"Tango, you brilliant, brilliant man. I could kiss you." Zed burst into Tango's office, his curly hair disheveled, a stack of madly scribbled-upon graph paper under his arm, and a wide smile plastered on his face.

Tango found himself at a crossroads. On the one hand, he could tease Zed about how a simple mistake in area unit conversions had been what had gotten Zed into that hole of messy broken math. On the other...

"Do it then." He blurted, not really thinking about what he was saying. "I dare you."

He certainly wasn't expecting the kiss Zed planted in the middle of his forehead, nor the gentle warmth that graced his cheeks in response (although he didn't outwardly blush, bless his weird thermoregulation). He looked up from the work he'd been doing, a dreadful slog through a database of new possible exoplanets. Studying the damn things looked fun in the books and the news and the TV and the papers, but honestly right now the dumb grin on Zed's face as he looked down at Tango, still cupping his cheek gently, was far more interesting.

And then the moment was over as soon as it started and Tango chased Zed out of his office with an indignant (if fond) yell. Nobody else paid this much mind; half their coworkers thought he and Zed and Impulse and Skizz were dating. They weren't, of course. They were just friends who happened to rarely spend any time apart outside of work and were comfortable with a little more physical and emotional intimacy than some other friend groups. That was all.

Tango didn't pay the thought of 'just friends' don't do that much mind as he got back to what was essentially babysitting a planet-detecting robot.

———

"Today is Tuesday, the 16th of April, 2024; you're listening to Moonlight Radio - all of the songs you adore; and next up, we have the classic, you know and love it from Mamma Mia!: I Have a Dream, by ABBA..."

Skizz turned up the music as the familiar opening notes of the song washed through the car. The radio station had a bad habit of attributing songs that appeared in jukebox musicals to the musical rather than the actual artist, and the only thing that stopped Tango from going on a 10-minute rant about it every time was turning up the volume so he couldn't even hear himself think. Hence every passing pedestrian having the phrase 'I believe in angels' stuck on loop in their head for the next week.

Oddly, Skizz noticed, he hadn't even heard Tango begin the opening overtures of his rant. Skizz turned around in his seat as the light turned green and Impulse began driving again. Tango was staring out the window, his gaze far-off and a wistful smile ghosting his lips, Zed's and his fingers intertwined. Well, whatever was clearly occupying Tango's mind seemed benign. Skizz would ask later.

———

Impulse walked into his living room, smiling softly at the familiar scene that splayed before him. Zed and Tango were on the couch, Zed burrowed into a half-hug with Tango and Tango's hand running gently though Zed's hair. Skizz, meanwhile, had been banished to the Chair of Shame for crimes of body-slamming the couch again. Unfortunately, the way Zed's legs were splayed meant that there was nowhere clear for Impulse to sit, so he opted for Skizz's lap over the floor. Skizz punched Impulse lightly on the shoulder in reply, but ultimately let him remain.

"What are we?" Tango asked contemplatively, breaking the amicable silence.

"Human." Zed replied simply. Tango gently messed up his hair for that one.

"I meant, like, our relationship."

"We're-" Impulse cut himself off. He was about to say that they were friends, but he realised faintly that the way he was currently sitting wasn't a very 'just friends' sort of thing. "We're not boyfriends." That was probably true. He thought. Having a boyfriend was supposed to feel different, he thought.

"But we're not just friends either." Tango replied.

"No." Skizz agreed.

"I think we're just guys. Like, each other's guys." Zed mumbled, nestling into Tango's hand as the other man continued playing softly with his hair.

"What does that mean?" Tango asked.

"I think it means 'I love you'." Skizz shrugged. "At least, that's what I'd say. I love you, and it doesn't matter what kind of love that love is."

"Yeah." Zed nodded, his eyes half-lidded. "'M your guy."

"I love you all too." Tango whispered, tears of joy and love making his eyes shine.

"It's love." Impulse smiled. "It's love and the type doesn't matter because it's there, right?"

"Well my kinda love," Zed mumbled, "Is a sleepytime kinda love."

With that remark, Zed's eyes closed fully and he fell limply against Tango's side, who lowered Zed's head gently into his laugh as the guys laughed softly. And 'guys' really did, in Impulse's heart, feel like the best description of what they were.

(A few hours later, the doorbell would ring, and Pearl would appear with absurd amounts of soup because she made too much, and Zed would tell everyone about how he and a few of the other people at work had noticed that Pluto's moon was behaving oddly and that's why he'd needed Tango's help with those calculations, and everyone would laugh and everything would be fine. But that was for later.)

———

Impulse awoke gently, the ghost of his dreams still clawing at his consciousness. He missed those days. He missed Earth, and he missed Skizz, and he missed Zed, and-

He was about to feel a pang of grief for missing Tango when he became consciously aware of the slightly-too-warm form wrapped in his arms. Impulse slowly opened his eyes, and was met with Tango's sleepy gaze. For a moment, he let his eyes trace over Tango's features, relearning every subtle detail he'd forgotten in the years since the void of space had apparently snuffed out Tango's life. Except it hadn't. That was going to take some getting used to.

