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Syrus laughed the entire elevator ride up, he’d missed the button to his own floor several times; so utterly engrossed with his and Matt's warped reflections in the shine of the mirror finished walls — whoever they paid to clean this thing must’ve hated this section the most — Syrus knew he would’ve hated cleaning something that attracted fingerprints like…….like……

Like something very attractive.

The analogy would come to him later. He’d find a conversational opening and loop it back around to how he was, at times, a clean freak and elevators were filthy. Everyone would find it hilarious. Maybe he’d text Adam about it tomorrow — see if Pax was still holding his own — the girl, Taffetite! He had to make sure she was home safe, because rules of conduct had been drilled into him by a certain Senshi of ‘gives all the ******** all of the time’ —

The ding and swoosh of the doors opening startled him into clinging against — ******** — had he been clinging to Matt this whole time? No, no, this was him being elegantly draped over the man. There was a difference. He’d figure out what that difference was when he wasn’t reaching for hands to pull and fumbling keys into locks with a giggle that felt like it couldn’t still be his own. Like a mess of ice that had finally thawed and the only thing left to do for it was find a bucket to pour it all into.

He could pour it all into Matt’s mouth and that, that was an enticing idea. It was also the burst bubble of a thought that made him realize he’d tripped well past tipsy and was wheeling towards the fuzzy edges of being — how did Waru always say it? Ah, yes, ‘white girl wasted’. A rare thing indeed, but they’d had their sectioned quarter of the team out ‘hunting’ & ‘gathering’; as if they were some nomadic tribe of ancient foragers.

Syrus thought Fulgurite had been a good sport about it all. Being roped into playing taxi for them. They’d hunted up a bar, gathered drinks, someone had won a prize for something amidst a backend of neon, noise, and people dressed just as scantily as he’d been. He’d pushed the idea that it was a bachelorette party for their one friend and allowed that explain away the costuming—

And now he was very, very aware that he was standing in his open door, fingers curled in a fistful of fabric. Matt’s shirt. Syrus twisted until he could see the forested greens that flecked the brunettes' iris's; and drag him closer. Matt was such a solid, warm presence at his back; for all that their forms were — fluid — water had three phases after all, or was it four? Where did plasma come in between rain, ice, and gas? Where did — and he would’ve called the exact shade of the Springs Senshis eyes ‘green as grass’, except for how it reminded him a bit more of the natural hot springs and pools that welled up out of volcanos: healing things tinted with something acidic that gave the lime and earth around it unnaturally vibrant colors.

“Do you mind if I kiss you?” and he was smiling as he said it, grinning lopsidedly, feeling horribly honest with the want at the base of that particular ask. Happy enough that he could take a yes or a no and flit right on into his next set of tasks—-

Why did they need? Altoids, tums, ibuprofen, enough water to drown two elephants. Carbs. He knew where all of those were, he could find them mostly on his own if Matt could drag down the cool sheets of the bed and Syrus would do the unthinkable and eat and drink with him in that bed companionably.

“You can always say no…but I’ve been meaning to ask?”

It worked perfectly.

The finger beneath his chin was the closest thing he could put his lips to, a silly little gesture; childish and chaste brush of flesh. Then with his fingers cinched he pulled Matt over the threshold.

Got his kiss.

A far less chaste one, the kind that would let him curl his arm over Matt’s shoulders and thread the fingers of his free hand into the hairs at his nape: keys long forgotten on the living room floor. He didn’t know where he wanted things to go, but gods did he want.

He wanted like a drowning man desired for air far beyond any point where air still existed. Except for how it was more than that. A wordless thing that he could feel, if not wholly explain. There was a bottom to it all somewhere, a floor to the depths he could anchor himself on. Syrus had always believed himself a good enough swimmer that he could reach said depths at ease, float weightless surrounded by all that pressure: plundering the pitch-black surroundings for all their worth (tiny glinting treasures that only he could find) while enjoying the quiet, shadowy, cocoon of the moment.

