In which words of significance are spoken...

[lesefton]

After a short hiatus for which I blame my employment, another log.

It is Sefton's birthday, and Penny claims the evening for herself, and a picnic in his quarters. Admissions are made, and words of significance are spoken.


It's not so late yet, before the dinner rush but after the earliest diners have begun their meal. Penny waits, as she often does, in Sefton's room -- though today she is not so patient as usual, a tendency to fidget betraying something of eagerness or nervousness. Anticipation of some kind, as she sits on the couch, knees drawn up and chin resting on them. There's a basket on the floor, and next to it one of the insulated buckets that get pulled out in winter when there's ice to be had. She must've conned some hapless dragonrider into betweening somewhere colder and fetching her some. She looks as she always does, hair restrained into a twist, clothes reasonably in fashion but no competition for the most stylish of the caucus girls; no special pains, tonight, about her appearance. Boll-style skirts of summer have been put away, and she's clad once more in clothing appropriate for the autumn weather.

He opens the door with his shoulder, leaning into it because his arms are full of hides. Thus, Sefton has his head down, curls in his eyes, and is entirely inside the room, backing up to use his shoulder to close the door before he realises he's not alone. He lifts his head, shakes it to clear his view, and white teeth flash in a different smile as he registers her identity. "Sweetness," he drawls, walking past her to lean down and set his burden down on the desk.

The door opens and Penny's head snaps up. She watches him while he moves and while he realizes she's there -- once he does, her lips curve into a smile, all nervous anticipation replaced with a sort of eager, instant cheer at his arrival. She gets to her feet, crossing over to the desk so that she can duck under his arm, a maneuver for attention perfected when she was very young -- though the arms that slip around his waist are not those of a little girl. "Hallo," she replies. She's pleased with herself, and it shows.

"Hello," he replies, lifting his arm obligingly to wrap it around her, and squeezing her waist slyly. "Lying in wait for me, mmm?" He's not displeased by that, turning his head to look down at her, deliberately keeping his mouth too high to be kissed -- instead, his lips twist to one of his faintly mocking, amused grins.

"You like being ambushed," she informs him, tilting her head back a little as he gives that squeeze. But he does not kiss her, so she merely stands that way for a moment, and then moves back, hands moving so they can grasp at his as she steps back toward the couch in an effort to lead him there. "If you tell me that you've more things to do tonight, people to see, I may be forced to take drastic action." A fair warning, as her eyes flick back toward his for a moment.

"I like being ambushed?" he asks, amused, playful, allowing her to pull him away from the desk. "I like drastic action, too," he drawls, as he moves in her wake, meeting her eyes with a gleam in his own. "You've remembered," he observes, "after I got through the day without having to abide any celebrations."

"You'll like this celebration," Penny assures him, seriously. "Fewer crowds than an official party. And the dress code is decidedly more casual." It doesn't take long to reach the couch, small as the room is, even moving slowly as she is. She steps aside to make way, so that he can sit and take his place there, fingers still curled through his though she makes no move to sit herself.

"There's a dress code?" Another amused drawl from Sefton -- he keeps hold of her hand as he obediently seats himself, crossing one ankle over the other as he stretches out his legs in front of him. "You know how I like you dressed, Sweetness. If I'm to get my way, though, perhaps you ought to see to the door." He pauses, and glances towards it himself, curls in his eyes. "I ought to see about bigger rooms. Consolidating my own office with my quarters, letting the Caucus office for the other instructors."

"If you consolidate," Penny points out, drifting closer, resting one knee on the couch next to him, "then I can't ambush you. Or maybe that's what you're trying to do." She considers this for a moment, head tilting to the side as she regards him. Or, perhaps, more likely, she's not thinking about his office at all, a bit of a smile starting to creep into her expression. She is inordinately pleased with herself. She braces a hand on the back of the couch so she can lean down to finally give him a kiss, and a rather meaningful one at that. She presses in for a few moments before she makes to pull back, lock the door, see to his instruction.

"If I consolidate," Sefton replies -- but he's cut short, and willingly so, by her kiss. He's silent in the beats after she lifts her head, dark eyes on her face, and he only collects himself to resume his sentence after she's turned away. "I will have two rooms joined together. An office through which one must walk to find the bedroom. A path to discretion without the need to rather suspiciously lock the door."

