We're burning down the highway skyline (T'san)

[Avu]

He was doing math while he ran.

It wasn’t very hard math, mind, and running wasn’t very hard either, particularly since it was around two in the morning and the hallways were pretty deserted. The why was a little harder, but most of it eventually boiled down to restlessness. Training was too early in the morning for this really, but it wouldn’t kill him for one day probably unless E’rro decided to get really creative, and trying to do math while T’san was sleeping next to him had proven difficult, since he was apparently prone to dozing off fairly quickly when he had not only a decent bed but a warm body to share it with, too. The answer to this was not necessarily going for a jog in the wee early hours, but whatever. Anyway: Math.

Don’t hurt yourself thinking, Kyrahth grumbled distractedly at him; the green’s mental touch was faint against his mind, heavy and fogged with sleep.

And, okay. A’emi could work with that.

Go back to sleep, he answered evasively, turning a corner to loop back up to the weyrs again.

Try and stop me, Kyrahth answered, testy even in her half-asleep state, and A’emi snorted in dry amusement, startling a lone wherhandler or Drudge or someone as he jogged past the man with an ironic little salute. He took the stairs two at a time, skidded as he went around the corner, breezed into the weyr with a gentle kick to close the door in his wake, and paused just inside to let his eyes adjust to the darkness. Darkling and Titania were off for the night—both were consistently unpredictable with sleeping arrangements, and A’emi suspected that lately Titania had seen more of M’kai than he had, and certainly of K’ian, and Darkling…who knew.

Which left a T’san and a Spice and a Svelte.

A’emi padded across the weyr, automatically quiet despite the fact that he fully intended to wake T’san up, pulling off his shirt and toeing off his shoes and socks as he went, and crawled onto the bed, on top of the covers because yeah, he was still sweaty and gross and he really doubted T’san would appreciate that. Didn’t stop him from edging around Spice to nudge up against the brownrider, dropping a brief stroke down Spice’s back to settle the feline and in apology for shifting the bed, settling with his legs loosely crossed at the ankle and his knee propped against T’san’s thigh.

“Hey,” poking T’san in the hip with considerably less care than he had Spice, “Hey, wake up—c’mon, man, it’s important. Seriously. You know it’s gotta be good when an epiphany strikes in the middle of the night, right? Right. Get your ass up, dude.”

[Ember]

T'san was, in fact, just Tamorsan in the dream he was having. Which was odd because he still happened to have a Dsoleth. Or was it almost had a Dsoleth? Because this scene was most definitely set in the hatching ground of Fort the very day he'd Impressed. But that didn't make much sense since Dsoleth was all grown up and standing up on the ledges. So...in short, what the hell? Right, okay. Nevermind. Tamorsan leaned back in his seat and contented himself with watching the very clearly dream hatching carry on.

Which had to have been a mistake because suddenly the dream exploded into pure, unadulterated noise. Dragons bugling, people screaming, and the very loud pop as an egg exploded and..."What the hell A'emi? Get out of my dream," he complained dryly, not bothered at all that his roommate had just burst out of an egg - an egg that looked suspiciously like Dsoleth's egg, for that matter. Dsoleth jumped - simply jumped! - from the watching ledge onto the suddenly empty except for A'emi sands and addressed His. Tamorsan, this is when you're supposed to ge-

"-et your ass up, dude." The voice telling him to wake up suddenly shifted from Dsoleth's clear mental tones to A'emi's vocal ones as he unwillingly shifted back into consciousness. "The hell, man? Was a good dream," T'san mumbled though he wasn't all that angry at the man. "No, scratch that. Yuh hatched from Dso's freakin' egg. Back'n Fort. Fort! Thass jus' plain messed." The brownrider shifted slightly and blinked sleep-hazed hazel eyes as he took in A'emi's appearance. He yawned abruptly before he could say what he was thinking.

"I won't say anythin' 'bout you being sweaty'n gross if you tell me what's apparently soooo important you had to interrupt my beauty sleep." A cheeky, if tired, grin accompanied that statement. He proceeded to rearrange his pillow so that he'd be propped up a bit and therefore less likely to drift off again immediately. Because, yeah, A'emi (likely) wouldn't wake him up at Way Too Damn Early for no reason.

