“Looking at me?” Tech said faintly.
“Sure you’re pretty well built we all keep in good shape right so what’s not to look at plus you’re cuter than Duck or Slam by a long shot.”
“I’m cute?”
“Jeez Tech don’t make me say it twice okay a guy’s got some pride ya know.” Despite his words, Rev looked more amused than anything else, leaning one arm back on his chair and grinning widely.
Tech stared at him, and felt a familiar prickling of attraction. Sure, the fast-talking bird was annoying, sometimes, but he was also the least pretentious of the group, and though he didn’t have Ace’s muscular build, he was pretty sleek and definitely sexier than anyone but the head bunny. And sure, Tech had had those thoughts, but he’d been celibate since getting his powers (okay, since well before getting his powers), and it was pretty unusual for him not to get those thoughts about any nicely built guy he was hanging around.
And of course, once he admitted to those feelings of attraction, all his talking skills went right out the window. “So, uh, what, I mean, are you, like, uh… what are you saying?”
Rev flicked his wing, making the feathers ripple down it to his hand as it spread open. “Not saying anything just that if you wanted a little help relaxing sometime you could just ask not for like some kind of long relationship or nothin’ but just friends helpin’ friends know what I mean?”
“Friends helping friends.” Tech giggled and covered his muzzle to stop himself. He looked at Rev, who was grinning, but earnest, and dang if he wasn’t feeling more than a little interested. “You serious?”
The roadrunner flicked his eyes up to the ceiling. “I figure you got a way to turn the cameras off or at least make ’em look somewhere else for a bit don’tcha?”
Tech followed his gaze up. “Oh yeah,” he said. “That’s easy. And I can lock the doors too.” He looked back down and saw Rev grinning wider, head tilted slightly to one side. When the roadrunner didn’t say anything, Tech said, “What?”
“Well what are you waiting for?”
The coyote laughed, a short, sharp chuckle, and got up, amazed at how his heart was pounding. I feel like a teenager again, he thought, and part of his mind spun off to wonder if that effect could be induced synthetically, and if it would really make people feel young again, and then whether feeling young was just about being uncertain and insecure, and deciding probably not, but in combination with a Revitalizer, it could produce a definitely interesting effect. And while his mind was occupying itself happily with that problem, his shaky body was tapping in a few lines of code to divert the security cameras away from a certain region of the control room where there happened to be a comfortable couch. With the flick of a couple switches, he locked the doors, and for good measure, he activated another little device that the rest of the team didn’t know about, a time delay on Zodavia’s calls that she’d given him after he’d complained about his concentration being interrupted.
When he turned, Rev was tapping his fingers on the arm of the chair; at least, he assumed that’s what the blur of his hand was. Tech walked over to the couch and sat in the middle of it. He looked up at the ceiling and then over at Rev. “So, uh,” he said, “this is…”
A red blur streaked through the room and then Rev was standing over him as he said the last word, “safe.”
“Safe huh?” Rev grinned and hooked his fingers under the bottom of his lycra shirt and peeled it off in one smooth motion, dropping it to the floor next to the couch. He smoothed the feathers down on his chest and plopped himself down in one corner of the couch, leaving about a foot of space between him and the coyote. “Come on over then,” he said, patting the couch beside him.
Tech looked over, and shifted on the couch as he felt his groin stirring. Rev was really into it, and he was really going to get… what? He didn’t know what friends did, as opposed to what boyfriends or girlfriends did. Should he move over right away? He didn’t want to appear too eager, but then again, Rev had told him to. He scooted over a few inches closer, and Rev reached over to grab his arm. “Hey,” he said, but allowed himself to be dragged up against the roadrunner.
Rev’s body was warm, the feathers soft where their arms touched. “C’mon relax,” he said, his hands flickering down Tech’s side. “You wanna enjoy this right?”
“That is the point of… heehee!” He squirmed, giggling despite his tension at the flicker of fingers on his stomach. “Hey!”
The roadrunner chuckled behind him, slowing his fingers down and rubbing more firmly. “Sorry didn’t know you were ticklish that better?”
“Yeah, that’s nice.” He closed his eyes at the soft, delicate touch gliding over his lycra uniform.Then the fingers were wriggling inside the uniform and pushing through the fur underneath. “Uh… Rev?”
“What am I going too fast?” Rev laughed. “We’re not on a date here right we both know what we want.”
“Yeah, I guess.” And the fingers did feel good, very good. It had been a long time. Tech lay back and tried not to worry about whether his stomach was as trim as Rev’s; it wasn’t, of course, because he didn’t run around all the time. The rate at which Rev burned off calories was phenomenal, though of course the super-powered part of his speed didn’t burn off calories in the usual way. Tech had done tests of the bio-electrical part of the super powers of each of them, and… and…
“Rev?”
The fingers that had slid down past his waistband paused, and then kept going, down the side of his
