Alexis cleared her throat and rubbed a hand over her face, trying to catch her breath after her fit of laughter had finally passed. She felt… better. Less tightly wound and more settled now that she’d seen evidence of Urahara— of Kisuke’s clear interest in both helping them and in getting closer to Erich.

Even if this relationship never turned into a proper triad, she felt more certain than ever that she and Kisuke could share Erich without issue.

(Now, to make sure they all had a chance to get away with it…)

“I can’t believe you’re making us have this conversation,” Erich mock-grumbled once he’d gotten his own breathing under control. “A bit of warning would have been nice, Lexi.”

Alexis snorted but inclined her head, knowing that Erich had a point. “Would you have agreed to have this conversation if I had?”

Erich hesitated a moment, turning her words over in his mind, then slowly nodded. “It’s… it makes sense to, I understand your reasoning and I’m not really mad but…”

“You were blindsided. Unprepared and uncertain because of it,” she filled in for him.

“Yeah…”

She rose from her seat and moved to his side, bending over to pull him into an awkward hug. “Sorry, love,” she murmured in his ear as she felt his arms wrap around her. “I didn’t… entirely plan this out, but I should have at least warned you that I was going to probably bring it up if Kisuke seemed amendable.”

Erich made a noise of acknowledgment, his arms tightening around her, and said, “It would have been nice, but… it’s alright. I think… I think I’m okay now. You’re nervous too, aren’t you?”

“I am,” she agreed without hesitation, tipping her head to brush a kiss along his jawline. “If this doesn’t go well…”

“There’s always a risk in everything we do,” Erich reminded her as he pulled back a bit to be able to look up at her. “We’ve made it this far, past the end of magic as we knew it and into a new era. We’ll make it through this, too.”

“Together,” she murmured as she lifted a hand to cradle the back of Erich’s head, enjoying the feel of his soft hair running through her fingers. “We—”

The sound of the door sliding open caught both of attention, and they turned to look—

“O-oh! Uhm… sorry for interrupting…?” Kisuke said as he stared at them in surprise, a tray with a teapot and some cups on it in his hands. “Uh… I can leave?”

Alexis huffed a laugh and straightened up to smile at Kisuke. “It’s alright, you weren’t interrupting anything. I was simply apologizing to Erich for springing this discussion on him without warning. Which— I do apologize. I’m afraid I let my desire to square the details away get ahead of my manners. If you’d rather step back and continue this conversation later we certainly can.”

Kisuke blinked at her, slow and startled like a cat, then slid his gaze over to Erich and tilted his head slightly in what she assumed was a silent question.

“I’m fine with continuing if you are,” Erich said. “Alexis said it before, but you do have a say in this, Ura— Kisuke. We don’t have to continue if you don’t want to. The question about sleeping arrangements was… honestly more important than most of the rest.”

“‘Than most of the rest’?” Kisuke asked curiously, stepping further into his lab and using a foot to slide the door closed behind him. “What else did you want to discuss?”

“Physical boundaries in public and private,” Alexis answered immediately as she glanced around the lab. A stool caught her eye, and she set the single book on it onto the table nearby and dragged the stool into the space between their chairs. “Good enough makeshift table, I think,” she said with a grin, gesturing for Kisuke to bring the tray over and set it down.

“I’m… not quite sure I understand,” Kisuke admitted with a grimace as he set the tray down and began to fidget with the teapot and cups.

Alexis watched him toy with the items on the tray for a moment, considering her words before she gently said, “We’re going to need to portray a certain level of closeness and familiarity in public, but we need to make sure we don’t make each other uncomfortable in the process. Similarly, in private, we don’t want to overstep either, even if our only agreement right now is a word or a phrase to indicate when we want space.”

The startled look Kisuke gave her was all she needed to slot a few more pieces in place; either he’d never been in a romantic relationship before or he’d never formally discussed boundaries before, and both options made her want to pull the man into a hug. The first simply because it meant his first experience with a romantic relationship was going to be a pretense, and the second because she couldn’t imagine not having even a basic discussion about boundaries at some point.

“I don’t often like to kiss in public,” Erich said before Alexis could figure out what she wanted to say. His words drew Kisuke’s attention to him and made the man’s expression shift towards consideration instead of surprise. “It feels too… private for most situations, unless I know and trust everyone around me. That’s one of my boundaries.”

“I’ve seen you both kiss each other’s hands before,” Kisuke half-asked, half-stated, his curiosity plain to see. “Is that different, or…?”

“A bit different,” Erich admitted as he rose to his feet and stepped closer to them. “It’s not as intimate, or as likely to make me drop my guard.” He held out his hand, palm up, to Kisuke and waited patiently until Kisuke slowly set his hand in Erich’s.

Alexis watched in amusement as surprise-uncertainty-wonder flickered across Kisuke’s face as Erich lifted the man’s hand and brushed a kiss against his knuckles. She knew what Erich’s favored ‘public’ kiss felt like, a bare brush of lips and warmth against her skin, a slight tightening of Erich’s hand around hers, the soft promise in his eyes of later—

His expression might not be quite the same as the one she knew, but… the sheer focus he was giving Kisuke was more than enough. She knew it was probably just Erich watching to make sure he wasn’t overstepping himself, but it was so easy to mistake it for something else, something more intimate—

Red flooded Kisuke’s cheeks, his eyes wide and his attention fixed as Erich straightened up and ran a thumb over Kisuke’s fingers just below where he kissed.

“Too much?” Erich asked with a slight frown, moving as if to release Kisuke’s hand. “I’m s—”

“N-no! No, it’s fine, just a bit unexpected is all,” Kisuke said, voice a touch higher than before. His hand tightened on Erich’s to prevent Erich from pulling away, then he carefully adjusted his grip so he was holding Erich’s hand and almost hesitantly lifted it towards his mouth. When Erich didn’t protest or pull away, Kisuke pressed a kiss to his knuckles.

Erich swallowed, tongue flicking out to wet his lips. “Uhm… yes. Like that,” he forced out, clearly scrambling for words. His gaze darted to Alexis, an edge of panic in his eyes, and—

She hummed, trying not to laugh at either of them, and calmly said, “I don’t like people touching my hair or my neck unless we’re in private, and I never like my throat being touched.” An easy enough offering, and one that distracted Kisuke from Erich at least a little considering the man’s attention was on her. Though… they still hadn’t let go of Erich’s hand.

(Were they being willfully blind to the other’s reactions?)

(This was absurd.)

“Maa, I don’t… really know?” Kisuke said nervously, glancing between them as if waiting for them to condemn him for it. “I don’t like my hair being pulled but I don’t… I don’t know if there’s anything else?”

Alexis shrugged and flicked a hand as if to wave away his worries. “It’s fine, no one knows everything about themselves. If you find something that you don’t like, even if it’s just a mild discomfort, let us know and we’ll make sure to not do it again unless you ask us to.”

Erich cleared his throat and arched an eyebrow at her when she looked his way. “You forgot one of your own.”

She frowned at him, trying to remember what he meant; anything else she could think of was bedroom specific and thus well beyond the bounds of their current conversation, so what…?

“Crowds and being trapped?” he prompted.

“Right.” Alexis pursed her lips and glanced down, annoyed with herself; it wasn’t exactly a boundary in the same sense as the rest they’d talked about, but with two partners the chances of her claustrophobia triggering had certainly increased. “Sometimes, if I’ve been stressed or have had to deal with crowds for long periods of time, I can’t handle being boxed in. It’s not a slight against you, or me wanting space from you specifically, it’s me not being able to handle close proximity at all from anyone.”

A slight furrow formed between Kisuke’s eyes as he considered her, and he cautiously asked, “But you’re fine with sleeping together…?”

“It doesn’t happen often. When it does, I either sleep somewhere else or shove a pillow between Erich and I.” She smiled a bit at Kisuke’s skeptical look, both amused and pleased at him taking the conversation so seriously. “Two people I trust is rarely enough to trigger it, unless I’ve been very stressed. I will let you both know if I find that it is too much for me, and we’ll work something else out.”

“Well… if you’re certain,” Kisuke murmured, then glanced down and finally seemed to notice that he was holding Erich’s hand still. He twitched, sent a panic-edged glance Erich’s way, and tried his best to casually let go.

Erich’s puzzled glance at Kisuke was almost enough to send Alexis into gales of laughter, but she bit her lip and looked away, refusing to give in.

(These two would only resist harder if she reacted to their absurd little byplay.)

(This was going to be a long, long adventure, she could feel it…)

“How about we call this discussion good for now?” Alexis asked once she had herself under control again. “We can sit down, have some treats, and talk about less dramatic things, hm?”

“R-right,” Erich agreed hastily, taking a step to the side and dragging his chair closer in order to sit down.

Kisuke flashed her a grateful look, then smiled at both of them and began to pour the tea into the cups. “No worries about eating any of this,” he told Erich airily. “I know how you feel about my efforts, so I asked Tessai since he was still up.”

“Oh good, we don’t have to worry about food poisoning,” Erich said dryly as he accepted his cup and settled back in his chair, ignoring the way it creaked in protest. “I appreciate that.”

Kisuke rolled his eyes and offered Alexis a cup. “The things I put up with,” he said with a huff, tone exasperated but eyes gleaming with amusement. “Do you get this sass too?”

“I have never done a thing warranting his sass,” Alexis answered, ignoring the way Erich sputtered and fixed her with a baleful glare. “Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying.”

Kisuke laughed and sat back down, cradling his cup of tea in his hands. “Somehow I doubt Re—Erich sees it that way.”

“I don’t,” Erich muttered into his cup, then glanced up through his eyelashes to fix her with a fake innocent look. “But since my beloved feels that way, surely she won’t mind me telling a few stories, hmm?”

Alexis bared her teeth at him. “Only if you don’t mind me telling a few stories as well, hmm?”

They stared at one another, watching, waiting for the other to back down, but—

They didn’t.

They wouldn’t.

(And they both knew it.)

Erich smiled at her, slow and sharp and teasing, and turned his gaze to Kisuke. “Back when we were little…”