Penny stops with her hand on the lock, silent for a moment after the click it makes, then turns to look at Sefton, her dark eyes thoughtful. "You've thought about this," she observes, as she makes her way back to him. Eyes track him for a few seconds as she passes him, turning her head to keep him in her gaze before turning away to fetch a blanket from the bed. "I can't fly you off home for a day," she points out, lips quirking. "But we can have a picnic anyway. I brought you things." Whatever speech she might have rehearsed for the occasion has been discarded, as she starts to spread the blanket on the floor by the couch, though her actions are eloquent where her words are not.

"I've thought about this," he agrees, watching her move. He falls silent then, eyes fixed on her mouth as she speaks, as her lips quirk, before he blinks, and refocuses to watch her movements. "We will make believe," he murmurs, the words quiet.

Penny stoops to smooth out a wrinkle on the blanket, and then drops to her knees, settling down. She tilts her head so she can look at him, watch him watching her. "You always think everything through all the time," she notes, though her voice doesn't make it a criticism. Instead, her mouth twitches and curves and turns into a smile at his last words, and she stops her work for just a moment. Then, with a little shake of her head, she reaches for the basket and the glasses and a bottle. She did, apparently, send off to Boll for supplies. "I got someone to bring us ice, I know how you've come to enjoy that luxury in the winter." She gives the bucket a little nudge.

Sefton's mouth curves to a smile as well, as though at some private joke, but a moment later he voices it. "You make me forget to think things through," he replies lazily, failing to sound remotely concerned by this. His fingers flex a moment, as though in anticipation of holding the glass, and his gaze flickers down to the bucket. "I suppose, for a picnic, I ought to join you on the floor."

"At least you remember the door," Penny points out, amused, lifting the ice bucket's lid to select a few chunks for each glass. His last comment earns him a flick of her eyes as she unstoppers the bottle, though her eyes return to her task as she splashes some of the liquor into each glass. "You can if you like," is her response -- she is all obliging tonight, full of determined amiability. She -will- do something nice and good for him.

"True," Sefton allows, pulling his feet in, and leaning down to unlace his boots. "But I am motivated, you see. To be quite sure that I am not interrupted, once we begin our celebrations." His boots come off, and are tossed across to the foot of the bed. Both hands rest on the edge of the couch, and he eases forward, and down onto the floor, so he can rest his back against the couch.

Penny merely looks at him, eyes tracking him as he shifts to the floor. Instead of speaking immediately in reply, she instead holds out one of the glasses, fingers splayed out to grip it by its rim. "To celebration then," she remarks, straight-faced, her eyes for once betraying her with the amused sparkle in them.

"Indeed," Sefton replies, reaching to take the drink, his fingers brushing hers in a slow, deliberate movement, as they claim the glass. "You spoil me, Sweetness." His white teeth flash in a grin, as he withdraws his hand to cradle his drink, without raising it to his lips. "Now stories, I suppose."

Penny's stuck looking at him, a dimple at her lip suggesting that she's caught it with her teeth in an effort not to be so plainly affected by that small touch. So easy, for him to derail her. She swallows, sitting up a little straighter and curling her feet under her. "Now stories," she agrees. "But I don't know the funny ones your brothers and cousins do. I only know the ones with me in them." And the Sefton who existed around the other boys, and the Sefton who tolerantly let the little smith's daughter climb all over him, are not always so easily reconciled.

So easy for them to derail each other, as he has admitted to her only a few words earlier. If Sefton notes the effect his touch has, he is charitable enough not to press his advantage. "I will tell stories that feature you, then," he replies, dark eyes dancing. "I remember your taking apart a book I had borrowed from my uncle, because you wanted to see how the binding worked. You were very careful, picked it apart most dilligently."

Penny does not look entirely displeased to have him talk about her -- she doesn't protest, certainly, lifting her glass to take just a sip of the liquid inside, citrusy and bitter. "Well, it makes a certain logical sense," she points out. "If I figure it out disassembling it, then I'll know how to reassemble it. No one would know." She reaches for the basket, leaning over Sefton's outstretched legs to do so. "Unfortunately for me, and fortunate for your uncle, you were wise enough to ask a few questions when I requested that you fetch me a pot of glue."