[Avu]

“And we have life,” A’emi commented, voice dipping into amused mock-exuberance, and he settled more securely onto the bed to snort at T’san. His whole grumbly little sleep-slurring thing was adorable in a kind of pathetic way, and also…A’emi’s brow furrowed, and his mouth twitched indecisively, torn between about five different expressions when T’san kept talking, and kept making no sense at all. Eventually his expression smoothed from disturbed to bemusement and hysterical amusement to indulgent condescension, and he patted T’san vaguely on the stomach, murmuring a rather helpless, “That’s…uh, that’s great, man…”

He stuck out his tongue, very maturely, on autopilot at T’san’s comment, but at least now he was slightly more coherent. “It’s manly sweat,” he protested, screwing up his mouth into a faux-pout. “And I’m glad you were listening. Uh.” And yeah, he’d done the math and all but A’emi hadn’t actually thought about the vernacular of it, and the only stupid thing that was coming to mind was poetry. Thank you, Titania, he thought sourly, and settled his elbows against his knees, interlacing his fingers and dropping his chin onto them to regard T’san curiously. What eventually came out was, “Just, I thought—this—” A vague waving spiral of one hand to indicate ‘this,’ “—’s good, yeah?”

Because there was an award for understatements, right?

“D’you remember like, six months ago,” which was right about when he’d moved in (not that he was, you know, keeping track or anything), “When I said I’d sleep with you if you wanted? And you said you didn’t,” not exactly like that but whatever, the point was that they hadn’t, “Was that like, a ‘That’s the most disgusting idea I’ve ever heard and you should never bring it up again’ kind of no or a ‘I don’t feel like getting laid at this point in time because of feelings’ kind of no? Or, you know, somewhere in the middle, because it’s sort of important.”

A pause, and he added reflectively, “Speaking of six months, you gonna buy me a present? Six months is a special anniversary, isn’t it? Wow. That was practically the definition of verbal spewing. I truly impress myself.” The lighthearted humor was only a little forced, but the owlishly awkward look he shot at T’san was decidedly embarrassed, before A’emi realized Kyrahth was laughing at him from the weyrledge, her eyes shining faintly green in the darkness, and he aimed a poisonous glance in her direction, much to the green’s hysterically amused purr.

[Ember]

T'san vaguely noted A'emi's struggle with his face to decide what sort of look he wanted to display. If he'd been fully awake he would have appreciated it more. As it was, he dismissed it as pretty amusing and left it at that. He snorted at the tummy pat and nudged at the other rider with his leg. "Snot. That information is highly coveted by...uh...well someone anyways. You're apparently too derp to appreciate a glimpse of my mind without any filters." The brownrider grinned at the greenrider then.

And, oh, tongue. His gaze zeroed in on it and he playfully made as if to grab it. Probably would have, too, if not for a couple factors. A'emi was more awake and therefore quicker than him - probably was even when both of them were sufficiently unsleepified - and T'san actually did want to hear what was up. So. No legit tongue grabbing. "S'only manly sweat if you got it sexing," he commented playfully. At A'emi's awkward pause, both of the brownrider's eyebrows started the migration off his face via his hair. Interesting.

He watched A'emi work out what to say and was surprised and a little concerned by the non specific goodness. Not that he didn't agree, but...oh six months ago. His brows furrowed together - apparently they were done their migration and wanted to move in above his eyes again - at the question. He waited until the other man was apparently done speaking before he even bothered to open his mouth. The first thing out of it, however, wasn't the most helpful thing to A'emi's arithmatics.

"Dude, even I'm impressed by your word vomit," T'san started, though his tone fell a little short of amused and landed somewhere between confused and concerned. He'd have to remember this conversation if for no other reason to have an instance of recall in which A'emi was embarassed. "And, uh, the...second option? Why's this important, again? Or...oh, is that what you want for an anniversary present?" The smile he shot A'emi was positively lecherous and accompanied by a wink.

[Avu]

He was probably going to be really amused later.

