It was two am and it had just stopped raining when Zelos knocked on Lloyd's door. He had just enough time to reflect that this was stupid, and that he probably shouldn't be here before Lloyd pulled the door open, looking tired and rumpled in his sleep pants with a sweater pulled on over the top.
He'd pulled the sweater on backwards. Zelos stopped thinking for two seconds, stepped in, and kissed Lloyd, who made a startled noise, but thankfully didn't jerk back. His breath was stale and his lips were chapped, and he stared, bleary eyed, at Zelos for a few moments before stepping back. "Guess you'd better come in," he said finally, voice rasping, and despite Zelos already knowing what had to come next, his heart sank a little anyway.
He found himself wishing, uncharitably perhaps, that Lloyd had less of a capacity for kindness. There wouldn't be any beating around the bush or sparing Zelos' feelings, But Lloyd would say it all in a way that wouldn't leave him angry. He could really use some anger right now.
Lloyd let him into the front half of the unit, flicking the light on and illuminating the kitchen proper before crossing the floor and setting the kettle to boil. Zelos lingered in the doorway, hands in his pockets, watching the familiar movements instead of coming in. Lloyd pulled out two mugs as the water bubbled on the stove top, scooping a large spoonful of harsh black tea directly into each. It was the same way Dirk made tea; no milk, no sugar, no strainer, drunk too late and too hot.
"Come in and sit down already," said Lloyd in the same, tired rasp as he poured the water into the mugs. "You look like an NPC hovering there, waiting to tell me your husbands off to battle or something." He trailed off in a mutter, turning back from the counter to cross the kitchen, and Zelos followed him across to the table, sitting down and accepting one of the mugs.
It burned his hand slightly through the ceramic, too hot to touch, too hot to drink, so Zelos let it sit on the table in front of him, hands curled loosely around the mug without touching it. "I know my face is lovely and appreciated at all hours," he said airily, feeling the radiant heat of the mug at the roots of his fingernails, and a dampness where his hair touched the back of his neck and not much else. "But I am sorry for waking you up."
"Thanks," said Lloyd, squinting at him and taking a gulp of tea that surely must have burned the roof of his mouth off. "Not that I don't appreciate your face and all, I guess, but it's late."
"You don't have to be such a sweetheart," said Zelos, winking at him easily, but decided to change tack, to put off the reaction Lloyd was bound to have as long as he could. "I didn't wake Colette?"
Lloyd glanced over his shoulder. "I don't think so? She pretty much sleeps like the dead these days, and I think she'd stumble out of her room if she heard you."
"You're still keeping separate rooms?" said Zelos, dry tones creeping into his voice despite himself. "You know, this isn't a fifties sitcom, Lloyd, you love each other and moved in together, you don't have to keep separate wings."
"Just because I love her doesn't mean that we're in love," said Lloyd, suddenly sounding annoyed, and he was frowning at Zelos over his mug of tea.
"You plan life events around each other, you moved in together, you have weekly dates, more than one of us has seen you kiss, but you still want us to call you friends? Lloyd, you have a joint life insurance policy." said Zelos, raising an eyebrow at him.
"I don't give a fuck what anyone else calls us," said Lloyd bluntly, taking another gulp of tea. "If we're more than what friends are supposed to be, then sure, but we're not lovers, and neither of us are looking at rings. Don't you get that? With her or with Sheena or something?"
"Colette, maybe," said Zelos, taking a sip of tea after gently blowing on the water. It still burned his tongue, and he winced, setting the mug down again. "But if you think for a second that I'd turn down Sheena ready and willing in my bed, then you don't know me nearly as well as you should."
"Don't be disgusting," said Lloyd, draining his mug with a grimace.
"There's nothing gross about healthy human sexuality," said Zelos, tiredness creeping into his tone, though the corner of his mouth twitched upwards. This at least was familiar ground.
"There is when it's you talking about Sheena," said Lloyd, making a face at Zelos and standing, crossing the kitchen in a couple of paces to rinse his mug out. "And drink your tea while it's hot. Tastes like ass when it's cold."