Sefton still nurses his drink -- he has gazed down to it once more before he speaks, but not lifted it. "I did see your point," he allows, watching her lean. "I had by that point become accustomed to questioning your innovations, in the most respectful manner possible. Experience had educated me that far."

"I can't remember what happened," Penny notes, brow furrowing just a little bit. "You took the pages, I remember, because my mother had come to pick me up, and I was going to finish tomorrow..." The furrow deepens, just a little. "I think you may have tricked me, you know. You led an expedition to the beach the next day, and I forgot all about it." She casts him a suspicious sort of look as she fetches a few wrapped parcels from the basket. "No wonder you know so well how to distract me."

"It seemed the best thing," Sefton replies, with a flash of a grin, showing his teeth. "I enlisted the help of a weaver girl I -- knew. She did the stitching, and Mittan and I finished with the glue. Then we put it back in the library and walked quietly away, hoping it wasn't referenced for some time." He winks, setting down his still-untouched drink beside him. "If I know how to handle you, Sweetness, it is an advantage I need simply to hold level with you. What do you plan on feeding me?"

"I thought about those sandwiches we always had outside back at Boll, the ones that cook made -- what was her name? I never actually bothered to find out. Carob butter and mashed fruit." She lifts her eyes to the ceiling. "But somehow I think I was the only one who liked them, and they sound vile enough now that I think I probably only liked them then because they were made special for me." She begins unwrapping, simple little dishes, a tray of meats and cheeses, a half dozen rolls, the makings of sandwiches or to be eaten separately. "Kelar had better not have sent word and let spill I was making him send me things." The basket also carries fruit, mangoes and citrus, which she starts setting out as well.

"They were made just for you," Sefton agrees. "And they were horrible. The bread never survived the process as well as one would have liked it to have done, and the taste --" He shakes his head. "You would insist on feeding them to me. I knew it to be a display of affection, but --" Another shake of his head. "Kelar did not give you away. He is as loyal to you as ever he has been."

Penny grimaces a little in memory, a wince that touches her eyes, momentarily, with a bit of chagrin. "There were a good many things I did to you that were meant to be displays of affection. Sometimes I wonder at the patience of a teenaged boy for a girl who'd just as soon pull his hair as behave herself." Her eyes shift to that hair, just for a moment, a mango in her hand. "Just so irresistible," she murmurs. "Someday you'll have to own up to your fair share of spoiling me. It isn't just my father's fault."

"Just as soon?" There's easy laughter in Sefton's voice, and one hand comes up, involuntarily, to rake his curls back from his eyes. "The passing of time rewrites memory, I should think. I recall you being infinitely more willing to pull my hair than behave yourself. You thought it was too long, for a boy. I was half tempted to cut it off, and half too wilful to oblige you. And, of course, then you would have stopped pulling it." He reaches for a roll, breaking it open with his fingers. "Some day I shall have to own up to many things, but not today."

"It just made such a good handle. And good reins." Penny is momentarily bemused by some memory, and then comments, "I remember Rali once getting into the wood shop, when your uncle brought you to the smith hall. I suppose it's good that he didn't find a saw or any drill bits with his feet, but he got so much glue in his hair that it had to be cut short. He -wailed-, and I wailed because he was wailing, and my father was so fed up with all the noise that he forbade any of the children from coming near him for two days. I remember that decree lasting about twenty minutes." She shifts her gaze back to Sefton, regarding him quietly for a few long moments. "If you ever cut off your hair, I'll refuse to speak to you until it grows back." Fair warning, after all.

"Reins," Sefton echoes ruefully, beginning to pack his roll full, wrapping one hand around it to keep it together. "It was always easier when you and Rali were together. True, you would set each other off, but if I could make one laugh, the other would join in. And smiles were very easy to tease out of both of you." Easy for Sefton, whose attention was sought. He abandons his roll-packing, and reaches up to finger a curl thoughtfully. "I shall take your warning under advisement," he murmurs, after a moment, resuming readying his meal. "You had a phase during which you wanted to count everything. Our progress anywhere at all was agonisingly slow, because we were always counting whatever we passed, and categorising it. You made me keep your tallies. How many things in each category you had seen. I also had to supply the numbers, once we got too high. Do you recall?"

