32
Light slithered through the crack of the curtains. The delicate golden rays of the early morning on Pulse's face stirred them out of their dreams. Two things stuck out: Leo wasn't between them and Quark, and Quark was not in their arms.
Pulse stretched and groaned, disappointed that their designated cuddle partner wasn't there, but it wasn't long before they found him. Their elbow bumped him in his back, surprising them both.
It was a pleasant sight to behold. Quark removed his shirt during the night and sat on the bedside, engulfed in one of the books; he had two towers on the floor, one stack shorter than the other.
"Good morning," Pulse smiled and murmured; exhaustion still clung to them, though now the paranoia of Gamal finding them was null and left them at ease. Quark's excited smile in return only made it better.
"Morning," he sounded perky. It was shocking how much the appearance of a star could improve with one night of restful sleep.
“How long have I been out?”
"Oh, quite a while." He pointed to the smaller stack of books. "Got through a lot of reading after I woke up."
“And you didn't wake me up, huh?”
"I could tell how exhausted you were, and I couldn't do that to you."
He rubbed at the texture of the paper in his fingers, again, making sure his hair hid his face.
"You were so out of it. I don't think you even realized Leo left because you had me locked in a death grip. I must have spent 30 minutes trying to squeeze out so you wouldn't wake up."
He laughed with nervous energy. Pulse blinked, letting him ramble on. Quark talked, saying anything and everything to alleviate what he thought was an awkward tension.
"It was funny, but hey, look at all these books! Some of them are very fascinating! Like, these thick ones are what her people know about stars. It's a bit odd, maybe sad, how textual it is, but it's impressive! I never thought carbon-creatures could learn so much about Celestials.
They don't call us celestial, though. Then there are these dream books! She has a few about dream psychology, which I thought would be very helpful to us. Yet this author is a strange fellow–"
Pulse could listen to him forever. Perhaps Quark could speak forever. Humor, pedantic analysis', feigning fascination in the arbitrary dictations of conversation. Pulse had to interrupt: "Does it bother you?"
"What?"
“That we were that close last night. Does it bother you?”
Speechless. Pulse never thought the poor thing could ever be speechless.
“It doesn't bother me, so you know.”
Quark said something. Those were words, right? He is trying to say some words, but it sounds like flustered blather.
“Quark?”
He poured back into his book.,"Okay, okay, it's okay."
“Quark?”
"It's okay, Pulse. I know you're trying to lighten the tension."
“I'm not tense about it, Quark.”
“I know that sometimes I can be a bit of a ramble...”
"I like it; I like it when you ramble."
"Shush." He wouldn't look at Pulse; why won't he look at them? "I know you're a very considerate star, very kind too. You don't have to worry about making me feel better."
“Feel better about what?”
Pulse sat on the edge of the bed next to Quark; he didn't move away but still refused to make eye contact and look at anything but the words on the page.
"C'mon, I know you can be a bit of a flirt, I get that. It's my fault for being..." The words lose their way on his tongue.
“A flirt?”
"You say too many nice things about me. You are too kind of a star, Pulse, but I–"
"I'm stopping you right there." Pulse pulled the book out of his hands. "I don't say those things disingenuously. I meant everything I said, Quark."
"I don't—I don't mean to say you're a liar or disingenuous, really, just... C'mon Pulse, look at me."
“I am. And I like what I see.”
"Don't do this to me, Pulse, please, I don't think–"
"I mean it. You're very handsome. Gorgeous even."
“Now I know you're stroking my ego again.”
“Quark–”
"It's okay. I know who I am. I know you, too." Quark looked at his palms, seeing something Pulse does not. "I'm a wandering, small, weak little dwarf star. You're this famous, beautiful, talented, and amazing Pulsar of the Comic Choir. I'd be kidding myself if I–"
Pulse grabs both his shoulders, now forcing face-to-face. "Don't you ever say that about yourself. None of that is true, and you know it."
"I do know. I'm not like you. I'm not as talented or as strong as you, for one."
“For nothing! You are super talented. Look at that pile of books you've read already!”
“Anyone could do that.”
"Not just anyone. I know I couldn't. I'm good with music; I'm wicked good with it, but that is amazing. You're reading a forging language, of a different species in a different realm all at once. That's amazing Quark!"
“I'm not strong like you though,” Quark changed the subject, frustrating Pulse further.
“You're not. You're stronger.”
“Now that's a lie and you know it.”
“It's the truth. You broke the pull Quark.”