The alcohol running through his veins was warm — but Matt’s lips were moreso — soft fire and velvet cream. He turned his nails in against Matts scalp, dragged enticingly, encouraging that closeness. Parting his lips to ask for a second kiss after he’d already been granted a first….

It almost felt like stealing time, trying to drag it out because the moment was going to come where he’d have to step away and close his front door, lock it, and get water.

But he needed this first. It was the hierarchy of the thing! Where a second kiss sat at the top of the pyramid, just above staring into Matt’s eyes with his own: icy, lidded, softened blues. Not wanting to blink too much or stare too deeply all at the same time.

If the first kiss was an invitation, written passionately and with a flourish, then the second was a tidal wave. Syrus hissed for it, stifled a wantin groan as he felt the rush of Matt’s desire and clung for it. There were surfaces he wanted to drag him to: floors, couches, tables, places he could kneel—

Glad for Matt’s sturdy form and firm grip because he might have found himself down there without it: laughing and tugging and grasping for more. As it was he stayed standing, saw stars, hummed a happy note and giggled his own pleasure for the moment into what felt like Matt’s shoulder just then.

His lips tingled, and he couldn’t help his own smile for that.

“Mmhmm, what’r we doing Matt,” the mans shoulder was the perfect height for burying his face into, a very nuzzleable piece of solid heat, something he could press the joy of sounds that made up his own buzzing contentment against.

Except, no, that wasn’t quite how he’d meant those words to be. He reworked the sentence, reorganized the thought until the words fit right over the curl of his tongue and the press of his lips against the fabric that covered Matt’s collar bone. He still wanted to kiss him again— still — sighed, eager and heady with the knowledge of that.

“That is—-haah—what are we?” spoken with deliberate slowness because he wanted to get it right. There were those who cared for all the world of labors, those who did not. Syrus himself? He liked rules, definitions, and then the human contradiction that was also desiring his freedom and the fluidity to change those rules whenever he saw fit. To redefine them and swap the labels out at whim. He liked contracts as much as he enjoyed spontaneity and the way the oddness of those opposites collided and juxtaposed one another.

“Kissing, yes, I know —” and he could uncurl his fingers enough to thumb over Matt’s heart, that eternal notch, the place he knew a starseed would be if he reached his hand in and curled his fingers just there in that space beyond spaces. Eerie how he could imagine it even now, how easy it was to see even with the powers turned off—

Nothing was ever off. Once a Senshi always a Senshi. That was forever.

And speaking of eternities.

Syrus blinked back up into those greens, left his hands to linger and just enjoyed being held so closely a little while more.

“But we should—for you—for us. Figuring out what we are. Over water,” he snorted at that, knowing if he had any more wine, any more poinsettia champagne mixes, that he would spend the rest of the night entierly less pleasantly than he had been, “because…because I’ve never been good at drawing the line at ‘just kisses’, when they are as good as this is.”

Did that make any sense at all? He wasn’t sure. Shrugged and let the thought idle int he air, let it breathe while he attempted to teleport his keys into his hand and the door closed all on its own…

Sadly that wasn’t happening. A Shame.

Syrus wanted to crawl after him the inches it took to disentangle and do anything else at all: to close a door, pick up a key, and why the ******** had he suggested talking when it stole all that warm buildup away?! The edge of frustration for the loss was childishly palpable, he blamed it immediately on being drunk and mollified himself a bit by promising the half of his mind that would be sober by morning he would find a truly pleasurable way to make up for it…

To himself and to Matt who was handing him his keys.

