Title: poorly-timed relevations
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth
Rating: Teen?
Length: 1500ish words
Content notes: significant amounts of kissing? (in public, oops)
Author notes: Zazu/Ascot, some years post-canon.
Summary: This was not the best time to realise he was attracted to Ascot.

~

It had been five years since they’d first met and Zazu had known that Ascot was cute, he just hadn’t realised that he thought Ascot was cute, which was a different thing entirely.

In his defence – he couldn’t really come up with anything, the clanging realisation vibrating through him as he tried to look anywhere but at Ascot’s bare back. Apparently Ascot’s shoulders were really interesting, because Zazu was being hit with the impulse to touch, to spread his hands over the smooth skin, and he couldn’t look away – and that was unfortunate because they were in the changing room for the baths and-

“Stop!” he squeaked out, shoving his hands over his eyes as Ascot reached for his trousers. His face felt painfully hot, and it was only by luck that they were the only two people left in the changing rooms – Geo and Lantis were already in the baths, and he was pretty sure he’d seen a basket of clothes with LaFarga’s name on it – plus the couple of sets of clothes with names he had no recognition of. There were bound to be more people coming through soon – it was a cool day, the baths had sounded nice until the moment he realised he was going to be weird about this.

“…Zazu?” Ascot said, slowly. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine!” Zazu said, fully aware he didn’t sound it at all, trying not to start laughing. He’d been using communal showers on the NSX since he was fifteen, he’d never had an issue with the set-up in Cephiro, and now he was making it weird-

“…Are you sure?”

“Yep!” he insisted, hands still firmly over his eyes. He was also realising that he’d been mostly using the showers on the NSX or just going through one of the private shower cubicles here for the past couple of years so he hadn’t actually seen Ascot in the bath for an age. He’d have been impressed with himself if that had been at all deliberate.

“You really don’t seem-“ Ascot started, and there was a rustle of clothing, and Zazu yelped, stumbling away from him.

“Please tell me you still have trousers on!”

Ascot’s footsteps stopped, and he just sounded confused now. “Yes? I can take you down to the Healers if you’re not feeling well, I was putting my shirt back on.”

“Oh.”

“Did I… do something?”

“No!” Zazu said, hands flying away as he turned to look at Ascot – and then winced and covered his eyes again, because it turned out that Ascot hadn’t actually put his shirt back on yet, and his bare chest was also up there in the distracting box. “It’s nothing! Definitely not you! I just realised I’m attracted to you so I shouldn’t get in the bath right now and I’ll just go – shower somewhere else, it’s fine – I just need to get my boots back on-“ he turned away before opening his eyes, trying to remember where he’d kicked his boots off.

It was a good half minute before he found them, and then realised that he’d just blurted that out and Ascot had been silent ever since. He looked around, tentatively, to find Ascot staring at him, wide-eyed and blushing.

The blush was spreading down his chest, and Zazu swallowed, trying so hard not to stare. “Sorry. I’m making it weird, so I’m going, that’s all.”

“You’re – to me?” Ascot got out, voice somewhat strangled, like his throat wasn’t really working right, and Zazu nodded.

“I mean, you’re awesome, I knew that already, I just didn’t realise I wanted to-“ he waved a hand at Ascot, blushing furiously. “So I’ll just – see you later! With clothes on!” and he spun about to exit the room.

He was stopped by a hand grabbing his wrist, and turned to find Ascot a lot closer, looking down at him, flushed and bewildered.

~

“You’re – to me?” Ascot stared at Zazu, unable to even say ‘attracted’ in the rush of the moment, the surprise of it, and when Zazu turned to leave the room in a flurry of words Ascot moved even before several of his friends chorused ‘don’t let him go!’ in the back of his mind.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t thought about – well, a couple of times, anyway, when Zazu came careening over to him with some new invention or other that Ascot didn’t understand at all, gleefully demonstrating each one, taller but no less enthusiastic than back when they’d first met.

…Maybe more than a few times, the past couple of years. He’d made the mistake of asking to watch Zazu working on the NSX once and between the way he held his tools and the tone his voice got when he addressed the ship…

Ascot knew what it was like to be hit with a feeling at an awkward moment, that was all. It just hadn’t gone away since.

He’d been trying not to think too much about the fact that they’d reached the baths at the same time, for once. Everyone was naked when they washed, it didn’t mean anything, he was just going to not look – except then Zazu went and said that, and-

Ascot was holding him still, both of them frozen in the middle of the changing room. The air was almost chill on Ascot’s bare skin, and Zazu had shoved his feet in his boots but hadn’t rescued his ever-present hat; the mess of brown hair sticking out in all directions was strangely intimate, and Ascot really wanted to run his hands through it.

Instead he just stood there, breathing too hard, heart in his chest, until he managed to say “Do you want to-“

“Yes, probably,” Zazu said, saving Ascot from trying to finish the sentence, voice catching as he leaned in closer.

Giving in to the impulse, Ascot reached out and slid his fingers into the heavy softness of Zazu’s hair, moving closer then hesitating – was this a bad idea?

Probably, he thought, and then Zazu made a desperate noise in his throat and got his free hand about Ascot’s neck, dragging him down until their lips met.

Heat shot through Ascot, almost like his magic but more liquid, coiling low, and he made some kind of sound and let Zazu pull him in closer and closer still, until they were chest to chest, and he didn’t know much about how to do this but Zazu seemed to have a dozen ideas and be dedicated to testing all of them, his hands hot on Ascot’s bare back as Ascot wrapped one arm about Zazu’s waist.

It had to be several minutes before an amused voice startled them apart.

“I don’t think this is really the place you’re meant to do that kind of thing,” Ferio said, and when Ascot’s head shot up Ferio was grinning at them – but not meanly.

“I – right, yeah,” Zazu said, blinking, sounding breathless. “Probably not. Hey, Ascot, want to go someplace else with me?”

Ascot flushed harder than he had since Zazu’s blurted confession, stepping away so he could find his top and pull it back on. He certainly wasn’t in a state for the baths now. He couldn’t get his voice to work to answer, let alone work out what he’d have said – but when Zazu reached out, that brilliant grin on his face like he’d just discovered something new and amazing, Ascot grasped his hand and held on.

Zazu tugged him towards the doors with a “See you later!” to Ferio, who stood back and waved them past.

“Try the third door on the left,” Ferio called out, as they left the room. “And don’t forget to lock the door!”

“Thanks!” Zazu said, of course, and before Ascot could get his brain working well enough to remember what room that would be Zazu was pulling him inside, shutting the door behind them, and waiting for Ascot to reach out and thump the gemstone set into the wall that enabled the locking and the privacy shield.

The room was one of the private shower rooms, with its own dressing area, pretty sparsely furnished but it had a bench, clean towels, and was a bit warmer than the large changing room had been. Ascot bit his lip, looking down at the floor, unable to meet Zazu’s eyes for a moment.

“Hey,” Zazu said, quieter now. “Is this okay? Because I guess we should probably talk or something, but – I think I didn’t realise, but I’ve wanted to touch you for a while, now, and-“

“Yes,” Ascot said, turning and leaning in, and kissing was – amazing, heat blazing through him, wiping out everything else but the way they were touching. He couldn’t have said anything if he wanted to, not with his mouth so well occupied, and there would be time to panic and time to talk later. Right now?

Right now he had better things to concentrate on.