"I..." Penny hesitates, head tilting a little. "I recall a little, maybe. I just liked numbers. And I liked that you knew them all. I asked sometimes even when I knew the answer, just because I wanted you to tell me." She pauses again, then adds, "No, I do remember, you would tease me by messing up my categories. Is that a tree or a bush? If you're counting that rock, why not that smaller rock? Why not this pebble? Why not the gravel, why not the sand?" She rolls her eyes, finally reaching for the food herself. She doesn't attempt a sandwich, merely snagging a slice of the meat with her fingers.

"I learned my lesson with regard to the sand," Sefton observes dryly, before he silences himself, biting down on his roll, and chewing slowly, eyes closing as he savours the flavour. Only once his mouthful is gone, does he speak. "I suppose it was my habit to provoke even then, so you must forgive me if I do so now. I am thirty-three, Sweetness. Far too old to break such habits."

"The only natural response to your provoking is to become so stubborn that I will sit out all day and into the night counting the sand grains, just to make you stay out with me and see my dedication." Penny does remember that incident clearly enough, apparently. She pops her slice of meat into her mouth, chewing and swallowing and falling silent, leaning sideways, hand braced on the floor next to his leg. "If only you'd known what a monster you were creating for yourself," she adds, raising an eyebrow wryly, eyes seeking his.

"If only I had known," Sefton agrees, his dark eyes meeting her own. "If only I had known so many things." He shakes his head, and finds a smile. "No regrets, this evening. Do you remember when we taught you how to spit pips, and you kept one in your cheek, so you could show my Uncle later that evening?"

Penny returns his look for a few moments before her eyes shift to the basket, and she reaches for another parcel. Spice cake in this one, a perennial favorite of the entire Boll brood. One slice of meat, and then she's reaching for the dessert. She says nothing more on the subject of regrets, instead clearing her throat and saying blithely, "Well, if you'd bothered to show me, then it was a skill of great importance and I wanted to impress him. His eyes would twinkle at me when he was amused, he thinks people can't notice it."

"If only my judgment were still so influential," Sefton replies with mock regret. "His eyes certainly twinkled after you hit my father with your effort. My Aunt had to have a coughing fit, as I recall." He pauses, pulling a face that fails to convey the sorrow it ought. "My mother was obliged to tell us off at length."

"I knew I was only in trouble if my father got involved in the telling off," Penny says drily. She chooses a cake for herself, bypassing the rest of the food altogether, and curls her feet under her again as she returns her gaze to the headmaster. "I'm still not sure how I got away with the things I did. Mittan would get so angry that I didn't listen to him, and Kel would try to bribe me into submission with more and more sweets. You, though, you would just look at me and tell me in that voice you use sometimes that I wasn't acting like a lady."

"If only that still worked," Sefton replies, before he's silent for a few moments, finishing off his roll, and dusting his fingers clear of crumbs. On the success of the methods pursued by his brothers and cousins, he has no comment. Instead, he follows her example and reaches for a cake. "You are quite right, though. You were never in trouble with us, you knew that."

"Oh, it still works," Penny confesses without hesitation. "Though I think perhaps for slightly different reasons. That voice still works." She is making quick work of her cake, eating it with all the enthusiasm she used to when she was little, spicy though the delicacy is. She's watching him again, though, intently, just a short distance away.

He glances down at the untouched drink at his side, drips of perspiration beading on the outside of the glass, now. Only for the briefest of moments, though, in passing -- then his attention goes to his cake, and his fingers move to break it apart. "What reasons are those?" he asks idly, dark eyes flickering up to her momentarily, before they drop once more to the task of breaking apart his next mouthful.

Penny is silent for a while following that question, the fact that he's spoken barely registering on her face. She's as intent on his face as ever, watching him eat, tracking the shifts of his eyes. After a while, she does reply, briefly enough. "Well, now you are my headmaster. I have to listen to you."

"Indeed," Sefton replies shortly, his eyes abruptly leaving her face, and focussing on the small cake in his hands. It comes neatly apart, splitting into two, and one half goes into his mouth.

There is a flicker through Penny's expression at that, and her brow furrows just a little as he looks away. The last bites of her cake are abandoned, set aside as she goes to his side, moving on her knees. "I was teasing you," she points out, in a low voice, close to him now. "You already know the reasons." She pauses here, mouth twitching until she catches at her bottom lip with her teeth to stop it. After a few seconds, she adds, slyly, "You just want to hear me say it."

