boys' night out

I think I can manage being collateral damage

Once the aviator might have pointed out what he took to be a fairly obvious lie on Koa's part, though Dahlia's kiss as much as his time around Isla had given him the tools to know when certain falsities were worth untangling and when they weren't.

"Well, she isn't mine." Ever is quick to correct, glancing across Mateo in order to raise his eyebrows emphatically at Koa. "She's most definitely her own person, even if we are together." You see? There's still a bit of the old aviator in there. "That said..." Dimples appear beneath the scruff on Ever's cheeks, and though his fingers itch at one of them as if he might make it disappear, it only deepens in response to his growing smile. "Things are going very well. I don't have anything to compare it to in terms of any other relationship like this, but...I've never been happier."

Itching at the collar of his shirt, Ever's fingers drop to where his heart was--his actual heart, his hand wasn't all the way to the side where hearts are normally drawn on chests. "I've thought about how to describe the feeling of being in love with her, to say those words and have her say them back...to doing nothing with her and yet having it feel like the best way to spend my time..." Bashfully the aviator shrugs, realizing that he'd been rambling. "I'm not sure I'll ever be able to figure it out." He admits with a shrug, though the way merely thinking about the Remedy had smoothed away all the lines of tension from his face and how he'd not been able to keep his smile contained since he began speaking of her said more than he'd ever be able to about just how well things were going.

.

I'm bringin' sexy back
Them other fuckers don't know how to act

"Sure, but you also mean something to each other that's kinda a belonging, right?" Too good-naturedly stubborn to let Ever's pedanticism win in this instance, Koa splays his hands. "Like, Pip's her own dragon, but she's still mine, y'know? You chose Isla. Gave her a little bit of you to keep. That means you're hers, and she's yours." He exhales a dreamy sigh.

The way Ever's face lights up as he discusses the Remedy is unmistakable, and Koa finds himself watching on with something akin to awe. It's so pure, in a way that his relationship with Flora had never been, that his brief fling with Soh never got to be. Affecting an air of bittersweet longing, the Dragoon turns to Mateo with a pout. "See, Teo? See? It's so damn beautiful. Why can't we have that? I want it," the young man sulks prettily, grasping for his friend's hand in a way that could make the ignorant bystander suspect it's Mateo's love the for which the Dragoon yearns.

Koa Carpenter

If that's your girl, better watch your back
'Cause she'll burn it up for me, and that's a fact

Mateo

Should'a seen what I wore
I had a cane and a party hat

Koa is already waxing poetics about the nature of Isla and Everest's relationship, such that Mateo absolutely doesn't feel the need to add fuel to that particular fire. Even so, having never heard the aviator speak about someone in that way, he can't help the warm smile that spreads across his face, clearly finding Ever's expression contagious. "I am very happy for you, Ever. Some things do not need to be said with words, I think--" Cut off by the dragoon's dramatics, Mateo almost staggers under the tug of Koa's hand.

"Wh-- I do not want it!" he barks out through a laugh, trying and failing to peel the other boy away from him. "Beautiful as it might be, I am perfectly content with not belonging to anybody. Now come on - I do want to see those stars." It might be almost impossible at this point to usher Koa up towards the Spyglass, but then again, he hasn't got anywhere else to be. It can take all night, for all he cares.

~FIN

I was the king of this hologram
where there's no such thing as getting out of hand