“You did too.”
“No, I didn't.”
Quark gave him an incredulous look, "You were there. You were the one who fought off Ruin."
"I did that, but I didn't break the Pull."
“Then how were you there? You protected Leo.”
"At that point, I was protecting you." Pulse pulled Quark's hair back, leaving not a single strand behind.
He looked different without the mask. Pulse never knew how pearly pink his cheeks were, "When you broke the pull, protecting Leo, the pull let go of me. Ruin looked like he was about to kill you, and I don't think you noticed. I was protecting you."
"Me? But, why me?"
"Quark," Pulse tugged his hair lightly, resting their forehead against his. "How can you be so incredibly smart but so damn oblivious!"
“Pulse?”
"You are incredible. You are so, so wonderful.
I know you think you ramble, but I love it when you talk.
When you talk about everything and nothing in particular.
I love the way you tap on your lips when you're thinking, and the way your eyebrows wrinkle when you are focused on something.
I love the color of your cheeks when you are flustered, or the way you stutter when you're bashful.
I love it when I wake up to you, every day since meeting you, curled up in my arms, with your hand on my chest, and how perfectly you fit into them.
I love all that. I love—I love you. I love you, Quark.”
“Pulse...”
"I was so dumb not saying it sooner, and I wanted to so fucking bad. I was mad having you in my lap, my arms, and never being able to kiss you! I wanted to hold you; I still want to wake up every day with you. I want to hear you talk, ramble,
and carry on about absolute nonsense for the rest of time because I can't get enough of your voice. I can't get enough of the little notes you make out loud even though you don't think I'm listening. I want that, I want more, I want you, I want you more and more every day, and—and—and..."
Quark grabbed Pulse by the neck and yanked them into a kiss.
Everything melted. The worries, the fears, the doubts, all of it gone. The sun in Leo's sky was purposeless because the only star that existed was here, in this room, and his name was Quark. Quark, a little dwarf star, before never having his system, now molded to Pulse's lips flawlessly.
By every power within their control, Pulse refused to let that go.
They floated away, their mind but clouds and air.
If they let go of Quark they even risked pulling back from the most universally completing kiss of their entire existence; they may never return from the nebula that would reclaim them.
No, not unless Quark could be with them. Now, then, forever—The dream is finally complete. The threads, once loose in their tapestry, tidied up in an immaculate, artful fashion.
At some point, Quark had to pull back, catching a breath he long neglected to take.
His breath was still hot on Pulse's lips when he breathed into them. “You talk too much...”
“Then shut me up.”
Pulse never wanted to forget the feeling of Quark's lips.
They could spend eons studying them. The softness, the pinkish heat, the mash of words, still wanting to escape his mouth, being swallowed by Pulse, wanting to taste that sweet flowery ecstasy from his tongue.
Quark grabbed Pulse's hair, neck, and then shoulders attempting to find that foothold to keep them there.
They weren't going anywhere. Now that Pulse found him, now that they had Quarks in their arms and consuming their musical moans, there was nowhere else for them to go.
He pulled them down over the top of him. Words kept failing him—or they kept getting devoured—so he used his hands and then his feet to say what he wanted. He kicked at Pulse's pants, legs clumsy as his mind was fogged by thoughts of the most beautiful pulsar he had ever known.
‘And all his’ Pulse said by stripping off Quark's pants in return. He was all theirs, and they were all his.
Pulse's gut knotted up, anxious that the dramatic size difference between them and fearing it would cause him discomfort or worse, pain. In the moment of hesitation, Quark guided them by wrapping his legs around their waist and pulling him in.
For their lifetime, Pulse took pride in their cool demeanor.
They craved that balance in their emotions, the peace and tranquility that they and Black Star worked tirelessly to master.
Pulse enjoyed having that control. Despite those like Ruin and Gamal putting it to the test and even Leo tempting them to let go, they felt they did well to hold onto that.
Quark obliterated that control in the best way possible.
Without realizing it, he pushed every button that gave him exactly what he wanted.
The quick frenzy of passion, the unrelenting desire to taste every inch of bare skin, and the primal need to moan and thrust and keen and kiss, all while never having to utter one request. It was all his, all at once.
Pulse was the ever-eager wish master. To have one moment where they didn't hear Quark pant and lament was a sin.
If he wasn't bucking into their pelvis in time to their thrusts, Pulse wasn't pleasing him enough.
If Quark didn't chant their name like an airy prayer, he needed more.
