, hold up,” Ezra said, pulling away from Titan abruptly.