Sefton's brows lift momentarily, admitting the truth of her words, and his own mouth twists in a brief smile. "It is my birthday," he points out, addressing the words to his second piece of cake. Perhaps it proves an unsatisfactory audience, for after addressing it, he eats it.

"So it is," Penny agrees, politely waiting for him to finish his dessert before she neatly moves into his lap with deliberate slowness, a knee to either side of his hips, looking down a little now to watch him. "I listen," she says, softly, "because I can't not. It doesn't matter what you tell me, you could be reading store room records and it would still make me shiver. I still ask you things just to hear your voice and see your lips move." She bends her head, to press a kiss to his jawline, speaking now closer to his ear. "You say hello and I start to blush. You call me Sweetness and I'm completely helpless." Another kiss, this time for the hollow of his throat just beneath his jaw, leaning into him.

His breath catches perceptibly, at the touch of her lips, and his eyes close, hands coming up to rest on her hips, and trace their curve into her waist, where they halt for a moment, at her next kiss. Then one moves, so he can lift hs hand, catch a finger under her chin, and ease it up, and her away from him, so his eyes can seek hers.

Her face is warm, blush visible quite obviously even underneath her dark skin, and she makes no effort to hide this fact as he draws her away. Perhaps she thought to speak, say something else, but nothing comes when she opens her mouth, and after a few moments she's caught just looking, staring, speechless.

That silence extends for several heartbeats as he studies her face, the finger beneath her chin curving, and sliding so his hand can cradle the side of her face, half framing it. When he speaks, his drawl is quiet, half rueful, full of the rich affection she invokes above any other, and entirely lacking the mocking amusement to which all his listeners are so accustomed. "You know that I love you," he murmurs, in his drawl. It is a statement, not a question.

Silence greets that statement, stretching as she continues to stare, with very little initial reaction. Long moments pass while the words sink in, and eventually Penny lifts a hand as though to cover his against her cheek. She only gets so far as touching the tips of her fingers to his hand when she suddenly starts breathing again, letting out a lungful of air she likely didn't know she was holding. It's followed by a quiet gasp for breath as her lungs protest this most inconsiderate lapse, and it's this small sound in the quiet that breaks her stillness. Her face twists, and then with very little warning, almost like the instinctual tears that would follow getting the breath knocked out of her, she starts to cry, drawing back away from his hand.

Not, perhaps, the response her lover had envisaged. Sefton waits out her silence, and watches unblinkingly as the tears begin. His glance shifts away, then, to the hand from which she's withdrawn, and slowly he drops it to his side, watching it all the way down to the ground. He doesn't speak, but simply waits, quiet.

Penny shifts, moving away from his lap to the blanket once more, legs curled under her. Far from hysterical or out of control, she still merely shakes her head at Sefton for a few seconds with tears dripping down to the curve of her jaw, before she manages to say, "Don't." Swallowing, she elaborates helpfully, "Whatever it is, don't." Perhaps there has been an extreme miscommunication. Penny's hands, bracing her, are curled tightly around handfuls of the blanket.

Perhaps there has -- Sefton's mouth twists for a moment in one of the harsh, unkind smiles that so discomfort so many of his students. If he's mocking, though, it's not directed at her -- he is gazing across at the bookshelves, as one hand comes up in an almost impatient movement to brush his hair back from his eyes, and then he reaches for the glass he has so far ignored. "Forgive me," he murmurs, quiet.

Penny's expression is an oddly fearful thing, something that twists when he speaks, and she lifts a hand to wipe at her face. So strange, that such a simple statement could cause such a reaction; but it's obvious she is assuming something else about it, unspoken. "We can do better, I'll lock the door all the time when I come in, I won't tease when I pass you in the hall, I won't even look at you if it helps. You said this would continue regardless. Please don't--" She just shakes her head, trying and failing to stop the tears, knowing that they cannot be helping. "Don't end this." Well, that's a little different.

His fingers begin to curl around the rim of his glass, spreading, tracing the shape before they tighten to lift it. It comes only an inch off the rug before she begins to speak, and then his brows crowd together in query, and he turns his head, curls in his eyes once more as he studies her, and sets the glass down once more. "Sweetness," he murmurs, his drawl playing with the word, imbuing it with a question. "I was attempting to do something rather different to that."

