Oh this is excellent. Okay.

...also he'll get dressed without using his hands, why not, he has superpowers for a reason. On goes the uniform, once again in that carefully sexy arrangement with the unbuttoned shirt tucked into his trousers, without it ever having to cross the space between his backpack and his body.

"Good to go," he tells Edmund.

Edmund is shrugging his shirt on. "Are you seriously telling me you're already -"

"You know, I think I like you with the make-up on too, now."

"Good for me, makes it all the easier to seduce you."

"I'm not sure how much more seduction you imagine me to need. Mere minutes ago I was coated with your spunk."

"And yet you didn't want to kiss me. I will not hold your inevitable attraction to my," gesture, "against you but neither will I count you as completely seduced. Partially seduced, maybe."

"...I do think we're... blocked on some fundamental idea here. I couldn't kiss you because it wouldn't be right yet. I want to kiss you. I just... I need to agree with myself. I can't fall down this hill in one day and come out of it blissfully happy and someone the me of yesterday wouldn't recognize."

"Also, I don't want my first kiss to be in a shower room smelling of Lynx Africa, and I had no concrete opinions on my first frantic mutual wank."

"That's fair enough. I was just being flippant. —first kiss, really?"

"...depends how you count it? In primary school I had a friend who I, um, practiced a bit with, but we never. Opened our mouths. So really it was just putting our faces next to each other."

"Gosh. I'd better make it good, then."

Aah he's kind of nervous now. Which is silly, he barely remembers his own first kiss, it's not that momentous. But still.

Edmund knots his tie, looks at Pete's face, and reaches for his hand.

"It's fine, honestly. I'm not expecting magic, or a choir of angels. Just, I want it to... be something. And not smell of Lynx Africa."

"If nothing else I can guarantee I don't smell of Lynx Africa." He has a superpower that makes him smell ~special~ and ~unique~ and he doesn't actually know what he does smell like since he only picked that power as a prereq for shapeshifting but he is very certain it is not Lynx Africa. If nothing else, that is not unique.

Anyway, yes, he'll hold the cute boy's hand and then they can go.

"You really don't. I haven't sniffed you in any great detail, you understand, but... there is something there, and if Unilever could bottle it, I don't think I'd mind locker rooms as much."

"You really do know how to make a boy feel special."

Happy!

"How late are we going to be, anyway..." Edmund sneaks a look at his phone.

Oh, dear.

Friends In High Places does wonders to improve his control over his own facial expressions. He was pretty good at it already, but you can't really navigate the higher eschelons of society without being a slimy snake a good actor, so he does not in fact immediately betray anything other than mild curiosity with his face.

"You know," Edmund says conversationally, "I haven't done this before. With anyone. And I know that human perceptions are - fiddly. Witness reports are unreliable. People especially can't keep track of time, not really.

"But I did not shower, wank to completion, and get dressed in five minutes."

"...five? Come on, that's pushing it, the narrative really should've gone for ten, that's a lot more realistic. Not, like, totally realistic, but five, is it really that time already?"

"It's a fifteen-minute walk to the cafeteria. You'd know better than I would whether that's relevant, I assume."

"Oh. Yeah, that would in fact be relevant. Damn. You know, I bet if you hadn't looked at your phone we would've been able to get away with being only, like, two or three minutes late at most."

"Will we also mysteriously be on time to supper if you explain what in the bleeding fuck just happened. Not because I won't ask if not, just out of curiosity."

"I don't think so. ...maybe? Would this be relationship-building? It only works if it's relationship-building. We could also talk while we walk, there will almost certainly probably be no eavesdroppers except maybe exactly one person whom I don't mind eavesdropping."

"You know what, explain while we walk. If I have to focus on moving my feet I can't focus as much on implications and really that can only help."