The kitchen was silent aside from the flow of water from the tap and the clink of Lloyd resting his mug on the draining rack. Zelos looked around, contemplating the potted herb on the window sill that Lloyd was nursing back to health, Colette's veterinary scrubs laid out to dry over two chairs in the lounge room, Lloyd's electrician's belt hanging off one of the hooks by the door next to the thick purple pea coat Zelos had bought Colette two birthdays ago. Quiet, busy lives condensed into one unit, where they had to pull someone's mattress out to fit everyone on movie nights and they still tried to fit more people in. The scraping of a chair on tile broke Zelos' reverie, and Lloyd gave him a concerned look, brows drawing together. "Okay, you didn't make a single insinuation about my knowing what ass tastes like, so now I'm actually worried. What's up? Why are you here?"
Part of Zelos felt like screaming that that should be perfectly obvious, asking if Lloyd had been paying attention, if his normal meter was so fucking skewed that anything about why Zelos was there less than patently obvious right now. He opened his mouth to say that Lloyd was a worldly enough guy, and Zelos wasn't one to question his tastes, but instead said: "I just needed some perspective, that's all." He took a sip of his tea, which had thankfully cooled down enough not to burn his tongue or fingers. Lloyd was wrong about more than one thing - it tasted like ass even when it was hot.
"Right," said Lloyd, scrubbing at his face tiredly. "Perspective. Sure. What have you found so far?"
"Enough," said Zelos, leaving his mug still mostly full on the table and standing, crossing to the door. He lifted the latch like he'd done so many times before, a heavy, iron thing that Dirk had made for Lloyd as a housewarming gift. "Thanks for the tea."
"...No problem," said Lloyd slowly, following him to the door, lines of unspoken confusion etched into his face as he gripped the door. "I guess. Night, Zelos."
"Night," said Zelos, raising a hand over his shoulder without looking back at him.
It wasn't necessarily the strangest wedding Zelos had attended, but it was one of the most rambunctious and familiar considering how few people he actually knew in attendance. The hall was squat and long with bare timber logs holding the ceiling up, festooned with ribbons, and small circular tables with bench seats dotted around a wide dancefloor that accommodated everyone throwing themselves around the dance patterns. From his spot at a table one back from the dancefloor he could see the grooms dancing with each other, smiling so widely it looked like their faces were going to split open and the sun was going to fall out. His sister was also on the dancefloor, waltzing around with her fellow maid of honour - though, they were both wearing tails and swords, so maybe they were the best women.
There was a loud huff and a creak of weight on the bench Zelos was sitting on. "Enjoying yourself?" said Lloyd, hooking an ankle over the opposite knee and wincing as he dug his thumbs into the toe of his only pair of nice shoes. "Uh, and heads up, if a woman in a yellow sundress and work boots asks you to dance, they're steel capped and I think she was counting how many times she trod on my feet."
Zelos laughed, the feeling actually reaching the laugh lines in the corner of his eyes and digging in. "Yeah she's a menace," said Zelos cheerfully, leaning back on the table and tilting his head to smile at Lloyd. It was a dry wedding, but something about the atmosphere made him feel cheerful in a nearly tipsy kind of way. "Popularity with the ladies aside," he added a lavish wink for flavour, gratifyingly receiving a snort of laughter in return, "are you enjoying yourself?"
"Yeah," said Lloyd, grinning back at him and dropping his foot. "I didn't know it was possible to have this much fun at a wedding."
"It's the lack of in-laws," said Zelos with a sage tone, reaching back to the side Lloyd wasn't sitting on and grabbing his fruity mocktail to take a sip. "There's no one to disapprove of anyone having fun."
"Like you've ever done anything but enjoy people disapproving of your fun," said Lloyd, mimicking Zelos' position and leaning back against the table to watch the dancefloor. The grooms danced past them, circling each other, still smiling, and one of them waved at Zelos and Lloyd with a flash of a wide grin. Next to him, Zelos could feel Lloyd shift his posture, formulating a question Zelos knew he didn't want Lloyd to ask.
