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ASSORTED NSFW REDHEAD SHENANIGANS

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[You tried, Sheba. Too bad it was never really going to fly.

Asch opts for sighing and starting on the pancakes, rather than pushing the issue - he's learned that much, at least, over these last few years. Sheba rarely if ever looks into his mind for his secrets, so he'll let her keep this one, if it's that important.]

Dice those berries a bit smaller, would you?

[The tension goes out of her shoulders when he decides not to press the matter; she's visibly more relaxed, and she nods a little at his instruction.]

Smaller? Got it...

[Thankfully, she's got quite a bit of pent-up frustration to channel, so it makes for quick work. Maybe too quick, actually, because one misstep and it's not the berry she's cut into; it's her finger. She drops the knife and jerks back, muttering a curse under her breath.]

Damn..!

[Okay. Sink. Right. She's just going to rush to the sink and try to rinse out the cut while ignoring the fact that ow that really hurts.]

I'm pretty sure I didn't get any blood on the berries, [She says after a moment.] So they should still be okay to use...

I don't think it matters. It'll all be cooked off anyway.

[He sets the spoon down and comes over to where she's standing at the sink, not even asking before taking her hand in his. He's not a broken-bones and punctured-organs level healer yet, but hopefully he'll never have to be.]

Let me. Oh healing power - First Aid.

[That's quite an appropriate name for the moment - the Seventh Fonons in the air around them, usually invisible and insensible to everyone else, glow faintly gold before settling into the cut and closing it.]

[Her hand in his isn't something new; if she had a gold piece for every time they've brushed hands or held hands or just put one of their hands over the other's, she would be rich enough that Anise might consider marrying her even though she's a girl. But this time it sort of comes as a surprise (even though it probably shouldn't have) and she's as much caught off guard by him suddenly taking her hand as she is by the fluttering of her stomach that accompanies it.

Stop that, she tries to tell herself, but it's hard to do. She knows he can be brutal in battle - that was how he'd earned his title, after all, and why he was so effective at what he did - but he had always been gentle with her. Now is no exception and she can't help but wonder if he'd be this gentle if--

She tears her gaze away from his face, forces herself to stop looking at his lips, and looks off to the side and down with flushed cheeks. Right when she'd been able to think about something else, too...]

...thanks. I guess I wasn't paying as much attention as I should have been.

[He drops her hand without further ceremony and then stops, raising his eyebrows at her blush. O... Kay then...]

Are you sure you don't want to tell me?

[Because god Sheba you're being weird cutting yourself isn't that embarrassing! This is probably at least the tenth time they've done the whole Sheba-cuts-herself-like-a-dunce-and-Asch-heals-her thing, really.]

[Maybe it's that she's frustrated at her own inability to keep her cool, and wants some kind of confirmation that it's not just her, that Asch would also be flustered if he knew what was going on. Or maybe she just wants to catch him off-guard so he'll feel awkward too and they can just drop it, go about their days separately, and forget about it by this time tomorrow and everything would be fine.

She doesn't know why, but she doesn't really think before she speaks, and so -]

What would you do if I kissed you, right now?

[A beat, and then she realizes what she just said and there's a moment where her eyes widen in sheer panic and she almost bolts for the door right there. There is absolutely nothing about this that feels okay to her, and she really wishes she could have just kept her cool and not been so out-of-sorts. Part of her wishes Asch wasn't quite so observant, too. With someone who was more dense, maybe she could have kept it hidden.

And before he can really do much to react she shakes her head and turns away.]

Wait, no, forget I said anything... I didn't mean...

[She has some idea of how Jenna felt when she teased her about Isaac, now. It's not pleasant and she suddenly understands why her friend had told her to shut up so vehemently.]

[ ... shksadfhgll;;;? That is not what he expected.]

Then - that would be a thing you did!

[Look, he's very articulate, as you would expect from a former member of the royal family.]

I mean - I wouldn't mind if -

[Oh Lorelei that is not where he intended this conversation to go. Going to just go... stir that pancake batter.]

[She is all set to just bolt for the door and call over her shoulder that she'll be back in a couple of hours, but she freezes when she hears "I wouldn't mind," and she turns to look at him with wide eyes when he retreats back to the pancake batter.]