He cuts quite neatly and easily through whatever panic Penny's worked herself into, the drawl in his voice bringing her up so short that she's caught mid-sob, and it turns into a word instead -- "What?" Lips still tremble, but her mouth always was the most expressive part of her, and she's too thrown off-balance to try and hide it, taken aback at being derailed in her plea.

"I should not have said it, perhaps," Sefton allows gently, leaning sideways, slowly, to press a kiss to her temple. It's lingering, and the silence draws out before he speaks again. "It is true, nevertheless. Look at you, soaking wet." He's gently chastised her with those words before, although not for many turns -- now he reaches back onto the couch, and gathers up one corner of one of the rugs that covers it, so he can lift it, and loosen it with a tug. One hand comes up then to catch her chin, to hold her face still while he uses the corner of the rug to carefully blot the path of one of her tears.

"But--" Now she's merely bewildered, but she's pliant in her confusion, accepting both kiss and hand at her chin, blinking a few times as he tends to those tears. "You don't say it, you never say it. I don't expect you to. I thought... something had to have..." She's realizing the hugeness of her misunderstanding now, her eyes fixed somewhere beyond Sefton's shoulder. After a moment, her gaze shifts back to his face, something about those last words striking something in her, and the corner of her mouth actually lifts a little. "You always fix it."

"I always will fix it," Sefton agrees, his fingers at her chin turning her head, so he can blot the tears on her other cheek, his touch as gentle as his soft drawl. "But I will know better than to say such foolish things to you again. Come back here, I liked you in my lap." A twitch of his mouth matches her beginning of a smile, affectionate.

Penny's gaze shifts to the side when he tilts her head, now falling on the abandoned remains of their meal. Her eyes close for a moment, and then she makes a sound in her throat rather like a laugh. "I'm sorry. I'm just-- what're we're doing is just so -- and I keep waiting for you to wake up some day and come to your senses, because you're not a stupid man, and--" But she stops when he finishes dabbing away her tears, turning her face back toward him. She moves close again, returning more slowly to the place she'd been before she went insane, shifting back against him again. She hesitates, then says in a voice she perfected when she was very young -- small, a bit of a quaver in it, a hint of a smile tugging the corners of her mouth, "I promise not to cry if you say it again."

"I am not a stupid man," Sefton agrees, dropping the rug, and leaning in to kiss first one cheek, and then the other, slowly and gently. "But you make me a foolish one. I try as best I can not to sink to recklessness." His hands squeeze at her waist, and his white teeth flash in a grin. "Do you remember the first time we met, here at Reaches?" A more recent memory, now.

Penny closes her eyes again, as he kisses her cheek, and when he does so again, her smile widens, warms under his touch. It wobbles a bit as he speaks, though, and her eyes open just enough to look at him through her lashes. "You have to bring that up," she says, with a sigh, and a small grimace. "I don't like to think of the way I acted then. Not that my behavior at the present moment is all that much better."

"Again, she looks for some way in which to turn what I say to doom and gloom," Sefton murmurs, reaching up to bury his fingers in her curls, and ease her in against him, to encourage her to lay her head on his shoulder. "I meant only to say that I was caught short of words, at the sight of you. My own response surprised me, and that does not often happen."

Penny is obedient, her arms sliding about his neck as she tucks her head in against him, burying her face against his shoulder. "You knew who I was instantly," she mumbles. "You never gave me enough time to react." She's only leaning against him for a few seconds before she draws back, to look at him, one hand moving to his cheek, her palm warm on his skin. "You still don't. Sef." She is trying now, where she didn't before, to catch his eyes. "I do know." Her thumb strokes along the curve of his cheekbone, slowly. "Of course I know. I wouldn't have thought it, but to hear you speak it aloud--" She closes her eyes. "It's different." Perhaps she should have said more, tried to elaborate, say something more reassuring than 'different', but instead she leans back into him so that she can kiss him, intently, a way to prove it without words.

It takes several moments before Sefton is willing to let her catch his gaze, but his dark eyes are steady, once she does. It remains steady even after her eyes close. His weight leans back on the couch at her kiss, the hand tangled through her hair tightening, his breathing quickening even before she pulls away -- his eyes come open once more, fix on her face. "How would you have liked to have reacted?" he asks, gentle, quiet, teasing.