"You should try the mocktails, they're very good considering how stringent my sister was on the whole 'no alcohol' thing," said Zelos in a casual tone, setting his glass down and resolutely not looking at Lloyd.
"You don't feel a little weird, watching your boyfriend get married?" said Lloyd anyway, not even doing him the dignity of pretending to think about replying to him.
"Ex-boyfriend," Zelos corrected, pushing a hand through his windswept, carelessly styled hair. "And no. His fiance woke up out of a coma, Lloyd, I'm not one to stand in the way of a literal fairy tale ending."
"So what, you're back to the Zelos who doesn't care when a fling ends?" said Lloyd, a disbelieving undercurrent to his tone, and when Zelos glanced sidelong at him, his eyebrows were raised ever so slightly, honest brown eyes looking directly at him.
"We dated for over a year, I'd call it a bit more than a fling, wouldn't you?" said Zelos, adopting a breezy tone. "Or is your opinion of me low enough that you'd think I'd stay with someone that long without loving them even a little?"
"I think," said Lloyd, his tone slow and measured in the it was when he was choosing his words with care, "that it's very easy to stay in a situation when you're safe and cared for."
"You know, that's the nicest 'fuck you' I've ever been on the receiving end of."
"Don't put words in my mouth," said Lloyd, tone short and clipped. "All I know is that you only ever talk about sex, and even when you were with him it was sex with Sheena, with other women, even with other men."
"So what, I get better with my internalised homophobia and you start tripping over yours?" said Zelos, turning to look at him properly and feeling an ugly smirk rest on his lips. "I have a lot of love in me, I can't help it if it escapes me sometimes."
"Talking about Sheena being-" Lloyd hesitated before continuing, his voice dipping in volume, "-ready and willing - isn't love Zelos!"
Zelos laughed loudly, a more bitter sound than he'd like, mostly at the red flush on Lloyd's cheeks that had shown up from repeating Zelos' words back at him. "Been thinking about that one, have you? Just because you and Colette can untangle love from sex and divide it into neat little partitions that are less than and more than doesn't mean the rest of us can."
"So what, you're telling me you're in love with Sheena? With everyone you fuck or think about?" said Lloyd, leaning one elbow on the table to look at him properly. "You told me you could feel the same way I do about Colette, are you saying that you want to have sex with her?"
"Of course I do, have you looked at her?" Zelos fired back, gesturing at the dance floor. Colette was laughing loudly along in the middle of a circle dance, Genis on one side and Regal on the other, green and white party dress swinging around her knees. "And I've been having really persistent and specific fantasies about tying Sheena up and eating her out ever since I was sixteen and fully assured I'd burn in hell for my flagrant interest in women," he continued, dragging his eyes back to Lloyd's. "I'm not in love with everyone I want to fuck, but I want to feel how it is to love them, and when it goes on like it has with you three I don't really feel like there's much of a difference."
"Us three?" said Lloyd after a moment, and Zelos raised his eyebrows at Lloyd in a gesture of impatience. "Huh. You know, I did kind of wonder why you kissed me that time."
"What, and the obvious didn't occur to you?" said Zelos, sputtering a little.
"It was two am, and then you just, went, I thought you were fucking with me, or testing something," said Lloyd, scratching the back of his head.
"If I was you failed," Zelos informed him, knocking their elbows together lightly. "Honestly. You really are unbelievably stupid sometimes, you know that right?"
"What's stupid?" said Sheena, and Zelos and Lloyd turned their heads to see Sheena lowering herself to sit at their table, tightly clutching a dinner plate filled with fruit and chocolate dipping sauce with a tiny three pronged fork. She sat, and there was the distinctive clunk of her kicking her shoes off under the table. "Dessert's up, you know. What're you two talking about?"
"Sex and love," Zelos said, swivelling around to face her properly and folding his arms on the tabletop.
Sheena squinted at him for a moment before swinging her head round to look at Lloyd. "Does he mean, like, Tolstoy, or is he being perverted about random women again?"
