sunset always seemed sweeter after you've travelled farworksmartJanuary 8 2011, 21:15:07 UTC
[Saturday evening, 10:52pm. Twenty two hours and eight minutes without a sip of black gold means Chase considers his challenge won, and there's been no sign of fatigue in him or the tune he's been whistling under his breath since taking the lobby steps to building 12 two at a time and punching the 9 on the elevator panel. He's kept to his end of the deal, and he feels fine about it.
It's only at Claire's door, patting the small pack of caffeine pills in his inside breast pocket, that he pauses and gives himself a minute to adopt a suitably hangdog position. Shoulders slumped, corners of his mouth both sullen and irritable. Even his knock is lacklustre, once and then twice, weaker, against the wood panelling.
It wouldn't do to be accused of cheating, after all.]
sunset always seemed sweeter after you've travelled faradamantinedJanuary 8 2011, 21:35:51 UTC
[She's not necessarily been waiting, but Claire has been expecting. It's taken every ounce of fair game that she has not to pick up her phone several times during the day in order to text variations of 'so how tired are you?' or 'I could get used to this coffee flavor' in an effort to rub it in. Having mostly occupied her time with cleaning up and finding excuses to ask Ginny what her plans were for the night and get rid of her, the dining room table is actually getting used for something other than folding laundry as she flips through a magazine and eventually tries not to look too smug at the sound of pathetic knocking
( ... )
sunset always seemed sweeter after you've travelled farworksmartJanuary 8 2011, 21:46:17 UTC
[There's some kind of caveman grunt in response, Chase returning her amused appraisal with a gimlet stare through eyes that might as well just be narrowed out of effort to keep up the lids. He lifts a hand, one finger raised to punctuate the next point, the obvious direction of this day of (presumed) suffering.]
This reward. [The hand wavers, and eventually decides her shoulder is as good a resting place as any. They won't stay out in the hallway together for long.] Tell me it's going to involve you doing the lion's share of the work.
[The carefully constructed mask almost slips along with the upturn at one corner of his mouth, but he stifles it, backing her further into her apartment and, with supreme effort, kicking the door shut.]
Thought I might have to call up and request it in the lobby.
sunset always seemed sweeter after you've travelled faradamantinedJanuary 8 2011, 22:03:22 UTC
[His reaction only means that she has to work harder to keep any and all traces of amusement from breaking the barrier between thought and action. She's not very good at it, but she makes up for it by turning underneath his palm in an attempt to offer her very alert and awake shoulder as some kind of a crutch. Claire only turns back at the last minute to lock the door, which does a decent job of allowing her the opportunity to collect both her grin and her immediate reaction. Not that she wasn't planning on doing the lion's share, but admitting it aloud is different. She scoffs anyway.]
I would've sent a stretcher if I thought it was going to be this bad.
[She might be pandering to the way he's acting, but she can't deny that after yesterday's string of Network posts, having something light to come back to is a nice feeling. Either way, her steps are moving them helpfully through the apartment, from hardwood to the carpet of the living room. He should be familiar with the path even if it's been a while since he walked it.]Are you
( ... )
sunset always seemed sweeter after you've travelled farworksmartJanuary 8 2011, 22:31:37 UTC
[And it's true, the emergency room has taken in a collection of amnesiacs over the day, sending home most of them but holding the ones whose memory slips had lead to burns, or self poisoning, or ignorance of some basic and necessary function. It's a familiar enough curse pattern. No one's worried, though checklists between doctors have been set up before anyone's allowed to handle medication. All in all it's been a calm, easy day, smoothed along by some virulently toxic tasting energy drinks and other small ways of subverting the letter of Claire's law.
Actually, the energy drinks might have been a mistake. His nerve endings feel sharp against her skin, pads of his thumbs tracing along the dip of her neckline, less in need of support now.]
You can drop me off on the rug if you're coming with me.
[Fingertips hitch fabric, suggesting that this might even be a goodidea.]
sunset always seemed sweeter after you've travelled faradamantinedJanuary 9 2011, 04:59:06 UTC
[Despite the electric trill that spreads outward from where his fingers graze her skin at her neckline, Claire wrinkles her nose, slipping out from underneath his hands though hardly out of reach and hardly for long. Fingertips catch at the edges of his lapels, and she does her best to walk backward even with no set goal in mind in terms of where she's headed. It's easier to keep her expression the same as she looks up at him, then down at the carpet without change, thoughts of memory loss and questions pertaining to it and other fleeting, confusing Network posts abandoned in favor of something more immediate.]
Mr. Muggles rolls around on that carpet. And Crookshanks does God-knows-what. Not to mention all the foot traffic it gets. If you want to lay down there, be my guest.