You-- wouldn't? Y-you can't just say something like that and then walk away...!

[Except she said something very much like it and had immediately followed it up with "forget I said anything."]

You're the one walking away!

[He's almost forty and very mature. Also now even more beat red.]

What did you think I'd do, tell you to go to hell on a wyvern?!

Edited 2013-09-26 10:25 (UTC)

I stopped, didn't I?!

[Her face is about as red as his hair is; this is probably the most awkward conversation she's ever had and there's a small part of her that is hoping that in five minutes she'll wake up and this will turn out to have been some bizarre dream all along.]

Well, no, but I didn't think you'd... want to...! I mean, you and I aren't - we're not like that...!

[They've been insisting that for how many years now?]

[Three and a half.]

That doesn't mean I - oh hell...

[Yeah, just gonna bury his face in his hands for a few moments to try and get his thoughts in order. One green eye is visible between his fingers before he squeezes it shut. Deep breaths, Asch, deep breaths.]

I don't have any objections. I just figured that if you were interested, you would see if it was reciprocated before you said anything, and since you didn't...

[God, mindreader, way to fall off the ball.]

[She lets out a sigh that almost sounds exasperated, but it's not really - it's just more frazzled and shaky than anything.]

How many times do I have to say it? I don't just read minds for no reason, and I trust you! So there wasn't any reason for me to look...

[She's nervously playing with the gems on the hem of the front part of her cloak, now - it's sort of a habit and it's nice to have something to do with her hands, something to look at that isn't him because it's hard enough to say these things as it is, and it would be even harder if she were looking directly at him.]

And you're... you're really honest, so I thought if there was something you wanted me to know, you would just say it... So since you didn't, I didn't say anything either. I didn't want to make it awkward [like it is right now] and risk ruining things... I value you too much for that.

[ITP Asch and Sheba fail at life.]

Then don't complain that I did the same thing!

[Yeah they're really bad at this.]

If you were wondering, wasn't that reason enough? I've told you I don't mind -

[And yes, the affection is part of why. Ugh. At least the engagement was semi-properly called off as opposed to just being left hanging. Another deep breath and he forces himself to pull his hands away from his face.]

...Well, I don't think you ruined anything.

[Except maybe their dignity.]

Edited 2013-09-26 11:11 (UTC)

I'm not complaining!

[Except she definitely is. She seems to recognize this and is properly chagrined, but at his next question, she shakes her head.]

No, I... both of us have been saying that it's not like that for so long now. It's one thing to hear you say it, but it's something else to hear you think it... [She knows better than anyone that hearing the wrong thing can really hurt. As much as she's been backing off because she actually respects his privacy in a way that she didn't when they first met, she's also sort of frightened to read the minds of the people she cares about most.] I was scared.

[It's not easy to admit. While she speaks, she keeps her eyes on the gems at the hem of the front part of her cloak, keeps her hands occupied with toying with the gems - she's clearly a little nervous, and there's a long pause before she speaks again.]

I'm still scared. [She says finally, looking up from her cloak to see that he's pulled his hands away from his face. She meets his eyes and this time she doesn't look away, even though she can feel her cheeks warming.] But... if I didn't ruin anything... maybe I don't have to be.

[She's not entirely certain where to go from here. Even though she'd been there for the start of Jenna's relationship, she hadn't been present when they'd actually gotten together, hadn't had enough time to see the two of them together to see how they made it work. But, still keeping her eyes on his, she holds out her hand to him. She's not completely sure what she's doing, but it's a start.]

...I care about you a lot, Asch. I really do.

And I think Dist had a betting pool going within the week.

[To everyone's surprise, sometimes the man actually is a genius. Or possibly it's that he had a relatively normal puberty, irrational attraction to Jade aside.

Asch looks down at her hands - grown, a little, no longer quite fitting over the scars across his - and puts his over them.]

You don't have to be scared. I'm not - I won't push any faster than you're willing to go.

[Gently, he squeezes her fingers.]

Yeah, he did.

[That's said matter-of-factly. She hadn't known Dist in the Tower. It had been a good couple of months before she'd stopped reading his mind. If she's being honest, sometimes she still does.]

