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"Mmphhn.." the jolt of hand on flesh had him snorting a sound and waking into something much closer into consciousness than he wanted to be. He was comfortable, warm, happy. Added awake to that list. Added all the little aches of heart and flesh that hounded him as he breathed out a bone deep sigh for the fact that the bed wasn't on fire. The way his tangled, sleep muddled mind wove around the context of that. Cause it would've been cool. Bed on fire. A tale worth telling - and 'why is your hovel now a flaming hole in the ground?' - 'because my boss is a literal fireball in bed' - he smiled for his own idiocy.

"C'ming..." grunted blearily while he watched him go - *a*****e* - an affectionate afterthought for Eion slipping away before he could've snagged him back. He took his time in following. Rolled into the wrinkles in the sheets and stole a little more warmth, until the only choice which remained was clothing or cold feet.

It gave him space to think on how Eion was different now - on everything that meant. For him, his team, 'them'. Eion was alive - as himself - less tattered and torn between rifts of people who had sunk in lessons long before his arrival. He only wondered if if those changes would stick. If the laissez faire 'I lived and died and am now my own man' trend would find a hard wall or two to surmount at the end...

Whatever....

He'd still be there. Even if things changed yet again. If they remained amorphous between them and only solidified when he ended up orbiting Eions space - circling Faustites flames like an errant moth.

"Y'nno..your hairs different now." had he noticed? Maybe, but mentioning it? The way Eions guise was always a little different, how now, especially now. The shaven part and length. Certainly he'd felt it. the way the curls ran long, soft thick spirals over his shoulder. The rough bristle that was soothing of the side-shave. Left him wondering if Eion had he actually gotten a haircut between near death and visiting him, or if this was how he was always meant to look - before he'd become a cindered being -- after?

Was it his own choosing that made the guise - a mental state -- a...

"You look good." had to keep saying it. Had to speak on how he liked Eion bundled and warm looking. To abate the way he wanted after his form, pale slender thing that disappeared beneath layers to keep his heat while human. Thought he should've worn soft choal and lavender. Should've been draped as easily in forest greens and fiery highlights as he should've been shrouded in blacks..."Change is good."

Nonsense words that were muffled in the cotton of a pullover while he padded after Eion like someone well fed; wearing something that had actual sleeves, for all that it was thin and baggy.

‘Why did I..’ and the look he gave Eion for that question was soft as it was contemplative, he hadn’t had them as long as he’d have liked to, he was going to get more, it was inevitable. It was the sun and the moon with his mind playing the role of the tide in between.

A constant thing.

“Honestly? At first…I wanted them just because I liked the look of them on other people; had an image of myself looking like that. Like the people I wanted to be like?” all the ways he’d wanted to be liked, to be with others, to brand himself as same and unique in one fell swoop. Elegant middle finger to the world, and dressage on a draft horse all in one.

“Then I got started — and I liked the feel of it. Power, control, the act of getting it done…the way it all just fit, like it was right.” Because the ink belonged there, he knew it did, and then all that knowing became a need.

He hadn’t known he’d needed it until he’d gotten it done, but once it’d been done? How he absently traced them, ink under thin garment and the lines where it sat just beneath the surface of himself.

“I was impulsive with how often I changed — just — everything. All the time.” derisive chuckle for that, for how many different styles he’d run through. Hair, clothing, social circles, piercings in his skin - but even those could heal and close, could be shed in days and weeks and redone the next time a want blossomed for something new. “It was ******** exhausting, like, I was exhausted with myself?” bit that out, contemplated taking a place on the counter, stealing N space or putting himself at Eions side or…

Settled on standing still and trying not to get sidetracked by the cute kokopelli cup — by how apt Eions choices of cup ware were.