"How would you have liked me to react?" Penny retorts, the slight tilt of her head a challenge. But her hips are shifting, responding to the way his hand tightens in her hair, her eyes a bit darker as she moves her hands down to start at the buttons of his shirt. "It is your birthday, after all." She ducks her head before he can respond, shifting into him and touching her lips to his neck.

"The reaction I desired then, and the reaction I desire now are two entirely different things," Sefton replies with a laugh, tilting his head to one side, and reaching for his drink again -- but only so he can set it further aside, that it won't be knocked onto the rug should her legs move. "It is my birthday," he agrees, lifting his hand from her waist, so he can start unbuttoning his shirt. "I want my present." His teeth gleam very white, now, smile broad and sharkish.

Penny is sensitive to that movement, lifting her head and glancing aside as he reaches for the drink; eyes flick back to his face as he moves it aside, one of her hands moving to brush away the hair in his eyes as if trying to reveal what might be written in his expression. Whatever she finds there, after a moment she leans in to rest her forehead against his for a few seconds, saying "And you shall have it." Something shifts then in her face, though, and she reaches for his hand, just a few seconds after the buttons are dispensed with. "I'm only this way because you make me this way," she murmurs, shifting back away from him slowly, though she keeps her hold on his hand to bring him with her. "I used to be sane, sensible, logical..." She's shifted back onto the picnic blanket now, and reaches up to pull him down with her. She lifts a hand to trace his lips, for just a moment. "Say something," she requests, her eyes on his mouth.

Concealment is a habit, and though his curls are in the way, Sefton's eyes when revealed hold nothing, simply mild concentration for the task at hand. He moves with her, at her bidding, the curve of his mouth gentle, for this smile. "I do not recall," he replies slowly, also at her bidding -- his drawl stretching the words out, filling them with amusement -- "that our interactions have ever been sane, sensible, logical." A smile, his mouth twisting to it. "Many things, but not those."

"Many things?" echoes Penny, a lift at the end of the word turning it into a query. Her teeth catch in her lower lip as she stretches out, eyes still on his mouth, and she reaches up to curl her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck and pull him down to her.

"Many things," Sefton replies with a grin, leaning over her, taking his weight on one elbow. "And though you desire it, I have no intention of speaking of them now." He kisses her collarbone through her clothes, and then her cheek, and then her temple. "You provoke me, Sweetness."

If she's displeased that he isn't going to list the qualities describing their relationship, she doesn't show it. Instead her back just arches a little, chin tipping up so she can lean into those kisses, her breath quickening noticeably. "Payback for a lifetime of being provoked by you," she says, reaching now for her own shirt, for the buttons at its collar, loose enough now that she could pull it off if he let her focus on it for more than two seconds together -- as it is, she's too preoccupied with him to continue the attempt. "Sef, will you not say it again?" She asks this very, very quietly, leaning her head back again, hair that is still not quite back to its original length curling behind, eyes seeking his. No tricks this time, no little-girl wiles to force him to repeat something that was never supposed to be said in the first place.

That's what catches him, that sincerity. He pauses, as he's about to lean down and kiss her, his eyes on hers. It's rare that the headmaster is caught so unprepared, and that this is what has happened is clear on his face, fleeting strain showing. "I --" he begins, lowering his head to close his eyes, rest his forehead against hers for a moment. Then he lifts his head, dark eyes finding hers. "You make me very foolish," he murmurs, his voice as quiet as hers. "And I love you."

There can be no doubting or criticism of her reaction this time; she watches him, her face as expressive as his usually is inscrutable, for a few seconds after he falls silent again. Lifting a hand, she reaches to pull him into her again, her kiss as eager and as heated as the first time he let himself slip a little with her. She frees her lips long enough to whisper, "And I-- I'm very foolish, too," before she loses herself in him again, her other hand sliding so that she can curl her fingers against his back, hips lifting into him for a brief second. Then she pulls back again, murmurs with some distraction, "Your-- drink. Your ice is melting." An odd moment for her to remember the ice she's had brought for him, though she's not even looking at it, eyes closed and face tipped up toward his.

"Then let it melt," Sefton murmurs in reply, low and quiet. "That is your present, Sweetness." He says no more than that, his mouth coming down on hers one more time, and his weight, as he closes out the possibility of any words in reply. Foolish, provocative, or otherwise.