It has been a long day at work for Amity and she finds herself in an unusually bluh mood as she finally reaches home. She had to stop and pick up groceries on the way home and some asshole cut her off and took her parking spot... It's just been rough. She lets herself into the front door, then shuts it firmly behind her as she heads for the kitchen. Stuff to put away and all that.
"I'm home!" she calls out as she sets a pair of bags onto her counter. "It's been a hell of a day."
Mavis glances up from the couch where she's painting her toenails. She has one foot on the coffee table and is leaned forward with a nail brush in her hand. "Oh, hey," she greets and smiles at Amity's arrival, but then the mortal goes back to painting her toenails. Her fingernails are a matching shade of deep, dark burgundy and Mavis only has three toes left un-painted. "Why? What happened?"
Today was one of her days off and, as such, Mavis is slumming around in her house clothes AKA pajamas.
"Just a long day at work, really," Amity says as she begins to clatter around the kitchen, putting things away in cupboards, the fridge, where ever. Little hard to feel a it steamed, still, so she lets out a long sigh as she closes the fridge, leans against it. "I had to stop and grab groceries and some dude cut me off in the parking lot to grab a spot that I was aiming at. Like... normally I don't mind but we had someone at the hotel today who was being super unreasonable and I just did not have the energy to deal with that stuff." Wow. Whoever this person was they must have been pretty aggravating to get past Amity's usual 'the customer is always right' attitude. She shoves the last of her food into the pantry and slams it (delicately) shut.
"How about you? Have an okay day?"
It's not so much that Mavis doesn't sound concerned about Amity's rotten day, but she's honed in on finishing her task and in the comfort of her current home environment. Mavis settled in quickly wherever she went and had been more comfortable in Amity's home on her first day than probably Amity was inside of her own skin. The artist paints her last three toenails, lowers her foot to the floor, caps the nail polish, then carefully-- CAREFULLY!-- pads her way into the kitchen.
"Need a hand?" Mavis asks Amity buuuut it looks like her friend was already finished putting everything away. The tawny-skinned artist flashes a cheesy smile and turns on the electric kettle. "Sheesh, the dude must've been a total dick weasel. I've never seen you like this-- putting on tea, by the way-- so whatcha want to do? We could go slash his tires," she teases with a raise of her brows... Or is she?
"Lord. As gratifying it would be, no. He's gone already--just made a huge fuss checking out because he was insisting that no, that pay-per-view for Busty Co-Eds VII on the bill couldn't have been him and it definitely wasn't him and God damn it, this is a company account and on and on and ON." Amity groaned and ran her hands through her hair, then looked up at Mavis with a grateful little smile. "Thanks for putting on tea, Mav." She leans back against the counter, glances down at the other's freshly painted toenails. "And cute polish, too."
Try as she does not to laugh, Mavis can't bite down her mirth as Amity relays the story of her irate customer today. She turns away, failing to suppress a giggle, and retrieves a teacup. Her bitten fingernails are mostly dry by now, but Mavis still handles the cup and kettle with care. She pours the water into the cup, drops in the last tea she'd seen Amity drinking, and sets it on the counter next to her.
"Sorry, sorry," she apologizes, not sounding TOO sincere, but can you blame her? "It's just so typical, I dunno how you managed to sit through his tirade with a straight face." Mavis looks down at her toes when they're complimented and looks back up at Amity with a smile on her face. "Thanks," she chirps, pleased, and then adds with a proud beam, "So, I went and adulted today. Some. Should have the utilities on in a week. They're going to have to send someone out to the house."
"Thanks, Mav..." Amity feels like she says that a lot lately. But she likes saying it. Makes her feel a bit less lonely. She closes her eyes a moment, leans back against the counter. "It was so stupid. If he didn't want to try and talk his company into comping him for his skin flick, he shouldn't have ordered it from our pay-per-view, right? I swear." She shook her head, glanced sidelong at Mavis. Oh, that pride. It's... tempting. She can just /see/ the emotion radiating off of Mavis' face. She's tired and worn out and it's so... easy to let herself stretch out and fill her proverbial cop. There's a little sigh--her lips tweaking upwards into a smile as she feels herself flooded with the sensation of freshly harvested emotion. It's beautiful, ecstatic even. She does her best to conceal, letting a small shiver run through her as she cups her mug of tea. "Mm..." She sighs, half under her breath. "Glad you're here, Mav."
Mavis' toes give a pleased wiggle over the kitchen floor and she still wears her smile, although it's not the full-on beam that it was a moment before. She steps over to the counter and leans against it with Amity, turning her head to watch her friend's profile as she cups the hot tea and shudders. Unbeknownst to Mavis is the true reason of that shiver. The artist lets herself press against Amity's side, arm-to-arm. She was getting more casual with these little touches and Mavis finds it easy enough to say back, "Thanks, so am I." The human gives a small laugh. "I'll be outta your hair soon, though. I really appreciate this," she murmurs and that pride wilts down to timid modesty.