“So this, it became a constant. The Constant.” He needed it, a thing worth being said, except for how he was sure that it didn’t matter if he needed one solid unchanging thing in his life. A thing where — and he couldn’t ******** it up, wouldn’t - because it was forever. If the lines of his own choosing became a regret? Then it would live on him as a reminder of how he could falter, would be something he could look at and pause long enough to think about ‘thinking’, before making drastic choices. Even if it was just for a moment, and if it became something better?

A good memory to wake up and fall asleep to, ink that felt just as alive as him, permanent and impermanent as him.

“Even if all other things change, if I change? That stays the same.” settled his restlessness with a sigh and decided he needed to be closer. At Eions side or up on the counter — would fix on one while he waited for everything to steep. Would think on how his ink went with him, beyond him. Lived on past that possibly, because he wasn’t sure about the time it took for ink to decay out of skin once he became something to be it put into the ground and buried. Wondered if praxidikes of the past had partaken in the same kinda of rituals, if he picked up the habits from them, or if he was simply so unstable in his his own whirligig inability to be still — that it was jut a ‘him’ sorta thing.

“Why, do you like ‘em?” Tiny hotbulb flash of curiosity, because he’d never actually wondered if Eion liked any of the things about him or not. Not that it mattered, for how all those things sat sidecar next to his enjoyment of simply being around. Liked or unliked and with little inbetween, because being unliked had never stopped him before — wasn’t the same as an outright ‘No’.

'Thank you, firebrand.'

He would've given his left arm for Eions ability to so easily take all of his endless words and squash them down into one succinct cube of concentrated understanding. Never needed to talk as much as he did, n yet? Ei' let him, every time. In the office, in his spaces, in -- "Hmm?"

‘Hadn’t noticed’ - and he thought of all the things he had noticed. Faustites frustration, the way his eyes smoldered when he wanted something. The down turned lines of his expressive face that so easily became perfectly kissable sneers. How he spoke with his hands - they made words when his mouth didn’t - tripped over flesh with gentle claw and traced love in under his veins. He thought of all the ways he liked things about Eion.

How the lighting marks that lashed up Eions spine had been such a shock to see. How they told of one more thing that’d befallen him - that he’d survived - he remembered spending time on those…

They were taking about tattoos though, about him?

“I might’ve noticed.” knew Eion liked to touch. Once all the hesitancy had been scraped. Knew he liked every touch he got. He couldn’t have been sure if the appeal was for him as he was, or…Because yeah, sure, he looked good and liked - just -- all of the things that came with that - but who wouldn't have?

Hell, it was easy enough to admit that he liked himself - physically - put a point into keeping himself appealing; for himself, for the sheer joy of having other peoples attention on some easily pinpointed obvious attribute. The ink was different though. Even Michelangelo's David wouldn't have been nearly as appealing if someone's up and dumped a paint bucket on it.

For as much as it was a part of him? It was also something other. A choice set in flesh instead of stone. For him, it might’ve well have been a third arm or second heart for all that he couldn’t divorce himself of it. For all that he’d be keeping it.

Whether others liked it or not.

"Still…That's a generous amount of thinking time."

He’d use every second of it, fall into the come hither of the coax and find himself a place that was close enough. To find the hems of layered fabric and tease at them with blunted nails. Staring down into dark pools that held all the answers, but reflected nothing but mystery. Meant he had to go searching, and he liked that. Meant he should ask questions more often…

Except his head was empty of everything else. The smell of steam, the sight of soft strands caught in the neckline of his coat.

“Hey..”

“Just a cup huh? Y’know, imma make you try it.”

Cheshire grin while he peered over each one, smelled them, because that made more sense.

Because sometimes? He liked to see him suffer, sexily even — and sometimes just for fun — the faces he made — every little reaction ticked off and trapped flashpoint shadowed sear on metal plating. How the myriad of expressions people made lived in his head better than anything that’d ever been put to paper.

How Eions expressions were, the ******** best — ooh, and the way he spoke with his hands - almost as if his fingers meant to make up for all the words he kept locked within his throat. Loud hands and telling motions that played obvious notes over silence.

