Edmund looks up, startled. "Um! Oh, Lake - sure! Let me just -"

He hops out of the chair, folds the book around a scrap of paper, and follows Scorpius wherever he needs to go.

Just a corner here still in view of everyone else except Edmund has enough leeway to hide in the stacks if he for any reason wants to and this is the normal amount of tactics he imbues into every one of his decisions so why does it feel so much more loaded now. "Um," he starts, and seriously, Scorpius, get your stuff together. "So I want to preface this with I still very much like you and want to kiss you more and probably not just kiss and more importantly get to know you as a person and see where this absurd thing here is going but also I fucked Lex just now and I want approximately the same things with him and if I have my way I'll get both. Um."

"Oh thank God."

"—uh?"

"Scorpius, you looked like you were being chased by a grue. Actually, no, you'd be excited about that. Regardless, you fucking Lex is not deserving of the face you had on. And, if you want me to be perfectly honest, I'm glad to not be the only thing you've got going? We don't even know if we're - compatible that way. I want to be your friend and I'm happy to kiss you but I don't want to singlehandedly keep you human unless I have to, and as much of a tool as Lex is, he clearly makes you happy. So you can keep being friends with me and kissing me and possibly initiating me into deeper mysteries if we want that, and you can keep getting whatever it is you get out of Lex out of Lex, and maybe I'll have to make friends with him too but if that's the worst that happens it'll be a small price to pay."

"—good! Great! Yes I don't want anyone to singlehandedly keep me human either and—you know, other people have led me to believe people who aren't me have a lot more trouble with, uh, jealousy stuff than the two of you seem to be... at all... demonstrating."

"I just think... you're going to be sharing me with my family, and my other friends if I ever make any, and I don't see why I should get picky about whether I'm sharing you with someone too."

"That is eminently sensible and I want to kiss you over it except maybe what I mean is that I just want to kiss you in general."

And also, damnit Scorpius you just got your dick wet why do those dark stacks over there look so enticing to you?

"I think that sounds eminently sensible as well." Edmund pecks him on the lips. "Maybe after dinner. I wouldn't want to spoil your appetite. Or your date."

"I am not sure I am exactly on a date but honestly not sure I'm not either this is kinda new to me."

And another peck on Edmund's forehead before he heads back to Lex.

Edmund returns to his reading. He refuses point-blank to field any questions about what he was talking to Scorpius Lake about, but maybe the little smile on his face says it anyway.

"How was the little prince?" Lex asks when Lake approaches. (He hasn't found a seat, obviously.)

"Just fine," he says, and leans down to kiss Lex on the lips, practically humming the song that's clearly in his heart.

eeeeeee

Lex will allow this.

Scorpius narrows his eyes at him. "I'm not sure you're allowed to be this adorable," he says, in mock suspicion. "There must be some rule somewhere."

"You are in very rare company, Lake. The last person to call me adorable was my mother, almost a decade ago, and I pitched an absolute fit about it."

"You can feel free to pitch a fit at me about it, there is plenty of unphysical space between the stacks in here for us, although that would defeat some of the point of library."

"I'm not a child, Lake. I take revenge now."

"That sounds even better."

"Damn it. I was going to say something nice to you to throw you off balance but I'm out of practice."

"You can just kiss me some more instead," Scorpius suggests. "...and then after that maybe we should do homework or something, as per your 'normal people' suggestion."

"The moment's passed," Lex demurs. "Homework it is."

He pulls an unpleasant-looking tome from his bag. "Where shall we sit?"

"New York corner is gonna get people pestering you, I'm half-welcome everywhere else but they might pester you even more, we could just sit on the floor or maybe go hunting for one of those mysterious desks amidst the stacks I've heard about. An adventure!"

"I don't care if people pester me. Do you care if I bite them for it?"

"No, it would be funny."