"Anna Kareni-" started Zelos, but Lloyd cut him off.
"A little perverted, but less than usual and making more sense," said Lloyd, shrugging, and ignoring the dramatic pantomiming Zelos was doing next to him, grasping at his heart and mouthing 'betrayal'.
Sheena narrowed her eyes, scowling, and stabbed a grape with her fork, waving it at Zelos. "If I hear you talking about my, my, magnificent bosom one more time I'm going to stab you in the jugular with this dessert fork and then I'll get blood all over this nice dress!" And it was a very nice dress, dark blue with white accents, hugging her curves and flaring the skirt hem at mid thigh.
"Actually it's a cocktail fork," said Zelos automatically, and then he winced.
"And it'll still bleed you dry!" said Sheena crossly, eating the grape in one bite. "Hey!" she said, smacking Lloyd's hand away from her plate. "Get your own!"
"Yeah, Lloyd," said Zelos, kicking Lloyd under the table and stealing a strawberry off Sheena's plate. Sheena squeaked around her mouthful of grape and stabbed at his hand with her fork, making him laugh.
"So what's 'less perverted than usual' mean anyway?" said Sheena, tugging the plate out of Lloyd's reach and bringing a legging clad calf up onto the bench to push Zelos out of range with her foot. "You jackals."
Lloyd laughed, grinning at her. "Zelos was telling me about how much he loves us. And how he wants to have sex with Colette."
Sheena kicked Zelos firmly in the thigh, and Zelos made a protesting noise, taking a bite of the tip of the strawberry. "Bad Zelos! No sexualising Colette, you know she's uncomfortable with it!"
"I wasn't!" said Zelos, swallowing and shuffling further back so he was pressed up against Lloyd, out of Sheena's kicking range. "Honestly! That's why I only fantasise about you two on the regular, I know you actually can participate with enthusiastic, informed consent and I don't believe in having orgasms that make you feel guilty."
"I hate that that makes sense," said Sheena, shaking her head, woebegone, and dipping a cherry in some chocolate before taking a bite. "I can't believe how much bullshit you have to be spouting regularly for me to just take that and accept it."
"He's pretty remarkable like that," said Lloyd, ignoring Zelos' elbow digging firmly into his side. "Apparently it's a sign that he really loves us, did you know? This is just how he shows it."
"Shut up," said Zelos, rolling his eyes and digging his elbow into Lloyd's side again. "He talks a lot for someone who doesn't know what it means when a guy kisses him."
"It makes sense, I guess," said Sheena, ignoring Zelos. "Like a dog humping someone's leg."
Lloyd laughed again, ducking his head. "Yeah, exactly!"
"You're both assholes," said Zelos, taking another small, neat bite of his strawberry.
"You're the one saying that it's fine and dandy to express affection by being gross about us sexually," said Sheena, swallowing a chocolate covered grape and extending her toe, leaning over to prod him.
"I'm not saying that, I'm saying that in an ideal world I'd have sex with you both twice before breakfast and then spend the afternoons helping Colette socialise three month old puppies," said Zelos, punctuating this with a wave from his strawberry. "Also phalloplasty would be free from risk and chocolate wouldn't make you fat."
Sheena paused with her cherry dipped in the chocolate, then sighed, leaving it on the side and pushing her plate towards Lloyd. "That does sound pretty good. This is an ideal world, right? Meaning I'd probably finish both times before breakfast?" The skin around her neck reddened as she said it, but she didn't stumble over the words.
"Of course," said Zelos, finishing his strawberry and throwing the top at Lloyd, who was happily digging in to Sheena's abandoned dessert. "Are you going to keep comparing me to mongrels now?"
"Probably," said Lloyd, drizzling chocolate over the fruit. "Are we going to talk about the fact that all three of us just admitted we like the idea of a world where we have sex with each other and are okay with being attracted to each other?"