Amity glances sidelong at Mavis, still a bit 'high' from the hit of glamour. She hasn't done that before, had worried it would be too too selfish or disturbing but it feels good. Really good. It seems to sink her into a relaxed, happy state that she wasn't in just a few moments earlier. Amity leans over slightly, nudging back against Mavis' frame with a friendly warmth and weight. "...I kinda like you being in my hair, though," she says after a moment.
"You look like you're feeling better," notes Mavis, affectionately bumping her body against her friend's. She jerks her chin at the tea Amity's holding and remarks, unaware, "Glad that I could help." Oohh, Mavis had helped elevate Amity's mood alright, just not how she's thinking. Her pride creeps back as she says, "And, yeah. I kinda like being tangled up in it too. You can still come visit me, y'know. When I'm moved out." The mortal rolls a shoulder to shrug. "Stay the night sometimes."
"I am, thank you." Amity says as she raises her mug for a sip of tea. Hot tea, good company. Delicious glamour. How could you ask for more? She leans into Mavis, content to let her body rest against the other woman's for the moment. "I'd like to do that." A quiet moment as she sips her tea again. "Stay a lot of nights, even."
Mavis wasn't much of a fan of hot tea herself, but she basks in the glow Amity seems to derive from it and not in quite the same way Amity had derived from her. A flush warms her cheeks, barely tinting the skin, as Amity says that to her about staying the night. She supposes this is going to be one of those times where Amity sends mixed signals, but Mavis is well past deliberately misinterpreting those messages by this point. Carter AND Audra had oh-so-thoughtfully made the same observations.
"Yeah, I mean," says Mavis with timid glance down at her freshly painted toenails, "it's a big house and I'm not really used to more than a two bedroom." Or living alone. Not to mention it was a creepy house, she'd checked it out earlier this week to make sure the Baines home hadn't collapsed. It hadn't collapsed. It still stood and creepily stand it did. "You want to go sit in the living room? I was streaming Netflix on my phone."
Amity isn't really sure how to send direct signals these days. It's hard for her to express herself well and even harder to be blunt about her feelings, so she just.. isn't. Path of least resistance and all that. She takes another sip of tea as she listens to Mavis, nodding her head in agreement as Mavis chats about her inherited house.
"Oh, gosh. Me either. That's a lot of space to be dealing with. Are you gonna be okay on your own?" The concern is genuine, even if Amity might be hoping that maybe Mavis might decide no, she's not okay on her own. For some silly reason.
"Oh, Netflix?" Right. Watching movies on your phone. That's a thing now. Sometimes it's easy to forget for her. "Sure. Whatcha watching?"
"Well," goes Mavis, turning her head to blink at Amity, "yeah, I'm sure I'll be fine once the place has aired out a bit. Going to head up there sometime in the next couple of days to set off some bug bombs," she explains to Amity, kicking off from her lean against the counter to make her way back into the living-room. Her phone is propped up on a book she'd found nearby and Netflix is paused.
"It's some crime documentary," Mavis tells her friend, flopping down on the sofa and patting the cushion next to her. "You can read or whatever if you want or we can pick something else. I know this is kinda.. grim. It's about some whacko kidnapper, a few of his victims popped up years later. Made a break for it, I guess, they haven't told us HOW the girls got out yet."
"Well. Let me know if you want help with cleaning the place up. I like making myself useful." There's another of Amity's subdued almost-smiles and she follows after Mavis into the living room. She plops down onto the sofa next to her friend, tea set out on the coffee table. She takes a moment, her arms disappearing under her shirt before she emerges again, victorious, bra in hand. She drapes it over the arm of the couch with a relieved sigh.
"Thank goodness for the end of the day, right?" She leans over, peering at the phone curiously. "...Whoa. That's some heavy stuff," she hazards. The experience sounds all too familiar. "They /do/ get out though, right?"
Mavis lets Amity know right away, "I do!" She flashes a bright, toothy smile at her friend with that sliver-gap between her two incisors displayed for a solid 3 seconds. "No one's lived in it for years, we're probably going to need respirator masks for all of the dust." She's kidding. She's not kidding. She's thinking about how cute Amity would look in a respirator mask and a little mussy from housework and Mavis clears her throat as Amity flops down next to her. The artist leans forward to press play on her phone-screen, feeling her cheeks heat up as she spies Amity removing her bra out of the corner of her eye. She's confronted by a wave of guilt for pervin' on her friend and wrestles that down while she settles back against the couch.