[It's actually clean, having been vacuumed - and probably spelled - along with the rest of the place earlier, but the backs of her thighs are already bumped up against the arm of the sofa. With Ginny gone for the evening, Claire oddly has no qualms with staying
( ... )
sunset always seemed sweeter after you've travelled farworksmartJanuary 9 2011, 22:25:05 UTC
[Admittedly, Claire does not sell carpet burns well. Chase would have been fine with most kinds of rolling around, but that cat -- the phrasing she uses is at least offputting, and he finds himself wrinkling his own nose in sympathy. He's still playing at fatigue, though less efficiently now eagerness is edging into the lines of his arms and shoulders. They're kept to his side until she pulls at him, then take her waist only for the recoil. This, of course, is a difficult question to hedge.]
Not really. [He starts with bravado.]
Maybe a bit. [A shrug, shoulders and the muscles of his face drooping just enough to count ans an admittance.
He reaches up and shucks his jacket (and its incriminating contents) over the back of the couch, then starts at the buttons of his own shirt, for once not layered over a t-shirt for warmth. It shows willing.]
sunset always seemed sweeter after you've travelled faradamantinedJanuary 9 2011, 23:03:13 UTC
Not really?
[Her eyebrows raise in varying degrees of expectation, mouth and eyes following suit. If her arms weren't already occupied, they might be crossing as she waits out his replies and - well, that's the jacket gone, arms decidedly unoccupied and her fingers unable to work out the buttons breadcrumbing up to his collarbone. Claire bites her lip and kicks back the color stretching across her face - wishing she could just get rid of it completely rather than momentarily, for a number of reasons - with a toss of her hair.]
Well, okay, you don't get to be champion, but I'm willing to overlook a technicality. I think you're awake enough.
[There's no return for this idea of watching, at least not verbally, but seeing as how there's little she can do to help with his shirt without getting their fingers all tripped up, the next logical course of action is to unbutton his pants. Achieved while a couple fingers catch in a belt loop, Claire steps back again until she's more or less sitting on the arm of the couch, slipping off of that
( ... )
sunset always seemed sweeter after you've travelled farworksmartJanuary 9 2011, 23:18:16 UTC
[Of course, unbuttoning his pants is always the next logical step. And just as he's about to attempt a form of reversal of their positions, or at least find himself something to lean against, she's practically pulling him hip-first against her - and while that may be exactly the area leading him right now, it's also not one he wants to crash land on. There's a short tussle - he shakes off one arm of his shirt and ignores the other half, stripped to the waist bar one arm of pinstriped cotton which has to act quickly to find a handhold on a cushion as he goes down.
Knee on either side of her upper thighs, it does provide a certain restriction to getting his pants down much further. For now.]
If you wake me up in the next few minutes, do I get to be champion then?
[Pressing forward to kiss her, he's all for rolling around.]
sunset always seemed sweeter after you've travelled faradamantinedJanuary 10 2011, 00:36:25 UTC
[In her head, this all went so much smoother.
Now her shirt is twisted, which just has her wanting it gone, and while it's a relatively easy shift to one side so she can help the other arm out of its sleeve, there's still something complicated enough in doing it that she's laughing, mostly at herself, by the time he leans in to kiss her. She makes a noise that sounds vaguely like pssh, but with her mouth muffled against his, it's difficult to really tell. Her palms press into his skin, across his back and then along his ribs, and Claire pushes a bit so she can work on reversing their positions, only slightly more awkwardly than planned. Eventually she sits up again, pushing her hair out of her face and dropping her elbow over the back of the sofa.]
No, then I get to be champion. [This accompanied by a slight shove to his shoulders, as if to better establish this reverse in positions - both metaphorically and otherwise. Claire is careful of her knees, on either side of a leg, one trying to slip between the back of the couch and the
( ... )
sunset always seemed sweeter after you've travelled far7thbornJanuary 10 2011, 01:02:13 UTC
[It's a little too cold in the season for Ginny to fly back to the apartment from work, and with the recent arrival of certain Dark wizards in the City, there is no harm in putting her Apparation skills into practice. Tonight is one such night. Her broom is sitting in her room and the redheaded witch is snapping away from the Blue Light and reappearing in the lobby of Building 12 with a crack.The relatively late hour is the only reason she hasn't Apparated to the hallway directly, but it's in no time at all that she's in the lift and up to the 9th floor and walking down to the apartment. She has no reason at all to believe she'd be interrupting anything, no reason to believe there's company, so she's shrugging out of her coat before she's gotten to the door and her scarf is loose around her neck and she's got a glove caught between her teeth as she fishes for her keys and unlocks the door
( ... )
sunset always seemed sweeter after you've travelled farworksmartJanuary 10 2011, 01:27:52 UTC
[If there's anyone in a position to worry about how he looks, it's one Doctor Robert Chase, decidedly unbuttoned but, out of sight behind a kneeling Claire and the back of the couch, only revealed by his work shirt crumbled wherever it was tossed, and the jacket hanging over the cushions. Sticking out at one end of the couch, also visible, a pair of feet with one shoe toed off and the other dangling, trousers pushed to a tangled half-mast around his knees.
