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.
It only takes a few steps to answer the door, and Claire feels both guilty and rewarded - but mostly rewarded - at what greets her there. While Chase might be putting in excellent effort to look grumpy and tired, Claire has a hard time pinching her mouth into a firm line in order to hide a laugh. It's only once she raises a hand to cover it up that she manages to get a hold on the situation. She leans against the open door, one hand in her back pocket, trying to look casual.]
Long day?
[She is a little bit sorry, but only a little bit, and only so long as she knows he hasn't cheated.]
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 sure you aren't too tired? [Claire looks up at him, eyebrows raised.] You don't look like you're gonna make it. I could always just drop you off at the couch if anything else is too far.
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 out here for now. In a way, it's kind of nice, not having to shut a door in her own apartment for a change.
Her fingers pass just over his breast pocket, somehow managing to miss what they might be able to find if they only pressed just a little bit harder, and slide under his collar. She draws Chase close only to change tack halfway there and hold him back again, studying him with a certain degree of seriousness she manages not to fracture with a laugh.]
Wait, so are you tired? I have to ask. It was part of the bet.
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 and tugging him along with her as she does. It's not necessarily an easy maneuver, and she has to brace her heel against the arm of the sofa to get where she wants to be, but it's easier than dropping right back onto the cushions from standing. And although it will mean ending up trapped, she doesn't plan to stay there long. Talk about rolling around. The couch is at least set deep enough.]
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 cushions. Some more adjusting and she's able to lean down and kiss him again, lips and jaw.] Scoot up a little.
[It's easier to say it if she's looking at the shadows pressed into his neck rather than at him directly, but she uses the hand not saving her from falling off the couch to help him up toward the opposite end of the sofa she'd slipped over. And it might be difficult getting them down, and Claire hopes he can at least work his shoes off this way, but with ankles and feet and hands all trying to help, the pants aren't impossible.]
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.
And opens it.
And takes a half-step in before going quite still. She isn't... entirely sure what she's seeing, or rather, isn't sure if she should be seeing this at all-answer: no-and it's not as if she hasn't seen this before (Hogwarts is a boarding school, for Merlin's sake). Just not with her roommate and their upstairs neighbour. It isn't even shock that's flickering across her face. Surprise, perhaps, and even Ginny Weasley is capable of feeling some form of embarrassment because there's a touch of colour spreading across her cheeks. It's almost comical, with the glove hanging from her mouth and the snow in her hair. Almost.]
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 the extent that he has two hands hooked in the waistband of his boxers before he looks up at Claire, momentarily hesitant.]
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 cover him and turn back to around to yell at Ginny to get out. This results in one of her legs slipping off the couch, results in her leaning forward until her hair tumbles over her shoulders, results in her actually turning around to look at her roommate while still half bent over. It's better than looking at Chase right now.]
Ginny you said you were working what are you doing here?
[Everything runs together into one long sentence, and no matter how hard Claire tries not to be embarrassed, she just can't get the snowball to stop rolling. The look thrown to Ginny only lasts as long as it takes for her to spot Chase's shirt lying on the floor, and then it becomes a mission to get that while still huffing out variations of oh my God under her breath.
She's going to kill that witch one of these days.]
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.
...and, well, she doesn't sound pleased.
So the young Gryffindor is forced to come to some sort of middle about it all. Retreat is not an option. And a quick survey of the immediate area tells her that clothes have been shed and that accent means it is Robert Chase and this is clearly something she wasn't meant to walk into at all. But despite it all, there's a sheepish grin tugging at the corners of her lips; her cheeks are still flushed and Claire will probably call Ginny out on what's so funny but she really cannot help it. It's so awkward, it's hilarious.
She shrugs, quickly stepping into the apartment and shutting the door behind her to preserve some privacy, back turned to the couple on the sofa as she pulls her glove from her mouth and calls over her shoulder,]
I came home, obviously. I didn't realise we had company.
[Pause. Okay. Okay. Claire won't throw anything at her if she moves fast, right? And try to curb that smirk, Weasley, there is absolutely nothing to be smug about. Yet.]
I'll just go and change, shall I, I smell like work. Which I just left. Because my shift ended. So...
[Ginny lets that last word hang in the air as she moves through the living room, gaze pointedly averted as she passes the sofa, and disappears down the hall so fast, it's almost like she chose to Apparate again. She makes a point of slamming her door shut. She is giving you two five minutes to get decent, that is what she means, because she is not going to let this go. Oh, no.]
