Text & Audio.

[badnewsboy]

Text.
I suppose it's time to be off for school. First I would like to offer a gift for some of those who may be lagging behind because of this weekend's festivities.

Audio.
[oh look audio. press play? there's a bit of rustling and a voice that really can't be distinguished through the phone microphone.]


...

[this is the sound of an air horn over the network at 6:30 a.m. sorry about your hangovers.]

Comments

[maiditoutalive]

[There's something in the low tone of his voice that dispels the thought of even so much as trying to pretend to sleep out of Aradia's mind. Something that makes a signal in Aradia's brain go oh, and take note of the remaining distance, and slowly shift to ease her face out of his shoulder to pay attention.

When her movements come to an end, she holds for the span of a few heartbeats, her eyes only half seeing the line of his throat and the rise and fall of his breath before she answers-]

- yes.

[badnewsboy]

[holding hands and kissing certainly wasn't the extent of his imagination, and that had sparked something that was just beginning to rise inside of him. there was a wide, very expansive world out there of places to be touched. he swallows another lump in his throat.

being smooth, yes. something like that.

but where were the words for it?]

I'm ... at a lack of horn, for the moment.

[maiditoutalive]

[Aradia lets out a breath; she can't pretend that, for a second, she considered the idea he might somehow blast her with sound again and take it quite literally. It would be a pretty great trick.

It would have also killed- whatever this is. And she would very much like to find out.]

Not exactly.

[badnewsboy]

[it would have been, if there was even part of his mind that could handle even a passing thought of a prank. instead he was entirely too occupied with something else.]

The alternative would be more unpleasant.

[and as if he's making a point, he pinches her on the side. it's quick, not hard, but enough to be a shock.]

[maiditoutalive]

[This, this is more along the lines of something she suspected.]

Oh, yes? [It doesn't even hardly hurt, barely registers as more than contact, an excuse. She says something automatically, just to respond, and shifts as a result of his pinch, restlessly, closer. It's awkward, but it doesn't matter, as long as they keep fumbling towards something that's hard to define.

This time it's only a brush of her fingers against his waist. But with the right amount of concentration it doesn't even matter; she wouldn't need to actually lay a finger on him to make the nerves stir once more, if she didn't enjoy the novelty of being able to touch somebody else still. In a living body, no less.

She doesn't say, I meant that you could touch them. It seems like it would ruin something, to be so direct, while they're still flirting with the idea yet completely unrealized.]

[badnewsboy]

[being able to touch someone at all, or rather, someone wanting his contact still astounds him on small levels. sometimes it occurs to him at the strangest times, and the realization hits him, he mulls it over for mere seconds, and then it breaks into a million happy little feelings in his belly. the thought of certain kinds of touching and the difference between them hadn't struck him yet. he hasn't even adjusted to his own conventions.]

Ah, um ... yes.

[he says, a bit unsurely in reply, as if he wasn't quite sure what he was going to say after that.]

[maiditoutalive]

Yes?

[Aradia isn't sure what she means to say, either. Maybe there isn't anything that they should be saying right now. Do they need to talk about it, or will the words just get in the way?

She doesn't send the shivers up his spine again. Her fingers brush over his stomach, pressing through the fabric to feel the curve of his ribs, down, the jut of his hipbone through the stiff formal uniform, just. Because. Because he's there, and the strange density of him is interesting; he's interesting, and she really wishes he would touch her back.]

[badnewsboy]

[there's a strange way his body responds to her touch, and an awkwardness that Loki has when he anticipates it. there's a little rush of his heart as her hand moves, and he's struck still. he inhales and holds it, only letting it out when he adjusts to the touch. there are dark lashes that fall halfway over bright green eyes, his breath still a little anxious. he begins to relax, slowly, enough for his fingers to loosen and slide down her back.

but he can't keep his heart from rushing, even when he's fumbling with the hem of her pajama shirt. he can keep himself aware of his body enough to keep the words from circling in his brain.]

Your--your headache.

[maiditoutalive]

[She's forgotten all about her headache. It's still there, a dull ache somewhere behind her eyes, but it's irrelevant compared to the brush of fingers against the bare skin of her back. It's quite certainly less important than the pleasant shiver where he touched, or how warm it suddenly felt beneath the blankets.]

It's still a thing. [She doesn't sound angry anymore, though, whispering softly as though Darcy might somehow know what they're doing, if she speaks too loud. Her hand feels around, up, looking for the buttons on his blazer or his shirt, carefully starting to pick them undone ever so slowly.]

[badnewsboy]

[her anger feels very far away, included in the events that got him here, but not the ones that were happening now. his brain gets caught and then there are tugs at the buttons of his newly pressed currently wrinkled shirt, and he doesn't think much of it when he goes to help her, fumbling with them. all his thoughts swing various loops back to her fingers, and Loki's hyper awareness of the pressure, and just how thin the barrier was between them.]

You can't go to school, it can be my fault.

[he mumbles, only half paying attention to what he's saying.]

I don't mind if it's my fault.

[maiditoutalive]

And you have to stay to take care of me.

[She's seen human chests before, in their films. They're not so alien as all that, in the end, and he's not human but he looks enough like one- exactly like one- that to feel him under her fingertips, just through the thin fabric of his shirt shouldn't seem so much of a novelty as it is.]

Since it's your fault.

[But it's different, seeing it on the screen as opposed to right here, right now. He's so pale, he makes her skin seem shadow-dark when she touches the hollow of his throat, and settles the flat of her hand against his breastbone.]