"We don't have to do anything as radical as talking about it," said Zelos, shifting to lean on him comfortably and raising an arm to Sheena, who sighed and scooted along the bench to sit next to him, letting him wrap his arm around her shoulders.
"Okay, but you have to stop being gross about us in public," said Sheena, using her new found closeness to elbow him in the ribs, hard enough to make him wheeze, before leaning her head on his shoulder and watching Lloyd devour her dessert with a mournful expression. "I mean it! Yeesh!"
"I'm only ever gross about you to your face," Zelos said, kissing her cheek. "But I'll cut back if you really want me to. Lloyd, that's really disgusting."
"What?" said Lloyd through a mouthful of chocolate covered melon. "I'm not wasting perfectly good dessert just because you made Sheena worry about getting fat."
Sheena muttered something in Japanese, and looked up at Zelos. "Kick him for me?"
Lloyd laughed as Zelos knocked their ankles together, shaking his head. "Come on Zelos, you can help out too, there's plenty here."
"Oh honey, I don't eat food for dessert, it's not in my exercise plan," said Zelos, wrinkling his nose, and Sheena snorted with laughter, pressing her face into his shoulder. Something warmed slightly in the pit of Zelos' stomach at the casual affection, and he found that he didn't actually care if she smudged mascara on his white shirt for once.
"You do so, you have a whole mini-fridge in your upstairs filled with strawberries and chocolate," said Lloyd through a mouthful of fruit. "I've seen it, you can't hide from me."
Sheena choked from laughter, pushing herself up off Zelos' shoulder, face turning red as she bent over the table. "You have a sex fridge?" she sputtered out between giggles, and Zelos shoved her on the shoulder, ignoring the cackle it elicited in response.
"Hey guys!" Colette said brightly, coming up on Lloyd's other side, the flush of dancing still in her cheeks, and she leaned over the table to steal a small bunch of grapes off the plate. "What are you talking about?"
"What Zelos likes to have for dessert," said Lloyd cheerfully, offering her the bowl of chocolate sauce so that she could dip the grapes.
"Oh! Is it pudding?" said Colette, sitting down next to them and nibbling on a grape for a moment. "Pudding's really great and the one they've got out today is lovely, you should try it! Are you guys going to dance for a bit? There's another circle dance coming up, you should join in!"
"I was going to, but the conversation got more interesting than I was expecting," said Zelos, smiling at her. "Enjoy yourself though, angel! Don't hold back because of us boring ones."
"My feet hurt so much!" said Sheena, shaking her head with a mournful expression. "I'm done for the day, sorry Colette."
"That's okay, so am I," said Colette, beaming at her. "I just got a call from the office, one of our regulars' cat got hit by a car and I'm the nearest, so I have to go in and take a look. Is it okay if I take the car, Lloyd?"
"That's fine, Zelos can give me a lift home," said Lloyd, swallowing a piece of kiwi fruit and kissing her cheek. "Good luck!"
"Thank you!" said Colette, standing again and taking the car keys when Lloyd offered them. "I'll see you all later, okay!"
They waved goodbye, just taking a second to breath as the tables around them slowly filled up again, more and more people turning to the dessert buffet. "You really don't think about her when you, you know," said Sheena, hesitating and gesturing her hand up and down.
"No," said Zelos, pushing the plate of fruit away from Lloyd and making a face. "I sometimes fantasise about fronting the funds for her own private practice, but that's about it."
"Huh," said Sheena, shrugging. "I guess you are better than I thought."
"Ouch," said Zelos drily, elbowing her the same way she'd done him, though with considerably less force. "Do you still want some strawberries and chocolate? If they're fed to you with sex they don't count, you know."
"I think that counts as a lie," said Lloyd, standing up and offering a hand to Sheena and Zelos each. "But come one, lets get at least one dance in before you take us home and show us your second fridge."
Zelos took Lloyd's hand, feeling the warmth of his skin and the burrs of his calluses under his fingers, and when he smiled, it reached all the way up to his eyes. He glanced over at Sheena, who was smiling as well, and let Lloyd tug them over to the dance floor.