"Yeah, of course," she murmurs to Amity, turning her head to bite down on her bottom lip and smile. Mavis lets herself relax a little, lets her thigh nearest Amity touch the thigh nearest her. She un-bites her bottom lip to add, "Some of the story's told by one of women, but the producers do that shadowy-effect thing to protect her identity. Can't blame 'er, doesn't want to be famous for that. We can watch something else, though."
Amity nods her head in agreement as Mavis flashes that toothy, beautiful, amazing smile at her, cheeks flushing a touch pink. For no real reason, she promises. She's just blushing because her friend smiled at her. She's normal. "Um. Right. Respirator masks. I'll put that on my list for things to pick up, yeah?" She gives her own little smile, eyes narrowing a little as she does. Maybe the first time a smile as really reached her eyes that Mavis has seen. Crazy. Much more comfy with a lack of bra, she settles in to lean against Mavis a bit so she can see the screen, not seeming to mind as her own thigh presses against Mavis's. They have to be close to watch, right? Right.
"No, it's okay, we can watch this," Amity says in a quiet voice, almost thoughtful. "I just wanted to make sure they got away. I'm glad they got away." She's quiet for a long moment. "Too many people don't get away." Ugh, wait, okay that was too much probably. Her cheeks flush darker and she shakes her head, trying to laugh it off as best she can. "Sorry, I got all philosophical there for a minute." Focus on something else! Like how warm Mavis is!
A heady, little rush leaves Mavis feeling somewhat dizzy and spinning. A woman's voice is issued from the phone, she talks in a flat monotone about her harrowing tale. You know. Crime documentary stuff. The pictures of her around the age she was taken have her face blurred out and when the camera cuts back to her at the time of this shooting, her figure is a shadowy silhouette. Mavis isn't really watching the crime documentary, though. She hears the story being told and sees the moving images on the phone screen, but the mortal is far more attuned to the Changeling leaning against her right than she is the phone propped up on the coffee table in front of them.
She listens to Amity ramble, puzzling a little over the words. Something about them hadn't seemed.. right.. but then again Amity's hand is very close to hers. Mavis thinks about taking it, but instead slides her fingers and palm atop Amity's nearest thigh down to her knee. Her face turns a little toward the bespectacled blonde's and Mavis realizes, belatedly, that it had been some time since Amity'd finished speaking.
"Oh, no. I mean, yeah," she blurts. "I totally agree.. that's kind of why I watch these things, you know? To learn how these people survived and got away." Mavis blinks, not sure why she said that or how true it was, because the thought had never occurred to her before now but it felt true. She hadn't really been paying attention to what she was saying-- what-- with her hand on Amity's //knee// and all.
Amity, perhaps, does not notice the effect she seems to be having on Mavis. Rather, she's focused on the effect Mavis seems to have on her! She is warm and gentle and she smells nice and has this beautiful hair and gorgeous smile... All these features that make Amity want to turn bright red and fall over on the spot thanks to being far too embarrassed in the other's presence. She only have listens to the story--it is familiar and distant all at once. Being taken, suffering, and escaping. That is part of her tale, she knows that much. She's shoved out of her awkward swirl of emotions at the sensation of Mavis's hand against her leg.
Her /leg/. Amity's cheeks flare into a bright red blush that makes its way right to the tip of her ears. That's... that's just a friendly touch, right? Nothing... untoward? Amity shouldn't make assumptions! Her gaze flicks from the screen to Mavis and there's an embarrassed little sound that manages to eke its way from her throat. She hesitates, not sure how to say what she wants to say or if she should say anything. Breathe in. Breathe out.
"It's not easy," she says quietly, then adds: "Surviving, I mean." And then before she can stop herself her hand settles over Mavis's, holding it against her knee with a gentle firmness and surety. Maybe she's not good at expressing herself but she can do this much, can't she?
Mavis debates with herself. She imagines, that with how closely they're sitting on the sofa, that it would be no effort at all to lift her chin a little higher and lean just a little bit closer. It'd be easy to offer her lips up to Amity's for the taking. She takes deep, slow breaths while watching her friend out of the corner of an eye more than she watched the small rectangle of phone screen. Amity's hand moves to cover her own and presses over it.
"Oh.. Shit, I'm sorry," Mavis goes, glancing over at her phone and back at Amity again. "I didn't even think about how.." The mortal trails off, not sure where she's going with that sentence, but the grim documentary was having an ill effect on her friend, but Amity'd said the crime show was fine. Mavis sighs about it all. Before Amity had gotten home, she'd been shamelessly engrossed in the program.