Wherein ‘later’ meant ‘depending on the outcome of now,’ because right now A’emi was sort of vaguely concerned that the worst that could happen was not only getting rejected but also getting exiled to the couch. Or his own weyr, even, which would be really lonely after the past almost-six months. At least Kyrahth was amused already. At his expense. Because T’san was being T’san, random un-subtle innuendo and tongue-grabbing and all, and that was, in context of his thoughts, pretty much incredibly awkward. He managed not to squirm, instead pursing his lips and making a face that was intended to be dryly amused and ended up more mortified.

“No wonder I keep you around,” he grumbled, “You’re just so good for my ego.” At least he’d answered the question. In a good way. Sort of. A’emi’s immediate response was a startled glance, and he blurted, “Oh good, it’d make my epiphany about fifty times as awkward if it wasn’t. Shut up, it’s very important. Life-changing shit, man.” Sort of. He flicked T’san on the hip for his offer, because yes, okay, tempting. Sleeping with someone when he had the tendency to automatically curl up towards heat source meant he ended up sleeping practically on top of T’san more often than not (lately he’d given up trying to pretend that he expected to wake up with any sort of personal space) and yeah, it was sort of hard to live, eat, and sleep with someone and not either hate them or…almost-love them he supposed.

Even if ‘love’ was not there.

Yet, to be fair.

Instead of spitting out something that was guaranteed to be exactly a hundred percent awkward, A’emi pressed his fingertips together, considered, and said very deliberately, “I’ll have you know I don’t believe in one night’s stands…” Which was a lie as T’san full well knew, from before Selenitas even if he hadn’t been sleeping with anybody except, um, T’san lately (and come on, not even ‘sleeping with’ as a euphemism), but it got the point across well enough didn’t it, “So if that offer is actually on the table I’d like to be getting some really romantic shit with it…rose petals and candlelit dinners you know…but failing that normal people…relationship stuff is good too…and then I guess we can talk about premarital sex. If you want.”

You’re absolutely awful at this, Kyrahth commented, halfway between awe and horror. The green had given up trying or pretending to sleep, and had uncurled her head from her flanks to crane around curiously for a peek. Who even does this at two in the morning?

Which, oh.

Right.

That.

[Ember]

To say T'san was being thrown for a bit of a loop was an understatement. Mortification was not something he ever expected to be seeing on A'emi's face. At least, not in direct relation to him. Perhaps if he threw M'kai in front of the guy...well even then he might see anger or disgust or something instead of the mortified one he was seeing now. So by then he was a little bit beyond simply concerned. Now it officially classified as Big Shit in the brownrider's mind - and very little got that classification. Testament to how fond he was of the greenrider, he supposed.

He flicked at the other rider slightly at his grumbling. His eyes widened in surprise when A'emi declared that he not only had an epiphany but it was of the life-changing variety. His puzzle-loving mind started to try and put the pieces together. Something about sex and epiphanies and life-changing...He wasn't given a whole lot of time to think about it even though a half-formed notion was starting to form in the back of his mind while A'emi did an impression of an evil genius thinking (what else was he supposed to think when he put his finger tips together.)

And then came the word vomit again. And oh my god, Dso, Dsoleth! Wake up you big lug, this is like...class one Shit is Going Down alert. Something. Just... "Oh," the brownrider intoned. His tone encompassed all sorts of feelings that just couldn't fit on his face at the same time. Confusion, wonder, curiosity, perhaps a bit of fear or worry, excitement, disbelief...the list went on and on but those were the most prominent. His thoughts were broken by Dsoleth grumpily pointing out, I think Kyrahth's might be wanting an answer, y'know.

Right.

"Uh...am I still dreaming?" Yes, that's exactly the kind of answer he wants. You used to have some semblance of being smooth. I miss my rider. "Ah, sorry just..." He paused, wondering if it really had caught him by surprise. The relationship, such that it was, had progressed a fair bit like his with M'ta shortly after Meira's death. A growing closeness, bed sharing, etc.. There were a couple key differences which was probably why the idea of a romantic relationship with A'emi had crossed his mind a couples times. A passing interest in what it might be like, but nothing more since he'd been comfortable with how things were and doubted A'emi would want to go Serious.