More and more, Pulse lost themselves in Quark.
Each thrust brought them closer, and they pleaded to any power invested within them, to let this moment go on forever.
Pulse could do it, for Quark. They could let Quark cry out their name and tremble so hard they had to grip the bed sheets and contract their legs tight enough around Pulse's hips to bruise.
If Pulse could feel Quark one more second, taste their name on his lips one more time…
That fine-tuned control was eviscerated, lost in a burst, in a way that spilled from their lips in a gasp and washed over them like a crashing moon. They were powerless to regain it.
But, the trade off was this; a new calm, static in their fingers and toes, a mind that was numbed and tranquil, trembling muscles and a weakness in their breathing. To love fully, wholly, earnestly, was disempowering, and it was glorious.
Voices horse, damp with sex, cheeks flushed and numb with euphoria, they spent time staring into each other's eyes.
Pulse couldn't stop quivering from the residual waves. The only thing that kept them from collapsing was Quark, who lay still, wet and gasping.
Quark was a brilliant glowing pearl, still gripping their hips with his legs.
“Pulse?” Quark spent their remaining strength to cup their cheek.
“Yeah?”
“I love you, too.”
There it was: Satisfaction; The final note in the universe's love song. The opera Quark sang for them ended in the most brilliant and complete lyric.
And now, all was right in the universe.
“Guys?”
Both froze in place.
“Am I interrupting something?”
Leo stood in the doorway. The doorway into her room, in her house, in her domain.
Quark and Pulse had forgotten all that until she appeared like a ghost; there were pits in their stomachs.
They couldn't get off the bed fast enough. Quark scrambled to find clothes–any clothes–while Pulse tripped and fell getting their pants back on. They fumbled as they rushed to hide their dirty deed despite being caught red-handed.
“Leo!”
“We can explain!”
“We—We were just–”
There was no explaining away the mess they made on each other with tossed hair and missing clothing.
Both stars knelt before Leo, pleading.
“We are sorry!”
“We didn't forget you, we promise!”
“We still love you!”
“Both of us!”
“We—We didn't–”
Leo's shoulders shook and placed her hand over her mouth.
"Leo, Leo, don't cry."
“We didn't mean to hurt you.”
"We love you so much, Leo! That's still true!"
"Please, Leo..."
But she wasn't crying; she was trying to stifle laughter.
Much to her stars' confusion. "Leo?"
“You adorable, dumb dorks, c'mere.”
She grabbed each by their cheeks and pressed a firm kiss on their lips.
“I'm not mad!” She assured.
“You're—You're not?”
"No, you goofballs, I'm not. It's great."
She pulled them back on their feet. "Don't be so ashamed. It's wonderful! We can all be a part of this. I don't have to feel like I'd have to choose one of you over the other. We can be the hottest throuple in this corner of the universe. Now don't look so damn guilty."
Leo bear-hugged them both, surprising Pulse further. This woman—this little mortal being—commanding them as she does.
"It's okay, though?" Quark asked. "Like, fully?"
"Yes, silly." She planted an assuring kiss on his cheek. "If I have to assure you again, you're going to need a 'time out.'"
Pulse laughed from Quark's uncouth flare-up. Thinking about it, they enjoyed the idea much more than what they thought was justifiable.
"I don't want you two to worry you're pretty heads about this anymore," Leo assured with her chest puffed out.
"I got to bed early, and I fully intend on sleeping in, so you guys have me for a long time. We can play catch up."
She looks at their groins and comments: "After you two get cleaned up, of course."
Now Quark chuckles in response to Pulse's wash of glowing rose red over their cheeks. Pulse looked down at their feet. “Yes, Ma'am.”
Leo ushers them into the bathroom, reminding them to take their time so she can prepare some drinks for later. "I think we will start with some tea before getting into some mead. I have a lot planned for us, so you two need all the energy you can get."
Once she left, Quark couldn't keep from whispering to Pulse, telling him that he doesn't think Leo knows stars don't need nourishment like her.
“Maybe not, but there is no harm in playing along, right?”
As Quark stepped into the steaming waters, letting out a sigh as the waters washed away the sex and soreness, Pulse thought to themselves, watching his star, how unfair it was to the rest of the universe that all three have found each other, how in love they all were,
that no one else seemingly has that.
Pulse wanted everyone in the universe to have this kind of gift: A woman like Leo, who was bold, vivacious, and vibrant. Quark–
Well, Quark was one of a kind.