...that's not what I'm scared of. [She says, smiling a little as he puts his hands over hers. She returns the light squeeze of the fingers, and - actions mean more than words, she thinks. It's about time she makes good on the question she asked earlier, so she shifts forward a little closer and goes up on her tiptoes. She's grown a bit taller, so the height difference isn't as wide as it used to be, but she still has to reach up in order to press a soft kiss to his lips.]

[He can't really blame her, Dist is interesting. But also kind of disturbing so she can keep what she finds out there to herself.

He blinks a little, at the kiss, but leans down into it so that it's easier for her to reach, not letting go of her hands -

And then his stomach grumbles. Whoops.]

...Maybe we should finish breakfast first.

[She hears his stomach grumble, and she pulls back with a laugh. She wasn't the one with hearing enhanced by the Seventh Fonon, so if she could hear that, he really must be hungry.] That sounds like a good idea.

[She lets go of his hands, but only so she can turn back to the counter and busy herself with the blackberries - which, thankfully, are not coated in blood. She's not nearly so flustered now as she was before, either, so when she picks up the knife again (which she cleans off first) to go back to dicing the berries, she gets the job done without any major injury.

She's still not in any rush to tell him that she dreamed about him last night, but things feel less awkward now that they've cleared the air. She's glad for that, and she's even humming a little under her breath as she works.]

[Stirring the rest of the batter doesn't take long, either - soon he's prepping the pan on the stove, the bowl and ladle sitting next to him.]

Add the berries in there, this is almost ready.

[Cooking, the last refuge of the still sort of flustered. He's not really sure yet what to think about what happened, so he hasn't. Thinking can wait till later, after they eat and he's had a chance to hide himself in for a while and sort out everything.

He's still smiling, though, that's got to be a good sign.]

Okay!

[The berries are added to the mixture and stirred in evenly. Sheba is still humming and still smiling - it's true that she's not entirely sure where exactly they stand, but things seem promising. He doesn't seem to have been... too weirded out by what was essentially her confessing to him, and that's a good thing.

She giggles a little and looks from the pan to the pancake batter.] Can I make one? I promise not to burn it!

I don't see why not. Don't drip on the stove.

[Cleaning that thing off is hell, and unlike the dishes, they don't have a convenient robot to do it for them. Asch tips the pan slightly and then steps out of her way.]

[With Asch out of the way, she spoons up some of the batter with the ladle and eases it into the pan. She has no way to speed the cooking process - and it's probably good that she doesn't, because it would be all too easy to pull a Jenna and accidentally set it on fire while trying to speed it up.

A bit of batter does drip from the ladle, but she sees it before it hits the stove and nods slightly; there's a controlled rush of wind that catches the batter before it can make a mess and puts it back into place. There, perfect.

Now to watch it cook. She keeps an eye on it, and once it's ready, she doesn't use a spatula. Instead, she concentrates and uses the wind to ease the pancake up, turn it over, and set it back down.

Cooking with Psynergy, everyone. Sheba certainly looks proud of herself. It's not too long before the pancake is done and she uses Psynergy again to ease it out of the pan and onto a plate.] How does it look?

Like you're a show-off.

[He's smiling, though, so it can't be all bad. While she loads the pancake onto the plate, he bends into the fridge to get some juice.]

Keep going.

[While he gets the rest of the pancake essentials together. Mmmmm butter.]

[She sticks her tongue out at him as he starts getting things from the fridge.]

That was sort of the point!

[She had to prove that she was capable of doing some things right, after all. Especially after her mishap with the knife just a few minutes before. She's still giggling a little as she turns her attention back to the batter and the pan, and she easily resumes ladling it in.

After a moment, she speaks up again.] We've still got that syrup, right? The maple stuff? [One thing she discovered the few times they had pancakes and waffles and so on in the Tower: she really likes maple syrup.]

You don't have to show off for me.

[Point-blank as usual but it's true; he's used to the sound of the wind that surrounds her, the song of the wind that is her. She's not as close to the third fonon, in terms of frequency, as he is to the seventh, but close enough that it breathed with her.

Close enough that to anyone else there wouldn't be a difference. And the third fonon is closest in frequency to the seventh - perhaps that plays a part in it.]

Yeah, I'll get it out.

[personally he can't stand the sticky stuff.]

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seekinganswers - 2013-12-16 05:14 (UTC) - Expand

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