Mavis' nostril give a teensy, subtle flare and she lifts her chin higher. She turns and leans more against Amity, pressing the soft pillows of her breasts to the outside of her friend's bicep. Her fingers curl and the tips grip Amity's knee and she can feel the mortal there next to her, warm and breathing. Mavis other hand is in her own lap, gripping her own knee, and her breaths spill against the side of Amity's jawline. For the second time, Mavis realizes it has been long moment or two since the last time Amity spoke. She'd let the silence drag on.
"Why are you sorry?" Amity's voice breaks the silence after a few more moments of waiting. She doesn't know why, really, her friend is apologizing. It's just a film about... a thing. That happened to her, basically. Nothing she has to worry about any longer, right? Though part of her longs to be like the women on the screen: anonymous, blacked out, kept hidden from prying eyes. Her breath gets a little shallower and she can feel her heart starting to flutter in her chest, like a bird. A trapped bird. She swallows and before she can help herself, there is the feeling of a tear tracing its way down her cheek, gentle and soft. She doesn't sob or weep--she can't. It's a small outlet for such a well of emotion. As Mavis presses to her, Amity shivers, feels the warm breath against her chin and jaw, the soft pressure of the other's body. Her heart is beating faster and faster and she cannot tell if it is panic or excitement or nerves or whatever else it might be.
She cannot think. Her head threatens to burst with the roiling mixture of emotions. But Mavis is there. She's Amity's friend--even if only for a few short weeks--and she cares and she is warm and lovely and supportive and Amity cannot contain herself. She turns her head a little to the side, just enough that she can see Mavis fully. Her eyes brim with tears and she tries not to let them fall as she finally presses her lips against Mavis's. It's a soft, gentle, tentative thing for all the tension that has built between them and her hand interweaves pale fingers with darker.
"I'm sorry," Amity whispers into the space between them, once her lips part from Mavis's. "I..." Words fail her. What can she say now?
A tear wells up in Amity's eyes then makes a break for it and rolls down the woman's cheek. Mavis' watches these infinitesimal events unfold with an expression that gradually darkens. She was concerned, yes, but there's a foreboding expression held in the mortal's eyes like she'd rearrange the skeletons of the things that'd hurt her friend. The hard, flinty look in Mavis' gaze goes startled and wide when Amity turns to face her, leans forward, presses her mouth over hers. She tenses as if she'd just stuck a fork in a wall-socket then, gradually, relaxes and her lips move. Just as they begin to press back against Amity's, Amity is pulling away and apologizing. Mavis opens her eyes and blinks at her while her phone streams Netflix in the background. Now a police detective on the case was speaking in his gravelly baritone.
"Sorry?" Mavis repeats, blinking in confusion. She wanted to ask why Amity was crying, but instead lifts her other hand from her own lap to cup her friend's tear-streaked cheek and brush the pad of her thumb over the teary trail "We both say that a lot," she notes with a breathy, startled laugh, and a lick of her lips. "And then we tell each other not to be, but we keep doing it anyway." She pauses and rubs her thumb across the wetness on Amity's cheek then says, "I- I can stop if you want," and bites her bottom lip once more. Mavis looks down and lets her lip pull from between her teeth so she can murmur, "I just.. want to make you forget. I know that's fucked up and all, but it hurts me?" She felt selfish admitting that. "To see you like this.. I dunno what else to do."
The other sounds in the small apartment seem to blot themselves out of Amity's hearing. There's only Mavis's voice left. She focuses in, tilting her head a little to rest in Mavis's hand. It's touch. Real, human touch that doesn't come with strings attached or make her flinch and even though she doesn't know /why/ that idea makes her happy it /does/. She smiles, almost laughs at Mavis's words and her hand grips Mavis's all the tighter. "You're right," she says, smiling through tears. "You don't have to stop. I--I don't want you to stop," she says. "Honestly I've wanted to do that since you walked into the Red Clover Hotel." Honesty set to on for that brief moment, she continues, voice catching, hitching just barely. She is crying and yet... so little of it appears in her face or her voice. "That's the fucked up part," she says, punctuating her words with a rare curse word. "I don't remember almost any of it and it still does this to me." Whatever 'it' was, well... Mavis might be able to guess, at least within her realm of understanding.
"I want you to--God, you don't have to try and make me forget just. Make new memories with me? Is that okay?" She reaches up, her free hand mirroring Mavis's as she cups the other woman's cheek, feeling the curve of it and the line of her jaw with her fingers. "I prefer to think of it that way."
--- FTB, because Mavis-player had to go and, by the way, she's still god-awful at proofing her poses. And, yes, this is Mavis-player speaking. Ahem, so: post-scene, Amity-player and I agreed that our characters decided to slow their rolls and keeps their clothes on.
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