How Eion was loud now, for all that he was speaking softly about tea tins and flavors that sounded like bath and body works scents…

“Stone fruit….is that just..peaches?” Soft humm, because wanted something like cider, except fruitier — except — thought of medicine balls and all the things people used to stave off colds during winter months. Ginger, cinnamon, ********, if I invest in more spices then any man needs. I blame you.” and he was careful, because he vaguely remembered Eion mentioning something about stems poking holes in silk — because he didn’t want to be clumsy and overfill the small silken pouch…it was so ******** domestic. Normalities that nearly felt bizarre considering, was it days ago? A week? The strangeness of time and it’s passing when everything was chaos smashed between bits of ‘every day sameness’. He could’ve let himself be floored by them, but instead, there he was sorting flagrant flowers, reveling in shared warmth of a simple moment drawn out.

Just for the joy of it.

“You’re getting into coffee, cause of our boy, yeh? Haru — n — okay, the drinking probably isn’t just me, but I certainly don’t help by — uhm — leaving it around your office for you. So where’s the love of tea come from?” narrowed glare at the silk, for how it refused to bend to his will and automatically fold into something pretty, he was a little envious of Eions origami like precision with such things.

Soft snort of air and wry side eye was all that particular comment received; how the look screamed 'as if I'd ever let you off that easy'. Didn't have to say 'till death do us part' to know that it would be the thing to part them, eventually. That time would do the trick, and so he'd make his firebrand suffer him in the interim.

Jovially, even.

Would smirk for the way those passions of his boiled over into his flesh, how talking about dried fruit pits and tea grades could stir him into frenzy. His personality a product of more than the fire that made up what lay just beneath the thin veneer of him as a human being. He'd been a person before...Waru knew Eion liked being people. Knew he liked him even when he wasn't. Knew him better as fire and brimstone than he did as whatever he'd been before that - whatever had come before Eion, before Faustite. Liked to tease at it all - child playing with not quit touching the embers of things that could burn them both.

"Your stone fruits are good enough for me firebrand. Though I'm happy to offer up reminders if you ever start to doubt it." leered at the thought of stones. The way that thread trailed effortlessly into ideas of all the things he associated with pits, maraschino cherry kisses, knots in overlong stems, green olives in a dirty glass..."There's things to be said for Chai, tho. Vanilla seeds, n cinnamon sticks, n peppermint candies...heh..chocolate chips in tea?" wielded his lack of knowledge like a weapon, knew he could make something monstrous and delicious. Either that? Or he would drive Faustite to make all of his tea for him, forevermore.

Out of sheer spite even.

Let it settle and the grin on his face soften with focus on the very simple task of tying. Thought Eions answers over -- thought of prying...of bursting into laughter for the look on his face when he'd tried coffee. Dirty bean water with bitter aftertaste. Waru knew he drank it because 'caffeine's a legal drug', and the bite was the price you paid -- and the copious amounts of creamer were the sugar high that topped the caffeine hike off soo sweetly. Though he was an honest subscriber to sweetened condensed milk and coconut cream at this point; and honey, so much godamned honey.

"You take on pieces of the people you're into, because you care. So you show interest in their interests, n' then..." and maybe his little concoction looked more like a lumpy diaper than a pretty silk triangle tier. He'd managed though, gotten it loaded and tied tight enough that he wasn't afraid the contents would spill out or poke through. Wasn't sure if it would be too fruity or too bitter or -- but he had honey, and honey fixed every mistake he'd ever made. Warm sticky glue to bind everything back into being right, even the worst things.

"Tahdah -- tea satchel, ala-albite. Oh, no - something with Waru in it? Wait, do people name their teas after themselves..." murmured musings, scrunched his smile, wrapped the string around the handle so it wouldn't escape into the water one it was added. Gentle with how he dropped the baggie into his own personal mug.