22 and 62, Erich/Alexis? (Urahara optional :P)

– ven

(22: Space AU, 62: Love Confessor (Char A confessing their love of Char B to Char C)

“I want to wring his neck,” Erich declares as he collapses into the pilot seat and presses a hand to his face. “Charging across half the galaxy in that cobbled together tin can of his..!”

“He did it for you, you know,” Alexis tells him with amusement, draping herself over the back of his seat and digging her fingers into the base of his neck. “You know how he gets, love.”

He groans, letting his head dip forward as Alexis’ clever fingers ease the tension in his neck and shoulders. “Yeah, overprotective. There’s no damn debt between us anymore, he doesn’t need to risk his fool neck just because we get into a bad situation.”

Urahara’s help had been very useful, Erich will admit. An extra ship and an extra pair of eyes certainly shortened the whole sordid adventure by days, but… he knows Urahara’s usual routes through the aether, and they were nowhere near them.

Which means Urahara went out of his way to find them, after somehow discovering they were having problems. Which–

“How does he even know, anyway?” Erich can’t resist asking aloud. He stares at the console in front of him, trying to come up an answer and falling short: Alexis wouldn’t have told the man, Erich certainly didn’t, so that left… “Did he hack our systems and install something? I swear, if that damn man is spying on us…”

Alexis chuckles, her thumb stroking across his spine. Her power flickers through his senses and their connection thrums as she plucks it like the string of some unknown instrument, a note too deep to hear that nevertheless resonates through his bones, safety-surety-love filling every nook and cranny of his being and–

Under it, a softer note, more tentative, more cautious, like a string left too loose for fear of snapping and instead suffering the opposite problem.

Erich stiffens. “He didn’t,” he protests softly, even as Alexis strokes her thumb across the dual connections once more. ‘He wouldn’t have,’ he swallows back in the face of that soft, aching note. Because Urahara clearly had at some point.

(And he’d done nothing against it, encouraged it, even.)

(It explains more than it doesn’t: the mysterious appearances, how they both always knew where the other was, how sometimes he became worried until he could hunt Urahara down once again–)

(He’d never recognized it for what it was because Alexis’ connection had never been subtle, had never curled through his Self like mist, ephemeral and ever-shifting.)

(He hadn’t thought a connection with Urahara would be subtle!)

Alexis laughs at him and leans over his chair just enough to press a kiss right behind his ear. The action is familiar, pointed–

“You knew!” he hisses in offense, twisting around to scowl up at his lover.

“You moon!”

“I do not!”

“‘I wonder what trouble Urahara’s gotten into lately.’ ‘I haven’t heard from him in months, we should take a detour.’ ‘Do you think he’d like to see this?’“ Alexis mocks, her voice high and breathy and filled with laughter.

“I don’t sound like that!” he exclaims as his face burns and he buries it in his hands. But… she’s not as wrong as he’d like to insist. He just doesn’t sound like a lovesick boy in the process. He doesn’t!

Erich breathes out and leans into the hand that presses into the back of his neck, solid and reassuring. For all Alexis’ teasing, she always gives him plenty of time to process when he needs it, and right now he needs it. Because she’s right. He has been mooning, has been unconsciously leaning into a connection he’d forged without realizing, has been continuously turning them back and back again towards a man he outwardly protests at knowing.

No wonder their last few jumps into the aether have been turning… sketchy. Denial never goes over well in a place that reacts to the smallest twist of emotion.

“Do you mind?” he can’t help but ask, lifting a hand and reaching back to curl it around the back of her neck in turn. The pulse of their connection thrums deep and steady beneath his hand, unwavering – unshaken – by his own personal crisis.

(That’s one of the myriad things he loves about her.)

“Of course not.”

“Even if I want… more?” The ties forged between aether-pilots aren’t inherently sexual, but Urahara… the man shines to his senses and always has. He is powerful, intelligent, adaptable and Erich wants that.

(Part of it is his heritage, he knows this.)

(Quincy have ever been able to See better than any other branch of humanity, even Shinigami. It’s his nature to be fascinated by a man who shines so strongly and yet carries so few active ties.)

(Strong powers mean strong ties, which means safer journeys through the aether. Every Quincy desires such assurance.)

(But heritage doesn’t account for everything, and Erich is old enough, wise enough, to admit that.)

(Sometimes he just wants.)

“Then you want more,” Alexis answers with a shrug, stroking the two connections again, filling his Self with the resonance and making him arch into the touch.

He loves when she does that, loves the reassurance of Connection and the way it makes his body hum–

Pounding feet approach the bridge. The door hisses open but not fast enough, jarring as the approaching person slams a shoulder into it and still barrels on.

“What the hell is–!” the words cut off with a sharp intake of breath and Erich freezes, eyes going wide.

(He knows what this looks like: Alexis hand on his neck, his on hers, his body arched and head tipped back, red still painting his cheeks.)

(He knows what this feels like through Urahara’s connection: the strange reflected hum of a plucked connection, unexpected vibrations where none should be, the rush of emotion and the longing for more.)

(Quincy can touch what others cannot even see. Quincy can influence what others can only sense.)

(He’s been told the effect is startling.)

“I think I’ll leave you boys be,” Alexis purrs as she draws away from Erich, mischievous and smug. “Have fun, my love.”

“Lexi–!”

But it’s too late. She whisks past Urahara, giving the stunned man a shove that sends him stumbling closer to Erich’s seat.

Erich stares up at Urahara. Licks his suddenly dry lips. Watches the way Urahara’s attention latches onto the motion. Feels himself settle.

(He isn’t the only one who wants more.)

(Good.)