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Shatterstar strides right up to Monet, and Rictor just cringes, because the kitchen of their new headquarters is not really the place for this kind of thing. But Star cannot be swayed with any dirty looks, especially when he's not even paying attention.
"Hello," he says. "I am Shatterstar."
"Monet St. Croix," Monet replies, looking permanently bored in a very fashionable and attractive way.
Shatterstar sweeps her dark hair behind her ear and then cups her head. She doesn't actually fight back when he dips her slightly into a kiss, but Rictor still hides his eyes in case Star is about to get telekinetically decked by an indignant Monet.
It doesn't happen, though, Monet just smoothes her hair and smudges her lipstick.
"You're alright," she tells Shatterstar. "I suppose."
"Rictor," she says.
He stands up a little straighter.
"How do you feel about this?" she asks. Before he can even answer Monet is pressing into his space and pushing him into the kitchen counter with her hips pressed tight to his.
"Uhm," he says, brilliantly. He can't help stare down her cleavage, because even though there are only five inches of it looks like it might be a mile, just a mile of soft brown cleavage leaning very close to his flannel shirt. Rictor swallows.
Then Monet's lips are against his mouth, her tongue pressing at his lips and then slipping past them. It's just plain sneaky.
Eventually Monet pulls away and Rictor thinks he might not be able to look at her for the rest of the week, because he got hard from just a little kiss with only a little bit of tongue. This is exactly why Monet St. Crois is terrifying, why all women like her are terrifying.
"Your boyfriend's a better kisser," Monet tells Shatterstar, but Rictor only dimly hears it. "Even though he needs to shave."
Shatterstar smiles proudly at Rictor and says, "You are a much better kisser."
It would be much easier for Rictor to be jealous if Star had the decency to understand that everything that happened from the moment he introduced Star and Monet was not okay. Instead he's even more painfully charming to Rictor than to every single person they meet. Here Rictor thought it was some kind of overcompensation, but apparently it's…
He doesn't really get a chance to think too deeply about it and that's just how Shatterstar wants it. He can see the dark shadows in Rictor's eyes, something deeper and sadder than he's dealt with before. Rictor's hiding his thoughts so deeply that Star doesn't even know where to begin to ask and, with Rictor, he's afraid to ask the wrong questions. So why should he rely on speaking, which has never been his strong point, when he can communicate so much more effectively with his body?
He's pressing Rictor to the kitchen counters just exactly as Monet did and kissing away the expensive taste of her make up. There's a chemical scent of perfume that Shatterstar is not very fond of and he finds himself kissing across Rictor's cheek into a place behind his ear, almost in his hairline.
"Oh goodness!" someone gasps. "You know people eat here?"
They both recognize the voice as Terry and as much as some very young part of Rictor startles and tries to pull away there is really nowhere for him to go.
"Hello Theresa!" Star says cheerily from somewhere in the fall of Rictor's hair.
"I'm serious," she tells them. "Keep this kind of thing to couches and bedrooms, not the kitchen counter. If you start then everyone will get the wrong idea and I'll never get a cup of tea in peace."
She moves around them to pull out a box of Celestial Greetings from the cabinet to the right of their heads. She finds her electric kettle, fills it, and plugs them in while Shatterstar chews on Rictor's neck and Ric looks more and more like he's going to bust out laughing.
"Star," Ric says. "Seriously, Star."
"Well," Terry says as the kettle heats up. "At least you're mature enough not to jump three feet away from Shatterstar any time someone enters a room."
"I never did that," Rictor says. Against the base of his neck, Star laughs.
"But I'm serious, if Layla sees you she's going to think she can make out with Jamie in public areas and, really boys, no one wants to see that."
Rictor makes a face.
"Okay, Star, you can stop now," he says. Shatterstar stops immediately and even has the decency to look a little flustered by all this trouble they've been getting up to.
"Nice to see you again," Terry says.
"Yes, it's really a pleasure," Star replies, still holding onto Rictor.
"You can come back in a few minutes," Terry tells them both. "I understand. I'll still be here."
"Thank you," they both say and then rush out of there so fast it's hard to say who is dragging who.
A half hour later, they come back with damp hair and different clothes. It feels just like old times, living in the X-Mansion and being young again. Simpler, easier, happier times that Terry remembers fondly over her second cup of tea. She's pulled out a Tupperware full of brownies that someone made for the moving in; it's still half full.
Shatterstar's face is pink and Rictor has actually shaved, though he'll be scruffy again by tomorrow and won't think to shave again until someone like Monet makes a point of it. Terry smiles at them, but Star sees something dark behind her eyes too. He feels like he's missed out on too much, as Rictor and Terry are a team again—sharing in things that can never really be explained to someone who wasn't there when it happened—and he's been gone.
"I feel like we haven't gotten a chance to talk," Terry says. "We've all been so busy moving house."
She pours Shatterstar a cup of tea while Rictor goes over to smack the coffee maker around until it makes him a cup of very strong, dark coffee.
"How have you been?" Star asks her first. She takes a brownie and thinks that question over for a minute.
"That's sort of a heavy question," she tells him.
"I understand," he tells her. She can't help but smile at him, fairly certain that he doesn't really understand.
"What have you been doing all these years?" she asks him in reply.
"Mercenary work," he admits. "In Madripoor and other war zones. Spent some time in Mojoworld."