Apparently he was wrong.

"Just...if you want to be the girl in this relationship that badly I suppose I could do rose petals and shit," T'san responded slowly, almost considering the weight of his words after they left his mouth. "But, yes, normal relationship-y things can work too."

[Avu]

He was actually pretty close to blurting something awkward out just to fill the silence—because whatever reaction he had expected, it was decidedly not silence and A’emi ended up tapping his fingers together to pass the time, wondering distantly if it was possible in the lack of light for T’san to see it if he turned the color of, say, a tomato or something equally drastic. (He really hoped not, because even if he hadn’t he was bound to get there if there was much more of this and that would just not be fun.) “Oh,” he echoed, and blinked at T’san, half-expectantly. Moment of shock, okay. So…“Ohh…?” because yes, drawing out the word in creative ways would bring new and enlightening definitions to it.

What.

A’emi blinked, and his eyebrows furrowed without his permission as he considered. “I’m having a hard time connecting the idea of me hatching from an egg and this as remotely similar, but if that’s what floats your dreamboat…” He wasn’t quite sure if ‘dream’ was a good thing or not. On one hand, it was sort of flattering he supposed if T’san’s subconscious conjured up him being insanely emotionally constipated in a romantic way, but on the other that was just…no. Weird. Did not comprehend that. He almost didn’t comprehend it when T’san continued either; the words settled in the air for a minute before A’emi actually managed to make the connection between them and then he straightened in surprise.

“Oh,” he said, blankly startled, before he grinned at T’san. “I’ll settle for the normal shit. That’s…yeah. I can do that.” He hesitated, and tilted his head, considering. “I’m gonna go take a shower now,” said with hesitant deliberation, A’emi rocking forward in preparation to get up, weight on his knees, “And I mean, I’m gross and you probably have not-morning breath and also sleep is necessary at two in the morning, which I’m sorry for, by the way, but c’mere,” which was not quite asking for permission but he was pretty sure he’d babbled enough in the past three minutes to last them a lifetime, so he leaned over to press a quick kiss to the corner of T’san’s mouth, affectionately chaste, before he pulled back to uncurl himself and get to the bath pronto.

Because being a babbling mess is so attractive, was Kyrahth’s optimistic input, but it was as good as dismissal; without A’emi practically broadcasting nerves at her she could finally sleep, thank you very much; she flicked a wing in drowsy acknowledgment to Dsoleth’s consciousness, tucked her head back against her side and flipped her tail over her muzzle to go back to sleep. So complicated.

[Ember]

Comments about his 'dreamboat' aside, A'emi's reaction was rather endearing. Which, yeah, he probably wouldn't have actively thought before. New light, meet A'emi. Amazing how much a shift of perceptions could change things. In retrospect, they had largely been acting like a couple already, hadn't they? So aside from future physical intimacy he doubted much would drastically change about their dynamic. It was odd but kind of a relief too. Apparently with their new status decided on, A'emi felt it appropriate to go take a shower. But not before excercising his new right to T'san's lips.

Right then. So.

"What exactly did he think I'd do after all that?" He asked the night as A'emi exited stage left - aka the bathroom - leaving him with a big ass goofy smile on his face. He shook his head in rueful amusement and waited a couple minutes before getting up to locate clothes. He was up already and far too...excited? Happy? Nervous? Something to go back to sleep anyways. "Let's see, pants...pants...pants, pants pa-pants pants...Aha." He pulled on a pair over the underwear he'd been wearing. There had been that one awkward morning early on in their roommate-hood when he'd woken up naked with an A'emi nestled against him, breathing against his neck and he'd decided that underwear was a good idea.

After the pants he pulled on a loose t-shirt, caught himself before he put on a second layer, and flopped face first onto the bed to wait for a squeaky-clean boyfriend. He was still a bit tired, so sue him. Klah would fix that problem. Klah fixed everything. He caught the sound of the bathroom door opening again and turned only his head so he could look at A'emi. "You, mister, owe me a cup of klah because I can't sleep," he complain-demanded half-heartedly, "so you better get dressed and we'll go bum off the handlers' food and stuff."

