Archive of Our Own ^beta

The first time Impulse had seen Tango wearing his glasses was when he’d put on one of his streams as a little bit of background noise. He’d just been building something, probably one of the façades of his cyberpunk city, and at some point he’d glanced up at the stream playing on his other monitor and he’d frozen for a couple of long moments. Tango. In glasses.

He couldn’t deny, even without them, there was something special about that man. Something that he refused to think about, normally. But with the glasses? Whatever else was he supposed to think about now, huh? The way it framed his face so perfectly? How he had to bring a hand up to adjust the frame every now and again? The image of Tango staring down at him through the lenses– Whoa! Where did that come from?!

Okay, that was enough. He hastily closed the stream, heart pounding in his chest an entirely non-normal amount, considering his activities, and turned back to his building.

Or, he would have, if his monitor hadn’t been displaying a death screen, a creeper-blown hole showing through the red tint. He hadn’t even noticed when that had happened. How long had he just been staring?

The second time Impulse saw Tango wearing his glasses was even more concerning. At least, his reactions to it were. He tried to shove down the foreign feeling stirring up inside his guts, but seeing that smart face live, in real life, was completely different than just a 2D image through the screen.

Half of him thanked the gods that he’d come all this way down to the charity event, just for this one image. The other half wished he’d have stayed holed away in his little apartment so he wouldn’t have to go the rest of his life trying to put the sight of Tango in glasses into the hidden nooks of his brain.

He was a colleague, for goodness’ sake, what was he doing, going around and thinking such thoughts about him?

His two halves started arguing once again when Tango pulled the glasses off his face, put it back into his bag or his pocket or wherever else he’d produced it from and handed the sheet of paper he’d been inspecting back to the waiting Grian. At least now, Impulse could go back to his stream, where the questions in chat were already piling up.

“Sorry guys, I had that feeling, you know, when you’re about to sneeze but it never comes…” Yeah, that seemed convincing enough.

* * *

Whoever did the hotel room arrangements had really fucked up. Impulse was not going to survive the night, no way, not after what his poor little heart had already gone through occasionally, throughout the first day of the event.

Sleeping in the same hotel room as Tango? And if he pulled out his glasses again, what then? What would Impulse do? Pull a bath and drown himself in it in his… whatever it was, this cocktail of feelings that the sight of Tango always pulled from him.

The worst part was that it was only he and himself that he could blame for this unfortunate arrangement of rooms. He’d been the one to ask if he could room with Tango, since they’d been such good friends for so long, and had only once or twice been able to meet before – curse the distance, curse Tango for living on the other damn coast of the country. And, he guessed, by that logic, curse himself too, for living on this one. But the reasons to be cursing Impulse were much too numerous to be naming them all.

“Sooo…” Tango piped up as he started to sort through his luggage that he’d just chucked onto the foot of one of the beds when they’d arrived, “Have you been avoiding me all day on purpose or…?”

Ah yes. Another reason, then.

Tango was right, of course, just like always, the genius that he was. It hadn’t been on purpose, of course, but whenever Impulse had thought about going up to him to chat throughout the day, the image of him looking so proper in his little black wire framed glasses popped into his brain, and he lost all ability to bring words to his lips. It just didn’t work. It was probably the embarrassment. Just that. Nothing else. What else would it be?

“No, I haven’t,” Impulse replied, his voice much squeakier than he’d intended it to be. Great sign. “It’s just been so busy with all the streaming and the activities and–”

Oh no. Tango was pulling out a book from the bottom of his suitcase. That couldn’t mean anything good for Impulse. He gulped.

"You say that as if this isn't an event entirely built on interaction." Fuck, he had him there… "Even the fans are starting to catch on, there's already theories spreading on twitter. Not that that matters to me, really. But there's something up, and I just want to know if it's something I did to make you not want to talk to me. I'm sorry if it is, and I just want to make it better, okay? So talk to me?"

Tango thought it was his fault? His? Smart and cool and amazing and great and perfect-in-every-way Tango's fault? A laughable idea. Impulse couldn't bear the thought of him feeling guilty for something that Impulse fucked up himself, with these stupid, unwelcome thoughts in his head.

But what was there to say other than the truth? Tango was settling down against the headboard of his bed, the book and his glasses sitting on the sheets beside him, forgotten for the moment to let Tango stare Impulse down. Surely…

They'd been good friends, great friends even, for long, long years now. Surely it was acceptable to give a homie a compliment? Surely it was fine to say, "It's just that you look great in glasses! You didn't do anything!"

Tango perked up, eyes going wide. "You've been avoiding me… because I look good in glasses?!"

Impulse's heart sank. He did not in the slightest bit thought about how fucking stupid of an excuse that had been. He'd really fucked up now, but any words that came to his lips felt like it'd only aggravate the situation, so all he could do was open and close his mouth silently, like a damn fish. Truly, he felt just like one, brain capacity-wise, at that moment.

Tango took his silence as confirmation (rightfully so, but still), and stood back on his feet, padded over to where Impulse was standing, frozen, halfway between the bathroom and the door out to the hallway, safely locked. He was a mere few inches away when he stopped, slipped his glasses onto his face (which, when had he even grabbed them?!), made Impulse's knees go weak.

Fuck, fuck fuck. That wasn't supposed to happen. But up close, Tango's face was even more handsome, without glasses too, but magnified by a thousand with the frames perched all nice and proper on the bridge of his nose. His eyes were ever so slightly larger, behind the lenses, which was entirely unfair, with the sort of look he was currently fixing Impulse with. It was like he wanted Impulse to lose his fucking mind.

Wait—

Did Tango want Impulse to lose his fucking mind?

It seemed more and more likely as his face inched closer to Impulse's with each of his panicked breaths. It seemed an awful lot like—

"Do you want me to kiss you?"

It felt like the floor had dropped out from under Impulse's feet and all he could do was nod vigorously and lean in closer, press his lips right up against Tango's, lift his arms up to lay them gently on either side of his face. His stubble was scratching right up against Impulse's cheek, and—

This was absurd. This could absoluetly not be happening to him right now, and yet it was, it was, none of it was a dream. How could he have turned out so fucking lucky?

Tango's lips were chapped, tasted lightly of the beer they'd gotten down in the hotel's bar with the others before everyone retired to their rooms for the night, but all the more of Tango, something that Impulse wanted to etch into his brain for the rest of eternity and years more after that. That, and the cold from the frames of his glasses pressing into the side of his face.

He probably would never have pulled away, would have been content to suffocate in Tango's touch, but the other leaned back far enough that Impulse couldn't chase his lips.

With the rush of fresh oxygen to his lungs, the panicked thoughts too, came crashing back down to him. What if Tango hadn't meant it? If he was just messing with him? If this was all just a joke on his part and he hadn't thought Impulse would actually kiss him and now he was disgusted by him and what if he'd just ruined everything, all these years of friendship, all these years of longing for something unreachable—

"I've been wanting to do that for so long," Tango said, and his voice was like a wave pulling all his anxieties back into the depths of the ocean. Tango… Tango had wanted this too. It felt strange to admit, even from his part, after years of shoving it as deep down as he could. Even stranger to think that all along, it had been reciprocated.

If Tango's hands hadn't still been on his neck and his shoulder, he was sure he would have floated right away. His glasses were slightly askew, which made him all the more beautiful.

Never had there been a more perfect man to walk this Earth, Impulse thought, and apparently, as some miraculous gift of the universe, he was all Impulse's.