“We’re doing that again,” serious as death while he curled his hands delicately round the loops of metal and danglement of key-ring tchotchkes, “just—in a bed—while horizontal.” He could’ve stood there holding Matt’s hand around the keys for hours, but then there would’ve been no more kissing happening the way he preferred right then. Well watered and not fearing the increasing demands of gravity emanating mysteriously from his floor. <******** you floor…” had that been out loud? He giggled dizzily, cared not a s**t for the red of his own blush, and sidestepped back towards the kitchen. The keys ended up on a designated hook he could’ve found blind and dying, this was why he designated places for things — for ease of organization on nights exactly like this — the jugs of spring water were beneath the sink. He grabbed two, and that was an effort in and of itself, finding balance, apologizing to the chair he nearly shoved — backtracking to the fridge to grab a bag of grapes with his mouth.

His brain screamed for something crunchy, his stomach demanded something light, and Syrus honestly just wanted to consume them for their color…

It had nothing at all to do with the lurid idea of Matt feeding them to him while he sipped water like a wealthy, pampered dignitary instead of a man dying of thirst.

“Thersschanxks,” a nodding motion followed by vowels and consonants that made a muffled sort of sense, if Matt wanted to bring something to the room? Because he didn’t intend to leave it— tonight, tomorrow, ever again. Not as he sauntered the short and swaying trip there, forwent his usual routine enough to, toss the items to the sheets, kick his shoes across the floor and stagger into his own bathroom. If the water ran loudly enough he couldn’t hear himself ask himself what the ******** he was doing.

It was obvious, right? Enjoying the moment. Getting something good. Deserved. *Right.* and he liked Matt very much and Matt certainly seemed to like him—

Syrus was not going to try and introspect as to why. Not when his lips still tingled from a kiss he needed more of; when his skin was lit up like a Christmas tree from the places touched, but not touched for nearly long enough. He wanted proof that would stand the test of daylight, a mark on his wrist to press a cuff link against beneath his thumb, or a string of hidden indents in the shape of the others lips that a tie knotted tightly enough would make sing throughout the day.

He was drowning. He was stripping. By time he realized where he was he was sitting back on the bed, clothed in soft indigo pants with black half moons on them, cradling the water jug like a newborn….

Matt was already in the room.

How long had he been there? Did it matter?

“There’s—Ah—the closet,” a vaguest gesture in the direction of where sleepwear could’ve been, because Matt was spending the night and should be comfortable as was humanly possible, which might have meant sleeping in something other than what they’d worn out that night. Maybe also because Syrus liked the look on the brunette's face when he was in his element and at ease.

He really did want Matt to feel at ease around him. He needed that, maybe even more than the kisses he was going to start asking for again far too soon…

Well ********, Matt looked good in his pants. He hadn’t been prepared for the sight of that; the way his build filled them out, reminding Syrus just how much longer the other man had been at this, (being a Senshi) while he’d been holed up behind a desk.

The excitement for that was something noted with swiftness, with an appreciative sigh that became him squirming to take advantage of the dip in the bed, leaning close enough to brush shoulders. Only to immediately decide that wasn’t nearly close enough, and sidle up for more — a longer line of warmth, a more shared space. Syrus acquiesced to Matt’s encouragement to drink around another swallow of spring water. Did his diligence in putting down something without a proof to it.

“Matt, I am absolutely wasted—“ a hard truth, but he was drunk enough that everything was pleasant softness and his mind wasn’t in the way and there were no grand calculations going on taking up all the space between his ears; taking all of his air in a crush of thorny little vines around his soul that told him with prickly sureties how if he didn’t take care of himself then no one else would, and those that would do so altruistically were few indeed, “—but if we discuss nothing now…I…” the water tipped his way was pleasant, if they each had a gallon or so to swim through in small swallows over time. He’d be fine by morning, hopefully hangover-free.

“There are regrets I’ll have. I’d rather there not—I’m not a forgetful sort of drunk, just, easy? Yes,” that was the word for it, “easier.”