"Morning." Tango whispered. "I can't feel my left arm."

Instantly, Impulse pulled away, not wanting to hurt Tango, until the man in question sat up, grinning, and the blanket fell off of him, revealing the shoulder and cybernetic stump where his left arm wasn't, and Impulse realised he'd been thoroughly tricked, perhaps even bamboozled. He chucked a pillow at Tango as the other man cackled with glee.

"You." Impulse replied. The small spike of his brain weirdness from throwing the pillow made formulating sentences hard, but Tango got the picture simply from Impulse's tone, and replied with a loving-yet-mischievous grin. Impulse ruffled Tango's hair, and the two slowly got themselves up and about through their morning routines. 

Watching Tango, Impulse noticed that the man's habits had only changed a little. Sure, he didn't take his usual morning coffee and made sure to put on a gas mask and his cybernetic arm before leaving, but his routine was otherwise identical to how it was the times Impulse had seen him getting ready after one had ended up sleeping over at the other's house, or they'd both ended up at Zed or Skizz's place. It was comforting.

Tango opened the door, gesturing for Impulse to go first, and the two walked down the corridor of the motel they'd been staying in. Impulse noticed that Tango was carrying a bag holding all the spare clothing Tango had bought him the previous day, and the few other personal belongings they had between them. Impulse made a quiet questioning noise, nodding to the bag, and Tango simply winked cryptically, answering none of Impulse's questions.

Impulse watched as Tango conversed with the person at the desk, and then handed the key to their room over. Impulse didn't speak much Standard Galactic, and what he did know was drowned in the shouts of bloodthirsty crowds and the feeling of fresh cuts and bruises, but he got the strong impression that he and Tango weren't going to be staying in this place much longer. Still, he followed Tango out into the crowded world of waypoint 8. The world for his beloved, and all that.

———

Zed rolled his shoulders self-consciously as he stepped out of the ship, looking around nervously. A spike of anxiety ran through him, and he shrunk back into himself further - there were far too many people here. Sark appeared behind him. Zed looked up at him, the usually-quiet part of his mind that whispered that he couldn't trust the alien a roaring storm. He took a cautious step back, his wings flexing tentatively, when-

"Zeddy?"

Zed froze at the familiar voice, his heart leaping into his throat. He turned towards it, slowly, gingerly, not wanting to have misheard, not wanting to see that Impulse wasn't standing there, that Zed was, in fact, still alone. To his credit, he didn't see Impulse standing there. He saw Impulse starting up into a run, Tango smiling softly behind him. And then he didn't see much of anything as Impulse pulled him into an impossibly tight, rib-crushing hug.

When Impulse finally released him, Zed immediately found himself dragged into another, somewhat gentler hug courtesy of Tango. Unlike Impulse's hug, where his arms had been pinned at his side and Zed was fairly certain he'd been picked up off the ground at one point - when Impulse had gotten that strong, Zed didn't know - Zed was able to reciprocate this one, and did so, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes.

He couldn't quite believe it - part of his mind was even afraid of doing so, but Zed was able to push those thoughts away - but here they were again, together at last. Well. Mostly, anyway.

———

Tango was laughing at some stupid anecdote Zed was telling about what he and Skizz and Impulse had gotten up to in some vain attempt to distract themselves from the world falling apart around them when Sark walked in with the radio and placed it on the table with some force. Zed and Impulse, who had no idea what was going on, looked to Tango for some explanation.

"Where are we?" Tango asked, by way of answering.

"Seven light-years." Sark replied.

Tango was suddenly struck with a sobering thought. It had been seven years, or thereabouts, since the four of them had solidified their relationship. It had been seven whole years, and the group had spent two of those years in various states of thinking or knowing at least one of the others was dead. He frowned pensively. It hadn't felt like that long, not really, not in the grand scheme of things.

He was snapped out of his thoughts by the familiarity of the voice coming over the radio.

"Today is Tuesday, the 16th of April, 2024; you're listening to Moonlight Radio - all of the songs you adore; and next up, we have the classic, you know and love it from Mamma Mia!: I Have a Dream, by ABBA..."

Tango opened his mouth to protest the DJ's strange attribution, as he always had, as the opening notes of the song began to play. Zed, eyes wide in recognition, lunged towards the table, desperately turning the volume up. Tango let out an involuntary cackle.

And so it was that the three of them danced the night, or what semblance there was, away to a song by ABBA of all groups, until they were all tuckered out, and fell asleep piled on top of one another on the couch, Tango too exhausted to even take his arm off before the throes of sleep took him. He'd probably live to regret that, but that was a problem for Future Tango.

Life was finally getting to something like being good.

———

This is basically just a drabble for a space AU I'm working on that got out of hand. The AU is called Playlist for Drifting Through Space :D

I've been Entropy, peace out from the present!