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 almost painful degree. They're still not doing much to preserve any idea of modesty (and there's one plaintive voice at the back of his mind despairing of ever getting a blow job). He reaches to attempt the same with his pants, but all the twisting has the legs at odd angles, wadded up and almost immovable. Growing low, he seats himself on the couch and pushes up on his heels to try a better angle.]
Or paid her off to go to the cinema or something. If she's in there logging on to the network right now--
[His voice isn't meant to be raised enough to allow the threat to carry down the hallway, but it is. And so is everything else he says.]
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.
Once that is taken care of, Claire holds out his shirt again - which she has somehow picked up despite having no recollection of doing so - and huffs with some degree of exasperation. It's a contest between snapping back with borderline defensiveness and falling all over herself in an attempt to explain, and she comes out somewhere in the middle.]
I did check it. I checked it earlier in the week, and I asked her right before she left! [There is an aggravated pause in which Claire raises up on her knees and pays more attention than is necessary to straightening out her shirt and her own pants, which have somehow gotten twisted as well. Before going on, she falls back onto the couch with a bounce of the springs.] Since when does anyone get to go home before one in the morning on a Saturday anyway?
[Her voice is loud enough to carry, hitching up in volume toward the end so that Ginny is sure to hear it all the way down the hall and through the slammed door leading to her room. Claire needs to get the heat burning a path through her skin under control before the other girl comes out, and the only way of really doing this, apparently, is to hide her face in her hands and then scrub the rest of the evidence away with her palms. She takes a breath in, lets it out.]
I am so sorry. [This said quietly from behind the only hand still left covering her mouth, muffled by fingers, as she glances across the couch at Chase.] I mean... really.
sunset always seemed sweeter after you've travelled far7thbornJanuary 11 2011, 00:40:50 UTC
[While all this is going on outside, Ginny is in her room as promised, clothes being shed in a far more innocent way than she suspects happened in the living room. Her coat is tossed onto her unmade bed, scarf next, boots kicked off, and she is taking her time. Merlin knows what they've got to discuss out there and the youngest of seven's instinct is to listen at her door anyway, crack it open a hair, just to hear what story they'll try to come up with. If they'll try to come up with a story at all. Except she knows how this goes, she's been in similar positions before (with Dean, with Harry, and her brothers just barging on through), and she knows it's rotten, but of course there's something different about all this. Still, she can hear Claire's remark and she can't resist shouting through the closed door,]
Since now!
[Not the most original response but she really hasn't got a better answer. And as she stands before her closet, staring at it and its contents with unseeing eyes and hands on her hips, she is silently thankful it was the living room and not her bedroom she discovered the busy couple in. Ginny releases a sigh, running her fingers through her vivid mane of hair as she shakes her head.]
Bloody hell.
[It's not that it's come as a complete surprise, she thinks as she rummages for a clean pair of sweatpants. And it's not as if she's seen or heard anything before. But she's a teenaged girl, a witch who's lived six years of her life in a castle filled with romance in secret passageways; it's like she's got a sixth sense for this sort of thing. Especially when it comes to someone close to her, someone she cares for like a sister. And while Chase certainly isn't a choice she disapproves of, is a good friend, this changes things in that a very Mollyish sort of protectiveness is coming to life in the seventh born Weasley. As she drags on an emerald jumper-Harry's, she realises a moment later-and peers into her mirror to braid back her hair, she hopes she doesn't react to this like her brothers would. She resolves not to, actually.
Except the problem is that Ginny Weasley has never been one to strictly control her actions, and whether Claire, Chase, or herself likes it or not, she might just pull the Older Brother approach all the same with sweetly-veiled threats. Maybe threats isn't the right word. Maybe hints would be better. Yes. The witch straightens before the mirror, draws in a deep breath and lets it out in a rush, then tries to rub the remnants of the infamous Weasley flush from her cheeks before departing her bedroom on socked feet. She makes a point of announcing her approach long before her appearance, opening her door with a flourish, humming some Weird Sisters song under her breath, but the tune cuts short when she walks back into the main living space of it all.]
Hullo, Chase.
[Awkward.
So she moves on over to the kitchen, biting back another helpless grin at the situation... despite the situation. Maybe tea. Yes, tea. But she can't leave much unsaid, can she? Casually, now.]