He could heap onto it: happy, soft, giggly. His last Christmas had been spent drunk under a truly pathetic white, light up tree with his dearest friend. Singing carols, of all things. Discussing nothing of any import aside from desires and feelings and varieties of eggnog. Then of course there were all the other times they’d discussed only the important things over knot loosening wine. So he didn’t balk and snarl over every inadequacy and bit of lacking he felt prevented him from having anything truly personal.

“So I want this,” a delicate hand waived between them before his fingers inevitably searched for Matt’s own, just so he could hold them once more or maybe even pet them aimlessly, Mat had callouses he hadn’t paid enough attention too, “the conversation we’re having. I want it to be easy, and I want to kiss you again, oh, some amount of forever maybe,” and he didn’t want to know what the smile on his face looked like. If his eyes were hopeful, if he looked like some lost, fawning deer who lured Matt back to his own home. He could hear himself, all the glaring, flashing, warning signs that spelled his lovestruck doom. If he’d only wanted a one night stand there would be no need at all to talk, “which means there’s no escaping the — the gravity anymore.”

Which meant they absolutely had to talk.

“I am still falling asleep next to you whatever we decide. I’m still your friend. I’ve also decided I want snacks with those kisses…after…before…” a promise followed by another ask, a thoughtful humm as he decided firmly the things that had been built would not be undone by any discussion that could come out of the rest of the night .

If only platonic kisses and samplings of sweet surrender on a downy bed were enough. With anyone else? With others he could name. It would’ve been fine. Could still in fact be fine if that was where it all stayed in the bright light of morning, but it would’ve been a lie to say that was all he wanted from this. That he didn’t crave more, right now, tomorrow, the next day, a week out from that.

How long had he been chasing Fulgurites coat-tails unwittingly? Gravitated to him like an errant asteroid, it wasn’t as if he lacked for a close friend, camaraderie, or witty conversations that went on like a very deadly game of chess. He could even have his flavoring of young, dumb, and broke, but unerringly devoted in Waru.

He was selective though. Overly picky, and careful, because the world required such things. It was rather hard to undermine one Judges penchant for red-headed mistresses without having his own house neat, tidy, and remarkably unsuspectable. It was hard to be a Senshi of the Negaverse without appearing the most scrupulous and altruistic sort of all; publicly.

Playing with blackmail to get his way, him? Preposterous…

He liked Matt naturally, couldn’t pin down the appeal, but there it was! Bright, shiny, and obvious as his need to pair up with the man on pick-a-mission. To call him when he had any number of choice – to – too…. Did he trust him? Oh, yes, there was that. Like he trusted Waru, Aramis, and possibly Faustite – though the man had had his hand in his chest so that trust came with a caveat or two.

But were they dating? That was the question asked, posed with an assurance that the friendship – the attraction – would continue even if the answer turned out to be something else. Ah, how helpful it would’ve been if Syrus had a straight answer to give! He didn’t though, even if he’d been able to twist the concept around in his mind while completely sober. Oh, it might’ve been even worse then. He would’ve floundered openly instead of simply curling close and pressing his cheek to Matt’s shoulder, threading his fingers more tightly in the man’s warm grasp.

“Do you want to be dating? I – I don’t know that I’ve ever dated someone before…I’ll need..mmnhph, a box around it? No–guidelines?” because four syllable words were still a mess to work his tongue around. Parameters were things he needed to know: would it extend publicly, would it only be something held true while they were powered, were the brackets open or closed in regards to the number of people that could be kissed – ooh was Matt jealous? Would his eyes have looked even prettier flashing with something like that, Syrus didn’t even know if he’d enjoy it his only real experience was with…well…

“Better yet, ‘define’ dating to me,” and he was being serious even as he pressed a soft kiss to the shoulder beneath his head and repositioned himself better for it. Maybe if he knew what it meant to Matt, what he meant to Matt? He could work his mind around the concept more easily. “That is, what it means to you. Not the tre–tra…the usual sense..”

