There's a couch free! Ed more or less immediately wrangles them into a position where his head is in Pete's lap so as to be scritched, his feet dangling over the opposite armrest.

"It was fine! My literature class is going to be poetry-focused this term apparently, something to look forward to. And I spent most of the after-school afternoon in the stacks - I read a really dreadful novella about vampires, which was a fun diversion. How was yours?"

"I had my first German class today! It's exciting, I was trying to track for Ivy League back home so I had to optimize my schedule so much but here I can do a bunch of cool electives-I-mean-optionals, this school is very welcoming of people of my persuasion. Then I went to the thing you guys do instead of tryouts, for rugby, and there were some plotty interactions with Hywel and Sophie and Monika, and then I noticed it had been several hours since I'd seen you last and so I needed to rectify that immediately."

"German! A very respectable language - Pfefferminz-Schneeballen*, those are the words I know of it. I lie, I'd know some others if they came up to me in the street, and there's Danke and Willkomen and... Schadenfreude**, why not. But I think it's the mainstream European language I know the least of... now I'm second-guessing, but whatever."

Edmund nuzzles Pete's leg. "And I missed you too."

"...I'm not sure you're allowed to be this adorable." He might need Ed's help to kiss him from this position but Pete very much needs to kiss his boyfriend right now.

Assistance is available!

"The Schneeballen," he explains once he returns to his resting state, "is a shortcrust pastry - imagine a bunch of scraps of pie dough, rolled up and fried, and filled with various nonsense, and dusted with powdered sugar. Usually it's mincemeat or jam inside, but - we had it when my family took a trip to Bavaria, and I got one with a sort of soft peppermint filling. Hence, the Pfefferminz-Schneeballen."

"Peppermint snowball, is it?"

"Oh - yeah, because of the sugar."

"Maybe I should buy some to try and share. Peppermint sweets are a particular favourite."

"Oh, you like peppermint? A lot of people find it sickly, but I think it's refreshing."

"I think I mentioned I don't like sweets very much, yeah? The thing isn't so much the sugar for me, it's the actual taste, so if there's something to contrast with the sweet taste or reduce it, like something bitter or sour, then tastes a lot better in my opinion.

"...of course, prior to becoming immune to biology I still was reasonably mindful of it because I wanted to look hot so I didn't eat sweets very much but the ones I did eat tended to be, yeah, milder in flavor or have other things in them as offsets."

"...I need to get you some salmiakki. Test your convictions in the crucible of salted licorice."

"You know, I've heard lots of horror stories about salted licorice but never tried any so that sounds like something fun to try."

"An adventure we can share! You directly, me by watching you suffer. ...fair warning, I've had them all of once and I did actually vomit. But you're unhindered by biology, so probably it'll be fine?"

"I don't think I'm unhindered from, like, nausea or—hmm. Now that I think about it I don't actually know. I didn't take the perk that makes me immune to poison or illness and I think none of the others would cover not finding things disgusting to the point of retching?"

"Ah. ...perhaps we'll start with one of the more benign members of the species than what my brother gave me."

"Perhaps that would be wise," he says, lips quirking in amusement. "Unless of course you desire to prank me, which, are we at the point in our relationship where countersignalling becomes available? It's been only a day."

"I mean, that's kind of the whole point, isn't it? I don't in fact expect you to like salmiakki, it's essentially a mislabeled medical product, we're doing this so you can regret your life choices and I can laugh at you about it. But there's degrees of regret involved, and I'd rather oh God, that's foul over get the bucket."

"You know what, challenge accepted, I want to try the awful one."

"...really should've seen that coming. Alright, I'll ask Peter what kind he got and see if I can lay hands on it. To enable you. You lunatic."

"Sounds like an adventure I will regret very much. I can't wait."

Eric's shift was almost over, though, so a few minutes after that he, uh. Kind of... hovers? He is not sure how to interrupt two tiny gays being cute at each other, he was never a tiny gay being cute at another tiny gay so he has no firsthand experience with how awful it would be to be interrupted.

Edmund spots him! He contorts his way into sitting on the armrest, then hops to his feet, in a display of core strength and grace as gratuitous as it is unnecessary.

"Jones! Eric! My blood-brother-in-law! Hello!"

"'Blood-brother-in-law'? Where did you get that from?"

Pete follows Edmund in hupping off the sofa, a bit belatedly.

"Are you trying to tell me that Peter never swore an oath that you were to be joined as kin, possibly while kneeling in a dried-out creekbed after having cut his palm open with a letter-opener stolen from our father's study?"

Aside, to Pete. "Really there's only about a thirty per cent chance, but you have to take the occasional called shot."