You know, a simple phone call would've done nicely. Really, I do have other places to hang around other than here.
[Ginny means a phone call about this particular instance, but the subtext of it all is that Claire could have told her about this at any time. Really. But thankfully her tone is free of anything remotely like her own mother's. For now.]
It only takes a few steps to answer the door, and Claire feels both guilty and rewarded - but mostly rewarded - at what greets her there. While Chase might be putting in excellent effort to look grumpy and tired, Claire has a hard time pinching her mouth into a firm line in order to hide a laugh. It's only once she raises a hand to cover it up that she manages to get a hold on the situation. She leans against the open door, one hand in her back pocket, trying to look casual.]
Long day?
[She is a little bit sorry, but only a little bit, and only so long as she knows he hasn't cheated.]
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 sure you aren't too tired? [Claire looks up at him, eyebrows raised.] You don't look like you're gonna make it. I could always just drop you off at the couch if anything else is too far.
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 out here for now. In a way, it's kind of nice, not having to shut a door in her own apartment for a change.
Her fingers pass just over his breast pocket, somehow managing to miss what they might be able to find if they only pressed just a little bit harder, and slide under his collar. She draws Chase close only to change tack halfway there and hold him back again, studying him with a certain degree of seriousness she manages not to fracture with a laugh.]
Wait, so are you tired? I have to ask. It was part of the bet.
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 and tugging him along with her as she does. It's not necessarily an easy maneuver, and she has to brace her heel against the arm of the sofa to get where she wants to be, but it's easier than dropping right back onto the cushions from standing. And although it will mean ending up trapped, she doesn't plan to stay there long. Talk about rolling around. The couch is at least set deep enough.]
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 cushions. Some more adjusting and she's able to lean down and kiss him again, lips and jaw.] Scoot up a little.
[It's easier to say it if she's looking at the shadows pressed into his neck rather than at him directly, but she uses the hand not saving her from falling off the couch to help him up toward the opposite end of the sofa she'd slipped over. And it might be difficult getting them down, and Claire hopes he can at least work his shoes off this way, but with ankles and feet and hands all trying to help, the pants aren't impossible.]
Reply
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.
And opens it.
And takes a half-step in before going quite still. She isn't... entirely sure what she's seeing, or rather, isn't sure if she should be seeing this at all-answer: no-and it's not as if she hasn't seen this before (Hogwarts is a boarding school, for Merlin's sake). Just not with her roommate and their upstairs neighbour. It isn't even shock that's flickering across her face. Surprise, perhaps, and even Ginny Weasley is capable of feeling some form of embarrassment because there's a touch of colour spreading across her cheeks. It's almost comical, with the glove hanging from her mouth and the snow in her hair. Almost.]
... oh.
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 the extent that he has two hands hooked in the waistband of his boxers before he looks up at Claire, momentarily hesitant.]
Oh, what?
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 cover him and turn back to around to yell at Ginny to get out. This results in one of her legs slipping off the couch, results in her leaning forward until her hair tumbles over her shoulders, results in her actually turning around to look at her roommate while still half bent over. It's better than looking at Chase right now.]
Ginny you said you were working what are you doing here?
[Everything runs together into one long sentence, and no matter how hard Claire tries not to be embarrassed, she just can't get the snowball to stop rolling. The look thrown to Ginny only lasts as long as it takes for her to spot Chase's shirt lying on the floor, and then it becomes a mission to get that while still huffing out variations of oh my God under her breath.
She's going to kill that witch one of these days.]
Reply
...and, well, she doesn't sound pleased.
So the young Gryffindor is forced to come to some sort of middle about it all. Retreat is not an option. And a quick survey of the immediate area tells her that clothes have been shed and that accent means it is Robert Chase and this is clearly something she wasn't meant to walk into at all. But despite it all, there's a sheepish grin tugging at the corners of her lips; her cheeks are still flushed and Claire will probably call Ginny out on what's so funny but she really cannot help it. It's so awkward, it's hilarious.
She shrugs, quickly stepping into the apartment and shutting the door behind her to preserve some privacy, back turned to the couple on the sofa as she pulls her glove from her mouth and calls over her shoulder,]
I came home, obviously. I didn't realise we had company.
[Pause. Okay. Okay. Claire won't throw anything at her if she moves fast, right? And try to curb that smirk, Weasley, there is absolutely nothing to be smug about. Yet.]