‘Maybe even some amount of forever’ — and Matt was asking him if he preferred to be dramatic, which he absolutely did. What was life without words of flair to enhance the flavor? To describe a passion accurately…

If ‘lover’ sounded right, if it tasted good when he said it aloud, then why not use it all the time?

Syrus let the words melt, marinate, braised his thoughts with what followed and the warm notes that lay beneath. Listening with intent, drinking water like a good, docile herbivore, a swipe of tongue over teeth, lips; to catch the residual droplets of a sip. To catch the taste of Matt’s skin on his tongue; subtle as the kiss hadn’t been, but there.

“Matt…” it was quite the proposal, and as soon as words penetrated deep enough to resonate he looked up, his slack smile firming into a pursed bow of lips. The mirth in his eyes sharpening beneath the glassy sheen of alcohol, “Matthew, that sounds like a marriage to me,” and his water was capped, clumsily set aside, because Matt’s lap was right there and suddenly he wanted to be in it. Facing this man. Would have his eyes, hands, full attention while asking this. While they were talking about this—-

“Is that what this is, are you marrying me?” teasingly light as he settled his knees on either side of Matt’s splayed legs. Waru and he had talked of rings exactly the once. He’d been livid with him and couldn’t untangle why. Knowing that man would only ever wear the one — would only ever give the one — and Syrus had felt some small, stabbed hurt of a thing for having that knowledge. Had asked if he would remain loved without saying the words, because the idea of marriage and Waru? Waru who wouldn’t know monogamy if it rode him into the dirt with the world's largest strap-on. Waru, who was as open as the maw of space and jaws of time with his everything —

Waru getting married. It was preposterous, insane, unimaginable.

Yet he was, (had done so,) and still insisted that he loved him in spite of this. Continued, in fact, to not mind that Syrus still wanted that love, only minus the glittering circle of attachment and the overwhelming devotion he knew would come with it. Waru would never do what he wasn’t ready for, never push at an unwanted desire to fulfill his own needs, and it wasn’t really a wedding ring at all so much as — something more? The object in question contained a meaning beyond Syrus’s own comprehension, he was sure it only made sense to Waru in the end.

Of course, just because he didn’t want Warus ring didn’t mean he never wanted any ring at all. He had that ones assurance of feelings regardless; a blessing to live his life without fear of waning affections. If everything fell apart—-

Even then it wouldn’t change things between them, and Waru loved even his enemies, so in the end it made a strange kind of sense. Enough so that he could begin to imagine himself and Matt’; begin a gentle pursuit while keeping a crash-pad in his back pocket — always having backup plans for his backup plans….

It was a habit that was hard to kick.

“Am I saying ‘yes’ in this version of your forever — do I look good in white?” the words melting off his tongue, slender fingers finding shoulders for purchase and staying curled over the defined muscle that lay beneath them — he had such a type — he couldn’t deny it, searching Matt’s gaze even as he imagined the attire for such a spectacle as their wedding would’ve been. His own suit would’ve been immaculate, Matt would’ve been stunning, maybe they’d pull from the man's roots and weave them together to make something unique. There would’ve been no impromptu rush and hastening of vows spoken under loving duress, and he knew Waru had wanted to do things right, have a whole party if only circumstances had permitted them; instead of leaving him to pine for a future event that he insisted to this day *would still happen* - except maybe with all of Faustites husbands instead of just the one.

He intended, wholeheartedly, to ask Matt who else he was kissing on the side. Knew in that moment as he shifted in his comfortable lean against the man that such questions could come later. People were being kissed, that was a given. They would keep each other informed, another given that he didn’t need to do more than nod acceptingly for, because the one other person he’d been kissing was easy enough to acknowledge; sharing that info was only right and fair if they were going into this long term —

“You must tell me, Lover.”

Ooh, and that felt good to say. Like touching the edge of the box and finding its initial definitions acceptable. Hungering for more now than just a general shape — it’d need details, furnishings, coats of paint; doors and windows and house rules written out on the kitchen whiteboard.