I like this vignette. Malcolm and Perry are camping outside of Bear Hollow. Things haven't been well between them, though things are slowly getting better as Malcolm recovers from the dog bites (see: my most recent SYW). Perry is shaving Malcolm while they both kneel in a shallow stream.
I can't figure out if the crab is funny or annoying. Is the crab funny, or annoying?
WARNING: they're naked.
Making the font small because this is kind of long, for this thread...
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His eyes searched the canopy. I lifted the razor again. Both sides of his neck were denuded by this point; only a narrow strip down the middle was left. I let a narrow stream of air out between pursed lips before I set to it, while digging my toes deep into the rocks and algae and mud.
Pain. I screeched and jumped. The razor slipped. Malcolm shied away while I dumped myself onto my bottom so I could pull my foot around.
A little crab clung to my toe by one claw. It brandished the other at my nose in a show of miniscule bravado. I gave out an infuriated hoot, yanked it off, and sent it cartwheeling downstream. For an instant it hung in the air, all slimy brown back and crenellated orange underbelly, its blue pincers spread in a victory salute. Then it plopped into the stream and was gone. I looked back at Malcolm.
He had gone onto all fours in search of the razor. I crawled alongside him just as he extracted it from the flow.
“Sorry. A crab bit me,” I said.
He sat back to examine the damage to the razor. A trail of glistening bright blood ran down from the cut beneath his chin. Cords in his neck funneled it between his collarbones, so that the pendulous ruby drop at its bottom clung to the center of his chest like a gem.
“Oh, spirits. I cut you.” My thumb went to the drop to wipe it away. I sucked the mineral-warm blood off and went for more. His head bobbed down to look at his chest, then up to look at me.
“Perry.”
“Hmm?” I ran my thumb up the trail. It smeared orange.
“What are you doing?”
My thumb was in my mouth again. I lifted my eyebrows, ready to explain that the razor had nicked his neck—and then I realized. There was water all around, yet there I was lapping him up instead of rinsing him off. I contemplated my thumb for a moment before I sheepishly plunged both hands into the stream.
He patted his neck, checked his fingers, and swished them in the water. “All right. Point made, lass. I don’t want you to cut my throat.”
“I didn’t mean—“
His head tilted forward in a bearish leer. “A crab bit you, eh?”
“Pinched me.”
Blue eyes snapped. “Let me see.”
“There’s no mark. I saw when—”
Dog teeth showed. “Let me see.”
“Well, dickens,” I huffed. “If you really want to.” I sat on my bottom again and extended the appendage in question. He caught it and held it fast.
“Where?”
“Second toe. The tip.”
He rumbled while he searched its macerated folds. “I don’t see a mark.”
“It was just a little crab.”
“Excuses,” he said, and then—so quickly that it was over before I had chance to enjoy it—pressed his lips to the offended digit. They were warm and soft and whiskery against the dripping chill of my own flesh. My toes involuntarily curled against his cheek before he returned my foot to the water, leaving me with my knees slightly parted, the stream’s flow eddying between my legs, and my weight resting backwards on my hands. The position displayed my breasts—which were distinctly perky from cold and excitement—to best advantage.
He did look at them then, without dissimulation. I looked back at him. His man-parts floated placidly in the pool of still water between his thighs. Water glistened in his chest hair. A fresh rivulet of blood ran down his neck.
My heart beat in my ears. Warm prickles tingled over my skin in spite of the river water. “What are you thinking?” I asked.
“I’m thinking that I’m glad this water is cold.”
oooh. 