I'll just go and change, shall I, I smell like work. Which I just left. Because my shift ended. So...
[Ginny lets that last word hang in the air as she moves through the living room, gaze pointedly averted as she passes the sofa, and disappears down the hall so fast, it's almost like she chose to Apparate again. She makes a point of slamming her door shut. She is giving you two five minutes to get decent, that is what she means, because she is not going to let this go. Oh, no.]
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 almost painful degree. They're still not doing much to preserve any idea of modesty (and there's one plaintive voice at the back of his mind despairing of ever getting a blow job). He reaches to attempt the same with his pants, but all the twisting has the legs at odd angles, wadded up and almost immovable. Growing low, he seats himself on the couch and pushes up on his heels to try a better angle.]
Or paid her off to go to the cinema or something. If she's in there logging on to the network right now--
[His voice isn't meant to be raised enough to allow the threat to carry down the hallway, but it is. And so is everything else he says.]
For God's sake, can you help me get my pants on.
Reply
Once that is taken care of, Claire holds out his shirt again - which she has somehow picked up despite having no recollection of doing so - and huffs with some degree of exasperation. It's a contest between snapping back with borderline defensiveness and falling all over herself in an attempt to explain, and she comes out somewhere in the middle.]
I did check it. I checked it earlier in the week, and I asked her right before she left! [There is an aggravated pause in which Claire raises up on her knees and pays more attention than is necessary to straightening out her shirt and her own pants, which have somehow gotten twisted as well. Before going on, she falls back onto the couch with a bounce of the springs.] Since when does anyone get to go home before one in the morning on a Saturday anyway?
[Her voice is loud enough to carry, hitching up in volume toward the end so that Ginny is sure to hear it all the way down the hall and through the slammed door leading to her room. Claire needs to get the heat burning a path through her skin under control before the other girl comes out, and the only way of really doing this, apparently, is to hide her face in her hands and then scrub the rest of the evidence away with her palms. She takes a breath in, lets it out.]
I am so sorry. [This said quietly from behind the only hand still left covering her mouth, muffled by fingers, as she glances across the couch at Chase.] I mean... really.
Reply
Since now!
[Not the most original response but she really hasn't got a better answer. And as she stands before her closet, staring at it and its contents with unseeing eyes and hands on her hips, she is silently thankful it was the living room and not her bedroom she discovered the busy couple in. Ginny releases a sigh, running her fingers through her vivid mane of hair as she shakes her head.]
Bloody hell.
[It's not that it's come as a complete surprise, she thinks as she rummages for a clean pair of sweatpants. And it's not as if she's seen or heard anything before. But she's a teenaged girl, a witch who's lived six years of her life in a castle filled with romance in secret passageways; it's like she's got a sixth sense for this sort of thing. Especially when it comes to someone close to her, someone she cares for like a sister. And while Chase certainly isn't a choice she disapproves of, is a good friend, this changes things in that a very Mollyish sort of protectiveness is coming to life in the seventh born Weasley. As she drags on an emerald jumper-Harry's, she realises a moment later-and peers into her mirror to braid back her hair, she hopes she doesn't react to this like her brothers would. She resolves not to, actually.
Except the problem is that Ginny Weasley has never been one to strictly control her actions, and whether Claire, Chase, or herself likes it or not, she might just pull the Older Brother approach all the same with sweetly-veiled threats. Maybe threats isn't the right word. Maybe hints would be better. Yes. The witch straightens before the mirror, draws in a deep breath and lets it out in a rush, then tries to rub the remnants of the infamous Weasley flush from her cheeks before departing her bedroom on socked feet. She makes a point of announcing her approach long before her appearance, opening her door with a flourish, humming some Weird Sisters song under her breath, but the tune cuts short when she walks back into the main living space of it all.]
Hullo, Chase.
[Awkward.
So she moves on over to the kitchen, biting back another helpless grin at the situation... despite the situation. Maybe tea. Yes, tea. But she can't leave much unsaid, can she? Casually, now.]
You know, a simple phone call would've done nicely. Really, I do have other places to hang around other than here.
[Ginny means a phone call about this particular instance, but the subtext of it all is that Claire could have told her about this at any time. Really. But thankfully her tone is free of anything remotely like her own mother's. For now.]
Reply
Leave a comment