Over which, Claire is sitting, while he's raised on hands and elbows, making as obedient an attempt as any to 'scoot up', and shooting back some comment about how she can't be a Champion without facing a trial, and there isn't much hope if she's describing him as that already.]
But I could give you marks out of ten, if you'd like.
[From his limited vantage point, the door hasn't opened. One of the animals probably skittered across the floor - not a situation alien to him after Angela and her menagerie. Ginny is out. He knows that will have been checked on. Safety is assured to
( ... )
sunset always seemed sweeter after you've travelled faradamantinedJanuary 10 2011, 02:32:50 UTC
[Claire has an argument prepared for his rebuttal, a good enough one to have pulled up and sat back a little, so it's probably as good a time as any for an interruption not her own to stop her from actually dragging conversation out longer than necessary. That isn't to say Ginny's interruption is a welcome one, because it isn't. Remotely. For so, so many reasons. Like the fact that Claire's finally found a way of sitting that doesn't involve complicated gymnastics and has finally managed to put personal reservations about what she's going to do aside, not to mention his hands and waistband. Leaning over him this way is a little intoxicating. Ginny's oh from the door is a loud, freezing splash of water that drenches her and lights her face on fire at the same time. It's a strange sensation, and she goes still with wide eyes, only moving again to crane her neck to check and make sure her roommate actually is at the door.]
Oh, my God.
[There isn't exactly a mad scramble to get off of Chase so much as there is some torn desire to both
( ... )
sunset always seemed sweeter after you've travelled far7thbornJanuary 10 2011, 06:13:56 UTC
[Ginny Weasley is torn between too instinctual reactions. One is to turn right back around and close the door and take Peter up on his offer to stay at the Pevensie house for a bit. Perhaps not exactly the reason he had in mind when he made the offer, but it's an emergency getaway and this seems like an appropriate emergency situation. Her other reaction is to take the Fred and George approach and just diffuse the tension with some humour. All this thinking happens in the span of about two seconds, and she doesn't have a third to reach a decision because now Claire is talking
( ... )
sunset always seemed sweeter after you've travelled farworksmartJanuary 10 2011, 21:35:39 UTC
[The response from the couch during the majority of this brief altercation is the approximate embodiment of stunned silence. Chase takes the small, threatened animal approach to discovery: freeze and hope whatever's looking will go away. That lasts for as long as it takes for Claire to detach herself and toss up his shirt, which isn't really the area he's most concerned with covering, for the moment. It makes a flimsy, tented disguise, and before Ginny makes her exit he's given up on it and somehow twisted onto his front and then onto his knees, watching her departure with his head and shoulders visible over the back of the couch like a meercat just startled from its burrow.
His second shoe predicts the slamming of her door, hitting the ground with a thud. Silence. Two and a half beats of it before he's looking back over his shoulder for an explanation.]
I thought you'd have checked her schedule.
[Repeating an earlier gesture, both hands are hooked into the waistband of his boxers, this time making certain they're pulled up to an
( ... )
sunset always seemed sweeter after you've travelled faradamantinedJanuary 10 2011, 22:09:01 UTC
[If the color of her face, her neck, bleeding down past her collarbone until she can feel it in her toes, is any indication, then Claire has been just as surprised by Ginny's appearance as anyone involved in this situation. Possibly more than anyone involved. After all, she had checked: part of confirming her own schedule while planning for this whole thing meant checking Ginny's as well. She'd even confirmed this afternoon before Ginny had left. It's her luck and her luck only that would let something like this happen, and the only thing she can do at the moment, other than reassuring and correcting Chase with undercuts of She won't, she wouldn't, I'd murder her in her sleep, is to comply and help him get his pants back up
( ... )
It's only at Claire's door, patting the small pack of caffeine pills in his inside breast pocket, that he pauses and gives himself a minute to adopt a suitably hangdog position. Shoulders slumped, corners of his mouth both sullen and irritable. Even his knock is lacklustre, once and then twice, weaker, against the wood panelling.
It wouldn't do to be accused of cheating, after all.]