Terry sighs. "Oh, Star."
"Not worth the mothering, Terry," Rictor comments from the sidelines. "He doesn't get it."
"Shush you," she tells him. "It works on you just fine."
"Yeah, but I'm actually upset about everything that happened in the past few years," Rictor admits.
She looks at him, realizing that that's kind of a big thing for him to say, but it's just them in the kitchen and there may be no three people in the state, maybe the country, that Rictor knows or likes better.
"Well," she says. "As long as no one here's pretending that we're still teenagers—"
And then she starts to try, just try, to tell Star everything that's happened since he's been gone—since they all three know that Rictor wouldn't do it in a million years. He wouldn't even think to.
Hours and hours later, with cartons of Chinese food strewn around them, Terry and Star and Ric are feeling like healthy, well-adjusted, happy human beings. Then Jamie and Layla come back from wherever they went out to dinner and break the illusion.
Reigning in her jealousy, Terry turns on Jamie and says, "You owe me twenty dollars."
"What?" he asks, giving her a look.
"Shatterstar?" Terry asks. "Are you gay?"
"No," he says simply.
"Rictor?" she asks.
"We've been over this," he says, petulantly.
"Alright then," Terry says. "You owe me twenty."
Jamie looks at Rictor and Shatterstar, sitting at his kitchen table and holding hands and totally reminding him that he did make some bet about them being gay and damnit he's right, but he can't really argue that he meant it like "They're gay together."
He sighs and pulls out his wallet.
"So who wants to hit the bar tonight?"
"Your response to losing money on a dumb bet you shouldn't have made is to lose more money by buying us all alcohol?" Layla asks.
"Yeah, of course," Rictor offers. "This is Jamie we're talking about."
"I wish I'd made a bet with someone," Jamie says over beers. "Cause then I'd have the twenty bucks I need to pay for these beers."
"Who would honestly take that bet, though?" Layla asks. "I mean, it's Rictor."
He shoots her a sour look.
"You still haven't explained why you have boobs," he mutters under his breath.
"Because," she tells him. "I'm from the future."
"And everyone's got boobs in the future?" he snaps back.
"Yeah," she smiles. "Yours look really good." She winks at Shatterstar. He smiles back blithely.
Jamie and Rictor both tilt their head in exact same way and then, slowly, their faces twist into more and more disturbed expressions.
"I know she's lying but…"
"Oh thank God," Rictor says. "I mean, that would be pretty ridiculous, but for five seconds there."
By now Shatterstar and Layla are charming one another with some conversation about the literary merits, or lack thereof, in the novels of Dan Brown. Shatterstar, of course, has only seen the movies and then only small parts of them. Also a few glimpses of a History Channel documentary on how very wrong Brown is and a few more glimpses on how wrong he isn't.
Jamie cracks open another beer and hands it over to Rictor.
"So are you two actually going to get married?" Ric asks, nodding towards Layla.
"Maybe," Jamie admits. "She still thinks so."
"That's gotta be weird."
"Rictor," Jamie says, like he's trying to say so much more. Ric looks square at him with a challenging tilt to his chin.
"What?" he asks, taking a swig from the neck of the bottle.
"My relationship is weird?"
"Eh, whatever," Rictor takes a drink. "I'm used to it by now."
"Yeah," Jamie drawls. "Sure."
It's good to have Shatterstar back, Rictor decides, because there's someone bigger than him to collapse on when he stumbles home drunk. Someone big and strong and sober. And warm, he recognizes as they snuggle under the covers. He's missed that. No matter how long he spends this far North, and no matter how much he prefers it to Mexico, he'll never get used to winter.
"Good night," Rictor mumbles into Star's collarbone. "I love you."
"I love you too, Rictor," Shatterstar says into the dark. "Sleep well."
It's such a good way to fall asleep, they could really get used to it.
Rictor wakes up with terrible dry mouth and a headache in an empty, but warm bed. He cracks open an eye and surveys the room. No sign of Shatterstar, so he must be either setting up the gym so he can work there or the gym is set up already and he's working out there. Either way, it's sweet that Star just let him sleep. He stumbles out of bed for a shower and then some toast.
"Hi," Longshot snags him before his toast can pop up. He's really not at his best, but then Longshot goes on with this:
"It's not really something I can be certain of, but I've always thought of Shatterstar as my son."
Ric shoots him a silent "Where are you going with this?" look.
"But I think you're really a great guy, Rictor, I mean, really, so just… uhm."
Longshot claps him awkwardly on the shoulder a little too hard. Rictor doesn't hide the wince, mostly because it's not yet seven in the morning and he's slightly hungover and hungry. He couldn't hide a wince if he wanted to.
"Have a good morning!" Longshot concludes and then hurries off.
"Some people," Ric mutters to himself and fishes his cooling toast out of the toaster.
Longshot wanders back to the gym where he was previously attempting to bond with Shatterstar, or something like that. It was a little less awkward then trying to talk to Shatterstar's, uhm, boyfriend.
"Hey Shatterstar," Guido says, dropping a very, very large weight.
"Yes?" Shatterstar asks from the floor where he's doing some kind of bizarre yogic push-ups.
"I may not be totally cool about it, but if you break Rictor's heart and I'll break your face."
"That is a perfectly acceptable agreement," Shatterstar tells him.
"Well, good then," Guido replies. "We can be friends."