He didn't really bother listening for an answer, just let his mind drift perilously close to the oblivion of sleep again despite what he'd thought and said. A'emi would either take him up on an offer of what was essentially a date at two in the morning or he'd be nice enough to sort him into a proper position and let him sleep. Either way worked for T'san, really. Hmm. He wondered vaguely what Elysia's reaction would be when she found out. That confrontation ought to be amusing...

[Avu]

He wasn’t sure if speed-showering was appropriate here or not or if T’san would want time to think about that whole feeling thing they’d been poking around at before, so A’emi compromised by taking a perfectly normal shower. If ‘normal’ could encompass a distinctly teenage sort of giddiness, which was ridiculous because yeah, he was decidedly not a teenager anymore. By the time he padded out of the bathroom with his hair ruffled into halfway-dryness and wearing boxers low on his hips, he was mostly calm. Calm enough to be aware of the fact that his body was actually supposed to be pretty tired right about now and that he had drills the next morning, anyway.

The greeting he got from T’san earned an owlish sort of blink, and then he snorted at T’san, who looked pretty much like he was about to fall asleep anyway. He probably wouldn’t even make it all the way to the Main Hall. “Yeah sure,” A’emi commented, “Klah doesn’t do shit if you aren’t conscious to swallow it. And I need to be alive tomorrow, and so do you, c’mere.” Kyrahth would be so proud of him. A’emi scrambled onto the bed, cast a critical glance over T’san’s messy clothed sprawl, and decided that he was not going to get thanked when T’san woke up with his pants button imprinted into his navel.

“You are considerably fatter than you look,” he muttered affectionately, mostly to himself as he set about rolling T’san onto his back, preferably without smacking Spice with a flyaway limb, and straddled T’san’s thighs to undo his fly and pull off his pants, scooting backwards as he went until he could get them off and drop them over the side of the bed, and then took one look at the shirt and decided it could stay. There was no way he was going to deal with trying to shimmy it off of T’san when he was essentially deadweight. Whatever. One wrinkled shirt wouldn’t kill anybody.

A’emi eased himself around Spice, sliding under the covers and flinging the other end over T’san, who was of very dubious consciousness already. Hmm. Hopefully he’d remember everything when he woke up; it’d be sort of depressing if he woke up and decided it was a figment of his imagination or something. Particularly with that spectacularly awkward “Am I dreaming” thing. A’emi rolled his eyes and flopped supine onto the bed before he turned automatically inward towards T’san, mumbling and undeterred by the fact that he could very well be talking at a sleeping T’san, “Klah and food tomorrow. I have faith in your ability to be vaguely normal. Sleep.”

[Ember]

T'san couldn't muster up the energy to chuckle at A'emi's words. He did, however, manage a non-comittal grunt. It had seemed like a good idea like...five minutes ago. He attempted to mumble as much but in all likelihood A'emi didn't understand a damn thing he said. The comment about his weight couldn't pass without some sort of intelligble remark. "More cushion for pushin'," he got out before proceeding to let A'emi mandhandle him. Hee, slave.

He was sleepily amused that A'emi was already undressing him, because didn't that usually wait until after a couple of dates at least? At least the boxers stayed on 'cause otherwise he'd have to get alert and violated-y. Which would probably be amusing but tiiiiired and laaaazy. T'san did keep enough of his processes to track A'emi's movement on the bed and lazily reflected that the lump somewhere near his left foot was his cat. He smiled tiredly with his eyes closed when he thought he'd wake up again to an A'emi curled against his chest and a Spice against his back. Cuddlesssss.

"Mmhmm," he intoned sleepily when A'emi mentioned klah. Mostly it was an automatic response to the name of the beverage while tired but hey who's judging? With more energy than A'emi probably thought he had, T'san turned slightly so he could press his nose into the other man's hair and settle and arm across a hip. That was infintely more comfortable, wasn't it? Yes. He was so not moving until proper morning with sun and breakfast and klah and things. Huh, maybe he could demand breakfast in bed for the sixth month anniversary of living together gift.