Reply
Reply
This reward. [The hand wavers, and eventually decides her shoulder is as good a resting place as any. They won't stay out in the hallway together for long.] Tell me it's going to involve you doing the lion's share of the work.
[The carefully constructed mask almost slips along with the upturn at one corner of his mouth, but he stifles it, backing her further into her apartment and, with supreme effort, kicking the door shut.]
Thought I might have to call up and request it in the lobby.
Reply
I would've sent a stretcher if I thought it was going to be this bad.
[She might be pandering to the way he's acting, but she can't deny that after yesterday's string of Network posts, having something light to come back to is a nice feeling. Either way, her steps are moving them helpfully through the apartment, from hardwood to the carpet of the living room. He should be familiar with the path even if it's been a while since he walked it.]Are you ( ... )
Reply
Actually, the energy drinks might have been a mistake. His nerve endings feel sharp against her skin, pads of his thumbs tracing along the dip of her neckline, less in need of support now.]
You can drop me off on the rug if you're coming with me.
[Fingertips hitch fabric, suggesting that this might even be a goodidea.]
Reply
Mr. Muggles rolls around on that carpet. And Crookshanks does God-knows-what. Not to mention all the foot traffic it gets. If you want to lay down there, be my guest.
[It's actually clean, having been vacuumed - and probably spelled - along with the rest of the place earlier, but the backs of her thighs are already bumped up against the arm of the sofa. With Ginny gone for the evening, Claire oddly has no qualms with staying ( ... )
Reply
Not really. [He starts with bravado.]
Maybe a bit. [A shrug, shoulders and the muscles of his face drooping just enough to count ans an admittance.
He reaches up and shucks his jacket (and its incriminating contents) over the back of the couch, then starts at the buttons of his own shirt, for once not layered over a t-shirt for warmth. It shows willing.]
I'm definitely not too tired to watch.
Reply
[Her eyebrows raise in varying degrees of expectation, mouth and eyes following suit. If her arms weren't already occupied, they might be crossing as she waits out his replies and - well, that's the jacket gone, arms decidedly unoccupied and her fingers unable to work out the buttons breadcrumbing up to his collarbone. Claire bites her lip and kicks back the color stretching across her face - wishing she could just get rid of it completely rather than momentarily, for a number of reasons - with a toss of her hair.]
Well, okay, you don't get to be champion, but I'm willing to overlook a technicality. I think you're awake enough.
[There's no return for this idea of watching, at least not verbally, but seeing as how there's little she can do to help with his shirt without getting their fingers all tripped up, the next logical course of action is to unbutton his pants. Achieved while a couple fingers catch in a belt loop, Claire steps back again until she's more or less sitting on the arm of the couch, slipping off of that ( ... )
Reply
Knee on either side of her upper thighs, it does provide a certain restriction to getting his pants down much further. For now.]
If you wake me up in the next few minutes, do I get to be champion then?
[Pressing forward to kiss her, he's all for rolling around.]
Reply
Now her shirt is twisted, which just has her wanting it gone, and while it's a relatively easy shift to one side so she can help the other arm out of its sleeve, there's still something complicated enough in doing it that she's laughing, mostly at herself, by the time he leans in to kiss her. She makes a noise that sounds vaguely like pssh, but with her mouth muffled against his, it's difficult to really tell. Her palms press into his skin, across his back and then along his ribs, and Claire pushes a bit so she can work on reversing their positions, only slightly more awkwardly than planned. Eventually she sits up again, pushing her hair out of her face and dropping her elbow over the back of the sofa.]
No, then I get to be champion. [This accompanied by a slight shove to his shoulders, as if to better establish this reverse in positions - both metaphorically and otherwise. Claire is careful of her knees, on either side of a leg, one trying to slip between the back of the couch and the ( ... )
Reply
Reply
Over which, Claire is sitting, while he's raised on hands and elbows, making as obedient an attempt as any to 'scoot up', and shooting back some comment about how she can't be a Champion without facing a trial, and there isn't much hope if she's describing him as that already.]
But I could give you marks out of ten, if you'd like.
[From his limited vantage point, the door hasn't opened. One of the animals probably skittered across the floor - not a situation alien to him after Angela and her menagerie. Ginny is out. He knows that will have been checked on. Safety is assured to ( ... )
Reply
Oh, my God.
[There isn't exactly a mad scramble to get off of Chase so much as there is some torn desire to both ( ... )
Reply
Reply
His second shoe predicts the slamming of her door, hitting the ground with a thud. Silence. Two and a half beats of it before he's looking back over his shoulder for an explanation.]
I thought you'd have checked her schedule.
[Repeating an earlier gesture, both hands are hooked into the waistband of his boxers, this time making certain they're pulled up to an ( ... )
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment