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“Gods,” Lambert sighs and leans back, eyes closed in blissful relaxation. “A vacation. How long’s it been since the last?”
Aiden laughs and reaches for his drink – pink and frilly and utterly unapologetic. “You act like you have the worst life and never get vacations.”
“Yeah,” Coën says and reaches for a drink of his own, a bottle of dark beer, just the right amount of bitter to be refreshing in the slowly cooling summer evening, “must be horrible to get to blow things up for a living every day.”
“Hm,” Lambert says, but there’s a smile playing around his lips, “it’s not every day. And – it’s also not all fun and rainbows and explosions. I do design my experiments, and they take lots of thoughts.” He nods with heavy emphasis, though his serious demeanour is harmed somewhat by the fact he still has his eyes closed.
“Still get to explode shit,” Aiden says, swirling the ice cubes around his glass with soft clinking sounds.
Lambert harrumphs. “Not on purpose,” he complains, “and it’s never a good sign if a new compound explodes.”
Coën snorts at the image. “Have you thought about, dunno, seeing if a weapons manufacturer’s hiring? All the blowing up you could want.”
Lambert grimaces and cracks one eye open to glare at Coën. “No,” he says with obvious disgust and closes his eye again. “Even with all the explosions in the world – and all the money – I wouldn’t want to do that.”
“Fair.”
Aiden sits up and reaches for the cooler box, pulling out bottles in an array of too-bright colours. He starts mixing them together expertly, the result the same shade progression as the setting sun behind Lambert.
“But enough about jobs – and no, that’s not an invitation to start talking about university.”
Aiden laughs, sets the finished drink in front of Lambert, and starts filling his own glass. “But between work and studying, we’ve barely seen you!”
Lambert opens both eyes ever so slightly. “And if you keep talking about it, you won’t see me now either,” he promises.
Aiden raises both his hands in a placating gesture. “Okay, okay. Can I… offer you peace in the form of a drink?”
Lambert opens his eyes properly and eyes the drink in front of him with a healthy heaping of suspicion. Coën takes a pull from his beer to hide his grin, without too much success. Neither of the other two are paying him attention though.
“Is that… a Tequila Sunrise?”
Aiden shrugs at his own glass. “Or a Touchdown. Your choice.”
“Tempting,” Lambert says, “but what about shots?”
Aiden scoffs. “We’re not here to drink ourselves into oblivion, Lam, we’re here to have a very nice evening. And I thought we had … plans that might benefit from staying mostly sober.” He waggles his eyebrows meaningfully, grinning delightedly when he catches Coën’s expression. It must be horribly indulgent; if it is, it’s more than deserved.
Lambert scrunches his face. “It’s not like you need to be concerned with whisky dick,” he points out, but it’s said for completeness’s sake and not out of a belief that it will change Aiden’s mind. They both know better than expecting that.
Aiden raises one eyebrow and leans back with his Touchdown in hand. “I’m not fucking you while you’re drunk. That way lies injury.”
Lambert sighs but takes the Tequila Sunrise to clink it against Aiden’s glass. “No shots,” he says mournfully, “we’re terrible uni students.”
“Not in uni.” Aiden takes a sip and grins.
“And I have a beer,” Coën defends himself and leans forward to tap the bottle in question against their cocktail glasses, “so at least I’m keeping up the reputation of engineering students everywhere.”
They share a laugh as they sip their drinks, lapsing into soft quiet. That’s the mark of a good relationship, Coën thinks: being able to be quiet together. It doesn’t last too long, but it is a nice change of pace. They fall into easy conversation after a while, miraculously finding topics that have nothing to do with jobs or uni. It’s deserved; Coën is waiting to hear back on the final edits for his Master’s thesis, and while he thankfully hasn’t had to concern himself with exams since he started that, Lambert’s seemed gruelling enough just by association.
Night falls around them with the unhurried speed of inevitability, and it’s almost too comfortable to get up. But he has a plan, and also needs to piss, which is what finally gets him moving.
“Be right back,” he tells them as he goes to relieve himself. Neither Lambert nor Aiden spare him more attention than a brief smile, too caught up in another old argument. Their voices follow him all the way into the house they’ve rented for the weekend, a familiar and comfortable backdrop that settles a smile onto his face.
He makes a detour through the kitchen; he doesn’t think the other two noticed when they checked out the supplies in the vacation house, but there is a chocolate fondue set. What else was Coën supposed to do but put the appropriate chocolate and fruit onto their grocery list?
He makes quick work of cutting everything up while the little fondue pot filled with chocolate heats over the tealight, stealing only a few bites as he goes. He manages to locate a tray, piling everything on and balancing it carefully on his way outside.
“Took you long enough,” Aiden says, the pupil of his good eye dilated in the dark. When he takes in Coën’s bounty, he sits up fast enough that his chair comes precariously close to toppling. Lambert saves him the indignity with a shake of his head.
“And you used to be a gymnast.”
Aiden sniffs. “Used to be,” he says, like the reasons he stopped have any bearing on almost toppling.
Before the two of them can derail the evening into another argument, Coën places the tray down and brandishes three fondue forks. “No squabbling, or these are all for me.”
His partners squawk and make grabby hands for the forks. Coën takes one, spears a bit of banana, dunks it into the pot, and eats it with obvious relish. He does hand over the forks afterwards – mainly because Lambert looks about ready to vault the table and forcibly get his, and wouldn’t that be a waste of perfectly good chocolate?
Between the three of them, the fruit and chocolate are gone in no time. Lambert takes the pot off the little fondue stove to clean out the last bits of chocolate with his finger like the heathen he is, which leaves the stove itself as a tiny table light. Somehow, that makes it feel even more like summer than everything else – the flickering tealight pours out of the air holes in the stove, casting shapes against the table that get ever more fantastical.
Coën itches for his sketchbook but – it seems rude, in a way, to start sketching during such a beautiful evening together.
In the end, his partners make the choice for him. Lambert licks his finger clean, the little pot in his hand entirely spotless. Aiden’s gaze is trained on him, hungry, and when Lambert misses a speck of chocolate at the corner of his mouth, Aiden leans in and takes care of it for him.
Coën watches them fondly. They make a cute picture together, Lambert with his head tipped back, jaw cradled in Aiden’s hands as they kiss. He does take his sketchbook out then, getting the bare bones onto the page before they move on to other pursuits.
“Gods, please – tell me you packed your harness.”
Aiden scoffs between two soft kisses to Lambert’s face. “What do you take me for? An unprepared nitwit?”
Lambert laughs even as he surges into another kiss. “You forgot to pack your charger, Aiden.”
“But I would never forget the important things,” Aiden says primly and pulls Lambert from his seat. “Are you joining us?” he asks Coën, eyes luminous in the tealight.
Coën considers it for a moment. “Not tonight,” he says. They are pretty to watch, but he is comfortable out here and doesn’t feel any sort of pressing need.
Aiden smiles and rounds the table to press a kiss to his lips, chaste and sweet. Coën is tempted to deepen it – he does enjoy kissing, most of the time – but that’s a good way to get his body excited, too, and he just doesn’t want to bother with that today. Lambert swoops in for a similarly soft kiss.
“Well, if you change your mind – you’re always welcome.”
Coën tips his head back and smiles up at them. “I know. I’ll be in in a bit.” He leers at them as best as he can. “And now off with you, go have fun.” He puts a bit of scepticism into his voice just to hear them laugh, and watches them scamper off, hands already roving, utterly engrossed in each other. They make such a beautiful picture, and while Coën can definitely admire the view, he is more than glad that they aren’t put out that he doesn’t join them.
How did he get so lucky with two such understanding partners?